Episode 29: All Star Snubs, MVP Train Wreck, State Of Basketball With Tommy Gunn @TGunn21

some suggestions. Uh, Tommy, do you have any suggestions? I'll top of your head. I can only think of one. Okay, it's kind of ridiculous, but my thought was gunned to my head. We'll see what the people think about that, but that was the only thing that popped in my head. At least. There's kind of like a playoff words. I say a lot of stupid things. You bringing me on this podcast is like kind of putting a gun to your own head because you know what I'm you know

what I'm gonna say, So we'll see. Maybe it has mois well, So for all of you who are listening, and I'll tweet out something like this later and Tommy can share it if you guys can think of anything I would like to to rebrand this specific podcast. Um,

but I'm really excited to have Tommy on. I'm I'm excited for this podcast because I think there are a couple of things that are really interesting that are going on around the league, and I think we're gonna be able to bounce around to a bunch of teams as

a result. Um. I wanted to start with this, uh, this thing with the All Star snubs because it kind of gets brought up every year, and there's there's kind of like an overarching opinion that I have that I think explains how I feel about about all sorts of snubs and a bunch of other topics around the NBA, which is basically just that you know, everyone wants to uh pretend like they're slighted when there's a lot of really good basketball being played, and I think you have

to remember that it's not. We're not judging these types of decision is based on are you playing good basketball? We're judging these types of decisions based on are you one of the best players in this league? And so, for instance, it's something that always gets brought brought up

in the MJ Lebron debate. It's this idea that you know, and I used to feel this way when I was younger, before I really thought it through all the way, this idea that like, oh, m J didn't play very good competition or the players, you know, m J didn't have to go against Steph and Katie or or all this kind of stuff. And what I what I think is important to remember is, you know, MJ's job wasn't to be better than every player that would ever come in

the future. It was his job to be the best player out of his peers, out of out of what basketball resembled in his era. Um And as basketball progresses, I think there will always be better players around, and it's your job, in order to be remembered, to vault yourself over those players, you know. Like that's the thing, Like Lebron is playing in an era where a lot of people are good at basketball, so he needs to separate himself. And the same thing goes with these all

are as. You know, you and I before the show we talked a little bit about Demarta Rozen, but the same goes for for a lot of these guys, you know, like Devin Booker was complaining like Colin Sexton was complaining. It's like, you guys are great, You're great players. Are you one of the top twenty four players in the league. Are you one of the top twelve players in your conference? Is more accurate because if you're not, then you're not an All Star because the All Star is not are

you really good at basketball? The All Stars? Are you one of the top twelve players in your conference? And if you're not, then you don't deserve to be an All Star. This is in a participation type of award. This is strictly a ranking. You have to make the top twelve. And so I have a problem with, uh, you know, over sympathizing, over sympathizing for that type of thing, because the the extensive amount of talent in the league just means you have to be better, uh, And so

that that's kind of where I land on it. What are your thoughts. I can understand why Devin Booker feels cited for not making it in front of like Julius Randall, right, because Devin Booker is by any measure of better player than Julius Randall. And I mean, that's an entirely different conversation on the conference, on conference lines, and should we even have conferences, especially with as easy as travels nowadays,

all these teams have private planes. There's probably a better way to do it than strict conferences, especially when we're talking all star teams. But I I don't really see really any complaints or anybody besides maybe Devin Booker. I mean, we had Julius Randall making an All Star team. And look, I've been a Julius Randol fan. He's had a really up and down career, and I'm glad that he's figuring things out. I've always been a guy who really liked

who really liked his potential as a player. But Julius Randall isn't one of the twenty four best players in the league. And when we look back fifteen years from now, we're probably gonna be like, whoa Julius Randall made an All Star team? Like he's He's not. In my opinion, he's probably not gonna matter in the history of basketball, right. So the fact that people some people feel snubbed, like a DeRozan or a book or it just it rings a little bit hollow to me. When you're not like

making this huge night to night impact on the league. Like, none of these guys who are complaining really have. Like hall In Sexton, he's had a really nice year. He's improved a ton since he's coming to the league. But dude, you're not really impacting anything on a night to night basis, especially because Cleveland hasn't been good for like a month now.

They were really good to start the year, and if they kept up their level of play, maybe it does make sense for calling Sexton to make an All Star team, but he just hasn't been good enough lately to warrant any type of complaining about not making it. Then the winning is the most important part because and that's what's

kind of cool about this whole All Star snub. You know, topic is like, you know, like Christian would, for instance, tweeted out, you know what do you say, something like casuals or something like that talking about the people who voted for the All Star uh selections, And it's like Christian, welcome to the modern NBA where you averaging ten doesn't matter, Like it doesn't matter what you're doing with your numbers anymore. It's are you doing? Are you putting up numbers in

an impactful way that's leading to team success. That's what's gonna get you selected in all of these things. And and and that's what's what I like about the selection process now is for the most part with you know, there's gonna be occasional, uh, you know, people who get missed, But you know, the reality is, is the way you can differentiate yourself from the pack when all these guys are putting on the numbers. You know, Demarda Rosen's averaging

twenty points a game. You know, Colin Sexton's averaging twenty points a game, Christian Wood's averaging twenty points a game. The way you separate yourself is by doing it in an impactful way that leads to your team winning basketball games. And I'm okay with that as far as the selection process goes. And and my thing is like, if you're on that fringe, you put yourself at the risk of a selection process going the other direction. That's just part

of the risk. And and so for in this case, like you know, I think it's great for the league that you have so many good players, but this is you know, it's what pushes everybody to get better. And I think I think that's the that's the way you gotta approach it if you want to walk into next season and be like, this is the year I make the All Star team. Okay, it doesn't mean you have

to go put up twenty five points. You have to be better than you know, all but eleven other guys in the conference at a minimum in order to be be able to make that list. And I'm okay with a selection process. Yeah, And I mean Christian would specifically complaining doesn't make any sense. He's played seventeen of twenty nine games this year. But dude, you've missed half your team's games. You're not an All Star, Like part of part of being an All Star is being available almost

every single night. Like something about getting not selected as like the hot thing to do every year. Yeah, it's more and more guys every year who think that they're deserving because they're putting up Like you're referencing twenty points a game. More guys than ever scoring twenty points a game.

It's just the nature of how the games played, because of pace and because of how space out offenses are, it's just easy to score twenty points relative to past eras, like, probably easier than any time since the nineteen sixties and seventies when the skillet level just wasn't as high, so it was harder for guys individually to go get that

many points. Um. Yeah, it's just I don't really feel for guys who think they've been snubbed, like it just will never really resonate with me, like like you're referencing. If you want to make a team, go win games. Draymond Green made like three or fourth straight All Star Games when he was averaging most years single digit points. That's because he was impacting when at such a high level that his team was winning sixty plus games every year.

If you want to if you want to make an All Star Game, go have your team on a on a sixty win pace by the All Star break and you've got a good chance. The Atlanta Hawks in two thousand fifteen are a great example. That was a team who won sixty games, and because they were on that pace, they had four guys make the All Star team. And they really have four who was it was fatigue? Yep, those three and then got planking. That was it was not Joe Johnson. This is all right, this is terrible podcast.

I'm gonna figure this out Atlanta Hawks, UM fifteen and Tig Millsap. It was Millsap one of the one of the more forgotten, like really good players of the past ten years. If you would have been in the right situation, I really think he could have helped the team win a title, similar to Draymond. Different players, but similar type of impact on a night to night basis. But they

went six d N twenty two that year. They had probably thirty five plus wins at the All Star break, and they had four guys make the All Star team, Like if it really is that simple, and so many of these teams are neck and neck this year in both conferences, basically Utah, the Lakers and the Clippers have separated themselves in the West, and then in the East. It's like Philly and and Brooklyn kind of now, but

it's it's such a jumbled mess. Unless you're putting up like Kevin Durant level numbers, Nazan Tatacumbo level numbers, Joe l m b level numbers, Yo, catch all these guys are the superstars of the league. You don't have any case because there's so many guys averaging like twenty four points a game. It's just Zack Lavine is averaging twenty eight and people are still arguing whether he's impactful or not. And he's doing it on shooting. That's how crazy the

league is right now. Yeah, no, I'm with you. And like I said, you know, it's kind of you know, there's it's like a basic societal concept. It's kind of like when you know, as as the as the United States of America, we choose to operate under the you know, the idea that you're innocent until proven guilty instead of

guilty until proven innocent. When you choose one of those pasts, you recognize something might slip through, Like if you if you're innocent until proven guilty, there's a chance that you might, uh let a guilty man go free, you know, and and and or vice versa. And that's the that's the

way this goes. Like when you're you know, running your All Star selection based on on winning mattering the most, there's a chance that there's gonna be a really good player that slips through the cracks because his team isn't winning. But I would rather have it that way than the alternative, which is some dude putting up numbers on a garbage team getting in over a guy who's more impactful, like

a Rudy Gobert for instance. Yeah, so I think I think that's just the it's the we have made a decision with the way that we picked these awards that we would rather have that happened than the alternative. And I'm okay with that longs go ahead. Bambata Bio is like clearly a better player than Julius Randall, but because the Heat weren't winning games when Jimmy was out and when a lot of guys were out, Julius Randall made

it over him. Like, I don't think any team in the league right now would take Randall over Bam if they're starting a playoff series tomorrow. But Randall might have had a bigger impact on winning, you could. They're in the playoff hunt. I think they're like a six seed or something. So it's not like exactly garbage team. No, no, not on a garbage team. But my point is, like people thought that Randall made a bigger impact on winning through games or whatever it is, and eat them in

the standings, aren't they that they are? Yeah, And and a lot of that was Miami having a bunch of COVID issues. They had half of their rosters only played like less than twenty games, so that's part of it. But you can make the argument that the Nicks don't have a great roster either, and they're they're at five D right now, so you can see the argument through thirty games that Randall's had a higher impact on winning.

I do think that there's like a conversation to be had about changing the NBA awards because I don't like how so many awards are are regular season focused, and there's basically one award that's playoff focused, and that's the Finals MVP, which is a super flawed award because it takes into account just a handful of games when a

playoff run is so much more complicated than that. And in many cases the playoffs are one in the in the conference playoffs, you know, especially in the past with how weak the East has been, and so, you know, what would be interesting to me is to kind of cater a certain award to the regular season and then to kind of flip it around for something else. What I was thinking is, what if you did, like, you know, All Star to represent who was the best in the

first half of the season. And then you did you know, m v P for who was the most valuable during the regular season, but then you did something like did to all NBA selections after the playoffs so that you at least have like a snapshot of the league for the totality of the experience, counting the playoffs and the

regular season. Because I don't like the idea of a playoffs m v P UM because I feel like the playoffs m VP like it doesn't it should never go to a loser so that it ends up being a finals MVP anyway in my opinion, So like the idea of like some sort of all NBA selection that kind of takes place after the season would make sense to me, because I do think that they need to recognize playoffs success. I'm just not sure that there's a good answer. Quite frankly,

I don't think they'd ever actually change anything. Yeah, I think you could do both. I mean, I think you could keep the all NBA teams as they are to take a snapshot of the regular season, and then you pare it down for the playoffs. You just do ten guys, or you do eight guys. You figure out some sort of paired down version of the all m b A just like you're saying, take a snapshot of what the

league look like look like in the playoffs. Um, I think I would be in favor of a playoff MVP just because it can like delineate who the best player was through the playoffs and sometimes who the best player was through the finals like two thousand four Pistons are a great example to me. I don't know if Chauncey Billips was like actually their best player, but he won the finals MVP, you could probably make an argument that

Ben Wallace's overall impact was higher. Rip Hamilton's had a really good playoffs if I'm remembering correctly, Like there are years where it would be different, a lot of the years it would be the same, and that would be like I think, another notch on some of the greatest players of all times belts right like Lebron would have

four finals MVP and four playoff m vps. You know, like Jordan would probably have six and six like whereas you know guys are maybe a little bit lesser of players, they would only have one finals MVP and one playoff MVP. I think it it would just be another way because we the nature of basketball debates is like, we love

to argue this stuff. That's that's like most of the conversation on Twitter, always arguing about who's better at a specific time, or who's better overall, who's the greatest player of all time? I think just adding more things like that it makes it debate more fun. If we're going to continuously have these debates, let's have more ways to

delineate them for sure. And yeah, whether it's the playoffs, MVP, or changing the way you do all NBA, Like, I do think that there needs to be some sort of recognition for playoff performance, maybe maybe for more than one guy, like and that's that. That's why, like a first Team All Playoffs or something like that, because it's just like there's too often in these debates the go to talking point is like, well, it's a regular season awards, so

I don't care what his playoff pedigree is. And it's like that can't be the answer to everything, and it literally is, because all of these accolades are regular season related. And then we would all agree that NBA playoff basketball is by far the most entertaining aspect of the sport. You know, the regular season could be you know, such you know, monotonous, you know bullshit, that it makes more sense to to kind of find some way to reward

people for performing on that stage to begin with. You can, I mean, you could do a conference m VP for each conference in the playoffs, like at the end of the conference finals, and then you do you vote at one to three like kai Is two thousand seventeen. Playoffs are incredible, but they get kind of forgotten because Zazo went under his ankle, he rolls his ankle, they get

swept in the conference finals. That dude had an unbelievable series against Memphis, like legitimately was playing like one on five. Sometimes it felt like with what he was doing defensively, kind of shutting down Memphisis offense and then going back on the other end and scoring. But that it's like a lost playoff run because there's nothing to really note it.

He probably gets second in the m v P voting if they do a Western Conference playoff MVP before the final starts, and it would just be a nice way to remember specific years and specific instances where guys were awesome, But it kind of falls by the wayside because we only focus on the champion. UM. So this is actually kind of an interesting topic that relates to our next

topic having to do with the m v P another award. Um. I think this has been really interesting because you know, I couldn't help but think, you know, you know, I I think Lebron has been better this year than he has last year. Like and that's something that you can see in the measurables, in the in the you know, the immeasurables. He's to me, he looks more athletic than he has in the last couple of years, which who knows what. That's the product of probably just being in

a consistent routine. Since July. His percentages are up from every spot on the floor, you know, the his in the paint percentage, his midrange percentages, three point percentage. He's just been better. And I had him as the slight favorite in the m v P, but he's had a

couple of rough games in a row. His last game was one of the worst games I've seen him play, and then even though he had monster numbers and then the previous few games he wasn't bad, but he wasn't, you know, mvy pe Lebron, And I remember thinking, like, you know, I think Lebron might have slipped a little bit in the MVP race, and then I went and looked back at all of the other guys, and everybody's slipping in the m v P race, and so I wanted to quick read some of these things off. So

Lebron's lost three straight. Uh Damian Lillard's lost three straight, and he had a case that was gaining steam when the Portland and when Portland got up to eighteen and ten. Yokich has lost three out of his last five and continues to kind of hover around the middle of the conference. Joel Embiad Philly is five and five in their last ten. He just sat another game, and his last two games he was six for twenty and three for thirteen. So that's Joel Embiad, the guy who was hot on Lebron's heels,

has been just as bad, if not worse. Kauai Uh Kauai probably is the best case to be kind of moving up into that stratosphere. He's played four games in

the last two weeks. Yeah, he missed three games last week and then the UH having uh Brooklyn was missing and then Steph looks great, but he hasn't won three games in a row all season, so it's hard to to give it to him, and then Lucas on a hot street but his team just got back to so at this point, like everybody's slipping and it's anybody's to grab and you know, everyone seems to notice that Lebron is slipping, you know, because he's such a polarizing player.

But the reality is is like the award is as up for grabs as it's ever been. Yeah, it's I mean, Lebron and Steph are really the only ones in the league right now, at least in my opinion, that experience like a night to night referendum on their greatness and who they are as players. Um and and we'll get into the m v P thing, because I think it is interesting, but they're the only ones in the league who where it's like, oh my god, they just played

a bad game against the Washington Wizards. Are we sure they're that great? You know what, Like every loss becomes a huge referendum on who they've been for the past, for Lebron, the past you know, fifteen years, for step the past seven years, where I don't see any other superstar in the league where they're like they're big game, they're they're bad games. Excuse me? Goes so noticed, like name has ad games all the time, but the one

time he scores forty. We get Bill Simmons and Chris Haines talking about, well is Dame on Steph seals again, like are they gone to the same well Dame has? Dame has more responsibility as a playmaker, so you know, he's he's probably better than Staff, which is just such a ridiculous conversation, by the way, like step step is a better playmaker than Dame. Anybody who doesn't know that

doesn't watch basketball correctly. I'm sorry. I just got to that Mark Spire the Chris the Chris hains podcast with Bill Simmons, and it was I'm trying to be nice because I do believe that Steph fans are a little un irrational to the gap between the two. I think there is a clearly discernible gap between the two, but I don't think it's very big. And that podcast did a poor job of explaining the two, like in almost a way that seemed, you know, like they didn't really

understand what Steph does. But anyway, like I agree with you, and like, you know, it's it's funny with the Lebron thing, Like, Uh,

I've been watching this guy his whole career. I've seen him have games like that before, even in his very best years, even in two thousand thirteen, even in two thousand and sixteen, even in two thousand eighteen, even last year, with how good he was, Like every once in a while in the regular season, he just has a stinker man, Like I don't I don't know what to tell you, Like he did it in the playoffs last year against

the Nuggets. In Game four, he was horrible. Uh, had a couple of good defensive plays at the end on Jemal Murray, but was really bad in the second half, a lot of ugly turnovers, a lot of mistakes, and then and then came back in Game five and looked like the best version of himself. Like this is just a thing that happens, and we have bad games every but no one's immune to them. Like Steph had a bad shooting that a few a few nights ago. Uh.

Joel Embid goes three for thirteen. Now, I've been very busy in my personal life, so I haven't I haven't been as paying attention, but I haven't seen a lot of people talking about Joel Embid. You know, it's really getting locked up by the Raptors. I know they won one of the games, but they lost the other. The Raptors always do a nice job. The Raptors always do nice job on him. That's they didn't surprise me that

they did. Uh yeah, and the yeah. The point is is like like no one's immune to these these off games, and you know, but that's just the nature of Twitter, especially with Stephen with Lebron, It's like we every single dribble, every single shot, every single mistake is like just a complete referendum on everything that they've accomplished in their life. And it's it's super annoying. But I think it's just it's amplified by the fact that we hold them to

their past performances. Right, Like Steph isn't in the m VP conversation, probably because he's had his two MVP seasons where when his team won sixty seven and seventy three games, like Lebron, when he won most of his m vps, or well what he did win his m vps, his teams were winning sixty plus games and he was like

very very clearly the best player in the league. So when there isn't that same gap, it's like the same kind of fatigue that Michael Jordan went through with MVP voters why Barkley gets in the ninety three and why Malone gets in ninety seven, Like you just you have to almost outperform your past self if you've been so great before, whereas like Yokichen Embeat, it's they really haven't been at this level before. So we're like, Wow, these

guys are incredible. It's something new, it's something fresh. It's just human nature to not like really be as hard on those two guys because we haven't seen this level of play from them before. But I am interested to see where you kind of have things stacked up right now, because I think we're probably gonna differ a little bit. Okay, So I mean I still I still am right kind of where I was, like, I have I have Lebron with a very slight lead even though he's been playing

less well. Um, just strictly because Embad hasn't taken advantage of that, Like Lebron left the door open four Embat to pass him and Embad hasn't been good enough. Um, I do think that Luca is very much gonna get into the conversation here, because if you're going to factor in Steph in Yogis, which I do, I think, Uh,

I think I'd probably have. I'd probably have you know, Steph and Dame fighting for that five spot and then Luca kind of right behind the two of them, And I I do think that those guys have kind of inched into the conversation as as Uh and Beat and Lebron have slipped. But I don't think I don't think anybody has made who like who's playing well enough right now and their team succeeding well enough to to like confidently step up and say they've changed the conversation. You know.

That's where I'm at. Nobody totally overall, but I'm almost leaning Yokis right now. He really that roster is like entirely depleted. They have like nobody healthy. Um they're there subs last night where Zeke Nanji, who's a rookie Facundo Composo who's like a really nice player. I think he's a really good player. I think he could help some

teams as a backup point guard. But that's just a weird fit in Denver because they already have a good backup point guard, and Monty Morris, he's just another tiny guy who like makes really good decisions, but it's just a weird fit on that roster. And then the other guy playing was like Isaiah Hartenstein, who's bounced around probably four or five different teams. He can't stick anywhere he gets the last three or the last two weeks. So I broke down who my top three are right now,

it's still Yokich and beating Lebron. Not that's necessarily ordered, but that is my top three. Yokich the last two weeks nine and eight on fifty ninety seven, his team is five and three, and beat is thirty one, thirteen and four on forty seven eighty seven and his team is four and three. Lebron is twenty six, eight and nine on fifty one nineteen sixty six and his team is three and four. So for just narrowing down the last two weeks, I think those other two guys have

been better than Lebron. That doesn't necessarily voult them to the top of the race above him, because I think it's it still is all two jumbled right, especially because Denver hasn't really want enough games, even though they're only a game backup fifth and two games back of forth. So if they if they roll off a couple in a row, I think can beat or excuse me, Yokich probably takes the lead in this thing because he has

been incredible. Forty four last night, he had I think close to fifty against Boston last week, He's I mean, he's been ridiculous. I call them the best offensive player in the league last night, and I don't think that's crazy.

Um but it's if you honestly gut into my head right now, I would say it's I would have Yokich as my m v P at this moment, but that could easily change in the next week if Denver loses a couple and you know, Philly starts playing well again, or the Lakers start playing well again, especially if they don't have a D. Yeah, I think I think I'm okay with that. Um Uh, I'm okay with the case

for any player. I think the biggest opinion that I would push back on right now is this idea that anybody is falling out of the race or giving up

their chance to win. When you factor in the fact that everybody's case is getting weaker over the last couple of weeks as opposed to you know, if we you know, back up a little bit, and everybody's case looks so good, especially Kauai and Beat in Lebron, they just had these like iron clad classic m v P cases, and it was being referred to as like this, you know, up for grabs m v P. But now it's like even more up for grabs because the guys at the top

have kind of receded down, uh, into that other group. And so I'm more willing to hear a case for Yokis now than I was a few weeks ago, just by virtue of the fact that the guys on the top of the are are getting worse. But we wouldn't have I wouldn't have made the cakes for Yokich last time we talked about. I think I had him third, but I had Lebron and em Beat in their own tier. Basically right now, I think I'd have those three kind

of in the same tire. And Kauai actually would be there too if he hadn't missed four of the last eight games, right he keeps missing games like you can't be in the conversation, especially for m v P if you keep missing games, I agree, and and it's gonna end up being nit picked. All these cases are gonna get nit picked like that at the end of the year.

Like at the end of the year, you're gonna see, you know, like they're gonna be talking about Yoki's record, They're gonna be talking about, oh, how did Lebron do when a D was out there, gonna be talking about you know, uh Embiid and you know, uh him missing games and Kauai missing games, and it's all just gonna be kind of a jumble at the top, and they're gonna be nitpicking between all these guys. Is like this. Yeah.

The thing that has been annoying to me about like framing Lebron's MVP conversation is like, well, Schroeder and a D are out. It's like, great man. Everybody every team this year has injuries and COVID issues, Like it doesn't matter. You still have to win games. The Warriors have been playing without centers for like two and a half weeks, and they found a way to like maintain and stay

around five hundred. I don't think that makes Steph an m v P, but there's certainly worse roster situations right now than the l A Lakers. They still have a lot of really good players who are healthy. And yeah, you can argue that like Vogel should be playing Montres a little bit more, especially in eighties absence, and he probably should have against Washington a couple of nights ago.

But at the end of the day, if Lebron really really wants to be the m v P and make his case strong, way you don't lose to the Washington Wizards. When Russell Westbrook is literally trying to throw the game like six separate occasions in the last two minutes, That's it's hilarious watching him playing now because russ Brook, I mean, because he's like doing he's trying to do the same things that he's doing five years ago, and he has

like seventy of the same athleticism. It's it's like kind of sad, but you gotta get the guy credit, I guess for just being mentally strong enough to try to be the same guy just the whole game or did you just see the end of it. I'm pretty sure the Warriors were playing that night too, so I caught like the end of the third and then all of the fourth quarter and over time so quickly. In defense of Russ. Uh, he was the reason they came back

and took the lead in that game. He did like it kind of reminds me of what happened with him with Houston last year. Uh huh yeah, Uh really m h m hm hm m. Defensive personnel, but they do have a lot of guys who can shoot, and that's how you can kind of keep things open. And and Uh, I really liked the job RUI had to marryed it

on Lebron. Uh, mainly just with ball pressure and the big thing with ball pressures, it's fatiguing, and I feel like over the course of the game it started to get to Lebron and make it so that he was less. He was more hesitant to drive because he was tired. The I couldn't understand why they put Westbrook on um

Lebron on the last possession of regulation. I thought Murrah switched the screen super easily on the NBA yeah him down like they did a pin down and really just grabbed the screener and Russ went with him because he probably knew Russ was just gonna do that because that's it's Russ, like you just know he's going to try

to take the assignment there. But I've argued this for a little while now, I think because Murra is like a guy that came into the NBA with defensive warts um Like, the big selling point was his offense and then but he had a ton of defensive deficiencies, so draft people didn't love him that much. But he is big, he has athletic and he is kind of long. I think the key is slowing down Lebron at this point is more guys like that, bigger bodies because he doesn't

have that same quickness advantage he used to have. Right when you used to put a big guy on me, just go right around him. It's not the same anymore. If I was if I was trying to beat Lebron, I would tend to put bigger bodies on him and more worry more about him bullying in the post than him beating me off the dribble times because of his quickness. And I think it is a regular season game against

the Washington Wizards. I'm not drawing any grand conclusion from it, but I think really kind of underscores an interesting um way to kind of frame stopping Lebron because at the end of the day, that's what the playoffs come down to a lot of the time. Can you stop Lebron James enough to win an NBA Championship? A lot of teams can't. I think, Uh, there was a play at the end of regulation where Lebron just did a basic dribble drive move on Ruby Hodmerron got all the way

to the basket for a layup. It was with like, I think a minute left. It was before the shot that he had on Russ, and I think like it just so, this is a good time to segue to the Lakers because just in the way that they've been playing, because I think, like, you know, there's a tendant that there. I I talked about this on Twitter the other day. They have all of these players that are excellent in the role that they're being asked to fill. And the

example I used on Twitter was the Morris Twins. So Markief Morris is a much better player for the Lakers than he would be for another team because the Lakers literally only need Markis Morris to shoot spot up threes, to be a ball mover, not a ball stopper. And then on the other end to play his ass off. However, like Marcus Morris is a better basketball player, He's more skilled, he's more athletic, he does everything better than Markis Morris.

But Marky Marcus Morris would be a bad fit on the Lakers because he's a ball stopper, because he would be he would he would struggle to fit into what

the Lakers are explicitly asking him to do. Ironically, though, with Dennis Shrewder out and with Anthony Davis out, and Zach Low talked about this on his podcast the other day, like they basically have one guy who can coherently dribble, and so all of a sudden, these Golden State war I I told about it, and for the record, I agree with you in your point about like not complaining

because everybody has been screwed. But all I'm saying is, like, when you're evaluating the long term, uh, you know, prospects of this Laker team, this is pointless because literally all of these guys are being asked Caruso is now being asked to run the offense, you know, like Montrose Harold is now being asked to use a be be a high usage guy, like literally a guy who's gonna be

average twenty plus points a game during this stretch? Like there, this evaluating this Laker team now is pointless because guess what if they don't have Dennis or a d they might lose in the first round. Because they were never constructed to have Lebron James literally run the entire offense by himself and then have all these defensive minded role players.

They were constructed to have all of these guys that would excel in tiny roles and to have Dennis Shrewder and Anthony Davis carry the with Lebron carry the complicated parts of the offense. And and so I just I I agree Lebron has to find a way to win some of these games for his MVP case. However, in all these games matter for the standings. However, about the Lakers, because Dennis Shooter is gonna play, Okay, Denis Shooter is gonna play. Yeah, I'm not. No, I'm not drawing any

long term conclusions from that. That That would be stupid. My My point is, just like a lot of guys are doing a lot with a little right now, just in terms of offensive output and and winning enough games. And

the Lakers the last week have not looked great. That's my that's my only point in Lebron's m v P case is that you know, there's a lot of guys who have really bad situations right now and are doing a lot with those situations, like Dame is, Dame is down, c J and and Dirk right now, right and they've they've slid recently, but they were playing really well before that without those guys. So asking Lebron to do the same to bolster his m v P case is not

ridiculous at all in my opinion. I'm not making any long term conclusions at all, like if this if this team, like you're saying, doesn't have Shorter, and it either screwed the whole reason Shorter was brought in a lesson Lebron's load in the regular season and to be insurance for like an Anthony Davis injury in terms of just carrying offensive load. The fact that both those guys are hurt as definitely throwing a wrench in the Lakers season. But

it's no reason to like freak out. There's there's too many fan bases doing that this year, like Miami's fan base freaking out when Jimmy and Avery Bradley and half their rotation was hurt, Like, oh my god, light everything on fire. Trade everyone. It's like, guys, half your rotation isn't playing right now. It's also a good right now.

Celtics fans are like kind of doing the same thing there without like maybe their second or third most important player Marcus Smart and Kemba hasn't been great, which I think some people could have predicted. Um I was staying that last year, Like, man, that contract looks kind of bad. He's tiny. He if he lose his quickness, it's gonna

look really ugly. But they don't have like their second most important player, Like, quit drawing conclusions about the team on a hole when some of your most important guys are missing. That's it was the same thing people were doing about the Warriors four games into the season. Five games into this season, Draymond Green wasn't playing and people are saying, oh, man, this Warriors team might be the worst team in the league. It's like, no, their second

best player isn't playing in the basketball games. One of those people, I know you were, I know you were. My Like, most teams do not have the depth to withstand their second best player not playing. It's just the facts, like and unless you're the Lakers, unless you're the Clippers, unless you're Yeah, but they suck, Yeah, exactly Without both those guys, if it was just a d I think they look a lot better. I agree, and they did.

They beat the Brooklyn has enough. Brooklyn has enough with with Kevin Durrant out, because they have two other incredible offensive players and they can still score a hundred and twenty points a game. I do. I yeah, I think,

Like because Ramona Shelburn went on was Zach Low. It basically was like this, this three game losing streak matters, and a Laker Laker Twitter for the record, burned her to the ground when she did that, and she kind of deserved it because like that, like, evaluating this team

at this phase is pointless. Evaluating the heat outside of the context of all their guys is pointless because chances are by the time we get to late May um, things will look a little different and everyone will be healthy and put together for the most parted with the exception of maybe a handful of really unfortunate injuries. But I don't know. I all I'm saying is like, like, for instance, I think the Lakers are gonna get killed tonight by the Jazz. The line in Vegas is absurd.

There are nine point underdogs because freaking machine man. The Dazz are a machine exactly in the in in Vegas knows, like, guess what, they don't have a big that can get Rudy Gobert out of the paint. So like it's gonna be a ship show. That game is going to be a ship show. Like like people who don't know what they're seeing are gonna begging Lebron to do more tonight

and he's not gonna be able to do more. And uh but yeah, I just everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt for all of these teams in the chaos that is the the COVID regular season exactly. And that's what I don't think enough people are doing. They're not people aren't paying credence to that, like on one Himmer saying, oh, like COVID, it's the weirdest season ever.

There's so many guys who are out and these fan bases turn around and flip out when half the rotation isn't playing, like and the regular season is so it is so tricky with this kind of stuff, Like I talked about this a little bit on the short pod that I did on Monday, But like Brooklyn running a switching defense, like that's gonna that's gonna mess with a lot of teams in the regular season. Like it's just you know, because the Clippers, for instance, have actually been

playing really well. They've been one of the more impressive teams for me personally this season. They're super deep. That's what I still I think have the same overall concerns, but they're really really deep. They have a lot of good players, like even Terrence Man, who doesn't get playing time a lot of the Knights when they're healthy, He's an awesome NBA player. That's the guy who's gonna be in the league for twelve years. They just have a ton of lately. Yep, as he's honestly as he should be.

And that Luke and Art contract yikes. Yeah, I think we'll still hear from Luca at some point eventually the I But like with the Clippers, what's fascinating is is like, like they've been playing really good basketball lately. I don't think that the Brooklyn Nets without Katie are that good of a team. However, they're just you're popping into a random regular season game against a team that switches everything, which as of to my knowledge, there's not another team

in the league that switches as much as them right now. Um, I don't watch all thirty teams, but I don't know of any team that you'll you'll see a little bit of switching. Some teams switch tow through three, two or four. Some teams will you know as will switch specific actions. But the Brooklyn Nets literally switch everything, so every single action you run, and they literally do that because Kyrie and James Harden famously die on every screen that's ever

said on them. They have to. If they didn't run, if they ran a traditional defense, they would get lit on fire. But the point is is like a team like a team like the Clippers in particular, a team like the Lakers, those kinds of teams. Uh. Philly is actually a good example of this too, got with the huge size advantage of Ben Simmons on those guards, Like you're gonna have to um do that for several games

in a row. And it kind of reminds me of playing Houston in the past, where it was like in the regular season if you kind of played into their gimmick, you get beat. But if you if the teams that really focused up and and and had a detailed attack to their defense had success. And I really do think like Brooklyn's kind of Uh. I believe in Brooklyn, but I think some of this is smoking mirrors with their with their regular season kind of catching teams off guard

with their skime. I'm pretty sure when the trade first happened, I predicted something like they were going to go on a huge run. You know, they were just gonna be blowing teams out and scoring a bunch of points and there everybody's gonna be like, oh my god, who can stop this Brooklyn team. The Wards still remain like they

very well might win the NBA Championship. I'm not gonna sit here and say they're not going to, especially with injuries obviously finding a factor as they always do, and if things keep looking how they're looking, where every team in the league seemingly at some point is going through these major injury issues, then yeah, I think Brooklyn has a chance to win the title. But if everybody's healthy,

they still wouldn't be my pick. I like, if Harden is a very good post offender, so I think putting him on on like a Janice or an Embiede eight ten times a game isn't the worst option in the world. He's very sturdy. Um, he's really strong, Like he plays angles well. He actually is good one on one in the post. But if like you're doing that with Kyrie as well, he's gonna get eaten alive. Like he has quick hands and I think he'll battle a little bit

when push comes to shove. But the switching defense that like he succeeded in twenty sixteen, the Warriors didn't have a real post threat to like actually go at him, so they were able to switch those actions and it was more perimeter perimeter oriented, whereas like Embiede and you honest will destroy him in the post, like honest. Besides, like like four or five guys in the league, you honest destroys everybody in the post. Same with him beat. Yeah.

So what I think it's interesting is, you know, the Golden State Warriors with Kevin Dury and Steph Curry, managed to solve the two thousand eighteen Rockets switching defense, and they really lit him on fire in Game six and seven, especially in the second half, and that was when the switching defense included Trevor resa In, p J. Tucker and literally just like a bunch of Chris Paul was on that team, Like they were much much much better with

their defensive personnel. You're running a switching scheme with Kyrie who is going to be an absolute liability in specific matchups, James Harden who is a good post offender but cannot defend in space. Uh. Joe Harris is fine, He's fine, but he's not as good as any of those guys on the two thousand eighteen Rockets. Jeff Green is fine, He's not as good as Trevor Reason was in two thousand and eight Kevin Durant, and to be determined whether

or not he takes that on personally. But my point is is, like you know, there's you might you might see a team drop game one to them because they're just caught completely off guard, and that might that might very well end up being something that could swing a series.

But the point is is like they're gonna sit down and watch the tape and they're gonna play him a second time, and they're gonna play him a third time, and then they're suddenly going to realize like wait, if we if we said this specific action, we can get Kyrie onto Ben Simmons, and Ben Simmons can literally just ripped through and go to the rim and it's a foul or layup every time and its wide open three for Seth Curry or or Tobias Harris, Like they're gonna

get really good shots every single time. Because those Rockets teams were really good when things broke down, uh in their back end rotations and stuff that this team, it's like one or two extra passes and they're just gonna quit, and so I I do. The Rockets. The Rockets were put together to be a switching team, like that's how they were constructed. Daryl Morey and his brain trust looked at the roster and they got as coach Jeff Bisdelic, who like really knew how to implement a switching scheme.

They said, this is what we're going to do. That's not how this booklyn Nets roster was put together exactly. They they're they're switching out of necessity, having to do with the fact that their personnel literally cannot run a traditional defensive scheme like DeAndre Jordan's would be on the NBA let's see, we touched on UM Lebron the Portland we can't really talk about because they're without c J. C J. I think it is supposed to come back after the All Star break. Um, Philly has been hot

and cold. The thing with Philly is for me is like similar to the Utah thing. They haven't They don't really have that signature win outside of the Laker game, which they very well could have lost. Um, but the uh, the same same thing with Utah. Just id I'd like to see them put together some quality wins. They're five and five in their last ten and they haven't really been playing that great competition, so I'm not really uh,

super impressed by them as of late. Um, did you see that Warrior schedule that came out, Yeah, Jazz, Clippers, Lakers to uh to start right after the All Star break. Well you saw the games before that too, right, Oh yeah, I mean yeah, it's it's a pretty tough schedule coming up to like this is a very crucial stretch for whether they're actually gonna even maybe make the play in or not. So uh yeah, they're what they're two games

over of right now. They would if they go three and five over this next eight game stretch, which includes the Pacers, Hornets, Lakers, Blazers, Sons, Clippers, Jazz Lakers. Then you're looking at being a five hundred team through over half the season. It's h they were talking about this morning.

There's like a decent chance that you're going to see some crazy playing game that has like Luca don Che versus Steph Curry or something like that, I know, I know, or shoot Luca versus Yoki Yoki versus Steph like these are all possibilities that could happen, which is just I think it goes to something that we wanted to touch on the day, like the level of play in the league, you know it, the amount of offensive talent, like individual

offensive talent, and we've touched on this a little bit before, is probably higher than any point in league history. But I am interested to see what this eventually leads to, and I think we are seeing more of it with guys like Steph and guys with like Yokich. Can these humongous offensive talents, like these absurdly dominant offensive talents learn how to integrate into like a more team oriented system because a lot of the younger guys coming in they

don't really know how to do that. I should lose connection shoot there? Yeah, how much where did you lose

me at? Uh? Didn't lose anything? You can Okay? Perfect? Perfect? No. So I just think, yeah, like you have guys like Trey and Luca coming in the league who are like unreal offensive talents that they can do things with the basketball that like literally maybe no twenty year olds in the history of the game could have done in terms of just running an entire offense and making the correct read almost every single time, knowing when to pass, dribbles, shoot,

like all those things. But they're they're gonna be easy to stop in in a playoff series against great defenses because they only basically do this one thing. They play this one style, and if you can stop that, if you're the right personnel to stop it, they're gonna falter. So I I think it's just interesting to see where this entire thing eventually goes, because individual play can only get you so far, it really can unless and Lebron doesn't play like those guys, but he has leaned that

way in certain years. He can do it because he's like the greatest athlete of all time and he makes the right decision, he doesn't get tired, he doesn't get as tired, and and when he does get tired, he can go on the post, in the post and lean on you for eight seconds to honestly rest and then go get an easy shot anyway you can get a layup or kick out for a three. Like I've said this before, and I'm gonna say it's all on blue

in the face. Basing your offensive system and like the way that you want to play basketball off of the way that Lebron James played basketball is maybe the most foolish thing of all time. We saw the same thing in the two thousand's though with the entire m J generation. You know, guys like Kobe was able to do it because Kobe was fremely talented, But like guys like Tracy McGrady, you're Vince Carter or like all these guys who just wanted to play out of the midpost and do a

bunch of ISOs and score a bunch of points. That's not really gonna like lead to successful basketball if you're not the guy who's the most talented of all time at it. It just just seems to always happen when there's a super influential player, and it's the same things gonna happen with Steph. You're gonna have all these guys launching deep threes. So we've seen it already with Trey, and it's like you're you're not shooting from three, Like you're not just you're not gonna be the same level

as if of effectiveness. That's actually a really interesting point about how like Lebron's impact on the league is leading to this like heliocentric style. Um I do think like this is something that I told you I wanted to talk about today because it's something that's been a popular topic as of late. Um U in in the Twitter circles, and like there's a lot of people complaining about the quality of the NBA for various reasons, and I'm not

necessarily saying any of their specific opinions are wrong. Like you know what, I agree. I think the broadcasts are a little bit too much like podcasts and not enough like basketball analysis that I agree with. Um, I think NBA Twitter is a toxic place. I think the uh, you know, all of the mainstream TV shows that cover the league are too caught up in narratives and and you know, kind of teenager type behavior. I I agree

with that. I agree. I think that like you don't see that stuff with the NFL or even the MLB, Like they're actually most of those shows pregame, post game, daytime shows, they're trying to analyze the game. That's just not in the case with the NBA. No. I agree, And I think you know, the uh everything about refereeing is in is in a really dark place. There's too many three point shot attempts. I agree with all of that, that's all true. I think where I pushed back with

people is like there are huge positives as well. There are more stars in the league than ever before. More and I'm not even just talking about like what we were talking about earlier, like skilled players. I'm saying like they're legitimately right now, three of the top twelve players ever are playing in or at the top of their game. You know, we have an absurd amount of talent shot

making is it an all time high? And I think what we forget with this kind of stuff is like every era had huge glaring flaws, Like the late nineties were so bad in terms of how stuck in the mud they were that they literally had to change the rules, Like that's a thing that happened, you know, and uh, if you if you go back and watch the nineteen eighties, if you like, there was that clip that used to fly around every once in a while about the seven Finals.

Uh Celtics Lakers in that game seven or something and how trash. The first few minutes of the games were like, yeah, like basketball was a little bit ugly back then, and in a lot of ways it was pretty in some ways, you know, some of the ball boom mid stuff, but the overall quality of the product wasn't great. And and so all I'm saying is, like I think part of this has to do with just kind of the complaining era we're in in us being so negative about what

we're what we're seeing. And all I would say is, should we talk about the issues, yeah? Should we strive to be better? Yeah? Or the things we can change? Yeah. But like I'm loving watching the NBA this year, Like the Lakers have no chance of beating the Jazz, and I've stoked to watch it because you know, it's like I get to check out a team that I've been periolling in the Jazz, and I like watching Lebron James play.

It's like I get Steph with a tough road game in India, the challenging game for him, Like there are a lot of reasons to really enjoy it out parts of the NBA, and we have fans coming back eventually. So I just maybe I'm just being you know, Mr. Positive, but I I do. I do get a little frustrated with people complaining a little too much about all of this. I think what's important to note is, like we're basketball nerds.

We talked about it all day on Twitter, we do podcasts about it, like we live and breathe this stuff. The conversation is more about, Okay, how can we pull the more casual fan into the game, right, Like how can we bring them back to booster ratings again? And I think a lot of it really stems down to getting better analysis on the TV shows like these Almost anybody who watches like knows these guys are jokes. Like

they don't actually want to analyze the game. They just want to like get off a talking point, get off an agenda, and then hop off and get a bunch of Twitter mentions and like just kind of fuel the cycle and then go back and do it again the next day, and then the league also has to figure out how to like kind of buoy and market these other stars like besides like a Lebron or a Steph or Kevin Durant, Like they gotta figure out a way

to to market these international guys. And I don't know if I'm smart enough to be like the guy to figure that out, but like, you gotta figure out a way to market honest better. I was watching yokis postgame interview last night after he drops forty four points against UM the Blazers has like an incredible performance, and he's

like this super personal, hilarious dude. He's joking around with Shack, He's joking around with d Wade, like he's given back and forth with all these guys, and you never hear anything about him on like a national scale, Like what are we doing here? The dude is unbelievable. He's a top three m VP candidate. He's got a really good personality. And yeah, the English is a little bit broken and that makes it a little bit tough sometimes, but if you get him just to talk for a couple of minutes,

you like, he has a really good personality. The league has to figure out like a better way to not just have like this lebron centric like media complex to where like almost everything plays off him in a way. Like a lot of the Steph Curry conversation occurs because like, oh, he's not better than Lebron, or like he doesn't measure up to Lebron. It's like, yeah, but Steph is still amazing. So is Kevin Durant. Maybe they don't measure up to Lebron.

Maybe they don't, but they're still amazing players in their own right. Not everything has to be framed in this like oh my god, like is he is he at the same level as this guy? It's like, no, these guys are just incredible players. Let's like break them down for what they are. And that's what the NFL does an amazing job of the guys who are playing well, they get credit, they analyze their games, and they tell you exactly what they're doing well in a very digestible way.

The NBA does not do that unequivocally. They do not, and it hurts the product. And I will say that till I'm blue in the face, Like, yes, there are a lot of good things, but if you can't draw the casual fan in None of it matters really because the league will ever being a good spot, especially with all the COVID stuff. So I don't disagree with anything you said. I think the NBA media coverage is to Lebron centric, doesn't do a good job of developing its

younger stars. I think analysis is at an all time low. I struggle with the broadcast and struggle with all this stuff. I personally have been so deeply bothered by the refereeing in the league right now. I agree, so bad, it's so so bad. There was there was a clip like, oh it was our guy Bobby on Twitter, Lakers fan, but also a huge Steph fan. Step got absolutely way laid on a three, like took a regular three, and one of the New York's guys closed out on him

and like basically knocked him over. This late in the fourth quarter, no foul call. Next possession, Steph comes down, He comes off a pick and roll and like kind of leans Intotaj Gibson as he gets to the free throw line and flails a little bit and throws up a floater and he makes it and he gets an end one. There's the issue right there, Like you're rewarding flopping over a guy like getting abso lutely crushed because he didn't accentuate or acted in the right way. I

don't know how you fix that like that. That is a problem where it's like what do you do even due to address it if the rests can't tell the difference between like a clear guy getting run over and then a guy flopping. So I I don't know how

you fix it either. If honestly, what I think the only the only path that would make any sense to me is to get some former player to become the new NBA head of referees, or to put a player panel together, a panel kind of like the NBA p A. Just get some group of highly influential players, like five or six of them that you know, get on a zoom call with the rest every week and talk about their concerns, you know, because that kind of thing would that kind of thing would make more sense to me,

because I do think a lot of guards similar to Popovich a few years ago saying like, oh, I don't want to shoot all these threes, but I'm doing it because that's the way you win games. Maybe maybe that's what it takes is getting you know, Chris Paul or that that's the name I was gonna bring up. Get Chris, Chris, Get Chris Paul in there. I think he'd be amazing

at something like that. Yeah, and haven't be like, look, man, I'm doing this stuff because it works, but I don't want to do this stuff, you know, Like, dude, you know that would be the biggest way because like at the end of the day, Um, I I always think

about it, like the spirit of the rule. Uh, you know, it's kind of like the play that always gets debated having to do with the ball getting hit out of bounds, and like it very clearly the dude hits it out of bounds, but if you look at it frame by frame, it kind of grew, you know, grazes his finger on the way out. It's like the spirit of the rule is if the dude slaps the ball out of my hand, it's my ball, you know. Like that's more like two

guys are going up for a rebound. The one guy comes over the top of the other guy's hand, only hits the guy's hand doesn't hit the ball, but he pushes the guy's hand and now the ball goes out on the one guy because his hand got pushed. It's like the same type of thing. It's like, dude, just use your brain. You know what the right call is.

Just make the right call. Use discretion. Yeah, agree, and like it that that, to me, is fixable essentially by trying to reframe the uh, the entire referee focus from a really analytical, like uh, you know, rules based approach to more of like, hey, our job here is to is to keep a basketball game organized, not to not to strictly follow these these specific rules. Because I think

as soon as that kind of thing, uh, it takes place. Uh, because that's what happens in a pickup game when we play a pickup you know, I was playing basketball this morning. Like there's just kind of a general understanding like if I you know, if if I drive to the basket and i'm uh and I'm initiating a ton of contact and some dude slaps me at the end, Like, I don't know that I can call that because I'm the

one who's initiating all the contact. And if I do, chances are everybody on the floor is gonna yell at me or look at me a certain way, and and and and and There's a million other examples like that

that I don't want to get into. But the point is is, like in a pickup game, it's the general set of rules that we're going by, is we need to keep this a basketball game, you know, like we need to like we need to kind of stick within this framework of the basketball game, whereas like the refs it's like, oh, well, he was chasing him over the top of that pick and roll and technically he had his hand on his arm as he was going up or you know, uh, there's you get what I'm saying.

It's just I think like it's it's an entire mind, Like it's an entire framework the way that the refs look at this, because if you watch refs, Ryan Rissilo had the lead ref guy on his podcast a couple like a couple of months ago, and uh, and he was talking to him and and they're they're indignant about this. Like the way they talk about it, it's like we're we're doing our job, you know, Like like at one point he literally looked at Ryan. He's like, well, Ryan,

is is it a foul? And Ryan's like, yeah, man, but that's not what the that's not the way basketball is supposed to be. It's like you have to understand that that you're you're thinking about it too analytically and too much on like a uh, you know, very like identifying certain types of contact as opposed to just like is that a basketball a yes? Is that defender playing good clean you know, defensive basketball, or or is he

being over zealous? Like if I'm chasing Dame around the screen and he and you don't let me chase him, then you're giving Dame too much of an advantage, and now all of the one on one elements of the game are gone. And that's where I have a problem with it. I think it's I mean, there's a couple

of things here. I think it's like anything in society where like we overcorrect, right, like referring there probably was some issues with like we didn't get enough calls right, and like teams lost playoff series and championships because of that. And now we've like leaned so far in the other direction where it's like everything has to be by the letter of the law that there's like no room for

human interpretation. Um. And I think maybe the bigger issue, especially latent games and Bill Simmons and Ryan Risseilla talked about this, so I don't want to go on the same tangent that they did, but like the replace at the end of the games, it's like you're ruining all of the tension and like all the excitement that goes into like any type of high climax like sport event, where it's like we don't know who's gonna win, Like there's a bunch of tension here because the outcome is

still in the balance, and then we do a replay for like four minutes and we try to figure out the correct fall. Easy. I think that specific play is a is an easy fix. I think all you have to do is similar to like tennis or the NFL have a replay center, and that's what they brought up.

Have them immediately start reviewing the play, Like if there's an out of balance call, have them immediately start reviewing the play, because they should be reviewing every call in the last two minutes automatically, like they're just they're in a replay center, just like it's already happening. So when the refs walk over, they get an immediate answer, right instead of like this long drawn out process. It doesn't even seem that hard to pull off, for sure. Figure

it out. Yeah, in the twenty seconds with our all pointing at each other and doing this, the dudes are already reviewing the tape. Now, it's just a call that literally the ref just has to go over to a phone pick it up. It's like, all right, what is it? Guys? All right, blue ball? Okay, here we go, you know, make it quick and easy. But but I agree with you because it is like it's a Pandora's box thing, right,

Like you can't put everything back in it. We already have replay, Like you can't be like, oh, we're gonna like wind back play a little bit. It's already here. So since it is, let's figure out a system where we can actually do it correctly and it doesn't affect, like you're saying, the spirit of the game. As as basketball fans and even the casual fan, like the casual fan hates that kind of stuff. They hate watching a basketball game and then five minute replay and they're like, oh,

I'm just gonna turn this off. I really don't care about the outcome. You know, I'm not a if it's a Celtics late or you know, a Celtics. Let's say Wizard's game, and it's a really good game, but there's no like huge fan interest. They're just from kind of like a normal standpoint. Somebody's you're just gonna flip the channel if there's a five minute review, like they just don't care about the outcome. That's how you bolster your

ratings as you clean up all that little stuff. But so to push back on what you originally said, though, like because I do agree with all of those flaws, I guess what I'm saying is like if we had picked up the identical quality basketball in all of the surrounding circumstances from the nineties and we dropped them today with today's public attitude to everything and social media and

all that stuff, would we also be complaining? Because that's my question because like as far as like the viewership stuff, it's like the viewership stuff is down across across the board, and if you're striving to reach these crazy NBA Finals numbers from the Jordan era, I'm sorry, that's unrealistic. Act

that's a product of TV. Like sein Field episodes used to get better ratings in the Super Bowl, you or the same ratings of the super Bowl and it was every week, So you gotta embrace like the And I do think like I do think that, uh you know, because I gotta do an argument with somebody about this a long time ago, but I really do think that, uh, there is something to be said about attention on the

league and the ability to eventually monetize it. So for instance, like one of the things that the NBA does a great job with the social media impressions now right now, they they haven't quite figured out how to monetize or they they are monetizing it, but not as well as they could, uh as you know a typical TV viewer for instance. Well what I what I think is like, I do think that the there's a reason why salary

cap keeps uh ticking up. And when the new next round of TV deals go, I don't know how they're gonna do that. If it's gonna be some sort of combination of streaming and TV or whatever it is they're gonna do, They're gonna be fine. They're finding a way to make money off this stuff. It's a different type of viewer. It's a different viewer of viewership experience. Part of it, too, is our generation prefers things in smaller doses.

We don't have the same patients that we used to to sit down and watch eighty two regular season games, and I would imagine our kids are gonna be even worse in that regard. So a lot of this is adapting and and trying to compare apples to oranges, and so all I'm saying is like, I agree that all this stuff is a problem. I agree that all of it needs to be fixed. You and I just broke down potential ways to fix refereeing. All of it should be addressed, and I hope that they are going to

eventually get to this stuff. However, I just this idea that, like the NBA is a dying sport and this is all the cancerous tumors that are on it. I would disagree with that personally. No, I mean, as long as I can make it through COVID here and get fans back in arenas and eventually have focal pacity. Again, I don't think it's a dying sport, but I think they're like things that need to be addressed. Like NBA Finals was down I want to say sixty six percent year

over year. That wasn't in line with the other sports. So yes, everything, but all the other sports were compared to the same time frame, like the like the Super Bowl happened in February, but the Baseball happened in October. The World seriously happened, the World Series in the NBA Finals happened three weeks of each other. I know, but but the Major League Baseball does have a larger fan base in the NBA that remember that, the larger regional

fan base. Yeah, they'll get they're they're there. When the Cubs made the World Series, they were having like fifty million people watching World Series games. That's the Cubs, though, that's different. I guess I'm just saying, like I I think that the NBA bubble. I would be more willing to hear that out next year, I think than I

would this year. Is I guess my answer, I just and maybe I'm just being too much of a glass half full kind of guy here, But like I I believe that if an average fan turns on an NBA game right now, they there are downsides, but they're experiencing just as much positive as they would like. If you turn on the Pacers, literally, if you turned on a you know, like a Pacers Knicks game. You think that

was a super entertaining experience in February. No, And and to defend the modern NBA, like that stuff was more of appointment television because we didn't have every game being broadcasted, right, So when you got in, when you're sitting on your couch and it's a Tuesday night, or it's a Saturday, or it's a Sunday, you're like, oh, shoot, we have NBA on today, and you only get to see the next twice a year. That's whereas now it's like super accessible.

If I just want to pay like two U fifty bucks a year, I could watch every single New York Knicks game. And if I just want to watch the Knicks, I could be like, I think it's eighty bucks for the entire year or something for just one team. So like, yeah, there's a lot of factors that play into this stuff.

What I don't think we should just totally totally dismissed the ratings, especially when it's not absolutely in line with everything else that's happening, Like there is a I just think there's a middle ground here between like the ratings, like the ratings people who think it's the most dire situation in the world, and then people who think that there's no issues at all. M I agree with, And

that's a good point about the appointment television stuff. And I guess that just kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier about it being kind of apples to oranges. It's just I think, I don't know, I think this stuff is hard, and like, you know what else to like we all are, you know, we kind of surround us. We try. I try to surround myself with differing opinions. I followed fans from all these different fan bases, like I follow with with politics, I follow

people from both sides. And that's how we started doing That's really how we started doing a podcast together because we had differing viewpoints and we were like, Okay, maybe there's maybe we can bring conflicting opinions to something and

making it making it entertaining exactly. I agree, and and so I think, like, but even with us trying to do that, there's still a little of an echo chamber, at least I think generationally, because a lot of the people I follow are in this like twenty five to thirty five age group, guys who watch a lot of m B A, and I do think there's I would imagine,

and maybe I'm wrong about this. I would imagine in the NBA League office there's some person you know, who's been in business for a long time in some in some aspect, who knows a lot of social media or whatever, blah blah blah, who's sitting down with Adam Silver and going like, listen, like you guys post a YouTube clip of a highlight from one of these players and it gets X number of views. This TikTok got seventy seven

trillion views or whatever the heck it is. I'm just throwing numbers out, but you have to find a way to do this because this is where the next generation is. And for you and I, we're gonna be like that's bullshit,

Like how that like the TikTok really? You know, we all made fun of them at the All Star break last year for doing that, and it's like no, no no, Like, the NBA literally has some super smart person who knows this stuff a lot better than us, who's sitting down with their the higher up saying like, this is what you gotta do. And I think, like, to your point, there's a middle ground, like you don't want to stray, you don't want to stray too far in any one direction.

But I do think I do think we should give the NBA a little bit of the benefit of the doubt as they're trying to adapt to literally like the entire world getting turned over on its head in the way that we do everything on a day to day basis. No, I mean, I don't disagree. I'm I'm actually really interested to see how the next TV deal shakes out, because I would think it starts to lean more towards streaming, especially with the way the NBA has begun to do stuff.

They do want a social media presence, like they are really good on Twitter, they do a great job on YouTube, like they've basically taken over their own YouTube, like they won't let Praying the people post highlights anymore because they want all that for their piece of the pie. Right. They're trying to get on TikTok, which is still weird to me, but it's probably something they have to do,

as you're kind of noting. So yeah, I mean, I'm honestly just see was it to see where all this ends up, because I think it is a really crucial time like they can. If they do all of this correctly, I think they could really maybe um on the market

within the next ten years. I mean, they're never going to overtake the NFL, but they could become the clear, clear clear number two again to where they're easily the second most popular sport in the country, and then globally they're gonna keep growing, Like NBA is the second most or not NBA basketball is, it's like the most popular sport in the world behind soccer, so I think crickets up there too, but that's kind of more regionalized. There's just a lot of people who like it because it's

very popular in one region. But point being like basketball isn't a good place overall. They just have to figure out the right way to go about this, and it it feels like they keep making mistakes would make the product worse, and if you do that enough times, then eventually it becomes a problem. And I think that's probably what more of kind of the alarmous stuff is about. We actually do the same thing on Warriors Twitter to kind of pull back the curtain a little bit. There's

been some concerning moves by the front office. So every time there's another concerning move by the front office. You're like, oh, like, are these guys actually not who they who we thought they were? And there's kind of the same feeling with the NBA. I think that's why Warriors fans have honed in on it so much, because we do see some of the cracks in the army with the front office, and we see a parallel with the league office where it's like, these guys keep making weird decisions and they're

not really correcting the problems that need to be corrected. No, it's it's interesting, and like, I just I think, like I think things will shake out. Um, I feel the same way about just the on court product. Like it it's you know, at a certain point, the defenses will adapt and you won't see as many threes. You know, at a certain point, the refs are gonna get sick of getting slandered and they'll try to get better hopefully, Like all this stuff I think just kind of organically

works itself out. And I just I love the league and you're right like that the casual fan it is an important part of their business strategy in heading into the future, and like the financial incentives are real, like the players know that for them to make more money,

the league has to make more money. And so I think that I think that you and I touched on this earlier, but the idea of getting some sort of player panel from the NBA p A to work directly with refs to try to to try to figure out some common ground might be one of the easiest ways

to improve that specific side of it. And maybe if you shouldn't just be like refereeing, it should just be like kind of spirit of the game type stuff, right, like it's just a more encompassing thing where yeah, refereeing is a part of it, but like what ways would make the game? And this would be tricky because players are always going to advocate for themselves in a way.

But you know, what are some ways that you think the game could improve, And it might be better to do it with guys who were recently retired, like NFL Tony Rolmo has been a really good NFL analyst because he's recently retired, he still knows like all the lingo he saw, has a lot of connections in the league, so he can convey the game very very well. You should get guys like that in the NBA league office

who are recently retired really know the game well. And there I think those guys would be more prone to advocate for the league on the whole instead of just advocating for the players, as active players would tend to do. Yeah, and and and that's the important balance is like you can't have the players making all the decisions because if it were up to the players, none of them would ever get criticized in the media, which is a completely like a completely impossible type of future for the league.

And and you need but you need you. I think the idea there is like you get a bunch of the different sides in the room and you start bouncing ideas around and you find a way to make it work. But at the end of the day, like it's I would hope that they're already doing this stuff. Yeah they're not. They're definitely in trouble. Yeah exactly. Anyway, we are just over about an hour and ten minutes, so I'm gonna let you guys go. Everybody, thank you so much for

tuning in. Like I said, we need a new show name. So I'll tweet this out with the Tommy's put a gun to his head. I'll I'll send out a tweet that you can share here in a minute that just kind of asks for some ideas. But the podcast version of this will be out probably in about fifteen twenty minutes. Tommy, thank you as always, and I will see you next week. My friend sounds good man. Thank you