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April 10, 2024 43 mins
Brendan Abban recaps the NCAA Tournament on both the men and women's side. He details what made this tournament special and how it is promising for the future of basketball. He then talks about the comments made by Diana Taurasi toward the upcoming WNBA rookies including Caitlin Clark. Then he discusses Luka Doncic's realistic odds of winning NBA MVP. Then he touches on how a possible Giannis Antetokounmpo injury and the return of Joel Embiid could affect the Eastern Conference. Then he talks about Draymond Green's "candid" conversation with Klay Thompson. Hope you enjoy and stay blessed!

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's going on? Everybody. Welcometo the KBR Sports podcast, you know,
the best sports podcast every twenty fourhour day. Thank you for tuning
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(00:24):
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(00:45):
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A B b A N. Thatwould be much appreciated, y'all, just

(01:08):
to help obviously make sure you're seeingall the content because obviously there's some forms
of content sometimes, whether it comesin the form of reels, tiktoks and
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Sports on YouTube, and all differentkinds of content that you want to make
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available on all those different platforms.But hopefully everybody's had a great week.

(01:30):
We just had an awesome weekend ofbasketball. Obviously we had I think what
on Thursday was the I think itwas either no, sorry it was Friday.
Friday was the the Iowa Yukon game, and that was just obviously a
great way to start off the basketballweekend. A controversial a controversial cost the

(01:53):
end of that game, and manypeople going back and forth with how that
should have been called. In mypersonal opinion, I think you I think
you approach a weird slope. Ithink there's many criteria too when you call
a foul like that and not torehash old milk or poor or what you
would call poor old milk or backin a bottle. But I guess it's
weird because I never really got achance to talk about it because it happened
on a Friday. It never reallygot talked about in the general media consensus

(02:15):
because then by the time Sunday camearound, it was the National Championship game
between Iowa and South Carolina. ButI do feel like in those situations,
if a foul happens, a refereeshould call it. Now. Now here's
the criteria where I would say,if you don't call it is if that
kind of play has been happening allgame and you've been letting it go,

(02:36):
and I haven't really seen I've seenone reference of Hannah Stalkey doing it earlier
in the game from Iowa, andthey didn't call it in that instance.
But it's not like every other playwas an illegal screen being set, because
the girl literally raises her elbow andshe's moving as she's setting the screen,
and so I think that it's oneof those situations where if a ref sees
that, especially when you raise theelbow as you're setting the screen, that's

(02:59):
definitely gonna be able to slow downthe defender and create contact. So I
think that that warrants being called,especially if it's not something that in a
very physical game where let's say you'replaying basketball back and what was maybe like
the nineties type of game, right, and that type of physical place is
getting allowed and nobody's calling anything,so the players are going to be like,
all right, bet, I guesswe can. We can get that

(03:19):
physical. And if that's what you'reallowing, then you can't really then confuse
players by late in the game tryingto get hyperactive with the whistle and calling
fouls that weren't of weren't being calledearlier in the game, because then players
would have never been getting that physicalin the first place. Because that just
when refs always can set the toneof a game by the time to end,
by the end of the first quarter, midway through the second quarter,

(03:42):
for what kind of gameplay they're willingto allow. And if you want to
allow a physical game where're allowing guysto pull on each other's jerseys, tug
and all this stuff more so thenyou're gonna be able to let that happen.
So then when it happens in thefourth quarter, you shouldn't be expecting
that to be a foul. Andespecially if you're letting guys grab on each
other and whatnot, or guys orgirls and you're letting them grab on each

(04:02):
other, then it is something thatyou can see that that's where a player
thinks that, Okay, I canget away with this kind of contact in
this game. But and in thatretrospect, that player should not then complain
about not getting a call when thatkind of play has been allowed all game.
But then on the on the flipside, if a referee is calling
it super tight and so on,and then they don't call a foul later

(04:24):
in the game, like if thewhole game they can't they start right off
from the opening whistle. Hey we'recalling this one tight, guys, we're
not. We don't want all thephysical play, like we want everybody to
have free freedom of movement, flowof movement, all that stuff. Don't
be out here hacking each other,trying to get extra physical around the rim,
or trying to keep people from beingable to move when trying to run
through screens and so on, allthat type of stuff. That kind of

(04:44):
matters because then at the end ofthe game, if you then call one
of those ticky tac things, orif somebody grabs a jersey going around the
screen to try and keep contact withthem, then people are gonna look at
you like, huh, like whatare you doing? You've been letting that
go all game and I but personally, I didn't feel like that was the
case the Yukon game. I didn'tsee all these illegal screens being used or
whatever the case might be that wouldwarrant a referee not making that call in

(05:08):
that position. It sucks that thegame had to end that way, or
rather, I mean truthfully it didn'tend because then the Hawkeyes had to go
and make free throws on the otherend, and Caitlin Clark missed the second
one, and they just the YukonHuskies didn't box out, and so Iowa
gets the offensive rebound and then thatpretty much is what sealed it. But

(05:30):
I think that we got a greatchampionship game between Iowa and South Carolina.
Obviously South Carolina ends up winning it. They're the champions. They were so
close last year to be able toget a undefeated run and they weren't able
to get it done. And Ilove that Don Staley, their head coach,
so many times she said this wasalso for the players from last year,
and it was one of those momentswhere she was talking with former players

(05:54):
and she's saying, this is fory'all because we couldn't get it done when
you all were here and referencing whenthey lost to Iowa the previous season,
and then this year they're able tofinally get that that get that done and
get an undefeated season or get entirelyundeated season, which is one of the
hardest thing to do in sports.So you credit that code, that program,
Don Staley, that those players andhow well they were able to show

(06:16):
up and how they were able toright the rons that you could say of
last year and be able to getthat championship. And then even on the
men's side, right you got Yukongoing back to back and they get they're
able to meet a formidable, perdueteam in the championship game, and I
felt as though the game was competitive, competitive really until the midway through the
third quarters when I kind of sawthe lead starting to kind of stretch a

(06:40):
bit and you started to realize,okay, yah, Yukon, Yukon has
it right. Yukon got the juicewhen it comes to this type of stuff.
And you just saw how they wereable to get to the rim,
able to i mean even even witha day said, standing around the rim
and sending everything back. Essentially,they started attacking him and trying to abuse
him, especially in mismatches, andit was one of those situations where Yukon

(07:02):
kind of figured out the formula forhow to get him or try to attack
him around the paint in the rimand get their shots and get their looks,
and also how to contain them onthe other end. So you give
credit to the Yukon Huskies, thatbasketball program as a whole. I mean,
you got the the women's team makingit to the Final four, already,
know the dominance that they've had withGino Oriema and the entire basketball program,

(07:24):
and then the men winning back toback championships. So if there's any
basketball program that should be market likethe market Marquee place to go to right
now, it is Yukon because fromup to down, they just have phenomenal
basketball program and they're just churning outchampionships and able to win and bring in
quality players and just play a qualitybrand of basketball, if I might say

(07:46):
so myself. So congratulations to bothcollege programs. I think that this elevated
college hoops and the profile of collegehoops for years. Man, it has
been and you hear it. Youhear it predominantly when it came to the
wi BA, But it has alwaysbeen a thing where people always ragged on
the women's game, and for mepersonally, I always thought it was rather
corny because I always just like,what do you get from this? I

(08:09):
never got the guys on Twitter orx or whatever Reddit would always come out
just besmirching women's basketball and just inways of trying to always belittle the things
that the women did on the court, their athletic feats and their accomplishments.
And I look in college, Iused to I used to help with the
women's practices and them girls can hoop, Okay, they could, they can

(08:33):
hoop, and they were so goodand they were able to hit from and
these were the Odieu girls and theywere they would hit from marksmen type range,
and it was crazy just sometimes seeinghow they could hoop. They had
to handle, they had great finishingability. They and seen some of the
practices they would go through, especiallysome of the physicality in those practices,
and it was it was so interestingbecause being in that position, seeing seeing

(08:58):
that up close to firsthand, justrealized how good they were. And you
realize, I mean, they theywould lap most most men that are a
lot of times belittling them in alot of ways. And a lot of
these guys that think they could havewent and played basketball somewhere and they were
maybe nice in high school or somethinglike that, and then think they can
go play basketball somewhere, and inreality, they there's a reason why they
didn't. So and look injuries,some people they did, they generally get

(09:24):
hurt. I am sorry for you. That just wasn't your path if an
injury came your way and not andblew your house down. But besides that,
man, I'm sorry, dude,you might have been athletic, but
if you're meant to play basketball onthat level, you would have. So
uh, That's just what it is. And it's just so funny to me
to see people like that, oreven people that don't, that don't have

(09:45):
an athletic bone in their body justsat here and try and dump on these
women that are are applying themselves atthe highest level when it comes to college
basketball and being able to to obviouslyperform on the big one of the biggest
stages for basketball in the world.But you would hope that now with how
these this last tournament went, thatthe profile of this stays at this height.

(10:09):
Right, you don't want it justto be a thing where girls like
Kaitlyn Clark, Angel Rees and othersmove on and then the sport kind of
takes a step back because they don'thave that America's darling or that America's villain
that the country can keep up withand follow that now you have, you
still have such talented players all overin college and women's college sports and in

(10:31):
the men's game as well, Soyou're hoping that you will always be able
to keep that both profiles of thegame up and then hopefully now that these
these women are being drafted, itwill elevate the profile of the WNBA.
You already saw a report that theIndiana Fever are were already renovating or sorry,
they were getting a different stadium andto alec to accommodate the increte influx

(10:54):
of tickets going to be purchased forKaitlyn Clark being drafted, because they were
just expecting that, you know,the capacity of what they have already is
not gonna be enough, so theyhave to try and accommodate that capacity for
the amount of people and try andincrease the prices on ticket sales and all
that stuff. And that's just crazythe impact that one player can have and

(11:16):
how many people are just looking forwardto her being able to play on the
professional level. But it is funnybecause then obviously when you were a story
where you have success, you havewhat might be perceived hate how depending on
who you ask, right, BecauseDiana Tarasi the night the night of the
Yukon game, and it's it isfunny to me because I will say,

(11:37):
it's interesting that when you have apanel of many former Yukon Huskies, which
was the scenario where you have DianaTarassi and she's talking about the Yukon game
and she's I think this just freshafter the loss, and I think she
was more she was reflecting on thenew girl, the new class of women

(12:01):
coming into WNBA. I think morethan anything, she wants to get the
point across that it's not sweet onthe WNBA level, right, there is
there is a gap in terms ofskill, skill level, and ability to
perform against the best talent when youthen move on to the WNBA. That
it's not just the men's game wherewhen a college guy goes from college to

(12:24):
the NBA, that there has tobe an adjustment for the style of play,
the physicality and the skill level that'srequired on that level. That it's
oh, it's the same over heretoo. And when she's talking to Scott
Vampel after the game, she says, look, SVP reality is coming.
There's no levels to this thing,or there's levels to this thing, and

(12:45):
that's just life. We all wentthrough it. You see it on the
NBA side, and you're going tosee it on this side. You look
superhuman playing against eighteen year olds whereyou're going to be playing against some grown
women that have been playing professional basketballfor a long time. And she and
then she went on because then peopletook that portion of what she said and
I suggested that was her hating onCaitlyn Clark. But I think she's just

(13:07):
being real about what it's like togo from the jump of being going from
the college game to being a professional, and she goes on to say not
saying the skills aren't gonna translate.I'm referring to Caitlin skills. Because when
you're great at what you do,you're just gonna get better. But there
is going to be a transition periodwhere you're gonna have to give yourself some

(13:28):
grace as a rookie. And peoplehave been upset with her about it,
and I personally didn't feel like especiallywhen you include that second part, right,
because then if you just have thefirst part, I can understand maybe
how people feel this type of way, But when you include the second part
of the quote, then it makesit clear that she's just talking about being
a rookie in general, and mostpeople can talk can attest to that.

(13:50):
Kobe Bryant has attested to what itwas like well he became into the league
and played as a rookie. Youheard even NBA guys on Lebron James's own
team when he was getting drafted tothe Cleveland Cavaliers. There were multiple people
who were quoted talking about how theydidn't need Lebron James and Lebron was just
some some guy coming in and they'relike, you know, he was gonna

(14:11):
find out and all this stuff.I'm paraphrasing a bit here, but essentially
the whole premise of it was thatthey didn't need a rookie. Lord did
the didn't find out? Right,But that's just that's just kind of what
the demeanor is because all these peoplein a weird sense, like everybody if
you're if you're the best at anything, don't let anybody tell you they don't
have an ego. Yes, peopleare humble, right, but everybody has

(14:37):
an ego, especially when you've beendoing something for years and you've been you've
been honing that talent, you've beendeveloping that talent, and then you have
then there's there's a new kid onthe block, who's who's hot as hot
as I don't know whatever you wantto call it, spicy noodles, I
don't know, but that was sucha terrible that was awful. I'm sorry,

(14:58):
spicy noodles might not be it.What's what's really hot? Oh,
Uncle Julio's whatever? Pepper, theghost pepper? How does the ghost pepper?
Right? And you've been doing thison another level, on the hardest
level to do this at and peoplearen't giving you the type of flowers that
would naturally be associated in terms ofelevating the women's game and all that stuff.

(15:18):
Like Danna Tarassi is one of thegoats when it comes to women's basketball,
and so now this young bucks cominginto the league and many others are
as well. And especially when you'rehearing all the interviews formulate around Caitlin Clark
and all this stuff, that thereis a level of you're in You're in
my stomping grounds now, right.And it's funny because you hear you heard

(15:41):
Kelsey Plumb tell stories about what itwas like playing against Diana Tarassi for like
of her first few times and differentstories, and Donna Tarassi gets competitive,
man, and she does things tosend a message, right, and she's
one of those people like you rememberhow in the Olympics from Kobe shoulder check
just just went through pow Gasol inthe opening and the opening of the game

(16:02):
of that game against Spain, hesaid he wanted to send a message to
pal that you know out here,we're not teammates, right, this is
this is a different level. I'mplaying for the USA, you're playing for
Spain, like you're my enemy.And I think that Diana Tarassi and all
in all her her wisdom of whatshe was trying to disseminate to those young

(16:22):
players coming in and what it's like, Especially in that latter part of the
quote, I think that she wasalso kind of giving a snarl in some
respects, Like you know how adog will ground and show its teeth.
She was showing some teeth in thatfirst quote. I think she was showing
some teeth. But I think that'sfair because what is she supposed to say,
Yeah, Kaitlyn and and the othergirls are just gonna come come in
and just dominate our league. Becausethen that just makes it seem like the

(16:45):
skill gap between the college game andthe w NBA is not an applicable,
Like there's no skill gap there andKaylen could easily come in there, or
let me not say easily, butKaylen could come into the game into the
w nb dominate right in a similarfashions Hoyle she's doing. But that would
just more so speak to her skill, her ability, But I wouldn't speak

(17:07):
to the skilled translation of everybody goingfrom the collegiate game to the professional game.
I mean, even a girl likeKelsey Plumb who's one of the best
collegiate basketball players you're gonna find.She even had her struggles when she went
to the WNBA, and then yearslater, right Bobby bot bround her fourth,
fifth, sixth year, really startedfinding that success in terms of her

(17:27):
WNBA legs, and obviously now isa two time champion. So you give
credit where credit is due. ButI don't really blame Diana Tarassi at all
for her statements regarding Caitlyn Clark.I don't think she was being a hater.
I don't think it was anything ofthat sort. But if people see
it that way, maybe I justsee it differently. But I think you
can find many players talking about upcomingrookies saying they wish him the best,

(17:49):
but you know, you're in myleague type of deal, right, And
I think a lot of people canmaybe feel that way about their profession or
anything their passionate about, especially ifyou've been doing something for a long time,
somebody comes along and thinks they canjust do it better than you.
Off the whip, and that's thething. A lot of people even do
that to me when it comes tothis stuff, when it comes to podcasting,

(18:11):
making content, all that stuff,you'd be surprised how many people think
they can just do this type ofthing because they just think it's talking into
a microphone, but in reality,it's you got to keep an audience engaged
for whether how however long it isin our multiple thirty minutes, whatever it
is you edit, whatever the workyou've done. Some people are better editors

(18:32):
than the other. And also whenyou have a guest on, you have
to be able to transition between topics. You have to find ways to creatively
get the hint to the person youhave on that, Hey, I want
to move on from this topic.Let's stop talking about this because now it's
losing its luster, right And there'screative ways to do those type of things,
and you start dropping subtle hints,but obviously you also communicate that to

(18:53):
the person ahead of time so theykind of get the gist. Because you
want you want to create less workfor yourself from the back and that's also
what comes with time and experience thatyou learn how to prepare in ways to
minimize your editing or different backwork onthe other on the back end, so
you don't have to do as muchwork and it's all front. You can
you can I guess accommodate yourself offfront facing when it comes to whatever work

(19:17):
you're doing, and that's what comeswith experience, and that is naturally what
happens in all these different industries thatwe've talked about. There's different things.
There's different ways that players save energy. We've learned that with Lebron and other
players and so on and so on. So I think that just comes with
the territory. So I don't reallybegudge Diana Tarrossi for what she had to
say, but funny enough, talkingabout basketball, I do have I do

(19:37):
begrudge some fan bases out here,man, because look y'all in regards to
particularly Luka Doncic fans, man,guys, love you truly do all,
right, I truly I respect howmuch you want Luka Doncic to win the
MVP. I do, I try, I do. I get it because

(20:02):
Luca has been playing lights out.There's no question about it, no if
fans or butts about it. Dude'sbeen on a tear. Okay, when
you talk about his last twenty sevengames. Twenty seven games that, mind
you, though, Mavericks are twentyone and six in right, and games
that he's played, not just thelast twenty seven overall, but in his
last twenty seven games that he's played, they're twenty one and six, Lucas

(20:22):
averaging a triple double with thirty twopoint four points per game, ten assists,
ten rebounds, okay shooting forty eightpoint five percent from the field and
thirty nine point four percent from three, averaging seven point six free throw attempts
per game, a lot on seventyeight or seventy nine percent free throw shooting
percentage, and he's a plus ninepoint seven when he's on the court.

(20:45):
Lucas playing out of his mind.He's playing fantastic. Even in the game
at the night I'm recording this,he dropped twenty one in the first quarter.
I mean, the dude's is soreal. I think he ended up
with thirty nine points, might havehad another triple double. To be honest
with you, that's just how goodhe is at this moment, how well
he's playing. But I think thatbecause of this stretch that he's on,
people want to now elevate it tohim winning the MVP over Nikola Jokic,

(21:11):
And I'm sorry, but I justdon't think that unless some way Luca is
able to just turn voters so muchon their head that they feel as though,
oh my gosh, this guy isjust playing so out of his mind.
I just don't think that, forone, the record is gonna get
Luca there, because Jokich is inposition to be the one seed at this
point in time where he right nowis contending with the Minnesota Timberwolves and the

(21:33):
Oklahoma City Thunder in particular. Butright now he's fighting for a first seed.
And Jokich has been playing good basketballtoo, and it's not like he's
just resting on his laurels. Ieven said, I said, you can
remember if you guys can go backto the podcast where I talked about the
first half of the season, andI said the reason why I didn't want
Nikoliokish to be my MVP at thepoint of time because I felt like he

(21:56):
was cruising and they were the Nuggetswere entirely cruising, and I felt as
though that he wasn't bringing he wasn'tbringing an MVP level effort. He was
just doing enough so they could winnow. And I never forget I brought
this up before either him and JamalMurray said that at right around the All
Star break, they said, hey, now let's turn the gear on,

(22:17):
and they literally have they now they'reactually have put the key indignition. You
can tell they're going for that oneseed. And Yolkic has been playing like
it. He still leads the NBAand player efficiency rating when he has thirty
point nine. Giannis is second attwenty nine point eight. Sean Gibbs had
Lexander at twenty nine point four,Luca at twenty eight. So that just
shows you, I mean, theseguys, they're at a different level right

(22:41):
now. And I think that whereLuca's case gets hurt. And I think
Luca has all the counting stats rightLuca has, He's gonna be He's gonna
win the scoring title easily. Whenyou're talking about how many points he's averaging
thirty three point nine points per games, he's leading the NBA and scoring,
you're talking about all around numbers,and when you go down to his assist
for the season is averaging nine pointeight. So right now, Luca is

(23:03):
averaging thirty three point nine points pergame, nine point eight assists, and
nine point two rebounds for the season. He's top five in both scoring and
assists, and then he's sixteenth inrebounding. So that's just insane how well
he's playing. And I think thatwhat really when you really want to see
where the impact is made, though, is that when you go to the

(23:26):
advanced numbers right wind shares, windshares, Niccolio Kitch leads the NBA at
fifteen point seven win shares. Lucais fifth at eleven point two offensive wind
shares. Nikoliokich is first with elevenoffensive wind shares. Luca is six at
seven point eight. Defensive wind shares. Nikoliokitch is second to only Rudy Gobert
at four point seven, And whenyou look at that defensive wind chares,

(23:49):
Luka Doncic is seventeenth at three pointfive win shares. For forty eight minutes,
nicolaiokicch is first with a point twentynine one one box plus minus.
Nikoliochus leads the NBA at thirteen pointfour, so he's even ahead of Luka
Doncic. Despite all the crazy stuffLuca is doing on the court, his

(24:10):
team is Nikoliokis's team is markedly betterthan everybody else's team by thirteen point four
points in box plus minus. Whenhe's on the court versus Luca at ten,
like those are the stats that it'shard because so many people want to
just go to counting stats and tellthe story through that. But there's also
this thing when you watch the gameright and you can see that a team

(24:36):
is just performing at a different levelwhen a guy is on the court or
when a guy has the ball inhis hands, and Luca Lucas should be
getting all these stats, and that'spart of the conversation too. Luca Nikoliokis
is doing a lot of good thingswith the basketball, and he's seven.
He's only eighteenth in usage rate,so the percentage of his team's possessions that
he's using, he's only eighteenth attwenty nine point eight percent. Luka Doncis

(24:59):
is leading the league and usage rate, so he uses the basketball more than
anybody else in the league. Soyeah, he naturally will be able to
accumulate more statistics. It's the samething with James Harden's what thirty four point
per game year or thirty five whenhe averaged that many points, he led
the league in usage rate as well. Russell Westbrook's triple double season where he
broke Oscar Robertson's record, he orwhere he was the first guy to do

(25:22):
it since Oscar Roberson. But RussellWestbrook led the league in usage rate,
and that's just naturally something that comeswith it. To get all those stats
and whatnot, you have to usethe ball a lot. And so when
a guy like nikola Jokic is stillable to do all these things, still
have an impact in all these otherways on the basketball court, and he's
not using the ball as much,then you look at it and you're like,

(25:45):
man, nikolai Okic is still thirdin assists at nine assists. Obviously,
he's a center. A center shouldbe rebounding the ball. Well,
he's averaging he's fourth in rebounds attwelve point four. And then when you
look at scoring, he's averaging twentysix point four points per game, and
he's tenth in scoring. But alot of people are gonna look at those
things and be like, oh,how did Luca not win the MVP,

(26:07):
winning a scoring title, almost averaginga triple double, all this stuff.
But then when you watch the gamesand you looking at the flow of the
season and you look at how theNuggets have pretty much beat all the who's
who to beat. When the Celticshad been undefeated at home all year,
and the Celtics by wide margin,had the best record in the NBA,
and the Nuggets come in there andmake the Celtics just look like they were

(26:30):
their sons easily. That's one ofthose things that those are the type of
games and stuff that you just can'tit's hard to equate. But you see
it show up in the more soin the advanced stats, and you see
it show up more obviously now withthe Nuggets be in a position for a
first seed and that type of thing. So I think that and that's always
been my thing. I think I'vealways been at the mindset that Nicola Okicic

(26:53):
makes the Nuggets the unbeatable team thateverybody is aiming for. They're the bar
that everybody's going for. And Ithink it's been rare where you've had a
conference where everybody, like the WesternConference is a free for all except the
Nuggets. Everybody knows what the dealis except for the Nuggets. When it
comes to the Nuggets, you justfeel like, but that team's not good

(27:15):
enough to beat the Nuggets. Iheard on ESPN they're sitting here talking about,
oh, our teams scared of theLakers, I'm like, I mean,
sure, I guess, I guessteams are scared of the Lakers,
But what does it matter if theNuggets are in your bracket too. They
might be scared of the Lakers,but they're not more scared of them than
the Nuggets. I made a TikTokthe other day talking about the Lakers are

(27:36):
not championship contenders because I just don'tthink they can beat the Nuggets, Because
that's what it means when you havea team that is actually capable of knocking
off the team at the peak.That's what it means to be a contender.
I don't consider a contender like,oh, you just made the playoffs.
You might get to the Western Conferencefinals. That's good and dandy at

(27:57):
all, right, But are youdo you actually have a realistic chance to
win? And I don't think fromall the games I've watched of teams like
the Lakers, Mavericks, Clippers,Oklahoma City Timberwolves, all their games that
I have watched, I just noneof them. I just don't see it.
I don't see them being better thanthe Nuggets. If the Nuggets get

(28:21):
stunned by somebody, I will betruly shocked. But I just don't see
it. And I think that's thedifference maker in why Luca isn't being considered
for the MVP despite all the greatSI stats, despite him averaging a triple
double over the course of the lasttwenty seven games. That I think is
the leading reason as to why he'sjust not getting those MVP considerations. And

(28:48):
in response to that, I wouldventure to ask, I mean, should
he be getting those MVP considerations ifthat's the case in fact, that we
know that even with even with Lucagoing out of his mind, with all
these crazy triple double games, highscoring games and all that, Nikola Jokic
is still valued as the most valuable, the toughest value of a player to

(29:11):
replace right now in the NBA,and that stat is called value over replacement.
His value over replacements at ten pointtwo, Lucas at seven point eight,
Luca is second to Jolkic's first.That's how much of an impact Nikola
Jokic has. And I think it'sone of those things that people might be

(29:33):
might be tired of seeing Jokic winthe MVPs. I don't know, but
I mean, naturally, when guysare just that good, they win multiple
MVPs. This is yok This isgoing to be Yokic's third MVP, and
last time I checked, Yolks hada fifty four percent chance of winning the
MVP. So if you have hopesof somehow Luca making a comeback and I

(29:56):
don't know, tipping the scales withYokish having been had a fifty four percent,
I highly doubt. I'm sorry,I just doubt it, man,
Because before Luca, I think theguy that I had that was even or
that me and snack q had talkedabout was Jannis at one point. But

(30:17):
then Jannis had that game against theLakers, And it's so funny because snack
Kio that was that was he wasthe one that was thinking that Yannics can
make the come they come up.The minute Jannis had that game against the
Lakers where he missed like the twofree throws I think for overtime or whatever,
and they lost to a Lebron lessLakers team, he was like that.
He was like, that Yannis takeis dead. He didn't want to

(30:41):
bring it on this show. Ithink you guys heard me ask him about
it. I was like, yo, you you wanted to talk about that,
right? He said, that wasso dead. But right now,
the MVP odds went up for Theywent up for Yo Kisch. Jokic's MVP
probability for him winning it's fifty fivepoint six. Lucas is fifth, team
point one, Giannice is nine pointfour, Shake Gochess, Alexander's at eight

(31:03):
point seven percent, Jason Tatum's atfour point six percent, according to Basketball
Reference toast toasts man, Wow,Yeah, I just think it's a landslide.
Is a land slide. Nicolai Okischis gonna win his third MVP in

(31:23):
the last four years. That's nuts, that's nuts. Well deserved, though
well deserved, I mean, dude'sbeen I think it has consistently been like
a him and Yiannis thing As,who was the best player over the last
few years. But I think afterthis year, I'm just comfortable saying it's

(31:44):
it's Jokic. I think the bucksstruggles and their inconsistencies, especially as of
late, have a bit have Iguess got me worried about the the honest
thing, I still think Jannis isa talent, is that dude, But
it's just so weird how much theBucks have struggled despite them having all this

(32:04):
talent now and a lot of theirguys being healthy. Initially, I was
like, okay, well, youknow, Chris Middleton's out, you're missing
some guys. Dame has been inand out, Giannis has been in and
out. That could be affecting theteam chemistry. You just brought in a
new coach. But now that everybody'skind of there and we're literally going into
the playoffs next week, got toreally figure it out that now is the
time to really do so, becauseyou don't really have all this flexibility to

(32:27):
be trying to figure out how toplay together going into the first round of
the playoffs. So the Bucks gotto figure it out. But we'll see,
we'll see if they're able to pullit off. But one thing I
did want to talk about when itcomes to the Bucks is my belief in
them, because now Jannis is apparentlya strained calf. He strained his calf
today, was a non contact injury, and if he's sincerely hurt, I

(32:49):
am just I don't know if I'mIf you're interested in the Eastern Conference,
I'm gonna keep it a g withyou, man, because right now,
as the Eastern Conference sits Boston sixtytwo wins. It is first in the
Eastern Conference, Milwaukee's second at fortyeight and thirty one. New York is
third forty seven to thirty two,Orlando's fourth, Cleveland's fifth, pacers or
six, Philly's seventh, Miami's eighth, and in the play in is Chicago

(33:16):
at ninth and Atlanta at tenth.Now, for me, personally, I
feel as though, if Jiannis ishurt, then you just wipe off the
best player in the Eastern Conference andoff that team, and then now you
just have a I guess, aversion of Portland that Damian Lillar is supposed

(33:37):
to lead, which is just notgonna happen. I just don't see it.
They would have no chance of beatingthe Celtics, and no team out
of that. A healthy Knicks teammight have been interesting, but now that
that's already dead and gone since JuliusRandall's ruled out for the season since he
had to get surgery, so that'sdead and gone. Orlando could be an
interesting team, but I just don'tthink they're better than the Celtics and every

(33:59):
other team right now in the EasternConference. I look at and I'm just
you're not you're not. You don'thave the talent equipped to beat the Celtics.
You don't create the mismatches and havethe personnel to frustrate the Celtics offensively
and defensively in a multitude of ways, Whereas I feel like the Bucks have
that. I mean, the Bucksjust haven't figured it out by I don't

(34:20):
know what it is. They justhaven't been able to get a consistent stretch
of figuring it out. But theyhave the talent to do it. There's
times they do it and it's justweird, because there's times where I look
at that Bucks defense and I'm like, what are we doing? Guys,
Like it's so weird to me.And obviously, when you take out Drew

(34:43):
Holliday and you're putting Damian Lillard in, it's a tough fix, right,
that's patchwork. That's a patchwork fixin terms of now bringing in Patrick Beverley
to try and assuage some of thosestruggles in terms of how your wing defense
is operating. But I just Ijust don't know what the are gonna look
like in the East. If Giannisis actually truly hurt. Joel Embiid is

(35:04):
now back, which is exciting hedropped thirty one, had a good game
tonight. But I'm worried about hisI'm personally worried about his what do you
call his stamina, right, hiscardio coming back from an injury, because
he he has to play his intoplayoff shape, which is tough. You
only you only really have a fewgames of basketball left to do so,

(35:28):
so either he's running all day everyday now to try and get into shape,
it won't get him into playoff shapelike what a season, a whole
season can do what an off seasondoes. But I think that him coming
back will make things at least somewhatinteresting in the Eastern Conference. Right,
But I just don't. I don'ttake Philly entirely seriously, Man, I

(35:50):
don't. I think them getting aguy like Buddy Healed was a good acquisition
for them. It was a goodIt was a good ad in terms of
having wing shooting and a guy thatcan obviously penetrate off to dribble and so
on do these things next to TyresMaxie and obviously off the ball from from
Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris and whatnot. But I just am not fully sold.
And it's been nice to see aguy like Kelly Ubray also have a

(36:15):
resurgence is somewhat with the seventy sixers. Kelly Ubra has been one of
their They're better players where you need, you just need to depend on getting
what I need to be able tosay. I can get fifteen to twenty
points from you, and if youif you give me twenty, If you
give me closer to twenty, great, If you give me the fifteen,
that's all I can ask for,that is all I can ask for.

(36:35):
But he stays. If he canstay in that realm and play and play
hard, hard defense, then that'swhat Philly needs from from guys like him,
from a guy like Tobias Harris,from a guy like Buddy hild And
I just wonder if Philly can getEmbiid back into the shape that's going to
be required for him to be ableto carry an offense in the playoffs and

(36:58):
the defense and anchor them defense.Tyrese Maxie's done a lot while Embiid's been
out, and I think he's beenhe's been really good. He's averaging twenty
six points, I mean twenty fivepoint ninety twenty six if you round up
and he's averaging six point three assists, So I think that when you're looking
at what Tyrese Maxy can bring tothe table, I think he brings.
He brings obviously a dynamic that youwould hope doesn't disappear in the postseason like

(37:22):
it did with James Harden where yousee that but that play creation that he's
able to bring in terms of beinga put pressure on the defense from even
from outside or inside, and itmakes it a scenario where other guys like
Embiid, Tobias Harris, Buddy Healed, and Kelly Ubray can kind of get

(37:42):
theirs in a sense without having thepressure of being play or I guess creating
for others as well. Like they'renot. They're just focused on having to
knock down their shots, hit themake their cuts, and hit the shots
when it comes to them, Iguess, is what I'm trying to say.
I'm trying to find the right wordsto say it, but I just
couldn't figure it out. But that'sthe interesting part about Philly to me.

(38:04):
And even with all that said,I still don't think they're better than Boston.
I just I think and be's amismatch for anybody that guards them.
But then I look at Philly andI just see Jason Tatum, Jaylen Brown,
Drew Holliday, Christos Porzingis, andyeah, I don't know. I

(38:28):
just don't see it. I don'tsee how they beat them. I do
not see it. But if youguys have a different opinion, let me
know. I would be more thanwelcome to hear what team you guys think
if Jannis is hurt for an extensiveperiod of time, what team can knock
off the Celtics. I'm just notseeing it. Somehow, the Miami he
always worked their way into it lastlast minute to make themselves an interesting team
that can try and make a runout of nowhere. Right right now,

(38:52):
Miami is in the eighth seed.So if somehow they put themselves into conversation
and there all of a sudden,now like, hey, guys, you
forgot about us, I'm just gonnabe like, okay, fellow kids,
well we shouldn't have never written offMiami. You should took him se Us
along, right, because of allthe stuff that Miami does, they've shown
us. The regular season does notmatter to them. They don't care.

(39:12):
It's all about the postseason. Granted, I don't know if Miami has the
talent to always be messing around andletting themselves have to win in the play
in then have to go and winmultiple games on the road. Sometimes it's
tough, but hey, they're theteam that didn't make it to the finals
last year, so you give themtheir respect. But outside of that,
I think what the final thing Idid want to talk about was talking about
Draymond Green talking to Clay Thompson.And it was interesting because Draymond appeared on

(39:38):
Clay Thompson's podcast and Clay and Draymondin short words, I guess I paraphrase
here. He talked about how himselfhad how he himself has gotten himself removed
from the court and been away fromthe team in multiple circumstances do to things
he's done, and he asked Clayto be blunt and tell him how does

(39:59):
he feel about those different circumstances thatDraymond's actions have put the team in.
And man, if Clay Thompson didn'twear the most kid gloves in a way,
he told Draymond this man said I'mgonna paraphrase some here as well,
but he pretty much said, youknow me and stephf are nice guys,
and you know, when you're notout there, we're we're not able to

(40:20):
play like ourselves. And it's oneof those situations that we when we feel
like we're not ourselves playing out therewithout you. The defense also knows that,
and they're related when you're not ableto play. And I just feel
like that's one of those things thatwhen we're trying to make this run,
it is just it kills us ina major way. And to me,
I heard that again paraphrase, andI was like, man, Clay,

(40:45):
if you don't keep it a buckwith this man, because that man has
no problem keeping it a buck withwhomever he's going after at the moment,
then gets himself suspended or teed outof a game, So can you please
keep it a butt? And thisis where I always feel like, I'm
like, why whoa, that's screech, But why is it that this organization

(41:06):
feels the need? And I getit, right, that's your man,
that's your guy. You don't wantto chastise your guy. And a clip
that or on a platform that youknow will be disseminated between thousands of people.
And it's different between doing that inprivate and then when you're in a
public form, you don't want tojust be lambasting that man and then confirming
with all the media said about Draymondis such a selfish player for doing all

(41:27):
these things and then making it feellike you are now adding the fuel to
the fire where you now say that, oh well, he to be honest,
we were honestly pissed when you doit every single time, because then
the media will always have that asa reference point to say, yeah,
these guys hate it whenever he getsejected and he stops short of obviously going
to that length and describing it inthat manner. But I'm just like,

(41:50):
man, they just they can't.They just can't keep it one hundred when
it comes to Draymond. They canthey can't be honest with Draymond, and
they have to consistently have the gloveson. And I just I don't get
it. And I think this coreMe and snack Hill talked about it,
but this COR's run is coming toa close. They can win games off

(42:13):
of just their their wisdom, theirveteran leadership, and the way they had
that familiarity of playing with one another, but the talent just isn't there with
this team. Steph Curry is stillthat dude, but they don't have a
roster built around him where he canjust put everybody on his back and lead
them in a way that he didin the finals multiple years ago. Right,

(42:34):
So I just don't it's weird toimagine any of these players no longer
being Warriors. But at the sametime, when that check comes due,
you're just like, well, thatcheck is due, and it's hard to
imagine them having to pay every singleperson. Right. So that's just an
interesting scenario, but just a littlething I wanted to discuss. But guys,

(42:57):
that's gonna wrap it up for today'sepisode of the podcast. Of course,
if you enjoyed the podcast, goahead and lead that five star review
in that rating. Always appreciate that. Also, go ahead and leave a
like on whatever podcast platform you're listeninginto, and go ahead and hit that
follow and subscribe button. And whileyou're at it, go ahead and hit
that following subscribe button on all theKBR sports platforms that would be most appreciated.

(43:17):
That way, you don't miss abeat on whatever content is coming out
for k ky'all KBR Sports, andthat way you guys, stay up to
date on anything that is being putout about the podcast, the chan,
the YouTube channel, and all othersocial media platforms. Right, but guys,
thank you so much for losing Wow, I am just saying where it's
all over the place. Thank youso much for listening y'all. It means

(43:40):
more than you know. I alwaysappreciate it. And until next time,
guys, I'm out.
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