Latest / Small Ball with Kenny Beecham / Small Market Teams Are Figuring It Out | Ep. 11

Transcript

Small Market Teams Are Figuring It Out | Ep. 11 · Small Ball with Kenny Beecham

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Ridiculous nickname.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: Like the bit the one of the biggest AO nicknames in the history of basketball.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: And it was actually on his basketball reference.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: If you look up Josh Giddy, it's a slob wizard.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Crazy.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: But but he is one of the best in the game at that sideline out of bounds.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: He is a slob wizard.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Kenny Beachum podcast.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Today I decided that I want to shed some light on some of the small markets and medium-sized markets across the association, and we'll get into that in a second.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: I want to remind you to leave a like on the episode, subscribe to the channel if you're here on YouTube.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Tell a friend to tell a friend.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: If they're looking for NBA content, a podcast worth watching, a podcast worth listening to, the Kenny Beach and Podcast might be for them.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: But at least get their foot in the dough and then let them decide.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
0:53
SPEAKER_00: Go to Spotify, go to Apple and leave five stars.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: We're on the quest to become the number one basketball podcast in America.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: I have not looked at the charts recently, but I'm just going to assume we didn't hit number one.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: I feel like if we did hit number one, the comment section slash my Twitter mentions will be going crazy.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: And I haven't seen that just yet.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: So we want to continue to do that.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: And I can't do that without you showing your love.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: So I want to say I appreciate you.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: So the Kenny Beach podcast has been around for a few months now.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: And I've been trying to decide exactly what I want my voice to be or what how I want to use this platform.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've I put my foot in the water a little bit, dropping the knot in NBA podcast.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: Y'all seem to love it.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: We was like, okay, let's let's really go completely into this.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: One thing that actually is surprising me though, every single episode I'm seeing comments like, I cannot believe Kenya's on episode, whatever, whatever.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: I thought the show would have been over by now.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: I know my track record, all right?
1:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm not getting away from it.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: I know that I have a tendency of starting projects and dropping them once I get bored.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Not this one.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Not this one.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: So I was, I'm just still trying to figure out all of the things.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I'm taking the opportunity to do these episodes, re-watch, re-listen to, and be like, oh, that don't work.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we should add this.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: So I'm still growing as a person, right?
2:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm still growing as a podcaster.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: But one of the things I desperately didn't want to happen with this platform, with this show, is for us to be a show that strictly talked about the mainstream topics and things across the association.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Now, granted, I'm gonna be honest, I'm gonna peek behind the door.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Part of my job as the creator here is to put together content that people will watch.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: And when you talk about the Rudy Gobert fight with Dre Maggie, ladies and gentlemen, people want to hear that opinion.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: But I also don't want that to be the entire show.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to just talk about the same things that everybody else is talking about.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: So today we're experimenting a little bit, shedding some light on some smaller market teams because those, I'm gonna be honest with you, those are the teams I feel like I've enjoyed watching the most this season, for better or for worse, because some of the teams we're talking about aren't on a hot streak.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: It's the exact opposite.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying the mainstream topics go away because it's inevitable that we will talk about crazy stuff as it happens, but I also want to take time to showcase my love for the things that maybe the NBA sicko is the only one privy to.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
3:10
SPEAKER_00: So I want to start off talking about the Oklahoma City Thunder.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Is this a mainstream topic?
3:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: But according to the Googles, I had to Google what teams classify as a big market, and they broke it up into big, medium, and small market.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: And OKC was like the 27th rate market in the association.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: So we're starting off with a small market team.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: As I'm recording this, they're 9-4.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: They were in the first quarter of a game versus the Portland Trailblazers.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna assume that by the time this episode is released, they are a 10-4 team and they look very, very good.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: If you go rewatch my preseason prediction episode or whatever, the OKC Thunder were one of those teams that I said they had one of the largest ranges in ball.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: And apparently I was wrong.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: There is no range.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: This team is really, really good.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Like I just didn't know what to believe in because I didn't want to just say that, oh, because Josh Giddy has another year, he's gonna be better.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Because J Dub has another year, he'll be better.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know what to expect from Chet completely.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: So I thought this could be a team that was a playing team, or it could be as high as like the three seed.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: And right now they're closer to the three seed than the player.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: A lot of basketball left to be played, but there are a lot of things when I watch this team that feel as though it's real.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to showcase some of the love because the other day, um, yesterday, we had Friendsgiving at my house.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: We do it every single year, except for the two COVID years.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: We've done it every year.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: All the guys get together with the significant others.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: We have good dinners, good eats, some basketball.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And boy, we when you have a house full of people that all love the game of basketball, there's nothing like it.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: It's nothing like it.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: So we're watching the ending of OKC versus Warriors because I would be lying to you and say that all of us were locked into the TV from the beginning to the end, right?
4:46
SPEAKER_00: But the fourth quarter came around, I was like, oh, this is interesting.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's really watch.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: And the OKC Thunder showed a lot of poise and a lot of great things in that game.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: As of right now, again, this is not counting for their game against the Portland Trailblazers.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: They are one of the few teams in the association that have a top five offense and a top five defense.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: They're in the company of the Boston Celtics, the Philadelphia 76ers, the Denver Nuggets, New York Knicks, and then it's the OKC Thunder.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Those are the five teams.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Now, last year they were a great defensive team, and that was without any real center play.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: No disrespect to Jalen Williams, not J Dub, but Jalen Williams.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: But I think a lot of us recognize that that guy was not a starter quality center in the association, and they were a good defense then.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And now they added Chet.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: And boy, Chet has been as dominant as anybody could have expected.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: In that Warriors game, it was his breakout game, right?
5:38
SPEAKER_00: He ended up with 36 points.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: He hit the turnaround, three-point shot, a shot that seven footers should not be able to take or make to force overtime.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: And his dominance goes like counted stats wise.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: 17 points per game, eight rebounds, three assists, two blocks.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is not accounting for his trailblazer game.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: 55% from the field, 44% from three.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say, if you watch this team play, you look at the 2.2 blocks, you're like, oh, that's really, really good.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't tell the story of what Chet is doing on the defensive side of the ball.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: That does not even, I think he even went onto Twitter after one of the game recently was like, y'all got to relook at the stats because there's no way I only had X amount of blocks.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: But he is impacting defense way on a way higher level than most rookies are able to.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And I know that brings up the conversations about Chet versus Wimby.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: They played against each other last week and it was a snooze fest.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: But both of these guys are just great in their own rights.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get to the comparison things, but on the defensive side of the ball, both these dudes are doing amazing things.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Even uh Wimby yesterday had eight blocks.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: I won't lie and tell you, I watched the game, but I saw that he had eight blocks.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: But Chet is doing things that I definitely did not expect him to be able to do this early in his career.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's not without his mishaps, right?
6:50
SPEAKER_00: In this game where he was so very dominant against the Warriors, he had two plays very late in the game that almost cost him to play.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: And that's not even accounting for the lack of rebounding on the last play with Kavon Looney kicked it out to Wiggs.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Wiggs for having his first real good game.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Same thing with Klay Thompson.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: Came in the L, but you know, right track, right track for them.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, it wasn't without his mishaps.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: He had those two two plays, and then he was able to hit that shot.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm assuming that everybody's watching this has at least seen the shot.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: It was one of those shots, and I heard somebody, uh I saw somebody say this on Twitter, and I cannot agree more.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the shots that you will see at the end of his career in his highlight mixtape.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Because going to hit that shot to go into overtime against a team like the Golden State Warriors is something he'll remember forever, and it will be one of his best highlights.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And again, he's what 14 games into his NBA career.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I've taken note of is how do they close out games, right?
7:43
SPEAKER_00: Because you you look at their conglomerate of talent of Shay, J-Dub, Giddy, Shaq, those are the four guys.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: And Ludor, you gotta include Ludor because he's looked amazing so far.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of people don't look at him as part of the real, real core.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's hard for me not to at this point because he's just been so so very great at what you pay him to do.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: You pay him to hit shots, he's doing that.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: You pay him to play a great defense against opposing best players, he's doing that.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: And I look at how they close out games.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: And recently, uh Kimbridge Williams came back from his injury.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: I think it was the first his first game was against the Spurs.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: I remember getting the standing ovation or whatever.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: But over the last couple of games, we've seen a lot of Josh Giddy not playing crunch time.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: And I've been seeing some dialogue about that because one of the major questions about this team, at least for a lot of people come offseason, was like, okay, uh obviously Shea is an all-star talent, all NBA talent.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Josh Giddy is a talented, talented player, but will we see a world or both of them can coexist in their highest level to win an NBA championship?
8:37
SPEAKER_00: And I always felt that that was a little bit unfair because we are talking about a team that is very early in their rebuild.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: I know because they're nine and four or ten and four as his video is dropping, they feel like they're levels ahead as far as their rebuild go, but this is what you're number, you're number three.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And Josh Giddy is such a young player.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: It's just too early for me to look at him and Shay and say, ah, they got to trade Josh Giddy because he doesn't necessarily fit.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: But what one thing I'm realizing though is that they're not necessarily playing this season for development anymore.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: They're playing too many basketball games.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: The development play is say, hey, Josh Giddy, we use a lottery pick on you, we believe in you, and whatever, whatever.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna close out these games, you're gonna close out these games regardless, right?
9:16
SPEAKER_00: That's not what they're doing anymore.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Kimmerich Williams closing out games.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, that is a play for them to win.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that Josh Giddy in that lineup wouldn't make them win or wouldn't help them win, but Coach Mark Dayton is like, hey, we're gonna play the five in this moment that we believe give us the best opportunity to win.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: And that's just different than previous years.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: So this is an early stage of the rebuild, but I'm guessing based on the way they're playing this, they're not looking at this as a development year.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: They're looking at this as like, we can win right now.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: And we ain't got to worry about our first round pick.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: We got 17 in a bank over the next couple of years.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: So it's just interesting to see the type of lineups that he could pull out, and they haven't been completely healthy this season, and they're playing as good as they can.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Shea, let's talk about Shay, because obviously all NBA player last season.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, I won't say single-handedly, but a lot of people did not really think about the OKC Thunder last year as a team that can make a play-in push, and they did.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: They made some noise, and a lot of that is Shea Gills Alexander being one of the more dominant guards in all the association.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: There's not many people in the league that can get to the basket at will, like Shea Giuseppe Alexander.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: And in this game against the Golden State Warriors, this is one of the most dominant overtime for individual performances I have ever seen.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if he ended with 10 points, 12 points, 14 points, whatever it was.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: But in that regulation, he was also doing his thing as well.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: But it was a lot of chat, and chat was doing his thing, and he was letting Chet be him.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: But when that OT came and he was like, we want to win this game, it was bucket after bucket, tough bucket, easy lay, foul draw.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: He's like, man, I recognize the value, I recognize the talent of Shea Gills Alexander, but in a moment like that, this is high, high uh intensity, high-leverage moments.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: It's like, I got this.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that's so very interesting about Shea Gills Alexander is that last year, when he put up all the crazy stats and made it all NBA, uh, think of basketball has a statistic that has to do with the spacing of the players around you, right?
11:16
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't account for your shooting, but it accounts for the other four players on the team that's on the court with you.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Last year, Shea Gius Alexander played with the 30 second in the 32nd percentile with spacing, which is bad.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: It's below average.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Look at the team he played with.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: It makes sense.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: He's playing with Josh Gidd, he's playing with this guy, he's playing with this guy who aren't necessarily plus shooters.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: So Shea was doing all of the things he was doing with negative spacing.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: This year, he's in the 91st percentile.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: 91st.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like Shea has been dominant still.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: But he's also allowing everything around him to go as well.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: I haven't looked at his useless numbers.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: I was actually, I would actually assume that his usel numbers are very similar to last year, but it feels like he is okay with just saying, like, oh, it's his night tonight.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Like Josh Giddy had the game against, oh man, was that the Spurs game?
12:02
SPEAKER_00: With Josh Giddy had his night or this night, Chet Hair this night.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: He's cool with just being a decoy at times and letting the others get off.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: And then when it matters the most, like that OT game, he's like, don't worry, I got us.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: And that is what what like one of the things I look for in a star player.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, I think what helps this or what made him have this mindset is Shay was not always looked at as a star player.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: If we look at his rookie season with the Clippers, he was more of a role player as a rookie, or you look at, you know, the one year with Chris Paul, he was uh higher than a role player, but not the star player.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: So he's been able to play the first couple years of his career, not like some of the dudes that get the keys immediately.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: He's okay with letting, I guess, Lou Wheel and Matrez Harold do their part, or Chris Paul do his part, or Galinari do his part, and just let the game come to him.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: But again, he also has the play style that's like, okay, the game not working for the rest of the foe.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: I'll put my backpack on.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: So to see that he has his spacing, I mean, a lot of this has to do with Chet.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Again, he's a seven-foot-plus guy that at the moment is shooting 44% from three.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how much of that is realistic for him to be a 40% three-point shooter.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: But right now, through the first 14 games of his career, he's a 50, 40, 90 guy, which is again insane.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know if he's gonna be that.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I'm just gonna assume that he'll regress at least a little bit, but still, um, the the minutes with Shea Gills, Alexander, and Chet together have a net rating of a 12.56 with 266 minutes play.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Coach Mark Dayton has them as the number one used starting lineup or number one used lineup in the entire association, and they're damn good in it.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: The starting lineup has an offensive rating of 114.7 and a defensive rating of a 104.8.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the youngest teams in basketball, y'all.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: It makes no sense how they're able to do this, but this is good coaching, having a start player that's willing to take a backseat or play in the floor of the offense, and just having a lot of people that buy in.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite things, and I've talked about this many times before, maybe not necessarily on this podcast, is I like to see when you get benched, and I don't mean that in a negative connotation, like for example, when Cambridge Williams is playing over Josh Giddy come crunch time.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: I like to look and see how you are performing, not performing, how you are reacting to the moments, right?
14:11
SPEAKER_00: There was a viral clip of when Alice Caruso hit a hit.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Can he talk about the Bulls?
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, Alice Caruso hit a clutch shot in a basketball game uh with Patrick Williams on the bench, he walked away, didn't show any emotion whatsoever.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: This is an OKC team that is okay with cheering for each other.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: Other than the one moment when Chet did hit that big shot, Josh Giddy just kind of put his hand out and hit him with a like a high five, but didn't necessarily cheer or anything.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that was just like, okay, it's Thai game.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: We're going into overtime now, so we still got basketball to play.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Or it could have been uh that Kemerge Williams had played the previous five minutes.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: He just got put in to throw a pass.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And he's damn good at it.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Bro, I know um, oh my God, who was it that called him a slob wizard?
14:48
SPEAKER_00: The sideline out of bound wizard.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Ridiculous nickname.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Like the big the one of the biggest AEO nicknames in the history of basketball.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: And it was actually on his basketball reference.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: If you look up Josh Giddy, it's a slob wizard.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Crazy.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: But but he is one of the best in the game at that sideline out of bounds.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: He is a slob wizard.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: So he's put into the game, he throws the pass.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: It's just crazy stuff.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: And I ain't even mentioned guys like Isaiah Joe, who ended up hitting 7-3, 7 for 7 for 3 against the Golden State Warriors on the previous night.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Or I ain't mentioned Caseen Wallace, who came in and felt fit like a glove as a rookie, and he's also hella efficient.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Like there are so many playable players and good players on this team, and they're well coached.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: And Sam Presley's doing it the right way.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Everybody was asking, will they buy, will they buy, will they buy?
15:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they need to at the moment.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Don't buy unless it's the absolute perfect fit.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: And right now, the guys that might be available are not perfect fits for OKC.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: They're building the culture.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: They actually have a culture, and you don't want to break that up just for four extra wins for some of the people that might be available.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just having a lot of fun watching OKC basketball.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: If you have not tuned in, obviously I advise it.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: The next thing I want to talk about is the team that took home my uh League Pass award for most watched team.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: That is the Sacramento Kings.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say this again on this podcast.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I've expressed my discomfort with League Pass before, but one thing that they are missing, they're missing a lot, one thing they're definitely missing is like a Spotify rap thing where shows you you watch this many games of the Sacramento Kings.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: You were here.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, you watch live when De'Aaron Fox hit six threes in the game.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Like those type of things would just be legendary.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I would first recommend them fixed the the platform before we start adding extra stuff.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: But like I'm just saying, if you were to ask extra stuff, that is one thing that I would recommend because I think you would A get more people maybe tuning into League Pass versus the other ways because you get that moment.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: Like personally, I had always been an Apple Music guy.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: I had always been an Apple music guy.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: And then I started watching other people's Spotify raps.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, damn, this is kind of cool.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: And then I canceled my Apple Music and got Spotify and ain't look back.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually looking forward to my Spotify rap this year.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Like you would get people to do that.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, Sacramento Kings are eight and four.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know if this accounts for their one win against the Dallas Mavericks, but let's just say eight and four at the moment.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: They are six and one when De'Aaron Fox is playing, which matters the most because they did lose a couple games to the Houston Rockets by a million points when De'Aaron Fox wasn't there.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, when De'Aaron Fox has played, they have been virtually unbeatable.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is how crazy early we are in the season.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: I started writing my script the notes or whatever while watching the Sacramento Kings versus Dallas Mavericks game.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: And that is a game where the best thing about the Sacramento Kings is how crazy they can get in one moment, right?
17:27
SPEAKER_00: This game was tied up.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Actually, the Dallas Mavericks had a lead at like 77-75.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And then two minutes later, they were down by 12.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Like that's how crazy the Sacramento Kings offense game.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, the Sacramento Kings before that game were 16th in offense, 13th in defense, and then after the game, they were 11th offense and 16th in defense.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: So just one game can have you drop, you know, jump up five in offensive rating or drop three in defensive rating.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: And I thought they played a pretty solid defensive game, especially in the second half.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Either way, one game could change a lot of things.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: And I saw some people tweet at me, like, yeah, Kenny, the Sacramento Kings offense isn't as dominant as it was last year.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Should we be concerned?
18:02
SPEAKER_00: The answer for me is absolutely not.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Because when De'Aaron Fox has been on the floor, which is what you're counted on, they've been they've been amazing.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: They have been amazing.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, De'Aaron Fox has been a player that has been one of my favorites since he was drafted, right?
18:15
SPEAKER_00: And I it's so cool to watch his individual progression.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And right now, it seems like the next thing he's adding, at least in this uh seven-game set was size, the three-point shot looks real.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: In this game, there was a moment where Luka Donta should have three, and before the camera completely turned around to the Sacramento Kings half court, De'Aaron Fox had already hit one.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: He had like six, seven threes tonight and confidently.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: And then it got to the point where he had back-to-back threes.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And the Dallas Mal was like, okay, we can't just give him that shot.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: And guess what he did?
18:43
SPEAKER_00: He blew past his defender.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: With a guy with this speed, and this is what I've been saying about Tyrus Maxie early in the season as well.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: A guy with this speed and this finishing ability, being able to score at all three levels makes him unguardable.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: And De'Aaron Fox has been a mid-range maestro for the last couple years.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, clutch player the year last year, and a lot of the damage that he did do in the clutch was in that mid-range area.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: We know he's one of the best getting to the basket because of his speed and athleticism and finishing at the rim.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: But the three-point shot has always been a question.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: And now, if he's hitting this, there's there's no way to really game plan for stopping De'Aaron Fox if he has all three of these levels in his game.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not even talking about the hub of the offense and the Matis Abonis, who's just coasing and averaging a smooth 20, 13, and seven or something like that.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Like he is doing the Matisabonis things that we've seen last year, just doing it all over again, being this anchor on the offensive and defensive side of the ball.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: The defense is the interesting part, though, because last year they were the best offense almost in the history of the history of basketball, but the defense was was pretty bad, right?
19:46
SPEAKER_00: And they were okay with that.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, they were okay with that.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: They were the three seed last year, with them being this high-powered, you can't guard us, we can't guard you, but but you definitely can't guard us.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: And now, if this let's say they stay a 16th, and I don't know, I don't know, I don't know how this is gonna go.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Let's say they stay at the 16th ranked defense.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm assuming based on the what I've seen over the last couple years of D'Ar Fox playing that that 11th and offense is gonna climb and climb and climb the more reps he gets, right?
20:12
SPEAKER_00: If they stick at 16, this team is crazy.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: And I like to see the progression of individual players, right?
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh Keegan Murray, rookie season, uh set the record for most three points, uh, three-pointers made in the rookie year.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: And they, every time I watch a broadcast that's not the Sacramento Kings, so tonight, the Dallas Mavericks, every time he had a shot, they ain't gonna mention that.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Which is it's a cool stat.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: It's a very cool stat.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: I remember Laura Market ahead.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Most three-point shots made by rookie.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna continue to be broken like almost every single year, just because that's what the NBA is going to right now.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: But Keegan Murray has changed a little bit.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: His shot is not falling.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: We're a couple games to the NBA season, 12, 13 games to the NBA season.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: I think he has a track record that's good enough to let us know that that three-point shot will come around, whether it be his sample size in college, sample size in college or sample size in the NBA.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe he's gonna be a 28% three-point shooter this year.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: That's just not who he is as a player.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: But what I like seeing now is that he has progressed to the point where for the Sacramento Kings now, he is the primary defender.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: We got Luca tonight.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: I got it.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: And of course, a guy like Luca, you're not gonna stop him.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: But I like to see him take these challenges.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: And I watched a six-minute video on Twitter, on X, whatever you want to call it, of somebody putting together these clips of the Keegan Murray defensive experience.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And one thing I'm still struggling with as a guy that's covering covering the NBA is high how to delegate my time and watching, right?
21:34
SPEAKER_00: So I've tuned into a ton of Sacramento Kings game early in the season, but it's also in a four box, right?
21:40
SPEAKER_00: So when you watch it in a four box, you're missing this here, missing that there.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: And I haven't I hadn't really recognized completely how good of a defender Keegan Murray had looked this year so far.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: So I watched that six minute video and I'm like, man, I've been really missing out.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: So that was one of my points of watching today versus the Dallas Mavericks.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: I want to see Keegan because he's going against the Mavs, and the Mavs.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Second half of a back-to-back, and you could kind of tell, especially come second half.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, but to watch Keegan fight over these screens on Luka Doncic and play pretty solid defense.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, this is something I need to put a pin in and come back to next next game and the game after that and the game after that.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: Because not only is he accepting that S's role, you can tell that cerebrally, cerebrally, is that a word?
22:20
SPEAKER_00: You can tell that he's thinking defense a whole nother level.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: And they need players like that on this roster because that offense is something that we know they pride themselves in, and they got weapons galore, where Malik Monk can come off the bench and average his smooth 16 points per game and dunk on somebody so nasty that it's the ESPN number one play of the week.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: And then one thing we're noticing from um Malik Monk a little bit, and part of this is because they were missing De'Aaron Fox earlier in the season and stuff.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: The playmaking.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: I kind of forget that Malik Monk is only 25 years old and he's still growing as an NBA player.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: His playmaking feels like it's on a whole nother level than it was, let's say, a year ago or two years ago.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: And of course, he's always gonna be in conversations for six men of the year.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, today they were missing Kevin Herter.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: And we don't know if Kevin Herter's gonna be out for game two, five.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: I never really know what injuries are.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a guy that that understands the human body that much when it comes to injuries.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: So when they say spraying this, I'm like, oh, is that two games?
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's ready for next game?
23:14
SPEAKER_00: All right, bad, baby, baby, bad.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, but they hey Chris Dorte.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Chris Dorte jumps into the starting lineup, didn't miss a beat.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: He's cutting off ball.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: He's not doing the same things that Kevin Herter does as far as dribble handoffs and two-man game with the monster Sabonis.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: But I think he played the role really well sliding to that starting lineup.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: I I know I already mentioned Demon Sabonis, but part of the Kennedy Beach podcast is um going all over the place.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: You have to accept it.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: It's just inevitable.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna talk and I'm gonna go all over the place.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite things um in ball, when we talk about watching a star, a superstar, all-star, whatever level player you really feel like calling people, is the players that are a hub, specifically the bigs.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: We've watched, or I've watched in my lifetime as an NBA fan, the center position changed so very much.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: Where even let's say seven years ago, seven years ago, if you were a negative to not so good defensive center, you weren't really looked at as a guy that can play or start at the center position.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Every single team had a guy that was their defensive anchor.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: We actually would sacrifice a shit ton of offense for the sake of the defense because the the protecting the paint is a number one thing.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: And again, it still is.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: It is still a number one thing.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: But we're seeing more and more teams be okay with saying that our center is a negative to average defensive player, but that offense makes up for it.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: And DeMontus Abonis is that we we see guys like him, now Joel Embiid, who's great on both sides, but him, Joel and Bede, of course, Nicole Jokic, Alpha Shagun.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of centers in the association that are used as these hubs on the offensive side of the ball.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And every single one of them is doing it a little bit differently, right?
24:54
SPEAKER_00: The dribble handoff game with DeMontas Abonis, where he fake the handoff, where he goes straight to the basket, he's just stronger than everybody.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: That's him.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Jokic has his own way.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Joel and B has his own way.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: I'll see a double team, and I can now get the skip pass to the corner.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: I just love to see the center position being played through more and more every single year.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: And DeMontis Abonis is one of the best in the league at that, where he is one of the better passing bigs in basketball.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: You would probably say he gets it from his father.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I wasn't around for his father's playing time, but I know what he was capable of.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Mostly because I played a lot of 2K.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Not anymore.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't play a lot of 2K anymore, but mostly because of 2K.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, just seeing a guy like Demont Sabonis, who, again, I think we we call him a bad defender/slash average defender for the center position.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: We're okay with that because of the hub he can be.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And again, I don't want to rehash last year or anything, but the man played through a broken hand slash stumb.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember what it was.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: It was something like that, and um was still really great in that position.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: And now he's relatively healthy.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have a big old shoe print on his sternum from Draymond Green anymore.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: And he's playing great basketball.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: And when him and De'Aaron Fox are both playing great ball, you're not gonna be able to really stop them offensively.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: So I think a lot of people kind of cover the sport or think about the sport in the terms of can they win a championship?
26:13
SPEAKER_00: And if not, not worth talking about.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: That's not what we want to do around here.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to say who's a contender/slash pretender or anything.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: I just want y'all to, again, tune into the Sacramento Kings as much as you can because De'Aaron Fox is a show and the matches a bonus is too.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Now it's time for my favorite segment of the Kitty Bitch podcast, the AskKB section.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: This is where we go onto Twitter or X or in the comment section, use the hashtag A-SKKB, ask a question, and I try my hardest to answer a few of them per episode.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, keep this dialogue alive, okay?
26:48
SPEAKER_00: The first one comes from Set the Line Pod.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Is that a gambling podcast?
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Set the line, it has to be a gambling podcast.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Outside of win-loss record, how do you determine if a rebuild is headed in the right direction?
26:58
SPEAKER_00: I feel like it could be hard to tell sometimes because a lot of individual success can be partially attributed to empty stats.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: It's a very good question.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's a question that I wish it had a set-in-stone answer to.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: But if you look across the association and you ask a hundred different players, is this team successfully rebuilding?
27:20
SPEAKER_00: You're going to get different answers for different people.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has their own priority, right?
27:25
SPEAKER_00: When I think about a team that is rebuilding and whether or not they're doing it in the right way, I'm looking at, okay, year one of the rebuild.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: For okay, the Portland Trailblazers is a perfect example at the moment.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: This is technically year one of the rebuild.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: They trade a game.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: They didn't trade a use of Nurkis.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: The longest tenured players on the team are gone.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: And now they're running out rosters that have an average age of people that cannot drink alcohol.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: This is year number one.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And this is the base, right?
27:50
SPEAKER_00: This is where you look at the young town that you have now and Anthony Simons, who's been around for some time, but Anthony Simons, Shaden Sharp, School Henderson, so on and so forth.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: We try to figure out who of this core right now do we think we should be investing in?
28:03
SPEAKER_00: And this is our baseline.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay, he did this this year.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Great.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Next year, in order for me to say that, oh, this rebuild is going in the right direction, I need one of the pieces that they've invested in, not to jump into all stardom, super stardom, but to look better than the previous year.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: I need them to draft in a good way.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: And I need to see a team that might have won, again, just saying 17 games.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: They were awful.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Be like, okay, now we're a 22-win team.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Again, I know you say besides wins and losses, but that is one of the main things here.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: How are we drafting?
28:37
SPEAKER_00: How are we using the assets that we have?
28:40
SPEAKER_00: Because I think everybody has different philosophies, right?
28:42
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to rebuild, some people want a bunch of draft capital, some people want the actual players, some people want to get fitting pieces around.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: It's never really uh like a black or white thing.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking for the young players that are there.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: How are they progressing?
28:56
SPEAKER_00: How are you drafting?
28:57
SPEAKER_00: What are the vibes?
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Like, are we gonna talk about vibes of one of the next teams?
29:02
SPEAKER_00: But I honestly do believe when I think about rebuilding teams and vibes, it matters.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: When I think about a young Memphis Grizzly team, and this is like year one John Morant, vibes are great.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Vibes are great, you know.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: I think about let's say um current uh Washington Wizards, this is your one of their rebuilds, this is their base, this is their base, this is their base, so I'm not overreacting to it.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Vibes not as great.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Next year, we should see a step up, right?
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Detroit Pistons hold the piston start.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at young players' progression, I'm looking at vibes, and that's that's kind of it.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Let me know in the comment section.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Always a fluid conversation.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: What are you looking for as far as how do we figure out if the rebuild is going the right direction without talking about wins and losses?
29:51
SPEAKER_00: The next one comes from Nil Sue who says, Do you do you rather watch a game focusing on something or someone specific or watch just for vibe?
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, the vibes are coming up like crazy today.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: For vibes, just seeing the ball go through the night.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Greetings from Brazil.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest with you.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: The uh Illinois or Chicago public school system, which is where I spent the first 14 years of my life, failed me.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, only reason I know that that's Brazil is because I've been playing a little bit of FIFA over the last year or two.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the only way I know flags at this point.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: And I don't remember getting taught flags at all.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: It was Stand for the Pledge of Legions.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: That was the only flag I knew.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't know the Canada flag because of and in Mexico, because it's North America.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: But as far as anything over the pond, I didn't know.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Until I start opening up packs in FIFA.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: All right, do you rather watch a game focusing on something of something or someone specific?
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's how I have to watch things now.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Because this has become a full-time gig, right?
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Whether it be this podcast or my other channels, watching with an analytical mindset is the only way I can really do it.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: We're even, again, referring to last night we had Friendsgiving.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, the Bulls were in a close game against the Miami Heat, a game where they started off down 22 to 1.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: They won it.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's watching, and everybody's on the on their toes as DeMarta Rosen's hitting shots or whatever.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to figure out who's guarding who.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Are they switching?
31:15
SPEAKER_00: Who are they hedging?
31:16
SPEAKER_00: Just like I'm trying to do those types of things instead of just watching the game.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like 90% of the people in that room were just watching the game, you know?
31:24
SPEAKER_00: So it's become a blessing and the curse because obviously, because of the way I watch the games, I've been given this platform where y'all watching and listening to me talk about games.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: But it also, I'm not saying taking the fun out of it because I still really enjoy my job.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: But like, I remember when I was younger, talking about like early, let's say early college, my first year of college, before I was like really in tune and tune-tuned.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: It was like strictly off abs.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: It was strictly off vibes.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Kyrie Irvin was on the Boston Celtics.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
31:52
SPEAKER_00: He was sausing.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think about uh dribbles, I ain't think about defensive ratings or uh lineups that were being incorporated.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, Kyrie Irvin can hoop his ass off.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't care about nothing else.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: And I still kind of think that, but I also have to think a little bit more about it because every, oh, this is gonna sound terrible, man, but it's a fact.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Every second of basketball that I consume, I'm thinking about it in terms of content.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: So, what is happening on this play that might be something to talk about?
32:24
SPEAKER_00: 99% of the time, it's nothing.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: But when that 1% hits, it's like we gotta do something, right?
32:32
SPEAKER_00: For example, Lonnie Walker got the dunk on the Philadelphia 76ers, right?
32:37
SPEAKER_00: I knew that dunk was gonna go viral.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: I knew it was a crazy dunk.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: It was five 76ers around him, but I was watching live, so I picked up the phone, I got it to get a picture, get it up on Twitter.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: It's terrible, it's terrible, but that's part of the job that I've signed up for.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: It's been a very long time since I've been able to just watch basketball strictly on the vibes.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: And I'm okay with that.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm okay with that.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy my job.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: I really do what you see me like think about it.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: I looked off to the side, you're like, oh man, Katie, I don't know if Katie really believed that.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm usually focusing on something or something um specifically.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: So uh let me let me try to think of another example of this.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, some other games that happened today.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, oh, today I was curious on like just the very start of this game.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Who was gonna guard Jason Tatum?
33:19
SPEAKER_00: And against the Memphis Grizzlies.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Who was gonna guard Jason Tatum?
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Like that was something I was curious about.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: And later on in the game, it was like John Conchar is guarding Jason Tatum.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't stand a chance.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
33:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they won it.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: The game is still going on as I'm recording this.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't know who wins.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna assume the Celtics won, but I I don't know.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I'm always watching, thinking of something specific, taking notes, whatever, whatever.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: That has been Ask KB.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Remember, hit the comment section, hit me up on X slash Twitter with the hashtag AskKB if you want to see your question be asked or answered.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: We got two more teams to talk about today.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, a small market, or is this a medium-sized market?
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Hold on, hold on, hold on.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: It's a medium-sized market.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Minnesota Timberwolves are nine to three, currently sitting at the number one seed in the Western Conference.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: We talk about vibes again for the seventh time in this episode.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: The vibrating on the Minnesota team.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is something we should we should add to the show.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: When we talk about the team, what is a vibrating?
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Right now for the Timberwolves, it is a 9.6.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: And the only reason it's not a 10, because them boys did help Rudy Gobert when he was getting his ass choked out.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: It's a 9.6.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Everything else is so great.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of things that is contributing to their success so far.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of things contributing to their success.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Continuity is one of the most important things.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: The first 12 games of the year, um, Caranthony Towns and Rudy Gobert have played about 260 minutes together.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: Last year, the entire year, of course, Caranthony Towns missed a ton of the season.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: They played a little bit over 500 minutes together.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: So just through the first 12 games of the season, they've almost dubbed, they've doubled the amount of minutes they played all of last year.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking at what they're doing right now.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, every single game, they're starting to recognize how to play off of each other.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, we talked a couple weeks ago about the Minnesota Timbows and how they were winning games and everything.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: They were current, they were on that what seven-game win streak or whatever it may have been.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, we were talking about how the net rating of Carnthony Towns and Rudigo Bear was like at eight or nine.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: It was crazy high.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Right now I'm sitting around three and a half.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: Still great when you look at last year being a negative.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: Like you take all of that.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that um I was asked actually at the Friends Given, because not all of my friends are deeply into basketball, and but they are aware, aware enough.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: I was asked, um, what's going on with the Timbulls?
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, why you know?
35:41
SPEAKER_00: They know the people, they know Anthony Ellers, they know Carnity Towns, Rudy Gobert, and they know what happened last year.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, what's what's different?
35:47
SPEAKER_00: I there's a lot of things we can contribute to to their success so far.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: One of the things is the different style of play from the guard position, the point guard specifically, right?
35:55
SPEAKER_00: A lot of last year it was D'Angelo Russell.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: And D'Angelo Russell just did not fit the type of guard they necessarily needed.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: They needed a connector, they needed the version of D'Angelo Russell that he's trying to get to now.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: When D'Angelo Russell go into a pregame or preseason interview, he said, I want to be Derek White, like that's the type of player they needed last year.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have it.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: And instead, they flipped D'Angelo Russell to Mike Collie, who was uh older and you know, maybe a little bit worse at the time.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how you rank players, but you could argue that you might have downgraded as far as overall talent goes for fit.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: And Mike Collie, when he was playing, looks good.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: And now you're kind of seeing that the first X amount of games throughout the season, he had one turnover in hella minutes, and then he had four turnovers after that stat went viral on Twitter.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: But he is a maestro with protecting the ball, and he just has a way of I don't know who's the leader in the locker room, whatever, but in between timeouts, when you know that the moment when they're walking to the huddles and stuff, I see a lot of Mike Conley talking and all of those type of things.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: And D'Anzo Russell was one of those dudes that I guess we kind of look at D'Anzo Russell as a offense first, scoring first kind of guard.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: I know he's kind of transitioned to a bunch of different parts in his career from all-star in Brooklyn to now, and with the Lakers, we don't, I don't really know what to call him, but he's just different than what Mike Conley was bringing to the table.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: And another thing that I was kind of thinking when I was answering this question of what's going on with the Minnesota Timberwolves, just thinking, just taking real big picture.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Real big picture.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: The Timberwolves, at this moment in time, have three all-star caliber talents.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Those guys are Anthony Everts, Cartha Townswood, Kat.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: I see you, my boy.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get to it.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: And Rudy Gobert, whether you like it or not, he might be DPOY.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: Three all-star caliber players.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: And then they have two all-defensive caliber players, and I'm counting that Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking across the association.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: What other teams have that?
37:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, they have three all-star-ish players.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Again, everything is a roller coaster.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Cardinal town started off terrible last five games.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: He's looked amazing.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: He might go back to the terror.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: How many other teams across the association have three all-star caliber players and simultaneously have two all-defensive players?
38:03
SPEAKER_00: It's not many.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: And the comment the comment section is fluid, of course.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: There's only two other ones, in my opinion.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: The Boston Celtics have that.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: With Derek White and Drew Holiday um being the defensive guys and all-stars, you pick them.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: And you can pick three three random players on the team.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: They might be all-star qualifications.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: And then the Milwaukee Bucks, who have.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Ooh, wait a minute.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: The Bucs don't fit anymore.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: Don't got three all-star caliber players.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: Do we count Chris?
38:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we counted Chris.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: He's still on the minutes restriction and stuff.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: For the sake of the conversation, for the sake of the conversation, let's add him.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: The defensive guys, of course, Giannis and Brooke Lopez, and the All-Stars would be Dame.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: I can't get myself.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: It's been over a year.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: I can't get myself.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: All right, so let's just say that the Minnesota Timboys are in the elite class of two.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Them and the Cavaliers.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the Celtics.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Cavaliers were a team not thought about, though.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: The Cavaliers were a team I did think about.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: On the all-defensive side being, again, these are just all-defensive caliber players, not saying that they're going to make the team, but Evan Mobley and Jared Allen.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: And then you could say that Deer Scarland, who started off struggling, but has had a couple good games back to back now.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Donovan Mitchell, and let's say Moe.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: But even do you think EmoB is in conversation for All-Star this year?
39:22
SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just saying it's not a lot of teams that fit three all-star talents and two all-defensive teams, two all-defensive players.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: So it kind of makes sense.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: You need people that can score.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: You need people that can stop you from scoring.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: They kind of got a recipe for that.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: Again, I know a lot of people look at things in its entirety.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: Can they contend?
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Can they not contend?
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Can they a championship team?
39:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't really care about that at the moment.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm enjoying what we're watching for Minnesota basketball.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: And interesting stat, um, a couple interesting stats that I picked up.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: Their offensive rating versus top 10 defensive teams is only 22nd.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Now it's a small sample size.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: They have not played against a lot of teams that have top 10 defenses right now, but just something to think about for the foreseeable future, right?
39:59
SPEAKER_00: Will they be able to score against really good defenses?
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Because the offense thing is the thing that's not struggling, but it's like league average.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: The defense is stellar, right?
40:07
SPEAKER_00: The defense is the thing they hang their hats on.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: But the offense for the most part has been, let's say, average.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: And against top 10 defenses, they haven't been great.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: But the silver lining to that is uh their defense versus top 10 offense is third.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: They've been amazing.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: They've been amazing in stopping.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you saw that against the Boston Celtics that one game.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: They've been amazing and clamping up some of the best offensive teams of basketball.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, you know, it's like this team is defensive mind, the team, and the offense is starting to crank up because Carl Anthony Towns over the last five games has been as like you remember, everybody's gonna talk about this, right?
40:39
SPEAKER_00: Well, Carl Anthony Towns was the GM survey, they asked if you were able to build your team around any player in the association.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Carl Anthony Towns got the number one votes back in what, 2019, 2018?
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Something like that.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't too long ago.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: Nobody gave him a vote right now, but the last five games, that offensive juggernaut that we had seen for the first half of his career, the first part of his career, looks there again.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: And in this game versus the Pelicans, they were down by double-digit points going into the fourth quarter.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: And I watched Carl Anthony Towns take over a game, and not just in his score, and that is eye-opening.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: That is eye-opening because the scorer was there for sure.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: But we saw him, okay, with first play out of the fourth quarter, they're down by, I think, 12 points to the Pelicans.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: The Pelicans are not playing Zion Williams.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's important to say, but I'm just gonna say it for the sake of the people at home.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, and the start of the fourth quarter, they start off in the zone with a little two, three zone action.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's divvy it up a little bit.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: Cardinal Towns gets to the middle of the paint, boom, gets the ball.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: He he reacts to the point where the the center, who is Jonas Valentinis, has to make a decision.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: Do I guard Rudy Gobert?
41:42
SPEAKER_00: Do I guard Cardian Towns?
41:43
SPEAKER_00: Cardinal Towns hits the corner that is wide open.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Mike Conley, just because he's so much of a threat right there.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: The fake to the shot, the fake to the L-Oop made the corner guy come in.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: Mike Conley, boom.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Very next play down.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: He gets the middle.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: And now this defense is overcompensating.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: And Jonas Valentinous comes up too much and he throws the lobster to go bear.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, whoa, things are looking, things are looking different.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: And then late in this game, this had to be a minute left, minute and a half, two minutes left.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: He gets a one more pass.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: And Carl Anthony Towns has the opportunity to take the shot to tie the game.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: And what did he do?
42:19
SPEAKER_00: He won more to the best player on the team, Anthony Edwards.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: And Anthony Edwards hit the shot.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, whoa.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Whoa, Cat.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: We know that you can score.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: But if you're starting to do this more on this team, dangerous.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: Dangerous.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: Yo big shoe.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: Like he, I don't know what size cards in the town as well, but I feel the man wears a 22.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: Every time he's doing something, the shoes just the first thing I'm looking at because it just looked too crazy.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: But I just I saw him take over that game.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: And I have to talk about his defensive buy-in because one of the reasons why Tim Connolly uh made that trade.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: We made it the trade to bring in Rudy Gobier for all of the draft capital, was because they did not believe in Carnthony Towns as a defensive center.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: And we had a seven-year sample, six-year sample size to say, hey, well, Carnthony Towns is the anchor of our defense.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to get rebounds.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: And they're better rebounding this year than last year, but it's still not amazing.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to get rebounds.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: Our paint defense is going to be Swiss cheese.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to trade for one of the most impactful center defensive players in the league, right?
43:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, and now he's buying into the defensive side.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: When he is playing center by himself with Naj Reed, you know, they they do the double big thing most of the time.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: The defense is still good.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's not great, but it's still good.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: And I'm watching the individual buy in from Carl Anthony Towns.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Now it's not flawless, you know what I'm saying?
43:44
SPEAKER_00: But it's better than what we saw last year when he was coming off all the injuries.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: Like you remember, he missed pretty much the entire offseason and then got injured again in November.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: Last year was just an odd year for Carl Anthony Towns.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: So I'm happy to see him have a full offseason where he played feeble ball, looked pretty good, to have the strong.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Short start of the season where he was struggling for him to really, really get back into it is just great.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: And Anthony Ewitts is a stud.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I need to say that, but I want to get my flowers as much as I can.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: The connecting piece of Kyle Anderson is still so beautiful.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: For this team to have a guy like him that can basically switch army knife on this roster where he plays a lot of different roles depending on the circumstances is great.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: Nikhil Alexander Walker as a role player has stepped up a good amount.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: And I was buying Nikil Alexander's stock because of FIBA.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: And he obviously not the version of him that he's playing for Team Canada, but he is playing great basketball for them.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: And this, again, the vibes are a 9.6.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: And only if they would have helped that man Rudy Gobier, this could have been a 10 out of 10 on the vibrator.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: He's got notification that I'm missing a double overtime game between the Suns and the Utah Jazz.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: So that's fun.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna always miss something live.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: That's that's fine.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: I'll go back, rewatch it, whatever.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: The last thing I want to talk about is one of the worst watches in all the association.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: I think you're gonna argue, and it's not the worst watch.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: It's not the worst watch, but it's it's the bottom two.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: The worst watch for me, just my personal opinion, is the Washington Wizards.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: And the Detroit Pistons are 29th in the association on my watchability scale.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, this team is terrible to watch, man.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: I need y'all to internalize how tough it is to be on an 11-game losing streak in the middle of November.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: We're not even a month into the year, into the season, and they are on a double-digit losing streak.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: They are 2-12.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's bad.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: And I feel for Pistons fans, because I'm gonna read y'all something.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: Pistons fans, I know you know this all too well, but for the for the rest of the consumers out there, they had a 17-win year last year, a 23-year win year the year before that, then 20, then 20, then they were 500.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: They were 500 the year before that, then 39, then 37.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: They have not been above 500 team since 2015-2016.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: Hello?
46:06
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what happened that year?
46:08
SPEAKER_00: That is the year of the 3-1 comeback in the finals.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: I had just graduated high school.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: I am 27 now.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: Like that is since 2008.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: That 2015-2016 season is the only year they've had of above 500 since 2008.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: What was going on in 2008?
46:34
SPEAKER_00: Hell, I don't know.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: I do not know.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: That's how long ago it's been.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: And now, again, we're talking about a rebuild of one, two, three, four, five, fifth year of the rebuild, and there has not been progression.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: I've been seeing a lot of discourse uh specifically about Cade Cunningham.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: And here's where I land on the Cade Cunningham.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: Is he good?
46:55
SPEAKER_00: Is he not?
46:56
SPEAKER_00: Spectrum.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: I land in the I don't know.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: It is impossible for me to watch this team play and figure out whether or not Cade Cunningham as a player is worth building your franchise around.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: Because remember, this is the first overall pick you know you talk about.
47:13
SPEAKER_00: This is a guy that when you get the, when you get the first overall pick, your mindset is this is the savior of our city, this is the savior of our organization.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: And they have not put Cade in a position where he can play his best ball.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, he's not getting away from the criticism.
47:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that I can't criticize the man, but when you have a team with negative spacing like he's playing with, how can you expect him to be a positive player?
47:38
SPEAKER_00: How can we expect to dissect his game when he has no shooters?
47:43
SPEAKER_00: They looked at Kay Cunningham.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: And I remember specifically on draft night, they were like, Kay Cunningham is like a smaller Luka Doncic.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: And they meant like they didn't mean in height, they mean like in weight.
47:56
SPEAKER_00: It was just crazy.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: Where he could be the engine of your offense and he could get downhill, get to his spots, and just create whatever, whatever.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: He has never, ever played a game with positive spacing in his life.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, it makes sense when you see the stats of who's taking the most difficult shots in your association and Kanye's top five.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: It makes sense because when you watch this team play, as I tried to do today, they gave 140 plus points to the Raptors who haven't been able to score for the majority of this season.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: Let me see what that did to their offensive rating.
48:32
SPEAKER_00: Because I owe him the Raptors are now 22nd.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: I promise you they won 22nd before tonight.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: You let him score 144 points.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: But when I was watching, before I decided this is getting too much for me, this man Cade saw three bodies most of the time.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: And he had to decide to take step back three-point jump shots, and his three-point shot is not the thing that he's great at.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: Because it's hard to get to your spots when the other team is not guarding your teammates.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to get to the basket when you're seeing multiple people all the time.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: Trey Weaver, I praised him.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: Asar Thompson looks amazing as a defensive talent, amazing as a prospect.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm not doubting that.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: Marcus Sasser looks amazing as a late first-round pick.
49:19
SPEAKER_00: But somehow, as much as I've praised him over the years for their draft thing, with Jalen Durin, who's been out, but still, and of course Kay Cunningham being the end-all be all number one pick, they haven't been able to put it together.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: And they've taken shots, they've taken swings, they're 4 and 30 something since they traded Sadiq Bay.
49:42
SPEAKER_00: I know that's a stat that went viral and stuff, but it's a tough watch.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: And I look at a guy like Kay Cunningham, who, again, maybe the front office doesn't know.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they don't.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: But if you believe in Kay Cunningham to be your guy, the guy you're building your franchise around, the guy that you want to take you to the promised land eventually, you have to build a team around him that fits his strengths and maybe cover up his weaknesses.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: Kind of seeing that in real time, the Dallas Mavericks.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: They put a bunch of shooters around Luca.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: They put some defensive-oriented wings around him.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: It ain't looking perfect, but but the like the blueprint is there.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: Right?
50:23
SPEAKER_00: You look at some of the other young players across, young star players around the association, where their team has dedicated their time to them.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: Like even Trey Young.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: Trey Young, who's having a bad shooting year, you look at the roster they built around him, they built that for trade.
50:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, we don't have uh a stopper in the guard position.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: DeJounte Murray made an all-defensive team, the youngest all-defensive player of all time.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna trade three first-round picks for him.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: Trey Young needs a lob threat.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get Clink Capella and we're also gonna draft another lob threat for the second unit.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he needs shooter.
50:56
SPEAKER_00: Sadiq Bey is out here for nothing.
50:57
SPEAKER_00: Bet we'll drive, we'll go get Sadiq Bey.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: He's having a down year at the moment, but we believe in him as a three-point shooter.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: Like they're trying, even though, again, it's been success here, not success here.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: You can't say that the team around Trey Young is hindering his success, right?
51:12
SPEAKER_00: Who are some other teams?
51:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Suns have done an amazing job.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, they also just brought at Kevin Arras.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's a bad example.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: The OKC Thunder have done an amazing job of building around Shea Gills Alexander, right?
51:24
SPEAKER_00: We talk about them having negative space, and now they add us a pieces.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, the spacing is one of the best in the league.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: Like we could go on and on and on.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: The Sacramento Kings, and this is, I'm not saying this is the perfect trade, because I still think there are some things wrong with the trade.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: But they had to make a decision between Tyler's Halliburton and De'Aaron Fox.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: They picked De'Aaron and said, hey, we're gonna trade this guy who might be a future all-NBA player for a guy that fits him more.
51:47
SPEAKER_00: And Dematus Sabonis, we're gonna make our first all uh our first postseason appearance in 20 years.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: And then the Indiana Pacers get Tyrese Halliburton.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: They say, Hey, you like to run, you like to shoot?
51:56
SPEAKER_00: Bet we got that for you.
51:59
SPEAKER_00: Kay Cunningham is a first overall pick that hasn't been given the luxury of that.
52:05
SPEAKER_00: You know?
52:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Kenny, he's gotta, he's gonna play to say to say that he he earned a team being built around him.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: To say, how about, okay, let's say we're not building around him.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: Can we build a team that can hit a jump shot?
52:20
SPEAKER_00: Forget forget about Kay Cunningham at this point.
52:22
SPEAKER_00: No, forget about Kay Cunningham.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: Can we have any?
52:26
SPEAKER_00: Any shooters?
52:28
SPEAKER_00: One, bro.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: Kevin Knox ended up on this team, and he's been like the saving grace.
52:33
SPEAKER_00: Kevin Knox.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: It's bad, bro.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: It's bad.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: And Monty comes into this as the highest paid coach in NBA history at the moment.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Mike Malone.
52:42
SPEAKER_00: He also got his bag.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: And I was so excited for Monty Williams to go there because they have been missing culture.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: They've been missing great coaching.
52:49
SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm not I'm not grading Monty Williams and his experience over 14 games of his NBA career here in Dallas or in Detroit.
52:58
SPEAKER_00: But he immediately said, hey, we need to build a defensive identity.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start Kay Cunningham with uh with Killian Hayes.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: We know Killian, even though he's had his moments here and there, it's one of the worst offensive guards in basketball that are getting started minutes.
53:13
SPEAKER_00: Can't even argue that.
53:14
SPEAKER_00: The numbers say it.
53:15
SPEAKER_00: But hey, they want to build a defensive identity.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: Are we ever gonna like put Cade out there with a bunch of shooters?
53:23
SPEAKER_00: Mighty Williams said in a pregame interview or post-game interview after a loss that hey, okay, we gonna we're gonna uh get some good shooting around Cade today.
53:30
SPEAKER_00: Kevin Ox inserted into the lineup.
53:34
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
53:36
SPEAKER_00: And then one thing that was surprising to me, not this game against the Raptors.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: It was the game previously, and I and forgive me, I don't have it in the notes.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: The game they played right before playing against the Toronto Raptors.
53:46
SPEAKER_00: Asar Thompson played two minutes in the second half.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: Two minutes.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't because they were like, oh, we in this game, we want to set the rook.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: They they weren't.
53:56
SPEAKER_00: It's bad, man.
53:58
SPEAKER_00: It's bad.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: And I feel for Pistons fans, because again, I look at Jalen Duran, Asar Thompson, Kay Cunningham, hell, even Jaden Ivey, and I say they have some fun, good pieces around here, around them, but not being able to win a basketball game or lose or giving.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: Now this game ended up being close, but they were down by 40.
54:17
SPEAKER_00: Like it's not good, man.
54:19
SPEAKER_00: It's not good.
54:19
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know the answer to it.
54:21
SPEAKER_00: You don't throw gasoline on something like this.
54:25
SPEAKER_00: You don't say go trade for the Zach Levine ones to send my message.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: You don't trade for Zach Levine right now because y'all suck.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: He might, he's gonna improve the spacing or whatever, but what are you gonna win?
54:36
SPEAKER_00: Four more games than you thought?
54:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the direction is.
54:39
SPEAKER_00: But the Pistons gotta figure it out.
54:41
SPEAKER_00: They gotta figure out how to turn the curb on this rebuild.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: All right, all right.
54:53
SPEAKER_00: That was that was longer than we really want the Kidney Beach and podcast episodes to be, but I had a lot to talk about about a bunch of different teams.
54:59
SPEAKER_00: Let me know what you think about the smaller market wrap-up.
55:02
SPEAKER_00: A lot of teams obviously couldn't make it.
55:05
SPEAKER_00: You got plenty of episodes.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of that, I don't know if I mentioned at the top of the show, we will not be dropping this Thursday because it is Thanksgiving.
55:11
SPEAKER_00: And I know a lot of people are traveling and so on and so forth.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: I am in that group and I will not be around to give up, give y'all an episode.
55:17
SPEAKER_00: So we will be back at this same time next week for another episode of the Kenny Beach Podcast.
55:21
SPEAKER_00: Leave five stars, leave a like.
55:22
SPEAKER_00: If you got to this point, you had to enjoy something, I would assume.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: So leave a like, and I will see y'all in a week.