May 11, 2018 • 47 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, welcome into All Ball, the All Basketball podcast here
for you on the Heard podcast network. Make sure you download,
you subscribe, and you rate us. Got over a hundred
thousand downloads just last week. Let's get that number up
to a hundred fifty thousand downloads. Give you a couple
of my thoughts, gets you into some great interviews, some
(00:26):
interesting perspective on the NBA and UM. Maybe a couple
of college basketball thoughts as well. Kind of interesting what
has happened with UM with Condoleeza Rice. Here's my read
on Condoleeza Rice deciding to do a one eighty or
maybe not a complete one eighty, more of a ninety
(00:46):
or a one twenty, saying after the night after the
Commission released their findings on college basketball. Only now she
comes out and says, hey, I think I should be,
you know, able to be compensated for their name and likeness.
Two parts to it. One, she wasn't the entire committee.
This is Condoleza rightist thoughts as opposed to the committee's findings.
(01:07):
Was well, their findings as a whole. Secondly, I think
we've gotten this place where no one wants to be unpopular.
That's it. No one wants to be unpopular. It's an
unpopular narrative to say guys should be compensated, should not
be compensated for their name and likeness. It's unpopular narrative. Sorry,
(01:28):
because I college basketball coaches have told me that, Hey, look, man,
I don't really care if they do, but there's so
many We have a near perfect system. We have a
really good system, and we're gonna try and find perfect
out of it. It just doesn't exist. You're gonna open
up a whole new can of worms. Last week, I
was at University of Kansas and UM Kansas obviously somehow
(01:52):
and broke a little bit of the FBI stuff, although
they're not accused of any wrongdoing in the most recent
FBI details. But it's fascinating to me is here's Kansas
one of the top five programs in the country, historic
fog Gallan Field House. They produced one and duns and
sometimes too, three, four or five and duns. And I
watched Davontae Graham, who's just what an amazing career he
(02:14):
had from a guy who originally committed to app State
getting out, sitting out next year, coming to KU, going
from being a combo guard and a bench player to
a star starter in a star in the point guard
this year in the Final four team, Like, what an
incredible career. And you know what he was doing when
I was there. He had an autograph signing session in Lawrence,
and then he had one in Wichita, and I would
(02:34):
guess he was gonna bag grand or so and and
so the idea is like look at the very very
top the top of the heap, because the only people
who's who we think their name and likeness is really
valuable is the guys at the very top of the heap.
They're so well compensated, if you will, they don't really
need the autograph session. They have MacArthur Hall right next
(02:58):
to the gym. MacArthur Hall is a basketball dorm. They
do have regular students in it. It has a three
quarter court basketball court, has a full time chef, has
all this other stuff they have that. They have a
brand new locker room, They play in the best are
in the country. They have cost of attendance, they have
a beautiful practics facility. They have everything you could ever
want there. You never there's you want them for nothing,
(03:21):
not that for nothing. And if you want to say
and like look at what's fascinating me is guys like
Jay Billis, who has had amazing career after his Duke
career finished right, played professionally, some came back, was a
grad student, got his law degree from Duke as a
practicing lawyer, partner and a firm and is uh the
(03:42):
lead analyst for ESPN. J Billis went to school for
a Duke for seven years without ever opening a checkbook.
And j BILLI is as good as he is an analyst,
is very very good. Those doors would not have been opened.
And I played at Duke, not um Jay and Rose?
Who who? Who offered up the completely nonsensical or they
(04:04):
should boycott the final four? Like dude, Jalen who's you know,
he's on Get Up, He's on the NBA. He had
a he had a good NBA career. Jalen Rose is
known to the world because he was one of the
two great players in the on the Fab five, actually
one of the three best players in the Fab five.
Jowan Howard's great player too, but he's like, I think,
(04:24):
how many kids are named Jalen? Now? Why it's not
because of Jalen Rose. When he's playing with the pacers,
you know, with the bulls Jalen Rose of the Fab
five Dude, he was popular and we made him popular.
But what's what's fascinating to me is this whole idea
of well, it's not you're not allowing kids to choose,
(04:46):
you know, one school above the other. Why can't you
just do free market? It is, it's one. It's not
a free market. NBA is not a free market. By
the way, you can't just pick on a whim where
you go. There's the collectively barkened agreement. Now, if you
want to say they don't have any collective parting rights
in college basketball, that's fair. On the other hand, all
of the rights they do have would be what they
(05:06):
would be fighting for collectively limited work hours twenty hours
in season, eight hours out of season. You know they
have for now they have four year scholarships and oh yeah,
by the way, postgraduate scholarships. If they leave their scholarship
early to go play professionally, they can come back anytime
beyond full scholarship and beyond the floor as a coach.
Like that, the benefits are ridiculous. And if you say, well,
(05:28):
it doesn't allow colleges to compete, why can't of course
they compete. They compete with facilities, with academic help, uh,
with how they promote you, with who they play, the
conference they play in. You know, look, if you if
you're good enough as a basketball player, you're Do you
want to go play a duke play for Mike Sachowski
who has a litany of coaches in college basketball and
in the NBA and all these other NBA players and
(05:50):
the commissioner of the NBA is a dukel um. Or
do you want to go play Kentucky? They have their
own kind of setup. Here's why you would play Kentucky.
Or do you wanna play at u c l A
where you become a name in the city of Angel
Do you want to play Arizona where you become a
part of what they called a player's program. Do you
want to go play at Indiana where you're part of
history and wearing the candy stripe pants like they all
(06:10):
have their It's no different than choosing between jobs. But
the idea that well, they players don't get nothing, don't
get anything. Anyone who's been through it knows that's not true.
Anyone's been through it knows that first of all, getting
into college is really hard. We never calculate the cost
of just getting in and like for Wendow Carter's mom
(06:33):
to say, well, this is like only like slaves, like, no,
it's not. I'm gonna stop it. That's that's embarrassing, really
is it's embarrassing. I mean to get into Duke. Going
to Duke is a choice when card didn't have to
go to Duke, and all we did was promote Duke
and therefore freshmen and Grayson Allen as a senior, Uh,
should they end up getting they they get? You gives
(06:54):
you credibility that you played for Mike Sachevski, that you
played for Duke, did you play in the A SEC?
You get to play in in Camen Indoor Stadium. All
these are choices that you make. Slaves didn't have choices.
They just didn't. They didn't go like, oh, hey, you know,
I want to transfer from this slave owner to that
slave owner and still be on scholarship at the time.
(07:16):
They didn't say like, oh hey, listen, um, the slave
thing it was cool for a year, but I want
to go play in the pro slave Like come on, dude,
what what are we talking about. You get an unbelievable
opportunity to make a name for yourself while getting an education,
and you might not value education, but that's on you.
And to all of these people in our business you are,
(07:36):
you're embarrassing yourselves because you know, the reality of it
is college basketball doesn't make all that much money for universities,
doesn't It makes money for the n c A, which
pays for all their other sports. And while you may
that may be envy it, you may be envious of
it's like whole the whole thing is a non not
for profit, nonprofit deal where no one pays taxes on anything,
(07:56):
and all of these things that you get in real life.
You're like, well, it's like a job. Sure, I'll tell
you it's a job limited the work hours. But here's
a big thing. You don't pay taxes. And to people
who say, well, that's not a big thing, bullshit, I
pay taxes. Have you ever moved for work and they
pay for it? Doee? What happens? You gotta pay taxes
on it. Have you ever gotten your health care taken
(08:20):
care of by your employer? Because that's what happens in
college basketball. You know what else you have to do?
Pay taxes on it. You get academic services, they're free
right now, your employee can pay for it. So any
of these things you get, you get gifts. Like if
you win on the prices right and you get a
gift handed to you, you don't have to pay tax
(08:41):
on it. Right. The same thing would happen if you
open it up and made pay for a play, same
thing pay tax on. So taxes are a big thing.
The cost of admission is a good thing, um, And
we don't charge anything for the cost of senseless and
seamless promotion, we don't. You know. ESPN made Trey Young
(09:01):
and his unbelievable run to being the lead score and
assist man in college basketball. He was part of every headline.
Did that help them boost their numbers some, but it
also made Trey Young a household name in college basketball.
If anything, he should owe money to them, not vice versa.
So look, um, I know that you're raised in a
(09:22):
generation of people that are are wanted and expecting for
everyone to always give them something. But here's the deal
with college. Just like any other student, if you achieve
something great in college, you have a great chance at
an awesome first job. That's the same for athletics as
it is for engineering. Colleges are hard to get into,
more expensive than ever. Um. By the way, that is
(09:45):
the same with basketball, but not the same for basketball
players in terms of they pay. They pay nothing and
actually get more back in return. Lastly, and maybe most importantly,
you do realize that college students not only have to
fight to get in, but then once they get in,
they gotta pay the freight and all that paying the freight.
Like if you say, well, you know, I know, they say,
(10:05):
Duke is seventy five thousand dollars a year, but I
can get a scholar You can get scholarships for five grand. Okay, fine,
it's fifty grand. That's fifty grand post tax. So a
parent has to just to pay for their kid to
go to Duke, you gotta make eight nine profit gross
in order to net out the fifty grand that you're
gonna pay out. Oh and the second you walk away
(10:29):
from your school as an along, you know what they're
gonna do, hit you for more money. So I know
that that that we we have, that we've we've raised
a generation of people that expect others to just you're
making money I'm supposed to make. But that ain't the
way it works. Dude, that way and the way it works,
you know you can think that you know. Here's the
(10:52):
here's the best example I'll use for me personally. People,
guys in the radio, and many of you listen to
this podcast. I want you to search yourself all for
how difficult it was for you to get your first
job first on air, show, how Harvard was that. It
wasn't hard for me. I never took a broadcasting class,
never took a journalism class. I'm not journalist. I know
(11:12):
the laws of journalism. I studied something that I learned
kind of fake it till you make it sort of thing.
But I'm not journalist. Many of you went to went
to j school and your first job was making twelve
an hour. Your first job made twenty five grand a year.
You had to grind through that and then hopefully grow.
My first job was I made sixty year before endorsements
(11:34):
in Oklahoma City end up being about seventy five plus
the money I made from ESPN, I was in the
six figures without ever Why is that? Because playing College
made a name for myself, used their promotion to benefit
my brand. Period. That's the opportunity that's in front of
you and most of us as former athletes, and J.
Billis knows this, and Jalen Rose knows this, and J.
(11:54):
Williams knows this. So all these people that walk around
and act like well, you know, they're getting more out
of the end other or not nother not schools. I've
been around for a hundred hundred years. Right, Yes, football
is the driving force, and the volume of college basketball
games is the driving force. But the ratings are not great.
It's it's a more volume product. But the people who go,
(12:18):
people who watch and go to college games are people
who went to that school or live close to that school,
and maybe they learn about a player along the way
or ball being recruited that they fall in love with.
That's a very small number. Go into any college basketball
arena and look around and say, why are these people
at that game? Alums? That's what they've always done. They
(12:41):
go with their dad, they're from the area, kids from
in state or there. It's more regionally based or based
upon the heartstrings of having gone there. It's not based
upon any one kid. It just isn't. Johnny Manzel's perfect
example who will continue to benefit from being a Heisman
Trophy win or and having when he graduates eventually from
(13:02):
Texas and m A Texas and m l M. And
yeah it could could. Did they sell some jerseys in
and make a little bit of money a little bit?
But they didn't make any money the year he red shirted,
not penny and Texas and M's stadiums have still been
full there full before he got there, full after he
got there. Why because Aggies go to Aggie games. Period.
(13:24):
So I'm not saying that we shouldn't do our best
to give quality education to the guys when they finished
going to college. Can't uh, you know, provide for themselves. Sure,
I think there are some sensible discussion about it. But
this idea that like I can't, I can't capitalize off
my name, and like us, you absolutely can for the
(13:45):
rest of your life. You can your life. Everything he
did in college, and thankfully things you didn't in the
pros end up benefiting you when you wear the logo
of your college going forward. All right, let's get to
the NBA, shall we? As we get ready for the
Western Conference finals. To me, the key element becomes Clint Capella.
(14:08):
Can he stay on the floor on defense when the
Warriors go small? You know? The interesting thing about the
Warriors is they get credit for having the death lineup,
and they do. The difference in their death lineup is
that their center becomes Draymond Green, but they still have
a rim protector in Kevin Durant. Now, look, Durant hasn't
(14:29):
started year playing great defense and then took a good
portion of the year off of playing defense. Reinvigorate. They
need Draymond to hit shots, then Andrea Goo Dolla to
hit shots, and they need Kevin Durant not just make shots,
but also defend the rim. I like the Golden State
Warriors a little bit more. You know, like look in
the individual matchups if you can, and they do a
(14:49):
great job of forcing switches. But you know, I like
the matchup of Clay versus h versus James Harden. Steph
Curry is I don't know how his way, but he's
definitely dominated Chris Paul in one on one matchups. And
then who's the who's the other guy if you will.
For the Houston Rockets, that's gonna match up with Kevin Durant.
(15:11):
I don't love their matchups. Again, it's dependent upon Draymond
and Andrea Guadala two um to make shots. To keep
that floor spread. But I do think that this matchup
favors the Golden State Warriors. As for the other matchup,
I look, I think that the two elements that are
going to allow the Boston Celtics to be closer than
(15:34):
say the Toronto Raptors, is that they can throw multiple
defenders at Lebron. The problem with those defenders are with
the exception of their big guys. You know, look Morris
and Al Horford. The can guard him some in the
post um and so he can't play bullyball when they
go small. Secondarily, you'll have Jalen Brown, you have Jayson Tatum,
(15:56):
but they're so young. I just I don't love that matchup.
Now here's the part, the other part that allows the Celtics.
I think a chance Rosier off the bounds, Jalen Brown
off the bounds. Like those guys they have even a
Marcus Smarter doesn't always hit shots. They have an extra
gear that Cleveland defensively doesn't really have. And if Brad,
(16:18):
which I think he'll do, can expose Kyle Kover as
a mismatch or Kevin Love as a mismatch and attack them,
attack George Hill against some quicker more athletic perimeter players
like I think you've got a real chance of seeing
at least a longer series. Still favorite the Calves. It's
not just because of Lebron. It's because this team is
(16:39):
a bunch of shooters around Lebron that have hybrid defensive
players that are just good enough. But they'll have a
game or two in which they blow out the Celtics.
I think the Celtics a winner game or two based
on speeding athleticism. And then do you have Lebron who
you feel I can carry a team, although you know,
look he didn't shoot the ball well from three against
Toronto and they were outscored on agg aggregate the Indiana Pacers.
(17:01):
I think the series is closer than people think, but
I still think we'll have Calves and Warriors in the finals.
David Griffin joins the show. He was famously the general
manager of the of the Cleveland Cavaliers Last and Uh.
He has his own show on Serious x M and
(17:22):
NBA is also on NBA TV. He joined us in
the Doug Gottlieb Show. I knew everybody has you on
to talk Lebron and the Calves. I want to ask
you about the Sixers. Uh, there are some in in
your business, some in my business, and some in the
basketball business. I think, hey, go out add a Paul George,
go out and add stars. I kind of think they're
on the right path. I think this is good that
(17:43):
they didn't use faults. He wasn't ready yet, but eventually
he'll be good. I'm not saying that you don't add
more pieces, but I think this should be your core
for a decade. You don't want to screw that thing up.
Do you try and win the short term or you
try and win the long term. If you're the general
manager of the Sixers, David Well, I guess. I guess
it just depends on how you know what you think
long and short term is. So like, if you can
(18:05):
say that Lebron is gonna play at an elite level
for let's say five more years, I'd love to have
the young kids learned from someone like that, you know,
I'd love for him to raise the next generation of
elite talent in your organization. So there's no downside to that.
It's not like they need to jettison any of the
other talent they have um relative to the Paul George piece.
(18:29):
I don't think that's terribly likely. It sounds like Paul
if he leaves, okay, so he's pretty much got his
heart set on l a UM. What I think is
interesting is would you break up that nucleus to bring
into somebody's because that's really the only way you're going
to attract, you know, those elite guys as they tend
to want to to be together. So would you break
(18:50):
up that group to have Kauai and Lebron? I don't.
I don't know if you would or wouldn't, but I
think that's what it requires. Now. It's not just we
have the cap space for one superstar. Those guys tend
to want to be together. Would you you know, I
don't know. To be honest with you, I really don't.
It's hard for me not holding the cards they're holding.
(19:10):
I don't know exactly what they're thinking about the group.
They have. The thing that I thought they ran into
in the playoffs that was tough. Doug was Ben can't
shoot and because he can't space the court, and because
the paint is going to be occupied, because Joel is
an elite player himself, and the defense is going to
(19:33):
be pretty keenly aware of him and the paint. Then
the driving lanes that Ben would have to take advantage
of and it would allow for him to play to
the full bandwidth of his path thing don't exist. So
I think it's just really really difficult to say that
that Nucleus is going to be elite until you know,
if Ben's gotten to the point where he can shoot um,
(19:53):
and that's that's the ways away and Mark l folks
might be a ways away from being able to be elite.
So I think you could make a pretty compelling argument
if you could get Lebron, you should, But again, I
don't know what they're looking at. That's that's that was
actually I said. The only the only guy I would
probably move mountains for would be Lebron James. The one
(20:16):
caveat with Lebron is he's now at the state of
his career where he doesn't practice. You know, he does
work in his game and his body, but he it
ain't practicing. And I do think that, you know, culture wise,
those young guys, I mean, Ben Simon has got there's
a lot of work to do, a lot of work
to put in, and I think and Bead has to
learn in game situations, you know, what what winning shots
(20:39):
look like, winning plays look like, and I think you
only learned that over time and actually playing in big games.
I hope he learned a lot from the series, but
I don't know. I just I think it's gonna be
fasting to see what they do because they got a
chance to do something special. But there have been other
teams that have been in this situation and they've screwed
it up, whether even even if they didn't try to,
they screwed up and having able to as opposed to
(21:01):
what Boston's done, which feels like they've been building for
the long term and the short term thing has just
happened in the meantime. Yeah, I agree with that, and
I think it makes it even harder to be excited
about your long term term nucleus when you're looking at
the fact that Boston's as good as they are, they're
as deep as they are in the playoff run. They've
(21:21):
got the young assets on the roster, they have to
have all the high variants assets in the in the stockpiles.
From a pick standpoint, and the guy that came into
the year thinking was going to be their best player
didn't even play a minute. So you can also get
in trouble just in their own division. If you think,
you know what, let's let's take our time. We're we're
going to be the cream of the crop because Boston
(21:44):
is gonna be damn good for a long time. So
if you take your time and Joe l n B
gets hurt in the meantime, now what I mean, you're
you're not really truly elite even in your own division
for the foreseeable future. So that's why I think you
could make the most compelling case for Hey, we don't
know how long Joel is going to be healthy, and
(22:04):
we better be damn good. Now. It's interesting what you
said about Lebron not practicing. That part's true, but he's
the very first one in the practice facility every morning,
and he works like a freak. And there's nobody better
to teach Ben Simmons what this is about professionally than him.
Whether he's actually taking part in the five on five
(22:24):
that might take place, he's still going through all of
the shell drow, he's still going through all of the
defensive stuff, and he's far and away the earliest person
into your practice facility getting a lift in doing the
things he needs to do to take care of his
body when Kyrie was there, going through shooting games with Kyrie,
after practice, all of the things that then needs to
(22:46):
learn how to do. Bron does that, and then in
the off season Bron works way harder than Ben has
ever worked on his shooting and that would help Ben
as well. Do you think Ben should shoot right handed?
So this is awesome. I've seen a lot of this.
The thing for us with Tristan Thompson when we had
him changed his hand was it was just his handedness
(23:09):
was sort of up in the air. He himself didn't
know which handy should use. He wasn't married to one
or the other. And we got him to throw a
football one day in the practice facility, and when he
threw it left handed, which in theory would have been
his natural hand, he threw it into the ground like
I would throw with my off hand when I was
(23:30):
eight years old, right, I mean it was he just
sort of flailed it into the ground left handed and
right handed. He's through like a sixty yard spiral. And
you went, Tristan, you're you're right handed. So if I
could see Ben Simmons throw a football, I'd have a
better chance to tell you Ben Simmons, he shoots everything
right handed inside the paint. The only thing that is
(23:52):
left handed his free throws and and primimeter shots, and
didn't shot perimeter shots. You know, he finishes everything was
right hand, so I I, you know, I don't well.
And Tristan was exactly the same. By the way. He
was incredibly deaf with his right hand around the rim.
The only jump book he could make was right handed,
but he was shooting his free throws left handed, and
(24:12):
he would shoot like the you know, the short corner
jump shot left handed and kind of like, what what
are you doing? Whatever made you think you were left
handed to begin with? And then case again, he can
do all of those things right handed, and maybe that's
because he's more naturally comfortable with it, but it could
also be that that's just he's wired like that. And
(24:33):
it's easy to tell by the way. I'm I know
this sounds crazy, but it's easy to tell when you
have somebody throw football the throw the football challenge. I
love that. Let's get to the Cavaliers. Um, have they
figured something out or is this just who they are
going to be? Right which is you know they're gonna
space you with with Kevin Love at the five, and
(24:54):
now that Kyl Kover is much more comfortable and he's
making shots, just create space for Lebron James, play through
him and play with a bunch of shooters and then
you know, switch everything defensively. Well, it's sort of who
they've always been. Um, you know, we we had Kyrie
at one time, so when the shot clock would run
down and he could go get a shot and he
could create offense when Lebron sat down. They don't have
(25:15):
the ability to do that now. But they've always been
a team that if you're going to take advantage of
Lebron's full talents, you've got to be able to space
the court and let him pick people apart from the
center of the lane by being a driver and then
making the right read. And fortunately in the last series,
you know, the team had a three to one assist
turnover ratio, which is a really really good situation. It's
(25:38):
in part because of Lebron, but it's also because George
Hill was present for a big part of that. And
George Hill being healthy and being capable of playing significant
minutes and starting makes it possible to keep Orrid Or
j R. Smith and Love all together on the starting lineup,
and those are the guys Lebron's one with. Those are
the guys he's comfortable with. So fortunately for Cleveland, that
(26:01):
first series with Indiana took them seven games, so they
got as many different opportunities as they could to figure
out lineups and and figure out where Lebron was going
to be the most comfortable. And I think because of that,
they landed back with what they know best, which is
the guys they're starting. You get Tristan Thompson a lot
(26:22):
more opportunity to play. You know, this is one of
the things I think from basketball analytics, standpoint is really
a telling thing. And I don't know what the number is,
and I would love for somebody significantly smarter than I
am to tell me the right way to do this,
but their effective field goal percentage on Tristan Thompson's offensive
(26:42):
rebounds has got to be damn near Well. This is
just backs, just backbreakers, right. You're like, your your your garden, Lebron,
your garden shooters. You're paying all attention. Elston shot goes up,
you start leaking out defensively, there's Tristan Thompson with the
ball and he kicks it out. Now either you have
to do it all over again or they shoot a three,
which is those are back breaks. Yeah, and if you
you know, if you if you look at Tristan when
(27:03):
he plays significant minutes, that's five opportunities you have to
make four more threes. That's twelve points. Link. That's winning
and losing basketball games. And he also is your best
big in terms of his ability to match up on
the wing and switch and defensively be a president. So
it's not surprising to me they wound up with him.
(27:24):
I think it's a good thing they were healthy and
that he was healthy enough to actually get back into
the rotation. But I think this is who Cleveland has
always been. They're going to have to outscore you. They're
probably not going to get enough stops to be the
team like Golden State four times. But I think they
can get enough stops to to get past Boston. What's
(27:46):
what's the deal with Brad and the rest of the
league's coaches. I I understand that there are a lot
of good coaches that did Quinstider did magnificent things. Uh, look,
Toronto had the best record. These like I can make
an argument for a bunch of these guys, but there
is something there or that other coaches are like he
he gets a little bit too much credit. I think
we did it. Like from a media perspective, I think
(28:07):
we did it. I think it's one of those things
where other coaches have probably had enough of Brad getting
nothing but love and never taking any of the blame um.
And I don't mean that Brad personally doesn't take any
of the blame. I mean that the media never assigns
him any blame um. And I think it's just made
it so that there's I don't want to call it petty,
(28:28):
but I think the petty is undefeated in some ways,
and I think there's just a natural bias to feel like,
you know what, I'm not sure he's that good. And
I think it makes you more critical of Brad as
a coach because you're hearing from everywhere how good he is.
And I think Dwayne Casey was a great selection as
Coach of the Year from the Coaches Association's standpoint. That's
(28:50):
I totally get it, and I'm not even gonna argue
with it. It's been Quinn Snyder. I wouldn't argue with it,
but for eight guys to get a vote and Brad
not to get one. That was pretty crazy? Am I
crazy to think that as that Capella is super important
to Houston? Yet I don't think Capella can be Capella
much of this series because they'll go small and now
(29:12):
he kind of like valenchun Is what happened with him
with the Calves. Golden State stretches you out, goes small,
and Capella becomes a lot less effective. Yeah, So I
think he's so different from Jonas because he descends in
space so well. Um, I think Clint is actually if
Houston is going to win the series, it's because not
(29:34):
only does he hold his own when they go small,
but his ability to roll and finish and be dynamic
at the rim forces them to stay bigger. If if
Golden has to play a traditional five to check Capella,
that changes the whole series. Now I tend to favor
Golden State pretty heavily. I think just from the standpoint
(29:55):
of them having been through the wars together and they're
now at a point where they realize the amount of
focus they have to play with to be successful. I
think they have appropriate fear of Houston. You know, Kur
really hinges a lot of what he does from a
preparation standpoint on that appropriate fear, and I think they
get it, and I think because they do, they're just
(30:17):
too deep and too good offensively. There's too many weapons
that you can't take out of it. And in the
Houston situation, they're so dependent upon you know, they played
two guys defensively in Tucker and Areza Uh and Tucker
and bomb Moute. When they're together, that defensive lineup is
really predicated on Hardened and Paul either generating offense or
(30:41):
Hardened getting you to the foul line quickly that he
gets you into the bonus and you shoot far more
free shrows than anybody else. Well, the deeper you go
into the playoffs, the less likely you are to get
those calls, which means it might be harder to keep
your defenders on the court. And if that's true, you're
never gonna guard Gold States. So I think it's a
five or six game series of close games to what
(31:04):
I think. In the end, Golden States just got too
much great stuff. I can't tell you how much I appreciate.
Look forward to hearing you some more on serious sex.
And I'm watching on the NBA TV thanks for me
and our guest. We'll talk to us the playoffs roll on.
Thanks alright, pleasures mind David Griffin joining us. Former general
manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Rick Bucker has a great podcast.
(31:27):
It's called The Swirlds with NBA Vett Ryan Hollins. Rick
also has his own national radio show on Sirius XM eight. Gosh,
we're eighty three, he's eighty four. A two A two,
A two A two. Rick Bucker joins us on the
Doug Gottlieb Show. Just as we all thought, Celtics and Calves,
(31:50):
Warriors and Rockets. Oh there's this, the one plot twist.
The Celtics wouldn't have Kyrie and wouldn't have Gordon Hayward
outside of that, exactly as we thought it would go, right, Yeah, No,
it's uh, And this is what it always gets me
when people say that, you know, there's no suspense in
the NBA season, and uh, we already know it's gonna
(32:12):
be calvs. Warriors at the end. First of all, we
don't know that. I still don't know that as of
right now. And to it's not so much the destination,
it's the journey, isn't it Doug, it's the journey and
it's a matter of how we got here, which was
there's been plenty of unexpected twist and turns, and I
wouldn't be surprised if we have a few more before
(32:33):
all of a sudden done. Why don't other NBA coaches
have the same affinity for Brad Stevens as the media
has for Brad Stevens. Well, part of it is because
he's still relatively new to the club and NBA coaches
are a very clubby sort. We just I I said
(32:53):
something about mccronin uh, the u C coach during the tournament.
I thought the way he handled uh some questions about
his team, UH, where he didn't do it well, and
brought that up with Seth Greenberg had him as a
host or a guest on my show, and it was
immediately you don't, you don't, you don't know what? Like,
(33:13):
where have you coached like that? They became that unless
unless you're that's that's also Seth one on one right, well,
but it's also he's not alone. I mean, the the
the number of coaches that I talked to, and look,
there is a degree and probably a larger degree than
not there's a larger degree of truth to people who
(33:37):
armchair coach don't take into consideration all the things that
they know because they can't possibly know them. So I
get that, but I think there's a couple of things.
One and I actually just had a talk. I had
a conversation with a head coach in the league today
about this subject. It wasn't this was the main thing,
but I said, I said, so, what's up. You know,
Brad Stephens not a single vote, And he said, the
(34:00):
way he looked at it is is, you know, Brad
came in and he was supposed to have a good season,
and yes they lost Kyrie, yes they lost Gordon Hayward,
but the team kind of ended up where everybody expected
them to end up as far as the regular season
was concerned. Toronto made a change from last year and
(34:22):
there was an uptick. So that was his explanation for me.
And there's also there is that feeling like he's kind
of been gifted a really good situation and he's straight
out of college. I think the other part is is
that there's this clubby nature to the to the NBA coaches,
and they're very well aware of guys who've been in
(34:43):
the club for a long time and maybe in a
little bit of trouble, and and they look at it
and I think it's unfair that that guy is in trouble.
Dwayne Casey fits that description to a t as far
as other NBA coaches are concerned. It's a great point. Well,
it's also interesting is how many of the guys have
gotten the Coach of the Year award and then been
fired like a year later, which which which only proves
(35:05):
that in their effort to help their buddy out, they
actually end up, you know, well, creating something that they
can't live up to. So the one thing, so the
one that you're you're referencing, because this is a this
is a relatively new award. This is only the second year.
Last year it was D'Antoni and Erik Spoelstra that the
coaches selected. They were co co head coaches and they
(35:26):
sort of fit the profile. Even though Spoilster has been
a head coach, he's been relatively at nine ten years now,
but he's been in the NBA fraternity for a long time,
so he fits and obviously d and D'Antoni does too. Um,
this is a relatively new thing for them, but the
one that's voted by the media. Yeah, we had a
string of Mike Brown, Avery Johnson, George carl and it
(35:49):
seemed like there was about five or six guys in
a row that one Coach of the year and a
year later they were out. So yeah, it can be.
It can be a kiss at death. Be careful what
exactly what they're they're touting their guys to be DoD
The Celtics have a chance. I'm picking them to win.
What are you talking about? Do they have a chance
(36:11):
Because I look at the pace of play, and I
look at the intensity of the series that they had
with the Sixers. I think, but and I maybe I
may be wrong on this and maybe undervaluing the sweet
spot that Lebron James finds himself in. But I look
at the Raptors series and I can't all of the
(36:32):
improvement that we're looking at with the Calves. I can't
help but believe that the Toronto Raptors had a big
hand in that they never really made Lebron James play
in a crowd, and yet in spite of not putting
additional attention toward him, Jeff Green and j R. Smith,
(36:54):
this is going into Game four, We're both shooting seventies
percent plus in three point range. Jeff Green shot against
the Pacers in the first round. He shot from three
during the regular season. H J. R. Smith shot a
little bit better during the regular season, but he shot
(37:17):
against the Pacers. I look at guys like Terry Rozier
and Jason Tatum, Al Horford, Marcus Smart. Those guys, in
my mind, are all gamers who are not afraid Lebron
James or the Cleveland Cavaliers. In fact, they come into
this series thinking they have revenge in mind for what
(37:41):
happened last year. They don't care that Kyrie Irving's not there,
Gordon Hayward's not there, and and that they're not supposed
to be here based on what everybody else thinks. They're
looking at it going. We got back to the Eastern
Conference Finals and are and and we still have unfinished business.
So I just believe that they can push the temp
Oh in a way that Toronto never did and that
(38:03):
Indiana did that took that series to seven games. And
if you're giving me Miles Turner or Al Horford at
this point to make things difficult on Kevin Love, I'm
taking Al Horford every day all day in spite of
liking h Miles Turner and his future. So I just
think that that that Boston is going to do a
much better job of limiting what the other pieces do
(38:26):
and Lebron James is going to have to come through
with some of the virtuoso performances that he did against
against the Indiana Pacers, And I just I think that
the Celtics are a little bit better than the Pacers were,
and they have the same guys that have the eye
of the tiger and aren't going to be afraid to
take and make a big shot when it needed. That's
(38:46):
the voice of Rick Buker, of course, writes for Bleacher Report,
has his own radio show on Sirious XM Channel two.
Let's get out West Golden State Warriors. They back to
where they should be. Uh well, yeah, they're there. They
are back to what they are capable of. My one
question is can they sustain it. They've they've demonstrated that
(39:10):
in periods they can play, they can get back to
that level that that they can play at a level
that nobody else can play at at both ends of
the floor. They still have and they've still struggled even
in these playoffs, in sustaining that, you know, giving away
a game, absolutely giving a game a game away against
(39:30):
New Orleans was troubling. The way they closed out San
Antonio was not convincing. They really there. They are measuring
game in and game out how hard they have to
play to win the game. And I don't think it's
by overconfidence. I don't think it's by lack of attention
(39:53):
to detail. I really think it's just kind of the
physical and mental grind of having been to three consecutive
NBA finals and now trying to get to a four
uh and and a and a bench that's not quite
as deep that they're just feeling they're they're feeling that grind.
So can the Rockets exploit the Warriors when they have
(40:17):
those periods when they're not at their best, when the
offense gets a little stagnant and they just lean on
k D when the defense rotations work for fourteen fifteen seconds,
but they get a little lax in the last four
or five, Like, can the Rockets exploit that? And then
on the other on the other end, can they maintain
(40:39):
their focus in intensity? That to me is what's going
to determine that the Rockets have demonstrated that they can
take their foot off the pedal too, and they have
less reason to do that. But um, I'm not I'm
not completely out of the woods with the Warriors yet
and saying that they have the requisitibility to play as
well as they need to play as long as they
(41:00):
need to play. Can they get back there and have
they demonstrated that yet? Have played some of the best
basketball that I've seen them play in months. But the
big question is going to be can they sustain it?
How many minutes can they play at that level? Um?
What do you think Lebron plays next year? You know,
(41:21):
it's so funny. I just in talking to this coach today,
he goes, I've heard he's gonna play in Philadelphia. I've
heard he might stay in Cleveland. Obviously there's there, you know,
there's talk about like Kauai wants to go play in
l A with Paul George and Lebron. Um, I'm I
am going to stay with where I was at the
beginning of the year and everybody was telling me, which
(41:42):
is that he's gonna wind up in l A. But
I'll be honest with you, as of right now, I don't.
I've never had a dog in the fight, but I
really don't know. I still don't think he's going to
stay in Cleveland. He remember the other day, I forget
what game it was, when he went to the locker room,
he had the he had the the cramps and and
(42:03):
had to go to the locker room. And when he
came back out and he walked out of the tunnel,
he walked right right by Dan Gilbert and there was
absolutely no acknowledgement, recognition, nothing from either one of them.
It wasn't even Dan wouldn't even look at him, and
certainly Lebron wasn't looking at him. You can't have from
(42:25):
everything I've heard, that's just the latest little piece of
that relationship is far from great, and I think ultimately
that's going to be the difference would be super supping
the Paul George knee surgery thing. Did everybody know that
was gonna happen? Uh? No, they did not. But from
everything I've heard, it's not something that people are, you know,
(42:47):
taking a lot of concern with or that it's gonna
it's it's changing the dynamic as far as what people
are expecting. Russell Westbrook look zek Low, And I want
to be very careful because I like Zach Low, and
I do think that other people around the league will say,
we'll say that like, well, maybe maybe you gotta think
(43:08):
about trade in Westbrook. But thinking about doing it and
actually doing it are two completely different things, right, And
and it's always the guy who doesn't have a Russell
Westbrook who talks about training a Russell Westbrook. What do
you think Oklomas City does? What do I uh, what
do I think Oklahoma City does with Russell Westbrook? In general?
UM continue to thank their their stars that he signed
(43:34):
a five year extension there uh look too to find
pieces that are going to build around him and and
and ultimately, UM hope that his maturity and his decision
making continue to improve. Will Billy, will Billy be able
to like I think that bringing Billy back, the next
(43:54):
thing to do is sit him down, go like, hey, Billy,
you gotta coach him, like you have to get some
of the stuff out of him, because he has so
much talent and but you got to get some of
the one man possessions out of him. Yeah, And I
don't you know, I will say, having been around that
team a little bit, uh, and just recently during the playoffs,
I was encouraged by the interaction that Billy had with Russ.
(44:17):
And it is a negotiation as opposed to, you know,
a directive when it comes to the conversation between those two. Um.
Then again, I thought that Billy showed great. I mean,
it seems simple, but the fact that he sat mellowed
down and kept you know, and and went back to
him briefly and then didn't go back to him again,
(44:38):
I think that says a lot about Billy's growing stature
as a as an NBA head coach. I think that
what they they in short, short of moving Billy on,
and I don't think I don't know that there's a
coach out there that's gonna change that dynamic, is that
you go get a what Tom did the Know was
(45:01):
for Doc Rivers or what Ron Adams is for Steve
kerr Uh. You go get that guy who is a
no nonsense x is and os this is how it
needs to be, hard ass who is the first assistant
and he's the guy who is you know, let's Russ know,
(45:23):
this is the way we've got to do it. Um.
Some people mentioned like a Steve Clifford to me, it
doesn't have to be like you know, I mean, obviously
you've got a star of that nature. It's not you're
just gonna tell him it's my way of the highway,
that those days are long gone. But a guy who's
xs and o's are strong enough that he can say,
this is the way we need to do it. If
(45:44):
you want to win, this is the way we need
to do it. And ideally it's somebody who has you know,
has had a certain degree of success that Russ is
going to to respect. But ultimately it's gonna come down
to this. Russ is going to have to be frustrated
and set up enough with his own shortcomings and failures
to say I'm willing to try to do it a
(46:05):
different way. Surrender yourself to the process. Thanks so much,
really appreciate you join us, Rick Buker. The podcast is
the Swirl with longtime NBA vett Ryan Hollins. All Right,
so that's gonna wrap it up for all ball. I
want to thank all of our guests, David Griffin, Rick Buker.
(46:26):
Next week we'll start to prepare you for the NBA Draft.
I'm currently concocting an article the ten most overrated ten
most underrated players in the upcoming NBA Draft. You have
any questions or things that you want um in the
next All Ball podcast, tweet Abby at gott liep Show
or hit me up on our Facebook page, which this
will appear on. Make sure you're not only download it,
(46:48):
rate it, and of course subscribe, but you also tell
a friend about it because we're over a hundred thousand
and downloads. We want to get to that one fifth.
You want to get to two hundred thousand, and you
can help. It'll make the show better. Frank gonna make
the guest keep that fellow. Okay, it was great this week.
I'm Doug Gottlieb and this has been All Ball. H
Hey, welcome into All Ball, the All Basketball podcast here
for you on the Heard podcast network. Make sure you download,
you subscribe, and you rate us. Got over a hundred
thousand downloads just last week. Let's get that number up
to a hundred fifty thousand downloads. Give you a couple
of my thoughts, gets you into some great interviews, some
(00:26):
interesting perspective on the NBA and UM. Maybe a couple
of college basketball thoughts as well. Kind of interesting what
has happened with UM with Condoleeza Rice. Here's my read
on Condoleeza Rice deciding to do a one eighty or
maybe not a complete one eighty, more of a ninety
(00:46):
or a one twenty, saying after the night after the
Commission released their findings on college basketball. Only now she
comes out and says, hey, I think I should be,
you know, able to be compensated for their name and likeness.
Two parts to it. One, she wasn't the entire committee.
This is Condoleza rightist thoughts as opposed to the committee's findings.
(01:07):
Was well, their findings as a whole. Secondly, I think
we've gotten this place where no one wants to be unpopular.
That's it. No one wants to be unpopular. It's an
unpopular narrative to say guys should be compensated, should not
be compensated for their name and likeness. It's unpopular narrative. Sorry,
(01:28):
because I college basketball coaches have told me that, Hey, look, man,
I don't really care if they do, but there's so
many We have a near perfect system. We have a
really good system, and we're gonna try and find perfect
out of it. It just doesn't exist. You're gonna open
up a whole new can of worms. Last week, I
was at University of Kansas and UM Kansas obviously somehow
(01:52):
and broke a little bit of the FBI stuff, although
they're not accused of any wrongdoing in the most recent
FBI details. But it's fascinating to me is here's Kansas
one of the top five programs in the country, historic
fog Gallan Field House. They produced one and duns and
sometimes too, three, four or five and duns. And I
watched Davontae Graham, who's just what an amazing career he
(02:14):
had from a guy who originally committed to app State
getting out, sitting out next year, coming to KU, going
from being a combo guard and a bench player to
a star starter in a star in the point guard
this year in the Final four team, Like, what an
incredible career. And you know what he was doing when
I was there. He had an autograph signing session in Lawrence,
and then he had one in Wichita, and I would
(02:34):
guess he was gonna bag grand or so and and
so the idea is like look at the very very
top the top of the heap, because the only people
who's who we think their name and likeness is really
valuable is the guys at the very top of the heap.
They're so well compensated, if you will, they don't really
need the autograph session. They have MacArthur Hall right next
(02:58):
to the gym. MacArthur Hall is a basketball dorm. They
do have regular students in it. It has a three
quarter court basketball court, has a full time chef, has
all this other stuff they have that. They have a
brand new locker room, They play in the best are
in the country. They have cost of attendance, they have
a beautiful practics facility. They have everything you could ever
want there. You never there's you want them for nothing,
(03:21):
not that for nothing. And if you want to say
and like look at what's fascinating me is guys like
Jay Billis, who has had amazing career after his Duke
career finished right, played professionally, some came back, was a
grad student, got his law degree from Duke as a
practicing lawyer, partner and a firm and is uh the
(03:42):
lead analyst for ESPN. J Billis went to school for
a Duke for seven years without ever opening a checkbook.
And j BILLI is as good as he is an analyst,
is very very good. Those doors would not have been opened.
And I played at Duke, not um Jay and Rose?
Who who? Who offered up the completely nonsensical or they
(04:04):
should boycott the final four? Like dude, Jalen who's you know,
he's on Get Up, He's on the NBA. He had
a he had a good NBA career. Jalen Rose is
known to the world because he was one of the
two great players in the on the Fab five, actually
one of the three best players in the Fab five.
Jowan Howard's great player too, but he's like, I think,
(04:24):
how many kids are named Jalen? Now? Why it's not
because of Jalen Rose. When he's playing with the pacers,
you know, with the bulls Jalen Rose of the Fab
five Dude, he was popular and we made him popular.
But what's what's fascinating to me is this whole idea
of well, it's not you're not allowing kids to choose,
(04:46):
you know, one school above the other. Why can't you
just do free market? It is, it's one. It's not
a free market. NBA is not a free market. By
the way, you can't just pick on a whim where
you go. There's the collectively barkened agreement. Now, if you
want to say they don't have any collective parting rights
in college basketball, that's fair. On the other hand, all
of the rights they do have would be what they
(05:06):
would be fighting for collectively limited work hours twenty hours
in season, eight hours out of season. You know they
have for now they have four year scholarships and oh yeah,
by the way, postgraduate scholarships. If they leave their scholarship
early to go play professionally, they can come back anytime
beyond full scholarship and beyond the floor as a coach.
Like that, the benefits are ridiculous. And if you say, well,
(05:28):
it doesn't allow colleges to compete, why can't of course
they compete. They compete with facilities, with academic help, uh,
with how they promote you, with who they play, the
conference they play in. You know, look, if you if
you're good enough as a basketball player, you're Do you
want to go play a duke play for Mike Sachowski
who has a litany of coaches in college basketball and
in the NBA and all these other NBA players and
(05:50):
the commissioner of the NBA is a dukel um. Or
do you want to go play Kentucky? They have their
own kind of setup. Here's why you would play Kentucky.
Or do you wanna play at u c l A
where you become a name in the city of Angel
Do you want to play Arizona where you become a
part of what they called a player's program. Do you
want to go play at Indiana where you're part of
history and wearing the candy stripe pants like they all
(06:10):
have their It's no different than choosing between jobs. But
the idea that well, they players don't get nothing, don't
get anything. Anyone who's been through it knows that's not true.
Anyone's been through it knows that first of all, getting
into college is really hard. We never calculate the cost
of just getting in and like for Wendow Carter's mom
(06:33):
to say, well, this is like only like slaves, like, no,
it's not. I'm gonna stop it. That's that's embarrassing, really
is it's embarrassing. I mean to get into Duke. Going
to Duke is a choice when card didn't have to
go to Duke, and all we did was promote Duke
and therefore freshmen and Grayson Allen as a senior, Uh,
should they end up getting they they get? You gives
(06:54):
you credibility that you played for Mike Sachevski, that you
played for Duke, did you play in the A SEC?
You get to play in in Camen Indoor Stadium. All
these are choices that you make. Slaves didn't have choices.
They just didn't. They didn't go like, oh, hey, you know,
I want to transfer from this slave owner to that
slave owner and still be on scholarship at the time.
(07:16):
They didn't say like, oh hey, listen, um, the slave
thing it was cool for a year, but I want
to go play in the pro slave Like come on, dude,
what what are we talking about. You get an unbelievable
opportunity to make a name for yourself while getting an education,
and you might not value education, but that's on you.
And to all of these people in our business you are,
(07:36):
you're embarrassing yourselves because you know, the reality of it
is college basketball doesn't make all that much money for universities,
doesn't It makes money for the n c A, which
pays for all their other sports. And while you may
that may be envy it, you may be envious of
it's like whole the whole thing is a non not
for profit, nonprofit deal where no one pays taxes on anything,
(07:56):
and all of these things that you get in real life.
You're like, well, it's like a job. Sure, I'll tell
you it's a job limited the work hours. But here's
a big thing. You don't pay taxes. And to people
who say, well, that's not a big thing, bullshit, I
pay taxes. Have you ever moved for work and they
pay for it? Doee? What happens? You gotta pay taxes
on it. Have you ever gotten your health care taken
(08:20):
care of by your employer? Because that's what happens in
college basketball. You know what else you have to do?
Pay taxes on it. You get academic services, they're free
right now, your employee can pay for it. So any
of these things you get, you get gifts. Like if
you win on the prices right and you get a
gift handed to you, you don't have to pay tax
(08:41):
on it. Right. The same thing would happen if you
open it up and made pay for a play, same
thing pay tax on. So taxes are a big thing.
The cost of admission is a good thing, um, And
we don't charge anything for the cost of senseless and
seamless promotion, we don't. You know. ESPN made Trey Young
(09:01):
and his unbelievable run to being the lead score and
assist man in college basketball. He was part of every headline.
Did that help them boost their numbers some, but it
also made Trey Young a household name in college basketball.
If anything, he should owe money to them, not vice versa.
So look, um, I know that you're raised in a
(09:22):
generation of people that are are wanted and expecting for
everyone to always give them something. But here's the deal
with college. Just like any other student, if you achieve
something great in college, you have a great chance at
an awesome first job. That's the same for athletics as
it is for engineering. Colleges are hard to get into,
more expensive than ever. Um. By the way, that is
(09:45):
the same with basketball, but not the same for basketball
players in terms of they pay. They pay nothing and
actually get more back in return. Lastly, and maybe most importantly,
you do realize that college students not only have to
fight to get in, but then once they get in,
they gotta pay the freight and all that paying the freight.
Like if you say, well, you know, I know, they say,
(10:05):
Duke is seventy five thousand dollars a year, but I
can get a scholar You can get scholarships for five grand. Okay, fine,
it's fifty grand. That's fifty grand post tax. So a
parent has to just to pay for their kid to
go to Duke, you gotta make eight nine profit gross
in order to net out the fifty grand that you're
gonna pay out. Oh and the second you walk away
(10:29):
from your school as an along, you know what they're
gonna do, hit you for more money. So I know
that that that we we have, that we've we've raised
a generation of people that expect others to just you're
making money I'm supposed to make. But that ain't the
way it works. Dude, that way and the way it works,
you know you can think that you know. Here's the
(10:52):
here's the best example I'll use for me personally. People,
guys in the radio, and many of you listen to
this podcast. I want you to search yourself all for
how difficult it was for you to get your first
job first on air, show, how Harvard was that. It
wasn't hard for me. I never took a broadcasting class,
never took a journalism class. I'm not journalist. I know
(11:12):
the laws of journalism. I studied something that I learned
kind of fake it till you make it sort of thing.
But I'm not journalist. Many of you went to went
to j school and your first job was making twelve
an hour. Your first job made twenty five grand a year.
You had to grind through that and then hopefully grow.
My first job was I made sixty year before endorsements
(11:34):
in Oklahoma City end up being about seventy five plus
the money I made from ESPN, I was in the
six figures without ever Why is that? Because playing College
made a name for myself, used their promotion to benefit
my brand. Period. That's the opportunity that's in front of
you and most of us as former athletes, and J.
Billis knows this, and Jalen Rose knows this, and J.
(11:54):
Williams knows this. So all these people that walk around
and act like well, you know, they're getting more out
of the end other or not nother not schools. I've
been around for a hundred hundred years. Right, Yes, football
is the driving force, and the volume of college basketball
games is the driving force. But the ratings are not great.
It's it's a more volume product. But the people who go,
(12:18):
people who watch and go to college games are people
who went to that school or live close to that school,
and maybe they learn about a player along the way
or ball being recruited that they fall in love with.
That's a very small number. Go into any college basketball
arena and look around and say, why are these people
at that game? Alums? That's what they've always done. They
(12:41):
go with their dad, they're from the area, kids from
in state or there. It's more regionally based or based
upon the heartstrings of having gone there. It's not based
upon any one kid. It just isn't. Johnny Manzel's perfect
example who will continue to benefit from being a Heisman
Trophy win or and having when he graduates eventually from
(13:02):
Texas and m A Texas and m l M. And
yeah it could could. Did they sell some jerseys in
and make a little bit of money a little bit?
But they didn't make any money the year he red shirted,
not penny and Texas and M's stadiums have still been
full there full before he got there, full after he
got there. Why because Aggies go to Aggie games. Period.
(13:24):
So I'm not saying that we shouldn't do our best
to give quality education to the guys when they finished
going to college. Can't uh, you know, provide for themselves. Sure,
I think there are some sensible discussion about it. But
this idea that like I can't, I can't capitalize off
my name, and like us, you absolutely can for the
(13:45):
rest of your life. You can your life. Everything he
did in college, and thankfully things you didn't in the
pros end up benefiting you when you wear the logo
of your college going forward. All right, let's get to
the NBA, shall we? As we get ready for the
Western Conference finals. To me, the key element becomes Clint Capella.
(14:08):
Can he stay on the floor on defense when the
Warriors go small? You know? The interesting thing about the
Warriors is they get credit for having the death lineup,
and they do. The difference in their death lineup is
that their center becomes Draymond Green, but they still have
a rim protector in Kevin Durant. Now, look, Durant hasn't
(14:29):
started year playing great defense and then took a good
portion of the year off of playing defense. Reinvigorate. They
need Draymond to hit shots, then Andrea Goo Dolla to
hit shots, and they need Kevin Durant not just make shots,
but also defend the rim. I like the Golden State
Warriors a little bit more. You know, like look in
the individual matchups if you can, and they do a
(14:49):
great job of forcing switches. But you know, I like
the matchup of Clay versus h versus James Harden. Steph
Curry is I don't know how his way, but he's
definitely dominated Chris Paul in one on one matchups. And
then who's the who's the other guy if you will.
For the Houston Rockets, that's gonna match up with Kevin Durant.
(15:11):
I don't love their matchups. Again, it's dependent upon Draymond
and Andrea Guadala two um to make shots. To keep
that floor spread. But I do think that this matchup
favors the Golden State Warriors. As for the other matchup,
I look, I think that the two elements that are
going to allow the Boston Celtics to be closer than
(15:34):
say the Toronto Raptors, is that they can throw multiple
defenders at Lebron. The problem with those defenders are with
the exception of their big guys. You know, look Morris
and Al Horford. The can guard him some in the
post um and so he can't play bullyball when they
go small. Secondarily, you'll have Jalen Brown, you have Jayson Tatum,
(15:56):
but they're so young. I just I don't love that matchup.
Now here's the part, the other part that allows the Celtics.
I think a chance Rosier off the bounds, Jalen Brown
off the bounds. Like those guys they have even a
Marcus Smarter doesn't always hit shots. They have an extra
gear that Cleveland defensively doesn't really have. And if Brad,
(16:18):
which I think he'll do, can expose Kyle Kover as
a mismatch or Kevin Love as a mismatch and attack them,
attack George Hill against some quicker more athletic perimeter players
like I think you've got a real chance of seeing
at least a longer series. Still favorite the Calves. It's
not just because of Lebron. It's because this team is
(16:39):
a bunch of shooters around Lebron that have hybrid defensive
players that are just good enough. But they'll have a
game or two in which they blow out the Celtics.
I think the Celtics a winner game or two based
on speeding athleticism. And then do you have Lebron who
you feel I can carry a team, although you know,
look he didn't shoot the ball well from three against
Toronto and they were outscored on agg aggregate the Indiana Pacers.
(17:01):
I think the series is closer than people think, but
I still think we'll have Calves and Warriors in the finals.
David Griffin joins the show. He was famously the general
manager of the of the Cleveland Cavaliers Last and Uh.
He has his own show on Serious x M and
(17:22):
NBA is also on NBA TV. He joined us in
the Doug Gottlieb Show. I knew everybody has you on
to talk Lebron and the Calves. I want to ask
you about the Sixers. Uh, there are some in in
your business, some in my business, and some in the
basketball business. I think, hey, go out add a Paul George,
go out and add stars. I kind of think they're
on the right path. I think this is good that
(17:43):
they didn't use faults. He wasn't ready yet, but eventually
he'll be good. I'm not saying that you don't add
more pieces, but I think this should be your core
for a decade. You don't want to screw that thing up.
Do you try and win the short term or you
try and win the long term. If you're the general
manager of the Sixers, David Well, I guess. I guess
it just depends on how you know what you think
long and short term is. So like, if you can
(18:05):
say that Lebron is gonna play at an elite level
for let's say five more years, I'd love to have
the young kids learned from someone like that, you know,
I'd love for him to raise the next generation of
elite talent in your organization. So there's no downside to that.
It's not like they need to jettison any of the
other talent they have um relative to the Paul George piece.
(18:29):
I don't think that's terribly likely. It sounds like Paul
if he leaves, okay, so he's pretty much got his
heart set on l a UM. What I think is
interesting is would you break up that nucleus to bring
into somebody's because that's really the only way you're going
to attract, you know, those elite guys as they tend
to want to to be together. So would you break
(18:50):
up that group to have Kauai and Lebron? I don't.
I don't know if you would or wouldn't, but I
think that's what it requires. Now. It's not just we
have the cap space for one superstar. Those guys tend
to want to be together. Would you you know, I
don't know. To be honest with you, I really don't.
It's hard for me not holding the cards they're holding.
(19:10):
I don't know exactly what they're thinking about the group.
They have. The thing that I thought they ran into
in the playoffs that was tough. Doug was Ben can't
shoot and because he can't space the court, and because
the paint is going to be occupied, because Joel is
an elite player himself, and the defense is going to
(19:33):
be pretty keenly aware of him and the paint. Then
the driving lanes that Ben would have to take advantage
of and it would allow for him to play to
the full bandwidth of his path thing don't exist. So
I think it's just really really difficult to say that
that Nucleus is going to be elite until you know,
if Ben's gotten to the point where he can shoot um,
(19:53):
and that's that's the ways away and Mark l folks
might be a ways away from being able to be elite.
So I think you could make a pretty compelling argument
if you could get Lebron, you should, But again, I
don't know what they're looking at. That's that's that was
actually I said. The only the only guy I would
probably move mountains for would be Lebron James. The one
(20:16):
caveat with Lebron is he's now at the state of
his career where he doesn't practice. You know, he does
work in his game and his body, but he it
ain't practicing. And I do think that, you know, culture wise,
those young guys, I mean, Ben Simon has got there's
a lot of work to do, a lot of work
to put in, and I think and Bead has to
learn in game situations, you know, what what winning shots
(20:39):
look like, winning plays look like, and I think you
only learned that over time and actually playing in big games.
I hope he learned a lot from the series, but
I don't know. I just I think it's gonna be
fasting to see what they do because they got a
chance to do something special. But there have been other
teams that have been in this situation and they've screwed
it up, whether even even if they didn't try to,
they screwed up and having able to as opposed to
(21:01):
what Boston's done, which feels like they've been building for
the long term and the short term thing has just
happened in the meantime. Yeah, I agree with that, and
I think it makes it even harder to be excited
about your long term term nucleus when you're looking at
the fact that Boston's as good as they are, they're
as deep as they are in the playoff run. They've
(21:21):
got the young assets on the roster, they have to
have all the high variants assets in the in the stockpiles.
From a pick standpoint, and the guy that came into
the year thinking was going to be their best player
didn't even play a minute. So you can also get
in trouble just in their own division. If you think,
you know what, let's let's take our time. We're we're
going to be the cream of the crop because Boston
(21:44):
is gonna be damn good for a long time. So
if you take your time and Joe l n B
gets hurt in the meantime, now what I mean, you're
you're not really truly elite even in your own division
for the foreseeable future. So that's why I think you
could make the most compelling case for Hey, we don't
know how long Joel is going to be healthy, and
(22:04):
we better be damn good. Now. It's interesting what you
said about Lebron not practicing. That part's true, but he's
the very first one in the practice facility every morning,
and he works like a freak. And there's nobody better
to teach Ben Simmons what this is about professionally than him.
Whether he's actually taking part in the five on five
(22:24):
that might take place, he's still going through all of
the shell drow, he's still going through all of the
defensive stuff, and he's far and away the earliest person
into your practice facility getting a lift in doing the
things he needs to do to take care of his
body when Kyrie was there, going through shooting games with Kyrie,
after practice, all of the things that then needs to
(22:46):
learn how to do. Bron does that, and then in
the off season Bron works way harder than Ben has
ever worked on his shooting and that would help Ben
as well. Do you think Ben should shoot right handed?
So this is awesome. I've seen a lot of this.
The thing for us with Tristan Thompson when we had
him changed his hand was it was just his handedness
(23:09):
was sort of up in the air. He himself didn't
know which handy should use. He wasn't married to one
or the other. And we got him to throw a
football one day in the practice facility, and when he
threw it left handed, which in theory would have been
his natural hand, he threw it into the ground like
I would throw with my off hand when I was
(23:30):
eight years old, right, I mean it was he just
sort of flailed it into the ground left handed and
right handed. He's through like a sixty yard spiral. And
you went, Tristan, you're you're right handed. So if I
could see Ben Simmons throw a football, I'd have a
better chance to tell you Ben Simmons, he shoots everything
right handed inside the paint. The only thing that is
(23:52):
left handed his free throws and and primimeter shots, and
didn't shot perimeter shots. You know, he finishes everything was
right hand, so I I, you know, I don't well.
And Tristan was exactly the same. By the way. He
was incredibly deaf with his right hand around the rim.
The only jump book he could make was right handed,
but he was shooting his free throws left handed, and
(24:12):
he would shoot like the you know, the short corner
jump shot left handed and kind of like, what what
are you doing? Whatever made you think you were left
handed to begin with? And then case again, he can
do all of those things right handed, and maybe that's
because he's more naturally comfortable with it, but it could
also be that that's just he's wired like that. And
(24:33):
it's easy to tell by the way. I'm I know
this sounds crazy, but it's easy to tell when you
have somebody throw football the throw the football challenge. I
love that. Let's get to the Cavaliers. Um, have they
figured something out or is this just who they are
going to be? Right which is you know they're gonna
space you with with Kevin Love at the five, and
(24:54):
now that Kyl Kover is much more comfortable and he's
making shots, just create space for Lebron James, play through
him and play with a bunch of shooters and then
you know, switch everything defensively. Well, it's sort of who
they've always been. Um, you know, we we had Kyrie
at one time, so when the shot clock would run
down and he could go get a shot and he
could create offense when Lebron sat down. They don't have
(25:15):
the ability to do that now. But they've always been
a team that if you're going to take advantage of
Lebron's full talents, you've got to be able to space
the court and let him pick people apart from the
center of the lane by being a driver and then
making the right read. And fortunately in the last series,
you know, the team had a three to one assist
turnover ratio, which is a really really good situation. It's
(25:38):
in part because of Lebron, but it's also because George
Hill was present for a big part of that. And
George Hill being healthy and being capable of playing significant
minutes and starting makes it possible to keep Orrid Or
j R. Smith and Love all together on the starting lineup,
and those are the guys Lebron's one with. Those are
the guys he's comfortable with. So fortunately for Cleveland, that
(26:01):
first series with Indiana took them seven games, so they
got as many different opportunities as they could to figure
out lineups and and figure out where Lebron was going
to be the most comfortable. And I think because of that,
they landed back with what they know best, which is
the guys they're starting. You get Tristan Thompson a lot
(26:22):
more opportunity to play. You know, this is one of
the things I think from basketball analytics, standpoint is really
a telling thing. And I don't know what the number is,
and I would love for somebody significantly smarter than I
am to tell me the right way to do this,
but their effective field goal percentage on Tristan Thompson's offensive
(26:42):
rebounds has got to be damn near Well. This is
just backs, just backbreakers, right. You're like, your your your garden, Lebron,
your garden shooters. You're paying all attention. Elston shot goes up,
you start leaking out defensively, there's Tristan Thompson with the
ball and he kicks it out. Now either you have
to do it all over again or they shoot a three,
which is those are back breaks. Yeah, and if you
you know, if you if you look at Tristan when
(27:03):
he plays significant minutes, that's five opportunities you have to
make four more threes. That's twelve points. Link. That's winning
and losing basketball games. And he also is your best
big in terms of his ability to match up on
the wing and switch and defensively be a president. So
it's not surprising to me they wound up with him.
(27:24):
I think it's a good thing they were healthy and
that he was healthy enough to actually get back into
the rotation. But I think this is who Cleveland has
always been. They're going to have to outscore you. They're
probably not going to get enough stops to be the
team like Golden State four times. But I think they
can get enough stops to to get past Boston. What's
(27:46):
what's the deal with Brad and the rest of the
league's coaches. I I understand that there are a lot
of good coaches that did Quinstider did magnificent things. Uh, look,
Toronto had the best record. These like I can make
an argument for a bunch of these guys, but there
is something there or that other coaches are like he
he gets a little bit too much credit. I think
we did it. Like from a media perspective, I think
(28:07):
we did it. I think it's one of those things
where other coaches have probably had enough of Brad getting
nothing but love and never taking any of the blame um.
And I don't mean that Brad personally doesn't take any
of the blame. I mean that the media never assigns
him any blame um. And I think it's just made
it so that there's I don't want to call it petty,
(28:28):
but I think the petty is undefeated in some ways,
and I think there's just a natural bias to feel like,
you know what, I'm not sure he's that good. And
I think it makes you more critical of Brad as
a coach because you're hearing from everywhere how good he is.
And I think Dwayne Casey was a great selection as
Coach of the Year from the Coaches Association's standpoint. That's
(28:50):
I totally get it, and I'm not even gonna argue
with it. It's been Quinn Snyder. I wouldn't argue with it,
but for eight guys to get a vote and Brad
not to get one. That was pretty crazy? Am I
crazy to think that as that Capella is super important
to Houston? Yet I don't think Capella can be Capella
much of this series because they'll go small and now
(29:12):
he kind of like valenchun Is what happened with him
with the Calves. Golden State stretches you out, goes small,
and Capella becomes a lot less effective. Yeah, So I
think he's so different from Jonas because he descends in
space so well. Um, I think Clint is actually if
Houston is going to win the series, it's because not
(29:34):
only does he hold his own when they go small,
but his ability to roll and finish and be dynamic
at the rim forces them to stay bigger. If if
Golden has to play a traditional five to check Capella,
that changes the whole series. Now I tend to favor
Golden State pretty heavily. I think just from the standpoint
(29:55):
of them having been through the wars together and they're
now at a point where they realize the amount of
focus they have to play with to be successful. I
think they have appropriate fear of Houston. You know, Kur
really hinges a lot of what he does from a
preparation standpoint on that appropriate fear, and I think they
get it, and I think because they do, they're just
(30:17):
too deep and too good offensively. There's too many weapons
that you can't take out of it. And in the
Houston situation, they're so dependent upon you know, they played
two guys defensively in Tucker and Areza Uh and Tucker
and bomb Moute. When they're together, that defensive lineup is
really predicated on Hardened and Paul either generating offense or
(30:41):
Hardened getting you to the foul line quickly that he
gets you into the bonus and you shoot far more
free shrows than anybody else. Well, the deeper you go
into the playoffs, the less likely you are to get
those calls, which means it might be harder to keep
your defenders on the court. And if that's true, you're
never gonna guard Gold States. So I think it's a
five or six game series of close games to what
(31:04):
I think. In the end, Golden States just got too
much great stuff. I can't tell you how much I appreciate.
Look forward to hearing you some more on serious sex.
And I'm watching on the NBA TV thanks for me
and our guest. We'll talk to us the playoffs roll on.
Thanks alright, pleasures mind David Griffin joining us. Former general
manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Rick Bucker has a great podcast.
(31:27):
It's called The Swirlds with NBA Vett Ryan Hollins. Rick
also has his own national radio show on Sirius XM eight. Gosh,
we're eighty three, he's eighty four. A two A two,
A two A two. Rick Bucker joins us on the
Doug Gottlieb Show. Just as we all thought, Celtics and Calves,
(31:50):
Warriors and Rockets. Oh there's this, the one plot twist.
The Celtics wouldn't have Kyrie and wouldn't have Gordon Hayward
outside of that, exactly as we thought it would go, right, Yeah, No,
it's uh, And this is what it always gets me
when people say that, you know, there's no suspense in
the NBA season, and uh, we already know it's gonna
(32:12):
be calvs. Warriors at the end. First of all, we
don't know that. I still don't know that as of
right now. And to it's not so much the destination,
it's the journey, isn't it Doug, it's the journey and
it's a matter of how we got here, which was
there's been plenty of unexpected twist and turns, and I
wouldn't be surprised if we have a few more before
(32:33):
all of a sudden done. Why don't other NBA coaches
have the same affinity for Brad Stevens as the media
has for Brad Stevens. Well, part of it is because
he's still relatively new to the club and NBA coaches
are a very clubby sort. We just I I said
(32:53):
something about mccronin uh, the u C coach during the tournament.
I thought the way he handled uh some questions about
his team, UH, where he didn't do it well, and
brought that up with Seth Greenberg had him as a
host or a guest on my show, and it was
immediately you don't, you don't, you don't know what? Like,
(33:13):
where have you coached like that? They became that unless
unless you're that's that's also Seth one on one right, well,
but it's also he's not alone. I mean, the the
the number of coaches that I talked to, and look,
there is a degree and probably a larger degree than
not there's a larger degree of truth to people who
(33:37):
armchair coach don't take into consideration all the things that
they know because they can't possibly know them. So I
get that, but I think there's a couple of things.
One and I actually just had a talk. I had
a conversation with a head coach in the league today
about this subject. It wasn't this was the main thing,
but I said, I said, so, what's up. You know,
Brad Stephens not a single vote, And he said, the
(34:00):
way he looked at it is is, you know, Brad
came in and he was supposed to have a good season,
and yes they lost Kyrie, yes they lost Gordon Hayward,
but the team kind of ended up where everybody expected
them to end up as far as the regular season
was concerned. Toronto made a change from last year and
(34:22):
there was an uptick. So that was his explanation for me.
And there's also there is that feeling like he's kind
of been gifted a really good situation and he's straight
out of college. I think the other part is is
that there's this clubby nature to the to the NBA coaches,
and they're very well aware of guys who've been in
(34:43):
the club for a long time and maybe in a
little bit of trouble, and and they look at it
and I think it's unfair that that guy is in trouble.
Dwayne Casey fits that description to a t as far
as other NBA coaches are concerned. It's a great point. Well,
it's also interesting is how many of the guys have
gotten the Coach of the Year award and then been
fired like a year later, which which which only proves
(35:05):
that in their effort to help their buddy out, they
actually end up, you know, well, creating something that they
can't live up to. So the one thing, so the
one that you're you're referencing, because this is a this
is a relatively new award. This is only the second year.
Last year it was D'Antoni and Erik Spoelstra that the
coaches selected. They were co co head coaches and they
(35:26):
sort of fit the profile. Even though Spoilster has been
a head coach, he's been relatively at nine ten years now,
but he's been in the NBA fraternity for a long time,
so he fits and obviously d and D'Antoni does too. Um,
this is a relatively new thing for them, but the
one that's voted by the media. Yeah, we had a
string of Mike Brown, Avery Johnson, George carl and it
(35:49):
seemed like there was about five or six guys in
a row that one Coach of the year and a
year later they were out. So yeah, it can be.
It can be a kiss at death. Be careful what
exactly what they're they're touting their guys to be DoD
The Celtics have a chance. I'm picking them to win.
What are you talking about? Do they have a chance
(36:11):
Because I look at the pace of play, and I
look at the intensity of the series that they had
with the Sixers. I think, but and I maybe I
may be wrong on this and maybe undervaluing the sweet
spot that Lebron James finds himself in. But I look
at the Raptors series and I can't all of the
(36:32):
improvement that we're looking at with the Calves. I can't
help but believe that the Toronto Raptors had a big
hand in that they never really made Lebron James play
in a crowd, and yet in spite of not putting
additional attention toward him, Jeff Green and j R. Smith,
(36:54):
this is going into Game four, We're both shooting seventies
percent plus in three point range. Jeff Green shot against
the Pacers in the first round. He shot from three
during the regular season. H J. R. Smith shot a
little bit better during the regular season, but he shot
(37:17):
against the Pacers. I look at guys like Terry Rozier
and Jason Tatum, Al Horford, Marcus Smart. Those guys, in
my mind, are all gamers who are not afraid Lebron
James or the Cleveland Cavaliers. In fact, they come into
this series thinking they have revenge in mind for what
(37:41):
happened last year. They don't care that Kyrie Irving's not there,
Gordon Hayward's not there, and and that they're not supposed
to be here based on what everybody else thinks. They're
looking at it going. We got back to the Eastern
Conference Finals and are and and we still have unfinished business.
So I just believe that they can push the temp
Oh in a way that Toronto never did and that
(38:03):
Indiana did that took that series to seven games. And
if you're giving me Miles Turner or Al Horford at
this point to make things difficult on Kevin Love, I'm
taking Al Horford every day all day in spite of
liking h Miles Turner and his future. So I just
think that that that Boston is going to do a
much better job of limiting what the other pieces do
(38:26):
and Lebron James is going to have to come through
with some of the virtuoso performances that he did against
against the Indiana Pacers, And I just I think that
the Celtics are a little bit better than the Pacers were,
and they have the same guys that have the eye
of the tiger and aren't going to be afraid to
take and make a big shot when it needed. That's
(38:46):
the voice of Rick Buker, of course, writes for Bleacher Report,
has his own radio show on Sirious XM Channel two.
Let's get out West Golden State Warriors. They back to
where they should be. Uh well, yeah, they're there. They
are back to what they are capable of. My one
question is can they sustain it. They've they've demonstrated that
(39:10):
in periods they can play, they can get back to
that level that that they can play at a level
that nobody else can play at at both ends of
the floor. They still have and they've still struggled even
in these playoffs, in sustaining that, you know, giving away
a game, absolutely giving a game a game away against
(39:30):
New Orleans was troubling. The way they closed out San
Antonio was not convincing. They really there. They are measuring
game in and game out how hard they have to
play to win the game. And I don't think it's
by overconfidence. I don't think it's by lack of attention
(39:53):
to detail. I really think it's just kind of the
physical and mental grind of having been to three consecutive
NBA finals and now trying to get to a four
uh and and a and a bench that's not quite
as deep that they're just feeling they're they're feeling that grind.
So can the Rockets exploit the Warriors when they have
(40:17):
those periods when they're not at their best, when the
offense gets a little stagnant and they just lean on
k D when the defense rotations work for fourteen fifteen seconds,
but they get a little lax in the last four
or five, Like, can the Rockets exploit that? And then
on the other on the other end, can they maintain
(40:39):
their focus in intensity? That to me is what's going
to determine that the Rockets have demonstrated that they can
take their foot off the pedal too, and they have
less reason to do that. But um, I'm not I'm
not completely out of the woods with the Warriors yet
and saying that they have the requisitibility to play as
well as they need to play as long as they
(41:00):
need to play. Can they get back there and have
they demonstrated that yet? Have played some of the best
basketball that I've seen them play in months. But the
big question is going to be can they sustain it?
How many minutes can they play at that level? Um?
What do you think Lebron plays next year? You know,
(41:21):
it's so funny. I just in talking to this coach today,
he goes, I've heard he's gonna play in Philadelphia. I've
heard he might stay in Cleveland. Obviously there's there, you know,
there's talk about like Kauai wants to go play in
l A with Paul George and Lebron. Um, I'm I
am going to stay with where I was at the
beginning of the year and everybody was telling me, which
(41:42):
is that he's gonna wind up in l A. But
I'll be honest with you, as of right now, I don't.
I've never had a dog in the fight, but I
really don't know. I still don't think he's going to
stay in Cleveland. He remember the other day, I forget
what game it was, when he went to the locker room,
he had the he had the the cramps and and
(42:03):
had to go to the locker room. And when he
came back out and he walked out of the tunnel,
he walked right right by Dan Gilbert and there was
absolutely no acknowledgement, recognition, nothing from either one of them.
It wasn't even Dan wouldn't even look at him, and
certainly Lebron wasn't looking at him. You can't have from
(42:25):
everything I've heard, that's just the latest little piece of
that relationship is far from great, and I think ultimately
that's going to be the difference would be super supping
the Paul George knee surgery thing. Did everybody know that
was gonna happen? Uh? No, they did not. But from
everything I've heard, it's not something that people are, you know,
(42:47):
taking a lot of concern with or that it's gonna
it's it's changing the dynamic as far as what people
are expecting. Russell Westbrook look zek Low, And I want
to be very careful because I like Zach Low, and
I do think that other people around the league will say,
we'll say that like, well, maybe maybe you gotta think
(43:08):
about trade in Westbrook. But thinking about doing it and
actually doing it are two completely different things, right, And
and it's always the guy who doesn't have a Russell
Westbrook who talks about training a Russell Westbrook. What do
you think Oklomas City does? What do I uh, what
do I think Oklahoma City does with Russell Westbrook? In general?
UM continue to thank their their stars that he signed
(43:34):
a five year extension there uh look too to find
pieces that are going to build around him and and
and ultimately, UM hope that his maturity and his decision
making continue to improve. Will Billy, will Billy be able
to like I think that bringing Billy back, the next
(43:54):
thing to do is sit him down, go like, hey, Billy,
you gotta coach him, like you have to get some
of the stuff out of him, because he has so
much talent and but you got to get some of
the one man possessions out of him. Yeah, And I
don't you know, I will say, having been around that
team a little bit, uh, and just recently during the playoffs,
I was encouraged by the interaction that Billy had with Russ.
(44:17):
And it is a negotiation as opposed to, you know,
a directive when it comes to the conversation between those two. Um.
Then again, I thought that Billy showed great. I mean,
it seems simple, but the fact that he sat mellowed
down and kept you know, and and went back to
him briefly and then didn't go back to him again,
(44:38):
I think that says a lot about Billy's growing stature
as a as an NBA head coach. I think that
what they they in short, short of moving Billy on,
and I don't think I don't know that there's a
coach out there that's gonna change that dynamic, is that
you go get a what Tom did the Know was
(45:01):
for Doc Rivers or what Ron Adams is for Steve
kerr Uh. You go get that guy who is a
no nonsense x is and os this is how it
needs to be, hard ass who is the first assistant
and he's the guy who is you know, let's Russ know,
(45:23):
this is the way we've got to do it. Um.
Some people mentioned like a Steve Clifford to me, it
doesn't have to be like you know, I mean, obviously
you've got a star of that nature. It's not you're
just gonna tell him it's my way of the highway,
that those days are long gone. But a guy who's
xs and o's are strong enough that he can say,
this is the way we need to do it. If
(45:44):
you want to win, this is the way we need
to do it. And ideally it's somebody who has you know,
has had a certain degree of success that Russ is
going to to respect. But ultimately it's gonna come down
to this. Russ is going to have to be frustrated
and set up enough with his own shortcomings and failures
to say I'm willing to try to do it a
(46:05):
different way. Surrender yourself to the process. Thanks so much,
really appreciate you join us, Rick Buker. The podcast is
the Swirl with longtime NBA vett Ryan Hollins. All Right,
so that's gonna wrap it up for all ball. I
want to thank all of our guests, David Griffin, Rick Buker.
(46:26):
Next week we'll start to prepare you for the NBA Draft.
I'm currently concocting an article the ten most overrated ten
most underrated players in the upcoming NBA Draft. You have
any questions or things that you want um in the
next All Ball podcast, tweet Abby at gott liep Show
or hit me up on our Facebook page, which this
will appear on. Make sure you're not only download it,
(46:48):
rate it, and of course subscribe, but you also tell
a friend about it because we're over a hundred thousand
and downloads. We want to get to that one fifth.
You want to get to two hundred thousand, and you
can help. It'll make the show better. Frank gonna make
the guest keep that fellow. Okay, it was great this week.
I'm Doug Gottlieb and this has been All Ball. H
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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