Latest / Small Ball with Kenny Beecham / Ranking NBA Teams Based On Playoff Pressure

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Ranking NBA Teams Based On Playoff Pressure · Small Ball with Kenny Beecham

0:00
SPEAKER_00: For me, it's like pulling teeth trying to differentiate which guy deserves it more.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the odds, the odds are saying it is basically a Jokic Award all through.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: But I, with the proper conversation with the right person, reading the right comments, seeing the right tweet, I'm willing to flip that to Luca.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Kenny Beach and podcast, y'all.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: On today's episode, I'll be ranking the 20 postseason teams based on how much pressure they are under.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: All of these teams have some level of pressure.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: We just have to differentiate the high-level pressure versus the low-level pressure.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do that on today's episode.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: And it was a lot of fun going through this, man.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: It is still weird to say personally uh that there are 20 postseason teams.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: 20?
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Two-thirds of our association ends up making a postseason.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna take some time because I think this is what, year three, year four?
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, four years ago was the bubble.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Did they did they count that as a play-in tournament?
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Kinda, I guess.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: So let's just say three years of the play-in tournament, and it is still weird to say.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: But look, while we're here, I am notoriously not a guy that's gonna die on a hill.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: I can be persuaded about, especially sports opinions, if the proper evidence presents itself.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Hell, on today's episode, I will be changing my opinions about certain teams because we've we've gone another week since the last time we chatted.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: But there's one opinion that I am willing to take to the grave.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing you can say to convince me that the playing is the playoffs.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm so I'm sorry, you cannot convince me of that.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: It is the postseason, the 20 teams, but only 16 of those teams actually make the playoffs.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: And boy, that the the the TikTok comment section get mad at me with that.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we were doing uh uh TikTok on the numbers on the board channel, and we were doing guest the NBA player, a game we play all the time, it's just for fun.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: And the player that I have was Zach Levine, who's injured, but let's assume that he's he's healthy.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And one of the questions I was asked is, Is your player in the playoffs?
2:05
SPEAKER_00: I said no.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Because the the Bulls aren't in the playoffs, not in the play in.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: And in the comment section was like, Oh, Kenny cheating.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Kenny out here lying to his co-hosts because the Bulls are there, but they're not.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Because if we go into that play-in game and we lose to the Atlanta Hawks, there is no playoffs.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't count.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: You can Google last time the Bulls made the playoffs.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna talk about the time they lost to the Miami Heat last year.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: They don't care about that.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna say the series we played against the Milwaukee Bucks and lost to them by a lot.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: So it's not the same, okay?
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Nobody should be raising the banner to say we make the playoffs if you lost in the first round of the play-in.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: It's not the same thing, okay?
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, hey, leave a like, subscribe, and when the playoffs and play-in come around, we will be going back to our two times a week schedule.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate y'all being patient with me over the last couple weeks as we narrowed it down.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: But we're about to ramp that stuff up because well, these games matter the most.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: For me, it's a lot more fun to break it up into tiers.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh, instead of just saying, hey, this team is under the most pressure and this team's under the least amount of pressure, breaking it up into tiers makes it a lot more fun.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, so let's start off with the bottom tier, which is no one cares.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Those are the Chicago Bulls and the Atlanta Hawks.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: And I've I've mentioned this before that I don't even think these teams deserve to even have a chance to compete with the top eight seeds because they've done nothing this season to prove that they deserve to be a playoff team.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Even if these teams win the two games to advance, I'm I'm not picking them in the next round.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: At least the other two teams that's gonna be competing have a somewhat chance in these other series.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: I have no faith in the Atlanta Hawks going on a run.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: I have no faith in the Chicago Bulls gonna going under a run.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Is there pressure?
3:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Bulls have been on the pressure for the last three years and nobody's even given a damn to make a trade about it.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: The Atlanta Hawks, at least we kind of know that, like I mentioned in the last episode, that these two guys can't coexist.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: So there's no pressure to go on a deep postseason run because the bet is made.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: We know that one of those two guys, if not both of those guys, are gonna be gone come next season.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know the answer to it, but nope, nobody really cares about the amount of pressure on these two teams because everybody has accepted the fact that this is a lost year for both of those teams.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: The next one, the next tier.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm strictly calling the vibes slash house money tier.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: These are teams well, I really just got one team here.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: Holy I really got one team here.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: This is a team when there's like no, almost no pressure at all.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: No matter what happens to them in this postseason, nobody's gonna be writing articles about how they failed, nobody's gonna be asking for people to be traded, people to be fired, front offices to be moved.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: That's the Orlando Magic.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: It's a team that was projected to not be close to where they are.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: And let me make sure I'm doing this right.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: They're losing right now to the Milwaukee Bucks as I'm recording this episode, but they are sitting as the five seed, and I guess there is a chance they can fall into the plan.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: Maybe unlikely, but they do go against the Bucs one more time this season after this game, and there's no Giannis, and we'll talk about that later in the episode.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: But no matter what happens, as long as they can take stay top six and we can say we have a real legitimate playoff series under our belt, then no matter what happens, we know that this was a successful season.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: If anything, it's them trying to figure out okay, we know that our offense is not very good compared to the other playoff teams.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: We know our defense is great, but who can really hang come postseason?
5:14
SPEAKER_00: What do we really need, other than just like saying that we need shooting?
5:17
SPEAKER_00: And so I guess there was a rumor about them loading up for Klay Thompson.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how much I believe that, but Klay has been looking good recently.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: They're playing with house money.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: They could get swept, they can go to the final.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, they can't go to the finals.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: But no matter what the outcome is, we look at the Magic and say, W of a season.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: The next tier is there's pressure, but not a ton.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Low pressure teams.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: The first one I have on this list is the the Dallas Mavericks.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is not why I would have had them two months ago.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Because two months ago, I the team is different, obviously constructed differently.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: There's no PJ Washington, there's no Daniel Gaffer.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: This team looks just a lot different post-trade deadline versus pre-trade deadline.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: I think they have the second best record in that time, which is beautiful.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: There's no more rumors unless they like flame out completely in the first round, which I guess is possible.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: There probably won't be many rumors about how happy Luka Doncic is because this is the best constructed Luka Doncic's roster.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Anytime you have a generational type talent that's young, the pressure is to put the adequate team around them.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: And there was some rumor, not rumors, but there is some buzzing on television.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, hell, if the Dallas Mavericks don't put a good team around Luca, how long before he decides that he wants out?
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Or so on and so forth.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: And based on the team and the way they've been running, I don't see that really as a possibility anymore.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: I feel like Luca's here to stay.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And um, the players that they've uh uh like acquired since the deadline have been phenomenal.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Other night, Daniel Gafford at another what, uh 20-point game or something like that.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Was he 10 for 10 from the field?
6:42
SPEAKER_00: Something ridiculous.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: PJ Washington's hit clutch shot after clutch shot this week alone.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: And right now they're up by double digits on the Miami Heat.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they're gonna win this game because it's a quarter left, but the Heat's offense, especially in that fourth quarter, come clutch time.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: I watched them the other night against the Atlanta Hawks, and though they end up winning that game, it was nasty.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, so the oh the last thing I got in my notes here.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: I again, as I mentioned at the top of the show, I could be persuaded in a lot of different things, right?
7:10
SPEAKER_00: On the numbers on the board podcast, we did our annual award show, which is what you think it is.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: It's the MVP rookie of the year, all the way down to Clutch Player of the Year, award that nobody gave a damn about, but I did because DeMarta Rosen might win it.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: So you feel me?
7:24
SPEAKER_00: And in that episode, I said that my MVP was Nicole Jokic.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, last time I talked to you, I told you I narrowed it down to those two people, Nicole Jokic, Luka Doncic.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: And every single night I was flip-flopping depending on the performances, because for me, it's like pulling teeth, trying to differentiate which guy deserves it more.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the odds, the odds are saying that it's basically a Jokic award all through.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: But I, with the proper conversation with the right person, reading the right comments, seeing the right tweet, I'm willing to flip that to Luca.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: The other day, the Dallas Mavericks had a tweet, which I absolutely love.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: It made me feel so great on the inside.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Where it's a clip of Luka Doncic, it's a hype clip of Luka Doncic and his MVP candidacy.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: It starts off the voiceovers, Ernie Johnson, one of the GOATs, my personal sports media goat.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm asking about Luka Doncic.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: And then my boy D.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Mills is the one answering the question.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: What?
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Bro, that made me feel so great because uh my boys work hard, man.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: They work hard.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: And D.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Mills has had this progression.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Not I did like that, like he's been up and down.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: No, he's had this progression as a NBA fan, as a podcaster, and to see the Dallas Mavericks take his audio from a video that we did talking about the MVP and say, like, D Mills snapped for two minutes straight about Lucas MVP candidacy.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: And the Mavs, like, that's gonna be our spokesperson for the Luca Dontes MVP campaign.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: It made me feel so great.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: So out to the Mavs social media team.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, if you are you if you are a Luca Dontis truther for MVP, you can comment down below.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: I always read all the comments, and maybe I can be convinced because again, it's so close to me that the right argument for one or the other can cause me to uh do it.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: But again, back to the original thing.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: There's not a ton of pressure, uh, mostly because Luka Donchis is tied up.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Carrie Irving is tied up.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Everybody that you really care about is under contract.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: And with this really being a 20-ish, 20-something game sample size of this core, it's not like if things don't go perfectly in the playoffs, we start to think that, hmm, well, PJ Washington didn't fit.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, Carrie Irving and Luka Doncic can't coexist because, well, I guess they had a little bit before that, but this orchestration of this team in the regular season has showed us that this team is nice.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: And if they go out and they flame out in the first round, we can just be thinking, like, next year they come back with some continuity and they should be better.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying don't make any changes, but the core is the core.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: Next team with low pressure, it's the Knicks.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And I thought they had some decent amount of pressure before the Julius Randle thing, but without Julius Randle, I think their pressure is relatively low.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Jalen Brunson's playing phenomenal basketball, and there's no questions about this team, if that makes sense.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes we see a player like Jalen Brunson, who's having a phenomenal season.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: I had him as my all NBA second team, my one of the first people on it.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: He's having a phenomenal season.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: And some of the conversation, because this is how dialogue is about sports now, is like, yeah, he just did it for 82 games, but come postseason.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: Let's see if he can do it again.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: But Jalen Brunson has been a postseason performer the last two years.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: He averaged 28 points per game, 27 points per game in their run last year.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: And the year before that, when he was a Dallas Maverick and Luka Doncic was out with his injury come the beginning of the postseason, he held it down.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: So there's no questions about who Jalen Brunson is as a player.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: You can have questions about the rest of the roster because even though they have people with some real experience of postseason experience, it's a it's different.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think they have a lot of pressure.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: Ojan Anobi's probably gonna get locked up on a contract that's large.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Julius Randle will come back from his labor repair surgery in that team that was so dominant in that 13-game stretch or whatever it was, where they were dominating everybody that they saw.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: We'll be back next season.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where the pressure gets adjusted a little bit because hey, Jalen Brunson's one of the best point guards in basketball.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: OJ Ananobi's one of the better two-way players, three AD players in basketball.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Julius Randle is like a bull in the China.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: China, uh, what's what's the he he he's a bowling ball and healthy Julis Randle's good, even though he's one of the by stats, he's one of the worst postseason players ever.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: I read a tweet about that the other day.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Based on his field goal percentage compared to how many shots he's attempted in his postseason career, he's one of the worst, like bottom five.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: I whew.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe more pressure then, but right now they're chilling.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, next, Indiana Pacers.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Tarry's Halliburton uh talked about it earlier in this this season when they had the little thing versus the Bucks, and people were trying to say, is it a rivalry?
11:34
SPEAKER_00: Is it not?
11:35
SPEAKER_00: He said, Hell, there's no rivalry.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: We never even made the playoffs just yet.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And this could be the first opportunity for Tarry's Halliburton to get a postseason appearance, which is dope.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: We get that under his belt.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: We saw what he could do in a one-game elimination with the in-season tournament, and he's starting to ramp it up a little bit more.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Pascal Siakam, by the way, Pascal Siakam in the last uh two to three weeks or so.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm starting to like it a little bit more.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, when he was initially traded, I was like, boom, Matt's made in heaven.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: He likes to run, they like to run.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: He can control the offense in some clutch situations.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: He's done that a lot in his last couple weeks, but it's starting to finally gel after a few, maybe a month or so after he was acquired.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of clunky.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: It's starting to be less and less clunky, so clunky.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: I think some of that is, of course, Tyrese looking better and better and moving a little bit better.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, it just opens the game up so much more for uh Pascal.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'm assuming that they're assuming that they're gonna re-sign him, and then that's really no pressure.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Now, now if you start talking about contract extensions and Pascal is one of them dudes is like, hey, I need a little run for me to sign back, then hell yeah, there's pressure.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know if that's who Pascal Siakami is.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: So little to low pressure.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: And the last thing, maybe this a controversial place to have them, is the Nuggets.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: You did the thing last year.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: It's it's extremely hard to go back to back.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Something that Steve Kerr talks about all the time.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: And he talked about during his run with the Warriors that going back to back is tough.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, he he went three back to back to back.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that first one is hard, but that second one is harder, right?
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, and the Western Conference got more difficult than what it was last year.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: But since you did do the thing, you got the first championship in a very long time, if not the first championship in Denver Nuggets history.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: I think that's number one.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: That yeah, you want to do it again, obviously.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: But if you didn't do it, it's not like we're gonna be changing.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Jokic is not the best player in the world anymore.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, Aaron Gordon is not the glue guy we expected.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Jamal Murray's a flopper.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: That's not happening.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: It's not a lot of pressure.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what's gonna make it beautiful for them if they do go on that run again.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, we did it last year, we'll just run it back again.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: And this is a conversation that I want to have on the podcast after this postseason about the era.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Eras thing.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, producer Greg asked me about this a little while ago.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, since we're going past the LeBron era, the Steph Curry era, Kevin Durant era, as all three of those teams that they're a part of are fighting to stay out of the play-in.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: All three of them are in the play-in actively as I speak, and things are shifting, obviously.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: As we're going away from that era, who era is next?
14:02
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna have this conversation again after the postseason because I think depending on who wins this championship, that'll kind of let me know who era we're really going into.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Could this be a Giannis era, who's already got one?
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Is this gonna be the the Jokic era who's got two?
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Because I think that the era thing is not just about who's the best in the game, but it's also about who's the most successful in that time period, right?
14:23
SPEAKER_00: It was a Braun era because he couldn't lose in the in the conference, in the Eastern Conference, and then he got his eventual championships.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: It was the Steph Curry era because they were dominating every single team.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: It was the Kevin Durant era because he was a part of the Golden State Warrior thing a little bit.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: You get what I'm saying?
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think whoever gets that next championship, if it is one of the top guys that are one of the best in basketball, it could be them solidifying, like, oh, this little stretch that we're going through is my era.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: And we'll see.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, it could be the Jokic era.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Scott, and you know what?
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Scratch everything I just said.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: I just thought about it.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: The man's about to have three MVP awards, more likely than not, and at least one championship with it.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: That's an elite class of people that have done that.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Three championships, four years, plus a championship, and especially if he gets the second championship, this is the Jokic era 100%.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: The next place we have is this team has pressure, but it's kind of adjusted.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think that the the reason it's adjusted is based on how they performed up until this point.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: The Lakers are the first team.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, this team is uh is under a lot of pressure to go on the run, but since they are actively sitting at the tenth or the ninth seed, I can't say there's a ton of pressure anymore because my expectation has shifted dramatically.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Before the season started, I said that aliens would have had to come down to Earth to abduct LeBron for this team to miss the playoffs.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: And hell, they're one game away, one bad game, one game where LeBron James doesn't see three rims and he shoots it at the right one for them, miss it completely.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: So my expectation about them has shifted.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, since the second half of the season, they've been phenomenal.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: Like really, really good.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: They shifted their entire identity in the middle of the season, which is ridiculous.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: This was supposed to be a slower, defensive, methodical team, and now they're running, they're scoring, they're hitting threes.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: They were a low volume, low percentage team from three for the majority of the season.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Hell, they were that for the all of the LeBron James era in LA.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Not gonna get a lot of threes, and we're not gonna make a ton of them, but hell, we're gonna defend.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: And in the last 20 to 30 games, that's not the case.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't make any sense to me.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: But because they struggled so much out of the gate, and I think if you really look at their wins and losses, it was like a month and a half stretch where they weren't very good.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: But the rest around that, they were damn good.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: But because of that, I don't have the championship expectation for this team anymore.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: I say the same thing about the Golden State Warriors, another team that looked really good.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: And that game last night when uh Anthony Davis is out with migraines and nausea um was the most important win of the season.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I say that is because right now they're still the 10th seed, but they are a half a game behind the Lakers for that ninth seed.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: The playoff status.com has it that they have a 50% chance at the ninth seed.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: 50% chance?
17:09
SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Hosting that first play-in game is huge for the Golden State Warriors, and they're still technically in play to get to the 78 seed.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Now I can say the same thing about the LA Lakers, right?
17:18
SPEAKER_00: The Lakers are just a half a game behind the eighth-seed uh Kings, and they were at the eight seed before that loss.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: But LeBron's got this stomach issue, Anthony Davis is going through what he's going through, and some people are speculating that it's really kind of like a concussion, but they don't want to put him in concussion protocol because they still got two games they gotta win.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Regardless, anything is kind of in play for these two teams.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: So they do have pressure for sure.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: I think their pressure is not just like, oh, we need to win a championship, but it's like, man, what can we do this offseason to maximize the the remaining years of Steph Curry?
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Because Steph hasn't been phenomenal, it's been a month and a half, and ain't been a steph that we're accustomed to, but he's still he's still been really, really good.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: So, how many years left do we have of Steph Curry being at this level?
18:01
SPEAKER_00: And what can we do to get him back into contention?
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know if y'all remember this team has been a playing team a couple times over the last four years.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, they do have a championship smushed in the middle of that, but still, a playing team.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Same thing with the Lakers, a playing team.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: The Lakers talking about all I need to know about the Lakers is that of course they're trying to compete for a championship.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: I would be a jackass to say otherwise.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: They have LeBron Anthony Davis and they're playing.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: But Rob Palinga is telling the world, man, we're gonna have some money.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna, I mean, I'm sorry, not some money.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have three first-round picks to trade.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: And every time you put a microphone in front of him, he's letting you know that they're gonna be active, that they're trying to acquire a third star year.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: So, not that they're punting the season.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: Again, they want to compete.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: But if things don't go incredibly well, uh we don't think LeBron is going anywhere, even though Bronny might be getting drafted.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: They're just gonna try to add the third piece and run it back again.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: The next team I have is the Sacramento Kings.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they have got the injury bug at the worst possible time.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Malik Monk, Kevin Herter.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: It's just not pretty.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Five of five in their last 10, and some of those losses aren't very good.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: I just don't have much, I don't think there's a lot of pressure because A, the the first time they made the playoffs a damn near 20 years, was last year, and they're still a game away from being in the playoffs, right?
19:14
SPEAKER_00: They win one game, they're back in the playoffs, and I still see that as a successful season considering where you had been as an organization.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: But eventually, I talked about this before, eventually you're gonna get to the point where your fan base is not just happy to be there, that they want to see more.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: They want to see them get to the second round, and Lord knows they were very close.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: If it went for an injury of uh De'Aaron Fox in the postseason, they might have won that series last year, but just making the playoffs is never it's not gonna be good enough for much longer.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: But right now, there's not a ton of pressure.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: And then the last one I have is the 76ers.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is my own scale.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: I know there are probably people watching this episode that's like, Kenny, how can you say the 76ers are not under the mid-pressure, middle of the pressure or top of the pressure thing?
19:54
SPEAKER_00: I think that Joel Lin B coming back from his injury as fast as he did gives them a little bit of wiggle room for me, for me personally.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Jordan B has been a guy that's never made the conference finals.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And if that stays true through the 2024 postseason, I'm not looking at him any differently.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: But I believe that if he was healthy all season long and that still was the case, I would look at him somewhat differently.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: But the man came back from that injury so very fast.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: And though he looked dominant a few nights ago with his 37 points against a really bad team, I'm there's so many different pieces where like all of these other teams, and there are a lot of teams fighting injuries right now.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to make it an excuse for the 76ers exclusively, because there are a lot of teams.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Carson Towns is coming back just like how Jordan B just came back before the end.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Trey Young just came back, you know, just like Jordan B is coming back right before the end of the things.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: And Giannis is out in that for the next couple games.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: So every team is going through their forms of injury.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: But when the top four, five player in the league goes down like that and misses that much amount of time, and in the interim, there's pieces being added to the team like a Cal Lauri, the added to the team, like a Buddy Healed, or added to the team by them being healthy again.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: The Anthony Melton is being incorporated back.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: I can't expect things to be a whale-oiled machine like some of the other teams that are in this spot.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Before the season started, there was a lot of pressure on the 76ers.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: I think that kind of died down just a little bit, considering Jordan B missed so much time.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, a man hadn't didn't even play half the season.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, and though he looks good now, I think that um if he goes on a run, it will be a great testament to him.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: And I actually hope for it a little bit.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: Not say I'm rooting for it, but I'm hoping for it for the sake of Jordan B because from all accounts, you seem like a cool dude.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't like narrative-based things about player being uh bad in a certain round.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: It's just I hate it.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: And hey, it's facts, right?
21:38
SPEAKER_00: I can't say it's not true.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: You can't make it to the conference finals, the top five players, something is up.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: So I'm rooting to get rid of that narrative for him.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, those are my four.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: There's pressure, but adjusted pressure teams, right?
21:50
SPEAKER_00: This next one, I just have middle pressure.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a good amount of pressure, but they're not in the same tier as the four people above them.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: This first team, and let me double check the box.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Score right now.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: All right, they won their game.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: All right.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: All right.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: I was looking at you.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: I was looking, I was looking at the Cavs, man.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: They end up blowing them out too.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, anyway, the Cavs are under a good amount of pressure.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they're still one of the younger starter fives in basketball, with Allen and Mobley being so young and then Darius Garland being so young, too.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: But the reason they're in this tier and not in one of the other tiers is because if things don't go right, if the lights are too bright for Jared Allen again, if you lose in the first round, you have to start thinking about the fit of your big four guys.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: And part of that is like, oh my God, there's a lot of Donovan Mitchell rumors that he said this at the podium and out of this and out of that.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of pressure.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not a guy that would call for a coach's job unless it was my favorite team, because that's the team I'm watching the most closely.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: I I and this feels weird to say because at one point of the season there was conversations about JB Bickerstaff winning coach of the year because they were so damn good from uh January to February in that month, a month and a half stretch where they were 24 or whatever the number was.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: But I I wonder if they could go back to doing the Donovan Mitchell trade if they know what they know now, then would they keep JB as the coach?
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Or would they go get a better coach or a more qualified coach, however you want to phrase it?
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Because again, JB's, I think JB's a good coach.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: But when you when you think about a team that made a splash for a superstar, all-star, I don't know what category you have, Donovan Mitchell in, regardless.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: You make that type of splash, it's like we're going in.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: We're not making this type of splash so we can make the playoffs, make it to the second round.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: We are trying to compete for a championship.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: And at the time, they had Derrick Garden, they had a young Evan Mobley who looked uh really good, they had Jared Allen who looked really good.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: It's like, hell, now let's add Donovan Mitchell, who at that point had had a few different playoff series where he was incredible.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: We need that type of a guy to create for himself and others.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: And you just can't afford another quick flame out, especially because we don't know where Donovan Mitchell head is at as a calf.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Is he a calf?
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Is he going somewhere else?
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Is he interested in this?
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Is he interested in that?
24:14
SPEAKER_00: There's a big cloud over this organization.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I heard some conversations on Twitter about Evan Mo about Evan Mobley and his lack of development offensively over the last couple seasons and and why that might be the the crossroads of this organization.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: And I guess I kind of understand it, right?
24:32
SPEAKER_00: You you draft Evan Mobley and you think that eventually his offensive game would develop a little bit better.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to, he's not the same offensive player as he was his rookie season, but he has not taken a jump like some of the people around him that was drafted around him.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: 2021 draft Kay Cunningham has looked great this season.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: I know they lost 28 straight, but looks great.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Jalen Green just had the best month of his career, 27.7 points per game.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: He's he hit somewhat of how how real is it is still uh yet to be seen.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: But whatever.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Scotty Barnes blossomed already into an all-star, one of the better younger prospects in basketball.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: So those are the people drafted around him.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like all of them have developed their offensive game a little bit more than him, right?
25:13
SPEAKER_00: So the question is with Evan Mobley's offensive development, how much of that is just him not doing that versus how much of that is him being kind of limited as the third option on the team at best, and sometimes fourth and sometimes fifth option, depending on who's got it going.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: What what is the what is the line there?
25:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't know the answer to it, but I'm sure some of it, I think both things might play a part, right?
25:38
SPEAKER_00: It's just you want to see development from him.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: But those guys we just mentioned, Kate Cunningham's had the ball in his hands since the first day he got to Detroit.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Jalen Green said the ball in his hands the first day he got to to Houston with varying results for both of them.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Was it great for their careers?
25:50
SPEAKER_00: Was it worse for their careers to get a hundred shots and only make seven of them?
25:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Scotty Barnes didn't get the keys initially, but eventually they gave him the keys.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And guess what he did?
26:00
SPEAKER_00: He made an all-star appearance in that first year.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: Now, everybody has their own motives, their own uh ways of developing, and so on and so forth.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: But the guys that he's in conversations with have had opportunities to grow and to have those work through those mistakes and all of that.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the first year Evan Mobley came to the team, they were a 44-win team, and this is pre-Donovan Mitchell, right?
26:20
SPEAKER_00: This is the oh yeah, this is Larry Market in the company.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: This is Darius Gar that looking great.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: It was like, oh my God, okay, we're a 44-win team.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: And at that time, 44 wins wasn't enough to make the postseason.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, 44 wins right now would have them as the eighth seed.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: All right, all right.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say things have got shifted a little bit in the Eastern Conference.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: And they say, hey, um, oh no, they did finish as the eighth seed this season.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so yeah, they finished as the eighth seed this season, and then they're like, okay, we have Darius Garland, who at this point in time is 22.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: We have a 22-year-old Evan Mobley, or 20-year-old Evan Mobley, who averaged 15 and 8 in his rookie season, and we have Jared Allen, who's 23.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: What could we do?
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Let's go add one of the top guys in basketball, and then boom, they blossom to a 51 team and eventually they lose to the Knicks in the first round.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: But oh yeah, that that year they were the 8C, but they lost in the play-in tournament.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, now it's all clicking.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we've seen with Evan Mobile.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me double check this.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: His rookie season, he was attempting 12 shots per game, his sophomore year, exactly 12, and then this year it is 11.1.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: So um just something, I just think there's pressure.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay, enough Cavaliers talk.
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30:34
SPEAKER_00: Next team is the Miami Heat.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I mean, you can make an argument they deserve to be in that top-level pressure team.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: The only reason they're not there is because we saw them do this last year.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: And though I don't believe that they're going to replicate that, trust I would not bet no money that they're replicating that.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: I guess there's a chance.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: I guess there's a chance.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: It's either you have another run or we have to really think about your approach to team building.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: That's how I feel.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: And right now they're playing against the Dallas Mavericks, and let's see how that game is going.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh they are down by double digits with three minutes ago.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: That game is wrapped.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Luca has 29, 9 to 9.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: I hope Luca goes for that triple-double on national TV.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: You have to reevaluate how you approach building a team.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Jimmy Butler, I don't, I don't have, I don't know what to say about Jimmy Butler right now.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: About a month or so, he told the world that it's time to turn it up.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
31:24
SPEAKER_00: He's walking out of the arena going through the tunnel.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: He said it's that time.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: What have we done, Jimmy?
31:30
SPEAKER_00: What have we done?
31:31
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me pull up Jimmy Butler's game log because he's had some games in there for sure.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: But for him to say it's time to, it's morphin time or whatever the hell he said.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, he didn't say it's morphin time.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: But he's he's had some games where I'm watching, I'm like, Jimmy, we kind of need you tonight.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: The other the game I'm specifically talking about, and this was a blowout game, so I maybe it's not a great game to reference, but maybe it is because you got blown out to a team that was missing Brandon Ingram in this one.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Jimmy Jimmy shot 12 shots?
32:00
SPEAKER_00: 12 shots in 36 minutes?
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, that is unfathomable to me when you consider how good or how dominant Jimmy can be.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: He said games a season where he has less than 10 shot attempts.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: The other night they play against the Atlanta Hawks, and we're watching this game on playback.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: And in the fourth quarter, specifically the clutch, I had never seen Jimmy Butler look like that in my life.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: DeAndre Hunter had him in a straitjacket.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: He could not create for himself or for others multiple times.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: He hit multiple, he missed multiple free throws in the clutch.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Jimmy, that's not what we were saying enough for.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: That's not Jimmy.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: We thought he was gonna now.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: The finishing line was 25 of them things, eight, uh, eight uh, nine assists, eight rebounds, so great stat line, 27 a game before that.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: But if you're watching these games, sometimes it just feels like he's not taking over the way you would expect somebody that's that said he's about to turn it up.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, did do they want the most adversity imaginable?
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Because there are there's a real path for them to be in the playoffs and not to play in.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: There was a real real path for that.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: And they proceeded to lose to Dallas, OKC, Washington, which again is the maybe the nastiest loss of the season for them, and then Denver.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Some of those games are excusable.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Dallas, again, as we talked about, one of the hottest things of basketball since the break.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: OKC, really, really good team.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Denver Nuggets, defended champion for sure.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: But the but but you still need to win some of those.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: You can't walk at an 0-4, especially when the Wizards are squished in there.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: And that was the moment in time where it kind of died for them to be a succeed.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Again, I guess there's technically still time, but you need at least some of those games.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: And I was a heavy investor in the second half of the season.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Puss for the heat.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: They have not had that.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: So there is pressure.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: The next team is the is the Wolves.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: And the only reason I'm saying there's a lot of there's a medium amount of pressure is the tax implications or the cap implications.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: There was a report earlier.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Let me get my report.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: This is from Adrian Wojanowski.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: The Timberwolves minority minority partners, Mark Lore and A-Rod, submitted financial projections forecasting a sizable retreat and roster payroll, and majority owner Glenn Taylor believed that would jeopardize the franchise's ability to compete for a title.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Basically saying that A-Rod and then was about to trade Carnegie Towns to save some money.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I guess Glenn Taylor was like, no, that's one of the reasons I'm not selling you the team.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: I I guess it's it might be cap because Glenn Taylor doesn't pay the tax.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: But regardless, there are real cap implications coming up for this team this season, this offseason and next season.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: So that that's where the pressure goes to.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's been a very long time since they've been this good.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you definitely don't want to lose in the first round.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to lose, you want to make a finals run.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: And the way they've been playing recently in Carnegie Towns is projected to come back very relatively soon.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: You think that I think that they have a chance to go on a real run.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think some people look at this team as a team that can't get it done and they won't be able to go to the conference finals.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: I think everything is matchup based.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you get the right team twice, you can be in the conference finals.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: I know they're a really bad clutch team.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: I know trust, trust, trust.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: I've been saying that all season long.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: But I think with the right people, the right teams going against anything is really possible for pretty much any single team.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: But that tax implication, that cap implication is one of the things.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I guess Glenn Taylor's only paid the luxury tax four times in 30 years.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Whew.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: All right.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: But then again, if there's any time to make it five times, it's this team.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: You see it, it's happening right in front of you.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: The next team is the Pelicans.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: And their pressure is not to go on a deep run, their pressure is to make the goddamn playoffs.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: They've not had a single playoff game under the Zion Williamson bubble or career because he's been injured for that one series they have where Brandon Ingram took off.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's a lot of pressure to eventually make it.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is by all accounts the deepest team in basketball.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: And they need to make a place playoff appearance.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: They just need to.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: We need to see Z in the postseas.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: We need to see what that's about.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, just like a lot of teams around the association, they got injuries at the worst possible time, Brandon Ingram being out.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: But I think this postseason could let us know a lot about some of the players in the roster.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: And I guess we'll see exactly what they decide to do.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: Because with them being one of the deep, if not the deepest team of basketball, I'm always looking at like this player and this player, patch them to pack them together, get this player, you know what I'm saying, make a little trade, consolidate the talent to get some top-end talent.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: The next team I have is the Thunder.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people look at the OKC Thunder and say, hey, it's one of the youngest teams of basketball.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: They're not under many pressure.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Kenny, why you don't got them with the Orlando Magic?
36:20
SPEAKER_00: This team needs to win at least one playoff series.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of how I feel.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: They need to.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, if they don't, what happens?
36:25
SPEAKER_00: It's not like they're about to be trading everybody.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: No, nobody's getting fired because of it.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: But when you have this successful of a season, I honestly do believe that you need to at least win a series.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: To say that we've progressed enough.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, they went from a team that was a play-in team that lost last year.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: So just making it is progression.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Do not get me wrong, but you want to see them at least win a playoff series.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: That's just where my head is at.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: Because of that, they're my, I guess, third tier.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: What's it four, fourth tier?
36:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to say it, but this pressure.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Now let's get to the four teams under the most amount of pressure.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: Maybe championship or busts or something.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't know exactly what we're gonna call it, but these are the four teams under the most amount of pressure, in my personal opinion.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: In no particular order, we're gonna start off with the Boston Celtics because this team has done a lot.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: Just before I started recording, Drew Holiday just got a bag, which is like a year and some change ago, he was saying, like, oh, after my next after this contract that I'm on, I'm gonna retire.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Of course, he said that wasn't true anymore, but he got his bag and it was a lot, a lot of money.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Drew Holiday.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: And the reason they're up here, you like Kenny, uh, they got Jason Tatum signed up, they got uh Jalen Brown, now Drew Holiday.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Porzingis is gonna get paid relatively.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: No, Porzingis already signed his extension.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: The only guy that's not under extension is Derek White, and I'm assuming that they're gonna have that.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: So, Kenny, what's the pressure?
37:34
SPEAKER_00: They should, in theory, walk to the NBA finals, walk there.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: They should dominate their way to the conference finals.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: They should dominate their way to the finals.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know they might see the heat, I know they might see the Philly after 76ers, but this team has been so dominant.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: One of the most dominant regular season teams we've ever seen.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Ever seen.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: There's a 14-game difference between them and the two-seed.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: 14 games.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: And right now, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, they have a minus 175 chance of winning the conference.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: They have minus odds.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: That is dominance.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: And the team behind them has a plus 550, and that is the Bucs.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: This team is under a lot of pressure.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: A team that has made the conference finals, made the conference finals.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: They've got to the NBA Finals loss to the Warriors.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: They've done everything except for raise that Larry O'Brien trophy.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: And they made a lot of investments with this roster.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: I remember before the season started, it was like, oh, could they could they be that good?
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Marcus Smart is gone, and he was the thing that was keeping everything together.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: That's not really the case, as we can see.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: I just think that this should be a team.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: And I'm tempted to do it myself.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: Just easily pick them in five against every team they go against.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: That's how good they've been.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: It's probably not trustworthy for a lot of people, but that's how good they've been.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: The next team is Jeremy Walkie Bucks.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: Now, Giannis went down with a strain, and that is the I hate that.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: I hate that for everybody involved.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: I hate it for Giannis.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: I hate it for the Bucks fans.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: I hate it for me as a guy that's was well like ready to watch this team play in the postseason.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: I did not watch the game where it happened, but I saw that there was only two free throw shots in the entire game, which doesn't even make sense.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: Like I can't even compute that in my brain, but it's true.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but other than that, there's a lot of pressure.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Now they're saying that Giannis is gonna miss the next couple games.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna he's gonna miss the rest of the regular season, and hopefully he'll be back for the postseason.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: As somebody that did a slight amount of research, which is two Google searches, this is one of those injuries that you gotta play it by ear.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: It's not like, oh my God, he's gonna miss this amount of time.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: But Kevin Art missed some time in the postseason a few years back with this exact thing.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was the series against the Rockets, I want to say.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, the Rockets, this was 2019, if I'm not mistaken.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: And he ended up getting injured, they held it down, and then they got to the finals versus the Raptors.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: It's like KD's back, and then he tore his Achilles uh when he came back.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: So I don't I don't know how this is gonna go for Giannis.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunate part is the Bucs have had the injury buck at the end of the season, slash the postseason over the last couple of years.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Chris Middleton missed some time.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh Giannis missed some time last year, obviously, when they ended up getting eliminated by the Miami Heat.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: It just happens at this time every single season for them.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: Um and Giannis is a is a guy that doesn't get injured often.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: But the few times he has gotten injured, it has happened this late in the season.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Now he has been dealing with the nagging injury, and I don't know if these two things are attached to each other.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's the same leg, the same muscle, whatever, whatever.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: But if we're just talking about the pressure when you trade up trade for Damian Lillard and all of the other stuff, it is it's a lot of pressure to be successful, especially when you trade you uh fired a coach that was 30 and 14 in favor of a coach that's now what 15 and 16, or maybe he might be 16 and 16 after their their win against the Celtics last night.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: A lot of pressure.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Next team I have is the Phoenix Suns.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: I saw a lot of conversations on Twitter.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: This was yesterday, when they were getting their ass spanked by the clips, and I know they made it a respectable game, but it wasn't.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: Um shout out to the Clippers because Russell Westbrook had a Kenson Yetta, which is 15 points, 15 rebounds, 15 assists, at least something like that.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Brody.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, but when they were getting spanked, I saw some conversations, and it was a mixture of Suns fans and others, right?
41:12
SPEAKER_00: It's this is this is not indicative of the entire Suns organization slash their fans and stuff, but I saw a real conversation of people rethinking that should they have pulled off the Kevin Duret rate?
41:25
SPEAKER_00: And I think those people are tripping.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: Personally, now had a conversation about the Bradley Beal trade that's different because I would I would probably rethink that trade.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't done that trade again if I could go back in history.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: But the Kevin Durant trade, it was a lot.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: Trust Mikhail, Cam, picks, swaps, it was a lot.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, Kevin's though.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: I think it's the second trade, the second most important trade, the DeAndre Aiden trade, the Devin Booker trade.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Bradley Beal trade, that is the one that gets me in this position.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: I saw what these two dudes can do by themselves in a series versus the Denver Nuggets, and we're talking about Kevin O'Reilly and Devin Booker.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't have any question about that.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: I have the question about the rest, and I don't know what the alternative was because I think that the it had run his course with DeAndre Aiden.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: I think Chris Paul is bad.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: He's bad right now.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: No, he's not.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: No, he's not.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: For this team in his old age, he would not be as productive.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Not that he's bad.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm not I don't want to disrespect my goat.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: You mean um so the Kevin Red trade is not the one I would rethink at all, it's the other one.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: And I watched them get destroyed, I watched the first half of them get destroyed, not not the whole game, because why why watch the rest of that game?
42:33
SPEAKER_00: Even though, again, they made a little mini push.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: And there were a few times in it early in the game.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh I I got I just copied and pasted this one from my notes.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: Russell Westbrook can see the future.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of that was just Devin Booker slash Bradley Beale being laxadaisical with their passes, slash telegraph, and a lot of different stuff.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: And that always gonna bring me back to the lack of true point guard.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: And though again, Devin has been really good in that.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: Bradley Beal, at least until last night, been really good in that.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: There's just certain times I watch this team and I'm like, they could benefit from having somebody.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Don't need them to be the guy.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't need them to be, I don't need it to be Chris Ball.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't, but somebody, somebody in the Ross that could do it.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm being a dead horse because this is a conversation for a long time.
43:16
SPEAKER_00: But since the all-star break, they're 13 and 11.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: It's not good enough.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: It's not good enough.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: The offense, when you have Devin Booker, Bradley Beal, and Kevin Durant, the offense should not be middle of the pack.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: They're they're 15th in offense.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: The big three, their big three.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: These three max players and super max players have a net rating of 5.05 together.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: But when you gut an entire roster and basically fill the rest around with minimum players, a 5.05 net rating with those three on the court is not gonna cut it.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna cut it.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: And it hasn't.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of pressure on them because they gave up a lot.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: And and and Kevin has been phenomenal this season, but he's not getting no younger.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Bradley Beale has a no-tray clause and one of the biggest contracts in basketball.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you do about that.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: Grayson Allen's gonna get paid because he's been phenomenal this season.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you do about that.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: How do you get this team better if you flame out in the playoffs?
44:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: And the last team, the team that's the top of the list is the Clippers.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: The most pressure.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: Again, they had the win recently over the Suns.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: They had a win against the Cavs recently, they had the win against the Nuggets recently without Jamal Murray, but still they have win against Magic the Magic.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's a lot of pressure on this team because they've been together for quite some time.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: They have a conference finals appearance, which is cool.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: I know we've talked about this a ton, so I'm not gonna spend too much time on it, but they have a conference finals appearance, but that's not what you you built this team for.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: You do not bring in Kawhi Leonard and trade Shea Gills, Alexander, and all the picks for Paul George to make a one conference finals appearance.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: No, you want to win the goddamn thing.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: And with Paul George's uh future up and in balance, I don't know what happens if they don't reach the top.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: Like the Paul George Philly thing seems somewhat real.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: It seems like they're gonna be actively going after him.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: And that is a spot where he would kind of fit perfectly, if you ask me.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know where his head is at.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where their head is at, but I know for sure that the Clippers are under a lot of pressure to make things happen.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: From James, who hasn't signed yet, to Paul, who hasn't signed yet, to Brody, who has signed.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: I think he might have an option on this year, actually.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: This team has a new arena opening in next season.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: New logos, new everything.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: They need a Larry O'Brien trophy, though.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: Or close to it, a finals appearance or something to make the fans feel good.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: Because just being good enough to end up being the fourth seed every season, it's not gonna cut it for them, man.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: It's just not.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Let me know what you think.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: No hashtag AskKB today.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: My apologies.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: I did ask.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: The questions weren't necessarily amazing, but that's okay.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
45:55
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: It's cool.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, next episode we got something going.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you enjoyed the episode, leave it a like, subscribe to the channel, go over the audio platforms, give it five stars.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: Goes a very long way as we try to grow this empire of the Enjoy Basketball Network, and I'll see y'all soon.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: Peace.