Hoops Tonight - NBA Mailbag: Lakers & Warriors MAJOR difference, Jimmy Butler-Heat drama, Cavs surge

Kings Sportsbook Gap and make your pick right now. The Kansas City Chiefs are favored to win the Super Bowl at plus three forty, with the Lions right behind at plus four to twenty five. Here's another reason to watch your favorite players crush it in the playoffs. New customers bet five dollars to get two hundred dollars in bonus bets. Instantly score big during the NFL playoffs with Draft Kings

sports Book. Download DraftKings Sportsbook Gap and use code hoops that's h oops, that's code hoops for new customers to get two hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly. When you bet just five bucks only on Draft Kings sports Book. The crown is yours gambling problem called winded hundred gambler.

In New York call eight seven to seven eight Hope, n Y. Or text Hope n Y to four six seven six nine and Connecticut help Us available for problem gambling call 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 and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario new customers only. Bonus bets expire one hundred and

sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKG dot co slash audio. All right, well coon to HOOPSINAI here at the volume. It is time for our mail bag. Not on Friday like it usually is, because I've headed out of town. I'm not even sure which day this is going to post, but a bunch of you guys dropped a bunch of good mail bag questions and our YouTube comments over the course

of the last week. Remember, if you want to get questions in the YouTube comments, I go to our full episodes over the course of the previous week, and I just look for anybody who writes Colon, and I'm going to read what that says, and I'm going to accumulate a bunch of them together and put together a mail bag for our shows on Friday throughout the season. So make sure you keep dropping those mail bag questions. You guys are the jope before we started. Subscribe to the

Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLTS. You guys, don't miss show announcements. I forget about our podcast feed where we get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leviate rating and a review.

it captured a feeling that I had last night. This I'm recording this on Saturday, but on Friday night when I was watching all of the great Hoops around the league. This comment said, dude, screw the media. The NBA is sick. So many good teams, real juggernauts in both conferences and real threats to the juggernauts right behind them. It's such good drama. I totally agree. I thought the same thing

when I was watching last night. I sent out a tweet somewhere along the same effect where I said, you know, the Boston kind of like, at least try to trick us into thinking that they're relaxing a bit this season, as they've been, you know, pretty far behind Cleveland throughout the regular season in the standings. Boston trying to trick

us on that front. Again, I say trick because I still feel like Boston is a decent chunk ahead of everybody in the league in terms of two way versatility in the playoffs, meaning the different things that they can do to account for different types of matchups on offense and on defense to give them the best chance of

weathering the storm through four playoff rounds. So like, I still view Boston as the best team in the league, but they're at least trying to trick us into thinking that they're not as sharp as they were last year. One of the weird things about this recent stretch for Boston is they'll have incredibly dominant performances mixed in as they decide on that particular night to really push their foot their foot down on the gas pedal, and they can do some real damage to these teams.

We've been talking about this a lot, especially in the Western Conference, but it seems to be a recurring theme that the team that gets to hoist the trophy kind of in the middle of the first third of the regular season has a hard time getting up for games in the few weeks after that. The Lakers did snap out of it about a month later and played really good basketball the rest of the season. That's what I expect the Bucks to do. I view them as, as you put in the comment, as a real threat to

the Juggernaut. To me, there's the three Juggernauts, right, It's like Boston, Cleveland, and Oklahoma City.

a team that's a legitimate threat. There's all these teams that could make a deal and make things interesting. A team like the Lakers, a team like Golden State, even teams like Houston and Memphis, to me feel like if they get an upgrade at a certain spot, could go further in the postseason. Memphis may be able to do it without even making a deal. Memphis feels like a legitimate threat to the Juggernauts to me, so I agree.

It feels open in the Eastern Conference. Knowing that there are like four legitimately very good teams between milwauk Ucky, New York, Boston, and Cleveland. That makes me feel like there's a good chance we have a really nice end of.

like a legitimate threat. There's a bunch of teams that are trade candidates in there. I agree. I think the NBA is sick. It feels wide open to me, especially in that Western Conference, because Oklahoma City can't can't go through these like really bad shooting stretches like they view like it they I view them as a team that could get upset, so like it just feels wide open.

I agree that it's really good drama. What I'm secretly hoping for those we had really rough conference finals and finals each of the last two seasons, not counting the Miami Heat coming back to beat the Boston Celtic or excuse me, the Celtics almost coming back to beat the Miami Heat two years ago in that series that went seven when Jayson Tatums brained his ankle. But like other than that, there was very little drama in the second half of

the postseason in the last two years. I'm hoping that this is the year that we finally get a couple of really good conference final series in a really good NBA Final series. Next question, thoughts on Jimmy Quiet quitting on the Heat. So there's a bunch of different fronts to go at this. From one is like what Jimmy's doing to Miami And it's kind of sad to me because Jimmy was just such a good player for the Miami Heat for a long time and had kind of

become a fan favorite. One of the scariest playoff players that anybody would run into in this league. Some real moments like upsetting Yiannis in the twenty twenty the Bucks upsetting or the Heat upsetting Yiannis in the twenty twenty season, or like in the twenty twenty three season when he's going on that like mjesque run to eliminate them in

the first round, the trip to the finals. He had even had to pull up three against the Celtics in Game seven in twenty twenty two that if he would have made, would have sent the Mimy Heat to the finals. He just had a lot of big moments, right, and this just feels dirty. You know. I have another question right after this, kind of looking back to the Kyrie Irving debate, and I'm not going to get into it right now, but I think Kyrie Irving has been kind of like given this type of reputation in a way

that I don't think he necessarily deserves. And we're going to talk about that about that in a minute, Like this is way worse. Jimmy's done this so many times now where like he's just decided he's unhappy and his response is like I'm just going to be a dick to everybody. Kyrie Irving made decisions for his career, and we're going to get into that in a minute. But like, this is not the first time that Jimmy Butler's been like I'm unhappy. I'm just going to be mean to

everybody until until I at what I want. It's literally like a toddler. It's like dealing with the toddler. And it's just upsetting because you know, I sympathize where he's coming from for to a certain extent in the sense that, Okay, so Tyler Harrow gets going this year, and Tyler Harrow is now becoming their primary ball handler option instead of

Jimmy Butler. But you should have known coming into this situation as a forward with a bunch of miles on his body, with an injury history that's getting into his late thirties while you're playing on a team with younger talent, that you might be kind of like transitioning to passing

the baton a little bit. And part of aging gracefully in this league is identifying that and making the adjustment a big part of what has made Lebron still so good as he is forty damn years old is he's reinvented himself with the like he is a screen and

role partner now in a lot of ways. He's doing a lot of stuff on the ball still, but like Lebrono just sets screens for Rosser Reeves all night if if that's what the game plan calls, and like instead of transitioning into this like, Okay, Tyler Harrow is stepping up,

this is good for our team. Let me lean into weaponizing my traits to help the team in every way that I can elsewhere And no, damn well that if the shit hits the fan and Tyler's not the right guy, if he doesn't have the right matchup, that they're gonna lean on me. But instead it's been quiet quitting. It's been pouting, it's been refusing to shoot the basketball or to be aggressive. It's been a bunch of stuff like that.

And again we don't know exactly what's transpired behind the scenes, but a seven game suspension, the word conduct detrimental to the team. You're burning bridges on the way out, and it just is really sad because again, this should have been an era of basketball Jimmy Butler with the Miami Heat, this should have been an era of basketball that we looked back on in a positive light, and instead it's

gonna be something negative. The second piece of this is like trying to find a place for Jimmy to go, and it's really difficult because money makes fifty million dollars, so you have to aggregate a bunch of salaries to go get him to. Most of the teams that are in a position where they're desperate enough to get him have to be pretty deliberate about their trading process because they're usually a first apron team and they're not as flexible in their ability to to bring in additional salary

and stuff like that. Right, and he's a huge risk to chemistry because if it's not what he wants, who's to say he won't do what he did again? And just in general, we just have so many examples of him blowing things up when he's not happy. And so there are a couple teams I look at. Golden State's a team that you have to at least consider, right. Unfortunately, to put that sort of thing together, you have to include Andrew Wiggins. And Andrew Wiggins is playing really good basketball,

So it's a tough call. I think that there's a case to be made that it would actually make them a little bit more volatile in the regular season potentially, which is why you want to wait until the deadline to make that deal with you can. But I like the idea of Jimmy Butler, Steph Curry, Raymond Green is in a playoff series when things slow down and it's a rock fight and you just have three really damn

good basketball players out there. But there's a lot of different machinations there you have to get through to get Miami too, Like why would Miami want to take on the money of Andrew Wiggins, for instance, when they could get off of Jimmy Butler's money potentially, Although there's a case to be made that Jimmy might even opt in this summer because of just how big that player option is.

So like Golden State kind of feels like a flawed option to me, and like there's a case to be made that Golden State should just go after a guy like Cam Johnson instead. I'd like Cam Johnson I think is certainly the better regular season option, but I think Jimmy Butler is certainly the better playoff option. So that's

not a great fit. I've heard Houston get mentioned. I don't necessarily disagree that that's a move that would instantly turn Houston into a truly dangerous team in the Western Conference. The problem that I'd have is, like, you got something special bruin down in Houston, you want to bring in that old, you know, angry like late thirties, just kind of malcontent in there, and just see if he's gonna just mess up everything you're trying to build. Like it's

a risk. Same goes for Memphis. I've heard Memphis get mentioned as an option too. Memphis and Houston are two teams that, like, yeah, in theory, if they were able to get Jimmy Butler and add them to everything that they're doing, it makes them much more serious teams. But they just come it just comes with a lot of risk.

And so my guess is that this is a deal that gets done at the deadline, if it gets done at all, And if it gets done, my guess is it'll be done by a desperate team that is in a position where they have to take on some risk. And I don't know who that's gonna be, and we'll see, but like it just my initial impression on it is like I had some some people complaining in the comments

that I haven't talked about it yet. A big part is like I can't even come up with the destination that really makes sense right now, and I don't think anything's gonna happen until February, because why would you If you're Memphis or Houston, You're already winning regular season games, So why would you make that deal now. If you're gonna make that deal, you're gonna make it in February in all likelihood, right, and you're going to base it on how things look at that point in time.

Was it didn't make any sense to me. It was based out of like this weird vanity, like, oh, I want to go have my own team kind of thing. And I think Kyrie have found out pretty quickly that he's not good enough to have his own team and that he needs to play alongside a co star. But that was something he needed to work through with the Calves, and I think that there was some frustration with the team, with the way the team was covered, but that's stupid.

He should have been able to see through that and know that, Like, just because people talk a certain way about Lebron doesn't mean that that's the way Lebron's treating you, you know what I mean. Like it was silly, but it is what it is. The thing with Boston, I think he just wanted to be able to choose his destination. Every I think every NBA player reaches a point eventually where they're like, I want to have some agency here, Like I want to have the ability to choose where

I want to go. And so wasn't a place he chose. And Boston fans can be very grating at times. Trust me, I deal with it in my comments all the time. Like Boston fans they like I think. I think Kyrie was just wanted to fresh start somewhere away from Boston,

somewhere he could pick. So he goes to Brooklyn, right, And then in the Brooklyn situation, there was a lot of really questionable stuff that he did in terms of like no call, no showing from work, like leaving his team without communicating with the coaching staff, the stuff surrounding the COVID vaccinations, Like, there was a bunch of stuff that he did during that time that just left his

team hanging. And he deserved criticism for that and all of the things that happened over that era made Kyrie seem like a flake. And for the record, that was an earned reputation at the time.

I said it at the time. I was like, this is Kyrie just wanting to find his next new deal, and I thought that through exploring the Boston thing and through exploring the Brooklyn thing, I thought it was a pretty worthwhile risk considering the things that Kyrie was hunting and trying to learn about himself. He had learned and I thought he was ready to kind of settle down and be in one place for a little while and

figure things out. And it was a brilliant gamble for Dallas, and they made it to the NBA Finals, and I viewed them once again as a top five championship contender this year. I thought it was the right move, very very different circumstances than the Jimmy Butler thing. Jimmy Butler is like, straight up has financial security. He's got another few f ten million dollars on the books for next year if he wants it, or he can opt out and renegotiate a new deal. That opt in contract could

be traded to in the future. If he doesn't get moved at this deadline, he becomes an automatic expiring the following year if he opts in, so like you could have that be traded and then he could sign a new deal. Jimmy wasn't under the urgency that Kyrie Irving was under to find a new destination for him to sign a new deal, especially when you factor in his age the Jimmy situation is very different in my opinion,

than Kyrie's last trade request from Brooklyn. The second piece hypothetically, what sort of position with the Lakers be in right now if they had pulled the trigger on Kyrie like many people thought they would. Can you play out that hypothetical as you do? I think they'd be in a better position. The thing that it would have been tricky because you would have had to send out Austin Reeves. And I really really like Austin Reeves for the record, and I think he's a really good player. But I

think Kyrie's better than Austin. I don't think that that's necessarily a hot take. And you can imagine a scenario where you have a Kyrie Irving, you have a Christy that you get in the draft, You draft well, you find some discounted pieces, and you really really emphasize defense and motor. With the players that you surround those guys with,

they could be pretty good. They'd have their own shortcomings because you have three max contracts, and anytime you build a anytime you build a payroll around three max salaries, you're gonna end up with some shortcomings elsewhere. But like there are times where I think the Lakers could really use a more advanced perimeter score that said, like, I mean,

it's just it's all hypothetical. We don't know how it would have gone with Kyrie with the Lakers, and Kyrie's been hurt a lot over the course of the two years too, and with the payroll like that, and Lebron and Ad without a lot of support around them, it could have been ugly during those stretches too. So it's hard to say. But like, I don't remember exactly what

I said around that time. I vaguely remember being optimistic about the Lakers, or not optimistic but pro the Lakers making a Kyrie Irving trade, But I can't really remember my exact stance around that time. I have a Calves question here. A lot of Cavs fans were asking me why I thought they hadn't played the Celtics yet. I obviously know they've played the Celtics. I've done video breakdowns.

I did a full film breakdown on the last Celtics Calves game, So I don't know where they're getting that from. All I was saying was is that in the eight game winning streak, which I think is now nine in the winning streak where they had won every game by double figures, they had they had not played Boston Oklahoma City in that streak. That was literally all I was trying to say. But point being in that streak though,

they had played a lot of good teams. So what I was saying is like, this is a streak where they're playing a lot of good teams and winning every game by double figures. Maybe not the great teams, but they're playing all the good teams and they're winning by double figures. That was all I was trying to say. Anyway, here's our Calves question. If the Calves beat the Thunder one of two times, dare I say both? Are we

the top team now? So I'm not sure if you guys miss this, Cavs fans, but in the video that we did earlier this week, I think on Thursday, I already view the Calves as ahead of the Thunder right now. I think that their perimeter shooting is just so much

more reliable than Oklahoma City's. I think when you look at shot creation, like going from Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, and Evan Mobley as your primary shot creators to shake Gilgis Alexander j dub Chat Holmgren, I actually based on the depth there, Like Shay is obviously better than Donovan, but I think Darius is a more reliable shot creator with more experience, Like I think Evan Mobley and his growth is every bit is good of a third option

right now in terms of creating offenses guys. As a guy like Chat, I think Chet's a better player because he's got a little bit higher defensive ceiling with his rim protection ability. But like I think the shot creation is relatively even between the two teams, maybe a slight edge to Cleveland, and then Cleveland just has way more

reliable shooting off of that, I uh. And then on the defensive end of the floor, like they're different types of teams, Like Oklahoma City has more good perimeter defense, but at the same time, Cleveland's been defending really really well this year and they've got that interior size piece and that's what they're gonna do if they were to face each other, Like if we got a Calves Thunder Finals, like you're gonna see a lot of Jared Allen and Evan Mobley in the plant in the paint as the

Calves basically, dare some of these Oklahoma City role players to shoot? So it's a small gap. I want to be clear, like I have Cleveland above the Thunder by just a very small gap, but I do have them above them right now, and for the record, like if I believe the Calves will beat the Thunder next week, we'll see what happens they're at home. I think it's a good matchup for them too, but we'll see how

it goes, Hey Jason. In one of his recent podcasts, Kevin O'Connor was discussing the improvements Cade has made this season, but question whether or not he could develop into another number one scoring option, and if he can't, what does that mean for the Pistons. I believe Caid can become the best overall player on a championship level team, but

not as the number one scorer. Instead, I see him as an overqualified number two who's more focused on setting teammates up, punishing mismatches, and being that switchable plus defender. My question is is it essential in today's NBA for a franchise player to also be the number one score? The recent finals MVPs have all been number one scores. However, I'd argue Lebron and Jokic didn't want to be that guy. It's just that they had to assume that role to

win the title. Haliburton is another case study that I think this would apply to. Thanks as always for your content. So here's the thing. I don't think Caid has to be a number one scoring option to even be the best player on his team. I think that every basketball player brings a list of traits to the table, and ideally you want your supporting stars to compliment each other. Right, So, for instance, like I would want to put a really dominant scorer next to Kaid just because that's the best

way to compliment a big, playmaking forward. What has made Lebron the best in his life? A guy like Kyrie irving next to him that can create his own shot, guy like a Dwayne Wade next to him who's a scoring guard. Right is what has been the best LUCA

season this year? Kyrie iv or this in his career, Kyrie irving next to him the time he made it a Western Conference Finals, Jalen Brunson next to him, scoring guards that can help him Like that doesn't mean that Lebron couldn't score that doesn't mean that Luca couldn't score. Doesn't mean that kid can't score. It's just a good complimentary fit to have a scoring guard next to your big, playmaking Ford. It depends on how fast Jade and Ivy's

going to develop. Can Jade and Ivy develop into that type of player that can be that kind of support for kid, And that's the kind of stuff like as I keep saying, like with the Pistons right now, it's a combination of experience, and then through the draft, I'd be looking at drafting off ball talent, meaning like guys that can really score the basketball without needing plays run

for them. Those are the kind like I'd be looking for older wings that are like three four year college guys and guys that are ready to play right away that are in that like six seven to six y nine phase that can shoot th rais and drive closeouts. Those are the kinds of guys upgrades of Malik Beasley, Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway junior that are younger and cheaper.

Those are the kinds of guys that I'd be looking at, Like right now, you have all these guys on rookie contracts, so you can afford to pay expensive vets, but you're gonna have to extend all these dudes and put them on max extensions. When they're all on maxes, you're gonna need to have discounted talent off of them. The way

you get that discounted talent is through the draft. But it's again you have to figure out whether or not Jade and Ivy is capable of being that number two, and we're only going to find that out through time and hopefully he gets healthy relatively soon. Can you please revisit your stance that the West is way better than

the East. Do you still feel that same way considering that the East has now won fifty one percent of the games versus West teams, and the NBA Cup has reorganized the schedule so that teams play a lot of in conference games early early on during group play. That means we're looking at an even smaller sample of East versus West games than we usually see this early in the year. So I don't know where you're getting that

fifty one percent number from. I pulled it up. In the West is they've played one hundred and forty two games intercom it's play, and the West is seventy seven and sixty five, so twelve games over five hundred, it's a fifty four point two percent win percentage, not quite

as high as last year, but still pretty high. And that number has dropped a little bit since the start of the season as some teams in the middle of the East, teams like Atlanta and Milwaukee and Philly have started to win some games, but like for the most part, the West has continued to be dominant throughout the year. That said, I do think Boston and Cleveland are the two best teams in the league right now, So for whatever that's worth, the top of the East is stronger

than the top of the West. But I do think that the Western Conference is pretty clearly stronger and they continue to demonstrate demonstrate that throughout the season. Jason, you keep staying on this Kaminga trade train, even when Jonathan does exactly what is needed twenty points, five assists, five boards in a plus twenty five game that his coach went out of his way to give props for props four. Dude, what is your problem with Kaminga. If you get Cam

Johnson without getting Kminga, that might work. This is a question that or this is an issue that I have that a lot of people I think missed just because I produce a lot of content. Like I'm gonna skip ahead for another question real quick, Jason, you make great, thoughtful content. I learned a lot from watching your videos. Some of your videos play some watch your videos to play contrarian, and you seem to take it as such. However,

some things you do actually show unmistakable bias. Please speak on the year Westbrook is having, because you've been extremely critical of him. This is the same type of example I have multiple times this year talked about how great

of a fit Russell Westbrook has been with Jokic. I specifically talked about how his ability to attack off of the two man game and actually draw Yokic's defender into the paint further allowing for those drop off passes has weaponized the two man game again, especially during the phase when Jamal Murray was struggling. I've talked about Russell Westbrook positively many times this year. The thing is is I do, guys, I do like four to five hours a week of

brand new content. I had a whole segment earlier this week where I clarified I'm not saying trade Kaminga just to trade Kaminga. I'm just saying, if push comes to shove and you have an opportunity to upgrade the roster with a more reliable player, player that has a higher floor, then yeah, you should probably include Kaminga. That's all I was saying. If you can go get Cam Johnson without

trading Jonathan Kaminga, by all means do it. If you can go get Jimmy Butler without trading Jonathan Kaminga, by all means, go do it. All I was saying is what ends up happening. And this is something that I've been riding this train with Warriors fans for the last two years now. Every time Jonathan Kanminga has a good game, everyone comes to me and talks about how amazing Jonathan Kminga is and how he should never be traded. I

have never disputed Jonathan Kaminga's ceiling. He's a freakishly talented young basketball player. He's one of the most athletically gifted players that we have in the league. Of course, he's gonna have really good games. He also has a really low floor because he's a young player who is very inconsistent, who struggles to replicate successes and struggles to get rid of mistakes that he makes. Very typical for a twenty two year old raw athletic forward, and I don't blame

him for that at all. Most people his age get to go somewhere else and make mistakes and learn how to play basketball slowly. That's not the case. He's on a team with Steph Curry and Draymond Green. And despite some of the statistical performance like the Warriors throughout the season have, like the on off numbers, the metrics that track how the team performs when Kaminga is on versus Kaminga is off, they're not good. Ideally, you don't want to rely on him. That's the point. You just don't

want to rely on him. If you can keep him in house and allow him to continue to grow while not needing him to be on the floor as one of your final five in a big playoff game, that's good. But if you're going to rely on him to be on the floor in a big playoff game, he's gonna get lost off ball, lose track of his shooter, fail to help when he's supposed to, lose game plan discipline, and teams are going to Saguway the hell off of him and dare him to shoot, and he might not

be able to make shots. So yeah, if you have the opportunity to bring in a Jimmy Butler or a Cam Johnson and the Nets or the heat go, we need Jonathan Kaminga to make this deal work or we're not doing it. I would make the deal. Why because even though Jonathan Kminga has a lot of potential, I do not see him as a foundational star, meaning I don't think he's the guy that you rebuild around. He's the guy that if you could have him for your rebuild, great,

But if not, then it's not the end of the world. Like, I think this team is destined for tanking and being really bad for a few years no matter what when Steph retires. So like, I just think by virtue of the fact that you're not gonna have a player as

good as Steph for a very long time. If you have the opportunity to give these guys a chance, maybe not even for this year, but for next year, like to bring in an asset that helps them rebuild around this court next year, then I think you gotta do it. But yeah, like if you can make those sorts of up grades without trading Minga by all means do it. I think that's the right move. I'm not a big believer in just throwing assets away for nothing. It's just

about the reality of their predicament. But again, as I said with the Westbrook thing, as I'm saying with this cominga thing, these are all things that I've set on the channel before. I don't blame you, guys, I'm not.

I'd have to not be scared about Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns being so easily attacked in the half court offensively once again in the Oklahoma City game, every slow down half corp is turned into Shae Gil just as Alexander attacking cat and drop or cat and hedges and bruntson and hedges and just getting really good stuff out of it.

the Knicks since the opening night catastrophe in Boston. A lot of things are better, but one thing is the same, and that is they have this Jalen Brunson Karl Anthony Town's half court defense thing. And like, I think there's

a couple of different things they can look at. One like blitzing instead of hedging, because they're just giving up four on threes too easily anyway, so they need to be a little bit more aggressive to maybe get more deflections, maybe force more turnovers, and then trusting the switch with more help, like on the play where Jalen Brunson got switched on to Shae. Shay just went right around him

and we didn't get into any traffic. And so they just need to have a better plan as a team for how to deal with teams that want to attack Jalen in kat and space. All right, three more questions, big believer in Golden State. Okay, Yet you gave up on the Lakers so fast and asked for their rebuild after two bad games, and you went on to keep repeating that you're skeptical about the Lakers only no other team to be skeptical about, God forbid the Warriors.

the Lakers and the Warriors. The Lakers are playing good basketball right now, but they probably like they're twenty and four team. I'd argue they've underachieved a little bit. I said before the season, I viewed them as a fifty win team if Lebron in ad state healthy and they've stayed healthy. There have been a lot of games this year that they should have won that they lost because of poor execution, poor effort, straight up quitting on some cases.

They're twenty and fourteen because they have a pretty solid roster. It's not a top tier roster, but it's a solid, yet flawed roster Golden State. That roster is devoid of top end talent other than Steph Curry. They have attacked this regular season. They have been diligent. They have overachieved

relative to coming into the season. Most of us viewed Golden State as a fringe playing team, like as a complete non threat, and then they came out the gates twelve and three before some of their talent realities and some of their guys broke down and they started to get worn down. My frustration with the Lakers was in order for the Lakers to win the title, they have to be incredibly sharp for day one to the end

of the season. I talked about it all summer. It was the entire reason why I supported the Darbnham firing and the JJ Reddick hiring. I was like, these guys need a psycho that will hold them accountable, that will help them attack the regular season every day so that they can get to April sharp enough to be the best version of themselves. Because they're not talented enough to win on the strength of their talent. They have to be the best possible basketball team that they can be.

And then when I watched them go two and five and then roll up into Miami and quit in the first quarter of a game, I was like, these guys aren't serious about the work. Very different than Golden State. Golden State has been serious about the work all season. That is a rock solid organization with great leaders that has been attacking things through and through. They have a

talent issue. So I'm excited about the Warriors as a long shot championship contender if they make a talent upgrade, because I know they're about the right stuff.

And like, as I look at the Lakers moving forward, I'm skeptical still because it's only been a few weeks, but like, yeah, if they maintain this throughout the season, they will clearly demonstrate like, hey, that group of guys that we looked like back in late November early December, that's not us. This is us. Why here's fifty games showing you why not eleven? Right? Like, that's that's what I want to see before I get back into really

believing in what the Lakers can do. That plus an upgrade up the deadline through the trade market, particularly of the two spot. That sort of thing happens, then I will believe in the Lakers again as a team that can win. Everything is relative. We're always talking about these things relative. So for instance, like why are you like you have this like optimism surrounding the Warriors. I think the Warriors are a long shot. I've never once said this year that the Lakers are or the Warriors are

a top tier championship contender. I don't view them as a top tier championship contender. Everyone's getting discussed relative to their expectations. The Warriors have overachieved at many points this year. The Warriors seem to me like a team that if you bring an offensive firepower, it could slot a lot

of things to make things easier. Maybe they could go from being a team that we all thought was like a complete non thread at the bottom of the West to a team that's in the middle tier in the West. Who who knows, Maybe they can win a couple playoffs series, find themselves in the Western Conference finals.

the season. Let's talk about their pros and cons. It's boring for me to just sit here and say Oklahoma City, Boston and Cleveland are great all day long. We gotta talk about, like those dudes are going to be in some high leverage games. We got to talk about their strengths and weaknesses. These long shot teams, you just are trying to put yourself in a position where maybe something

can happen. The Lakers are somewhere in between them, right, They're closer from a talent standpoint, but they've been more inconsistent in their execution and so much hinges on what kind of deal they make, and they're more likely to make a deal because they just they're just in a position where they're like, they don't need to go get a star necessarily, they just are looking for a good role player or two. The Warriors are looking for a high level offensive player, so it's a little bit more

of a precarious type of situation. But again, there's the fundamental difference between the Lakers and the Warriors. The way I've discussed him this year, the Warriors have a talent issue, not a championship character issue, like a basketball character issue. The Lakers had a basketball character issue earlier in the season. I hated watching them. After the first three games of the year, they relaxed. Now I am very encouraged by this recent couple of weeks. And Okay, so this is

the inevitable question that's going to come. Okay, Jason, you said that you were out on the Lakers and you said that they should blow things up. Had Lebron and ad maintained the bullshit level of focus they had during that stretch, they should have blown it up. They responded to their credit. Like a lot of times, we don't account for new information in the way that can change it.

he was in the early part of his career. I had someone in the comments goal like, you shot this well last year.

us out of the gym. So when I'm watching in the Miami game and they're two and five in their last seven games and they desperately need one, and this is a bad Miami team that just lost two in a row, and you're in a spot where you can rectify things and like ads, just like letting Bam drive right around him. And that was like the first game where Lebron started to play better. But other than Lebron, everybody just looked dead that night, like they just didn't care.

I'm sitting here like, Okay, you're not good enough to win the title from a talent standpoint, you have to be the best possible version of yourselves as a basketball team, and these guys don't look like they want.

for a living. It's like the Tatum thing. I've been wrong many times on this show. I talk four to five hours a week. There are plenty of opportunities where I'm going to be like, I have this strong opinion. Oh, it turns out I was wrong. If it turns out I was wrong about the Lakers, I'll say I was

wrong about the Lakers. I will tell you, guys, though, I need more than just a few good weeks before I buy back in on this team with how scarred I am from the way that they treated that early part of the season where it just seemed like they didn't care about being the best version of themselves.

like we should go with Max Christy. And like, my thing with that is like, I don't want to be relying on a very young guard who doesn't have any playoff experience when we get into a big spot, and I'd rather rely on Bruce Brown, who's a champion, who's literally played a substantial role at the same position for a championship team and done it for four rounds. Right, So like I that's why I was like talking about

that type of upgrade. But let's say you're like, Okay, we need to come up with an option where maybe we don't depend on Max in a big spot, but we also keep Max in the starting lineup so he gets tons of reps and we can ride out Max's good games. Because ideally that's what you want if you're saying that Max's shooting is upside and you think Max's ceiling is higher than some of these other guys, then okay. Another option would be Max keeps starting. Max plays every time,

every time he's in a big game. But he's playing well, you just ride it out and let him play. But hey, I would like to have a veteran option at the same position that's not as small as Gabe Vincent, not as bad of a shooter as Cam Reddish, but like a guy that you can put into that spot that's like a really high floor option. A guy that's like a good defender, good shooter, good closeout attacker, good size.

Maybe not the guy who's gonna go for twenty five on any given night, but the guy that's not gonna have the absolute nightmare game that you can count on doing your job. Josh Green is a great example of that. He's got good size, he's a forty three point shooter, He's played in big playoff games. He's a good athlete. He's got like kind of a trunky, like fire hydrant kind of build to him, which is my favorite type of guard archetype. If you have him, you can play

him in a ben roll. You can basically get the deal done for Gabe Vincent in one of the minimum contracts. Right, So you sent out gave Vincent and instead you have Josh Green. And then basically the idea there is is Josh Green is your bench guard, and on the nights when Max isn't a better option, or Max isn't as focused as he needs to be, or he's losing his confidence, let's go with Josh Green. You know that's really my thing is like I just don't want to depend on

Ruey and I don't want to depend on Max. Dorian Phinney Smith is the higher floor, lower ceiling version of version of Ruey Hachimura. A guy like Josh Green would be the higher floor, lower ceiling version of Max. There might be games where it's like, dude, Rui's bullying everybody under the basket and he's hitting all his threes. We don't need to use Dorian Phinney Smith much. We can play Ruey thirty five minutes tonight, right, Or the same thing goes for Max Christy. But then you have those

options Dorian and a guy like Josh Green. Hey, Ruy's losing shooters and not paying attention and just not hitting shots, and he just looks like he's this is not the right game for him. Okay, well here comes Dorian Finny Smith. Same thing goes from Max. Here comes a guy like Josh Green. I really like that option, the backup center piece. Again, I just when I look at how well Christian Kaloko has been playing, I just don't believe in using assets on a backup center. So yeah, if you can get

a guy that is discounted, sure whatever. But like I, I you know how I am with backup centers. I've been talking about this forever. I just don't necessarily see it as a big enough deal. Like I we just watched the Lakers get a win without Anthony Davis, So like I I am not as intent on tracking down

a backup center as everyone else is. That's not to say you don't do it if it's an easy like I've seen some people talk about, like well, what if you just go get Kessler Edwards without any like, like you can get Kesler Edwards with like I think it's

like Jalen Houchafino and you know, one first round pick. Yeah, sure, if you want to do something like that and you don't want to use that first round pick on something else, that's one thing but like, like I don't I don't want to be like sending out good wings for for a backup center that that to me just feels like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Last question, what is your note taking process while watching games to prepare for the videos?

Interested to see your thought process and mindset, especially compared to how a casual fan would think about certain plays. So basically, I, you know, it's so funny. I remember talking to Ethan Strauss about this the first time I went on his show. But like the way that I've always looked at my show is like I've always been

obsessed with like the story of basketball games. That's why I do more like instant reaction content than big picture content compared to some other people who are in this space.

I love instant reaction content because I think basketball games are very fascinating, like the journey of games, the way things start, the runs that are made, the way things close right, and you know, one of the originating things for you know, how I kind of started doing this for a living is like I used to sit with my buddies after a pickup game or after a men's league game, or after watching a game, and we just talk about how the game went. Now, we did this

really well. Yeah, I remember when we remember when you and like there was a game we played the Air Force Base team. We scrimmaged. I played with a group of guys that are just all kind of like mid thirties type of dudes that all played in college or played professionally overseas stuff like that. And we scrimmage against Juco's Air Force based teams, other club teams, things along

those lines, just for fun. It's just a way for us to stay attached to the game, right, And like there was a game where we played an air Force Base team and like me and one of my buddies like spammed this two man game like over and over again in the second half and just cooked them with this exact same action basically like a kind of like

a ghost screen action with another wing player. And it's like we sat on the sideline after the game and it was like hell yeah, like like we we were killing them with that, you know, or like you know, you discuss a defensive thing that you did, like oh when we switched that matchup and we got way better. Liked, we had a money tournament where we ended up in the double elimination round, and we lost the first game, and so we had to go back and we had

to beat them twice to win the money. And we made an adjustment where like I was guarding this like big six ' ten like forward who could really shoot the ball, and he was hitting some shots over the top of me. Like I was playing like perfect defense and getting good contests, and the dude was just hitting shots.

And then my buddy Kaylan was guarding a kind of a bully ball wing and he's Kaylan's really lanky, is about an inch taller than me, and he's a better athlete, but he's about twenty five thirty pounds later, and he was guarding this big bullyball forward and that dude was just going through him all game long, and so both of us were struggling with our defensive matchups. When we got back to play them again to have our chance to beat them twice to win the money, we switched.

I guarded the bigger forward, he guarded the lankier wing. He locked his ass up. I locked the other dude's ass up, and we won the money, you know, Like, and we spent a bunch of time after the game, just like sitting on the sidelines while we can barely walk. Who played six games in one day, and we're talking about how he did this thing that helped us get regain control of a situation that was going out of control.

I've always been obsessed with the individual basketball games, in the way that they are won, in the way that they are lost. And so what I inevitably end up doing when I'm watching these NBA games is I just have my notes open and.

So like, for instance, I'll put like, oh, mchal Bridges is doing some damage to Shake Kills with Alexander in the post, and then he just did it to Isaiah Joe too, So like mckail Bridges is punishing some of these Oklahoma City Guards in the post. I'll just like put that in the notes, and then it'll be like, oh, you know, the Knicks are running a pretty deep drop with Cat, so there's gonna be quite a lot of you know, Jalen and Shay needing to hit mid range

jump shots. And I'll just kind of like make that a note, you know. And then I'll basically just make notes throughout the game and it's kind of like a shit show. And then when I'm done watching the game, I go back to my notes and I try to organize it in a way that helps me kind of tell the story of the game, if that makes sense. But basically that's the point. So like like I do like rough notes, and then I refine my notes and then I go from there. But essentially, I'm always just

obsessed with like the story of basketball games. That to me is one of my favorite things to talk about on the show, and that's why we do the instant reaction content that we do. All right, guys, It's all I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you for supporting me and supporting the show. Again, I may do a show depending on how things go. As I'm

packing for the ski trip tomorrow morning. But I will absolutely be back to work next week in the middle of the week, either on Tuesday night or Wednesday, depending on when I get back from my ski trip. But we have a jam pack slate on that Tuesday night.

We have Lakers MAVs and we have our first Nuggets Celtics matchup of the season, so like we'll be getting into that as well as some power inankings and stuff either on I'll probably do the power inkings for sure on Wednesday, but we may or may not do an instant reaction on Tuesday, depending on when I get back. I'll let you guys know. Just keep keep tabs on my Twitter feed and I'll let you guys know how things go. Again, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting

me and supporting the show. If I don't see you tomorrow, then I will see you in the middle of next week.