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Happy Saturday, everybody, although I'm recording this at Friday night like usual, We're gonna be breaking down four games rapid fire style tonight, and then I have four quick hitter topics.
After that, we're gonna be hitting the Lakers and their massive comeback win against the Grizzlies, the Golden State Warriors getting a win in Cleveland against them mostly at full strength without any of their top guys, the Atlanta Hawks, who are red hot, getting a win against the New York Knicks, and then Kyrie Irving with a twenty one
point fourth quarter masterpiece to beat the Utah Jazz. So we're gonna be hitting on all that, and then I've got a bunch of like little NBA topics that have been going on around the league over the last couple of days that we'll be hitting whether or not steff Is the m v P of the last decade, John Wall and everyone else loading up on the Houston Rockets, the debate about whether or not rest is an issue in the NBA. Right now, we're gonna be hitting on
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All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Los Angeles Lakers give up twenty four offensive rebounds, get out rebounded sixty to forty seven overall, get mauled in the paint to the tune of sixty four to forty four and points in the paint, and come back from down six with two minutes left to beat the Memphis Grizzlies twenty one.
They just never stopped attacking in transition every time they had a chance, no matter how discouraging it got, no matter how many big plays job made, no matter how many offensive rebounds they gave up, no matter how many times someone hit a big three and built the deficit larger, they just kept going at them. I thought Russell Westbrook and Dennis Schroeder in particular did a really nice job
of manufacturing transition opportunities just by going fast. There's kind of an involuntary thing that happens defensively when a guy has a real head of steam going towards the rim. Everybody just involuntarily collapses, and you can generate a lot of high quality shots by doing that. Obviously, we think of transition the you know, rudimentary definition of transition is like, oh,
we get a miss. We have a numbers advantage, like it's a three on two or four on three or two on one or maybe even a one on oh, and you're just running down the floor to try to get a quick easy shot. But transition extends to that. Outside of that, I look at transition as everything outside of the static have court environment. There's runouts, there's your two on ones, three on two, four on three, call those advantage situations. But then there's like a semi transition phase.
That's where the defense isn't actually all the way back yet, or maybe they're back, but they're not really in their defensive stances and ready to go. That semi transition phase is a great time to get ahead of steam because if you do, the defense just won't quite be ready to handle that. And like you know, I've been very critical of Rob Polinka for this roster, and I believe that's fair. Over the last two years, they took the biggest, strongest and most physically imposing team in the NBA and
made them pitifully undersized. And I thought that was went right in the face of everyone. Everyone else in the league that was doing that was smart. I thought it was a really bad decision. But one of the ancillary fall back like trip and fall into success types of things that Rob Polinka did is that by being small,
the Lakers are super super fast. Between Dennis Schroder, Russell Westbrook, Lebron James, you know, two of those guys, Russe and Lebron are two of the greatest freight trains in NBA history. Dennis is a downhill speed guard. Thomas Bryant, for all of his shortcomings defensively, is a big that runs the floor extremely well. When you in Gabriel runs the floor
extremely well. So one of their few advantages from a personnel standpoint that they have is speed and them just leaning into that speed in the fourth quarter of this game, really throughout this game, really throughout this entire stretch since Anthony Davis went down, has allowed them to manufacture a fac similarly of coherent basketball. And then from the end of these games, it's coin flips that can go either way, and they've lost those coin flips a lot. But you know,
credit the Lakers. They are now ten and nine since Anthony Davis went down in that Denver Nuggets games game with a win over the Nuggets, win over the Miami Heat without Lebron, win over the Sacramento Kings, and now win over the Memphis Grizzlies, who are on a double digit win streak. So I don't think you can possibly look at this situation with Anthony Davis going down and think anything less than this has been an absolute home run from the standpoint of the way the guys in
that locker room have fought. I talk a lot on this show about basketball character. To me, basketball character is what you're made up, made up, made up of is as it pertains to your commitment to the details and your willingness to fight, your resiliency. It's all of those intangible things that make a basketball player and a basketball team. And you know, getting rid of a lot of the older veteran players on last year's roster and leaning into youth has given this team a a relentless energy that
has never really stopped. And you know, there's been so many heartbreaking losses this season, just absolute gut wrenching victory snatched away at the last minute type of losses this year, whether it's Portland earlier in the season, or whether you know it's that Boston Celtics collapse. But there's I could literally go on there, the Dallas Mavericks double overtime game, you have multiple three point leads late. There's just been
dozens dozens of of collapses. Are probably roughly around a dozen collapses this year, and all of them were a great reason for that team to give up hope, especially given the personnel shortcomings they have, especially considering the Anthony dave S injury. They had a million reasons to let go with a rope and they just haven't done so. And so when I really look at the Lakers kind of zooming out really quick before we move on, they
have outstanding basketball character. They are a team that fights and competes, which is an important part of what makes a championship contender. And they have to top ten players. Lebron James and Anthony Davis when they are healthy, are top ten players in this NBA. No other team in the league can say that, not even Jalen Brown and Jayson Tatum. I think Jaylen Brown's closer to eleven or twelve right now. So the reality is they have a lot of the things that you need to compete for
a title. They just need some pieces on the fringes to round out their role players so that they're slotted properly for size. That's why I think they need to be doing everything they can to get Kyle Kuzma or Boy and Macdonovich at the deadline. A real shooting forward like that just fixes so many issues for this team. Slot so many guys properly gets guys competing with guys with similar size instead of trying to battle way above their size. Anthony Davis coming back, well, aligne thing is
in the front court better. Everything is kind of coming together. Robin Genie just have to do their part at the deadline. Now. It's gonna be tough because they didn't do it in the off season. They're gonna be competing against everybody now. It's a seller's market. The values are through the roof for these players. It's going to be difficult and they might not even be able to get anything done now at this point, just because of how competitive the bidding
war is going to be. But Robin Genie have to do everything they can in February to try to bring some support to this team. They're just they compete too hard. The top end talent is too good, the roster is too fast. Um. I think there's a case to keep Russell Westbrook, provided that when they're fully healthy, they don't use him in the closing group. As long as they
don't do that. I actually like him in the middle portions of the game because he's play this is I mean, we're going on you know, a ten game stretch here now where he's been pretty good, and that's the best little stretch of of long term successful basketball we've seen from Russ since he got on a Lakers jersey. So if he's gonna play like that, and if you can keep him out of the bunchtime groups, he helps this team a ton and he supplements that speed and all
those things that we were talking about. So you make ancillary moves on the perimeter, target a guy like mcdonovitch, Tart, targeted guy like Kuzma, get that guy on the wing. All the guards and wings are playing their proper position. You've got the top end talent, you've got all the speed, you've got a good basketball character. You've got everything you need there. Um of definitely an encouraging win for the Lakers tonight. Memphis obviously, I I still think they're the
third best team in the West. I go Golden State Denver then Memphis. Um. I have Golden State in Denver really close to each other, and I have Memphis a solid level below that. And it's still just comes down to half court defense. In this particular game, when the Lakers were able to keep them in the half court and get stops and run out the other way. That
was when they had their moments of success. And if you go one of the best ways to see this sort of thing is go to the ESPN app or the ESPN website and like you know, see to see where they do the line graph of the team scoring, and you just see too many flat stretches for the Grizzlies, and those are typically stretches where they're stuck in the half court and it's a lot of John Morant high and high pick and roll. And if he's not making his jump shot and the teams are packing the paint properly,
they're not going to score. This is a bad half court offense. That is a big part of why I have them below Denver and Golden State. Denver and Golden State when they get into the postseason, they have the requisite ball handling and shooting down the roster to generate quality shots in a way that Memphis cannot. So that's why I have a gap between those top two teams in Memphis right now, moving on to the Knicks and the Hawks, dejont Murray just took over this game in
the early fourth quarter. Hit a couple of really nice little short pop shots and and fadeaways in the lane. Uh Dejont Murray this year shooting forty eight percent on jump shots that are inside of fifteen or excuse me, inside of seventeen feet. I went on with swipe a Cam big time UH, Denver Nuggets fan today to face the music about Yo kisen Us to talk a lot about the Nuggets, and we ended up talking about a lot of NBA stuff. I tweeted a link to it
on my Twitter feeds. You guys can find that there. Um. But I ended up talking to him a lot, and uh we about stuff around the league, and we talked about s g A with the Thunder, and we talked a lot about his short range jump shot. And there's there's a ton of value in short range jump shooting for guys that can take more complicated shots in that range.
The reason why is there actually very high percentage. If you have to touch a fade away or a pull up jump shot at ten feet is a much much easier shot than a fade away or a tough shot at seventeen eighteen feet. When you're off balance and having to get extra lift from that far away, it's really hard to get enough power behind the shot to get it to the rim. But there's a I've been talking about this on this show for the last six months
or so. I think that short range, that short that like inside a fifteen feet range, is one of the most underutilized areas in the game of basketball right now. It's a lot of threes, it's a lot of stuff at the basket, it's a lot of mid range pull up jump shots. But that short range is an area of opportunity for players to get higher percentage shots there. Luca Donte is incredible at it, shake Gil Just Alexander is incredible at it, and uh de Jonte Murray is
incredible at it. And that's where I think. I think there's a lot to learn there for young basketball players, especially if you have physical tools. Dejon Murray is a big athletic guard, you know, at least relative to um the other players that play his position. You know, Luca Done a big athletic forward, Gila Alexander six six, good athlete.
That's if you have physical tools and you're looking for go to moves that can help you in slow down environments, that inside ten fifteen feet those kinds of little short jump shots and pop shots are a great way to find scoring. The Hawks have now won seven of their last nine games. They had apparently had some sort of meeting that or they hashed things out and suddenly they bought in again. This has been a very hot and cold team. And when they're bought in, they're very good.
But they just have these stretches where they're not bought in and then they're atrocious. But during this nine games stretch, Trey Young points nine assist true shooting. I saw stat today that the three most frequent alley you combos in the league are all Trey Young. It's like Trey Young and and uh clickapella, Tray Young and John Collins. Trey Young ka Congo like the best lob thrower in the league by far, Dogon Murray five and six on fifty
seven percent true shooting. But they are just outscoring teams. They're just seventeenth and defense during this span. But glass half full wins trigger buying. Buying triggers better effort and focus on the details that could in turn trigger them on the defensive end of the floor, which could be what triggers them forward the rest of the season. So this is either gonna be the thing that springs a positive end to the season, or it's just gonna be a blip in the larger trend of the season. We're
gonna find out here in the next few weeks. As for the Knicks after tonight, they are now just six and fourteen against teams that are five or better. Classic example of a team that competes in battles and plays defense, but just does not have the top end talent to create enough shots against the better teams that are in this league, which makes it impossible to take them seriously. I continue to be very depressed for Knicks fans that
they didn't properly go after Donovan Mitchell. All Right, Warriors calves So the Warriors win four team wasn't actually that close. Golden State really controlled this game throughout. Jordan Pool went for thirty two points on twenty three shots. I actually thought Jordan Pool played really good defense in this game. He did really nice work on on Darius Garland when he got switched on to him, even a few times he was on Carris Lavert. In this back to back
against Boston and against Cleveland. He played excellent defense in both games, and that's gotta be super encouraging for Warriors fans, in particular playing with physicality. You know, um so many guards, particularly smaller guards. There's not even just guards. Smaller thinner basketball players are way too willing to of up ground because they know they're not as strong and they don't
want to commit fouls. So like when they have their shoulder there and a guy hits them in the shoulder, they're just kind of give ground and let him go around. And really that's not what you should do. You need to play with a certain amount of physicality. One, because the game of baskball is a lot more physical than people realize. Hand checking is technically legal, but refs let
it go all the time. You can defend with physicality, well, you pick up three or four fouls during the game, sure, but there might be ten or eleven other possessions where you don't get the foul call and you stop a guy from driving to the rim, or you forced to turn over or disrupt the other team's offense. And Jordan pull did a really nice job of defending with physicality
without overfouling during this back to back. They also got thirty nine points from Ty Jerome and Dante DiVincenzo, tied Drome hit the dagger three, kind of leaning to his right on the right wing. Kind of like I was talking about the Lakers with their speed. You know, all these roster flaws, but hey, they've got a ton of speed. That's kind of the way I feel with the Warriors in their back court. They clearly need size and athleticism
off of the bench. Although it was nice to see Jonathan coming back out there tonight, but they need size and athleticism off the bench. But for all of those shortcomings, they have the best guard depth chart in the league between Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, tie Drome, Donte DiVincenzo on Jordan's pool. You're not gonna find five better guards on
a roster in the NBA than that group. So that that gives you all the more reason for why Joe lake Up and Bob Meyers should invest in this group and a good win for this Warriors group who needed it, because that completely erased the field and the damage of that blown late lead in Boston last night. The Calves they started eight and one since then twenty and eighteen, they are just fifteen and offense during that span, and they are below five hundred against teams that are five
are better. Uh if you look at cleaning the glass and they're in their lineup data. Uh. Once again, just like I've been talking about all season, they're better with just Darius Garland or better with just Donovan Mitchell than they are with both of them together. Kind of lends credence to my can't play with two small guards problem. Still not getting enough out of the forward position, which is really hurting them offensively. Just in general, a pretty
mediocre season from them. I still think that this ends with them trading one of the guards for a better wing. Probably not this season because they're gonna want to go down with the ship, but I think that's something that they're gonna have to start looking at next year and beyond. Alright, last game before we get to our quick hitters, Uh, the Nets beat the Jazz one seventeen t one oh six.
Kyrie irving twenty one points in the fourth quarter, finished with forty eight hit two massive pull up three is one at the top of the key and then a ridiculous uh like drifting three on the right wing. He also made a really nice driving kick to Seth Curry in the right corner. Really, the Jazz came back and tied this game, and Kyrie just made every single big play down the stretch for a huge win. You know.
I then it started what oh and three, oh and four or whatever after Kevin Durant got hurt, and everyone was like talking about like how shocked they were that they were bad. And I used that as an angle to go positive on KD, meaning just like, hey, let's
remember how good KD is. But one of the things that I've seen way too often this year, whether it's with Kyrie after Kevin Durant went down, whether it's with Lebron James after Anthony Davis went down, whether it's with these you know, with any of these teams that have dealt with injuries in the past, it is extremely difficult to win in the NBA when your best player goes down. That's just that's just a fact. Like it's the the league is too talented. Every team has, you know, two
or three guys that think of themselves as stars. You drop one of those guys, especially when they're one of the top band guys, it's just impossible to replace their production. So like, okay, what's my opinion of Kyrie. I don't think. I don't think Kyrie is a superstar. I don't think that, um, Kyrie Irving is a guy that's going to carry a team as a number one. But you know what he is is he's a perfectly fine number two if everything
else around him is good. If you give him a good defense, and you give him a good number one that can create shots more consistently on a possession by possession basis, his top end ability as an isolation player or as a shot creator is a massive ceiling razor for any team. So yeah, if you see him as a number one, you're gonna be disappointed sometimes because he's not very good defensively and as an overall shot creator.
If you need him to create sixty shots in a game as as you know, start sixty possessions in a game as opposed to, yeah, his efficiency is gonna go down. His reliability is going to go down. But I could say that about everybody in the league other than the top like seven or eight guys. That's just the reality. So I mean, let's shout out to Kyrie Irving pulled out a win again. Kevin Durant is gonna be out
here for eight to ten games. You get three or four of them, then you're in great shape, especially with where they were in at in the standing. So shout out to Kyrie Irving. All right, let's get to our quick hitters. So Jeff Van Gundy and Stephen A. Smith both said that they think Steph Curry was the m v P of the NBA over the last ten years. Uh. Further record upfront, I don't think either of them actually believe that as far as the NBA goes, January is
the most boring month. Yeah, for us hoop nerds, we enjoy it, but for the vast majority of casual fans, they're just entirely tuned out and playing paying attention to football right now. You're seeing all sorts of weird results around the league. That effort is really inconsistent. This is the time of the year where a lot of teams are dealing with injuries or guys being out of the lineup. Um,
so really this was just textbook engagement bait. In my opinion, I don't think stan or Jeff Van Gundy and Stephen A. Smith actually believe this, but hey, it makes for good television. But I do think that this topic is a great example or a great opportunity I should say for me to make a point about Lebron James career. Now, before I say this, disclaimer to Steph fans. You guys know I think Steph is the fifth best perimeter player of all time. He's my second favorite player. Ever, this has
nothing to do with negativity and Steph. This is just what happens when you stack anybody up with a top two basketball player of all time. And I wanted to demonstrate Lebron's insane resume. So even if we arbitrarily just cut off ten years like hey, nothing counts before the two thousand fourteen NBA season, that means we're racing all four of Lebron's MVPs and two of his championships. Even if we do that, I still think Lebron is the m v P of the last ten seasons. And here's
some stats to demonstrate that for you. So, first of all, since the two thousand, two thousand fourteen campaign, that would be this season as year ten, Okay, Lebron five top three m VP finishes, Steph Curry three top three m VP finishes, first team All MBA's Lebron six, Steph Curry four Finals MVPs Lebron to Step one. Now, I would give him too, because I think he deserves in two thousand fifteen, So yeah, if you zoom in on that, you could say, yeah, the Warriors have four titles, Lebron
has two. Now, I would argue that has a lot to do with the fact that they had one of the most talented rosters in NBA history in two thousand seventeen and two thousand eighteen. It's close. If you told me you thought it was Steph just because of the titles, I'd be with you there. I would, or at least
I would respect the opinion. However, as we look at that in terms of year in and year out dominance, year in and year out contributions to winning six first Team All nbas for Lebron, four for Step Steph five top three m VP finishes for Lebron, three for Step. In terms of year in and year out value to the to an NBA team, Lebron has been better than
Step in the last decade. And that's even if we arbitrarily just cut off almost all of Lebron's resume by randomly choosing ten years spanning from two thousand fourteen to two thousand twenty three, Like, it doesn't actually make sense to do it that way, But if we're gonna play that game, I still think it goes to Lebron. The point is, that's why Lebron is the second best player of all time in my opinion, and why so many Lebron fans think he's the best player of all time.
His resume defies any conventional wisdom, Like, how shocked are you guys that Steph has only made four first team All nbas in the last ten years? That that's that's pretty wild stat right. That's because they're in term is of year in and year how dominance It just quite has hasn't quite been the same as what Lebron James has done. And I think over the years, we've taken him for granted in a lot of ways, and we've
taken step for granted too. I mean, I think, I think, and I think step is kind of one of the most underrated players in NBA history because of how much the other twenty nine fan bases hate him for whatever reason, because your favorite team lost to him so many times, and and I understand that, but like you know, let's
like generally speaking. If there's a consensus opinion, there's a reason behind it, and I would venture to guess that about of NBA fans believe that Lebron is a top two player of all time, and that's not a coincidence. It's because his resume is absurd. And I understand the engagement bade, I understand all those angles, but I hope we pay the proper respect to Lebron. He's getting He's near in the end of the road here and and I hope people appreciate what he provided to the league
while he was in it. All right. Bob Meyers, in his first episode of his podcast for OMHA Production, said that he was in a doing an interview with Steph Curry and he said, quote, I said to Steve Kurt, we're going to the finals, and he said, I'm nervous. I said why. He goes because we gotta do this for staff And I said why And he goes because he deserves it. Now, the reason why I added this as a quick hitter is because I felt this way about all three of my three favorite players since I've
been following the league. Steph, Lebron, and k D are my three favorite players. And I have felt this way about all three of them at various points in their careers. In when Lebron was competing for an NBA title, I wanted it so bad for him, And the main reason why was during two thousand, nineteen eighteen two thousand seventeen, when he literally lost twice because the Warriors were just two damn good and had the most talented roster in
NBA history. A lot of people kicked Lebron while he was down during that time, and a lot of people tried to rewrite the history of Lebron's career because he was losing to Stephen k D. Steph Katie, and Lebron were the three best players in the league. Two of them played on the same team. The deck was stacked against Lebron. He was very much, uh not incapable, but nearly incapable of even having a chance to win those series,
and people were rewriting his legacy. So I was rooting for him in because I thought it was a great opportunity for him to remind everybody of what he's capable of. Fast forward to two, same thing with Steph. I was rooting for Steph two because I thought when he'd missed the playoffs two years in a row, which had everything to do with injuries and nothing to do with Steph. Season was one of the best individual regular seasons I've ever seen from a player in Steph Curry, and they
still missed the playoffs. And if he didn't land on his tailbone, they would have made the playoffs. That's like I thought, Steph, Steph and his greatness was assailable. But here's what happened. He won two titles with Kevin Durant,
and he won them at Lebron's expense. So Lebron fans just tried to slander the hell out of Steph Curry and rewrite the story of his career because he missed the playoffs the first two years about Kevin Durant, when it had nothing to do with Kevin Durant and everything to do with injuries. So I saw two as an opportunity for step to remind everybody of just how damn good he was or is, and he did, and I was very very happy for him. That's where I'm at
with Katie this year. What happened with Katie went to Brooklyn is when he was healthy, he played absolutely absurdly incredible basketball every single time, except for a week against the Boston Celtics, who were the most talented team in the league, a terrible matchup for the Nets, and Katie just didn't shoot well in a very small sample size four games in one week, and we and everyone rewrote the story of Kevin Durant. Lebron fans did, Steph Curry
fans did. Everyone wanted to pretend he was terrible. And I didn't like that. I didn't think that was fair to him, and I thought he was becoming massively underrated. So I'm rooting for Kevin Durant this year to get one because because if he gets one in Brooklyn, nobody can say anything anymore. And that's what I want for Lebron, That's what I want for Steph, That's what I want
for Kevin Durant. I want all of the stupid, nonsensical narratives to get thrown in the trash so that those guys can be appreciated for what they've provided to this league here at the end, here in their last few years.
I hope we get to that point. And so I'm rooting for k d Um, Kevin Durant, Stayman Gundy in their little engaged engagement on Twitter over basically Stave Van Gundy said that he thought the uh um, it was strange that if we went back to the nineties, when they didn't have nearly the medical staffs or the benefits that that the treatment capabilities and any of those things available to them, they were playing every night and not
skipping back to backs and not load managing. And now they're doing all the load managing and they're skipping all the games despite having better medical staffs and better equipment available to them, and injuries are happening more frequently, and Samon Gundy is like, hey, maybe we should be playing more and Kevin Durant responded underneath it, like, hey, you're spitting, and then you know Sam and Gundy didn't understand what
he was saying. That was the joke. But I want I wanted to hop on this because I am like, I think there's two very interesting angles to take care once again. Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins, four Warrior starters, all missed a game in Cleveland tonight, a game that many Cavs fans paid good money to go watch potentially their favorite player and Steph Curry play, you know, to watch the Warriors play, and they showed up and they didn't get to watch their guy and
that really sucks. And for the record, I want to throw some criticism at Steve Kerr here. They had two days off before the Boston game. Send him out there to play against the Calves. Come on, man, you know if you like it makes I didn't like that personally, but there's a couple of different angles to go out here. I agree with stan Van Gundhi that that I think
we overdoe rest. Now there is some data. I don't have it in front of me, so I can't read it to you, but there has been some data in the last few years that load management has not led to any sort of improvement and injuries, and I do think that that's not I do think that there's some legitimacy to that because I think that conditioning is an
important part of the athletic experience. I think that conditioning your body to grind it out on a daily basis, even through minor discomfort and pain, prepares you for that exact process. And if you can break through that initial wall for that first month or whatever, you're bout do you will be capable of handling it, and then you won't deal with the nagging stuff that these guys are
dealing with. I think if you rest every time you have every little bit of discomfort, you never actually pushed through that wall and get to the point where you're conditioned enough to handle it. So I do think load management is overdone around the league. However, the one other side, I want to say, it's just it's not. It doesn't change my opinion, but it's a little footnote on this topic. Basketball is not the same now as it was in
the nineties. Sorry, the amount of ground that gets covered by perimeter players in this league in transition in rotation, as the game has become spaced out beyond the three point line as opposed to congest it around the basket people. I bet you if you put on trackers on players and tracked how many linear feet they move in a game,
that it's double what it was in the nineties. That's what that I would That's my guess, and I don't have that data in front of me, But I believe eve that the game is so different now that that also contributes to the increase in injuries so thirty seven minutes a night in the nineties, I don't think is nearly as hard on your hamstrings and on your groin and on your ankles and on your knees and on your feet as it is now when you have to run so much more and cover so much more ground.
So I do think teams need to chill out on the load management and have guys actually condition themselves for the grind. But I do think we should acknowledge, at least as it pertains to the increase in injuries, that it probably has more to do with how much the players are running and less to do with load management one way or the other. That makes sense, all right, last one, John Wall and everyone else piling on on
the Rockets. So everyone in the world has been making points about the Rockets and how they don't play the right way, and how their young guards need someone to come in and teach them how to play basketball, all these different things. Um, I do think it's overdone a little bit because I think too much blame is put directly on Jalen Green or on Kevin Porter Jr. When really I think it's an organizational thing all the way
down through the coaching staff. But as it pertains to accountability, I do think it matters though, Um, what does it mean to play the right way? To me, like, that's just building good habits, something I've talked about NonStop on this show. Um, you know that means committing to defense, committing to rebounding, committing to execution on the offensive end of the floor, committing to running and transition, all those different things. But it also goes beyond that to a
play style from your offensive initiators. And you know, there's a there's a time and a place for a pull up jump shot, there's a time and a place for an isolation possession, and they are primarily counters to coverages. You should is so when you have a good matchup because of the switch and the spacing, it lends creatence to it. You should take a pull up jump shot because you ran a pick and roll and they stayed with the role man and they stayed elsewhere, and it's
the only shot that's available on the floor. There's definitely a balance and a flow to primary ball handling that those guards need a are, but that's not on them if the coaching staff or the front office isn't providing them with the leadership they need to do so. So I I think it's a delicate thing, like we need to talk about the Rockets in the way they're playing, but not play so much blame on Kevin Porter Jr. And Jalen Green. They're just young basketball players that aren't
being held accountable. And at the end of the day, like to me, it's it's more has to do with those commitment to those other details. Those are more important to me right now because for there's no real stakes here and and really the guards are just working on their games. They're just getting NBA reps. But at the end of the day, like you don't have to be a good defense, you don't have to be a good rebounding team, but you have to at least try those things.
And the reason why is it's important to portray competence even when you're bad. The Thunder are rebuilding, the Rockets are rebuilding. The Thunder have a young star guard. The Rockets have a young star guard now they're earlier in their development. The Thunder are a few a few more years ahead. But organizationally, from the top down, they are teaching those guys that to play basketball the right way. It's not. They're not winning every night. They're not the
best defense in the league. They're not the best rebounding team in the league. But what they are is they are trying to do those things. Ironically, the Rockets are actually a very good rebounding team because they're so athletic, and rebounding is just one small area in the grand schemes of a grand scheme of what I'm talking about. But the point is you build that competence so that over the years, guys are more willing to sign with
that group. You know, the thunder are gonna need a veteran wing soon, and you know that guy when Sam Prescy sits down with them and he goes like, hey, listen, here's the deal. This is what we built. This is what I got for with s g A, this is what I got with CHET. This is kind of where imagine you fitting in with this group. You know, I think Jalen Williams can kind of spell you off the bench, might even play you guys together sometimes. Blah blah blah blah.
Like if I'm sitting there and you're gonna pay me seven million or ten million or whatever to come play with that group, I'm not in my head. I'm like, hell, yeah, man, let's do this. I like these young guys, let's try to win this thing. I mean, but now to imagine the Rockets sit down and have that same meeting, and I'm looking at this group and I'm like, well, okay, no one's teaching these guards how to play. So they're
just running down jacket up shots and not playing real basketball. Um, no one's boxing out, no one's defending, no one's doing all these things whatever it is. And uh, and you know, this just doesn't seem like a good idea for me. I don't want to be you know what Aaron Gordon, Eric Gordon is right now, you know the veteran that's just buried on this team and in basketball purgatory, you know what I mean. So that's why I think it's
important for the Rockets to portrait competency. It's about the future, it's about that baby steps in the right direction. And you know that it all starts with accountability. And I think it starts with the front office works all the way down to the coaching staff. They just have to do a better job to keeping those guys accountable. All right, guys that is all I have for tonight. Wow, that was a whirlwind. Um. We're taking the rest of the weekend off, but I will see you guys on Monday.
As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I'll see you guys then. The volume