Hoops Tonight - Is Steph Curry playing his best basketball ever for the Golden State Warriors?

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everybody hopbald. You guys are having a great week. We're gonna get to a couple more game breakdowns in today's episode. The Golden State Warriors notch their third road win of the season as they are undefeated on the road, a big change from last year over the New Orleans Pelicans. And then we're gonna take a little deep dive into

the early season stretch from the Pelicans. And then the Atlanta Hawks have a wild second half comeback fueled by dominant defense from all of their perimeter athletes as they come back and take it to the Minnesota Timberwolves to notch their second win of the season. We haven't talked to Timberwolves yet this year either, so we're going to talk a little bit about them and their early season as well. And then I have one mail bag show, one mail bag question for the end of the show

as well. You guys are the joke for we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. We're trying to get this thing off the ground. I would sincerely appreciate if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast owner Hoops Tonight, social media, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, That's where I'm doing video content as well as show

announcements throughout the year. And then last but out at least a need more mailback questions, only got one for this show, so keep dropping mail back questions in the comments and we'll get to them in videos throughout the rest of the week. All right, let's talk some basketball.

So Draymond Green turns out a perfect type of a defender to guard Zion Williamson did a really nice job, especially on Zion's crazy rip throughs and attempts to bully his way to the basket, of keeping his body in front, knocking him off balance with that low center of gravity and strength that he has, and then swiping away from the basketball, causing Zion to have an uncharacteristic night from the standpoint of losing control and turning the basketball over.

Having Draymond as a weapon again, because you kind of saw it in that bench shift when Dario Sarage came in and then it was like Zion layup, Zion layup, Zion layup, and it's like, oh, actually, this is what it looks like for the vast majority of the league. And if you remember, like Zion, when he's healthy, he gets to the rim and finishes at a higher rate even than guys who were stereotypically at the top of the league, guys like Giannis and Lebron usually even the

level above them. When he's healthy, he's the most gifted basket attacker in the NBA right now, and Zion was able to kind of thwart that. And when you combine that with Brandon Ingram being out of the equation, and then the job that a plethora of different Warriors perimeter defenders did on CJ. McCollum. They did a nice job keeping the Pelicans out of rhythm throughout the night. On the other end of the floor, that the Pelicans were hard blitzing Steph like crazy, because Steph will lit them

on fire to start the game. We're to talk about this more in a minute, but Steph is like playing at the highest level that I've seen him play and his time in the NBA right now, and we're going to talk about what that means and what that could potentially lead to here in a minute. But he was shooting like crazy to start the game, just cooking everybody,

didn't matter who it was. They even tried Dyson Daniels, one of their better perimeter defenders, on him off the bench, and he just started cooking him too, and so they

had to just start crazy blitzing him on pick and roll. Now, the Pelicans have a lot of athletes, and they did a pretty nice job of making it really difficult for Steph to hit hit the pocket pass, and so in a lot of cases what they were doing, which I thought was a really interesting counter Steph would just make the swing pass to the wing, and then the swing pass from the wing, that player would make the pass to the role man coming down the lane as they

would kick out to the weak side shooter. I actually clipped an example of that play that you guys can see on my Twitter feed where Steph makes that swing pass. I think it was Looney on the wing who then hit Draymond coming downhill, who then hit Gary Payton in the corner if I remember correctly. Then in the second quarter they started spamming that Gary Payton pick and roll with Steph like they did against the Lakers, and they

had a lot of success there as well. It was just a steady diet of Steph pick and roll picking them apart. I think Steph is up around like one point two six points per pick and roll so far he's generated. Steph pick and rolls have generated sixty seven points so far, which is the fourth most in the NBA.

And he's been way more efficient than the three guys that are ahead of him, and he's running more pick and rolls than he has in years past traditionally, especially during the regular season, but he's just so damn good at it now and I'm kind of pro leaning into that a little bit more because it's a counter they have to go to when they get to the later rounds of the postseason. Anyway, and then the bench was awesome once again. They were plus fifteen without Steph again.

Tray Jackson Davis got a lot of minutes. Jonathan Kmingo is out of the lineup and Klay Thompson was out of the lineup, so there were some front court minutes available. Also, just Sorry was having a lot of trouble guarding zions. That was an issue. So again that's kind of the matchup flexibility that you have that you haven't had in years past. Moses Moody played really well again starting for Klay Thompson thirteen points and four assists with zero turnovers.

He's become one of their more reliable point of attack defenders too. And remember his thing is like he's actually a good physical point of attack defender, he just commits too many fouls. And I thought it was a solid night to put up zero fouls in twenty one minutes, especially with the defensive effort that he was putting up. But let's make no mistake about it, Like obviously the

bench helps. Obviously, some key guys are stepping up, but Deaf is playing every bit as well as anybody else in the league right now, potentially the highest level that I've ever seen him play. You know, It's funny, it kinda I was looking at it because Steph just kind of seems like he's in command of his game at a level that I've never seen from him in his career.

Just seems like he's so unbelievably confident. There's no coverage that flusters him, there's no defender that keeps him off balance. He just seems in complete command of his game at an even higher level than I'm used to seeing from him.

And he's thirty five years old. And I thought it was interesting because we've seen some examples recently of players kind of like peeking in a big way around that age thirty five thirty six season, and like, I've got a buddy of mine, a guy, a guy named Josh Colash.

He actually took over as the head coach at the high school that I coach at, and then him and I play in this this men's league here in town that him and I have won almost every time over the course of the last couple of years and we've been playing together for a while and he he just recently has gone up a huge level. I don't know if he's just been in the gym more or if it's just like his mastery of the game, but it's been fun playing with him because he's playing at the highest

level I've ever seen Josh play at. And he just turned thirty six, and it kind of feels like that mid thirties is like that time where the mind is at its absolute peak while the body still has something left to give. And I mean, I remember Lebron James in his twenty eighteen season thirty five years old. I've always said to Lebron fans, thirty five is like that thirty five twenty eighteen season, in my opinion, was the

best version of Lebron we ever saw. That was the best offensive version of Lebron who still had the ability to hit the defensive play making possessions that he needed to as an athlete. If you remember, that was the year he dunked all over Usuf Nurkic. So it was like peak Lebron athleticism mixed with like his peak shot making, mixed with like his peak ability to see the floor. It just it kind of feels like Steph's kind of

slotting into that same timeframe here at age thirty five. Right, he's averaging thirty four points, five rebounds, and four assists so far through four games, seventy six percent true shooting, seventy one percent effective field goal percentage on jump shots. Every Steph Curry jump shot this season is worth one point four to one points. That's insane. Eighty six percent effective field goal percentage on catch and shoot jump shots when he is unguarded, a one hundred and seven percent

effective field goal percentage of pull up jump shots. He's right where he was last year sixty one percent, which was what led the entire league sixty one percent effective field goal percentage, and he's shooting seventy one percent at the rim, which is completely off the charts for guard in the playtype data I went over pick and rolls earlier, one point twenty six points per possession, basically the best combination of volume in efficiency in the league right now,

fifteen points on fourteen ISOs and outrageously coming off of off ball screens, he's shooting nine for twelve in those situations and a Steph off ball screen is now worth two point one points per possession so far through four games. I said in my season preview, if you guys remember that I viewed Steph as one of the highest value MVP candidates in terms of betting odds. And it comes

down to a bunch of different things. But the gist of it is he hasn't won one since twenty sixteen, so there's like a seven year loll in there in terms of optimism from the voters. You know how voters get when they've had a recent MVP pick, right, He has the playoff success to back it up. He was the finals MVP literally like what sixteen months ago, so you've got that piece of it. And then he doesn't

play alongside another star. As a matter of fact, Wiggins was the best player, the second best player on the team in twenty twenty three, and he's been a shell of himself so far this season. There's other guys playing well, for sure, But like the gist of it is is, it's Steph and a bunch of really good basketball players, no legitimate superstar next to him, and that kind of, to me, is the perfect recipe for an MVP campaign.

They just had to be able to win on the road, which they couldn't do last year because they were already one of the best teams in the league at home last year. You add in the road element. If they just could win about fifty percent of their games on the road, they can win fifty games. They win fifty games. There's no reason in the world why Steph Curry can't win MVP. I don't have the odds in front of me, but my guess is he's still somewhat of a long shot,

and I think that that's a good betting opportunity. I just look at some of the bigger names up front, Like I mean, the MAVs are winning at a super high rate. They're a team that we need to cover here in the next couple of days, and maybe maybe

Luca can enter into that conversation. But like I tend to think in terms of the best combination of like surrounding circumstance, potential team success, and top tier play with playoff resume to kind of back it up, Steph is kind of shaping up for what could be an MVP season.

Just in general. Surrounding the Warriors, a bunch of key markers are going well for them, young players making significant improvements, the bench lineups being able to float and succeed in games thanks to the Chris Paul acquisition, and some really high level defensive play from the role players off the bench, The ability to win games on the road, and then

Steph Curry playing at that MVP level. All of those things to me are big hallmarks that make this team a lot more similar to the twenty twenty two team that won the title than the twenty twenty three team, which was largely a disappointment. So Warriors are in a good spot so far through four games. On the Pelicans front, Zion struggle with Draymond, and I get it, Draymond's one of the best defensive players in the world, but just in general, he hasn't looked quite as explosive off the

bounce as he was last year. His scoring volume is down from where you'd expect it to be, especially with Trey Murphy out of the lineup and them needing him to be more creative and aggressive offensively, He's just not beating people off the dribble as smoothly as he used to now. I tend to think that it's probably a lot of just getting back into the NBA swing of things, and I tend to think he'll be fine in the

big picture. But to start the season, it's just not the same Zion that were accustomed to seeing with Brandon ingram out, they just really struggled to generate quality shots. CJ. McCollum was way off. He was seven for twenty one from the field in this game. Was taking some really tough shots and I thought missing some reads. He was forcing the action a little bit. It's just, again, if they don't have all of those guys clicking at a high level, they're just not good enough offensively in the

half court. And then the Trey Murphy acquisition is a legitimate loss. He was one of their most aggressive spot up shooters. He brought the ability to shoot out to like twenty six twenty seven feet, which was important for their spacing, which has been an issue here early on. I just again, I don't want to really evaluate the Pelicans within the big picture until they get everybody back

in their one hundred percent healthy. They were two to zero before this game and wins over Memphis and New York, who were a couple of playoff teams from last year, but let's just take a look real quick at some of their numbers through three games and what they've been doing well and what they haven't been doing well. So they're twenty eighth in offense again missing Trey Murphy, brandon Ingram out last game, Zion not quite operating at the same level you're hoping for. CJ's been okay in the

big picture. They're twenty fourth and three pointers made and twenty fourth and three point percentage. Jordan Hawkins really seemed to kind of catch some daylight in last night's game. Get some confidence. He's shooting forty percent from three here in the early season. Matt Ryan has had like these brief stretches, particularly in the first half of games, where

he shot the ball really well. He actually looks a lot more mobile in terms of just getting to his spots and like using escape dribbles and things like that. He seems a lot more mobile now than he did when he was with the Lakers, when I was covering him at the beginning of last season. So they bring some of that more aggressive three point shooting. Trey Murphy coming back should help a lot. They are seventh in defensive ratings so far this year. Thirtieth in rebounding percentage.

This is the crazy part, and again, like seventh in defense, has something to be encouraged about. You expect this team to be a top ten defense with her Jones is one of the best perimeter of defense in the league. The additional length and athleticism they have, their base coverages and their ability to keep yonas Valentchutas around the rim. But they're just having a hell of a time on the on the glass thirtieth and rebounding percentage. They were

fifth last year. This was the top five rebounding team last year who is now currently dead last in rebounding And again that's where I think Trey Murphy and bi being out last night in particular hurt them in their big picture numbers because Golden State out rebounded them sixty

four to thirty nine. And again, like in the modern NBA, with all of the long distance jump shooting, there's a lot more long rebounds, and so wing athleticism and ball pursuit is one of the most important elements of defensive rebounding in a way that it didn't used to be when it was more controlled by the big guys inside right, And so that data is a little bit jumbled by that awful night against the Warriors, but obviously in the big picture, they need to rebound better. Even with Bi

in the lineup, that's starting lineup, but brandon Ingram Herb Jones, CJ. McCollum, Zion Williamson and Yonas Valentiunas is minus eight point three net so far this season, only a ninety eight point four offensive rating. Their defense has been solid with that group of one zero seven defensive rating, which is solid, nothing to write home about, but okay, but they're just struggling to score the basketball and again, like if Zion can't get back to where he was in general, they're

spacing just looks like shit right now. I don't know what they do in the big picture with that Zion Yona's front court, because they tend to get in each other's way quite a bit. And I know they want Yonas to shoot the three, and he's taken it when he's open, but it's it's it's just one of those things where even when he makes a couple, it's not necessarily a good thing because he's not being guarded out there, and at the end of the day, that matters. Way

more than the actual shot result. Because Jonas is not gonna take ten threes a game. He's gonna take, you know, a handful of them, right, and that handful of him making them. Let's say he takes three or four game and he scores four or five points a game on him. That's not gonna swing the scoreboard. What's gonna matter is in the one hundred or so possessions, how is he

being guarded when he's on the floor. Spacing is an issue right now, and like if Zion can't just bulldoze his way to the rim the way that is used to doing that could be a problem in the bigger picture. A lineup I'd like to see more of this Kira Lewis, Dyson Daniels, Herb Jones, brandon Ingram and Larry Nance lineup. They've played fifteen possessions so far. It's just a ton of perimeter defense next to Bi and Herb Jones's wing defenders.

With a more athletic center on the floor, Dyson Daniels can really get into people at the point of attack. Kira Lewis is freakously quick on the perimeter. When you combine that with the rangy athleticism to rotate on the backside with Larry nance As just like a more versatile defensive player than Yonas Valanciunas's. They are plus twenty net rating in fifteen possessions against small sample size ninety three defensive rating. And that's that combination of perimeter defense with

like rangy ability to rotate. Right. I was sifting through the lineup dated this morning, and most of their core

lineups are not playing particularly well. And ironically, the lineups that have done well in decent sample sizes, a lot of them were just like little short spurts from the bench group against the Warriors last night, with groups of guys that probably aren't gonna play in the bigger picture, you know, Like I don't think Jordan Hawkins or Matt Ryan's gonna be in the rotation when Trey Murphy and Brandon Ingram are back in the lineup, right when Jose

Alvarado's back in the lineup. And so it's good to get looks at those guys and to see what they're good at and where they can help you. But at the end of the day, right now, there's not a ton of encouraging lineup data coming out of the Pelicans,

even with their two to one record. But they have a lot that they can get better at, right Trey Murphy coming back, Zion getting back to for him in general, just shooting the ball better, and then they have to rebound at the level that we're accustomed to seeing from them. In the big picture, I'm a believer in what this team is capable of. The Only thing from a structure

standpoint I don't like is the Jonas Valanciunas piece. I just think in general, the floor speed can be an issue, like him getting up and down the floor in transition, the fact that teams don't go him when he goes out to the three point line. He's a post up offensive player who attacks the offensive glass a lot, and so there's advantages there when you're leaning into his play style.

But when you're trying to play spread, pick and roll basketball and you're trying to get Zion involved with his fake dribble handoffs and his clear ISOs and stuff like that, it's harder for him to get to get to work with that fit. So in the big picture, that's the one thing I don't like, but that I do love. The perimeter core and I do think they can be very good when they're healthy and when they're in rhythm. I moving on to Wolves Hawks tailor two halves in

this one. The Wolves won the first half seventy nine to sixty, and then the Hawks came back and won the second half sixty seven to thirty four to notch double digit victory to get to two and two. In the first half, the Wolves were just cooking on offense and was doing everything well. He was playing like a bona fide superstar in the first half. He was sitting and pull up threes, he was hitting post up fadeaways,

he was driving in kicking for threes. Anthony Everards had five assists in the first quarter, which was the first time he's ever done that in the his career. He had this like ridiculous Jordan esque reverse layup where he planted right left and then like went up and down and under onto the onto the right side of the basket. He was absolutely destroying the Hawks. Nas Reed got going.

He hit three three point shots. He was attacking closeouts, he was cutting out of the eastside corner for lob dunks. He looked great. Rudy Gobert dominated the second quarter defensively, you look up, they're up seventy nine to sixty, and it you know. And then on the other end, like and we've talked about it with the Hawks, Trey Young and de Jontay Murray just haven't been playing that well, and they didn't play particularly well in the first half.

They're pretty mediocre. Then you go a few minutes into the second half and then something just clicks into place for the Hawks. On both ends of the floor. They ratcheted up defensively. Jalen Johnson like kind of locked up Karl Anthony Towns, kept him in front, didn't wasn't susceptible to Cat's bully ball attack. Then he did the same thing to nas Reid when he checked into the game. I thought de Jontey Murray did an awesome job keeping it in front and baiting him into pull up jump shots,

which he ended up in the second half. And then all of their athletes all over the floor were flying around in rotation, flying in passing lanes, getting out in transition, and then running out the other way for dunks and layups. I talked about this in my season preview for the Hawks. If you guys remember they were nineteenth last year in transition frequency. They are second in transition frequency this year. I talked in the season preview, this is an athletic team.

They need to look to avoid the half court, get out and run as much as possible, especially off their defense, and they've been doing that at a really high level so far to start this season. And then in the half court, both Trey Young and Dejonte, but mostly Dejonte just took it to the Wolves on the not even like in screening actions. For the most part, a lot of it was just taking it to their best perimeter defenders by beating them off the bounce. Like de Jontay

Murray was barbecuing Anthony Edwards. And we're gonna talk about this in a little bit, but ant reaches too much and gets himself out of position and doesn't do himself any favors. But de Jontay Murray was using pump fakes and moves and counter moves to just get around Anthony Edwards and get to his spots. He got his pull up jump shot going, he got to the rim. He ended up finishing the game with forty one points. He was incredible. He's plus twenty five in this game, and

then Trey Young was pretty good too. He was beating Jaden McDaniels off the dribble and getting the defense into rotation. Now Jayden kind of tightened that up in the fourth quarter, but at that point they had already kind of got in control of the game. But it was nothing. It

was nothing fancy. It was just brute force, Like Trey Young and DeSante won the shit out of their matchups in that second quarter on both ends of the floor to and we're gonna talk about the Hawks defense like because it's becoming a cultural thing in these short bursts, Like in that second half run, even Trey Young was

like sprinting over the top of screens. There was a play where Anthony Edwards got him on a switch and tried to post him up, and he fought in front, and he fronted the post and denied the post entry, like Trey Young was legitimately giving a shit on the defensive end of the floor. And then just in general, the flying around in rotation, all of their athleticism on

the floor. When you have Dejontey Murray out there with DeAndre Hunter and Jalen Johnson and then with Sidique Bay coming in and aj Griffin coming in like they are just super fast and rangy and athletic. And then their front court players in a Congou and Capella are also pretty athletic versaal players that can cover ground, and so they're capable of being an elite defensive team like and like in the big picture, this has been a run. This is a rundown of the Hawks defense so far

this year. They had a one to twelve defensive rating against Charlotte, They lost a one to nineteen defensive rating against the Knicks. They lost first half against the Bucks an eighty nine defensive rating, and they won. They had a one to twenty nine defensive rating in the second half, but they had built such a big lead they were able to weather that. First half against the Timberwolves a one to sixty one defensive rating, found themselves down by

twenty one points. But second half against the Timberwolves a sixty eight defensive rating, and they won the half by thirty three points and won the game. So you can kind of see a clear formula here. When they lean into their defensive potential and they make that the identity

of their team, they get out and transition more. It invigorates like literally, de Jontay Murray got going in his rhythm in transition, Like that's the formula defend, get out and run, find the easy shots when you're stuck in the half court an in rhythm and ty Trey Young and Dejontay Murray can take you home. And then one other thing I noticed on the offensive end of the floor, they used a lot of Jalen Johnson, Sidik Bay, and DeAndre Hunter as screeners, which is something that it used

to do because the spacing concerns. When you had John Collins and Click Capella on the floor, you almost had to bring one of them into screen because you couldn't have two non shooters off the ball in your two man game. It just made it too easy to guard. But now they're actually running a lot of these like a four guard screen actions with a wing, a wing that can shoot, and they having success there all three

of them. Jalen Johnson, Sidek Bay, and DeAndre Hunter, each of them have hit two pick and pop jump shots from the three point line already this season. That's turned to a significant chunk of their offense. And again those like little ghost screens are picking pops. They also are a lot harder to guard at the point of attack, and they allowed de Jontay Murray and Trey Young to get downhill. And like their offense will go up a level as soon as Trey Young and de Jontay Murray

start being consistently good on that end. But I predicted that the Hawks would go up a level this year, and again it's been mixed results through two games, through four games, but I do think that potential has clearly been on display with what they've done on the defensive end of the floor. Moving on to the Wolves, this loss drops him to one and two. They haven't been good enough on either end of the floor. Jada McDaniels

being out has definitely hurt them. He's been their best perimeter defender for a couple of years now, one of the top two or three of them in the league, to be honest. And it was his first game back and you could tell he's getting his legs underneath him. He looked good offensively. It was what five for six

from the field and two for two from three. Definitely struggled a little bit keeping Trey Young in front of the third quarter, but then you saw him kind of get his like second win or whatever in that fourth quarter and got some stops there. But like Nikhil Alexander Walker wasn't good defensively in that Hawks game, Anthony Edwards has been pretty bad defensively. He reaches in way too much,

He takes way too many defensive possessions off. He's having an amazing offensive seasons so far, twenty five seven and five, fifty seven percent through shooting, shooting the jump shot extremely well, sixty seven percent effective field goal percentage on pull up jumps or on jumpers, seventy one percent on pull up jumpers. But he's only eight for eighteen at the rim, which is to be expected, right, this is a team that

has poor spacing. Rudy Gobert another game where just like it's amazing how many times like he'll catch underneath the basket and not score like he has stone hands, and then he just can't make shots at the rim. He's only fifteen for twenty five at the rim. That'd be bad for a wing, let alone a center, right, And so it's a lot easier for teams to help off

of him and recover, which hurts their spacing. So like, I'm not super concerned about the rim finishing for ant I know that's something that's gonna be good for him in the long run. The playmaking has been at a higher level than we're accustomed to seeing from him. But that defensive end is a huge part of this team's identity.

This team is not good enough offense, especially when you're playing guys like the Kyle Alexander Walker who can go ice cold shooting, Anthony Edwards who can sell for a lot of jump shots, Rudy Gobert, bad hands, bad finishing, Kyle Anderson, a guy who struggles to space the floor from the three point line. Like, with that kind of lineup, you're never gonna be a great offensive team. What you

are is you're a grinded out rock fight team. You're supposed to be a top five defense that strangles teams, gets out in transition, and relies on Anthony Edwards bully ball basically to win games on the offensive end of the four, that's what they need to do. And so like early on in the season, you know, again all my optimism around the Wolves was surrounding the defensive end, and they just haven't been good enough on that end. Twenty second in offense, again, that Gobart piece I just

talked about with his hands. Kat's not playing well either. He's averaging sixteen points a game, thirty seven percent from the field, twenty four percent from three. He's shooting two for fourteen on spot up possessions. That's really hurting their spacing as well, four for twenty one on jump shots in total so far this season. Kat obviously has got to play better as well. I think Jayden needs to almost be more aggressive offensively with some of the other

issues they're having on that end. If Jaden starts being more aggressive offensively, gets his legs back underneath him, If Carl Towns starts playing more like himself on the offensive end, if Anthony Edwards locks in on the perimeter, having Jayden backed out there because he wasn't there for the first two games, I think they're gonna be fine in the big picture. But it's definitely been a disappointing first three games on the Wolves front. All right, one male back question,

then we'll get out of here today. A little shorter show, I guess. I guess we did two shows today though. How pumped are you for the Ncason Tournament. I'm pretty excited about it. I think it's such a great idea. As we get closer to it, I am getting excited about it. I think the single elimination format is going to bring out some really fun NBA games. The biggest

question is can we get people to care now. I think a big part of it is going to be like the fact that the games matter for the regular season, that matters. That'll help in terms of just keeping a baseline level of effort, right, and if we see the stars give a shit, And I think a strong indicator would be seeing a good team finish one of our contenders, right,

excuse me. If one of our top six teams, seven teams, if you include the Clippers after the hard and trade, if one of those teams wins it and one of the best players in the world plays well and ends up poisting the trophy. I think that adds legitimacy to it. I'm excited. In keeping an open mind, I still don't think it was the best idea in the world. I would have always, like you guys know where I stand on this stuff. Shorten the season, go down to sixty

six games. It adds twenty percent urgency. It adds rest to prevent guys from having to play four times a week, which inevitably leads to stars missing games. Ratings were down in the first week of the NBA, and I think a big part of it is we just saw an eighty two game season where it really didn't matter because an eight seed made it to the finals and a seven seed made it to the conference finals. And so you're seeing teams like just understanding the big picture that

the regular season doesn't matter that much. And so I think pairing it down to sixty six games would improve star participation, improve urgency, and lead to at least a twenty percent increase in revenue surround owning each individual game. But that's just my take on it. Obviously I'm not an economist as well, so it could be more complicated than that, but like, that's the way I would go that said it already happened, trying to keep an open mind about it. I think it could be really cool

watching NBA players play in a single elimination format. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. We are going to be back. There's three games tonight. I'm gonna hit you know, maybe two of them tomorrow during the day, and then we've got our nighttime slate with the jam packed, like there's two ESPN games, and there's a bunch of other games on Wednesday night that we're gonna hit, and then we're gonna go Thursday and Friday as well. So I will see you guys tomorrow. And a lot of more

basketball to get to this week. The volume