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Speaker 1: dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight,
Speaker 1: presented my fan will here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody.
Speaker 1: I hope all of you guys are having a great
Speaker 1: week so far. Today is my last full day on
Speaker 1: the lake, getting in the car driving to Seattle tomorrow
Speaker 1: and then we board the cruise ship. I believe the
Speaker 1: following day we're just spending the night in town. Have
Speaker 1: never been to Seattle. I've been told to try out
Speaker 1: the clam chowder at the Pipe Place Market, so I
Speaker 1: planned to do that. Um. Just in general, this trip
Speaker 1: has been a really nice getaway so far, having a
Speaker 1: good time. Never been to Alaska looking forward to that. Today,
Speaker 1: we're doing a mail bag. UM. I sent out the
Speaker 1: request for questions yesterday and we got sixty questions. Obviously
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to get to all of them.
Speaker 1: I picked out about twenty that I liked. We'll see
Speaker 1: how how many I can get to in the next
Speaker 1: hour or so. I do want to start doing a
Speaker 1: lot more of this kind of stuff, though, So for
Speaker 1: those of you that I missed your question or for
Speaker 1: every reason I can't get to it today, I promise
Speaker 1: we're going to do a lot more of this kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I'd like to have it be kind of
Speaker 1: a regular part of our show, just because I want
Speaker 1: this to be as interactive as possible. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the game the way I want to talk
Speaker 1: about the game, but I also want to talk about
Speaker 1: the game the way that you guys want to talk
Speaker 1: about the game. UM. So we're starting with the first question.
Speaker 1: This one is and I'm gonna butcher some names today,
Speaker 1: so I apologize in advance. This one is from Panagiatis
Speaker 1: tem Pacas. I'm guessing that's a Greek name. Why is
Speaker 1: there so much disrespect on the best NBA player? Janice
Speaker 1: antenna coupo by other players. For example, what Andrea Guadala said, Now,
Speaker 1: this is a recurring phenomenon throughout NBA history. Janice isn't
Speaker 1: the first guy that's happened to. I mean, look at
Speaker 1: the way that the league treated steph when when he
Speaker 1: was rising. Look at the way the league treated Lebron
Speaker 1: when he was rising. It's it's it's a couple of
Speaker 1: different things. Anytime any young player or young person comes
Speaker 1: into an industry and starts to, you know, be a
Speaker 1: mover and shaker, start to elevate, especially faster than his peers,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be pushedback. That's a normal part of it.
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons why it's especially tough
Speaker 1: for Janice is because he has a set of physical
Speaker 1: tools that would make any NBA player jealous. And you
Speaker 1: saw that from Andrea Guadala and that quote. You also
Speaker 1: saw that from James Harden with the whole running and
Speaker 1: running and dunking quote. Right, Like, when you're almost seven
Speaker 1: feet tall with super long arms, you know, incredibly well built,
Speaker 1: a good body type in the sense that you know
Speaker 1: like they're there are guys out there that are like
Speaker 1: lean and and chiseled, and then there are guys that
Speaker 1: are like a little bit doughey, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like Janice is as as immaculate a physical specimen that
Speaker 1: you will see in the n b A and it
Speaker 1: absolutely helps him in every facet of the game. And
Speaker 1: so there is gonna be a certain amount of jealousy
Speaker 1: that comes with that. I do think that people underplay
Speaker 1: how hard it is is to be as good of
Speaker 1: an athlete as they are. Like, I mean, all of
Speaker 1: you guys who listened to this show that are hoopers.
Speaker 1: You guys have probably all met a six seven, six
Speaker 1: eight six nine type of athlete that, for whatever reason
Speaker 1: just never materialized into much of a basketball player because
Speaker 1: they couldn't put the other pieces together. Maybe they weren't
Speaker 1: physically aggressive enough, maybe they didn't take good enough care
Speaker 1: of their body, maybe they didn't become skilled enough. It's
Speaker 1: I think, as much as the honest is very blessed
Speaker 1: in his natural abilities, he also has worked extremely hard
Speaker 1: to get as good at the game of basketball as
Speaker 1: he is. So I I don't I don't believe in
Speaker 1: minimizing that, but make no mistake, it's a basic psychological phenomenon.
Speaker 1: He's new to the scene, he's better than everybody. Like
Speaker 1: you guys know me, I think that Nice is the
Speaker 1: best um player in the league by a pretty decent margin.
Speaker 1: I'd put him in a tier by himself atop the league,
Speaker 1: with the Steph, Lebron, Katie guys kind of just in
Speaker 1: that level right beneath him. That's how good I think
Speaker 1: he is. So it's not a issue of respect. I'm
Speaker 1: just calling out the what I believe is a typical
Speaker 1: psychological phenomenon. He's new, he's kicking everybody's ass, and he's
Speaker 1: got this ridiculous set of physical tools that no one
Speaker 1: else in the league has, and so a lot of
Speaker 1: people are jealous, and that's just kind of normal human
Speaker 1: behavior at this point, like as is always the case,
Speaker 1: just like it was with Stephen with Lebron, he'll eventually
Speaker 1: get his due respect as he kind of has consistent
Speaker 1: success throughout the league. And also he's just a really
Speaker 1: good person, So I mean, there's just not a whole
Speaker 1: lot of reasons to dislike him. Secondly, this is from
Speaker 1: mock fraud Chowder. What are your thoughts on the Clippers
Speaker 1: for next season? I personally believe them to be title
Speaker 1: contenders with Kauai and PG coming back being there, two
Speaker 1: big scoring wings, tons of depth, good shooters, and they
Speaker 1: go small and switch slideing Covington to the five in
Speaker 1: the playoffs. I mentioned this right after the season, but
Speaker 1: I I view the Clippers as the number one threat
Speaker 1: to the Warriors to come out of the West next year. Now,
Speaker 1: the Warriors have not had a good offseason overall. The
Speaker 1: Dante DiVincenzo signing is fine, but to lose both Gary
Speaker 1: Payton the Second and um Otto Porter Junior, who are
Speaker 1: significant role players for them in the playoffs, that's an issue. Now.
Speaker 1: You absolutely need Moses Moody to come in and slide
Speaker 1: into one of those roles. I don't think Jonathan coming
Speaker 1: is ready. And then you need Dantean di Vincenzo to
Speaker 1: be what Gary Payton was for you, which was I
Speaker 1: don't know that he can. Gary Payton Jrs. Gary Payton
Speaker 1: the Second is one of the best defensive cards that
Speaker 1: we have in this league. And I've told you guys
Speaker 1: this before. If you look on the on off numbers
Speaker 1: for the way that the Warriors played in this playoff
Speaker 1: run with Gary Payton on the floor versus with him
Speaker 1: off the floor. There's a huge difference there. So it's
Speaker 1: I don't love the off season for the Warriors this year,
Speaker 1: but I still think they're the favorite in the West.
Speaker 1: But I think the Clippers are right there. I think
Speaker 1: they're the biggest threat they I've talked to you guys
Speaker 1: about this before, but I view them as the quintessential
Speaker 1: modern basketball team. I think they're extremely well run from
Speaker 1: the top down. They're willing to spend money. The people
Speaker 1: that make decisions for their basketball operations department are people
Speaker 1: that understand the game of basketball and people that actually
Speaker 1: are plugged into what succeeds in modern basketball. They're very
Speaker 1: well coached. I'm a huge fan of tylu Um. I
Speaker 1: think he's doing a much better job here than he
Speaker 1: did even in Cleveland. And in terms of talent, they're
Speaker 1: kind of perfectly built, very switchable. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: they can run drop coverage with Zoo box of Zubos
Speaker 1: right like. They've got guys that can pressure the rim consistently,
Speaker 1: like Kawai Leonard. Paul George has gotten a lot better
Speaker 1: at that over the years. They've got good perimeter shooting.
Speaker 1: They've got guys that can attack close outs, guys that
Speaker 1: do the dirty work. To me, they're kind of like
Speaker 1: a perfectly constructed basketball team. The issue with them is
Speaker 1: always gonna be health. Paul George just kind of seems
Speaker 1: to have issues like this all the time. It's like
Speaker 1: it was used to be a shoulder and then this
Speaker 1: year it's his elbow. You know, there's just always something
Speaker 1: going on with Paul George. And then I mean there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of mixed entel on the Kawhi Leonard stuff.
Speaker 1: I've heard people who are connected, who are who have
Speaker 1: sources that say that his knees all messed up and
Speaker 1: his degenerative, and then I've heard people say that he's fine,
Speaker 1: So who the hell knows? To me, that's just classic
Speaker 1: Kauai keeping a tight circle. But health is always going
Speaker 1: to be their biggest problem. And then when push comes
Speaker 1: to shove at the end of any sort of tough
Speaker 1: competitive playoff series, they don't really have fantastic playmakers. Kawhi
Speaker 1: Leonard and Paul George are great at looking for their shot.
Speaker 1: They're not great at, you know, consistently making great reads
Speaker 1: against elite locked in defenses that take away the easy stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: they're so good everywhere around that that they're still every
Speaker 1: bit as much of a championship contender as any of
Speaker 1: the other teams in the league. But that's their big
Speaker 1: weakness and we saw that against Denver in the Bubble
Speaker 1: when they fell when they came up against the real
Speaker 1: chess match, chess master Nicola Yokich, they couldn't go blow
Speaker 1: for blow with them, and it ended up costing up.
Speaker 1: But make no mistake, I think the Clippers are absolutely
Speaker 1: a championship contender, and I think they're probably the second
Speaker 1: best team in the West behind Golden State and their
Speaker 1: biggest threat to be upset. This one's from Ryan Hey.
Speaker 1: Jason Joe Lacob says the luxury tax penalties on the
Speaker 1: Warriors are unfair. Do you agree? Absolutely? I agree. I mean,
Speaker 1: we talked about this a little bit with Colin Coward
Speaker 1: after the last NBA Finals game. But it doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense that you can be punished for drafting so well
Speaker 1: that all of the players that you picked ended up
Speaker 1: needing large salaries, and now you get squeezed and you
Speaker 1: end up losing a quality player, you know, even like
Speaker 1: a good player like Gary Payton. A second, like nobody
Speaker 1: in the league was willing to give Gary Payton the
Speaker 1: second a chance the Warriors did. He manifested into like
Speaker 1: a quality NBA playoff role player, and they had to
Speaker 1: let him go because they couldn't afford to keep him.
Speaker 1: That's unfortunate that it works that way. It is what
Speaker 1: it is. I don't know that there's a perfect system.
Speaker 1: I've heard a bunch of different things, like what if
Speaker 1: you could keep your stars in a separate salary cap.
Speaker 1: Collin Cowhard is advocated for, you know, your salary cap
Speaker 1: only being used on the mercenaries, right, Like if you
Speaker 1: sign free agents, you should have a limitation in what
Speaker 1: you can sign, but players that are under team control
Speaker 1: that you drafted, maybe you can have a separate, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of salary system for that. I am a proponent
Speaker 1: of any of those things, because in general, I want
Speaker 1: to reward, you know, competence. I don't want to reward incompetence.
Speaker 1: I want teams that do the right things, that that
Speaker 1: that hire the right people, that put in the work.
Speaker 1: I want them to be able to be the beneficiaries
Speaker 1: of the system. I don't want them to be the
Speaker 1: people that get penalized by the system. So I don't
Speaker 1: like the way that it works. But it is what
Speaker 1: it is, and it's unfortunate that it's gonna end up
Speaker 1: squeezing the Warriors out of some quality role players. This
Speaker 1: is from this is a nameless account, so we're not
Speaker 1: going to give the name. The Bulls are wasting their
Speaker 1: time with their current roster. How do you think they
Speaker 1: could move things around and compete legitimately? I don't think
Speaker 1: they're wasting their time. I mean again, guys, I've been
Speaker 1: over this with you guys before. But over the last
Speaker 1: what I believe, if I remember correctly, eight to the
Speaker 1: last ten titles are Stephen Lebron and then the other
Speaker 1: two are Kauai and Janice. Right, I think it's it
Speaker 1: might be nine in the last eleven, actually is what
Speaker 1: it is. So, uh, eight of the last eleven or
Speaker 1: Stepan Lebron and then the other three or Kauai and Janice.
Speaker 1: So like there's the top guys in the league are
Speaker 1: winning the trophy and there's only like five or six
Speaker 1: of those guys, so not everybody, you know, the Bulls
Speaker 1: can't just be like a, oh we need Lebron, Oh
Speaker 1: we need k d Oh we need Janice. So you
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta you gotta go for it with whatever
Speaker 1: you've got. I actually like the core Derozen and Levine
Speaker 1: I think are fine. The big thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: and and injuries ended up being what derailed them this year.
Speaker 1: Early in the year when they had Lonzo Ball and
Speaker 1: Alex Caruso defending on the perimeter, they were damn good.
Speaker 1: They were very good. As I've said before, I think
Speaker 1: I think that perimeter defense is the most valuable skill
Speaker 1: in all of basketball. That that's literally that perimeter contained
Speaker 1: is what prevents that initial dribble penetration that causes your
Speaker 1: defense to go into rotation where bad things start happening.
Speaker 1: So like the way the way that I see it,
Speaker 1: um um, you can't really make a clear judgment of
Speaker 1: what this Bulls team is capable of until Lonzo's on
Speaker 1: the floor, until Alex Carusos on the floor, and then
Speaker 1: in the front court. They need somebody to do that
Speaker 1: for them as well. Patrick Williams is that guy. That's
Speaker 1: that's what he's supposed to be for them. He's supposed
Speaker 1: to be there, six eight, do it all forward who
Speaker 1: can guard the bigger wings and and and cause damage
Speaker 1: around the back line, and and and be an impact
Speaker 1: rebounder and all of those things. So like, well, ideally,
Speaker 1: if if I had to make one uh significant change,
Speaker 1: I would look to flip Vussovitch for more of a
Speaker 1: dirty work type of forward, a forward that is more
Speaker 1: capable of holding down the interior in terms of the
Speaker 1: physicality of the position. And I'm not sure what the
Speaker 1: right answer there is. I'd have to think I would
Speaker 1: like So what I would look for is is someone
Speaker 1: in that like Clint Capella type of archetype, just a
Speaker 1: a really high level athletic rim running center that can
Speaker 1: block shots around the basket screen and roll to the
Speaker 1: rim hard and defend and drop coverage things along those lines.
Speaker 1: The uh Vussovitch is just gonna get killed in that
Speaker 1: role the two frequently. And and I don't know that
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's an easy answer out there,
Speaker 1: But I think if they get Crusoe, and if they
Speaker 1: get Patrick Williams really dialed in um as their athletic forward,
Speaker 1: and if they get a good, you know, athletic rim
Speaker 1: protecting center, all of a sudden that Levine and de
Speaker 1: rozan combo is very interesting. De Rosen is a very
Speaker 1: good playmakers act Levine is a very efficient scorer in
Speaker 1: this league, and both of them have defensive shortcomings. But
Speaker 1: as long as you have guys around them that can succeed,
Speaker 1: you've got a chance. Do I ever think they can
Speaker 1: be a top tier contender. No, But if they do
Speaker 1: those things that I just mentioned, I absolutely think they
Speaker 1: could be in that second tier, which is like the
Speaker 1: if things break right, we can win tier, right like
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Suns two years ago, they would be similar
Speaker 1: level of talent to what I just described as the
Speaker 1: idealized version of the Chicago Bulls. They were two wins
Speaker 1: away from the NBA title, and if it wasn't for
Speaker 1: Chris Paul collapsing the way that he did, they very
Speaker 1: well could have won. Right. So I'm not as low
Speaker 1: on the Bulls um as that particular nameless account is.
Speaker 1: All right, This is from Antiquette Mohan, who I believe
Speaker 1: it's been supporting the show for a while. Um, so
Speaker 1: we appreciate the question. Aniakotte um thoughts on steps comments
Speaker 1: on the Warriors being better than the Kobe shack Lakers. So,
Speaker 1: in general, I'm not a huge fan of these types
Speaker 1: of comparisons, just because they're very subjective and extremely difficult
Speaker 1: to establish parameters like what rules are we playing by,
Speaker 1: how are they officiating the game? Are we going with
Speaker 1: like playoff physicality the way they did uh towards the
Speaker 1: end of this playoff run. Because if that's the case,
Speaker 1: I'm I struggled to think that the Warriors would be
Speaker 1: able to handle Shack and Kobe physically, right. But if
Speaker 1: it's a more open, free, flowing up and down the
Speaker 1: floor type of game, like Steph Clay and Draymondard gonna
Speaker 1: run these guys off the floor with their speed up
Speaker 1: and down the floor and covering ground on the perimeter, right.
Speaker 1: So it's tough to say. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, like you know, everyone has heard the phrase
Speaker 1: styles make fights, right, Well, I view it more as
Speaker 1: like any style. Some styles have advantages over other styles,
Speaker 1: but any style is capable of beating any style the
Speaker 1: other styles. It's just a question of the style that
Speaker 1: the game takes. So for instance, if you've got a big,
Speaker 1: bruising team in the Lakers and you've got a fast,
Speaker 1: finesse team in the Warriors, it really just, uh, it's
Speaker 1: up to which team kind of commands the flow of
Speaker 1: the game. If the Lakers could strangle the game, keep
Speaker 1: it in the half court, and consistently feed Shack without
Speaker 1: him getting tired in an up and down type of
Speaker 1: game covering too much ground. I'm sorry, he's just gonna
Speaker 1: physically pulverize you, right, But if the Warriors can keep
Speaker 1: the game fast and loose and get out and transition
Speaker 1: a lot, Shack is his impact is going to tank
Speaker 1: compared to what he's gonna be like in a slow
Speaker 1: half court game. So it's hard to say. I don't
Speaker 1: really have an answer to that question. Um, if gun
Speaker 1: to my head, I've always said that the two thousand
Speaker 1: seventeen Warriors, that a D S, Steph Clay Draymond Iguadala
Speaker 1: line up to Hampton's five, that to me was the
Speaker 1: best basketball line up, best basketball team that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: So I personally would take them. But again, like if
Speaker 1: if the game, if the series, or the game takes
Speaker 1: a certain shape, the matchups could end up swinging back
Speaker 1: towards the Lakers. Um, this is from Roey day, Don Lakers,
Speaker 1: shouldn't they try trading Taylor Horton Tucker for Patrick Beverly,
Speaker 1: in Russ for Buddy Held in some three team er
Speaker 1: versus going for Kyrie. BEVN Buddy are somewhat similar to
Speaker 1: Crusoe and KCP. Kyrie gets maybe Kyrie gets bought out
Speaker 1: question mark I. I disagree I a couple of things.
Speaker 1: First of all, k CP was an excellent defensive player,
Speaker 1: Buddy Healed is not. Buddy Held is a better offensive
Speaker 1: player than KCP, so they're not really all that similar.
Speaker 1: I do agree in the sense that Patrick Beverley could
Speaker 1: do some of what Alex Cruso does just as a
Speaker 1: perimeter contained type of guy. Um. No matter what, I think,
Speaker 1: these guys should be fallback options. There's another question that
Speaker 1: was in I didn't pick it, but maybe it's in
Speaker 1: my list later on. But somebody asked me, like, what
Speaker 1: do you value more offense or defense? And I'm always
Speaker 1: going to value the offensive end more um to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, even though I do value defense, because I
Speaker 1: think you can manufacture defense in a way that you
Speaker 1: can't with the offensive end of the floor. Like you
Speaker 1: can play hard and coach up a defensive player, right,
Speaker 1: but you can't play hard and coach up what Kyrie
Speaker 1: Irving can do with the basketball. That's a otherworldly talent
Speaker 1: that is carrying him there. When it comes to a
Speaker 1: playoff setting, if you have Kyrie Irving, you can manufacture
Speaker 1: a small defensive roles for players like Austin Reeves and
Speaker 1: Stanley Johnson and want to Scano Anderson and Troy Brown Jr.
Speaker 1: And all this kind of stuff. It's very it's it's difficult.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a challenge. Darvin Ham's gonna have his
Speaker 1: work cut out for him there. But it's doable. But
Speaker 1: what you can't do is run out there with Buddy Healed,
Speaker 1: in with Miles Turner and with Patrick Beverley or whoever
Speaker 1: it is, and then try to manufacture what Kyrie Irving
Speaker 1: can do. What Kyrie Irving can do with the basketball
Speaker 1: in a playoff setting is impervious to defensive scheming. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's an unbelievable weapon to have in your bag.
Speaker 1: It can be a problem if you're the Brooklyn Nets
Speaker 1: and you absolutely desperately need him to be amazing every night,
Speaker 1: But alongside Lebron James and Anthony Davis, he wouldn't need
Speaker 1: to be. I would target Kyrie Irving no matter what
Speaker 1: as the primary option. If it goes south, you default
Speaker 1: to some combination of Buddy Healed, Miles Turner, whatever role
Speaker 1: players you can get out there. The other guy would
Speaker 1: really look at his boy on Bogdanovitch from the Utah
Speaker 1: Jazz is just a guy who's a big forward. I'm
Speaker 1: not worthy his foot speed, struggles to cover on the
Speaker 1: perimeter against quicker guys, but he's good at guarding bigger,
Speaker 1: stronger forward. So uh, with Anthony Davis on the back line,
Speaker 1: I actually think he's a nice fit there, just like
Speaker 1: he was in Utah with Rudy Gobert. But that's another
Speaker 1: type of guy I would look at. But no matter
Speaker 1: what Kyrie first priority backup plan as role players, Uh,
Speaker 1: this is from Silas. What NBA player would you compare
Speaker 1: your personal game too? Um? So this is interesting. I
Speaker 1: love talking about this kind of stuff. So I talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about my college basketball background in a
Speaker 1: podcast a lot last week. But when I was in college,
Speaker 1: I was just an athlete and I was very I
Speaker 1: basically was a stretch for um who turned into a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a three my last year. But
Speaker 1: I was very unskilled, Like I could shoot the ball
Speaker 1: in a streaky way, but I could not dribble to
Speaker 1: save my life. I was unskilled, you know. But the
Speaker 1: last time I played college basketball is two thousand and fourteen,
Speaker 1: and I still play just as much to this day
Speaker 1: as I do. Then, I like I tell you guys,
Speaker 1: I'm so in love with the game that I approach
Speaker 1: it like a professional. I train, uh strength train every
Speaker 1: single day. I go and do skill work. I coach
Speaker 1: high school kids, so I have access to a gym
Speaker 1: and a gun and all those kinds of things. And
Speaker 1: I take the game very seriously, not because I'm trying
Speaker 1: to play professionally. This is my job. I love doing this,
Speaker 1: but it it's just something that I love to do
Speaker 1: because I love the game. I like being able to
Speaker 1: step on a basketball court and be a good basketball player.
Speaker 1: It's it's something that is is like a personal passion
Speaker 1: of mine, irrespective of money or fame or anything like that. Right.
Speaker 1: So like um, as I've gotten older, I've gotten way way, way,
Speaker 1: way way better at dribbling the basketball. So those are
Speaker 1: you guys who follow me on Twitter. You've seen the
Speaker 1: videos that I do, um, But for the most part,
Speaker 1: it's a combination. Every talk to any young hooper out there,
Speaker 1: and those are you guys who are hoopers that are listening,
Speaker 1: you know exactly what I'm talking about. Your skill set
Speaker 1: is a combination of things you learned from all of
Speaker 1: your favorite players. Like I have a one legged fade
Speaker 1: away that I use that originated from Dirk. The one
Speaker 1: that I use is kind of more like what Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant does, but that's that's a move that I saw
Speaker 1: in video from those guys, went in the gym, worked
Speaker 1: on a hundreds of times to learn how to do it.
Speaker 1: My fade away over my right shoulder and left shoulder.
Speaker 1: I watched Kobe Bryant film. I swing my right leg
Speaker 1: around when I fade over my left shoulder to try
Speaker 1: to square a square up in mid air. That took
Speaker 1: a ton of footwork reps. Learned that from Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 1: watching tape, going in the gym, and working on it.
Speaker 1: I have a very very deep arsenal of different step
Speaker 1: back threes off of various trible combinations. Those are mostly
Speaker 1: from uh from James Harden. My other dribble combination threes
Speaker 1: are like Paul George, you know my form. When I'm
Speaker 1: working on my jump shot form, I try to replicate
Speaker 1: Clay Thompson as much as possible, like everybody's got a
Speaker 1: a bunch of of of players that they that they
Speaker 1: look to as basically a um uh like a blueprint
Speaker 1: for how to develop your own skill set. And mine
Speaker 1: has always been a combination of those things. Now, if
Speaker 1: you went to the gym and you watched me play
Speaker 1: pick up, the guy that I probably resemble the most
Speaker 1: to you is like a Paul George. I'm a guy
Speaker 1: that uh is. I I dribble the basketball a lot um.
Speaker 1: I'm mostly a scorer. I I go to off the
Speaker 1: dribble three's often, but I have the ability to slash
Speaker 1: to the basket and finish above the rim. Um not
Speaker 1: as athletic because I was when I was younger. When
Speaker 1: I was younger, I was about two hundred five pounds
Speaker 1: and I could get my head at the rim. Now
Speaker 1: it's I'm a few inches below the rim. I way
Speaker 1: two pounds more of a back to the basket. I
Speaker 1: can use that more back to the basket type of stuff.
Speaker 1: But I tried to do everything like I try to
Speaker 1: be multifaceted. I try to have floaters and scoop shots
Speaker 1: and and back to the basket stuff, off the dribble stuff,
Speaker 1: and I when I play with my men's league team
Speaker 1: on Sunday's. I play with a couple of really good guards,
Speaker 1: so I work a lot of my off the ball
Speaker 1: shooting moving and shooting moving without the basketball, cutting things
Speaker 1: along those lines. I'm obsessed with the game. I know again,
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna get paid again, ord or if I do,
Speaker 1: I have to convince my wife that I'm gonna leave
Speaker 1: her for a little bit. Um. But I the reality
Speaker 1: is is to me, it's just fun. I love the
Speaker 1: I I love the process of becoming the best basketball
Speaker 1: player that I can be, even though it doesn't really
Speaker 1: result in anything. Um. From a money standpoint, Um, this
Speaker 1: is from Vic your opinion on the mid season tournament.
Speaker 1: I don't see any value at all, But maybe you do,
Speaker 1: And do you think play in is a fair way
Speaker 1: to decide the playoff spots. I actually like to play
Speaker 1: in tournament. It's high stakes, it's it's a rescue path
Speaker 1: for teams to deal with injuries over the course of
Speaker 1: the season. No issue with the play in tournament. The
Speaker 1: mid season tournament, I think is stupid. I don't think
Speaker 1: you're gonna be able to get guys to care about it.
Speaker 1: My main issue there, too, is like it's beating around
Speaker 1: the bush and failing to acknowledge the reality of the situation.
Speaker 1: You guys know, I'm big on self awareness. I'm big
Speaker 1: on admitting when things are not good. And the the
Speaker 1: reality is is the league as an urgency problem if
Speaker 1: you have just to make the math easy. If you're
Speaker 1: getting a million people to watch an average regular season
Speaker 1: NBA game that's on national television, and the numbers are
Speaker 1: different than that, but I'm just trying to keep the
Speaker 1: math easy. If it's a million um and you're dealing
Speaker 1: with everything that we're dealing with now, You're dealing with
Speaker 1: stars sitting out because of load management. You're dealing with
Speaker 1: injuries causing problems. You're dealing with back to backs and
Speaker 1: scat dual losses and all of these different things that
Speaker 1: are that are upsetting the product to the point now
Speaker 1: where your t n T Thursday slate is almost always
Speaker 1: involving at least one of the core teams missing players,
Speaker 1: if not all four of them, you know, on a
Speaker 1: typical at TNT Thursday night, it's a problem. That's the issue.
Speaker 1: So to me, if you can get it from one
Speaker 1: million viewers to one point five million viewers, again, I'm
Speaker 1: just using that for easy math. Then that allows you
Speaker 1: to cut down in the number of games and maintain
Speaker 1: the amount of revenue as it pertains to what the
Speaker 1: advertising eyeballs um that the broadcast companies can get. So
Speaker 1: my thing is like, I would shorten the season down
Speaker 1: to sixty sixty sixty six games probably, um, I think
Speaker 1: if you did that, you can get down to three
Speaker 1: games per per week. Every single week you have at
Speaker 1: least one stretch where you have two consecutive days off.
Speaker 1: If you did that, that basically bakes in load management
Speaker 1: automatically into the schedule. It's far more likely that the
Speaker 1: ours will play in all the games. You'll be able
Speaker 1: to have more practice time, the overall quality of play
Speaker 1: will be way better. The nationally televised games will have
Speaker 1: the stars on the floor more frequently. It will lead
Speaker 1: to an increase in ratings. It will get people to
Speaker 1: buy into the regular season. It also breeds urgency. The
Speaker 1: sixty six games makes each game worth you know what's
Speaker 1: at roughly fift percent more right, roughly more so. At
Speaker 1: that point, you're you're you're in. You're basically injecting a
Speaker 1: ton of good and the prices You're cutting sixteen games
Speaker 1: from the schedule, right, Obviously that's a significant revenue loss.
Speaker 1: But if it's a revenue loss, they're all you need
Speaker 1: is a increase in the quality of the product that
Speaker 1: will eventually manifest in the viewership needed to recoup those losses.
Speaker 1: To me, the mid season tournament is a bizarre attempt
Speaker 1: to address that issue by adding games, which doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense to me. I obviously I think that I
Speaker 1: think the plan would shorten the regular season to seventy
Speaker 1: two games and then add the mid season tournament. I
Speaker 1: don't see the point shorten it to sixty six. You'll
Speaker 1: get high quality basketball. Higher quality basketball is what we'll
Speaker 1: save the NBA. The NBA playoffs are super interesting. You
Speaker 1: want more of that. You want more high stakes, high
Speaker 1: energy NBA games involving the stars. If you do the
Speaker 1: mid season tournament, you're gonna have the exact same issue
Speaker 1: with stars sitting out key national, nationally televised games. Um.
Speaker 1: This is from defaust your reaction to Grant williams comments
Speaker 1: on the finals from the long Shot podcast A quick
Speaker 1: hitter here you has. Grant Williams basically just said I
Speaker 1: think we were the better team. They were more disciplined. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's what I've been saying. However, what qualifies as a
Speaker 1: good basketball team, Like, I don't think better is the
Speaker 1: right phrase to to explain what Grant Williams is saying.
Speaker 1: If I was Grant Williams, what I would say is
Speaker 1: I think we were the more talented team, which is true.
Speaker 1: Guys like hey Steph Curry just want a championship with
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins as the second best player. That was not
Speaker 1: an ultra talented Warriors team. They were talented. They certainly
Speaker 1: weren't devoid of talent. Ut they outkicked their coverage because
Speaker 1: they're extraordinarily well, extraordinarily well run from the top down.
Speaker 1: They have an owner is willing to spend, general manager
Speaker 1: actually knows how to build a modern NBA roster around
Speaker 1: switchy wings that can do the dirty work, a very
Speaker 1: good basketball coach, their superstars, a fantastic leader and is
Speaker 1: the second best player in the league in my opinion,
Speaker 1: and then all the guys down the roster were completely
Speaker 1: bought into the role, very discipline, very smart basketball players.
Speaker 1: That's why they won. That to me though, makes them
Speaker 1: the better basketball team. So I instead of saying Grant
Speaker 1: instead of what Grant Williams said, which is we were
Speaker 1: the better team, the Warriors were the more disciplined team.
Speaker 1: I would say the Celtics were the more talented team,
Speaker 1: the Warriors were the better team. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, that's just all semantics. Who cares the
Speaker 1: Warriors have the trophy. This is from my friend Joe JT.
Speaker 1: Do you think there is any way possible Russ actually
Speaker 1: is on the team for the first game of the
Speaker 1: regular season? Thanks, I don't think so. I've talked to
Speaker 1: some people who would are who are connected with the situation,
Speaker 1: and they say that that's the top priority all the
Speaker 1: positive Russ talk out there strictly for Leve Ridge. Here's
Speaker 1: the reality situation. It's the same issue with the Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant thing. You know, like Kevin, Shawn Marks and Josi
Speaker 1: are sick of being in the business of dealing with
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant Kyrie Irving. Why is that they're basketball fans.
Speaker 1: They want to see a quality basketball product and the
Speaker 1: product out there on the court wasn't good enough for them,
Speaker 1: and they believe that Katie and Kyrie were distracting from that. Right,
Speaker 1: So why would you bring them back into training camp
Speaker 1: and expect to breed a new basketball focus with Kyrie
Speaker 1: who wants out and has beef with the front office,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Duray who wants out so and may or
Speaker 1: may not have beef with Kyrie at this point, like
Speaker 1: we don't know right So at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: like bringing something like that to training camp immediately derails
Speaker 1: your attempts to start the season on a good note.
Speaker 1: This is why I'm not a huge fan of of
Speaker 1: monumental mid season trades, like mid season trades involving stars, like,
Speaker 1: don't wait to the deadline to make a deal, make
Speaker 1: the deal in the off season. Because if you can
Speaker 1: get into training camp and sit down on that first
Speaker 1: day and Darvin ham can go up to the white
Speaker 1: board and he can write, here are team identity. This
Speaker 1: is our team identity. These are our rules, these are
Speaker 1: our goals. This is the tone we're gonna set. And
Speaker 1: from day one you established that and everyone is bought in.
Speaker 1: That's how you get seasons like the two Warriors or
Speaker 1: the Lakers, who from the start of the regular season
Speaker 1: are just whipping everybody's ass. Like the Warriors started eleven
Speaker 1: and one I think right or fourteen and one, and
Speaker 1: the Lakers started twenty four and three. You know, like
Speaker 1: they were incredibly dominant from the start of the season
Speaker 1: because from the opening moment of training camp they were
Speaker 1: just completely and totally locked in bringing Russell Westbrook back
Speaker 1: when everyone knows you've been trying to move him with
Speaker 1: all of the issues that he's having. All that does
Speaker 1: is kick your season off on the wrong note. So
Speaker 1: I would be absolutely stunned if the Lakers brought Rust back.
Speaker 1: My guess is if they struggle to trade him, that
Speaker 1: he'll be waived or or something along those lines bought out. UM,
Speaker 1: this is from George. I think Ham is now Lebron's
Speaker 1: eighth coach in the NBA. Any advice for him, especially
Speaker 1: being a head coach for the first time. He won
Speaker 1: with Vogel, but he but seems he tuned him out
Speaker 1: in just two seasons after that. UM. A couple of things.
Speaker 1: First of all, Lebron's in his twenties season, so I
Speaker 1: don't think if, like, if Lebron tunes him out when
Speaker 1: he's in his twenty second season, that's who cares. At
Speaker 1: this point. The idea of of a group buying into
Speaker 1: a coach and then eventually buying out. That's just normal.
Speaker 1: It's it's fatigue. Any time that a person is in
Speaker 1: a leadership role over you and they have disciplinary authority
Speaker 1: over you, it can get fatiguing. That that will happen
Speaker 1: in every workplace. That's why people like changes the scenery.
Speaker 1: That's why you look for a new gig at your job,
Speaker 1: or you look to transfer to a different location or
Speaker 1: things along those lines. You just it's authority fatigue. So
Speaker 1: that that's normal. Um, I don't have I'm Darvin Ham
Speaker 1: already has way more coaching experience than I could ever have.
Speaker 1: So there's nothing that I could offer Darvin Ham advice.
Speaker 1: My opinion on coaching based on my brief coaching experience
Speaker 1: with high school kids and being around all the college
Speaker 1: coaches that I was around in my life, my opinion is,
Speaker 1: don't be be be reticent of of clinging to your
Speaker 1: core philosophy. Basketball is it can be played, coached, taught
Speaker 1: in so many different ways. I've never tried to tell
Speaker 1: you guys that my belief system about basketball is the
Speaker 1: you know, the the unimpeachable, perfect way to go about
Speaker 1: the game basketball. It's just my belief. This is the
Speaker 1: way that I see the game, this is the way
Speaker 1: that I coach, this is the way that I would
Speaker 1: manage a team, or this is the way that I
Speaker 1: would coach in the NBA, or this is the way
Speaker 1: that I would play in the NBA. That's just my opinion.
Speaker 1: That's all it is. You know. So with with coaching,
Speaker 1: you have your core philosophy, which is what I just described,
Speaker 1: But then you have your roster, and your roster is
Speaker 1: gonna have distinct strengths and weaknesses, and it's far more
Speaker 1: important for you to cater your coaching philosophy towards your
Speaker 1: strengths and away from your weaknesses than it is for
Speaker 1: you to inflict your core philosophy on people like for instance,
Speaker 1: you guys know, I'm huge on switching. I hate traditional bigs.
Speaker 1: I I'm a big I'm a big believer in um
Speaker 1: in uh. I'm a big believer in driving kick five
Speaker 1: out basketball, not having someone in the dunker spot. I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer in in targeting players that are you know, bigger,
Speaker 1: rim pressuring type of guys. You guys know how I
Speaker 1: see the game. But if I was running the Lakers
Speaker 1: this year, I would look at it like, we don't
Speaker 1: have great wings. We have Anthony Davis and two pretty
Speaker 1: solid backup center type of players, right, and I've got
Speaker 1: Lebron James, and then I've got a boatload of small,
Speaker 1: thin guards. So I don't know that we can do
Speaker 1: a ton of switching with this group. So even though
Speaker 1: my core philosophy is to switch, I think you gotta
Speaker 1: run drop coverage with this group, and you've got to
Speaker 1: try to funnel everybody to Anthony Davis. You might even
Speaker 1: have to play big and keep Anthony Davis at the
Speaker 1: four a lot because we don't have enough. They don't
Speaker 1: have enough guys on the roster that are six six
Speaker 1: or taller. Right, So it's very important for my core
Speaker 1: basketball philosophy not to cause me to inflict a poor
Speaker 1: strategy on my group. And so it'll be really interesting
Speaker 1: to see. And we don't know what the final roster
Speaker 1: is gonna look like with the Lakers, but you know,
Speaker 1: let's let's take a look at how Darvin Ham cultivates
Speaker 1: his personal basketball philosophy but adjust it and and changes
Speaker 1: it to fit with the group of guys that he
Speaker 1: has with the Lakers. Uh. This is from King Control
Speaker 1: who's the best Lebron James teammate, Dwayne Wade, Kyrie Rivering
Speaker 1: or Anthony Davis not peak just when they were playing together.
Speaker 1: To me, this is so cut and drives. Anthony Davis um.
Speaker 1: Lebron James won four championships, He's won ten conference championships.
Speaker 1: I have never ever seen him get consistent support the
Speaker 1: way that he did from Anthony Davis. I have never
Speaker 1: seen the game look is easy for him as it
Speaker 1: did in alongside that group. Largely because of what Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis does. The first three championships that Lebron James wont
Speaker 1: to have become massively underrated over the years because you
Speaker 1: think of the Wade Bosh Heat as like a super team,
Speaker 1: and you think of the Kyrie Kevin love Calves as
Speaker 1: a super team. They weren't. Uh. The Miami Heat were
Speaker 1: a bona fide super team in the first season in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, which is why that two thousand eleven
Speaker 1: finals was such a disappointed collapse. But after that, Dwyane
Speaker 1: Wade fell off a cliff, just wasn't even close to
Speaker 1: the same player, especially by the time they got to
Speaker 1: the postseason, and Chris Bosh, you know, in in that
Speaker 1: third role, was never really a reliable score and by
Speaker 1: the end was basically just to stretch big, not undercutting
Speaker 1: what those guys did in their careers. It's just the
Speaker 1: reality of what that Miami Heat team was. The two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve two thousand thirteen Heat were a lot closer
Speaker 1: to the two thousand twenty two Warriors. Very well coached,
Speaker 1: very well run, very body, very disciplined, very smart, but
Speaker 1: they weren't the most talented team. That's why the two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve Thunder were picked as the favorites in Vegas
Speaker 1: to win the two thousand twelve Finals. That's why them,
Speaker 1: That's why the two thousand thirteen Spurs were the favorites
Speaker 1: in the two thousand thirteen finals. No one viewed the
Speaker 1: Heat is high talent. The same goes with the Calves.
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving basically a scoring guard that's undersized, not great defensively,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Love was was just downright bad a lot
Speaker 1: of the time when he was in Cleveland. So like
Speaker 1: to me, the two thousand twenty Lakers with this real
Speaker 1: bona fide top tier superstar next to next to Lebron,
Speaker 1: with really quality role players, that was his best team.
Speaker 1: That was their most comfortable and easy playoff run. As
Speaker 1: a result of that, Anthony Davis was by far the
Speaker 1: best player that he played with. UM, let's see we
Speaker 1: had time for a few more here. This is from Joe.
Speaker 1: What's your opinion on the Denver Nuggets. You haven't talked
Speaker 1: about them much yet, so I'm curious. I think they're
Speaker 1: top four team in the league in the West when
Speaker 1: they're healthy. Absolutely, I absolutely think they're top four. I'd
Speaker 1: actually put them there behind the Clippers. Um, if the
Speaker 1: Lakers do close the Kyrie Irving deal, I put the
Speaker 1: I put Kyrie Irving above them. But I'm a huge
Speaker 1: believer in what dever does. I love the k CP signing.
Speaker 1: I think KCP is going to be a fantastic fit
Speaker 1: alongside that group. I think he's a better defensive player
Speaker 1: than Will Barton, and even though I don't think he's
Speaker 1: as skilled offensively, particularly putting the basketball on the floor,
Speaker 1: I do think he's better at specific things that he'll
Speaker 1: need to do alongside Jamal Murray and Nickeola Yogis. That's
Speaker 1: spot up shooting and slashing. KCP is actually sneaky, one
Speaker 1: of the best close out attackers in the league because
Speaker 1: he's such a good one leg leaper. It's really good
Speaker 1: at jumping off of his left leg, and that's a
Speaker 1: specific skill for extension um. When you're being pursued by
Speaker 1: a shot blocker, you want to get the ball to
Speaker 1: the rim as fast as possible. He's very, very good
Speaker 1: at um, not only knocking down spot up threes, but
Speaker 1: beating closeouts, ripping through to the right and finishing with
Speaker 1: his right hand lay up off the glass. He made
Speaker 1: a ton of huge plays in the NBA Finals that
Speaker 1: that we're a huge part of why the Lakers won
Speaker 1: the title. I thought it was a great get for Denver.
Speaker 1: Loved the the extension that they signed for him as well.
Speaker 1: He's worth every penny. Loved that deal. Michael Porter Jr's
Speaker 1: health is obviously a concern, but just the core of
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray with Nikola Yo Kitchen, Aaron Gordon, I don't
Speaker 1: know why they picked DeAndre Jordan's I have no idea
Speaker 1: why DeAndre Jordan keeps getting deals. I asked some people
Speaker 1: about it in Vegas, and the people that were all
Speaker 1: plugged in and connected say it's because DeAndre Jordan's excellent
Speaker 1: in the locker room. Maybe that's what it is, but
Speaker 1: I mean he'll probably end up playing minutes, so but
Speaker 1: I'm just being nitpicky there. I think Denver is easily
Speaker 1: the third best team in the West, absolutely in that
Speaker 1: second tier of contenders where if some things break right,
Speaker 1: they can win. I would I would just put the
Speaker 1: Lakers ahead of them if they got Kyrie. This is
Speaker 1: from Kevin. What do you think is the biggest problem
Speaker 1: basketball wise with the NBA today? Um. I talked about
Speaker 1: it a little earlier with the with players being available,
Speaker 1: but in terms of like the actual product, the on
Speaker 1: court product, I would probably go with officiating and fali bating.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to dive into that right now because
Speaker 1: it's something I've talked about a lot over the course
Speaker 1: of the playoffs, but the league needs the league needs
Speaker 1: to find a way to incentivize players playing basketball rather
Speaker 1: than trying to dupe the referees. It'll just make for
Speaker 1: a better television products, which will increase the ratings and honestly,
Speaker 1: it's basketball blasphemy and I think it's bad for the game. Um.
Speaker 1: The one thing I would say in terms of overall
Speaker 1: basketball development, just in general, I think that players especially
Speaker 1: in the youth basses in youth basketball are not building
Speaker 1: well rounded enough basketball skill sets, particularly in the mid
Speaker 1: range and the short range. UM. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: good reason why analytics is the analytics movement has dissuaded
Speaker 1: teams from being heavily rely heavily relying on mid range
Speaker 1: jump shooting. I get all of that um, but every
Speaker 1: time the league does anything, the league involves with it.
Speaker 1: If you look at offensive ratings throughout NBA history, average
Speaker 1: offensive ratings, they kind of cycle up and they cycled down.
Speaker 1: They cycle up and they cycled down. And the main
Speaker 1: reason why is physicality from the refs, like how much
Speaker 1: the refs allow, what how liberal they are with the whistle.
Speaker 1: But another big part of it is the defenses evolved too.
Speaker 1: The offense can come up with, you know, high volume
Speaker 1: three point shooting, five out attack, all these different things
Speaker 1: to try to generate quality offense in the NBA, and
Speaker 1: it will work for a little while, but then the
Speaker 1: defense will adjust. And one of the big things that
Speaker 1: you're seeing a lot right now is in the same
Speaker 1: way that offenses are geared towards generating high quality three
Speaker 1: point shots and high quality rim attempts, the NBA defenses
Speaker 1: are giving up driving lanes at the expense of chasing
Speaker 1: guys off the three point line. So if you have
Speaker 1: a good funneling system. The Utah Jazz are actually really
Speaker 1: good at this in the regular season before all the
Speaker 1: before they got blown up. But the idea is there
Speaker 1: is if you can chase the guy off the three
Speaker 1: point line and you've got Rudy Gobert waiting under the basket,
Speaker 1: and as long as that guard can then rotate to
Speaker 1: the next guy, you're fine. Everything's covered. And so now
Speaker 1: there's this big opening in the middle of the floor
Speaker 1: between five feet and where there's just nothing going on.
Speaker 1: There's not a whole lot of defense. Their rotation is
Speaker 1: not even trying to pick you up there, and so
Speaker 1: there's a shortage. There's an area of opportunity there for
Speaker 1: the best midrange scorers in the league to get high
Speaker 1: quality shots. When you look at the math, yes, a
Speaker 1: wide open three simply mathematically is worth so much more
Speaker 1: than a wide open midrange jump shot that it makes
Speaker 1: no sense to take the mid range jump shot. But
Speaker 1: if all of the three point shots are contested, because
Speaker 1: that's what the defense is geared towards, taking away and
Speaker 1: the rim is occupied. Then the mid range shots, even
Speaker 1: though in a vacuum they're less valuable, if they're open
Speaker 1: higher quality shots, the shot quality goes through the roof,
Speaker 1: and those might actually be your best shots. I I'd
Speaker 1: like to see more young basketball players building out the
Speaker 1: well rounded game because you don't know what's going to
Speaker 1: happen over the course of of the over the years,
Speaker 1: while you're trying to get to the league, how the
Speaker 1: game might change. You might need to be good at
Speaker 1: a specific thing, and you don't want to be caught,
Speaker 1: you know, with your pants down in the league because
Speaker 1: you're not ready for it. Um. So I would like
Speaker 1: to see players get a little bit better in the
Speaker 1: mid range. Um. This is from Leo. Why do you
Speaker 1: think MJ is the goat? I agree he is the goat,
Speaker 1: better score, better defender, and more of a team player
Speaker 1: in terms of fitting in a scheme than Lebron. So
Speaker 1: to me, I disagree on a handful of levels. Um,
Speaker 1: I think MJ is a more polished score. Lebron is
Speaker 1: a more effective score. I actually think Lebron is a
Speaker 1: better defensive player in terms of his versatility. But make
Speaker 1: no mistake, the UH The reality is, is the results
Speaker 1: favor Michael Jordan's. There's an argument there that that is
Speaker 1: almost unbeatable. If you've won six championships in eight years
Speaker 1: and you're so much better than all of your peers
Speaker 1: that just to mention one of them in your name,
Speaker 1: in the same sentence with your name is like blasphemy.
Speaker 1: Like if someone said to you, I thought Hakim was
Speaker 1: better than Jordan, you laugh them out of the room.
Speaker 1: If someone said I thought Charles Barkley was better than Jordan's,
Speaker 1: you'd laugh them out of the room. If they said
Speaker 1: that about any of the half dozen players that were
Speaker 1: competing with MJ at the top of the league that time,
Speaker 1: none of them were even in the same breath. And
Speaker 1: I thought Lebron was the best player of this era,
Speaker 1: and the vast majority of people would agree, But there
Speaker 1: were significant stretches where it was like, hey, Katie's kind
Speaker 1: of right there, or hey STEP's kind of right there,
Speaker 1: Hey Janice is kind of right there, right like the
Speaker 1: Lebron only really in the I would say two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, and then maybe two thousand, seventeen thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: depending on who you ask. There, I don't ever really
Speaker 1: there wasn't really a consistent stretch where he was just
Speaker 1: monumentally better than everybody. And so to me, that's not
Speaker 1: something that i'd hold against MJ. Like Lebron Vans will
Speaker 1: be like, that's because MJ played worst competition. Your competition
Speaker 1: is your competition, and the reality is is MJ could
Speaker 1: have worked hard enough to just be a little bit
Speaker 1: better than those guys. That's not what happened. He worked
Speaker 1: so psychotically hard that he was monumentally better than all
Speaker 1: of them, and as a result, he had the most
Speaker 1: dominant run in modern NBA history six championships and eight tries.
Speaker 1: You guys know him. A huge Lebron fan. Lebron got
Speaker 1: me to fall in love with the game of basketball.
Speaker 1: That's literally why I do what I do. I was
Speaker 1: raised on baseball and football. I saw Lebron playing basketball
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, fell in love with the game.
Speaker 1: I've given it everything I've had for the almost two
Speaker 1: decades since then. That's how much I respect Lebron. Huge
Speaker 1: fan of his. He's not He's not m J. He's
Speaker 1: he wasn't his dominant, he wasn't the level of player
Speaker 1: that he was Lebron very well might be a better
Speaker 1: basketball player, And as the game has evolved, I'd probably
Speaker 1: say that's true. Lebron is probably a better player. Have
Speaker 1: you plucked the peak of Lebron versus the peak of MJ?
Speaker 1: But the game of basketball is evolving. MJ was so
Speaker 1: far ahead of the curve that he was dominant. Lebron
Speaker 1: was slightly ahead of the curve and was slightly less dominent.
Speaker 1: To me, he's the second best player of all time.
Speaker 1: He'd have to win one or two more and continue
Speaker 1: to dominate for longer for me to kind of move
Speaker 1: him into that conversation. This is from Bradley, Um, why
Speaker 1: you always giving up a franchise as future slash present?
Speaker 1: This is funny for all star players when you have
Speaker 1: no certainty that that that player will bring you a
Speaker 1: ring now, instead of planning for a future where your
Speaker 1: young players are supposed to be the top brass, you
Speaker 1: have your ass in your hands basically saying that he
Speaker 1: disagrees with my ideology being aggressive and pushing your chips
Speaker 1: in the middle. Look, man, that's just the way that
Speaker 1: I see it. Like if I was running a team,
Speaker 1: I would push my chips into the table go for
Speaker 1: a title. As soon as I realized that it was
Speaker 1: a lost cause, I sell the house and accumulate assets,
Speaker 1: and then I'd push all the chips in the middle middle,
Speaker 1: I'd make a run and then I'd pull back and
Speaker 1: I'd accumulate assets. That's just the way that I would
Speaker 1: do it that and the reason why I would do
Speaker 1: that is because I believe that is the most consistently successful.
Speaker 1: I think the Warriors are the exception of the rule.
Speaker 1: I think that they are lucky in the sense that
Speaker 1: they have players who are loyal. Steph is loyal, Clay
Speaker 1: Thompson is loyal, Draymond Green is loyal. So many times
Speaker 1: it ends up like the thunder where you get James
Speaker 1: Hardened with the wandering eye, Kevin Durray with the wandering eye.
Speaker 1: It ends up not materializing. So I think the idea
Speaker 1: of building organically through the draft and building that long term,
Speaker 1: you know, continuity, even though even though I think that's
Speaker 1: absolutely what's best for the league, even though I want
Speaker 1: the league to try to structure the c b A
Speaker 1: to try to make that a little bit more feasible
Speaker 1: for the teams, I'm pro that, But in terms of
Speaker 1: under the current predicament under the current rules, if I
Speaker 1: was running a team, how I would try to win
Speaker 1: is pushing my chips into the middle, because I think
Speaker 1: that's the most consistently successful. You literally saw that with
Speaker 1: the with the Raptors in two thousand nineteen. You saw
Speaker 1: that with the Lakers in two thousand twenty. You saw
Speaker 1: that with the the Cavaliers when they pushed everything in
Speaker 1: for Lebron. You saw that with the Miami Heat. You did.
Speaker 1: There are these little spurts there, but no one's wrong.
Speaker 1: Like if you if you want to go the other way,
Speaker 1: you're right there as well. It worked for the two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen Spurs, it worked for the uh It worked
Speaker 1: for the Golden State Warriors. Again, like I talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: this is just my philosophy on the game of basketball
Speaker 1: based on the current rules. If the rules changed, I'm
Speaker 1: never married to a strategy. This is just the way
Speaker 1: that I see the game. There's no right or wrong answer.
Speaker 1: This is from Joshua. Remember when you said Steph Can
Speaker 1: I added some strolls in here. Remember when you said
Speaker 1: Steph Can no longer average thirty on grade efficiency And
Speaker 1: the only people who believed he could do it again.
Speaker 1: Were Steph fans not to be rude? I enjoy your content,
Speaker 1: so uh again. And I have Warriors fans still commenting
Speaker 1: under my YouTube videos, like you picked against us in
Speaker 1: the conference finals, and it's like, and I've had people
Speaker 1: that say that I picked against them all four rounds,
Speaker 1: which definitely didn't happen. I picked the Warriors to win
Speaker 1: the first round. I picked them to win the second round.
Speaker 1: I picked them to win the finals, just against Dalla,
Speaker 1: I had. I didn't have a good feel for the series.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to make of it. Dallas just
Speaker 1: beat the best team in the league, like to beat
Speaker 1: the living ship out of the best team in the
Speaker 1: league in Game seven in Phoenix, and Phoenix was like
Speaker 1: eight games better than everybody in the regular season. As
Speaker 1: much as I believe in the Warriors, they weren't the
Speaker 1: most talented team in the league, like we talked about
Speaker 1: earlier with the Boston Celtics, like the STEP's best teammate
Speaker 1: was Andrew Wiggins. Like I just it wasn't an anti
Speaker 1: Warrior's take. I'm just trying to predict something that's completely unpredictable.
Speaker 1: You guys know, I'm a huge fan of staff, and
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of the way the Warriors run
Speaker 1: their team. Don't ever take a prediction personal. UH. Predictions
Speaker 1: are really hard to do. If I had to, UH,
Speaker 1: if I could make predictions for a living, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing this. I'd be in Vegas and I'd be
Speaker 1: making money gambling on sports. That's not the case. I
Speaker 1: do my best to make predictions because that's kind of
Speaker 1: what this job requires. But I I don't think we
Speaker 1: should put that much weight on it um. As far
Speaker 1: as Steff goes like guys like he had a forty
Speaker 1: I think it was like a forty one game sample
Speaker 1: size where he couldn't shoot like it wasn't It was
Speaker 1: the longest, most extended, significant slump of his career and
Speaker 1: nothing else was close. And he's a small guard who
Speaker 1: is now I believe, thirty four years old. So that's
Speaker 1: the only reason why I said that stuff. I was like,
Speaker 1: Steph maybe on the decline. But what did I say
Speaker 1: after the finals? I was wrong. I said that Steph
Speaker 1: is at the peak of his powers. I said, this
Speaker 1: is the best I've ever seen him. Look, I thought
Speaker 1: this was his most impressive playoff run and he very
Speaker 1: and I said very clearly what happened during the regular
Speaker 1: season was clearly a blip and not a trend. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be wrong about a lot of stuff, guys like I,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do the very best I can. The
Speaker 1: one the one promise I can make you guys, is
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be a stubborn asshole. If I'm
Speaker 1: wrong about something, I'm gonna admit it and move on.
Speaker 1: I was wrong about Steph declining too fast. It was
Speaker 1: never an anti Steph thing. I was reacting to data.
Speaker 1: There was a significant chunk of data where where he
Speaker 1: didn't shoot well. And then when I watched the games
Speaker 1: with my eyeballs, I was seeing Steph not getting as
Speaker 1: much separation, not um, not getting quality looks, and then
Speaker 1: wasn't making him when he was getting them. That was that.
Speaker 1: That was just the reality. And if here's the you're
Speaker 1: you Warriors fans at the time, if you were confident,
Speaker 1: if you were thinking step will be fine, you weren't
Speaker 1: basing it on what you were seeing. You were basing
Speaker 1: it on faith in Steph. Faith is is as an
Speaker 1: invincible thing. There's nothing I can do to to convince you, guys,
Speaker 1: when you have that kind of faith. It's amazing that
Speaker 1: Steph turned it around. I was wrong. Don't ever take
Speaker 1: anything like that personal. I don't have any sort of
Speaker 1: beef with anybody with the Warriors or stuff. All right,
Speaker 1: let's do three more. This from Felipe, Um, what's more
Speaker 1: important in your opinion? Offense or defense? Talked about this earlier. Um,
Speaker 1: So I won't go too much further into it, but
Speaker 1: I believe offense is more important strictly because it's something
Speaker 1: that you can't coach up or convince players to do
Speaker 1: by playing harder or anything along those lines, especially when
Speaker 1: you get to the NBA postseason. In the defensive end,
Speaker 1: you absolutely can coach up. You absolutely can make up
Speaker 1: for a lot of limitations with effort and things along
Speaker 1: those lines. So if you have a supreme offensive talent,
Speaker 1: that's always gonna beat a supreme defensive talent in my opinion.
Speaker 1: This is from Jared. What was the toughest lesson that
Speaker 1: you've learned as a hooper? This is This is a
Speaker 1: good question, Um, for all of you young kids out
Speaker 1: there that are trying to play one day, however good
Speaker 1: you think you need to be in order to be
Speaker 1: good enough, to succeed at the highest levels of college
Speaker 1: basketball and things like that. You just need to get
Speaker 1: so much better than you would even think. Um, there
Speaker 1: is a if you think you're a good shooter, you're
Speaker 1: you're I'll give you. I'll give you some basic parameters,
Speaker 1: like you need to be able to go on the gun,
Speaker 1: the rebounding machine, or when you have rebounders and you
Speaker 1: need to be able to consistently hit between seventy and
Speaker 1: three's when you're by yourself, like when you're at the
Speaker 1: gym standing alone on the court, percent of them need
Speaker 1: to go in. That's that's when you know you're a
Speaker 1: really good shooter. I had a coach once that would say,
Speaker 1: are you a shooter or are you a maker? Everyone's
Speaker 1: a shooter. Makers are guys that can in the gym
Speaker 1: knock down them when they're open. That will translate to
Speaker 1: you shooting in a game. Setting UM ball handling like
Speaker 1: it's ball handling is extremely tedious. It takes a very
Speaker 1: long time. The progress is so difficult to track because
Speaker 1: it happens so little by little, and it's boring. No
Speaker 1: one likes to just go up and dribble a basketball.
Speaker 1: You'd rather shoot or work on or play bask like
Speaker 1: play pick up and things along those lines. Take the
Speaker 1: time to develop your ball handling. It is by far
Speaker 1: the most valuable skill if you want to be a
Speaker 1: high end basketball player, not a role player. Anybody, any
Speaker 1: athlete can be a role player like I was in college,
Speaker 1: who can grab rebounds and defend and do things like that.
Speaker 1: But if you want to be a a a a
Speaker 1: meaningful offensive folk rum and on a basketball team, you
Speaker 1: have to be able to dribble the basketball. Take the
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours that it takes to develop
Speaker 1: that skill set um and then, most importantly Alex crew
Speaker 1: have said this a long time ago talking about the
Speaker 1: G League. Understand the job you're trying out for. Like,
Speaker 1: chances are you're not gonna be so so so good
Speaker 1: that you can be Mr. All American that does everything
Speaker 1: offensively and then the rest of the team does the
Speaker 1: dirty work for you. Chances are, even if you're very good,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to be reliable in the little things.
Speaker 1: Understand the position you're trying out for. You're not trying
Speaker 1: out for a guy who scores twenty points a game.
Speaker 1: You're trying out for a guy that can consistently run
Speaker 1: the coaches defensive scheme and all the elements of it
Speaker 1: and all the different spots on the floor. The guy
Speaker 1: that knows all the plays and runs them correctly. The
Speaker 1: guy that turns and boxes out a man every single time,
Speaker 1: gets back in transition defense, sits into defensive stance, and
Speaker 1: contains on the perimeter. Like those are the things that
Speaker 1: coaches in particular are obsessed with. Never ever, ever let
Speaker 1: the fun stuff, which I love, the fun stuff. I
Speaker 1: love working on turnaround jump shots and step backs and
Speaker 1: things like that. Never let the fun stuff distract you
Speaker 1: from the fact that you have to be a good
Speaker 1: all round basketball player to contribute to any sort of
Speaker 1: good basketball team. Um, let's see. I'm gonna do one more,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna look for an interesting one here. Um
Speaker 1: and I plan. I try to read the YouTube comments
Speaker 1: as much as I can for feedback. So anytime you
Speaker 1: guys have other things you want the show to talk about,
Speaker 1: or questions, comments, feedback, anything like that, drop it into
Speaker 1: YouTube comments, drop it in my Twitter mentions. I outside
Speaker 1: my Twitter d M s open, you guys can send
Speaker 1: stuff to me there. Um let's see, Okay, I'll do
Speaker 1: I'll do two more two more fun ones here. This
Speaker 1: is also from Philip A does your girl hoop to
Speaker 1: So my wife. My wife was a very good high
Speaker 1: school basketball player and we went to the same high school.
Speaker 1: Didn't know each other. It's kind of weird. We met
Speaker 1: for the first time many years after after high school. Um,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say many years. I believe it was five
Speaker 1: years after. So my wife and I in August s
Speaker 1: will have been together eight years. In October, we will
Speaker 1: have been married for four She right now doesn't do
Speaker 1: anything with the game of basketball, but she actually played
Speaker 1: in college. She played a Hamlin University up in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: She only played for a half of a season, got
Speaker 1: sick of it and got out. Um one of the
Speaker 1: most interesting phenomenon that I've seen. I talked about this
Speaker 1: a little bit with Rachel Demdo when we had her
Speaker 1: on the show. But I I never get sick of
Speaker 1: the game, and I see so many people get sick
Speaker 1: of it. My wife was one of those people that
Speaker 1: like was devoted to the game of basketball, like from
Speaker 1: the time she was twelve to the time she was twenty,
Speaker 1: and then just one day she was like done with it,
Speaker 1: you know, And so she's not involved in the game anymore. UM,
Speaker 1: but she understands it really well because she played in college.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of nice for me because I
Speaker 1: think she just she doesn't have the obsession that I have, obviously,
Speaker 1: but I think she understands my obsession, which is what
Speaker 1: allowed her to support me doing this. I did a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty two episodes of State of the Lakers before
Speaker 1: I did this, So I've done hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 1: of postgame shows up late at night, affecting our social
Speaker 1: life things like that. She just gets it, she digs
Speaker 1: it because she understands where where my heart's at. And uh,
Speaker 1: every once in a while we go out and shoot
Speaker 1: around a little bit. But she doesn't really come close
Speaker 1: to the game anymore. UM. Last one favorite character and
Speaker 1: all of Star Wars. So I am a huge Star
Speaker 1: Wars fan, always have been. UM. I actually have a
Speaker 1: Star Wars podcast that I just launched about two months ago.
Speaker 1: It's called two Sons Podcast. You can find the I
Speaker 1: typically tweet out the links to that, um, but you
Speaker 1: can you can either find it on my Twitter or
Speaker 1: just google two Sons podcast. UM. It's supposed to be
Speaker 1: a play on words because we're also from Tucson. I
Speaker 1: do it with my best friend, UM, a guy in
Speaker 1: a tu Son who is a doctor. Um In him
Speaker 1: and I have just both been big Star Wars fans
Speaker 1: forever we started covering the OBI one series. UM to
Speaker 1: have a really good time with it. I'm like one
Speaker 1: of those nerds that gets into the expanded universe and stuff.
Speaker 1: My favorite Star Wars character has always been Darth Bain,
Speaker 1: and if you've never read it, you absolutely have to
Speaker 1: read the Darth Pain trilogy. It's the best piece of
Speaker 1: expanded Universe content. The only reason I'm accepting this as
Speaker 1: a as a legal answer here is because Darth Pain
Speaker 1: technically is cannon per the Clone Wars cartoons. But Darth
Speaker 1: Baine was the original Sith lord who discovered that there
Speaker 1: couldn't be hundreds of Sith because they they would always
Speaker 1: group together and betray the more powerful among them, and
Speaker 1: the Sith were becoming progressively weaker as they would betray
Speaker 1: each other. And so basically he went on a pilgrimage
Speaker 1: and went to all these different um Sith temples and stuff,
Speaker 1: and and came back and was like, I have discovered
Speaker 1: that we need to only have to Sith, the Master
Speaker 1: and the Apprentice, the one that teaches blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: but that whole book trilogy and that character. It's it's
Speaker 1: a very cool look into the Sith and just how
Speaker 1: ruthless they are and how different the dark side is
Speaker 1: from the light side of the forest. So there you go,
Speaker 1: a little little wind go into my second passion, which
Speaker 1: one of my many passions, but my fan for Star Wars.
Speaker 1: Like I said, if you want to hear me talk
Speaker 1: more about Star Wars, you just gotta look for that
Speaker 1: Two Sons podcast. All right, that's not bad. I think
Speaker 1: we went about an hour and that's our first ever
Speaker 1: mailbag mail bag podcast. Um, I really enjoyed that. I
Speaker 1: want to do that more frequently, even if it's either
Speaker 1: just like one that we do once a week, or
Speaker 1: if it's one that we do as a segment at
Speaker 1: the end of the show. Maybe I can talk to
Speaker 1: the producers and maybe they'll be down for something like that.
Speaker 1: But I definitely want to gear the show more towards
Speaker 1: something that's a little bit more interactive with you guys.
Speaker 1: I know that it is eventually a plan to try
Speaker 1: to potentially do something where we can have you guys
Speaker 1: call into the show kind of like we used to
Speaker 1: do on Twitter spaces back when I was working with
Speaker 1: raj um No show, uh tomorrow because I'm getting on
Speaker 1: the cruise ship. Actually this this one might actually end
Speaker 1: up being released tomorrow, but on Friday, I believe I'll
Speaker 1: be able to record again. Not sure what we'll do then.
Speaker 1: Who knows if someone will get traded at that point.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's all I got for today, guys. I
Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate you guys a support, and I'll see you
Speaker 1: in a couple of days. The volume m