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It's called hoops tonight. It's Jason tim So let's start with this. One of the things watching the Lakers last night with Luca is that I felt like they were kind of on a train to nowhere, and it was like AD was a great defensive player, bit hit and miss. Offensively good, not not consistent like the great offensive scores. I think he's been the last two years the best defensive player in the league. I like Austin Reeves if he's the three or the four. Lebron having an insane year,
but he's gonna take some nights off. And if he does take nights off or Ad, then Austin Reeves because your second option that's not good enough. And then I'm watching them last night, and I'm like, well, Luca's missed a lot of time, so he's not taking time off. It's almost like Lebron is going to try to impress Luca. He's not gonna take his many nights off. And now I've got Austin Reeves is a third on virtually every night. Ruey can always hit the corner shot, Dalton connect you
keep him, he creates space. And I'm watching last night and I'm like, God, there's so much younger and more fun to watch. Like I got to I got to a place where I really respected them, but I just thought, this is there's not enough. I don't know, I know, I don't They don't have a rim protector Jackson Hayes again, Ali up guy, fun energy. It's just it's weird how just inserting Luca into it, the whole team feels younger and different. Does it feel like that to you? No?
Absolutely. I mean I hated this Laker team at the start of the year. They had this personality, this like I don't care about the work. That was driving me crazy. But over the course of the last month, they'd been playing a really likable and fun brand of basketball. Lebron was playing super well, Austin was playing super well before
Ad got hurt. He had a couple of monster teams played really well twenty yeah, but I felt like they weren't good enough on either end of the floor to really do what you need to do to win four playoff rounds. And I've been really keyed in on this concept lately, like if you're going to win the title, you have to be able to do something well enough that it really gives people problems, like where teams can't even match up with it for one reason or another.
And the Lakers just didn't have that punch on either end of the floor, even with Lebron and Ad. It's not the defensive team it was back in twenty twenty, right, so they didn't have that punch with Luca. One of the unique things he does. This Laker team has a lot of guys who are good offensive players as long as they're set up well, even with Lebron and Austin. Like one of the reasons why they struggled against defense is that did a lot of switching all year long.
Is Lebron's forty and it's hard to get him to just get downhill time and time again in a random regular season game in January or December or Austin not an elite athlete in terms of getting past top tier NBA talent, and Anthony Davis obviously has offensive limitations. But once you bring Luca in, he just has this magical ability to get the ball to the basket. He's so big, and he's so strong, and he's so good at change of pace, and he's so good at getting guys sealed
on his shoulder, sealed on his backside. He can get downhill and now he's spraying out to all these guys and they're actually all really good offensive players when they have an advantage, Like Ruey shoots fifty three percent on unguarded catch and shoot threes, but you need to get him unguarded catch and shoot threes.
Luca can do that.
And one of the biggest things that it's allowed is it's allowed Lebron James, Like, have you ever watched a guy say like, oh, Lebron should drive to the basket every time? Yeah, it sounds great, but it's really exhausting to do that, especially at his age. Now, Lebron when he gets his touches can be super physically aggressive because he knows he has Luca to carry the lion's share
of the offensive load. And so right now, when I look at this situation, yeah, they have defensive question marks, and we can get into that here in a minute, but I try not to overthink it. This team is going to be basically impossible to guard. And so they have a unit now their offense that presents legitimate problems for every single team in the league. That is a foundation you can build on.
Yeah, and remember Dallas won the West last year and their two best players are below average, suboptimal defensive players, Kyrie and Luca. Is that, let's be honest about the West. Denver has Jokic, but they're atrocious defensively. Houston's young, can't shoot, and I don't think they translate to a playoff team. I think they're just one of those teams that they are so young and twitchy and athletic. In the regular season, if you're not well rested, if you don't have a
lot of tape time, they are a tough matchup. If I get to play them seven times. They can can't shoot.
There's a team like that every year. Every year, there's that team.
Yeah, so all of a sudden, Denver can't defend, Houston can't shoot Oklahoma City. I don't trust chet Holmgren's health. I think they're the best team. Golden State doesn't have enough offensive firepower, very Steph reliant, even with Jimmy Butler. You know, Memphis is Memphis plays with a lot of pace and they are a lot of fun to watch. I don't trust them. You know said this part. They're just teams like Philadelphia in the plaus I don't trust them.
Memphis in the plus, I don't trust them. I know Jaron Jackson, I know John Morant. I get it. So if you look at the west O case is clearly the best team. They have the most kind of diversity of options. They have so many different players, and they're really good and really young. They're what I think Utah wants to be in about three years with all those draft picks. But the Lakers are an exceptional offensive team, and if you're giving me, it's also a team Lebron
clearly likes. Austin Reeves, he likes to play with them. It's obvious Lebron's like a He's like a fifteen year old with a crush on Luca, the way he plays the energy, and I just think they're so good offensively that there's nobody that's complete enough in the West to roll them. Boston would, but Boston's got you know, Boston's been playing these guys. You know, I watched them the other night against New York. Jesus, They're good. God, They're good. So my take is, if you put them in the East,
I don't think they can. I don't think they can beat Boston. I think they're a Western Conference finals team. And I'm not trying to be at La Homer.
Yeah, I'm with you.
Every team below to me, Oka see Denver and the Lakers are the clear top three in the West. And Denver and like you were talking earlier about the young, feisty athletic team, Memphis used to be that team.
That's Houston's that team.
Now there's always a team like that, and that team always wins a lot of regular season games and then loses in the first two rounds. It's just that's what happens. And let's just put it this way. Who you picking in a playoff series? Fred Van Vliet and Jalen Green or one of these duos from the top of the of the conference, right, So, like, I'm with you on that.
To me, Denver and the Lakers are both closer to Okac than people realize, just because Okase is also super young and athletic and has a ton of energy for the regular season. The question marks that you talked about in terms of the Lakers with the defense, that's where it gets interesting, because the Lakers were playing some pretty damn good basketball before Luca joined the squad. There in their last thirteen games, they have the best record in the league and they have the number one defense in
the league. The Lakers do the number one defense for about a month now. Now there's a reason for that. Jared Vanderbilt is healthy. He is an excellent defensive player, and you turn Dangelo Russell, a bad defensive player, into Dorian Finney Smith who's a good defensive player. And then a huge part of that is part of that excitement from Lebron has manifested and he's playing a lot of defense this year, and he's been very good on.
That end of the floor. But if you take a player.
Out of that lineup and you insert Luca, you're not gonna be as good defensively. That's just acknowledging reality. So when Luca's in this picture full time, you're not gonna be as good defensively as you've been in the last month.
But we've seen an NBA history like with Denver. Denver in twenty twenty three, they were not an elite defense, no, but they had bad defenders on the court who did a job and did it well right there, and they were anchored by good defenders Contavious Calbo, Pope, Aaron Gordon.
Bruce Brown.
They had guys who did compete on defense. They did the hard jobs and then they created easier jobs.
That's the thing.
You can imagine a scenario where you've got Luca, Lebron, Austin, but you have Dorian Finney, Smith and Vando out there. This is gonna be a small ball team. Colin Alex lenn hasn't played a thousand minutes since twenty nineteen. Lebron's played sixteen hundred just this year. Like Alex Lenn, He's not gonna come in there and save the season. So this is a small ball team. But you can imagine
a universe where Lebron's playing defense. You've got two professional defenders in the lineup, and what if they just score every time or get a great shot in every single time.
A team that I think, and I don't know historically if this happens, I'll tell you the team in the West that I would not want to play, and right now they're not even a playing team. Keep your eye in San Antonio, Okay, Stefan Castle out of Yukon is no fun to defend. That guy is this time next year We're gonna have different conversations. Daron Fox. I think because he plays in Sacramento, you don't realize it. He's a twenty five point a night scorer with a high IQ.
He's so good, we just don't watch him. Stefan Castle wemby Daron Fox. You know guys that get lost, but I don't know his EPA. Yeah, I don't know what all the numbers are, but like Harrison Barnes, you know it's this guy that Harrison's one of those players that, like Shane Battier, You're like, I think he's really good and he ends up making your team better, but nobody wants to talk about it. I think San Antonio, if you told me they went on like right now, they're
not a playing team. I think they're going to go in. Popovich is going to steal a game in a series. Houston's the team we all think is going to be dangerous. I don't san Antonio the team nobody's paying attention due. I mean, can you imagine Lakers end up you know, Denver ends up playing them, and Wemby neutralizes Jokic to some degree and castles a pain and gets the whistle. I mean, listen, Denver. You can score on Denver like They're just not good. They're not effective at all. So
I think I think the West is really fun. I thought the NBA had a tremendous fourteen day period. I thought, Jimmy Butler, you know it's funny about this Jason is that I know the analytic people think Wiggins maybe a better fit with Steph than Jimmy Butler. I read an article on that, But my take is Jimmy Butler's the anti Wiggins. He's tough, he's a badass, he's physical, he's ornery, and he's a really good number two. It's like in baseball, it's when you try to make a two to one
your pitching staff's not good. Jimmy's an excellent two behind Steph, and he's the opposite of Steph. He's tough physically, he's a mid range guy. He'll defend you. I don't think Golden State's a championship team. But I just thought between Luca, between Deer and Fox to san Antonio, between Jimmy Butler the Warriors thought, I just thought the West got really And we've talked about this. The West has been better
than the East for twenty five years. A lot of it's just better gms, and I thought the West had a great fourteen days.
Yeah, they completely flipped the conference over in a bunch of different ways. I liked what you said about san Antonio. Like we were talking earlier about like having a problem that other teams can't solve. Victor is a problem around the rim that other teams can't solve. Try and then the Deer and Fox as a two man game partner with Wemby is a problem that teams can't solve. The Jimmy Butler. It was amazing to me how many people
overthought this. And when I was watching the Bucks game last night and I saw Jimmy Butler constantly operating in the middle of the floor as kind of like a hub out of the attention that Steph would gather. It reminded me of when we'd watch the Warriors back in their heyday, where it's like everyone talks about shooting, but when it comes to the Warriors with Steph, you don't actually want shooting as much as you want playmaking, because
what happens is Steph gets two to the ball. As soon as Steph gets two to the ball, it's a four on three and it becomes more about quick processing and decision making and guys being in the right spots to get dunks and maybe a wide open corner three for a certain player out of that sequence to pay it off than it is about, like with Lebron or a rim pressuring guy, where you want spacing, you want
shooting that pulls guys further away from the room. Steph inverts your spacing in that way, and it actually reminded me a lot of Andre Gudala. Remember when Andre Guodala was there. He was never a great shooter, but he constantly greased the wheels for them because he was a rangy ford who could screen and operate in the middle of the floor, make quick decisions new anden to cut new and to relocate, do all those sorts of things. There was a play in the Bucks game last night
where Steph took a ball screen from Jimmy. Steph got two, he dropped it to Jimmy and Jimmy made a little ball faked buddy, healed, and then dropped it off to Draymond Green for an easy layup underneath the basket. And I literally just watched this and I'm.
Like, this works. This just works.
You weren't comfortable with Wiggins as a processor in the middle of the floor, you are comfortable with Jimmy. Simple stat how many times has Jimmy or how many times has Andrew Wiggins had seven plus assists in a basketball game in his NBA career fourteen? How many times did Jimmy have seven plus assists last year with the heat fifteen? So like, it's an entirely different stratosphere of playmaking talent that you plugged in there. You have a guy that
can quickly process those situations. And they've been killing teams Colin so far. Obviously small sample. They've been really good with Jimmy on the floor with Steph off, which is all that really matters.
Watch the key.
I mean when I watched them two weeks ago when Steph left the floor, not only were the inefficient, they were unwatchable. They were a bad tell. I said, this, make the move to be a better TV product. You're terrible.
Well, And like Pat Spencer, like at the lacrosse story, it's really cool. He probably shouldn't be your like secondary ball handler in a Thursday night national TV game against the Lakers when Steph's off the floor like that, that's an issue. But I'm with you, like I don't see the Warriors necessarily as a substantial threat to me. What's cool about it is we get to watch Steph play meaningful basketball again. Because I do think they're gonna get
out of the play in tournament. I do think they're gonna end U getting at least a first round series, and that team's just gonna be fun to watch.
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it on my pizzas. I love that. Okay, I'm gonna throw a sneaky move at you that I liked, Okay. Kyle Kuzman is a weird player. You can get thirty and the next night you get seven. He's just always been an odd f. I don't think Lebron ever loved him. He's kind of all over the map. But I really thought they should have moved off Middleton two years ago. And I think so much of being an NBA GM
is figuring, singing around corners, moving off guys. A year early, I thought really good GMing was moving off Marcus Smart in Boston and getting Drew Holliday. I thought Marcus Smart, it was one thing for Jalen Brown to take around, take off possessions late in games from Tatum, it's another thing with Mark and Smart is doing it. It's like, Okay, it's time to get him out of the building, right And Drew Holliday is a better offensive player to me
than Marcus Smart. But Kyle Kuzman to the Bucks, I thought was kind of a sneaky good move. So Washington's abysmal. Everybody gets lost there. He's still in his prime athletically, he played a lot of years in college, so he's older than most people think. But Dame's playing better. Janice has banged up a little bit. I looked at it and I thought, Okay, Boston is the best team in
the East. Cleveland and New York are next. But I felt like the last year and a half, like I didn't even I didn't even look at Milwaukee like they were like a more functional Philadelphia. I just I don't think they're athletic enough. I don't know. I look at Kuzma, Dame, Jannis, Brook Lopez, I'm like, they feel like they could be a pain in the butt. It feels like they could be, you know, you talk about unenterable things. Dame's been good in big pressure games. Yannis is a hard matchup. They
feel more athletic with Kuzma. Am I reaching here. I kind of feel like at the trade deadline it was almost like last year and Dallas goes and gets PJ. Washington and everybody's like, yeah, yeah, PJ Washington. About ten games in you're like, ah, shit, they're big. That's kind of a problem. I thought Kyle Kuzma was a sneaky pickup.
I liked him too.
There was an obvious question mark, which is he's been in Washington playing loser ball for the last like for the last like three four years. And that was why all the Bucks fans were concerned, and like they were like, we're trading Chris Middleton, a guy who's hit huge shots for us in the postseason over the years, for a guy like Kyle Kuzma, and you know, and I heard that, and I wanted to be like, then, what did you
trade for Dame for like that? Like, yeah, you needed Chris to hit the game winner in Game seven against the Nets, but that was when you had Drew Holliday as your point guard. You have Dame to help you with that. Giannis is a better offensive player than he used to be. One of the things that was really interesting about Kuzma's development is he was kind of the same player in Washington that he was his early years with the Lakers. But then what happened was they get Lebron,
they get Anthony Davis. They all of a sudden, they're playing a lot of two big lineups. So eight he's playing the four and Lebron's playing the three, and there's just not minutes Kuzma, and so he had to he had to claw his way into the rotation. And the way he did was he became an excellent defensive rebounder, an excellent help side defender, an excellent cutter. He just became a guy who did a bunch of dirty work.
And that's been the most encouraging thing in the In the three games that I've watched him so far with Milwaukee, he's immediately doing that stuff I'm watching him against Philly, like fronting the post against him, beat and battling for loose balls and getting contested rebounds. And you talked about the chaos and his scoring and and that's real. But one of the weird things with Kuzma is NBA dudes respect him as a scorer. So they well, he's had, Yeah, he's.
Had twenty five games in his career, like Kusma's got Kusma's got twenty nine.
Points, like what, Yeah, he's had like ninety something twenty five plus point games and eleven thirty five plus point games.
And he's a crazy offensive player.
Yeah, and I'm already seeing him Like when he pump fakes on the perimeter, dudes are chasing him off the line, So like, he has offensive utility that goes beyond just his efficiency. But where I get excited about it is like, because Chris Middleton's shot making is less valuable in the
context of Dame. You go from having a three a small forward rotation with Chris and Torian to thin like older forwards that don't rebound in aren't great athletes, to a dominant rebounder who's huge and young and moves well. And now I look at it in the context of Yannis, because Janis hasn't been playing, he's been resting this CAF.
You'll be back after the All Star break. When you put Kuzma next to Yannis and Brook there's a force multiplier effect going back to the beating the dead horse with this like presenting a problem that teams can't handle. The Bucks are going to be a monster rebounding team and they are really going to protect the paint well, and that is going to present a problem for teams. And again, I think you're obviously giving up a little bit of just that surgical half court stuff that you
get with Chris. Let's not overthink this. He was twelve and a half points a game this year. He's not the same player. This is a clear talent add and you've fundamentally altered the physical profile of your front line by bringing him in.
Yeah, it's it's it's funny. I you know, I always said, if I didn't do what I did for a living, I'd love to be an NFL GM. In the NBA, you could do that. Like you watch you have to. I mean I watch preseason football like it's just it's a reality of what it is. But in the NBA sometimes I think we overthink analytics and I'll pivot back
to the Lakers. So I always use this argument is I think the smartest team I've ever seen in my life was the Miami Heat when they had Batti A. Ray, Allen E, Donnis Haslam, Chris Bosh, Lebron d Wade, Mario Chalmers drove me crazy. It's like he didn't fit, but the rest of those guys were like, really sort.
Of, it's it's they're smart players.
Like yeah, and it's like beyond smart self awareness, situational awareness. And and I remember that Miami team Jason Joel Anthony was a six to nine center. They had no true point guard. Lebron and d Wade are both like at the time, streaky shooters, hyper athletic, need the ball to be dominant. And I remember when they put it together. I'm like, the how's bosh is the best shooter out outside of Ray? And I was like, I don't even know what this team is. They were so smart, they
were so good. They fed off each other. There was no egos. It was like Lebron was just so damn happy to play with another elite player after all those years in Cleveland. And it was just a force of optimism. It was a force of intellect. I loved watching them play. I think they're one of the weaker dominant teams of my life. They didn't have a dominant big, they didn't have a point It was just like smart dudes understood spacing the floor and everybody. And I think d Wade
is really a key component in that. He understood very early. Oh wow, look, Lebron's really good. I'llbeit two totally happy. I don't need to be the ace on the staff. By the way, a lot of guys struggle with that. D Wade smart, it's like, no, no, no, I'm good. I'll step back. It's my city, it's his team. And I think sometimes we get too caught up in that, like Draymond really smart basketball player, Jimmy Butler really smart, Curry really smart. In the end, these games, remember when you
go to the playoffs, you're playing the same team. Everybody knows your little tricks. They all become circumstantial. They're all situational half court Like, Houston's not going to run like that in the playoffs. You're not gonna all those free You're not gonna get that twelve points a game you get because you're young, athletic, twitchy, you run, You're not gonna get that stuff. So I don't know.
I just.
When it comes to NBA teams, like like right now, I look at the Lakers and I'm thinking, Jesus, Luca and Lebron are really big brands, self aware, very secure. I don't know, I just look at the differently today. I think they're a different team. I mean, Austin Reeves, it's a bunch of guys. They all kind of have the same game, different levels of it. They want the ball, they like the ball. But when I watched them last night, I'm like, everybody is completely secure in who they are.
There's not gonna be any struggles with this team. I don't know. I maybe I'm too optimistic on being in La Homer, but there is value and I know I'm being long winded on this, there is value on smart guys playing basketball and enjoying watching other people succeed. That's a thing, right.
To your point.
The playoffs are so much about problem solving, like, Okay, we're having trouble with this coverage, what are we gonna do. We're having trouble with them running this action. What are we gonna do? And you just put enough smart minds in a room and they can figure it out. And you know, I think there's a little too much being
made of the center position. You know, even as I'm looking at some of this stuff with the centers that were being thrown out there, I want to be like, Okay, this center might be your seventh or eighth best player. I don't want my seventh or eighth best player playing twenty minutes in a playoff game. He's a guy who
who should be barely seeing the four. And I think one of the things that makes me optimistic on the size front is like Luca is six to nine, Lebron is six ' nine, Dorian Finney Smith is six's eight six ' nine, Jack Vanderbilt is six ' nine.
This is their time.
They're small, but.
They're huge, Like it's a bunch of huge perimeter players, And like I imagine a scenario in the playoffs where it all goes down where it's it's Austin, Lebron, Luca, where Austin's your small guy, but then it's six nine sixty nine, and then it's gonna be two of Van der Ruey or Dorian Phinney Smith who are both six nine, are all six nine rangey forwards. And so for example, look at Oklahoma City, So like Oklahoma City is really good, but it's like a lot of six five and six
six guys. So like there's even though they will present issues with their bigs in that series, like Chat's a problem, Isaya Hartenstein's a problem? The Lakers are gonna have four inches on every single matchup in that series that's on the perimeter, which is something to at least account when you're talking about this sort of thing. And that's where I look at the problem solving peace, Like like Lebron.
You know, we talk so much about Kevin Durant being a plug and play guy, and for the record, I think he probably still is the best plug and play guy.
But Lebron's a plug and play guy too.
It's like, you mean, the guy who can defend and can rebound and can run. He can run action, but he can also screen. He can shoot when he's in spot up situations, he can play out of the post. Like Lebron can just shape shift into whatever your team needs. It's like the other night against Golden State, he has
seventeen rebounds in a game. You know why, because it's like, we don't have a center, so tonight, I'm just gonna grab every damn rebound, Like that's That's just what I'm gonna do because that's what the team needs me to do. And so when I look at that group, it's just there's a lot of like kind of Swiss army knives in that group, and I think that that goes a long way towards kind of like problem solving the types of things that you're gonna run into in the postseason.
As a matter of fact, even when it comes to the center position, the only thing I really concern I'm the only thing I'm concerned about is Yoks, Like they don't have anybody that can even come remotely close to bothering Yo.
Which we talked about this on the show. Jay Mack and I talked about this today. I'm like, Yoki is just scoring forty five points in the series, Like, just bake it in, pick on Jamal Murray's defense, like whatever, But he's gonna score forty five. You just have to come to terms with it.
Yeah, I agree.
I The only reason why I'm I'm waiting to watch more Lakers basketball before I come to any sort of conclusion is like you mentioned, Denver can struggle to guard, and that means they're definitely going to struggle to guard the Lakers because everyone's going to struggle to guard the Lakers in two. This is not the twenty twenty twenty three Nuggets where they had Kntavio's callwell, Pope as like
this shoe in fifth Guy. It's gonna be a lot of like Christian Brown or Russell Westbrook seeing minutes in the postseason, and those are guys that I think JJ Reddick's going to be like, that's not Contavious called wo Pope. We can help off of him. Now, Denver's gonna find ways to score. They're going to score a lot of
points in that sort of matchup. But I am curious to watch they play in like a week and a half and I'll be really interested to watch that game, mostly just to see how effectively they can break down Denver's defense because JJ's gonna have plans, He's gonna have things that he can try to get to get the ball out of Jokic's hands. But that's an interesting matchup there, and like it's a classic example of styles make fights.
And I don't know about you, Colin, but if we look at last year in the Western Conference, that was a matchup playoff series in every single round, it was like, oh, Denver couldn't handle Minnesota, but Minnesota couldn't handle Dallas. I think Denver probably beats Dallas right. Well, you get matchups here or there, like what if what if Denver ends up at the four seed because the Lakers passed them
at some point in the regular season. Now Denver's got to get through OKC in Round two before they even.
See the Lakers.
So like where that's where it gets into one of these situations where you can't write any of these teams off because they could catch a matchup and lose early.
You know, a team that's I think the NBA has always been better when the next relevant in between Mikail Bridges, Jalen Brunson, Kat Josh hart Og. It's a really good basketball team, but they do not match up with the Celtics, and this is where you're really good. I mean, I've watched them play the Celtics twice and that shit's not competitive, Like it's it does not work now, it's it's almost
like the Celtics have circumvented the NBA CBA. The NBA CBA they don't want you to have like five really good players, and it's almost like the Celtics figure out of way to be the last team that can have a roster that you you're not supposed to have anymore, where Derek White's your fifth best guy some night.
And now they're trying to sell the team so someone else has to pay for it.
Yeah, yeah, like.
It's like they're almost circumventing the new CBA, Like this is not really fair, and you can tell. So I think New York's a really good basketball team and I and I think I trust them in the playoffs. I think they're smart. I think they've got you know, it's it's well chronicled. They're kind of got a villain field. They play hard, they're smart. I think they're one of those teams that will be a better playoff team than a regular season team. And they're a good regular season team.
They are teams like Houston, I think are a better regular season team than a playoff team. The next are gonna be fine. But I watch them now twice play Boston, and I want you to break it down because they don't match up and this is a good team. Let's just be honest about this. They got five to six guys in that rotation. The Knicks can match up with
almost every team in the league. Why is Boston? You can tell Boston, Like when they played this past week, that's a national TV game, They're like, okay, all right, guys, I mean that thing was I mean four minutes in you're like, yeah, yeah, Boston came to play. Boston's not f and around. Why doesn't New Because I think New York has enough different players, and they play hard enough, and they're really smart and they're well coached. They kind of match up with everybody. They do not match up
with Boston. Like what is it?
There are two kind of prevailing theories in NBA offense right now, which is like match up hunting versus like running motion. And the motion is like what you see with the Warriors. There's tons of screens, guys are running in circles all over the floor. Boston's like, where's your weakest defender, Let's get them up here, Let's play some basketball,
and like that's literally all they do. And when I watch that game, the way they surgically attacked Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns every single time down the floor, they get them both in, they bring the ball off the floor, they'd have Jalen Brunson's man come screen for Tatum. Okay, now Jalen Brunson's on Tatum. Okay, now we're gonna get
Cat into the action. So now it's like Tatum and one of his teammates attacking kat An Brunson in the same action and there's just nothing they can do about it. The Knicks are really, really good. They can score whenever they want, They get out and transition like crazy. They've got all these good players that are super bought into their r They're super fun to watch, and they have beat the shit out of some good teams this year. But every time I've watched them against Boston, it's the
exact same issue. We are going to get Karl Anthony Towns in space and make him guard and just get right past him and then spray out and get great shots and beat you. It's actually kind of funny, Colin, because you can tell that they really want to beat the Knicks. Because the Celtics have played some pretty bad basketball in the middle of the season where they're not deliberate and where they do take bad shots and they settle and they don't do the things they need to do.
They see the Knicks and they like snap back to the playoffs last year and they just get surgical in the way that they pick on those guys. But it really just comes down to they go at New York's worst defenders every single time, and then they play driving kick out of it to get great shots, and that really is the issue. And then Jalen Brunson, he just has this wall of athletic, bigger defender every single possession as it goes down to the other end, it's like,
here's Jalen Brown, Here's Drew Holliday, Here's Derek White. He's just it's such a difficult job for him to consistently break down that Boston defense because they just have so many different defenders they can put on them.
Yeah, it's interesting to say that because I really like the dexterity of the Knicks. I think they're a matchup problem. Karl Anthony Towns is offensively gifted. He's shooting threes like right now, like the best he's ever I mean, he's really shooting the ball. Well, he's quirky. I've seen him play live four times, and there'll be halfs you're like, is he a top ten player in the league? Like he can destroy people, he can embarrass people, and then in the second half you'll be like, did he take
a he made? Did he have a theorough flu at half? Like what happened? But it is interesting you break it and I'm so glad for our audience listening Jason is so good at this and that's why I just foisted it up to him. Is when I've watched him play twice the Celtics and it shit is not competitive. They just do not match up at all. You know. The NBA is a funny league where the NFL sort of
separated from everybody for a lot of reasons. Our society is so distracted now, the tiktoks, the platforms, the iPhone, so regular season games when you play like hockey or baseball, it's really hard NBA. It's really hard college basketball to get ratings Monday through Friday. So college football, UFC, the NBA, the World Cup, they have big advantages. They feel like events. We're more of an event. Netflix has figured this out. We're more of an event culture now than a Monday
through Friday, right, and we're just more distracted. But I will say this about the NBA, and I think they may not have their best players in the best markets. But Luca going to La Jimmy Butler to San Francisco, the Knicks are fun to watch. So is Boston. I think it's bigger than people think. The Aaron Fox to Wemby Baseball had a massive resurgence last year. And let's not try to overthink this. It's because Bryce Harper's and Philly Aaron Judges in New York. The Dodgers are an
all star team. The Mets are really good, like all the really good players are almost all in the right markets. I thought it was not just a good week for the NBA. They repositioned their players. Wemby is the next superstar. Oh dearon Fox goes to him, Luca to La, like, the Knicks are really fun to watch. Boston's outstanding. And by the way, it's okay to have an OKC. That's a nothing wrong with that. But it's like, I don't know, and it's easy to beat the NBA up and it is.
Baseball is an agent run sport. Basketball is a player run sport. NFL sort of an executive run sport, which is the life that most of us can relate to and live in. I thought it was a substantial Like, Honestly, if you're Adam Silver and you could have pulled levers, you would have wanted Butler with Steph you would have wanted Wemby to get a twenty five point guy. I
from your perspective, you watch the NBA regardless. I thought it was the best ten to fourteen day period the NBA has had in five years.
Seriously, oh, one hundred percent agree.
I found this to be so fascinated in Colin because you know, first of all, I'm a diehard basketball fan, and so when I hear people talk about the NBA in a negative light, I'm like, I get defensive.
I'm like, no, we're good. This just please watch. It's gonna be interesting, I promise.
And it's like, when everyone was talking about all this stuff early in the season, there were all these different prevailing opinions, and that, for the record, is what made it interesting is no one knows. No one knew why the ratings were down, and I was kind of keyed in on the concept of urgency. I kept thinking, like, what was the difference between like nineteen ninety eight when Michael Jordan was playing in right now, And the difference is there's just thousands of more options both on your
TV and on your smartphone. It is in much more competitive space. And I still think that that is the primary barrier if between the NBA and like getting real consistently great ratings. That said, like, what really dawned on me in the last week as NBA interest skyrocketed. Yeah, and even though the NFL is going to be just fine, there was a little bit of a stagnant kind of stretched there in the last couple of weeks where it's like, here are the Chiefs again, here are the Eagles again.
It's kind of the same storylines. Okay, Yeah, Taylor Swift, what we talked about all that last year, it was like kind of a little bit stagnant. And what Dawn done me, Colin is I think the NBA screwed the pooch a little bit with this latest CBA by restricting player movement so much. It was a it was a problem where it became the only thing the NBA was, where all we talked about was players moving. And you
don't want you don't want to go that far. But the truth of the matter is is a good amount of the intrigue in the NBA comes down to player movement. That's right, and it's and it's been like that my whole life. It keeps things fresh.
I told you for this when he joined me. I said, Adam, you guys are too worried about this. I find the Warriors boring. When STEP's off the floor, I'm now gonna watch them play. I already have watched them play. Player movements front. The NFL figured this out. They moved their free agency period. They're like, people like this stuff. It's fantasy football. I think, listen, the NBA has always been
a little concerned with tanking. But I do think sometimes the NBA worries about problems that are just natural and authentic and organic and it's okay, like people like they like traits, take out Lebron. The truth is, even Kab's player movement outside of the Warriors, it hasn't made the league unfair. One of his moves was great. The last tw who haven't done anything.
Yeah, they almost always don't pan out. Actually, it's right, it's kind of hilarious.
It's like, who's gonna be the next person to put all their chips in the basket and have some sort of some sort of issue. But like, yeah, that's kind of the way that I look at And I think part of it is they listen too much to certain owners and you almost need to get those guys together and be like, look, I get it, Like when this happens and you lose your star. It can be a problem. But the flip side of it is is like we're all gonna make a lot more money if there's intrigue
surrounding the league. In an absence of urgency, we can make up for it with intrigue. And you don't want to go too far. You don't want to get it to where it becomes a soap opera. But I thought it was like Colin, It was like everyone was so just like whatever about the NBA all season until the Luca trade went down, that's right, and then it's just and it was almost like it kind of like broke the ice in a way to where everyone was like,
you know what, let's shake things up too. Next thing, you know, you have six stars changing teams, you have all these new cores that you're looking at. It just becomes it just it just shook things up in the
right way to reinvigorate interest. And so from that standpoint, like I do wonder if the NBA needs to take a look at a little bit more balance between like you need to find a way to incentivize players staying with teams, but at the same time make it possible for them to be moved, because right now it's too difficult to move them because of the apron rules and all these different things, and so like like Colin, more players would have moved if it wasn't for the current
CBA structure, like when you have to match salaries but you can't taking additional money, and now everyone needs a third team to eat up salary just to facilitate a deal, right, like it just it made it difficult, and like everyone did it anyway. But like the point is is that I think the NBA kind of over indexed on stability, yes, and now all of a sudden, when you have stability without urgency, it just becomes boring.
Yeah, And I think you know it's it's It's funny about professional sports is people talk about parody, but TV networks pay about thirty five percent for all these leagues or more. They don't want parody. Fox doesn't give a rip if they have to televise the Eagles every week and never the Panthers, like they don't care. It's like the reality is is the NBA partners at Amazon, NBA, ESPN,
Amazon and NBC. If eight to ten teams are fun to watch, then that those are the teams you televise like Fox, We're gonna televise the Podres, the Dodgers, the Mets, the Yankees, maybe the Braves because they're so big in the South. And and that's about sixty five to seventy five percent of the games you televised. We don't. We're not behold into televising the Mariners. You know, it doesn't matter. And the NBA is not you know, ESPN doesn't have
to televise Sacramento. So I agree with you, is that don't people like deals? I think what's happened in our society is that as we're more distracted, it takes more to grab our attention. But basketball, at its core, I mean, at its core, is a fun watch. It's it has many things that are really good. It's driven by stars, it's got egos, it's got rivalries, it's got a hierarchy.
It's cool. You see celebrities at games. There's a lot of things that you know, baseball had a very good season, but baseball is long, the pacing is slow, celebrities don't go to games, the season is twice the NBA. There's a lot of things with baseball that in the current sort of societal structure and are how we're built out don't work. That's why speeding the game up was so important. Basketball's always had certain things young people like it. It's
the culture, their shoes, it's star driven. So the key is can you get the stars moving around a little bit? Can you hopefully get them in your Boston's and your LA's and your Chicago's and your New York's and Phillies. Yeah, markets kind of matter. But it reminded me Jason years ago when before Obama became their presidential candidate, the Democratic Party was just sort of lost, and then all of a sudden a year later, after Barack Obama becomes president,
You're like, Wow, that party is strong. They are dominant. That is the smart party. It is amazing when Connor McGregor is UFC is growing and growing, and Connor McGregor is this crazy talent. It's like it just took UFC to a completely Oh you've got to watch Saturday night. Connor McGregor's fighting, John Jones is fighting. The truth is the Lakers are good, the Celtics are good, the Knicks are good. Jason, the league's good. I mean, seriously, San Francisco,
New York Los Angeles Boston. Yep. League's gonna be just fine.
You gotta think about the casual fan, like when I when I think about like the nut jobs like me that are gonna watch the season no matter what, we're not the people that you're trying to impress and that and that really is the bottom line there. There has to be some intrigue. The NFL does it with urgency, and it's just so easy for anyone to watch the game and realize one team's trying to move this way and the other team's trying.
To move this way.
It's like it's basically like eleven on eleven tog of War if you really look at it, and basketball it just it. It needed this, and like I can't even colin I Rob.
Polinka after trading for Luka Dacic.
Got through the deadline without a center and put all of his eggs in the basket of Mark Williams, who's played like a third of the basketball games that he could have played in since he came into the league, Rob Polinka, and Genie Buss. Had this not gone down,
the Lakers probably would have spiraled for another decade. It's hard for me to even quantify how much of a solid Nico Harrison and the MAVs did here for not just the Lakers, but for the entire NBA, because they set the Lakers up for the next decade when they probably would have spiraled from here.
It really is a remarkable turn of events.
You know, let's finish with this. I had said this, I am not going to defend Nico Harrison. I'm not going to do it. But with the new Max deal, and because Luca, because of his all NBA and his experience, qualified for like the top of the food chain. It was different when the max to Lebron was thirty eight million, and that still wasn't maybe as much as a great NFL quarterback. When the max now is seventy four million annually. Okay, I get owners saying he's not in great shape, he
doesn't defend, he's missed the last two camps. He hasn't played since Christmas. There's a duality to all this stuff. Yes, the stars will be paid more than Patrick Mahomes, like
thirty percent more in some instances twenty percent more. But I do get even billionaires going, okay, okay, we've gotten a seventy five million a year just say this out loud, doesn't defend not in great shape, miss camp second time, hasn't played since Christmas, doesn't have a great work ethic, naturally gifted offensively, Yet that doesn't sound like a seventy four million dollar employee like Lebron qualifies that and Edwards.
I mean, there's there's Wemby's, there's good a handful of players. You're like, you just pay that Steph Curry. But I do think is that when you get into a stratosphere where you're paid more than the highest paid CEOs on Wall Street, like there's a big difference. You're like, ooh, you know, guy's making thirty five million a year. Okay, that's insane money. Seventy four million dollars a year, and it's like, yeah, he's missed the last couple of camps,
hasn't played since Christmas. I do think, And you start looking at Kawhi, you look at Embid, and then you look at NBA legends like Kobe and Lebron. There was a little bit of a Shack quality with Luco where you're like, yeah, I know he's transformational. But the Lakers moved off Shack. They moved off Shack and they talked about conditioning and commitment and playing defensively beyond block shots.
So I'm not saying it's a good job. I wouldn't have made the deal, but I think, Jason, when you start getting into seventy four million, I get an order going and I got I got paid five years of this and I'm watching and he's like, as I played since Christmas, I kind of get it to some degree, Am I nuts?
You're not? I mean the concept that you're talking about. I think I've run into a lot as I'm looking at certain players, Like even I saw the brandon Ingram deal today and I'm like, good God, forty million a year for brand Ingram. I'm like, I'm like, when he's healthy and in rhythm, he's good. But he's been that like ten percent of the time over the last couple of years. Right that series against the Suns in the
first round a couple years back, he looked amazing. But it's like, that's a lot of money to tie up Jalen Brown. I like Jalen Brown, but there's some years at the end of his deal where he's making like sixty five million. That's a lot of money to pay for some Jalen Brown when.
He's regarded as the second best player on a team, second most gifted. It's like, I like Jalen Brown, but I think fans are forgetting sixty five seventy five million dollars. It's just different. It's like Musk and I forget when this happened over the last couple weeks. It's like, didn't Denmark or something like reject his bonus. There was some story about people, Okay, you can't have a billion dollar bonus, Like we're not doing that, Like they're even among rich people.
There are numbers that feel egregious. And I am going to look under the hood and I'm gonna examine everything. If Luca was forty eight million today, you just not worry about the defense, but barking and officials not in shape hurt missus. Second cam hasn't playd since Christmas doesn't defend I. There's part of me that just gets it. There's a shack thing going on.
I get it. Here's my one counterpoint. Shaq was considerably older at the time. Yes, And in my opinion, there are five transformational talents in the NBA, five talents that if you get this guy, everything you do is so much easier with team building. It's Jokic, it's Yannis, it's shake Yo, Alexander, it's Wemby, and it's Luca. To me, Luca is one of those guys, and he's twenty five years old. Even with the cap, like they're they're smoothing the cap so they don't have so that they avoid
the Kevin Durant situation in twenty sixteen. But the CAP's gonna go up like something crazy like ten million a year in perpetuity through the end of the decade as they as they wrap in all this new TV money. So like, even in the context of team building, I think, like, even if Luca has taken up seventy five million in my cap, but I think I can get a payroll up to one eighty one ninety within a.
Couple of years.
I feel like I like my chances building around Luca, and so like, even though I grew with all things you said, and Colin, I made sure to say this in my show after the trade, like, I was super critical of Luca after the finals.
We talked about it.
It was the worst defensive performance I've ever seen from a star in the finals. His conditioning is embarrassing.
For the record.
One of the things I'm excited about is I want I think Lebron you can see it in his body language. I think Lebron is trying so hard to set an example for him. He's on Instagram and his hyperbaric chamber. He's hustling around on defense like he's never done it in his life. Lebron is Lebron is trying to set this example for Luca because he knows the potential that is there. But this is all I would say. He's fat,
he's chubby, and he's slow. But he was fat and slow in the in the playoffs last year, and he absolutely obliterated the Minnesota Timberwolves and got within three wins of the trophy. Like, Yeah, at a certain point, I'm like, let's not overthink this. Even though I agree with everything you're saying, I just think Luca is worth the risk.
Yeah, So it's called hoops tonight. It's Jason timp I think he has the ability to break down games and film as well as anybody that does this, and he's going to become as we know, in football season ends, we do a lot more with Jason. It's always great to see you. I gotta be honest, I have been really I had a stomach virus. I've been ah staying away from the Rocks. But I I just had one and I'm gonna have another one when we signed off, really did. I can be a little blurry tonight. I
gotta watch it. What game is tonight? What have we got tonight? Oh?
Man, I haven't even looked at this slate yet. Let's I would imagine that the several more new trade uh trade guys to watch, all right, Grizzly Suns, that's a fun one. Nix Pacers, that's a fun one.
All Right, there we go. Good see anybody.
Good to see you too, man. Looking forward to the rest of the season.
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