All Episodes

April 29, 2019 35 mins

Doug discusses the Rockets losing Game 1 to the Warriors and why fans probably don’t like the Rockets. He tells you what expect in the Raptors series vs. the 76ers. Plus, NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger joins the show in studio to breakdown the NFL draft. 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of the Doug Gottlieb
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
from three to six pm Eastern Time, that's twelve to
three Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station
for the Doug Gotliep Show at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every day on the I Heart
Radio app by searching fs R. This is the best

(00:21):
of the Doug Gotlip Show on Fox Sports Radio. Booming
Up America, Doug Gottlieb Show, Fox Sports Radio. Man, we
have a lot to get to. What a great sports weekend.
I went to a Dodger game. Huh. Went to a

(00:42):
Bodger game, saw Bias come in and put out the
fire like any fireman. Shoulders gonna win. We got very
minimal baseball commentary, got some NBA games. A man of
Ryan Music established himself is still the producer of the
Doug Gotlip Show with an epic tweet that everybody was
sitting there going m that was good. That was good.

(01:05):
I went and saw it. Took my my son to
um the New Avengers movie. I'm not gonna give you
a full review of it because well many of you
have seen it and most of you know a lot
more about the Marvel Avenger series than I do. I
can only tell you this, you better really like it
because it is really, really long. I'm just telling you,

(01:27):
like war and pieces sitting there going wrap it up already.
It is really long. There's a lot stuffed in there.
And for neophytes like me in regards to the Avenger series,
fine is good. But if if you're waiting for Gottlieb
to give you a review as to whether or not
you should or should not go, then you probably shouldn't be.

(01:50):
Shouldn't be listening to me for a review of said movie. Yeh,
you go, because everybody goes. But I took three ten
year old boy, I won nine year old boy. The
nine year old boy completely into all the Marvel adventure stuff.
He was literally cheering, said it was the greatest movie
he'd ever seen. My son was like, when's it over?

(02:11):
I don't know any of these characters in the middle
of was like, yeah, it's cool, right, A lot of popcorn.
It's It's the first movie I've ever been to where
I'm like, I bought the review refillable popcorn and I
went and got a refill twice. I had a lot
of popcorn. I am popcorn out. All right, let's get

(02:33):
to it. Um. I got the NFL draft, stuff, I
got Josh Rose and stuff. Sam Amy's gonna join us,
will continue the n NBA conversation. Got NFL oough, Brian
Baldring is gonna join us for an hour, an hour
Baldi is gonna joyus for out great, So we'll talk winners, losers,
will talk to Josh Rosen. Thing. What I still think
is the biggest thing of the NFL Draft had nothing

(02:54):
to do with the NFL Draft. It did have to
the Kancer Chiefs. I think it changed the entire dynamic
of the NFL. Will get that, Well, let's start with
the NBA playoffs, the Rockets versus the Warriors. The Doug
Gotlic Show is brought to you by Farmers. At Farmers,
we've seen almost everything, so we know how to cover
almost anything. When it's game time, have an experienced player help.

(03:16):
You have to stay stay ahead of the game. Put
their experience in the plant Farmers dot com. Here's James
Harden on the officiating. I just want to fair chance
man called a game how it's supposed to be called,
and and that's it, and I'll live with the results.
But especially we all know what happened, you know a
few years back with Kauai like that can change. Then
entire series just called a game how it's supposed to

(03:37):
be called, and and we'll live with the results, and
it's it's planning simple. Now, for the record, I do
think that James Harden is right from this standpoint. Throughout
the NBA regular season, when you'd get anywhere near James
Harden and a three point shot, if you made any
sort of contactor ran under him, he would get a

(04:00):
foul call. Matter of fact, he had over a hundred
fouls called on three points three point attempts this year.
I think it's a hundred and six. The next closest
was below thirty three. Like, in other words, two thirds
more than any other individual player in the NBA. Now, look,
he goes to free throw line more than anybody like

(04:22):
this is part of his game. And the officiating did
change from the regular season. Should also be pointed out
that deficiating normally changes from the regular season. This is
not abnormal. I don't think he helps himself by falling
down every time he shoots at three. I don't think
Chris Paul helps it by throwing out his feet and
falling down every time they shoot the three. But they

(04:42):
are not totally wrong. And the Rockets are sitting there
telling us that we don't like them, that we want
to that's essentially what you're saying. The revs don't like them,
The refs don't want them to work win. I don't
think the refs like or dislike them. I can tell
you that we as Americans don't like the Houston Rockets.

(05:04):
Let's just say it, let's not code it in any
other message. And and here's why we don't like the
Houston Rockets because they embodied the two parts, the two
parts of the NBA in the nineties and early two
thousand's and the new NBA that we don't like. Right,
what did you what would they we used to make

(05:25):
fun of in the nineteen eighties and nineties NBA? Oh,
the ISO ball, Right, give it to one guy and
clear out aside. Is so we didn't like it with Carmelo.
It didn't work. For Michael Jordan's it worked for scoring points,
but that wasn't how he won championships. We've always had

(05:46):
a thing about is so We've also always had a
thing about man Man. They let him go with travels
in the NBA. And how many times have you seen
James Harden get away with the step back travel or
the extra little step travel? Have you seen that? So
you go back historically, we don't like that. We also
don't like two tho NBA basketball. From this standpoint, shoot

(06:09):
too many threes? Right, no one shoots more threes than
the Houston Rockets released it seems that way um and
the flipping the head back and acting like you get
fouled every time you drive to the basket. I don't
know if we don't like the Rockets individually. I like
James Harden. His story is not that unlikable, but his

(06:30):
style in many ways embodies the two parts, two parts
of this NBA and two parts of the old NBA
that we never liked. And so no, we don't like you.
We just don't. Sorry, I mean, you can tell me
you should like. I'm fine. We don't like when you

(06:50):
go uh three point line to three point line play
the old man basketball, do we? And we don't like
when you throw your head back every time you drive
do we? And we don't like when teams over dribble, dribble,
drib dribble, drible dribb dribble, rib dribble, ribble, drible drible dribble.
One on one do we know? Oh yeah, And here's

(07:10):
the last thing. I I personally think Chris Paul is
as good a point guard as has ever played the game.
But is there any more thoroughly unlikable player If you're
not a Houston Rockets fan, it has to be the toughest,
make the tough guy faces, complains about every call everyone's
done him wrong. He never fouls and he always gets

(07:34):
found and he's always making mean mug faces like he's
the toughest guy on earth. Like you just we don't
have to get over the Rockets. We were never into them.
We just don't like you. And so sure you could
point out that it and it's fair to say the
officiating is generally different in the postseason than his regular season.

(07:54):
And these were plays that were called fouls in the
regular season. But when you're James Harden, you fall down
every time, or in the previous series we see you
act like you get hit in the throat, and upon
further review, you never touched. I'm sorry, we just don't
have any sympathy. We don't. You don't any There's plenty

(08:17):
of NBA players and coaches I've talked to like, yeah,
you know what, He's right, those you were called fouls
in the regular season, but you know this is kind
of how it goes in the postseason. And it's the Rockets.
Nobody likes the Rockets. The Rockets are also their management
team is one of those things. They're smarter than everybody else, right, Like,

(08:39):
I don't know if you saw that story about when
they made the James Harden trade and it was like, wow,
they were genius to make the James Harden trade. They were,
but they also thought, you know that James Harden and
Jeremy Lynn, we're going to be two transformative stars. One
for two is not bad, but they swung and missed
on Jeremy Lynn. Right, we can all agree on that.

(09:00):
So I don't think the Rockets are gonna win this series.
I do think they're gonna win some games. I don't
think that the Golden State Warriors are perfect. But when
you fall down every time somebody you shoot a basketball,
it's really hard in real time to decide which time
you got fouled. And which time you just fell down.
When I was a kid, we used to use that

(09:22):
whole boy who cried wolf thing. Remember that, I don't
want to be the boy grad Wolf. Don't be the
boy or grid wolf. If you fall down every time,
there are gonna be times you get fouled and it's
not called. But because you've cried wolf so many times,
we don't know what's real. You create an environment where
every time somebody shoots you could make deal, well, I

(09:42):
look like a foul. So the Rockets are gonna sit
there and tell you the NBA doesn't like them, that
the officiating is against them. I heard Nick right on
first things. First seven to last eight times we've matched up.
I mean I did I say we. I meant they
have matched up with the Golden State Warriors. He loves

(10:03):
the Rockets, I get it. He used to do radio
in Houston. The front office is really cool to him.
He's totally in on the style and he's over the Warriors.
Got it. The rest of us are telling you it
doesn't necessarily even have to do with we don't care
about the Houston, City of Houston. No one's sitting there
going like, I don't like the city of Houston. Nobody
has any sort of feelings one way or the other
against the city of Houston. It's really hot, it's really flat,

(10:27):
there's a lot of oil and big money. It's really
spread out, and um, that's about all I have to
say about Houston. It's all I really know. I have
friends that live there and they generally like it. But
it's really really hot in the summer, like crazy, like okay,
one just one degree lesson the sun hot. That's my

(10:48):
feelings on Houston. Doesn't have anything to do with City
of Houston, the Rockets franchise, Darryl Morey. But when you
act like you're smarter than everybody, and there's parts of
your style which in by the parts we don't like
of the NBA generally as sports fans from the past
and the current era, No, we don't really like you. Sorry,

(11:11):
you don't get to benefit of the doubt when you
constantly complain and constantly fall down. Hey, look, we didn't
like the Spurs either, because the Spurs never fouled, Like, really,
that should be when day when when Tim Duncan gets
a statue out in front of the arena, it should
be the like the two hand like where he used
to look at refs. I got fouled. I got fouled

(11:32):
every time. Every time? Did you get fouled? Sure there
were fouls there, they missed them. They also called some
fouls that didn't exist. James Harden drove in, got his
shot spiked like it was a volleyball set spike. There
was a foul call. There wasn't one there. Nobody mentions that.

(11:56):
It's not like you said, I shot fourteen free throws, dude.
And by the way, every time you push off and
you stick a shoulder into a guy and and step back,
you could call that an offensive foul. I hope you
do not, and you could call it a travel when
he takes to extra step back. I probably think you should.
But whatever, if we're gonna go letter of every law,
then letter of a law is going to be a
very unwatchable game, which is what you created with all

(12:18):
this flopping nonsense. They've brought European soccer to basketball, and
we don't like European soccer because we don't know what's
real contact and we don't know what's fake contact. And soccer, guys,
stop it. Oh, soccer is more popular than it's ever
been like, okay, more popular than it's ever been, is

(12:40):
still less popular than hockey on a daily basis. World
cop obviously super popular, but the parts that we don't
like you're doing, it's hard for us to get behind you,
no matter how good you are. And I think James
Harden is a room markable town in terms of the

(13:02):
array of offensive ability. Dude, have you ever seen somebody
guarded the way Utah guarden him. They played behind him
on his left side, like forcing him in the lane
because he's such a good three point shooter. He's so crafty,
he creates so much space. You know, he goes to
his left side. There's literally no straight up way to
guard him. But will you take away from it? Because

(13:23):
if you had lack of likability, the style you play,
the parto and body, the things that brings up in
our memory anytime you complain about the refs, you come
out as a whiner. And teams that are dependent upon
the officials to help them win games generally aren't championship
caliber teams. Be sure to catch live editions of The

(13:45):
Doug dot Leap Show weekdays in noon eastern three pm
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and The I Heart Radio
app let's turn back to the NBA. Sam Amik joins
us NBA insider for the Athletic in Uh. Sam of
course author the piece that's out right now on why
the Rockets believe that they keep getting screwed by the

(14:08):
rest when they play the wars. That is that a
fair way to kind of tell the layman what they're
gonna get if they take a deep dive into your piece.
That's so dug. I don't know that screwed made its
way into the subject line of their internal memos, but
that is definitely the spirit of it. Okay. So with
that in mind, what what is the have some spoilers
for us? Okay, we won't spoil Avengers for people haven't

(14:31):
seen Avengers, but you can't spoil a little bit of
your article. Why do the Rockets feel like they're getting
the bad end? Deficiating? So the quick backdrop I would
share is that you know as you know, but if
listeners don't. The Rockets, by all accounts the most analytically
minded organization in the league. They've kind of led the
way on the moneyball version of the NBA movement years

(14:52):
and years ago. Darryl Morry, their GM is data driven
to the nth degree, and with that in mind, UM,
so fascinating about the situation to me is that what
we have learned that I don't think we necessarily knew
before is that for a long time now, they have
been studying officiating in the kind of you know, evidence
data driven away that they typically study their teams, study

(15:15):
the opponent, and they have come to the conclusion that,
specifically in this matchup with the Warriors, that they've been
getting the short end of the stick at all the
most important moments for quite some time. I focused on
the Conference finals last year, and essentially here's the process.
The league, upon request, will give teams a forty eight
minute report on their games. That is the same as

(15:39):
the last two minute report, which indicates which calls were
correct or missed, and that's not something that they share publicly. Also,
teams cannot get reports from other teams games. It's only
your games, and obviously you see both teams in that
one individual game. So they they audited the conference finals
last year and came to the conclusion that if you

(15:59):
go line by line and figure out, you know, where
they got screwed and to kind of steal your vernacular.
The aggregate point total of that series was they were
minus ninety three when it comes to calls being incorrect, uh,
double digits in six out of the seven games against them,
and one game where they had a nominal edge over
the Warriors. That was game too. So there's more on

(16:20):
the more meat on the bone than maps. But that
certainly is that's the flash point that last night, you
know kind of field the rays that you saw after
Game one. All right, let's get to last night, because
while I agree there were some calls missed when they
ran into shooters, they also there were some calls gained
hard and drives in once and gets his shots spiked,

(16:41):
and he gets a couple of free throws. You know,
I thought they missed some fouls. Uh you know, I
thought Steph Curry got got fouled several times over. I mean,
there there's there are there are plenty that actually even
out if you only you don't only study won the
last two minutes in two the three point shooting, which
one I believe was deemed to not be if out

(17:02):
I hear you, I will say in general terms that
the league does not seem to be pushing back all
that hard against the idea that last night was not
a good night at the office for the office for
the rest in the Rockets direction, Um, you know the
first half, Clay Thompson in particular could have had four
fall files at halftime and and the Rockets could have

(17:24):
had an extra nine ten points. So you know, I
hear you, and I think the bigger conversation here that
the more I talked about this, the more my anterest
level kind of skews this way, is that man, the
league has just got a really interesting question on his
hands about the approach of being transparent like they have
been and like they are, and Adam Silver making that

(17:44):
a priority and having the pitfalls of transparency is what
I would call it, because this is now exhibit a
in how NBA teams can weaponize the league's information against
them and come to conclusions that you know that they
the league then has to answer for because if the
teams you know that, powder would be Wait, so we're
supposed to get the data and then if we don't

(18:06):
like what we see, we can't say anything, you know.
And and so that's the thing we didn't used to
have forty admit of reports and not to get too
far in the weed. I just told this story on
a on a podcast a minute ago. But last night
I shared this whole saga with my wife, who is
not a huge basketball fan, and what struck me was
the first response she had was, wait, people think the
rests are supposed to be perfect? Like I don't understand this,

(18:28):
you know, like, well, that's the spirit. Well I would
also say this, uh, and you tell me if this
is fair. I do think that there's And now you
bring up analytics. I think there's a bunch of things
working against the rockets where people actually don't like them.
And and and stick with me for a second. Sam
Amy from the Athletic joining me on the Doug Gotlip
Show Fox Sports Radio. What do people what do people

(18:48):
hate about the eighties and nineties in the NBA? Oh,
the old is so ball right, one guy with the ball,
the rest of the that's the old. And and the
excessive traveling. Whether it's worse now or better now, it
doesn't even matter. It's just that idea has always been
the anti NBA guys like, well they just go is
so and they travel all the time, and then what
are they what? What do what do people dislike about

(19:11):
new end age n b A, the overuse of analytics,
shooting a ton of threes and throwing your head back
and acting like you got fouled every time you drive
to the basket, and and getting some of those calls,
and the constant falling down. And I think they actually
embody parts of old generation and new generation NBA that
people don't like. And I don't think that. I just

(19:34):
don't think that the general public is sitting there feeling
bad for them as they would for other teams that
maybe didn't get the fair end of a whistle. No,
I don't disagree with you at all about the way
all of this stuff hits the fans. I joked with
somebody last night that it takes a special type of
effort to make the Warriors likable, and last night's events,

(19:55):
I think for some fans who might have been on
the fence, did that. And I think the Rockets perspective
here is because of their level of competitiveness and the
you know, the the heart heartache of the conference finals
last year, and the general idea that they think that
they are worthy of being champions in this league. They
you know, they've clearly decided that they're going to focus

(20:16):
more on sending a message to the NBA and the
officials that yes, we expect you to officiate the same
exact way you did in the regular season. Uh, and
you can't change the rules now because you have This
is another one of their assertions is that older referees,
more experienced referees, are less willing to call the specifically
in three point shots in the whole landing space debate,

(20:37):
that they won't call it consistently the way the younger
refs to that the younger refs are more on board
with the you know, the quote unquote new protocol. So
they just they're trying to stew the officiating in this series.
That's clearly where their heads are at with the comments
that Mike named Tony made after the game. But you
know James Harden being on board with all the same
talking points. You know when they when they kind of

(20:59):
out the refs and say that they, by the way,
at halftime, they told us that they missed four threes.
You know, that's the kind of stuff that they're hoping
going forward ends up helping them when it comes to
the rest Gotlive show here on Fox Sports Radio. How
likely do you think they are to win this series. Um,
it's man, I don't know how to handicap it because

(21:19):
last night the idea that they were right there given
everything that went on that you know, James being nine, um,
you know, play Capella being a non factor, you know
all the different things they struggled with. They they're just
a hell of a team. So I think it's gonna
be a long series. I'm not gonna get two wrapped
up in the psychological aspect in terms of like you know,

(21:41):
like I know that some of the Warriors people feel
like this is this whole thing is an indictment on
the Rockets ethos, and it reveals that the Rockets don't
truly believe they can beat the Warriors. There are people
with the Warriors who that's how this all hits them.
But it's like that, I get that. But then guess
what Game two might come along and they might smack
the Warriors in the face. I think that's still possible. Um,

(22:03):
seems like a different Kevin Durant since the I'm Kevin
Durant rant sure fair, Oh yeah, I just it's one
of those I thought, and maybe I was premature in
calling it, but I've thought that the finals two years
ago were the were the first. Okay, I think he's
the best player in the league now because he was

(22:25):
better than Lebron in the second half. Last year was
hard just because they didn't it wasn't it wasn't really
a fair fight, and you know the j R. Smith
thing um. But that's really what this well, that's what
this is, right, This is a coronation of a guy
who might have been the best player in the league
all year long, or the most talented guy in the
league all year long. I didn't have the best season,
but that feels like that's what this run essentially says

(22:50):
it does. And so I mean, listen to the way
that he got into this is so interesting because he
was in playmaking mode, but it was he was in
you know, early on the Clipper series, and he's in
playmaking modes to such a degree that you, I mean
that there's such a weird vibe around the team that
you had people around the team that we're kind of
trying to figure out what it all meant. Is the
playmaking mode because that's what's best for the team in

(23:12):
the game, or is he is he kind of being
Is it almost like the old days when guys who
just choose not to shoot because they were mad, you know,
and it was it. It gets back into that whole
thing that drives him nuts, which is people trying to
read his mind. So he ended up clicking a switch
telling the media that I'm Kevin Durant. You'll know who
I am. And he's been that guy done it Also,

(23:32):
though underscores to me, Doug, like if we flash forward
to free agency and the whole discussion about what might
he do and what might his motivations be, as you know,
the whole thing has been does he want to be
you know, the guy, you know, the industrutively alpha male,
whichever team he's on, and not have to share that
spotline and do it by himself so to speak. And

(23:53):
last night at Oracle, you know, it's funny the Warriors
fans lately have taken to giving m v P Chance
to old Step and Kevin, which I don't remember happening
during the regular season. And what makes me kind of
chuckle is like, if you pulled out one of those
decibel you know, test machines, I would love to know,
like the numbers on the m v P Chance because
it's it's a real m v P chance for Kevin.

(24:15):
But the whole bathtrop is it's never as loud as
the one for step Yeah. But but but but we
also we can't take those m v P chans. Blake
Griffin was at the line and they're playing in the playoffs,
and I was hearing the m v P chan there,
like that is the most But but it's more the
ideas fans. Yeah, I mean that's these players do care
what the fans think. And I think it's an idea

(24:36):
that if you're him and you just kind of feel like, man,
I could be out here being better than Michael Jordan
for the next five years and these fans are never
going to truly appreciate who I am. If that is
in fact anything close to how he thinks, then you
start to understand why he might go elsewhere. You pointed
out that the officiating is not the same regular season
the postseason, But isn't that really in a nutshell, what

(24:59):
we learned about the Bucks, like Brook Lopez regular season,
incredible addition to that team. Postseason, didn't look like he
was ready for that moment, as as you can say
for many of the Milwaukee Bucks, is that what was
on display against the Celtics yesterday. It seems to be
the case. Admittedly, I need to go back and watch
that game closer. Uh, you know, I had it on.

(25:19):
I was dealing with Warriors rocket stuff. But you know,
Brooks line was I was gonna say fantastic. Was was awful? Um,
Brooke was bad, you know, y honest, it's so just
kind of it's it's so he's been so dominant all years.
To see and struggle like that, it's incredible. I think
the conversation with the Bucks, and I think it's fair
immediately goes to Mike Budenholzer in the fact that very

(25:42):
well my wind Coach of the Year assistant he put
in place with those guys was just so perfect for
the talent that they had. But it's immediately gonna now
raise questions about, all right, when when you had the
Hawks teams with a pretty good amount of talent. You know,
one of those teams won sixty games in the regular season.
You know, he got to the conference finals one year,
but bounced in the first round a couple of other years,

(26:02):
in the second round of fourth year. So Mike's playoff resume,
I think is front and center at the moment and
then you know, conversely, you know you see the other side.
I mean, they just they took it to him. So
Milwaukee's in trouble and Boston. It's just insane how we
can talk all year long about the roller coaster they
were on and what kind of headspace are they going

(26:23):
to be in when it's late April early May and
right now, I mean they're looking like a team that
might be doing this thing until June. Last thing, you
also have a piece inside the Magic Post Magic Lakers
and why Jeanie Buss believes Rob Lincoln can rescue the
Lebron James era. Weren't we just hearing two weeks ago
that NBA g ms don't want to do business with

(26:43):
him because of his agent past, Like how how will
this in fact work from their perspective? And there's just
I mean, obviously there's no assurances whatsoever that it will.
The thing that I attempted to get into in that
story and I did kind of enjoy putting it together,
is I'm a sucker for explaining, not excusing, if that
makes any sense, Like, like you don't even have to

(27:04):
take a side, like, but you gotta at least understand
that if anybody is confused about Genie Buss's loyalty to
Rob Oblinka, in light of everything that has happened, you
cannot forget that he is essentially Kobe Bryant by proxy.
Like that tie in between Rob and Kobe is so tight.
And you know, if you go back to October, I

(27:25):
wrote a story about you know, Jeanie had had told
that a tale of how Kobe was the one who
she met with when she decided to fire Jim Buss
and miss cup check. Kobe was the one who who
basically told her and he put it in Game of Thrones,
you know, terms just as Kobe is and his Hollywood
version ide is that you've got to go for the kill.
And and he still has a voice within that organization,

(27:45):
he just doesn't have a title. And so she's not
coming off that approach that you know, it's going to
have a lot of Laker's ties to management. Hurt Rambis
Linda Rambus are now intimately involved in the inner circle,
and uh, you know that's just the way they're rolling
with it right now. I mean, I continued to hear
that there might have been kind of a you know,
a clandestine search for a higher level executive, a big

(28:07):
time name that maybe they try to bring to town.
And um, you know, I wouldn't completely roll that out
going forward, but it does seem like Rob's running the
show and they're gonna try to get this thing back
in the right direction. Enjoy the NBA Playoffs, doing a
great job. Thanks much for joining us and uh and
giving us your unique perspective. Really appreciate Sam. Be sure
to catch live editions so the Doug Dot Leap Show

(28:27):
weekdays at noon Eastern three pm Pacific and now here
Shannon Sharp giving us his thoughts on Raptors Sixers tonight.
I'm taking a rap Jimmy Butler and and and m Harris,
Tobias Harris and not slatches on the defensive end, and
Kauai made him look second rate. He had to go on.

(28:48):
I've never seen him played that well offensively. We know
what he could represents defensively. But if he go play
like that and then sidekick Sea, I'm gonna give you that. Yeah. Ah, Look,
I think the Raptors are the better basketball team, and
I think it's because they didn't really skip steps the
way the seventies Sixers tried to skip steps. And by

(29:11):
skipping steps, I mean like, look the Sixers, they had
good shooting, they had talented young players, and I know
Colin talks about aggressiveness and teams going for it. They
went for it, but they went forth too much. The
playoffs are about your starters, but you're you are going
to need shooting. Shooting is incredibly valuable, and they don't

(29:33):
have enough, especially coming off their bench. Whereas the Raptors,
though they were denied and they made a a trade
and went for it, they also continued to add with
their younger pieces and their bench trading. For Marcus al
late the development of of of Sam that he was discussing,
you know, now you actually have two different you actually

(29:55):
have to um two different point guards. Speaking of point guards,
let me just tee you up there, Ryan, because you
had Ryan Music had an outstanding tweet. It's one of
my finer works, if not the finest work I've ever done.
Via the what they call the Twitter machine. Would you do? So?
I was just watching the Raptors over the weekend and

(30:18):
I tweeted, Kyle Lowry, is that coworker you have who's
a really nice person and you like but you're still
not sure exactly what they do and you don't understand
why they get paid so much more than you do. Yeah,
I would also say that he's a He's a guy
who it's a case of regular season versus postseason. It's
a different kind of basketball, and guys have a lot

(30:40):
more attention to detail on their assignments, and it's one
of the reasons that oftentimes he struggles. But your point
is really well taken. I thought it was a very
good tweet. It was. It's one of those like don't
get it right, You're like watching, watching, watching, I don't
get it. Yeah. Admittedly I don't watch a ton of
Raptors regular season games. So to say that he may

(31:00):
be the type of guy who kind of helps carry
him during the regular season and then Kauai picks up
the slack in the postseason, I can't speak to that.
But just having watched him over the several years he's
been in the NBA and knowing the history that they've
had coming up short, and particularly him and his struggles
when they had DeMar de Rosen and they couldn't make
it past the Eastern Conference finals. You I just look

(31:23):
at the situation and you go, he's a nice he
looks like a nice player, but the fact that he
is making over thirty million a year for this season
and next season going forward, you're just like, wow, that
looks like a really bad contract. Well, it's one of
those he was paid for his past, and he was.
He was he was arguably their best player going back
three or four years ago when they weren't really a

(31:43):
championship team, and they you know, it's one of the
things that that average or above average NBA teams run into,
like do we pay this guy who's really good for
us in the prime of his career um or do
we let him walk or do we trade him? And
they've been able to make it work anyway. But now, look,
in fairness, it's not like Fred VanVleet was great the

(32:03):
other night. He couldn't do anything. It's this is a
hard series for a small guard. You know, it's just
a hard series for a small guard to play in
because the only guy you can really guard in the
seventies six or starting line up is JJ Reddick and
j J Redick where you go because you got to
chase him around. You know that you can't guard Jimmy Butler,
he's too good and too big. Can't guard Ben Simmons
because he's you know, six ft ten. You can't guard

(32:24):
Joel and beat. He can't Juarde guard Tobias Harris, you know.
And even when they bring in you know, James Nis
or Jonah Bolden, like those guys are Greg Monroe, Like,
who are you going to do? I mean, uh t.
J McConnell only played four minutes. It's the only guy
you feel like you have a good matchup against great
four minutes. Yeah, So it's really really it's it's difficult.

(32:46):
It's difficult to be a small guard. You have to
be so good on offense, and he hasn't been. He
hasn't been, but he's he was rewarded for past performance.
He was an NBA All Star, the East was weak,
and he had a couple of incredible seasons with a
different style of basketball. And now he's overpaid. That's one
of the reasons they thought about moving on from him

(33:06):
at the trade deadline, but they couldn't get any takers
to get anything reasonable. The other thing that was interesting is,
you know, we know the rep Raptors aren't one of
those teams that they're going to be constantly putting in
primetime games. But there has been this slow realization that
with Kauai Leonard being basically m I A all of
last season, plus the fact that I think it was

(33:28):
the year before that he got injured against the Warriors,
so we didn't even see him for a lot of
that postseason, it was almost like people forgot that when
Kauhi Leonard is healthy, he is, without a doubt, you know,
this third best all around player in the NBA, maybe
even the second or first. Like this weekend, you're seeing
people like man Quais out there getting it done. Like yeah,

(33:51):
he's always kind of been amazing at what he does.
I mean, like he was the finals MPC. People people
have forgotten how good he is, right I tell people like,
I think he's the second best player in the NBA.
I thought he was the third best player when the
Bron was the best, or le Bron was, you know,
he and Durant I thought he was the because he
can guard any position and he can score both inside
and out. He's an efficient score is a very good rebounder.

(34:13):
He's not as good a passer as either the other two. Obviously,
neither of the are the pastor of Lebron James, but
I do think that he has the best post game
of the three. Um Durant's got the best one on
one game of the three. You know, if people want
to say your honest, like, look, honest is just not
that refined an offensive player in comparison to the others.
And for you know, James, Harden doesn't play any defense,

(34:35):
and Steph Curry is kind of little and also struggles defensively.
He and he had hard to make up for it
at times. Steph gives it a better effort defensively, whereas Harden,
you know the way in which they let him play,
which is he just kind of goes for steel and
if you beat him, that's okay, they'll defend you at
the rim. But yes, I do think this series, this
series will point out that I what what limits the

(34:58):
Raptors is, what has limited the rap Yours is I
don't think you can win a championship with Kyle Lowry
as your point guard at this point in his career.
I just don't. And I think we eventually that will
come to roost. I don't think it comes to roost
in this series
Advertise With Us

Host

Doug Gottlieb

Doug Gottlieb

Popular Podcasts

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club

The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!

Crime Junkie

Crime Junkie

Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.