On this episode of This League, we break down the firing and the hiring of the new Timberwolves head coach in a matter of ten minutes. We talk about the two types of basketball fans that exist in the world, ones that enjoy the beauty of basketball and ones who look at only wins, losses and numbers. Then it's time. It's finally here, the Lamello ball appreciation segment.
Yeah, no, it's our our first coaching change. Big news, big news.
Big news, coaching carousel. It's been a long time coming for our man, Ryan Saunders, who is essentially hired because he's the son of Flip Saunders. That's his main credential. So yeah, that's the facts. Minnesota Timberwolves fired Ryan Saunders after their loss against the Knicks. Probably not a surprise to anyone, given that the Timberwolves have only had seven wins on this season. They are seven and twenty four. This season's been a train wreck, it is. There's been
nothing good to say. Well, there's just been like one or two good things to say about the Timberwolves, which we'll get into next. Karl Anthony Towns has missed a ton of games almost the entire season, with COVID D'Angelo Russell has missed the last eight games, who knows when he's coming back, and the team has lost eight of ten, including four in the row. So yeah, the Saunders getting the boot is definitely not shocking. I think it's been a long time coming. But the thing that was shocking
was what happened right after. So you get whoaed little put a little tweet out, breaking news, breaking news, Ryan Saunders has been fired. This is at like almost midnight last night. Boom. And then you're like, okay, thinking in your head, who are they going to replace him with? And within ten minutes Shams dropped the hiring news whoa all of a sudden, Timberwolves have hired Chris Finch, not on an interim basis, to be their head coach of
the Minnesota Timberwolves multi year contract. Holy moley, And this hire is very much a non Timberwolves type. Higher Finch is who is he? Because he's not a huge name to the average casual NBA fan, Finch is an under the radar coach in the mold of Nick Nurse. In fact, he is so in the mold of Nick Nurse. They met while coaching in Britain as rivals, struck up a friendship, worked together on and off ever since NBA Outsider. By all intents and purposes, he's won championships in Britain and
in Europe. He's coached Olympic basketball. Considered one of the best offensive minds in the game, his motion offense has transformed the high lying Rockets with James Harden. He came in to transform that with Dan Toni and Daryl Moury. He then went to the Nuggets in twenty sixteen, transformed a little player named Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray that became the fourth best offense in the NBA and in the last sixty games the first best offense in the NBA.
Three fourths of that year. They were number one pretty much overnight in terms of points scored in efficiency. Then he bounced to New Orleans and had a little fun run with Drew Holliday and Boogie Cousins and Brandon Ingram. Last year, his entire role was to transform Brandon Ingram and revive his career that Drew Holliday DeMarcus Cousins. After DeMarcus Cousins got injured right he had Drew Holliday and Rondo and turned them into the monster that beat the
Portland Trailblazers in a sweep. There was no business, no business. He put Miratic on. This is some nerd talk, but he put Miritic on Nurkic our center and pretty much locked Dame the fuck down with Drew and we went home. And now he pretty much got dicked out of the New Orleans job. So when Alvin Gentry got fired, he was supposed to be waiting in the wings to get the head coaching gig there, and then they gave the
job to stan Van Gundy. Yuck. And when they gave the job to stan Van Gundy, Chris Finch was like, I'm out. I'm out. So since then he's been in Toronto for this part of this year, transforming Siakam and transforming this Raptor's offense into a more motion style offense. Now that they have different pieces than they had when they were a contender before, and it's been a rocky road and now they've seen to smooth things out and
are beating good teams again. He also interviewed the first time that the Minnesota Timberwolves had a job opening and instead Gerson Roses was the director of Player Personnel and the GM in Houston when Chris Finch was running the Rio Grand team, the D League team in Houston, and also when he was an assistant coach for the Rockets. So they've got a little history there, right, And Gerson
Ross is the GM now of the Minnesota Timberwolves. So Chris Finch interviewed with Gerson the first time around when they gave that job to Ryan Saunders, and now he's been basically waiting in the wings for the shoot to drop, and within ten minutes of the firing gets hired. That's where we are. Do you feel like you've learned anything?
I do? I do. It's funny how things like this can go under the radar. People are gonna have this big impact and a lot of people don't even really know who they are.
It's crazy, right, it's crazy, But not everyone. I personally am happy with this. This feels like a changing of the guard of a team and a franchise as a whole that has been we'll call it not great decision makers.
Yeah, let's go with that.
We'll call it their talent evaluation hasn't been exactly stellar.
Pretty poor pretty poor.
What they've gotten out of their pieces has been even worse than the pieces that they actually get. So I was happy when I saw this news.
I was like, oh shit, okay, I feel like we all pull for the Wolves like a little bit.
Come on, they've been They're a beaten child. They're beaten child, and I want to see Carl Anthony town succeed, don't you. But not everybody else was happy. One of the key members of saunders coaching staff is this guy named David Vanderpool. David Vanderpool worked in Portland and mentored, raised up and made Damian Lillard and CJ. McCollum into the two guards that they are today, which are one of the most potent back courts in the league besides probably Chris Paul
and Devin Booker and Harden and Kyrie. Yeah that's I would say, and then obviously Clay and Steph. But Clay is injured right so early in Dame's career, when you would see Dame getting coached up having a little like little iPad in his hand, it was David Vanderpool right next to him every single time. And I know this as a Portland Trailblazers fan because I'm like, who is this guy that Dame is attached to the hip too?
That was David Vanderpool. He's been in Minnesota for a while now, and a lot of people thought that David Vanderpool would get a head coaching gig. He actually interviewed for the Houston head coaching job that Steven Silas got didn't get it. Wow, So everyone thought Vanderpool was next in line to get the Timberwolves job when Ryan Saunders eventually hopefully got fired, and I think everybody wanted him
to get fired because he was a legacy hire. Around midnight last night, just after the news of Finch's hiring broke, Damian decided to go on Twitter and express his discontent. This is what he says, How the hell do you not hire David Vanderpool And he's right there on the bench. He's been in the front office successfully all Caps and on the front of the bench of a winning team successfully for seven years and has also played a major role in the development of a dominant backhourt shaking my
damn head. That's damning, and just for good measure, CJ decided to chime in as well. Make it make sense respectfully. It does make sense, though that's the problem. The Chris Finch hire does make sense. Not hiring or not interviewing Vanderpool makes zero sense in this league where we've got these protocols, these rules and regulations in terms of how you hire people and how you do not exclude people. Not interviewing Vanderpool was a mistake. But this hire does
seem to be driven by Karl Anthony Towns. I think Karl Anthony Towns is saying, based on what I'm reading, I want to become Nikola Jokic. I too, would like to be a passing, distributing, playmaking big man that can turn into an MVP candidate and be the focal point of an offense in a new way. I don't want to have to put up fifty every single night down on the post. I don't want to have to do that,
and I like that. I think if Karl Anthony Towns was a six to three guard and that was who you were building your franchise around, David Vanderpool would probably be a go to hire. But Chris Finch is known for developing wings and big man Anthony Davis brandon Ingram Nikola Jokic, so on and so on Siakham. So yeah, I would say that this is a complicated issue. I like David Vanderpool as a human being and as a coach.
I know him person. But for once, the Timberwolves are actually interesting and dominating the news cycle, which they haven't done in a very long time, and that is something that I thought I would never say. So I do love Vanderpool. I wanted to be a head coach. I'm a Portland Trailblazers fan. But I understand fully why Gris and Rosis made this decision and made the move long term relationship and fit Amine. This guy Amine is a Portland native, went to school with, went to my high school.
Did not know that.
Wow, so there was a Portland little Portland mix, a little Timberwolve mix. You know. It's really interesting. Just as an aside, is that the Portland Trailblazers and the Minnesota Timberwolves are almost like sister franchises. They do a lot of trades with one another, Flip Flip Saunders and a bunch of different gms in Portland. You could even go back to the Kevin Pritchard days when he was running things.
They did a lot of things together. They've had some bad blood coaches who go from Portland sometimes end up in Minnesota and vice versa. So this Portland Minnesota news back and forth was very interesting to me. Yeah, we have another Timberwolf segment.
Though, let's go. Let's go Wolve's podcast.
This is a Wolve's podcast.
Now.
I've been putting off talking about this franchise, like I said, because one, they've won seven games, so what are we really talking about? And they've been largely irrelevant in terms of news, and I've been asked to discuss them from a multiple amount of listener dms and I just had said no, no, But they just dominated the news this entire weekend. So let's do it. I want to get deep Marty for a second with you. We're living in
two Americas. Yes, as it relates to the NBA, there are people who find joy in the individual and beautiful moment of the game because of what it means not only for their soul but for the culture.
Right.
They take pleasure it in a crossover or in a Kyrie or a Lucas step back. Right, that's what gets them going. Group chat type vibes Twitter. Because basketball is supposed to be fun. Yep, they fell in love with the game because of those moments, right, Highlights are cool. Highlights are cool. And then there are other people who look at basketball as a business. Wins, losses, How close
are you to winning a championship? Stats or something called raptor I really don't know what it is, how close the team reading, net rating, dead cap, space, storylines, et cetera, et cetera. When you break it down like thatugh, do you want your It's basically like, are you an over person or you an under person? Do you bet on the over or do you bet on the under? Do you love joy? Do you take pleasure in the game or is it all about how how close you are
to winning? And breaking it down in terms of Excel spreadsheets, I understand both povs. I kind of live somewhere in the gray of those two places.
Yeah, me too, I would say.
And the Timberwolves Aunt Edwards dunk on Friday Night put a spotlight on this philosophical divide in basketball. This is where we are. Aunt Edwards was the number one pick selected by the Timberwolves, and he's a rookie right now. Timberwolves are what a perennial loser.
Yeah, probably the biggest one.
We have, probably the biggest one and the biggest disappointment in terms of players that they could have drafted and then the players that they did draft.
Sure. Yeah, when you're in that many lotteries, there's gonna be a.
Lot of misses facts the satisfacts. They could have drafted Steph Curry and instead I think they drafted Ricky Rubio and Ny Flynn and Johnny Flynn yep and Johnny Flynn. Timberwolves at this point, like I've said multiple times, so far have only seven wins. They have a twenty two percent winning percentage. So at this point, the Wolves on Friday Night are playing the Raptors, the team that I told you was surging, the team that I told you their offense is starting to gel and they're up on
the Raptors by eight. Whoo, let's go and Aunt Edwards posterizes this kid wanton Nabe going viral, top end game dunk in years just immediately broke the internet.
Yeah, it was a hammer hammer.
He put his nuts on wanton Nabe's face and put his hand on he stiff armed him and put his nuts in his face at the same time, the Internet was a blaze. They were filled with enthusiasm and joy. Finally something to be excited about as it relates to the Minnesota Timberwolves, until a few Big Jay journals and some Timberwolves fans decided to rain on the parade of everyone who is enjoying that moment. Nate Duncan, who I have ran into many times in the NBA media. He
is a mah cap cap analyst. MA Nate Duncan came in and well, actually, Edwards, well, actually, I know you think this dunk is cool, but here's his stat line. Aunt Edwards tonight with the dunk of the year. He also has seven points on three for fourteen shooting and zero for seven from three. Fuck you, Nate Duncan, Fuck you.
And Danny and Danny and whoever.
Is shitting on Aunt Edwards in his shining moment, let that man live. Did you just well, actually Aunt Edwards who put his nuts on Wanton Abe's face in a viral moment that we're probably gonna be talking about ten years from now. Yes he did, Yes he did. And the Internet was a ratio. Here's the number that tells you everything that you need to know, forty five hundred quote tweets, thirteen hundred comments, and fifteen thousand likes. What
does that tell you? People responded to that pretty strongly, didn't they?
They did.
That's the only stat that matters, and the numeric response shows you how polarized NBA Twitter is. There's this kid, Justin Tinsley who works for The Undefeated, and he summed it up perfectly. He said that Anthony Edwards statline tweet really was a masterclass between seeing basketball as a culture and seeing basketball as an Excel spreadsheet.
Yeah. I mean, I'm one of those that, especially with young players, I really want to appreciate all the cool things they can do, because, especially when you go to a team like that, there's not gonna be a whole lot of winning nights. So like, let's appreciate when guys do something cool and just coming in and immediately expecting nineteen year olds to have, you know, the most polished advanced stat line is just ridiculous. So yeah, like I was thrilled to see the Anthony Edwards dunk and I
hope we see a lot more. And I don't really care what his stats are in that game exactly.
I don't think anybody really was worried about Alan Ivernson's stat line when he broke Michael Jordan's ankles. Yeah, no one.
Yeah, do we have any idea what his line was in that game?
Nope, have no idea. But we're still talking about it, aren't we. This Marty is complicated. Is so complicated because the more you think about it, the more complicated it becomes. Why because Aunt Edwards was the number one draft pick by the Timberwolves. Anytime you're the number one draft pick for whatever reason, you're expected to not only produce right away, but you're expected to affect that team's winning percentage in a major way right way. That translates to wins and losses.
You're gonna get a ton of playing time, so you're gonna be expected to make an impact. Is that expectation fair? No? But this is a business with billions of dollars on the line, and the Timberwolves have a history of drafting players in a lottery. Like I said, that don't work out over ones that become superstars and storylines are what drives the NBA is a business. Do you think a dunk can get you five six columns for the week. No,
is that fair? No, But the media is also a business to the tune of billions of dollars a year, where clicks and views are what matter. You can't squeeze a ton of juice out of that Anthony Edwards dunk. But what you can squeeze out is whether the Timberwolves made the right decision by drafting him when LaMelo Ball was right there, and the storyline is here's a guy with the horrible stat line expected to produce right now, not now, but right now, and he told the world
pre draft, I'm not that interested in basketball. I like football. If the NFL drafted me, I would go there immediately. That's not good with a bad team who a bad team took a chance on over a sure thing in Lamello Ball, and he had a great dunk. So if you're a Timberwolves fan or an NBA insider journalist, that's what you're gonna think about, is all that context. It's a dirty game. It leads us to make assumptions, prognostications,
say things that are a little early, like me. I say things that are a little early all the time, because that's what you kind of have to do. You can't just wait and react because what are you really doing.
That's really the only time the stat guys get to me is when they just want to be so quick to shit on a young player, like, let me give him some time, Give them some time figured it out.
Nate Duncan is the no Fun Police, but he's been in the media a long time and he knows the game, and that's the game. So it's complicated, right because that's his job. But it's like, can you give us fifteen seconds to enjoy this kid? Can we let this kid have his moment in the sun when there hasn't really been very many moments in the sun. If you're a timberwolf, I mean, that's it. Please let us enjoy something anything, in the middle of a two year long pandemic, can
we have something to be happy about? This pandemic has devastated the league, this country, our mental health, and I don't know, maybe it's just something about this climate that makes the juxtaposition between these two philosophies and these two mindsets so much easier for me to see. They cannot see these people, these big Jay's, these no fun polices, They can't see Anthony Edwards by himself. He's not just
a kid from Georgia who's the number one pick. All they can see is the list of other lottery players that didn't work out. All they see is the seven wins that he's not helping them get anymore. All they see is the bleak future of their franchise. I mean, this shit is sad. Really, it's trauma. These fans have trauma, Oh, no doubt, no doubt. They cannot experience joy from a
historically good dunk because it came from Aunt Edwards. It could have been anyone else and everyone would have been excited. But because it was Aunt, who is expected to do all of these things for this perennial loser, and he is not, and they made a wrong decision in drafting him over another player like LaMelo, all they can see is the what ifs, and so it immediately diminishes this moment. He's the symbol to them of everything that's wrong with
their favorite team. I mean, people, though, can we just say wake up? This kid is nineteen and he is nasty. That dunk was beyond nasty. Let's just relish in something that we can talk about twenty years from now. Much like that Ai cross on Jordan. By the way, the Sixers lost that.
Game, Oh they did.
Yeah, nobody talks about that. Take those small victories, those moments of happiness wherever you can get them. Laugh, exclaim, feel some joy. This is why we love the game of basketball, these moments, not because of war or raptor or fucking stats. Don't let anything take the joy away from you in a game that we love, especially stats. LaMelo is up late night, ballin' up early, ballin' ballin'
all the time. One of the reasons that the Wolves are so scarred is a rookie that they should have taken is LaMelo ball, and LaMelo ball is fucking bond. We talked a little bit about the Hornets earlier as one of the three teams that have become very, very fun to watch, and a lot of that is because of LaMelo. Yeah.
I mean, he's so precise with everything he does, and that's something I really try to look for in young players, like the precision with passing, and he's affecting the game, not in a way that a lot of rookies come in and just put up good stats on middling teams, like Michael Carter Williams like he's actually really improved that team's level of play. And you can see it everywhere.
You can see it with players who who were not doing shit, who now all of a sudden are performing like that franchise expected them to when they were drafted. And we'll get there. So what do we know about LaMelo. He's been in the spotlight since he was fourteen years old. He is Lonzo Ball's little brother. And Lonzo Ball was balling at UCLA right, and LaMelo was like fourteen, yeah, putting up ninety two points in a high school basketball game.
Yeah, there was that clip of him pulling up from half court where he was pointing at the line. He had that dumb hair.
Yeah, the dumb hair was like little odell s. His teeth were still coming in. He still had his baby teeth, and he was on. He was in the spotlight from then on. We've all had our eyes on him since then. Which is crazy. That ninety two point game was the fifth highest scoring total in the US by one player in the last twenty five years. That is inc credible. And instead of doing what Lonzo Ball did right, instead of going to Kentucky or UCLA or whatever, he bounced
instead of going to college. He then went to Lithuania, to the other side of the earth with Jello exactly, which was a crazy story. How that whole thing went out. I think that the coach was like selling meat out of his trunk or something. The head coach was a fucking madman. Yeah him out, Yes, LaVar got that coach out quick quick. Yeah, it was It was crazy. And then he ended up playing I think eighteen games in Australia.
Yeah.
So when you leave the country and don't go to the traditional college route, people are not really watching your games. It's hard to get that stream from Lithuania, right. You couldn't exactly tell at that point whether LeVar was insane, whether he made the right decision, whether he was off the reservation. Who knew right, You had the big baller shoes, the explosive interviews on first take, and when he went crazy against Christine Leahey on the herd and like man
explained her. All of that was creating this this tense drama around the family that we couldn't really tell and decipher how that was going to impact his son's right, he said, all three of my sons are gonna make it pro ye had these crazy, crazy proclamations that came true. By the way, he said barely. He said he could play and beat Michael Jordan one on one. I mean it was, it was. It was a side show for a while, undefeated, never lost. The whispers on Lamellow were
not good. Everybody said that this kid's a me guy. All the critics are depicting him. Is this like Harlem, This like glorified Harlem, globe trotter, hot dog who pulls up from anywhere, gives you these highlights and doesn't help teams win. It's crazy. He's like flying all over when he was with Lithuania, all over to London and Berlin, like they were on this traveling circus tour, playing only
seventeen games in Australia. And the book on the Mellow was that he was lazy, that he threw up too many shots, and he was just not built for the NBA right so much. That was his brand and that was the assumption of who he was. That his current head coach, James Brego was sus super sus on Melo. He was like, ah, it's what you hear, it's what
you read, it's what's on the internet. It's like, I don't know about this kid, right, But what was lost in this all of this perception because again, like we say, storylines drive everything. That perception becomes reality, and that perception changes people's decisions. Right the Timberwolves, it was a sure thing and they were like, no, what's lost in that perception is that LaMelo Ball became the fourth player in NBL history to record back to back triple doubles. That
was the first person. He was the first person since two thousand and nine to do that. By the way, they changed the rules to forty minutes a game, and no one had done that ever since except for Lamello. This is an eighteen year old kid balling against grown men and giving them the business the business. And because the Wolves, like I said, have the worst talent of value enters in the business, they are legitimately the worst.
They were screed, Oh my god, storylines baby, no real scouting, just ripping shit from the headlines like this Lamello kid. I don't know. Maybe it's all smoke and mirrors, maybe
it's all highlights. Maybe it's all storylines. And remembering that Lonzo Ball you can call him a bust at two, there was other players like Jason Tatum that they could have taken over him, Fox Fox and on and on, and Lonzo and LaMelo have got to be the exact same player, right, No, just because they're brothers, Like, no, that's wrong. They're different players with different games, with different
personalities and different skill sets. Wolves were scared of the reaction that another bust would bring them, like especially one like LaMelo with all of this chatter around him. So who did they draft? Someone that has never gotten any media chatter at all and everards no headlines. This kid from the University of Georgia, athletic and explosive, but certainly not on any of our radars. I mean, goodness, gracious,
he came out of nowhere. Yes he was the quote unquote consensus number one, but that that happened pretty quick. And then the Warriors have Clay, So they don't want to draft LaMelo, right because they don't really know what to do with three guards, even though that would have been perfect for them. So they draft James Wiseman a long term call him a long term project with a very low floor and who knows what the ceiling is? And I tell you what, Holy shit, did the Hornets
get lucky? LaMelo just falls into their laps and with no training camp, very little time for him to gel with his teammates, no structure put into place because of COVID, LaMelo is just thriving in the This is a crazy stat. In the nine games that LaMelo has started this year, so that's nine out of thirty, he's averaging twenty one points, seven rebounds, six assists, forty five percent from the field, forty four percent from three, and nine from the free throw line. Is that good?
That's pretty good? Is that good? I'd say it's pretty good.
I'd say that's pretty damn good. He's the youngest player in NBA history with the triple double. Not Kobe, not Lebron, not KG just LaMelo. And the world said LaMelo, you can't shoot. I'd say forty four percent from three means he can shoot. He can shoot really well.
Yeah.
He's six six and he's probably gonna grow another two inches. That is terrifying. He's a nightmare for defenses because he has handles, he has court vision, he has size, and an uncanny, uncanny ability to find that open man no matter where they are, no matter where he is in traffic, out of traffic, men draped all over him, and somehow he finds them.
He's got so many different ways to find them, Like that's the thing. He has so much in his bag.
It's crazy, it's crazy. This is this LaMelo ball is why Malik Monk, why PJ. Washington are playing the best that they've ever played in their NBA career. Malik Monk had thirty six in one game that was new.
Yeah.
Who do you think was passing him the ball? Do you think he was creating his own shot? Absolutely not. We saw that Malik Monk can't create his own shot. He's getting that. Those buckets are coming because Lamello is finding him. That is why Scary Terry is still averaging seventeen points a game off the bench. They paid Scary Terry the bag and LaMelo was like, you're on the bench, homie, Yeah, I am taking that starting job.
He hit that game winner the other night though he did it is.
What has resurrected Gordon Hayward's career. This is insane. They're making The Hornets are making three hundred and fifteen passes per game, second only to the seventy six Ers, and our top five in fast break points. Okay, they lead the league in assists, Oh my god. And even though he came off the bench for most this season, his passes per minute are only behind Sabonis, Jokich, Simmons and
Draymond Green. That kid loves to distribute the rock. I mean Sabonis, Simmons and are known as distributors, and Green they're known as big men that love to pass.
Right.
Team as a whole after being in the depths of hell for a very long time, fucking six in the East, playing some of the most fun basketball that we see this year, largely why because of Lamello. When was the last time that you could say that the Hornets were exciting.
There was that one year where they had big al where they made like sort of a run.
Remember they had CP three. They had CP three before Michael Jordan took over. That was fun. And then they changed teams and changed cities and then turn into the Pelicans and then back to the Hornets and it was like a whole. Baron Davis was fun. I like that team. Oh, Larry Johnson, Grandmama, David Wesley. I mean that was a long ass time ago. I was a child. Then I was a child. I think I was like seven. So now everyone on LaMelo who was shit talking him has
changed their tune, haven't they. You have grizly coaches and guys who never give out praise, talent evaluators who are tight lipped and good at their jobs gushing over LaMelo. You have Steve Kerr, Greg Popovich, Tom Thibodeau, Rick Carlisle all gushing for him. These are not the kind of guys that you see gassing up players on other teams. They're like, yeah, he's a nice player. These people are saying, oh, no,
he's got the gift. This kid hasn't the guy who was forecasted to be a selfish, hot dog chucker a professional stat getter, And now you're hearing Tibbs saying, yeah, this kid's got the rare thing about him. The only one who's not surprised is Lamello himself. What did LaMelo say after his triple double against the Hawks?
Marty Yeah, No, I loved this, he said, Uh, I've been doing this ever since I was three, so it comes quite easy to meet. For real. I played a lot of twenty one when I was growing up.
I fucking love this kid. Oh my god. Everyone doubted him from the time he was fourteen years old. He's been in the spotlight since he was a child, and every step of the way, he just continues to prove everybody wrong. How can you not love that? Not one person now has a bad word to say about him. We talk about joy in the last segment. Howskea is supposed to be fun? No one looks like they're having
more joy out there than LaMelo Ball. It's crazy. You want an example of what a leader and a player nineteen year old LaMelo Ball is Terry Rosier, a guy that has been competing for minutes with him, hit a game winner against the Warriors on Saturday night, and who was the first player to run across the court to give a huge hug and embrace, jumping all over Terry Rosier. That was Lamello. When Draymond Green got teed up kicked out of a game, Lamello's just losing his mind. He
loves this game, loves this game. Not only is Lamello the rookie of the year, he is the steel of the draft, probably the first home run draft pick that the Hornets have had in the Jordan era, and he just might fuck around and change the future of this franchise and Jordan's legacy as an NBA owner as a result. And that is not hyper believe. All right, let's get into some dms, all right.
First up we have is Joel Embiid's injury history a source of concern for the Sixers going forward.
So until they lost last night against the Raptors, the Sixers at one point were thirteen and zero when Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris, Seth Curry and Danny Green started. That is a wagon. They are one in five Without Embiid in the lineup, they are forty six and seventy in his career when he misses games. And the problem is though he misses a lot of games, a lot of games. I looked at this up and it was
like staggering. He has missed more than a quarter of the season every year that he's played in the NBA. After that's after missing a full two years with the foot injury when he came into the league. So am I concerned? Is that a concern? I mean, what do you think? Look at the facts and you tell me they cannot win without him? And he misses twenty five percent of the games. Yes, I would be concerned. Yes,
it would. Every time I see Joel hit the floor, every time I see him with a hot pack on his back, every time I hear he's out for rest or recovery, every time I see him stretching out, I would be concerned. Holy shit, is this it? Is this what it's gonna be? Is he out? Is he? Is there something wrong? Yeah? I would be concerned. Every time the camera pans to him when he's not on the floor,
I would be concerned. Yes, there's no player other than Lebron James whose team rises and falls more when they're on the floor and off the floor than Joel Embiid. That's it. It's just him and Lebron. He's having the best season of his career because when he is in right now, he is incredible, putting up fifty and marquee games, single handedly transforming the center position as a whole. Yes, Embiid is incredible. He's better on the perimeter, I would say,
than some point guards on his own team. Sometimes he's the best point guard on the floor at any given time. No shade, But if I were a Sixers fan, I would be concerned. Yes, injury history is meaningful every time he winces. Yes, he's already missed time. And let's just hope he's already missed more than twenty five percent of the season this year, this year, twenty five percent. And let's just hope everybody will say, Oh, Trista, that's just
that's just load management. Don't trip. If it's load management, great, awesome. If it's not load management, we got problems. Let's hope that Doc is keeping him fresh so they can get to the playoffs and he doesn't miss any playoff games because without him, your team sixers are in trouble.
Trouble, Okay, next step, We've got thoughts on Shay Gillis, Alexander and Lou Dort on OKC because fuck the East Coast media elite.
I don't know who asked that, but God bless him, because I've been fine trying to find ways to talk about lou Dort. Lou Dort is one of my favorite players, and I love players like him because he does all the little things and he has been overlooked. He wasn't even drafted last year. He was a rookie who came into the league as a two way player and then just put on clamps. Lou Dort, I am a Lou Dort Stan. It's a truth. It's true. Lou against Dort
had the highest defensive effort in the NBA. In other words, he runs significantly harder on defense than he does on offense. No one runs faster on defense as opposed to offense in the NBA other than him. It's a crazy, crazy stat. Yeah, the dudes twenty one putting on clamps. A blitzing animal, a pest, more annoying than almost anyone out there, so annoying. Harden shot one for seven against Dort when he was a rookie in the playoffs. He put the clamps on Harden, Kyrie,
on Lebron, pretty much on everyone pretty much. I think he's probably one of the best, if not the best, on ball defenders that the league has coming in undrafted. That's crazy.
I mean, you gotta talk about him if that comes out.
Got to talk about him. He has spent the highest percentage of minutes guarding the opposing team's number one than anyone in the league. Highest. No one gets the best assignment more than or the worst assignment, whatever you want to call it the hardest assignment more than lou Dort and nobody noticed that as a rookie. He is the size to disrupt. He has the size to disrupt guards
in and out of the paint. He's fast enough to go around screens, patient enough to not get baited into fouls by Harden and dame, strong enough to hold his own against guys like Lebron on the post. So how do I feel about lou Dort. I feel tremendous. I love him. James Harden after that series with OKC, all he could say was Wow, this dude is gonna have a career. And Austin Rivers said it best. We could not wait to get that guy lou Dort off. We've wanted him out of there. Quinn Snyder called him one
of the best on ball defenders in the league. He makes everyone he guards upset. He makes basketball unfun for players, and I am here for that. As it relates to SGA. Love him even more if possible, because he's that offensive guy. Right. We know the SGA finished eighth in the NBA voting
for guards, and there's a reason for that. In his first season as the number one option, SGA is averaging twenty two and a half points, six and a half assists, and five and a half rebounds per game while shooting fifty one percent from the field and thirty eight percent from three. Goddamn solid. He's one of five players. This is even better. He's he's one of five players averaging at least twenty two points, six assists and five rebounds.
Do you know who those people are? Those others lebro On, James Nikola, Jokic, James Harden, and Doncic are the others. Pretty damn good company.
I would say he has.
The second best field goal percentage in that group, behind Jokic. They do it all. Center Yo Okac is underrated. Okac is not being talked about a lot in the media because they are not very good. But they have young pieces, and they have a core, and they have pretty much every single LA Clipper draft pick till the end of time, so they're gonna get some guys here and there. So I like those two, and I like the Thunder and where they're going, and I like Sam Presty too.
Okay, moving on, We've got Brandon Ingram is actually fantastic. Why does he get no credit for a guy who can you.
Hate brandon Ingram.
I don't quite hate him. I don't think he's as amazing as a lot of people do.
So what's the question?
Okay, so the full question is brandon Ingram is actually fantastic. Why does he get no credit for a guy who can score like Durant? And that's just silly.
So why does he get credit? Why does brandon Ingram get credit for a guy who can score like Durant? Firstly, brandon Ingram cannot score like Durant. Yeah, brandon Ingram is not seven feet tall and shooting over everyone at will. But brandon Ingram is very good. Oh, of course he is very good. He averages around twenty three game. But I would still say that he's underutilized. And the reason
why is very obvious. Now Chris Finch is now gone and our boy stan Van Gundy is running things through his eye on and that's okay, but it's not good enough to me. Against the Celtics, there were stretches where he just stood around. He was literally on the left side of the court not involved in the offense for the entire stretch, and then on the other side on defense, he was not involved there either. He's just nowhere. He's
not involved. So Zion's getting a lot of reps, and maybe some of those reps should go to Bi, because, like we said before, Marty Zion has two moves in the post, one move in the post. Really, it's that like little lefty spin move, and we know he's going to the left and everybody can scheme for that. So brandon Ingram has a much bigger bag of tricks than Zion does, and I think that stan Van Gunn he's
not utilizing him nearly enough. I watched Bi get buckets at will to put that Pelican's team up to go into overtime and to win the game. So if Doris Burke knows that Zion is only going left, and I know that he's only going left, then we sure as hell know the NBA defenders know that Zion's only go left. So I think if Bi gets more touches he's going to get, he's going to be more effective and the Pels are going to win more games. So I like BI.
I don't know that he is Kevin Durant though, so I don't know who that he's not that Pelicans fan is. He is fantastic he's better than people think, but he's no Kevin Durant. Dah.
I'd like to see his fourth quarter numbers compared with Durant. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, Okay, last up we've got What do you think of fan voting in the All Star Game?
What do I think of fan voting in the All Star Game? I think it's big trash. I think it's terrible. I think that there are fans who have no idea what's going on as it relates to the NBA, and that is how you get guys like Alex Caruso and Klay Thompson getting fan votes. It is awful. It is a popularity contest. It is not about how good players are. It is about storylines as usual, and these casuals are getting the same votes as everyone else, and I think
it's awful. I think it's awful. I think I am disrespected by Luka Doncic getting the art over Damian Lillard. I think it's garbage. I think coaches need to decide and fans do not. It's awful. Who is to blame that eight year old kid in Dallas who voted for Luca or that eight year old kid in Oakland voting for Clay. It's like Clay's not playing. Clay is hurt. He doesn't get any votes. No votes for Clay zero. Alex Cruser doesn't deserve a fucking vote either. He's a janitor.
Zaza Pachule used to get votes too.
It's gross. Fuck them kids that are voting for players who cannot compete in the All Star Game like Clay Thompson, get the fuck out of here. That's insane. Dame did not make the All Star Game two years in a row, averaging twenty seven points, taking Blazers of the playoff single handily, and nope, snub fan votes are what also gets Devin Booker not making an All Star Game in six years, right,
Marty exactly. Fuck those kids, fuck the fan votes. So that's all the time that we have for This League podcast. Please subscribe, Please rate, Please review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It makes a huge difference for us. We also have
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