Friday: Changing of the guard

If not CP3, another vet guard is now on the market & could fit in San Antonio.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
The dead for Nuggets guard Russell Westbrook has declined his
option from the Nuggets. He's going to become a free
agent and see if there's other suitors that will pay
him more money. Was he making three point five, three
point eight something.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Like that his option would have been. I believe it
was three point four.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
All right, So the question is would you want Russell
Westbrook to come to San Antonio? And my answer would
be no, and not that I I'm never been a
huge fan of Russell Westbrook because I think he shoots
too much. I do think he's a great defensive player.
I think he is a good teammate. I think he
hustles and plays hard, even at the age that he's

(00:42):
at now. But there's no place for him to play
here because the guards are Fox and Castle and either
of a Sell or Harper, depending on whether they keep
a sell or not. And there's just not enough minutes
for him to play. He's not going to be happy
coming here and playing ten minutes a game.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Are you sure about that? Because I mean he was
coming off the bench.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
And yeah, he would come off the bench in Denver,
but he was also playing twenty twenty two minutes too.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
I think oft.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
I just don't. I just don't think there's enough playing
time for him, because I got we talked about earlier
in the show. You've got Fox and Castle at one
and two, and you either have Vassell if you're going
to keep him, or Harper if you don't keep him.
And to me, that's the three guards that are going
to be in the back court for the Spurs. And
if all three of them play around thirty minutes a game,

(01:29):
you only have about six minutes left for somebody else
to come in and probably in mop up time or
at the end of a game when it doesn't matter,
or maybe you know, for a couple of minutes in
the second in the third quarter to give everybody your rest.
But if Fox and Castle start and Vassill comes in
or Harper comes in, or whatever combination's out there, when

(01:51):
Fox is on the floor, he's the point guard, and
when he's not, Castle's the point guard. And if for
some reason, well if Castle and Vassille or Castle and
Harper on the floor at the same time and less
there's foul trouble, you can play Harper at one and two,
or you can play with Sell it too. There's all
kinds of combinations that you can play there. But I
just don't see there's enough playing time for Russell Westbrook. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
In the regular season, he played in seventy five games,
started thirty six and averaged just a smidge under twenty
eight minutes a game, which I did not realize it
was that high. But in the postseason it dropped a
little bit to he played in thirteen games and then
only averaged about twenty four minutes a game.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
I just don't think there's twenty four minutes for him
to play, even in the regular season and or the playoffs.
I just don't see that there's enough time for him
to have meaningful minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, let me ask you this.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
I'll tell you where he should go. It's Phoenix. They
need a point guard. Yeah, and he might give the
ball to Beale and Booker occasionally.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
He might keyword might yes.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, let me let me ask this though, if if
by chance, if the Spurs move the pick or whatever
or don't take uh, don't take Dylan Harper or a
guard with the number two pick, and they wind up
with just the big man, whether it's uh melawatch Queen,
or if they go get the guy that we kind
of want with Ca Nipple later on, would you be

(03:21):
would you be up for him knowing well, hey, you're
going to be the backup point guard.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
I don't think there's going to be a backup point
guard unless you get rid of more than the players.
Because if you keep Castle, and you keep you keep Castle,
Visell and Fox, if those three guys are on your roster,
unless you're gonna play vascill at the three for a
good chunk of the game or or Castle at the
three for a good chunk of the game, I think

(03:47):
those three players are playing ninety minutes, and probably sixty
of those minutes they're playing the one or the two,
and there's probably somewhere along the line where all three
are on the floor at the same time. So I
don't think there's room for Harper if Vasille is here,
and I don't think there's room for Vassell if Harper's here.
But if Harper's here, it's because you needed to draft

(04:08):
somebody to replace Vassell. And that's because Vassell would be
part of Kevin Durant trade. And as much as I
would like for Vassell to play his entire career here
and I think he's a star, in the making. I
think his upside has still not been determined yet. I
don't think he's reached his ceiling. If you're gonna get
Kevin Durant or Giannis, the only way you're gonna get

(04:29):
him is he's got to be a part of the puzzle.
It doesn't work any other way that I can see,
unless there's some salary cap workarounds that the Spurs could do.
But if you're gonna play, if you're gonna have those
three guys on your roster and you're gonna play him
ninety minutes a game between the three of them, the
total minutes, I don't think there's room for any point guard.
And the idea that you're gonna have Fox at the

(04:51):
one and Castle at the two and the only player
that's gonna replace Fox is Russell Westbrook, I just don't
see that lineup working. I think you want the younger
guys and I can see the combination of those three
players playing a lot of minutes. And then on a
night where you get one of them load manages or
they need a night off for rest, or somebody gets injured,

(05:14):
that's when you go to the Blake Wesleys or the
Branham's or somebody like that that may be deeper on
your roster, and they get some token minutes. But if
you're looking at the long term seventy five game strategy,
and you have Fox and Castle and Vissel, or Fox,
Castle and Harper, those are the guys that are playing
in the back court the book of the game. Okay,

(05:36):
all right, what else do we gotta do? We got more.
We'll give you a final leaderboard update on the US
Open coming up here in just a little bit. And
we got a baseball story, and it has to do
with the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees
and how much of a rivalry that is. But this story,
it shouldn't have been a rival because what they thought

(05:57):
happened didn't happen. We'll tell you that next on the
ticket