Key takeaways as Rockets, Rafael Stone answer media questions

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Cheers, Rockets fans, Welcome tothe lagger Line, an exclusive podcast from
the home of the Rockets, SportsTalk seven ninety. The lagger Line.
It's proudly served to you by CarboxClutch City lagger It is good. Oh
yeah, Red Nation, get readyto get ready, Get ready. The

(00:26):
lagger Line starts now. Welcome onboard. Welcome in to another new episode
of The lagger Line, served toyou court to see if Clutch to the
logger of Carback Brewing. My nameis Ben Dubosier, host editor of USA

(00:48):
Today's Rockets Wire and a contributor toSports Talk seven ninety, the official flagship
radio station of your Houston Rockets.Today, as the calendar has flipped to
June, we're gonna be talking aboutthe upcoming offseason and for the Houston Rockets,
it's going to be very crucial tothe long term health of this franchise.
They get another top five draft pick, they have a league leading figure
of about sixty million dollars in salarycap room, which they could even add

(01:11):
to if they see the need.And guess what now we are in the
actual month where a lot of thisis going to go down. The draft
on Thursday, the twenty second,and of course the opening of free agency
negotiations on June thirtieth. So totalk about many of these dynamics, I'm
joined tim a good friend co hostingproducer out of Portugal, Polo Alves Hollow.

(01:33):
Is there any more nerves now thatyou're actually in draft month and free
agency month for that better, Yes, there's always more, little kid,
and I'm more. I guess weall know how how I feel about this
Good Anderson debate. I think theword the fact that it finally officially came
out that he's not going to workout with the Rockets can be looked at

(01:53):
as both ay, not a badthing, but kind of a negative from
the sense that I would say thatthat would be a small chance that if
he worked out for the Rockets,maybe he wills everyone right there and it
makes them trade up from my perspectiveof someone who wants good. But at
the same time, if you believein in conspiracies or whatever, Jabari also

(02:16):
didn't work out with us, andthat's the guy, and that's the guy
was supposed to go to number oneand then fell to three and we took
him anyways, which proves that that'snot a deal breaker for us for us
the Rockets, of course, Butat the same time, if you believe
in the in the conspiracy conspiracy curitythings, then maybe it's a repeat of
luck here where the guy that wassupposed to go number two false to the

(02:37):
pick when the Rockets are So I'mnervous. I'm I'm it's not really nervous.
It's more of a it's more ofan anxiety because so much is going
to be defined by what happens inthe draft. And I'm also I've grown
in prisilling increasingly nervous about austraighten outof twenty because now I've looked further int

(02:58):
within there's some guys um there thatI like, Yeah, I mean,
I know, I know people gettriggered by this and by the fact that
it is a factor to me thathe is a massive Rockets fan, like
like a huge This is not justa guy that follows wrong. I think
he's a huge Rocket side. It'sa massive, hardened fan, which is
crazy because and and going on alittle bit of attendance real quick. Um,

(03:22):
I looked into it right and hisdad played in Houston for three years
only, so it's not like hewas a Rocket's life, right father Joe,
Yeah, his father that Juan Howardfor those who don't know. Um,
And this this was when he wastwo years old through two four years
old, so he wasn't really ina position where, oh, your sports
team stuff is not defined on yourtwo through four year old window, right

(03:45):
uh. And after that that playedfor like six more years, although some
of them were like benty Warmer vettype roles, but he played for like
six more teams after that. Hewas a journeyman from that point forward.
And he still stuck with the Rockets, even though he's not played for a
number of different teams until he wasten, when I would guess by ten,
you've kind of chosen your sports fantasticat least I already had, right,

(04:09):
So it's not like it's just,oh, he's not played here,
so of course he's a Rockets fan. No, he have plent i the
opportunity to be something else, andhe is actually an early big Rockets fan
at least for me. And Iknow, and I know some of the
guys that do this perhaps at ahigher level, like Cassette the athletic and
stuff like that, they kind ofseparate their fandom from their analysis. I'm

(04:30):
kind of a little bit in themiddle where yes, I do like to
provide analysis, and if you askme, I can provide you something more
unbiased. But I do, inmy take sometimes let the fan side out
of me influence a little bit.And I am a sucker for narratives,
and I am a sucker for youknow, these stories, And it would

(04:53):
be just such a great story thata guy that is a massive Rockets fan,
which is rare amongst draft proces facts. He's one of the few like
that I've heard of, right,and and now his window where he is
draft eligible coincides perfectly with the windowwhere the Rockets are trying to, you
know, rebuild, and they're goingto be looking at guys like him to

(05:14):
draft. It's I think it's areally cood plint to them. If it's
a need they need. Shooting,Yeah, he does. I mean he's
a six eighth shooting guard that isa sharp shooter. I mean, I
don't know how that doesn't sound appealingto to anybody. I think he is
a board defender, and I thinkI don't think it's tools, because I
think the tools he has, allof them it's I think it's a it's

(05:35):
an IQ any commitment, that typeof thing, But I don't know.
I think at twenty if he turnsout to be a sixth state shooter that
improves a little bit on his defense, that's a pretty good outcome. And
come on, man, I'm asucker for these things. So if you
get him at twenty LVL, we'repretty have it. Yeah, and we
should have some more intel on thatfront over the next few days to feel

(05:58):
back the curtain. We're recording lesson Sunday night, June fourth, actually
where Palo is in Portugal. It'searly Monday morning, June fifth, which
means we're actually within two weeks ofDraft Week. Two weeks from right now
will be the start of the Draftweek, which of course culminates on Thursday,
June twenty second, when the Draftactually takes place in Brooklyn. So

(06:21):
I do suspect that you're going tohear a lot more concrete intel about what
teams are looking at, what prospectshave really made an impact with them.
With regards to the later first roundpick. I think it was pretty clear
by the middle of June last yearthat Tarry Easton was definitely in play for
the Rockets, and he ended upbeing the guy at number seventeen. So
perhaps we'll hear a bit more aboutChet Howard or some of these guys conceivably

(06:44):
in play at number twenty starting thisweek. The bottom line is we're getting
close, and so once you startto get inside of two weeks, which
we're rapidly approaching, then a lotof the speculation is going to turn into
more concrete reporting and legitimate intel.And for people who want more of those
discussions, I know we let offfor a bit of a tangent on Chet
Howard, but stay tuned. We'renot avoiding. Those discussions were much longer.

(07:11):
It's just we're trying to get abit more concrete intel about who the
possibilities are for the Rockets. Shouldmention, by the way, with Chet
Howard, it's not told out ofleft field. It was reported by Kelly
Echo of The Athletic last week thatthe Rockets worked him out. The Rockets
are typically one of the teams thathas a really firm hold on their workout
list. A lot of teams likePortland, for example, they actually have

(07:33):
video of when guys come in,even the top of the line guy it's
like Scoot Henderson and Iman Thompson.They show and tell the world who they're
drafting or whatever reason. The Rocketsdon't. They don't. Not only do
they not do video, they don'teven do like a list of names or
leak for the most part to sourceswho they've worked out. They try and
keep everything in house. You haveto case their Instagram pages and the stories

(07:59):
right. But hopefully, at leastto a small extent, that stuff will
change over the next couple of weeksbecause as we get closer to the draft
again, agents are going to talkand they're going to want to try and
find out what teams are legitimately inplay for their clients. And so I
think there's a chance that even ifthe Rockets don't come out and say it
themselves, we should get more intel, and so we'll talk about that a

(08:22):
lot more. We've had a coupleof episodes, our last two actually,
in which we had Nathan follg Onand Brian Caulbroski of USA Today Sports Media
Group with some initial post draft lotteryand sight on what the Rockets might do
at number four overall, number twentyin the first round. But we'll pick
up on that, and then someover the next couple of weeks as we
get more concrete reporting about what theRockets and other teams around the NBA maybe

(08:46):
looking to do, not just inthe draft, but perhaps heading into free
agency as well. In terms ofwhen the window opens for negotiations on June
thirtieth, Are the Rockets going tobe knocking on James Harden's door at that
point, Well, rothel Stone havean iPad ready for him, the way
Daryl Moorey did for Chris Bosh.Actually, Paulo, that was before your
fandom. Have you heard about DarrelMoorey and the Chris Bosh iPad? I

(09:07):
have not the only the only freeagency story that I know of before I
was a fan of the camp one. So you want to talk about being
down bad. So in the twothousand and nine through twenty eleven window pre
hardened, this was when the Rocketsweren't allowed by their former owner, Less
Alexander to tank, so they justyou know, Darrol constantly had this roster

(09:28):
turn trying to turn and nicol intoa dime, a dime into a quarter,
and so on and so forth.They did have maximum salary cap room,
but the difficulty was, of course, in convincing a guy that Houston
was the right fit for him,and in twenty ten they went after Chris
Bosh. Of course, Chris Boshended up signing with the Miami Heat to
join Lebron James and Dwayne Wade,forming the Big Three there that went on

(09:50):
to win two championships. But thefirst night of free agency, Darrold Moorey
and whatever team he had from theRockets was on Chris bosh doorstep with an
iPad. The iPad as a giftand it had like a Rockets playbook and
all sorts of stuff on it.Keep in mind it's twenty tens to the
technology is not exactly the same asit is today. The year before that,

(10:11):
in two thousand and nine, MarcinGortat was a free agent. You
know who Gortat is? I'm notsure if that. Yeah. Defensive minded
big Man and Darrel created a Gmailaddress Rockets Fans Love Gortat at gmail dot
com, where he encouraged fans toemail in why they wanted We're taught to

(10:31):
join the Rockets, and then heprinted off the emails and showed them to
Gortat in the pitch medium so yeah, so we've come a long way.
Those were dire days, thank god, you know, Darrel, and some
of it's not his fault again,some of it's like the easiest way,
you know, the post Tracy McGradyand yaming era would have been to bottom
out and get high draft picks theway they've done the last three years.

(10:54):
Less Alexander was out willing to take, so his hands were short of tie
and they had cap room, butit was tough to really make Houston that
appealing because it's just a mediocrity treadmillsituation, and even with that, his
hands were tied. Joel eventually bailedhimself out by getting James Harden and then
once they got James Harden, theywere desirable enough to get Dwight Howard and
free agency the next summer and therest is history. But before then,

(11:16):
man, the Rockets were down bad, bringing an iPad at Chris Bosh and
Rockets fans love gooret hot at gmaildot com. Those were the days.
Thankfully, I think the Rockets,even coming off a twenty two and sixty
campaign, are in a better leveragespot this summer, although we'll see what
Rothfelstone does and if he has anythingin mind for June thirtieth, when negotiations

(11:39):
can officially open. Of course,unofficially, we know good and well there's
discussions going around an entire NBA withfree agents to be in June. None
of this really starts on June thirtieth, but June thirtieth is at least when
you can send the cavalry you can. So you're telling me that all of
those deals that are made in onesecond aren't degrees of punt to five.

(12:00):
I can pray, shocking, right, unreal, I will say, in
modern Rockets history, and this encompassesyour fandom in twenty nineteen, the entire
month of June, when there wereall these leaks about the Rockets feeling good
about Jimmy Butler having deals lined upto either you know, facilitate a sign
and trade with the Sixers or moveEric Gordon and or Clint Capella into cap

(12:22):
space, and then within two hoursof free agency opening, Butler having a
deal with the Heat That was theultimate gut punch. It's like, dude,
really, why the hell are wetalking about this? But again,
like for some perspective, that's whyI think the hardened pursuit is a little
bit different the Harden pursuit. Intelfrom everywhere is connecting James with the Rockets.
Back then, it was like allthe reports out of Houston, We're

(12:43):
connecting the Rockets to Jimmy Butler andconfidence they could get him. But nationally,
there was a lot more talk aboutButler. In Miami, there's the
infamous Hey, Bighead Sweet that Ithink Butler senate Joane Wade a night before
free agency opened, and ultimately,or maybe it was the reverse that Wade
sent to Butler, I can't remember, but the point was, nationally,
the connections were much more way orButler to Miami, and it was a

(13:09):
bit more wishful thinking about Butler goingto the Rockets from Houston sources which James
Harden. It seems to be muchmore widespread, and of course we can
talk about whether that's good or bad. We've got that in recent shows.
I'm sure we'll do it in upcomingshows. The point is, the smoke
seems to be a lot more widespreadand real there, and we'll get into
that again. This should be abusy month for us here at the Logger
line. We'll have plenty of coverageof the draft and free agency. A

(13:31):
lot of our shows this time ofyear are based on speculation and reports because
there isn't much concrete intel until thedraft or free agency actually happen. I
want this episode to be a littlebit different because this is a rare circumstance
in the offseason where we do havesome confirmed, on the record information courtesy
of the Rockets community event this pastFriday at the Freedmanstown Association in Houston's historic

(13:56):
Fourth Ward, where they went outand had a community a stay as an
organization, but they also had peoplefrom up and down the chain, ranging
from just your run of the millstaffers at Toyota Center to coaches and executives
and players and so GM Raffael Stonehead coach, Ema Udoka and Jamari Smith
Junior and Kevin Porter Junior as playersall took part in the event and were

(14:18):
made available to the media, andof course for the Rockets, it serves
multiple goals. By making them availableto the media, there's more media that
are willing to come out, andso it shines a brighter light on their
community service work, which is exemplary. But it also allows them to I
guess a give us some intel abouttheir considerations heading into this crucial month that

(14:39):
we've been out lighting, and bit potentially allows them to control the narrative
a little bit in a period onthe NBA calendar were so much, especially
in our modern social media climate,takes on a life of its own from
us trying to parse together various reportsfrom sources and things that are out there
that may or may be true.But in the absence of real information,

(15:03):
they can take on a life oftheir own and they can be good or
bad for an organization. The lastcouple of years, it's been more of
the bad for the Rockets in theirrebuild, which makes sense so far.
Today's show, I want to talkabout what we learned on Friday because I
thought there really were some interesting takeawaysfrom those media availabilities. And the first
thing I want to hit home andI want to get your perspective as a

(15:24):
fan on Paolo, because I knowyou're very actively involved in Rockets Twitter,
where folks can follow you at PaoloALVE's NBA me, of course, someone
they're simply at Ben Dubos. Ithink it was a really good step for
the Rockets to make Rafel available becauseto me, the biggest takeaway was a
very simple forward answer when I askedhim, was there any overlap or connection

(15:48):
between the draft and free agency.There's been a number of reports lately that
because the Rockets feel like James Hardenmaybe coming in, that they could draft
someone like camp More who's more ofa wing that would be more plug and
play than a point guard like AmenThompson or Scoot Henderson, since there's some
positional overlap with James Harden. Now, I've said on this podcast before that

(16:11):
I've been told by the Rockets emphaticallythat that's not going to happen. And
of course it makes sense with Hardenbeing thirty four years old and the player
you bring in being nineteen or twentyand a much more important asset long term.
We talked about eventually when the Rocketsfig years so now are trying to
win a title. Of course,you shouldn't let a thirty four year old
Harden weigh that heavily, if atall, on your decision making. But

(16:33):
regardless, it's been out there froma number of sources, and even if
they're just saying rival executives think atsome point the totality of the narrative can
become overwhelming in a point of theNBA calendar in which there isn't much of
an opportunity for teams to actually pushback. It's not like the regular season,
where you talk to at least coachesand players on a regular basis,

(16:53):
you can get them on the recordto address things. So in this case,
I was just relieved that Rafel said, no, it's best available,
referring to the draft and free agencyand taking who they see, assuming it's
a fit with Of course, whathe made Udoka wants to do is head
coach. He mentioned that as well, and we'll get into that. But
the Rockets are thinking about the longterm value of each asset. It's not

(17:17):
about the short term fit for arebuilding situation that even if they get James
Harden is not going to go intoanything close to title contention mode in the
near future. And so I sortof understand why the Rockets the last couple
of years, you know, likeduring this season. And we should mention
that while coaches and players are availableduring the season, general managers generally aren't.

(17:38):
And so this past year you hada couple of narratives, especially in
January and February, when things startedreally going off the rails for the team,
and you heard some talk about isStone too heavy handed in micro managing
his coaches and some of the practices. You had the John Wall tanking interview,
and there really wasn't much of apushback. In fact, it was

(18:00):
Steven Silos who was left to pushback on the Wall interview. There wasn't
much of a response from the frontoffice or ownership. I'm sort of sympathetic
as to why, because again,if you believe that you didn't have the
right coach in place and you weregoing to make the change after the season,
which they did, then maybe youdon't think it's worth it to throw

(18:21):
your head coach under the bus andsay a lot of these issues are because
we don't really trust the coaching staffand we need to make a change,
because again, it's just a verydifficult environment for your young players to develop
in. And for reasons we've discussedin the past, they didn't want to
go the interim route because they wereclearly going to go after a big name
like email Udoka in the offseason.They were just trying to get there.
So perhaps in the past it wasbeneficial to just keep your mouth shut,

(18:45):
even if you had to take iton the chin with regards to some of
the narratives that are out there,But in general, I do think it's
useful to be able to push back. It's not so much that or Fell
saying no, they're going best availablemeans case closed. The Rockets are for
sure not going to weigh harden inwith their draft pick. No, this
is just one side of the story, and they could be trying to frame

(19:07):
it to their benefit. I'm wellaware of that. But at least what
this does is make it clear thatthe reports that are out there, that's
one side of the story. TheRockets have a different side of the story,
and that makes people a lot morewilling, in my opinion, to
be patient and to let the processplay out. And so it gives them
a benefit of the doubt in amonth that look in the past, maybe

(19:30):
perception wasn't that big of a dealbecause it's during the season. Everybody knows
they're going to let Steven Silas goin the offseason and then you can sort
of reset the franchise anyway from aperception standpoint and credibility around the league,
those angles right now. This isa big month behind closed doors conversations are
absolutely happening with agents and players aroundthe league, targets you could go after
in free agency. So this isa month where you don't want people around

(19:52):
the league to wonder, Hey,just used to know what the hell they're
doing? Did they have control?Is this a good situation that you cont
to build to contender over the comingyears. So in my opinion, it's
not so much that Raphael Stone's sayingthat makes it case closed. The Rockets
are for sure they're going to takebest player available, not Factory and Harden,
but it does make it clear thatthey are pushing back, and so
because of that, I think peopleare much more willing to keep an open

(20:15):
mind and be patient heading into thedraft, as opposed to if you say
nothing, that it becomes a loteasier for those narratives to take hold.
The example of Alta are out there. People often say, especially those that
aren't really on social media that much, that these narratives don't really matter.
Look at Wimby on Lottery Night.I do think there was something extra with

(20:40):
that viral video of him fist pumpingand smiling when the Rockets went at number
four. Even if he wanted togo to the Spurs with all their French
lineage, Tony Parker, Boris Diaw. I do think that's where he wanted
to go. There did seem tobe something extra when he knew he wasn't
going to the Rockets, even relativeto other rebuilding teams like Detroit, like
Portland, like Charlotte, there wassomething extra. And my suspicion Palo I

(21:07):
think what limited American media NBA exposurethat he's had, especially the final days
leading up to the draft lottery.Who was he embedded with espns Brian Windhorst
and Jonathan GIBBONI, who have nothad very kind things to say about the
Rockets the last couple of years.Now. I think a lot of their
comments have been unfair. I thinksome of them are misguided. But what

(21:30):
I think doesn't matter. Those arevery powerful people and if those narratives are
taking hold, it can have adetrimental effect to the point where, yeah,
it does look a little bit embarrassingwhen you know the best prospect of
the generation clearly did not want toplay for you and was relieved when you
didn't get the one pick. Again, I don't think it necessarily the Rockets
did anything wrong. I think someof it is circumstantial, but I do

(21:52):
think that it's reflective at least inpart of the power of these narratives.
And so again I sort of understandwhy the Rockets didn't actively push back in
the past because people would just say, while you're terrible, the product from
the floor speaks for itself. Andif the coach is the problem, then
why is he here? And it'ssort of a no win situation. But

(22:17):
now that you do know what you'redoing, you're aggressively trying to win,
you have a proven head coach thatyou trusted Ema Ujoka, Then in my
opinion, it is more important froma front office standpoint. We've talked in
the past about making Rafel more availableto sort of deal with these things hands
on. I think this was agood first step to that. It's not

(22:37):
that I'm putting one hundred percent stockin it and saying, hey, case
clothes, he said this, sothis is the way it's going to be.
No, I'm not saying that,but I do think that going forward,
it's a good idea to have Rafelmore available. And whereas in the
past there was the incent that tosort of just stay quiet and take the
lamps because it's part of tanking andyou're going to be bad no matter what.
So just grin and Barrett, well, now that you're trying when as

(23:00):
part of this transition, then yeah, you can start to sort of counter
those narratives a bit more. Andso that's what you know, Rafell aggressively
pushing back, at least to anextent, it represented that to me,
did you have a similar response,Yes, and no. So I think
it is important that he that he'smaking himself more available. I'm just not
sure if this availability in specific washim making himself more available than the usual.

(23:27):
I will say he was a littlebit more ollective and more transparent with
his answers compared to when something similarhappened a last year, which I think
it was a food bank or ofsome sort if I can remember the clip
correctly. I'm don't quote me onthat. So I think the fact that
the mediavailability existed is something that Ithink was planned and that already happened last

(23:48):
So I don't think it's became gemit broke. I mean the nature of
the responses, yeah, yeah,yeah, but the way he approached the
answers was different. And it's beendifferent ever since they made press conference.
And this ties into something else thatI wanted to say, which is I
think that having you made on themic versus Steven Salas, who are two

(24:08):
completely different approaches to h to justcommunication with the outside, and there are
two put different levels of credibility fromtheir pastut cooking experience. UM will help
with that as well. I thinkSteven sALS was was just a complete chaos
and the mike, you would saythings that don't make insense at all.
You you would question how did thisguy get here with some of the answers,

(24:33):
and I think you'd okay, ismuch more bold and more you know,
in control, and just brings morecredibility at least so far in what
I've heard from him. And theother thing that that I wanted to mention
is the they can with more orthe drafting for fit UM answer was very
very queer cut um As I said, I don't think that in reality is

(24:57):
as queer. It's as queer cutas that. I think as much as
we on Twitter and we as fansand analysts want to be one idealistic and
say, oh oh, free agencycannot impact what you're doing in the draft,
and that in theory sounds good andI agree with it. I think

(25:21):
in reality, when you have alot of options on the table and you're
and you're looking at the entire puzzle, in the entire puzzle, suddenly that
I think also happens in the socialmedia, which is we look at each
decision in a vacuum without knowing what'sgoing to happen next, as to when
a lot of the I'm sure Stoneand his team is looking at a lot

(25:41):
of um decisions in a row thatthey know they can pull the trigger on.
And when you're looking at a complete, complete team, the complete building
of a team when it comes tofree agency, draft, and then the
other like, it's not just thosedecisions are not just who you're going to
draft poor and are just bringing gamesharden or not, which is would pose

(26:03):
onto a lot of social media.The decisions are, Okay, who are
you going to bring in it?For what's happening with twenty, what's happening
with Guruba, just Christophers that Washington, etc. Where are the trades at
the consuls interis that you have availablefor you around the margins? Where are
you going to do with a littlebit of extra cap space after Harder,
what are you going to do withthe room me level exception, after they're
bringing hard And if you do that, there's a lot of dominoes that are

(26:26):
going to fall. And I thinkin their you know, war room,
there are probably a lot of differentscenarios that have a lot of intertwined decisions
that make it so games Harden comingin or not may have a little bit
of an impact in with what happensto for but it's not if games Harden
comes in or not, it's thatif you're bringing James Harden, there's a
lot of subsequent decisions that are goingto happen that may bring more or less

(26:52):
value. Does bringing James hard thanin make it so you can get a
better free agency free agent with yourroom MLLE? Does bringing games short than
in me and that you can youknow, make a trade for a certain
player that otherwise it wouldn't really makesense for whatever reason. I think idealistically
trying to separate those two is good, and I agree with I think in
reality, I don't think they're completelyintertwined, but I think there is a

(27:15):
little bit of overlap in the decisionmaking. That being said, I think
it's still important for him to comeout and say it. Just not saying
anything makes it so social media andthe media in general can go in whichever
decision that they want to go exactly, which is what's happened in the past.
But the culture arguments and so onand so forth. Yeah, and

(27:37):
even though his words not, youknow, gospel, at the same time
he is that he am right,and his words are going to from a
common casual NBA fan going up topeople that play more attemption, his word
truth or not is going to holda lot more weight than whatever social media
theory is out there. And ifhe is what's not out there, then

(28:00):
the next best thing is the socialmedia feeling that people are going to run
with. And to your point onit being situational, we should also point
out so his last two availabilities,he's not really available during the season except
for market events like if they makea trade. They did talk after moving
were at the deadline this year,but at the end of the season it

(28:21):
was after letting Steven Silas go,and of course all the big picture or
at least most of them discussions atthat point were sort of tabled because they
need to hire the coach first,so everything was about getting the coaching plays,
and then after you have the rightcoach, we'll talk more about how
the draft is going to play out, how free agency fits into it,
because of course, you don't wantto do anything that's out of alignment with

(28:41):
the coach you bring in and whathe believes in doing philosophically. So everything
at that availability or ninety percent ofit was about the coach. And then
the next availability a couple of weekslater, when they actually hired Ujoka and
Tilvin Purtita was a late addition tothe press conference. Look, you had
those three guys on the table withStone own for Tita and Ujoka. But

(29:02):
even as someone that was in thatbuilding as a media member, you know,
I wanted to ask Raffell questions,but I couldn't really justify it because
of course there's a limited amount oftime. There's only so many questions each
of us can ask, and Ujokaand Tullman are way bigger priorities because Tolman's
only available once or twice a year. If he's available to certain things you
would have to ask from an ownershipperspective. And then with Emay, of

(29:26):
course, he's a new coach,he is the headliner, and it's also
a church availability since the scandal inBoston, and so we was talking about
that. So even though Raffel wasavailable in that late April press conference,
he basically just sat off to theside and said nothing. And so it
almost felt like a waste, youknow what I mean, And that he's
on the stage and there's all thisstuff that you want to ask him,
but you can't really justify asking thatwhen there's obviously higher priorities at that time

(29:51):
for Ujoka and for Tita. Doesthat make sense? Yeah? It does,
And it kind of like I think, I think people will to complete
a or what the local media does, but at the end of the day,
you guys are in opposition to askthe questions, but you're not going
to go It's the same thing asyou're not going to go into a postgame
pressor and ask even Salas about Idon't know a record and getting traded because

(30:14):
that has nothing to do. That'snot what the point of the presser is.
But there's one more point that Iwanted to hit on about what the
Draft and Trade Agency need to beindependent and the idealistic a project with there
has I think in this idealistic worldsometimes people say they should be independent of
each other, but I actually thinkthat the draft should be dependent not the

(30:36):
draft. The free agency should bedependent on the draft. Yes, free
agency happens after the drafting, andyou look at the calendar and that's how
it looks. But when you lookat it from your realistic standpoint, most
of these deals are being talked aboutweeks in trams in the difference between the
drafting and free agency is just aweek I think, or maybe even less
than that myself. Before you gointo that, there's been some discussion about

(30:57):
the NBA potentially moving the draft afterfree agency the way or at least the
first labor free agency the way theNFL does. Would you be in support
of that given that dynamic, Iwould not not at all want you want
the draft first, yes, becauseI think that's that's a I think it
doesn't want to give those of thediscussions. Okay, it doesn't want the

(31:18):
same as the NFL, because maybemaybe it would change the dynamic and it
would start working like the NFL.But right now in BAF agency does not
work like the NFL, where youhave guys take in the MLB as well,
Guys take their time with their decisionsin frigency. In the NBA,
the first two first two to threedays, everything's defined and then there's a
lot of there's a couple of guysthat get left over for later on,

(31:41):
but for the most part, it'sit's a rush to grab all the money
that's available from teams, and thenthe guys that don't move quickly will end
up in a minimum deal just tostay in the league. Yeah, I
just wanted to ask because it's soawkward. As you mentioned, there's one
hundred percent conversations going on all aroundthe league between teams and free agents and

(32:01):
their agency representation right now, andso in theory, that's part of the
incentive to consider moving the draft inthe calendar. But it's not a full
approof solution. It's just something thatI've seen tossed out because people are sort
of annoyed by the fact that,hey, we know all these conversations are
happening, even though they're not legal. It's just the weak can't do anything
about it. But I don't eventhink that's going to change them. But

(32:22):
I think I think what's going tohappen because of that, and since the
frequency Indian based such a rush orrost against the time, I think what's
going to happen is teams are goingto make decisions. We're going to prioritize
free agency and make the decisions beforethe draft, and then that's going to
be classes when when the draft actuallyhappens. I don't think it's going to

(32:44):
change. I think even if freeagency started before the draft, you would
still have conversations happening before the startof moratorium. So it's not going to
change much. It might diminish ita little bit, but I don't think
it's going to take you much.And the last thing I wanted to make
about what Stone said on the onthe availability is I was happy to know

(33:07):
or to have it confirmed that freeagency decision and everything, trades and everything
are going to be ran by emailyou Joka to kind of let the what
they're trying to do, because whatyou don't want happening, especially now that
they're going to move into more ofa focus on winning, is you don't
want to happen. What you don'twant to happen. What happened with seven

(33:29):
Silence where they were drafting best playeravailable. But Salas didn't know what to
do with these players, I meansilence clearly did not know what to do
with oppreaching good And so you don'twant that disconnected toween your coaching stepping in
front office where they're bringing in goodplayers, but then they don't fit into
what you're coaching staff is trying todo, which is not a good Which
is not a bad thing when you'rerebuilding, because when you're rebuilding, different

(33:51):
office is completely separate and they haveyou know, they should have independent and
bringing the best talent available and thecoachings have to be able to adapt that.
But since circles is stuff wasn't ableto adapt to that, it's really
kind of stopped making sense why someof the decisions were being taken. But
it makes me more confident. Notthat I that I don't trust Stone,

(34:13):
but I like kind of the philosophythat Bought that you look at had in
Boston, with the switchability, withthe versatility in defensive schemes, with the
prioritization of spacing, which Stiles justdidn't have at all. And so I
like that you look is playing isplaying a big role in that, And
I like that this is now apartnership and that we're not going to see

(34:36):
that disconnect between the Woking stuff andthe front office and the place they're trying
to bring in. Yeah, andagain, I think that's why a lot
of the narratives spun out of controlin the past, is that there wasn't
that alignment. The answer to alot of the questions that were out there
about the culture and the day today environment and development was that the front
office did not really trust the coachingstaff. They weren't bought in on the

(35:00):
same vision, but for a lotof reasons, they didn't want to go
to the interim route that wasn't goingto be much of a solution at all
in the grand scheme, and ifthey tried to actively answer some of the
questions that were out there, itwould come across that they were throwing their
head coach under the bus, eventhough they weren't wanting to fire him.
At that time. It was justa no win situation, so they just

(35:21):
sort of kept their mouth shut.Whereas now that there is alignment, you
can be a bit more transparent becausethere should be that trust, There should
be the confidence that the vision ofthe front office is being reflected in the
coaching staff and vice versa. Asyou were saying, So, I think
the idea is that now you canstart to be a lot more transparent,
a lot more open because there isthat alignment you're not trying to sort of

(35:43):
hide or protect, which I thinkwas a big factor this past season that
you know, they knew there wasthis hard decision that was going to have
to be made, this parting ofways with the head coach and most of
the staff after the year. Theyweren't willing to do it at that time.
So we got some breaking news.Oh, what's happening. Sam Cassell
has agreed to turn the Boston Celticscoaching staff and then kilm Massova. Well,

(36:07):
yeah, it makes sense. Andwe're gonna get to this because most
of Boston's coaching staff, headlined byBen Sullivan, is joining Email Ujoka in
Houston. Yeah, we're gonna getinto that. I got a lot of
but one thing I want to note. This is actually really interesting because that's
a lateral move. I've heard thatSam Cassell and James Harden are very close.
That is very very interesting to me. Sadi left Philly. Yeah for

(36:31):
a lateral move. Now, it'sa lateral move. Now maybe they're offering
him more money. Also, well, I guess I should say lateral because
doctor versus out. So it wasn'ta given that Nick Nurse would retain him.
However, it's another piece of evidence. It's one of those things,
just as when they hired Nurse.You point out, Yeah, they could

(36:52):
have gone all in on James andsaid, hey, we're hiring your coach
with Mike d'ntoni, and they hiredNick Nurse. I don't think it necessarily
tie Harden, but it's not youknow, a super pro, hardened higher
They could have gone on their wayto retain Sam Cassell and they didn't do
that, So that's committing. Soso there's a few things there. See
sign with Boston, and I don'teven know if he was if he was

(37:14):
in conversations with Houston, but thefact that he didn't come to Houston is
I mean, it's not even atyou. It's not not only is I'm
not a big it's not even adeal, but it's just a thought that
that crossed my mind. The secondthing is it makes sense from a career
path perspective, because I think Kilmasowas kind of on the hot seat,
not on the hot seat, buthe's not the guy with the most job

(37:34):
security in the world right now,so that there may be a pathway there
to Sam Cassell finally getting his firsthead coach opportunity. I don't know how
how the money lines up, butI think just from a career perspective,
that makes sense. But it isinteresting that he is leaving Philly expective because
I mean, Philly just hired NickNurse. He's not going to be in
the hot seat for a while,especially because I'm sure he's one of the

(37:58):
highest pace head coaches as opposed toMASSOULAVUAI don't think, Yeah, I see
what you're getting at, like aNate McMillan Lloyd Pierce type dynamic to where
Missouli gets forced out and cassella isa cleaner path to the head job in
Boston too. Yeah, exactly,But I think that's actually a good segue.
I did want to talk about theUdoka vision comments, but we can
table that since we're on assistance now. Look, we've heard the Rockets linked

(38:21):
to a number of Boston assistants,and now that the Celtics season is over,
they can actually close deals with someof these guys, and the way
it typically works is there's no formalannouncement until the entire staff is set.
But it looks like they have dealswith Garrett Jackson, Mike Moser, Aaron
Miles has been mentioned as a strongpossibility, and most notably Ben Sullivan.
Look, I still think the Rocketswant a big name lead assistant. We

(38:47):
know they were in the market forJames Barrego, right yep, and they
since then signed as the leaders withNew Orleans, and that may be the
similar dynamic because obviously has a tonof job security in Houston, whereas the
Pelicans, that's a situation similar toBoston, where with high expectations and a

(39:07):
team that's underachieved a bit in recentyears relative to those expectations, there's absolutely
a world in which the head coachcould get fired and then all of a
sudden there's an easy internal promotion thatthat may have been a factor there as
well, similar to the sell andthe Celtics, because if you're not getting
a head job, then maybe youwant to go to somewhere that gives you

(39:29):
a clean path to be the internalreplacement. If somebody with high expectations makes
a move during the season, sothat could be a factor there as well.
He will not be the guy inHouston, but I still think it's
telling that the Rockets were after himat all, and perhaps there are some
other big names that Judoka could goafter in the near future to sort of
be that lead assistant. But Ido think that the guys he's poaching from

(39:53):
Boston it's interesting on a few levels. First off, it speaks all the
ownership that the Rockets are willing topay because Boston is a really good and
so to leave a good team ina good market for a team that's been
one of the worst last couple ofyears tilln FTIDA is having to invest.
These hirres are not coming cheaply,and so these guys clearly believe in Udoka,
even after a year with Missoula inwhich the Celtics it was a disappointing

(40:14):
loss in Game seven of the conferencefinals, but still a very strong season.
So it shows again a real beliefin what Udoka was building, and
of course there willing to spend onthe part of TILMN Fortida and ownership of
the Rocket. But beyond that,look they're finalizing the staff. I could
not be more pleased with investment ina shooting coach like Ben Sullivan, who

(40:37):
most recently has worked with Derek White, who's really taken a big jump the
last couple of years, but goingback to his Milwaukee days, excuse me,
and that was where he worked withJannis to improve him to a more
passable level on the perimeter. BenSullivan is one of those guys that looked
at it on the NBA as ashooting guru, and that's something the Rockets

(40:59):
to last couple of years just havenot have. John Lucas has tried his
best, but I don't think anyoneis calling John Lucas a shot doctor.
This is an actual shooting guru,Ben Sullivan, and that is so important
for this young team where there areso many questions that come down to simply
can these guys shoot at a highenough clip to be viable? Tari in

(41:22):
the threes? Can Jabari Smith Juniorget back to the elite shooting guy he
was projected to be out of Auburn. Can all Prensungoon get to a passable
level from three point range? Yougo up and down the roster. Other
than Kevin Porter Jr. Everyone hasquestions about shooting to some degree for the
Rockets to invest in that position.Again, I'm not saying the staff is

(41:43):
set. I do suspect that,based on the rumored Barrego interest, that
they'll look into adding perhaps one morebig name if one comes available. But
to actually get a shooting guru onstaff, which they haven't really had the
last couple of years, to me, that's one of the most Portland pieces
that a young rebuilding team can have, especially because you know Oklahoma City brought

(42:05):
in what's the name of the okaySee guy that they brought in last summer
keep England Oh yeah, yeah,up yeah, and that paid immedia dividends,
didn't They have several guys that tooka decent jump this year. I
think Giddea was one of them.I think the point guard that was supposed
to be sharp fire that came fromGod three Jones, I think it's a
three Jones, would it? Iconfuse? There's two small point guards from

(42:29):
the same draft in the second roundthat ys confused. One of them is
the one that's on the spurs andthe second one is the one that went
thunder. I can look at it. Yeah, the larger point though,
Look, the assistants hired today arerumored to be hired again. None of
these announcements are official. They checka lot of boxes. I think clearly
they had to believe in what hemade Uyoka is building. They had to

(42:51):
be impressed by the commitment from rathfaelStone to build a contending roster. They
had to be paid enough money byTulman for Tita, and in this case
to bring in a guy with shootingexpertise. It shows you that they get
it so well. I'm not gonnasay it's the greatest coaching staff ever.
To me, these are all prettypromising signs that they get it when it
comes to sort of the vision forhow to maximize the development of this young

(43:15):
corp moving forward, and perhaps away that they haven't under Steven Silence the
last couple of years. Yeah,I definitely agree with that. I think
best Sullivan's obviously the great get Iwas actually talking to someone who worked with
Boston and their summer League team whenUdoka was there, and they just had
a raving review about Sullivan, notonly as a shooting coach, but just

(43:37):
as a basketball mind. They actuallythought that Sollivan would be the one to
get the head coaching job when Udokaleft. When the news first broke out,
to me, I think that's,you know, a pretty big endorsement,
just a great basketball basketball mine incommand respect. They also had something
to say about the system coach thatis not confirmed or is not you know,

(44:00):
there's been some differing, deferring reportswhen it comes to Aaron Miles,
Mike Moser and the other guy thatI'm forgetting right now that also tracks from
the Celtics, Yeah exact, andhe goes back to the Spurs, but
that you're okay, he's a videoguy. Yeah exactly. Um, And
so I think currently I think accordingto the leaders reports, I think Mike

(44:22):
Mike Moser, Been Sullivan and Garretttax And are the ones that are confirmed.
Aaron Miles is currently I think aquestion mark. But about about Aaron
Miles, he's supposedly like he stadiumsguy. He was, he was a
Point Garden college, he had acareer there. Uh, he's more of
a player development guy. So whoknows what's going to happen with that.
But other than that, I thinkI think Royal Ivy is going to be

(44:45):
more of the defensive minded guy forgotabout Ivy. Yeah, and I've heard
that players are on the league,well, Royal Ivy. Well, that's
good to know he was previously withBrooklyn. I'm not going to Yeah,
and you know, obviously James Hardenwas on that team with Ivy and Joka
during that twenty twenty to twenty twentyone year. There's also some other targets

(45:07):
from Brooklyn that the Rockets could goafter, either in free agency or you
know, room exceptional. We talkedabout Seth Curry types. That's, of
course on top of the obvious guyswhen you look at their roster and sort
of an unstable situation. So yeah, the Brooklyn connection definitely can't hurt.
Yeah, exactly. And so Ithink he's going to be more of the
defensive guy I think, and absolutelyhe played too. Yeah, I'm not

(45:28):
gonna say he was the defensive guyin Brooklyn. He might might have been
one of them. I think thedefensive guy was actually Jack Vaughn, who
was girlently die at cook Um.But then other than that, there was
a report by UM Sports Illustrated theHouston the Houston guy. I always forget
his name, no, no,no disrespect. Yeah, I'm sorry,

(45:50):
Yeah, he one more Ivy tidbit, Bruce Brown, who's a free agent
this summer currently playing the Nuggets inthe NBA Finals. That's someone the Rockets
could go after. Has gone outof his way and multiple interview us that
I've read to praise Ivy in thework that he did to sort of elevate
his game during those year series withthe Nets. So I want to throw
in Bruce Brown into the mix aswell as far as guys with broken connections
that Ivy could be perhaps a bitof a factor for Sorry for interrupting,

(46:13):
Cody Davis. Yeah good, that'sreally to my years because I love the
possibility of Bruce Brown coming to theRockets and perfect type of player. I
think Katie Martin is not going tobe here for long, and I think
Bruce Brown fills that role a lotbetter. The better bringing to the defender.
The shooting I think is comparable,although although Bruce Brown is a better

(46:34):
shooter this year, but then againlow simple size, so who knows um,
but I think he's and he hasthe same instinct of cutting off ball
and repositioning it and just being aconnected that Katley Martin also has, that
that IQ that that being said,I wouldn't get to the report by Cody
Davis that John Lucas and Delphata arestill in the running to stay with the

(46:58):
Rockets as a seive coaches, andnow that James Barrego is no longer an
option, I could see of theFADA being more of the offensive coach I
think he did. He did agreat job offensively with namely guards in the
tie, the guys that we sent, the great job with Bishop Knicks while
he was there the first time around. He did a great job with Jess

(47:22):
Christopher, the smallest tint he wasthere. If you guys don't remember less,
Risopher was struggling with with the mainteam. He went down for a
week or two. He killed itthen and he came back and he looked
like a completely different different player.Kevin Barter Junior looked like a god in
several league as well. So I'llbe excited about that as an offensive coach
if he was dependent on whether Boregocame or not. Yeah, And by

(47:45):
the way, maybe John Lucas endsup being your big name better And now
that there's no Borego, if there'sno big external splash to be the lead
assistant. Perhaps Lucas, who weknow has a reward with the players and
gets the best ad of them.From a culture standpoint, there were some
questions about just how good he isin terms of his shooting work. Maybe
Lucas makes more sense now that youwouldn't be relying on him nearly as much

(48:07):
for the shooting component now that youhave been Solivan. Yeah, and the
last and don't want to make aboutit without maintaining any names. I mean,
I think it's a pretty big unitementon what the one is willing to
spend that not only Wee getting madedog one of the top targets on the
market, even though he didn't geta Montie Williams level contract, I mean
thank after that, because yeah,not that I get desperation. That's an

(48:29):
outlier. That's the Rudy Gobert ofcoaching hire from the standpoint of it's just
completely being disproportionate with value and perhapsthe off the entire market. Yeah,
the Rockets played paid a pretty pennyor Joka, even if it's not in
the ballpark of money. That's justan outlier. Desperation higher. Yeah,
and so just to say that,you mean you look at a pretty large

(48:50):
coaching stuff with Boston, and rightnow we're looking at Royal, Ivy Bem
Sullivan, Mike Moser, Garrett Jackson'skind of confirmed names. Confirmed names.
That's for at Aaron Miles as apossibility, that's five John Wocas, and
of the tife they stay, that'sseven assistant coaches that that's so long went,
yeah, yeah, you may haveof course, yeah, I used
the full two rows. I mean, I think somebody pointed out that the

(49:12):
staff in Boston had ten or elevenguys on it, so yeah, there
may be even more. And thatdoes speak on some of them to a
willingness to actually invest in pay thoseguys too. Yeah, and then this
normally be not only to talk aboutTillman being willing to spend that money,
also that the guy that I wastalking to that was with Boston for the
Summer League a couple of years agoalso talked about or was talking to me

(49:34):
about people really underrate the impact ofassistant coaches when it comes to day to
day operations and the individual player developmentbecause the head coach is in charge of
rotations in sarch of more big picturestuff, but the guy in the and
they do have singular interactions with playersor when they feel this necessarily when they
see something. It's more of athey're taking care of the global thing and

(49:57):
if they notice something specific, they'llgo address it. But assistant coaches are
the guys are with the players theylike day to day. They are doing
the drills with them that are workingin on their development with them, the
small stuff, right, and that'sthat's key. And having a really good
coaching assistant like coaching stuff beyond yourhead coach. It's a huge deal.

(50:21):
And I was really jealous of theThunder when they got keep England last year,
and I mean I it since thenpulled up the stats. I mean
I said it was shooting forty onepercent from three on five attempts. Kevin
Williams was mostly an ancient in collegeforty percent. There is basically up to
forty percent. Aaron Wiggams, whois fined by by them, up to

(50:42):
thirty nine percent. Pokusevski is upto thirty seven percent, and that across
the roster other than kick guilt tothe Alexander, but that's really a volat
out number because he's not really goodwhich shoot volume prison at least in his
most efficient form, but Josh Gideonspecific made a huge jump. And so

(51:02):
by silving someone that I'm really excitedabout and the other guys as well,
I mean having it. I thinkcoaching staff is something you don't have a
cellar gap on, and so youshould invest in. Yeah, you can't
have too many assistants. Yeah,And it ties in well with one of
Raffel's other comments. I should mentionthat all of these comments that were reacting

(51:24):
to you go to the logger lineon Twitter and I've retweeted them. We're
focusing largely on the rofel ones becauseagain he was sort of under asked for
obvious reasons at the previous availability,and of course he's also the guy in
charge of talking about really the offseasonstrategy when we talk about the drafting,
free agency and this critical time period. But he also talked in a different

(51:45):
answer about the importance of watching thetwenty twenty three playoffs and learning from it,
which Kevin Porter Junior and Jabari SmithJunior said they were obviously they talked
about the little things are trying todevelop as far as players. Shabari's doing
yoga boxing, trying to get moreflexible, working on as wall handling,
Kevin Porter Junior wants to get backto where he was as a rookie with
finishing. Those are just the littleday to day things that we should be

(52:08):
expecting from players. But Raphael alsotalks about philosophically watching these teams and saying
that, look, the game ischanging, it's evolving some of these things
they see in the playoffs, includingjust how hard you have to play or
things we need to be all aboutstarting game one next year. And when
you look at the two teams inthe NBA Finals, the Nuggets and the

(52:28):
Heat, I mean, they're differentstories in terms of takeaways for the Rockets
philosophically, Denver, I think certainlyyou can make an argument for how they
have developed Nicola Yokich, there's somesimilarities with what the Rockets might can do
with Shingoon. That comparison has beenthrown out at nauseum. But the other
part this ties in with the assistanceand the overall coaching step. Look at
the heat and culture. I knowpeople are sick of hearing it, but
heat culture is real. How hardthey play on a day to day basis

(52:52):
is a competitive environment, especially whenit gets to the playoffs and they can
really sort of unload the club everysingle time and just play and leave it
all on the floor. The factthat the Heat are just so disciplined and
don't have those lapses, that givesthem a competitive advantage even in situations where
their talent isn't as good. Andso of course Eric Spoelstra has cultivated that

(53:15):
overall culture and that's the role ofa head coach like Judoka and Houston,
but there's a whole staff of assistance, including you know, Chris Quinn has
gotten a ton of hype this offseason. He's gotten a number of interviews as
someone that's really shown a lot ofpromise. And it's the assistance like Chris
Quinn with the Heat who talk tothese players on a day to day basis
besides just the exes and those andthe technique they keep the players bought in.

(53:38):
You know, the head coach isthe guy who does the big picture
things, but it's the assistant coacheswho do much more of the day to
day and that's very important in creatingthat type of special culture, which as
we've seen with the Heat, thattype of culture can be a huge competitive
advantage even in situations where your talentmight be a little bit lacking. Yeah,
I think that makes a lot ofsense. And speaking of the parallels

(54:01):
and what ra Fastone mentioned about whatto learn from the two teams that are
in the finals, I think otherpeople took that and said, oh,
we're going to buy intereschange gun becausehe's like yok And I'll get into that
in a little bit, But thefirst take away that I get from these
playoffs is that listen, in theyears that I follow the NBA, I've
never seen as many teams that aretalented and should have a possibility of winning,

(54:24):
sometimes our favorites. I've never seenteams give up as much as I've
seen this year. I think it'snot now that the least so talented that
it's not just about getting the besttalent. It's about motivating that talent so
that they don't completely fallow apart atthe smallest adversity. I think what you

(54:45):
can one of the things that youcan take away from the heat is that
up until the finals, and evenin the first game of the finals,
the second game is happening as wespeak, they have not lost a single
game by more than ten points.Other than the one lost they had in
the first round series against the Bucksin Game two. I think that's insane,

(55:05):
and I think that that really incomparison to other teams, is really
eye opening because the Heat just don'tget blown out. They don't have the
best offense. They play a reallygrady, hard, forced type of offense.
Its defensively the same thing, butone thing that you don't see is
they're really hard to They do likean They're like an annoying little team that

(55:29):
you just can't put away. AndI think that's huge moving forward in them
and how you want your players tohave because we saw this. I mean
the Sixers quit, Let's be honest, the Sixers Game seven, they quit
that it wasn't going their way.Games starts slipping away and they never came
back. The Celtics, I meanthat series was almost over in four and

(55:51):
by some miracle, they want gamegame, they want, they want game
game four. And then Jimmy Butterstruggled for a couple of games. They
had Kate Winson get injured, andthey managed to claw it back all the
way to seven. But then inGame seven it wasn't close. Teams start
slipping away and they give up theSuns the same thing. I mean,

(56:14):
they went out cutting because Kad andDevin Booker were you know, trying to
play against two versus five, butit reached a point where they just couldn't
hang onto the game. The Kingsthemselves they managed to do. The Warriors
got to seven, right, butin game seven, the Kings let the
game slip away and it wasn't close. On this track, I think a

(56:36):
big takeaway take from the Heat isthat nowadays nearly all of the teams are
really talented, the ones that makeit to the playoffs. And you can
make the argument that the Saltings weremuch more talented than the Heat, and
I mean it might opinion they wereeven much more talented than the Sixers.
But when it comes down to it, we're at a point where both teams

(56:58):
in any spot in the playoffs aregoing to You're really talented and talented enough
that if web sized talent is elevated, they can put up a fight and
they can even sweep a series.And so even though you might be the
more talented team by by a lot, you still need to be on top
of your game because it's really easyto get upset and that that goes show

(57:21):
parity and everything. But that wasmy first day going and I think he
made Udogo as someone that can helpus in that regard moving forward. And
then when we talk about the nuggetsto meet with an, it's more of
a team building philosophy thing when itcomes to the Schengun stuff. And I'm
going to come across this maybe alittle bit of a hater, but I

(57:43):
don't think it kind of helps theargument for Chengoon. But then it's the
same thing as Okay, Chengoon andYogi are kind of the same archetype,
but Yoki is like the top pointone percent of their archetype. And when
you're an all time great, thenarchtypes don't matter. Right at that point,

(58:06):
it doesn't matter. And if youcan equate that to any archetype,
I mean, if you have let'slook at the most ridiculous example of this.
If you have a Darvis per timetype but just a pure sharp huter,
right, if this guy was asharp shooter but was an all time
great version of it, Like thisguy shoots I don't know, sixty percent

(58:27):
from three on fifteen attempts. Again, but at that point, man,
I mean, you can live withwhatever defense he is bringing it to the
table, because I mean, hethis guy is like an all time great
shooter and he's the point one percenttop of the archetype. I don't think
the yokas having success and in allthe props to him because he has an
all time great and what he's doingis absolutely nuts, helps or hurts Ingun's

(58:52):
case long term, because I mean, if your argument is that if san
Gun can we can read yok itslevels, than it works. I mean
I could have given that to youbefore the playoffs started. It's it's not
really a hot time. I mean, if Jegon can become a point one
percent all time great art version ofhis arch type, sure, I mean,

(59:13):
the more credit to him, butthat's not any more likely than Jaylen
Green become the point one percent ofhis art type and becoming Michael Jordan right,
or Kobe Bryant or the or theor Tabari Smith Junior hitting the point
one percent of his arch type andbecoming Kevin Durant or something like that,
or Usman Garuba hitting the point onepercent of his arch type and becoming I

(59:36):
don't know, Chris Bosh or somethinglike that. Right. So from a
from a Schengoon argument perspective, Idon't really see the late kind of the
connection there, but I do thinkthat there's some take always to take from
the Negget steam building strategy that Iwant to touch. There's getting role players
right, and something that I've thatI've learned to value more is that being

(01:00:00):
a three in D wing might notbe enough. And in specific for the
Nuggets case, what helps them somuch and what makes them so unguardable is
that their three inde wings are notRobert Covington types where really good defender,
really high Q defensively but offensively.Robert Cuvington, if you give him fifteen

(01:00:21):
shots, fifteen open three pointers andhe's shooting twenty five percent, he's going
to take the sixteenth and the seventeenthand the eighteenth shot even though he's clearly
not making them, and that's goingto shoot you out of games sometimes.
The difference with the Nuggets is thatthe role players that they went and got
Aaron Gordon, Bruce Brown, evenKCP, we saw that on Fullers Play

(01:00:42):
Gamest, the Rockets, even MichaelBarrs Junior. I mean, he's not
really a role player. Is morehe's reading that star level. But the
main role players that they got,the ones that play the most minutes,
are not just very you know,I'm not going to call them keep versions
or very they're not very strict versionsof their times as far as a three
in Europe pay. Part of thereason why the offense then gets offense works

(01:01:05):
so much is that if Aaron Gord, if you replace Aaron Gordon with Robert
Covington, there will be a gameof series or two games the series,
or you're introducing a lot of variantsto games where you sag off Robert Covington
and he's going to settle for thatthree every single time it's open or not,
and some of those and some ofthose games he's not going to have
it, and he's gonna miss fifteenten ten threes, let's called ten threes

(01:01:29):
and sto two out of the game, and you have a chance to the
other team. Even though the Nuggetshave an all time great offense, if
you find a failure in the system, then you're going to lose games,
and that gives you more chances oflosing games. Another example of a rope
payer, that's the firsatile Jeff Greenthat I would I would say so as
well. The problem is you can'treally live with we can't really sag off

(01:01:52):
of Ayder, Aaron Gordon or AiryGordon and hope that he falls into the
fallacy of shooting out of threes andbeing called on night is because he's a
smarter player than that. He's notgoing to settle every single time. He's
going to attack the clothes out andhe has yet and he has he has
the IQ in the passing too.Once he gets to the rim, it's
not like he's going to make theright read if if health defense comes and

(01:02:15):
Bruce Brown is another example of this. These are all guys that are although
are three in d wings, theyhave that you know in Archipe people call
it like the plus where they havea little bit of playmaking and they're gonna
have they have the decision making toadapt on the flight and make the correct
reads off of the advantages that NicoYoki is going to create. And then
at the same time they have thisweird tandem where sims Yogi is at the

(01:02:39):
five as the engine and he's alsosuch a gifted score as well as passer.
If you stick your best big mandefender on Yokit then you have no
one to help or to be aneffective helper like elsewhere. Otherwise the ball's
going to find sway. It's wayback to Yoka and on the score because
he has some different type of switch. So it's their roster were so well

(01:03:01):
built and they found the perfect playerswith that extra you know, IQ and
playmaking to make them clift ass andguardbo as they look against the heat and
I don't know how the game it'sgoing right out, but as they've looked
all playoffs, and even with theLakers, who had a d one of
the best thing man definders in theleague, it doesn't matter because there's no

(01:03:23):
one very specific thing that you cantarget to get an advantage. Because all
of these guys are smart with whatwith the signing they make with the ball.
There's no dannual house in there that'sgonna force a dunk, force a
step back three or you know,people will always say if you have an
open shot, shooting and keep shootingit, Well, that's only true if

(01:03:44):
you extend the sample size to somethingmuch too harder, where eventually it's going
to even add in something as smallas the playoffs series that can be over
in four games. Just keep shooting, as we saw with Rocks and when
they went over twenty seven. Althoughwith all the gag that's like we're refereeing
in such a sample size, itis very much possible that you just keep
tuning. You don't you don't getthe REVERTI the reversion to the mean that

(01:04:10):
you're expecting when coaches they just keepputing if you're rope and so having played,
are able to do something. Andthis is it might take away in
something that I've learned because I usedto favor lower cost just three and the
guys with Spain the premium that andAaron Gordon is going to cost to get
the polaymaking in the ID that comeswith it. I think that's the big

(01:04:30):
takeaway, and it's a big reasonwhy I really like Bruce Brown for the
Rockets moving forward. I think away to tie all this together and put
a bow on it. We gotsidetracked a little bit in our earlier discussion
about Rafael and Email's comments on Fridaybecause there was the breaking news about Cassell
going from the Sixers to the Netsas an assistance, So we talked more
about the assistance and overall coaching philosophies. But look, when we're talking about

(01:04:53):
the Nuggets and the and the Heat, two things that really say it out
to me. Certainly, there's thetalent, but it's also organizational alignment we
talked about in the context of Miamithe Heat culture. I think from top
to bottom of the organizations, fromownership to the front office to the coaching
staff. These are two teams thatare not built solely on superstars. Napoli

(01:05:15):
Yokich is the best player in theleague. Let's not go crazy about that.
But there is very much a coherentorganizational philosophy from the top on down
that maximizes those two teams. Everyoneis moving, you know, all the
ducks are moving in the same row. And this is not a situation where
it's just the overall talent overcoming otherdeficiencies. These are very much successful systems.

(01:05:36):
And so that ties back into thequote that Urfels said about Emay's vision,
and you touched on this earlier,but I want to underscore just how
important this is and also add alittle bit of context. There are some
people wondering if it might tie intothe James Harden pursuit of lack or lack
of one the comment from our film, we need to understand his vision.
We need a lot of help fromEmay in terms of the direction he wants

(01:05:59):
this team to go. Then it'son us to do the work to get
the right guy to fit that.It doesn't make any sense to go get
a great player whose strengths lay ina style of basketball that Emay doesn't particularly
want to play. We're spending alot of time together to make sure we're
completely on the same page. I'mjust trying to understand how we're going to
play and how he envisions the growthmoving forward. That's on both of us
to make sure we're on the samepage. Again. If you want to

(01:06:19):
see those full interviews, just goto the Logger line on Twitter. I
retweeted all of those videos. Youshould be able to find them pretty easily.
Look, some people wondered about JamesHarden's style of play and ball dominance.
It's possible, but I would alsosay that with ima Udoka, we're
still sort of learning. I thoughtit one of those really good interviews.
I forget if it was the JonathanFagan one with the Chronicle or Kelly Echo

(01:06:41):
of the Athletic, but one ofhis interviews, he talked about, you
know, he comes from the greattop of its tree in San Antonio,
and everybody talks about the beautiful gameand how much they move the ball during
the early twenty tens, and thatchampionship run in twenty fourteen, which was
legendary, But some of that,as emay pointed out, was simply personnel.
The Spurs at that point didn't reallyhave a guy whose advantage was going
out and getting buckets in one onone situations. Kawhi Leonard was on the

(01:07:04):
roster, but Kawhi had not brokenout superstar status or anything close to it
in twenty fourteen. So they playedthat way because it maximized the group that
they had in Boston. It wasa veteran corps that played differently, and
of course Jays and Tatum and JalnBrown are able to get those types of
tough buckets that some of the Spursguys weren't. So they played a different

(01:07:24):
style. And so I think withemay we're still sort of learning. His
sample as a head coach is relativelysmall, so in terms of what is
emay u joke a ball, He'stalked about some principles, but he's also
talked about adapting it to the personnel, and Rafel said then his other answer
that we talked about earlier best playeravailable. So it's a combination. It's
not just a rigid XS and Ostyle. It's marrying that to your first

(01:07:45):
nel. You want to have,certainly a championship level talent. And again,
beyond all of those factors, we'restill learning about Emay as well.
It's not as if his sample asa head coach is that long. So
I would say, just as anoverall sort of cautionary tale, keeping mine
that you know, it's not likethe Rockets hired someone who has a set
system with twenty years of experienced runningit, like say Mike D'Antoni, And

(01:08:05):
even D'Antoni modified his system a bitto sort of muck it up and go
more isolation heavy because it worked outa lot better in terms of how those
matchups would play against the Warriors,and twenty nineteen, even D'Antoni, who
was very rigid with the system,adapted itself. So again I wouldn't necessarily
say that we know one hundred percentwhat Emay's system is and exactly how this

(01:08:26):
is going to play. There's moreflexibility than I think some people think the
other part of it. Look Emayhas a relationship with James Harden. Perhaps
he wants James based on that experiencetogether in Brooklyn. It's worth noting that
that first year was when James wasreally on his best behavior. That was
before things started going sideways with regardsto Kyrie and the vaccine and everything that

(01:08:47):
went on with Steve Nash first comingunder a question with his job security in
twenty twenty two, which is theyear that at the deadline Harden forced his
way out to Philly. That wasnot when Yudoka was there. Judoka was
there the previous year when things wentvery well and they were probably, you
know, a shoe size from winningthe championship. If Kevin Durant's shoe is
one size smaller, he's behind theline with that last second shot against the

(01:09:09):
Bucks. In my opinion, thosewere clearly the two best teams, and
in that case the Nets probably winthe title of that shot is a thirty
and set of a two, andthey win the game right there instead of
going on to overtime where they lose. And at that point that's a championship
team. And we've heard recently BruceBrown, who you just mentioned Polow went
out of his way and when theyinterviews before the finals talk about what a
great leader that Harden was with thatteam and really a tone setter. Again,

(01:09:31):
I would not necessarily say that,well, because Harden's ball dominant,
that quote means that he's not goingto be a fit here. Now,
there's also an argument you can makethat Udoka saw Harden at his best as
both the player and especially as aleader, as someone that helped develop a
lot of the younger guys, includingBruce Brown. So my point, it's
not necessarily to endorse signing him basedon that. It's just to show that

(01:09:56):
and to illustrate that you could makearguments in both directions. I think the
larger point that Raffel was trying toget at with those comments is that this
is not going to be like theStephen Silas years where there's a lack of
alignment. They know now that tomaximize this group, they need to be
on the same page. They trustthis coach. Again, that's part of
why the Rockets went out and paidbig money or a proven head coach like

(01:10:19):
Emai Ujoka. It's someone that theybelieve they can trust to handle the day
to day along with those assistants,the developing of that young core and implementing
the right systems and processes and cultureand so on and so forth. I
think the larger point that raffel wastrying to get at, and I've heard
this privately as well, whether theydo or don't pursue Harden, it's going

(01:10:40):
to be a decision that it's notmade by one singular entity. It won't
be made just by rafel Stone,it won't be made just by ownership.
It won't be made just by thehead coach. It will be a combination
of everyone. They will take everyone'sinput into consideration, and so in this
case, again they are willing totrust the head coach. They are willing

(01:11:00):
to be deferential, and I dothink that's a change from the last couple
of years. I think that's ledto some of the cultural issues and some
of the questions about the alignment thatwe're completely valid the last couple of years,
and it was becoming obvious that StevenSilos wasn't going to be the long
term guy for this team. Tome, it was less about Hardened individually
and more about just a broader statementthat look, Emay is going to be

(01:11:21):
a part of this process. Werealize that alignment is a big part of
what makes teams like the Nuggets andHeat where they are, and we're going
to involve him in this process andwe're not going to do anything that goes
against what he believes in. Andso I just think that it was meant
less about any one individual situation,hardened or otherwise, and more just a

(01:11:43):
general statement about how, look,going forward, the head coach is going
to be a part of these discussions, and in my opinion, he should
be. Right. Yeah, Ithink so. I think you hit on
ahead when you said that part ofthe part of what makes the Heat Coulter
Heat Golter is the that's mostra islest in the NBA, of course,
but he's been there for a while. Same thing with the Nights. I

(01:12:05):
think nowadays, more and more coachesget fired really quickly, and I think
that culture that you're talking about andthat everyone wants to build is something that
comes from just not giving up ona guy at the first stumble. Right.
I think it's big that you lookis not going to be one hundred

(01:12:27):
and successful at every stage. Ithink it's important to have patience and at
the first stumble, not the manthat he's fired, not put pressure on
the team for him to be fired. I think that's what's going to happen,
especially because of the timing in ourREvil that he comes in at.
There's going to be some level offlexibility, in some level of leeway given

(01:12:48):
to him or we aren't because thisis a rebuilding team. And then a
ten year, a ten win improvementwould be a really good improvement. And
then if it's a twenty win improvementin two years, that's going to be
a really big improvement as well.If you make the play and that's a
big improvement if you make the playoffs, even even more so. And so
there are a few years when hegets to come in and set the culture

(01:13:09):
and set the standards that he wantthat he wants to uphold before he's actually
were actually in the like in thefire of the playoffs in the Okay,
now this is do or die,and this is when coaches like Doc Rivers
and Monster Williams and all of theseguys after these teams go all in the
windows. Socials so short that teamsdon't really can't really afford to trust set

(01:13:33):
coaches to work through more than oneor two years of failing, because when
you're all in guys are aging,you don't really have the assets to really
build a team. Further So,since Rockets are in an earlier estate and
he gets two three years, Iwould say to really set his system and

(01:13:53):
to set his standards and to buildthat culture that when we actually get to
a point where the heat are nowwhere you're trying to actually win, you've
had piece that have been here along time that can uphold that culture.
And hopefully we can get to apoint where we have where Rockets culture is
a thing that The other thing thatI would mention is it's pretty telling that

(01:14:18):
the names that the Rockets are supposedto be tied with um when it comes
to free agents, Camp Arms andBruce Brown, Robert Lopez. Yeah,
sorry, Brook Lopez. There's onemore name that I'm forgetting even Dyven Brooks

(01:14:38):
to some extent, These are guysare plug and play into any system and
that can adapt. Yeah. Yeah, And I think that's one of the
big things that we saw we didOka is that I think there's there's there's
a couple of principles with the switchabilityuh and which is defensive vacument and then
for space and within that, whichis a lot of what the Celtics have

(01:15:02):
within that. He then made adjustments, especially on the defensive scheme when they
went with Robert Williams as that theysafety. Yeah, the ronging big he
can make the adjustments when the piecesare first Telena for intimate accustments, and
I think it signals alignment with himand his philosophy for what we've him so
far. That most of the namesthat we are hearing are those versus steal

(01:15:26):
names. We are not hearing FredVanVleet, who is an undersized card that's
you know, good at defense now, but he's not exactly just a plug
and play guy. The guys likeI mean, Derek Ross another guy like
that. He's a Fragian nicola Usevitis another guy that's not going to be
plug and play. Yes, someof these guys coincide with roles that we
already have filled, right, butI think it's interesting that we haven't been

(01:15:48):
tied to guys like that. EvenDraymond Greene, who is you know,
really versatile defender offensively, there's justone that I think there's just one system
he can put here, right.He can't splace the four or it's not
a role man he can and he'sa screener right on offense mostly he's going
to be a short role passer andhe's going to be, you know,
run all of those dribble handoffs.That's the always tell you can play and

(01:16:11):
not not trying to take it.Take a dream on great. I think
he's an all time great, butI don't think he is an all time
great. If he starts soft inany other team of than the Warriors,
I would agree with that um.And so we are not tied to a
name like that so far, althoughthat's the crazy rumor that the Rumber the
Rockets follow with him on Twitter,So that must need sucking, is it?
Whatever Christian would another another guy likethat that's going to be has a
clear hole in his game, Rocketsare not tied to it. So a

(01:16:34):
lot of the overall the overarching pointis that the names were tied too.
There's something that makes me happy becausethe last thing you want to do is
still a lot of money into aguy that's not going to while you don't
have an identity that's not going tofit into what your possible identity might be.
Most of the guys that we've thatwe are linked to our guys that

(01:16:55):
fit into any system. And fora team lacking lacking an identity, that's
really good. And I think thatit also signals that it is an alignment
with you May Boca is thinking.And then with Harden, a big part
of it just comes down to whatwe've said before about the overall value.
It's not just about the xs andknows of how he fits in. It's
also about, Look, it's anopportunity to get a guy of that stature

(01:17:16):
that typically isn't there for a rebuildinggroup at this stage. And so part
of the equation with Harden, andthis goes back into what he May said
in his interview about, you know, adapting to your personnel. It's just
an overall value advantage. Even ifHarden isn't you know, plug and play.
Obviously Harden has a certain way thathe plays. At the same point,
you also have to be adaptable tothe overall system. And so if

(01:17:38):
adding a player of a certain talentis clearly for the betterment of your overall
group, then it makes sense totweak your system to account for that.
And so to me, it's justlike Harden, I guess the way I
would summon up to put a bowon it. Harden is so overwhelming in
terms of his talent relative to whatyou have. Now that that's someone you
would say, hey, I'm justgoing to adjust my scheme to fit the

(01:17:59):
talent. Is the other guys thataren't at that level, they need to
be more plug and play right.Yeah. And and not only that,
not only is the downcap so muchbigger compared to weather free alients, it's
also that he fits a knee wedon't have currently, and we don't know
how the rust's going to go.Because you know why, I'm kind of
sold or not on the on theJam Sarton return. We don't have a

(01:18:21):
guy to play the role at JamesHarden's going to play when he comes here.
And with the Celtics, Ema Ludokahad to shoot or the guy that
doesn't really play that role into thatrole in Marcus Smart. And then the
year later they went and tried toget and God Malcolm Brogden, who not
really a true point guard, butit's close and any you can kind of

(01:18:44):
play him, in not playing mycommedi type of thing. It's the combination
of he's so much better than allthe alternatives with he's not going to get
in the way of anybody, andhe's going to help enhance the rest of
the guys because still don't being toopeople a lot more off ball than than
he was, and he expressed thathe wanted more structure. As far as
Smith attestating his career, Sorry,but he is an off ball player for

(01:19:06):
the most part. It's not reallycapable of creating by himself just yet.
And even oppren chenggu and I thinkother people say he's not a great fit
with James, but when you lookat what James was doing in Philly,
a lot of it James doesn't havethe first cup of the pick and role
to play with a with a rimrunning big as assistance reliably as he used
to. A lot of their pickand role was and be setting the screen

(01:19:28):
and being so much of a threatthat all teams sort of had to do
was fast to him on the shortrole and let him make a decision whether
it was to score or to kickout. And the alpert Chigum's going to
fit perfectly into that role. Andwe're not going to we're not going to
need if James Autten comes back,of course, we're not going to need
to do as much of the overthe top post pass because if if you

(01:19:53):
have oppresting him setting the screen,that's a really easy way to get him
inside with the ball and let himuse all of the downs creating advantage just
the So I actually don't really thinkdefensively, of course Kingland and Harden it's
not going to be great, Butthen jingleand Dylan Greens also not going to
be great defensively. So I thinkoffensively they really fit together, really real
well. Yea. And the lastthing I'll say as we wind down,

(01:20:15):
there is some penalty in terms oftrust to lying in these types of settings.
So we spent the last hour andan early hour and a half talking
about these interviews that Rafael and EmayGabe. Look, while not everything is
going to be one hundred percent truth, serum, Look, these guys aren't
going to bold face lie because ifthat's the case, then look, the

(01:20:36):
media is not going to be astrusting of you in the fan base moan
in the future, and so thereare consequences to that. And so again
it's not meant to say that everythingis one percent truth, but they are
trying to offer some transparency. Imean, certainly it makes sense for the
reasons we've been outlying, but alsothey're incentivized to do it, and so
it's important to keep in mind thatit's not like we're just blindly making the
assumption that these things, well thatmust be the case just because the Rockets

(01:20:59):
are saying them. You know,they're saying them, and they make sense,
and you know a place to sortof tie it all together. He
made Udoka and one of his commentshe talks about wanting to pursue the Boston
assistance but not being able to doit prior to last week, of course
because the Celtics are still in theplayoffs. Well, he made those comments
well Friday at the community event,and he also met with the media briefly
Thursday at Minute May Park when hethrew out the first pitch at the Astro's

(01:21:21):
Angels game, the ceremonial one.Then on Saturday, according to Mike Scotto
of Hoop's Height, the Rockets hadthe deal with at least the first three
of Ben Sullivan, Garrett Jackson,and Mike Moser we'll see what happens with
Aaron Miles through the rumored to beinterested in as well. I don't think
that at least recording the Scotto isquite done just yet. But the point
is Udoka said it in his mediaand then within a day or two it

(01:21:43):
actually happened and that deal did getto the finish line. So again,
you know, there's certainly alignment.Tullman and ownership were willing to pay what
it costs to get those guys outof a good situation in Boston. One
of the Celtic speed writers in TheAthletic made that point last week that they
weren't going to come cheaply, especiallydo a bad team like Houston. They
would need some sort of upgrade financiallyand roll are both well. The Rockets
made it happen. But beyond that, I think it gives greedence to the

(01:22:04):
fact that, look, they aretrying to be transparent email Judoka told us
in those interviews that's what they're tryingto do, and the next day it
actually got done. So if youwant to believe besides just the obvious that
look, it's what they're saying,it sounds good if you're questioning, well,
is this really the truth behind closeddoors? Look, we've got some
evidence the move on the Celtics assistance. That's exactly what Emay said. So

(01:22:25):
hopefully if you know, if youbuy that that was the truth, and
clearly it was, then you knowthese other things we've been talking about,
hopefully those play out along similar linesas well, because at least in terms
of philosophically and what the Rockets aretrying to build and do with this all
important offseason. Again, I thoughtthe answers from Raffella Emay were very strong.
It feels like they have a goodcontrol on what they want to do

(01:22:45):
and it should be a very funmonth ahead as they try to actually accomplish
it and get it done with thedrafted free agency anyway. With that,
we'll finally wrap up again. We'llhave more shows in the near future breaking
down some specific targets both the draftand free agency. We'll also have some
guests. Wanted to do this onea bit differently because again we don't have
that many actual opportunities to speak tothe Rockets in the off season since there

(01:23:09):
aren't gabs, there aren't any officialavailabilities. Felt like we should do a
show just based on what they saidand talk a bit more big picture philosophy
as it contains to team building,what they're trying to do, and I
guess in this case talking more aboutthe macro of twenty three offseason and where
it fits in the rebuild. We'llget back into the micro and from specific
targets, who they draft, whothey sign in free agency. We'll do

(01:23:30):
that more in the coming days andweeks. Anyway, with that, we
will adjourn for Paalo Alves, I'mBen Dubos. If you want more from
us before our next episode, thebest place to get it is on Twitter.
Polos on there at Palo Alves,NBA, I'm on there at Ben
Dubos and this show. The loggerline is on there, simply at the
logger line. If you go there, you can find our link tree and
that's got links to all of ourdistributors Apple, Google, Spotify, and

(01:23:54):
also links to our friends and partnersover at car Back Brewing, Sports Talks,
seven ninety Rockets where you can accesstheir content as well. Just hit
up the links that are available throughthe link tree at the logger line.
Also, you have to go tothe logger line on Twitter, Twitter,
dot com slash to logger Line.If you're not an active user, you
can find the videos of rafel Stonemaking the comments that we've been discussing over
the last eighty to ninety minutes ifyou want to hear them for yourself.

(01:24:17):
All right, with those floods complete, we'll wrap up for Paulo. I'm
Ben, Thanks so always for listening, and please come back soon for another
new episode of the logger Line.

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