Colin is joined by Jason Timpf, host of “Hoops Tonight”, to break down the OKC Thunder’s win over the Pacers in Game 7 of the NBA Finals!
They start with their biggest takeaways from the series and point to OKC’s GM, roster construction, elite defense and #1 star in SGA… bottom line… the best team won (4:00). They discuss why the loss of Tyrese Halliburton was too much to overcome for the Pacers (7:45), and why the OKC defense is top 5 all-time (10:15).
They break down SGA’s game and explain why he is one of the best midrange scorers the league has ever seen (12:00), and discuss why OKC actually underachieved for the majority of the postseason and should only get better (25:00).
They discuss the rash of season ending injuries to star players and Colin argues against seven game playoff series, and why the injury to Halliburton was such a buzzkill (32:00).
They react to Kevin Durant being traded to the Houston Rockets, explain why Houston won the trade, and make their predictions for how each team will benefit (47:00). Finally, they break down where it all went wrong for the Suns and left their roster noncompetitive (1:01:00).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Speaker 2 (00:56):
All right, welcome to HOOS today, you're at the volume.
Happy sun to everybody. You guys are having a great weekend.
Well today, I woke up this morning thinking we're going
to crown a new NBA champion today. It's been a
long time since we've had a game seven of the
NBA Finals, and it got off to a little bit
of a bummer start as Tyre's Halliburton goes down with
what we can only assume is an achilles injury. The
(01:17):
eighth achilles tear in the NBA this season, a very
bizarre trend, Colin and I are going to spend some
time talking about that towards the tail end of the
show tonight. But the Oklahoma City Thunder are the twenty
twenty five NBA champions. Colin, what's your big takeaway from
the NBA Finals this year?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, our NFL champion Philadelphia is about roster construction and
the best GM, and you have a clear number one,
and that's Oklahoma City. Whereas the modern games about scoring
and wings and high flying, they're about their general manager,
their depth, their youth, their legs, and a kind of
(01:56):
non vertical leading score. Who goes against hype for the
NBA stars we fall in love with And you know
I've been saying this on FS one. I've been saying
this for months. Is the NBA now because of the
Aprons and the CBA is going to be like the NFL.
We're going to talk more about general managers. You can't
stack players and I think, you know, they were the
(02:18):
best team all season. The home court ended up mattering
against Indie and Denver, you know, really formidable opponents that
had some older star players. But you know, I think
in the end, you know, when you look back at
this season, you'll go, well, they were a dominant regular
season team. They weren't a great road team in the playoffs,
(02:40):
but they were dominant at home and that's where they
were crowned. And you know, that's why the regular season
does matter. It may not look like the playoffs, but
Oklahoma City, I don't think it's winning this thing on
the road, and so they earned it. And you know,
the injuries, gutting, but that stuff happens. I mean, Kd's
(03:02):
gone down in big games. I mean it happens. So
and I think over the course of this season, Okase,
he was the best team.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, I'm not interested in any talk about asterisks. For
the most part, in NBA history, almost every championship has
some injury you can point to that impacted things in
one way or another. And ultimately, I think Oklahoma City
did this to healthy teams along the way too. They played.
They played some really good teams. Colin they went through
the best, the best player in the world, and Nicola
Jokic and played him into the first three consecutive bad
(03:31):
game stretch I've literally ever seen him play. They took
that Minnesota team that was kicking everybody's butt and they
handled them like easily. And then the Pacers, who have
been the kind of the enigma of this of this
playoff run, every time they needed to beat them, they
were able to contain them and keep them under control.
You know, we talked after Game five, like there is
(03:51):
this test that you have to pass to beat the
Oklahoma City Thunder, and it's that when the shit hits
the fan and there's a few minutes left in a
big game where the series is hanging in the balance,
they are going to tighten the screws defensively. In every
single series, the opposing team fell apart, whether it was
Denver at multiple spots in Game four in the fourth quarter,
(04:14):
in Game five in the fourth quarter, the entirety of
Game seven. What we saw in big spots against Minnesota,
specifically down the stretch of Game four. In this series,
in Game four, down the stretch, they just strangle the
life out of Indiana. In Game five, it's ninety five
ninety three off of a Siakam offensive rebound three. It's
a two point game. You're like, oh man, this could
go either way. Literally turns the Pacers over four consecutive
(04:38):
times just with the strength of their defense. And then
again tonight. You know, admirable effort from the Pacers there
in that first half to keep things competitive. TJ McConnell,
I'll always remember the way he played in this series.
What a remarkable performance from him. But they came out
the gates in that third quarter and they tightened the
screws and they turned the Pacers over and they got
(04:58):
out in transition. We finished this game with twenty three
forced turnovers in thirty two points off of turnovers. That's
the star of this team.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I said this the other day to you, is the
one thing you have to have against OKAC is two
elite ball handlers. So when Halliburton goes down, they play
with guts and toughness and length, but in the end
they just turnovers. There's no Haliburton if you don't have
elite ball handlers against this team. I mean, we've fallen
(05:28):
in love with a three and D in the wings.
Well o case, he's got a lot of them. But
there is a way to combat that is to have
guys that can create space that you can't trap and
double them. And TJ. McCall's excellent. But again, when Halliburton
got hurt the first time, again they show great courage
and gusto, but there's just limitations on that. You can
(05:48):
only play down your most important players so long. So
you know, there was that I think it was like
at one point there was a I wrote it down here.
There was a huge nineteen to two Oklahoma City run.
A lot of that kickstarted by defense, and so they
just feast on teams, and you know what, you know what,
they're a little bit like they're like a fighter who
(06:09):
sends his blood. Like, okay, see, they're not dominant enough
offensively to just blow you out against great teams, against
Denver and Indy. They can score, they have runs, but
when they sense blood, somebody's in foul, trouble, somebody's hurt
your start. You know, they have a matchup advantage. Man.
(06:30):
They play downhill, they play downhill fast, and you look
up and you're like, well, this was a four point game.
Now it's a thirteen point game. And you know that's
what great teams do. Their run looks different than a
Jordan explosion or a Shaq Kobe explosion, but nonetheless it's
a burst, and everybody looks different, you know. I mean,
(06:52):
so I listen all my notes here, I look through.
I kept waiting for the inevitable run, and it happened,
and it was you know, it was off turnovers, and
I just kind of felt like I saw an SRR stat.
I think that's what it's called, an SRR stat about Indiana.
(07:12):
And they said, if Indiana wins, they'll be the worst
champion since the nineteen seventy eight Washington Bullets, which, by
the way, I can name the entire roster because it
was when I fell in love with basketball. But the
truth was is if Indiana one, it was probably our
weakest champion. Though I love them, and okay, s wins.
At least we can hang this boy, that's a top
(07:33):
five defensive team all time. We can hang something that
sounds like a champion. NBA's leading score, deepest team in years,
all time, top five defense that sounds like a champion,
does it not?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Absolutely? Their defense is one of the great defenses that
has ever played in the NBA like the that was
true in the metrics, and all we can do to
tie that case together is the metrics showed in the
regular season, and then what do you do in the
playoffs against the competition you faced. This was a Pacers
offense that was lighting everybody up, Colin and they got
(08:08):
strangled every single time it mattered. Ye, Nikola Jokic is
literally the best offensive player I've ever watched. He and
they had him under control in every pivotal moment of
that series. That is the type of defense that we watched.
You know, this Thunder offense was frustrating. Sometimes we're gonna
talk about Shaye in a few minutes, Like Shae was
great every time he needed to be great, but there
(08:29):
were some downsides here. He had a game in this
series where had zero assists. They had games where they'd
moved the ball poorly, where they were out of rhythm,
out of flow. They're young players, young players against elite
playoff defense. That's going to take some time to figure out.
And there's no doubt that if the Thunder are going
to have sustained success in this league, they're going to
have to figure out some things offensively to be better
(08:50):
year after year after year. But their defense right now
is elite hold the trophy defense, and that's what came
through for them again today.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
I was really interested this if Chet Holmgren could deliver finally,
and I thought in the second half it was like, Okay,
Chet Holmgren played with more confidence. That was my only question.
I thought, Man, if this is a three point game
and there's four minutes left, okay, see Home Favorite could
get really tight and they left no doubt. But I
thought Homegroun and Jay Dubb both in the second half,
(09:19):
played well in that run. So and that was one
of my concerns is that I've never seen a young
team like this young win a championship. And you know,
I was thinking about this as you were talking about SJ. SGA. Usually,
let's say, for instance, Shaq wasn't hitting his free throws,
he still had all time power. If Kobe and MJ
(09:42):
weren't hitting their jumper, they could go vertical Magic Johnson
struggling from the field. He just had a size advantage.
He'd back you down. Sga is not a vertical player.
So if he's off and he's off center, he doesn't
have power. He doesn't have speed he doesn't have. He's
(10:04):
not he's not you know, he's strong for his size.
He's not a vertical player. He is a mid range
maven like he is all time stuff. And so you
know I've said before is he's an all time scorer.
But he doesn't feel like he's in the Curry class
where you're like, wow, I've never seen a human like Caitlin.
(10:24):
Clark's got some of that. You're like, I've never seen that, right, Sga,
I've seen it, Alex English, Keiki Vandaway. He's just better
at it. And so I do think you know, when
you when you play better teams and you can get
off his game. He has a very centralized game. He's
tremendous at it. But I think we both admit he
needs a friendly whistle, and because he's so gifted, he
(10:47):
almost always gets it. It's not like the hardened whistle,
which is like and it feels illegal. That's not it.
It's like that feels unstoppable. Is different than it feels illegal.
But you know he is. I love him. I love
his maturity. He's just a smart, hard working kid. He's
impossible not to root for. I know everybody doesn't like
(11:08):
you know, all the flopping. But I have a hard
time not rooting for guys who are more mature than
their age, with completely refined games where I can see
the work ethic, I can see the years you've toiled
in a gym. That to me as a grinder, like,
I love that kind of basketball, and I think that's
(11:30):
what he embodies.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, I think it's fascinating because at his age, you know,
being twenty six, he's kind of in this weird role
that's reminiscent of some of the roles that you've seen
guys like Tom Brady and Lebron be in, where like
they're the elder statesman in the locker room. He's the
elder statesman in the locker room at twenty six years old.
It's such a bizarre dynamic. But to like, for if
(11:53):
he was an immature player at twenty six, this whole
thing could fall apart because of the youth in that
locker room, and he just brings that veteran presence. This
is the perfect time for us to get into the
Microsoft bit and I'm gonna kick it back to you,
So welcome to course correction, brought to you guys by Microsoft.
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business decision makers today are under immense pressure to get
(12:17):
things right. They must rise to the occasion, turning challenges
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the expertise to say, bring it on. Our player of
the Week this week is the twenty twenty five NBA
Finals MVP. It is now official. Shay gil Jess Alexander Colin.
I was thinking about a cool way to frame this segment,
and all I could think about is, like you mentioned
with the Washington Bullets roster. So everything for me, as
(13:01):
I'm talking about all time greats is kind of played
through this lens of when I started really following the
league closely, which for me was in the like around
two thousand and five, two thousand and six. You've been
watching a lot of NBA basketball for a really long time,
You've seen a lot of stars come through the league,
as young players leave the league as vets. What has
been like your first impression of Shake Gill just Alexander
(13:24):
as a playoff performer in the NBA.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
That if I go back to Kareem and the skyhook,
which was unstoppable, unblockable, and he mastered a shot. I'd
never seen a player master a shot when I first
watched Kareem, I can remember as a kid in my
backyard doing it like nobody else shot the hook, Michael
Jordan's mid range game. If you look at a lot
(13:49):
of the great players beyond just scores, they are the
master of their domain. Like I do what I do,
and they're all different looking. There was no there was
no other Kareem you know there. David Thompson was a
little Michael, but Michael's mid range game he had three
or four stock moves, you know, Tim Duncan. The great
(14:13):
fundamental is that a lot of the all time great players,
and I've said this about Mahomes can be boring. They
have mastered what they do frustratingly so. And I look
at a player who knows exactly what he is, but
more importantly, he knows what he's not and he leans
(14:35):
into all of his skills, and I think when you
watch them play, they can be uneven offensively. The greatest
thing I can say about SGA. He's their clear dominant
number one score. So when you play them, I don't
have to pick Tony Parker Duncan manu. It's like, stop
(14:55):
him and people can't. I that me is a fastball
Like that, you know you can beat them. And Jay
Dubb can have thirty two, or Check could have twenty four,
or Lou Dort hits five threes, but the numbers are
if he gets to the free throw line, they win.
Everybody in the league knows it and they can't stop him.
(15:18):
Like that is precision, That is mastering a craft, and
I just I just have great respect for that.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah. The Duncan comp is super fascinating to me because
Shay doesn't have some super demonstrative personality on the court.
He lacks a vertical element to his game. There's nothing
that like like people who play a lot of basketball,
Like I've stolen little bits of footwork and moves from
him that I think are useful moves for young players
to work on. He's brought his own little kind of
(15:48):
unique flare to the two guard position, just like Harden did,
just like Wade did, just like Kobe did, just like
MJ did. He's got his own like kind of unique
take on it. But similar to Duncan, even if there
wasn't that overwhelming optical appeal, it's just surgically effective. Yeah,
And no matter what happened in this playoff run, the
most reliable play type out there was give the ball
(16:10):
to Shay at the nail and he's probably going to
either draw foul or get to a mid range jump
shot that he can hit about fifty five percent of
the time. And you know, you know, Colin, it has
not been a perfect NBA Finals for him. He had
some rough games. But here's the thing. Just about every
star struggles in their first NBA finals. Lebron struggled in
his first two NBA finals. It is an impossible stage
(16:31):
to be to be I shouldn't say it'smpossible, it's a
very difficult stage to perform well in. And to his credit,
every single moment in this series where things could have
gone south. So like Game two, you're down one Zho,
you lose that game, series is probably over. Game four,
you're down to one. You lose, that game. Series is
probably over. Game five to two, you lose that game,
series is probably over. And Game seven series tied. If
(16:54):
you lose that game, obviously the series is over. In
every one of those games, I thought he was awesome.
This is actually a hilarious stat Colin. In the four
games where I thought he played poorly, which was Game one,
Game three, Game four, in game six, in those games
he combined for just nine assists. Okay, just nine in
those four games. In the other three games, in game two,
(17:17):
in game five, and in game seven, he had thirty
thirty assists. He averaged ten in those three games. And
if you watched those games from the start, just surgical
and precise with the way he was navigating the late
double teams, the help at the rim, making the kickouts
to three point shooters, the role man, whether it's Hartenstein
(17:38):
or Chet, I thought Shay, to his credit, every time
the team needed him to be great in the series,
he was great. And I think that is the stereotypical
Finals MVP performance. I thought he thoroughly deserved it, and
most players don't even do this well in their first
time around.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I don't think they're a great team. I think they
could be with age, Like next year they'll play and
watch next year, Okase, he won't be as dominant in
the regular season. They won't be that there's no need
to be. You're going to rest players. So next year
they'll win by an average of six at point eight,
not twelve point nine. Right, they'll try to build up.
(18:20):
You know, they're going to try to build up their
younger players, make their draft picks. They want to see
guys that can play, so it'll be interesting. But next
year they'll play like a champion, and so what you'll
see they'll be a little less uneven to the aforementioned
stats where you saw him bounce a little bit, you'll
probably get a little bit less than that. But it's
also something that Indiana was better defensively than people gave
(18:44):
him credit for. They could put a lot of length
on the floor. And I think we are going through
We've seen it now with multiple teams, and I was
fooled with Denver. I say it right now. The last
seven champions have been very good teams. Will this be
a great team. I'm fascinated to watch the Houston Rockets now. Right,
(19:04):
Like Shamgoon, I'm on Thompson, Kevin Durant. It's I want
to give Indiana credit because the Haliburton injury didn't matter.
But in the end, I still like Oklahoma City. I
think when I look at Oklahoma City's rough edges, it's
(19:26):
mostly homebrewn just needs another year to grow. Like one
of the roughest standards edges is God Holmbren did nothing tonight.
Jay Williams, J Dubb he can Jaleen Williams, he can
still be uneven. He can be a masterful. But I
think most of the things about them are a lot
of them are age specific because young players in big games,
(19:49):
especially on the road, aren't as good. And I just
so I look at them and I think, oh, they
have a chance to be really good next year, plays
a more confident team, and I think by the way
their coaching staff will grow, everybody will just get better.
But most of my criticisms are, Okay, see, are you
know you just didn't know game to game what you
(20:10):
got with chet Holmgren on the offensive end. When he
played well in the second half, It's like, Wow, that's
a really hard team to beat.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, this is a super interesting concept. I want to
get a little deeper into this. I do need. We're
going to wrap up Microsoft real quick. That's it for
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(20:39):
com Slash challengers to learn more. So, Colin, to your point,
I saw this stat before the game, Oklahoma City's net rating,
And remember net rating is just how much you outscore
your opponent. Just waited for pace per one hundred possessions.
Oklahoma City's net rating at home coming into tonight was
twenty one. They outscored teams by twenty one points per
(21:00):
one hundred possessions on the road negative six. And so
to your point, I actually agree with you. I thought
Oklahoma City kind of underachieved in this playoff run. They
should have put Denver away sooner, They should have put
Indiana away sooner. They were not, to me a great
offensive team for the majority of this playoff run, downright
(21:23):
ugly at various points. But as we look back through
NBA history, this is what I look at the Warriors.
As a corollary here, it's not just stars that tend
to struggle when they get to the finals the first
time teams do. The Celtics in twenty twenty two, they
really struggled. When they showed up in twenty twenty four,
they looked like a bunch of grown ups. They handled
it way better Golden State. Steph played so poorly in
(21:45):
twenty fifteen. I think he still deserved Finals MVP, but
he played so poorly in twenty fifteen, he didn't get
a single vote for Finals MVP. They were looking at
his teammate as somebody to give the vote to. They,
you know, at various points in that playoff run looked
a little shaky. They trailed to one to Memphis, they
trailed to one to Cleveland. It is very typical for
a team that dominates in the regular season but has
(22:06):
their first truly pressure filled, serious playoff run to be
a little bumpy. And so the point is is like, yeah,
this year they were a mediocre playoff offense that had
an elite playoff defense, which was enough to get them
over the top. But this team has by far the
most room for internal improvement year over year. I'd argue
(22:27):
in the entire NBA, like Jadub you talked about the oscillations.
The oscillations are classic young player stuff. I can't tell
you how many times anybody who spends any time coaching
young basketball players, you'll see them do something that works,
and you'll be a nice jock, and then they'll go
on the next possession and they'll do something completely different.
You're like, just do the same thing, do the same
thing that you just did, and it works. And then
(22:48):
when they make mistakes, they can repeat them. They struggle
to cut out mistakes and they struggle to repeat their
successes young players over time. You don't think Shay remembers
how he played those three bad in those four bad games.
He knows, he knows, he learned lessons in that in
that process, and Shay will be better. Shay will just
be more consistent. I believe Ja Dub can get substantially better.
(23:12):
Chet was a nightmare offensively in this postseason run. Nightmare.
And this is a guy who spends summers working out
with Kevin Durant, who has, like all he has all
NBA offensive potential, and so maybe they're not that team yet,
but they absolutely can get there. And all you have
to do in this era where nobody's winning multiple championships
(23:32):
is win multiple championships and pretty quickly you will like
establish yourself as one of the all time great teams.
I'm with you, they were. This was a rocky road,
but they got it done. If you were gonna beat
the Thunder, this was the year. This was the year
where they're young, they're thin. Chet has never been in
these big moments before, Like this was the year to
(23:52):
beat them and nobody could get it done. And it's
only gonna go up from here.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, but I I think Houston now has to be
considered very interesting. I contend Dallas when everybody's healthy now,
I don't know exactly where Kyrie is going to be.
I love their size and length. I also think, you know,
the NBA, especially out West, has some really good gms.
(24:18):
There's a lot of levers to pull here. And even
though and I've told you, I think draft picks are
going to matter more. Like everybody's banging on the suns today,
what if that number ten pick ends up being a really,
really good player and they have all these second round
picks and they can figure out a way to move
one of the other players and get another first round pick.
(24:40):
And I think Oklahoma City is going to be very
good for a very long time. But I still think
and we've seen it this year, these long playoff runs.
You see it with pitching staffs, and you see it
with teams. You keep going to seven games against Western
(25:01):
teams and in the finals, I don't like it. I
think you're going to have more injuries. I don't remember
a two year stretch where we had more key injuries
to star players. So you know, it's one of those things.
They've got the they've got a lot of depth, but
they do have one dependable score So keeping SGA healthy
(25:22):
and trying to develop second, third, and fourth scorers is
a real thing because they're inconsistent there. But it is.
You know, as I look at this playoff series, one
of my takeaways is, and I've been on this four years,
you do not need seven games in the first round,
like and you say, well, it could be a sweep.
You do not need four game sweeps. You could do it.
(25:44):
You could do it in five games or three games.
So I think OKAC is not good enough to be brittle,
injury riddled. I think healthy. You know, we always said
it in the NFL, it's attrition some of these playoffs.
Cleveland fell apart the year before New York fell apart,
and I think that's a lot of it. I think
(26:07):
the West is gonna be razor thin keep you know,
we all know San Antonio Is could take a jump.
So I think a lot of it is if we're
going to keep doing seven game series. Well, a lot
of it is who's healthy because a lot of guys
went to the floor this year.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And okay, Seer and yeah and okay, so he's super young,
and they just held up. They kind of physically wore
everybody down over the course of this playoffron because they
just have this deep rotation of young players. I agree
with you. For the record, I want to be clear,
like I do not think this Oklahoma City team is
the k D STEPH Warriors, Like that team felt borderline
(26:44):
unbeatable when they were healthy. Like I don't think this
Oklahoma City team is unbeatable. I just think we haven't
seen their ceiling yet. I think there's a level they
can get to, especially in the offensive end of the floor.
That we haven't seen yet, and I'm curious to see
where that ends up. Is does that end up being
a team that's just like all the other champions they
can't repeat, or does it end up being a team
that ends up making a mark on this air. But
(27:04):
the injuries thing is fascinating. So we have a shout
out to Josh. It gave us the stat before the show,
the Tyres Haliburton achilles tear. If that confirms to be
what it is, which is what it looked like. I
mean ABC made us watch it thirty times. I have
no idea what that was all about, but that would
be the eighth achilles tear in the NBA this year.
(27:25):
The previous season high was five. What do you make
of this? Like upticking these weird severe injuries in.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
The nbakay, the pace is faster, the players are better,
you know, it's it's a more physical postseason. It's just
more taxing on the bodies and these athletes now come
into the season in shape. You're just asking a lot.
I means, you know, like we can criticize Jamal Murray
of Denver sort of playing himself into shape and Luca,
(27:54):
but I think I think there are very few Lebron's
out there where the body just holds up. And I think,
I think guys, I think the level of play, the
level of pace, the level of physicality. These guys are
more like tightly tuned violins and it just doesn't take much.
And so I don't I just do listen to college
(28:15):
basketball doesn't have near the quality of talent of the NBA.
But why are their ratings often beating NBA playoff games?
Because of the urgency And we all know baseball you
have to have a longer series because such a big
component of baseball as starting pitching, so you know you're
setting up your pitching. That's part of the chess match
of baseball. But I don't think in basketball I need
(28:37):
a seven game series. Michael Jordan's big years, it was
a five gamer until you get to later rounds. And
I just think, I think Adam Silver and I'll give
Rob Manfred and Roger Goodell credit. I think our commissioners
see this. They're very open minded. Manford's made multiple big swings,
you know, which goes against baseball's history. Basketball's been, you know,
(29:00):
much more progressive, willing to experiment. League sometimes, you know,
the new ball. David Stern didn't even give the players
a heads up. But the Lee Adam Silver has made,
you know, the nd season tournament, I think you have
to really examine. And when I had him on, we
talked about this is that embrace college basketball. You know
how you know what Indi, Oklahoma City is to me.
(29:21):
We're all the G League guys. It's a lot of
guys who played a lot of years of college embrace
college basketball as an almost educational basketball tool, not the
school part. Just be what Tom is over two or
three years, like it matters. And also, you have to
really examine the value of these players. If you're signing
a seventy six billion dollar contract for eleven years, you
(29:43):
want your stars playing as long as they can. Halliburton's
injury made me sick to my stomach. The game didn't
feel the same after that injury. I was so fired
up all day. I got home early, I watched two
hours of the pregame show a sick to my stomach.
I'm like wow, and and again I just think you
can Money's not the problem. We got seventy six billion
(30:07):
coming Like, Money's not the issue. The owners are all billionaires.
Let's protect the players. There's no reason for seven game series.
In the first two rounds.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
The data is becoming undeniable and its the thing is
calling too. It keeps happening on the same play the
same like what they call it the negative step, where
you step backwards to try to launch yourself forwards. Essentially,
the body is fatiguing to the point that when they're
trying to explode forward at these points, the body's failing,
and it's happening at an increasingly high rate. And I
(30:38):
think it has a lot to do with just the
way the game has changed, in the sense that the
point at which players are engaging defenders, the point at
which players are being asked to contend with physicalities extended
substantially further away from the basket. You're facing ball pressure
and being guarded thirty thirty five feet from the basket
some of these times. I bet if you tracked an
(30:59):
individual player movement and just how often he runs around
the floor, just the straight line distance that he runs,
it's probably double what it was in the nineties in
a single game, just because of the pace, the amount
of ball in player movement that occurs on every single possession.
It's just a lot, and so to your point, like
I understand the TV aspect, and it's like, okay, we
(31:21):
got we get money from these games. We can't cut
games because it costs us money. If anything, we're trying
to add games. Here's the Ncason Tournament, here's the play
in tournament. You know they added that seventh game to
the first round after it used to be five. Like
they are adding inventory that the players can't handle. And
if you really dig into it and you actually start
to look at the way it affects the product, I'm
(31:42):
so glad you mentioned that.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Colin.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
This is the most excited I've vent for game so long.
And what a buzzkill to watch the best player on
the other team come out hit three straight three, start
talking a bunch of shit to the crowd. Yeah, next
thing you know, he's on in a heap on the ground.
It's a huge bummer. And like, these guys can't be
asked to play back to backs, these guys can't be
asked to play an additional two. It is June twenty second, Colin,
(32:07):
you know how this playoff runt has been going on.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Forever, Like it is a long stretch.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
They have to find a way to make this actually
achievable for these bodies. They are not holding up. And
my theory is that if you tweak it in a
way to where guys can hold up, it'll improve the
ratings just by virtue of everyone being present and bringing
the urgency due to the lower inventory.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Oh, it's just like baseball ratings when you shortened the
game create urgency. Everybody's I mean, I've done this ad nauseam.
Everybody's on their phones. People are I'm watching the game
tonight and I'm I'm literally in the first quarter. You know,
I'm sitting there watching the game and I'm writing some notes,
but I'm also reading an article on the finals as
(32:50):
I'm watching the finals. We're all distracted. So you know,
I just I think the reality is you just anytime
you can make a game feel like an event and
everybody wins. The players win, I win, you win, the
networks win. So it'll be interesting now because the NBA
is going to be on so many networks and it's
(33:10):
going to dilute some of the coverage. But you're going
to have to make it special. And by the way,
this is what Baseball did. Fox went to Baseball and said,
you guys have to create the home run Derby's your
highest rated non World Series moment, create more things like that.
So they did the Cornfield game. They put the Mets
in the Phillies, you know, overseas, and I watched all
(33:32):
of them. So I do think there's a certain apathy
in the regular season. I mean, even the league officiates
different in the postseason. They understand the urgency, so I
think they'll get it right. I think Adam will eventually
get it right. He's not a stubborn guy. I don't
think any of our commissioners are. And I think going
from seven games to five games, you may not think
(33:52):
it's a big deal, but I over the course it
could be four less, four or fewer playoff games. You know.
I feel like Halliburton's body just gave out tonight. It
just it was exhausted. He just pushed it and pushed
it and pushed it, and it just gave out.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Oh I think that's I think that's exactly what happened. Again,
it's becoming undeniable. Like there was a point where it
was like, oh, injuries are on the rise, but hey,
it's only been like two or three years. It might
be just anecdotal or too small of a sample size.
We're in an extended stretch here where like dudes are
breaking down every year in the playoffs. Remember last year,
it was like, oh, the calves are going on Donovan
Mitchell's foot, and now we're you know, and then oh,
(34:28):
like here come the Pacers and the tyres Haliburt and
gets it. It's like it's it's this like it's basically
turning into a war of attrition more than it's turning
into a battle of basketball. And that's what they have
to figure out because otherwise what you're going to see
is the deepest, youngest team win every year. I mean,
and that's more or less what we saw in the finals,
you know, you know, on so many different levels. Anyway, call,
(34:55):
we did get a new piece of news this morning.
Kevin Durant is now Houston Rocket and in return, the
Phoenix Suns are getting Jalen Green, a young player with
tons of potential but maddening downsides at this point. Dylan Brooks,
who I actually think is a very good role player
in the NBA.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, the tenth pick in this upcoming draft and five
second round picks. What was like your first impression. Well,
you heard my first impression. The Suns were three and seventeen.
When Katie didn't play this year, they stump it wasn't him.
He still get a bucket. If he's a leader in Houston,
it doesn't work. If you need a bucket in Houston,
(35:36):
it works. And I think today you have to look
at the Rockets.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
My take is he's going to give you about sixty
five games in the regular season. If we get two
healthy years, then everybody's going to watch Houston via for
the NBA Championship and feel like they dominated the trade.
It is, however, a very good draft, So Phoenix gets
the number two ten pick. Well, many people are theorizing
there are twelve players in this draft, the top twelve
(36:00):
players who are All Star potential. So if they stay
at ten or move up to six or eight, they're
getting a potentially really good player, probably with more than
one year in college. And again, I don't think anybody
will ever unlock Jalen Green, like I think he's the classic,
doesn't have a defined game, never probably will, but we
(36:23):
can't deny that he can drop thirty in any given moment,
that he's wildly talented. I don't like his game, but
I'm not going to deny that he's you know, long, twitchy, fast,
very good transition player. He's just and that there are
a lot of these guys in the NBA. You know,
they come in and they're talented, and maybe either they
(36:45):
don't work on their game but they don't get the
right coaching, or they just they probably have so much
talent from sixth grade on that they never really there's
no catalyst for them to like really burrow down on
a specialized you know, not everybody is just driven as MJ. Right,
I'm reading the Caitlin Clark book. I mean that girl's
(37:05):
she is MJ. She's obsessed, and it's just like, not
everybody's like that. Some people are just talented. And so
between Aman Thompson and Shangon is a beautiful touch. Kevin
Durant and a series of four or five very good
young players. And I think Adokah is a very good coach.
That's a real team. But I think it's easy to
(37:28):
look at Phoenix and just go, well, they got Green's productive.
Dylan Brooks is a very good small forward defender, can
give you seventeen a night. You got the number ten pick.
You got a bunch of second round picks, which you
can turn those into things. Phoenix wanted her a little
bit of a reboot. They got it. But people on
the internet are like, oh, Houston dominated. If Katie got
(37:50):
hurt in game thirty six, it wouldn't feel like Houston dominated. Right.
They're not bringing him there to be a foundational piece.
They're bringing him in to get a bucket like. He
will not be the leader is shen Goon will still
be this I think the centerpiece of the team, Aman
Thompson will be your best athlete and your defensive stopper.
He's going to be a bucket guy. So that's why
(38:13):
I think it works. He's still one of the top
twenty three, twenty six best players in the league. I
would argue. I mean, I was on the plane when
I was flying in today, I started writing down numbers
and I got to like twenty one. I'm like, he's
in that space. And again, Phoenix was terrible when he
(38:34):
didn't play. So that's my long winded answer on I
think Houston will look like they won the trade, but
Phoenix got assets too.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I think that what happened in Phoenix is a sign
that like, Yeah, KD, Steph Lebron, these guys they're not
floor razors anymore. At their age. They're not going to
turn a bad roster into a fifty win team the
way that twenty seven year old Nikola Jokic could. Like
that goes without saying I don't. I do think though,
that KD has been dramatically underrated because he's been on
(39:03):
such a poor roster. Yes, put this together for you, Colin.
This is three stats to show that Kevin Durant is
still one of the very best players in the NBA.
He was the best jump shooter in the world this year.
Among fifty eight players in the NBA to take at
least five hundred jump shots, KD was the only player
in the league to make over half of them, and
he in second place was Shay who made forty five percent.
And if you waited it for threes, his one point
(39:25):
two to two points per shot was still number one
in the NBA number two. He was the only player
in the NBA last year to make at least two
hundred pull up jump shots, meaning off the dribble, while
making more than half of them. In three he was
far and away the best isolation player in the world
last year, out of the ten players ran at least
two hundred and fifty ISOs. His one point one to
six points per possession including passes ranked number one in
(39:46):
the league, a full six points per one hundred possessions,
ahead of Shay who was in second place. I think
he is when it comes to refined offensive skill, he
is still one of the very best players in the league.
So I would put him in that sixth to fifteen range,
depending on and we haven't seen him play enough high
leverage basketball lately to see where he really lands in there,
but I think he's still in that range. And if
(40:08):
you ask me what the Rockets issue was, this is
a deep team with a load of big, physical athletes.
If you ask me what their one week at weakness was,
it's refined offensive skill. And that's what Kad comes into address.
We were just talking about this with Desmond Baine in
the Orlando Magic the other day. Yeah, when you take
a bunch of big athletes that kind of struggle with
spacing and you bring in a guy who like just
(40:30):
run him off a screen and he's automatically going to
pull two defenders out thirty feet from the basket and
unlocks a world of possibilities on the short role. A
men Thompson will be an amazing short role player. You
know that thing that Draymond Green did for Steph where
Steph would come off of Draymond to take two players
and then Draymond would go right down the middle of
the floor and make the play that broke the defense down.
(40:51):
That is a thing that A Men Thompson has been
unable to do in Houston because they just don't generate
many of those opportunities because none of their shooters are
good enough. KD will lock that part of him N
Thompson's game. It is not a perfect roster. I was
writing down all the names on the roster today. They're
a little light on ball handling, but that sort of
thing they can get. You know what's so funny, Colin.
I remember when the Sun signed Highest Jones last summer.
(41:14):
I was like, why you already have this redundancy of
all these dudes who can dribble and you're just not
athletic enough and you're not good enough on defense, Like
you need athletes and dudes that can like like beat
up people in these physical environments. You know who could
really use Highest Jones Houston, like, I think they should
call I think Kevin Duran should call up Highest tomorrow
and be like, hey, dude, come with me.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Yeah. I think I think Phoenix. I wish Phoenix would
have gotten actually a size. I think Phoenix needs size,
and I think Houston needs a ball handler. And our
takeaway when we watch Golden State beat Houston, we were like, God,
they're so bad in the half court offense. If you
stop shn good, it's over right, like it's just and
so you and I talked about this. He was a
perfect fit. I thought he worked in New York because
(41:56):
of Jalen Brunson's you know, has the ball a lot
in his hands. He would work with that offense, whereas
Cat can kind of. I always felt like Cat and
Brunson were playing you know, your turn, my turn, your turn,
my turn. Kd's kind of like, I'll sit in I
did it with Russ Westbrook. I'll sit in the corner.
Get it to me eventually. So I think he fits
really really well, and I think they have the coach.
(42:19):
I think again, it's so hard to judge Houston because
so much of their roster is young. I like feel
like everybody's in the fourth inning, Like, I mean, Amen
Thompson could take a big leap. I mean, shn Goon's
the only one where I look at him and I think,
oh that again. I use this word a lot. But
that's a defined and refined offensive game. He's got European touch,
(42:41):
like he has a game. A lot of their players,
I feel like they're just in early innings. I don't
know what they are so Aman Thompson's obviously defensively defined.
He's so strong and athletic and aggressive, but KD gives
them refinement. This is a second offensive player. I know
exactly what I'm getting. And that's that goes back to
(43:02):
a little Oklahoma city that one of the reasons Indiana
gave OKC problems. Syakam has an offensive half court game,
Halliburton does, TJ McConnell does, Like that's three guy. Even
Obi Toppen when he hits threes, You're like, he's athletic
and hit threes. They had guys that they Rick Carlile knew, Okay,
(43:23):
this is what this player does with Houston. Houston's like
a younger OKC. I'm just not sure what everybody is
like I just need more guys that I go into
a game and go, yeah, I'm going to get twenty
fourth tonight from KD and I can draw up two
or three plays for him. So Houston to me is
early innings they could end up being. They could end
up looking at If you told me next year a
team explodes in the West and ends up winning by
(43:45):
seven point eight points, I would guess Houston because they
have so many players that are just going to springboard
to another level here in the next fifty to one
hundred basketball games.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Oh no, I totally agree. I think they have massive upside.
I think they could very easily be the second best
team in the West and the biggest threat to the
Thunder next year. I think that's absolutely on the table.
They match up well with OKC too, because they have
all the big physical size. The ball handling will be
the weakness, as we saw with Indiana. Even Oklahoma City
struggled because of their lack of depth in ball handling
against Indiana's ball pressure. But the youth, the thing that
(44:16):
you're talking about in terms of the wide range of
outcomes is super interesting because as I was breaking down
their depth chart today, I'm looking at it, and I'm like, okay,
Fred van Vliet, legit point guard. You know, Shane gun center.
Kd's your four. A men Thompson, I think defensively functions
as either a two or a three, so that could
be either. But then it's like Jabari Smith Junior is
(44:37):
kind of a four. He plays basically the same position
as Kadie. I don't think he moves his feet well
enough to be a three. Cam Whittmore could be one
of those guys. Reed Shepherd could be one of those guys,
but like, who knows. And here's the other thing to
call it. Houston gave up one first round draft pick
in this deal. They still have a boat load of
first round draft picks at they're disposal, so they're high.
(44:58):
They're like a high likelihood for like a we bring
this team into camp, we watch them for twenty games,
and we go, oh, here are the two things.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
We're missing exactly right, Let's go get what we get
to get.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Like they are, they're extremely well equipped heading into this
next season.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
That's where Houston won the trade. They didn't have to
give up another first round pick. That that's where they
won the trade. It's not just KD because My guess
is because of their depth, they won't play Kad more
than like sixty to sixty five games. They want him
for the postseason. There's no reason to play him seventy
five eighty games because they also know if you're in
(45:33):
the West, Jason, you know you're going to be in
long series. So there's no you know you're going to
be in six game series. In the West. It's not
like the East where you kind of feel like if
Aliburton comes back next year, they're just certain you're gonna
win a lot of series really quickly. You're gonna have
long series. In the West, no reason to have you know,
I want Kde going into the playoffs, you know, off
(45:54):
about a two games and nine days stretch, healthy and
ready to go, and I had you have to think
about that as a GM with an older player. In
the West, if you have a Steph a KD, all
these series are long series.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
If they get a couple more ball handlers, like that's
the thing, Like if they get a Tis Jones, if
they get you know, one other guy of that ILK,
then they will be able to rest Kde, not just
for the regular season, but even in the postseason. Like
we saw Houston give themselves a really good chance to
win games even without high level offensive skill because they
just go, here's Tarry Eason and and Amen Thompson and
(46:27):
we're picking up full court and you're turning the ball
over now and it's a mess. Like they are able,
like they are able to prevent the redundancy that Phoenix had,
where you have a bunch of guys who do the
same thing. On Houston, what KD does is so specialized
for them that they kind of have an identity separate,
separate from him, so they will be able to win
(46:48):
games without him. They will be able to carry the
load so that he can come in and lift them
over the top. I think it's a I think it's
a fantastic on paper basketball fit. It'll be ugly sometimes.
Kdie's gonna have some nights where maybe the statistical performance
isn't there because it's ugly. They can't space the floor
as well for him, But they will in turn do
the same thing to the other team, so to buy
(47:09):
Kevin that margin for air. Before we get out of
here tonight, Coln, I didn't want to run this by
you because I've seen a lot of victory lapping criticism.
You know, let's just say the Phoenix Suns have been
the butt of the joke today because they took McHale
Bridges and Cam Johnson and Chris Paul and they turned
him into basically Bradley Beal and Dylan Brooks and Jalen
(47:37):
Green in one first round pick. I get that it
looks bad. Here is where this is where my brain
went this morning. They made it to the finals a
year where because of COVID everyone was hurt, and we
had a tray young Hawks team in the conference finals,
a Paul George Clippers team with an injured Kawhi in
(47:59):
the conference final, and that Sons team. And by the way,
they ran into Giannis and Giannis beat them four straight
times for the title. So they weren't good enough. Then
the next year they kind of have a great regular
season and Luca like embarrasses them, like embarrasses them for
the world to see. In the second round, they weren't
good enough, so they made an aggressive trade. They went
(48:22):
and got Kevin Durant. Every one of us would have
done the same thing at that point in time. It
was Kevin Durant and we had just seen him be
so amazing for Brooklyn in those couple of previous playoff runs.
Even the Chris Paul thing. Now, I would argue they
should have used Chris Paul's salary as a vehicle with
which to bring in more size and athleticism. But they like,
you're like Chris Paul for Bradley Beal, Like, I mean,
(48:45):
come on right, you could talk yourself into it. Again,
it wasn't perfect. There were mistakes. There are certain things
I would have done differently. But now we're on the
other side of this and it's like self awareness. We're
not good enough. We just missed the playoffs in the
Western Conference, Like Katie misses a few games and we
completely fall apart. Like, I understand it looks bad when
you zoom out, but to me, what happened to Phoenix
(49:06):
is just what happens when you get aggressive and it
doesn't work. Well, yeah, matter is there's risk.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Well yeah, the Bradley Beal deal. And I can't criticize
it because for years, I mean I must have been
on the air for five years saying I really like
Bradley Beal. He's playing with John Wall. You're never going
to flourish with John Wall. You got to get into,
you know, a more mature group of veteran players, and
then it's just like, over the course of a year
(49:33):
or two, he got really old, really fast, and really
banged up, and he just he just withered down. So
I was a Bradley Beal fan for years. I didn't
understand why he was so loyal to Washington, which was
poorly runed and poorly owned. So I can't I can't criticism,
and I always tend to be a big fan of
being aggressive. I like what Orlando just did to get banged,
(49:56):
So yeah, I can't bang. And I'm again, if they
hit on the number ten pick, they've got enough second
round picks, they got enough pieces to I think you
just have to take more big swings. I think with
Bradley Beal, I wonder if you just don't buy out
the contract, like I mean, that's how bad of a
deal it was. So, you know, I think if they
were in the East, you'd have a better vibe or
(50:17):
more optimism. I just think I look at San Antonio,
and look, I still think Denver's going to be really good.
I think they just, you know, I just look at
the West, the better gms, better rosters, deeper teams. I mean, God,
we've almost forgotten about what they're building in San Antonio.
Holy crap, do they have a lot of talent. They're
in the second inning. So I just think a phoenix
(50:40):
relative to the conference. You know, they just feel like
I have not, and they probably are. But I I mean,
I know Matt Ishbia and Justin Ishbia. I know Justin
actually I met him when I moved to Chicago. He's
part of the White Sox. I think ownership group now
and Matt got really agree. And I think one of
(51:04):
the things I've learned over the course of my life, Jason,
it's I made a lot of mistakes, but it's hard
to master two things. Like Michael Jordan tried baseball, right,
Randy Moss tried basketball. It's really hard. And I think
sometimes when aggressive owners come in and they think, hey,
(51:24):
you know, because the sons like don't have the biggest
scouting department, and the owner comes in and thinks, I
want stars, what you're really saying is I'm moving into
a completely different world and I'm smarter than Sam Presty. Right,
Like even Sam Presty the James Harden deal early, he
didn't get enough like it's it's I mean, I look
(51:47):
at GMS and football and basketball who I like, and
they make big mistakes. Shabbaz Napier the draft pick for
pat Riley in the heat, Like great people make mistakes.
Nobody on the internet, you know, the roles don't want
to ever admit it, but I think they came in
and the owner was a little hot and a little aggressive,
and this is a hard sport to master, even the
(52:10):
best people just you know, you're you're drafting nineteen and
twenty year olds, and I think, you know, I'm not
going to bang on the suns because when they made
the moves, I was like, I kind of like it,
and then a year later I'm like, man, was I wrong?
So I can't be I can't stand on any HIGHUS
mountain today because I like their moves. I thought, Bradley Beal,
(52:32):
Bradley Beal's been a disaster. There's nothing else you can say.
It's just been a disaster.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Yeah, it didn't work, And that happens sometimes, Like I mean,
like the most recent example I can think of as
the Raptors, Like I remember when the Raptors traded for Kawhi.
Everyone was like, why would you do that. He's going
to go to Los Angeles. He's telling everybody he's going
to Los Angeles. His family's out there, he wants to
be out there. That's where he's going. This is a rental.
And it was by the way, if you like remove
(52:57):
the championship from the equation, it's like he went there
and then he left and he went to LA and
the Raptors tanked, Like the Raptors fell apart after that,
Like that's what happened, but they won the title. But
even if you zoom in on the series, it's like
three three in Philly and Kawhi hits like a leaning
jump shot while falling out of bounds that hits every
part of the rim and then falls in Like that
(53:18):
was the gap. That was the gap between the Gamble
being a success and being a failure. And so ultimately,
I feel like we're just playing the results when we
say that, and like, yeah, you know, I look at it.
It's like you draft, you trade it for KD. There
was one team who gave the twenty twenty three Nuggets trouble,
one team, the Phoenix Suns. That the Phoenix Suns were
the team that pushed them to two to two in
(53:40):
the series, and it looked like everything was hanging in
the balance, and so like, for whatever it's worth, it
wasn't enough. But yeah, my take was less like, look
at the Suns. They butchered everything, and like they acknowledged
to themselves that they weren't good enough to win the title.
They made an aggressive move for one of the twelve
greatest players of all time when he was still playing
really well, and it didn't work out, you know, and
(54:00):
that's just how it goes sometimes. But Colin, it was
great to see you today. Thanks so much for coming
on the show. This has been a really fun season.
Shout out to the NBA for giving us our first
good NBA final in a very long time.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Our best domestic draft coming up in forever. This is
a great domestic draft. So that's we've talked about this.
I think with NIL, I think you're going to have
more players staying in college, the drafts are going to
get more domestic. We're also coaching the best European players
with the NIL money. I think draft picks over the
(54:34):
next ten years are going to fortify teams much more
quickly than they have for the previous twenty where it's
eighteen year olds who are just not ready to play,
so this will be a really fun draft to watch.
There's some really special players.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Yeah, I'm super excited. The extended NBA Finals have put
us right up against it.
Speaker 1 (54:53):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
I have Sam Vessini coming on the show tomorrow. He
does an incredible draft guide. We'll be doing a full
NBA Draft preview. The Action Sure Draft is on Wednesday.
It's literally right around the corner, so everything's right here.
Colin is great to see. Thanks so much for giving
us your time. For all of you guys who are
on the YouTube stream, We're headed over to playback to
take some callers, so that's playback dot TV slash Hoops tonight.
I'll see you guys there. Everyone else, Thanks so much
for supporting us this season. It's been an incredibly successful season.
(55:16):
I can't say enough about the way you guys have
supported us in the show over the course of this year.
And we will see you guys tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
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Speaker 2 (00:56):
All right, welcome to HOOS today, you're at the volume.
Happy sun to everybody. You guys are having a great weekend.
Well today, I woke up this morning thinking we're going
to crown a new NBA champion today. It's been a
long time since we've had a game seven of the
NBA Finals, and it got off to a little bit
of a bummer start as Tyre's Halliburton goes down with
what we can only assume is an achilles injury. The
(01:17):
eighth achilles tear in the NBA this season, a very
bizarre trend, Colin and I are going to spend some
time talking about that towards the tail end of the
show tonight. But the Oklahoma City Thunder are the twenty
twenty five NBA champions. Colin, what's your big takeaway from
the NBA Finals this year?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, our NFL champion Philadelphia is about roster construction and
the best GM, and you have a clear number one,
and that's Oklahoma City. Whereas the modern games about scoring
and wings and high flying, they're about their general manager,
their depth, their youth, their legs, and a kind of
(01:56):
non vertical leading score. Who goes against hype for the
NBA stars we fall in love with And you know
I've been saying this on FS one. I've been saying
this for months. Is the NBA now because of the
Aprons and the CBA is going to be like the NFL.
We're going to talk more about general managers. You can't
stack players and I think, you know, they were the
(02:18):
best team all season. The home court ended up mattering
against Indie and Denver, you know, really formidable opponents that
had some older star players. But you know, I think
in the end, you know, when you look back at
this season, you'll go, well, they were a dominant regular
season team. They weren't a great road team in the playoffs,
(02:40):
but they were dominant at home and that's where they
were crowned. And you know, that's why the regular season
does matter. It may not look like the playoffs, but
Oklahoma City, I don't think it's winning this thing on
the road, and so they earned it. And you know,
the injuries, gutting, but that stuff happens. I mean, Kd's
(03:02):
gone down in big games. I mean it happens. So
and I think over the course of this season, Okase,
he was the best team.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, I'm not interested in any talk about asterisks. For
the most part, in NBA history, almost every championship has
some injury you can point to that impacted things in
one way or another. And ultimately, I think Oklahoma City
did this to healthy teams along the way too. They played.
They played some really good teams. Colin they went through
the best, the best player in the world, and Nicola
Jokic and played him into the first three consecutive bad
(03:31):
game stretch I've literally ever seen him play. They took
that Minnesota team that was kicking everybody's butt and they
handled them like easily. And then the Pacers, who have
been the kind of the enigma of this of this
playoff run, every time they needed to beat them, they
were able to contain them and keep them under control.
You know, we talked after Game five, like there is
(03:51):
this test that you have to pass to beat the
Oklahoma City Thunder, and it's that when the shit hits
the fan and there's a few minutes left in a
big game where the series is hanging in the balance,
they are going to tighten the screws defensively. In every
single series, the opposing team fell apart, whether it was
Denver at multiple spots in Game four in the fourth quarter,
(04:14):
in Game five in the fourth quarter, the entirety of
Game seven. What we saw in big spots against Minnesota,
specifically down the stretch of Game four. In this series,
in Game four, down the stretch, they just strangle the
life out of Indiana. In Game five, it's ninety five
ninety three off of a Siakam offensive rebound three. It's
a two point game. You're like, oh man, this could
go either way. Literally turns the Pacers over four consecutive
(04:38):
times just with the strength of their defense. And then
again tonight. You know, admirable effort from the Pacers there
in that first half to keep things competitive. TJ McConnell,
I'll always remember the way he played in this series.
What a remarkable performance from him. But they came out
the gates in that third quarter and they tightened the
screws and they turned the Pacers over and they got
(04:58):
out in transition. We finished this game with twenty three
forced turnovers in thirty two points off of turnovers. That's
the star of this team.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I said this the other day to you, is the
one thing you have to have against OKAC is two
elite ball handlers. So when Halliburton goes down, they play
with guts and toughness and length, but in the end
they just turnovers. There's no Haliburton if you don't have
elite ball handlers against this team. I mean, we've fallen
(05:28):
in love with a three and D in the wings.
Well o case, he's got a lot of them. But
there is a way to combat that is to have
guys that can create space that you can't trap and
double them. And TJ. McCall's excellent. But again, when Halliburton
got hurt the first time, again they show great courage
and gusto, but there's just limitations on that. You can
(05:48):
only play down your most important players so long. So
you know, there was that I think it was like
at one point there was a I wrote it down here.
There was a huge nineteen to two Oklahoma City run.
A lot of that kickstarted by defense, and so they
just feast on teams, and you know what, you know what,
they're a little bit like they're like a fighter who
(06:09):
sends his blood. Like, okay, see, they're not dominant enough
offensively to just blow you out against great teams, against
Denver and Indy. They can score, they have runs, but
when they sense blood, somebody's in foul, trouble, somebody's hurt
your start. You know, they have a matchup advantage. Man.
(06:30):
They play downhill, they play downhill fast, and you look
up and you're like, well, this was a four point game.
Now it's a thirteen point game. And you know that's
what great teams do. Their run looks different than a
Jordan explosion or a Shaq Kobe explosion, but nonetheless it's
a burst, and everybody looks different, you know. I mean,
(06:52):
so I listen all my notes here, I look through.
I kept waiting for the inevitable run, and it happened,
and it was you know, it was off turnovers, and
I just kind of felt like I saw an SRR stat.
I think that's what it's called, an SRR stat about Indiana.
(07:12):
And they said, if Indiana wins, they'll be the worst
champion since the nineteen seventy eight Washington Bullets, which, by
the way, I can name the entire roster because it
was when I fell in love with basketball. But the
truth was is if Indiana one, it was probably our
weakest champion. Though I love them, and okay, s wins.
At least we can hang this boy, that's a top
(07:33):
five defensive team all time. We can hang something that
sounds like a champion. NBA's leading score, deepest team in years,
all time, top five defense that sounds like a champion,
does it not?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Absolutely? Their defense is one of the great defenses that
has ever played in the NBA like the that was
true in the metrics, and all we can do to
tie that case together is the metrics showed in the
regular season, and then what do you do in the
playoffs against the competition you faced. This was a Pacers
offense that was lighting everybody up, Colin and they got
(08:08):
strangled every single time it mattered. Ye, Nikola Jokic is
literally the best offensive player I've ever watched. He and
they had him under control in every pivotal moment of
that series. That is the type of defense that we watched.
You know, this Thunder offense was frustrating. Sometimes we're gonna
talk about Shaye in a few minutes, Like Shae was
great every time he needed to be great, but there
(08:29):
were some downsides here. He had a game in this
series where had zero assists. They had games where they'd
moved the ball poorly, where they were out of rhythm,
out of flow. They're young players, young players against elite
playoff defense. That's going to take some time to figure out.
And there's no doubt that if the Thunder are going
to have sustained success in this league, they're going to
have to figure out some things offensively to be better
(08:50):
year after year after year. But their defense right now
is elite hold the trophy defense, and that's what came
through for them again today.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
I was really interested this if Chet Holmgren could deliver finally,
and I thought in the second half it was like, Okay,
Chet Holmgren played with more confidence. That was my only question.
I thought, Man, if this is a three point game
and there's four minutes left, okay, see Home Favorite could
get really tight and they left no doubt. But I
thought Homegroun and Jay Dubb both in the second half,
(09:19):
played well in that run. So and that was one
of my concerns is that I've never seen a young
team like this young win a championship. And you know,
I was thinking about this as you were talking about SJ. SGA. Usually,
let's say, for instance, Shaq wasn't hitting his free throws,
he still had all time power. If Kobe and MJ
(09:42):
weren't hitting their jumper, they could go vertical Magic Johnson
struggling from the field. He just had a size advantage.
He'd back you down. Sga is not a vertical player.
So if he's off and he's off center, he doesn't
have power. He doesn't have speed he doesn't have. He's
(10:04):
not he's not you know, he's strong for his size.
He's not a vertical player. He is a mid range
maven like he is all time stuff. And so you
know I've said before is he's an all time scorer.
But he doesn't feel like he's in the Curry class
where you're like, wow, I've never seen a human like Caitlin.
(10:24):
Clark's got some of that. You're like, I've never seen that, right, Sga,
I've seen it, Alex English, Keiki Vandaway. He's just better
at it. And so I do think you know, when
you when you play better teams and you can get
off his game. He has a very centralized game. He's
tremendous at it. But I think we both admit he
needs a friendly whistle, and because he's so gifted, he
(10:47):
almost always gets it. It's not like the hardened whistle,
which is like and it feels illegal. That's not it.
It's like that feels unstoppable. Is different than it feels illegal.
But you know he is. I love him. I love
his maturity. He's just a smart, hard working kid. He's
impossible not to root for. I know everybody doesn't like
(11:08):
you know, all the flopping. But I have a hard
time not rooting for guys who are more mature than
their age, with completely refined games where I can see
the work ethic, I can see the years you've toiled
in a gym. That to me as a grinder, like,
I love that kind of basketball, and I think that's
(11:30):
what he embodies.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, I think it's fascinating because at his age, you know,
being twenty six, he's kind of in this weird role
that's reminiscent of some of the roles that you've seen
guys like Tom Brady and Lebron be in, where like
they're the elder statesman in the locker room. He's the
elder statesman in the locker room at twenty six years old.
It's such a bizarre dynamic. But to like, for if
(11:53):
he was an immature player at twenty six, this whole
thing could fall apart because of the youth in that
locker room, and he just brings that veteran presence. This
is the perfect time for us to get into the
Microsoft bit and I'm gonna kick it back to you,
So welcome to course correction, brought to you guys by Microsoft.
Just like star players and teams navigating performance hurdles, and
business decision makers today are under immense pressure to get
(12:17):
things right. They must rise to the occasion, turning challenges
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(12:40):
the expertise to say, bring it on. Our player of
the Week this week is the twenty twenty five NBA
Finals MVP. It is now official. Shay gil Jess Alexander Colin.
I was thinking about a cool way to frame this segment,
and all I could think about is, like you mentioned
with the Washington Bullets roster. So everything for me, as
(13:01):
I'm talking about all time greats is kind of played
through this lens of when I started really following the
league closely, which for me was in the like around
two thousand and five, two thousand and six. You've been
watching a lot of NBA basketball for a really long time,
You've seen a lot of stars come through the league,
as young players leave the league as vets. What has
been like your first impression of Shake Gill just Alexander
(13:24):
as a playoff performer in the NBA.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
That if I go back to Kareem and the skyhook,
which was unstoppable, unblockable, and he mastered a shot. I'd
never seen a player master a shot when I first
watched Kareem, I can remember as a kid in my
backyard doing it like nobody else shot the hook, Michael
Jordan's mid range game. If you look at a lot
(13:49):
of the great players beyond just scores, they are the
master of their domain. Like I do what I do,
and they're all different looking. There was no there was
no other Kareem you know there. David Thompson was a
little Michael, but Michael's mid range game he had three
or four stock moves, you know, Tim Duncan. The great
(14:13):
fundamental is that a lot of the all time great players,
and I've said this about Mahomes can be boring. They
have mastered what they do frustratingly so. And I look
at a player who knows exactly what he is, but
more importantly, he knows what he's not and he leans
(14:35):
into all of his skills, and I think when you
watch them play, they can be uneven offensively. The greatest
thing I can say about SGA. He's their clear dominant
number one score. So when you play them, I don't
have to pick Tony Parker Duncan manu. It's like, stop
(14:55):
him and people can't. I that me is a fastball
Like that, you know you can beat them. And Jay
Dubb can have thirty two, or Check could have twenty four,
or Lou Dort hits five threes, but the numbers are
if he gets to the free throw line, they win.
Everybody in the league knows it and they can't stop him.
(15:18):
Like that is precision, That is mastering a craft, and
I just I just have great respect for that.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah. The Duncan comp is super fascinating to me because
Shay doesn't have some super demonstrative personality on the court.
He lacks a vertical element to his game. There's nothing
that like like people who play a lot of basketball,
Like I've stolen little bits of footwork and moves from
him that I think are useful moves for young players
to work on. He's brought his own little kind of
(15:48):
unique flare to the two guard position, just like Harden did,
just like Wade did, just like Kobe did, just like
MJ did. He's got his own like kind of unique
take on it. But similar to Duncan, even if there
wasn't that overwhelming optical appeal, it's just surgically effective. Yeah,
And no matter what happened in this playoff run, the
most reliable play type out there was give the ball
(16:10):
to Shay at the nail and he's probably going to
either draw foul or get to a mid range jump
shot that he can hit about fifty five percent of
the time. And you know, you know, Colin, it has
not been a perfect NBA Finals for him. He had
some rough games. But here's the thing. Just about every
star struggles in their first NBA finals. Lebron struggled in
his first two NBA finals. It is an impossible stage
(16:31):
to be to be I shouldn't say it'smpossible, it's a
very difficult stage to perform well in. And to his credit,
every single moment in this series where things could have
gone south. So like Game two, you're down one Zho,
you lose that game, series is probably over. Game four,
you're down to one. You lose, that game. Series is
probably over. Game five to two, you lose that game,
series is probably over. And Game seven series tied. If
(16:54):
you lose that game, obviously the series is over. In
every one of those games, I thought he was awesome.
This is actually a hilarious stat Colin. In the four
games where I thought he played poorly, which was Game one,
Game three, Game four, in game six, in those games
he combined for just nine assists. Okay, just nine in
those four games. In the other three games, in game two,
(17:17):
in game five, and in game seven, he had thirty
thirty assists. He averaged ten in those three games. And
if you watched those games from the start, just surgical
and precise with the way he was navigating the late
double teams, the help at the rim, making the kickouts
to three point shooters, the role man, whether it's Hartenstein
(17:38):
or Chet, I thought Shay, to his credit, every time
the team needed him to be great in the series,
he was great. And I think that is the stereotypical
Finals MVP performance. I thought he thoroughly deserved it, and
most players don't even do this well in their first
time around.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I don't think they're a great team. I think they
could be with age, Like next year they'll play and
watch next year, Okase, he won't be as dominant in
the regular season. They won't be that there's no need
to be. You're going to rest players. So next year
they'll win by an average of six at point eight,
not twelve point nine. Right, they'll try to build up.
(18:20):
You know, they're going to try to build up their
younger players, make their draft picks. They want to see
guys that can play, so it'll be interesting. But next
year they'll play like a champion, and so what you'll
see they'll be a little less uneven to the aforementioned
stats where you saw him bounce a little bit, you'll
probably get a little bit less than that. But it's
also something that Indiana was better defensively than people gave
(18:44):
him credit for. They could put a lot of length
on the floor. And I think we are going through
We've seen it now with multiple teams, and I was
fooled with Denver. I say it right now. The last
seven champions have been very good teams. Will this be
a great team. I'm fascinated to watch the Houston Rockets now. Right,
(19:04):
Like Shamgoon, I'm on Thompson, Kevin Durant. It's I want
to give Indiana credit because the Haliburton injury didn't matter.
But in the end, I still like Oklahoma City. I
think when I look at Oklahoma City's rough edges, it's
(19:26):
mostly homebrewn just needs another year to grow. Like one
of the roughest standards edges is God Holmbren did nothing tonight.
Jay Williams, J Dubb he can Jaleen Williams, he can
still be uneven. He can be a masterful. But I
think most of the things about them are a lot
of them are age specific because young players in big games,
(19:49):
especially on the road, aren't as good. And I just
so I look at them and I think, oh, they
have a chance to be really good next year, plays
a more confident team, and I think by the way
their coaching staff will grow, everybody will just get better.
But most of my criticisms are, Okay, see, are you
know you just didn't know game to game what you
(20:10):
got with chet Holmgren on the offensive end. When he
played well in the second half, It's like, Wow, that's
a really hard team to beat.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, this is a super interesting concept. I want to
get a little deeper into this. I do need. We're
going to wrap up Microsoft real quick. That's it for
this week's course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI solutions empower you
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(20:39):
com Slash challengers to learn more. So, Colin, to your point,
I saw this stat before the game, Oklahoma City's net rating,
And remember net rating is just how much you outscore
your opponent. Just waited for pace per one hundred possessions.
Oklahoma City's net rating at home coming into tonight was
twenty one. They outscored teams by twenty one points per
(21:00):
one hundred possessions on the road negative six. And so
to your point, I actually agree with you. I thought
Oklahoma City kind of underachieved in this playoff run. They
should have put Denver away sooner, They should have put
Indiana away sooner. They were not, to me a great
offensive team for the majority of this playoff run, downright
(21:23):
ugly at various points. But as we look back through
NBA history, this is what I look at the Warriors.
As a corollary here, it's not just stars that tend
to struggle when they get to the finals the first
time teams do. The Celtics in twenty twenty two, they
really struggled. When they showed up in twenty twenty four,
they looked like a bunch of grown ups. They handled
it way better Golden State. Steph played so poorly in
(21:45):
twenty fifteen. I think he still deserved Finals MVP, but
he played so poorly in twenty fifteen, he didn't get
a single vote for Finals MVP. They were looking at
his teammate as somebody to give the vote to. They,
you know, at various points in that playoff run looked
a little shaky. They trailed to one to Memphis, they
trailed to one to Cleveland. It is very typical for
a team that dominates in the regular season but has
(22:06):
their first truly pressure filled, serious playoff run to be
a little bumpy. And so the point is is like, yeah,
this year they were a mediocre playoff offense that had
an elite playoff defense, which was enough to get them
over the top. But this team has by far the
most room for internal improvement year over year. I'd argue
(22:27):
in the entire NBA, like Jadub you talked about the oscillations.
The oscillations are classic young player stuff. I can't tell
you how many times anybody who spends any time coaching
young basketball players, you'll see them do something that works,
and you'll be a nice jock, and then they'll go
on the next possession and they'll do something completely different.
You're like, just do the same thing, do the same
thing that you just did, and it works. And then
(22:48):
when they make mistakes, they can repeat them. They struggle
to cut out mistakes and they struggle to repeat their
successes young players over time. You don't think Shay remembers
how he played those three bad in those four bad games.
He knows, he knows, he learned lessons in that in
that process, and Shay will be better. Shay will just
be more consistent. I believe Ja Dub can get substantially better.
(23:12):
Chet was a nightmare offensively in this postseason run. Nightmare.
And this is a guy who spends summers working out
with Kevin Durant, who has, like all he has all
NBA offensive potential, and so maybe they're not that team yet,
but they absolutely can get there. And all you have
to do in this era where nobody's winning multiple championships
(23:32):
is win multiple championships and pretty quickly you will like
establish yourself as one of the all time great teams.
I'm with you, they were. This was a rocky road,
but they got it done. If you were gonna beat
the Thunder, this was the year. This was the year
where they're young, they're thin. Chet has never been in
these big moments before, Like this was the year to
(23:52):
beat them and nobody could get it done. And it's
only gonna go up from here.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, but I I think Houston now has to be
considered very interesting. I contend Dallas when everybody's healthy now,
I don't know exactly where Kyrie is going to be.
I love their size and length. I also think, you know,
the NBA, especially out West, has some really good gms.
(24:18):
There's a lot of levers to pull here. And even
though and I've told you, I think draft picks are
going to matter more. Like everybody's banging on the suns today,
what if that number ten pick ends up being a really,
really good player and they have all these second round
picks and they can figure out a way to move
one of the other players and get another first round pick.
(24:40):
And I think Oklahoma City is going to be very
good for a very long time. But I still think
and we've seen it this year, these long playoff runs.
You see it with pitching staffs, and you see it
with teams. You keep going to seven games against Western
(25:01):
teams and in the finals, I don't like it. I
think you're going to have more injuries. I don't remember
a two year stretch where we had more key injuries
to star players. So you know, it's one of those things.
They've got the they've got a lot of depth, but
they do have one dependable score So keeping SGA healthy
(25:22):
and trying to develop second, third, and fourth scorers is
a real thing because they're inconsistent there. But it is.
You know, as I look at this playoff series, one
of my takeaways is, and I've been on this four years,
you do not need seven games in the first round,
like and you say, well, it could be a sweep.
You do not need four game sweeps. You could do it.
(25:44):
You could do it in five games or three games.
So I think OKAC is not good enough to be brittle,
injury riddled. I think healthy. You know, we always said
it in the NFL, it's attrition some of these playoffs.
Cleveland fell apart the year before New York fell apart,
and I think that's a lot of it. I think
(26:07):
the West is gonna be razor thin keep you know,
we all know San Antonio Is could take a jump.
So I think a lot of it is if we're
going to keep doing seven game series. Well, a lot
of it is who's healthy because a lot of guys
went to the floor this year.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And okay, Seer and yeah and okay, so he's super young,
and they just held up. They kind of physically wore
everybody down over the course of this playoffron because they
just have this deep rotation of young players. I agree
with you. For the record, I want to be clear,
like I do not think this Oklahoma City team is
the k D STEPH Warriors, Like that team felt borderline
(26:44):
unbeatable when they were healthy. Like I don't think this
Oklahoma City team is unbeatable. I just think we haven't
seen their ceiling yet. I think there's a level they
can get to, especially in the offensive end of the floor.
That we haven't seen yet, and I'm curious to see
where that ends up. Is does that end up being
a team that's just like all the other champions they
can't repeat, or does it end up being a team
that ends up making a mark on this air. But
(27:04):
the injuries thing is fascinating. So we have a shout
out to Josh. It gave us the stat before the show,
the Tyres Haliburton achilles tear. If that confirms to be
what it is, which is what it looked like. I
mean ABC made us watch it thirty times. I have
no idea what that was all about, but that would
be the eighth achilles tear in the NBA this year.
(27:25):
The previous season high was five. What do you make
of this? Like upticking these weird severe injuries in.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
The nbakay, the pace is faster, the players are better,
you know, it's it's a more physical postseason. It's just
more taxing on the bodies and these athletes now come
into the season in shape. You're just asking a lot.
I means, you know, like we can criticize Jamal Murray
of Denver sort of playing himself into shape and Luca,
(27:54):
but I think I think there are very few Lebron's
out there where the body just holds up. And I think,
I think guys, I think the level of play, the
level of pace, the level of physicality. These guys are
more like tightly tuned violins and it just doesn't take much.
And so I don't I just do listen to college
(28:15):
basketball doesn't have near the quality of talent of the NBA.
But why are their ratings often beating NBA playoff games?
Because of the urgency And we all know baseball you
have to have a longer series because such a big
component of baseball as starting pitching, so you know you're
setting up your pitching. That's part of the chess match
of baseball. But I don't think in basketball I need
(28:37):
a seven game series. Michael Jordan's big years, it was
a five gamer until you get to later rounds. And
I just think, I think Adam Silver and I'll give
Rob Manfred and Roger Goodell credit. I think our commissioners
see this. They're very open minded. Manford's made multiple big swings,
you know, which goes against baseball's history. Basketball's been, you know,
(29:00):
much more progressive, willing to experiment. League sometimes, you know,
the new ball. David Stern didn't even give the players
a heads up. But the Lee Adam Silver has made,
you know, the nd season tournament, I think you have
to really examine. And when I had him on, we
talked about this is that embrace college basketball. You know
how you know what Indi, Oklahoma City is to me.
(29:21):
We're all the G League guys. It's a lot of
guys who played a lot of years of college embrace
college basketball as an almost educational basketball tool, not the
school part. Just be what Tom is over two or
three years, like it matters. And also, you have to
really examine the value of these players. If you're signing
a seventy six billion dollar contract for eleven years, you
(29:43):
want your stars playing as long as they can. Halliburton's
injury made me sick to my stomach. The game didn't
feel the same after that injury. I was so fired
up all day. I got home early, I watched two
hours of the pregame show a sick to my stomach.
I'm like wow, and and again I just think you
can Money's not the problem. We got seventy six billion
(30:07):
coming Like, Money's not the issue. The owners are all billionaires.
Let's protect the players. There's no reason for seven game series.
In the first two rounds.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
The data is becoming undeniable and its the thing is
calling too. It keeps happening on the same play the
same like what they call it the negative step, where
you step backwards to try to launch yourself forwards. Essentially,
the body is fatiguing to the point that when they're
trying to explode forward at these points, the body's failing,
and it's happening at an increasingly high rate. And I
(30:38):
think it has a lot to do with just the
way the game has changed, in the sense that the
point at which players are engaging defenders, the point at
which players are being asked to contend with physicalities extended
substantially further away from the basket. You're facing ball pressure
and being guarded thirty thirty five feet from the basket
some of these times. I bet if you tracked an
(30:59):
individual player movement and just how often he runs around
the floor, just the straight line distance that he runs,
it's probably double what it was in the nineties in
a single game, just because of the pace, the amount
of ball in player movement that occurs on every single possession.
It's just a lot, and so to your point, like
I understand the TV aspect, and it's like, okay, we
(31:21):
got we get money from these games. We can't cut
games because it costs us money. If anything, we're trying
to add games. Here's the Ncason Tournament, here's the play
in tournament. You know they added that seventh game to
the first round after it used to be five. Like
they are adding inventory that the players can't handle. And
if you really dig into it and you actually start
to look at the way it affects the product, I'm
(31:42):
so glad you mentioned that.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Colin.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
This is the most excited I've vent for game so long.
And what a buzzkill to watch the best player on
the other team come out hit three straight three, start
talking a bunch of shit to the crowd. Yeah, next
thing you know, he's on in a heap on the ground.
It's a huge bummer. And like, these guys can't be
asked to play back to backs, these guys can't be
asked to play an additional two. It is June twenty second, Colin,
(32:07):
you know how this playoff runt has been going on.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Forever, Like it is a long stretch.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
They have to find a way to make this actually
achievable for these bodies. They are not holding up. And
my theory is that if you tweak it in a
way to where guys can hold up, it'll improve the
ratings just by virtue of everyone being present and bringing
the urgency due to the lower inventory.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Oh, it's just like baseball ratings when you shortened the
game create urgency. Everybody's I mean, I've done this ad nauseam.
Everybody's on their phones. People are I'm watching the game
tonight and I'm I'm literally in the first quarter. You know,
I'm sitting there watching the game and I'm writing some notes,
but I'm also reading an article on the finals as
(32:50):
I'm watching the finals. We're all distracted. So you know,
I just I think the reality is you just anytime
you can make a game feel like an event and
everybody wins. The players win, I win, you win, the
networks win. So it'll be interesting now because the NBA
is going to be on so many networks and it's
(33:10):
going to dilute some of the coverage. But you're going
to have to make it special. And by the way,
this is what Baseball did. Fox went to Baseball and said,
you guys have to create the home run Derby's your
highest rated non World Series moment, create more things like that.
So they did the Cornfield game. They put the Mets
in the Phillies, you know, overseas, and I watched all
(33:32):
of them. So I do think there's a certain apathy
in the regular season. I mean, even the league officiates
different in the postseason. They understand the urgency, so I
think they'll get it right. I think Adam will eventually
get it right. He's not a stubborn guy. I don't
think any of our commissioners are. And I think going
from seven games to five games, you may not think
(33:52):
it's a big deal, but I over the course it
could be four less, four or fewer playoff games. You know.
I feel like Halliburton's body just gave out tonight. It
just it was exhausted. He just pushed it and pushed
it and pushed it, and it just gave out.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Oh I think that's I think that's exactly what happened. Again,
it's becoming undeniable. Like there was a point where it
was like, oh, injuries are on the rise, but hey,
it's only been like two or three years. It might
be just anecdotal or too small of a sample size.
We're in an extended stretch here where like dudes are
breaking down every year in the playoffs. Remember last year,
it was like, oh, the calves are going on Donovan
Mitchell's foot, and now we're you know, and then oh,
(34:28):
like here come the Pacers and the tyres Haliburt and
gets it. It's like it's it's this like it's basically
turning into a war of attrition more than it's turning
into a battle of basketball. And that's what they have
to figure out because otherwise what you're going to see
is the deepest, youngest team win every year. I mean,
and that's more or less what we saw in the finals,
you know, you know, on so many different levels. Anyway, call,
(34:55):
we did get a new piece of news this morning.
Kevin Durant is now Houston Rocket and in return, the
Phoenix Suns are getting Jalen Green, a young player with
tons of potential but maddening downsides at this point. Dylan Brooks,
who I actually think is a very good role player
in the NBA.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, the tenth pick in this upcoming draft and five
second round picks. What was like your first impression. Well,
you heard my first impression. The Suns were three and seventeen.
When Katie didn't play this year, they stump it wasn't him.
He still get a bucket. If he's a leader in Houston,
it doesn't work. If you need a bucket in Houston,
(35:36):
it works. And I think today you have to look
at the Rockets.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
My take is he's going to give you about sixty
five games in the regular season. If we get two
healthy years, then everybody's going to watch Houston via for
the NBA Championship and feel like they dominated the trade.
It is, however, a very good draft, So Phoenix gets
the number two ten pick. Well, many people are theorizing
there are twelve players in this draft, the top twelve
(36:00):
players who are All Star potential. So if they stay
at ten or move up to six or eight, they're
getting a potentially really good player, probably with more than
one year in college. And again, I don't think anybody
will ever unlock Jalen Green, like I think he's the classic,
doesn't have a defined game, never probably will, but we
(36:23):
can't deny that he can drop thirty in any given moment,
that he's wildly talented. I don't like his game, but
I'm not going to deny that he's you know, long, twitchy, fast,
very good transition player. He's just and that there are
a lot of these guys in the NBA. You know,
they come in and they're talented, and maybe either they
(36:45):
don't work on their game but they don't get the
right coaching, or they just they probably have so much
talent from sixth grade on that they never really there's
no catalyst for them to like really burrow down on
a specialized you know, not everybody is just driven as MJ. Right,
I'm reading the Caitlin Clark book. I mean that girl's
(37:05):
she is MJ. She's obsessed, and it's just like, not
everybody's like that. Some people are just talented. And so
between Aman Thompson and Shangon is a beautiful touch. Kevin
Durant and a series of four or five very good
young players. And I think Adokah is a very good coach.
That's a real team. But I think it's easy to
(37:28):
look at Phoenix and just go, well, they got Green's productive.
Dylan Brooks is a very good small forward defender, can
give you seventeen a night. You got the number ten pick.
You got a bunch of second round picks, which you
can turn those into things. Phoenix wanted her a little
bit of a reboot. They got it. But people on
the internet are like, oh, Houston dominated. If Katie got
(37:50):
hurt in game thirty six, it wouldn't feel like Houston dominated. Right.
They're not bringing him there to be a foundational piece.
They're bringing him in to get a bucket like. He
will not be the leader is shen Goon will still
be this I think the centerpiece of the team, Aman
Thompson will be your best athlete and your defensive stopper.
He's going to be a bucket guy. So that's why
(38:13):
I think it works. He's still one of the top
twenty three, twenty six best players in the league. I
would argue. I mean, I was on the plane when
I was flying in today, I started writing down numbers
and I got to like twenty one. I'm like, he's
in that space. And again, Phoenix was terrible when he
(38:34):
didn't play. So that's my long winded answer on I
think Houston will look like they won the trade, but
Phoenix got assets too.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I think that what happened in Phoenix is a sign
that like, Yeah, KD, Steph Lebron, these guys they're not
floor razors anymore. At their age. They're not going to
turn a bad roster into a fifty win team the
way that twenty seven year old Nikola Jokic could. Like
that goes without saying I don't. I do think though,
that KD has been dramatically underrated because he's been on
(39:03):
such a poor roster. Yes, put this together for you, Colin.
This is three stats to show that Kevin Durant is
still one of the very best players in the NBA.
He was the best jump shooter in the world this year.
Among fifty eight players in the NBA to take at
least five hundred jump shots, KD was the only player
in the league to make over half of them, and
he in second place was Shay who made forty five percent.
And if you waited it for threes, his one point
(39:25):
two to two points per shot was still number one
in the NBA number two. He was the only player
in the NBA last year to make at least two
hundred pull up jump shots, meaning off the dribble, while
making more than half of them. In three he was
far and away the best isolation player in the world
last year, out of the ten players ran at least
two hundred and fifty ISOs. His one point one to
six points per possession including passes ranked number one in
(39:46):
the league, a full six points per one hundred possessions,
ahead of Shay who was in second place. I think
he is when it comes to refined offensive skill, he
is still one of the very best players in the league.
So I would put him in that sixth to fifteen range,
depending on and we haven't seen him play enough high
leverage basketball lately to see where he really lands in there,
but I think he's still in that range. And if
(40:08):
you ask me what the Rockets issue was, this is
a deep team with a load of big, physical athletes.
If you ask me what their one week at weakness was,
it's refined offensive skill. And that's what Kad comes into address.
We were just talking about this with Desmond Baine in
the Orlando Magic the other day. Yeah, when you take
a bunch of big athletes that kind of struggle with
spacing and you bring in a guy who like just
(40:30):
run him off a screen and he's automatically going to
pull two defenders out thirty feet from the basket and
unlocks a world of possibilities on the short role. A
men Thompson will be an amazing short role player. You
know that thing that Draymond Green did for Steph where
Steph would come off of Draymond to take two players
and then Draymond would go right down the middle of
the floor and make the play that broke the defense down.
(40:51):
That is a thing that A Men Thompson has been
unable to do in Houston because they just don't generate
many of those opportunities because none of their shooters are
good enough. KD will lock that part of him N
Thompson's game. It is not a perfect roster. I was
writing down all the names on the roster today. They're
a little light on ball handling, but that sort of
thing they can get. You know what's so funny, Colin.
I remember when the Sun signed Highest Jones last summer.
(41:14):
I was like, why you already have this redundancy of
all these dudes who can dribble and you're just not
athletic enough and you're not good enough on defense, Like
you need athletes and dudes that can like like beat
up people in these physical environments. You know who could
really use Highest Jones Houston, like, I think they should
call I think Kevin Duran should call up Highest tomorrow
and be like, hey, dude, come with me.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Yeah. I think I think Phoenix. I wish Phoenix would
have gotten actually a size. I think Phoenix needs size,
and I think Houston needs a ball handler. And our
takeaway when we watch Golden State beat Houston, we were like, God,
they're so bad in the half court offense. If you
stop shn good, it's over right, like it's just and
so you and I talked about this. He was a
perfect fit. I thought he worked in New York because
(41:56):
of Jalen Brunson's you know, has the ball a lot
in his hands. He would work with that offense, whereas
Cat can kind of. I always felt like Cat and
Brunson were playing you know, your turn, my turn, your turn,
my turn. Kd's kind of like, I'll sit in I
did it with Russ Westbrook. I'll sit in the corner.
Get it to me eventually. So I think he fits
really really well, and I think they have the coach.
(42:19):
I think again, it's so hard to judge Houston because
so much of their roster is young. I like feel
like everybody's in the fourth inning, Like, I mean, Amen
Thompson could take a big leap. I mean, shn Goon's
the only one where I look at him and I think,
oh that again. I use this word a lot. But
that's a defined and refined offensive game. He's got European touch,
(42:41):
like he has a game. A lot of their players,
I feel like they're just in early innings. I don't
know what they are so Aman Thompson's obviously defensively defined.
He's so strong and athletic and aggressive, but KD gives
them refinement. This is a second offensive player. I know
exactly what I'm getting. And that's that goes back to
(43:02):
a little Oklahoma city that one of the reasons Indiana
gave OKC problems. Syakam has an offensive half court game,
Halliburton does, TJ McConnell does, Like that's three guy. Even
Obi Toppen when he hits threes, You're like, he's athletic
and hit threes. They had guys that they Rick Carlile knew, Okay,
(43:23):
this is what this player does with Houston. Houston's like
a younger OKC. I'm just not sure what everybody is
like I just need more guys that I go into
a game and go, yeah, I'm going to get twenty
fourth tonight from KD and I can draw up two
or three plays for him. So Houston to me is
early innings they could end up being. They could end
up looking at If you told me next year a
team explodes in the West and ends up winning by
(43:45):
seven point eight points, I would guess Houston because they
have so many players that are just going to springboard
to another level here in the next fifty to one
hundred basketball games.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Oh no, I totally agree. I think they have massive upside.
I think they could very easily be the second best
team in the West and the biggest threat to the
Thunder next year. I think that's absolutely on the table.
They match up well with OKC too, because they have
all the big physical size. The ball handling will be
the weakness, as we saw with Indiana. Even Oklahoma City
struggled because of their lack of depth in ball handling
against Indiana's ball pressure. But the youth, the thing that
(44:16):
you're talking about in terms of the wide range of
outcomes is super interesting because as I was breaking down
their depth chart today, I'm looking at it, and I'm like, okay,
Fred van Vliet, legit point guard. You know, Shane gun center.
Kd's your four. A men Thompson, I think defensively functions
as either a two or a three, so that could
be either. But then it's like Jabari Smith Junior is
(44:37):
kind of a four. He plays basically the same position
as Kadie. I don't think he moves his feet well
enough to be a three. Cam Whittmore could be one
of those guys. Reed Shepherd could be one of those guys,
but like, who knows. And here's the other thing to
call it. Houston gave up one first round draft pick
in this deal. They still have a boat load of
first round draft picks at they're disposal, so they're high.
(44:58):
They're like a high likelihood for like a we bring
this team into camp, we watch them for twenty games,
and we go, oh, here are the two things.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
We're missing exactly right, Let's go get what we get
to get.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Like they are, they're extremely well equipped heading into this
next season.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
That's where Houston won the trade. They didn't have to
give up another first round pick. That that's where they
won the trade. It's not just KD because My guess
is because of their depth, they won't play Kad more
than like sixty to sixty five games. They want him
for the postseason. There's no reason to play him seventy
five eighty games because they also know if you're in
(45:33):
the West, Jason, you know you're going to be in
long series. So there's no you know you're going to
be in six game series. In the West. It's not
like the East where you kind of feel like if
Aliburton comes back next year, they're just certain you're gonna
win a lot of series really quickly. You're gonna have
long series. In the West, no reason to have you know,
I want Kde going into the playoffs, you know, off
(45:54):
about a two games and nine days stretch, healthy and
ready to go, and I had you have to think
about that as a GM with an older player. In
the West, if you have a Steph a KD, all
these series are long series.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
If they get a couple more ball handlers, like that's
the thing, Like if they get a Tis Jones, if
they get you know, one other guy of that ILK,
then they will be able to rest Kde, not just
for the regular season, but even in the postseason. Like
we saw Houston give themselves a really good chance to
win games even without high level offensive skill because they
just go, here's Tarry Eason and and Amen Thompson and
(46:27):
we're picking up full court and you're turning the ball
over now and it's a mess. Like they are able,
like they are able to prevent the redundancy that Phoenix had,
where you have a bunch of guys who do the
same thing. On Houston, what KD does is so specialized
for them that they kind of have an identity separate,
separate from him, so they will be able to win
(46:48):
games without him. They will be able to carry the
load so that he can come in and lift them
over the top. I think it's a I think it's
a fantastic on paper basketball fit. It'll be ugly sometimes.
Kdie's gonna have some nights where maybe the statistical performance
isn't there because it's ugly. They can't space the floor
as well for him, But they will in turn do
the same thing to the other team, so to buy
(47:09):
Kevin that margin for air. Before we get out of
here tonight, Coln, I didn't want to run this by
you because I've seen a lot of victory lapping criticism.
You know, let's just say the Phoenix Suns have been
the butt of the joke today because they took McHale
Bridges and Cam Johnson and Chris Paul and they turned
him into basically Bradley Beal and Dylan Brooks and Jalen
(47:37):
Green in one first round pick. I get that it
looks bad. Here is where this is where my brain
went this morning. They made it to the finals a
year where because of COVID everyone was hurt, and we
had a tray young Hawks team in the conference finals,
a Paul George Clippers team with an injured Kawhi in
(47:59):
the conference final, and that Sons team. And by the way,
they ran into Giannis and Giannis beat them four straight
times for the title. So they weren't good enough. Then
the next year they kind of have a great regular
season and Luca like embarrasses them, like embarrasses them for
the world to see. In the second round, they weren't
good enough, so they made an aggressive trade. They went
(48:22):
and got Kevin Durant. Every one of us would have
done the same thing at that point in time. It
was Kevin Durant and we had just seen him be
so amazing for Brooklyn in those couple of previous playoff runs.
Even the Chris Paul thing. Now, I would argue they
should have used Chris Paul's salary as a vehicle with
which to bring in more size and athleticism. But they like,
you're like Chris Paul for Bradley Beal, Like, I mean,
(48:45):
come on right, you could talk yourself into it. Again,
it wasn't perfect. There were mistakes. There are certain things
I would have done differently. But now we're on the
other side of this and it's like self awareness. We're
not good enough. We just missed the playoffs in the
Western Conference, Like Katie misses a few games and we
completely fall apart. Like, I understand it looks bad when
you zoom out, but to me, what happened to Phoenix
(49:06):
is just what happens when you get aggressive and it
doesn't work. Well, yeah, matter is there's risk.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Well yeah, the Bradley Beal deal. And I can't criticize
it because for years, I mean I must have been
on the air for five years saying I really like
Bradley Beal. He's playing with John Wall. You're never going
to flourish with John Wall. You got to get into,
you know, a more mature group of veteran players, and
then it's just like, over the course of a year
(49:33):
or two, he got really old, really fast, and really
banged up, and he just he just withered down. So
I was a Bradley Beal fan for years. I didn't
understand why he was so loyal to Washington, which was
poorly runed and poorly owned. So I can't I can't criticism,
and I always tend to be a big fan of
being aggressive. I like what Orlando just did to get banged,
(49:56):
So yeah, I can't bang. And I'm again, if they
hit on the number ten pick, they've got enough second
round picks, they got enough pieces to I think you
just have to take more big swings. I think with
Bradley Beal, I wonder if you just don't buy out
the contract, like I mean, that's how bad of a
deal it was. So, you know, I think if they
were in the East, you'd have a better vibe or
(50:17):
more optimism. I just think I look at San Antonio,
and look, I still think Denver's going to be really good.
I think they just, you know, I just look at
the West, the better gms, better rosters, deeper teams. I mean, God,
we've almost forgotten about what they're building in San Antonio.
Holy crap, do they have a lot of talent. They're
in the second inning. So I just think a phoenix
(50:40):
relative to the conference. You know, they just feel like
I have not, and they probably are. But I I mean,
I know Matt Ishbia and Justin Ishbia. I know Justin
actually I met him when I moved to Chicago. He's
part of the White Sox. I think ownership group now
and Matt got really agree. And I think one of
(51:04):
the things I've learned over the course of my life, Jason,
it's I made a lot of mistakes, but it's hard
to master two things. Like Michael Jordan tried baseball, right,
Randy Moss tried basketball. It's really hard. And I think
sometimes when aggressive owners come in and they think, hey,
(51:24):
you know, because the sons like don't have the biggest
scouting department, and the owner comes in and thinks, I
want stars, what you're really saying is I'm moving into
a completely different world and I'm smarter than Sam Presty. Right,
Like even Sam Presty the James Harden deal early, he
didn't get enough like it's it's I mean, I look
(51:47):
at GMS and football and basketball who I like, and
they make big mistakes. Shabbaz Napier the draft pick for
pat Riley in the heat, Like great people make mistakes.
Nobody on the internet, you know, the roles don't want
to ever admit it, but I think they came in
and the owner was a little hot and a little aggressive,
and this is a hard sport to master, even the
(52:10):
best people just you know, you're you're drafting nineteen and
twenty year olds, and I think, you know, I'm not
going to bang on the suns because when they made
the moves, I was like, I kind of like it,
and then a year later I'm like, man, was I wrong?
So I can't be I can't stand on any HIGHUS
mountain today because I like their moves. I thought, Bradley Beal,
(52:32):
Bradley Beal's been a disaster. There's nothing else you can say.
It's just been a disaster.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Yeah, it didn't work, And that happens sometimes, Like I mean,
like the most recent example I can think of as
the Raptors, Like I remember when the Raptors traded for Kawhi.
Everyone was like, why would you do that. He's going
to go to Los Angeles. He's telling everybody he's going
to Los Angeles. His family's out there, he wants to
be out there. That's where he's going. This is a rental.
And it was by the way, if you like remove
(52:57):
the championship from the equation, it's like he went there
and then he left and he went to LA and
the Raptors tanked, Like the Raptors fell apart after that,
Like that's what happened, but they won the title. But
even if you zoom in on the series, it's like
three three in Philly and Kawhi hits like a leaning
jump shot while falling out of bounds that hits every
part of the rim and then falls in Like that
(53:18):
was the gap. That was the gap between the Gamble
being a success and being a failure. And so ultimately,
I feel like we're just playing the results when we
say that, and like, yeah, you know, I look at it.
It's like you draft, you trade it for KD. There
was one team who gave the twenty twenty three Nuggets trouble,
one team, the Phoenix Suns. That the Phoenix Suns were
the team that pushed them to two to two in
(53:40):
the series, and it looked like everything was hanging in
the balance, and so like, for whatever it's worth, it
wasn't enough. But yeah, my take was less like, look
at the Suns. They butchered everything, and like they acknowledged
to themselves that they weren't good enough to win the title.
They made an aggressive move for one of the twelve
greatest players of all time when he was still playing
really well, and it didn't work out, you know, and
(54:00):
that's just how it goes sometimes. But Colin, it was
great to see you today. Thanks so much for coming
on the show. This has been a really fun season.
Shout out to the NBA for giving us our first
good NBA final in a very long time.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Our best domestic draft coming up in forever. This is
a great domestic draft. So that's we've talked about this.
I think with NIL, I think you're going to have
more players staying in college, the drafts are going to
get more domestic. We're also coaching the best European players
with the NIL money. I think draft picks over the
(54:34):
next ten years are going to fortify teams much more
quickly than they have for the previous twenty where it's
eighteen year olds who are just not ready to play,
so this will be a really fun draft to watch.
There's some really special players.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Yeah, I'm super excited. The extended NBA Finals have put
us right up against it.
Speaker 1 (54:53):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
I have Sam Vessini coming on the show tomorrow. He
does an incredible draft guide. We'll be doing a full
NBA Draft preview. The Action Sure Draft is on Wednesday.
It's literally right around the corner, so everything's right here.
Colin is great to see. Thanks so much for giving
us your time. For all of you guys who are
on the YouTube stream, We're headed over to playback to
take some callers, so that's playback dot TV slash Hoops tonight.
I'll see you guys there. Everyone else, Thanks so much
for supporting us this season. It's been an incredibly successful season.
(55:16):
I can't say enough about the way you guys have
supported us in the show over the course of this year.
And we will see you guys tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
Thanks Bud the volume
Host
Colin Cowherd
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