Hoops Tonight - How close Kevin Durant & Steph Curry were to reuniting on Warriors

feature is that cash out feature. So if you already feel pretty good about your bed and you're in good shape, but you don't want to lose whatever it is based on some stupid thing with garbage time at the end, you can cash out your winnings before the end of

the game. Use promo code Jason T and download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more this football season twenty one plus in president Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Permitted parishes only, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia. First online real any wager only refund issued as non withdrawalable site credit that expires in fourteen days. Restrictions apply see terms at sports book dot fan duel

dot com. Gambling problem called one eight hundred next step or text next step to five three three four two in Arizona one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org slash chat in Connecticut one eight hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot

com slash rg in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey. In Virginia one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop in Louisiana one eight hundred to seven zero seven one one seven for confidential help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight hope and why or text hope and why to four six seven three six nine in New York. In tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight line in Tennessee visit www one dot one eight

hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. Yeah, all right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had an amazing weekend. I just got in the door from Mexico about two hours ago. If you have you guys, asked me about the hurricane. Really wasn't much of a factor. Uh, one morning was pretty bad, and then after that the rest of the trip was two and a half days of the best Mexico weather I

have ever experienced. I played some golf, went down to the beach, hung out by the pool. Everything you could hope for from a relaxing Mexico vacation. That said, I'm excited to be back and to talk some basketball today. We're not gonna be starting the power rankings until later this week, but today we're gonna be reacting to that Rolling Stones article about Steph Curry and his recruitment of Kevin Durant this summer, at least within his own franchise.

A couple of really interesting little quotes in that article that I wanted to briefly touch On'm not gonna be going too long today, maybe about fifteen minutes before we get started. You guys know the drill. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason L. T S, you don't miss any show announcements, and last but not least, if you miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish it.

You can find them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops tonight. And then last little announcement, last day of this blank background, I am going to be hanging all of the artwork uh tomorrow so it'll be there for our next show, little sneak Peak, when I'm very very excited about. And yes, if you're wondering why I'm hanging up a poster of a star destroyer and high resolution, the answer is because it's awesome and I'm very I did for you guys to see the final results. So

all right, let's get going. So the synopsis of this article, there a couple of things that were in there that I'm not going to touch on. For instance, Steph made a passing mention to k D and trust issues. Um, I can't speak to that. I don't know any of the details. I do think that what happened with Kyrie is interesting, but I don't necessarily think that's what Steph was referencing. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. We don't know. I certainly don't have a good enough feel on that

to make a comment. Um. One of the things he touched on that. I that I briefly want to touch on is a quote that he had about Katie requesting a trade this summer. He said, quote, man, he thinks they're gonna go to teams like if you went to Phoenix, that they're gonna be the same team if he's there. They have a little bit of everything. But they would have to deal with the organizational transition to get rid of Jalen Brown. He's such a pivotal piece if they

would have done that. End quote. Curry broke apart his fingertips and an explosion and agreed with Snoop because apparently he was talking to Snoop dog of this part of the interview that Durant was better off staying with the Nets. Now, if Steph says that he's better off staying with the Nets, I don't necessarily disagree. I mean, in terms of the rosters, Brooklyn does have an interesting roster. I don't have them

in my top ten top tier contenders. Big Shock. Will learn more about them when we get to the to them in the power rankings. Uh. That said, I do understand where Katie was coming from. I do think there were better basketball situations out there for him. Where I disagree with Steph as he was saying that every team would have to blow themselves up to get Katie. That just simply wasn't the truth. I thought the Miami and Phoenix options right up front made no sense because they

would have to give up too much. But I thought a New Orleans would have made a lot of sense. If you flipped a brandon Ingram for Katie, they're instantly a contender. If you flip as I and Williamson for Katie, there instantly a contender. If with the Toronto Raptors, if you would have flipped a Scottie Barnes in a Fred

van Vleet for Kevin Durant, you're instantly a contender. There were teams in there that would have been able to get Katie and still vide him with a significantly better basketball situation than what he would have had if he

stayed with the Nets. So I did push back a little bit there, specifically with Boston, like that was just a no brainer, Like Boston could have given up a player that would have been a great option for Brooklyn to rebuild around, but also have plenty around Durant and Tatum to easily be the most talented team in the league this year. I thought Boston would have been a

runaway favorite had they made that trade. So I do disagree with Steph in the sense that I think Kevin Durant did perceive that there were some options out there for him. It just didn't realize I did. It didn't materialize. So Joe, like, what really happened here is Josiah made a gamble. He gambled that if he effectively passively refused Kevin Durant's request, not by outwardly refusing it, but by just making a ridiculous asking price, he figured he might

be able to get k D to recommit, and he did. So. It was a gamble that Josie took, and it paid off. I don't think this necessarily was Kevin Durant misreading the landscape of the league. I just just I disagree with that specifically. But Steph is correct in the sense that there is sometimes in life a tendency to think that the grass is always greener, and I do think that overall ideology makes sense. But Kevin Durant had some real options there. They just didn't materialize because of Joe sigh,

not because of the other teams around the league. And you know what's gonna be really interesting. There's training camp. You know, I We're gonna be starting training camp with the NBA here what in like two weeks maybe a little bit less. I can't remember exactly for sure, But the reality is is like that's everyone's gonna be meeting there for Brooklyn, Steve Nash, you know, Sean Marks, Kevin Durant,

Kyrie Irving. They all got to come together and make this thing work, and I'm really curious to see how it goes. We're gonna be doing our power rankings basically up until uh, preseason games start, and then as soon as preseason game starts, it's all and if it's all film, it's all straight up NBA basketball. Even if it's preseason, we're gonna deep dive into lineups. We're gonna deep dive into offseason acquisitions and how they look on the basketball court,

playing real basketball. It's something I'm very very excited for, and specifically with Kevin Durant the Nets, I'm just interested to see how it all comes together. Um, the most interesting part of this article that I wanted to touch on was Steph's attitude and the way that it exuded out of the piece, just to show us exactly why step is as successful as he is and as is was as successful as he has been in the past

as well. So I wanted to read one quote before we get into this so quote, so all those things were true, And it started with me wanting to play with Katie at the beginning. Yeah, it's about winning, it's about having fun playing the game of basketball. And that was part of the reaction of yeah, be amazing. What does that actually mean? Steph does not care what any of us think about how much talent has been on his teams, who deserves the most credit and when the

trophy is handed out it being about him. He just genuinely does not care. I believe it. I think it's authentic, and I think it's served him well throughout his career. Making decisions based on outside pressure as opposed to making decisions based on what you want will kill you everywhere in life. Like my wife and I are thinking about having kids soon, probably in the next year or two, and we sure as hell are not going to do

it because we've been told to do it. We're sure as hell not going to do it because some of our other friends are doing it, We're gonna do it because we want to have kids. And way too often in life I feel like we allow outside pressure to affect our decision making. Kevin Durrey did not leave Golden State because he did didn't like it there. He didn't

leave Golden Say because he didn't like the basketball. He left Golden State because of everyone in the NBA Twitter community and the way they were able to muscle a perception, a public perception of his accomplishments while he was there. That is why he left. He responded to outside pressure. He built that project with Kyrie in Brooklyn because he thought you guys and me would elevate we would elevate our, our whole impression of him if he accomplished something in

that regard. And it's just it's interesting to see how in those two situations, Steph Curry, a player who through his entire career hasn't given a damn what you think, hasn't given a damn what I think, and a player in Katie who seemingly covers caters a lot of his decision making towards public perception and things along those lines, at least until recently. I think he's been a little bit more open minded now, Like I think his trade

request was a big middle finger to basketball fans. I really like, like, hey, I want to go, because I want to go, Like who cares? This Brooklyn thing was a mistake. I think Katie is authentic now, but in the past I believe that he cared too much about that. And look at where their paths have diverted. Steph Curry

has one Finals MVP. He doesn't give a damn. I think he's the fifth best perimeter player ever since nineteen in the modern iteration of basketball, since nineteen eighty like for the for a ton of basketball fans, for a huge percentage of basketball fans, he's at a minimum a top ten player of all time. So tell me how much him teaming up with Katie has affected his perception. Tell me how much him teaming up with Katie has hurt his standing all time in NBA history. Hasn't hurt

him a bit? But then k D making decisions based on what people think has actually hurt him in that regard hard. And I think Steph is such a great example of how authenticity wins. Be exactly who you are, do exactly what the heck you want to do, and if you're great at it, the rewards will come regardless of what circumstances change around you. That's why he was willing to partner with Kevin Durant. That's why this summer again he was willing to partner with Kevin Durant. He

just doesn't care what you think. He just loves playing basketb I'll read it again. He loves winning, he loves having fun, and he loves playing the game of basketball. How does how stacked his roster fact into that factor into that not at all, and I think it helps him on the winning front. How does teaming up with Kevin Durant hurt him in that regard? It doesn't, And I just I admire the hell out of him in

that regard. Lebron has been my favorite player growing up, much less so now that I've gotten older, But like when I was younger, like I've worshiped and he got me to fall in love with the game of basketball. And I think his attempts two inauthentically control the narrative of situations has hurt him in the long run. There's an army I venture to guess half of you who watched this video dislike Lebron to some extent. You know, maybe you respect him and as as a basketball talent,

but a good half of you probably dislike him. And I guarantee you one of the main reasons why you do is that him trying to tell you what happened instead of trusting you to be able to figure out on your own what happened just by watching. And I thought that was my big takeaway from that article. I just I really appreciated seeing Steph just reminding everybody why he wins. And it's because there's an order of operations

winning basketball fun. That's it. I don't care about anything else, and and and that's why he is where he is. On a On a final note, I do think that for the Warriors in particular, that specific trade idea trying to flip call it, you know, Wiggins and Pool or something whatever, the deal would have been and probably would have included Wiseman, Kaminga, and Moody, if not more. Um I I do think that for the Warriors in particular, they were the one team it made sense to hold off,

and I'm glad that they did. And the main reason why is because of continuity this team throughout its in existence, this era from call it two thousand three, when Steph really started to take off, excuse me two thirteen, when Steph really started to take off, to now in this era, it's always been Steph clay Dre and since two thousand fifteen it's been Steph clay Dre and Steve Kerr. And that dynamic is one of their biggest advantages over the rest of the league. To be clear, I won't reveal

where they are my power rankings. If they had Kevin Durant, I'd still have them very close to the top. But having the continuity, having the depth that they have, I think serves them well. Steph said in the piece. I don't I don't have a quote in front of me, but Steph is. Step said in the piece that he felt confident that if they brought everybody back, that they had enough to get it done. And he's absolutely right there.

I won't reveal it, but they're in the very top tier of my teams and his power rankings without any trades. Even though they lost Gary Payton, even though they lost out of Porter, I am very confident in what they could do, and and and then and continuity benefits them. Flipping it all for k D is not a thing that they needed to do. And I think that's why.

I bet you when Steph was exploring it, when he was being consulted by the team about exploring that option, I bet you he looked at them and was like, Yeah, if you can do it without massacring our depth, sure, But I like this group, and I think we can do this, and and and and I just I really enjoyed the article. And there's a there's a full length piece from The Rolling Stones that released either this morning

or it's coming out soon. It was hinted at in the piece that I was referencing, and I'm really excited to read that because Steph is uh. It's very good that he's probably the face of the league right now, him and Lebron, because his authentic approach, I think is the best approach for young basketball players coming up in the league, young basketball players coming up in youth basketball. He's the guy to emulate. He's the guy you want to be like. He's the guy that that his formula

I believe is proven to work. I think Lebron's formula has worked because of how damn good he is at basketball. Same thing goes for Kevin Durant. With Steph, it's that and more because authenticity wins, and Steph has one with authenticity. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. We're gonna be moving off with the power rankings this

week at least three or four more teams. Like I said, we'll be doing power rankings through to the start of preseason on sept and then we're just doing game breakdowns. Just for nine months. We're gonna be doing game breakdowns and you know the occasional trade stuff that happens in between. But you guys know, my favorite thing to do in the world is to break down basketball. And we are this close to getting back into daily basketball and very

excited as always. I sincerely appreciate your guys support, and I'll see you in a couple of days. The volume