Hoops Tonight - Friday Mailbag Episode: Steph-KD Warriors vs Kobe-Shaq Lakers, Giannis disrespect, Clippers a major threat?

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week so far. Today is my last full day on the lake, getting in the car driving to Seattle tomorrow and then we board the cruise ship. I believe the following day we're just spending the night in town. Have never been to Seattle. I've been told to try out the clam chowder at the Pipe Place Market, so I planned to do that. Um. Just in general, this trip has been a really nice getaway so far, having a good time. Never been to Alaska looking forward to that. Today,

we're doing a mail bag. UM. I sent out the request for questions yesterday and we got sixty questions. Obviously not gonna be able to get to all of them. I picked out about twenty that I liked. We'll see how how many I can get to in the next hour or so. I do want to start doing a lot more of this kind of stuff, though, So for those of you that I missed your question or for every reason I can't get to it today, I promise we're going to do a lot more of this kind

of thing. I'd like to have it be kind of a regular part of our show, just because I want this to be as interactive as possible. I want to talk about the game the way I want to talk about the game, but I also want to talk about the game the way that you guys want to talk about the game. UM. So we're starting with the first question. This one is and I'm gonna butcher some names today, so I apologize in advance. This one is from Panagiatis tem Pacas. I'm guessing that's a Greek name. Why is

there so much disrespect on the best NBA player? Janice antenna coupo by other players. For example, what Andrea Guadala said, Now, this is a recurring phenomenon throughout NBA history. Janice isn't the first guy that's happened to. I mean, look at the way that the league treated steph when when he was rising. Look at the way the league treated Lebron when he was rising. It's it's it's a couple of

different things. Anytime any young player or young person comes into an industry and starts to, you know, be a mover and shaker, start to elevate, especially faster than his peers, there's gonna be pushedback. That's a normal part of it. I think one of the reasons why it's especially tough for Janice is because he has a set of physical tools that would make any NBA player jealous. And you saw that from Andrea Guadala and that quote. You also saw that from James Harden with the whole running and

running and dunking quote. Right, Like, when you're almost seven feet tall with super long arms, you know, incredibly well built, a good body type in the sense that you know like they're there are guys out there that are like lean and and chiseled, and then there are guys that are like a little bit doughey, you know what I mean. Like Janice is as as immaculate a physical specimen that you will see in the n b A and it

absolutely helps him in every facet of the game. And so there is gonna be a certain amount of jealousy that comes with that. I do think that people underplay how hard it is is to be as good of an athlete as they are. Like, I mean, all of you guys who listened to this show that are hoopers. You guys have probably all met a six seven, six eight six nine type of athlete that, for whatever reason just never materialized into much of a basketball player because

they couldn't put the other pieces together. Maybe they weren't physically aggressive enough, maybe they didn't take good enough care of their body, maybe they didn't become skilled enough. It's I think, as much as the honest is very blessed in his natural abilities, he also has worked extremely hard to get as good at the game of basketball as he is. So I I don't I don't believe in minimizing that, but make no mistake, it's a basic psychological phenomenon.

He's new to the scene, he's better than everybody. Like you guys know me, I think that Nice is the best um player in the league by a pretty decent margin. I'd put him in a tier by himself atop the league, with the Steph, Lebron, Katie guys kind of just in that level right beneath him. That's how good I think he is. So it's not a issue of respect. I'm just calling out the what I believe is a typical

psychological phenomenon. He's new, he's kicking everybody's ass, and he's got this ridiculous set of physical tools that no one else in the league has, and so a lot of people are jealous, and that's just kind of normal human behavior at this point, like as is always the case, just like it was with Stephen with Lebron, he'll eventually get his due respect as he kind of has consistent success throughout the league. And also he's just a really good person, So I mean, there's just not a whole

lot of reasons to dislike him. Secondly, this is from mock fraud Chowder. What are your thoughts on the Clippers for next season? I personally believe them to be title contenders with Kauai and PG coming back being there, two big scoring wings, tons of depth, good shooters, and they go small and switch slideing Covington to the five in the playoffs. I mentioned this right after the season, but I I view the Clippers as the number one threat to the Warriors to come out of the West next year. Now,

the Warriors have not had a good offseason overall. The Dante DiVincenzo signing is fine, but to lose both Gary Payton the Second and um Otto Porter Junior, who are significant role players for them in the playoffs, that's an issue. Now. You absolutely need Moses Moody to come in and slide into one of those roles. I don't think Jonathan coming is ready. And then you need Dantean di Vincenzo to be what Gary Payton was for you, which was I

don't know that he can. Gary Payton Jrs. Gary Payton the Second is one of the best defensive cards that we have in this league. And I've told you guys this before. If you look on the on off numbers for the way that the Warriors played in this playoff run with Gary Payton on the floor versus with him off the floor. There's a huge difference there. So it's I don't love the off season for the Warriors this year, but I still think they're the favorite in the West.

But I think the Clippers are right there. I think they're the biggest threat they I've talked to you guys about this before, but I view them as the quintessential modern basketball team. I think they're extremely well run from the top down. They're willing to spend money. The people that make decisions for their basketball operations department are people that understand the game of basketball and people that actually are plugged into what succeeds in modern basketball. They're very

well coached. I'm a huge fan of tylu Um. I think he's doing a much better job here than he did even in Cleveland. And in terms of talent, they're kind of perfectly built, very switchable. But at the same time, they can run drop coverage with Zoo box of Zubos right like. They've got guys that can pressure the rim consistently, like Kawai Leonard. Paul George has gotten a lot better at that over the years. They've got good perimeter shooting. They've got guys that can attack close outs, guys that

do the dirty work. To me, they're kind of like a perfectly constructed basketball team. The issue with them is always gonna be health. Paul George just kind of seems to have issues like this all the time. It's like it was used to be a shoulder and then this year it's his elbow. You know, there's just always something going on with Paul George. And then I mean there's all sorts of mixed entel on the Kawhi Leonard stuff.

I've heard people who are connected, who are who have sources that say that his knees all messed up and his degenerative, and then I've heard people say that he's fine, So who the hell knows? To me, that's just classic Kauai keeping a tight circle. But health is always going to be their biggest problem. And then when push comes to shove at the end of any sort of tough

competitive playoff series, they don't really have fantastic playmakers. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are great at looking for their shot. They're not great at, you know, consistently making great reads against elite locked in defenses that take away the easy stuff. Um, they're so good everywhere around that that they're still every bit as much of a championship contender as any of

the other teams in the league. But that's their big weakness and we saw that against Denver in the Bubble when they fell when they came up against the real chess match, chess master Nicola Yokich, they couldn't go blow for blow with them, and it ended up costing up. But make no mistake, I think the Clippers are absolutely a championship contender, and I think they're probably the second best team in the West behind Golden State and their biggest threat to be upset. This one's from Ryan Hey.

Jason Joe Lacob says the luxury tax penalties on the Warriors are unfair. Do you agree? Absolutely? I agree. I mean, we talked about this a little bit with Colin Coward after the last NBA Finals game. But it doesn't make sense that you can be punished for drafting so well that all of the players that you picked ended up needing large salaries, and now you get squeezed and you end up losing a quality player, you know, even like

a good player like Gary Payton. A second, like nobody in the league was willing to give Gary Payton the second a chance the Warriors did. He manifested into like a quality NBA playoff role player, and they had to let him go because they couldn't afford to keep him. That's unfortunate that it works that way. It is what it is. I don't know that there's a perfect system. I've heard a bunch of different things, like what if you could keep your stars in a separate salary cap.

Collin Cowhard is advocated for, you know, your salary cap only being used on the mercenaries, right, Like if you sign free agents, you should have a limitation in what you can sign, but players that are under team control that you drafted, maybe you can have a separate, you know, kind of salary system for that. I am a proponent of any of those things, because in general, I want to reward, you know, competence. I don't want to reward incompetence.

I want teams that do the right things, that that that hire the right people, that put in the work. I want them to be able to be the beneficiaries of the system. I don't want them to be the people that get penalized by the system. So I don't like the way that it works. But it is what it is, and it's unfortunate that it's gonna end up squeezing the Warriors out of some quality role players. This is from this is a nameless account, so we're not going to give the name. The Bulls are wasting their

time with their current roster. How do you think they could move things around and compete legitimately? I don't think they're wasting their time. I mean again, guys, I've been over this with you guys before. But over the last what I believe, if I remember correctly, eight to the last ten titles are Stephen Lebron and then the other two are Kauai and Janice. Right, I think it's it might be nine in the last eleven, actually is what

it is. So, uh, eight of the last eleven or Stepan Lebron and then the other three or Kauai and Janice. So like there's the top guys in the league are winning the trophy and there's only like five or six of those guys, so not everybody, you know, the Bulls can't just be like a, oh we need Lebron, Oh we need k d Oh we need Janice. So you gotta you gotta you gotta go for it with whatever you've got. I actually like the core Derozen and Levine

I think are fine. The big thing is, you know, and and injuries ended up being what derailed them this year. Early in the year when they had Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso defending on the perimeter, they were damn good. They were very good. As I've said before, I think I think that perimeter defense is the most valuable skill

in all of basketball. That that's literally that perimeter contained is what prevents that initial dribble penetration that causes your defense to go into rotation where bad things start happening. So like the way the way that I see it, um um, you can't really make a clear judgment of what this Bulls team is capable of until Lonzo's on the floor, until Alex Carusos on the floor, and then in the front court. They need somebody to do that for them as well. Patrick Williams is that guy. That's

that's what he's supposed to be for them. He's supposed to be there, six eight, do it all forward who can guard the bigger wings and and and cause damage around the back line, and and and be an impact rebounder and all of those things. So like, well, ideally, if if I had to make one uh significant change, I would look to flip Vussovitch for more of a dirty work type of forward, a forward that is more capable of holding down the interior in terms of the

physicality of the position. And I'm not sure what the right answer there is. I'd have to think I would like So what I would look for is is someone in that like Clint Capella type of archetype, just a a really high level athletic rim running center that can block shots around the basket screen and roll to the rim hard and defend and drop coverage things along those lines. The uh Vussovitch is just gonna get killed in that

role the two frequently. And and I don't know that I don't know that there's an easy answer out there, But I think if they get Crusoe, and if they get Patrick Williams really dialed in um as their athletic forward, and if they get a good, you know, athletic rim protecting center, all of a sudden that Levine and de rozan combo is very interesting. De Rosen is a very good playmakers act Levine is a very efficient scorer in

this league, and both of them have defensive shortcomings. But as long as you have guys around them that can succeed, you've got a chance. Do I ever think they can be a top tier contender. No, But if they do those things that I just mentioned, I absolutely think they could be in that second tier, which is like the if things break right, we can win tier, right like the Phoenix Suns two years ago, they would be similar level of talent to what I just described as the

idealized version of the Chicago Bulls. They were two wins away from the NBA title, and if it wasn't for Chris Paul collapsing the way that he did, they very well could have won. Right. So I'm not as low on the Bulls um as that particular nameless account is. All right, This is from Antiquette Mohan, who I believe it's been supporting the show for a while. Um, so we appreciate the question. Aniakotte um thoughts on steps comments

on the Warriors being better than the Kobe shack Lakers. So, in general, I'm not a huge fan of these types of comparisons, just because they're very subjective and extremely difficult to establish parameters like what rules are we playing by, how are they officiating the game? Are we going with like playoff physicality the way they did uh towards the end of this playoff run. Because if that's the case, I'm I struggled to think that the Warriors would be

able to handle Shack and Kobe physically, right. But if it's a more open, free, flowing up and down the floor type of game, like Steph Clay and Draymondard gonna run these guys off the floor with their speed up and down the floor and covering ground on the perimeter, right. So it's tough to say. But at the end of the day, like you know, everyone has heard the phrase styles make fights, right, Well, I view it more as

like any style. Some styles have advantages over other styles, but any style is capable of beating any style the other styles. It's just a question of the style that the game takes. So for instance, if you've got a big, bruising team in the Lakers and you've got a fast, finesse team in the Warriors, it really just, uh, it's up to which team kind of commands the flow of

the game. If the Lakers could strangle the game, keep it in the half court, and consistently feed Shack without him getting tired in an up and down type of game covering too much ground. I'm sorry, he's just gonna physically pulverize you, right, But if the Warriors can keep the game fast and loose and get out and transition a lot, Shack is his impact is going to tank compared to what he's gonna be like in a slow half court game. So it's hard to say. I don't

really have an answer to that question. Um, if gun to my head, I've always said that the two thousand seventeen Warriors, that a D S, Steph Clay Draymond Iguadala line up to Hampton's five, that to me was the best basketball line up, best basketball team that I've ever seen. So I personally would take them. But again, like if if the game, if the series, or the game takes a certain shape, the matchups could end up swinging back

towards the Lakers. Um, this is from Roey day, Don Lakers, shouldn't they try trading Taylor Horton Tucker for Patrick Beverly, in Russ for Buddy Held in some three team er versus going for Kyrie. BEVN Buddy are somewhat similar to Crusoe and KCP. Kyrie gets maybe Kyrie gets bought out question mark I. I disagree I a couple of things. First of all, k CP was an excellent defensive player,

Buddy Healed is not. Buddy Held is a better offensive player than KCP, so they're not really all that similar. I do agree in the sense that Patrick Beverley could do some of what Alex Cruso does just as a perimeter contained type of guy. Um. No matter what, I think, these guys should be fallback options. There's another question that was in I didn't pick it, but maybe it's in my list later on. But somebody asked me, like, what

do you value more offense or defense? And I'm always going to value the offensive end more um to a certain extent, even though I do value defense, because I think you can manufacture defense in a way that you can't with the offensive end of the floor. Like you can play hard and coach up a defensive player, right, but you can't play hard and coach up what Kyrie Irving can do with the basketball. That's a otherworldly talent

that is carrying him there. When it comes to a playoff setting, if you have Kyrie Irving, you can manufacture a small defensive roles for players like Austin Reeves and Stanley Johnson and want to Scano Anderson and Troy Brown Jr. And all this kind of stuff. It's very it's it's difficult. It's gonna be a challenge. Darvin Ham's gonna have his

work cut out for him there. But it's doable. But what you can't do is run out there with Buddy Healed, in with Miles Turner and with Patrick Beverley or whoever it is, and then try to manufacture what Kyrie Irving can do. What Kyrie Irving can do with the basketball in a playoff setting is impervious to defensive scheming. It's it's it's an unbelievable weapon to have in your bag.

It can be a problem if you're the Brooklyn Nets and you absolutely desperately need him to be amazing every night, But alongside Lebron James and Anthony Davis, he wouldn't need to be. I would target Kyrie Irving no matter what as the primary option. If it goes south, you default to some combination of Buddy Healed, Miles Turner, whatever role players you can get out there. The other guy would really look at his boy on Bogdanovitch from the Utah

Jazz is just a guy who's a big forward. I'm not worthy his foot speed, struggles to cover on the perimeter against quicker guys, but he's good at guarding bigger, stronger forward. So uh, with Anthony Davis on the back line, I actually think he's a nice fit there, just like he was in Utah with Rudy Gobert. But that's another type of guy I would look at. But no matter what Kyrie first priority backup plan as role players, Uh, this is from Silas. What NBA player would you compare

your personal game too? Um? So this is interesting. I love talking about this kind of stuff. So I talked a little bit about my college basketball background in a podcast a lot last week. But when I was in college, I was just an athlete and I was very I basically was a stretch for um who turned into a little bit more of a three my last year. But I was very unskilled, Like I could shoot the ball in a streaky way, but I could not dribble to

save my life. I was unskilled, you know. But the last time I played college basketball is two thousand and fourteen, and I still play just as much to this day as I do. Then, I like I tell you guys, I'm so in love with the game that I approach it like a professional. I train, uh strength train every single day. I go and do skill work. I coach high school kids, so I have access to a gym and a gun and all those kinds of things. And I take the game very seriously, not because I'm trying

to play professionally. This is my job. I love doing this, but it it's just something that I love to do because I love the game. I like being able to step on a basketball court and be a good basketball player. It's it's something that is is like a personal passion of mine, irrespective of money or fame or anything like that. Right. So like um, as I've gotten older, I've gotten way way, way, way way better at dribbling the basketball. So those are

you guys who follow me on Twitter. You've seen the videos that I do, um, But for the most part, it's a combination. Every talk to any young hooper out there, and those are you guys who are hoopers that are listening, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Your skill set is a combination of things you learned from all of your favorite players. Like I have a one legged fade

away that I use that originated from Dirk. The one that I use is kind of more like what Kevin Durant does, but that's that's a move that I saw in video from those guys, went in the gym, worked on a hundreds of times to learn how to do it. My fade away over my right shoulder and left shoulder. I watched Kobe Bryant film. I swing my right leg around when I fade over my left shoulder to try to square a square up in mid air. That took

a ton of footwork reps. Learned that from Kobe Bryant, watching tape, going in the gym, and working on it. I have a very very deep arsenal of different step back threes off of various trible combinations. Those are mostly from uh from James Harden. My other dribble combination threes

are like Paul George, you know my form. When I'm working on my jump shot form, I try to replicate Clay Thompson as much as possible, like everybody's got a a bunch of of of players that they that they look to as basically a um uh like a blueprint for how to develop your own skill set. And mine has always been a combination of those things. Now, if you went to the gym and you watched me play pick up, the guy that I probably resemble the most to you is like a Paul George. I'm a guy

that uh is. I I dribble the basketball a lot um. I'm mostly a scorer. I I go to off the dribble three's often, but I have the ability to slash to the basket and finish above the rim. Um not as athletic because I was when I was younger. When I was younger, I was about two hundred five pounds and I could get my head at the rim. Now it's I'm a few inches below the rim. I way two pounds more of a back to the basket. I can use that more back to the basket type of stuff.

But I tried to do everything like I try to be multifaceted. I try to have floaters and scoop shots and and back to the basket stuff, off the dribble stuff, and I when I play with my men's league team on Sunday's. I play with a couple of really good guards, so I work a lot of my off the ball shooting moving and shooting moving without the basketball, cutting things

along those lines. I'm obsessed with the game. I know again, I'm never gonna get paid again, ord or if I do, I have to convince my wife that I'm gonna leave her for a little bit. Um. But I the reality is is to me, it's just fun. I love the I I love the process of becoming the best basketball player that I can be, even though it doesn't really result in anything. Um. From a money standpoint, Um, this is from Vic your opinion on the mid season tournament.

I don't see any value at all, But maybe you do, And do you think play in is a fair way to decide the playoff spots. I actually like to play in tournament. It's high stakes, it's it's a rescue path for teams to deal with injuries over the course of the season. No issue with the play in tournament. The mid season tournament, I think is stupid. I don't think you're gonna be able to get guys to care about it.

My main issue there, too, is like it's beating around the bush and failing to acknowledge the reality of the situation. You guys know, I'm big on self awareness. I'm big on admitting when things are not good. And the the reality is is the league as an urgency problem if you have just to make the math easy. If you're getting a million people to watch an average regular season NBA game that's on national television, and the numbers are different than that, but I'm just trying to keep the

math easy. If it's a million um and you're dealing with everything that we're dealing with now, You're dealing with stars sitting out because of load management. You're dealing with

injuries causing problems. You're dealing with back to backs and scat dual losses and all of these different things that are that are upsetting the product to the point now where your t n T Thursday slate is almost always involving at least one of the core teams missing players, if not all four of them, you know, on a typical at TNT Thursday night, it's a problem. That's the issue. So to me, if you can get it from one million viewers to one point five million viewers, again, I'm

just using that for easy math. Then that allows you to cut down in the number of games and maintain the amount of revenue as it pertains to what the advertising eyeballs um that the broadcast companies can get. So my thing is like, I would shorten the season down to sixty sixty sixty six games probably, um, I think if you did that, you can get down to three games per per week. Every single week you have at least one stretch where you have two consecutive days off.

If you did that, that basically bakes in load management automatically into the schedule. It's far more likely that the ours will play in all the games. You'll be able to have more practice time, the overall quality of play will be way better. The nationally televised games will have the stars on the floor more frequently. It will lead to an increase in ratings. It will get people to buy into the regular season. It also breeds urgency. The sixty six games makes each game worth you know what's

at roughly fift percent more right, roughly more so. At that point, you're you're you're in. You're basically injecting a ton of good and the prices You're cutting sixteen games from the schedule, right, Obviously that's a significant revenue loss. But if it's a revenue loss, they're all you need is a increase in the quality of the product that will eventually manifest in the viewership needed to recoup those losses.

To me, the mid season tournament is a bizarre attempt to address that issue by adding games, which doesn't make any sense to me. I obviously I think that I think the plan would shorten the regular season to seventy two games and then add the mid season tournament. I don't see the point shorten it to sixty six. You'll get high quality basketball. Higher quality basketball is what we'll save the NBA. The NBA playoffs are super interesting. You want more of that. You want more high stakes, high

energy NBA games involving the stars. If you do the mid season tournament, you're gonna have the exact same issue with stars sitting out key national, nationally televised games. Um. This is from defaust your reaction to Grant williams comments on the finals from the long Shot podcast A quick hitter here you has. Grant Williams basically just said I think we were the better team. They were more disciplined. Yes, absolutely,

that's what I've been saying. However, what qualifies as a good basketball team, Like, I don't think better is the right phrase to to explain what Grant Williams is saying. If I was Grant Williams, what I would say is I think we were the more talented team, which is true. Guys like hey Steph Curry just want a championship with Andrew Wiggins as the second best player. That was not an ultra talented Warriors team. They were talented. They certainly

weren't devoid of talent. Ut they outkicked their coverage because they're extraordinarily well, extraordinarily well run from the top down.

They have an owner is willing to spend, general manager actually knows how to build a modern NBA roster around switchy wings that can do the dirty work, a very good basketball coach, their superstars, a fantastic leader and is the second best player in the league in my opinion, and then all the guys down the roster were completely bought into the role, very discipline, very smart basketball players. That's why they won. That to me though, makes them

the better basketball team. So I instead of saying Grant instead of what Grant Williams said, which is we were the better team, the Warriors were the more disciplined team. I would say the Celtics were the more talented team, the Warriors were the better team. But at the end of the day, that's just all semantics. Who cares the Warriors have the trophy. This is from my friend Joe JT. Do you think there is any way possible Russ actually is on the team for the first game of the

regular season? Thanks, I don't think so. I've talked to some people who would are who are connected with the situation, and they say that that's the top priority all the positive Russ talk out there strictly for Leve Ridge. Here's the reality situation. It's the same issue with the Kevin Durant thing. You know, like Kevin, Shawn Marks and Josi are sick of being in the business of dealing with Kevin Durant Kyrie Irving. Why is that they're basketball fans.

They want to see a quality basketball product and the product out there on the court wasn't good enough for them,

and they believe that Katie and Kyrie were distracting from that. Right, So why would you bring them back into training camp and expect to breed a new basketball focus with Kyrie who wants out and has beef with the front office, and Kevin Duray who wants out so and may or may not have beef with Kyrie at this point, like we don't know right So at the end of the day, like bringing something like that to training camp immediately derails your attempts to start the season on a good note.

This is why I'm not a huge fan of of monumental mid season trades, like mid season trades involving stars, like, don't wait to the deadline to make a deal, make the deal in the off season. Because if you can get into training camp and sit down on that first day and Darvin ham can go up to the white board and he can write, here are team identity. This is our team identity. These are our rules, these are

our goals. This is the tone we're gonna set. And from day one you established that and everyone is bought in. That's how you get seasons like the two Warriors or the Lakers, who from the start of the regular season are just whipping everybody's ass. Like the Warriors started eleven and one I think right or fourteen and one, and

the Lakers started twenty four and three. You know, like they were incredibly dominant from the start of the season because from the opening moment of training camp they were just completely and totally locked in bringing Russell Westbrook back when everyone knows you've been trying to move him with all of the issues that he's having. All that does is kick your season off on the wrong note. So I would be absolutely stunned if the Lakers brought Rust back.

My guess is if they struggle to trade him, that he'll be waived or or something along those lines bought out. UM, this is from George. I think Ham is now Lebron's eighth coach in the NBA. Any advice for him, especially being a head coach for the first time. He won with Vogel, but he but seems he tuned him out in just two seasons after that. UM. A couple of things. First of all, Lebron's in his twenties season, so I don't think if, like, if Lebron tunes him out when

he's in his twenty second season, that's who cares. At this point. The idea of of a group buying into a coach and then eventually buying out. That's just normal. It's it's fatigue. Any time that a person is in a leadership role over you and they have disciplinary authority over you, it can get fatiguing. That that will happen in every workplace. That's why people like changes the scenery. That's why you look for a new gig at your job, or you look to transfer to a different location or

things along those lines. You just it's authority fatigue. So that that's normal. Um, I don't have I'm Darvin Ham already has way more coaching experience than I could ever have. So there's nothing that I could offer Darvin Ham advice. My opinion on coaching based on my brief coaching experience with high school kids and being around all the college coaches that I was around in my life, my opinion is, don't be be be reticent of of clinging to your

core philosophy. Basketball is it can be played, coached, taught in so many different ways. I've never tried to tell you guys that my belief system about basketball is the you know, the the unimpeachable, perfect way to go about the game basketball. It's just my belief. This is the way that I see the game, this is the way that I coach, this is the way that I would manage a team, or this is the way that I would coach in the NBA, or this is the way

that I would play in the NBA. That's just my opinion. That's all it is. You know. So with with coaching, you have your core philosophy, which is what I just described, But then you have your roster, and your roster is gonna have distinct strengths and weaknesses, and it's far more important for you to cater your coaching philosophy towards your strengths and away from your weaknesses than it is for you to inflict your core philosophy on people like for instance,

you guys know, I'm huge on switching. I hate traditional bigs. I I'm a big I'm a big believer in um in uh. I'm a big believer in driving kick five out basketball, not having someone in the dunker spot. I'm a big believer in in targeting players that are you know, bigger, rim pressuring type of guys. You guys know how I see the game. But if I was running the Lakers this year, I would look at it like, we don't

have great wings. We have Anthony Davis and two pretty solid backup center type of players, right, and I've got Lebron James, and then I've got a boatload of small, thin guards. So I don't know that we can do a ton of switching with this group. So even though my core philosophy is to switch, I think you gotta run drop coverage with this group, and you've got to try to funnel everybody to Anthony Davis. You might even have to play big and keep Anthony Davis at the

four a lot because we don't have enough. They don't have enough guys on the roster that are six six or taller. Right, So it's very important for my core basketball philosophy not to cause me to inflict a poor strategy on my group. And so it'll be really interesting

to see. And we don't know what the final roster is gonna look like with the Lakers, but you know, let's let's take a look at how Darvin Ham cultivates his personal basketball philosophy but adjust it and and changes it to fit with the group of guys that he has with the Lakers. Uh. This is from King Control who's the best Lebron James teammate, Dwayne Wade, Kyrie Rivering or Anthony Davis not peak just when they were playing together. To me, this is so cut and drives. Anthony Davis um.

Lebron James won four championships, He's won ten conference championships. I have never ever seen him get consistent support the way that he did from Anthony Davis. I have never seen the game look is easy for him as it did in alongside that group. Largely because of what Anthony

Davis does. The first three championships that Lebron James wont to have become massively underrated over the years because you think of the Wade Bosh Heat as like a super team, and you think of the Kyrie Kevin love Calves as a super team. They weren't. Uh. The Miami Heat were a bona fide super team in the first season in two thousand eleven, which is why that two thousand eleven

finals was such a disappointed collapse. But after that, Dwyane Wade fell off a cliff, just wasn't even close to the same player, especially by the time they got to the postseason, and Chris Bosh, you know, in in that third role, was never really a reliable score and by the end was basically just to stretch big, not undercutting what those guys did in their careers. It's just the reality of what that Miami Heat team was. The two thousand twelve two thousand thirteen Heat were a lot closer

to the two thousand twenty two Warriors. Very well coached, very well run, very body, very disciplined, very smart, but they weren't the most talented team. That's why the two thousand twelve Thunder were picked as the favorites in Vegas to win the two thousand twelve Finals. That's why them, That's why the two thousand thirteen Spurs were the favorites in the two thousand thirteen finals. No one viewed the Heat is high talent. The same goes with the Calves.

Kyrie Irving basically a scoring guard that's undersized, not great defensively, and Kevin Love was was just downright bad a lot of the time when he was in Cleveland. So like to me, the two thousand twenty Lakers with this real bona fide top tier superstar next to next to Lebron, with really quality role players, that was his best team. That was their most comfortable and easy playoff run. As a result of that, Anthony Davis was by far the best player that he played with. UM, let's see we

had time for a few more here. This is from Joe. What's your opinion on the Denver Nuggets. You haven't talked about them much yet, so I'm curious. I think they're top four team in the league in the West when they're healthy. Absolutely, I absolutely think they're top four. I'd actually put them there behind the Clippers. Um, if the Lakers do close the Kyrie Irving deal, I put the I put Kyrie Irving above them. But I'm a huge believer in what dever does. I love the k CP signing.

I think KCP is going to be a fantastic fit alongside that group. I think he's a better defensive player than Will Barton, and even though I don't think he's as skilled offensively, particularly putting the basketball on the floor, I do think he's better at specific things that he'll need to do alongside Jamal Murray and Nickeola Yogis. That's spot up shooting and slashing. KCP is actually sneaky, one of the best close out attackers in the league because

he's such a good one leg leaper. It's really good at jumping off of his left leg, and that's a specific skill for extension um. When you're being pursued by a shot blocker, you want to get the ball to the rim as fast as possible. He's very, very good at um, not only knocking down spot up threes, but beating closeouts, ripping through to the right and finishing with his right hand lay up off the glass. He made a ton of huge plays in the NBA Finals that that we're a huge part of why the Lakers won

the title. I thought it was a great get for Denver. Loved the the extension that they signed for him as well. He's worth every penny. Loved that deal. Michael Porter Jr's health is obviously a concern, but just the core of Jamal Murray with Nikola Yo Kitchen, Aaron Gordon, I don't know why they picked DeAndre Jordan's I have no idea

why DeAndre Jordan keeps getting deals. I asked some people about it in Vegas, and the people that were all plugged in and connected say it's because DeAndre Jordan's excellent in the locker room. Maybe that's what it is, but I mean he'll probably end up playing minutes, so but I'm just being nitpicky there. I think Denver is easily the third best team in the West, absolutely in that second tier of contenders where if some things break right, they can win. I would I would just put the

Lakers ahead of them if they got Kyrie. This is from Kevin. What do you think is the biggest problem basketball wise with the NBA today? Um. I talked about it a little earlier with the with players being available, but in terms of like the actual product, the on court product, I would probably go with officiating and fali bating.

I'm not going to dive into that right now because it's something I've talked about a lot over the course of the playoffs, but the league needs the league needs to find a way to incentivize players playing basketball rather than trying to dupe the referees. It'll just make for a better television products, which will increase the ratings and honestly,

it's basketball blasphemy and I think it's bad for the game. Um. The one thing I would say in terms of overall basketball development, just in general, I think that players especially in the youth basses in youth basketball are not building well rounded enough basketball skill sets, particularly in the mid range and the short range. UM. You know, there's a good reason why analytics is the analytics movement has dissuaded teams from being heavily rely heavily relying on mid range

jump shooting. I get all of that um, but every time the league does anything, the league involves with it. If you look at offensive ratings throughout NBA history, average offensive ratings, they kind of cycle up and they cycled down. They cycle up and they cycled down. And the main reason why is physicality from the refs, like how much the refs allow, what how liberal they are with the whistle. But another big part of it is the defenses evolved too.

The offense can come up with, you know, high volume three point shooting, five out attack, all these different things to try to generate quality offense in the NBA, and it will work for a little while, but then the defense will adjust. And one of the big things that you're seeing a lot right now is in the same way that offenses are geared towards generating high quality three point shots and high quality rim attempts, the NBA defenses are giving up driving lanes at the expense of chasing

guys off the three point line. So if you have a good funneling system. The Utah Jazz are actually really good at this in the regular season before all the before they got blown up. But the idea is there is if you can chase the guy off the three point line and you've got Rudy Gobert waiting under the basket, and as long as that guard can then rotate to

the next guy, you're fine. Everything's covered. And so now there's this big opening in the middle of the floor between five feet and where there's just nothing going on. There's not a whole lot of defense. Their rotation is not even trying to pick you up there, and so there's a shortage. There's an area of opportunity there for the best midrange scorers in the league to get high

quality shots. When you look at the math, yes, a wide open three simply mathematically is worth so much more than a wide open midrange jump shot that it makes no sense to take the mid range jump shot. But if all of the three point shots are contested, because that's what the defense is geared towards, taking away and the rim is occupied. Then the mid range shots, even though in a vacuum they're less valuable, if they're open higher quality shots, the shot quality goes through the roof,

and those might actually be your best shots. I I'd like to see more young basketball players building out the well rounded game because you don't know what's going to happen over the course of of the over the years, while you're trying to get to the league, how the game might change. You might need to be good at a specific thing, and you don't want to be caught, you know, with your pants down in the league because

you're not ready for it. Um. So I would like to see players get a little bit better in the mid range. Um. This is from Leo. Why do you think MJ is the goat? I agree he is the goat, better score, better defender, and more of a team player in terms of fitting in a scheme than Lebron. So to me, I disagree on a handful of levels. Um, I think MJ is a more polished score. Lebron is a more effective score. I actually think Lebron is a

better defensive player in terms of his versatility. But make no mistake, the UH The reality is, is the results favor Michael Jordan's. There's an argument there that that is almost unbeatable. If you've won six championships in eight years and you're so much better than all of your peers that just to mention one of them in your name, in the same sentence with your name is like blasphemy. Like if someone said to you, I thought Hakim was better than Jordan, you laugh them out of the room.

If someone said I thought Charles Barkley was better than Jordan's, you'd laugh them out of the room. If they said that about any of the half dozen players that were competing with MJ at the top of the league that time,

none of them were even in the same breath. And I thought Lebron was the best player of this era, and the vast majority of people would agree, But there were significant stretches where it was like, hey, Katie's kind of right there, or hey STEP's kind of right there, Hey Janice is kind of right there, right like the Lebron only really in the I would say two thousand twelve, two thousand thirteen, and then maybe two thousand, seventeen thousand eighteen,

depending on who you ask. There, I don't ever really there wasn't really a consistent stretch where he was just monumentally better than everybody. And so to me, that's not something that i'd hold against MJ. Like Lebron Vans will be like, that's because MJ played worst competition. Your competition is your competition, and the reality is is MJ could have worked hard enough to just be a little bit

better than those guys. That's not what happened. He worked so psychotically hard that he was monumentally better than all of them, and as a result, he had the most dominant run in modern NBA history six championships and eight tries. You guys know him. A huge Lebron fan. Lebron got me to fall in love with the game of basketball. That's literally why I do what I do. I was raised on baseball and football. I saw Lebron playing basketball in two thousand and six, fell in love with the game.

I've given it everything I've had for the almost two decades since then. That's how much I respect Lebron. Huge fan of his. He's not He's not m J. He's he wasn't his dominant, he wasn't the level of player that he was Lebron very well might be a better basketball player, And as the game has evolved, I'd probably say that's true. Lebron is probably a better player. Have you plucked the peak of Lebron versus the peak of MJ? But the game of basketball is evolving. MJ was so

far ahead of the curve that he was dominant. Lebron was slightly ahead of the curve and was slightly less dominent. To me, he's the second best player of all time. He'd have to win one or two more and continue to dominate for longer for me to kind of move him into that conversation. This is from Bradley, Um, why you always giving up a franchise as future slash present?

This is funny for all star players when you have no certainty that that that player will bring you a ring now, instead of planning for a future where your young players are supposed to be the top brass, you have your ass in your hands basically saying that he disagrees with my ideology being aggressive and pushing your chips in the middle. Look, man, that's just the way that I see it. Like if I was running a team, I would push my chips into the table go for

a title. As soon as I realized that it was a lost cause, I sell the house and accumulate assets, and then I'd push all the chips in the middle middle, I'd make a run and then I'd pull back and I'd accumulate assets. That's just the way that I would do it that and the reason why I would do that is because I believe that is the most consistently successful. I think the Warriors are the exception of the rule. I think that they are lucky in the sense that

they have players who are loyal. Steph is loyal, Clay Thompson is loyal, Draymond Green is loyal. So many times it ends up like the thunder where you get James Hardened with the wandering eye, Kevin Durray with the wandering eye.

It ends up not materializing. So I think the idea of building organically through the draft and building that long term, you know, continuity, even though even though I think that's absolutely what's best for the league, even though I want the league to try to structure the c b A to try to make that a little bit more feasible for the teams, I'm pro that, But in terms of under the current predicament under the current rules, if I was running a team, how I would try to win

is pushing my chips into the middle, because I think that's the most consistently successful. You literally saw that with the with the Raptors in two thousand nineteen. You saw that with the Lakers in two thousand twenty. You saw that with the the Cavaliers when they pushed everything in for Lebron. You saw that with the Miami Heat. You did. There are these little spurts there, but no one's wrong. Like if you if you want to go the other way,

you're right there as well. It worked for the two thousand fourteen Spurs, it worked for the uh It worked for the Golden State Warriors. Again, like I talked about earlier, this is just my philosophy on the game of basketball based on the current rules. If the rules changed, I'm never married to a strategy. This is just the way that I see the game. There's no right or wrong answer. This is from Joshua. Remember when you said Steph Can

I added some strolls in here. Remember when you said Steph Can no longer average thirty on grade efficiency And the only people who believed he could do it again. Were Steph fans not to be rude? I enjoy your content, so uh again. And I have Warriors fans still commenting under my YouTube videos, like you picked against us in the conference finals, and it's like, and I've had people that say that I picked against them all four rounds, which definitely didn't happen. I picked the Warriors to win

the first round. I picked them to win the second round. I picked them to win the finals, just against Dalla, I had. I didn't have a good feel for the series. I didn't know what to make of it. Dallas just beat the best team in the league, like to beat the living ship out of the best team in the league in Game seven in Phoenix, and Phoenix was like

eight games better than everybody in the regular season. As much as I believe in the Warriors, they weren't the most talented team in the league, like we talked about earlier with the Boston Celtics, like the STEP's best teammate was Andrew Wiggins. Like I just it wasn't an anti Warrior's take. I'm just trying to predict something that's completely unpredictable. You guys know, I'm a huge fan of staff, and I'm a huge fan of the way the Warriors run

their team. Don't ever take a prediction personal. UH. Predictions are really hard to do. If I had to, UH, if I could make predictions for a living, I wouldn't be doing this. I'd be in Vegas and I'd be making money gambling on sports. That's not the case. I do my best to make predictions because that's kind of what this job requires. But I I don't think we

should put that much weight on it um. As far as Steff goes like guys like he had a forty I think it was like a forty one game sample size where he couldn't shoot like it wasn't It was the longest, most extended, significant slump of his career and nothing else was close. And he's a small guard who is now I believe, thirty four years old. So that's the only reason why I said that stuff. I was like, Steph maybe on the decline. But what did I say after the finals? I was wrong. I said that Steph

is at the peak of his powers. I said, this is the best I've ever seen him. Look, I thought this was his most impressive playoff run and he very and I said very clearly what happened during the regular season was clearly a blip and not a trend. I'm gonna be wrong about a lot of stuff, guys like I, I'm going to do the very best I can. The one the one promise I can make you guys, is I'm not going to be a stubborn asshole. If I'm wrong about something, I'm gonna admit it and move on.

I was wrong about Steph declining too fast. It was never an anti Steph thing. I was reacting to data. There was a significant chunk of data where where he didn't shoot well. And then when I watched the games with my eyeballs, I was seeing Steph not getting as much separation, not um, not getting quality looks, and then wasn't making him when he was getting them. That was that.

That was just the reality. And if here's the you're you Warriors fans at the time, if you were confident, if you were thinking step will be fine, you weren't basing it on what you were seeing. You were basing it on faith in Steph. Faith is is as an invincible thing. There's nothing I can do to to convince you, guys, when you have that kind of faith. It's amazing that Steph turned it around. I was wrong. Don't ever take anything like that personal. I don't have any sort of

beef with anybody with the Warriors or stuff. All right, let's do three more. This from Felipe, Um, what's more important in your opinion? Offense or defense? Talked about this earlier. Um, So I won't go too much further into it, but I believe offense is more important strictly because it's something that you can't coach up or convince players to do by playing harder or anything along those lines, especially when you get to the NBA postseason. In the defensive end,

you absolutely can coach up. You absolutely can make up for a lot of limitations with effort and things along those lines. So if you have a supreme offensive talent, that's always gonna beat a supreme defensive talent in my opinion. This is from Jared. What was the toughest lesson that

you've learned as a hooper? This is This is a good question, Um, for all of you young kids out there that are trying to play one day, however good you think you need to be in order to be good enough, to succeed at the highest levels of college basketball and things like that. You just need to get so much better than you would even think. Um, there is a if you think you're a good shooter, you're

you're I'll give you. I'll give you some basic parameters, like you need to be able to go on the gun, the rebounding machine, or when you have rebounders and you need to be able to consistently hit between seventy and three's when you're by yourself, like when you're at the gym standing alone on the court, percent of them need to go in. That's that's when you know you're a really good shooter. I had a coach once that would say, are you a shooter or are you a maker? Everyone's

a shooter. Makers are guys that can in the gym knock down them when they're open. That will translate to you shooting in a game. Setting UM ball handling like it's ball handling is extremely tedious. It takes a very long time. The progress is so difficult to track because it happens so little by little, and it's boring. No one likes to just go up and dribble a basketball. You'd rather shoot or work on or play bask like play pick up and things along those lines. Take the

time to develop your ball handling. It is by far the most valuable skill if you want to be a high end basketball player, not a role player. Anybody, any athlete can be a role player like I was in college, who can grab rebounds and defend and do things like that. But if you want to be a a a a meaningful offensive folk rum and on a basketball team, you

have to be able to dribble the basketball. Take the hours and hours and hours that it takes to develop that skill set um and then, most importantly Alex crew have said this a long time ago talking about the G League. Understand the job you're trying out for. Like, chances are you're not gonna be so so so good that you can be Mr. All American that does everything offensively and then the rest of the team does the

dirty work for you. Chances are, even if you're very good, you're gonna have to be reliable in the little things. Understand the position you're trying out for. You're not trying out for a guy who scores twenty points a game. You're trying out for a guy that can consistently run the coaches defensive scheme and all the elements of it and all the different spots on the floor. The guy

that knows all the plays and runs them correctly. The guy that turns and boxes out a man every single time, gets back in transition defense, sits into defensive stance, and contains on the perimeter. Like those are the things that coaches in particular are obsessed with. Never ever, ever let the fun stuff, which I love, the fun stuff. I love working on turnaround jump shots and step backs and

things like that. Never let the fun stuff distract you from the fact that you have to be a good all round basketball player to contribute to any sort of good basketball team. Um, let's see. I'm gonna do one more, but I'm gonna look for an interesting one here. Um and I plan. I try to read the YouTube comments as much as I can for feedback. So anytime you guys have other things you want the show to talk about, or questions, comments, feedback, anything like that, drop it into

YouTube comments, drop it in my Twitter mentions. I outside my Twitter d M s open, you guys can send stuff to me there. Um let's see, Okay, I'll do I'll do two more two more fun ones here. This is also from Philip A does your girl hoop to So my wife. My wife was a very good high school basketball player and we went to the same high school. Didn't know each other. It's kind of weird. We met for the first time many years after after high school. Um,

I shouldn't say many years. I believe it was five years after. So my wife and I in August s will have been together eight years. In October, we will have been married for four She right now doesn't do anything with the game of basketball, but she actually played in college. She played a Hamlin University up in Minnesota. She only played for a half of a season, got sick of it and got out. Um one of the

most interesting phenomenon that I've seen. I talked about this a little bit with Rachel Demdo when we had her on the show. But I I never get sick of the game, and I see so many people get sick of it. My wife was one of those people that like was devoted to the game of basketball, like from the time she was twelve to the time she was twenty, and then just one day she was like done with it,

you know, And so she's not involved in the game anymore. UM, but she understands it really well because she played in college. And so that's kind of nice for me because I think she just she doesn't have the obsession that I have, obviously, but I think she understands my obsession, which is what

allowed her to support me doing this. I did a hundred fifty two episodes of State of the Lakers before I did this, So I've done hundreds and hundreds of of postgame shows up late at night, affecting our social life things like that. She just gets it, she digs it because she understands where where my heart's at. And uh, every once in a while we go out and shoot around a little bit. But she doesn't really come close to the game anymore. UM. Last one favorite character and

all of Star Wars. So I am a huge Star Wars fan, always have been. UM. I actually have a Star Wars podcast that I just launched about two months ago. It's called two Sons Podcast. You can find the I typically tweet out the links to that, um, but you can you can either find it on my Twitter or just google two Sons podcast. UM. It's supposed to be a play on words because we're also from Tucson. I do it with my best friend, UM, a guy in

a tu Son who is a doctor. Um In him and I have just both been big Star Wars fans forever we started covering the OBI one series. UM to have a really good time with it. I'm like one of those nerds that gets into the expanded universe and stuff. My favorite Star Wars character has always been Darth Bain, and if you've never read it, you absolutely have to read the Darth Pain trilogy. It's the best piece of

expanded Universe content. The only reason I'm accepting this as a as a legal answer here is because Darth Pain technically is cannon per the Clone Wars cartoons. But Darth Baine was the original Sith lord who discovered that there couldn't be hundreds of Sith because they they would always group together and betray the more powerful among them, and the Sith were becoming progressively weaker as they would betray

each other. And so basically he went on a pilgrimage and went to all these different um Sith temples and stuff, and and came back and was like, I have discovered that we need to only have to Sith, the Master and the Apprentice, the one that teaches blah blah blah blah, but that whole book trilogy and that character. It's it's a very cool look into the Sith and just how ruthless they are and how different the dark side is

from the light side of the forest. So there you go, a little little wind go into my second passion, which one of my many passions, but my fan for Star Wars. Like I said, if you want to hear me talk more about Star Wars, you just gotta look for that Two Sons podcast. All right, that's not bad. I think we went about an hour and that's our first ever

mailbag mail bag podcast. Um, I really enjoyed that. I want to do that more frequently, even if it's either just like one that we do once a week, or if it's one that we do as a segment at the end of the show. Maybe I can talk to the producers and maybe they'll be down for something like that. But I definitely want to gear the show more towards something that's a little bit more interactive with you guys.

I know that it is eventually a plan to try to potentially do something where we can have you guys call into the show kind of like we used to do on Twitter spaces back when I was working with raj um No show, uh tomorrow because I'm getting on the cruise ship. Actually this this one might actually end up being released tomorrow, but on Friday, I believe I'll be able to record again. Not sure what we'll do then. Who knows if someone will get traded at that point.

But anyway, that's all I got for today, guys. I sincerely appreciate you guys a support, and I'll see you in a couple of days. The volume m