Latest / Small Ball with Kenny Beecham / OKC's Biggest Weakness, NBA Ratings are Falling

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OKC's Biggest Weakness, NBA Ratings are Falling · Small Ball with Kenny Beecham

0:05
SPEAKER_01: Welcome back and welcome into another episode of Small Ball with Kenny Beacham.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm very excited to be here, man.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: We just had one of the weirder week and a halves that you're ever going to get in the NBA season.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: And most of that is because of the cup.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, we wanted to prioritize the cup.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: So some days we literally got no games.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: That was weird.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm being completely honest when I say this.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: I swear right hand to the people upstairs.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: I was so bored yesterday with no NBA games that I went on to YouTube and I typed in varsity basketball and hit the live feature.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: And I was well, I can I can show you my watch history.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: I was watching two teams of Pennsylvania go back and forth.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: Was it gray hoops?
0:44
SPEAKER_01: No, but I just needed something.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: And because there's such a weird week in the NBA, I decided this is the perfect time to do an episode where I pretty much just answer questions from you guys.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: So I hit you up on Twitter.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all DM'd us on Instagram, and I'm gonna try my very best to answer some of the cooler questions.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at my history right now.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: There was a game, Liberty High School versus Blue Springs South High School.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: If you somehow are attached to one of those two cities, one of those two schools, hit me up because I watched some of y'all game.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: I watched Forks versus Naya Bay Boys, varsity basketball.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: I was all over the place.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: I needed some hoops.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: I did get to watch some college basketball.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: Jeremia Fierce, game winning shot versus Michigan and one four-point play.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: Come on, man.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm locked in.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: But the high school hoops is kind of cool too, because it made me get back into my hmm.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Do I really want to eventually be a coach bag?
1:34
SPEAKER_01: The answer, the answer is all right.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: Enough of that.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh leave a like, subscribe, tell a friend and telefriend.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: The small ball with Kenny Beachman is here every single week, except for like the holidays.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: Like we miss Thanksgiving.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: We're probably gonna miss Christmas.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: But other than that, we're here.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: The first question comes from Deuce OKC.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: Does OKC need one more shooter, a Cam Johnson type of player, in order to truly reach their full potential this season?
2:00
SPEAKER_01: And he got five likes.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: So I tried my very best to pick the questions that got more likes because that means that more people are interested in this.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: And this is obviously an interesting week if you're an OKC fan.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, you go into the NBA Cup.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, I wouldn't say you dominated your way there, but damn it, you made your way into the finals.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: You went against the Bucs where you were the favorite and you laid an egg.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: You you were this is your worst offensive performance by a wide margin.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: Before this game, the lowest amount of points you scored in the game was 99.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: And in this NBA Cup game, you scored a total of 81.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: Now it's got some OKC fans spiraling.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, fans, we don't get a piece of the half a million dollars every player gets.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: But this is like a measuring stick for a lot of the teams.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: Like the Milwaukee Bucks going to this one again as the underdog, and they're going against what people deem to be a title contender, and they they do their thing.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: And now more people are talking about oh, are the Bucs back?
2:54
SPEAKER_01: Could the Bucs win a championship?
2:55
SPEAKER_01: And the exact opposite is happening for OKC.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's saying that they're dead in the water, right?
2:59
SPEAKER_01: They're still a great team, but people are looking at their roster and trying to pinpoint some of the weak spots.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: And I do think that that game kind of showcased some of the weak spots.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Let's let's call a spade a spade.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: The OKC Thunder shot historically bad from the three-point line this game, where I think what if they ended up with seven made three pointers, two of those were Shea, he was two of nine for three.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: Everybody else was like, at one point, they showed a graphic they were one and 24 from three.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: Like it was a really, really bad shoot tonight on basically the biggest stage that OKC fans have had in a while because I'm I'm a believer in the cup, so I'm gonna act like it was a goddamn championship.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, so this team, as we know, before the season started, I talked about how I would like to see some type of evolution from OKC.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: I didn't think that they needed to go full on Boston Celtics, where 47% of their shots are from the three-point line, but I did want to want them to modernize their game just a little bit.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: And one of the reasons they are so successful without them being a high three-point frequency team or even a uh high, they were middle of the pack frequency and middle of the pack efficiency.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: Last year, they were middle of the pack frequency, but damn it, they shot it very well.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: They were top three.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Now they're averaged at about both.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: And one of the reasons why it still has worked out for them to win a bunch of these games is because where they don't hit the threes or take the threes, they make up for with extra possessions.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: And we're not talking about rebounding, but we're talking about them forcing turnovers.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: Right now, they're averaging 19 turnovers forced per game, and that is still the most forced turnovers in the history of basketball.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: Will it stay this way?
4:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't really know.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: Or at least in a tracking era.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: And in this game versus the Milwaukee Bucks, they did force them to turn the ball over 17 times, but that's not their season average.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: So if you talk about them having lower than average forced turnovers and them shooting historically bad, that's not a recipe for them to end up winning.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: And I thought when that stretch happened where the Milwaukee Bucks really broke the game open in that third quarter, that is when OKC's defense kind of lay down a little bit, where they weren't forced in a lot of turnovers.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: It led to a three-point extravaganza for the Milwaukee Bucks.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: So the question goes back: do they need more shooting?
4:56
SPEAKER_01: I think there are a few different things OKC can add.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, we haven't really seen Sam Presti be super, super aggressive during now this era where we can see them as a contender.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: The most aggressive thing he's done is pay Isaiah Hardenstein$30 million annually.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: And that looking like a bargain based on the way he's been hooping.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: So he has what, 17 tradable first-round picks.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: He's got 30 total picks when you account for the second rounders.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: The question is, will Sam Presti eventually do it?
5:21
SPEAKER_01: Last year, there were real conversations about OKC.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: Should they be ultra buyers?
5:26
SPEAKER_01: Because the Western Conference was completely wide open.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Sam Presti goes through that um that preseason thing, the interviews and stuff, and he says, hey, we want to see what we have first.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: And they did, right?
5:37
SPEAKER_01: They saw that Josh Giddey wasn't a part of their long-term future.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: They traded for Alex Caruso.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: They saw that they needed some more rebound and they went to go get Isaiah Hartenstein.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: But now, more than ever, is probably where you'd want them to be buyers.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: I think they can add more three-point shooting.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: I think they can add more size.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm not even talking about the big man position because we know that Chet Homer's out.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: He's still on goddamn crunches.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: Get will soon, Chet.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: We understand that their center rotation is going to be pretty damn good once Chet Homer's comes back.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: But they're also smaller across the board, right?
6:06
SPEAKER_01: They don't have a bunch, I mean, they do have a bunch of wings, but all of their wings feel like they're 6'5 and smaller between the Dortz and the J-Dubs and the Whigs and the Carusos.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, for them to have Alice Caruso be their best Giannis defender for the majority of this game, and we love Alice Caruso, he's an all-defensive caliber player.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: Hell, he had a whole series two years ago where he uh guarded Giannis in a playoff series.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: They lost that series four to one, but like they need more size on that wing.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: A guy like Cam Johnson might be perfect for that.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: Like, we're not looking at Cam Johnson as this super, super, super plus defensive player.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: He's not Alice Caruso, but he's bigger than Nas Caruso.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: He shoots like that.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: So I like the idea of a Cam Johnson, but then I look across basketball and I ask myself, if it ain't Cam, who is it?
6:50
SPEAKER_01: Who is the other bigger wings?
6:52
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what I'm looking for, bigger wings that can shoot.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of tough.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: But the one thing that OKC has to their advantage is all of the draft capital.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: So they could basically win any sick single bidding battle for anybody.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: It's just a matter of do they want them.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: Adding more size and adding more shooting would really, really help this team.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: Even as of today, if they didn't add those things, I still have them as my favorite to win the Western Conference by a small margin over the Dallas Mavericks.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't know if y'all have been really locked in on the Dallas Mavericks.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: They're looking better than last year, and last year they made it to the final.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: So I have them as a slim favorite over the Dallas Mavericks as of today, in the middle, towards the middle of the end of December.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: Next question comes from Alex.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: What caused the league to become so impatient on younger players' development?
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Hashtag AskKB.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the hashtag.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: I honestly I'm trying to wrap my brain around this, right?
7:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that the NBA itself is super impatient when it comes to these younger players.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: I think the fan bases are more than anything.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: But if you think about some of the teams that drafted relatively high in the draft and those players didn't work out, for the most part, those teams made the right call.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: Get Will Soon, James Wiseman, is barely an NBA player at this point.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, like so a lot of the times when it feels like the team is a little bit less patient with a player, it's for good reason.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: Now, the fan bases, on the other hand, the fan bases would have you given up on a player after 12 days of his NBA career.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: In reality, we know there's so many ebbs and flows of an NBA career that somebody who is year three right now in their season or uh in their careers could turn out to be a really, really good player in this league.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: It's about reps, it's about repetition, it's about finding your way.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: And I think fans kind of forget that because we, as here we go, we as a society, no, we are um really into insta gratification.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: And I keep having something fall into my eye.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh instant gratification, where you throw out a tweet, and in two seconds you can find out if people enjoy that tweet.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: We're into instant gratification in the NBA.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: We see the Leucadontas of the world that come in and immediately you say, Whoa, that guy's gonna be the best player in the world one day.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: And it's few and far in between.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: But even Victor Weminyama, who had all of the hype in the world, his rookie season started off slow, what first couple games.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: But since then, we look at him and say, Whoa, that guy has the potential to be one of the best players in basketball.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: But we also have the stories that people take a time.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: But nobody wants to take the time.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: Everybody wants to make it happen right now.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: And it's somewhat understandable, but at the end of the day, we gotta be patient.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: Now, some things that there's no reason to be patient on.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: Some players immediately show you, oh, this guy's just not it.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: But for the majority of the time, just a little bit of time, a little bit of patience, a little bit of development goes a very long way.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: Next one comes from Hamilton, and Hamilton um originally asked a couple different questions, but I I really like this first one.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: So my apologies, Hamilton.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm not getting to your 4-1.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: He says, What makes a team go from a really good season, the Grizz, the Cavs, the Rockets, to legit contenders like OKC or Boston?
10:06
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we know having a superstarslash MVP caliber player and playoff winning experience.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: Now, Hamilton, I I truly, truly do believe that last point that you have in your tweet is the biggest thing.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: When we talk about a team going from a really good team to a legit contender, having those scars, playing in the playoffs beforehand, get into the second round, maybe get into a conference finals really changes the dynamic of a team.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: Going from an on-paper contender to a real contender really causes those, you really need those scars.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: And of course, like you said, superstar MV Caliplay, of course.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: But like, think about it like this.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: Last year, the OKC Thunder were the best team in the Western Conference all season long.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: Every single game they played, they were in, it felt like they were dominating teams, they were a great defensive team, great offensive team.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: They have an MVP candidate.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: And yet, once we got to the postseason, there wasn't many people saying that OKC was going to win that championship.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: Though they showed us for the entire regular season that they were the best team, nobody truly believed that they could win the Larry O'Brien trophy.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
11:16
SPEAKER_01: It's a youth.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: It's the lack of experience.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: And what did we see?
11:20
SPEAKER_01: We saw them go into a playoff series against the Pelicans, do what they were supposed to do, and then they went against the Dallas Mavericks, a more experienced team with another superstar who has been to the conference finals with a couple other guys like Kyrie Irvin, who has been to the finals multiple times in his life and hit one of the biggest shots in the history of basketball.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: That experience felt like it mattered a lot more.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: And now they got some scars.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: And then we go to the preseason rankings.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people say, hey, OKC is a team to beat.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: Even though the team that just beat them in the playoffs, the Dallas Mavericks, on paper, got better.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people were saying this is OKC's year because they got them scars.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they had Isaiah Hardens down as Cariza too, but because they got a lot of those scars.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: And you got to think about like this.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: Let's let's go through the last couple NBA champions.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: The Boston Celtics.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: You know how many scars them boys have from Jason Tatum's rookie season where they're going to conference finals here, going to conference finals here, losing in the first round to Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: They have been through so much for them to finally get to where they are.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: And now they have all of the experience, all of the depth, great coaching, and they are still the favorite to win this season.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: The year before that, the Denver Nuggets, they had been to one conference finals.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: And when I say a team needs a scars, I'm really just talking about their core dynamic players.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: So uh Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic, Michael Porter Jr.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: Again, Aaron Gordon wasn't there for that conference finals appearance, but three of their top four players were there.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: They had multiple playoff series where things didn't go very well.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: They got some scars losing in the first round.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: The 2022 Warriors, you know their story.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: They had already won a bunch of championships, so we have to go there.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: The 2021 Milwaukee Bucks had made it to the conference finals two years before that, and they were this close to making it to the finals.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: The year after that, they lose in the second round.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: They have a ton of scars.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: Can Giannis get over the hump?
13:07
SPEAKER_01: They eventually did.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: There are some anomalies throughout history, like the 2020 LA Lakers, who were basically newly constructed with adding Anthony Davis.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: But one of the reasons this is an anomaly, damn it, they had one of the two best players of all time still playing amazing basketball.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: And Anthony Davis was widely looked at as a top seven player at that time.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: So the anomaly is having two top five to seven players, maybe even 2019 with the Toronto Raptors, though Kawhi Leonard wasn't a part of that core.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: Kawhi Leonard had been in finals.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: He had won a finals MVP.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: Cal Lauri had been in conference finals.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: Marcus Saul has been in conference finals.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: Like it goes on and on and on.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: That experience is the main thing.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: We love, we love the Houston Rockets right now.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: But not a lot of people are looking at the great Rockets season and saying this is the year that they could win a championship.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: We want to see what they look like in the playoffs and say, hey, okay, I could see a world maybe next season where they are competitive for a championship.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
14:06
SPEAKER_01: So really, really having the experience goes a very, very long way.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: Juju, aka Mr.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Dame time.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: If you had a friend that was in jail since 2015, what is the first thing you would tell him about the NBA when he came out?
14:25
SPEAKER_01: As we all do.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: I think we all have one friend that's in the pan right now.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Free my boys, free my boys.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: If they were locked up in 2015 and they had no access to a TV for that time, they must have done something heinous.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I don't want to talk to him when he gets out.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: But let's just, in this hypothetical world, my boy had a minor offense that kept him in jail for almost 10 years.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: And when he got out, there's a lot I want to tell him.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: The first thing I would probably tell him is maybe this is glazing.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: Hey, LeBron James has two more championships since you left, since you did your time with two different teams.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna be like, man, that's pretty impressive.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: That's the end.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: That's the end, right?
15:08
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, that's not the end.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Because his birthday's next week.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: He's about to be 40 years old.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: Can you believe that?
15:13
SPEAKER_01: LeBron is about to be 40 years old.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
15:15
SPEAKER_01: He is still a top 20 player in basketball.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: That's the first thing I'm telling him.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: LeBron has a couple more championships.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: He's got one in Cleveland, he's got one in Los Angeles.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, him going to Los Angeles might break his break his brain.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Because even though leading up to LeBron signing to Los Angeles, that last year may feel like there was a real possibility in 2015, you could not convince anybody that Braun was going to end up in LA.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: So telling him that he gets one for the land is pretty dope, right?
15:39
SPEAKER_01: He'd be like, oh, that's cool.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: Braun went back.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: I hated Braun when I went in.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: But now seeing he went back home and got one for the land is pretty cool.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: No, he went to the Lakers and got another one, bro.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: And then though his team is not good today, he is still, at least at the bare minimum, top 20 at the age of 40.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Now, our friend here that got locked up in 2015 had pretty much seen the most improbable preseason NBA champion that is the 2015 Golden State Warriors.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: They had the lowest odds in the betting era when it comes to winning a ring.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: So he had already seen some improbability happens.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: Um I would also tell him, hey, that team we just see win a championship, that Golden State Warrior team with the babyface assassin that you love.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: For like three years, we all hated that team.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: For like three years.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: Yes, the babyface assassin.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: That cool dude that shoot a lot of threes.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: We basically hated that team.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: He like, why?
16:28
SPEAKER_01: Kevin Durant was on that team.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay, Kevin Durant joins that team.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: That's not that big of a deal.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Who did they trade?
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Is Klay Thompson with the with the OKC Thunder?
16:37
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: They didn't lose a goddamn thing.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: They had four Hall of Famers in their prime on their team.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: And as you can imagine, they dominated the league for pretty much three years before you know some injuries happened.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: Another thing I would probably tell them is James Harden, Carrie Irvin, and Kevin Durant all play for the same team.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: Damn, that's pretty dope.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm playing both roles here.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm acting it out.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: Damn, that's that's pretty dope.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: How many championships did they win?
17:04
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: It's not how many championships they won.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: How many playoff series did they win?
17:08
SPEAKER_01: Just one.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: Just one.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: Just one.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: Like there are so many crazy things that have happened throughout the last nine years of basketball.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: We could go on and on and on.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Um, we saw the greatest regular season team in history because he went in right before that happened.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
17:24
SPEAKER_01: It don't mean a thing without a ring.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: They lost that championship that I mentioned Bron Braun got.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: He came down 3-1 to get that.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: I just it's so much we could get to.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is a fun experiment, man.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: And y'all let me know.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Hit me up on Twitter, hit me up in the comment section.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: What would you tell your homie?
17:43
SPEAKER_01: Oh, um, this draft class is Wiggins, Jabari, Joel, and Bede.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: What if, what if I told you that there's a dude in the second round of the draft that was the previous draft you just saw, who's gonna end up as one of the three best centers of all time, probably.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: He was in the second round.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: He got drafted doing the goddamn Taco Bell commercial.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: That guy's dominating the league right now.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to spend too much time here, but that's such a fun experiment of how cool things, all the cool things that have happened in the NBA over the last um 10 years.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: Next.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: Comes from Busy.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: Says, what do you think makes individual offense so much more valuable and impactful than individual defense?
18:23
SPEAKER_01: Example, Luca, who is a 10 outfit on offense and a below average defender, is clearly a better player than Rudy Gobert, who's a 10 out of 10 defensively and below average offensively.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: Now, when when um one thing you saw a lot, when you saw these super teams become one, one of the major criticisms um for people that didn't believe was there's only one ball.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: And I think the only one ball argument is the perfect way to describe why this offensive player is more valuable than the great defensive player.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: I will say Rudy Gobier is probably closer to a 9.2 offensive or defensively because there are a lot of things or a few significant things that he's not very good at.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Either way, when there is only one ball, that number one offensive player like Luka Dontich has the advantage of having that ball as much as possible.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: And when we're talking about a one-of-one offensive player like a Luka, like a you know, you all you know, all the great uh Jokic or all the great offensive players in basketball.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: As a coach, as a team, you can do everything in your power to stop that.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is these 10 of 10 offensive players are gonna find a way.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: Now, that don't mean that they won't have a stinker here, there, but for the most part, these guys have seen so many different coverages that they have counters to everything.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: There's only one ball.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: And when you're a 10 of 10 offensive player, that one ball is in your hands, and that is enough for you to be competitive every single night.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, on the other side of things, because there is only one ball, but there are five people defending, you could take a defensive-oriented player out of the game way easier than an offensive player.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: You let's say we're talking about a perimeter defender.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna run the actions through somebody else with this perimeter defender.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's gonna do his part, right?
20:17
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna still have a great game, I would assume.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: But it's a lot easier to nullify him as a defender by running actions, running sets where he is not involved as much as the offensive player is involved as a 10 to 10 player.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: We've seen Rudy Gobier, who you reference as being a 10 out of 10.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: Again, I can't say I agree with that, but he's the best example because he is all defense and almost zero offense.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: We've even seen him get dominated at times, right?
20:43
SPEAKER_01: We've seen that.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: Where great offense, no matter if you're all world defender, great offense is gonna win that matchup more likely than not.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Where you saw these two players go against each other in the playoffs, and Luca Doncic, the 10 of 10 offensive player, was on an island with the 10 of 10 defensive player.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
21:01
SPEAKER_01: I will go to my grave and saying that Rudy Gobert played great defense in that playoff series where Luca hit that stat back, but at the end of the day, Luca Doncic hit the stat back.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: That's all that matters.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: There would never be a world where that shifts.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: You know how the NBA has this again ebbs and flows where it evolves time and time again.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: There is never a form of evolution that makes that defensive player more valuable than the offensive player.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: It just won't happen.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: This one comes from ESB.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: Do you think the NBA Cup is gonna be a legitimate achievement that is gonna be looked back when talking about a player's legacy?
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Because dependent on its weight, the legacy of Damian Lillard or even LeBron James, for example, may look quite different.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say no.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say no.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: And the only reason I'm saying no is because fans won't allow it.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: Again, we're only two years in, so maybe this evolves as we get older and the fan, the Twitter um muse counts get older, they start to recognize how great our sport really is.
21:58
SPEAKER_01: Where even now, We just saw Giannis and them be really excited.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: They didn't shoot the champagne, which is a bad thing for Adam Silver, but they were pretty excited.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: They raised the trophy.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, Giannis has the cup trophy and the MVP in his hands.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: He's taking a photoshop.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: They got kind of clowned for that.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: The Houston Rockets won the biggest game in their recent franchise history, post-James Harden, where they where they went in there and pretty much stamped their ticket to the NBA Cup, you know, semis or whatever or quarterfinals.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: And people on Twitter clowned them.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: But be so because y'all won't look at this as a legitimate thing, then it never will be.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: Now, nobody, I'm not here arguing that it should be as valuable as an NBA championship.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: Don't misinterpret these words.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: You have we do have to remember that the NBA Cup by itself is what, six games if you win it all?
22:48
SPEAKER_01: It's the placement games, it's the quarterfinals, it's the semifinals, it's the actual finals, it's six games.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: So it's not nearly the same as winning 16 throughout the course of a few months to win a championship.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm not arguing that these two are identical or on the same pedestal.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: But I do believe that we can look at that and say, hey, this is some pretty cool stuff.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: Doc Rivers, NBA champion, NBA Cup champion.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: He's no longer just riding the wave of the championship with KG and all of those dudes.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: He also got it as a cup championship.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Now, again, I don't believe that it will because we won't allow it to.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: Now, I think it also will shift a little bit when we end up having players play great in this that aren't superstars slash future Hall of Famers.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: The first MVP is LeBron.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: LeBron didn't need extra things to his legacy.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: Either you think LeBron is number one or you think LeBron is number two.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: And him winning the cup, if you had him in number two, you were never going to put him in number one.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: LeBron could probably win another championship, and the people that have him in number two would not shift to number one.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: Giannis already solidified himself as an NBA Hall of Famer, another NBA Cup MVP.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: Even Damian Lillard, who put up 20 plus points in every single cup game that he played in this year, is already a first ballot Hall of Famer.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: So he didn't need this for his legacy.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: Now we start to talk maybe a few years down the line, a guy that might have been borderline wins this, then maybe there's a conversation.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: But the three to four most significant people in these cup things between LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Giannis, and Damian Lillard were already Hall of Famers.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: So maybe in time.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: But as of right now, I don't think it'll matter too much because y'all won't let it matter.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: Next question we got is from Mitchell.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: And this is one of my favorite questions, Mitchell.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: Important question for every fan: Is it ever acceptable to switch teams?
24:31
SPEAKER_01: I view it as blasphemy.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: And as a hometown Sacramento Kings fan, I've suffered through some brutal years.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: I always saw switching teams as weak, but I'm sure there may be valid reasons.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, what are your thoughts?
24:45
SPEAKER_01: And he said, to be clear, I have no intention on switching and never will.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: Hashtag Light the Beam.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you gave that clarification because before you sent that second tweet, I firmly did believe that Mitchell was about to turn into a Warriors fan.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: He's about to turn into an OKC fan.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: He said, no, through the thicket thin, he is there, and I respect that.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: I do believe, though, there's a world where it's acceptable to switch teams.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: I did not choose to be a Bulls fan.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: My dad did.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: And because I love my dad, and because he's the one that got me into sports and he's the one that took me to games, I fell in love with basketball, and the closest thing we had was the Bulls.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: I didn't sit down and say, hmm, what is the current landscape of the NBA in 2003?
25:30
SPEAKER_01: Because if that was the case, I would probably be a Lakers fan right now because of Kobe.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: I'd probably be a 76ers fan because Allen Iverson was my first favorite player.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: But instead, my dad said we're going to Bulls games or going to White Sox games.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to go to a Bears games because it's fucking cold in Chicago, but we're going to watch every single Bears game and we don't do hockey, but damn it, you're Chicago.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: So you're you're a Blackhawks fan.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: I didn't get to choose that.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: I somewhat do envy the people that do get to choose, right?
25:57
SPEAKER_01: Um with that said, I would never switch up.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, you know I ain't really seen no success in Chicago across sports, unless it is the Blackhawks for that five-year stretch.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: That's the only time I saw any of my sports team be successful.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: And yet I would not switch.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: But I do want to say we only live this life once.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: And if if you being a fan of a certain team is preventing you from really enjoying a specific sport, then you don't need my blessing by any means.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Do what you want.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: But I think that is the one time it is acceptable to really go out there and think about your options.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, I'm I'm a Bulls fan, but I'm really trusting billionaire owner Jerry Reinsdorf and the Reinsdorf family to give me that serotonin I need to be happy.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: You as a Kings fan, I forget, is it Vivek?
26:45
SPEAKER_01: I forget who owns her.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: It's been so long.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the owners.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: You are trusting ownership in front office, and you have so much trust that they're gonna do the right thing.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: And let's be real, they probably won't.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not talking about the Kings Pacific, I'm just talking about every fan base.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: They probably won't make the right decision.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: Where I think about it all the time.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: We're like, again, I'm a White Sox fan, so I did get to see one uh World Series, but I was eight years old, nine years old.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: That there were my my great-granddad, my listen, did you hear that?
27:15
SPEAKER_01: My great-granddad was a Cubs fan.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: He lived an entire life of 80 plus years as a Cubs fan and never saw them win.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: Now I bet if I oh, this is gonna sound weird.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: If I dug him up and he was conscious and I asked him, would he change that decision, he probably would say no time and time again, because even through the 80 plus years of being awful, he he found something in being a part of the community of the Cubs.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: But he never got to see it.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: There's a world where me and you, Mitchell, we never see our favorite team win a championship.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you gotta think about it and say, hey, is it worth supporting this team in my time on this earth?
27:57
SPEAKER_01: Or is switching teams or doing the newer thing, newer age thing for these young cats?
28:02
SPEAKER_01: Damn, I feel like an unkno saying that.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: It's not being a fan of teams, but being a fan of players.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: I am a Russell Westbrook fan.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: And wherever Russell Westbrook goes, I shall follow.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: Now, five, 5,280, baby.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: I got the goddamn jersey, that stinky ass jersey, because Russell Westbrook is in that jersey.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: It is acceptable.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: You don't need confirmation, you don't need other people's opinions.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: Live your life, my guy.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: And again, it's not you.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: You're saying you lighting the beam regardless.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: But for the people at home that are on the fence, you don't need other people's validation.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: And we're talking about the most meaningless thing, maybe of all time in sports.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: It's our entertainment, but it's not that significant to our life.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the day, if you want to switch, you should.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: Magic is the next one.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: It says, Do you think a situation like the Detroit 2004 Championship could happen in today's NBA landscape?
28:52
SPEAKER_01: For example, could the potentially great and suffocating defense of the Magic carry them to a ring?
28:59
SPEAKER_01: This is such a phenomenal question.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: And I think because of the evolution of the game, it's way, way, way less likely than it was in 2004.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Now, this this example I'm gonna give does not equate for uh not account for the scars.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: Now, we've talked about these scars a lot.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: That may be the theme of this episode, the scars of that Detroit Piston team that you know had been battles together for years and years before they raised the Larry O'Brien trophy in 2004.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: Regardless, based on the landscape of 2004 versus the landscape of 2024, 20 years ago, we look at these advanced stats.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: The closest we have, the closest we have to that 04 Pistons team, believe it or not, is the Houston Rockets.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: Now, the Houston Rockets don't have Ben Wallace, the Houston Rockets don't have Chauncey Bellis, Brip Hamilton.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: They don't, I'm not talking about personnel, I'm talking about advanced stats.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: That is the closest, and it's not a hundred percent match, don't get me wrong.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: It's like a 70, 79% match.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: But on the advanced analytics, that's the closest we have to that 2004 team.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And again, like I mentioned earlier, you're not looking at that Houston Rockets team as one of the ones that's gonna win it all.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, so no, would be my quick answer to all of that.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh quick, quick no.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't account for so many different things.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: Last year, I didn't run the numbers on this, but off the top of my head, last year the closest thing we had to this was the Minnesota Timberwolves.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: And that got them to the conference finals, which is pretty impressive.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: They were a suffocating defense, number one or number two for the majority of the season.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: They had a mid-tier offense, and that's one thing that gets misremembered throughout history.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: The Detroit Pistons team that we're referring to in 2004, they weren't an awful offensive team.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: They were 16th.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: So about league average, they were a league average offense and a suffocating defense.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: And that's basically what the Minnesota Timbulls was last year.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: So that is the closest comparison we have.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: And Lord knows that got them to the conference finals.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: So there's a world maybe, but like it's also matchup based, where if the Minnesota Timberwolves did end up in that championship versus Boston, I think Boston still wins.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: Now we don't know.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: We'll never know, but I think Boston still ends up winning.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, so my my long answer is no, but maybe.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Advanced Basics says, what do you think is the main reasons for the rating decline is?
31:14
SPEAKER_01: I've talked to so many people about this and get a different answer each time.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: Curious to note if you think one factor is worse than the other, still love basketball and want to see the league succeed in the U.S.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: still.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: Great, great, great question.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: One of our uh last, one of our last questions.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: So for the people at home, this is from Front Office Sports.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: NBA viewership on ESPN is down 28% through November 21st, averaging 1.772 million viewers through the first 18-game broadcast on the network.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: Over on TNT, the viewership is down 3% on Tuesday's NBA Cup matchup between the Celtics and the undefeated Cavs.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: And that brought the rating up to about what it was last year, averaging 1.8 million viewers per game.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: And if you look at this from an even broader scale, over the last 10 to 15 years, we've seen a decline in the viewership of the NBA.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: And I honestly, this is this has been a huge conversation on uh social media over the last couple of weeks.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: I do believe that people are misinterpreting these things.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: The overall viewership numbers is not an indication on the success of the league.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say that again.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: The overall viewing numbers that I just read to you that are down 28%, which again, I'm not saying it's a good thing either, but it being down 28% is not an indication of the NBA starting to fall.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, these numbers are saying, hey, people are not watching live NBA games on ESPN and all the other places, which is a problem in itself.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: But I kind of want to nip it in the bud for the people that said that the NBA is a dead league.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: We just signed the biggest, the biggest uh media rights deal in the league history.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, we have so many different players.
32:55
SPEAKER_01: And Adam Silver talked about this during the Cup interview, where because the NBA, I'm sorry, um, consumerism, us as people at home are going more towards the different platforms and Netflix, the Amazon Primes, the Hulus, all of these different streaming platforms, they had to get in.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: I cut the cord a thousand years ago, it feels like.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: And most people are probably in that same boat.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: So them branching off to these other different places where it is on streaming might help those numbers a little bit.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, I don't look at these numbers and say, oh snap, we are in trouble.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: Because there are a few different things.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: You have to remember what the NBA's target demo is.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: If you look at the average age of the major sports, and I'm talking American sports here, the NFL, the MLB, and the NBA, the NBA, by a wide margin, has the youngest fan base.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: And that's by design, right?
33:48
SPEAKER_01: It's the most personal sport of all of them.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: We we market our players more than any other league in basketball.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: And when you market the players, you get the younger people to fall in love with them.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: Some people fell in love abroad in 2003, and they're also 40 years old, and they still calling him Mike King.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: Steph Curry had social media rocking for a five-year stretch where I used to work for a company named House of Highlights, I'm sure you're aware of.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: They were killing their own statistics year by year.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: A lot of that was Steph Curry, right?
34:22
SPEAKER_01: So we market towards social media users, which means that we're marketing towards a younger audience.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: This younger audience, instant gratification world, they're not thinking about sitting down and watching the NBA right now.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: Because finding out what happened in last night's game can happen like this.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: You on NBA side of TikTok, you can see the highlights of every single game.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: 10 games slate.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: You can swipe through them just like that.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: You can go on Instagram to the sports centers, to ESPN NBAs, to the House of Highlights, to the Enjoy Basketball Instagram account and find out what happened in the NBA the night before.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: You can go onto YouTube and watch a Jimmy High Roller video, thinking basketball video, hell, a Kenny for Real video, and find out everything you need to know.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: It is the most consumable sport without watching the actual games.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if that's a good thing because everybody got a fucking opinion without watching.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: But either way, I think that is more of the problem, if you will.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: But also that problem is one of the reasons why the NBA ain't the biggest deal.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: That problem is why some of the other companies, the NFL and the MLB, are trying to play catch up with the NBA social media coverage.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: Believe it or not, those leagues want to cover the MBA, cover their league like the NBA.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, they're not the NFL is not trying to sacrifice those great, great numbers that they have, but they don't have nearly the same social media push as the NBA.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a double-edged sword a little bit though, because when you spend the last 20 years, 15 to 20 years marketing players, you fall into where we are right now.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: Where the guys that we marketed over the last that that decade or so, the Curry's, the Bronx, the Durant's, the Hardings, the Westbrooks, all of those dudes from the 2010s that made the NBA so electric, they're all active, but they're all declining.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: Every single one of them are declining.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: Kevin Durant, yeah, yeah, we'll give Kevin Durant decline as well.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: Maybe not at the rate of some of the other guys I mentioned, but still.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: So we spent a decade marketing those dudes, and oh shit, who do we market next?
36:30
SPEAKER_01: They thought that they had their next guy in Zion Williamson.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: He was the biggest college prospect almost ever of my lifetime, he was.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: Where as me, who again has never really been a huge college basketball fan, was watching Duke basketball because this dude, did he just jump out of his own shoes?
36:48
SPEAKER_01: Did he burst through that Kyrie?
36:50
SPEAKER_01: Did he play help side from the block and find a way to the corner to block a shot at his apex?
36:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's our guy, Adam Silvers says, that's our guy.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: That fell through.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: And because that fell through, they oh no, no, no.
37:01
SPEAKER_01: We got to get back to what we know.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: We got to get back to what we know.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, Steph Curry, um LeBron James.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: We're not really investing in these other dudes early because we don't really know.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: Even though Anthony Ewitch is dope, he's coming from Georgia.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: They were a sub 500.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: Did they make the tournament?
37:15
SPEAKER_01: We don't know if we can we can market that guy.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: Lamelo Ball's a great guy, great social media guy, but uh, he just played in the other league and he ain't had no crazy stats.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: We can't really, we can't really market him that well.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, Steph Curry and them have a top three pick.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: No, we're not gonna focus on their pick.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna focus on Steph Curry.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're gonna focus on Steph Curry because he's still, oh my god, did you see that?
37:36
SPEAKER_01: That is our current problem.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: And the NBA put a ton of eggs in the Wembinama basket, and they're waiting and they're waiting and they're waiting.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: And again, we're talking about what, a year and two months of his NBA career.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: He's doing great stuff.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: But the one thing that they have not been able to do is truly market one of the American-born players.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: And I think that is somewhat of the disconnect from the average American consumer.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: When I was growing up, we we had Kobe.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Kobe might have been born in Italy, right?
38:10
SPEAKER_01: Is that the story?
38:11
SPEAKER_01: He's like a Philadelphia guy.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: Alan Iverson.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: I like he's an American guy.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: So he's too much.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: He's all the American guy.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: And we had that Braun in 2003, that that kid from Akron, Ohio.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: They didn't really have that problem.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: And nowadays, with it being such a global game, we talk about the top 10, top five players in basketball.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: Who do we have?
38:34
SPEAKER_01: Jokic, uh, internationally born.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: Not really into social media, not really into interviews, just really want to hoop and go home to his family and his horses.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: We have Luka Doncic, one of the best players in the world as well, internationally born.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, he's cool in the microphone, but you could tell that's not his cup of tea.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: He's not about to do crowd work at the end of the day.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: He more likes to talk shit on the court and play Overwatch or Marvel Rivals.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: Then we have, uh this is not in any particular order for the people that's gonna be mad.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: Jan Stedokumpo from Greece.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: He's better on the microphone than those other two, but somehow he has not resonated well with the American audience enough.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: I love him.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: You might love him, but I'm talking about the average American consumer.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: We have Shea Gilgis Alexander, a Canadian-born player, so close to America, but still, we haven't done a great job marketing them.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: They just played an NBA Cup Championship, and their next uh national TV game is like a month from now.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: That's not great NBA.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: Then we get to the Tatums of the World, who was uh St.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: Louis born and raised.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: He's got a great story.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: Not that great on the microphone, not that that relatable to the app.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: So they have just had that crisis, and that makes it so that you see these players go against each other on national TV, you're like, uh, it is what it is.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: Another reason why it's a struggle that they've they've marketed this way is because when those players are not playing, which we've seen a ton, a lot of people don't really give a damn.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: You feel me?
39:56
SPEAKER_01: You see the you see the Suns versus the Mavericks on national TV, and though I love the idea of that Luca Devin Booker rivalry that's not really a rivalry, but kind of cool, Kevin Durant's not playing.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: Where the NFL wins, it's their lack of personality when it comes to their things.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: I I don't I don't care who's suiting up.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: It's the Cowboys, baby.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: It's the Cowboys versus I'm not really into NFL enough to know their biggest rivalry team.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: But it's the like you're gonna watch, you're gonna watch that because it's not about Dak Prescott, it's not about CD Lamb, it's about the brand of the Cowboys.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: Who are the Cowboys?
40:35
SPEAKER_01: Let me see.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: Cowboy.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: Hold on.
40:37
SPEAKER_01: I want my analogy to be good.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: Cowboys' biggest rival.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: According to the um they said it's Green Bay.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, it's it's Philly.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: All right, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: All right.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: It's not about Jalen Hurts versus Dak Prescott, it's about the eagle on the helmet and the star on the other helmet.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: Who's gonna win?
40:57
SPEAKER_01: And the NBA don't have that.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine it being that way?
41:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, um, it's about the Maverick versus the Sun.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not it don't hit the same.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: So, because of that, you look at the injury report and you say, oh man, there's no Steph Curry in this game.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: And they would end up potentially winning that game, right?
41:17
SPEAKER_01: You think about the game where it was National TV, Houston Rockets versus the Warriors, no Steph Curry.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: They won that game.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: It was a great game.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: But the average NBA fan probably don't give a damn if Steph Curry's not there.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I answered any of your questions.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: Like, we do have like people believing that the homogenizing of the NBA is one of the reasons.
41:34
SPEAKER_01: And I am not a believer that the NBA is this uniform league.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: Of course, there are some similarities across teams, but even every team that we we deem to be great, they do it in a different way.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: Now, the Celtics are the end-all, be all, shoot all three pointers.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: This is who they are.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: But then the second best team in the Eastern Conference right now went against the title of this podcast, where a lot of the league was thinking small ball was the answer.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: They say, no, no, no, no.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have two true seven-footers and we're gonna be damn good.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: Across the conference, OKC is a defensive-oriented team that forces a lot of turnovers and don't take three-pointers.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: The Dallas Mavericks, they have evolved quite a bit from the heliocentric idea that they used to do, but this team has a different identity.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: They used to be a team that's gonna force a ton of corner three-point shots.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: This season, it's not who they are, and yet they're better.
42:23
SPEAKER_01: So it's not about that.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: It's not about that.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: And this is the very last question before we get to Ask KB from Instagram.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: This has been a great episode.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: I've been having a lot of fun.
42:30
SPEAKER_01: Comes from Ryan Keller.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: Hey, Kenny, long-term fan, you have been open about your mental health journey and getting involved with therapy.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: I want to ask, what is your perspective on how therapy and improved mental health impacts performance, not just in sports, but all aspects of life?
42:45
SPEAKER_01: From the sports part of it, one of the reasons why I love DeMar DeRozan, um, I love um MetaWorld Peace.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: I love Kevin Love so much, is because those dudes, and in sports, y'all know it's high testosterone, manly this, manly that.
43:03
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna I'm gonna give MetaWorld Peace a lot of credit here.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: And maybe it should be going to somebody else, but he's the first person that comes to mind.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: He was the first person I ever heard say, Shout out to my therapist.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Hmm?
43:13
SPEAKER_01: You said that in the early 2000s, where the idea of mental health uh for specifically for a man was frowned upon.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: He says, Shout out to my therapist.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: That opened my eyes up, and I was a shorty at this point.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any mental health issues at that moment, but I recognize that people do, and him shouting them out meant something.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure it meant something to people in real time.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: For DeMar DeRozan to come out, and though I haven't read his book completely, for him to be very candid over the last couple of years and eventually write a book about this stuff, Kevin Love talked about his struggles, made me really feel like it was okay.
43:46
SPEAKER_01: So your question is getting involved in the therapy and the performance aspect of it all.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: Personally, and personally, when it comes to mental health, when I am in a bad headspace, I can't work, which means I can't perform.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, I can't fake a smile for our straight podcasts if my mental health is not great.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: And therapy um was one of the things that really changed a lot of that.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: Again, things ain't great.
44:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I'm getting better, right?
44:17
SPEAKER_01: Um Earl said, I'm not okay, but I'm gonna be all right.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: That's a fact.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: And one thing therapy helped me do was kind of, of course, ground myself when I'm going through those mental health.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: Even you see me, I'm getting all fidgety because I'm thinking about anxiety and getting anxious.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: So maybe I shouldn't spend too much on this question.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: But it helped me learn how to ground myself in those situations where my health, mental health specifically, is not the greatest.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: Early this morning at a doctor's appointment.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: I hate the doctors.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: All last night I couldn't sleep.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: This morning I couldn't eat because at a doctor's appointment, it wasn't nothing but a checkup.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: But I was so mentally anxious about it that things didn't go well.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: By the time I stepped out of that doctor's office, I was like, oh, that wasn't that bad.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: And recognizing some of that really changed it.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, one of my teachers, um, my senior year of high school, I had a teacher named Mr.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: Downing.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: Mr.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: Downing was actually in the NBA, by the way.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: He used to play for the Lakers, which is kind of crazy.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: He had a class, we saw it as a blow-off class for a seat for senior year.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: The name of the class was like reading.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: Reading.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't, it wasn't, he wasn't teaching you how to read now.
45:26
SPEAKER_01: Don't think I was in, I was in that type of class, but the whole class was sitting down for 50 minutes and reading a book.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: Now, there were times, some months, where he gave you there was a book to read for the class.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you had a quiz, you had a test at the end of it.
45:40
SPEAKER_01: But other than that, the whole thing was about reading.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: And I remember him specifically saying, reading is gonna change your life.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: Not to me, but to the class.
45:50
SPEAKER_01: And you think about you 17, 18 years old, you don't really give a fuck about reading, you don't give a damn about reading.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm here because this class is easy.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm here because I can spark note the book that you gave us a book report on and just sit here for 50 minutes and not have to do no real work.
46:04
SPEAKER_01: Now at the age of 28, Mr.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: Down, it was he was right.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: Because I truly believe that paired with therapy, which we mentioned, me opening up books and reading more has significantly shifted my mental health.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: And it don't have to be mental health books, it don't have to be self-help books.
46:25
SPEAKER_01: For me at least, for me, just having that that getaway has been phenomenal.
46:31
SPEAKER_01: Now I've read over the last three weeks or two weeks, I've read like six books.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: I've been not, I've been locked in.
46:37
SPEAKER_01: My first one was The Alchemist, and I know that gets a bad rap here or there, but for me, it was impactful, and that's all that really matters.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: And there was one specific quote in there.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: This is not even the the thing about the book that you should worry about.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of my mental health, here we go, let's get deep.
46:54
SPEAKER_01: A lot of my mental health started, mental health crises started when I found out I was gonna be a dad.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: The whole world shifted.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't about me, it was about her.
47:03
SPEAKER_01: Um and it changes your perspective, right?
47:06
SPEAKER_01: Um hey, me having a 300-pair sneaker collection doesn't really make sense anymore.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: Me spending that much money on sneakers doesn't make sense.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: I gotta think about her future, I gotta think about our future.
47:20
SPEAKER_01: But more specifically, it changed my mental health about my life, as far as like me being here, where I became health anxious.
47:30
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sh, I want to see this baby girl live her life to the fullest.
47:34
SPEAKER_01: I want to see her get through high school, go through college, get married.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: So I was having panic attacks whenever I had a headache.
47:42
SPEAKER_01: Damn, I'm about to die.
47:43
SPEAKER_01: And in the Alchemist book, there was a quote, and this is so crazy, because it's not the whole thing about the book.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: It says something along the lines of, oh, maybe I wrote it down, bro.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
47:53
SPEAKER_01: This was not supposed to be in here, but here we are.
47:55
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about it.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, in the book, as I as I look for, um, the quote goes, To die tomorrow was no worth than dying any other day.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: For some reason, that hit me.
48:09
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, yeah.
48:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: So let's not worry about it.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: It's inevitable for all of us.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: It happening today is no worse than it happening when I'm 65.
48:21
SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day, it's all we I don't know, I don't know.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: That really, really resonated with me.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of my health anxiety went down.
48:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, my fear of that inevitable day went down.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: And um, I'm more at peace with those type of things, just from that one sentence.
48:34
SPEAKER_01: It was one sentence in the grand scheme of the book.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: But I read that book and a bunch of other ones.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: Right now I'm reading Project Hell Mary.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: So y'all, y'all recommended that, and I'm in love with it.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: But um, if you can, because I know it's not obtainable for everybody, if you can and you have mental health struggles, please, please, please seek help.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: And my recommendation is to find a therapist that fits you.
48:58
SPEAKER_01: Before I found my therapist, I went through eight.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: Through two years, I went through eight different therapists because I couldn't find somebody that was that related to me the way I needed to.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: I I've been through every race, every gender imaginable until I found the person that matched me.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: Um different different levels of ideas of how you handle these things.
49:26
SPEAKER_01: And I found somebody and they have changed my life for the better.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: So um thank you again for your question.
49:31
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully that little tangent can help somebody in need.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.
49:41
SPEAKER_01: Before we get to the Instagram questions, where you can go to enjoy beball.com and send in your own questions.
49:47
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50:03
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50:07
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50:10
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50:14
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50:18
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50:19
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50:21
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50:28
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50:32
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50:35
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51:53
SPEAKER_02: Hey Kenny, who or what do you think the Pistons need to do to build a winning team around Cade Cunningham?
52:01
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, shooters have shown a lot of success.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: I'd just like to get your thoughts.
52:06
SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
52:06
SPEAKER_02: Love the show.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, thank you.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh the Pistons, you mentioned shooting.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: That is probably the main thing.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: But I do believe that I'm still trying to figure out exactly where what my opinion is on Cade is.
52:18
SPEAKER_01: I honestly know that he's a really good player.
52:20
SPEAKER_01: I've been a backer of his for some time, and now he's averaging what, nine-something assists with not a great supporting cast.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: But I question whether or not when it's all said and done, and we're talking about contention, if Kay Cunningham is more of your 1A or your 1B.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying that to say that getting, developing or finding another complementary star, all-star caliber player, let's be honest, goes a very long way.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the NBA is as simple as we need talent.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: And I think the Detroit Pistons need that more than anything.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: It's cool to see Malik Beasley have the run that he's on, or Tim Hardyway Jr.'s been uh, but every once in a while, Tim Hardaway Jr.
52:56
SPEAKER_01: have that.
52:56
SPEAKER_01: Just having shooters, having positive spacing around Kate has done wonders when you compare it to what it was last year.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: But honestly, at the end of the day, he needs a co-star, if you will.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know if that's on the roster.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's Jade Ivey.
53:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's a Star Thompson.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's Jalen Duran or any of Ron Holland.
53:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, but having that secondary guy is gonna matter because I do believe that Cade is overtaxed right now with being the guy almost all of the time where his usage rate is towards the top of the league.
53:27
SPEAKER_01: I think it might have been, it might be fifth right now, which is crazy.
53:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, so having another guy that can alleviate some of that pressure goes a long way.
53:34
SPEAKER_01: And alleviating that pressure for me is a star player.
53:37
SPEAKER_01: How do you get there?
53:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it depends, right?
53:42
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to be ultra aggressive and buy in on a star caliber player right now, because I think right now your ceiling is a playing team, which is good considering you lost so many games last season.
53:54
SPEAKER_01: It might just be another year of waiting it out and figuring out what happens in the league around you and finding that star that way.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: Because I like Jaden Ivy.
54:02
SPEAKER_01: I like a Sar who looked really good the last game against the Miami Heat that you end up pulling out.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I don't know if those guys are the star players that you need.
54:12
SPEAKER_00: Hey Kenny, I hope you and your family are well and you have an amazing holidays.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: As you can tell by the accent, I'm from London, England, and I'm going to Chicago in a few days.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: What's one spot that I've got to visit, and what's one place that I've got to eat at?
54:29
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: Take care.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: So there's a couple different ways we can answer this question.
54:36
SPEAKER_01: First of all, shout out to you.
54:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, thank you for checking in to the city.
54:40
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm joking.
54:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, Chicago, once you get here, you're gonna recognize is I'm biased here, the most beautiful city in America.
54:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, it has as much touristy things as some of the other big cities.
54:51
SPEAKER_01: It is as clean as any major city you're gonna see.
54:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, it is nearly a perfect city in my in my mind.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that some of the stuff that you might see on the internet is a bit overblown.
55:02
SPEAKER_01: Regardless, you're talking about the best touristy things to do.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: There, there are a couple different food things I'm gonna recommend.
55:08
SPEAKER_01: Now, I am not a foodie by any means.
55:10
SPEAKER_01: I have so many um allergies that there are a lot of foods that I just straight up cannot eat.
55:14
SPEAKER_01: But I'm talking from the perspective of a tourist here, right?
55:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
55:18
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I should call Derek.
55:19
SPEAKER_01: Derek got all of the great recommendations in the city.
55:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm I'm gonna give you the minuscule amount of information I know about this.
55:25
SPEAKER_01: I think it is um very important that while you're here, you try the two styles of Chicago pizza: the deep dish, which is not gonna be for everybody, and then our more thin slice or uh thin crusted pizza.
55:37
SPEAKER_01: They are different products, both great, in my personal opinion.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: Some people don't like deep dish because of how thick it is.
55:43
SPEAKER_01: They call in the lasagna.
55:45
SPEAKER_01: Don't disrespect my city like that.
55:46
SPEAKER_01: It also is not a thing that most Chicagoans eat on a day-to-day basis, like some people may think.
55:51
SPEAKER_01: But if you're gonna be a tourist, I think you have to try both.
55:54
SPEAKER_01: Depending on, depending on how how gangster you want to get.
56:00
SPEAKER_01: If you want to get to out of the heart of the city and want to get to more of the places where I grew up, if you want to go on the south side to go get some chicken, I gotta recommend Herald's.
56:11
SPEAKER_01: Always Chicago staple.
56:13
SPEAKER_01: If you want to go get some chicken on the on the west side, gotta go to Uncle Remus.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's a true, true, true Chicago and would tell you there are specific locations that you should not go to because the product can vary, it definitely can vary across restaurants.
56:29
SPEAKER_01: But I would get too deep into weeds if I told you go to the one over here across from the McDonald's and gas station spot on North Avenue.
56:37
SPEAKER_01: I we'd be too deep into the weeds.
56:39
SPEAKER_01: So I would say find one of those spots.
56:42
SPEAKER_01: It really depends on how dangerous you want to get.
56:49
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you DoorDash it.
56:51
SPEAKER_01: DoorDash it.
56:51
SPEAKER_01: Boom.
56:52
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
56:52
SPEAKER_01: Um hit hit up DoorDash, hit up one of those spots and get that.
56:56
SPEAKER_01: And then the last thing I would say is find a way to get a good Italian beef.
57:00
SPEAKER_01: Again, those are just three like touristy staples.
57:03
SPEAKER_01: They don't get into the big weeds of things, but those would be my big recommendations for food.
57:06
SPEAKER_01: And when it goes to the city, man, I would say walk the mag mile um because that's one of the prettiest things you can do.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's the winter time, so you're not going to be able to get on the architecture cruise.
57:17
SPEAKER_01: But I always tell um people that are tourists here, go the architecture cruise teaches you so much about the city itself and you're on the water.
57:25
SPEAKER_01: It's a beautiful, beautiful experience, but it's mostly spring and summer.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: I would say go to go to um one of the museums.
57:35
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's the art institute, maybe it's the field museum.
57:39
SPEAKER_01: Like Chicago has so many things.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: And if you're here during this season, go to a Bulls game, bro.
57:44
SPEAKER_01: Now it's not the same as watching the Bulls in the 90s, obviously, or even the Derrick Rose era, but the Bulls arena um is still we're still really great here.
57:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's still great.
57:54
SPEAKER_01: The United Center can really get popping.
57:56
SPEAKER_01: If you want to do all the touristy stuff, go to the Sky Deck, go 160,000.
58:02
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the exact feat, but go a bunch in the air to the highest degree and sit on that mirror and look down on the city.
58:11
SPEAKER_01: Those are like really, really touristy things.
58:13
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I have any gems for you.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I have any gems, but I hope you enjoy the city.
58:18
SPEAKER_01: I want a full review in writing, please.
58:20
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: Thank you to everybody that listened or watched this episode.
58:29
SPEAKER_01: Thank you to everybody that sent in questions.
58:31
SPEAKER_01: We didn't get to them all, obviously.
58:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, and maybe we will, maybe we will.
58:34
SPEAKER_01: I really do enjoy these episodes where I uh answer your questions because I always do figure try to figure out what do the people want to hear?
58:41
SPEAKER_01: I could try my very hardest because they're the perfect runner show, but some people might not give a damn about the things I want to talk about.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: This is me getting into the weeds of the stuff you care about.
58:50
SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed it, leave it a like, subscribe, and I'll see y'all soon.