Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Jokic Injury Impact + LeBron No All-Star Selection Possible? & Knicks New Depth

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to discuss what Jokic’s injury means for the Nuggets in the Western Conference and how it could impact the MVP with the minimum game requirements. Then, the guys react to the first round of NBA All-Star voting including if LeBron could miss out for the first time in two decades before talking a big matchup between the Knicks with newfound depth and the Spurs who have come down to earth after Christmas.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello, welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Tuesday evening. Joining us from New York City is Tim Bontemps.

Hello, everybody. Join us from Dallas, Texas. Just back from Oklahoma City, where he was at a Thunder game on Monday, is Band McMahon. Howdy, partners, just back from a delicious dinner, belly full, Nick and Sam's, Wendy, Bon Temps, you've been there. Delicious. Might be a little sleepy ate that. much. I'm not been a Nick and Sam's. That's a window in the game special. That's not true. I've beaten there with you. I was going to say, didn't we take in there during the playoffs? Yes, with a

prominent agent, which I don't know. Did we send the bill to ESPN? We should have. We did, or at least I did. I can't speak for you guys. Bon Temps has no recollection. I genuinely do not remember that. Oh, no, Bon Tim's ditch just that night. Oh, really? For a more prominent agent? I see. We'll discuss later. All right. I doubt. All right. Anyway, so we had some unfortunate, I don't know if it's unfortunate slash fortunate. I really was affected viscerally by watching Nikolai Yokic hobble off the court on Monday night in Miami after getting landed on by teammate Spencer Jones and pretty clearly hyper extending his knee. did the MRI in Miami on Tuesday before traveling to Toronto. I think the Nuggets were probably looking to delay their flight from Miami to Toronto.

I say this is a native of the Great Lakes and a fan of the city of Toronto. I think they were probably looking to delay their flight, but not for this. I don't think anybody enjoyed waiting for the MRI. But on the bright side and in talking to some folks to Denver today, there was a lot of relief. They felt pretty good on Monday night that he had avoided a serious injury, but, you know, you have the MRI to know it. And so he's projected to be out a month, which is – at minimum. At minimum. You know, as our buddy Jeff Stott's, another shout out to him, he noted today that hyper extension is not the injury.

It's what happened to the knee. The injury is what happens due to the hyper extension. And so the Nuggets didn't announce this, but if there's no ligament damage, being out four weeks is probably a bone bruise. And so bone bruises are a little bit inconsistent in how they heal. So this is the injury to Cam Johnson, his teammate last week, also had a bone bruise in his knee. That injury, if you watched it, not that I want to compare these things, looked a little bit more severe. So I don't know. They said four to six weeks on Cam, they said a month.

for Yokic. Either way, in the short term, the, this is, there's never a good time for an injury, but the Nuggets are two games into a seven-game road trip. They lost the first two games. When they play in Toronto on Wednesday, on New Year's Eve, they are going to be without four of their starters. Aaron Gordon has been out for three weeks with a hamstring, although he's getting closer. Christian Brown has been out, I think roughly a month with a bad ankle sprain. He's also playing, I believe, practicing, so he's getting closer. And obviously, Cam and Yokic. And so the thing is, Bon Temps, like, Denver is in third place.

They've done a really good job sort of hanging in there despite the injuries, although they're 10 and 7th since Gordon went out. They're doing okay, but not great. They're already losing a little bit of ground. They're only, as is in the Western Conference, they're only three games clear in the lost column from the play-in zone. So really, if you're Denver, I think what you're hoping is you get your four starters back and you're still in the top six. You know, that's a realistic thing, I think, going forward for them.

Yeah, I think that's really, to me, the only thing that Denver can be focused on is trying to avoid being in the play in. I mean, I think if we're being realistic about this Yokic injury, the most likely outcome is that he is back after the All-Star break. Four weeks from now when he gets re-evaluated, It's about two weeks after that until the All-Star break. I'm not going to say it's a perfect analog to every time you see one of these things, but for people that don't necessarily know or the casual fan that's listening, when they say you're going to be re-evaluated in four weeks, it usually doesn't mean you walk back on the court in four weeks.

And if they give Yokic a couple extra weeks and then a full week with the All-Star break, he gets almost eight weeks to recover from this thing and then come back for the final 25 games of the season. It would seem to make sense that if they're going to be cautious with him, which there's no reason not to be, their whole season depends on him being right, that he's going to be out for six weeks. That means he would miss 24 games if he miss out to the All-Star break. And over the past four years,

they've gone to combine 13 and 23 in games Yokic has missed. That's a 29-win pace. In over 24 games, that's 9 and 15 as a record. So to me, if they can be anywhere near 8 and 16 or 9 and 15, if he's out until the All-Star break, and they have to play all these games on the road, especially early on without four. The five starters, we'll see. David Adelman said before the heat game Monday that Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown could be back by the end of the road trip. So there's at least some light at the end of the tunnel, maybe to get a couple of those guys back.

But, I mean, we've talked about it a ton. I mean, beyond the fact, Yokic is having a historic season even by his standard. they're 16 or 18 points per 100 worse when he doesn't play. And it's, they're, they're going to be way underwater. Like, Jonas Valchunis is not a starting caliber center at this point, and he's the only real center they have on the roster. So it's going to be a struggle. They've got to try to fight through it and get a few wins.

And I mean, I think the team that's probably rooting the most for them to avoid the play in, frankly, are the Oklahoma City Thunder. Because I think the last thing the Thunder want to see, is a 1A first round series with Denver, which now at least I think becomes in play, depending how long Yolkich is going to be out. And on the other hand, there is a world where let's say Denver falls to six.

If you're Oklahoma City, you could get to the end of the regular season and see your three biggest rivals in the conference all on the other side of the bracket. So there's going to be a lot of eyes, at least from my vantage point, looking at where Denver is in the standings. It's probably impossible to have any

prediction. Yeah. But just like last year and many years, there's going to be a winner and a loser in some of the seating in the in the west. There's, you know, somebody's road is going to be brutal. There's four teams, I think, that we've thought for a while now or are caught above everybody else. And there's at least an open possibility now.

The three of them are on the other side of the bracket. Who are the four? OKC, Denver. Houston and San Antonio. Oh, you've thought the Spurs for a while. because the restaurant where I ain't tonight, you won't be in Dallas any time soon. Well, we, that'll, it will not be.

That will not be in Dallas for a while. It'll be that caliber of restaurant that I will be dining on your dime because of this murder. That's how high you were on this bird. I think it'll be as many dollars as your dinner last year, which wasn't very many dollars. Yeah, I was going to say,

what is he going to be in Dallas to, uh, exactly. Yeah, I was going to say it'll be probably an OKC because I still think that Thunder are going to go to the final. Although there's a lot of basketball to be played in the spurn. Well, and look, in this Yokic injury, like, Yokish never gets hurt, right? Like, he's always, he's always available. He's always healthy.

He's always awesome. And, you know, this is just, this is just a reminder that a lot of making it through a season and winning a title or being in contention for it is just pure luck. And, like, this injury was just really bad luck. Well, there's nothing else to be said for it. It was, but it wasn't the worst luck because there's no ligament damage. It's not a seasoning thing. He's out a month or more, but not for the season.

As you said, based on their four-week evaluation timetable, you'll at least feel confident. He's going to be back after the All-Star break. They're getting Gordon and Christian Brown back soon. You know, those guys came through Dallas recently. And I was told then Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown had already started, you know, playing scrimmaging or like playing three on three, that sort of stuff. I got a little glimmer of good news here. A little stat good news.

Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, and Christian Brown when they're on the floor together, 171 minutes, a plus 14.3 net rating. Now, a little bit of not so good news. Nicola Oak, which was on the floor with them for 170 of those 171 minutes. Right. Well, that's the thing, like the reason that they've been able to keep their head above water is because of Shokic. Yeah. with all due respect to some of their ancillary players having a good season. I mean, yeah, look at Christmas night.

The guy's got a 50, whatever, point triple double. I mean, they lost the other night when he went, I think, 34, 21, and 12. Nicole Yolkich was having the best season of his career. Well, that's... And he's a three-time MVP. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. So, yeah, so I was talking to some producers at Sports Center. We ended up junking this segment, but we,

We were going to do a segment today. I was talking to him about it yesterday about like for the casual fan, you know, who may be coming into the NBA, haven't watched that much because NFL season's coming to an end here. And they were talking to me about what storylines I would tell the casual fan, which is not our audience, obviously. If you listen to this podcast, you're a hardcore fan. You're a big basketball nerd. But, you know, actually I would be interested to know what you guys would say would be the storyline. But one of them, actually, McMahon, I said, was how good Cooper flag has been.

But I was saying that the generational MVP race that we were potentially having, you know, not only because of the tremendous stats that Yokic and SGA put up, but also because, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the fact that, you know, the, the, the, the fact that, you know, there's four MVP. between them, you know, two finals MVPs between them, you know, like it's, you know, heavyweights in their primes. And both having the best seasons of their careers. Yeah, and I mean, it's, I guess it's still possible that Yokic could come back on the front end. A couple days.

Yeah, I mean, if he misses four weeks, if he comes back four weeks from today, he'd miss 16 games. So, you know, it could only miss one the rest of the year. Now, this game, he played 19. that so that would like you would still count it would still count though the way they do it like if you played 64 games that would yeah and i would hope a game when you a guy's got 21 5 and 8 no that game would count but um it would count bont temps wasn't when they put this rule out and i don't

think does this happen didn't they leave some wiggle room that the league could at their discretion wasn't i mean not really i mean it's it's like if you're a game short there if you like it hurt if you like If you play 64 qualifying games and you got hurt in the 65th, it would count. So this is... If he's out until the all-star break, he has no chance. Right.

If he's out till around this four-week mark, he has a slaghanced. They're not going to rush him to win his fourth MVP. Like, it's... This is not the intent of that rule, right? And this is where... Well, it actually is the intent of the rule. No.

The intent of the rule was to stop the load management. No, I understand that. And that's where this is the intent of the rule. The rule was to try to get as many star players to play as many games as possible. I know, but I think I'm going to, I don't want to open an old wound with you two, but, you know, I think that the MVP should be determined by the voter. And, you know. And that's fine. I don't disagree with that.

I think that, I think the rule, I've thought from the beginning, the rule is silly because the voters should be able to decide who they want to vote for. However, but you guys invalidate. Hold on, though. Hold on. The intent of the rule was to stop the load management or at least. That's right. What do we invalidate? Exactly.

Hold on. You guys, if a guy misses a certain amount of time, you guys decided he couldn't win the MVP? But there's two different conversations here. I stand by that. If a guy misses, if one guy misses 20 games and another guy misses three games and it's close, I'm sorry. The guy who played 17 more games is more value. It's a lot more value. Yeah.

Here's part of the rubric. For this, for Joker, and let's say he misses 20 games, 20, whatever it is, for his streak of all NBA appearances to end because his teammate lands on his leg and he misses a stretch but still plays the majority of the season, that's tough to me because, again, he's not a guy who, like, there's no load management when Nicole Yokic. Listen, I was called a jackass for making this. point four years ago or five years ago. I mean, that's not, that's, that's, that's, that's really, and if you want to keep bringing that exactly, if you want to keep bringing that up and print about it, then I'll call you a jackass again.

A, the rule didn't exist then. B, that was not the content of our discussion at the time. It was. We, no, it, okay, it, it wasn't about the 65 game rule. No, it wasn't about 65 games, but you guys. Okay, we understand. We understand. Listen, here's the deal. If we get to the end of the season in Yokic and Yash and Yaz Teta Koupo and Victor Wenyama are all ineligible for awards, there's going to be a whole lot of hollering about the 65 game rule. And potentially Luca Dantzich too. And potentially Luca and Steph has missed eight or nine games. There could be a lot of people that are ineligible for awards. If that happens, we will see if the rule is changed going for.

forward because there are we some sort of critical mass of people who are not eligible well they can always amend it it's not hard to do if they could talk to the players association and amend it i'm sure the players association would be happy to change it so it's not if they decide they want to change it they can i would not anticipate that happening because i think it is achieved what they have wanted which is to have guys playing in more games i agree i agree but there's a critical mass of huge stars that are not eligible for end-of-season awards, and to McBand's point, the All-MBA teams and the MVP award

and the defense player of the year again is all warped by guys not being eligible to be on the ballot, then we'll see if something happens. And I think maybe all these guys will be eligible. Maybe Oak will be back in three weeks and it'll be fine. I don't know. Well, it won't be three.

It'll be four at the earliest. But, yeah, I think it's the all-OBA really that's the most glaring here. Because, again, I do think MVP, this would factor into that regardless, even if he missed 16 games, I think this factors into the MVP discussion. And by the way, we talked, you know, in our group chat on Christmas night, after we got done podcasts, me, I'll go watch Joker, just absolutely dumb. The guy scored 18 in overtime, the highest scoring NEOT of all time.

And I text you guys this to do. I know. We said, I openly admitted we were giving short shrift to the wolves and nuggets, and we did. It was unfair. And it was Christmas. We're going to stay up until freaking one in the morning. sorry. Right.

But I text you, I said, dude, I think even since the straw pole that it has shifted back to a Joker, because also at that point, you know, the Thunder has lost. Well, NSGA is the Thunder have lost some games. Yeah. Before we move on, a note to the durability of Nikola Yokic, this is his 11th season. In nine of his previous 10 seasons, he played at least 70 games. Yeah. And he played 69 games in one of those years. So basically he's played at least 69 games all 10 seasons.

The most consecutive games he's missed in his career before now was seven. Was that last year? No, it was in 2017 with a sprained ankle. And my guess is they probably didn't, you know, if it happened, the same sprained ankle happened now, he probably wouldn't have missed seven because back then they probably, you know, didn't rush him back. Yeah, because last year they shut him down for a little bit

when he was dealing with an ankle and his shooting elbow. which is beat. And that's what I wish. I wish there's a rule where a guy could apply for like an exception once every so many years in a case like this. You know, seriously, like, one of the one. I'm serious. This is really funny. Like on one hand, you're like, this is unfair.

And then the other hand, you're like, well, I agree with, I agree with the rule. And, you know, it does affect it. Because, again, it's not just MVP. It's a fact. There's no argument you can, you can argue. Trust the voter. There's no argument you can make about an. Trust the voter.

about Nicole Yulbich being an all-MBA player. There's no... Here's the logical... Here's the logical fallacy of what Window is doing right now. When we had this argument, this infamous argument several years ago on the podcast,

this award did not exist, and Tim and I just had a different opinion on how many games played, mattered, in terms of who people would vote for. Brian now saying, trust the voter. We were just getting our opinion, at least me as a voter.

McMahon's not allowed to vote. And we... We gave our opinion on what it should be. Now we don't have the ability to give our opinion. Now it's just, if you don't play 65 games, you're not eligible. It doesn't matter what our opinion is. So we start trying to conflate it with the same argument from back then. Your opinion was if you missed a certain amount of games,

yet you couldn't. Our opinion was one guy accrued more value with more games if you were trying to split hairs. Which, again, by the way, this year, the guy who played 20 plus more games. Which, by the way, this year, if it was the same thing, and Nicole Yolkich ended up playing 59 games, and Shea played 77 games, and it was razor thin, you'd probably give the guy who played 18 more games The Edge.

Yes, which is not a crime. Joe probably all-MBA, and that's my thing. That's for the all-MBA part of this is where I'm like to be eligible for the, and he'd also be eligible to be voted for. Because, again, that that's what it, it should be up to the voters to decide how many games people play, but that's not why this rule exists. Speaking of voters,

we have the first batch of all-star voting, which is interesting in a number of fronts, a different format of voting. Okay, so this week, the first batch of NBA all-star voting came out. Now, the vote, this is a little bit earlier than they typically announced it.

I know I looked up the last three or four years, and it was always the first week of January. And also, instead of voting by position, You just vote for your five preferred players at each conference. And, of course, the conferences won't make up the teams. There will be three teams, two teams of Americans and one team of international players, which does that mean there's going to be eight, eight, and eight? Is that the –

Well, well, it probably – well, no, it probably won't be because if it's not exactly Well, there's 24. Well, there's 24 spots. Hold on. I, not exactly because they're going to do the 12 and they're going to do the 12. And if it doesn't match up with the 8, 8 and 8, what are they going to do? They're just going to add more players. It's going to have more players. So either get to the 16 or to the 8. Well, they might have to add LeBron. So we'll talk. They might. Also, I don't know if you, and I haven't talked to league about this, Bon Temps, maybe you have. Is Carl Towns going to be regarded as an International players. Carl Towns is going to be a swing player if he makes it. So you could either be an international. They've said. Again, this entire thing, let's be honest. All right.

I'm asking you another one. What about O.G. What about O.G. Anobie? It's all based on what's best for divvying up the team. Listen, it's just, it's all, yes. It's all just fudging the numbers. I mean, honestly, like Jane and Blonson has Jamaican lineage.

They could, I mean, they're not going to do it. with Jalen Brunson. Carl Towns played for the Dominican national team. So they could, they could like somewhat justify doing it with Carl Towns. And what about OG and Nobi? I don't know what they would do with OG either. But at the end of the day, it's, this is, because this is a question I asked. I called the league up when they announced this rule change. I had to read a newser about it. And I said, well, what happens if there's 14 and 10, if 14 Americans and 10 internationals or if there's 18 Americans and six internationals? So are we just going to like have a couple random Americans or a random couple internationals?

And I was told, no, we'll get to the number and we'll just add more players. So I said, okay. So, you know. All right. I don't really care. I don't have a strong opinion. I'm not like, you know, it's fine. There's always three or four players added by injury anyway.

So it ends up being 28 all-stars to begin with. I've joked about shirts and skins, but I do think that the all-star jerseys should be reversible. You know those reversible jerseys? that way, you know, you don't worry about it because you can't have three, like, what, I don't know, like the color thing could get weird. So just have reversible jerseys. Okay. So first off, I want to point out, Luca Donchish is the number one vote getter. The vote totals are way off what they normally are for the first time. I think because it was a less votes and also because, you know, you don't, you know, you don't vote for individual positions. So Luca is leading vote-gitter, which, you know, I don't know if you guys are aware. He's a Laker. Oh, I'd heard that.

Which makes the fact that LeBron being ninth in the West. Where's LeBron among Lakers? Well, he's second. Are you right ahead of Austin Rays? He's not. He's ahead of Austin Roof. Right. Okay.

I knew his tight there. I wanted to say. that there are some wonky. Sometimes you get wonky first returns. And then I went back and looked like the last three or four years. And there wasn't really super won't. Once they changed the rules on this stuff and got rid of the sort of random, the random entries. Yeah, you have to register. You have to be a registered person on NBA.com. Oh, yeah, that'll limit the boats. That said, like, Denny Aviya is having an excellent season for the Blazers. like he is absolutely worthy of all-star consideration.

Well, I just didn't... And I bet you a bunch of those are coming from Israel. Okay, fair enough. But I just... It's not like he's averaging 12 points a game. No, no, I'm agreeing with you, Brian. That's what I'm saying. He's having an all-star caliber season.

Right. I'm just a little bit surprised. Like, I'm not surprised he's ahead of Valparin Shengun. Shangoon is still establishing himself as a star player in the NBA. And who was an all-star last year? I understand. But for the fan, vote. What I'm saying is Denny Avia being ahead in the fan vote of Shengoon is surprising, but it's not like jaw dropping.

Yeah. The fact that Denny Avia is ahead of both LeBron and Kevin Durant is interesting. Well, even if you want to remove Denny from the mix, right? Let's just take him, or Denny doesn't exist. At the end of the day, I'm looking at this, and I think for the first time in 20 years, at minimum, LeBron's not going to be a starter in the all-star get. Yeah. Because if you just do the math, you have to vote is from the fans. I thought LeBron is going to be leading the voting. He was surprised. He was leading the West last year on the first return.

I was surprised that he wasn't. I'll be surprised if Adam Silver doesn't. I'm not saying. No, he's going to be in the all-star game. It's in Los Angeles. Yeah, but I think it's going to be due to a commissioner appointment like Dirk and Dwayne Wade there last year. Maybe. Maybe. He has not having an all-star season.

It should be by the coaches. No, I agree. So he's just got to get top five. He's ninth. He doesn't have to get top two for forwards. He's got to get top five. He's ninth. Like there's triple votes or whatever. What I'm saying is Laker, you know, people who like the Lakers, I'm just, Luca had, you know, like 150% more votes than LeBron. There was a lot of people that voted for Luca that didn't vote for LeBron. I mean, LeBron missed most of the season and Lucas lead in the league and scoring. Look, Lamello Ball last year played 10 games, and he had like, he was like sixth in the first return. I mean, he's got a lot of Instagram followers. Well, I think LeBron does too. So, you know, Mark Spears at Anscape wrote an interesting story that I didn't realize. He went back and looked in, you know, Michael Jordan's last year when he was with the Wizards,

he slipped way down in the, he got like, like he was like seven, eighth and the fan vote. And, you know, I don't, right, you know, the Wizards were a bad team. The Lakers are actually doing pretty well. And I realize LeBron's missed a lot of time, but, you know, this is a fan vote. I mean, you know, if you look at the raw numbers, you know, like Jalen Brown tweeted, you know, Jalen Brown is absolutely having an all-star season. He has a strong case to be a starter in the Eastern Conference. And maybe he will be when the players and the media vote, because he's in sixth. Yeah.

He tweeted about, you know, that's a public relations campaign, you know, which is, you know, and that's his oldest time. You know, popularity,

it is a popularity contest. But Jalen Brown's got six. It is a vote after all. That is generally what vote is. Jalen Brown's got 60% more votes than LeBron James. I just want to be clear. This is not a commentary

on LeBron's season so far. This is LeBron freaking James. And Kevin Durant, by the way, like, Duran is having a great season for a, team that is performing well.

Yeah, Durant's a deserving All-Star this year. LeBron, based on just the performance this season, is not. I agree. I'm just saying, I don't know what it says. And, like, this could correct itself. Actually, I don't know when to use the word correct. I'm not even, I'm not taking a position on whether it's correct or not. I just think it's interesting that the way things are going, that LeBron would be in

ninth place in the Western Conference. Yeah. Well, I would say that the five guys who are in the top five spots in the All-Star voting are who should be starting in the All-Star game if you want to argue that Anthony Edwards had been there instead of Steph, maybe. Fine. Yeah, so the top five are, so the top five are Luca in the West.

Nikola Yokic, Steph Curry, Shigils Alexander, Victor Wemba, and then Anthony Edwards, and then Aviya, Durant, and LeBron. Yeah, I would agree with that. And again, I'm not going to lose sleep over this because even if LeBron isn't selected through the normal process,

Adam Silver's going to put him in the All-Stra. I understand. Because it might be his last year. I know. It's not really a, a referendum on the All-Star format, it's a little window into where LeBron's popularity might be right now. And like I said, it's interesting that Jordan, who is unimpeachable. And I just think it's interesting. You know, obviously, Luca is going to have some fans in Europe that are not necessarily LeBron fans.

But, you know, if you're a Laker fan, you know, because, you know, Luca, Luca, you know, Luca was getting good high vote in totals in recent years, but he wasn't leading. Right. He's leading now because he's a Laker. So, you know, he's having a good year. But, you know, so anyway. Did Kobe, was Kobe voted in every year through the end of his career? Like, once he became an all-star was. I'll go look at it up, but I would be surprised if he wasn't.

Yeah, it was. But, yeah. By the way, Luca definitely leads, another thing he leads the league in, or is it near the top in Trash Talk? Did you see what he said to Dennis Shrews? I saw this. I saw the hand gesture. So, and I protect me on this. Jackson, maybe it was AI, but I saw a video from Courtside the other night against the, I think this is what he said. It looked like this is what he said. It sounded like this is what he said. The Kings were at the Lakers on Sunday night,

and Luca was talking trash to Dennis Schrooter, and he said, you should have signed that contract. I mean, it's a fair statement. How many years ago was that? Well, and I can tell you, part of the bad blood there is definitely based on natural team competition. Yes, for sure. Dennis Schroger, call, say what you want. Dennis Schroeder has bragging rights on Luca in the national competition. Yes, Dennis Schroeder has owned Slovenia in international competition.

The Germans are the European and world champions right now. And they definitely beat Slovenia in the World Cup. I don't know if they beat them. I'd have to look in Eurobasket. But, you know, Schroeder is the MVP of both. And Germany is the, and Schroeder, I think, is like pretty much getting benched. But, you know, you got to love Luca talking that trash. Dude, Luca can talk trash in multiple languages. He probably can talk trash in German. Well, I've seen Luca talk trash in Spanish to Fiba officials. See? I'm sure he knows a couple words in German that he needs to do that. I know a few words in German. In the east, Janus is leading, which has pretty much been the norm. Tyrese maxi with a very strong showing second ahead of Jalen Brunson, who I, Jailen Brunson is pretty close to him and may even overtake him. But that's a...

That shocks me because of the, you know, just the power. of the Knicks fan base that really surprises me. Yeah. Cade Cunningham, 4, Donovan Mitchell, 5th, and then Jalen Brown, as we said before, six. And again, that's probably the five guys that should be starting in the East, too. A lot of guards there. I don't know how they're going to.

We don't even know what teams are going to be on. I'm going to get divvied up in a three-year. A lot of Americans there. I'm just saying, if you're just looking at the best players in the Eastern conference this year, those are probably the five best players. I did look, of the top 12 in each conference, I don't, I think I counted Carl Towns as an American. I think I radically said the guy who was born and raised in New Jersey is an American. He, I think there were eight international players.

Donchich, Yokic, Shea, Victor, Avia, Janus, and Pascal Seacom. Pascal Seacom is that high? He was ninth. I'm confused. I think you're mad. just confused the hell out of me. You said top 12. I went through it today with an executive and we got to at least eight international players. You're saying top 12 on both sides? Sorry if I wasn't clear. Top 12 on both. I mean, not that the top, you know, normally there are 12 all stars in each conference. Yes, there are some injury replacements, but typically there are 12 all stars selected in each conference. So if you look at the top 12 on each side, there are in fact eight international players. I did not count in a call towns. So, you know, In other words, they're not going to have to, you know, based on this, you're not going to probably, you know. I think if anything, there's going to be too many, there's going to be more internationals and I'll have to add Americans, would be my guess.

Yeah, because I think Shengun and Jamal Murray have strong cases. Oh, Jamal Murray. Yeah, for sure. He's not been an all-star. He absolutely should be an all-star this year. Yeah. And again, I don't know if you count O.G. Anobie, and O.G. Anobie has, you know, he's got a, he's got a shot. You know, I don't know, I don't know what they're going to, what they're going to, what they're going to, what they're going to, count him as, but they can certainly count them as international player. So we'll see. The second voting is relatively quickly. It's next week. It's a week from now.

January 6th, I guess it's a little over a week. And we'll see if it changes and they triple the votes. And so, you know, people are home. Maybe they're going to do it. But the voting may be more interesting than the game. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. Big slate of NBA games on New Year's Eve and the after. afternoon. One of them is a spicy little game in San Antonio with the New York Knicks visiting, although injury update for the Knicks, Mitchell Robinson out with ankle soreness, which is something that is dog. Well, they have them out with ankle injury management, which, to be fair, to the Knicks, they have said throughout the season he's going to take periods of time off, and they have played a whole bunch of games, including winning the Cup. So they're trying to. to give him a break.

We'll see if that ends up being all it is or not. But it might be multiple games. Well, it's already his second game in a row that he's missed. But just so that that's at least what they're saying. Well, we'll see where it's the injury too. Dev of a cell has an inductor strain. Yeah. Well, the Spurs have great perimeter depth.

The Spurs have lost two games in a row following their three victories over the Thunder. They lost to the Jazz the other night. and then the Cavs came in, and Cavs had one of their best wins of the year, won in San Antonio. Cows Corner, nice bounce back from getting beat around by the rockets to take down the spurs. I will say one thing that the Cavs certainly had game planned was...

Notice how this turned into Caves Corner instead of spurs' Knicks? McBan real quick. Well, it could be interesting to see... We'll just veer back to Caves Corner. We'll see how the Knicks do themselves, but the way the Cavs played this game, Their entire game plan was designed to move Victor out of shoplock position. And Donovan Mitchell was really a facilitator in this game.

You only had 10 points. And same with Darius Garland. And they put Victor in position where he was chasing guards, which he can absolutely do because of his length. And they just moved him out of the way and threw passes to their big men. Well, that's something the Thunder felt like they didn't do well. You know, you remember after the NBA Cup game in Vegas, it's something Shane mentioned. And then straight up, they just didn't hit open threes where Wimby was defending Alex Caruso. Crusoe missed his first nine three-point attempts.

Right. And so they didn't make the Spurs pay for keeping Wemby in or close to the pain. Can I say something, Bontemps? No. The Pelicans, the Knicks won in New Orleans. on Monday night. You know, the Pelicans won five in a row, and now they've lost four in a row.

But I'm not trying to say this is some sort of seminal game. But the Knicks played, I believe, 12 players in that game. There was no garbage time. Yeah. And, you know, like this, and look, we're in December.

And I'm not suggesting that the Knicks play 12 players in May. Okay. But, you know, when Mike Brown came in, one of the things he said was he was going to try to make a more dynamic offense that wasn't as based on on Jalen Brunson.

O'G. Ananobe and Mikhail Bridges are having more effective offensive seasons. And he said they were going to play more guys. And, you know, they're not playing 12 every night. They're using a whole bunch of second round picks that they've had, Tyler Colick being one of them. Their second round pick from this year, who Diaro was picked like 51st or 52nd. He's in the rotation now.

So look, I mean, I don't want to, you know, make, the final pronouncements on the NICs process. But, you know, when they fired Tom Thibodeau, there was obviously a lot of pushback on that. And then their process to hire Mike Brown was not clean. But Mike Brown is executing the plan that he laid out when he got the job and what he said in the preseason. And the Knicks are playing very good basketball.

They are, but it doesn't matter. Because it doesn't matter if they don't make. Well, welcome to the new year. No, but if you. you fire your coach after making the conference finals for the first time in 25 years, there's only one thing that matters, which is making the finals. That's not a criticism of Mike Brown. He's doing a great job.

He is, he is following through. All the things you said are true. But at the end of the day, if the Knicks lose in the first or second round of the playoffs, or even probably, frankly, with as wide open as the east is, if they lose again in the conference finals, it's not going to matter. So all of this is good, and it's building towards, it's all building and going in a good direction. and Tyler Colacette's emergence has been a positive development. If D.O.R. can continue to be a player that can be impactful for them off the bench.

That is a positive development. Miles McBride's at a really good season. Building out what he's done in the past, that's a positive development. They've got McHale Bridges playing great. He's hitting a ton of shots. That's a positive development. All these things are positive developments. But the Knicks are only going to be judged at the end of the day by how far they get in May and June.

And that's just the reality of the situation they're in. and with the Eastern Conference being completely wide open, and they are the clear favorites. Simply, no disrespect to the Pistons, who've had an awesome season. I think right now they're beating the Lakers. However, the Pistons haven't won a playoff series in almost 20 years. So to say they're the favorites,

they have to show they can do it first. The Knicks have won a playoff series three years in a row. They just made the conference finals. They have a bunch of playoff tested players. They have a coach who's gotten to the finals, who's been on the staff of the championship winning team. Like, they are set up to get there. So they're building all the right habits.

They're doing all the right stuff. Mike Brown's following through on what he said. All that is 100% true. But it's going to only matter if these guys are playing against Oklahoma City or San Antonio or whoever in the first week of June in the finals. Yes, but the development of a reliable bench is a pretty key factor and their chances is doing that. Certainly helping.

No question. ...bearing weakness. And Miles McBride, missing that time might end up being a blessing in disguise because it opened up opportunity for Tyler Coleck who proved that he, without question, is ready to be a contributor in the rotation. You know, I would say Jordan Clarkson's been what you expect to Jordan Clarkson to be, and that's a guy who's, you know, some nice he's going to light it up off the bench, some nights he might not have it, but he's at least a scoring threat off the bench.

Yabaseli has been a disappointment, but I think they've at least got more depth than they've had, more like real depth than they've had. And by the way, you know, when do you mention 12 guys playing? That's with Josh Hart and Mitch Robinson out, two of their top. Right. So, listen, so Leon Rose gets a lot of credit for building this Knicks roster. And look, nothing really matters unless Jalen Brunson, the Jalen Brunson move is the king move, right? It's the you acquire in free agency an all-N-BBA player like this.

But they've got this old master. running their scouting, Walt Perrin. And, you know, you look at this, you know, Miles McBride's second round pick, you know, Tyler Colick's second round pick. You know, again, I don't want to say Mohamed D.R.A. is like, you know, good all of a sudden just be a rotation player, but he, you know, second round pick. You know, I don't want to get so excited about Ariel Huck Pordy, but I think he was picked in the 50s and he's been in their rotation.

Like, you know, we get on teams for not drafting well, and the Knicks have traded away a bunch of picks, but like, you know, for the New York Knicks to be stocking their roster with second round picks. Yeah, they're doing all the right stuff. Like, everything you said is right. Like, both you guys, like the depth has been impressive. Like you said, McMahon, I would say 100% the McBride injury has been a blessing for the Knicks because he gave Colick an opportunity and he has showed. But McBride's back now and playing well. No, and he's put, right, but they can play together and like he wasn't probably going to get this kind of opportunity unless McBride got hurt and he had to play and he had some big games and now he's going to play probably consistently in the rotation.

And like all these things are good. Like they're doing all the right stuff, but like they can build all these building blocks in December that they want. But it's only going to matter if it translates in the spring. And that's what the point of right now is and it's all trending in a good direction. But like that's the thing that's hanging over the Knicks, right? Like the Pistons, everything's gravy for the Pistons. Like, Pistons get to the conference semifinals,

they have a tough series and lose. That's an amazing season. They make the conference finals, let alone the NBA finals, that's an unbelievable season for where they've been. But for the Knicks, this is all about they got to win three series. They got to do it.

And that's what Mike Brown has to do. It's what he got hired to do. Because, like I said, if Tom Thibitoe, it was not acceptable for him to lose in the conference finals for the first time in 25 years, then that was what the barrier for entry was for Mike Brown and he took the job.

Fair enough. He got to make the finals. Also, early on, there was some friction with Carl Towns, and his shots are down. He is asked to be doing a little bit more grunt work. He's still having an excellent season, almost certainly going to be an all-star. He's averaging 22 and 12. He and Mike Brown are in a good place right now from what I'm told. By the way, his shooting has started to come up to.

I was shooting 36% and from 3, and that was not anywhere near 36% at one point. So like his numbers are starting to normalize and he's doing all the Carl Towns things. His December percentages are really good. It's like 50,000, 45. Okay. Yeah, he's such a good shooter and score that he wasn't going to be below his percentages forever. And, you know, that's... I'm told...

Yeah. You know, again, we're just doing a December 30th check-in, but I'm told all is well on that front. So we'll see. Nick's, now that we've said all that, the spurs of 1 by 30. You talked about the group chat earlier, McMahon. You reached into your football background in the group. chat as you were watching the spurs play Cavs Corner on Monday night. A couple old Parcellisms came to mind.

Don't eat the cheese and put away the anointing oil. I think both of those fit in this case. And certainly we were, boy, we were dousing those spurs with anointing oil. And, hey, rightfully so. I mean, they beat the defending champion absolute juggernaut, Oklahoma City Thunder three times. And 12 days is old Michael Cuncher Wright called it, the 12 days of Christmas for the San Antonio Spurs.

And they're banging the drum. Boom, boom, boom. We haven't seen the drum in a while. Yeah. Further guaranteeing a Spurs win on Wednesday. So that was why they're annoyinging all that got busted out. They gave us good reason to bust it out, but they ate the cheese, right? And, you know, Ms. Johnson basically said they disrespected

the basketball guys when they came out and laid that egg against the jazz. They, you know, laid another egg against a Cleveland team that certainly has its fair share of issues. And what the spurs have shown us is how high their ceiling is. But when your ceiling's that high, it's one thing to deal with adversity. You hear that a lot. Dealing with success can be a challenge, too. And, you know, like going back to the preseason, being around the thudelyson, being around the under, Dag and not talking about the distractions of being the defending champions.

You know, it was the distractions of knocking off the defending champs a few times in such a short span. And, you know, just dealing with the success, feeling like, okay, you've arrived. Well, this is a prove it every night kind of league. And I think it was, it shouldn't be shocking. They had that kind of let down, that kind of set back with a couple of home losses. against teams that they should be beating. But it's a reminder. This is still a very young team.

It's still a team that's, you know, on the climb early in the learning process. And, you know, especially with the talent like Wembe, the highs are going to be awfully high. What's the floor? How consistent can you be? The MVPs are some of the most consistent players in the league, not just some of those dumb.

at players and leaving the cheese, you know, taking the bait, you know, that's the reference like caught in the trap. Yeah, and you know, letting people gas you up, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, Parcells, and they didn't have a lot of success in Dallas,

just to be clear, but he was famous for all these things. There was one week where the guy showed up to the practice so, the players showed up with the practice facility, and there's there's mouse traps hanging from the ceiling of the locker room. Maybe Mr. The thing is...

What manager had to do that, Jeff? You can do that in their shiny new suite, you know, pretty practice facility. But if you put the mouse traps in the locker room at the arena, you probably know... Might catch some stuff. Well, yeah, like dead bats and, you know, who knows what else might. There was a freaking snake. I covered that. It was in the Portland Trailblazers locker room during a playoff series.

God, I forget who it was. I wish I remember. One of the players in the Blazers wasn't real fond of snakes. And he, like, shrieked. Who is real fond of snakes? Well, this guy, like, shrieked and jumped up on top of the locker. Wait, wait, were you in there when they saw the snake? No, but the Trailblazers were happy to, I forgot who it was.

They were happy to tell us all about the teammate who. Yeah, in the playoffs. It happened in the playoffs, just like the air conditioning broke, in the playoffs. Uh-huh. Hey, they do. There's a lot of barments down there in San Antonio. Plus, they have that rodeo there every year. Who knows what's left over from the rodeo?

Well, they're going to have a new arena the Victor built. That's true. In the next few years. All right, this is our last show. Actually, it's not our last show. We have another one, but no. It's a last show you'll hear before the start of the new year. Right.

So anyway, happy New Year to everybody. Missed opportunity for the holiday season. By the way, I was watching the Grizzlies play the 76ers earlier tonight. 76ers won an overtime. VJ Edge Kim hit a shot with a second left to win. Bill Kennedy had another set of review. He could have done cameos. He could have sold cameos, you know, that service where you,

I think Bill Kennedy should go and do canvios. Be very lucrative. Dude, they've got to just, with all due respect to Billy Kennedy, take him off the floor and every replay of you just zoom him in, on the Jumbotron for every replay review announcement throughout the league. Like, it is that, he is the best replay review announcer possible. And the fans love it. So just let him do that.

I love it. The other day, I was with my family on Christmas, whatever game he was doing, and the game was on mute. And I called the family in. Well. I saw the review coming. I called the family in and said, here comes one of the stars. You would love it because you and Billy Kennedy have.

something in common, the dramatic timing, the gestures, the gestures. You know how to deliver your statement, you know how to maximize, you know, milk it. You know, I was offered to do cameo at one point. I had to turn it down. Just didn't think that was good business for the Brandt. For the record, if anybody wants to offer me, we can get a price. All right, happy New Year. Thank you to Jackson and Devon for producing this. Thank you to Bonn-Thamson-McMan for, I think, somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 shows in 2025. Here comes 150 more in 2026. Happy New Year. We'll talk to you soon.