Hoops Tonight - LeBron James goes down, Clippers beat Lakers, Kevin Durant & Nets dominate Knicks

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in West Virginia. Yeah, I'm happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. Gonna keep it really simple tonight. You're gonna talk Clippers, Lakers, and then we're gonna talk Nick's nets. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volume's YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements as well as any

other video content that I produced. Since we have some limitations on what we can use on YouTube and then last, but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. Remember, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops tonight, So I gotta start

with the Clippers. Obviously, as per my rule, with a win, I'm not gonna talk too much about them, because I did just dive into a bunch of Clippers stuff last night talking about their win um over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday. But it starts and ends with Paul George, to be honest, he You know, the Clippers in general struggled a lot offensively to start the season, and they're starting to trend in the right direction now in large part because of how damn good Paul George is and

him playing better basketball. He had a really weird start to the season. I think four of his first five games he had like sixteen points or fewer, was not being aggressive to the basket. And remember that was the big turnaround for Paul George's career. He had this weird stretch where he lost like five consecutive playoff series, and then the player you saw in playoffs looked like a top ten player in this league, in a bona fide superstar.

And I talked to you guys yesterday or yeah yesterday about Monday Night's game, about how Paul George, when he's playing like this, which is the combination of shot making with downhill, getting to the rim and finishing at a high rate which puts pressure on the defense that allows him to have more flexibility to get to his jump shot, that he's a onna fied superstar because how good he

is defensively. And he made a game winner against the Calves that really overshadowed what was the real game winner in that game, which was him making a defensive play at the rim against Jared Allen. You know, he's got his rim finishing in this recent stretch back up to where it needs to be. He's shooting lights out from everywhere on the floor. He's in high forties on like

eleven plus pull up jump shot attempts per game. You saw that again tonight as he routinely knocked down shot after shot after shot over the top of excellent Laker defense,

and it led the way for the Clippers. But as you go down the roster, that's where you see the difference between these two teams because Lebron James also had a great offensive game, and the two secondary creators in this situation the Lakers Anthony Davis and for the Clippers, Reggie Jackson had pretty rough nights compared to the way

that they normally play. We'll get a little bit more into Anthony Davis later, but as it turns out, basketball's five on five sports, and you're gonna play probably maybe even eleven guys in a rotation on any given night, and because of the way the game is now, all those guys are gonna have the basketball in their hands at various points during the game. And what you saw in this game was a massive chasm and offensive skill level between the supporting players for the Clippers and the

supporting players for the Lakers. There's a stretch there in the believe it was in the third quarter, or Marcus Morris with his aggressive spot up shooting. I talk a lot about that, the difference between you know, Austin Reeves and Patrick Beverley pump baking every time they catch on the perimeter versus a guy like Marcus Morris, where you close out on him and sometimes you'll just shoot right over the top of you which adds to his gravity, and that level of confidence allows him to knock down

shots at a higher level. When you're pumped baking at everything than the one you do shoot, you don't feel really great about. But you're getting high level spot up shooting from Marcus Morris. A little to a post mismatch tacking there too, although that's not the way he was playing tonight. John Wall had little bursts. He had a big three couple uh lightning quick drives to the basket to score um. Just when you're stagnant at various points in the game, having a backup guard that can create

like that, that's an advantage there. At the I believe it was at the start of the fourth quarter, Norman Powell just hit a heater, hitting pull up jump shots, coming over the top of all screens and like and and carried the Clippers offensively for a few minutes during the game. And then you got like Zoobas hitting a key, Malajuan moves on on uh Anthony Davis scoring in the post and bullying him on the offensive glass. He flat out just outplayed Anthony Davis in the second half of

this game. That's what you're getting from like you're from a player that's not one of your two best players. And then Luke Kennard obviously, I don't think I've seen him miss a wide open three ever in my entire life. And then I go over to the Lakers, and yeah, there was like a little stretch there in the third quarter where Troy Brown Jr. Made some plays and nifty little left handed reverse layup or a pull up jumper attacking off of the left wing. But you're not getting

those little bursts of high level basketball. And from the supporting players on the Lakers. Where's the heater that Austin Reaves catches, Where's the heater that Patrick Beverley catches, Where's the heater you know that Max Christie catches, or any of these guys. They're not capable of that. And that's just the reality of their roster construction at this point.

And and again, like we're gonna get back to that in a minute, because I think tonight in particular, we've got to look at Anthony Davis and generally the dynamic between Lebron James and Anthony Davis, and they're inconsistent play. But as it pertains to the Clippers, that's why it's important to construct your roster in that way. It's not just their switchy wings and everything they can do defensively, and they're one of the best defensive teams in the league.

They have guys down the roster that can do things with the basketball when you give them an opportunity to, especially when the defensive scheme is geared in a way that you're chasing Reggie Jackson over the top of ball screens and crawling him in the paint, and there's just openings in the like all game long, Lakers helping out of that strong side corner, as the Clippers ball handlers coming off of that left wing getting downhill, they're helping

out of the right corner, which is the easiest kick out in basketball. And those are good basketball players over there that are going to make those shots. But those guys are all equipped to capitalize on the attention that their two primary creators create, whereas with the Lakers and Lebron James and Anthony Davis are not blameless this season, which we're about to talk about, but you're not getting

nearly enough down the roster. In that case, it's the most underrated thing that was glossed over in the Russell Westbrook trade is just how important Kyle Kuzma was and his aggressive spot up shooting and his ability to cut to the basket, and is his occasional mismatch attacking and his ability to get out in transition. The the role that Kyle that can Tabio is called a pope played in transition, running the floor for layups in corner threes. You know what he did in general spot up shooting.

You of the role that Alex Caruso played as a cutter, and he shot forty from three in his last season with the Lakers. Everything that those guys did was immensely important to what Lebron James and Anthony Davis did on a nightly basis. And instead you traded that all for Russell Westbrook, who has played all of about ten good games since he put on the Laker jersey. And that and that, that's where you run into this talent deficit that's hurting you on a night and night out basis.

But I didn't want to spend a couple of minutes talking about Lebron James Anthony Davis because Lebron finally got going tonight, which we assumed that he would like Lebron has been a great jump shooter pretty much since two

thousand thirteen. You know, like he's had a couple of bad seasons and there, but for the most part, from two thousand thirteen on, Lebron James is a reliable jump shooter, both off the dribble and off the catch, but especially off the dribble over the course of the last five years or so. And he couldn't make a damn shot to start the year. But you could see that for what it was. He started the season in a slump,

and then he got sick. Then he came back against the Calves and it looked like his legs were back underneath him. He was finishing around the rim better, and you just felt like he was trending in the right direction. The good Lebron, the good Lebron game was coming. We assumed it would. But of course, on this particular night, after Lebron gets going, Anthony Davis plays what I thought was his worst game of the season. He got bracketed

in the post. Of what that means is they're fronting him on one side and then they're offering week side help directly under the basket to dissuade that over the top past. It's the exact same scheme that Miami used to shut down Joel Embiad in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs last year. But here's the thing, Anthony Davis. That means you don't get to touch the ball in the post tonight, Okay, or at least not often. This might not be the game where you score in

the post. But what's you haven't been a great post player this year. That's just the reality. What's your elite skill? Your elite skill is I've been calling you the best defensive player in basketball this year and the early season favorite for Defensive Player of the Year. That's what you do best. You clean up everybody else's messes. And I thought he did the bare minimum defensively tonight. He did maybe the base concept of his role in the scheme, but he made no attempt to go out of his

area to clean up other people's messes. I don't know if it's because he was pouting because of the bracketing, or if he was just having a bad night, or whatever the deal was, but he wasn't nearly good enough with what the Lakers needed from him to do. In this particular matchup with the way that the Clippers regarding him.

Then in addition to that, he just got straight up out worked by Zoobots almost every time down the floor, being bullied for offensive rebound position, but Zobach just going at him in the post like Zubatch is a is a master of post positioning. And I've talked about this a lot on the show. Uh Yokich is the best in the world at this particular thing. But it's about

understanding angles and understanding what your advantage is. Zuba does nothing as well as Anthony Davis except for the fact that he's a little bit stronger, probably right, a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger, So he knows that if he can just work angles and when Anthony Davis is leaning too hard to the right, pivot to the left, and me when he's leaning to hard to the left, pivot to the right. When he can work those angles

against Anthony Davis, he can punish him. But Anthony Davis can make up for that a million times over if he just works hard, because he's a better athlete with longer arms, and he can recover lost ground. But he was losing that battle and the Lakers are not gonna win many basketball games when Anthony Davis is losing to a mid level center in this league. That's a problem. That's a real problem. And here's the thing. The Lakers are two and nine and their roster limitations. They've absolutely

contributed to that. Like we just talked about, if Troy Brown Jr. Is the only guy that can make offensive plays off of Lebron James and Anthony Davis, that's a big problem. But they shouldn't be two and nine. They should be something closer to four and seven, five and six. They should be afloat. But instead they're spiraling into nothing. And the main reason why is there two best players

the guys that this entire roster is catered around. That that that this I shouldn't say it's catered around that the roster is dependent on those two guys haven't held up their end of the bargain. When Anthony Davis has been great, Lebron hasn't. When Lebron has been great, Anthony Davis hasn't. And during the season when they won the trophy, every single night you could count on those two. You know, Lebron hasn't been a great season for him by any

stretch of the imagination. But I had a feeling he would get it going, and I have a feeling he's gonna go on a little bit of a run here, especially as their schedule lightens up, and he's gonna play some better basketball outside of the season. I have no feel for what I'm gonna get from Anthony Davis on a nightly basis, if it if there's a big game on the schedule, I couldn't tell you if he's gonna play well or not. And that didn't used to be

the case, and that and that's pretty discouraging. But like, until those two guys figure their thing out to where they both can consistently play well in a nightly basis, there there there's no point to any of this. But at the end of the day, in terms of planning, they do have to plan as though those guys will eventually figure it out. One of the note there, it looks like Lebron might have tweaked his growing a little bit.

They're calling it left legs sore nous. Who knows. I wasn't overly concerned by it because it looked like you didn't really react to the injury until several seconds after the actual play or so if it was like a pop or a pull or something more serious, you probably feel it immediately. UM on the move, but who knows. We won't have any intel on that for a little while, um And And as soon as we find out, we can react to that as that goes. But I did

it didn't look like anything overly serious. But at the end of the day, like the Lakers, you know you don't I always talked about you don't have um and Anthony Davis and Lebron James. Team missed the playoffs in a league that has twenty of the thirty teams make the playoffs unless a whole bunch of things go wrong. And we're seeing that again. You don't go two and nine with Lebron James and Anthony Davis playing in what twenty one of the twenty two available games. That doesn't

happen unless a whole bunch of things go wrong. And it's funny because if you look at the Lakers kind of like in different phases of the game, you see all these good things, like their defense when they're locked in is really good. They went on a defensive run in that second quarter that was extremely impressive, flying around making extra efforts. Anthony Davis on his good nights has looked like a top ten player. Lebron James tonight looked

like a top ten player. The problem is is none of those three things have happened at the same time, and if they did, they'd start kicking everybody's ass. But they just can't get those three things going together at the same time like this is and this is the problem with the patient approach because belief starts to fade. The Lakers had an outstanding defensive effort in that second quarter, but their defensive effort was piss poor in the first quarter.

They dug themselves a massive hole, and they looked like an uninspired team that didn't believe in what they were doing. The your hard work has to be rewarded with something. For instance, it's like with you guys at your job. If you guys take on extra shifts, take on additional responsibility, whatever it is, you expect to be rewarded. And if you don't get rewarded for it, what are you gonna do.

You're gonna stop working the extra shifts, You're gonna stop taking on the additional responsibility because what's the point you're not getting anything out of it. And that's the problem with what they did to start the season. Darvin Hamm had these guys locked in on the defensive end of the floor and they were playing great defense, and they went oh and five. They've got nothing for their hard work. And so what we've seen over the course of the

last week two weeks is significant defensive slippage. They're not even a top ten defense anymore after being the second best defense in the league after seven games or so. That's a problem. So what happened is is during that initial stretch of the season, you know you weren't talented enough to win games, and so teams so the team

started to let go of the defensive rope. Now Lebron James is getting going, but the defense isn't there anymore, not consistently enough, right, And and that's the problem with that. That whole approach, you sucked belief out of the team and you stopped them from building a positive identity. The uh the Knicks Nets game, which we're gonna talk about here in a few minutes, was a blowout and uh Um.

During the halftime third quarter phase I clicked over to Indiana Denver and they almost beat the Nuggets tonight, a classic tanking game. Fund for your home crowd, lots of good stuff. Your rookie puts up a bunch of points, and Ben Mathurin looks really good. By the way. I'm gonna try to find some time to talk about him in the future. Um, but you end up losing, which helps you in the standings, which is all that matters

when you're taking team. But in that game, I'm watching in the fourth quarter as Buddy heald is flying off of multiple a wide pin downs, drawing multiple defenders and generating wide open threes, as the Nuggets are having to send a third defender over to help on that screening curl action Like that's that's something that no Lakers doing. Right now, I'm watching Miles Turner score out of the

short roll, get offensive rebounds. He played defense on Yokis down the stretch of that game as well as I've seen anybody played defense on Yokich. Four stop bunch of me. He only scored twice down the stretch of that game.

It was an offensive rebound on a play where he got a stop and one of his teammates didn't box out and in the process, he was at a position and Yoket's buried him, and then Yokis ended up hitting a massive pull up jump shot at the top of the key that Turner defended extremely well, but he got several stops at one point, I think four stops in a row issuing against Yo kitchen crunch time of a winnable game, and I'm sitting there and I'm looking at

this and I'm like, that's a damn good basketball player. And Buddy Yield is a damn good basketball player. And they both addressed very specific needs for the Lakers right now. Anthony Davis can't play at the four. He's only playing at the five because the Lakers don't have good enough fives. As a result, they're really small on the perimeter and they're getting beat up and shot over the top by

bigger wings everywhere on the floor. Also, Anthony Davis, when he has to play center, is expected to do so much covering in screens and stuff, and when he loses his motor, the Lakers defense completely disappears, like you saw tonight against the Clippers. If you put him at the four, where he can roam around more, and you put a legitimate shot blocking five like Miles Turner next to him. He can phase in and out of the game a little bit more defensively, and it won't be as detrimental.

As a matter of fact, because he's not banging with fives all game long. He might have some more energy for that sort of thing. He needs to play the five a lot, but it shouldn't be the only thing that he does. Miles Turner gives you a great mix there. It gives you an alternate identity, a big line up which the Lakers haven't been able to use all season, and he shoots the ball well, makes play at a short role, and he can guard Nicola Yokichen in isolation.

That seems like a really valuable player to me, Buddy Healed. I just spent the entire first chunk of this show talking about the lack of offensive skill on the perimmeitter for the Lakers and the fact that but Lebron James and Anthony Davis are kicking the ball out to Patrick Beverley and and Troy Brown Jr. And And and Lonnie Walker and all these guys that are just pump baking

at shots and are in there. They're they're not aggressive enough or proficient enough to continue to extend the advantage and to make plays off of attention directed towards Lebron James and Anthony Davis. That's a problem. How nice would it be if you slotted you know, Buddy yield into that role. Now suddenly you've got a dependable offensive player out there, who, by the way, is shooting the ball extremely well again this year. And by doing that, you

slot everybody further down. Now, Austin Reaves, you know, is coming off the bench, which I really like Austin Reeves, but that's probably where he belongs. You know, I really like Troy Brown Jr. But he's probably a bench wing the Patrick Beverley because of what he does defensively as a starter level NBA player, Buddy Yields, starter level NBA player, Lebron James, starter level NBA player, Anthony Davis, starter level

NBA player, Miles Turner, starter level NBA player. You put all your bench guys in bench rolls where they belong. Everyone slotted properly, things go up. That deal was on the table. Indiana wanted to do it. There's reports out that it was Rob Polinka that was like, never mind, I want to see them play with Russ for twenty games, and this is the problem. You sent them out there at a significant talent disadvantage every single night, and as

a result, they've lost belief. And now they're going into an easier stretch of their schedule, and who knows if they're playing good enough basketball to win some games, because they look like a team that's down in the dumps right now. There were multiple multiple reports over the last couple of days from both Adrian wars Nawskin Shams Turranio that the Lakers are now considering that it may not be worth making a trade at all. Whatsoever did I

tell you guys was gonna happen this summer? I told you that that the that my biggest fear is that that Rob Polinka and Genie Bus would essentially just be like, hey, let's send him out there like this. They'll be terrible and then we won't have to make a trade. Because the dirty little secret is is that Genie Buss just wants to get out of the luxury tax and there's

all sorts of intel on that front. Hell, the head coach literally said so after the last game that they can't get out of that that they need to get out of the repeater tax. It's just, you know, this is the last thing I'll say about it. What Rob Polinka and Genie Buss did with this team over the last couple of years is going to be studied for

generations after this. To take literally a team that started twenty four and three and then twenty one and six the next year after winning a title in convincing fashion, never truly being threatened to go from there to two and nine with Lebron James and Anthony Davis on the roster, because not only did you stop Lebron from making the Russell Westbrook mistake, you were too prideful or too cheap to fix the Russell Westbrook mistake, and you convinced yourself

that Darvin Hamm would be able to fix it. Darvin Ham's done a great job with the Lakers. He can't fix this. I see Laker fans complaining about lineups on Twitter. What do you expect him to do? Every other team in the league has similar speed bumps. Oh this guy went cold for a week. Oh, our defense slipped a little bit. Oh this guy got hurt and he's out for a week. And they stay afloat because the aggregate talent on the roster is enough to stay respectable when

they're dealing with speed bumps. The Lakers hit the slightest speed bump and they get blown out because they simply don't have enough talent. But we all knew that going into this summer, which is why I said that they had one thing they needed to accomplish this summer. May gave Russell West pork trade that brought back multiple role players that could bolster them around Lebron James Anthony Davis.

They had one job and they didn't do it. They've played the toughest schedule in the league to start the season, which we all saw when the schedule came out months ago, which Robin Blinka saw when they had opportunities to make the Pacers trade. They saw the schedule, they knew what was going to happen, and they chose to do this anyway. And and that's why it's it's we are guys October of they hoisted the trophy. It is now November, and this team is the worst team in the league potentially.

It's it's it's genuinely impressive. Alright. On that note, let's move to the early game and the Brooklyn Nets might be a good basketball team. We're going to be diving into the Nets Knicks game tonight. Talk a tiny bit of Knicks, not too much of them though, talk a little bit about jaque Von and a little bit about how Kyrie fits into all of this. We are live on AMP. Thank you guys for coming to hang out.

And for those of you guys who are listening on either the podcast feed or on YouTube, remember that AMP is the first place where you guys can get these instant reaction videos. So this was I'm not gonna talk too much about the game itself because it was kind of boring, as you guys who watched. No kind of a heliocentric clinic from k D as has been the case over the course of the last four games to alve assists in one turnover. Like I've said, his passing

has been the most impressive thing to me over this stretch. Uh. Seth Curry, who's played a few games for the Nets this year, but this was the first time he looked like Seth Curry, which is obviously encouraging. And he's such He's so important to their offense because he is usually the guy who ends up getting left open. With all of the stuff that Katie and Kyrie usually have done over the years, I have Ben Simmons continued to make big momentum plays on the defensive end of the floor,

although the offensive fit is still a little clunky. And then how about Edmund Sumner a career night from him, made some threes that's been his biggest weakness in his young NBA career, but continues to be fearless attacking the basket of good impressive win first or the third in

this stretch. I I said after the Kyrie suspension that the Nets were staring down potentially a one in four stretch over their next five games with Kyrie out unless Kevin Durant decided to play inspired basketball, which he absolutely has. And that's the interesting part about all this, not just Kevin Durant, but the Nets as a whole just playing better basketball. You know, there's an old cliche that you guys have all heard a million times, and I've said

on this show that winning cures everything. I specifically said that this summer as it pertained to Kevin Durant and Kyrie recommitting to the franchise, there was all this drama, all this baggage, and I said that if they won games to start the season, everything would be fine, but if that they lost games to start the season, all of the baggage would float up to the surface. And really, really it could not have gone worse than it did to start this season. They were very clearly not bought

into Steve Nash at all whatsoever. You know, the Seth Curry injury impacted some of their offensive talent a little bit, and then the Kyrie drama cropped up and became a big distraction for them. And from there, from the Kyrie suspension, it really could have gone two ways. It could have gone the first way that I described, which was, you know, just pack it in, you know, mail in these games and blow up the roster. But the other way it could have gone is that they were galvanized by that.

And I think there were three things in particular that have led to that turnaround. One is the new voice. You know, Steve Nash was a scapegoat. He flat out was he did not deserve to be fired in the sense that it's not that his tactical approach was what was wrong with the Nets. However, as I've said, so many times on this show, Guys, especially big egoes, just get sick of voices. They hear the same guy telling them what to do every day for a few years,

and they get sick of that guy. And that was why I supported the Frank Vogel firing, even though it wasn't his fault that the Lakers were bad. That's why I supported the Steve Nash firing even though it wasn't his fault that the Nets were bad. And that's why I would support a Doc Rivers firing even though it's not necessarily his fault that the Sixers haven't played up

to their potential. You get a new voice in the room, Jaquvon, although he's not necessarily a new voice, he's been around the Nets since two thousand sixteen, but he's a new leadership voice and the team is playing hard for him in a way that they have not in the past. And then the second big thing there is the lack of the distraction everything that comes with Kevin Kyrie Irving.

And you know I talked about this a lot earlier this week, Like Kevin Durant is like basketball is his top priority, and then like two through five are vacant and then who knows what's after that. But basketball is all he cares about and he'll never let any thing disrupt that from being his focus in his approach to the game. But Kyrie Irving, well, absolutely, like like you know, like a bug chasing a light, will go off of the basketball track for the latest distraction and throw the

team off kilter. That's just the way he is wired. And so getting him out of the picture has got that entire locker room entirely focused on basketball and that's been a big part of the turnaround. And then last was Kevin Durant, you know, and I gave him a shout out on Monday, But I don't think we're even giving him enough recognition for what this is, because let's

be clear, this is Kevin freaking Durant. He is a top ten player in NBA history that is still at the peak of his powers and very capable of leading a team to a championship. He is on a team that does not have enough talent at least without Kyrie Irving to win an NBA championship. He has every reason in the world to pack it in and say, screw this,

trade me. He's at every reason in the world to do that, he could have been the thing that kept them going down that dark path, and instead he said, screw this, I'm just gonna play basketball to the best of my ability, and it galvanized the team. A new voice at the top, Kevin Durant, pent focused on basketball and getting the Kyrie distraction out of the picture, has galvanized this team and it's jarring the results. They were

dead last in defense through eight games. Over their last three games coming into tonight, they were number one in the entire league in defensive rating and the only team in the league that held their opponents to less than a hundred points per one hundred possessions over the previous three games. Over this four game stretch since the Kyrie suspension, they've held all four opponents under a hundred points. What was the other big thing that I said was the

next big weakness rebounding. They were second to last in the league through eight games. They are plus two in the rebounding margin over the last four games, so they're outrebounding their opponents since the Kyrie Irving suspension. So simply through by in and the galvanization that Kevin Durant brought and that jacque Van brought. They are a good basketball team. Again,

what do I say this summer? I put the Nets at sixth in my power rankings if I remember correctly, and they were in that if things go right here and uh, it's because on paper you could not deny the talent. I've I mentioned this in the show earlier, but I liked how Zach low Is calling him the dunder Mifflin NBA team because on paper they were a great basketball team, but so many things had to pan out properly. You don't have to look far to see it. Kevin Durant. I had him as the third best player

in the world coming into the season. Kyrie Irving, I think I had him right around twenty, okay, and he is. He's a top twenty player in this league when he's actually engaged in participating in basketball games as opposed to the other things that he likes to do. They have lots of shooting Patty Mills and Seth Curry and Joe Harris. They've got defensive minded role players Ben Simmons and Royce O'Neil and Nick Claxton. They've got potentially reinforcements on the

way with t j Warren. You know, I like Cam Thomas as a scoring guard. Edmund Sumner has been giving them dribble penetration. They've got basketball players man, lots of good ones, and they should be a very good basketball team. But they weren't trying hard and they were distracted. And Katie does deserve some blame for that at the start of the season because I think he kind of led

the charge on the not caring about Steve Nash thing. Hell, he literally vouched against him over the course of the summer to the owner and tried to get him fired. But what you're seeing is now that things are kind of coming into the things are kind of coming together. They're defending at a really high level. They're rebounding at a much better level than they used to. Seth Curry

is back, so they've got more offensive punch. They're committed to jacque Von Kevin Durant's playing like an m v P. Ben Simmons is finding a spot to help the team on the defensive end. The now. The the reality is that they do have some limitations on the top end, at least with Kyrie out of the picture, and that's where it gets really complicated because we did get a report I believe from Sean Sharrania that Kyrie sat down with Adam Silver and with the Nets and they have

begun the process of trying to return him to basketball. Now. Had things continued to go further south, which I had expected them to at the time, um, I don't think you would have seen Kyrie play in that jersey again. But like you have to remember why Josiah did this and I thought it was a bad idea, and how

I still think it's a bad idea. But over the summer, the reason why Joe Sigh and Sean Marks were pushing for Kevin Durant's return and pushing for Kyrie Irving to come back was because they believed in that on paper roster that we just talked about. And Nick, no mistake. If they defend like this and you get Kyrie Irving back into the picture, they're a contender. Yes they are.

Because if you've got Kevin Durant playing like an m v P, and you've got the scoring punch provided by all those things that I just mentioned, and they're defending at a passable level and rebounding, guess what, there's no perfect basketball team out there. Right now, they're right up there with the rest of the guys. That's how good

they can be. So ironically, the winning cures everything might have just saved Kyrie Irving's tenure with the Nets, because now you're looking at it and it's like clear that they have a limitation on their top end ceiling. Kyrie has no trade value. So the only way you can improve the team from limited the way they are now to their ultimate ceiling is by bringing Kyrie back into

this mix. And all I would ask is this, and I would say asked because I'm asking Kevin Durant, if you allow Kyrie Irving to come back into this mix as his buddy, sit down with him and beg him to just keep it about basketball for the next six months. Just beg him as your friend, if you have any cat shay there, beg him to keep it about basketball.

Because you guys do have an opportunity here and you are Kevin freaking Durant, and you can still play at in extremely high level and this team does have potential to make some noise, but you don't have enough talent and you can't trade Kyrie, And so I bet you Josiah is gonna try to bring him back, and if he does, you need him invested, and you need him to keep the off court stuff on the back burner until you guys aren't playing basketball anymore. Who who the

hell knows what's gonna happen. This whole Brooklyn thing has been such a roller coaster over the course the last few months. I have no idea. I'm not I I don't know what to expect, but I am genuinely curious. And I will say that it makes me happy to watch Kevin Durant playing basketball and a good team again, because he's one of the best players in the league and he's fun to watch. And then last thing before

we get out of here, the New York Knicks. I saw that there were five and five coming into tonight. John Hollidger of The Athletic had a tweet that sent out where he said something along the lines of like they were five and five with a dead even point differential, one and one in overtime, the ultimate Like and if you guys remember after the Jalen Brunson off season, I said, like they were signing up for mediocrity and this is

what you get. And you know what's funny, about that is I respect the idea of signing up for mediocrity if you have a plan, but the plans should be get you know, salary and picks attached to each other, and go get that big star. And essentially your pitch to him is, hey, we're building a positive culture here. We've got a coach that we've stuck to for a while, we have a front office that we've stuck to for a while. Look at this, we're playing coherent, respectable basketball.

We just need a superstar and then you trade for that guy and you extend him, and then that's how you build from there. But they got gun shy when Donovan Mitchell was available, and you know, I'm sure I talked to my buddy, Tony Jones, was Knicks fan who works for the athletic and I asked, I was like, what are the Nicks saying about all this? And he was like, they're playing the whole like, oh, well, we didn't want Donovan anyway. We wanted somebody different, which is

a classic excuse. But the reality is, you better have a good plan, then you better have somebody else in mind. Because Donovan is playing like a top five player in the league and you look like you fumbled the bag here a little bit, and you are five and six now and and and look like the same old mediocre Knicks that we've seen over the last couple of years. Al Right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate your sport and I will see you next time. The volume