Robin Lumberg.
Rob enjoined my show Night There's seven to eleven Standard time Monday Friday. I was joined by my co host Big Ash and my friendj Glass or I'm listening. Very few people in the league see it like Robin.
When you see this, when you hear these stories, do you look at this and say, Okay, it's a team that's struggling a little bit and this is what's coming out, or does it feel like it's maybe something bigger like the Darvin ham eras crazy enough already unraveling in LA.
Well, I mean, look, they won the nd season tournament. They're a banner and everything.
You know.
I said it at the time, and I was only half joking that Lebron and the Lakers need to go as hard as they possibly can for the n season tournament because you know they are Their roster is not that talented from top to bottom.
When you look at it, they really don't have shooting.
They've got Tory in print playing minutes, Guys like that out there playing minutes. Lebron is the oldest player in the league. Anthony Davis, you know, as the street closed meme going on for him, So counting on those guys to not only be healthy in the playoffs is enough, but also counting on the rest of that talent around them being enough is too much. So I really did think going for the nd season tournament was a really
good idea for them. But yeah, I mean I think once you start seeing stuff like this from Shams and the like, there is smoke to that fire that they've been in a bit of a tailspin. And we all know the coach is always the easy scapegoat, you know, Rob Low I mean, Rob Plinka ain't gonna get canned, you know, in the middle of the season right now, So it's it clearly there's some disconnect, some discontent going
on with that team. I mean goes back to Austin Reeves and even reports of him having friction with Darvin Hamm and he's probably the third best player on that team. So yeah, I think the Lakers do have legitimate issues, and roster can production, aside from rotation, is one of them.
Yeah, I think Genie is a big part of that too, unfortunately hiring a lot of her friends. I know, Linda Rambis is like making calls and I think she was a Laker girl back in like the Showtime Era and then her and Kurt just kind of hung around. Emanuel Quickly though near and dear to my heart six Man of the Year candidate, he probably should have won it last year. He goes to Toronto, probably going to get the absolute bag. He goes crazy in his starting role
twenty six points. How do you think he and RJ affect Toronto moving forward?
Who quickly needed that sort of changing scenery?
I think because of the conflict with Brunson, I mean, through no fault of his own. Those two guys just played the same position, and Brunson is really good, you know, Brenson, aside from his height, it doesn't really get enough credit for what he's actually done with the Knicks in the league at this point, so quickly was never going to get all the way off the leash with the Knicks just because of that position. Fit in the fact that
you couldn't play those two guys together. So I like that look for Toronto there.
RJ.
Barrett was never that much of an impact player for the Knicks, but maybe back home and Kennedy played well for the national team as well. You know, it's just the kind of thing, perhaps a change of scenery less expectations will help him out. So Toronto was going really nowhere. There was no reason for them not to take a swing at something that could stick. And it looks so far like the move has been a good fit.
And then on the other side, Robin, I mean from the Knicks perspective, did you like them trading for Og And then do you think like the Knicks finally have enough now for them to go out in the offseason and attract one of these big free agents.
You know, I think I like the move quite a bit actually, because, like I just said, that they needed that wing position they had quickly giving them a glut at that guard spot. Now maybe they need a backup there. I think they could use an upgrade at shooting guard. But they had Brunson, they had Randall oj Og goes in tween and that's a good fit for them.
As far as a big star, I mean, we're so caught.
We're almost like trained with muscle memory to do the same exercises in the NBA.
So they need to get the guy. They're got to go get the gotta make the move. I don't know if that's the way that the league is constructed anymore.
Every super team that's put together fails now, Yes, you know, everyone falls apart at the seams. We're already like talking about the devise of the Phoenix Suns. They were just put together. So I don't think we're in that era anymore. In fact, I think one thing. Look at the odds right right there on my screen. Look how close and bunched up a lot of those teams are. None of those are super teams per se. I mean, obviously Milwaukee
now has Giannis and Dame. The Celtics have a bunch of guys, but the Heat were in the finals a year ago. No one's calling them a super team. Plus fifteen hundred looks pretty good to me given their recent history. So I think the NBA has done a good job at developing parody in a certain sense, where we're now in a world where the Oklahoma City Thunder or all the sudden contenders, the Minnesota Timberwolves are all the sudden contenders.
You're probably could list off six eight.
Teams who realistically could at least be in the mix. So I don't think the Knicks have to go out there and land the biggest fish possible.
I think they have to continue to.
Build on their roster and improve their personnel because they aren't that far away. I mean the heat I just mentioned, we're in the finals last year. The Knicks won six games with them last season without these moves, So I think they keep making those moves around the margins, they could be right in the mix.
Yeah, where do the Knicks stack up to you?
Then?
I mean we haven't seen much obviously with this new roster in the way that it's constructed yet. But the East, I mean, I'm looking here. We got the magic, the Cavs and the Knicks all sitting there at nineteen and fifteen, and again, look, we got a long season ahead of us. The magic could fall off, although we've all sat here and talked about how much we like the magic coming into the season. Anyway, so fingers crossed it doesn't have you know, we've got a few bets on that division winner.
But like, just it feels like right now we haven't gotten to the point where a lot of teams have truly separated themselves besides maybe a Boston, but we found moments where Boston's incredibly frustrating too. Like I kind of feel like the Knicks are in a spot where they could easily climb back up to like maybe around like the four spot, maybe surpassed the Pacers because they're kind of up and down. It just everything feels very very wide open right now.
Yeah, man, that was what I was just saying.
I think the Knicks are probably the fifth best team in the conference, you know, looking at it on paper, given the heat, the pedigree points, given Boston and Milwaukee the edge, and then Phillies look really good. That's another team, sneaky team around the deadline. You know, Darryl Morey's always been very aggressive. One move could really put the Sixers over the top.
Though.
I'm you know, I'm not a big believer in Embiid when it comes to the postseason, just because he's usually broken down around that point in time and he doesn't get the same calls generational flopper for a big man. But you know, when the when the refing gets a little tighter. But yeah, I'd say the Knicks are right in that group of teams.
Again. They were, they were there last year.
Stop line used to be that the Knicks have won one playoff series since I graduated from high school. That is no longer true because they won a playoff series a year ago. So that's now two playoff series since I graduated from high school. And if they could win a playoff series, who's to say they can't win two With a slight improvement like they just made. I wouldn't be shocked if the Knicks are in the Eastern Conference.
Finals, especially now that they have some guys, or at least a guy, and Og and Nobi, who's a really good corner catch and shoot three point shooter. We saw what happened against the Miami Heat when they stopped being able to score from deep. They just packed the pain on them. I do want to get your thoughts on the Brooklyn Nets, and I know it's not a sexy team to talk about, but they're fascinating because they're hanging around.
They have reasons to compete. I mean, you would imagine they don't own their own draft picks due to the trades that they've made, and yet they seem already to be punting on the season, especially that game right around the Christmas break against Milwaukee where Jacques Vaughn sat every one for absolutely no reason against a packed house.
That was the move of contender makes, which was strange, you know, The reason that game stood out was Mchael Bridges. That game would not have been talked about the same way if it wasn't for Bridges to streak, because we see teams rest guys all the time now, usually it is a team that plans to be playing late into the spring and into the early summer, and that's not going to be the Brooklyn Nets. But they sat everybody
but cam Thomas and Bridges. Bridges obviously played because of his streak and then didn't go back into the game. That was what was so curious about it and really so infuriating if you're rooting for the team, because it was a winnable game, and then it's hard for jacqu Vaughn to get up there and go, you know, we gotta dive on the floor, we gotta make all these hustle plays when you totally give up on a game. So I don't think they they're punting the season because of that.
I think they were expecting to then win the next.
Game against the Wizards, but their season has gone to a tailspin since then. They haven't won a game since then. They lost to the Wizards, who obviously they should beat. They losto the rockets last. They look lifeless, they look soulless right now, and they're stuck in a nebulous area because, like you said, Trista, they don't have their own draft picks, so there's no incentive to tank right now. At the same time, they're clearly not contenders and their best assets
are down the line. Like I really, I'm a fan of the Kevin Durant trade, all things considered. Once you know, once that red button is pushed, you know you're forced into making a move. I thought they did as well as you possibly could, getting Bridges and Johnson back, not to mention four first round picks, pick swaps, whatever the rest of that package was. And if you look at the way Phoenix is constructed, very good chance they are bad when those picks come due. But they're still paying
the debt on the Harden trade to Houston. They owe their pick to Houston this year, So you make the argument, I suppose sell off everything and just try to get as many assets back, but that's probably not helping you in the short term. I think most likely they're keeping what they consider their core pieces, the Twins. I don't know what the organization thinks about Cam Thomas because he's weirdly been jerked around.
Where's he's not.
Starting, then he's starting, then he's not starting, then he's getting pulled after struggling a little bit, when really you should be developing somebody like him over Spencer Dinwiddie. I guess, even though you know Thomas has his flaws, but maybe
they view him as a trade chip. I'm curious to see where they go if they make a desperate move at the deadline, or if they make more like marginal moves like trading Dinwittie who's in expiring, trading Claxton who's inexpiring, trading guys like Royce O'Neill and Dorian Finney Smith who might have value to contenders and not value to them right now, and still trying to build around those guys who are in their late twenties on good contracts.
Rob What about the Grizzlies. Obviously now with John Arampack, they're playing a lot better. They're five and a half games behind the Lakers for that ten seed, and they'll playing game if that were to happen today. I think the tough thing with the Grizzlies for me, it's like if they end up making like a nine or ten seed, Like who's the team that they would replace? But do you think maybe they're worth a bet long term with job back now in the fold.
Oh no, I gotta check my receipts and see what they say. You know, I keep them.
I still don't know what John Morant was talking about. Did anybody ever say he wasn't a good basketball?
What the case?
But it's tough in the West, and with all those teams bunched up when you start in that kind of hole. Now, the play in tournament changes the whole game in a sense, because we were just talking about the nets, and the nets are what five games under five hundred right now, but still in the play in tournament, right so your your your life raft is a lot longer nowadays. It's it's not like Leonardo DiCaprio from The Titanic.
You're not getting kicked off that sink it to the bottom of the ocean. You can hang on and cling on for longer.
But I think that the Grizzlies started in a little bit too much of a hole to really get up there with.
I got about a minut is so left here. We were talking about the Warriors earlier sixteen and seventeen. Draymond's gonna be back with them soon. I mean, clearly, they've they've gotten older. This is what happens with great teams. It's just the way the NBA works. Are they still a playoff team in your eyes? Are they just a play in team in your eyes at this point? Because I feel like it's still really hard to write them off just given the history of this team.
Yeah, I think they're right on that bubble seven, eight, nine, ten. But Steph Curry is you know, it's funny all the Steph Lebron talk over the years because now Curry is in the position Lebron was once in where he's actually, of all the superstars in the league, probably asked to do more than anybody else when it comes to singularly carrying a team. Klay Thompson is not the same player
he once was. Draymond Green can't stop choking people or you know, doing whatever he's doing to get himself suspended. You got who else is Wiggins was benched. I mean, they got, you know, cominga guy, little.
Nice pieces, but they don't have another scorer.
Really, they don't have consistent secondary production point second third production point wise, A lot of that's coming from staff, so I really just don't think they have the horses anymore to get it done.
Yeah, it's crazy, but all all good things come to an end in the NBA, as we've seen Robin Lundberg s, I now appreciate it time man, Thanks for coming on.
You got it.
You remember everybody who talks about Michael Jordan never losing when his dynasty ended, he quit to go play baseball.
Exactly, he dodged. He dodged all the criticism. He knew, he knew, but the damn legacy was gonna be to smart move.
Thanks for roving he did.
He played baseball, came back, team was good again, and then you know what, Like nobody ever talks about Jordan and the Wizards by the way, let's let's just bring that up. I remember those days.
Yeah, yeah, he's.
Having he's having himself A night I watched the Spurs and I'm like, why aren't they better?
Like they have some talent?
I got you, trust done.
He's on a nationally televised game going after GM to night