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Naz Reid On Why The Wolves Are Playing Great · Small Ball with Kenny Beecham

0:00
SPEAKER_01: So, like, for me, it was more like Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: Like, those are two guys that I really like.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and DeMarcus Cousin.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: Those are three guys that I really like wanted to be like uh growing up.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, those guys are like my favorite players by far.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Kenny Beachum podcast.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: We got a jam-packed episode for y'all today.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna talk about some things going on across the association, but we also have a very special guest.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: Naj Reed of the Minnesota Timberwolves stopped by gave us a few minutes of his time during the break.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: Let's say break.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: There's no basketball games on on Sunday.
0:38
SPEAKER_02: We got the in-season tournament tomorrow and so on and so forth.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: It's just weird for us to be in December and have a day without no hoops.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: I didn't expect that.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know what was happening until I woke up this morning and looked at the schedule and there was nothing there.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: So I want to say shout out to Naj Reed for stopping by.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: A very insightful, very cool dude.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
0:55
SPEAKER_02: Let's just let's just talk to Naj Reed, and we could talk other things after the interview.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: Now I want to welcome in Minnesota Tim Wolves, big Nas Reed.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the show, man.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Appreciate you having me.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: It's dope, it's dope, it's dope.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: You got a group of fans that have been hounding me to have you on my show after all of my tweets in the replies is just when is Nas coming on?
1:22
SPEAKER_02: And we we finally made it happen.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: We had to.
1:27
SPEAKER_02: So I want to start off uh talking about the season because obviously you guys are you guys are rolling.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: 15-4, number one defense.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: Everything is looking good.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: Even the last couple games without Anthony Edwards, you guys have put it together and ended up winning a bunch.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: What is the difference between this year and last year when you see uh your success?
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'll say maturity.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh just you know how to win games and you know, everybody having the same goal, and uh most likely like, you know, when you have those same, you know, ambitions and things of that nature, everything's gonna unfold and come together.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: And um I think that's that's like the biggest thing for us right now, just having those uh those moments where we complete complete games and uh you know take care of business.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: So last night's game uh was one that I watched the entire thing.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: It was a good one, y'all did y'all thing.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh the the big fellas, all three of y'all had double digits and 20 plus points.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: It was the first time that y'all have ran like a real lineup and minutes that matter with you, Kat, and Rudy Gobert.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: I know you had a garbage time minute here or there.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: What what was that like to see y'all three bigs?
2:30
SPEAKER_02: I mean, positionless basketball at this point.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's to me, it's kind of like I don't really notice it because like I'm kind of like a person who plays all over the floor, like, you know, uh with them on the floor, you know, kind of without them on the floor.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: So I'm kind of like posit positionless.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: So it's like I'm kind of like just feeding and reading off of whatever, whoever's in front of me, you know, uh, and whatever they're doing.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, it's definitely like kind of normal to me, but at the same time, it's just like it's special because you don't see three bigs, you know?
3:01
SPEAKER_01: So like on the court at the same time.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: So it's definitely different, but to me it's a little bit normal.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: Because I also we also practice that, you know.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: So you you mentioned um you being just a little bit different.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: Where did that come from?
3:14
SPEAKER_02: You're one of the few guys in the league that are considered a big man, but put the ball on the floor, can in and out between the legs, cross over.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: You got all of the bat.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: How did you end up developing that as a big?
3:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, I mean, I've always had it since I was younger.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, I've I've played with guards my whole, like, you know, my whole career, uh, basketball-wise.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: And um, I've always wanted to do the things that they do.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: So I'm working out with them, uh, you know, doing the drills that they do, shooting with shooting whatever shots, they shoot, stepbacks, you know, things and all of those type of moves.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: So I'm just trying to learn what they what they're learning and you know, trying to get it a little bit of an all-around game, uh, using some of their moves and things like that into my game.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, kind of it kind of is kind of pretty much helping me.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm got bigger guys who I can, you know, blow by or, you know, somewhere in that nature, and then uh smaller guys where I can use some of the you know bigger men, big men moves in the inside of the post.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: I think I'm a little bit older than you, but we grew up in the same like era.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: Who were you watching to like model your game after?
4:15
SPEAKER_01: So, like, for me, it was more like Kevin Durant, Joel and B.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: Like those are two guys that I really like.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and DeMarcus Cousins.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: Those are the three guys that I really like wanted to be like uh growing up.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, those guys are like my favorite players by far.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: Did you get to um play against Boogie?
4:30
SPEAKER_02: Because I know you've been in the League for this is your number five.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: So did you did you catch the tail end of Boogie?
4:35
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, like my second year.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think I I got him, I got a I got a piece of it in my sec, my first and my second year.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, not too much because, you know, obviously we only play uh a certain amount of times, but I think uh when he was in Denver.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, more of his backup.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: So you didn't catch him during his prime when he was really out there doing his thing.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: So now you mentioned Joel Embiid and KD.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: It's gotta be kind of surreal to now have to like guard them a couple times a year, right?
5:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: And then like sometimes it's like at the same time, it's like I gotta guard these people as people I looked up to, and then at the same time, it's like, all right, I'm here to work, like I gotta like lock in because this, this, this is an all-star, you feel me?
5:16
SPEAKER_01: So it's like the kind of two kind of both uh the same thing.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: Before you were Nas Reed uh of the Minnesota Timbows, a lot of people knew you as Big Jelly, a part of the Jelly Fam experience.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: Was there a lot of pressure?
5:29
SPEAKER_02: Because you guys were going viral every single day.
5:31
SPEAKER_02: Was there pressure to turn that into like an actual NBA career?
5:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, I think it's pretty much pressure on anybody, but definitely like a group of kids who, you know, kind of started a movement to, you know, persuade, persuade kids to kind of like, you know, lay up the ball a certain way.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that, you know, when you got all that hype around it, it's kind of like you have to do something with it, you know?
5:56
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, uh definitely to say it was a lot of pressure, but at the same time, you kind of just gotta learn how to just play basketball, do what you do within that hype.
6:03
SPEAKER_02: How's the rest of the guys doing from JellyFam?
6:05
SPEAKER_02: Everybody doing all right?
6:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, everybody's cool.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I speak to um, I actually have a group chat, a group chat.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: I speak to them uh often, so that's pretty good to you know communicate them and see what they're going through and how how they're how their situations are uh unfolding.
6:19
SPEAKER_02: There is uh you're in an elite class of like, well, first of all, an elite class, if there's only two players in the league right now that are 50-40-90, do you know who it is other than yourself?
6:28
SPEAKER_01: I think it's Chet, maybe.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: It's it's your boy Car Anthony Towns.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: Both of y'all on the same team.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: Oh, for real?
6:33
SPEAKER_02: After last night, he had 50-40-90.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so both of y'all are doing that.
6:37
SPEAKER_02: It makes no sense, bro.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: It really does make no sense.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, I want to talk about playing alongside those dudes.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: Uh, last year was the first year of Rudy Gobier coming to the team.
6:46
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, it wasn't as great as most people anticipated.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: You guys make the playoff appearance, but this year obviously a next step.
6:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, what is it like kind of experiencing his defensive impact firsthand?
6:57
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's huge.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: Like, obviously, you don't want to you won't want to get beat off the dribble or anything like that, but you know, things happen in this league.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, you're playing against a lot of the top talent in the world, so you know, things happen, situations happen, but you got a guy like Rudy, you can protect the paint, protect the rim, how he does, man.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: It's like it's like a blessing because it's like, you know, you you could get you could get yelled at it for a situation, but he kind of comes in and saved the day.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of it's kind of cool to have that.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: I I've been kind of made fun of across NBA Twitter and stuff because I'm a big Rudy Gobert fan.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: And obviously, there's no flash to his game, right?
7:29
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
7:30
SPEAKER_02: He's not beating people off the dribble.
7:32
SPEAKER_02: It's a lot of lobs, a lot of defensive anchoring.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: So I feel kind of vindicated after the last couple years, now that y'all are doing y'all thing and he he's towards the anchor of that.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm guessing you would say also he's probably the DPOI, right?
7:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure, 100%.
7:46
SPEAKER_02: And then the other side, I got uh I got Anthony Ewitts on the podcast during All-Star Weekend.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: We ran, we were in Utah and he was a cool ass dude.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: What is it like with him in the locker room 24-7?
7:57
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's jokes, jokes, jokes.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: It's hilarious.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: But it's it's it's not like jokes to be cool.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: That's just him.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, that's just that's just his swag.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: That's what he does.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: Like, that's just him.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: So it's like it's definitely cool to have the like, you know, no, that's crazy because like those two joke uh in the locker room and things like that.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: So it's like definitely cool to have that that vibe in there.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: It's like not too sh it's not too like strict or anything.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: It's definitely a you know, a cool, chill vibe for everybody.
8:24
SPEAKER_02: I um before we get get you out of here, because I know you're a busy man, it seemed like you're getting home from that that long road trip.
8:29
SPEAKER_02: Um, have you heard of the game that's called that's like rank something without knowing what's coming next?
8:37
SPEAKER_02: I haven't.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna give you five different NBA nicknames.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: Of course, yours, Big Jelly, is one of the best in the league.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna give you five different nicknames of big men across the association, and without knowing the one that I'm telling you next, I need you to rank them one through five.
8:52
unknown: Okay.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: So the first one is your teammate, the French Rejection.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: One through five, what do you think that just the nickname itself?
9:01
SPEAKER_02: What do you think the nickname will rank?
9:03
SPEAKER_01: French rejection.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm saying.
9:08
SPEAKER_02: And these are all basketball reference.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: I okay, okay, yeah.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: I ain't like anything, I'm about to say.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: Um, the the the next one, the next one is the block nest monster.
9:19
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm now I'm I'll put this in my notes.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: I don't even remember who it is who this is for.
9:25
SPEAKER_02: The Blockness Monster.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm gonna quickly Google it just so I can double check it.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: That's probably going five.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: You ask me, I ain't gonna lie.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: That's it's Mitchell Robinson.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: That's who it is.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: It's Mitchell Robinson, the blackness monster.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: That could go five.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you got three nicknames left, and you're one, two, and three spots.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: The next one is Splash Mountain.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: Splash Mountain.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh, probably like probably like third.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: I put that third.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: That's not too bad.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, okay.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Brooke Lopez.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: It's yes, it's alright.
9:59
SPEAKER_02: You know, I ain't when when they first started it, I was a little skeptical, but the the brother can shoot.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he he can straight up shoot as a seven-footer.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: We got two left.
10:07
SPEAKER_02: The next one is Vucci Mane from Nikola Vusevich.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Nah, that one might gotta go third.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: That one might gotta go third.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Nah, I'll take Splash Mount in a second.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: Alright, we'll switch it up.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: And then your last one is Big Honey from Nikola Jokic.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Big Honey is crazy, but I that's gonna go one.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: I take one because Jokic, I'll give you one.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so all of those are kind of big mid to bad.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: Is there some nicknames across the league that you actually rock with?
10:44
SPEAKER_01: Slim Reaper.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh Slim Reaper's claim.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
10:49
SPEAKER_02: Ant-Man's nice.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm a it's kind of one, but Kat is kind of one.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: Um you rocking with Slow Mo?
11:02
SPEAKER_02: Slow Mo was the nickname?
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Slow-mo.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Slow Mo.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: Um I guess I didn't realize that Slim Reap is like top three of all time.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all times.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Got to.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Splash Bros.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: This collectively the Splash Bros.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to think of other, like like they got like a freak time now for Dame and Giannis.
11:23
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I'm rocking with freak time.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: I think it might take some time.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm trying to think of other duo names.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: It it don't happen often because it feels like duos don't last very long in the league no more.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: Um, the the last thing I want to ask you about before we let you go is the art of being a sixth man, right?
11:39
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of great six men throughout history, but not a lot of them end up being bigs.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: You got like you right now, who's in the running for six men of the year, and then like Montres Harold who won it a few years ago.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: Right.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: What is your mindset going into every game as the sixth man versus like I guess before that, you were a starter every place you've ever played.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, I mean, I'm going into, you know, either change the game in positive uh uh outcome where it's though, like say the first group couldn't, you know, they didn't have that push.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: I gotta come in there and make that push.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: And then um, that's to say we do have that push.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: I gotta keep the push.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: So like the mindset is always gonna be like going in there to put in work no matter what.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm always trying to like, I'm always, I'm always supposed to have like a positive impact on the game.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: So like that's kind of like how how I view it.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, just having that positive push towards the team, whether it's you know, getting us back into the game or keeping the lead.
12:35
SPEAKER_02: I feel that, I feel that.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, Nas, we appreciate you taking the time, man.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: Enjoy this day off.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: I guess how many days y'all got off?
12:42
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're gonna play again until Wednesday, but today's gonna be like an actual off day.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: But other than that, we're back in the gym.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: That's love, that's love.
12:49
SPEAKER_02: All right, that's been Nas Reed.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: We appreciate them stopping by.
12:52
SPEAKER_02: Let's get into the rest of the show.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Nas Reed again for stopping by the show.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you did enjoy that, be sure to leave a like and let us tell these people to like, hey man, you should come into the Kenny Meets and podcast.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
13:08
SPEAKER_02: The fans love it.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: And they do, man.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: What I told Nas Reed about people under my tweets, that's real.
13:14
SPEAKER_02: That is real.
13:15
SPEAKER_02: Nas Reed has like, and I don't mean this in a negative way, like a cult following in Minnesota, because that's how uh like good of a player he is and how cool of a personality he is.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: So it definitely, definitely makes sense.
13:26
SPEAKER_02: But they've been asking for a long time.
13:28
SPEAKER_02: We finally made it happen.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: Um, I want to talk about some things going on across the association, be you know, while I still got you here.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: The number one thing is something I may have talked about before on this podcast, but anytime something is like broken that I'm paying for, paying full price for, I have to talk about it, especially if the platform that I'm talking about it is directly associated with it.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: NBA League Pass has fallen off.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: It just has.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: And I'm so very disappointed because obviously I paid full price before the season started.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: I know some of y'all get that Black Friday deal or might get that halfway through the season deal.
14:05
SPEAKER_02: I paid full price before the season started.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: Super excited because you know, this is the job.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: Watch hoops, talk about hoops, and so on and so forth.
14:12
SPEAKER_02: Last night we talked to Nas Reed about his game against the Charlotte Hornets very briefly.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: That was a game I almost missed because Leaf has.
14:21
SPEAKER_02: Well, there's times where I'm watching one singular game and I want to add it to a two-box and it won't let me.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: There's times I'm in a two-box and I wanted to go to a one-box, it won't let me.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: Yesterday, one thing that happened is I would click on a game and the watch now button is completely gone.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: Completely gone.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: And yesterday I was like, okay, that's the way it's gonna be.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: I guess I'll hang out with the family.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: Like, if if the NBA league pass is telling me I've watched enough ball, okay, I'll come back tomorrow and watch it.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of what I did.
14:51
SPEAKER_02: Next morning, I come around like, all right, let me watch the possessions of um, it was the Utah Jazz game.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: That was the one I was interested in.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: It was two of the worst teams in the league on that, but I saw Taylor Hendrix was active.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, hey, I want to see my boy Taylor Hendrix too.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, let me go back and re-watch that.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to go watch specifically his possessions, and it's gone.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: And the people that make montages slash YouTube videos using NBA footage, everybody's looking at it.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: It's like, what are we supposed to do?
15:17
SPEAKER_02: So it's a quick rant about the NBA.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: And I'm saying that I just did a shoe with the NBA last week.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
15:22
SPEAKER_02: Those, the the people that I talked to, everything, they were so great, but just the product in itself, if I'm rating it one through ten, it's like a smooth four and a half.
15:30
SPEAKER_02: And I'm paying for at least a seven.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: You feel me?
15:33
SPEAKER_02: At that price, I need to get at least a seven on a day-to-day basis.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: I understand random bugs here or there.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: It's impossible for that not to be the case.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: Hell, you've watched this podcast and my audio wasn't great, and that was because of me.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, the product ain't always gonna be 10 out of 10.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: Can I get a can I get a sim?
15:48
SPEAKER_02: Can I get one, can I get one night of a 10 out of 10?
15:52
SPEAKER_02: Guess not.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: There's a few things across the association that was very confusing to me, right?
15:57
SPEAKER_02: There was uh Wolch going on to, I don't know if it was his podcast, ESPN, whatever, whatever, talking about Zach Levine.
16:03
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not just talking about Zach Levine because Al Kenny is a Bulls fan, so on and so forth.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm talking about Zach Levine because he is the one player actively on the market.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: You know, we can speculate about Pascal Siakam.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: We can speculate about Jeremy Grant and so on.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: We know that Zach Levine is currently on the market, they're fielding calls, they're calling people.
16:23
SPEAKER_02: And Woj said, hey, there is no market for Zach Levine.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: And I was taken aback because I don't see that as a fact.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: And listen, Woj, I know who you tapped into.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: I know who Shams is tapped into.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: Shout out to my brother Shams.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: I know the sources of these people.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: And it seems as though Woj's sources are more team friendly.
16:47
SPEAKER_02: While Shams is more personal with the agents and so on and so forth.
16:51
SPEAKER_02: Just look at the reports and look at how things are reported between the two.
16:54
SPEAKER_02: You'll kind of get the idea of what side of the coin you're getting when they're starting to report.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: Zach Levine having no market is crazy.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm not out here saying that he deserves to field four first-round picks, three young players.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: But no first-round picks is insane.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: Now, a part of the support, he mentioned the contract, which I think I could I could be unbiased here and say that the contract of Zach Levine is a it's a lot of money guaranteed for a long time for a player that I think we can recognize he's an all-star level talent.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: Like that at the bare minimum, he's an all-star level talent.
17:23
SPEAKER_02: This year he hasn't played at an all-star level other than the 50-point game.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: He's had a few games here or there, but for the most part, he's not playing his best basketball.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: So I acknowledge the fact that the contract is large and it's a lot of money to be tied into a player that if you're trading for Zach Levine, more likely than not, you're not trading for him to be your number one or sometimes even your number two.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: So, do I want to trade anything to pay that much amount of money for a number three option?
17:47
SPEAKER_02: I understand that.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: But the ideas of whether or not he can impact winning has always bothered me.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: Not specifically attached to Zach Levine, but just in general in the history of this game.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: How many times do we need to see an example of a player that has been deemed empty stats, empty calories player, see them go to an organization, a team that really puts them in the right position to be successful and then completely get washed away.
18:17
SPEAKER_02: Zach's old teammate, Andrew Wiggins.
18:20
SPEAKER_02: Now, listen, Andrew Wiggins is not having a good year.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: Do not get me wrong, he's having one of the worst years of his NBA career, if not the worst year of his NBA career.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: So I'm not talking about as of 2023.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: But when Wiggins played in Minnesota, most of us recognized that Wiggins could get himself a bucket, but he was missing a lot.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: He was missing the intensity on defense.
18:40
SPEAKER_02: He had all the tools in the world to go get some rebounds, to play great defense, and he never really put that together in Minnesota.
18:47
SPEAKER_02: Then a trade happened where you ended up with the Golden State Warriors.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: And I remember vividly when that trade happened, I'm like, whoa, Wiggins?
18:54
SPEAKER_02: Warriors?
18:55
SPEAKER_02: Does he even fit the things that they want to do?
18:57
SPEAKER_02: Little did we know a change of scenery going into an organization that historically been able to get the best out of a lot of players, turned Wiggins to a player that had the idea of empty calories.
19:08
SPEAKER_02: Good guy, bad team guy, and shifted on his hand where he was starting on the all-star game shortly after.
19:17
SPEAKER_02: So having having these conversations about, well, does Zach help you win?
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Does Zach doesn't help you win?
19:22
SPEAKER_02: I believe that Zach Levine has been dealt a bad hand his entire NBA career.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: He starts off in Minnesota during the middle of their rebuild.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: And Minnesota is just starting to, over the last couple years, just starting to be competent, to be good.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: He didn't get to experience that in Minnesota.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: Hell, they were so tired of mediocrity that they traded him away for one year of playoffs.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: Not playoff success, but one year of being in the playoffs.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: They traded him away for that, plus a seventh overall pick, plus a form of top five overall pick, right?
19:56
SPEAKER_02: Then he gets to Chicago, he's a part of the rebuild.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: He's a part of the first trade of a rebuild.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: Jimmy Butler, Dwayne Wade, Rajan Rondo, bye bye.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: Come in, Zach Levine in the youngest roster in all of basketball.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: So he's playing on this young team, and every year they're getting lottery picks, lottery picks.
20:15
SPEAKER_02: They're missing in the draft.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: They're not developing talent.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: One thing that has been consistent, he as a player has grown.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: I've watched this man play basketball in my city for what, six years, seven years now?
20:25
SPEAKER_02: And every year I can say that he's got better at something, while the rest of the organization around him hasn't.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: Right?
20:34
SPEAKER_02: Now we finally get to a point where, at least by the front office's mind, they built a competent team and ready to compete.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: Hell, we're gonna trade multiple first-round picks.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: Vusevich is gonna trade another first-round pick in order to get DeMarta Rose, and we're gonna get half a year of really good basketball.
20:48
SPEAKER_02: Nobody was asking if Zach Levine can contribute to good basketball when they were winning.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: So now that we're back to not being good, it's like, oh yeah, now let's bring out that old narrative about the briefcase.
21:01
SPEAKER_02: He's available to be traded, that trade value got to go down.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if he impacts winning.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: It's I don't I just don't think it's fair without having a player in a position to win.
21:12
SPEAKER_02: Now, if this was a competent team and they were still being unsuccessful, there you go.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: He can have it.
21:19
SPEAKER_02: But how many of y'all look at this bulls roster this season or last season and say, yep, this is it's this is the team?
21:25
SPEAKER_02: None of y'all.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: So how can I expect this guy who who's not LeBron?
21:29
SPEAKER_02: He's not Jay, he's not Luca, he's a tier or two below that.
21:34
SPEAKER_02: How do we expect him to elevate a bad roster to good?
21:39
SPEAKER_02: That's not who he is, right?
21:41
SPEAKER_02: So it's just it just feels weird to me because I believe that if there's one knock on Zack, the context too big.
21:46
SPEAKER_02: Again, fair.
21:48
SPEAKER_02: But the other part of that, a guy that is a lethal shooter, catch and shoot, I understand.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: Listen, like I said, I watched him six and seven years.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: I understand that the defense is a lot, and I mean a lot to be desired.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: The off-the-ball work is a lot to be desired, but I believe that if he was playing for a team that empowered him to cut, that empowered him to do anything off the ball, then he would.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: It's not a part of the system that Billy Donovan had built alongside DeMar DeRozan and company.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: Now, I will say one thing that does not help my argument is the Bulls have won their last two games without him alive.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't help my argument here.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: But I again, I just think it's unfair that we attach these things on players without watching them be a part of teams that are at least supposed to be good.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: You feel me?
22:38
SPEAKER_02: It's just we just have too many examples of that just not being the case.
22:41
SPEAKER_02: And listen, there are players that fit this.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: And maybe Zach is that.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: But I'm just saying we have to see him in a position on the team before we jump to that conclusion.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: I don't really want to talk about these guys again, but the two and eight.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: Two and eighteen?
22:57
SPEAKER_02: Saying it out loud is a lot worse than looking at it.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: The 2-18 Detroit Pissers are currently on a 17-game losing streak.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: And listen, I'm not here to talk about them being a success or anything like that.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: But there is a report the other day from Jake Fisher talking about Jaden Ivey.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: And Jayden Ivey, for like an NBA sicko, has been one of the more interesting conversations across basketball.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: Last year he ended uh the Ricky Eddy race in sixth.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: Second half of the year, he started a bunch of games.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: He's playing a lot of minutes.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: He ended up looking really solid second half of the year compared to the first half of the year.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: And it felt as though their backcourt of the future was going to be Cade and Jaden Ivy.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: At least we're gonna see a version of that considering Kay Cunningham missed a bunch of time last season.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: We didn't we didn't really have a sample size on whether or not Kay Cunningham and Jaden Ivey can coexist.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: They bring in Monty Williams, the largest contract for a coach in NBA history, at least at that point.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: It's been broken now with Mike Malone.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: And we saw Jaden Ivy not fall out of the rotation, but he was a guy that most of us anticipated to be penciled into that starting lineup, lose his spot.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: And uh there's a report from Jake Fisher about this, right?
24:04
SPEAKER_02: About how Jaden Ivy lost his starting spot and so on and so forth.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: So I want to read you just a couple sentences from this article from Yahoo's Jake Fisher.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: But this time around, Williams didn't hold any meeting or direct communication with Ivy at the beginning of the season to share that he'll be playing off the pine.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: Now, when this article dropped, there's a lot of conversation on X, still don't feel right to say that, on Twitter on whether or not Jaden Ivy deserves to have that conversation from Monty Williams.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: As Jaden Ivy got to the point as an NBA player where he needs to be set down to say, hey, this year you're coming off the bench.
24:38
SPEAKER_02: Um, this is obviously not the first time we've seen something like this from Monty Williams.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: And it's just a part of the coaching experience of Monty, right?
24:46
SPEAKER_02: We saw it with uh Jay Crowder and Cam Johnson, right?
24:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh he he didn't tell uh no, he did tell Jay Crowder, hey, we're gonna have Cam start.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: And again, ended up working out relatively well.
24:57
SPEAKER_02: Cam's now over in Brooklyn and playing good basketball, so on and so forth.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: But at one point in time, he had to, as Monty Williams, he had to make the decision.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: Jay Crowder, not that you've lost your spot, but you no longer start.
25:09
SPEAKER_02: At least that's has been reported to us.
25:10
SPEAKER_02: Jay Crowder might feel some type of way, and Jay Crowder held out, so on and so forth.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: It also happened a little bit with DeAndre Aiden, not necessarily benching him, but the lack of conversation with him, where we had an entire offseason by DeAndre Aiden's accounts where he didn't talk to Monty Williams at all.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: And listen, I'm not an NBA player, right?
25:28
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what the protocol is in the offseason with your head coach and so on and so forth.
25:33
SPEAKER_02: But what I will say is I ain't I ain't hear Devin Booker say he ain't talked to Monty Williams all offseason.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: I ain't hear Chris Paul talk about that.
25:40
SPEAKER_02: Hell, hey, see McKill talk about that.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: So DeAndre Aiden was just left for that.
25:45
SPEAKER_02: So does Jaden Ivey has become as a sophomore year going into a sophomore year, does he want to have that conversation or should he come into a training camp and so on and so forth with the expectation of nothing is promised to me?
25:58
SPEAKER_02: Now, the best thing about all of this, Jake Fisher ended up talking to Jaden Ivy about this.
26:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, there wasn't anything said, said Ivy to Yahoo Sports.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: But once I saw what was coming on, coming off the bench was no problem for me.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: I love every single one of these dudes here.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: I'd ride for them any day.
26:13
SPEAKER_02: Coming off the bench isn't a confidence thing, it's a downer for me, uh, or a downer for me.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm still confident in my game and play the same way.
26:21
SPEAKER_02: I just thought, again, not saying that uh that Marcus Sasser doesn't deserve a chance as a rookie or so on and so forth.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: It just felt as though, based on the way J.I.
26:32
SPEAKER_02: ended the season last year, does he get that or is that just Jonathan Isaac?
26:35
SPEAKER_02: The way Ivy poisoned Ivy on basketball reference to end the season, and with Kay coming back, I thought we'd just get more time of them together.
26:42
SPEAKER_02: So he starts off the season for the most part coming off the bench, and his minutes has been all over the place.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: And I guess it's the case for the entirety of the Detroit Pistons because, hell, why have an in-set rotation when you've lost 17 in a row?
26:56
SPEAKER_02: But we've seen uh Jay Nivey start some games this season.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: We've seen him be the sixth man.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: There was a game a couple nights ago where he was a 10th man off the bench.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: 10th.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Monty, I've watched an unhealthy amount of pistons games this year.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: Unhealthy amount.
27:14
SPEAKER_02: And mostly because I'm trying to figure out what the hell the answer is to get in the W.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: But I see some players that are playing above him and they maybe shouldn't.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: Monty Williams has forgot more basketball than I would ever ever know.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: But it's just a little bit interesting.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: Now, the one thing I've noticed about Detroit Pistons basketball over the last couple games, if they they found it's so weird to say this aloud because how can you find a recipe when you're losing 17 games in a row?
27:44
SPEAKER_02: But there have been 44 minutes played where Cade Cunningham, Killian Hayes, and Jaden Ivey have been on the court together.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: They're a plus 19 net rating in those minutes.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: Huh.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying they're about to go out and go on a 17-game win streak.
28:03
SPEAKER_02: But maybe they can turn it into an eventual win.
28:08
SPEAKER_02: Where do I land on this?
28:10
SPEAKER_02: Did Jaden Ivey deserve to have the respect?
28:13
SPEAKER_02: Because that was a lot of the conversation on X, the respect in quotation marks from his head coach to let him know what the future holds for him?
28:20
SPEAKER_02: I would say yes.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: And I actually would say this to pretty much any player that is known as a starter.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: Again, we talk about a rookie year player, but known as a starter, and you're the head coach of the team.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: I think if I was a head coach, which I'd never be, I would maybe sit down with pretty much everybody and kind of talk them through what their anticipated role is going to be.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of things change, right?
28:41
SPEAKER_02: You can have an anticipated role of coming off the bench and then you blossom, like, oh no, that brother's a starter.
28:46
SPEAKER_02: But again, he didn't get that.
28:48
SPEAKER_02: And it was mostly for Killian Hayes and the sake of defensive identity.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: Where's that at?
28:54
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
28:56
SPEAKER_02: It ain't really there.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: Now it's time to get into my favorite part of the Kenny Beach and podcast, the hashtag ask KB.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: The first question comes from Shane.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: Do you think that NBA teams are wrong to expect all of your top draft picks to become top stars in the league?
29:12
SPEAKER_02: Or should teams be okay with them settling into a high-level role player, example is Wiggins, Lonzo Ball, et cetera?
29:18
SPEAKER_02: Shane, that is a very good question.
29:21
SPEAKER_02: I believe that for the most part, and I say for the most part because there are extreme examples, for the most part, general managers slash people in the organization, this is from me talking to, if not specifically about this question, but talking to some people that hold jobs here or there, they don't necessarily expect that type of stuff.
29:39
SPEAKER_02: Because I think most people realize that a small percentage of people end up being an all-star.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: And even smaller percentage end up making an all-NBA team.
29:48
SPEAKER_02: And even smaller percentage of those people end up leading a team to an NBA championship.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of this comes from the fans' perspective, right?
29:57
SPEAKER_02: Because when you think about it, majority of the time, when a team has a top pick, that is because the previous year they were awful, right?
30:06
SPEAKER_02: And when you endure 82 games of bad basketball, you can't help but to expect or help but to want this guy that's coming to your team to be the savior, right?
30:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm guilty of it.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: You're probably guilty of it.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: Magic Johnson is guilty of it.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: Remember what Magic Johnson said about Lonzo Ball?
30:23
SPEAKER_02: Remember Magic Johnson said that Lonzo Ball is going to have his name in the Raptors.
30:27
SPEAKER_02: And then two years later, Magic Johnson told the world that he wasn't going to be here.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
30:31
SPEAKER_02: So that is an extreme example of a front office saying that he's our guy, he's the guy that's going to be a superstar.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: But for the most part, I think that people recognize there's a ton of pressure on these young players, specifically the ones that come in as top picks, that they're not going to their fan base and say, we did it.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: We got our guy.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, you can believe that, right?
30:50
SPEAKER_02: You can believe that you win a lottery, even a top five pick.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Hell, my team got the fourth overall pick in a year that most people saw as a top three draft.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: And I was still ecstatic.
30:59
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that guy, he kind of looked he kind of moved like Kawhi Leonard.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: He got big old hands like Kawhi Leonard.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: He's not Kawhi Leonard.
31:05
SPEAKER_02: But because my team had been so bad, I needed him to be Kawhi.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: And now that he's not Kawhi, majority of us or a majority of fans like, man, what a miss.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: I think that we should be okay with having these top end players not turn out to be the star players that you might have anticipated.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of these dudes can still contribute to winning basketball, right?
31:26
SPEAKER_02: And we're also seeing that you don't need a top five pick to draft a star in this league.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: You don't need to have the first.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, hell, the only first overall pick in recent history to leave a team to a championship has been LeBron.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: Now it's kind of that's kind of skewed, right?
31:41
SPEAKER_02: Because LeBron and Steph Curry dominated for a decade.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: But you get what I'm saying.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: You don't need the first overall pick to do your thing.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: I've I've over the last couple of years adjusted my expectations.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: I mentioned this before, even with Victor Weminyama, known as the next generational talent.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: I didn't come into Victor Weminyama's first year, even his next year.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: The year after that saying, like, hey, he got to be LeBron.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: He got to be LeBron because people say he's the best prospect since LeBron.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: Let's see it, right?
32:07
SPEAKER_02: I think it's unfair to the young guys because there is a lot of pressure, and it's hard to adjust to the NBA game for a lot of people.
32:15
SPEAKER_02: Now, you do get your odd person that's like, hey, the NBA is a lot slower for me.
32:20
SPEAKER_02: It slowed down the moment I stepped on the court.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: And that takes like that's a special, special player.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: But Shane, I agree with you, man.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: We should not hold these lofty expectations for these younger guys.
32:30
SPEAKER_02: And I think I think majority of fans probably just want to see year-to-year progression.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: And even that is kind of unfair, you know, in a sense that like historically progression hasn't been linear, right?
32:44
SPEAKER_02: Where you have a player to not hit his next jump until you're number three or year number four.
32:50
SPEAKER_02: So I have tempered my expectation a little bit, and I think we all should, because now if you temper the expectation, and this young fella does end up being nasty, it's a win-win.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: It's a win.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: It's a win-win.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: The next one is technically not even an Ask KB.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: It was not directed at me or anything, but it went on to the world on Twitter, and I thought it was interesting.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: So I screen grabbed it.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: I want to talk about it today.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: And it comes from Nate Jones uh at Jones on the NBA.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: NBA really is gonna have to change some of these rules.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: Offenses are too good, and the game has become homogenized.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: Keep it in, keep it in.
33:23
SPEAKER_02: That is the fifth take of me trying to pronounce homogenized.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: Homogenized.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: Homogenized.
33:30
SPEAKER_02: And I got it, but for y'all that have been diehard fans, you know that I am a person with dyslexia.
33:36
SPEAKER_02: And some words I can see them, I can read them in here, but it doesn't translate.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to talk about my diagnoses or whatever.
33:43
SPEAKER_02: But okay.
33:44
SPEAKER_02: This tweet is from Nate Jones.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: And again, I want to talk, I want to break it down again.
33:48
SPEAKER_02: NBA is really gonna have to change some of these rules.
33:49
SPEAKER_02: NBAs are too good, and the game's been okay.
33:52
SPEAKER_02: There are a few things about this tweet that I agree with, right?
33:54
SPEAKER_02: I do believe that we're we're at the point in the as the NBA where the offenses have become so overbearingly powerful that we may we may need to shift some of the rules, and I want to talk about in a second what those rules might look like.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: But I want to quickly talk about the things that I do not agree about in this tweet.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: The game has become homogeneous, homogeneous.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: See, there it is.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: Meaning that things are the same, which for me is just not very, very true.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: It's not very true.
34:23
SPEAKER_02: As somebody that watches uh as much basketball as I can, I believe that there are teams that play very similar, but for the most part, we have as much uh offensive diversity as you can imagine in the NBA, at least the most that I can recognize in my adult life, my my uh nine almost decade of being an adult, right?
34:44
SPEAKER_02: And I think that you could look at the shot profiles of teams and say, like, oh, look, this team is attempting this many threes per game while this team also is with this many paint touches versus this many paint touches.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: And we might have a lot of teams that have very similar shot profiles, but that doesn't mean that the game that they're playing is necessarily the same.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: We have so many different teams running so many different actions, so many different identities, so many different sets.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: Back in 2017-2018, it had become regular, where every team is trying to figure out what is our small ball lineup gonna be.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: The Warriors have dominated us so much with their lineup of death that we want to try to replicate them.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: The Houston Rockets traded all of the people over 6'6 on their team to have a 100% small ball.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: Like that had become what the identity of the association was.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: That was mostly the turn where it was like dumps in threes, dunks in threes, dunks and threes.
35:44
SPEAKER_02: You're not dunking, you're not shooting threes, you're losing games more likely than not.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: And since then, we've evolved a little bit.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: Well, we have teams like the Minnesota Timberwolves.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: We have teams like the Cleveland Cavaliers who have relative success with two to three in Minnesota's cases centers sharing the court.
36:04
SPEAKER_02: And those two teams, right?
36:06
SPEAKER_02: Those two teams both have two seven seven-footage guys starting and playing majority in the minutes.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: And guess what?
36:12
SPEAKER_02: They don't even play the same.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: They have different philosophies and different ways of generating the shots that they're generating.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, we're gonna get a lot of threes.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: It's just it's just a case.
36:25
SPEAKER_02: But some teams are gonna get it by pounding you with a pick and roll.
36:28
SPEAKER_02: Some teams are gonna do a lot of dribble handoffs.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: Some teams like the Golden State Warriors are gonna run nonstop with superstar players that you cannot keep up with.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: The shot profiles are going to be similar.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: Because at the end of the day, I think that most teams, because because of advanced analytics, have recognized that there are certain brands of basketball that will not translate to now.
36:49
SPEAKER_02: That if you are not trying to get up a lot of threes, look at the teams at the bottom of the league when it comes to the amount of three-point attempts per game.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: Or look at the the, not just the amount of three-point attempts, the amount of three-point attempts relative to the amount of possessions that they have, right?
37:02
SPEAKER_02: The frequency of three-pointers.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: A lot of those teams are not winning a bunch of basketball games.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: I tell you that.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: So you have to keep up.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: But keeping up is not saying that, hey, uh, last year the Denver Nuggets won the championship, so we must run our offense like they do.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: Because we saw polar opposites kind of of game plans and styles in the NBA finals last year.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: The way the Denver Nuggets run their game is significantly different than the Miami Heat.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: Year before that, I could say very similar stuff.
37:35
SPEAKER_02: Like I can understand the fact that we have a lot of threes, so it can feel as though it is the same, but it's not.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's just for me at least, for me, as is my viewing experience is not the same.
37:47
SPEAKER_02: Because if that was the case, I would just watch the best team every single day.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: But I just mentioned how I'm watching a ton of Detroit Pistons, right?
37:57
SPEAKER_02: Even if even if you okay, even if you sit down and you watch one team all year long, you're gonna recognize on a night-to-night basis, your team is playing defense differently because of the talent that's coming in.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: And it's not just about the talent level, it's a style in which this talent is doing what they're doing.
38:15
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be teams just trying to get two feet into their paint and kill you that way, and it's teams that's gonna spread you out like a Luka Doncic and so on and so forth.
38:24
SPEAKER_02: But because we have so many high, super high usage players that are like, hey, it's my team, you in my backpack, and you you catch and you gonna shoot.
38:35
SPEAKER_02: We have some teams like that that it may feel that way.
38:39
SPEAKER_02: But boys, they're not homogenized.
38:41
SPEAKER_02: Homogenized.
38:42
SPEAKER_02: I I forgot the word already.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: But I do agree in a sense that, hey, I think we have to empower defenses to be able to defend a little bit better.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: I feel like any time throughout the history of pretty much any sport, if you look historically through basketball, baseball, football, those are the threes that I know, at least about the rules, when things have become too overpowering one way or another, it's time for a shift.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: And that shift is not saying, like, hey, we're going back to the scores ending 87 to 86 because that's bad for the game.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: It's bad for the growth of the game that we know.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: But allowing defenses to, I don't know, and I'm just I'm spitballing a little bit, I'm spitballing a little bit.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: This is not my like real, real opinion, but just thinking about some things that I've seen in other leagues in different places.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: Allowing defensive players to not have to worry about three seconds in the paint changes the game dramatically.
39:34
SPEAKER_02: Allowing the defensive player to, I guess, generate a little bit of contact when defending changed the game dramatically.
39:42
SPEAKER_02: There's still a ton of calls that when I'm watching as a guy that is that's in love with the game of defense, that I think it's very offensive oriented, right?
39:54
SPEAKER_02: Think about the best players in the association.
39:56
SPEAKER_02: How many of them do you get to before you talk about their defense?
40:00
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
40:01
SPEAKER_02: You talk about Jokins being the best in the league, you talk about Giannis being the second best in the league, and both of them, well, one of them is significantly better defensively, but but you talk about their offense more than their defense, right?
40:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm a guy that's always been defensive-oriented first.
40:13
SPEAKER_02: I think there are some changes that can be done, but the game is different.
40:17
SPEAKER_02: The game is different.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: That's all that's all.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: That's all, Nate.
40:19
SPEAKER_02: I feel like the game is different.
40:21
SPEAKER_02: Now, when we get to the playoffs, it might change a little bit.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: But even if I look at I look at um what is a series of last year that I was locked into completely?
40:33
SPEAKER_02: A seven-game series between the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings.
40:36
SPEAKER_02: Actually, their their brand of basketball is some somewhat similar, right?
40:40
SPEAKER_02: A lot of dribbles with a guy that is a forward slash big, being the hub, if you will, doing a lot of dribble handoffs, a lot of picks, a lot of stuff like that.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: But even then, even with them having similar styles, it's not the same.
41:00
SPEAKER_02: Before we get out of here, I want to quickly talk about the in-season tournament because this was a very weird day, man.
41:06
SPEAKER_02: It is a very weird day.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: And and the NBA has completely bought into the NC tournament for good reason.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: I think it's been a lot of fun.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: Um, the reason we have no games on this Sunday is because they're gearing people up for tomorrow where we have the in-season tournament games.
41:19
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's I think it's kind of cool.
41:21
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm a little bit looking around, like, what am I supposed to do at six o'clock?
41:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it is a little bit cool to have basically a week throughout the season, you know, a month and a half into the season where teams don't have to worry about three games this week, four games this week, where like two days back to back, where it's like the majority of NBA teams is not playing.
41:43
SPEAKER_02: It's just a di it's just a different speed than what we're used to, right?
41:46
SPEAKER_02: We're used to seeing 10 games here, eight games the next night, seven games tonight after that, like, man, is it ever gonna stop?
41:51
SPEAKER_02: So these are the things that I'm I'm looking forward to coming up this season.
41:54
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, the in-season tournament.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm curious to see what type of rotations each team's run.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: Because the more I hear people talk about it, I think the question was like, hey, are our teams gonna care, so on and so forth?
42:05
SPEAKER_02: The answer is yes, but to what extent are we gonna see the LA Lakers shorten their rotation?
42:10
SPEAKER_02: Are the fingers gonna shorten their rotation?
42:12
SPEAKER_02: Is Kevin Aran or Devin Booker gonna play 40 plus minutes each because they really want to advance to the next round?
42:17
SPEAKER_02: That is one thing I'm really thinking about because um, again, these teams seem like they they care, which is overall just good for the product and good for the game.
42:26
SPEAKER_02: One thing that we need is fans is for both of those games tomorrow or today, as you're watching this, to be bangers.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: Bangers.
42:37
SPEAKER_02: You feel me?
42:38
SPEAKER_02: No blowouts.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: We need good defense, good offense, last second shots, whatever it may be.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: We need those.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: We're getting, which is so very interesting.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if this starts tomorrow or later in the NC tournament, but we we see like you when you see competing companies, you're very rarely ever gonna see them work together, right?
42:55
SPEAKER_02: You're never gonna see a comic book that has DC and Marvel characters in it because they they they they opposition, you know.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: They're just not gonna be working together.
43:03
SPEAKER_02: Man, Warner and Disney, ESPN, and inside the NBA are both working the in-season tournament simultaneously and collectively.
43:13
SPEAKER_02: Hello?
43:14
SPEAKER_02: Shaquille O'Neal on set with Stephen A.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: Smith potentially?
43:18
SPEAKER_02: Like that is kind of crazy.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: And that's how much this end-season tournament is supposed to be bringing us together, y'all.
43:23
SPEAKER_02: So I just want y'all to sit back, enjoy it as long as it's a good product.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm not asking you to be force watching if it's a 30-point blowout at halftime, because Lord knows I might be tuned out as well.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: You feel me?
43:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh, that's the main thing I'm I'm I'm watching this season or this week because that's the only thing that really is going on this week, which is kind of crazy, man.
43:42
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of crazy to have a week like this.
43:44
SPEAKER_02: Before we get out of here, I want to remind you to leave a like and subscribe.
43:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna say thank you again to Nasty Nas Reed, Hollywood, Nas, have it, whatever you want to call him, Big Jelly, for stopping by the show and giving us some insight to his season or his approaches to the game of basketball.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: And I want to say that you should tune back in in a couple of days as we come back and we will be talking about in season tournament and all things surrounding the game of basketball, y'all.