153. Why the Lakers have to go all-in with Lebron James

a fan just like you guys. I've been covering the Lakers for about four years on the podcasting front for about two years. We're gonna be taking a lot of what we were doing with State of the Lakers into this show. My goal is for it to basically be like that type of postgame Lakers reaction, but with just a touch of coverage from the rest of the league and hitting the big stories from all of the other big teams around the league. So I'm very, very excited

to get started. Let's get to the basketball's So that was a much more entertaining basketball game than what we got last night, which was one of the ugliest basketball games I've ever seen. And very difficult to take anything from because it was kind of that Jekyl and Hide type of character that we've been getting from the Lakers all season. The biggest issue with them is they have been an inconsistent effort and focus team. You know, the

Clippers were favored tonight and they should have been. The reason why is because they're a better basketball team than us, and I mean that sincerely. Yes, I know we have Anthony Davis, but they are a better basketball team than us. And it's because everything has to do with fitting that talent that you have with a specific scheme, playing to

your strengths. And the Clippers are, as I've said many times on the show in the past, the best example in the league of a team that maximizes their talent by leaning into their strengths. They have a boatload of guys that are between six five and six eight, that can defend multiple positions, that can shoot the basketball, and that can put the basketball on the floor and make plays for others, either getting all the way to the rim or you know, your classic driving kick type of basketball.

That's why they won tonight, That's why they're one have won more often this season than we have despite the fact that we have Lebron James and Anthony Davis on the team. You know when it comes. First of all, I want to give the Lakers some credit. They showed

a lot of fight there in that second half. It got The story of this week so far has been second quarter, third quarter malaise, just getting getting out to a hot start, playing hard on both ends of the floor, then getting out of that groove, getting really sloppy and very pick up game esque on the offensive end of the floor, and then the other team going on a run and it leading to that bad body language and that lacks of days ago getting up and down the

floor type of nature that has plagued this team. Oh you're long, But they showed some fight towards the end of the game. I gotta get credit where credit is due. Russell Westbrook, who has been one of the worst late game decision makers I have ever seen this season, was awesome down the stretch of this game and made a lot of big shots and made smart passes, avoided the

catastrophic turnover. There was a play late in the game where he got that head his team and started headed up the floor and Russ many times this season has just tried to be a bowl in a china shop and run everybody over. But no, he pulled it back. He ran offense and it resulted in a basket for the Lakers. Anthony Davis dominant on both ends of the floor. I thought he was gonna make that running floater into the lane. That's a high quality shot for him. And

you know what, the Clippers just made more shots. That was a really, really tough three that Marcus Morris made in the corner. They're defended perfectly. Pump fake guy contesting from behind, he's leaning to the side. That's a tough shot. When you put yourself in a close game, it becomes about who makes the big shots at the end, and both teams made lots of big shots. The differences is the Lakers went into that stretch down by six, you know, with a few minutes left, and the Clippers had a

little bit more margin for error. So even though they didn't play as well as the Lakers did down the stretch, it wasn't enough. Malik Monk made some big shots down the stretch. I thought it was interesting that they went to Trevor Reason to try to go bigger. Lots of good from the Lakers in that fourth quarter. But here we are again and the Lakers are one in four in there in this five game stretch without Lebron. And it's funny because you see a lot of people try

to blame one specific thing for this team struggling. You know, you hear a lot. You have this camp people that think. You have this camp of people that think Russell Westbrook is to blame for everything that has happened with the roster. You have this camp of people that think that Frank Vogel is to blame for everything that has happened on the roster. You have people that blame the veteran minimum contracts and now they haven't panned out, or the injuries

and guys. The reality is is if you have Lebron James and Anthony Davis on your roster and your three game below five hundred, just about everything has to go wrong. Now. For me, personally, I attribute it down to three key identity changes that the Lakers went this offseason, all of which backfired. The first one has to do with the offensive end of the floor. If you look at the team that won the title, the Laker team that won,

they were a bad offensive team. Now going into the bubble, they were a top ten offense, but it was primarily fueled by what they did in transition. If you dug into the numbers, they were one of the worst half court offenses in the league, but they were incredible on the defensive end. They were third in the league in defense. I thought they were the best defense in the league because the two teams in front of them were in

the Eastern Conference. In the Eastern Conference was historically weak that year, but offense has been an issue throughout that stretch of the of the Lakers. That year they won the title, and the year after when they were the best defense in the league, it just didn't matter because it all kind of fit right. They leaned into their strengths. They had tons of defensively focused players, great size and athleticism on the perimeter to contain guys trying to dribble

the basketball. And they had Lebron and Anthony Davis, who when they turn it up on the defensive end, nobody can hang with them from a size and athleticism standpoint, But on the offensive end they struggled. Ironic, I always referred to that offense as a brute force offense. There wasn't a ton of organization. It was just like, here's Lebron, here's Anthony Davis. You can't do anything with these guys even if we're if we're running shotty offense, we're gonna

score well. After last season, after that really ugly loss to the Sons, which again was primarily because Anthony Davis got hurt, not because of anything else other than Anthony Davis getting hurt, but they overreacted to that by shifting heavily towards the offensive end of the floor. So you replace KCP, a guy who is a really good two way shooting guard in the NBA, with a guy like Malik Monk who is far more dynamic on the offensive end of the floor, but nowhere near as capable of

doing the defensive things that k c P does. You swap out a guy like Kyle Kuzma, who was really frustrating on the offensive end of the floor over the course of his years in l A, but towards the end that second half of the title season and that entire year, he became a really good defensive player. He became a really good rebounder, and he's huge. And that shift in identity going towards that offensive end of the ball. That was in a reaction to what happened against Phoenix.

But the irony there is it played away from what they were good at. The reason why is because Frank Vogel, who was one of the best defensive coaches that I've ever seen. His game planning in the playoff run was a large part of what allowed them to shut down the stars they encountered along the way. He was one of the best coaches in the league in those two years because he was a defensive coach, coaching defensive personnel.

He was leaning into the strengths of that roster. But the problem is the Lakers switched out all these guys for offensive minded players and they come into the game tonight as the twenty three ranked offense in the league. Think about how difficult that is could be. The twenty three ranked offense in the league with Lebron James, with Anthony Davis, with Russell Westbrook, with all the shooting that

they add with Carmelo, Anthony, Malague, Monk. These guys they leaned heavily in the offense into the offensive event and they can't score. And the key the main reason behind that is Frank Vogel is not a good offensive coach. For as much as he is one of the best defensive coaches in the league, he's one of the very worst offensive coaches in the league. If you watch the Lakers play offense, they look like they're playing pick up basketball.

They look like a group of guys that you see at l a fitness You know, I always talk about the idea of actions running actions on the ball or off the ball, and action on the ball is designed to give one of your best players an advantage. So, for instance, a screening role, which is what you see everybody do, but like something silly, like someone coming off of a pin down starting the guys sets a downscreen. You come up and you catch and you attack. Now you don't have to attack a set defense or a

set defender. You're attacking with an advantage that helps you get started at the point of attack. Then off the ball, if everyone stands around their defenders sit in the paint they have because that's just classic defense that every coach

at every level of basketball teaches. If your man doesn't have the ball and you're a couple passes away, you have a foot in the paint, and so one of the problems with what the Lakers do is it's a lot of guys just standing around and watching the Leak Monk try to score, standing around watching Anthony Davis try to score, standing around watching watching Russell Westbrook try to score. While all of the smart teams in the league, at least all the offensively smart teams in the league, constantly

have guys moving around. If you have a guy coming off of an action to start to play and off the ball, and you have guys running in action to try to get open, that occupies defenders and makes things easier. So that was the big backfiring mistake that they made their going towards offense with personnel and not understanding that they didn't have a coach staff actually equipped to put

those guys in position to score. So that's how you have all these offensive talented players who can't score the basketball. And even against a team, you know, against the teams like Portland that they've faced recently, against teams like Atlanta they faced recently, they haven't been able to especially in the big moments towards the end of the game, they haven't been able to create as much offense as they need to. That's that's that's something that backfired. The second

big thing that they backfired with is size. You know, everyone thinks of the Lakers is a huge basketball team, right because they played a center next to the Lebron and Anthony Davis. So you'd have Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee and Anthony Davis and Lebron James, and you think, man, that team is huge, and they were. But the dirty little secret about that team is they were also huge on the perimeter. They started KCP at like six four

or six five as a point guard. They started Danny Green at six six, six seven at the two guard. You know, they had Kyle Kuzma playing on the perimeter, huge player Mark Keith Morris, another big guy playing on the wing. They had all of these big guys alongside their big guys. And now you come into this year and you still have that size in the front court. Right, You've got Lebron James, you got Anthony Davis, you've got DeAndre Jordan, you've got Dwight Howard, but everyone else is small.

And constantly throughout this season they've been playing guys like Avery Bradley, Malik Monk and Russell Westbrook together. And so now you're trying to compete with NBA teams that have big NBA athletes all over the floor. And you've got a six three point guard on the floor and a six ft tall to guard on the floor and a six ft three really skinny Malik Monk at at playing at small forward. So then you run into teams like the Clippers who are going to spread you out an attack.

And what did you see all night today today? Guys, you'd see some really small Laker defender wrapping up Sergebaca around the rim, or wrapping up Isaiah Hartenstein around the rim. And it's because the aggregate size of the lineup is too small and it was way too easy for the Clippers to run basic actions or hell, just run in the floor. If Dwight Howard or Anthony Davis were on the offensive end crashing the glass, missing a shot around

the rim, guys would just sprint down the floor. Next thing you know, you've got a center for the Clippers going up against one of your tiny guards. It was something that plagued them throughout the game, especially towards the beginning. Now, the Lakers countered that towards the end by playing towards their size, and that's the easy way for them to remedy that there are some bigger players on this roster. Mr. Frank Vogel just has to lean more into that. Trevories,

I get it that he's slower. I get it that he's not what he used to be, but he's six ft eight, and just by having a six ft eight guy that can move around a little bit out there, it gives you a better chance of hanging physically with some of these teams. He closes Stanley Johnson tonight. That needs to happen every single night. You can get away with having Russ and lak Monk out there. You just can't get away with having three of those guys out there. But that was one of the big things that the

Lakers did this summer that backfired on them. They went too small. And it's funny because you know, uh, we were all waiting during free agency. We're like, Okay, they signed Trevor Reason, they signed Carmelo Anthony, where's the next where's the next small forward? Are you think a start West and Matthews? I think it's not really gay, Like who's coming? Is there? Gonna be some other small forward

and it just never materialized. And so all season long that has been a shortcoming, and they've had to go to literal guys on the street, an undrafted free agent and a guy in Stanley Johnson, a former lottery pick who's out of the league. They had to dip into that pool of players to try to fill that obvious need.

When anybody who's been watching the league this year, just by looking around at the landscape knew that you needed to have that size and athleticism on the perimeter, the same size and athleticism on the perimeter that carried them in years past. And then the last thing that backfired on them this year is the Russell Westbrook move. Now, Russ is playing better of late, and I want to be clear, like he played great tonight, throw it down

the stretch of the game. He did a lot of the things that I've been critical of him not doing, taking care of the basketball, defending, taking smarter shots, all that stuff. You know. But the it was the concept of star player star power versus role players, right, So you know, the idea in theory is you swap out three role players guys like Kyle Kuzma, guys like k CP, Montres, Harrold, and you get back a superstar. That's a formula that has worked a lot in NBA history, especially for Lebron.

That is a formula that he's leaned on to win championships at many points in his career. So I don't fault the man for thinking in that direction. But one of the problems that's happened this year is, as I've described earlier, the Lakers have a shortage of good, solid NBA players on the perimeter that can play roles, because that's the kind of stuff that carries you in the in the dregs of the regular season. These things are imperative to winning basketball games. It's like trying to run

a football team without an offensive line. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. It was really frustrating watching him this year because they had a good quarterback, two headed running back monster, great wide receivers, a great pass rush of one of the best corners in the league, good young linebacking corps, but their offensive line was falling apart throughout the year, and anytime they faced a good pass rush, they lost.

And it's because, yes, yes, the flash is important, but you have to have guys that are willing to do the dirty work in order to win basketball games. And the Lakers had a lot of guys that weren't Lebron and Anthony Davis that used to do that dirty work, and they shipped a bunch of them out to bring

back Russa Westbrook. Now, if Russa Westbrook can play like he did in that fourth quarter and bring that type of matchup attacking, making big plays defending at his position, if he can do that kind of stuff, then the trade is worth it. But the problem is is more often than not this year that hasn't been the case, and guys like it's not hating Westbrook. Westbrook fans are absolutely crazy. I'm not hating Westbrook. I am analyzing basketball games.

So when Russell Westbrook goes out and he plays a brand of basketball that isn't helping the team, I have to call that out because that's what I'm doing by breaking down basketball games. When he plays really well like he did tonight, I will give him credit for that. I have no intention of going out of my way to hate on the man. That's not the way that

I cover the game. But again, in order for that trade to be worth it, Russell Westbrook has to be a huge net positive, and the way he does that is by focusing on the defensive end of the floor, getting stops at his position, attacking mismatches on the other end, and not turning the ball over. If he can do that, this can work. But more often than not, he hasn't been able to do that this year, and that's why I think it that's why that trade has been, at

least to this point, somewhat of a backfire. So it'll be really interesting to see in the long run whether or not they can remedy that. And at least they need they need to find somebody out there that can feel some of the responsibilities that Kyle Kuzmer was filling. I can feel some of the responsibilities that k CP was feeling. Those jobs have to be filled. Now it's been Stanley Johnson, it's been Austin Reaves, but you need

like three more of those guys. You need at least two or three more of those guys to get in there so that when you go to the bench and it's th Ht who's been way too inconsistent this year, or it's kept Baysmore who has been really bad most of the year, or it's been Trevor Reaves who's been mostly bad this year. You can swap those guys out for other guys who have been doing it well now

moving on. So this Lebron injury is weird because, like I said earlier, he throughout this season has taken time off to try to avoid You'll be better prepared for the long haul, right. You know, Lebron, the guy falls into his ankle. He finishes the game, but then he decides to take a couple of weeks off or a week off because he just wants to make sure that heels all the way. Same thing goes with his UH, with his UH, the other injury he had later in

the season. I'm blanking on what it is now all of a sudden, But this most recent injury, you know, it's a little more serious, right because these are really meaningful basketball games that he's missing. But I think Lebron has accepted the reality that they're going to be a playing team, and I think he understands that the most important thing is for him to be healthy because they're

going to have an incredibly grueling playoff run. They're gonna have to play a really good basketball team in a playing game to get into the playoffs, and then from there they're going to have to beat one of the two best records in the NBA in the first round, going into a second round series against the team probably like Memphis going into the conference finals against the other one of the Golden State Phoenix team that they go play. He's got a long playoff run ahead of him, so

he's got to get rested up. But you know, it's funny because I think that this knee injury to Lebron is exactly why it's so important for the Lakers to go all in this season and to do whatever it takes at this deadline next Thursday to send out whatever they can to try to maximize this window. And the reason why is really simple. First of all, you win titles in NBA history by having the best player on the floor. You win titles in NBA history by having

a super duperstar. Let's go back in time. It was Johanna Santana Coopo last year. The year before that, it was Lebron James. The year before that, it was Kawhi Leonard. The year before that it was Stephan k d. Then it was Lebron. If you go back, you might find a handful of teams like the two thousand fourteen Spurs, the two thousand eighteen Celtics. But even those teams, it's like, that's Tim Duncan towards the tail end of his prime. That's Kevin Garnett towards the tail end of his prime.

And those teams had tons of talent. I mean, Kawhi Leonard literally won the Finals MVP that year and he might have been their fourth best player. So the reality is you need to have that super duper star in the Lakers. Do they have that guy? Before this knee injury, Lebron was probably the best player in the league. That's

how well he was playing. He was having these stretches of Draymond Green esque defensive impact on the back line for the Lakers, and then on the other end, he was having one of the best and most efficient scoring seasons of his career. That's exactly why this is so urgent. When I look at Lebron signing with the Lakers back in two thousand and eighteen, you would have been thrilled. If you've got two good years out of him. We're

on year four and he still looks like that guy. Now, his knee just randomly blew up today or the other day, just started swelling. There may or may not be some weird fluid stack on the back of his knee. I don't know if you guys saw that video that went viral the other day, was really weird, but his knee randomly got big, because that's what happens with old guys.

It's like Carmelo Anthony tonight, Carmelo Anthony did a pup fake Wonder will pull up to the left a shot he's taken a thousand times in his career, thousands of times in his career, and you know what, his hamstring ripped, because that's what happens with older guys. So the reality is is Lebron is probably getting close to to the end of that window, but right now he's still there. And the second reason why they have to go all

in is because there is an opportunity here. You know, we're gonna talk about title lots here in a minute, but if you look around the league, it's like you look at Brooklyn and Brooklyn's falling apart there. They've lost seven of their last nine games. You look at Milwaukee, they already have over twenty losses. They're not where, not anywhere near as dominant as they've been in years past.

The Heat don't have that super superstar, you know. Philadelphia, Joel Embide looks incredible, but they don't have a second star for him. The Phoenix Suns look incredible, but they don't have a superstar. The Golden State Warriors are breaking apart with their health. You know, this back thing with Draymond Green is weird. And the Memphis Grizzlies are probably too young. There is no juggernaut team in here that is very clearly going to be any rendition of the Lakers.

There is a window of opportunity here. There's a window of opportunity. If some things can go right for the Lakers, they can go on a run. And so there's no point in clinging to assets or anything along those lines, thinking of having one foot in the moment and one ft later on, when the reality is that there's an

opportunity here to go try and win a championship. And so even though Lebronze knee is hurt, even though it seems like the windows closing, that's all the more reason to go all and not to mention, there's a playbook in the NBA, a very easy way for you to go and replenish assets. We've seen so many teams do it over the years. All you gotta do is eat salary for a year and take some picks back in return. It's when every does when things start to go south

the lake. It's what the Golden State Warriors did in a very short period of time here recently. It's easy to recoup assets in the NBA. You can do that down the line. You don't get Lebron James though forever. You get him for this year, you might get him for one more pretty good year, and you're gonna get it a lesser version of him from there. And as we've seen with Anthony Davis, he's not really up to

the task of being that alpha dog superstar. So the reality is this is the chance, this is the chance, and the Lakers have to go for it. I think you have to ship t H T out. I think you have to ship the first out and you have to find three or four able bodied wings that can fill those roles that I talked about earlier in the show. That's what has to happen in this last week, and I'm really curious to see if they get to that point. So let's move on to uh, the the title lots,

because I thought this was really interesting. So the Lakers right now have, according to fand will, have the seventh highest odds to win the championship this year. And it's funny because Brooklyn is still leading the league in title odds on FanDuel. They are the title favor right now, and they're falling apart even more so than the Lakers are. I Doke did about this last night a little bit.

They are like Lakers East. The differences is Kevin Durant was very healthy at the beginning of the year in playing m VP basketball and carried them to a good record to this point. The difference is for the Lakers, they had all sorts of injury concerns early in the season and then when Lebron Lebron had his little healthy stretch where he dragged him along in the standings. Recently they've had a little bit worse luck on that front.

But the truth is is the bet the reason why you bet on the Nets to win the title is you're thinking, hey, like, what if James Harden recovers some of his old form, because James Harden is having one of the worst seasons of his career, certainly his worst season by a mile in terms of what he's been like as the James Harden that we know, not the guy who came off the bench for okay see, but you're you're you bet on the nets because you think, hey,

maybe James Harden recovers his form. You bet on the nets because you think, hey, maybe Kyrie Irving can be productive in a uh in road games in the playoffs, and maybe that's enough. You bet on the nets because you think, hey, Kevin Durand is Kevin freakin Durant. He's one of the best players in the league, so he can carry as a certain extent. You're betting on things kind of coming together. They haven't really materialized. And I think that's really interesting because that's the same case for

the Lakers to make their run to the title. You're betting on Lebron James being one of the best two or three players in the world. You're betting on Anthony Davis kind of like with James hard And becoming one

of the best players in the world. You're betting on Russell Westbrook hopefully becoming a player that can contribute more often than not in this Now for Kyrie, it's different reasons because he literally can't play in home games, but it's the same type of thing, and you're hoping that maybe at the deadline, just like Brooklyn needs to trade out some older legs for some younger legs, you're hoping that at the deadline they can come up with enough

pieces to go on a run. H But I think that makes the Lakers an interesting betting opportunity at the seven highest odds in the league because they have the same case, the same pathway to make it to the finals and to win a championship that the Brooklyn Nets do,

and it's every bit is achievable. And especially you guys saw today Joe Harris, there's a report coming out that says he's probably gonna have to get a second surgery on that ankle, So even more reason to see like kind of what I'm talking about here, A lot of things can go wrong for certain teams. There is a window of opportunity here, and I think the I think the Lakers have a legitimate chance. Even with all the craziness,

the Lakers have a legitimate chance to win. But before we get out of here tonight, we're gonna talk a little bit about the Phoenix Suns. So the Phoenix Suns lost tonight um in Atlanta, and I didn't really take too much from it. They that was a classic shooting variance type of game. Phoenix went nine for thirty two

from three. Atlanta made twenty three point shots. And sometimes during the NBA regular season, you have a night, especially on the road, where guys you know, are really comfortable on one side and knocking shots down and your guys aren't really comfortable and they're not making shots. But before that, the Suns had won eleven games in a row, and to this point they have the best record in the NBA.

So the question becomes, are the Phoenix Suns a really legitimate title contender or are they just an exciting regular season type of story. And I think this is one of the most interesting, like kind of pathways for us to watch as basketball fans this year, because Phoenix represents kind of a direction that basketball is heading where role players are more valuable than ever and star players are

easier to counter than they've ever been. Kind Of like what we've been talking about with the Lakers, you swap out some role players, all of a sudden, a bona fide championship contender becomes a dumpster fire. That's how valuable role players are in the NBA today, and the Phoenix Suns have the greatest depth of talent than anybody in the league. Casts there are three things that I look at with teams in terms of their ability to win

the NBA Championship. Are they defensively versatile? Yes, the Sons have great defensive versatility. They have three really good athletic wings that can guard multiple positions, and Jay Crowder and Cam Johnson and Michael Bridges. They have a dominant center and DeAndre and who can guard some of the best centers in the league. And a great body to throw at, Anthony Davis, a great body to throw at. Joanna's Antana Coompo.

He's a really solid defensive player. And then Chris Paul is really good at defending at his position, and Devin Booker has made a lot of progress in that regard over the years. They crossed that defensive versatility box solid. Then I always look at camp guys create their own shots, and can guys create shots for others, and Chris Paul is one of the best in the league at creating shots for others, and Devin Booker is one of the

best in the league at creating shots for himself. So in theory, they check all the boxes for a team that can win a title except from one, and that's that supreme alpha dog, the guy that can look anybody in the face and reach a level on the basketball floor that no one else can reach or just a handful of guys can reach. That happened last year. Phoenix looked really good on their way to the finals. They looked really good in their first two games of the finals,

but then what happened. Janis antennacoom but basically murdered them for the world to see because he was able to reach a level as a basketball player that nobody else on the floor could reach, and both of the stars on the Suns were massively marginalized. So Devin Booker had some good games in the finals. He had some stretches of great shot making, but he's a shotmaker, so when shots are going in, it looks great, but when they're not going in, he doesn't have a ton of other

impact on the game. Same thing goes with Chris Paul. Chris Paul is a great playmaker, but you know when defenses are keying in on him, and the problem for him is he's a little bit older, and so Drew Holiday is just such a better athlete he was able to really kind of swallow him up and shut him down. And so the thing is is, you you see these two guys who in the regular season carrying this team look like legitimate weapons, but then when they get in

the postseason, they just run into the better guy. And that's why, as we go back to NBA history, you see a superstar holding the trophy every year. But again, we are trending in the direction that maybe that might not matter as much as it used to. And a lot of this has to do with just the evolution

of basketball towards five out principles. Right. So in this in this league's right now, it is so much more important to have multiple guys that can beat somebody from the from the perimeter and create shots for your teammates. It's so much more important to have multiple guys that can spot up in various parts of the floor and be effective. It's not like the old days. It's not like when you had Shane Battier in the corner, or Kyle Korver in the corner, or Booby Gibson in the corner.

You don't have specialists as often in the NBA anymore. They're not as successful as they used to be because as the league has gone towards five out, it's been about having five real basketball players on the floor, guys

who can create their own shot. And if you don't have those guys, teams are so good now at taking away what your stars like to do and forcing those other guys to put the ball on the floor in if they can't, if they can't do those close out, attack ee type of things, then all of a sudden, your offense can get shut down. That's what happened to the Lakers in the playoffs last year when Anthony Davis

went down. They just loaded the pain on Dennis Rotor, loaded the pain on Lebron James, and nobody else on the team could make a play. And so that's the angle here for the Suns. The angle for the Suns is, if you send a lot of bodies at Devin Booker, if you send a lot of bodies at Chris Paul and you're able to shut them down. That's great. But

Michail Bridges is an incredible basketball player. Him and Kim Johnson are both shooting from three, and both of them can put the ball on the floor and get all the way to the rim and finish about the rim or make interesting shots in the mid range, and they can drive and kick to their teammates. Campaign is a devastating matchup attacker because he's so incredibly fast at the point of attack, and he can get into the lane

and cause all sorts of having having DeAndre Ayton. If you switch a small guy onto him, he can bury him down deep and make a jump book. The Suns have a ton of different options that they can go to offensively, and so the whole thing flows, and so it'll be really interesting to see what direction are we

going as a league. Are we going in the direction where things are gonna stay the way they are and the super duperstars are gonna win, Like is Steph Curry or Lebron James just gonna go nuclear through the playoffs and beat everybody, or Kevin Durant or Janis Antenna Kumpo, Or are we going to see a team like the Miami Heat come out who don't have that supreme alpha dog talent, but they have a depth of talent down the roster because maybe Tyler Harrows their fourth best player,

but he's way better than your fourth best player, and their fifth best players way better than your fifth best player, and that ends up being what swings things. Memphis is another example like this. But Memphis, Phoenix, Miami, these are the teams that we're gonna look at, and it it will be really interesting to see whether or not one of those teams rises to be the first team in a very long time to beat all the superstars. And I don't know. I honestly don't know which one's gonna happen.

It'll be really interesting to see. If I had to if you, if I had guess, I'd say bet with the superstars, because more often than not, when we get to these big moments, the rest swallow their whistles. Everyone's allowed to foul, nobody's open, and it's hey, can your best guy make a shot? And last year in the playoffs, Chris Paul was rendered ineffective and Janice went for fifty in Game six of the NBA Finals, and there's nothing Phoenix could do about it, and so maybe that's the

direction it's gonna stay. It'll be really interesting to see. All Right, that's all I happened to night, guys. Thank you guys so much for coming to hang out. This was a fun first show. I'm really excited to see what we can build here. This is gonna be released in podcast form later on. I appreciate your guys support, and we will be back for Saturday Night after the later stay the volume