Gil's Arena - Luka Doncic's UNREAL Month FIRES UP Gil's Arena

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Luka Doncic's UNREAL Month FIRES UP Gil's Arena as the Gil's Arena Crew react to Luka Doncic sizzling in the month of March as he pushed the Los Angeles Lakers to a 15-2 record and stuffed the stat sheet with a remarkable 7 40+ point games. They break down how Luka elevating his game to this level makes the Lakers real contenders for the NBA Championship and debate if Slovenian Jesus deserves more love in the NBA MVP Race after falling in the MVP Ladder despite his incredible stretch of games. They then highlight the Lakers other superstar as LeBron James has embraced his role as the Lake Show's 3rd option behind Luka & Austin Reaves and grade JJ Redick's 2nd season with the Lakers as the sophmore head coach has led the team to back to back 50 win seasons. Next, they react to Jayson Tatum being named the NBA's Player of the Week as the Boston Celtics superstar has looked much better than expected in his first 11 games since returning from a torn achilles and debate the Celtics' ceiling with Tatum, Jaylen Brown and head coach Joe Mazzula all peaking at the right time. They then react to Anthony Edwards trolling our very own Skip Bayless ahead of his return to the court as the Minnesota Timberwolves prepare for a deep run in the NBA Playoffs and break down Victor Wembanyama's take on the NBA's defensive improvements. Finally, they react to the Detroit Pistons keeping their head above water as they play without Cade Cunningham, discussing if the team being without their superstar is actually a good thing heading into the NBA Playoffs before breaking down Bleacher Report's Top 15 pure scorers list and giving their own rankings of the best hoopers at getting the ball into the net. PLEASE Give us a LIKE and SUBSCRIBE!! PLEASE Give us a LIKE and SUBSCRIBE!! VOTE THE ARENA FOR BEST SPORTS PODCAST - https://shortyawards.com/vote/ Today's Gil's Arena Crew : Josiah Johnson, Skip Bayless, Swaggy P, & Rashad McCants Gil's Arena premieres every Wednesday & Thursday at 11:30am PT / 2:30pm ET. Sign up for Underdog HERE with promo code GIL and play $5 to get $50 in bonus funds or bonus entries https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-gi... SUBSCRIBE:    / @thearena0   Read Rashad's Blog - https://rawrashad.com/?blog=y Join the Underdog discord for access to exclusive giveaways and promos!   / discord   Must be 18+ (19+ in AL, NE; 19+ in CO for some games; 21+ in AZ & MA) and present in a state where Underdog Fantasy operates. Terms apply. Concerned with your play? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.ncpgambling.org; NY: Call the 24/7 HOPEline at 1-877-8-HOPENY or Text HOPENY (467369) 2 Min Countdown 0:00:00 Show Start 0:01:36 The Lakers Are Fugazi 0:06:06 Luka's SIZZLING In March 0:25:12 LeBron As A Corner Boy Sparks The Goat Debate 0:49:28 Jayson Tatum Picks Up Where He Left Off 1:05:40 Mazzula Deserves More Credit 1:39:10 Anthony Edwards Trolls Skip 1:52:55 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to Westjetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big mess.

metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. Welcome back to Gills Arena presented by Underdog. Whoa, whoa! Glorious Wednesday here in the arena. A little light today, but we all we got, we all we need.

How everybody feeling? I'm good. I'm good. God, I see it. It's a beautiful day. Laker Gay or Don't Bay? Number 73? Mm-hmm.

You don't even know who that is. You ain't a real Laker fan. Oh, man, that's easy. You ain't a real Laker fan. Who is this, Wagey? That's Jerry West. No, I'm saying, that's Agent Beeler. Agent.

Agent. Agent. Adrian Baylor, yeah, yeah. Adrian Baylor. Yeah. Adrian Beeler, Goddair, that's a new, ain't that a new? He ain't got drafted yet. Elgin.

Eldian, Belgin. Eldon. Adrian Belor. I had to ask who it was, because I thought maybe somebody just screwed up a Luca jersey and put a three instead of seven. Luke will wish. Old school. Luca wishes.

He's not the first. It is Eldron, though, right? No. No. Who is it? The worm. You don't even know who the worm is. Oh, Dennis Rahman did wear a 73.

That's when he started getting terrible. 99, 2000. But you start wearing numbers like that, you're on your way out. He started the trip. Except for Luca. Yeah, yeah. But this is Gilles Arena, presented by Underdog Woo-Woop. I'm merely your host, Josiah Johnson.

And we got one of the titans of the sports media game back on the couch with us. None other than Mr. Skip Bayless, Skip. How are you doing today? Yes, sir. I thought I was going to have a sound effect here. But I don't qualify yet. We have submitted the request.

We are still waiting for approval. It's okay. Through the power to be. But you have a lot of... He's got them all. I got a lot. I got a lot. You know what I'm saying?

Sitting next skip, we got NBA champion of the world swaggy. Nick Young back here with him. Swaggy, you brought some special guests up here to whoop Gil's ass. That's why he's not here. I'm sorry, y'all. It's my fault today. You should have to run them off. Snick attack.

And last but not least, man, they call Cemetery Larry NCAA champion of world Rashall McCants back here with him. That was easy. You keep forgetting the doctor, man. I didn't go to postgrad for no reason, man. All he needed today was more time to talk and now he's got it. He's going to dominate now. He has more of the more on this particular show.

We got a lot to get into. Here's what's cracking in Gil's Arena today. the Lakers went 15 and 2 in March behind historic scoring, spree from Luca. What they do? 15 and 2 in March. Okay. Historic scoring, free from Luca.

Is that the best? Is that the best? That's one of. It's in the... Okay, not the best. Thunder Spurs, Lakers all been doing their thing. Okay. All with, you know, three legit MVP candidates.

You're right about that one. Don't get any more love than others. But also, Clint is a playoff spot for the second stray season, but it's the purple and gold for real for Fugazi. Look at Skinny Luca up there. Looking healthy. You're not messing with no Roscoe. You're saying.

Less than a month after returning to the court, Jason Tatum was named Player of the Week. Will the Jays lead Boston back to the finals? Tatum and Brown, both doing their thing. Pistons have been holding it down without Kay Cunningham. Number one seed in the East right now, but does the East really run through Detroit? We will discuss before we get into all that.

As always, this show is brought to you by Underdog. Underdogs available in most states, including Texas, California, and Florida. New customers get $50 in bonus entries when they play just $5. To get started, just use Code Gill when you sign up and it'll load instantly. Underdog, make picks, win money with Code Gill.

And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, we have been nominated for a Shorter Award. So make sure you go vote for Best Sports Podcast on Shorty Awards.com. Link is pinned in the chat and description. You can vote daily between now and April 8th. So go vote. Got about a week left.

Make your next move your best move. votes in. And if you can't watch the show live with us on YouTube, we have audio versions available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Let's start with the most important story of the day. Lakers clinched a playoff spot in the top six for the second straight season prior to the meeting against the Cavs. Tuesday, the magic beat the suns to make that happen. God bless you, Orlando. The purple and gold were on the second night of a back-to-back. After beating the Wizards Monday without Luca, LeBron had his 125th career triple double in that game to keep the lake show rolling. broke his own record for oldest player with a triple double case you guys care, I don't know. Luca back in action Tuesday after serving a one game suspension for picking up his 16th tech

and ended his March surge with another big scoring night. Let's take a look at the highlights if we can, please. So, LeBron's at the tone from the opening tip coming through with a vintage block on Donovan Mitchell.

Game was close after the first frame. Cab's trying to keep things competitive. Cab's also second night but back to back. They defeated the Jazz in Utah on Monday. Up two after the first quarter, Luca helped close the gap with that three. But then the Lakers got to cooking, outscoring the calf 78, 49 over the next two quarters. You see it.

Jake? Yeah, Jake from Allstate. Luca put a bow on his dominant march, dropping 42 points, 12 assists and five rebounds. He was 13 for 26 from the field, 6 of 13 from 3. It was his third straight in league leading 16th 40-point game this season. Slovenia Jesus also became the third youngest player to reach 15,000 points. Oh, look at the young leg. Second night of a back-to-back brown.

That's cold. Austin Reeves had an off-shooting night. Still put up 19.6 rebounds of four assists. DeAndre Aden, 18 and nine boards on 8 to 13 shooting. LeBron had 14 points on four of eight shooting. He only took eight shots in that game, along with six assists and five rebounds. Six Lakers scored in double figures. Donovan Mitchell was held to just 10 points and 24 minutes of action for the calves.

Caves pulled their starters after the third quarter. You see Luca put a nice exclamation point on that with the two-handed dunk. Lakers have won 13 of their last 14 games, 16 and 2 in their last 18 games. Includes going 15 and 2 in March. Pretty good. Wins over the Rockets twice, Wolves, Nuggets, Knicks, Magic, and Cavs. So since the All-Star Break, Lagers are third in offensive efficiency, 13th and D. defensive officially with the seventh best net rating in the league.

And the Lakers big three of Luca LeBron and Reeves are plus nearly 17 when on the floor together since the break. So, Skip, we will start with you. Yeah. Holding it down. When you look at this Lakers squad, are the Lakers for real or Fugazi? Fugasee. Damn.

Who gaze. You said that too quick, Skip. Yeah. I can't believe. I'm following out somebody at the group Greenway, man. Finally! I don't like that. I know he was.

I know he was. It's been years of the LeBron hate. Yeah. Reality is reality. We can all deal with it. Deal with it. So, you know what? The Lakers are just like my cowboys.

Everything they do gets ridiculously exaggerated. It's like way over here and then it's way over here. They're the greatest or they're the worst night after night after night, just like, unfortunately, my cowboys are most. down than up. But I laugh last night. There's this runaway train about, Luca, scored 600 points in March.

And I'm going to piss Nick off. A lot of points. Okay. Once upon a time, and it wasn't that long ago, still in the modern era, 1987 Michael Jordan in the month of March, scored 676 points. So he scored 76 more points than Luca

just scored in a month in March. 76 more points. That happened. It's modern times. It's not Wilt. Wilt once upon a time almost scored a thousand points in a month. So, and that's like, that's alien to me. That's ridiculous. But here's the point. You have to keep it in the context of, should Luca be the MVP? Well, he should be third. That's where he is and where he will finish. third to SGA and Victor Wimbanyama. And here's the point. The Lakers are a runaway train. They've won four straight.

They've won 13 of 14. They've won 16 of 18. Time out. The team they're about to play tomorrow night in Oklahoma City has also won four straight, but 15 of 16 and 18 of 20. So the thunder are a little hotter than the Lakers are, and the spurs are a little hotter. than the thunder is.

So I'm saying, wait a second, just slow it down because Luca is leading the league, runaway leading the league in field goal attempts, in free throw attempts, and usage rate. He's almost up to 40% usage rate. So, yeah, he's going to score a bunch of points, and he's leading the league in turnovers. And here's the thing that kills me. I keep hearing that Shay Giles, Alexander, is a free throw merchant. he's stealing points at the free throw line. Right now, Luke is leading the league at 10.1 free throw attempts per game.

He leads the league. SGA is second at 9.4. So Luke is taking almost a free throw more a game than SGA is. And SGA is the free throw merchant? I don't get it. And meanwhile, Luke is shooting 78% from the free throw line. I'm just saying by superstar star, standards.

Almost 80. Come on. By superstar standards, that's poor free-tho shooting. That ranks 85th in the league. And from three, he's actually on a hot streak that's gotten him up to 37%. That ranks 92nd in the league. So you're leading the league in three-point attempts, but you're only ranked 90-second in percentage. So if I look at the Lakers in the big picture,

their 19th in defensive efficiency. Has Luke had played better? Yes, he has. He's all the way up to 31st in individual defensive winchairs, which is that stunningly good for him, for him. But as a team, they're 19th. They're tied for 10th and rebound rate. I thought the biggest thing, the biggest development of last night,

was DeAndre Aitin played big against two big guys and outplayed both of them and went 18 and 9, and the two bigs for Cleveland had four rebounds and four rebounds. Cleveland just didn't show last night. It's like they played one quarter, and then they, I guess they were tired from the night before in L.A. Or, you know, they stayed out too late. I agree.

I agree. I said the same thing. Lakers were tired. They just looked different right there. Played a gritty wizard squad. Yeah, okay. All right. So in the end, the Lakers don't shoot it very well.

They're middle of the pack and three-point shooting. and their 24th in free throw shooting. That will bite you come postseason. So I can't jump on this runaway train yet. I'm sitting back. They got two very interesting games at Oklahoma City and then against the Thunder back in L.A. next Tuesday night. And they're measuring stick games.

They're interesting. They're statement, late season statement games. And I'm interested. I'm watching, but I think SGA is watching too. and I think he can't wait to play against Luca. And all I want to say about SGA is every single night, he comes in with six minutes to go in the game and says, okay, I got it.

And he is running away with every clutch stat in the India. Every late clutch stat, late and close, the last five minutes of a close game, he just dominates the league. And he did it again the other night against Detroit in Oklahoma City and just took the game over and scored, 21 in the fourth quarter and overtime. I don't know, but he does it every night,

and it's starting to scare me for the thunder's sake because they're just all on offense. They play great defense, and then they just say, here, you do it every night. Well, that's the runaway MVP to me, and I'm pretty sure he's going to win it. Well, thank you, Swaggy. How many buttons did I push for you today?

Not to me. You just, all I heard was you could paying Luca to Michael Jordan. I figured you'd hear that. All the. shots attempts. Jordan still lead. He does. He does. Shots attempts. Yep. And the year

they won the championship, Jordan shot, what, 78% from the free throw line? No, I don't think so. I mean, he was a career 84. Yeah, about 82, 83. No, he was career 84. He was 83. Oh, 83.

98. 86. Right. 96. The year they won or 97. Jordan shot 78. percent from the free throw line. With Luke's shooting 77, 78. He's 78 right now. Led the lead to lead and, you know, scoring, like MJ.

They end up winning a championship that year. Okay, so the other day you said Kevin Durant's better than Michael Jordan, right? You were making the case. So now you got Luca better than Jordan? No, I'm just comparing championship years. So this is going to be a championship year for the Lakers? It's going to be a championship year for the Lakers. I feel like being a good spot, the third spot,

that means we'll play the Spurs second round. That's if they make it, I think. If the Spurs play the Clippers' first round, I don't think they don't get past them. The Clippers are going to beat the Spurs? I think so. Really? I'd love to see that.

This man right here is a lot. Nobody could beat Kauai in the playoffs when he's healthy like this. Sorry. And they're young. And they young. But. You know, the first round, it would be a Kate Walk, second round play the Spurs, no experience. Kate Walk, we end up playing OKC.

And OKC to me this year, they're a little bit fragile. All they, you know, their second star is in and out of the rotation. Group. They depended too much on, like, the role players, the corners, Wiggins and the other Jadin Williams and stuff. I feel like the Lakers are clicking at the right time, playing well. Everybody's on the same page. They're having fun. They're going golfing on road trips.

Like, they're looking like they're coming into the team that L.A. wanted them to be. I would agree they could win the NBA Golf Championship. I would give you that. They're bawling. You got LeBron James. You see how you still jumping out the gym? This is the right time to come. click in April in May.

Everybody said the Lakers just need the panic. They 15 and 2 anymore. You had previously called them the best of the ass thing. Let me get there. That was supposed to be my line. I was waiting by that. I was waiting for that. I'm sitting here waiting for that line. Best for the ass because they was

you know. They were still trying to fight these other. Excuse me? They was trying to what? You said it multiple times. The best of the best of the ass teams. We was too when I was, you know. Ass.

Hey, when I was aware. You didn't say feet. When I was a warrior, we was number one. We was number two when we won. So it happens. If you go through ups and downs, LeBron's still trying to tugging war, AR going, I'm number two.

You ain't going to take this from me. But now they figured it out. What has changed? Towards the end of the season, their stats can't go down. Stats are where they at. What has changed between the fact that we agree, that they were the best of the ass teams,

the way they were playing. They were playing for stats. You don't have to play for stats no more. So they were playing for stats. Now they looked like a team. Yeah, it's two weeks left. Their stats are just stuck where they're going to be at. Everybody's happy.

So you think it's not fool gays, they're real? I think they're real now. Now. Yeah, you're playing a win now. It's different than playing for money. Earlier, you got AR and contract year. He's trying to pull to everybody. He's number two or number one in this league.

Luca, this is my team in L.A. LeBron, I'm still here. Still got to get mine. I'm a contract year. A. didn't talk about he ain't Kent Capella. It was a lot. It was a lot.

Now, stats are where they're going to be. You either going to get your money now or not get your money. Who gets the credit? Who gets the credit now? Who gets the credit? You know. Who gets the credit? Is it JJ?

You got to deal with a lot. As a coach, you've got to deal with a lot. 50 wins, y'all. We've got 50 wins. You're dealing with a lot. Back to back. A lot of egos. You got LeBron ego, Luca ego,

A.R. Gany's ego up there like, hey. So at what point of the fairy tale story ending, is it going to be where LeBron James rise off into the sunset. After he win this year. As a third wheel. After he win this year.

Will it be in L.A.? 12 points, 14 points, 14 points. I don't think we're born on the third wheel. That's cool. We're going to talk about that and say efficient, though, shot. 56% from the field in March. That's cool. Efficient.

Efficient. He can still. Getting his bucket. Third wheels win finals MEPs. Deferring. Well, let's just say the third wheel don't get there again. Again. for the sixth season in the row?

Again, right? I call Fulgazy, you know, I'm with skip with this one, you know. I had to wear the purple and gold just because I got a lot of purple shit for Kobe in my closet. I figured out I throw the robin on just to, you know, go backwards. And like you said, the free throw merchant thing with Luca, I still think AR is just out of sync. I still think that depending on going into the playoffs, depending on him and LeBron to show up and the show out,

based on Luca feeling it, is the magic going to show up today or not? I don't believe that's good basketball. And I think the late great Kobe Bryant said it best with James Hardin. You can't win the brand of basketball or just dominating the ball at the top of the key. So what Luca does and how he does it is good for regular season basketball. It has been for the years that he's been in the league.

But right now, when you talk about what happens when he goes into the playoffs and how teams are easily strategizing for his play and the way he plays, it's easier to neutralize him in that fashion. Boston exposed that. And I think other teams, other teams, yep, because he had a Kyrie Irvin. He don't got no Kyrie Irvin right now to bail him out. Kyrie's been to Mr. Bell out. He's a bell blonde.

Western competition. Tyree Irvin is the ultimate bill bombing. The first round exit was last year coming to the Lakers. Who? Luca. The first round? It wasn't his first time being out the first round. He was a rookie year.

I'm talking about as of lately. As a guy. At this point, Luca Dantis is James Hart, the right-handed James Hardin. That's who he is. That's a good company. It is, especially when you know, I'm on Hall of Fame and MVP, but, you know, You're talking about winning? He did a lot of that.

He did a lot of that too. I'm just saying. Talking about winning championships, getting to the chip. Luca Donald, he just don't got it for me. And I think him being the leader of this particular team, it's not going to roll. There's no hate. It's just watching the games. And you got to be out there to see it.

You got to be out there to understand, like, this is not going to work when these teams put the pressure on. You slow the game down, put you in half court, force you to do things you not used to Like giving the ball to somebody else to let them go. Now you got to chuck up shots. You're shooting seven for 25, seven for 27. Don't all the great stuff do that? Did Jordan pass?

Yes. Did he lead the team assistant? Did he lead the team? Trial offense. Did they pass? Forced us to pass. Join still down the lead the NBA in attempts. Triangle offense.

In attempts. Triangle offense. Two thousand more shots than KD. Did we just see that? How many championships? Katie got two For the other guys But it's still

You can't save that Some style of work If you There's gunners They're gonna shoot If they feel like they can take over a game They're gonna shoot They're way in front of the game

You gotta deliver though Fuck the shooting You're out here like Mike Epps And fucking N2D You just No bro We are John Wick with this thing

Are you We are We are Mike Epps Cousin It seemed like you should. Damn, my bad. Did I fuck that up?

Oh, my dad. Yeah, I did. My bad, Omar. It seems like you shooting 30 shots to get 30 points to me. Who is? He's talking about Luca? What's the motherfuck the people y'all are? Nah.

No. Luca would make shoot 30 shots to get that. So we got two Fugazes on the couch. And one realist. One realist. But he changed because he said it was the best of the ass. Previously, but then they went on this last friend. He don't know where he went to go.

I can talk about it. about my Lakers like that because it's my Lakers though. And we're going to dive in to Luke for a second, Skip. I want to address something you said. So Michael Jordan, most points in the month of March, right? 676. You know how many games he did that in?

I didn't count, but this is 17 versus 19. No, Luke will play 16. Put up 600. Luke played 16 of 17. They went 15 and 2. So he missed my Wizards game because he got a 16th. Would have put up 84 in that game. For sure.

To defend Kobe's honor. legacy, get that notch off of BAMB. Man. But three less games, 76 less points. He would easily smack that. Easy. Based on how he was going. He could have that in two games, 40, 40. Let's talk Luca, though.

Luca capped off an impressive March with his 7th 40-point game in the month. Also included his season high 60 piece on the heat, coming one assist shy with a 50-point triple-double to win over the Bull. So let's take a look at what those numbers look. Here is Luca in March. So in the 16 games he played, average 38 points,

8 rebounds, 7 assists, 2.3 steals, getting it down on the defensive end, while shooting 49% from the field, 39% from 3. As we mentioned, scored 600 points. One of 10 players will record a 600 point month in NBA history. How can y'all put Wimby in front of that? That's how? Yeah. After the win over the Cavs, Luka was asked if he wanted to make his MVP case like Wimby

did and had this response. I mean, I never did that, so I'm not going to, I'm not the one more. voting so, you know, but I think I've been playing pretty good. We've been winning, so that's it. That's all I gotta say. See, that's what you're saying. No, it ain't what you say. You don't have to beg for it.

No, it'll try harder. Stop begging. You're to try harder. Let the game speak. Nah, it ain't speaking. As a person you love and the person you love, how you ever heard Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant beg for an MVP? Nope.

But guess who you have heard? That's what I'm saying. Do I have to tell people I play defense? who you have heard and guess where he's at in the voting. All right. I don't want to hear shit come out. I don't want to hear shit. I don't want to hear, listen, this is new media.

Everybody who has a vote now is going to change their perspective on how they watch the game now. You see how he said it. He said it. You see how he answered. Are you playing defense like I'm playing defense? Are you scoring like a... Are you important to your team like I am? Are you important to your team like I am?

Plus, 674. when I'm on the floor. 37, 8 and 8 in the March of March. Plus 600 and 74. When I'm on the floor, negative 21 when I'm off, he has the best net rating we've ever seen. And I don't even like to do the stats,

but it seems like everybody only understands stats because you don't watch the game. Everybody just tune in afterwards, watch the highlights. Oh, we don't. Victor Wimbignana does the damn thing when he's out there. Like I said, he's French kissing, French toast, everything, bro. French fries.

French fries, everything. So when it come down to it, if you're voting on one side of the field, you're going to go with the guys who are offensively explosive. But come on, the total basketball player? That's a defensive player, the Defense of the Year Award. What you always said is in the Defense of the Year Award. He's a total basketball player. Defense of the Year award.

The defense player to year. Defense player to year. Total. 10 to 2. We out there. We do this. And we beat the best team in the whole NBA

four times. That's fair. Spurs this season without Wimby, 10 and 5. Thunder the season without SGA, 8 and 4. Lakers, the season without Luca, 7 and 6. Do with that information what you will.

Wait, what was the Spurs? Spurs 10 and 5 in the 15 games. So they don't really need them like that. So they still, you know. Still have to win a worker. Still going to win. Negative 21. 10 and 5.

Negative 21 plus 6774. Okay? That's math. All right, but Rashad. When it comes to the other side of basketball, the defensive side, he's running away with defensive player of the year. Ain't close. Game over, obviously.

So in individual defensive winshares, Wimby is one, Chet Holmgren is two, and would you believe Shea Gilgis Alexander is tied for third with his teammate Kaysen Wallace? Okay, so SGA is leading the league in points scored off drives. It's pretty great. He's leading the whole league by far in percentage of mid-range jump shot. That's 58%, which is ridiculously good.

Sure. And as I mentioned, in clutch points, he's scored 175 on the year. Jamal Murray is next at 156. So he's just dominating when it's time to dominate, and he saves them night after night after night. And I don't disagree with your point about the thunder have been shaky because Jalen Williams has missed. 56 games now.

He's so handling up. And he came back and flashed, and then he sat back to back against Detroit because he's had hamstring issues and he still, remember, when they lost four times to the Spurs, Jalen Williams was coming off a pretty severe wrist surgery

and he didn't have that yet. Sounds like an excuse. Okay, no. It sounds like you're making an excuse me. I couldn't recognize him because he didn't trust his shot. And now he's come back, and he's trusting his shot better. He's starting to look a little bit like Jalen Williams. And if they get him right in time, they're going to be a tough out for somebody,

even San Antonio, because it's going to be different if he's right. But with SGA, in clutch time, he's plus 93. Well, he's the whole show. So he's third in defense, DeWimby's one by far. and then night after night, because I watch every night, they just say, here, would you save us again? Because we're teetering a little bit here because we can't fight. AJ Mitchell's been kind of a number two.

Who are you going to give it to, Skip, if you're not giving it to him? To SGA? Yeah, who are you going to give it to you? Who's going to save the game? Okay, Jalen Williams made the all-star team last year and made second team all defense. Well, that's big time. You just said that he's not ready. Okay, all right.

Take that. So who we're going to give it to? You know, AJ Mitchell. Going to give it to the coach. Okay. But that's a positive, though. Yeah. Because he's delivering. Not if we take that away from him.

Okay, but we're just talking about regular season MVP. Yeah. Okay. So my point to you is SGA is running away with it to the detriment of the thunder. I'm not, I'm not saying it's a good thing. It's not a good thing because you can't keep saying here, you do this again. nobody can split a double team like SGA can. It's like every night, they put two on him,

and he just, it's like he gets really skinny and just slithers through and somehow gets up and he gets calls because they foul him a lot, and he goes down hard a lot. So you say you watch the games, right? Yep. You know how to stop on time.

Is SGA guarding the best perimeter? Sometimes. I mean, they switch, they got so many. Never. Not never. So his winshares on defense come from playing the weakest. Is Winby guarding the best defense? He's guarding the whole team.

But is he guarding the whole team? All right, so Shane is doing the same thing. No, he doesn't because he has other defenders that regulate that. Okay, so he's a one-man zone. And you know, he plays what we call the mic back. Yeah, I understand. He's a mic back. So I can play this position, pick up steals.

Luca does the same thing where I don't have to guard the best guy. pick up steals over here, pick up stills over here. My isolation defense is going to be predicated on who I'm guarding. If this guy doesn't drive to the lane on a regular basis, guess how I look? He's passing it. He does this. I'm good. Now, I'm not saying that he doesn't play defense.

I do think that he does play. He gives effort. But to consider him top five based on those metrics of statistics, we're talking about watching the game. I want the people to watch the game and see the effort. When you talk about defensive mentality, you're talking about the strategy of how you cut the court off and you make people scared to come your way. It's like Derell Revis for the Jets or Dion Sanders. You're not coming on this side of the court. Blue Dork, they don't, they're not even.

I got to throw this out. Or Akeeb to leave. Or Akeeb to think about defenders. And they're in the top five. I don't consider Chet even that. It's because he's But who is Whimby guarding?

That's what I'm understanding He's guarding the whole team He's switching off. He's switching off on everybody And that's for everybody does. And this is the stat That this is the stat that they have on Wemby That his isolation one-on-one defense

Is very, very poor. Yes. Right? Guys drive by him, boom. So when that happens, he doesn't have help. Right? Because he is the help. Wait, let me finish.

He is the help. But when he's not in no situation, situations where he's switched off on the point guard and he drops back. He's a good... These guys are one, not driving. He's a good help defender. He's a good all around defender. How you just said he could blow by?

That's one aspect. But that's the main aspect. No, it's not. You go on somebody one-on-one. You go on a point guard. You miss-it's a mismatch. Why do you think they do pick and rows for mismatches? So he's not a great defender like you say.

So he's not a great defender like you say. Well, Luke is not a great offense player either, is he? Huh? Mismatch, mismatch, oh, I'll just do a step back. It goes in. Come on, man. You're doing this for mismatches. So if the mismatch is going to be on the defensive side and the opposite side,

he's a good defender because he knows how to play defense. People send their guy to the whole foot. Don't you got to be in rotation, Nick? No, he's a good, I'll just say he's a good head. But don't you have to be in rotation? Don't you have to know about rotations? You just say he's a good head. So if you're on, all right, so on the post defense, is post defense is a metric?

You say he's a good health. Yes, he is. Is he a good post? Defender? I don't know. You don't know? I never seen him guard Joker. Okay, you never seen him guard Joker.

He ducked him in the show. Okay, so they don't throw it in the post on Wimby no more. They don't throw it in the post period in the NBA. Okay, so that's eradicated when you play against them. Don't even think about this. It's better guards in the NBA that Shay would have to guard than Wimby had the guard as big. But when we're talking about the comparison between Shay and Wimby on the Winshairs and the statistics, it's a, it's a, it's a, you got to see the difference. difference. You can't see the difference on stats. You got to see the difference when the game

is being played. Shea is guarding the weakest defender, the weakest offensive player. Not always, but most of the time, most of the time. This is a defensive player that's like, I'm switching out on whoever. And you just say it get blue by. He does. So does Shea. Okay, but wait to say, if you have Lou Dorton and Kaysen Walsz on the perimeter, they're just, they're two of the best, right as lockdown defenders, wouldn't you put them on the best offensive player? You're supposed to. Because they don't have the offensive skill set to exhaust. You got to save SGA for his energy on offense.

Everything with Luca, right? Yeah. So that's what I'm saying. You have to because they don't want to exert their energy on defense. You have to be on extreme shape to do both sides. But that's what everybody does, though. What would you mean? That's what everybody does.

That's why you get a defender on your team for you guard the best player. You don't need that with Wemby. That's why he's the MVP. You just said he got blue by. That's blue by, my nigga. You can't play one-on-one defense. You keep using that one little metric. You're just trying to crawl along.

You can't do. Nick, you got to dig it. You need a book. You need one. You got to do more. You're not making sense. You're just using one thing. There are five different metrics of defense, Nick.

One-on-one isolation, passing lane, help side, post-defend. So he's a good help defender. He's a good everything. He's a mere to okay isolation defender. He's not the best. So he's a defense player to year. Yes. Okay.

What do you mean? All right. Let's shift back to Luca quickly. Now, offense, right, though. If we can. So we ask. What about the offense? We asked the chat, does Luca deserve more love as an MVP candidate?

77% of the chat in honor of Luca 77. Yeah, exactly. Yes, he does. Skip, you say you have him at number three, even after seeing what he's been doing as of late. There's been a lot of, I think, media, people out there knocking the defense on Lucas side, but best offensive player in the league right now, other than Junker, if you want to make that comp.

And he is, he's playing much better on defense. I mean, if you're up in defensive winshares, which I put stock in, if you've risen to 31 in the league, that's really good for him. That's impressive. He has committed to the other side of the ball in March, especially. So the question for you is, obviously, they have two more games against the Thunder to close out this season.

Is there anything Luca can do? those two games to change your opinion of his standing in the MVP race? You know, JJ's turned into his biggest cheerleader, and I appreciate that from JJ, because he should be. But he said the other day, he got off to a great start, and he's had a great march. And so JJ's point was, well, for two-thirds of the year, he was the MVP. Well, what Victor has done has been consistently, because they did beat Oklahoma City four or five times, and it was early to me before teams had taken shape,

but still, they did that and counts over 82 games. And what SGA has done from the start of this year, I promise you he's had a better year this year than he had last year when he obviously won MVP. So if I take the 82 game span, I don't know, Luke could score 100 and 100 against Oklahoma City in these two games. And to me, I don't think it was.

would then somehow qualify the third of the year that he was pretty awful in, where they were awful. They couldn't find themselves. People are saying that JJ's lost the locker room. Remember all that span? And remember Luca turning down the shot that night and trying to give it to like hot potato to LeBron? No, you shoot it. I'm three of 13.

You shoot it. Okay, there was that really sorry Laker phase in there. and Laker Nation's like, oh, don't, just leave us alone. Leave us alone. We don't want to talk about that. Well, it happened. So to me, he's already disqualified himself from finishing higher than third in MVP. And third is great.

He's had a great march. They have had a great march. But they haven't had a better run of late than the Thunder or the Spurs have. They just haven't. The numbers don't say that they're hotter than those two teams. So I don't You know Would we be prisoner of those moments?

You know, I probably will be too If I sit back and they blow them out Last year, the Lakers went to Oklahoma City late And blew them out And yet what happened in the first round Right on schedule, gentleman sweet By the T-Wolbs, okay? I was then.

It's a different Lakers team That team didn't have Luke Knard on it That's true We're a prisoner. What did we say? Prisoner of the moment I think that's what we are with Wemby. What was Wemby at before he said what he said?

Hey, hey, somebody's texting Nick what to say. No. I know it. What was Wemby at before he said what he said? He was texting Nick what to say. He was like fourth or fifth. Fourth and fifth, right? Is that true?

Probably Gilbert, for sure. He's just mad. Probably Gilber. He don't want to show up. He doesn't call it. He will text Nick. He was five before. A couple weeks ago.

It was five a couple weeks old. Then you say what you say. Now you're two. I predicted what I said, and he became one. He said what he said, begged for it. Now he's two. Number one. He begged for MVP.

No, he's not number one. He is number one. He is the leading candidate for MVP. Winby stats don't stand out as an MVP to me. Does Steph Curry's stats stand out as an MVP when he won it? Do you remember what Steph was? was averaging? It was number one.

25. But there was... He wasn't leading in no category of NBA. He was not number one and nothing but three points percentage. They broke the record, right? No, bro. That's the year he won it. No.

Did he win it two years? That was number one, right? Both years. 15, 16. He was averaging what? But there was number one. What was he averaging? You said this...

Nash was number one and you average 17. That don't mean. You just said, what was your point? No. You just said it don't mean them. He's not number one. What did you just say about Wemby, though? You said his stats.

don't prove. Thank you. So he's not number one. You just said Steve Nash. But he's not number one. That's the main thing. Your stats, you got to be number one

for your stats to be like this. So Steve Nash and the sons when he won back to back. Was it number two? What was it? That was number one the whole NBA.

The whole NBA. If he's number one, so that's a team thing or is that an individual? All right. His stats, like I say, he's seven, six. Deflict.

I'm not. He's seven, six doesn't lead the lead in rebounds doesn't lead in the lead in scoring supposed to be up there average 24 points a game at 7 6 what is his ranking in rebounds the points for a minute is ranked in rebounds well he's number two right hmm is he number two you yeah you I'm asking you I'm saying is he number two should be number one you're 7 6 he should be because he's tall you're seven yeah poker's 7 4 hell no stop man we'll be fifth right now rebounding yeah yeah behind Joker Cat, Donovan Klingin, and Rudy.

Dave? Gobbert. He should be number one. That's my point right there. He should be number one. These guys... So Joker's number one, right? Nicole Yolkich, number one.

Leading and leading, rebounds and assists. Nearly 13. And you're putting a guy like... Like Steve Nash in front of Kobe. So you're saying Wibb you shouldn't even be above Joker right now. No. Okay. It should be where he started before he said that.

Because he's not his team, not number one. Over these years, they didn't give it to Jaylon Brown. I mean, Jason Taylor, when Boston was number one, right? He was averaging 28. You should have, right? You can't use that now. He should be at number five where he started off before he begged. But they gave it to Joker two times in a row, and he was the number one.

Why? His stats stood out, right? Oh, stats stood out. Stats got a standard. So which one is it? Is it stats, or is it the team being in number one? A remarkable year for to get it. Westbrook, triple double.

His stats is not remarkable. The Chicago Bulls, Derek Rose, Derek Rose was not number one. And he was averaging 24 a game. What is you saying, bro? Like I said, before he begged, he was number five. That's where he should be. Hey, I ain't too proud to beg, no.

I'm just saying. If other guys did that, Jaylon Brown had the case to do that Kay Cunningham could have begged and did that nobody seeing Boston being number one Wantshye and Luke and now both asked to make their decision well saying that's not really our thing

During the All-Star game there was one guy that was interviewed right and he was asked like what made you play hard tonight and the guy said man Wimby came out he set the tone Wimby came out and he set the tone Wimby came into this year and set the tone.

Said what tone? We were predicted to be number 10 in the NBA, and he came in and said, not on my watch. Not on my watch. Watch this. First game back. He said, I'm going to wait to this game

because that guy, I think he's something. I'm going to show him. Let's get him out of there. Let's get him out of here. Jalen Brown said the same thing. Let's get him out of here. Jaylon Brown said the same thing. same thing.

Hey, watch out. Watch out. Wimby set the tone. He ain't never looked back. And if you ain't watching the NBA games, you're not seeing how this tone ain't changed. He has set the tone and ain't nothing,

ain't no looking back. The team, I think, Shannon Frye, Channing Frye just said about Wemby, as far as his leadership at 22 years old, has changed the trajectory of the Spurs organization. they went from we don't know what we gonna do we got Dylan Harper well how do we get the number two pick I don't know well we didn't play well last year or the year before you also miss win me for a substantial amount of time now we got our main guy we got the guy we traded for healthy we look like the team we thought we were going to be but who was our leader who is our leader is not de Aaron Foxx our leader is not Kelden Johnson our leader is not our leader is the number one pick in the NBA draft.

He came in and did exactly what LeBron James did. Dwight, all the guys who were number one, Akim O'Igwine, the guys who came in, and they were predicted to be the guy. You picked this guy for a reason. He's doing it, and that's why he deserves MVP. 22 years old. To your point, Wimby underachieved to me in his first two years.

because they should have been way better than they were. And they were sorry and sorry, and he still never played one playoff game, right? Did his numbers change? They actually went down. His blocks went down almost by one block this year. Everything else stayed exactly the same. All right, but to your point,

the reason Josiah asked me about, could Luca do anything against Oklahoma City in these two games to change MVP? Well, no, he can't, but if the Lakers managed to, beat the thunder twice, which is certainly a possibility. All of a sudden, if, okay, so the Thunder's ahead, two and a half games over San Antonio with six games left,

but they got two. The Thunder have a hellacious, hard finish for the season, because they got to go to Denver. Okay, so the point is, if San Antonio overtakes the Thunder for the top spot, I think Wimby will slide in and win it at the tape. You know, he'll. Does that move Luca up, though?

Those two games. No, I don't think so because SGA is still a solid betting favorite right now. But when I listen, when I watch other shows on TV and I see voters talking about, my head says it's SGA and then my heart tells me, wait a second, I'm afraid to not vote for Wimby because I might have to eat it in the postseason. Well, it's a regular season award, right? But a lot of the voters are getting scared that, wait a second, Wimby's going to be the finals MVP this year, and I'm going to look like a fool if I didn't vote for him for regular season MVP. Wait, wait, wait.

Okay. Do you think the Spurs are going to win the championship? Okay, well, a lot of people do. So Swagher. I'm waiting to put a lot of money on that. These last six came in the season are very interesting. So Lakers got the Thunder twice, right? You said Thunder got Nuggets.

Nuggets got the Spurs twice, including final game of the season, which could be San Antonio potentially playing for the 10th. top spot or it could be a third way game. Yeah. Yeah. It could be one way. I don't think we're going to go for us. He ain't going to play a a game. He's going to play a game. He has to. They got them twice.

So he's going to have to. He just missed it. That's why. But to your point, right now the Thunder and Spurs are playing for who hosts game seven of the Yeah, exactly. Right? And that's what it's going to be. And if somehow the Spurs overtake and they got game seven in San Antonio, I like their chances, man. Ooh.

Hmm. Interesting. Well, let's shift back to the Los Angeles Lakers very quickly before we move on with our day. So, LeBron became the all-time wins leader for regular season and playoffs combined, breaking a tie with Kareem. It's been instrumental in the Lakers' recent hot streak as of late. Oh, my God. Appearing to embrace his role, a reduced role with that offense.

So March was LeBron's most efficient offensive month this season. Average 19.7 assists, seven rebounds, playing more than 34 minutes per game, playing it back-to-back. shooting 56% from the field. Skip, I want to ask you, you watch the Lakers, obviously. You have a documentary history with LeBron covering him throughout your career. Does it seem like LeBron is embracing his role as the third option with this Lakers big three? Not only is he embracing, but he's been the key to this run.

They're 10 and 1 since LeBron came back from those three games when everybody kind of wrote him off and said, see, they're better without LeBron. And then he swallowed a lot of pride, even though he's 41 in year 23. And he came back and went to the corner and stood in the corner or he stood in the dunker spot. And he played third wheel to the other two in the back court. And I was impressed, man, because that's hard when you're LeBron freaking James. And again, he's not the goat. there's only one runaway goat, and we know who that was.

But the point is that he's averaged since he came back 18, 8, and 7. Well, obviously, 18 a game for him, it's hard to swallow. After you've been that guy for that long, you're the leading score and the history of the league, and you're averaging 18 through March. And you're shooting awful from three. He's 31% of he was 32% in March. But he doesn't shoot. shoot threes anymore. He rarely even tries a three. So he's shooting 56% because about half of them

are dunks, right? I mean, he's not going to miss a dunk, and he can still, to your point, he can jump out of the gym. I've never seen an athlete perform at a literally higher level at 41 than he's performing. But it's a role player role that he's playing, and it works for them because in March, Lucas' usage rate was 40%. I don't know if people understand. That's ridiculous. He is dominating the basketball. LeBron's usage in the month of March

in these 11 games was 22%. So Luke is going to have the ball in his hands twice as much as LeBron freaking James. And it's the key to their success because LeBron can still play bully ball. I think he's a benign bully because I don't think he's a legitimate tough guy, but when you're 6-9 and he's in great shape,

I don't know what he is now, 260-ish, and you can jump and you can bang and you can bully, well, that's it. He said, I can still do this. These young people, they can't play with me inside. They can't deal with me. And so he's leading the league in breakaway points and fast break points because he's Carl Malone.

He's the reincarnation of Carl Malone on the fast break. taking bounce passes from John Stockton. So that's the secret to the Lakers rise was he said, Luca, I pass the torch completely to you. I don't play point guard anymore. And he used, even last year, he played the point for this team. He was the initiator and the distributor for this basketball team. And that is over.

So way to go. That's the secret to their success. I think if anybody don't have LeBron as the goat after seeing all this is mentally like something wrong. He's the longevity goat. No, he's the goat. It's the difference between being the goat and having a favorite player. Wait, he's four and six in the finals, and the other guy's six and oh with six MVP's.

Like, my favorite player is Kobe, but I would be mentally, if I don't see what this man is doing and not consider him the goat. What did you ever consider, Willett the goat? I never seen Will. But you never considered him the goat. I never seen you. Nobody did. Obviously. What about Karima Nobody did? Nobody did. I did

I did consider Karim McGofer. He was the number one in scoring and all these things, right? He had all these championships, all these And we talked about championships, Bill Russell, right? So we can't do that. No, yeah, we can. We have to because you're talking about accomplishments and you're talking about longevity. You're talking about a guy

who's playing a long, a period of time, and he's racking up all of of these accomplishments and records and then you're saying because he's doing that he is the ghost yeah he's been doing it all his life that was doing the same thing that you don't even acknowledge

so it doesn't make sense he was he would be number one LeBron is them they're number one in every category there was someone before him that you don't even consider the goat that was doing that that's the point so you just catapult this guy up in front

because he's played the longest. He broke this record, this record, this record, this record. It doesn't stop us from what we've seen. Like you said, what we've seen. It's a different player. And being the goat of the NBA. Your favorite player. And right now is the goat.

If you're the goat and you could transform your game to be this option, that's another level of goateness. If you could transform your game, a lot of people can't stand being not. the man. That's where people are in. Another level of goateness? Yeah. That's what other people stopped playing. Do you know that this other guy number 23 didn't have to do that to be the level of goatness?

LeBron had to play 23 years to be next to him. That's what I'm saying. He retired. It took you. Your man said I'm not, I can't do that. It took you 10 more years to be beside me. Do you understand that how great that is, how you had to play another 10 more years to get beside me? And I'm still not in front of you and shooting them. Beside me.

How many more shots is looking for? Ten more years. But how many more shots did Jordan shoot? You can't do that. You can do that too. Jordan plays 10 more years. Where is the records? And you still shoot more, the shot more?

Where would the records be if Jordan played 10 more years? If. I didn't say if. I said, where would the records be if George? That's a if. I did say if, you're right? God damn. That don't make.

That don't make you the goat. It don't. If I played 10 more, no, you didn't. If D. Rose played 10 more years, will he be the goat? Yes. So. So, he didn't. How many years was it, Skip?

14. Michael? 15. 15 years. Okay, just real quick, for the record, LeBron James has now played 662 more games than Jordan played. Think about that. 662.

That's regular and postseason. 6.62. That's 8. seasons more. Where is Jordan at on this, like how many shots, shot attempts? Okay, but he's making them. Did you just hear what he just said? Where's Jordan that on shot attempts? Okay, but Nick, they worked. He shot him because he was the greatest ever. You got to shoot that many? Okay, you shot because you could shoot. You're still number two and shot attempts and you played 14, 14 years. He played 23. This most

still goal attempts in their history. Who's number, who's, Kobe's number one, right? No, LeBronis. Oh, now. What do you mean now? Now. Like two years ago. Okay. Now he's playing.

Oh, Kareem. Kareem. On Kobe. Jordan. Yeah. Nick, to accept this role is actually disqualifying you from being a goat, right? Disqualification. 41.

In year 23 or 41 years old. So Jordan coming back to the Wizards disqualified him. He never regulated to the third option. He never made a playoff. He wasn't the third option. Never made a playoff. He wasn't the third option. He was a doorman.

He wasn't the third option. He was a doormant. He wasn't the third option. He was a doorman. He was a doorman. He was a doorman. He was a door man. He was Michael Jordan.

Doorman. Michael Jordan. Nobody put expectations on you. First option. Nobody put expectations on you. Don't me that. Nobody put it. Juan Dixon.

What was their record? What they record had to do with it? You're supposed to be in the playoffs or something. You're supposed to be in the playoffs or something. So what are you talking about the Lakers of the last five season? What have they done? They made it. Made it what?

To do what? I made it. Huh? So now you're saying Jordan did more than LeBron at this age? Oh, he did. Okay, but wait to say.

Nick, Jordan retired at age 35 because they pushed his coach out the back door and he said, I'm out. And he stayed retired for three years of his crime. If he's here to go, you're supposed to be here to keep your coach. What coach did?

What coached LeBronkey? What coached the LeBronkey? J.K. Redd. Huh? Extension. Tyloo. Go on. Black, gone.

Mike. Oh, all of these guys. Oh, LeBron. Hey. Hey, Eric Sposel, I don't like the way you took my cookies. I'm out of here. What the fuck is you're talking about? What are you talking about?

What are you talking about? What are you talking about? You left three times on losses. On losses. One everywhere yet. You left three times on losses. One everywhere yet. Nick, he lost six times.

six times in the finals, and he's lucky he didn't lose his seventh time because Ray Allen saved his legacy by making that shot. So, Kyrie Irvin, too. And Kyrie Irvin. So what's the goat debate? On winning, going to the finals and wins and loss? Is that the goat debate? To me, it's Kobe Bean, Brian.

I don't know. I don't give a fuck what nobody's sake. I don't know. I think everybody knows how I feel about it, but everybody else can move around. But then if you're going to just have the conversation without Kobe, because he's resting in peace. Okay, we're going to say Michael Jeffrey Jordan. They took the bronze cookies. Never forget, ladies.

We're going to say Michael Jeffrey Jordan, for sure. I would never say that. Nick, how do you explain all the epic fails that LeBron had on the biggest stage in the sport? The 2011 finals the first time around with the heat, he just cratered in games four, five, and six. They're up two games to one. and he has the biggest superstar meltdown I've ever witnessed in those last three games. I don't know.

That just disqualifies you. Jordan never melted down like that. He was incredible. He was... All right. Would you put Kevin Durant in the top five small forwards? Just small forwards? Yeah.

Sure, just on pure jump shooting. Yep. Would you put, all right, so in top five shooting guards, you would have D. Wade in there? I don't know. Shooting guards? You will have Kobe. What's your point? Where are we going? Yeah, where you're going with?

I'm saying you will have Kobe, D. Wade. Okay, so to what... To what... To what... As a point guard, you will have Steph. I'd have magic at the... Westbrook. Stockton.

So everybody that's replacing your guys in these top five in each position, this guy has to go through. Okay, but what do you call... You call Jordan a two guard, because if he's a two guard, he's the greatest ever. I mean, it's just like not even close. But who else in his, while he was playing, would you put in the top five shooting guards right now? To Jordan?

Yeah. With Jordan, you would put Kobe, right? Yeah. And he's talking about people in his era. Yeah. Kobe wasn't really in the era. I know, but that's what I'm saying. So Kobe would be the top in his era.

Jordan would be the top of his era. Oh, but who, name, I'm just saying name. the top five shooting guard. Like Reggie Miller. No, of all time. Of all time. Who y'all would think the top five shooting guards are all time is? You got Kobe Jordan, D.Way, is James Hardin in there, right?

Top five small forwards. You got LeBron, K.D. Who else y'all would put in there? Larry Bird. Larry Bird. Is Kauai in there? Yeah. Kauai.

Point guards, you will have Steph Curry, Magic. You don't got Westbrook Ain't no point guard I got Westbrook You put stocking in there He still leads and assists Stocking who else Jason Kidd or

So you're doing Chris Paul, right All right Do you have to get through Yes that's what I'm saying Nobody your name is in Jordan era He has literally Ten top

Top five in each Category in his era That he has to Come on in his position No, in his era he had to go through LeBron. Okay. No, Michael Jordan went through Hall of Famers.

But are they, I just told you the name top. You said small forwards, point guards. All of the other guys that we did name are Hall of Famers, the guys who are. They are. But are they the top of the top?

Guys that were blocking shots, guys that were. Are they the top with a top? They're Hall of Famers. But are they top five? No. So what's the point? He had to go through harder. Okay.

Players. Okay, he had to go through. He joined two Hall of Famers, bro. He joined one of the guys you said is in the top, in the top. And if we want to throw Kyrie at number five and point guard, that'd be another guy.

Then you got Anthony Davis, Dwight Howard. There's like 47 guys he played with. That he's elevated. Man. So what are you saying? How much help do you need? You said it for me.

Thank you. Oh, so you need a lot. of help. No, no, no, no. You said it from me. I just want to know who Jordan had to go through to get there. Six rings. They're talking about this final. Six expansion teams too. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So who Jordan had to go through, don't Trump who you had to bring on your team to get through. I'm saying, man. Oh, okay. So Ray Allen, right? What is Scott? Oh. Ray Allen, right? What is Dennis Robin? What is they? It's not Jeopardy? I'm just saying. What is DeNeereux? You're talking about players on his team. Pippin's the top of 75 player.

Dennis Rodman was on that 75 all team It's two guys You went and got Tony Cookech after he bust your ass in the Olympics Don't push that button. Don't push that button. That's two guys. Tony Cookech in the Hall of Fame. Name your guys. I'm just saying.

Name them. I can name 40 of them. I'm just saying. All right. I'm just saying. I can name 40. I'm just saying. We can't name a lot of people, bro. can only name two.

Dennis Robbman, Scotty Pippin. What a fuck is the only name? What about the only really named two with Kobe? Shack and Paul Gassau. Excuse me. Could you watch out? But then you talk about him and you got, you got the name this guy, this guy, this guy.

He went through a lot of people. And this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy. No, you didn't go through them. You moved them on your team so you didn't. You didn't have to face them. Well. They did through a lot of people. That was easy.

Let's keep this thing. We could talk goat debate for hours and hours and hours. Steph Curry is number one. You have to play them three years in a row. Agreed or disagree. No shot at the King James. I'm just saying. Black SUV is circling.

I like debating with Nick. And it's just cool. It's just easy. It is easy. It is easy. You got to cash in. Ladies gentlemen, rent is due. April 1st.

No, the rent is due. No, I'm just kidding. But let's keep this back to contemporary basketball talk. Let's talk about the Celtics. Jason Tatum hasn't even been back for a month since returning from his Achilles injury, starting to look more comfortable on the court. So Tatum sat out the Celtics loss of the Hawks Monday

with injury management, but had his best game of the season this past Sunday in a win over the Hornets, cementing his selection as Eastern Conference Player of the Week. Let's take a look at the highlights please. So Boston was without Derek White and Jalen Brown in this game.

But the lighter shade of the DJER. Jay's put up a season high, 32 points on 12 of 23 shooting. Also, connected on five of his 10, three point attempts. Look at him out here. You know, one and a half leg done. Mm-hmm. So Tatum also had eight assists, five rebounds, no turnovers in 31 minutes of action. So like I said, he was named player of the week last week.

And the three games he played last week, average 26 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists as a Celtics got wins over the Thunder, Hawks, and Hornets during that stretch. You're looking good. Man. Look. Oh, look. Off touch. All right.

Got to get out there quickly when I mentioned, season high 32 points. There's a solid Hornets team. Oh, man. Would you play? So 11 games. Yeah, they're top five shoes. Keep on board too. There's another one.

Another one you got to put in there. So in 11 games of season, Tatum averaged 21 points, 9 rebounds, four assists. Celtics are 9 and 2 with him in the lineup. So, Sean, we will start with you on this one. You are a big Celtics fan?

What are your impressions of Jason Tatum in his first 11 games of season? Like I just mentioned, got Player of the Week last week for the Eastern Conference. He got Player of the Week. I just remember a lot of people saying that he should sit out and he should still be rehabbing. That's why they're not here.

I remember that. That's why they're not here. I'm just like, wait a minute. He got Player of the Week. Player of the Week. He hasn't been limping. He hasn't been, he took no games off. Like, well, maybe one or two.

Took a couple games off. Took a couple games off where he rested. I understand. But he's playing at a different level right now. That footage right there made me look at him like, Okay, he's got something to prove because he did tell the doctor, I'm not trying to be no role player. I'm not coming back to be no role player, Doc. And to see him move the way he's moving to see Jalen Brown give him the confidence that, look, man, let's get back to old form, wait until he gets back to who we know him to be.

32, three games in a row. I mean, I'm glad I was right about Jason Tatum. For real. I'm glad I'd be right about a lot of shit. You know what I'm saying? People come up to me, be like, I don't like all of your takes. I'm like, well, like some of them. Like some of them.

Because some of them be right on point. Because Jason Tatum is really showing us that the Boston Celtics can be a real contender for the east. They are a real contest. And take it home because the way he was playing. That's why I say watch the game. because you couldn't see that in the box score. You can't see what he looks like in the box score. And that looks different to me.

And I think that congratulations is in order for Jason Tatum. It was a long road. It was a scary road. And to be able to come back and triumph and get player at a week at the tail end of the season, like I said, to get his momentum going into the playoffs. Now imagine Jason Tatum in the year I was saying he was fucking. fucking around against all those other teams early on. And then Jalen Brown ended up winning that whole MVP and they won the championship.

He was just fucking around. This don't look like Jason Taylor fucking around. This looked like Jason Taylor went on a mission. I got something to prove and congratulations to him for sure. Swaggy, a big fan of Jason Tatum. I've been known to wear his shoes. Yeah. Yeah.

He'd be tight like that. He'd send me another box. If y'all need some jerseys, anything, let me know. Not really Celtics jersey, perhaps a pair of tatum in the Lakers. And that's how good you got to be to make me be a Celtics fan, like being in L.A. But, no, I'm just, like Vashah said, I'm happy if he was right. You know, I don't want nobody to come back and get hurt again or be hurt. You know, and he came back and he's doing what he's doing.

What he's doing is very impressive. Like I said right now, he's my second favorite player in the NBA. Who's your first? It's Ant Man, you know, Amman. We're going to talk Amman in a second. It's just the attitude puts Ant Man a little bit over, Taylor. If Taylor had that attitude, it is, yeah. Boston had three championships right now.

In the video. But it looks like he's showing that type of attitude the way he's playing right now. He's showing like dark skin. I'm light, but I'm a dog. Hey, hey, hey. Yeah. I'm looking at him. the energy from Jackson

Tatum. And I like it. And I feel like Boston another team that can win the finals this year to me. With Jason Taylor playing the way he's playing the other guys, pregnant pitcher Jaylen Brown for MVP year. Derek White

going back to his natural position. You don't have to depend on him to be a superstar. He gets to go back to Ben. One of the best two, you know, Lou Dorks in the NBA. One of the best two Lou Dorks. Yeah, you know, because he could shoot.

He could hit three, he could do deep, you know. But, yeah, right now I got them number one in the East. I got New York Pride 2, Cleveland, Dark Horse, three. No, Detroit? No, I'm not a big believer in Detroit yet. All they do is keep winning games. I'm not a believer in all the Spurs but I see OKC

Boston or Lakers Boston in the finals this year Before we proceed with you skip I just want to let everybody know it is April Fools today but with all the shit going on in the world Let's chill out What they say? There's just too much going to you know

It's a lot of going on What a lot of charity going on in the world We got rants on planes We got all type of stuff going on. Let's move over to you. So Jason Tatum, Eastern Conference Player of the Week last week, Celtics were 3-0 wins over the Thunder, Hawks Hornets. Tatum, season high, 32-point Sunday.

Like I said, did not play Monday. Celtics lost to the Hawks in that game, second night of a back-to-back. Yeah. But when you see what Jason Tatum doing out here, 11 games back this season, came back from that at Achilles' dinner. There was a lot of discussion debate about should he come back?

Should he take the year off? I think with the success of the Celtics that helped make the decision a lot easier for him. I think in his mind, maybe he always did know he was going to come back this season. But what do you think about Jason Tatum and how he's playing so far since returning from that Achilles? I appreciate all the love. I just heard from that side of the couch and this side of the couch.

Deserved. Stunning. To me, not surprising. But I'm the wrong one to ask about this because I'm a Jalen Brown believer. And I've said this many times. every time I've had to root against the Celtics over the last, I don't know, five years, Jalen Brown always scares me more than Jason Tatum does. That's just me.

He just scares me because he is so explosive on both sides of the court. He plays so hard and so suddenly on everybody that he faces. And I will never forget what he did to Luca in that finals because he just said, I got him and he don't got me and I'm going to take him out. Ended Luca career. He almost ended Luca career. Until this year.

Yeah. Lucas shot 11 of 45 from three in the finals. That's 24% Galen Brown just all over him. Got on traded. And in the closeout game, it looked like Luca was going to go back

into the game and Jalen was already out and he stood up and said, if he's going back in, I'm going back in because I still got him. Okay. It hurt my heart to watch what happened to Jalen Brown over the last month because for a while, I had Jalen Brown number one in the MVP. And I don't know if you guys gave him that much love.

Like he's vying for the top because in a gap year for the Celtics, he literally put that whole team on his back and his back alone. And when Jason came back, they were 42 and 21 and second in the East. east, which they are still. But they have been nine and two since Jason came back, and Jason has been extraordinary. Like you said, he's still playing on a leg and a half

and he's doing that. Okay, but we know he can do that because he's done that a whole bunch of times. But this is just me. If Jalen Brown hadn't done what he did this year, there's no way

that Jason's going to come back early, Why would he? What if they had had a gap year? What if they were way out of the playoffs? Do you think Jason's going to? I credit you, Doctor, for calling this. But if they're 21 and 42, is Jason going to say, yeah, I want to play the last. And everybody would say, you're out of your freaking mind. What? That's a great point. Okay. Jalen made Jason possible. And then it costs Jalen any MVP consideration at all. Because as soon as Jason stepped back, on the floor, it's over for Jalen Brown in the MVP race, right? Wow. Well, it was. He's plummeted to, I don't even know what is in the odds. So I think, so before

Tate-a-Bin-Han-Barre He's cooking. Before Taddeny. Before Tadden's back, I think Jalen Brown was averaging like 29 points a game. Yeah. Down to 27. He's taking three less shots in that stretch with Tate him back. Exactly. And here's the key for me. It's a good numbers.

Okay. Look, everybody loves Jason because he's a really nice guy, and he's a great interview. He's one of my favorite to watch on court right after the game interviews because he's going to be real and he's going to just pour his guts out for you

and tell you what really just happened and how he really just felt. And Jalen can be prickly and defensive and chip on shoulder, and he got thrown out of the Spurs game in Boston early and he just let it go. Let it go. And then he goes, remember he goes in the locker room and what do he tweet?

This thing. shit I've been talking about, right? Okay, that, there you go. Okay. That's Jalen Brown. And because of that, the media is kind of like, we love Jason. We don't love Jalen as much, but we love Jason. And to me, Jason's a little bit

of a wolf in sheep's clothing in that when it comes to usage rate, Jason Tatum is going to jack it up. And he is ultimately the ball hog gunner on

team because even in these 11 games, as great as those highlights were, here's the fact. Jason Tatum has now attempted 99 three-point shots in his first 11 games back to Jalen Brown's 49-3 points. So it's 99 to 49 and three-point attempts in the last 11 games. And Jason came back and said, no, no, no, it's still my team and my basketball. No, in the end, that's what's happened because he just, he just, he just, just going to jack it up. And I feel for Jalen on this because Jalen always, he's got a kind of backseat, backseat. You got to, you got to ride shotgun. You got a, you can't be that guy,

because that guy is that guy, and he's the nice guy, and he's the most popular guy. You had Jalen Brown number one, right? Nobody else in the NBA in the world put Jalen Brown at number one. Okay, if we go back six weeks, six weeks ago, I thought I could, hit my ass speak for my friend, Stephen A. Smith. I know he had Jalen Brown number one. This is at the All-Star break. At the All-Star break, Stephen A was out here for the All-Star game. He and I went to lunch at the Peninsula Hotel out here. And we ran into one of the Celtics owners. And Stephen A said, I got Jalen Brown number one of my MVP race. Again, this is the All-Star break. So we still got a long way to go. And a whole lot's happened. But the owner said, and I won't speak who it is, but he said, the shot to

us is that Jalen Brown got this much better this late in his career. We didn't know that he had that in him. Well, you didn't because he couldn't because he had to share or give most of the usage rate and shots over to Tatum. And so the owner is saying, God, we didn't know. Well, I suspected, but I didn't know either until I got to see him carry. Like the second two scores on this team have been Peyton Pritchard and Derek White. Yeah. Okay, that's what you, he just carried that to 42 and 21 before Jason Tatum came back. That is, that's the MVP quality to me.

Okay, all right, okay, okay, all right. That's what I'm saying. That's what you're saying. So what makes him change? What makes him change when you got a one-legged person on your team? What changes that, though? What changes it? Payton pitcher and Derek White, you got Darren Fox, Castle,

vessel and it's just Jaylon Brown and them three. Do you consider Fox and Castle and Vessel better than Paine and Pitchard and Derek White? Paying Preetcher can hook Swaggy. What makes it change like that drastic? To the point what?

What makes it change? He just said it went from 29 to 27. No, he's 20, in the stretch with a... He average 28.6. So in this stretch, wouldn't retain him back now. He was considered a top five. He was a top five candidate. And Tatum came back.

When Tatum came back, he's averaging 20 points. This is 11-game stretch that we're talking about here. This 11-game stretch, what we've seen is what Skip has just laid out. Those 99-3s in comparison to the 49-3s, Jalen Brown transformed his game for the Boston Celtics to reconstruct their whole strategy. They went away from chucking up threes at the rate that they used to 7. No-Wire is 27? Can I finish?

Go ahead. And I finished. So the chucking up the threes would have been at their benefit with Jason Tatum playing the whole season because that's what their offense is used to. Without him, this is a really good three-point shooter. I would say he's about 36 percent, something like that. Without him, you're regulating now Hauser and all these other guys to step up. So Jalen Brown did what to his game?

He went to the mid-range. He went to efficiency. He went to say, listen, coach, this is what we're going to do to guarantee me 30 points a game. I'm going to get here to these spots. He co bified the game. He went and said, we're going to be efficient. We're going to know where we're going to get our shots. And listen, if I don't have a shot, you're going to have an easy shot because everyone has to collapse onto me.

Jason Tatum comes back. Guess what happens? The floor space is even more when I got the ball, but you now have to respect that I got Jason Tatum back. on the floor. It opens up more for me. Right. But now when I'm giving it to him, he's shooting that bitch every time he catches it. I'm still scoring.

No, you're not. He's not giving you the kid. He's taking 27 because he got ejected at the game. He only had eight points. That is a part of the game. That's a part of it. He had 41, 32, 39, 39, 31, 39. He's taking three less shots.

Still, he's still got the same numbers. The numbers would have went up if Jason Tatum would have stayed out. That's my point. I'm in favor of Jalen Brown. Remember who you're talking to. I am the advocate for Jalen Brown. I am the ultimate guy. He got ejected and had eight points.

Regardless of the ejection, he had to change his game for Jason Tatum to come back into the game. He had to change. The offense changed. He's still averaging the same points. But, bro, listen to what I'm saying. It would have went up.

He would have averaged more. Being considered one, two, or three would have. a win up without Jason Tatum. That's what I'm saying. So to your point, so in the game since that eight-point game, so since March 12th, he's averaging 30.7 rebounds. Thank you. It's up.

It would have went up, bro. It would have went higher. Nick, listen. I'm not against you. Higher than his average. Where is Lucas average right now? 37, 38, right now? And he's still winning.

And he got LeBron and he got AR. So listen to what I'm saying. Jalen Brown could have up. his production beyond the consistent 29 a game bro. That's what I'm saying you got another 20 point score on the floor now. You have to regulate

now team basketball. Now I don't, I'm not the main guy anymore. I got to give off this, this guy getting 20 points a game. But you still don't think Jaylon Brown is the main guy? Yeah, that's my thing. There's two main guys now. It goes back to fucking Superman

and Batman. It goes back to where we at. Back to the fucking Justice League we go. Before it is, Superman was dead. So what's, um, Darren Fox? What's he an all-star? Was he an all-star? He's been an all-star, right? There's all-works, right? Do that diminish what the, what y'all saying about Wimby as the number two? You got an all-star on your team.

A former all-star. It don't matter. You're an all-star. There was an all-star. He was an all-star. All-star this year. Yes, he was hit a game. Fox was an all-star issue? Yes, I forgot. Okay. Hit a game winner. Okay.

What's your point? That don't diminish, and Wimmy's averaging less. Uh-huh. The same. But you put him at number two. Yes. He has an all-star on the team. Okay.

Jalen Brown has an all-thor on his team. Okay. Averaging more points. Done more with less. Uh-huh. But he's not even in the top five. He was. He does.

He was in the top five, bro. Number five. So once Taino and his All-Star come back, like everybody else has an all-star on their team. His production. The Brown's All-Star, greatest all-time. Don't diminish Luca. Fox All-Star, Ben to the Playoffs, All-Star,

don't diminish Wimby. But because Tatum comes back and he's an all-star, Jane and Brown gets kicked out to it. It ain't getting kicked out. The shit don't make sense to me. Nick, you're not listening to the analysis, Nick. How? Because you're not, you're ignoring it.

You just kicked them out. You kicked them out. Listen, no, we did not. We said this guy came in. Their offense changed. His production dipped. No. But, but not dramatically.

Not dramatic, but a dip. Everybody in the top three went up. He also has. No. Luca went up. The wimmy went up. No, he's saying the same stats. No, it's not.

He's been average 24 hours. No, it's not. No, it's not. What part of Wemby's game, if you're going to talk about how you got to be number one to be considered in the MVP, the team got to be number one. He went on a 27 and two, the team, 27 and two in the last two months. The team went 27 and two. And his production as far as what, 27 a game, 12 rebounds, three blocks. Then you look at Shay's numbers are consistent and you look at Joker's numbers. are consistent. Lucas numbers went up. And it's like, well, where do we put Jalen Brown? When he's at 30 a game, their team went from non-existent to number two in the east. It's like, where do we put him in comparison to the other five? Who moves?

You don't just automatically say Wimby moves out because he's not averaging 30. He's doing the same thing that Jalen's doing, isn't he? I think when you look at both these teams, we're related to be. to start the president and where they're at now. And you don't even talk about Brown at all. But do you think Wimby's performance is more impressed? Yeah. I do.

I do. I don't. I don't. Well, don't you see where Jalen was immediately disqualified as soon as Jason's put a sneaker on court again? Like it's over. You're out of the MVP. Okay, well, the odds said that he just, what is, is he fifth now in the odds? The key in MVP ladder, he bumped down.

He actually jumped up to fifth. Okay. But let's see Vegas odds. Yeah, I think in Vegas, he's even lower. I think he fell completely out of sight. Yeah. Since Tatum. Since Tatum.

Since he set foot back on the court. And then once he won Eastern Conference Player of the Week, it's over, man. You're done. I think he's fifth in MVP eyes right now. Okay. So, SGA, first, Wembe, second, Luca third, Joker, Fourth, and Jalen, 5th. There you go. Very wide market.

By wide market. But back to the point that Jason Taylor was playing well. I think Boston in a good space, I think they should be leading the East with this team. With them two guys, I think they should be the front winners for going to the finals. I don't know. I'm surprised you just discount a team that's four and a half games up on them right now. But like y'all said, they didn't have take. them all this time. Yeah, and they haven't had Cade for seven games. And I think what Janet Brown is doing is not worrying about the MVP race. He's trying to get his teammate

Accomitant. Ain't that the word acclimited like Pippen did with Jordan? Yeah. When he told Jordan to come back like this. And since everything is about championships, I think that's the smartest thing to do to get your I start player ready for the playoffs, get him confident in a system where he's comfortable, not worrying and healthy and not dragging that leg. You see where, see if he could push off, you see if he could do certain things, because you want to win, that's the main goal, and you're getting towards the playoffs. So I close to Jaylon Brown. Skip, I just want to go back to something you said real quick.

You said Jaylen Brown essentially gets punished for Tatum coming back, but Winby having Deeran Fox another all-star level player obviously a strong roster around him That's what I'm saying That's what I'm saying that

I'm going to make no sense saying that Yeah you got to make sense of it Make sense of it They got an all star Deeran Foss would play it all year It's an all-star though But Wimby not dinged for that Yeah he's not at all

At all year Well Wimby's on Minn's restriction For half of the year Minn's restriction for half of the year Minn's restriction for half of the year Here, Deeran Fox out there playing anything with him.

So. Making up anything. What more do you want from Wemby, though? What more do you want from Bram? Okay, but nobody ever put Deer and Fox in the same breath with Jason Tater. Of course not, but just say he had to for the sake of argument.

Okay, but Jason Tatum is first team all NBA for X year, right? But only been back 11 games. I'm pointing to this team. Without a guy of that match, who's only been back now for 11 games or somehow. He's out of the ear.

Still on par with where they were before Tatum got back. Okay, but I don't hear one person say Jalen Brown is still hanging on at the top of the MVP. And that's my question. Why do you feel like that is?

Does he deserve more respect in this discussion? He definitely does. Okay. Because there's no way, he did something nobody did. He carried a pretty mediocre roster without Jason

Tatum for much of the year until the last 11 games. Right? He did that. And it was, it was completely unexpected, right? Did anybody see that? Did anybody predict that they were going to be 42 and 21 without Jason Tatum? I counted them out. Didn't everybody say gap year?

And that's what Jalen tweeted the other day, Gap year my ass or whatever he said. They were predicted that like 40 wins. Let me ask you both this. Do we move Joker out of the list because they're in what place of different numbers? Currently in fourth right now, but a couple of games or two games. Imagine the conversation being you got first place, second place, third place, fourth place. Okay.

Second place. I understand. Cade in first place. So we bumped Cade out. Cade had great numbers. Cade gone. But remember, before the injury. I know, but Cade.

He was still at 6, 7. Yeah. He was. He was in the top of it. Right? And so you got Cade at number one, Jalen Brown at number two. Yep. And we got seven.

almost six, seven guys that are right there that are like, who do we pick based on the metric that a lot of people like to use, team record, where's your team? She's going to be number one because she's number one.

Don't matter. Luca got better numbers. Why are we going to put Luca number one? Well, they're third. What about Joker? How do fuck this Joker keeps that? Well, who's averaging the triple double? Average triple double team four suffered a lot of him throughout the season.

Right. Gordon Christian Brown. He got an awesome job team, too, man. But he's in fourth, and he's always weathered around four, five, six, and still managed to be in MVP category because of triple doubles. So, you know, why he's in fourth? Because of Joker burnout. That's what happened.

And I think there's starting to be SGA burnout from last year, them winning, him dominating. It's like, who's got, a whimby's got next, right? he's new, he's fresh, he's the alien. Oh, we've never seen anything like that. So let's make that our MVP. And Joker hovers down at 4 because he's still joking. He's still, right, he's still being just, he's doing exactly what he always did.

They probably lost a little mystique last year when they lost game 7 at Oklahoma City. Then it's like, you, and Chet, Ched Chet has actually outplayed Joker a couple of times, even this year in the regular season, where you say, I don't know if he's still, is he still that guy? Right, right. And I look at exactly what you just said about the SGA winning it because they won the championship. OKC had never done it.

Sam Presti needed this win. He did. We're going to reward the whole conglomerant with this NBA historic thing, right? Yep. When Denver won it. Mm-hmm. Same feel. When Milwaukee won it.

Right. Same feel. Yep. Validation. What's crazy is that when the sick, when they gave it to Embed, he didn't get to take it to where Philly, Philly gets it, right? And so at this point, like you said, I think this is the Derek Rose repeating itself, the youngest, 22 years old, the spurs coming back to dominance, resurging the dynasty. Yep. trying to, they got the pieces.

Because he knew. Not only because he's new and he's fresh. But the young, the young, it's international. It's international. That's the right thing. The young kids love him. He does. It's just, it's a good storyline.

Yeah. You talk about nostalgia, you're talking about the storyline? This makes sense for the next phase of the NBA. Yeah. And you're rebuilding a Mono Genoblee, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, Dynasty with a new coach. And in a whole different way. He's not going to be up for it later on in his career. He got to give it to him now.

Wimby? You want to give it to him because he's young and fresh and new. Well, don't you want to give it to Taylor Brown or Jason Tatum next year? He's not going to be able to get it like next year. Did he have to trade off? What? But you want to trade off who you give it to? Like you couldn't give it to LeBron seven straight seasons, right?

You couldn't give it to Kobe seven straight seasons. You gave it to Alan Iverson, Kevin Garnett. Certain guys got it. Dirk Nguinsky, certain guys got you like, damn, he won, well, they had good good years, right? But you can't run off and say this person should just get it every single year

based on how we feel. It's like, isn't that how the MVP been lately? Has it? Did we give it to him? Did we give it to Shay last year because of how we felt, or did he deserve it? Shouldn't Jason Taylor had got one? Does far? When it was number one by

far? No. He shouldn't be in the run. No, because remember who was still playing. It was still Joker and Embed playing at the top line. So they won because of stats then. Obviously, bro. Because Jaystant Island, 28, number one was number five in MVP racing. But that's the thing we always talk about. Is it a team movie?

Yeah. Team success. You said it's team success. You said it's team success. Because that's the metrics I grew up on. That's what the Steve Nash, Lakers, Kobe, when he finally won it. Lakers is number one. That's back in the day.

Minnesota, Tim. Number one, bro, when KG won it. No, Minnesota? They were not number one, bro. What were they? They weren't number one. It was 2004. Did have a great season.

I know. I think they were number two or one. Bro. Remember who was playing in 2004? The Pissons and the Lakers. That was Jack, Carmelham, and all those. They were number one. Yeah, there's a lot going on.

So it's it. The metric changes. But it doesn't say we can't have a debate about it, whether it's team success or individual success, because it's changed every year. So I think it's going back to full body of work. Wimby giving you a full body of work. Jaylen Brown giving you a full body of work. There's certain guys give you full body of work that you have to now reconsider, not just the stat line of a joker or or a Luca or even a full body of work. Is that a full body of work?

body of work this season. Numbers are up. Didn't have Jaylen Wimskips like you mentioned for 46 games in the season. And he had the wilt thing hanging over him and still does. He's still doing 20, 2020, 20, 20 a night, right? Nah. To me, it's just what it, everyone's starting to see what it looks like with him, what it looks like with Luca. You're talking about how you get your points and the way you go about it.

So it looks. By legally manipulated? Because last year, it wasn't as big as a deal. Because Brunson was doing it, Joker was doing it, and B was doing it, all the flailing and flopping and all that. Now it's a microscope on it. And we're like, come on, man. Come on, you still got to do this. You're too good of a player to have to do this to be in the consideration.

Jaylen Brown complains about it and he says, well, look what happens when I do it. Are you guys complaining that I do it? Because I could get 40 a night on doing this. Wimby has yet to do it. So we look at the metric and I'm like, all right, man, S. He's really, really good. He's holding it down. But there are other guys out there doing it a different way that we've got to consider.

So let's shift over to the coaching side of things. So Jalen Brown, obviously much has been made about his career year. He's gotten a lot of the credit. It was in the first place. The Timber wasn't wearing first place when KG. Yeah, food. And the NBA? Yes.

No, in the Western Conference. In the Western Conference, not the NBA. Bro, what are you talking about? It was number one. God damn. And who was number of him? You're wrong. Who is number one in the NBA?

Yeah wrong. Did you look up to NBA? Yeah wrong. Did you look up to India? You want me to do it? Number one. You're wrong. Let me look it up, man.

Since you don't want to say you don't want to say it. So, let me see it. Pacers had the number one overall record in the NBA. Wolves had the second best record in the league at that point, but number one in the West. Second best. You're wrong. Second best. Like I said, a lot of credit to Jay LeBron for his career year.

But Joe Missoula deserves a lot of that credit as well. for the Celtics success. Boston reached 50 wins for the fourth straight time under Missoula. Obviously a lot of people say he was gifted that team from EMA Adoka

that had won 50 win the season before, but now, seeing what they've done this year now in his fourth season, still getting the 50 without losing, losing a huge part of that championship roster.

Skip, is Joe Missoula proven he is one of the elite coaches in the league right now? Yes. We talked about juggling Laker egos. I think he has to juggle those two one and one a egos of those two still young men to me and and does a remarkable job of it

and just like I gave Jalen so much credit for them to get to 42 and 21 man you got to close your ass off you you got a mix and match you you got a your defensive matchups are going to be strained and off and that Cato is your rim protector he is really really good at what he does and it's as

much that's coach of the year stuff to me and and again I don't know if he's going to get disqualified from coach of the year because Jason Tatum came back before anybody saw it coming except maybe the man across from me but that's

that's coach of the year That's extraordinary. That's high level because when everybody picks you to miss the playoffs and you wind up second overall in the east without your best player, because most people would say Jason is their best player. So you do that. It's off the charts. And he doesn't speak a lot.

I don't think he has a great relationship with the Boston media. It seems prickly to me. So he doesn't get much attention. He doesn't get credit. He's not the public speaker that JJ Redick is. JJ's really great post game and halftime. And because of that, he's just not, he's out of sight, out of mind for most people. And I appreciate the fact, Joside, that you even brought it up.

Because I'm sure some of our viewers just clicked off. They just went elsewhere because they don't want to hear about Joe Mizzou. I like him. I think he's funny. Yeah. I don't know if it's prickly, but he's a one-on-one type of dude.

Yeah, well, he speaks his mind. And sometimes it's a little off-center, like you're not sure where he's going with that, but he uses some of his sort of wizardry, you know, his verbal wizardry to deflect. What was supposed to the year last year? God, I can't even remember. That's an award that,

goes okay c in and out of my eye okay not let me see i thought it was houston close today was number two was it dagnol let me see i think it was dagnol chan probably knows faster than me uh oh kenny ackinson from the cast cast dagnol one 22 yeah they had a great record wait who was number one most of oh wow kenny a it was number one i got they oh yeah yeah yeah yeah okay multiple what 12 game winning streak. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's hard to remember because... Go ahead, Swad.

Go ahead, Swad. I think he should be for sure in the run. I think the NBA, the coaching staff is getting younger. I like that, even with the Spurs coach. I like that JJ Reddick. I think it's more of a player-style coach. Connect more with the youth. A lot of these older coaches can get stuck in their ways.

their ways. At this point, you know, the new generation, you got to be there adapt and understand technology, the new stuff they like, how to motivate these young guys. I think they're a little more sheltered, so you got to understand that type of stuff too. So who you think is the coach of the year? It's between him, I would say Spurbs coach. and Detroit. J.B.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going with my guy, you know, Spurs, Mitch. Stanford. Think about the shoes you got to feel, right? You're talking about one side you got Joe Missoula filling Brad Stevens shoes, right? Did Brad win the championship? Brad didn't win no championship.

So Brad was trying to rebuild. So not too much pressure there. You got good players, but really your pressure is trying to get the best out of these players. Spurs. Wembe got there Popovich last year, I believe. Pop got him for one year. Pop was, it wasn't there much.

Interim for the second season. So you look at the shoes that needs to be field for the spurs and you're talking about legacy you talk about prestige you talk about expectations you talk about system you talk about the guys who were there with pop that were just not winning and them going through this expectation phase of losing kawai and getting to mar and all of these things just didn't just didn't happen for them right stop winning a long time you get the number one pick and now the expectation is on this interim coach that everyone's like Like, well, you should go get Steve Kerr.

You should go get this person, that person. Is Tim going to coach? And he comes in and he does the job that he's doing right now. And you got to look at what kind of job that entails. The young players that they have, that they've been able to gather from Kelden, who was there with Pop through the whole ringer, Vassel who was there with him through the ringer, Sohan, who was there. They ended up getting rid of him.

Those are three players that were seen it all. you go get Deerrin Fox. You don't know how that's going to pan out because we didn't have him the whole last season. We had Chris Paul. He had to come in and do all these things. Then you look at Stefan Castle. Coming off a championship, you don't know what he's going to do. He's young.

He's a rookie. And he's coming off a freshman year. So ended up winning rookie of the year, showing great promise. Then you don't play well with Wemby, that interim year. You end up getting a number two. the next year and Dylan Harper, you go get Luke Cornyett from Boston, now you turn, everything is changed,

but now you need somebody that can articulate the system that needs to bring this organization back to prominence. This guy has done that. I think that he's been able to not only get them to buy in, I said it from day one. They had an incredible training camp.

The training camp they had to start the year showed me they bought in. knew where to go and know where to be and Deering Fox was going to be the anchor for the leadership when you talk about veteranship veteran oh that's fine dearen Fox now you talk about wimby is the example he's the guy that's going to be like get on my back let's go do this so I think miss Johnson is the guy that had the most pressure was in talk again bam I mean a j. the buyer they was saying Boston's going to be in the lottery this year they were saying oh they're just going to get a top three pick and

be great again. AJ, whatever his name is, get him. But look, they're number two. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. You can't compare it. But you still have to remember the coach that's

coaching them still had two like really good players. Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum. One of those players go down. He didn't have Jason Taylor. Right. He goes down. You still have Super.

man. What is Wemby? He's not a... Wemby was a... He was like kid... What is... Like Kidd... Kid Modden Boo. He was one of the guy he's up and coming. What is Fox? Fox is like... That's what I'm saying. Like dead pool. Like he's like...

These are assassin guys. So would you consider Boston have to do more with less? No, I'm saying that for Joe Mazzula, he didn't have to do much. But do Boston have to do more than this season? Joe Mazzula didn't have to do more. Zula didn't have, it was on Jalen Brown to do that. That was Jalen put, I'm putting the team on

my back. Hey Joe, Joe's just out there like, hey man, run the place we've been running. So did Ms. Johnson have to do much? Yeah. Absolutely. So he had to get, he had to get those young guys to understand where to be, how to be, how to circle around this big alien

dude, and then also take Deerrin Fox and say, hey, listen, we got to figure out how You're going to play beside him. You've been the first guy in Sacramento for a long time. You've got to figure it out. So you're saying Jalen Brown have to do more, my bad. That's all right.

It was Janet Brown that did it, but it's the coach that did it on the deck. It's the coach that did it on the Spurs. So the coach deserves to be coach of the year for the Spurs, Nick. You just said it was. Do you fucking listen, nigga? You just said it wasn't whimby. So it was the coach. The coach deserves to be coach of the year, bro.

Deflecting. Go ahead. Wimby deserves to be the MBP, bro. You know he didn't have been to the class at all. If you watch Boston. If you watch Boston. You're not talking to your dad. I got it.

Don't be like your dad. But if you watch Boston pre-Jason return, I would turn them on every night and I'd say, who's that guy? Where did they get that guy? Wow, Brad Steven is pretty good, because he knew that guy, but Missoula's putting them in the right place

because they just keep winning games. And they did have Superman still, though they didn't have Batman anymore. But with the Spurs, Wimby was already the alien. That's what everybody said. And you can't have a coach of the year and the MVP. You've got him as the MVP,

so it's hard. They're mutually exclusive. You can't have both at one time. If you have the MVP, Then the coach is disqualified enough that he might be number two or three in the coaching race, Coach of the Year race, but he can't be number one if he's got the alien MVP that you say that Wimby is. When did Field Jackson win coach of the year?

I'm not sure he did. Did he win one? Did he win one with Shaq and Kobe early? Let me see. 1995, 1996. Was that a year of Michael Jordan winning MVP? So I think we can do that. I think we can do both if it's been done before.

I think we can definitely run down that road and tickle the fancy. I like breaking records. I like chasing records. As you said, I'm just quoting you. Wimby guards all of them, you know, all at once. He's like guarding five guys that one. time, well, man, I don't know how hard that is to coach. You just tell him to play zone.

You just play a one-man zone. But that's one side of the, that's the other side of the ball. It's over here because defense is energy effort. Okay. And talking and communication, right? You really don't have to coach that up unless you're a really, really bad defensive team. That's when you start having to coach defense, like how JJ has to coach the Lakers.

You have to coach a bad defensive team to play defense. On the offensive side, that's where the coaching comes in, when you have to get guys in line where we talk about Wimby. He's inconsistent here. He doesn't play big man. You got to figure out what to do with Wemby and get the most out of him

without him playing a natural position, which is a wing. He's a natural wing. He's not a traditional big. So they had to reshape their whole offense around his efficiency. Boston, they still chucking up threes. But now it's, hey, Jaylin,

what do you like? I like to shoot twos. He does. I'm going to do it this way, coach and everybody else center around what I'm doing. That's how it's been. So to me, I think the coaching job on Mitch has been a little bit, I'm not going to say a lot, I'm just going to say a little bit better than what the expectations for the something's way.

But you, as Nick pointed out, you would agree that Boston has done way more with less than the Spurs. Yes, absolutely. And for what is where Joe Mazzula thinks coach of the year is a stupid award. He's not rolling with it. But he said, I think it's a super board they shouldn't have it. It's more about the players. It's more about the work that staff puts in. It's just that simple. I really don't ever want to be

asked or talk about it again. But I'm sure if he does win the award, he will be asked and talk about it. And that's why you like it. He ain't going to win it. Right? He ain't going to win it after. I like, he's going to win it after. That's what it sounds like, right? That's like Joker and them not really, you know, Luca not really saying

that they want to win it. It's like, ah, let the game do the talking. So we got one more thing we got to discuss before we take off today involves you skip. So Anthony Edwards returned to the court Monday and the wolves win over the Mavs after missing the previous six games

with right knee inflammation. Wolves went four and two in those games. Ant Man missed the opening tip due to a case of the bubble guts. But Ant Man never misses an opportunity to do some trolling. So let's take a look at some of the latest trolling that he's done.

Amp posted this to his burner account recently to tease an Easter color way of his Adidas A.E2s. Wow. Speak to featuring yourself. dressed up as the Easter Bunny holding a basket for his shoes. I don't know if you saw this year, but what's your response to the Ant Man? I loved it.

And I love Ant Man. And I appreciate that because I never thought, even though it's a bit of a troll, that I would be used to promote the drop of a new color way of an Anthony Edwards sneaker. That's the coolest thing that's ever happened to me. And I want some. And I only wear Jordans on the show. but if Ant would gift me like you guys get Jason Atom's, right?

I would wear the new colorway in Gil's Arena. Hey! You better sense, son. Hey. I would do that. Send the shoes.

Yeah, I need some because yeah, I know it was on his sort of quasi-burner, but we know. I can't believe that, Jack. He's taking a lot of shots to different people, SGA. Yeah. And he did use a shot of me

frowning at Shannon Sharp, I think, but that's okay. Okay. And I like, it's cool being the Easter Bunny for a day, right? Right. I've never been accused of that before, so I'll take it. That's why you love Ant Man, though. Well, you do, he's your favorite one, right?

That's the mentality, but the fact that how you're taking it, that's another great thing, why you love Skil too, though. Send the shoes on. Yeah. Yeah, we all gotta have a meme, you know. Yeah. Nick had a long-standing 15-year. I wish I could get paid for that.

I wish I could get something from that, right? The internet just took that, though. I got a meme, got my own shit, you know, Kobe's 81, you know what I'm saying? Factor that in. And then bam out about dropped to 80. You know, and then now skip it's the Easter money, man. But I'm not taking it negatively. Maybe I'm misreading it, but I don't know what the...

I think he's having fun with it, and I think he actually likes me and I like him. He's not good for this league. He's great for this. Man. For sure. For sure. He is. Because he's not only a highlight waiting to happen, but he's a quote waiting to happen.

Yeah. Because he is genuinely clever funny. Primetime TV. Yeah. For sure. All right. Well, on that note, I just wanted to cover that before we wrap this one up for the day. Swaggy, you brought your son up here again to whip Gil's ass.

Yeah, Gil, stop running, man. We'll be here tomorrow. He'll be here tomorrow. Only time we'll tell, Swake. These are the days of our life. Go ahead and throw them two stones in the chat. Swaggy was very, very, very excited today,

rode in with his son. They had the Nike Tech. You know when a young kid's? When the Yains got the Nike Tech on, they mean business. They were waiting in the back. They came with the Nike Tech on the day. Sneak attack. Sneak attack.

Black forces. It's going to jump them. But Skip, we appreciate you pulling up. Love it. To the arena. Shout to everybody in the chat. As always, remember to vote for the arena for the Shorter Awards. That was easy.

I'm gonna push your button too now, I'm just kidding. Shout out to everybody on this couch. Shout out to our entire staff and our crew. Shout out to good folks, an underdog. This has been another episode of Gil's Arena, presented by Underdog. Whoa, whoa! We'll see y'all tomorrow!