The Deep 3 Podcast - Kyrie Is Injured, The Lakers Are The 2 Seed, & Shai Drops 50! | TD3 Live

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Breaking down a big week of NBA news! #nba Support the stream: https://streamlabs.com/thedeep3pod Today we react to all the latest NBA news! Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/ Join the TD3 discord!: https://discord.gg/RUkjpMPp7E 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 Muhamed's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_ Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm happy to say, once again, for two weeks in a row, without a miss, we are alive. We are here. This is what people might call a streak. You know what I'm saying? Consistency is what we do. This might be what it looks like. It's a start. It's a start.

Two weeks in a row. We got to build from somewhere, and here we are making you guys not disappointed. I have a prediction. We're going to make it three weeks in a row next week. Okay, same prediction Repeat, yeah, three Pete That's what I was going to say six But that's the bar for now

We've been off, that's the bar for now So I won't promise you four Damn shit won't promise you five We will be here for a third week What are people saying that we're late, late, late, late Is that like, that just has to be humongous cap It's six o'clock, am I tripping right now? Yeah, welcome to, welcome to reality.

Here it is. As you guys see by the title, we have a lot to talk about And Chief among them, a not so great story as the Dallas Mavericks fandom continues to crumble into dust as they are continuing their descent into NBA hell, Kyrie Irving is once again injured. Yeah, I, yeah, it's, it's cooked. I, it's cooked. I, I don't even know how to approach this anymore. Yeah, I just feel like, dude, Mavericks fans are at this point, like a, you know,

they need their own like organization to like fight for their rights i yeah at this point in time i mean at this point in time i don't think i've seen like this is such a mastery of a shit class disaster class what's what's the quote that i've seen any group of people had a master class of dog shit that's a will hardy said And that's what this is. The Mavericks are currently undergoing the single most depressing year a fan base has ever experienced

in my life as an NBA fan. I feel like that's safe to say. There's been a lot of depressing-ass teams over time. The Mavericks currently take the cake. And obviously, like we said, that's because Sean Serranii confirmed this morning, Dallas Mavericks All-Star Carrier Ring

has suffered a season-ending torn ACL in his left knee. Man, where do we begin? This is just unfortunate, right? This isn't because of anything Nico Harrison did. and because of anything Anthony Davis said, so on. Nobody's at fault here. It's just unlucky. But man.

But it sure feels like it. It sure feels like it's somebody's fault. It feels like somebody's fucking curse. Somebody did a crime against humanity, a crime against any, whatever God you subscribe to. They're upset at the Dallas Mavericks for whatever reason. And while this is just unlucky, these motherfuckers have no room for error. They have no ability to be unlucky and weather the storm due to the decisions they have made. the hand they have dealt themselves,

this feels like a death blow. It 100% is a death blow. And I think like it is the worst season that any fan base has had ever because not only do you lose your future and your president in Luca Donchage, but you were sold, we're trading away our future

because we think that we can win now with Kyrie and Anthony Davis. And you lost your name. now. So you have nothing to hang your hat on for the next 10 months, for the next 10 days, for the next 10 years. None of that matters because everything is gone. And it is, it just gets worse and worse and worse. And you can't even have one of those like fluke wins that happens whenever, whenever one of your like bench players and one of your rotational guys steps up. Because they traded Quentin Grimes. Quentin Grimes went and won the sixes a game. He broke

He broke their nine game losing streak. That could have been the Mavericks. You could have had a quitting Grimes Masterclass for a win, and now that can't happen. So now you're just sitting here hoping that you can make up five and a half losses in the, or five and a half wins, whatever, in the loss column and get the best draft pick. But I don't even know if that's going to happen because Phoenix and Portland have like hard schedules. So they might they might be losing too.

So you don't even think the Dallas Mavericks have control of their draft pick, It belongs to, like, someone who's been running the draft big streets in OKC, bro. I think it's like... No, they have it this year. But don't quit me on it. No, they have it this year. They have it this year. Even if they do have it this year, like, usually I feel like NBA fans have a special

talent and ability to, like, be delusional. I think you heard, I think you said the term opium a couple of days or our last week's podcast episode, Isaac. They have like a special ability to just be delusional, be high off the whole PM and all last year. but if you're like even the most delusion or delusion on NBA fans can't find a way of can't find any sunshine in this dark ass cave that all these that the Dallas Mavericks are in right now yeah there's like they are destroyed situations fucked Tyree is hurt you only got 32 minutes

Anthony Davis what are you what is there to look at and be proud of nothing it's a defeated fan base right and the problem is not only are the unfortunate right not only did they lose a trade not only do they lose a starter injury, not only do they lose another starter injury after that, not only have they also lost like five role players to injury, all their bigs are hurt. The cumulative effect of all this sucks, right? That alone would be something to give some, you know, compassion to Mavericks fans.

But you guys are, you dealt with a tough hand. Everybody on your team is dropping like flies, that sucks. On top of that, it just feels like the organization is at war with the fans. Like, it is a, like the fans that are damn about to do a coupie ta, because ever since the new ownership group came in and took over this team, it seemed like they just have been budding heads with the fan base left and right. I don't know if you guys saw yesterday, they raised their season ticket prices about 8%, which is hilariously bad timing.

The visual that is just hysterical to say, we give you guys a worst product, and we're going to want more money for that now, actually. Yes, and that is why today I said, like, whatever marches there would be, I will be on the front lines. Whatever, whatever mass fans need to do to revolt against, it, I will be there, right? If you, if you want to go crazy and allegedly, hypothetically, do some wild, I'll burn

the stadium down with you. Like, I would do whatever you want. You know what I'm saying? But it really is just like a terrible, terrible situation. And it feels everything that has happened with the maps is so crazy that all the conspiracy theories that we heard before, it's starting to be like, hey, well, maybe that's, maybe that's right. Because clearly, because clearly something is at work, right?

And we said that it's nobody's fault. I can't rule that out. I can't rule out that there is not a lot of puppeteering going off behind the scenes and that. And that ownership is not looking at all of these negative things happening and saying this is exactly what we wanted. We want to be a worse situation. We'll talk more about the organization and where the direction their head in the fans. But also, this sucks. This is horrible.

for Kyrie Irving. It was reported today by Shams that Kyrie Irving was on track to receive a max contract this off season before tearing his ACL, which sounds to me like he probably was saying that Kyrie planned to stay as of now and they plan to write it out and build around this new era around him and Anthony Davis and, you know, reward him and keep him around for long term, see this vision through that Nico Harrison had decided that was more optimal than building around Luca Donches, right? They clearly were committed this and Kyrie Irving was going to be a big, big part of that. And the last person of his caliber, his play style, body type, whatever that we saw grow through an ACL tear of the similar fashion was

Jamal Murray, who tore his ACL earlier in the year than Kyrie Irving just did in March, and he missed the entirety of the next season. Now, maybe, you know, those are different people. Some people recover faster. Some people recover longer. We don't know what Kyrie Irving's time is going to be like or the level of tear or whatever. You have to assume most of the next year is fucked. So not only are you dealing with the situation where you gave up the Lucidoncha's dream, you decided to go down this new win now path around Anthony Davis and Cairo Irving, you just lost like a year of that. Jamal Murray also wasn't 30 years old.

Yeah. You know, like, like that, that's the, that's the crazy part. And you look at, you look at the stretch that Kyrie was playing before this. He was averaging close to 40 minutes a night, you know, heading, heading into this. I'm not going to put that, you know, specifically that's the reason why he tore his, his ACL. But you see the amount of, the amount of wear and tear that they were putting on his body because they had to. Because everybody, because everybody was hurt. And as you move forward, you were going to keep asking that.

And so we've seen it a lot of times with older stars. Like if there's ever a reason to load manage, it would be, hey, this guy's 33 years old. We can't play him like he's a 23 year old. And so for Jamal Murray, for him to miss out on a whole bunch of time and for him to take some time to come back and start to look like the Jamal Murray of old by the time. Like, and again, like I don't know Kyrie's body, but let's just assume that Kyrie, you know, kind of recovers the way that everybody else does. By the time Kyrie is back to normal,

he's going to be 34 years old. It's going to be a really, really weird situation. And someone in the chat made a good point that Jamal Murray's recovery involved the setback to. So, okay, so maybe that's not the best comparison. Maybe I shouldn't have made that one to one. It's not the same, clearly. But nevertheless, like Donovan's saying,

even if it is a normal ACL recovery, which is what these days, like eight months when you come back to the court with, you know, how advanced things have gotten, that requires a ramp-up period. We're already in March. if he's not going to be 100% until close to 12 months from now

that's assuming it's a three-month ramp-up period you lose this year which sucks obviously you don't want to lose a single year in your win now mode he said his idea of the future is three years from now he's like

Nico Harris's idea of the future is three years from now so he's maximizing for a 36 month window you lose one of those seasons there goes 33% of your timeline and you might lose most of next year and have to hope that before the playoffs start you can get things going

damn near 66% of your timeline is fucked this is the worst case scenario and on top of that Anthony Davis might get shut down for the rest of the season too Sean's reported that he might also take the rest this year off so it might just be a total utter disaster

that was a given At this point in time now we're now all the Dallas Mavericks fans are in Max Christie save us mode good Lord PJ Washington save us mode these guys are in Spencer Dinwiddie save us mode that's so atrocious that's sad and another thing that's sad back to like touching back

on carrie irving too is like damn he was supposed to get paid and a part of my brain wants to be like oh like the Dallas members are still going to pay him maybe not as much i've seen players before in the past like Kevin Durant get paid even though he's going to be out but that's Kevin Durant that we're talking about that's like one of the 10 most talented players that we've ever seen you know so it's hard to compare those two things I feel like Harry's probably going to want to stay there and rehab and all out over there because they might pay him whatever he wants because this organization clearly continuously makes questionable decisions so even with all that being said you're right like this in my mind the next two years this year next year absolutely cooked and

it's hard to envision a 34 year old kairi irving and who the who knows how old nthia davis is going to be around that age like still being or leading this team to any type of championship attention. That's tough. Yeah. And think about also, like, how hirky jerky Karee's game is. Like his game, his game doesn't lend himself to being an old man with bad needs. You need to be, you need to be. You got to get low with these knees. Yeah. Lubricate their needs every night before he gets to do anything tough. Yeah. And it's going to be tough. And again, like, it's not a, it's not a straight like one-to-one comparison because, you know, his teammate Clay Thompson also had the ACL and the Achilles. But,

for Clay who before just ran it like Clay was just running around he's not doing a whole bunch of you know stop start accelerating super athletic like that for Kyrie who his entire game is based off of that doing that two years later I have no idea how it's going to look whenever he comes back whenever he is starting to ramp up into real Kyrie mode so it's it's tough and it's just the worst it's the worst season that you could possibly think of for for the Babs yeah and again this season absolutely lost that that happens sometimes right that doesn't necessarily need to be linked back to everything else you just get in lucky and your star gets hurt that's bound to happen to some team at some point every single season the issue is like we talked about they viewed this as a

three-year window which maybe that doesn't mean literally that's what nico harrison said so maybe we don't got to say that's a hard line he expects me bad in three years whatever if two of those three years are gone starting in 2027 they do not have control their first round picks. This year and next year, they got it. The next year, it's outright traded to the Hornets in the Peter Washington trade. And after that year, you have three straight seasons of pick swaps being owed to various teams. These deals were made when Nico Harrison had Luca Donchich. He looked at his roster and said, well, fuck that. Who cares? We can do a pick swap in 2028. Luca's going to be 29. It will be totally fine. That's what I'm saying. There must be some type of drugs involved in

Nico Harris is just going to on every like smart foul process you had and just become a whole new different. Allegedly. There's no way in hell. You just psychology make all the right moves. You're on time with everything. And then you're just like

allegedly. Allegedly. Fuck the brain. Hypothetically. Hypothetically, bro. Who's going on? Yeah. So whether it's drugs, foul play, whatever may be going on in equal harris's thought process,

you have two years when you have control your destiny before all the picks are owed and you're going to lose a good chunk of that, I cannot overstate how depressing it is for Mavericks fans. Like the discourse I'm seeing online amongst these fans is crazy. I've never seen anything like this and it's all deserved. None of its overreaction. In fact, I think they should be more dramatic. I think there should be more desire to switch your team and get rid of your flow to this new organization that's run by new people who do not have your best interest in heart i think there

should be more desire for watching this team crumble why you work for the spurs i think we need to have more vengeance in your heart you're raising your prices by 8% would send me off send me over the fucking bridge bro if i got that email and they because i saw i saw like the link because obviously like you can pay in pieces you're telling me to go on a payment plan to get, to get season tickets. Go to hell, kick rock. I have nothing for you. I will not open up my app to pay, my Klarna,

to go see this team. It's not going to happen. And, yeah, man. Chat, I answer this. I'll make a poll right now. Who has the worst future in the NBA? Like, who has the least hope for the future in their NBA, right? Who should be the saddest fan base?

I'll make a poll between, let's say, Mavs, 76ers, Sons, and Bulls, just because the Bulls are always down bad, right? Who do you guys think should be the most sad of all these teams? To me, when I hear the list of those teams, the Bulls, they're down bad. It's just self-inflicted. They're just, like, bad for no reason. They're in a great city. The food's great, bro.

The jerseys are hard. One of the best locals of all time. But you choose to be bad. That's self-inflicted. That is just poor decision to make it. No, they choose to be made. they choose to be mid mid exactly so i think that's fine when i look at the team like the phoenix sons okay like although like yeah the bradley beale thing sucks katy's probably gonna be a trade

in the summer who the fuck knows you still have a do you still have different booker under contracts he's like 26 27 years old that's something you can like hang your hat on you know but as for the dallas mavericks there's no young star there there's no like picks that you're clamming for to be super happy about you are already like kind of of a decent team. Yeah, what the fuck was that? Oh, I snorted? I had no idea.

Right now, 51% of the vote is going to the Mavs in the chat. Man, it's tough. And the worst part is, too, this was such a roller coaster of emotions, right? The trade breaks down, it happens. Luca Donchish is traded in the dead of night to Los Angeles Lakers. The world's fucking. stops. Everybody cries in Dallas, everybody in Los Angeles, throws her hands in the air and celebrates, right? There goes to the normal range of emotions of winners and losers. A few days

later, Anthony Davis is the first person to play of the stars in this trade. And he looks fan fucking tastic. It was an amazing half of basketball. He was going crazy. There was a sliver of hope that, okay, we lost Luca. That's going to sting for the rest of my goddamn life. But at least you have a great team led by another superstar that might lead us to doing something of note. the rest of the season into the postseason. And the fact that that was snatched from you after three quarters of basketball and here we are today

where more and more injury dominoes continued to fall. Like, I just keep thinking of more and more layers of why it's extra painful. It's not just that your front office is stupid. It's not just that your own lucky. It's that the knife was driven in

and twisted around like eight different ways by eight different carmic debts you had to pay. This wraps. Every other team at least has an off-ramp, like the Sixers, you have Tyreuse Maxi to where if the Joelle and B thing goes even further south and as Paul George, you know, that contract doesn't work out. If you wanted to hit one of these reset buttons, you could because you could say, all right, who wants Tyrese Maxie?

And then you can get a haulback for him. The sons, you still have Devin Booker. You can make a trade and trade Devin Booker and get off with that. Dallas, you played the only car that you had and you played the. biggest car that you had. You threw away your big joker to go get AD who is 30 something years old and you were relying on Kyrie who is also 30 years old or 30 plus whatever. And so now the best trade value that you had to get yourself out of any type of situation is gone. So they have nothing to stay. Dude, you know what I feel the worst about in this situation outside

of Kyrie because he's obviously hurt. Bro, if you're Clay Thompson, how do you feel about this? Abandoned. I feel like I was sold. I feel like I was sold fucking snake oil I feel like I was completely laid out to dry Like I was sold a dream of playing next to the best ball handler Of my goddamn generation The next youthful star That's gonna put me situation

Have a great end of my career And then that shit is gone in an instant And now I'm out here with Max Christie And PJ Washington for the rest of the season I would be so goddamn pissed I hope he requests a trade in the summer You're supposed to play with Luca Derek lively

Kyra Irving and now boom Kai Jones comes walking through those dars hitting all types of crazy dances Dars Come on God damn Dars man

Fuck I don't even Like there's so many other reasons Like I just keep thinking of new reasons Why this sucks for the fans Like what do you do if you're a mass fan tonight How are you spending your night I make a wheel

I spin the wheel And whichever team it lands on That's the new team I pick that was that was liable right like or that was that was an option the night of the trade and it's gotten so bad you have all if you are a mass fan you have until opening night of next year to pick a new team now if you decide that you don't want to switch right you want to rock with the mfFL mass fan for life okay go ahead you are now entrenching it but you have a six-month transfer portal to where you can go to any NBA team and nobody will be upset at you.

And people will ask you who your team is and you'll say, oh, I'm a fan of so-and-so. I used to root for the math. Then they'd be like, oh, okay, I get it. I get it. Prop, props to you, props to you. Bro. If you choose to be a fan of the Dallas Mavericks, like you're choosing to stay in an abuse of relationship.

You're choosing, like you know your partner just doesn't fuck you, doesn't respect you whatsoever. I'm saying. Running up your pockets, bro. Don't get to fuck about your future. You're crying together. You're choosing. Yeah.

Exactly. You're choosing disaster. You're choosing turmoil for your life. What do you think Rich Paul is thinking right now? As the representative of Anthony Davis, he's looking at his client, one of his premier clients, right? Ante Davis is a absolute superstar, one of those high-profile players in the NBA, outside of LeBron James, he's probably his biggest priority as an agent. You see him be shifted off away from Los Angeles. He had no desire to go there.

He goes to Dallas. Okay, we're going to be a good team. I'm the man again. I get what I want, right? it's a good situation for me I won't be upset that I got shifted in the middle of the night

to another team but then this happens and you have no faith in the organization because the fact they got you was fucking stupid in the first place

and a bad sign of competency they made a lot of other dumb decisions they got rid of Quinn Grimes for no reason they did all these other small stupid things that added up

and then you get struck with this misfortune and you know that you can shut down this year and get healthy fine that's good for you but you know you're coming back

next year to a team that is not equipped to make you compete for one of your final prime years before you eventually They hit that 35-year-old threshold as a big man. How can you possibly feel good about the situation you are in?

You don't. If you're Rich Paul, you are on the phone with Anthony Davis. And you said, good news. You said, good news. We got your payment. Bad news. They gave your life. The worst situation to be in.

It's awful. I have no idea where Anthony Davis goes after this. So is there a way out. Free Anthony Davis. So was it, Isaac, was how to make people feel like shit so well. Painting the whole story. Dude, it's tough.

And it's hard to make the Dazs bad just for like, I'm not just laying out the turn of events. I didn't mean. Yeah, you're back. Like, what is, what does he do there? Like, I guess, I don't know if you can request a trade because that's a bad look like. I'm going to China.

I'm going to China. I'm not playing with these guys. I'm not doing it. I mean, the only thing that makes me feel good about the Anthony David situation is that like, at least someone wants him, at least someone's willing to respect his request. It's just like, yo, I want to play the four position. Boom, say no more.

We want you to play the four position and thrive beautifully alongside Derek lively and Daniel Gafford. But although that's the case, like you said, as you have to be realistic with the outcome of your situation. Yeah. He wants to win. He's a competitor. Man, I think about 27 teams out there would like to respect Anthony Davis.

I think people are lining up and would love to respect Anthony Davis in their door, in their uniform. I think that would be no problem to find another team that lets him play the power forward, lets him come in and be the star. I would sleep well at night when it comes to thinking about how many teams would give me that opportunity. I don't think that's nearly exclusive to the Dallas Mavericks. If you're a team right now, how, what would the package look like if you called the Mavericks up this summer and said, name a team. We want AD. Um, I don't, I don't know. I did this on the spot. I wasn't prepared. Yel Ann Oxt. Delano Hawks.

Oh, everybody. Actually, I don't know if I think the Hawks should be the interest are going the other way. But let's say they want to get Tray Young that guy. Would you get Risha Shea, all the money needed and whatever picks you want. Jalen Johnson, A.D., Tray Young, that can be your core, figure everything else out.

That's a beautiful team. Three first-on picks, Risa Shea and salary filler, whoever that may be, I can't remember. What if O.K.C. tried to make a move on, Anthony Davis. Isaiah Hardinstein, Isaiah Joe, Two first-on picks. I think we get it done.

Two first up. Nica Harrison might ask for just a second, bro. He might keep them. I don't know. I don't even want them. Greed is the enemy of goodness. Get it away from me. Let's have the Spurs called Dallas.

Let's get A.D. and Wemby. That would be fucking insane. Let's get that going. Yeah, man, I don't know what's going on here. This just feels like a funeral for the Dallas Mavericks fans. I don't have much more to say other than you should be sad. And I wish I had a silver lining for you, but I just don't. Like, I don't know.

I mean, I guess it's a good thing. You'll get a top pick, right? Swell, if Anthony Davis has already hurt, I guess maybe you can get a lottery pick out of this and have another Derek Lively situation where maybe you luck into a 10th pick or so that is somebody that can really low-key change the trajectory of wherever this is going.

That's possible. That's the only hope. Maybe you see that. Maybe you see that. That's the only hope, but I looked at it last night. The Sons have like 21 games. The Blazers have 20 games left.

Out of all the teams in the league, the sons have the hardest. remaining schedule. Tough. And the Blazers have the fourth hardest remaining schedule. Tough. So the two teams ahead of you that you would need to jump to start getting into like realistic, actual like good odds to start climbing up, they are also about to lose.

The sons are two and eight in their last 10, right? The Blazers, the Blazers, their next four is tough. And they've been playing well, but they have like legitimate contenders coming up on their schedule. I don't know if Dallas is going to be able to catch up. to Portland or two or to Phoenix to actually jump them. So they might just be in that very weird spot of the lottery where you're not at the end. Like you're not 13 or 14, but you're not high enough to get the real guy.

So now you really have to be smart and think about who you want to draft, who has some good value. And, you know, in that range where really anything can go, it's not the most appealing thing to have the 11th pick in the draft. Moral of the story, you're fucking fucked. I'm sorry. It's not going to be a good year for you. And I think you should try to put your faith in Dallas Cowboys. That's probably a better. Hey, I promise you.

Do not put your faith in that. It's a better rule of the dice. No, leave. You better be either a Texas Rangers fan or find another basketball team to root for. Are they good at hockey? Is Dallas good at hockey? I don't know.

Probably. The stars? They be right. The stars be hi, I think. Are you all? B. is no other than what you got here. I don't do hockey.

That's not me. All right. We can move on the next topic. I'm sorry, Mavericks fan. Let me read the don't knows real quick that I missed. Shout out to Jo, Wachene 37 for tipping $3.33. He said, yo, Isaac, I think enough time has passed.

You should leak the photos of Mo's haircut that put him in the shiasty. And honestly, it wasn't that bad. Great callback. That was horrendous. I don't even had the pictures. It wasn't as bad as Mo made it seem Like he sucked

It was a bad haircut But he made it seem like If you came on Like in front of you guys At that he'd have to kill himself It wasn't nearly that bad It was just that was a bad haircut That was the situation

I know my hair to the T bro I've gone plenty of great haircuts And mid haircuts It was by far The worst haircut I've ever received In the entirety of my 25 years Of life on this planet

Bro Unevene Uneven hairline pushed back Like any of that fucking hairbender Bro It was fucking bad terrible. All right, man.

And shout out to Horsi Yokic for tipping $5. We appreciate you guys. Next story we got to talk about, y'all, Shea Gildes Alexander won't stop being amazing at basketball and I just feel the need to continue to talk about it all year I've been labeled to Shea Glazer because I'm living in reality

and I keep talking about the fact that he's on an all-time historic level run and a couple nights ago, it continued. He dropped 51 points against the Houston Rockets and it was an incredibly impressive game not just because of 51 points there was also seven assists it was a great playmaking game

and this was I think the fourth I mean check 50 point game of his season and you know one of the complaints of his coming to the season was people had to find any reason to tear him down and they were like he always gets 32 he never gets 40 he never gets 50 you know he's misdiscency man

but I don't see him caring getting 50 point games he currently leads the league this season in 50 point games before leads the league in 40 point games with nine leads the league in 30 point games with 38 and leads the league in 20 point games of 59 this is the MVP I don't know if you're all aware of this

if it's not obvious to everybody in the chat this is undoubtedly the MVP league we knew that we knew we knew that and we some people don't know that somebody who realistically right like it's it's either share or yokets and if you are picking

Yokich, you are purely going off the idea of Yokic is a better player than Thin Shay. Like, I don't, I don't think that you can say, what? Listen, you look at Yokic's numbers and you look at the stuff that you're doing, and that number always sticks out, you know, that three-point shooting number. But for Shay to be the level of score that he is and to be a legitimate impact player on both ends of the floor and to just be able to give you. bucket after bucket after bucket after bucket yeah there's not there's not much that that you can say at this point and when they are the one seed and they're over 10 games they're either like 10 or 11

games up on the on the second seed in the harder conference from top to bottom yes that's the MVP this is what everybody wanted they wanted best player on the best team and that's who she is yeah he's like the traditional he should be like the traditional like MVP for sure I 100% and agree. Although I love Yokicin, like, I have had high, I've had my hard takes about the Denver Nikes and how much I believe in him, for sure, without a doubt. But I see Shay what he's doing this year. I see defensively, we know it he has offensively one of the three best scores that the game can offer right now as we speak in this moment. Um, going, touching back on that point as you're talking about how fans Alasher just trying to find any type of hole in his game and

trying to find an argument about why he isn't that great that much of a dude or whatever and you're right like this year he's had he leads the league in 50 point games last year he never had a 50 point game whatsoever and that people were dragging him because of that i remember that conversation that's that weak ass drag you can't score 50 bro what do you mean he only scores 30 every no i don't know that weak ass criticism man but no you're right and you said top three scores NBA. I understand why you said that because people like Luca are still amazing. Obviously Embed's cooked, but was best score in the league at some point. Yon's still up there. I think we need to talk about the fact that he is at this point, clearly the best score in the

NBA. You know, I'll ride for Luca until the fucking wheels fall off, especially now that he's in fucking yellow. You guys know this. Luca hasn't played to the level he played Lashar, even when he was on the Mavericks this year before the injury, right? Shea has had an entire season now of being head and shoulders the best score in the NBA. And I think we need to realize that once the season ends, and this will be his third straight year of being top three and MVP being at this level, first team all NBA, and now he's even better than what was a four. The three point rate is higher. That's made him more unstoppable. Everything is continuing to culminate. This is one of the best NBA scoring peaks of all time. Like, I don't know what the number

is, maybe top 10, whatever it is, but he is scoring himself into legend status. He is absolutely playing as one of the best scores we've ever seen yeah and i think i think like we've had this conversation before where the most one of the most interesting parts about how he scores is that he's not a high volume three point shooter he's not a guy who's going to come out here and take eight nine threes a night or a guy who half of his shots are going to be threes and you have that and you have that much like volume like imagine imagine if he did and he tried it a little bit early on in the season to do, you know, what Anthony Edwards was doing. And he's like, okay, I'm going to come out.

I'm going to work on my three-point game. Or I put in work. I'm going to show you guys that. And had he made the leap that Anthony Edwards was that, I mean, he might be averaging 36, 37 points a game like that. But that, you know, it didn't go that way. And to still be able to say, I'm going to take away the three-point shot from my game and not have it be that heavy of a diet.

And I'm just going to get to my spot every time. And you're not going to stop me. I'm going to get to the rim every single time. I'm going to put. pressure on the defense and I'm going to get to the free throw line as you know really at will like being being able to be that that type that type of three level score is is so so underrated and there's there's nothing that that you can do because he doesn't need he's not even like quite as like what you're describing is what he was like two years ago when it was a little over

two and it was just like downhill half back dive every time he shooting 5.7 3 is a game it is a good chunk now like he loki is what you just described like he doesn't no but but he's not but he's not taking like he's not of course not earlier yeah that's what that's what that's what i'm saying but like earlier in the season he completely changed their game like that earlier in the season if we remember he did try to completely change his game he was on and the time he was shooting like eight and nine three's a game and the motherfuckers run going in and he stuck to his game you'veverted a little bit obviously it looked like like three-point shooting was something that he genuinely that generally was an emphasis on his game during the offseason he was.

want to show that, prove that, but he was doing a little bit too much, line that back a little bit, and that was efficiency as high as ever, volume is as as high as ever. And also on top of that, too, nothing else in his game has suffered. If anything, like the playmaking got a little bit better to compare it to what it was before. Maybe that's because Isaiah is Hardinstein is in the fold now. Who knows, but regards to the fact, this is peak SGA, peak offense scoring that we've seen of like history.

And he's literally an all-time player doing all-time things right now. And I feel like it's taking us NBA fans just to live. little bit more time to fully digest that. Yeah, exactly. And end of the day, the average NBA fan, the average NBA narrative and discourse will not acknowledge somebody at this level until they win a championship. That's the culture we're in in the NBA media discourse, right? Like winning is prioritized above all. We don't have to get into why that's the case, but that's the case for most people. So any of the day this comes down to make the finals at least, then you'll get acknowledged that way. Some people are going to be like, he hasn't made it out of the second round. Is that like

you know like intelligent or like using any type of context critical thinking no but that's the narrative and i i understand it to some degree so we'll give a time we we all think they'll be that level of the team this year so we think that that criticism will be shut down by the end of this playoff run but for now if that's your one thing sure i guess in terms of on the court production he checks every box i have this tweet to show you guys that was very illuminating to me there's There's a new website called Data Baller that lets you look at players' data and their production when they're on the court with other players, which I haven't been begging for for a long time. When he plays without Jalen Williams on the court in 718 minutes this year, he goes from

29.7 points for 75 possessions, which is when they're both in the court, to 41.3, when he plays a helio style in the same way Luca, Hardin, et cetera, have, which he's never done full time, right? which is the biggest difference and his stats between someone like Luca, the numbers are bad shit insane. The scoring numbers are, the playmaking isn't, I think that's the difference.

It's seven and a half. When it comes to the assist the scoring numbers? Yes, seven and a half, which is still pretty, again, this is per 75 possessions. 41 points, seven and a half assists, 67 and a half true shooting percentage. Why not 10 assists?

Yeah, one out 11. If it was Luca Hardin, they'd be hitting double digits. bro, shit. That's why I'm like, real back. If there was ever a season where he had to play like this full time, it would be mind boggling. He is at that level where he can do this for a full time, I think.

The coaches are just smart and don't want him to. It's very rare that you see guys who have this much talent, this much skill, completely get the opportunity to do it. And it honestly is kind of funny, though, because at the top of the league, whenever you see guys do it, people normally, it feels like they answered the call. especially especially as of late like if lebron when lebron had to go and do absolutely everything he did it when james hardin had to do it he did it when lucas had to he's done it step curry the one year where they were like all right step it's all on you there's nobody else he led the league in

scoring you've seen people you see a lot like when these guys are that of scores they they might not be getting 50 points every single night which chae is doing you know very i guess consistently consistent as you can have for a 50-point game, but he doesn't, he doesn't do it because he doesn't necessarily have to, but don't get it twisted. Don't think that shade doesn't have the ability to be one of like the high volume scores that you've ever seen. And so yeah, like the, the thunder, and you know, this is, this is probably one of our like kind of, you know, bigger differences in terms of how we see the game. But if this year and like, you know, depending on how the, how the year shakes up, it should be, the Thunder minimum,

should be in the conference finals. Yeah, yeah. I don't even know what you meant by that when you said the difference in the game. I think this team should win the finals. I'm saying, like, if you don't get out the second round, it's like, I do. Like, we're starting to get there, you know? I mean, sure. The difference is you're saying it, like, if this doesn't happen, X is a takeaway.

I would like to see what happens with the context is behind that before I say, this equals for sure this is a takeaway. But I think they would It's a Thunder don't win the finals This year It'll be What are we talking about? I know

Is it thunder don't win the finals this year It'll be the single most surprise I've ever been of a team Not winning the finals in the past 10 years Like wow I wouldn't be I don't think is that sure fire Every single

Obviously the Celtics exist So they could lose the Celtics We're also an all-time great team Every single measurable piece of data That exists in basketball points to this OKC Thunder team being one of the best teams of all time.

Every single measurable piece you can look at puts them side by side with some of, only champions. Every single peer of theirs is a champion. And obviously that's not everything. There's other things in play, right? But again, it will be more surprising if they're not

in the finals than if they make it. Okay, that's true. I agree. But I think I'm with Moe, where I don't know if I would be like 100% completely shocked if they didn't win it, I would go into every single series thinking that they are the favorite. And I probably will pick them in every single series. However, if they get into a series with Boston and Boston wins, I'm not going to be surprised.

Yeah, of course not. Of course not. If they get into a series with Cleveland and Cleveland wins, I will be, I will be shocked only for the reason of it's the Cleveland Cavaliers. But when you look at what the Cavs have shown this season and you look at the actual basketball that they've been playing, then you can say like, oh, no, like this team is also very, very good and the fact that they've gotten to this point is not surprising, but just the idea. That's what I'm saying.

You're on the right. The Cavs are also in those tiers of measurable data points of being the championship level team. So that's also a good point that if you want to say the same thing for the Cavs, you can. But the difference is I think there's certain intangibles outside of just regular season data right that you have to check

and chief among them being have one of the best players in the world She is clearly Tier 1 Alpha one of the best players in the world where you can't really

say that for the Cavs and I don't think it's as simple as like have one of the best players means you win don't have them means you lose but it certainly helps

so I think you can't even point to that for the thunder oh man I just feel like the conversation around Shee in the thunder for sure

isn't loud enough in terms of like what are we watching right now? Do you understand what we're doing right now? Like even you, I just took you a little bit of time to like come around to the fact like, oh, yeah, like the Tainham is not better than this dude right here. And maybe I was a little bit early because, you know, a little bit of hating or whatever.

But hey, for the fact, a bar is a bar and I spit that shit early. And I feel like the push just isn't there yet. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the same being marketing and just fans on how they can see it. Maybe the whole Canadian. I don't know. Because Oklahoma. Playing Oklahoma.

and they haven't won yet. So people currently see them as a regular season, cute team that hasn't won it yet. Wake me up when they are in the conference finals, right? That's what it is entirely, I think. And I... They were the one seat last year, too. And so, like, for a lot of people,

it was like, okay, you did this last year and you didn't make the conference finals. You're in the same situation. It doesn't matter if you win all these games. Like, for the regular season, they would have had to win 70 games for people to probably be like, okay, maybe this team is actually better

than the one last year. But I think that even though that they are clearly, like, a great, great team, a lot of people still look at them as, yeah, like, you're still just this, like, young, unproven team because they still are one of the younger teams in the league as well. And the thing is that thinking makes sense a lot of the times. I get why people would default to that. And again, it also comes back to how the league is covered. And that's, like, encouraged thought process-wise from, like, the shit you see on TV.

But there are certain teams over the years that are unproven and haven't done it yet. Until they do. And then when they do, we look back on the season and say, oh, it should have been abundantly obvious that they were going to win because they are just utterly dominant against the field for the entirety of the year. And every indicator we could have looked at said, this is the best team. It just happened last year to the Boston Celtics. It happened in 2015 to the Golden State Warriors. Again, nothing is certain. They have to stay healthy. They have to, you know, have that luck on their side and be able to beat another juggernaut in the Celtics, another juggernaut in the Cavs. But if and when the Thunder do win it all, we'll look back and say, oh, we should have known it was quite obvious. obvious. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I've been, we've all kind of, you know, been saying it in terms of those three teams. I think it's interesting now because the way that we're having this conversation makes it seem as it's a three-team race at the top. And the Nuggets who we all thought were kind of like that 14.

Listen, a lot of stuff has changed in the last two weeks. Hell yeah. I may not think that the Nuggets are the fourth. team in that like title contending circle. And I'm just I'm just saying like that the battle forth between the Nuggets and the Lakers is a real

thing now. And so and so like I can't go in and just pencil in Nuggets Thunder conference finals book it because you know the Lakers have the opportunity to do either one of them to knock off either one of them. But

before the Thunder like yeah it they are also like fighting history because historically young teams also don't win and so it's like at what at what point you want to you know like at what point do you want to look at age rather than experience because that's also kind of the thing with the Celtics where like even last year like Tatum and Brown they still are fairly young but they've been in these situations for for so many times you're like kind of waiting for them to get over the home it's kind of the same thing where the thunder are also like learning on the fly

and getting there and whether you think that they're ahead of schedule or on schedule whatever they are doing all of this and so people use it as such

a double-sided thing though like it's yeah you're young you're inexperienced you can't win and then last year they didn't win what's up with that

that's the motherfucking experience we're talking about they lost and learned something a thing or two about their team Jaylon Williams I promised learned a lot by the fact that he got

shut down by PJ Washington and Derek Jones Jr. Chad Holmgren learned a lot by getting out physical by Derek lively that's the experience who speak of And then people will be like, Shea's pushing 30, hasn't made a conference finals.

Not super young team. The guy's supposed to be 27. He's had some years to continue to get better and continue to equip his game to survive these high stakes things. Like, again, we can- Pushing 30 at 27 is kind of wild. I know, I know, but, you know, that's what people say that are hating in ridiculous fashion. Like, they're either a young team or they should have won by now, like pick aside. And I think last year is the experience people want to see.

Oh, nice. What a bark. I like that I like that No that's fair Yeah Shout out to Jay Skittles For tipping $57.66

He said What a specific number Yeah first of all Appreciate you Good a good amount of money Appreciate you putting that forward He said I hurt my back

While listening to an old TD3 episode I was laying on the floor In excruciating pain Unable to get up But when Mo started ranking The most viable players in the league It gave me the strength To get up

And turn that shit off Wait, what episode was this last year? No, it's when we did the most valuable players this summer And I forget what you had You had some crazy, some crazy I shit on there I forget what it was I don't even remember that I got to go back and look at that

Valuable players I think LeBron was dumb high for his age And then what were the other crazy ones It wasn't Jalen Green that was on shooting guards list No, yeah The Jalen Green wasn't the shooting guards list But hey, even that takes like not horrendous either Nevertheless, appreciate your Jay Skittles.

We move on the next topic. Donovan, you mentioned the Denver Nuggets and the Lakers and like the vying for the second best team in the West, a lot is changed in recent weeks. Correct. We got to talk about that because earlier this season, I talked a lot about how I have lost faith in the Lakers because I have lost faith in LeBron to be a consistent top 10 player in the league.

That was kind of my big reason to be pessimistic about my team. I no longer feel that even a little bit. This motherfucker is back. Ron James is your player of the month for the Western Conference. He went 10 and 2 in the past month, averaging 29.3 points, 10.5 rebounds, 6.9 assists. He looks absolutely revitalized playing off of Luca Donchich. Offensively, fantastic. Defensively, he's trying really hard again.

It's made a huge difference. I now feel completely 100% confident this team is better than the Nuggets. In large part, because of him. Oh, man. Yeah, this is a good. completely different Lakers team, bro. I think it's easy. Obviously, Luca Donchich is there,

but I think, like, seeing LeBron lock the fuck in and realize, like, oh, shit, like, I actually have a chance again to be special and win another championship, a new championship onto my resume, bro. So seeing this new Virgin LeBron, this revitalized Virgin of Braun, it's taking me back, man. It's taking me back

right now. Some of the, all the open looks that he's getting, all the unassisted or the assisted baskets that he's getting, it's taking me back to times. Dude, it looks like everything we hoped it would look like. We talked about how Luca would make him better because he can move off ball and do a lot of like super soldiers here and Draymond Green stuff.

They haven't even fully unlocked him as a screen setter. I kind of get the vibe they're saving that for the playoffs to not really give people too much of a look at that. But the idea of him being more efficient because he doesn't have to create as much with the ball in his hands and can attack closeouts, run in transition, attack off of less aggressive looks because people have to double team Luca and he can play off of that all of that has gone exactly the plan he is completely revitalized and just so clearly doesn't have as much of a burden and that's helped in exactly as you expect it would he's a goddamn paint

bully right now i feel like lebron like slow-key misses like just bully motherfuckers like deep down in the paint and also like from three hundred rain too because he's just like that um but seeing him for the first time being freed under herrera and also under paint and not having all the attention face on to him like the last time that he got these type of offensive looks was when he played with guys like Kyrie and Kevin and um Duane Wade but other than that like he's always been the main ball handler commanding all angles all the all the passings lane just like guiding all traffics bro all traffic bro but now he just is the guy who's on the receiving end he's finishing all these plays whether it be like dunking on motherfucker's head shooting the

three or just getting easy cuts because Luca commands so much attention and he's a threat from every angle of the court it frees up so much space for him I have this graphic here LeBron James in 2013 versus LeBron James since turning 40 Keep in mind since turning 40 is very cherry-picked It's about a month and a half of basketball But these stats are goddamn the same And keep in mind, the different era

There's more spacing That's also different So keep in mind There's some context here That's why it's a little bit glazing It's a little bit cherry-picked Regardless of that in mind This motherfucker is 40 years old

This is ridiculous It can't go on much longer It can't go on It must be the most tiring thing ever To be a LeBron James Hater What the fuck do you even do or say at this point You just give up at this point Like the moment the Lakers got Luca

You give up And but we've like, listen We talk about the Lakers every three days We're going to continue to talk about them every three days It is what it is I think the Nugget side of it right now Is honestly a little bit more interesting Because I've like obviously

Lakers are making their push they had their very big win, their statement win against the Nuggets in Denver. And Denver is kind of, you know, they've dropped back down. They haven't been able to hold on to the two seed. And you look at them going into the playoffs, going into this home stretch,

and they just feel so much more vulnerable than they did two weeks ago. They feel like, you know, they feel like they have no room for error, right? We talked about the Mavs on the absolute, like, worst end of that. Obviously, the Nuggets have Yokic. And if he goes super sane,

you can get to a level where you can still win playoff games and playoff series. But in those, like on a game by game basis, the Nuggets need Yokets to do what he does. And they also need everybody else to step up as consistently as possible. And it doesn't feel like I have more than like 65% trust in the surrounding guys to do exactly what they need to do for the Nuggets to get there. And so I'm a little nervous. I'm a little nervous, especially if they meet the Lakers in the second round. On a scale of 1 to 10, chat, how much faith do you guys currently have in the Denver Nuggets? How good are you feeling about them right now?

We put them in A tier. We put them in A tier in terms of like title contenders whenever we did that. I wanted to put them in B and I was talked up to do it. And I, during that nine game win streak, I recognized it was against terrible teams. But I was like, okay, they're taking care of business. Maybe they're a little bit back right. mostly because Jamal Murray is playing good as of late so I allowed myself to feel like

they're coming back into form they're dangerous right last couple weeks I'm starting to feel how I felt before when I was like they should be at best I think there's no chance to team wins the finals right now I just think they do not have the depth do not have the defensive ceiling

they just straight up you look at the teams they have to compete against and beat barring unforeseen injury luck against the teams that they just fall apart and they stay healthy they just are not talented enough outside of Yokic and you throw Jamal Murray in there if you think he continues to play well

and has like Pete Jamal Murray outside of those two guys they're not talented enough at all like their bench is straight up doesn't have enough good players like as simple as that they're not good enough brother do you know how deflated

I felt when I watch this team lose to a Luke Cornette led front court lose to a Al Horford who's like 39 years old led front court do you know how much of a heartbreak

that was watching, bro. Drew Haldi's not even playing right now. Chris Stavis is not even playing it right now, bro. Jason Tatum did not have a good game at all, bro. And they still somehow find a way to lose that. I was the highest, I believe, on the Denver Nuggets out of the three of us when it comes to their ceiling and the actuality of them, eventually winning an NBA championship. And as time goes on, like, since that tier list that we made, I just feel worse and worse and worse about it. Yeah. And again, a lot of seasons left, right? Like, this is a team that has ups and downs that has we've seen years where they really turn it on towards the end of the season and that could happen we could be proven wrong but all we can do is react

as the weeks go on and pay attention to what the games look like people like to be like oh you keep switching up no things keep changing teams are playing worse playing better we're here to tell you that this team is not playing well right now and it's not just that they're losing games they're losing them in a fashion they just simply look outmatched and certain losses don't mean a lot with the context in which they came, right? But a lot of losses you can look at and take things away from and I think for what matters in the playoffs,

you look at these losses, they are so relying on Russell Westbrook who was amazing to start the year, been a little cold as of late. This game against the Bucks, low-key lost it because Mike Malone was really, really, really insistent on playing Russ when Zieg Najee was playing a little bit better

giving them size against the Bucks. And think about the name I just said. I said Zik Naji gave them a better look. That is a fucking horrendous, like, secondary option that have to choose between. They just have a lot of bad options when they miss Aaron Gordon because the depth there is terrible

and there's just a lot of really inconsistent players. Sometimes Julian Strothel looks like he gives you a lot of shooting. Sometimes you're like, oh, my God, he can't defend anybody. Sometimes Christian Brown is one of the best transition scores in the league. Sometimes, like, damn, the outside shooting, he doesn't have the on-ball defense KCP did. Like, there's just a lot of caveats to all their supporting cast, and it's so rare that everybody's giving you the best version of them

at the same time it's yeah it's tough and this is i mean this is the the compounding result of year by year over the last few years of not only like not keeping the talent but not not going out and investing in bench depth right like obviously obviously they tried to do it from within they try to draft and do all that stuff but that takes time like we've seen that we've seen a lot of guys really, really take a, you know, a couple years, maybe three years to step into a quote unquote championship role. And so to not be able to replace Bruce Brown, who for them was very, when now was doing a whole bunch of great things in that series against the heat, against the heat, that whole

playoff firm, all that. Casey P, you miss him, you miss that guy who has chemistry with everybody else. That starting five, when they were on the floor, their lights out, their lights out. and you thought that he was replaceable and that just hasn't been the case and you've been waiting for somebody else to step into that role and lock in that starting five again

and now that has continued to be like, okay, who are we going to get it from? Are we going to get it from Christian Brown tonight? We're going to get from Russell Westbrook and while sometimes you can look at that and say, oh, we have a lot of options. We can play a bunch of different ways. You can also turn that on the other side

and say you have a lot of questions because you don't have a consistent answer to who that guy is going to be. And so, yeah, like we go into the playoffs and you can kind of get fooled by these, you know, eight game stretches, nine game stretches. And if it happened early on in the season

and they were like seven and two to start the year, we would look at them and we would be like, oh, the nuggets are fake demons, right? Because they beat up on bad teams. They are in one of those fake demon stretches and it is what it is now. And yeah, and there's so much up and down with them because they just, they, they're good enough to beat these teams that are bad and have these fake demon stretches because they have Nicole Yokic, but then you see them against good teams, which even this Bucks game, the Bucks aren't even that good, but they're playing pretty well since the trade deadline. So they're like an above average team. And you just see that that's when the skill level across a roster really shines as it's just being not good enough. And that is horrifying as a team that has finals hopes. And like, if you want to talk about not being. able to beat good teams how can you possibly have faith in them in the playoffs when

you literally only face good teams exactly what's the matchup right now because they fell down to three and so right now right now their first round matchup woo nuggets warriors in the first round as of today oh that that would be interesting I think I was that series is going at six or seven man that's a six or six or eight seven game series first that's tough because they both have playoff problems oh that's that's hard I mean I may lean towards yokech at the end of the day Because things are so tough and neither have, like, tremendous outlier strengths. They do, but fuck, bro. It's tough.

Someone said the Nuggets are the Knicks of the West. I guess so in terms of a team that's just obviously good, but you don't have any faith in being good enough or great enough to get it done against the best of the best they have to beat to get there. I guess they're the definition of the Knicks at West. The main reason why I felt the way, the main reason why also on top of like the Nuggets at you being a little bit worse. Here's your team is the measuring stick for fake demons.

What a world are living. But the main reason why I feel like a little bit worse about the Nuggets is not also because of them, but it's also because of who's been arising and who's been in the cut in this fucking dominating, bro. I hate to say it again, Donovan, but like, you're right. Like the Los Angeles Lakers, they keep on being forced fed into our mouths because they, we have no choice but to talk about them because they're continuously good nobody's forcing shit in your mouth you're keeping your mouth wide open you want it i'm forced to talk about the lakers

no you like what what wait do you enjoy talking about the lakers don't i don't enjoy i enjoy i enjoy talking about winning basketball and they've been winning a fuck load of basketball games out of late bro talk about their defenseizing talk about what to make them continuously so special i thought this shit was fake yeah no and yeah everything you're saying the lakers are legit two-way team they have a star power you compare them to the nuffer nuggets. And it's just, where is that defensive ceiling? Even if you think the Lakers' current defensive stretch is fake and won't translate to the playoff series where they play consistently great opponents, fair, whatever. Think of what you want. That's like not insane. You can't even

have a good stretch of Nuggets defensive point to to call fake. And that's a problem. There's not even a lot of goodness to point to you to say, this is not real. Yeah, they're going to have to get, they're going to have to get the right matchups. And they're going to have to be on the right end of like oh somebody turned an ankle now they're out two games we can swing the series here yeah like it's going to take some of those for the nuggets to get to the to get to the conference finals and so depending on who they play we'll you know we're ultimately going to see but you if you go into you know any one of those two series and especially them not being in the two spot because at least you can kind of say or at least you know they got to come to altitude they got to play a game

seven out home whatever you can have that whatever advantage that's worth you can have that if you're in the three seed you have to go to la you have to go to oklah and so you lose that extra edge and that extra advantage so i don't know where the nuggets go from here i don't know if well actually i do know i don't think that they are an inner circle title contender team i think that that i think that circle is locked for me and even as great as the lakers have i've played i still think that there is a gap between the Lakers and the Thunder and the Celtics and the Caps. But the Lakers

are on the top of that second tier for me and then the Nuggets are right now trying to fight to stay in there. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think the Lakers are clearly the fourth team, so I think they're clearly like you should predict maybe the Western Conference Finals team. But the top three is its own tier for sure. Those are

three championship caliber teams for sure. Like in every way you can imagine, they are going to win a championship in almost every year. Lakers is like, they're dangerous. Don't let them get rolling at the right time, which is a little bit different than like they have had 60 straight games of being dominant. Also, they're rolling at the right time. This is the exact time that you would want a team to start catching fire. And Luca, like we know that he starts slow coming out of like the regular season and the start of the regular season. He just took a whole bunch a time off because he was hurt.

This would be around like game 35 to game 31 in a regular season where we started looking around inside, yo, Luca like the best player in the league is Luca, the MVP. He's averaging 33, 10, and 10. And like, obviously the numbers haven't been like that Goddy since he's been in LA, but that's on the way. That's kind of the progression of where he goes. And so that is, like if you are a Lakers hater the way that me and Mo are, that's the thing that you hate to see because.

You know what Luca is capable at his absolute best. And we've seen the flashes of it here and there. So that's the sucky part. Don't let Mo convince you for content that he's a Lakers hater. This man is a LeBron Glazer above all else. I promise you he's room for Lakers. He doesn't want to admit it. He won't say it to my face.

But I promise you, he's not a Lakers hater. He wants to say, if you hate the Lakers like I do, right? And I was it. If you hate the Lakers the way I do and the way my father does, My dad called me up last night. He called me up last night. He called me right after Kyrie got hurt. And so we talked about Kyrie for a little bit.

And then he was like, man, the dang Lakers. I hate them. We talked about it for maybe like 10, 15 minutes. If you don't like them, I'm with you. But this is the worst thing that we can possibly see because they are rolling. And it's so funny because it's worse and worse and worse. Past few years we talked about them nonstop because they're the Lakers and have LeBron James. And it was mostly like, Dan, these guys tellke, isn't that kind of funny?

that like this popular team isn't good and now we have like actual good basketball reasons to talk about them as well as the clout bonus so it's like damn we're just never going to stop every week every episode is going to have to feature liquors because we think about it nonstop yeah do you know how storybook it would be

for lucid don't just to lead the leg his swing and be championship this year right that'll be oh he'd be so easy one of the five craziest things to ever happen in NBA history and also detrimental also suck for like the Dallas Mavericks and all their fans too, bro.

Him walking into an organization mid-season, leading him to a championship, LeBron. The only reason why I don't hate the Lager so much is because my glorious king resides there, bro. I've said this before, and I don't care. There's no shame behind my game. I'd rather see LeBron win a championship than the Hawks. I said it.

I don't care. That's crazy. There was one Lebron James versus an entire organization. I'm leaning towards what's more. Never ever be a lot of the Atlanta Hawks. There's going to be thousands of Atlanta Hawks. We've seen like six versions of LeBron of this point. Who?

What? Six versions? Name him right now. Six? Different errors. He's been, he's had different iterations of himself. Yeah,

he's had different iterations of himself. What are you talking about? I thought you meant like we've seen six different versions of LeBron like. Oh, like in a different player. Kids. Yeah. Oh, I mean, no. But like,

that's not. That's not what I'm saying. We're never going to see another. That's not the point here. That's not the point here. You are a Hawks fan. See, this is what's wrong with the game today. These are the recipes that we're losing is that we're not rooted for teams instead of players. You are what's wrong with the world. Brother, you're going to see plenty of Hawks players, plenty of all stars come across your time. But LeBron Ramon James, you're never going to see this player again. There's a finite amount of time

there for it. I just want you to know they're shaming you in the chat and I think you probably deserve it. The gentle sentiment seems to be you didn't have to admit that. You can keep that inside. I'm sorry, we did not force that. And they are right. That is a terrible mindset. I will stand on it. I will stand on it.

Over your own team? Appreciating greatness. Why? Because my team don't deserve it. They've been on bullshit for years and years and years, bro. LeBron, he grinded for everything he has in his life right now, bro. Does... By that month's jersey.

Buy that much jersey for yourself. Has your girlfriend never asked you? her LeBron Who Hmm To his girlfriend Crazy That answer

Speaks volumes I said we'll leave it there Someone said Mo was a girlfriend Nice Congrats next new story to briefly talk about the Kevin Durant

I was going to call a saga but the Kevin Durant like premeditated breakup has continued in the media it was clear after they almost traded him to the Golden State Warriors and he said no immediately everybody was like oh okay

so he's gonna get trade in the summer right like clearly if they dangled him and they have the audacity to try to trade him against his will this motherfucker is requesting a trade right reporting has since backed that up and Sean Serrani reported today that the suns are

expected to work together with him in the off season to trade him. Interesting that as Shams is saying it's like, this wording to me makes it sound like it's like confirmed, like they're just like, biding time. I think it's right. I believe it,

bro. Isn't that weird? It's so strange. No, it's not weird because I bet Kevin Nair was like, yeah, bro, I'm like for sure without it out. No, yeah, yeah. It makes sense, but this is weird as fuck. Like, this team is in such disarray. The vibes are horrible. Like, I don't know how much you haven't watched them as of late because it's not a fun watch.

I don't expect you to watch them a lot. They look the most low effort team I've ever seen from a team that's supposed to be a contender. So it just feels like everybody is called to quits. Like, they're just waiting for the season to be over. And then for this to be reported in this way, which sounds like it's like official talks between them. They're like, yeah, yeah, just, you know, survive the next 30 games. We'll get you out of here. Like, what a just strange arc for a team?

And I understand, like, I understand there's a certain level of, you know the match be of it of it all is like no like we're gonna you know we're gonna keep playing and i have these three guys you guys are you guys are gonna are just gonna hoop but if it has been confirmed why is coming why is coming to rent not shut down like why are we why are we playing the last 20 games of this if internally you know that you are going to trade them everybody knows that it's a loss season they suck they they do not they do not win basketball games consistently what are you getting off of shutting him down given not giving the rocket's a good pick. Yeah. That's gone. That's gone. You already traded that pick. But if you know that you are

going to try and trade him, the last thing in the world that you would want is Kevin Durant gets any type of injury over the last 20 games in contests that don't really matter. And now his trade value is hurt going into the summer. I would want, I would think that it would be a plus if you're like, not only are we giving you Kevin Durant, we're giving you arrested Kevin Durant. Right. Like that should That should be the thing. And so, like, in terms of just protecting your ability to trade Kevin Durant, he should be shut down. If this is true, he should not be here. My camera's overheated.

That's funny. We'll just leave you off. We'll almost know what the episode. Yeah, but you're right, Donovan. Here's your practicality. But I think, one, they probably want to make the playing tournament and want to see what they can do. And two, in the midst of a season in which every PR, like, element has gone against you and everything that you're trying to accomplish

to look like a serious team has gone wrong the last thing you want to do is make it publicly clear that you're giving up on the season and that you're already going to trade Kevin Duran you decided before the season ended that's a fucking atrocious look that I don't think you can allow that

that just confirms a terrible culture Yeah exactly you're just confirming a culture of not given a fuck which is worse than everybody actually knowing it but not saying it making it abundantly clear is just embarrassing

Screw the fans screw the fans this is you You've already, no, but you've already told them. You are what makes the world terrible. No, no, but you've already, you've already told them. I'm the reason why the lights are running in this bitch. No, but you've already admitted to everybody. The fact that you try to trade KD at the trade deadline,

the fact that you were trading Bradley Bield, you've already kind of admitted to everybody. I made a mistake here. We made a mistake here. It has not gone the way that I want that. We wanted it to. And so everybody knows that this season is lost. Everybody knows that this big three.

is one of the worst victories in history. And so it would actually, I think that a lot of Suns fans, like, yes, it would hurt now, and it would be like, oh, dang, like here we go again. We just got out of the trenches. We had this little run, whatever. But if you say, hey, we are trading Kevin Durant in the offseason.

We want him to be healthy as possible. We don't want anything to go down. So we are shutting Kevin Durant down for the rest of the season. That is something that fans can take and be like, you know what? that 5% like smart decision, that is as smart of a decision as you guys have made in the last two to two and a half years. So that's cool and you can live with that and then you can keep moving. And that is, that is all that you can hope for.

Everything that they have done, every move that they have made has shown that they are not serious, that they are not a good basketball team. So when you're talking about, oh, what about the fans? What about that? I don't care about them right now. We have to think about what we can get back. We have to think about what we can get back. Kevin Durant is going into year 19.

The package is already not going to be as great as it was whenever you traded for him. So it's like you have to maximize this opportunity. Kevin Durant should not play another basketball game this season for the Phoenix Suns. What's funny is Shams also reported that the team has no interest in moving Devin Booker. The plan is to retool around him. And like, I understand what that's their plan. I fully fully comprehend the thought process. that gets them there to that being the current mode of, you know, that's their goal.

It's so stupid. Like, it's so unbelievably stupid. If you want to re-spool around Devin Booker and your goal is for the next two years to be good around Devin Booker, don't fucking trade Kevin Durant. If that's the goal, like, that's pretty simple. Your best bet to being good around Devin Booker is keeping Kevin Durant. But you can't trade the guy who shouldn't be there. Yeah, I know.

But if you want to trade Kevin Durant and you have to trade Kevin Durant, whatever the verbiage is based on his relationship and what he's saying behind closed doors, trying to just figure it out amongst having the worst pick situation of all time, trying to just figure it out around Devin Booker is moronic. Unless you're trading Kevin Durant to the Houston Rockets who have the single ability among every team in the league

to give you your picks back, unless that's where he's going and you're getting those picks back, you kind of trade on both. Like, just be realistic. Like, there's so little to be gained by trying to build around Devin Booker for the next two, three years. yeah i 110% agree me personally with the storybook fairy tale that i like to live in i would love to see kevin and rank go ahead and get traded all the way back to oklahoma city i think they'll be storebooked itself if something hope happens to o kc during the postseason and they end up being just like stuck in the worst way possible and ups and get upset by some random team adding kevin arraint to the fold don't put that much fresh on jada who knows what it'll take to get someone like kevin right they got like two million picks and i heart they match they match they're just

contacts or whatever the case may be. But I think that'll be my favorite if Katie was to get traded. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Everything's bad. Nothing's good. That's a moral of the story. Most cameras tweaking.

It looks crazy. It's sliding up. What the hell is going on? I don't know what's happening. You're tweaking her now. But either way. My cable's getting shoot on. You're slowly sliding up the frame.

I don't know what's happening. It's so weird. I've never seen this before. Whoa. Oh, it's like repeating. What the heck? The top of your camera is. Wait, should we stay on longer to see what happens?

No, it just reset back. No, but now sliding back up. You're in a horror movie. This is crazy. But that being said, that's the end of the stream, y'all. As everything we had to talk about today, we appreciate y'all coming through. 1,500 of y'all that are here right now. Shout out, salute to y'all.

Go check out the last two episodes of the show. We had four interviews from All Star Weekend with Darius, Garlane, Trey Murphy, Jaime Hakez, and Baron Davis. Check those out. And yeah, man. We'll see y'all next week for another stream. check out p 94 oh yeah do that too we'll see you all later