Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Vinnie Goodwill on Kevin Durant-Rockets Struggles, Why LeBron shouldn't leave Lakers, NBA Expansion | 03.18

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Vinnie Goodwill on Kevin Durant-Rockets Struggles, Why LeBron shouldn't leave Lakers, NBA Expansion | 03.18 · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A wave original.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: My name is Beaumont Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a hater. It is that time of week where we
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: have a guest join us. You can catch him on
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Get Up or First Take somewhere around nine times a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: week these days covering the NBA. Vinny Goodwill, what's going on?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: What's happening, man?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Hey, man, we got to take a vote, and we
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: got to come up with some consistency on what it's
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: going to be. You Vince over there. You Vincent somewhere
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: half the time. You Vinny over here. Sometimes during their shows,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: they go with Vinny. You're going to have to make
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a decision about what your name is in front of
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the world. I ain't coming off Vinny. I'm going to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: be like the people that know you since the third grade.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: But you're going to have to come with some sort
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: of standardization on this now that you're becoming a big
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: old TV star.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Well, ex-nay on the TV star stuff, but... Oh, no, no, no, no.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: We know you a TV star, because who sent a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: text to a chat this week, or last week, saying
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: that you was a star?
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Who was that?
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: The biggest hater that any of us know. Joel Anderson.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Joel catching strays.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: No, he ain't catching no strays. Joel called you a star.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I assure you, he does not say that stuff willy-nilly.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Well, Joel caught TV on the day that people just
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: lost their minds because they didn't hear everything properly. So
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that's what that was. Oh, okay.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. Joel can appreciate you spiting
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: your peers.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yes. Joel is known for stirring things up on purpose.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: I stirred things up by accident.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: By the way, I don't feel bad.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: No, you go ahead. No, I was going to say,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: to the name thing, I've known the host of First
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Take since, you know, 2006. That's when I was Vinny.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: There was no Vince. Damn sure wasn't no Vincent. So
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: when he calls me that, everybody else feels like, well,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Steve calls Vinny. I can call you Vinny.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, you one of those. You tried to age
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: out of Vinny. I didn't realize that. Like, I can
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: let you grow up. You can be Vince, you know
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying? I didn't realize that. Okay, all right.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: We all cut up now. For example, Dan Levitard used
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: to be Danny.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a young Danny. Like, Wilbon is good
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to call him Danny. Every now and then, Gonzalo would
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: call him Danny. Like, he had to become that. And
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I get it, because I get the idea that Danny
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: feels a little younger. But Vinny don't feel younger. Vinny
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: just feels familiar. You know what I mean?
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to y'all. You know what I mean?
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, I guess I forgot the other part is, you
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: a junior.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: It all comes together.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: But I'm not going to stop anybody. I don't stop
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: anybody who knows. Like my friends, my homies, they ain't
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: going to ever call me Vince. Now, if they're like
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: reservations for, who's the reservation's name? I ain't going to
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: say Vinny. You know what I mean? They know when
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: to use it and when not to. So, you know, Bo,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: you've been my friend for 15 years.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: It's true. Yeah, yeah.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: You are in the cluster. You don't have to call
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: me by my birth name or nothing like that.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: It's all good. Look, man, if you ever lose your
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: ID at the club again during All-Star and they call
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: your name on the microphone, we was at All-Star Houston
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: one time and they called somebody who lost their ID
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: as Vincent Goodwill Jr. here and Vinny tried to be
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: all slick and go to the front. I'm like, he's
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: right here! Vinny's right here!
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Right here!
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: All right, I'm just standing here, hands pointed down, you know,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: but I get you. Basketball.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Um, the, the, the Lakers beat the Rockets the other
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: night and their stories of both teams. Right. Um, but
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I want to start with the Rockets because I feel
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: like we're almost being unfair to them in that we
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: have all fought throughout this year. They don't have a
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: point guard. They don't have a chance. It didn't, I
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: don't know what they could have done during the regular
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: season that would have changed the idea that they don't
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: have a point guard. Therefore they don't have a chance.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: They could finish the regular season 65-17, and we would
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: still say, okay, but the issue is they don't have
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: a point guard. That's going to come up when you've
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: got to play a best-of-seven series. But the way they've
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: looked lately brings us back to, at least for me,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a couple of things. One of them I remember all
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the love that everybody had for Imei during that year
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: that he was coaching the Celtics. Now, I think a
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: big part of that is white folks get off on
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the idea of somebody coming in and calling these dudes motherfuckers, right? Like,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: they love the idea, like, you hold those guys accountable, right?
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: People love that stuff when they hear it, usually when
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: it's from a white man, but they'll settle for a
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Nigerian in a pinch, right? But at the same time,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: they went to the finals and they won that game
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: seven against Miami, but they were in the process of
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: one of the great collapse collapses in the history of
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the NBA playoffs. And Jimmy Butler walks into that three
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: and makes it. That's an all time choke. And that
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: year was full of blown leads in third and fourth quarters.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Them just coming apart. It's like, they don't know how
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to run an offense suddenly. Now, again, to be fair,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: another team that did not have a point guard, but they,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: We're seeing it again. Like this is, Ime as tactician
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: seems to raise, or at least as offensive tactician, seem
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: to raise some questions. I will stop there and get
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: back to the other one. But I wonder if, I
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: wonder what exactly you got to get, what combination of
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: players you have to have to really make it work
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: with him. Because I'm not saying he's a bad coach,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: but I am saying that there are holes in his game.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: This is going to sound hilarious coming from me. You
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: know who would really work with Ime Udoka right now?
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Chris Paul five years ago.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because he can run the offense.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: You run the offense. I'll take care of everything else. Like,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: he needs discipline and order on offense. I can't blame
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Ime when you get Reed Shepard and a man Thompson
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: as your point guards. And a man, Thompson, who's used
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: to handling the ball, maybe not being a point guard,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: but used to handling the ball. And being, you know,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: the best athlete in basketball. Like, that's a lot to
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: put on a guy in his third year. But they
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: look so inept. Like, I saw KD in that fourth quarter.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: He had an eight-second violation and a backcourt violation. All
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: because the Lakers just put two dudes in his face
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  Speaker 2: 50 feet from the basket. Like, this is so... I
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: won't say elementary, but this is something that you learn
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: at a very early stage of basketball. There's two guys
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: on the ball far away. What do you do? You
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: put somebody in the middle, you get the numbers, and
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: someone makes a decision because you've got two defenders on
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: the backside, somebody in the corners, somebody go to the dunker,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: and you figure it out. The fact that J.J. Redick
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: was like, they can't do anything against this. We're going
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: to unleash this in the fourth quarter of a game
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: that we're trailing, and we're going to be able to
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: come back. with Luka Doncic on the bench, lets you
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: know everything about how the league feels about Houston's fourth
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: quarter offense. Like, we're talking as if Houston also, and
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: this is the crazy thing, Bo, Minnesota, Denver, Lakers, Houston.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Houston has the biggest single deficiency out of any one
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: of those four teams. And yet, they are what? A
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: game behind the Lakers? By virtue of that one loss? Like,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: they can still get to three, which lets you know
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: how incredible they are in other places. Because if your
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: fourth quarter offense is that inept and teams know that
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: they can just come and get you, that means nine
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: times out of ten, you are blowing their asses out
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: in every other aspect of the game so it doesn't
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: get to a fourth quarter collapse. And that's why, in part,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I can't blame Emei. Emei's a great defensive coach, so
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: if you're going to ask him to lean on his instincts,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: He's going to put out the best defensive unit, not
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: the best unit that's going to give him fourth quarter
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: order and everything else. And they didn't have Alperen Shingun,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: who's also a defensive liability, shall we say.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: He is.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Look, the Rockets, I feel like, are the only team
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: in the West that we know can't win the West.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I think that I don't I do not think Minnesota
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: will win the West. In fact, I'll go so far
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: as to say they won't. But I'm not saying that
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: they can't. There's a world where you can show me
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: where Minnesota can win the West. I don't really see
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the world where Houston can win.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: So wait, wait, let's back this up. There's a world
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: where you can see the Lakers winning the West?
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: No.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: My bad.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Hey, Ryan, Ryan, leave that in. Ryan, leave that in.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: It was going.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: To be left in. Let me tell you this, partner,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I understand you've been on TV for a while, but
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: you ain't got to produce this show, homeboy. We got
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: this under control. You know why I didn't think of it? Honestly,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: you know why I didn't think of the Lakers on that?
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: And we'll get to them in a minute. I did
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: not think about the Lakers because I do not think
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: about the Lakers. Like, in the group of teams that
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about for the West, they weren't actually in it.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: But this thing happened where they got to three. But
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I want to stay with the Rockets. I'm going to
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: get back to the Lakers. I want to stay with
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the Rockets because you saw after that Lakers game where
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Durant talked about how he just had the ball too
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: much and how he needed, you know, maybe the problem
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: was him. And I think he was saying that in earnest, right?
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I did not feel that that was him being passive-aggressive
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: in that moment. However, just going to ask the question,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: is it possible that that Get Off My Dickerson has
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: gotten Kevin Durant into a little bit of trouble. Like
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: we have just assumed that everything was going to run
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: smooth after Get Off My Dickerson got caught sending all
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: them crazy tweets. And again, I don't know exactly who
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Get Off My Dickerson is, but correct me if I'm wrong,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: but no one has heard from Get Off My Dickerson
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: since that whole thing came up, right? You hear people
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: talk about they sitting around watching Kevin Durant now when
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: he has the ball. Is it possible that some of
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: them cats are doing exactly that? Because they're like, yo,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: what you got?
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. I'm not saying Kevin Durant is
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: getting off my diggers. And I bet you they think
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: he is, though. Like, we have just assumed that that
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: just went away. And that's not how humans work.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. I had this funny story. I
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: hadn't considered that element of it that, hey, partner, you
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: want all of this? You got it. Right. I didn't
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: consider that KD turned into Kyle Lee Watson. You know
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: what I mean? Out here just doing whatever. But maybe
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: that's what it is. Like a lot of those dudes
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: may feel a certain way and feel like we're going
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: to catch the blame one way or the other, whether
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: we win or lose. So you know what? How about
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: we just chill? No, I never thought about that.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, I'm just asking this. How many people
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: do we know that would have just let that slide?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Hardly anybody. Look, we know Kevin.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Durant wouldn't let that slide. Kevin Durant wouldn't. I tell
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: you this. Imagine if he still played with the triple.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: If Kevin Durant were to get off my digger center,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: if the team believed that, If people believe that thing,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I bet you the triple-double cocaine bear will never let
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: that slide. And I thought they should have got a
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: little better.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I forgot about that line. But, I mean, here's the
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: crazy thing. With the triple-double cocaine bear and all of
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: his madness, work in this Houston. Like, there's so many
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: different iterations of players who Kevin Durant has worked with.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: that you're like, man, if only he had this guy
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: right now, like this would turn out to be something.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you the funny thing. For those people who
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: say Kevin Durant is never happy or never satisfied, KD
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: says something about, you know, maybe I should just stand
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: in the corner. I remember at one of these previous stops,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Kevin Durant saying, man, he just sit me in the corner.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: That is, it always sounds like nothing is ever quite
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: right with KD. It's almost like the Cedric the Entertainer
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: line when he talks about Luther Vandross and that curl
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: just not being quite right. Something's always off. And it's
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: not necessarily Kevin Durant's fault. It could be Get Off
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: My Dickerson's fault. It could be somebody else, like the
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: fact that they don't have a point guard. In Houston,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I mean not Houston, in Phoenix, it was just a
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: jumbled mess of a roster. Then the Bradley Beal trade happened.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: In Brooklyn, it was... Kyrie Irving going full Kyrie, and
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: then James Harden doing what James Harden does. All those things,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: in theory, have nothing to do with Kevin Durant's singular excellence.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: He's going to be 27, 7, and 5, no matter
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: what situation we put him in, and he's 37 years old, right?
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Or is he going to be 37 years old? One
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: of the two. He's 37. I lose track of these
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: old dudes after a period of time. Like, they just old, right? Yeah.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And you can't put any of these singularly on him.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: You're just like, man, how can you be so snakebitten?
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I push back a little bit on the
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: narrative of Kevin Durant, something's always wrong.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: We only really talked about something being wrong with Kevin
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Durant in the 2018-2019 season. We were not saying that
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the first two years he was in Golden State, right? No.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: We were saying that the last year, as is often
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the case, when somebody is in the last year of
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: a contract, and if I had to guess, whatever wasn't
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: great with him did not have, that wasn't about basketball, right? Like,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I don't think it was entirely. And by the way,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: what wasn't right in Golden State? Draymond called him a
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: bitch in front of everybody and acted like it was cool. Like,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I don't, I'm not inclined to blame.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: It just seemed like something ain't right. Yeah, I'll tell
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: you exactly what wasn't right. That right there, right? Now,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know how those guys up there, like, everybody
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: in the organization feels about him. That's a different discussion.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: But that one, I'm kind of like, I'm not sure.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: And then all he did was go out there and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: play until his Achilles snapped. So, like, I'm kind of like,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Know about that. No, but what I'm saying is the
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: things happen around him, not necessarily that he is a
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: party to it. Like, I'm not saying that James Harden
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: going Tiger going Tiger is his fault because that wasn't
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: his fault. And Kyrie and everything that Kyrie was going
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: through at the time wasn't his fault. It just happens
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: to be around him, and it has colored the way
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: that we think about him. That's what I'm saying.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: I'm with you there.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, so, yeah, we're on the same page. But I
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: think it's important. When you really walk through it, like,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: what happened with the Nets is very obvious what happened
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: with the Nets. Kyrie wouldn't get that shot. And in
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: a tense time in America, everybody had had enough. I
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: tell you, my favorite, the only thing I'll ever remember
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: that James Harden ever said, I'll give him the shot myself.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: that's the only thing that look james harden won a
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: lot of respect for being that when he was the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: only person saying the thing like what is this this
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: is ridiculous right everything everybody has ever had to say
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: about james harden james harden was the one that was
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: like dog you don't get this fucking shot to come
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: out here and play basketball what are you talking.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: About he's the voice of reason james harden is the
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: voice of reason when has that ever happened Yeah, and.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Then when it fell apart, Durant was like, okay, get
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: me out of here. He got to Phoenix. Now, this
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: is where you can start saying, oh, maybe it's always
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: a thing. He and Devin Booker were not a fit
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. One of those things is
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: there is skill overlap, right? Like, there are two guys
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: whose job is the same job. They're not the same player,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: but they do the same job. But what didn't go
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: right in Phoenix wasn't Durant's fault. And my recollection was
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: it was them that wanted to move him. not vice versa,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: you know? And so now he gets here and I mean, look,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: get off my dickers. It seems to have a whole
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: lot to say, but I didn't really detect there being
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: a thing until recently, actually, like now, now that we're
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: in this. So I feel like you're right. There's a
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: thing everywhere, but I think the thing that makes him
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: tricky is there's so many wares such that we have
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a everywhere for a guy this good.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: It's the wild thing to me is because for every macro,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: there's a micro, right? And you can't put any of
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: the micros on him. Maybe the biggest micro that you
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: can put on him is choosing Phoenix, right? Because in Brooklyn,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: before Kyrie's ankle snaps or it lands on Giannis and
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: before Harden's hamstring goes boom in the night, that was
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: one of the best teams we'd ever seen, right? Yes.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: That was the most explosive offensive team, this side of
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Kevin Durant's Golden State team, that we have ever seen
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: in modern basketball. And they were going to win the
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: title easily in 2021, even with all that stuff happening.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Maybe choosing Phoenix and trying to replicate whatever that was. Oh,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: put me next to another guy who can score and
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: can handle. Like, that's the thing. I don't think Houston
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: was a bad pick for him. Because at least you
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: had the thought of, okay, you got Ime Udoku who
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: handles the defense. You got these young studs who we
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: still going to keep. You got Freya Van Vliet. You
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: got Alperen Shingun. Like, it makes all the sense. It
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: makes too much sense. Maybe he should have picked San Antonio.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: All right, cool. You know what I mean? But getting
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: back to your original point, neither one of us here
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: is blaming Kevin Durant for the circumstances that Kevin Durant
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: is in. Maybe you blame Get Off My Dickerson for
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: how some things look.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Well we're not blaming kevin durant yeah i was about
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to say if it is possible that this time it
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: is the fault between kevin durant and get off my
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: diggerson it is the fault of one of like i
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: don't know right but i don't think it's messy to
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: ask the question about whether or not something like that
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: has lingered. Because I remember that first game after that happened,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Kevin Durant looked like the greatest teammate of all time.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: He was out there giving hard dap. You know what
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I'm saying?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Like, dude, it was just a layup. Shit. You know, like,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: he was out there. I think about this, too, about 2021.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I feel like we treat Kevin Durant as though he
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: came back from the Achilles' tear and he's been the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: same player that he was before that, and I don't
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: believe that to be true. Like, I think he's still
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: been incredibly effective, but I also think that we're in
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: an era of stat inflation. And so his ability to
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: continue to put up those point numbers and look, his
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: percentages are good, all of this. But I say that
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: to say, for those who do not remember in the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: 2021 playoffs, that was the best version of Kevin Durant
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've ever seen. Like, if he makes
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: that shot where his foot doesn't go over the line
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: because he wears his shoes one size too big, they're
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: still rolling. He was so good that postseason. As is
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: often the case with guys who suffer an Achilles injury,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: they could really make it crack that first year after.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And then after that, it's not quite the same, right? Like,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: he's not, one, he hasn't played that many games in
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: most of these seasons, but two, He had become such
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: an impactful defensive player before the Achilles injury took place,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and he's not nearly the defensive player that he was
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: around then. He's just a scorer from God.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, well, the crazy thing is, go look at
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Kevin Durant film from 2014. Like, before the Lisfranc injury, like,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: we forget, he had the Lisfranc, he had the Achilles,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: he had the MCL when he was in Brooklyn that
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: cost him time. Any one of those three things, honestly,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: can change the trajectory of somebody's career. Liz Frank cost
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Bill Walton his career, right? One of the MCLs cost
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Derrick Rose. Derrick Rose's remaining explosiveness, even after the ACL.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: The MCL was what screwed Derrick Rose in 2012, or 2013,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: excuse me, when he came back. And Kevin Durant's, like
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: you said, the fact that he can play the game
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: as well as he can play the game masked some
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: of these other things. But I was looking at this,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: I was looking at a film once of Kevin Durant
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: scoring 54 in 2014. It might have been against Golden State.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: And it looked like a podcast on 1.5 speed, like
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: how quick he was going, how fluid he was. Like
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: now he gets to the spots, right? He gets there.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: But he used to blow by dudes without having to
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: go low. Like his handle used to be a lot
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: tighter than than it is now like now he's drip
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: like it's just a certain amount of fluidity that you
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: lose when you have an achilles injury and you can't
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: really blame him for that but yeah i feel like
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: to some degree his basketball greatness has obscured the fact
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: that there has been slippage natural slippage that you're going
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: to have after one if not two or three of
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: those damn injuries.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah no it's It's going to be interesting to watch
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: what happens with that team.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Wait, have people forgot how great he was? Have we
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: reached the point? Or have people forgotten that Kevin Durant
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: used to be a physical marvel on top of the
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: crazy skill set?
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know if people have forgotten how good he was,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: but I think that we overstate. I don't think it's
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: a matter of forgetting how good he was as much
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: as It's so impressive that he is what he is
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: at 37 that it's easy to lose track of the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: difference between this and even five years ago. It's like
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: when somebody, for whatever reason on the internet, drops some
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: clips of LeBron at 25.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: And you're like, oh, shit. Like, whoa, man, that's right.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I got it. It's like going back and listening to
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: one of your favorite records that you ain't listened to
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: in a long time by your favorite artist that's still
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: putting out, you know, still putting out songs, still putting out,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: you know, still got some heat. But them jams was
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: on them other tapes, right?
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: It's kind of there. But speaking of LeBron, he get
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: back to the Lakers. Lakers winning some games, man. Luka
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: apparently had been going through some things, shitted them things
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: off his back, and look, nothing about the way that
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: he plays basketball indicates that he's the sort of dude
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: that just pushes through chaos and other facets of his life.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Whatever was going on with
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the situation with his wife and kids, there seemed to
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: have been some measure of resolution that at least is
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: giving him some peace, and he out here killing people.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Did you see the numbers, I think, in his last,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: and during his winning streak? He's like 38, 9, and 10. Like,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying he's elbowing his way into this MVP conversation.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: But we have choices to make now as far as
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: who our top five is going to be. I think
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: we always knew who our top five was going to
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: be up until this. And if the Lakers wind up, Bo,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: winning 50-plus games, right? And I think they still can.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: They can win 50-plus games, third seed in the West
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: as the most flawed team amongst the The remaining post-San Antonio,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Oklahoma City, it's not that I'm saying I would vote
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: for him for MVP or I would even have him
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: on my ballot. I'm saying it's now the conversation to
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: have him on the ballot. I think it's clear we
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: know who's going to win MVP and we know who's
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: going to finish second. It's three, four, and five that
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: makes things a little bit tricky now. Oh, I think
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: three is solid. You think three is solid?
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I think one, two, and three are locked in.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: You think Big Slim?
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's three.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Okay. No, I can't argue. And I haven't done like
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: the deep dive. And I know that, you know, first
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: take and get up, they make you answer these very,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: you know, direct questions. Who's your MVP right now? And
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: then they expect you to hold yourself to that for
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: the remainder of time. You know what I mean?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: There was a moment where Cade Cunningham looked like. the
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: guy who could win it because he was the best
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: player on the best team and didn't have another guy
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: out there that was helping him create shots. And that
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: tailed off. And then Jokic came back and became Jokic again.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And then Shea came back and became Super Saiyan SGA.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: And then Vic, who's not even playing 30 minutes a night,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: is doing what he's doing. Y'all, just go look. at
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: what he's doing and the crazy thing is like he's
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: not even if i remember correctly but i haven't looked
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: at it recently he's not even like the advanced stats
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: marvel that you feel like he's going to.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Be later nah nah you just look at it.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: When you see it you just know it when you
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: see it like i don't need i don't need some
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: things to tell me everything i can just see it
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: when you're shooting a 40 footer like darius garland did
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: the other night who's one of the best off-foot finishers
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: that we got in the league because he's quick as
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: all hell and he can jump off the left foot
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: and do stuff that you're not supposed to do. And
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: he's like, you know what? I'm not trying that. I
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: will settle for this 40-footer and be happy as hell
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: that he got it outside of his outstretched arms that
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: lets you know something.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Well, hold on. How about him getting switched onto Darius Garland,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: chasing him everywhere, and then pitching his shit?
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: That was later. That was later in the game. Cause
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: you get that 40 foot off. Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: What are we, what are we like? If you're one
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: of these. So one thing that the podcast space has
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: done that I think is important and noteworthy. And one
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: thing that's effective and it's a, it's a game that
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the athlete always going to have the advantage on over
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the rest of us who do this is the athlete
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: can tap into, which is the greatest thing that always
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: works and that everybody wants to hear is excellent, players,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: excellent athletes, excellent rappers, whatever it is, talk about that
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: time they walked in and were wholly humbled. Right? Like,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: you're welcome to the NBA moment type stuff or whatever.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: People love hearing the best of the best just talk
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: about how somebody gave it to them. Like, they didn't
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: know it was possible. That happened every night somebody played
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: against the Spurs. Yeah.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Look, what was the line that Harrison Barnes... Told you?
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, he didn't tell me. John Henson tweeted that.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: He said, how did Harrison look at him? Yeah, John
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Henson tweeted. He said, how did Harrison look at how
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Vic looked in runs? He was like, Will?
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: If you've never seen Big Slim in person, like, I
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: urge you. Like, he's just one of those guys. He's
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: like the Loch Ness Monster. He's like Bigfoot. It's like
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: one of those things that if somebody told you, I'm
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: trying to make an analogous comparison. It's like Having the
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: fat back TV that was like the status symbol, right? Oh, man,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: you got the big 50-inch TV. And then you go
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: straight from that to what we got now. And it's,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: wait a minute. Why is this TV so flat and
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: so light? So light. And it's only $ 400. And it's
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: sitting on the wall with these screws attached. What are
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: we doing here? It's like you going from 1996 to
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: 2016 with like being in a coma and waking up
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: and then seeing everything change. That's what it's like watching
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: this dude. And those dudes know. Like watching him play.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: You ever seen him play possum? You ever seen that? Mm-mm.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: So no, no. So there's this thing that he does
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: where if you're coming down the lane and they're trying
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: to highway screen you, which is pretty much... A big
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: man getting in the lane and kind of screening Big
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Vic out of the way so he cannot get in
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: the way of you getting the layup, right? It's a
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: highly illegal offensive play that nobody calls. But Vic will
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: allow himself to be screened. He'll just get low. And
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, like some Bruce Lee flick,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: he will crouch up as you are taking a layup
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: and send it back to the fourth row. But you
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: don't see him. because he's low. He has made himself small.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: He has shrunk himself from seven foot foe to being
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: smaller than your center. So you think you have a highway.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: And next thing you know, he's blocking your shot with
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: one of his hands. Which hand? Who knows? Because he
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: can block it with both hands. That's the problem. And
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: he's nowhere near even a hyper-actualized version of himself. Get
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: a win now. If you get a playoff win now,
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: cherish it. Because you ain't going to be much of
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: it in the next decade.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Think about it like this. Our plan was to talk
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: about the Lakers. But then Vic come up, and you
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: can't help but stay on that. So coming up next,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: we'll get back to talk about the Lakers and also
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  Speaker 1: It's the biggest time of year for college basketball, the tournament.
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• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Vinny Goodwill. So with the Lakers and with look lucas
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: stepping it up i mean they still just have this
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: great issue which is their three best players don't guard
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: people like that issue seems to be a bit intractable
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: that their best three players don't guard people however it
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: could be fun until they lose.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Well the question is how much do you believe in
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: the fact that they say to themselves we can defend
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: you good enough You can't keep up with us scoring.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: And we have three really good decision makers at the
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: end of games. They're the best clutch team in basketball.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: They're like 19-6 or 20-6 the last time I checked.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: And I think that part is real, Bo. Even when
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: they were bad, even when you only had two or three,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: big three or whatever you want to call them playing together,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: they were always a really good clutch team because you're
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: at least going to get a shot on goal. And
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I think that's the thing that separates Denver... Houston, Boston
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: is not a really great clutch team. Like, and those
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: are really good teams that you think about in terms of,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, of course they got, you know, maybe with
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: the exception of Houston, you think of, think of Golden State,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: you know, when Steph was playing as a team that
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: was going to get a shot up, that other team
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: that was going to make the right decision, even though
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Steph can throw the ball around a little bit. But
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: you think of those teams as being well coached and organized.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: And yet the Lakers are the team, which we don't
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: necessarily think of as being the most organized because of
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: how they play on defense, that thing translates. And I
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: don't know what to do with that against this 22nd
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: ranked defense that they're playing with. Their offense has seemingly
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: caught up with, okay, our offense is our superpower. They
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: could just never access the superpower. They could never be
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: great at the thing that they were good at to
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: offset this being a really poor defensive team and a
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: team that is not great at protecting the rim. Now
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: they are starting to figure out, okay, that the net
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: rating between LeBron, Luka, and Austin Reeves is climbing up
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: in a way that it wasn't before. They were a
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: minus 10, you know, early on in the season. Now
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: they're climbing up to be, you know, roughly league average. Like,
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: that means something. And if you notice, they're putting LeBron
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: at small ball five now. And he's going for it. Yeah, yeah. And,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, part of me thinks, Bo, and not to
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: hijack it, Is there a better place for LeBron to
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: spend his final year if next year is going to
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: be his final year? Is there a better place for
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: him to spend it, franchise and team, than where he's at?
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: No, there's never been any better place to end his career.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: then Los Angeles. I thought that was the whole point
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: of going there in the first place. I love the
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: idea that he's going along with being a small ball five.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: It's the full transition into being Kareem, except if Kareem
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: was just much more explosive and athletic at this point
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: in his career. Like, look, let me tell you something.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: If 1988 Kareem and LeBron James money, there would have
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: been no 1988 Kareem. That wouldn't have been it. He
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: needed that bread. I don't mean to laugh at his
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: misfortune because somebody stole from him, but he was not
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: out there for the love of the game. He was
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: out there because the bank said so. So it's not
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: exactly the same LeBron being there. I think, though, the
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: part we can't undersell once it comes to the postseason.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like we take for granted to a degree
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: how well LeBron has held up over time, but we've
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: seen it happen. I mean, you got to play every
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: other night. We ask for something different out of his
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: body every other night, and you need a little more
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: like 38 a night. Hey.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: This is why I love 82 games. Because during the playoffs,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: you find out how much of a skill stamina is. Like,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: you find out you know, both on the young side
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: and on the old side, because you're going to see
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: some of the young players. You're going to see, find
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: out from Vic. Okay, Vic, that 29 minutes got to
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: go to 35, 36, may have to go to 40.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: And you got to play every other night post the
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: first weekend of the playoffs because they just stretch everything out.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Once we get past the first four games of the
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: first round, where you go from maybe game one on Sunday,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: then game two on Thursday, you get that long break.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Then after that first weekend, you're going Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: You're going to go And then you got to travel
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: in between then. The old guys think they know they
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: can handle it because they've handled it before. The young
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: guys think they can handle it because they got the
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: young legs. In actuality, none of them can handle it
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: because this is a damn marathon. And it hurts. And
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: you think about LeBron. The last time we saw LeBron
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: make a deep playoff run, which was 2023, they went
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: to the Western Conference Finals. They beat Golden State in
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: round two. They played Denver and they got swept in
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: large part because LeBron ran out of gas. And that
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: was three years ago. How much gas is he going
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: to have left now?
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Well, he ain't run out of gas. It was like
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: the wheels were flying off on the freeway. Like them
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: lug nuts got loose. I mean, you remember him just
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: sitting down, like taking off his shoe in the middle
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: of a possession because his foot was in such terrible
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: shape that year. And you're right.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: That was terrible.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Three years ago that that happened. You hit on something
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I want to stay with you on because I've seen
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: you and I have talked about it and I've seen
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: you talk about it. Steve Kerr has been the voice
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: for we need to shorten the season. to 72 games
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: i think i saw our buddy nate jones make the
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: point online that it's not that you need to shorten
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: the season is that and i agree with nate on
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: this the rules need to be changed so that the
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: game doesn't move so fast because we have created a
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: game that is unsustainable for the players and no no
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: administration of coaching staff has the discipline to rein it
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: back you're going to have to do it by the
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: force of rules but you are an adamant proponent of
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: 82 games.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Yes yes like hey dawg It's so many different things
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: that come up that people do not give credence to.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: For one, Bo, you talk about this. We've talked about
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: this just in general in our own conversations. 80s kids
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: are playing too much basketball at an early age. Like,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: you think, man, it's too much basketball for 82 games
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: because these dudes are getting hurt. The odometer starts when
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: you start playing basketball. It don't stop. when you get
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: to the NBA and sign a damn contract that's why
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: I think Steve Kerr is missing yeah the kids in
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: AAU are playing too much basketball secondarily like you said
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: the game is too fast right where it's too many
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: possessions there's too much space that you actually have to
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: cover The skill set of the players, think about a
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: game that you saw in the 90s. There's only so
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: much movement that you have because so much of the
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: game was free throw line down, right? So, yeah, it's
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: more bumping and banging and bruising and everything else, but
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: there's less windup. Now there's more windup and more impact,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: like more of a high-speed car crash than a crash
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: where you're going 25 miles an hour. It's more 80
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: miles an hour car crashes. Yeah, it's going to be
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: pain like that. The other thing for me, Bo, is,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: and I've heard this from team doctors and And even
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Stan Van Gundy has brought the second point. Team doctors
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: have told me we don't practice enough. So when you
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: don't practice enough, your only version of high impact is
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: during the games. Your body isn't prepared for it. And
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Rick Carlisle, coach of the Pacers, brought this up last night.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: And he likes the idea, but he says when you
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: get rid of back-to-backs like the league in three and fours,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: that means you also get rid of the practice days
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: in between where you can go hard, and you can
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: recharge the body, and you don't have training camps as
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: long as training camps used to be, so you can
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: prepare the body for the grueling 82-game schedule. Now it's
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: just you got to get these 82 games in into
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: these days, and you got these breaks baked in with
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: All-Star break, and now you have a week for play-in
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: because you got to get the league done by June
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: 21st so you can have the draft the next day
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is. There's just not enough days on
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: the calendar for what Steve Kerr, I think, is talking
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: about And the equipment is trash, which we don't talk
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: about as much anymore. All these, I think, the sustainable
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: shoes and everything else, why are you seeing so many
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: soft tissue injuries is because I don't know if the
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: shoes are made now for the way the basketball needs
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: to be played. It's so many things that go beyond
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: 72 damn games. Add to the fact that, Bo, it
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: ain't supposed to be easy. How can we accept that
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: everything else, every other professional sport, It's supposed to be
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: a battle of attrition, but somehow basketball is supposed to
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: be easy.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you this, too.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Here's the biggest thing about 72 games. It ain't never
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: going to happen. Hard stop.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: No.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: No. Literally nobody involved is going to campaign for this.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: As much as I get frustrated in the NFL with
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Thursday Night Football and all of this stuff, the league
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: clearly tells you, hey, it's going to be more money.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: And they all go, all right. You know, and then
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: they go out there and do it. These cats don't
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: want 72 games so bad that they are not going
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: to play 82. You know, they're going to give back
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the money on the 82. It's not going to happen.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the money.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Wait, here's one last thing, Bo. If you saw what
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: you tell me, someone tell me, if you scale the
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: league back to 72 games and you give them all
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: these breaks in between, these same dudes going to stay
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: out the gym?
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Because that's basically what you're asking them is, Play fewer games.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Stay out of the gym. Aren't we in the age
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: of overtraining and everything else? And every time you look up,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: you see a guy getting in the gym. Basketball never
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: stops and everything else. These dudes aren't going to stay
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: out of the gym because it's their instrument. They're going
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: to keep working. They're going to grind it down because
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: that's what they've been trained to do. Maybe that's a
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: problem with the basketball industrial system. Sure. But they're not
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: going to stay off their feet.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: No, it's a it's a it's a very complex issue.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you about this while we got you.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: We're hearing that is going to come to a vote
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: about expanding the NBA, perhaps bringing two teams in Las
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Vegas and Seattle. I don't care so much about the
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: money end of it. I think we'll see if it happens.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: If it does, it's because they think they could probably
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: get eight million dollars, eight billion dollars. Excuse me. per
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: team as a franchise fee which would mean 16 million
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: billion there we go 16 billion dollars distributed between the
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: 30 current owners the trade-off obviously is rather than getting
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: a one out of 30 slice everything they're gonna get
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: a one out of 32 slice um of everything i
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: i think the example of the las vegas raiders has
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: pointed out the trick bag about putting the team in
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: las vegas is will the home team feel like the
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: home team um the you'll always you'll well In the past,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: at least, we could have assumed you'd always have people
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: who wanted to come into Las Vegas just to find
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: an excuse and they'd come to watch their teams. But
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: as you can see, Las Vegas is not cracking like
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: it once was. I don't know exactly how that plays out.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: To me, the most underrated part of this is the
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: scenario that we just outlined means somebody gets to go
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: from the West to the East. And you hear people
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: talk about that a lot. To me, there's only one
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: team that it truly makes sense. There are only three
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: candidates for the move. The two that are candidates, but
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think it really works, are Memphis and New
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Orleans sitting right there on the Mississippi River. The one
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: that I think ends up making the move is the
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: other team that sits on the Mississippi River, and that's
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: the Timberwolves.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Taking the Timberwolves from a team in the West to
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: a team in the East, because for reasons I don't
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: have an answer for, the West has clearly been the
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: best conference in the leagues since Jordan retired. I don't
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: know how this is held, as tight as it has,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: but that's just what it is. In college basketball, every
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: team for the last couple decades and change has been East,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: the Eastern part of the country, right? But if Minnesota
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: gets to go East, boy, Anthony Edwards' life gets a
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: lot better, doesn't it?
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, well. Are we sure it does? Because there's multiple
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: points here. One, we're about to go into a recession
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: and then we're going to put a team in Las Vegas.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: Stick a pin in that. When we go down there
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: for the NBA Cup and you see what the sparse
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: crowds look like, that's a funky thing for me. You're
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: saying you're going to have 41 home dates when the
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Raiders have eight home dates and everybody can make a
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: trip out of going to Las Vegas. Hey, we can
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: make a weekend out of going to Las Vegas and
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: we can see... You know, our team against the Raiders.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: They've sold hockey tickets up there. The one thing I
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: will say is they have sold hockey tickets.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: No, and I'm sure that Adam has done the numbers
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: and everything else. Like, I don't think he's a fool
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: in just looking at it from the standpoint of, you know,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: we're going to get this windfall, and then it's going
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: to be something that's not sustainable. Like, I'll give Adam
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: all that credit. I'll give Adam the benefit of the doubt.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: So stick a pin in that. You asked why the
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: West has gotten so much better than the East. There's
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: three reasons. Sam Presti, Tim Duncan. Kobe Bryant. Yeah. That's it.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Sam Presti going in Oklahoma City gave them a sustainable
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: sort of small market thing where now they're just who
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: they are. Tim Duncan going to San Antonio, Baguette, Kawhi Leonard, Baguette,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: the international explosion, blah, blah, blah. Kobe Bryant kept the
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Lakers sustainable for almost two decades from the point that
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: he was drafted, even though he wasn't that guy when
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: he first got there. But the Lakers became a team
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: that was in the wilderness before 1996. to a team
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: that basically became the Los Angeles Lakers again right after.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Crazy how only those three small things can lead to
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: three decades of just sheer dominance. But to your question
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: about Ant-Man, are we sure that the road is easier?
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: Because I feel like the East quietly has been better
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: than the West all season long. Indiana will be better
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: next year when Halliburton comes back plus a draft pick, right?
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: What if Atlanta gets stuff cracking? Because they look like
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: they got it cracking right now. They won't. They won't.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: They won't. Right? They won't.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: But you know what, though?
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: You're right, though. Like, it's... Detroit is sustainable. Boston is sustainable.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: New York is sustainable. Like, it ain't no easy sledding
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: over there in the Eastern Conference. In the West, you
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: just got two behemoths that you're just going to have
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: to see every damn year that you're just not going
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: to be able to get through. And that's the problem. So, yeah.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: And in the East... I'm with that.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you raise a good point because the East really
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: only has, like, what I would say, three consistently bum
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: franchises right now.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: The Wizards, the Nets, and the Bulls. Bums all around, right?
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: The Nets found a way to be bums with three
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: no-brainer Hall of Famers. Now, I don't think Utah is
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: going to be bums forever. Like, I mean, they have
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: to start trying to win games, right? They have to. Um, Sacramento,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: that's bums. Memphis, they haven't always been bums, but I
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: think they're about to be in a nice long stretch
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: of bumminess. Um, I mean, although I guess they get
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: all those Desmond Bain picks, but I still think they're
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: at a stretch of bumminess. Uh, the Pelicans, I think
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: that's going to be bumminess, um, for, for, for a stretch. Uh,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: the Trailblazers emerging out of bumminess. And I'm telling you
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: one day that big old dude from China, uh, if
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: he ever figures it out, whatever I, the, the, the,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: the Chinese doing that play like Jokic.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: It may not be for another five years, but I'm
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: still paying attention. Um, the Warriors headed toward bumness. Yes.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. The fact that good players are old. I mean, look,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: the fact that they're saying, you know, we're old and that's,
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: One of the teams that we're hearing of adding LeBron
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: James is going to fix it. Another old.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Am I the only person that hears that? It's like,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: what are you talking about? I ask this question sincerely.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: They're like, oh, well, maybe LeBron comes and wraps up
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: his career in Cleveland. Is that going to help?
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know who that helps.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Right. Like, I just I don't if I am. It's
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: not exactly the same, but Barry Bonds was a top
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: 10 player when nobody would take him. And I understood
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: the argument that many teams could have, especially if he
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: didn't want to go to the American League where all
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: you have to do is be a designated hitter. I
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: see the argument that a lot of guys just be like,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: the team's just like, no, man, we don't feel like
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: doing this. I don't feel like add LeBron at this point.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Like when you used to add old Shaq, you were
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: getting a very clear, defined thing out of old Shaq. Like, okay, yeah,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: we can do that. And old LeBron is not playing
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: for the prices old Shaq was willing to play.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: That's the question. How much cap space would you have
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: to carve out? Because LeBron ain't took less since the
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Miami contract.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Since Miami. Never again.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Which was, which y'all, cover your ears. He made the
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: decision to go to Miami 16 years ago. That's crazy.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: 16 years ago.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: 16 years ago.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: There's people in high school that have no idea that
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: LeBron James played for the Miami Heat. When they see
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: the highlights, they're like, oh, no, that's got to be AI.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: And you're like, children, there's a time when LeBron was
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: not just a myth. When he was the best offensive
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: player and defensive player in the game and the best athlete.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: And he still had strides to grow as far as,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: you know, some of the clutch stuff and some of
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: the long range shooting. Like, that's Loch Ness Monster. That's like,
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: wait a minute.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: It's been 10 years since he pinned Iguodala's shot against
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: the glass.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: Amazing. Amazing. And then he's going to play another season,
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: maybe somewhere else. And who, let's just say, let's just
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: say LeBron wants to go somewhere else. For his last year,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: there's going to be a documentary. So you're adding the
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: LeBron circus on top of the film crew. And LeBron
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: isn't going to a bum franchise just to do it.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: He's got to go somewhere where there's some stakes in
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: the ground or whatever the case may be. And then
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: how do you sell that to the people who you
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: already have, who have the pressure of trying to win? Like,
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: I don't see, and it's not necessarily quote unquote LeBron's fault,
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: but it makes for an awkward circumstance if it were
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: to happen. You mean to tell me LeBron going to
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: spend his last year playing in San Francisco on Stephen
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: Curry's team?
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and did you read– what was the name? The
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Hollywood ending? The Lakers book?
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: One thing LeBron ain't doing is showing up and just
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: fitting in with what you about to do. Like, LeBron
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: is LeBron.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Like, that's– you know what I mean? That's his– It
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: would be interesting to make that decision. So like the
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: idea of Golden State, which already had the issue of
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: trying to bring another superstar in who had to make
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: peace with the fact that it wasn't his team, right?
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: LeBron has had to make peace with the fact that
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: this isn't his team.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Can you imagine? And this is just a random question.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Imagine what LeBron and the Lakers look like right now
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: if they were not gifted Luka Doncic. 14 months ago.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Anthony Davis is over there looking fresh.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine what the Lakers would be? They would
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: be exactly where they were during Kobe Bryant's last years
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: when we said the Lakers had lost their way. It
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: was just that they were gifted a generational superstar because
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: you'd be asking LeBron to carry in a way that
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: he's not physically fit to carry anymore. Just think about
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: the road that we were headed on before they were
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: gifted Luka Doncic. what we be saying Anthony Davis is
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: broken again LeBron is breaking what are we doing.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Here crazy what a fascinating marriage of convenience this has
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: proven to be by the way a marriage of convenience
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: that has now been going on for eight years.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Longest single stretch he's had in his.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Career longest single stretch he's had in his career um
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if anybody's really been happy with it.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: They got a championship.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Does it feel satisfying?
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: Lakers fan. There's never been anything like this. I think
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: it's the best way to put it. There's never been
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: anything like this. The thing is, they got a championship. A. A.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Only A.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: In the last 50 years, that hasn't been how it's
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: worked if you were a Lakers superstar. You got at
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: least three. He got A. And I'm not blaming him.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: But it's not what we thought it was going to be.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: I'm surprised. No, I will tell you this. When he
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: made the decision to go over there, I wasn't thinking, oh, man,
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: he going over there and they about to win. I
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: didn't think that. I thought he was going over there
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: to make a lifestyle change. end of my career move.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't know how many years he was or wasn't
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: going to play, but I didn't think they was going
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: to be able to get it cracking for one year,
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: to be perfectly honest.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Well, I thought it would at least be more interesting, right?
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: And I think when they got Anthony Davis, that team
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: was really good that year that won that championship. But
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: that is the only really good team they've had, and
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: I think that's the part that's the most surprising.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you on that one. But how competent
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: have the Lakers shown themselves to be as a conglomerate?
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Is this true? This is true. I just thought that
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: it would be more fun. That's all, right? I was
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: really excited about the idea of it when it happened,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: and I just thought it was going to be a
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: little bit more fun.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's about to be more fun, not because Irv
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: about to walk back into that building, baby.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: That's right. And for people who don't know, Magic Johnson
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: walked away, and a big part of why Magic Johnson
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: walked away from that team was he and Rob Pelinka
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: couldn't get along. He wasn't having a great time. All
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: of this stuff, right? And we got all these stories.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: about Rob Palenka running Magic down behind his back. Magic
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: came and sat on first take and sat everywhere, tell
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: the world about how he felt like Rob had mistreated
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: him and everything else. And this is something that I
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: don't think people realize happened. When the buses sold the
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: team to, I forget my man's name.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: Mark Walter. Mark Walter.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Mark Walter, the guy that owns the Dodgers. Magic
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: is part of the ownership group of the Dodgers. And
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: who have they put in charge of the Lakers? A
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: gentleman named Ron Lowe. Ron Lowe's in. Lon Rosen. Got
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: him all. Lon Rosen. And some of you may be like, oh,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: that name sounds familiar. Who's Lon Rosen? Lon Rosen was
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Magic's agent. Which is to say, Magic is back running
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: the Lakers. Even if he ain't running the whole thing,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: his guy is running it. And I don't think Rob
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Palenka is going to have that job very long.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: Well, Magic Johnson never had an office cleaned out of
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: that building in El Segundo. Even when he did the,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to be here. Magic never left. Magic
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: is tight with Genie still. Tight with, you know, in
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: partnership with the new ownership. One of his best friends
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: is now the head of the Los Angeles Lakers business operations.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: And you think Magic ain't going to be back in
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: that building?
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Hey, he'll be back in there. And you know what
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: you'll hear blaring through the office? Dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun. They
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: said Magic would just be in that office watching Family
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Feud all.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Day.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: That was in yards. Watching his man Steve Harvey. You
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying? Magic was doing all the other
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: stuff Magic does.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine hearing Steve Harvey's voice blare through?
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: Draft night. Hey, look, man. And you now look like
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Magic is playing the feud. That is what that is.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: That is Vinny Goodwill. Check him out all over ESPN,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: covering the NBA. My brother, I appreciate you.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you, dog.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: us here on The Right Time. We do this four
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: days a week. Ryan Brumley handling everything behind the scenes.
• 58:23
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• 58:27
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• 58:31
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• 58:33
  Speaker 1: of days.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: Take it easy.