Hoops Tonight - A Eulogy to the Nets’ season

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help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York. In Tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee visit www one dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. I am Jason timp. I hope all of you guys have your weeks off to a great start. Well, Tonight's

outcome went about exactly as I expected. I told you guys right after Game two that I had seen something from Boston that I hadn't seen from any basketball team in recent NBA history. And I didn't I knew right there in that moment that Brooklyn didn't really have a chance. We are going to spend this entire show talking about Brooklyn Tonight's game. This series, the entire Brooklyn k d Era.

We're gonna get into all of that. For those of you guys who want a reaction to the Rafters Sixers game or the Mavericks Jazz game later tonight, I will be breaking that those games down in their entirety in tomorrow night's show. I will also be releasing some film content on those aims tomorrow morning, So follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason LT and you'll see some stuff

about those games. But like I said, tonight is all about the nets I talked And for those of you guys who have followed my show over the course of the last couple of years, you guys know that I have a brand of basketball that I am drawn too. We talked about this a lot with coaches. Coaches have like a core philosophy and you have to be malleable

around that philosophy. But everybody has a core philosophy the way if they could choose a way to play the game of basketball, this is the way that they would play.

And for me, for those of you guys who have listened to the show long enough, you guys know how I feel about switching everything on defense, prioritizing wings over guards and bigs kind of going with positionless ultra modern basketball, five out on offense, lots of driving and kicking and everyone on the floor is an offensive threat, and then

the ability to switch everything on defense. And there's a core reason why I believe in that philosophy, and it has a lot to do with the way the game is officiated, and also with the way that other teams around the league are playing and the way that that kind of gives you an advantage against those teams. You know, I believe Boston is the favor to win the championship at this point. Their defense is, in my opinion, like

I've said, the best defense of this era. I think it's going to carry them health permitting to getting the trophy in mid June. But I'm not sure that they're as much better as the as much better than the good teams around the league, as they demonstrated against the Nets. I think this was a really bad matchup, and I think there are very some some very specific reasons why. What is the goal of a switching defense. What is

the goal of having a ton of wings? What is the goal of playing that modern positionless style of basketball? The goal is to do what the Rockets did to the Warriors in two thousand eighteen, to stagnate you and to turn you into an isolation basketball team. The trick there is that's the way the Nets like to play, and so in a lot of ways, they walked headlong into Boston's trap. The difference is the way Katie and Kyrie play does work on most nights in most matchups.

You guys have probably been told by a lot of talking heads and fans on Twitter or whoever it is that you consume the game. You've probably been told that the Nets were bad this year, and they were overall in the aggregate. But the truth is is that with Katie and Kyrie on the floor, they were really good. I pointed out this year that they average so I think it was like a hundred twenty three points per one hundred possessions when Katie and Kyrie were on the

floor together. They went twelve and five in their last seventeen games. During that stretch, the last seventeen games of the regular season, so almost a order of the season. For that last quarter of the season, they had the third best offense and all of basketball. They had the

eighth best defense in all of basketball. They had massive, impressive, dominant wins on the road in Miami and in Philly, making really good teams probably you know, two of the top four or five teams remaining, making them look helpless on their home floor. That's how good the Nets were. But those teams. Both of those teams play very different style the net. The Miami Heat play. They do a lot of switching, but they also rely on Bama to Bio a lot as a drop coverage big, so they're

a little bit more traditional in their defensive approach. They play guys who are under sized defensively, They play guys like Duncan Robinson and Tyler Harrow or not great defensive players. And then the same goes for Philly. You can cause a lot of problems for and beating Hardened by running them and trains issue. They don't have a ton of foot speed within those two guys. Their foot speed is

elsewhere on the floor. Hardens a really bad defensive player at this point in his career, and Beats a great defensive player when he can hang out around the rim, but he struggles a little bit against guys with speed on the perimeter that can also shoot. So both of those teams were more traditional NBA teams. Boston represents the perfect example of what I love about the way the game of basketball is changing. They have those that incredibly

position list lineup. They have five, six, seven guys on the roster that you can't attack in isolation. I mean you can, but you're not gonna get great looks. Did you guys see the difference in shot quality in that fourth quarter? Katie made a lot of shots in that fourth quarter, difficult shots. Did you see the shots Jayson Tatum was getting? Did you see the stuff Marcus Smart, Al Horford and Jylen Brown were getting at the rim?

Jason t Adam was consistently getting Katie off of his body through ball screens and hitting jump shots against guys that were dropping off in the switch attacking Seth Curry in switches. Jayson Tatum was getting great looks. K d was taking his pick between an arsenal of dominant defensive players. Kyrie was taking his pick from an arsenal of dominant defensive players. We got eight games total out of Katie

and Kyrie in this series. Kyrie was amazing offensively. In Game one, Kadie was really really good offensively in Game four. Outside of those two games, those two guys struggled almost the entire rest of the series. Because that's the way this matchup worked out. Brooklyn is accustomed to playing a certain style of basketball, switch everything, try to attack off the dribble with isolation guys against specific matchups. Problem is,

Boston is the evolved, better version of that team. They play the same brand of basketball as Brooklyn, except for they do it with five great defensive players that are committed to the job. They do it, but they don't have weak offensive links on the floor. Look at how good Grant Williams was spotting up and shooting in this series. Look at the success Peyton Pritchard had attacking off of

some of that attention. Marcus Smart great offensive series. Al Horford made monster plays on both ends of the floor, but also on offense. That Boston team does everything Brooklyn does better than Brooklyn does it. It's a bad matchup for them, and so I'm still picking Boston to win the title. But I don't think that Boston was As you know, Brooklyn in a weird way, got a bad draw. And that's the problem with being the seven seed. That's the problem with having those issues in the regular season.

That's the problem with having a mere curial star that doesn't like to show up to work unless the conditions are perfect. So that's kind of all part of that entire organism that caused those problems. I'm glad Kady had a great offensive game because one of the biggest talking points in this series has been Katie needs to do more. Katie needs to do more. In my response was, yeah, you're right, Katie wasn't good enough. There's a lot of really fair criticism that we have to throw to Kadi

from this series. But what did I also say. I said, it's it wasn't gonna be enough anyway. I said, you could plug in prime Lebron into this series and he would fare better than Kady has. But I thought the gap in talent between the two teams was too much. I'm glad that k d threw such an amazing offensive punch in this game, and it still wasn't enough, so that at least you guys could see a little bit

what I was talking about. Had Katie played to the absolute peak of his ability in this series, it probably goes five or six games, but Boston wins. They were the better team. So the question becomes, what did we learn from this series? I know that Jason Tatum is better at attacking Brooklyn's defense than k D was at attacking Boston's defense. It's not a simple matter of Jayson Tatum was better at basketball in this series. He was,

but there's context there. The To me, it is more of a question of did Katie hitch his wagon to to the right Did he hitch it to the right wagon, you know what I mean? Like, did Katie surround himself with the right group of guys. That's the more valid question, and we're gonna get into that here just a little bit. But Tatum was incredible in this series. His shot making was at another level than Kadis was, but he was doing it in easier matchups, which is what I predicted

before the series. I thought the matchups that Tatum could attack would be his opportunity to outplay k D, and he did. His shot quality was massively better then k D's in this series. The big takeaways that I learned in this series. One, the Celtics defense is all time great and I think they're gonna win the championship if they stay healthy. Two we learned that Katie is a bona fide excuse me, Jayson Tatum is a bona fide, real deal superstar. He is in the club. He is

there with all of those guys at the top. Now he has to should continue to show that and win championships to get the same level of cash a in terms of his overall resume. But right now, as a basketball player, Tatum is in that group. He absolutely has to have that respect. That's the level of basketball he's playing. What I learned about k D. I learned that even in his fifteen season, even with all of his experience, it is possible to make him really, really truly struggle

to look like a different player. You know, I said after Game two, I was like, I still think Katie's the best player in the world. I just think this is a bad matchup. I have to go back on that now. The standard I hold the best player in the world too is a very high standard as those I'll just ask all the lebron fans that are in my mentions every single day. So I can't in my right mind called Kevin Durant the best basketball player in the world anymore because a basketball team made him struggle

in this series. I have to give a ton of that credit to Boston, but they're also has to be some culpability with k D so who takes his spot? I don't know that's a good question right now. I think Janice is by far the best player that's remaining in the playoffs, but he very well might run into this Boston team in the next round and lose. That's a very realistic outcome. But I think it's fair that we can say that Katie is no longer the best

player in the NBA. And then last, Kyrie Irving, and we're gonna talk a little bit more about him in a minute. Is there a player in the NBA that relies more on one single shot to define his legacy

than Kyrie? Since that moment, with exception of the two thousand seventeen playoff run, which he was good offensively in, he's then mostly underachieving compared to his own standard that he set for himself, mixed in with a bunch of unprofessionalism, nixed in with a bunch of, you know, really extremely flaky behavior, and now the Nets are in a weird predicament with what they need to do with Kyrie moving forward. But before we get into all of the little details

surrounding this NET series. I'm gonna bring my guy Carson on and he's going to ask some specific questions surrounding the narrative of the series. What's up, Carson? Are we doing today? Jason? I'm good, buddy. All right. Well, we're playing a game called Tomorrow's Takes today. We're getting the reactions and thoughts out to you right now, and we're gonna start with a pretty big one, and that is what impact does this loss for the Nets have on

Kevin Durant's legacy? Oh man, that's a really interesting question. I have a hard time with legacy changing occurrences this late into someone's career, because I feel like at a certain point we have to adjust standards based on decline. In a lot of ways, guys like Lebron and Chris Paul have changed the way that we have to evaluate aging and stars because those two guys are so incredibly unusual. You know. The reality is is that k d ver since he left Oklahoma City, has been operating in most

cases from a position of advantage. In two thousand seventeen and two thousand eighteen, he was on and two thousand nineteen, he was on by far the most talented team in the league. And then after that it goes to Brooklyn. And there's a reason why they were the title favorite this year because of how good they looked against Milwaukee last year. And the things that I said about Milwaukee coming into this playoff run were the same that those same things hold true for Boston, or excuse me for

for Brooklyn. I told you guys, Milwaukee was gonna have a much harder path this year. The field is deeper, there are more talented teams overall, the league is better. Well, Brooklyn had the same issue, and you saw, in a situation of significantly more difficulty, you saw him struggle. You know, there's a there's an important understanding that we I don't like devaluing rings. I thought what Charles Barkley did on T and T was really lame, and we talked about

that in last night's show. But it is true that no two rings are the same. Every basketball fan as a certain amount of you know, understanding of the circumstances. And let's just go to Lebron. Do you think any basketball fan gives Lebron more credit for his title with the Lakers than they do for I don't think so. I think every basketball fan would acknowledge that the degree of difficulty was much harder there in and Chris Bosh was hurt and he had to drag that team to

the finals down three two to the Celtics. That's a different level of difficulty. Being an underdog in the NBA Finals against that Oklahoma City thunder team, there's that's a different level of difficulty. The issue that Katie has is even though the two thousand seventeen and two thousand eighteen titles were real championships, real deal jewelry championships, but the degree of difficulty was low, extremely low, compared to almost

every championship in NBA history. The two thousand seventeen Warriors dog walked the entire league. They won fifteen playoff games before they lost one, and the one game they lost was Game four in Cleveland when the series was already over in Cleveland made like twenty one threes in the game. So then moving on to two thousand eighteen, same thing. You know, you benefit from Chris Paul's hamstring injury to get to the finals, and then you just run over

that Cleveland Cavaliers team that looked helplessly outmatched. And so that's the issue for Katie in the court of public opinion, as he doesn't have the degree of difficulty attached to the championships, but at the same time, when the degree of difficulty has been higher, he's lost. And unfortunately, in

the court of public opinion, that's gonna cost you. And I feel bad for him in a lot of ways because a lot of people forget that when Lebron signed with the Miami Heat in two thousand eleven, had Dwyane Wade stayed healthy, his two thousand twelve and two thousand

thirteen titles also would have looked looked easy. It's been one of the things that I've I think has been an interesting subplot of Lebron's career, him struggling well, the team struggling in two thousand twelve and two thousand thirteen those championships, looking hard down three two to Boston, falling down one oh in the finals to the thunder as an underdog, going seven games with the Pacers in two thousand thirteen, going seven games with the Spurs in two

thousand thirteen. All of that had to do with Tim Duncan massively outplaying Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade's knees giving up on it. Lebron was, in a weird way, fortunate that that Miami Heat team kind of fell apart with health because it made everything look hard. There's no debate that Lebron faced great adversity in pursuit of his championships. Meanwhile, k D has had two incredibly easy championships compared to some of the other ones surrounding, and then when the

difficulty has been higher, he's looked bad. So it's unfortunate, but it's just the reality of the way the court of public opinion works. I personally am crediting mostly Boston for the series, and I'm not gonna be super hard on a year fifteen player who's coming off of a torn achilles struggling against what I think is the best defense of this era. But the court of public opinion is gonna pile on him. And there's a lot of evidence for those people, so I don't necessarily blame them

for feeling that way. I totally agree with you on the point of it's tough to me for a guy like Katie when he's thirty three to have negative legacy altering single series of four games sample size. I do think another interesting point is to me two of his best postseason runs ever, whereas two post seasons before this that didn't result in titles, and so they're just not remembered in the same way. I mean, he averaged thirty five a game against the Clippers in I thought that

was like maybe the best he's ever played period. He was unbelievable. And he was thirty two a game in that playoff run, with a couple of games in which he didn't play full minutes because of injury. And then last year he was thirty four a game and carried a completely outmatched Nets team toe to toe, no pun intended because of the placement of his tie on that last shot with the Bucks team that won the title.

So I do think that's another interesting component, is there is such a title or bust mentality, but like sometimes a guy plays at an all time level and it doesn't result in the title, and that's really not his fault. We have from the really really quickly Lebron James was. I thought some people think he was the best player from two thousand seven to two thousand twenty. Do you guys know me, I'm a little bit I'm much more

slow to make that change. I thought Lebron was undisputably the best basketball player on planet Earth from two thousand twelve to two thousand twenty. That's a what's at nine seasons, got four championships, So undisputed best player alive, four championships. So you're right, Carson, it's the title of bust mentality. It just simply isn't true. In a team sport, you absolutely have to have some things go your way. While speaking of the Tyler bust mentality, this would certainly be

a title centric move. Dork says in the chat Katie about to join Boston, Jason, what are your thoughts on that? You never know? You know, Katie knows what it is. If there's if there's one thing that I've really appreciated about Katie in the last couple of years, it's that ever since he got caught in the burner account incident, he's just laned into being exactly who he is. He will direct message strangers and get into arguments with people

on Twitter and and that sort of thing. And so what's funny is like, I think Katie has a very firm understanding of the fact that fairness and context are not going to be rules that are abided by here. And you know what's funny is like, I'm okay with it from the faceless accounts. What I feel bad for, Katie is to have an all time great NBA player like Charles Barkley to call you a bus rider. Now,

there's a valid way to make that criticism. Hey, k d your championships in two thousands seventeen and two thousand eighteen are real championships, but they're less difficult than some of the ones your peers one. That's fair criticism. Hey Katie, you joined a team that already was a championship team and you elevated them. That's fair. That's a fair analysis of that situation. You're a bus rider. I don't value

your championships. Blah blah blah. That's faceless accounts stuff. And I guarantee you Katie's fine with it from the faceless accounts. But it's a bummer when one of the all time great NBA players goes on national TV and basically takes a dump on your name in in that kind of matter, I do feel bad for him in that regard all right, well, obviously we had to start with Kadie there, but Kyrie is also inevitably super tied up in all of this

because this was their vision. They built this together, and now here they are a few years in and they have one playoff series win Forton wins this year. So where they are now, what do the Nets do about Kyrie Jason? This is tough. Bossman. Colin Coward said on his pod earlier that he uh that he would not

sign him, and I get that because I agree. I agree from the ideology standpoint that you can't pay Kyrie Irving fifty million dollars in te or whatever it would be to to be the level of player that he is. I agree, but as is always the case, it's it's it's you have to wait against the alternative, and if you let Kyrie walk, you don't have the flexibility really to supply Kevin Durant with a necessary talent to be

competitive next year. So the examples that I would use would be, for instance, what Golden State did when they lost kd you or what the Clippers did when they signed Blake Griffin. Even if you don't see a player in your long terms of plans. Golden State had no intention of having D'Angelo Russell as a cornerstone of their franchise. What they were doing was is they were taking back an asset, an overpaid asset, but an asset. Same thing

with the Clippers and Blake Griffin. I guarantee you before they signed Blake, I guarantee you before they did that ridiculous presentation to him in Staples Center, I guarantee you they knew internally that they were planning on trading in, but they needed the asset. It's Kyrie will instantaneously, the minute he puts pen to paper be one of the worst contracts in the league. That's a fact. He is, you know, I I thought Nick Wright, who went on Cow Hurts Pod, I thought put it very succinctly, is

like Kyrie. His top end is amazing, but he basically said he's nowhere near consistently enough. He's not consistent enough with it for to bring any real value. And that's true. It's a fact. Just like his last playoff series in Boston looks amazing. In Game one, shoots the Bucks just into oblivion to take a one zero lead, and then you didn't hear from him again the rest of the series. That's just kind of the nature of the Kyrie experience.

So what you gotta do is you signed Kyrie to the full whatever max he wants, and then immediately during this time frame here in the next year or so, you trade it because as soon as his contract will allow you to trade him after he signs. Because I know there's like a little bit of a delay. I think you have to wait till like almost the trade

deadline and first season. But you trade it because there will be a team out there, just like the Pistons David Blake Griffin, that will talk themselves into this is an available star you can be had for relatively cheap. So I think, as as awful as the Kyrie experiences, Ben And if I'm Brooklyn, if I'm a Brooklyn fan, if I'm a Brooklyn player, if I'm a Brooklyn coach, I want him out of here. But you got to

bring him back simply for the asset. So let me ask you this, because I think obviously the dynamics with Kyrie are always going to be super weird. At the same time. This regular season, minutes Katie and Kyrie played together, they had an offensive rating of one two better than that even which would be you know, by far the best in the league. He has been these last three years in Brooklyn, scoring at career volume like a game

on a lead efficiency. And of course you talk about, you know, the restrictions that you would have in terms of building out the roster if they just let Kyrie go. The Nets at fifty million dollars in cap it was not on the floor in this series between Ben Simmons and Joe Harris and two of their clearly top five

five guys. So is there any part of you that looks in that and thinks, well, maybe with Pete Kyrie and with those healthy guys on the floor, it is worth sticking it out, just legitimately for another year or maybe even further than that through that contract. Carson, You're a very smart man, because this was this was the I had a very similar thought process last night. Um. The thing is is that k D and Kyrie we talked about this earlier in the show. For those of

you who missed the beginning. The Nets were twelve and five in their last seventeen games this season, so almost a quarter of the season. They were pretty good during that stretch. They were the third best offense in the league in the eighth best defense in the league, so they have a decent ceiling. I thought we talked, We did a whole segment at the beginning about how this was just a really bad matchup in a lot of

different ways. So yeah, with Ben Simmons coming back and with Joe Harris coming back, they are significantly better team next year, hopefully, if everyone's healthy, you make a better regular season effort that leads to a better seed, which gives you a better opportunity to avoid a bad matchup early in the playoffs and give you a better chance

of being the beneficiary of some luck. Right, because like, for instance, this part of the reason why I think the Celtics are gonna win the title is because Devin Booker poled his hamstring and Chris Middleton sprained his MCL. Right, if you can avoid the more difficult matchups until later in the playoff run, that buys you time to be the beneficiary of some luck. And so I'm with you.

Here's the here's the Devil's advocate argument. Because if I was running the Nets, I would bring Kyrie back, and I'd run it for probably one season but the case for trading him is each passing year, the contract gets worse because he will decline. He's a small guard. He will start to play a little bit worse each year as time goes on, and then it gets harder and

harder to move the contract. Secondly, you have to start having conversations with yourself about Kyrie's value next to k d. Kyrie's value is his ability to create shots right in isolation. But that also happens to be Kevin Durant's best skill. If I was Brooklyn, I'd be looking at this. If I was Katie and Brooklyn, I'd be looking at this

more like Boston. That formula works the one alpha dog superstar, the co star that obviously has scoring potential but is a defensive stalwart, and Jaylen Brown, and then role players that do all the dirty work so that Jason Tatum is bought a great deal of margin for error to do what he does best, which is score the basketball and to draw defensive attention so that the rest of

your players can make plays. If you can find a package that sends Kyrie Irving out and brings back quality two way players, players that aren't the same offensive ceiling as Kyrie, but that would thrive in a driving kick basketball environment that would have the ability to capitalize in four on three scenarios and in bad against bad matchups, and provide a great deal of physicality and effort and ability to cover ground and everything that you need on

the defensive end of the floor to succeed in these environments. That's the movie you gotta make because I think, like I said at the beginning, teams like Boston, what makes Boston so dominant is they are the direction basketball was going in. We've all been talking about this modern basketball five six, eight guys that all can run and jump and shoot and dribble and pass. Well, Boston's kind of like the closest thing we've seen to that, and you're

seeing how dominant it is. So I think rather than going with let's play you know, Bruce Brown and Andre Drummond and just count on Kyrie and Katie to ice late all game long, try to build a more modern basketball format. Move Kyrie for bigger athletes that can play two way basketball and count on Kde to carry you as a score. That's his best ability. That that would be what I would do if I was running the

nets for what it's worth. Of people in the chat say that the Nets should just let Kyrie walk, which I think is a very big number, very big. You just lose the asset there, that's the issue. Like I get him, but like, again, there's enough. Here's the thing. Kyrie is not Russell Westbrook. He's not bad at basketball right now, Okay, Like he played poorly in this series. I wouldn't want him for five years in the house. You have to not want him for five years because

of his flakiness. But there's gonna be someone around the league that likes him. So I again, I agree, don't sign him for five years and keep him for five years, but don't let him walk because you lose the asset. You gotta sign him, either make a run for a year and then trade him or trade him as soon as you're able to at the deadline. That's what I would do. Yeah, No, I'm totally with you. They would be in a pretty bad basketball situation if they just

let him walk, I think. Okay, so by the way, all the way through, so you like, that would be a really rough situation for him, right Yeah, there's no just reworking that from there. Okay, So we've touched on the two enigmatic NETS stars who were on the floor and let them down. Let's move on to the enigmatic NETS star supposedly who was not on the floor at all, and that is Ben Simmons. So obviously just an incredibly strange saga for him. We did not see him in

this series. But what is his future? Yeah? I don't know, man. You know what's funny is last night I said, because the reporting yesterday was Ben Simmons experienced back soreness. That was the report, and so he wasn't gonna play in game four. I saw it pretty cut and dry, like, this isn't a sprained ankle, this is a herniated disc, a bulging disc in his back. So yes, if it's to one and you think he has a chance to come back and swing the series, maybe it's worth the risk.

Obviously Ben thought it was. He was planning to play, but down three oh, with the series basically over, I didn't see the point and so I totally was Again I understand with Ben Simmons's resume in his backstory, it just seems like the latest flaky nous from an extremely flaky person. I get that. But in the vacuum. It was dude with hernia in his back, isn't gonna come back in a series down three oh to try to

make something happen. I get that. But then we had the report today that Rich Paul met with the Nets Brass and now the mental health thing is popping up again. And it's confusing because and again, this is a very delicate area because we don't know what's going on with Ben, and the mental health stuff is a very very sensitive topic, and we can't we we can have our assumptions about what we think is going on, but those are dangerous assumptions.

You don't know what's going on in Ben's head, and I certainly am am not going to comment on that. But what's weird is it seemed like the mental health stuff was associated with the way Doc Rivers treated him and the way Joel Embie treated him, and the way Darryl Morey treated him and the way Philly fans treated him. That's what it seemed like. And then we haven't heard much about the mental health stuff this entire last part of the season, so for it to like come back

to the forefront of the conversation is strange. My theory is that the Nets brass is pissed that he didn't playing game for which I and they probably came to him, and then that's when it got brought back up again. But we don't know. We just don't know. It's a very very delicate situation. To make a long story short, I would approach Ben Simmons a summer and be like, are you gonna play next year? Man? Because if not, we need to know we need to move you. But like,

this is turning into one of the strangest sagas. And if you have to trade Ben Simmons again this summer after he didn't play a single game for the Nets, his value is lower than it's ever been. So it's just a really really tough predicament. But I I don't know what you do. And you know, it's such a sensitive topic that you can't kind of it's hard to come out and be forthright about it, you know what

I mean. If you were just down the NBA right now, about where do you think you would take Ben Simmons in a draft out of everybody, just if you're trying to build a winning team. Oh man, that's good question.

Um Man. Here's the thing. Imagine Ben Simmons in his physical prime, think like last season before he got hurt or before this whole back thing came up, and imagine plugging him into like Boston system, you know, like as a guy that that can defend in an all switching system and can attack close outs and things like that. The the the inability to shoot is a massive problem.

The lack of offensive confidence is a massive problem. But he is such a devastating weapon on the defensive end that I think if you put him in a situation because with the Sixers he was weirdly depended on offensively, so when he became a shell of himself that couldn't score, especially in fourth quarters in that series against the Hawks, it was devastating to the Philly offense. But in theory, if he's in a different role, there are lots of

teams around the league that played nonshooters. So if he could be a Draymond Green, meaning like he's around other great offensive players and his job is to be a playmaker off of that attention and to be the best defensive player on his team. Ben Simmons was in the was in the defensive Player of the Year conversation last year, so I would argue that kind of like we had a debate the other day where would you rank Draymond in his value in the league, And we talked about

remember Carson. We said he'd be top fifteen if he was on the Warriors because the value he brings to that specific system was worth so much. Well, the inverse of that here is if I could put Ben Simmons into the perfect scenario for him to cover for his weakness, he's a top player, but if if anything is out of line there, he suddenly does drop way, way, way, way way further down that list. And so I would say that inherently makes you further down that list because

we can't always have perfect control over our circumstances. If that makes sense. Absolutely, And like you said, you don't know if the guys even gonna play basketball, But I totally agree with the general Draymond comp there. I feel like Ben Simmons at his best is a superstar role player,

and that he does so many little things. He has such winning trades if you're talking about the playmaking, you know, not needing to dominate the ball, if he's willing to be that short roller and whatnot, and obviously everything defensively,

just about right situation and embracing that role. Okay, so obviously we start with the players here, but inevitably, when there is a team that has accumulated this much talent and yet one of their stars won't get the vaccine, one of their stars doesn't even play basketball for them, and they're losing a disappointing fashion like this, a lot of eyes are going to turn to the coach. So do you think Steve Nash is coaching the next next year? And if not, who is Jason? I think you will be.

And I've seen some reporting on that now. That can change. That can change just because Katie has a change of heart over the next two weeks, you know what I mean. Katie could literally go back and watch a bunch of tape from the series and feel like they weren't organized enough, and then approached Joe Sigh and be like, yeah, I want a new guy. So that can change. But the hoarding is that he's coming back. I've defended Steve Kurt to some extent on this show. He doesn't you you

hit the nail and head Carson. He's had a bunch of external circumstances that were out of his control. A lot of the way that they play offensively has to do with the way Kyrie and Katie want to play. You know, they don't really have a ton of like big versatile wings to run awesome drive and kick offense, because the only way they can do that is by playing Patty Mills and Seth Curry and Gore and Drag all at the same time. And then they become so

small that they get demolished. Even when they went small tonight, they were getting demolished on the offensive glass. So it's kind of just like a downside of roster construction in a lot of ways, you know. I I think that in terms of, like, if they did make a coaching change, who you bring in, so much of that depends on

what they do with the roster this summer. If they bring back all of the same guys, you need to find somebody that can coach them up in a similar manner to email Udoka and try to embrace some of

that five basketball in that regard. But if there's a massive transition and roster over the summer, then so much depends on where they land with personnel, because you need to have a coach that fits the personnel that you have, and my guess is that Steve nashill be back all right, Well, Jason, this show for many nights this year was known as

Lakers Tonight, and then something's changed. But we got to tie in a bit of a Lakers angle here because obviously felt like nothing could be worse than what happened with them. But do you think the Lakers had a more disappointing season this year or the Nets the Lakers? Man? Like, Yeah, the Lakers were losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder in a in a must win playoff game at home with

Lebron James and Anthony Davis. They got manhandled by the New Orleans Pelicans like this team, I look, I I get it that And this is what makes it so unfair. Hadi is gonna take a massive hit in the court of public opinion for what happened in this series. And I would argue now to be clear, with the k D situation and the Lebron situation, it has so much more to do with their decision making off the court.

Like I said, who you hit your wagon too? What guys you decided to surround yourself with Lebron going after Russ was an all time basketball mistake from one of the smartest basketball minds that we have in the game, Katie Choosing Kyrie, Katie structuring this roster the way that he kind of decided to do. That's his fault here. It doesn't have anything to do with who he is as a basketball player, So to me, I like to

keep those two topics separate. But to be clear, Lebron did a much more disastrous job the discombobulating the Lakers over the course of the last couple of years than Kadi did with the Nets, So I do think that that's more embarrassing. But like the flip side is is like I think if you plug Lebron into this series, he would have a better time trying to solve this Austin defense because he's much more of a chess player

in terms of basketball. So like I would argue that like Lebron swapped for Katie probably pushes the series to five or six games, whereas Katie got swept because it's just a better matchup for Lebron. But make no mistake, at least the Nets were a respectable basketball team, like we talked about twelve and five in their last seventeen games, third best offense, eight best defense in the regular season over that seventeen game span, the Lakers didn't have anything

resembling a stretch like that this year. Like there was a hilarious moment early in the season where Anthony Davis was like, all we gotta do is win ten games in a row and the whole, the whole narrative will change. And I think the best they did the rest of the season was like four games in a row against bad teams, Like it's just the Lakers. Like as much as the Nets were a disaster in this playoff run, the Lakers were an all time dumpster fire. So I

would definitely give them the trophy for that. I totally agree. I mean, the Nets were this regular season thirty six and nineteen when Katie played, and all four games in the series were decided by seven or less against a team that you said you think is the title favorite. I think certainly looks the best out East right now.

So I think there are different levels. I think this Lakers team is genuinely the most disappointing ever, Like I've went back and thought about it, and I truly don't think there's ever been a under achieved the expectations to this. They were the second favorite in Vegas coming into the season. Yeah, the Lebron and a d together when the when those two play, But in the previous season's one like almost of their games and they were a five hundred team

with those two guys. This year, it's an all time disaster. You Yeah, I mean, like I said, the nets with Katie were thirty six and nineteen. The Lakers did not win thirty six games all year, So totally regardless, though, this is definitely a rough moment for Katie, as we touched on earlier, and I think a lot of people have pointed to just how incredible his situation was in Golden State, and you know, it just seemed like guaranteed

titles upon titles. At the same time, like you talked about with Barkley and whatnot, there is a devaluing of those titles. But do you think Katie is ever going to actually win a title without Steph and without being tied to him, and just the dominance of that Warriors team that you know was so great before he even got there. It's not out of the realm of possibility.

Each year gets a little harder as you age. That's why I'm so bummed out about Lebron blowing this season with the Russell Westbrook experiment, because like, Lebron was an incredible basketball player this year, and it was totally wasted, you know what I mean, And and so obviously the opportunities are running out. All I would say is never count a guy out, just like Dirk in two thousand eleven, like all it takes is a few things breaking your way.

A good match up here, a good match up there, an injury here, an injury there, a move that pans out. You know, they could make a Kyrie trade and get back a couple of pieces and capture some synergy there, and suddenly have you know, something that no one can stop. So I would say that I would put it at less than fift that he gets it done, so less than a coin flip. But it's certainly still in the realm of possibility, which is why I've been cautioning people

against grave dancing. In two thousand nineteen. If you would have asked me if Lebron ever wins another championship again, I would have said less than a coin flip, And next thing, you know, they pull off an Anthony Davis trade, and they're the best team in the league next year, kick everyone's ass and they're holding the trophy, So things

can change. It's just it's just a question of, you know, did Katie learn to value a lesson here, which I believe he did, and is he willing to even though because Kyrie is one of his best friends, man Like, Katie is fiercely loyal to Kyrie to the point where I think that he's even a little bit over defensive of some of Kyrie's quirks. And so the way that I see it, like, as long as he's willing to acknowledge that and willing to make the change that he needs to make, I think that he has he still

has a good chance to get it done. Yeah. I mean, I think you're spot on with evoking the Lebron comparison there. You just don't know. As long as these guys are at peak in the conversation for best player in the world level, a lot of people want to come play with them. And obviously there is still a lot of basketball talent on this roster, and Katie has not fallen off at thirty three off of an achilles tear, so you know, I'd be hesitant to just presume that he's

going to fall off too quickly anytime soon. Okay, last question here, for the first time, we'll touch on something non NETS related. Looks like the Raptors are about to beat the Sixers, So, Jason, obviously you picked Toronto before this series. Are you starting there? Okay, let me pull it up real quick, but regardless, I'll get it to you in a second. Do you think, though it's with a minute eighteen left, do you think we may see

the Sixers from the first team ever? Yeah? To blow a three nothing lead, man, you can so so Okay, for everyone who's watching, I have not watched a single dribble of this game. I will watch the entire film tomorrow morning and I will break it down. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt. I'll break it down on Twitter, and then tomorrow night we will have a full segment devoted to this. So we will break this

down eventually. But as I was watching that NETS game and I was peeking up in the corner and seeing the score, you could almost feel it, Carson. You could just feel you could feel the toxic energy coming from that scoreboard, like you could just tell, like I like, I could just see like palms getting sweaty, crowd getting annoyed, the potentially considering booing, all of that stuff. The Sixers are the better team and they have two opportunities to

beat the Raptors. They should win. But there were a lot of things that went against the Raptors to start the series. Scottie Barnes getting hurt, Pascal Siakam and Fred van Viet Van Vleet getting out played by Tyrese Maxie. There were a lot of Gary Trent Jr. And his illness and his inability to basically be functional at all in games one, two, and three. So there are some things that are favor in Toronto now. Pascal Siakam again, I don't even know what happened tonight. He played great

in Game four. Gary Trent Junior played great in Game four. They finally got out in transition after getting destroyed in transition in all of the earlier games of the series. So there are some things that are headed their way.

And again for the help I said this last week, for the health of the game of basketball, we need Philly to lose because the approach, even though I love Joel and DS game his approach to foul hunting I have a huge problem with in terms of the watch ability, the product, and the health of the league in the long run. Same thing goes with James Harden. So, like I think it's important for Philly to lose, and I could not think of a more magnificent fashion than them

blowing a three oh lead. I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't rooting for it. It's absolutely what I'm rooting for. But I would Again, there's a reason this has never been done before. It's absolutely been pushed to game six before, It's happened a couple of times. The team always just figures it out in Game seven at home almost always goes to the home team. Their stats on that that are crazy. So I still would pick Philly, But man, I want it. I want it

bad Carson. It's hilarious too, because Nick Nurse said when they were down three oh, we just got to get into three one, and then that's been done before. Would it be more on brand for Doc Rivers or James Harden to be the first ever to blow a three nothing lead. That's like the poetic justice of it, Although right Carson, Like, yeah, like think of it like this, for something never to have been that's never been done before, to be accomplished, you need a force. You need forces

to come into conjunction together. And it was gonna require the all time choka tude of James Harden with the all time choka tude of Doc Rivers coming together to pull off this magnificent achievement. So I guess I guess that that's just it's it's poetic. That's the way it's supposed to go down. Real quick. You want to guess hardened stat line in this game, well, as history would tell us, two for eleven? Was he two for eleven? Please tell me he was two for eleven? Close, close,

four of eleven, four of eleven. Okay, that's not that's but hey, here's the thing. Four made field goals in a chance to close out a team at home to prevent having to go to Toronto. But I mean, we've talked about that to death. We'll get more and we will get more into this series. Um tomorrow night, and like I said, tomorrow on my Twitter feed in the morning. But I oh, man, I I hope so, I hope so Carson, Yeah, man, fifteen and seven with five turnovers

on four of eleven shooting. Not exactly a big game from Big Game James. Alright, alright, we do have more thing here coming back to the Nets because we have some Kyrie news. He says he plans to resign with the Nets. Quote when I say I'm here with keV, I think that really entails us managing this franchise together alongside Joe and Sean. So what do you what's your action to that? So not a big surprise we've talked about on the show. Kyrie and Katie's friendship is a

lot stronger than I think people realize. Um. I will say this though, kind of like when do you guys remember after the Lakers lost to the Pelicans and Lebron and a D were sitting on the bench after the game,

him exasperated, and Russ came up to him. It was like it was like slapping him on the knee and like trying to cheer him up and like like getting mad at Frank Vogel for not playing him enough and stuff like that, and there was like this, there was this weird expression on Lebron and A D's face, like this awkward, like I can't believe this guy's talking to me right now type of energy. Like that's the thing is,

like there will be a point with every friendship. Because Lebron and Russ were friends, there will be a point in every friendship where eventually it becomes too much to deal with. And I do wonder if k D looks at this and goes, hey, man, this is the one thing I need from you. Like I'm the seven footer, I can be a defensive full crum, I can be this great playmaker that I can be from time to time. You're the guy who's supposed to be able to create

his own shot against any defense. And he was like completely chopped off at the knees after game one, and so you know, from the standpoint of Kevin Durant, I would just be watching out for Katie eventually just being sick of him. All Right, guys, that is all we

have for tonight. I sincerely appreciate your support. As always, check out my Twitter feed tomorrow morning for some breakdowns of the games from tonight, and then tomorrow night, after the final buzzer of the final game, we will get into the weeds about the two games from tonight as well. As everything that was going on in tomorrow night's late. As always, I appreciate your guys support and we will see you tomorrow