Hoops Tonight - Adam Silver scolds Kevin Durant, Mitchell to Knicks?, is Steph better than LeBron?

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week so far. I have two full days left in town before I go out of town again, this time for two weeks. I'm going up to Seattle to stay, uh just on right outside Seattle on a lake called Lake Shellan for about a week with my wife, and then we're catching a cruise out of Seattle to go up to Alaska, two places I've never been to before, and I'm very very excited to see. Uh that said, I am a big person. And I am paranoid about the cruise ship a little bit because I've heard they

can be very claustrophobic and confined. My wife has been doing her best to try to call me down. I'm sure it will be okay, but I'm gonna I'm gonna come prepare with some dramamine and and just try to stay out of the room as much as possible. In the open air uh that set. I've taken all my stuff with me, so I plan on doing some shows

while I'm out. We did have some NBA news yesterday that was very fascinating, a report that the Utah Jazz are going to be listening to trade offers for Donovan Mitchell. I actually do expect them to trade him, so we're gonna get into that a little bit. Today we had two very interesting reports from Kyrie, one from Dave mcmanimon at espn UM and then another one out of the New York Post heavily implying that the Nets are considering retaining Kyrie and Katie. We're gonna get into that a

little bit. There was a very interesting quote from Adam Silver talking about Kevin Durant's trade request that I thought was kind of indicative of of where the league is going in terms of their collective bargaining agreement negotiations that will be coming up on the horizon, and just in general, a very important debate about the balance between what's best for the league and what's fair for the players that

I want to get in too. Then at the very end, I'm gonna briefly touch we had Mr Bobby Marks from ESPN former GM of UM the Brooklyn Nets who said that he thought Steph Curry was number two all time behind Michael Jordan's very very spicy I'm gonna give my two cents on that as well. Um. And then at the very very end, I plan on touching a little bit on interaction that I had with Kevin Durant on

Monday before we get started. If you guys could subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our content, don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements or any of the video content that I produce. As you guys know, we have some limitations on the video content that we're allowed to use on YouTube, but on Twitter, I kind of get free rein, so that's the place you want to go for that kind of stuff.

And then, last, but not least, if you miss one of these shows for whatever reason and you want to catch up but you can't get over to YouTube, we do release them in podcast form under Lakers Tonight. We are currently in the process of changing that to Hoops Tonight as well. That should happen here in the next

couple of weeks. All right, let's get started. So first of all, I thought that that Donovan Mitchell would be the first one to get traded in this Utah Jazz situation, as we're about to get into in just a minute. I think he's a textbook number two. I don't think he's a guy that you can have as the best

player on your championship team. And then I also thought he had the most trade value, and so I was like, what a great way to reset just by you know, shipping Donovan Mitchell off somewhere, getting back a ton of assets, and then you can rebuild around Rudy Gobert. The reason why I said that was I didn't think Rudy Gobert had he trade value, and I was unbelievably wrong about that because the Minnesota Timberwolves play paid a ridiculous price

to get Rudy Gobert. My thought process was, he's so limited offensively, even with the great things that he brings defensively, that you can't have a forty seven million dollar hit on your cap sheet in the year six for a player that doesn't help you on the offensive end of the floor the way that Rudy Gilbert doesn't help you. And so I was like, why don't they keep Gobert because his trade value is going to be lower. You flipped Donovan Mitchell, you rebuild around that. That's your way

to move forward. Is essentially like a soft rebuild, right. But now that they got so much for go Bet, I think you absolutely have to trade Donovan Mitchell. The main reason why is he does have great value and secondly, like I said earlier, he he is not good enough to be a number one option in my opinion. Now for starters, if you look at Donovan Mitchell's game, there are these immense strengths and these emense weaknesses. It is

very up and down type of player. First of all, over the course of the last three playoff runs, he's averaging thirty two points, five rebounds, and five assists on from the field on threes ten attempts per game. That's a wild staff. So like a dead eye, high volume three point shooter from the free throw line, shooting overall. So in terms of counting stats offensive production, he's top tier. That's what you're getting from the best superstars around the league.

But the gaping holes in his game, the giant weaknesses, massively, massively undercut his impact for starters. His shot selection at times can be super spotty. He's not a good game manager. He's not a guy that's going to have a good feel for what the five man unit needs. You know, I talked about you know, there's different archetypes of basketball players. To talk about this all the time. There's like a scoring archetype, and then there's like a playmaking game management archetype.

And then there are like play finishers, right, like you know Anthony Davis is an example of a play finisher. And then there are role players, right. You have defensive stoppers, you have interior rim protectors, you know, point guards that can just get you set up in your offense. Think like a DJ Augustine type of thing. There's all these different archetypes of basketball players and they are complementary to each other. You need all these boxes checked in various

different ways. For instance, with my team that I put together to run in my men's leagues here in Tucson. Like I know, I'm a score, that's what I do. So I targeted a friend of mine named Josh who played college. While he's a great game manager and a great playmaker, I make sure that he's on my team because our skill sets complement each other. It's important to kind of like have have all the boxes checked on a basketball team in order for the entire function, the

entire team to function properly well. Because Donovan Mitchell, even though he is such a dynamic score, he struggles with that game management piece, and that was a big part of why the Jazz struggled so much to reach their full potential in the playoffs. You know, in a in a playoff series, it's so important not just to have you know, the the X number of possessions where Donovan Mitchell shoots to go well. It's important for the totality of all the possessions that the Utah Jazz have in

a seven game series to go well. That could be close a possessions, right, So you need you need a game manager, someone that can make sure that on a possession by possession basis, everyone is staying in rhythm, everyone's getting quality shots and things along those lines. Five assists per game isn't bad. It's not like Donovan Mitchell's incapable of making reads or driving into the paint and kicking out.

But you almost get a little bit of a Westbrook vibe from him when you watch him in a playoff series where he never really sees a shot that he doesn't like, and he he's very acutely aware of his rhythm and how he's feeling on the court, but he struggles to kind of get a feel for how everyone else is doing on the court. No shame in that I have that weakness myself when I played. It just means that you need to put him alongside someone that can do that. That's why he's in number two in

my opinion. And then secondly, it's the defensive end of the floor. Rudy Gobert called him out for this after that last playoff run, right, uh, comparing him to Devin booker Um. But you know, at his size and athleticism for him to be as bad of a perimeter defender as he is is kind of inexcusable, and he's actually trending downwards in that department rather than trending upwards. He was a great defensive player in college, so as that has slipped, he's turned into kind of a given to

take kind of guy. He's a guard that can shoot you into a game and he can shoot you out of the game. And because he doesn't impact the game a ton around that, his impact is limited. So that's why the Devin Booker comp is so interesting. Devin Booker is a very similar type of player, not in terms of their their literal impact on the game, because one's a slashing guard and Devin Booker is more of like a bigger three level score that's relies heavily on on

shot making right there. Different, but they're they're similar in their approach to the game in the sense that they're both score first guards that you know, don't have the ultimate physical tools to be the you know, super duper star number one option. They both kind of fall back into that number two type of vibe, right and if Devin Booker, who's a better player than Donovan Mitchell, who's a better defensive player than Donovan Mitch can't be a

number one? What does that tell you about Donovan Mitchell. So from that same point, the way I look at it like, if you're the Utah Jazz, you have to get a number one, and Donovan Mitchell is not that guy. But it's also unrealistic to expect Donovan Mitchell to wait around and waste prime years of his career while you do a soft rebuild looking for the talent to make

a run with him. You could take two or three years to find that guy, and Donovan Mitchell could get a wandering eye and want to go to some other team to play with one of his friends before that happens, especially since he's had some run ins with Utah Jazz fans over the years. So I I'm a big believer in acknowledging the reality of the situation. We talked about

this a lot with the Brooklyn Nets. Right. One of the reasons why I think they need to trade everybody is even if Katie and Kyrie decided to come back, they're just not good enough in this particular season because they don't have good enough role players around them. So, like acknowledge the reality of your situation. Donovan Mitchell is not a number one. He's probably not gonna wait around long enough to for you to find a number one. Why don't you flip him for as many assets as

you can get. You already got this fantastic hall from the Rudy Gobert trade. You've got three starting level players that started for a playoff team, a playoff team that took two games off of the number two seed, right, and you got all the draft picks. Not only can you flip those role players like you can flip Patrick Beverley and Malik Beasley and Jared Vanderbilt for additional assets. You could probably get maybe another first or two out

of that. You can flip those guys, and you can flip Donovan Mitchell for another hall of role players and picks and things along those lines. You can in one offseason completely fill your asset trove, which could be the thing that you use to target the next disgruntled superstar or to trade up in the draft for number one

overall pick. If you have a specific prospect that you like, like a Victor women Yama right, like that they have the ability because they hit such a home with the Golbert trade to completely retool their asset trope like that, And so I think I think that they're headed in the right direction. Here. A couple of things as far

as Donovan Mitchell potential trade destinations. My friend Tony Jones, who covers the Utah Jazz, mentioned the the New York Knicks as a team that's expected to put together an offer. I get it for the Knicks, and I mean they should because why the hell not. And I'm not as high on R. J. Barrett as everyone else is, right,

but I mean that's a race to mediocrity. And Donovan Mitchell team with Jalen Brunson and Julius Randall, is gonna win forty five games b a five or six seed and lose to the Milwaukee Bucks or the Mighty Heat in the first round. Like that's just what's gonna happen with that team. Now becomes much more interesting in Madison Square Garden. Also, I'm a big believer in projecting competence so that you can use that competence to draw the

next star. You get Donovan Mitchell. You have a couple of forty seven win seasons, you have a couple of first round exits, but you project competence, you have a good head code in there, you keep the head coach for a long time. Everybody looks happy and everything's going well. Then when you have cap space available, that's when you can actually pitch to a superstar, like, hey, look at this successful operation we're running here, you should jump on

with us. Donovan Mitchell's are perfect number two for you. Come and play, you know what I mean. Or maybe you can get if if you don't have to spend too many assets in the Donovan Mitchell trade. You can accumulate assets around that and maybe you flip a Julius Randall and a Jalen Brunson first superstar at some point in the future. So I like the move for the Knicks in terms of a franchise, a push forward for the franchise, but making no mistake that team is not

doing anything. Uh. The two the two teams that I had in mind, and I actually mentioned these right after the Jazz got limited from the eliminated from the playoffs. You might remember, but like I talked about earlier about complimentary pieces and just like trying to check all the boxes on a basketball team, there are two teams out there that have everything except for elite, high end offensive creation.

This is the Miami Heat and the Toronto Raptors. These are the two teams that I mentioned right after the Jazz got eliminated. Toronto is deep with athleticism and wings. They're extremely well coached. They've got a freak young prospect in Scotty Barnes. They have everything in the world that you need in order to win a championship except for

the top tier type of scoring threat. Now, typically I'd say Donovan Mitchell isn't good enough to be a number one option, but in this case, you could kind of like, look at uh it being a combination of a Pascal Siakim and Donovan Mitchell together, kind of amounting to somebody that could give you a puncher's chance because of how much talent they have around them. Miami Heat the exact

same thing. Jimmy Butler is your number one there, so it doesn't need to be the number one, but it just gives them that extra offensive punch that they so desperately need because nobody other than Jimmy Butler can create their own shot there. So if the Kad sweepstakes go south for those two teams, Donovan Mitchell's really interesting backup plan, and you'd be less expensive. I think Toronto should give up Scottie Barnes for Kad. Toronto fans think I'm crazy. Well,

here's your alternative. If you don't want to get Katie for Scotty Barnes, you can probably get Donovan Mitchell for a bunch of draft picks and like O, G N and OBI, you know what I mean. So, like, there's there's a version of this story where, uh, where you could back up plan yourself into a Donovan Mitchell. Now you're going at this with all of your length and athleticism, but with Donovan Mitchell as another scoring punch to make things easier so that your defense can actually be enough

for you to win. So those are the two teams that I keep an eye on, Miami and Toronto. If they don't get Kadi, look at them as backup plans for Donovan Mitchell. Phoenix is actually an interesting example of a team that could do that as well. Um. Moving on to Kyrie. So we had David met him in from ESPN. He reported, I believe on Get up or NBA today. Um, it was either yesterday the day before. He said that now the Lakers are waiting to see if the Nets decided to bring Katie and Kyrie back.

Then we get this report from the New York Post and I'm gonna read this quote. How did we get it? This is from one, This is from a source. How did we get into this situation and trade? When he opted in? The source asked? Asked rhetorically, here's the situation. He opted in, which means he had and has every intention of playing with the Brooklyn Nets. Kad decides he wants to out, and now everybody is talking about trading Kyrie. Right, Kyrie has not asked for a trade. Now, if the

Nets don't want him, that's something totally different. Kyrie has not said he wants a trade. He opted in. So where did the trade conversations come from? Is it because Katie requested a trade and now everyone's like, let's trade k Kyrie opted in? Now? I tweeted out when I saw that yesterday, I was like, how stupid do they think we are? Because like, literally, we know the friends

that the Nets front office doesn't want Kyrie. If they wanted Kyrie, they would have offered him a dope extension to make everything fit with k D so that they can move on to the future. The Nets purposefully put their foot down there, right. Kyrie, his camp NonStop leaked for weeks that he wanted to go to l A. Then Kyrie out in public gets shouted at by a fan saying, hey, why are you coming to the Lakers, and he said soon like, how dumb do you think

we are? Man? I mean, don't get me wrong. I I agree that Kyrie probably in a perfect world, would have liked to have resigned with the Nets and stayed in Brooklyn with Katie. But the reality of the situation is the tension and the fracture and the awkwardness. There is too much to go back. There's an outside chance that they try that. There's an outside chance that Brooklyn goes, hey, let's all just come back and do this. I'm not saying that's off the table, but it would be a weird,

toxic vibe. All that takes is a three or four game losing streak or Kyrie missing some time again for Brooklyn to have issues. They could be right back in the situation at the trade deadline, which is probably not what they want to do. Right. So, like, I still think that that that that this is trending towards everybody getting traded. It's just funny to see. And this is classic leverage plays, right, like we might bring them to camp. No, you won't. You don't want toxicity around the team when

you start a new season. It's like, well, you know, Kyrie wants to stay in the with the Nets. No he doesn't. He wants to go to the Lakers. That's ridiculous. We've literally heard that out of his literal mouth. Okay, so everyone, and then Katie literally went to Josiah and directly requested a trade. That that's that's just been known to be true. So we don't have to lie to each other here about what's happening. This is all leverage play.

There's one thing, and one thing only that can put Brooklyn's train back on the tracks, and that's Kevin Durant. If Kevin Durant comes out and straight up I don't know, goes straight to Wogent says it, or comes straight out and says it himself and goes, hey, I changed my mind. I don't want to be traded. I'm gonna at least not right now. I'm gonna come back and play this season. With the nets. Kyrie's coming with me. We're gonna make

this thing work. If k D says that, then it will happen, be because then you can count on Katie and Kyrie to go into camp motivated and taking it seriously because you know it's their idea, you know what I mean. But if Sean Marks forces them to come back to camp, there's so much more risk that can come from that. So everything is hurtling towards these guys getting traded. The one thing that could put them back onto the tracks is k D coming out and saying

I would rather stay. Okay, So, like, unless we hear that specifically, all of this is just noise in a negotiation ploy. Alright. So Adam Silver releases a quote in like his little State of the Union thing that he did yesterday, basically saying that he doesn't like the league doesn't like to see trade requests like what happened with Kevin Durant, and he specifically said that it's something that they're going to have to deal with in the next

collective bargaining agreement. Now, this is a super super complicated topic, right, because there's a huge difference between what's morally correct and what's best for the league. Now, when I say best for the league, that's not just best for the owners because they're on a fifty revenue split. So whatever's best for the league is equally beneficial to the players as it is to the owners. That's just mathematically how the contract works. But there's a big difference between what's best

for the league and what's actually morally fair. Because every time I see this kind of thing, I am I feel almost obligated to point out the moral conundrum, like Adam Silver saying, and I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but basically what he says is like, these franchises offer a great deal of security to the players financially through the guarantee that's in the contract, and all they ask is for them to fulfill the contract.

But we've literally seen so many times throughout NBA history a player be like, Okay, franchise, I will do this for five years, sign on the dotted line. Oh, Blake Griffins with the Detroit Pistons. Now, like we've just seen that happen so many times over the years. The franchises do not feel that loyalty to the players, and so it's not fair to expect the players to demonstrate that same loyalty to the franchises. So that's the moral reality

of the situation. But the the the what's best for the league is entirely different, because, like I talked about with Colin Coward after the um after the NBA Finals, there's just there's just something to be said about organic fan bases. You know, the NBA has had rating issues over the years. This year things trended back in the right direction. I tend to think that has a lot more to do with the talent that's in the league. The the TV product of the NBA right now is excellent.

It has some room for important improvement, but it's excellent. So I think that's why fans are driving back towards the NBA. But make no mistake, there's I don't think it's a coincidence that the Golden State Warriors fan base is so healthy. The Colin told you guys himself. The average NBA team makes about two hundred million dollars a year in revenue. The Warriors make like seven hundred million. Why do you think that is. It's not just because

rich people are Warriors fans. It's because they have so many of them, and and and a big part of that is from the beginning of this era, when Steph was drafted, through Clay's drafting, through Draymond's drafting, through them going on that interesting playoff run in two thousand thirteen to almost beat the Spurs, to them losing in seven games to the Clippers in two thousand fourteen, to the the title in two thousand fifteen, two and Steph winning an m v P to the near miss, the low

of two thousand sixteen, having this amazing season that ends and you losing two, then you signing Kevin Durrant winning two in a row to you know, Kevin during and Klay Thompson getting injured, and you losing in the finals, to the disaster that was the season, and you missed the playoffs, to the season and you missed the playoffs.

You guys, get the point here. There's all of these highs and lows, and then it culminates and then winning a title in two with Steph Clay and Draymond and Steve Kerr and Bob Myers and Joe Lacap that's the same core that was there in two thousand fifteen. You know and and before that just Steve Kerr right, so

it was different. So the point is is like the fan base is freakishly loyal in ravenous and loud and easy to monetize because of the loyalty that was bred from the franch over the course of that decade with the franchise. So there, the reality is is Brooklyn could not get people to buy tickets. Brooklyn's TV ratings were

some of the worst in the league locally. So what that tells us despite having Kyrie Irving is one of the most fun players to watch an NBA history, and Kevin Durand is arguably a top ten player of all time. So the point there is the lesson to learn there is that the health of the league directly leads to money, and the health of the league is largely tied to ravenous,

loyal local fan bases. You're gonna see this with Milwaukee over the years of the honest days, they will become a very monetize herble fan base because they will have this long, extended stretch of continuity with a core group of players that the fans are irrevocably attached to. That's

always going to be an important part of this. Now, again, there's as soon as you if the league does things and negotiates for things to try to force players to stay, not necessarily forced, but heavily incentivized players to stay, they do dramatically shift the morality, right, because if players are incentivized to stay, but then teams can still trade them all day long, it's not necessarily fair. But at the end of the day, it's just the reality of the

way that the system works, and they don't. I don't think the players necessarily see the pain of the finances in the immediate future because of the TV contract, right, But like what if I told you, like what if you were able to tell the fans like, hey, by virtue of doing this, if you are forced or heavily incentivized to stay with the team that drafted you, our next TV deal will be x dollars bigger, you know,

or maybe not that one but the one after. Because it takes sometimes, like with the Warriors, it takes a half decade a decade to breed that fan base. But at at a certain point, the league needs to understand, the players need to understand that there's a trade off there, and they need to decide how much they want to

fight for. Because if you make the league into a mercenary league where teams are constantly in flux and players are constantly teaming up with different guys every couple of years and moving all over the country, you will only breed fans that are fans of the league, and that typically is going to be a more intense basketball fan. You will lose visual fans that are in these local areas.

Like if if the Phoenix Suns had some variation of Devin Booker, Mikhail Bridges and DeAndre Ayton for the next decade, then Phoenix would become a ravenous fan base. But if after this year they flipped the whole thing over and it's Kevin Durant and Devin Booker and no one else, it's gonna be very different, you know. And that's just

one example. But again, you have to decide do you want a mercenaries league where you make less money in the long run, or do you want a league that has a more traditional structure that breeds strong local fan bases and you guys all make more money in the long run. And it's a tough decision, And I don't know what the answer there is and only the players knowing it's up to them to figure out. They got to decide what they think is worth fighting for. All right,

let's move on to Stephan Lebron. So Bobby marks Um said that he would have step second behind MJ all time. Now, you guys have heard me talk about this stuff before. I don't really I'm not changing your minds like that. That's the reality of the situation. Like you Warriors fans out there, and I know a lot of you listen to the show, like Steph's your guy, man, I just broke that down for you. For a decade, for better or worse, He's been your guy and he's come through

for you so many times. So like, I understand your loyalty to him, and I totally get it. It's literally the same way that I feel about Lebron. I grew up watching him. He came through as a as I was a fan of his. He came through so many times that, like, I just have this faith in what he can do on the basketball court. So it's difficult for people to convince me that Kevin Durant or Steph is better than him. So I get that, and I'm not trying to convince you, guys, I'm just gonna give

you my impression of the situation. Now, Steph, I we're gonna do an in depth player ranking as we get into the further end of the summer, as we get kind of out of some of this free agency stuff and out of this trade stuff, and actually in the real dog days of NBA summer, which is like August, we're gonna spend a lot of time on list, so I will get deeper into this. But I think step is probably the fifth or sixth best player of all time. Uh And and you guys, remember I rank mind different.

I keep a list of bigs, and then I keep a list of perimeter players. But in that list of perimeter players, I I have Lebron, I have m J. I've got Magic Johnson, I've got Kobe, And then it's like Stephen Larry Bird are kind of competing for that fifth spot there. Steph is my second favorite player of this era. I have the utmost respect for Steph. But make no mistake, guys, there's a reason why Lebron is in the conversation with m J. I don't think he's ahead of MJ. But there's a reason why he's in

that conversation. His resume is completely insane. I I need to read this to you guys, just you can get a feel for what I'm talking about. So obviously, Steph has matched Lebron in titles. Lebron has four titles, Steph has four title. That's where the comparisons end. Conference titles, Lebron has ten, Steph has six m vps, Lebron has four. Steph has two finals MVPs Lebron has four. Steph has won two if you count two thousand fifteen, which I count,

so four to two All Star appearances. Lebron eighteen, Steph eight, First Team All NBA. This is wild. Lebron thirteen times media members thought he was a top five player in the NBA Steph four. All Defense selections, Lebron six, Steph zero. Lebron has seventeen thousand more points than Steph, six thousand more rebounds in five thousand more assists. That's basically one

Janice career. So if Steph went to have Janice's career from right now, Janice's total career to this point, he would just get to where Lebron is, and he'd still be about three thousand points behind. Like, that's how ridiculous Lebron's resume is. That's why he's in the conversation with m J. Again, I wouldn't put him ahead, but that's

why he's there. And so like, I'm not gonna convince you, guys, I'm just gonna say, like, you know, when the Lebron fan says he's ahead of MJ, and how ridiculous it sounds, because MJ wants six titles and eight tries with Scottie Pippen as his best teammate. When he was miles better than anybody else in the league. It was blasphemy to even mention another person's name in his breath. That's how good MJ was. That's how ridiculous Lebron fans sound when

they say Lebron was ahead of MJ. That's how ridiculous step fans sound when they say steps ahead of Lebron, and that that's all I'm saying, Like it's okay for Steph to be the sixth best peruder player of all time. That's ridiculous. The dude played what three years of college basketball. The dude had horrible ankle injuries that disrupted the beginning of his career. He's the only guy on the list who's as small as he is. It's ridiculous. Sorry about that.

It's ridiculous that he's had the career that he's had with what he's been given. He has massively outperformed anything you could have ever hoped or expected from him. And he still is playing basketball. But let's not get crazy. That's all we're saying in here. And then even if we look at the absolute peak, So I think Steph's

absolute peak was this season. I thought he was an unbelievable defensive player this season, and in terms of you actually factor in the way defenses guard him compared to two thousand sixteen and two thousand fifteen when they still didn't really know how, and for him to be as efficient as he was, to have that playoff run that he just had with Andrew freaking Wiggins as his best player. I was arguing with some people up in uh up in Vegas, um about Steff, you know, and I couldn't.

I became the staff defender I was. I was arguing with a buddy of mine and he's like, yeah, I'm not sure Steff has ever really carried I'm like dude, he just wanted title with Andrew Wiggins as his best teammate. Like, how is not carrying? You know what I mean? But that's that, That, to me is what encapsulates Steph's absolute

peak season. This two season was the best version of Staff that I saw in terms of control of the game, scoring efficiently in the playoffs, defending, being the chess master, deciphering defenses. Everything that he did to drag that team to the trophy, to me was the peak of Steph. That said, I think Lebron had four seasons that were better. I think in two thousand thirteen when he was the best defensive player in basketball and uh like uh ridiculously efficient.

You know, I think his true shooting percentages was in the sixties and he was averaging thirty points in two thousand thirteen to get the sixty six wins and to win the title the way he did that year two thousand sixteen, every bit as impactful defensively as he was intoirteen, but a better offensive player than he was two thousand eighteen. The best peak offensive version of Lebron. Not a very good, not a great defensive player that season, but the peak

offensive version of Lebron. That was the best offensive player I ever saw, and then arguably is his best season because he was an all defense level defender. He didn't get voted that year, but he was an all defense level defender and he was unbelievable in the playoff runs, shot in the in the finals, averaging thirty to win finals MVP, and never he was even threatened on his way to the title like Lebron. I I'm a huge

step fan, guys. You guys know that, and again I understand I'm not going to change your mind, but to me, this is not close. Like Steph is fighting with Larry Bird for fifth, he's not fighting with Lebron for second. That's just we're jumping the gun there. I read out the numbers for you. It's just it's just it's just too much. One last thing before we get out of here. So, UM, this one. I don't respond to trolls on Twitter almost ever, um,

just because there's hundreds of them. They're awful people. What's the point. But I had one that went kind of viral the other day on on Monday. UM, not viral, but kind of made some rounds on Twitter that was kind of false about me. And so I quote tweeted it, and it basically what it was was, Uh, somebody took the stats from my worst college season and put them out and uh, and people were having their taking their shots and taking their victory lapse. You know how that goes.

Um But I actually thought it was a really interesting chance to teach a valuable basketball lesson and it turned it turned into a bigger thing because after I tweeted out my actual basketball resume, Kevin Durant responded underneath it, uh, kind of having my back, but in like his own way, kind of making fun of people for giving him crap for defending himself to trolls, which is a whole other thing. And I get it. I've never had an issue with

Katie complaining or batting back at strolls. The way I look at it is Katie is is completely authentic. Katie is always going to be exactly what he wants to be. He doesn't care what you want him to be. He's gonna just put real Kevin out there in the public for the whole world to see. And I've always admired

that about him. And he's the kind of guy that gets irritated with trolls, and so he talks to trolls often, but I did it this one time, and he took that as an opportunity to kind of piggyback off that. But I wanted to talk about the basketball for a second because this is a very very valuable basketball lesson. So a couple of things this and for those of you haven't heard, I'm going to kind of go through my college basketball resume here a little bit. So, Uh,

in college, I was just an athlete. I I was six six with six ten wakespan. I could jump out of the gym. I could shoot a little bit, but I couldn't dribble, and I certainly didn't know the game very well. I was a very late bloomer. My parents raised me on football and baseball, so I didn't even really pick up a basketball until I was about fifteen years old. Even then, I just shot around on a hoop in my backyard. I got cut from JV as

a sophomore. I made j V as a junior, but I didn't play, And I made varsity as a senior, but I didn't play. So like I I just was. I wasn't a high school player. Then I went two years of college where I just was playing pick up all the time. And I got to the point where I was functional enough. I walked into an open gym at a junior college, destroyed everybody, but again it was a local junior college. They offered me a scholarship. That third year of college is when I started playing college ball.

But I was super super raw, like I had like a forty inch vertical six ten wingspan tall. But I I didn't know the game. I didn't know how to play. I could shoot when I was I was streaky, I could shoot when I was hot. That was it. But like, what's interesting is my career, My college career follows a descending pattern statistically. But what's funny is the last season, my worst statistical season was actually my best. There was when I was my best version of myself as a player.

I say all this to say this, guys, I I did play in college, but that has nothing to do with this, like what we're doing here. I have never ever tried to be like, listen to me, I played in college, Like no, that doesn't matter. Why why would you go listen to J. J. Reddick? Then he played in the NBA? What this is? What we're doing here is I love the game of basketball so much that I pour my heart and soul into it every day.

And this is what allows me to do this, To watch as much film as I do, to care about it as much as I do, and to try to express that to you guys. Uh. Does the fact that I play in college? Does it help? Sure? Yeah, it helps with some perspective on certain things. But there are a lot of people out there. I met Kevin O'Connor in Vegas as someone I've been meeting wanting to meet for a long time. Kevin O'Connor didn't play college basketball. That dude is an incredible NBA writer and podcaster. He's

super smart and he knows his stuff. He doesn't need to have played in college to be able to tell you that. So when I talk about these kinds of things, they're just to kind of offer experience and knowledge. It's never to be like, look at me, I'm better than you, guys. I played in college. I don't care. No one's paying me a penny to play basketball now it's pointless. But my college basketball journey is an interesting lesson in the way that situation can impact a basketball player. My first

season in college. That when I just told you guys about I average sixteen points in ten bounce per game. I had a career high thirty one in that season. I shot okay from three. I think I shot like thirty seven percent from three and high volume. It was like seven attempts per game. Everything was great. Here's the issue. The team was freaking terrible. I think we only won five games. And Juco in general is very unorganized basketball. It's everyone's got an agenda. The teams are not super

well coached. Typically, it's a different type of basketball. Right. So then from there I transferred to a different junior college in Utah, Okay. This one was a completely different season. I averaged about I think eleven points per game. I was third in my conference and rebounding, and I made an all conference team. But literally I made an all conference team despite my numbers going down. Why is that

because we won more. We won fourteen games that season, and I've had big scoring games in games that we won, and that was and the coaches are who voted for the all conference teams. So that's what got People saw me as a winning player that year in a way. They It didn't the first season, You guys kind of get the theme here, right. My third season, I transferred Arizona Christian University. They had just gone on a national type a run in the national Tournament, made it to

the second round. They were um. The player at my position at small forward was an All Conference player the previous year, and I took his spot and moved him to the bench. That's how deep we were with talent. I had to all American guards. My role completely changed. My coach literally sat me down in the office and was like, we do not need you to shoot. I just need you to guard the other team's best player every single night and just be in the right spots,

run the plays correctly, and that'll be fine. And my numbers tanked. I averaged like five points per game. The I really really struggled to shoot. At one point in the beginning of the season. This is crazy. I missed twenty two consecutive three point shots over the course of a couple of weeks. It was. It was bad. The roll shift, going from being All Conference guy who had the ball in his hands a lot too basically playing Trevor Aresa in the corner. That shift completely screwed with

my head, and it's screwed with my rhythm. Most of my shots were either off the dribble or off of jab step like face up stuff. In previous seasons. All of a sudden, it was only catching shoot reps, and I just, I just I really struggled with that. Over the course of the season, I got better in conference play. I shot over thirty from three, but like, it wasn't great, I just it. That whole sequence really really exposed to me how I needed to improve in other areas of

the game. That same season, I learned how to be a better defensive player. I was not a good defensive player in my two years in junior college. I was a great defensive player at Arizona Christian University. I learned the importance of of buying into the team concept and practicing hard every day, because you know, if you don't practice hard, you're gonna lose your spot. I learned how to UH run high and uh like a highly complicated

defensive schemes. I used Synergy to watch a ton of film and to learn how to appropriately uh like like I would I would. I would literally watch hours of film on the other team's best player before the game to learn which way they like to drive, what they

would do when they would drive that way. And I became in a lot of ways a professional with the way I approached the game that year, because I had to scratch and claw for my role on the team, as opposed to being in JUCO, where it was like, here's the keys to the offense, do whatever the hell you want. It's entirely different, and that that's why I think it's important to express those things too. To you guys, is like when you see stats, when you see numbers,

when you see things like that, they're always different. I was actually a better shooter that third season than I was the first season, when I shot thirty seven percent on seven attempts or whatever. The difference was is I was playing on a bad basketball team in loosely organized junior college basketball versus real n ai A basketball that's extremely well coached and everyone's in the right spots, defenses are always in help, the slashing opportunities aren't there that

you're used to. It was just a completely different ball game. And I grew a lot of ways as a basketball player that year. And we want to ship ton of games. We want thirteen games in a row. To start the season, we beat a Division one team on their home floor even though we were in A I A. We at one point reached top five ranking in the n A I A and we made it to the national tournaments. It was a monstrously successful season that I played a defensive role and I shot like ship like that's that's

literally all it was. But some kid who the hell knows who? Who, Who's who the hell knows who it was, took a screenshot of just my shooting percentages from that year, which we're awful, and put them out there and everyone was running off with them. And I don't care. You can take your victory laps. I've never stood on who I was as a college basketball player. That's not who

I am. I'm Jason Timp the basketball analysts, and I love the game, and I hope that you guys picked that up from me, But I I have never cared

about that. I just thought it was a cool opportunity for me to explain to you guys the way that role can change a players performance and confidence, and then also the way that winning basketball it's harder to produce statistically in a winning situation than a is in a losing situation, which is something that we should keep in mind when we're evaluating NBA players and things along those lines. As Draymond says, stand on that, I will stand on

whatever the hell people think of my college resume. It is what it is. I'm standing on it. I hope that lesson um uh can help you guys kind of get a better idea of what that kind of experience is like. All right, that is all I have for today. I sincerely appreciate your guys support as always. Like I said, I will be taking all of my equipment with me when I go on vacation, and who knows, maybe we'll

have something in the next couple of days. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason LT so you guys can see show announcements and things along those lines. Now, see you guys in a couple of days. The volume