The Deep 3 Podcast - Grading Every NBA Star's Playoff Performance | Ep. 141
Episode Date: May 16, 2025Grading how well every NBA star has played so far in the NBA playoffs! #nba shoutout to @coinbase ! Sign up with code "20DEEP3" at http://coinbase.com/partner/deep3 and get $20 in Bitcoin after yo...u make your first trade. Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/ Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794 Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/ Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_ Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D 0:00- Intro 2:21- Curry & Butler 11:45- Anthony Edwards, Randle, & Gobert 25:14- Sengun 30:55- Luka & Lebron 40:40- Haliburton 43:15- D Mitch, Garland, Mobley, Allen 51:45- Bam & Herro 53:48- Giannis 56:08- Brunson & KAT 1:02:44 Jayson Tatum 1:06:30- Paolo Banchero & Franz Wagner 1:16:33- Harden & Kawhi 1:23:12- Cade 1:27:50- Jaylen Brown, Ja Morant, and Jaren jackson 1:30:52- OKC vs Den Game 6 reaction & grades 2:06:30- tiktok time Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
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We got a very special guest in with us today,
record this show, someone that, I don't know as a Lakers fan,
I know a little bit, know a little decently well.
As a LeBron fan, I know a little decently well.
Someone that you jackasses have never met a day in your life as a fan,
someone you never even thought about seeing in person,
seeing at a parade with your team.
We've got to Larry O'Brien here today.
I'm nine wins away.
We're going to get it.
He's coming home.
Doubt.
He's coming home.
This guy can't even say anything about wins.
He's never experienced anything close to this.
Listen, man
At least my ancestors
I've seen them
They met him
I received through my wind
I felt this
Through my guilt
Through the LeBrons
Through the Steph Currys
You know
Through the Covys
So although my team
Haven't experienced it just yet
I live through those eyes
Sad
It is
Pitiful
It is
It could never be me
Tough
Again I had bedtime stories
It was fun
I've been there
I've seen it with my own eyes
Blah blah blah
But with that being said
Outside of
us having Delirio O'Brien Trophy in person here today to chat along with us.
The real one.
We could diamond test it right now.
The real one.
It's not the fake one.
It's not the one that you're going to see at the sphere in Vegas.
This is the real one.
2025.
Shout out the NBA for sending it to a trophy that the Oklahoma City Thunder are going to
have at the end of the season.
They're going to hang it up in their trophy case.
Not the Knicks.
You can win on that bar.
But aside from that, as you guys see by that title, today we're going to be grading every
single NBA stars playoff performance.
So we want to do this because it's been very interesting to see how harshly NBA basketball has changed from regular season and playoffs this year.
We talked about it for the past three weeks.
It's been a ridiculous level of physicality that most stars are performing worse, as you'd expect, because they're allowed to get punched in the chest every time of the dribble the ball.
So we're going to look across the entire NBA and really just gauge how each star has been able to hold up to these different conditions, who's risen, who's fallen?
Yeah, man, talk about everybody.
Let's do it.
Who do you want to talk about first?
Yeah, who started with?
First, cue the intro music.
Motherfuckers almost forgot.
I did.
Let's go ahead and start with the series of the series that ended yesterday.
We're recording this on Thursday morning.
Also, we're going to do the Denver Nuggets and OkC.
players at the end of this episode because we're going to record again tonight to give you guys
a live reaction to whatever happens in game six so we're saving those guys for the end
let's start with the series the ended last night the warriors and the timber wolves we got
a grade anthony edwards and step curry obviously and then we're throwing ruddy gober and julius randle as
well and jubbler yeah i just had to say a prayer because you know it's over it's over it's over
it's over rip the dream our rp the dream let's start with the warriors obviously you know
they were a team that was in god damn disarray to start the year
everybody was dancing around their grave
and then they got Jimmy Butler who came in
and really was one of the most impactful
mid-season trainings of all time.
It was their saving grace.
Absolutely.
I don't know if you've ever seen the mid-season trade
be this impactful.
They were like number three in that rating post-trade.
They were number one defense in the league
up there with the OKC Thunder,
like top five in offense as well.
Really dominant and all that shit came crashing down
because Steph Curry pulled his hamstring
in game one of the series.
What do you grade in the playoff run overall
for Steph Curry first?
It's tough because
the series against the rockets it wasn't amazing right like it was a it was a very very tough series
and they i feel like they really really pushed his body and the limits to which he can carry
a team at this stage in his career i'm i'm still going to give him an a minus just because
i'm going to give him an a minus because we didn't get a like start to finish amazing stuff
crazy series however if you look at this series and you look at how bad the war
are offensively you get to actually see how much he's carrying on a night to night basis
how much of that offense he's putting on his back and what they look like without him so
just his presence on the floor means so much so i'm giving him an a minus for that i can understand
you want to give him an a minus he did have a pretty good series as good as it can get when it
comes to going against a defense like the houston rockets but he got hurt he had a couple
stinkers i think one or two thinkers in that series and on top of that
That's it. Yes, he got hurt at the end of the day.
So that immediately, like, eliminates you from being in the A, any A conversations.
But, again, when he was playing for those 12 minutes and 54 seconds,
exactly he was terrorizing the Minnesota Timberwolves.
I'm not going to hold the injury against him personally.
I'm going to give an A.
I think what we've seen is made it clear that that Rocket's defense is serious.
They, I think that the Warriors didn't get hurt.
I mean, Curry didn't get hurt.
The Warriors probably wouldn't want the series.
that's not crazy to say
or at least they would have had a chance
right it wouldn't have been
to blow out it turned out to be obviously
I think the Warriors were in good position
obviously they won game one
without Curry for the large part
this playoff series showed to me
that the Rockets defense is even better
than we thought
they put up a crazy fight
and like you said
every single star in this playoff
the whole series
like I mean set a series
most of them saw their efficiency drop
because of the increased physicality
because the increased attention
this motherfucker curry shot
60% from two
60% from two against an amazing offense
when Jimmy Butler was good but not dominate or anything
because like I said that Rock's defense did a very good job overall
took it to seven for a reason.
I think Curry showed that he's kind of different
that a lot of these young stars who are more to the whims
of whatever the defense allows them.
Curry got his game off.
I don't hold against him that you got hurt
so I'm really judging him on the first round.
To me it's an easy.
Yeah, I'm going with that.
And just to double down on how bad this offense is
and how bad the warriors, like the, how dire their situation was,
Steve Kerr had to turn to his arch nemesis, Jonathan Camillo.
His archelis and actually give him some playing time and be like, here.
Like, we need some type of spark.
We need some type of athleticism.
We need you in the game right now.
And so, I mean, this series, they lost it 4-1,
and we're going to talk about it whenever we talk about the wolves.
But, like, it wasn't even a dominant,
performance. It wasn't a dominant four-one because Golden State, they could have won game three.
Yeah. And Minnesota, even last night, they had a very big lead. It got windowed down into
single digits as you get to the end of the game. They'd never put their foot on the Warriors next and
there was always an opportunity. And so you look at this entire series and it is a massive what-if
because again, if Steph was there, could they have gotten game three? Are we going to a game six
to, you know, in a couple of days? Like he and his lifting and his gravity
has done so much for this team throughout his entire tenure there,
but it's never been felt more than when they didn't have it.
And that was this entire postseason.
Yeah, this playoff run is just everything we know by stuff.
Kerry.
We know him to be a guy who, even when he has bad games,
it's going to rise others around him because of his style of play.
We know he's going to be resilient.
They're going to be efficient almost no matter what,
even if the volume is down, which the volume wasn't even that down.
He ever's 24, 6 and 6 against the Rockets.
So pretty much just a great series all around.
I don't think we have to do any caveats.
Yeah, I mean.
Jimmy Butler.
How do you feel what Jimmy Butler in this series?
finish off before we turn the page to Jimmy Buller real quick.
My final agree for Steph Curry is like a B plus.
I agree with you guys when it comes to A overall.
I'm taxing you.
It's just a little bit for not being able to at least be on the court, bare minimum.
But if you want to turn a page to Jimmy Butler, he absolutely cannot receive an A.
No.
Seeing how much he's either regressed, I don't want to say mentality-wise, but just overall.
His mental is weaker?
No, I'm not saying mentality-wise, but seeing how he's just not capable or not wanting to be capable to go out there and score 30 is jarring.
I think this postseason was the first time.
I don't know if he scored 20.
I don't want to say he didn't score 25 once this postseason.
No, he did.
He did.
He has a big games.
And in the play and he did well in the last few games of the season.
They're fighting for playoff positioning, which is, damn news.
He had like over 25 twice in the rocket series.
But I'm with you, though.
You saw it plenty of times, and they even noted it on the broadcast in game.
He had 33 in game three, but yeah, in game four.
Yeah.
Where the, if you don't have Steph Curry, everybody knows that you are looking at this team
and you are looking at Jimmy Butler as the primary offensive creator.
Why do you only have eight shots?
Like this, this should have been a series.
Jimmy Butler could have had 35 shot attempts a night and I wouldn't have blinked because
you look at everybody else and you're like, you can't make your own shot.
You're the only person who really has an opportunity of doing that.
And whether or not you think it's forcing or not, it's the Dionne Waiters thing of like,
I'd rather you go 0 for 30 than 0 for 9.
I feel sick watching him go, you know, 4 of 11 rather than 4.30.
Can we address an elephant in the room?
No.
His ass is broken.
That's what I'm saying.
Listen, I know it's hard to play with when your booty hurts.
But like, you have to step up and you have to, you have to take more shots because there were opportunities for.
for him to take shots and it felt like he was trying to be very, very, not even passive,
but like, um, play. He wanted to be a playmaker first and let the game come to him like
usually does. I understand. But I am willing to accept that the fact that his tailgrown is
probably cracked and he probably missing games was in the playoffs. I'm willing to accept that
has something to do with it. You know, like it's hard to be aggressive, planting off your legs
when you're a finishing physical score that really thrives on getting to the paint,
drawing fouls and being stronger than people. It's probably hard to do that when your lower body
is compromised. So I'm not going to name him too much for that. I'm also, I'm not going to give
an A. So I'm not going to say, you know, we didn't see playoff Jimmy by any means. He didn't
necessarily rise all ties like we've seen him do in the past. But when we account for the
injuries, there was the highs to go with the lows. I feel like B minus, maybe C plus you want
to be a little more pessimistic and not give him benefit of the doubt. Yeah. That feels fine
to me. Yeah, I can't give him a C person. I'd be comfortable laying in B, simply because
that injury was apparent. And before this injury, he did have plenty of games where he would get
off as 2730 but also like he'd be super comfortable giving off 15 and 17 being more of a
facilitated like you said and empowering all the guys around him like pods and moody and all that so
it's been disappointing but again he's going through injuries but when he's been yeah of course
you got to add that onto it as well but when it comes to him trying to maximize everything
with what he's able to do again with through the injury I think he did okay
It's disappointing, but...
And I think defensively, he has been really good, too.
Like, in both these series, they've given these young stars hell.
Sanguin has some really good spike games.
We'll talk about him later.
He had some rough games.
Obviously, we know what happened in Jalen Green.
Anthony Edwards has a bit of a mixed bag in the series.
He's so good that he's found a ways to provide value,
but his rim scoring has been non-existent.
And that's because the Warriors' defense,
you know, they're not anchored by Rudy Gobert.
It's because they have like four or five really smart,
good defenders, things we talk about for a long time
that makes it really hard to get down low on them.
Jimmy's played a big part of that.
He's been very good defensively.
I'm giving him a C plus.
That's fair.
It's not crazy.
Yeah.
I just think there were times that, again, I just, you just want to see more, more shot
attempts, a little bit more aggressiveness.
And it's unfair to ask of playoff Jimmy in the version of playoff Jimmy where he's
going to give you, you know, 50 point games, 40 point games, doing all of that.
But I got to get just a little bit more.
And I didn't see that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's because of the injury, but it's not crazy.
I think that's the range of being understandable.
Let's go over to the Timberwolves
Stick in this series
Anthony Edwards
What are we giving him?
Obviously, like I said
It's been up and down
With him
There's been flashes of just insanity
Like those couple of games
Against the Lakers
Where he just tore them to shreds
In the paint
Because he realized they have no bigs
And I can get through every single play
And obviously he shot really well
The three point shot is
Been a little bit lower
I think he's shooting like 38%
Instead of 40 like in the regular season
But still elite the weapon
But goddamn
Cavon Luni and Dramon Green
And giving him a hell out the rim
He shot
I didn't check the stats off for the last game
but before last game, he was shooting 51% at the rim.
And I think I've seen him miss more layups
than I've ever seen any human mislaups in my goddamn life.
That's been there.
But also the passing has been outrageous.
That's been a big leap.
So lots of good.
Some small dings.
Where do we go overall?
I think overall I'm still giving him an A because in his playoff career so far,
this is the best still that he's been going towards the rim.
Although his efficiency is trashed.
I think it's at like 53% at the room now.
After last screen?
Yeah, which isn't still encouraging whatsoever.
It's horrible.
But the three-point shooting and also the passing and the decision-making, which has been a huge issue for him in the past has improved dramatically.
And so for that, I'm just giving him Mnay still.
What a huge jump.
It was 51% after the last night's game.
Now it's 56% actually.
Oh, wow.
So, again, that's still not good.
It's 66% in the regular season.
Or no, 64 in the regular last playoffs, it was 66, last regular season 69.
So he's capable of much better.
His lay-up touch has been really off.
that that's kept them
that really kept the Warriors
in some of these games
if Anthony Edwards
had a better rim scoring
playoff series
they would have really
really won these games
with some command
so that is a thing
but bro
he had 11 assists last night
his playmaking
has been outrageous
from where he started
even the beginning
of last year's playoffs
yeah I'm going
I'm going A minus
the whole Wolves team
as a whole
they've been
unserious
in a lot of these games
whereas like
you really should be
winning this by like
35 but I can't
so but I don't want
to hold that too much against him. I think that he's done an amazing job, realizing the moment.
And there's times where, you know, Julius Randall, who we're going to talk about, he's been hooping.
He's been doing his thing, right? You've had Nozri games. You've had Jaden McDaniel games.
But when you get to the third quarter of a game four, what happens? MP Edwards, like, okay, I'm
going to take over now. I'm going to go on a 12-0 run myself. I'm going to knock down, you know,
four, five, threes in the quarter. I'm going to, I'm going to do that. Oh, you're
trying to, you're trying to double me, trying to get the ball out of my hands, I'm going to
be patient now, now I'm setting everybody else up, figuring out what his team needs exactly when
they need it and still allowing everybody else to eat, that's one of those developments that
you normally see when people are like 25, 26, they've been in the playoffs for five, six years
now. That's happening now. And so we are, like last year the conversation was, is Anthony Edwards
the best shooting guard in the league? That's cool. He has that now. Now we're talking about
top ten top seven top six how high is he going on the list because of all the things that
that he's done this year he's a top seven player in the world lock i think okay i think it's the
top five guys that we know also yokech yonis shay luka tatum is your top five guess number six
you guys start talking about aunt i agree he's directly in those conversations right
afterwards um seeing these no one was talking about him talking about him like this to this
degree for the entirety of the year of course like we all knew he was top 10 but he was
towards the back half of the top 10 now he's like in the middle he's the he's directly in
the middle of those conversations and that's because of the leaps that we saw in that lakers
in that lakers playoff series and also of course like what we've seen through this waries
playoff series as well more so the lakers him limiting those turnovers and just really like
showcasing that he he has grown as a decision maker and just has he plays with a completely
different pace. I feel like his decision
making now mimics his
dribble. He's so good at decelerating
and stopping and going. And now
it seems like he reads the four at
that same exact pace. Have you ever seen someone
talk shit after they made an elite
pass? Never see that.
That's him. Anthony Edwards does that for no reason.
Yeah, I also don't
give a damn what he says, this
is face the league content right here.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Whether you like
it to not, buddy, you are the face of the league.
This is a one of them. This is an A2
performance because I mentioned the areas where he struggled a little bit in the series and he still
dominated it regardless. And I think one of the signs of being one of the best players in the
world is even when your shot isn't falling, when you're struggling to finish the rim, look like
his body's throwing him right here. It's crazy. You still finish it. But even when you're struggling
in certain areas, you still control the game because you're so multifaceted that you can close out
the series scoring less than 20 but having got down 12 assists. You can still be lethal from three.
You can succeed despite something's not falling your way. That's the sign of somebody who's a well-rounded
star dude they traded they went to the conference finals last year shook the entire team up added
julius randall and they're back in the western conference final and see dumbasses like us we're
like why would you do this because not like get me out of this conversation because they simply
made the bet that it won't matter and is like that that we can give him enough and he'll make up for
anything that happens and we'll make it work he's played such a big part of making it work as long
with julius randle and them like yes everything has gone well the bet has gone precisely we've talked
of this at length about why we're wrong about them so it's nothing new but actually let's talk
about randall now because we should absolutely we all second half of the year came around to this
trade we um we saw it started off quite terribly it was a anthony edwards offense and a julius
randall offense to start the year that didn't quite mesh to be expected now that we look back
when you have a new injection of talent that plays so differently than cat so the whole world overreacted
we act like it was doom and gloom because it was so bad to start because we had never seen it be good
right so naturally as humans we overreacted once they got the feet under them once they figured
out worthy i want to be on the court they switched their main offensive look to being julius randall
as a screener and rudy gober in the dunker spot with julius randall focusing on the short roll passing
to gobert taking advantage of a size down low and obviously i think edwards take a bigger
jump shot approach to make up for that lack of spacing so he can provide the space all this things
worked well we all said this is a good team right but the question was still in the air what version
of julius randle will come out in the playoffs absolutely
Whether it be fair or not, everybody has a reservation because he's only been there a few times
and he has not performed up to his regular season standards in those games.
Yeah.
He shut all that shit down.
He performed amazing in the series.
This is the best version of Julius Rangler that we've ever seen, like, period.
Through his all-N-B-A years, through his all-star years, like this version right here is peak Julius Randall.
I think this is one of my biggest personal Ws that I've had on this show.
This year, because when this trade initially happened, I was high on the-
peak of it happening, which is like the Dante,
Dante Divensendez-O-Naz-Reed and all that,
like sufficing the shooting that they were missing out
when it comes to Carr Anthony Towns.
One thing that none of us were able to see
is Anthony Edwards being the true answer for that shooting gap.
But seeing how Julius Randall's impact defensively
kind of is so much different from what they were last year.
They're still, they were a lead defensive team last year,
still are this year.
It just looks more different and it's more.
scalable like the word that we use that we like to say scalable for the sake of him being more
mobile and being able to move his hips in a certain way that carna's someone like coronary town just
isn't able to do you know it's funny looking back yeah examining our own biases whenever this
had happened we didn't like it because we saw them figured out with cat and they reached a high
level and I think we viewed cat as a good long-term partner for anthony edwards because
slashing guards basing big you don't want to break that up right and it was you just
succeeded so well, why break it up now? So we had that in our heads. A year before that,
we hated the Carauthentowns and Rudy Gober fit because they're two bigs that don't make
sense naturally, but they figured it out. When they make the trade for Randall, obviously we had
reasons to doubt it that weren't entirely flawed, but we've just pretended like the cat
thing is a perfect fit. They succeeded in spite of the fit. This is a much more natural fit,
and they got past the week as I started the season like we talked about, and they found a way
to maximize Randall and maximize Gobert together. It is so much more natural.
to have a power forward next to go bare than two centers.
It's worked out precisely as you could have hoped as a Timberwolves.
Yeah, they just, I mean, the Timberwolves and they've never been a franchise that gets
goodwill whenever they make wild moves.
That's fair.
That's fair.
And so for them to finally have the first bit of like actual tangible success that they've
had, what, I guess 2017, you have the Jimmy Butler stuff, even that came crashing down.
So really, since 2004, since the KG stuff, this is the first time where I actually felt real.
And then as soon as you get there, you blow it up.
It's like, yo, what are you doing?
Like, you're moving kind of wild.
So I think a lot of that on a lot of the, you know, like pushback on it from that perspective was you're the Tim Wolves and you have a little bit too much dip on your chip.
For Julius Randall, I, man, I was up last night going, I was going through my camera.
I was looking at old pictures.
I was like, man, I'm missing.
And I'm, I'm, exactly.
I was just very proud and very happy for Julius Randall because the two playoff runs that everyone likes to point to, he was hurt.
Like, he was, he was hurt in one and miscast as one option and the other.
So in the first five-off series with the Knicks, he shot 30% from the field,
his second one, which he was hurt again also, 37% from the field.
Yeah, so he was going through through some stuff.
And for him, for a lot of, for a lot of players, you know, if you're, if you're injured
and you're out there, you still are going to be held to a certain standard.
And that's kind of what happened with, with Randall.
But so I never, I never necessarily thought that he was like a bad,
postseason player but the thing that I the thing that I thought that really switched halfway
through we again we've talked about it before is just his his attitude and his demeanor because
you can tell when he's locked in you can tell when he's bought in the fact that they were able
to actually get that buy in that is hands down for for them so Anthony Edwards a a a minus
Julius Randall a plus astounding good for him and like so this might this might be more
about Dremont Green and his maybe slight regression.
Back a few years ago, this would have been a series where you said
Dremont Green's that locked that bully ball shit up.
He's a perfect defender for this.
Not this year.
Not this year.
Julius Randall had his way.
Dremont Green was not able to slow him down.
Just an excellent performance from Randall.
I'm excited to see in the next round.
I'm excited to see if they face the nuggets, I think obviously we've probably got a
favor of the Timberwolves.
They've had the number for a while.
If they face a thunder, my God, it's going to be a war.
I cannot wait.
Wait, so for Dremont,
What do you guys give in this?
I'm not grading Dremont as I start anymore.
Yeah, I can't, I can't, I can't, but where do you go there?
How do you, how do you feel, how do you feel, though?
Because like, because there's, there's, we don't have to give it a grade, but like moving forward with Dremont, do you still feel, I guess, a level of confidence?
Yeah, I feel good about him.
It's just hard to get, it starts to grade him when you don't have, like, his lead guy, you know?
Dremont's all at this point.
Everything that was said about him is not being able to succeed without Curry.
That shit is damn sure true now when he's 35.
So I take away nothing.
for his performance without Kerry.
You want to know a fun fact.
Yes.
Julius Randall's nickname on basketball reference, I didn't know this, was is Don Julio.
Nice.
Insane.
Nice.
Sick.
Rudy Goberra, I'm also giving an A.
A's all around for the Timberwolves.
I think Rudy.
We always, you guys know, I'm a big Rudy Gobert defender always have been.
I always got to hear the dumb shit every start of the playoffs.
He's going to get played off the floor.
He can't hang defensively in the playoffs.
It's always been BS.
Obviously, he held up amazingly defensively.
He does 99% of the time.
but offensively he tore the Lakers to shreds
and even this series had some effective games
bro talk about
talk about Rudy Goubert in the closing games
that he's had bro he put up 27 and 25 or whatever it was
against the Lakers and then this past game he put up 17
this is no coincidence in the second half of the season
really lasts like 15 games
Rudy Gaubert had the best scoring stretch of his entire career
and that's because what I mentioned they switched to Julius
Randall as a pick and roll threat and parked Rudy
Gobert in the dunker spot and said they're going to have to help on Randall because they're
going to have to put two on the ball on Anthony Edwards every time. Randall's going to roll down.
They're not going to let him dunk. We're going to dump it off to you every time. You're going to
be a beast as a lob catcher as an offensive rebounder. You're essentially going to be a one-man
zone on offense where you're going to be down there whole time and just be gigantic.
And he has excelled at that. He has been a force down low. It's so much better of a way to
use him than as a pick and roll big where he has the terrible hands to drop inside passes against
rolls, doesn't have the passing chops. Now he has to be large and dunked the ball and he's
done such a good job at that. He's having
legit offensive value. There is times
whenever the offensive lack of touch comes out
and you see him still suck at that. But overall,
they found a really smart way to use him.
A's all around. Good job.
Defend your man's. Defend your man's.
I agree. I agree. I'm not speaking
on it. You better not.
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with us this episode. Let's get you right back to the show.
Let's move on to the Rockets guys. Let's talk about the guys that the Warriors eliminated.
What are we getting grading Alper and Sangoon in his first playoff run? I'm giving Alphrens
Sengoon an easy A as well. I think this playoff one. Yeah, it's easy a. I think it's easy a.
easy for me personally because I was skeptical about how he would translate into
play off basketball and seeing him raise his standard like his standard for me
person was a little lower and I didn't know how we would react to such a defense like
the Golden State Warriors and seeing him although like there's this there's an infamous play
I think it was game five or six and where he was I sowing against Draymond Green it's
Dramon Green no one was going to call a thought at the end of that game but seeing
how he stood on business and maintained his offensive game and all the ancillary skills
that he has, which is like whether it be the post up or the face-up game or whether it
be like his, that like one shot, I don't know if it's called a floater or push shot, whatever
it is.
Like he has that to his game coming to works.
Makes me feel really good about him in his future in the postseason and continue to do
damage.
It's a star player.
He was that dude for the Rockets.
And I was unsure whether or not he was going to be able to maintain that status.
How can me be?
I think defensively, very impressive.
I think he held up well.
That's obviously always
from the question with Sengoon.
And in the regular season,
he had already shut that up.
He already had a great regular season
defensive year.
Obviously, you've got to see
what it looks like
in the playoffs against a good offense.
And he held up well there.
I don't have any...
I honestly feel better
about his defense now
than I do his offense,
which is crazy.
Like, he's completely flipped.
I think he is perfectly fine
defensively.
I have no issues.
Offensively, I think...
So he had two great games.
He's for 26 and 31,
game one and game four.
And in those games,
he looked like a goddamn beast.
I was like, okay,
that's the All-Star selection
right there. The gaze between
there was, you know, you saw
the sometimes limitations. He only had
a 46% effective football percentage for the
series. Don't tell me that.
That's pretty horrible for a seven footer that doesn't shoot the ball.
So that's pretty terrible. He is not seven feet.
Six to ten, whatever. But for a big man
who doesn't have an outside shot, that's goddamn horrendous.
But the offensive infrastructure
is obviously terrible for the rockets. So
he has to get shots up and that's a chuck. So we understand
that he'd be more efficient if he was
elsewhere and in a better system that
doesn't say go be superhero with
we're going to rely on offensive rebounds
because we know you can't score one-on-one
and either can these guys consistently?
So context understood.
That's why he's so inefficient.
But I think you did see the limitations
of him not having an outside shot,
how they had to be so reliant on the volleyball system
with Stephen Adams getting rebounds.
I wasn't like,
I think there was good signs
that we know he can get his scoring game off
and have these flashes,
but it was also like, you know,
the offense isn't good still.
We still have, he still has to develop the outside shot.
We would still like to get other creators in there
so we don't have to be so,
reliant on him, I think
defensively A, offensively B minus, so I'll give him a B overall.
Okay.
I feel the same way.
Maybe C plus.
The flash is too good for that for me.
Offensively, maybe C plus.
Just because the stuff that we've talked about for the last year and a half where
it's kind of flipped in terms of his game and it's like, yo, why can't you make
layups?
And you go into these final games, and he's getting opportunities.
Granted, he's going up against Raymond Green, but, you know, he's not going up against
Draymond every single play.
All of those playoffs were not on him.
And so there's a lot of opportunities where he's right, he's right there at the room.
He could turn.
And he showed you that he's skilled enough to get into those positions, and he just wasn't
finishing well.
And so, yes, he's going up against a tough defense.
Yes, the offense isn't amazing.
It's also kind of damning that, like, our best.
strategies to have somebody else here to pick up your misses because we know that that's going
happen a lot and so I I want to see a little bit more also the the frito shooting was also
really really weird yeah just just 62% for the series the rockets as a as a whole left so many
points on the on the floor because they couldn't knock down free throws and so that's another area
where it's your touch has to as to be there and it just it just wasn't so I'm giving him like
C plus you could talk me into B minus right maybe I'm being a little bit harsh but I'm going to
probably C plus I you're being a little harsh just because he really has no fucking help like he
really has no help at all like Dalen green where are you milk carton good god but you're right
I mean the last two games he shot 44% from two and 36% from two so we saw the up and down
the limitations the strengths like he is still a flawed player offensively and whenever those
strengths really show he has those spike games but if he's not getting the game off quite as much
they're defending him well you see that the counters aren't quite there doesn't have the offball
shooting the pick and roll finishing the type of stuff that players of other body types other play
styles would have to like give them a high floor but he also doesn't have the help to get the
high floor so exactly i'll okay i'll update it i'll give him a i'll give him a i'll give him a b plus
because what i did see he got that dog he does that dog he has he has dog in him his mindset
yes on a thousand and so for for this for this team that is very uh
as, you know, obviously anchored by their defense.
You know how Ema wants to play.
Having your best players, and especially going into an offseason where you don't really
know who's going to be there, having that mentality and that anchor and that player on your team
who you know, if anything goes down, at least we have, at least we have him.
He's not scared of anything.
That actually means a lot in the playoffs and in these series.
So I'm, shout it to you and your dog, Sangu.
Yeah, I'm not going to absolutely hate on the C selection for you, but me personally, again, the dog is.
No, I just upgraded it because of the dog.
Okay.
Shut up the dog.
It's the dog factor.
Okay, let's talk about the team that the wolves eliminated in the first round, the Lakers.
Obviously, we have Luca and we have LeBron.
Much was made of Luca's defense and the downfalls of that.
I think that to me, we talked about this.
It's much more about the fact that there's no room protectors, no good defenders around him.
He's not insulated at all.
So he's not a good defender, clearly, but I think the degree to which that, like, sinks you is a bit exasperated by being in the worst goddamn defensive infrastructure you can imagine for that.
So I don't dig him too.
much for that. Offensively, he got his scoring off. That was pretty much fine. He had some good
games, some slower games. Passing-wise, the Timberwolves did the exact same strategy. The Celtics
did to slow down his impact as a passer. He said, you're going to have to win one-on-one,
isolate every single time. We're not helping. We're not giving you those skip passes. They had
no counter for that as a team. So we saw a decent scoring output. Only 5.8 assists. It's 5.9 in the
finals last year. So same type of thing. That's his floor. And bad defense. What do we grade this for
Luca. Another thing to add on top of that, too, something that stuck out like a sore thumb
for Luke in his game or his series against the Lakers is that this was the lowest amount of
touches that he was able to get into the pain. This is his rim scoring, like, plummeted. This is the
lowest in his career in this playoff career. And so I'm heavily knowing that as well. And like
you said, like because they made him play a lot of like one-on-one ice ball, he had the toughest shots
in the world. And of course, he's going to make a good amount of him. But I'm noticing that drop off
as well. I think that's more so a
product of what the Timberville's
game plan. But nonetheless,
I'm still giving him an A.
His standard's too high for it. I've seen
him be a god. We have to grade everybody to their standard.
We've seen him be one of the best playoff risers
destroying teams. Oh, my bad. I give him
B plus. I'll give him a B straight up.
I think his rim scoring was actually something that I wasn't.
I wasn't terribly upset with his rim scoring.
He got their 21% of his shots
in 2022 playoffs. He made the card's finals
was 22%. So similar amounts
overall. And he did shoot 71% there for the
series, which when he first got in the Lakers uniform, my God, he had no rim pressure at all.
We saw that pick up towards the end of the season.
I think he looked decent there.
But like you said, the wolves made that very difficult.
So I think the efficiency there, despite how difficult it was, I feel good about that overall.
I should just, it's just hard to grade him when the team was so ill-equipped to make his strength shine.
I'll go B-minus.
I think, yeah.
B-miss, wow.
As somebody who severely overrated the Lakers coming into that series,
you saw very quickly that they were outmatched.
And so at that point, it's like, you know what?
On to next year, just show me something.
And the very, very high level of Luca and the level that he can get to
that is over a lot of other people is his shopmaking and his tough shot making.
And can you show me the ability that when it's one-on-one,
if you have any other other defender it's just not going to matter and you're going to be able
to make something happen that's still there and so I feel good about Luca going into next year
and I feel good especially if the Lakers are able to go out and get a vertical threat for him
and get that release to where you can get the full aspect of his game oh you mean like Mark
Williams yeah yeah in that range something like that I wish that was available yeah if they could
get someone you know like the mark williams of the world naturally that then it can make it
work but so he's fine he's far swagger jacking yeah he had 30 points seven rebounds five point
eight can't pay homage no more like no right nobody wants to nobody wants to have legacy nobody wants
to have influence so just swagger jacking but yeah seven seven one percent at the rim
34 percent from three i think we saw the the games when they almost won when they lost in the fourth
quarter and they were there it was largely because luka had crazy shot making runs and kept them
in the game so you saw he can do that it's it was just i don't know so much is going to be made he's
he's going to get so slandered which comes to the territory is not is everything's not his fault
that other people were pissing down their legs but like the slander comes to the territory so i'm
not saying you shouldn't criticize him calm a cone whatever you want that happens when you lose
the first round as a star of his magnitude but you really cannot exaggerate just how much the house
of cards that is the laker supported cast fell apart around him like every flaw they had that made
it so when the trade happened we said this doesn't make sense but they succeeded in spite of it
And we're like, maybe they'll keep going.
No, they didn't keep going.
Every flaw in the roster shined in the series.
Like, he truly had no infrastructure to make him look good.
It was terrible.
What do you grade in LeBron?
What are you grading your king, your 40-year-old king,
who had a pretty solid playoff run.
Yeah.
25, 9 and 5, 45.5 effective philgo percentage,
two steals and 1.8 blocks.
Yeah, he was fantastic defensively.
He led the league in the playoffs and fast break points
and also second chance points as well.
He was hustling.
He was hustling for sure.
Um, his score was a little bit inconsistent, but with all that being said, I think he still
performed to 40 year old LeBron standards, for sure. I can't just say LeBron standards anymore
because those things are nerfed, nerfed a little bit. But I think he filled in his role
pretty well. Offensively, I wish he was able to get his back off a little bit more. I think he
snuck in like a random like 38 point game or something like that. And he took like 19 or 20 free
those. Nice. So I feel like.
I feel pretty good about giving him a B.
Yeah, I was going to say B plus, maybe A minus.
Defensively, he's the only reason these games weren't four straight blowouts.
He carried so much of the low defensively.
You know how hard it is to ask this 4-year-old guy who has to also give you 25 points and 5 assists
to go out there and be your only low-man defender?
When we're going to have DFS and Rui out there.
LeBron, you're at the center, essentially.
You're going to be the weak-side shot blocker.
You're in charge of rebounding more than anybody.
You have to do all the dirty work, have the entire interior presence.
That's you, Mr. Oldman.
And he's like, bet I'll do that all.
So lead the league and transition point scored.
I'll also run a lot.
That's a lot to ask for.
And I think similar to Luca, he didn't have a great infrastructure, everything collapsed
when the Timberwolves made all the weaknesses to shine.
He did about as much as I could hope for.
Yeah, exactly.
I agree.
But we also see that the days of him being this elite score or cooked.
Like the line is without Luca and he's the lane scoring option.
Don't create good offense anymore.
So good and bad, that's just what we're going to take away forever, I think.
he had one game where he gave everything that he could in that game three and you saw you saw
lebron try to do absolutely everything he was going for because he tried to get him up two one and they
couldn't capitalize they go down to one and at that point you're playing from behind and everywhere
else his three point shooting in this series wasn't bad one for five and one for five had a five for nine
game in game three two for four one for five he shot 33 for for the for the series not terrible but the
one game really carried the percentage yeah yeah I wrote down 35 I guess maybe maybe I missaw it but either way
that one game really carried the percentage so yeah it wasn't a consistent shot making performance but
how could it be when he has to be the entire defense essentially yeah everything of round
luka and lebron is horrible and they got to recreate this entire roster to make sense but I I feel
like the only things you can take away is they were fine everybody else the coach the supporting cast
the third star the wings the gm everybody else gets criticism yeah i agree i agree i go i go b minus
from bro okay that's fine yeah yeah they get the the the lineups led by him offensively
the age really shines there and that's a problem forever you know you you know when he shine
the most and you you called it out game game two
Lucas is doing his thing
He's trying to embarrass Rudy Gaubert
Oh my God, bro
And LeBron's like, all right
I get to embarrass Rudy too
And he can't blow by him
But he can't do it
And I think it would result in a couple
Like step back contested two-pointers
I don't know if you can blow by Jeterrett a few days
The days of one-on-one mismatch hunting
Against Biggs for LeBron
Those days are done you got to let that go
Yeah and so off offensively
Especially as we go into what
What's going to be year 23
year 22
whatever it is
it's just gonna
it's gonna be a whole other year of like
how can you ask this 41 year old man
to do all of this
and it's gonna get
it's gonna get worse than this
you're gonna see a lot more
inconsistencies than what you're seeing
right now
all I know is I was
I was berated for saying
he's not a top 10 player anymore
he still was he played like a top 10 player
all right
in the playoffs
all right
he could be a top of two player
it's okay
um maybe
it's debate
I don't too much
it's a debate
it is but relax we don't got to point it out we can temperate a little bit you brought it up
i'm just agreeing what's the next series you want to grade let's move over to another series that
recently ended top 20 oh my god calves versus indiana pacer's can we grab can you grade people
on indiana first yes tyrese halliburton's fucking spoiler a plus if we could give higher than a plus
tyre's halliburne has to be currently the highest graded star in these playoffs i think easily
that's the same's been the best but we're grading you know what they bring to their team how they
performed expectations to
outcome. Tyrese easily
heavy on expectations.
Of course, like we all knew Tyreys Hallibor
and started off the year super slow.
That progressed into
him doing what he did, which was able to,
he was able to stabilize the season.
And now to the point
to where he's
looking like a top, I don't know,
three, four point guard that
the association has to offer
and seeing how
he doesn't have to get off like 30
points or 25 points.
You could average a cool eight, but he's still impacting the game just as much.
He's an astounding A plus.
Some hotel beds, they're not hurting his back anymore.
He figured it out.
He adapted.
So he, obviously, the playmaking has been outrageous.
Everything that makes the pastry is good has been excellent.
The entire approach of his playmaking style to make fast decisions, put his team and all
the players around him in a position succeed to attack with advantages to say, I don't
got to run a pick and roll every time and create you an open shot.
I'm going to draw help, hit it to you so you can attack from a point of advantage and you create
your open shot.
That whole ethos of what makes the patient's offense run.
Everybody touches the ball, but Tyrese makes it so you touch the ball a lot easier than you
would if you were creating off your own approach worked excellently.
They've been blowing teams out the door with that approach.
So we know the playmaking has held up.
This man shot 60% from two in both series, the first round and against the Cavs, and 45% from
three against the Cavs.
Obviously, that also came with the game winner.
He's just been dicing everybody up.
been amazing.
They might make the finals.
And who would have expected
the Pacers to make the finals?
We'll talk about the Cavs situation.
They blitz the Cavaliers.
Obviously, there's a lot of caveats there
with the health and everything.
But before the series,
we said the Pacers have a chance
that the Cavs have to be serious.
You can't fuck around with the Pacers.
You've got to play your A game.
That the patients will be in it
and you have to really perform no choking
otherwise they're going to punch you in the mouth.
It was even further than that.
The patients punched them in the mouth.
It was the other way around.
I told you.
It was crazy.
I've told you.
Yeah, I was on that wave
And I am taking that, I'm taking that dove.
I don't remember you saying that.
But okay, I believe me.
Everything that you just said, I was the one who was saying it.
And y'all were like, oh, no, Cleveland's going to come in.
Yeah, I did say there.
I did say, I remember vividly that the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Indiana Paces
weren't going to win this series unless Donovan Mitchell's leg fell off.
And everyone was the players did.
And his leg eventually fell off.
I don't think I said that I'm picking the calves for sure.
Like, they're the fucking calves.
I'm definitely picking the calves.
But I said you have to perform because the Pacers are.
team that if you don't perform at your A level, they can upset you.
They're going to make every game difficult.
And, you know, again, I pick the calves, but that was under the impression that they were
healthy.
And again, full respect to the Pacers, didn't expect them to win, but we knew you had to be
100% to beat them.
The Cavs were not 100%.
They did still pose, like, major issues, like one-on-one match-up-wise to plenty of guys
on the Cavs roster specifically.
Like, we've seen Ty Jerome.
He was on the up and up over the course of the year.
He was going to get paid a bag over.
the course of the year. He had a famous moment
earlier in the season. I think he was talking
trash to Powell and Kerr and he was like, yeah, bro,
I'll start on your team.
He might still do that. But in regards to the fact,
like, sold off a little bit.
Miles Turner gave Jared Allen the work.
That's the biggest one that I wanted to talk about too, bro.
He was embarrassed
by Miles Turner.
Once again,
where the lights too bright.
Oh, he, I mean, let's talk about the cast.
So Jared Allen didn't play well.
And so the other stars, Donovan Mitchell,
we'll grade him first that's easy a plus we'll give him an a plus he obviously got hurt as well
but before he got hurt he was putting a valiant scoring efforts keeping them in the series
in the first round and began the second round before everyone got hurt he was looking so spry
the idea of giving him lower minutes throughout the regular season to kind of save him for the playoffs
worked amazingly he looked like the fastest guy out of the court every play he was generating rim
pressure over and over something he didn't do in the regular season we were kind of concerned he
answered that because his legs were fresh looked amazing then he gets hurt hobbles through the last
two games, obviously, scores a lot worse when he's playing through injury.
Darius Garland, once again, played bad because he is playing through injury and trying to
gut it out and be brave, but he is clearly not 100%.
It, bro, the last game, he was hobbling.
He was physically walking around limping and trying to play through it.
It was crazy.
Yeah, there was plenty of times, but you're like, they would be better off with him not
on the floor right now.
Yeah, like, salute you trying to tough it out two years in a row.
That has to be, that has to be draining to have to deal with two years in a row.
your team is amazing
and your body just gives up on you
so I don't even know how to grade that
like it's like DMP
like you don't even get a grade
because you literally
he doesn't he missed
he missed several
he missed
he missed game one
and game two
yeah in this series
he missed games
in the Miami series as well
so it's like you played half the time
I'm not I'm not I'm not
if it was regular season
he wouldn't have played at all
like they would have held them out
he came back to try to fight through it
to save the season
didn't work
you can tell that
he would have been out for several weeks
if it was a regular season
Now, the man who did play was Jared Allen.
Is he a star, sweet great Jared Allen?
I don't know.
He made it all.
I don't know.
I'm just saying like out of the cabs are built on four guys.
Garland wasn't there.
Mowgli missed the game, but he was, you know, there for three of the five, four
of the five games, whatever.
And then, but Allen was there consistently.
So I'm just saying like in their core, I guess he's a star.
I don't know if you guys want to grade him or not.
But you're right.
He got dominated.
And it was just not a pretty sight.
And so now you're looking at the Cavs team again going into the offseason saying,
is it viable to have both of these guys on the roster?
And is there like if you're going to make a tweak, it's very clear.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
It's very clear what the tweak is at this point.
I mean, you say that.
Again, Jared Allen didn't have his point guard and his shooting guard got hobbled towards the end.
So he didn't play well.
That's probably part of it offensively.
but he got diced up defensively
on Miles Turner
he was kicking his ass
so there's that
if I'm going to decide
to make a shakeup
I agree it's that
most because I want to put
Evan Mobley in the best position
to succeed as a score
bro he didn't take more
than 13 focal attempts
in a single game in the series
that's insane
he was not a focal point
as a score in this series
now part of that is definitely
the Pacers guard him
they made that difficult
they didn't want him to attack
part of it's probably him
in passivity not looking to score
part of it is the guards
kind of getting into
they were taking what the pictures
were given them
they wanted these hobble
guards to attack us and beat us one-on-one, not let you get in rotation.
Top-down, the effort needed to establish Mobley as a score wasn't there.
That was one of the biggest drop-offs from regular season of playoffs.
I want to see Moble to be a center because it's a lot harder to neutralize him as a
score when he's attacking fives than when he's a four next to another five and the spacing
isn't great.
I think you have to go into next year with him as a center.
I agree.
I think seeing what Jared Allen showcased this year, a lot of people would see the Cuban
Cavalier's failure.
And for a good reason, we just want to win it back with that.
the same roster, but me personally, I'm 100% on your side.
I think it's time to move on for something like Jared Allen.
It used his value and use that juice, boost it up elsewhere on your roster to fully
unlock Evan Moby.
I think this will take this team to a different level.
Of course, we all knew throughout the regular season, like, yeah, this is one of the teams
to beat.
They're fully in the Boston Celtics, OKC, and whoever else I want to throw in those
conversations, but we all know that they were like not on the Celtics level necessarily
or O'KCs.
They're very much like the third team.
don't know about that. I think at their peak they were on that level, but we had reservations
because of Celtics are reigning champs. But I think I wouldn't revise it that much. They were
like, they deserve to be in that top three. We referred to it as there's three contenders
in the league. They were, they were firmly. You could, you know, you can quibble, you can say
they're third. Yeah. But they were in that tier. They were, they have expectations of being
that tier. That's why I say that. And I wish, I just really wish, you know, everyone's
called them frauds now saying they were regular season demons, 2015 Hawks, etc. I get it. Get
your jokes off it comes to territory like I said
I just really wish we could have seen them actually go outside
full health so we could actually have that ammo because
now I'm like maybe they are
you know there's some things that weren't health related
they played poorly. Is blowing a 19 point lead at home
not enough for going outside? Again
we talked about this in the stream
yes they didn't perform well they
they lost in the second round you can't lose the second round when you're
a 64 winning team I'm not even talking about
the series you're missing two and I'm talking about
game five specific I don't care you keep
how long on that I don't care they have three
injured all stars dude it's like
How do you gauge anybody when they have three All-Star level players injured,
one of which is completely useless.
Other one misses games, but he comes back.
I think we can say Mowley's probably healthy, I guess.
I don't know.
And then Dematch obviously hobbles to the end.
Even if you just miss one in Garland, who was completely useless,
that completely transforms your team.
He's hugely important for them.
Two other All-Sars are not fully healthy?
Can you imagine what OKC would look like without Chet, J-Dub,
and I don't know, maybe.
I mean, they've done in certain parts throughout the season.
All of those guys, though, three of those guys at the same time?
They wouldn't have won their series if they were dealing with that right now.
It's over.
It's clipped for anything.
And the Pacers are playing at a crazy level.
Like I said, you cannot mess around with them.
You have to be 100%.
Like, yes, they, sure, they didn't perform.
You give them criticism.
I just wish we saw them underperform while they were a whole so we can have definitive
takeaways because now, even if someone like us wants to be like,
trade your old and yada, we can still say we didn't see them 100%.
So maybe it's worthwhile to try it again because they weren't just slightly hobbled.
They were a completely different team missing a substantial amount of
our power. It's like you can't just ignore that and say results with the results. Like the
context is damn, they had very little chance. Results matter a little bit to me though. They
do. They're not irrelevant. They do matter to me. And I do think that like seeing the
seeing the way that people go out is very, very important. And like de Mitch, no doubt in my mind.
that's a dog right there right that that is a dog everybody else on on that team we're going to have to do
some soul search i'm going to have to do some some reevaluating and so if you get moved preemptively
he said i don't know boot camps maybe i don't i don't mean to say like absolve them of everything i'm
not saying that i'm just saying there's so much context in this now that the takeaways are muddied
because of this that like do you like if garland had played a full series and stunk it up you could
be like okay you don't fit but his back doesn't work he's walking around hobbled
Mowgli, is your aggression part of it not being so high because you're injured?
I don't know.
Like, there's just so much question marks that I don't feel comfortable making like super
strong takeaways.
Other than on Jared Allen.
You can make a strong takeaway from him.
Even then, so you can make some of a takeaway.
I'm not going to act like losing your point guard doesn't matter for a center.
Like, you know, he didn't defend well, but the fit overall is really contingent on
the movie everything right for Jared Allen.
Like, you obviously, you would love if you can get some points out of Jared Allen.
You've seen his offensive game grow.
If Jared Allen scored zero points and just defend it well, you'd be like, hey, good game.
Sure, sure.
Like that's what, that's what he's there to do.
And so if you're not doing that, yes, we're going to have to have some combos.
That's fair.
I'm just saying, there's cascading effects from the top down when you missed that much of your team that it affects everybody.
So you can't look at anything just a result that, again, maybe the answer is you got to blow some shit up that you still lost.
But it's a little more complicated.
And I'm just annoyed that it's as complicated.
Yeah, I agree.
No, they weren't outside.
That was, that was, that was the fucking.
all that.
No, it was just pathetic.
Everything was sad, man.
No, that's a lot of game.
They lost by so many points.
So I get it.
I'm not here to say it was nothing.
They were up 19.
We went to go get dinner, got a couple of slices, came back, and the game was tied.
And we're like, yo, what just happened?
No, I get it.
I get it.
Yeah.
All right, let's talk about what teams they eliminate in the first rounds.
So we've seen a couple of heat fans in our comments.
Oh, my God.
Keep laughing.
Or not laughing.
They keep getting mad because we don't talk about the heat because we've
had a couple playoff-centered episodes.
Dog, y'all suck.
Brother, Bam out of bio, took five threes a game in the postseason against the Cleveland
Cavaliers.
Why is Bam taking five threes a game?
Despite you guys, I'm going to not talk about the heat again.
Mo, ISO.
Grade Bam, grade Bam, great Tyler Hero.
Resounding F, five three is a game, 43% from the field.
You are a big man.
You are a center.
I don't know what's going on.
I understand.
He's trying to expand in his game.
And, hey, it's a modern NBA.
That's just how things are going to.
going but five three's a game.
F.
I'm not talking about them.
They suck.
I'm doing that a spite now because you guys don't find understandable that I don't want
to talk about the people.
Well,
I'll say,
you do have to understand why we don't talk about you guys.
Like,
I understand you're a fan and you care a lot,
but have some common sense because your team traded away,
your start player midway,
you guys limped into the 10 seed and got in because of this bogus playing
tournament.
you shouldn't even have had the opportunity to get the eight seed
and then you got boat raced for a week and a half
everybody the the heat cavs series was nap time for everybody
to prepare for the second and third game of the night
it's the biggest point differential in the playoff series ever
so like it's you can't get your ass whoop much more than that
than the worst ever they did one two three can't kanko in game three
historical levels of assing but uh I mean for this conversation
for the grading the stars they don't have any I mean Tyler Hill made an all-star
team bam obviously we respect bam neither of which are playing at a star level right now they're a
team without stars that found a way to get in like you said without jimmy but these guys are just
playing like outside of the roles they should be they both can slot down and it's nobody's in a
position for them that makes sense to judge them exactly they play they play like they're missing
a star player two on their roster row and it feels like they were just over assing over that we've said
too much i should have shut up like two minutes ago yeah yeah fuck out of the bucks so obviously we
just do yonis because dame rip leg blew up immediately yonis deserves no lower than a
yeah a it's it's a plus yeah and everybody's made it because again we talked about in the
beginning of the show that a big theme here we'll get to some of these stars later is um how much
everybody's efficiency is dropping because the increased physicality everyone's like not not not the
greek guy it doesn't matter for him he is a demon he still got the 61% affected philgal
percentage still got his game off exactly the same is he best in the world now people are trying
give him best the world after losing the first round and i understand it he's resilient the
playoff levels are still there i will say the pacers have nobody for him physically and they said we're
going to let you score and not help off much and we're going to make sure everybody else gets clamped so
you know what shout out to you because some people are given that opportunity and can't capitalize on
yeah and yannis said you know what he said you one-on-one thank you yeah i'm just gonna go ahead
and do and do what i do and it's not my fault that everybody else is playing the worst basketball of
career so well it's kpj it's kuzma it's typical basketball at their career i'd say
you played two their standards that's outrageous slander that is i have no problem
outrageous slander and kevin porter junior you're being real to me i said you that's like that's
i've literally i was going no i was going to rockets games when kpg was on there that was some
of the worst basketball okay okay there's a lot of people there's a lot of humans in the nbail i'll
He embraced too. Kevin Porter's not wonderful.
Seeing his rocket tenure in person with some of the wildest stuff I've ever seen, it was disgusting.
He believed that was the rocket score at one point in time.
They had him in SGA debates.
It was him and Jalen Green together.
Ooh, man.
With Stephen Silas coming?
So shout out Yonis, you know, the game plan was to let him score to some degree.
Not let him score.
But, you know, they didn't throw the exotic cover just at him that like the thunder are throwing at Yokic or that the nuggets are throwing at Shay.
So Yonis did what he's supposed to do.
He played to his MVP level.
Shout out him.
Exactly. A plus.
A plus.
He did all he can.
He had absolutely no help.
It was egregious.
He played to his standard and didn't dip it all.
Yes, I agree.
100%.
This series, I think he put up like, he shot like 20.
I think he scored like 20 or 22 points in the paint, which is absolutely ridiculous.
And that's something that he does in the regular season.
But seeing the uptick like that is just insane.
Okay.
Celtics versus Knicks.
Donovan.
What are you grading Jalen Brunson?
We'll start with the Knicks.
I mean,
he's been he's been a plus like i see now not a plus a minus because there's been there's been
some games that haven't been amazing but the entire run the yeah the entire run this the nix
entire game plan has basically come down to let's just keep it close until the last you know
five to three minutes and brunson is going to carry us and he's he's done that every every time
he's had the opportunity and if the game's on t-and-t i promise you reggie miller is going to let you know
that he won clutch player of the year.
And so he's going, like, he's dominated in those moments.
And in a series and a team where cat's offense is inconsistent, you don't know what
you're going to get on, especially in the Boston series from O.J. and Nobie.
McKell Bridges, some nights, he's amazing.
Some nights he's just, you know, around.
Their one constant has been Jalen Brunson and his scoring and his shot making.
And he's had, like, game four of the, of this, uh, Nick's.
Celtic series, one of the best games Jalen Brunson has ever played. The shot making was insane.
You talk about a game in Detroit. He goes out in the fourth quarter or in the late third.
They, you know, try to break his leg, try to break his ankle. He comes back, score 16 in the
fourth. They end of winning that game. He always rises to the occasion and rarely has a bad
game. I'm giving him an A minus. Yeah. I mean, I agree. I personally give him like an A plus because
his job is ridiculously hard. You're asking them.
a six foot people say six one six two he feels like he's six foot guy to come out he might be
five a 11th and exactly and put up like everyone makes him sort of every every week I mean shit people
are just realizing you see that picture can he's always tweeting whenever they were together exactly
he's not that much taller than Kenny and Kenny's five seven yeah it's it's ridiculous so to see
him when we win the title I'll meet him in person I'll let you guys know he's gonna get one of
those right there yeah doubt no no doubt it not not one of those this one
You look at that one?
This specific one.
I doubt it.
Bunch has been doing generational stuff in terms of this tough shot making at that size specifically.
I'm giving an A plus consistently.
Yeah, it's one of the hardest roles, like you said, and he's lived up to the expectation
that we kind of like put upon him after last year when he had, he averaged 35 for a playoff series last year.
It was insane.
And we all said, all right, so he's clearly a top 10 player in the world.
He's clearly surpassed everything we ever could hope.
And they try to take it away from him.
Who's they?
You know who they are.
I don't know.
Who slanderer in Jaylon and Brunson?
Them.
People in the first round of that series.
Fucking them.
Unbelievable.
But yeah,
so he's continued
to do Jalen and Bruns and things.
All of them.
They were all trying to say.
Can you repeat that?
No.
I don't even know what he's talking about.
But yeah,
Jayne and Brunton has completely played
Jan and Brunson basketball.
I have little criticism of him
to say,
like I don't even really see it outside.
He's doing exactly what he needs to do.
Okay, if you don't have criticism for him,
do you have any static or criticism towards
Carthie Towns?
He's been cat.
You know,
he's had the,
the reason they're probably going to beat the Celtics
is because the rise
of the two big lineup
and how much Mitchell Robinson
has really given the Celtics problems
I think Kat has had moments
where he's held his own defensively
they've asked him to switch out
and say you've got to figure that shit out
despite your physical limitations
whatever may be defend
he's done a solid job
he's had his offensive splashes
he's been 20 point per game
up and down defensively
but doing enough to give you the looks
play off with Jalen Brunson
give you the secondary shot making
get hot at the right times
solid B plus he's done his job
he's hit tough shots
well those those fadeaways
I keep me to every game.
It's a crazy one.
His fadeaways have been crazy.
And then he has games or moments like he did in game five.
Well, he's just fouling people.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We shot game five.
He can't keep his hands to himself.
And it's, and it's game five was, it was, I should have known that it was going to be like that.
Oh, you definitely should have known that the Celtics would fight for their lives and get one at home.
However, I didn't know it was going to be Luke Cornett legacy game.
And he was going to almost get a triple double with blocks.
But the cat found trouble, it has piqued its head a couple times.
It's never gotten to a point where it's seriously like hurt, hurt the team.
They've always been able to kind of bounce back and ride whatever way.
But I think in this series, defensively, he's played as well as you can ask for.
Offensively, there's moments in the Detroit series and in this series where
yo the guy guarding you was six four yeah just seven feet tall
I'm gonna need you to be big go to the basket play out play out of of the post
overpower some people and it just hasn't been there as consistent as you would like
yeah that's thing that's I think I've talked about this before I think that's a common
misconception in his game that he's like a go-to post score or like or even like that he's
like great no but he's fine his whole game that makes him good is his stretch big
qualities and how we can attack closeouts and be fast
than centers and bigger than wings that are closing out on him.
He's really at his best there.
And I don't know why.
They don't love to do pick and pop with him.
They are picking and roll.
They don't have a big two-man game with Jailen Brunson.
And that feels like it's built into the plan to not to lean away from that for that.
And I do know why.
It's because defenses put wings on him and say, if you do that, we're going to switch it.
And we're just going to put our best wing on Jalen Brunson.
So they say, okay, we're going to attack other defenders, cat, space the floor.
So I do know why it happens.
The Tom Thibod isn't like the most brilliant offensive mind in the world to find work
works around that so I think the deficiencies of cat are kind of built in to his playstyle
the the frustrating part is whenever you do see him go to the post he goes to the post on out
horford and it's like okay if you're going to do it fine but I'd rather you do it against the guy who's
6 4 and not the guy who's 610 who just out horford is amazing and just lots of every single
that that you can ask him to do that's what he is on that's what I'm saying so picking his spots
that is the more frustrating part
it's not necessarily like
you're not good in the post
if you're gonna do it
just do it when it's actually smart to
yeah but yeah all the deficiencies I think
are just like I said
you gotta grade everybody
on your expectations for them
this is all stuff we could have seen coming in
you know this is this is cat
the pros and the cons so
I give him a B
yeah it's fine he's been fine
he's been fine
I don't expect anything else
or less from what he's on right now
yeah yeah for somebody you know
I'm not the highest on him
I'm also on the lowest
he's been completely fine
Yeah
Now let's talk about
You know
Get to these teams
That have been eliminated
Oh actually you forgot
Celtics
What do we regret Jason Tatum
Obviously before the injury
He got an A
I don't know
If you can give him an A
Because that
Orlando series was rough
He was hurt
In that series too
I think he missed game too
But overall
His shooting was
Really rough
You gotta be nice
Tim now that he's hurt
You don't got to be that nice though
Yeah
You don't got to do that many brownie points
You don't go
You don't got to give him an A
He did have
He did start this
The series off
With some goddamn stinkers
Obviously he got better
At the game
He got hurt
he was having one of the best games with his fucking career
but the stinkers were there
Orlando series I don't fault him too much
that team is so good defensively
and they said we're gonna make this a goddamn rock fight
you're gonna have to beat us out the mud
it's not gonna be efficient I think you play fine there
all things considered with the injury
beginning of this Nick series he was tragic
it was some of the worst basketball he's played in years
and in the second half he got better before he got hurt
feels like a beat of me
I'm over here on my notes
I put up I think I gave him a
C plus
Yeah, C plus.
Okay, why are you harsher on him than I am?
Are you holding the Magic Series a little harsher than I am?
The Magic series, a little bit, but more so the beginning of this Boston Celtics.
Okay, because Magic used 31, 11, and 5 on 52% affected focal percentage, which isn't good deficiency, but it's not horrendous for playoffs.
He's doing what he's supposed to do against a team like that who's going to make him get every single thing out of this.
It's one of the toughest, maybe one of the two, three toughest defense teams that the NBA has to offer.
So that's expected.
but what's not expected is to see constant like late see them fall and blow multiple like 20 point leads in the playoffs that's like literally generational stuff and that blood is on his hands you know seeing how he towards the end of that game the last 20 point lead that he blown towards the end of that game how he decided to he lost his hand a little bit I think I think he drove to the left side of the baseline and he got like trying to pass it out got blocked we got stopped by macao bridges and also
was deterred by Ogin and O B as well.
Seeing just the process of that happening,
I can't give him more than the way, bro.
I wish you was speedy recovery.
I'm so disheartened.
I hate seeing such a tragic and dreary to one of the least brightest,
youngest, most reliable stars.
With that being said, those first two games,
you went down 2-0.
The series was done at that point.
It's hard to come back from 2-0 when you lose both games at home.
It was never done.
It would, I mean, not done.
But like, you know, that's a very big hole to climb out of.
and your lack of performance
is a big part of that
C plus was fine to me.
Yeah.
He did good when the hole was already dug
but, you know, the digging the hole
was the stars of the Celtics fault.
And, bro, I will never
ever be able to get those images
of the graphs that you put up on
TD3 live stream Tuesday,
6 p.m. Eastern Time tap in
that you put up on the stream.
That graph was ridiculous
and that was a spear
like Jason Tatum,
Drew Holiday, whatever, issue as well.
Well, everybody was missing shots, too.
It was cold shooting.
It wasn't just, I'm joking, it wasn't just Tatum.
He played a part of it.
You had to be able to be the star that can find ways to make the offense work,
even when everybody else is missing their shots.
But everybody was missing their shots, so it's not just him.
But yeah, he didn't help.
And they went down 2-0, and that really was not a nail in the coffin that, like,
or no, it is a nail in the coffin.
It wasn't fully hammered in.
But it was in there a little bit.
It was in there a little bit.
It's pretty hard to come back from 2-0.
Yeah, but just because I gave him, like, a C minor or C-plus,
or it don't mean I think he stinks.
It's like we saw what he was doing right before he got hurt.
Games three and four are the ones that are still very, very fresh in my mind because he was going ballistic.
Those were A games.
Yeah.
The first two are F games.
B plus for the first series.
Yeah, that feels like C plus B minus in the aggregate.
All right.
And obviously then he gets hurt.
Couldn't see the vision through.
Maybe he would have had a miraculous comeback and they would came back and beat the Knicks.
I think that was varying the cards.
Tough.
It is what it is.
It wasn't in the cards.
Who's next?
Let's go to one of the teams we just mentioned.
The Orlando Magic, what are we going to grade Palo Bancaro?
You know, you know what it is.
I actually don't know what it is because he shot 71% at the rim,
got there 5% less than he did the playoffs.
But when he got there, he did the bully ball stuff.
He got to the free throw line.
That's one of the big things we wanted to see from him all year, right?
Be the physical down low score.
He had potentially the worst mid-range scoring performance I've ever seen from a go-to star.
It was the highest mid-range shot volume in the NBA, 32% there.
46% effective focal percentage overall.
Keep going.
Pretty goddamn bad.
So the rib scoring was great.
That's what we wanted.
The mid-range scoring, which is the bread and butter, was horrible.
So we saw signs that he'd be really good next year.
He's addressing the issues that we've all had with him in his process,
but his bread and butter didn't go well.
Can I ask you a question?
Go for it.
When we were talking earlier about Anthony Edwards,
what was one of the things that you said about him and why he gets the end?
The well-rounded game and he found ways to be effective when his shot wasn't falling.
When we talk about Palo, the main thing, especially in last year's playoffs, what were you
saying about why he was a playoff demon last year?
Oh, he shot 54% from mid-range, which is unsustainably hot.
And now that this year, it was not good, the fact that he still had three games where he
was scoring 30 on a team where outside of Cory Joseph, anybody who played outside of
insane, outside of Cory Joseph, anybody who played meaningful minutes on that team did not shoot
over 30% from three
gross insane and he's still able
to be the constant
the score do everything that they ask
that they asked him to do in leading
that team I'm giving
Paolo an A plus
I'm giving him
an A plus again we've talked about
a lot the shooting is outrageously disgusting like
obviously this is similar
to a similar to Sangoon
where it's all about what we see from you process
wise and the process was good he was aggressive
for the most part so that's good we can't expect
him to win the series or win games when the supporting cast was so dog shit that being said
the mid-range scoring of palo ban caro and the reliance on that and how much that he wants that
to be his bread and butter bread and butter over the rim scoring if that was going he would average
40 it wasn't going and it doesn't go a lot that's that's the problem with palibank caro is finding
that balance and well i'm glad he shot so well at the rim we want to see that the mid-range element
was on full display they were goading him to taking them and he was taking them left and right
not shooting well that part of his process still has to improve and again the space
is a big part of this. We know that. So I'm not giving him a terrible grade or anything. He still
he addressed the bad habits or not, he addressed the weaknesses that I want to see
continue to get better, mainly being rim scoring and passing. I was encouraged by that. So
it's not a bad grade, but it wasn't like hyper-effective or anything. I think B's fine.
No, but I think you're, I think you're a little harsh on, on the process in, in this case,
especially when there were positive results. What positive results? What does that mean?
I guess.
Like,
like to average,
okay.
You know,
this is how you get me
to be a hater
because you love point three bounds assist.
The buckets are there,
but like not at a good rate,
not that weight that leads good offense.
They are,
we've talked all year about how this offense sucks.
Yeah.
And how,
and how,
and then for them to go up against the,
the Boston Celtics who have Tatum and Brown and,
and Alhorven,
they have,
they have good defenders everywhere that,
that you turn it and you look.
And so I'm saying,
for him to have the main thing that he likes to do not be working and still find a way to be
fairly effective to where they won a game and had a couple other games where they were
in it for a decent stretch that's a lot of that is because of palo scoring and his impact and so
for that reason that's what i'm saying it's an a and so yes can he shoot can he shoot better
are the other things that he needs to work on yeah going into next year and going into this next
off season. If he changes that and if he like dials it back either either taking less mid-ranges
or just gets hyper-efficient at that, that's what we're seeing, you know, top five, top six,
whatever that level of palo. But even what he gave us this year, that's still another sign of
you were playing one way in the regular season kind of ramping up. We get to the playoffs.
And once again, you are the lone scorer on your team doing all the scoring that your team needs.
I'm giving you an A-plus for that.
I don't know about an A-plus. It feels really unfair to give you.
some like polo a plus and then give
to prince alfred singu and i think he gave him a c or something like that
completely unfair and again i don't even feels like i thought i was coming
optimistic i'm not even trying to hate like i think a b is a good grade for someone who
that's all that's all that's all that's all that's all that's that's all that's that's all that's
that's that's all that's that's that's all that's that's that's not it's not it's not i'm
i'm gonna stretch my game out to the three i'm starting knocking these things
down and pallid issue well from three overall yeah he saw like 44%
yeah he shot me off from three it's just the two point scoring was terrible
43% like that's where you're you're saying it like
he got his game off and they just lost the games.
Like, to get an A plus, I feel like you have to perform great.
He performed fine.
Obviously, we know that the situation is a part of that.
You like to pretend that he's no part of that.
Like, he doesn't have habits of himself.
No, that's not what I'm saying.
Both are true.
And I think a B is fine.
We saw the upside and we see that you're real close.
You get better at these things.
The team gets better.
It helps you get better at those things.
You're going to be amazing.
I think A plus only deserves to be players like Tyree's
Calibur, who just completely like, oh my God, he, he's actually at that level.
Paulo didn't do anything on the court to just make me to like mind blow me or mind bend me
whatsoever.
It's like very much expected, like, yeah, you're going to go ahead and get shut off.
You're going to bully in the paint, which is super good.
We've seen him do it in the post and the regular season a little bit more, which is great.
But he didn't do anything that put him in extra and other worldly conversation.
He didn't change the way.
He didn't change the way you view him in this.
Like, yeah.
We, if we, we all feel like we see the vision.
He just needs time to get there and that once he addresses these things gets better
in these other ways and develops, he'll be great.
I love the series, still feeling good about that.
I didn't feel like he's great now.
I didn't feel like this is like great process that leads to good offense now.
Like, you know, both are true.
Y'all, for the last seven months, y'all have, you all have talked about Palo and said,
like, oh, listen, he wants, he wants to be a mid, a mid-range shooter.
let's see what happens when the mid ranges aren't falling bro your your 610 get get to the line use your
physicality and you were able to see that you were able to see that in this series and you were able to see
hey when the mid range isn't isn't falling i still have other ways to problem solve i'm still i'm still
able to he shot 43% from two he got to the rim he shot there 5% less in the regular season
26% of his shots everybody's efficiency that's because we're playing football oh now it's everybody
we're playing football what he's talking about the fish he was flying at the rim he
got there less because they cut him off and they wanted him to take the mid-range shots and he said
fine he didn't get there a lot he didn't do the volume of it he shot well there because he exerted
himself he the main point is volume making that be your main go-toe 26% of his shots were at the rim
that is tiny for a big man score like that i get i can't even not trying to hate on him but you're
acting like it was some like brilliant shot making at the rim that like changes your perception
of him not really my perception is never changed him i said that's a baller i know that's a
That's how I've seen it.
You look at this team and you look how desolate their offense is.
And to see the bright star, to see the North Star that they have, it's just like, I have to give you credit.
I have to do it.
I agree.
I just felt like B was credit.
I feel like A plus is like you blew my mind and I wouldn't say that.
Yeah, I think, like think about the players who we gave A plus to.
Okay, Janus, one of the best players in the world.
Hallibur.
He's proven that he's one of the best players at his position.
And he's to let him a spot.
a brunson brunson bro
a plus again like or like
Randall who changed our perception of him
exactly like these conversations actually
move fair enough okay
if you want to say a minus whatever go ahead go ahead
I'll say a he doesn't get
the a plus but he gets the a just let it be
know and I'm not hating on Palo Ben Carroll I think
he had a encouraging sign it just
obviously does not deserve an A yet to me
you once again don't believe in him
it's okay
the idea of him is starting slowly
starting to form for sure yeah
It's already year.
If this is it here, oh, we're fucked.
If this is here, it's cooked.
We're celebrating for 46% effect of the total percentage.
Don't the fucking parade.
No, but that's not true, though.
He's nowhere near his ceiling.
The ceiling is high.
I actually feel like next year is going to be the year for sure that he makes the real leap
to being the top 12, 15 player.
When he comes out again, scores 50 points in the first week, right?
Does not tear his right oblique and actually gets to carry that momentum into the rest of the season.
No one's doubting that.
No one's doubting.
You're all see.
For what?
You're all see.
Oh, we'll all see.
I thought you said you're allcy.
Like, that's a word.
But no, I agree.
If he comes back and develops over the summer, has a healthy year,
I fully expect him to be the superstar next year.
You know who needs to develop?
His partner in Cry and Frye and Frives.
Oh, I wasn't even going to grade him.
He saw like 17% from three.
I'm so dejected.
I'm so dejected right now.
Like, he just can't shoot.
He can't shoot at all, and nothing else matters.
Just a wet leg.
It's all.
Nothing else matters.
And it's so.
hard because like you don't want to do
your typical media thing like they can't play together
they better come out with a dynamic point guard
next year you can shoot and a stretch five
you better show me a chance to
see these two wings with a stretch five
and with a really really good shooter as well
from the backcourt positions if that
doesn't work then if they can't coexist they can't
coexist like yeah
but stretch five is necessary they clearly need a stretch five
window card does nothing to elevate them
I agree it's hard to grade them
it's hard to grade them but follow a cigarette them
you deserve a D yes
And like he did other stuff well
But the shooting is so such a debilitating thing
For their offense that
We can't give any great of merit
I agree
I agree
You know it's another losing team
That I kind of want to talk about
Clippers
Sure, let's fall into it
James Harden
James Harden
Pretty good six games
He had a Dominant game one
Dominant game six
Seven points in another game seven meltdown
Yikes
Let's talk a little bit
Vintage James Hardin showed his face in many ways,
including the seventh game of the series,
in which he made two field goals, scored seven points total.
You're talking quiet, like that performance wasn't insanely loud.
Like, he didn't have the loudest seven points of all time.
Once again, once again, and I am absolutely disgusting.
Because I actually, for weeks, I was coming up here and I was saying,
You know, I don't trust the Clippers.
I think this is going to happen.
I think that's going to happen.
And I actually let myself get tricked by y'all.
I'm being like, listen, you have to just be able to go off of what they're showing right now.
Like, please believe in them.
And I was looking at them in some absolute value type stuff.
And I was like, you know what?
Fine.
I believe in the Clippers.
They're going to win this series.
And James Harden did the James Hardin stuff.
And it's like, it's just, it once again proves to me that once I will never ever.
never ever pick a James Hardin a team that has James Hardin in a like viable role
you know I'm not picking you to win a series ever see I think and I want you guys to hold that
to me the mistake that we made me and Isaac specifically made I'll say is that we understood
or at least you especially were screaming out loud to the top of your lungs like this Clippers team
is different they're not necessarily 100% reliant on James Hardin going off I actually don't
even like James Hardin anymore like I'm the biggest Tim Hardin fan all I haven't been
if you guys haven't been moved on him all year exactly I didn't pick him
to be an all-star. I never
big them up. I hate his style of play right now.
But overall for the Clippers, as a whole, you were talking about how this infrastructure
is not built for them to rely on 25, 30-point per game, which is very fucking true.
And although he was able to provide that for them, like, here and there, especially, I
think that game six, he had a magnificent game.
Yep.
At the end of the day, like, you can't rely on the Norman Pals and Nick the Tunes and
all that.
If James Harden's going to do, like, seven points and take two, make two shots or whatever
it was.
Yeah, you can't be that bad.
You can't be that bad.
And also the other guys
also got clamped up
in that game.
So it was a
just meltdown in the game seven
for sure.
They were vintage clippers, right?
That series was one
that, uh...
I think before that series
started, I was like,
this is the one that I don't fucking know.
Like, I'll say,
I said clippers in seven,
but I was like,
this is not a confident seven at all.
Like, if I'm saying
something's gonna go seven,
it can go either way,
this is the one that can go
the most either way.
We'll go to Clippers
because they've been so good
as of late and the Nuggets
fire their coach.
they have six playable players
kind of worried on betting on that
over a team peaking at the right time
it felt like that was
going to happen until that game seven came around
and they just went out in typical
clippers fashion
if you are who we once thought you were
how do we grade that
F right
if you get to a game seven
that everyone knew the series
was gonna go seven you just got to close it out
I've read and other
other people have you know
especially after game seven
like is James Hardin like
the biggest playoff choker and NBA history and all this type of stuff I was reading articles
about why people were breaking down why he was so bad specifically in game sevens and and
everyone was trying to figure out and it's like yo he's just he's just not in that class and so
his game seven performance and his elimination performance once again is the thing that we're
going to remember and whether or not
It is fair to do that
Because we have a sample size of James Hardin in elimination games
That is what we're going to do
So his entire playoff run is going to be defined by the fact
That they went outside in game seven
And it was like the third or fourth quarter
And Tyloo's already waving the white flag
Yeah, I'm over it
There was eight playoff series in the first round
I got six out of eight right
The two I got wrong are the ones where I believed
In some choking motherfuckers from Los Angeles
On both sides of the aisle
The Lakers and the Clivers
Are the two teams that disappointed me
I'm over it man
It's tough.
Choyleynard, I think, was exactly what you expect in the same way James Hardin was.
There was the game two, the Spike game, when he had 39 points, and everyone was like,
ha ha, don't want to see Kawhi Leonard if he was healthy.
They got him here.
It's going to be another vintage Kauai Leonard performance.
Everyone's, I'd rather have Kauai than Shay.
I'd rather have Kauai than Taitum.
Everyone's on top of the world saying they'd rather have him than star X, Y, Z.
And when he has 39 points for the next two days, you've got to be like,
all right well fair enough i guess if this is what he's going to do turns out he did not do that
for the whole series he had plenty of low games because this is a quiet leonard as of late he doesn't
have the energy and the it doesn't have the lower body consistency to continuously give you that
level of dominance there's going to be ups there's going to be downs some games he doesn't
have the juice that's pretty much what happened he had two games of 25 points 39 in game two
27 in game six every other game was below 25 points 25 7 and 4 59% effect the focal percentage
overall because he's the type that he's going to be
efficient because he's not going to try and do too much
because he knows he can't he's not going to try to empty the clip
and that's what happens in the game seven
when James Hardin shits himself and then Kauai doesn't
have the juice either
you lose. Sounds like a D to me
No, you can't give Kauai a D. Why?
25, 7 and 4 they made it to
seven against a good team. He was still efficient
why would I give him a D? He didn't collapse
if he scored 39 every game he'd get a goddamn A plus
he'd be one the best players in the world. You're overreacting
way too much. Yeah, I think he deserves a solid B.
yeah b minus c plus he just he's
he was good he just can't be amazing anymore
b is the stretch no it's not quite quite he played good
he just can't be amazing anymore like you can't look at this clippers
collapse and look at pinpointed at him as if he didn't reach up to
expectations listen to what we're saying no i'm gonna do that to both of them
the no the bad games weren't bad like james hardens were bad
they just weren't amazing because he's not that guy anymore
i'm not giving him an f you understand like that's why
that's crazy too i need you to i need you to understand
i believe in the clippers and they made me look huge i
I hate them right now.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
I hate them right.
Fair enough.
Okay?
Fair enough.
I try to give them grace and they backstab me like this.
So never again.
Never again.
Yeah.
And again,
I mean,
they lost a tough seven game series to a team that has insane lock-in.
We're going to talk about the nuggets.
After the break,
obviously talk about them.
I have so much good things to say about the state of the current
different nuggets and how much they prove this wrong in the coaching regard,
on the locking regard, the defense regard.
We'll see how game six goes.
We're going to, like I said, react to that after.
We have a last name, really.
Cade, 25, 8, and 8, shot 17% from 3 for the series, 5.3 turnovers per game,
ha, 49% on twos, only 54% at the rim.
Ha, goddamn.
To me, it was a typical welcome to the playoffs game.
We know Cade is not the most efficient guy in the world and doesn't have the most help in the world.
So you get to a playoff environment.
It was kind of expected.
All those things would really be made to be a lot of pressure under those things.
The heat would be turned up.
You'd have to see him really, really, really,
turn up to the level to make up for that.
And, you know, spoiler, before the series started, I said Nixon 5 because I was like,
that's not going to happen.
You're going to see a welcome to the NBA playoffs more for Kate Cunningham.
It's kind of what this was.
I think it's just a slightly worse version of who he was in the playoffs.
And that's going to happen when you place an elite, elite defense is a lot to learn.
No surprises here for me.
What's your overall read on him?
I would say B plus just because.
Ooh, that's high.
The numbers weren't great.
He had a lot of impact on all of those games.
I think he played, I do think he played better than what the numbers suggest.
And that's his whole thing.
He has good control over the game, his playmaking.
He's never going to be efficient.
So he's always going to be better to the eye test than he has to the numbers.
And that's kind of the conundrum that you have to get past because the numbers do matter.
So that's always the balance you got to strike is keep those numbers up because you know your intangibles control of the game.
Playmaking is going to be top tier.
If you get the efficiency, you get the turnovers to match, that's how you become a top 10 player.
There's only so much you can believe in intangibles, though, to the point to where like you can't avoid seeing.
that 17% from three.
I mean, but he's running with Tobias Harris and like as, he had okay spacing.
I mean, no, but I mean, I'm saying like Tobias Harris in a playoff series, we know what that
has generally like brought upon.
And so we had, that's not something that we've never necessarily like believed in.
And the, we've talked about the rules the whole time.
The Knicks Piston series, I think, was that and the warrior series, those two were the most
physical series out of all of them.
Yeah. And so I think like, I think like, like you said, the eye test, watching those, watching
those games, Cade was the one where you could, you could feel him still dictating, even if the
shot wasn't going, still being a threat on every single play. So I'm going to give him a little
bit of credit for that. If you do want to knock him for something, it would be, hey, you're playing,
you are running these pick and rolls and car athlete towns is right there. Why are your
number not amazing? You know, like that could, that could be something that you could point to.
He could tell me, and I'd be like, okay, fine.
But I still want to give him just a little bit more, more credit for the way that he played.
Yeah, I think C plus or B minus is fine.
Like, C plus if we're gauging, like, the actual performance, but you do it to keep
mind, you grade everybody to their expectations.
This isn't a good performance for a lead guard.
And so this is a similar conversation to the Pallow thing we're talking about.
They're not amazing performances for what you want to win a series, but I guess you gave
Pallow credit for this.
I'll give okay credit for this.
It's about process and, you know, actually, never mind.
this isn't palace first time there my bad but this is Kay's first time there we have to keep
that in mind that there is a learning curve this roster is here they overperformed there have
veterans in the building they got themselves the competency it's not like a ready made playoff
roster to go toe to toe with great teams that teams that are capable of beating the Celtics at
that like in context I can see B minus for everything but I think we walked away like with this
from this series knowing we already knew this coming into the playoffs but we walked away knowing
like he still has like some things in his
game that he needs to address, whether it be some aspects of his scoring, or, like,
how he gets his shot off specifically. That's always been a thing throughout the entirety of
his career. So I'm okay with giving him like a C-plus. Yeah. In the regular season, he's found ways
to kind of make up for the lack of explosion at the rim. He's never going to be an elite rim finisher,
which is pretty important for a lead ball handler. You kind of have to be to be like a top-tier player.
He made up for that by having a really good in-between game, having the post-ups, having the hook shots,
the running floaters,
all that stuff that he does
in the short mid-range area
and the three-point shot
was really strong this year.
That's what made it all come together.
His off-the-dribble three
was great.
It was a weapon for him.
When you shoot 17% from three,
everything's going to fall apart.
It really boils down to that.
The other scoring,
the twos weren't great
because he had to try to force it
because the threes weren't respected.
That's the OG and the Ninobe style
right there.
You think it's that?
Okay, fair enough.
I mean, I can't.
Okay.
So yeah.
C plus.
That feels fine.
Yeah, I agree.
He didn't do horrible,
but you have a ways to go as you'd expect
Yeah, yeah for sure
And with that being said, that's the first part of the show
We're gonna take it out three other players
To rank as well, or to grade
Memphis Grizzies, being talked about them at all
On purpose
We gotta talk about them just for at least one second
Three players on the Grizzles
We're wearing two on the Grizzlies
I got your mind
Two players on the Grizzlies
And then we, I think we forgot to grid
Also Jalen Brown
Okay, Jalen Brown
Which of Jalen Brown grade
I mean, see
He's had really good moments
and other moments where his leg looks wet.
So I'm going, I'm just going to see.
I think something that could, I would agree with you.
I think something that I could see elevating my game or my grade for Jam Brown is seeing
how he's going to operate without Tatum.
The playmaking that he was able to get off during that last game.
Man, I'm giving that.
Kind of moves me.
If they're able to extend it to fucking seven game series, hey man, shout out.
Shout out to Jaylor.
Shout out to Jay and Brown for everything he did in game five.
That game.
Shout out Luke Cornyette for real.
And shout out my homie, my sunshine, Derek White.
Because Derek White was out here hooping.
In game five.
But overall in the series, I'm getting at a time.
John Moran and J.
and Jaron Jackson.
Jaron Jackson, he deserves the loudest F ever.
I think he shot 37% from the field.
He made only three, three-pointers in the series that lasted four games.
he only put up a total of three assists and 11 toners for the entirety of the series.
That is one of the worst thinkers that I've ever seen from an all-star player ever, ever, ever.
He deserves an F.
Tough.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, I don't have much to say to defend him.
It wasn't great.
Part of that is also John Moran got hurt, so Jaronne got increased responsibility as a series went on.
They just got blitz so hard.
And, you know, they blew those big lead, that big lead in that one game was that.
game three they did the big lead yeah i think that's the game jow was hurt yeah the game he went
out they blew the big lead game four they got stomped actually no game four they they fought
and it was closer than you would have thought without jaw that's why jaw was like we figured
him out yeah but nevertheless john moran's kind of hard to grade because he had two games and
once again got injured what do you do what do you do with that the uh incomplete yeah it's like
jarias garland i have no sample size of note to take away from this yeah that's why i wasn't
I can put them on here.
We forgot, whatever.
I wish I could say something more positive.
Two and a half games doesn't tell you much about anything.
Yeah, I give them a D just overall incomplete, for sure.
Incomplete assignment is the best way to look at it.
No.
And as that being said, we're going to take a break right now and we're going to come back.
Yeah, you're getting ahead of yourself.
Put that shit down.
We're not doing that yet.
Oh, you're right.
We're going to take quick break.
You guys are going to see us about six and a half, seven hours from now
because it give you guys a reaction to game six.
of the OKC Thunder versus Devere Nugget series.
Y'all, you will not see me towards the second half of this.
Taking us back home to Atlanta.
Shout out to the State Farm Arena.
Trae Young ain't been able to do it.
Al Horford wasn't able to do it.
My name will be on those rafters.
I'll see you guys.
Doubt.
Well, God damn, Julian Strother.
All right.
That's how you have a legacy role player game.
It's about time.
All of these games have been decided.
And this whole series has been defined by
The Star isn't stepping up
This star is playing like trash
Why doesn't Julian Strother do something about it
And he did tonight
Save the Nugget season
Wow
We're recording this like you told you guys earlier
Right after the game ended
Game 6 just ended it's 1020 20
Whoa what did I just say
It's 1022 PM
And we now have a game 7 on our hands
The Denver Nuggets pull it out
Defend their home court
Forced game 7
And you know
this is typically what you see.
It's what the Boston Celtics did just now
when they almost face elimination against the Knicks.
These guys aren't going outside, and they did not.
They executed that offense in the second half to perfection.
Oh, my goodness.
Man, there's so many things to talk about
when he comes to what we witness within this game.
But I guess, like, the biggest talking point right now,
like you said, should be Julius Strothan.
And then, of course, we're going to, like, dive into grading the Nicole Yolkett Shea
and Jadub and all that.
Yeah, so, yeah, like you said,
The topic of this episode is Grading the Stars.
Cats going crazy.
So we can start.
We can frame it through that.
Shaked Los Alexander came out, had a great game.
He finished with 30, I think, or over.
30.
Exactly 30.
And he's the only one.
He's the only one that had a great game.
Jalen Williams.
My God.
Jalen Williams for great tonight.
F minus.
Leg was wet.
Jailin Williams, man.
Last year of the playoffs,
a big talking point.
why they lost, this man was not ready to be a second option.
You know, for all the strengths he has defensively,
the half-course shot creation has always been an issue.
Who has it been an issue or was it an issue tonight?
He played absolutely horribly.
So before we get to, I guess, the grading,
they lost this game because in the second half,
they started off shooting two for 17 from three.
Their offense completely fell apart because they just didn't make shots at all.
And the Nuggets played fantastic.
The role player stepped up.
Jamal Murray played great through the sickness.
Julian Shross, like we talked about made threes.
They just got out shot in the second half.
I feel like this is the most simple of all the losses.
Yes, I agree.
It feels like David Adelman found the Michael Porter Jr. insurance.
He found the Russell Westbrook insurance, and he's been trying to look.
He's been force-feeding guys like Payne Watson, Jr., and Payne Watson, and also, really, that's it.
Christian Braun has, like, offensive weapons.
He's been constantly looking for that fourth guy to rely on consistently.
four minutes. And this night, Aaron Gordon had a horrific game. Jamal Marie played well. Yokins did
Yokic things, of course, but usually, like, that's the tell-tale story. Who is that other
extra guy? And I saw on, I saw the stat during the game that said that Russell Westbrook
leads all bench players in points coming off of the bench for the playoffs, which is cool stuff.
But he was horrendous this game. He was just running around as if he was a bodybuilder who just
learned about the sport of basketball two days ago. You seen that clip of, uh,
Ashton Hall, just like shooting a wab, shooting a basketball,
and then eating a watermelon.
That felt like Russell Westbrook tonight.
Just like big and just like shooting around, bro.
This is so charged.
This big black dude just running around eating watermelon all day.
Mike's a watermelon part, bro.
Got nothing to lose.
He just looks big to shoot around, bro.
That's who.
No, this game was actually, if you think about yes, like Nuggets fans are going to look back
on this and they're going to say,
it's the Julian Strava game about time we got something from from him and from our bench cool
if you look at it just like aside from that this game the thunder should be ashamed that they lost
because you had you had a sick Jamal Murray you had like like well said Russell Westbrook
who was pretty bad for a majority of the night you had a Nuggets team that they came out
they gave a very very valiant first punch in the first quarter okay see took very very
good control of this game in the second quarter and threw it all away in the last three
minutes and then from that moment on they couldn't do anything all even on top of the fact that
their threes weren't falling they were making especially in the third quarter they were making
boneheaded mistakes yeah they weren't finishing layups right they were they were just out of
out of control they weren't in sync the entire game and so to have all of those things go in your
favor where and also to have a good shade game right there were a lot of things that could have
worked in their favor that should have led to them closing out this series, and they just didn't
get it done.
Yeah.
I think as soon as the Denver Nuggets went up to one, I still had faith that Thunder would
win, but I immediately was like, it's going to go game seven.
You're not going to close out three games in a row against the Nuggets at home on their
home court, which everyone knows is the best home court advantage in the NBA.
I feel like this game to me is more about the Nuggets having a Nuggets game.
Like this is the first game that they wire to wire with the better team because their
offense executed.
They had almost 90 points in the third quarter.
in most of these games they're being locked up by this thunder defense that's obviously like going to be a legendary defense they got their game off today you know they have the home court advantage the role player step up as you typically see if i'm a nuggets fan this is the first night of the series i feel really good about their chances to win the series because obviously we'll see what happens when you get back to okay c we'll see if the thunder have it in them with ice in their veins to close it out but they're at home and for most of the series every game the thunder had played better at home than the nuggets it did except for the game one they lost at home because we talk about it lane we've
Mark Dagnol choked.
Yeah, even that game, they played better.
Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Thunder have been better at home every single game.
They just lost one because Mark Dagonel did the stupidest thing in the world.
But outside of that, I think that Thunder have maintained good momentum.
If you want to find optimism as a Nuggets fan, this is the night to have it
because their offense was clicking despite the great defense.
And obviously, like we said, the Thunder, just their shot making fell off a cliff in the fourth quarter.
That tends to happen.
They do not have the best high-libered shooters.
If they have an Achilles heel, aside from Jade of,
it is the fact that some of these guys can be streaky shooters.
If you have go momentum with your offense and the Nuggets and you know those guys can piss on their legs sometimes
I'd feel decent if I was a Nuggets fan.
Bro, yeah, I agree with you.
Every Nuggets fan should be Joyce right now because it now feels like they legitimately have a chance to go further than what we all thought.
And that's because, again, going back to the Julian Strathaway thing, like not to harp too much on him,
but I'm harping on the fact that they legitimately have another option, another guy that they could probably rely on now.
Of course, game seven, I think that the, okay, so we'll probably.
make adjustments and learn to stay stay at home a lot more at him now that he's showcasing his
three-point shooting abilities but this is another option nonetheless that you have back then
throughout the entirety of the series and hell of playoff postseason really like they've been
capped to only six guys maybe seven guys depending on how you feel about pain wants him
yeah i'll see i'll see i'm a little nervous we'll see it's one game with strathar
i'm not going to act like he's blowing the series open exactly he's not we'll see it's about
the margins and he just added in a little
extra wrinkle which is important.
When we were watching the game I was saying it's
feel like it's been a while that we've seen one of these vintage role
player games. This happened all the time.
Honestly, this game is like
such a quintessential like
playoff game. Yeah. It checks the boxes.
Home team facing elimination. They lost two in a row.
They don't want to go outside three in a row. They even
had the best player. They obviously play well at home.
The role players step up. They stayed
themselves off elimination, give themselves another
night to fight to win the series. That happens all
the time. Role players like Julian
instructor giving you nothing and then winning you a game happens all the time and we're talking about
remind me back from grant williams one of the Celtics that series of that game and like was that 22 or
something yeah i think against the bucks he had 27 in a random games i think was a game six actually too
it was it was a game seven three's in a game seven yeah that that's how this felt like this happens
in the playoffs all the time this is the first one of this season i think i can't think of another
that's what you need that's how you win playoff series especially when you're not the better team
you need guys to step up and give you a game that's exactly what this was and now we get to a game
seven and I'm I'm worried obviously because of the inherent winter girl home nature of game
seven but also because and this was another thing that we talked about during the game is like
I understand why the thunder go and why they operate with their two big lineup specifically
playing against yokech yeah but there's so many times I'm like eh like I just I just want to
see chat at the five I'd rather you just have him and then four of your wings and four of your
shooters and really, really lean on the strength of your team, which is these, these guards,
these wings that can do everything defensively, that can provide spacing.
And you just haven't seen that.
And so because of that, like when their offense gets really, really in the mud,
if that happens in game seven, there's literally no margin for error.
So I'm like, I hope for their sake that J-Dub, and he will because he played awful
tonight.
He'll play better than what he did tonight.
but like this isn't his first bad game of the series
it's not it's not but I
I mean I guess again like bet the
for me just saying better the bars in the floor I'm a
I don't feel I still feel solid
I mean I this going seven
obviously in the beginning I thought I was going to be
okay C in six once they lost a couple
games got down it's okay it's going to go seven right
they're going to win it's going to be in seven they're not going to win three
in a row against the thunder so I'm going to get some nuggets
so I don't feel horrible about the
okayC chances but you know
we said this when they were down to one
you got to show you have championship
merit. These are the moments that define championship runs. If you want to be that level of
team, you have to win with adversity. And a lot of championship teams are in this scenario where
they're at home in a game seven have the ability to close it out. Sometimes the team as a best
player, you just got to perform and play to your level. TBD, right? In a game seven, if any series
I go seven, any team can win. Because to win three games on both, clearly you're close enough
for whatever reasons that any team can win. It's just, are they going to execute? So with that
being said with what we know now
starting with okay C
how do you which player do you want to grade first
oh let's do Shea okay
very good game tonight
I'll give so again back to the main
core of this episode grading every team's entire
playoff performance not just tonight
I'll give Shay a B minus
overall
he's trending up now he's had a few good games in a row
there's been some learning curves for him
because like we talk about
when we started this episode we mentioned the fact that
the playoffs have been insanely different this year
and how every team is allowed to foul the shit out of the opposing star
and they're letting things go.
That conversation was really based around Yolkits and Shea.
This is the whole reason we've been mentioned that throughout.
Shea is getting defended so insanely aggressively.
They're allowed to clobber him, and same with Yokic.
Both these teams are throwing the most exotic, crazy coverages you could imagine.
The way they're going to the lengths to double team Shay.
From speaking of a scene before, exotic.
It really is.
Like the way they're throwing these double teams, not to say we'd ever seen it before, but it's extreme.
and we haven't seen in quite a few years
in this version of the NBA
where they're allowed to do that
with the level of aggression they are
and that threw Shea off completely
to start the series.
He had some rough games,
some rough fourth quarters
where trying to balance
his driving game
with this newfound aggression
with these double teams
and then trying to balance that
with being a good passer
and making reasons necessary
against these extreme doubles
didn't go too well for him
and I think we saw
the reason the series isn't over
is because he struggled
in a few of these games
it's trending upwards now
but I think we've seen some humps that he has to get over
and he has getting over them as we speak
you know this was a good game like we said
but it's been a mixed back so I think overall
for his MVP level standards
be minus feels fair I like that
I like that rating because a lot of people
it's been so feel so far away now
but in that Memphis Grizzies series
of course okay see dog got them like they should have
but She didn't have a Shea game really
well he did he had like a singular Shea game
but overall throughout the entire series
who was struggling with his shots
in the defense at the Memphis
this grisies were throwing at him and that struggle has waned away as time gone on because
he's starting to slowly and truly figure things out but still overall it has been rough and he
hasn't been one of the he hasn't been like the guy in the playoffs like he has been the guy for
the entirety of the regular season the efficiency and all that naturally is going to drop off for
everyone that's normal but when it comes to like you said like all the in between things to figure
out when it comes to passing which has always been like a weakness for him naturally in my mind
he's he's not that we it's been on the squadron report since he was in fucking high school
and to see these he's developed a lot but in the playoffs these things just get heightened especially
when he comes to the type of team that okayc is and how they are limited when it comes to
actual offensive game deciders yeah you know uh his rim philgal percentage dropped from
70% the regular season at 61 and that's the same thing that happened last year's playoffs right
these teams are selling out on him the thing you're not going to let you slash and he's
responded by killing teams from the mid-range before this game that happened that obviously
the stats aren't updated he's averaging 28 7-7 on 51% effective field goal percentage because he's
shooting 48% from the mid-range so he's still getting that off but the slashing's taken away
if they're going to do that and they're going to really just pack the pain on you in a very
I guess you can say a simple way right they're just saying we're going to help and you're
going to have to beat us with a shot or pass he has to kill you with the passing and he hasn't
done that consistently yeah it feels weird for a guy that has six 30-point games in this post
season to be like, yo, you play pretty disappointing throughout this run, but it is what it is.
And it's like he set a standard for himself this season and even last and even last year
throughout, you know, these two runs where you have been one of the most consistent scores.
Everyone has talked this year about how this is one of the best, you know, guards scoring seasons
that we've ever seen.
And now, like those first two games against, against Memphis, yes, I can kind of throw them away
because they dogwalked him, but also, I mean, you also didn't play well.
He got better as every game in that series went on.
But here we are.
And it still doesn't feel like we've had like the Shea moment in these.
Something that a lot of people haven't, they're not going to see it because of the timing of how we sectioned this off or whatever.
But something that you said earlier or later in the episode, Isaac, is we're grading these guys based off of their expectation.
She has an entirely different expectation.
This is the end of the episode.
Oh, okay, cool.
She has an entirely different level of expectation
than any other player in this list outside of Janus
and someone like Yolkich.
Yeah, and I think it's also important that he's not,
so you said he's at 60, 30 point games,
why isn't their dominant single game?
I think it's important to the context that we mentioned.
They're not letting him get crazy games off like that.
Like they're selling out to defend him.
It is two, sometimes three bodies thrown to him every time.
Sometimes it's like if he gets caught in an island
and he's isolating against MPJ,
whatever, Christian Brown comes over on the nail and just wax them.
Like, it's so aggressive and so dramatic of a defense.
Shout out David Adelman.
He's had coach a great defensive series.
People will look at this and say, why aren't you dicing up this Nuggets defense?
This Nuggets defense is defending so much higher than you would think given their, like what
they showed us in the regular season.
What they were whenever they fire Mike Malo.
And their talent on paper, both those things.
Because one, Yokich just had a great defensive series because the way they're deciding to
pack the paint, Yokich and his ability to play the passing lanes in the paint is like,
the actual skill he's really good at that
and on top of that too something that's really
impressive with yokes is his ability
to just be big and absorb
any impact that players who are coming
downhill like jade up are trying
to like do yeah yeah he's
he's bad at rotating he's a stationary inside
the paint guy camping out he's huge in his good
hands that's an advantage and then erin gordon
same thing this team is very
well equipped for this exact type
of defense that's the reason they're selling out so hard
on it to take away shee
there's other teams have better defensive personnel
won't be quite as equipped to do this specific style of defense.
So I don't even think it's like,
oh, you should dice up this better defense.
They're just saying somebody else got to dice us up.
And I guess we can transition to J-dub who has to be the one
to dice them up because they're selling out so hard on Shea.
And he gets a stinking D for this playoff run so far.
He has not been particularly good, especially offensively.
If he was good tonight, the series would be over.
Or maybe not because the Nuggets played well.
But this game would have came down in the fourth quarter.
He played so unbelievably poorly.
And this is not the first game.
He had this type of stinker.
every question you had around J-Dib
after Lashers' playoffs,
he's giving you every reason
to keep asking it.
That's not good.
It's not good.
Yeah, that's obviously not good.
It's a great defender.
Offensively.
I think part of the reason
that Shays and win MVP
is because you look at this roster
and he carries the offense
creation so hard,
J-Dob should be a third option,
not a second option.
That's kind of the reality.
He's not consistent enough.
When you have an inconsistent second option,
sometimes he does stuff like this.
It's not, hasn't been pretty.
Can you imagine OKC boozes
in game seven. Sam Pressy has a meltdown and just goes ahead and decides to trade everything
for Yannis, Jadov, including. I think it might more likely be Kevin Durant and Jadab's out of here.
That might be more likely. That would be a great fit. I would, bro, I've wanted nothing more than
a KD reunion back to O KC to complete what this team is missing and has been missing over the last two
years. Yeah. I think if they lose game seven, I think, I understand that they want to stand pat,
but like if you lose game seven, it will be clearly, I think, oh, but we can't tell the future.
but it'll probably be counting for this game too because your second option isn't good enough
and for that what is your grade for zeta yeah i mean probably a d you know like it's it's the
it's the same thing we we had him as the x factor because if he came out and answered all the
questions that we had we're looking at this team they are stamped one of the best teams ever
they are cruising to to a championship the way that the that the bracket has broken out right now
it is so wide open
and with the Knicks potentially
getting to the conference finals
if the Celtics come back and win this series
they're gonna go on without Jason Tatum
the Pacers are there in the conference finals
waiting on the other side.
Then you have the Tim Wolves
who yes they won in five
we've been said.
They have not looked crisp
all series long.
And then you have Denver
who on any given night
can have a game like this
but they also have to rely on
Julian Strather to come in and give
you 15 minutes you have to hope that you are locked in with russell westbrook so the thunder are
at least on paper and on resume the best team remaining yeah they should walk to a championship
it's not like that they might get bounced out in the second round because everybody else that
needs to step up and help shade whenever you know you are selling out and doing all that stuff
they're not doing it triple d we are fucking locked in because i'm giving j wd as well this game was
so perfectly served in like a platter for him to showcase that
like yeah, he's a legitimate second option who can help Shagos Alexander whenever he is in the
mud with his shot, which he wasn't, or in this case scenario today that happened, he was in file
trouble and I think he had like four files before halftime even started or something or something like
that, which is ridiculous. And so to see J to do things like smoke the easiest of bunnies ever
because of the lack of, I don't know, his body control in midair and not necessarily like learning
the mastering the artist slowing down when you're in the room after.
you like gain so much acceleration or fucking hell i think it was fourth quarter we've seen him like
smoke smoke a dunk he missed he missed two fast break possessions one he tried to cut off payton watson's
body and do some fancy shit where he you know it's a typical thing you see in transition he
block him off so they can't contest it well without fouling he went too far timed it horribly
Peyton watson blocked him from the back again in the fourth quarter similar situation he just
smokes a dunk bounces out the back of the rim just not his night in this in this series here's
shooting five for 20 six for 11 11 of 21 those are the two like solid games then last three games
two for 13 five for 14 tonight he was three of 16 and he's defended extremely well he's done that
extremely well he's an amazing defender yeah does not matter when you have so much offensive
responsibility like him and shay are literally the only office of creators you have which is a roster
flaw like that's not good but you know when you have the all-time great defense part of that because
the j-dub you win more often than you not but against a team like the nuggets
They're just so disciplined, so good.
You have to perform against them.
It's kind of like a thing against the Pacers
where they don't have a ton of off nights.
You have to play your tip-top level,
especially when you're in Denver.
You just can't afford nights like this
from a guy who has this much responsibility.
It's a roster flaw.
But I do want to say it's not,
this is not one of those like glaring ones.
They had a very, very talented young player
and said, go develop.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so it's like, it sucks that it's played out this way
that you look at it as in, it's like,
ah, you're actually not what we really.
need offensively or you're not at that level at what we need right now but it I don't want
anybody to go back and do revisionist yeah unlike what jada was you know the prospect a year a year
and a half ago he was actually way better early last year offensibly we've talked about this a lot
he put on a lot of weight to be their power forward defensively over the summer and now he's a
fucking tank defensive goon but the offense kind of that's you can kind of see the
correlation there that kind of went the other way. So yeah, I agree. I mean, and also
he's a great player still. So it's not, there's just a lot of responsibility on him that
naturally he has to carry. You know, you're given that role. You get the props if you win.
If you win the championship, you're the second option on that team, good for you. You want
all, you got an all star because this role you're in. So comes to the territory. He has to be
better. So I don't, yeah, I don't think it's some kind of thing where you need to be like,
was this whole experiment, a mistake to rely on him? Yeah. No, you, you have the roster around
you. Everything else is great because you're not putting assets into a second star. So you can
afford to have insane defensive personnel there's give and taken this is what they chose to give
yeah exactly this isn't the worst issue to have in the world okay see like surprise surprise how old is
he's like 22 23 years old yeah a little bit older he was an older rookie he's like 24 i'm like that
24 years old 24 years old not being ready as a 24 year old second option is not the biggest surprise
in the world whatsoever yeah now again that's how people doubted them that's why if you if you want
a reason why somebody was going to say they're not going to the championship they would point to
what you just said and you guys know i i feel like i'm i'm going to just
so bad on them clearly so but you can obviously understand jdub specifically i've never said that
you shouldn't doubt jdub i said i'm willing to bet they're going to be great because the defense
because i believe in shay and everything else around that but jadub was clearly something you can
doubt so it's not entirely surprising you would have hoped that after last year he comes out
and performs better just because you know you got to hope you got to perform in the day it's about
execution motherfucker's not executing twice in a row in the second round what are you going to do exactly
you're going to train him for kevin doris yeah i guess so so yannis come on but i still feel decent
I'm not panicking yet
as somebody who obviously
wants to see the O'KC Thunder win
I feel fine about game seven
How do you feel about
Nicola Yokich in his performance so far?
Another one I'm talking about.
This is similar to Shea
that the whole basis of this episode
is to have some dialogue
around Shea and Yokic's performance
and their bad games
and the context that these are coming in
because he obviously game won
had 40 points
and was goddamn dominant 40 and 20
I said they won that game
because Mark Dagnon sold at the end
also they were in the position
to take advantage of Mark Dagnon's
selling because Yokic was a god amongst men in game one.
And then game two, three, and four, I guess, are the worst three-game stretch of
Nicole Yokage's career.
He played absolutely terribly.
The OKC defense gave him hell.
They just refused to let him touch the ball.
They were constantly breaking up the entry passes with a ridiculous amount of primitive
defenders that are good at that specific skill.
They did a good job with the double bigs of not letting him get an easy touch.
Insane defense.
They were fouling the shit out of him in the same way the nuggets are fouling the shit at a
but in the last two games he's really walking up and gone back to Yokocha's standards so similar
to Shea up and down his heights are ridiculous the lows they they lost some games because
he was so bad what do you grade that overall a minus I think like if we're grading the whole
playoff run because he was great in the clip series too yeah yeah and so he was fantastic in there
and I mean we've seen you know last year you go back to the Tim Wolves and you see a team like
Minnesota who has just a lot of big bodies and they're able to contain Yokage and now you
even have a better defensive team in terms of everything that that you have with Hardinstein
with Chet to go in it and guard and guard Yokids.
Now, should he have been as bad as he was?
Absolutely not.
But one, there's a baseline level of just how much he has to carry for this team that
like you get a little bit of credit.
And also last game, you can.
got like 40 points again.
Come crazy.
Same thing tonight.
Diamond people up.
He finishes one shy of 30.
Like, he's still Yokic.
And so I'm giving him an A minus for the run.
Yeah.
I like that grade perfectly fine.
I think with the mountains that he's had continuously had to climb, allows him to not have any to, like any real, any real error in his game whatsoever.
Nobody's talking about his defense.
The defense is completely fine.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, one of the.
most impressive things about is even specifically in this series too like i think i said it earlier
is his ability to absorb contact and try his best to get to the spot that has that is the
offensive player is trying to get to first sometimes it's cooked but other times it's for the most
part it's panned out pretty well and that's why teams aren't necessarily able to successfully
pick on yokech for the most part and i i i 100% agree i give him a as well for what he did
during the clipper series a 40 point games of course put up 13 16 7
team in the most horrific efficiency of his career.
But considering, like, the amount of task that's put onto his shoulders and the small amount
of error from margin as well, he's given the, he's given one of the toughest tasks in the
entire NBA, I give him a.
Yeah, I mean, listen, he went to game seven and clutched up and beat the second best team
of the second half of the season in the Western Conference and the Clippers.
They're number two in that rating.
Or actually, I think they were one for the second half of the season.
And now he's in game seven with the 68 win team.
Yeah.
Obviously, this team is not deep.
revolves around Yokic and he's pushing
potentially the two biggest threats out West
besides his team, two seven games
will see if he wins both.
It's despite the lack of production
for those three games,
we're winning him what could be a miraculous run.
If he beats the Thunder and goes through Clippers,
Thunder and gets to the final.
Brother, that's a generation run.
If they fired the coach and the GM,
nine games before the end of the team,
and you get to the finals.
Oh my God.
These are nasty conversations
we're going to be having about
I'm going to say
I still think the Thunder will win
Yeah
Again I said it on the stream
Last week
Earlier this week
If the Thunder lose
It'll be the biggest disappointment
Of modern NBA history
To have a team be
One of the five
Most dominant regular season
Teams ever and losing the second round
Point blank it is
Maybe number two
Besides the 3-1 Warriors
The biggest disappointment
Of our lifetimes in the NBA
That won't be exaggerating
To say that
The Thunder will have deserved
All the blame for that
So if you're watching this
Three days from now and the Thunder Blow at Game 7,
cook them.
It is one of the worst appointments of all time.
It'll be deserved.
And after they cook them,
cook him.
You have to.
You have to.
You'll have to.
And I'll have to understand
because that means they are complete failures.
I'll have to just take it.
We got all.
But with that being said.
We said the same thing as you.
You just said it first.
But with that being said,
if that happens,
not only our OKC Thunder
is one of the biggest failures,
Yoki just fucking go at it.
That's a top five player of all time.
You leave me here with something.
That's what you're saying.
He does that.
Oh my God.
If Yokish finds a way to win this series,
I'm praying he wins the finals.
I'm praying he sees it through
because that's like a 2011 Dirk run,
but even better.
You have gone through just as good a competition
with more turmoil, less help.
If, again, obviously I want Thunder to win.
I don't want to be yelled that for a summer.
Yeah.
But if it happens, I'm glad it's Jokic.
That'll be miraculous.
I'm glad it's him if it happens.
I hope he keeps on going because it'll be crazy.
Yeah, man.
I agree.
It's hilarious.
Yeah, we'll see because I think game seven
is going to be on Saturday.
So we'll stream on Tuesday
You guys will be able to see
You really be able to laugh at me
And I'll have to listen
Or we're gonna say
Yok it you did your thing
But this team in blue is different
This is a crazy series man
This is if this field
I tweeted the other day
It's on Sunday game seven is on Sunday
Oh it's on Sunday Sunday
Sunday
This Sunday is literally
I'm sorry
Why do they keep doing this man
Why is game seven at
At 2.30 in the afternoon
3.30 east?
Well at least there's two days off
time before it was one day off that's what you which is yeah that was insane it's it's why at the
same time put this thing at 630 at night and let's call it a day I agree this is this is a classic
this right here is this feels like final this is a finals worthy ask type game these are the two
best teams that's left in the NBA in my opinion right now they probably do that because they
have to um Tuesday has to start the second round I mean third round so they probably do it early
day as possible so the winning team got as much rest as possible let me see this let me see
Tuesday's schedule.
Nope, no, well, no game schedule for Tuesday, but whatever.
Lame.
Anyways, 2.30 is egregious.
But, but, yeah, they, if they can, they can pull this off, it would be, it would be amazing.
And it's, it's one of those, it turns into one of those things where it becomes myth.
And we're going to be, you know, we're going to be those old dudes, like, you don't understand, like, the term world that Denver was going through.
And Yonucut's let him out of this.
With that being said, if the.
OkCCy Thunder fucking fold this hard
and losing the second round
and then the Nuggets
losing the next round
and there's no history made
because of it I'll be pissed
I'll be pissed
there'd be some people
There's a young man from Atlanta
who is ready
to ruin your summer
I would also like to see Anthony Edwards
that would also be a cool outcome
if he went to championship
yeah but like if this ends with like
the Nuggets losing
in the conference finals
like the next win the championship
I'll be pissed
this happens with the Pacers
beating the T-WO I'll be pissed
oh I'll be pissed
Oh, my God.
It would also be cool to see most.
He seems win.
Like, Halliburton victory left would also be cool.
Yeah, it's an NBA champion for sure.
It wouldn't be cooler than Yokic backpacking this hard.
NBA champion.
Emmerz NBA Cup champion.
Keep the fucking.
Oh, we're getting, we're stacking about all of their career.
I'm just saying he's stacking up trophies.
Do you know how much static is going to be put on someone like Sam Presti for the lack of moves that he made during the trade deadline?
I'm speaking specifically towards like the Cam Johnson thing.
Yeah.
so much pressure is going to be on his
Oh yeah Joe Andrew Wiggins is one for six
tonight that didn't help either
And to get Cam Johnson
They would have to trade Andrew Wiggins and Isaiah Joe
Andrew Wiggins?
Aaron Wiggins
Obviously come on
You know what I meant
I know I was like
Come on but he was on track
Yeah
And listen some of these
If they had something more reliable
hitting these threes
It would have made a difference in these games
The fuck happened on Isaiah Joe
He just hasn't got a lot of run
He just disappeared bro
I saw him with the court
I was like oh shit
This player dropped
This is what happens.
Titan rotation.
You can't, you, it's very hard to play 10 guys in a playoff service.
Okay, so who's in a win?
A hundred predictions.
You guys know where I'm rocking with.
Who's in a win?
I'm going to win.
Man.
I've been swayed.
I think, yeah, I've been swayed.
I think Yokic has, you know, figured things out.
Everything's fine.
The role players have played better at home in every game of the series.
Stay true to the adage.
Shout to you.
I'm going with the nuggets.
Game 7 is toast so tough, man.
Naturally, I would want to lean towards O KC.
side my brain tells me okay see because just logically makes more sense everyone's going to be
juiced up for the game um lu doris gonna play better j dub especially should be should be fucking
playing way better i just don't know if denver has enough answers and optionality for what's for
the like storm that's when it happened damn oh leudor hit threes today by the way yeah after
after going a month and a half not hitting any threes on the road he hit uh one in the previous
game and he hit two today yeah he figured it out y'all he forgot i had to make threes on
the road mind you he was two for seven
he was two for seven hey two for seven
better than none man ludor give us and ludor
take it the way I'm moving towards Nicole
Yokich but Ludo's going to be at home now
they won last game to see at three in the fourth quarter
home court Ludoort is different
I'm not even joking by the same
home court Ludo is different I know you're not I know you not
I'm leaning with the all time player in Nicole
Yokits right now I'm leaning with all time player and Shagio to
Alexander how about that
he's going to be all time
I know I'm kidding okay obviously
obviously I trust Yokchich before more but
But, yeah, I mean, OTCC has shown us zero games where they play poorly at home.
Yeah.
Their shitters have all been on the road.
And that makes sense with Denver having such a good home court advantage.
I say I feel 65% confident that OKC closes it out.
That's a fair amount.
The fact that this series is even in seven is still just like.
Shout out the Nuggets either way.
What are we doing here, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, OKC trolled a few games, but also shout out the Nuggets, man.
I again, whenever they fired their coach, they felt dead in the water.
Yes.
And it wasn't just, they locked in, they sat up, they got the controller.
Even if they lose game seven, I don't care.
This has been a great performance.
Like, not only is it like always a red flag to fire your coach, I would say, actually,
never mind.
I said always.
It's never happened before.
So not only is it a red flag to fire your coach.
Two weeks prior.
Two weeks prior, I think it was like less than 10 games left.
Obviously a tremendous red flag that that alone, that injected turbulence makes you think,
okay well they're cooked right like that can't be good but also the reason he was fired is they were defending so piss poor
the morale was so piss poor their morale is amazing right now they are so locked in it's a better defensive
i could ever imagine everyone's clicking doing their playoff rising stuff offensively that you come to expect
with way better defense than you could have expected when win-lose or draw great performance by the nuggets
it's all about the others man jemal marie has to show up like he did tonight
It's not like
Kendrick Perkins
Really
That's just like the empty adages
They always say on TV
It's fucking makes sense though
Really
It's not wrong
But it's like all right bro
Yeah yeah
He's not wrong
Yeah but it's like what else
People gotta score
You're right
It's true
It's literally like what else
I agree
Yeah
But no that's definitely
What's gonna decide it
The Nuggets need
Like Julian Strother
Blue the door open
As well as the Nuggets
I mean the Thunder
For getting how to shoot
So
Who's in a bulletin
I can't believe
I can't believe
Michael Ford Jr.
years out there playing with like a smoked brisket type shoulder like he hasn't been doing
anything outside of just one dribble pull up spot up listen he was like he airballed the floater
earlier today and we were like what's going on and that was just weird it's also it's all about
surviving in minutes i feel like they're cap it because for the past like week they're like what did
you can't raise his arm a bunch of short i've seen him move the arm like it's you know why
them fucking painkillers
he's out there
he's out of the horse
tranquil out of it
that's why you look his arm
no he's 100%
he's seeing stars
every time he runs
he has medical grade weed
he goes to bed
and he's like
he can't put it to move
his shoulders numb
damn
if that's against for MPJ
what the fuck are they giving
Jamal Murray man
the perks were off
but he can't move his arm
did you see
Jamal Murray on that bench
looks so fucking
pale.
I'm just sick as hell, yeah.
Yeah.
He didn't play like it.
He looked healthy as fuck.
I know.
He was over yawning at the ref and some more shit.
Yeah, man.
There we go.
We've graded every single star players
playoff run so far,
live react to game six
of the best playoff series,
I think, so far.
Especially with this going game seven.
This has been the best playoffs series
so far for my money.
It's time for TikTok time.
I went early.
Crownators,
rejoice!
Welcome
to TikTok time
Larry no
Where'd you go
Back to Atlanta
Hyst successfully completed
It's not your brother to start singing
Accident or I could
I thought it was a musical too
With that being said
We were once again going to start with the draft
And for two weeks of not doing one we are back
Today we can do another team-based draft
Another blind one
I don't know if you guys have been noticing
I can't tell if I mentioned or not
I can't remember
we've been doing it's blind now.
We decide the draft topic right before it starts.
So no prep is available to be taken.
Today, we're drafting teams with only players
who played for the Toronto Raptors.
Fresh off the juice, fresh off the dome.
This is blind.
Off the juice?
What kind of juice are you off?
It's terminology you guys don't understand.
I honestly what you understand it.
Okay, okay.
That being said, you guys know how this works.
Only category is players to play for the Raptors.
From now all we're doing it where you have to pick a specific year
or at least a specific version of that player.
No prime versions.
They have to be in the Raptors uniform.
I got first pick,
Mo got second pick,
Donovan third pick.
Damn.
This isn't even a,
this is a balanced-ass draft.
This isn't even one I'd rather have first pick in.
But with that means,
that let's begin.
First pick overall,
give me 2019,
Kauai Leonard.
Obvious pick.
Got to start with their best player.
Yeah, not a bad pick.
I'd rather be in his position,
but I'll take what I can get.
So for my first pick,
give me the best,
probably the best version of Kyle Larry.
I think he made the All-Star game in 2016 and 2017.
Give me Kyle Lari in 2017.
Okay.
I was not expecting Kyle Lari to go second, but you can have him.
He's one of the greatest raptors of all-time, man.
Fax?
He is.
All-time Raptors.
And that just me?
You just set Domino up for an amazing start.
Jesus Christ.
Now I have buckets on buckets on buckets at my two, Vince Carter.
Okay.
Nice.
And then.
See, this is tough because I don't see, this is actually a tough decision because I'm not 100% sure where I want to go with this.
See, that's why I couldn't let Kyle Liris slip in your hands.
I mean, come on.
I'll get what, the third, fourth, greatest Raptor.
We'll get DeMar de Rosanna through it.
Oh, okay.
Wow.
Buckets on buckets.
Okay.
Damar and Carter is an interesting duo.
I wasn't expecting that.
okay mo who you're going next okay so i can i want to keep it wing guard centric because
they have a whole lot of goddamn bigs and we're honestly like spoils from that perspective
so with that being said team mac was a raptor right he was he was i'm surprised he didn't
pick him over tomorrow yeah go ahead and put team mac at the two i completely forgot up until now
yeah i tomorrow over team mac that was baffling did not expect that
that.
Damn.
Give me Chris Bosch.
How was he still here?
Nice.
And, ooh, don't want to go big or small.
Where should I put Chris Bosch?
We'll go versatile.
I'm going to put him at center.
Okay.
And then give me Pascal Seyakum on Power Forward.
Fuck.
Give me a versatile defender.
Yeah, that's where...
That's where you were going?
Fuck.
Yeah.
I almost took Pascal, but...
Shit.
Most improved players to Seacom.
One of the most underrated players in the NBA consistently.
Got 6-8, 6-9, 6-11.
Start with some size.
Mysai, who Jerry's doing?
Yep.
You know what else is?
Give me another African.
At the power forward spot, give me Sergei Baca.
Okay.
Sergei Blaka.
Clop it up for myself.
Interesting.
Okay, you definitely need the defense, so I've definitely, I see the vision.
And I need a big badly, so at my center, I'll take Marcosol.
Okay.
Yes, and that one year, that first year he was there, special.
It was nice
And then
At my
Where am I going to go here
I'm a point guard
We're taking the version of them on this team
So I will take the version of Fred Van Bleet
But the one
When he had the baby
Right three games after he became a father
So I'm taking father
That's 19 Fred Van Bleet
Okay
Fair enough
Listen they don't have a ton of point guards over the years
That's fair
At my four, give me Scotty Barnes.
Oh, I was going to take him next.
I was going to do something hilarious.
Yeah, give me Scottie Barnes.
You already have your four, you, Serge.
I'm my bad, three.
My bad.
Damn, I wish you didn't do that.
I was going to do something great.
Yeah.
I almost forgot about him too, genuine.
I'm like, who the fuck's on his Raptor scene?
They're so irrelevant right now.
Oh, Scottie.
There you go.
Oh, you don't have backtack picks.
That's a pretty where I'm like, it was good.
What point cresser left?
Listen, man, I can introduce you to the, hey, his go.
What are his homies, the last quiz.
Hey, man.
My homie, that's crazy.
Yeah, one of your own.
I'm a two guard.
I need three and D players.
Give me Danny Green at shooting guard, put together, I'm putting together the 2019 Raptors.
I need a blue guy.
Okay.
And then who?
I can't think of any point guards.
I generally cannot remember any point guards.
Play for the Toronto Raptors outside of Kyle Lari
and Fedman Bleet.
Wait, who else did they have?
Some Emanuel Quickly's there right now.
Yeah, I guess quickly.
I can't think of-
Sheed.
Shed?
Shed, my bad.
Dude, who played point guard before Kyle Lurie?
There was such a depth.
Is there something I'm forgetting?
We're saying forever trying to think of a point-garde?
You got it.
It's not my thing.
I mean, we could talk openly, bro.
I'm trying to, no, I'm trying to think of my four.
Yeah, I'm trying to.
Ooh.
Yeah.
damn okay I can't think of any of the point guards I guess give me a manual quickly
I guess that's gonna take in you guys I forgot about you guys don't need point guards anymore
um I'm right with you I don't I can't think of any point that's why I took
Kyle Lowry so fucking fast because I'm like yo they're stacked when it comes to the wings and the bigger
players I can't suck those guys last saw so I was like there must be people from the early
2010s I mean early 2000s and 90s I can't remember but I really can't remember any other point
guys he forgot about team act too brus so I'm like
No, I think he knew.
I think he picked DeMore over him.
No, yeah, I did.
Oh, really?
No, DeMar had some good years.
I get it.
Oh, yeah, okay.
Like, Pete, if you're not asking him to play LeBron, it's like, that, that version of
tomorrow is very good.
I'm looking at point guards now.
If anything, I completely forgot about Chris Bosch, which is why.
Yeah.
Which is why because I was having a discussion earlier today about how you're not going
to erase Chris Bosch from history.
You know, they have no point cards.
Really?
I don't know.
What are names that you see?
I like, familiar names.
I could pick Lou Williams, I guess.
Yikes.
Point guard wise, Jose Calderone, Damon Stoddemeier.
Yikes.
Yeah.
Oh, he's a Uber.
Wait, it says Chauncey Billow.
So he played there when he was watched.
What's that sound?
I don't know.
Okay.
Anyways.
Okay, at the five, I have a lot of, I got a lot of waste of goes.
There's a noise in the house.
I can either move surge and put them at the five and go small and add even more like
perimeter depth to this team.
Just take good wish.
Why would I do that?
Just do it.
I know what I said earlier when it comes to surge,
but I don't literally mean.
I like diversity on my team.
And what that being said,
I'm doing the exact opposite.
O'Janer and Obi, welcome to the team.
You're at the four,
move Sergei Bock into the five.
Our perimeter defense is nasty.
Don't ask me about size.
Fair enough.
We're African.
We got it in our heart.
You got a well-rounded team.
I see it.
Donovan, who is your power forward to round out this roster?
Man, this seems.
your team really don't suck for real well no I don't have a I don't have a glue guy who
could bring it all together yes you do shit I can think of him right now I ain't saying his name
I'm not taking the hometown guy he's not a hometown guy either I'm blinking
blanking like shit and so what I'm gonna do flashbangs is what I'm gonna do is I'm going to do is I'm going to
just go with buckets on buckets on buckets we're going to put brandon ingram at the
okay he hasn't played a single game there can you even have that that's kind of nasty man
we're saying people that are you picked a version of them on this team we've never seen him
in a new before he's literally never well in photosuits that means you drafted a player who's on
the bench you lose automatically damn you got four guys out there PJ Tucker is right there
oh remember the LeBron stopper he could a glue guy he is the glue guy I dance for him I mean he
He wasn't, like, relevant on the Raptors yet.
He made his career after that.
No, I mean, I mean, you remember they made the in-season trade, like, back in 2016 or 17?
And then he did it.
It was like, oh!
Yeah.
Just for Laurent Frye him into some of the reins.
He became one, like, the goat role players after that with Houston, so I wasn't even thinking about him as a Raptor.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, for audio listeners, I got Emmanuel quickly, Danny Green, Kauai Leonard, Pascal Seacom, Chris Bosch.
I got Kyle Lowry, T.Mack, Scotty Barnes, O.G. Anerobie and Sergey Baca.
Go ahead.
team with your test
All right.
I have
I have
I'm
Loudor I can hear you
I have
NBA finals
Fred Van Bleak
okay
I did clarify
that
uh
Raptors goat
Vince Carter
okay
who's DeMardo
Rosen
uh
what a fucking
atrocious fit
top
top three
all time
dude
dude that
card
and Mark
Ingram is so nasty
how are they
gonna play
this stupid ass
tiby
Gassalin needs
the ball
too
who does
What the fuck?
I have Brandon
Yo, their defense is fried
Holy shit
See how come
I was cooking
Brandon Ingrid
I have Brandon ready to go
Ingram
And Mark
Mr. Memphis Gassall
Dude Mark is gonna be fighting
For his life
In the pain bro
God damn
Well
Well listen
We decided to start doing these blind
We wanted to inject some randomness
God damn
We got some randomness
I have a manual quickly
on my team
Emmanuel quickly you might be the most random player
I looked at it after I was done my team
I don't even think I made a bad pick
I don't know who else think guys
so maybe I end up doing the right choice
but Jesus Christ their point guy room is not deep
Let's wrap this up
Damn
Next thing we're going to do
I'm going to show you two NBA teams
You let me know which one would win
In one game seven
One game seven
One game seven which team is you know
Win or go home
Who are you taking?
All right let's do it
Five Allen Iversons or five Zach Edie's
it's five alan iversons and it's not close i don't think being seven five and having to play
48 minutes of basketball oh he's dead it's too much cardio i'm going with the alan iversons
okay well let's say you have 15 of them let's say it's a bunch let's say the cardio is a factor
you have the depth oh if i've okay then i'm going with zakiis oh so what's more likely is
alan ivers are you going to get out and make zaki d'i run and i'm going to slow it down and they're just
gonna fucking play volleyball over the Alan Iverson said he can't guard him yeah seven five yeah but at the
same time too like Alan Iverson was in those passing lanes we're playing a zone I'm I'm one two
three four we might go a box of one right we might go a box in one with Zach Edie's and you're
gonna have to beat us taking jump shots and I'm taking some five over six one post up all day but
Alan Ars is athletic he might be able to squaring I'm taking Alan Iverson easy bro I'm taking
this is that he can move his feet better than the average
average big, but this is one of the quickest guards of all time.
If it was Yao Ming, I think it would be easy because of it's Zach Edy and
Alan Ierson is so talented and so athletic, I don't know.
See, y'all forget what Zach Edy was doing at Purdue, almost won a national championship
by himself, straight post-ups on six, eight guys.
And we saw with Sangu and Stephen Adams in the playoffs with those rebounds.
We got five of those motherfuckers now.
If Allen and Iverson misses one shot, the game's over.
And guess what?
He's not going to.
Sounds like Zach Ead gets the victory.
Next up, five Ben Simmons or five Clay Thompson's?
Clay Thompson obviously has a shooting.
Prime.
Everyone's in the prime.
So Ben Simmons is going to shackle him.
Clay Thompson can't dribble like that.
The defense of Ben Simmons is crazy.
But he can't shoot.
You're right.
Play time I, time off.
Question, is this game being played on an NBA floor or in an L.A. fitness gym?
NBA floor.
NBA, okay, L.A.
Clay Thompson.
Preseason NBA, though, so there's less pressure.
He still did.
He took one and everyone was like, oh, my God.
They lost their mind, bro.
I'm going Clay Thompson.
Yeah, I guess the shooting, I mean, about the five.
The defense is ridiculous.
It's crazy.
It's like it straight locks everywhere.
So I don't know how Clay will even need.
He don't need any space to shoot, actually.
Think about how much Clay Thompson runs.
Yeah, he has to run off ball.
Five of them.
Nobody drills.
Everyone just runs off ball nonstop.
Just five of them.
They're spinning around.
Duggy shots eventually.
Clay Thompson got it.
Okay, it's Clay.
Okay.
Five Larry Birds or five Magic Johnsons.
See, this question divided America in 1982
And I'm still not sure we have an answer
I mean, if you want to go to the shooting route
Obviously, Larry, the team Larry has more shooting
The team magic though, that seems just fast
These are run in, they're just annoying
I lean Larry
Yeah, he does feel more all around
In terms of the shooting
Probably the better one-on-one defender, better rebounder
Has the shooting can still pass
Underrated Playmaker for sure
But if it's 5 on 5 and Magic Johnson's passing is everywhere, that collective IQ, it's a hive mind.
Yeah, but he's passing to who?
Magic Johnson again.
That's not too bad.
That's not that bad.
Magic Johnson in the open court.
He's 6'9.
He's 6'9 for sure.
You're right, but the finishing is there, but it's not like magic.
There's no disrespect to your magic.
I just feel like Larry's team is more equipped and there's more to his game.
More layers.
That's charged.
When it comes to Larry?
What do you mean?
How are they charged?
The team Larry, they play the game the right way.
Larry has a bag.
Magic does not have as much of a bag.
Larry's sneaky athletic.
He plays the game the right way.
It's just more depth.
He just thinks about the game a little bit more.
Shut up.
It's a more intelligent brand of basketball.
We're going, Magic Johnson.
Carmelo Anthony's versus five Paul Georges.
Carmelo Anthony birthed Paul George.
What is that?
man get the fuck out of here they all want to play like him it's carmelow that team of mellows is just
like an a u team on a sunday bro much of japs hell of bag work jab steps no defense terrible
ball movement i'm leaning towards a paul george easy do you think good basketball exists in aAU
like no that's what it's about so i'm getting buckets and that's what five mellows will do
i'll promise you i think melo's obviously a better player but i five paul georgia game is
probably more equipped to be cloned and when
as a unit.
You can sit down and ask Paul George to be a point
guard, spot up shooter. You can ask him
to be the best defender and also get rebounds.
When it comes to Melo, hey man,
he can you get rebounds? Yeah, for sure.
Absolutely. You're going to have to.
What else? There's going to be five when we're trying to get rebounds because
they can't do shit else. What do you mean?
They'll be telling each other get the fuck out of here and they're going to
fight each other on the court. Do you think Paul George can lock up
Carmelo and Anthony? No, not lock up.
He'll do a better job in several over chance than
No.
That's true.
Mello has a sense of Paul George.
He can defend Mello a lot better than Melo can defend Paul George.
Yeah.
That's probably true.
Now that doesn't matter in like a one-on-one, like actual NBA debate.
Yeah.
It probably matters.
I'm going Mellow.
Surprise, surprise.
You're watching the most irritating brand of basketball.
A five of them.
No, five of them?
That's like it exacerbates all the weaknesses.
Five of them would be crazy.
That'd be horrible.
Like there might, Melo might be the biggest golf between how good he is with one of him
versus how good there is with five of him.
That might be the biggest difference.
Now we're in disrespectful.
No, like, does a style of play work when there's four people to compliment him?
Not when there's five of him.
Oh, shit, man.
Sainty's the worst and it's like when there's...
Sure, sure.
I'm not going to say that.
Sure, sure.
Like five Ben Simmons were, so I mean among good players.
But okay, we can go Paul George.
Come on now.
Five James Hardens versus five Tracy McGrady's.
Graphics wrong, but it's supposed to be James Hardin versus Tracy McGrady.
It's Team Mac.
We said in a game seven who's going to win.
And now you got five guys who don't want to be on the floor.
This is Tracy McGrady.
That is you.
I didn't think about the game.
Okay, okay.
We're not going to act
by Tracy McGrady
has some vaunted
playoff career.
He is right.
When it comes
the most disappointing
players in the playoffs,
hey, team.
James Harder is literally number one.
He might be number two.
Chase McGregnie.
He's going to be number one.
Okay.
Team Max reaching for the batons.
So number one is going to choke more
than number two.
Timak might be number one.
No, he's not.
He's not,
he's not a bigger choker than James Harder.
Yeah,
James Harder shook on bigger stages,
but he's gone to the stages.
Team Mac can't even get our chance to.
Team Mac is being led by Doc Rivers.
Fair enough.
So is James Hardin.
Doc on Doc action.
I'm Tracy McGrady's bigger.
Probably a better off ball player.
It's fair to go Tracy McGrady.
I got Hardin.
Much better off ball.
He can't guard the post.
Shit.
You can get no rebounds like Hardin either.
I'm taking Hardin.
All right.
Five Rudy Goberts versus five Patrick Beverly.
Rudy Gobert can't catch the ball.
So if he passes to each other, it's going out of balance.
I'm going Pat Bev.
Do the amount of times that Pat Bev is going to push.
around and trying to bitch Rudy's going to be hilarious.
I just got Pat Bev's too.
This would be the worst game anybody's ever seen.
I'd rather watch 13-year-old play basketball than watch this game going.
This would be hilarious.
Actually, no, I'm going to Rudy Gobert.
It's just, it's too much size.
How the fuck is Pat Bev going to score?
You're right.
It's a lot of size, but how is, just like you said that, how is Rudy Gobert going to score?
Offensive rebounds and putbacks.
There's no way Pat Bev is going to score one-on-one when he has Rudy Gobert and three of them
behind him to rotate.
Dude.
Pat Bev is going to get so long.
Rudy O'Berry's going to look so
uncoordinated, but there's been moments
in Pat Bev's career where he's
got out, dropped like 40, and he's like, listen, I got this bad word, but I
choose to do it. Maybe he, maybe he does
that. Drop 40, where, Tel Aviv?
Does he have a 40 point game in the NBA?
Yeah. I can't remember how many. It was in, uh,
in Philly. His career has 40?
Didn't, Philly like 20-2, Philly?
Didn't he have like a 40-point game?
I might be just, I might be forgetting.
At that stage of his career, I don't remember that.
No, because remember, there was a time where...
You're right.
I think his career has, like, 30 something.
I feel like I vividly remember 40.
I might just be lying, bro.
That's a wild dream.
I'm pulling up the game logs now.
You were on shrooms, bro.
I'm going 21, 22.
No way.
Pat Bev, career high.
What is that looking like?
I can't tell because Google's fucking horrible now and I'm seeing it's AI.
His career high and NBA points is 26.
Wait.
Oh, wait.
You're right.
This is fucking horrible.
That's 30.
It is 26.
It's 26 in Philadelphia versus Boston.
But outside of the NBA.
You know what you're thinking?
It was 38 minutes.
26 points.
That's a minute.
He just be out there for a long time.
I'm like, dang, man.
Look, it's 26 points of 38 minutes.
Oh, shit.
See, that's a stupid way of putting the numbers.
But that's a lame.
Game of 40?
In what world, bro?
Holy shit.
Brutigo Bear wins.
He had a game.
I guess he was just who about, like, yo.
See?
Pat Bev
Pat Bev 40 minutes
Pat Bev 40 minutes
That's a recession indicator
That's insane
I can't believe I put a 40
40 piece on his career
Yeah that's like
One of the most insane lies
You've ever told, bro
40 points by patching Bev
We almost believe his stupid ass
40
That's a crazy lie
We got to kill him with hammers
He can't breathe.
He's so flabbergasted.
I was like, whoa.
Slow your own, buddy.
Malachi Flynn has scored 50 in an NBA game.
Yeah, that's believable.
If you tell me anybody in the world has scored 40 in an NBA game, I would say, okay.
Like, yeah.
Except for Patrick Petherly.
I can't breathe, bro.
40?
Five step curries versus five Dramon Greens.
Oh, five steps easy, bro.
Five Dremont Green's is shackles, though.
That's kind of crazy.
Was that making out of life?
Oh yeah, we also got we got headlocks
The screen
He knows
He wouldn't touch that lights game man
You're right
He might
Yeah all five them
They're hive mind connected
They would know they
They would hate discreet stuff
Curry
Can you guys some morals
They know that
In another life
You can't touch him
The gravity that one step provides
Is already breaking the game
Of basketball
But having five of them
Is
Oh my God
So you're saying
Dremont Green respect
Steph Curry too much
To even try
He'd lay down his weapons
Yeah
Probably
Damn
That's what I'm saying
Listen, everyone, you know where the money's made.
Lamello balls versus five Gilbert Arenas.
You remember earlier when you said the biggest gap between having how good and having five of you are, that's lamello balls.
Facts.
Five lamellos would be absolute nonsense.
This is AAU basketball to its core.
But the five gills might start getting mad at each other.
It might not go too well.
Yeah, but five lamellos would be the best player.
You have four gills.
You have to watch one gill cook.
That's not going to go well.
No, no.
This is the best team
Mello has ever played with, bro.
Five of hims.
It's going to look like the last scene
in Kingsman in that locker room after.
Defense is fried.
I'm definitely going with Gilbert Rinas.
This is just disgusting.
I don't even know what's this problem?
I haven't watched the new
the Netflix doc
that was telling the story,
but like, that's insane.
You brought guns to the locker room.
What is,
What are you on right now?
That's crazy, though.
That's hilarious.
He says, shoot me.
Next thing we're going to do.
We've talked a lot over the years about NBA logos and how some are better now,
some are better back then than a lot of old versus new.
Today, we are going to put every 90s NBA logo into a tier list.
I went to 1996, the year they expanded to Vancouver in Toronto,
and we got every single logo from that year, and we're going to put them into a tier list.
Eighth, S through F, how good they are.
I love this.
Now, some of these pictures got cut off,
but you guys know how they look.
Okay.
Let's start off by doing some of the easy ones that are,
actually no.
Let's start off.
Let's do the expansion teams.
Toronto, where are you putting the Raptors logo?
I mean, this is S-tier.
This is one of...
The best logos of all time.
Yes.
Easy.
Hands down.
They came into the league like this.
They joined up and immediately had the most awesome the entire league.
That's hard.
That's hard to do.
That's pressure.
26 cities got flexed on by Canada.
Day one.
Oh, my God.
Never again.
Generational.
Now, was the Encore product that was good?
No, but they weren't fresh to death.
And then we got the Vancouver Grizzlies who also joined the same year.
Again, the same thing.
That's tier one of the greatest logos of all right.
Hey, Canada came in crazy.
Those are two, like, to this day, people are longing for the aura of those logos.
Like, the throwbacks these days are constantly trying to catch that high again.
And this is how they started.
Insane.
And sadly, nobody will ever cast a high that they hit.
Now, let's do some of the easy ones that are still the same as they are today.
76ers.
Um, I'll go see exactly. It's like a regular logo. Yeah, it's a very basic classic logo. Nothing crazy, but it's good. Yeah. Actually, I don't know. Nah, kind of is a pretty good classic logo. Maybe it's B. It's, I don't know about B. I do feel like there are other logos that's above that. But we can move it. Another one that's still the same Indiana Pacers. This one actually, see, maybe. I'm going D. I don't think it's amazing. I don't think it's a particularly good logo either. It's completely fine. Okay. Yeah, I am going to. I definitely think the 76ers logo is a logo is strong. I'm going to. I definitely think the 76ers logo is.
stronger. Oh, easily. You're right. So that's fair. Those are different tiers to me. Okay.
Sacramento Kings. Same logo. I think that's B. Oh, eight. Hold on. It's hard to. I don't, I don't think
it's a bad logo. It's a very good logo. It has character. You know, the Kings implies some regalness, some
weapons, some medieval looks at it. And they have the crown on there. They have some like swords in
the back, a good typeface. Sounds like a solid B. We can go B. I feel, I think it's better than the
Sixers one. Apparently I just love the Sixers one, because
I don't, but I think it's fine if you guys want to go B.
Yeah.
Okay.
What about the Celtics?
They had this logo that's the same, but it's like black and white back then.
See, you need more color in this one.
And so for that reason, I'm going to drop it to B.
It's a sign of the times.
We put more color into Lucky over the years.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
Oh, checks out.
Oh, oh, oh.
Where we're going with black and white, Lucky?
I put them in D.
D?
What did you say?
I said B.
Sounds like C.
right in the middle.
There we go.
Actually, that's a good logo.
We've got to go B.
It's a Celtics logo.
It's a good logo.
Okay, now let's go back to one
that's from the 90s.
What do we want to do
with the Atlanta Hawks?
That's a fire logo.
It's a great logo.
It's an easy logo.
This is the first year to switch to it
1996.
Before this, they had the one they have now.
So again, 1996 came around
and all these teams
got their swag up,
got all the graphics up.
I like it.
We're going, we're going to,
again, it's not as,
this one is not as timeless
as the,
the rafters or as the grizzlies in terms of like people wanting to get it but for this era
and even now it's like yes you are doing the thing you have personality I know I can clearly see
that you are a hawk yeah but like I like that have you ever seen a starter jacket with this logo
across the chest it's amazing coming out of both sides platinum back in the wide angle across
the chest like layered across your collarbone I don't know about that platinum row it's way better
on clothes and it is on a jersey yes and that like that means something got a versatile logo
Like the 76ers logo is good on a jersey
It doesn't go crazy on clothes
Yeah, I agree
Or is that, is that wrong?
No, I think you're right.
It does.
It's simple enough to wear it like
You can put it on clothes
And it doesn't overtake wherever you're wearing
But it can it can amplify it.
What about the Golden State Warriors?
This logo is kind of ass
This logo looks classic as hell
This looks like it's more from the 70s
than it is from the 90s
Out of all the logos that we have here
I think it's clearly one
of the worst.
Yeah, I think it's D or F.
I'm going to be.
Me personally, I'm comfortable
putting it in F, it'd be your first F.
For sure.
I don't know if we'll go D, but actually, is there
It might be movable.
Okay, we can put it in D for now.
We'll go D.
I think, I don't know, I guess it's,
it looks like Western-like,
so I guess it's supposed to be
like the gold rush back in the day,
like origin of the golden state.
So I guess that's fine.
There's so many,
yeah, there's so many other ways
to make that same idea better.
It's like this Pakesbill logo.
I don't like it.
Yeah.
They just took their rough,
their rough draft
ran with it.
Yeah.
Maybe it was like nice and simplistic back then.
It aged horribly to me.
Yeah.
And we also know that they have like the greatest logo.
One of the greatest logos in all the time coming soon after this in their modern day
logo and even the one with the Warriors pretty good.
So it pales in comparison.
True.
What's next?
The Seattle Supersonics.
And this is the year they changed to this branding before.
Before this it was the green and yellow.
They didn't have the red.
And they added this RIP.
This really big typeface.
They have the tower on it.
That's fire as full.
The dark green.
I'm putting this in it.
might go s slow down i don't know graph the wall no but a a is fine it can't be s but a
is a hundred percent dessert it's it's also like the hawks where you could put this on some clothing
it goes it goes yeah and the jerseys were good too like the the color scheme is really nice
with the dark green and the red and the little yellow a is the minimum i think but s feels a bit
much when the mavericks move right out of out of dallas if they go to if they go to seattle discussion
I hope they bring back the Sonics in this color.
Cooper flag, you're going to look glorious and dark green.
He's going to save Seattle hoops.
What about the Denver Nuggets?
They had the classic logo from the Mello era that we grew up with, but it's in the darker color.
It's not the baby blue.
I feel like this is one where it looks good on the jersey, but the logo isn't great.
Yeah, it looks ugly and dull when you're looking at like this, but it works on the jersey.
So it's pretty like, it feels more Denver, I think, because like the Nuggets, it has a little like slight gold in there.
It feels rugged.
It feels outdoorsy like Denver is.
So I don't think it's terrible
Sounds like a C to me
Yeah
Again I just like the 76ers logo I guess
So I'd look at it side by side
And I'd rather have Philly
But that's definitely a C logo
Yeah
It's completely okay
Bulls
Same as it's always been
S tier
Yeah
Yeah
Some of these logos
And get dinged for being boring
Being the same
You never got changed the Bulls logo
It's the best one in the NBA
Lakers
Pretty much the same
But the purple
appears lighter.
Then it doesn't hit the same.
But I,
it's a REST to me again.
We have to put it in the same tier as the Celtics one where it's a,
it's a solid logo.
It's good.
There's slight changes to it.
But overall,
it's still better than some of the other ones.
Yeah,
the Lakers logo is obviously so iconic.
The colors are good.
But it's not like some breathtaking logo on its own.
It's just because of who it's associated with.
You glance at this.
You think Magic Johnson.
You don't glance at this and think,
whoa, graphic design is their passion.
It's not amazing.
Exactly.
Okay.
It's hard to detach that.
You know, some of these logos
you think about certain things.
You got to look at it
just off the merit of the design.
All right.
What about the Brooklyn Nets?
We got this one with the gradient in it.
This is so 1990s.
Oh, fucking ass.
Holy shit.
Yeah, this is the worst of the 90s.
Put this in the fastest way possible.
It's a lot going on.
The gradient, it just looks like
the Captain America Popsicle.
Exactly.
Back in the day.
I was just about to say it's melting to as well.
It's been out for 15 minutes.
Now, the jerseys that go with that,
stupendous.
But making the actual logo gradient is bullshit.
Slow down.
That is crazy.
That looks so bad.
Too much dip under shit.
And that's everything wrong with the 90s.
Some things we look back from 90s design and we're like, well, those bright colors
look so good, so much character.
Sometimes you're like, what the fuck were they cooking, calm down?
Sometimes you're like, oh, maybe we do need minimalism in that and graphic design.
Yeah.
It's just, it's too bright.
It's too much.
It literally looks like a popsicle.
Yeah.
That's the only thing I can think of.
What are you guys don't do with the Miami Heat?
Same logo, but it's orange instead of red.
I also putting them in F tier.
I don't like the orange.
I don't like this color of orange.
I think it looks white hot.
No.
I like it.
It's kind of fire to me.
It looks more like a flame.
I low key might like it.
No,
I like the one that did it in between this one and the modern one where it's like red with white.
They don't have the yellow.
But this is so strong to me.
It can't be F.
Yeah.
I think it belongs in either.
I think it belongs in C for me personally.
But if you want to vote for D, I'm okay with that.
I'll work on C then.
If that's the range, I'm going as high as we can.
I think it's a great logo.
I don't even, I thought we were talking about it.
B. It's the heat. It's a flaming ball. It's dope. I just don't like the color.
Ah, okay. Dallas Mavericks. It's cut off in this graphic, but it's the M with the cowboy hat and the green ball behind it.
One of the only top, actually, their logo has pretty, the logo's been strong consistently. The jerseys have always sucked. I don't like it. What? I don't mind this. Oh, okay. I don't love it. You guys like it. I like it. Me personally, I think it's one of the stronger simplistic logos here. And I think it might be.
belong in B for me.
I think we can go see
because it gives a little bit of
personality with the cowboy hat.
Yes.
I feel like that's crazy.
It reminds me so much of that Golden State Warriors
one that we have in D.
I feel like the Lakers and Celtics
is like so much better.
I don't know about so much better.
No, the Warriors is kind of boring where like...
I'm okay with it being in C actually
because you're right.
It doesn't belong in the same tier as the rest of you guys.
I can't go that far.
But the cowboy hat's cool.
But outside of that,
that's what I think separates it from
just a basketball and a P and just a regular like yellow basketball yeah you know okay she's fine then
if that separates it one tier above feels adequate okay Detroit Pistons same ass logo right very classic
but it's a good logo it's a very good classic logo that's what stood the test of time they brought it
back for a reason sound like sounds like it might be a B is it a B is it a A yeah yeah all these
classic logos are going B can be a that feels fine B yeah okay spurs they have the
same logo, but they had the fiesta colors. I love this. The fiesta colors are amazing. I'm
putting this in A. I'm the S could be in the cards. It's in contention. And it might be by the end
of this video. I'm willing to hear arguments for S. I don't think it's crazy if either one who you feel
that way, but A is the minimum. I agree. I don't have an argument for S. Just you know what? Let's go
let's go S. The colors are really strong. And that feels like we got to think about like the spirit of
the 90s too, like for the era. This is like so good. Everyone in the 90s love these bright colors.
And this one works
It doesn't look goofy today
And it's also very interesting
Because they had these colors
And the jerseys were still black and white
And so like you have these black and white jerseys
Everything else color on them
It's a very nice accent
And a very nice way of incorporating different things
But keeping the main thing
The main thing
We gotta put this at us
And you want to talk about starter jackets
Back of the day
Fiesta colored jackets are crazy
Starter jacket
Extraordinary
I see it on it
here. I see the Charlotte Hornets.
Okay. Where do you want to go with the Charlotte Hornets?
That's S-T. Oh, easy S-T as well.
I'm going to talk about the 90s. They're
very much in that same conversation with the
spurs, the Grizzies, and all that.
Yeah. Again, they as a team
were more popular for their logo being used
in fashion than they wore for playing basketball.
And it wasn't even close. They were a phenom
strictly for the colors and strictly
for how cool the jackets look.
I agree. There's no other team in the NBA
that could say, yeah, you have more
based off of your colors and
your mascot and your logo overall
than anything else.
No what it is.
It's similar to how the Bulls were
in the 2010s in the swag era
when everybody had the Bulls snapbacks
and the Jordans that are black and red.
That's how the Hornets were in the 90s.
Yeah.
They put out Jordan 5's grape color way
strictly for the Hornet's color
because they're popular.
Hey man, and they went.
They're crazy.
And they went.
Jordan ate Aquas?
Now has Jordan ever had anything
close to relation to that color
in any teams that played for?
Fuck no.
The colors were just that popular in the 90s.
Had to do it.
And they're hard as hell.
Okay
Washington bullets
Man this is not a fantastic
Why are guns not on the logo
Why is there no blix in this logo
Yeah
I want to give this an F
F
It's cut off right now
But it says bullets
I know what yeah
I know the I know the L
I know what they're going for
Yeah
But again
Oh the Ls are hands
Their hands looking up
Touching for a rebound
I don't see a suit
But it's the
You don't see a switch, if I look at this team,
if I show this team to a 10-year-old,
out of all these logo,
they're going to be like,
this is the most forgetable one
because it just doesn't mean anything.
No magazines and sites,
no holo tips.
No scopes.
Yeah, I mean, it has nothing to do with the branding.
Now, when it says bullets,
why were they called that?
I don't actually don't know.
It was like bullet trains?
Clearly it's not guns.
No one knows the history of Washington, bro.
Somebody does.
Let us know in the comments.
We're sleeping.
I don't know why they're called that.
We can go deep.
New York Knicks
Same logo
But it has that black drop shadow
The color's a little different
They have the gray in the background
A or S easy
Easy go for me
I can't go S
But I can go A
This this logo just feels so
Like it just
It just
It's the NBA to me damn near
Yeah
You're doing too much
Look at him
He's getting excited
So this look no
I was looking
I was looking at why the bullets was
So I heard you
I thought you
You were talking mess
But yes
This is emblematic
Of the entire
And we do represent everybody.
We can't put this in us.
We can go A, I think.
Do you want to go S or A?
I'm going to go A.
There we go.
S is too much for me.
S is too much for me, but I'm cool with A if you are.
Okay, so in 1946,
the Baltimore franchise was nicknamed
Bullets after a nearby ammunition foundry.
So that's not good, bro.
Baltimore?
It is off of straight bullets.
What year did they change to the Wizards?
Is it?
Was it like around the war on terror?
Why did they do that?
They changed.
to do they change to the wizard after columbine?
No.
That would be hilarious.
That would be crazy.
But they did change it because they wanted to get away from like violence.
Yes.
I'm sure there was an event.
I'm sure there was an event.
What year was it?
In 1997, they rebranded as the wizard.
What year was Columbine?
Because that's when school shootings got on the map.
That was like, this is a freaking thing to talk about.
That's insane.
Crazy combo.
I bet they were motivated to.
Saying on the map for that also was.
That's what I answered the natural conversation.
That's when gun rights became an issue.
What's the next logo?
The Milwaukee Bucks.
I also love this.
Purple.
If you are in S tier, you are a starter jacket All Star.
And I do think that the Milwaukee Bucks in this logo is up there.
Yeah, the purple one is cooler than the red one, I think.
Really?
I think the red one might be cooler.
Actually, I don't know.
Am I lying?
Is it?
I think the red one sticks out a lot more.
I'm just thinking of the jerseys for the purple.
Maybe the red's better for the logo.
You're right, you're right, you're right.
But this is logos only, no jerseys.
The jerseys are hard.
Logos only, I think this might be a A.
I'll go ahead.
I'm cool with A.
I'm cool with A.
But like, yeah, it's not one of, actually, it's not one of the defining 90s
logos, but it is as high as you can get.
I feel like maybe we've talked shit about this logo before, about how the new one is way cooler.
How this is Bambi and the new one is like ferocious.
I don't think I said that though.
Maybe I did.
I've said a lot.
You said a lot of things.
I've said a lot.
We'll go B.
Yeah, I think B is probably fine.
Just to preface myself.
Clippers.
F.
This logo is just such a great value version of the Lakers one.
I can't believe they had this for so long.
Looking back, it's comical that you join a city
and you make a shittier version of the logo they have to the T.
F.
It's quite embarrassing.
I thank God they have a logo of personality now.
Did they keep the same logo until like 2013?
Yes.
2015 or 17 or something like that?
Yeah.
Heather for a long time
and it was asked the whole time.
Yeah.
It's one of the reasons
why their organization
is so damning probably.
No creativity in sight
just embracing the Little Brother
syndrome.
The Orlando Magic.
Now the logo doesn't feel
amazing.
Now the jerseys
and everything around it.
This again,
Starter Jacket All Star.
Yeah.
But it's the Star jacket
all star because of the
they have like the stars
and the outside and stuff like that
and the branding around
is really good.
The logo is just like a tightest.
face it gets better eventually but right here it's kind of incoherent are we putting c for the logo
i think we can go b because the stars and the branding is so good but it like it would be i mean they
took it and ran with it yeah it would be s tier if if the logo itself matched everything we know to be
existing around it so i feel like b's fine i'm fine with b okay phoenix suns it's like super neon in this one
like another a to me man yeah it's basically the same logo but you actually just typed out the
the team's name underneath it's
I like this
this is not again the comment is fire
the purple behind that is elite
Phoenix suns right under that I think
this is A could argue me yes
yeah I think A's cool
yeah you get that purple background the bright orange
nice contrast
Hey it works for me the Cleveland Cavaliers
You guys know I've said it before I hate this era
branding for the Cavs but some people like it
Some people like the black and blue not me
I like I like the colors of it
I don't think that that the actual logo is
great.
That logo
with just like
the basket,
like splashing.
That's,
that's like Microsoft
Word.
Yeah.
I put this in D,
right?
Yeah.
This is a
act of creativity.
It's not good
at all.
If you like the jersey
is because the blue
with the arches
looks really cool
and you can see the
contrast.
And I like that.
The logo itself,
I think is quite trash.
I would do F personally,
but maybe I'm biased.
No.
Okay.
That's too much.
Yeah.
Utah Jazz.
I'm putting them in F.
I think if you just,
if you just write them,
if you just write them,
If you just write your name out
So do you like it more
When later they made it smaller
And it's just the J?
Because you know it's the J with the music note
They still have that
Yeah, it's just cut out
It's still on there
It's only your music note
It's just purple
This can't be F
You're right, I'm tripping
You can say C
Bermudaum if you want to me
I think that's fine
Yeah, it's solid branding
It is definitely one of the better logos
It's like right above being mid
But see it's not the mountain logo
That was better
They switch to this and it's worse
So I think C is probably okay
Yeah, we'll go see
The music note is nice
It's not today when it's just fucking black and white
And it's horrible
So it's better than that
Houston Rockets
This is S tier
This is S tier
This is S tier
This logo is easy S tier
Okay you guys
You guys like the spaceship
Yes
This is something that they need
They need to go back to
They've been back to it with their ultimates right
I'm saying full time
All time
Yeah
Okay
Blazers is exactly the same as it always has been
F
F
Just not good at all
The jerseys are very nice
I like the logo
It's just written out blazers
Yeah there's some stroke behind it too
It has that little symbol
I'm still there
In the 90s one
Oh
I think so
No not I don't think in this one
Oh
But they definitely use that logo back then didn't they
I don't know
I'm not sure
If it's in general
If it has
If it has the little thing
It can be in B tier
Maybe C tier
We'll just go see to be safe
I'm pretty sure they use that logo in 1996.
In 96?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure they did.
But it's just like a part of it.
It's not like intertwined.
Yeah, but you know, they have smaller versions where they use just that.
This is just the, we pool from this website.
Yeah, I think this is a solid C tier.
Yeah.
Okay.
Last but not least, we're at the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Hard.
A tier.
Now, the color's amazing.
Jersey is amazing.
Does the logo hold up?
Yes, it does.
Yes, it is.
And maybe I am biased because I've seen.
Anthony Edwards wear this logo
in a throwback jersey
Oh you got the ant or attacks
He could have said any player
You could have said Nasree
McKele-Alexander Walker
They're not the best player on the team
Like
The A-C shut off right when that happens
So it got deathly clients
So we're going
Somewhere between S&B
I'm leaning towards A right in the middle
Yes
Is it on?
That's why I'm going
If it's A that means
It's the worst logo on A
We can go B if you feel
I think it might sit better on
No
Is it better than the B's logo?
Yes
Ooh no I lost you on that one
I think it's B
I see that's a tough conversation
Yeah
It's B it's probably B
The jerse is amazing
The logo itself
All right
Wolf is kind of bitch made
The one today's
A lot cooler I think
Yeah
But the colors are strong
You got
Colors are strong
But okay
This is a nice little spread
S tier we got the Raptors
Grizzlies
Bulls spurs
Hornets and Rockets
That feels fair to me
That feels like a good
Top tier
Yeah
I like that.
Is this a perfect tier list?
I think it's another TV perfect tier list.
Oh my God.
All we do is cook.
All right.
Look it's all.
Next thing we're going to do, let's do a 2025 NBA mock draft.
You know, the lottery just happened.
And it's on top of conversation.
Everyone's thinking, obviously, Cooper Flag is a Dallas Maverick.
What about after that?
Lots of talk around what the Spurs are going to do it to, what Philly's going to do to try to retort
I guess with Dwell and Bede.
We're going to go 1 through 10
and we're going to do a mock draft
of what we think these teams will do
at this point in the cycle
when it's May 15th
and we don't really know shit
about what teams are thinking
it's just off of what we would assume
if we were in their shoes.
Who wants number one pick?
I'll take one.
Okay, you got one.
Mo, you got two, I got three
and we'll cycle through
and so everybody picks.
All right, go ahead.
Who is the number one pick
in the 2025 NBA draft?
It is Dillett.
Cooper Flag is the number one
overall pick in this draft.
Yep, that's an easy one.
Obviously, Dallas Mavericks
got blessed.
They're not going to do something
stupid. They're going to take them. They've already reported.
We are taking Coole flag and we're not
listening to any trade offers for it. Let me
be clear. We're taking Cooper flag.
That's hilarious.
Okay. Obama voice is quick.
Well, who's number two?
With the number two overall pick in the
2025 NBA draft,
the San Antonio Spurs select
we'll later trade.
Dylan Harper.
Yeah. Obviously, if you honest request to trade,
maybe they end up trading it.
If they stick here,
they should take Harper
and not look back.
Everyone,
some people,
some fans are like,
oh, we need a small forward.
Pick Ace Bailey.
Shut up.
Yeah,
no.
Pick the star.
Yeah, exactly.
The spurs are in note,
well,
they are in position,
but really,
I think this is the worst thing
to do in the NBA.
Always go for talent
in the NBA draft.
Now,
when they pick him,
pick him,
I've seen reports
that they think
they can play him,
Fox,
and Castle with the 3.
Yuck.
I think that would be bullshit,
so you've got to figure it out
later.
At some point,
they got to make a roster that makes sense
and get some good wings in here
but I think you're much better off
picking Harper
and deciding who you got to trade later
than trying to find that wing
just for the sake of finding them.
Exactly. I agree.
If there was like
another clear cut guy
on the same level of Harper
that you could say
it's preference positionally
he's just as good,
fine.
I think Harper is like
in the same way flag is clearly number one
Harper's clearly number two I think.
Yeah, that's an easy conversation.
Number three,
I'm gonna
I'm gonna go Ace Bailey here.
Okay.
It sounded like you didn't want to go
I didn't really want to, but I think if there's ever a situation to get the best of him,
I think it's playing off of Tyrese, Joelle Embed, and Jerry McCain, let him do role player stuff and be the 3-and-D guy and slowly grow into his skills, not fall into his bad habits.
I think it's good for him.
I think putting him in Philly with Paul George and having Bucky Gitter next to, you know, perceive people's goats.
Yeah.
And having all that, that is a great situation.
Yeah, he needs to be in a place where he can learn good habits and not be on like the hornetter.
where he can just chuck and I think this would be really good for him.
I agree.
Ace Bay can do a lot of at times foolishness on the basketball court when he has too much
to too much responsibility and freedom and this team right here.
Everything's already made in Philly.
They're a fake lottery team, of course.
Having him in a place to where he can only do one or two things on the basketball court
and that's it is perfect for his development.
Exactly.
I think it's best for all wings for the most part to start off his role players and expand
unless you're like some elite prospect that's like obviously going to be a star day one.
but for the most part, for wings that have like flashes but aren't a guarantee
and you have some questions, starting with the most minimal role possible
and you're running from there is always the best.
Donovan, who's number four?
Who are the Charlotte Hornets taking?
The Charlotte Hornets are taking VJ Edgeco.
This feels like the safest pick in the entire draft.
This feels like a guarantee.
Yes, and to go in there and just say, athlete, let's go.
Let's have some fun.
Even if everything, once again, gets taken down to the studs because of injuries
or just whatever, at least you're going to have some fun, right?
VJ. Ascom can do a lot of things, but he can jump.
He feels like a seamless fit alongside Lamello and Brandon Miller.
A lot of people are a huge swing factor for VJ is his ability to score on the ball
consistently, but one of his, like, underrated strengths is the ability to be off ball
and is off the, or his on ball just shooting, cutting and all that.
So having a super, a hyper athletic two guard right in between those two, who can
thrive as an off ball guy is seamless.
Yeah, we don't know if he's going to have the ball skills and the outside jump shots
and come around to be like the star he can be as a potential to be.
The best way to kind of hedge that and say if he's going to be a role player, where does he
fit?
Between Lamello and Brandon Miller is a perfect fit.
He can be a great on-ball defender, be the athletic two, be your super Avery Bradley type
of guy between them.
I would love that.
Exactly.
So rolling into the fifth pick, the Utah Jazz.
Now this is where there's a, the job is all up in the air.
Yeah, and I don't know who you're going to pick.
I wrote down somebody, but I feel.
like there's a good chance you wrote somebody else yeah so with the utah jazz they're looking
for fucking star studded talent at this point in time that's what they're looking for but right now
there's no one in my mind who screams to that position so far and because of that with the fifth
overall pick the utah jazz are selecting con canipal oh yeah i didn't expect that selection because
they feel really good about isaiah collier obviously like i don't know if i if they had number two
or number one,
Isaiah Collar is not good enough to, you know,
good enough of a player to not choose
another point guard above,
which is Dylan Harper.
But Khan is someone who can solidify that two spot.
He is a great positional defender.
He can do all the things offensively,
which is what they devoid of,
which they need buckets.
He's a great three-point shooter.
He has on-ball chops that he wasn't allowed to show off in Duke at all.
I think he's a good solidifying piece.
They need foundational pieces,
and I think he is that.
He's the safest pick.
Like, he's going to be a good shooter.
Like, he's going to be a good, a 3-and-D, for lack of a better word, off-ball player.
Like, that's, that feels like a very high floor for him.
So that's cool.
If you don't feel confident, the guys below him, go for the guy, you know it would be good.
And they need all the good players they can't afford any misses right now.
Yeah, they can't miss at all.
It has to be a player that's at least good for a long time.
Yeah, they already, we feel certain ways about Kiante, George, J-Dub's brother.
I forget his name already, bro.
Cody, yikes, man.
There's just a lot of suspect prospects going on over.
there and con it will at least help stabilize things okay i was going to pick malle wash for the
washington wizards but you let this guy fall so i think they had to pick tray johnson
i thought he was going to go five trey johnson if he's here they don't have guards that are so
solidified that like you have to build around them i think he's the highest upside left right now
as a six-six guy who could potentially be a three-level score if things go well easy pick for me
okay wow nice that's so interesting they have a lot of they have jordan pool bob carrington
And Kishon George, you're right.
That is not enough to...
No, yeah, he can start over Kishon George.
I would hope.
Like, that's somebody he can easily take a starting job.
That's not ridiculous.
Shout out to Jordan Poole, but he's not stopping me from drafting a future...
Yeah, and like, Trey Johnson's like a con.
He's more of a two guard anyway, so he could play with Jordan Pooleck.
Yeah.
All right.
Number seven, the New Orleans Pelicans.
They select Jeremiah Fears.
Okay.
You want a point guard in there.
Yes, you have, you have Zion.
You have, you have Missy.
You have Olinig at your stretch.
That's five.
Your point guard situation,
Dejante Murray coming off the Achilles,
you had C.J. McCollum.
He also got hurt.
You need some scoring in your back court.
Jeremiah Pierce can do that for you.
Yeah, this is another one of those,
kind of like Trey Johnson,
high ceiling swings at this point in the draft
where they could pick a role player.
They could pick Murray Boyles
and pick someone that's going to be good for them
for sure when they're trying to win
or they can swing for the goddamn fences
because you don't know how many top 10 picks
you're going to get.
And if he hits, he obviously has
insane potential with his dynamic ball handling.
Wow.
Okay, yeah, I agree with you.
I agree with you.
That would be crazy.
Not a crazy pick, but it feels like the right pick.
Of course, swing factors are his jump shot and how reliable he's going to get
able to get that three off.
But I think easily they come in there not day one in a fill in a row, but I think in a few years,
I can see him doing C.
Jim McCallon type.
I mean, he might, he literally might be able to and might have to.
Every single year, somebody on the Pelicans gets hurt, Jeremiah Fears might be able to walk in day
one.
I think I do, I think ideal world if they're healthy, Jeremiah fears.
has zero role year one.
I think they redshirted him
like they did Rob Dillingham.
And how many years have been
ideal for the New Orleans?
Not fucking many.
Okay.
With the number eight overall
pick the Brooklyn Net Select,
come on,
Mala Watch.
Okay.
I hate that he's going to Brooklyn,
but I think the fit
makes sense simply because
right now
because they're finished right,
Claxton to Los Angeles Lakers.
Their trajectory is like,
yo,
we're trying to sell off
and be as bad as possible.
And so,
like,
of course,
Nick Clxton is still young.
He's a Laker.
He's in the middle of his contract.
And I see no reason why the Brooklyn Nets would want to keep this young defensive study for any longer because they can get way more and replenish.
From the Lakers.
Every single spot of the same.
Preferably, I would like them to be higher and like swing for a pick that might be a star.
But having some like Malabash just stabilizes everything.
And I think he's a center with high ceiling in this league.
Yeah.
Well, okay.
I think I had the Raptors taking either fears or Derek.
queen but because the way this is falling at this point i think they have to pick casparis i think he's
the best player on the board i didn't expect him to fall if he's going to be here
emmanuel quickly is not the long-term point guard they can take a swing there they love them some
length some size that's a big point guard for them okay okay i guess that's another
creator it's another creator to help take the load off of someone like um emmanuel quickly
scottie barns and it's not the best fit in the world but they can't be drafting for fit i think he's
the most dynamic player on the board if the three-point shot comes along and is and is reliable
them yeah more positional size more playmaking even if it's a backup point guard you want to
keep starting quickly he can go into that role i wanted them to get a big but if mallowash
isn't there i don't think they got to reach for one so i feel that's the best player there okay
all right number 10 there's a there's a couple ways that that can go here i think for houston
let's go get derrick queen okay i think i think you you look at the rockets and everyone says
oh you're you know you need a go-to score you need somebody like that hey they're about to
package up a whole bunch of their guys to potentially go get one of them their front court might
be might be depleted and having right like you don't know the the the what your front court
is going to look like whether it be with sangoon or stephen adams and all them guys why don't
you go get another 610 big body who could be out there be athletic and you can still keep that
identity of having, you know, two bigs and being a very physical team in the front court
and pair that with Devin Booker, and you'll be able to.
No, Queen and Sengoon, you can see them fitting really well together, two smart passers.
Like, both are like tweener size-wise when you got two of them.
Maybe now you got versatility, especially if Queen's three-point shot is going to be
there, he stretches the floor.
I can see that.
Yeah, I feel confident in Queens' three-point shot eventually scaling upwards because
he did shoot like 76 or 75% from the free throw line, which is obviously.
He's a big indicator towards him and his ability to search the floor out being a real thing.
That's a fine fit.
I like that.
Okay.
Next thing we're going to do.
I'm going to name several NBA stars from the course of history.
And I want you to tell me what the best version of this player is.
So, you know, you can say a specific year, specific era, whatever you want.
When you think of this player, what is the peak version of them that you think of?
Okay.
LeBron James, start with the easy one.
This is 2012 or 2013.
either one of those you don't buy the argument that it's 2018 because he was so smart and so next level from the IQ no no super soldier brain people there there were periods in like his cap stint where he literally took two weeks off right the defense wasn't 100% there now it wasn't it wasn't bad it wasn't the way that that it was in you know years later 2013 lebron is as efficient as you can be as as great of a of a passage you can be as great of a defense you can be as great of a defense
Fender, versatile defender, and he's a DPI-Wi finalist.
All of it.
This is, 2013 is the LeBron year.
Oh, and also people act like he got smart in 2018.
Also a genius in 2013.
Yes.
Yeah, I agree.
In 2018, the only difference between that Brom versus this one is that 2018,
LeBron, that was his best shooting year.
Had that nasty square beard.
I hated that.
All year.
I was like, brother, please.
Like a lumberjack.
Like Amish.
Please.
Yeah.
Miami Braun is.
next level.
You could say
2009, Braun.
You want to go to the one
that's even more athletic,
a little bit lighter.
So he was flying
through the sky.
But I don't know.
He was so much more refined.
The offball game was there.
The defense was as good as ever been.
The post-up game was better in 2013.
Yeah.
Eric Bolshe really knew how to use the defense
specifically.
Maybe he could have done that in 2009 as well,
but he didn't.
So I feel fine going Miami.
Okay.
Steph Curry.
Well, what comes to mind?
Man.
This is a tough,
this is legitimately a tough question.
It's debatable.
Very debatable.
Yeah.
So obviously, 2016 comes in mind immediately.
That's when he won the MVP unanimously.
Yeah.
But then, of course, like, you can't avoid what happened back in 2021.
Yeah.
Oh, 2022.
Sorry, when he won the championship.
That one-man carry job was insane.
And that's something that we, like, that's something that everyone thought he wasn't able to do.
Exactly.
So, yes.
It might be that one right there.
It's the one.
So 2016 is one the best regular seasons of all time.
one of the best scoring offensive years
you could say the best offensive peak
anybody's ever seen that's not crazy
but 2022
he was more
his game was more catered to caring
in the playoffs
and that's kind of what matters
and you're differentiating
this type of things
so I don't know
just go ahead and say it
I don't know what you want me to say
he was more equipped
to just go get a bucket in 2020
he was
he was he was he was
he was stronger
his he was stronger
he went to the basket a lot more
also he was never he was never a bad defender because of effort but in 2016 he was super light
in 20 in 22 his team defense was even better because he got stronger and because he got
smarter and knew exactly where he needed to be at certain times so you can yeah you can say 22
okay so know what 2016 best regular season maybe ever so that's a better regular season player
but 22 is clearly a better playoff player and that's what you play the game for you want to win
championships when you're a player of his caliber so i think it's fine going 22 side note these
Warriors jerseys with the pinstripe shorts.
This is disgusting.
This is a sleeved jersey.
That's something that will make someone wear for punishment, bro.
Well, a sleeve jersey and then mismatching pinstripe shorts.
What are we doing?
Yeah, it's a crime.
They thought they were cool.
What are we doing?
Kevin Durantz.
This one is quite difficult, I think.
You have MVP, 2014?
You do.
It wasn't nearly the defender, but offensively he was fucking ludicrous.
Then you do have like 2016, 2017, or 2017.
17, 18, when he, when his defense took, took up to another notch.
I think he was in the conversation for all NBA teams, which is crazy.
He was in defensive player of the year conversation's insane, but.
The 2021, he was still defending crazy.
His passing was so much better, so much higher IQ, the veteran stuff, was all there.
I guess the answer to 2017.
It's probably the good mixture of both.
But 2021 was dangerous.
I might lean towards 2021 because.
I think, I think the,
the post-a-killy stuff, while he was the best we've ever seen recovering from it,
he did have less of a burst that in 2017 he had, and he was still a good defender, that
2017 was just like a dynamo.
It was kind of the LeBron conversation where he's just insane.
But the playmaking, though, in 21.
He didn't have to playmaking.
He probably could have in 2017.
We didn't have to because he was just a missile.
Well, no, he, I mean, everybody got hurt in the playoff run, and he was out there.
James Hardin, his hamstring had fallen out of the bone.
They were playing with Lamarcus Aldridge on the team still.
Oh, you said 21, yeah, yeah.
in 21 that that's a like was Blake there at that point maybe you can't remember yeah I'll say
2017 because it's the good mix but 21 is a very good year super close I'm not I don't think it's
crazy to say 21 was better than young Katie than 14 no yeah I don't think it's crazy I don't think
it's crazy because this game was more complete again on all around I don't I don't know I don't
that that seems that seems like a stretch it's another regular season versus playoffs thing to me
not to say young Katie wasn't good in the playoffs but you know the old man brain was
so goddamn powerful in 2021 all the small stuff comes together like that's what that's to me like
2018 lebron versus 2009 lebron yeah and you can still say 2009's better in both these arguments
the younger version but there's an argument for the older version being so much better for the
playoffs specifically that's 2014 it is he's crazy it's a hard to be it's tough and you see it now
when you look back at highlights it's not only the handle but it's how quick he's getting
fast he's so twitchy he's so he's so he's so he's so as
agile yeah 2014 is different okay Kobe Bryant who so this comes down to the version with
shack where he was young and athletic as hell and amazing as a second option that can be
the first option on many nights when needed or the older version actually no there's three
options because you can say the older version when he won back to back where he's more
based on skill and refinement and it led to victory or he can say in between in like 2006 when he
was just getting buckets on the worst teams ever he was a demon he was kind of
One of them was still there as well, too.
I think he would, that's when like the shot chucker era of Kobe,
where he just had to get shots up because there was nobody around him.
And I think part of that was because the team sucked.
But I think also he matured before 2009 where he realized that style of play isn't going to win.
This is tough.
I think, oh, nine.
I was going to think towards early or not.
Yeah, I think the first, the first magic title or the first title against the magic,
the first one of the back to back, that's the one where you get all of the, like,
you still get the tough shot making.
you still get the footwork
His leadership had risen to another level
Where he's not just like
He's not berating teammates anymore
And he he might have still did that
But he, you know, picked his spots a little bit
His spots
It wasn't Smush Parker, you should die
Yeah
And you still had the last bit of like
Elite athleticism from him
Right at that point
So probably 09
That's fair
I'm fine with 0809
Kauai Leonard
I think it might be
that 2019 but him in 2021 was
exactly exactly he was playmaking
insanely well the first year at the clippers
or second year under 2017
he was an MVP ballots I think
there's what I'm saying pre he was the MVP finalist
it was before he had gotten hurt
he was averaging like 25 26
for the first or second time in his career
DPO I find all of that
that might be the most complete
in terms of athleticism
because the defense too together
but dude 20 21st 21st 1
people don't know because he didn't have a chance to do in the playoffs because he got hurt the passing leap he made that year before the playoffs was outrageous if he could have stayed healthy it would have been like 2019 but now he's an above average passer getting seven assists a game but i think the level of defender that he was in 17 is
trump's all yeah that's kind of that's one of those where it's like it's it's on like the the on the podium of like two way players yeah okay
we can go 2017 that's fine well i don't know i mean if we're doing if we're so torn between 17 and 20
his answer is 19.
Because he also had one of the best
runs of all time. Yeah. I think
19 is the easiest one.
Yeah. So that's a hard, it's one of the
hardest conversations. All three are amazing.
I think I would, I would go
17 and just say damn you, Zala.
Okay.
Damn you, but Julia.
Next up, Chris Ball.
Huh.
Young Chris Ball, incredibly fast, had some
scoring boost. Really shifty, crazy.
Elite, elite defender for a point
guard middle tier middle age chris paul on the clippers a good balance of both but a little bit
less reliant athleticism but he still had that in his bag or you can go like sons chris paul
where he was just a genius and the shot making was outrageous and he's been all over the league i forget
that sometimes sun's chris paul was really good he was not as good as clippers chris paul
didn't since chris paul have a game in the playoffs where he like didn't miss a shot he was
like 16 for 16 or something ridiculous the shot making was crazy he got his
mid-range was so automatic by the time he was that age.
Yeah, that run to the finals is insane.
I remember they upset the Lakers.
We got to have that game.
If you forget.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's been a while.
I'm, I'm...
Dude, I don't know.
Genuinely.
I'm going to go Cliffers, Chris Paul.
To be able to go to that franchise and instantly bring them into relevancy.
And to make Diage Jordan an all-MBA center.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
Come on crazy.
Okay.
A lot of times the answer is the guy at the age where it's balanced.
He has the IQ plus the athleticism still.
That's the case for Chris Ball.
Blake Griffin.
I think this is easy.
I think it's that 2018 year, the first one probably, when he got traded to the Boston
South, I mean to the Detroit Pistons.
You say that.
2015 playoff, Blake Griffin was on another level.
That was like, oh, this guy's rising when the best player is in the playoffs.
Tell me about it.
It felt almost like Jen and Brunson we did last year where nobody expected it,
but it's like, oh, he just doesn't miss.
and he's putting up the most insane production
you can imagine from him.
The game fell complete.
That's when you started to see the passing chops come along
and it wasn't just this athletic guy.
I agree.
I think I lean 2015.
That's where you see it come along,
but you see it like finally formalized in finalized in 2018.
But he wasn't the athlete then.
In 2015, he was still crazy athlete.
He wasn't the jump shot.
He had the passing and he still was like a brute force.
Yeah, and I think I'm a lean towards 2018
because if you watch those clips,
he has this crazy brace on his knee.
He clearly did not have all the athleticism yet
the impact that he had was still there.
I mean, before, before, you know, this recent Pistons run,
that was like the singular Pistons year of like hope
and actually doing stuff.
And it's because Blake Griffin got there
and was like, yeah, I'm a demon.
He sold off the rest of his career for that singular year.
His handle was so crazy for his size at that point.
And like he wasn't fast.
He was just like actually getting bagwork off with his handle.
It was nuts.
I'm going 2018.
Kyrie Irving.
Now, the Nets, Kyrie was crazy, 50, 40, 90.
Obviously, he won with the Cavs.
Celtics Kyrie.
Brass Stevens had him defending, had him passing.
6.9 assists a game.
It's that mental, though.
It's that mental.
He went into a super team and burned it to the ground.
I would never, never forget.
It was supposed to be the Celtics and the Warriors in the final.
Like, preseason, it was, it was, uh,
Kyrie and Tatum and Hayward and Brown and all them.
Youngish Al Horford, they were supposed to get there and they flamed out.
And that was a team that people were legitimately saying, and it's me, I'm people,
they're legitimately saying this team is better with Terry Roadsier playing rather than Kyrie Irving.
Yeah.
The mental side and that's where I'm like, I don't know.
Yeah, that's fair.
I think in the regular season it was the best version of Kyrie, but the playoff success is antithetical to that.
So I guess maybe 50, 4.90, that's Kyrie.
I feel like some of the karii...
Oh, shit.
Never mind.
Never mind.
2016, Karee.
2017, Kari was different as well, though.
The efficiency in which he played with and the passing chops weren't as there when
it comes to Boston, but you can see it start to come into form as well.
Very underrated version.
So what's the answer?
I think the answer is actually Southwis, Karee, but if we're going to success,
Success-wise, can'ts?
Let's take all that stuff out of it.
Just as a basketball player, I'll take 20.
I'll take 20, I'll take 2019.
20201 is close, though.
201, Kyrie was brutal.
He was crazy.
This is actually the closest conversation.
They're all the closest conversation.
They're all hard.
Camelo Anthony.
The Blazers and O'KC up there and the Rockets and the Lakers.
Damn.
This is all downhill, bro.
He has the Shaq meme of all the colors.
Yeah, it's like, damn, bro.
All downhill literally.
Holy fuck, man.
He was in LA.
And he was a Blazer.
Oh!
He had some good years to the Blazers.
I remember that one,
that one highlight where he mixed up Zonwitz.
The only one that is...
Without dribbling.
The only one that is disgusting
is the Rockets and the...
I guess the Thunder 2.
That was a nasty era.
That was the in between struggling
to accept the next phase era.
Me, come off the bench?
But Blazers era was nice.
Hey, P.
They want me to come off the bench.
I don't know what's the best version of mellow
he can't be one number probably like
it's either oh nine
or what 13
13 um
because oh nine
oh nine is the year it's post olympics
and that's when like that whole group
of lebron wade mellow all of them have
like their best years after the olympics and you see that a lot
but mellow came back from the olympics and i was like
30 a game yeah it was it was elite scoring and so i guess if you're talking about like
carmelo anthony is a score what was it was like one of his best scoring years you probably go
oh nine they made it to the west conference finals further see ever went you could say oh nine
but you could also say 2013 because i do feel like that nick's tape era was part of the
you could see his like his leadership really really shined through when he got to new york
Okay.
Fair enough.
And that's the last one we got.
Next thing we're going to do, the last thing we're going to do today.
We're going to put these headbands on.
We are going to do the game we've done before where we're all going to have an NBA player on our forehead.
And we've got to see who can guess their player first.
We've made a bunch more names.
And there's 60 in here total, I think.
So we've got to get these on.
It's going to be so hard to put these clips on and not fuck it up.
What we're going to do is, I want to draw it to camera.
I'll just pull one out that we're not going to use
we're going to have stuff like this
Alex Caruso we put on our forehead we all get one
see who can guess the player first
all right put Caruso back in the bottom
we've done this all mixed up
feels like a TD3 classic at this point
I know so we grab one
make sure you don't look at your player
okay give this box of Donovan
and then you gotta close your eyes
try to put it in the clip which I feel like we're gonna fuck up
oh no I got it first try
let's go
did I get it first try nope you're on the outside
you got to feel around and touch the clip
you put it backwards
what the hell was that that's what i was asking if i had it like forwards oh yeah yeah i think i got mine
you got yours okay so you guys see our players in our solo cams let's see who he is
twitcher fun there you can see the reflection oh no i'm okay you can go first so we're all
going to ask questions about our player until we figure out who it is uh is to say current
players no no am i has does this player have a podcast yes
Does my player a podcast?
No.
Fuck.
Okay.
Is my player a champion?
Yeah.
Was he?
I think he was a part of those teams.
I think so.
Let's double check though.
Yeah, I'll double check because that's important.
Yeah.
Let me pull it up.
If I was to guess, I would say yes, he was.
Things get muddied up a little bit.
Yeah, I can't remember what year he was on this team.
Yeah.
He was, nope.
no actually
damn not a champion
damn that's tough
okay
is my player
a guard
no
oh not a guard
okay
is my player
in the Hall of Fame
or gonna be a Hall of Famer
yes
so he's gonna be all of fame
I saw your eyes light up
the second half okay
okay you're right
you're right yeah
so he's certain
I'm guessing my guy still playing
okay
is this Tracy McGrady
it is not
okay he check early
it's not Tracy McGrady
he felt good
I know
you can come off the hand
clank out the backboard
is my player playing today
yes
and he has a podcast
in my player playing today
no okay
see I don't want to make
any assumptions
okay
um
is my player
a
front court player
yes
yep
okay
is this Paul George
it's not Paul George
fuck
does my player have a championship
yes
yeah
okay so he's a borderline
Hall of Fame
you gotta think about it
he's not playing
and he has a championship
okay
my player
is not a champion is not playing front court were they primarily in like if what i think about
them on a western conference team yes yes okay has my player been an all-star before yes
to get heat check here um i'm thinking my player might have recently made the hall of fame
because you asked he's he's in a hall of fame he's gonna be in hall of fame he has a championship
it, this is Pao Gasol.
Cheater.
It was it, it was it, Pao Grosol or Chauncey billups.
I don't know which one.
Power, Chauncey.
It's Powell.
Let's fucking go.
I guess your tone gave it away because you were like, is he?
And I know Pao Gasol just made the Hall of Fame.
Yeah.
I think I just seen it.
Fuck.
Yeah, your tone gave it away.
I saw you were like,
all right, take a guess.
For my guy?
Fuck.
Okay, so he's playing right now.
He is not a guard.
He's made an all-star team.
and he has a podcast.
Yours is very easy.
Very easy.
Okay.
So that's the case.
There's only a certain amount of dudes in the league who are at that caliber and also have a podcast.
Is this?
I said Paul George.
That was the only one.
They have a podcast.
Come on, man.
And he's playing today, too.
Eight, seven, five, six, five, four.
This is so easy.
Three.
two
one
I choked
Paul
this is LeBron
yeah
this is my
glorious king
this is my
glorious king
how could I
uh
I don't know
demarcus cousins
ah he wasn't there
tragic
let's do one more round
alright
Carrie's over here
so let me just put him away
you got yours
no
I just put him away
because he was flipped up already
Wait, no
He is a champion
He wasn't in 2019
Is the year he's in the war
He got it with the bucks
But he wasn't there for real
He was in the bucks
I think he received the ring
But
He played 17 games there
No no no
That's 2022
Isn't he a champion
With the books
No
No 2021 he wasn't there
He was on the Clippers
He was there in 2022
He was on the bucks
For 17 games
That was just three
Okay
Got my name
Am I facing the right way?
Yeah
Yeah he does
have a championship.
He does?
With the Lakers.
He's there in 2020?
Yeah.
He was not on the team at the end of the finals or to the back house.
Oh, he got hurt again, didn't he?
I don't know if he.
Yeah, he signed with the team that got hurt again before the season started.
That was the ACL.
Nice.
Okay, one more round.
Is it the right way?
Yep.
He's got to get in the clip.
All right.
You guys.
Okay.
So, you guys know?
Let's see who can guess the NBA player first.
I guess I'll go first.
I want.
Does my player working media?
No.
No.
Okay.
Does not.
Okay.
Is my player playing today?
No.
Nope.
Ooh.
Old dude.
Okay.
Is my player, my player playing today?
He is playing today.
Yeah.
Okay.
Is my player playing today?
Yes.
Yeah, he is.
I don't know what he doesn't work in media?
Is my player a Hall of Famer?
Yes.
Is my player
You're going to troll me
No I just
Does my player
Currently play
In the Eastern Conference
No
No
Is my player a bucket
No
He's not a bucket
Okay
I mean I would have
A little bit of argument
No
He's not known as that
But I mean it's there
He's like
I don't know
You guys are giving me
No he's not a bucket
No
Okay
So he's like
He's like capable
Of getting a bucket
Any given moment
But not a bucket
I guess
All right
When you say
Who's a bucket
This guy's name never comes up
Is my guy
Known
His main team
Never comes up as crazy
Yo is my gay
Is my guy
Did he play
Majority in the
Western Conference?
Yes
Okay
Okay
So my guy is in the West Conference
Currently playing today
Did my player
make the one through eight playoffs yes wait yes yeah wait oh yeah yeah yeah I'm
sure the question yeah yeah is my player an all-star currently no no okay has my
player won a championship no no no championship in our Hall of Fame okay is my
player on a team did my players team make the second round of the playoffs yes
yeah so i got drum on green no damn that was that your oh true true was that your guess okay
yeah asked me okay not a bucket so he my player known for most majority of the time in the western
conference hall of famer and he has no rings charles barkley incorrect damn is uh okay is my player
eliminated from the second round yes yeah fuck he's gonna get it soon uh is not player a good passer
no i'm trying to ask interesting questions we do the same shit every time yes yeah no try fucking
try hards not a good passer not a fucking what does he do what the fuck is he do damn my player
is a hall of famer like he okay so he's i'm assuming he's already been abducted to the hall of fame
and he's updicted he took him i'm trying to feel the out of
line of the silhouette.
You cheated, put your hands down.
I don't even think that'll work.
It won't.
Okay.
It would do nothing for it.
Fucking idiot.
That's a piece of, they all feel the same.
No, they don't.
They do.
I swear to God, you cannot guess a single player based off of the outline.
Make a guess, man.
Go on.
It's so funny.
Go on.
Go on.
Okay.
majority of the time in the Western Conference. No damn
rings. This is not Charles Barkley.
And he's already
a Hall of Famer. I have no
idea what I have. Okay.
He's getting, he's getting,
he's getting his soon. So we got to shoot in the
fucking dark here.
Is this
Hmm.
Damn. I was just about to say name.
I was about to say a name, but then I'm like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want
to take too much of a bad guess.
Is this
No
I gotta get one more
I gotta get one more question
I gotta get one more question
Does he
Oh Kevin Greeneff
No
Fuck he has a ring
Is my player a champion
No
No
Okay
Who
Fuck
Is my player
Above 6 5
Yes
Okay
Yeah he is
Not an all star
Above 65
Not a bucket
Not a good pass
he's big can't pass and can't score is my player bald no fuck is this jimmy butler this is jimmy
buggler who the hell do i have fucking sangoon chett holt i thought chad honger for a second
i thought chad honger ah damn ah steve nash you see how i felt the outline and then i guessed
no dummy don't ever doubt me you did not guess that don't ever doubt me you ask the wrong
If you ever got my method.
It's so funny because I really thought you had hungering.
And if I would have said that, you would accuse me of cheating so bad.
Don't put your limitations on me.
And that's the end of this show.
If people are still here, what should they comment?
Comment, don't put your limitations on me.
Don't do it.
There, comment.
Don't never doubt Don't know Don't.
Don't doubt Don'ty.
And we'll see y'all next week.