The volume. Hi, everybody, welcome in. You're either watching this on YouTube on Sunday night or listening. As we retweeted on Monday morning, Jason timf and I have I think our best forty five minute NBA discussion on Jason Tatum and the Celtics thrashing of the Sixers. We talk about Lakers and Denver. We talk about the Warriors future. So we'll get to that in about five minutes. I do want to start with the news on John Morant, and for a second time, on his Instagram there's a picture
of him with a gun. If you look, every statistic will tell you this. Young men make more poor decisions than any other demographic in the country, far more than young women, old women, middle aged men, older men, young men, and so one of the dilemmas has been young men tend to be more unmeeedable or vulnerable to poor choices, especially when they choose the wrong friends or the wrong groups to hang out with. So one of the issues the NBA is very aware of is the Ja Morant issue.
Whereas an NFL player comes in and he's red shirted, he's twenty three years old. Often they're married in college or right when they get out of it into the NFL, you're dealing with an adult. There is a big gap between a nineteen year old male and a twenty three year old male. That four years when you're forty eight to fifty two doesn't matter, but it matters a lot. Young men tend to mature more slowly than young women. So the NBA gets these really really really great, young
talented people at nineteen years old. They can't even drink in the hotel bar they stay in, and they're thrust on the spotlight in the star driven sport. Shoe companies, fame, Instagram, girls' money. And I am not saying in any way John Morant isn't culpable for his decisions. But I look at this as a failing of his shoe company. The organization goes close to him. Where's his support system? This doesn't come out of left field. In fact, this is his second incident.
Is that we all know the problems with sports. We know that football has a regulated level of violence, so they're trying to make it safer. Less hitting in practice, less hitting above the shoulders. We know baseball they've changed rules to speed the pace of the game up. We know, one of the issues in the NBA is that players
are miserable. You don't hear that much from football players because they come in the league more adult, They have a broader life, married kids, and they have shorter careers, so they come into the league with a much more serious mindset, whereas a guy comes into the league at nineteen years old and he looks and says, I can play this for fifteen, eighteen, twenty years, and so there's less urgency for a basketball player who knows he's going
to have a longer career. So I think the league and teams and shoe companies have to do a better job of understanding that. I've never been in love with Jah Morant as a franchise player. He reminds me a lot of Derek Rose, where so much of his game is spectacular. You know, Michael Jordan would give you twenty four points a night on just medium range jumpers and
then six to eight spectacular points. Patrick Mahomes gives you twenty two completions every Sunday that are easy stuff, curls, drag route screens, and then he gives you four to five jaw dropping plays. I always feel like with Derek Rose and John Morant, like eighty percent of their plays are spectacular. It's hard to last. You're crashing to the floor,
You're challenging bigs at the rim. You got to give me twenty one points a night just waking up in the morning, rolling out of bed, mid range jumpers, easy laps. Jaws a wildly spectacular player. But I just don't know physically he and Dereck Rose. They're thin, they weigh one ninety or less. They crash to the floor, they challenge guys at the rim. I don't see them as guys for ten to twelve years. You can depend on physically, but the emotional stuff, this is hard go go back.
I mean, when I was nineteen years old, I could never have handled one hundred million dollars. I wouldn't have known what to do. The fame, the girls. So I feel bad for Job Morant. He's not my favorite NBA player in terms of a franchise guy. But god, this is the second time with Jaw we've seen it before. That's why I have been on this for several years. The idea that college basketball is the enemy of the
NBA is ludicrous. There is nothing wrong with going to college, being within a system on a college campus, being coached hard, being responsible, having to be more selfless. When Zion Williamson said I want to come back to duke, people shamed him now because of his body type. He may have been better served going to the pros because everybody was concerned about his torque and his speed and his body. But I don't know. I look at the Ja Morant situation.
I am not saying he shouldn't be responsible, but I also think this has been something I've seen more than once. And you don't expect nineteen year olds to make great decisions when you empty everything fame, money, responsibility on them. It is a lot, a lot. Let's go to Jason Timp at the Volume hoops tonight. How great have the NBA Playoffs been so far? If you live in one of those cities and wanted to go to the games,
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To me, that game was pretty simple. The best player for the Sixers no showed, and the second best player, who's been kind of hot and cold anyways, also happened to be cold. And you're just not going to keep up with that super talented Celtics team unless you get good play out of your stars. And to me, that's pretty much all there is too. What were your thought What were your thoughts on that game?
Yeah, I mean we can put the harden. You know, we've been we've been pretending that every trust hardened in the playoffs for a decade and this has always been like, like we've come to terms. Kirk Cousins probably has four or five more good years, but we've bailed on him. We do that football, you're not a big game player. Andy Dalton got that reputation very early in the NBA because so much of the league is optics and aesthetics. If we like your style, we keep believing you'll deliver forms.
It's like Westbrook's not a playoff guy. Harden's not a playoff guy. And that style of play, which is you know and a Harden never took great care of himself. You age a really fast, right, there's a reason Lebron's still great. Rady at the end was still great. Kobe last game could be great. Your body treats you like you treat your body so hardened. You know, he was a he was a nightclub guy. That's fine with me. But what happens at the end of years this sport,
which is incredibly taxing, there's just too many games. It's always been too taxing. That's why old NBA players in their fifties are all crouched over. It just beats them. The sport beats the hell out of you. So there should be about sixty five sixty eight games. And that's why load management, the analytics are now acknowledging these guys are playing too many games. It's not an excuse, it's the truth. So you know, Harden is aged very quickly, but also on a micro level within seasons, he ages
very quickly. He doesn't have a lot left and that was in his prime, so you know he can be And I said this about a month ago. I said, he's really now kind of a role player. And what the role players do, like Jordan Poole, great night, bad night, good night, bad night, great night, bad night, bad night, that's a role player. You know, a d steph Lebron may pull back, but you don't get horrendous performances you do from a role player, and that's what that's what
Harden is. So I think it's time to move on from James Harden. I love Maxi and beads there for the long term. Tobias Harris is fine. P J. Tucker is what he is. But I think, you know, in a way, I'm relieved we don't have to keep pretending we know what Harden is in Big Spot. It doesn't work. And Tatum also had his best game maybe as a pro. I mean, he that first half was like wow, it was mj ish, It was like Kobe at his best,
and that let's not have recency bias. Every Celtic fan today was praying that Tatum showed up, So let's not pretend like that hasn't been an ongoing discussion, so but I was happy for him. He's a great player and his confidence kind of waivers at times. But that move he made at the end of the first half, when he moved to his left, it was like, Okay, that's like if he has has an eight second piece of video that defines him, it's like, that's a good one.
You know, Tatum. I gained so much respect for him in this series because of how poorly things were going for him and his sticktuitiveness during it all. For how poorly he played to start Game six, to suddenly have those shots fall at the end of the game, and you could just tell it was like the weight of the world got lifted off of his shoulders, and I directly think that led to him playing with as much confidence as he did today. He's had a nightmare pull
up jump shooting season. He shot twenty nine percent on pull up threes during the regular season. It's been a huge problem for him and to see that skill kind of come to fruition on the stage. I talked about this after Game six, but basketball can be such a mentally challenging sport because jump shooting, in particular when you're practicing it, like, I have no doubt that if Tatum is doing a shooting drill, he's hitting seventy seventy five
percent of those shots. And then you get in a game and you're like, man, I'm one fourteen, I've paid my dues, I've done all the work, and these shots to start falling, and he just had the four to two to stick with it, and he kept going. I thought he exposed Joel Embiid as a one dimensional defender in this game with his ability to pull him out
and switches and kill him on the perimeter. But by the way, something to gain appreciation for Anthony Davis, Like Embiid is considered a much better defender than Jokic, but he was a liability in this game because of his inability to defend on the perimeter exactly whereas Anthony Davis. It's like I'm switching on Steph Freakin Curry with the game on the line and getting back to back stops. As far as the Sixers go, I want to try to focus more on Embiid because I look at Harden
as a supporting star. He helps run your offense, he helps get guys into their spots. He straight up stole two games in this series. I would argue you got more out of Harden than you could have hoped to get in this type of setting.
Oh, no question. I mean that game the other night was his best game in the playoffs in eight years. That was a complete outlier for almost a decade exactly.
And he had another one earlier in the series without Embiid. He so like I focus on Embiid, This is actually a crazy stat. Colin. Joel Embiid averaged five made field goals in the paint per game in this series. Nikola Jokic against the Suns averaged eleven made field goals in the paint. That to me, is the weak point in Joel Embiid's career. A skill set right now. He loves to hover around the free throw line and take jump shots.
Even in those post up situations he'd get Joel, he'd get Al Horford back down five feet from the rim. Jokic is hitting you with that shoulder and going up with a hook shot that he's going to make seventy percent of the time. Embiid fall away and maybe fall on the ground and try to draw foul like he's taking a fade away jump shot instead of going up strong.
That to me is the next step for Embiid. You know, it's funny we look at this series and we look at the Sixers moving forward, and to me, it's like the roster is great. They defended a lot better than I expected them to. Their supporting star did a lot tyres MAXI had big moments. Tobias Harris, I thought, did find your best player was not good enough and he
simply has to be better. And that's that's really the only off season adjustment Philly needs to make is Joel Embiid needs to craft his game in a way that thrives in the physicality of this setting, and he's just yet to do so.
Yeah, and when you know, Embiid also to your point, and Harden's always been like this. They can really kill ball movement. And you know jokicch you give him the ball, he has two or three set moves and he goes right to him. Embiid is a little more artist. He ponders, he puts the ball on the floor. And what happens is when Harden and Embiid are both cold, they don't move the ball. Everybody else just watches two cold shooters,
whereas if Jokich is off, he's a great passer. He makes his mind up very quickly in most instances what to do with the ball. You know, I've said this before that more choices can often create more confusion. I mean, Jordan had like three stock moves, right, whereas sometimes you know, Kobe could be a bit more artist. He didn't have as many stock moves, and sometimes there were complaints that Kobe. Basically you were all staring at Kobe, right, You're just
waiting for Kobe to do his thing. And so I think with Embiid, one of the things that always bothered me about his game is it can be ponderous and by the way he puts them all on the floor. Also, sometimes you know it's high school basketball. If you're a big guy, don't put the ball on the floor. Little guys can come and swat it. We saw that twice today. So I know he's great, but at times I feel like he's disruptive to the flow. I never feel that
with Anthony Davis. You give Anthony the ball low, he's gonna shoot it. Now. He may square you up and turn to the basket, but he will attack yo kitch attacks and be ponders too much, and maybe if you put a stop clock, that's a confirmation biased to me because I've never loved his game, but I there are times I watched him in this series and I'm like, get him off the floor, let the young guys move the ball, especially when they got down. But you know he's MVP, so I lose the argument.
There's a rhythm in flow to basketball. Anybody who's played at any level, even if you haven't played at any competitive level, you just play in your men's league or pick up around town, there's a rhythm in flow to basketball. And like, I was always blown away by how many people Warriors fans in particular, were like, hey, we got such great looks in Game six. I can't believe we were missing them. And I'm like, yeah, but that wasn't
Warriors basketball. Warriors basketball was a motion offense where the ball's popping around and everyone's involved. And the Lakers made you go straight up high pick and roll with Steph Curry and now guys are standing around a lot. And when they're standing around a lot, then they catch and shoot. It's a totally different type of shot than when there's
a rhythm and flow to the offense. And there's no doubt that stagnation, which is what I call anytime a player just holds on ponders and stares around for a while. But yeah, that's the thing, like Embiid has to start, you know. And he said this in his price or when he got the MVPs, like it's now my goals championships. That's great. So that means the next step for you is identify the things that are causing you problems in the postseason. You're not getting the same whistle that you
normally get. A lot of these tough fallaway fifteen footers and shots that you take don't follow as high a percentage as they do in the regular season. You need to learn to play bullyball. These are you're the biggest dude on this floor. You should be. You should be getting ten to twelve short push shots and hook shots in every single game that you can make seventy percent of. That's the next step for him is he's got to build out the playoff bullyball skill set.
We watched Boston pick the Sixers and the Bucks apart this year. We really did, so I'm interested to watch the Miami series. But you know, I went with Milwaukee and during the season, I think we said this multiple times, they have to reboot this roster. It's gotten old and slowly fast where they got old and slow against Miami. But I think if you look at Boston, if you look at the history of the NBA, it's baby steps.
So the Celtics get to the finals and lose. You know, after watching him today, it's like, Okay, is this the natural progression that they get back to the Conference of the finals and now they face a Laker or a Denver team. Lakers don't quite have quite the depth of athletes in their prime. Denver hasn't been in that spot. Maybe Denver now loses in the finals then comes back
next year. But when you watch the Celtics today, I did feel like, Okay, this team with Tatum delivered like this all right, this is the best team in basketball. That's what it felt like to me.
It's all Tatum. Like I mean, I have thought this has been the most talented roster in the NBA the last two years, and I thought they got even more talented this summer adding Malcolm Brogden. Just with all the players on the roster getting a little bit better incrementally
as they do as they grow. But it's the bottom line was is they had a star last year that kind of shrunk under the pressure against Steph Curry, and so if Jason Tatum plays at or near this level, they're gonna win the title because they'll have a bona fide superstar at the helm, a reliable second star, and all of the talent that you need. It's just that's the question. Is Let's say that they beat Miami, and I believe they will. Eric Spolser is going to give
him hell. He's going to ball pressure the hell out of those wings to make them uncomfortable because they're not great ball handlers. He's going to try to funnel them into bam at a bio. He's going to try to stagnate them with switching. He's going to do all these different things, and it will be a long, grueling series. Probably will still go six games, just because that's what
Eric Spolster does. But they don't have the talent I don't think to beat this Boston Team's say it's the NBA Finals now and it's Lebron James and Anthony Davis rolling into Town another monster NBA personality. Is Jason Tatum going to be able to stand on that court and feel confident as the guy? And for the record, the Lakers gave the Celtics two really good fights this year and straight up got robbed in one of them, so like that, you've seen them play down to their competition.
Those games were before the trade deadline too, that was before they made the roster changes. So I again, that's the thing. It's going to be. Can Tatum maintain that that moxie that you expect from a bona fide superstar at that level. And again, either way it's gonna be Yoku or it's gonna be Lebron, it's going to be somebody like that.
Yeah. I mean, listen, I'm happy that Tatum did what he did, but this had been what every Celtic fan woke up this morning and their number one concern was we're better than them? What Tatum's going to show on and it was the best version of him. So I'm really I gotta throw something at you so well, I have said this. I predicted that the Lakers would beat Minnesota in the playing game, and they would beat Memphis quickly. I thought they would lose to Golden State about five
or six. I just didn't think they had the shooting and the way the series worked out one game rest before between each game I thought worked against the Lakers. Well it didn't. So I was driving today and you know, I'll meet these people in Los Angeles having coffee there, like do you finally believe in them? And I really I came to a conclusion today, like why it's not like I hated the Lakers. I've just said I don't think they're a championship team, which by the way, they're
not yet. And I said about the Warriors, they're not a championship team. I had Milwaukee and Phoenix in it, with Milwaukee winning. But I thought about this. My opinion of Lebron this year has not been as accurate as the production of Lebron. So I've been saying on the air, There's never been a championship team where the best player AD is great eight offensively every other game and the second best player really doesn't have great games, he has
great spurts. That's like a win a playoff series team. But if you go back and look at Lebron from playing game to Golden State, oh, play in game Memphis Golden State and you just don't know what is and you just give me the numbers of Lebron. What I've been doing is comparing Lebron to Lebron's prime. But if you took the name off and said here's what this player gives you, you're like, oh, he's a more efficient
Jamal Murray, And then I could argue different games. Obviously, then I could argue, oh, they have the best player left and it'll bona fide All Star. I mean, Lebron did make what second team All NBA? Right, so third team I bad so and by the way, would have made second and he plays, he just didn't play many games. So and I was sitting in driving today, I was driving down and I was thinking, why can't I get this team? What the hell? And I'm like, on wait, timeout,
you keep comparing Lebron to prime Lebron. If you compare Lebron to all the other players, you're like, yeah, he's really good, he's an All Star. So I do look at them and I think I probably think they're gonna match up really well with Denver. And my guess is La ends up against Boston in the finals. That's my guest today.
Yeah, I'm picking la over Denver probably in six games, just because that's the similar cadence that they go with. Again with the Lebron thing, he really is trying to
conserve as much energy as possible. I don't think it's a coincidence that the two best moments he's had in this postseason so far are Game four against Memphis, down by one, He's playing like shit, yeah, and he's like, you know what, I just got to I just gotta go to the rim, and he was able to, and you know what, he finished over the defensive player of
the year. Then to start overtime, he beat the defensive player of the year off the dribble and made a layup on him, and then he beat a second team defense perimeter defender to the basket, Dylan Brooks for an and one layup in his twenty twenty game And looking back, that salvaged that series in a lot of ways, because they would have gone back to Memphis to too totally
different series if Lebron doesn't salvage that one. And then in Game six, like that was I don't think people realize like that was MVP level performance from Lebron in that Game six, like he was unbelievable defensively, unbelievable on the glass, controlled the offense out of the post, and had a high pick and roll picking on Steph Kurry. It was vintage Lebron. And so to me, what that told me was like, Okay, he knows he has that
in the bag. What he's gonna do is he's gonna hold that back and only use it when it's absolutely necessary, just from the standpoint of the energy level and as far as the roster goes, and like, I know that there's not a dependable offensive player on the roster. That's true. Lebron's coasting a lot, Anthony Davis is up and down offensively, each of these role players are. It's like one night they're great, one night they're not. But there's so many
of them that can go off. And Darvin Ham is so good at recognizing which player is in that groove and leaning on him with more minutes, just like Lonnie Walker in that fourth quarter of Game four where it's like tonight it's Austin Reeves, the next day it's D'Angelo Russell. Oh, today, Ruey Hachimuras got going. We're gonna feed him. He's got twenty four. Oh, today's Lebron's game. He's got it going.
They've got such a depth of players that can convert things offensively, and as I look at the Denver matchup, to me, it's one hundred percent about Anthony Davis versus Nikola Jokic and his ability to bother him defensively. Because think of it like this, If I go down the roster,
is Lebron better than Jamal Murray? Hell yeah, even this version of him Austin reeves, Yes, every bit is good, if not better than a guy like Michael Porter Junior or Contavious Calbo, Pope, D'Angelo Russell, like they actually down the roster are better. Just Jokic could theoretically be the best player in the series. And so everything to me comes down to Anthony Davis and his ability to bother Nikola Jokic. If he does that, I think the Lakers have enough and this this is a key Cup basketball
that is going to dominate this particular series. Every team the Lakers have played so far has been able to switch the Lebron James Anthony Davis pick and roll because Dylan Brooks and Jaron Jackson can both guard the other, so they'll just switch it. You have Andrew Wiggins and Draymond Green, they can just switch it. They're not gonna switch Nikola Jokic onto Lebron. So basically you're gonna have Lebron dominating this series in high pick and roll against
Nikola Jokic. And that's where Lebron can use his brain more because he's gonna automatically get dribble penetration coming over the top of those screens since they're not switching it. So it's gonna be all about Lebron on the offensive end in this series and all about Anthony Davis. Can he stay out of foul trouble and can he contain Nikola Jokic.
Yeah, this is the longest stretch for Anthony Davis playing. Well. Now, there was the Bubble year when he had that sabbatical, but this is really the longest sustained stretch. God, even pre Lakers. There was a couple of years before he came to the Lakers where he had injuries. So you cross your fingers a little, but I will say that I remember when the rumor started that Anthony Davis was going to be a Laker, and there was for about an hour a rumor he was going to be a Clipper.
It was very brief, Rich Paul, the guys. I don't think Rich Paul wanted to make it look so obvious that he was going to join Lebron. So there was like this, oh, the Clippers are in it. And I remember a source inside the Clippers saying they just didn't think he would consistently play through pain and big guys have unique bodies and you gotta play hurt, and that was always the knock on him. I don't think he's one hundred percent now. I think he's playing hurt. And
I think I'll throw this at you. When Lebron set the scoring record this year and there was that video where Anthony Davis like didn't get off the bench, and I think there was a little bit of feelings hurt and it was a little territorial like it's this my team or this. But I do think Lebron in his camp after the record was set, I think they made a real effort to say, hey man, that was just
a record like this, this is your team. And I think Lebron and his guys deserve credit for really empowering Anthony Davis, because let's be honest, all we talked about for about three weeks was Lebron breaking Kareem Abdulijibbar's record, and that you know, after a while that would wear
on the two best. Yeah, yeah, And so I think I think Lebron and his camp were very sensitive when there were there were some reports that I know because people reached out to me like they didn't like that narrative. And they've massaged it and they've really empowered a D. And you're seeing now college ad first three years in New Orleans, a D bubble, a D. And I don't think there's any question he's the best defensive player left. And I thought not Steph Curry, but Ad essentially controlled
that whole series. Everything the Warriors did both ms was based on where's Ad. He totally controlled the series. Even on nights when he wasn't great offensively, he still controlled it.
Yeah, you hit this hard all week, and I'm so glad you did, because it's recognition that Anthony Davis deserves. Every adjustment in the series was built around the Warriors trying to get Anthony Davis away from the paint and the Lakers trying to get Anthony Davis back into the paint. There's no question to me that he was the best player in the series. I mean, the reality is is they held to Steph to his least efficient scoring postseason
series since the Rockets in twenty nineteen. That's Anthony Davis. This is another crazy stat for you, Lebron, And this is this stat for you calling. This is the biggest reason why I believe in this Lakers team and their ability to win a championship. They throw hellacious defensive punches. Now they can coast a lot, and they usually wait
to use it until they need it. I think it's a big part of why their series have followed identical cadences, because they just have thesecipic games like Game three, where it's like, we're gonna just throw the kitchen sink defensively, Game one, Game six, that kind of thing in clutch situation, So when the scorer is within five points with less than five minutes left, the Lakers are holding teams in this postseason run to seventy four point four points per
one hundred possessions, and they are undefeated five to zero games this postseason with clutch situations. None of the remaining teams have a defensive rating below one hundred in clutch
situations in this postseason run. So the Lakers defensive punch, in large part because of Anthony Davis, is just so much more powerful than any of these other teams and what they can throw, and so if they get enough offensively out of this group, they're just the better two way team than any of these guys in my opinion.
Yeah, it's I find myself. And this is not a shot at Jokic because I thought he'd deserved the MVP, But I do want to see a Laker Celtic final. I went skiing on a Saturday with a friend. It was a great ski day and we came home that night and the Celtics play the Lakers. That was on ABC. It was a Saturday night, you know network game. It was a great game in Boston. Great game. And I remember sitting with a friend and I'm like, I can't figure this team out. They'd beaten Milwaukee at Milwaukee like
a month earlier. I'm like, God, this team's mess. And I'm like, then they play Milwaukee in Boston, I'm like, I think they're better. So I've struggled to get a beat on them all year. But I will say this because I was thinking of driving in the car today. Let's step ahead. If they faced Boston, So the best player would be Anthony Davis or Tatum. The second best
player would be Jalen Brown or Lebron. And then you'd get to and you could criticize the Lakers for like, D'Angelo Russell is inconsistent, but he's a better offensive player than their third best player, Marcus Smart. And then you could say, well, Austin Reeves is undrafted, but I'd argue he's a more reliable player than their fourth best offensive player, Malcolm Brogdon. Well you could say, well, your Jared Vanderbilt
gives you nothing offensively. Ei it as Robert Williams, and then you get into the ruie, and then you start looking around at those peripheral players, Derek White and ruining it. It's going to be a series where those role players, it's you know, role players play well. Jason at home, My guess is we're noted at six. We go to a game seven and then does Lebron go Superman as he put the cape on? But I went back and forth in the Car today Boston Lakers, and I'm like,
that's pretty even. And the difference is, I think Darvin Ham's had a better year coaching. I think he has a better feel for his team than Missoula does. At this point. It is at this point, and again, let's not let's not go confirmation bias. Three games ago, we didn't know what the hell was going on a Tatum Orange coach. So right like today, we think it's all solved. But I think Boston Lakers, I've just come to terms with Lebron still has the ability to put the cape on.
Even only his last year he could put the cape on. So maybe, and I'm warning myself be very careful. We did this with far we do it with Kobe Wit. These guys don't give it to you every night or every moment, but the ones, especially that took care of themselves, they can still bring it. Lebron's performance in Game six against Golden State, he was the best player on the fourteen shots for thirty points. It was incredible, and he's so smart, just.
Bullying everybody to the rim, beating people off the dribble. It was. It was unbelievable. And that's the unique thing about this Laker team is they have what might be the best player in the world in Anthony Davis, and then another guy who, in any one game sample can be the best player on the floor. Like he was the best player on the floor in a game that had Anthony Davis and Steph Curry in it, and he's
a million years old, Like it's remarkable to me. The Boston series an interesting matchup because Robert Williams I don't think would be as valuable in that series, because I think the Celtics would try to space out Anthony Davis with their five out groups without Horford on the perimeter. However, but one of Boston's biggest weaknesses in my opinion, is
they are very very much analytically focused. They want layups and threes and layups and threes that I think plays directly into Darvin Ham's coaching style, which is we want to chase you off the line and funnel you to Anthony Davis. And so especially if Al Horford had Al Horford had extended stretches of this series where he lost control of his shot, like there was I think in game oh, you think in game six he was like zero for seven from three at one point like that.
I think Darvin ham has some punches that he can throw against Boston to try to play them into their worst tendencies. But we have not seen a team yet that can truly and effectively pull Anthony Davis away from the basket. Boston has the tools necessary to do so. So it's another styles make fights kind of thing. And while Tatum and Brown are jacking up threes and driving into the basket, you're gonna have Anthony Davis and Lebron trying to punish them in the post, and they're gonna
have Seisman's matches all over the floor. The guard play is going to be super interesting. That would definitely be very entertaining series. But I'll tell you the Lakers are gonna have their hands full with the Nuggets. I have a lot of respect for that team.
Well, they know what they are, their star knows what he is. There's absolute clarity on what they do and don't do. My concern is, I don't trust Michael Porter in a big game. I just don't. So I don't. I don't. I don't even I know Jamal Murray's good. I trust you Kis in a big game, Jamal Murray I mostly trust, but Anthony Davis, if it went to a game six or seven, a D and Lebron are showing it. You know, there's you know, it's interesting about the Lakers. I view them as sort of an older,
low ceiling team. But a D actually, for his age, is still in his prime. Austin Reeves going into it, de Loo absolutely in it. Vanderbilt athletically in it, Ruey in it. You know, you look at them and you just immediately this is my bias. Oh, Lebron's old, they're old, but they actually both Denver the Lakers, a majority of their players, whether we love them or not, there is a lot of guys in their prime. Athletically. Lebron obviously isn't. But if you look at Anthony Davis in this stretch,
you can't tell me he's out of his prime. He's in his prime. I mean, there's never been a player this good in the playoffs that was maybe except Lebron. That Anthony's problems offensively a lot of times are I thought some of it was Golden State putting different people on him. It wasn't all that Anthony was bad. I mean, they did throw every look in the world conceivably at him, and very few players Jason are great. Tatum's a great example. He was crap for three quarters the other night in
that game. Like how many players in the history of the league are great every single game offensively the whole series. Yeah, I remember. I mean Kobe had a game seven that Metal World Peace won that he was terrible. Remember the one in LA It was terrible. By the way, it is Lebron because I watched the I watched the Utah Jazz Michael Jordan Bowl final. Michael, I swear to god, I had like a ten for a thirty three. Utah gave him problems. I watched him have games against the
Sonics where Michael was just close out games. Wasn't good, Like Lebron has screwed it all up. We just think, oh, twelve years, no bad games. I remember when Dan Gilbert at Once they were mad when he left Cleveland. They pointed to a game against like the Celtics and said he quit and it was like twenty eight thirteen to nine. I'm like, when that's your quit game. I mean, I think it's one of those things where Lebron just, I mean,
Lebron changed how Lebron's putting pressure on Tatum. We now think that all these great players are always great in big games, and it's like, no, Michael wasn't. Barkley wasn't. KD wasn't Steph isn't. We've come to that conclusion. I think you're right. Lebron's the only one in my lifetime, you know, no one not Magic Johnson got called tragic Johnson right after a series against Pot. Kareem was pretty damn good. You couldn't stop his shot. Kareem had very few bad games in this product.
Yeah, it's to me, it's the unique thing that sets Lebron apart. He's not reliant on shot variants. So if his jumper's not falling, he's still going to finish eight or nine times in the paint, and he's going to create nine or ten assists kicking out to three point shooters, play elite defense and be able to dominate the flow of the game, and that's what sets him apart. Colin, I wanted to ask you, I have a theory for what direction the Warriors should go, But before I hit that,
I wanted to see where your head's at. If you were GM of the warriors of like what do you? And we do have this report from Sham's that're probably going to keep Clay, probably going to keep Andrew and Draymond. It looks like the young guys name Lea, Kminga, and Pool will be the guys they look to sharp shop. So in your opinion, what kind of player would you be targeting with those players in a trade?
Okay? So I read the Anthony Slater piece at the Athletic this morning, and so I agree that I would keep Okay, so the story laid it out as you do. They're going to keep Clay. I would try to get him at a reduced rate. I would not pay him. I would just go to him and say do you want to be part of this or not? But I wouldn't have a problem with Draymond. I still think Draymond's an elite defender. He's an offensive catalyst, a screen setter, IQ on the floor. He's always been hot and cold offensively.
I would keep Steph. I would really try to keep Wiggins. I think there's some role players, you know. I would keep Kaminga. I like Moody, although he's limited. I like Moody, Gary Payton, I like and I would try to get Clay in a much reduced role. So the two players I have questions about her Jordan Poole, who drives me crazy, but Steph Mitch misses stretches and when he does, you can't become reliant on Clay. So Pool is way more valuable than I want to acknowledge because he drives me crazy.
I think his issue Jason is because he backs up Steph that when he comes on the floor he feels he has to be spectacular. In the last two games in this series, I think we talked about this. He took some mid range shots. When you play behind Steph and the crowd's all worked up and he goes off the floor, it's like mid range jumpers. What this is? So I think I think I think Steph is an ally but can get in Jordan Poole's head. I think it's hard to play behind Steph. It really is hard.
Whereas everybody knew physically, nobody was Lebron. Nobody thought I'm gonna do Lebron. Steph small slight, you can shoot two threes, and I think Pool sometimes thinks I'm going to do and it's like, no, dude, just do your thing. So I think Pools more valuable than I want to say is here's my concern. I think i'd move Looney. Here's why because I think one of the things the Lakers figured out very quickly, and they knew this going in,
is he's just no offensive threat. So you have to have Draymond on the floor defensively, So you have to take Looney off the floor. And we know it's a wing league now right, it's a shooter's league. But because he's become such a profound rebounder, he's got value on the market. I think the next step for them is becoming less reliant on their backcourt scoring. They've got to have seventeen eighteen points. I don't think Karl Anthony Towns fits,
he's too squirrely. But I do think if you went to Minnesota and said, hey, it doesn't work there, you guys could use Jordan Poole. Because Ant can sometimes be a reluctant perimeter shooter. He doesn't play defense. Ant can. That's an interesting fit. Mike Conley's a grown up pools limature. Ant is a physical specimen who can sometimes lose confidence in his shot. Pool never does in a weird way
he kind of works with Minnesota. He really, in my opinion, you could disagree, but it's like he is what they aren't and what he isn't they are. And Karl Anthony Towns, although he's squarely can give you a twenty two point threat every night. And again I'm not saying he's the right one. I don't think you need twenty eight there, but you gotta be a threat. You've got to have. You've got to make Anthony Davis if you meet or Yokic, you have to make them stay up at night. And
think I got to bring it on both ends. It's like Anthony Davis can take plays off. That's my take is that I would try to move you. Maybe have to move d'ante di Vincenzo. You got to move Gary Payton, you got to move two draft picks. You got to move Looney. I would try to get some scoring. That's what I would try to do. From the Am I wrong on that maybe?
And if I am telling me, the big one you hit on that I very much agree with is you can't just rely on backcourt scoring anymore. As a matter of fact, you actually specifically said smaller role for Klay Thompson. I think it's time to have that meeting with Clay where you sit down with him and you're like, hey, we're in a different phase now, Like it's time for you to evolve into a little bit more of a
supporting role. And it's kind of ironic because he had a pretty damn good regular season in terms of half court shot creation. But I saw people tweeting before Game six, like, oh, game six, Clay, and I'm like, there were a lot of things I didn't know about Game six. I was one hundred percent certain that Clay wasn't going to play well. He wasn't getting great looks. His legs were clearly cooked, like I thought. I said this in my Game six preview,
and I think it was a missed opportunity. I think they should have been leaning way more and Andrew Wiggins to look to score throughout that series. He was getting much better matchups against these Laker guards. He was cooking them. In Game five at home, he scored on d Angelo Russell.
Yeah, he was better than I thought. In the Sacramento series, considering his hiatus, he was worse against the Lakers. He didn't show up for three four games yeah.
And that's the thing is, like I thought they leaned way too heavily on clay when there were better options out there. I would look at it like this, Like the Jordan Pool problem is that the vast majority of young guards don't know how to play winning basketball. That's just the vast majority of them don't actually learn how to contribute in a winning context until they're in their late twenties, right, And so Jordan's just and you've talked
about this a lot on your show. Jordan deserves to go somewhere where he can be the starting point guard and in a lower pressure situation, learn how to play the game. And more importantly, he's your best vehicle with
which to bring back that diversity of shot creations. So if you're lying way too heavily on backcourt shot creation, you need some sort of rim pressuring forward that you can consistently dump the ball down into the post or attack mismatches with basically a better version of Andrew Wiggins. I don't know if that's a guy like ogn Andobi that you try to get from somewhere like Toronto or Carl Towns is an interesting example. The one thing that
freaks me out with Carl towns Is. He has a tendency to be like, oh, I'm just going to float around the perimeter today, and that that kind of can be a bit of an issue, especially for the addressed here,
you know. And then with the Looney thing and this last thing I'll say about it, like he it's time for the Warriors to have what they wanted James Wiseman to be, but that he was never going to be that young, which is a true vertical threat underneath the basket for contested rebound situations, brim protection and in lob threat situations and pick and roll. It's time for them to have a six or eleven dude who can jump on the roster.
It's time, by the way, let me throw out the knicks. They could sure use Andrew Wiggins. O.
Yeah, that's a great example. What about Julius Randall is a rim, pressuring forward for the Warriors?
You know, could you get Mitchell Do you like Mitchell Robbinson? Although he's not much of an offensive.
I like I like Mitchell Robinson a lot. He's actually a perfect example of a backup center that I'd love to have behind Raymond Green.
Okay, yeah, I mean Julius Randall plays his ass off. He's a real defender, excellent effort guy. And on the Warriors, he would be the third to four scoring option. That's perfect for Julius Randall. Honestly, you know, it's so funny about this league. It's so much about fit. I mean, Lebron handpicked Ad. And one of the reasons why is I've always felt this with Lebron. It's kind of a
sneaky Lebron thing. He doesn't want to be by the basket because if he's by the basket, defensively, he can't get the ball on the outlet and fly down the floor. He has to go ninety six. Lebron's way better at the free throw line and off to the races. So he's always loved a big that will do a little bit of the dirty work down low, just length. He didn't have to be because Lebron could block a lot more. He could be a much more. Yeah, but Lebron wants
the ball tipped. Lebron gets the free throw line and then six nine, two fifty. At the other night, he came down on the break and he looked left and went right. I got He's a freight train like everybody's just he's parts the seas. But I do think that's to me. I don't know if Randall's the piece, But like I look at the Knicks and I'm like.
His IQ concerns me, his basketball cube, him being a little bit of a ball stopper. That might drive Steve Kerr insane.
Yeah, but I I mean, the Knicks need a real score. I wouldn't want to give Wiggins up. I think you know, and you watch this league as closely as anybody. I know, I don't need twenty six and nine in the post. I need sixteen. I just need something. Like It's just the other day Looney hit a miderrate. He hit like a thirteen footer and I literally was like, holy hell, I've never even I mean it was just like I was with like four guys who were like, have you
ever seen him do that before? Like he's not even a threat. And I think if you want to get through Jokich and Anthony Davis and it's like you got to be a threat. He can't have all your scoring back court. The volume, make sure to check out The Draymond Green Show. I brought Draymond Green into the volume because one of the more entertaining voices in sports. Unique perspective understands behind the rope also chops up with guests
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