Jason breaks down his five biggest storylines heading into the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks. He discusses potential legacy shifts for Victor Wembanyama and Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns bucking the narrative around his career, and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, well, good to Hoops tonight here
at the volume. Have you Wednesday? Everybody hopeful you guys
are having a great start to your week so far.
(00:21):
Today is the day we are starting off the twy
twenty six NBA Finals between the Knicks and the Spurs.
We've done our series preview, we had say Vasni come on,
we talked some adjustments and stuff like that. Today we're
gonna go big picture and we're gonna talk a little
bit about just some of the storylines surrounding this series.
So I've got for you guys five big storylines from
(00:42):
the twenty twenty six NBA Finals. You guys know the
joke before we get started to subscribe to Hoops and
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All right, let's talk some basketball. So first question, I'm
(01:06):
not a surprise here. The most obvious one, what a
title for Victor wemn Yama at age twenty two? What
would that mean for his legacy? I think this is
pretty simple. It would mean that he is ahead of
(01:26):
the pace for the goat race. That doesn't mean he's
gonna be the goat. There are so many factors that
go into that. He's twenty two years old, but quite simply,
he will be further along than any player has been
at this point in his career. When we're talking about,
you know, the standard, the two guys that he's trying
(01:48):
to be. You know when you play those video games
where you're doing like a time trial in some like
racing game, and it's like you're the corporeal, like normal car,
but then you have like this like visage next to
you that's like a see through that's just running next
to you, and it's like the time trial and you're
like racing against this other person's time. I can't even
(02:10):
tell you which video game I remember that from, but
if you imagine the goat race as that type of race,
and there's a little hologram for Lebron and there's a
little hologram for MJ. And they're just taking off running
and Wemby's running alongside them. He's ahead of them at
this point very simply to be if he were to
win this series, he would be the consensus best player
(02:31):
in the world while also having already logged his first
championship at the NBA level at only age twenty two,
with a team that's just gonna continue to get better,
which has more to do with what happens after at
this point. But, like to put it very simple, no
one's gonna make him the goat after one title. That
would be silly. There's a great deal of accomplishment between
(02:52):
now and then if he's going to get that level
of recognition. But if Victor woman Yama can at age
twenty two be the best player on a championship team
in a very impressive run too. This is a run
where he would beat, you know, a Knicks team that
had a historically dominant Eastern Conference playoff run, a Thunder
team that it was a defending champion off of sixty
four wins in the regular season. This would be an
(03:14):
extremely impressive feat for him to accomplish at this young age.
And you know, then you talk big picture, there's so
many different things that go into it. His internal improvement,
Dylan Harper's internal improvement, Steph Castle's internal improvement, Carter Bryant's
internal improvement, the work of R. C. Buford to continue
to build out the roster in the coming years. There's health.
(03:38):
Health is a huge part of this that spurs team.
If Wemby has injuries, like, it's going to be hard
for them to win in the years where he's unavailable,
And we just recently saw a year last year where
Wenby was unavailable to finish the season, right, So like,
there's a lot of things where that can get derailed
and those little holograms can make up ground and pass
Wemby again. But the simple fact of the matter is
(03:58):
is that when lebron were in their early twenties, they
were really damn good. They had Knights where they looked
like they were at the level the best players in
the world, but there were clearly guys that were just better,
more well rounded basketball players than them at that specific
point in time. Wemby looks like, for sure the best
two way impact player in the league, and even when
(04:20):
you factor in the extra premium on offense. We talked
about this after game seven. Like, one of the biggest
dynamics of that game was just how much more high
quality threes the Spurs generated than the thunder did, simply
because of Wemby's role gravity his offense, Even when you
or his value, even when you do put that extra
(04:40):
premium on offense, I just think Wenby is pretty clearly
the best player in the world at this point, and
he's got so much more room to improve. What would
a title mean for Wemby at age twenty two in
his legacy, It would mean that he is ahead of
the pace to go down as the greatest basketball player
of all time. But we're talking about literally at the
first turn of that lap. There's so so, so so
(05:03):
much more time, so much more accomplishments to be logged
for Wemby in order for him to reach that level.
But he is ahead of the pace. Number two, the
Knicks have a chance to buck the narrative that you
can't win with the likes Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns. Now,
those of you guys who've can follow in the show
for a while, know that I have a pretty simple
(05:24):
opinion about this kind of dynamic. Can you win with
this guy, can you win with that guy? And to me,
it really just comes down to, like you can sure
no matter who the player is up to a certain point,
I'm sure there is like a legitimate drop off where
it's like, Okay, if my best player is, you know,
the twenty third best player in the league, I probably
(05:46):
can't win the title. But like, if I have the
nineteenth best player, but I also have the twentieth, twenty first,
twenty second, twenty third, twenty fourth, twenty fifth, twenty sixth,
all on the same team, I'm probably pretty freaking good
and I'm probably really difficult to beat four times out
of seven, even though I don't have Luca or I
don't have Giannis, or I don't have Shay, or I
don't have Jokich or I don't have Wemby. Right, So,
(06:07):
like when I talk about the idea of like how
do you win with the with a player that's considered
flawed in that tier, to me, so much of that
just has is more of a conversation about the supporting cast.
The bottom line is is that the championships that we've
seen one with like somewhat mediocre rosters, it's always a
legitimate top tier superstar who has a case to be
(06:29):
the best player in the world. Yo Kitchen twenty twenty three,
right Steph in twenty twenty two. The Yannis in twenty
twenty one just has some recent examples. Those are teams
where like you look at the rest of the team
and it's like, Wow, the second best player on that
team is Chris Middleton or Andrew Wiggins or Jamal Murray. Like, Yeah,
(06:52):
if you're gonna win the title with that type of roster,
you need to have one of the dudes in the NBA.
But if you don't have one of the dudes in
the NBA, you just need more help behind them. It's
really just about team construct and putting together a basketball
team that can do all the jobs that need to
be done that give you a great chance to win
basketball games. We'll dig a little bit further into that,
(07:13):
specifically regarding Jalen Brunson when we talk about his legacy
here in a few minutes. But the idea that the
Knicks can't win with Brunson and Cat it's always just
been more of like a challenge than a reality, like
can the Knicks win with Brunson and Cat, Yes, it's
just difficult. And that's where, like you know, I think
it extends deeper than just the roster. It's also about matchups, right,
(07:37):
Like you know, the Knicks ended up making it to
the finals this year. I don't say this to take
away from their accomplishment. I just say this as a reality.
You beat a six seed Hawks team, you beat a
seven seed Sixers team, and then you beat a four
seed Cleveland team, right, Like, none of those teams are
(07:58):
in the same stratosphere as the upper level contenders that
we listed in our contender rankings to start the playoff run, right,
So like, nothing wrong with that, but you managed to
squeak through without having to face any of those types
of teams, and then here in the finals, like we
talked about in our series preview, I just think you
match up very well with the Spurs. We'll talk more
about that in a Spurs question here in just a second. So,
(08:20):
like it's a combination of like, can you win with
Cat and Jalen Brunson, Yes, if you have the right
amount of talent around them, and if you catch some
favorable matchups, right, Like the specific things that cause problems
for Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns over the years
had a lot to do with like matchups like Indiana
in that combination of just five out spacing speed, transition
(08:45):
attack to punish Cat for some of the mistakes he made,
like it was as much about matchups as it was
about talent as well. But they certainly have a chance
to prove that dynamic by winning this year because there
are a lot of people that feel like they can't win.
They always could, it just was gonna require a somewhat
thin path. Here we are. That thin path has materialized.
(09:08):
And for the record, guys, like I talked about this
before the playoffs, this is not something that I'm trying
to Monday morning quarterback here. I said before the playoffs,
there is a pathway for the Knicks that stems around
the idea of the Spurs making it to the finals.
If they can squeeze out the East and they meet
the Spurs when they get there, that's the thin line
(09:30):
for them. I would have picked the Thunder versus the Knicks.
The very simple dynamic is the Thunder are a speed team.
The Spurs are a power team. The Knicks their perimeter
defense is built to handle power. They have a lot
of power elements to their game that cancel out what
the Spurs do. The thunder speed elements would have caused
(09:53):
problems for this Knicks build. It is as much about
matchups as anything else. But the Knicks have an opportunity
to prove that con accept true by winning in the
next round because at that point, like it is a
real possibility. Hell, I'm picking it to happen. It's a
real possibility that two weeks from now, we're gonna be
sitting on our couches watching the TV and Karl Anthony
Towns is gonna be going like this with the Larry O.
(10:15):
B and Jalen Brunts is gonna be going like that
with the Bill Russell. I think it's the Bill Russell
MVP Trophy, the Finals MVP trophy, right, Like, that's a
real possibility now, So they absolutely have a chance to
buck that narrative. Today's show is brought to you by
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and Tennessee. Number three. Can the Spurs beat four very
(12:22):
different teams in two months? This is that dynamic that
we were just talking about, the different matchups, right, This
is the you know I've seen a lot of I've
seen a lot of like specific talking points on Twitter
over the last couple of days, like the Spurs are
a sixty two win team, They've clearly demonstrated themselves to
be better. I even saw people like saying things because
(12:44):
I know that I had mentioned that one of the
big driving points for me picking the Knicks was that
game on March first, because that was after the Spurs
had benched Harris and Barnes. They had they had won
eleven in a row before that game. They won five
in a row after that game, and they just got
their butts kicked in Madison Square Garden, you know. And
I had someone write a comment underneath our series preview
(13:07):
on Twitter say something along the lines of, like, you
shouldn't use that game because it was a matinee game
on the second to last game of the Rodeo road trip,
Like they just kind of ran into a brick wall,
blah blah blah blah. And the thing that is silly
to me about that is like I consider all that
sort of stuff when I'm watching the film. So, for instance,
(13:31):
like there's a huge difference between Wow, they keep getting
lost in transition, how much of this is the cross
matching versus how much of this is just the reality
of them being fatigued in the regular season, right, I
do factor that in versus like, oh, like, this is
a physical matchup problem. Here's Steph Castle trying to break
(13:53):
down an Andobi off the dribble and he's just unable to.
Or here's Wenby trying to drive on Kat and Cat's
just stonewalling him with a low center of gravity and
pushing him off of his line, and Wemby exposes the
basketball and the Knicks are really good at dig downs,
so they can force turnovers that way, right, Or oh, like,
look at the way that they're attacking Wemby and pick
(14:15):
and roll. This is just a very simple dynamic if
if Shay was unwilling to take pull up threes but
Brunson is, and that eventually pulls Wemby further up to
the level that opens up this void underneath the basket
where Karl Anthony Towns has a massive size advantage on
the offensive glass. Like there are like, oh, this is
a fatigue related issue, and then there are like, oh,
(14:36):
this is a match up basketball related issue. And when
I was watching the film and deciding who I was
gonna pick and again, guys, I picked him fifty five
to forty five. So I'm not over here saying like
I think the Knicks are going to blow him out
or anything like that. Like I just noticed a lot
of stuff on the film that are basketball dynamics that
represent this very basic truth, which is you have to
(14:57):
beat four very different teams over the course of two
months to win the title. Your weaknesses almost matter more
than your strengths when you get to the postseason. And
what ends up happening when you play four different teams
is it feels kind of inevitable that you'll run into
one of them that can expose a very specific weakness
(15:19):
that you have. Right, And it's not like I do
think the Knicks will score a little bit easier against
the against the Spurs defense than the Thunder did for
two main reasons. Their ball movement in the Brunson ability
to shoot pull up threes and how that spaces wem
Be out a little bit more. And then two Karl
Anthony Towns is just like the opposite of Chet. You
(15:41):
know how Chet did nothing to help Shay in the
last round. Like Kat's gonna be a monster in this series.
He's going to be a problem that the Spurs have
to deal with, So I think they'll score a little
bit easier there. But the bigger thing to me is
this was already a somewhat flawed Spurs offense, right Their
guards are young and somewhat inconsiser Wemby still has some
warts in his offensive game, and the Knicks have some
(16:04):
very specific tools that give them the ability to address
some of the strengths that the Spurs offense brings to
the table. So it's not about do I think the
Spurs are a better team than the Knicks. If that's
the question, then the answers the Spurs like, of course
the Spurs are a better team. They have clearly demonstrated
them to themselves to be a better basketball team ever
since the beginning of October. That's not how you win
(16:25):
a title. You win a title by beating four teams
in two months, and that involves you having to confront
some of your weaknesses, and maybe around that's early in
the playoff run, maybe in a round that's later in
the playoff run, and the Knicks represent very much that
that final challenge for the Spurs in this path number four,
(16:45):
one of the hallmarks of Jalen Brunson ball is picking
on matchups? How does that line up with the Spurs
team that doesn't really play any bad defenders the way
a team like Cleveland did so just in a very simple,
basic way. Right. How did they win in the second
round against Philly by just frying Joel Embiid in ball screens? Right?
(17:09):
Because Embiid was banged up and slow to begin with,
so super slow and is banged up state and he
just could not defend in the pick and roll against
Jalen Brunson. Right, How did they beat the Calves with
Brunson on the ball picking on James Harden in particular,
but also some Donovan Mitchell picking on James Harden in ISOs? Right,
(17:34):
The Calves were switching, they were roaming on the back line,
and they were just like, we're willing to let James
Harden die out there on an island against Jalen Brunston.
Let's see what happens. And he went to work. Right.
There is no defender on the team that is in
the same stratosphere of James as James Harden as like
a target. Right, And Victor wemen Yama is possibly you know,
(17:55):
the best pick and roll defender in the league. Right,
So it's a very very different challenge that goes without say.
There's two things that I would say directly to address
this idea. Though. One, don't underestimate Jalen Brunson in his
ability to find a matchup that he likes, even if
it isn't necessarily what you would consider to be a
weak defender. I don't know if it'll be CHAMPENNI I
(18:17):
don't know if it'll be Vicell or which defender it
ends up being. But like Jalen's gonna find one of
those guys that, even though they're a good defender in
against the aggregate of NBA level talent, maybe they struggle
a little bit with Jalen Brunson's herky jerkiness. Maybe they
struggle a little bit with his low center of gravity
foot speed advantage. Maybe they struggle with navigating screens with him,
(18:42):
and Brunson starts moving him into screens after he gets
switched on. Brunson, I think, will find a matchup that
he likes there and do some damage. But the second piece,
and this is arguably the most important piece, that's not
the only way the Knicks have that they can attack
on offense. It's one of the biggest kind of foundational
things that makes this Knicks team great. They have like
(19:02):
three or four pretty unique offensive looks that they can
go to depending on what type of team they're playing.
Whether it's using Jalen Brunson off ball with Karl Anthony
towns as the passing folkrum above the break, whether it
is using Karl Anthony Towns more is like a bully
ball player in the post or on the glass, whether
it's Jalen Brunson heliocentric, you know, hunting matchups in ISO,
(19:27):
or hunting matchups in pick and roll, whether it's like
you know, okay, we're we're using Ogan and Obi More
because he's got a size advantage against whoever's guarding him.
They just have a bunch of different kind of ways
they can shape shift on offense and attack you in
different ways. So like the idea that like, I don't
think the Spurs matchup is as simple as like, well,
(19:49):
Jalen Brunson doesn't really have a target, Therefore, how are
the Knicks gonna score? Like, Jalen Brunson might still find
a target, and even if he doesn't, they'll have other
routes that they can go to try to generate quality offense.
All Right, last one, if Jalen Brunson were to win
the title, what would that mean for his legacy? Now,
(20:12):
this is a super super interesting concept because he's a
very he's a very kind of unique player in NBA history.
When we're talking about his list of accolades or accomplishments, right,
we'll talk about where he like ranks in the league.
I think that's something that's at least worth digging into,
because I think he becomes a very interesting candidate for
(20:33):
a very specific spot that's kind of rotated over the
course of the last few years. But like, this is
not a player that's been a first team All NBA selection.
This is not a player that's been an MVP. This
is not a player that has multiple regular seasons in
a row where you just consider him to be at
the same level as the top guys in the league.
(20:54):
He just has never been able to either reach that
level of impact or that level of influence in order
to get that level of recognition. If he were to
win the title and let's say look great doing it, Like,
let's say he does find matchups, he does average twenty
six twenty seven points per game very efficiently. HiT's three
four really big shots in the finals that ice games,
(21:17):
and he's hoisting the Finals MVP trophy. Where I think
it gets fascinating is more his standing in the league.
He's gonna have a hard time moving up all time
lists without MVPs, without first Team All NBAS, without the
kind of accolades that back up the success, and it's
very unusual to see a player, like it's just super
(21:38):
unusual to see a player win a Finals MVP that
doesn't have those sorts of things like Shay multiple MVP's,
multiple first Team All NBAS, Jason Tatum multiple first Team
All NBAS, Jokic multiple MVPs, multiple first Team All NBAS,
Steph multiple MVPs, multiple first Team All NBAS, Yiannis multiple MVPs,
multiple first Team All NBAS, Lebron multiple MVPs, multiple first
(22:01):
Team All NBAS. You go back, that's kind of like
the standard, even Kawhi, even Kevin Durant, maybe not multiple MVPs.
Kawhi doesn't have MVPs, but he's always been a guy
that we've considered, like, when this dude is healthy, he's
one of the top five players in the league, right,
and then you'll have outliers that win finals MVP, like
Andrea Gudala in twenty fifteen. But one, he just shouldn't
(22:22):
have won it. It should have been Steph. And two
he's a role player, so that's not even a comp
for Brunson. So Step one is kind of acknowledging that
it would be somewhat unprecedented at least in modern NBA history.
Where I think it becomes fascinating is the way that
we rank players in the league. So there's this top tier,
and for several years now it's been Luka, Jokiciannis, and
(22:44):
Shay in some order. And you know, we can debate
that until next Tuesday, right, But that's been the group.
And then I've always had like this fifth guy that's
like kind of hanging on to that tier, who's not
in the tier but is like clearly better than everyone
below him, but also clearly not as good as the
(23:06):
guys above him. And the two guys that have routinely
kind of cycled through that spot over the last few
years have been Jason Tatum and Anthony Edwards, right, And
it's been like a very unique kind of class of
player where you don't view them in that Luca class,
but they're clearly better than like the Donovan Mitchells and
the you know Anthony Davis when he was in his prime,
(23:29):
and you know the old vets like Steph Curry, Lebron James,
Kevin Durant, like that kind of thing, right, So like
it it's a kind of a unique spot on that list.
Now that four has grown to five because of Wemby, Right,
So now you put Wemby in that group, and it's
those five dudes at the top of the league in
some order. And I think Giannis is probably the fifth
because of his health issues that he's had. But I
(23:50):
think Jalen Brunson becomes that clear number six if he
wins the title this year. Meaning like be honest with yourself,
do you think who do you think's better overall? As
like not potential, not like who's more fun to watch,
not like whose personality we like more, not who we
think is gonna be better when they're you know, two
(24:12):
three years from now, but like who's better Jalen Brunson
or Anthony Edwards. I think you have to go with
a guy like Brunson if he wins the title this year,
who's better Jalen Brunson or a guy like Jason Tatum. Like,
you have to go with a guy like Jalen Brunson
even without the Achilles injury, if he wins the title
this season in this type of role. So I think
(24:33):
it's less about his legacy, because his legacy is like
so unique that it's kind of difficult to quantify under
any circumstances. But his standing in the league becomes pretty clear.
I talked in December after he won the NBA Cup
and he had a good couple of weeks after that.
I was like, man, Jalen Brunston is starting to look
like a top tier superstar, and he's consistently struggled to
maintain that. He had another drop off in the second
(24:55):
half of the season this year. There's a reason why
he hasn't won first team All NBA or and given
serious MVP consideration over the years. It's had to do
with his ability to sustain. But the bottom line is
he is one of the legit offensive engines in the NBA.
When we talk about a player who kind of in
and of himself can generate a ton of quality shots
(25:16):
for his team. You start at the top of the league,
and it's like Jokic, it's Luca, it's Shay, you know.
And then you know, Wenby's kind of his own little
category there. We talked about that earlier with his role gravity.
Giannis is his own kind of category there too, with
his playmaking and rim pressure. But like after that, and
you start talking about the other like offensive engines in
the NBA, the only guy that like you'd debate there
(25:40):
with Jalen is like Steph Curry, right, And that's with
Steph being very old at this point in his career,
an injury prone, he is quite simply one of the
top four or five most reliable offensive engines in the NBA.
And so if you have a really good basketball team
and you have a really good offensive engine that kind
of ties all of it together, you give yourself a
(26:00):
great chance to win the title. And this year is
a great example of that. And so I think it's
more just his standing in the league. I think he
just gets resoundingly viewed as the best player that's not
in the top tier of superstars if he were to
win the title this season. All right, guys, that's all
we have for this morning. We'll be back tonight after
the final buzzer of Game one of the Finals. I'll
see you guys live on YouTube later Snap
The volume. All right, well, good to Hoops tonight here
at the volume. Have you Wednesday? Everybody hopeful you guys
are having a great start to your week so far.
(00:21):
Today is the day we are starting off the twy
twenty six NBA Finals between the Knicks and the Spurs.
We've done our series preview, we had say Vasni come on,
we talked some adjustments and stuff like that. Today we're
gonna go big picture and we're gonna talk a little
bit about just some of the storylines surrounding this series.
So I've got for you guys five big storylines from
(00:42):
the twenty twenty six NBA Finals. You guys know the
joke before we get started to subscribe to Hoops and
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All right, let's talk some basketball. So first question, I'm
(01:06):
not a surprise here. The most obvious one, what a
title for Victor wemn Yama at age twenty two? What
would that mean for his legacy? I think this is
pretty simple. It would mean that he is ahead of
(01:26):
the pace for the goat race. That doesn't mean he's
gonna be the goat. There are so many factors that
go into that. He's twenty two years old, but quite simply,
he will be further along than any player has been
at this point in his career. When we're talking about,
you know, the standard, the two guys that he's trying
(01:48):
to be. You know when you play those video games
where you're doing like a time trial in some like
racing game, and it's like you're the corporeal, like normal car,
but then you have like this like visage next to
you that's like a see through that's just running next
to you, and it's like the time trial and you're
like racing against this other person's time. I can't even
(02:10):
tell you which video game I remember that from, but
if you imagine the goat race as that type of race,
and there's a little hologram for Lebron and there's a
little hologram for MJ. And they're just taking off running
and Wemby's running alongside them. He's ahead of them at
this point very simply to be if he were to
win this series, he would be the consensus best player
(02:31):
in the world while also having already logged his first
championship at the NBA level at only age twenty two,
with a team that's just gonna continue to get better,
which has more to do with what happens after at
this point. But, like to put it very simple, no
one's gonna make him the goat after one title. That
would be silly. There's a great deal of accomplishment between
(02:52):
now and then if he's going to get that level
of recognition. But if Victor woman Yama can at age
twenty two be the best player on a championship team
in a very impressive run too. This is a run
where he would beat, you know, a Knicks team that
had a historically dominant Eastern Conference playoff run, a Thunder
team that it was a defending champion off of sixty
four wins in the regular season. This would be an
(03:14):
extremely impressive feat for him to accomplish at this young age.
And you know, then you talk big picture, there's so
many different things that go into it. His internal improvement,
Dylan Harper's internal improvement, Steph Castle's internal improvement, Carter Bryant's
internal improvement, the work of R. C. Buford to continue
to build out the roster in the coming years. There's health.
(03:38):
Health is a huge part of this that spurs team.
If Wemby has injuries, like, it's going to be hard
for them to win in the years where he's unavailable,
And we just recently saw a year last year where
Wenby was unavailable to finish the season, right, So like,
there's a lot of things where that can get derailed
and those little holograms can make up ground and pass
Wemby again. But the simple fact of the matter is
(03:58):
is that when lebron were in their early twenties, they
were really damn good. They had Knights where they looked
like they were at the level the best players in
the world, but there were clearly guys that were just better,
more well rounded basketball players than them at that specific
point in time. Wemby looks like, for sure the best
two way impact player in the league, and even when
(04:20):
you factor in the extra premium on offense. We talked
about this after game seven. Like, one of the biggest
dynamics of that game was just how much more high
quality threes the Spurs generated than the thunder did, simply
because of Wemby's role gravity his offense, Even when you
or his value, even when you do put that extra
(04:40):
premium on offense, I just think Wenby is pretty clearly
the best player in the world at this point, and
he's got so much more room to improve. What would
a title mean for Wemby at age twenty two in
his legacy, It would mean that he is ahead of
the pace to go down as the greatest basketball player
of all time. But we're talking about literally at the
first turn of that lap. There's so so, so so
(05:03):
much more time, so much more accomplishments to be logged
for Wemby in order for him to reach that level.
But he is ahead of the pace. Number two, the
Knicks have a chance to buck the narrative that you
can't win with the likes Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns. Now,
those of you guys who've can follow in the show
for a while, know that I have a pretty simple
(05:24):
opinion about this kind of dynamic. Can you win with
this guy, can you win with that guy? And to me,
it really just comes down to, like you can sure
no matter who the player is up to a certain point,
I'm sure there is like a legitimate drop off where
it's like, Okay, if my best player is, you know,
the twenty third best player in the league, I probably
(05:46):
can't win the title. But like, if I have the
nineteenth best player, but I also have the twentieth, twenty first,
twenty second, twenty third, twenty fourth, twenty fifth, twenty sixth,
all on the same team, I'm probably pretty freaking good
and I'm probably really difficult to beat four times out
of seven, even though I don't have Luca or I
don't have Giannis, or I don't have Shay, or I
don't have Jokich or I don't have Wemby. Right, So,
(06:07):
like when I talk about the idea of like how
do you win with the with a player that's considered
flawed in that tier, to me, so much of that
just has is more of a conversation about the supporting cast.
The bottom line is is that the championships that we've
seen one with like somewhat mediocre rosters, it's always a
legitimate top tier superstar who has a case to be
(06:29):
the best player in the world. Yo Kitchen twenty twenty three,
right Steph in twenty twenty two. The Yannis in twenty
twenty one just has some recent examples. Those are teams
where like you look at the rest of the team
and it's like, Wow, the second best player on that
team is Chris Middleton or Andrew Wiggins or Jamal Murray. Like, Yeah,
(06:52):
if you're gonna win the title with that type of roster,
you need to have one of the dudes in the NBA.
But if you don't have one of the dudes in
the NBA, you just need more help behind them. It's
really just about team construct and putting together a basketball
team that can do all the jobs that need to
be done that give you a great chance to win
basketball games. We'll dig a little bit further into that,
(07:13):
specifically regarding Jalen Brunson when we talk about his legacy
here in a few minutes. But the idea that the
Knicks can't win with Brunson and Cat it's always just
been more of like a challenge than a reality, like
can the Knicks win with Brunson and Cat, Yes, it's
just difficult. And that's where, like you know, I think
it extends deeper than just the roster. It's also about matchups, right,
(07:37):
Like you know, the Knicks ended up making it to
the finals this year. I don't say this to take
away from their accomplishment. I just say this as a reality.
You beat a six seed Hawks team, you beat a
seven seed Sixers team, and then you beat a four
seed Cleveland team, right, Like, none of those teams are
(07:58):
in the same stratosphere as the upper level contenders that
we listed in our contender rankings to start the playoff run, right,
So like, nothing wrong with that, but you managed to
squeak through without having to face any of those types
of teams, and then here in the finals, like we
talked about in our series preview, I just think you
match up very well with the Spurs. We'll talk more
about that in a Spurs question here in just a second. So,
(08:20):
like it's a combination of like, can you win with
Cat and Jalen Brunson, Yes, if you have the right
amount of talent around them, and if you catch some
favorable matchups, right, Like the specific things that cause problems
for Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns over the years
had a lot to do with like matchups like Indiana
in that combination of just five out spacing speed, transition
(08:45):
attack to punish Cat for some of the mistakes he made,
like it was as much about matchups as it was
about talent as well. But they certainly have a chance
to prove that dynamic by winning this year because there
are a lot of people that feel like they can't win.
They always could, it just was gonna require a somewhat
thin path. Here we are. That thin path has materialized.
(09:08):
And for the record, guys, like I talked about this
before the playoffs, this is not something that I'm trying
to Monday morning quarterback here. I said before the playoffs,
there is a pathway for the Knicks that stems around
the idea of the Spurs making it to the finals.
If they can squeeze out the East and they meet
the Spurs when they get there, that's the thin line
(09:30):
for them. I would have picked the Thunder versus the Knicks.
The very simple dynamic is the Thunder are a speed team.
The Spurs are a power team. The Knicks their perimeter
defense is built to handle power. They have a lot
of power elements to their game that cancel out what
the Spurs do. The thunder speed elements would have caused
(09:53):
problems for this Knicks build. It is as much about
matchups as anything else. But the Knicks have an opportunity
to prove that con accept true by winning in the
next round because at that point, like it is a
real possibility. Hell, I'm picking it to happen. It's a
real possibility that two weeks from now, we're gonna be
sitting on our couches watching the TV and Karl Anthony
Towns is gonna be going like this with the Larry O.
(10:15):
B and Jalen Brunts is gonna be going like that
with the Bill Russell. I think it's the Bill Russell
MVP Trophy, the Finals MVP trophy, right, Like, that's a
real possibility now, So they absolutely have a chance to
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and Tennessee. Number three. Can the Spurs beat four very
(12:22):
different teams in two months? This is that dynamic that
we were just talking about, the different matchups, right, This
is the you know I've seen a lot of I've
seen a lot of like specific talking points on Twitter
over the last couple of days, like the Spurs are
a sixty two win team, They've clearly demonstrated themselves to
be better. I even saw people like saying things because
(12:44):
I know that I had mentioned that one of the
big driving points for me picking the Knicks was that
game on March first, because that was after the Spurs
had benched Harris and Barnes. They had they had won
eleven in a row before that game. They won five
in a row after that game, and they just got
their butts kicked in Madison Square Garden, you know. And
I had someone write a comment underneath our series preview
(13:07):
on Twitter say something along the lines of, like, you
shouldn't use that game because it was a matinee game
on the second to last game of the Rodeo road trip,
Like they just kind of ran into a brick wall,
blah blah blah blah. And the thing that is silly
to me about that is like I consider all that
sort of stuff when I'm watching the film. So, for instance,
(13:31):
like there's a huge difference between Wow, they keep getting
lost in transition, how much of this is the cross
matching versus how much of this is just the reality
of them being fatigued in the regular season, right, I
do factor that in versus like, oh, like, this is
a physical matchup problem. Here's Steph Castle trying to break
(13:53):
down an Andobi off the dribble and he's just unable to.
Or here's Wenby trying to drive on Kat and Cat's
just stonewalling him with a low center of gravity and
pushing him off of his line, and Wemby exposes the
basketball and the Knicks are really good at dig downs,
so they can force turnovers that way, right, Or oh, like,
look at the way that they're attacking Wemby and pick
(14:15):
and roll. This is just a very simple dynamic if
if Shay was unwilling to take pull up threes but
Brunson is, and that eventually pulls Wemby further up to
the level that opens up this void underneath the basket
where Karl Anthony Towns has a massive size advantage on
the offensive glass. Like there are like, oh, this is
a fatigue related issue, and then there are like, oh,
(14:36):
this is a match up basketball related issue. And when
I was watching the film and deciding who I was
gonna pick and again, guys, I picked him fifty five
to forty five. So I'm not over here saying like
I think the Knicks are going to blow him out
or anything like that. Like I just noticed a lot
of stuff on the film that are basketball dynamics that
represent this very basic truth, which is you have to
(14:57):
beat four very different teams over the course of two
months to win the title. Your weaknesses almost matter more
than your strengths when you get to the postseason. And
what ends up happening when you play four different teams
is it feels kind of inevitable that you'll run into
one of them that can expose a very specific weakness
(15:19):
that you have. Right, And it's not like I do
think the Knicks will score a little bit easier against
the against the Spurs defense than the Thunder did for
two main reasons. Their ball movement in the Brunson ability
to shoot pull up threes and how that spaces wem
Be out a little bit more. And then two Karl
Anthony Towns is just like the opposite of Chet. You
(15:41):
know how Chet did nothing to help Shay in the
last round. Like Kat's gonna be a monster in this series.
He's going to be a problem that the Spurs have
to deal with, So I think they'll score a little
bit easier there. But the bigger thing to me is
this was already a somewhat flawed Spurs offense, right Their
guards are young and somewhat inconsiser Wemby still has some
warts in his offensive game, and the Knicks have some
(16:04):
very specific tools that give them the ability to address
some of the strengths that the Spurs offense brings to
the table. So it's not about do I think the
Spurs are a better team than the Knicks. If that's
the question, then the answers the Spurs like, of course
the Spurs are a better team. They have clearly demonstrated
them to themselves to be a better basketball team ever
since the beginning of October. That's not how you win
(16:25):
a title. You win a title by beating four teams
in two months, and that involves you having to confront
some of your weaknesses, and maybe around that's early in
the playoff run, maybe in a round that's later in
the playoff run, and the Knicks represent very much that
that final challenge for the Spurs in this path number four,
(16:45):
one of the hallmarks of Jalen Brunson ball is picking
on matchups? How does that line up with the Spurs
team that doesn't really play any bad defenders the way
a team like Cleveland did so just in a very simple,
basic way. Right. How did they win in the second
round against Philly by just frying Joel Embiid in ball screens? Right?
(17:09):
Because Embiid was banged up and slow to begin with,
so super slow and is banged up state and he
just could not defend in the pick and roll against
Jalen Brunson. Right, How did they beat the Calves with
Brunson on the ball picking on James Harden in particular,
but also some Donovan Mitchell picking on James Harden in ISOs? Right,
(17:34):
The Calves were switching, they were roaming on the back line,
and they were just like, we're willing to let James
Harden die out there on an island against Jalen Brunston.
Let's see what happens. And he went to work. Right.
There is no defender on the team that is in
the same stratosphere of James as James Harden as like
a target. Right, And Victor wemen Yama is possibly you know,
(17:55):
the best pick and roll defender in the league. Right,
So it's a very very different challenge that goes without say.
There's two things that I would say directly to address
this idea. Though. One, don't underestimate Jalen Brunson in his
ability to find a matchup that he likes, even if
it isn't necessarily what you would consider to be a
weak defender. I don't know if it'll be CHAMPENNI I
(18:17):
don't know if it'll be Vicell or which defender it
ends up being. But like Jalen's gonna find one of
those guys that, even though they're a good defender in
against the aggregate of NBA level talent, maybe they struggle
a little bit with Jalen Brunson's herky jerkiness. Maybe they
struggle a little bit with his low center of gravity
foot speed advantage. Maybe they struggle with navigating screens with him,
(18:42):
and Brunson starts moving him into screens after he gets
switched on. Brunson, I think, will find a matchup that
he likes there and do some damage. But the second piece,
and this is arguably the most important piece, that's not
the only way the Knicks have that they can attack
on offense. It's one of the biggest kind of foundational
things that makes this Knicks team great. They have like
(19:02):
three or four pretty unique offensive looks that they can
go to depending on what type of team they're playing.
Whether it's using Jalen Brunson off ball with Karl Anthony
towns as the passing folkrum above the break, whether it
is using Karl Anthony Towns more is like a bully
ball player in the post or on the glass, whether
it's Jalen Brunson heliocentric, you know, hunting matchups in ISO,
(19:27):
or hunting matchups in pick and roll, whether it's like
you know, okay, we're we're using Ogan and Obi More
because he's got a size advantage against whoever's guarding him.
They just have a bunch of different kind of ways
they can shape shift on offense and attack you in
different ways. So like the idea that like, I don't
think the Spurs matchup is as simple as like, well,
(19:49):
Jalen Brunson doesn't really have a target, Therefore, how are
the Knicks gonna score? Like, Jalen Brunson might still find
a target, and even if he doesn't, they'll have other
routes that they can go to try to generate quality offense.
All Right, last one, if Jalen Brunson were to win
the title, what would that mean for his legacy? Now,
(20:12):
this is a super super interesting concept because he's a
very he's a very kind of unique player in NBA history.
When we're talking about his list of accolades or accomplishments, right,
we'll talk about where he like ranks in the league.
I think that's something that's at least worth digging into,
because I think he becomes a very interesting candidate for
(20:33):
a very specific spot that's kind of rotated over the
course of the last few years. But like, this is
not a player that's been a first team All NBA selection.
This is not a player that's been an MVP. This
is not a player that has multiple regular seasons in
a row where you just consider him to be at
the same level as the top guys in the league.
(20:54):
He just has never been able to either reach that
level of impact or that level of influence in order
to get that level of recognition. If he were to
win the title and let's say look great doing it, Like,
let's say he does find matchups, he does average twenty
six twenty seven points per game very efficiently. HiT's three
four really big shots in the finals that ice games,
(21:17):
and he's hoisting the Finals MVP trophy. Where I think
it gets fascinating is more his standing in the league.
He's gonna have a hard time moving up all time
lists without MVPs, without first Team All NBAS, without the
kind of accolades that back up the success, and it's
very unusual to see a player, like it's just super
(21:38):
unusual to see a player win a Finals MVP that
doesn't have those sorts of things like Shay multiple MVP's,
multiple first Team All NBAS, Jason Tatum multiple first Team
All NBAS, Jokic multiple MVPs, multiple first Team All NBAS,
Steph multiple MVPs, multiple first Team All NBAS, Yiannis multiple MVPs,
multiple first Team All NBAS, Lebron multiple MVPs, multiple first
(22:01):
Team All NBAS. You go back, that's kind of like
the standard, even Kawhi, even Kevin Durant, maybe not multiple MVPs.
Kawhi doesn't have MVPs, but he's always been a guy
that we've considered, like, when this dude is healthy, he's
one of the top five players in the league, right,
and then you'll have outliers that win finals MVP, like
Andrea Gudala in twenty fifteen. But one, he just shouldn't
(22:22):
have won it. It should have been Steph. And two
he's a role player, so that's not even a comp
for Brunson. So Step one is kind of acknowledging that
it would be somewhat unprecedented at least in modern NBA history.
Where I think it becomes fascinating is the way that
we rank players in the league. So there's this top tier,
and for several years now it's been Luka, Jokiciannis, and
(22:44):
Shay in some order. And you know, we can debate
that until next Tuesday, right, But that's been the group.
And then I've always had like this fifth guy that's
like kind of hanging on to that tier, who's not
in the tier but is like clearly better than everyone
below him, but also clearly not as good as the
(23:06):
guys above him. And the two guys that have routinely
kind of cycled through that spot over the last few
years have been Jason Tatum and Anthony Edwards, right, And
it's been like a very unique kind of class of
player where you don't view them in that Luca class,
but they're clearly better than like the Donovan Mitchells and
the you know Anthony Davis when he was in his prime,
(23:29):
and you know the old vets like Steph Curry, Lebron James,
Kevin Durant, like that kind of thing, right, So like
it it's a kind of a unique spot on that list.
Now that four has grown to five because of Wemby, Right,
So now you put Wemby in that group, and it's
those five dudes at the top of the league in
some order. And I think Giannis is probably the fifth
because of his health issues that he's had. But I
(23:50):
think Jalen Brunson becomes that clear number six if he
wins the title this year. Meaning like be honest with yourself,
do you think who do you think's better overall? As
like not potential, not like who's more fun to watch,
not like whose personality we like more, not who we
think is gonna be better when they're you know, two
(24:12):
three years from now, but like who's better Jalen Brunson
or Anthony Edwards. I think you have to go with
a guy like Brunson if he wins the title this year,
who's better Jalen Brunson or a guy like Jason Tatum. Like,
you have to go with a guy like Jalen Brunson
even without the Achilles injury, if he wins the title
this season in this type of role. So I think
(24:33):
it's less about his legacy, because his legacy is like
so unique that it's kind of difficult to quantify under
any circumstances. But his standing in the league becomes pretty clear.
I talked in December after he won the NBA Cup
and he had a good couple of weeks after that.
I was like, man, Jalen Brunston is starting to look
like a top tier superstar, and he's consistently struggled to
maintain that. He had another drop off in the second
(24:55):
half of the season this year. There's a reason why
he hasn't won first team All NBA or and given
serious MVP consideration over the years. It's had to do
with his ability to sustain. But the bottom line is
he is one of the legit offensive engines in the NBA.
When we talk about a player who kind of in
and of himself can generate a ton of quality shots
(25:16):
for his team. You start at the top of the league,
and it's like Jokic, it's Luca, it's Shay, you know.
And then you know, Wenby's kind of his own little
category there. We talked about that earlier with his role gravity.
Giannis is his own kind of category there too, with
his playmaking and rim pressure. But like after that, and
you start talking about the other like offensive engines in
the NBA, the only guy that like you'd debate there
(25:40):
with Jalen is like Steph Curry, right, And that's with
Steph being very old at this point in his career,
an injury prone, he is quite simply one of the
top four or five most reliable offensive engines in the NBA.
And so if you have a really good basketball team
and you have a really good offensive engine that kind
of ties all of it together, you give yourself a
(26:00):
great chance to win the title. And this year is
a great example of that. And so I think it's
more just his standing in the league. I think he
just gets resoundingly viewed as the best player that's not
in the top tier of superstars if he were to
win the title this season. All right, guys, that's all
we have for this morning. We'll be back tonight after
the final buzzer of Game one of the Finals. I'll
see you guys live on YouTube later Snap
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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