May 28, 2019 • 44 mins
Doug dissects the latest report about Magic Johnson's tenure as President of Basketball Operations for the Lakers and how Doug told you about this dysfunction months ago. He also tells you what to expect from Kevin Durant in the NBA Finals and why he will be the one to lead the Warriors to another Championship. Plus, NBA Insider Frank Isola joins the show to tell Doug where Kyrie Irving will sign in free agency and who he thinks will win the Title.
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 Gottlieb Show at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every day on the I Heart
Radio app by searching FSR. This is the best of
(00:22):
the Doug Gottlieb Show on Fox Sports Radio. Boom, What
Up America. Doug Gottlieb Show, Fox Sports Radio coming to
you from the sunny city of Angels and It's brought
to you by Farmers. At Farmers, we've seen almost everything
soon to cover almost anything. When it's game time, I'm
experienced player. Help you stay ahead of the game, put
(00:43):
their experience into play at Farmers dot com. Are farmers
so with no games this weekend and no one really
caring about the National Hockey League or uh Indie five,
I have no topics for you and any five hundred
I can't. A French guy wins it, and all I
could think of was r Rickey Boby, right, That's all
(01:06):
I could think of. That doesn't mean that I didn't
you know, stop and watch for a bit. And then
I was wondering, like, hey, when did we stop caring
about the ind The Co Cola six hundred was on
later on the evening. I actually watched some of that.
But then all of a sudden we got this Laker story.
Kirk Plum blocked in our lap. We had heard there
(01:29):
had been whispers that there was a a negative piece
coming out about the leadership of Magic Johnson. Remember when
Magic Johnson summarily resigned. There were stories that there was
a story that ESPN dot com was working on. It
dropped today, and you know what it was, basically everything
(01:49):
we've told you. There was some insight, there was some detail.
He talked to a lot of people, maybe the most
interesting of which was something I'll play for in a moment,
Rob Polinka telling a story which is factually incorrect, impossible
to have have happened. But what have we told you
(02:14):
about the Lakers. Going back to the trade Dadline debacle,
we said this was a coup deta. This was Lebrons
group going, hey, we could take over the Cleveland Cavaliers,
hostile takeover at some point. If we stay, maybe we
could somehow wrestle ownership away from from the guy who
you know wrote that famous letter, right Dan Gilbert, of course,
(02:38):
apparently suffered some sort of mild stroke. Hope he gets better.
But there was the thought, hey, why take over the Calves,
Why take over northern Ohio when we can take over
l A. We can take over the Lakers. They already
had a couple of clients on the Lakers. They could
land free agent clients on the Lakers. They could hire
(02:59):
their own coach, lebron and and Rich Paul could be
the acting GMS. And everything you read essentially says as
much that this is part of the fight. How much
you let those guys be around? How much, say, should
they have Magic Johnson apparently not as smiley and as
huggable when he's trying to lead an organization. Did they
(03:21):
get rid of some people? They did? Apparently thirty seven
point five percent of the employees that were there before
Magic and Blinka took over are no longer there. That
happens with every regime change, maybe not with the Lakers
because they're more of a mom and pop. But the
idea that Magic is not what he seemed to be,
or that Magic was a guy who wanted autonomous power,
(03:42):
yet didn't want to put in the work, and then
questioned anybody who questioned him, and when things went wrong,
he was accountable in terms of holding everyone else except
himself accountable. Completely believable. Rob Blink is an agent, agents
having tendency to embed, ellish, and flat out make things up.
(04:02):
All that seemed to play out right. I mean, the
idea that rich Paul wanted to make a coaching change
and went to the commissioner of the n b A
to express his desire for the Lakers to change coaches
is exactly what we've told you. Rich Paul's feeling himself
found himself in l A with what he thought was
(04:24):
the most powerful player in the NBA and even on
a chessboard, though the queen is the most powerful, the
queen does not have autonomous power. The queen is not
um queen is. The Queen is not. What's the Avengers
with the stick Stones with the Infinity South? What's the
(04:46):
guy who gets you know? What's the guy Thanos? He's
not Thanos? Right, he can't staff his fingers and half
the world this half the Lakers disappear, although they tried, right,
that's the movie. This is real life, and yet Anie
busses way in over her head and when magic quit,
she went she went dark on people because she didn't
(05:07):
want to say, or do or act the wrong way.
Because I'm sure she was ticked, because that is what
doesn't appear to happen when you have a unified front,
right Like, all of these things are understandable. And if anything,
that the explanation that I got without it being explained
in the piece was that Genie and her crew Linda Rambis,
(05:37):
they realize it's a coup data and they weren't going
to roll out the red carpet for Tyler. They didn't
want him to be a coach beyond Lebron James. You
know why, because when Lebron's done, they want Lebron to
be done. They don't want Lebron to have some sort
of power, whether it's coach or GM or player or
et cetera. So do I think the piece is some
(05:58):
sort of a certificate on how great journalism still exists?
Not really. Do I think there are outright lies in
the piece, No, But there are some parts to it
which clearly reported on from the perspective of somebody that's
not inside the No. Right, like a Mari Spellman wasn't
drafted even though they thought they were gonna draft to
(06:20):
Mary Spellman. And there's two war rooms, and one war
room was made up of the non players by players,
I mean Magic and Polinka. And so when they didn't
draft to Marie Spellman instead they drafted Moe Wagner, it
perked up their ears. But that happens. I mean, I've
heard of Mari Spellman's got bad knees. You couldn't practice
all the time in college because of the weight that
(06:41):
he used to carry. And Moe Wagner had a clean slate,
so he was on the do not draft list. That's
why they passed on it. Look, people in that same
secondary war room didn't want them to draft a Lonzo Ball,
you know. They preferred Deer and Fox, they preferred several
(07:02):
others who came in on workouts, but they don't get
to make the decision. Polinka and Magic did. And Magic
had an affinity for a Lonzo Ball who may well
become a very very good player, but there's a mistake
that he has never owned. So my takeaway for the pieces,
it may feel like a hit piece, I think it's
pretty well researched, but I don't think it's from people
(07:26):
so much in the know, even though most of what
they're saying does appear to be accurate, Like here, here's
a here's an example. Contavious Caldwell Pope was allowed to
practice and play while serving a twenty five day jail's
sentence for violating the terms of probation stemming from a
d u I charge, a decision that multiple team stafford
said caused unrest in the franchise. Caldwell Pope was allowed
(07:48):
to leave the Seal Beach Police Department detentions that are
to attend practice in Laker games as part of a
work release program. He wasn't allowed to travel outside the state,
resulting in a missing one game in Cleveland, one in Memphis,
and two in Houston, Oute. Anyone else who would have
put him on personal leave or suspended him. One coaching
staff one coaching staff members set I've talked to people
in the Lakers and they were like, look, it was weird.
(08:12):
The guy was in the facility at six am every
day because all he wanted to do is get out
of the detention center, and he was a show up, late,
leave early guy. And all of a sudden, he's a
show up early, leave late guy, eat all his meals
there because then he could visit his family there. But
remember he also served to two weeks suspension from the
NBA because of the d u I, which was in
(08:36):
the off season before he officially became a Laker, and
they didn't really have any other option. This was not
on this year's team. This was on last year's team
when they were just trying to be young and win games.
And if they didn't have Contavious called well Pope, they
would have had to activate lu All Dang and that
didn't work. If you don't believe me, look at lu
All dan He started the first game of the season
(08:57):
and then never played enough has not played another aim
in the NBA. So it's not a crap article, but
the perspectives from which it's presented are not always in
the know. But you get the gist of everything we've
told you about the Lakers, and at the end of it,
(09:18):
Jennie is still in charge, so is Rob Polinka. They
still have Lebron James and Magic Johnson does not appear
to be the guy that smiles and is super happy
and just wants everybody to have fun, got it good.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Doug dot
Leap Show weekdays in noon eastern three pm Pacific on
(09:39):
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. You
can hear Frankie solo on Serious x M NBA Radio
Monday through Friday seven am. Plus. You can read his
work in The Athletic. He joins us down on The
Doug got Leap Show. I'm sure you've read Baxter Holmes
this piece on the Lakers. Did you find into anything
(10:01):
super new or super telling in there? I mean, I
think it was. You know, I'm surprised that more of
this stuff didn't come out during the regular season, just
that it's, you know, clearly dysfunctional. And I think, really
what's going to start happening is I think more of
the claim is gonna fall on Jeanie Buss, who has
remained pretty silent about the whole thing. I mean, come on, Doug,
(10:21):
if you go all the way back to when Magic
announced his resignation and then you had Magic going on
first take, now you have this story and really what
it you know, what it really brings to light is
the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any
control there. There are way too many people involved, and
who really has the ultimate says that Linda Rambis. How
much of us, say, does Kurt Rambis have? Is it
(10:42):
Rob Blenka? What about Phil Jackson, who, according to Magic
Johnson you know now has a voice. So it just
seems to be a lot of people involved. I don't
know if that that really works for a lot of
these organizations. I don't you know, if you look at
some of the best organizations, they don't do it this way,
in the Lakers way. Let's be fair. If you judge
it by the record, it's not working. No, no, but
(11:03):
uh they also they have Lebron, they have a good
young core, they have forty million dollars in cap space,
they have the number four pick in the draft. Like, look,
I don't think Magic Johnson comes off well. I thought
Rob Bolinka comes off disingenuous. But none of that is
none of that is new. I felt like the thing
that I felt and I had heard and became obviously like, look,
(11:25):
Lebron's guys try to coopta right. They tried. They wanted
their coach, they wanted their player, they wanted and they
were shot down. Like I almost think feel like Linda
Rambis was was a good constantly leery to two Genie
buss In that she saw the the possibility of losing
any sort of control over the Lakers, and that's why
(11:47):
they shot down the Tyler thing. Yeah, and I also
think I think what the Lakers really have to consider
is what are they going to do with Lebron James.
I think if you be being fair about if you
give Lebron this season, the next he's and he's like,
we talked about this before, Doug, the guys played so
many games, so many playoff games, so many minutes, and
(12:07):
his timetable compared to the rest of the team is
a lot different. Now. If they can go out during
the off season and make a trade to get Bradley Beale,
where they sign a top free agent, that's changes everything.
But you'd have to admit this isn't the Lakers that
way used to. If you look, they've missed the playoffs
six years prior to this, even if you go all
the way back to Minneapolis, they missed the plaofs a
total of six times. So things do change quickly in
(12:29):
the NBA, where you know, we used to think of
the Lakers as the organization that's the place where everyone
wanted to go. It's the Lakers. It's Los Angeles. That
really hasn't been the case, whether or not it was
La Marcus Soldiers. Uh. Kevin Durant has been a free
agent a couple of times. And now if you're looking
at the top two guys, Kevin Durant and Kawai Lana,
and maybe something will change between now in July. But
(12:50):
if they don't get either one of those guys, ain't
looking at that next level guy. Whether it's gonna be
Jimmy Butler world. Like I said, if you make a
trade for Bradley Beale, but if you have Lebron James
on your roster, you know you're not talking four years
down the road. You need to win, you know, this
upcoming season or the next season. It's not like it's
going to get better for him. And I know that
they were had a great on Christmas Day when they
(13:11):
beat the Golden State Warriors. But he suffered an injury.
That's the first significant injury of his career. What makes
everyone thinks that all of a sudden he's gonna be
healthy now, I don't I don't see that considering how
much how many minutes he's played over his career. That's
the voice of Frank Eye Sola, who writes for The Athletic.
You can hear him on serious x M NBA radio.
Uh So k D is going to travel but not
(13:31):
play in game one? This does feel like a precursor
to Kadie riding in on the White Horse? Does it?
It does? And I also think it's smart of him
to make the trip. I mean, why I understand not
going to Portland's for those two games are up to
oh in the series. You know that the series, if
you know, could eventually come back to Oakland. But I
think it's smart of him to travel. It's come on,
(13:51):
it's the thing is gonna be stretched out. They're playing,
They're leaving today. Game two is on Sunday, so why
wouldn't you be there. Maybe you can recover between games
one too, But I really think what it is be
around the team. And then if he plays in game
three next Wednesday, that would be exactly four weeks from
the day that he suffered the injury. So I think
the day that Kevin Durank got high got injured, if
(14:12):
they had said he's out four weeks, you would have said, Wow,
that's a long time, But here we are. We're now
only what is it, day one, no, eight days away
from already being four weeks. So I think the timetable
is gonna be game three, and you could see a
scenario like you just pointed out, maybe it'll be one
one going back to Oakland and Kevin Durant plays in
game three and I would have to think being out
(14:34):
a month is you know, it's it's going to affect
him a little bit, But I still think there are
a better team with him, and I think it will
make a difference. So that's why I think it will
go six games. And I think the last I mean,
what a way to close out Oracle Arena, the last
ever Warriors game. There could be them lifting the Larry
O'Brian trope. Yeah, it could be could be amazing. Um
what about the Raptors and their ability to advance? Was
(14:57):
it more about them or more about the bucks inadequacies? Yeah,
I thought it was most I thought it was mostly
about Kawhi Leonard, who was just on a different level
than everyone else out there. You know, Janice is going
to be the m v P. But he's not nearly
the player right now that Kawhi Leonard is just in
terms of experience, a much better, you know, all around game.
You could make three porters, mid range shots, can overpower
(15:19):
guys in the post. It's gonna be a great learning
experience for Milwaukee. So their inexperience certainly hurt them. And
I thought some of their guys, like Gerrit bledso had
I thought had a really poor series, especially in game six.
But this was more about Kawhi Leonard. And this is
why miss I went out and made that trade. All
the people in Toronto they loved Demarta Rosen because de
Marta Rosen, unlike Damon Stodomer and Tracey McGrady and Vince
(15:41):
Carter and Chris Bosh, who all wanted to leave Toronto
basically the day that they got there, Demarta Rosen signed
up to stay. He was a guy who was a
reality drafted there. So the city fell in love with
with him. He fell in love with the city, so
there was this emotional attachment. But I remember at the
time when they made the trade, I mean, you're going
out and you're getting a top five Potente. Now he's
top three. To make the case the best player in
(16:03):
the league. The trade made all the sense in the
world because you've been in existence for twenty four years,
You're trying to get to the finals, and regardless of
what happens if he decides to leave after this, uh
you know in July, you know you could trade Kyle
Are you can kind of reboot a little bit. You're
obviously not going to be a championship contender, but I
thought it was worth it going after a guy like
Kawhi Leonard and is certainly paying off now. Doug Gottlieb
(16:25):
Show here on Fox Sports Radio, that's the voice of
frank Is Sola and um I, I'm intrigued by a
couple of other things in the NBA. You mentioned Brad Beale,
that's suddenly become the hot name for the Lakers, uh
to to to trade for? They obviously had a change
at gentlemen at general manager. Who if if not Brad Beal,
(16:49):
or even if Brad Beale's who are the other guys
were not? There's always somebody who's moved. We're not talking
about like the Chris pal right. The Chris Paul move
seemed kind of out of out of thin air. Who
is the guy who's moved that we're not talking about. Yeah,
I know that's the that's a good question right now.
I do think to your point, I do think it
is Bradley Beale. I mean, if you're the Lakers, you're
(17:10):
looking for that guy kind of in his late twenties
who has a little bit of experience and can really
be that second guy for Lebron James. And I would
think that people have said Lonzo Ball. Don't they have
to get more than Lonzo Ball for Bradley Beale? Well,
what do you do? What do you do with John
Wall when you when you have well, why when is
he coming back? That's that's the issue. I mean, who
(17:31):
knows when John wall is gonna come back. He's definitely
he's certainly gonna miss next season. I mean, come on,
if you want to got Lonzo Ball in the fourth
overall pick, you'll probably be back in the lottery next season.
If you're Washington, where are you going over the next
couple of years? This ship is basically sailed for the
Washington Wizards because you're not gonna be one of the
better teams in the Eastern Conference and you're kind of waiting.
It's amazing that John Wall has one of the worst
(17:51):
contracts in the league hasn't even really kicked in yet.
That's that's amazing. John Wall would have been one of
those guys, and I know there are people advocating a
year ago to trade him. They're really should have looked
to do something like that because now now they're stuck
with him. But I think that Washington has to be
one of those teams because you look at the teams
in the Eastern Conference with veteran players that aren't going anywhere,
and they kind of jumped to the forefront. Maybe Kevin
(18:13):
Love could be that guy too, Doug, because if you
look at Cleveland, you know they're in a rebuilding situation.
Maybe Kevin Love could be a guy that could potentially
be on the move. That that that would be, that
would be fascinating. Um, what about Milwaukee, You know, there's
a lot of questions for what they do with their roster.
They have, uh not be honest, but all the supporting
(18:34):
cast players outside of Bledsoe is kind of a bad
contract um surrounding him to have contracts up. What do
you think they look like next season? Well, it's it's
it's it's a tough one for them. I I do
think that they're going to bring back um, Chris Middleton.
You know that they want to bring brook Opens. There's
only so much they could offer them. And certainly they
want to bring back mount Brocken, who a lot of
(18:56):
people like around the league. George Hill would be if
the and meritage you don't know about. I would try
to bring back those other three guys. But you know
this too, if you go back to last season with
a team like Boston, Boston was at home Game seven,
there were five minutes away from making it to an
NBA finals. You know, this year they got knocked out
in the second round. Milwaukee was two wins away for
making it to an NBA Finals. You really don't know
(19:18):
if you're ever gonna get back to that level again.
You could think that you are, but you know, there's
a lot of competition out there, and you know, moves
get made during the season and players, you know, in
trades happen. In the perfect case with Milwaukee, a lot
of guys who were free agents. So you know, if
you're Milwaukee, you do have the great player and that's
what you always want to build a round. But it's
an interesting situation because I think that be honest, will
(19:40):
always stay in Milwaukee. But the big thing is he
wants to make sure that they're an organization that is
always trying to win. And I think right now that
that's why this summer is going to be a pretty
good test for ownership and management of the Milwaukee Bucks.
Everyone loved the Bucks. They were like, you know, the
little engine that could. But now it's about paying some
of these guys and trying to keep this thing together,
(20:01):
no question about it. Why has Brooklyn suddenly hopped in
the mix ahead of the Nixon Some people's estimation as
a possible destination for Kyrie and KD is as simple
as ownership. Yeah, I think there's there's been a lot
of that coming from kind of the Kyrie camp, because
of course everyone has a camp, and you know, I
think he might look at the Brooklyn nets is a
(20:22):
little more stable situation. Plus remember the owner that's coming
in Joe sigh uh. You know, you know Chinese ownership.
Think about all the money that Kyrie Irvan could possibly
make overseas. You know, we start having that connection made
as well in terms of endorsements and sponsorships and things
like that. But from everything that I've heard, Kyrie, if
he were to leave Boston, would like to live in
(20:44):
his hometown of New York, New Jersey. But right now
he's leaning a little bit more towards the Brooklyn Nets.
But a lot could change within the next you know,
thirty plus days. But right now Brooklyn does seem to
be a legitimate player. Brooklyn is just like the Clippers.
They're the step the ugly stepchild of the you know,
the Knicks and also the Lakers. But right now, both
(21:06):
of them had better years and right now both of
them are positioned to make a big move. But will
the tradition of those other teams you know, be able
to lure these big time players a way, it seems
like the Clippers might have a bit of an advantage
because of Doc Rivers and Jerry West, but the next
of the good job this season, and at least they
made themselves more attractive to potential free agents. Awesome stuff.
That's Frankie Solo. By the way, Frankie had I hate predictions.
(21:28):
Whatever do you who do you think wins the finals?
I'm gonna pick Golden State in six. Like I said,
the last, every game in the Oracle will be uh,
you know they'll get the one more time lift the trophy.
I think it'll be a competitive series early, especially k
d out still may be competitive when he goes back.
Well we we shall we shall see. That's Frank sol
the Frank thanks so much for joining us. Man. Be
(21:49):
sure to catch live editions of the Doug Dot Leaps
Show week days at noon eastern three pm Pacific. I
think I know what's going to happen in this series.
I understand it's easy to troll Charles Barkley who said
the Warriors wouldn't win a series without Kevin Durant, and
then they win four straight games against the Portland Trailblazers,
(22:12):
and suddenly he looks like a complete and total buffoon
to somebody who looks at the results. But if you
looked at the process, they were down seventeen in game two,
down eighteen game three, down seventeen in game four and
came back and won those games. That is playing with fire.
(22:32):
Now I know they're taking on a raptor's team. Those
down four, uh in their own right in game six
in which they just won, comebacks do happen. It is
the NBA. Every game seems to be tied in the
fourth quarter. But you get down seventeen, eighteen, and seventeen
points in three consecutive games out of just four, you
(22:54):
are And no one thinks of the Trailblazers as the
second best team in the NBA in the Western Conference. Uh,
they're they're they're probably the second best team in the
Pack Northwest and they're the only NBA team in the
Pack Northwest. And they're a good team. But they overachieved
this offseason and ultimately that it got exposed. But the
(23:14):
Raptors were built for this time of year, right, Well, well,
I'm not a huge Kyle Lowry fan. At this point
his career, Kyle Lowry has been an All Star. Victoral
Oladipo has seen the wars and he too has played
in the NBA Finals. And of course they went out
and got Danny Green, who can't get the broadside of
the barn. But you're not gonna leave him open because
(23:36):
at this time of the year, those type of guys
usually flourished. And then they have Kawhi Leonard who's playing
like the best or second best player in the game.
This one feels different then the Portland's series. It doesn't
feel as flukey at all, and while Portland's came in gassed,
(23:59):
and if the series would have started yesterday or today,
you could have said the same thing about Toronto. Toronto
doesn't have to travel, They're gonna have four full days off,
they're a deep roster and they may be getting one
more rotation or starter back anyway, so you would think
that they're going to be arrested. The attrition of a
(24:19):
thirteen games of the past two series on a younger
team doesn't appears to be as troublesome. I feel like
this is the series where a lot like the Clippers,
a lot like the Rockets, that at some point in
time you go like, oh, hey, Kevin Durant's the best
player on this floor, right. Kevin Durant in the playoffs
(24:45):
this year averaging thirty four point two points per game
for Perspective in seventeen the average twenty eight and a
half points per game in eighteen, the average twenty nine
points per game. He's shooting a higher percentage than last
year and averaging five more points for a game, uh
than he did last year. He's a two time finals MVP,
(25:07):
And what's fascinating about the they might be better without
Kevin Durant. Do we remember the fact that when they
had Kevin Durant and they were fully healthy, they went
sixteen and one two years ago in the playoffs, and mean,
they just kicked a live in hell out of everybody
in their way and the only loss, the only loss
was to the Calves in the NBA Finals, and Kyrie
(25:28):
went crazy with forty and Lebron was Lebron with thirty one.
That's combined seventy one of the hundred and thirty seven
points at the Calves scored. They just hit everything. Kevin
love hate one game in the NBA Finals and then
the next game essentially Kevin Durant ended the series. So
(25:49):
I think he's been the best player in the league
for the last two years. People finally come round to
it this year. He didn't make first team on NBA
even though he should have. People are questioning him against
the Clippers, and then three after the at the third
game on he just was kicking everybody's ass. The same
thing was happening in Houston. Everybody was struggling, and it
feels destined to be one of those series where we
(26:10):
start to go like, hey, Toronto is better than we thought.
Kawie Leonard's better than we thought, and the Golden State
Warriors don't have the benefit of playing an exhausted team
or maybe a bit of an overachieving team like they
did against Portland's. And this is a series until Kevin
Durant rides in on the white horse. Rides in, the
white Horse saves the day. I mean an ideal made
(26:34):
for a hot made for TV, or made for a
Hollywood scenario. I can't think of a better one. I
can't think a better one for for Kevin Durant. Now,
if they win without him, does that change some of it?
Does he come back and hurt some of their chemistry? Potentially? Potentially?
(26:57):
But I think the strongest likehood is here's a guy
who all he has wanted has been respect and admiration
for his level of skill. He earned it against the Clippers,
he was getting it against the Rockets, And while there
have been some seeds of disrespect planted, he will harvest
them when he gets into a series that the team
(27:20):
is likely to struggle in before he gets back. Yes, right,
doesn't this feel like the particular matchup of Kawhi Leonard
being the Raptors? Clearly their best player and go to
player offensively seem like it's finally gonna show just how
badly that the Warriors need to rant just based off
of that, because I mean, like when they were matched
up against the Trailblazers, they're trying to work through Damian
(27:43):
Lillard and Sear McCollum, who are both lillards not nearly
as good as Curry, and McCollum isn't as good as
Clay Thompson. So it's going to be this is the
time that they're finally going to notice how much they
need someone like to rant. Yes, this is a step
up in weight class and Portland Trailblazers. The problem is
we deal with some dated information, right. We go with, oh,
(28:04):
the West is always better, Well, in this particular year,
it's not the case, especially considering who advanced. It's just
not Portland wasn't even at full strength. It didn't have nurkics,
and so that changed how they had to play um
And because they didn't have a good enough three or
four or five, you could double team c J. McCullum
(28:26):
or Damian Lillard off of ball screens. So yes, I
think the Raptors are the real deal. I think I
thought Milwaukee was really good. I think and and you
look positionally, you know you're gonna have to have either
Draymond or more than like the Andrea Godala match up
with Kawai Leonard. And while Andrea Goodala is an amazing defender,
(28:48):
tremendous defender, he's been banged up and it completely wears
him out. And if you have a Goodala on the floor,
that does limit some of the things you can do offensively.
And they don't really have anybody else in the roster
outside of Durant when he's healthy, that can do a
great job checking him. Maybe Looney, I guess a little bit.
(29:08):
I guess Clay can too a little bit big, a
little bit strong for Clay. I mean, their their rosters
matched up where they can match up with with with
Kawai Learned fairly well. Um, but Kevin Durant is the
best because he can make Kawai Letard defend at the
other end at a very very high Excuse me, I mean, look,
(29:31):
Kawi Learned got his against Janice. How do you think
he's gonna do against Whether it's Looney, I think obviously
Clay will do a great job on him. I think
it's a fascinating series, but I think there's gonna be
some struggles there from Golden State. Doesn't mean I think
they absolutely lose one and two, but they'll be underdogs
in one and two, especially without him. Fox Sports Radio
(29:51):
has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch
all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com
and within the I Heart Radio apps f s R
to listen live. He has his own media company, Sports
Talks because he scored two thousand, three d nineteen points
when you played at u D University Detroit. He's a
(30:13):
shot Phillips. He's a friend of the program. He joins
the Doug Gotlip Show on Fox Sports Radio. Shot how
are you? I'm fantastic, Doug. How are you doing? Good? Man? Um?
You always hashtag talk soon, so we're actually talking now.
All right, let's let's talk um. In February, you tweeted
out Kawhi Leonard to Golden State this summer. Once k
(30:34):
d leaves Golden State, won't miss a beat talk soon,
hashtag yoda you still feel like Kawai Letard ends up
in Golden State. UM, I just think there's a there's
a strong possibility that that happens. I mean, you gotta
look at the situation at hand where I mean, Kauai
has put himself in a situation where he's in a
(30:54):
win win. Um Toronto obviously loved him, and rightfully so.
And he's a West Coast kid. And we've been all
general generally everybody's talking Lakers and Clippers, and and I'm thinking, like, well,
those are not the best teams in the West. That's
gonna lose a high level player. How come we haven't
(31:14):
talked about Golden State? So that that's what I know
with that, And that's why I said, hey, Golden State
may be a strong destination for Kauai. Yeah. But again,
if you're trying to make sense of it, why would
Kevin Durant leave Golden State when they got a chance
here to win their fourth championship in five years, his
third straight championship. Like, if we're gonna do with logic,
(31:35):
logic tells you the market is big enough, he can
make more money there than elsewhere. Why not just stay
because he's not Um, I think he's not needed there.
And I don't take this the wrong way. UM, I
just think that Kevin Durant is so good that a
team like Golden State doesn't need what he brings to
(31:57):
the table, and they proven that without him. I really
believe Kevin Durant is more of a crutch and that's
and that's given him a compliment. He's just more of
a crutch to Curry and Clay. I think when he's
on the court, Curry and Clay just kind of just
take a back seat because Durant is so good, and
(32:19):
I just think that he needs to go to his
own destination and really prove to us that he can
win on his own. Now, Kauai has already proven that
presently speaking with taking a Raptors team, a brand new team,
a brand new coach, and here they are in the finals. Yeah.
And now you often say that you think Steph Curry's
(32:40):
points are what more impactful than the points, But I
think Curry's I think Curry's points cut deeper. I just think, Doug,
you played, you played at a high level. I just
think where when you when you when you hit shots
the way this guy hits shot at the particular times.
It's just the more lies in to your scout, your
(33:02):
scout team, to the defensive guys that are trying to
stop a six ft three guy that's nailing forty bombs
other than the seven footer that's hitting two dribble pull ups.
I mean, you have to look at it statistically, when
Kevin Durant drops forty point it's not as demoralizing as
when a guy like Steph Curry drops thirty five points
(33:23):
because it's in the style of fashion and how he
does that well. It's also just the math of it, right,
when you shoot a higher volume of threes and you
score threes as opposed to two's, Uh, it's a lot
like kind of throwing haymakers instead of throwing body blows.
Durant at times can be body blows. I would tell
you though, it is pretty devastating when you're Houston or
when you're when you're the Clippers and you do everything
(33:45):
right defensively and you still stamp can't stop Kevin Durant. Yeah,
I just I think Kevin Durant's terrific. Like I said,
I think he's fantastic. I think he's the best offensive
player that we've seen, and I mean quite some time.
I mean he's up there with Michael Joe and then
Kobe Bryant Um. But his points are are not as
(34:06):
magnify as a guy like Steph Curry, who kind of
does it in a new evolution type of way. I mean,
you just can't. There's no defense for a guy that
can come down and dance on you, wiggle on you
and drop uh forty ft bombs on you without looking
at it going in. That is demoralizing. Um So I
(34:26):
just I just think that's what it does. Rishan Phillips
sport Joints Doug Otlip Show here on Fox Sports Radio. Uh,
what do you think the right fit is for Kyrie?
Irv um. I think that Kyrie needs to go to
a place. I really think. Honestly, I think he should.
I think it's kind of that bridge just kind of burnt.
(34:47):
But what he should do was hold out one more
year and let the Miami Heat clear out their books
and go to Miami. Um. But I know he won't
do that. I think the pressure people are trying to
push him to Brooklyn, to New York and even l
a um. But logically speaking, Doug, I think he would.
He should have. He should go back to Boston for
one more year, let that play out, and let the
(35:09):
Miami Heat cleared their books because they got some big contract.
Let the Heat clear their books, and I think he
should go to Miami in another year. But I don't
know who's in his corner or what's going on. But
that's what if I was giving him advice, that's what
I would tell them. Yeah, the problem there is it
just seems to not be working in Boston that they
don't know. You know, it just he's got a guy.
(35:30):
He I don't think he respects the younger guys, and
I'm not sure, and I think he's he's a challenging guy.
He's a super talented guy, like crazy, crazy talented guy.
But but you know, uh, it just didn't work. Anyone
could see it didn't work. You've been a proponent of
moving Ben Simmons off the basketball. How do you fix
(35:53):
the Philadelphia seventy If you were in charge, you draft,
You have to draft the point guard. You gotta find
even you just have to find a stabilizer for that team.
I just Philly lacks a stabilizer. They lack a guy
like like a like a point guard like yourself or
point guard like myself, just somebody that can stabilize that
team and allow the other guys to play off that
(36:16):
that's why That's why t J. McConnell was so good
with the Sixers, because he stabilized those guys and they
played better. I just think Ben Simmons needs to play
off the ball more and still allow him to play
make but not be the initiator. I just don't think
he's good at initiating standpoint, but still he's a great playmaker.
(36:38):
So again, I just think the general public we we
pigeonhole these guys they try to follow the pigeonholes and
end up casting these these uh these organizations of positions.
Rashan Phillips showing us it's sports Talk to three one
nine dot com and sports talk dot com. Fallm on
Twitter at RP three Now troll you love picking apart
(37:02):
draft prospects. Zion Williamson, How could probably be? Um? I
think he's gonna be I think it's gonna be good.
I do. I think it's gonna be good. Um, I
can't say superstar right now. I don't see superstar what
I what I do see? I see superstar off the court.
I just think that the mark ability, the shoe sales,
the commercials um but I really see a I see
(37:24):
a good NBA player. I can't go superstar yet because
to be a superstar you just have to be completely
dominant of the sport. And I don't know if he
has the skills set from a basketball standpoint to actually
dominate an NBA game. Obviously, he dominated college, but that's
because of the physical attributes. But now to dominate the
(37:45):
NBA you have to have some high skill attributes to
be able to go to and I don't know if
he has that quite yet. John Marette, would you take
job over Zion? Yeah? I would. I would, and and
the and the reason I would. You can call me
bias here. Um. I just think the point guard position
is like a quarterback position. I just think that you
(38:08):
don't draft a left tackle before you draft the superstar quarterback.
That's how just just how I look at it. So
I think John's a guy that has the ball in
his hands, he has the dynamics about him, and he's
shown that he can do more with less. And you
want guys like that. You want a quarterback that can
throw receivers open opposed to a quarterback who needs great
(38:30):
receivers around him to make him look like a quarterback.
You understand what I'm saying, that's kind of how I
look at it. R J. Barrett was thought to be
number one. Uh then of course the season happened and
a lot of guys have pointed out, boy, he could
be a little bit stiff, not a great shooter. Um,
maybe he doesn't go number three. Do you take him
number three? Or do you take Cam Reddish third? Oh,
(38:53):
I gotta I take Reddish, man. I mean that's a
that's a no brainer for me. Um. I would take
Reddish just because I think Reddish has the game that
it's just it's just more pro ready. He just he
passes the eye test. Um, I don't A lot of
times Reddish is one of those guys. I don't get
caught up in his statistics. I just watched the tape.
(39:14):
I watch his movements, I watch how fluent he is,
and I look at the situation that he was putting
in dub I just think if Calm Reddish would have went,
let's just say he would have went to Maryland in
the Big ten. I think can reddis would have been
a twenty one point score and we'd be talking about
him being a number one pick. So I just think
it was a situation at Duke so if I'm New York, Um,
(39:35):
I know you took Kevin Knock flash year, but can
Reddish is. I just think he has some Tracy McGrady
type of attributes that you just can't pass up. Sean
Phillips joining us. So let's get back to the NBA playoffs.
We talked about the matchups, and you've liken some of
the things COUI does to Michael Jordan, how well his
approach to the game, and and when I first said this,
(39:57):
and I didn't, I don't. I wasn't saying that he's
Michael Jordan. But I just think that there's some characteristics
that if you're a true basketball person, you can't deny
this um. The way that he gets to his spots
to dribble, pull up right to dribble, pull up left, um,
fade away over the right shoulder, fade away over the
left shoulder, big hand, dumped palm and the ball, great
(40:17):
on ball defense, stoic demeanor, great leadership competitor. All that
sets mj to me. And the way that he's will
this Toronto Raptor unit. He's just echoed that more and more.
The more I'll watch him play, I just keep saying
MJ every time he take a pull up jump shot.
So who wins Raptors in seven? Does Katie play? No,
(40:42):
you don't think he plays it all in the series.
I don't. I think he. I think he does the
Bernard King or the Willis Read in game five because
I don't think this game, I don't think he's playing.
This championship doesn't start to game five. So you got
two games in Toronto, two games and go to They
and then you got the pivotal game in game five.
So if the rent max An appearance is going to
(41:04):
be game five, I think he plays in three. I
don't think he'd be traveling with them if he didn't
think he was close. Yeah, I don't. I really don't.
I can't call that one. But I'm just I'm saying
game five, if it's too too going into game five,
he has to play, doesn't doesn't If if they don't
win and he doesn't play, doesn't that help the argument
(41:27):
on what he's been able to do for this team?
Not necessarily? I don't. I don't think so. I just
think Toronto is a really good team. I think we're
ignoring that Toronto is a good team. I'm not ignoring it.
I mean, like, look they've been if not for Lebron James.
They play in a couple of NBA finals previous to this,
and then they added a better player and and a
winner and a leader, you know, an on the court
leader in Kawhi Leonards. Like I'm not denying that, I
(41:49):
just you know, like, look, if they lose and they've won,
they've won the NBA Finals all but one year, and
the only time they've lost before is without him, and
they lose without him, then the argument would be, well,
wait a second, they can't win without him, Well that
will be that will be the narrative, Doug. But let's
let's dig deeper. Let's dig deeper. Let's go into the
regular season. Toronto beat them twice. You can't do the
(42:09):
regular season thing? Why not? Because it's a different game,
it's a different sports, different officiating, it's everything's different. Come on, man,
you know, you know, but you can't just you can't
just sweep under the rug that what then why do
we play regular season? Why don't we just pick the
best eight just to make a bunch of money. Okay,
all right, there we go. But if you like, I
(42:29):
like to dig deeper they played, They winning over time
once in the regular season to Rent half forty four,
they still lost or whatever, they still lost. Toronto is
is capable of beating the Golden State Warriors with or
with because they've already done it. No, listen, I I
would I agree with you. We are not in disagreement
at all about Toronto. Um, but I will tell you
(42:52):
that I disagree with the Warriors are much better with him,
much better with him, and and uh and and I think, honestly,
it's more of an indictment on Quinn Cook than anything right.
When steps out, Quinn Cook starts, that's where they're not
as good right, Whereas when Kads out, they slide Looney
into the starting lineup, and that creates a mismatch for Steff. Like,
(43:14):
I think it's more in indictment of who their backups
are than anything else. No, I know, I get that,
I totally get that. And this is I don't want
people to think, because I really like Kevin Durant, like
I think he's I think he's fantastic, like I'm you
also don't care about defense. You don't care about defense
at all. You've you've basically stated at that stop, stop,
listen to you. No, I really like Durant. I just
think that he I think Golden State was great before him,
(43:37):
and I think they will be great after him. That
has nothing to do with him. And I think wherever
Durant goes, he's going to make that organization great as well.
I just think that it's just a it's just a weird,
quirky situation where you got great on the left and
great on the right. That I mean, and sometimes you
try to put both of those great together, but you
still don't get what you think you're gonna get because
(43:59):
they're both great. You know, it's a more is more thing,
and more is not always more, sometimes less. Check out
Sports Talk T nineteen. He's uh Rashad Phillips. He's a
great player, he's a great analyst, and he's a good friend.
Thanks for joining us. I appreciate you, Dog. Thank you.
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 Gottlieb Show at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every day on the I Heart
Radio app by searching FSR. This is the best of
(00:22):
the Doug Gottlieb Show on Fox Sports Radio. Boom, What
Up America. Doug Gottlieb Show, Fox Sports Radio coming to
you from the sunny city of Angels and It's brought
to you by Farmers. At Farmers, we've seen almost everything
soon to cover almost anything. When it's game time, I'm
experienced player. Help you stay ahead of the game, put
(00:43):
their experience into play at Farmers dot com. Are farmers
so with no games this weekend and no one really
caring about the National Hockey League or uh Indie five,
I have no topics for you and any five hundred
I can't. A French guy wins it, and all I
could think of was r Rickey Boby, right, That's all
(01:06):
I could think of. That doesn't mean that I didn't
you know, stop and watch for a bit. And then
I was wondering, like, hey, when did we stop caring
about the ind The Co Cola six hundred was on
later on the evening. I actually watched some of that.
But then all of a sudden we got this Laker story.
Kirk Plum blocked in our lap. We had heard there
(01:29):
had been whispers that there was a a negative piece
coming out about the leadership of Magic Johnson. Remember when
Magic Johnson summarily resigned. There were stories that there was
a story that ESPN dot com was working on. It
dropped today, and you know what it was, basically everything
(01:49):
we've told you. There was some insight, there was some detail.
He talked to a lot of people, maybe the most
interesting of which was something I'll play for in a moment,
Rob Polinka telling a story which is factually incorrect, impossible
to have have happened. But what have we told you
(02:14):
about the Lakers. Going back to the trade Dadline debacle,
we said this was a coup deta. This was Lebrons
group going, hey, we could take over the Cleveland Cavaliers,
hostile takeover at some point. If we stay, maybe we
could somehow wrestle ownership away from from the guy who
you know wrote that famous letter, right Dan Gilbert, of course,
(02:38):
apparently suffered some sort of mild stroke. Hope he gets better.
But there was the thought, hey, why take over the Calves,
Why take over northern Ohio when we can take over
l A. We can take over the Lakers. They already
had a couple of clients on the Lakers. They could
land free agent clients on the Lakers. They could hire
(02:59):
their own coach, lebron and and Rich Paul could be
the acting GMS. And everything you read essentially says as
much that this is part of the fight. How much
you let those guys be around? How much, say, should
they have Magic Johnson apparently not as smiley and as
huggable when he's trying to lead an organization. Did they
(03:21):
get rid of some people? They did? Apparently thirty seven
point five percent of the employees that were there before
Magic and Blinka took over are no longer there. That
happens with every regime change, maybe not with the Lakers
because they're more of a mom and pop. But the
idea that Magic is not what he seemed to be,
or that Magic was a guy who wanted autonomous power,
(03:42):
yet didn't want to put in the work, and then
questioned anybody who questioned him, and when things went wrong,
he was accountable in terms of holding everyone else except
himself accountable. Completely believable. Rob Blink is an agent, agents
having tendency to embed, ellish, and flat out make things up.
(04:02):
All that seemed to play out right. I mean, the
idea that rich Paul wanted to make a coaching change
and went to the commissioner of the n b A
to express his desire for the Lakers to change coaches
is exactly what we've told you. Rich Paul's feeling himself
found himself in l A with what he thought was
(04:24):
the most powerful player in the NBA and even on
a chessboard, though the queen is the most powerful, the
queen does not have autonomous power. The queen is not
um queen is. The Queen is not. What's the Avengers
with the stick Stones with the Infinity South? What's the
(04:46):
guy who gets you know? What's the guy Thanos? He's
not Thanos? Right, he can't staff his fingers and half
the world this half the Lakers disappear, although they tried, right,
that's the movie. This is real life, and yet Anie
busses way in over her head and when magic quit,
she went she went dark on people because she didn't
(05:07):
want to say, or do or act the wrong way.
Because I'm sure she was ticked, because that is what
doesn't appear to happen when you have a unified front,
right Like, all of these things are understandable. And if anything,
that the explanation that I got without it being explained
in the piece was that Genie and her crew Linda Rambis,
(05:37):
they realize it's a coup data and they weren't going
to roll out the red carpet for Tyler. They didn't
want him to be a coach beyond Lebron James. You
know why, because when Lebron's done, they want Lebron to
be done. They don't want Lebron to have some sort
of power, whether it's coach or GM or player or
et cetera. So do I think the piece is some
(05:58):
sort of a certificate on how great journalism still exists?
Not really. Do I think there are outright lies in
the piece, No, But there are some parts to it
which clearly reported on from the perspective of somebody that's
not inside the No. Right, like a Mari Spellman wasn't
drafted even though they thought they were gonna draft to
(06:20):
Mary Spellman. And there's two war rooms, and one war
room was made up of the non players by players,
I mean Magic and Polinka. And so when they didn't
draft to Marie Spellman instead they drafted Moe Wagner, it
perked up their ears. But that happens. I mean, I've
heard of Mari Spellman's got bad knees. You couldn't practice
all the time in college because of the weight that
(06:41):
he used to carry. And Moe Wagner had a clean slate,
so he was on the do not draft list. That's
why they passed on it. Look, people in that same
secondary war room didn't want them to draft a Lonzo Ball,
you know. They preferred Deer and Fox, they preferred several
(07:02):
others who came in on workouts, but they don't get
to make the decision. Polinka and Magic did. And Magic
had an affinity for a Lonzo Ball who may well
become a very very good player, but there's a mistake
that he has never owned. So my takeaway for the pieces,
it may feel like a hit piece, I think it's
pretty well researched, but I don't think it's from people
(07:26):
so much in the know, even though most of what
they're saying does appear to be accurate, Like here, here's
a here's an example. Contavious Caldwell Pope was allowed to
practice and play while serving a twenty five day jail's
sentence for violating the terms of probation stemming from a
d u I charge, a decision that multiple team stafford
said caused unrest in the franchise. Caldwell Pope was allowed
(07:48):
to leave the Seal Beach Police Department detentions that are
to attend practice in Laker games as part of a
work release program. He wasn't allowed to travel outside the state,
resulting in a missing one game in Cleveland, one in Memphis,
and two in Houston, Oute. Anyone else who would have
put him on personal leave or suspended him. One coaching
staff one coaching staff members set I've talked to people
in the Lakers and they were like, look, it was weird.
(08:12):
The guy was in the facility at six am every
day because all he wanted to do is get out
of the detention center, and he was a show up, late,
leave early guy. And all of a sudden, he's a
show up early, leave late guy, eat all his meals
there because then he could visit his family there. But
remember he also served to two weeks suspension from the
NBA because of the d u I, which was in
(08:36):
the off season before he officially became a Laker, and
they didn't really have any other option. This was not
on this year's team. This was on last year's team
when they were just trying to be young and win games.
And if they didn't have Contavious called well Pope, they
would have had to activate lu All Dang and that
didn't work. If you don't believe me, look at lu
All dan He started the first game of the season
(08:57):
and then never played enough has not played another aim
in the NBA. So it's not a crap article, but
the perspectives from which it's presented are not always in
the know. But you get the gist of everything we've
told you about the Lakers, and at the end of it,
(09:18):
Jennie is still in charge, so is Rob Polinka. They
still have Lebron James and Magic Johnson does not appear
to be the guy that smiles and is super happy
and just wants everybody to have fun, got it good.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Doug dot
Leap Show weekdays in noon eastern three pm Pacific on
(09:39):
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. You
can hear Frankie solo on Serious x M NBA Radio
Monday through Friday seven am. Plus. You can read his
work in The Athletic. He joins us down on The
Doug got Leap Show. I'm sure you've read Baxter Holmes
this piece on the Lakers. Did you find into anything
(10:01):
super new or super telling in there? I mean, I
think it was. You know, I'm surprised that more of
this stuff didn't come out during the regular season, just
that it's, you know, clearly dysfunctional. And I think, really
what's going to start happening is I think more of
the claim is gonna fall on Jeanie Buss, who has
remained pretty silent about the whole thing. I mean, come on, Doug,
(10:21):
if you go all the way back to when Magic
announced his resignation and then you had Magic going on
first take, now you have this story and really what
it you know, what it really brings to light is
the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any
control there. There are way too many people involved, and
who really has the ultimate says that Linda Rambis. How
much of us, say, does Kurt Rambis have? Is it
(10:42):
Rob Blenka? What about Phil Jackson, who, according to Magic
Johnson you know now has a voice. So it just
seems to be a lot of people involved. I don't
know if that that really works for a lot of
these organizations. I don't you know, if you look at
some of the best organizations, they don't do it this way,
in the Lakers way. Let's be fair. If you judge
it by the record, it's not working. No, no, but
(11:03):
uh they also they have Lebron, they have a good
young core, they have forty million dollars in cap space,
they have the number four pick in the draft. Like, look,
I don't think Magic Johnson comes off well. I thought
Rob Bolinka comes off disingenuous. But none of that is
none of that is new. I felt like the thing
that I felt and I had heard and became obviously like, look,
(11:25):
Lebron's guys try to coopta right. They tried. They wanted
their coach, they wanted their player, they wanted and they
were shot down. Like I almost think feel like Linda
Rambis was was a good constantly leery to two Genie
buss In that she saw the the possibility of losing
any sort of control over the Lakers, and that's why
(11:47):
they shot down the Tyler thing. Yeah, and I also
think I think what the Lakers really have to consider
is what are they going to do with Lebron James.
I think if you be being fair about if you
give Lebron this season, the next he's and he's like,
we talked about this before, Doug, the guys played so
many games, so many playoff games, so many minutes, and
(12:07):
his timetable compared to the rest of the team is
a lot different. Now. If they can go out during
the off season and make a trade to get Bradley Beale,
where they sign a top free agent, that's changes everything.
But you'd have to admit this isn't the Lakers that
way used to. If you look, they've missed the playoffs
six years prior to this, even if you go all
the way back to Minneapolis, they missed the plaofs a
total of six times. So things do change quickly in
(12:29):
the NBA, where you know, we used to think of
the Lakers as the organization that's the place where everyone
wanted to go. It's the Lakers. It's Los Angeles. That
really hasn't been the case, whether or not it was
La Marcus Soldiers. Uh. Kevin Durant has been a free
agent a couple of times. And now if you're looking
at the top two guys, Kevin Durant and Kawai Lana,
and maybe something will change between now in July. But
(12:50):
if they don't get either one of those guys, ain't
looking at that next level guy. Whether it's gonna be
Jimmy Butler world. Like I said, if you make a
trade for Bradley Beale, but if you have Lebron James
on your roster, you know you're not talking four years
down the road. You need to win, you know, this
upcoming season or the next season. It's not like it's
going to get better for him. And I know that
they were had a great on Christmas Day when they
(13:11):
beat the Golden State Warriors. But he suffered an injury.
That's the first significant injury of his career. What makes
everyone thinks that all of a sudden he's gonna be
healthy now, I don't I don't see that considering how
much how many minutes he's played over his career. That's
the voice of Frank Eye Sola, who writes for The Athletic.
You can hear him on serious x M NBA radio.
Uh So k D is going to travel but not
(13:31):
play in game one? This does feel like a precursor
to Kadie riding in on the White Horse? Does it?
It does? And I also think it's smart of him
to make the trip. I mean, why I understand not
going to Portland's for those two games are up to
oh in the series. You know that the series, if
you know, could eventually come back to Oakland. But I
think it's smart of him to travel. It's come on,
(13:51):
it's the thing is gonna be stretched out. They're playing,
They're leaving today. Game two is on Sunday, so why
wouldn't you be there. Maybe you can recover between games
one too, But I really think what it is be
around the team. And then if he plays in game
three next Wednesday, that would be exactly four weeks from
the day that he suffered the injury. So I think
the day that Kevin Durank got high got injured, if
(14:12):
they had said he's out four weeks, you would have said, Wow,
that's a long time, But here we are. We're now
only what is it, day one, no, eight days away
from already being four weeks. So I think the timetable
is gonna be game three, and you could see a
scenario like you just pointed out, maybe it'll be one
one going back to Oakland and Kevin Durant plays in
game three and I would have to think being out
(14:34):
a month is you know, it's it's going to affect
him a little bit, But I still think there are
a better team with him, and I think it will
make a difference. So that's why I think it will
go six games. And I think the last I mean,
what a way to close out Oracle Arena, the last
ever Warriors game. There could be them lifting the Larry
O'Brian trope. Yeah, it could be could be amazing. Um
what about the Raptors and their ability to advance? Was
(14:57):
it more about them or more about the bucks inadequacies? Yeah,
I thought it was most I thought it was mostly
about Kawhi Leonard, who was just on a different level
than everyone else out there. You know, Janice is going
to be the m v P. But he's not nearly
the player right now that Kawhi Leonard is just in
terms of experience, a much better, you know, all around game.
You could make three porters, mid range shots, can overpower
(15:19):
guys in the post. It's gonna be a great learning
experience for Milwaukee. So their inexperience certainly hurt them. And
I thought some of their guys, like Gerrit bledso had
I thought had a really poor series, especially in game six.
But this was more about Kawhi Leonard. And this is
why miss I went out and made that trade. All
the people in Toronto they loved Demarta Rosen because de
Marta Rosen, unlike Damon Stodomer and Tracey McGrady and Vince
(15:41):
Carter and Chris Bosh, who all wanted to leave Toronto
basically the day that they got there, Demarta Rosen signed
up to stay. He was a guy who was a
reality drafted there. So the city fell in love with
with him. He fell in love with the city, so
there was this emotional attachment. But I remember at the
time when they made the trade, I mean, you're going
out and you're getting a top five Potente. Now he's
top three. To make the case the best player in
(16:03):
the league. The trade made all the sense in the
world because you've been in existence for twenty four years,
You're trying to get to the finals, and regardless of
what happens if he decides to leave after this, uh
you know in July, you know you could trade Kyle
Are you can kind of reboot a little bit. You're
obviously not going to be a championship contender, but I
thought it was worth it going after a guy like
Kawhi Leonard and is certainly paying off now. Doug Gottlieb
(16:25):
Show here on Fox Sports Radio, that's the voice of
frank Is Sola and um I, I'm intrigued by a
couple of other things in the NBA. You mentioned Brad Beale,
that's suddenly become the hot name for the Lakers, uh
to to to trade for? They obviously had a change
at gentlemen at general manager. Who if if not Brad Beal,
(16:49):
or even if Brad Beale's who are the other guys
were not? There's always somebody who's moved. We're not talking
about like the Chris pal right. The Chris Paul move
seemed kind of out of out of thin air. Who
is the guy who's moved that we're not talking about. Yeah,
I know that's the that's a good question right now.
I do think to your point, I do think it
is Bradley Beale. I mean, if you're the Lakers, you're
(17:10):
looking for that guy kind of in his late twenties
who has a little bit of experience and can really
be that second guy for Lebron James. And I would
think that people have said Lonzo Ball. Don't they have
to get more than Lonzo Ball for Bradley Beale? Well,
what do you do? What do you do with John
Wall when you when you have well, why when is
he coming back? That's that's the issue. I mean, who
(17:31):
knows when John wall is gonna come back. He's definitely
he's certainly gonna miss next season. I mean, come on,
if you want to got Lonzo Ball in the fourth
overall pick, you'll probably be back in the lottery next season.
If you're Washington, where are you going over the next
couple of years? This ship is basically sailed for the
Washington Wizards because you're not gonna be one of the
better teams in the Eastern Conference and you're kind of waiting.
It's amazing that John Wall has one of the worst
(17:51):
contracts in the league hasn't even really kicked in yet.
That's that's amazing. John Wall would have been one of
those guys, and I know there are people advocating a
year ago to trade him. They're really should have looked
to do something like that because now now they're stuck
with him. But I think that Washington has to be
one of those teams because you look at the teams
in the Eastern Conference with veteran players that aren't going anywhere,
and they kind of jumped to the forefront. Maybe Kevin
(18:13):
Love could be that guy too, Doug, because if you
look at Cleveland, you know they're in a rebuilding situation.
Maybe Kevin Love could be a guy that could potentially
be on the move. That that that would be, that
would be fascinating. Um, what about Milwaukee, You know, there's
a lot of questions for what they do with their roster.
They have, uh not be honest, but all the supporting
(18:34):
cast players outside of Bledsoe is kind of a bad
contract um surrounding him to have contracts up. What do
you think they look like next season? Well, it's it's
it's it's a tough one for them. I I do
think that they're going to bring back um, Chris Middleton.
You know that they want to bring brook Opens. There's
only so much they could offer them. And certainly they
want to bring back mount Brocken, who a lot of
(18:56):
people like around the league. George Hill would be if
the and meritage you don't know about. I would try
to bring back those other three guys. But you know
this too, if you go back to last season with
a team like Boston, Boston was at home Game seven,
there were five minutes away from making it to an
NBA finals. You know, this year they got knocked out
in the second round. Milwaukee was two wins away for
making it to an NBA Finals. You really don't know
(19:18):
if you're ever gonna get back to that level again.
You could think that you are, but you know, there's
a lot of competition out there, and you know, moves
get made during the season and players, you know, in
trades happen. In the perfect case with Milwaukee, a lot
of guys who were free agents. So you know, if
you're Milwaukee, you do have the great player and that's
what you always want to build a round. But it's
an interesting situation because I think that be honest, will
(19:40):
always stay in Milwaukee. But the big thing is he
wants to make sure that they're an organization that is
always trying to win. And I think right now that
that's why this summer is going to be a pretty
good test for ownership and management of the Milwaukee Bucks.
Everyone loved the Bucks. They were like, you know, the
little engine that could. But now it's about paying some
of these guys and trying to keep this thing together,
(20:01):
no question about it. Why has Brooklyn suddenly hopped in
the mix ahead of the Nixon Some people's estimation as
a possible destination for Kyrie and KD is as simple
as ownership. Yeah, I think there's there's been a lot
of that coming from kind of the Kyrie camp, because
of course everyone has a camp, and you know, I
think he might look at the Brooklyn nets is a
(20:22):
little more stable situation. Plus remember the owner that's coming
in Joe sigh uh. You know, you know Chinese ownership.
Think about all the money that Kyrie Irvan could possibly
make overseas. You know, we start having that connection made
as well in terms of endorsements and sponsorships and things
like that. But from everything that I've heard, Kyrie, if
he were to leave Boston, would like to live in
(20:44):
his hometown of New York, New Jersey. But right now
he's leaning a little bit more towards the Brooklyn Nets.
But a lot could change within the next you know,
thirty plus days. But right now Brooklyn does seem to
be a legitimate player. Brooklyn is just like the Clippers.
They're the step the ugly stepchild of the you know,
the Knicks and also the Lakers. But right now, both
(21:06):
of them had better years and right now both of
them are positioned to make a big move. But will
the tradition of those other teams you know, be able
to lure these big time players a way, it seems
like the Clippers might have a bit of an advantage
because of Doc Rivers and Jerry West, but the next
of the good job this season, and at least they
made themselves more attractive to potential free agents. Awesome stuff.
That's Frankie Solo. By the way, Frankie had I hate predictions.
(21:28):
Whatever do you who do you think wins the finals?
I'm gonna pick Golden State in six. Like I said,
the last, every game in the Oracle will be uh,
you know they'll get the one more time lift the trophy.
I think it'll be a competitive series early, especially k
d out still may be competitive when he goes back.
Well we we shall we shall see. That's Frank sol
the Frank thanks so much for joining us. Man. Be
(21:49):
sure to catch live editions of the Doug Dot Leaps
Show week days at noon eastern three pm Pacific. I
think I know what's going to happen in this series.
I understand it's easy to troll Charles Barkley who said
the Warriors wouldn't win a series without Kevin Durant, and
then they win four straight games against the Portland Trailblazers,
(22:12):
and suddenly he looks like a complete and total buffoon
to somebody who looks at the results. But if you
looked at the process, they were down seventeen in game two,
down eighteen game three, down seventeen in game four and
came back and won those games. That is playing with fire.
(22:32):
Now I know they're taking on a raptor's team. Those
down four, uh in their own right in game six
in which they just won, comebacks do happen. It is
the NBA. Every game seems to be tied in the
fourth quarter. But you get down seventeen, eighteen, and seventeen
points in three consecutive games out of just four, you
(22:54):
are And no one thinks of the Trailblazers as the
second best team in the NBA in the Western Conference. Uh,
they're they're they're probably the second best team in the
Pack Northwest and they're the only NBA team in the
Pack Northwest. And they're a good team. But they overachieved
this offseason and ultimately that it got exposed. But the
(23:14):
Raptors were built for this time of year, right, Well, well,
I'm not a huge Kyle Lowry fan. At this point
his career, Kyle Lowry has been an All Star. Victoral
Oladipo has seen the wars and he too has played
in the NBA Finals. And of course they went out
and got Danny Green, who can't get the broadside of
the barn. But you're not gonna leave him open because
(23:36):
at this time of the year, those type of guys
usually flourished. And then they have Kawhi Leonard who's playing
like the best or second best player in the game.
This one feels different then the Portland's series. It doesn't
feel as flukey at all, and while Portland's came in gassed,
(23:59):
and if the series would have started yesterday or today,
you could have said the same thing about Toronto. Toronto
doesn't have to travel, They're gonna have four full days off,
they're a deep roster and they may be getting one
more rotation or starter back anyway, so you would think
that they're going to be arrested. The attrition of a
(24:19):
thirteen games of the past two series on a younger
team doesn't appears to be as troublesome. I feel like
this is the series where a lot like the Clippers,
a lot like the Rockets, that at some point in
time you go like, oh, hey, Kevin Durant's the best
player on this floor, right. Kevin Durant in the playoffs
(24:45):
this year averaging thirty four point two points per game
for Perspective in seventeen the average twenty eight and a
half points per game in eighteen, the average twenty nine
points per game. He's shooting a higher percentage than last
year and averaging five more points for a game, uh
than he did last year. He's a two time finals MVP,
(25:07):
And what's fascinating about the they might be better without
Kevin Durant. Do we remember the fact that when they
had Kevin Durant and they were fully healthy, they went
sixteen and one two years ago in the playoffs, and mean,
they just kicked a live in hell out of everybody
in their way and the only loss, the only loss
was to the Calves in the NBA Finals, and Kyrie
(25:28):
went crazy with forty and Lebron was Lebron with thirty one.
That's combined seventy one of the hundred and thirty seven
points at the Calves scored. They just hit everything. Kevin
love hate one game in the NBA Finals and then
the next game essentially Kevin Durant ended the series. So
(25:49):
I think he's been the best player in the league
for the last two years. People finally come round to
it this year. He didn't make first team on NBA
even though he should have. People are questioning him against
the Clippers, and then three after the at the third
game on he just was kicking everybody's ass. The same
thing was happening in Houston. Everybody was struggling, and it
feels destined to be one of those series where we
(26:10):
start to go like, hey, Toronto is better than we thought.
Kawie Leonard's better than we thought, and the Golden State
Warriors don't have the benefit of playing an exhausted team
or maybe a bit of an overachieving team like they
did against Portland's. And this is a series until Kevin
Durant rides in on the white horse. Rides in, the
white Horse saves the day. I mean an ideal made
(26:34):
for a hot made for TV, or made for a
Hollywood scenario. I can't think of a better one. I
can't think a better one for for Kevin Durant. Now,
if they win without him, does that change some of it?
Does he come back and hurt some of their chemistry? Potentially? Potentially?
(26:57):
But I think the strongest likehood is here's a guy
who all he has wanted has been respect and admiration
for his level of skill. He earned it against the Clippers,
he was getting it against the Rockets, And while there
have been some seeds of disrespect planted, he will harvest
them when he gets into a series that the team
(27:20):
is likely to struggle in before he gets back. Yes, right,
doesn't this feel like the particular matchup of Kawhi Leonard
being the Raptors? Clearly their best player and go to
player offensively seem like it's finally gonna show just how
badly that the Warriors need to rant just based off
of that, because I mean, like when they were matched
up against the Trailblazers, they're trying to work through Damian
(27:43):
Lillard and Sear McCollum, who are both lillards not nearly
as good as Curry, and McCollum isn't as good as
Clay Thompson. So it's going to be this is the
time that they're finally going to notice how much they
need someone like to rant. Yes, this is a step
up in weight class and Portland Trailblazers. The problem is
we deal with some dated information, right. We go with, oh,
(28:04):
the West is always better, Well, in this particular year,
it's not the case, especially considering who advanced. It's just
not Portland wasn't even at full strength. It didn't have nurkics,
and so that changed how they had to play um
And because they didn't have a good enough three or
four or five, you could double team c J. McCullum
(28:26):
or Damian Lillard off of ball screens. So yes, I
think the Raptors are the real deal. I think I
thought Milwaukee was really good. I think and and you
look positionally, you know you're gonna have to have either
Draymond or more than like the Andrea Godala match up
with Kawai Leonard. And while Andrea Goodala is an amazing defender,
(28:48):
tremendous defender, he's been banged up and it completely wears
him out. And if you have a Goodala on the floor,
that does limit some of the things you can do offensively.
And they don't really have anybody else in the roster
outside of Durant when he's healthy, that can do a
great job checking him. Maybe Looney, I guess a little bit.
(29:08):
I guess Clay can too a little bit big, a
little bit strong for Clay. I mean, their their rosters
matched up where they can match up with with with
Kawai Learned fairly well. Um, but Kevin Durant is the
best because he can make Kawai Letard defend at the
other end at a very very high Excuse me, I mean, look,
(29:31):
Kawi Learned got his against Janice. How do you think
he's gonna do against Whether it's Looney, I think obviously
Clay will do a great job on him. I think
it's a fascinating series, but I think there's gonna be
some struggles there from Golden State. Doesn't mean I think
they absolutely lose one and two, but they'll be underdogs
in one and two, especially without him. Fox Sports Radio
(29:51):
has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch
all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com
and within the I Heart Radio apps f s R
to listen live. He has his own media company, Sports
Talks because he scored two thousand, three d nineteen points
when you played at u D University Detroit. He's a
(30:13):
shot Phillips. He's a friend of the program. He joins
the Doug Gotlip Show on Fox Sports Radio. Shot how
are you? I'm fantastic, Doug. How are you doing? Good? Man? Um?
You always hashtag talk soon, so we're actually talking now.
All right, let's let's talk um. In February, you tweeted
out Kawhi Leonard to Golden State this summer. Once k
(30:34):
d leaves Golden State, won't miss a beat talk soon,
hashtag yoda you still feel like Kawai Letard ends up
in Golden State. UM, I just think there's a there's
a strong possibility that that happens. I mean, you gotta
look at the situation at hand where I mean, Kauai
has put himself in a situation where he's in a
(30:54):
win win. Um Toronto obviously loved him, and rightfully so.
And he's a West Coast kid. And we've been all
general generally everybody's talking Lakers and Clippers, and and I'm thinking, like, well,
those are not the best teams in the West. That's
gonna lose a high level player. How come we haven't
(31:14):
talked about Golden State? So that that's what I know
with that, And that's why I said, hey, Golden State
may be a strong destination for Kauai. Yeah. But again,
if you're trying to make sense of it, why would
Kevin Durant leave Golden State when they got a chance
here to win their fourth championship in five years, his
third straight championship. Like, if we're gonna do with logic,
(31:35):
logic tells you the market is big enough, he can
make more money there than elsewhere. Why not just stay
because he's not Um, I think he's not needed there.
And I don't take this the wrong way. UM, I
just think that Kevin Durant is so good that a
team like Golden State doesn't need what he brings to
(31:57):
the table, and they proven that without him. I really
believe Kevin Durant is more of a crutch and that's
and that's given him a compliment. He's just more of
a crutch to Curry and Clay. I think when he's
on the court, Curry and Clay just kind of just
take a back seat because Durant is so good, and
(32:19):
I just think that he needs to go to his
own destination and really prove to us that he can
win on his own. Now, Kauai has already proven that
presently speaking with taking a Raptors team, a brand new team,
a brand new coach, and here they are in the finals. Yeah.
And now you often say that you think Steph Curry's
(32:40):
points are what more impactful than the points, But I
think Curry's I think Curry's points cut deeper. I just think, Doug,
you played, you played at a high level. I just
think where when you when you when you hit shots
the way this guy hits shot at the particular times.
It's just the more lies in to your scout, your
(33:02):
scout team, to the defensive guys that are trying to
stop a six ft three guy that's nailing forty bombs
other than the seven footer that's hitting two dribble pull ups.
I mean, you have to look at it statistically, when
Kevin Durant drops forty point it's not as demoralizing as
when a guy like Steph Curry drops thirty five points
(33:23):
because it's in the style of fashion and how he
does that well. It's also just the math of it, right,
when you shoot a higher volume of threes and you
score threes as opposed to two's, Uh, it's a lot
like kind of throwing haymakers instead of throwing body blows.
Durant at times can be body blows. I would tell
you though, it is pretty devastating when you're Houston or
when you're when you're the Clippers and you do everything
(33:45):
right defensively and you still stamp can't stop Kevin Durant. Yeah,
I just I think Kevin Durant's terrific. Like I said,
I think he's fantastic. I think he's the best offensive
player that we've seen, and I mean quite some time.
I mean he's up there with Michael Joe and then
Kobe Bryant Um. But his points are are not as
(34:06):
magnify as a guy like Steph Curry, who kind of
does it in a new evolution type of way. I mean,
you just can't. There's no defense for a guy that
can come down and dance on you, wiggle on you
and drop uh forty ft bombs on you without looking
at it going in. That is demoralizing. Um So I
(34:26):
just I just think that's what it does. Rishan Phillips
sport Joints Doug Otlip Show here on Fox Sports Radio. Uh,
what do you think the right fit is for Kyrie?
Irv um. I think that Kyrie needs to go to
a place. I really think. Honestly, I think he should.
I think it's kind of that bridge just kind of burnt.
(34:47):
But what he should do was hold out one more
year and let the Miami Heat clear out their books
and go to Miami. Um. But I know he won't
do that. I think the pressure people are trying to
push him to Brooklyn, to New York and even l
a um. But logically speaking, Doug, I think he would.
He should have. He should go back to Boston for
one more year, let that play out, and let the
(35:09):
Miami Heat cleared their books because they got some big contract.
Let the Heat clear their books, and I think he
should go to Miami in another year. But I don't
know who's in his corner or what's going on. But
that's what if I was giving him advice, that's what
I would tell them. Yeah, the problem there is it
just seems to not be working in Boston that they
don't know. You know, it just he's got a guy.
(35:30):
He I don't think he respects the younger guys, and
I'm not sure, and I think he's he's a challenging guy.
He's a super talented guy, like crazy, crazy talented guy.
But but you know, uh, it just didn't work. Anyone
could see it didn't work. You've been a proponent of
moving Ben Simmons off the basketball. How do you fix
(35:53):
the Philadelphia seventy If you were in charge, you draft,
You have to draft the point guard. You gotta find
even you just have to find a stabilizer for that team.
I just Philly lacks a stabilizer. They lack a guy
like like a like a point guard like yourself or
point guard like myself, just somebody that can stabilize that
team and allow the other guys to play off that
(36:16):
that's why That's why t J. McConnell was so good
with the Sixers, because he stabilized those guys and they
played better. I just think Ben Simmons needs to play
off the ball more and still allow him to play
make but not be the initiator. I just don't think
he's good at initiating standpoint, but still he's a great playmaker.
(36:38):
So again, I just think the general public we we
pigeonhole these guys they try to follow the pigeonholes and
end up casting these these uh these organizations of positions.
Rashan Phillips showing us it's sports Talk to three one
nine dot com and sports talk dot com. Fallm on
Twitter at RP three Now troll you love picking apart
(37:02):
draft prospects. Zion Williamson, How could probably be? Um? I
think he's gonna be I think it's gonna be good.
I do. I think it's gonna be good. Um, I
can't say superstar right now. I don't see superstar what
I what I do see? I see superstar off the court.
I just think that the mark ability, the shoe sales,
the commercials um but I really see a I see
(37:24):
a good NBA player. I can't go superstar yet because
to be a superstar you just have to be completely
dominant of the sport. And I don't know if he
has the skills set from a basketball standpoint to actually
dominate an NBA game. Obviously, he dominated college, but that's
because of the physical attributes. But now to dominate the
(37:45):
NBA you have to have some high skill attributes to
be able to go to and I don't know if
he has that quite yet. John Marette, would you take
job over Zion? Yeah? I would. I would, and and
the and the reason I would. You can call me
bias here. Um. I just think the point guard position
is like a quarterback position. I just think that you
(38:08):
don't draft a left tackle before you draft the superstar quarterback.
That's how just just how I look at it. So
I think John's a guy that has the ball in
his hands, he has the dynamics about him, and he's
shown that he can do more with less. And you
want guys like that. You want a quarterback that can
throw receivers open opposed to a quarterback who needs great
(38:30):
receivers around him to make him look like a quarterback.
You understand what I'm saying, that's kind of how I
look at it. R J. Barrett was thought to be
number one. Uh then of course the season happened and
a lot of guys have pointed out, boy, he could
be a little bit stiff, not a great shooter. Um,
maybe he doesn't go number three. Do you take him
number three? Or do you take Cam Reddish third? Oh,
(38:53):
I gotta I take Reddish, man. I mean that's a
that's a no brainer for me. Um. I would take
Reddish just because I think Reddish has the game that
it's just it's just more pro ready. He just he
passes the eye test. Um, I don't A lot of
times Reddish is one of those guys. I don't get
caught up in his statistics. I just watched the tape.
(39:14):
I watch his movements, I watch how fluent he is,
and I look at the situation that he was putting
in dub I just think if Calm Reddish would have went,
let's just say he would have went to Maryland in
the Big ten. I think can reddis would have been
a twenty one point score and we'd be talking about
him being a number one pick. So I just think
it was a situation at Duke so if I'm New York, Um,
(39:35):
I know you took Kevin Knock flash year, but can
Reddish is. I just think he has some Tracy McGrady
type of attributes that you just can't pass up. Sean
Phillips joining us. So let's get back to the NBA playoffs.
We talked about the matchups, and you've liken some of
the things COUI does to Michael Jordan, how well his
approach to the game, and and when I first said this,
(39:57):
and I didn't, I don't. I wasn't saying that he's
Michael Jordan. But I just think that there's some characteristics
that if you're a true basketball person, you can't deny
this um. The way that he gets to his spots
to dribble, pull up right to dribble, pull up left, um,
fade away over the right shoulder, fade away over the
left shoulder, big hand, dumped palm and the ball, great
(40:17):
on ball defense, stoic demeanor, great leadership competitor. All that
sets mj to me. And the way that he's will
this Toronto Raptor unit. He's just echoed that more and more.
The more I'll watch him play, I just keep saying
MJ every time he take a pull up jump shot.
So who wins Raptors in seven? Does Katie play? No,
(40:42):
you don't think he plays it all in the series.
I don't. I think he. I think he does the
Bernard King or the Willis Read in game five because
I don't think this game, I don't think he's playing.
This championship doesn't start to game five. So you got
two games in Toronto, two games and go to They
and then you got the pivotal game in game five.
So if the rent max An appearance is going to
(41:04):
be game five, I think he plays in three. I
don't think he'd be traveling with them if he didn't
think he was close. Yeah, I don't. I really don't.
I can't call that one. But I'm just I'm saying
game five, if it's too too going into game five,
he has to play, doesn't doesn't If if they don't
win and he doesn't play, doesn't that help the argument
(41:27):
on what he's been able to do for this team?
Not necessarily? I don't. I don't think so. I just
think Toronto is a really good team. I think we're
ignoring that Toronto is a good team. I'm not ignoring it.
I mean, like, look they've been if not for Lebron James.
They play in a couple of NBA finals previous to this,
and then they added a better player and and a
winner and a leader, you know, an on the court
leader in Kawhi Leonards. Like I'm not denying that, I
(41:49):
just you know, like, look, if they lose and they've won,
they've won the NBA Finals all but one year, and
the only time they've lost before is without him, and
they lose without him, then the argument would be, well,
wait a second, they can't win without him, Well that
will be that will be the narrative, Doug. But let's
let's dig deeper. Let's dig deeper. Let's go into the
regular season. Toronto beat them twice. You can't do the
(42:09):
regular season thing? Why not? Because it's a different game,
it's a different sports, different officiating, it's everything's different. Come on, man,
you know, you know, but you can't just you can't
just sweep under the rug that what then why do
we play regular season? Why don't we just pick the
best eight just to make a bunch of money. Okay,
all right, there we go. But if you like, I
(42:29):
like to dig deeper they played, They winning over time
once in the regular season to Rent half forty four,
they still lost or whatever, they still lost. Toronto is
is capable of beating the Golden State Warriors with or
with because they've already done it. No, listen, I I
would I agree with you. We are not in disagreement
at all about Toronto. Um, but I will tell you
(42:52):
that I disagree with the Warriors are much better with him,
much better with him, and and uh and and I think, honestly,
it's more of an indictment on Quinn Cook than anything right.
When steps out, Quinn Cook starts, that's where they're not
as good right, Whereas when Kads out, they slide Looney
into the starting lineup, and that creates a mismatch for Steff. Like,
(43:14):
I think it's more in indictment of who their backups
are than anything else. No, I know, I get that,
I totally get that. And this is I don't want
people to think, because I really like Kevin Durant, like
I think he's I think he's fantastic, like I'm you
also don't care about defense. You don't care about defense
at all. You've you've basically stated at that stop, stop,
listen to you. No, I really like Durant. I just
think that he I think Golden State was great before him,
(43:37):
and I think they will be great after him. That
has nothing to do with him. And I think wherever
Durant goes, he's going to make that organization great as well.
I just think that it's just a it's just a weird,
quirky situation where you got great on the left and
great on the right. That I mean, and sometimes you
try to put both of those great together, but you
still don't get what you think you're gonna get because
(43:59):
they're both great. You know, it's a more is more thing,
and more is not always more, sometimes less. Check out
Sports Talk T nineteen. He's uh Rashad Phillips. He's a
great player, he's a great analyst, and he's a good friend.
Thanks for joining us. I appreciate you, Dog. Thank you.
Host
Doug Gottlieb
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
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.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.