The volume. The roller coaster of an NFL season is moving right along, and it promises to be a month full of tricks, treats, and of course, touchdowns. DraftKings Sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NFL, is the number one place to bet touchdowns. Running it in from the one or at eighty yard bomb. We don't care how they score touchdowns, we want to bet on them. DraftKings hurt us and is delivering Ready to place your first bet. Try betting on something simple like a player
to score a touchdown. Go to the Draft Kings Sportsbook app and make your pick. Super Bowl odds so far at this point in the season the Chiefs at plus five hundred. Also the Baltimore Ravens up to plus seven point fifty is the second favorite to win the Super Bowl at this point. Here's a reason for new customers to do a touchdown dance of their own. Bet five dollars to get two hundred dollars in bonus bets. Instantly score big with DraftKings Sportsbook the number one place to
bet touchdowns. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app and use code hoops. That's hoops, that's code hoops For new customers to get two hundred and bonus bets when you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Gambling problem called one ted hundred gambler in New York called eight seven seven eight Hope and Why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine.
In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas twenty one plus age in eligibility varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKG dot co slash ft ball. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here
at the Volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all you guys are having a great week. Well, the NBA GM Survey Annual GM Survey came out out earlier this week, and I have plenty of things that I'm kind of pissed off about. So We're gonna bring my friend Claire to Luna on the show. She also writes about the NBA at the Guardian, Laker fan someone that we can talk a little shit bit with as we try to sort through this GM survey. Claire, how are you doing.
I'm doing great.
I can't wait to talk a little shit about this GM survey with you. I also feel like, as a Hoops Night fan, this is like very I feel like I'm breaking the fourth wall. Like I watched Hoopsknit all the time, so it's very surreal to have like entered the Hoops Night universe.
I'm so excited and we're gonna talk some basketball.
It's gonna be a lot of fun. So by far, the thing that pissed me off and you off the most was and this has been kind of a theme over the course of the last several years where I feel like part of it is the Anthony Davis injury stuff. Part of it is the Lakers don't have any good defensive players aside from Anthony Davis, but he's been kind of gen early is slipping to the bottom of a
lot of these like top defender discussions. But like I understand that to a certain extent with it when it comes to the Lakers, because I understand why the NBA fan base at large kind of has some pushback with Laker stuff because the Lakers get outsized coverage, they get a ton of attention. They're always on the thumbnail, they're always on the title, they're always on ESPN. Not in a way that makes sense with how successful they are
in the league. So I understand that. But with the GM survey in particular, I think that this would reflect a little bit differently. And we had the who is the best defensive player in the NBA category. The Jams voted for Victor, which is not surprising, but Anthony Davis received just two votes. Draymond Green receives zero votes. These
players all received votes. Drew Holliday got three votes, Herb Jones two votes, Alex crusoe got to vote, Jada McDaniel's got to vote, Marcus Smart got to vote for who is the most versatile defender in the NBA. Ady and Draymond to receive zero votes. The players that receive votes O g n and Obe got four votes, and Ad
and Draymond got zero. Drew Holliday too, Jonathan Isaac too, Herb Jones too, Jada McDaniels too, Alex crusoe, loudor Aaron Gordon, Evan Mobley, Marcus Martin, and Jalen Williams all received one vote, despite ad and Draymond receiving zero. Should Aid and Draymond feel disrespected by how few of these NBA front offices seem to actually value what they can do on a basketball court?
Are you joking? I feel disrespected.
I'm not even Anthony Davis or Draymond Green, and I feel like immensely disrespected by the Anthony Davis disrespect in particular, Like it is unfathomable to me, Like I understand, you know, we're both pretty clear I about this. As people who generally root for Lebron and by proxy the Lakers, and then you know, also are on the internet, we understand that there's a very strong contingent of people who can't stand the Lakers and Lakers fans. Sometimes they have a
good reason for that. Lakers fans can be pretty and suffer boys and a lot of time with them, I'm familiar, and they do get an outsized amount of coverage because Lebron James is arguably the greatest player of all time and he's still playing, and he plays for the Lakers, and they have to sell commercial blocks on television, so they're going to be talking about the Lakers quite a bit.
That being said, even keeping that.
Stuff in mind, it is mind boggling to me the level of disrespect that Anthony Davis receives. He is, in my you know, estimation, easily a top ten player in the NBA on both ends of the ball, and of all the you know, like defensive player of the Year type candidates, he's got the biggest offensive load I think, and has on the Lakers for his entire tenure. And he's an incredibly versatile defender, and he is he's like, oh, he's basically the Lakers defense. He is the defense. He's
a one man, you know, defensive machine. And all of the other guys mentioned on this list have at least one, if not several, really high level defenders around them, and Anthony Davis is surrounded by minus defenders. I would say Lebron has you know, a plus defensive upside. He wants to when he wants to and when he can. I mean, he's turning forty this year. He can't do that every night.
So on any given night, in eighty two games, Anthony Davis has essentially no help and still manages to, you know, keep the Lakers. They should be a bottom if Anthony Davis is the level that they are assessing him in surveys like this, the Lakers should be like an absolutely bottom of the league defense based on their personnel. But they stay like around middle of the pack, a little below middle of the pack generally speaking, which is a
goddamn miracle. And it's because Anthony Davis is their defense. So it's just it's it's yeah, there's it defies explanation.
I would say, well, even with.
The starting lineup, that's Austin Reeves, who I think an average to slightly above average defender, Dlo who's definitely below average, Rue who's definitely below average, below average, and Lebron on most nights it's like such an up and down thing with his effort that I would just call him average. And that team had a one to ten. That lineup had a one to ten defensive rating in almost four hundred minutes, which is a massive sample, and that's an
excellent defensive rating. Obviously they have their limitations, but that's all Anthony Davis just anchoring all of that and putting it together. The two things about this the way these
voting results came out that kind of irritate me. Is one this like obsession with like the lanky wing or like the three and d wing, and I like, I get the importance of that type of player, the ability to potentially guard multiple positions, just the length and how that's valuable in rotation and defensive rebounding situations and stuff like that. But those defenders are so much more matchup dependent.
Like Jaden McDaniels, for instance, I think he's probably the best perimeter defender in the league, and like Luca tossed him around like a rag doll in the Western Conference finals because he's two damn small. I like Herb Jones, he can't guard some of these bigger forwards in the league because they can just go right through them. I like Drew Holliday and Lou Dort, but a lot of the best pull up shooters in the league and just shoot right over the top of him because they're too small.
I tend to think that like the big guys that can also do other stuff are the most versatile. And that's the part that blows my mind about the Draymond and ad not receiving any votes, Like do people not remember what Draymond did in the NBA Finals in twenty twenty two. He can be this drop coverage big that does all this stuff, but you can also plug him
in and helpside. I'm watching him in pre season ex to tray Jackson Davis, and he's blowing everything up as a low man, and then he switched on to Jalen Brown for a good chunk of that series and guarded him extremely well on the ball, like on the perimeter Anthony Davis in the Lakers series, It's like, here's all
these different coverages we're trying to slow down Steph. And then in Game four, the pivotal game of the series, he switches on to Steph and gets back to back stops on him, forces him into a one leg fade away on the first possession, and the second one Steph just chucked it up from like twenty seven feet because he wasn't even gonna try to do something off the dribble. And like, I think, like we've reached a point here
where it's almost like wishful thinking. It's like people are hoping that Ad and Draymond will fall off, and yet they're still here. They keep messing everybody's offense up. I do think a big part of it is just that like kind of anti California, anti warrior like er bias, which I totally understand. But again, this is extending into the front offices. So do you think that we're starting to overvalue these like kind of versatile perimeter defenders when we're having these discussions.
I think absolutely.
And I think you know, other things are coming into play when people are making evaluations about A D and Draymond, and Draymond's case, it's the off the court stuffer in some cases, the on the court off the court stuff, and with Ad it's this weird obsession people have with his health and his tenacity and how much you can stay on the court, which I mean, you know, several years of his career, including last year, we're not an issue.
And so I think that is kind of of also informing this bias, like people have preconceived notions about who these players are and that impacts their estimation of them. In Draymond's case, I find it a little bit more understandable because it's it almost feels like people have kind of just had it with him.
They've just like had it with.
The Shenanigans, and we're like, we're not going to give you credit for what you're good at, while you're like making it so hard to root for you. I don't agree with that line of thinking, but I do understand it. However, Yeah, with Ad, I think it's like, oh, he can't you know, street close, Like he can't stay on the floor. He's pretty much debunked bad at this point. You know, obviously he hasn't put back to back seventy something plus game
seasons together in a while. But I think the hyperbole is so outsized when you look at even this other defensive Player of the Year or like best defender class, you look at how many games those guys have played, Like I was looking at this. He played the same number of games as Rudy Gobert last year, seventy six games. He played three more games than Yannis, five more games than Bam and Victor, and seven more games than Drew Holliday. So he played more games than everybody except for Rudy
Gobert in those that caliber of player last year. And we're not sitting here being like, I don't know, can Victor stay healthy for eighty two games? Like I'm that's a concern of mine. He's like seven to six, Kenny, stay healthy. We have almost no proof of that. We have one year's worth of proof. So I just think a lot of it is sort of self determined narratives about who these guys are versus on the court production, and I think a lot of people just genuinely don't
watch the Lakers. I think that's something that I've learned from talking to a lot of people around the league and trying to understand what this anti Anthony Davis bias is about. I think a lot of people watch segments on First Take about the Lakers, but they don't actually watch the games, the regular season games, so they're not seeing what we're seeing.
Yeah, the Lakers had that bad stretch and it put them below I think they got down below the eight seed. I think at one point they dropped down to like nine or ten in the standings, and then it was like everyone just automatically wrote them off and it just didn't matter what they did the rest of the year. We weren't even halfway through the season when that.
Happened, and they're like, oh, there was a plan team, They're a play in team, and what I've you know, the conversation that I appreciate that you have on this podcast as well, is like what constitutes a play in team in the Western Conference and in the Eastern Conference are just worlds apart, and I feel like that never factors into the conversation. I believe they won forty seven
games last year. That's a lot of games, you know, that's comfortably over five hundred, not to mention the fact that they ended the year as a seventh seed, which pre play in tournament. Is just in the playoffs, they're just a playoff team. They're one through eight, best eight teams in the conference. And that's with the margin for air being I think it was like maybe three games between the four seed and the ten seed, so it was just a ridiculous margin for air.
But yeah, I think that sort of well, they're in the playing tournament every year.
That's the That's the sort of start and end of the conversation. When really there's as many things on the internet a lot more nuanced to.
It than that.
But why include nuance when you could just truncate a conversation.
Would you could talk shit? Yeah, The easiest way I can explain it is there will be three play in teams this year in the Eastern Conference that are bad teams. There will be three teams in the Western Conference that completely miss the play in that are good teams. Yeah, like that that's the difference between that there are thirteen good teams in the West and there are seven in the Eastern Conference. Like that is that is going to be like, like, I like, who's going to be a
more It'll be really interesting to see. But who will be like a more scary team to play night and night out this year? The Atlanta Hawks, who are got like kind of like the eight team in the East, or the San Antonio Spurs, who most teams view as like most people view as like the thirteenth team out west.
Like the Spurs are honestly with Wenmby a little scarier to me for sure to play on a night in and it's Wenby Harrison Barnes, Chris Paul Like that's a lot to deal with compared to Trey Young and Jalen Johnson. Like it's just yah, I like the Hawks, but like that, Yeah, it's just that's the difference in talent level that we're
working at with here. So yeah, the next I had five total that I took out of the survey that I thought were fascinating among NBA gms or whoever it is that works in their front office that they allow to fill out these surveys. SGA received forty percent of the votes for who will win MVP, with Luca right behind him at thirty percent. I actually was looking at this and I was like, is SGA just the obvious MVP front runner this season? With how things are shaken out for Oklahoma City?
I mean, I think he's an obvious MVP front runner. I would I will caution that Luca was the MVP front runner going into I think the last five seasons in a row. So there's just so much that can happen and change. And I do think obviously they love to reward a team Oklahoma City where like they did it the right way, they built the right way, they
worked to the top conference. But they're also a very even balanced, you know, well staffed team at the end of the day, Like they have a lot of talent, and they have a lot of the right talent, and when there can be like a single solitary savior of a team, I think that that ends up helping players more, I don't see a candidate for that role as far as like that MVP narrative emerging, but you never know.
I'm more of the opinion that it's going to be Luca this year as long as Dallas is like top four, top three in the West, because I think they like to course correct, the voters do a little bit, and I think, you know, shy of the defensive performance in the conference finals, which I think everyone is still has a bad taste in their mouth from that, Lucas showed that he's like right there in the conversation for the best player in the league right now, and I think
that you know, he's been up or in the top three in voting several years, so it might just he might just be kind of due by the voters estimation, whereas Shae last year was his first year as an MVP candidate, and it usually takes like a couple of years of being a finalist before people actually break through and win the award. I mean, I don't even know how many years Joel Embiid was a finalist before he
won it. So if I had, if I was like betting, I would choose Luca this year probably, But I think Shaye is right there.
Yeah, I'm with you on Luca to where if they finish high up in the standings, he will get it because it's like you said, it's like that solo savior kind of concept. I think I had Dallas outside of my top tier of contenders going into the season because I just don't think they have as much talent as a team like Oklahoma City or like the New York Micks or some of the teams that I have above them.
And so that's where it gets tricky, is like if Luca doesn't play like an absolute MVP, like just to just kicks ass every single night, I don't think they're going to get in the top two or three seeds because the West is so stacked. Like you got you gotta think like Oklahoma City, I think is gonna run away with the one seed. And we're gonna talk about them here in just a second a little more detail.
But like Memphis is younger and bigger, and like they're gonna play harder on a night and night out basis, like they're a team that could end up very close to the top of the conference. Obviously, Minnesota with Anthony Edwards is like this young ball of energy kind of
carrying things. So like if Dallas drops to four or five, that's where I just I think it could get tricky with Luca getting enough MVP consideration because that's the thing, Like what holds Luke out of the MVP voting every year is he hasn't had a dominant regular season in
the standings. Yeah, that's the reason why, Like it inevitably kind of skews that way when I look at like I look at Shae as like I like at Oklahoma City is like Boston West, meaning like they have a talent advantage, and I think that that could work against Shae. But it's a little different because I think Boston has a little bit more of like an equal opportunity, we're all playing together, drive and kick kind of thing, whereas Oklahoma City kind of weirdly takes on a little bit
more of a heliocentric shay Ball kind of style. So like I could see a universe where the Thunder wins sixty games and Shay averages his you know, typical thirty eight and five or whatever it is that he gets to on efficiency, and like I just like I don't think Tatum's going to get to thirty points per game because of how much of an equal opportunity system it is in Boston. I don't think that Dallas is going to win enough games potentially, like so Giannis and the Bucks.
I think they're going to be a team that kind of drops down the standings a little bit in the Eastern Conference potentially. And so that just kind of it just kind of feels to me, like that makes sense to me that forty percent to thirty percent, because there's always that chance that Dallas just has a really good regular season, in which case Luca gets it like you, I'm blinking on the phrase you use. But it's almost
like a continuation of what happened in the postseason. Like it's like you carry a team to the finals and then you have this dominant regular season. People add legitimacy to it based on what they've seen you do at the higher stages. That ends up getting you more leeway with the voters. So it definitely feels like between those two I would get I would say like, let's just do let's do this. This is a last little question
in this topic. If you had to choose between Shay and Luca or the field for MVP, who would you take?
I would I would choose either Shay or Luca or you mean, like if I had to pick one, or pick the field.
Those two or the field.
That's really tough.
Because I was going to say, there's a there's a good Anthony Edwards argument as well, because I think that, again from a narrative perspective, like that would be really beneficial for the league if he has like a break, like an ascendant like I'm the best player in the
league type of season. And I would say if the Timberwolves by some miracle, I don't think this is going to happen, but if they end up as the one seed in the West, I think that the Anthony Edwards noise will be very loud for MVP, especially because I think everyone pretty much agrees they got worse. So I
think his case would be even stronger this year. But I think i'd probably take Shay over the Field just because I think, barring some really unforeseen plot twist, I don't see anyone else being the number one seed in the West.
I really I just don't see it happening.
I would say I would give Memphis a better chance than Minnesota just because I think they're hungry or for that distinct honor versus I think Minnesota has now had a really healthy taste of the postseason, and that's more
they're ready and they have some bets. So I think they're going to be focused on like staying healthy, staying ready for staying in that one through four seed if possible, that home court advantage, seating, But like, I don't think they're going to be prioritizing having people take them seriously and thus getting the one seed. I think Memphis is really on like a revenge tour, like you forgot about us,
but we're back kind of season. So I think I would take Shay just from that seating perspective.
Yeah, I think I agree that. The simplest way that I could put it is like that he's going to have a very good MVP case under any circumstances, barring it an injury, so like it's really somebody else has to come up with a better case than best player on the best team in the Western Conference. Like that, that's just kind of the way I think it's naturally
going to shake out this one. I'm I think you're going to be surprised at the stance that I take, But Jason Tatum was the runaway best small forward in the NBA, receiving forty seven percent of the votes, well ahead of Lebron James and Kevin Durant. Do you think Jason Tatum is the best small forward in the NBA?
I like, really, I hemmed in hod over this one because it really defined, like it calls into question like what is best and what do you prioritize and best?
And is best?
Like you need a guy who's going to play eighty two games and who has a really really high floor and who at worst is probably going to get you like fifteen and fat, you know what I mean, Like on his worst, like disaster of a night, he's still going to be very productive. Like yeah, I don't think there's anyone in the league I would take over him in that respect. My personal definition of best is like the highest ceiling, and I don't think he has that,
So that's what's tough for me. I would say my cop out answer is I would pick Luca because I don't consider Luca a point guard. I consider him a small forward. So that would be my cop out version of the answer. The second caveat would be in a series or in a single game. I still think Lebron is the best in the league, and I don't think it's particularly close in a vacuum like we saw in
one Olympic game or in one postseason series. Taking into consideration four playoff rounds and eighty two games, you'd probably want Jason Tatum over anyone else if you don't consider Luca down to is a small forward. So that's my long rambling very a lot of qualifications.
Answer to that question, Well, most basketball coaches would tell you your position is who you can guard, and Luca can't guard point guards, so that would mean he's more of a forward. So on that front, most coaches would agree with you. I you know, it's funny. I'm with you, like one game tomorrow, one series tomorrow. The only guys I'm taking over Lebron are Luca and Jokic right now, and I think he's pretty close to those guys if he's healthy and he's ready to go for that two weeks.
Like that two week battle, I want Lebron, Katie and Tatum. It's a little bit more of a toss up for me, but I might lean slightly towards Katie that said, like to start a season. I just think it's clearly Tatum. Yeah, I think that. I think that his motor at this point in his career as a twenty six year old six foot ten just beast of an athlete that can
guard all these different positions. And like the Celtics, there are all these looks that teams will use as like trump cards in specific like tight spots where it's like even when he was younger, remember it'd be like, Okay, we're gonna put Lebron in the point guard, or we're gonna put Lebron on the center. We're gonna do this or whatever we're gonna do. But like Jason Tatum guards
centers for the Celtics regularly throughout the regular season. That's such an insane value add in terms of like just a card that you can go to. I have a feeling too, similar to what we talked about with Draymond and ad where like a lot of people are using some surrounding circumstances to kind of diminish who they are. Tatum had a bad couple of months there, Yeah, in the playoffs into Team USA, and I think it caused a lot of people to kind of get off his
scent a little bit. Yeah, And I do think that he's a much better a shooter than he's let on. I do think that he's gonna continue to get better as he gets into his late twenties. So, like, to me, that made sense, Like if I was a GM and I was starting a franchise today for this entire season, I do think that Jason Tatum gives me a better shot, just because he's got a little bit better chance of making it through all of that basketball traffic between here
and June. But yeah, there's no doubt that if it's a big game tomorrow, I want Lebron, a big series tomorrow. I want Lebron. And like, one of the things that I thought was fascinating too, I'm not sure if you noticed this, but did you see how they had like the like the regardless of position votes.
Oh I didn't notice those.
So at the end of the positions, they just took everyone's votes regardless of position and just stacked them. Okay, And there were two things that were fascinating to that to me about that Jokis was number one. The top four matched my top fours Jokic, Yannis Luca and Shay. They did have Janis over Luca, though, which I thought was fascinating, and then they had Tatum at five. So I interpreted that as like, these front offices view Tatum as the fifth best player in the league, which I
think is a defensible place to put them. I think there's the top four and I think there's a little gap. And if you wanted to tell me Tatum was the top of the next tier of players, I could totally get behind that. Where do you have where do you have Jannis and Luca? Do you have Janis over Luca or vice versa?
I have Luca over Jannis right now.
I think Jannis, you know, is he is an incredible athlete and he's a psycho competitor, and those are two things that are like truly invaluable.
In the NBA.
I do think it's interesting that, like, if you actually look at the totality of their careers, Yiannis has had more injury issues than Luca has. That's shocking if you just look at a what they look like objectively and be like, who you would imagine takes better care of their bodies. It's kind of crazy. But Jannis is an injury risk at this point of his career, it's it's
not objectable, like when you've gotten too the playoffs. Even the year that they won the championship, he had to have a herculean effort to overcome an injury that I thought was for sure a series ending injury. I mean, he looked like an piece of origami that bent the wrong way. I was like, that was to me, the most impressive thing of his career was the way that he came back for that injury. To you know, come back and win four games in a row in the finals.
It's just like unfathomable. But I just feel like a Luca, you know, as shocking as it may be, based on the empirical evidence, you can count on him for longer to be there through four playoffs series, which again makes no sense, but that's just the truth of it. And b like ball in his hands, game on the line. Maybe that's not a metric that like matters to everyone, but it is a metric that matters to me.
And I can't really think.
Of anyone in the league right now that would be scarier for the other team in that scenario than Luca, you know, So that matters a.
Lot to me.
Like, however, whatever internet cliche you want to use to describe it, he's got that dog in him, He's got that mom of mentality, whatever you want to use to describe that phenomenon. Like Luca has it in spades, and not that Yannis doesn't have it, but he's just not someone who's going to like create his own shot in that way.
I think, Yeah, the I always look at it from the standpoint of team building, like, yeah, Jannis obviously brings all of these motor things and this transition scoring and this defensive kind of like help responsibility that he does so well. And it's just that I can replicate most of that through good roster building and attention to detail
with my coaching staff. Whereas whereas with Luca and his superpower, which is the ability to create shots against elite defenses in a half court, that is the thing that cannot be replicated. I can't you can't. I can't drop a set to get up an easy shot against an elite defense in a five minute stretch at the end of a game, Like, it's going to be really, really difficult.
That superpower is so valuable. One thing that I thought was really interesting, did you notice that Janis was getting a lot of votes in these defense categories, and like Giannis is a very good help defender. When he's the low man, he's very good. But in ball screens he's okay, not great, And on the ball on the primitive he's okay, not great. Like johannest to me, has the reputation around the league. Yes, guys like Draymond and Anthony Davis should have thought that.
Yeah, I think here's what here's my hot, hottest take on the GM survey and on a lot of these kind of polling people don't watch games like that's such a simple thing to say, but like so much of this is so clearly based on narratives and hearsay, and like a playoff series here and there, or like a high profile Saturday night game here and there, as far as like the eighty two games, these gms are watching what's directly relevant to what's directly in front of them for their own team.
Makes sense. They're pretty busy. They have a lot going on.
They're planning for the future, they're scouting for talent right now, they're thinking about trades, they're trying to keep their superstars happy.
Like they have a lot going on.
So not to say that their opinions don't matter, but I think that like people like us whose job it is to actually watch the games, consume them, process them, analyze them, have a lot clearer vision of what these guys actually do and what they look like than somebody in a you know, like front office position for a specific team that doesn't maybe have the bandwidth or interest
in like consuming that many regular season games. So I think that was a theme I saw throughout this GM survey and that I see throughout a lot of these types of surveys is like you guys aren't watching quite frankly, because a lot of it is like a lot of it feels like an echo chamber for like preconceived determinations about these players that have existed for years, seasons on end. Now, you know, like we've been hearing that Herb Jones is like such an impressive cool defender for.
Years and it's not wrong. Did I he's good? He's good?
Did I feel like his season in New Orleans last year made me feel like he deserves to be in the same conversation even as like a bamm outa Bio or Anthony Davis absolutely not but three years ago when he actually blew people away as this role player who ended up having a super high defensive ceiling, he cultivated a reputation as a really good defender, and that reputation carried through GM survey after GM survey when they're like, oh shit, my GM surveys do again, Well, I need
to fill this thing out. So I just I take all this stuff with a grain of salt, and I think at the end of the day, you know, as painful as it must be for guys who do get kind of the short end of the stick in these surveys, like.
The Valario O'Brien is the best.
Way to shut people up at the end of the day, Like, that's that's what they're everyone's after, and that's worth more than any survey answer.
Is anybody gonna actually, with a straight face sit there and say like, yeah, Herb Jones did more to anchor the Pelicans defense last year than Anthony Davis did for the Lakers. Like, I just I just don't get it. I clear too. Like with Giannis in particular, I think Yiannis is an awesome defender. I think he's in the
top tier of most versatile defenders in the league. My thing is that, like, it doesn't make any sense to me that he gets that respect, but guys like Anthony Davis and Draymond who are just in that tier, but I think both of them are better than Yannis. Yeah, that those two guys don't get that reputation and that's their job. Like Giannis, that's like something he does in
addition to everything he brings to the table. It's like there is very much like a there's very much like a culture that surrounds especially in NBA Twitter, where it's like everyone's almost like trying to be out there with their pick, like, oh, you know who I think is the most versatile defender in the league, Jalen Williams in Oklahoma City.
And it's like, oh god, yeah for sure.
Yeah, and it is what it is, But I just get annoyed. All right, we got two more for you, okay, for who is the best international player in the NBA. I was really fascinated by this one because I noticed a bunch of kind of like Luka momentum surrounding last year, a lot of people wishing on Yokic's downfall two and kind of celebrating his loss in that second round series, but eighty seven percent of the front offices voted Nikola
Jokic as the best international player in the NBA. So kind of a dominant, you know, or I should say, a clear sign that they view them as better than him, as better than Luca. So do you agree that jokicch is clearly the best player in the league over Luca?
Yeah, I think so.
I think what happened in the playoffs though, that's really interesting is Luca showed flashes of his ceiling, and Jokic showed flashes of a floor that we haven't really seen before.
So he showed that.
He's he's beatable, which we haven't really seen from him in a couple of years, because he's been operating his ceiling, I think, and he's been making. The thing about Jokic that I think made people so taken with him, and myself included, is he would hit these shots Like I had a tweet once that was like, Jokic looks like a kid in a Disney movie.
Made a wish to.
Get the powers to play basketball because like, nothing he does looks right and then it just goes in every time, like he'll like the behind the head.
Like there was one there.
There's one really famous, you know shot of Anthony Davis just like walking back in transition and shaking his head after he hit that crazy shot over him and the Conference finals a couple of years ago. But so, I think Jokic has been operating at this like incredible ceiling, and we saw flashes of what it could look like
when he's a little bit more vulnerable. Whereas Luca, we knew that he had this theoretical ceiling, we hadn't really seen it, and we really saw it, I feel like, especially in like the Conference finals, he just dominated a team that we had all pretty much been like, could.
They win it all? They could win it all, like they could be.
Boston, and then he went in there and he said absolutely not, not on my watch. And I think that's what we were all waiting for from him. So yeah, so I think there was definitely it was called into question. However, we have a very large sample size at this point that Jokic is the best player in the NBA, and it's going to take a lot more than like one kind of crappy playoff series, you know, or one and a half kind of crappy playoff series for me to hand that crown over to somebody else.
The way you put it, I think is super fascinating. Like, we saw a glimpse of Yokic's floor in a way that we haven't seen in a while, which was one he wasn't as good defensively as he was in the previous season. I think some of it was fatigue, but like he looked pretty bad towards the end of that well both series. I mean, the Lakers cut him up to pieces too, didn't have a very good defensive postseason,
and then he can't shoot threes. That was the That was the thing after he shot like forty six percent on threes previous year, and it was a huge part of his game, was like picking and popping, hitting those threes and driving closeouts. And then against Minnesota, like they're just like, yeah, go ahead, shoot it, We're not worried about you. So there definitely was like a little bit of like Yokic's floor that we saw, and that is
completely worth acknowledging. But we also like his Game five against the Timberwolves was one of the best games I've ever seen any player ever play. Yeah, like that, like that when he was just barbecuing Gobart on an island one on one time and time again. We know that he's capable of being at a higher level defensively, And in spite of everything that went wrong, they were up twenty in Game seven and a couple of things go differently, they go on to Dallas, and I would have picked
them against Dallas. Yeah, And to your point, we got to see a glimpse of Luca's ceiling. And what's interesting with Luca too, is like his efficiency wasn't as good as it typically isn't that postseason run. He was really bad defensively. There were specific defensive matchups where he really struggled, like lou Dort was causing him all sorts of issues over the course of that Thunder series. So I agree with you there's even like another level that he can get to there.
Yeah.
But for me, the main thing with Jokic that I think makes him better than Luca right now is I think he can be deployed on a basketball team in more ways. It can change the way he plays in more ways. So for instance, on offense, like you can force feed him in the post and he can go
to work on Gobert all night long. But he can also be this like devastating five out folkrum where you're running all these like screening options around him, and he can make Michael Porter Junior a useful offensive player and Contavious Cabo Pope a useful offensive player, and Aaron Gordon even a useful offensive player. Like you couldn't play Aaron
Gordon in Dallas next to Derek Lively. It wouldn't work in their system to have those two non shooters on the floor at the same time with the way that they play right and then on the defensive end of the floor, like with Jokic, I feel like I can construct a pick and roll defense with him with four players around him and reach the status of elite defense.
I mean, hell Denver was a top ten defense last year. Yeah, with Luca, like I can't hedge and recover with him because he's too slow, I pretty much have to switch him onto any ball screen, and in those situations he gets beat off the dribble consistently, like any team that can really space him out can look to attack him
in space. And so even though I think Luca has like maybe even a tiny bit higher upside on offense because he brings the ball up the floor, so he's less prone to some of the stuff that big guys can run into, like fronting the post or double teaming post ups and things like that. Like even with that, there's just so much more versatility that comes to the table with Jokic, And like, I do think that's the
right decision. And of all the things that I disagreed with these NBA front offices, that was one that we were on the same page for.
I think, yeah, I totally agree.
And I think the other thing with Jokic that makes him so incredibly special that to me is one of the other things that makes Lebron so special is like you know, this postseason is or I guess this year his three point percentage is kind of bad like all this last past season, but historically, like you said, he has this crazy of forty percent from three.
That's his absolutely last resort.
That's if he can't facilitate a single other guy on the floor first, you know what I mean, or get to or get to the to the post or whatever it is, Like he doesn't want to take that shot that's like three seconds left on the shot clock, Like I'm just gonna shoot it, and I know I can make it. That's devastating, Like how do you guard that, you know, like you you try and turn him off.
He's one of the best passers, if not currently the best passer in the league, So you're trying to turn off the rest of the offense and make him take his own shot. And he says, fine, I shoot forty something percent from three. I can get to the post, like nobody can guard me. So that's what makes them so devastating. And I totally agree with you there that Luca he doesn't have that entire tool set. He has
a lot of tools and he's they're very good. So I think their neck and neck, and I think this season will be like really telling as far as who gets to like hold that distinction as the best player in the league, because I don't think Yoka has.
It locked up by any means.
I agree that the three point shooting to me is just a ceiling razor to your point, Like he doesn't want to do that. He wants to roll because he's so good with that floater in the role, Like, and he shoots damn near seventy percent on it, right, and that's actually worth you know, damn near one point four points per shot, which you'd have to shoot an insane percentage from three to hit that efficiency. He always likes to do it as like a kind of like a
way to save energy. Yeah, and that's what I thought was fascinating about that Game seven against Minnesota. In the second half, he started popping because he was fucking tired. He was tired, he was worn out, and so instead of rolling, he was popping up out there and he just couldn't knock the shot down. And so I said this last year, but like, when he's hitting forty five percent of his threes, he's far and away the best
player in the league and it's not close. And like that's where it's like, what do you do with this guy eighties walking down the floor shaking his head. There's nothing you can do with this guy. It's with the lack of the shot and the slight decline on defense, he's come down to the pack. And I agree with you. I think that that Jokic is surpassable now in a way that he didn't used to be unless he somehow regains a shot, and we'll see what goes on. I
know he's been dealing with some wrist stuff. There might be an injury involved there as well. But yeah, I agree this year is going to be very telling Dallas fans, in particular, judging by my YouTube comments, I think that Dallas is a better team than Denver, and so if that's the case, let's see it manifest, and if it does, maybe that will will come to fruition.
I think I'm someone who's pretty who's lower than the pack on Denver this year. I don't think they're going to be bad by any means. I think they're solidly a playoff team. I don't think they're going to be dominant, though. I think there's a lot of internal discord and turmoil happening there. I think how long it took to get Jamal Murray that extension was very telling, and I don't think it was a coincidence. I think they desperately needed a backup big, they drafted a great one, and he
got a season ending injury in NBA Summer League. I think they've one by one lost some like really fundamental players to that championship run and are counting on replacing them with young guys who have definitely like shown flashes of really high ceilings and like they can be really good. But you saw the Warriors try and take that approach of like that's cool, we'll just develop our young guys internally and become you know, back to back champions that way,
and it's it is a riskier approach. And then I've heard also rumblings that like Mike Malone in the front office, the rest of the front office, there's been some headbutting there. So I don't know that's maybe that's my hot take, but my hot take for the season is that I think Denvers might not have a great year.
I don't think they're going to be dominant, just simply because the young teams at the top of the West are going to play so much harder than them on a night in, a night out basis. I think people are underrating how exhausted they were just by the long playoff round the year before. And they've got like some guys too that like Cacp's a little older now, gets
a little banged up. Jamal Murray had that calf injury against the Lakers, and it's like everything seemed to go wrong and then they were up twenty in Game seven. You know, it could have gone it could have gone a different way. I do agree with you that I don't expect them to be dominant. I do think they're a better team than Dallas, though, and I think that that will show throughout the season. Also, Christian Brown getting
plugged into the starting lineup in a weird way. He's a bigger, better athlete than KCP, than a higher motor guy. And the discord you're talking about the front office or within the organization, one of the big things that I've been hearing is just in general, the front office is desperate for Mike Malone to play more the younger guys, and Mike Malone is is very much like a veteran guy. He wants to play his vets. All you have to do is go look at how much Peyton Watson was
playing in the regular season in the playoffs. It is it was super, super confusing, and it's like that that could be a big swing for Denver and the standings this year. Is like, if they play their young guys more, I think they might actually win more regular season games because guys like Peyton Watson, they're like immensely valuable in regular season NBA basketball, because like, nothing's worse for a thirty two year old NBA VET in February on a Tuesday.
Then the six foot nine freaky athlete that's playing super hard and like that could be such a pain in the ass to deal with, and so like I I think, I think, I think I'm a little higher on him than you. I'm really high on him as a playoff team. Like I think, let me just let's actually just put you on the spot real quick. Okay, I think Denver's might pick to come out of the West. Who's your pick to come out of the worst?
Woo, that's it.
I mean I like that take cause I think Jokic I don't think he as much as people are, like, he doesn't care about basketball, Like dude cares about basketball. It's like it's a little bit of a bit at this point that he like is like I don't care whatever he Nobody nobody gets that good if they don't live.
And breathe it, period.
Like exactly, you can get maybe make the NBA if you're over seven feet, like by not really being that passionate about it, just based on the fact that there just aren't that many people over seven feet in the world. You can't become a multi time MVP if you're not obsessed with basketball, It's just not possible.
So did I that right now? Like Yokiic cares about basketball, I think I'd still pick Okay. See.
I just think there it's like such a confluence of great things. They got the perfect off season acquisitions.
I think.
I think Shay is like right at the right age to kind of crest at that peak. I think they have a really good coach, and they seem to have a really great locker room that really gets along. I think that the guys they added are guys that are very additive to a locker room environment. Like I think Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein are two guys who are going to come in, put their egos aside, get to work,
do it needs to be done. I think that's super just pros, just pros who've never been the guy and have no interest in being the guy, but can play their role extremely well. And I think that that's something that's maybe the most underrated thing to have on a championship team. It's just guys who are like, I'm not trying to like work my way up the corporate ladder of this basketball company, Like I am really happy with the job that I have and I just want to
do a really good job at it. I've gotten paid well enough for it, and I think Shae is a superstar. You know, we talked about he's probably an MVP front runner, and at the end of the day, when it's not cringing time in the playoffs, it's like, do you have the guy?
You know?
And if we both kind of agree that Dallas is likely not going to get far enough to even have Luca be that in that conversation as far as like who's the guy coming out of the West.
I think Shaye is going to be the guy.
I know Jokic is the best player in the league, but I just think with all the other factors at play, I would still pick okay See.
Yeah, it's to be clear. I have okay See very very close behind them. I think it's kind of a tricky matchup. It's different now than it was last year. I would have picked Denver to run through Oklahoma City last year.
Yeah, for sure too.
So obvious they're going to go with the heart and sign on Jokich with Chet and help type of look with like lou Dort just being a pain in the ass on Jamal Murray, and it's going to be a tough matchup. And and I do think that that I think a Western Conference finals between Denver and Oksee would be an absolute like just a just a legendary series. But yeah, it's just I just keep coming down to I think I think people are a little bit wishful
in there thinking about Denver's decline. And I think that people are, like we talked about earlier with the GM survey, just a little bit quick to want to jump on the next new thing. And so I leaned just ever so slightly towards Denver. This last question that I had for you, by the way, I loved to the point you made about Jokic. I was talking with Adam mar Is once and he told me that like Jokic like went home over the summer and took like a coaching
clinic online. Yeah, And I was literally I was literally sitting there thinking of like, oh, yeah, he's running home to go see his horses so that he can go sit in a coaching clinic when he because he hates basketball, Like of course, the dude loves basketball, Like, yeah, I think that's so ridiculous. Or like the video of him playing pick up with a bunch of random dudes on an outdoor court in survey, I'm like, this dude is
clearly obsessed. There's no version of this that that that would be a me to think otherwise.
Can I actually real quick off what you said about picking Denver, because like, hearing you talk about it, I'm like, you're kind of talking me into it. Something that you said that was like really kind of ring true. This is the formula where the Golden State Warriors won the championship a couple of years ago, which is like people
were ready to move on from Staph. People were like, what's the next thing, Who's the next team coming out of the West, and stuff was like not so fast basically like Steff single handedly was like not so fast and kind of willed that into existence.
And I could definitely see.
Yokic having a run like that, like a not so fast I'm still a Nigali Jokic type run.
So I love that and I felt for that too, Like I ended up picking Dallas and that wasn't Conference final series. That was wrong. I learned my lesson because I ended up picking them over Boston, but the same.
They beat the breaks off the Phoenix Suns, who were like the best team in basketball with a bullet.
All year long. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a para call.
It was yeah, yeah, Like that's the thing. It's like, actually, you just put really good role players around one of the best players in the league, and they're just still really difficult to beat four times out of seven. And so I think I think too, Like I'm gonna be keeping an eye on that Yolks jump shot. I was screaming from the mountaintops all year. I'm like, hey, guys, Jokic can't shoot. I don't know what's going on, but
like this is different than last year. And every Nuggets fan was like, no, it's not a big deal, it's not a big deal. He's fine, he's fine, he's fine. Ended up being a big thing, and so like, we'll keep an eye on that and we'll see how it goes. But I lean at this point in time, I leaned slightly towards Denver. So one last topic that I wanted to hit sure, and this one I think is fascinating in light of the Karl Anthony Towns trade.
Mm hmm.
General managers voted that the rule that most needs to change was apron rules slash trade math too restrictive or should be indexed to a team's market. Do you agree that we've gotten too restrictive with team building?
I mean, yeah, absolutely, But it's their fault. I mean, I think I texted you about this earlier, but I was like, it's like the hot dog meme or it's like we're all looking for the guy who did this. Like, let's put it very plainly. NBA owners want to spend as little money as possible to get the best possible result.
They are capitalists at their core.
That's how they got to the position where they could own an NBA team, And they don't want to have.
To compete with the Joe Lacobs of the world.
They want to spend as little money as possible, so they've been looking for a way to put a hard cap on salaries and circumvent that for years. This is what they've been after, This is what they've wanted. They basically did it. They basically somehow convinced the players' association to agree to this, which like CJ. McCollum, you will pay for your sins, Like how did this ever happen? But like they got the NBA players association to agree to essentially a hard cap.
That's what it is.
I mean, you can call it aprons to confuse people and make it seem kind of obtuse, but it's just like, you're only allowed to spend so much money on your team, and there are really punitive outcomes if you go over that that make it basically impossible to get better. So, I mean, I think they're absolutely correct that it's really restrictive and it was a horrible idea, but it was their horrible idea, so they're gonna have to deal with the consequences of that.
Yeah, you know, it's so funny to me because like the as as is the case with so many bad decisions that get made in society, Like a lot of times there's like a good kind of like motivator behind the decision, but then the actual tactic that they go about doesn't accomplish that purpose. Like, yeah, you want to make it so that these big market teams can't just buy their way to a title, right, that I totally understand.
But like, we just saw a small market team in Minnesota trade away a player that was home drafted and homegrown simply even though it did not like here's the thing, Julius Randall and Dante Devencenzo might make the Minnesota Timberwolves better. Like, there is upside. I'm not I'm not keyed in on that, but there is upside there. But they took a massive risk.
There's a chance that their team is worse, and I know that their front office is aware of the fact that there is a chance that their team is worse, and they traded away a homegrown, home drafted superstar because they can't afford it. Yeah, that's that a small market team just did that. Yeah, So that is the reality of how this whole process has come to fruition with the behaviors of these teams. Meanwhile, the Boston Celtics are like,
we got all these super expensive players. Hell, we'll just sell the team and let some super rich dudes come in here and pay this payroll. So and who knows if it ends up being some you know, one of these crazy billionaires that ends up being able to foot the bill for it. But it's like it ended up not solving the problem. And here's the thing, Like this, all they need to do, in my opinion, is take the time to make sure through these rules that teams
can afford to keep their own homegrown players exactly. It's really not any more complicated than that to me. So, like there are different things you'd have to account for, right, So, like let's say, for instance, a team makes an aggressive trade for a player that's on the last year of a deal that's discounted where they can match salaries easily, but then they get the players birds right bird rights
and they can extend them or whatever. There are different You just need to add constraints to where any team can easily go over the cap anytime to sign that they drafted, like that, plain and simple, that that needs to be accounted for. Yeah, Like outside of that, totally understand the restrictions. Like, but like there's no version of this where Oklahoma City should have to just literally get rid of players simply because it's impossible to pay all these players that they drafted.
Yeah, or try and get convinced guys to sign for less than their worth to stay in a situation that they like and stay loyal to a team because you're all so disincentivizing players from staying on one team. Because you take in Isaiah Hartenstein, for example, who had a huge breakout season with the Knicks, wanted to stay with the Knicks.
The Knicks quite frankly, could not afford to keep him. Oklahoma City could pay.
Him more than the Knicks could, even though the Knicks wanted to keep them and they would have matched if they could have, but they couldn't.
Make that make sense.
And then these are the same people who are complaining like, oh, players just hop around, they're not loyal to teams anymore. And it's like, well, if there's a ten million dollar difference per year, it's pretty prudent to go move to Oklahoma City.
So I think there's multiple things wrong.
The main thing that's wrong is what you address, which is that there has to be some sort of exception for if a player was drafted by an organization or if they've spent a certain number of years with an organization like that needs to be incentivized.
They need to be incentivized to keep homegrown players.
And I also think there should be something in there where players have a reason or are.
Incentivized to stay.
You know. So, like I think something I've always thought would be cool was I know this would be complicated because you would have to safeguard players from teams like keeping them right up until the point where this would happen and then trading them away. So there would have to be some sort of safeguard there. But if they could get equity in a team if they spent a
certain number of years of service with the team. So it's like, if you've played for a team for ten fifteen years, you should then get equity in the team in addition to your yearly salary.
And that would.
Incentivize guys to have careers like Steph Curry or like Dirk. Again, you'd have to safeguard against these owners having incentive to trade a guy away after fourteen.
Years of service or after nine years of service.
But yeah, like I've always thought the league would be better on both sides if players were incentivized and if teams were incentivized to just keep the same guys, because a lot of what we get compelled by and a lot of the storylines that we love in the postseason are battles that happened year after year, and like rivalries, and it's really like rivalries don't hit the same if
the teams look different every year. So but you can't expect guys to just stay on teams if a you're making it impossible with a hard cap, or be if they can make way more money somewhere else, or if they're unhappy in their situation.
So I think that's something that needs to be addressed.
And I appreciate that Adam Silver has been something of a maverick and his tenure about trying new things, But I think sometimes the new things he's trying are more pie in the sky like flashy things versus like just really like nuts and bolts, things that need to be fixed to make the league better in ways that are maybe a little less glamorous than like an nd season tournament.
Yeah. Yeah, when we when we talk about like TV ratings and like the long term health of the league, I think one of the most underdiscussed elements of it is regional fan bases. And you know, I sympathize with player empowerment. I totally get it. Like if in corporate America, if you like, if you have a talent in a specific field, generally speaking, you can find a company in a part of the country that you want to work
and you can go there. Obviously, though there are certain companies that require you to go to certain places, but there's a certain amount of flexibility, and it kind of sucks that like that a player that you could reach the peak of your profession and be stuck in you know, Memphis, you know, or something like that. Like I understand that,
I sympathize with it. I just think that it's important to have the nuance in the conversation to say there is fallout, and that fallout is so much player and roster turnover that local fan bases aren't as invested as they typically are, and there isn't that like love that builds for the core right, Like the Warriors' fan base is big and ravenous, partially because they've won a lot, but also because they've kind of had the same core
players forever until you know, until this year exactly. They build like a certain it builds like in like a resonance locally when you have that sort of thing, And like part of me wants to be like, hey, like, guys, if we put a little bit more restriction on player movement, yes, you guys will lose some of that freedom, But I believe in five to ten years the league will benefit with more revenue by virtue of better viewership, which will lead to you guys all making more money and at
least kind of have that conversation, and to your point, just add incentives make it incentivize. So like, yeah, you can leave if you want to, but you're gonna make less money. No different than if you choose to work for a specific company to live in a certain place, they may not be able to pay as much as Google does. Whoever, it is, right, And then as far
as like the actual CBA rules go, it's complicated. I want to be clear, Like what you and I are talking about is not a thing that can be solved in a two minute conversation, right, Like for instance, like one of the things that I would bring up is like, okay, so you can pay your own draft picks. What about Oklahoma City is hoarding damn draft picks? Cause like, at a certain point, a first round pick would become super
valuable in a trade. If that first round pick also was a player, I could pay as much as I wanted without any repercussions in the on the salary cap sheet. So like, there's a lot of different loopholes that have to be closed, Like it probably would have to be literally only your draft picks, like your team's original draft
picks that you can pay. Yeah, that like, like you mentioned, want to like, how do you quantify something like Okay, I brought in this role player and he's been here five years, Like, I really prefer to not lose him. He's a fan favorite, you know that sort of thing. Bottom line is, but you can't have is a small market team ditching a hometown superstar that they drafted and is literally like just an integral part of that franchise
simply because they can't afford to pay him. Right after they made a Western Conference Finals run and every Wolves fan wanted to see them run it back.
I mean to be clear, it's broken. It is, It's very broken. I would say the elephant in the room is that the Rudy Gobert trade is a huge reason why they had to make that choice. Then if they had I still think that's a bad trade, but it was really a question of they had on the books. Nasried is going to get paid a lot of money
and he deserves it. Rudy Gobert is already earning an incredible amount of money and Karl Anthony Town's on a max contract as well, and they can't afford to keep all three, and they could get more for Carl on the trade market than they could for Rudy Gobert, and that was the bargain that they made. But like if they hadn't traded for Rudy Gobert, who knows where they would be. But they definitely could have kept Carl Town. So was that's part of it. But yeah, I would say,
like to me, years of service. I think just rewarding that for the team and rewarding it for the player fixes a lot of things on both ends. You just want to reward teams for being the kind of place someone wants to stay, and you want to reward a player for being loyal and staying with a team. That would benefit everybody greatly. Everybody would make more money, every fan would have more fun.
It's just so clear.
And the only thing they've done in the past few years is make that harder to do. So it boggles the mind. That's the theme of this episode. Mind boddeling things exactly.
To the point that you made earlier in the show. I would I would imagine the front offices that have lots of people that actually watch the games are going to make a certain amount of you know, high quality decisions that are going to lead to because good basketball players cost money. They just do yeah, and so it's inevitable that like a front office that drafts well is going to have a fat payroll, and that's something that they need to be able to account for. But it
is what it is. Claire, tell us about where we can find you and your work.
You can find me.
I write for The Guardian about the NBA and I also just yell into the void about it on Twitter slash x at Claire mpls.
So either way, well, I sincerely appreciate you coming on the show today. That was fun, lots of interesting stuff to get to with the GM survey. Guys, that's all we have for today. I hope everyone has a great weekend. We'll be back for one more week of preseason basketball before we get into the real thing. I will see you guys on Monday.
The volume.
What's Up?
Guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.