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July 11, 2024 32 mins

Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Team USA’s win over Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jamal Murray, and Team Canada in an Olympics exhibition game. Jason explains why Team USA deserves to be heavy favorites to win the basketball gold medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

4:30 - Atmosphere at the game

6:30 - Takeaways from the game

25:00 - Thoughts on Team USA

29:30 - Thoughts on Canada

31:30 - Kawhi Leonard out from Team USA

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(01:34):
Slash baseball all right, we'll good to hoops tonight here
at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you
guys are having a great week so far. I'm in
Las Vegas, or last night I was able to be

(01:55):
in the arena to watch USA versus Canada. We're gonna
break it all down today. I want to talk about
what it was like in the arena. I want to
talk about what the basketball game was like some notes
that I have about this particular team as they head
overseas to start their Olympic campaign. And then at the
tail end of the show, I want to talk a
little bit about Kawhi Leonard, him being sent home from
the team to rest and recuperate and prepare for next

(02:17):
season with the Clippers, and the decision to bring Derek White,
Jalen Brown's teammate Jalen Brown, who got upset about it
on Twitter yesterday to replace Kawhi Leonard on the team.
I want to talk about some of my thoughts surrounding
that decision. You guys owe the joe before we get started.
Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss
any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, I
underscore jsonlts. You guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget

(02:39):
about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under
Hoops Tonight. And then keep dropping mailbag questions in the
YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the
rest of the summer. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So the environment at the game last night was insane.
It was just like a It was a relentless kind
of parade of famous people every single time out. It's like,
here's all of these all time great college basketball coaches.

(03:01):
Here's Jim Beaheim, and here's coach k oh. Here's Obama
he walked on to the floor. Oh, here's all these
famous women's basketball players who played for Team USA. Oh,
here's all these famous for men's players who played for
tam Osa. Here's Dwayne Wade, Here's Carmelo Anthony and then
that led That was all surrounding this basketball game where
we're watching not just Team USA that has Steph Curry,

(03:23):
Lebron James, you know, Jason Tatum and Anthony Edwards and
Anthony Davis and Joel Embiid and all this incredible star power,
but against a feisty, energetic, really good defensive, especially on
the perimeter, Canada team that has a player in Shai
Yiosos Alexander that is regarded by most basketball people to
be better than anybody that plays for Team USA. I

(03:45):
think that's up for debate, but he's certainly in that
echelon with the guys at the top of the league,
right and Jamal Murray, who's a famous playoff riser NBA champion,
and they've got RJ. Barrett, and they've got Dylan Brooks
who's tripping everybody and play and dirty basketball event. About
that a little bit later, but it just was. It
just was an incredible environment inside that arena. It really

(04:07):
felt like a special basketball event. I felt very fortunate
to be there. I'm thankful for the Volume for sending
me there. I was able to be there with some
of some of my family. Two of my brothers and
my mom were there. So it was just a really
really cool experience. I was very thankful to be a
part of it. And as a basketball fan, how could
you not enjoy that? And like, even just talking about

(04:28):
it from a tactical perspective, it's just super interesting to
talk about, like, you know, scheme approach for the different
defensive front lines that they can use, how they should
play offensively, the fit of Steph Curry and Lebron James,
and how you kind of accentuate them with other players
on the perimeter. Just it just is super fascinating. I'm
really excited that for the next month and a half

(04:49):
we get to talk this level of basketball during the
summer in the NBA. Like, if you're a basketball fan,
it just doesn't get any better than this. It was
super exciting and that on a What was super interesting
is the game itself was insanely intense from the opening
tip and like this was not. The USA team got
off to a clunky start on the offensive end, but

(05:12):
they were defending. Both teams came out with just an
insane level of defensive intensity like this it was a friendly,
and the coaches were kind of manipulating it as a
friendly in the sense that like the USA team did
line shifts, meaning like they had the entire starting five
come in and then they bring this entire different unit
in with Tyrese Halliburn, Anthony Edwards, Jason Tatum, bam Adebio,

(05:35):
Anthony Davis. There were some crossover as MB gott in
foul trouble and at the in the fourth quarter they
tried kind of like a mixed group that had Anthony
Edwards with Lebron in Steph. But like for the most part,
like the coaches tried to coach it like it was
a friendly, but the players wanted to win that game.
I actually tweeted this out during the game, but I
was surprised that Canada punted when they did. It was

(05:56):
early fourth quarter and somebody hit a three. I can't
remember who it was. I think it might have been
kill Alexander Walker. But one of their guys hits at
three and it cuts it to twelve with like eight
minutes left, and you're like, this game is there to
be had for Canada if they want it, And then
Canada ends up hunting the game, which I was actually
surprised by because, like you could tell if you were
watching that game, all of the players wanted to win

(06:17):
that game for both teams, even though it was an exhibition,
which to me that makes for great basketball. Like, the
game was kind of ugly at stretches, Like the final
score was pretty low. The first quarter in particular, I
think Canada led twenty one to fourteen at the end
of it. It was not pretty basketball in the sense
that it was free flowing and lots of really pretty

(06:37):
skill work, but that kind of ugly basketball. Actually, like
when it's ugly basketball, because people are playing bad basketball
don't really have an interest in watching it, right, it's
boring to watch. But when you watch an ugly game,
that's ugly because of the intensity, it's ugly because it's
a rock fight. It's ugly because everyone's playing super super hard.
That to me is a beautiful kind of ugly basketball.

(07:00):
That's what it was last night. I really enjoyed it.
Let's talk about the slow start for the USA. So
they get down twelve to four at the first time
out when Steve Kerr makes that first line change. A
big part of it is just kind of like figuring
each other out, especially on the offensive end of the floor.
The US played a very intense brand of basketball on
the defensive end of the floor with Embiid on the floor,

(07:22):
with the starters, they had to drop right Like Embiid
can't switch out onto the perimeter and guard quicker players
in space the way that Anthony Davis can. So when
Bam or when Embiid is out there, you kind of
have to chase over the top. And I want to
I criticize. I didn't criticize, but I pointed out before
this game, before this kind of USA adventure, that one

(07:43):
of the weaknesses of this team is they don't have
a ton of perimeter speed. Andrew Holiday is really the
only guy on the roster that's like a professional screen navigator,
a guy who, like you can count on to dependably
get over screens. But I was actually impressed by that
entire group. There was Steph Curry did a really good
job chasing over screens. Devin Booker did a really good

(08:04):
job chasing over screens. Do you guys remember the Lebron
chase down block that led on the kil Alexander Walker
that led to the kick ahead that led to the
Devin Booker three on the left wing. That was Lebron
chasing over the top of a screen, staying attached and
blocking the Kile Alexander Walker over the at the rim
in a drop coverage. So you know, even though I

(08:24):
don't like him, beads fit with the starters, which we're
going to talk more about in a minute. Defensively, I
actually did think that the USA showed that they are
capable of multiple defensive looks, which I think is good
because then when they came in with the bench group,
it was Bam eighty Tatum and they did a ton
of switching and Tyres Halliburton held up He like tied
up RJ. Barrett on a drive. He got a couple

(08:45):
of stops fronting the post. He didn't get burned on
an inside seal by Kelly Olynnick once, but even Tyre's
Halliburton held up reasonably well in switches, and so they're
gonna have a switching look, but they're over the top
chase with embad and drop look I thought was pretty
solid as well. Defensively, the starters were fine defensively in
general for the entire game, I was super impressed by

(09:06):
Team USA, and there was actually a postgame interview with
Stephen Lebron where they both talked about how like, hey,
we can work through these offensive kinks, but as long
as we defend like that, we give ourselves a really
good chance to win every night. And they're absolutely right.
If they defend like that, they're just gonna win. There's
not a team out there that has the depth of
defensive personnel that they have. That Tatum ad Bam frontline

(09:30):
was just frightening to watch. There is this sequence where
like Ad kept ending up on Shay Gil just Alexander
and these ball screens because they bring Kelly Olynnock into
the action, and Ad literally stopped Shay on an island
four consecutive times to start his shift, that which got
them ount in transition, and then Tatum was bringing that
rim pressure and transition, and that group regained control of

(09:53):
the game, and then the starters came in and played
much better. So like, defensively, I'm thrilled with how Timosa looks.
Think they look like a gold medal team easy, just
based on the strength of that unit. Now, as far
as the offensive end goes with the starters, it's a
little clunky. And you got to remember too, like it's
clunky in multiple levels. There's the Embiid fit, which I
want to get to in a little bit. But another

(10:15):
part of it is like you're you got all these
stars out there, right, Like it's Steph, it's Devin Booker,
it's Lebron James, it's Joel Embiid. Drew Holliday is the
one guy who's kind of like a ball mover, so
to speak, in that group, right, And so Steph is
used to having a certain level of aggression, Lebron is
used to a certain level of aggression, Devin Booker is

(10:36):
used to a certain level of aggression, and so is
Joel Embiid. But when you're playing in a five man group,
it's a totally different type of flow, right, Like a
Superstars job on an NBA team is he's typically surrounded
by a subsidiary star and then three role players, right,
and so his job is to create and then for

(10:56):
everyone else to kind of benefit off of that and
to play a smaller role. With a unit like this,
you can't have four guys jockeying for control of every
single possession. There has to be a flow, there has
to be a rhythm, there has to be ball movement
from side to side, And early on I thought they
looked a little hesitant. I thought the one kind of
the one kind of personnel weakness in that group is

(11:17):
they don't get a ton of dribble penetration. And I
think there are ways to address that. For instance, like
Steph can manufacture dribble penetration by virtue of his shooting
ability to kind of like draw the defense out and
create openings on the role or to just beat his
man off the dribble weaponizing his shooting. I think Lebron
can bring dribble penetration. So I think with the starters,

(11:39):
Lebron and Steph almost have to kind of take the
more aggressive role and have Devin Booker and Drew Holliday
play off of that, and then the mb pieces when
you're running five out and again, like five out is
a concept that we've talked a ton about on the
show in the last you know, six months. But the
gist of the concept of five out is you're never
permanently occupying a spot underneath the basket, right in the

(12:00):
dunker spot or anything kind of around the basket. You
roll into that space, you cut into that space, you
drive into that space. But primarily, your big guys operate
as dribble handoff fulcrums from the perimeter. They are the
guys that are flowing into actions, handing the ball off
to a guy coming out of the corner, or you know,
they're like you see a lot of Chicago action where

(12:22):
a guy will pin down to the corner. As the
guy comes off of that pin down and then flows
into the dribble handoff, he's got to flow from side
to side. He's got to make passing reads out of it.
The five man in five out is one of the
most important roles because he is the fulcrum. He is
the thing that makes everything work in terms of moving
the ball from side to side. That is not Joel
Embiid's strength. Joel Embiid is one of the five best

(12:44):
basketball players in the world. Joel Embiid is a force
of nature that is impossible to deal with on the
low block. But when he's playing for the Sixers, you
can afford to toss the ball to him on the
block and let him just go to work for extensive stretches.
You can afford to run spread, pick and roll and
have him catch on the short, roll around the elbow
and catch and jab step and catch and jab step

(13:06):
and pump fake and do all that stuff that he
does right. He can be a ball stopper with Philly
because Philly needs him to determine the fate of the
majority of their possessions. Team USA does not need that.
Team USA needs somebody that can help that offense flow
from side to side. And so even though Ad put
the larger portion of his fingerprints on that game just

(13:27):
using his defensive capability, I think he's just a more
natural fit with the starters because he's a guy who
spent all last season playing five out, who is one
of the best five out offensive folk rooms in the league.
Because he's got that side to side movement, because he
rolls into the lane and has real role gravity, because
he can offensive rebound it when things get caught in

(13:47):
the blender and guys get crossmatched, and all of a sudden,
he's got a shorter defender on him underneath the basket.
AD is just a natural fit there, and so like
it's not an insult to Joel Embiid. His skill set
is just very much a primary initiator skill set, whereas
AD offensively is more of a five out cog that
can be easily plugged in alongside other superstar players. And

(14:11):
so I think in the long run, and we're going
to talk about the other positional players too, because I'm
not entirely sure I like the Devin Booker fit with
the starters either, but I do like the idea of
swapping AD for MBID. And then the other part of
that is when you go to your bench unit and
bam out a BIOS out there, right, and look, you know,
maybe it ends up being a Devin Booker out there.

(14:33):
We'll see how the lineups end up getting constructed. But
when you do get to your bench unit, that's a
unit where you actually need EMBD to be more aggressive, right,
And so within the context of that, it actually just
makes a lot more sense for both guys you want
ad to go out there and set screens and roll
to the rim. Put him with all your high level
offensive players and be an offensive cog. You want Embid

(14:54):
to be aggressive as a low post and face of guy.
Put him with the bench group where there's less offensive
skill and you actually need him to be aggressive. That's
just a better way to utilize his skill set within
this team. When the starters came in the second time,
they played way better, a lot more pace and transition.
They got a lot of really fun playmaking in the
open floor. There's just so much basketball skill in terms

(15:18):
of basketball i Q. The ability to read the floor,
the ability to make every conceivable pass, the knowledge of
how to run your lanes and transition and fill open spaces,
the ability to finish above the rim and transition. There's
just so much of that talent that when you get
them in the open floor, they can be really exciting
to watch. And one of the things that the starters
did much better the rest of the game was just

(15:39):
play defense, get out with pace, off the strength of
their defense, and make plays in the open floor. It
was it was really fun to watch them in those sequences.
Steph Curry, I got to see him throw throw out
a little flurry in that third quarter. I've you know,
I've had the fortune, the good fortune to see a
lot of NBA players in person, but Steph is a

(16:00):
I had never seen in person yet, and that was
really fun to watch it Just it started with like
this really cool sequence with Lebron where Steph drove. It
kind of started clunky because Steph drove into Lebron in
the corner, who caught, and then Steph kind of like
replaced in the same corner, so it looked clunky for
a second. But embiid ended up having the ball on
a kickback pass right around the right elbow, and then

(16:22):
Dwight Powell basically signaled to Dylan Brooks to switch on
to Steph so that he can guard Lebron in the
corner and kind of help in case Embi looked to
be aggressive, and Lebron like identified it and you could
see him and Steph kind of quickly figure it out.
Lebron just screened his own man. He screened Dylan Brooks
because he knew that Canada was going to switch that action.

(16:44):
So then when Steph cut out, Dylan Brooks went to
switch out onto Steph but ran into his original man, Lebron,
who was setting a screen on him. Steph ends up
breaking wide open on the right wing for the catch
and shoot three. Right. Then Steph comes down has that
really like fake spin moved dribble where he gets the
and one and then he does the pose on the
floor right and then he ends up getting the three

(17:06):
off of the offensive rebound from Drew Holliday on the
left wing. It was like bang, bang bang, eight quick points.
That was really really exciting to see in person. It
kind of fell apart from there because USA did not
do a good job of force feeding the hot hand.
There was a possession where and again this is part
of the thing with mb like he like straight up
dribbled the ball of the floor into a post up
and then turned the basketball over and you're like, dude,

(17:26):
Steph Curry's got eight straight points. Like get the ball
to Steph Curry. Like, just get the ball to Steph Curry,
set a screen, get out of the way, Like that's
what you do in that situation. You read when you're
playing five out, it's all flow going side to side.
But when you see a guy as a hot hand,
you got to find a way to keep getting it
to him, right, But that was cool. We had the
Lebron lobbed as Steph, which obviously is a connection we've

(17:46):
been dying to see for a long time. It was
just a really, really fun basketball game. It went almost
exactly as I expected. I tweeted before the game. I
expected Canada to get taken early lead and then for
USA to come back and win a hard fought game.
It ended up being like a more dramatic version of
both ends of that, Like Canada took a pretty substantial
lead twelve four, right, and then the US actually kind

(18:07):
of dominated the tail end of the game and they
ended up going up by fifteen. Right. But it kind
of flowed more or less as I expected. Canada is
the second leading favorite on DraftKings to win the Olympic
gold medal. I thought it was fascinating because before the game, USA,
according to draft Kings, was minus three ninety and Canada
was plus nine hundred. After the game, USA went way

(18:30):
down to minus five hundred and Canada bumped up to
plus eleven hundred. So even Vegas saw that as a
pretty strong indicator that the US matches, at least, at
the very least matches up really well with Canada and
deserves to be a substantial favorite to win. And then
you got to imagine you're gonna plug You're gonna plug
Kevin Durant into this as well, which is just going
to provide another layer of shooting and defense. This team

(18:52):
is going to be really, really fun to watch. We're
gonna be covering them throughout the throughout the rest of
this process.

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Speaker 2 (19:57):
Thoughts on the team at large, I would start a
d as far as the rest of the starting lineup.
I was thinking long and hard about it because Anthony
Edwards came in and was just frightening in that second group.
The second group took off because in the half court
brought dribble penetration, like straight up beat his man off
the dribble and had a reverse layup, was coming off
of the dribble handoffs with a lot more pace, and

(20:18):
he was engaging o'lennick as the drop coverage big which
was creating openings for Bam at a bio on the roll.
He just had that verve right. He also was like
far and away the most confident player for Team USA,
which I thought was super interesting. Hit a bunch of
really tough jump shots, and again like to have the
confidence to rise and fire difficult pull up jump shots

(20:39):
when you're surrounded by other really really good players and
then to knock them down on top of that. Not
to mention this is just like the next example of
the fact that for whatever concern you might have about
Anthony Edwards, as a jump shooter. Every time there is
a high leverage, intense, high stakes environment, the dude just

(20:59):
has proven to be able to knock these shots down,
which is really really exciting for his long term potential.
I thought he looked like the best and most comfortable
US player last night, and so there was part of
me that was wondering should Ant start. And the initial
thought I had was he brings drible penetration, and so

(21:20):
I like the idea of him kind of bringing some
of that to that starting unit that doesn't have a
ton of that. But then I thought, I like Ant
being this aggressive. Right Like, Ant was the most confident
and most aggressive player for Team USA, and that is
a real, real value add especially in a situation where
guys can be hesitant and not really feel like kind

(21:43):
of grabbing control of things. And so I actually kind
of prefer Ant still coming off the bench because I
want him to come in and be super aggressive. But
if he starts games like that, it might take away
from the flow of a unit that has Lebron and
Steph on the floor as well, and so I like,
I think you keep Drew with the star, but I
think a way to kind of add a little bit

(22:04):
more downhill verve to that starting unit is to swap
out Booker and Tatum. So we already talked about how
I like ad with the starters. If you go Tatum
lebron ad, you can go with a switching look. Drew
Holiday can switch up, Steph can switch up, So that
group can switch really really well. It alleviates some of
the workload for your guards because they don't have to

(22:25):
chase his herd over screens. And then on the offensive
end of the four. When Tatum came into the game
with that second unit, he was primarily doing it in
transition to start, but then he did it some more
later in the game in the half court. But Tatum
was bringing some dribble penetration. He had this really nice
like spin move off the dribble where he got into
the lane for a layup. He had some downhill moves

(22:45):
like in the fast break to get all the way
to the rim. He brings some downhill verve, and he's
a really good connective piece playmaker. And so I think
going Steph, Drew Holliday, Tatum Lebrond gives you the best
kind of like combination of basketball traits to make a

(23:07):
five man lineup work for this team until Kevin Durant
comes back. You could argue Kevin Durant deserves that three
spot when he comes back, but you can figure that
out in the long run. Who knows how long it's
gonna take him to get better with this calf anyway. Right,
then with the bench, you bring an Aunt and Joel Embiid.
What I like about that fit is one when Ant's
being aggressive, Embiid is a guy who can knock down

(23:27):
three point shots, which generates some more space. He also
can pick and pop, which will allow Ant to get
downhill or for Embiid to break wide open above the
break if his man catches him in a drop coverage. Right,
and both Ant and Embiid can be ball stoppers and
can be more aggressive with the ball because that unit
actually needs them to do so, especially with bam Adebayo

(23:48):
on the floor with a Tyrese Halliburton who's not really
a super aggressive scorer with the basketball. Right, So that's
where I think that makes sense. And then Devin Booker
can provide you that Devin Booker can provide you that
like off ball, shooting, close out attacking, all of those
things that will help kind of create space for that unit.
So again they're not going to actually do line shifts.

(24:11):
They'll combine units and you'll get to see different versions
of this, like Embid will get more time with the starters.
There are versions of this that can work out with
different lineup construction, but I think with the starters, Steph
Drew Tatum, Lebron ad is your best bet in the
short term, at least until Kevin Durank gets healthy. On

(24:31):
the Canadian side, they didn't shoot well according to Synergy.
They barely got over zero points six points per jumper
on film. Jamal Murray missed a lot of clean looks,
especially in the first half. But at the same time,
it's kind of a bad matchup for USA with them,
for Canada with USA, because they just have all the
length in the world to contest those pull up jump

(24:52):
shots and to make them really tough. Drew Holiday blocked
Jamal Murray on a pull up jump shot. Lebron had
a really good contest on Jamal Murray's first pull up
jump shot, another example of him chasing over the screen
and getting back into the play really really well. Shay
could not get to his pull up jump shot over
the top of Anthony Davis in any sort of meaningful
way like it like they just have the length to

(25:14):
bother their pull up shooting. It's a really tough matchup.
And then Canada's frontline is small. Dwight Powell and Kelly Olynok,
they're good NBA players, but it's just a lot to
deal with with the massive guys that the USA team
has on their front line. But they can really defend.
They're really good on the perimeter. They have a clear
offensive hierarchy. I do wonder if they if they actually
wanted to bring Zach Edy and Zach Edy decided and

(25:37):
him and his agent decided not to play, or if
it was Canada's actual decision, but that Edie would have
given them a very different look on that front line.
So I'm genuinely curious as to why he's not on
the roster. Before we get out of here, I want
to talk a little bit about Jayleen Brown thing. So
Kawhi Leonard's out has been an issue. This is kind

(25:58):
of interesting because this has been something that's been a
topic around the league for the WI for a while.
I remember I was talking with Tony Jones from the
Athletic like three years ago, and he was like telling me.
He was like, yeah, I've been hearing behind the scenes
that Kawi's nies are just shot, Like they're just shot,
and like there it's a degenerative thing and he's just
never going to be the same. And I never really

(26:18):
at first, I was like, well, I mean, like he
two years ago, he just won finals MVP, Like let's
see what happens that. You know, you know how it
is with information too, like there's always like multiple reports
providing multiple different perspectives, right, and like Tony appears to
have been right, like the like he got hurt again
in twenty twenty two or twenty twenty one, he got hurt,
he was out all year. In twenty twenty two, he
got hurt again, in twenty twenty three, he got hurt again,

(26:40):
twenty twenty four, shows up to Team USA camp and
then he can't finish it. Like it's clear that that's
the case. And honestly, like I just feel bad. I
feel bad for Kawhi because this is a guy who
was really really fun to watch, a guy who me
personally I tried to replicate a lot of things in
his game because I was a bigger forward and I
like to kind of like copy some of his footwork

(27:01):
around the post area. This is a guy that I've
been a fan of for a long time, and to
see him not get to play basketball in meaningful moments
because his body is quit on him is genuinely super sad.
I don't know how the Clippers deal with it. I mean,
if he breaks down again next year, like I talked about,
I think it ends up being a situation where they
start flipping players. You trade a Derek Jones junior, or

(27:22):
you trade James Harden and you get draft compensation back
and you try to rebuild. But it's just sad because
I genuinely don't know if we'll ever see Kawhi play
meaningful basketball again. And that's just a huge bummer. But
then the debate comes becomes who's gonna fill in for him? Right,
it's gonna be Kyrie Irving? Is it going to be
Jaylen Brown? And the guy that end up picking was

(27:42):
Derek White. And I think this is super fascinating because
Jalen Brown clearly took it as an insult right, talked
about it on Twitter, called out Nike as part of
the process. And here's the thing, There's no question that
Jaylen Brown is a better basketball player than Derek White. Right,
But like we talked about earlier, basketball lineups in a
five man context are about feeling responsibilities. Jalen Brown for

(28:06):
the Celtics is the second best player on the team.
They need him to do so much high level stuff,
and he's very capable of doing so much high level stuff,
and so because of that, he is a shoe in
fit in his role in Boston. Right now, think about
Team USA. You're not gonna start second unit. Has you

(28:27):
know Tyrese Halliburton. Maybe it's gonna end up being Devin
Booker in the long run, maybe it ends up being
Tatum or Kevin Durant, depending on if KD can come
back with that bench group, then it's gonna be Bam,
maybe Joel Embiid. Right with that group, you need a
role player. You need someone who can knock down open threes,
run inverted ball screens with better players, who can defend

(28:50):
on the perimeter, who can do all these different things.
And Derek White is a professional role player. He's one
of the very best role players in the league. He
brings us specific need I talked about earlier on the roster.
You have one guy who's a professional screen navigator and
Drew Holliday. This gives you a second guy like that,
Jlen Brown is more of a ball pressure guy in
a switching scheme, right, So, like it's one of those

(29:12):
things where if I'm Jaylen Brown, I understand his perspective
because it's an honor to be on Team USA. Like
I'll just flat out say it, Like if I was
playing in the NBA and I was a high level player,
it'd be a dream of mine to play for Team USA.
I totally understand he feels slighted and by virtue of

(29:35):
his accomplishments as an NBA player, he's done enough to
deserve consideration for that spot. But if you're Steve Kerr,
if you're Eric Spolstra, if you're the Team USA management group,
you are not fearful but respectful of the talent overseas.
You're respectful of Serbia, You're respectful of Canada, You're respectful

(29:55):
of France. You know these teams have a real shot
to beat you, especially in a single elimination environment. You're
gonna do whatever you can to give your team the
best chance to win. And Derek White as a plug
and play role player is legitimately a better fit with
Team USA than Jalen Brown. Jalen Brown is a better
basketball player. It's unfortunate that this is the way it works,

(30:18):
but this is a lesson that the USA team learned
a long time ago from when they brought on Michael
Red and Tayshaun Prince in two thousand and eight. Right,
you need role players. You can't just have a bunch
of stars. Get a bunch of stars, then there's diminishing
returns and you could end up getting yourself beat. By
virtue of plugging in some role players, you give yourself

(30:39):
a more natural feel for a basketball team. Feel bad
for Jalen Brown genuinely deserves that recognition, but totally understand
why USA went in a different direction. All right, guys,
that is all I have for today. As always, a
sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Tonight, I'm
hanging out with my family. I'm going to see Dead
and Company at the Sphere. Super Super were excited for that.

(31:00):
That's gonna be a ton of fun. Tomorrow, Gonna be
at Summer League, Gonna be there for the Brownny game.
Come say hi? If you want to. If you're in
the arena, I at about seven point thirty in the
concourse there, I'm interviewing himehawk Has Junior. It's gonna be
my first interview of an NBA player, Very very excited
as part of our partnership with Chase looking forward to that.

(31:22):
I'm going to talk to him about his time with
the USA Selects team. I'm gonna talk to him about
his growth as a post player, his bizarre, weirdo obsession
with trying to post up and score on bigger players
than him, which by the way, he does very effectively.
So I'm really excited to talk to iive he's a
player that you know, it's interesting. I've been I've been
offered opportunities to interview some lower level NBA role players

(31:45):
last year in particular, and there wasn't really a person
that I thought that that I thought would be really
interesting for this show until Hime was presented as an
option this year, and I immediately immediately was like, Yeah,
let's do it, Like get Hi May, Let's do this. This
is gonna be so much fun and so really really
excited for that. So we'll have the I Mayhawks Interview

(32:05):
I think it'll either come out that night or on
Saturday morning. But I'm also gonna have a show on
Saturday morning breaking down the debut of Dalton connect and
Brownie James at Summer League. I think they're playing the Hawks,
so that's Zachary Risache's a debut for them, as well
as the number one overall pick. So we're gonna get
into all that stuff on Saturday and then obviously when

(32:26):
I'm traveling on Sunday, but when I get back on Monday,
we'll be reacting to the rest of the games on Saturday. Again,
I appreciate you guys, thanks for supporting the show. I
will see you in a couple of days.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
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Colin Cowherd

Colin Cowherd

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