Colin Cowherd Podcast - Thunder Win The NBA Title! OKC’s Defense Top 5 All-Time, Kevin Durant Traded To Rockets, SHORTEN The Postseason

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what we can only assume is an achilles injury. The eighth achilles tear in the NBA this season, a very bizarre trend, Colin and I are going to spend some time talking about that towards the tail end of the show tonight. But the Oklahoma City Thunder are the twenty twenty five NBA champions. Colin, what's your big takeaway from the NBA Finals this year?

this for months. Is the NBA now because of the Aprons and the CBA is going to be like the NFL. We're going to talk more about general managers. You can't stack players and I think, you know, they were the best team all season. The home court ended up mattering against Indie and Denver, you know, really formidable opponents that had some older star players. But you know, I think in the end, you know, when you look back at this season, you'll go, well, they were a dominant regular

season team. They weren't a great road team in the playoffs, but they were dominant at home and that's where they were crowned. And you know, that's why the regular season does matter. It may not look like the playoffs, but Oklahoma City, I don't think it's winning this thing on the road, and so they earned it. And you know, the injuries, gutting, but that stuff happens. I mean, Kd's

gone down in big games. I mean it happens. So and I think over the course of this season, Okase, he was the best team.

game stretch I've literally ever seen him play. They took that Minnesota team that was kicking everybody's butt and they handled them like easily. And then the Pacers, who have been the kind of the enigma of this of this playoff run, every time they needed to beat them, they were able to contain them and keep them under control.

You know, we talked after Game five, like there is this test that you have to pass to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, and it's that when the shit hits the fan and there's a few minutes left in a big game where the series is hanging in the balance, they are going to tighten the screws defensively. In every single series, the opposing team fell apart, whether it was Denver at multiple spots in Game four in the fourth quarter, in Game five in the fourth quarter, the entirety of

Game seven. What we saw in big spots against Minnesota, specifically down the stretch of Game four. In this series, in Game four, down the stretch, they just strangle the life out of Indiana. In Game five, it's ninety five ninety three off of a Siakam offensive rebound three. It's a two point game. You're like, oh man, this could go either way. Literally turns the Pacers over four consecutive times just with the strength of their defense. And then

again tonight. You know, admirable effort from the Pacers there in that first half to keep things competitive. TJ McConnell, I'll always remember the way he played in this series. What a remarkable performance from him. But they came out the gates in that third quarter and they tightened the screws and they turned the Pacers over and they got out in transition. We finished this game with twenty three forced turnovers in thirty two points off of turnovers. That's the star of this team.

double them. And TJ. McCall's excellent. But again, when Halliburton got hurt the first time, again they show great courage and gusto, but there's just limitations on that. You can only play down your most important players so long. So you know, there was that I think it was like at one point there was a I wrote it down here. There was a huge nineteen to two Oklahoma City run.

A lot of that kickstarted by defense, and so they just feast on teams, and you know what, you know what, they're a little bit like they're like a fighter who sends his blood. Like, okay, see, they're not dominant enough offensively to just blow you out against great teams, against Denver and Indy. They can score, they have runs, but when they sense blood, somebody's in foul, trouble, somebody's hurt your start. You know, they have a matchup advantage. Man.

They play downhill, they play downhill fast, and you look up and you're like, well, this was a four point game. Now it's a thirteen point game. And you know that's what great teams do. Their run looks different than a Jordan explosion or a Shaq Kobe explosion, but nonetheless it's a burst, and everybody looks different, you know. I mean, so I listen all my notes here, I look through.

I kept waiting for the inevitable run, and it happened, and it was you know, it was off turnovers, and I just kind of felt like I saw an SRR stat. I think that's what it's called, an SRR stat about Indiana. And they said, if Indiana wins, they'll be the worst champion since the nineteen seventy eight Washington Bullets, which, by the way, I can name the entire roster because it was when I fell in love with basketball. But the truth was is if Indiana one, it was probably our

weakest champion. Though I love them, and okay, s wins. At least we can hang this boy, that's a top five defensive team all time. We can hang something that sounds like a champion. NBA's leading score, deepest team in years, all time, top five defense that sounds like a champion, does it not?

literally the best offensive player I've ever watched. He and they had him under control in every pivotal moment of that series. That is the type of defense that we watched. You know, this Thunder offense was frustrating. Sometimes we're gonna talk about Shaye in a few minutes, Like Shae was great every time he needed to be great, but there were some downsides here. He had a game in this

series where had zero assists. They had games where they'd moved the ball poorly, where they were out of rhythm, out of flow. They're young players, young players against elite playoff defense. That's going to take some time to figure out. And there's no doubt that if the Thunder are going to have sustained success in this league, they're going to have to figure out some things offensively to be better

year after year after year. But their defense right now is elite hold the trophy defense, and that's what came through for them again today.

team like this young win a championship. And you know, I was thinking about this as you were talking about SJ. SGA. Usually, let's say, for instance, Shaq wasn't hitting his free throws, he still had all time power. If Kobe and MJ weren't hitting their jumper, they could go vertical Magic Johnson struggling from the field. He just had a size advantage. He'd back you down. Sga is not a vertical player. So if he's off and he's off center, he doesn't

have power. He doesn't have speed he doesn't have. He's not he's not you know, he's strong for his size. He's not a vertical player. He is a mid range maven like he is all time stuff. And so you know I've said before is he's an all time scorer. But he doesn't feel like he's in the Curry class where you're like, wow, I've never seen a human like Caitlin. Clark's got some of that. You're like, I've never seen that, right, Sga, I've seen it, Alex English, Keiki Vandaway. He's just better

at it. And so I do think you know, when you when you play better teams and you can get off his game. He has a very centralized game. He's tremendous at it. But I think we both admit he needs a friendly whistle, and because he's so gifted, he almost always gets it. It's not like the hardened whistle, which is like and it feels illegal. That's not it. It's like that feels unstoppable. Is different than it feels illegal. But you know he is. I love him. I love

his maturity. He's just a smart, hard working kid. He's impossible not to root for. I know everybody doesn't like you know, all the flopping. But I have a hard time not rooting for guys who are more mature than their age, with completely refined games where I can see the work ethic, I can see the years you've toiled in a gym. That to me as a grinder, like, I love that kind of basketball, and I think that's what he embodies.

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Finals MVP. It is now official. Shay gil Jess Alexander Colin. I was thinking about a cool way to frame this segment, and all I could think about is, like you mentioned with the Washington Bullets roster. So everything for me, as I'm talking about all time greats is kind of played through this lens of when I started really following the league closely, which for me was in the like around

two thousand and five, two thousand and six. You've been watching a lot of NBA basketball for a really long time, You've seen a lot of stars come through the league, as young players leave the league as vets. What has been like your first impression of Shake Gill just Alexander as a playoff performer in the NBA.

no other Kareem you know there. David Thompson was a little Michael, but Michael's mid range game he had three or four stock moves, you know, Tim Duncan. The great fundamental is that a lot of the all time great players, and I've said this about Mahomes can be boring. They have mastered what they do frustratingly so. And I look at a player who knows exactly what he is, but more importantly, he knows what he's not and he leans into all of his skills, and I think when you

watch them play, they can be uneven offensively. The greatest thing I can say about SGA. He's their clear dominant number one score. So when you play them, I don't have to pick Tony Parker Duncan manu. It's like, stop him and people can't. I that me is a fastball Like that, you know you can beat them. And Jay Dubb can have thirty two, or Check could have twenty four, or Lou Dort hits five threes, but the numbers are if he gets to the free throw line, they win.

Everybody in the league knows it and they can't stop him. Like that is precision, That is mastering a craft, and I just I just have great respect for that.

to work on. He's brought his own little kind of unique flare to the two guard position, just like Harden did, just like Wade did, just like Kobe did, just like MJ did. He's got his own like kind of unique take on it. But similar to Duncan, even if there

wasn't that overwhelming optical appeal, it's just surgically effective. Yeah, And no matter what happened in this playoff run, the most reliable play type out there was give the ball to Shay at the nail and he's probably going to either draw foul or get to a mid range jump shot that he can hit about fifty five percent of the time. And you know, you know, Colin, it has not been a perfect NBA Finals for him. He had some rough games. But here's the thing. Just about every

star struggles in their first NBA finals. Lebron struggled in his first two NBA finals. It is an impossible stage to be to be I shouldn't say it'smpossible, it's a very difficult stage to perform well in. And to his credit, every single moment in this series where things could have gone south. So like Game two, you're down one Zho, you lose that game, series is probably over. Game four, you're down to one. You lose, that game. Series is probably over. Game five to two, you lose that game,

series is probably over. And Game seven series tied. If you lose that game, obviously the series is over. In every one of those games, I thought he was awesome. This is actually a hilarious stat Colin. In the four games where I thought he played poorly, which was Game one, Game three, Game four, in game six, in those games he combined for just nine assists. Okay, just nine in those four games. In the other three games, in game two, in game five, and in game seven, he had thirty

thirty assists. He averaged ten in those three games. And if you watched those games from the start, just surgical and precise with the way he was navigating the late double teams, the help at the rim, making the kickouts to three point shooters, the role man, whether it's Hartenstein or Chet, I thought Shay, to his credit, every time the team needed him to be great in the series, he was great. And I think that is the stereotypical

Finals MVP performance. I thought he thoroughly deserved it, and most players don't even do this well in their first time around.

guys that can play, so it'll be interesting. But next year they'll play like a champion, and so what you'll see they'll be a little less uneven to the aforementioned stats where you saw him bounce a little bit, you'll probably get a little bit less than that. But it's also something that Indiana was better defensively than people gave him credit for. They could put a lot of length on the floor. And I think we are going through We've seen it now with multiple teams, and I was

fooled with Denver. I say it right now. The last seven champions have been very good teams. Will this be a great team. I'm fascinated to watch the Houston Rockets now. Right, Like Shamgoon, I'm on Thompson, Kevin Durant. It's I want to give Indiana credit because the Haliburton injury didn't matter. But in the end, I still like Oklahoma City. I think when I look at Oklahoma City's rough edges, it's

mostly homebrewn just needs another year to grow. Like one of the roughest standards edges is God Holmbren did nothing tonight. Jay Williams, J Dubb he can Jaleen Williams, he can still be uneven. He can be a masterful. But I think most of the things about them are a lot of them are age specific because young players in big games,

especially on the road, aren't as good. And I just so I look at them and I think, oh, they have a chance to be really good next year, plays a more confident team, and I think by the way their coaching staff will grow, everybody will just get better. But most of my criticisms are, Okay, see, are you know you just didn't know game to game what you got with chet Holmgren on the offensive end. When he played well in the second half, It's like, Wow, that's a really hard team to beat.

finding innovative solutions, and reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com Slash challengers to learn more. So, Colin, to your point, I saw this stat before the game, Oklahoma City's net rating, And remember net rating is just how much you outscore your opponent. Just waited for pace per one hundred possessions. Oklahoma City's net rating at home coming into tonight was twenty one. They outscored teams by twenty one points per one hundred possessions on the road negative six. And so

to your point, I actually agree with you. I thought Oklahoma City kind of underachieved in this playoff run. They should have put Denver away sooner, They should have put Indiana away sooner. They were not, to me a great offensive team for the majority of this playoff run, downright ugly at various points. But as we look back through NBA history, this is what I look at the Warriors. As a corollary here, it's not just stars that tend to struggle when they get to the finals the first

time teams do. The Celtics in twenty twenty two, they really struggled. When they showed up in twenty twenty four, they looked like a bunch of grown ups. They handled it way better Golden State. Steph played so poorly in twenty fifteen. I think he still deserved Finals MVP, but he played so poorly in twenty fifteen, he didn't get a single vote for Finals MVP. They were looking at his teammate as somebody to give the vote to. They, you know, at various points in that playoff run looked

a little shaky. They trailed to one to Memphis, they trailed to one to Cleveland. It is very typical for a team that dominates in the regular season but has their first truly pressure filled, serious playoff run to be a little bumpy. And so the point is is like, yeah, this year they were a mediocre playoff offense that had an elite playoff defense, which was enough to get them over the top. But this team has by far the

most room for internal improvement year over year. I'd argue in the entire NBA, like Jadub you talked about the oscillations. The oscillations are classic young player stuff. I can't tell you how many times anybody who spends any time coaching young basketball players, you'll see them do something that works, and you'll be a nice jock, and then they'll go on the next possession and they'll do something completely different. You're like, just do the same thing, do the same

thing that you just did, and it works. And then when they make mistakes, they can repeat them. They struggle to cut out mistakes and they struggle to repeat their successes young players over time. You don't think Shay remembers how he played those three bad in those four bad games. He knows, he knows, he learned lessons in that in that process, and Shay will be better. Shay will just be more consistent. I believe Ja Dub can get substantially better.

Chet was a nightmare offensively in this postseason run. Nightmare. And this is a guy who spends summers working out with Kevin Durant, who has, like all he has all NBA offensive potential, and so maybe they're not that team yet, but they absolutely can get there. And all you have to do in this era where nobody's winning multiple championships is win multiple championships and pretty quickly you will like establish yourself as one of the all time great teams.

I'm with you, they were. This was a rocky road, but they got it done. If you were gonna beat the Thunder, this was the year. This was the year where they're young, they're thin. Chet has never been in these big moments before, Like this was the year to beat them and nobody could get it done. And it's only gonna go up from here.

going to matter more. Like everybody's banging on the suns today, what if that number ten pick ends up being a really, really good player and they have all these second round picks and they can figure out a way to move one of the other players and get another first round pick. And I think Oklahoma City is going to be very good for a very long time. But I still think and we've seen it this year, these long playoff runs. You see it with pitching staffs, and you see it

with teams. You keep going to seven games against Western teams and in the finals, I don't like it. I think you're going to have more injuries. I don't remember a two year stretch where we had more key injuries to star players. So you know, it's one of those things. They've got the they've got a lot of depth, but they do have one dependable score So keeping SGA healthy and trying to develop second, third, and fourth scorers is a real thing because they're inconsistent there. But it is.

You know, as I look at this playoff series, one of my takeaways is, and I've been on this four years, you do not need seven games in the first round, like and you say, well, it could be a sweep. You do not need four game sweeps. You could do it. You could do it in five games or three games. So I think OKAC is not good enough to be brittle, injury riddled. I think healthy. You know, we always said it in the NFL, it's attrition some of these playoffs.

Cleveland fell apart the year before New York fell apart, and I think that's a lot of it. I think the West is gonna be razor thin keep you know, we all know San Antonio Is could take a jump. So I think a lot of it is if we're going to keep doing seven game series. Well, a lot of it is who's healthy because a lot of guys went to the floor this year.

seen their ceiling yet. I think there's a level they can get to, especially in the offensive end of the floor. That we haven't seen yet, and I'm curious to see where that ends up. Is does that end up being a team that's just like all the other champions they can't repeat, or does it end up being a team that ends up making a mark on this air. But the injuries thing is fascinating. So we have a shout out to Josh. It gave us the stat before the show,

the Tyres Haliburton achilles tear. If that confirms to be what it is, which is what it looked like. I mean ABC made us watch it thirty times. I have no idea what that was all about, but that would be the eighth achilles tear in the NBA this year. The previous season high was five. What do you make of this? Like upticking these weird severe injuries in.

level of pace, the level of physicality. These guys are more like tightly tuned violins and it just doesn't take much. And so I don't I just do listen to college basketball doesn't have near the quality of talent of the NBA. But why are their ratings often beating NBA playoff games? Because of the urgency And we all know baseball you have to have a longer series because such a big component of baseball as starting pitching, so you know you're

setting up your pitching. That's part of the chess match of baseball. But I don't think in basketball I need a seven game series. Michael Jordan's big years, it was a five gamer until you get to later rounds. And I just think, I think Adam Silver and I'll give Rob Manfred and Roger Goodell credit. I think our commissioners see this. They're very open minded. Manford's made multiple big swings, you know, which goes against baseball's history. Basketball's been, you know,

much more progressive, willing to experiment. League sometimes, you know, the new ball. David Stern didn't even give the players a heads up. But the Lee Adam Silver has made, you know, the nd season tournament, I think you have to really examine. And when I had him on, we talked about this is that embrace college basketball. You know how you know what Indi, Oklahoma City is to me.

We're all the G League guys. It's a lot of guys who played a lot of years of college embrace college basketball as an almost educational basketball tool, not the school part. Just be what Tom is over two or three years, like it matters. And also, you have to really examine the value of these players. If you're signing a seventy six billion dollar contract for eleven years, you want your stars playing as long as they can. Halliburton's injury made me sick to my stomach. The game didn't

feel the same after that injury. I was so fired up all day. I got home early, I watched two hours of the pregame show a sick to my stomach. I'm like wow, and and again I just think you can Money's not the problem. We got seventy six billion coming Like, Money's not the issue. The owners are all billionaires. Let's protect the players. There's no reason for seven game series. In the first two rounds.

and it's happening at an increasingly high rate. And I think it has a lot to do with just the way the game has changed, in the sense that the point at which players are engaging defenders, the point at which players are being asked to contend with physicalities extended substantially further away from the basket. You're facing ball pressure and being guarded thirty thirty five feet from the basket

some of these times. I bet if you tracked an individual player movement and just how often he runs around the floor, just the straight line distance that he runs, it's probably double what it was in the nineties in a single game, just because of the pace, the amount of ball in player movement that occurs on every single possession. It's just a lot, and so to your point, like I understand the TV aspect, and it's like, okay, we got we get money from these games. We can't cut

games because it costs us money. If anything, we're trying to add games. Here's the Ncason Tournament, here's the play in tournament. You know they added that seventh game to the first round after it used to be five. Like they are adding inventory that the players can't handle. And if you really dig into it and you actually start to look at the way it affects the product, I'm so glad you mentioned that.

I'm watching the finals. We're all distracted. So you know, I just I think the reality is you just anytime you can make a game feel like an event and everybody wins. The players win, I win, you win, the networks win. So it'll be interesting now because the NBA is going to be on so many networks and it's going to dilute some of the coverage. But you're going to have to make it special. And by the way,

this is what Baseball did. Fox went to Baseball and said, you guys have to create the home run Derby's your highest rated non World Series moment, create more things like that. So they did the Cornfield game. They put the Mets in the Phillies, you know, overseas, and I watched all of them. So I do think there's a certain apathy in the regular season. I mean, even the league officiates different in the postseason. They understand the urgency, so I

think they'll get it right. I think Adam will eventually get it right. He's not a stubborn guy. I don't think any of our commissioners are. And I think going from seven games to five games, you may not think it's a big deal, but I over the course it could be four less, four or fewer playoff games. You know. I feel like Halliburton's body just gave out tonight. It just it was exhausted. He just pushed it and pushed it and pushed it, and it just gave out.

breaking down every year in the playoffs. Remember last year, it was like, oh, the calves are going on Donovan Mitchell's foot, and now we're you know, and then oh, like here come the Pacers and the tyres Haliburt and gets it. It's like it's it's this like it's basically turning into a war of attrition more than it's turning into a battle of basketball. And that's what they have to figure out because otherwise what you're going to see

is the deepest, youngest team win every year. I mean, and that's more or less what we saw in the finals, you know, you know, on so many different levels. Anyway, call, we did get a new piece of news this morning. Kevin Durant is now Houston Rocket and in return, the Phoenix Suns are getting Jalen Green, a young player with tons of potential but maddening downsides at this point. Dylan Brooks, who I actually think is a very good role player in the NBA.

players who are All Star potential. So if they stay at ten or move up to six or eight, they're getting a potentially really good player, probably with more than one year in college. And again, I don't think anybody will ever unlock Jalen Green, like I think he's the classic, doesn't have a defined game, never probably will, but we can't deny that he can drop thirty in any given moment,

that he's wildly talented. I don't like his game, but I'm not going to deny that he's you know, long, twitchy, fast, very good transition player. He's just and that there are a lot of these guys in the NBA. You know, they come in and they're talented, and maybe either they don't work on their game but they don't get the right coaching, or they just they probably have so much talent from sixth grade on that they never really there's no catalyst for them to like really burrow down on

a specialized you know, not everybody is just driven as MJ. Right, I'm reading the Caitlin Clark book. I mean that girl's she is MJ. She's obsessed, and it's just like, not everybody's like that. Some people are just talented. And so between Aman Thompson and Shangon is a beautiful touch. Kevin Durant and a series of four or five very good young players. And I think Adokah is a very good coach.

That's a real team. But I think it's easy to look at Phoenix and just go, well, they got Green's productive. Dylan Brooks is a very good small forward defender, can give you seventeen a night. You got the number ten pick. You got a bunch of second round picks, which you can turn those into things. Phoenix wanted her a little bit of a reboot. They got it. But people on the internet are like, oh, Houston dominated. If Katie got

hurt in game thirty six, it wouldn't feel like Houston dominated. Right. They're not bringing him there to be a foundational piece. They're bringing him in to get a bucket like. He will not be the leader is shen Goon will still be this I think the centerpiece of the team, Aman Thompson will be your best athlete and your defensive stopper. He's going to be a bucket guy. So that's why I think it works. He's still one of the top twenty three, twenty six best players in the league. I

would argue. I mean, I was on the plane when I was flying in today, I started writing down numbers and I got to like twenty one. I'm like, he's in that space. And again, Phoenix was terrible when he didn't play. So that's my long winded answer on I think Houston will look like they won the trade, but Phoenix got assets too.

This is three stats to show that Kevin Durant is still one of the very best players in the NBA. He was the best jump shooter in the world this year. Among fifty eight players in the NBA to take at least five hundred jump shots, KD was the only player in the league to make over half of them, and he in second place was Shay who made forty five percent. And if you waited it for threes, his one point two to two points per shot was still number one

in the NBA number two. He was the only player in the NBA last year to make at least two hundred pull up jump shots, meaning off the dribble, while making more than half of them. In three he was far and away the best isolation player in the world last year, out of the ten players ran at least two hundred and fifty ISOs. His one point one to six points per possession including passes ranked number one in the league, a full six points per one hundred possessions,

ahead of Shay who was in second place. I think he is when it comes to refined offensive skill, he is still one of the very best players in the league. So I would put him in that sixth to fifteen range, depending on and we haven't seen him play enough high leverage basketball lately to see where he really lands in there, but I think he's still in that range. And if you ask me what the Rockets issue was, this is a deep team with a load of big, physical athletes.

If you ask me what their one week at weakness was, it's refined offensive skill. And that's what Kad comes into address. We were just talking about this with Desmond Baine in the Orlando Magic the other day. Yeah, when you take a bunch of big athletes that kind of struggle with spacing and you bring in a guy who like just run him off a screen and he's automatically going to pull two defenders out thirty feet from the basket and unlocks a world of possibilities on the short role. A

men Thompson will be an amazing short role player. You know that thing that Draymond Green did for Steph where Steph would come off of Draymond to take two players and then Draymond would go right down the middle of the floor and make the play that broke the defense down. That is a thing that A Men Thompson has been unable to do in Houston because they just don't generate many of those opportunities because none of their shooters are good enough. KD will lock that part of him N

Thompson's game. It is not a perfect roster. I was writing down all the names on the roster today. They're a little light on ball handling, but that sort of thing they can get. You know what's so funny, Colin. I remember when the Sun signed Highest Jones last summer. I was like, why you already have this redundancy of all these dudes who can dribble and you're just not athletic enough and you're not good enough on defense, Like you need athletes and dudes that can like like beat

up people in these physical environments. You know who could really use Highest Jones Houston, like, I think they should call I think Kevin Duran should call up Highest tomorrow and be like, hey, dude, come with me.

in his hands. He would work with that offense, whereas Cat can kind of. I always felt like Cat and Brunson were playing you know, your turn, my turn, your turn, my turn. Kd's kind of like, I'll sit in I did it with Russ Westbrook. I'll sit in the corner. Get it to me eventually. So I think he fits really really well, and I think they have the coach. I think again, it's so hard to judge Houston because

so much of their roster is young. I like feel like everybody's in the fourth inning, Like, I mean, Amen Thompson could take a big leap. I mean, shn Goon's the only one where I look at him and I think, oh that again. I use this word a lot. But that's a defined and refined offensive game. He's got European touch, like he has a game. A lot of their players, I feel like they're just in early innings. I don't know what they are so Aman Thompson's obviously defensively defined.

He's so strong and athletic and aggressive, but KD gives them refinement. This is a second offensive player. I know exactly what I'm getting. And that's that goes back to a little Oklahoma city that one of the reasons Indiana gave OKC problems. Syakam has an offensive half court game, Halliburton does, TJ McConnell does, Like that's three guy. Even Obi Toppen when he hits threes, You're like, he's athletic and hit threes. They had guys that they Rick Carlile knew, Okay,

this is what this player does with Houston. Houston's like a younger OKC. I'm just not sure what everybody is like I just need more guys that I go into a game and go, yeah, I'm going to get twenty fourth tonight from KD and I can draw up two or three plays for him. So Houston to me is

early innings they could end up being. They could end up looking at If you told me next year a team explodes in the West and ends up winning by seven point eight points, I would guess Houston because they have so many players that are just going to springboard to another level here in the next fifty to one hundred basketball games.

against Indiana's ball pressure. But the youth, the thing that you're talking about in terms of the wide range of outcomes is super interesting because as I was breaking down their depth chart today, I'm looking at it, and I'm like, okay, Fred van Vliet, legit point guard. You know, Shane gun center. Kd's your four. A men Thompson, I think defensively functions as either a two or a three, so that could be either. But then it's like Jabari Smith Junior is

kind of a four. He plays basically the same position as Kadie. I don't think he moves his feet well enough to be a three. Cam Whittmore could be one of those guys. Reed Shepherd could be one of those guys, but like, who knows. And here's the other thing to call it. Houston gave up one first round draft pick in this deal. They still have a boat load of first round draft picks at they're disposal, so they're high.

They're like a high likelihood for like a we bring this team into camp, we watch them for twenty games, and we go, oh, here are the two things.

be in six game series. In the West. It's not like the East where you kind of feel like if Aliburton comes back next year, they're just certain you're gonna win a lot of series really quickly. You're gonna have long series. In the West, no reason to have you know, I want Kde going into the playoffs, you know, off about a two games and nine days stretch, healthy and ready to go, and I had you have to think

about that as a GM with an older player. In the West, if you have a Steph a KD, all these series are long series.

over now and it's a mess. Like they are able, like they are able to prevent the redundancy that Phoenix had, where you have a bunch of guys who do the same thing. On Houston, what KD does is so specialized for them that they kind of have an identity separate, separate from him, so they will be able to win games without him. They will be able to carry the load so that he can come in and lift them over the top. I think it's a I think it's

a fantastic on paper basketball fit. It'll be ugly sometimes. Kdie's gonna have some nights where maybe the statistical performance isn't there because it's ugly. They can't space the floor as well for him, But they will in turn do the same thing to the other team, so to buy Kevin that margin for air. Before we get out of here tonight, Coln, I didn't want to run this by you because I've seen a lot of victory lapping criticism.

You know, let's just say the Phoenix Suns have been the butt of the joke today because they took McHale Bridges and Cam Johnson and Chris Paul and they turned him into basically Bradley Beal and Dylan Brooks and Jalen Green in one first round pick. I get that it looks bad. Here is where this is where my brain

went this morning. They made it to the finals a year where because of COVID everyone was hurt, and we had a tray young Hawks team in the conference finals, a Paul George Clippers team with an injured Kawhi in the conference final, and that Sons team. And by the way, they ran into Giannis and Giannis beat them four straight times for the title. So they weren't good enough. Then the next year they kind of have a great regular season and Luca like embarrasses them, like embarrasses them for

the world to see. In the second round, they weren't good enough, so they made an aggressive trade. They went and got Kevin Durant. Every one of us would have done the same thing at that point in time. It was Kevin Durant and we had just seen him be so amazing for Brooklyn in those couple of previous playoff runs. Even the Chris Paul thing. Now, I would argue they should have used Chris Paul's salary as a vehicle with

which to bring in more size and athleticism. But they like, you're like Chris Paul for Bradley Beal, Like, I mean, come on right, you could talk yourself into it. Again, it wasn't perfect. There were mistakes. There are certain things I would have done differently. But now we're on the other side of this and it's like self awareness. We're not good enough. We just missed the playoffs in the Western Conference, Like Katie misses a few games and we

completely fall apart. Like, I understand it looks bad when you zoom out, but to me, what happened to Phoenix is just what happens when you get aggressive and it doesn't work. Well, yeah, matter is there's risk.

I was a Bradley Beal fan for years. I didn't understand why he was so loyal to Washington, which was poorly runed and poorly owned. So I can't I can't criticism, and I always tend to be a big fan of being aggressive. I like what Orlando just did to get banged, So yeah, I can't bang. And I'm again, if they hit on the number ten pick, they've got enough second round picks, they got enough pieces to I think you

just have to take more big swings. I think with Bradley Beal, I wonder if you just don't buy out the contract, like I mean, that's how bad of a deal it was. So, you know, I think if they were in the East, you'd have a better vibe or more optimism. I just think I look at San Antonio, and look, I still think Denver's going to be really good. I think they just, you know, I just look at

the West, the better gms, better rosters, deeper teams. I mean, God, we've almost forgotten about what they're building in San Antonio. Holy crap, do they have a lot of talent. They're in the second inning. So I just think a phoenix relative to the conference. You know, they just feel like I have not, and they probably are. But I I mean, I know Matt Ishbia and Justin Ishbia. I know Justin actually I met him when I moved to Chicago. He's part of the White Sox. I think ownership group now

and Matt got really agree. And I think one of the things I've learned over the course of my life, Jason, it's I made a lot of mistakes, but it's hard to master two things. Like Michael Jordan tried baseball, right,

Randy Moss tried basketball. It's really hard. And I think sometimes when aggressive owners come in and they think, hey, you know, because the sons like don't have the biggest scouting department, and the owner comes in and thinks, I want stars, what you're really saying is I'm moving into

a completely different world and I'm smarter than Sam Presty. Right, Like even Sam Presty the James Harden deal early, he didn't get enough like it's it's I mean, I look at GMS and football and basketball who I like, and they make big mistakes. Shabbaz Napier the draft pick for pat Riley in the heat, Like great people make mistakes.

Nobody on the internet, you know, the roles don't want to ever admit it, but I think they came in and the owner was a little hot and a little aggressive, and this is a hard sport to master, even the best people just you know, you're you're drafting nineteen and twenty year olds, and I think, you know, I'm not going to bang on the suns because when they made the moves, I was like, I kind of like it, and then a year later I'm like, man, was I wrong? So I can't be I can't stand on any HIGHUS

mountain today because I like their moves. I thought, Bradley Beal, Bradley Beal's been a disaster. There's nothing else you can say. It's just been a disaster.

And it was by the way, if you like remove the championship from the equation, it's like he went there and then he left and he went to LA and the Raptors tanked, Like the Raptors fell apart after that, Like that's what happened, but they won the title. But even if you zoom in on the series, it's like three three in Philly and Kawhi hits like a leaning jump shot while falling out of bounds that hits every part of the rim and then falls in Like that was the gap. That was the gap between the Gamble

being a success and being a failure. And so ultimately, I feel like we're just playing the results when we say that, and like, yeah, you know, I look at it. It's like you draft, you trade it for KD. There was one team who gave the twenty twenty three Nuggets trouble, one team, the Phoenix Suns. That the Phoenix Suns were the team that pushed them to two to two in the series, and it looked like everything was hanging in the balance, and so like, for whatever it's worth, it

wasn't enough. But yeah, my take was less like, look at the Suns. They butchered everything, and like they acknowledged to themselves that they weren't good enough to win the title. They made an aggressive move for one of the twelve greatest players of all time when he was still playing really well, and it didn't work out, you know, and that's just how it goes sometimes. But Colin, it was great to see you today. Thanks so much for coming on the show. This has been a really fun season.

Shout out to the NBA for giving us our first good NBA final in a very long time.

with the NIL money. I think draft picks over the next ten years are going to fortify teams much more quickly than they have for the previous twenty where it's eighteen year olds who are just not ready to play, so this will be a really fun draft to watch. There's some really special players.

for supporting us this season. It's been an incredibly successful season. I can't say enough about the way you guys have supported us in the show over the course of this year. And we will see you guys tomorrow morning.