Hoops Tonight - Mailbag: Warriors Path Forward, Best Moves For Lakers, Nuggets Losing KCP

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Slash baseball, all right, welcome to hoops today. You're at the vaul, you nail Bob. You guys are having a great week. As promise for getting to our mailbag today. I sent out a tweet this morning, and you guys left a bunch of questions and there a bunch of good ones. Obviously we can't get to all of them, but we're gonna get to a bunch of them, We're gonna talk about some Warriors where they go from here,

some Lakers offseason stuff. We're gonna talk about what's going on with the Denver Nuggets and them not having done anything. We're gonna talk about what Jason Tatum needs to do to be revered as the best player in the world. Are the Orlando Magic poised for a leap. There's literally tons and tons of stuff that we're gonna get to today. As always, I appreciate you guys for participating in the mailbag. We're gonna get too as many as we can. You

guys are the job. Before we get started, to subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss ow announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts on Hoops Tonight, and then keep dropping mailback questions in the YouTube comments so we keep getting them throughout the rest of the summer.

a scheduling note. All right, let's talk some basketball. So first question, do you think the Warriors should have bent to what Clay requested from them? Assuming it's difficult, but I doubt it's super difficult. They pay the player what they think the player can contribute to the future, but they shouldn't pay more to what they have done. So this is an interesting kind of dynamic with the Klay Thompson deals, like did the Warriors owe something to Clay?

a time when the Warriors felt closer. They missed the playoffs this year. Out of fifteen teams in the Western Conference, they were in the bottom five. They allowed ten teams in and they didn't even make that list. In addition to that, Steph had a rough end of the season. For roughly the last third of the season, he didn't look like himself. He looked like a shell of himself. And now I think there's some context there. There was fatigue, wear and tear. I think he was a little banged up.

I personally think Steph's gonna come into next season kind of on a little bit of a revenge tour. And I think Steph is going to look a lot like the old Steph next season. But at the same time, the ownership group in the front office, I think they view that as kind of like a risk element there.

Then in addition to that, when you look at Klay Thompson in terms of loyalty, if I'm the Warriors, I'm saying, well, you know, remember when you got hurt and we paid you max dollars two years to basically rehab a back to back injuries, Right, like the Warriors extended him a massive olive branch and a massive demonstration of loyalty when he tore his ACL after the twenty nineteen finals, and so again like I don't necessarily think loyalty plays much of a role here. I think it was just an

honest evaluation of the situation. I think the Golden State front office and ownership group does not think they're close enough. And I think their moves have demonstrated that letting Clay go for nothing, letting Chris Paul go for nothing, not using his salary, you know, turning down some sort of fringe aggressive deals. I think that that's an indicator of

what the Warriors front office is telling us. They're telling us that they don't think this team is particularly close, and if they did, I think that we should we would see more aggression from them. We have some more Warriors. Actually, we'll get to this next Warriors question first and then we'll go back what is the realistic Warriors path forward? They effectively lost Pool and Clay for nothing, plus more considering the gave Pool plus assets to get Chris Paul

Markenen is the only realistic obtainable improvement. But is there enough trust in Steph Andre to make one more run. So here's the thing, even if they don't do anything, you still have some high quality starters. You have four high quality starters. In my opinion, Steph ANDREYMND. I think the Anthony Melton's high quality starter. If he's healthy, I think Warriors fans are gonna love that guy. I think he helps in a ton of different way. I'm a believer, right,

Andrew Wiggins I've view as a high quality starter. Obviously he's had his lumps over the last couple of years, but it's you know, he's one of those guys where like you start talking about Andrew Wiggins trades and then the players that come back in a deal like that are gonna have some flaws of their own, right, So

you still have four high quality starters, right. So, Like, let's say that they do just slide kaminga in there and they just rock with that five, and they start the season thirty two and twenty two, like they just get off to a good start.

think it could work poorly. Like, there's real risk there. Jeremy Grant's a risky pick. Brandon Ingram kind of a kind of a funky basketball player that's tough to plug and play because he needs to have the ball in his hands and he's a mid range pull up shooter.

What about you know what about Zach Lavine, Well, all of the injury issues in his massive contract that he has moving forward, Like, right now, the options don't look great, but we don't know what the options are going to look like in February and So, honestly, like the most realistic Warriors path forward is they nailed the mL signing in my opinion, for okay, so let's take a look at the bigger picture. You release Chris Paul, you let

go of Klay Thompson. Those pull you out of that second apron back into the non tax payer mid level exception that opened the door for you to go sign the Anthony Melton. Now, is that the best option? No, Obviously the best option would have been re signed Klay Thompson. Try to trade Chris Paul's contract for a star of some kind out They're a higher powered player out there of some kind, and you include Kaminga's the asset or

draft compensation, whatever it is. Obviously that's the most aggressive move. But that's really over extending yourself with a lot of associated risk. Right, So the Warriors took a low risk, low expense move. They got out of the second apron, They get down into that non textpayer mid level exception range where they could get d Anthony Melton a high level starter in my opinion when he's healthy. The market on d Anthony Melton is low because he got hurt

last year. But I look at the Anthony Melton as kind of like a rough approximation of Contavious Colwell Pope. He is a similar type of do everything, rock solid NBA starter at the two guard position. So you've got Stephan and d Anthony, it's really good one too, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green three four, three, five, whatever you want to call it. You've got your kind of starting foundation there.

You go into next season. If Steph plays like a superstar, if d Anthony Meltain is healthy, if those guys just have a good camp and Jonathan Comunica gets a little better for year over year, you go into the season, then maybe you can re invigorate the front office into believing in Steph Curry and Draymond Green as a championship potential core again. But like, I don't think we're gonna get a super aggressive Golden State move this summer. It

just doesn't seem like it's on the tap. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm hoping they do. I want Golden State to be aggressive. I just don't love any of the options out there right now. I don't think they can afford LORI marketing. Maybe they can, we'll see, But like judging on the Michale Bridges deal, which is a similar type of deal, I don't know. And then also, like you set trade for marketing, you have to immediately extend him to a long term max probably in the department of four years

and one hundred and sixty million dollars. So, like, there's just a lot that goes into an aggressive move right now, So I kind of understand it. But at the same time, like, I'd hate to see Steph go down with a mediocre team, and so from that standpoint, I'd like to see them eventually do something aggressive, but this just feels more like a deadline type of move.

them go. And most of that the all in type of deal is more just me thinking like a basketball fan because I want to see Steph Curry compete for championships because he's one of my favorite players ever. Right Like, that's just a basketball fan opinion. Like in terms of the actual logistical realities of doing that. As a front office, it's just complicated. What is the Lakers' best move from here after missing out on their Plan A options and can they still do enough to have a chance at

a title this year possible trades signees. So I want to start with the Demarta Rozen kind of rumors that are going around there, and I'm kind of skeptical about him to begin with, because this is not the first time Demarta Rozen is hinted at potentially taking a pay cut to go to the Los Angeles Lakers. I also

have heard from Adrian Worganowski. He went on TV yesterday and said that Lebron's pro we're gonna take the full max now, which if he does, takes the Lakers out of the non tax payer mid level and puts them in the regular tax payer mid level, which is a smaller deal, which would make it even less likely for them to get Derozen. So I don't necessarily think that's realistic. I also don't love the DeRozan fit. To me, DeRozan presents a lot of the similar issues for that backcourt

that Austin and D'Angelo Russell presented. It's like a pull up shooter score type. Who Now, DeRozan and de lo are very different players, but like the gap between DeMar Derozen and D'Angelo Russell is not that big in terms of their playoff impact, Like they are two guys that struggle in the playoffs. They're they're two guys that are like skill guards that are good playmakers that like DeRozan's more of a pull up mid range shooter. You know,

Delos more of like an aggressive three point shooter. But they're both good playmakers. They've got like some similarities there, but they're similar in redundancy in the sense that, like, if Austin's gonna be your point, the two has to be a freaky, athletic, defensive minded guard. Like that's just the only star guard that I liked next to Austin Reeves. I know there's talk about Donovan Mitchell. I just didn't view Hims a realistic option. The only guy that I liked.

There was Dejon Tay Murray because he brought real athletic traits, real defensive capability, even if he hasn't been that since leaving the Spurs, while also bringing some offensive upside. Dejonte was the guy that I thought made sense as a star guard at the two next to Austin. I would have viewed DeMar de Rosen as just another redundancy there, so from there, if you're gonna get a high powered option, I still think I leaned towards Jeremy Grant as a

target at the three. I think that influx of offensive firepower would be helpful for the Lakers. I think that Jeremy Grant kind of brings the layer of athleticism to that front line with him Lebron and Anthony Davis. That could be really imposing. I like that fit a lot. I just I am not sure if they're gonna be able to get him. In the event that they can't get Jeremy Grant, that's where I would lean back on your role player types. A guy like Bruce Brown at

the two is someone I'd really like. A guy like Dorian Finney Smith at the three is the guy that i'd really like, but no matter what I think, if you get Jeremy Grant, you can get away with playing a Max Christy at the two, or get away with playing a skill guard like a maybe even a Gabe

Vincent at the two. But if I think, if you don't have that star power, and Jeremy Grant's not really a star, but he's like he's a fringe star, Like he's a guy who can get you twenty points in any given night, right, Like that's kind of what I'm getting at there. Like Jeremy Grant basically is basically is like a way better version of Ruby hot Chi Mura in my opinion. But like you get Jeremy Grant, there's a firepower element that would kind of counteract a lesser two.

But if you don't get a guy with that kind of firepower, I think you need to upgrade the two and the three. And so that's why I look at it at like two separate deals for a Bruce Brown or for Dorian Finney Smith. In terms of the center position, I view that as important as well, especially within the context of what are you gonna do with Anthony Davis when he has to miss ten games here or there?

That sort of thing. I think a center is important, but I view that is less important than the guards in the sense that you're not winning the title unless Anthony Davis stays healthy anyway, because you can't crawl down from the seven seed to win the crawl up from the seven seed to win the title. It's just too difficult.

I think that it's the version of this story where the Lakers win the title is they start the season really well and healthy and they have all hands on deck, and then you're going down with Ad at the five next to Lebron. You're not going down with Ad at the four. So like again, I think the backup center position is important. I just think it's less important than upgrades at the two and at the three. What do you make of the large contract extensions that the Celtics

have been handing out. Do you think that exceeding the salary cap by so much will come back to bite them? Do you see other owners following in the footsteps of Wick Gruspeck. I'm going to tail in a set like kind of put a second question on top of this, do you think the Boston Celtics will keep their starting five going into twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six, when all the extensions kick in, they are projected to pay five hundred million in luxury tax that year because of

the second Apron rules. I think Porzingis might be in another team that year personally. So let's start with the kind of looking forward piece. As we heard, the Celtics are looking to trade to sell trade. They're looking to sell the Boston Celtics with the finalization around the year twenty twenty eight. What that means is the new owner ownership groups that are gonna be considering purchasing the Boston Celtics are gonna be groups that have an enormous.

percentage chance of getting an NBA title. So it's like, basically, an ownership group can purchase the ability to most likely win an NBA title. That's that is that's an exciting proposition for any sort of ownership group.

and Porzingis. Now, if Porzingis continues to get hurt and it just becomes an obvious you know, kind of like liability in the sense that you're paying tons and tons of money for a guy who's just consistently unavailable. Then yeah, they might look to move Porzingis to try to get a less expensive, you know, more reliable in terms of

health center option. But like again, it's about flexibility, Like do you want to be in the second apron as the Golden State Warriors with Stephen Clay and Raymond, like with all that money on the books and the potential to have to pay you know, Jonathan cominga in the future. Obviously not, which is why they made the moves they made to get out of that second apron. Why because they're looking at it like we're gonna need to make substantial roster tweaks in the coming years. Doing that out

of the second Apron is damn near impossible. This is our way to get out of that situation. Boston. They have like literally the perfect starting five. So for them, it doesn't They're not in a position where they're gonna have to make substantial tweaks. And as long as you have those guys together at the top, like Porzingis is, like Derek White, Drew Holiday, Tatum and Brown. They all clearly have several years left and they all compliment each other,

so well, like, that's just such a clean fit. It's just that center position that's gonna be tricky, and they have a couple of years to figure it out what they want to do, what direction they want to go there. But yeah, like as far as going into the second Apron, you just can't go into the second Apron unless you know you're five. So let's take the Thunder for example.

Let's say the Thunder become a second Apron team. If they're a second Apron team, but they've got Shay Jalen Williams, Lou Dort or case On Wallace, whoever it is that ends up filling that position in the long run chet And let's say that they end up getting some forward in the long run where it's like a cleanly fitting obviously like easily mixed five players that fills all the needs of a basketball team. Then it's like, who care, we can work on the margins with the bench. We've

got our five. You know, they're all on the same timeline that you know. That's what I think we're gonna see. I think teams that enter into the second apron are going to be teams that legitimately have sustainability with their core five guys into the future. The Celtics have thirty million dollars players that all play positions that kind of coalesce nicely into a five man unit, so it makes perfect sense. Hey, Jason, nice nobull hoodie. How do you

like flag Staff? It's beautiful. I love it here. So flag Staff is about four hours up the road from Tucson, and my wife and I go there usually two or three three times a year. It's our favorite place for day trips to go skiing because we'll wake up at like four am, hit a McDonald's outside of Phoenix on the way up to town, gets some you know, mcgriddall's.

It's kind of a little tradition for my wife and I and then we book it up to the mountain and it's always beautiful because the sun is always rising, like just as you're kind of coming through that valley up into Sedona and flag Staff. And for those of you guys who don't know what Flagstaff is, Flagstaff is a old volcanic area in northern Arizona, kind of near where the Grand Canyon is. But it's really cool because most of the mountain ranges in Tucson are like typical

tectonic activity, I say Tucson. In Arizona, they're like typical tectonic activity. These are volcanic mounds in flag Staff. So they're like the they look like, you know, they look like the volcano UO see in the Cascade arc arc right, Like they're like Mount Rainier or you know Mount Baker or Mount Shasta, that kind of thing. They just look

like giant like cones, right. And so as you like kind of come down into that valley right before flag Staff, you look out in the distance and it's like kind of flat everywhere except for you just see these giant like twelve thirteen thousand foot peaks. Well, they have this really nice like state of the art, a state of the art for a small facility, I should say ski facility there. They got taken over by a large ownership

group a few years back. And so it's like for a single day where we can leave at four am and be back by eight thirty, we can get like a legit day of skiing in and my wife and I will typically go up on like a weekday on like a Tuesday or a Wednesday when there's just nobody on the mountain and we just cruise because it's a little bit on the small side. It's not the biggest ski resort in the world, but they've got really high

quality skiing conveniently located next to us. That we usually do multiple like destination trips where we'll go to like Park City or like Tahoe or to Breckenridge or something like that, and then we'll have like several day trips where we go up to flag Staff. But Flagstaff has always been a kind of a special place for me, my friends, and my family. My favorite restaurant there is Pizza Collecta. They have a really good pizza and beer. We stop in town usually at the end of the

day and get drinks there. Sometimes we'll stay there for multiple days, but it's kind of a getaway from the heat to being from Tucson.

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likes of Oklahoma City in Boston. I did a massive deep dive into the Dallas offense and what I expected to look like in the future in yesterday's show, So make sure you guys get to a little bit further back in my feed yesterday when we were breaking down m clay Thompson Signing. I went into excruciating detail on

the offensive fits. You guys can find that stuff there other like kind of like two way wings that they can look at that I looked at in the free agent market for like veteran minimum type of guys Alec Burks, Caleb Martin, Gary Trent Junior, Dennis Smith Junior. Some of those guys end up getting mls at other places, but they're at least potential veteran minimum guys, and they are guys that they can keep an eye on. What's your favorite PRS model? I think the Silver Sky, the Paul

Reid Smith makes guitars. I think that the Silver Sky is my favorite model in terms of it's just the easiest to pick up and play. It's basically their version of a Fender Stratocaster. It's their signature model for John Mayer. But I think my favorite one that I own is probably my hollowbody two Pezo. It's that purple one that you've seen behind me sometimes. That one just has like a lot of versatility because it can do acoustic guitar

stuff and it can do electric guitar stuff. And the fifty eight to fifteen humbuckers that they have on that guitar just sound absolutely beautiful. So that one, I'm gonna say is my favorite overall, the easiest to play, easiest to pick up and play. In terms of like the tactle nature of it, I'd go with the Silver Sky. What's the ceiling on this magic team for the upcoming season? Could we see an OKC twenty twenty three twenty twenty

four type leap? So looking at their offseason, they upgraded Gary Harris to Contavious Callwell Pope while also resigning Gary Harris. They brought back Goga Bitadze. They brought back Wagner this morning, so they're basically running it back with an upgrade of a starting spot. I have to look at their draft picks. I mean I didn't even take a look at that for I pulled this up. But the East in general

is gonna be better next year. So even though I expect Orlando to be better, I still kind of think they're going to be right in that four or five slot again. And I think they're probably gonna lose in the first round to one of Philly, Milwaukee, or New York. I think those are the clear top four right, Boston, Philly, Milwaukee, New York in some order, with Boston at number one. I don't think Orlando's ready to leap into that group yet this year. That said, I think they're gonna be

a huge pain in the ass. I think they're gonna win a lot of regular season games. I think they're gonna be right up there in the mix. But I just I think there's still quite a ways away. They need so much improvement and offensive skill, and collwoll Pope is gonna really help as just a better version of Gary Harris. But I still think that that doesn't alleviate the main concern, which is there's just not enough perimeter

shooting ability in their starting lineup. Now, if Franz Vagner and Palabankara both take substantial leaps as shooters, then we can have another conversation. It's just hard to believe at this point. You always said you'd be skeptical of the Nuggets if they lost any of their starting five. So with KCP gun, do you see a path of their starting lineup being just as good next year with Christian Brown? Although it would be different stylistically. Also does rust to

Denver move you? So here's the thing. To put it very simply, the Nuggets are worse than they were last year, and last year they weren't good enough. Now I think they were better than they looked last year. I think KCP and Jamal Murray were both a little banged up by the time they even got into the Minnesota series, and that ended up being where one of their main areas of underperforming in that series. But despite all that, they were up twenty in the second half of Game seven.

So like, I'm of the opinion that, like, yeah, losing KCP makes them worse. Yeah, them being banged up played a role last year. Yeah, they're a little bit vulnerable to specific matchups. But like, I still think, gun to my head. If I had to pick one team to be my favorite in the Western Conference next year, even with Christian Brown sliding into that starting two spot, I think I still lean Denver. I just I think Jokic is the best player in the world. I think they're

gonna come into next season angry and motivated. Their margin for error is smaller. If they win the title next year, it'll be much harder than when they won in twenty twenty three. But I think writing them off is foolish, and they have some time. They have some time to figure some things out. Like my guess is that in the long run, this ends with them trying to flip Michael Porter Junior into two quality starters at some point in the future. But that Aaron Gordon, Jamal Murray, Nikola,

Jokic corp. Is still one of the best three man corps in the league, and I think it'd be foolish to write them off. Does Russ to Denver move you? I here's the thing I've gotten in a lot of trouble with Russell westbrook fans. As a basketball fan, I loved watching Russell Westbrook when he was in his prime, but as he declined out of his prime, he became, in my opinion, one of the most unlikable players in the NBA, the amount of stupid stuff that he does

in the mistakes that he makes. Like all I'm gonna say is, as somebody've covered him closely with the Lakers and now the Clippers don't want him either, Like Denver, do not make this mistake like this is It'd be really interesting too, because Lebron made the same mistake Yokich is about to make. Apparently all the intel is Yokich is kind of pushing for that behind the scenes, Like there's some elements that you like, right, Like, he gives you an athletic guard to put on the floor.

Thanks for supporting the show. I'm really high on the Grizzlies. It's hard to say where they match up with the top teams in the league because it's just been so long since we've seen them all put together and playing that. Like, I want to see you a larger sample size before we start like ranking them.

playoff team. But I'm a huge believer in Memphis and I would be stunned if they didn't have a dominant regular season this year, and if they didn't, it would probably be.

I think a couple teams are gonna enter into that tier this year, but Oklahoma City's definitely one of them, and right now, before we see all this shakeout, because I want to see if Philly ends up arounding out their roster with like I want to see if the Lakers end up making some sort of trade. Like, There's a bunch of stuff that I want to see. But for right now, without having seen the rest of the player movement, Oklahoma City, to me is the third best

team in the league. Hey, Jason love the pod. How big of a deal is Denver losing KCP With Okay See adding Hartenstein? Are they now the clear favorites in the West? As I talked about earlier, I still think I leaned slightly towards Denver. But that said, Oklahoma City adding Hartenstein gives them more resiliency against Denver. I would have given Oklahoma City a zero percent chance to beat

Denver in a playoff series last year. This year, I give them a substantial chance even though I picked Denver. So that to me is a substant like a significant move in that direction. If Tatum were to become a good to great half court shot creator, would he be in the conversation for best player in the world. That's really the difference. He does everything else, so well, he just has to get a Like, I don't think playmaking is the weakness for him, it's his shot making ability.

He just has to become a guy who can be a sixty percent true shooting, thirty point per game guy consistently in the playoffs in order to justify being in that conver station. There's just been too much inconsistency on that end of the floor. Again, like to put it simply, like, is Tatum as good a half court surgeon as shake Yill's as Alexander?

the World conversations. What do you see the power rankings in the East being and do you see the redistribution of talent has made it a strong enough conference that Boston would now be equally or less likely than Philly or the NIXT to make it the finals. Still think Boston's a clear favorite. I think they're clearly number one. I think they're clearly better than the next group Nicks, Sixers, Bucks.

It all depends on what Milwaukee and Philly accomplished over the next couple of months, But for right now, it's all up in the air. For me, I'd probably go Nicks too, Philly three, Milwaukee four, just because of some of the health questions surrounding Philly. But Boston's a clear number one, and we'll settle that out when we get into the end of the summer and we do our

contender rankings. What do you think will be the next unexpected star to get traded because his team decides to throw in the towel to go into full rebuilding mode. The four guys that wrote down were James Harden, Brandon Ingram, Jimmy Butler, and Trey Young. Those are the guys that I think, in the next twelve months could become available for trade. Harden's on a discounted deal now like an

affordable deal. Thirty five million. It's a lot of money, but it's not an absurd amount of money, and it's only a two year contract. And if Kawhi gets hurt again, I just think if you're the Clippers trade Harden as part of a rebuild, brandon Ingram is the odd man out, the weird fit in New Orleans, so I could see him getting moved. Jimmy Butler kind of feels like the end of the window. We're going to talk about him

in just a minute. And then Trey Young. You know, like if Atlanta just decides that they want to move into a full rebuild, that's the guy that's obviously going to go. Thoughts on the Miami Heat consistently deciding to run it back a year after year instead of improving. At what point do we need to call out pat Riley. I've called that pot pat Riley every summer for the same problem. And the main issue here is now it

doesn't even make sense to go all in. Last summer was the last summer where it made any sense, or last deadline was the last time it made any sense. They didn't get it done. Now, at this point, it feels like Jimmy's starting to kind of tail off a little bit.

need to be reconfigured to player movement rather than the draft. So, for instance, like I don't think you should have to pay the price for drafting a bunch of good players and having to pay them all. But yeah, if you want to go out into the open market and trade for players or sign players in free agency, there should be punishments for just overspending, right, just to try to

level the playing field. But like, it's stupid to me that a team could just trade, could just draft extremely well and end up and end up getting squeezed out of retaining talent.

they this season? They won two playoff games combined between the two of them, Right, So, like it's one of those things where, like I think it was kind of like a reactionary thing to some large payrolls, but it doesn't really serve the purpose of creating fairness around the league. What is do you see as then next step in Derek Lively's development is adding the three point shot realistic

I think it's less about the three point shot. Even though I do think that Derek Lively has that capability, it's more about just becoming the quintessential five out fulcrum. I think Dallas is gonna shift to more five out movement next year. I talked about it a lot in yesterday's show, and there's gonna be a lot of pressure on Derek Lively to be a decision maker and a

playmaker in that role. And there was a report I saw this morning from Tim McMahon that they're leaning towards putting Derek Lively full time into the starting lineup, which is another thing I talked about yesterday as an indicator of them shifting more towards five out. So like that, I think is going to be his main area of development as being more of like a fulcrum. Great guy for him to watch film of would be Isaiah Hartenstein. That's a player that I think he can learn a

lot from. Favorite Star Wars character of all time. I would go with either Darth Baine or Darth Plagas I'm a big Sith guy. I find him to be the most fascinating entity in that universe. Darth bain And has three books that you can find in the Legends could continue him and then Plagas has one. Those are like four of my favorite books ever. Highly recommend you guys check him out. Thron is going to be my third

place guy, Grand Admiral Thron. Those of you guys who have watched Rebels or read the Throng books will know why Thron is such a cool character. I also have a podcast where I talk Star Wars and not just Star Wars, but other TV shows, in media, in movies and stuff. It's called Two Sons. You can see it right down there. Two Sons have a YouTube channel as well as a podcast feed there. Me and my best friend Luke break all that stuff down. We just talked

House of the Dragon yesterday. Tonight we're talking the Acolytes. You can find that on the feeds later tonight as well. How do you gauge which opinions are common in the NBA world when a lot of times the loudest people are a minority that doesn't always believe logic is a necessary ingredient in forming an opinion. This is one of the biggest things I've just learned in general since I got into this industry. Loudness on social media is almost

always not the public opinion. It is the fringes that are the loudest. In addition to that, there's just not a lot of people on Twitter, for instance, there's just not a lot of people on Twitter in the real world, like a very small percentage of at least of Americans. I'm not sure if it's like this in other countries, but a very small percentage of Americans are active Twitter users.

So the idea that like, if you see some opinions on Twitter, that that's reflective of a specific, large, nationwide opinion, that that's just not the case. And so in general, like, I've had to work on not reacting, and it's still a weakness of mine that I'm getting better at, but I have to a not reacting to the loud fringes on social media. The last question, how do slash did you approach becoming a better ball handler for both yourself

and your high school kids you work with. You've touched on this when covering Jabari Smith identified it as a pretty big weakness of his, but last summer you were really impressed with him.

just kind of push the ball to the left. As long as you had your body geared up to the right and your eyes to the right and everything to the right, that's going to be more effective than a big, sweeping Allen iverson crossover and so like again, like the body language is a big piece of it, and then tight and under control, Like a lot of people think like, oh, it's about dribbling through cones, and you gotta dribble through cones as part of your skill development piece, Like that's

how you become better at ball handling. But the major piece of it is can you protect the ball in traffic?

Like real ball handling in real basketball games is about like when you make a move and the dude's riding your hip and swiping at your other arm, can you fend him off while dribbling with your left hand as you go into traffic, can you split two defenders and gather the ball strong before you make that next pass or dribble like the low gathers that you see guys like Tatum or Jalen Brunson use like, or Trey Young like.

There are so many different like little intricacies of it, but most of it is about learning how to dribble in traffic. And so it's a good mix of practicing with cones but also doing ball handling against live defense. So like one on one drills where you tighten off an area and you make multiple counter moves. That's like your turn your man five times drill that you see sometimes in high school where you go from like the lane line over to the sideline and you just have

to try to turn your man five times. The ball handler is working against ball pressure that way. But it's a good mix of against live defense and cone dribbling. And again it just guys, it's incremental. Just like jump shooting. You have to put thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of reps in over the course of multiple summers to improve. It's a very painstaking process, all right, guys.

It is all I have for today. As I said, we'll be back Monday unless we have some sort of major news release. Regardless of when that happens, I will see you guys. When I see you guys, The volume