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Thunder Rule The NBA Now · Front Runner Podcast Collective

• 0:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: What is good everybody?
• 0:14
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Welcome to Front Runner Podcast Collective where we talk like friends, we argue like cousins, and we still walk out smarter than we came in.
• 0:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I am Vince, your host, your occasional hoop therapist, and your favorite bad influence when it comes to completely reckless NBA over overreactions.
• 0:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That is your guy.
• 0:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That low-key makes some sense.
• 0:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Twice a week, we come to you setting the table, getting you to think about what is going down with NBA basketball.
• 0:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We go into it a little film room style, you know what I'm saying?
• 0:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because we watch these games.
• 0:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And then we give our observations.
• 1:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We give, we hope to contribute to grown conversations about how players, coaches, and front offices are really moving inside the NBA.
• 1:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We're unpacking everything the wins, the mess, the contracts, the agendas, because believe me, there are some out there, the rumors, the actual receipts behind them, all of it with jokes, stats, reporting, and angles that you can take straight into your group chat and dare people to argue with you about.
• 1:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is FRPC, I am Vince, and we need to get into it.
• 1:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So today's podcast, we are going to discuss how scary the Oklahoma City Thunder really are.
• 2:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And because of the fact that, and I will I want to touch on the Dallas situation they won last night against Denver.
• 2:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We're not gonna get into it fully because I feel like we haven't really touched the East in a while.
• 2:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So I want to talk about the Knicks and the Celtics, and then I'm gonna propose a question to all Lakers fans out there in regards to the team, in regards or the hierarchy that is going on within that team, and we'll discuss it all on today's plot.
• 2:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But before we get to that, we haven't hit you since before Thanksgiving.
• 2:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So I want to know how everybody's Thanksgiving went.
• 2:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Thanksgiving overreactions, you know, put it in the little hashtag Thanksgiving overreactions, Thanksgiving MBA overreactions.
• 3:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's also good.
• 3:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: If you want to email, we can do that too.
• 3:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That will be frpc vents at gmail.com.
• 3:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Go ahead and hit us up there.
• 3:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Uh, we did get a couple emails over the break as far as that's concerned, and we will get into those as we go along.
• 3:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That is what we are is on the docket for today.
• 3:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Nobody wants to hear about my Thanksgiving.
• 3:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It was wonderful, I will say that, but we need to get into all this basketball, you know, because we got a lot to get into.
• 3:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So let's go ahead and get into that.
• 3:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And we will start off in Oklahoma City.
• 3:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And the reason why we're starting there is because I live in Los Angeles.
• 3:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The Lakers, up until last night, had won seven in a row, and Lakers Twitter is doing we're back.
• 3:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're doing that thing.
• 4:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, confetti, parade roots, everybody in the group chats, and meanwhile, Oklahoma City, the defending champs are quietly looking over at this the little seven-game heater and basically saying, That's cute.
• 4:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hold my beer.
• 4:20
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because uh, I don't know if anybody has checked this out.
• 4:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We're at the quarter mark of the season, and the Oklahoma City Thunder are absolute wagon.
• 4:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're a fun league pass team, nah, no, no, no.
• 4:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're not a young, ahead of schedule team, no no no no no.
• 4:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know what they are?
• 4:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're legit 20 and 1.
• 4:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 21 games played, 21 win, 20 wins in those 21 games.
• 4:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Third in scoring at 122 a night.
• 4:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Of course, they have the best defense in the league, number one in net rating, historic net rating yet again.
• 5:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I mean, tell me if you haven't heard these things over and over again.
• 5:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And they're doing it without playing with some of their you know their wild track uh pace as far as that's concerned, but there is one true constant to this team, and that is Shea Gilders Alexander.
• 5:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's out here doing his best Wilt Chamberlain impersonation, 90 plus straight games with 20 or more, 32 and a half a night.
• 5:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The best part about that for me is that you know Luca is out here scoring 35.
• 5:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So I'm like pretty pleased about that situation.
• 5:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: At least the Lakers are on top with something, but we do understand that Shea Gilges Alexander has been a 30 a night dude for like the last two years.
• 5:57
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Like this is not new what he's doing.
• 6:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is a continuation of what he's been doing all along.
• 6:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Mark Dagnall looks like at the bench, he just looks at the bench and goes, hmm, rubs his chin a little bit, and he's like with kids playing hide and seek.
• 6:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He can just point and almost say anybody, anybody on the bench, who wants it?
• 6:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Kasen Wallace, AJ Mitchell, Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins, Alex Caruso, who wants to come in and give it give us a good 22 to 24 minutes?
• 6:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, they all raise their hand like little school kids, like, yeah, I would like some work, I like some run.
• 6:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They out here just doing it.
• 6:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, here's the here's another thing that is on the horizon for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
• 6:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And while they're having all this tremendous success, and people are talking about, well, you know, that salary cap is gonna get them sooner or later.
• 6:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The salary cap boogeyman is going to get them.
• 7:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: All the while, the clickers are five and fifteen.
• 7:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I understand that a lot of people know this already, but for those who are not in the know, Oklahoma City made a trade with the Los Angeles Clickers like six years ago.
• 7:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Okay, I'll say that again for you.
• 7:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They made a trade with the Clickers six years ago and is still paying off dividends.
• 7:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The Clickers being 5 and 15 at this point in time, they are now in the lottery.
• 7:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And for our casuals out there, I'm not speaking to my hardcore people, I'm speaking to the casuals right now.
• 7:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And there's nothing wrong with being casual.
• 7:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You're welcome here.
• 7:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: To the casuals out there, here's the thing: if Oklahoma City owns that pick, it's a lottery pick, then they get into the lottery, the Clickers end up being either first, second, or third in this lottery situation.
• 8:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Guess what?
• 8:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That means Oklahoma City finishes first, second, or third in this lottery situation.
• 8:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Meaning that the team that has Shea Gilgest Alexander, the team that has Jalen Williams, who just got back from injury, the team that has Chet Homgren and all of this immense just strength in numbers bench that they have.
• 8:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They just have continuous dudes that are anywhere between 6'4 to 6'7 coming in off the bench, just producing like nobody's business, are gonna have the opportunity to grab not what I've said, and I I'm scouting these guys, but I want to talk about some of the other people out there.
• 8:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I want to shout out Sam Vicini, I want to shout out Jonathan Wasserman, you know, I want to shout out guys like that who are on top of this on a daily basis.
• 9:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We trying to get there, right?
• 9:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We are trying to get there, but they are saying that these are nice, these are pieces, these are franchise, you know, dudes in the top three selections.
• 9:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I've even made the case that Caleb Wilson might be one of those dudes as well, so that would mean there's a top four hierarchy to the NBA draft coming up in the spring or the early summer of 2026.
• 9:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: If that's the case, Oklahoma City is on the verge of going back to back on their championship situation, and then they are also in a in a can have a real real chance of getting pick one, two, three, or four in this next upcoming NBA draft.
• 10:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I don't think they have to worry about salary cap implications.
• 10:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because we've not we got another cheap talent on the horizon who is going to produce and probably produce very big.
• 10:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Very big.
• 10:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Where do we go from here?
• 10:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I hope this doesn't upset other NBA fans of teams or whatever the case may be.
• 10:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: If you're the Golden State Warriors, you must be sitting here going like you've got to be kidding me.
• 10:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The Oklahoma City Thunder, their owner has the right to say, we're light years ahead.
• 10:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They can look at Balmer and just go, You spent money for that.
• 10:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're looking at Mark Walter of the Lakers and going, Yeah, you might overpay for what you got going on here, buddy, because we're gonna run this for a long period of time.
• 10:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The basics of this situation is that they're 20 and 1.
• 10:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're first in the West by a huge margin already.
• 11:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're the defending champions.
• 11:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're uh we told you they're third in the league and scoring.
• 11:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're 18th in pace, which that could get better with J Dub coming back.
• 11:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Defensively, 106.7 opponents' points per game, best defensive rating in the league, and they have a net rating that's plus 15, which is historic.
• 11:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: All-time great.
• 11:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Shea Gilgest Alexander, their offensive engine is uh 32.5 points a game.
• 11:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's doing this in a cool 33.5 minutes game as well, and he's doing a casual 11 free throws a night, and still giving you 6.6 assists.
• 11:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Chet Homgren, who last year missed half the year, right?
• 11:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He missed half the year with the hip injury.
• 11:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Chet Homgren is averaging 18.2 points a game.
• 12:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's shooting 55.5% from the field.
• 12:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He has a true shooting percentage of 65%.
• 12:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And this is your third option when Jalen Williams get healthy.
• 12:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Isaiah Hartenstein, who is not talked about enough on this team, the other seven-footer, by the way.
• 12:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is the other seven-footer.
• 12:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They got they got Chet Holmgren who roams the perimeter and then provides weak side rim protection, right?
• 12:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The other guy who stands in the middle of the paint, Isaiah Hartenstein, 12.2 points a game, 10.7 boards in under 28 minutes a game.
• 12:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's shooting 67.1% from the field.
• 12:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is an elite cleanup and rim presence.
• 12:57
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because all he's doing is put is getting second chance opportunities and putting them back in.
• 13:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They don't run real plays for him.
• 13:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Every once in a while they'll use them as like a nail hub where they're just trying to get cutters.
• 13:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let's say Shea is out of the game.
• 13:14
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're trying to get cutters like Aaron Wiggins and others involved or whatever.
• 13:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's the only time he really is kind of like part of the offense.
• 13:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Normally he's just a rim runner.
• 13:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Normally he's just a ball comes off the rim, carries off the rim, I grab it, I put it back in.
• 13:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's his job.
• 13:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Pretty good job to have.
• 13:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Isaiah Joe out here, just a cool 13 points in 24 minutes, just bombing threes north of 40% on serious volume.
• 13:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: AJ Mitchell, 15.2 points a night, almost four assists.
• 13:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is another one that just came out of the woodwork.
• 13:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They just they just grow them on trees in Oklahoma City.
• 14:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And again, this is your defending champions.
• 14:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The scary thing is that not they just know how they're winning, it's how routine it looks.
• 14:14
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Blowouts are not occasional, they're normal.
• 14:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They get up by 10, and that's it.
• 14:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's a wrap.
• 14:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: There's no obvious weak link to the rotation, as you can tell by what we put up as far as the the stats are concerned.
• 14:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Shea's whole vibe is quiet, obsessive, and business like.
• 16:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, do they think they could probably do better?
• 16:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Do you think they think they could probably run an offense or or be a more significant part of an offense?
• 16:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 100% they feel that way.
• 16:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And for some reason, I don't know what happens to people in Oklahoma City, but these guys seem to buy their time.
• 16:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And then once they get their opportunity, they just they just flash.
• 16:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And this beautiful kind of like butterfly just comes out the cocoon, and all of a sudden, you got AJ Mitchell's other world out here scoring 15 points a game.
• 16:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Y'all know y'all hadn't heard of AJ Mitchell until he broke onto the scene this year.
• 16:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Like our draft guru guys, our draft Knicks out there, yes, they've heard of AJ Mitchell.
• 16:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I've heard of AJ Mitchell.
• 16:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But if you would have told me, hey, I saw this happening for him, there's very few of us that can say that.
• 17:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm not one of them.
• 17:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'll be very honest with you.
• 17:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Did I think he'd be a nice little player?
• 17:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Yeah.
• 17:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 100%.
• 17:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Did I think he'd be a contributor off the bench?
• 17:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Yes.
• 17:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Did I think that he would be like a secondary offensive engine to the defending uh NBA champions?
• 17:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: No.
• 17:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Absolutely not.
• 17:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And that's what he was for the first part of the year.
• 17:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I remember talking about this before the season started and said the only thing that can hold Oklahoma City back is complacency.
• 17:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And they're gonna be the the in a sense the the trial tester, the beta tester for uh new school complacency.
• 17:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And sure enough, that hasn't happened.
• 17:57
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Sure enough, nobody seems to be worried about points, minutes, touches, uh, sponsorship deals.
• 18:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Am I gonna get a shoe commercial?
• 18:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Uh none of that.
• 18:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let's get a little bit into Shay, shall we?
• 18:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because this dude is questioning for another MVP.
• 18:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I mean, he has some really stiff competition.
• 18:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But let's just talk about Shay.
• 18:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let's concentrate on him real quick.
• 18:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: My man is shooting 67.4% true shooting.
• 18:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: His usage rate is 33.4.
• 18:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's an MVP, that's MVP plus territory.
• 18:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's got a 9.9 positive offensive box plus minus and a 13.2 total box plus minus.
• 18:51
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And his win share is 0.381, which is only is only being beat by Jokic.
• 19:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And by the way, a a point three eight one win share per forty eight is legendary status.
• 19:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Like only the great of the greats get to this level.
• 19:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Like we're talking about special years to get to this level.
• 19:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And this is what Shea is doing.
• 19:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's a guy with an elite drive volume, elite pull-up, his elite efficiency is out there.
• 19:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's just doing the damn thing, and we just love it.
• 19:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We love everything about what goes on in Oklahoma City.
• 19:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We love that they have a quiet assassin in Shea Gilge's Alexander.
• 19:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We love that he still wants to do interviews with all his dudes.
• 19:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's truly amazing.
• 19:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's the best team that nobody's really talking about.
• 19:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, yeah, I know Zach Lowe makes sure that he talks about him.
• 19:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's appointment uh conversation on Zach Lowe's show.
• 20:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Um, and maybe a couple others.
• 20:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But OKC is so good that people don't even it's on we almost put them to the side.
• 20:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Like, okay, OKC is so good, we can't even talk about them because if we did, it'll make the league boring.
• 20:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Remember when Golden State was going on their run and then they got KD and everybody was like they broke the league.
• 20:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: By the way, this is about as good as that Golden State squad.
• 20:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I mean, and it has a chance of getting better because all of these people, other than Shay, is under 25 years of age.
• 20:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Like Chet Homgren ain't what is he, like 22?
• 20:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: J Doub's like 23, 20, is he 24?
• 20:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Oh, and again, the boogeyman in the in the closet is the clicker's first round pick that can end up being in that top three, top four.
• 21:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And you just showed these advanced stat lines, and you just say, that's the best player in the league with two more borderline stars and a bench full of plus guys.
• 21:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, who's holding it all together?
• 21:14
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's pretty much the best president of basketball operations on the face of the planet today, Sam Presty.
• 21:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And the reason why I give him that moniker, I think it's earned.
• 21:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I don't I don't think it's hyperbole anymore.
• 21:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And here's the thing Sam Chresty has been in that front office for a long period of time.
• 21:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's just stayed quiet, grounded.
• 21:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: There are here's the best, here's one of the stats I love about Kresty.
• 21:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 14 of the 15 standard contracts are from the title team.
• 21:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The one new standard contract is Thomas Sorber, who's out with an ACL, and they're still 20 and 1 without seeing their lottery ticket.
• 22:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Thomas Sorber is a 6'10, 6'11 center, who basically is supposed to take over for Isaiah Hartenstein at some point in time.
• 22:14
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Nikola Topic has testicular cancer, and that's the only reason we haven't seen him.
• 22:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I wonder, does the AJ Mitchell emergence happen if Topic gets the opportunity to play this year?
• 22:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: No offense to AJ Mitchell, but Topic was in number one, not number one, but he was a first-round pick.
• 22:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And he's supposed to have tremendous like league guard skills and things of that nature.
• 22:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And we still haven't really seen him on the court.
• 22:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Then you zoom out, and you know that the clipper pick is on the horizon.
• 22:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So the Kawhi PG in that group trying to figure, or well, it's not PG anymore, but that trade, right?
• 23:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're trying to figure out why it is not working.
• 23:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Well, you gave up all your future to OKC.
• 23:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now you got PG up in Philadelphia, and Kawhi is let's just face it, Kawhi is not the same guy that he used to be.
• 23:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Yes, the stats look good, but he doesn't have the same impact that he did uh on the game like three, four years ago.
• 23:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And even then, we were dealing with a more condensed Kawhi because of the fact that he hasn't really been healthy since he left San Antonio.
• 23:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But this is where the Clickers decided to put their money.
• 23:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Usually Dominance comes with attacks, no picks, bad contracts, aging core.
• 23:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: OKC has ducked all three of those pitfalls, and they keep it moving, and they got another plumb first round draft pick.
• 24:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I remember thinking a couple years back that they were gonna have to consolidate some of these picks, right?
• 24:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And turn them turn uh some of these picks into you know another guy to help Shay.
• 24:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: No, they just kept drafting.
• 24:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They end up with Chet, they end up with J Dub, they end up with all of these guys, you know.
• 24:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Caseon Wallace came aboard.
• 24:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Casey Wallace would start for a bunch of teams.
• 24:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He did earlier this year when Jay Jalen Williams was missing time.
• 24:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But Casey Wallace would start for teams because he's that good of a defensive point of attack guard.
• 24:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And he can't even start on Oklahoma City.
• 24:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So, I mean, that's what the depth that we're talking about with OKC.
• 24:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So my final analysis of OKC at this point in time is this.
• 24:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We can talk about seven-game winning streaks with the Los Angeles Lakers and who's back and which fan base is the loudest on Tuesday night.
• 25:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But the sport is telling you that there's something loud and very simple right now.
• 25:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The center of the NBA universe runs through Oklahoma City.
• 25:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And people might not want to hear that.
• 25:20
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They want to hear that Denver and Houston and the Lakers and all these other teams have a real legitimate shot.
• 25:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And maybe they do.
• 25:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Maybe there's a trade to be made for the Lakers and they can help their defense.
• 25:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And we'll get to them a little bit later on in the podcast.
• 25:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And Houston is huge, and they are going to present problems for anybody they come up against.
• 25:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And Denver does have Jokic, who I still contend, is the baddest man on the face of the planet today playing basketball.
• 25:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But you have to look at the Oklahoma City Thunder and look at it differently.
• 26:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Again, they went on a 20-1 record with Jalen Williams playing what three, four games so far this year, and it hasn't been the J Dub that we knew because he's getting the rust off.
• 26:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So here is a second team all NBA player, a second team all defensive player who was not at their disposal, and they still, after 21 games, are 20 and 1.
• 26:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So you call it whatever you want to call it, you can call it early luck.
• 26:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, this is a team that is pushing for records or what all that.
• 26:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: What I call it is sustained dominance.
• 26:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And we question dominance until it's just there's so much empirical evidence that it is dominance, then then we can't deny it anymore.
• 27:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But up until the point that we're sitting there going, okay, well, that's dominance.
• 27:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We question it.
• 27:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We go, is it really can they really do this?
• 27:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Are they really this good?
• 27:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Oh, they're gonna there's gonna be a a lull sometime in the middle of the year.
• 27:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is a team that won 68 games last year.
• 27:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I think Vegas had them for 63 and a half this year.
• 27:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're going over that.
• 27:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This team has a real legitimate shot at 70 plus wins, and that 73-9 record that the Golden State Warriors put together is in jeopardy.
• 27:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because again, Chet Homegren is ascending.
• 27:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We haven't seen the best Chet Homegren yet.
• 27:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We probably still really haven't seen the best Jalen Williams yet.
• 27:57
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I'm not just talking about this year, I'm talking about even last year.
• 28:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And Shea Gilgis Alexander is still that dude.
• 28:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So on the floor, they're a problem in every language.
• 28:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Top three in scoring, best defense, number one in net rating, and they don't need gimmicks to get there.
• 28:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Shea is putting up one of the nastiest all-around offensive seasons we've ever seen.
• 28:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The will adjacent streak is just absolutely stellar.
• 28:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The efficiency, the free throw attempts, the on-ball creation, and he's doing it in a system where Chet and Hartenstein and AJ Mitchell and Isaiah Joe and all these guys can still breathe with inside the offense.
• 28:51
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's leadership, that's coaching, and that's culture.
• 28:57
  FROC Host Vince Carter: In the numbers, it looks even worse for the rest of the league.
• 29:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: MVP tier, uh PER, and box plus or minus for Shay.
• 29:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Star level efficiency for Chet and Hartenstein, role players who grade out as plus pieces, and it all stacks up into an absurd plus 15-ish net rating.
• 29:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's actually 15.7 if you want to be, you know, real just surgical with it.
• 29:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Then you zoom out and you realize they're doing this with a band that basically was intact from last year.
• 29:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They didn't really add anything.
• 29:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And they're doing this with Jalen Williams literally just coming back, and they're still holding other people's first round pain like ugly 15 and 5 clipper starts.
• 29:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So, yeah, if you want to nitpick age, health, small sample, go right ahead.
• 30:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But if you have to argue against the defending champions, it's gotten better, not lucky, and it's against a front office that built a wagon without more mortgaging it future.
• 30:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Until somebody beats them four times out of seven, this is the standard.
• 30:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Everybody else, including the Lakers, on a little heater, is chasing them.
• 30:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: If you're OKC, if you're OKC fan, tell me this.
• 30:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: What's the first thing that actually scares you about this team?
• 30:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And if you're a Laker fan or a Clipper fan or anyone else in the West, be honest.
• 30:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: How confident are you in a series against this group right now?
• 30:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hit me on X at Frontrunner PC or at socially underscore FRPC.
• 31:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's where you can find us.
• 31:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We are looking forward to your comments.
• 31:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Put in the tagline, put in like uh challengers to OKC or no challenge to OKC or OKC is a wagon.
• 31:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hashtag that bad boy and get it to us because that's what we're talking about here on FRPC.
• 31:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They got other people by the way, they still got other draft picks.
• 31:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We were just focusing on the absolute cherry draft pick that they have with the Clippers.
• 31:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They still got like 14 other first round picks coming up in the next five years.
• 31:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Super nuts.
• 31:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Crazy work.
• 31:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, if you're not depressed enough, right?
• 31:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We can talk about other teams that are starting to get their stuff together.
• 32:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We can talk about other teams that are dreaming big.
• 32:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We can talk about other teams that feel that they have a Rocky Balboa punchers chance.
• 32:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And we'll start in New York City.
• 32:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Nick fans, let me talk to you about my intrusive thought.
• 32:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You're 13-6 right now.
• 32:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You're second in the East, so you're starting to get better.
• 32:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Top three offense, all that type of stuff.
• 32:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Your net rating is a plus 7.5.
• 32:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's pretty sound.
• 32:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And my brain is screaming.
• 32:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Do you trade Carl Anthony Towns?
• 32:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Do you break up the Nova Knicks thing?
• 32:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Are we actually one more big move away, or are we about to outsmart ourselves?
• 32:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: These are the things that are rattling around in my head right now.
• 32:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But I want to try to give you some numbers and some things to kind of think about as we go forward.
• 33:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: On paper, the numbers tell you this is an inner circle profile.
• 33:14
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You got Jalen Brunson who's the offensive engine.
• 33:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's at 28.5 points a night.
• 33:20
  FROC Host Vince Carter: On 59.4% true percentage, true shooting percentage.
• 33:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Cat is bodega cat.
• 33:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, 21.7, almost 12 boards a game.
• 33:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: McKeel Bridges is giving you elite two-way impact.
• 33:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And also his true shooting percentage is 63, 63.6%.
• 33:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's not cute over a cheeser achiever.
• 33:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's a team living in the Final Four neighborhood.
• 33:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And that's exactly where New York wants to be.
• 33:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hey, just give us a chance in the in the conference finals, and we'll see what we can do.
• 34:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But then you watch the defensive slippage, and then you mix in uh Mitch's health, you feel how the three-point dependent the defense is, and then you start building fake trades in your notes app, like I do.
• 34:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Listen, before you guys get super angry, before you start thinking, like, hey, he's out his mind, we love our team.
• 34:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Tonight I want you guys to answer one clean question for me.
• 34:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Are the Knicks truly a star swap away from something better?
• 34:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Or are they already holding the right core and they just need to stop trying to trade their way out of being a contender?
• 34:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Are they gonna outsmouth or are they gonna outsmart themselves?
• 34:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now that's the old Knicks.
• 34:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I don't think this is the old Knicks.
• 34:57
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I think Leon Rose has done a tremendous job of building a contender.
• 35:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But I know New York fans, and New York fans, they want championships.
• 35:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, y'all live in a world where the Yankees were doing it big in the early 2000s and the late 90s and stuff like that.
• 35:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Mad at Yankees at the Yankees now for not doing it.
• 35:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So let's start here.
• 35:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: What actually is on paper, we know about the record, the strength of schedule right now is uh is pretty good.
• 35:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You were which is a plus 6.96, you are a robust 121.5 points a game offensive rating, and you are 13th in defense at 114, you know, not bad.
• 35:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: By the way, they're 114 and their 13th ranked uh net defense.
• 35:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Do you know that with Tom Thibodeau, that's pretty much what that what they were last year?
• 36:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I think they were actually 14th.
• 36:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So before we get on my ground and like, oh, this is not a really good defensive team and whatever.
• 36:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: No, this team is pretty good.
• 36:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You got all the bones of a really good team.
• 36:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Like we've already talked about Bronson, Cat, McKell, and then you throw in OG Ananobi, Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson is is real.
• 36:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: His defense, his presence is real.
• 36:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And then off the bench, you got McBride, Sham is hurt right now, Jordan Clarkson, and then you have some young itch depth pieces that, if for some reason somebody gets hurt, they can kind of slide into that role.
• 36:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So you're good there.
• 36:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Actually, Tom Thibodeau didn't want to use the bench last year.
• 36:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So Mike Brown has been more open to using bench pieces, which is great for New York Knicks fans everywhere.
• 37:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Your guys aren't playing 44 minutes a game.
• 37:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Josh Hart is not gonna have cardiac arrest on the court.
• 37:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Sounds great.
• 37:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, on the floor, Brunson is the start and end of everything.
• 37:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, not just with the points and what have you.
• 37:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: His offensive box plus minus is plus 5.0.
• 37:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Again, he has a lot of pieces around him that are if you're saying, hey, if we can get this team healthy, get them right, we got a lot, we got some more depth this year that our coach is willing to use.
• 37:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We're not going to absolutely murder our starting offense or our starting lineup with by playing them like 44 or 45 minutes a game, then we should have a better shot in the playoffs.
• 37:51
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I thought, with the way you're using your team, that this would be pretty much additive.
• 37:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Here's the other piece of the identity.
• 38:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: What kind of grown-up team are you trying to be?
• 38:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You built this very specific culture with the Nova Grain Trust, you got Brunson, the heartbeat, Mikkel, you got Josh Hart, you know, Dante DiVincenzo, rest in peace in Minnesota.
• 38:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's not dead.
• 38:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm just saying, like the Nova Knicks.
• 38:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He thought he was gonna play play with them.
• 38:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Continuity is a weapon, and these dudes actually like each other, they do podcasts together, they hang out, all the things you want to see in a good team.
• 38:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The things that I just talked about with OKC is a big freaking kumbaya on the planes in the great Midwest of America.
• 38:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: When we're talking about the Knicks, and we talk about what it is to win, do you really feel comfortable that you have all the pieces?
• 39:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Your offense league wide would say yes.
• 39:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Your defense, well, that's the problem.
• 39:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's a 14th ranked defense, and you know the drill to be really a contender, you gotta be top ten in both.
• 39:20
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Right?
• 39:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Well, we've seen people say, well, you don't have to necessarily be top ten in both.
• 39:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It really does help if you look at the history of the league, who's won championships, and how they won them.
• 39:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Like Denver Nuggets have been the anomaly.
• 39:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That was the only anomaly in this group.
• 39:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The rest of the teams have been top ten in both offensive rating and defensive rating.
• 39:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Where could you make an adjustment?
• 39:51
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is there something that you already have in your culphers to allow this manifestation of defense to happen?
• 40:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Well, let's get into it.
• 40:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let's let's figure it out.
• 40:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's what we're here to do.
• 40:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm not here to piss you off, Knicks fans.
• 40:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm trying not to, but I also want to give you something that you already know.
• 40:14
  FROC Host Vince Carter: There's something that you need to do, and I've been trying to figure it out for like the longest period of time.
• 40:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Three things.
• 40:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Do you trade Carl Anthony Towns?
• 40:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I say no.
• 40:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The reason why I say no is because Carl Anthony Towns provides something that a lot of teams don't have.
• 40:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He is a great outside shooter, which provides the spacing that Jalen Brunson needs to be able to enter into the paint, experiment, do all his pivots, look completely saucy while doing it, and either hitting like a mid-range dagger or kicking out to a three-ball that's wide ass open.
• 41:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So there's one.
• 41:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We can check that off the list.
• 41:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We do not want to get rid of Carl Anthony Towns.
• 41:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I've actually liked this rendition of Carl Anthony Towns in New York City.
• 41:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I had a lot of questions about uh Kat in Minnesota, and there's still things that I think he does that are kind of weird.
• 41:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I hate the fouls that are like 43 feet away from the basket.
• 41:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I hate those.
• 41:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Absolutely cannot stand those.
• 41:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But he's kind of curtailed those a little bit in New York City, so I'm excited for the next fans there.
• 41:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So where else can you look?
• 41:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hmm.
• 41:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Well, could we get a better center and put and put Kat still at the four and run the team that way?
• 41:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Well, how do you get it?
• 41:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's the question.
• 41:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: How do you get that?
• 42:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: There's a question of maybe breaking up a little little chunk of the Nova Knicks.
• 42:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is there a world where you can combine our guy Mikel Bridges and Mitchell Robinson and get the let's call him Mikhail Bridges light wing or shooting guard and get a better uh upside on the center situation.
• 42:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Here's the one thing I love Mitchell Robinson.
• 42:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I think he is a really good defensive center, I think he's an incredible rebounder.
• 42:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm always scared that he's going to get hurt, not because he's not physically imposing, he just seems to have like injuries that happen to him, and they happen more frequently to him than other people his size, and I don't know why that is.
• 42:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I have no clue why that is, but it's a thing that for me it really is that sticking point where I'm going.
• 43:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I want to believe, I want to believe that New York City can be on fire, and they can be on fire until June of 2026.
• 43:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But I have a question, and that question is, is there any way that some of these pieces can be either upgraded or tweaked to maximize the window for Jalen Brunson?
• 43:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now here's the thing.
• 43:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You tell me you don't want to trade Mikhail Bridges?
• 43:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Fine.
• 43:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm not trying to trade OG and Anobi.
• 43:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm not trying to do that.
• 43:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because that dude in the playoffs last year looked super special.
• 43:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I don't know if he's super special in the regular season, but I do know in the postseason that dude brought it up to like two extra levels for you guys.
• 43:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I was like, damn.
• 44:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I didn't even know OG had that.
• 44:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I didn't even know he had that type of tenacity.
• 44:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But it was sure good to see when it came to playoff time last year.
• 44:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I was excited about that.
• 44:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Where do we go from here?
• 44:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The version of the Knicks, the spreadsheet says they're 13-6.
• 44:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're second in the East.
• 44:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: All looks well.
• 44:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Brunson's playing like a real offensive engine.
• 44:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Cats still giving you high in scoring and rebounding.
• 44:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And Mikhail Bridges is Mikhail Bridges.
• 44:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I wish his defense was a little bit better.
• 44:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's turned into a little bit more of an offensive player.
• 44:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I always think of like somebody like Jaden McDaniels.
• 44:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know what I'm saying?
• 44:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Like Jaden McDaniels.
• 44:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I love that kid.
• 44:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He you know he's brought up his offense, but that defense is state.
• 44:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, his defensive tenacity is state.
• 44:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I wonder if Bridges can get back to that point.
• 45:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Cause that dude was a problem in Phoenix on the defensive side of the ball.
• 45:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He was an absolute menace in Phoenix.
• 45:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I just wonder if he's if that's all gone.
• 45:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now Josh Hart, Josh Hart is one of the best rebounders for his size on the face of the planet.
• 45:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Josh Hart is six foot four, and he seems to be able to out-rebound dudes who are six, seven inches taller than him.
• 45:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He has a lot of heart.
• 45:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Excuse the pun.
• 45:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hart has a lot of heart.
• 45:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But I still wonder if there's a trade to be made and where is where are the pieces for it?
• 45:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Unfortunately, I do believe that the pieces for it are in the starting lineup.
• 45:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And we can debate whether that's something that you will want to do, you should do, or ultimately you're gonna have to do, as far as where do you want this team to be at?
• 46:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because here's the thing if you think you're gonna roll into Oklahoma City, and Oklahoma City's gonna be scared of Jalen Brunson and Mikhail Bridges and OG Ananobi and Carl Anthony Towns, you got another thing coming.
• 46:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're not scared.
• 46:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hell, they got a championship, and they're still ascending.
• 46:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Can you say the same for your group?
• 46:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Or is Jalen Brunson pretty much a finished product now?
• 46:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is there another level for Jalen Brunson to go to?
• 46:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is OG Ananobi the complete version of what he's going to be?
• 46:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And we we can honestly say that Carl Anthony Towns is exactly who he's going to be.
• 46:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So my question to New York Knicks fans is this Does continuity win out?
• 46:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Does the magic of Madison Square Garden still come best team on the planet today, which is the Oklahoma City Thunder in a championship series?
• 47:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hell, here's the other question Do you even get there?
• 47:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And this is gonna really upset Knicks fans because I think that some of you know that you might not have enough, especially if Cleveland gets their stuff together.
• 47:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And this Detroit Pisson thing, is it real?
• 47:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because if this Detroit Pistons thing is real, and God forbid they make a trade, what are the Knicks going to do?
• 47:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: These are the questions that are on my head, these are the things that brought me to start working the trade machine on ESPN and whatever the case may be.
• 47:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I think also on Fans Bowl, but I'm just trying to tell you guys I am cautiously optimistic about the Knicks, but I'm also kind of wondering, do we have enough right now?
• 47:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Which leads me to the other team in the Atlantic division that has quite the conundrum going on, and that is the Boston Celtics.
• 48:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm going to be honest with you, when the news dropped about Jason Tatum, that he was going to be out for the season with the Achilles tear, I was like, might need to tear this down.
• 48:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Might need to tear this down.
• 48:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: My intrusive thought had had me like slow playing a tank, slide down the standings, grab a blue chip pick, and then reopen the window when Tatum's back in 2026-2027.
• 48:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: On paper, that sounds responsible.
• 48:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 20 games in, the floor has completely rejected the idea.
• 48:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You got a team sitting around sixth in the east, rocking a plus four net rating, a top five offense without their franchise guy, and a bunch of kids in cheap wings that are getting it done, and nobody knows who they are.
• 49:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Can I interest you in some in some Josh Minot?
• 49:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Does anybody know the center Cada?
• 49:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Jordan Walsh, you might remember him from like March Madness, Baylor Shireman, y'all know of Creighton fame, and Hugo Gonzalez, who was their first round pick this year, has been getting some run as well.
• 49:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: These guys have been driving winning.
• 49:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Meanwhile, your head coach is literally wired to find joy in the misery of competing correctly.
• 49:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He couldn't tank if you spotted him lottery picks.
• 49:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This isn't broken roster pretending to be plucky.
• 49:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is a retooled team accidentally proving it's good.
• 49:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So tonight's question is simple.
• 49:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The 2025-2026 Celtics, are they really a stealth tank candidate or are they a bridger contending contender that needs a war room directive, not a demolition plan?
• 50:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We are gonna hash that out right now.
• 50:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Here's the thing they have Jalen Brown.
• 50:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Jalen Brown is still in his prime, they got a bunch of cheap wings that are going on.
• 50:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You got Brad Stevens doing his best lab work.
• 50:20
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We'll get into all the moves that he made in a second.
• 50:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Do they have playoff expectations?
• 50:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I don't know.
• 50:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I think they're tempered.
• 50:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Again, the productivity you're getting from the Monot, Cada, Walsh, Shireman, and uh Gonzalez is crazy.
• 50:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, here's the thing.
• 50:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is the thing that I know for a fact that Joe Mazzula is thinking in his head because he's so maniacal.
• 50:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: If we tank, and I know he doesn't even say the word tank, it's not in his vocabulary, it's not in his verbals whatsoever.
• 50:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But he's saying you're basically we rather have a mystery teenager than real data on the group that we currently have that's playoff adjacent.
• 51:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, the pushback to that is collective bargaining uh agreement reality.
• 51:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You need cheap plus rogue guys when Tatum walks back into his supermax deal and Jalen Brown is already paid.
• 51:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The cap sheet plus kids screaming retool around this core, don't light it up one year lottery dart.
• 51:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: No.
• 51:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Again, the CBA is here to put a kibosh on super teams.
• 51:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: OKC has found a way around that, and the way they found it around that is that they did they did do like a soft tank.
• 51:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Took them three years, they hit on every draft pick, but guess what?
• 51:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're racked.
• 51:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And here's the one thing I'll say to Boston.
• 51:57
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I do like what you guys got going on.
• 51:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is it Clucky?
• 52:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Yes.
• 52:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is Peyton Pritchard playing like a real man?
• 52:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 100%.
• 52:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is Jalen Brown just doing his thing, being super offensive engine dude?
• 52:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Yes.
• 52:14
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I do wonder if this season, because of the fact that in the end, you know that Joe Mozilla and Jalen Brown are playing for championships.
• 52:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: These dudes have tasted champagne on their lips before.
• 52:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Maybe not the Jordan Washes or the Catas or whatever the case may be, or the Baylor Shireman's, but Caden Kirchner sure has.
• 52:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Derek White sure has.
• 52:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Jalen Brown was the finals MVP, for God's sake.
• 52:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So my thing is that, yeah, I'm not everybody thinks that I'm just big tank guy.
• 52:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let's go tank every time something happens or whatever.
• 52:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: No.
• 52:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: My whole thing is that the reality of the situation is that you got Jason Tatum, who is on a super max deal, he's gonna be making like 60 plus million dollars.
• 53:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Jalen Brown is in that high 50s range, that's 110 million right there.
• 53:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know what the salary cap is, and if you can get some high-end, young, inexpensive talent, it is almost your fiduciary duty to go out and claim that talent.
• 53:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And if there was a year to kind of take a step back, it's the year that your superstar, your number one, supposedly, Jason Tatum, who has the Achilles tear.
• 53:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now I know there are people in Boston, there are people in Coolidge Corner right now, there are people on Chest in Chestnut Hill, there are people in Dorchester, there are people in Roxbury, there are people in Canton, Massachusetts right now.
• 54:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Sharon, I see you.
• 54:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know what I'm saying?
• 54:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Brockton Massachusetts, I see you.
• 54:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Waltham, I see you.
• 54:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I live there for 15 years.
• 54:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Not Waltham, but I lived in Massachusetts for 15 years.
• 54:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So it's one of those situations where you can sit there and you can go, hey, we like our Celtics, we like them to be competitive, we like them to be in the mix, we don't want to tank.
• 54:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm not here.
• 54:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm not telling you that this is the way you have to do it.
• 54:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But I would love for you guys to be open-minded about it.
• 54:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I would love for your coach well, we forget him, you're gonna have to almost pull the players out of his dead cold hands.
• 54:51
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Which maybe be up to Brad Stevens.
• 54:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And maybe as we get closer and closer to 2026, maybe that becomes more of a reality than this kind of the sun is rising, the birds are singing, everybody feeling good, you got your Dunkin' Donuts coffee, you know, you got your French vanilla extra extra going.
• 55:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I see y'all.
• 55:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Y'all got your sausage, egg, and cheese on a bag or croissant going crazy.
• 55:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So my thing is is that does a step back really hurt the Celtics?
• 55:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Does it hurt the Celtics cry?
• 55:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I don't know.
• 55:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Here's what I will say, or here's what the stats say Manat per 100, 19.2 points a game, 13 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 2.2 steals, 1.1 blocks, and a plus 2.6 box uh box plus minus.
• 55:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Cater per 100, 20.5 points a gain, 17 and 17.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2.9 blocks.
• 56:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He has an offensive rating of 138, a defensive rating of 111.
• 56:14
  FROC Host Vince Carter: His on off is about 16 plus.
• 56:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Jordan Walsh is already a positive across the board with an on-off around 9.1 plus.
• 56:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's guarding actual assignments.
• 56:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's getting he's getting heavy, heavy, like number one assignments and doing real well.
• 56:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And he's knocking down the open three ball at a respectable rate of 39%, and I did not ever see that happening.
• 56:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So I am really big on Jordan Walsh's development.
• 56:51
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And then you got your crazy ass coach whose his religion is that fun is in the details, the fun is in the effort, the grit it takes to get where you want to go.
• 57:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's not a guy who's cool with accidental blown leads for lottery positions.
• 57:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: If the front office tried to tank, your tank would look like your coach is screaming about box out in a 20-point uh loss and benching the kids from missing rotations.
• 57:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because he's done that this year.
• 57:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's like, he literally admits I can make anything miserable, the ride home with my kids, dinner, with my wife, etc.
• 57:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Gotta do it the right way.
• 57:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That dude is wired in a way that you love, he's wired in a way where this could be grading on people.
• 57:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm giving you my thoughts on this, and I'll kind of finish it up with this.
• 57:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: If you're if you're a G if you're if you're thinking that about this like a GM lens, right?
• 58:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And you're saying, okay, Tatum's out with the Achilles.
• 58:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The core is very expensive, no one wants to live in a six-seed purgatory, but 20 plus games into the season has answered a question for you.
• 58:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You're still sitting around sixth-ish with a net a plus four net rating, a top five, uh, a top five offense, and a rotation where Monakeda, Walsh, Shireman, Hugo are doing real big things.
• 58:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is this where you want to live?
• 58:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Or is there some tear down pieces that you can get to?
• 58:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because if we're being real honest with ourselves, did we expect this Boston, this uh, this iteration of the Boston Celtics to be 11 and 9?
• 58:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I did not have this on my bingo card.
• 58:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And kudos to Joe Mozilla, his staff, for saying, hey, we play a certain way.
• 58:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We shoot a bunch of threes and we defend.
• 59:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And you're gonna box out.
• 59:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And if you don't box out and you don't hit your defensive assignments, you don't play.
• 59:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I don't care if you're Peyton Pritchard, who's won a championship, or Jordan Wash, who I will land base at a drop of a dime.
• 59:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'll I will go ahead and pull your ass from the game, you'll come sit on this bench and chill out.
• 59:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm not asking Joe Mazzula to change, but I'm gonna talk to my guy Brad Stevens real quick.
• 59:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Yo, Brad, you my man's a hundred grand for sure.
• 59:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Okay.
• 59:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm not saying I'm not saying that you have to bottom out.
• 59:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm not even saying that you have to you know trade like pieces that are gonna help you in the future.
• 59:51
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But I'm saying, hey, is there Anthony Simon's trade out there?
• 59:57
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is there another piece that That has some decent money other than Jalen Brown that you can maybe unload and get either draft picks or whatever case may be back.
• 1:00:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Can you kind of reset your books and become a little less expensive?
• 1:00:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Does Bill Chisholm, the new owner of the Celtics, see it the way I see it?
• 1:00:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Do we stealth tank this year?
• 1:00:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Get the and here's the thing.
• 1:00:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: There's no guarantee that you end up in the top four.
• 1:00:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: No guarantee whatsoever.
• 1:00:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But there are some really talented guys that are in this draft.
• 1:00:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And here's the thing, you already got a number one and number two.
• 1:00:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm not asking you for you to go out and get another number one or another number two.
• 1:00:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm asking, hey, can we get a solid three?
• 1:00:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is there a guy in this in this group that's like maybe five through ten, five through twelve, that profiles as a number three of Mikel Brown Jr.
• 1:01:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: maybe?
• 1:01:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Uh a Nate Ament, maybe.
• 1:01:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hell, is there a big out there that you're absolutely in love with?
• 1:01:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: My guy C Mac or CNAC, the guy from Duke, excuse me, almost niece.
• 1:01:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We'll take that out in the edit process.
• 1:01:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So my question to Brad Stevens is that yes, your coach doesn't want to tank.
• 1:01:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I'm not asking you to tank, but I'm wondering if you can just take your foot off the accelerator just a tad.
• 1:01:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And put yourself in a position where you can get a high-end rotational piece that costs you almost absolutely nothing.
• 1:01:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Here's the thing.
• 1:01:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Our guy Derek White, who's absolutely beloved in Boston, is become very expensive.
• 1:01:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And he's also on the wrong side of 30.
• 1:02:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is there a way to parlay him into something else?
• 1:02:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is there a way to parlay him into picks?
• 1:02:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Future picks?
• 1:02:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Can you go the Oklahoma City route where you're you still got your core?
• 1:02:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They're expensive, but we're starting to replace some of the the rotational pieces with young, inexpensive pieces that are going to be able to produce.
• 1:02:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We see how Joe Mazzo gets the best out of his young people.
• 1:02:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is there any way that we can even further the ceiling on that talent level that is not your one, two, or three rotational guy?
• 1:02:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Just a question that I had.
• 1:02:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, for the last thing that we need to get to, and of course, we come back to Los Angeles.
• 1:02:57
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We come back to the La La.
• 1:02:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And you say, Well, Vince, you live in the La La.
• 1:03:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Why do you always come back here?
• 1:03:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I go, Well, the Lakers are never boring.
• 1:03:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I got something to talk about with the Lakers.
• 1:03:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So let's go here.
• 1:03:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Lakers fans, I'm gonna ask you a question.
• 1:03:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I need you to be honest about it.
• 1:03:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I need you to think not with the purple and gold glasses on.
• 1:03:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I need you to really think.
• 1:03:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Do you trust Austin Reeves as your second option now?
• 1:03:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Are you still waiting to see in the Western Conference finals?
• 1:03:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And if you're watching from outside, how high is he on your?
• 1:03:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We cannot let this dude get comfortable list in a seven-game series.
• 1:03:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm gonna need you to hit me in the comments, hit me on X at front runner PC or at socially underscore FRPC, because at some point the undrafted joke dies, and the rescue and the scouting report has caught up.
• 1:04:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So let's get into this whole situation.
• 1:04:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Alright, we got a lot going on here.
• 1:04:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's gonna be great.
• 1:04:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We're gonna get into it right now.
• 1:04:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: First and foremost, let's talk about this.
• 1:04:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The Lakers got smashed.
• 1:04:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They got absolutely smashed last night.
• 1:04:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They played the Phoenix Suns.
• 1:04:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The Phoenix Suns, now the Lakers could we're not gonna go excuses.
• 1:04:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But the Lakers are coming, they played back to back.
• 1:04:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now they were at home, they slept in their own beds, whatever the case may be.
• 1:04:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They did not handle business against New Orleans and it got them in trouble.
• 1:04:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That team was up big and they couldn't put their foot on New Orleans' throat, and it hurt them because the your your guys ended up playing a lot more minutes than they probably necessarily wanted to play.
• 1:05:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Then Phoenix rolls right into town and they put the ass whooping to the Lakers for sure.
• 1:05:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, through all of this, we've had a bright spot, and that bright spot has been Austin Reeves.
• 1:05:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Austin Reeves has been excellent all year long, and the reason why I say this is because of the fact that it's 100% true.
• 1:05:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Austin Reeves has been that dude.
• 1:05:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's been that guy.
• 1:05:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I've been excited to watch it.
• 1:05:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And what he's been able to do with this team has been nothing short of an absolute miracle.
• 1:05:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But let's talk about it.
• 1:05:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud right now.
• 1:05:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Arson Reeves is the second option, not LeBron James, and that might sound insane to the most of you, but until you stop and look at the jerseys on the name, and you just specifically look at just how this season's gone, Luca is giving you 35 a night on MVP efficiency, right?
• 1:06:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Reeves is sitting out there giving you 28 and 7 on a true shooting percentage of 0.680.
• 1:06:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: His usage rate is at 28%, and let's be honest, at the end of this month, LeBron is gonna be 41 years of age.
• 1:06:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Just being honest, does Reeves have a bit of the turnover problem?
• 1:06:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Yes, he does, because he showed it last night.
• 1:06:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But then the night before, was he brilliant?
• 1:06:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Yes, he was.
• 1:06:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 33 points, he had eight assists, nine of fifteen shooting, four of seven from three, eleven of twelve from the uh charity strike.
• 1:07:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He was only outdone by Luca by a little bit because Luca had 34 points, 12 rebounds, and seven assists.
• 1:07:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let's talk about last night.
• 1:07:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The Lakers committed 22 turnovers, 14 of them were done by Luca and Austin Reeves.
• 1:07:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Not great.
• 1:07:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Not great, Bob.
• 1:07:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The Suns only gave it away 11 times.
• 1:07:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: On the 22 turnovers that the Lakers did have, the Suns scored 32 points off those turnovers.
• 1:07:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The Lakers scored on 13 of 11 turnovers.
• 1:07:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hmm.
• 1:07:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Phoenix ran wild.
• 1:07:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Like they got open shots, they just kept running on the Lakers.
• 1:07:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They were like, we gonna we're gonna run these dudes to death.
• 1:07:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 28 fast break points, 56 points in the paint.
• 1:08:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's something that the Lakers usually do to their opponents.
• 1:08:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And now you break it down by quarter, you see where it all goes back.
• 1:08:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: First quarter, it's a stalemate, 31-31.
• 1:08:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Second quarter, this is when the Suns open it up.
• 1:08:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They go out and score 35 points and hold the Lakers to 21.
• 1:08:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And then in the third quarter, they also increase that lead, which is great.
• 1:08:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They go out, score another 30 points, and the Lakers score 25.
• 1:08:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So you're looking at a minus 19 in those two middle quarters.
• 1:08:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Not great.
• 1:08:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The Suns also end up with 12 more field goal attempts in the Lakers, 92 to 80.
• 1:08:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's because of all the damn turnovers that the Lakers had.
• 1:08:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Dylan Brooks looked like some version of Klay Thompson last night.
• 1:08:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And then Colin Gillespie looked like Steph Curry.
• 1:09:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They look like the Splash Brothers circa 2016-2017.
• 1:09:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now Luca did his thing.
• 1:09:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 38 points.
• 1:09:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Reeves, not so much.
• 1:09:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 16 points.
• 1:09:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Usually he's into the high 20s or in or in the low 30s.
• 1:09:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He did not really bring it last night.
• 1:09:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He had five of those turnovers that we talked about.
• 1:09:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: LeBron barely scored 10 points.
• 1:09:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He did it on three of ten shooting.
• 1:09:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He was more um I mean he just didn't have it last night.
• 1:09:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He just didn't.
• 1:09:51
  FROC Host Vince Carter: To start the game.
• 1:09:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You had Zion, Trey Murphy III, DeJounte Murray, who's coming back from an Achilles injury.
• 1:10:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You had uh Herb Jones and who else?
• 1:10:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They had somebody else sitting on the bench.
• 1:10:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They had like five dudes sitting on the bench.
• 1:10:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Crazy.
• 1:10:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, the Lakers went out and smashed them, but they let it stay kind of close to the point where you got, you know, you got your starters in for a long period of time, which was stupid.
• 1:10:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: On the actual season, Austin Reeves has been putting in work.
• 1:10:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I want to give a couple comments that his some of his teammates have said.
• 1:10:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Um and some of my observations that I've had on Austin.
• 1:10:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, he says early on I wanted just you know a spot on the team.
• 1:10:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Uh I was a two-way guy for a month or so.
• 1:10:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Once he made it there, it's all about how can I help the team be successful?
• 1:10:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That grew from there.
• 1:11:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, he got his first contract, got a shoe deal, then he makes team USA, and now he's a nightly co-star to Luca.
• 1:11:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I mean, it's been a meteoric lies to our guy Austin Reeves.
• 1:11:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's great at problem solving.
• 1:11:20
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Instead of breaking apart, we come together and we figure it out.
• 1:11:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's all about the staff.
• 1:11:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The coaches basically give us the answers to the test, and we just gotta go out there and do it and play hard.
• 1:11:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He has star responsibility with a role player humility and is exactly what you want in your personality for your number two.
• 1:11:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: LeBron was asked when uh what still impresses him about Reeves.
• 1:11:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He said nothing.
• 1:11:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I told y'all AR can can fucking hoop.
• 1:11:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's what I told y'all.
• 1:11:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: AR is great.
• 1:11:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's a quote from LeBron James.
• 1:11:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, he's on one of the greatest contracts ever.
• 1:12:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This dude's making like 14 million dollars right now.
• 1:12:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's all gonna change this year, so don't don't get too used to it.
• 1:12:10
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But the proof is in the pudding.
• 1:12:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: If you got Luca averaging 35.3 points a game, right?
• 1:12:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: On 22, almost 23 field goals a game with uh almost a 38% usage, and his uh true shooting percentage is 0.627, and then you got Reeves out here averaging 28.1 points a game.
• 1:12:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's he has 16.6 field goal attempts, his usage is at a 28.2%, and his true shooting percentage is sixty-eight percent.
• 1:12:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That dude is out there doing it.
• 1:12:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's put up some monster games when Luca's been there, he's put up some monster games when Luca wasn't there, he put up some monster games when your grandma was there, he put up monster games in a lot of places.
• 1:13:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But at the end of the day, do you trust him as your number two?
• 1:13:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is that is that's what you trust him as.
• 1:13:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Getting him as a number two option with the production without paying him number two max money is a second Apron Chain's world dream.
• 1:13:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's done it next to different superstar archetypes.
• 1:13:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's done it with LeBron and AD versus doing it with Luca.
• 1:13:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's done it by himself.
• 1:13:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now Luca makes it easier for Austin.
• 1:13:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He bends the floor, they go out and blitz Luca, then they pass it to Austin, now you have a 4-3 advantage, and at that point, Austin Reeves is one of the better problem solvers in the league.
• 1:13:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And if you're putting him in a situation where he has the advantage in the number game, he's gonna figure it out, and he's gonna get he's gonna maximize that possession for you most of the time.
• 1:14:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, last night is not really indicative of what Austin Reeves usually is, but what I would say to that whole situation is that it's not normal.
• 1:14:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's not normal at all.
• 1:14:20
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is not what we usually see out of Austin.
• 1:14:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I look at this and go, hey, this is just one of those things, this is where we are.
• 1:14:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We still gotta make the decision whether he is a real number two.
• 1:14:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Can he be stopped?
• 1:14:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You see the game against Phoenix and you go, well shit, we kind of needed you to go off, my guy, and you only had 16 points.
• 1:14:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Where were you?
• 1:14:43
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now you could say, well, Luca out here taking 26 shots.
• 1:14:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I don't know where my shots are gonna come from.
• 1:14:51
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is where Austin has some growth to get to.
• 1:14:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And what I mean by that is that I'm not saying he necessarily needs to speak up.
• 1:15:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I think what he just needs to do is say, hey, I'm just gonna let you know.
• 1:15:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Next time up the court, I'm getting into an action, I'm gonna get myself going downhill, I'm gonna decel or accelerate, and I'm gonna get fouled, and I'm gonna get an N1, and uh, you know, we're gonna make a stop to this mini run that's going on with Phoenix.
• 1:15:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's what needs to happen.
• 1:15:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's the next maturation of his development, and that's the one thing that we have not seen.
• 1:15:33
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, you can say all you want about LeBron James.
• 1:15:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's old, he's this, he's that, he's this.
• 1:15:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Here's the thing that dude averaged 25 points last year.
• 1:15:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Okay, that was just last year.
• 1:15:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This year you say, Well, you know, he hasn't played, blah blah blah.
• 1:15:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is where the cliff happens, and you know what?
• 1:15:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You could be right.
• 1:15:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This could be where the cliff happens, this could be exactly where it happens.
• 1:16:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But until I get more data, I cannot sit here and close the book on the greatest player of this era that we see.
• 1:16:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It is absolutely hard for me to sit here and go, Well, LeBron can never score 20 points again.
• 1:16:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I mean average it.
• 1:16:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, and here's the other thing.
• 1:16:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's working him his hiself back into what he was.
• 1:16:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And you say, Well, how's that even work?
• 1:16:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Look at what the Lakers were without him.
• 1:16:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And now he's supposed to be just dropped back in.
• 1:16:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Oh, go be LeBron.
• 1:16:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Well, when he was LeBron last year for most of that season, Luca wasn't there.
• 1:16:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Keep in mind, the trade happened.
• 1:16:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: What 35 games left in the season?
• 1:17:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We got 82 of these bad boys.
• 1:17:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They have played like 50.
• 1:17:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So don't sit there and tell me, oh, LeBron, we just drop him in the mix.
• 1:17:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: By the way, he's a smart dude.
• 1:17:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He is a student of basketball.
• 1:17:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He sees Austin out here cooking people left and right.
• 1:17:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's probably, I don't want to mess with that flow.
• 1:17:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let me just kind of ease my way back in.
• 1:17:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I can be a good distributor of the ball.
• 1:17:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, I'll get I'll get my guys Luca and Austin their shots.
• 1:17:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'll even, you know, I'll dime up Aiden as well.
• 1:17:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Rui Hachamura standing out here at the uh corner three.
• 1:17:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'll make sure he eats.
• 1:17:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I can go here and be that second side, weak side initiator, but on the highest, highest level of that food chain.
• 1:17:57
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Which really sounds scary as shit.
• 1:17:59
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It just sounds scary as hell.
• 1:18:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You got LeBron James, one of the smartest dudes who ever touched a basketball on the weak side, and now you giving him numbers?
• 1:18:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Oh, it's four against three, and I'm six foot nine, two hundred and fifty pounds, and I'm a freight train coming down the track.
• 1:18:20
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So before we step off this ledge and say that LeBron is done in his Austin's role as the number two guy, I actually had to give some context and some credence that LeBron, until we have more data, until we have more evidence, we cannot just throw dirt on this dude.
• 1:18:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I tried to do it.
• 1:18:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I tried to do it two years ago.
• 1:18:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I tried to do it three years ago.
• 1:18:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I stopped doing it last year.
• 1:18:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I just said, you know what?
• 1:18:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's gonna happen when it happens.
• 1:18:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: It's gonna happen when it happens.
• 1:18:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So now I'm on the other side of it going, hold on, let's count the brakes.
• 1:19:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let's count the brakes a little bit.
• 1:19:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Give LeBron 10 to 15 games, see where he's at, and see what goes on from there.
• 1:19:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But do I think Reeves is capable of the second option?
• 1:19:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This is where I will tell you I do not want the Lakers trading off the Reeves.
• 1:19:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, if you're telling me, hey, there is a you know 25, 26 year old wing that's all world that's coming back, I might have to think about it.
• 1:19:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But if you're telling me we're just getting some dude, I don't want nothing to do with that.
• 1:19:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Give me Austin Reeves and give me Luka Doncic.
• 1:19:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I know that I'm gonna get good offense from those guys.
• 1:19:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let me put three guys around him, and I hate to say this because it sounds like I'm just being um an asshole to the Dallas Mavericks, but if you put dudes like Najee Marshall, um Daniel Gafford around Luka Doncic and Austin Reeves, uh, and maybe, you know, maybe non LeBron, maybe it's Rui Hachamura, maybe somebody else.
• 1:20:19
  FROC Host Vince Carter: What does this team look like?
• 1:20:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: How defensively solid are they?
• 1:20:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Uh we've seen Luca make strides in his defense, not saying that he'll ever be all world, because he will not.
• 1:20:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But he's had a hell of a lot more steals this year than he's had in prior years.
• 1:20:37
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So I say all that to say this.
• 1:20:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: This version of the Lakers, the Suns lost exposed every structural problem that the Lakers have: 22 turnovers, 28 fast break points, 56 points in the paint, um, 61 from Brooks and Gillespie without Booker.
• 1:20:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Remember, Booker went out in the first quarter.
• 1:21:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: They did all this without Devin Booker.
• 1:21:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Um, still, the offensive hierarchy is still crystal clear.
• 1:21:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Luca is carrying the load.
• 1:21:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Reeves as the only other guy really bending defenses right now.
• 1:21:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: LeBron is more of a connective third piece as of right now.
• 1:21:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Then you drop in the Pelicans game.
• 1:21:25
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Yeah, it's a 3-18 skeleton crew of a team, but Reeves goes and gets 33-8 on elite efficiency next to Luca, and that's what it's supposed to look like.
• 1:21:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Plus, the fact that LeBron and Luca talk about Reeves like he's a peer.
• 1:21:46
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That cannot be forgotten.
• 1:21:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And it gets really hard to pretend that he's just keeping the seat warm.
• 1:21:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: One bad night against Phoenix or one soft matchup versus the New Orleans Pelicans doesn't make doesn't define this situation.
• 1:22:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The entire body of work does the Suns and the Pelicans.
• 1:22:14
  FROC Host Vince Carter: If you look at both of those games, they're not rewriting the narrative, but they do give you some insight into what's going on.
• 1:22:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Reeves over LeBron?
• 1:22:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Hmm, no, but right now, yeah, until LeBron is ready.
• 1:22:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Now, once we see LeBron back, and let's say he doesn't have the same um explosive first step, let's say he's selling for more jump shots than he usually was doing.
• 1:22:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Maybe he's decided, hey, I am gonna be okay with this number three role.
• 1:22:54
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because until LeBron basically gives you that nod and says, hey, I'm gonna go ahead and take this number three role, you're the number two.
• 1:23:03
  FROC Host Vince Carter: LeBron will be the de facto number two.
• 1:23:06
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Is that the right way to go?
• 1:23:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That might be another question for another day.
• 1:23:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because I would might tell you that the best way of going is to have Austin be the number two, and then LeBron being the most nastiest number three we've ever seen in the league.
• 1:23:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And then that means a LeBron that's more dedicated to the defensive end of the court.
• 1:23:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And maybe at almost age 41, which will happen at the end of December, maybe that's the best way to go.
• 1:23:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Maybe we get 17 points a game, LeBron, but we also get 11 rebounds, LeBron, and like he's a just a defensive, like absolute demon.
• 1:23:53
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I'm not saying like he's out here running around crazy, whatever, but he's still so smart that even in the he's one of those chess pieces that only like he can almost like he can almost kind of jump out at you and and scare you to death.
• 1:24:13
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Cause keep in mind he's 6'9, 250 pounds.
• 1:24:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's still super damn athletic for somebody 40 years of age, damn near about to turn 41.
• 1:24:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: With all that being said, we gotta get up out of here.
• 1:24:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So let me go ahead and do this.
• 1:24:31
  FROC Host Vince Carter: The best part of you is still you, not your record, not your feed.
• 1:24:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You surround yourself with people who give you light, insight, joy, and accountability.
• 1:24:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's the real max deal.
• 1:24:45
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Appreciate them out loud.
• 1:24:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Don't wait.
• 1:24:49
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Don't wait till later.
• 1:24:51
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Because we're not promised later.
• 1:24:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And if you're still looking for your hoop family, you got one with us at FRPC.
• 1:25:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We joke, we overact, we get loud, but we respect your brain.
• 1:25:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Again, thoughts overtakes every single time, and remember, anybody could yell a take.
• 1:25:16
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Very few can defend a thought.
• 1:25:18
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And I want to leave you with this.
• 1:25:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Um, shout out to everybody who's downloading the podcast.
• 1:25:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Shout out to all of y'all.
• 1:25:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But um, I'm gonna take something from somebody that I know.
• 1:25:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So shout out to my guy Van Lathen.
• 1:25:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Um, he's doing something on his podcast.
• 1:25:39
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm gonna go ahead and try to do something on my podcast.
• 1:25:41
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Tell a friend about our podcast.
• 1:25:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Tell somebody who loves the NBA about our podcast, whoever you really shoot the shit with about the NBA, tell them about our podcast.
• 1:25:52
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Tell them that we do it twice a week.
• 1:25:55
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Last week, a little bit different, Thanksgiving, whatever the case may be.
• 1:26:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: But we do it twice a week.
• 1:26:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We're gonna go ahead and get up out of here.
• 1:26:05
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We will be back on Friday on this feed.
• 1:26:07
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I want to thank everybody for getting with the podcast.
• 1:26:12
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Remember, you need to follow the podcast.
• 1:26:15
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I would love for you guys to interact with me on Twitter or X, as you want to call it, at FrontrunnerPC or at socially underscore F RPC.
• 1:26:28
  FROC Host Vince Carter: That's our social media group.
• 1:26:30
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let us know what you're thinking.
• 1:26:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Do you agree with anything that I said today?
• 1:26:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Or do you disagree?
• 1:26:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Do you dis do you agree with the the Austin Reeves deal if you're a Laker fan?
• 1:26:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So hashtag Lake Show.
• 1:26:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I want to see y'all in the comments.
• 1:26:47
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Interact with me.
• 1:26:48
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let me know what's up.
• 1:26:50
  FROC Host Vince Carter: If you're a Knicks fan, are you appalled by what the hell I said about your team?
• 1:26:56
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know, he's trying to trade who?
• 1:26:58
  FROC Host Vince Carter: He's trying to do what?
• 1:27:00
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Can we just live?
• 1:27:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We're gonna get to the finals.
• 1:27:04
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I know I know your Knicks fan so so confident y'all gonna get to the finals.
• 1:27:09
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And for my Boston people out there, shout out to my people in Watham and Walpaul.
• 1:27:17
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Shout out to my people in Westwood, Massachusetts.
• 1:27:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: You know what I'm saying?
• 1:27:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I know where y'all at.
• 1:27:23
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Shouts out to my people in North Attleboro.
• 1:27:26
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Shouts out to my people in Newton and Wellesley.
• 1:27:32
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Shouts out to my people in Cambridge, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:27:35
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Y'all keep it dirty, y'all keep it gritty, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:27:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Love y'all.
• 1:27:40
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Let me know what you think about kind of slow cleaning a soft tank, getting a real good, inexpensive asset to add to Tatum and Jalen Brown and continue this wagon y'all got going on in Boston and two mock people in Oklahoma City.
• 1:28:01
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I just salute y'all.
• 1:28:02
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I salute Sam Chresty and all the hard work that he got going on, and I just celebrate y'all.
• 1:28:08
  FROC Host Vince Carter: 2001 is nothing to sneeze at.
• 1:28:11
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I don't care if it's the regular season, preseason, uh, college basketball, uh, you know, exhibition, whatever.
• 1:28:21
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Y'all 2001.
• 1:28:22
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Get the hell up out of here.
• 1:28:24
  FROC Host Vince Carter: And y'all got the Clippers pick.
• 1:28:27
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Super scary times for the rest of the league.
• 1:28:29
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We might just we all might be playing for number two, Oklahoma City.
• 1:28:34
  FROC Host Vince Carter: I'm just being honest with you.
• 1:28:36
  FROC Host Vince Carter: So with that being said, I'm gonna get up out of here.
• 1:28:38
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We'll see you back on this feed on Friday.
• 1:28:42
  FROC Host Vince Carter: Peace and love.
• 1:28:44
  FROC Host Vince Carter: We out.