Colin Cowherd & Jason Timpf, host of “Hoops Tonight” react to Team USA’s win over South Sudan in Olympic basketball. Colin & Jason discuss Jayson Tatum's struggles, Joel Embiid’s benching, Steph Curry's off night and LeBron's performance. They talk about Victor Wembanyama's growth and when he will be the best player in the NBA. So why are the Lakers struggling to win games with a healthy LeBron James & Anthony Davis?
Timeline:
3:00 - Jayson Tatum struggling
7:45 - Joel Embiid benched
12:30 - Is FIBA basketball tough for Steph Curry?
15:30 - Victor Wembanyama becoming a superstar
23:30 - LeBron James is Team USA's best player
27:45 - This Anthony Davis is unstoppable
35:30 - Why length is king in NBA
(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):
The volume. So it's twenty twenty four, and let's talk
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(00:47):
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Speaker 2 (00:53):
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Speaker 2 (01:10):
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Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, they were favored to win gold, but There's been
a lot of storylines with Team USA at the Olympics
in France. Jason Timpf hoops tonight, who works about as
hard as anybody in this business. And I want to
start with Jason Tatum. So there's two reasons why a
normally good shooter doesn't shoot well. One his legs, he's tired.
(01:39):
That happens you go on a five games, eight day
Eastern road trip. You know you're an older player, back
to backs, so you lose your legs. The only other
way a good shooter shoots poorly usually is you lose
your confidence. We've seen Lebron, especially early in mid career,
like just lose his confidence in the three point shot.
(01:59):
He acknowledg that. Then he would say, okay, how about
to go score at the basket for about two games,
and then he would build it back up. Jason Tatum's
lost his jump shot, and I think it's and I
think what it is, it really is it defines who
he is. It's one thing that he didn't play in
one of the games. And I can get into that
in a second. But I believe the Celtics traded Marcus
(02:21):
Smart because their problem was Okay, It's one thing that
Tatum is slightly more skilled than Jason Jalen Brown. If
Jalen Brown takes over late in games, he's still a
great player. But when Marcus Smart also started taking the
ball out of his hands late, then it was a timeout.
This isn't gonna work, and they got him out of town.
(02:43):
They got a more talented player with the same skill
set defensively, Drew Holliday, who more understands his role he's
got in the bag. You know, it's a different player,
different mindset. And I think Brad Stevens has told us
time and time again the truth about Jason him.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
He loves him.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
He's smart, he works hard, he's collaborative. But in big
spots against great players or playing with great players, he
can kind of lose his confidence. And when I watch
him against Aalsunani, I'm like, where's what's going on? And
I don't think it's mechanics, Jason. I think it's a
(03:21):
confidence thing, and we're going to have to acknowledge this
is a little bit of who he is from time
to time.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, it goes deeper than the Drew Holiday thing. It
even extends to Porzingis because like the reality is is
those moves are aggressive in the sense that there is
actually some fallout. It's not just the draft compensation, although
they actually made out pretty well in terms of asset
usage in those deals, but it's a lot of it
has to do with the second apron. Like you, by
virtue of bringing those two guys in and making it
(03:49):
so that you have five thirty plus million dollar players
on your roster, you limit your ability to be flexible
in the future. And we talked a lot after the
twenty twenty two series about whether or not it is
one of those things where the Celtics could bank on
Tatum and Brown just improving naturally as time progressed, or
if there was a certain ceiling there and they needed
to be more aggressive. And to your point, I think
(04:10):
Brad Stevens has made that pretty clear with the moves
that he's made. He understands that Tatum is what he
is and that he does need a large amount of support.
And to Tatum's credit, I do think he's kind of
the perfect collaborative superstar because if you're playing on a
team that has that kind of talent, you don't want
a dude who's gonna hijack things and play super helio centric.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You want a ball mover.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
And I do actually think there is something a little
bit mechanical going on with Tatum. I don't know if
it's from how much muscle he's put on that he's
just a little tight, or if he's tinkering with his
mechanics now because he's been missing, but his shot just
it looks like it has a little bit of a
hitch in it, like right is he's starting to gather.
(04:50):
And that is a little funky to me because this
extends beyond the Tmuosa stuff. As you mentioned, he's struggling
with Tmosa person Energy's oo for eleven on jump shots
in the x Phibition Games and the Olympic Games so
far with Team USA. But he took one hundred and
eighty eight jump shots in the playoffs and got just
one hundred and fifty one points out of them. That's
zero point eight points per shot, which is not good.
(05:11):
Anything below one point is bad, and he's well below
one point in a large sample side. So we're in
a extended span here of Tatum really struggling to shoot
the basketball. And like, there's two ways to look at that.
You could take a glass half full and be like, hey,
what if he figures it out this summer and then
we have the Celtics from last year plus Tatum shooting
the ball, Well, that's scary, right. But the other side
(05:34):
of it is if this is something, if this is
one of those things where it's an indicator of him
at this physical build struggling to shoot the basketball, it's
going to make it really difficult for him to impact
winning at the level of the top five players in
the league because when you go up into that group,
when you look at Shay, when you look at Luca, like,
the shooting at that position is incredibly valuable unless you're Yannis,
(05:55):
unless you're Jokic, and as physically gifted as Tatum is,
he's not like those guys. And so I'm just concerned
for him from the standpoint of, like, he needs to
be a good jump shooter to be a legitimate superstar
level player.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So let's talk Embiid who you know, when he comes
into the league, there was a sign early first couple
of years, can't play it unhealthy. So it's like, uh, oh,
Biggs get hurt early. Biggs usually get hurt often, So
he's always had an injury history, but most bigs eventually
do right, like almost all of them.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Y'aw ming shack.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
You can just Greg odin sam BOUI couldn't get on
the floor, like it's the position. People probably aren't built
to last at seven to two, you know, or shack
size with those feet back. It wears out, like I
get it. But Embiid presents something else beyond the injuries,
and because he is more dynamic and more fun to
(06:48):
watch than Jokic or a Yiannis, and there was a
shack component with better ball handling skills. There is also
something that I find my eyes keep telling me this
when I watch the Sixers. Is that And the Olympics
just heightened this is that they can keep running coaches
through Philly and teammates through Philly. I mean even Ben
Simmons for a while he wasn an All Star like
(07:08):
his first year right, like Ben did have promise that, yeah,
Embiid really needs to stay close from the basket. So
coaches kind of pushed a D out for a couple
of years. It was like fashionable and ad didn't even
good shooting from out there. A D said I want
to go back, and he has been for two years.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
A monster.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
I mean, to me, the most underrated player in the
Olympics and the league right now is Ad.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
He is just fun.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Turn the sound down, watch you can't if he's on
the floor. It's like Lebron, you can't take your eyes
off him.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
He's dominant.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Embiid to me, somebody has to just acknowledge fella. Get
away from the perimeter. He fashions himself or is told
that he is such an important part sometimes a perimeter basketball.
He's big, he's aging, he's not as quick. I thought
he literally got in the way of this offense. I'd
(08:07):
seen it in Philly, but it was so profound with
this team. It bothered me. I'm screaming at the TV,
get him out of the game. Your thoughts on Embiid
and are any of these valid? That I watch him offensively.
I know the numbers probably say is great, but he
can he stops I just feel like he can stop
(08:28):
offenses too often.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So it's both.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
It's the jump shot and it's the ball movement piece
the jump shot piece. This has been a consistent story
and Embiad's career, especially over the previous couple of years.
This last year, he actually shot the ball okay against
the Knicks, But like in the previous couple of seasons,
he would shoot like fifty percent on these like mid
range pull up jump shots in the regular season, but
then he'd get in front of Al Horford and he
couldn't make them like he would he would struggle to
(08:54):
knock him down in the postseas. That was a consistent
theme and be you to get to the postseason, his
jump shot would go away. And one of the biggest
things that he ever built out the way Jokic did
is those short range shots, the hooks, the floaters, all
that stuff that's within like exactly, and those are way
more dependable in this kind of setting. The second piece
of it is learning how to play basketball with other people.
(09:15):
This is a this is an epidemic around the league
with certain guys, and we see this. It's kind of
like this with Luca a little bit with more of
a perimeter sense, but we see it with him need
where it's like as long as everything is flowing through
him and he's deciding every single possession, he has this
otherworldly value as almost like.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
A force of nature.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So for instance, if you took ad or Bam and
you put them on last year's Sixers team with Tyrese Maxi.
They're not as good because you can't just give the
ball to Ad and Bam like every single possession and
ask them to determine outcomes. They're not good enough on
the offensive end of the floor. But when you're actually
playing with people other good basketball players, and this will
(09:53):
be really interesting this year with Paul George now in
the equation when you actually need to keep everybody in
rhythm and there's ball in player movement, and Be for
lack of a better term, sucks at that style of basketball.
He doesn't know how to play quick decision making flowing
from side to side, and especially at the center position
in modern NBA basketball, when you play five out, the
(10:15):
center is the bridge between the two sides of the floor.
He's the guy who has to catch and turn and
go to the other guard and flow on the other side.
So when you're trying to keep Booker and Steph and
Lebron and all these guys in rhythm at the same time,
it's better to have a guy like Ad who his
entire life has been a screen and roll big. He's
going to pitch the ball to the other side, set
(10:36):
a screen, roll hard to the rim, run up and
down the floor, and transition. It's a foot speed thing.
It's a decision making thing. You put him in this
setting and it's just a completely different kind of basketball
than what he was doing for the Sixers last year.
And it's quite frankly, he has years of needing to
learn how to play that style if he's ever going
to play in more of a five out, read and
(10:56):
react type of system.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
So during COPA, team you I say struggled, and I
not to make an excuse or defend Greg Berholt or
the coach at the time, but our style is more European.
We have more players now soccer players in America playing
in Europe and flourishing. So COPA is a smaller, shorter field.
It didn't play to our space, our strength, which is
(11:20):
speed and spacing. So as we've become more skilled and
more European, which is the Goldwyn World Cup, COPA has
become a bad tournament for US, which is a grittier,
lower ranked teams, more physical soccer. Similarly, Steph with FEBA
three point shooting is almost it plays with your head,
it's closer, it's more physical you don't get the whistle.
(11:44):
More physicality allowed. And as I watched Steph struggle, it's
not like Tatum struggling, It's not a confidence issue. It's
a is it possible that FIBA Olympic basketball isn't really
it's not really built necessarily for Steph all the time.
I mean, Lebron's good everywhere, But as Steff struggles, I'm
how do I reconcile that he's a great shooter? It's
(12:06):
closer he should be shooting the lights out he's not.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Why So Sudan in particular, and I think their reputation
obviously that them as an organization within FIBA don't have
the reputation of the other great European teams or South
American teams that we faced over the years, Like even
back in the old days when it was like Argentina,
you know that that was or France that was given
his issues, they don't have that history. But I think
South Sudan is the most athletic team in this field
(12:31):
by far, Like they have just an enormous amount of
fast dudes with really long wingspans. They're athletic by NBA standards,
let alone by the Phoebe standards. And so if you
remember last year when Golden State needed to get some
big wins down the stretch of the season, the two
teams that were giving them a lot of trouble were
Sacramento and New Orleans, two teams that were really fast
and really long on the perimeter. And that's like kind
(12:52):
of one of those things. Whereas Steph has aged, he's
become a little bit susceptible to specific types of matchups,
particularly teams that are closing those gaps on him. And
then the piece you mentioned about spacing is real, like
the lack of a defensive three seconds is a real
thing that people are factoring in. So to put it simply,
the vast majority of teams, when they're spacing, will put
(13:13):
their big man on the opposite block from where the
ball is. And so with defensive three seconds, that defender
has to step in and out of the lane on
the far end of the court, whereas in FIBA he
can park his ass right underneath the basket and he
doesn't have to move at all whatsoever. And so this,
by the way, is why I'm far more concerned about
(13:33):
teams like Germany and France or even Serbia against USA
than a team like Canada who just doesn't have the
bigs to deal with USA underneath the basket. Teams that
can park big bodies under the rim can force you
to make jump shots. And as soon as you force
a team to make jump shots, they can go cold.
They can have issues, which is what happening in South
Sudan last time. But yeah, as far as Steph goes
(13:54):
like he, I mean, we let's put it. Let's put
it straight up, Colin. He struggled most of the tail
end of the season last year too, So this is
an extension of that. And I'm really hoping as a
basketball fan that this is just a blip and he's
going to figure it out, because I really want the
Warriors to be interesting next year.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
You know, when you have a bunch of kids, I
have six in my life, the early years can be
frustrating and a lot of work. But what's fascinating about
the early years is kids make giants social and emotional
and physical leaps in nine months. I mean, my son
had a biting stage, he had a coughing stage where
(14:35):
he would make coughing noises, and I always told my wife,
I'm like, it's just just nine year old boys go
through weird, weird you know cycle phases.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, they just do.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Like and I want to use that as as sort
of a pivot to watching young NBA players, is that
when they're eighteen, nineteen twenty, the players just come back
of an off and off season and you're like, damn,
he got a jumper. So I'm watching Wemby and I
feel like I'm watching a kid grow, Like I'm watching
him in some of these games and I'm like, oh,
(15:09):
this is terrifying for the league. Like he you go
to his first month in the league and now Jason offensively,
he plays with so much more confidence. Defensively, he's blocking
stuff with his elbow. He is now way more aggressive
and asserting himself. And I'm watching this and I'm like
(15:32):
I said by the Trade Deadline. I said this on
our previous podcast, By the Trade Deadline, he and Ann
will be the faces of the league. I'm not sure
it's going to take that long. Like Jokich is still
the best player. His ability to not only dominate but
compliment other players and elevate them it kind of separates
Lebron's magic.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Certain guys.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
I would say Michael didn't make everybody better, not every
teammate Lebron, Magic Jokic, Chris Paul, every teammate's better. You
play her best with him, get Chris ball with Wemby.
But I'm watching him, and maybe it's maybe I don't
see him as much as you do. I'm seeing major
jumps from Wemby even in these Olympics.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
No. Absolutely, they've been running a lot more offense through
him than you would expect. And a big part of
that is France doesn't have an amazing guard corps like
Evan Fournier is their best guard, a guy who couldn't
crack the rotation for the Knicks last year, right, so like,
but what they're doing in a lot of cases is
they're feeding him at the elbow and they're like running
literally ball screens like the way you would typically with
(16:32):
a point guard in a center. They're running with him
and Gobaer at the foul line, and they're letting him
determine the outcome of possessions. They're throwing it to him
down on the blocks. He's become a lot quicker at
like reading the floor and making reads then I would
expect a player at his age. And part of this
I think has a lot to do with him playing
professionally as opposed to coming up through the college system.
(16:55):
Like he's just been around a lot of really smart
basketball minds in his development. The big ones that stands
out is the dude is just a savage competitor and
is not scared of the moment. Like he was kind
of on the back burner for a good portion of
that second half against Japan, and then it went to
ot and he just took over. Immediately was demanding the
ball in the block, got an and one, he missed
(17:16):
a three on the right wing, and then immediately called
for the ball back and knocked one down at the
top of the key. He's got like just incredible scoring
polish all over the floor. He's handling physicality really really well.
Obviously you mentioned the defensive stuff. It's hard to even describe.
It doesn't even look like other NBA players that have
come before him.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I think I think we got to think long and
hard about him being a top ten player right now,
right now, and then and right now, and I think
by the deadline next year, we could be talking about
a guy who's who's second team All NBA, Like This
is a real, a real potential outcome for him in
the short term.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Now for a segment called making It Look Easy, brought
to you by Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm,
BAM Gonna Buy You Team USA made it look easy.
Couple of corner threes, eighteen point seven rebounds over the
win against South Sudan at the Olympics in Paris. Well,
just like BAM made it look easy, so does Morgan
(18:11):
and Morgan. They have over one hundred offices nationwide. They
fight for you and fair compensation. Over fifteen billion dollars
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With Morgan and Morgan fighting for the people for three
and a half decades, thirty five years, America's largest injury
(18:32):
law firm. If you're ever injured, go to Fourthpeople dot
com slash Colin That's me for the People dot com
slash Colin, or dial pound five to nine to check
out America's largest injury law firm. Winning gold medals is hard.
Hiring Morgan and Morgan is easy. You know. It's you
(18:57):
put a bunch of alphas together and some alphas will
shrink and some alphas will rise. Lebron is now the
best player on this team. It's like it's now, it's
gone past. But what's interesting is that Nick Wright said
this to me today on the show in FS one.
He said, deep down, Lebron may realize these are the
(19:20):
last games of his career that people are really gonna watch,
like have a huge audience and are gonna matter and listen.
You and I have been critical of the executive wing
of the Lakers. Ad and Lebron on any given game
that I've watched, Team USA are the two best players
and they're struggling to win a playoff game. It's really frustrating.
(19:42):
There's Jeremy Grant may come to town.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
He would be.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
A solid three, a better a four on a really
really good team. He's probably a four, not a three.
But be that as it may. But I as I
watched Lebron, what it tells me is he's not having
to fight to be the alpha. He is so respected
that other young players are like, hey, big fella, you
(20:06):
run the offense. I mean, I mean like Magic and
Michael when they went together, they were fighting. They Magic
didn't want to give up the baton. Michael grabbed it
like even Ant all these guys, it's like, no, no,
this is Lebron's. This is Lebron's world. And I know
you're not surprised by it, but it it does jump
(20:28):
out of the TV, does it not.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
I'm glad everyone's seeing it too. First of all, to
what Nick said, I agree. I think Lebron has always
been very aware of the narrative surrounding him, and I
think that he saw an opportunity here to be like,
if I am the best player on Team USA, it
will resonate with people for a long time. And for
the record, I think Lebron came right out of the
season and started prepping forward. He looks like he's in
(20:52):
great shape.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
He is flexing every other time down the floor.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I know, like he's he clearly prepped for this as
though it was an NBA playoff run. Like that is
abundantly clear. And he's and he's playing at that crazy
high level. I'm glad you mentioned the Lakers because like
so many people are like, oh, they're they're a playing team.
They're this, they're that, and it's like, guys, the reason
they're a playing team is they don't have a single
player on the roster other than Lebron and Ad who
(21:18):
can play both ends of the floor. That's literally why
they've struggled. It is a personnel issue. It is not
a Lebron James and Anthony Davis issue. Those two pull
their weight. They pulled their weight in a major way
last season, and the organization is what let them down.
And so I don't really see it that way. As
far as as far as Lebron with his team USA context,
(21:39):
what's been super fascinating from a basketball perspective is what
you're seeing is what it would look like to run
five out offense with all the ball and player movements,
Steph lying off of screens with the best playmaker of
this era kind of orchestrating it at the top of
the key. He's not taking a ton of shots. He's
seeing his openings and he's shooting the gap and he's
attacking the basket. But they're ducking under all those picks
(22:02):
at the top of the key. He's not jacking up
threes and hijacking possessions. He's just reading the floor as
Steph is running around and as Devin Booker's running around
and waiting for guys to make mistakes. One of the
most classic decisions that you'll see from that part of
the floor is Steph runs off a screen and the
guy screens for him. If those defenders make a mistake,
that guy can slip it, and Lebron is just making
(22:24):
reads based on what the mistake the defense has made.
And so it's kind of like a juiced up version
of Draymond with the Warriors, but surrounded by all of these,
you know, world class types of players, and it's been
the perfect role for him. And then, quite frankly to
your point, and this is where it gets really scary, Colin,
I would argue KAD and Lebron and Steph have been
(22:44):
the only consistent offensive forces on this team, and we've
been disappointed by Jason Tatum. Anthony Edwards has given us
some mixed results. There's been good games, there's been bad games.
I think it's just a bad look that if you're
in the year twenty twenty four, Steph, Lebron and KD
are playing the way they are and the younger generation
(23:06):
is struggling to keep up. It's like, thank god for
Ad and Band being as good as they've been, because
it's just been It's been a disappointing performance from some
of the younger American players.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, it has.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And I let me just say this again, is that
I do a segment every week called Colin Wright Colin Wrong.
And I wish somebody in politics did it because I
don't think being right should be the be all end all.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Of being a host.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Being interesting and informative and being fun should And I
was so anti ad when we started doing this podcast together.
I went, like two years, I'm like, it's a dad bod.
He doesn't work out, he's out of shape, he never
plays hurt. And some of that was confirmation biased because
I had said I had heard that going in, and
he became it. The last two years he is aft.
(23:48):
Take Jokichow. I'm not sure there's a big eye take
over him, including Jannis. I. I mean, I always use
this rule. There are time when you turn the sound
down of a game when and I'll use Magic Johnson
when more than Michael, when Magic was on the floor,
he had the ball so much unmistakable, you can literally just.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Go, Magic's there. Magic's there.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Magic literally was a six to nine point and then
Lebron comes in and he kind of plays points. So
the point guard you always kind of knows on the floor,
but a lot of times forwards, especially guys who aren't
aesthetically beautiful games, you cannot mistake Anthony Davis in a
game dominant defender. He's gotten significantly more physical.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
To me, I don't know what.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Happened, but he was almost This is weird. He was
a rugged finesse player, like you'd be like run over people.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Dude.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I don't know what it is, but when I watch him,
he goes after people. He attacks players. Now, some of
this he's playing against second team guys in this space,
but he's aggressive against Jokic, and I just think to myself,
I don't know what it is, but it does prove
young people improve, young people are coachable. Young people here criticism.
(25:08):
This is weird because he was already good, but he's
one of the most improved players, and he did it
like as an established great player. To me, he's taken
another level. This is the ad we thought we were
getting out of college, and he just wasn't emotionally ready
for it.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
I think the injuries played a role. Like to your
point about I agree, Like in that twenty twenty one,
the twenty twenty two stretch. He was kind of like
a finesse dude that was really big, but it didn't
seem like he was inflicting it on people. But in
his defense, he had like repeated ankle injuries and he
had an achilles injury during that time. So I really
think Ad just didn't trust his body. And I think
(25:47):
the reason why we're seeing him be so physically dominant
now is he just is in a really good physical place,
and I think that's gone a long way towards helping
him facilitate that you mentioned it bouncing off the screen.
It's crazy, like his block that he had on one
of the first possessions against Sudan, he he just just
pogo sticks above everybody, or that dunk he had on
the feed from KD tonight where he takes off from
(26:10):
the foul line off of two feet and just throws
it down clean. He just has the craziest combination of
like length and mobility in the league, still even at
his phase of his career where he's a little bit
bigger and not quite as mobile as he was when
he was younger, and and you know, at the end
of the day, like a lot of the focus has
been on what he hasn't been since the bubble, Like
(26:30):
he hasn't been knocking down all these crazy jump shots
the way he did in the bubble. And that's true,
but he's improved so much as a passers overall fear
feel for the game. He is a lot better at
those short shots, like the stuff I was talking about
with em beat. Ad was well over fifty percent on
hooks and floaters last year. That's what he does. And
to your point about attacking lower level bigs in FEBA,
(26:50):
he was awesome against Jokich. He was awesome most of
the tail end of the season. Ad has been playing
in the calendar year, Calendar year twenty twenty four, he's
been playing at an MVP level and he deserves more
credit for them.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, in a weird way, you watch more film than
I do. I wonder if it wasn't this when he
was a perimeter player, when he was almost forced to
go outside, it was like, well, he doesn't want to
play five, so instead of just backing up three feet,
let's back him up nine and go shoot threes. He
ended up slashing to the basket a lot. He ended
up being a bit of a slasher and when you
(27:25):
slash and go to the floor, you fall hard. When
you take out the perimeter, he's much more around the
free throw line route. He's not slashing as much, and
therefore he's not crashing as much.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
And I'm just.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Throwing this out there because he went through a stage
with a Lakers that like he was just hitting the
floor hard, like three times a night, and it just
and he's playing twice as physical and doesn't hit the
floor as often. So I do wonder. I do wonder
a little bit, Jason if as he's reduced his perimeter touches,
he's just not in a position to have to race
(28:01):
inside for the rebound, put the ball on the floor,
come off a screen that he's just not in position
to crack because he hits the floor occasionally. But it
was like an epidemic those bubble years. It's like you
would watch a Laker game at least twice you would wins.
You're like, oh, he's not getting up like that.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
That's he doesn't seem to do that as much.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
I think that's completely fair, and I think a huge
part of it is roster construct. I mean, for going
from that, JaVale McGee, Dwhite, Howard group, where like like
Ady was playing the vast majority of his minutes at
the four in that twenty twenty year, and then even
going into twenty twenty one. I mean you add Marc
Gasol to the equation. That was when they added Andre
Drummond at the tail end of the year. If you remember,
like they were going with Ad at the four almost
(28:43):
exclusively and one of the big impacts there. To your point,
it's not just the slashing and operating from the perimeter,
it's constantly having a big.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Guy in help.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
We talked earlier about that geometry of the guy being
in the opposite block and the guy stepping in and
out with the defensive three seconds. They're still sliding over
and getting in the way all the time. It's just
there steps slower than Feba. But that's the thing Ad
was constantly contending with. If he got past his man,
there was another center waiting underneath the basket for him
to deal with. And I do think just in general,
(29:11):
him kind of functioning more as a big man scroll screening,
rolling into space, but not rolling hard to like he
doesn't always roll directly to the rim, like he'll roll
into that short area around the foul line like you
talked about, he'll take jumpers there, he'll take more floaters.
He's just playing more of a grown adult, like grown man,
old school style of basketball, and I think I think
(29:32):
it suits him well. I like, honestly, like to your point,
like Ad, you always will have these moments where you're
watching the Nuggets series and you're like, man, like Lebron
is still so good, like is he the best player?
Blah blah blah. But if you get past the shot
creation piece and just zoom in strictly on winning impact
on both ends of the floor, there just aren't many
guys who bring as much to the table as he does.
(29:54):
And the simplest explanation or example is this, if Ad
or to spring his ankle and his fifteen games next year,
as the Lakers are currently constructed, and you say got
Jackson Hayes or Christian Wood into that spot, they're going
three and twelve. They're going three and twelve. And that's
really all you need to know. Like so much of
the duct tape that is holding the Lakers organization together
(30:15):
is Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, but if Lebron misses a Knight and Austin Reeves
can be the shot creator with ad if you get
a favorable interior matchup, they can win the game.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yeah, and they did, and they did last year, and
like and that that really is the crux of it,
like they he And by the way, I don't know
if you noticed, did you see that deal with Jared
Allen just signed. He signed a three year like ninety
something million, So Jared Allen's going to be over thirty
million a year at the tail end of his current deal.
Isaiah Hartenstein just signed a deal with the Thunder this
summer for twenty seven million a year. These are guys that, like,
(30:49):
you know, Jared Allen's in that like like eighth or
ninth best center in the league. Hartenstein's in that fourteenth, fifteenth.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Best complimentary guys.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah, isn't it crazy that they're getting that much money though,
And that to me is a really strong indicator of
the league telling us that, like, oh shit, we need
big dudes underneath the basket that can do the work.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Well, I think the game's getting longer and longer. Players
are getting more skilled. And you know, I've said this
had nauseum, but the whole small ball thing to me
was such nonsense. It was like, no, the Warriors have
the best shooting backcourt ever. You can try duplicating it,
but like there's some things Patrick Mahomes does that your
quarterback can't. Said, let's just just do what you do
and play to your you know, the Rockets tried so
(31:28):
desperately to do small ball, and it's like sometimes you
just you know, i mean, let's face it, the Splash
Brothers next to West and Goodrich. There's never been a
backcourt like that. Now I'm old enough to have seen both.
But this is a big man's sport, you know, Like
the NFL is a big dude sport. The NBA is
a length sport. It's always been that. I mean that
I can remember standing at a Laker game once on
(31:50):
the court next to Pauga Sol and I'm like, like,
what planet created? I mean, his arms were so long
and I'm just sitting there and I'm like with a buddy,
and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
That's just an NBA player, Like what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Like they're just not you know, just so much of
it just you know, obviously skill matters, but this is
a length league. I remember talking to Mark Warkin, team
former executive in the NBA. I think Mark passed away
years ago. He was a un l V Tarks number
three guy, and he always said to me, he said Colin,
he goes, people do not understand.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
He said, Tart gets this.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Length. He goes, the Bulls were a great team, but
they were the one of the longest teams ever.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
He goes.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
The only team in the Eastern Conference that had their
length was the Cleveland teams with.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
John Williams e Loo.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
He said that was the only team in the league
that could match up length wise. And he said, length
gives you three possessions a game. Tip passes, He goes,
Michael scored two baskets in those three possessions. He's like,
if you have a great finisher and you're long, that's
three possessions. And if you can get two baskets NBA
game are you known? Now, this was in the pre
(33:01):
three shot era, so maybe those three possessions don't equal
as many wins. But I think that the reality of
it is is you know, that's why Wemby, it's it's
the whole small ball thing outside of Isaiah Thomas in
a different league, and staff guards don't lead you the titles.
They lead you to wins that don't lead you to
titles historically, So.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, really quick.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
The my buddy Sam Vasini came on the show after
the NBA Finals. He works at the Athletic does an
amazing job, and we and we we tried to come
up with the two biggest things that we learned from
this playoff run, one for offense and one for defense.
And what we settled on was on offense with spacing
and that's it goes beyond shooting, but that it has
to do with like how you actually set up the floor,
(33:46):
the way you actually run your offense, and we won't
get into it. But on the defensive end, what we
settled on was ground coverage and that does not just
mean footspeed. Length is a direct like so for instance,
like if you have a big on your back line
who can help at the rim, but all also can
test the shooter in the weak side corner. It's like
being in two places at once. And that's what Yannis
did on the Bucks with with brook Lopez that made
(34:07):
him so dominant as a devender, Like your ability to
eat up chunks of the floor with an athlete that
has a seven to two wingspan.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
South Sudan Yeah, it's exactly.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
And that's the thing, like everyone's like, oh, they're struggling
with South Sudan and Susu Dan. By the way, as
good as the USA team played today, they were within
eleven in the in the.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Early part of the fourth quarter like that.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Just having a long, athletic team that plays hard, like
automatically check so many basketball boxes.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Also much it's not it's not even blocks, it's shot alteration.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
It's exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
It's literally it's penetrating and then circling out and saying
I'm not gonna go there. Like you stop shots, you
alter shots, you block shots. It's like certain things don't
have to happen to have an effect. And length is
one of those things where you know, you'll see sometimes
a Chris Paul or a stuff going the lane and
they see the redwoods and they're like, yeah, I'm gonna
do a U turn and get out of here. There's
there's no happy ending to this story.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Jason tim and.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Derek White and Drew Holiday by the way, the two
guards for Boston. But they have the length of wings
and so that could be a problem.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, boy, Derek White's good player. Darry Waite's such a
good player.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Hoops tonight, Jason timp This was a fun forty minutes.
Good good seeing you and we'll talk soon.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Good to see you, Colin.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
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The volume. So it's twenty twenty four, and let's talk
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Speaker 2 (01:10):
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Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, they were favored to win gold, but There's been
a lot of storylines with Team USA at the Olympics
in France. Jason Timpf hoops tonight, who works about as
hard as anybody in this business. And I want to
start with Jason Tatum. So there's two reasons why a
normally good shooter doesn't shoot well. One his legs, he's tired.
(01:39):
That happens you go on a five games, eight day
Eastern road trip. You know you're an older player, back
to backs, so you lose your legs. The only other
way a good shooter shoots poorly usually is you lose
your confidence. We've seen Lebron, especially early in mid career,
like just lose his confidence in the three point shot.
(01:59):
He acknowledg that. Then he would say, okay, how about
to go score at the basket for about two games,
and then he would build it back up. Jason Tatum's
lost his jump shot, and I think it's and I
think what it is, it really is it defines who
he is. It's one thing that he didn't play in
one of the games. And I can get into that
in a second. But I believe the Celtics traded Marcus
(02:21):
Smart because their problem was Okay, It's one thing that
Tatum is slightly more skilled than Jason Jalen Brown. If
Jalen Brown takes over late in games, he's still a
great player. But when Marcus Smart also started taking the
ball out of his hands late, then it was a timeout.
This isn't gonna work, and they got him out of town.
(02:43):
They got a more talented player with the same skill
set defensively, Drew Holliday, who more understands his role he's
got in the bag. You know, it's a different player,
different mindset. And I think Brad Stevens has told us
time and time again the truth about Jason him.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
He loves him.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
He's smart, he works hard, he's collaborative. But in big
spots against great players or playing with great players, he
can kind of lose his confidence. And when I watch
him against Aalsunani, I'm like, where's what's going on? And
I don't think it's mechanics, Jason. I think it's a
(03:21):
confidence thing, and we're going to have to acknowledge this
is a little bit of who he is from time
to time.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, it goes deeper than the Drew Holiday thing. It
even extends to Porzingis because like the reality is is
those moves are aggressive in the sense that there is
actually some fallout. It's not just the draft compensation, although
they actually made out pretty well in terms of asset
usage in those deals, but it's a lot of it
has to do with the second apron. Like you, by
virtue of bringing those two guys in and making it
(03:49):
so that you have five thirty plus million dollar players
on your roster, you limit your ability to be flexible
in the future. And we talked a lot after the
twenty twenty two series about whether or not it is
one of those things where the Celtics could bank on
Tatum and Brown just improving naturally as time progressed, or
if there was a certain ceiling there and they needed
to be more aggressive. And to your point, I think
(04:10):
Brad Stevens has made that pretty clear with the moves
that he's made. He understands that Tatum is what he
is and that he does need a large amount of support.
And to Tatum's credit, I do think he's kind of
the perfect collaborative superstar because if you're playing on a
team that has that kind of talent, you don't want
a dude who's gonna hijack things and play super helio centric.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You want a ball mover.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
And I do actually think there is something a little
bit mechanical going on with Tatum. I don't know if
it's from how much muscle he's put on that he's
just a little tight, or if he's tinkering with his
mechanics now because he's been missing, but his shot just
it looks like it has a little bit of a
hitch in it, like right is he's starting to gather.
(04:50):
And that is a little funky to me because this
extends beyond the Tmuosa stuff. As you mentioned, he's struggling
with Tmosa person Energy's oo for eleven on jump shots
in the x Phibition Games and the Olympic Games so
far with Team USA. But he took one hundred and
eighty eight jump shots in the playoffs and got just
one hundred and fifty one points out of them. That's
zero point eight points per shot, which is not good.
(05:11):
Anything below one point is bad, and he's well below
one point in a large sample side. So we're in
a extended span here of Tatum really struggling to shoot
the basketball. And like, there's two ways to look at that.
You could take a glass half full and be like, hey,
what if he figures it out this summer and then
we have the Celtics from last year plus Tatum shooting
the ball, Well, that's scary, right. But the other side
(05:34):
of it is if this is something, if this is
one of those things where it's an indicator of him
at this physical build struggling to shoot the basketball, it's
going to make it really difficult for him to impact
winning at the level of the top five players in
the league because when you go up into that group,
when you look at Shay, when you look at Luca, like,
the shooting at that position is incredibly valuable unless you're Yannis,
(05:55):
unless you're Jokic, and as physically gifted as Tatum is,
he's not like those guys. And so I'm just concerned
for him from the standpoint of, like, he needs to
be a good jump shooter to be a legitimate superstar
level player.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So let's talk Embiid who you know, when he comes
into the league, there was a sign early first couple
of years, can't play it unhealthy. So it's like, uh, oh,
Biggs get hurt early. Biggs usually get hurt often, So
he's always had an injury history, but most bigs eventually
do right, like almost all of them.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Y'aw ming shack.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
You can just Greg odin sam BOUI couldn't get on
the floor, like it's the position. People probably aren't built
to last at seven to two, you know, or shack
size with those feet back. It wears out, like I
get it. But Embiid presents something else beyond the injuries,
and because he is more dynamic and more fun to
(06:48):
watch than Jokic or a Yiannis, and there was a
shack component with better ball handling skills. There is also
something that I find my eyes keep telling me this
when I watch the Sixers. Is that And the Olympics
just heightened this is that they can keep running coaches
through Philly and teammates through Philly. I mean even Ben
Simmons for a while he wasn an All Star like
(07:08):
his first year right, like Ben did have promise that, yeah,
Embiid really needs to stay close from the basket. So
coaches kind of pushed a D out for a couple
of years. It was like fashionable and ad didn't even
good shooting from out there. A D said I want
to go back, and he has been for two years.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
A monster.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
I mean, to me, the most underrated player in the
Olympics and the league right now is Ad.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
He is just fun.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Turn the sound down, watch you can't if he's on
the floor. It's like Lebron, you can't take your eyes
off him.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
He's dominant.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Embiid to me, somebody has to just acknowledge fella. Get
away from the perimeter. He fashions himself or is told
that he is such an important part sometimes a perimeter basketball.
He's big, he's aging, he's not as quick. I thought
he literally got in the way of this offense. I'd
(08:07):
seen it in Philly, but it was so profound with
this team. It bothered me. I'm screaming at the TV,
get him out of the game. Your thoughts on Embiid
and are any of these valid? That I watch him offensively.
I know the numbers probably say is great, but he
can he stops I just feel like he can stop
(08:28):
offenses too often.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So it's both.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
It's the jump shot and it's the ball movement piece
the jump shot piece. This has been a consistent story
and Embiad's career, especially over the previous couple of years.
This last year, he actually shot the ball okay against
the Knicks, But like in the previous couple of seasons,
he would shoot like fifty percent on these like mid
range pull up jump shots in the regular season, but
then he'd get in front of Al Horford and he
couldn't make them like he would he would struggle to
(08:54):
knock him down in the postseas. That was a consistent
theme and be you to get to the postseason, his
jump shot would go away. And one of the biggest
things that he ever built out the way Jokic did
is those short range shots, the hooks, the floaters, all
that stuff that's within like exactly, and those are way
more dependable in this kind of setting. The second piece
of it is learning how to play basketball with other people.
(09:15):
This is a this is an epidemic around the league
with certain guys, and we see this. It's kind of
like this with Luca a little bit with more of
a perimeter sense, but we see it with him need
where it's like as long as everything is flowing through
him and he's deciding every single possession, he has this
otherworldly value as almost like.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
A force of nature.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So for instance, if you took ad or Bam and
you put them on last year's Sixers team with Tyrese Maxi.
They're not as good because you can't just give the
ball to Ad and Bam like every single possession and
ask them to determine outcomes. They're not good enough on
the offensive end of the floor. But when you're actually
playing with people other good basketball players, and this will
(09:53):
be really interesting this year with Paul George now in
the equation when you actually need to keep everybody in
rhythm and there's ball in player movement, and Be for
lack of a better term, sucks at that style of basketball.
He doesn't know how to play quick decision making flowing
from side to side, and especially at the center position
in modern NBA basketball, when you play five out, the
(10:15):
center is the bridge between the two sides of the floor.
He's the guy who has to catch and turn and
go to the other guard and flow on the other side.
So when you're trying to keep Booker and Steph and
Lebron and all these guys in rhythm at the same time,
it's better to have a guy like Ad who his
entire life has been a screen and roll big. He's
going to pitch the ball to the other side, set
(10:36):
a screen, roll hard to the rim, run up and
down the floor, and transition. It's a foot speed thing.
It's a decision making thing. You put him in this
setting and it's just a completely different kind of basketball
than what he was doing for the Sixers last year.
And it's quite frankly, he has years of needing to
learn how to play that style if he's ever going
to play in more of a five out, read and
(10:56):
react type of system.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
So during COPA, team you I say struggled, and I
not to make an excuse or defend Greg Berholt or
the coach at the time, but our style is more European.
We have more players now soccer players in America playing
in Europe and flourishing. So COPA is a smaller, shorter field.
It didn't play to our space, our strength, which is
(11:20):
speed and spacing. So as we've become more skilled and
more European, which is the Goldwyn World Cup, COPA has
become a bad tournament for US, which is a grittier,
lower ranked teams, more physical soccer. Similarly, Steph with FEBA
three point shooting is almost it plays with your head,
it's closer, it's more physical you don't get the whistle.
(11:44):
More physicality allowed. And as I watched Steph struggle, it's
not like Tatum struggling, It's not a confidence issue. It's
a is it possible that FIBA Olympic basketball isn't really
it's not really built necessarily for Steph all the time.
I mean, Lebron's good everywhere, But as Steff struggles, I'm
how do I reconcile that he's a great shooter? It's
(12:06):
closer he should be shooting the lights out he's not.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Why So Sudan in particular, and I think their reputation
obviously that them as an organization within FIBA don't have
the reputation of the other great European teams or South
American teams that we faced over the years, Like even
back in the old days when it was like Argentina,
you know that that was or France that was given
his issues, they don't have that history. But I think
South Sudan is the most athletic team in this field
(12:31):
by far, Like they have just an enormous amount of
fast dudes with really long wingspans. They're athletic by NBA standards,
let alone by the Phoebe standards. And so if you
remember last year when Golden State needed to get some
big wins down the stretch of the season, the two
teams that were giving them a lot of trouble were
Sacramento and New Orleans, two teams that were really fast
and really long on the perimeter. And that's like kind
(12:52):
of one of those things. Whereas Steph has aged, he's
become a little bit susceptible to specific types of matchups,
particularly teams that are closing those gaps on him. And
then the piece you mentioned about spacing is real, like
the lack of a defensive three seconds is a real
thing that people are factoring in. So to put it simply,
the vast majority of teams, when they're spacing, will put
(13:13):
their big man on the opposite block from where the
ball is. And so with defensive three seconds, that defender
has to step in and out of the lane on
the far end of the court, whereas in FIBA he
can park his ass right underneath the basket and he
doesn't have to move at all whatsoever. And so this,
by the way, is why I'm far more concerned about
(13:33):
teams like Germany and France or even Serbia against USA
than a team like Canada who just doesn't have the
bigs to deal with USA underneath the basket. Teams that
can park big bodies under the rim can force you
to make jump shots. And as soon as you force
a team to make jump shots, they can go cold.
They can have issues, which is what happening in South
Sudan last time. But yeah, as far as Steph goes
(13:54):
like he, I mean, we let's put it. Let's put
it straight up, Colin. He struggled most of the tail
end of the season last year too, So this is
an extension of that. And I'm really hoping as a
basketball fan that this is just a blip and he's
going to figure it out, because I really want the
Warriors to be interesting next year.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
You know, when you have a bunch of kids, I
have six in my life, the early years can be
frustrating and a lot of work. But what's fascinating about
the early years is kids make giants social and emotional
and physical leaps in nine months. I mean, my son
had a biting stage, he had a coughing stage where
(14:35):
he would make coughing noises, and I always told my wife,
I'm like, it's just just nine year old boys go
through weird, weird you know cycle phases.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, they just do.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Like and I want to use that as as sort
of a pivot to watching young NBA players, is that
when they're eighteen, nineteen twenty, the players just come back
of an off and off season and you're like, damn,
he got a jumper. So I'm watching Wemby and I
feel like I'm watching a kid grow, Like I'm watching
him in some of these games and I'm like, oh,
(15:09):
this is terrifying for the league. Like he you go
to his first month in the league and now Jason offensively,
he plays with so much more confidence. Defensively, he's blocking
stuff with his elbow. He is now way more aggressive
and asserting himself. And I'm watching this and I'm like
(15:32):
I said by the Trade Deadline. I said this on
our previous podcast, By the Trade Deadline, he and Ann
will be the faces of the league. I'm not sure
it's going to take that long. Like Jokich is still
the best player. His ability to not only dominate but
compliment other players and elevate them it kind of separates
Lebron's magic.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Certain guys.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
I would say Michael didn't make everybody better, not every
teammate Lebron, Magic Jokic, Chris Paul, every teammate's better. You
play her best with him, get Chris ball with Wemby.
But I'm watching him, and maybe it's maybe I don't
see him as much as you do. I'm seeing major
jumps from Wemby even in these Olympics.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
No. Absolutely, they've been running a lot more offense through
him than you would expect. And a big part of
that is France doesn't have an amazing guard corps like
Evan Fournier is their best guard, a guy who couldn't
crack the rotation for the Knicks last year, right, so like,
but what they're doing in a lot of cases is
they're feeding him at the elbow and they're like running
literally ball screens like the way you would typically with
(16:32):
a point guard in a center. They're running with him
and Gobaer at the foul line, and they're letting him
determine the outcome of possessions. They're throwing it to him
down on the blocks. He's become a lot quicker at
like reading the floor and making reads then I would
expect a player at his age. And part of this
I think has a lot to do with him playing
professionally as opposed to coming up through the college system.
(16:55):
Like he's just been around a lot of really smart
basketball minds in his development. The big ones that stands
out is the dude is just a savage competitor and
is not scared of the moment. Like he was kind
of on the back burner for a good portion of
that second half against Japan, and then it went to
ot and he just took over. Immediately was demanding the
ball in the block, got an and one, he missed
(17:16):
a three on the right wing, and then immediately called
for the ball back and knocked one down at the
top of the key. He's got like just incredible scoring
polish all over the floor. He's handling physicality really really well.
Obviously you mentioned the defensive stuff. It's hard to even describe.
It doesn't even look like other NBA players that have
come before him.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I think I think we got to think long and
hard about him being a top ten player right now,
right now, and then and right now, and I think
by the deadline next year, we could be talking about
a guy who's who's second team All NBA, Like This
is a real, a real potential outcome for him in
the short term.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Now for a segment called making It Look Easy, brought
to you by Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm,
BAM Gonna Buy You Team USA made it look easy.
Couple of corner threes, eighteen point seven rebounds over the
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(18:11):
and Morgan. They have over one hundred offices nationwide. They
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(18:32):
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(18:57):
put a bunch of alphas together and some alphas will
shrink and some alphas will rise. Lebron is now the
best player on this team. It's like it's now, it's
gone past. But what's interesting is that Nick Wright said
this to me today on the show in FS one.
He said, deep down, Lebron may realize these are the
(19:20):
last games of his career that people are really gonna watch,
like have a huge audience and are gonna matter and listen.
You and I have been critical of the executive wing
of the Lakers. Ad and Lebron on any given game
that I've watched, Team USA are the two best players
and they're struggling to win a playoff game. It's really frustrating.
(19:42):
There's Jeremy Grant may come to town.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
He would be.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
A solid three, a better a four on a really
really good team. He's probably a four, not a three.
But be that as it may. But I as I
watched Lebron, what it tells me is he's not having
to fight to be the alpha. He is so respected
that other young players are like, hey, big fella, you
(20:06):
run the offense. I mean, I mean like Magic and
Michael when they went together, they were fighting. They Magic
didn't want to give up the baton. Michael grabbed it
like even Ant all these guys, it's like, no, no,
this is Lebron's. This is Lebron's world. And I know
you're not surprised by it, but it it does jump
(20:28):
out of the TV, does it not.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
I'm glad everyone's seeing it too. First of all, to
what Nick said, I agree. I think Lebron has always
been very aware of the narrative surrounding him, and I
think that he saw an opportunity here to be like,
if I am the best player on Team USA, it
will resonate with people for a long time. And for
the record, I think Lebron came right out of the
season and started prepping forward. He looks like he's in
(20:52):
great shape.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
He is flexing every other time down the floor.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I know, like he's he clearly prepped for this as
though it was an NBA playoff run. Like that is
abundantly clear. And he's and he's playing at that crazy
high level. I'm glad you mentioned the Lakers because like
so many people are like, oh, they're they're a playing team.
They're this, they're that, and it's like, guys, the reason
they're a playing team is they don't have a single
player on the roster other than Lebron and Ad who
(21:18):
can play both ends of the floor. That's literally why
they've struggled. It is a personnel issue. It is not
a Lebron James and Anthony Davis issue. Those two pull
their weight. They pulled their weight in a major way
last season, and the organization is what let them down.
And so I don't really see it that way. As
far as as far as Lebron with his team USA context,
(21:39):
what's been super fascinating from a basketball perspective is what
you're seeing is what it would look like to run
five out offense with all the ball and player movements,
Steph lying off of screens with the best playmaker of
this era kind of orchestrating it at the top of
the key. He's not taking a ton of shots. He's
seeing his openings and he's shooting the gap and he's
attacking the basket. But they're ducking under all those picks
(22:02):
at the top of the key. He's not jacking up
threes and hijacking possessions. He's just reading the floor as
Steph is running around and as Devin Booker's running around
and waiting for guys to make mistakes. One of the
most classic decisions that you'll see from that part of
the floor is Steph runs off a screen and the
guy screens for him. If those defenders make a mistake,
that guy can slip it, and Lebron is just making
(22:24):
reads based on what the mistake the defense has made.
And so it's kind of like a juiced up version
of Draymond with the Warriors, but surrounded by all of these,
you know, world class types of players, and it's been
the perfect role for him. And then, quite frankly to
your point, and this is where it gets really scary, Colin,
I would argue KAD and Lebron and Steph have been
(22:44):
the only consistent offensive forces on this team, and we've
been disappointed by Jason Tatum. Anthony Edwards has given us
some mixed results. There's been good games, there's been bad games.
I think it's just a bad look that if you're
in the year twenty twenty four, Steph, Lebron and KD
are playing the way they are and the younger generation
(23:06):
is struggling to keep up. It's like, thank god for
Ad and Band being as good as they've been, because
it's just been It's been a disappointing performance from some
of the younger American players.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, it has.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And I let me just say this again, is that
I do a segment every week called Colin Wright Colin Wrong.
And I wish somebody in politics did it because I
don't think being right should be the be all end all.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Of being a host.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Being interesting and informative and being fun should And I
was so anti ad when we started doing this podcast together.
I went, like two years, I'm like, it's a dad bod.
He doesn't work out, he's out of shape, he never
plays hurt. And some of that was confirmation biased because
I had said I had heard that going in, and
he became it. The last two years he is aft.
(23:48):
Take Jokichow. I'm not sure there's a big eye take
over him, including Jannis. I. I mean, I always use
this rule. There are time when you turn the sound
down of a game when and I'll use Magic Johnson
when more than Michael, when Magic was on the floor,
he had the ball so much unmistakable, you can literally just.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Go, Magic's there. Magic's there.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Magic literally was a six to nine point and then
Lebron comes in and he kind of plays points. So
the point guard you always kind of knows on the floor,
but a lot of times forwards, especially guys who aren't
aesthetically beautiful games, you cannot mistake Anthony Davis in a
game dominant defender. He's gotten significantly more physical.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
To me, I don't know what.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Happened, but he was almost This is weird. He was
a rugged finesse player, like you'd be like run over people.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Dude.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I don't know what it is, but when I watch him,
he goes after people. He attacks players. Now, some of
this he's playing against second team guys in this space,
but he's aggressive against Jokic, and I just think to myself,
I don't know what it is, but it does prove
young people improve, young people are coachable. Young people here criticism.
(25:08):
This is weird because he was already good, but he's
one of the most improved players, and he did it
like as an established great player. To me, he's taken
another level. This is the ad we thought we were
getting out of college, and he just wasn't emotionally ready
for it.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
I think the injuries played a role. Like to your
point about I agree, Like in that twenty twenty one,
the twenty twenty two stretch. He was kind of like
a finesse dude that was really big, but it didn't
seem like he was inflicting it on people. But in
his defense, he had like repeated ankle injuries and he
had an achilles injury during that time. So I really
think Ad just didn't trust his body. And I think
(25:47):
the reason why we're seeing him be so physically dominant
now is he just is in a really good physical place,
and I think that's gone a long way towards helping
him facilitate that you mentioned it bouncing off the screen.
It's crazy, like his block that he had on one
of the first possessions against Sudan, he he just just
pogo sticks above everybody, or that dunk he had on
the feed from KD tonight where he takes off from
(26:10):
the foul line off of two feet and just throws
it down clean. He just has the craziest combination of
like length and mobility in the league, still even at
his phase of his career where he's a little bit
bigger and not quite as mobile as he was when
he was younger, and and you know, at the end
of the day, like a lot of the focus has
been on what he hasn't been since the bubble, Like
(26:30):
he hasn't been knocking down all these crazy jump shots
the way he did in the bubble. And that's true,
but he's improved so much as a passers overall fear
feel for the game. He is a lot better at
those short shots, like the stuff I was talking about
with em beat. Ad was well over fifty percent on
hooks and floaters last year. That's what he does. And
to your point about attacking lower level bigs in FEBA,
(26:50):
he was awesome against Jokich. He was awesome most of
the tail end of the season. Ad has been playing
in the calendar year, Calendar year twenty twenty four, he's
been playing at an MVP level and he deserves more
credit for them.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, in a weird way, you watch more film than
I do. I wonder if it wasn't this when he
was a perimeter player, when he was almost forced to
go outside, it was like, well, he doesn't want to
play five, so instead of just backing up three feet,
let's back him up nine and go shoot threes. He
ended up slashing to the basket a lot. He ended
up being a bit of a slasher and when you
(27:25):
slash and go to the floor, you fall hard. When
you take out the perimeter, he's much more around the
free throw line route. He's not slashing as much, and
therefore he's not crashing as much.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
And I'm just.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Throwing this out there because he went through a stage
with a Lakers that like he was just hitting the
floor hard, like three times a night, and it just
and he's playing twice as physical and doesn't hit the
floor as often. So I do wonder. I do wonder
a little bit, Jason if as he's reduced his perimeter touches,
he's just not in a position to have to race
(28:01):
inside for the rebound, put the ball on the floor,
come off a screen that he's just not in position
to crack because he hits the floor occasionally. But it
was like an epidemic those bubble years. It's like you
would watch a Laker game at least twice you would wins.
You're like, oh, he's not getting up like that.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
That's he doesn't seem to do that as much.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
I think that's completely fair, and I think a huge
part of it is roster construct. I mean, for going
from that, JaVale McGee, Dwhite, Howard group, where like like
Ady was playing the vast majority of his minutes at
the four in that twenty twenty year, and then even
going into twenty twenty one. I mean you add Marc
Gasol to the equation. That was when they added Andre
Drummond at the tail end of the year. If you remember,
like they were going with Ad at the four almost
(28:43):
exclusively and one of the big impacts there. To your point,
it's not just the slashing and operating from the perimeter,
it's constantly having a big.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Guy in help.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
We talked earlier about that geometry of the guy being
in the opposite block and the guy stepping in and
out with the defensive three seconds. They're still sliding over
and getting in the way all the time. It's just
there steps slower than Feba. But that's the thing Ad
was constantly contending with. If he got past his man,
there was another center waiting underneath the basket for him
to deal with. And I do think just in general,
(29:11):
him kind of functioning more as a big man scroll screening,
rolling into space, but not rolling hard to like he
doesn't always roll directly to the rim, like he'll roll
into that short area around the foul line like you
talked about, he'll take jumpers there, he'll take more floaters.
He's just playing more of a grown adult, like grown man,
old school style of basketball, and I think I think
(29:32):
it suits him well. I like, honestly, like to your point,
like Ad, you always will have these moments where you're
watching the Nuggets series and you're like, man, like Lebron
is still so good, like is he the best player?
Blah blah blah. But if you get past the shot
creation piece and just zoom in strictly on winning impact
on both ends of the floor, there just aren't many
guys who bring as much to the table as he does.
(29:54):
And the simplest explanation or example is this, if Ad
or to spring his ankle and his fifteen games next year,
as the Lakers are currently constructed, and you say got
Jackson Hayes or Christian Wood into that spot, they're going
three and twelve. They're going three and twelve. And that's
really all you need to know. Like so much of
the duct tape that is holding the Lakers organization together
(30:15):
is Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, but if Lebron misses a Knight and Austin Reeves
can be the shot creator with ad if you get
a favorable interior matchup, they can win the game.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yeah, and they did, and they did last year, and
like and that that really is the crux of it,
like they he And by the way, I don't know
if you noticed, did you see that deal with Jared
Allen just signed. He signed a three year like ninety
something million, So Jared Allen's going to be over thirty
million a year at the tail end of his current deal.
Isaiah Hartenstein just signed a deal with the Thunder this
summer for twenty seven million a year. These are guys that, like,
(30:49):
you know, Jared Allen's in that like like eighth or
ninth best center in the league. Hartenstein's in that fourteenth, fifteenth.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Best complimentary guys.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah, isn't it crazy that they're getting that much money though,
And that to me is a really strong indicator of
the league telling us that, like, oh shit, we need
big dudes underneath the basket that can do the work.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Well, I think the game's getting longer and longer. Players
are getting more skilled. And you know, I've said this
had nauseum, but the whole small ball thing to me
was such nonsense. It was like, no, the Warriors have
the best shooting backcourt ever. You can try duplicating it,
but like there's some things Patrick Mahomes does that your
quarterback can't. Said, let's just just do what you do
and play to your you know, the Rockets tried so
(31:28):
desperately to do small ball, and it's like sometimes you
just you know, i mean, let's face it, the Splash
Brothers next to West and Goodrich. There's never been a
backcourt like that. Now I'm old enough to have seen both.
But this is a big man's sport, you know, Like
the NFL is a big dude sport. The NBA is
a length sport. It's always been that. I mean that
I can remember standing at a Laker game once on
(31:50):
the court next to Pauga Sol and I'm like, like,
what planet created? I mean, his arms were so long
and I'm just sitting there and I'm like with a buddy,
and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
That's just an NBA player, Like what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Like they're just not you know, just so much of
it just you know, obviously skill matters, but this is
a length league. I remember talking to Mark Warkin, team
former executive in the NBA. I think Mark passed away
years ago. He was a un l V Tarks number
three guy, and he always said to me, he said Colin,
he goes, people do not understand.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
He said, Tart gets this.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Length. He goes, the Bulls were a great team, but
they were the one of the longest teams ever.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
He goes.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
The only team in the Eastern Conference that had their
length was the Cleveland teams with.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
John Williams e Loo.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
He said that was the only team in the league
that could match up length wise. And he said, length
gives you three possessions a game. Tip passes, He goes,
Michael scored two baskets in those three possessions. He's like,
if you have a great finisher and you're long, that's
three possessions. And if you can get two baskets NBA
game are you known? Now, this was in the pre
(33:01):
three shot era, so maybe those three possessions don't equal
as many wins. But I think that the reality of
it is is you know, that's why Wemby, it's it's
the whole small ball thing outside of Isaiah Thomas in
a different league, and staff guards don't lead you the titles.
They lead you to wins that don't lead you to
titles historically, So.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, really quick.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
The my buddy Sam Vasini came on the show after
the NBA Finals. He works at the Athletic does an
amazing job, and we and we we tried to come
up with the two biggest things that we learned from
this playoff run, one for offense and one for defense.
And what we settled on was on offense with spacing
and that's it goes beyond shooting, but that it has
to do with like how you actually set up the floor,
(33:46):
the way you actually run your offense, and we won't
get into it. But on the defensive end, what we
settled on was ground coverage and that does not just
mean footspeed. Length is a direct like so for instance,
like if you have a big on your back line
who can help at the rim, but all also can
test the shooter in the weak side corner. It's like
being in two places at once. And that's what Yannis
did on the Bucks with with brook Lopez that made
(34:07):
him so dominant as a devender, Like your ability to
eat up chunks of the floor with an athlete that
has a seven to two wingspan.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
South Sudan Yeah, it's exactly.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
And that's the thing, like everyone's like, oh, they're struggling
with South Sudan and Susu Dan. By the way, as
good as the USA team played today, they were within
eleven in the in the.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Early part of the fourth quarter like that.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Just having a long, athletic team that plays hard, like
automatically check so many basketball boxes.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Also much it's not it's not even blocks, it's shot alteration.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
It's exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
It's literally it's penetrating and then circling out and saying
I'm not gonna go there. Like you stop shots, you
alter shots, you block shots. It's like certain things don't
have to happen to have an effect. And length is
one of those things where you know, you'll see sometimes
a Chris Paul or a stuff going the lane and
they see the redwoods and they're like, yeah, I'm gonna
do a U turn and get out of here. There's
there's no happy ending to this story.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Jason tim and.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Derek White and Drew Holiday by the way, the two
guards for Boston. But they have the length of wings
and so that could be a problem.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, boy, Derek White's good player. Darry Waite's such a
good player.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Hoops tonight, Jason timp This was a fun forty minutes.
Good good seeing you and we'll talk soon.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Good to see you, Colin.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
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This is really nice.
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Host
Colin Cowherd
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