Tuesday: Giannis to San Antonio can it truly work?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
I would say in the last I don't know, four
or five days when I was golfing on Saturday. When
I have been around the office here today and yesterday,
I failed to.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Ask you how did that go? By the way, what
go golfing seventy eight?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
No big deal, you're slash slacking. But anyway, I've had
a lot of people say, man, getting honest would be great,
and I said, yeah, it would be. It would be
a great opportunity for the Spurs to be able to
have another star on their roster to not only I think,
help Wimby because he's got a few more years of experience,

(00:46):
but to give him the physicality that is necessary for
him to not have to bang with the bigger players
in the league. I think this team still and I
think one of the things that's been documented is that
while Giannis does not want to be called a center,
and my guess is if he were on this roster,
the Spurs would play with three forwards and two guards,

(01:07):
or two forwards and three guards, and it wouldn't technically
be called a center. He kind of can play the
center position as well as anyone. He's a pretty good rebounder,
and he can get to the he can get to
the rim, so not only offensively, but defensively. Now Wimby's
going to be the defensive shot blocker. I would love
to have him on the team. But I keep cautioning people,

(01:30):
what are you going to give up? What are you
willing to give up? Well, of course this is from
for the educated and the uneducated, and a lot of
people are saying, well, let's just give up, you know,
let's give up a play a player. A Well, that
guy doesn't make enough money. You're gonna either have to
have another team involved, or you're going to have to
give up at least two, if not three players, and

(01:50):
probably three to be able to give him that to
give the Milwaukee what they're going to covet. Plus they're
also going to want multiple draft picks. And we touched
on this yesterday. I don't think it's a done deal.
And this is why Brian Wright gets to make the
important decisions, along with the consultation from whoever el Hefe

(02:12):
and probably Mitch Johnson. And right now, I would imagine
they're taking a look at their They probably have a
board with all the players on their roster and they're like, okay,
if we have Giannis. What's our rotation? Who starts, who
comes in, who comes off the bench. How does this
rotation work without fouls? How does this work if somebody
gets in foul trouble? How do we manipulate this puzzle?

(02:35):
And a lot of us now get to do this
because the trade machine can tell us whether trades will
work or not, esp in a scene to that. There's
other what's the one you go to bleacher or Basketball
Reference or that's.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, that's just because they have all the numbers.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
They have the numbers for the next several years, so
that you can project out. And so there's all kinds
of ways that the fan now can create trades and
know that if they're allowed to be made, where twenty
years ago it was just we're shooting in the dark
because they had the numbers and we didn't. And I
recall many general managers and maybe in our SI years ago,

(03:10):
I don't know if it was him or not, but
somebody said, you know, you guys play fantasy sports. We
do it for real, and you get you win whatever
you win in your in your team pool, and we
have to make We get paid a lot of money,
and if we fail, we get fired. That's kind of
the way it is, and it's you know, I think
one of the things that I'll say that basketball scouts

(03:34):
can tell how good a player is athletically and project
whether he's going to be good or not based on
his athletic skill set. And there's a lot of times,
like we were talking before the show today, I think
Konkin Nipple will be a great off the bench, twenty
minute a game guy forever in the NBA. I think
he can play like Klay Thompson does coming off screens.

(03:55):
What I saw in the NCAA tournament. Obviously it's against
inferior competition compared to the NBA, but he's got a
quick release and as long as he gets the right screen.
I don't think he can create his own shot and
create his own three, but he can come off picks.
He can be we said Dote Divshenzo. I think he
can be that player for a long time. But that's
my evaluation of them. That's not a scout that is

(04:17):
looking at his speed and quickness, looking at how he jumps,
looking at his agility drills. Having a conversation with John
Shire and the Duke coaching staff as to how well
he accepts criticism, how well he's coached. All of those
things are part of what they get to do. All
we get to see is how good of a player
he is, or how good of a player we think
he is. I can remember the nineteen ninety one draft

(04:42):
when the Spurs had a draft party and they had
a first round pick, and I think that was the
Dwayne chencia Is draft, and in the second round about
the fifty sixth or fifty seventh pick. I don't remember
to this day who the Spurs picked, but there was
a bunch of us in the arena going Kit Anderson Hunt,
Kit Anderson Hunt for UNLV. He was on the championship team,

(05:02):
great outside shooter, and not only did the Spurs not
take him, neither did anybody else. He got a camp
invite from some other team. He was the first player cut,
and we're all wondering why didn't Anthony Anderson Hunt make
it in the league. Those guys know something intangibly that
we don't see. So from my perspective, I think Conkin
Epple would be a great choice, but not at two.

(05:24):
And he'll be gone by fourteen if you believe all
the things that the scouts are saying, but you have
to look at how rosters are built. And as I'm
looking at these playoffs, the Knicks are not a deep team.
Denver was not a deep team, Minnesota's not really isn't
too deep. Indiana may be a little bit deeper. Oklahoma
City puts ten guys on the floor, and Mark Dagnold

(05:45):
is confident in most of them to at least give
you five to seven minutes so that the stars can
get a rest in these bigger games. And then over
the course of a season he's playing ten, eleven, twelve
guys so that Shay's minutes aren't ridiculous and he's rested
in non to have productivity in the in the playoffs.
And that's one of the things that if you look
at the at the Spurs and their championship runs, they

(06:07):
had a bench three five, seven, ninety nine, fourteen. They
had bench players that didn't necessarily crave the basketball, didn't
necessarily crave to be the superstars. But you had Boris
Dia and you had Patty Mills, and when one year
you had Gary Neil Matt Bonnard. Of course Manhu coming
off the bench as the ultimate six man. All of

(06:27):
these things were parts of the puzzle that when you
look at the roster, you go, well, that's not that impressive,
but collectively they were amazing. And when you decide you're
going to make a trade and you've had the development
that you've had with the core of this team for
four or five years, and assuming that you can get
Chris Paul to come back and everybody's happy coming back,
and you have that ten or eleven plus whoever you draft,

(06:50):
that still may be the better opportunity for you to
get to that fifty win mark and beyond than it
is to bring in a star. I'm not saying it
can't work with Giannis, but then you are going to
be a if you're a seven, eight, nine man rotation
in the regular season and a six to eight man
rotation in the playoffs, that's not necessarily as as comfortable

(07:11):
as what these other teams have been able to do,
namely Oklahoma City, who right now I think is the
benchmark in the league.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, it's uh, that's the main that's the main question
is again, I would love to have Giannis here just
for a new version of an updated Twin Towers to
a certain extent, for you know, back when David and
Tim were here. Now you have Giannis and then the Apes.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
But David and Tim worked because the NBA was a
post position league. Correct. Fortunately, Yannis and Wimby could work
because neither one of them really wants to be in
the post, and one of them is never going to
be in the post. You don't have two people playing
the same position. Yeah, and and I think you know,
even David was a center all his life and Tim
was a power forward for most of his career, uh

(07:56):
and was as defined as the best power forward. They
had different roles back then. You still ran place for
David when David left, Olberto and andvichs Muhammad they were
weak side rebounders that cleaned up whatever Tim missed, which
was very often, And so the role changed even though

(08:17):
you had tall players. And Wimby's just as much of
a perimeter wing player as as anyone is. And Giannis
can go out there and drive, but I think Janis
can also get you some rebounds in some interior defense
as well.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, and again here's the thing. Again, I would love
to have Giannis, but if that means that the San
Antonio Spurs wind up turning into the Tom Thibodeau uh
New York Knicks, where we only go at best seven deep.
The organization is not going to do that because we
know how we know how they are. They're not going

(08:50):
to run guys out there and make them go forty
minutes a night unless it's a double or triple overtime,
and even then they're pushing it. If you're going to
go that far, you're depleting your whole event.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
We talk about load management. I think where load management
works best is allowing your players to play seventy five
to eighty two games if they're capable of doing it,
but not playing them thirty six minutes a night. You've
got to keep that number in the thirties. And we
talk about players from yesteryear didn't load manage. But look
at Michael's minutes per game. I haven't looked at him lately,

(09:25):
but I would imagine Michael's in the Twilight in the
in the prime of his career, he was not playing
more than thirty four to thirty five minutes in the
regular season. Playoffs, he was playing every minute he could
he could be out there. But in the regular season,
my guess is as he was in the mid thirties,
and if you go back and look even further beyond that,
the Bigs, when you had guys like Kareem, they were

(09:46):
playing thirty thirty two minutes a game, if that in
the regular season.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
In his fifteen years it was thirty eight point three.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Really played that many minutes.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Play that many minutes.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Okay, look at ninety seven ninety six, ninety five, how
many minutes City ninety five ninety six.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Just that season ninety five ninety six, he was at
thirty seven point seven ninety seven ninety eight, or that
was ninety five ninety six, ninety six ninety seven. It
went up point two. At ninety seven ninety eight, he
was thirty eight point eight.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
So he's the aberration. I'll look at some of the
others out there, but a lot of that. When you
play a player that many minutes, you better be really
special to have enough gas left at the end of
the season. Because I know that Magic and Kareem. I
remember looking at their numbers. They were under thirty five.
Magic not as much as Kareem. But whatever the situation is,
when you have a deep enough bench, then you can

(10:38):
afford to play your players less minutes and they'll be
better ready for the playoffs and that way they don't
need as many load management games. All Right, we're going
to talk about some NFL stuff coming up, and we're
going to get to that coming up next with Caleb
Williams and the discussion that Colin was talking about earlier today.
I've got some thoughts on that for twenty eight on
the Ticket