Speaker 1: The volume. Who's scoring big in the NBA this season?
Speaker 1: You are all the new ways to get in on
Speaker 1: the action at Draft Kings sports Book and official sports
Speaker 1: betting partner of the NBA Slams. Dishing the ball, cleaning
Speaker 1: the glass, get behind your favorite players. Prop bet you
Speaker 1: can make on DraftKings. It's fun, the home of NBA
Speaker 1: player props. If you're ready to place your first bet,
Speaker 1: make it really simple. Pick how many points your favorite
Speaker 1: players going to score? Go to Draft Kings sports Book.
Speaker 1: They have an app, download it make your pick. If
Speaker 1: you're a first timer, here's something special new Draft Kings customers.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is bet five bucks to
Speaker 1: get one hundred and fifty in bonus bets instantly. So
Speaker 1: take it to the rack with Draft Kings sports Book,
Speaker 1: Every point Counts. Download their app takes ninety seconds. Use
Speaker 1: the code column clin to get one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: bones in bonus bets betting just five only on DraftKings.
Speaker 1: The Crown is Yours.
Speaker 2: Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler in New York
Speaker 2: call eight seven seven eight ope and Y or text
Speaker 2: ope and Y four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut,
Speaker 2: help is available for problem gambling called eight eight eight
Speaker 2: seven eight nine seven seven seven seven, or visit CCPG
Speaker 2: dot org. At least play responsibly on behalf of Boothill
Speaker 2: Casino when resorting Kansas twenty one and over. Agent eligibility
Speaker 2: varies by jurisdiction Voyd and Ontario. New customers only. Bonus
Speaker 2: bets ekspire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issueins four.
Speaker 2: Additional terms and responsible gaming resources see dkanng dot co
Speaker 2: slash audio.
Speaker 1: It's called hoops tonight. It's Jason tim So let's start
Speaker 1: with this. One of the things watching the Lakers last
Speaker 1: night with Luca is that I felt like they were
Speaker 1: kind of on a train to nowhere, and it was
Speaker 1: like AD was a great defensive player, bit hit and miss.
Speaker 1: Offensively good, not not consistent like the great offensive scores.
Speaker 1: I think he's been the last two years the best
Speaker 1: defensive player in the league. I like Austin Reeves if
Speaker 1: he's the three or the four. Lebron having an insane year,
Speaker 1: but he's gonna take some nights off. And if he
Speaker 1: does take nights off or Ad, then Austin Reeves because
Speaker 1: your second option that's not good enough. And then I'm
Speaker 1: watching them last night, and I'm like, well, Luca's missed
Speaker 1: a lot of time, so he's not taking time off.
Speaker 1: It's almost like Lebron is going to try to impress Luca.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna take his many nights off. And now
Speaker 1: I've got Austin Reeves is a third on virtually every night.
Speaker 1: Ruey can always hit the corner shot, Dalton connect you
Speaker 1: keep him, he creates space. And I'm watching last night
Speaker 1: and I'm like, God, there's so much younger and more
Speaker 1: fun to watch. Like I got to I got to
Speaker 1: a place where I really respected them, but I just thought,
Speaker 1: this is there's not enough. I don't know, I know,
Speaker 1: I don't They don't have a rim protector Jackson Hayes again,
Speaker 1: Ali up guy, fun energy. It's just it's weird how
Speaker 1: just inserting Luca into it, the whole team feels younger
Speaker 1: and different. Does it feel like that to you? No?
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean I hated this Laker team at the
Speaker 3: start of the year. They had this personality, this like
Speaker 3: I don't care about the work. That was driving me crazy.
Speaker 3: But over the course of the last month, they'd been
Speaker 3: playing a really likable and fun brand of basketball. Lebron
Speaker 3: was playing super well, Austin was playing super well before
Speaker 3: Ad got hurt. He had a couple of monster teams
Speaker 3: played really well twenty yeah, but I felt like they
Speaker 3: weren't good enough on either end of the floor to
Speaker 3: really do what you need to do to win four
Speaker 3: playoff rounds. And I've been really keyed in on this
Speaker 3: concept lately, like if you're going to win the title,
Speaker 3: you have to be able to do something well enough
Speaker 3: that it really gives people problems, like where teams can't
Speaker 3: even match up with it for one reason or another.
Speaker 3: And the Lakers just didn't have that punch on either
Speaker 3: end of the floor, even with Lebron and Ad. It's
Speaker 3: not the defensive team it was back in twenty twenty, right,
Speaker 3: so they didn't have that punch with Luca. One of
Speaker 3: the unique things he does. This Laker team has a
Speaker 3: lot of guys who are good offensive players as long
Speaker 3: as they're set up well, even with Lebron and Austin.
Speaker 3: Like one of the reasons why they struggled against defense
Speaker 3: is that did a lot of switching all year long.
Speaker 3: Is Lebron's forty and it's hard to get him to
Speaker 3: just get downhill time and time again in a random
Speaker 3: regular season game in January or December or Austin not
Speaker 3: an elite athlete in terms of getting past top tier
Speaker 3: NBA talent, and Anthony Davis obviously has offensive limitations. But
Speaker 3: once you bring Luca in, he just has this magical
Speaker 3: ability to get the ball to the basket. He's so big,
Speaker 3: and he's so strong, and he's so good at change
Speaker 3: of pace, and he's so good at getting guys sealed
Speaker 3: on his shoulder, sealed on his backside. He can get
Speaker 3: downhill and now he's spraying out to all these guys
Speaker 3: and they're actually all really good offensive players when they
Speaker 3: have an advantage, Like Ruey shoots fifty three percent on
Speaker 3: unguarded catch and shoot threes, but you need to get
Speaker 3: him unguarded catch and shoot threes.
Speaker 4: Luca can do that.
Speaker 3: And one of the biggest things that it's allowed is
Speaker 3: it's allowed Lebron James, Like, have you ever watched a
Speaker 3: guy say like, oh, Lebron should drive to the basket
Speaker 3: every time? Yeah, it sounds great, but it's really exhausting
Speaker 3: to do that, especially at his age. Now, Lebron when
Speaker 3: he gets his touches can be super physically aggressive because
Speaker 3: he knows he has Luca to carry the lion's share
Speaker 3: of the offensive load. And so right now, when I
Speaker 3: look at this situation, yeah, they have defensive question marks,
Speaker 3: and we can get into that here in a minute,
Speaker 3: but I try not to overthink it. This team is
Speaker 3: going to be basically impossible to guard. And so they
Speaker 3: have a unit now their offense that presents legitimate problems
Speaker 3: for every single team in the league. That is a
Speaker 3: foundation you can build on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and remember Dallas won the West last year and
Speaker 1: their two best players are below average, suboptimal defensive players,
Speaker 1: Kyrie and Luca. Is that, let's be honest about the West.
Speaker 1: Denver has Jokic, but they're atrocious defensively. Houston's young, can't shoot,
Speaker 1: and I don't think they translate to a playoff team.
Speaker 1: I think they're just one of those teams that they
Speaker 1: are so young and twitchy and athletic. In the regular season,
Speaker 1: if you're not well rested, if you don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of tape time, they are a tough matchup. If
Speaker 1: I get to play them seven times. They can can't shoot.
Speaker 4: There's a team like that every year. Every year, there's
Speaker 4: that team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so all of a sudden, Denver can't defend, Houston
Speaker 1: can't shoot Oklahoma City. I don't trust chet Holmgren's health.
Speaker 1: I think they're the best team. Golden State doesn't have
Speaker 1: enough offensive firepower, very Steph reliant, even with Jimmy Butler.
Speaker 1: You know, Memphis is Memphis plays with a lot of
Speaker 1: pace and they are a lot of fun to watch.
Speaker 1: I don't trust them. You know said this part. They're
Speaker 1: just teams like Philadelphia in the plaus I don't trust them.
Speaker 1: Memphis in the plus, I don't trust them. I know
Speaker 1: Jaron Jackson, I know John Morant. I get it. So
Speaker 1: if you look at the west O case is clearly
Speaker 1: the best team. They have the most kind of diversity
Speaker 1: of options. They have so many different players, and they're
Speaker 1: really good and really young. They're what I think Utah
Speaker 1: wants to be in about three years with all those
Speaker 1: draft picks. But the Lakers are an exceptional offensive team,
Speaker 1: and if you're giving me, it's also a team Lebron
Speaker 1: clearly likes. Austin Reeves, he likes to play with them.
Speaker 1: It's obvious Lebron's like a He's like a fifteen year
Speaker 1: old with a crush on Luca, the way he plays
Speaker 1: the energy, and I just think they're so good offensively
Speaker 1: that there's nobody that's complete enough in the West to
Speaker 1: roll them. Boston would, but Boston's got you know, Boston's
Speaker 1: been playing these guys. You know, I watched them the
Speaker 1: other night against New York. Jesus, They're good. God, They're good.
Speaker 1: So my take is, if you put them in the East,
Speaker 1: I don't think they can. I don't think they can
Speaker 1: beat Boston. I think they're a Western Conference finals team.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to be at La Homer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 3: Every team below to me, Oka see Denver and the
Speaker 3: Lakers are the clear top three in the West. And
Speaker 3: Denver and like you were talking earlier about the young,
Speaker 3: feisty athletic team, Memphis used to be that team.
Speaker 4: That's Houston's that team.
Speaker 3: Now there's always a team like that, and that team
Speaker 3: always wins a lot of regular season games and then
Speaker 3: loses in the first two rounds. It's just that's what happens.
Speaker 3: And let's just put it this way. Who you picking
Speaker 3: in a playoff series? Fred Van Vliet and Jalen Green
Speaker 3: or one of these duos from the top of the
Speaker 3: of the conference, right, So, like, I'm with you on that.
Speaker 3: To me, Denver and the Lakers are both closer to
Speaker 3: Okac than people realize, just because Okase is also super
Speaker 3: young and athletic and has a ton of energy for
Speaker 3: the regular season. The question marks that you talked about
Speaker 3: in terms of the Lakers with the defense, that's where
Speaker 3: it gets interesting, because the Lakers were playing some pretty
Speaker 3: damn good basketball before Luca joined the squad. There in
Speaker 3: their last thirteen games, they have the best record in
Speaker 3: the league and they have the number one defense in
Speaker 3: the league. The Lakers do the number one defense for
Speaker 3: about a month now. Now there's a reason for that.
Speaker 3: Jared Vanderbilt is healthy. He is an excellent defensive player,
Speaker 3: and you turn Dangelo Russell, a bad defensive player, into
Speaker 3: Dorian Finney Smith who's a good defensive player. And then
Speaker 3: a huge part of that is part of that excitement
Speaker 3: from Lebron has manifested and he's playing a lot of
Speaker 3: defense this year, and he's been very good on.
Speaker 4: That end of the floor. But if you take a player.
Speaker 3: Out of that lineup and you insert Luca, you're not
Speaker 3: gonna be as good defensively. That's just acknowledging reality. So
Speaker 3: when Luca's in this picture full time, you're not gonna
Speaker 3: be as good defensively as you've been in the last month.
Speaker 3: But we've seen an NBA history like with Denver. Denver
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three, they were not an elite defense, no,
Speaker 3: but they had bad defenders on the court who did
Speaker 3: a job and did it well right there, and they
Speaker 3: were anchored by good defenders Contavious Calbo, Pope, Aaron Gordon.
Speaker 4: Bruce Brown.
Speaker 3: They had guys who did compete on defense. They did
Speaker 3: the hard jobs and then they created easier jobs.
Speaker 4: That's the thing.
Speaker 3: You can imagine a scenario where you've got Luca, Lebron, Austin,
Speaker 3: but you have Dorian Finney, Smith and Vando out there.
Speaker 3: This is gonna be a small ball team. Colin Alex
Speaker 3: lenn hasn't played a thousand minutes since twenty nineteen. Lebron's
Speaker 3: played sixteen hundred just this year. Like Alex Lenn, He's
Speaker 3: not gonna come in there and save the season. So
Speaker 3: this is a small ball team. But you can imagine
Speaker 3: a universe where Lebron's playing defense. You've got two professional
Speaker 3: defenders in the lineup, and what if they just score
Speaker 3: every time or get a great shot in every single time.
Speaker 1: A team that I think, and I don't know historically
Speaker 1: if this happens, I'll tell you the team in the
Speaker 1: West that I would not want to play, and right
Speaker 1: now they're not even a playing team. Keep your eye
Speaker 1: in San Antonio, Okay, Stefan Castle out of Yukon is
Speaker 1: no fun to defend. That guy is this time next
Speaker 1: year We're gonna have different conversations. Daron Fox. I think
Speaker 1: because he plays in Sacramento, you don't realize it. He's
Speaker 1: a twenty five point a night scorer with a high IQ.
Speaker 1: He's so good, we just don't watch him. Stefan Castle
Speaker 1: wemby Daron Fox. You know guys that get lost, but
Speaker 1: I don't know his EPA. Yeah, I don't know what
Speaker 1: all the numbers are, but like Harrison Barnes, you know
Speaker 1: it's this guy that Harrison's one of those players that,
Speaker 1: like Shane Battier, You're like, I think he's really good
Speaker 1: and he ends up making your team better, but nobody
Speaker 1: wants to talk about it. I think San Antonio, if
Speaker 1: you told me they went on like right now, they're
Speaker 1: not a playing team. I think they're going to go in.
Speaker 1: Popovich is going to steal a game in a series.
Speaker 1: Houston's the team we all think is going to be dangerous.
Speaker 1: I don't san Antonio the team nobody's paying attention due.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine Lakers end up you know,
Speaker 1: Denver ends up playing them, and Wemby neutralizes Jokic to
Speaker 1: some degree and castles a pain and gets the whistle.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, Denver. You can score on Denver like
Speaker 1: They're just not good. They're not effective at all. So
Speaker 1: I think I think the West is really fun. I
Speaker 1: thought the NBA had a tremendous fourteen day period. I thought,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler, you know it's funny about this Jason is
Speaker 1: that I know the analytic people think Wiggins maybe a
Speaker 1: better fit with Steph than Jimmy Butler. I read an
Speaker 1: article on that, But my take is Jimmy Butler's the
Speaker 1: anti Wiggins. He's tough, he's a badass, he's physical, he's ornery,
Speaker 1: and he's a really good number two. It's like in baseball,
Speaker 1: it's when you try to make a two to one
Speaker 1: your pitching staff's not good. Jimmy's an excellent two behind Steph,
Speaker 1: and he's the opposite of Steph. He's tough physically, he's
Speaker 1: a mid range guy. He'll defend you. I don't think
Speaker 1: Golden State's a championship team. But I just thought between Luca,
Speaker 1: between Deer and Fox to san Antonio, between Jimmy Butler
Speaker 1: the Warriors thought, I just thought the West got really
Speaker 1: And we've talked about this. The West has been better
Speaker 1: than the East for twenty five years. A lot of
Speaker 1: it's just better gms, and I thought the West had
Speaker 1: a great fourteen days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they completely flipped the conference over in a bunch
Speaker 3: of different ways. I liked what you said about san Antonio.
Speaker 3: Like we were talking earlier about like having a problem
Speaker 3: that other teams can't solve. Victor is a problem around
Speaker 3: the rim that other teams can't solve. Try and then
Speaker 3: the Deer and Fox as a two man game partner
Speaker 3: with Wemby is a problem that teams can't solve. The
Speaker 3: Jimmy Butler. It was amazing to me how many people
Speaker 3: overthought this. And when I was watching the Bucks game
Speaker 3: last night and I saw Jimmy Butler constantly operating in
Speaker 3: the middle of the floor as kind of like a
Speaker 3: hub out of the attention that Steph would gather. It
Speaker 3: reminded me of when we'd watch the Warriors back in
Speaker 3: their heyday, where it's like everyone talks about shooting, but
Speaker 3: when it comes to the Warriors with Steph, you don't
Speaker 3: actually want shooting as much as you want playmaking, because
Speaker 3: what happens is Steph gets two to the ball. As
Speaker 3: soon as Steph gets two to the ball, it's a
Speaker 3: four on three and it becomes more about quick processing
Speaker 3: and decision making and guys being in the right spots
Speaker 3: to get dunks and maybe a wide open corner three
Speaker 3: for a certain player out of that sequence to pay
Speaker 3: it off than it is about, like with Lebron or
Speaker 3: a rim pressuring guy, where you want spacing, you want
Speaker 3: shooting that pulls guys further away from the room. Steph
Speaker 3: inverts your spacing in that way, and it actually reminded
Speaker 3: me a lot of Andre Gudala. Remember when Andre Guodala
Speaker 3: was there. He was never a great shooter, but he
Speaker 3: constantly greased the wheels for them because he was a
Speaker 3: rangy ford who could screen and operate in the middle
Speaker 3: of the floor, make quick decisions new anden to cut
Speaker 3: new and to relocate, do all those sorts of things.
Speaker 3: There was a play in the Bucks game last night
Speaker 3: where Steph took a ball screen from Jimmy. Steph got two,
Speaker 3: he dropped it to Jimmy and Jimmy made a little
Speaker 3: ball faked buddy, healed, and then dropped it off to
Speaker 3: Draymond Green for an easy layup underneath the basket. And
Speaker 3: I literally just watched this and I'm.
Speaker 4: Like, this works. This just works.
Speaker 3: You weren't comfortable with Wiggins as a processor in the
Speaker 3: middle of the floor, you are comfortable with Jimmy. Simple
Speaker 3: stat how many times has Jimmy or how many times
Speaker 3: has Andrew Wiggins had seven plus assists in a basketball
Speaker 3: game in his NBA career fourteen? How many times did
Speaker 3: Jimmy have seven plus assists last year with the heat fifteen?
Speaker 3: So like, it's an entirely different stratosphere of playmaking talent
Speaker 3: that you plugged in there. You have a guy that
Speaker 3: can quickly process those situations. And they've been killing teams
Speaker 3: Colin so far. Obviously small sample. They've been really good
Speaker 3: with Jimmy on the floor with Steph off, which is
Speaker 3: all that really matters.
Speaker 4: Watch the key.
Speaker 1: I mean when I watched them two weeks ago when
Speaker 1: Steph left the floor, not only were the inefficient, they
Speaker 1: were unwatchable. They were a bad tell. I said, this,
Speaker 1: make the move to be a better TV product. You're terrible.
Speaker 3: Well, And like Pat Spencer, like at the lacrosse story,
Speaker 3: it's really cool. He probably shouldn't be your like secondary
Speaker 3: ball handler in a Thursday night national TV game against
Speaker 3: the Lakers when Steph's off the floor like that, that's
Speaker 3: an issue. But I'm with you, like I don't see
Speaker 3: the Warriors necessarily as a substantial threat to me. What's
Speaker 3: cool about it is we get to watch Steph play
Speaker 3: meaningful basketball again. Because I do think they're gonna get
Speaker 3: out of the play in tournament. I do think they're
Speaker 3: gonna end U getting at least a first round series,
Speaker 3: and that team's just gonna be fun to watch.
Speaker 1: And now for our segment, Hot Off the Press, presented
Speaker 1: by our friends at Louisiana Hot Sauce bring the food
Speaker 1: at your party to a whole new level with the
Speaker 1: original Louisiana brand Hot Sauce. I put it on a
Speaker 1: pizza last night. It was great. Bold, authentic flavor embodies
Speaker 1: the rich culinary tradition of Louisiana. The original Louisiana brand
Speaker 1: hot sauce, perfect for those who demand great flavor with
Speaker 1: just the right amount of heat. I use it on
Speaker 1: my eggs, I put it on my sandwiches, I put
Speaker 1: it on my pizzas. I love that. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: throw a sneaky move at you that I liked, Okay.
Speaker 1: Kyle Kuzman is a weird player. You can get thirty
Speaker 1: and the next night you get seven. He's just always
Speaker 1: been an odd f. I don't think Lebron ever loved him.
Speaker 1: He's kind of all over the map. But I really
Speaker 1: thought they should have moved off Middleton two years ago.
Speaker 1: And I think so much of being an NBA GM
Speaker 1: is figuring, singing around corners, moving off guys. A year early,
Speaker 1: I thought really good GMing was moving off Marcus Smart
Speaker 1: in Boston and getting Drew Holliday. I thought Marcus Smart,
Speaker 1: it was one thing for Jalen Brown to take around,
Speaker 1: take off possessions late in games from Tatum, it's another
Speaker 1: thing with Mark and Smart is doing it. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's time to get him out of the building, right
Speaker 1: And Drew Holliday is a better offensive player to me
Speaker 1: than Marcus Smart. But Kyle Kuzman to the Bucks, I
Speaker 1: thought was kind of a sneaky good move. So Washington's abysmal.
Speaker 1: Everybody gets lost there. He's still in his prime athletically,
Speaker 1: he played a lot of years in college, so he's
Speaker 1: older than most people think. But Dame's playing better. Janice
Speaker 1: has banged up a little bit. I looked at it
Speaker 1: and I thought, Okay, Boston is the best team in
Speaker 1: the East. Cleveland and New York are next. But I
Speaker 1: felt like the last year and a half, like I
Speaker 1: didn't even I didn't even look at Milwaukee like they
Speaker 1: were like a more functional Philadelphia. I just I don't
Speaker 1: think they're athletic enough. I don't know. I look at Kuzma, Dame, Jannis,
Speaker 1: Brook Lopez, I'm like, they feel like they could be
Speaker 1: a pain in the butt. It feels like they could be,
Speaker 1: you know, you talk about unenterable things. Dame's been good
Speaker 1: in big pressure games. Yannis is a hard matchup. They
Speaker 1: feel more athletic with Kuzma. Am I reaching here. I
Speaker 1: kind of feel like at the trade deadline it was
Speaker 1: almost like last year and Dallas goes and gets PJ.
Speaker 1: Washington and everybody's like, yeah, yeah, PJ Washington. About ten
Speaker 1: games in you're like, ah, shit, they're big. That's kind
Speaker 1: of a problem. I thought Kyle Kuzma was a sneaky pickup.
Speaker 4: I liked him too.
Speaker 3: There was an obvious question mark, which is he's been
Speaker 3: in Washington playing loser ball for the last like for
Speaker 3: the last like three four years. And that was why
Speaker 3: all the Bucks fans were concerned, and like they were like,
Speaker 3: we're trading Chris Middleton, a guy who's hit huge shots
Speaker 3: for us in the postseason over the years, for a
Speaker 3: guy like Kyle Kuzma, and you know, and I heard that,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to be like, then, what did you
Speaker 3: trade for Dame for like that? Like, yeah, you needed
Speaker 3: Chris to hit the game winner in Game seven against
Speaker 3: the Nets, but that was when you had Drew Holliday
Speaker 3: as your point guard. You have Dame to help you
Speaker 3: with that. Giannis is a better offensive player than he
Speaker 3: used to be. One of the things that was really
Speaker 3: interesting about Kuzma's development is he was kind of the
Speaker 3: same player in Washington that he was his early years
Speaker 3: with the Lakers. But then what happened was they get Lebron,
Speaker 3: they get Anthony Davis. They all of a sudden, they're
Speaker 3: playing a lot of two big lineups. So eight he's
Speaker 3: playing the four and Lebron's playing the three, and there's
Speaker 3: just not minutes Kuzma, and so he had to he
Speaker 3: had to claw his way into the rotation. And the
Speaker 3: way he did was he became an excellent defensive rebounder,
Speaker 3: an excellent help side defender, an excellent cutter. He just
Speaker 3: became a guy who did a bunch of dirty work.
Speaker 3: And that's been the most encouraging thing in the In
Speaker 3: the three games that I've watched him so far with Milwaukee,
Speaker 3: he's immediately doing that stuff I'm watching him against Philly,
Speaker 3: like fronting the post against him, beat and battling for
Speaker 3: loose balls and getting contested rebounds. And you talked about
Speaker 3: the chaos and his scoring and and that's real. But
Speaker 3: one of the weird things with Kuzma is NBA dudes
Speaker 3: respect him as a scorer. So they well, he's had, Yeah, he's.
Speaker 1: Had twenty five games in his career, like Kusma's got
Speaker 1: Kusma's got twenty nine.
Speaker 3: Points, like what, Yeah, he's had like ninety something twenty
Speaker 3: five plus point games and eleven thirty five plus point games.
Speaker 1: And he's a crazy offensive player.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm already seeing him Like when he pump
Speaker 3: fakes on the perimeter, dudes are chasing him off the line,
Speaker 3: So like, he has offensive utility that goes beyond just
Speaker 3: his efficiency. But where I get excited about it is like,
Speaker 3: because Chris Middleton's shot making is less valuable in the
Speaker 3: context of Dame. You go from having a three a
Speaker 3: small forward rotation with Chris and Torian to thin like
Speaker 3: older forwards that don't rebound in aren't great athletes, to
Speaker 3: a dominant rebounder who's huge and young and moves well.
Speaker 3: And now I look at it in the context of Yannis,
Speaker 3: because Janis hasn't been playing, he's been resting this CAF.
Speaker 3: You'll be back after the All Star break. When you
Speaker 3: put Kuzma next to Yannis and Brook there's a force
Speaker 3: multiplier effect going back to the beating the dead horse
Speaker 3: with this like presenting a problem that teams can't handle.
Speaker 3: The Bucks are going to be a monster rebounding team
Speaker 3: and they are really going to protect the paint well,
Speaker 3: and that is going to present a problem for teams.
Speaker 3: And again, I think you're obviously giving up a little
Speaker 3: bit of just that surgical half court stuff that you
Speaker 3: get with Chris. Let's not overthink this. He was twelve
Speaker 3: and a half points a game this year. He's not
Speaker 3: the same player. This is a clear talent add and
Speaker 3: you've fundamentally altered the physical profile of your front line
Speaker 3: by bringing him in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's funny. I you know, I always said,
Speaker 1: if I didn't do what I did for a living,
Speaker 1: I'd love to be an NFL GM. In the NBA,
Speaker 1: you could do that. Like you watch you have to.
Speaker 1: I mean I watch preseason football like it's just it's
Speaker 1: a reality of what it is. But in the NBA
Speaker 1: sometimes I think we overthink analytics and I'll pivot back
Speaker 1: to the Lakers. So I always use this argument is
Speaker 1: I think the smartest team I've ever seen in my
Speaker 1: life was the Miami Heat when they had Batti A. Ray,
Speaker 1: Allen E, Donnis Haslam, Chris Bosh, Lebron d Wade, Mario
Speaker 1: Chalmers drove me crazy. It's like he didn't fit, but
Speaker 1: the rest of those guys were like, really sort.
Speaker 4: Of, it's it's they're smart players.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, and it's like beyond smart self awareness, situational awareness.
Speaker 1: And and I remember that Miami team Jason Joel Anthony
Speaker 1: was a six to nine center. They had no true
Speaker 1: point guard. Lebron and d Wade are both like at
Speaker 1: the time, streaky shooters, hyper athletic, need the ball to
Speaker 1: be dominant. And I remember when they put it together.
Speaker 1: I'm like, the how's bosh is the best shooter out
Speaker 1: outside of Ray? And I was like, I don't even
Speaker 1: know what this team is. They were so smart, they
Speaker 1: were so good. They fed off each other. There was
Speaker 1: no egos. It was like Lebron was just so damn
Speaker 1: happy to play with another elite player after all those
Speaker 1: years in Cleveland. And it was just a force of optimism.
Speaker 1: It was a force of intellect. I loved watching them play.
Speaker 1: I think they're one of the weaker dominant teams of
Speaker 1: my life. They didn't have a dominant big, they didn't
Speaker 1: have a point It was just like smart dudes understood
Speaker 1: spacing the floor and everybody. And I think d Wade
Speaker 1: is really a key component in that. He understood very early.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, look, Lebron's really good. I'llbeit two totally happy.
Speaker 1: I don't need to be the ace on the staff.
Speaker 1: By the way, a lot of guys struggle with that.
Speaker 1: D Wade smart, it's like, no, no, no, I'm good. I'll
Speaker 1: step back. It's my city, it's his team. And I
Speaker 1: think sometimes we get too caught up in that, like
Speaker 1: Draymond really smart basketball player, Jimmy Butler really smart, Curry
Speaker 1: really smart. In the end, these games, remember when you
Speaker 1: go to the playoffs, you're playing the same team. Everybody
Speaker 1: knows your little tricks. They all become circumstantial. They're all
Speaker 1: situational half court Like, Houston's not going to run like
Speaker 1: that in the playoffs. You're not gonna all those free
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get that twelve points a game you
Speaker 1: get because you're young, athletic, twitchy, you run, You're not
Speaker 1: gonna get that stuff. So I don't know.
Speaker 4: I just.
Speaker 1: When it comes to NBA teams, like like right now,
Speaker 1: I look at the Lakers and I'm thinking, Jesus, Luca
Speaker 1: and Lebron are really big brands, self aware, very secure.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just look at the differently today.
Speaker 1: I think they're a different team. I mean, Austin Reeves,
Speaker 1: it's a bunch of guys. They all kind of have
Speaker 1: the same game, different levels of it. They want the ball,
Speaker 1: they like the ball. But when I watched them last night,
Speaker 1: I'm like, everybody is completely secure in who they are.
Speaker 1: There's not gonna be any struggles with this team. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I maybe I'm too optimistic on being in
Speaker 1: La Homer, but there is value and I know I'm
Speaker 1: being long winded on this, there is value on smart
Speaker 1: guys playing basketball and enjoying watching other people succeed. That's
Speaker 1: a thing, right.
Speaker 4: To your point.
Speaker 3: The playoffs are so much about problem solving, like, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're having trouble with this coverage, what are we gonna do.
Speaker 3: We're having trouble with them running this action. What are
Speaker 3: we gonna do? And you just put enough smart minds
Speaker 3: in a room and they can figure it out. And
Speaker 3: you know, I think there's a little too much being
Speaker 3: made of the center position. You know, even as I'm
Speaker 3: looking at some of this stuff with the centers that
Speaker 3: were being thrown out there, I want to be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this center might be your seventh or eighth best player.
Speaker 3: I don't want my seventh or eighth best player playing
Speaker 3: twenty minutes in a playoff game. He's a guy who
Speaker 3: who should be barely seeing the four. And I think
Speaker 3: one of the things that makes me optimistic on the
Speaker 3: size front is like Luca is six to nine, Lebron
Speaker 3: is six ' nine, Dorian Finney Smith is six's eight
Speaker 3: six ' nine, Jack Vanderbilt is six ' nine.
Speaker 1: This is their time.
Speaker 4: They're small, but.
Speaker 3: They're huge, Like it's a bunch of huge perimeter players,
Speaker 3: And like I imagine a scenario in the playoffs where it
Speaker 3: all goes down where it's it's Austin, Lebron, Luca, where
Speaker 3: Austin's your small guy, but then it's six nine sixty nine,
Speaker 3: and then it's gonna be two of Van der Ruey
Speaker 3: or Dorian Phinney Smith who are both six nine, are
Speaker 3: all six nine rangey forwards. And so for example, look
Speaker 3: at Oklahoma City, So like Oklahoma City is really good,
Speaker 3: but it's like a lot of six five and six
Speaker 3: six guys. So like there's even though they will present
Speaker 3: issues with their bigs in that series, like Chat's a problem,
Speaker 3: Isaya Hartenstein's a problem? The Lakers are gonna have four
Speaker 3: inches on every single matchup in that series that's on
Speaker 3: the perimeter, which is something to at least account when
Speaker 3: you're talking about this sort of thing. And that's where
Speaker 3: I look at the problem solving peace, Like like Lebron.
Speaker 3: You know, we talk so much about Kevin Durant being
Speaker 3: a plug and play guy, and for the record, I
Speaker 3: think he probably still is the best plug and play guy.
Speaker 4: But Lebron's a plug and play guy too.
Speaker 3: It's like, you mean, the guy who can defend and
Speaker 3: can rebound and can run. He can run action, but
Speaker 3: he can also screen. He can shoot when he's in
Speaker 3: spot up situations, he can play out of the post.
Speaker 3: Like Lebron can just shape shift into whatever your team needs.
Speaker 3: It's like the other night against Golden State, he has
Speaker 3: seventeen rebounds in a game. You know why, because it's like,
Speaker 3: we don't have a center, so tonight, I'm just gonna
Speaker 3: grab every damn rebound, Like that's That's just what I'm
Speaker 3: gonna do because that's what the team needs me to do.
Speaker 3: And so when I look at that group, it's just
Speaker 3: there's a lot of like kind of Swiss army knives
Speaker 3: in that group, and I think that that goes a
Speaker 3: long way towards kind of like problem solving the types
Speaker 3: of things that you're gonna run into in the postseason.
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, even when it comes to
Speaker 3: the center position, the only thing I really concern I'm
Speaker 3: the only thing I'm concerned about is Yoks, Like they
Speaker 3: don't have anybody that can even come remotely close to
Speaker 3: bothering Yo.
Speaker 1: Which we talked about this on the show. Jay Mack
Speaker 1: and I talked about this today. I'm like, Yoki is
Speaker 1: just scoring forty five points in the series, Like, just
Speaker 1: bake it in, pick on Jamal Murray's defense, like whatever,
Speaker 1: But he's gonna score forty five. You just have to
Speaker 1: come to terms with it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: I The only reason why I'm I'm waiting to watch
Speaker 3: more Lakers basketball before I come to any sort of
Speaker 3: conclusion is like you mentioned, Denver can struggle to guard,
Speaker 3: and that means they're definitely going to struggle to guard
Speaker 3: the Lakers because everyone's going to struggle to guard the
Speaker 3: Lakers in two. This is not the twenty twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three Nuggets where they had Kntavio's callwell, Pope as like
Speaker 3: this shoe in fifth Guy. It's gonna be a lot
Speaker 3: of like Christian Brown or Russell Westbrook seeing minutes in
Speaker 3: the postseason, and those are guys that I think JJ
Speaker 3: Reddick's going to be like, that's not Contavious called wo Pope.
Speaker 3: We can help off of him. Now, Denver's gonna find
Speaker 3: ways to score. They're going to score a lot of
Speaker 3: points in that sort of matchup. But I am curious
Speaker 3: to watch they play in like a week and a
Speaker 3: half and I'll be really interested to watch that game,
Speaker 3: mostly just to see how effectively they can break down
Speaker 3: Denver's defense because JJ's gonna have plans, He's gonna have
Speaker 3: things that he can try to get to get the
Speaker 3: ball out of Jokic's hands. But that's an interesting matchup there,
Speaker 3: and like it's a classic example of styles make fights.
Speaker 3: And I don't know about you, Colin, but if we
Speaker 3: look at last year in the Western Conference, that was
Speaker 3: a matchup playoff series in every single round, it was like, oh,
Speaker 3: Denver couldn't handle Minnesota, but Minnesota couldn't handle Dallas. I
Speaker 3: think Denver probably beats Dallas right. Well, you get matchups
Speaker 3: here or there, like what if what if Denver ends
Speaker 3: up at the four seed because the Lakers passed them
Speaker 3: at some point in the regular season. Now Denver's got
Speaker 3: to get through OKC in Round two before they even.
Speaker 4: See the Lakers.
Speaker 3: So like where that's where it gets into one of
Speaker 3: these situations where you can't write any of these teams
Speaker 3: off because they could catch a matchup and lose early.
Speaker 1: You know, a team that's I think the NBA has
Speaker 1: always been better when the next relevant in between Mikail Bridges,
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson, Kat Josh hart Og. It's a really good
Speaker 1: basketball team, but they do not match up with the Celtics,
Speaker 1: and this is where you're really good. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: watched them play the Celtics twice and that shit's not competitive,
Speaker 1: Like it's it does not work now, it's it's almost
Speaker 1: like the Celtics have circumvented the NBA CBA. The NBA
Speaker 1: CBA they don't want you to have like five really
Speaker 1: good players, and it's almost like the Celtics figure out
Speaker 1: of way to be the last team that can have
Speaker 1: a roster that you you're not supposed to have anymore,
Speaker 1: where Derek White's your fifth best guy some night.
Speaker 3: And now they're trying to sell the team so someone
Speaker 3: else has to pay for it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, like.
Speaker 1: It's like they're almost circumventing the new CBA, Like this
Speaker 1: is not really fair, and you can tell. So I
Speaker 1: think New York's a really good basketball team and I
Speaker 1: and I think I trust them in the playoffs. I
Speaker 1: think they're smart. I think they've got you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's well chronicled. They're kind of got a villain field.
Speaker 1: They play hard, they're smart. I think they're one of
Speaker 1: those teams that will be a better playoff team than
Speaker 1: a regular season team. And they're a good regular season team.
Speaker 1: They are teams like Houston, I think are a better
Speaker 1: regular season team than a playoff team. The next are
Speaker 1: gonna be fine. But I watch them now twice play Boston,
Speaker 1: and I want you to break it down because they
Speaker 1: don't match up and this is a good team. Let's
Speaker 1: just be honest about this. They got five to six
Speaker 1: guys in that rotation. The Knicks can match up with
Speaker 1: almost every team in the league. Why is Boston? You
Speaker 1: can tell Boston, Like when they played this past week,
Speaker 1: that's a national TV game, They're like, okay, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: I mean that thing was I mean four minutes in
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, yeah, Boston came to play. Boston's not
Speaker 1: f and around. Why doesn't New Because I think New
Speaker 1: York has enough different players, and they play hard enough,
Speaker 1: and they're really smart and they're well coached. They kind
Speaker 1: of match up with everybody. They do not match up
Speaker 1: with Boston. Like what is it?
Speaker 3: There are two kind of prevailing theories in NBA offense
Speaker 3: right now, which is like match up hunting versus like
Speaker 3: running motion. And the motion is like what you see
Speaker 3: with the Warriors. There's tons of screens, guys are running
Speaker 3: in circles all over the floor. Boston's like, where's your
Speaker 3: weakest defender, Let's get them up here, Let's play some basketball,
Speaker 3: and like that's literally all they do. And when I
Speaker 3: watch that game, the way they surgically attacked Jalen Brunson
Speaker 3: and Karl Anthony Towns every single time down the floor,
Speaker 3: they get them both in, they bring the ball off
Speaker 3: the floor, they'd have Jalen Brunson's man come screen for Tatum. Okay,
Speaker 3: now Jalen Brunson's on Tatum. Okay, now we're gonna get
Speaker 3: Cat into the action. So now it's like Tatum and
Speaker 3: one of his teammates attacking kat An Brunson in the
Speaker 3: same action and there's just nothing they can do about it.
Speaker 3: The Knicks are really, really good. They can score whenever
Speaker 3: they want, They get out and transition like crazy. They've
Speaker 3: got all these good players that are super bought into
Speaker 3: their r They're super fun to watch, and they have
Speaker 3: beat the shit out of some good teams this year.
Speaker 3: But every time I've watched them against Boston, it's the
Speaker 3: exact same issue. We are going to get Karl Anthony
Speaker 3: Towns in space and make him guard and just get
Speaker 3: right past him and then spray out and get great
Speaker 3: shots and beat you. It's actually kind of funny, Colin,
Speaker 3: because you can tell that they really want to beat
Speaker 3: the Knicks. Because the Celtics have played some pretty bad
Speaker 3: basketball in the middle of the season where they're not
Speaker 3: deliberate and where they do take bad shots and they
Speaker 3: settle and they don't do the things they need to do.
Speaker 3: They see the Knicks and they like snap back to
Speaker 3: the playoffs last year and they just get surgical in
Speaker 3: the way that they pick on those guys. But it
Speaker 3: really just comes down to they go at New York's
Speaker 3: worst defenders every single time, and then they play driving
Speaker 3: kick out of it to get great shots, and that
Speaker 3: really is the issue. And then Jalen Brunson, he just
Speaker 3: has this wall of athletic, bigger defender every single possession
Speaker 3: as it goes down to the other end, it's like,
Speaker 3: here's Jalen Brown, Here's Drew Holliday, Here's Derek White. He's
Speaker 3: just it's such a difficult job for him to consistently
Speaker 3: break down that Boston defense because they just have so
Speaker 3: many different defenders they can put on them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting to say that because I really like
Speaker 1: the dexterity of the Knicks. I think they're a matchup problem.
Speaker 1: Karl Anthony Towns is offensively gifted. He's shooting threes like
Speaker 1: right now, like the best he's ever I mean, he's
Speaker 1: really shooting the ball. Well, he's quirky. I've seen him
Speaker 1: play live four times, and there'll be halfs you're like,
Speaker 1: is he a top ten player in the league? Like
Speaker 1: he can destroy people, he can embarrass people, and then
Speaker 1: in the second half you'll be like, did he take
Speaker 1: a he made? Did he have a theorough flu at half?
Speaker 1: Like what happened? But it is interesting you break it
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad for our audience listening Jason is
Speaker 1: so good at this and that's why I just foisted
Speaker 1: it up to him. Is when I've watched him play
Speaker 1: twice the Celtics and it shit is not competitive. They
Speaker 1: just do not match up at all. You know. The
Speaker 1: NBA is a funny league where the NFL sort of
Speaker 1: separated from everybody for a lot of reasons. Our society
Speaker 1: is so distracted now, the tiktoks, the platforms, the iPhone,
Speaker 1: so regular season games when you play like hockey or baseball,
Speaker 1: it's really hard NBA. It's really hard college basketball to
Speaker 1: get ratings Monday through Friday. So college football, UFC, the NBA,
Speaker 1: the World Cup, they have big advantages. They feel like events.
Speaker 1: We're more of an event. Netflix has figured this out.
Speaker 1: We're more of an event culture now than a Monday
Speaker 1: through Friday, right, and we're just more distracted. But I
Speaker 1: will say this about the NBA, and I think they
Speaker 1: may not have their best players in the best markets.
Speaker 1: But Luca going to La Jimmy Butler to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: the Knicks are fun to watch. So is Boston. I
Speaker 1: think it's bigger than people think. The Aaron Fox to
Speaker 1: Wemby Baseball had a massive resurgence last year. And let's
Speaker 1: not try to overthink this. It's because Bryce Harper's and
Speaker 1: Philly Aaron Judges in New York. The Dodgers are an
Speaker 1: all star team. The Mets are really good, like all
Speaker 1: the really good players are almost all in the right markets.
Speaker 1: I thought it was not just a good week for
Speaker 1: the NBA. They repositioned their players. Wemby is the next superstar.
Speaker 1: Oh dearon Fox goes to him, Luca to La, like,
Speaker 1: the Knicks are really fun to watch. Boston's outstanding. And
Speaker 1: by the way, it's okay to have an OKC. That's
Speaker 1: a nothing wrong with that. But it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and it's easy to beat the NBA up and it is.
Speaker 1: Baseball is an agent run sport. Basketball is a player
Speaker 1: run sport. NFL sort of an executive run sport, which
Speaker 1: is the life that most of us can relate to
Speaker 1: and live in. I thought it was a substantial Like, Honestly,
Speaker 1: if you're Adam Silver and you could have pulled levers,
Speaker 1: you would have wanted Butler with Steph you would have
Speaker 1: wanted Wemby to get a twenty five point guy. I
Speaker 1: from your perspective, you watch the NBA regardless. I thought
Speaker 1: it was the best ten to fourteen day period the
Speaker 1: NBA has had in five years.
Speaker 4: Seriously, oh, one hundred percent agree.
Speaker 3: I found this to be so fascinated in Colin because
Speaker 3: you know, first of all, I'm a diehard basketball fan,
Speaker 3: and so when I hear people talk about the NBA
Speaker 3: in a negative light, I'm like, I get defensive.
Speaker 4: I'm like, no, we're good. This just please watch. It's
Speaker 4: gonna be interesting, I promise.
Speaker 3: And it's like, when everyone was talking about all this
Speaker 3: stuff early in the season, there were all these different
Speaker 3: prevailing opinions, and that, for the record, is what made
Speaker 3: it interesting is no one knows. No one knew why
Speaker 3: the ratings were down, and I was kind of keyed
Speaker 3: in on the concept of urgency. I kept thinking, like,
Speaker 3: what was the difference between like nineteen ninety eight when
Speaker 3: Michael Jordan was playing in right now, And the difference
Speaker 3: is there's just thousands of more options both on your
Speaker 3: TV and on your smartphone. It is in much more
Speaker 3: competitive space. And I still think that that is the
Speaker 3: primary barrier if between the NBA and like getting real
Speaker 3: consistently great ratings. That said, like, what really dawned on
Speaker 3: me in the last week as NBA interest skyrocketed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and even though the NFL is going to be just fine,
Speaker 3: there was a little bit of a stagnant kind of
Speaker 3: stretched there in the last couple of weeks where it's like,
Speaker 3: here are the Chiefs again, here are the Eagles again.
Speaker 3: It's kind of the same storylines. Okay, Yeah, Taylor Swift,
Speaker 3: what we talked about all that last year, it was
Speaker 3: like kind of a little bit stagnant. And what Dawn
Speaker 3: done me, Colin is I think the NBA screwed the
Speaker 3: pooch a little bit with this latest CBA by restricting
Speaker 3: player movement so much. It was a it was a
Speaker 3: problem where it became the only thing the NBA was,
Speaker 3: where all we talked about was players moving. And you
Speaker 3: don't want you don't want to go that far. But
Speaker 3: the truth of the matter is is a good amount
Speaker 3: of the intrigue in the NBA comes down to player movement.
Speaker 3: That's right, and it's and it's been like that my
Speaker 3: whole life. It keeps things fresh.
Speaker 1: I told you for this when he joined me. I said, Adam,
Speaker 1: you guys are too worried about this. I find the
Speaker 1: Warriors boring. When STEP's off the floor, I'm now gonna
Speaker 1: watch them play. I already have watched them play. Player
Speaker 1: movements front. The NFL figured this out. They moved their
Speaker 1: free agency period. They're like, people like this stuff. It's
Speaker 1: fantasy football. I think, listen, the NBA has always been
Speaker 1: a little concerned with tanking. But I do think sometimes
Speaker 1: the NBA worries about problems that are just natural and
Speaker 1: authentic and organic and it's okay, like people like they
Speaker 1: like traits, take out Lebron. The truth is, even Kab's
Speaker 1: player movement outside of the Warriors, it hasn't made the
Speaker 1: league unfair. One of his moves was great. The last
Speaker 1: tw who haven't done anything.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they almost always don't pan out. Actually, it's right,
Speaker 4: it's kind of hilarious.
Speaker 3: It's like, who's gonna be the next person to put
Speaker 3: all their chips in the basket and have some sort
Speaker 3: of some sort of issue. But like, yeah, that's kind
Speaker 3: of the way that I look at And I think
Speaker 3: part of it is they listen too much to certain
Speaker 3: owners and you almost need to get those guys together
Speaker 3: and be like, look, I get it, Like when this
Speaker 3: happens and you lose your star. It can be a problem.
Speaker 3: But the flip side of it is is like we're
Speaker 3: all gonna make a lot more money if there's intrigue
Speaker 3: surrounding the league. In an absence of urgency, we can
Speaker 3: make up for it with intrigue. And you don't want
Speaker 3: to go too far. You don't want to get it
Speaker 3: to where it becomes a soap opera. But I thought
Speaker 3: it was like Colin, It was like everyone was so
Speaker 3: just like whatever about the NBA all season until the
Speaker 3: Luca trade went down, that's right, and then it's just
Speaker 3: and it was almost like it kind of like broke
Speaker 3: the ice in a way to where everyone was like,
Speaker 3: you know what, let's shake things up too. Next thing,
Speaker 3: you know, you have six stars changing teams, you have
Speaker 3: all these new cores that you're looking at. It just
Speaker 3: becomes it just it just shook things up in the
Speaker 3: right way to reinvigorate interest. And so from that standpoint,
Speaker 3: like I do wonder if the NBA needs to take
Speaker 3: a look at a little bit more balance between like
Speaker 3: you need to find a way to incentivize players staying
Speaker 3: with teams, but at the same time make it possible
Speaker 3: for them to be moved, because right now it's too
Speaker 3: difficult to move them because of the apron rules and
Speaker 3: all these different things, and so like like Colin, more
Speaker 3: players would have moved if it wasn't for the current
Speaker 3: CBA structure, like when you have to match salaries but
Speaker 3: you can't taking additional money, and now everyone needs a
Speaker 3: third team to eat up salary just to facilitate a deal, right,
Speaker 3: like it just it made it difficult, and like everyone
Speaker 3: did it anyway. But like the point is is that
Speaker 3: I think the NBA kind of over indexed on stability, yes,
Speaker 3: and now all of a sudden, when you have stability
Speaker 3: without urgency, it just becomes boring.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think you know it's it's It's funny
Speaker 1: about professional sports is people talk about parody, but TV
Speaker 1: networks pay about thirty five percent for all these leagues
Speaker 1: or more. They don't want parody. Fox doesn't give a
Speaker 1: rip if they have to televise the Eagles every week
Speaker 1: and never the Panthers, like they don't care. It's like
Speaker 1: the reality is is the NBA partners at Amazon, NBA, ESPN,
Speaker 1: Amazon and NBC. If eight to ten teams are fun
Speaker 1: to watch, then that those are the teams you televise
Speaker 1: like Fox, We're gonna televise the Podres, the Dodgers, the Mets,
Speaker 1: the Yankees, maybe the Braves because they're so big in
Speaker 1: the South. And and that's about sixty five to seventy
Speaker 1: five percent of the games you televised. We don't. We're
Speaker 1: not behold into televising the Mariners. You know, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: And the NBA is not you know, ESPN doesn't have
Speaker 1: to televise Sacramento. So I agree with you, is that
Speaker 1: don't people like deals? I think what's happened in our
Speaker 1: society is that as we're more distracted, it takes more
Speaker 1: to grab our attention. But basketball, at its core, I mean,
Speaker 1: at its core, is a fun watch. It's it has
Speaker 1: many things that are really good. It's driven by stars,
Speaker 1: it's got egos, it's got rivalries, it's got a hierarchy.
Speaker 1: It's cool. You see celebrities at games. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that you know, baseball had a very good season,
Speaker 1: but baseball is long, the pacing is slow, celebrities don't
Speaker 1: go to games, the season is twice the NBA. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of things with baseball that in the current
Speaker 1: sort of societal structure and are how we're built out
Speaker 1: don't work. That's why speeding the game up was so important.
Speaker 1: Basketball's always had certain things young people like it. It's
Speaker 1: the culture, their shoes, it's star driven. So the key
Speaker 1: is can you get the stars moving around a little bit?
Speaker 1: Can you hopefully get them in your Boston's and your
Speaker 1: LA's and your Chicago's and your New York's and Phillies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: markets kind of matter. But it reminded me Jason years
Speaker 1: ago when before Obama became their presidential candidate, the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party was just sort of lost, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden a year later, after Barack Obama becomes president,
Speaker 1: You're like, Wow, that party is strong. They are dominant.
Speaker 1: That is the smart party. It is amazing when Connor
Speaker 1: McGregor is UFC is growing and growing, and Connor McGregor
Speaker 1: is this crazy talent. It's like it just took UFC
Speaker 1: to a completely Oh you've got to watch Saturday night.
Speaker 1: Connor McGregor's fighting, John Jones is fighting. The truth is
Speaker 1: the Lakers are good, the Celtics are good, the Knicks
Speaker 1: are good. Jason, the league's good. I mean, seriously, San Francisco,
Speaker 1: New York Los Angeles Boston. Yep. League's gonna be just fine.
Speaker 3: You gotta think about the casual fan, like when I
Speaker 3: when I think about like the nut jobs like me
Speaker 3: that are gonna watch the season no matter what, we're
Speaker 3: not the people that you're trying to impress and that
Speaker 3: and that really is the bottom line there. There has
Speaker 3: to be some intrigue. The NFL does it with urgency,
Speaker 3: and it's just so easy for anyone to watch the
Speaker 3: game and realize one team's trying to move this way
Speaker 3: and the other team's trying.
Speaker 4: To move this way.
Speaker 3: It's like it's basically like eleven on eleven tog of
Speaker 3: War if you really look at it, and basketball it
Speaker 3: just it. It needed this, and like I can't even
Speaker 3: colin I Rob.
Speaker 4: Polinka after trading for Luka Dacic.
Speaker 3: Got through the deadline without a center and put all
Speaker 3: of his eggs in the basket of Mark Williams, who's
Speaker 3: played like a third of the basketball games that he
Speaker 3: could have played in since he came into the league,
Speaker 3: Rob Polinka, and Genie Buss. Had this not gone down,
Speaker 3: the Lakers probably would have spiraled for another decade. It's
Speaker 3: hard for me to even quantify how much of a
Speaker 3: solid Nico Harrison and the MAVs did here for not
Speaker 3: just the Lakers, but for the entire NBA, because they
Speaker 3: set the Lakers up for the next decade when they
Speaker 3: probably would have spiraled from here.
Speaker 4: It really is a remarkable turn of events.
Speaker 1: You know, let's finish with this. I had said this,
Speaker 1: I am not going to defend Nico Harrison. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do it. But with the new Max deal,
Speaker 1: and because Luca, because of his all NBA and his experience,
Speaker 1: qualified for like the top of the food chain. It
Speaker 1: was different when the max to Lebron was thirty eight million,
Speaker 1: and that still wasn't maybe as much as a great
Speaker 1: NFL quarterback. When the max now is seventy four million annually. Okay,
Speaker 1: I get owners saying he's not in great shape, he
Speaker 1: doesn't defend, he's missed the last two camps. He hasn't
Speaker 1: played since Christmas. There's a duality to all this stuff. Yes,
Speaker 1: the stars will be paid more than Patrick Mahomes, like
Speaker 1: thirty percent more in some instances twenty percent more. But
Speaker 1: I do get even billionaires going, okay, okay, we've gotten
Speaker 1: a seventy five million a year just say this out loud,
Speaker 1: doesn't defend not in great shape, miss camp second time,
Speaker 1: hasn't played since Christmas, doesn't have a great work ethic,
Speaker 1: naturally gifted offensively, Yet that doesn't sound like a seventy
Speaker 1: four million dollar employee like Lebron qualifies that and Edwards.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's Wemby's, there's good a handful of players.
Speaker 1: You're like, you just pay that Steph Curry. But I
Speaker 1: do think is that when you get into a stratosphere
Speaker 1: where you're paid more than the highest paid CEOs on
Speaker 1: Wall Street, like there's a big difference. You're like, ooh,
Speaker 1: you know, guy's making thirty five million a year. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's insane money. Seventy four million dollars a year, and
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, he's missed the last couple of camps,
Speaker 1: hasn't played since Christmas. I do think, And you start
Speaker 1: looking at Kawhi, you look at Embid, and then you
Speaker 1: look at NBA legends like Kobe and Lebron. There was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a Shack quality with Luco where
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, I know he's transformational. But the Lakers
Speaker 1: moved off Shack. They moved off Shack and they talked
Speaker 1: about conditioning and commitment and playing defensively beyond block shots.
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying it's a good job. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have made the deal, but I think, Jason, when you
Speaker 1: start getting into seventy four million, I get an order
Speaker 1: going and I got I got paid five years of
Speaker 1: this and I'm watching and he's like, as I played
Speaker 1: since Christmas, I kind of get it to some degree,
Speaker 1: Am I nuts?
Speaker 3: You're not? I mean the concept that you're talking about.
Speaker 3: I think I've run into a lot as I'm looking
Speaker 3: at certain players, Like even I saw the brandon Ingram
Speaker 3: deal today and I'm like, good God, forty million a
Speaker 3: year for brand Ingram. I'm like, I'm like, when he's
Speaker 3: healthy and in rhythm, he's good. But he's been that
Speaker 3: like ten percent of the time over the last couple
Speaker 3: of years. Right that series against the Suns in the
Speaker 3: first round a couple years back, he looked amazing. But
Speaker 3: it's like, that's a lot of money to tie up
Speaker 3: Jalen Brown. I like Jalen Brown, but there's some years
Speaker 3: at the end of his deal where he's making like
Speaker 3: sixty five million. That's a lot of money to pay
Speaker 3: for some Jalen Brown when.
Speaker 1: He's regarded as the second best player on a team,
Speaker 1: second most gifted. It's like, I like Jalen Brown, but
Speaker 1: I think fans are forgetting sixty five seventy five million dollars.
Speaker 1: It's just different. It's like Musk and I forget when
Speaker 1: this happened over the last couple weeks. It's like, didn't
Speaker 1: Denmark or something like reject his bonus. There was some
Speaker 1: story about people, Okay, you can't have a billion dollar bonus,
Speaker 1: Like we're not doing that, Like they're even among rich people.
Speaker 1: There are numbers that feel egregious. And I am going
Speaker 1: to look under the hood and I'm gonna examine everything.
Speaker 1: If Luca was forty eight million today, you just not
Speaker 1: worry about the defense, but barking and officials not in
Speaker 1: shape hurt missus. Second cam hasn't playd since Christmas doesn't
Speaker 1: defend I. There's part of me that just gets it.
Speaker 1: There's a shack thing going on.
Speaker 3: I get it. Here's my one counterpoint. Shaq was considerably
Speaker 3: older at the time. Yes, And in my opinion, there
Speaker 3: are five transformational talents in the NBA, five talents that
Speaker 3: if you get this guy, everything you do is so
Speaker 3: much easier with team building. It's Jokic, it's Yannis, it's
Speaker 3: shake Yo, Alexander, it's Wemby, and it's Luca. To me,
Speaker 3: Luca is one of those guys, and he's twenty five
Speaker 3: years old. Even with the cap, like they're they're smoothing
Speaker 3: the cap so they don't have so that they avoid
Speaker 3: the Kevin Durant situation in twenty sixteen. But the CAP's
Speaker 3: gonna go up like something crazy like ten million a
Speaker 3: year in perpetuity through the end of the decade as
Speaker 3: they as they wrap in all this new TV money.
Speaker 3: So like, even in the context of team building, I think, like,
Speaker 3: even if Luca has taken up seventy five million in
Speaker 3: my cap, but I think I can get a payroll
Speaker 3: up to one eighty one ninety within a.
Speaker 4: Couple of years.
Speaker 3: I feel like I like my chances building around Luca,
Speaker 3: and so like, even though I grew with all things
Speaker 3: you said, and Colin, I made sure to say this
Speaker 3: in my show after the trade, like, I was super
Speaker 3: critical of Luca after the finals.
Speaker 4: We talked about it.
Speaker 3: It was the worst defensive performance I've ever seen from
Speaker 3: a star in the finals. His conditioning is embarrassing.
Speaker 4: For the record.
Speaker 3: One of the things I'm excited about is I want
Speaker 3: I think Lebron you can see it in his body language.
Speaker 3: I think Lebron is trying so hard to set an
Speaker 3: example for him. He's on Instagram and his hyperbaric chamber.
Speaker 3: He's hustling around on defense like he's never done it
Speaker 3: in his life. Lebron is Lebron is trying to set
Speaker 3: this example for Luca because he knows the potential that
Speaker 3: is there. But this is all I would say. He's fat,
Speaker 3: he's chubby, and he's slow. But he was fat and
Speaker 3: slow in the in the playoffs last year, and he
Speaker 3: absolutely obliterated the Minnesota Timberwolves and got within three wins
Speaker 3: of the trophy. Like, Yeah, at a certain point, I'm like,
Speaker 3: let's not overthink this. Even though I agree with everything
Speaker 3: you're saying, I just think Luca is worth the risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's called hoops tonight. It's Jason timp I
Speaker 1: think he has the ability to break down games and
Speaker 1: film as well as anybody that does this, and he's
Speaker 1: going to become as we know, in football season ends,
Speaker 1: we do a lot more with Jason. It's always great
Speaker 1: to see you. I gotta be honest, I have been
Speaker 1: really I had a stomach virus. I've been ah staying
Speaker 1: away from the Rocks. But I I just had one
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have another one when we signed off,
Speaker 1: really did. I can be a little blurry tonight. I
Speaker 1: gotta watch it. What game is tonight? What have we
Speaker 1: got tonight? Oh?
Speaker 3: Man, I haven't even looked at this slate yet. Let's
Speaker 3: I would imagine that the several more new trade uh
Speaker 3: trade guys to watch, all right, Grizzly Suns, that's a
Speaker 3: fun one. Nix Pacers, that's a fun one.
Speaker 1: All Right, there we go. Good see anybody.
Speaker 3: Good to see you too, man. Looking forward to the
Speaker 3: rest of the season.
Speaker 2: The volume