The Deep 3 Podcast - The Suns Are About To Break The NBA | Ep. 31

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

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So we're like a week out from the NBA playoffs now. And, you know, things are starting to take shape. And we're starting to see which teams are going to play each other and which teams are potentially ducking the other and whatnot. And the biggest point of conversation, I think, have been the Sons who have still not lost with Kevin Durant. They're sitting at 7 and 0. And I want to talk about them specifically.

What do you guys think their, like, playoff ceiling is at this point? They can win it all. Ridiculous. They can win it off. Kevin Durant's first game back. He shot terribly from the field, which is not Kevin Durant like. when he first comes back for some reason and like the team

I forget who they played against but the sons were just still moving as a whole and because of just Kevin Durrance placement on the court in the insane threat the fear that he strikes in people's veins like that just opens up the game for guys like DeAndre Aidna the role players stepped up Cameron Payne of course was doing a thing

that Torrey Craig and Josh Okie who's very good on the defensive end and of course like since I think All Star break, Devin Booker has been on an absolute tear. And having that be your second best player on your team was crazy as hell. So, yeah, I asked what their ceiling is. That was the wrong way to phrase it.

We all know their ceiling is the finals. Like that was obvious. More so, do you guys think that ceiling isn't going to happen now? Have you seen enough in the seven games that you think this best case scenario is what you're going to get? You know, there's always the worry about they don't have enough time to gel. Maybe things won't go as great right away. And next year isn't going to be crazy.

but do you think they're crazy now they're going to win the finals type shit? Yeah, I don't think in terms of having time to jail, I don't think that's a question anymore. I wouldn't use that as an excuse if they lost, right? Really?

Okay. The way that I'm looking at the suns right now, it's purely about, are you going to execute and win games or not? Like, that is, I think that they are, obviously not at, like, their peak,

but they are at a base level already to where I can look at them and say, you guys are good enough to win the finals, right now. And I saw it in the Dallas game that they had on that Sunday afternoon. And even in Kevin Durant's return that Moe was talking about against the Timberwolves,

they're poised down the stretch of games is absolutely insane. And the fact that you can have KD as like, and legitimately use him as a decoy in some spaces and have Devin Booker, Chris Paul. In that Timber was game that Moe was talking about, Chris Paul looked great. Like he's, he's, his mid-range jumper, it was falling. He's orchestrating everything. I think it seems very simple.

But like for me, when I look at the suns, it's just a matter of, are you going to make shots or not? Like, that's, that's all I see from them. That and also, like, what are the role players going to give you? And also, what top of DeAndre Aden are you going to get? Is he going to be engaged? Like, he has been over or in that game specifically against the Timberwolves? or like are you going to be like fighting for scraps and is the defense going to like collapse on Katie

and Devin Booker at all costs and force other dudes to try to make plays or whatnot so yeah so what's up the things for me see well I think I brought this up and like I decide this is going to be our intro topic because I'm with the opinion that this team is probably going to walk into the finals I think that yeah I mean so okay there's another team that I think has a realistic chance now

that we'll talk about later you can probably assume what that team is. But aside from them, I think this team is by far going to be the best team in the Western Conference playoffs. I know Kenny posted a video last week is titled

Are we overthinking this? And it was generally about we're talking about the West being so wide open and all these teams can win. Golden State, or watch out for them if they're healthy, all this stuff.

But we're overthinking this because the Suns added Kevin Durant. You know, they were in the finals two years ago, once in the last year and they added Kevin Durant. And I'm of the same opinion that we're 100% overthinking this. they are going to walk into the finals, I think.

Yeah, I agree with that sentiment in terms of, like, how we're talking about the West, because I think that the West, for as wide open as it is, I don't think it's that wide open. I think it's a lot of mid, right? It's a lot of mid. It's a lot of teams that are going to end up 42 and 42, 42, 43, and 39, and it's like, nobody's great outside of the topsy, even the top seats, like, are, is anybody here confident that Memphis is, like, a legitimate two seed and it is, like, a power. House, is anybody here confident that the, that the, um, that the Sacramento Kings are going to be

in the playoffs for the first time in 16 years, the three seat are a powerhouse. Like, there's two legitimate teams in terms of title contenders in the West. So like it's, it's the sons, the team we're going to talk about later, and a whole lot of mid. And like, it makes for interesting playoff rounds because you don't know who's going to win. That's where the entry comes from. But once we're talking about championships, I think, I don't think there's, there's a lot to look at in the west, I think a lot of that comes out east. Yeah. One thing,

Mo, tell me what you think about this, because I know Donovan said, he's the opinion that things for them haven't, like, the jelling is an excuse that they've looked completely fine, you would think. I kind of feel like offensively, we've seen a little bit of that they need time to gel thing. Like you said, Kevin Durant was abysmal in his first game back from injury, for his standards at least. And this last game they won, he had 18 points, wasn't a great Kevin Durant game.

I feel like we're seeing that a little bit. of inconsistency on offense with the team. Well, there's a little stagnant at times, as you'd expect. But what makes me think that there's still going to be a title team but despite that, is their defense is ridiculous when Kevin Durant's out there. In lines with KD, they have a 104 defensive rating, which is 98th percentile. Those lines are plus 15 overall. Mo, what do you think about their defensive side?

Everybody talks about the offense. We have these three great mid-range shooters. What about the defense? Everyone talks about their offense, like, and their offense has been elite, especially CP3 over the last like 15 games side note been averaging like 15 points shooting 40 47% from the field nine you get the watch allegations one one one turnover it's insane um but all just how good they are good they are offensively specifically kevin derrant like i feel like over the last few seasons his defense has been like completely

overshadowed um because of what he does on the other side of the ball but him has like a help side defender is like it's an insane weapon to have in your back pocket that nobody sees coming usually all the top offensive scores in the NBA Luca donchitz like when they go ahead and drop 30 35 they're dead on the other side of the court but kevinnery in the situation to where he doesn't have to like go ahead and exhaust all of his powers on the offensive end and still being an insane weapon like a tomahawk coming out of no wear on a consistent basis. You have to go through Aighton and K.D.

Oh, my goodness, bro. Come me out of nowhere in the cut. I'm glad you mentioned that. It's Aiden and K.D. together. Remember early in his career, people were talking with him, like, he's a negative defender. It's his biggest weakness. Past couple of years, though, he's been, like, legit, a very good positional defender, like what you want from pick and roll guys, it's a little bit mobile, but you still defend

the rim. You already have that. They were already an elite defense last year. And when they traded in Bridges, you know, is one of the best perimeter defenders in NBA, people kind of thought, like, oh, their wing depth is going down. not going to make their defense worse but no it hasn't like it has not mattered at all because that weak sign room protection is so much more valuable I would domestic so much more valuable because what bridge does is incredible but whatever you lose from bridges you make up with

once you get for kd on that end you know what I mean you those different substantially yeah that extra now macao bridges is putting up kd type stats but let's be real those stats aren't hitting as hard as Kevin durant stats if we're being completely honest as you and then on top of that just the extra health that Katie the threat. No one's guarding no one's guarding Macal Bridges how they guard Kevin Durant. No one is. Macau Bridges don't put that type of fear in nobody's heart whatsoever.

So just having that his, his I don't want to say gravity because I feel like that term has been used OD like that. Ran into the ground. Yeah exactly. Ran into the ground but like people just like to stick on KD type shit

and because of that like yo it just opens up so much for them back to the back to the defensive end it all started back when he was uh in golden state that's yeah got really good at defense because he didn't have to do like an insane carry job on the other end of the court um and so now he's found himself in a similar not similar role but similar situation to where like he has a squad now and they've all this squad has already established and have had a fully fleshed out system on the on the offensive and also defensive end of the court and all he can be

is a plus on that end To be fair, he was doing that all year in Brooklyn too Like early the season before he got hurt People were talking about him in MVP conversations Because he was like legit elite on defense Definitely, without a doubt He was elite, he was elite He was elite on defense and because of that

On top of like the insane season That the Brooklyn Nets were having at the time Like he was an MVP conversation for a quick second For sure. Yeah I'll go back to one thing you said earlier Yeah You, um, when I said, I think they're probably going to make the finals, you were like, there's a whole lot of fucking mid and there's like two good contenders there. Let's, for the rest of this episode, we're going to talk about the Western Conference. And specifically the teams at the top and how the seating, seeding, seeding matchups are playing out. I want to know first, which team are you referring to as the other contender to the West? I'm talking about Denver. I, okay, how I was talking about Denver first. Yeah. So like, okay, obviously Denver has a lot. going for it you have yokech MVP candidate right top three player in the world however you you want to

slice it you have him jemal murray's back everything that we've been looking at denver for the past couple years it's yokech and as great as he is with the squad now and they are they're the number one seed the offense is clicking it will not recently right and as we as we saw the last night against the houston rockets they they they put up a stinker but they got saying who would happen in that game. What happened? They got Sangooned. That's what happened. Listen, it's, it's kind of just been an issue that they had in that game that they've had over like the last 10 games where defensively like things have been fine, but they just can't buy a bucket. Like over the last 10 games, they are in the bottom third in the league in offensive

rating. Meanwhile, the defense is still upper half of the league. They're kind of figuring things out on that end it's just it's weird they they haven't been able to find just like the groove that they were hitting at before to be fair yogish did miss three those 10 games so that that doesn't help yeah yeah you alluded to it they're trending downward right now in a way like you know people talk about it's i think it's like a old bin sim bill simms trope where like did they peek too early in the season type of shit i think the nuggets might have peaked too early in the season because since they beat the raptors 15 games ago there's six and eight over the last 14 games and And they just, yeah, they can't stop losing.

And after that loss against the Rockets, Mike Malone came out. You know, Mike Malone is the king of throwing players under the bus. If you ever noticed. Oh, my God. I hate that so much about him. Like, I think he's a good coach. But that's by far his worst trait.

That's the worst trait any coach could have. I think it's a given take. Sometimes you could say it works, it's accountability and players need to hear that shit because NBA players can be divas at times and all up in their own ass and it could be useful to hear that. I think Greg Popovich is the same way, but not to the media,

get to the player's faces. Yeah, there's a difference. Sure. Yeah. When Mike Malone did to Thomas Bryant a few weeks ago, a few days ago, it was kind of iffy. Yeah. I got secondhand embarrassment for Thomas Bryant, bro. But I'm saying this to say, after the Rockets lost yesterday, he came out and he said, this team is soft.

This is the only way I can describe it. And if they keep playing like this, we're going to lose in the first round. And then he said, I said that to their faces in the locker room, and I challenged every player in there to check me on that. And nobody said anything. Yeah, he told him buns. He told the media this whole locker room is buns. Fact.

First off, he was dropping bars. Why is he dissing them like that? That was hard. This is a battle around. Oh, my goodness. That was hard as hell. He said he stayed on business. Yeah.

He said, I came to their face, man to man, check them. They'd say shit. Yeah, street credit plus 10. Oh, my goodness. But the moral of the story is, if he is saying that, he feels that way. It makes sense why everybody else feels that way, right? I feel like people are diminishing their faith in the nuggets as contenders. so do y'all are you all feeling that that you're feeling less and less faith in them or do you think

they'll be fine or no i think i think i think they'll be fine like i said earlier i think that the west is filled with a bunch of mid and so i i actually think that that first round series is going to be a really good chance for them kind of to just rant back up also when you've been the number one seed for a majority of the season it's not a great excuse but i can understand you getting bored with three four games left and it's like listen like like they're They have the, the grizzlies are two games, but they're not, they're not dropping a two game lead over the last three games this season. And it's like, it's a Monday, it's a Tuesday night, the Houston Rockets are coming in. I understand.

I get it. I'm not, I don't think that it's okay, but I get it. Let them play a first round series against, I guess right now it would be the Pelicans. They'll win that series in five. They'll get back on track and then they'll be, you know, they'll be in the right headspace when they have to play some real teams. like that's that's the type of time that we're on now if you want to say Denver shouldn't be thinking like that at all because who are they they haven't done anything a hundred a hundred percent I'm with that but I can just understand why they've been slumping from a mental aspect you know

yeah I feel like a lot there's like been so much more pressure on the Denver nuggets because uh obviously the whole Nicolioch MVP thing and like people don't like the thought of giving someone an MVP who hasn't done quote unquote anything in the postseason whatever um but out of all these teams in the western conference i like i said like i noticed the nuggets have a lot more it seems like they have a lot more pressure on their backs and i want to know what you guys think they have the most pressure of any team in the league right now i heard

somebody said that earlier say another media person i was r j barred i mean r jr j barred i he didn't know r j barrett's potty Listen, every NBA player has a podcast these days So it's like Listen, NBA players You guys are watching Come on the D3

Let's talk about it in the playoffs Richard Jefferson Let's do some Oh Richard Jefferson Yeah, yeah He said that So let's talk about it He went on JJ Reddx pod

I 100,000% agree It's not even just the Nuggets It's a Nuggets by proxy Because Nicola Yokic Has the most pressure On him of any player in the league Which is weird Because that's true

But also like doesn't matter Because he's the most Offline player ever That like doesn't even hear the shit So he's in his slander to high hell if they lose in the first round or losing the second round. Yeah. But it'll be like irrelevant because he has no place in culture.

So it's going to be strange. I agree. I agree though. It makes it makes sense. You have this two-time MVP. Everybody feels that like the praise has been overblown for him for years now and they haven't gotten back to a conference finals. So let's see what they got, right?

Because everybody's been saying like, oh, you guys, they lost to the wars. They lost to the sons because look at Yoko just team. He had no help. he 100% has help no he has help you better do something yeah they've been consistently one of the more healthier teams in the entire league they haven't done

with done they haven't gone through hell of injuries like most teams out there in the western conference like the Sacramento or not the Sacramento Kings they're actually the second or the most healthiest team in the NBA but like the Los Angeles Clippers or the Lakers other fucking warriors

and all those other teams yeah every team goes through injuries you got to the only way you can be a high seed is if you get lucky with injuries because most people aren't lucky right like it's kind of what it is so and uh all the stars aligned for the for the nuggets so i guess you're right when it comes to yeah the pressure being they definitely aligned and they aligned so well like like donovan said they kind of clearly are not having the same effort because they're coasting on the one seed and donovan asked you could also not he didn't ask he said you could you could also say that why do they feel like they have that's some audacity right to

slow down as if you want something yeah i'm not as concerned about that in terms of like do they deserve to not try? I don't really give a fuck. But I think the side effect of that could be, you know, when we see teams that the fucking calves do that when they had LeBron, they can coax and turn it on because they have LeBron and they like have that switch they can flip,

as people call it. I don't know if the Nuggets have that. Like you can't necessarily assume you're going to be able to just flip the switch immediately when you've been for two weeks not trying. Like that type of mental space to be in can bite you in the ass so hard. It's not even necessarily the moral thing.

It's just it's really hard to try hard when you weren't before. Yeah. No, I get that question, right? And we're going to talk a little bit more about the West. Let's say that the Lakers end up in the 8th. And they end up playing the Nuggets in the first round. Are y'all taking the Lakers in a series against the Nuggets? At this point, you have to.

Given to what you've seen from both teams lately, it's not a recency bias thing. It's a, this is the current state of the teams. So, I'm glad you said this. Let's transition. Because the third team want to talk about is the Los Angeles Lakers. we talk about them often the most popular team in the league

and the LeBron James is the team we have to talk about them and I'm a Lakers fan and the beginning of the season beginning of the season we were saying oh fuck they suck unless they trade Russ they didn't trade Russ

they were terrible they traded Russ okay we'll see listen we've seen I know what this team is this team is a contender again I think the time we say that they can beat the nuggets

they can beat the grizzlies they can beat the Kings they can be Anybody you put in front of them in a seven-game series, the Sons, I don't know. The Sons? Except for the Sons. Yeah, but that's a conversation,

but it's not a walkover. You at least have to think about it, right? I'd pick the Sons. If they played, I'd pick the Sons in six or seven, probably six. But you would have to think about it. And I think it's time to put the Lakers in the conversation with the Nuggets and the Sons as a top three team, which is weird as fuck, because they're, the seven seed right now. Maybe they're going to, they have a good chance of getting to four or five if things break

right over the next three games. games but they're the I think the third best team in the conference what do you think dude honestly I'm thinking the same thing but he like if we all watched or maybe not you I think donovan did you see what happened last night when they played at Utah I did how like chillax and relax they were I'm that was just only one game but regards to that one game and Kelly Olinick having humongous balls and pulling like he's deaf a few times towards the end of that game um The Lakers are generally terrifying because of all the flowing pieces that they have.

They've unlocked Austin Reeves, and he's a free throw merchant now. Like, the Lakers have the most favorable whistle in the entire NBA. He's good at it for real. Yeah, he's good at it for real. Jared Vanderbilt and AD that defensive duel was insane. And LeBron, he looks so good right now. Like, the way he's moving, I haven't seen him move. Me personally, that's what I noticed, at least.

I haven't seen a move like that since last year. year so. See, the thing is LeBron, he's looked good, he's getting better last night, was his best game since he came back

from injury. He still hasn't looked like as he, quite as he did early in the year when he was really clicking, averaging 30,

but he's been good enough, and AD has been a monster again. He had three straight games where he had over 35 points. He dropped 40, was it last night or night before that, he dropped 40. Like, AD has been

like top five to seven player AD you want. And like you said, having Jared Vanderbilt, having Austin Reeves, Daniel Russell, like they're a real team with shooting and you know all the things we said when they made the trades that they could

go through and could make them a contender in best case scenario it's quick it's basically been the best case scenario right absolutely you can't have for you can't really ask for anything better dennis sure that's that deal with the bench though oh yeah that that's true but dennis shorter regards to the fact is going to hold it down and you're not going to like be dead if you don't have below in the starting lineup and then rehachamir's solid and consistent off the bench as well i don't hear don't even say though on this no i mean listen there I really, really do hate the Lakers. I really do.

I know you do. But they're fantastic. They're fantastic. They're fantastic. No, they're nice. They're nice. And they have, they 100% have a chance.

I think the only thing, and it's kind of the only thing, or not the only thing, but it's one of the main reasons why I think I would still pick against the Suns to win the conference is I just don't trust that LeBron and AD are going to be able to stay healthy for two and a half months. That's the only. that's the only thing but if we're just talking about everybody's health what's up do you trust that

chris paul and kevin america say healthy no i don't i don't and that's what i'm saying that's what i said it's one of the it's one of the main reasons where i don't think that i would pick the sons to get out of the conference you pick neither okay yeah i still i still have faith in denver to to make the finals um just because chris paul like clockwork every single year something happens to him Kevin Durant hasn't been able to stay healthy. LeBron, even though that he's looked good, he still looks like he's coming off of a foot injury, right? Like, he's, the only time that LeBron is ever going to be 100%

in any given season moving forward now is game one. That's it. After that, he's an old man who needs immense ice packs after every single quarter. So, like, there's going to be injury concerns like that. However, defensively, they look good. If the three balls dropping for LeBron, which it was last night, they have the chance to run this table and to get to the conference finals potentially, which would mean beating Phoenix in the process. But God, they look, they look good. They look good, man.

When LeBron Reeves and AD are playing, they have a 121 offensive rating and a 108 defensive rating. for those back home who are math inclined that is a plus 13 point differential making them a 99th percentile lineup in the NBA You're gonna make me lose my language over the Lakers Top 1% of the league I can't understand

I feel like every time we do talk about the Lakers though and we're like expecting some huge like we're just projecting what they should be doing in the playoffs and whatnot like I just remember so many times like something random effed up happens season like last time we talked about the lakers it was fucking lebron and then he popped something in his foot and then the season it seemed like the season was dead in the water so it's like

always something so donovan's right about that i think i like currently if i was to have all my trust in one team i still would select the denver nuggets because they've like shown that consistency especially on the health side of things um but like you know at the end of the day if i if you put like a end of my head i'm going to say the phoenix suns um just because that lineup is just too OD and powerful and the nuggets are not built for to protect or defend that lineup whatsoever no one is that's us no nobody's NBA's built for that I mean if if there's if there's a team that's worse that I don't I almost think there's no team worse equipped to defend the sons the Kings because there's definitely hell of hell other teams as well but

they're definitely like one of the five worst teams equipped yeah yeah yeah I see it could because they have a slow foot at center right like it's hard to yeah slow foot at center Michael Porter Jr. has been better, like, positioning himself, but he's still not moving. Nugges fans say that. I don't believe it. He has, he has to. Michael Porter Jr. is C shot, take shot. Like, that is what he has.

He has that end of, it's, it's so fun. But on, on defense, he's been using his big body just a little bit more, and he's not as, like, a walk in the park. But still, like, I'm, Kevin Duran is going to treat him like he's a, he's a prance in the car. Like, are you kidding me? Like, no, no, what? Nothing, nothing is a fucking sobbing in, bro. What's it cool? One thing you mentioned, I'm going to go back to Mo.

You talked about how it's always something to Lakers, and a few weeks ago, LeBron got hurt, and we were like, oh, the season's fucked. And you mentioned that as, like, you know, it's something that we always have to worry about with them happening again. I take that as the inverse. We wrote them off a month ago, and without the greatest player ever, they kept their season afloat and didn't just, like, hit B-500 and, like, maintain themselves. They got better and moved up the standings.

so like that is very inspiring to me in terms of like what this team can be because every contender can be good without their star player because they have good infrastructure around them and that hasn't been the case for Lakers that's why the past couple years have been trash

because when AD gets hurt they don't have any depth but we see that now that's not the case they can win without one of those guys I will say though their schedule down the stretch has been very favorable

sure so so I think you know I understand I'm saying though when that transfers to like If LeBron gets hurt and you're in the middle of a series against the Nuggets or against the Sun. You know what I'm saying? That's much different than having to play Chicago or having to play Utah on a random night. Like that's a problem.

Yeah, yeah. I'm not trying to say they beat the Nuggets, they lost LeBron. It's just that that shows you they have quality players around LeBron because they can win on any given NBA night. And so obviously you still need your guys to win the playoffs. But it shows you that those guys are quality enough to, you know, play around those stars and be good enough to win against the best. teams. That's fair. That's fair. Yeah. I think I think overall I agree with you. I think that they are they have to be the third best in the in the conference and they have to be the third best you know favorite or trusted whatever team. It just it just has to be them. Yeah. And it feels so disrespectful

because like the grisies and kings that's been rattling off being great all year and like nobody takes them seriously as contenders which you know you understand why they don't have top flight talent in terms of like star power obviously there's job of rant but the kings have to like b plus maybe a minus guy is not like a true star star but like yeah do we think they i mean they can win for a series if they played a team like the golden state warriors like it might be raps for the warriors and i don't so i'm not sure how how much i trust them and your wiggins is back and all that but like i'm not sure if andrew wiggins can be the automatic bandaid that they're expecting to fix all those issues

Let's talk about them. They're probably going to play the Sons in the first round in the 4-5 series. So let's say Andrew Wiggis is back. Or the Warriors. Let's say Andrew Wiggins is back for the Warriors. They're not going to be as good as they were last year playoffs. They need time to jail. They still can't win home games.

I mean, away games. We can't give them too much benefit of the doubt, but you can give them a little bit of benefit of the doubt, right? There's still the Warriors in the day. Yeah, they're still the Warriors at the end of the day. What's that series looked like to you? I don't know. like you have to give them the respect they have some like the great issues of all time and draymond green has been forever been a monster on the defensive end of the court um

but it's so hard if they go against a team like the king's correct no no they can play the suns first yeah oh my god yeah if they go against a team like the sons they're kind of actually like well equipped to go ahead and defend the suns so it could be be a it could be an actual upset that we might witness but at the same time that will be that would be so don't don't let that happen do not do not but if there's a team that can do it it's definitely the warriors i'm not there bro nuggets if that happens my step better agenda will never die yeah never hear the end of it for me listen there's a team that could that's a like it's not that's a match up so well so right now right now the words are the other 50s right so they would have

three home games. That's at least three wins. Because somehow they just don't lose at home, right? They were down to the Thunder last night, went on this crazy run, right? End of winning the game by a very, like, comfortable margin. They just find ways to win at home. So

it just doesn't matter. But you say that. They don't win a, they don't lose a home, but you can say that that's four road games. They don't win on the road. No, I know. I know. But if Andrew Wiggins is there, I think you may be able to get one. And like, that's that's the dangerous part with the words is that they are so dominant at home and that they don't

have to go back and forth on the road they don't have to go and get to on the road they can split they can split the first two or they can just find one that's all you need and if you have step curry if you have step curry then like then you have a chance in road game yeah but i mean i would say Kevin Durant is never lost in his son's uniform so if you have Kevin Durant you can win one in golden state yeah that is true but it's going to be a crazy series yeah we haven't seen i think i think i would take the sons i think i would take the sons right now yeah but it would probably i would be shocked if it went anything less than six games absolutely i 10 000 degree we haven't seen wiggins and uh gary payton jr's like suit up on the court and

we haven't seen just like all them work in unity because every wiggins has been out majority of the second half of the season and so like just thinking about it from a logistical standpoint point and seeing every single matchup, Kavon Looney, he's a beast. I think he's one of the league leaders in offensive rebounds. And seeing how he matches up against DeAndre Aden, it's not an easy matchup whatsoever. He's so scrappy. I'm taking Loon. I'm taking, on the offensive glass, I'm taking, I'm taking Kavon Looney.

That's such a terminally online NBA fan take. I know. That's so nasty. Just on the offensive glass, obviously Aiden. is the better player. Loon's a dog. Loon's a monster on the office at last. You're in the trenches

when it comes to the Vee fandom, bro. But I definitely agree with you. I'm definitely taking the Sons, but I will not surprise me at all if this was a major upset. If there was going to be an upset, it would be this one. Listen, I have irrational faith in the Warriors.

If you give me three games with Andrew Wiggins back and they look like the Warriors, I'm going to come on this podcast and be fucking crazy with my predictions. That's all I'm going to say. Don't let me see 20-21, Andrew Wiggins, they're looking great again.

21 Wiggins with this courage. Oh my goodness, bro. Yeah, it's going to be scary. These playoffs are going to be so good. Generational. It's going to be great. Let's keep talking about that about the West Playoff Outlook because there's one team I want to talk about

who are not currently in the West Playoff Outlook, who we all expected to be. It was the title of our episode last week, The Dallas Mavericks. Who's we? Who's we? All right, whatever. Last week, we titled the episode about the Dallas Mavericks failing. And we talked about this experiment with Luca and Kyrie hasn't worked for myriad of reasons.

It just keeps getting worse. Like last week we're talking about like it was rock bottom. Now there's reports of Shams Arraniya that they're thinking about shutting down Kairri and Luca for the season. How low can you go? They're going to shut them down for the season. Are you kidding me? That's ridiculous. It's a failure.

It's like we use the term. Like we joke around with things being like generational. If they shut these guys down for the season or. If they miss the play in, this is legitimately a generational failure. This is like to trade assets to go get Kyrie Irving, to have two all stars on your team and not be able to be in the top 10 of the Western Conference is absolutely ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. There's so much going on with the Mavs, so much bad going on. And what, speaking of the Mavs, and I saw this today, has nothing to.

do with basketball just made me upset i saw that reggie bullock bought himself an island in belize guys there's no way that anybody who is that bad at their job should be able to have enough money to buy an island we need to fix something reggie bullock should not be out here owning islands it sounds like a cb a problem if you ask me we'll get to that we need to fix that's funny yeah so i mean we don't got to get too far into the mabs again we're talking about the last episode extensively about why they suck. But I want to talk about that because one day we got the report from Shams

that they're going to potentially shut down Luca and Kyrie, which probably means if they lose tonight and they're like out of it, they're going to be like, why make them play in the last three games and they're not making the play in? So with that in mind, the next day he reported, they still intend to sign Kyrie Irving. Kyri intends to test a free agent market.

So he's not going to do an extension, but they're going to actively try to resign him. You know, that's obvious. They have to. They have to. They have to. They have to. So in that same conversation Mark Cuban went ahead Or another reporter asked him Okay so what about like Christian Wood

And he was like I'm not going to go ahead And go down the list of players on this roster That's just like so That's not a line But like you guys are saying Yeah they pretty much have to What else do you expect for him to say They're fucked if they don't have to

So yeah they have to You're right that's the moral story So They're stuck with this team They're stuck with Kyrie and Luca Do you see a world where it gets better next year? Because this year the fuck, it's cook. We don't you got to talk about anymore.

It has to get better. Right. Yeah. It has to get better. There's no way. They've lost three in a row. They're three and seven in the last ten games. They have to be better than this.

If you get rid of Christian Wood, if you find some shooters who can actually shoot the basketball. Screw that. If you find some guys who can play defense and be taller than six four. I, listen. Hmm. Please go to Summerlee. Send your best scouts. Tell them don't come back until you find somebody who will run up and down the court who just has major effort.

Even if guys just try harder than what they are right now. The Nassus onto the Kubeau make this team better. He's getting a max contract. He's at least the, at least the mid-level. It just has to be better. You can be paying them 2.5 M's just a headbutt people and clap when you're down by 30. Like what? That's what you're doing now.

Damn. Head-bed people. Yeah. He's ridiculous. He's crazy. But no, it has to. It has to get better. I think if the offensive side of the ball is already, like if you have Luca and

Kyrie, we've seen that the offense has been great. You have these two dynamic ball handlers that can play off of one another and can give you a really good foundation for how to build your offense, right? And if we're talking about like in a regular season context, that can win you a lot of games. We've already talked about their defensive struggles a lot. That's the one that's like outside of resigning Kyrie. that's going to be the main thing that they have to address but if they can

if they can you know swap out Christian Wood for somebody who's you know maybe not as talented offensively I think that's okay because again you have Luca you have Kyrie you have offense from them and I promise you Luca's not going to be Luca's not going to be upset if he has to take a lot of shots

considering that Kyrie is on the other side of him so it's not like they're double teaming shots it's not like he's forcing shots up you know yeah and if they fall to the bottom 10 like they might be trying to do they'll keep their first arm pick this year so christian wood and a hopefully top 10 pick and a really good draft that can get you a little something maybe if the blazers just have to blow it up does it you give a top 10 pick for jeremy grant it's a bit rich of a price but jeremy grant would help a lot for this team

that's high that's high top 10 for jeremy grant's wild wow but i mean what else they're gonna do jeremy grott would be perfect for this team i guess so gonna be perfect but man i don't know if I'd want to pay Jeremy Grant that type of bag and you just funnel yourself into this nasty, another nasty worm or a row. For sure, for sure. And I'm talking to my ass. I don't know if Jamie Grant's available,

if it makes sense at all. I just mean, like, if they fall out, if they get to that top 10 pick, they'll have a good asset to make a move, which is like kind of what they need to bank on, right? Yeah. Don't they, wait, don't the Knicks own their pick? Then it's top 10 protected.

So if they fall out of the plan, and they get draft luck then they can keep it but yeah they have to they have to bank on that because for some for some reason over decades free agents don't want to go to Dallas and they're apparently not like people are not lining up at the at the Mavericks facility to go and sign a contract so they have to force people to come into the building so yeah that's 100% the the game plan is to try and trade for a third piece and try to get this thing going I'm looking at this at the list of unrestricted free agents who could possibly help out with the dallas maver situation dry out there and this is very bleak i'm looking at names like wani walker joe ingles

hamadu diallo kendrick nunn mason plumley yacopurto but these guys are going to suck for years so jay crowder like dylan brooks i'm gonna be good yacopold would be a great signing maybe that's i don't even that's what i think you have cast face once they sign kairie i don't even they will. I don't know. And Kelly Ubrey, he's going to ask for a bag. For some reason, he's averaging 20 points per game this season. And it's like there's no real situation for the Dallas Mavericks unless they pull strings and like a team really, a team looking to revamp their roster wants to go ahead and switch things up and throw a all-star caliber or fringe all-star caliber type player. Like what if, what if the Dallas Mavericks went ahead and traded for like,

you think a top what is macaul burgess bridges worth is he worth a top 10 pick no they have they don't have anywhere near enough for bridges they would have they would have to trade karee for mckell bridge yeah you're thinking about it's all wrong they're not doing anything like that what the reality is for them next year is the mid-level exception giving it to somebody who isn't useless like they did for jvail mcgee this year getting they're going to need veteran minimum guys getting guys that can actually play And basically, exchanging these guys they have now that are small and can shoot for guys that are big and complete defense, right? Just readjusting the type of role players they have around their stars now since their whole team outlook changed since they have two small guards now.

Well, not small guards, but two defensively lacking guards. Yeah. So it's really just the small stuff like that and that'll add up in totality to fit better. But what type of, I feel like I'm not thinking about this wrong though because those type of guys are really not out there for real and available for real, at least this offseason. Jay Crowder. They can give him in the middle of the exception. Jay Crowder was going to turn around them at Dallas Mavericks. Like, no.

Boxman, 99. No, no, Jay Crowder won't stand the needle, but you signed Jay Crowder with middle of exception. You trade Christian Wood to sign trade for Yacopoldo, and then you ship out Tim Hardaway Jr. for a 3-and-D guard, whoever that may be, whoever's out there available. And, you know, you just do a bunch of small stuff like that. And then suddenly you have three good perimeter defenders, a solid room protector, Dwight Powell is a backup big.

Cleva has a backup power forward. And it's just like, you know, it's not any one additions to make a difference it's a totality of a bunch of small additions yeah and all this is banking on all this matters only if you sign Kyrie Irving and you don't yep no one really wants to trust that bro like that's yeah the biggest that's my big

biggest thing like if there's a star player that I trust the least in the NBA it is by far Kyrie I mean yeah as it should be like as he should be so it's like that's on just like I think they're cooked from the gate go bro they're done yeah it's tough And now Mark Cuban got a laser beam on his head.

Yeah, man. The West is crazy right now. We're not talking about the East today because it's not that much to talk about. It's kind of like we're just waiting for the playoffs because we know the top seven. Like it's kind of in stone. So I want to move on to something a little bit different. A few days ago, the NBA and the Players Association agreed to a new CBA, which is a massive deal. Because for those who don't know, the CBA is basically the rule book that the NBA operates off of in agreement with the players.

that decides everything from top down it decides what players make in like what their percentage of revenue is what the rules for trade and draft picks are etc and every year they have not every year i think it's every seven years they sit down and do negotiations for a whole year to try to redo this deal and that just happened so we have we have a lot to talk about with that donovan what was the first thing that stood out to you this new cb a what did you say what was the first thing that stood out to you about this new cb a it was it's clearly the the new regulations for the awards

that was one of the biggest things that stuck that stick to tell me about that wow I can't talk that was one of the biggest things that stuck out to me basically now to qualify for like MVP DPOY all the major awards you have to play at least 65 games in the season which has been a very like you know

contentious point for this season because a lot of the star players have missed games you know people are trying to push back on the load management wave that's been that's been coming out you want your star players to be playing as many games as possible so now you have 17 games of leeway to to miss we've seen a couple people kind of push back on that draymond green came out today and said that it's going to be basically a good idea until a whole bunch of bums end up on the all-mba list and well i like i understand

the sentiment of you're not getting the top guys on the like our NBA list top guys in the it's also hey we're getting people who actually played basketball this year right like like like one of the best and like people say it a lot and it means it means a lot in certain cases I think that this is one of those cases but like one of the best availability is or one of the best abilities is availability and I think that there's something to that and when we're talking about like the best 15 players in the league yeah like if you've only played 60 games a year a la Anthony Davis for a couple of seasons or like Kyrie for a couple years like you haven't been

on the court so why are you eligible for a lot of these awards? I'm going to disagree so hard with you. Real quick. So I'm going to lob this to you. If this rule was implemented today what does first team

and second team all NBA look like? Because it's going to be nasty. No Damien Lillard, no John Morant, no Steph Curry, no James Hardin, obviously no Anthony Davis or LeBron, so many names. But it's going to be shame. Let me curb that first because

I heard on Zach Bowes podcast he was talking with I forgot one of the other ESPN riders I think was Kevin Pelton he was hearing something that it's going to be not as it's not cut and dry 65 is a hard line

it's going to be like under review so like if you Damien Lord got shut down for low management it's not his fault those will be counted against them stuff like that he was hearing that it might be that

so like if you're injured that's allowed but if you get suspended that's not allowed you know what I mean those will count against you for the 65 if that's the case then things are different

then that's okay, right? Because most players will be fine that we're talking about. But back to your point, Donovan, the whole availability is the best ability thing and you're saying if it's not the best players, it's the people who played.

That's a general thing we're saying, right? People really hate on players who get injured now. Obviously, Anthony Davis is case in point and I'm always the one defending him. But I'm not doing that because I'm an Anthony Davis lover, right? I just think it's so stupid.

Hey, you are. Okay, whatever. You do love AD. I guess. But I think it's so stupid that people hold this against them as if it's their fault. Like, they're just soft pussies. Like, they just can't play. When the reality of the modern NBA is, the game is faster.

There's more possessions. There's more running. There's more space to run back and forth. Players get hurt more. That is an undeniable reality of the game now. You can look it up and see it in the numbers. Exactly. It's a different game.

Anthony Davis isn't a pussy. If David Robinson played today, he might got hurt a lot because he wasn't running up and down, defend the three point line, running back. you know what I mean? So to know that and still do this? Guarding small guards and being asked

to do all these crazy ass switches and like bro these nasty ass screens banging up your body like it's unreal. Yeah, that's true. Players get hurt more. It's undeniable fact.

So why are we punishing them for that when we know that's the case? Like it seems ass backwards to me to not acknowledge that fact and go the other way and act like it's somebody's fault. Like the load management thing is so overblown.

That is so like small of a port. of the reality of why players miss games i i don't know if that's the players association pushing that because players are sick of guys who get hurt a lot getting recognition or some shit probably not and if it's the NBA side wanting this why what do they have to gain from this okay so a couple things on that one one if you do not play right like if like so what's your line what is your line for how many games that that you can miss because clearly like if somebody only played 25 games out of an 82 game season they're not going to be you know you know what I'm saying like

they're not going to be in contention everybody has a line for what for you know where you're eligible at the NBA is setting their line here and so whether you think 17 games is a weird number or it's like not a good percentage or anything like that we can talk about that I think though that to have a line that says you have to play this many games to be considered as an all NBA talent they do for points per game for all the seasonal for all the season leaders they already do that so why can we do it for the points per game stuff but we can't do it for our NBA I'll know you like that so you said everybody has their line right true that's already ingrained in voters mindsets like you said if Anthony Davis plays 48 games he's not going to make it but if

Anthony Davis plays 60 he might make it because you weigh in totality with everything's a sliding scale if its impact and talent is a 99 he would be a chew-in if it was only that But if it's availability is at 50, you know, you've got to do some mental average and say, is it worth it? That is a thing already. So why, as if as the NBA, would you make this a thing that's, you know, like in the rulebook and not allow voters to do that? All that does is just continue this harmful narrative that's anti-player getting hurt where we're seeing players get, you know, okay, let me not say that because Twitter roasting doesn't really matter. But, you know, it's not, it's not effective. It hurts their overall branding.

Yeah, it's not helpful at all to. make it a point of emphasis to bash players are getting hurt and pulled it against them or even like something like Damien Lillard who got shut down because his team is tanking the rest of the year Damien Lillard wouldn't make 65 he should be 13 all-N-B-A you know what I mean I just don't see any helpfulness to setting a number

when like you said people already have one in their heads as voters so what's the helpfulness of putting one I think it's to make things a little bit more clear and a little bit more uniform when we were talking about when we did our episode about our all-star games right a whole bunch, we all had guys like in the starting lineups or reserves and it's like, oh, this guy hasn't played that much, but I'm still going to give it to him, this and that. And all of us had different criteria. The NBA is saying, hey, there's like, there's tens of millions of dollars on the line, which each one of these things. Like, people lose out on $30 million because they don't make a certain NBA team where they don't win MVP and things like that. There you go. So should they lose that now for getting hurt? Should it be guaranteed because they got hurt? They don't get that. That's fucked to me. it'd be like that sometimes but it shouldn't be if if you and so like what you were talking about earlier with uh with zack loan what they were talking about and like if there's like a a plus minus right

that i i don't i don't think that a hard line is correct but i do think that like if you have the line to where like this is the range that we're going to have a higher and we're going to have a lower i think that's okay and you can have a little bit of margin of error but i do think that setting a line and saying this is the area in which we are going to say you are eligible i think that's correct and so and so if we want to say we want to set it at 65 i think that's okay if we're going to say oh well you know dame he was on track to play right he was healthy enough to play if the team shut him down we can we can give him that and then everything can happen you know you know what i'm saying so like yeah if that's the case and then this is a non-conversation that's fine right

yeah if they do it as like they look at each game played and say it's falls in this bucket where it's okay or disbuck or it's not okay. Not okay is suspension or player's choice of sitting out or whatever. Okay is injury or player's choice of sitting down. I mean, or team's choice of setting them down, fine. Then we have nothing to talk about. But I don't know if that's going to be the case because that seems like it would cause a lot of controversy. We'll see how this first year goes. I think it's going to be very interesting. And especially with a whole bunch of stars getting hurt as it is, there's always like from here on out, there's going to be a lot of conversation every single year about who's playing, who's not, what load, what load

management looks like which really like it affects even on even when we get to like our MBA load management really only affects about five guys like five like five to eight guys in the league it barely affects them like it's so overblown and really they're talking about the fans who came to show up and which is a real thing and it does yeah it does sound for sure yeah anyways there's a lot of changes in the CBA let's move on from this one topic we got a lot to hit another one is the midseason tournament is happening as soon who's next year it's for sure happening how do you all feel about that i donovan has some opinions i wasn't a bet well you go you go first man i want to hear you i'm so conflicted as to how this

will look and if like players will genuinely care about this at the day like yeah sure cool you're throwing money at these players and that's a good incentive incentive that they're throwing out there but like at the end of the day if we're being a real 20 years from now are we really going to be looking at someone like I don't know D. Aaron Fox or John Moran's career and be like, ah, nah, you know, he wasn't like that because he don't have any mid-season tournament

matches or medals, like that's just like That's not the point though, you know. Yeah, I don't know. I've really mixed feelings about this and it doesn't really intrigue me. Okay. What are you done? I was I'm going to take the easy way out. I'm going to reserve judgment because

I was, I was I was hesitant on the playing I still think that there's a couple of things that that they can be done to fix the to not to fix but to improve the playing for the in season tournament I don't think that a money incentive is the correct thing to do

I don't know if there's an incentive big enough to make this like matter instantly maybe this happens maybe this happens 15 years down the road where like it has some lore behind it but the money in the NBA is already big enough to where a majority of the guy Guys, like, if you throw a pool of $20 million at 15 players and they all split it, like, okay, so we all get an extra million.

Like, that, that doesn't matter to LeBron. He makes that in a day. Yeah, it matters to Austin Reeves. No, it does. You don't think LeBron wants to win that for Austin Reeves? Listen, these dudes don't care. They don't, they don't care about the money that they're throwing at chair, at their own charities in the all-star game. Bro, no, no.

You're in the locker room and you know these guys on the bottom of your roster are making $4 million this year, and they can get a million-dollar check. They're going to, their teammates, they're going to care about that. If LeBron, if you think that the LeBron is like, listen, I got to go all out to get Austin Reeves this million dollars, when they have a legitimate chance to win the finals and LeBron is like, oh, no, like we need my, we need me for the finals. Why am I going to go extra hard for this tour? I could just write Austin Reeves a check for a million dollars and those things a whole bunch of time. Y'all are going back and forth about LeBron and Austin Reeves career relationship. Y'all are disgusting, man. More so, I feel like this. I'm reserving judgment.

I need to see how it's going to be set up. I don't know exactly what all the parameters are going to be like. I don't know what the incentives are going to be like. And if the incentives are more team-based to where it's like, okay, if you win this, then you get an extra draft pick or something like that. That doesn't necessarily incentivize the guys on the team rather than the front office. So we have to see how all of this plays out. More so, go ahead.

When I'm thinking about this, like, it's not a real, like, benchmark or milestone for any team other than the teams that are, like, in the middle of the pack and are just trying to figure things out, like, the Sacramento Kings or Oklahoma City Thunder or hell, the Orlando Magic, like, as a late, because they've been an actual respectable, good team since All-Star Break. And so I don't know, like, if it's really moving the needle for the teams you want. It's a movement needle for in terms of, like, interest mid-season. But that's my standpoint. When we talk about it, we're so focused on, like, is this going to be a big deal that people care about? Is this going to be the best thing ever? And I feel like that's taking the wrong viewpoint because no one's saying it's going to revolutionized the NBA. Apparently, this is Adam Silver's, like, Love Child Project.

I don't think he thinks this is going to be, like, bigger than the finals or as good as the finals. Like, it's not, we're not trying to say that the mid-season tournament is going to be an accomplishment to itself that's, like, you know, I want to win this. But if, so a lot of things I've been theorized that they're going to do is there's going to be basically five games in the season that were already played. That's going to be the midseason tournament, right? So they're not really going to add games for the calendar. What's the downside?

If it's just like a cool tournament in the middle, to spark interest in the middle of the season to, you know, give the dead point of the season some life. It's just five extra games. The players don't want to care. Then they won't want it is whatever. It just counts as the other games to their schedule. What's the downside?

That is not cool enough. If you are creating a tournament, if you're creating a tournament that doesn't have like either history behind it or immediate buy-in from the players, then the one thing that you would want to have in it is to like get people ramped up and to add some juice into it is stakes, right? Like you would want to tune in purely for the stakes because if at the end of the day we're all still vying for an NBA finals championship and the mid-season tournament is just like a blip in the journey. okay I want to see like what the stakes are so I can get excited about this because this this doesn't contribute to the overall thing or like it's just a part of the process if the stakes aren't there then why should I care about this any more than just a regular regular season game what's wrong I'm saying so I mean obviously it's a tournament you will care more than the regular season game let's say it's comparable to right let's say

it's closer to a random regular season game than it is an NBA finals that's fine like you we're acting like that has to have some crazy justification to add a change it could be slightly better than what we have now and it's like why not right it's not there's no downside to this yeah it's just another layer of entertainment overall and I think yeah they're doing their job it's not moving the needle no one's gonna like a no one should expect it to be

monumental or change or rewrite history whatsoever I think a lot of people when it comes to like during the midseason or when things get boring they're focusing on what I want to see Kawhi LeBron go all out instead of taking it easy or taking a couple of nights off or taking possessions off when that's like these things just inherently like

that's the wrong target audience these things are for the teams who are trying to prove something and make some noise and I think this is the perfect type of product that they're putting out there to give these teams who will give a fuck like a team like the alien hawks this is something meant for them you know these are the midteam tournament for

the mid teams huh I think it's for the fans thank you it's for the fans but no it's not for the fans people say I don't care about the NBA until Christmas starts maybe now they'll say I don't care about the NBA until the midseason tournament starts and people are coming into the season after football have this fun little tournament to watch

and get an idea of what these teams are like they'll see oh right now in the middle of the season the Celtics are the best team in the league that's kind of like a cool barometer to know as I'm starting to watch the year and get into it it's regular purely for entertainment and that's fine like it doesn't have to be anything else I need to see the stakes I need to see

the setup again I'm reserving judgment I'm a little bit skeptical because I don't think that the stakes aren't I don't think that the stakes are inherently there so I don't see like the overwhelming positive to it but we will we will see we'll see what Adam wants to do we'll see what I don't think they need to be there I don't think there's nothing logistically that he can do to make the stakes huge and if he tried to do that then he would fuck up the end I I just rather wait till towards the end to see the me personally but I do like this because it I think like again I think that

this will cater towards an entire new audience in the NBA who deserves spotlight, which are more so the underrated teams who are looking to make some type of noise to improve themselves and whatnot. Okay. Let's move on to some more stuff in the CBA. All NBA is positionless now. Not much to talk about there, but I think we're all very happy

about that. It's great. No more Joelle M.B. getting fucked over and being second team because there happens to be another center. So we're on to, I'm sure we're all happy about that. Beautiful. Okay. The one in Dunn rule is staying around. R&P, Dianja Jordan's career.

Yeah, R&P had his fucking legacy. yeah no more no more hints thank god but yeah the one in done rule is staying around so they're not going to do the patient comes out of high school at least for the next seven years you got to have one a year out of high school okay i think i think i think from a from an NBA management perspective i kind of like it from a just like let people get their bag perspective i don't like it i think that it's wrong um and you should be able to you know be 18 and be able to play professional basketball and make some money off of it but for the NBA you're investing a lot of money you're investing a lot of draft picks I think this is a way to get just a little just another data

point for front offices to look at players and evaluate the people that they're going to but even then I feel like not even a lot of NBA not even a lot of college or high school players would be considered to be like high draft picks so I believe it would only be like maybe two three players like max four players at a time each and every season that they yeah exactly it'll be so rare it'll be it's insanely rare to see high school players drafted you know let's talk about this last 10 years which players would have came shut out of high school first thing comes in mind ben simmons would have he was that guy ben simmons you could say zion would have zion wasn't like that premier zion would have you're crazy as hell he would have

bro do you not remember this zion was not Zion was not the clear-cut number one guy in his class when he came to duke he blew up and was like oh this is the guy but zion wasn't view that way So maybe you're saying he could have been good enough, sure. But he didn't have the cachet to be able to do that, right? He would have gone towards the top of the job, but... I disagree. I disagree. I disagree. He was number three in his class.

I think Zion still would have been a first rounder. Yeah, he would have definitely been a first rounder. But the thing is, he wouldn't have tried because only people that are going to do it are people that are clear-cut number one in their class. Like they're going into the first year knowing they're going to be number one pick. Like Victor Womaniana, he would have done it. No. Maybe Chet Homer?

No. Probably not. No. But like Zion wasn't the clear-cut guy. Ben Simmons was... Although Zion wasn't the clear-cut guy, he was the clear-cut, this dude is different type of guy. You can say he bow-blow and whatnot, and he was surrounded by... No, he wasn't.

Bro, y'all, no, he was not. He was. RJ, at the start of the season, RJ was the guy for Duke. And then after like three games, and after three games, everyone was like, yeah, RJ, you really shouldn't be the lead of this team. sophomore years on blew up with these dunks against these little teams that were like oh this is cute this guy can dunk real good he's big i don't know if he's good yet junior year we're like oh he's actually pretty good senior year he's like oh he's a top five player in his class but he was never like

the guy in his class at all in high school like his it really it's a testament to him his rise up the ranks throughout his career was pretty great uh yeah but shout out to him but who else was there that would have anti davis would have anthony davis would have yeah oh for sure yeah yeah I'm trying to I'm trying to think maybe Cade Cunningham he yeah probably Cate Cunningham I'm I'm blanking on I don't in terms of like these guys like high school ranks I forget a lot of Cade was on that Monterey team that had Scotty Barnes and Moses Moody

and he was like clear cut number one he only he went to Oklahoma State and took the unsurious college year like he probably would have just ducked that year and went to the NBA like beyond now I don't think you would duck that year because he had family ties with Oklahoma say it and whatnot. But in regards to the fact, like, the list is very short. Yeah. And, like, it doesn't, like, I think the NBA just adding on, I feel like they completely

missed the mark on this because now, like, you kind of handicap yourself from another potential storyline that could have been talked about and just a whole new layer of, like, conversation that would have been surrounded around this entire thing. And there's there, you, what would be the heart, what would be the pain? Oh, a team drafts, a player who's, who's not ready whatsoever um okay that's a team's fault you know there's a reason why like a majority of people will still go to college and g league and all these other options you know so there's just a miss oh well not our problem it's true yeah it's literally right gambling and speaking like speaking of gambling oh my goodness yeah let's fire three there's there's a lot of

stuff that people aren't interested in but that's one of them so yeah players can have a sponsorship some things like fandul draft kings all these gambling sites which is you know like like you're alluding to a little bit weird because you're not allowed to bet on yourself to your player obviously it's a very big no-no so to be affiliated with the gambling thing is kind of strange that is not a good look at all it is it is not it is not a good look the NBA is already facing every every major sports league who is now like thrown themselves into this gambling world it is very very weird to be able to like to have the gambling and then also duck the allegations that you are that your game is still pure and that nothing

is being touched especially for the NBA who has had gambling and rigging scandals in the past in the finals at the highest level and this is not a good idea for them and also on the same lines NBA players can now invest in NBA teams and WMBA teams they can be part owners

which I know sounds fucking nuts on top like is LeBron going to be a part owner in the Hornets why is he going to try to win against the Hornets but that's not exactly how it works they can only invest in these teams that they invest in private equity firms that are buying portions of teams and those private equity firms

have to buy portions of multiple teams so that's why it makes sense and basically it's just so players can have some ownership and stake in the NBA rising in valuation like we're seeing the Washington commanders are about the sell and the valuation is like $6 billion

so NBA players are like oh when these NBA teams are by the sell these evaluations are going to be ridiculous let me invest in that so I can get a piece of the pie that I'm helping grow are you all cool with this yeah for right now I mean it sounds familiar

we will see I don't know we will see yeah it sounds familiar to like a lot of regular employees have a part of their job like for example if you work at Publix then you get to have a certain you get to hold a share within the same company

but at the same time it's kind of weird because like the NBA is huge and there's like a lot of many companies under this big ass umbrella company so I get it and I understand it and I think it is like progressive but I mean I remember like a couple

maybe last year I heard Andre Aguadala in a interview talked about how he had like I think he worked some deal with Joe Lacob or some like that when it comes to having some not part ownership of the Warriors but like having

a tiny piece of the cake once he's like gone and done off of the team and it was like under the table yeah it was some type under the table handshake on his like point four podcast He talked about that. That seems like it circumvents the CBA very heavily. Yeah, we should not be admitting to that.

It's crazy. Very weird. All right. Okay. Last thing in the CBA change, I want to talk about real quick. They basically saw that the Clippers, Warriors, and Nets over the last few years have been spending way more than every other team in the league. And some owners have complained about that, the poor teams,

about the disadvantage that the warriors have the right to spend $300 million on payroll because they can pay all the tax in the world because they're rich. And now the NBA is hurting the money. those teams for it. Basically, they're adding in a second luxury tax threshold. So if you spend 17.5 million more than the salary cap, you can't use your mid-level exception. And you can't bring in more money in trades than you send out. Yeah, that's whack. That's whack. Stop, pocket watching. Get your money are broke boys. That's what I thought the game was. This is the club of 30 billionaires and we're trying to protect their pockets. Stop being, stop being cheap.

Stop being broke. Let's go out and spend your money, right? And let's actually try and win, some stuff. It's ridiculous. This is whack. I truly hate this. Yeah, because I can imagine it's the Oklahoma City Thunder and you draft all these young up and coming, potentially you draft four stars. You get to the point where you pay three, the fourth one, like

Jane and Williams might have to let walk because if they sign him, they go over this and they won't have access to the middle of exception and all these other, there's several other small things that the team can't do that just really puts a handcuff on you team-building wise. Why are we doing this team? Why are we not letting them take care of their homegrown talent and build the right way?

If they want to spend the money, let them spend the money. Exactly. This is exactly what happened a decade ago. This is why the Thunder traded James Hardin away in the first place. We literally saw this with three MVPs. Imagine the dynasty that the Thunder could have had. And they did everything right. They drafted all those guys.

They kept them in house. They built everything up. And now because people are complaining that other people have deeper pockets than them, now we all have to play fair. This is professional sports at the highest level. Please. And I'm so serious. Get your money up or go

Or go. Stop, stop crying. You are billionaires, bro. Like, it's ridiculous. It's a shame. Yeah, man. This is, this is, this is, this is, this is, otherworldly broke boy talk and nasty talk as well.

Yeah, like, play, go ahead and play this for flight reaction, broke boy. Because, God, man, this is so embarrassing for teams to actually consistently complain about this. Who cares? Be more enticing. your market it doesn't matter like you know also like we're all just going to hurt hurt the product

in the back end and also like it's not even like these teams that are doing this are like it's working like the nets fell apart it didn't work the clippers have been constantly injured it didn't work it's not a guarantee that it works out like yeah the warriors won last year now they're not good this year and their payrolls even higher like it's not like being able to spend this much

automatically makes you like a better contender like the bucks are way better than them and they don't spend that high in the luxury tax Yeah, man I just hate a million team It's attacking a non-exist issue Real quick Real quick

What team you think is the number one Broke boy Oh the Pacers I think the Hornets Oh no it was the Rockets The Rockets their owners Broke as fuck and he's always doing shit For that

Because yeah It's the Rockets Yeah Yeah Locke the Lakers probably The Lakers are my mom and pop show The Lakers have owners That are not billionaires

Because the only thing That makes them rich Is the Lakers That's their That's their job Is running the Lakers Most other owners It's a side gig

Genevus All she has is the Lakers So they can't spend like that Yeah The Rocket's owner For Tita He's just coming back up He a lot of his money

Was tied in like In casinos and gambling and stuff And so when the pandemic hit A lot of his money was tied up And so he couldn't really get anything But now that everything's like You know Back open again

Back outside people spending that money He's back up Yeah Yeah man CBA has a lot of changes. There's a lot of other smaller stuff that we don't got to talk about because our fans don't want to hear about it.

Like, you can offer your players' extensions that are 140% of their salary now instead of 120%. Something like that. Yeah. We don't get too deep into it, but a lot of small changes in this that add up

and some very interesting stuff like we talked about. Yeah. I'm so upset that they're pocket watching like this. This is ridiculous. Before we get to TikTok time, one thing I want to ask you guys.

And the spirit of the CBA changes if you were running the NBA for a day, what's the one change you'd want to make? All right. I'm calling ICE on here. I'm getting my stuff off. I think about this all the time. The number one thing that I'm doing

if I'm commissioning the NBA, we're changing the schedule and we're changing the standings. I think that the NBA needs to go back to the system in which division winners get home court advantage. Ew. I think that matters.

I think in a league in which there's a lot of player movement and you don't necessarily get like the rivalries that that you get every single year manufacturing rivalries in a regional sense is very very important and so you would change the system to where you still play like two times

with the people from the opposite conference you don't have to play everybody in your conference four times a year you will play them either two or three and then you will play everybody in your division five times a year and so then those divisional games and so then those divisional games

become more important than every other game in the in the in the um in the season you have to get there and then you have like the extra wild card to get home court advantage but i think i think if like like the the celtics and the 76s every one of their games they have four games this year what's the difference between those games and the celtics bucks right like you like but they're in the same division right now it's either we abolish divisions or we go back to it and try to create this robbery there okay i see the vision i think it's a reason we don't do divisions anymore and it's probably better that way but i like the idea of having more games i like the idea having more games in your division that'd be cool i think that's hard to sell i am 110

a fan of that donovan and adam's over hit me up what about you mo what's your one change one thing that i would change in the nva i think I can't. Oh, man. I don't really know if I have one pinpoint thing that I would change the NBA that really bothers me and grinds my ears. You said what? I said, change the jerseys. Change the jerseys, not.

Jerseys are straight. I like the product as is, to be honest with you, and I'm not really, I don't really think there's anything. Oh, actually, it's the fucking, um, the one and done rule. I hate that. It grinds my goals. like I hate that they didn't change that we already harped on it or whatever

but it's just killing me that like there's this 17 year old 18 year old kid who would be changing his entire his family's life but because of this dumb ass rule like you know what I'm saying they want to put him through school and he's going to make 40,000

50,000 100,000 be illegal way for sure um what's legal now like yeah yeah true I forget about that but um still it's not touching like what he should be earning in terms of like all the NBA type level endorsements that you're getting

with these shoe companies and all those other shit. So that's the number one thing that grinds my ears and it has forever pissed me off. I think one thing I would do, so if they're at the midseason tournament, one thing I don't want to change, which isn't even to change because it doesn't happen yet,

but I don't want to make the winning team get a lottery pick. It can either be the 15th pick at basically adding and duplicating the 14th pick the worst lottery odds and giving that to the team or if you want to get spicy, you make it like the 10th best odds. I think that'd be sick. and give basically the lottery right now

you know all pro sports to an extent on purpose reward you for being bad that's how you get better if you're being bad first I would love a way for teams to be good and still get that draft compensation and still be able to win by doing it the right way like if the Kings could get a get the 12th overall pick in the lottery

by winning the midseason tournament and continue to be good while building at the same time I think that'd be pretty sick oh wow that's that's crazy that'd be awesome wouldn't it that's crazy like we don't get like that's my that's spicy that i can get with it i can get with it yeah like we used to get shit back in the day when before the lottery were like stars

would go to good teams already like how we get like magic and cream and stuff like that which we're never going to do that again because that's crazy but to have some way to incentivize like i want the celtics to be able to get lucky and somehow land the fifth overall pick because they get crazy lottery odds and just like have cool stuff like that happening that rewards them for being good i even if it's a small percentage i think that should be at least some percentage. That was a jarring cut because we just had some technical difficulties

but we're back and it was at the perfect time because I think it's time for everybody's favorite segment TikTok time. Let's get into it. Let's go. Let's go, man.

And as always, we're going to start with the draft like we always do. This time, we're going to draft players that have beards. So let's be fun. Very specific version, though.

So like we can call out the like specific year, right? Yeah, yeah. So if like, I don't know who an example is. Let's, I use a make-a-lead example. Shack never had a beard. But if Shack had a beard in 2009 only, you could say 2009, Shaq. Gotcha.

Okay, cool, cool, cool. Who's the first pick? Who had it last time? What was the last pick? I have third. Oh, you had third? I have third. Yeah, so Mo, you're first.

Now, you pick Steph in the middle of the point guard draft. So it's Mo, Donovan, me. Gotcha, gotcha. Cool. Cool. I go first Let's draft NBA lineups With only players who had beards

Let's go One hit shot up Give me brawn Yeah well Obvious first pick All right That's cool I give me

Hmm Give me Give me 2017 step Curry Okay Did he have a beer in 2017 I thought it was more recent yeah 20 2017 is when he started growing it okay oh now I'm in a hard position first pick give me cream Abdul-Jabbar obviously yeah nice here I guess I'll pick Prime Hardin feels a bit high but I mean

he's the beard he's he's he's the beard yeah yeah my heart is nice okay at two uh what I want to go with this give me give me a wait give me 2019 Kawhi Lenin His beard is real small I'll let you have it But like that shit is low You can have it Listen he has the beard It's low

It's low but it connects It connects So wait Who was your first pick Donovan Curry then you got Kaw You started off real strong

Also nobody asked for clarification For if a beard count Just say it And then we'll roast him For this account Okay All right So cool

Y'all came with heavy hitters So I got to try to do the same thing. Go ahead. Let's throw this back. Go ahead and give me Kyrie. Okay. You should throw this back and go to the old player. No, like give me throw this.

Well, pause, but throw this back. 2016 vibes. Give me that, give me that version of Kyrie. Okay. Oh, you got Bron and Kyrie together. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, exactly.

Okay. And then on top of that, Give me the big three that should have been Well, technically would have been Because Kyrie wouldn't have been there But I'm gonna say it should have been Paul George Oh, okay

Okay, that's interesting All right, I gotta get a Let's see, so I have Stefan Kauai Hmm Give me Give me Anthony Davis That's a good pick I was gonna pick him next to me give him

That's nice Give me AD That's nice Damn Oof Like I said I already got my pick and roll combination. Now I've got to flank them on the wings. Give me Dirk Novitsky and Jason Tatum. That's good.

That's good. Okay. I got spacing around the best pick and roll you can imagine. Damn, I wanted Turk so bad. I bet you did. I got to figure out who I want as my center. I feel like I need somebody who can space a little bit. Looking at my notes here. There's one really good one waiting for you. I know. You know what?

Give me, give me Joelle and B. bead. Okay, I was to say, if you pass them up, you're an idiot. I'll take you on a damn, bro. All right, so it's kind of tough. So I got Kyrie,

Paul George, and LeBron. It's a lot of perimeter talent. That's a lot of prurminor talent. I could slide LeBron to the fore if I really wanted to. But I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that whatsoever, right?

You know what? Let's get Oh, yeah, let's get kind of funky with it I'm going to put LeBron at my 4 I'm going to put PG at the 3 and give me Jalen Brown at my 2 That's a good pick I was thinking about picking him on my last one

Okay, okay, that's good And then to round it out I need a shooter At the 5 and Bro, give me cat Give me big purr And you folded the draft Folded, what? This is seamless, you're insane

You have cat guarding Creole Jabbar You just lost You're gonna have cat Guarding Joelle and B Yeah you just lost All right I need it I need a two I just want somebody who can get up and down

Give me Dwayne Wade I don't know what Dwayway counts Do we look at he did No Give me 2011 Dwayne Wade I feel like Gwynway's barely counted when he was old When he was trash

That's why I said 2011 Dwayne Wade Let me type this thing I just I just looked it up for clarification. Okay, I'm typing this in, going on the images.

2011 D, Wade, is what you want? It connects. That's a beard that connects. That's a beard. You can have that. It connects. That's his big thing. It has to connect.

That's the qualifying. That's a qualifier. Oh, my God, bro. 2011 Dwayne Wade. No one likes that pick. It's barely a beard, but it's a beard, so you can have it. Look on it. My turn of last thing?

Yeah. Yeah. Last pick. Round it out. Last pick, I'm picking the perfect connected to bring it all together. Give me Clay Thompson. That's nice. That's nice.

I like that, actually. Your team is nice. I should have went with the, with the Splash Brothers, but I'm cool with doing weight. I really wish I would have went with, I wish I would have went with Clay over J.B. But honestly, I like bags. One of those was there. Yeah. All right.

So I got Kyrie, J.B. PG-13 LeBron and Carinthony Towns This team is so fucking hard to stop From the offensive end You're the worst team though You get the Bronx is hard to stop Ficking Cat was crazy

He should pick Bill Walton Yeah it's very weird All right I got I'm not picking Bill bro I got Steph Curry Dwayne Wade Cawah Leonard Anthony Davis

And Joel Embed That's a fucking filthy team God damn Oh yeah your team Kind of crushes line Like that I have James Hardin Clay Thompson

Jason Tatum Dirk Kareem. That Harding Kareem Pickle is crazy. Yeah, I think Donovan may have won in this one. It's close.

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Underdog will double your first deposit up to $100 and that's even more free money to play around with and win on these entries so again sign up today using promo code TD3 and get in on the action today so next thing we're going to do we're going to do some NBA trivia I'm going to ask you guys trivia questions

and test your immune knowledge a little bit so this will be funny do I know ball let's see yeah do you know ball so let's see how well you know NBA trivia said NBA weird let's see how well you know NBA trivia how well do you know NBA trivia Donovan's making fun of my hand motions I always do comments love talking about it it's funny all right first off who is the Celtics all time leading score

it has to be it's a bird is yeah it has to be Larry Bird is that she no I actually know incorrect it's not Larry Bird

yeah it's not Larry it's not who is we'll keep guessing not the three MVP three time MVP damn not because he he got his career got cut short

it's probably someone like what pacey boy is this no you think it's like Is John Havlicek? It is John Havlicek. Yeah.

It's a pasty boy, you're right. There we go. There we go. Do the lob. John Havlicek has 26,000 career points. Okay. How much is that your birth has? Who second on the list? Has it one.

I don't do that much research. Sorry, I got number one in that. For the talks, that's it. What year did the Spurs win their most games ever? 2017. Inc. Yeah, I want to. Oh.

Close. Okay. Was it... Is it 2014? Incorrect. That's less close. Damn. Talk.

I just think it's a TikTok. Oh, it has to be 20... 2015. No, 2016. You are going to guess every answer but the right one. There you go, 2016. Yeah.

God damn. I got my years confused. How many games did they win? In 2016, they won 67 games. They were incredible, but they were overshadowed by the 73-win Warriors. That's the one that I was thinking about. I was thinking about the old Zaza thing. Yeah, that's when it happened, I believe.

That's tough. That's tough. There are three point guards with multiple MVP's. Who are they? Magic Johnson, Steph Curry. Correct, correct. Absolutely. Steve Nash.

Yep. Okay, that was an easy one. I was about to say, do you count? He was hard in two or not? He does have multiple though. Oh, I just wanted to forget, yeah. It's just crazy to think about. Bro, boy.

Yeah, damn. How many teams did Shaq play for? A rough estimate, like, nine. Okay, so he went, no. So it's Orlando, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, Cleveland, Boston. Six. Did you say Phoenix?

Yes. Yeah. You said to New Phoenix. It is 16s. Donovan, you're caring right now. I'm exposed. What's the record for the least amount of wins in a regular season? Oh, this is a barb cats.

Seven. What's the record for the least amount of wins in a regular season besides a lockout year? Mm. Full 82 games. I think it's... Full 82. Could it be the process sixers? could it be yeah yeah we're gonna let's go with them

you know what i'm gonna give you that because you're close so you're never going to get the right answer is it the new jersey nets that they did it the process sixers are second they won 10 in 2016 the first one was the 76 years in 1973 they won nine games nine games nine games in 82 in 1973 no in 82 oh yeah yeah they won nine you bombs man those fans are war veterans 10 games is still outrageous to me man yeah the modern NBA that 10's that 10 stings yeah winning 10 games not to even sniff of what uh eastern conference finals is crazy yeah nice last one how many points did lonzo ball score in the first game

of his career the iconic gamer patching over the gardener yeah wrong four wrong six wrong it had three five it is three points three yeah there we go three Patrick damn single digits Patrick barely put the fear of God in that young man's eyes and held him to three points he put three in his he put up three in his first game and I think either the next time that you play Patrick Beverly or the very next game you put up like 27 or something like yeah 28 in the second game yeah there you yeah Lakers fans were filling a roller coaster promotions at first year God man that's not such a huge despairing you that's the trivia that's the

segment I don't know if I post it I didn't like it very much next up we're gonna play game with 20 questions but we're gonna change it up normally we do 20 questions against a player this time you're gonna 20 questions to guess a single NBA team like this season oh that's interesting a team see okay yeah okay okay let's let's try to let's try to do this without asking if they want a championship because I think that that that narrows it down okay You have 20 questions to guess The NBA team I'm thinking of

Specific year Perfect All right Did this team have a winning record? Yes Did this team have a six man of the year Candidate? I don't think so

That's so specific Okay You don't think so Alright Okay Did this team Make the finals no

no they didn't make the finals okay did this team make any massive moves that specific season yes okay I'm pretty sure the move was in season in season that's what I meant perfect yeah is this the 2011 Knicks

this is not the 2011 Knicks not a bad guess but you be targeted not a bad pick um okay okay okay do you really want to want to cut it down do you want to ask the conference question do you want to cheat no no let's not let's not let's not let's not ask the conference question all right okay did this team make the playoffs yes okay they made the playoffs cool um did this team have any all NBA players I'm pretty sure yeah

yours okay cool so you peep that Donovan yeah that's not how that works okay um that does not imply I know I'll go ahead and I'll knock it out

were there multiple all NBA players on this team no I think just one yeah okay god damn you just waste of a fucking question Donovan what I'd be specific your question wasn't good enough Lock in

You understood you All right We're here We're here Look at me We're here We're here Okay

All right All right All right Let's wrap this shit up How many questions Are we have by the way Eight Gotcha

Eight Okay cool Gotcha All right They have an all NBA player Winning record They made the playoffs Let's try to

Try to cut it down Did they make The Conference Finals no okay so they are a failure they're a failure they made seismic moves okay um did this team

did this team use up all of their draft capital capital that's a weird question I don't know what do you mean if they're going to go ahead and make these monumental trades then I need to know Like some context, some backgrounds, so I don't have to go through these easy questions. Are you saying about the trade specifically?

Yeah. Okay, reword that and ask me about that trade. Did this team give up big assets? Did this team give up big assets during this trade? You know, not really. I mean, I wouldn't say that. No, it wasn't crazy. Okay, is this team a, is, is,

is this team from 2010 and forward yeah okay so we have 13 years from 2015 and forward yes cool we're a lot warmer donovan all right let's start let's start narrowing it down is this team in the western conference they are okay western conference failure i'm really feeling like this is like a like a los angeles clipper situation um um I I don't know is this a clippers

which year oh it is he said he said after he said after 2015 I'm just saying you guys specific and ask a question I'm not yeah yeah

listen he said after 2015 so they have to have like made a move after that Western Conference lose in the second round uh when they or not this has to be the 2018

Los Angeles Clivers this has to be not them. No, I'm, I messed up though. We said that we asked if they made the conference finals and he said no. That means that they could have lost in the first or the second round. Exactly. So remember when the Clippers were giving the Golden State Warriors fits and Kevin

Grant fits? I just said it wasn't them. I just said it wasn't them. Low key, though. I can't remember if they made the post. Is this the 2017-Norleans Pelicans? You mean 2017-2018, and yes, it is them. Yes, sir, the ones who traded for the Marcus Cousins

Yeah, exactly There you go There you go Yeah Yeah, I had them I had them in the back of my mind You saved us There you go

Carried They beat the shit out of Portland And then lost of the Warriors Yeah, I remember that We're here We're here God damn it was in fucking hell man Yeah, shout out Drew Holiday

Drew Holiday Was him that year No, bro He had He had a damn straight jacking All right next thing we're going to do do we're doing these conspiracies we're going to do a tier list well that we've been doing a lot lately this is going to be a long episode yeah we're going to do a tier list with NBA shoes

so that should be fun let's do it so let me sit up my chair I am excited let's put these NBA shoes into a tier list let's put these NBA shoes into a tier list first off iconic grinch Kobe's a S tier S my bad S T B has got to be S got to be S Slive the show to me when I say A. I meant to say S. This is an all-time shoot. These set the bar. Easy S-tier. So next up.

Those are classics, man. Facts. You were him if you had these in middle school or high school. Oh, if you had these in middle school when they first came out, you were an enigma. These were crazy idea back then. Next up. The Olympic Sevens. Yo, shout out.

Shout out to these. These are an A tier. I really like Sevens. Listen, I used to go on Facebook and enter contests to try to get these shoes, bro. I love these shoes. They're not, they're not like Grinches, but they are beautiful shit. But when these came out in 2012 with the 2012 Olympics, when I was in the eighth grade, these took math class by storm.

If you had these, you were absolutely that guy. This with the cargo, with the cargo pants on top of a regular big-ass polo. Can't tell me nothing. You wore a him. You wore Mr. Biches. Yeah. Yeah, red elite socks, a white and blue polo. Yeah.

What a time. What a time. That's funny. Y'all know about that. These people aren't called old. They were like six years old and this happened. I know. Y'all know about that good passion.

All right. This is a real grip. These black KD4s. Also, iconic. That was solid B. Yeah, I'm going to go B. Also iconic. I think they're a better playing shoe than like just wearing out.

But these are hard, though. I think the KD4 is just low-key like these are a top three like Katie silhouette though They aged well when they came out it was kind of like if he but they age real well I don't know I'm absolutely I'm thinking of the six is no these did age well you're absolutely right about this But wearing these incredibly yeah absolutely but wearing these outside of the court is kind of crazy Oh yeah I mean today if you wear them you're an absolute lunatic and you should probably never decide your own outfit ever again But back then back then you were dripped out I did that yesterday.

Oh, man. The authorities are at your doorstep right now. Jail. Next up. These red Kobe 9s. I rock with these. I'm going to give it to you straight. F tier.

I don't care if you rock with these. I hate the high top. No, say it ain't so. I hate the high top Kobe 9s. Let me tell you all something. Let me tell you that something. I'm about to put you guys up on game. the Kobe 9 what the what the color way is trash it's a white color way whole bunch of colors on it

trash right now if you go on stock eggs it's about $600 I'm letting you know this right now let me find some of them replicas I'm getting about 10 pairs okay and once you do that block me these are these are a beautiful silhouette they're very very underrated they're horrendous we should not we should not be we should not disrespect them we should is where these comfortably on a basketball score. The Kobe 7 fantastic. The Kobe 7 fantastic. The Kobe 8, fantastic. The Kobe 9, horrendous.

I know why they did it. He tore his Achilles. Need the ankle support. Don't care. They look horrible. I'm not Robocop. These are fire. Yeah, exactly.

I'm not a future aspiring astronaut. I don't need these in my closet at all. These are nothing. They do nothing for me. I think my life would be worse if I had these in my closet. These will be good. We're getting you guys a pair and I'm going to change your mind. Oh, no.

These will be good. If I went mudding with these If you gave me these shoes We're filing assault charges Nah You guys are ridiculous These are nice It's not

Okay These purple Dawn issue ones Oh those are huge L's What? Those are big Blocky That's like a C

They don't match Very solid shoes I love these C T or is cool A Oh my God A I'll go B

I go B realistically But I like these a lot Yeah, you deserve to get bullied for that one Hey, no, stick to that You said A confidently What's wrong with them? These are not, these are very far from A worthy The color scheme is I

But the whole overall build And just the overall texture I love the Don issue one. That's what? I think the Dawn issue one is a hard silhouette. You said A, there's no way that these can be in the same tier as Olympic 7th.

I know, I know, okay. I would have said B realistically. That's wrong. B is understandable So everyone C is Yeah, we'll go see I say C They're not trash

Okay I think they deserve B But they didn't know These LeBron 17s Don't want to talk about trash shoes These are garbage These are Burry these below the F tier

These suck The deepest abyss of hell It's crazy It was really crazy That LeBron saw these And was like Yeah give me that lifetime deal Like, these are disgusting, bro.

These shoes look poisonous. I'm scared to put these on my feet. They just look heavy. I feel like if I wear these, I can probably walk outside and seduce a flamingo. Like, those are the type of vibes that I get from this shoe. They do nothing proactive for me in life other than trying to, like, do some beastiality shit. Like, what is this do for me right now? You don't wear these on the court.

You don't wear these when you outside, like, just casually, what are these for? Other than like some freaks. You're going to hear. You put this aside, you're going to hear a Komoto dragon do mating calls. Yeah, exactly. This is a fifth grade art project, man. These things are ugly. This is disgusting.

This looks like a cyst. That's nasty. Goodness. And the red, is that a red lace or red tongue, too? God, this is all bad everywhere. F minus. Take these off of my face. Okay.

Next up. That's a, that's a good. terrible shoe. Next up, we're going to talk about some NBA conspiracy theories. Donovan, I think you have some for us. Yeah. We're going to name some conspiracy theories and say if they're fact or cap. Yeah.

All right, y'all good? Yep. The hook is, let me know that the NBA conspiracy theories are fact or cap. Yeah, I got it. Let me pull them up. All right. Are these NBA conspiracy theories fact or cap? All right.

Okay. First one, we're going to the OG conspiracy theory. David Stern rigged the 1980. NBA draft with a frozen letter Absolute fact Big facts Hard coal stone Coat case fact

Absolutely bro Whole thing is a suspect I believe anything in my life It all adds up If you've ever gone down on the Reddit If you've ever gone down the Reddit Spiro and read all these details about How he moved his hand around

And felt a cold one dropped one that wasn't cold It all adds up to me David Stern David Stern was going to do whatever he had to do to make sure that Patrick Ewan was a New York Knick. There was no way. There was no way that the first lottery ever was to get Patrick Ewing to New York. Yeah, he did that.

He did that. Yeah, I know. They had some example on and show what the lottery could do in a best case scenario. It only makes sense. He set the trend, and now the NBA have been a lot smarter about it since then. It's an icon of conspiracy. All right, next one. Michael Jordan's flu game was made up.

one made up everything that he had severe like what do they call listen I mean the last

the last dance talked about this right streets is saying listen listen of course the last dance

was created by Michael Jordan of course he's going to lie on camera okay but streets is saying

that he was actually hung over from gambling and that and that was actually a flu game okay okay

I'm gonna say cap because I thought we've known might now it was food poisoning it wasn't a flu so it's kind

of fact it wasn't flu but he was sick right he was hung over we're going with that one okay this is this is like being sick

and being like food poisoning sick are two different types of things and I'm leaning towards fact that he was indeed or cap he was indeed hungover okay so I'll go with y'all

he definitely didn't have the flu so it's got to be fact somebody's line somebody's line somebody's line somebody's a little embellishing for the legacy there the last place we should have

the last dance was straight propaganda. Oh, my stomach was going to fall off. My head was going to burst. I couldn't play, but I made the shots. Fuck out of here. All right, next one. The Morris Twins have switched place and played an NBA game as each other.

I want to believe facts because it's hilarious. Probably cap. Probably cap. But I'm going to say fact just because I hope it happens. I'm going to say cap. I'm going to say cap. I refuse to believe that the NBA, that like, even, even though that they're twins that they can't tell between like two two different people bro if you've seen markeith

morris dribble and marcus morris dribble you would see a stark difference mark hefe is that's what i'm saying yeah you can tell who stretched when they were young and who didn't it's clear yeah bro it's obvious it's good all right next one auto porter junior is related to wilt chamberlain i love this one this was hilarious Okay, fact, why not? This is fact. Facts. Please, right now, all you have to do,

side-by-side picture, look him up. That is his son or grandson. That is his blood. Now, do Anthony Edwards and Michael Jordan, and you'll see who Michael Jordan's real son is? That is his blood. Yeah, no, this is quite obvious, bro. Guys, let's not make this too complicated.

This is fact. Show with a birth certificate? All right. Yeah, I'm dead. the NBA rigged the draft for the Cleveland Cavaliers after LeBron left I mean they want both times didn't they get the number one overall pick back-to-back years that's crazy three out of four years and they took Kyrie Bennett took Kyrie Anthony Bennett and and Andrew Wiggins

the only one that they didn't get was Anthony Davis I'm gonna go cap hundred because I don't believe Adam Silver has the balls to do that I feel like that was a Davis Stern era thing exactly Out of pure disrespect, Adam Silver's already commissioner then, right? No. Oh, no, he wasn't. He came like 2014 or something? 2014-2015.

It was right after that. This is still David Stern's error. You know what? I'm going to fact. This was David Stern's last outing as his commissioner. He went out with a bang and made sure to do his thing. Fact. This was his last dance.

He said, this motherfucker is coming back to this city whether he likes it or not. And I respected. RIP. If David Stern was going to do one thing, he was going to rig a draft. That's his thing. He did that. He's all about his bag and I respected. I stand on business too. Flashes the merch. Not facts.

CDC merch coming soon. All right. The Spurs turned off the AC to make LeBron cramp in the finals. That's got to be cap. It's got to be cap. I want to see facts that's funny. But this is also some embellishing just like Jordan does where LeBron was like, Oh, it was too hot.

I was cramped up. I couldn't move. LeBron's just dramatic as fuck. Now, I'm going to say fact. I'm going to say, LeBron has shown a propensity to cramps. The San Antonio Spurs did their homework, and they turned off the AC. Listen, they're in Texas. They know how to play in the heat.

They're okay with it, right? LeBron, it was, even though he had been in Miami, he still wasn't, he still wasn't a hot boy like that. They knew his weaknesses. They were getting that championship. That's back when he was sweating. out eight pounds after every game yeah see just one percent higher body heat he's gonna pass out i gotta see the vision yeah i know i see i see the vision of well it's already texas hot as hell uh there's not much spacing on the court and then as charles buck you would say you're

trying around a bunch of big women yeah no this has to be fact oh my god cut Yeah, let's move on before I get in trouble Okay The next one we're going to do is You're not right We were doing some things where we were talking about The best player in franchises history And the all-time rosters

This time we're going to talk about What was the best specific team In a franchise of history by year Gotcha What was the best single-season team In this franchise's history? I guess the NBA, I would you forget What's the best single-season team

In this NBA franchise's history? The Lakers. This is hard. It has to be 1987. It has to be the Showtime Lakers. We're not going to go 01 Lakers? No.

Just the amount of Hall of Famers that you had on that team to have MVP magic, to have James Worthy, still have Kareem, go beat the Celtics in the finals. You used to have Byron Scott. Like I think that much. might be the one.

Yeah, but for the 0-1 team to have a near perfect playoff run with the best duo ever potentially, I kind of lead 0-1. Three Hall of Famous to 2, though. Yeah, exactly. One playoff loss. One playoff loss. They both still have a ring. I think.

Yeah, one playoff, I don't think that moves me enough considering, I don't want to say the talent was weaker at all back then, but, bro, like, if you put these two teams head-to-head, who winning? Yeah. No way you're picking that. And I guess you can say that the Lakers had a much easier finals matchup. So I guess you can say that the O-1 team had a much easier finals matchup. So we can go showtime.

Yeah, for sure. Good. The Houston Rockets. Oh, easy. It has to. It's the first championship team. Yeah. Okay, it's easy to say 94, but 2018 was the best team to never won a championship.

So it's 94, but it's close. Yeah, definitely. There's no single team in NBA history who even came close to beating that Warriors team, bro. And they almost did it. God bless that team. It's got me 94 because they got it done. But that 28 team is better than a lot of championship teams. Absolutely.

Like, if you pick them now, I wouldn't be mad at you. But I'll respect the team. Yeah. Gosh, yeah. That's what I agree. That's one of my favorite teams in all the time. You just took me back to a whole new memory lane and I just lost my train of thought. just remembering high school

yeah like fucking Jimmy Neutron Blaine brain blast type of shit The Brooklyn Nets I forget they were in New Jersey for a second Are we gonna say that

Like 16 games stint or 20 games They had Kyrie James Because they were unbeatable I am I am going to say that They made the 5-100s Great But those eight games So they had Kyrie Lebron

I mean, but those eight games with that Kyrie, Katie, and James Hardin, easily the best stretch of Nets basketball of all time. I don't even care how short it was. This is so disrespectful. You had teams that literally made the finals. Teams that won the finals and you're like, I don't care. These, yeah, give me, give me Katie Hardin and Kyrie versus whatever team won the finals

with the Nets and Katie, Kyrie Hardin is smoking him. Easy. That's wrong. Hold on, I got to restart my camera. It's why I won't keep rolling. No. All good. It's all good.

Okay. I can't run out for 10 seconds. It's impressive. Yeah. Okay, next one. The Oklahoma City Thunder. Oh, man. Okay, this is tough.

I think, hmm. I see the 2012 or 2016, right? Are we going to? I mean, in that 2016 team that choked to the Warriors. Are we not going to the one that made the finals? Oh, my bad, my bad. So it's either 2011 or 2016, right? It's either James Hardin's team or the team that,

almost be the Warriors in 2016. I would go with 16 out of those, but are we not going back to the Sonics that made the finals? Are you? You tell me? Me personally, I'm taking 2016 still. I think only in 2016 as well. I think I think I'd fear Katie and Russ a lot more than Gary Payton and Sean Camp

with respect to how great they were. Yeah, exactly. Sean Camp got that thing on them. out, bro. Oh, whoa. Yeah, but Katie, there were one game away from beating the Warriors.

All-time full job, but, like, that team was legit. Man, they really blew 3-1? Yes, hard. 3-1 and 2. Bro, 2016 was still generous. 3-1-in-1 playoff run, bro. That's crazy.

They were so close, man. And now we see it all the time. People would just be choking. So we're going 2016? Yeah. 2016, easy. Shout out Gary Payton though Those teams are great

The San Antonio Spurs Oh now this is fucking hard It has to be 2014 It has to be 2014 It's not the earlier championships No 2014 2014 was a different level

San Antonio Spurs First off it's the only It's the only Spurs team That has a nickname about it Because they were just that good They won the finals By as big of a margin As anybody has ever won the finals

Ever And to still have Just to have Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Mono Genobi, Kauai Leonard, everybody's still there to go avenge that lost before? Yeah, they got it. They dismantled the heat.

Like, it was crazy. Sure, Dwayne Way was a little wash at that point. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. They fucking destroyed them. God. They were not losing that series. Yeah.

Shout out 2002 or whatever the championship year was. No, it was 50. What was year is it? It was 03. Yeah. Shout out the O3 team, but 2014 is different. That passing,

was next level with young kawai being the best defender in the NBA it's got to be them it's crazy shout out to Danny green man hop on the boy oh my daddy green yeah man the old one lakers are amazing shout out Vladay divok that's the end of the episode guys it's all we got damn long episode ever long as tell. I'm tired. I got to use a bathroom. If you're still here, comment. Shout out Danny Green. Shout out Danny Green. Let's go. We're out of here. See you.