Hoops Tonight - Suns beat Bucks, Durant elevates intensity, Wolves-Bulls, Warriors + NBA Mailbag

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Bulls and the Wolves. By the way, Bulls nineteen and thirteen since November thirtieth, so they've become an interesting little spunky team here in the middle of the season. And then after that I've got seven or eight mail back questions for you guys at the end of the show where we'll be bouncing around the rest of the league. Also, for those of you guys who missed it last night, we went for almost an hour with Colin Coward and hit like seven or eight different teams, a ton of

content bouncing around the league. We have some breakout clips on our channel, but the actual full show is on the Collin Coward podcast YouTube channel, so make sure you guys get over there to check that out. And then don't forget tomorrow. We're going live right after the trade deadline and then live again after Lakers Nuggets in the evening, so we got a double show day tomorrow. You guys are the Joe Fourget started. Subscribe to a brand new

YouTube channel. It mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to scroll down hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight. It's also super helpful for us if you leave a rating and a review

on the podcast feed. Palling me on Twitter at underscore json lt That's where I put film threads from time to time, as well as show announcements in the last not at least keep dropping mail bad questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the season. Lots of good questions at the end of the show. Today, all right, let's talk some basketball. So again important context here. No Damian Lillard last night, No Brook Lopez last night.

Chris Middleton sprained his ankle and apparently left the arena and crunch crutches in a walking boot. So kind of a disaster night for the Bucks. That said, I thought they competed really well on the defensive end yet another Again, like in terms of defensive effort and commitment to the details, I think they have gone up a significant level since

Doc Rivers came back. Which is hard to really see the forest for the trees when you're one and four in that span, But I did think it was another good positive step for them on the defensive end.

the first four minutes of the fourth quarter. I talked a lot about the idea of, you know, of high level close out attacking as a as an important function of high level offense, especially when you get to the later stages of the playoffs, and in large part just because defenses get so much better, they're going to chase you off the three point line, They're going to take

away the rim. This is why I hyper focus on spot up efficiency rather than actual catch and shoot efficiency, because catching and shooting is only one phase of making a defense pay. And when you're not good at putting the ball on the floor, guys can actually recklessly close out at you without necessarily compromising the defense too much.

And one of the things that the Suns were doing a lot of, like two man game with Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant, to try to get Malik easily switched on to Kevin Durant so that they can go down to the block on him, and they did that early fourth quarter quick double team from Giannis. Quick swing pass out to Bradley Bally knocks down to three. Then later on Kevin Durant pretty consistently was drawing that blitz out above the key, draws a blitz drops it to use

of Nurkic. Nurkic makes a kickout pass to Bradley Beal on the left wing, hump fake ripped through one dribble, pull up, elevate, knock it down. That's a high level close out attack. That's a situation if you watch that play, the catch and shoot three is not there, the driving layup is not there, and so there's an opening there in the middle of the floor and having a guy who can capitalize on that is super valuable. And then

the matchup attacking was a big one. They went to the post against Campaign with Bradley Beal drove right through him to the basket for a left handed layup. Then he drove right past Pat Content and actually smoked the layup. But he's just such a good athlete that he's able to get back up off the floor on that second jump, get the ball, put it back in. That was the big spark for that early fourth quarter run for the suns and then pretty quickly they went up big and

the game was basically over at that point. Bradley Beal brings that power and force to the offensive end of the floor that the rest of the guys don't have. This is kind of it kind of reminds me of like what Kawhi Leonard brings to the LA Clippers, where you know there's a certain finesse element to the way that they play. It's a lot of like high level skill.

These are guys that have made their they're living in the NBA by working harder on the details in the gym by themselves than anybody else, and polishing up these extremely well rounded skill sets to generate high quality shots. Well a lot of times that I shouldn't say a lot of times, it is possible that that can fail you in a lot of ways because there's variance and distance shot making right, and so having a real physical

imposition on the game is a great counter to that. Okay, the shots aren't falling, but hey I'm faster than you, Hey I'm bigger than you, or whatever it is, right and like that to me is the role that Bradley Beal plays on the suns and the role that Kawhi Leonard in particular plays on the Clippers in the sense where it's like he's actually just a top tier athlete for his position, and he can get he kind of pulls out to like thirty feet and he kind of

gets going downhill with like a series of in and out dribbles, and that defender is just panick backpedaling on

his heels. There's a step back jumper that he hit on Jay Crowder, I think in the middle of the fourth quarter if I remember correctly, and it was just one of those deals where and when he backed up and he started coming downhill at Jay Crowder, Jay Crowder just has no chance to actually take away the jump shot and the drive, and so he's just really aggressively backpedaling, and Bradley Beal can rise up into this like easy, like twelve foot pull up jumper that's barely even contested

because of the physical advantage he brings to the table. And so you know, if there's a big upside by going with a third star versus a higher level role player, you may lose out on some of the details of the game, especially on the defensive end and in rebounding situations and just some of the role player stuff, But there is something to be said about that additional high level offensive production right and like specifically with Bradley Beal as the top tier athlete in the group, because Kevin

Durant is extremely tall and long for his specific scoring archetype, and Devin Booker is one of the most skilled players in the league. But Devin Booker's not a top tier athlete at the two guard position. He's not going to physically overwhelm players the way that a guy like Bradley Balkan in his position group, Devin Booker continued his hot streak. He had thirty two points, did most of his work in ball screens. He had nineteen of his thirty two

shooting out of ball screens and dribble handoffs. Just too big for Malik Beasley. He's really patient, Like once he gets over the top of the screen, Malik Beasley just comes because he's working really hard trying to get back into the play, and Devin Booker will basically just patiently, whether it's a pump fake or just putting him in

jail and waiting. He's waiting for Malik Beasley to end up back on the ground and then he can just rise back up and he's so good at like patiently waiting for those little ten twelve footers that he can get after the defender comes back down to the ground. Devin Booker's thirty three points per game in his last eleven games on fifty five percent shooting in forty two percent from three, So kind of maintaining that top tier superstar level of production that we've kind of expected from

Devin Booker for the whole season. Wasn't there really at the start, but now he's starting to get into his groove. And then Kevin Durant picked the spots. He was particularly aggressive against Jay Crowder. You could just tell he liked that matchup in particular, and he was going to work whenever he got him on an island. I also thought

Kevin Durant defended Giannis pretty well. And you know, again, like one of the big turnarounds of this Sun's streak, because like they're sixteen and six since they're lost to Dallas on Christmas Day, and they have the tenth best defense in the league over that span. So a top ten defensive effort over basically a chunk of the season. That's more than a fourth of the season, and they have the third best record in the league over that span,

including a lot of quality wins. And a big part of that is one of the things I've talked about throughout Kevin Durant's career, which is when he engages himself defensively, he's legitimately one of the most talented defensive players in the league, and he just has a really unique ability to impact games there. And then the last guy I wanted to shout out on the Sun's front, Bull Bull played a really under control game, using his length and athleticism just to be a pain in the ass short

shifts and still had six rebounds. Had a crazy block this transition play where aj Green got a corner three for the Bucks, kind of in like one of those runout situations. He was way behind the play and just gave crazy effort and somehow got back in and blocked

the three. But the most impressive part to me about it was, you know, Bu Bull has a tendency, just especially from the earlier phase of his career, to kind of try to do too much offensively, and that wasn't there for bow Bull in this game, just was being

another spoke in the wheel, so to speak. You were there was So it was interesting watching the game because the Sun's fans were just begging him to shoot half the time he'd catch the day of basketball, because obviously, you know Bu Bull is a little bit of a fan favorite, right, But no, he was super patient. He he caught the ball, and he didn't have like a fantastic look. He was turning and looking to run that next dribble handoff and just like I said, a really

under control game, didn't force anything. The Sons were plus eight in his minutes. As a matter of fact, in Bu Bull's shifts, the Sons haven't lost his minutes since December twenty seventh, so he's been kind of a useful contributor for them. He's providing if you extrapolate, I use per thirty six not as a method of like what this player could be if he played more minutes, but just as a method of trying to capture activity for

a bench player. And bo Bowl is averaging sixteen points and twelve rebounds with three point three stocks per thirty six minutes so far this season, just really active in his opportunities. So another good step in the right direction. For the Suns again sixteen and six since since they're lost to Dallas on Christmas Day, So trending in the right direction there Again, the most encouraging part there is

the defensive end of the floor. They need to be closer to what the Nets were with Harden, Kyrie and KD where it's a two way impact. It's not just competing on the offensive end of the floor with all of their perimeter skill, but also using their perimeter skill on the defensive end of the floor to stay in basketball games. And then on the Bucks front, the one thing I wanted to hit was a big story after the game and Doc I actually asked about it in

his postgame presser. But Doc has basically refused to play the young players since he took over. In the five games since Marjon Beauchamp and Andre Jackson Junior basically haven't played. They both got a little bit of garbage time, but that's it. So, you know, this is where I want to want to kind of like address the difference between what a regular season methodology is versus a playoff methodology. So Doc isn't the first coach in the world to

not trust young players. I mean, we've been talking about this all season with Steve Kerr as well, and I do understand it in the big picture, in the sense that, like, especially in high leverage situations, it is more important to have a higher floor than a lower than it is to have a higher ceiling with a role player, because mistakes can be catastrophic, and when you have stars that can really strangle control of the game and they don't make mistakes, you'd prefer to have the next to other

players that don't make mistakes and trust your stars to provide the ceiling in that situation. And so a lot of times, going with a J. Crowder, you know, in big minutes, might be the safer bet in a playoff series because Jay Crowder might not make the critical mistake

that amar Jon bou Champer and Andre Jackson Junior can make. Right, he might be a little bit more confident and comfortable just because he's been in more big basketball games, right, Like, he has like a certain confidence in terms of like going toe to toe with other veteran players because one Jay Crowder was in his prime, he was a guy that could guard those guys pretty damn well. And so I understand it within the playoff context, But here's the thing.

If there's a time to use young players, it is during the regular season, because during that regular season, a lot of times you can play the as a coach, you can play based on which players have in that kind of night. You give Marshon Bouchamp and Andre Jackson Junior a first half shift and you read it, it's like, Oh, he's locked in today, he's got it going, he's confident. We can get his ceiling today. You lean into him, right or Oh, this is too big of a game

for him, he's not ready for this. Particularly, this isn't the night to play him. Pull him run some more, j Crowder because he's going to be more comfortable in those situations.

a high motor athlete in the NBA regular season. They can just wreck havoc in a lot of the other areas of the game, and so a lot of times like I've viewed as a missed opportunity in the sense like do I think the I'll give you an example on the Lakers front, like, do I think Max Christie can play big minutes for the Lakers in a playoff run and be like reliable?

We're gonna talk about that in a little bit, Like you got to pack the paint, you gotta get the ball, you got to test the decision making of their stars. Like the Wolves are actually twenty fourth in spot up efficiency this year, something we'll dive into a little bit later. And they turned the ball over more than everybody else in the league per one hundred possessions except for the

Jazz and Piss. And so when you actually make the Wolves be decisive and make them shoot from the or shouldn't they shoot, but playoff of closeouts, that's where you can have success defensively, and they just did not do that in the first half. They were getting killed in transition. Anthony Edwards was ridiculous. Anthony Edwards and Carl Towns combined for forty one points in the first half as they went as they went up by I think twenty three.

It was the biggest lead in that particular game. But then the Bulls go on a quick run to start the second half. Kobe White hit a couple of threes, catch and shoot one and then a pretty nasty step back in transition. Then Nikolavusovich went right to work on against Carl Towns in the post for a little shot in the lane, and then to Marta Rosen drew some free throws. All of a sudden, it was a ten er run and it was a thirteen point game, and from there it just turned into a dogfight. The Bulls

defense in the second half was amazing. They did a much much better job of keeping the game in the half court and forcing the Wolves into their worst tendencies, much better execution on offense, they shot the ball better, they turned the ball over less, which Minnesota out of transition, and then in the half court they just really did a much better job of preventing the the Timberolves is getting easy shots around the basket and forcing them to

spray out to shooters. And you could really see that in the play type data. They only had ten spot up possessions Minnesota did in the entire first half, and they had a few dozen in the second half, So like an entirely different type of play style from the Bulls. They were doing a really nice job is sticking to their scheme. So they were ducking under ball screens with Mike Conley. And one of the things with Mike Conley that you can pray on is he's not overly aggressive.

He's one of the best shooters in the league. He's like a mid forties pull up three point shooter, but he only takes two and a half of them per game. He's good at him, but he does not force them. It's typically only if it's very open. He actually took two pull up threes in this game, but one of them was a transition pull up three in the first half, and then the second one was right at the beginning of.

any sort of advantage. And then in addition to that, Alex Caruso just did an amazing job on Anthony Edwards in the second half, just being physical with him, cutting off his driving land same thing kind of ducking under picks, but making sure he doesn't feel supercomfortable as he rises up into that pull up jump shot. Again, it's just such a weapon to have a player like Alex Cruso who can actually make opposing stars uncomfortable, Like it's one of the most important parts of having a team that

can win the championship when you actually look around. It's like the job that Aaron Gordon did last year on Lebron James and on Kevin Durant on the way to

the Nuggets winning the title. The job that Andrew Wiggins did last year, you know, guarding the likes of Luka Doncic and Jason Tatum, right, the job that Drew Holiday did in twenty twenty one, The job that Alex Caruso and can Davius Callwell Pope did in twenty twenty Like that ability to have guys that can really really defend at the point of attack, not just well enough to fulfill their role in the scheme, but actually to get in the head of the offensive player a little bit

to where they don't feel as confident.

and getting some different stuff. But again, that's a very deliberate thing to do. It takes a certain you know, fortitude to keep actually running the actions you need to

generate the advantages you need. And a lot of times it was ugly offense from Minnesota down the stretch as they fell apart, and then Kobe White was the hero offensively in this one thirty points in the second half, ten for thirteen from the field seven for nine from three, hit two huge clutch shots at the end of regulation, a nasty step back three against Carl Towns, and then he had this and one against Jade McDaniels, where Jaden

defended it perfectly, funneled him under the basket, walled him up, and he just somehow reached back behind him and finished at the rim and got an and one. It was the actual lead changing shot that put them up I think one twelve to one to ten at that point, He's he's got a real case for most improved player

this year. Over the course of the last thirty seven games, which is basically when the Bulls started to get it together, they Kobe White's averaging twenty two points, five rebounds, and six assists on forty nine percent from the field, forty three percent from three, and eighty two percent from the line. He's just on a hell of a run. The Wolves did end up tying the game and sending it to ot. They ran their best possession of overtime or of regulation,

I should say, in crunch time. Anthony Edwards ran a ball screen. This time he couldn't get separated from Cruso, but he had a nice little like kind of snake dribble move to get onto the other side of the ball screen against Vucevich that got the defense in rotation. They had a really good ball movement possession where the ball is popping around ended up in Carl Towns's hand at the top of the key. He ends up hitting the three to tie the game and send it to overtime.

But once again, the Minnesota offense just baltered in ot and Demarti Rose took over the game and overtime. He scored an assistant on twelve of Chicago's fourteen points, and the Bulls got the win. Here's a fun fact for you. The Bulls have the tenth best record in the league since November thirtieth. They're nineteen and thirteen. They have the

tenth best defense in the league over that span. A really athletic core of perimeter players, and that's the key because like when they really get to flying around, getting into the basketball and then flying around in rotation, they can be really difficult to score on. And then they're an excellent rebounding team thanks to a lot of Andre

Drummond and Nicola Vusovich. They are fifth in defensive rebounding since November thirtieth, on the offensive end of the four super balanced scoring twenty three points a game from Kobe, twenty three points a game from Demarta Rozen, nineteen points a game from Nikola Vusovich, and then Pat williams Ayo, De soun Moo and Alex Cruso are all averaging double

figures over that span. They may not be a great team, they may not have championship potential, but they're a fun team and they're capable of being very good, and they're a lot. Like I said, there's just a lot of fun to watch, and I that watching that Wolves Bowls game was one of my favorite regular season games of

the season. Is just super fun back and forth. You know, even in spite of the crazy defensive effort from Chicago, Anthony Edwards still made some crazy shots down the stretch, hit like a thirty footer on the left wing, It had some crazy finishes around the rim. It It was just a fun game to watch. On the Minnesota end, once again, their clutch offense ends up being an issue.

Seventy three offensive rating and nine minutes of clutch time in their last nine games that have involved to clutch situations. They are scoring just ninety eight points per one hundred possessions. That is atrocious in a large sample size. They are just three and six in those games too, so it's directly leading to losses. They're also down to twentieth and clutch offense for the season. This is something that I've preached about all year and it just continues to be

an issue. You could literally hear it on the broadcast. The Wolves announcers were talking about it. You could hear him saying, where are the Wolves gonna go for offense? Here down the stretch, Alex Crusoe has put the clamps down on Anthony Edwards. These are things that the Wolves announcers were literally saying. Even the shots they made down the stretch were extremely high difficulty shots like making a thirty footer when they were already down big or getting

to the foul line when he's driving into traffic. There was no like real, free flowing, easy looking offense.

the course of the forty eight minutes as well. They don't take care of the basketball well. That continues to be a problem in clutch time. They had a huge turnover int last night when it was a four point game where Jade McDaniels threw the ball away to Alex Crusoe quickly led to two points for the Bulls and all of a sudden they were down by six. And then you can get away with packing the paint against them because all you have to do is chase them

off the three point line. They're not a high level, closeout attacking team. It's crazy because they shoot the ball extremely well. When you just look at catch and shoot efficiency, the Timberwolves are one of the best teams in the league. But when you actually look at their ability to convert spot up possessions, which again that's the actual read of your ability to space the floor, a catch and shoot three is just We talked about this earlier when we

were talking about the Bucks and the Suns. That's just one element to beating high level defense. If you have the athletes, especially teams like Chicago that have real perimeter speed that can chase you off the three point line, if you can't actually convert those possessions into points, including the possessions where they chase you off the line, you can struggle. The Timberwolves are twenty fourth in spot up efficiency.

Jaden McDaniels is below average forty seventh percentile converting spot up possessions. Carl Town's excellent catch and shoot guy, but chase him off the line and he struggles only convert spot up possessions at zero point ninety four points per possession. That's thirty first percentile, Anthony Edwards fifty fifth percentile, barely

above average. And then Rudy Gobher is out there too, and so like it just turns into this situation like you can force them to play drive and kick by chasing them off the line, and they're probably going to turn it over or force a bad shot, make some

form of mistake, and they can struggle to score. And so all of those factors just combined to make them relatively easy to guard, especially by the better defenses in the league in the slowdown environment at the end of games, and then to make matters worse, their defense hasn't been very good as of late that same nine game span of crunch time games they are they have a one to thirty defensive rating, and even though they have a the best defense in the league by defensive rating over

the entirety of the season, they are just nineteenth in clutch defense this year. It's definitely something to keep an eye on. And it's like it's there's some entry points there. Mike Conley's an entry point, like Kobe White's taking Carl Towns off the bounce. So there's a different once again, a difference between your base defensive scheme and what you can accomplish versus what is your entry point? Where is the weakness. There's something to be said about your weakest

link in those environments. But I'm not as worried about their defense. I think they're gonna figure out how to get stops again like they have been for the most part this season. But it has been a little bit of a concern and clutch situations. But the stuff on offense is the big red flag. Like, I think their defense is mostly offense off awesome. It's gonna keep them

in games. But will they be able to go shot for shot with the likes of a Nikola jokicch with the likes of Kevin Durant, with the likes of a you know, Kawhi Leonard, with the likes of a Lebron James. That's gonna be one of the big determining factors for this team in the playoffs. And again, like take take my word for it, my favorite team, the Lakers last year had this exact same issue. They were really bad

in clutch time. Last year, they specifically struggled with over the top shot making, and they would stay in every single game on the strength of their defense, and then the Denver Nuggets would just pick them apart. With Nikole jokicch and Jamal Murray just being better at playing clutch time basketball. It's actually one of the reasons why I more encouraged about the Lakers this year. Last year, Lebron shot forty six percent in clutch time. This year, Lebron

shooting sixty two percent in clutch time. And he's got his pull up jump shot back. It's like a huge swing factor for that particular team. But a lot of times like it comes down to who can execute in the final five minutes and that's been an issue for Minnesota and it's something to keep an eye on. Have

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apply again, create an account and redeem code Hoops. That's Hops for twenty dollars off. Download game Time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guarantee. All right, let's move on to our mailbag. We have seven or eight questions today. First question, my friend and I got into debate yesterday. He said he would trade a few of the starting five for the Nuggets to get Luca on the team if hypothetically this was possible, and he said he would

fill the holes, or at least Murray and Porter. I disagreed and said, you could do a one from one, but it would be completely the wrong move. Just one of your thoughts on it. I know Luka and Nikola jokicch want to be on the same team one day, but neither of us have the illusion this is remotely possible in the near future. When I heard you talking about hypothetical Lebron trades, I figured you would weigh.

bring in a third legitimate shot creator. And there's something to be said about the beauty of a five man basketball lineup like regardless of the fact that there's no like true superstar next to Nikola Jokic, every single one of those players, whether it's Jamal Murray or Contavis Calopope, Michael Porter Junior, Aaron Gordon, they're all stars in their roles.

Jamal Murray is just a star shot maker and so therefore is a perfect fit with Nikola Jokic in the two man game because if you cover it, you have to concede something, and most teams will concede. Jamal Murray ISOs and in his ability to convert those especially against teams that switch that action goes a long way, or that chase over the top and stay home on the roll man where he has opportunity to get separation from the screen. That's what teams are willing to concede, and

he continues to make those shots. KCP just attacking off of dribblehandos, attacking out of spot up situations and defending the other team's best perimeter defender or perimeter offensive weapon. He's awesome at that. He's a star in that role. Michael Porter Junior weak side shooting, help side defense, defensive rebounding, offensive rebounding. When he's being ignored. He's a star at that. He's one of the best spot up players in the league.

He's a excellent wing defender while also being an excellent help defender while also being an excellent defensive rebounder, and the perfect guy to run along the baseline for their offense when Nikole Jokic is operating around the elbow, and so again, like, it's it to me that is a concoction I would never mess with until one of those four guys, like and like if KCP in two years starts to show some kind of decline, then sure you

can look to make some sort of change. But as long as those four, that five man grouping is all operating at this level, you gotta do whatever you can to keep them together because it's very rare when you can capture real magic and a five man basketball lineup, and that Denver group has captured that magic, and I would try to maintain that as long as possible. Next question, Hey, Jason. Knowing you read a lot of the comments, I want

to point something out. In twenty twenty two, you praise Jason Tatum for his commitment on the defense event, and I think, based solely on eye test, Jalen Brown has made a similar commitment this year. He takes on the best matchups every night now, and I'd like to know what you think if you take a closer look and rewatch some of the games. I hear people questioning who is the second best player, and that is insane to me.

With Jalen's offensive production combined with the defense this year, it's not close.

for instance, let's look at Derek White. This is a team that struggles with offensive decision making and half court like real slow down shot creation from time to time as it pertains the decision making, so Derek White becomes immensely valuable for them as one of the guys that they can use to kind of dissect half court defense. And so that is why one of their go to actions at the end of games is Derek White Jason

Tatum two man game. They do that because they trust Derek White to have the basketball in his hands in those big moments. So there's something to be said about the value of a Derek White Chris Porzingis the same thing between pick and pop being the most difficult action in the league to guard, and specifically the value of a real rim protector alongside all their perimeter defenders. There's

something to be said about Porzingis's value. By the way, when you look at the on off numbers for the Celtics, according to Cleaning the Glass, the three best on off guys on the team are Derek White, Jason Tatum, and krisops Porzingis. And so again I agree with you, it's not a question of talent, Like Jalen Brown is a better basketball player than Derek White, it's a better basketball player than Chrisops Porzingis.

It's just a product of the roster construction. Next question, Hey, Jason, big fan of the show. It's a great place to expand my knowledge to someone with no background in the game. Two Warriors questions for you will go one at a time. What I understood from the evolution of your opinion regarding the Warriors front what the Warriors front office should do is that they should go all in on winning with Steph.

In addition, they shouldn't trade JK, who will probably take a few years to develop into a good enough number two. I don't understand how those two goals go together, considering all the personnel problems of Warriors have and Steph turning thirty six soon him being this good still as already and anominally it would be great if he was still good in a couple of years to play with the developed JK. But I don't think it's smart to just expect that. For the record, those are two separate opinions

that I have. So like, I thought the Warriors should go all in on Steph, and then JK had this ten game stretch where he averaged twenty five points a game on sixty one percent shooting, and it's like, oh shit, you got yourself a star here. So now like you're trading away a star, a future star to try to get back I don't know, high quality role players, right,

And so that's where it gets super convoluted. Like to me, I agree, those two concepts are kind of opposed to each other, right, Like there's just it's just not possible to go all in on Steph without trading Jonathan kaminga because Jonathan Kmingo is your best opportunity to bring back

quality players. And so the reality is like the decision got made for you by Jonathan Kaming rise and so now it actually makes more sense to do smaller moves on the margins and hope for your biggest influx of talent to be Jonathan Kaminga's development over the course of the next couple of years. Next question, you've smoked. He've spoken a lot about the warriors woes this season, but one thing you didn't mention is that Steph has has a negative net rating, which hasn't happened since his rookie

season when the entire team was pretty bad. What do you think is different this season that's causing this and how can they fix it? I know, them doing anything of significance this year is already a long shot, but I'm pretty sure they won't do anything if they're already losing when their best players on the floor. So the reasons are pretty simple. Draymond Green is the second best player on the Warriors this season in terms of like two way impacts.

pullback of talent. The players that you've been supplementing that with are young players. Young players bring inconsistency, right, So, like that to me is the reasoning behind the low net rating. The reason why I don't think that should play a role in their decision making is, to put it simply, like Steph is still one of those guys, one of the special talents in the league, and so like, I mean, the dude just dropped sixty the other night.

So like to the way I look at it, basketball has a Basketball has a We talked earlier about the Nuggets lineup in the way that it kind of has like a magic quality to it in my opinion, Like, basketball is not as simple as the sum of the parts.

So you might if you take away twenty percent of your talent, that doesn't necessarily amount to twenty percent decrease in productive production if those twenty percent, if the twenty percent of talent that gets pulled out of the equation is in vital areas, of that lineup's ability to be coherent, and then you could experience a sixty percent reduction in

the lineup's capability of contending in a basketball game. Right because like again, like they take Draymond Green out of the equation that they had a stretch there where they were the worst defense in the league for an extended stretch. Like like it, the bottom falls out in a lot of these specific situations, and so the same thing goes in reverse. Like I talk about this with all these teams. It's like, it's the Lakers last year. It's like, oh,

they don't have any forwards. Okay, you bring in Ruy Hatch Murr and Jared Vanderbilt to cast off forwards that other teams didn't watch, and then all of a sudden, they look like a way better basketball team because they have a position group that they did not have on the roster all of a sudden filled Like that's kind of the idea behind it is, Like the idea is

you get Draymond back. You know, Jonathan Camiga plays a lot better, You make one smart move for a veteran forward, and like, all of a sudden, everything starts to make sense again, and things can work, So like, don't underestimate, I don't overreact, I should say to that kind of statistical production involving a star, like the Lakers this year have not been particularly good with Lebron James and Anthony Davis on the floor. But Lebron James and Anthony Davis

are actually having a better season than last year. It comes down to the struggles of the skill guards. Darvin ham in the way he's constructed the rotations, the heavy leaning on torrean print. So you have a lack of perimeter athleticism, right, like the specific personnel weakness and not having a top tier athlete at the guard position, like all of those things. It's not like Lebron and ad are negative players. It's not like Steph Curry is a

negative player. It's just the basketball lineup is dipped below that certain mandatory amount of fulfilling of responsibilities to be able to compete. And so once you get down below that line, it can it becomes a little bit dangerous. And so again I don't think it's over for the Warriors. I'm a big believer. You get Chris Paul back, you get Gary Payton back, you get the rise of Jonathan minga.

Andrew Wiggins starts to play a little bit more like he did in twenty twenty two, it could pretty quickly rise back to being a competent basketball team. Next question, I have three left. What do you think of if the Warriors tried to trade for Jonathan Isaac or possibly trade Wiggins plus others picks or CP three to the Pacers for maybe Miles Turner or Buddy Healed. A couple

of things. Miles Turner is not going anywhere. I don't think He's kind of a little bit of a foundational piece there in Indie, and specifically as a stretch big, he's very valuable next to Tyree Saliburt and it's one of their pet actions. And then also next to Pascal Siakam, who can be somewhat streaky as a foe man. Having

a shooting five is somewhat important for them. There's also a problem with trading Andrew Wiggins in the sense that like, how much like what has a better chance of your team getting better flipping Wiggins for a different player or Wiggins just plays better like in my opinion, you get through the deadline, it becomes clear that Andrew Wiggins is not getting traded, give him a really clear spot in the rotation, whereas minutes are consistent, you might get more

consistent production. And I personally think that he belongs in the starting lineup next to Jonathan Kminga, and I'd give him consistency there and let Andrew Wiggins just kind of rEFInd his confidence. And I've seen a lot of encouraging stuff out of him in the last couple of weeks too. But I do think at a bare minimum, they should be targeting some form of playoff, playable forward at the deadline.

That could be a different type of contract swap, whether that's like, you know, Moses Moody and another one of their minimums, or who knows how they would kind of kind of construct that sort of thing. But I don't care whether it's a Dorian Finney Smith or ken Ridge Williams or a PJ.

that gets a little tricky. But regardless of what kind of guy, it is, just bringing in another veteran playable forward, simplifying, you know, Steve Kurrz rotation decisions that could go a long way towards towards getting them back on.

in twenty thirteen. It's actually kind of an interesting idea because on that Paul George play, Lebron caught and then quickly pivoted over his right shoulder and went right to the rim, and Tatum kind of did the same thing, but right when he pivoted, he went right back into that one like fadeaway, and so he didn't even really try to be more physically aggressive on the play and You're ready, he did have some more time.

handles improving year by year. I do think that that ceiling is still there, But I guess I agree with you in the sense that it is discouraging that it's taken as long as it has taken, especially considering how much experience he has. Last question, are you coming to Indy for All Star weekend? And have you ever considered a meet and greet? So I'm not going Indy for All Star weekend, but I typically every year get out to Summer League, and that's the best opportunity in Vegas

for you guys to come out and hang out. We can meet in person and chat about the game a little bit. I will be on Twitter letting you guys know exactly what dates I'm out there, but I'm usually just in the gym.

appreciate your support. Barring a Star trade this evening, we won't have anything tonight, but we will have a live show right after the trade deadline tomorrow and then again live after Lakers Nuggets.