Colin is joined by Jason Timpf, host of “Hoops Tonight” on the Volume.
They start with NBA Summer League’s standouts and struggles beginning with #4 overall pick Caleb Wilson having a breakout performance (3:00) and debate whether Keaton Wagler’s performance is cause for concern (10:00).
They move to #1 pick AJ Dybantsa and they predict that Dybansta will be a prolific scorer at the NBA level (14:00), and they laud #2 pick Darryn Peterson as an all-star level guard (17:15). Jason offers up Cameron Carr as the player who has far outperformed their draft position in summer league and believes Carr can contribute to the Lakers right away (26:00).
They discuss the Jaylen Brown trade and Colin argues Brown’s presence was problematic for the Celtics when Jayson Tatum is on the floor (30:15).
They move to the World Cup and compare the artistry of both soccer and basketball, and discuss what went wrong for the USMNT against Belgium (37:30).
Finally, they discuss LeBron’s free agency and entertain the idea of LeBron joining the star-studded Sixers (53:00).
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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er was Square. Get started today right now two hundred
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slash colin s q u a r E dot com
slash goh slash colin. All right, so Jason temp hoops tonight.
I got to tell you two Summer League stories as
a kid. So the Summer League's already exploded into something.
(01:27):
I was just having dinner the other day with Jay Adonde,
who's a journalist. He teaches at Northwestern and he's part
of Summer League. And there's so many levels to it now.
It's been brilliantly run over the course of time. It's
really a cool extension arm of the NBA, and it's
just it's fascinating. But I'll tell you I had two
Summer League stories. So I grew up as a Sonics
fan as a kid, and there was a player for
(01:49):
Oregon State named Mark Radford. He was He was a
good player, and you know, back in the day, Summer
League was just like you'd get like in the transaction
wire of a newspaper. So I was, you know back then,
it's I think it's late seventies or something or late
eighties or so. He played for Oregon State. Is a
very good player, and Mark Radford had thirty points in
a Summer League game, and I'm like, oh my god,
(02:11):
we need this guy so badly. And he went on
to play for a couple of years, disappeared. You know,
he's my age and he's probably a little older than me.
So so I was always like, yeah, summer League. And
then there's legendary stories that the most legendary Summer league
story I never saw this guy play is named Raymond Lewis.
(02:31):
So Raymond Lewis is that one of the great street
ball legends in the history of Los Angeles. So he
was this guard, legendary scoring guard. USC UCLA offer him.
He takes money under the table and goes to Cal
State LA. And I mean it's a freshman average like
thirty five points a game. He's crazy. So he goes
(02:53):
to Cal State LA. I think he took a car
under the table money whatever. Right now, it's like the
going great.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So he goes.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
He gets drafted by the Philadelphia seventy six ers and
like in camp, I think they had Doug Collins was
one of their draft picks in camp, be like, you know,
out plays him. But he was a little bit of
an odd character, and it's something you know, he needed
to grow up. I fire recall it was a maturity
thing and he washed out. He's like the greatest Summer
League player who never like played an NBA games, it
(03:24):
was Raymond Lewis. He's a kind of a legendary figure,
a street ball legend in Los Angeles. You know, Rutger Park,
you've had that. New LA's got some of that too.
So Summer League to me, you know, for a long
time in my life was always like, you know, don't
buy into this stuff. But over the course of time
it's been so brilliantly run that there are glimmers of hope.
(03:45):
So I want to talk about somebody who popped and
somebody who struggled. Will start with that because you were there.
So Caleb Wilson, the Bulls number four pick, I mean,
it didn't take much aggressive springy. It's like, oh those
Kevin Garnett comps, Like, oh my god, this kid is
nineteen years old. So what was the hysteria or the
reaction to, you know, the number four pick out of Carolina?
(04:09):
You know, he's kind of unrefined. That was always a
thing like, oh boy, he's the most unrefined guy. What
was your take on him.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Well, you know, it was kind of weird caluing because
I remember mentioning this to you on your show. It
was like a month and a half or so ago.
Caleb Wilson was doing some work in workouts before the
draft and before the Combine, and there were these videos
of him shooting the ball really well, and his form
looked really good. His guide hand was perfect, his followed
(04:37):
through looked good, his balance was good. He was hitting
three after three after three in the workouts in a
way that I was like, Oh, I think Caleb might
be able to shoot more than he showed. Then he
goes to the combine and they have that twenty five
spot drills. It's five spots, five shots at each spot,
and he shot terrible in that drill, and so everyone's like,
oh okay, So like maybe it was just like a
workout video that you caught a specific hot streak. He
(05:00):
only made seven threes the entire season with North Carolina
last year. He hit seven threes yesterday. Like it just
really just, I should say, on Friday, really just a
breakout performance that demonstrated that as part of his game.
And it was very much like if you looked at
the way that he was hunting that shot like he
(05:21):
was hunting it early in the game, the pull up
three in a way that was almost as impressive in
terms of the confidence as it was in the skill set,
because it showed like I can do this, and I
want to show everybody here that I can do this.
And I would argue that's one of the big swing
pieces for him in his development trajectory. Like I think,
especially when you look at like when you look at
(05:42):
the players that have high true shooting percentages, they drive
that by getting to the foul line and by shooting
high volume threes. And so that's a major way to
drive efficiencies. To have that be a part of your game,
and for him to flash it in a confident and
against hitting seven threes in a game is not easy
to do.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
That is a big number.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Well, Jason. The other thing, at the college level, the
star is often the coach. At the NBA, it almost
never is. Even when it was Spoe in the Heatles,
it was it was d Wade and Lebron Popovich, it
was Duncan. So I wonder if you're a big in
college and you're you know, you're seventeen, eighteen nineteen, you're
building your post game. You probably don't have a lot
of threes drawn up for you with the college coach,
(06:25):
Like even Darren Peterson, like I played off Bault, you
kind of do what you know. It's a different game
in college and the pro. A lot of these guys
are They come in great AAU player, one year at
the school, and you know the coach is going to
define by position this player's game. Is it possible, Like
it's not. This is not a shot at North Carolina's coach.
It's just like on that North Carolina team, they needed
(06:48):
him down low. That was just wasn't part of his
That wasn't part of his game.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Probably they absolutely needed him. I mean, he basically said
as much after the game. He was like, I am
a capable shooter who wasn't in a role where he
can shoot.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I dug into that pretty extensively after the claim and
even back in high school he was never a good
three point shooter. So I think in general, I think
it's more of like behind the scenes, he always believed
he could do that if given the opportunity, And I
think that extends that dynamic you're talking about with them
meeting him down low that's even more exaggerated at the
high school level because you just don't have as many
of the big athletes to fill those roles. And so
(07:24):
I think when you look at the pro game, especially,
he projects to be a four, and to play the
four in the modern NBA, you have to be able
to shoot, because we just don't have very many fives
who can shoot. And if you have a non shooting
four and a five, you run into the problem Cleveland
and just had in the postseason where it becomes easy
to guard you because everybody can just pack the paint.
I was really impressed by his mobility. To Colin, he
(07:44):
had a play really sloppy pass. He drives off the
right wing. He throws this behind the back pass to
nobody and it turns into a turnover. And he did
have a zero sist six turnover game. So he's gonna
have to work out some stuff with his ball handling.
But like, he sprinted down the floor from way behind
the play and completely made up all the ground and
then popped up off the ground off two feet and
(08:05):
swatted it off the glass. And I was like, good God,
this is an athlete, just an unbelievable athlete, and again,
like I for the record, I thought Cam Boozer actually
outplayed him in that game. Cam played a really good game,
and there's there's still certainly growth.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It's so weird calling.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
I left the weekend impressed by all four guys in
the top four in their own way. I know, Darren
Peterson had a brutal game against the Bonsa, which I'm
sure we'll talk about, but he was really good in
his first two games.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah. So now the player before we get to DeVonta
and Peterson Keaton Wagner, who went to the Clippers. Now
he's an interesting cat. If I would have predicted somebody
in the summer league to get a little overwhelmed, it
was him. He's not I don't think he's physically built.
He you know, some of succeeding in the NBA. The
biggest gap college to NBA is sometimes physicality. Like so
(08:54):
you get to the postseason, you're dealing with men. You know,
san Antonio's talented, like the Nixter thirty. These are the
og Cat Mitchell. These are men who have been in
NBA weight rooms for years. So one of there's the
guy from the Clippers who was a late developing recruit,
kind of a slender player. The knock on him over
(09:15):
Summer League is man, he's passive, and part of me
thinks is it passive or like he's he's not. He
doesn't have Debons's frame. He's not just he's just not
that developed physically. Maybe he is emotionally, but people really
were like, oh, this is a boss and I'm like,
he's the one guy. Like he wasn't a five star recruit,
(09:35):
he was a late developer. He's kind of slight at
this point in his career. Am I listing excuses or
is that reasonable? No?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
I think it's completely reasonable. This was one of the
more predictable outcomes of Summer League, specifically because of what
you're talking about. He's a slight, slender, high center of
gravity guard. That is kind of a disaster for Summer
League Colin because like, it's crazy. This was my fifth
straight year going, and it's such a fun brand of
basketball because you have these high level prospects mixed in
(10:07):
with a bunch of dudes who are fighting for their
pro basketball life, like literally, and so if you're a
ball pressure guard and Keaton Woggler's in front of you,
You're like, I'm getting up in his jersey and I'm
in like by the way the amount of fouling that
people get away with in that environment, because it kind
of has that playoff feel where there's a foul in
every possession, so the refs have to sustain some flow
(10:28):
in the game by letting some stuff go. And it's
just it's a bad combination of physical intense defense that's
going to cause a slender, high center of gravity player
to struggle to get to his spots. And the basketball
itself is just kind of sloppy because there's not a
ton of ball handling on the floor, not a ton
of refined skill, not a ton of basketball IQ. I
(10:50):
look at Wogglers the kind of guy that's going to
fit in extremely well on a smart basketball team alongside
a guard in Darius Garland who's going to be able
to break the defense down. Like what impressed me most
about Waggler when I was scouting him is like he
plays great in the flow with other good basketball players,
and that's a thing that's not going to really pop
(11:10):
in the summer league setting. That's something that we're going
to see when he's playing alongside Darius Garland, when he's
playing alongside Brandon Ingram and alongside pros who can space
the floor.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Like I think.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
I thought he was predictable, that he would struggle and
a frankly colin he kind of struggled sometimes to get
separation and get to his spots at the college level,
like that was kind of known. That was a known
part of his game. Like his whole thing is feel
and playing in a system with other good players. He'll
be fine when he gets to the Clippers.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Well, I mean, listen Yokich at an All Star game.
Yokich could be the best player in the world. Do
you watch him in an All Star game? If you
did not know, he'd be like this guy that's that's
a European League player that he should not be. He's
not built. Not everybody is built for All Star games
and showcase games. Okay, so let's talk to Box and
Darren Peterson. I think the one thing, and again I
(11:58):
YouTube this stuff. There are certain people like the Bonce
is going to score a lot of points in the NBA.
He is a strong player for his size, shoulders, frame long,
there's a lot of All these guys are going to
develop when you watch debonsa if I told you twenty
three points as a rookie, I'd be like, and that's rare, man,
(12:19):
that is really rare territory. You could say, Now, I
don't know if he'll get the shots with Washington, but
in terms of he's going to be a very prolific
NBA scorer. To me, like like Peterson and we got
our questions, he's going to score too. The Bonce is
big and long and like to put on twelve pounds,
and you'd be like, oh, he can bully people like
(12:41):
I just think there's this was a very good draft class.
Very little shocks me because these guys are all so young,
Like in pro football, you're drafting like twenty three year old.
They're often married, they're more fully developed. I would be
shocked if Debonsa is n'ney twenty six and a half,
twenty eight and a half point career average guy for
a twelve year period. That's just his game. Looks like
(13:02):
he's going to get a lot of easy points, Like
there're gonna be nights he's gonna have thirty six on
a losing effort. That's just how he looks to me.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
You I was so impressed by aj in that game.
Jackson and I were talking about it before when we
were sitting in the arena because it was kind of
a big game. To your point about how much Summer
League has grown, that Thursday Night one Verse two game
is always like a palpable energy game because it's like,
remember all the backlash to Wemby when he played really
bad in that first game, everyone like freaked out for
(13:29):
like forty eight hours. Like that is a big, high
pressure game, and Debonsa specifically has gotten outplayed head to
head by Darren Peterson several times recently, so like and
then Darren Peterson goes in in the Utah Summer League
and plays two awesome games where he flashes this like
Devin Booker esque upside and so all of a sudden,
everyone's like, Darren's better than AJ. Darren's better than AJ.
(13:51):
It was a high pressure, intense game, and I just
thought AJ was the best player on the floor by comfortably.
And one of the things that really out to me
in that game con super physical, super sloppy, no one
could dribble. The one guy that was comfortably dribbling the
basketball without turning it over and getting to his spots
was aj de Bonsa and he was facing doubles and
(14:12):
he had guys getting physical up in his jersey. And again,
this was the whole book on him. When he was
in college. It was like, Oh, this dude gets to
the basket like crazy and Colin, they the Jazz literally
could not keep him out of the paint. He had
like twenty five paint touches in that game. It was unbelievable.
He was constantly turning the corner. They were constantly behind
(14:34):
the eight ball, grabbing him, fouling him every single time
he started to get downhill. His finishing ability in traffic,
and this was something that stood out in the numbers.
If you dug in most of the athletes, they'll shoot
a good percentage at the rim, but it's like dunks
and then they miss like half their layups. He's super
efficient at like tough layups around the basket. That is
such a strong foundational trait in the NBA. Just I
(14:57):
can get to the basket whenever I want, and I
can finish effectively and draw fouls when I get there.
That is the foundational trait that makes Shay so hard
to guard. And what's crazy is he missed every jump
shot he took in that game except for one in
the first half, but he shot fifty four percent on
jump shots inside his seventeen feet last year. He has
like a deadly pull up mid range jumper that he
(15:19):
hasn't even shown yet that counters that rim pressure. I
was like, big, high pressure game. Peterson has all this buzz,
lots of like pressure on him to be good, and
I thought he was great.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I thought I just was so impressed by him in
that game.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, he's again, He's an easy one. Peterson's fascinating. Again,
is going to be a really nice score. He gets
his shot off. He's so quick you don't have to
be a basketball savant, like, wow, that's quick, shot up fast.
He made a comment though, after a couple of after
one of the games, He's like, you know, I played
(15:54):
a lot of off ball at Kansas. Again, this goes
back to the college coach is it's easy to bang
on Bill self as one of the best coaches in
college basketball. But what I want you know, and I'll
lean into you on this, but again, college isn't pro
Different offenses oftentimes, there have been there have been many
examples where players are better pros than college players because
(16:16):
they have better teammates, their body grows. What did you
see from Peterson?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I so, I want to be clear, I was very
impressed by him in the first couple of games because
it was a demonstration of exactly what you're talking about.
When he was at Kansas he only ran seven point
seven pick and rolls per game, which is a really
low number for what you would consider to be an
on ball guard at the NBA level. He was running
like twenty five pick and rolls a game in those
(16:42):
first couple of Summer League games and looked methodical, looked
under control, was really get into his spots. He showed
three levels scoring. Turnovers have been an issue in all
three games. I think he had eighteen turnovers through his
first three games. That's been a big problem for him,
so he's got to sharpen up the handle a little bit.
But he showed real like high level star guard scoring ability.
(17:03):
Washington came out with a guy named Jamiir Watkins, who
is an experienced He's been in the league a couple
years now, big physical perimeter defender who just beat the
heck out of him from the opening tip in this game,
Colony at nine fouls. That's the weirdest thing about Summer League.
We were just thinking about Sumerleague. They have ten foulaments,
so he picks up nine fouls, and really Darren struggled
(17:23):
with it. And you know, one of the rubs on
this duo coming out of college was AJ has this
relentless aggression where Darren has the ability to kind of
like sometimes drift into the background of what's happening on
the iniggation.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
That's the Andrew Wiggins stuff that I talked about earlier.
There's a little bit of that there exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
And I was again one Summer League game, but in
the second half of that game, in particular, I was
disappointed in Darren's lack of aggression. It felt like that
Jamir Watkins got to him a little bit. He ended
up picking up a tex shoving him off, which I
get you're sticking up for yourself, but there was and
he did face some double teams, but there were several
possessions where he had single coverage or he had a
(18:03):
chance to be aggressive, and he just kept the ball moving.
And I'm like, AJ on the other end of the
floor is like attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, and just
trying to snatch your soul in this game literally and
recoup the damage done to his reputation from times he
had previously struggled against you, like where's the fight. I
was a little disappointed in that lack of aggression. But
the beautiful thing is is he's going to a system
(18:26):
in Utah that has a guard that will be able
to take some of that responsibility, so he has time
to grow into that responsibility. But if you wanted to
see why AJ was the number one pick, he demonstrated
in that game. He has a stronger foundational trait, which
is he can no one can stop him from getting
to the rim, and he has a relentless aggression that
makes it so you always know when he's on the
(18:46):
floor and he never drifts into the background.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
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eight hundred gambler, Well listen. We if you go back
(21:02):
to the lebron James who was the best player for
twenty years in the NBA. His one bad playoff series
was against Dallas right as a member of the Heat,
and he got super passive where he had he was
posting up JJ Burran, dishing the ball out and not
finishing like so much of pro sports to me is
just you know, it's the first time in your life
(21:24):
you meet equals like and some guys really deflate and
some guys are hyper competitive. That's why whenever I look
at scouting reports of basketball players, like I'll go draft
preview and I'll you know, i'll watch Summer league stuff,
and I'll watch combine stuff. But I love the draft
previews And one of the things I always love is
highly competitive. That tells me somebody that may have had
(21:46):
a brother, a brother that was like Drake may is
one of like five boys. It's like highly competitive, Like
hell yeah, he had like brothers picking on him. So
all right, give me a player in the summer league,
mid late first round, maybe second round that you know,
you come out of it, go back to you know,
you fly back, you live in like Colorado. Now you
(22:07):
fly back and you're thinking to yourself, wow, man, this guy,
this guy was underdrafted man.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I okay, I'm i'm.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I know that as someone who has covered the Lakers
closely over the last few years, I'm gonna come off
as bias here, but I think I think Cameron Carr
is awesome. I don't know how he fell to twenty five.
I remember coming into this offseason. I remember thinking, you know,
that's going to be a really hard spot for the
because it felt like the Lakers needed to with that
twenty fifth pick either trade him for a starter or
(22:39):
can get somebody that's able to play right away. That
was the predicament they were in. And that's such a
hard spot in the draft to find a player who
can play right away. And I think Cameron Carr is
absolutely capable of playing a role for the Lakers immediately.
This kid can score off of advantage. What I mean
(23:00):
by that is like with someone sprinting at him versus
against the set defender, so when he's open, he can
either convert threes or drive the close out and score
with that advantage. He is NBA ready as a score
off of advantage right now. And there is a length
in athleticism. He had a bunch of like really impressive blocks.
(23:21):
He blocked jump shooters twice. That's always a bit. Jump
shooters think they're open and then suddenly they get blocked.
That's a super impressive athletic play. He's got long arms,
he moves extremely well. There's refined offensive skill both in
catch and shoot three point shooting, but also in the
mid range. He can drive closeouts and shoot little floaters
and jump shots. He can finish at the rim at
(23:41):
the high level. And like, when you're looking at this
situation with the Lakers and they're they're going to have,
you know, someone like Jonathan Kaminga or maybe PJ. Washington
as the starting four, We'll see if they pull off
one of those moves in the next few days, I'd
argue they need to get PJ or I'd be pretty concerned.
But they have a gaping hole at the starting small
forward spot, and it's gonna be kind of by committee.
It's gonna be some Quinton Grimes, it's gonna be some
(24:03):
Jake Laravia, and I think Cameron Carr being like actually
able to play in the NBA right away is a
huge win for a Lakers, like for a Lakers front
office that frankly has struggled in the draft for several
years now, and big busts like Jalen Hood Schafino and
like Dalton Connect like legitimate busts to have a guy
(24:23):
at twenty five that I like, genuinely think can play
for their team right away. Colin, he might be their
best off ball scoring talent, not name like Quentin grind
Is probably number one, and then it's him like he's
he's legitimately in terms of shooting the basketball and like
driving closeouts. He's a lot better than at Jake Laavia.
He's way, way, way way better than like guys like
(24:45):
Jared Vanderbilt and Brownie James and some of the guys
on their bench. Like I think he's gonna be able
to play for them right away.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
So I want to talk because you spent We always
at the Volume send you to the summer League, which,
by the way, you used to live in Tucson, and
then you move to Colorado and now at the and
we force you go to Vegas every summer. So it's
just insanely hot. You know, I lived there for seven years,
and you know, you just kind of you just kind
of deal with it. But when you leave it and
(25:13):
then you come back, shit, man, it is a it
is a wave. How'd you handle that? Did you notice it?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
It was crazy?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
It was one hundred and eleven when I first got in,
and again, like in Tucson, I would get I get
to the airport, get out of my car in one
hundred and eleven, I'd get in the plane, I'd get
out one hundred and eleven.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
It just kind of felt like normal life for me.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
But going from Colorado there is like legitimately a shot
because my first time getting in that weather all year,
and then in Vegas it's like you constantly go from
like one hundred eleven to uber blasting ac on your face,
to one hundred and eleven to now I'm back in
the casino floor and it's like ice cold, and they're
like pumping oxygen in the room.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I swear.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
It's like it's a miracle that people aren't just like
completely decomposing there with the rapid changes in weather.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So I think it's really interesting I and people that
listen would know this obviously. Is I like new stuff.
I'm not terribly romantic about sports. I kind of like
new trends, so I've always liked analytics. I have, however,
pushed back on I do think the NBA and baseball,
which are very analytically driven, postseason baseball is different. You'll
(26:20):
use starters out of the bullpen, you'll manage different. In
the postseason. You'll you'll take bigger risks because your season's
on the line. So you have to be careful about analytics.
Plays well to the volume, not necessarily. All post season
situation same in the NBA, So a lot of times
you just need a basket. It doesn't you know, you
don't need a three. You need a high percentage two
(26:43):
to take take a two point ly to a four
and seal the game. Like we all know that. So
I do think it's fascinating with the Celtics trading Jalen
Brown because he is one of those rare players. I
don't know if I told you. The first time I
heard analytics was Monte Ellis, who's really athletic guy for
the Warriors, and people are like, you know, he's bad analytically,
(27:03):
and we didn't even talk much about analytics then. And
then there's like guys like Trey Young. I think RJ.
Barrett's the guy that's got beat up by the analytic crew.
So Jalen Brown's fascinating though, because we can see the
weaknesses of Trey Young, right, like he's a poor defensive player,
he's a small frame, or you watch other players and say, well,
he's just not a great player. Jalen Brown's one of
(27:25):
the first plays. Both ends a lot of points, excellent
defensive effort, and then you just start looking at numbers,
and the most fascinating stuff to me is, so the
Celtics were nine and two this year when Jalen Brown
didn't play. Now what makes that kind of shocking is
Tatum wasn't even in some of those games. So you
(27:46):
would think if Brown and Tatum are out, they were atrocious,
Like they were nine and two, and then you say, okay, okay,
Jason tim that that is a one year deal. You know,
to the previous year when Tatum was healthy and they
were fifteen and four without Brown. Now they had Horford Porzingis,
they had a lot of offensive web Okay, they say, oh, okay,
(28:08):
all right, so let's go to the title a year
that was the year of Jalen Brown emerging. They went
twelve and zhero without Jalen Brown on the floor in
the regular season. So you start adding these up and
Jalen Brown. It's why this is one of the reasons
this is hard for us, because you and I are
conditioned that twenty eight a game and a willing defender,
(28:29):
that's a top seven player in the league. Like, there's
just not that many guys. No, It's like even when
Klay Thompson was more of a catch and shoot guy,
wasn't driving the offense, but he played really good defense. Here.
I used to argue, he's the only player in the
league that would start for every team, even like Steph
would get in the way of certain teams. Like I
(28:49):
look at Jalen Brown, I'm like, well, he would start
for every team, but he's fundamentally in a formulaic offense.
Kind of a problem when Tatum's on the floor, and
it's hard to reconcile that my entire life is twenty
eighty game and plays different. I don't care what your
turnover ratio is since the turnover so that part of
(29:14):
Jalen Brown, I think is new. We don't quite know
what to do with. Like he's a borderline all NBA
guy and he gets a way of winning for the self.
That to me is hard for fans, hard for me
when I start deep diving on these numbers. You have
defended him, and by the way, you and I for
three years have said this, But what do you do
(29:35):
when you see those numbers?
Speaker 3 (29:37):
You can't ignore him. I think there's a certain amount
of when there's enough circumstantial evidence from enough different avenues,
it has to mean something like I'm not a big
believer in like like arguing in the face of baldface data. Right,
So like it's very clear that there are some strong
(29:58):
like metric markers that the team is better when Jalen
Brown doesn't play. I don't like ignoring that completely. I
think it's because of a variety of reasons. He plays
on an island, so his style of the offense doesn't
fit well with other players.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Like they're a fast pass, fast shoot team.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah, they need rhythm, they need the ball to pop around.
He was a below average He was forty fifth percentile
spot at player last year, so below average spotting up.
So he struggles when the ball is getting moved to
him out of other actions. On defense, he's outstanding on
the ball, but he can be inattentive and lazy off
the ball.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
That all is.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Going to kind of accumulate into what affects those advanced metrics.
I think that people pitch advanced metrics and catch alls,
they pitch the advantage in the large sample of data.
I would argue that's actually the disadvantage of that kind
of data, because the truth of the matter is, in
an eighty two game regular season, there's a lot of noise,
(30:57):
there's a lot of bad basketball, there's a lot of
nights in there where you play against teams that aren't
in the championship picture at all whatsoever. As a matter
of fact, it's really only about like fifteen games you
play a year that are against the teams that are
actually really in the mix, that have the elite defenses,
the superstar talent, and the things that are going to
(31:19):
actually test your system in a real way. And so
what happens is in those playoff situations where you need
a bucket similar those situations are a very unique circumstance
that doesn't really show up much in an eighty two
game sample size of data. So I think what ends
up happening is you have a system in Boston, which
(31:39):
this is a credit to Boston from the top down,
they're so well run that in that eighty two they
just chew up and spit out teams. They just chew
them up and spin them out. So they just put
together a lot of really strong data over the eighty
two and in that there's probably a lot of nights
where you're playing the Wizards and the Brown units aren't
moving the ball really well and he's being lazy on
(31:59):
d defense and it hurts the data. And then incomes
a bench group led by you know, Peyton Pritzard and
Jason Tatum, and they beat the heck out of them,
and it continues to throw off the data. But then
you like one of the Celtics struggled against good teams
all year last year, except for there was a big
game late in the year against Oklahoma City where they
were they were playing OKC and nobody on the Celtics
(32:20):
could score, and Jason or Jalen Brown was staring down
Alex Caruso and Lou Dort, two of the very best
perimeter defenders in the league, and just barbecuing them over
and over again and scoring and the Celtics won. And
it's like That's what I keep coming back to, is like,
again the large sample, there's some value there. I do
think it's revealing of some of the shortcomings in Jason
(32:41):
Jalen Brown's game, but he is one of the apex
athletes in this league that thrives in the biggest settings. Again,
one of I think one of the most iconic performances
individually of this entire last decade is Jalen Brown picking
up Luka Doncic full court for an entire NBA Finals,
picking him clean and dunking it on the other end,
(33:02):
and just making him miserably uncomfortable for five games while
they beat the heck out of the MAVs and won
the title. So it's like, ultimately, that's why I say
I l end in the middle, because I'm not going
to ignore the data and pretend like there aren't weaknesses
in Jalen Brown's game. But I think that those I
think basketball is more art than science sometimes and I
think that we forget that a lot of times. It
comes down to not the large sample, but can I
(33:25):
score on this guy or can I guard this guy?
And Jalen Brown is just one of the very best
ats solving that specific problem on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
So I want to end for about five minutes talking
about the World Cup because I think it's really interesting.
I think you and I don't know if you and
I have talked about this, but I've always thought the
NBA is very similar, the most similar to international elite soccer,
where it is star driven at times star reliant. The
(33:55):
very best can often have long careers, and it's art.
There's a lot of fluidity to basketball. There's open floor,
open canvas, open pitch that you know you can't You
can coach, but you don't over coach. That's a real problem.
And it's the same in soccer, like you want open play, dribbling, passing,
let people create level. I mean even like a messy
(34:18):
where he just kind of floats, you know, he's not
part of the offense. He just sort of floats and
waits for opportunities to score. He's like almost disconnected from
the team. And that's totally understood. And it's interesting the
NFL and now college sports because of the NIL but
most of our lives, the NFL is not incremental. You
(34:40):
draft Drake mayor Caleb Williams, you get him a coach
by their second year, and it's like, holy shit. Ones
in the Super Bowl one could have been like, it's
not incremental. You get seven rounds of picks. There's a
ton of undrafted players or seventh round players brock pretty
who make your team and can flourish. It's just different NBA.
(35:01):
After about the fifteenth pick, man, you aren't crossing your
fingers and just open. Somebody fits. So all sports are incremental.
Baseball players you draft them, they're in the minors for years.
Basketball if you can get one starter out of the draft,
I mean even in the top twelve picks, you feel
really good about a draft. Forget two or three starters.
(35:21):
Soccer in this country and it's been interesting to watch
the coverage and every four years we lament how we're
you know, we're not competitive, and it's like, guys, this
is incremental, Like we only have one beer in the country.
That's as old as Belgium has been playing soccer.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Like it's like sorry, like it's just it's old.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Like so my interpretation all this is, I don't freak
out when we lose. I thought we're bad in goal.
We usually aren't. It was an ugly second half. It
felt like you got humiliated. That pisses Americans off, Like
that really stings. But somebody that watches basketball more than
anybody I know that. I'm sure you engaged in some
(36:02):
of the World Cup and you do see the symmetry
between the two. What has been kind of your like
takeaway on the United States maybe the World Cup in general?
This this this sense that, oh my god, we never
get better at this stuff because you're you tend to
contextualize everything really well and you put you pump the
brakes and a lot of the you know, clickie stuff.
(36:23):
What's kind of been your interpretation on all of it.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
I've so enjoyed the World Cup this year. It was
in Vegas. Obviously, they have it playing everywhere. It's kind
of interesting having it go on at the same time
as Summer League. Yeah, I I honestly thought that the
USA loss was as much about the moment and us
just kind of not quite being ready. Yeah, there were
(36:46):
some the sequences early in the game where it just
felt like we were slow to the ball, Like it
just felt like it almost felt like like we weren't
ready for the level of intensity that we needed in
that moment. That that one that ball that popped up
right in front of the goal that everyone just stood
around and watched, and the next thing you know, they're
jumping on it and scoring I and then that the
(37:07):
I would just say what happened on that that third
goal was as close to the yips as it gets.
I mean that he drives his foot into the ground
like literally he just could have kicked the ball away,
and you're in You're in great shape, You're down one goal,
you have a chance. And that's really the thing. Like I,
I do believe that there's there's the skill development and
the maturity piece, but there's also like sometimes you need
(37:28):
to lose or be embarrassed even to understand next time
you find yourself in that situation that you bring the
requisite intensity, that you bring the requisite uh. I always
refer to it as like scar tissue. That's how I
feel about san Antonio. Like you don't think those guys
are beating themselves up about what happened. You don't think
Victor wemen and Yama took a discount because he saw
Jalen Brunson take a discount and then win finals MVP.
(37:51):
You know, like these things when you're you're talking about competitiveness,
which I agree. I think it's literally one of the
most important traits for any for any athlete, and like
all the smart teams that you talk to, that's like
near the top of the list of character traits they're
looking for when they're interviewing when they're interviewing players.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
My scout, when I talk to NBA scouts, that is huge.
That is like after natural talent. It's like, I mean
one of the knocks on Car for the Lakers was
one of my scouts that he's a little finesse. He
can play, he's long, he plays big, he can be
a little finesse like that Just that's very You hear
that from any NBA scout who's worked for years.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, It's like the way I've described it on my
show is like I want someone that hates losing more
than they love winning. I want someone who like when
they win, they experience more of a relief that they
avoided losing, right than just like joyous want to go
celebrate like it's it's weird, Like the best winners of
all time they win and then they're unsatisfied because all
(38:51):
they really have done is just stave off a loss
a little bit longer.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
That's really all they've done.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
And like I think that honestly, Like Pulisits for example,
that was kind of the thing that stood out to
me where it just kind of it didn't even seem
like you wanted to be there as much as like
some of the other stars representing their countries. And I
don't know, pulusit's well enough to like stand on that
and to take it to some sort of extreme, but
it just there was like a palpable energy. When you
(39:17):
watched Erling Alan or when you watch Harry Kane, or
you watch Leo Messi, there's like a there's like a
they feel like this is the biggest, most important thing
they're going to do over the course of these four years.
And I think, I think that our skill level is growing.
The talent was undeniable. I did think that we looked
small against several of the teams we played, even Bosnia.
I was like, Bosnia looks bigger than us. Like that
(39:39):
was something that stood out.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, I think we need to get we have to
upgrade it goal and I said this, I think we
need some size. I think we're our skills grown. But
you know, Rinaldo's big, Holland's big, Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham.
Length matters in every sport in the world. You know,
length is another word that NBA scouts talk about. You know.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
There was an article I read this weekend of the
Many and they went back to Pochattino when he first
took over the United States men's national team, and one
of the things he had to break down he said,
we were a bit of a country club, like guys
would take time off to golf or go out. And
it's like, yeah, that can't be it. And so I
think it's one of my knocks on United States men's
(40:24):
national team soccer, and I've been really supportive through the years,
is we're not real hard, you know, like like and
it was that when people used to compare anytime people
would criticize, like Draymond Green, I always said, if you
took Draymond and that Warrior team, they aren't hard. He
made them hard his screens. It's like the Bulls. Those
(40:46):
guys were hard, like I mean just down the like
who coach found out and he was a teammate of them.
It's like practice was hard. And I do think I
think that criticism of United States soccer is no, I'm
not saying country club, but it doesn't feel as hard
as it needs to be. And I just mean a
(41:08):
little bit of an edge, little ass kicking that stuff.
You know, I sound very old school, but I'm sorry,
Like the New York Knicks kind of pushed the spurs around.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
They did.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
I'm sorry, guys against kids. So I think your interpretation,
and this is why I asked, because you're not doing
it all day. Like sometimes my wife will say something
about sports. No she doesn't know, but she'll say something
about twice a year and I'm like, God, that's a
I didn't even see that. I'm so into the weeds
on all these things I do. So I like asking
(41:40):
people that don't cover the NFL about the NFL or
don't cover baseball, and so your interpretation, as largely as
you feel like there was a.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Grit, there were a little yeah, like hit first, don't
wait to be hit.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
I mean, like the head of the play that I'm
talking about with that loose ball right in front of
the net that like three USA players just go and
watch twelve Belgium scoring, or like the play where Tim
Reim and I'm sorry, I can't remember the player's name
that went over the top of him and just headed
it in all the Belgia striker. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it
was their first goal if I remember, it might have
been there.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, it was either there.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I think it was their first of their second goal,
but like Tim Reim was just kind of late to
the contact and so even though he was like because
the kid who went over the top of him was tall,
but he was kind of thin. And I remember sitting
there thinking, like, if Tim Reim just like kind of
meets meets him first, like hits first rather than waiting
to be hit, Like, I feel like.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
That's half the battle in every sport.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
It's it's one of the reasons why like people get
so hung up on officiating when the other team is
shooting more free throws, because they'll be like, they're fouling us.
Why are they getting away with it? And I have
found at every single level, from when I coached in
high school to when I played in college to when
I've watched the pros to even money tournaments and men's
leagues and everything under the sun, when you come out
and you play physically aggressive, when you bring the fight
(42:56):
to the other team, you get a better whistle. It's
the craziest thing. And it's simply because you're beating them
to spots and so they are out of position, and
then they end up reacting to your contact in getting
into trouble with the officials, like you have to bring
the fight to the other team.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
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twenty twenty six. We've talked about this. I was a
(44:18):
college official, eight dollars a game. I was a kid
from divorce. I officiated games, basketball games, and it was
the first light bulb moment. The football players who played
intermural basketball to stay in shape in the offseason, they
got the whistle. They weren't very artistic, it was sloppy.
(44:39):
They'd get right down into the paint and they'd come
flying around and it was awful, ugly basketball, and they
got the whistle. And it's like, I really remember just
thinking it changed the way I perceived basketball. I'm like,
they're just always a step ahead. They're aggressive, and often
the more athletic or fluid basketball player, he just doesn't
he's a step behind, so he's grabbing, he's lunging, he's
(45:02):
laked position. I'm glad you said that, because that is
a lot of pro sports. There's a lot of six
to eight guys with lanch who can hit a jumper
that never become good NBA players. They just don't have
that Kobe thing. They just don't have that edge and
that animal that just almost animosity toward anybody who would.
They're almost outraged that you would think you could stop them,
(45:24):
and it's like almost illusional, a little crazy. Jay glazer
Awa says, you gotta be a little off to be
a Hall of Famer. Some wiring's not quite right.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
I don't want to get into the Lebron thing because
it'll be a whole conversation. But this is why I
hope he doesn't go to Cleveland, because you know who
doesn't have that hit first, Like we're the tougher team. Mentality,
That Calves team straight up quit against the Knicks. They
straight up quit and like all like and I understand
the storyline and I get it, and like all Calves
(45:56):
fans are all very hyped up right now, and he
certainly is the favorite to go there. By the way,
the word in Vegas is no one knows, No one
has any idea where Lebron's good, right, But like the if,
I'm just gonna be so disappointed if he goes there,
because I just don't think that team has the I
don't think they can match it.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
I think got blown out in three of the four
games against the next I mean the average was over
like fifteen points. They got blown out. They quit and
the other thing. The other thing is he's dumped Cleveland twice.
Let's let's stop with the romanticism of it. Like, I
understand when you go back and marry your high school girlfriend, right,
you were going out, you left, you went to college,
(46:33):
you circle back. Marrier, that's a love story.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
He's bailed twice.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
It's now it's just a hookup, right, Like, that's all
it is. There's no love, it's a it's a little
I mean, it's the comfortable thing. I will argue this
all day long. So I made this argument. If Jalen
Brown alone and it's just Maxy vj Edscombe, Brown and Embid,
(47:01):
I think it's a bit of a mess. I think
if you add Lebron into that, you think, well, Colin,
it is one ball. I think Lebron's the balance in
it because Lebron one of the smartest basketball players I've
ever seen. He no longer is playing for anything other
than winning in fun. And you know what's fun winning
(47:21):
by sixteen points, that's fun. What's fun is playing with
dudes Lebron's always had. I mean, we've got to be
honest about this. He didn't go to LA they didn't
have players. He's got an eye for talent. Lebron's always
been somebody if yeah, you know, he knows who can
play and who can He bailed on a lot of
those Laker guys early. Now Josh Hart developed into a
nice role player for the Knicks. But my take is
(47:45):
Philadelphia with Lebron. You think it's you think it's an
extra piece too many. I think Philadelphia could be a
bit of a mess. If it's just Jalen Brown thinks
he's the one embiid does Max vj Edgecombe thinks he's
no worse than a two. Lebron would be almost like
(48:06):
the parental figure, like guys I've been around, like we're
all gonna have great nights. Lebron Also, Jason could play
forty five games, could play twenty four minutes like Lebron
could come in and just just say, hey, listen, we're
gonna play you fifty eight games. We're gonna give you
two road trips off. You don't have to go a well,
you don't have.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
To go goes to your family.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
That becomes really really attractive. In my opinion, I think
Philadelphia works.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
You Yeah, well, to your point, they got Dean Wade,
who I think can start at the four on games
where Lebron wants to take some time off. So I
want to be clear, Lebron going to Philly makes Philly
so much better and so much more interesting and so
much more compelling as a championship contender for exactly what
you just described, which is the embiid MAXI Jalen Brown
(48:55):
thing is a little clunky because Jalen Brown. Jalen Brown
is hard to like. If I was a basketball coach
and I was coaching any of the NBA's teams and
someone was like, hey, my GM came to me, it
was like, hey, I traded for Jalen Brown. It would
be hard for me to be like, Okay, how do
I fit him into what we're doing? Because he is
an on an Island player, and he doesn't play super
well off the ball, and he has those the shortcomings,
(49:17):
so that's naturally part of it. Lebron would just come
in and he would quite literally grease the wheels on everything. Yes, yeah,
both on both on and off the floor. He would
he would essentially just make life easier for them navigating
the season, navigating that partnership, like he would help and
be he'd help him, Bead Brown and MAXI like learn
how to play with each other and learn how to
like find that groove. And for that reason, by the way,
(49:39):
I like Philly as an option a heck of a
lot more than Cleveland. But it's part of it for
me is I want to see Lebron play in a
situation that accentuates his strengths. And his strengths are his
basketball brain and his playmaking talent. And that's why I
look at teams like the Golden State Warriors or Denver
(50:00):
as teams that I like as selfishly as a fan.
I want to see him play there, just because I
know in Golden State, first of all, those are some
competitive dudes, Like those are dudes that you want to
talk about meeting the moment physically and competitively. He would
love Draymond and Steph for that reason, and Steve Kerr,
but like I imagine in Golden State Lebron actually being
useful to them in his skill set all on the
(50:21):
ball as everything is going on around him, because Steph
can play off the ball with Jokich, like Lebron's been
playing with Biggs who can't shoot ever since he left
Kevin Love in Cleveland, so he's been playing with some
rim protector parked under the basket waiting for him when
he gets there for years. So I'm selfishly like, I
would love to watch Lebron with Jokich, who can poll
centers away. But the thing is is Denver's unrealistic. Golden
(50:45):
State comes with a bunch of question marks. So if
it's between Cleveland, Philly and Miami, Philly is definitely his
best chance to win, and it's certainly a heck of
a lot better than Cleveland. I just think there's some
cluckiness there. I think Lebron would have some knights in
Philly where he's like, oh, I hated thirteen of the
shots that Tyres and Jalen took tonight. Like I think
(51:06):
he would have some I think he'd have some nights
where he was like where he calls his wife and
he's like, I'm in Philly tonight and I just stood
in the corner while Jalen Brown shot us out of
a game. You know, like what the hell am I doing?
Speaker 1 (51:18):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (51:18):
It's like that's whereas like at least in Golden State,
it's like he's close to home. He's gonna have fun.
Playing there even though he probably won't win. So, like,
I'll be honest with you, though, Colin, Like, if he
was gonna go to Cleveland, I feel like he would
have committed already because like, why would you drag it
out if he knew where? Like I keep coming down.
It's one of two things. Either he's known all along
(51:41):
and he's just dragging this out for fun, which seems unrealistic,
or he like legitimately doesn't know yet and he's like
waiting for one of these teams to make a move.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
I think I think it's a little bit of that.
I think he Lebron's too smart. Okay, he knows Golden
State's the most fun, but it's not a title team.
Philadelphia is a chance to win a title, and that
any connection to Philadelphia. Cleveland's easiest for his family along
with Golden State. But there's a hardened issue. There's a
chemistry issue chanting fright team.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
He knows that team doesn't have it. Yeah, he knows
that team doesn't have it. There's no soul there. He
just watched them quit. So I think there's no perfect situation.
If the Sixers roster was in Cleveland, this thing would
have been done three weeks ago. It would be done,
It would.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Be absolutely right. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
Jason timp hoops tonight. That was fun.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
It was good to see you, Colin.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Good to see you.
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er was Square. Get started today right now two hundred
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slash goh slash colin. All right, so Jason temp hoops tonight.
I got to tell you two Summer League stories as
a kid. So the Summer League's already exploded into something.
(01:27):
I was just having dinner the other day with Jay Adonde,
who's a journalist. He teaches at Northwestern and he's part
of Summer League. And there's so many levels to it now.
It's been brilliantly run over the course of time. It's
really a cool extension arm of the NBA, and it's
just it's fascinating. But I'll tell you I had two
Summer League stories. So I grew up as a Sonics
fan as a kid, and there was a player for
(01:49):
Oregon State named Mark Radford. He was He was a
good player, and you know, back in the day, Summer
League was just like you'd get like in the transaction
wire of a newspaper. So I was, you know back then,
it's I think it's late seventies or something or late
eighties or so. He played for Oregon State. Is a
very good player, and Mark Radford had thirty points in
a Summer League game, and I'm like, oh my god,
(02:11):
we need this guy so badly. And he went on
to play for a couple of years, disappeared. You know,
he's my age and he's probably a little older than me.
So so I was always like, yeah, summer League. And
then there's legendary stories that the most legendary Summer league
story I never saw this guy play is named Raymond Lewis.
(02:31):
So Raymond Lewis is that one of the great street
ball legends in the history of Los Angeles. So he
was this guard, legendary scoring guard. USC UCLA offer him.
He takes money under the table and goes to Cal
State LA. And I mean it's a freshman average like
thirty five points a game. He's crazy. So he goes
(02:53):
to Cal State LA. I think he took a car
under the table money whatever. Right now, it's like the
going great.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So he goes.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
He gets drafted by the Philadelphia seventy six ers and
like in camp, I think they had Doug Collins was
one of their draft picks in camp, be like, you know,
out plays him. But he was a little bit of
an odd character, and it's something you know, he needed
to grow up. I fire recall it was a maturity
thing and he washed out. He's like the greatest Summer
League player who never like played an NBA games, it
(03:24):
was Raymond Lewis. He's a kind of a legendary figure,
a street ball legend in Los Angeles. You know, Rutger Park,
you've had that. New LA's got some of that too.
So Summer League to me, you know, for a long
time in my life was always like, you know, don't
buy into this stuff. But over the course of time
it's been so brilliantly run that there are glimmers of hope.
(03:45):
So I want to talk about somebody who popped and
somebody who struggled. Will start with that because you were there.
So Caleb Wilson, the Bulls number four pick, I mean,
it didn't take much aggressive springy. It's like, oh those
Kevin Garnett comps, Like, oh my god, this kid is
nineteen years old. So what was the hysteria or the
reaction to, you know, the number four pick out of Carolina?
(04:09):
You know, he's kind of unrefined. That was always a
thing like, oh boy, he's the most unrefined guy. What
was your take on him.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Well, you know, it was kind of weird caluing because
I remember mentioning this to you on your show. It
was like a month and a half or so ago.
Caleb Wilson was doing some work in workouts before the
draft and before the Combine, and there were these videos
of him shooting the ball really well, and his form
looked really good. His guide hand was perfect, his followed
(04:37):
through looked good, his balance was good. He was hitting
three after three after three in the workouts in a
way that I was like, Oh, I think Caleb might
be able to shoot more than he showed. Then he
goes to the combine and they have that twenty five
spot drills. It's five spots, five shots at each spot,
and he shot terrible in that drill, and so everyone's like,
oh okay, So like maybe it was just like a
workout video that you caught a specific hot streak. He
(05:00):
only made seven threes the entire season with North Carolina
last year. He hit seven threes yesterday. Like it just
really just, I should say, on Friday, really just a
breakout performance that demonstrated that as part of his game.
And it was very much like if you looked at
the way that he was hunting that shot like he
(05:21):
was hunting it early in the game, the pull up
three in a way that was almost as impressive in
terms of the confidence as it was in the skill set,
because it showed like I can do this, and I
want to show everybody here that I can do this.
And I would argue that's one of the big swing
pieces for him in his development trajectory. Like I think,
especially when you look at like when you look at
(05:42):
the players that have high true shooting percentages, they drive
that by getting to the foul line and by shooting
high volume threes. And so that's a major way to
drive efficiencies. To have that be a part of your game,
and for him to flash it in a confident and
against hitting seven threes in a game is not easy
to do.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
That is a big number.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Well, Jason. The other thing, at the college level, the
star is often the coach. At the NBA, it almost
never is. Even when it was Spoe in the Heatles,
it was it was d Wade and Lebron Popovich, it
was Duncan. So I wonder if you're a big in
college and you're you know, you're seventeen, eighteen nineteen, you're
building your post game. You probably don't have a lot
of threes drawn up for you with the college coach,
(06:25):
Like even Darren Peterson, like I played off Bault, you
kind of do what you know. It's a different game
in college and the pro. A lot of these guys
are They come in great AAU player, one year at
the school, and you know the coach is going to
define by position this player's game. Is it possible, Like
it's not. This is not a shot at North Carolina's coach.
It's just like on that North Carolina team, they needed
(06:48):
him down low. That was just wasn't part of his
That wasn't part of his game.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Probably they absolutely needed him. I mean, he basically said
as much after the game. He was like, I am
a capable shooter who wasn't in a role where he
can shoot.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I dug into that pretty extensively after the claim and
even back in high school he was never a good
three point shooter. So I think in general, I think
it's more of like behind the scenes, he always believed
he could do that if given the opportunity, And I
think that extends that dynamic you're talking about with them
meeting him down low that's even more exaggerated at the
high school level because you just don't have as many
of the big athletes to fill those roles. And so
(07:24):
I think when you look at the pro game, especially,
he projects to be a four, and to play the
four in the modern NBA, you have to be able
to shoot, because we just don't have very many fives
who can shoot. And if you have a non shooting
four and a five, you run into the problem Cleveland
and just had in the postseason where it becomes easy
to guard you because everybody can just pack the paint.
I was really impressed by his mobility. To Colin, he
(07:44):
had a play really sloppy pass. He drives off the
right wing. He throws this behind the back pass to
nobody and it turns into a turnover. And he did
have a zero sist six turnover game. So he's gonna
have to work out some stuff with his ball handling.
But like, he sprinted down the floor from way behind
the play and completely made up all the ground and
then popped up off the ground off two feet and
(08:05):
swatted it off the glass. And I was like, good God,
this is an athlete, just an unbelievable athlete, and again,
like I for the record, I thought Cam Boozer actually
outplayed him in that game. Cam played a really good game,
and there's there's still certainly growth.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It's so weird calling.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
I left the weekend impressed by all four guys in
the top four in their own way. I know, Darren
Peterson had a brutal game against the Bonsa, which I'm
sure we'll talk about, but he was really good in
his first two games.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah. So now the player before we get to DeVonta
and Peterson Keaton Wagner, who went to the Clippers. Now
he's an interesting cat. If I would have predicted somebody
in the summer league to get a little overwhelmed, it
was him. He's not I don't think he's physically built.
He you know, some of succeeding in the NBA. The
biggest gap college to NBA is sometimes physicality. Like so
(08:54):
you get to the postseason, you're dealing with men. You know,
san Antonio's talented, like the Nixter thirty. These are the
og Cat Mitchell. These are men who have been in
NBA weight rooms for years. So one of there's the
guy from the Clippers who was a late developing recruit,
kind of a slender player. The knock on him over
(09:15):
Summer League is man, he's passive, and part of me
thinks is it passive or like he's he's not. He
doesn't have Debons's frame. He's not just he's just not
that developed physically. Maybe he is emotionally, but people really
were like, oh, this is a boss and I'm like,
he's the one guy. Like he wasn't a five star recruit,
(09:35):
he was a late developer. He's kind of slight at
this point in his career. Am I listing excuses or
is that reasonable? No?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
I think it's completely reasonable. This was one of the
more predictable outcomes of Summer League, specifically because of what
you're talking about. He's a slight, slender, high center of
gravity guard. That is kind of a disaster for Summer
League Colin because like, it's crazy. This was my fifth
straight year going, and it's such a fun brand of
basketball because you have these high level prospects mixed in
(10:07):
with a bunch of dudes who are fighting for their
pro basketball life, like literally, and so if you're a
ball pressure guard and Keaton Woggler's in front of you,
You're like, I'm getting up in his jersey and I'm
in like by the way the amount of fouling that
people get away with in that environment, because it kind
of has that playoff feel where there's a foul in
every possession, so the refs have to sustain some flow
(10:28):
in the game by letting some stuff go. And it's
just it's a bad combination of physical intense defense that's
going to cause a slender, high center of gravity player
to struggle to get to his spots. And the basketball
itself is just kind of sloppy because there's not a
ton of ball handling on the floor, not a ton
of refined skill, not a ton of basketball IQ. I
(10:50):
look at Wogglers the kind of guy that's going to
fit in extremely well on a smart basketball team alongside
a guard in Darius Garland who's going to be able
to break the defense down. Like what impressed me most
about Waggler when I was scouting him is like he
plays great in the flow with other good basketball players,
and that's a thing that's not going to really pop
(11:10):
in the summer league setting. That's something that we're going
to see when he's playing alongside Darius Garland, when he's
playing alongside Brandon Ingram and alongside pros who can space
the floor.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Like I think.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
I thought he was predictable, that he would struggle and
a frankly colin he kind of struggled sometimes to get
separation and get to his spots at the college level,
like that was kind of known. That was a known
part of his game. Like his whole thing is feel
and playing in a system with other good players. He'll
be fine when he gets to the Clippers.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Well, I mean, listen Yokich at an All Star game.
Yokich could be the best player in the world. Do
you watch him in an All Star game? If you
did not know, he'd be like this guy that's that's
a European League player that he should not be. He's
not built. Not everybody is built for All Star games
and showcase games. Okay, so let's talk to Box and
Darren Peterson. I think the one thing, and again I
(11:58):
YouTube this stuff. There are certain people like the Bonce
is going to score a lot of points in the NBA.
He is a strong player for his size, shoulders, frame long,
there's a lot of All these guys are going to
develop when you watch debonsa if I told you twenty
three points as a rookie, I'd be like, and that's rare, man,
(12:19):
that is really rare territory. You could say, Now, I
don't know if he'll get the shots with Washington, but
in terms of he's going to be a very prolific
NBA scorer. To me, like like Peterson and we got
our questions, he's going to score too. The Bonce is
big and long and like to put on twelve pounds,
and you'd be like, oh, he can bully people like
(12:41):
I just think there's this was a very good draft class.
Very little shocks me because these guys are all so young,
Like in pro football, you're drafting like twenty three year old.
They're often married, they're more fully developed. I would be
shocked if Debonsa is n'ney twenty six and a half,
twenty eight and a half point career average guy for
a twelve year period. That's just his game. Looks like
(13:02):
he's going to get a lot of easy points, Like
there're gonna be nights he's gonna have thirty six on
a losing effort. That's just how he looks to me.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
You I was so impressed by aj in that game.
Jackson and I were talking about it before when we
were sitting in the arena because it was kind of
a big game. To your point about how much Summer
League has grown, that Thursday Night one Verse two game
is always like a palpable energy game because it's like,
remember all the backlash to Wemby when he played really
bad in that first game, everyone like freaked out for
(13:29):
like forty eight hours. Like that is a big, high
pressure game, and Debonsa specifically has gotten outplayed head to
head by Darren Peterson several times recently, so like and
then Darren Peterson goes in in the Utah Summer League
and plays two awesome games where he flashes this like
Devin Booker esque upside and so all of a sudden,
everyone's like, Darren's better than AJ. Darren's better than AJ.
(13:51):
It was a high pressure, intense game, and I just
thought AJ was the best player on the floor by comfortably.
And one of the things that really out to me
in that game con super physical, super sloppy, no one
could dribble. The one guy that was comfortably dribbling the
basketball without turning it over and getting to his spots
was aj de Bonsa and he was facing doubles and
(14:12):
he had guys getting physical up in his jersey. And again,
this was the whole book on him. When he was
in college. It was like, Oh, this dude gets to
the basket like crazy and Colin, they the Jazz literally
could not keep him out of the paint. He had
like twenty five paint touches in that game. It was unbelievable.
He was constantly turning the corner. They were constantly behind
(14:34):
the eight ball, grabbing him, fouling him every single time
he started to get downhill. His finishing ability in traffic,
and this was something that stood out in the numbers.
If you dug in most of the athletes, they'll shoot
a good percentage at the rim, but it's like dunks
and then they miss like half their layups. He's super
efficient at like tough layups around the basket. That is
such a strong foundational trait in the NBA. Just I
(14:57):
can get to the basket whenever I want, and I
can finish effectively and draw fouls when I get there.
That is the foundational trait that makes Shay so hard
to guard. And what's crazy is he missed every jump
shot he took in that game except for one in
the first half, but he shot fifty four percent on
jump shots inside his seventeen feet last year. He has
like a deadly pull up mid range jumper that he
(15:19):
hasn't even shown yet that counters that rim pressure. I
was like, big, high pressure game. Peterson has all this buzz,
lots of like pressure on him to be good, and
I thought he was great.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I thought I just was so impressed by him in
that game.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, he's again, He's an easy one. Peterson's fascinating. Again,
is going to be a really nice score. He gets
his shot off. He's so quick you don't have to
be a basketball savant, like, wow, that's quick, shot up fast.
He made a comment though, after a couple of after
one of the games, He's like, you know, I played
(15:54):
a lot of off ball at Kansas. Again, this goes
back to the college coach is it's easy to bang
on Bill self as one of the best coaches in
college basketball. But what I want you know, and I'll
lean into you on this, but again, college isn't pro
Different offenses oftentimes, there have been there have been many
examples where players are better pros than college players because
(16:16):
they have better teammates, their body grows. What did you
see from Peterson?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I so, I want to be clear, I was very
impressed by him in the first couple of games because
it was a demonstration of exactly what you're talking about.
When he was at Kansas he only ran seven point
seven pick and rolls per game, which is a really
low number for what you would consider to be an
on ball guard at the NBA level. He was running
like twenty five pick and rolls a game in those
(16:42):
first couple of Summer League games and looked methodical, looked
under control, was really get into his spots. He showed
three levels scoring. Turnovers have been an issue in all
three games. I think he had eighteen turnovers through his
first three games. That's been a big problem for him,
so he's got to sharpen up the handle a little bit.
But he showed real like high level star guard scoring ability.
(17:03):
Washington came out with a guy named Jamiir Watkins, who
is an experienced He's been in the league a couple
years now, big physical perimeter defender who just beat the
heck out of him from the opening tip in this game,
Colony at nine fouls. That's the weirdest thing about Summer League.
We were just thinking about Sumerleague. They have ten foulaments,
so he picks up nine fouls, and really Darren struggled
(17:23):
with it. And you know, one of the rubs on
this duo coming out of college was AJ has this
relentless aggression where Darren has the ability to kind of
like sometimes drift into the background of what's happening on
the iniggation.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
That's the Andrew Wiggins stuff that I talked about earlier.
There's a little bit of that there exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
And I was again one Summer League game, but in
the second half of that game, in particular, I was
disappointed in Darren's lack of aggression. It felt like that
Jamir Watkins got to him a little bit. He ended
up picking up a tex shoving him off, which I
get you're sticking up for yourself, but there was and
he did face some double teams, but there were several
possessions where he had single coverage or he had a
(18:03):
chance to be aggressive, and he just kept the ball moving.
And I'm like, AJ on the other end of the
floor is like attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, and just
trying to snatch your soul in this game literally and
recoup the damage done to his reputation from times he
had previously struggled against you, like where's the fight. I
was a little disappointed in that lack of aggression. But
the beautiful thing is is he's going to a system
(18:26):
in Utah that has a guard that will be able
to take some of that responsibility, so he has time
to grow into that responsibility. But if you wanted to
see why AJ was the number one pick, he demonstrated
in that game. He has a stronger foundational trait, which
is he can no one can stop him from getting
to the rim, and he has a relentless aggression that
makes it so you always know when he's on the
(18:46):
floor and he never drifts into the background.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
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call one eight hundred My reset gambling problem called one
eight hundred gambler, Well listen. We if you go back
(21:02):
to the lebron James who was the best player for
twenty years in the NBA. His one bad playoff series
was against Dallas right as a member of the Heat,
and he got super passive where he had he was
posting up JJ Burran, dishing the ball out and not
finishing like so much of pro sports to me is
just you know, it's the first time in your life
(21:24):
you meet equals like and some guys really deflate and
some guys are hyper competitive. That's why whenever I look
at scouting reports of basketball players, like I'll go draft
preview and I'll you know, i'll watch Summer league stuff,
and I'll watch combine stuff. But I love the draft
previews And one of the things I always love is
highly competitive. That tells me somebody that may have had
(21:46):
a brother, a brother that was like Drake may is
one of like five boys. It's like highly competitive, Like
hell yeah, he had like brothers picking on him. So
all right, give me a player in the summer league,
mid late first round, maybe second round that you know,
you come out of it, go back to you know,
you fly back, you live in like Colorado. Now you
(22:07):
fly back and you're thinking to yourself, wow, man, this guy,
this guy was underdrafted man.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I okay, I'm i'm.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I know that as someone who has covered the Lakers
closely over the last few years, I'm gonna come off
as bias here, but I think I think Cameron Carr
is awesome. I don't know how he fell to twenty five.
I remember coming into this offseason. I remember thinking, you know,
that's going to be a really hard spot for the
because it felt like the Lakers needed to with that
twenty fifth pick either trade him for a starter or
(22:39):
can get somebody that's able to play right away. That
was the predicament they were in. And that's such a
hard spot in the draft to find a player who
can play right away. And I think Cameron Carr is
absolutely capable of playing a role for the Lakers immediately.
This kid can score off of advantage. What I mean
(23:00):
by that is like with someone sprinting at him versus
against the set defender, so when he's open, he can
either convert threes or drive the close out and score
with that advantage. He is NBA ready as a score
off of advantage right now. And there is a length
in athleticism. He had a bunch of like really impressive blocks.
(23:21):
He blocked jump shooters twice. That's always a bit. Jump
shooters think they're open and then suddenly they get blocked.
That's a super impressive athletic play. He's got long arms,
he moves extremely well. There's refined offensive skill both in
catch and shoot three point shooting, but also in the
mid range. He can drive closeouts and shoot little floaters
and jump shots. He can finish at the rim at
(23:41):
the high level. And like, when you're looking at this
situation with the Lakers and they're they're going to have,
you know, someone like Jonathan Kaminga or maybe PJ. Washington
as the starting four, We'll see if they pull off
one of those moves in the next few days, I'd
argue they need to get PJ or I'd be pretty concerned.
But they have a gaping hole at the starting small
forward spot, and it's gonna be kind of by committee.
It's gonna be some Quinton Grimes, it's gonna be some
(24:03):
Jake Laravia, and I think Cameron Carr being like actually
able to play in the NBA right away is a
huge win for a Lakers, like for a Lakers front
office that frankly has struggled in the draft for several
years now, and big busts like Jalen Hood Schafino and
like Dalton Connect like legitimate busts to have a guy
(24:23):
at twenty five that I like, genuinely think can play
for their team right away. Colin, he might be their
best off ball scoring talent, not name like Quentin grind
Is probably number one, and then it's him like he's
he's legitimately in terms of shooting the basketball and like
driving closeouts. He's a lot better than at Jake Laavia.
He's way, way, way way better than like guys like
(24:45):
Jared Vanderbilt and Brownie James and some of the guys
on their bench. Like I think he's gonna be able
to play for them right away.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
So I want to talk because you spent We always
at the Volume send you to the summer League, which,
by the way, you used to live in Tucson, and
then you move to Colorado and now at the and
we force you go to Vegas every summer. So it's
just insanely hot. You know, I lived there for seven years,
and you know, you just kind of you just kind
of deal with it. But when you leave it and
(25:13):
then you come back, shit, man, it is a it
is a wave. How'd you handle that? Did you notice it?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
It was crazy?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
It was one hundred and eleven when I first got in,
and again, like in Tucson, I would get I get
to the airport, get out of my car in one
hundred and eleven, I'd get in the plane, I'd get
out one hundred and eleven.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
It just kind of felt like normal life for me.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
But going from Colorado there is like legitimately a shot
because my first time getting in that weather all year,
and then in Vegas it's like you constantly go from
like one hundred eleven to uber blasting ac on your face,
to one hundred and eleven to now I'm back in
the casino floor and it's like ice cold, and they're
like pumping oxygen in the room.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I swear.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
It's like it's a miracle that people aren't just like
completely decomposing there with the rapid changes in weather.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So I think it's really interesting I and people that
listen would know this obviously. Is I like new stuff.
I'm not terribly romantic about sports. I kind of like
new trends, so I've always liked analytics. I have, however,
pushed back on I do think the NBA and baseball,
which are very analytically driven, postseason baseball is different. You'll
(26:20):
use starters out of the bullpen, you'll manage different. In
the postseason. You'll you'll take bigger risks because your season's
on the line. So you have to be careful about analytics.
Plays well to the volume, not necessarily. All post season
situation same in the NBA, So a lot of times
you just need a basket. It doesn't you know, you
don't need a three. You need a high percentage two
(26:43):
to take take a two point ly to a four
and seal the game. Like we all know that. So
I do think it's fascinating with the Celtics trading Jalen
Brown because he is one of those rare players. I
don't know if I told you. The first time I
heard analytics was Monte Ellis, who's really athletic guy for
the Warriors, and people are like, you know, he's bad analytically,
(27:03):
and we didn't even talk much about analytics then. And
then there's like guys like Trey Young. I think RJ.
Barrett's the guy that's got beat up by the analytic crew.
So Jalen Brown's fascinating though, because we can see the
weaknesses of Trey Young, right, like he's a poor defensive player,
he's a small frame, or you watch other players and say, well,
he's just not a great player. Jalen Brown's one of
(27:25):
the first plays. Both ends a lot of points, excellent
defensive effort, and then you just start looking at numbers,
and the most fascinating stuff to me is, so the
Celtics were nine and two this year when Jalen Brown
didn't play. Now what makes that kind of shocking is
Tatum wasn't even in some of those games. So you
(27:46):
would think if Brown and Tatum are out, they were atrocious,
Like they were nine and two, and then you say, okay, okay,
Jason tim that that is a one year deal. You know,
to the previous year when Tatum was healthy and they
were fifteen and four without Brown. Now they had Horford Porzingis,
they had a lot of offensive web Okay, they say, oh, okay,
(28:08):
all right, so let's go to the title a year
that was the year of Jalen Brown emerging. They went
twelve and zhero without Jalen Brown on the floor in
the regular season. So you start adding these up and
Jalen Brown. It's why this is one of the reasons
this is hard for us, because you and I are
conditioned that twenty eight a game and a willing defender,
(28:29):
that's a top seven player in the league. Like, there's
just not that many guys. No, It's like even when
Klay Thompson was more of a catch and shoot guy,
wasn't driving the offense, but he played really good defense. Here.
I used to argue, he's the only player in the
league that would start for every team, even like Steph
would get in the way of certain teams. Like I
(28:49):
look at Jalen Brown, I'm like, well, he would start
for every team, but he's fundamentally in a formulaic offense.
Kind of a problem when Tatum's on the floor, and
it's hard to reconcile that my entire life is twenty
eighty game and plays different. I don't care what your
turnover ratio is since the turnover so that part of
(29:14):
Jalen Brown, I think is new. We don't quite know
what to do with. Like he's a borderline all NBA
guy and he gets a way of winning for the self.
That to me is hard for fans, hard for me
when I start deep diving on these numbers. You have
defended him, and by the way, you and I for
three years have said this, But what do you do
(29:35):
when you see those numbers?
Speaker 3 (29:37):
You can't ignore him. I think there's a certain amount
of when there's enough circumstantial evidence from enough different avenues,
it has to mean something like I'm not a big
believer in like like arguing in the face of baldface data. Right,
So like it's very clear that there are some strong
(29:58):
like metric markers that the team is better when Jalen
Brown doesn't play. I don't like ignoring that completely. I
think it's because of a variety of reasons. He plays
on an island, so his style of the offense doesn't
fit well with other players.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Like they're a fast pass, fast shoot team.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah, they need rhythm, they need the ball to pop around.
He was a below average He was forty fifth percentile
spot at player last year, so below average spotting up.
So he struggles when the ball is getting moved to
him out of other actions. On defense, he's outstanding on
the ball, but he can be inattentive and lazy off
the ball.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
That all is.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Going to kind of accumulate into what affects those advanced metrics.
I think that people pitch advanced metrics and catch alls,
they pitch the advantage in the large sample of data.
I would argue that's actually the disadvantage of that kind
of data, because the truth of the matter is, in
an eighty two game regular season, there's a lot of noise,
(30:57):
there's a lot of bad basketball, there's a lot of
nights in there where you play against teams that aren't
in the championship picture at all whatsoever. As a matter
of fact, it's really only about like fifteen games you
play a year that are against the teams that are
actually really in the mix, that have the elite defenses,
the superstar talent, and the things that are going to
(31:19):
actually test your system in a real way. And so
what happens is in those playoff situations where you need
a bucket similar those situations are a very unique circumstance
that doesn't really show up much in an eighty two
game sample size of data. So I think what ends
up happening is you have a system in Boston, which
(31:39):
this is a credit to Boston from the top down,
they're so well run that in that eighty two they
just chew up and spit out teams. They just chew
them up and spin them out. So they just put
together a lot of really strong data over the eighty
two and in that there's probably a lot of nights
where you're playing the Wizards and the Brown units aren't
moving the ball really well and he's being lazy on
(31:59):
d defense and it hurts the data. And then incomes
a bench group led by you know, Peyton Pritzard and
Jason Tatum, and they beat the heck out of them,
and it continues to throw off the data. But then
you like one of the Celtics struggled against good teams
all year last year, except for there was a big
game late in the year against Oklahoma City where they
were they were playing OKC and nobody on the Celtics
(32:20):
could score, and Jason or Jalen Brown was staring down
Alex Caruso and Lou Dort, two of the very best
perimeter defenders in the league, and just barbecuing them over
and over again and scoring and the Celtics won. And
it's like That's what I keep coming back to, is like,
again the large sample, there's some value there. I do
think it's revealing of some of the shortcomings in Jason
(32:41):
Jalen Brown's game, but he is one of the apex
athletes in this league that thrives in the biggest settings. Again,
one of I think one of the most iconic performances
individually of this entire last decade is Jalen Brown picking
up Luka Doncic full court for an entire NBA Finals,
picking him clean and dunking it on the other end,
(33:02):
and just making him miserably uncomfortable for five games while
they beat the heck out of the MAVs and won
the title. So it's like, ultimately, that's why I say
I l end in the middle, because I'm not going
to ignore the data and pretend like there aren't weaknesses
in Jalen Brown's game. But I think that those I
think basketball is more art than science sometimes and I
think that we forget that a lot of times. It
comes down to not the large sample, but can I
(33:25):
score on this guy or can I guard this guy?
And Jalen Brown is just one of the very best
ats solving that specific problem on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
So I want to end for about five minutes talking
about the World Cup because I think it's really interesting.
I think you and I don't know if you and
I have talked about this, but I've always thought the
NBA is very similar, the most similar to international elite soccer,
where it is star driven at times star reliant. The
(33:55):
very best can often have long careers, and it's art.
There's a lot of fluidity to basketball. There's open floor,
open canvas, open pitch that you know you can't You
can coach, but you don't over coach. That's a real problem.
And it's the same in soccer, like you want open play, dribbling, passing,
let people create level. I mean even like a messy
(34:18):
where he just kind of floats, you know, he's not
part of the offense. He just sort of floats and
waits for opportunities to score. He's like almost disconnected from
the team. And that's totally understood. And it's interesting the
NFL and now college sports because of the NIL but
most of our lives, the NFL is not incremental. You
(34:40):
draft Drake mayor Caleb Williams, you get him a coach
by their second year, and it's like, holy shit. Ones
in the Super Bowl one could have been like, it's
not incremental. You get seven rounds of picks. There's a
ton of undrafted players or seventh round players brock pretty
who make your team and can flourish. It's just different NBA.
(35:01):
After about the fifteenth pick, man, you aren't crossing your
fingers and just open. Somebody fits. So all sports are incremental.
Baseball players you draft them, they're in the minors for years.
Basketball if you can get one starter out of the draft,
I mean even in the top twelve picks, you feel
really good about a draft. Forget two or three starters.
(35:21):
Soccer in this country and it's been interesting to watch
the coverage and every four years we lament how we're
you know, we're not competitive, and it's like, guys, this
is incremental, Like we only have one beer in the country.
That's as old as Belgium has been playing soccer.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Like it's like sorry, like it's just it's old.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Like so my interpretation all this is, I don't freak
out when we lose. I thought we're bad in goal.
We usually aren't. It was an ugly second half. It
felt like you got humiliated. That pisses Americans off, Like
that really stings. But somebody that watches basketball more than
anybody I know that. I'm sure you engaged in some
(36:02):
of the World Cup and you do see the symmetry
between the two. What has been kind of your like
takeaway on the United States maybe the World Cup in general?
This this this sense that, oh my god, we never
get better at this stuff because you're you tend to
contextualize everything really well and you put you pump the
brakes and a lot of the you know, clickie stuff.
(36:23):
What's kind of been your interpretation on all of it.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
I've so enjoyed the World Cup this year. It was
in Vegas. Obviously, they have it playing everywhere. It's kind
of interesting having it go on at the same time
as Summer League. Yeah, I I honestly thought that the
USA loss was as much about the moment and us
just kind of not quite being ready. Yeah, there were
(36:46):
some the sequences early in the game where it just
felt like we were slow to the ball, Like it
just felt like it almost felt like like we weren't
ready for the level of intensity that we needed in
that moment. That that one that ball that popped up
right in front of the goal that everyone just stood
around and watched, and the next thing you know, they're
jumping on it and scoring I and then that the
(37:07):
I would just say what happened on that that third
goal was as close to the yips as it gets.
I mean that he drives his foot into the ground
like literally he just could have kicked the ball away,
and you're in You're in great shape, You're down one goal,
you have a chance. And that's really the thing. Like I,
I do believe that there's there's the skill development and
the maturity piece, but there's also like sometimes you need
(37:28):
to lose or be embarrassed even to understand next time
you find yourself in that situation that you bring the
requisite intensity, that you bring the requisite uh. I always
refer to it as like scar tissue. That's how I
feel about san Antonio. Like you don't think those guys
are beating themselves up about what happened. You don't think
Victor wemen and Yama took a discount because he saw
Jalen Brunson take a discount and then win finals MVP.
(37:51):
You know, like these things when you're you're talking about competitiveness,
which I agree. I think it's literally one of the
most important traits for any for any athlete, and like
all the smart teams that you talk to, that's like
near the top of the list of character traits they're
looking for when they're interviewing when they're interviewing players.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
My scout, when I talk to NBA scouts, that is huge.
That is like after natural talent. It's like, I mean
one of the knocks on Car for the Lakers was
one of my scouts that he's a little finesse. He
can play, he's long, he plays big, he can be
a little finesse like that Just that's very You hear
that from any NBA scout who's worked for years.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, It's like the way I've described it on my
show is like I want someone that hates losing more
than they love winning. I want someone who like when
they win, they experience more of a relief that they
avoided losing, right than just like joyous want to go
celebrate like it's it's weird, Like the best winners of
all time they win and then they're unsatisfied because all
(38:51):
they really have done is just stave off a loss
a little bit longer.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
That's really all they've done.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
And like I think that honestly, Like Pulisits for example,
that was kind of the thing that stood out to
me where it just kind of it didn't even seem
like you wanted to be there as much as like
some of the other stars representing their countries. And I
don't know, pulusit's well enough to like stand on that
and to take it to some sort of extreme, but
it just there was like a palpable energy. When you
(39:17):
watched Erling Alan or when you watch Harry Kane, or
you watch Leo Messi, there's like a there's like a
they feel like this is the biggest, most important thing
they're going to do over the course of these four years.
And I think, I think that our skill level is growing.
The talent was undeniable. I did think that we looked
small against several of the teams we played, even Bosnia.
I was like, Bosnia looks bigger than us. Like that
(39:39):
was something that stood out.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, I think we need to get we have to
upgrade it goal and I said this, I think we
need some size. I think we're our skills grown. But
you know, Rinaldo's big, Holland's big, Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham.
Length matters in every sport in the world. You know,
length is another word that NBA scouts talk about. You know.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
There was an article I read this weekend of the
Many and they went back to Pochattino when he first
took over the United States men's national team, and one
of the things he had to break down he said,
we were a bit of a country club, like guys
would take time off to golf or go out. And
it's like, yeah, that can't be it. And so I
think it's one of my knocks on United States men's
(40:24):
national team soccer, and I've been really supportive through the years,
is we're not real hard, you know, like like and
it was that when people used to compare anytime people
would criticize, like Draymond Green, I always said, if you
took Draymond and that Warrior team, they aren't hard. He
made them hard his screens. It's like the Bulls. Those
(40:46):
guys were hard, like I mean just down the like
who coach found out and he was a teammate of them.
It's like practice was hard. And I do think I
think that criticism of United States soccer is no, I'm
not saying country club, but it doesn't feel as hard
as it needs to be. And I just mean a
(41:08):
little bit of an edge, little ass kicking that stuff.
You know, I sound very old school, but I'm sorry,
Like the New York Knicks kind of pushed the spurs around.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
They did.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
I'm sorry, guys against kids. So I think your interpretation,
and this is why I asked, because you're not doing
it all day. Like sometimes my wife will say something
about sports. No she doesn't know, but she'll say something
about twice a year and I'm like, God, that's a
I didn't even see that. I'm so into the weeds
on all these things I do. So I like asking
(41:40):
people that don't cover the NFL about the NFL or
don't cover baseball, and so your interpretation, as largely as
you feel like there was a.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Grit, there were a little yeah, like hit first, don't
wait to be hit.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
I mean, like the head of the play that I'm
talking about with that loose ball right in front of
the net that like three USA players just go and
watch twelve Belgium scoring, or like the play where Tim
Reim and I'm sorry, I can't remember the player's name
that went over the top of him and just headed
it in all the Belgia striker. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it
was their first goal if I remember, it might have
been there.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, it was either there.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I think it was their first of their second goal,
but like Tim Reim was just kind of late to
the contact and so even though he was like because
the kid who went over the top of him was tall,
but he was kind of thin. And I remember sitting
there thinking, like, if Tim Reim just like kind of
meets meets him first, like hits first rather than waiting
to be hit, Like, I feel like.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
That's half the battle in every sport.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
It's it's one of the reasons why like people get
so hung up on officiating when the other team is
shooting more free throws, because they'll be like, they're fouling us.
Why are they getting away with it? And I have
found at every single level, from when I coached in
high school to when I played in college to when
I've watched the pros to even money tournaments and men's
leagues and everything under the sun, when you come out
and you play physically aggressive, when you bring the fight
(42:56):
to the other team, you get a better whistle. It's
the craziest thing. And it's simply because you're beating them
to spots and so they are out of position, and
then they end up reacting to your contact in getting
into trouble with the officials, like you have to bring
the fight to the other team.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
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twenty twenty six. We've talked about this. I was a
(44:18):
college official, eight dollars a game. I was a kid
from divorce. I officiated games, basketball games, and it was
the first light bulb moment. The football players who played
intermural basketball to stay in shape in the offseason, they
got the whistle. They weren't very artistic, it was sloppy.
(44:39):
They'd get right down into the paint and they'd come
flying around and it was awful, ugly basketball, and they
got the whistle. And it's like, I really remember just
thinking it changed the way I perceived basketball. I'm like,
they're just always a step ahead. They're aggressive, and often
the more athletic or fluid basketball player, he just doesn't
he's a step behind, so he's grabbing, he's lunging, he's
(45:02):
laked position. I'm glad you said that, because that is
a lot of pro sports. There's a lot of six
to eight guys with lanch who can hit a jumper
that never become good NBA players. They just don't have
that Kobe thing. They just don't have that edge and
that animal that just almost animosity toward anybody who would.
They're almost outraged that you would think you could stop them,
(45:24):
and it's like almost illusional, a little crazy. Jay glazer
Awa says, you gotta be a little off to be
a Hall of Famer. Some wiring's not quite right.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
I don't want to get into the Lebron thing because
it'll be a whole conversation. But this is why I
hope he doesn't go to Cleveland, because you know who
doesn't have that hit first, Like we're the tougher team. Mentality,
That Calves team straight up quit against the Knicks. They
straight up quit and like all like and I understand
the storyline and I get it, and like all Calves
(45:56):
fans are all very hyped up right now, and he
certainly is the favorite to go there. By the way,
the word in Vegas is no one knows, No one
has any idea where Lebron's good, right, But like the if,
I'm just gonna be so disappointed if he goes there,
because I just don't think that team has the I
don't think they can match it.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
I think got blown out in three of the four
games against the next I mean the average was over
like fifteen points. They got blown out. They quit and
the other thing. The other thing is he's dumped Cleveland twice.
Let's let's stop with the romanticism of it. Like, I
understand when you go back and marry your high school girlfriend, right,
you were going out, you left, you went to college,
(46:33):
you circle back. Marrier, that's a love story.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
He's bailed twice.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
It's now it's just a hookup, right, Like, that's all
it is. There's no love, it's a it's a little
I mean, it's the comfortable thing. I will argue this
all day long. So I made this argument. If Jalen
Brown alone and it's just Maxy vj Edscombe, Brown and Embid,
(47:01):
I think it's a bit of a mess. I think
if you add Lebron into that, you think, well, Colin,
it is one ball. I think Lebron's the balance in
it because Lebron one of the smartest basketball players I've
ever seen. He no longer is playing for anything other
than winning in fun. And you know what's fun winning
(47:21):
by sixteen points, that's fun. What's fun is playing with
dudes Lebron's always had. I mean, we've got to be
honest about this. He didn't go to LA they didn't
have players. He's got an eye for talent. Lebron's always
been somebody if yeah, you know, he knows who can
play and who can He bailed on a lot of
those Laker guys early. Now Josh Hart developed into a
nice role player for the Knicks. But my take is
(47:45):
Philadelphia with Lebron. You think it's you think it's an
extra piece too many. I think Philadelphia could be a
bit of a mess. If it's just Jalen Brown thinks
he's the one embiid does Max vj Edgecombe thinks he's
no worse than a two. Lebron would be almost like
(48:06):
the parental figure, like guys I've been around, like we're
all gonna have great nights. Lebron Also, Jason could play
forty five games, could play twenty four minutes like Lebron
could come in and just just say, hey, listen, we're
gonna play you fifty eight games. We're gonna give you
two road trips off. You don't have to go a well,
you don't have.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
To go goes to your family.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
That becomes really really attractive. In my opinion, I think
Philadelphia works.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
You Yeah, well, to your point, they got Dean Wade,
who I think can start at the four on games
where Lebron wants to take some time off. So I
want to be clear, Lebron going to Philly makes Philly
so much better and so much more interesting and so
much more compelling as a championship contender for exactly what
you just described, which is the embiid MAXI Jalen Brown
(48:55):
thing is a little clunky because Jalen Brown. Jalen Brown
is hard to like. If I was a basketball coach
and I was coaching any of the NBA's teams and
someone was like, hey, my GM came to me, it
was like, hey, I traded for Jalen Brown. It would
be hard for me to be like, Okay, how do
I fit him into what we're doing? Because he is
an on an Island player, and he doesn't play super
well off the ball, and he has those the shortcomings,
(49:17):
so that's naturally part of it. Lebron would just come
in and he would quite literally grease the wheels on everything. Yes, yeah,
both on both on and off the floor. He would
he would essentially just make life easier for them navigating
the season, navigating that partnership, like he would help and
be he'd help him, Bead Brown and MAXI like learn
how to play with each other and learn how to
like find that groove. And for that reason, by the way,
(49:39):
I like Philly as an option a heck of a
lot more than Cleveland. But it's part of it for
me is I want to see Lebron play in a
situation that accentuates his strengths. And his strengths are his
basketball brain and his playmaking talent. And that's why I
look at teams like the Golden State Warriors or Denver
(50:00):
as teams that I like as selfishly as a fan.
I want to see him play there, just because I
know in Golden State, first of all, those are some
competitive dudes, Like those are dudes that you want to
talk about meeting the moment physically and competitively. He would
love Draymond and Steph for that reason, and Steve Kerr,
but like I imagine in Golden State Lebron actually being
useful to them in his skill set all on the
(50:21):
ball as everything is going on around him, because Steph
can play off the ball with Jokich, like Lebron's been
playing with Biggs who can't shoot ever since he left
Kevin Love in Cleveland, so he's been playing with some
rim protector parked under the basket waiting for him when
he gets there for years. So I'm selfishly like, I
would love to watch Lebron with Jokich, who can poll
centers away. But the thing is is Denver's unrealistic. Golden
(50:45):
State comes with a bunch of question marks. So if
it's between Cleveland, Philly and Miami, Philly is definitely his
best chance to win, and it's certainly a heck of
a lot better than Cleveland. I just think there's some
cluckiness there. I think Lebron would have some knights in
Philly where he's like, oh, I hated thirteen of the
shots that Tyres and Jalen took tonight. Like I think
(51:06):
he would have some I think he'd have some nights
where he was like where he calls his wife and
he's like, I'm in Philly tonight and I just stood
in the corner while Jalen Brown shot us out of
a game. You know, like what the hell am I doing?
Speaker 1 (51:18):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (51:18):
It's like that's whereas like at least in Golden State,
it's like he's close to home. He's gonna have fun.
Playing there even though he probably won't win. So, like,
I'll be honest with you, though, Colin, Like, if he
was gonna go to Cleveland, I feel like he would
have committed already because like, why would you drag it
out if he knew where? Like I keep coming down.
It's one of two things. Either he's known all along
(51:41):
and he's just dragging this out for fun, which seems unrealistic,
or he like legitimately doesn't know yet and he's like
waiting for one of these teams to make a move.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
I think I think it's a little bit of that.
I think he Lebron's too smart. Okay, he knows Golden
State's the most fun, but it's not a title team.
Philadelphia is a chance to win a title, and that
any connection to Philadelphia. Cleveland's easiest for his family along
with Golden State. But there's a hardened issue. There's a
chemistry issue chanting fright team.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
He knows that team doesn't have it. Yeah, he knows
that team doesn't have it. There's no soul there. He
just watched them quit. So I think there's no perfect situation.
If the Sixers roster was in Cleveland, this thing would
have been done three weeks ago. It would be done,
It would.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Be absolutely right. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
Jason timp hoops tonight. That was fun.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
It was good to see you, Colin.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Good to see you.
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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