On this episode of This League, we talk about the train wreck that is the Atlanta Hawks, the most surprising reason that the New Orleans Pelicans are one of the most exciting teams in the league.
And how they still might not make the playoffs.
We also talk about James Harden's exciting return back to Houston, and we also work on answering a bunch well not really a bunch, just a couple of new Listener dms Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert about to get fined.
Yes they are, Yes they are. And at a.
Certain point, if you know that even making mention of how bad the refereeing is, we'll get your ass fined. You might as well skip the subtleties and just come out and say it right, No sense of beating around the bush.
Might as well just say.
That the game was stolen from you, which is exactly what Donovan Mitchell said in his presser after the loss to the Sixers in overtime.
Let's hear what Donovan head say.
It's screwed in a way by this. You know, like we won this game in my personal opinion, you know, but like I said, I'm gonna give them credit. They won whatever. Cool, but like this is it's a consistent thing, and you know, the question is can we can we do it? Can we sustain it?
Are we th real?
Number?
One?
Like, yeah, the hell we are. And it's getting it's getting ridiculous, KK that this is this is what's happening, you know what I mean? We have a whole second half of the season to go and get ready for. But like I'm sick of it, to be honest with that, we all are, you know, And I think this is something that just if it eats me, it eats at me. Man, And it's I don't, I don't y'all know what it is. We all know what it is. But it's it's really getting out of hand. It's really really really getting out
of hand. And the lead needs to do something about this because I want to see the last two minute report.
What is he referring to?
I would say, atrocious, terrible, disgustingly bad calls.
Marty, you who did the little crying face while you were listening to Donovan? You think he's being a bitch.
No, no, no, don't put words in my mouth. I just I have a history with Donovan Mitchell. So like I'll always kind of do that with him, but there were some really in that game. Yet, No, I don't blame him at all for saying that.
The first bad call was when Royce O'Neill went after a loose ball. This is in the fourth quarter, less than a minute left in the game. He seems to pass the ball to Donovan Mitchell before his foot touches out of bounce. He does in review he had not touched with his foot to the ground, but apparently, like some childhood fort game at a castle.
If you make contact with the ref who is out of bounds, you are now out of bounce.
So that was the first one that is absolutely unconscionable.
So then obviously Sixers get the ball back.
At this point, Utah's up three and Donovan would have either had a clear path foul or he would have made a layup right, so they would have gone up five with a minute left, But instead embiid hits the three overtime right.
Momentum, all swinging in the Sixers way.
Then in the last minute of ot Spider drove down the lane, spun around Ben Simmons. Ben Simmons had his arm and they called it a hooking fowl on Donovan Mitchell, an offensive foul. Wh it's really yo, let me just get my arm from underneath yours because you're hooked, you're holding on. But no foul on Donovan. Okay, Then that phantom call on Embiid Embiid gets rim checked. That one was really bad. There was no foul, and then and then they call a foul on who is it, Mike Conley?
I think they called the foul on Mike Conley. And then either Donovan Mitchell said something or made contact with the ball with his foot and Embiid baited the ref and a calling a technical foul on Donovan, and now you get fucking free throws and the technical foul and then I don't know what happened for Donovan get the second technical, he gets ejected from the game. He kicks the water cooler into that guy.
He's like, I'm sorry.
It went from the Jazz should have won that game easily to then they lose by nine in overtime.
Yeah.
And then after the game, Rudy Gobert says things as well.
This is what he said.
Our guys are not able to get calls. Everybody in the fucking league gets we all.
Know that we're the Utah Jazz.
We all know that we're the Utah Jazz, and maybe some people don't want to see us go as far as we can go.
But as disappointing.
Three times in a row Mike Conley going to the rim and they're grabbing him.
Right in front of the officials, and there's no calls.
And on the other end, there are calls that are invisible, phantom calls that are being made. What Marty did I say about small market teams, This is a perfect example. We don't sorry, we don't want to see you win. We don't want nice things for you. The NBA wants the Lakers, they want the Clippers. They want the Phoenix Suns with pretty boy Booker. Okay, benefit or no, but they do want the Lakers and the Clippers in this right.
They do not want the Mormon Utah Jazz.
No coffee drinking, ski slope riding, homogeneous city in arena. They I mean, I don't want to say it, but that is exactly what Rudy Gobert is trying to say, is they don't want to see us win. And these are facts. I do not like to be a conspiracy theorist, but that's the that's the deal. Gobert confirmed that the league was out to get them because they're a small market franchise. He says, I don't want to say that,
but I really believe it. After playing in this league for eight years, it's a little harder to be in a small market.
That's one of the things that we've got to overcome. That's why I told the guys.
When you're a small market, you've got to be better than just be better. You've got to be elite, and you've got to be in control and what you can control. And there are facts for this conspiracy theory, and Brad Botkin for CBS Last two Nights Ago wrote, if Mitchell does have a legit gripe with the officials, perhaps it stems from him or his teammates not getting calls in
big moments. The Jazz take under two clutch free throws per game within five points with under five minutes to play, ranking dead last, and Mitchell has only taken nine clutch free throws all season, which ranks fortieth in the league, and no Utah player is in the top fifty. The Sixers show outshot Utah thirty five to nineteen from the line, which you would say, oh, well, maybe maybe that's just
how it goes. No, because Utah normally is one of the best defensive teams in the league, and their opponents only get to the line the sixth fewest.
Times out of any NBA team.
So for the Philadelphia seventy six ers to outpace Utah thirty five to nineteen when normally they only get nineteen, their opponents only get nineteen free throws a game, double their average. What is going on? I mean, come on, now, come on now, This is like just you know statistics, right, Marty, they have the little bell curve, and then it's like outside one standard deviation is like this percon probability, and
outside of this, this is two standard deviations outside of normal. Right, this is an impossible situation unless there's something nefarious at play, and I personally believe that there is something nefarious at play in Philadelphia.
I mean, it's very.
Clear emb did everything that he could to win his team the game, using his semantics and his histrionics and all kinds of dramatics that he likes to put on the game in order to win. And that's fine, he said, He said something on Twitter. Embiids basically admitted it Spider clap back because mb was like, yeah, going into the second half feeling good, and Donvan writes back, you a fool bruh. And then and then Embiid responds back with ha ha ha. Second time, I got you teed up
lmaogg like, yeah, I did that. I personally got you ejected.
I mean that one's never going away, no ever.
Never going away. I love Joel Embiid.
He's one of the funniest players, uh maybe in the NBA, most entertaining, obviously very skilled, but if you are playing against Joel Embiid, there.
May be no more annoying.
Person to go up against because he is so aggressively in your face about like just basically cheating his way into a win.
And we'll say it after fact, like yeah, I cheated.
Well, he did have that famous flop in like the backcourt. I think it was on Mitchell. Actually, I think that's true.
That's what he's said second time. Second time.
I think the only good news is the Jazz are to a point after all of this, at the.
Halfway mark, you know you're not gonna get calls.
It's just time to take the buzzsaw, keep the foot on the opponent's neck at all times, because if it comes down to the refs, you're gonna lose, which is gonna be pretty important to know come playoff time. And they're just not going to get those those whistles that a team like the Clippers or the Lakers will get. There are two types of great coaches.
In the NBA.
You can either be one of those Brad Stevens, X's and O's got my clipboard kind of nerds that can draw up the coolest little out of bounds play with five point two seconds left and.
Like outscheme out, scheme out smart right. Or you can be like Doc Rivers.
And I'm no shade to Doc Rivers as an Ex's and o's guy, but he's known as an ego manager. So X's and O's ego managers. The real great ones do both right right. What you can't be is bad at both of those things. You cannot be a head coach in the NBA and do both of those things quite terribly.
That'll get you ass fired. That'll do that.
Lloyd Pierce, Ah, Lloyd Pierce, he was really bad.
It appears at.
Both of those things, and predictably, Monday morning, after the pod dropped, swish, the guillotine came down for Lloyd Pierce's neck.
Rip.
To Lloyd Pierce, they even as fucked up. They even let him run Monday practice. They let him run practice. Come back to the hotel and we're like, hey, great practice.
You're fucking out of here.
You're done. Getting fired on the road is tough, tough.
Why though, why do they have to do it this way right break?
Like, couldn't you have just done it at the All Star break? It's just crazy. He knew.
He knew because even last week he said to the Athletic Travis the Hawks GM is going to fire me one day, and when he'd done, I'm not even gonna be mad. That guy's damn near my best friend. That is basically a man who knows that he said that.
He said that, Yes, that's not me. That was printed in the Athletic. I'm not even going to be mad. That's how you know you're dead man walking. That's that's how you know. I don't care how much hot water I am in.
I will never admit there's a possibility of me being let go until I'm already let go, like Scott Brooks is doing it the perfect way, where Scott's like, I believe we're gonna be at a point where we get a deal done, like I think it's gonna happen, Like he's out here basically prognosticating an extension when he's the odds on favorite to be the next coach fired.
That's how you do it.
That's how you stay in the league, because then people are like, wait, hold on, you flip the narrative on its head. By all accounts, Lloyd Pierce was a valuable asset to the NBA in certain ways. He helped get the Arenas to be voting centers with Lebron.
He was thoughtful. The other coaches love him. Rick Carlyle even like, I.
Don't know if you saw it, but like after Lloyd Pierce was fired, Rick Carlile issued a statement that was like this is crazy.
Yeah, he was like this. He literally said, this is crazy.
But the problem is that only coaches seem to be the ones that like Lloyd Pierce, like his.
Own, his own team, his own team.
There's multiple articles written about his entire team not liking him. We know that the Hawks have been in a bad situation. They've had a tough year with injuries, fluid schedules, no crowds, back to backs, and so, yeah, you're Lloyd Pierce and you have been given like a rock and a carrot, and they're like, go make chicken noodle soup, Go make something out of this Michelin star And so he's had
a bad he's had a bad goal of it. In terms of injuries, he's I think they've had the most second most injuries in the NBA, one hundred and forty three man games lost. Okay, that's obviously tough, but at this point you kind of have to be nice to your players if you know you're not gonna get him to win because everybody's basically sitting on the bench and they're injured. According to a deep dive in The Athletic he's has seemed to piss off every Hawks player individually
and the team as a whole. Bro They said sometimes we come up to him and we ask him like, hey, can you change this, that or that, and he's like no, No. He's publicly sewering multiple members of his team, Trey Young, John Collins, Cam Reddish in the media, just shit talking them and then expecting them to go out and perform for him. Every single player that he has coached said that they don't feel heard when they go and talk to him in his office.
That's not good. Yeah, hey, hey, we're opening to maybe.
Play like a little bit more of a free flowing fourth quarter offense. Like things are kind of stagnant for us. We've given up eleven twelve fourth quarter leads.
Like what do you.
Think and he's like, nah, I think things are good just the way that they are. It is insane. So he said these things about his players. He said John Collins was selfish. He said Cam Reddish was overrated and not performing up to his expectations, and that Trey Young he doesn't like the way that Tray Young draws fouls. He doesn't like where Trey Young pulls up from And then when they approached him about it, he was like, no, that's not exactly what I meant.
That's not what I said.
Really, I didn't say you were selfish, John, I said you you want plays called for you, but I don't think you're good enough for us to call play specifically for you.
Cam.
I know you said you think I said that you were overrated, but really, I'm just saying that I thought you would be a lot better than.
You are, Trey.
I know you think that I'm saying that you're a chucker, but really I just think you need to take better shots.
I mean that's all. I mean.
It's exactly the same thing with just like nicer language around it. You can't be this way. You cannot be this way. I knew when I looked at this stat this is bad.
This is bad. So I think that there was only two.
Games that the Atlanta Hawks won in eleven, right, they were two and eleven, okay, and those two games were when Lloyd Pierce left the team because his wife had a baby.
So when you when the only two.
Games in an eleven twelve game stretch that you win, or when your head coach is nowhere near the team, I think it's time for him to be nowhere.
Near the team.
Yeah, I mean they were sure talking about that.
They absolutely absolutely so.
Cam Reddish has missed eight games due to injury, Gallinari ten games, Rondo sixteen games, Bogdanovic twenty five games, Chris Dunn the entire season on Yukka, their rookie number six pick. Overall miss twenty games. Even Trey Young has missed a couple of games. DeAndre Hunter, DeAndre Hunter missed multiple games, like I said, one hundred and forty three man games, lost second in the NBA. So did he get a bad break? Did he have basically nothing to work with?
Yes? That is true.
Was he a bad coach and a bad ego manager? Did his entire team not like being coached by him? So?
Yes? Somebody asked they.
Did like a random anonymous poll, which coach in the league.
Would you not like to be coached by? And there were.
Atlanta Hawks players who said, can I choose the coach that's coaching me?
I didn't make this out. This is not a joke. This is real. So those two things are not mutually exclusive, are they.
You can have a shit situation and also be bad at your job, and at that point you can't go out in the beginning of the year and say.
We're gonna make the playoffs. That's what he did.
Folks set expectations in an outrageous manner for the owner to then say.
What's up.
What's up?
You guys have lost thirteen out of fifteen. You told me, you told me you were gonna make the playoffs.
You gotta go. And now we've got Nate McMillan's ass Nate McMillan.
Walk the ball up to half court. That's what we have for the rest of the year. With this quote quote high flying offense. The good news is Nate McMillan, his entire career, has said listen, I want to run a fast paced offense. It's not me, it's really the players that I have.
I know that I had.
Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge, but it was just them. I wanted to push the pace.
I know that I was one of the.
Slowest offenses in Indiana as a head coach, but it was them.
I know I had Victor Oladipo, it was them.
I don't know.
I like Lloyd Peerce. Maybe he was the wrong guy to coach young players. I mean, maybe he's the kind of guy that could be like a skills development assistant to hold players accountable, like I don't know Ben Simmons. Maybe he would fit to be Ben simmons shooting accountability partner. Because Lloyd Pierce doesn't appear to have much carrot in him.
It's just all shit talking.
It's all stick stick stick let's just say that I've got lots to say about Nate McMillan as a new head coach, so much that that's gonna be a segment on Monday, so I've got to dig deep onto whether he's actually going to make it long term, and also
what some other coaching candidates will look like. But the good news is that the Hawks at the halfway point, because the East is sort of big trash, they're only three and a half games out of the four seed, and all without all that drama in the locker room and fourth quarter collapses, this team could have actually been right there. If they would have won six out of those twelve, they'd be three in the East right now.
Isn't that crazy?
That is? Yeah, I mean the East is so jammed up right now.
It's so weird, Like they legitimately just blew multiple fourth quarter leads, like they're up double ditchits and they just it just dissolves out of nowhere. And I think Lloyd Pierce was a big reason for that. So hopefully they're able to salvage the season. I was very excited about them in like week one or two because they were.
I mean, they're fast paced, they're fun.
Yeah, they're four and one, hot, hot, hot, sexy, scoring like one hundred and thirty points per game, and then they just fell off a cliff. So hopefully they can fulfill Lloyd Pierce's proclamation before the season was started, and hopefully this is a playoff team that would be very, very fun. Pelicans might be one of the most exciting teams to watch right now, and I think they before the start of the month, they were in the middle of the offensive ratings and since then they are the
number one offense in basketball. What stan Van Gundy did with Zion is actually pretty incredible, and what that did for the offense is also sort of interesting. He turned Zion a power forward into a point forward. And the funny thing is because you would think like Zion's pretty big, pretty clunky, like not very smooth player, but he can handle the rock.
Oh yeah.
He has good court vision, good awareness, can pass the ball so quick, crossover change directions super fast. So when Zion's up there by the free throw line, he can see everything and get downhill really fast. And what that has done is then opened up the offense for Lonzo Ball or he doesn't need to facilitate he doesn't need to play mix, so he's playing better. Brandon Ingram is also getting downhill and there's more space on the floor.
And even though all of them, Eric Bledsoe, brandon Ingram, Zion Loonzo, Josh Hart, all of them are tacking the rim. They are one of the least three point shooting teams right now in a league where three point shooting is king, and they're the number one offense in basketball. That is that is sort of stunning, uh, And I think that is a part of what stan Van Gundy was trying to do. And you talk about the defense, the reason for that defense falling off of a cliff Drew Holliday.
Oh yeah, he I mean, that's yeah, unfathomable loss.
It's crazy.
So The Athletic did an article about this changing offense, and essentially the Pelicans now are running something that's old school but still operating in a league where everybody else is shooting threes. So even though this offense is scoring just as much, if not a little bit more than they did last year, the way that they're doing it is totally different.
The Pels last.
Year were number nine in the NBA in three point shot frequency and five and three pointers made per game, mostly because of Drew Holliday and mostly because of the Alvin Gentry system right this year, in a more traditional offense that favors penetration over threes.
They're number twenty four in the.
NBA in three point frequency and number twenty three in threes made. And yet they're scoring more points now than they did last year one hundred and fifteen point nine versus one hundred and fifteen point eight. They were number four in the league in overall scoring then and they're number five now with a totally different, retooled offensive scheme and largely similar I mean pretty much similar roster outside of losing Drew Holliday and getting.
Uh Eric Bledsoe.
So what that shows me is that there's more than one way, as they say, to skin a cat, and maybe, just maybe we don't have to see all perimeter play all the time. Because they played the Jazz last Monday, and guess what Jazz made. Jazz is like number one three point shooting team. They made seventeen threes, Pelicans made seven. Pelicans won one twenty seven, one twenty four. The Pelicans became the first team to score seventy points in the
paint against the Jazz in a quarter of a century. Hoof, that is insane to be able to beat the Jazz in that manner when they are shooting lights out from everywhere and you're playing bullyball against the defensive player of the Year candidate and Rudy Golbert Like, what does that tell you? Yeah?
And they were up that entire game. The Jazz made a run at the very year they did. Yeah.
So stan Van Gundy, even though he's old school, I don't really like him, it's working.
His philosophy is working.
Limit turnovers, forget offensive rebounding, push the pace.
The big man's the key to the offense.
You move the ball quickly and above all else, get to the fucking rack.
Get to the rack.
And with Zion like it makes sense he can get downhill at any time you give him any little bit of momentum, which is why it makes sense that he's away from the basket, right. You can't get a ton of momentum three feet from there. You have to be up by the free throw line in order to get downhill, right.
Yeah.
So he changed the offense in New Orleans and it is working. The problem is the defense like you said, is not working. They're fun, they're young, they're winning, but they also lose a lot of games because they give up a shitload of points. They actually give up more points than they score. So that's a problem, I would say, and I would say that the reason why, if you look at it, is because stan Van Gundy does not
prioritize offensive rebounds. He basically says, when you shoot, just run back, just run back, No get another possession for yourself, No whine the clock down. Like it's almost like he's like, yeah, we're not gonna run the ball in football, like you know how teams are, like, we're going to eliminate your offense by just controlling time of possession.
Stan Van Gundy doesn't care about that. He's just like, get up and down.
He's likes this weird hybrid of Mike dan Toni and old school basketball. I don't understand that philosophy whatsoever, because you could argue right that offensive rebounds are a form of defense, right, Yeah, you're preventing a team from getting back and getting out. In transition, in the last twenty games, the Pelicans have simultaneously produced the league's best offense and the worst defense. That is not a recipe for long term success. And the West is tight. The team is
still under five hundred. They're playing better, but after the All Star break, have you taken a look at the schedule? No, it's daunting. They probably will be like an eleven seed. It's not gonna get much easier. Wednesday night was a perfect example of the Pells problem. In a nutshell, they came off that great Jazz win and then they just get smoked by the Bulls. Brandon Ingram admitted that they just do this repeatedly. We play great against good teams and we play like shit against bad ones.
That's a problem.
They enter a stretch of games that they should probably beat opponents and they probably won't. So my fear that this is going to be the best team in basketball that does not make the playoffs. And if they were in the East, as we have said, even a team like the Atlanta Hawks can be a three seed, four seed, five seed, So tough stretch for the Pelicans to make a run. They're gonna have to replace the Warriors, Grizzlies, and Mavericks. Do you think that's gonna happen?
Marty?
I wouldn't bet on it wouldn't bet on it.
The best thing that the Pelicans have going for them is that everyone down to the eleven seed has a chance to get in. So the Pelicans, even as an eleven, can still sneak into the eight, which you could say the pandemic.
Wo James Harden came back to Houston.
And as we probably predicted, it was a blowout, comfortable, nearly twenty point win. Not a lot to talk about in that game except for my six unit win. That was like the lock of the Nights. Oh yeah, hell yeah, yea nets minus ten and a half just hammered. But the thing that I want to talk about was all of the chatter prior to the game, fanfare from James to Kyrie to like you said, Marty the fucking owner of the Houston Rockets himself had some things to say as well.
Let's play what Kyrie said.
Play everybody at home, enjoy the game. There will be no tension and no shit talking going on on the court or about James and my presence or anybody else's presence. So we're coming to Houston to enjoy the game of basketball and play it at a high level. On behalf of James and the rest of the guys because we know it's a s a special night.
Regardless, you know, everybody at home, there will be no tension, no shit talking, not in my presence or anyone else's presence about James. That was some bodyguard shit right there. No one is gonna be talking shit about James. He also said earlier, we've all been through this, We've seen it all, we've.
Done it all.
So I thought to myself, Kyrie and Kevin Durant are the perfect players to be James Harden's teammates when he's going back to the city that he created bad blood in. Kyrie created some bad blood in Cleveland. Yeah, created some bad blood in Boston, and then Kevin Durant bad blood and okay see, and I'd say somewhat bad blood in Oakland.
Pop fans were disappointed.
They know what it's like to come back to an arena in it to be filled with booze. Oh yeah, and James Harden for sure got some booze. But then Tilman for Titta was like, hey, there's not gonna be any tension here. In fact, we love James Harden so much. We are at some undefined point in the future. Not sure when going to be retiring James Harden's number number thirteen, No idea when that's coming, but that's coming down the pike. James Harden will always be a rocket in our estimation.
Thank you so much, James for your service.
We love you. Let's just sweep.
Everything under the rock in terms of how you left. And then James Harden is.
Like, Yep, I love Houston. Houston is my home. It's always gonna be my home.
I want to change thousands of lies because the city of Houston has done so much more for me than you could even know it to me. Felt like before the game, holy shit, things must be tense because everybody is talking about let's just cool the temperature down, and James.
Harden says that Houston is his home.
And I don't know if you know this, Marty, but James Harden even opened up a restaurant recently in Houston called thirteen, after his jersey number.
I did not know this.
James Harden, in the middle of a pandemic, has opened up a two hundred and fifty person restaurant. Head chef former NFL running back. Cannot make this shit up. You cannot make this shit up the food selection high end strip club, chic fried lobster tail on top of mac and cheese, one hundred and twenty five dollars, thirty two hours dry rub Tomahawk's steak with pineapple butter on top. I mean, no shit like if James, if this is James Harden's kind of food, no wonder he's putting on
twenty yeah in the offseason. If he's not running and playing eighty two games in this season.
I mean, he's just getting fat. That's just what he's doing, just.
Eating his dick off.
But just eating his dick off exactly. Are you excited about that menu? Is that the kind of menu you.
Would be into?
The lobster mac? Maybe, but uh, I don't know about the tomahawk steak.
Gotta be a champagne room in the back.
No oops.
Yeah, back to the story though. I just thought that that was an interesting little tidbit. I was, I was doing some research so the nets wipe the floor with Houston, and as I.
Was, I'm getting to a point.
As I was watching this game, I thought to myself, like you said, there's not much to be encouraged about. This team is big trash without Christian Wood. They are awful, like just losing to everyone. The easiest bet in sports right now is betting against the Houston Rockets.
Just responsibly put a lot of money on that.
They are so trash that after losing their their coach is so trash.
He is so defeated.
Even when he's trying to rile them up, it's still tepid, just answering questions like why you guys suck?
Why can you guys not compete? Why do you guys not try play.
The clipt getting defense and everything? How do you how do you correct that in such a short amount of time.
Yeah, it's all.
It's all of us looking in the mirror and deciding that we're not gonna take it anymore. We're not gonna allow this anymore. We're not going to succumb to the pressure, to the adversity, to the disappointment that has been building for a long time.
Oh my god, this guy, this guy, even after a twelve.
Game I think at this point it's eleven games.
Even after an eleven game losing streak where you're just getting your teeth kicked in on a night to night basis, he's like, it's just a matter of deciding that you don't want to take it anymore. He's like, we're not gonna take it.
No.
But even with like less energy than that, I don't I am not inspired by Steven Silas in the least.
He hit some serious Earl Watson vibes.
He has big Earl. You know all about Earl Watson.
So when we were tanking, it's a very similar feeling to that, where there's just nothing positive happening in the coach just has to go and yeah, he.
Has to stand out there like a wet rag and just explain himself in the most I don't know what's going on?
What else do you want from me? These guys can't play basketball?
And I have to say, looking back on it, James Harden was one hundred percent right to get the fuck out of there.
This team is bad. He might have been he might have been too patient.
As possible.
Yeah, eight games might have been too long. Man.
When James Harden said this roster wasn't close, boy, he said we don't have enough pieces to compete for a championship, and everybody was like.
Oh, how could you say that?
Look at him, Look at them, look at them. They are not close to a championship. They are not close to a playoff spot, folks. This is a lottery team. My god, was he not kidding. Let's look at some numbers. Since Christian Wood went down in February, the Rockets have lost twelve straight games by an average of twenty points, including five twenty point losses. They lost to Memphis by forty nine. Memphis, they lost. You just lost to the Memphis Grizzlies by fifty.
This team is legit awful.
Nothing to be excited about, nothing to take pleasure in. The only thing that I could have possibly been excited about this matchup as if DeMarcus Cousins was still on the team, because you know, something exciting would have happened. I tuned in thinking that maybe there'd be something, and it was just a dog walk, Just a dog walk,
no wonder. James Harden put on that fat suit, broke quarantine mistraining camp to send the message, folks, this is red alert, red alert read I do not want I want to be here, and then had to say it out loud. Listen, I've send you every signal that you could possibly have without saying it to your face.
I don't wanna fucking be here anymore, Get me out, Get out, Jesus Christ.
If he wouldn't have had that explosive presser, he could still be there right now, Marty, Can you imagine how miserable James Harden would have been right the second, knowing what he could be capable of putting up MVP numbers, averaging more assists than he has in his career average, just setting up his teammates, looking like the most gentle, generous point guard.
We've ever seen in history.
And no, he could have been sitting in Houston eating fried lobster with pineapple butter and fucking mac and cheese, just getting fatter and fatter and fatter like Mike Myers and Austin Powers, just getting gross.
Yeah, he's turning into fat bastard out there.
That would have been James Harden if we wouldn't have let him escape to Brooklyn. Thank god hard and dogged them. Thank God he made it messy. Thank God he did everything he could do to save himself so that he could go and win. So we've have some questions, only a couple, because I think we're running a little bit behind.
Okay, first up, we have what team should I invest my fandom into, grew up on the Bulls in the nineties and faded on them as a favorite. Sense, you know, I like.
This question a lot. It depends on I would say, what kind of person you are. I think being a fan, it's sort of perfect your fan base, my fan base based on I think who we are. So if you are a glitz and glam person, if you are someone who likes to stunt on them a little bit, walk into a room with your team colors and everybody knows you got banners. It's purple and gold. Baby, it's the
La Lakers. Lakers have got to be it. And you know that once COVID is over and you got a little vaccine Johnson and Johnson in your blood, Staples Center is the place to v baby.
Sit in court side if you can afford the tickets.
Everything's all like, you know, that's crazy, the way that the Staples is.
It's like the court is lit up, but everything else is dark.
Yeah, And you go into the like little candy room and there's like everything imaginable inside of there, and they've got their lobster and truffle butter and steak and.
Wait, what's the candy room.
There's like a full candy room in the back when you go in. If you sit in there, like the VIP area, it's crazy. It's crazy. There's like the whole back wall inside this back room under the tunnel, like where they.
Have the VIPs get food. Is like a candy factory.
It's like sour patch, like licorice ropes. There's every lemonheads, everything you can imagine in like little jars with little scoopers, and you have cups. They have these huge like soda cups and you just fill the cups filled with candy. It's my favorite thing about being at Staple Center. It happens with the Clipper game and the Laker game. It is fucking lit.
Sounds phenomenal lit.
So the Lakers have gotta be that no sexier team in basketball. They've got Lebron James, Anthony Davis. The kind of person that adopts the La Lakers is probably already a Yankee fan anyway. So if you don't and you already like the Bulls, so you already like excellence, that's a good team for you.
This kind of fan is.
Just here for the candy room and postseason games, parades and good vibes.
If you're a basketball purist, I would say, you know, if you like the x's.
And no's, if maybe basketball is new to you, you just want to like, I don't know, just get back to the way that things used to be. San Antonio Spurs, long standing coach in the league, main star for two decades, was nicknamed the Big Fundamental. Their jersey colors aren't even colors, they're just shades, yeah.
Black and silver. If you don't like, if you like a lot of pick.
And rolls, just monochrome, generic shit, I would say you could be a San Antonio Spurs fan.
You're a simple man.
You just want to enjoy good, old fashioned, fundamental basketball.
That's it.
If you have a penchant for disappointment, gotta be a Milwaukee Bucks fan.
No team has been so hyped up for.
The last three years and as constantly disappointed as much as the Bucks number one seed and bounced out of the first You have an athlete that signed the Super Max and is probably gonna request a trade in twenty four months. There are sadomascots out there, Marty. They do exist. And if you're listening nineties Bucks fan or nineties Bulls fan, I would say being the Bucks fan is for you, rinse, repeat, suffer.
Okay, next up we have do the Nuggets make a deep run this year?
Nuggets have one good game against the team that I just said is going to probably lose in the first round.
Everybody is sucking. Let me stop.
Everybody is hyping the Bucks up so fucking much that anytime anyone beats the Bucks they're a contender. Let me just say this out loud, very clearly. The Bucks are not a contender. They will not contend for a championship this year, or next year or the year after that. As long as those boys are in Brooklyn, and the East has a few teams that I think match up
better with them, they are not going to contend. If you beat the Bucks, that does not make you a contender because they are not a contender.
I'd agree with that.
Yeah, Okay, the Nuggets are up and down. They beat the Bucks, they beat the Lakers, they beat the Suns, they beat the Blazers.
One of those Sons victories, the two minute reports showed they shouldn't have just.
Correct, just want to mention correct. They did win that game.
They've beaten great teams and they've also lost, kind of like the Pelicans lost to some shitty ones as well.
Yeah, uh huh.
They lost to the Kings, They've lost to the Hawks, They've lost to the Wizards. I mean, they may be eight and four with their last twelve with wins against the Lakers, Bucks, and Blazers, but I am not sold. They are seventh in the West, and Yokic has been phenomenal.
But my point is if.
In the last ten games, Yokic is averaging third and Jamal Murray is averaging thirty and you have gone only six and four during that time period, you have a massive problem on your hands. You can't have two people on your team average thirty and then say, well, in order for us to win, we need some big time minutes from PJ Dozer. No, the Nuggets will not make a deep run. They will not make a deep run.
I tell you what. The Nuggets can play some defense, and they can hold teams to the Bucks to like in the mid nineties in terms of points, but against offenses, even though Atlanta we know is big trash and Washington is who knows they can score and good backcourts are gonna give them trouble. And the problem with the West is that there's a lot of good backcourts that are gonna give them a lot of trouble. I do not see the Nuggets going anywhere close to where they went
last year. I do not see the Nuggets as a real team. And that's it. I mean, it's just it's just that simple. That's the whole like prisoner of the moment recency bias. Like they beat one good team that everybody falsely believes as a contender, and then it's like, oh my god, can the Nuggets make a deep run?
No, what do you think? You agree?
Uh?
Yeah, I mean they may win a series. That's that's the cap though. There's no way they're going back to the West Finals.
This is what I think will happen. They will be the eight seed, they will have to play a play in game. Oh it's not and they will lose that playoff play in game.
Oh yeah, I get yeah.
So I don't even think they don't. I don't even think they go to the first round. That is what I think. That's how low I am on the Nuggets. And I love Jamal Murray and I love Jokic. That's all the time that we have for this League. Please subscribe, please rate, Please review Apple podcasts and Spotify. I can't say it enough. It makes a massive difference. Unsubscribing and resubscribing on Apple is like sixty percent of our rankings. We also have This League hoodies on sale in the
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