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Predicting The Award Winners For The 2023-2024 NBA Season · Small Ball with Kenny Beecham

0:05
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Kenny Beach and podcast, ladies and gentlemen.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: I am all grins because the next time you talk to me after this episode, we'll be in the NBA season.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: I cannot believe it.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: We're finally here.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: No more overreacting the preseason.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: No more predictions like this episode.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: And no more scratching the bottom of the barrel for things to talk about, y'all.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Because it's actually gonna be meaningful basketball transpiring, depending on who you ask.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: To me, it's all meaningful.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: To some people, it ain't meaningful until after you all star break.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: But hey, as a sicko, as a diehard, I am super, super excited.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: And whether the NBA likes it or not, the Denver Nuggets will be getting their rings tomorrow.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: And I will be there.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily in ball arena.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Is that where it's called?
0:48
SPEAKER_00: I think it's that's what it's called.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: But I will be in Denver getting the whole atmosphere of a championship city because I have not felt that atmosphere since oh the Cubs did win and the Black Hawks did win.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: I have not experienced that as a as a basketball fan in my adult life.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: I was two years old when they last won it.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Um the reason I say whether the NBA likes it or not, because there is a graphic going viral on Twitter that got Nuggets fans all riled up.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: It is a graphic of the NBA trying to promote the tip-off of the NBA season because they want to get people hype, man.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Tune in to TNT or whatever it may be to watch basketball because it finally matters.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: And on this graphic, they have four NBA players, four really good top players in basketball.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: They had uh LeBron James in year number 21, who is the oldest playing ball now that Iggy has retired.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Iggy.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: They had Wardale Stephen Curry Jr., obviously the greatest shooter of all time, still in his prime, if you ask him, and I can't disagree.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: It had Kevin Durant, who is on a new newish team.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he played some games there last year, but this team is newly put together.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Exciting stuff.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: All these players play, all these players play on open tonight.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: And then the fourth player that was on that graphic was Jason Datum.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: And Devin Nargis fans are like, yo, what is going on?
2:03
SPEAKER_00: We just won a championship.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: We have a two-time MVP on our team, and we can't even get the graphic.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: And listen, Devin Nargis fans, I I I sympathize with you.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: I empathize with you.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: It's one of those two words.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: I understand it.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Because as a market like yours, you just want to have the respect of the association of the fans.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: I see it every day.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: I follow fans across all 30 fandoms.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: I understand the smaller markets or the medium-sized markets and their frustrations with the lack of marketing towards their teams.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And I look, you just won a championship.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: I understand the frustrations.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: But listen, you just did something that the other 29 teams wish they did.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Those four other people on the graphic wish they were you last season, raising the Larry O'Brien trophy.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: You think, if you asked Jason Tatum, would you rather be on the graphic or would you rather have that first championship?
2:57
SPEAKER_00: I think I know what his answer is.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: And listen, I understand running the respect and all of that, but at the end of the day, you're doing it.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Calvin Booth, Mike, Mike Miller, Mike Miller, Mike Malone, they talk about, man, we're not going for one.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: We're trying to build a dynasty, and I understand it.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: So I would just say, take a chill pill, man.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: The NBA, yes, it's trash by them, but at the end of the day, you you have the thing.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: You have the happiness in your franchise.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: You're coming off a championship win.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Now, the NBA is not writing me no checks.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
3:29
SPEAKER_00: All of the content that I do across socials, whatever, whatever, is usually NBA related.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: But strictly from the NBA, they're not writing me no checks.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna play devil's advocate here.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Because their job is to get people hype.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: And the way the NBA has always marketed, at least in my lifetime, is based on the players, right?
3:46
SPEAKER_00: You don't come to see the Boston Celtics necessarily, you come to see Jason Tatum.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: You don't come to see the Lakers really, you come to see LeBron James.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe those aren't the best examples because those are two legendary franchises who pack out the house, whether the team is good or bad, but you understand what I'm saying.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: They've always been an organization to market the player versus the franchise for good or bad.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, for our game, it's it's growing the game, right?
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Internationally, people have their favorite players, maybe not necessarily their favorite teams.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: It's just different.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: And for them, Jason Tatum is more marketable.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: Simply put, Nicola Jokic is a guy that doesn't want to be marketable.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: He's a guy that doesn't care about those types of things.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: That's what I admire the most about Jokic.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: He don't care about no signature signature shoes.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: He don't care about getting posted on household highlights, ESPN, whatever, whatever.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: He cares about winning basketball games, horses, teammates, and family.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: The best things in the world, if you ask me.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: No, okay, I don't care about horses.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: But so it's it's not really important to him to get on that graphic as much as it's important for you to want the respect of the association.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: What I will say, the other 29 teams, the people that aren't making those graphics, those people respect you.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: After a championship, there's there's no other room for it.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: They cannot disrespect you anymore because you did the ultimate thing.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: So would you rather have the respect of the guy to make the graphic?
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Or would you rather have the respect of the players across the association?
5:03
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know, that's just me.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: That's just me.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
5:06
SPEAKER_00: That's not where this video or this podcast was to start off, but that's where we at.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And before we get into today's topics, which is predicting the NBA awards.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: It's an annual, annual podcast for everybody.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: Everybody gives their predictions.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: I do want to say right off rip, these predictions do not matter whatsoever until you get it right.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: I have been wrong 95% of the time, but guess what?
5:28
SPEAKER_00: Everybody remembers when I predicted John Morant to win MVP.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Everybody remembers that.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Everybody remembers when I had Lowry Market as a sneaky MIP candidate.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: You would have thought I predicted it right.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: I said he was sneaky.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: Dark Horse, he's like the seventh man on my list, but I said it aloud once, and that's the only thing people remember.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: They don't remember every miss.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: So this is a time to just pop your collar.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Have some fun.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Have some fun.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: I did also predict the last two MVPs.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't too crazy.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: I kind of figured that Jokic wasn't getting three in a row, even if he deserved it.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: And uh I've seen it before where player gets an MVP.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Not that he was unwarranted uh 76er fans, because he got he got my vote at the end of the season, even though I don't have an official vote.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: But it it there are MVPs or awards.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: It's like he's been in the running for some time.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Here you go.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
6:12
SPEAKER_00: And that that might have been it for uh for a joy of the beat.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just saying, loosen up, have some fun.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: I'll try to give you rationalization to my picks and everything and talk things through.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: Before we get into it, the other day, I woke up, and one of the most unhealthy things I do, I think we all might do this, is we wake up, we check our phones.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: I've tried my hardest to kind of cut that part out and just relax and kind of internalize life instead of going directly to the phone.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: But my job is social media, right?
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And I checked it the other day, checked the podcast charts, and guess who was the fifth most downloaded podcast in America?
6:48
SPEAKER_00: A basketball podcast.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: I ain't on the Joe Rogan level, I ain't got the all-time numbers.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: But in basketball, we ended up being number five, which is a new high, and we appreciate that.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: On the whiteboard behind my camera, there's a list of goals for this season.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And one of my goals is to take over as the number one basketball podcast in America.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: And we got to five, which is great.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: We're not settling for five.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: And now that we're about to go two times a week starting this week, I'm hoping that we get higher and higher and higher until we look at Shannon Sharp eye to belly button because he's that much taller than me, and we say, we took over.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: And I need your help for that, obviously.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: So if you're a YouTube viewer, go over to Spotify and go over to Apple, pre-download those episodes, leave us fast stars, it helps a ton.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: And if you're an Apple slash Spotify user, go to the YouTube channel and subscribe because we got more additional content coming to this channel outside of just the podcast, okay?
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: Before we get into the actual prediction of awards and kind of talk some things through, I want to take a couple minutes to talk about some very light news across the association.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: The first one is the rookie extensions that are being given out.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, as this goes up, maybe there are more players, but we saw Denva Sell get one a little while ago.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Zeke Najee got his uh who else?
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Peyton Pritcher got one, Tyrese, the top guys got theirs.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just excited to see money given out to these dudes.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Zeke Naji is a player that if you watch my YouTube video last year of players that I was excited for breakout season.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: Zeke Najee was one of my players.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, he did not break out.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, it got to the point where DeAndre Aiden, not DeAndre Aiden, DeAndre Jordan was playing minutes over him in the NBA finals and the playoffs and stuff.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't the greatest time.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: But the Different Nuggets believe in him enough to give him a four-year$32 million contract or something along those lines.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's just great money being thrown around, generational wealth for these young guys, and I'm excited for.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: There was an aggregation port um a couple days ago where the Bulls, you know, we gotta talk about the Bulls on this podcast, were uh heavy on Twitter on Friday.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things was Zach Lowe going up to this podcast, and he was saying that Patrick Williams, who's eligible for a rookie extension because he's in the same draft class as these guys, um, is coming to the table and saying he wants a number that's not, it starts with a two and it doesn't end with a zero.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: And some people assume that that means that Patrick Williams was saying that he does he want 200 plus million dollars, and I don't think that's what it was.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: I think it was saying he don't want 20 million, but he won't might want 27, 28, uh 29.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: And as a guy that roots for this organization, I hope he don't get it right now.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: I hope he don't get it right now.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's counterproductive to what I just said about these young guys getting their cash and trust, I understand.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: But what I would rather they do with the same thing they did with Zach Levine a few years before this regime is in, where a lot of people believed in Zach Levine's ability to be good, but this is before he was an all-star.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: He's coming off an ACO injury.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: And they were like, hey, Zach, we love you here, but the number you're asking for, we don't know if we think you're worth that at the moment.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: So hit restrict the free agency.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Go get that money elsewhere.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: And if another team believes you worth that money, boom, we got you.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: And they did that.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: The Sacramento Kings offered him whatever amount of money, and the Bulls matched it, and now he's in one-time all-star.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Is he a two-time all-star now?
9:51
SPEAKER_00: He's an all-star nonetheless, and I'm expecting another one this year.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Zach Levine.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: That would be the same thing I do here.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Because if he's good enough to warrant a$28 million contract after the season, then give it to him.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: But right now, his 10 points per game, 40% three-point shooter.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: We know what he's good at, but there's a lot to get better.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if I, as my favorite team, I want to see them giving out$27 million to that type of player, unless we're unleashing him to do more than sit in the corner and 90% of the time.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
10:18
SPEAKER_00: The next bit piece of news hurt my heart.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Hurt my heart.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Out of nowhere, we found out that Steven Adams is gonna miss this entire, entire season.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: And Steven Adams had become one of the more underrated centers in all of basketball because of the things that he does well.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: He does really, really well.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: The screen setting, the offensive rebound rate, he was breaking like NBA records on those things.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's no coincidence that once he found out the lineup, things kind of fell apart in Memphis.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: And Memphis had been a team.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: If you go watch my other podcasts, we were trying to predict the Western Conference standings.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: And I stood on business when I said that the Grizzlies are a team that I'm confident in being top six.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: And the only reason I said that is because the last two seasons leading up to the NBA, I I predicted they would fall out.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: I didn't necessarily believe in them full term, and every single year they exceeded my expectations.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: So because of the last two years, even though we know that Ja Morant is missing 25 games, I gave them the benefit of the doubt because they have been so successful come regular season.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, hey, Steven Adams is coming back.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: And now he's not.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: So they got 25 games without Ja, a full season without Steven Adams, no Brandon Clark, or something, something that people not really talking about.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: They got rid of Dylan Brooks, so now their wing is kind of wing position is kind of thin.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, man, I have no idea what to predict the Memphis Greece are gonna do now.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: Jaron Jackson Jr., DPOY, the biggest hole in his game on the defensive side is that he doesn't close out possessions and grabbing rebounds.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: And he was very candid about that going into the season, said he's gonna try his hardest to rebound more.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: But still, Steven Adams is a is like a generational rebounder on the offensive glass specifically, and they're missing that for an entire year now, and there's no like real replacement to it.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: We like Xavier Tillman around here.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: But your top two centers and Brandon Clark and Steven Adams are now gone, which means that Jaron is probably gonna play a lot more center this season, and I just don't know how to feel about that.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know what I'm doing about the Memphis Grizzlies.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: I thought they had a solid offseason bringing in uh Marcus Smart.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm less optimistic and hopefully they still do their thing.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay, those are the big pieces of news.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Other than the NBA saying that maybe they go back to East versus West, which I understand.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Last year in Utah, it was an awful all-star exp.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: I was there, it was awful.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: It was it was the worst we've got in some time.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Chicago, the Elem ending thing got down to the last possession.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Anthony Davis at home hitting free throws, it was great.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: The year after that, even though it wasn't as competitive, Steph Curry broke records and it was great.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: And then this year in Utah, Jason Tatum did some crazy stuff, but ultimately it wasn't a fun year.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: And Adam Silver, and I don't know if Adam Silver actually believes that going East versus West is the remedy to the bad things.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: What I honestly do believe is that he needs some type of change to get people back invested because last year was just that bad.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: And we'll see if that is the right idea.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's get into some awards.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, this is a very fun part for me.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: MVP, most approved player, rookie of the year.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Am I forgetting stuff?
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes, with DPOY clutch player the year, which is gonna be fun to talk about.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: Six man of the year and coach of the year, obviously, you know those.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think we're gonna start at the head of the snake, the most valuable player.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Because this right here was not as fun as I thought it was gonna be.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: I honestly do believe, based on what we know today, this is a three-man race.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Three-man race! I'm sorry, uh defending NBA MVP.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you're gonna come close this year.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: And that's no, that's no disrespect.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: I just think that based on what Philly is going through at the moment and not really knowing what the next 40 games are gonna look like for you, I just don't know if you're gonna get legitimate consideration for this award.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Do I think Joel Lovete is gonna have a great season?
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: There's no reason not to think that.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: But also, I think the people above him are probably gonna get the nod above him.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: So I'm wishing Joe Loveteat the best, but I don't think he's gonna end up in the top three conversation.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: The top three, in my opinion, in whatever order, is gonna be Nikola Jokic, Jansa Tedekumpo, and Jason Tatum.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I give you a reason.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: I give you a reason.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: I give you a reason.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Nikola Jokic is like, hey, I'm a two-time MVP, I probably should have been the third.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm coming off an NBA championship, and I think people are gonna recognize that I'm one of the two best players involved.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: If you look at all the publications, most people have him number one right now over Giannis.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, hey, I'm still gonna be an advanced stats darling.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm still gonna be dominant, I'm still gonna win a bunch of games, even though the Western Comp is even better.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: And bada boom, bada bam, you're gonna be voting for me for my third MVP, and I'm gonna hit an elite club of three MVPs, one NBA championship type dudes.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And if you ask Calvin Booth and them, they're going for more rings.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Giannis is like, hey, we just re-upped the team.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: We got Damian Lillard.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: We were the one seed last year.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: We lost to the eighth seed, and we understand that was dreadful, but I'm coming out on business.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: The MVP award is a combination of a lot of different things.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's quite literally the most valuable player.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: The second Nicole Jokic MVP was an example of that.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Where the team was not a top seed in the conference, but with Jamal Murray being gone, Michael Porter Jr.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: being gone, it was a really rough team where Campazo and Austin Rivers were like the starting backcourt.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: No disrespect to those players, but like there's a difference between that and KCP and Jamal Murray, you feel me?
15:28
SPEAKER_00: But when you took him off the court, the team's dreadful.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: When he was on the court, they were a good playoff team.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: He was quite literally the most valuable player.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: Another good example of that is the triple-double Russell Westbrook season.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: Now, that also has something else like the narrative-driven thing.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: But the man was the engine.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: He was going, he was going, he was going.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Take him off the court.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: I ain't look at the advanced stats in a long time, but I would assume that if you took him off the court, they were bad.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Most valuable player.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just strictly as uh it's just best player, best team.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we see that.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: And then Elastic is the narrative-driven stuff.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: And that also goes to Russell Westbrook, right?
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh KD is gone, and I'm still doing my thing.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: They didn't think I could do it type stuff.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: We saw a it's always a combination of the things.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to discredit any MVP, but in the early 2010s, uh, my favorite team crowned an MVP of the league.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: And though his stats were great, um, it's also narrative-driven that they were the number one team in the Eastern Conference with the Miami Heatles starting their journey.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, it was not one, not two, not three, not four.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: They won all of those championships, and Derek Rose and company stood on bit.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep doing that.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: It's so crazy how easily influence the words that I say is.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, standing on business, standing on business?
16:37
SPEAKER_00: That anyway, um, the Chicago Bulls did they think, and Derrick Rose was the catalyst to that.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: So it's always a combination of those things.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Tatum, all right, let's give let's give the case for Tatum being in the top three.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Going to be with the Milwaukee Bucks competing for the number one seed in the Eastern Conference, uh, barring health.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: All that I say here is assuming that things are gonna be healthy, obviously that's not the way it always goes, but based on what we know, the team should be competing for the number one seed.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Tatum has the case for best player, best team, but also the man has been all NBA first time a couple times in his career, and the next level after being all NBA first team is to win an MVP award.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that that's gonna happen, but I think that you can you can convince yourself that Tatum is gonna be in the running.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: The one thing that makes me hesitant to say Jason Tatum, it's not necessarily about him, even though he does have a lot of moments where he's just not completely locked in, where it's early in the shot clock, I'm gonna do my side step three and I'm gonna brick it.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Like that happens a ton.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: But I'm basing this off last year.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: I was not a huge fan of Missoula ball, mostly cutting out the mid-range area where it was layups or it was three-point shots, but it was mostly three-point shots, kind of getting rid of the bag.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're talking about bags right now that Jason Tatum has.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: It prevented him from doing that a ton.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And listen, he still was all in the first team with the Missoula ball, but there's a whole area of the court that was kind of neglected by Tatum where historically that hasn't really been the case.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: If you look at the two-point attempts per team, the Boston Celtics were in the bottom three.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not their job or their coaching for Joe Missoula and company is to shoot a bunch of threes.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And this lineup is built for that.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: They have two of the best three-point shooting centers in ball because I'm counting Al Horford as that.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Al Horford shot 45% three last year.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Porzingis is a unicorn of his time because he shot threes a seven foot, whatever.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: So they're gonna shoot a lot of them.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: I think they're gonna run a lot of teams out of the gym.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: So he has a case for best player, best team.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: But those are boring.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Those are boring.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: I want to see a left field guy come in and make us think, whoa, here he goes, here he comes.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna take that award.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: And it's not really left field because uh Stephen Curry is still as good as Stephen Curry is.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: But the Warriors are one of those teams I think a lot of people are not looking at to be a top seed in the conference.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: And if they are going to be a top seed, we're talking one seed, two seed.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, a lot of that is gonna have to do with Stephen Curry being the best version of himself.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Or, okay, the best version of himself is his unanimous MVP season.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of insane.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Go back and rewatch this season.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Look at the stats, it was ridiculous.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: But with them being better, uh, hypothetically, or theoretically being better with getting rid of Jordan Poole and replacing him with a guy like Chris Paul, who say all you want about Chris Paul, he's a he's a steady point guard, especially in a regular season that can help you win games when Steph Curry is no longer on the floor.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's left field, but uh but I'm okay, alright, alright.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: This man is 30 years old, and when he was at his peak of his powers, early stages of my other podcasts, this is a player that I had top three in predictions every single year.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Because I just believe that this dude, he he is such a talented player that in my mind there was no world where he didn't end up with at least one MVP and at least one DPOI, and I'm talking about Anthony Davis.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't think it's super realistic because, of course, this is the first year where they are putting the policy where you have to play 65 total games to be considered for these awards, and based on the track record of Anthony Davis, that is something that he hasn't really hit very regularly in his career.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: But if the Lakers are as good as I think they could be, the the torch has to be given to Anthony Davis.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not putting no stake in it, I'm I'm not betting my hard-earned cash on it, but like that would be a left field, oh my god, he finally did it type moment, even though it's unrealistic because he's he's 30 now.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: He's 30.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: That is so crazy.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Because I remember him, of course, being in the NBA draft, watching him all these years, and now he's 30 years old.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: What what if one of the darlings of the NBA, the OKC Thunder, a team that I've you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts, a lot of them being basketball-related, a lot of them not being basketball related, the buzz on the OKC Thunder is real.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: So real that some pretty accredited voices in the community are saying, hey, we believe this team is not not a playoff team, but a top seed type team.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: And if that is the case, if this team could go from outside the play-in to top seed, that means that their number one player, the 30-point per per player, 30 point per game player Shea gives Alexander hits another step, that would warrant him to be in at least in the conversations, you know.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: I I wish it was that simple in the NBA, but a lot of the times it's not.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the times MVPs are given to a player that spent the last couple years getting MVP votes and then boom, he gets it.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's finally his year.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: Shea's a guy that hasn't really been in the conversation for MVP, even though I think he finished fourth or fifth.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: So wait, hold on.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Am I convincing myself of Shay being a real dark horse?
21:40
SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm not in a camp that believes that the OKC Thunder are gonna make this magical jump.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: I think they're gonna be better this season, but jumping from 40 wins to I don't know, 53, whatever it might cost to be a top seed, is is I don't believe it just yet.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: I wish them nothing but the best, but I don't know.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Any other MVP candidates worth talking about?
21:58
SPEAKER_00: I've been seeing a lot of.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Of buzz about that guy in Minnesota.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: It's too early.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: It's way too early.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to leave it at that.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to leave it at that for MVP.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Our most improved player.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is where I have the best track record.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: I've predicted John Morant.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: I had Larry Market as a dark horse, but everybody remembers that I had him on the list, so I got a dub for that one.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm happy that Larry Marketing got it last year.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: There are a few things that I absolutely hate about most approved player that I will not be entertaining today.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: The first one, no second-year players.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Throughout the history of basketball, I think it's only been two players to win most approved player in their second season.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: So though I believe that Jabari Smith Jr.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: should be significantly better than last year, he's not a guy that will be getting my vote for most approved player because historically the second year is a better year for majority of players across basketball, and it's just kind of expected.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Now, if a player goes from three points per game to 28, then we can have some conversation, but that's just not normally the case, okay?
22:55
SPEAKER_00: So no second year players.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: No top, top picks.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Bothered the hell out of me.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: And again, though I predicted John Morant right, it bothered the hell out of me that John Morant won that MVP that season or MIP that season.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: Desmond Bain deserved it a little bit more to me, but when you have a player that is a top three-ish pick and they jump into the city, look really, really good, and then hit superstar.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: That's just not cool to me.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: I like the stories of a Larry Marking, a lottery pick that bounced around a little bit and it said, hey, I'm an all-star in this new spot.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: I like the Victor Ledipo.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: He was a top pick, but he wasn't John Morant.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: I like that Victor Depot had to go to three different teams before he was the guy.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: And get Wilson VO.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Golly, what how unfortunate of a career has it been since that all-star appearance that MIP season?
23:45
SPEAKER_00: I like those stories more than John Morant, who once he ended in an NBA basketball court when he was hooping, we knew that guy was special.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, he jumped from what?
23:54
SPEAKER_00: What was it, 19 to 26, 27?
23:57
SPEAKER_00: It was a significant jump.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Do not get wrong.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: He approved greatly, but he's he was John Morant.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: We understood it.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: And this is the problem because if you go look at ESPN's predictions, right?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: ESPN had their analysts um predict who did they believe was going to win MIP this season.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: And the top guys on this list was Jabbar Smith Jr., who again we respect and I understand the hype because Summer League was great, preseason was great for him, but year two player.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: It was Evan Mobley, who was a top player and an all-defensive player last year, and then it was Kate Cunningham.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Those are not the players that I personally want to give my most improved player vote to because they're good.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: They were drafted high because we thought that they are gonna be good in this association.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Especially the year two player.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, the year two player.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a rough rookie season for Jabari, but it's a year two player.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: K Cunningham played 17 games last season.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: And I had to go back through history.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Has there ever been a player to win most improved player?
24:56
SPEAKER_00: We're missing half of the year the games the previous year.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: The answer is no.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: It's never happened before.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to set that precedent that somebody who's projected to be really good.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Kay Cunningham was the number one pick in his draft class.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: I got a project to be really good, misses a lot of time, and now he's the most improved player because he's healthy and good.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: I won't do it.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: So let's get it to the people that I honestly do believe.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a lot of money in Vegas on Mikhail Bridges, and it will be hard for me not to look at Mikhail Bridges as an option once he got traded to the different nuggets.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Nope, once he got traded to the Brooklyn Nets, he averaged like 26 points per game.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, historically, he's been a guy that's set around 15 to 18 or whatever.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: And he took the throne as a potential number one player in this league.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, firstly, shout out to my guy Mikhail.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: I think when it comes to competing and winning championships and stuff, he's probably better as a number two and number three.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: But for the Brooklyn Nets, as of right now, he is their number one, and he did a pretty good job getting his statistics once he got traded to the Suns.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: I love, I love that moment for him because I think once we get to the point where we when you're a really impactful player on a championship quality team, which is what he was with the Phoenix Suns, you kind of get relegated to play a specific role.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: And he was cool with it.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: I am a defensive stopper.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: He was a DPOI candidate a couple seasons ago.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Defensive stopper, and I'm gonna sit in the corner and I'm gonna hit shots when you give me the ball.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: That was his role.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And then he gets traded.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: And I remember the night of the trade, they're like, man, they traded two role players and a bunch of picks to get Kevin Durant, and now Mikhail is more than that because he was given a different role.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to look across the association to figure out how many players do we believe could do something similar.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Where they're a role player as of right now, but again, I'm a keys of the cop and they can average 26 points per game, too.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And it's a tough, it's not that it's not that easy to think about.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: It's not all the first one that came to mind was like O'Jian and Nobi, who's always uh talked about how he wants to be a guy to put the ball on the floor and do this, do that, and he'd never really been given the opportunity.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Realistically, the numbers say that when he does put the ball on the floor, it doesn't end great, but he's of the mode of a defensive stopper who is kind of a three-it-three and D guy that could potentially expand his game more.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And now, this after the season, he'll be a free agent unless he signs an extension and he might get the opportunity to kind of showcase some of that.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: But McKelbridge is a guy that I believe it makes sense for him to be on this list because his overall stats, I think he ended with 20 points per game in the regular season.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: He could get up to 25, and that will be cool.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: But my guy, my pick, my winner of this award is none other than Orlando's very own Franz Wagner.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: See, I thought I was going palo.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Did you not listen to my spiel three minutes ago?
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Franz Wagner is a guy that's been I've been high on since, I don't know, maybe maybe a month or two of his NBA career.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know him much at Michigan.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I didn't, candidly speaking, I didn't know the guy.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: But because he was the first round pick of the Bulls pick, that that seventh overall pick is the one that we gave them in the Volsevich trade.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: I had a little fingers crossed, toes crossed.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, I hope he don't be a stud, and he's a stud.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: What can I say?
27:59
SPEAKER_00: That that part of me is gone.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: I've I've realized that we lost a trade, you have to deal with it.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: But Franz Wagner's a guy that does a little bit of everything on the court.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is he's one of the few people on the court that is a plus three-point shooter for the Orlando Magic.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: And I watched almost every single Orlando Magic preseason game, and I just like the connection that him and Paolo are gonna have.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: I like the amount of cutting and the finishing at the rim that he's he's showcased throughout the few years of his career.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is the all-star jump for him, potentially.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what you have to do.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: He's an 18-point per game scorer last season, and for him to win most improved player going from 18, more likely than not, he has to turn to an all-star.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's not beneath him.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: I think he can genuinely do that this year.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: The real problem is that he's sharing the court with Palo, and Palo also is a guy that can take an all-star caliber jump.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Could they have two?
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: It's unlikely, but it could happen.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: And the last guy is of the mode of the Larry Marketer.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: A guy that's played for a team or two, and new situation, new minutes, starting lineup when he wasn't that, you know, sometimes you just get a new situation and you blossom.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: And Obi Toppin is a guy that averaged like 15 minutes per game last year, seven points per game, three rebounds, something, something insignificant.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: But he's playing on a team that's gonna push the pace and has a few playmakers in Tavres Halliburton and Andrew Nimhard, who's gonna give him the ball to score.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: What type of scoring could he do when he will be behind a guy like Tavres, even Buddy Hill, who doesn't like he's gonna be starting, or even uh a Myers turn Miles Turner, he might not get an opportunity to fully spread his wings, but we will see him potentially jump up five points per game.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Is that realistic?
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Just because he's getting starter minutes now.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, he went from a he was a seven point per game guy in 15 minutes.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: If we ask him to play 28 to 30 minutes per game, we should see his numbers blossom.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Also, in the same vein, not on my list, but John Collins relegated to being the third, fourth option in Atlanta, forgot how to shoot.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Remember, John Hollins was a 20-point per game score in this association not too long ago.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: And then every single year he's got worse, he's got worse, he's got worse, and then he got traded for a bag of bones.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: And Utah is team reclamation where they just go get damaged goods and they make them look good all of a sudden.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Chris Dunn is a real NBA player right now.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: He's a real NBA player, Utah.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: Larry Market was kind of a throw-in to the dot of a mental trade.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: NBA player, not just NBA player, NBA All-Star.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Gonna get a bag this offseason.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: So uh those are my MIP guys.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: There's so many different candidates, though.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: I was I was trying to not go super traditional.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: I know I did bring up Mikhail Bridges, but there are some people like Jordan Poole, who a lot of people expect to take a big jump because he will be given the keys basically to take as many shots as he wants to, and that's his MO.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: That's what he wants to do.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: And he's gonna have games where he puts up crazy statistics.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: Even in the preseason, he had the 40-point game, just out of not out of nowhere, because again, he could score, but a preseason 40 piece is kind of crazy because traditionally you don't play 30 minutes in the preseason and 40.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: And the one thing that was impressive to me, and if you go look at his preseason stats, it wasn't pretty.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, he had a 1 for 15 game in there.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Overall, he shot like 30% from the field.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: It was awful, especially, you know.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: But the one thing that that Jordan Poole lacked in his young NBA career so far is ability to draw fouls, and in his 140-point game with Silver Lion, is that he shot like 17 free throws.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: And if he can go into it and draw some fouls and get some whistles here and there, obviously his points per game will go up.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Those are our MIP candidates.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, this is an open conversation.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: You let me know whether it'd be in the comments on Twitter who you have for everything.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: The next one before we take our first break, second break, third break, the next one is gonna be the rookie of the year.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: How much time do we got to spend on this?
31:40
SPEAKER_00: The rookie of the year is one of those awards where you don't need to play 65 games.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: That's something I just found out today.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: I thought that the 65 games things across all the entire board.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: It's not rookie of the year.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to play 65.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the minimum is.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm assuming you can't play 12.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
31:56
SPEAKER_00: But with that being said, Wimby.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Wimby, it's him.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: We might listen.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how they're gonna cater to Wimby, have him not play back-to-backs, try to really get him in shape for the NBA season.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: I know he just played uh internationally, but they're trying to protect their asset and their future generational talent or the current generational talent, and I can see them sending him out quite a bit this season.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: It could be a situation of Malcolm Brock than Joel Embiid.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Joel Embiid played 30-something games this MVP season, but he was so significantly better than everybody else in his draft class that it was a genuine conversation.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Should he win MVP, even though he only played 30 games?
32:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, not MVP, rookie of the year?
32:37
SPEAKER_00: We gave to Brogdon.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: We gave to Brogdon.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to him.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: Was he one of the first second-round picks to win rookie of the year?
32:44
SPEAKER_00: That's that's dope.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: That's elite.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Wimby, you've seen the highlight.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Even if you haven't watched a single real second of Spurs, the man is a human highlight reel in four, three.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: Did he play three preseason games?
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Because he didn't play that first one against the Rockets, I don't think.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: Human highlight reel.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Blocking shots, three-point shots, but he's in the paint, throwing behind-the-back passes, dunking stuff and hitting threes and step back.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: He got all of that.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: And the guys were talking about like, hey, based on what we've seen of Wimby, how good could he really be?
33:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's just a crazy but not so crazy thought.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: Not just how good could he be, how good could the Spurs be?
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Could the Spurs not be a playoff team?
33:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't think anybody's expecting that.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: But I saw them as a team that will be sitting at the 15th, 14th seed.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're gonna be better because he's that good.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you ask me who's next on the list, I do have Chet who is going into his organic rookie season.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I said it, Donovan Mitchell, organic rookie season.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, even though it is kind of a cheat co that he had a full year with a full NBA staff and all of that.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: First basketball games, rookie season.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: He'll be my second, and then School Henderson be my third.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: But this class has so many players that I'm rooting for: Thompson Twins, Jaris Walker, Taylor Hendricks, these are all people.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Jordan Hawkins, these are all people that I'm genuinely rooting for because this is the first draft class of a bunch of players that either grew up and consumed my content.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy to think about.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: I've been making content on the internet for 10 years.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Some of these people were like in fifth grade watching me, and now they're in the league.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: If you're a part of the community, I'm rocking with you.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm rocking with you.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: So, Jordan, Thompson twins, we here.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
34:24
SPEAKER_00: We here, and we're rooting for you the entire way, man.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: We're rooting for you the entire way.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: I would love to see one of the Thompson twins to end up top three.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I just don't just don't know the likelihood of it because the top three are the top three, and Wimby's gonna have the keys, Scooter's gonna have the keys, and Chad is gonna play an integral part on a team that should be pretty solid this year.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: And have you seen him hoop yet?
34:43
SPEAKER_00: There was the one game against the Detroit Pistons, I want to say, that I didn't watch the full game.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: I just watched the first half, and there were plenty of times in this game where for whatever reason the Detroit Pistons were like, we want to give, we want to go viral on the internet.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: So we want to be one of the few people to posterize Chad Homegrap.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: And they kept going at him and at him and at him, and guess what he was doing?
35:05
SPEAKER_00: Getting stop after stop after stop.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand it.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is about the NBA that these players take years to kind of realize, oh, that's not a player I really want to try to go up against.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: Walker Kessler is a prime example of this.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Last year, Walk, when he started to get minutes, and yes, we call him Walk because we like that.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that man.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: When he started to get real minutes, he was getting challenged at the rim.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: And it makes sense.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: This guy, we ain't trusting him.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was one of the greatest uh rim protecting centers in college basketball history.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: We ain't really this is the NBA now.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: And they kept trying him and trying him.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: He was getting blocked, defensive stop, defensive stop.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: And it got to the point where you're like, man, he's been starting for two months now.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: Are we gonna stop going at him?
35:45
SPEAKER_00: The answer is no.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: They continue to do it, and he continued to get stops.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know when it's gonna translate.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Is this gonna be the year where people are like, oh, this Walker Kessler, we chillin'?
35:54
SPEAKER_00: It took a while for Rudy Gobert to get there.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I had to slip a Rudy Gobert reference in that.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, shout out to Rudy.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Before we get to these last couple awards, it is time for AskKB.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: If you missed the last episode, every single episode, I'm gonna be taking questions from you at home.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: And in order for me to see your question, to pick your question, you have to tweet it out or go in the comment section of this video with the hashtag askkb.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: A-S-K-KB.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: That is the way I'm gonna be able to see it.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: And we got a group of bangers.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Starting off with unarmed youth, hashtag ask KB.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: If every team has a range in their rankings, what team has the highest difference between their ceiling and their floor?
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to unbiased youth because this this ranking thing, this range thing is something I've been trying to imprint in y'all's brain.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: It's the best way to rank stuff.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
36:48
SPEAKER_00: It's the best rate.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: It's just the best rate.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh Sas' Pizza, range, number one.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
36:55
SPEAKER_00: Pepperoni, uh, two to five.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Straight up cheese, uh, two to four, you know, just everything, not just hoops.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: So I agree.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: The player that the teams have ranges as well, especially when you talk about the overall standings, right?
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Because a twisted ankle for four games of your star player, especially in the Western Conference, what we're going to be talking about, could be the difference between you being a sixth seed and the eighth seed.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: That's how close I think it could be this season.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: And we talk about teams that have the highest range, the Pelicans are top of list.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Because last year, when they were completely healthy, and though we were only talking about the first two months of the NBA season or so, they were one of the top two seeds in the Western Conference.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Brandon Ingram and Zion played 200 minutes together and it was great.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: They were looking really, really good.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: And then Z got injured and they missed the playoffs.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: That's a range, if there's anything.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: If Z is healthy, I'm confident in this team's ability to be a real playoff team.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: But if he's not, they teetering in the play-in.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: That's a range.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: The Denver Nuggets, no, it's the Denver Nuggets.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: The Denver Nuggets are pretty cool with they like one, two, or three.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: That's their range.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: But the Dallas Mavericks, good range.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: Because I look at their roster and I'm not a fan.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: Candidly, I'm not a fan.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: But I look at those top two guys, I'm like, yeah, Luca Tradition is good enough to make you a playoff team at the minimum.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: Kyrie's good enough to give you a couple game winners and average 25 on 50, 40, 90.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: That should be good enough for them to make the playoffs at the least.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: But also, when they did play together, they were not good.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Offensively, they were amazing.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Defensively, awful.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: And the overall status of wins versus losses, it was bad.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: And now the third best player is who knows.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: They might be trying to start genuinely two real rookies to start the season.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: Jason Kidd's identity for his entire coaching career, whether it be in Milwaukee or early here in Dallas, was like, hey, we gonna defend and we're gonna be good at it.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: And now this team, though they made an off-season, some off-season adjustments to get better at there, they're not a defensive-oriented team anymore.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: So how would he adjust his coaching or how will the personnel adjust to kind of fit what Jason Kidd wants to do?
39:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: That's the range.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Those are the teams I don't know.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: Out EX is kind of easy-ish.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: Like, I feel good about the top teams being the top teams.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: I feel good about the middle-tier teams being the middle tier teams.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: I guess it's like, do we see the Pacers having a big season or the Magic having a big season?
39:20
SPEAKER_00: Other than that, it's like, I don't know.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: The Chicago Bulls can be the 12 seed or they can be the three-seed.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: You mean okay.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: Next question comes from um Jermaine Ivey.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: My fault, Jermaine.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: He said, ask KB if the Thunder were to try to trade for a star player, who would they go for?
39:38
SPEAKER_00: And what would the trade look like?
39:40
SPEAKER_00: Interesting question.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for it, Jermaine.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: Right here in my notes, in the next six NBA drafts, this team, the team that we're talking about, the OKC Thunder, have 17 first round picks.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: And even right now, they're what's the uh DJ Calamine suffering from success?
39:58
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing them have to cut people that I genuinely believe are NBA players because they only have so many roster spots and they draft well.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: So we have 17 first-round picks over the next six seasons.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: Us NBA fans are like, hey, they're gonna have to consolidate, they're gonna have to trade some of these picks away.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: I think they have four first-round picks in next year's draft alone.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have to make some type of adjustments because you cannot afford to bring in four new faces.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: And we saw them do some of that this offseason where they made some trades to get like Davis Bertans and trade up to get they trade up to get Casen Wallace, whatever it was.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: They consolidated a little bit.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: And um, Sam Preste, he's aware of this going around on the Instagrams and Twitters and throughout the blogosphere's of people uh uh guessing that they're gonna buy in.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: And he gave a five-minute answer at Media Day.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: And I'll I'll try to sum it up because I wanted to play it, but it also is a five-minute answer.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: What he was saying was they want to see what they have now before they go out and try to trade for a guy.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Because the reality of the situation is you can make a player become available with the right trade, right?
41:06
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people are like, okay, um, maybe the Car Anthony Towns thing don't work out, maybe Carlton Towns on the market.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the Brooklyn Nets wanna consolidate a little bit and get some more draft capital, McKay Bridges on the market, whatever, whatever.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: The reality is when you have 17 first-round picks, even players that you thought were once upon a time untouchable might not be untouchable anymore.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not expecting Sam Presley to throw nine first-round picks to one team, but it's possible.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: But also, that's not what he believes is something to do right now.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: He wants to invest in the players that they have at the moment, see what they have before they jump the gun and try to bring in somebody for the right now when they don't have the pieces for the player for the right now.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: And I understand it.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: It was a well-orchestrated, well um eloquated is that a word, response to the question.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Because it is, is it a question that we've all had about the OKC Thunder?
42:00
SPEAKER_00: Shea, Giddy, J Dub, Chet, great core, one of the best young cores involved, and that's not even counting the exterior plays.
42:08
SPEAKER_00: These are just the four plays that I'm pretty confident are the core core, right?
42:11
SPEAKER_00: And like, man, we got this team's pick.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: They might not be very good, so we might be bringing another lottery pick, and we might be good, we might not be good.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Maybe another lottery pick.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: It's like, how many young players can you have on one team?
42:23
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think they're gonna be pushing pushing it unless we're halfway through the season and the things like Bill Simmons are saying that they're gonna be a top four C becomes a reality.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh man, maybe we should buy him.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: Maybe Lou Dort, as much as we love him here in OKC because he's been a part of this process since the beginning of the process, we we know that he's not a part of the real core.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: We might want to upgrade that position.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: So uh, OG Anobi.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Masai, you say you wanted three first-round picks for OG Antonobi last year.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: We can afford to give you three first-round picks, even if they're now we ain't even talking about good first-round picks, but first-round picks are first-round picks.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's something like that.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: But if this team is not necessarily as good as most people anticipate and they're just solid, there's no reason for Sam Presley to try to throw gas, gasoline on the fire because they don't really know what they have just yet.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: So, shout out to Mr.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: Ivey for that question.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: The next one is from Mateo.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: As a younger person in your industry, how do you look to really grow your executive presence?
43:20
SPEAKER_00: Especially when around those who are older, more experienced, etc., what are some of the things you focus on to build your executive presence?
43:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, I ain't know what the hell an executive presence was until I saw this question.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And then I Googled it.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: What is an executive presence?
43:39
SPEAKER_00: And the first article I saw said 51% of people don't know what an executive presence is.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows how to define it.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: So I I think it's I'm gonna I'm gonna answer it in a way of me guessing exactly what it means.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
43:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, I have been in meetings where I have been the youngest player or person.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Player.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: I wish I was a player.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Youngest person in the meeting.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: And I I felt as though I wasn't given the respect.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: And listen, I can understand it.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: If I'm a 40-something-year-old guy, a 50-year-old guy, and I just spent the last 30 years trying to build a platform, 30 years trying to get people to care about my writing or me being on TV or whatever, and this young kid who's now just turning 27 is hasn't really been in the game for more than five seasons, is here with me.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: I would feel kind of salty too.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: Not maybe not salty is not the right word.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: I would be taken aback by it as well.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: What does I've watched more basketball than this kid has consumed in his entire life.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: I understand it.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: Some people have forgot more basketball than I know in those same meetings.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: I understand it.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: The one thing I try to do my best with is I don't need to prove to my peers my capacity for the game or anything like that.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, when I'm in these meetings, the thing that speaks out more than anything is the numbers.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: And whether you believe I'm good at what I do or not, the numbers say Kenny has a community around him.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: And they watch and they listen to his opinion.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: Even if he's a he's a jackass when he's talking about stuff.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: Even if he does not he knows nothing about the game.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: He somehow has convinced people to care.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I when I walk into these meetings, I try to be confident.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest with you, I'm not necessarily confident in these meetings, but I try to give off that that feel because I know no matter what, whether they take my deal or they they want to sign me, whatever, whatever, that my community is gonna have me regardless.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
45:35
SPEAKER_00: And things are shifting.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: It's shifting.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: This is the time, y'all.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: Ten years ago, I would not be able to do what I'm doing right now.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: This is the time where you don't need to spend 30 years building something up in order to have a voice.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to open the door for the future.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: I am 100% sure that I am not the best at what I do right now.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: I know it.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: But I have a community that believes in me.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm 100% sure that in the next year to two years, there will always be somebody that is better on camera, better at speaking hoops than me.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: But I got my community.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to put a foot in the door for the next generation.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: I want to be the trailblazer, if you will, for the next generation where we don't have to go.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is still a viable option.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to discredit anything, but I don't have to go to college and get a journalism degree and be an intern and to get my voice heard.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: Everybody asked me, Kenny, what do what can I do to get to where you are?
46:30
SPEAKER_00: Start.
46:31
SPEAKER_00: Get a camera, get a microphone, start.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: Go watch episode one of my original podcast with the homies.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: It's awful.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: It is the worst piece of content.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people will try to hide their worst piece of content, but I welcome it.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: I tell people to watch it.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: Look at my camera presence then versus now.
46:50
SPEAKER_00: I've worked my ass off of this stuff, man.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: I really have.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: And this is just the beginning.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Look at the first episode of this podcast.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: Actually, look at this episode.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: What's this episode four?
46:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm a thousand percent sure.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: A year from now, I'll look at this episode and be like, this is awful.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: Because I try to get better and better with time.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: So when I'm in these meetings, I try to be confident, but at the end of the day, I know even if they're not interested, then my backup, which is not even a backup because it's been my main give for a decade, is real.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: It's real.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: And I don't need the peers of mine to care.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: I honestly need the executives to care.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
47:26
SPEAKER_00: I need them to believe.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, the numbers.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: The numbers do it.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh that was a great question.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: Depressed Nets fan says, um, why are we depressed right now, Nets fan?
47:39
SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess last year wasn't a great one.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: What keeps you from being complacent?
47:43
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people will be content being where you are and achieving what you have achieved, and yet you are always grinding for more.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Is grinding your way of enjoying life?
47:51
SPEAKER_00: If not, what do you have to accomplish to feel like you can stop grinding?
47:56
SPEAKER_00: The grind don't stop.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: And listen, I oh man, grind culture is a lot of times very cringe to me, and I'm not here to tell people that they need to work 14 hours a day in order to be successful because that's just not not the case.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: It's not the case.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: The part of your question that I that is 100% true is grinding your way of enjoying life.
48:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't just make this content because I want money, I'm not on my Mr.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: Kraft stuff.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't just make this content uh for the the growth of my career.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: I make this content because this is what I love to do at the end of the day.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
48:32
SPEAKER_00: And what stops me from being complacent, if I'm being real with you, the PressNets fam, there's been a lot of times in my life and in this world where I have been complacent.
48:40
SPEAKER_00: Go look at my YouTube channels.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: There's one of them that is being candid with you, is the definition of complacent.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: The gaming channel?
48:49
SPEAKER_00: Ask me if I care about the gaming channel.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: The answer will be no.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: But I do it five times a week, four times a week, based on complacency.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: I have not evolved away from that on that individual channel.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, the way I remedy that is that I have this platform, I have the other channels, I do the other podcasts, so I have other ways to do it.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: But in the gaming space and that type of stuff, I have 100% become complacent, but that also has driven me to care about other stuff.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: Once I stopped caring about the game and stuff, I was like, okay, what else can I do?
49:20
SPEAKER_00: I can focus more on actually talking hoops.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: Let's start a podcast, let's do this, let's do that.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: Getting complacent is easy, and I don't want anybody at home that is dealing with complacency to think that that's the end-all be all.
49:32
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: As long as you're able to crawl your way out.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: What I'm doing right now, where I am right now, is just not enough.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough.
49:42
SPEAKER_00: I I get an adrenaline boost when I see comments from y'all.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: It's it's hard to explain.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: I serotonin, then all the endorphins, rush to the brain.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: Just comments, getting the love.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: That is real.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: And especially when we get the the comments, just like people saying that my content is saved them in one way or another.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: Like I cannot express to you how appreciative I am when somebody tells me that they were down in the dumps mentally and they've watched my content and it helped them get through it.
50:15
SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, I want to entertain and I want people to enjoy things.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: I want people to enjoy life.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: And if my content can be a step towards that, man, I I love it.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
50:25
SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the reasons why I have been complacent with the gaming because I know there's still an audience that enjoys it so much, and I don't want to take that away from the audience.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
50:35
SPEAKER_00: The very last question of Ask KB is here from Ethan.
50:40
SPEAKER_00: How many potential true superstar, top 10 players, do you have in the NBA currently?
50:48
SPEAKER_00: That's just this is this is such this right here is a great question, Ethan.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: Because you made me go down a rabbit hole, man.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: Let me get my notes, let me get my notes, let me get my notes.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: How many current players have top 10 potential?
51:02
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we talk about top 10 potential, I'm getting rid of any player that is already top 10 because it's actual, there's no potential there.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: So mostly I'm thinking about the younger generation, these young players that are not there but might show flashes.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: So I got like Shegars Alexander might be considered the top 10 player, so I won't mention him because he's done some crazy stuff.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: But I will I will say this is a super loaded question because if you look at the Ringers top 10 players in the NBA right now, there are so many people that you could not have predicted were going to be top 10 players.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: Maybe some of y'all could have.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you were ahead of the curb when it came to Nikola Jokic.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: But the man was a second-round pick.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: He got drafted during a commercial.
51:40
SPEAKER_00: Nobody expected him to be a top 10 player.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: Nobody expected him to be arguably the best, best player in the world.
51:44
SPEAKER_00: Yonsa Decumpo was outside the lottery.
51:47
SPEAKER_00: This this Greek player that was thin as me and was a super role prospect.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: Some people may have saw him being very good, an all-star.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: I was one of the people that thought he'd be an all-star.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think he was going to be arguably the best player in the world.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: Steph Curry coming off his run at Davidson, ankle injury, anchor injury.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: Even three years into his NBA career, you could not expect that he would be in conversations for the second greatest point guard ever.
52:13
SPEAKER_00: Who else is on the Jimmy Butler was the 30th overall pick.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: He went to JUCO.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: Widely considered a top 10-ish player in ball.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: Devin Booker, too.
52:22
SPEAKER_00: But Devin Booker was always giving you buckets.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: We just needed Devin Booker to do the other stuff.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: And he's doing that, and for him to have a competition around him, he has that so people see Devin Booker's greatness.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: And I was late to the party on book, you know what I'm saying?
52:32
SPEAKER_00: I was late to the party.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: I gotta admit that.
52:33
SPEAKER_00: So when I when I give you these examples, that is five top 10 players in ball that wasn't really considered the person that might end up top 10.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: We still got the bronze, the Kevin Durant's.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: These are players that are like, man, he's that nice when he was drafted.
52:48
SPEAKER_00: We think he's going to be a top player in the league when he was drafted.
52:51
SPEAKER_00: But that's that's kind of it.
52:53
SPEAKER_00: So let me give you my list of people that I think have that potential.
52:58
SPEAKER_00: And you can ask me the same exact question in two years, and the list might look different.
53:02
SPEAKER_00: Number one is Zion Williamson.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I don't know.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: But when that brother plays, he is as impactful as an offensive player as almost anybody in the association.
53:13
SPEAKER_00: When he is on the court, he is a guaranteed bucket when he attempts to take a shot or a dunk or a layup.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: And there's a reason why when he was coming out of his draft class, he in the moment was looked at as a generational talent.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, his burst not might not all be there anymore because of all of the injuries and this and that, but he still looked damn good.
53:33
SPEAKER_00: The next guy is Anthony Edwards.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: ESPN dropped their top 100 players in basketball, and Anthony Edwards was number 13 on the list.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: And people are like, man, what the hell has Anthony Edwards done to be the top 13th player in ball?
53:45
SPEAKER_00: And though he hasn't achieved it yet, he has all of the tools that you would need for a superstar caliber player in this association.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: It's just year after year of him building, getting better here, get his play, make it better, lock here more defensively.
53:57
SPEAKER_00: This and that, I can't say I have no doubt in my mind, but I'm as close to certain as I could be on a player that he will end up top 10 at his and in the NBA eventually.
54:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it's this year or next year or the year after that, but he is as sure as a player that anybody can ask for at the moment.
54:15
SPEAKER_00: Next guy.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: It's Victor Wimanyama.
54:18
SPEAKER_00: I buried it.
54:19
SPEAKER_00: I buried the lead.
54:20
SPEAKER_00: He he has top two potential written all over him.
54:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh we were chatting about it on our uh in other podcasts that right now ESPN had him ranked at like 42 or something.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the season, he could easily be in the top 30.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: He could be top 20 if he plays the way he has showed us to play and he stayed healthy along the way.
54:39
SPEAKER_00: The only thing that's preventing him from being the best version of himself is the fact that he's 7'4.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
54:46
SPEAKER_00: And the last guy I have on my list here is Palo Ben Caro.
54:50
SPEAKER_00: Palo Ben Caro has a lot of things that he needs to smooth out in his game, but as a first-year player, he was stellar.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, you want him to be able to hit a three-point shot.
54:59
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, you want to see him defend a little bit better.
55:02
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, you want to see his playmaking chops get better.
55:04
SPEAKER_00: But even in the preseason, again, I mentioned the three games that I've watched of them, his playmaker look a lot better.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: He is a guy that has top 10 player written all over him as a big wing that can do a little bit of everything, but excels at just getting a bucket.
55:17
SPEAKER_00: I already mentioned that Shea might be considered top 10 already.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not adding them, I'm not adding them to the list.
55:23
SPEAKER_00: But that that's those are the players, Ethan.
55:25
SPEAKER_00: Those are the players as of right now on this day in 2022, that 2023, 2023, uh, that I believe can end up being uh top 10.
55:35
SPEAKER_00: Top 10.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: Let's get back to our awards here.
55:38
SPEAKER_00: The second half of the awards isn't as fun as the first half, but best believed we're gonna get into it.
55:42
SPEAKER_00: Starting off with D P O Y, one of my favorite awards to vote for every season, my fake fictional vote.
55:50
SPEAKER_00: And this year feels like a year for another first timer.
55:57
SPEAKER_00: Giannis is gonna be in conversations for sure.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: Jaron should be in conversations again for sure.
56:03
SPEAKER_00: But I got three players that I think are gonna be here.
56:07
SPEAKER_00: I think we mentioned earlier how this is my number one guy, it's Anthony Davis.
56:11
SPEAKER_00: All right.
56:12
SPEAKER_00: Again, the thing that's holding the back is that will he play 65 games?
56:14
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm kind of hedging my bats with some of these other two dudes.
56:17
SPEAKER_00: But last year, after they made the trades and everything, Anthony Davis was as dominant as a defensive player as you could see on the court.
56:24
SPEAKER_00: They are the number one defense post-trade that line, and I don't expect that to fall off one bit.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the time, DPOY is the best defensive player on one of the top three defensive teams.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: You have to have your advanced stats look crazy.
56:36
SPEAKER_00: It's not necessarily a total blocks thing, even though Jiren's total blocks was ridiculous considering he missed the first whatever of the season.
56:43
SPEAKER_00: Anthony Davis, he's a guy that just should have one, but the thing that has been holding him back is his individual health.
56:49
SPEAKER_00: And in year 30, do I expect him to have a 65 game season?
56:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know.
56:54
SPEAKER_00: But he is as impactful as a defender as anybody in basketball.
56:57
SPEAKER_00: Full stop.
56:58
SPEAKER_00: Anybody in basketball.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: Next guy is Bamma de Ballo.
57:02
SPEAKER_00: Another player that I believe should be getting the respect across the association because there's not a lot of people who are as well-rounded as a defender as him.
57:10
SPEAKER_00: The Miami Heat switching everything most of the time.
57:12
SPEAKER_00: They're switching everything, everything, everything.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: And you ain't never seen Bamma de Bayo on no island where he looks like a gazelle, a deer in the hairlights.
57:20
SPEAKER_00: He is always locked in and locked up.
57:22
SPEAKER_00: And he wants the respect, and he just hasn't necessarily got it from the opposing GMs.
57:27
SPEAKER_00: Luckily for him, the GMs are not the ones voting on these awards.
57:30
SPEAKER_00: But if the Miami Heat can can take the pressure that they had defensively into the regular season again, and he is a guy that is holding it down, he should be in the conversations, man.
57:41
SPEAKER_00: He has been my pick for the last three seasons.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just assuming that he's gonna, he's gotta get one.
57:48
SPEAKER_00: He's gotta get at least one in his career, right?
57:51
SPEAKER_00: At least one.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
57:54
SPEAKER_00: And then the last dude is a guy that finished top three.
57:56
SPEAKER_00: It's Evan Mobley.
57:57
SPEAKER_00: The Cleveland Cavaliers were the number one defensive team in ball.
58:00
SPEAKER_00: They made no adjustments to make me think that they wouldn't be a number one to three defensive team again.
58:05
SPEAKER_00: So because of that, he's probably going to be the nod.
58:07
SPEAKER_00: And he should be better now.
58:09
SPEAKER_00: Because defense is such a cognitive thing that more reps and seeing different different things, you're just going to be better.
58:15
SPEAKER_00: And Evan Mobley should be better at that.
58:17
SPEAKER_00: Jaron, obviously, honorable mention as the run as the defendant champion.
58:21
SPEAKER_00: Giannis is another guy that I think is going to get a lot of burn because if the Milwaukee Bucks are going to have a top defense, it's going to be Giannis.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: This is going to be a year.
58:29
SPEAKER_00: They're going to be asking Giannis to do a lot more than what he normally does defensively, and he's already the best help/slash uh yeah, help defender of basketball, I would say.
58:38
SPEAKER_00: So now they might need him to do more than be the best help defender and be a good one-on-one guy, be a good person in space, so on and so forth.
58:45
SPEAKER_00: And we'll see if he can actually do that.
58:47
SPEAKER_00: Clutch player of the year.
58:50
SPEAKER_00: This is the second year of close to the year.
58:51
SPEAKER_00: And I'm hoping this is not one of them, one of them awards that people get bored with where they just give it to the player that they know.
58:58
SPEAKER_00: Right?
58:59
SPEAKER_00: De'Arn Fox won the last season.
59:00
SPEAKER_00: I hope, not that I don't hope he's clutch again, because I do, but I hope that he just doesn't get the award again because that's what they know from last year.
59:07
SPEAKER_00: This should be an award that is changing every single year because we see clutch players hoop every year.
59:14
SPEAKER_00: Two years ago, if the award existed, it would have been DeMar DeRose and he had like nine-game winners, nine-game tying slash going to hit shots in the fourth quarter.
59:21
SPEAKER_00: He was ridiculous.
59:22
SPEAKER_00: Last year it was De'Aaron Fox.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: This year, might be Shay.
59:26
SPEAKER_00: He hit a lot of clutch shots in his young NBA career.
59:28
SPEAKER_00: He's a man that's not afraid at the moment.
59:30
SPEAKER_00: He had so many clutch shots that one of them get forgotten because Vontae Graham hit a full court shot to take that game away.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: He's like that.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: This is one of them wars.
59:39
SPEAKER_00: There's no like real statistics.
59:40
SPEAKER_00: You can back this on.
59:40
SPEAKER_00: You could kind of look at go-ahead game with his shots from last season and say, hey, can this player replicate that?
59:45
SPEAKER_00: But there's so many different variables when it comes to those statistics that it's hard to base it on last year.
59:50
SPEAKER_00: So the next guy have is Jimmy Butler.
59:53
SPEAKER_00: He was the runner up last year.
59:54
SPEAKER_00: He's always been the dude that's been able to hit the big time shots in the big time moments.
59:58
SPEAKER_00: I just don't know.
59:59
SPEAKER_00: Is this another one of them awards that you need to play 65 games?
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: And the last guy is Donovan Mitchell.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry we're gonna spend three minutes on the clutch player of the year.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have the same feeling as some of these other awards.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_00: I apologize.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_00: Next, six man of the year.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_00: Six man of the year is the last of a dime bree in some instances.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_00: Because it has been historically one of the awards that was like, who get the most buckets off the bench?
1:00:27
SPEAKER_00: Lou Williams, come get this award.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_00: Jamal Crawford, come get this award, man.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_00: Go get buckets.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: You get buckets, you get a lot of points off the bench.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_00: We don't care what the advanced stats say that you might have been the worst defender in the league.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: You get buckets, here's the award.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: And I like that.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_00: I like that it's a buckets getter award.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_00: Even though Malcolm Brogdon wasn't necessarily the buckets getter, but he got buckets.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
1:00:46
SPEAKER_00: We don't look at Malcolm Brockdown as a bucket getter like we looked at Lou Will or we looked at Jamal Crawford, but he did get buckets.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_00: Here's my top three.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_00: Number one is the runner-up from last year, Emmanuel Quickley.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_00: He is a traditional bucket getting guard.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_00: And he fits coming off the bench so very well.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember if I voted for him last year.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_00: I think I might have gone Brogdon, but he would have been my number two, and he ended up being the runner-up.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: The next guy, I'm still here in Sacramento, light in the beam, y'all.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm still here light in the beam.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I'm going with Malik Monk.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_00: He was great last season for them.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_00: And I'm hoping that he just builds on that momentum.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_00: And the one game against the Clippers, who we all know, just one of the best games of the season.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_00: He was electric.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_00: He does that.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_00: He does that.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_00: And the last guy is a non-traditional one.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, maybe they decide to switch it up a little bit.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they do.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_00: Christopher Emmanuel Paul.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_00: Now I understand that starting the season off, he will be starting more likely than not because Draymond Green is going to be out with an injury the start of the season.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to assume that he will transition to a bench role.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_00: If you need some to be reminded, you only have to play 51% of your games coming off the bench.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_00: That's a criteria to win this award.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_00: So Chris Paul could start every single game leading into the middle of December.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_00: After December.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_00: January, the middle of January.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: He can start every single game and then the rest of the way he came off the bench and he can still win the award.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_00: This would be the case of like Andre Igodala, who never won a six-man of the year award, but is widely considered one of the best six men in the league at his time, right?
1:02:18
SPEAKER_00: When he was playing for the Golden State Wars.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_00: Everybody respected Iggy's ability to impact the winning aspect of basketball.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_00: The overall counting stats wasn't necessarily there, but he's a guy that could have won in the award one year or two years because he was that impactful of a player coming off the bench.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_00: So I also just want to show love to my guy Chris Paul, who I need to see him do something.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if he's gonna be good, but his connection with Steph Curry in the few preseason games they played was pretty good, and I'm excited for that.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_00: The last award we gotta get to is Coach of the Year.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple different ways this goes.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_00: Best coach, best team.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_00: Simple.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_00: Coach that overexceeds expectations.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_00: Mike Brown from last year.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know which direction I want to go here.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_00: I think that Joe Mazzula could be in the conversation, even though I don't believe as of his one-year resume that Joe Mazzula is one of the top coaches involved.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_00: The team is gonna be so very good that he might get it based on total wins.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_00: Best player or best coach, best team.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_00: Quentin Snyder could get it.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_00: He's a guy that I have on my list because I don't know what the expectations are for the Atlanta Hawks.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_00: I believe the Atlanta Hawks should be good this season.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_00: And they're just looking for some form of stability.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_00: And Quentin Snyder has been a guy that has maintained stability for the majority of his coaching career, and as a team that came off a plan when to maybe be good better than that next year.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_00: Um this this could be a year where he gets some love.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_00: Um you got coach Coach Mark Daytonall.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_00: It's been a couple years, Mark.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_00: I still don't, I can't get it.
1:03:48
SPEAKER_00: I can't I've I've heard, I listened to it.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_00: I should have spelt it out phonetically in my notes.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_00: I can't get it.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_00: But if they are as good as some people expect, again, then he deserves the credibility and the noise that would be for Coach of the Year.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_00: And I also have Darvin Hamm.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_00: Because the Lakers should be good, and the Lakers being good is good for ball.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_00: And Darwin Hamm might get that award.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_00: Those are my potential predictions for the 2023, 2024 season, ladies and gentlemen.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_00: I want to say I really do appreciate all of y'all love.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, when we get to do the Ask KB, I think there's a moment for me to really give a heart to heart to y'all and try to talk about some real stuff.
1:04:30
SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate all of the questions.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_00: Again, hashtag ask KB if you want um to be featured on the next episode.
1:04:37
SPEAKER_00: The next episode is gonna be the first episode of the season, and I believe that we should have a full time producer by that time.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_00: So it will be a lot easier for me to kind of do what I do best, which is the on camera stuff.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_00: So um I'm I'm gearing up for a long and a great season.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you are too.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_00: As always, I appreciate the love and support.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_00: Spotify, Apple, go download the episodes, and I will see you on Thursday.