Hoops Tonight - Steph Curry & Warriors fall to Jokic-less Nuggets, why Denver is West's favorite

athleticism limitations. We're gonna dive into that a little bit. Then we're gonna have our guy Carson come on. We're gonna hit some questions around the league, including some Lakers, that big matchup between the Sixers and the Bucks. The Dallas Mavericks suffer what could be their crippling loss here, putting them in a tough spot at the end of the play in tournament. And then I have some thoughts on the CBA negotiations in the league potentially heading in

the wrong direction. So we got a lot of stuff to get into today. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribed to the volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos, follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt And for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight,

all right, let's socks some basketball. So you know, there's this separation between the winning core of the Warriors and what they can do to grind out wins. You know, it's funny. When I was a younger basketball player here in the city of Tucson, and I'd play in the men's leagues and stuff around town, we would frequently lose to older teams that didn't have as much talented as us, but they just kind of knew how to play right, and that sort of basketball IQ fierce competitiveness, sheer force

of will. Whatever your elite, top end talent is that your specific team has, you can ride that a certain extent. But at the end of the day, this is a contact sport and there's a great deal of there's a

great many physical confrontations taking place on the court. I remember I'm a Cowboys fan, and I remember in the mid twenty tens, when their offensive line was so damn good, Like they'd roll up in the Green Bay to play the Packers and yeah, they're not as good as Aaron Rodgers and Richard Rodgers and everybody that was on that team, but they would just dominate the line of scrimmage and run the ball wherever they needed to go and eat two upclock, dominate time of possession, and they went and

it didn't matter what kind of skill advantages that the Packers had or whatever team the Cowboys were playing had. And I've always said that like those physical confrontations at athleticism, that whether that's perimeter defense and containing the ball, crashing the offensive glass or the defensive glass, running up and down the floor, and transition, all of those things are the physical battles that take place on a basketball court. And if you lose all of those, you have to

be damn near perfect everywhere else. And you know, Denver has a lot of athletes on the roster, Peyton Watson. Just again, how many times in the NBA do we have to see whether it's you know, a guy like a guy like Peyton Watson, what we've seen just Jonathan comingo with the Warriors flying around here the second half of the season on the Lakers, guys like Jared Vanderbilt

or guys like when you and Gabriel. We see this type, this archetype of player around the league and as if you're taller than six seven and you're athletic and you just play your ass off, you can impact the game of basketball in a lot of different ways just by flying around. Peyton Watson was everywhere in the second half of this game, making plays just with his length and athleticism.

Christian Braun, Bruce Brown. That Denver bench is athletic and they and here's the thing with that Warrior's roster, even though they've added Gary Payton. Now, the reality is is without Andrew Wiggins, they're a significantly below average team in the NBA from the same point of letticism, and you can win and overcome that. You just have to be perfect. We're gonna get into this a little bit deeper when we talk about the Mavericks later on in the show.

But like Stephen and Clay couldn't make a three in this game. I think they were six for twenty six up until the final sequence. I can't remember what they actually finished as but they weren't shooting very well. And if they're not going to shoot well, they can't overcome those physical disadvantages. The same thing with Kyrie and Luca. Kyrie and Luca have to be damn near perfect to make up for the limitations that they have elsewhere on

the roster. It's just a lot to ask. And you know, again, I think we've seen a lot of this narrative with the Nuggets as it pertains to Yokich's MVP case, trying to minimize the talent that's on this Denver roster, and the reality is, it's a lot of the same issues that I've been talking about with the Lakers having to

do with staggering. They just they play their starters together all the time, and then they bring in these line shift bench groups, and as a result, those groups really struggle because they don't have nearly enough talent because they don't stagger their players very well. They do occasionally, but not nearly as much as some of the other teams in the league, and so you get these absurd point differentials.

I'm sure some of you guys who were listening to the NBA TV broadcast tonight they had a graphic that they put up on the screen showing what the nuggets are when Yokich is on the floor and what the nuggets are when Yokich is off the floor, and you'll see differentials there. With the best players in the league,

often that's normal. They're your best player, and obviously, in the NBA, the singular best player on your team has more impact on winning than just about any other team sport, and so obviously removing that kind of guy off the floor, you're gonna see a drop off that goes around the

entire league, regardless of which player we're talking about. But the reality is is Denver even though it doesn't have the same kind of big names that you see in some of these other supporting casts, Like when you go to the Bucks, you know Brook Lopez and Drew Holliday and Chris Middleton, they're a little bit more renowned around the league. Right when you go to Philly, James harden Off obviously is considered a superstar, even if he's probably

on the tail end of that side of things. Tyrese Maxie was off the charts good again tonight with his shot making. He's a guy that you think of as like a star guard. So you think of those rosters as more talented, and I think they are, probably, but not much. And the truth is is that that Denver roster has a lot of professional NBA starting level basketball players that compliment Nikolayokis extremely well. And they do have

a good amount of size on the perimeter. What's Golden State's biggest weakness perimeter size, right, especially without Andrew Wiggins. Without perimeter size, you buy opportunities to shoot over the top for people, right. So, like you know, if the Warriors have to put Jonathan Cominga to try to handle a guy like Jamal Murray on any given possession, then guess what Michael Porter Junior is gonna be isoing Steph Curry. And Steph competes defensively and he puts in all the effort.

But the reality is is if Steph can tests a Michael Porter Junior hesitation pull up three, he's not bothering that shot. He's just not There's just he's just giving up too many inches there, right, So like Michael Porter Jr. Just consistently getting to his spots and elevating and knocking

shots down. Aaron Gordon as a do everything forward Contavious Callbo Pope, one of the most professional two guards that you have in the league that just does everything well that you need in a supporting player on an NBA roster. They have a lot of talent, a lot of athleticism. This is a good team. And guess what, Jamal Murray, He's capable of hitting all of the high level shots that the other stars around the league hit. This game kind of got off the rails there in that early

fourth quarter. Who was it that was hitting the shots? It was Jamal Murray flying through I think it was an elevator screen at the top of the key and knocking down his shot. Or the Nuggets forcing a turnover and Jamal Murray dribbling down the floor and pulling up

from three. I think, you know, I don't know how many times we have to see this, whether it's with the Lakers and how bad they looked with Lebron James and Anthony Davis and a bunch of like terrible role players versus good NBA starter level role players, or this Yers team who has struggled so much this season compared to last season because of just dropping two significant role players that they used to count on third if you

count for Andrew Wiggins getting out of the lineup. We just in NBA history, we've way too frequently applied too much credit to stars. They absolutely are the determining factor for a team. Ceiling. That goes without saying, but you do need good basketball players down the roster, and Denver has a lot of really good basketball players. And that's why as of right now, if the season were to end today, I mean, we'll see what. We'll see how things go with the Lakers and matchups. And Andrew Wiggins.

I saw a report yesterday that potentially he's returned to the Bay Area. I don't know if that means he's nearing a return to the team or not. Apparently he had been out of San Francisco before that. Right, So, like obviously some things can shake up at the bottom of the West, but right in the Suns one again tonight in Oklahoma City, Kevin Durant looked amazing, big shock that that poor shooting night the other night was an anomaly. So there are teams in the bottom that could potentially

enter this mix. But Denver to me remains the safest bet for the time being until we see matchups because they just have that top tier superstar. They've got the supporting players that fit perfectly with him. They have home court advantage and statistically speaking, one of the best home court advantages in sports because of elevation. They're just in a really good spot. And that's why if the season were to if I had to make a pick right now, I think the Nuggets are the safest pick, even though

there are lots of threats in the conference. All Right, guys, we're gonna get to a bunch of other topics around the league, but we're gonna wait for my guy, Carson Carson to call on Carson. What's up, buddy. It is good to see you, my friend. Good to see you too. Man. So, as you said, a lot we want to hit on here. Let's start with this. Anthony Davis has been on an unbelievable stretch as of ladies, at thirty seven or more

points in four of his last five games. Is he now playing well enough to be can sidered in the same tier as Yoki Mbad when we're talking about that absolute top class of big men around the league. Dude, I'm so excited to talk about this with you. You're the specific person that I think is the perfect person to have this discussion with because you're you're a huge Yoki fan. I as of late, have ranked MBAD above him, and obviously Anthony Davis is on this tear. I'm excited

to get into it. That was an impressive win for the Lakers, by the way. They went down into Houston and and just crushed him, and Anthony Davis looked great. Lebron James was just playing old man ball, passing the basketball around Ruby hot Chamura. Just yeah. I've always said position battles are like the best thing to bring out the best in a basketball player. And it's like, hey, dude, do all the dirty work or sit behind Jared Vanderbilt and he stepped in and he's playing really well. It's

a good win. The Lakers are looking really, really good as of right now. They are literally tied in the lost column for the five seat. Can you believe that after this season? But so here's this is my this is my take, Carson. I think that Anthony Davis is in the same tier with those guys, but does not have a case to be considered above them. Again, you

have to factor in availability with this stuff. Like I frequently get in trouble with Laker fans who act like I don't value Anthony Davis when simply I look at it from the standpoint of what he looks like when he's available in an rhythm versus when he's dealing with injuries. And the fact of the matter is he's not been able to finish a playoff series healthy since he hoisted the trophy. That's just a fact, and that's a that's

an important footnote on Anthony Davis's career. He has the ability to clear that reputation right, just like Joel Embiid has in recent seasons by playing through pain and being more available to his team. But like when I look at it, you know, he's not the same offensive player as Joel and Nicola Yokes. That's obvious. He's not the same level of isolation score or post score that Joel Embiad is. He's not the same pass or not in the same stratosphere. Neither is Joel Embiid to kill Yokis.

But I do think he's a significantly better defensive player than both of them. I think his ability to protect the rim supersedes both by a significant margin, and he has the versatility to switch out onto the perimeter. He's the ideal small ball big in NBA history. I've often said that, you know, Anthony Davis has never had the case to say he's the best defensive player in the league because of his availability, But I do think his defensive ceiling is as high, if not higher, than any

player in the NBA. And make no mistake, he's not a slouch on the offensive end of the floor. We've seen it recently. This is a third consecutive game with thirty eight plus points. He's gone for thirty five plus thirteen times this year. Most of his scoring average stuff, which which dude, He's still averaging twenty six points per game. It's not like he's got some low average. But he

does have issues with consistency of aggression. He does have issues when it comes to settling for jump shots from time to time. But when he is engaged, healthy, trusting his foot, and locked in on both ends of the floor, he's every bit as impactful as Yokichen Embiid when they're at that same level. So I'm curious to say, do you think I'm jumping the gun there? Do you think there's a gap, or do you buy a d as that level of player I think when we're talking about ceilings, absolutely,

and there's plenty of evidence for that. I mean, Anthony Davis twenty twenty in the bubble run was viewed as a bona fide top three, top four player in the world, had one of the best two way runs that we've ever seen. And sure that was a bit unfair because he just decided he was going to shoot thirty eight percent from deep, which he's never seen from him in any other stretch of his basketball career, but never was

the ceiling. You're right, when he's available, is best defensive player on the planet, and we've seen some offensive production from him this year that we've never seen before in terms of the skill, and I think that that's a huge reason this has been such an awesome season for him.

Like the dominance that he's had in that short range shot making outside the restricted area, but his hooks and his floaters forty eight percent on those shots is eight percent up last year almost he's been significantly better for mid range, and he's stopped taking a lot of the bad jump shots. I feel east in comparison to some of these previous years, Like Ady's been a horrible three point shooter for the last three years now, and he's taking less of them this year, and I think that's

just a benefit to his game. He's been aggressive, he's been physical, he's been efficient. Like if you look at these last two games, I think he has thirteen offensive boards, and he's creating second chance opportunities for himself. Bob Zone Missus. It's like when ADCs Alpern Shangoon and goes right into his chest and either just goes through him and gets a layup or puts up that little touch shot. That's awesome. When he consistently does that, He's had an awesome rebounding season.

Great defensive player. The Lakers are a top three defense when he plays, they're a bottom five defense when he doesn't. Like this is what Anthany Davis can be. He's a wrecking ball. Yes, he's not as good of a pure score of the basketball as Joel Embid. He's not nearly the offensive player that yokies, but his two way ceiling has got to be the highest because he can hang forty on you in four out of five games and be the best defensive player by far out of these three.

The difference is just the consistency. And it's not just availability, Jason. Those two, as these perennial MVP candidates a status that they've both earned, as these consistent carry their team night to night guys just have a different level of consistency. Yokich may not take fifteen shots every single game, he's going to touch the ball one hundred and ten times. He's gonna dictate basically every possession, and he's gonna lead

to a lead offense. Embiid is basically just gonna get his thirty and be the most important defensive piece for the Sixers every night. And Ad just has never had that consistency, the aggression, the mentality, Like even in the last few weeks, among these incredible masterpieces, you have that eight point game, you have a pair of fifteen point games, Like it's just different. And that's why I think those two guys have to have the edge. But yes, Ad has proven it, and he had these two years of

like shocking regression. But this Ad right now is as good as bubble a d he is. I mean, he's added new elements to his game more consistently that are more legitimate, in my opinion, than him having a thirty eight percent three point shooting run that was just never going to be replicated. So no, I don't think that you're out of bounds. But it's the consistency that separates

these three. To me, that the level of footwork he's been demonstrating, particularly in the last two games, it's like old school Chimolajuan, like pivot, pivot, spin over both over both shoulders. He actually looks a touch quicker than he has in the last couple of years. I think it's just a product of how much the Lakers have needed to lean on him as of late and him just drop and wait. Look, here's the thing. When you're putting together a list, you have to put Yokachen and Beat

in front. They've earned that right. But I mean, I would argue, especially in a playoff setting, if he's healthy in a playoff series, there's a case. I'm not saying I would necessarily take that pick, but there's a case that ad is the guy that you would pick for a series. Again, looking back to twenty twenty, he was definitively a top four player. I thought when you were looking at it, it it was like Lebron, Stephen Kadie were all still clearly ahead, but like coming out of that

twenty twenty playoff. Now Jannis has since lapped him, that's a fact. But coming out of that twenty twenty playoff run, if you had Jannis over eighty, you were the crazy guy, like, because Jannis and his lack of half court polish showed up in a big, ugly way in that Miami series and Anthony Davis was the half court you know, like tip of the spear for that Lakers team, and they would just dump the ball to him with seven seconds on the shot clock and they were scoring healthy over

a point per possession. Like, he definitely is deserving of being in that in that tier at least when we're evaluating for a playoff series. Before we move on really quick, I wanted to ask you. I said that Joel Embiad's play here the second half of the season has demonstrated to me that I think he's a slightly better player than Yokich. Are you ready to make that picker? Do

you disagree with me? No, I'm not quite ready to go there because I think that there is still an offensive gap that is really underrated, Like the elevation that we see from yokis night tonight. It's unbelievable. And I agree with everything that you've laid out about the Nuggets playing their starters as much as they do together and that sort of messing with some of the team impact stats.

But the bottom line is that Yoki still consistently leads the best offense in basketball, are a top three offense, what has been the best team in the West consistently this year by far, and he does that all while being a liability defensively. I just think he is a generational, easily top ten offensive player of all time, and that to me makes up with the defensive gap where I just feel it and Beat is a bit overrated. I still think he's a plotting guy who can be exposed

in space. He's a good rim protector, but is holding guys like two percent below their average shooting percentage around the rim this year, So it's not a dominant like Yannis is sixteen, Right, Yanna is this unfathomable help side rim protector, and Beat is big. He takes up a lot of space. He's good there, but I don't think he's great. So no, I'm not quite there with you, and I will say if we're gonna have this whole. Hey, both these guys need to prove more were in the playoffs.

Yoki has has been way better in the playoffs than Embiad, and Bead has maybe once played up to expectations in a playoff series. Yokich has done everything. He's just been exploited a bit more defensively, but offensively he's been every bit as brilliant as ever, maybe even more so because he's more aggressive. So that's interesting. I actually go the opposite direction on the playoffs side. I think they're even. I think Himbad has been a much better playoff defensive

player than Nicola yokich um. But the big thing with Embad is his jump shot falling apart when he reaches that stage and that and that's such a pivotal important part of his game, and that's going to be when I'm keeping an eye on in this playoff run. But I don't think it's fair to give a playoff edge to either of them because like sometimes within B two, like do you remember that Raptors series a couple of years ago where it was like he was shooting terribly.

It was like he shot like thirty three percent from the field for the series, but like they just dominated the Raptors whenever he was on the floor and got their ass kicked every time he was off the floor, Like a very interesting pivot. Yeah, I don't know. I just think we've consistently seen the efficiency and production drop with MBID, Like he's under forty seven percent from the field in his playoff career, under thirty percent from three twenty four game. That's just not the same Mbiad that

we've seen the regular season. This absolute monster. So I would say Yokis has been the better playoff player, but I mean Ad, just to bring it back to him, has fought his way back into this conversation. He's earned it.

He fell a way out of it, and he had a stretch earlier this year, which now, I mean he's had that second unbelievable run, but the nine game stretch where he averaged thirty five, fifteen and three blocks per game, literally nobody has ever done that, Akeem, David Robinson, Shack, you know, Will probably did it one hundred times, but they didn't track blocks, and he did it on seventy two percent true shooting. So it's like you can't deny

what he's capable of. It's just let's see it more consistently and hopefully in an actual playoff run this year. If the Lakers can get it all together, that would be a lot of fun, because I hate to see wasted potential. Jason's let's pivot to another game that we saw between a couple of Titans out East, including Joel Embiid Bucks beat the Sixers. What did you take away from that game? You know, it's interesting. I the Jannis in the Bucks needed this game more than more than

I think, uh that Philly did. Obviously, it was an opportunity for himbat to put another stamp on the MVP race, which he passed on in the Denver game, which I actually I want to. We're gonna take it. We're gonna take a quick break here. Did you have anything to say about him beat skipping that Nuggets game the other night, No, not other than I think that, Well, this is a conversation we'll have later. I'm growing increasingly anti load management, but if it makes sense for anyone, it's Embiid in

his third game in four nights. I was just surprised that he would even allow that. After the interview came out that morning, I'm like, that's just a bad look. But no, I do not think it beat is ducking Yogis, And I think that if you think that, that's ridiculous thirteen straight games, Oh you skipped one then played every game since I'm not saying he's I'm not saying he's

ducking him, but it's not a good look. It's not a good look to play thirteen straight games, including a back to back without James Harden, games that you probably were gonna lose anyway, to then skip that particular game. When that game we know from the shophold that the MVP race was on like the fifty yard line, like it was dead heat between Yokichen and Bead, like it's it was there for the taking, and again like it

was to me. It was just like the part that I couldn't figure out was just from the standpoint of as a competitor, and like like how do you not want to try to beat him again? You know? But but that said, like maybe I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it was he had some tightness in his calf and he just decided to rest. But it was weird to play thirteen consecutive games and then to hop back for those last two. But so in this particular game, the Bucks came out

with a much higher defensive energy. They were The big schematic thing that stood out to me from this game, which stood out from their last matchup was just sticking Jannis on PJ. Tucker in the week's high corner. And he's already the most devastating help defender in the league.

Because again, you guys got to think of it this way, like James harden coming off of a ball screen, they like to trap, right, you'd like to be able to show high, not necessarily trap, but bring your ball screen defender up high out to hedge so that James Harden King gets downhill or to his pull up three and you're chasing him over the top of the screen. So you're throwing that pocket pass to Joel em Beat at the free throw line, and Jannis is just waiting for

him there every single time in help. And then he's such a great athlete that even when there's good shooters out there, he can get a good contest. But here's the thing. Philly's the best spot up team in the league, but PJ. Tucker's not one of those guys, and again he tries to impact the game as best as he can in that position. But I mean they basically played the Bucks to a draw when Tucker was off the floor and got their ass kick when Tucker was on

the floor. And I thought a big part of that was Yannis and Help And then a big underrated part of that too is especially against teams like Philly that are bad transition defenses, I look at like positioning Yannis

and Help as the perfect transition start. You know, like he's Tucker's in the corner, he's standing getting uncontested rebounds on all of the miss shots that take place in that action, and he's just grabbing and going every single time and again when he's when he's and I thought he passed the ball pretty well in this particular game. I think he only had like four assists, but he was making the right reads and making Philly pay every time they sent extra defenders, and that was just getting

him better opportunities to get downhill. It just again, it's it's urgency and physicality and all the effort stuff that went Milwaukee's way as a huge swing factor. But that's the biggest matchup piece that stood out to me because if you have to take PJ. Tucker off the floor, that's the guy you want to guard Yannis with on the other end of the floor, right, So it's just a it's a it's a pretty tough give and take. And then one other thing was just the Grayson Allen injury.

Tweaked his ankle on like kind of a funky step on the baseline, and that specific position has been a little bit of an issue for the Bucks because Pat Conaton hasn't played especially well and when they size up and go with guys like Ingles and Jay Crowder, they really struggle to contain on the perimeter, which we saw in the Celtics game. So like, it's just that that's a really unfortunate little ankle twist here. It's so close to the playoffs, but hopefully they'll have a good enough

first round matchup that it won't bother them too much. Yeah, I agree with everything you laid out. This also just felt like a game where it was kind of like, hey, Milwaukee's just better. I mean, when you get this level of impact from Drew and Middleton and Bobby Porters had a great game. Jannis got whatever he wanted. He missed four shots. Two of them were just dumb jump shots that why do you still do this? You know? The top of the key three had a weird pull up jumper.

And the one thing I do think that was interesting on top of everything you said, is and Bead is not always a guy who needs to get all the way to the rim to be super effective, right because he's such a lethal pull up jump shooter. If it's off the short role getting that free throw line, he can kill you from everywhere. He can also kill you just getting the line. But we do know how dominant Milwaukee's interior defenses. It did feel like Embiid was settling

a bit in this game at times. One of seven from deep only I believe attempted. He only made two shots inside of five feet in that restricted area all game, and he took twenty five of them, so I thought that they did a good job on him. But I do agree it just felt like there was more urgency. There was more intensity for Milwaukee in a regular season game like this, that can really be a majority of the difference. Let's talk about the Dallas Mavericks, Jason, because

they aust again tonight in the Hawks in overtime. They're now a game back of Oklahoma City for that ten seed, but they're effectively two games back because they do not have the tiebreaker. This is with three games remaining for each of these teams. Are they dead? Man? It's close Oklahoma. Oklahoma City gave Phoenix a little bit of a run today and had they won that game, it would have been over over, like actually legitimately over. But you know,

that was a really funny game. I don't I'm not sure if you caught it, Carson, but our producer Ryan was joking with us earlier. He's like, he's like, why did Quinn Snyder wait so long to jump back into coaching just to take on that Atlanta Hawks job with Trey Young the coach killer. They're just kind of like, it's funny because watching that game, like, I as a basketball fan, I love watching Kyrie Irvings so much, but everything else about watching those two teams play is just

like it makes me want to climb eyes out. You know, there was a really weird sequence at the end of this one. Quinn Snyder tried to give it away. I don't know if you saw it, but when they when they got that offensive rebound off the missed Christian Wood free throw. They ran a lot play for JaVale McGee. There's only four tenths of a second left, and they had click cappella like way out to prepare to like show or to hedge on any sort of like catching

shoot opportunity. And like, the funny thing is to get a shot off in four tenths of a second, it has to be utterly perfect, right, And it just was so obvious that the biggest threat to them was Lab and they just gave up that Lab pass to JaVale McGee. I did think it was I'm gonna here's the thing,

it's over Like the MAVs, they don't have. It's the same issue we were talking about with the with the Golden State Warriors, where like they just it's do they need perfection from Luca and Kyrie to overcome their physical disadvantages. But as I've said many times when we've talked about this team, I'm I don't really judge them this year. I mean, this is there's no there's no doubt that it's a catastrophe to entirely miss the playoffs, right, that's

a catastrophe under any circumstance. But they were just gonna get their ass kicked in a first round series against anybody, even if they happen to get out of the playing tournament. That was just the reality of their predicament. I did like what they went with down the stretch of that game, though, with Christian Wood and JaVale McGee on the floor, just going huge just gives them a better fighting chance in

the physicality areas of the game. By the way, McGee was a plus thirteen and christian Wood was a plus ten, and again, it probably won't be those two guys, but that's such a great example of that concept that I was talking about the last time we talked about the Mavericks. When you have surgical offensive players like Kyrie Irving and Luca don Chich, you can sacrifice offensive skill in your role players as long as they can compete with the

physicality areas of the game. So that's the blueprint right there. Go huge and athletic around Luca and Kyrie and let them make everything offensively. Obviously, it puts a lot on them as shotmakers, but again, this is a catastrophe. It's awful, but they were just gonna get their ass kicked and really it's about next season. But you've seen the blueprint and now they need to go. Yeah, there's just a lot that needs to be improved upon, and that's where

we're gonna have to see some creativity this offseason. Like they have some mid sized contracts here that they could potentially move, like Tim Hardaway Junior, who does not merit what he's getting at this point. If you could attach something to the Burton's contract, like maybe you can get somebody to take that on and you try to flip it into a really good two way wing because they need that. Unequivocally. They need to upgrade in the front

court all around, especially defensively. And I love Christian Wood. I always have because I was watching him in Detroit dropping twenty and ten in these meetingless April games and I was like, this guy's skilled. These you can handle. And I've always loved him for that. But the bottom line is that he can't play at the five for this team. When you have two liabilities at the point of attack and you don't have a great defensive wing, it doesn't matter all the fun things he can do offensively,

your offense is gonna be really good. No matter what, because you have Kyrie and Luca and he's gonna hurt you defensively where you just can't afford to take any more damage. So that's what it's going to be all about.

I agree with you. This is a bad look. It's embarrassing when you are coming off a conference finals run and you were like a top two team in the second half of last regular season and they were actually defending well and they'd all this going right, and then they let Brunson walk and we know that they could have had him for four years forty eight million if

they had had the foresight, and now he's a bone star. Like, there's a lot that's gone wrong in Dallas and bringing Kyrie into this mix is a dangerous thing to add to the potion of disaster, but it's also potentially the thing that could save them. It just requires a lot going right, and there's a lot up in the air here and I just don't feel great about where Dallas is at. And it's just a concerning dynamic overall, I

would say. And in terms of if they can do it this year, sure, I mean, you know they have the potential to explode offensively in any couple of matchups. They could beat Sacramento in Chicago and San Antonio. But it's like you said, it doesn't matter because they're one of the worst defenses in the league. They have been all year, and they're not gonna beat the Nuggets right in the first round series. They're just too far behind

on that. Yeah, it's inevitable. Yeah, let's take things big picture here for a second, because we just had a new CBA that was agreed upon yesterday and a few key takeaways from that Jason comment on whatever you want. The has basically moved towards limiting the spending that we can see from the teams that are most willing to

spend high amounts in the league. So they've put a second salary cap apron which is seventeen and a half million above the luxury tax that if you are above that, you can't even use the tax player mid level exception to sign players. That was an interesting move. Other things that we saw in that CBA now a sixty five game minimum for awards eligibility a mid season tournament. What stands out to you from all that news that we got, You know, it's unfortunate because there are some good things

in there, right, Like the mandatory minimums for awards. I think that will help. It'll never do the same thing and shortening the season, but that will help. I'm glad they let the players start smoking weed like that. That's just the dumbest thing in the world. When weed is demonized the way that it is, but they're allowed to drink as much as they want. It's just silly. Like. So, there's some things that I liked, but the reality was,

did they shorten the season? No, So that doesn't that doesn't send the game in the right direction in my opinion, Like, the best way to get players to play games is to build in the rest into the schedule by spacing the games out more like, yeah, how are you going to get a guy who makes forty five million a year to play a back to back against the Thunder and the Nuggets in February? You're just not going to

be able to, right. And if you space the games out to where there are no back to backs and there's multiple times a week where you're getting or every single week you have at least one stretch where you get two days off consecutively, Like little things like that will effectively be your load management. That also increases the urgency of each game by shortening the season. Each game just like if you shortened season by twenty percent, each

game becomes twenty percent more important. It's just simple math. And so I think that was the direction they needed to go. I mean, I'm going to keep an open mind about this mid season tournament thing, but like, the reality is is, I can't imagine any do you think Lebron's gonna care about a mid season tournament? Like, do you think that that's an accolade that he's after? Like no, So I have a hard time believing it's going to be anything more than just exhibition games if they don't

have any impact on the standings. And so it's like, and then the luxury tax penalties thing, it just does It's completely illogical to me. It's a it's a lashing out reaction to this Kevin Durant Warrior situation where they ended up with the assets to get D'Angelo Russell, to get Andrew Wiggins, and they don't want to have that happen again where you have this massive payroll. But the reality of the situation is that was a flukey occurrence with a massive cap spike that was not smoothed out

with Steph Curry on a bargain contract. It was the perfect storm of events that led to the Kevin Durant signing. Nobody's gonna go sign a superstar this summer in the luxury tax, it's just silly to me, and most importantly, it punishes good teams who draft well. I would like to see them structure it in a way that makes it so that if you draft a player and your scouting department does their job to get a good play or that player should count to the cap differently than

if you go out and sign a free agent. That's the way to add real fairness to this process in my opinion. So again, there's some good, but like I just think it's going in the wrong direction. The luxury thing, to me, makes no more sense at all. I agree with you completely, like you're gonna punish really good teams who want to spend a lot of money, who want to add that last quality role player. It's just completely

illogical to me. The one point that really stands out to me is the sixty five game minimum, just in relation to that maybe being some sort of attempt to fix load management, because we have seen a disaster in the last three years in the NBA. And I pulled these numbers a couple days ago because I was interested, because I'm just like, we're seeing stars sit so regularly. In the last three years, Jason All Stars have missed twenty percent of regular season games and ten percent of

playoff games. So whatever the exact cause of this is, right, I don't know the exact split between legit a bit injuries versus load management. But we can look back even to twenty seventeen, twenty nineteen, pace was similar, style was similar, ground covered with similar Right, it should be a similar toll on your body. Guys were playing eight percent more regular season games, six percent more playoff games. We are in a like, completely unprecedented disaster in terms of players availability.

In the entire point of load management, it's hey, we'll sacrifice the meaningless regular season game so our guys are ready for their playoff run. We've seen eighteen All Stars Jason miss fifty playoff games in the last two years. In twenty fourteen, not that long ago, zero All Stars missed a single game. I went back to nineteen eighty eight to ninety because it was the most similar era

in terms of a three year span. When we're looking at pace to right now, guys played ninety six percent of regular season games all stars almost ninety nine percent of playoff games. So something is very wrong here. I think the season has to be shortened. Load management doesn't seem to be the fix. But I don't know that this sixty five game minimum is really gonna help, because I don't know the guys of load managing for twenty games. It's more probably like ten to twelve. But it sucks.

It's taking the product and it's not even working at what it's supposed to do. It was like Nerd sashed right there. We listen to so much interesting information. I agree officiating in load management. If they can fix those two pieces, I think the legal skyrocket because they have so much talent. All right, guys, that is all we have for today. No games tomorrow, so we're taking tomorrow off. We will be back either on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

I can't remember off the top of my head. That As always, we appreciate your guys as support, and we will see you next time