Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, four to thirty six. It's the anti average
show on the ticket.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Monday night will be the first preseason game for the Spurs,
and I think there's a lot of expectations this year
for the Spurs to at worst be one of the
player in teams. But I think there's also a lot
of things that people feel like will be a better
seed than that, maybe one of the top six seeds.
By the way, the Cubs did win, so they lead
(00:25):
the Padres one game to nothing, Dodgers Reds later to
night Yankees Red Sox in about an hour.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
But anyway, I think the.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I don't really have a lot of concerns about the
success of this team getting in the high forties to
low fifties in terms of wins as long as they
have a full array of players every game, and I
don't think it's something to be concerned about right now.
But the fact that Dylan Harper is going to miss
(00:54):
the first four or five games of the season potentially
depends on what the prognostication is with his thumb that
he had repaired after the ligam an issue in practice
back in September. Or it's the Iaron Fox who apparently
needs a little bit more time because of a hamstring,
and he's going to be cautious in training camp and
to be determined when he's going to be cleared for
(01:16):
full contact and practice and then into the games. And
I don't think it's gonna unless something there's a setback.
I don't think it's going to be more than the
first two or three games of the season. But I
don't want to get into the habit of losing early
and say, Okay, we can make it up later. I
think every game matters, and I don't think that a
lot of fans look at that way, and I'm sure
a lot of players don't even look at it that
(01:38):
way either, But to me, it really matters that if
you can go fourteen and let's see, you can win
of the first forty games of the year, if you
can somehow figure out a way to win twenty five
of those games and be twenty five and fifteen after
forty games, and that would put you on pace to
(02:00):
win fifty games. To me, you've got to do everything
you can to kind of get to that number.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And losing to teams early in the year that.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
You have the potential to beat, especially at home and
Obviously basketball is hard to predict. But you're going to
open the season with the Mavericks on the road and
at the Pelicans. Well, you're hoping for a split on
a two game road trip. Now, which game you win
and lose? Who knows, maybe you win them both. But
then you get the Nets, Raptors and Heat at home.
(02:30):
You're hoping that at the end of October you're at
worse three and two, if not better than that. And
then you get the Suns and Lakers on the road.
But two teams. I don't think the Suns are a
playoff team next year and the Lakers are borderline at that.
And then you come home and play the Rockets and
Pelicans in a back to back. So now you've played
was that nine games? You want to be somewhere around
(02:54):
six and three at that.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Point the first ten for them. Andy, Realistically, it's a
very favorable schedule.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, it's favorable schedule.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
But if you're not at full strength, then you lose
because you're not at full strength. Now you gotta go
win games at your quote unquote not as as apt
to be able to win.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, but you know, again, just on paper, let's just
say if de Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper aren't playing.
They still have the capability of, you know, beating the
Mavericks because again, uh, they're gonna be without Kyrie Irving.
Yes they'll have uh, Anthony Davis, they'll have Cooper Flag,
but that's still a very winnable game. The Pelicans are terrible,
(03:34):
the Nets are terrible, The Raptors are will be terrible.
The Miami Heat, Uh, that could be a trap game
because Tyler Hero will be out for for a while.
I forgot what surgery he was having. All they have
is Bam out of bio. Uh. The Sun's game, like
you meant, like you mentioned, the Suns are a shell
of them former selves. You have Devin Booker and I
(03:55):
don't even remember who else is on the Suns team.
The the first maybe true test for them would be,
as much as you don't want to give them credit,
would still be the Lakers at at State or ACT.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, they've got two players, and if those two players
play great, they're going to win. If only one of
them plays great, they're probably not. They're a five hundred team.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, and then you play the Rockets. So I would
say in those first ten games selfishly I could see
the Spurs being at worst six and four, seven and three,
maybe eight and two.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So that's what you have to hope for.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And if you're able to do that, that gives you
a jumpstart on the season. You don't want to get
in the habit of playing five hundred or worse basketball
just because it's November and December. These games are going
to eventually matter. So I've kind of gone through this
scenario since July. But if I got to pick the
starting lineup with my vast coaching knowledge, I would go
(04:54):
with Wimby, Olyntic Castle, VI Selling Fox is my starting five.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
When everybody's healthy.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Barnes and Keldon Johnson and Harper, probably Champagne and I
know I'm leaving somebody else out that's on the tip
of my tongue that would come off the bench, but
I Vezell would start. I would start with Fox with
Selling Castle and play three guards. I'd bring Harper, kJ
Champagne and Barnes off the bench. I think all those
give you a great secondary rotation.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
You're forgetting Loop Cornet.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And Yeah, and Cornet would be the fifth.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
That would be the tenth guy, and he'd play spare
minutes behind Wimby or Olynik at the one of the
power positions.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Carter Bryant as well.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Carter Bryant's a project.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I don't think Carter Bryant's gonna get a lot of
minutes early on. I think so in is that jack
of all trades. I think Bryant's gonna is going to
be in a learning situation for a good chunk of
the season, and then we'll see of the other players
down the list, how many minutes did they get. But now,
if I take my starter Fox out of the lineup,
and I stake one of my backups Harper out of
(05:53):
the lineup for those first few games, who's the backup
point guard when Castle's not in the lineup.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Maybe Carter Bryant maybe.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Or do you have to go down to like Lindy
Waters or one of those guys that you signed in
the summer.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, potentially as well.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Again I've guessed, and now you have to play Castle
thirty six or thirty eight minutes, because that's who you trust.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Do you trust the.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Other guy to give you, you know, twenty probably not,
So you got to play him a little bit more
earlier in the season. And that's where those nagging injuries
can mount up. So I think what the Spurs are
trying to do is to make sure that they don't
have those injuries dealing with it all year long. Let's
get them healthy before they go play at one hundred
percent and we can. If it were a playoff game
(06:38):
and they were in this condition, yeah, they'd go play.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You can rest off summer.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
By the way, it wouldn't be Lindy Waters, because Lindy
Waters is a Ford.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It would more than likely be Jordan McLoughlin. Okay, because
remember they re signed Jordan mclough.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And he's gonna get He's gonna get a cup of
coffee in terms of minutes. But that puts a lot
of pressure on Castle. And Castle played some point guard
last year and some two and somewherever he wants, and
that's that's going to be the interesting part is how
do you do the rotations when you're down two players
and one of them is your point guard and the
other one who's your backup point guard.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I mean, in theory, he is a guard, and you know,
Devin Vassel maybe could run a little bit of point guard.
I don't know if I would want to go the
route of even though he had experience with doing it,
kind of being forced into it, the project itself didn't
work too well. Jeremy sohan Or did you just do
(07:29):
like Denver does and just.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Have that court and do whatever he wants with? Yeah,
you can do.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
That as well. That's certainly an opportunity. And you and
I were talking before the show today about the mentality
of players and coaches. And there's some players out there
when the coach says you're resting, you're tired, you're injured,
we're not playing tonight, theyk okay, and they go put
on their street clothes and they sit behind the bench.
And then there's others that go, you're gonna have to
(07:57):
handcuff me to the locker room before I leave the
before I'm not on the floor. And if you don't
put me in the game, I'm going to check myself
in and I'm going to double dare you to take
me out at some point during the game. And so
you have two different sets of mentality here. Pop has
always had this and when he was coaching for the
twenty plus years he was coaching, his philosophy was I'm
not going to be the coach that ends your career
(08:19):
because I allowed you to play when you shouldn't have
been playing. And that's the lecture he gave to Tim
Duncan in two thousand and it was in a transition
year where Tim could have left, and Tim could have
gotten angry and said, well, coach wouldn't let me play
when I was injured because I really wanted to play,
So I'm out of here. He realized that he was
looking out for his own long term best interest and
(08:40):
we've documented this from twenty five years now. Look what
happened to Grant Hill after Doug Collins allowed him to play,
because that's what Grant wanted to do. And if Pop
had allowed Tim Duncan to play, there's a possibility that
his career would not have been what it was because
he would have further aggravated the injury.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
I'm curious.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
We always talk about things are done the Spurs way,
but I think things were done the Pop way. A
lot of that was always predicated by Pop and his
interest in player and individuals. It was a team concept,
but in the individual body of work, a game or
two in November December wasn't nearly as important as the
guy playing for twenty years and having a long term deal,
(09:21):
a long term career. He would tell players hit the
road when when Mamu got no was Boban. Boban got
offered a gazillion dollars to go play for Milwaukee, I
think or Detroit, and he was like a coach, I
don't want to leave. He goes to, you gotta go leave.
We can't pay you five million dollars a year. They
are go go take the money. So he was he's
always been looking at the player's best interest and not
(09:43):
that Mitch and and anybody else on this roster won't
do the same thing. But when a player looks at
Pop and says I'm playing, and Pop says, no, you're not,
then he's not playing. And I'm just wondering where how
strong those players will be that really want to be
in games. There's some that like night Knight's off, Hey
I got paid to eighty thousand dollars to set on
(10:05):
the bench and wave the towel.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
But there's others that just hate it.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
When the coach takes them out of the game because
of potential injuries.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah, and you know, with the two potentials right now
with dearon Fox, and Dylan Harper. You know, it's not
anything that they did intentionally themselves. It was both in
summer workouts. Dylan Harper, you know, said something along the
lines of he thinks it was just a freak accident
because he don't even he didn't even know that it
that it happened until it started hurting. And I know
(10:34):
the as Chris Dule calls him the great Don Harris.
When he spoke to dearon Fox the other night, Deeran
was like, he could play if he wanted to because
he's running. But it's that, hey, I might feel good running,
but I also have to make sure that I feel
good with running, jumping, cutting well.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
And when you play in a game, you play with
higher intensity than when you're just playing any other time.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
There's nothing that substitutes a game.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
They don't have the Joel embiid mentality of Okay, well,
I don't feel good.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So I'm not gonna let my head hurts. I'm gonna
take the night off.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
All right, Let's get into a stat of the day
with analytics. You know how much I love analytics, But
this analytics makes some sense. We'll talk about it next.
For forty seven on the ticket