Keith Smith from sport Rack spot Rack rather for a long time. You can follow him on Twitter or on x at Keith Smith NBA joins us here on ex'es and bros. On this Friday morning. Keith, appreciate the time. How are you, my friend?
I'm doing one.
I appreciate the Beasty boys coming back.
Yes, I'm bad, let's go. Yeah, it's not bad. It's a good way to kickstart the weekend. So they named the reserves last night, and you know this, and you'll talk to a lot of your colleagues and a lot of players about this. Anytime you get these type of accolades, these types of votes, you're going to have snubs involved all the time. We don't necessarily have to dwell on that, although I do think Sabonis got totally jobbed Caid Cunningham getting there for the first time as a Piston, in
the first Piston since twenty nineteen. Why do you think he's so deserving like we do here in Detroit.
Yeah, he's played really well himself. And obviously part of what factors into this with the reserve vote, because the coaches vote for that, is his team performance. Fact that the team has played pretty well. I know they're on a little bit of a slide right now, but they're battling around five hundred fighting for a playoff squad.
He's really earned it.
You know, he's more efficient, which is shocking. They put a roster that makes sense around him, and he's playing better. But you know, he's really, you know, taking a major step forward this year.
Why should it matter how well a team is doing if a player is getting into an All Star Game? Do you think?
Yeah?
I think it's one of those things where it is kind of a tiebreaker and by the time you're getting down to those last couple of spots in each conference, it is all right, we gotta you know, you got to do something to differentiate these guys. They all have good individual stats, and I think a lot of people start looking at and saying, all right, who's winning more?
You know who.
Goes and again with the coaches, they value that, They value guys that are driving winning. For example, a guy like LaMelo Ball, he has great stats, but his team is terrible, and the coaches are going to look at that and say, yeah, but it's not like he is, you know, overwhelmingly great stats that he needs to be in the game. So we're we're going to push forward with you know, guys who will learned it. There's also a sense to with teams, you know, like the Houston Rockets.
They've played so well in the Western Conference, it was going to be very hard to say, yeah, he played great, but you don't have a single All Star even though you've got the third best record in the league. Like, that's going to be very hard. You have to justify. So that's part of the reason that happens.
Yeah, Devin Booker is another really good example, uh DeVonta Sabonis, two teams that as of right now would be on the latter stages of reaching postseason play, but they would and Booker's got really good numbers. Sabonis leads the league in double doubles. That that whole debate rages on. It continues in all sports, it's not just the NBA. Keith Smiths from Spotrack joining us here on Exes and Bros.
On this Friday morning. What is it you think is important about the NBA All Star Weekend in general?
It's a chance to celebrate the game. I think people kind of have taken it too far that the game itself is bad I look at it. So let's let's use the Kid Cunningham as an example. Guys are out there going to, you know, full hundred percent effort and Kid Cunningham suffers an injury. That rest of the rest of the Pistons season, no one's going to be happy, right, and everything to be like in this game, that didn't matter. You know, why were you playing so hard?
Now?
It doesn't need to turn into the complete circus that it's been, excuse me, the last couple of years. That's the problem. So I think what we're seeing is the league is trying to find ways to find a happy medium there where guys can play harder, but guys don't have to go all out and we can have a better product. But really it's about let's celebrate the game. Let's have a little fun. But you'll get this mid season break in and then you'll get back added after that and for the start run.
Yeah, I respect that, and I think you're right about that. Let's celebrate the game. It's important going hard. Just that type of phrase bothers me a little bit because don't expect me to pay one hundred percent for guys who are just going to it's just a showcase. That's all it is. It's to show off some skills, high high skills, and that's fine as long as we admit what it is. It's not really a game, and obviously it doesn't matter. So I wouldn't want Cad Cunningham, if you're a Detroit
Pistons fan, to get injured by any stretch. But I'm just not sure of the whole purpose for it. I think baseball is really the only All Star game that is worth the damn anyway, so basketball is not alone in that regard. When you see the Pistons from a national, you know, a high level scope here, What do you like about what JB. Bickerstaff has done with this team to make them so much better than that god awful season of a year ago.
Yeah, I think this one's really simple.
They're just more organized on both ends of the floor.
You don't see all of the kind of chaot a defensive scrambling around, running around. Nobody's on the same page. Guys are all over the place. And then on offense, they are really they know what they want to run, they know who they are. They run good stuff. They've run good stuff late in games too. That win over the Knicks in New York, where kid Cunningham, you know, really.
Accepted the double team and it was.
Coming and got off the ball and they got it move in and got a couple open.
Shots like that. Those are the things that are.
Huge for this team going forward. So yeah, I think that's the big thing. They're just more organized. They play a more reasonable brand of basketball now, and some of that is the roster as well. That they've put better shooting around guys, guys that are veteran players who know what they're doing. But all around, it's a far better product in Detroit.
You know, Keith, It's interesting. I think if you're not following the league in general, and you do, you're watching more than just one game. We in Detroit or the state of Michigan are probably watching just the Piston play. You get a better sense of who the really good teams are and why they're that good. We look at standings and say, well, Cleveland's number one in the East, Oklahoma City's number one in the West, they've got to
be the best teams. I look a little bit deeper, I see some of the other numbers that are associated with it. Do you think those two teams are as legitimate as their records would indicate, and who would be the biggest threats in each of the conference to those two teams if you feel that way.
Yeah, I think they are legitimate. I think those two teams have played really, really well and we've seen it coming with both of them over the last couple of years. Both franchises is kind of taken the traditional path of get into postseason kntanting, get into the playoffs, be more competitive in the playoffs, and then it advance into being real contenders. And that's where they both are right now.
I mean the Thunder they're doing historic level stuff. Up until a couple of days ago where they slipped a bit, they had a historic scoring margin that was one of the best we've ever seen in NBA history because they're just you know, blowing teams out left the right, and the Cavaliers aren't far behind.
All that said, they have come back to earth a little bit.
These are not going to be seventy win teams that that feel very clear now. And the teams behind them in the East, Boston's right there and they're the defending champs and they're going through what every defending champ does, which is just get us back to the playoffs. These games are you know, we do. We got to get through them to get a win, enough of them, but get there.
And then in the West, you've got Denver is.
Still lurking, the Lakers are there with their star guys, the Mavericks are playing better, they're going to get luc And back, and Timberwles are finally starting to put it together.
So there's gonna be challenges.
To the Thunder. And I think the big thing that happens in the NBA, until you prove you can win the big series and get there, we're going to have a little bit of hesitation, and that's kind of where we're at with both the Calves and the Thunder.
I think what's interesting too in the West, at least you're right, the Lakers have come on strong. They've won seven of their last ten. They're the only team in the top five in the West who have a minus point differential. It's very slim, but it's a minus point differential. We see the incredible amount of numbers being put up by teams in terms of three point shooting, and you've
written and spoken about this before. What is the biggest issue you think the league has fans have and do players and or coaches have with the amount of falling in love with a three point opportunity.
Yeah, I think from the player and coach side, I don't ever hear any of them complain about its. Lebron James had a couple of things to say, but he's always kind of been that way because he's never been a big three point volume guy himself, even though he is starting to take more of them as his career has gone along. I think, you know, from the fans side, it's to your point, a lot of fans are watching one game a night, so one team that there was
watching issuing a bunch of three pointers. Then they start making all these statements, Well, everybody plays the exact same way, and this CEO it's boring because it's just a bunch of three point shots going off and there are a lot of three pointers. I'm not gonna, you know, pretend that they're armed. But the problem is, I don't know what people are pining for. Do they want people taking less efficient shots and missed just as often because the
spacing and defense is tighter on them. I drew up on the NBA of the eighties and the nineties, and if you go back and rewatch those games, you're gonna laugh at just how bad it is.
It's, you know, it's a bunch.
It's seven eight guys all standing within ten feet of the paint, and it's it's almost how did we ever get a shot off here? And the offense is just really really bad. The games were slow paced. It just wasn't a super watchable product. A lot of it, I think comes down to nostalgia. It's still there. And then I think the bigger chunk of it, too, is everyone's trying to solve for people not watching as much. People aren't watching any sports as much as they used as they were a while ago.
Even the NFL has fallen off now there's so far.
Not by much, so not by much my NFL and the NFL is still there's still the top ten programs on those days, not even close, but it's still.
Less right, Like it's like they can mose a lot and not even feel it right. And if that's the thing, I think that people are trying to find an answer, and some of these things are just they're just a lot. There's a lot of other soft to watch in the NDIA. It's not a definition viewing either.
No, it's really it's not that's the problem. No. I agree one hundred percent with you, and you bring up some interesting things because I can call my cell phone. I think self reflection is really important. I was a product of the eighties and nineties as well. I thought it was better basketball. I thought those guys could shoot better. I would rather see you know, George gervin late seventies,
early eighties. I'd rather see Alex English. I'd rather see guys like that shoot than some of the shots that are taken. So I think you're right about that though, I really do. I think because we're not watching every single game like you are. But I would say forty eight and a half three point attempts per game is a lot, and it's one thing you're shooting him. It's another thing if you're making them. And there are certain
teams that really aren't making them. And I think that's where a lot of people it's almost like settling, you know. I don't think there was a pace of I don't look at length of games. So we just had this conversation. It's interesting, Keith, because Adam Silver was on Dan Patrick's show, I don't know if it was this week or last week, talking about the NBA and how they're possibly going from twelve minutes per quarter to ten minutes per quarter, and
he used an asinine example of Major League Baseball. When Major League Baseball's average game before they changed the rules with three hours and six minutes, the NBA average game is about two and a half hours. It's still the fastest game. Why do you need to change it? Why are they always chasing? Why not just embrace who they are except who they are and move forward and try to like lessen some timeouts if you want, by coaches and make fouls more important. Don't have men as many fouls.
Why do you have to change everything? Or in terms of the time and stuff.
I am one hundred percent with you. I think changing to ten minute quarters is it's a joke. That would be the equivalent to Major League Baseball saying, you know, games are only going to be seven innings now, right, like they did for double or something?
Yeah?
Yeah, sure, And I kind of gob why in the you know, COVID impacted seasons, they did what they did with those and all of that stuff. But I'm saying, you know, well, we're in our regular environment. But I think here's the challenge for the NBA too, is you can if you want to shorten the lengths of games, not the link of the game itself, but the length of the overall time investment. You know, like you said timeouts reviews, limit them to sixty seconds. If you can't
figure it out in sixty seconds, false stands. We move on and we play like you know, what the thinks happened? You know, And if somebody wants to get down to the you know, you know, one hundred million times magnified in to see who have all went out of bounds off of like what are we doing anyway? You know, let's just keep moving on. So I think those are the things you can do. A lot of fans said, why don't you just simply start.
Games on time?
If you say game tips at eight o'clock, why isn't tipping at eight fifteen? You know, if that's your worry, you know, there it is. You know, there's fifty more minutes back. You sure know all this sort of stuff without changing the fundamentals of the game. Because the other thing is you cut eight minutes off a game you're gonna then teams are going to completely approach roster building differently.
They're gonna say, hey, yeah, we can go super top heavy because you know what, we only need six or seven guys to get through this, so let's go really top heavy, and then we'll you know, never play the other guys on the bench. Like it just gets You're going to change it too much for me that when there's a lot of more simple fixes to accomplish that, and if having to fit everything into a two hour window too. I had at that part. I you know,
I'm just not sure why you know that is. I'm sure they have, me know, all kinds of metrics that tell them that's better, but it just seems like we're overdoing it a little bit.
Yeah.
I agree. If he's going to use the example of college basketball, I said, just go to two halves then instead of four quarters. They won't do that because of the TV money and the number of timeouts. Keith Smith from Spotrack joining us here. You can bomb on Twitter at Keith Smith dot NBA and he's only got a minute left for us. But I did want to ask you in general, I want your opinion on why or why not the NBA is in a really good place right now in terms of the sports land cape landscape.
Yeah, I think I think one of the reasons why is that I don't know that the league's ever been more flushed with talent across the board. And again, you know, I think, you know, we had super duper stars, you know when I was growing up, you know, the guys that are all you know, the Hall of Fame legend. But if you look across the board, are there bad teams? Sure there's bad teams, but there's always been bad teams.
There's bad teams every year. But you you know, every team seem to have at least one or two guys that if they're not there already, you can't kind of say, all right, they're going to be there in a year or two. And that that's great. Where we're in a small where there was real worries the Lebron's was moving on eventually who's next, And now we've got you know, seven or eight guys to pick from. That it feels
pretty good about that. It's you know, here we go and there's more of them coming, you know, including in this next draft and the draft after that, So that that's a great place. Why is it not in great shape? Is Yeah, I think I think the NBA's single biggest fundamental problem is they're partners who cover the game on TV, which you know drives how a lot of the perceptions
of the league. They crap on it all the time, and that's to me, that is a huge problem when you have your partners on ESPN and tn T and other places continually dumping on the game and saying it's not as good and these guys aren't actually good and these teams are all actually bad even when they're winning. I mean, I've watched the Kendrick Kerkins, you know, say the Celtics weren't good all of last season when they
were historically good. It just doesn't make sense to me because if you're going to continually if you tell me, yeah, that TV show is really bad, it's really bad, you know what, I'm not going to do watch that TV show, right, you know, And that's you know, I think a huge problem that the weak have to fix it has a real opportunity here, and they bring in some new TV partners.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. The way to fix that is, don't watch that joke of a station. That's the way you fix it, because yeah, because all that is you know this, Keith, I'm not telling you anything.
You don't know.
All that is is sports talk radio on TV, and I am just trying to get clicks and I'm just trying to get people to notice me and talk about me. I don't truly believe it. If that's how he believed last year. And I don't know because I don't watch it, But if that's how he believed, then that tells you about the credibility. He should not be doing it in the first place. Just because you played doesn't mean you know. I really appreciate all your knowledge. Thanks for the insight.
I enjoyed the conversation very much. Have a great weekend and continued success for the time, Blake.
I appreciate it, and thank you so much for having me