Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Vinnie Goodwill on Embiid's & 76ers last stand, Knicks' title chances, NBA lottery reform | 04.29

Transcript

Vinnie Goodwill on Embiid's & 76ers last stand, Knicks' title chances, NBA lottery reform | 04.29 · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Wave.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A wave original.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: My name is Bomani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: a hater. It is the time of week where we
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: have a guest join us, coming to us live from ESPN.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: He be on all the ESPN shows. Now, boy, that
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: boy Vinny Goodwill. Well, Vince Goodwill be on TV. You
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying? Vinny Goodwill over here hanging out
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: with us.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the rebrand, as Malika Andrews calls it. I'm like,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: it's not a rebrand. The graphic will forever say it.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the birth name and whatever y'all call me, it's going
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to be what y'all call me. Yeah.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You, yeah, you, you ride out more. It depends
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: on where you are names right now. The antibiotics. I
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: think I told you about my brother. My brother's name
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: is Patrice, Patrice Lumumba. He is Lumumba. If you know
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: him from growing up, um, if you know him from
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: adult life, he is Patrice, but there's this very interesting
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: in between period when he was in college and he
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: was Patrick. Oh, And so when people call up, like
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: back when people used to call the whole phone for Christmas,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: we could tell if they were calling from my brother,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: we had a very good handle on where they were
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: from life based on whatever the name was that got called.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: You right now, like it's all over the place.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Well, if you call me Vince, like that's the tale.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: The tale is if you call me Vince, then... somebody's
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: probably like, you don't know this guy very well. You're
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: new here. You know what I mean?
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Or they are facetiously trying to needle you, as I
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: have witnessed with my own eyes before.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Nick fans, they just call me Goodwill. Like,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you just become your last name
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: when people are yelling at you through a tunnel. and
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: asking you of your thoughts. It ain't Vincent, it ain't Vinny,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: it is just Goodwill.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: But also, Goodwill is a good, like, Goodwill's a name
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: where people will call you by your last name, right? Like,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: it's a name that's got a ring to it. Like,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: it's the sort of thing where people will, like, especially
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: depending on the circles you're in, yeah, you'll be Goodwill.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: New York is a place where you call people by
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: last names, too. That's the other part of it.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, I ain't tripping on that. Like, when I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: lived in Chicago, it was, they would call me Detroit.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I was like, why y'all calling me by that?
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Because you were trolling them. I mean, Because you were
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: covering the Bulls and you were trolling them.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I was trolling Scottie Pippen. I was trolling a very
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: specific sect of the Bulls.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: That's all. Okay. That's a great story, dawg. Great story, dawg.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Speaking of great story, you've been on this here New
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: York Knicks beat, which, before we get to the basketball,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I love it. That just has to be interesting for you. Like,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: you are now... Remember, like, we had caught up with Monica.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: It was the night of... Bronny got drafted in the
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden debate.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: But it was, I remember I was talking to you
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: about this. I was like, look what happens when we
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: go out with Monica. Like we go out with Monica.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I've been on television for a very long time. None
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: of that matters in New York city with Monica McNutt
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: because she covers the Knicks. Right. Like, like she is,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: she is the one there. You now, you are now
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: a cover the Knicks guy in New York city.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Which is weird to me because for one, we were
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Monica, David Dennis, a few of us out
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of some restaurant. And people were like, Monica is like there.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Monica's a star, Jack.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a different, and you know, we
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: love Monica around here. You know what I mean? But
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it was kind of funny. And then they said, you
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: could hear somebody in the background say, oh yeah, that's
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: my man from first take. And I'm looking at David
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Dennis like, I think they talking about you, dog. Like
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: he was the only light at the table. So I'm like, yeah,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: this is probably your thing. But yeah, the problem with
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Nick fans is that they think, Bo- that I'm a
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Piston fan just because the Pistons had kicked the Knicks
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: ass this year. So now that the Pistons are down 3-1,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: what you going to say about the Pistons? The same
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: shit I said before the playoffs started, that they was
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: going to have problems because of what they're going through.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: The Knicks being good, it's good for business for me.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Either way, baby. It don't matter.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: You know what it is, though? You got here a
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: little bit late. Because when I got here, man, they
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: had been so beat down and down and out, man.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: They was just hoping you'd say the littlest thing nice
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: about what might happen to their team, man. That's why
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: I started to rock with them, man, because they was humble.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: what I got here. I don't know how humble they
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: still are. Cause I was out there kind of posted
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: up around the arena yesterday before the game, just, you know,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: taking in the vibes before I went to dinner.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: They ain't, they ain't quite as humble as, as they
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: were when I first got here.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: They're annoying. Like that's what they want. Don't say that.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Don't say that. Don't say that.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: They need the validation. Like there's nothing more. There's nothing more.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: And you notice from different fan bases, from whatever, let's
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: say college football, they want you to bow down and say,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: tell us we're good. Tell us we're good.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: No, no, but it's not that they want you to
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: bow down.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they do.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: No, they want you to help raise them up. I
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: am in the moment teaching you how to optimistically discuss
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: the people you are going to encounter on the streets
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: in your daily life.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: You know what it is, though? Most of the people
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: are generally okay. It's the people online that are.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: A bit chesty. That's a different situation.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: And you know what the funny thing is? When you're
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: in Madison Square Garden, of course, because they sit us
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: up high because they don't want us anywhere near anybody.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: So we sit closer to the rafters. So on one end,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: you got all those retired jerseys for the Rangers. You
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: got all those banners for the New York Rangers, Stanley Cups,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and all this other type of stuff, you look up
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: over your head and you're like, huh, Walt Frazier, Patrick Ewing,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Willis Reed, that's it?
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: No, see, you're overstating the situation, though. They just did
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: a run fairly recently of jersey retirements for the Rangers,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: number one. Like, that's a big thing. Number two, keep
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: in mind, the Rangers have won two Stanley Cups in
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: the last 75 years.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Two.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Like the Knicks and the Rangers, low key the same.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Like when you start talking about New York sports outside
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: of the Yankees, the situation is a little bit more
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: sparse than it is given credit for being. Now, I
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: don't know how much you remember this. We have a
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: not big age difference, but this is enough where it
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: might matter. I don't know if you remember what a
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: big deal it was when the Rangers won the Stanley
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Cup in 1994.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah like it.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Was a dominating sports story and the idea was the
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: rangers had not won the stanley cup in 54 years
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: how long has it been since the knicks won the
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: nba championship.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: What 55 53 73 was the last time.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: They did so We don't talk about their championship gap
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: in those terms. Where with the Rangers, and I think
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: it was more jarring with the Rangers because for a
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: decent period of that time, there were only six teams
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: in the league, right? So you've got a zillion from Montreal.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Toronto has a zillion. The Rangers, I want to say
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: in some total, have three or something like that. But
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: it's been 53 years. We don't talk about it like
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: it's a curse. We don't talk about it like it's misery.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: We just, like, we treat the Knicks like they're a
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: venerable franchise in the history of the NBA. And that's
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: actually not true. They don't have the stripes that line
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: up with that, right? But they had the best, I contend,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: as annoying as they can be in their out of town,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: in town Knicks fans, they're probably the best basketball fans
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: that you're going to find. They got the best vibe
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: in an arena. that you're going to find. They have
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: a team this year that has, if they don't go
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: to the NBA finals, there's no excuse, right? I don't
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: think it's a championship team, but they're good enough to
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: win the East this year. And they got out here
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: playing against the Hawks. And I remember watching game three
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: and it was just like, well, shit, somebody has to
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: win this game. It's just going to be either the
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Knicks or the Hawks.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the crazy thing, I've been saying the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Knicks should get to the NBA finals all season long.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And the Knicks think that I'm trolling them as if, like, wait,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: shouldn't you want high expectations?
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: No, no, because they feel like you're just saying that
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: so that if they don't make it, you can take
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: them down. Like, I got a friend named Joel. He
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: do stuff like that. That's what they afraid of.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Joel is diabolical.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Joel is so diabolical. Joel is trying to make sure
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: no matter what, he is not on the side of
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: the L. Nobody is better at putting a little buddy
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: on this side and a little buddy on that side
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: than my man, Joel Anderson.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Look, for one, Joel is hilarious, right? What's the whole
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: thing that he's about to do or he's going to do?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: He's going to train and run against somebody.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: He's going to race.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: It was my idea.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Why would you do that?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Because Billy is a D1 athlete. Joel is a D1 athlete.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: The only thing is I feel like Joel's about 10,
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: 12 years older than Billy. But Joel needs something to
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: look forward to.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And you're trolling Joel.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not trolling Joel at all.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: No, I'm literally not trolling Joel at all. I knew
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: that he would be up for a challenge like that. Like,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I've talked to him about this. He will get in
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: shape for it and stuff like that. This is the
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: kind of thing that Joel likes. These kinds of things
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: make Joel happy.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. I am quietly,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: secretly competitive, but only at like certain things. So if
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: it's in that realm, then I'm probably just as motivated
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: to get my shit right. So I'm 100% with you.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I decided in my teens that my competitors... streak was
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: actually not good for me as a person and just
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: decided to move on a path of self-actualization, right? Not
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: really thinking that much about the rest of y'all, just
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: being on mine. But it is fun when every now
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: and then something happens in this life.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: All right, then.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: I guess that's what we're going to do. Cool.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Himbo brings it out of me.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Himbo brings it out of me bad.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Himbo brings it out of me with the questions. And
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I get heated. I remember every question.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: For people who don't know, Himbo is the researcher on
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Get Up, and he does the trivia questions every day.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: And he's good, man. He got Graziato be handing his
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: hand to him.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: But, you know. Every question I've gotten wrong. I've gotten
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Mark Eaton wrong. I've gotten Allen Iverson wrong. I've gotten
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Derrick Rose wrong. You want to know why I remember
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: that stuff? Because I am furious that I got it wrong.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Vinny is a basketball encyclopedia. Like, it is amazing
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: the ability to, like, pull, oh, that series in 1997? No, no,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: they won that in six. Like, Vinny got it like that.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Things that are prior to his frame of reference, one
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: would think, Vinny got it like that. But about these Knicks, though.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: They won game five, and that was a pretty emphatic
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: win in game five to go along with a pretty
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: emphatic win in game four. And I've been saying on here,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: the tricky thing for the Knicks is they can only
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: go as far as people want them to if Carl
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Anthony Towns is their best player and approaching ceiling, because
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: the ceiling on Jalen Brunson just isn't as high as
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: the ceiling on Carl Anthony Towns, who the more we
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: think about this through this series, through this postseason, I
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: feel like the only team that might have somebody who
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: could guard him is Detroit, and they're not going to
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: go that far.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: No. The crazy thing about Towns is Towns has had
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: two great games, game four and game five. Bo, how
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: many shots do you think that Carl Towns has taken
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: in some total the last two games?
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: It's not that high a number.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: No, it's 17. Ten shots in game four, seven in
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: game five. Seven shots. I get Jalen Brunson scored 17
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter to push it to a 30-point
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: lead or whatever it was, but This imbalance, and Carl
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: hit the triple-double in game four, so he had a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: decent amount of touches, and he set up OGN and
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: OB for a lot. But this has been the question
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: all season long. Since I started hanging around this team
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit more, like usually I'm on Eastern Conference,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: but I live in New York, so I'm going to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: see them a lot more. The question is, how do
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: you give Carl Towns the amount of touches that his
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: talent demands without putting him in positions where he feels
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: like he got to force his offense? You know, it's
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: a real delicate walk. But seven shots, even in a
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: 30-point win, ain't going to get it done next round
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: against the Celtics. Like, there is something. And it's an
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: impactful seven shots. He was five of seven. You know
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Like, he has the range. And I've
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: come to be more sympathetic towards Carl Towns. Like, You know,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I think since that Minnesota-Denver series a couple years ago,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: where he did a lot of the work guarding Nikola
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Jokic in that seven-game series, I've started to look at
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Carl Towns a little bit, a little with different set
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of eyes, right? Like, he's maddeningly frustrating, right? He's frustrating
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: as all hell. But he's also playing on a team
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: that does not prioritize him. And they need him to
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: be the best version of himself if they're going to
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: get to the finals. They need him to be a
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: plus-plus player. Against the Celtics. Because as high low variance
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: as the Celtics are, who going to be guarding Carl
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Towns in that series?
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: They have guys that can guard Jalen Brunson.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying Jalen Brunson is the same as Isaiah
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: with two A's, Thomas.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying he's the same as him. But obviously,
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: because he's a much bigger player. But still, the thing
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: about the smaller guard is there's a heated-up ceiling of
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: what I can do in this game ceiling and a
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: feeling that you go a little bit farther in this,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and that's just not going to work out the same way.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: With Towns, he's either going to be bigger than anybody
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: you ask to guard him or quicker than anybody you
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: ask to guard him, aside from the dude in San Antonio.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Like, that's the only guy that you think would be
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: able to handle him in both places.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Otherwise.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I just feel like he should be destroying these dudes.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: We talk about the Hawks ain't got nobody that has
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: enough size to deal with him. And I know Mike
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Brown kind of wants to run a motion sort of situation,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: but that motion ain't creating a world that stops Jalen
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Brunson from taking 23 shots and nobody else takes more
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: than eight.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. And if it's different, like Carl Towns,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, is third in shots in this series,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: not just behind Jalen Brunson, but behind OG Ananobi. And
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: OG's playing extremely well. I'm not, like, OG is very
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: unsung in his way. But you got to be able
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to figure out a way to me to get, hey, Carl, look, man,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: we know we can't just throw you the ball in
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the post and just say, hey, man, go to work. Like,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: he's not that type of player. You don't give him
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: sort of the maximum amount of touches in one spot
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and say, take us home. He's the guy you got.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: He's almost like To some degree, remember what you used
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: to say about Carmelo. When Carmelo had a point guard,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: it was always the best you would get out of him.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: He'd get some in the post. He'd get some on
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the wing. He'd get some on the elbow. He'd get
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: a variety of touches in a bunch of different ways
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: with somebody who was going to tell him no and
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: somebody who was going to direct him. Jalen Brunson is
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: not that type of point guard. That's no shade to him,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: but he's an aggressively offensive point guard that's going to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: look for his shot first. his pick and roll game,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: excuse me, where Carl Thompson's gotten better, but his game
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: is in, I'm going to put a lot of pressure
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: on this defense and I'm going to take shots. That's fine.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Once again, the problem is how can you maximize Towns
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: while also making sure Brunson gets his, while also figuring
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: out how do you keep all these other guys involved?
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Because I say it, we say it all the time.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: It's not breaking glass here. A team that has a
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: problem with defending at the point of attack, and defending
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: at the rim, those teams don't win championships, right? Like
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: you can have a liability one, but not the other.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I think Carl is better at defending the rim than
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: he is giving credit for. I think Carl in space
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: is where you get some adventure, but they try not
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: to put him there too much. That's why I still
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: believe the Knicks have the highest ceiling of any team
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: left in the Eastern Conference. It's just a matter of
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: can they access said ceiling with how they play?
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Now, why would you say that the Celtics don't have
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: the ceiling that the Knicks have?
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Because I don't know in general. I think if Derek
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: White were better, right? And I'm not saying Derek White
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: is bad or anything like that. But usually your third
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: best player eats off the attention of your first two
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: best players. Like he was having a horrific shooting season
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: before Jason Tatum got back. And when Tatum got back
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I said to myself, oh, it's not going to be
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Jalen Brown that feasts off the attention that Tatum gets.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: It's not even going to be Tatum that feasts off
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the attention that Jalen gets. It's going to be that
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: third guy because who has three good perimeter defenders? Nobody.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Not really. Maybe even the Knicks do if they shift
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: their lineups. He's supposed to feast off of that. He's
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: shooting worse with Jason Tatum back. He's shooting 30% from
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: three since March 6th.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: And they were ignoring him last night or Tuesday night.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: They were ignoring him.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: So if that's the case, and remember, this was a
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: thing a couple of years ago in the finals against
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Golden State where you had that really good game one
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: and then you're looking around the rest of the series
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and they're like, do it again, do it again, do
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: it again. And he couldn't replicate it, right? So I
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: wonder if you are the Knicks and that's your ace
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: in the hole, I do think that's a slightly higher
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: ceiling in addition to the fact I want to see
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Jason Tatum play every other day. I want to see
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Jason Tatum start to move laterally with the atrophy and
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: everything else. I just want to see it. No team
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: in the Eastern Conference, even if Detroit was all the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: way right, no team in the Eastern Conference is far
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: and away better than anybody else. Anybody can be beat.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: You can see scenarios where the Celtics got to the finals,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the Knicks got to the finals, the Cavs got to
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the finals. The only team I truly didn't see getting
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to the finals this year was Detroit because of the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: deficiencies that have popped up now. They just happened to
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: pop up a round or two earlier than I thought
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: they would.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Celtics thing is interesting to me because I
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: feel like Tatum, maybe Tatum is to a degree in
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: the Kevin Durant space in this way.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Um.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: The difference between Durant and Tatum is Tatum's shots all
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: look hard. Durant's shots all look easy. Kevin Durant is
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: better at getting good shots than Jason Tatum is. Jason
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Tatum is from the Kobe system school of being good
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: at hard shots. We'd agree on that. But Kevin Durant
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: has not been the same player since he tore his Achilles.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: But it sure looks like it. The nature of his
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: game and the way it goes, it sure looks like it.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Tatum sure looks very similar to the player that he
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: was before he got hurt. But he's not actually that player.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I think if you look at it more numerically, look
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: at advanced stats stuff, he's not exactly that guy. But
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: it sure looks like it. And at times it can
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: feel like it. And for me, that can make it
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: somewhat difficult to evaluate Boston like I recorded a pod
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: yesterday with some people and I was just like yeah
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: the Celtics gonna win the East because Jason Tatum came
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: back looking like Jason Tatum but has he actually come
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: back looking like Jason Tatum because I know that's been
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: your question from the very beginning it's just once we
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: start doing this in the postseason then what are we
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: talking It's.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Atrophy, man. And just in general, like I asked Mike
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Brown last night after they won, I'm like, look, you've
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: got a game five that you just took care of business.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: You got a game six in two days. The Celtics
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: just lost. They got a game six in two days.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: How much is rest? And he's like, rest is important
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: because the games are so much more physical in the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: playoffs that you got to get guys off their feet. Now,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: imagine if you're a guy coming back from an Achilles. Like,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: this is still, to me, extended rehab for Jason Tatum.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that he shouldn't be playing. I'm saying
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: that what he is doing is still in the process
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: of figuring out his body and all the steps. And
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the Kevin Durant thing, comparison you've made, is critical to me.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Because if you go look at some Kevin Durant film from, say, 2014,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: like before the Liz Frank injury, people forget he even
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: had the Liz Frank. When you go look at that film,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: it looks like he's playing on 1.5 speed. You don't
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: remember him being that upright, that quick, that, you know
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: what I mean, like end-to-end fast. Now he's more, you
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: got to rev it up, he's going to dribble, he's
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: going to get to a spot, and there's probably nothing
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: you can do about it type of thing. If he
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: hits the shot, he hits the shot, you shake his hand.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Like Tatum never had that burst of athleticism, even at 6'10.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: He was just going to shoot over the top of you,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: and if he hit a turnaround over the opposite shoulder,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: whatever it was, then you could live with that. The
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: defense gets better. As you go along, you get more
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: fatigued as you go along. And, yeah, that's the question
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that I have. Dude, they missed the last 15 shots
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: last night against a team in Philly that I thought
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: was ready to go home.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Hey, man, shout out to Joel for dialing it up
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: one more time. You know what I mean? It's hard
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: to expect anything from him going forward. That's not to
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: say he can't do it. But you can't count on it.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: You can't rely on it. Just because of what we've
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: seen the previous 12 years, really 13, you know, when
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: it comes to his body and everything else. But he
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: was that dude, right? Like, at his best, he is
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: a legitimate contender for being the best player in the NBA.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: And it's cool to see him, even if it's just
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: for one game and it had a lot to do
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: with the Celtics not being able to make nothing. It's
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: good that he could dial it up for that one night.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Look, I think most of these playoffs, or at least
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the discussion, has been about teams or players who could
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: dial it up for one night, who could give you
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: in a different game, in a given game, they could
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: be as good or as great as they ever were.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: LeBron can be as good or as great as he
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: ever was. I think some of the conversation... Well....
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Can.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Can. Right. Can. Can. Not sure if he can hit
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: those high notes, right? But, you know, it's there. Like,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I think the LeBron conversation has gotten a bit over
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the top because when you look at the light, like
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: this is a different, he's going against a really inexperienced
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: team right now that is being undermined probably by his
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: head coach. You know what I mean? But in a
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: given night, LeBron can be as good as he ever was.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: And if nothing else, LeBron is going to extract the
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: best out of you. And maybe that's his best talent
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: at this stage beyond like the physical gifts and everything else.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: When he believes, he makes you believe. And if the
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: jump shot is going, if the jump shot is going,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: he can still hit those high notes for a night.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Kevin Durant, if he was healthy, could still hit the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: high notes for a night. That was the wish on
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Stephen Curry for a night. Quietly, that's the wish on
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Nikola Jokic at this stage.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he is physically not right. I think that is
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: a big part of it. But I think you hit
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: on something that's important with the LeBron thing, which is
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: I think this game five, is a little bit more
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: important than I think we're giving it credit for. Like, obviously,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: the Rockets go down 3-0. We've kind of sort of
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: written them off. But it is fair to say that
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: the Lakers have played over their heads, or they did
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: in those first three games. I mean, that is a
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: reasonable hypothesis. I'm not saying it's absolutely true, but it's
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: reasonable to say that. It is not impossible to think
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: that the Rockets could win game five. If they did
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: win game five, oh, this one gets to be interesting.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: But you touched on something with LeBron that I thought
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: is worth noting, and we've seen this as his career
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: has gone, which is if he believes... Because once LeBron
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: don't think there's a chance, then LeBron start getting real
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: circumspect and talking about like how good life is and
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: how important it is to have love from your family
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: and everything else, right? He can be a bit of
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: a front runner in that way.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I can't believe this is my life.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He can get there, right? Right.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It'll be interesting to see what happens if they mess
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: around and went down 3-2. I don't think Durant's going
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: to play again anytime soon. But if the Rockets somehow
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: were to dial this up and get it to be 3-2,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: it'll be interesting. The Lakers bringing back Austin Reeves. We'll
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: see what he's got. We'll see how they work him
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: back in. All of this stuff. Like, this one is
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: as close to over as you could expect. But I
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: don't think it's 100% over.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: No, it's not 100% over. The problem is you just don't.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I see a path.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Right, for the Rockets to win four games in a
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: row would be absurd.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: No, not just that. No, no, not just that. Just
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: give me like a one game sample size. And the
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: two games that the Rockets have beaten the Lakers this year,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and they've only beaten them twice. The two games that
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: they've beaten them, they've beaten them down. I think they
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: beat them on Christmas like 20. And then they beat
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: them the other night in a very predictable sort of
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: we're not going to get swept game four. Beat them
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: like that because they can overwhelm you athletically. Right. And
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: when they lose, they lose close. It looks like a
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: clown car. Is this team well coached? They don't have
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: a point guard. Did he just get the ball poked
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: from behind like this is church league? Yes, he did.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Those are the things. And it's always, to me, game five,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: a team is going to go home if they lose.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: What happens is there's going to be these rushes throughout
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the course of the game. There's going to be a
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: second quarter rush, and then it's going to be like,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: You know what? Do I feel like, do we feel
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: like holding on or do we just let go? It's
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: going to be one in the third quarter. Do we
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: feel like letting go? You know what I mean? Like
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: you can keep recovering and then you're going to be
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: down eight and you're feeling good about how you're playing.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: It's just within reach where you're like, we are one
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: good rush away. But do we have that rush to give?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Or is LeBron and Austin Reeves and his band going
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: to just hit a couple of threes to make that
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: eight point lead 14 and then you going home? Like
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: that's what the test is going to be tonight. unless
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: they overwhelm them like they did in game four. And
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I necessarily see that happening because
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: LeBron has these guys actually concentrating. Yeah.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: That's, that's, if that, if that goes right, if that continues,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: there'll be, I mean, both of these teams are competing
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: for the joy of having their doors blown off by
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Oklahoma city. I think we'd agree on that.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Right. I mean, look, look, man, Jalen Williams is week
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: to week with a grade one hamstring strain that has
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: cost him almost like 50 games this year. And we
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: never know the wiser.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like, it doesn't even matter. Like he
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: might not even actually be hurt right now. It is like, well,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: I take the risk.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Hey, go rest up for Dylan Harper and Stefan castle
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: and Devin for sale and big slim. Just, just go
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: ahead and get your rest. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll meet
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: you in the Western conference.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Just go chill. Coming up next. We're going to talk
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: about this San Antonio thing. Cause, uh, It's the countdown
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: to Armageddon with Oklahoma City and San Antonio. You can
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: predict the playoff action all the way to the finals
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: with FanDuel Predicts. All you have to do is sign
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: up to get you a $ 25 bonus. Follow all the
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, and misses. Every move is a
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: potential plot twist. Predict the spread, the total points, and
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: even the game-winning moments that make the playoffs, where one run,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: one rebound, one shot changes everything. From opening tip to
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: the final buzzer, stay locked in with every pass, every play,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: and every moment that moves us closer to crowning a champion.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Sign up now for your $ 25 bonus on FanDuel Predicts.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Offered by FanDuel Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commissions merchant.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: 18 plus.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Bonus is non-withdrawable and expires seven days after receipt. Trading
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: derivatives involves significant risk and may not be suitable for
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Restrictions apply. See terms at fanduel.com slash predicts slash bonus
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: offer terms.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Offered by FanDuel Prediction Market, LLC, a registered future commission merchant.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: 18 plus, one per user. Minimum $ 10 deposit required. Trading
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: All right, back with Vinny Goodwill, ESPN. How do you
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: say my man's name from Israel?
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Advia. Didn't he Advia? Advia.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Advia. That boy Victor pitched his shit into the crowd
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: so hard that for people who have certain politics, they
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: was looking at that like when Joe Louis knocked out
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Max Schmelen. That was what the moment was for them, ESPN.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: in that moment when he did that. If you had
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the politics of a certain sort of way, that made
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: people feel real good. I would not be surprised if Victor...
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Let me be careful. I don't want to put that
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: on him. But I wouldn't be surprised if Victor looked
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: at it that same way based on the interviews I
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: done seen with him. They got Portland the fuck up
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: out of there, dog. They're just like, all right, enough
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: of this. Let's go. I can't believe how good they are.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: And they're good in a way. I'm curious to think
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: about this part in particular. I have raised the question
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: about whether or not. like how much winning you're really
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: doing with De'Aaron Fox as the dude that brings the
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: ball up the floor. But given that they don't need
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: De'Aaron Fox to actually do that much, and then he
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: just can be the closer, which he is very good at. Hey, man,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: this thing is happening. Like, I think I said on
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: the show the other day, we've never seen a team
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: that hadn't done anything before. And I'm not counting the
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: 08 Celtics in this because their guys were so old. Right, right, right, right.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: But we've never seen a team that never done anything
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: before win a championship. But we've also never seen a
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: dude eight feet tall with handles.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: No, the one comparison that I had was the 95
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Orlando Magic. where in year two of Penny, year three
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: of Shaq, but even then.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: But they had at least been to the playoffs before.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: They had at least been to the playoffs before they
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: got swept in maybe it was a 3-6 as the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: home team against Indiana in round one.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: 4-5.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Was it 4-5?
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Okay. I think it was 4-5. You talk, I'll look
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: it up.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I want to say Atlanta was the number one seed
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: in 1994.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Atlanta was the number one.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: You're right.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Atlanta was the number one. Yeah, it was 4-5 because
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Atlanta was the number one seed that year, and then Indiana.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Beat Atlanta to play the next. You're right. You're right.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: You're right.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: What I tell you about this boy, though. What I
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: tell you about this boy.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: That was the year they traded Dominique to.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: That was wild. February 24, 1994. That is the year.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: It absolutely did happen. They sure did.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: That was wild. That was wild and crazy. Motherfuckers sure did.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: But even to the point, you don't see teams that
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: don't make.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: For Danny Manning- It ain't even come back.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Well, they didn't want to pay Dominique, right? Because he
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: was up, right?
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: The details don't matter to me, brother. Let's talk about
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: the NBA today. Let's talk about that. Hey, hey, Bo.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: I can relate. Barry Sanders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. July 27, 1999.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I get you.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: I feel your pain. That was his choice. That was
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: his choice. Anyway, what are we talking about?
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: What are we talking about? We talking about Big Slim.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: That's what I thought.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: That's what I thought. And the point of Orlando in
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: 95 with Shaq and Penny, and those were two supernovas. Legitimately,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Shaq was Shaq at that point, and Penny was growing
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: into a more athletic Magic Johnson type of dude. You
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like an heir to Magic Johnson
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: in a way. You could see that. With this one,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: I was less worried about Victor Wimbinyama and how he
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: was going to perform in the playoffs. I was more
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: worried about, hey, Dylan Harper's a rookie. Devin Vassell and
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Kelden Johnson. And yeah, Darren Fox can go and he
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: won the Clutch Player of the Year award in Sacramento.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: But how does this work with this iteration of guys?
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: And the answer is no. We can be down 15
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: in Portland at the half and win by 20. Like
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: this is the craziness of it. And then the way
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: that it's setting up. Who knows what happens game six,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Minnesota and Denver. Minnesota could still or Denver could still
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: win that series just because of the atrophy that's going
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: on in Minnesota right now. But no matter what happens,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: if you get Denver next round, they're going to be
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: dog tired. and still wearing the scent of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: And you're going to be there resting and watching. And
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the path of growing up, and this is a point
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that I've tried to make about the Detroit Pistons. We think, oh,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: you're just going to take a year-by-year, stair-step process. This
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: league moves too fast for that, man. Like, there is
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: no more. Like, Oklahoma City, think about this, Bo. OKC
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: went from best record in the West, losing in the
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: second round to Luka Doncic, to winning 60 games and
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: winning it all on the span of 12 months. And
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: the year before that first number one seed, they were
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: in the play-in. Play-in, second round, title. Like, that's how
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: quick it can go. And granted, Oklahoma City is a
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: completely different thing, but that's the path that the San
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Antonio Spurs are on. So if you are expecting to
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: get a win off of them, it better be not
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: because you're probably not going to get one later.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: He's only going to get.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: The fact that he spiked the ball and almost hit
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: one of the overhead cameras that they sit on top
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: of the rim, dog.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Look, it's like, you remember Deion Sanders was at his peak,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: and the idea was you put Deion on your best receiver,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: and that's that, right? You don't have to worry about that.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: What Victor has become is, or the idea, more accurately,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: the idea then was Deion... covers the whole side of
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: the field. It's not true, right? It's very close. But
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Deion covers a guy, right? Unless you do other things,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: but he covers a guy. And that's very, very important
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: that he covers a guy. Victor is covering like a
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: 15-foot radius around the goal, right? Like your favorite players
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: are coming in the lane and being like, how about
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: I just go back outside? Yep, yep. I was just playing, Victor. No, no, no, no.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: It's no thing. And you talk about LeBron having his
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: dudes believe it. These dudes believe.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Dude, Big Vic is like that dog in the sandlot.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Where they was just, hey, don't hit that ball over
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the yard. That ball is dead and gone now because
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I forgot the dog's name. But you ain't want no
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: parts of that dog, right? That's Victor. And subsequently, they
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: are built in such a way that it is lymph, right?
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: It's lymph and quickness. You know, Bissell. is a dog.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Castle is a big dog. Castle is in your face
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: and he can afford to be in your face because
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: he know what he got behind him. That's the crazy thing.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: And the one thing I thought they got criticism for
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: very early was they got too many point guards. No, no, no.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: You have guys who can funnel Passes to Vic at
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the rim. He's a rim threat no matter what. He's
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: a rim threat at any point on the floor. He
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: can go run pick and roll or he can run
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: backdoor or whatever it is because you've got somebody capable
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: of making a pass. You've got somebody capable of drawing
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: two and creating some sort of where he winds up
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: being open, and you get all these switchable dudes where
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: we can all funnel them down the lane to 7'5.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: 7'5 with timing, right? 7'5 with an 8-foot weight.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: And he's one of them dudes that he's like, ooh, blood.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I like this. I like this.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Hey, man, let me give you a couple thoughts. One,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: remember when Popovich said that wild shit a few years
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: ago about how the players from the other countries was
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: less entitled and everything else in America, dot, dot, dot,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: and they got a squad full of American dogs out there, right?
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: It's worth noting. And look, Popovich is still very involved
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: in the building of this roster, the guys that they
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: ultimately got, right? Somewhere along the way.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Maybe they was over there getting them dudes from other
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: places and they found out that some of them really
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: wasn't that bad.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Wow, wow, wow.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? But they got a bunch
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: of dudes from Atlanta with dreadlocks on this team. Number two,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: made an error in the last show. And I don't
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: think it was that hard of an error to make,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: but an error I made nonetheless that made me laugh
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: at myself because I went on and on for as
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: long as I did about this. I had assumed that
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Sham Pipple was from France, because his name was kind
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: of spelt the way it was, and he was playing
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: with Vic, and after they got Cisco up out of there,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: I figured they were saying to themselves that they needed
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: to get another, another, un frère, You know, poor, poor
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Levit Gond. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's what
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: I thought that that's what they were doing.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: You know where he from, right?
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: I do now. I did not know this at the time.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: That's the whole point of the goddamn story is that
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: I didn't know where he was from. And I was
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: saying that Shad Pippa was from France when it turned
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: out that Shad Pippa from Staten Island is two of them.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: That explains why they don't say his name right. You
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying? Somebody in the YouTube was like,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: who gonna tell Bonet from New York? And I was like,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: oh man, my bad. I ain't need to look them up.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: I know it's two of them. I ain't need to
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: look them up or nothing, man. I thought them dudes
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: was from France. I thought that they was looking out
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: for the franchise. Nah, man. Them dudes is right down
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: the street.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Also, don't forget, they got the man who helped who
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: helped shut down Magic City Mondays. Our buddy Luke Cornett.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: They do. They do. I would also like to say
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: right fast, by the way, about Sham Pipple, which is
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: he from Staten Island, which might as well be France.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: It might as well be another country if he was
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Staten Island. I ain't never been there. I ain't never
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: been there. I've been here nine years. That shit ain't
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: come up once. Not one single solitary situation. where the
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: thought was, hey man, let's go shoot down there to
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Staten Island right now.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Quick.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Okay, he grew up in Brooklyn. He was born in
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Staten Island. But he grew up in Brooklyn. Okay. He
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: went to the same high school as Mari Jackson. Yeah. Anyway,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: I ain't know. My bad. You know, I say he
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: look a little bit like Franklin St.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Daddy.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: On Snowball. Like he's trending in that direction.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't think about that.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? Who is the musician I'm
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: thinking of right now? There's a musician specifically that had like,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: you could tell when he started going bald exactly what
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: the pattern is. Oh, Maurice White. That's what I was
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: thinking about.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a pull.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: He reminds me of Maurice White in a one piece.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, I got you. I got you. Look, dude, these
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: dudes are hungry. Like, that's the thing about it. Like, yeah,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: they ain't just go get any old American players. You
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like, you did go get Dylan Harper.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: You got Steph Castle, who, you know, we came from
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: a program that was a crazy person was running it.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: He's okay. You know, Dylan Harper comes from good stock, right?
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: His daddy is Ron Harper, who is awfully active on
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the Twitter. You know what I mean?
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, he is?
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Harp is. Harp be online too much. It's
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: a couple. It's like, can this really be your account?
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: And then you find out that it is. Like, you
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: can find out that it is by the way that
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: somebody type.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like, how much space is
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: between these words? Yeah, this is somebody that was born
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: in the 1960s. You know what I mean? Like, that
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: type of thing. But, yeah. Why can't they? Why can't
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: they beat Oklahoma City? I'm not saying they will, right?
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: But why can't they beat Oklahoma City? The fact that
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: we have not had a champion even get to the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Western Conference Finals or the Conference Finals.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: That's crazy.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Since 2018-19, Golden State.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: That's crazy.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: That says something, right? And granted, they're on different sides
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: of the bracket, so they won't meet to the Conference Finals.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: But the point is, when Oklahoma City gets there, The
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: thought is we better make quick work of Houston or L.A.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: to get us some rest because we got a long
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: night ahead of us, a long seven nights ahead of
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: us with this big mountain of a shadow in front
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: of us. Like, I'm going to be in all likelihood
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: doing East. But baby, them off nights, I'm going to
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: be glued to the television.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to be there. Now, I want to,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: before we get out of here, Orlando, Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about you guys one day. One day we will.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Don't you worry. But I do think with Detroit that
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of people had a question. It's like, so
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: what's going on? This is 8-1 Orlando, which we had
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: left for dead as recently as three weeks ago. We
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: had them left for dead going into the play-in, talking
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: about firing the coach and the whole nine. Detroit does
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: not look ready for primetime, but you see it really
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: as they overachieved to win as many games as they did.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well, for one, I was of the belief at
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the trade deadline that if Detroit believed that they were
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: as good as their record said they were, then they
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: were going to augment that by going to get a
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: playoff piece, right? Ayo DeSumo, who's doing work in Minnesota.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: A Kobe White, who's doing work in Charlotte. And you
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: could have got them for the low, low price of
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: like three second rounders, right? The fact that they didn't
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: do it let me know that they didn't believe that
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: they were a final sort of team. Now, they framed
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: it as, hey, we got young guys. Let's see what happens.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: We don't want to put too much pressure on them
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. That's fine. But when everybody else
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: does something, when Jason Tatum is going to be the
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Celtics post-deadline acquisition, and we all knew he was coming
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: back by the middle of February, right? We all knew that.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: The Knicks tried some stuff, right? But we knew that
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: that team was going to be largely limited by what
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: they had. The Pistons don't have a high payroll. You
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: got to worry about paying Jalen Dern, or at least
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: you thought you did. I don't know about nah, because
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: he ain't covering himself in glory in this series. This
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: is the worst possible scenario for him. But when you
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: as an organization, to me, you don't do that, not
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: only one that says to me, you don't believe you're
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: a championship team, but also secondarily, is that some organizational malpractice?
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Because these championship windows, if I'm talking about Oklahoma City
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: and saying you're going from play-in to second round to
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: championship in the span of three years, What makes you
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: believe that you're going to be here three years from now?
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: That you can afford to slow walk this and not
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: press the button to go get somebody. Cade Cunningham being
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: quote unquote MVP type of candidate who ain't really playing
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: like an MVP candidate in this series.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Hey man, David Dennis' nephew, man. He doing his best.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? You know what I mean?
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Like this is, I think people are saying this as
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Orlando's the worst matchup for them. I think that is
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: doing this somewhat of a disservice. Detroit would be struggling
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: no matter who they were playing because their deficiencies are
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: their deficiencies. They don't have a butt in the press.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Their superpower is making you play less than your best.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Like you can't get to your A game playing against Detroit. Dude,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Isaiah Stewart had eight block shots in game four and
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: they still lost.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Well, also because your boy Durin is out here getting
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: exposed and was the victim of one of the more
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: shocking punchings. in the history of basketball, some dude I'd
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: never heard of. Like, it wasn't like, oh, tell me
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: about him. Oh, no, no, no. What's his name? Kane?
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: Jamal Kane?
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: From Pontiac, Michigan.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: And you know, Jamal, old school name now, right? And
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: he would have, nobody believed that was about to happen. Like,
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: even people that be watching them, nobody saw that coming,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: and he was so dedicated to that cause. The look
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: on his face. And then flexed on him. I thought
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Durham was something different.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: What happens is once Wendell Carter Jr. started flexing, that
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: gives everybody else confidence. You know what I mean? Like,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: they ain't trying, Stu.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: If you know this, they ain't. Them ain't the problems
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: that you want, big dog. Jalen Dern is still very young. Like,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: he looks like a grown man, but he's still 22
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: years old, and he got to come into some grown
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: man strength that he clearly doesn't have yet, and he is, like, Bo,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: if you don't have a handle and you have a serviceable,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: you have serviceable ball skills, right? But you're not a
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: shooter and you're reliant on space to get offensive production.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: You don't have space because they don't have shooting and
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: you're getting beat up. on the interior and you're inside
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: your own head, you're not going to be effective. And
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: this is their second score. This is the guy who
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I voted all first, all third, excuse me, all 13 NBA.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: And he's ineffective against Wendell Carter, who ain't no slouch,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: like who's actually a really good player. And, you know,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: we got some other mitigating circumstances that we don't have
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: to talk about here. That makes it all the more
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: intriguing and yet all the more sad.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, this is, I mean, look, 3-1. We've seen
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Detroit do this to Orlando before, but it ain't Doc
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: Rivers over there. You know what I'm saying? Wow.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: That's a pull.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: It did happen. I talked about it the other day.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: Tracy McGrady feels good to finally get out of the
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: first round and then didn't get out of the first round.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: And think about it like this. Think about it like this.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: That 2003 Detroit team had more offensive talent of guys
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: that can get buckets than this one.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: It is. It is. Let me tell you something that's
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: funny about Trace McGrady. I say, talk about Trace McGrady
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: not getting out of the first round, and nobody ever says, well,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: what about 2001 with Toronto? I say James Harden never
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: got to the finals, and the comments filled up with,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: what about the 2012 NBA finals? Yes, six-man James Harden. No, yeah,
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: you totally don't get the point that we're making here, right?
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: But Trace McGrady has no case.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: No, McGrady was gone. He was gone in 2001. He
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't on the 0-1 team? No, he had already been, remember,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: the summer of 2000. You're right. It was the summer
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: of 2000. You're right.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: Never mind. Sorry about that. See, that's why we got
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Vinny on the board here. Before we get out of here,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: they've changed up the lottery. And it is very interesting.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: We're basically, if you are one of the teams, and
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: tell me if I'm wrong, with the three worst records,
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: your lottery odds will be lower than the four through
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: 10 teams.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I got to say, that's a pretty creative way
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: to do it.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Well, my general thought, the only pushback for me is
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: we assume that the three teams at the bottom are
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: at the bottom because they want to be at the bottom.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: What if you're at the bottom because you're just bad?
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Well, then, you know what? Too bad, so sad. I'm 100%
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: with you.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: But with the NBA, how they try to legislate parity,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: that goes against it. But the tanking has gotten so
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: bad and so blatant that you have to take extreme measures.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: The part that I do like is that you can't
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: get a top three pick two years in a row
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. Like that's the, that's the elements
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: three is that that's the element that I suggested to
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: the league is to prevent the multi-year tank. Oh, we
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: didn't get it this year. We going to take it
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: out next year. Nah, man, you can't keep doing this
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: to your season ticket holders. You can't keep doing this
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: to competitive balance. to keep trying to stockpile these picks.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: That is a Ponzi scheme. In three years, dog, we
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: gonna be all right, because one one of these years
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get the number one pick and in the
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: meantime we just gonna keep getting lucky and winding up
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: in the top four nah man you can't do that
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: you have to actually build your team and i think
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: by and large i'm you know relegation and all the
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: other type of stuff i suggested an unbalanced schedule if
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: you finish in a certain place like The NFL doesn't
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: have a balanced schedule. If we want all this extra
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: TV inventory, give me more, quote unquote, Lakers Warriors. I'll
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: take that over Lakers Nets. You want to get LeBron
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: at the gate? Work on getting your team better. Like,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: that's how, to me, I know that's radical. I know
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: it's crazy. But that was an idea that I had
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: floating around for a minute was, how about we do
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: an unbalanced schedule? You want to get those guys in
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: your building to get that money? Make your team better.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: What did Jaycee pull a price? I'll make your shit tighter.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what? That's an interesting idea because I
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: thought that what they came up with was a very
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: good idea. I like it. Yeah, I think that what
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: you're really trying to do is figure out ways to
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: stop teams. And I like the way that Adam talked
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: about it, right? It should be embarrassing to lose. It's
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: good to hear a commissioner say, talk about the sport
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: in those terms. Like, I don't know if you remember this,
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: but Rob Manfred, and I don't think he's ever recovered
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: from this in baseball, where he referred to the World
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Series trophy as, quote, a hunk of metal. And the
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: point that he was trying to make is that, like,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: I felt like the point he was making was that
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: the trophy itself isn't a thing or whatever. But that's
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: not what people heard. They heard you say that the
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: thing that people compete for, because for us, it's easy
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: to just think of this as, like, the trophy is
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: really a representation of an idea. But a lot of
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: these guys are more literal than that, right? They're like, no,
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: I compete for this trophy. What are you talking about?
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Are you telling me it's just a hunk of metal? No,
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: it's not. It's the trophy. And you can try to
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: get all high-minded and argue that back, but you're missing
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: the point, right? These guys are telling you, this trophy
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: ain't no hunk of metal. This is what we care about, right?
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: But commissioners are typically not athletes. and therefore they don't
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: typically think of things in those terms. So I thought
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: it was dope to hear a commissioner talk about these
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: games like games matter, right? Not like this is just
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: to put some stuff on television. No, we want a
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: league where people try to win and that when they
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: don't win, it sucks. Nobody should be happy about the
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: fact that they did not win. And he's 100% correct.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: And so for me, I thought it was just dope
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: the way that he put it around this. And then
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: coming up with a way that creates a certain incentive
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: that stops you from taking it out. And you say here, well,
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: what if you're just bad? You shouldn't be. Your penalty
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: for stinking is going to be this.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Well, and not just that, it doesn't eliminate you from
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: getting the number one pick. It just decreases the odds.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: So it's not an incentive. Remember the Denver, let me
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: say Denver, the Dallas Mavericks, you have the number one pick.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: And they hit the ninth best odds. So it's not
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: like having more ping pong balls has actually helped. And
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: that was always my argument against it anyway, is that
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: no team since they reformed the lottery before 2019 had
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: actually gotten the number one pick who had the worst record.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: So you are not being incentivized to lose anyway. You
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: were just doing it as a strategy to tell your
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: owner or whomever to skirt accountability. Now, to me, this
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: is a way for coaches to have to be accountable.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: for ownership groups to have to be accountable, to be
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: accountable to the business of the league. Like at a point,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: these 30 member franchises operated like independent franchisees and not
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: like we are part of something greater. Like if nothing else,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: there was the thought that David Stern, when he was
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: ruling the league, when it was number 24 teams, 23 teams,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I think when he took over and then it went
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: to 28 and 29, 30 and so on and so forth,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: that we are part of something greater here. And we
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: have to grow this thing together while being competitive with
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: each other. And at some point, because the analytics and
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: everything else, all of that, it became, well, we're doing
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: what's best singularly for us and screw all of y'all.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: And if Adam has gotten the pendulum back to the
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: middle in some way to make it seem like, hey,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: we are supposed to be all in this together. If
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: nothing else, that's the biggest positive of all this.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: I also think that you're creating a situation where teams
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: are incentivized to teach their young players to win. So
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: for example, I don't mind a team deciding we're going
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: all the way young, right? Like the first Oklahoma city run, like, okay,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: we got these young guys and we're going to take
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: the lumps that come with putting these young guys out here.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: But like that, where I get bothered is like those
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: early years in new Orleans were like parking Anthony Davis, right?
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: At those various points, we didn't know whether he was actually,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously he had injury issues, but some of
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: the time it was like, or they're just not going
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: to play him. Or the Sixers just flat out sitting
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: Joel Embiid for basically three years.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: You know, just making the decision, hey, man, we're just
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: not going to play. No, get these guys out here
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: and make them have to play, learn how to, even
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: if you're just winning a game here and a game there.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: But I think they conditioned a lot of these young
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: guys to being losers by doing this. Like, it's amazing
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: they didn't ruin Cade Cunningham.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and here's the thing. And that's the thing. The
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: year that they lost the most was the year that
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: they thought they were going to be good. They were
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: just bad at it. Remember, they hired Montee Williams and
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: paid him $ 100 million. You ain't paying nobody $ 100 million
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: to try to lose. They wound up losing it. That's
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: what happened. Now, the Philly thing, remember, they were drafting
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: players that they knew couldn't even play.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: The guys they were putting out there on the floor,
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: fans should have been able to sue them for charging
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: people money to watch those guys play.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: And then we had Pablo, who was saying, the process
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: accounts for all this. Dude, what are you talking about?
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: The process don't account for... The fact that that was
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: sold as something digestible, and it was sold as something
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: that people could be talking about on TV with a
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: straight face, was an outright failure.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: The thing was, the process yielded what you would hope for,
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: which was... two-generational prospects. Now, never forget the Markel Fultz
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: not working thing. And also, we cannot forget this. Before
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: the wheels came off, Ben Simmons was cold.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: Like, having Ben Simmons and Embiid, they got what you
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: would hope for from this process that you would have.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: And then it just, you know.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: But no, here's the... No, no, it's not that. This
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: is the part that people are missing, though. You're right.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: You got two-generational prospects. But once you get losing in
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: your building... And you've got losing habits. And you can say,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: or you can make the argument that those two guys
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: were not better for it. That they were not better
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: as individuals for it because of the environments that they
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: were drafted into because they were not winning environments and
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: it came and played out to be as such in
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: their individual careers.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair. And to be fair to Simmons, the
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: process part was over by the time he got there,
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: but it lingered, right? Like this was, you know, this
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: was a thing that was, and the thing they tried
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: to tell us was, hey, look what we got from
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Robert Covington, right? Like Robert Covington was the idea, but
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: we're going to find some, we're going to find some
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: steals in this process. And they found, Robert Covington, and
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: TJ McCollum.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a couple more players who wound up being-
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Christian Wood.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: It was one more. Was it one more that I'm missing?
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: I feel like there was one more guy. But they
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: didn't do nothing for them? No, and that's the thing.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: They had to go to other places and detox that
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: nonsense out of their system and then get it and
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: then figure out something else. Like the player Eval was
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: so bad. You know what I mean? Like there's players
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: that you feel bad for that you're like, man, why
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: are you out here? Why don't you go? Like, you
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: a scientist. Like, literally, you are a scientist. You're not
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: a ball player.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Get off the corner, school boy.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Bunk.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, go home, school boy.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Go home, school boy. You ain't hard.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Hey, hey, hey, relatable content. Not that I was out there,
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: but that's what they would have told me.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Facts.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: You know? So, no, this is, look, I appreciate this
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: from Adam. We don't want... Trying to lose.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: I like the... I like the fact that Adam grew
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: a backbone on this one. Yeah. Because.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: What?
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Go ahead.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: He grew the backbone. I was also thinking part, man,
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: Adam started to care a little bit less about the internet.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: We gonna see. We gonna see how that plays out.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that test is going to be what happens with
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: Kawhi Leonard. We're gonna find out how much he cares
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: about the internet these days based on what happens there.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: That's gonna be an indicator.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: Does the internet care what happens to Kawhi Leonard, or
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: is that just what we see?
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Well, it looked like it at one point, and we're
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: going to find out how much anybody actually still cares
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: about this. I am waiting until it's all done before
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: I offer larger opinions on it. It's a bit of
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: an awkward situation for me, but no one that I've
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: talked to on league level cares.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, same here.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: And look, I don't talk to like GM level guys.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: I don't have that much access to that class of guy.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Maybe they care. But higher than that in agent level,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: they don't care.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Nah, I mean....
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: To be fair, why would the agents care? But they
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: don't care.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: No, for one, not even like opening a can of
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: worms and everything else, but you think... Here's the thing.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Let's say... you come down hard on Steve I know
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: we gotta run let's say you come down hard on
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Steve Ballmer the richest owner in the league do you
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: want Steve Ballmer feeling vindictive about the other 29 member
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: franchises and asking do you want me to use my
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: resources to go in your closet yeah.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'll tell you this, though. Barber done got indignant, dog.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: And I do think it is interesting, and this does
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: not look great for him, that he was like, NBA
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: can't trust this man. I don't know what he got
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: told that that man told the NBA. But he is
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: telling the whole world, I got played. I got made
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: a fool of. I have not been convinced that he's lying.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: It just happens from what I've seen that has come out.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Something weird looked like it was going on, but I
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: am not... I don't have reason to believe fully that
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: it's salary cap circumvention just because I don't even see
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: what they gain out of it being salary cap circumvention.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: But we're going to see.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Look, the one thing that I have yet to get
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: an answer for was if this were 2019 coming off
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: of Toronto winning the title and everything else and Kawhi
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: is the hottest free agent and I might go to
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: the Lakers if y'all don't get y'all stuff together and
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: get me Paul George. Cool. But if this wasn't this
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: being in 2021 when Kawhi tore up his knee against
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: the Utah Jazz in round two, and people thought that
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: he was done, there wasn't going to be a bunch
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: of bidders for his services. Right.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: There's a lot that I don't understand. And so I'll
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: be curious to see if they put the report out
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: in the whole nine. We're going to see what it
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: turns to, but it will tell us if Adam is
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: really worried about trying to play around with public opinion.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: We're going to see. Do not know, but we will see.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: Benny Goodwill, check him out. ESPN, covering the NBA. My brother,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: My dog.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: All right, man. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: joining us here on The Right Time. We do this
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: four days a week. Brian Brumley handling things behind the scenes.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you, sir. Hit the voicemail line, 323-596-7767. Remember, follow
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: The Right Time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: inclined to believe you are a hater. We'll talk to
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.