Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just past the quarter pole of the season, twenty three
games or so into the end of the season. They're
about where I thought they would finish at the end
of the year. I've had them picked as the sixth
best team.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Really.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
The only two teams I've missed on so far are
Phoenix in Dallas. I thought Dallas would be far better,
and I thought Phoenix would be far worse. Phoenix has
basically done the addition by subtraction by getting rid of
Kevin Durant and allowing Booker to be the most part
of that team. And Bradley Beal's not there anymore either,
(00:31):
probably not a not a good chemistry thing there. But
I expected Oklahoma City to be good. I think Houston
and Minnesota are right there in Denvers right there, and
then the Spurs. And the sixth team was Phoenix, and
I kind of had Dallas in San Antonio at five
and six. But Dallas is in a disaster area right now,
and obviously they fired Nico Harrison a few weeks back,
(00:54):
so that changed some things as well. But the one
thing I liked about what I'm seeing in this track
without Victor woman Yama is prior to his cap string
to where he had to go on the ir For
a while, the Spurs were the best defensive team historically
speaking in the history of the NBA average teams averaging
(01:17):
in the minutes that he was on the floor. They
do the you know, the algorithm thing. If you put
it out to forty eight minutes. For every forty eight
minutes he's on the floor, teams averaged less than one
hundred points a game. But when he left the floor
and he was not there, teams averaged almost one hundred
and twenty two points or something along those lines.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I don't remember the exact number. It was the stat
that they.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Had on one of the national broadcasts back earlier in
the season.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, they went from basically number one to like number
twenty eighth in the least.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, and but number one, number one in the history
of time to number to last in the.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
History of time, basically pretty much.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And now that they and I think Luke Cornett has
proven to be a decent rim protector. He's not Wimby,
but he's better than most for sure. And the defense
I think without Wimby on the ball has gotten better
because the players know, I don't have you know, number
one to bail me out if I miss here, so
(02:16):
to me while, I want him back on the floor
as quickly as possible, because I actually think the Spurs
could move up past Denver and maybe past Houston if
they keep playing this well with him in the lineup.
And I don't think they could ever win a series
with these teams. The Lakers are the team that's the
aberration too. I just don't know how much longer they
can sustain this with Luca and Reeves and Lebron basically
(02:39):
the only three guys on their team there are point
contributors on a consistent basis. I think they're getting it
done kind of with smoking mirrors, and I expect them
to probably win around forty eight to fifty two games,
but I don't think they're going to be on the
same pace that they once were. And of course, tomorrow
night we have the Emirates Cup game with the Lakers.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I've been waiting.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I've been waiting an hour and a half to get
to the the prestigious Immirates NBA Cup match up tomorrow. Look,
I get like we've been talking about all week, like
this would normally be a great regular season game. On
December tenth, between the number two seed Lakers and the
number five seed Spurs. But the fact that there is
(03:23):
even more on the line, Like, I'm really curious to see.
I mean, obviously if Wimby is magically going to be
back tomorrow, but it doesn't look like it. But even
if even without him, I want to see how this
team matches up right now in a in a game
that actually has something on the line.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, because as if you lose, okay, we lost, We'll
get him next time. If you lose, Man, we didn't
make the We didn't We could have made more money
if we had kept winning, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
And I think there's you know, as we as we
watch the Spurs over the last ten games without Wimby
but also without Castle, uh, you're seeing you're seeing roles
be established, or roles be expanded, or in Sohan's case,
roles being a little diminished. But I think it allows
(04:12):
having those guys out of the lineup is not ideal,
but it does allow for some lanes of growth and development.
And the first name that comes to mind there is
Dylan Harper. I mean, who hit the game winner last night.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, I got to take here, and this is I
hope this comes out the way I mean it too,
because this is the utmost sign of respect for Mitch Johnson.
I mean nothing but that here. There are a lot
of people if he continues at this pace, if the
Spurs win fifty six fifty seven games, which is the
pace that they're on right now, it's crazy. He's the
coach of the year. Yeah, and people are going to go,
(04:46):
was he that good of a coach? Or is he
got great players? He's got great players, and I would
imagine he would be the first to tell you that
he's got a group of great players. And we've documented
that Wemby's the number one pick, and that Harper was
the second pick overall, and Fox and Castle in their
respective drafts, or the number four pick overall, and Vasseille
was the top ten pick, and so end was the
(05:08):
top ten pick.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Vaill was right, I was twelve eleven, okay, and uh and.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Johnson was a twenty ninth pick, and Harrison Barnes was
a lottery pick. I mean, you got a lot of
really good players on here that are in the early
part of their prime, in their prime, or in the
tail end of their prime. And that's basically the top
eight guys on the team, and then you've got really
really good role players like Luke Cornett and Champagnee that
(05:38):
know exactly what the team needs. I'm not saying it's
easy to coach those teams, but it's a lot easier
to coach teams that are really good than it is
to coach teams that are average. And Pope has said,
I am the winningest coach of all time for one
reason and one reason only twenty one. That is the
reason why I'm the winningest of all time because not
(06:01):
only was he the best player in the league at
the time, or at least one of them. He may
not have been the best individual player, but he was
the best team player and the team was amazing as well.
That's why he won all those games. You just have
It's kind of like CJ. Stroud in the offense for
the Texans, just don't mess it up. But I think
the rotations that we're seeing are great, and I think
(06:23):
the challenge whatever he has said since Wmby went out
of the lineup, guys, we're the worst offensive team in
the world. When Wimby's not out there, You guys are
good enough to play defense, and play defense on the
ball to the limit that the NBA allows defense to
be played down, and that I think is a miraculous
job as well. And as long as they can get
(06:43):
Castle back and he stays healthy and Wimby back and
he stays healthy, I think this team can go a
long way. I think they can win at least a
first round playoff matchup, and then depending on who they
match up with in the second round. I don't know
if you're going to see a demise with Oklahoma City
anytime soon. They're twenty three and one. Uh, but you're
gonna get to play them three or four times this year,
(07:05):
So we'll see what happens when that happens. Maybe you
play them next week in the in the semifinals.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, in the NBA Cup semi finals. I think, look,
we're reaching the point where if you have a healthy
Wimby active on the roster in a playoff series, you
have a chance against literally any team in the NBA
except maybe Oklahoma City just because they're so good. So
if you exclude them, there's no one else in the
(07:31):
West that you could immediately say, oh, that's going to
be a five game series.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Going the other way.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
When you have someone as as talented.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
As Wimby, and you could make a case that Shay
is not the best individual player that Giannis is, or
Luca is or or Joker is or whoever.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I think's drawing free throws. He's the best at it.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
And that's what the NBA is about, is getting on
Especially when you're a ninety percent free throw shooter, you
want to be on the free throw line. I've always
said this about about play. I'm when I'm calling games,
and Tim Carter, who coached at UTSA and is the
analyst on our home games. If you're a big guy,
or you're a guy that lives in the lane and
you're and you can just shoot eighty percent at the
(08:12):
free throw line, you're going to have the longest career
of all time.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I mean, I don't know what.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
The exact number is because it's been a long time since,
uh since whenever, whenever I looked at it, and uh,
Moses Malone had like twenty nine thousand career points and
sixteen thousand of them were free throws because he was
eighty three percent free throw shooter. So and he was
great at missing the missing a shot, getting a rebound
(08:39):
and grunting real loud, and then they would give him
two free throws and he usually made them both.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
It's effective. It's an effective method. I will say, you
see it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Sound like you used that method before when you grunt
really loud the official give you the call.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Buddy, Don't you know I was the guy that's as
I took the charge not only grunted, but also slapped
the floor with my backhand as I was trying to
you know, not break my ass as I was falling
to the court, because it also made it sound like
it was way more violent.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Absolutely, sell it. You got you got, you gotta, you
gotta be part actor.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
The question you know you talk about Mitch and seeing
the UH. Of course, when you have good players, UH,
it makes you, you know, that much better of a coach.
That's obvious the questions or the I would say, the
UH avenues of growth for him as a coach again,
is you know, blowing another twenty point lead and having
(09:34):
to storm back to win, or you know, having the
worst third point h third quarter point differential in the
entire NBA right now. I think those are things that
as because this team is also still so incredibly young,
I think those are some of the things that young
players learn from coaching staffs, from veterans like Harrison Barnes
(09:54):
in the locker room. Uh, that's how you turn those
trends around.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I'll give you an example of of that too. UTSA
was playing Alabama this weekend and got run out of
the building by thirty point thirty seven points or whatever.
Utsa is really struggling shooting. They're a really good defensive team,
but they can't score right now. And I think the
deficit halftime was thirty four thirty seven points something like that.
I think at one point, with just a couple of
(10:18):
minutes ago in the game, UTSA it out actually outscored
them in the second half. The game was over with
by the twelve minute mark, a eight minute mark of
the it was over by halftime.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
There was an insurmountable lead.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
But it's human nature that when you're behind by that much,
you just freelance it and everything's easier. And it's human
nature when you're ahead that much, I don't have to
really work very hard because they're not going to catch
it anyway. So a lot of times and I think
the third quarter is the worst, especially for a home team.
I think the start of the third quarter is the
worst because people haven't sat back down on their seat yet.
There's no emotion in the building everybody. Half the seats
(10:53):
are empty, and you're trying to kind of generate some
someth enthusiasm to finish of that quarter. All right, some
baseball stuff to get to, and who's going to win
these first round matchups in college football, we'll discuss. Coming
up five point forty seven on the ticket
Just past the quarter pole of the season, twenty three
games or so into the end of the season. They're
about where I thought they would finish at the end
of the year. I've had them picked as the sixth
best team.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Really.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
The only two teams I've missed on so far are
Phoenix in Dallas. I thought Dallas would be far better,
and I thought Phoenix would be far worse. Phoenix has
basically done the addition by subtraction by getting rid of
Kevin Durant and allowing Booker to be the most part
of that team. And Bradley Beal's not there anymore either,
(00:31):
probably not a not a good chemistry thing there. But
I expected Oklahoma City to be good. I think Houston
and Minnesota are right there in Denvers right there, and
then the Spurs. And the sixth team was Phoenix, and
I kind of had Dallas in San Antonio at five
and six. But Dallas is in a disaster area right now,
and obviously they fired Nico Harrison a few weeks back,
(00:54):
so that changed some things as well. But the one
thing I liked about what I'm seeing in this track
without Victor woman Yama is prior to his cap string
to where he had to go on the ir For
a while, the Spurs were the best defensive team historically
speaking in the history of the NBA average teams averaging
(01:17):
in the minutes that he was on the floor. They
do the you know, the algorithm thing. If you put
it out to forty eight minutes. For every forty eight
minutes he's on the floor, teams averaged less than one
hundred points a game. But when he left the floor
and he was not there, teams averaged almost one hundred
and twenty two points or something along those lines.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I don't remember the exact number. It was the stat
that they.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Had on one of the national broadcasts back earlier in
the season.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, they went from basically number one to like number
twenty eighth in the least.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, and but number one, number one in the history
of time to number to last in the.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
History of time, basically pretty much.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And now that they and I think Luke Cornett has
proven to be a decent rim protector. He's not Wimby,
but he's better than most for sure. And the defense
I think without Wimby on the ball has gotten better
because the players know, I don't have you know, number
one to bail me out if I miss here, so
(02:16):
to me while, I want him back on the floor
as quickly as possible, because I actually think the Spurs
could move up past Denver and maybe past Houston if
they keep playing this well with him in the lineup.
And I don't think they could ever win a series
with these teams. The Lakers are the team that's the
aberration too. I just don't know how much longer they
can sustain this with Luca and Reeves and Lebron basically
(02:39):
the only three guys on their team there are point
contributors on a consistent basis. I think they're getting it
done kind of with smoking mirrors, and I expect them
to probably win around forty eight to fifty two games,
but I don't think they're going to be on the
same pace that they once were. And of course, tomorrow
night we have the Emirates Cup game with the Lakers.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I've been waiting.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I've been waiting an hour and a half to get
to the the prestigious Immirates NBA Cup match up tomorrow. Look,
I get like we've been talking about all week, like
this would normally be a great regular season game. On
December tenth, between the number two seed Lakers and the
number five seed Spurs. But the fact that there is
(03:23):
even more on the line, Like, I'm really curious to see.
I mean, obviously if Wimby is magically going to be
back tomorrow, but it doesn't look like it. But even
if even without him, I want to see how this
team matches up right now in a in a game
that actually has something on the line.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, because as if you lose, okay, we lost, We'll
get him next time. If you lose, Man, we didn't
make the We didn't We could have made more money
if we had kept winning, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
And I think there's you know, as we as we
watch the Spurs over the last ten games without Wimby
but also without Castle, uh, you're seeing you're seeing roles
be established, or roles be expanded, or in Sohan's case,
roles being a little diminished. But I think it allows
(04:12):
having those guys out of the lineup is not ideal,
but it does allow for some lanes of growth and development.
And the first name that comes to mind there is
Dylan Harper. I mean, who hit the game winner last night.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, I got to take here, and this is I
hope this comes out the way I mean it too,
because this is the utmost sign of respect for Mitch Johnson.
I mean nothing but that here. There are a lot
of people if he continues at this pace, if the
Spurs win fifty six fifty seven games, which is the
pace that they're on right now, it's crazy. He's the
coach of the year. Yeah, and people are going to go,
(04:46):
was he that good of a coach? Or is he
got great players? He's got great players, and I would
imagine he would be the first to tell you that
he's got a group of great players. And we've documented
that Wemby's the number one pick, and that Harper was
the second pick overall, and Fox and Castle in their
respective drafts, or the number four pick overall, and Vasseille
was the top ten pick, and so end was the
(05:08):
top ten pick.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Vaill was right, I was twelve eleven, okay, and uh and.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Johnson was a twenty ninth pick, and Harrison Barnes was
a lottery pick. I mean, you got a lot of
really good players on here that are in the early
part of their prime, in their prime, or in the
tail end of their prime. And that's basically the top
eight guys on the team, and then you've got really
really good role players like Luke Cornett and Champagnee that
(05:38):
know exactly what the team needs. I'm not saying it's
easy to coach those teams, but it's a lot easier
to coach teams that are really good than it is
to coach teams that are average. And Pope has said,
I am the winningest coach of all time for one
reason and one reason only twenty one. That is the
reason why I'm the winningest of all time because not
(06:01):
only was he the best player in the league at
the time, or at least one of them. He may
not have been the best individual player, but he was
the best team player and the team was amazing as well.
That's why he won all those games. You just have
It's kind of like CJ. Stroud in the offense for
the Texans, just don't mess it up. But I think
the rotations that we're seeing are great, and I think
(06:23):
the challenge whatever he has said since Wmby went out
of the lineup, guys, we're the worst offensive team in
the world. When Wimby's not out there, You guys are
good enough to play defense, and play defense on the
ball to the limit that the NBA allows defense to
be played down, and that I think is a miraculous
job as well. And as long as they can get
(06:43):
Castle back and he stays healthy and Wimby back and
he stays healthy, I think this team can go a
long way. I think they can win at least a
first round playoff matchup, and then depending on who they
match up with in the second round. I don't know
if you're going to see a demise with Oklahoma City
anytime soon. They're twenty three and one. Uh, but you're
gonna get to play them three or four times this year,
(07:05):
So we'll see what happens when that happens. Maybe you
play them next week in the in the semifinals.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, in the NBA Cup semi finals. I think, look,
we're reaching the point where if you have a healthy
Wimby active on the roster in a playoff series, you
have a chance against literally any team in the NBA
except maybe Oklahoma City just because they're so good. So
if you exclude them, there's no one else in the
(07:31):
West that you could immediately say, oh, that's going to
be a five game series.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Going the other way.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
When you have someone as as talented.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
As Wimby, and you could make a case that Shay
is not the best individual player that Giannis is, or
Luca is or or Joker is or whoever.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I think's drawing free throws. He's the best at it.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
And that's what the NBA is about, is getting on
Especially when you're a ninety percent free throw shooter, you
want to be on the free throw line. I've always
said this about about play. I'm when I'm calling games,
and Tim Carter, who coached at UTSA and is the
analyst on our home games. If you're a big guy,
or you're a guy that lives in the lane and
you're and you can just shoot eighty percent at the
(08:12):
free throw line, you're going to have the longest career
of all time.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I mean, I don't know what.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
The exact number is because it's been a long time since,
uh since whenever, whenever I looked at it, and uh,
Moses Malone had like twenty nine thousand career points and
sixteen thousand of them were free throws because he was
eighty three percent free throw shooter. So and he was
great at missing the missing a shot, getting a rebound
(08:39):
and grunting real loud, and then they would give him
two free throws and he usually made them both.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
It's effective. It's an effective method. I will say, you
see it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Sound like you used that method before when you grunt
really loud the official give you the call.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Buddy, Don't you know I was the guy that's as
I took the charge not only grunted, but also slapped
the floor with my backhand as I was trying to
you know, not break my ass as I was falling
to the court, because it also made it sound like
it was way more violent.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Absolutely, sell it. You got you got, you gotta, you
gotta be part actor.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
The question you know you talk about Mitch and seeing
the UH. Of course, when you have good players, UH,
it makes you, you know, that much better of a coach.
That's obvious the questions or the I would say, the
UH avenues of growth for him as a coach again,
is you know, blowing another twenty point lead and having
(09:34):
to storm back to win, or you know, having the
worst third point h third quarter point differential in the
entire NBA right now. I think those are things that
as because this team is also still so incredibly young,
I think those are some of the things that young
players learn from coaching staffs, from veterans like Harrison Barnes
(09:54):
in the locker room. Uh, that's how you turn those
trends around.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I'll give you an example of of that too. UTSA
was playing Alabama this weekend and got run out of
the building by thirty point thirty seven points or whatever.
Utsa is really struggling shooting. They're a really good defensive team,
but they can't score right now. And I think the
deficit halftime was thirty four thirty seven points something like that.
I think at one point, with just a couple of
(10:18):
minutes ago in the game, UTSA it out actually outscored
them in the second half. The game was over with
by the twelve minute mark, a eight minute mark of
the it was over by halftime.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
There was an insurmountable lead.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
But it's human nature that when you're behind by that much,
you just freelance it and everything's easier. And it's human
nature when you're ahead that much, I don't have to
really work very hard because they're not going to catch
it anyway. So a lot of times and I think
the third quarter is the worst, especially for a home team.
I think the start of the third quarter is the
worst because people haven't sat back down on their seat yet.
There's no emotion in the building everybody. Half the seats
(10:53):
are empty, and you're trying to kind of generate some
someth enthusiasm to finish of that quarter. All right, some
baseball stuff to get to, and who's going to win
these first round matchups in college football, we'll discuss. Coming
up five point forty seven on the ticket
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