Hoops Tonight - Steph Curry & Warriors STUNNED by De'Aaron Fox & Kings, time to panic?

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and Logan, They've been on my show several times. I've been on their show several times. Go over to the Nerd Sash feed and like I said, there's an hour and a half of additional analysis. We talked lakers at the start. We did a deep dive on the Phoenix Suns. We did a deep dive on the Milwaukee Bucks. We ranked the top five guards from the twenty twenty draft.

Talk a lot of Tyrese Halliburton and Tyrese Maxey and Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball and Desmond Baine, and we even went over some of the other guards that are at the tail end of that draft. We talked a lot about Nicola Jokic and the season that he's having this year. Just a ton of stuff with the Nerd Sash guys. Like I said, over an hour and a half. Highly encourage you guys that are fans of this show to go over to the nerdsh YouTube feed and click

on that video. Support those guys. Subscribe to their channel as well. They do great content. We're gonna be having them on our show next week as well. But yeah, just Warriors, Kings, Kings, Deep Dive, and some mailbag stuff today, all other stuff around the league. Go over to the Nerd Sess feed to get that. You guys are the Joe Forore we get started to subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. Scroll down and hit that subscribe button. It would mean a lot to me. And don't forget

about our podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops tonight, follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt. That's where I'm doing my film threads as well as show announcements. And then, last but not least, for whatever, don't forget about my mailbag questions. Drop mail back questions in the YouTube comments so that we can continue to hit those later on in the week. All right, let's

talk some basketball. So Warriors come out looking great, Draymond's back go up twenty four, but then Gary Payton tore his calf muscle. As we just found out, he's gonna be out for a long time. Completely changed the dynamic of the game. That specifically, because that unit, that Steph Clay Wiggins with Gary Payton and Draymond, that was the unit that was playing such dominant basketball there towards the

tail end of the second quarter. So Gary Payton goes out, Chris Paul hurts himself at the beginning of the game. I think it's just lower like soreness. I think he's gonna be fine. So you're getting a lot of Corey Joseph minutes in there. The bench unit in particular was having a hell of a time containing Malik Monk and Darren Fox and pick and roll, and then the Kings were blitzing Steph Curry, which again, like here's the thing.

The Warriors have seen blitzes of Steph Curry a million times, right, But sometimes a quick, you know, scheme change like that can buy you a short period of time where they're out of rhythm while they're adjusting to the new scheme, right, And it's one of those things where like I'm a big fan of throwing curveballs like that, even if they're not necessarily long term solutions, just because they can buy you an opportunity to maybe make a couple of plays

that can change the dynamic of the game. And that's basically what happened, you know, Like there was a quick seven zero run at the end of the first half, and they took over air in that third quarter, And a big part of it is just you threw them out of rhythm for just a minute by blitzing Steph Curry, and then from there you got going and all of a sudden, you're confident. All of a sudden, you're flying around on defense, the perimeter defense in intensity picks up.

Malik Bunk and Deer and Fox are now feeling great. They're getting downhill or getting to the rim. The game completely changes, right But despite all of that, the Warriors were still up by six on Curry free throws of the minute and thirty one seconds left. Kind of a weird call where Steph just went down and set a pin down and then just fell over on his face and got two free throws for it makes two free throws.

Are up by six with one minute and thirty one seconds left, and then this was the remainder of the game from there. So again minute a half, two full possessions, six points, Malik Monk gets Steph Curry and pick and roll and Steph I clipped all these plays you could see in the thread that I put on my Twitter feed. But Steph is opened up way to Malik Monk's left hand side to try to get over the top with

the screen. So when he's opened up this far a simple crossover move and his body is just going to be completely out of position to cross over, and so Monk hits him with the left to right Demona Sabonis flips the angle of the screen, so Steph just completely runs into the screen. Malike mun gets Downhill throws a whip pass across the court because he engages the low man in that case, whips pass across the court desash

if Hissenkov. There's a rotation pass goes to the top of the key to Andrew Wiggins, and Steph after dying on the screen, did not make the additional rotation that was his rotation to the top of the key, just basically stopped playing on that possession, and Darren Fox got a wide open three on the left wing and he knocks it down on the other end of the floor, Draymond Green misses the three from the top of the key. Wiggins gets two back on an offensive rebound put back right.

But then right after that possession on the left wing, Darren Fox straight iso of Andrew Wiggins just beats him off the dribble to the left straight line drive Loony's out of position. He ends up picking up a foul. Fox makes one out of two free throws. So now it's a four point game from there. Steph turns the ball over in the back court. This is everyone's fault. Steph makes a battery, not seeing the defender jump in

the passing lane in front of Clay Thompson. But Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney are in the backcourt, and I should say in the front court, and as soon as they see that the Kings are trapping, they need to run up and make a target for themselves as a release valve for Steph. There is no release valve. If you look at the Kings. They jumped that Klay Thompson passing lane, but the other guys were denied. There was no other pass for Steph to make.

try to make something happen in the ensuing chaos. Really nice pump fake side step three from an that gets it back to a one point game, and then Draymond Green turns it over on a back cut from Klay Thompson, a fake backcut. Again both of their faults. Draymond should not have thrown the pass in a really tight situation like that up one in the final minute unless it's very clearly open. But Klay Thompson. One of the most consistent messages I got from coaches in college was never

fake a backcut. The reason why you never fake a backcut is because it's difficult to communicate with the ball handler. If you fake it, he's thinking you're running. Back Cuts are weird in the sense that you're pretty much throwing people open, right like if you wait for the cut or to actually get open. A lot of times the defense can react to that. So amos, you're always throwing people open on back cuts. You're never supposed to fake

a backcut. So another execution error from Draymond Green and Klay Thompson leads to a turnover, and then on the other end, honestly I thought it was really nice defense from Andrew Wiggins against Malik Monk, cutting him off on his middle drive and forcing him to kind of reach back and shoot a wild shot over the top of a good contest from Andrew Wiggins, and he just made it.

And then on the final possession, Steph Curry brings the ball up the floor and hunts a three point shot and Kevin Herder ends up aband Nam Lay Thompson on the right wing with three seconds left. I thought he had time to make the pass, didn't hit him. I mean, hard to get too upset about that, because at the end of those games, it's always like a tough call

when you see how much time is left. It's really difficult to end that split second make a decision about whether or not there's enough time to make that pass. But I thought he could have. Did matter though, Steph took the deep three and he missed it. But it's funny because we have a tendency to overreact to singular, you know, possessions which can determine a basketball game, right, But a lot of times those singular possessions aren't reflective

of a basketball team in the large scheme. Right, Like when I look at this particular game. I'm not worried about so much the late game stuff from the Warriors because it's just unusual, right, Like Steph Curry is the guy who usually carries you home, so you're not you know, there's no adjustment you need to make other than the fact that Steph's not going to do that next time, right. So it's more important for us to look in at

the specific basketball things. And I do think that there are some specific basketball things that the Kings can do that give the Warriors some problems. I don't think it's a coincidence that they push the Warriors to seven last year with these specific issues. The Warriors have good wing defenders. They have a lot of bodies that are between six seven and six ' nine that can guard other wings right. Andrew Wiggins is one of the best in the league

at it when he's right right. Moses Moody is a guy that can really slide his feet and contain on the perimeter. Jonathan Kaming is a guy if you give him a really focused on ball assignment, he can have some success there. Gary Payton, though, is pretty much the only guard on the team that is capable of holding

his own against a good guard athlete. And one of the issues there is because they don't have great guards defensively, they're put in a lot of positions where they're in rotation and out of position, and so as a result, they foul a lot. They fouled a lot last night. And I know, look, Warriors fans are just like Lakers fans. They're entirely convinced that they are victims of bad officiating. And you guys know how I feel about that. In

my opinion, blaming officiating is a loser mentality. It's completely ridiculous to think that this entire entity of officials is against your franchise when like, you have to understand that the people who are officials and I'm critical officials. We're gonna talk about officials later, but I'm critical officials of officials in the grand scheme of things and specific types

of calls that they're calling around the league. But as an entity officials in the same way that we take our job seriously, all of us in all of our respective fields, they take their job seriously, and they're trying to be fair. Now or do they overinvolve themselves in games? Sure, but they're trying to be fair, and like the Warriors, they are twenty seventh and opponent free throws allowed per

one hundred possessions this year they were twenty third. Last year when they won the title in twenty twenty two, they were twenty sixth. The year before that they were twenty nine. That's four consecutive years being a bottom ten team. When it comes to fouling shooters, it is a It is a Golden State Warriors fouling problem that starts at the point of attack. They are out of position too frequently defensively. That is the problem. When you hear Steve

Kerr talk about the Warriors, what does he say. Does he say there's a reffing problem or does he say there's a fouling problem. He always says there is a fouling problem because that locker room is not full of losers. It's full of winners, and they all have winner mentalities. And their winner mentality is we are in control of our own destiny on this front. If we do a

better job, we will not foul. How did Looney get fouled on that get the foul on that final possession from Deerren Fox drive into the basket one of the late ones in the final minutes because Andrew Wiggins got absolutely toasted at the point of attack and it was a straight line drive downhill. Like there was another one on Dario Sartz that I disagree with it. And again, when you watch games, you're always going to be able to nitpick specific calls, like I saw calls, specific videos

floating around on Twitter and what this is. This is what confirmation biases. There are dozens of bad calls in every single NBA game, So if you have convinced yourself that your team is a victim of poor officiating, you will be able to find clips. But I guarantee you there were Kings fans watching that game last night that were super pissed off when Steph Curry got two free throws to put him up one twenty one to one fifteen, setting a pin down screen and falling over onto his elbows.

Like that's the point, Like it is you you're going if you want to go searching for bad calls, you'll find them. They happen in every single NBA game. They happen in every single crunch time of every single NBA game. You could argue a missed call plays a role in every single crunch time basketball game that ever takes place. But at the end of the day, that's just part of the game. And in the big picture, when you zoom out, there's a lot of miss calls, there's a

lot of correct calls. They tend to pretty typically affect each team relatively evenly. On any given one night, you might get a rougher whistle or a better whistle, but that sort of thing evens out over the eighty two and you see clear data that demonstrates that the Warriors foul too much. It's a pretty significant problem. Now on the flip side of that, to give King's credit, this is what they're best at.

knocks out a shot. He was against pretty damn good defense, but he made a shot anyway, and Andrew Wiggins, I think struggles a little bit against some of the smaller, quicker guards. That's what's a little tough with this roster, which we're gonna talk about in a little bit. But like this is what this is what the Kings do, and they've specifically had a lot of success this year setting ball screens further away from the basket. This has been a pretty consistent counter that I've seen around the

league for ball pressure. So think of it like this, like a lot of times you won't guard if he shooters that far away from the basket, right, And I would say Deern Fox, who's a good shooter at this point, he's shooting the ball pretty well this year, but like he's one of those guys that, like you'd rather give a pull up jump shot too, right. But the tricky part is is like a lot of coaches really want

to apply ball pressure for obvious reasons. If you apply ball pressure, they can get teams to slowly get the ballycross half court, which cuts into their time of the shot clock. It's a good rhythm disruptor. In general, I think it serves to make ball handlers less comfortable, which can help you, you know, force them into lesser games because they're not as confident, not as comfortable, not as

you know, free flowing as they're used to being. But one of the counters to that is if you apply ball pressure that far away from the basket and you set a ball screen there, put that on ball defender

in a really bad, a really tough predicament. And the Kings have been killing teams with this, not just regular ball screens that far away from the basket, but they also run this like kinda they run it out of horns where they'll have like Harrison Barnes and Demanded Sabonis basically come up to Darren Fox right at the top of the key, but like extended out to like thirty thirty five feet and they'll just both screen the on ball defender and then Sabonis will roll downhill super hard

and Harrison Barnes will pop out through the three point line. And they just absolutely killed teams with that as well. But like, this is the thing that this this particular team, this is the predicament they put you in. I always talking about. I was talking with the nerd SASH guys today when we were talking about the top Tier contenders, Like every team kind of has their identity, the stuff

they're good at, this stuff they're bad at. I think Sabonis got exposed a little bit last year in the playoffs is a power player who struggles to bully good defenses on the front line. But it pretty clearly stood out that hold On they're actually capable of being better defensively on the point of attack than they were for most of the season. And they're actually really really difficult to guard when they're spread out because how easy it

is for their guards to beat people downhill. And I think I think like coming out of that playoff front, if you guys remember I talked about how the two guards was an actual excellent foundation, but they had to find a way to get more stops than they were getting. Right, this is where I want to move into the King's deep dive a little bit, because again, if we look, Kings have won eight out of ten. The two they lost were to the Pelicans, and they got just absolutely

sliced and diced by Zion Williamson in those games. And if you really look at their roster, that's like the one positional archetype that they're just not set up to handle, right, and Kings have some gaping flaws. That's why I don't consider them to be a top tier contender.

the Calves in the thunder at home. They've been probably the most impressive team in the league over the last two or three weeks.

in the past. They are thirteenth in defensive rating over this ten game span. And before you go, oh, Jason, thirteenth is not anything. What were the teams they played? Look at the teams they played. They played a boatload of good playoff teams and had the thirteenth best defensive rating over that span. I don't think that's a coincidence. And the big thing that's standing out to me on

tape is just commitment from the perimeter defenders. This is a team that has a lot of speed and length on the perimeter, and so when those guys do their job, it's an easier job for the interior players. Right they're actually doing a particularly great job of chasing teams off the three point line. I talk about this a lot in terms of defensive foundations.

a lot of backside threes. If you have a lot of perimeter speed and you struggle in terms of interior size, it actually makes sense to do what the Kings do and just chaotically chase everyone off the three point line, because that's your biggest advantage is perimeter speed. And so they're actually the third best team in the NBA over the last ten games at guarding the three point line. They're allowing just thirty one point one to three point

attempts per one hundred possessions. That's insane. They're allowing just sixteen point eight wide open threes per game in the last ten games, that's the ninth best mark in the NBA. And then in addition to that, they're doing an amazing job cleaning up the defensive glass. They are grabbing seventy four percent of available defensive rebounds over this ten game stretch.

That's third best in the NBA. So what I find is super fascinating about this win streak is like they're making it a pain in the butt for everybody in the details, and they've actually been good, not great offensively. That to me is a really strong indicator of like

an identity shift within this team. But they're moving towards their strengths, which is we're fast as hell, so teams can't guard us on the perimeter, but we can flip that on them on the other end too, and we can chase them off the three point line and we can rotate, which is exactly what they did to slow down the Warriors last night. In addition to that, several

key guys are playing well. Kevin Herder, he was broke to start the season, but he's up to forty four percent from three on eight attempts per game over this ten game span. On the season, he's shooting sixty six percent in effective field goal percentage on pull up jumpers, way up from last year. And then he's one of those guys too that's like doing a good job in the dirty work. He's winning a lot of contested rebound battles. He's making efforts on the perimeter. Defensively, I think Herder

has been really good. Malik Monk is playing super well. He's just I tell you, I have as a Laker fan. I regret that we got him when we got him, because we had no opportunity in hell to maintain to keep him because of the situation with the salary cap and where they were at with the Russell Westbrook situation, and so it was inevitable that he was going to leave.

Warrior game. He's looking like a really smart addition. And then Dearon Fox is like flat out playing at a superstar level. He is going toe to toe with the best players in the league and beating them and confident and talking shit and having a good time. Like he's he's playing at an extremely high level right now. It's fifty four percent on floaters this year. The pull up

shooting is up from last year. Again, Like, specifically, they're figuring out that these ball screens far away from the basket are just giving him too much ahead of steam. And when he gets ahead of steam, he has all the reads down and then he can stop short to make that floater and then he can get all the

way to the basket. He's just one of those guys that, like right now, with the actions that they're running and getting him those advantages that far away from the basket, he's one of the hardest players in the league to guard right now. It's that that's classic combination. I always talk about a reliable pull up shooting with real downhill athleticism. But yeah, this is the version of the King that can make the Kings, that can make noise in the playoffs.

Not last year's version. This version can make noise. Only tenth in offense over this winning this winning stretch, but thirteenth in defense, and they've been the third best defensive rebounding team.

Miami Heat last year. It's a thing right now, it's I want to be careful with this because also if we go back through NBA history, it's typically a all time great player on a team that is dominating the regular season that wins the title. Right, if we go back, it's like it's last year, it's from day one. The NuGet, like the Nuggets are the one seed. Nuggets were the one seed, they won the title. Yoki is an all time great player.

Bucks one seed dominated the regular season that year. Twenty twenty, the Lakers one seed dominated the regular season that year. If you go back through NBA history, it's that combination dominate regular season with a like an all time great,

like pantheon type of basketball player. Right, So I always have to be I have to balance the reality of Like I don't think the regular season is that important as it pertains to playoff success, but at the highest levels in terms of like hoisting the trophy, it's typically a good indicator for you to be dominating the regular season, right. I wouldn't even say a good indicator. It's a vital indicator in a lot of cases. But we have seen teams get very close without that, And so that's the thing.

Payton got hurt. Gary Payton with Andrew Wiggins, Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, and Dremont Green was dominating that basketball game. Corey Joseph had to play big fourth quarter minutes, he shout a pull up jump shot on Alik Mounk got absolutely stuffed, which led to a runout dunk from Alik Monk on the other end of the floor, or yeah, from Alak Monk on the other end of the floor, Like, that's a huge swing in that game. That doesn't happen if Chris Paul's out there, and if it's a playoff game,

he's probably out there. If I remember, if I'm familiar enough with the situation, I believe Chris Paul was just dealing with soreness and was just playing it safe. And despite all of that, despite everything I just said, you still win that game if you don't make several crucial mistakes at the end, most of which came from your best players in Steph Curry and Draymond Green. Like, and it's a road game in Sacramento against the team that's arguably the best team in the league over the last

three weeks. Who's been blowing everybody out, including two top tier contenders on my list over the last couple of weeks. Like that was a tough game to win anyway. The Kings were favored despite the fact that the Warriors have dominated that matchup forever. So, like, I'm not going to

overreact to that game. Do I think the Warriors need to make a trade at some point, Yes, especially now that the the Gary Payton injury has come down, right, But like I've been telling I've been telling Warriors fans that I think they need to make a trade to upgrade that forward spot that's between Andrew Wiggins and Draymond Green.

I've been saying that forever. I was saying that during the championship season, if you guys remember, I literally was saying, like, you will have more margin for air if you make that trade. And then I had to apologize to the Warriors front office and ownership after the season because they ended up not needing it. Right, But like like that, my take on this stuff is always like increase your odds where you have an opportunity, push your chips in.

That's always my point of view. Now they literally have to because of the Gary Payton. But even if Gary Payton it did not get hurt. And even if the Warriors were ten and five right now, you know, or something way over five hundred, I still would be sitting here saying like, yeah, they should probably make a trade because they have some personnel weaknesses and they are things that they need to upgrade. They need more speed, they need more athleticism. Ideally, in my opinion, Andrew Wiggins is

on the up and up. This is the thing.

barely played. Like even when you're looking at the record, it's like, how should we evaluate the Warriors. Should we evaluate them with Draymond or without Draymond, Because if we're evaluating this chunk of games, it's been mostly without Draymond. That's the fact, right, So all of that stuff, to

me is trending in the positive direction. But even with all of that, even if they were sitting at a much better record right now, I would still be recommending a trade to upgrade specific roster groups because I've said this. I said this with the Nerd Sash guys.

of the group. All of those teams in the in that lower level, in my opinion, are a trade away from being in that tier. With all those guys you just now are in a more serious predicament because Gary Payton's out, I'd be looking at guys like Jeremy Grant. I'd be looking at guys at like Lori Markinen. I mean,

who knows. Maybe if the you know, the Hawks are having a lot of success with Jalen Johnson and Sadiq bays On in a contract year, maybe you can get Maybe you can I don't know, who knows if they're preferring DeAndre Hunter or Sadik bay in the long run, but maybe you can steal one of their wings. I don't know you but they need a big forward that's bigger than Wiggins, that's a good athlete in a plus offensive player that they can slot between Andrew Wiggins and

Draymond Green. That is the one thing, in my opinion, that will push this team over the top, like way over the top, and so like you're that close, you're still within striking distance. You need to make a deal. So to the Lakers, the Lakers entire championship potential this year comes to to what D'angela Russell trade they make the Bucks. In my opinion, their entire championship potential this year comes down to whether or not they can upgrade

them Elik Beasley position. Right, Like, all of this stuff is normal for teams that are at the top of the league. The difference is is the Warriors have had bad injury luck. They've had bad suspension luck. Obviously with Draymond Green. They I mean Draymond had the injury and the suspension, so he's barely played. You know, Steph Curry randomly missed two games and you ended up losing both of them. Klay Thompson was playing like shit, Andrew Wiggins was playing like shit, and you played the.

their problems. It's something that I that I that I think this hit this season hinges on at this point. But no I've seen I saw a Warriors fan say something along the lines of like everyone's up to be traded except for Steph, And I'm like, what, Like, why would you blow the team up over less than a fourth of the season with the type of luck you've had in the schedule you've played. I just don't get it, but again, like I'm not there are certain things that

people listen to the show should know about me. I'm not the guy to go to if you want to hear me bitch and moan about the refs in terms of like, uh, I will bitch and moan about the refs, but not about specific teams. I'll bitch about him in the big picture. And I'm not the guy to come to if you want to have me overreact to regular season results. I'm just not that guy. Like I have just seen too much in the regular season in huge sample sizes to feel differently in that regard. All right,

let's move on to the mailbag. Hey, Jason, I'm curious about Starver's role player growth. Take Stephan Clay for instance. Lifelong Warriors fan, excuse me. Every year, as Steph loses some quickness, the league adapts to his game plan, and his need for elite ball handling ramps up. In the playoffs, he seems to add exactly the thing to keep him effective strength elite ball handling, pick and roll mastery, et cetera. On the other hand, Clay loses some of his athleticism

and he seems to degrade as a player. The loss of his step makes him a less effective defender, and he doesn't seem to have the same separation he used to get that made his hot streaks unstoppable. But he doesn't seem to add pieces to make up for these losses. Is there some difference in what's asked of stars and role players that leads the former to adapt and grow and the latter to stagnate in the grade? Really good question. I you know, I have another question later on. I'll

just read you the question real quick. It's the third mail back question. Why has Anthony Davis's jump shot regressed so much? Is the third question? And this is what I would say. When you're talking about the real all time greats, and I'm talking Stephan lebron right, I have both of them in my top five perimeter players of all time. And you're talking Jokic, You're talking you know, Kevin Durant, You're talking these these like all these like

top twenty all time players. If you start to compare them to anybody else you're going to, it's just a ridiculous standard. And what I mean by that is like,

imagine the level of psychotic competitiveness. It takes to be as good as these guys are to where like specifically Steph, Lebron and Jokic, those three guys are the three most inevitable, unstoppable offensive, playoff offensive players that I've seen in my lifetime, and they like when they were at their best, specifically when Lebron is at his best, he's older now, but

like Stephan Jokic are still there. It's like they have patched every single hole in their offense and have made it so that there is no coverage that works, there's no personal type of defender that works. There's no nothing that works. It took psychotic competitiveness to get to that point. It's not like they get old and they would accept it.

That same psychotic competitiveness kicks in that causes them to evolve and adapt and like a lot of times, we forget that, there's levels to that even within the NBA. Like they're four hundred and fifty NBA players, Do you think all four hundred and fifty of them are psychotic competitors. No,

there's levels to it. Like Clay and Anthony Davis, for instance, those are guys that are very, very competitive and they're winners and they're foxhole guys, and they're tough, and they're good leaders, and they're good teammates and they're all of those things. But like, like the gap, there's still a gap there between those guys and what those all time great,

pantheon type of guys do. And so, like I think a lot of times it's what I what I'm saying is with that specific Steph Clay dynamic, I wouldn't focus so much on on on what Clay is doing and what he's not doing, and more just put the appreciation on Steph for what he is, which is an outlier in NBA history, one of the all time greats, like four hundred and fifty players in the league.

that those guys are. Why for the same reason where it's like, you know, Tom Brady can do all the podcasts he wants, and he can tell the young quarterbacks like, hey, you gotta do this, you gotta do that, like this is your professional blah blah. No, most of them are going to work as hard as Tom Brady.

teams that I considered in that top ten. There's like, there's a lot of really good teams in the league. There's like, I don't know, the top off top of my head, there's like seventeen or eighteen teams that have like legitimate cases to be top ten, right based on their records. The Suns have played made by far the easiest schedule in the league. They're like the opposite of

the Warriors. When Devin Booker made that game winner against the Knicks the other night, that was just the second time this season that the Suns beat a team that was five hundred or better. These are the other teams in the league that have two or fewer wins against teams that are five hundred are better. The Knicks, who are the team that the Sun's beating that game, The Jazz, the Hornets, the Blazers, the Bulls, the Grizzlies, the Wizards, the Pistons. So I'm just gonna be honest with you.

This has absolutely nothing to do with what the Sons are capable of in the big picture. I'm excited when the Suns finally start playing real teams for us to talk about what they're capable of. But to this point, they've had a cupcake schedule. They've beat every bad team they've played for the most part, except for that one crazy game against the Spurs, right, and then they every time they've gone up against a good team, they've lost, except for the Knicks game, right, and then the Warriors.

I think there's one other I can't remember what the other win was. But like they've struggled, struggled to beat winning teams. They're two and four in the sixth game, the small sample size we have of them playing winning teams, they're two and four. Like even the Lakers, who have had their issues against winning teams, they've won five games against winning teams, so like they've won five games and

they beat the Suns twice. So like, if you're expecting me to bump the Lakers down for a Suns team because they've won more regular season win or two more regular season wins when they haven't played anybody, Like, I'm not gonna do that. And if I was gonna bump the Lakers for somebody else, it'd beat they're like three or four other teams I would have picked before the Suns. And like, again, it's a long season, guys, Like they

everybody plays eighty two games. Everybody plays the good teams eventually, So like if the Suns get to that point and they're still winning and Brad Beil comes back, and you know, everyone's out there and they're healthy and they're playing good basketball, they're gonna win games and then they'll be in my power rankings. I have no interest in in I have no interest in like personal vendettas against any team. That's just not the case. I'm gonna call out who I

think is playing the best right now. For instance, Like, the one of the big reasons why I'm not all that intense on the Warriors right now is guess who was fourth in my power rankings on Monday. The Sacramento Kings.

I think they're awesome, And so a road game against the Sacramento Kings is gonna be a really tough one to win, right So, Like, but yeah, like I'm gonna be doing the power rankings every single Monday moving forward, and I'm when it comes to teams that have similar records, I'm gonna be looking at the quality of the opponents they've want played a heavy emphasis on the previous week, because I want it to be reflective of the u

of the who's playing the best basketball right now? Right and that, Yeah, like that's gonna be a tiebreaker for me, Like what is your like what kind of wins are you putting up at this point? As I've said, like one of the people said in the comments are like they've won seven games in a row, Like how could you ignore that, and I want to be like, yeah, they won seven games in a row against bad teams. What do I What do I say are the driving

forces between bad stretches and good stretches. Nobody goes and wins a bunch of games in a row against good teams, even the Kings, who kind of did dropped two against the Pelicans, Right, That's the point. Whenever you actually play seven or eight tough games in a row, the good teams go like five and three and the okay teams go like three and five, right, Like that, that's what happens. When you rip off a bunch of wins. It's usually

easy schedule, healthy roster. When you drop a bunch of games, it's usually guys down with injury playing a tougher schedule.

I've noticed. Go over to the nerd sessh Feed did an hour and a half with them today, talked tons of suns specific issues that I'm worried about.

But like, even when you're taking time off, you should be working on your jump shot in my opinion, and I think I think the people that are truly great transcendent jump shooters around the league are all obsessive about it, and they work about they work on it. You know, they're like, oh, I'm gonna take an easy week, I'm gonna give my.

But it becomes a problem right when he's hit missing every pick and pop jump shot that he takes, and he's when he's catching those little short you know, pocket passes around twelve to fifteen feet, he's missing those jumpers. It's a problem. And like, at the end of the day, this is where I'm saying, like, don't hold him to the Lebron James Steph Curry standard in terms of competitiveness

and obsessive work, because that's just silly. Anthony Davis is not that guy, right, Like he's something below that, right, And so I've just kind of grown to accept it. At this point rooting for the Lakers. Last question, what can the NBA do about the rules so that we don't have so many games with seventy plus free throws? Having the game stop every minute for foul and some free throws is just unwatchable.

to me. I would you know how like the standard of proof idea, right, So, like if you're being accused of something in court, different places around the world, there's a different standard of proof, right, And essentially it's like a moving goalpost, and like they inform the jury like, hey, this is the standard of proof, Like they need to demonstrate within this realm of possibility that there was guilt.

And depending on the country, depending on the political system, depending on the legal system, there's this goal line that they have to reach, right, and then the jury will make a call from there, or the judge will make a call from there. Right. Well, Like that's kind of the way I look at it. With officiating right now, they are calling defensive fouls on a whim way too frequently, and so as a result, you're seeing dozens of calls every single night where it's like, what, like, nothing even

happened there. Specifically, the one that's killing me is like the hard dribble move to one direction, dude slides his feet, takes a little bit of contact in the chest, and the dude just throws the ball up and he gets two free throws. Like that's driving me insane at this point.

So what I would do is I would raise the standard of proof to where it's like, you do not blow the whistle unless it is very clearly a foul because above and beyond what it should be considered fair for defense, they're obsessed with scoring for the television product. I would argue that freedom of movement, or I should say, the stoppages of play are more important than the freedom

of movement. They want freedom of movement. So the games high flying and exciting and all this cool shit's happening, but in the process, it's a terrible watch because dudes are going to the line all the time. And again this is where the competitiveness comes in. We have these competitors that are doing everything they can to win these games, right, and so of course they're taking advantages of the advantage

of the rules. Right, if you drop the standard to where the ref does not call the foul unless they are one thousand percent certain that a physical altercation took place that disrupted that a player's ability to, you know, to make the shot in a significant manner, essentially like

moving the margin a little bit. I believe that yes, there would be a lot more uncalled fouls, and yes there'd be some offensive players that get pissed off, and yes there'd be some more lower scoring games, but the actual television product would be better because it would flow on TV and you wouldn't be going to the line every five seconds. I think it's a huge problem in the NBA. I think I think it's like one of the biggest ones standing in the way of the NBA's

long term success. Then he shortened the regular season and they need to fix the officiating. I think those two particular things with how good the league is right now from a talent standpoint, the nd season tournament has been hit, the playing tournament's been a hit. If they can fix those issues, If they could fix specifically the officiating in the length of the regular season, I think the league could explode around the globe at that point, all right, guys, that is all I have for today.