Hoops Tonight - Kevin Durant to Raptors rumors, why LeBron, Kyrie & Lakers are a perfect match + why i hated the Gobert Trade

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My wife and I got out of town to Porto Panasco, a Rocky Point of some of you guys know it down in Mexico. For US desert faring folks, US Arizonan's Rocky Point is very popular vacation destination because it's only about three and a half hours down the road from Tucson to get to an ocean. It was amazing. I relaxed, got away from the game of basketball, for a little bit, which was nice. I haven't done that in a long time.

Food was amazing, very very enjoyable trip. I am happy to be back though, and we have a lot to get into today. We had a very interesting report for Major in Ogonowski on the Kevin Durant trade situation that I want to get into, just kind of update on all the latest intel that we have there. We're gonna talk some Kyrie Irving, why I think he's not a Laker yet, some specific hallmarks from trade negotiations that typically me that something's about to happen. That we'll get into

here a little bit. And then at the end, the one trade that did happen while I was out of town, Rudy Gobert the Minnesota Timberwolves giving up a lot a lot of stuff, five players, four first round draft picks, and a pick swap for Rudy Gobert, setting an outrageous star trade market to start this summer. We're gonna get into all of the details from that trade. What I think was a very very interesting misread of the way

the league is heading from Tim Connolly. That will get into some XS and O stuff later on in the shows. To stick around for that. But let's get started with k D. So you know, up front, I think one of the things that people were missing on this specific trade was it doesn't resemble any of the other recent superstar trades. Like when we look at James Harden wanting to get out of Brooklyn, he was a shell of him self. His value was incredibly low compared to his peak.

Even when he got traded from Houston. He was actively sabotaging that situation so much that it scared away a lot of teams, diminished his own value. You know, we look at Paul George, no one, no one even knew he was available, right, it was a one man bidding war between the in the Clippers, and to the Thunders credit,

they got everything out of them. Right. Kawhi Leonard that trade, if you remember, we hadn't even seen him playing a long time because of the right and he tended the path you think, and when he did go play, it didn't look like Kawhi Leonard. So there's just not a great example recently of a bona fide top five player at the peak of his powers, who is not a malcontent, who doesn't have any sort of drama attached to him

that wants a trade. It's very, very unusual. That's why his value is so much higher than I think people realize. And that's why teams like Phoenix and My I mean didn't make a ton of sense to me initially when they were brought up. I understand why they make sense for KD. I mean, these are basketball teams that have

just about every box checked except for alpha dog superstar. Yes, Jimmy Butler can be it on any given night, but as you saw in that series against the Celtics, it's like you're gonna get two or three heroic performances out of him, and then in the other three or four he's gonna be pretty mediocre to flat out bad. Sometimes. It's a very interesting experience with Jimmy Butler. And then we got Phoenix and they were like the perfect basketball team minus a superstar, right, So it makes a lot

of sense and I get that. But the truth of the matter was is you just knew Brooklyn was gonna want a lot for Kevin Durant, as they should, especially in light of everything that went down during the time that Katie and Kyrie were in this partnership with the franchise. They're gonna want a really, really good basketball player in that trade. They're gonna want a lot of draft picks, probably gonna want quality role players too. That's the other

unique angle to this trade. Brooklyn is not incentivized to lose because all of their draft picks are going to the Houston Rockets. There's just nothing to gain from them losing. So they're in the weird predicament where they want to actually take in as many draft picks as possible, but win as many games as possible because you're basically establishing a culture and all the other benefits that come from winning when a draft pick is not the reward at

the end. So there's always going to be a different type of negotiation compared to some of the star trades that we've seen in the past. And if I'm Brooklyn, I just don't think DeAndre Ayton is a foundational piece in a league or the center position is like the running back is in the NFL, the most easily replaceable

position in the league. DeAndre Ayton might be one of the top three or four role player centers, meaning not counting Yokashire Embiid, he might be a top three or four role player center in the entire league, but for a veteran minimum contract. Let's say Damian Jones who's playing for the Lakers next year and played for the King's last year. A Damien Jones can give you of what Aidon can do for a veteran minimum contract. That's the

league that we leave. We live in now that just that specific position is not as valuable as the other areas around the floor. Michael Bridges very good basketball player, defensive player of the Year type of candidate, very clearly not an offensive star. That just that hasn't developed to this point. Is it doesn't mean it can't happen, but it doesn't look like it's gonna happen. And then we looked over at Miami and Tyler Harrow is not that

guy either, very similar type of deal. He's a bench score in this league and doesn't do enough defensively to really hold down a starting spot. Bamon a Bio, in addition to being legally incapable of being jammed into this trade, is another one of those guys that I'm not sure really moves the needle for Brooklyn a lot. That's why, if you guys, remember I pointed out two teams as teams that I thought had the best chance to get Kevin Durant, and the teams that I thought should with

their name in the hat. It was the Toronto Raptors and the New Orleans Pelicans. Why did I bring up those teams? I brought up those teams because they immediately have two things that will be very appealing to the Brooklyn Nets, A ship ton of draft picks in a bona fide sure thing young NBA up and coming star. I don't know a lot about Scottie Barnes, and I

don't know a lot about Zion Williamson. Specifically, with Scotty Barnes, remains to be seen whether or not his offensive development keeps up at the pace that like a Janic Stid who is a similar archetype as a young player in this league, and was I in its health and body

weight stuff like that. Right, they have some question marks, but we can be relatively certain with both of them that they will have many seasons where they are way better than DeAndre Atan bay met A Bio or Michail Bridges could ever be because they have a firm ceiling on on what they're capable of that has been clearly defined over there of the last couple of seasons in the NBA. But you know, Scotty Barnes kind of looks

like a similar type of player to Jannis on Antenna Coompa. Obviously, Janice is going to go down as an all time great, So I'm just saying in a similar type of archetype, not as good, could be, not as good, but that type of archetype of player, giant point forward that can be an all world defensive player that is physically just

impossible to match up with. It was honestly a very impressive player despite playing their injury during his first playoff series this year, in terms of his overall impact on both ends of the floor. And then Zion Williamson. I mean, even if the Pelicans don't trade him, thinking about him next year, surrounded with all the shooting that they're gonna have,

he's gonna be outrageously good. And he's just gonna be kind of like Blake Griffin was there during the two thousand tens, Like on the low end, they'll be the tenth best player in the league. He'll be the seventh best player in the league. Right He's gonna be a twenty five and thirteen guy in this league when he's healthy. So the those guys are your clear cut assets that

a team like Brooklyn would absolutely want. Or I'm gonna get all the draft picks to refill my conference so I can start drafting each year and this one singular all world talent that I can develop over the course of the next few years to possibly partner with one

of these draft picks. They those two teams always made the most sense in this report that came out today from Woes And we're gonna talk about the specific team you mentioned here in a second, but he talked about how every other team around the league needed to facilitate this deal with a third team. What does that tell you?

That tells you Brooklyn isn't seeing the combination of things that they want from the singular teams that they're talking to, because in their predicament, it would make sense that they would want a sure thing type of prospect as opposed to a maybe type of prospect or a more developed prospect prospect that's not good enough, like a McHale Bridges,

a Tyler Harrow or DeAndre eight. So who specifically stead today that the Raptors are the team that could have kd Now if they want him, they have the pieces necessary to do a one on one deal with the Brooklyn Nets. I saw some other intel elsewhere today that the Pelicans are kind of bowing out of that race for the time being. I actually thought it would be the opposite. I thought the Pelicans would be more likely because of Zion's injury concerns, because of Zion's weight concerns.

I just thought it made more sense for them to bail out of that situation, especially with all the intel from Zion potentially not being happy with the Pelicans. I know he signed the deal for the money, but he strikes you as your classic dude, who's gonna leave after that deal? Right? I always thought, Scottie Barnes, you know it was it was it made more sense to keep in that between those two specific scenarios. So interestingly enough, Toronto is the team that has kind of entered into

that discussion. Now we've seen Toronto do this specific thing before, target the wind Now Star with Kawhi Leonard and it worked for them, and that's probably why M. S I U. Jerry has been more interested in potentially making this type of deal. Here's why it makes sense to me for both teams. If I'm Zion, if I if I have Zion under team control, or if I have Scotti Barnes

under team control. Again, your best case scenario is he develops into a top five player and maybe for five to seven years you can have him under team control as a top five player in the league and make some runs at a championship. Right that's the goal, That's what you want to do. Drafting in the n b A well, if you could have Kevin Durant right now, a sure thing top five player in the league, who again,

we can say all we want about Kyrie. Katie is a great part of any franchise, a consummate professional, and the dude loves to play basketball. So all the drama stuff is just not there with Kadie. So if I could have that guy right now, even if you just told me, hey, Jason, in this four years, he's only going to be an All World MVP candidate for two or three of them, Even if you just told me that, I'd rather for sure have two or three cracks at a title, then maybe five to seven cracks at a

title maybe in the distant future. With these young players, and that's hoping that I've got the requisite pieces around them to do so, unlike the Calves with Lebron in the late two thousand's right, that's the that's the predicament here right now. If you're Toronto and you can flip Scotty Barnes and Salary Filler like a Fred vand Lead or something to the nets, you right now have the pieces.

If I'm rolling out lineups with o g Ana Nobi and Kevin Durant and and and Pascal Siakam and and Bouche and Birch like as an outrageously athletic two way lineup, and Kevin Durant fills a super specific need for that group, which is high end offensive creation. So like, why would you cling to a guy like Scotty Barnes too, Hopefully in the future roll him out as a top five player with a bunch of good role players when you could do that right now with Kevin Durant and get

a trophy right now. If Kevin Durant gets flipped for Fred Van Vleet and Scotty Barnes and Salary Filler, even if they tossed in O g as long as they keep Pascal Siakam and Kevin Durant, with all the other length and athleticism that they have, they instantly become a top tier contender to meet with their coaching, who, as we remember from this playoff run, that coaching is so vitally important, like we saw from Erik Spoelscha and from and from Steve Kirk right, go down to the New

Orleans Pelicans, same type of deal. If I can flip Zion Williamson and some other salary filler towards Brooklyn and get back Kevin Durant, and I'm rolling out Kevin Durant, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, Brandon Ingram, c J McCollum, I instantly had. It's a less athletic version of what was going on in Toronto, but way more offensively coherent. Right with Brandon Ingram and c J McCollum, that's a top

tier contender overnight. So, David Griffin, who has backed out of this discussion for whatever reason, you're hoping in the future to roll out Zion Williamson as a top five player and a bunch of role players to win title. How about you do that now with Kevin Durant, that. That's why those two teams were the two teams that had my eye on. I'm impressed by the Raptors for sticking their name in that discussion, and I hope they closed the deal because they're a very well run organization.

They will find another player the quality of Scotty Barnes in the future, just like they did with Scotti, because they're a smart basketball team, and I have no doubts that they can do this the like they did with Kauai, like they did in the last couple of years, and

like this potential Kevin Durant situation. Perennially be the team that is a mix of excellent culture, excellent coaching, excellent management, excellent ownership that can ride the tide of finding talent in the draft, finding talent outside the draft, finding talent free agency, find finding talent in the trade market. Being the team that can do all of those things. That's how you get to this point where you're consistently in the conversation as a team that can win the title.

And I'm impressed by them. I hope they put what is necessary down to close this deal. Now. Kyrie is the one piece that's waiting in the wings here. So, first of all, Laker fans have every reason to feel confident that Kyrie Irving is going to eventually be a Laker.

The reason why they should feel that way is because Kyrie and the Lakers make sense, and none of the other situations really make any sense, even the Dallas Mavericks potential partnership, which I pointed out as one that made some sense, and that there was some reporting on even that situation, like there's some risk there that Dallas might

not want to deal with. Like basketball wise, having Kyrie Irving and they're driving kick system that's heliocentric makes a ton of sense as a slot into the Jalen Brunson roll.

But they also really really like their head coach, and Luca don Chitch is trending towards being the best player in the league, and they just had this really successful low drama season where they came within seven wins of an NBA title, and Kyrie has some potential to ruin that as well if he brings along the Kyrie drama, if he brings along all the negative things that come with the Kyrie Irving experience. So there's as a matter of fact, you can probably bet that Dallas is looking

at this like no, thank you. That doesn't mean they won't end up with him. It doesn't mean a third random team won't end up with him. I said on the night of free agency that I put it in about an eight percent chance that Kyrie would be a Laker. That's where I'm at right now. I think there's an

eighty percent chance he'll be a Laker. That yes, that means there's a one in five chance, which is a pretty solid chance, that he ends up somewhere else, either as part of the Kadi trade or in some other move. If the Lakers get tired and and and move on from this situation, it's always a chance. But make no mistake, the partnership right there for the Lakers and Kyrie makes tons of sense. In the same way that Dallas would be scared of what Kyrie could do to mess things up,

the Lakers just don't have that fear. They just came off of arguably the most disappointing season in franchise history. They were the second leading favorite in Vegas and didn't make the playoffs in a field that allows twenty of the thirty teams to make playoffs. It was a disaster. They just fired their coach, Russell Westbrook has been incredibly toxic. So even if they flipped Russ for Kyrie and Kyrie misbehaved a little bit, it's a better situation than what

they had last year. So that's why that that that partnership is so natural. But what Laker fans have learned over the course of the last couple of days is a simple reality. Brooklyn, as much as it makes sense for them to trade Kyrie to the Lakers, has no incentive to do it right now. There's just no reason they are devoting their focus and energy to the KD

trade as they should. It's the one that is clearly going to bring them the most in return, and Kyrie might end up having to help facilitate that if the right offer comes around. Plus, no matter what that Lakers offer is not going anywhere. The Lakers are gonna be there to trade for Kyrie later tonight, They're gonna be there to trade for Kyrie tomorrow. They're gonna be there in a week. They'd be there in a month if they had to. Now, I don't think it will drag

out that long. My guess is the Kyrie Irving trade goes down shortly after the kd trade. But there's no reason for this to go down right this second. But at the same time, there's absolutely no way in hell that he's a Brooklyn Net next year. And I always am cracked up when I hear these kinds of of threats thrown around in trade negotiations. So many interesting callbacks to the to the Anthony Davis situation here, like like, uh, we might bring him to camp and see what happens. Yeah, No,

you're not doing that. When you're trying to run a basketball team and you want to set your guys up for success, you never bring drama to training camp if you can avoid it. He got young players in the group, you have veteran players. You have guys that are actively bought in to the goal, and a coaching staff that's bought into the goal. You're not gonna bring Kyrie Irving to training camp in the middle of a trade negotiation.

That's not going to happen. They weren't going to do it with Anthony Davis, and they weren't gonna do with Kyrie Irving. I will be stone cold shocked if he's at Nets camp, and if he is, he won't be at camp. He'll just be under contract with the team. As they continue to try to facilitate a trade, they'll send him home. There's just no way they'll do that. I heard intel that the Nets might use him as

salary filler. Yeah, no, they're not going to do that when they can get a first round pick from the Lakers. The only way they're gonna use him as salary filler is if it's the only way to facilitate a trade with some team out there that nets them more than what the Lakers would give them. Like that, they can absolutely get a first round pick from the Lakers right now, Why why would they Why why would they blow that

to use him as salary filler. Now, what they are saying is, yeah, like, if it comes to a deal where some team goes, we'll take Kyrie and Katie or here's all the stuff we're gonna give you and we want them both, then yeah, like that might happen, But you're not keeping Kyrie as an asset for anything else than to just see what happens on the KD front. Now, the specific reason why Kyrie has so much power in this situation, even that you think he wouldn't is his

threats are especially power focused. He'll actually do them, you know, like Kyrie told the Calves in two thou eighteen, in the summer of two thou seventeen, if you don't trade me, I will get surgery on my knee. Kyrie not this past season, but the year before, despite contractual obligations, just up and left the team twice for extended periods of time without even telling the coaching staff. So his feeling when he sees his contract, when he sees his obligation

to be somewhere, is not all that binding. So for him to threaten, like, hey, I'm going to the Lakers, so the only team I want to play for if you trade for me, I'm going there next year. I don't want to play anywhere then for the Lakers. That's a threat that he will actually fulfill. And it's a huge part of why so many teams out there are not interested in Kyrieer but because he's not the guy

that you'll trade for and convinced to play. K D might be like Toronto wasn't his list of destinations originally, I don't think at least, but I know it wasn't his favorite destination. But as soon as he shows up and starts talking basketball with Massiugerie and Nick Nurse, as soon as he starts talking basketball with with Pascal Siakim and those guys, he's gonna be ready to go. Because he's a hooper first and foremost, and he does feel binding when he looks at his contract, he does feel

an obligation to fulfill his contractual expectations. Kyrie does not. And so all of that work Kyrie has been doing behind the scenes to try to put to to let everybody know he wants to be a Laker. It is powerful. Look, Brooklyn got just like the Pelicans. Remember when the when the Pelicans trade was happening with the Lakers, all of this animosity towards the Lakers. You knew the Pelicans hated him.

All the reporting was like that. To remember when the Lakers couldn't get him at the deadline in and then Adrian Warznowski is like, and the Boston Celtics will get their chance to trade for Anthony Davis. It's like, no, but Anthony Davis doesn't want to go there, and he's not the type of player that KD is. So Boston obviously didn't want to include dassets, and they didn't get Anthony Davis. And then there there were the Lakers, and

yeah they went down kicking and screaming. Yeah I got ugly, but the Lakers sent him a bunch of stuff, and then Anthony Davis was a Laker. The same situation is happening here. The Nets are probably so sick of Kyrie, they're probably like, screw this guy. If they had the opportunity to burn him down, they would. They probably will anonymously after he's gone, after they've made the trade. They have no reason to want to send Kyrie to his

preferred destination. They simply have to because Kyrie has all the leverage. He's burnt the bridge with every other team in the league, and the Lakers are willing to give you a first round pick. Now it seems to me like the Brooklyn is trying to haggle him for a

second first round pick. And don't get me wrong, that is actually sound asset management for the Lakers to be like, no, no, no, no, no no, that's enough, and we give you Russ, we give you a first we take that Kyrie, or we keep the first and we'll take on your bad Joe Harris contract. But that's it. Those are the only two situations there. They don't need to overpay for Kyrie, they just might need to wait a little bit for him.

That said, I still, all things included, expect likely that Kyrie will be a Laker, even if he doesn't get traded, even if he gets used as salary filler, Even if some of those threats from Brooklyn come true. The far more likely scenario is the team he ends up on ends up buying him out, and then he ends up with the Lakers. So it just feels like an inevitability,

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Promo code Jason T. All Right, before we get out of here tonight, let's talk about this Rudy Gobert trade.

So the Utah Jazz and Rudy Gobert to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Malik Beasley, Patrick Beverley, Leandrew Bromorrow, Walker Kessler, Jared Vanderbilt, the three first round pick, the first round pick, the six pick swap seven first round pick, and he protected first round pick in So, before we get any for they're into this, I gotta admit that I was incredibly wrong about this, specifically that Rudy Gobert would ever

fetch this much of a trade return. I got into several arguments with several people about this this year, and I was just flat out wrong. All I was saying, like, and you guys know me, I'm a huge believer even a defender. I would say, in what Rudy Gobert does defensively, I've always just thought with his offensive limitations and the fact that he's gonna make forty plus million dollars half a decade from now, I didn't understand giving up real assets to strap your team down in terms of financial

flexibility for a player that offensively is pretty limited. And so I was talking all sorts of ships, saying there's no WAYO Gobert would ever get this kind of trade return. And I was just flat out wrong. And I was stunned when I saw the trade. It was incredibly interesting. Now we all know what happened here. This was a textbook new owners, a group, new president of basketball operations. Let's just get in and stir the pot. Type of trade.

You know, like you're foundationally. Now you're looking at this is Carl Towns cannot be our foundational defensive center. We need a real back line defensive guy. Carl Towns is a is a perimeter already ended big, so it shouldn't mess with our spacing too much. Anthony Edwards is our real star anyway, you know, we're gonna build around this core, will build around the periphery with this group, will be

a much better defensive team. This will be great. I get the idea behind it, but I thought this was a fundamental misread of the direction that the NBA is going from Tim Connolly, If you guys remember, not the day after the NBA Finals, but like two or three days later, I did a whole thing on the five biggest things that I learned from this year's NBA Playoffs, and in it, for one of the segments, I've focused

on the XS and those related things. And in that segment, if you guys remember my primary focus, the primary thing that I looked yet from as a lesson that I learned from this playoff run, is that the most important thing in the NBA right now, the most important roster construction piece, is perimeter size and athleticism, specifically the ability to contain ball handlers. Why did I say that, Because every Rudy Gobert type of talent in the world eventually

can be game planned around. That's what happened to the Utah Jazz over the years. He became the butt of the joke wrongly as things would go south for Utah. You'd see Rudy Obert chasing a shooter out and watching him somebody knocked down a shot in his face, or you'd see him closing out on a guy and then

somebody beating him off the dribble to the BASKETBA. What you would forget or not notice is that the original compromising of the defense was always from Donovan Mitchell or Mi con Lee or by Bogdanovitch or any of their perimeter players. They were giving up slashing drives to the middle, which would have met the compromise their defense. Gobert would step up, they kick out to a shooter who would either make a shot or they'd attack one more close out and get another wide open shot. It was the

perimeter players that were the problem offensively in Utah. And I want to stay on our defensively in Utah. Excuse me, and I want to stay on the defensive end of the four here for just a second, because going over to Minnesota from February to the end of the season, when Minnesota really started to get going, they finished the year fourteen and seven to claw into the play in picture. If you guys remember during that stretch. They were top ten defense over the last twenty one games of the

season's basically a fourth of the season. They were a top ten defense despite having Carl Anthony Towns as their back line defender, and he's one of the lower end ones. He is a below average back line defender in this league, and yet they were a top ten defense. Why is that? Because, as I said many times throughout the postseason, in the early rounds and towards end of the regular season, they

are a great perimeter contained team. Patrick Beverley, Malik Beasley, Jared Vanderbilt, Jaden McDaniels, all of these guys to orient prints. All of these guys were a huge part of why Carl Towns was not exposed as a week back line defender. If you are containing the dribble drives and making it so that guys are not getting clear slashing lanes into the middle, then your back line defense becomes much less important.

So the problem here is Tim Connolly should have known better. Yes, in the regular season, when you're funneling guys to go bear like Utah did, you can functionally run a great regular season defense. And for the record, I expect the Minnesota Timberwolves to be a better regular season team than what they've been in years past. They'll be five ever sixth seed as opposed to a playing team, and when there are five and six seed, they'll be able to look at each other and be like, hey, we made

this deal. We're better. But just like with Utah, it's not about the ability to funnel to go beart in the regular season. It's about the ability to cover ground on the perimeter and contain ball handlers in the postseason, and in this specific case, it'll be the exact same problem. Malik Beasley and Patrick Beverley did a great job at the point of attack containing ball handlers this year. Jared

Vanderbilt was arguably their best defensive wing last year. I like Jada McDaniels a little a little bit better, but they were the same type of athlete on the perimeter containing ball handlers. You are now going to be replacing those guys. Jade McDaniels will likely become a starter. Torre and Prince will likely become a starter. My guess is it will be aunt those two guys, Carl Towns and

Rudy Gobert. That sounds great, right, but now every other perimeter player that plays this year will have to be filled in around the margins that are in minimum contracts, young players, draft picks, things along those lines, Your depth in perimeter contain just got way worse. And as a result, especially in a playoff series, when teams start targeting you and teams start game planning around the Gobert problem, that

lack of perimeter defense will become an issue. So even if we forget about the draft picks and all of the capital that they sent and just focus on the basketball, I don't understand limiting yourself by taking away your depth for the sake of a defensive fulcrum that primarily will bring value in the regular season. And that's why I say that's why I do those lessons podcasts after each season. I did one last year too. Becauld pay attention to the league. This is what drives me nuts about the

Lakers with Rob Polinka. I just feel like he's not paying attention to what's happening happening around the league. If he was paying attention to what was happening around the league, there's no way he would sign Lonnie Walker, a six for young guard with his one midlevel exception slot instead of a bigger wing that could actually play for the Lakers in a postseason series in a closing lineup. Rob Polinka hasn't been watching enough NBA basketball to understand that

that was a bad idea. You had to use your one significant salary slot on a player between six six and six nine that can guard multiple positions and be in your closing lineup alongside Lebron and a d And he missed the boat on that because he's not paying attention.

If Tim connolly closely watched this NBA postseason every single game, he would have noticed that his perimeter defense was why his team was good, in conjunction with Anthony Edwards greatness, in conjunction with cat when he was playing well, that's when this was good, and it did. It wasn't back line defense that was the problem. They actually were defending pretty damn well. Obviously, Aunt needed to get better. D'Angel

Russell ended up being a shortcoming in the playoffs. Into in the playoff series, Carl Towns was a little bit inconsistent, but they didn't have a back line defense problem. I was really impressed with their half court defense against Memphis, against the team that puts a lot of pressure on the rim, and so I I just just strictly from an XS and O standpoint, it was a misread of the way the NBA is going. Then when you get into all the picks and players they gave up, then

it gets even more annoying and frustrating and inconceivable. Now let's let's go to the offensive end of the flour because this is where I think it gets really really Like Dicey from Minnesota, now, what really happened in Utah? The real reason that the Rudy Gobert fit didn't work was the offensive end of the floor. On defense, Rudy was out kicking his coverage. He was covering for a

ship ton of mistakes from other players. I will go to the graves saying that Rudy Gobert has always been a very good defensive player, and almost every facet of defense is he kawhile entered guarding a wing. No, but he's good guarding a wing, and he's good guarding a guard, and he's one of the most dominant room protectors of all time. The defense is not an issue for Gobert. Never made sense to talk about that. But in the

NBA on the offensive end of the floor. When you get into a switching scheme, which is what most teams do for most actions in the playoffs. When you get to that point, you have to be able to punish mismatches. If Rudy Gobert can go up and set a screen and they were on drop coverage and he can roll to the rim as a as a lop threat, that's great. Teams are gonna switch it. Why because Gobert won't post them up. And it's not a Utah Jazz problem. It

was a Gobert problem. He was not capable of quickly fighting for a position, demanding the basketball, catching and quickly finishing around the rim. That was his shortcoming. That's why things went south in Utah. It turned them into an isolation team because Gobert's screening roles were not working because

teams could easily switch them. That was the issue. That will become a problem even further as we head into Minnesota, and it's especially concerns me because Anthony Edwards is one of the best young slashers that we have in the league. I like Carl Towns at the five. There with great perimeter defensive players so that you don't have to worry about Carl Town's defense and so that you can play five out, because in a five out situation, you unlock

Anthony Edwards as a freight train going downhill. Now you have to work Rudy Gobert into the dunker spot all the time. Now you have to permanently relegate Carl Towns to the perimeter. Hey, guess what, It's gonna be harder for you to face up from the high post to fight on the left block, to fight on the right block when Rudy Gobert is on the floor. This will fundamentally change the dynamic of their spacing, and I don't

like that at all. They are gonna be moments where it works, They're gonna be lib dunks, They're gonna be plays where Rudy looks like he functionally fits into their offense. But for the most part in the aggregate, when you factor in the way that Rudy Gobert's man is going to be able to help drivers around the basket, I

view it as in that negative. So all in all, looking at this thing in totality, I feel like they got a little bit better on defense in the regular season, but worse on defense in the postseason, and I think they flat out got worse offensively, especially with as good as a shooter Malik Beasley. Is I just, I just it was genuinely, genuinely confounding, but not the least bit surprising to see a new ownership group in a new basketball operations department go that route. I there'll still be

an interesting team. They still have those two wings and Jade McDaniels and Torre and prints to put around those guys. But they gave up all their depth for a player that I think actually makes them worse in the postseason. And I think the story ends within being a II or succeed and then losing to one of the better Western Conference teams in the first round. Alright, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely

appreciate your guys support. I will follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason LT and I'll give you guys some show announcements about what else we have coming this week, and I'll see you guys in a couple of days. Oh. Actually, I'm headed to NBA Summer League on Thursday, and I will be checking out all the top prospects there and I will have some special things lined up for you guys.

Not sure exactly what yet. We're still playing some stuff, but like I said, follow me on Twitter at under Underscore Jason LT so you guys can see show announcements. As always, I appreciate you guys rocking with me and I'll see you in a couple of days. Volume