Latest / Small Ball with Kenny Beecham / Are NBA Fans Too Eager To "Blow It Up"?

Transcript

Are NBA Fans Too Eager To "Blow It Up"? · Small Ball with Kenny Beecham

0:00
SPEAKER_00: If you ask me today, are they real life contenders?
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Can they win 16 games in the playoffs without losing four of seven?
0:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say a tentative yes.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Kenny Beach and podcast, y'all.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: The first episode of 2024.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you follow me on my other platforms, whether it be Twitter or what most mostly Twitter, I guess that's why I do most of the damage.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: I've been hinting that 2024 was going to be the year of leveling up.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: The first thing we can officially announce now that we're in the year 2024, is that this podcast, the Candy Beach and Podcast, is now a part of the Enjoy Basketball Podcast Network.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all saw it coming because I'm the owner of the Enjoy Basketball brand and I'm the owner of this podcast.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: So it just makes sense, but now we officially can announce it.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: And it's not the only podcast that we have uh under the platform.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Numbers on the Board, formerly known as Through the Wire, my other podcast is also under this umbrella.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: So it's been kind of cool these last couple months trying to figure out how to kind of start a brand and turn it into a podcast network.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: And there are so many other things coming in 2024 that we can't announce at this exact moment.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: But I do want to let you know that we're here and we're here to take over NBA.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, do we want to stick to NBA?
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's say NBA in 2024, maybe in 2025, we get some football podcasts, maybe a baseball podcast, a soccer podcast.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the future holds.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: But as of right now, numbers on the board and the Kenny Beach and podcast are part of our podcast and network.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, I just see so many different creators or people in the space owning their content and owning their things.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: And that was just something that was very important for me as I went through like different contract negotiations with my previous uh company, a House of Highlights, slash Bleach Report, slash TNT, slash Turner, slash Warner.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of companies.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Um I wanted to own everything that I was a part of.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: And we got that.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: We got that in a Kenny Beach and podcast as a part of the network.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, I talked about this on Twitter just a little bit because we just opened up the new year.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm always curious to if people have New Year's resolutions or if is that something that they really dive into.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: And most people said that no.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: If I want to better my life, I'll do it any day, not wait for January 1st.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: And I respect that.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: But the way I kind of look at New Year's resolutions is reflecting on the year as it's done and saying, like, oh, I could have done this better.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I could have done this better.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of different things in this podcast versus the content that I produce that I am, again, like I said, trying to level up as part of a New Year's resolution.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: So if you've been here on the journey of the Candy Beach and podcast for the last seven months or so, again, I don't know the exact number, I appreciate you.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: But it is time for us to hit a new level, right?
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, overall hiatus, which was basically a week, you know, we brought in the New Year's.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: New Year's is about family, it's about celebrating another year's life.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And part of the family aspect, most people, when they see me and they know what I do, they want to immediately talk ball with me, which is which is fine.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: I don't mind, I don't mind it.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's not the only thing that I'm interested in in life, but most people know me as Kenny Beacham, basketball guy.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: And there are a few people in my family that are also basketball guys.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: They may not have a podcast or they might may not have a YouTube channel, but they're they're basketball guys.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And when the OG Ananobi trade happened, I got a text from an old friend, a guy that I haven't talked to in quite some time.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: And I actually don't even know where his fandom really lies, but let's just say he's an NBA fan.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't text me thinking about what this means for the Knicks or grading it like most of us did.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: His text said, I don't think the Toronto Raptors should blow it up.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, whoa, where is where is this coming from?
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the Raptors have been a team that have been in conversations of trade and Pascal and Trade and OG for quite some time.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: They finally let the first domino fall and OG I don't know be going to the Knicks.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: But he said he didn't believe that the Raptors should blow it up.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: And again, this is a guy that I really respect.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: He's he's not, and I don't mean this in a negative connotation, he's not necessarily a casual NBA fan.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: I know he watches basketball as I do.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're talking on a nightly basis, and when he's not watching, he's probably watching other people talk about the things that they watched.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's he's probably listening to this podcast.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: And I was just curious, and I said, What do you mean?
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Gave me a FaceTime and we talked for a little bit.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean a little bit, maybe maybe two minutes, two minutes max.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: And he said that fans, us fans, us at the at the crib rooting for our teams, root for a blow-up way too often.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, that's interesting.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: But I told him, I don't even want to chat about it.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you're thinking right now, I will call you later because I want to kind of think about this and internalize this and talk to my platform about it before I hit him up.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: So after I'm done with this podcast, I will be shooting him a text and trying to talk what he was really thinking.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, other than though, the one part I did get from him is that the Raptors are a team that have been in the middle for some time, mostly since the championship.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: And even before the championship, they were, I can't say in the middle because they had a season where they were the number one seed, the number two seed, but let's just say not real contenders, but carried their way into playoffs every single year.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: They've always been a team towards the middle, except for the Tampa year.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: And I don't blame them for being bad at Tampa.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: If you're a thousand miles away from your normal fan base for an entire seeds, you're just not going to be good.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And that ended up getting them Scotty Barnes.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: But they've been a team that's been middle of the packslash towards the top.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, the one time they won a championship, they went from a team that was competitive.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Some people might have saw them as contenders, but for the most part, they were fake contenders in LeBron's Eastern Conference, and then they made the trade for Kawhi, and boom, they get their first championship in league history.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that, hey, if they would have blown it up in the times that fans thought they should have, they would have blown it up, trading Kyle Larry, trading DeMar DeRozan, traded away all the people that have been a part of their core for the last three seasons to reset because that core had read its reached its limit, they would have never got a championship.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, all right, enough, enough, no more talking.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Let me think about this.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: So I have.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: And it made me think about the teams that are currently in the middle, building towards the middle.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Because most of us, again, us NBA fans, and I'm kind of a part of this at the moment because my Bulls are not good.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: I know for the last 17 or so games, I thought the last 15 or so games, they were 10 and 5.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Like it was pretty solid.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: But I am still a guy that's been asking for the blowup.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: Damar, Zach Levine, Busevich.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: I want to hit that next era of Bulls basketball.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'll ultimately, even with me thinking that, I know that once you hit the blow up, the four-year span in a lot of cases are it's gonna be dreadful basketball.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be hard to really get up every single night to watch that team play.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: But that is something that I, for the most part, have been ready to get done.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: I've been team, blow it up.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: The Bulls, currently the Raptors, the Brooklyn Nets, and the Pacers are four teams actively that are in this moment of time, we don't know what these teams are gonna do at the deadline and stuff, are actively building towards the middle.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Right?
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, we still believe that Pascal Ciaka might get traded, but for the most part, from reports from Wolds and Shams, they're saying that the Raptors are looking to see what they have at the moment before they make a decision on Pascal.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And since the the trade of OJ Ananobi, they have two wins and some one good one.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: The Grizzlies game actually just ended as I'm recording this.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a pretty finish, but Emmanuel quickly has looked really good as a league guard through the first two games.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: So maybe they decide to stay towards the middle instead of trading Pascal Siakam.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: But is that worth?
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Do you get worth from this?
7:26
SPEAKER_00: The Brooklyn Nets are the most confusing team of basketball right now.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the hell they're doing.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: They're a hard team to watch, but I understand when reports came out today that they're not looking to move Mikhail Bridges.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: They don't own their own first-round pick.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: So what incentive do we have to be really bad this year, right?
7:41
SPEAKER_00: The Bulls, we already talked about, and the Pacers, for their entire franchise history, has been the poster board of poster boy of building towards the middle.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it has not resulted in championships, but you pull off a few trades here and there, and now you have a franchise player without having to take to get them.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to take a step back, take a screenshot of the NBA contenders across the association and figure out how they get to the point where they are now, did they have a full-on blow up, or did they build towards the middle?
8:10
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that comes to mind, the team that I believe is the best team of basketball, even though they just lost to the OKC Thunder, the Boston Celtics.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: The Boston Celtics have had one year after the KG trade that they missed the playoffs.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, these are extreme circumstances because you can argue that that was a blowup, right?
8:28
SPEAKER_00: You traded away KG, you traded away um uh Paul Pierce, you traded away everybody, and you got back draft capital, but it wasn't a bottoming out.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: Because the only time that they had a sub-500 season or a missing playoff season was that immediate year after the KG trade.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And then they get the Isaiah Thomas trade to go through, and they end up using the draft picks they got from the KG trade to draft Jalen Brown and then get the pick that was Markel Folk, they ultimately flipped into Jason Tatum.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: So the question is, does that count as a team that blew it up?
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Or did they kind of work towards the middle?
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times the blow up is mostly a full-on breakdown and rebuild.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: And that usually takes years upon years.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: You're talking a three-year, five-year span.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: And for the Celtics, it really was just one season.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: Again, they, I don't want to say lucked out, but Isaiah Thomas came onto the scene as a guy that was really good the previous season to like, oh snap, the brothers making an all-NBA team at 5'8.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: And now we got a few pieces around him that are adequate to decent NBA players, you know?
9:28
SPEAKER_00: So it's one year.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: The next team is the Miyagi Bucks.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: This is a team that star came outside of the lottery.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's like the recipe when I when I talk about some of these other teams that have built towards the middle or whatever, whatever.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Starr came post-lottery.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Giannis was what, one pick outside the lottery?
9:45
SPEAKER_00: So close to a lottery pick, right?
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, and since Giannis had become a full-time starter, they've only missed the playoffs one different time.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: They uh they've done a bunch of timely trades, a Drew Holiday trade.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: The one of the most underrated things, and this is just me doing a little bit of research going into this video, is the I didn't really remember in 2018 what the NBA market was like.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Brick Lopez signed to the Boston or the Milwaukee Bucks for$3 million.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And that was after he was coming off a max contract in his last year in LA.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the Lakers let him walk because of the LeBron era was starting.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: But for$3 million, I went back so far into archives for this episode, which is super fun.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: And I know last episode I said it was gonna be a little bit more free-flowing, whatever.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the researched episodes, okay?
10:23
SPEAKER_00: And like research for me is light compared to some of other YouTubers out there.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, um, I went back in the archives to go through like Lakers message board slash subreddits when Brick Lopez left, and everybody was super upset.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Not that he left, because originally the tweet was Brick Lopez signed the Milwaukee Bucks.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And then the tweet after that said he signed for$3 million.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, whoa, Lakers fans, like, man, he is actually the type of center that you kind of want to side LeBron James.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: He's a stretch five.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And at this point, we hadn't seen all defensive version of Brick Lopez.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: He was mostly just a stretch five who saw his numbers go down a little bit.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the reasons why he signed for$3 million.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: He was kind of looked at as a one-way player for the most part.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, when Milwaukee's turned into an all-defensive caliber player, a runner up to DPOY.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: But good timely trades, right?
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Bring in Brick Lopez in 2018.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: The Chris Middleton edition was kind of a throw-in.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: He was a G League player, a part of the Brandon Jennings trade.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: It's a team that has had, don't get me wrong, they've had years, and I mean years of being bad.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: But the core that they've built right now, the core that helped them win the championship, wasn't from a complete teardown slash blow up.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Hell, they drafted Yams, the 15th overall pick.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: And they traded the Capitol to get Drew.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: They traded the Brandon Jennings stuff to get um a Brandon Knight and Chris Middleton and blossom into an all-star.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: The next team, the Nuggets, our reigning NBA champions.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Their star, similarly to the Marky Bucks, was drafted outside the lottery.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Their star was drafted in the second round.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: So these are all this is also an extreme circumstance because how often are you drafting a one of the greatest players of all time?
11:59
SPEAKER_00: And yes, I'm giving him that stamp right now because two-time MVP plus NBA champion.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: There's only 13 other players in the league that have done that before.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, how many times do you see them in the second round?
12:08
SPEAKER_00: It's just not often.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: But they've only had one top 10 pick, and that was the pre the season after the Nikola Jokic draft, and that ended up being Jamal Murray.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: And then they had a 13th overall pick, which was Donovan Mitchell.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Oops.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: And then a 14th overall pick, which was Michael Porter Jr.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: But again, they never broke it down, and then they did have bad seasons.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Do not get me wrong, I don't want to act like the the Denver Nuggets are this pillar of success before Jokic.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: But the way they got to the core that helped them win the championship was it let's go get four years of first round, four years of top five picks, and now we're gonna compete.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: It was draft a star, make the decision because I don't know if y'all remember it was him or Nurkic.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Who do we decide?
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Now, the front officer tell you that it was never questioned for them, but go back and read some of those articles.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Go back and read some of those articles of the use of Nurkits trade.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: No, nobody from the articles that I recently read for this, nobody was saying that, oh my God, this is a huge mistake.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: But they're like, hmm, I wonder if the Nuggets will regret this.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: The answer is not even a little bit.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jokic's rookie season, I think he ended up third in rookie of the year, so it's not like a huge surprise and ended up being good, but it is a huge surprise that he became one of the greatest players of all time.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: And they had to make the decision.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: And then the last team has the benefit of being in a huge market, and as the Clippers.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: The Clippers have been also a team that's been a pillar.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: This is a team that has been a pillar of regular season success, but they have the big market benefit that was like Kawhi Leonard wants to play for our team.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Let's go get Kawhi Leonard.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: And then the Heat, and these are just the contending teams, contending, you decide teams.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: The Heat is another one of those teams that, for the most part, in the Eric Spostra era, have been relatively good.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Even the team, the years they were bad.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: They weren't trying to get top overall pig bad.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: They were 13th overall pig bad to get Bam out of bio or just missing the playoffs.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: So that right there is three true contenders: Milwaukee, Boston, and Denver, and two borderline contenders.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: It's all up to your interpretation.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: The first three, there's no doubt about.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: The last two, the Clippers and the Heat, you can make your decisions at home.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: What about the what about the other thing?
14:09
SPEAKER_00: What about building from the bottom?
14:11
SPEAKER_00: Starting over from scratch, trading away the good players you have now for future draft capital and drafting and drafting a draft in a Sam Hinky way.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: The first example is, of course, these 76ers.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Now, um, this 76ers team is really good.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, Joel Embiid is my MVP at the moment.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: Tyrese Maxie is my most improved player at the moment.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: They've been having a ridiculous season.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: But they, in order to get here, they have four of the worst years of basketball that you could ever have.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: They had a 19 and a 17 win season.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's bad.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: They got Ben Simmons from it, who obviously is not on the team anymore, but made an All-MB 8 team in his prime.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about a 28-year-old and talking about in his prime.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: That was like eight years ago, I feel like.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, obviously, Jordan Bede is one of the greatest.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: And then the Tyrese Maxi pick was late in the first round or whatever, whatever.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: But they built they broke it down.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: They traded away Drew Holiday to get Neural Snowell.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: They had four years of not having no NBA players on the roster.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Like they actively tried to build through the draft.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: The next thing, Minnesota Timbows.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: They have three first overall picks.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, they I mean they had three first overall picks to help build the core that they have now.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Anthony Elwish, Carnthony Towns, and of course, oh wait no, no, Wiggins are part of a trade.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that was part of a breakdown to get the first overall pick to trade away Kevin Love.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: So it still works in the same conversation.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: The OKC Thunder had two years of really bad basketball, but their star did not come through tanking.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Their star came through a trade of a breakdown, right?
15:35
SPEAKER_00: So these are the conversations for blowing it up.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: And then the Kings, hell, the Kings had 17 years of awful hoops in order to get De'Aaron Fox and then got another lottery pick at Tyrese Haliberta and traded that lottery pick in order to get Sabonis, their core guys at the moment.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: So the question is, what is the better way?
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Now, I also wanted to look through history, right?
15:55
SPEAKER_00: And and history is hard to look at in this conversation or this argument because I honestly, and I truly, truly do believe that things are shifting in the association, where the formula to be an NBA champion might be different this year in the foreseeable future versus what we have been accustomed to.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is that there's no super teams in the current NBA.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: You might look at the Bradley Beal, Devin Booker, and Kevin Durant pairing in their 60 minutes and say they're plus 24 and say, oh, that might be a super team.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: But as of right now, there's no super teams across the association.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: We're the last era of basketball.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're talking about the Warriors?
16:35
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about LeBron's dominance in these conferences.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't think LeBron's teams are necessarily super teams outside of Miami, but there's no guarantees.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: There were years where I woke up and was ready for NBA basketball, knowing damn well it was going to be Cavs versus Warriors in the finals.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Now there's no guarantee.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: There's parody.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And this is the most parody we've had ever?
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Ever?
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Five straight years of new champions?
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe six at the end of the season.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: We don't know, but Denver is amazing, but I'm they're not, like I said last episode, they're not unfuckwittable.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: So it's the all-time level of parody.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: You would have to go back to the 70s to get this level of parody.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Because again, it was LeBron, it was Curry, it was Shaq, it was Tim Duncan, and not in this order, but it was Shaq, it was Kobe, it was Tim Duncan, it was Michael Jeffrey Jordan, it was Bird.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Like those guys dominated eras at a time.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: And now, whose era are we in?
17:25
SPEAKER_00: So because of that, I can't look at the history and say, oh, uh, the Warriors are a team that broke it all down and drafted Steph Curry at this pig and then drafted this guy at this pig.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: I can't look at um the LeBron James Cavs team because that team is just different than any other ones.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: So history won't give you the answer.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: But recent history, like my guy mentioned, has the Raptors.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Are fans too early to try to blow it up?
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Because if right now of the four teams that I mentioned, the two teams that everybody's gonna mention about blowing it up, is the Raptors, is the Bulls, right?
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And blowing it up in the sense for these two teams is not tearing it down to his nuts and bolts because if you're the Raptors, if you do blow it up, you're keeping Scotty Barnes.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the that's the thing.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: If the Bulls blow it up, and my assumption is that you're keeping Kobe White, you're keeping Patrick Williams, but the veteranslash quality players that are on the team maybe get shipped out.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the things that I have neglected to talk about in this conversation is draft capital, right?
18:28
SPEAKER_00: In these situations where you're building towards the middle, it is so very important to hold your draft picks.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: It is so very important to hold your draft picks.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I look at what the Pacers are doing right now with them having the draft capital that they have, and like, man, of the teams building towards the middle, they're the one with the most upside.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Because if that player does become available for them, they're going to have the assets to potentially trade for.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying that we're talking Raptors getting Kawhi Leonard level of talent, because again, Kawhi Leonard may have been coming off his injuries, but Kawhi Leonard was a dog.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: But just like getting that next player in the door, they have those assets.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: The Pacers R team that notoriously has been building towards the middle, and it make it makes sense in the context of their organization, in the context of where they are as a team.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about Indiana, and that's just not a place that you uh let's say keep a bunch of salary cap available.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have to draft extremely well, and you're gonna have to make timely, timely choice.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Again, I mentioned they have zero championships in the franchise history, so it's not like this recipe has completely worked, but as far as being competent every single season, and now is just a little bit different because I don't want to get disrespectful, disrespectful or miss misspeak here, but the way Tyrese Halliburton is playing for them at this age and time, they haven't really had that throughout their franchise.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: And I know you're gonna say Kenny, Paul George.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Paul George was amazing, and and he went toe-to-toe with LeBron James in the Eastern Commerce finance.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm not taking that away.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about Tyrese Halliburne.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: He has zero playoff games played in his career, like pump the brakes.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: But but I mean, in the sense that this man Tyrese is a system and he has a way, and we we have yet to see this just yet, but he has a way of playing that makes me believe that if you trade for that next guy, that guy might stick around because playing with Tyrese Halliburton seems so damn fun because he's such an unselfish player.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: You know?
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Paul George unfortunately suffered a career-altering injury when he was hitting his stardom.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: Right?
20:35
SPEAKER_00: He hit a that that that moment, I remember exactly where I was.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: I was at the bowling alley for somebody's birthday.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: And and this, this they didn't have the TVs on uh ESPN or whatever, whatever.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: But I remember coming home, turning on ESPN and seeing that Paul George had that entry.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: I remember it.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Not like it was yesterday, but I remember it.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, but having a guy like Tyrese Halliburton makes you feel like building towards the middle, middle, not that bad of an idea.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: Hell, the way he's playing, he's not even gonna allow you to tear it down to the boat to start from scratch because he is just helping you win too many basketball games.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: You know?
21:12
SPEAKER_00: On these other teams, obviously you have the conversation on what's the right thing to do, what's the wrong thing to do.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: The Bulls do not have the luxury that I mentioned with the Indiana Pacers as far as having that draft capital, because in order to build the team that they've orchestrated right now, they traded away draft picks.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's important.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: So I still don't know exactly where I land on here because I obviously it is very situational.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Like I tried to look at the last teams to blow it up and how are they doing?
21:37
SPEAKER_00: It's just too early, right?
21:38
SPEAKER_00: The Orlando Magic blew it up and traded Vucevic to the Bulls and traded Aaron Gordon to the Denver Nuggets, and then they got back Paolo Benquero, they got back Franz Wagner directly from the trade.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: They got Jalen Suggs.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Pretty much the entire core that they have right now that they love was due to a blow up.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: They haven't achieved anything yet.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: But maybe three years down the line, we look back and say that was a really, really good blow up.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Because the one thing that these blow ups Things are it's it's crucial that you make every single decision right, but it is so much easier to miss a draft pick versus hit one.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: So that's when you blow it up.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: And we've seen teams blow it up and just be bad for years and years and years.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Most of that deals with their talent evaluation when it comes to draft picks.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: So it's important that you hit those picks.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And the Orlando Magic, for the most part, a Paolo hit, Franz hit, Jalen Suggs from for the draft spot, maybe not a hit, but still a really good quality player.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, still too early on Anthony Black or Jeff Howard from his last this previous draft, but you have to be able to do that.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just I'm just opening the conversation to y'all.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm opening the conversation to y'all.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: It's operating from the bottom as far as a full teardown make more sense in order to become a competent slash a team that is competing for a championship, or is being towards the middle, drafting well, and making timely trades make more sense?
22:57
SPEAKER_00: You let me know.
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24:50
SPEAKER_00: I feel like so far this season, most people have their opinions on who's going to win what award.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: I've mentioned that Joel Embiid at this moment in time is my MVP.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Even though that boy is shake.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: It's Joel Embiid.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: But most people have either Chet or Wimby, DPOY for right now.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of Rudy Gobert, but there's been some conversations about other people.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: The one award, and it's because it's a new award that a lot of people, a lot of people are not talking about, is a clutch player of the year award.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Now we saw De'Aaron Fox win it with Flying Colors last season.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: It was no dispute that De'Aaron Fox is the clutch player in the league.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: This season, it's a little bit more interesting.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: If you go to FanDuel Sportsbook in Continent, you can see the odds.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: And right now, Damian Lillard is the favorite tied with Shea Garrison Alexander at plus 340.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: And I understand, I think Damian Lillard is leading the league in fourth quarter points.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, so he's been phenomenal.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: He's been okay.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: He's been good.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: He's been good in the fourth quarter.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: But when I think about Clutch's players in the league, I'm thinking about a complete fourth quarter takeover plus some game winners, plus this and that.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: And right now, I don't know.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: I look at I love looking at the people, right?
25:50
SPEAKER_00: Third on the list is Tyrese Halliburton at plus 650.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: He's got some moments where he's iced some games so far this season.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe I'm thinking about, oh, he did some last year too.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: But like right now, I think this award is up for the grab, up for grabs.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Steph Curry is another player that has a ton of fourth quarter points.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: But when you think about clutch player of the year, they have had a lot of clutch games, one of the most clutch games in all of basketball.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think they're 10 and 8 in those games, which is a positive record.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: But when you talk about clutch player of the year, like DeArrick Fox's fourth quarter clutch numbers last season, phenomenal.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think that he might have broken it in the first year.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know if people are replicating that.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: So Dame is the favor right now.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: If I was gonna throw a little bit on, I might look at Luka Doncic.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of the games don't end up being super close, but right now he is a plus 1500.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Plus 1500 for Luka Doncic?
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And he's already got moments right now.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: And for the rest of the season, he might get more opportunities.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: But it's hard to get opportunities when you beating a team by 30 points or you're losing to that same team by 30 points.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about the Utah Jazz game, okay?
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's just a lot of good options right now.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think though we have some favorites, none of those people have been high enough for me to say that they've secured it so far.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: Now to start my favorite segment on the Kitty Beach podcast, the Ask KB.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: You go to X, you go to the comment section of these episodes, you use the hashtag ASKKB, ask your questions, and I try to get to a few every single episode.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: The first one comes from Giannis Burner.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: What's the biggest problem you see with each of the real contenders in the league?
27:31
SPEAKER_00: And now you bet to get me in trouble by asking real contenders.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I went, I went through some teams and I'm I'm giving one sentence responses to every single team.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: And maybe we dive into this a little bit more in future episodes.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: But what is the biggest whole slash problem with every single contender as of right now?
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Celtics are too reliant on the three-point shot.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Damn, this is hard because I want to I want to dive into that just a little bit more.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Um Jason Tatum at this point in time, his pull-up mid-range jump shot is not a good, it has not been a good shot for for some years.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: But he does it all the time.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Now he can hit some timely ones.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: But the team in general is just too reliant on the three-point shot, and I feel like you need to have a little bit of combination.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: You they're the number one team as far as three-point uh takes per game, but number 30 in mid-range jump shots at all, and they also don't get to the rim.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: So it's just too much three-point shots.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: I know it's supposed to be one sentence, but I think I needed to say that.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: The Bucks, point of attack defense is dreadful.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: It's just.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm just, I just we're gonna talk about this in a little bit.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh Taris Halliburton slash every single guard on the Pacers in their five games they played against each other, have just ran circles around them.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to be one sentence, but I can't help myself.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: The 76ers are too dependent on their top two guys, and that's why in the last episode, I mentioned that I want to see them make a trade.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Not a trade to get a huge contract, to go get a third star, but just another guy that you can trust with the ball in his hands.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: The Miami Heat, oh my God, are they considered a real contender?
28:53
SPEAKER_00: You tell me.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: They just made it to the NBA Finals, and they the one thing that I said is I just haven't seen enough of them to really know.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because they haven't been healthy.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: They've been able to win basketball games with this like the bare minimum, because Eric Sposter's Eric's poster, but we haven't seen Jimmy at full force just yet this season.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Bam has been amazing.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: When Tyler Hero's been back, he's been amazing.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Duncan has been really good, but like I can, I have not seen many games.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if these guys have played any minutes together.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, at least enough of sample size for me to have an opinion about them with Jimmy, Bam, and Tyler Hero together this season.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: So just not enough.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: The Wolves have too many stretches of anemic offense.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: I just watched that again today.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: My my number one game, every single day, I have like marquee games for me to like dive into and really watch.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: It was Timberwolves versus Pelicans.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Y'all know how high I am on the Pelicans.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: And anytime they go against a really good team, I'm dived in.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: And the Pelicans wipe the floor with them, boys.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Every time Zion plays against Rudy Gobert, he's good for 25 plus on 70% shooting.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: It makes no sense to me.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I guess I guess it does.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: He's a monster.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: But um, the Timberwolves just have too many long stretches where they just can't hit a shot.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: And that is a problem.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: That is their biggest problem, you ask me.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Now they have a few problems, not even great, but they have but that's their biggest one.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: The Thunder are too small.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Watched this against the Boston Celts the other night where they gave up, I think, 19, 18 offensive rebounds.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: And anytime they go against one of the bigger, bigger teams across basketball, you can feel that that team is too small, where the backup center is Kimbridge Williams and sometimes Jalen Williams, the other one.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: So they're just a little bit too small.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, the Nuggets, their bench is just too young and unreliable at this point.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, I know the starting lineup is as good as it gets, but eventually you're gonna dive into the sixth man, seventh man, eighth man.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they just a little bit too young for my own personal opinion.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Um the Suns, what the hell can I say?
30:39
SPEAKER_00: They've played 60 minutes together.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how to gauge this team.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: No, 60 minutes, they've been amazing, but I just I just don't really know.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: And then the the Clippers, in my notes, again, I'll be having notes for these episodes.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: It's blank.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the biggest hole for the Clippers are right now.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Does that tell you something?
30:59
SPEAKER_00: That either tells you that I'm not watching enough Clippers to really deviate what the holes are in the game, or that their current stretch of the last 15 or so games have been amazing.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Kawhi Leonard is playing like a top 10 player, and we know he has that capability.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: But seeing him play, I know he just, I think he just missed four straight games and then they lost, I think, three of those four games.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: But when he's been healthy, he's been unguardable and also he's maybe not playing, he's not playing DPO wide defense.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: I wanna don't want to say that.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: But he has a few possessions every single game where it's like, oh, dad brother go.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: So I like, I gotta blank right now.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: There's gotta be something.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: No team is perfect.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: They're definitely not perfect.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: I still think the South is the best team in basketball.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: And I just gave you 30 seconds on why they're they're bigger.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: So I just don't know what the Clippers just yet.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta, I think I just gotta go back into the film.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Because even today they're going against the Suns, and by the time I turn that game on, it was 50 to 30.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't like, you know.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: The next question comes from Piper.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Hashtag ask KB.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: He actually used the hashtag.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: We love you, Piper.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Are the Thunder legitimate contenders in your eyes?
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Do you still think they're a year or two away?
32:03
SPEAKER_00: The Thunder have been the talk of town since their game against the Boston Celtics, and it makes sense.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: You go against the Boston Celtics, the best team of basketball, um, by many statistics in the overall record.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't blow them out the water because the Boston Celtics had a huge run in that fourth quarter.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: But for three quarters, OKC was taking care of business.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, so you beat the Celtics, you beat the Timberwolves, you beat the Denver Nuggets twice this season.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Like, just go look at their wins this year and tell me that that does not look like a championship team.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Let's, and I know we're gonna come back to this, but let's eliminate the fact that they're one of the four youngest teams of basketball.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Let's eliminate the fact that they have almost zero playoff history.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: Almost zero.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: Shea's got a few games, Lou Dorse got some games before this whole integration, and then I want to say Davis Bertans has some games, but everybody else has zero playoff games in their NBA career.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Let's ignore those facts.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Let's just look strictly on the basketball on the court.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: That team looks better than many of the teams I just talked about being contenders this season.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: But those other things are a factor.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: They just are.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Usually you need some kind of playoff experience before you get the Larry O'Brien.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: Traditionally, you're not gonna be as young as they like their core rotations average age is 21 years old.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: But just on the basketball, undoubtedly a contender.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: But those other factors, man.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned that they feel they feel a bit small.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a guy that's said on this podcast before that I want to see them do the consolidation trade with some of the draft capital and go get another guy.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how I feel about that anymore.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: You Piper asked if they're still a year or two away.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, the league is completely open, and that that's like the double-edged thing, a double-edged sword right now, because you can say, Oh, we're gonna wait another year and see what we have, we're gonna wait another two years to see what we have, but we don't know what the league is gonna look like in a year.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what teams can be built in a year's time.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: So, right now we're seeing that hell, there's flaws in every team.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: And we got 15 first-round picks for the next five years, maybe we should consolidate a little bit and go for it now.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: But also, going for it now can mess up the chemistry, can mess up the vibe, can mess up the entire rotation at the moment.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: I just don't know how I feel about that.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: If you ask me today, are they real life contenders?
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Can they win 16 games in the playoffs without losing four of seven?
34:26
SPEAKER_00: Right?
34:26
SPEAKER_00: That's how that works.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say a tentative, yes.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: That feels tough.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: If you're asking me Western Conference hierarchy, I still believe that the Denver Nuggets are my favorite to win the Western Conference.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm becoming more and more a believer of the Clippers as a team that can win the conference.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Again, I need to see a little some more.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know what to think about a team like the Phoenix Suns, um, the Minnesota Tim Wolves.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: Call me crazy.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: And you you let again, there's a conversation.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one with the microphone, but the comment section's there in my ex account, Twitter, whatever, whatever.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: I have more faith in OKC winning four series over the Tim Wolves winning four series.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: And the Tim Wolves are the better team on pay or better team in record-wise, but I think OKC is higher on that list for me personally.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, I also do believe that a lot of it's gonna be matchup-based, right?
35:27
SPEAKER_00: Who you match up against?
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Because some of these teams, as of right now, I'm gonna I'm gonna see if I could do this without messing up the audio.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna type in NBA Standards real quick.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: I just wanna see if the playoffs were to start today, as of right now, as of right now.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh, oh, I forgot.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: The NBA takes 24 hours to update their standards.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: OKC just lost the game to Atlanta.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Second night of a back-to-back.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: I just it wasn't pretty.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: It was not pretty.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay, put on my standards.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: As of right now, OKC has the two spot at the moment.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: They'd have to go against one of the play-in teams of Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, and the LA Lakers.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: On the other tip, the trail the the Timbulls would have to go against either the pay the Mavericks or the Suns.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's matchup-based.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: It's matchup-based.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how to feel.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: The Timbows haven't looked amazing.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: They've been good.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: They haven't looked amazing in their last eight or so games, I would say.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, and while the OKC's like actively winning a bunch of games versus good teams.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: So are they contenders tentative?
36:28
SPEAKER_00: Yes, but like, I don't, I still I'm I'm trying to figure it out.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: This portion of the Kenny Beach and Podcast is brought to you by SeatGeek.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: With over 28 million different downloads, SeatGeek is the number one ticket and app on the market.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: I personally have been to a ton of live events.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: We're talking sporting events, concerts, festivals, comedy.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: I've been to it all, and I've always bought my tickets on SeatGeek because it takes tickets from all over the internet and puts it in one central location for you.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: So my bulls aren't great, but there's nothing better than a live sporting event.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: So you'll catch me at a few games.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: I pick the game that I want to go to, I see the venue, I find a seat, and every single ticket is rated on a scale one through ten.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: The closer to ten, the better the deal for you.
37:08
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37:09
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37:16
SPEAKER_00: Again, that is code enjoy for$20 off your first purchase of tickets with SeaGeek.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: I want to say again, SeaGeek, thank you for sponsoring this portion of the podcast.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: I want to kind of do a quick little look around the association because it's been a week since we've last had an episode, so I kind of want to talk about some of the things.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, the first one, the most surprising thing I could have imagined a couple nights ago, Jordan Clarkson got the first triple double from a jazz player since 2008.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: That just feels wrong.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: And it got me, it got me thinking like, okay, since 2008, who's been on a roster that's been a guy that could get triple doubles?
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, Ricky Rubio got one in the postseason, so it doesn't count for regular season, but Ricky Rubio is one of the guys that came to mind.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And I can't believe that he didn't get one for the Utah Jazz.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, also didn't can't believe that Don Zamitsu didn't get one.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: I think he's not a player that's actively getting 30 triple doubles a season, but it's like I feel like in current basketball, triple doubles, we see multiple triple doubles a night in a lot of cases.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: So to see that they haven't held one since 08, and that 08 player was Carlos Boozer, was just exciting.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: And and and it made me um happy for Jordan Clarkson.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: He's in the record books, but also it made me think about some of the other conversations that people have had across the association recently about stat padding.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: And in general, in general, I'm not a guy to subscribe to stat padding, um, the idea of it being a negative thing.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, hell yeah.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: If I am two points away from 30, you think I'm not gonna try to get my round number?
38:48
SPEAKER_00: If I'm an assist away from a double-double, you think I ain't trying to get this extra assist.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Two rebounds away from a triple double, you think I ain't trying to tell them a teamage, let me get the board.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Like that's just let's be real.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: Put yourself in these shoes.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Step at him.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: It's a normal thing across the association.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: It happens every single night.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: Nobody talking about it for Jordan Clarkson.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying they should.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even saying they should.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even saying they should.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: But when Jordan Clarkson's one breathing out away, I saw them Utah Jazz players box out everybody and let the ball bounce on the floor before Jordan Clarkson picked it up.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: And they're not wrong in it.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: But nobody's talking about snap at him.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: Let let let one of the other players, one of the star players that is known for getting good stats, do a very similar thing.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna snap um Tarry Talliburn.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: I have 19 assists and I'm we're up by 15 against the Bulls.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: What harm is it that I want my 20?
39:40
SPEAKER_00: Or when Luka Luka when Luka Dodges is still in the game when he's up at 30 and he got 38 points.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: Let him get another layup.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: 40 points look so much better than 38.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: On a headliner, 40 points looks so much better than 38.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: As long as it's not actively hurting the team, there's no harm in it.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, a lot of these players' contracts are are based on their numbers.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: A lot of your opinions about players are based on their numbers.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: Because the normal person cannot watch every single game of Luka Doncic.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: The normal person cannot watch every single game of every single team.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: So we look at the box school and say, dang, Luka had 40.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, the pissers are up by four points.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: I just got a notification.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Pissers are up by four points or three minutes ago.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: They might get a second one in the week.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh groundbreaking stuff.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, nobody cares about stat padding.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: At least you shouldn't.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: As long as it's not being uh detriment to the team.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: And there has been times when it's been detriment to the team.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: It just has.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: But in a harmless, I'm a couple stats away from a round number, ain't nothing wrong with that, in my personal opinion.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: The next thing I want to talk about is the Trey Young Renaissance.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: In the month of December, this obviously this is a new year.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: They just won their last game against the OKC Thunder.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: Trey Young averaged 30.4 points per game, 12.2 assists, 47% from the field of 42% from three.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: He's been phenomenal.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, in that month span, the Atlanta Hawks have not been.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, and there again, I mentioned on the last episode they're one of the most interesting teams come deadline.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: But Trey Young has been phenomenal again.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's a that's a good thing to see because I was getting a bit worried.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: Now we're talking about a one-month sample size because before that, he was not shooting the ball very well, but a one-month sample size.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna still use this as a positive because I was having a conversation with the homies about Trey Young as a player.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: And we look at, I want to say the 2021 season, that was a year that they went all the way to the conference finals, and he was phenomenal all year long.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: But the years surrounding that, since that, he has not been a good, and I'm talking about percentage-wise three-point shooter.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: He's been a high volume, low percentage three-point shooter.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, what is the real version of Trey Young?
41:43
SPEAKER_00: Is he the lethal three-point shooter we saw in the 2021 run?
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Or is he more like the 2022 version or the 2023 version, which is still a really good NBA player, but not as lethal, because if he's not making you pay on the 70-foot three-point shots, which he's the best in the league at, then how good is he as a number one?
42:02
SPEAKER_00: If he's going back to shooting 42%, I got no questions.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Especially when you consider, and then this is comparing him to himself, this is the best defense he's ever played in his career.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: It's not, I still won't call it good defense because he's undersized.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: It's hard for a guy that's 6'1 ⁇ , 6'0 to be a positive defensive player.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: But he's not the worst defensive player in the league like he was two years ago.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: So to see him hit his shots, playmake, and have the load of an offense and still be one of the top five offenses in basketball with Trey Young, and also see him competing on defense, it's just good to see.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: I think the rest of the team orchestrated around him just isn't very good.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, the next one we got is Bradley Beal was back.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: And um he is back, but now Kevin Oran is out.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: But when he was back, they went on a nice little four-game win streak.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and again, I was super excited to see them play against the Clippers tonight.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Kevin Durant was out, so that was a game I didn't pay too much attention to.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: But Bradley Beal is back.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: The numbers say that them three together and their small sim size looks really good.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm just excited to see a little bit more of it.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: Bucks versus Pacers was on my list.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Um modern-day rivalry.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: Both in the same division.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, whoa, whoa.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: Tyrese Halliburton said in his post-game a couple days ago when they went against them, because they've gone each other five times this season, by the way, because the in-season tournament and then the four regular season games.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: He said it's not a rivalry because we haven't won anything.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the right mindset.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: Similar to Chet when he was asked, what is he um, what it what was the exact question?
43:25
SPEAKER_00: What is he proven in the NBA so far?
43:28
SPEAKER_00: He said, not a damn thing.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: I've only played 30 games.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: Tyrese Halliburton had that same energy.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: Hell, I have never made a playoff appearance.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: We haven't done anything as a team.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: But for me, watching these games, that is a real life, we hate each other thing from the ball situation to Damian Lillard saying, um, uh, be humble.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: But he just said, in so many words, he told Tyrese Halliburton to be humble after he did the this thing to him in the in season tournament.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: And today they had some more ruffling the feathers.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: IJ Jackson's getting to some faces, Benedict Matherin's getting into faces, Damian Lillard's catching a poster.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: It's been beautiful.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, we won't see it again this season unless it's in the playoffs.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: But a real life rivalry right now.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: And I'm here for it.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm disappointed in Dame, though, because since he's told Tyrese to be humble, again, in so many words, he's been awful in every single one of these games versus the Pelican Pacers.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: Like I wanted one supernova Damian Lillard game.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: Damian Lillard, Tyree Taliburn, hand to hand.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: It ain't been that.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: It's been all Pacers.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: It's really been all Pacers.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: It's been DJ McConnell.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: It's been Tyrese.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: It's been Isaiah Jackson.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: It's been everybody else.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: And the last thing I want to say, I guess I mentioned a little bit earlier, the Raptors have been fun since the trade.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: Now they almost blew a game today to the Grizzlies, but they've been fun since the trade to see Emanuel quickly be a lead guard full time.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: It's been kind of cool.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: They were a team that were borderline.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm not watching them anymore this season.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: To like hell, I mentioned I really love their broadcasting team, and now you're telling me that they're gonna be good to watch.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm all in.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: So before we get out of here, we test the waters on this segment a couple weeks ago, and then producer Greg went on a nice little vacation.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it is time for producer Greg's eye test takes, and we'll see if we agree or disagree with him.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: The ice chicken.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: They never lie.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: Producer Greg is here, man.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: How you feeling?
45:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm good, Kenny.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: Ready to do this.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: So foul hunting has been a point of contention for the last few years.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: I thought the NBA may have fixed it a couple years ago.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: They had a rule change, but it's kind of come back in my a little bit.
45:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, so let me get your take on this.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: The foul hunting or the foul grifting, as you want to call it, crown once belonged to James Harden.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: Then it was Trey Young, and now the crown belongs to Joel Embiid.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: If if we have to give a crown out, he's yeah, he's probably the guy that gets it.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: He's probably the guy that gets it.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: But I've mentioned this before.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: I I don't blame the guy.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: He is one of the toughest players to officiate.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: And any any seven-foot guy that can score in all three levels is gonna be tough to officiate.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even Jokic, who has a bad whistle.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: He's a tough player to officiate.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: And we've always talked about Jordan B being out of shape and this and that.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: He uses that extra time at the free throw line to get his energy back up.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: But as far, yes, there are multiple times per game, at least two fouls per game.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: You're like, ah, he got that one, and I feel it.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: But I'm also past the point of caring, if that makes sense.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes, again, it can be egregious, and it has been throughout the history, not just Joel and Beach, just through the history of this sport recently.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: But I'm kind of past it because right now, officiating is probably as hard as it's ever really been.
46:31
SPEAKER_01: Do you blame the league, like the rules?
46:34
SPEAKER_01: You blame the refs in the sense that you don't blame the players.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I bl I blame the NBA even more than I blame the refs.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: And I don't blame the players at all necessarily.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: No, they they deserve to take some responsibility for because they're actively the ones doing it.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: But the league has done it to itself by incentivizing these high scores, these 30-point per game scores.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm a guy that just loves the NBA, so I'm not complaining that we have multiple people averaging 30 per per game, but they've allowed it to be so offensive oriented that a little bit of flavor on the defensive side of the ball doesn't go anywhere.
47:09
SPEAKER_00: But a little bit of flavor on offense, whether it be a palming or carry or extra step on a, on a on a layup, they get those benefits of the doubts while the defenders don't really get many of them.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really the NBA's fault.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: And I don't even know how you really turn it around because the players have now become accustomed to kind of playing this way.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh you mentioned that they might have got rid of it with some changes here or there, but we've backed we've back to square one in a lot of cases.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: So uh I'm giving a lot of credit or a lot of the blame to the league, I think.
47:40
SPEAKER_01: The Thunder will have a Christmas Day game within two years.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: It will be a disservice to NBA fans if they do not get a game on Christmas.
47:48
SPEAKER_00: Now, this year, the NBA was dominated by the NFL on Christmas Day.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: Um the numbers weren't even close.
47:53
SPEAKER_00: But it, again, it makes sense.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about real stakes games in the NFL versus just random regular season games for the NBA.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, I thought this year's slate was cool, but it wasn't amazing.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: The OKC Thunder has showed us in the games they have had Naster TV games, or even just their regular league pass games, that's a team that people want to tune in for.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: You have an up-and-coming superstar player in Shake Ears Alexander and a bunch of other fun, electric young hoopers.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it's always fun to see a team's how many uh Nasty Talibai games they get from one year to another.
48:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming that OKC's number is gonna skyrocket next season, and part of that is gonna get Christmas.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: My I do have a gripe with the NBA about Christmas.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: Give us back jerseys because we need it.
48:33
SPEAKER_00: A patch is not enough.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: Give us real life jerseys.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: And there's been years where I hated the jerseys, but at least they made you feel like it was Christmas.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: We need a we need more of that.
48:41
SPEAKER_01: This last one is a bit personal for me.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Waiting until the split second after the buzzer sounds to shoot a half court or a three-quarter court shot is an incredibly common act in the NBA and an incredibly selfish act that should be called out more.
48:56
SPEAKER_01: The only player that consistently does not wait until after the buzzer to save his percentages is Steph Curry.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I actually saw a shot earlier today when I was just watching where the it was Zaire Williams.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: They were down by 13 points or something.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, he gave a three-for-three-fourth court shot, and I was like, my man, my man.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is a take that I can agree with you because again, everything about these players is numbers-based, right?
49:25
SPEAKER_00: So if you take so many heaves, my percentages dropping, and now I may not be recognized as a good three-point shooter.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: And then historically, I think it was it was either Alfru Kamino or Mo Harkless that had a clause in his contract that if you shoot 36% from three for a season, you get an extra X amount of dollars.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: And for the last 10 or so games of the season, he shot zero threes, not even open ones.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: Like he was incentivized to keep his percentage up.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: I love the moments where a player throws up a shot and it goes in.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: The thing I hate the most is the shot goes up after and it goes in.
49:58
SPEAKER_00: It's like, brother, you had all of the time in the world to get it up, but you was just playing it too selfishly.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: You never really know if that shot is gonna go in, and you never really know if you're gonna need three more points to win a basketball game.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, uh, buddy of mine, we we talked about this on our other podcast, now name numbers on the board, said the half-court heaves, end of quarter heaves, um, as long as it's past the three-point shots.
50:25
SPEAKER_00: We're talking, you know, what will be considered a four-point line or half-court or above, um, should not count torch percentages.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: A heave is a heave in itself.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: And I like that idea.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: I like that idea because now we can get the cool moments where you see somebody shoot a full court shot.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: It's just good for the growth of the game.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: Social media.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, he hit a 50-foot jump shot, you know.
50:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it is selfish.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: And you never really know what's gonna happen.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great solution.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: Great solution.
50:56
SPEAKER_00: Let us know what you think about producer Greg's eye test takes.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: I think he, I think he hit today.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: I think this is a good one.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a good one.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: I think he shot two for three.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: Because personally, again, the foul baiting thing is not something that I care about too much.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: But I I like, I like it, I like it.
51:11
SPEAKER_00: I do want to say I appreciate y'all watching or listening to this episode.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is a year of leveling up.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, if I'm being candid with y'all, leveling up doesn't happen without y'all's support and y'all's love from the previous year.
51:23
SPEAKER_00: So, again, I want to thank you.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: And I want to thank you for your continued support.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: A like goes a very long way.
51:28
SPEAKER_00: Tell a friend to tell a friend if they're looking for basketball-oriented podcasts, the Kenny Beach and Podcast slash numbers on the board, which is coming out in about 10 days or so, um, are the ways to go.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: As we take back our content as owners.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's just such a crazy thing.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe that we did it.
51:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, a little bit scary.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a scary thought.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: It's a really scary thought if I'm being honest with you.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, because a lot of things that go wrong when you're the owner.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: But we appreciate you, I appreciate you, the whole team appreciates you, and we will see y'all in a couple days with a new episode.