Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hi, and welcome to the NBA Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
My name is Morgan Jensen, and today we'll be discussing
the league in terms of its competitiveness. There are teams
that are, let's just say, less than competitive. Does that
go against the overall best interest of the league, A
league that in and of itself is going heavy on
the pr in terms of we want parody, We want
(00:41):
every team to be competitive. So I think there is
something there to discuss, and to help me through that,
I have Adam Taylor back on the program.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Adam, how are you, sir? Everything good? Yeah, man, I'm good.
Just working through yesterday's preseason game for the Celtics, but
I'm good. I've enjoyed the off season, but it was
a bit too long for my liking, so I'm happy
to be back.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Oh see, for me, I actually enjoyed it. I hadn't
had an off season off for ten years, and this
year specifically because I worked my ass off last season.
I just needed the time off. So I took like
two and a half months where I did the bare
minimum in terms of like coverage from my end, Like
(01:21):
I would still write for Yahoo, I would still covered
the off season obviously, and for Forbes. But outside of that,
I didn't take on any extra work. I was just
relaxing and I can feel like I'm entering this year
with recharged batteries for the first time in a decade.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
That's wild stuff for me. Man, That's wild. It's hard,
right because you get to the point where at the
start of the off season you're really excited, or at
least this is how I got. I'm like super excited
about everything that's going on in the off season, the
trade rumors, the draft is coming up. You finish the season,
and you know what it's like being over this side
of the world. You don't really get the opportunity to
(01:58):
dive into the draft until the season end because there's
just not enough time in the day because of the
time difference that you're trying to fight in against. So
you get through that, then you get through free agency,
and then it goes dead, and I was like, you,
I kind of took my foot off the gas a
little bit, bare minimum coverage across the board, try and
spend some more time with the family. You know how
it goes. But you get to a point where it's like, dude,
(02:20):
I'm kind of ready to be back and then you
get back and you're like, dude, I really don't understand
why I was so excited because now the grind starts again.
So it's a double edged sword for sure.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah. No, I mean I've been looking forward to the season,
for sure. It's just I actually grew a little accustomed
to not waking up and immediately going into like work
mode from the moment I wake up.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, you know the drill, dude, five am. I opened
my eyes this morning at five am. By five point fifteen,
I've got a coffee on my desk and I've loaded
up a game. I've got my jewel screen, I've got
the game on one side, the numbers on over a notepad,
and it's like, dude, it's five am. I should be
chilling in bed working my ass off. But you know,
we're very fortunate to do what we do, so moaning
(03:03):
about it doesn't feel that, you know what I mean,
We're very very lucky.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
We are, and it's it's a look, it's a great job,
and it's something that I do think we can moan
because every single person on the face of the earth,
even with the good jobs, even with jobs that are
very attractive, they they can moan a little bit once
once in a while, but I am I'm fully in agreement,
very very fortunate with the opportunities that we've been given.
(03:28):
Now we look ahead to the twenty five twenty twenty
twenty five, twenty twenty six season, and as I stated
at the top at them, we're looking at a bunch
of teams that are kind of stuck in the middle.
And well, some are unintentionally, you know, they're they're stuck
in the middle because that's just the numbers game. But
then we have teams who I think it's fair to
(03:51):
say they're not actively trying to get out of the middle.
Like obviously the Bulls is like that. That's a team
that is a prime example of this. Miami have sort
of skirted under this for a while because they made
the finals, because they made the run with Jimmy and
all that, but like it's been a few years now
where they've been very mediocre in the regular season and
(04:13):
we're kind of wondering what is the plan and they
refuse to thank the Raptures. Also kind of in that
same boat, you got the Kings in the West that well,
I want to say the Suns, I do think they
stepped their best foot forward for a couple of years there,
but at the same time they were realistic about their
own capabilities.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
But like, they're just this.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Handful of teams where I'm sitting back, going, are you
really putting your best foot forward either to be competitive
for this year or to build something for the future,
Because it's fine taking a step back and rebuilding. I mean,
what the Washington Wizards are doing right now is something
that I commend. I think they're doing it right because
they were stuck in the middle for so many years.
(04:56):
They finally just ripped off the bandage and went, look,
we can keep doing this, we need to start over.
But then you have this group of teams that are
just insisting upon staying in that plane in sweet spot.
Have we grown to a custom to that plane tournament already?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Like? Is that becoming an excuse for teams you think?
I think that there's a world where you can use
that as a false yeah, a false view of success. Right.
If you're a middling team, a purgatory team as I
like to call them, and you make the plane, then
you can kind of point at, hey, well we had
(05:35):
a few extra games at the end of the season,
and we got some development time for our guys and
there was a lot of tournament field to this game,
and it's going to make people better. You can kind
of lean into that for three to four years before
the question starts to commes as well, where's the progress, right?
You've had a few playing runs, now, why aren't you
making it to take that next step to be a
first round team, a second round team, be a team
(05:58):
that can actually make linear progress in your development, which
is what you expect from You look at like Washington
right in a few years time, if they're just stuck
in the middle again, you're going to ask whether the
rebuild was worth it because the progress is meant to
be incremental over over a period of time. And a
team that I look at when we're talking about this
happy to be in the middle, happy, not happy to
(06:20):
just not be bad. You look at a thing and
I know this is kind of unfair because of the
injuries they have, but the Pelicans feel like a team
like that too, where every move they make is to
build around a guy they know they can't win around
because of just he doesn't really want to be there.
His injury issues have been a problem. But you continue
to move pieces around him, because it's very easy to
(06:42):
sell the idea that hey, we just need one good
year from him and we're right back in it, when
in reality, it's just not going to be that way.
But in the side, on the side, you're making a
profit as a as an ownership group, and you're very
happy with where you are.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, and I was I was even going to add
Memphis into that, because, like I think, any smart organization
has to look at the Jam Moran Charon Jackson junior
compo and go, can we ever win a championship with
that duo as our two best players?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And the answer should be no.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Like they're a good enough regular season team that they
will always find their way somehow almost into the playoffs
if they're healthy. But at the same time, you're sort
of sitting there going what's the end game here? Is
it a first round exit? Like maybe smell the second
round every third year or so? It just seems maybe
this is an harsh word, but it seems unseerious on
(07:35):
some level.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
In a way. And I think that you can very
easily paper over those questions by making a move like
they did this summer to bring in KCP who's had
a couple of times where he's landed on the team
and been an important part of a championship puzzle. But
then he's coming off arguably his worst season in the
(07:57):
last five or six years over in Orlando, where the
whether the fit just didn't work and the system didn't
really bring out the best of him. But to bring
him in, you're giving up Desmond Bane. And I think
that one of the good arguments you had for the Grizzlies. Words. Okay,
there's a poor fit between their two stars, but there's
a lot of young pieces around them, and Desmond Bane
is one of those star young pieces. So the question
(08:19):
is then, like, are they being un serious but masking
it they move away from Desmond Bane to bring in KCP,
because that looks like they're trying to bring in leadership
and championship know how, but they're also doing it off
the back of a bad year. Yeah when and now
it's like, oh, well, if KCP doesn't work out here,
then it's on KCP. But realistically, are you bringing him
(08:41):
into be a scapegoat to get the pressure off of
you and unto him?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
It's funny you think about KCP and all this I
actually just looked at him as like salary fodder. So
it's I think it's super interesting that you could look
at that situation think, oh, they actually brought him in
to potentially be a fall guy in many ways, that's
I never thought about that. That's that's actually an intriguing thought.
I don't think sach Kleman is a guy who you know,
(09:11):
gives me that vibe though. I but at the end
of the day, we can agree that we were looking
at a roster that is highly, highly flawed, Like yeah,
it's it's it's they They have so many missing pieces
as of right now. And I'm fully aware that they
got like sanci al Dama and and like it resigned him,
(09:31):
they got tied Jerome. But it just seems to me
something's gotta pop, whether that's Ceterriac Coward or if it's
Gigi Jackson, or if it's Janalen Wells whatever, or Sachiedy
for that matter, But it just feels like at least
two of those guys have to pop. And and there's
nothing wrong in that approach technically, but if they find
(09:51):
themselves a couple of years from now still doing the
whole you know, eight seed, ninth seed, whatever. I would
just add them to that exture of teams where you're
kind of asking yourself, what's what's the end game here?
For me, what's super interesting is the relationship between those
teams and the league at large, because I've spoken with
(10:16):
Mark Tatum a couple of times and he's just been
banging that drum, the whole parody angle, like we want
everyone to be competitive.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
He was like, it's fair enough.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
That seems sort of like recalibrating that I think that
was his word, and which means rebuilding. But they do
want to end up in a place where the teams
that aren't they are going for it, and I'm just
wondering how that relationship is. Like I'm wondering if the
league is looking at some of those teams that are
quote unquote unserious and just going, hey, you're actually hurting
(10:47):
our product.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I think there has to be a two way look
at this, right, because in one sense they are hurting
the products because of the lack of the lack of parity,
but in the other sense, they actually help make the
good teams look better. Yeah, do you know what I mean?
And I know that's like very basic analysis, but it's
important to think of we talk about these teams, and
(11:12):
a common terminology that is used nowadays is league pass teams. Right,
this is a league past team. They're not really going
to get much national TV scope. If you want to
watch them, you're gonna have to hunt them out. And
that's primarily because, as we're talking about right now, they're
consistently outside of the realm of success, the kind of
fair way of saying it. And when you've got those teams,
(11:33):
one of the best things about them is they're still
scrappy enough to be a good watch, and they're scrappy
enough to be competitive in games. So what happens they
go up against these really good teams they go up
against I know, if we use the Warriors as an example,
especially now that they're kind of like the old people's
home of the NBA, and all of a sudden, you
(11:54):
get this amazing game because it's young and gritty versus
old and savoy, and it makes for great ratings. Even
though you know, coming in ninety percent of the time
Golden State are walking away with a win. It's actually
a compelling game because the other team is this never
say die attitude, even though they know too that you know,
if they're doing well, somebody might try and pulled a
(12:16):
plug or however it's going to go. So I do
think that while party is important, there is also this
value to having some of these teams that struggle consistently
and partially by choice, that help you build up your
star teams and make them look a little bit better
than what they are because success sells, and success sells merchandise,
(12:39):
It sells ticket sales, it sells league past sales, it
creates revenue for your broadcast partners, and it's more likely
that casual fans want to tune in if they know
it's going to be a gritty, hard fought game because
it answers questions about a team like Golden State, where
it's like, can they win when it's a gritty battle
against the young team? So they're right. There is value
(13:00):
there in terms of revenue creation. Whether that sustains the
NBA's desire for parity across the board, that's a question.
But I also think it's disingenuous to expect thirty teams
to all be contending at the same time. It's just
not enough players, and the good players that are coming
through a young, they're going to rebuilding situations for the
most part. Obviously we can ignore Cooper Flag just lands
(13:24):
in Dallas. You know who thought that would happen. But
for the most part, I think that you need some
of these middling teams to help prop up the higher
end of the.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
League, right I think you used a very interesting terms
term you said struggling by the sign. See I would
usually associate that type of term with the rebuilding teams,
you know, Washington, Utah, San Antonio. Well, San Antonio might
not even be rebuilding anymore, but like they're probably trying
to be competitive now. But you know my point here,
(13:55):
it's the teams that seem to be somewhat directionless that
I keep going back to because that chunk of team
that it seems to be growing a little bit over
the past couple of years. And like in the East
right now, I fully I agree with you, there was
there was a plethora of injuries. So like we're putting
that aside, Like I'm not putting if Boston becomes like
(14:18):
a middling team in the Eastern Conference this year, I'm
not putting that at their feet because you know, Jason
Tatum with the Achilles injury. I'm going to use the
same approach and the same logic with the Pacers, and
because of Tyre's Albert, the Bucks, I mean, they just
found there's themselves in a weird, weird situation with Dame.
Then they stretched and waved him to sign Myles Turner.
But that's still downgrade. So my expectations for them are
(14:40):
very tempered, and that's probably being very kind. So like
there are teams where I'm like putting that outside of
the competitive prism, I guess, and where I just say,
I understand why these teams are going to have like
a year where they're just not going to be that
relevant and that's fair because it was literally their their
(15:03):
best or second best player going down. To me, it's
more along the lines of teams like again, I'm going
I'm gonna go back to Miami, who I think has
just they've been so fortunate in that they had the
finals year in twenty twenty three, they had the Eastern
Conference Finals year was that the year before the year
after I don't even remember against Boston where because they
(15:26):
had those stretches, everyone was like, oh, they're a relevant
force in the NBA. They're they're a power team, but
we kind of forget that they were they were. They
were one game away from not even making it to
the postseason. And that's a team that's just been skirting
by for like what six years now.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Part of that is definitely, to me at least, it's
I think that Pat Royley's had had his past, his
best in terms of being a front topic scot. Yeah.
I think that he's very much committed to keeping flexibility
open for a start, And this is part of the
problem with these middling by design teams. You know, the Miamis,
(16:05):
the New Orleans and stuff is there's this long term
hope that you just need one guy and you need
as many pieces that you can put plug it into
a trade to get that guy, and then everything flips
and now we can start building around him and being
competitive again. And in the meantime, what we want to
do is we want to accumulate young talent so we
can make an attractive trade proposal. We want to accumulate
(16:29):
draft picks. We want to accumulate opportunities to be outside
of the lottery, but not so far outside of the
lottery that we're not going to convert on these picks.
Very often because the idea is if you can get
a killoutware and I cannot remember for the life of
me right now where klou where was picked. I'm pretty
certain it was the outside of the lottery, I believe,
(16:51):
just so. Yeah, so his value is still really high
in terms of talent, but his contract is below that
of a lottery level draft pick. Yeah, and fifteenth, by
the way, fifteenth one place. That's why it's so tough, right,
But that value with the contract is a bit lower
than if he's been a lottery picking. Now, if you've
got two or three guys like that that are true,
(17:12):
genuine upside guys and you can package them along with
a no, let's just use Tyler Hero as an example.
You can had Tyler Hero to a deal and start
enticing somebody to the table in a Kevin Durant trade
or whilever it may be. Then the value of being
this quote unquote directionless team isn't really the fact that
(17:32):
you're directionless. It's the fact that you're just dragging your
heels a year after year to get these pieces together
to then strike for a trade even when it becomes available. Now,
the problem is you can it could take ten years
for that opportunity to arise. And I think that's where
pat Riley's methods can be a little bit frustrating, because
they are most certainly embracing being a middling directionless team,
(17:56):
but they're doing so under a very specific blueprint. At
least that's how I perceive it when I look at
what it.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, so I think you're absolutely right about that, And
I understand the allure of going in for like a
superstar and basically saying, Okay, now we're in it. It's
the time, right, Like you alluded to, you could take
a decade for example, like that's a long time, and
that's where your reputation as a franchise also alters. Like again,
(18:23):
people who listen to this podcast will be all moret
Are you going to talk about the Bulls again?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I am, And I'm going to complain about the Bulls
again because that's a team I think is becoming like
the poster child off the rudderless NBA team group. Right,
this is a team that's that's come out and actually
said no, we're not going to trade for a start,
we don't even value the draft. We think we can
win by having eight or nine good players, which at
(18:48):
the NPA level. Show me a time outside of the
two thousand and four Pistons where that's ever been relevant.
So it's and like we know that agents are actually
advising their guys not to go to Chicago because that's
where careers were basically going to die. And I think
those are the situations. It's not just the Bulls, but
(19:09):
because of the poster child. That's why I'm bringing them up.
For Atlanta for example, they they went all in this year,
but they had a stretch of what four five years
where they were like at that same level, Orlando two
for that matter. It's it's just to me, it's a
big question also in regards to feann interest, like we're seeing,
(19:30):
you know, before the Orlando for example, God Paolo, that
fan base had checked the f out like there were
you saw the games on League Pass, Adam, I know
you did that seam. They they had no fans in
the seats, no one was watching, no one cared, and
for years and years and years, finally Polo came in,
Franz popped. You know, they're they're starting to get some
(19:51):
bus now they traded for Desmond Baine. It's going to
be an entirely new experience, but it took them what
close to a decade, because they spent at least six
years with the Vouch Fournier Aaron Gordon Core and it
led nowhere and everyone for what two or three years
at the very least, said yeah, this this experiment has
(20:12):
run its course. Yet they kept turning it back, kept
turning the back. Those are the teams where I'm like,
very worried about what that actually does to the NBA
as like a sport.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Do you ever think that's ego driven decision making? Like
we put this team together and we're going to ride
it through because this is what we constructed and this
is our vision for a team, and it's going to
work if we just get the right coach or get
the right supporting cast. Sometimes I feel like it's you've
got there's value in sticking with your guns right, and
you know this is somebody that creates content and we
(20:45):
can kind of lean and I like to link these
two things together sometimes because I think there's a lot
of crossover. There's value in being like I'm creating something
and nobody's tuning in, nobody's reading. But if I stick
with it long enough, it you know it will slowly
build an audience. And there's the same value with team building. Okay,
we're not winning much right now, but maybe in a
(21:07):
year or two will win more. We've just got to
stick with it. But there comes a point where you've
got to be unapologetically fearless in your ability to pivot,
and you've got to understand that it doesn't matter to
the outside world how that looks. It matters that you're
doing it in pursuit of success. So if you've had
a core for five years or you've had a podcast
(21:28):
for five years, it doesn't matter which way you look
at it. If neither of those things are starting to
at least show shoots of success at least like routes
are starting to form, maybe it's time you reevaluate and
look for another avenue. Doesn't mean you stop doing the podcast,
or it doesn't mean you trade everybody on the team,
but you make changes to the approach. And like you said,
(21:50):
if you drag it on too long, everybody checks out,
and that includes yourself, that includes the players, it includes
the front halfice. Because you feel like we're just stuck
on this ground hog day of a season where it's
we get there, but we're never close enough. So I
do see that, and I do think sometimes there's some
ego there in the decision making positions where it's like
a reluctance to pivot, whether that be for public perception
(22:13):
or whether that be because you know you built it,
and you're like, well, if we built it, we know
what we're doing, so clearly it's going to work.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I think you're absolutely right. I think there is a
lot of ego. I think we're seeing that with a
lot of teams. And what I find interesting is the
successful teams, the ones that win championships, the one that
are in the finals, the ones that are and I'm
not really necessarily including the Heat in that one, but
like teams that are always in the higher brackets. When
(22:43):
you listen to their you know, team precedents or general
managers whoever, like the main decision maker is those guys
actually seem to be fairly heavy on their ability to
analyze their own situation. They have some insight into their
their organization, to themselves, they know where they struggle, they
(23:05):
know where they need to get better. I mean, Sam
Presty to me is someone who has consistently you know
criticized his own roster movements, you know, and not not
to the point where oh I suck, but where he's like, yeah,
I like I could probably do better. We're not done,
Like they're like, there's always this level of self insight
(23:26):
where I can appreciate that he feels the job isn't done.
And then you go to the poor teams. And when
I say the poor teams, I don't necessarily mean the
rebuilding ones, but the ones who are consistently stuck in
the middle. And when you hear those executives talk, it's
full of arrogance. So I think you're onto something. It's
it's because it's like, we believe in this in this process,
(23:48):
we believe that what we're doing is right. We're believing, Well,
you haven't been relevant for almost a decade. So if
you keep believing that what you're doing is right, then
how do you not at some point take the data
that you've human need and actually understand and internalize, hey,
this isn't working. So I think that's a really good
point on your part.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
I think you can look at some of the rebuilding
teams as well to see how once that change in
mentality occurs, positive change begins to happen right Like you
mentioned the Wizards, one of the worst like purgatory teams
in recent memory. Once they eventually sat back and did
some internal evaluation into the decision making process and to
(24:30):
where they actually stood right now, it was very clear
that a rebuild was needed, and they then they made
the moves necessary to enter a rebuild, and all of
a sudden, they've gained some good will back, not only
with their fan base but with the general media as well.
They're drafting intelligently, they're taking things step by step. Now.
The one I kind of question we've like, obviously, you
(24:51):
know the Balls a lot better than I do as
a franchise, And I know we're using the Eastern conferences
as kind of like the dry The vehicle here very
heavily compared to the West, but that's probably because the
West is actually quite deep and quite good. There's very few,
you know, the East is the area where there's some
questions With Chicago. I completely understand the frustrations, but I
(25:11):
also think that they are trying to be different to
how they have constructed teams in the past. Now, the
biggest question for me is if you signed cod if
you re sign Kobe White, then by all means we
need to have some serious conversations about where this team's going,
just because of how much Cap is then committed to
a backcourt that has no defense, right, But I do
(25:34):
think that they're at least trying. Matthas Bazilis has been
a really good injection. No is it? I can never
pronounce his name.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
No, I've heard it a couple of different ways. I
believe it's okay, yeah, or because first it was, then
was and it's. It's just there's so many different I'm
not really sure. Because he's French as well, and I
suck at French. Me too, Me too, I've got an
English accent. To French is virtually impossible. Giddy was a
(26:05):
good pickup. I'm actually a big fan of Josh Giddy.
But I'll tell you where I really sit with this.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
If we want to talk about like reluctant to change
you to arrogance is Patrick Williams. Oh yeah, yeah, you're
in a position where Patrick Williams needs a new situation.
You need to get rid of Patrick Williams. It's actually
beneficial for everybody involved to find him a new home.
But you don't because you're like, we pick this guy,
he was a high pick. It's going to work out
(26:31):
if we just keep trying to find the right And
that's when we get back to this like ego driven
decision making. So I can understand the frustration there. Atlanta's
another one. They make the big swing, and the year
before Trey Young has a decision to make a player ouption,
that big swing should have been done two years ago. Yeah, yeah,
(26:51):
do you know what I mean? Yeah? And the big
swing you take, he's on a player that has been
injured for both of his last two postseason runs through injury,
one through health like sickness. Yeah, so you do make
a big swing, but you make a big swing on
an unreliable big man. And then at least then if
Trey Young decides to walk, we go back to this
(27:13):
kind of escape route, like covering my own back. Oh well,
we gave him pausingis and it didn't work out. We
tried our best. Maybe is time, do you know what
I mean? Yeah? Sometimes I do wonder if there are
secondary not secondary decisions, but secondary reasons for decisions being
made that don't get made public. I think we should
(27:35):
get into that.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Right after that, this commercial break, because I think you're
onto something about like the decisions that go into the
roster aren't really as kind and dry as people make
it out. Test we'll be right back, And before we
went to commercial break, you said that basically some teams
could be making decisions with something else in mind than
(27:57):
just the Shearer move. Well, the roster decision does sher
Raster move? What is it that you think could be
the motivating factor behind what seems to do that is
necessarily exclusively tied to the players they acquir.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I think fan perception has a lot to do with it, right,
because fan perception is the lifeblood of any team. It's
a community driven aspect of a team. I think it's
also very important to remember that without fan revenue, the
NBA is or any professional sports league is screwed because
your fans aren't interested in they don't watch the TV. Right,
steals go down, your merchandise sales go down, your game
(28:35):
to game income goes down because no one's If you
can't put butts in seats, you're not selling tickets, there's
no run. So sometimes I think that a decision that
gets made is the first and foremost thought process is
always going to be Does this make us better? I
don't think this front up is out there that are
like unless they're trying to be bad to like obviously
to tank or to rebuild. I think the thought processes
(28:58):
does this make us better? I think there's always that
secondary thought process of like with Trey Young, using him
as the vehicle here, he's got a player eruption coming up.
He's not one hundred percent sure of, judging by the
comments that have come out with everyone, that he's going
to upt in, whether he's going to updact well, whether
he ups out and resigns with the Hawks or looked elsewhere. Now,
if you were to lose Trey Young because you haven't
(29:19):
made every effort to be competitive with him, the fan
sentiment falls through the floor. Your job is at risk
as a front office member, because the ownership group is
going to be like, well, you've just lost out and
number one guy because you've been incapable of doing the
one thing we pay you to do. But if you
then make a swing for a big name, recent NBA champion,
big man who revolutionized John Mizzoula's offense because of all
(29:42):
the different things he could do, and then things still
don't work out because you can point to injuries if
KP goes down, or you can put to health if
he haves this sickness book that he had last year.
And then Trey Young walks, well, you made a move
that you believe made the team better, but you also
made a move that if Trey Young decides to go, well,
we'd everything we possibly could to make it a competitive
(30:02):
for us to around it right. And now fan sentiment
is a different conversation.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Which all tracks back to ownership, because again, if the
fans are out there demonstrating, the vast majority of owners
are going to look at that and go, oh, well,
well then we need to change oh because they get
frightened about, you know, potential boycotts or not wanting to
show up to games or whatnot. I think there are
owners out there who understand that occasionally you need to
(30:34):
be a little tough skinned where you understand we have
to make a big move, we have to perhaps sacrifice
our superstar to start over. And those owners who actually
understand basketball on some level, because the owners that don't
will never support such a move. Those are the owners
that put themselves in a situation where they could actually
(30:56):
win a championship. And then at the same time there's
also the other side of the coin. We were just
talking about the Bulls where Jerry Reinsdorf is almost far
too you know, loyal towards people who come into this
organization and who are utterly incompetant. So you have to
find like the right balance of ownership groups where the
owner comes in and says, all right, I am willing
(31:18):
to either you know, can side control to you because
you're the basketball guy. I don't even care what fans say.
I don't care what people say. I'm going to trust
you to build a product. Or it's gonna have to
be an owner who actually, to some extent understands basketball.
I don't think it can be someone who comes in
who is just completely unaware of what happens, because that's
(31:42):
when you get into trouble.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
The other flip side is the owner that's a fan.
And this is a reality that Celtics fans are working
through right now is there's a new ownership group in
Boston and everything they say, everything Bilchishlm has said so
far has been perfectly on the money with what people
want to hear. But how that looks in practice is
(32:06):
going to be, you know, to be determined. But he
is a fan first, he is a lifelong fan of
the team. Then that means then does how does his
decision making process work when the team is bad versus
when the team is good? How does it work? And
how does it work when the team is developing slower
than what he would like because he doesn't want to
(32:27):
see a losing product on the floor. How much of
Hayfe is he going to put into Brad Stevens, who is,
in my opinion, and there's a bias here, of course,
a top five front halfest guy in the NBA. It's
there's a lot of questions that come with that. And
I do think that you have owners that are businessman first,
and this is nothing but an investment to them then,
but they also understand that that investment, your biggest return
(32:50):
on that investment is to be successful, So they do
what they can to bring success because yes, in turn,
their investment starts to appreciate. Then you have owners that
are basketball minded people that obviously those are the best
people to have running like overseeing a team. But you
also have the wealthy fan and I think that as
(33:11):
the wealth distribution continues to go to a select group.
We're going to see more and more actual fans taking
ownership shares in teams, and then obviously that changes the
way you process information. So I think there is that
third type, and I think each one of them can
be beneficial to a franchise, but each one of them
could also be the undoing of a franchise. It just
(33:33):
depends on the person's aptitude for aptitude for patients basically patients,
and being allowing other people to be in control of
something even though you technically ownly.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
It's interesting about the fan owner because I have so
many thoughts on this because let's say that fan owner,
because you know, it's a billionaire. If someone buys a
team right now, you've got to be a billionaire, and
it takes time to accumulate that level of wealth.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
So let's say that.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Person was a fan of a team and watch them
growing up, but growing up was the seventies or eighties.
If that's the vision you have of basketball, that's like,
oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you just need a back to
the Basket center in the year twenty twenty five, and
then you're gonna win a championship. You know, they're going
to be something that is outdated for those fans, where
(34:25):
if a general manager or it team of executives come
in and sells them, you know, we need to play
five out, we need to have switchable defenders, we need
to have multiple ballhanders, we need to have all these
things that are actually going to put us in a
position to win.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Those owners are going to.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Be like, what, we don't need all that, We just
need one star who's close to the basket at all times
because that's how I grew up. That's first and foremost
extremely problematic. So if you're like the fan owner, it's
just it's so crucial in terms of like how your
fan hood was educated, Like did you follow the strings
(34:59):
of evolution within basketball over the years as you were
a fan? Like are you open minded to the idea
that basketball is played differently and that it changes every
five years? That you know, for example, ten years ago,
fifteen years ago, positions was basketball? What the hell was that?
Now it's an outright necessity that your best player is
(35:19):
at least cable of playing two, if not three positions
and is capable being like the primary ballhandler irregardless of position.
So it's like you just need to have those owners
be in a mind where they're open to the fact
that things aren't necessarily what they were used to, and
they have to be open to the idea that further
(35:41):
change is coming, because that, at the end of the day,
to me, Adam is like the big key. You have
to stay open minded towards basketball evolutions because that is
never going to change.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
And I find it funny to imagine a fifty sixty
sixty five year old billionaire in a meeting room somewhere
with a bunch of like incredibly intelligent basketball executives. Yeah,
pounding his fist on the desk, like, get me the
next Shack Yeah, like that, Like okay, because that's how
that's how a fan that age would think, get me
(36:14):
the next Shaquille O'Neill, Go and find me the new
Chamberlain or Bill Russell or just insert legendary big man
that's wants in a generation here, right, And when that
doesn't happen, you know, you see it, sometimes teams get
a bit happy to move on from their front office
executives because they're like, right, you've had four years, it
(36:34):
didn't work. That's not understanding that the evolution of a
basketball team can take five, six, seven years for the
developments to get to a point where now you have
two or three stars. And I think like this is
where the Celtics were very fortunate in the Grousbeck ownership
group with Steve pag Luca was they had the Jason Tatum,
Jayalen Brown core, but they knew it was going to
(36:56):
take the best part of five to ten years for
them to be ready to become a championship team. And
when they were ready, they invested, and they were willing
to pay the tax. And I think that sometimes you
can be a middling team. I mean, Boston wasn't because
they always found a way of having other stars around Jasoninjana,
But sometimes you can be a middling team and the
(37:17):
benefit of it is you're putting enough profit to decide
that when it does come time to invest, do you
have a surf plus of available cash to pay the
luxury tax is necessary? And I think that that is
also a conversation that needs to be had, like, are
these teams that are middling by design purposely doing so
(37:39):
to build up enough of a cash reserve that when
they do want to push all their chips into the
middle they're not paying out of the owner's pocket, they're
paying out of the franchises' reserves.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
That's interesting because we've heard several teams actually say that, like,
we need the financial equity and that's why we're taking
some time. But then the teams, you know, whenever they
get slightly serious, they still avoid the tax like the plague,
and then you kind of realize, oh, oh, you're just
bs ing us with the whole you know, equity thing.
(38:11):
You're just trying to earn money. And again, I understand
that that's the premise of ownership. You want to earn money.
I get that, but I think to your point, in
order to do that, you need to at least have
a product that's entertaining and competitive, and like that's that's honestly, Adam.
That's why I'm high on the Wizards. Like, I'm not
(38:31):
going to sit here and say that this project is
going to work. I'm not going to say that. I
have a lot of questions in regards to this project.
Like Trey Johnson, I'm not necessarily as high on him
as everyone else. I have major question marks about Alex Saar,
I have question marks about Bob CARRINGTONI for example, like
(38:55):
I love him as a player, but I concede that
there is certainly a very realistic chance that he's not
going to be a number one guy or even a
number two guys. So like, it's not about like the
results for me immediately, to me, it's about what their
process is. Like they're going in and they're trying to
you know, have the multifaceted players. You know, you were
(39:16):
talking about that, you know, having an owner sitting there
going give me the next sequid O'Neil. At least the
Wizards are trying to attack this from a position of oh,
we're trying to build a team that is new age relevant.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
We have we have international players, we have players who
can play multiple positions, we have scores, we have table setters.
We're spending you know, plus sixty million on veterans and
form Chris Middleton and CJ. McCollum to act as mentors,
to act as guys who can take these young players
under their wings. I just their entire process to me
(39:50):
is just thumbs up. I love it. And even if
it doesn't materialize into something you know, sustainably competitive, all right,
I can at least appreciate that they did something else
and tried a different approach to team construction, and I
think that, at the end of the day, is what
we need to seek in teams that have been stuck
(40:11):
for five or six years, like roll the dice and rebuild, if.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
That's what you need to do.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Like again, going back to the Bulls, the fan base
has been clamoring for a rebuild for I want to
say the better part of six years, if not more
now that I think about it, And what they're basically
saying is will support you more.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
If you rebuild.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
We will not support you anymore if you keep just
staying between thirty nine forty two wins and you keep
extending Nikolovusevitch for example, like they want a product where
they can see that there is a plan. I think
the element of a plan is so crucial, and especially
a plan that's somewhat transparent to the fan base. It's
(40:55):
so so crucial. And for it seems that find a
way to actually present something sustainable to a fan base
and say this is what we're going after. We can't
go into details because we still got to keep something
close to our best. But these are the broad focus
points that we have in this rebuild. You look at
those fan bases, and those fan bases are like thumbs up, game,
(41:18):
I'm we're ready. That's cool, that's fine by us. A
really good example team here is Detroit.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah. I think Detroit did fantastic work in terms of
their overall built rebuild, but then they're willingness to pivot. Right.
You have that Dwayn Casey season where you just absolutely
atrocious all the way through, and part of that was
Casey was just checked out, right, was it? No, it
wasn't Dwayne case Sorry, you're thinking about Manti Williams, right,
(41:45):
I'm thinking about Munty Williams. Yep, that's why bad. I
apologize Dwayne Casey, Casey opportunities. Hold on, that wasn't my season.
It wasn't. It was Munty william Right. So you have
that season where it's atrocious, Williams is checked out, but
it's also the fit on the floor is a great right,
you don't really have the floor space in facaid. And
the one thing I really like about what Detroit have
(42:05):
done in their roster construction is they've constructed a team
that's in tune with the DNA of the franchise. So
what I mean by that is Detroit are a gritty team.
They're a physical team. They're a combative team, and they
always have been. So the front half is that comes
in is like, not only do we want to build
a competitive roster, but we want it to have strands
(42:26):
of that DNA that make it relatable for the fan base,
a team that the fan base can get behind because
it's what they expect. And then what happens is they're like, Okay,
so we've done that, We've got the DNA strands, but
our star player is being suffocated because we don't have
the talent around him to create the space he needs
to be the best version of himself. What do they do?
(42:48):
They go out last season they pick up three or
four different guys that can handle the ruck, shoot the ball,
and defend multiple positions. All of a sudden, Kate Conningham
has his best season of his career so far, it
really looks like he's as sending and now coming into
this year, Pistons fans are really hopeful of making some
noise in it like in the East. And I think
that that willingness to be a middling team and then,
(43:10):
as you said, make the moves that you need to make,
but do it with the foresight of understanding that you're
building for the modern MBA. And not only are you
building for the NBA that it is now, you're also
trying to preempt the next evolution that comes, because this
team will becoming of age as that next evolution is
ushering in. That's the hard part, But you're also then
(43:30):
being willing to pivot and be like, Okay, what we've
done is working, but it's not because of X, Y
and Z, so let's make the moves we need to
make to make that happen. And I think Detroit have
been an excellent example of a team that's rebuilding and
being proactive to make changes as soon as they see
they're necessary. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
And that's not to say that we don't still have
questions about Detroit, because we still do.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
We oh, of course right.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
I mean I think both of us are in agreement
that we're still not absolutely sure what Jalen Durtan is.
For example, we're still looking at like the fit between
Kate and Jade and Ivy, like do we trust those things?
But it's the approach, right, It's the plan. It's them
trying to look ahead, as you said, where they're basically saying, Okay,
if we construct this roster in this particular manner, how
(44:18):
could that theoretically look three four years down the line.
And that's a perspective that I think is missing for
so many teams, like one of the teams that I
brought up at the start of at the top of
the show as well with the Raptures for example, like yeah,
they've they've tind they've tinkered a little bit with the
roster brought in Brandon Ingram for example.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Who makes no sense. By the way, No, I don't
like that either.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Now they have three like wings where you're kind of
wondering who's gonna play out of position. They drafted Colin
Murray Boyle as a player who I adore, But where
that particular roster is where I'm just like, oh God, like,
where how is he going? Where is he going to play?
You're already loading up on the forwards, like you need
to give this guy minutes, Like where is he gonna play?
Speaker 1 (45:03):
But that's the team.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
I can at least respect that they went out and
did something, even though I don't agree with the with
the idea of what they were trying to do. I
can at least respect that they were looking at their
own situation and going, you know what, we're not satisfied
where we are. We need to make a push, like
we'll see how it works out. I'm not overly confident.
(45:26):
I can appreciate their attempt, But at the same time,
I think they too need to have the fore side
at hand, which goes first and foremost. Are we going
to be a competitive team this year to the point
where we're like a top four team in the East
that we can compete for a final spot?
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Probably No.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
I think it's pretty fair to say probably no to that.
And then I think it's also important that they ask themselves,
do we have that guy on the roster who can
be a number one option who is like our clearcut
star moving forward? I think a lot of Raptress fans
will say, well, that's Scottie Barnes. Am I going to
be the asshole who's gonna ask that big question and say,
(46:08):
is Scottie Barnes the number one option? Because if so,
I think you set yourself a pretty harsh ceiling rate there.
So that's an organization I have my eye on, just
in terms of what is the long term playing there.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
I think the other part of it is and I
want to tie this back into the Pistons discussion while
using Barnes as the vehicle. Here is what the Pistons
are doing is there are questions around that roster, but
then number one priority coming into last season was maximize
your star player, which is maximized Kde Cunningham. Then once
we have data around how he performs and how he
(46:42):
works in certain rotations and combinations, we can start finding
ways to maximize the supporting cast around him. We move
if we need to move Ivy or during then we do.
And that approach, to me is beneficial because not only
are you consistently looking for ways to improve, you're also
keeping the guy that's the future of the franchise happy
because you're putting him in a position to shine. And
(47:05):
the opposite's true in Toronto right now. Not only are
they loading up on wings, they're loading up on wings
that don't spread the floor. Great, yeah, right, Like Brandon Ingram,
He's aversion to the three point line is well documented.
At this point. R J. Barrett is at his best
when slashing and attacking the room, could shoot the free,
but is at his best when going downhill, and Scutty
Barns as much as they're trying to turn him into
(47:25):
baby Yarnis is and he probably will become very similar
in that sense. But he is still a downhill player too.
He can shoot the three, and he will only continue
to improve. But now you've not only designed a roster
that's loaded on forwards and wings, you've designed it that's
loaded on similar style forwards and wings. And your approach
(47:46):
should first and foremost be let's maximize Scutty, keep him happy,
make sure that he's continuing to improve, and then we
take the data points year on year and make the
tweaks that we need to until we stumble the parlor
within formula. And I think that that, to me was
the biggest Like they trade for brandon Ingram and I've
got these giant red question marks popping out of my
(48:07):
head like a cartoon because I'm like, are you trying
to be competitive or are you trying to appease fans
because they're very different.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
It's funny you bring up the Scottie Barr and Seannis
thing because those are the comparisons that I've also seen
from like Raptures fans that all we're trying to build
him up. Yeah, that's what I was to And there's
something there. So there's a statistical smoking gun for me
where I'm just like, are you just ignoring the most
important part of this? And so this comes with a
(48:38):
caveat that I understand fully that two point field goal
percentage is a wide concept, right, because that is every
single two point et sem that can be a twenty four,
it could be a shot at the rim. However, Yanni
is since like his first MVP year going up to now,
(48:58):
has hit sixty two point six percent of his two
point attempts. That's over the course of like six years,
that's over the course of almost five hundred games, sixty
two point six percent. Scottie Barnes over his past three
years two point conversion fifty one and a half percent. Like,
if you one turn a guy into like a downhill
(49:22):
player who's like devastating in transition, you probably need him
to convert at a higher rate on his two point
shots if you're not gonna turn him into a three
point shooter. So like and and that's where to me,
there are just so many issues with that plan. And
I actually say that as someone who loves to watch
Scotty Barnes play. I just think he's grotesquely miscast as
(49:44):
a number, as a potential number one option. I think
this is a guy who should be more of an
entre Egodala type than he should be, Like, Oh, we're
trying to turn him into Giannis. Like no, that's that's
probably a very very bad idea. That's not gonna work
out for anyone. And it's I think that'll speaks into
my larger points. Sometimes with the teams that find themselves
in the Middle Adam, they talk themselves into something occasionally
(50:09):
that is just mind blowingly stupid. And it happens, like
you allow, you said it yourself, Like we're talking a
lot about the East. For some reason, it just happens
in the Eastern Conference far more than it does the West,
Like executives in the Eastern Conference, or maybe it's due
to ownership groups just tend to make dumbass decisions far
(50:30):
more than the Western Conference.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
I like to call it the comparison casket, right, because
you lock yourself in your own casket ready to be buried.
And what happens is we can use Scottie Barnes here
as well. You compare a god. You say you want
someone to be the next version of something, or the
next or the baby version, or you want your team
to be the evolution of the Warriors or the twenty
(50:56):
twenty four Celtics, or however the Knicks look this year.
You see it a lot. At the moment, everybody's talking
about increasing their pace of play because of the way
the Pacers have been. The Pacers are good because they
have Tyre's Halliburton, who's one of the best decision makers
in transition. It is just what it is, right. I
think that a lot of these dumb decisions come out
of making comparisons and thinking, oh, we could do that.
(51:18):
If we make one or two moves, we can be
and you end up putting yourself in the comparison and casket,
where not only are you burying your team, but you're
consigning yourself to a rebuild. And sometimes that these moves
work right, you can make a really dumb decision and
get lucky. It happens. It does, but not very often, unfortunately,
(51:40):
And I think that you know it's I think it
happens in East More not because ownerships are dumb or impatient,
but I do think that there's a bigger margin for
error in the East, so you can be a little
bit more experimental because you don't just have this absolute
gauntlet of monster you have to navigate three four times
(52:02):
a year. You have a couple of them. But if
you're in the West and you make a stupid decision,
now you've got to grind through that for the next
few years, and you're just going to get trampled up. Yeah,
I think I think the the margin for ever being
wider allows for decision making to be a little bit looser.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
That's an interesting point actually, And I think, yeah, if
you basically, if you do things well with the main
like the main core for example, you can make a
mistake in the margins, but it's not going to affect
you that much. But if you have like a weak core,
if you then make two or three mistakes in the margins,
(52:41):
like in a row, you're basically screwed because that's your
safety net.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
And then it's years to get back. And yeah, it's
such a such a high pressure environment to make those
decisions as well, because you would understand that does if
I make a mistake at work, two or three people
see they pull me up and it gets fixed before
it goes out to the masses, or if it does
go out to the masses, I'm told within the first
five hundred reads, right, my mistakes are kept very, very
(53:09):
minimal in terms of who can see and who knows
about them. And that's still embarrassing to me. Three or four.
If I make a mistake and four people know about it,
then I've really made a mistake. It's ridiculous. If you
own a team and you make a call and then
that decision goes wrong, millions of people around the world
know about it. So I don't know. Man, that's a
(53:33):
high pressure. I wouldn't like to be in that position.
I mean, it comes with it, but I wouldn't like
to be in that position. No, And I think that
is fair because there is a human aspect.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
And I also refuse to see here and point fingers
at every single general manager and go, well, you know
you're you're you're bad at everything that most basketball, because
obviously you're not. But I also do think that if
you are in that chair, and if you if you
sought that chair for years and years and years, and
you've basically propped yourself up like you've sold yourself in
(54:07):
job or you're telling teams, I can do this, well,
got to prove it. It sounds cold, but you have
to prove it. And if you can't, you know, that's
that's your story right there. And that may sound harsh,
but that's the name of the game.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
Mister world you're living. And again you can tie that
back to what we do. If you try it for
ten fifteen years and it doesn't work, then your story
is I tried my best. Yeah, do you know what
I mean? And sometimes your best isn't good enough, but
you can sleep easy at night because you gave it
your best. That's that's actually the approach I took as well.
For years. I not with the sleeping.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
Point, but like I actually I always said to myself,
I want to be able to look myself in the mirror,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Yep. That's why I went full time doing this, because
I was like, I don't want to be on my
deathbed and ask myself what would have been? Yeah, I'd
rather know the answer, and whether I like answer or not,
at least I got the answer, yeah exactly, So do
you know what I mean? And I think that that
tois us right back into the beginning of the show
where we were talking about ego driven decisions, because an
ego driven decision is I'm going to make it work
(55:14):
and I'm the best, so I'm going to do this
and everyone's going to love it. And then ten years
in you're probably exactly where you were when you started,
and you're like, actually, yeah, people love it. I'm doing great,
when really you're probably living on Ramen noodles every day
because you're making no money, right, the ego driven decision.
And it's the same with teams, right, like they'll be like, oh, well,
(55:34):
you know, the guy we drafted as a cornerstone in
ten years ago is now nearly thirty and he's deep
in his prime and we're still trash. But it's going
to work out. Give us five more years when it's
on the last legs, we'll figure it out. Right.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
The difference being that those guys making those calls, they're
not even eating ramen ad them.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
They're eating filing and young. I know, right, that's the
only day answer. But the fan base are eating Ramen noodles.
In terms of the problem on the floor, yeah yeah,
they are on hill. Bluddy, it rolls down hill, and that's.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
That's where I actually think is your point earlier about
like the fan base as well. If they become upset,
especially small market fan bases, they can make a real
dent into your profits if they're like, nope, we're out.
It's the major teams that get to scurt by, right,
Like the Bulls know that they will have a full
United Center because Chicago's cold as hell.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
On the winner, people will flock in. But the small
fan bases.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
They can't allow to just be you know, stacked in
for ten or twelve years.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
It's why Milwaukee are doing everything they can do, and
I think that they've actually I think that. Okay, so
we're talking about teams that make decisions to be bad
to the to their detriment, right, Milwaukee routine that have
made decisions to be good to their detriment. They have
traded their way into the back, into their backs, banded
against the wall. Yep, they have no more moves left.
(56:58):
And we said this when they picked up Dame, that
this was the last role of the dice for they.
Obviously the Dame situation went how it went, he got hurt.
I think that then what they did after Dame got
hurt and waved and stretched him while he has ended
up in a better situation for him back in Portland.
Players around the NBA are look at that and be like,
they didn't stand by a guy that got hurt while undercoat,
(57:20):
you know what I mean. And that has a massive
negative impact on your ability to land free agents in
the future. Also has a negative impact on your ability
to trade for stars because they're not really going to
feel confident being with you. But also they've absolutely destroyed
their cap shit. So this works in both ways, right.
Teams can make ego driven decisions that lead them to
years of purgatory, or they can make those same decisions
(57:42):
in desperate hope of keeping their top guy, which in turn,
if they have to trade you, honest, either this year
or next, they're going to be bad for a long
time because until that day, until that dame when it
comes off the books, they're not going to have the
flexibility they need to make them move to put them
back in a contention stretch. So it works on both ways.
Speaker 2 (58:04):
Yeah, and that's I think that's a fair way to
wrap this up, basically by just introducing, like the last
branch of this is if you act in the best
interest of your star player as opposed to the roster
at large. That also handcuffs you to a certain extent,
like you're absolutely right whatever they've tried to do Milwaukee,
(58:26):
it's it's always been with the mindset of let's keep
you honest, because if we have Giannest, we have a
crack at the title. And I'm not necessarily in disagreement
with that, But when you consistently, and I do mean
consistently mess up in the margins, like Doc Rivers, why
is he still there trading for Kyle Kuzma. Why, Like
there's so many of these question marks where I'm just
(58:49):
like consistently frustrated at how they approach, like the overall
structure of roster building. That's when you start to ask
the major questions like do they even understand the broader
spectrum of how you build a team. And some will say, well,
they won a championship, so obviously they do, and sure
(59:09):
to a point, they won that title. That's absolutely right.
That said, look at how let's be real here. Drew Holliday,
who was a major key difference maker for them defensively, offensively,
he struggled a ton. There are a lot of question
marks in the in the playoffs of that year when
they won the championship, like, oh, is this gonna be enough?
(59:32):
Do we still need something? They won against the Suns.
They haven't won since It's it's fair to wonder if
their main objective consistently was keep honest, happy and if
we luck ourselves way into a title, by all means,
we'll stand ready and you know, take take the Roses.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
Let's fall with that. Whilst that here I saw earlier
today was Bill Simmons put Giannis in his career has
eight postseasons series wins, so winning a title, that's what
first round, second round finals, conference finals, finals. So that
means that four of Jannis's career postseason wins in terms
(01:00:14):
of the series came in that championship run and since
then he's only had four other wins. And it's interesting,
and I think that was like a lot of people
because Simmons used like Lebron and kd and and a
couple of other players like Tatum was one of them
as well, like these guys have all had more playoff
wins than the Honis, and people took it as well,
(01:00:36):
of course, because Lebron has been playing for nearly a
million years and KDS, And the way I took it
was he had one successful year in the playoffs and
since then it's been first round exit, second round exit.
He's had consistent playoff struggles with that team. And that
makes sense to what you say is if we look
ourselves into a chip, then fantastic, we look good, but
(01:00:59):
at least we keep be honest for a year or
two more. But eight playoff series wins in his career,
and four of them came on a championship run. It's
very telling of the ownership, the front office's struggles to
put a competitive rotation around it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Yeah, because that's not on him. It's very clear not
on him. Adam Tale, thank you so much for joining
the show. I thought this was a very interesting conversation,
especially just in regards to the amount of teams that
are just kind of sitting there with a thumb up
their butts, and it's it's something that we're going to
(01:01:36):
attract this year, because I do think as we entered
the twenty five to twenty six season, it's been a
while since we've had this amount of teams that you
can sort of show away a little bit and say, well,
you know, you're not going to be relevant this year.
There's probably a group of like eight to nine teams,
Some intentionally are just trying to be in the middle, some,
like we talked about the Celtics, the Pacers obviously are
(01:01:57):
are going to be somewhat irrelevant because of j But
it means as well as something else is going to flourish,
and we always love that. So thank you, sir. And
could you let our listeners know where they can find
your work?
Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Yes. If you're a Celtics fan, head over to the
Celtics Celtics Chronicle dot com. That's a daily newsletter during
the season, it drops down to like three two to
three times a week during the off season. Celtics deep dive, analysis, news, opinions,
all that good stuff sent straight to your inbox. If
you're looking for more general NBA work, I'm over at
Yard Barker dot com and USA Today Sports media group,
(01:02:32):
mainly covering the Warriors and a little bit of the Celtics.
Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
There two sounds good man, and for everyone else listening
in until we talk again, have a good one and
stay safe.
Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Everyone.