Latest / Small Ball with Kenny Beecham / The Perfect NBA Team, Draymond vs. Poole 2.0, The Future

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The Perfect NBA Team, Draymond vs. Poole 2.0, The Future · Small Ball with Kenny Beecham

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Episode three of Not an NBA podcast with Kenny Beecham.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: We here.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: We here, ladies and gentlemen.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of things have changed between last episode and this one.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is we are finally on Apple Podcasting platforms.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, we started this a little over a week and a half ago, and I was so frustrated with Apple because Spotify approved us immediately.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: And we were waiting and waiting and waiting for Apple.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, man, they really preventing us from being great.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: Little did I know, it was all my fault.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: It was all my fault.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take my L.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: My apologies to Apple, man, because we probably uh sent some very meanly uh worded emails over their way.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: And their response was hello, Mr.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Beachman team.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: We just looked into it and you never actually submitted the application.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: It was sitting in my drafts, y'all.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: So uh I take my I would take my L.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: We are finally on Apple Podcasts and Platforms.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: So if you're usually somebody that does that and you've been listening on Spotify for me, first of all, thank you.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: But you can go over back home to the Apple Podcasts and Platforms.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of Spotify, last episode we talked, we were the number four sports podcasts in the world.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Again, these are faulty numbers.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: It is the algorithm plan towards new shows, but I didn't care.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Number four is still number four, considering how many podcasts there are in the world, specifically sports podcasts.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah, we going for number four, and I appreciate that.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: And then eventually we jumped up to number two.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, snap.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Paul George, watch out.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: Count your days, buddy, as the number one sports podcast in the world.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: And then it happened.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: On Sunday, I looked into it.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: I got a text message from my guy, Cody, my manager.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: He said, Congratulations on number one.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: I ain't know what he's talking about.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest with you, brother.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: I got so many projects out there.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, number one, what we do this time.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Podcasting platform Spotify.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: We took number one.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: It will not stay that way forever.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if it's gonna stay that way for the next five days.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: But I got my screenshots.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: All I needed is one screenshot of me and number one just to prove that it happened once upon a time.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate the support.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And now that we did it on Spotify, I'm my goal is to get it on Apple as well.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying, give me one day on top of the charts in Apple, and we feelin', we feeling really, really good.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: We got a lot to talk about today, ladies and gentlemen.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: We got a lot to talk about.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: I got a lot of questions uh since I started this one.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me clear this up.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Some people were asking, uh, Kenny, why why in the world would you start a basketball, NBA-related, not a podcast, in the absolute dead portion of the offseason?
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Why not start it at the beginning of last season?
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Hell, you could have done it at the all-star break and had the full playoffs and everything to talk about.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: The reality of the situation is I wanted to try to challenge myself.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like once we get to this part of the season every single year, I kind of coast.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: I coast into the start of the next season, which is fine, right?
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh people take time off.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh a lot of people that work in sports media use this off-season time to go on vacations and do all of this stuff.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted a challenge at the end of the day.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Like today, there's no real news to really talk about, and yet I'm giving y'all an episode because I wanted to have a place where I can sit down with no topical topics and talk ball.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's years in in the past before things have really blown up where that's that's all I did.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like at some times I've got complacent with how much we've grown, and I've kind of just accepted that and kind of go through the motions.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's a a really good way to explain some things, but this podcast is an outlet for me to try to think more creatively in the grand scheme of basketball in the NBA, and it's a different medium.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm used to being a video guy, and this now I have to get my points across just using this little voice box.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: So just bear with me again.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: There's no real schedule, whatever, whatever.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: We just go, and this is not a podcast.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's start off with the question I got asked.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know when this was, but I remember my boys over on my Through the Wire podcast.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: I do have another podcast, asking, what is your favorite team of all time?
3:59
SPEAKER_00: And we don't mean in the sense of like, oh, I'm I'm a Miami Heat fan, so that's my favorite team.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: No, we mean like specific years, specific roster.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: What team did you no matter what tune in to watch?
4:12
SPEAKER_00: And my answer had always been the 2011-2012 Chicago Bulls.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: But I felt like that was kind of a cop-out.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Because when you are a fan of a specific team and you're a diehard fan of that specific team, it is very, very easy to find a singular team in your life where that was the team you cared about the most.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: But I was like, you know, what if I dug a little bit deeper?
4:32
SPEAKER_00: What if I tried to pick a team that I was neutral on, but still found a way to watch every single game that I could, or even if I couldn't watch the game, I was tuned in completely.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: I do want to say, take some time to talk about those 2011 Chicago Bulls because for y'all that don't remember, for the 2010-2011 season, that was the year that Derek Rose was the MVP of the league.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: And the super unfortunate part about the dead of the offseason is that questions like who was the biggest uh robbing in the history of MVPs, yada, yada, yada.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And everybody starts to talk about that the 2011 Derek Rose MVP.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the times when I hear people talk about it, I think it's I think it's valid to have that opinion, but I think when you talk about it, you should understand the context.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And I could typically tell who was around watching ball back then based on what they're saying.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: That's another conversation for another day.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: But the 2010-2011 year, which is the Derrick Rose MVP year, is not my favorite season.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: It's not my favorite team.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: It's the year after that.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: It's the year after making it to the conference finals to lose a 4-1 to the Miami Heat.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: It's the year after Derrick Rose rose the Larry O'Brien trophy.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Because this year, the Bulls ended the season with a 51 season.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: 50 and 16 to be exact.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: It's the lockout year, so not a full 82-game season.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Only 66 games.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: They were 50 and 16.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the 2011-2012 season, this is my freshman year of high school, and getting around to watching as much basketball as I do now back there was very hard.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
6:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm into sports myself.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to get a social life, and yada yada yada.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: Nowadays, at the age of 26, I can kind of afford to sit down at my desk at 7 o'clock every night and watch hoops.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: It's also my job.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: But back in high school, we did I didn't really do that.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the consumption of this team was catching a random game live when I could, but also reading through the newspaper.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Believe or not, ladies and gentlemen, I was a newspaper guy back in the day and watching highlights occasionally.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: And all I remember is the lunch tables back in high school buzzing.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: We had a guy at the lunch table that was a diehard Boston Celtics fan, big Rajon Rondo fan.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: We had one guy that was a Miami Heat fan, and then it was me.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: And we used to just sit there and just be mad at each other about the NBA in general.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: The Heat the previous season just eliminated my Chicago Bulls, so bro, had the leverage up on me on that one.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: And this was the year where in the regular season we all agreed that the Bulls might be the team to beat.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Again, this team won 50 out of 66 games.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: And they did it by beating your ass defensively.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, the league has changed a lot over the past 13, 10, 12 years, however many years if we're doing the math, because the pace of this team was dreadful.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: If you look at the pace of this team, it was 89.1.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: 89.1.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: It's ridiculous.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: For reference, the average pace in the NBA right now is 99.2.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And that's accounting for the super slow teams.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: The average in the league right now is 99.2.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: So that Chicago Bulls team was 10 pace points slower than the average right now.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: They was grinding those games out and they was playing great defense.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: But this year we saw a change compared to the previous year.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Because the previous year, the Derrick Rose MVP season, the Bulls were the number one defense in basketball.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: The pace was slow, and they were basically a league average offensive team.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Where this year, the offense turned a new leaf because we were the fifth offense in basketball.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: And I know I mentioned, and that was with Derrick Rose only playing 39 games this season.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: He only played 39 games.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: So in my mind, we're doing all of this winning, and Derrick Rose hasn't even really suited up much this season.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: So once we get to the playoffs, it's on.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: And well, I I don't really want to talk about what happened once we got to the playoffs.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: It is the hardest moment.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: It is the hardest moment for me as a sports fan what happened in that first series versus the 76ers.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: But if it wasn't for that moment, again, I'm a firm believer that the Bulls would have had seven championships right now, but that that's neither here nor there.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Getting back to the original question: What is your favorite team of all time?
8:51
SPEAKER_00: Again, excluding your favorite team.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: And I was wrestling with myself for some time, man, just trying to figure out who is that team.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: I would argue the 2022-2023 Sacramento Kings will probably take the cake for that.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to talk about them because you just watched the full season of them.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: But from the beginning of the season, even I mean, in the off-season, I made videos on my YouTube channel talking about how I expected the Sacramento Kings to take a jump.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, I thought that jump was, hey, we're in the play-in now.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Not hey, we're one of the top seeds out west.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Out of the 82 games, the season that the the Sacramento Kings played, I had to be tuned in to 92% of those games.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Genuinely, just absolutely love the way they play basketball.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely been a Derek, Derek, a De'Aaron Fox fan since the moment he was drafted.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And I saw the roller coaster of narratives that revolved around here him.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Fortunately for him, he plays in Sacramento.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: So like even when people were down on him as a player, it didn't really matter too much because it's not like he's in New York or Los Angeles or one of the bigger markets.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: So he kind of was in his own world during his down season.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: But for him to bounce back the way he did, for Sabonis to, I don't want to say bounce back, but to have the season like he did, it was beauty.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I I didn't, again, I didn't see it coming to them to be the three seed, but I saw the changes they made in the offseason.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: I saw the Kevin Herter acquisition.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: I looked at the statistics of the pick and roll of De'Aaron Fox and the Montesabonis and the few games they played the previous season.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: I say, hey, if they can replicate some of that, then this team is gonna be crazy.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: And they absolutely were.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: So shout out to Mike Brown.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: But deeper than that, I have a tweet from maybe last year or two years ago where I said that during the offseason, the dead of the offseason, every single NBA fan should take one day and exclusively watch the 2014 San Antonio Spurs.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think that ultimately would be the answer to my question, because that was the purest, and I'm not exaggerating when I say this, the purest form of basketball that you can get at the NBA level.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the last couple weeks when the NBA has died down, I've kind of gone through this rabbit hole of a lot of Euro League stuff, and maybe one of these episodes I kind of talk about some Euro League ball, even though I know my greater audience doesn't give a damn.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: But that 2014 San Antonio Spurs took something away from foreign basketball that you basically don't see in the NBA.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Or we hadn't seen in the NBA, and I would say to this point, we still haven't seen anybody come close to replicating the things that they did.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: The other purest form of basketball I remember is the Kevin Durant, uh Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Jerry Montgreen go to say words, but that team was a cheat goal.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not even gonna count that.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: The 2014 San Antonio Spurs had a super old Tim Duncan.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh again, he's one of the top 10 players of all time.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I do want to put a caveat on that because when I say stuff like that, top 10, top 20, top 30, I don't mean literally, there's probably 15 players that I would say is top 10.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: It's just like a range.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: All right, whatever.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh they had a top 10 player of all time, well past his prime, but still pretty damn good.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: They had uh Tony Parker, who if I'm not mistaken this season made an all-NBA second team, so it's not like he was super old and washed, but he was still really, really good.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Mono Ginobili was old, and they had a bunch of international players.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: They they set the record for most international players on a single roster with I think 10, and they played ball as if it was an international game, and it was beautiful.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: The best thing about the 2014 uh San Antonio Spurs is the fact that nobody on their roster averaged over 30 minutes per game.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Think about this.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Nobody on their roster averaged over 30 minutes per game.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of beautiful, well-written, well uh edited videos about the 2014 Spurs.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: And again, I went down a rabbit hole again today because today was the day for me where I went to watch 2014 Spurs, and I don't want to just take the content, but there's so many things about that 2014 Spurs team that was just beautiful.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: I haven't mentioned the name Kawhi Leonard, and and I should because well Kawhi Leonard was turning into one of the better two-way players in all of basketball, and this is this is where it started.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: And and for the people that don't remember, this was the year after Ray Allen hit the shot.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of pressure on the San Antonio Spurs to go get a championship because they were, what is it, a minute away, 30 seconds away from from doing that, and then Ray Allen hit the shot, they go to OT, they lose that, and then lose a game seven.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Like that had to be demoralizing, and they just backed that up with having the purest form of basketball of all time in my personal in my viewing life.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: I can't talk to you what the hell the 88 Lakers were doing, but in my lifetime, the best version of basketball ever.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: And one of these days I'm gonna go out here and just go through the history of NBA Champions and give out awards.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Because Bois Dio deserves to have an award named after him and the way he played and his impact as a role player on a team like the San Antonio Spurs.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Even if it's not going back to NBA Champions, maybe I should give the Boers Dow award to just good teams in basketball.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: The Boars Dow fit the San Antonio Spurs to a team.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like it's kind of rare across the league to have a role player that just does exactly what you need when you need it.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: If you don't remember, he was coming off the bench, he was really, really good, of course, with the fleet free-flowing offense and the passing, the cutting and all of that.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Boris Dall being one of the best point power forwards pretty much of all time.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say that, um, given his skill set, he worked perfectly.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: But during the playoffs, during the finals, he got substituted in to be in the starter role, and that's when the tides changed quite a bit.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: So Boris Dow, you know what?
14:44
SPEAKER_00: We should be giving out the Boris Dow awards for the perfect role players.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: The perfect role players, not just across teams, but like for the system that is ran on that team.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: And then we have to have a conversation of what exactly it is, because I would argue like this last championship team, there are a few players that kind of fit this, but I think Aaron Gordon as a role player complimented Nikola Jokic slash what the Denver Nuggets did so perfectly.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: He might be the board's DL award winner for this last season.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: As a player that is known for his great cuts, when having guys like Nicola Jokic who will find you in your open spots, he was basically perfect.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: His rangey defensive capabilities was basically perfect.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: So you know what?
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Today we're gonna crown or give our award, our first official Boris DR award on a Not an NBA podcast, to Aaron Gordon right now.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: And I want to go back in history or go back through other really, really good teams and kind of give that award to other people.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Because I would say that the previous year, um the Warriors year, I think a lot of y'all probably say, like Andrew Wiggins, right?
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Wiggins was an all-star that year.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: And though he played his role to perfection and he did exactly what the Warriors needed to do, I think once you hit all-star status, you're kind of void of getting this award.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: So that's why I would say a guy like Kavan Loon.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Loondog.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh Loondog's right place, right time, every single time.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Screen setting, OD.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Rebounding, OD.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, coach said I ain't I don't really play this series.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: But when he calls my number, I know I'm gonna be ready.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Loondog probably gets it from the year before that.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, yeah, we we might do this trickle down eventually, but not right now.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: So I did ask people on Twitter to give me questions that they want to see me answer.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And I'll I will be honest with you.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the questions didn't really fit the vibe of what we try to do here on not an NBA podcast.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know we only two and a half episodes in, but there is a vibe, and there is a vibe, man.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm too old to be saying that.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, there is a, I don't know the word I'm looking for, a reason, a purpose, uh, whatever behind these episodes.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of the times when I ask people to ask me questions, it's not specifically to answer the question involved, it's more to get an idea of what y'all want to hear me talk about.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: And I did see a lot of questions about the Toronto Raptors.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, I do want to do um where I bring in specialists.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: I think I mentioned this before.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: I know a guy, a Toronto Raptors fan that I would love to have to talk about the Raptors, and maybe I will one day.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: But it's not necessarily about their team orchestration or the fact that Pascal Siakob's name was in rumors over the last couple weeks or whatever.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: It's more about the front office and their approach over the last couple seasons.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: I remember years ago I was listening, I'm sorry, watching a Donald Glover stand-up comedy special.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: And shout out to Donald Glover.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Is he gonna drop album of the year?
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Is he gonna be a comedian?
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Is he gonna be an actor, writer?
17:39
SPEAKER_00: He's a Renaissance man, and I respect that.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: But in this stand-up comedy, he he was making jokes about being a musician or being an artist.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And he was saying that being an artist is the only profession where you have to prove every year that you could still do what you do.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And the joke was like, you don't see a subway worker have to put on blast for not making a perfect sandwich every single time.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Or something along the last.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot funnier when he said because he's the comedian.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And then I remember him saying that, but like, that's that's funny or whatever, but that also goes for a lot of other jobs across entertainment specifically.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: And I'm you I'm saying that the NBA slash basketball is an entertainment because at the end of the day, it's a kid's game that people get paid music dollars to do.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and entertainment in general.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: This is kind of the thing where you could drop the best album of all time in 2019, and by 2021, they like, bro, what's going on next?
18:32
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't perform, is he washed?
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Is it over with?
18:36
SPEAKER_00: And the same thing is in sports, but not just on the court, specifically in the front office.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Because I I I did get a couple questions about Masai and his approach, and people asking, is Masai washed?
18:51
SPEAKER_00: And I just had to, I saw the question, and I'm like, brother, this was three years ago.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: Masai was the greatest general manager in all of ball.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: He traded Yaka Purdo and Damar DeRozan in a singular first round pick for Kawhi Leonard.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: And yes, one year rental.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: But that Kawhi Leonard year got you the only Larry O'Brien slash championship ring in the history of the franchise.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: That was four years ago.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: In NBA years that feels like an attorney.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Trust me, I understand it.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that somebody loses their powers that fast.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Not that fast.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Is Messai the best general manager in ball right now?
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: But to think that he's cooked or he's washed just because the last couple seasons of Raptors basketball wasn't champion level is asinine.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: It's a crazy thought.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: Because believe it or not, that championship is kind of an anomaly in the history of the franchise.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Right?
20:09
SPEAKER_00: May wasn't there just that season.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: He was there before that.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: He just had to wait for the perfect time for the move.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: He had to trade away one of the pride and joys of the city of Toronto to get the Larry O'Bron truck.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: And if you ask him or any other fan, you trade DeMarta Rosen 100% of the time.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Right?
20:26
SPEAKER_00: It was a no-brainer.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: But he was the one that pulled it off.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think he's cooked just because in the year 2023 the Raptors missed the playoffs.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Or that in the year 2023, instead of trading at the deadline, they did it, and Fred Van Vliet left for$130,$40 million.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: This league that we're in is such a brittle league.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: It's such a league that can be switched with one singular trade.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Especially now.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Because this is, at least in my lifetime, the most parody that ever that I've ever seen.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: I could go through every single integration or era of my era of my NBA fandom and say, hey, this was Jack and Kobe's era.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Hey, this was the Spurs era.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: This was the Miami Heat era, the Warriors era, and right now there is no era.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: We have seen a different NBA champion over the last couple seasons.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: So when I say that this league is brittle, and I'm not specifically talking about the Raptors, but a team could make one singular trade, and that could be enough to win a championship.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, currently constructed, is the Toronto Raptors that team that makes one trade and become a contender?
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's okay that you take a step back and kind of look at what you got.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Is the track record perfect?
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Hell no, you traded a first round pick for Yaakapurle.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Yakka Purdo.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: But You get what I'm saying?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: You traded a first round pick for Yaka Purdo at the end of the day.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: It's not a perfect track record, but you don't go from greatest to completely wash in this small amount of time.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Give it, give, just give it more time.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Give it more time.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: New coach, new system, new players on the roster.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Some of well, a couple new players on the roster.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: We will see, man.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Talk to me again in another two years, and we'll make that decision whether or not Messiah's wash.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Six years post-NBA championship.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: That feels like we should have a frame of reference.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: And I will say the Raptors team last year had a lot of redundancy, right?
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Between OG, Scotty, Pascal.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Realistically, most of those players played the same position and have similar play styles.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of there is a lot of talent on that roster.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: And I think a huge part about being a good general manager is knowing when to cash in your chips, knowing when to make the deal, and knowing when not to.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to shoot no shots because I know we got fan bases or fans that follow every fan base that listens to this show.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: But knowing when to use your assets is hugely important.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: And I think a prime example of a team or a general manager that did not do that, did not use their assets at the right time, would be the Minnesota Timberwolves and their Rudy Gobert trade.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: That was a misuse of assets.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
23:22
SPEAKER_00: But they felt pressure.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: New ownership.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: And they did one of the bigger deals maybe ever in the history of basketball and through the first season and has not looked great.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give it a little more time because I respect Rudy Gobert's um ability to be good and I respect Anthony Edwards.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, as of right now, it's not looking it's not looking too great.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Is he cooked?
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Nah.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: I think there are other general managers out there that might be cooked, but I don't think Masai is one of those dudes.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of that, matter of fact, nope, I'm not even gonna go there.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: I was I was gonna go and give y'all major copium on my Chicago Bulls.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna come on here and not guarantee because guarantee is such a strong word, but I was about to come on here and talk to talk you into the Bulls being a good team this season, even though they should have sold.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: I I think it's a possibility, alright?
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Is there a championship team?
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Hell no.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Good team, yeah.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a world, I think there's a chance, but that's not for that's not for today.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite things to do is to go to previous draft classes and look at the experts give their uh player comparisons.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, everybody's human, nobody shoots a perfect percentage, so I'm not here to make fun of somebody that predicted a player would be really good and they ended up not being good because everybody misses in this world.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: If if somebody's shooting 100%, that would be lame and boring as hell, right?
24:43
SPEAKER_00: A player that made me stop in my tracks when I was doing this was Isaac Okoro.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Yep, we're about to do a couple minutes on Isaac Okoro, Isaac Okoro exclusively, right?
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, coming out of Auburn, uh, most of his draft comps were player models that were high energy, good defensive guys, but cannot shoot, right?
25:03
SPEAKER_00: You had Andre Igodala, you had Jimmy Butler, you had Gerald Wallace, you had a lot of players that fit very, very similar modes.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: And of course, when people do these uh comparisons, they're more thinking about the finished version, the prime version, what they could potentially turn into.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, Isaac Carrow was a high draft pick.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: I think fifth overall was the exact number, maybe it was sixth.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm not googling it.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: And so far, he has not lived up to the draft slot.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: I do want to say in the defense of the Cavs, really, really quick, um, the 2020 draft, which he was a part of, that that middle of the lottery spot is awful.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: It it goes Patrick Williams 4, it goes Isaac Koro, Anyekka Kongle, Killian Hayes, Obi Top, and Denya Bdia, Jalen Smith, and then 11th and 12th picker, Devin Vassale and Tyrese Halliburn, which is really cool.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: But but overall, this draft class wasn't like killing people with the fifth sixth overall pick.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: So, like, from the bunch of people that were projected to go in his range, Isaac Koro, is he one of the more successful ones?
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Probably.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: But still, I I did want to talk about him a little bit because things have changed dramatically with the Cleveland Cavaliers since he was drafted, and that basically changes everything about him as a player.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: He's drafted to the Cleveland Cavaliers into a team that that the year the team finished 19 and 46.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they were god-awful.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: They were so awful that they were tied for the highest odds in this draft class, right?
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Another one of those years where you try to tank, get a top pick, and then use that pick the right way.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately for them, um, they failed three spots in the lottery.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: The Charlotte Hornets jumped up five spots, the Bulls jumped up three spots, which means that some people had to fall, and one of those teams, the team that failed the most, was the Cleveland Cavaliers.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: And now, in this supposedly three-player draft, they're sitting in the place outside of the top three.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us remember it was some order of wiseman, Edwards, and ball.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: It was those three dudes, it was a matter of what was the order, and of course, you know, it went uh Edwards, Wiseman, ball.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then after that, it was like, all right, you just go, you just go out there and you draft the deal you think fits best.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: And for them, that was Isaac Koro.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Isaac Kurrow comes into his rookie season, the team is still really, really bad.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: They end up winning 22 total games out of 72 because remember, COVID years.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: So these teams, this first year Isaac Koro team is awful.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: But in that awfulness, he came into it and played 67 games and started all 67.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: He got 32 minutes per game, and well, he got an opportunity to get a lot of reps.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: He shot 8.3 shot attempts per game and ultimately shot three three-pointers a game.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: One of the major things about Isaac Coro is that he couldn't shoot.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: And we see every single year this mode of prospect gets drafted one way or another, where it's like, hey, he's hella aggressive defensively, he is super athletic, super talented, but we just need to help him develop his jump shot.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's where I'm going later in this ramble or whatever, but but bear with me just for a couple more seconds as we talk about Isaac Carl's role over the years.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: So his first year, he gets a lot of reps, a lot of opportunity, but ultimately the team goes 22 and 50.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: And luckily for them, the lottery odds bounce in their favor this time around, and they jump up to spots to select Evan Mobley, which again is as good as a draft pick as you could get at number three, and that set them up quite a bit, y'all.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: They make a few trades, and of course, Evan Mobley is really good.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Now they have Larry Marketing on the team, and this team jumps up to a 44-win team.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: At this time, um, 44 wins was enough to get them the eight seed, but ultimately they missed the playoffs after you know Jared Allen was injured, come back in the play-in.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have a lot of reps with this new roster, whatever, whatever, they end up losing.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: But now the expectations have shifted dramatically from a team that won 20-something games to a team that won 40.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a ton of time to develop our fifth overall pick guy.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: So now Isaac Kuro goes from 33 minutes to just 30.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: So it's not that big of a drop-off.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: But what did drop off was his total shot attempts per game.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: He jumps from eight to six.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's only two shots per, but that's a that's a lot of reps.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of reps that he's losing.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: And then this season, obviously, they made the big trade and traded for Donovan Mitchell, and they jumped up even more to a 51-win team.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: And now this is where we are in Isaac Koro's career, where he's 22 years old.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: He played 21 minutes per game, and he couldn't play in the playoffs because he was missing the jump shot.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: And I keep thinking to myself, as I as I think about all the draft prospects that have come out over the last couple seasons, specifically, let's say lottery picks, because after that, you kind of just taking a shot.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: And the amount of wings or guards or whatever that come into the league as a player that can do a lot of stuff, but the one thing they lack is that jump shot.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to guess, I wanted to figure out how many of those players that their jump shot is a huge question coming out of college, how many of them translate well to the NBA?
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Because most of the time the three-point shot is the most important thing.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: Especially if we think about who Isaacaro is, where his goal is to be a three-and-guy because that's what is needed on the team, right?
30:23
SPEAKER_00: We know defensively he's gonna bring it every night.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: He's a he's a dog, he's a hound.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: Last year, he had the best shot, three, the best three-point shot quality in the in all of all.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: I almost said history of all.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: I can't go that far, but all of all last season.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: And if you're wondering what that means, it means that every single three-point shot that Isaac Crowrow attempted last season was as about as wide open as you can get in an NBA game.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: And he shot 36% from there.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: And for the most part, 36% is like about league average, right?
30:54
SPEAKER_00: So you're like, okay, doing his thing, you're doing his thing.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: But it reminded me, and this player actually did it better, it reminded me of that one RJ Bear season.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: RJ had a year where he shot 40% from three, and then they got to the playoffs, and every single coach or the coach said, Hey, we don't actually think that you can shoot.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: We we still I know, I know, I know you shot 40% in the regular season, yada, yada, yada.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: We we don't think you can shoot at all.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: And the Atlanta Hawks smack they ass because it turned out to not this is not the sole reason now, but it turned out to be relatively true where RJ shot 28% from three in that five-game series, and all of those shots were wide the hell open.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: So we get to, this is crazy because now it's Tom Thibodeau doing the same thing with the Cleveland Cavaliers slash Isaac Koro.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: You're like 36% is literally league average right now.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: The league average across the league is 36.1%.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Isaac Coro was exactly right there.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: But come playoff time, we live him.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: And we saw him go from a player that started a ton of games this season, most of the games this season, to a player that couldn't play in the in the playoffs at all.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder when the when these teams select the player that can do everything but shoot, he can do so many things but shoot, how much of a how much time are they giving themselves to help this player develop that?
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Because I guess there's still a world where the Cavs could have been bad right now, right?
32:24
SPEAKER_00: But could you really convince your organization, your fans, of five years of a rebuild where you're waiting on your fifth overall pick to be good at shoot at shooting specifically.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: To be good at shooting, that feels unlikely.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: So now we use this pick on Isaac Coro, and they use this offseason to get better at that position that Isaac is slated to play.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: They they went out and got George Dein, they went out and got Max Strews and a playoff series based on what we know about Ice right now.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Those dudes are probably taking the bulk of those minutes.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Even though you don't trust those dudes much defensively alongside Donovan and Darius Garland, I don't know.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying that this is a hugely important season for Isaac Koro, and it's low-key kind of unfair because he's 22 years old.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: He's 22 years old.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: And this is potentially a make or break season for him right now because he has that sign in his rookie extension, and his team that he plays for wants to win championships, they want to compete, and they don't have time to pat him on the back and say, hey, Ice, it's okay you shot 0 for 6 today.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Just get him tomorrow.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Because that 0 for 6 could be the difference between being a three-seed or being a four-seed or being a four seed and being a five seed.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: And these are the chances you take and you hope that it works.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: The two main people I saw Isaac Currow compare to coming out of college was Jimmy Butler and Andre Eagle Dallas.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: Jimmy Butler's rookie season was his two-year, 22-year.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: So Iska Currow has three years of NBA experience on what Jimmy Butler was when he entered the league.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: And when Jimmy Butler entered the league, he shot like 17% from three.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a ton of attempts, but 17% from three.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Now the games have changed a lot since Jimmy Butler has been drafted to the league.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: And even now, Jimmy Butler's not a good three-point shooter.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: But you're asking this young fella to have a make or break season and the year that Jimmy Butler got entered into the league.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: Funny enough, this season of Isaac Currow shooting is basically from three specifically, is basically better than any Jimmy Butler three-point shooting season.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: Oh, which is which is funny.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Um But it just gets to the point where like when you have these ultra young players coming into the league, things could really change about their individual progression based on what happens around them.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: And they basically have to adjust or get left behind.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: And I fear that a guy like Isaac Koro might get left behind going into year number, was this year number four, going into year number four.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm rooting for him, obviously.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: I I feel like I root for everybody across the league to be the best version of themselves because you know it's it's not easy doing it's not easy doing what they do.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, it's just it's such an interesting tale, and it's not specific to Isaacoro.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: I feel like we can have the same conversation about a lot of different players where they come in young with some expectations, they don't live up to that, and now things grow around them, and now they're either pigeonholed to be a one-roll type of dude, or they don't get the opportunity to blossom in the way they probably should.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can transition this to the conversation of like, did Ice come out too early?
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Considering he's a fifth overall pick, I would say no.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've seen people stay in college for an extra year and go from a projected lottery pick to falling out of the first round completely, and you gotta do what's right for your family, you gotta get them bucks.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: But again, he wasn't necessarily completely ready for the NBA level, like most rookies aren't.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
36:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say it.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Jalen Brown has done irreversible damage to general managers that are doing these draftings.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: Because Jalen Brown came in with a very similar player profile, high energy, bad shooter, got a lot of bounce, got a lot of good defensive tangibles, but oh, if we can only get him to shoot the three-point shot, we can only get him to tighten up his handle, which is we still ask that to this day.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: He a couple days away from being a$300 million man, and we still ask him about that handle.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, but he came in with a I'm not obviously not the same, but a similar-ish archetype as a top projected player that, oh, if we could just get him to start shooting the ball well, it didn't take long for him.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: He got there, you know, he got to a near 40% three-point shooter in some years, but even now it's still kind of wishy-washy where some years he's a 39% three-point shooter, and some years he's a 36% three-point shooter.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: I think this year he was he a 33% three-point shooter.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he was.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, and this was his best year of his career ultimately.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, he came in with a very similar track record of not being able to shoot, but we think that the jump shot looks like it could translate.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: We just got to get him in the gym.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: We got to get him with the right shooting coach.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: So, yada yada yada.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: And and maybe it's the infrastructure, right?
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the Boston Celtics infrastructure is just better than what the Cavs had over the last couple seasons.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: But I don't I don't really know.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: On a very different scale, uh, this same thing can be said about Patrick Williams.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Not about the jump shooting thing, but about him being a highly touted pick, and then the team around him changing dramatically, and now his role has changed, right?
37:41
SPEAKER_00: Patrick Williams was drafted right before Isaac Carrow, fourth overall, and he's turned himself into one of the best catch-and-shoot players in ball.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he defends very well, but that's his role, right?
37:50
SPEAKER_00: You got DeMar DeRozan now, you have Zach Levine, you have Vucevic.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: You don't really have that opportunity to blossom as much as you probably should be able to as a former fourth overall pick.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: But that's just the that's just the name of the game.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I wonder when players get in this situation, they're like, could they potentially still blossom with the current team around them?
38:12
SPEAKER_00: Can we go into this next season and Patrick Williams averages 20?
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Or would that be too much for Damar or Zach or Voots to give up four more extra shots for him to get there?
38:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I don't know.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: But again, it's too much bulls talk.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: I that's not what it's supposed to be about.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Like a defense mechanism for me.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Anytime I don't know really what to talk about, I'm like, how about the bulls, huh?
38:32
SPEAKER_00: They're bad, ain't they?
38:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: That just that's my NBA defense mechanism.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: We should all have one.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, anytime you see me ramble off and it's goes into bulls talk, that's because I'm in an uncomfortable position.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that's what this is right now, because I don't I don't know what to talk about next.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: Other than social media being the best and worst thing to happen specifically to NBA players, and today's guy we're talking about is Draymond.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Draymond Green just had the worst social media 24 hours of the offseason.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: I was about to say of the year, of the last couple years, but you know what?
39:09
SPEAKER_00: I that's too that's too bold of a claim because social media and these players go hand in hand.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: He starts off by talking about the punch with Jordan Poole, which to each his own, right?
39:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here gonna tell another grown man what he should and shouldn't talk about.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: But I respect the fact that Jordan Poole, the a thousand times he's been asked about it since he's been traded, that he's basically turned down the opportunity to talk about it every time.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: He said water on the bridge, he doesn't want to talk about it, whatever, whatever.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: And I I respect that because at the end of the day, they're no longer teammates.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to worry about them having a saga ever again, uh, unless other than those two games they go play against each other where it's um when they see each other.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: But that's just Jordan Poole has been very non-vocal about it.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: Even during the season when he was asked about it, he just never really spoke about it.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: He kind of, at least in this aspect, has been a professional.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: What led up to the punch might have been unprofessional.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't there.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: But based on the interviews and based on the questions he's been asked over the last whatever year or so, he's been damn professional about not really speaking on him.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Draymond Green goes to, I think it was Pat in uh Rome show, and he speaks about it, right?
40:17
SPEAKER_00: He gives his comments, whatever, whatever, whatever.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: He plays Big Macho, right?
40:20
SPEAKER_00: There are certain things that you you shouldn't say to another man, boom, boom, boom, boom.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: And I I think that the the things that he's talking about is the let's say the B-word.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: Even though there's no like censorship, I'm a censor myself.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh the B word, right?
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Usually that is the word that ticks people off the most.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: And I I know in the NBA world, that's a word that you do not use.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: So I'm assuming that's the word that he's talking about, right?
40:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe Jordan Poole called him the B-word, and he showed him he wasn't, or maybe he showed him he did because he kind of sucker punched the guy.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: Um so let's say he used the B-word.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Didn't Draymond also use that word to Kevin a few years before?
41:03
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
41:04
SPEAKER_00: Either way, he goes into the show, he talks or whatever, and again, Jordan Poole has been a guy that's been pretty silent about the things, and even Jordan Poole responded talking about go get some hobbies.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: Jordan Poole's father even got in on it saying, matter of fact, I'm not even gonna read it.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you the gist because he used some some harsh words too.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: Um he basically said that he stands on everything.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: I guess when Draymond Green did the deed, um, he went to the media or said somewhere that he apologized to Jordan and Jordan's family, um, Jordan's parents specifically, and Jordan Poole's dad said, Man, he ain't never talked to us.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: He didn't apologize to me or my wall, my wife.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: He a lame, and me and him can't can meet anytime he wants.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: He also used the B-word.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: He said soft B-word at that.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: So Jordan Poole's father is maybe about that action.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: I guess we will we will find out.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I don't know, man.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh so okay, so that's that's a thing, right?
41:58
SPEAKER_00: Jordan Poole and Draymond Green's saga continues, even though they're no longer teammates.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: And then just a little while after that, Draymond Green probably just refreshing Twitter because you know, he's trending.
42:08
SPEAKER_00: He's literally trending on social media right now.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: He gets catfished, he gets bamboozled by a fake NBA Central account.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: And in this fake account, they said Kevin Garnett calls out Draymond Green.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: Draymond punching JP is like a senior punching a freshman who's half his size and then walks around talking him up as if he liked that.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Come try me, Dre.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: And that's again a fake quote from Kevin Garnett.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: And then Draymond, not knowing it was a fake quote, re not knowing it was a fake quote, says, I tried you when I was a rookie KG, and you started talking to yourself like I wasn't talking to you.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: What's that like?
42:53
SPEAKER_00: The freshman picking on a senior citizen that's double his size?
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Um not again, it it wasn't it wasn't a real, it wasn't a real quote.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a real quote.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: And the best part about all of it, the best part about all of it, is that Kevin Garnett doesn't even acknowledge what Draymond says.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he quotes the tweet and says, that's a fake tweet.
43:23
SPEAKER_00: At Elon, see what WTF is WTF is happening, fix it.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: Not even acknowledging whatever Draymond Green is is talking about on the internet, but just saying Elon fix your app, which again, Elon, fix your goddamn app, bro.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: What what are we doing over here?
43:41
SPEAKER_00: I found this interaction to be the funniest thing of the week, man.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: And in the time when we ain't got nothing to talk about other than, oh my god, is Tyler Harrow in the trade?
43:51
SPEAKER_00: Is it Kyle Laurie?
43:52
SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna take Tyler Hero a part of the thing?
43:54
SPEAKER_00: That's all that's being talked about right now.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: To have this moment of Draymond practically taking two hours.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: In 24 hours time, it's cool.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, also, the account that that did fake the quote did get suspended.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: So Elon did get on his game, I guess.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, but boy, you know, those accounts, I I will be honest with you, those accounts get blocked very early for me.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: As soon as I see a fake tweet on the the timeline, it's not worth my time personally.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to pull a Draymond Green where I think it's real and I quoted just to realize that it's not real now.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: Like a jackass.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: So as soon as I see a tweet from a non-verified account or a knockoff account, I typically, let's say mute.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't block count accounts.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: I typically mute them.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: I don't want that on my timeline.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't want it because again, this what Draymond did and believing in it and not really doing his research is pretty, pretty normal.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: It honestly is.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of an honest mistake.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: But it's it's out there for the public now.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: Because now, what do you do, do you call KG to apologize about the tweet?
45:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't what do you do if you Draymond?
45:02
SPEAKER_00: You just you know what I'm saying?
45:03
SPEAKER_00: You know that you and KG go see each other, across each other eventually.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't think that that Draymond's about to be out here trying to fight KG or vice versa, but golly, what a rough, rough 24 hours for Draymond Green.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: And uh, yeah, we'll we'll see, we'll see what happens next with that.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I want to end every episode while just giving two minutes.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: Let's say two minutes of real talk because uh at the end of the last episode, I talked about pressures across the NBA ray.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: We talked about the 76ers, we talk about the Clippers, yada yada.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: And I also talked about my own individual pressures.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: And I got a few DMs saying, like, hey, Kenny, that really helped.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: And if I can help somebody more than just giving y'all 45 minutes of entertainment or whatever, I'm I'm gonna try my best to do that.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and today I want to talk about you know getting into the space of sports media in general, because I know there are a ton of people that around my age, maybe a little bit younger, even some of y'all that are older than me, at twenty me being 26, that want to do the sports media thing.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: Um and right now in 2023, there are so many different ways to get into it.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: But getting into it is the easy part, staying and turning it into a career is the hard part, right?
46:13
SPEAKER_00: When I say the easy part, I mean it it's easier now than ever to hear your get your voice heard, right?
46:20
SPEAKER_00: I always make this joke with my fiance that if I was born 10 years earlier, I'd probably be doing something that I don't love, right?
46:29
SPEAKER_00: Because if I was born 10 years earlier, there is no YouTube, there is no Spotify for you to get your random podcast episodes off.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: And then basically the way you got into sports is you go to college, you go get a journalism degree, you go get a broadcasting degree or communications degree or whatever it may be.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: That was basically your only route, and it was a hard route.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even the route that I'm doing is hard, but like it was a more labor-inducing route because a lot of the people you see on TV that went the traditional route or you know as like big-time writers that you admire, them dudes spent deck sometimes decades doing shit that they did not like doing because they just wanted to wait for their prime opportunity.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: Writing for smaller publications, being an intern, doing all of this stuff just for the big break.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: And nowadays in 2023, you could go that route, right?
47:22
SPEAKER_00: That route is still a viable, real route.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: People are going, people are going to school for journalism and broadcasting and all of this stuff and having successful careers.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: But nowadays, you don't have to, you don't have to do it, right?
47:34
SPEAKER_00: Ask me what degree I got.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: Please.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: Please ask me what degree I got.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm gonna tell you, I don't know.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: I went to I went to community college and got out of there by the skin of my teeth.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: I had a geology class.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: I got a DN my last semester before I stopped going.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: I was it was raps.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
47:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't have that type of experience.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: But one thing college did help me determine, uh help me find out by myself is that I like public speaking, right?
48:04
SPEAKER_00: That was just from a speech class.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: Either way, I had a YouTube channel and I started making content.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: And even if you are in college for this exact stuff, I do want to say making a YouTube channel is the easiest process you can really do, and it gives you reps.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: If anything, it gives you reps of talking in the front of a camera, it gives you reps of talking into a microphone, and it could potentially blossom your career, right?
48:25
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows who Kenny Beacham is if I didn't have a YouTube child.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
48:30
SPEAKER_00: So take some time, find out what you're passionate about, and recognize that what you're passionate about right now might not be the same in five years from now.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: It might not be the same three years from now, and that is completely okay.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Take some time, do your due diligence, make some content, baby.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: Make some content, baby.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: See what's working, and see what's not working, see what you love, and see what you don't love.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: And that right there, that right there can be enough.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: There's a guy.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, his name is Bryson.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Bryson Wright.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, he he is he's a guy that writes and does stuff for the Memphis Grizzlies.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: Um a few years ago, I had him on my YouTube channel, right?
49:11
SPEAKER_00: Because I was doing a series where I found a fan from every single organization.
49:15
SPEAKER_00: At least that's this was the idea of it.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: I find a fan from every single organization, I bring him on to chat about their favorite team.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: Bryson ended up being the guy I brought on for the Grizzlies.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I'm not even completely sure if the Grizzlies episode with him ever dropped, but I was so very impressed with his work, right?
49:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, and if I'm not, I could be messing up the timeline or his actual story.
49:39
SPEAKER_00: If I'm not mistaken, when I chatted with him, he was still in college, but he was telling me that he wanted to work in the NBA doing something, right?
49:46
SPEAKER_00: This was two, this is last year, two years ago.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: I get to Summer League this year, um, and you know, I got my media, I go pick up my media pass, I go down to the floor, and one of the first people I see is Bryson.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm a I didn't say that I didn't say this because I only saw him uh I think once or twice throughout the weekend.
50:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you'll ever listen to this, but I was so damn proud of him because he had dreamed.
50:13
SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm I'm sure his dreams and aspirations and ambitions are higher than just being there and working it.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: But he had told me that he wanted to be able to cover the team in this capacity, and he made it happen.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: And basically, one year's time, two years' time from the time we talked him being in college to him now, he put time in.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: He worked his ass off, and he got an opportunity where he was at Summer League on the court working the games.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: So he is just one story out of many of people that have the same dream that you do that have made it work to some capacity.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: Bryson, if you're watching this, again, I'm so proud of you.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I could be telling a story about a lot of people that end up listening to this episode in a few years' time.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: Put the work in.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid to be yourself and go get that money, man.