The Deep 3 Podcast - We Picked The Biggest NBA Playoffs X-Factors | Ep. 198

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

NBA players that will define the 2026 NBA playoffs! #nba   Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/   Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW   Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794   Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree   Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/   Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg   Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_   Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D   0:00- Intro 1:53- X Factor players 54:54- weekly news roundup 1:30:06- tiktok time (#BSolzCan'tRead) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Donovan, what is the biggest X factor that will decide if you have a good week or not? Ooh, good week. Obviously, sleep. You know what I'm saying? Naturally. If I can't sleep, can't do that. Got to get the REM cycles in. Am I eating well?

Does McKell Bridges play bad? All three of those things are very constant things in my life. I'm monitored on a day-to-day basis. All right, Mo, what about you? Type shit. Type shit. Type, type. Speak up.

It's almost like filming where to talk about today. All right, B. Souls, what about you? What is your biggest X-Factor for you have a good week or night? If my guy, Zero goes off. A bad week for you? It's been a bad week for me, man.

Tough morning. My mood is down. Damn. It is down. With that being said, outside of Zero, outside of McHill Bridge's performance, outside of dietary supplements,

we're here to talk about every single, actually this is every single, we're here to talk about the biggest NBA playoff X-factors as we're about a month out from the playing tournament. we're going to take turns listing a player that we think will be a huge X factor

for who wins the NBA championship. We're going to do a combined list of all three of us. All four of us, my bad. Oops. Until we get to 10. So the 10 biggest X factors in the playoffs. It doesn't got to be one from every team.

It can be maybe repeats. If we get towards the back end, if we thought there's two big X factors on a team that have like a gigantic championship window impact. But nevertheless, 10 players that will impact the finals. Then we'll get into the news of the week.

Get out of here some quick TikToks. Should be a fun one. Hell yeah. Q the intro. music. We're throwing it back. Whoa. That's crazy.

He was bragging. The cranium is crazy. Oh, my God. Crowd eaters rejoice. All right. I will start us off, taking turns, picking the biggest X factors in the NBA. I'll start with the obvious one. Somebody who's coming back from injury today after missing an extended period of time.

somebody who's had a year that's been completely ravaged by injuries. And if he was healthy, who knows where this team would be right now on the win total in terms of overall history of the game. Jaylon Williams is the first member of our biggest X-Factors of the 2026 NBA finals. I feel that. So he was on my list. Well, he was going to be on my list. But then I took him off just because I kind of don't know if it matters.

Because they're so good without him? Yeah, like they might still win a title without J-Dob. And so it's like J-Dub being there really is like, all right, just like, how legendary is this team going to be? Like, are they going to sweep through the playoffs? They're going to run through everybody. And then outside of that, I think, like, all the damage has been done, right? Like, we're so late into the year that the number one seed, the three games up on San Antonio, I thought that San Antonio was going to catch them. They're probably not.

J-Dob is obviously not making all-NBA. His contract situation is done. Like I think that their path to a title is solid right now. And if I look at the standings, like I don't think Denver or San Antonio is on their side of the bracket right now. So it's going to be super, super. Actually, okay, so Denver is, but they have to go through Houston. But so it's going to be. Go through Houston.

Walking through some short grass. Whatever. Stroll. Should have to walk in the park. Either way, his return is like, it is, it is. is meaningful. I just, the thunder are always balancing two things of like, man, this thing is really important. And then on the other hand, it doesn't really matter because they're one of the best teams we've seen. Yeah. I feel you. They can't make the finals without him. They can't

make the finals of him 100%. They can probably make it all the way without him there at all, really. With how AJ Mitchell's been playing, he's got to emerge as the secondary ball handler that we wanted to beat the tertiary with Jalen Williams healthy. But even without him now, like he's filling that void of why J-dub was so important to have that second guy that can dribble next to Shea. when he's healthy, he feels that way pretty seamlessly. And the under-talked-bought-bought part is, well, one, Jeremy Kane's very talked about. So there's that, the addition of shooting there.

And Big J. Lin-Liams is a fucking sharpshooter now. Those two guys combined with AJ Mitchell taking that leap as a ball handler, they have enough offensive juice to get by without him. Easy to say that now in the regular season, though. Easy to say that whenever they're not going up against defense's game planning for Oklahoma City Thunder offense that we've seen go cold for stretches at a time. Maybe the shooting I just mentioned makes that better. Maybe not.

Maybe they go cold again, just like we've seen in the past, when Isaiah Joe can't play in the playoffs, Kaysen Wallace out there's throwing up bricks and things that are real icky. I could understand Jaylon Williams, despite all the things we said about them being more equipped in the regular season, still being the difference to winning the finals decisively, and maybe you're going seven games and losing one. I thought you just wanted to call him Big Jalen Williams.

She thought I was talking about what you did. Big Jailen Williams, never the little one. I'm like, all right. You can just shoot all of a sudden, okay. I was talking about the power forwards there, Jeline Williams talking about Duke Dennis. Asian Duke Dennis. Asian Duke Dennis has been incredible.

It's been like super under talked about. I mentioned a few times this season. Two years ago before they got Isaiah Hardinstein, and even the beginning when they just got Isaiah Hardinstein, I was like, like, Jalen Williams is like a bit. Like he's like this cool camaraderie guy, this like kind of stretch five that's like this unique body type. He's like a gimmick.

Get him off the court in the finals. Get him off the court when the playoffs really matter. This season, he's passing insanely well. The high passing hub stuff, you can tell Isaiah Hardinstein teaching him a thing or two, they're getting on the same page there. He's shooting the shit out of the ball. Defends Yokic hilariously well,

which is going to be a Rinkul come playoff time. He's a legit player now that, yeah, like the legit players that were added from last year's playoffs to now are stacking up that maybe J-Div is a little bit less important. You still need all NBA players to win the finals, though. I feel that, but also at the same, that's kind of why I feel,

I feel like less about the level of X-Factorness that J-D-B is just because last year, you didn't have, you didn't have big J-Lyman Williams as a shooter as an actual option. You didn't have, A.J. Mitchell played 20 seconds in the finals. And we're like, what the hell is going on? And so you have so many more, more options.

You have the Jeremy Kane piece to it where Jalen Williams had to score in certain situations. He had to score 40. But he also had plenty of games last playoffs where he's going 0 for 4, over 5. Like those three pointers are not going to mean as much because you have other guys who can, you have three other guys on this roster right now that can legitimately, So are you confident they'll beat the Spurs? Let's say that God forbid that they have to go through both in them and go to Nugget

second round, Spurs conference finals, and then, I don't know, Celtics finals or Knicks finals, you feel confident they can get through that without much worry in terms of you picking them without Jay-Lew Williams? Yes. Okay. You're not next back to J-Dub. You don't matter. Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, I think I would still pick them to win the title even without

J-Dove. I think if obviously he comes back today, we're going to see how he looks. If he looks like Jade up, then like, all right, cool. Wrap the shit up. Yeah, let's wrap it up. And to me that makes it a big enough facts factor dimension of top. Because to go from, yeah, I think there'll be the title favorites again.

They should go back to back. Don't sleep on the spurs. Certainly don't sleep on Yokic. Don't sleep on the Celtics. You never know what can happen. To go from that being the combo to, oh, yep, back to back's clearly coming. Dynasty is cemented like we thought. That's a big goal to me that I don't think a single other player shifts the title lies

that drastically. to where you think it's not even going to be a conversation. Yeah, I can see that. He just, even last year in the playoffs, he shot 30% for three. Like we have, we have these moments. We have game six against the Nuggets

and then we have the 40 point game in the finals. In between, there were so many days and so many conversations of, yo, J-Dadev's just not ready. And he's not built for this moment. He hasn't, he hasn't elevated himself as a creator.

He hasn't elevated himself as a score. And they played, They played 23 games last year. We're going to hang on to two moments where we're hoping that those two moments can really extend out. And now he's making a full, full leap. We're in March. The playoffs start in three weeks. I think it's one of the more interesting things.

The only reason why I'm not saying, like, X-Fact, is just because I don't know what his level of play is going to be. Fair. And if that's going to be enough to swing it in terms of them winning a title or not winning a title. And to be fair, three-point shooting isn't really like the main thing. It helps a lot if you can be another three-point shooter, obviously. But one, I mean, he's still a brilliant defender. They have plenty of brilliant defenders so they can survive without him. Come playoff time when you have to see a thing about the finals.

If you have to see Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, it would be very helpful to have one of the best wing defenders in the NBA. It would be very helpful to have. Again, just talk about the Celtics, how amazing they are, blitzing ball handlers, how they'd fucking nukeed Luca in the finals a couple years ago, how they're amazing at applying pressure to heliocentric ball handlers and making them not beat them with the same efficiency they're used to.

Maybe they can't do it. at the Shea because he's a different animal this year. It'll be helpful to have as many ball handles as possible when you go up against this type of defenses. So even if J.W shoots 20% from 3, I think his ball handling and having him and AJ next to Shea in those type of defenses is going to be vital. Yeah.

Fair, fair. It sounds like Shea's the real X factor. We just can't say them. Yeah, but they so live and die by Shea. Yeah. Like, it is what is. But see what a guy like Shea, you know what you're going to get. You're going to get excellent, no matter what.

Well. Donovan, who's the second player on our list? Zero. Okay. Jason Tatum. Jason Tatum, number two, biggest X factor in the league. Yeah. To the show.

And his. Friend of Beesoles. Never met him. His, his, his, his, if we ever get to interview Jason Tatum one day, is Beesho's a lot of talk? No. You mean, you're just for his own good? Can't be in the room.

I think he'd be in the room, but he's got, we got to, like, you can't give a mic or otherwise. He'll, like, be a little too good. No, I wouldn't talk. I choke up. That's what I'm saying. Like, for your own good. I don't want to put you in that scenario.

I want to make sure you manage well. I'm going to be sweating. What was Jalen Brown? Can you talk to Jalen Brown? It would be more of a, have you heard my takes about you type of when you shut up. I promise you hasn't.

Yeah. No, I went to the parade in 24. I swear when the bus drove by me, I swear we made this eye contact. And he said something. I started to God. Maybe I was hallucinated. It was a cut water talking.

I guess We didn't need a mainstream back then What about Derek White? I didn't see him No no would you If you shook up to Derek White If he was in the room Oh

Nah Nah he's he's chill Okay so if we talk to Derek White You can have a mic Could you have a conversation with Joe Missoula Oh dude I don't know if I could have a conversation Yeah I feel like anything I'd do

Would just like trigger him I feel like I can't make a joke around Joe He's disturbing my soul It's gonna be a tough crowd Imagine like you say a pause joke around Joe Mazzula and he just like stops. He like takes it so literally because he just like freezes.

Can I resume? Are you ready? All right. So zero is the number two X Factor to you. Just had a game yesterday where I believe he went five for 15. Was that what it was? Six for 16.

Oh, six for 16. He had two more shots than the last time I checked. Yeah. Poor game from him. Stuff's fans are melting down on Twitter. It was the game he liked his most uncomfortable in

which is not what you want to see what is it five games in now. You want to see progress. This was a bad game, but just one bad game. I feel like people were mostly harping on the fact that he wasn't being included in the offense enough to their liking, kind of felt like he was okay, just taking a step back, watching everybody else cook,

and everybody else was saying, okay, I'm good cooking. How do we feel about that part of it all? Obviously, his physical level he's ready to play at will be one thing. How do you feel about his place in the offense as part of the X Factor equation? It's fine. I actually think it's okay in terms of his place in the offense. He says to make shots. And I think that for him, like, we're eight games in now.

this was the entire point of him starting to play in March that you can have this period to ramp up to get your legs under you before we get into playoff basketball. However, the problem with playoff with playoff basketball, especially now that like now the team's back and we're all like, okay, the Celtics are going to, they're going to win the east. Like Cade has a collapsed lung. The Knicks look fraudulent every other week. Like the, nobody trusts the Cavs. The Celtics have this like prime path to get to the finals. and in that you are expecting 75% of Tatum, 80% of Tatum, Tatum soon 29% from 3 right now.

6 for 16 last game, 3 for 15, the game before. There's games where the shot looks good, but it may not be falling. And so as we're going into a situation where you're going to be playing every other day in the second round and beyond, you're going to be relied to get, get the team going because there will be games like last night where there was just a certain point for like seven minutes Celtics could not buy a bucket they were missing layups they were missing

tippins everything and tatum was able to kind of break that breakthrough get an and one do all this other stuff he has to he's going to have to produce and it's a lot and it's unfair because he's coming off the Achilles that's kind of where we're at right now though because once we get into playoff basketball. Like, Peyton Pritchard, awesome. And all this, all this other stuff, like Baylor Shireman, listen, you guys have been doing your job. It is time for Jason Tatum to also be there with Jalen Brown. And he's just going to have to play much better. And so I think watching him develop and come back from this injury and his recovery and to see how quickly he can accelerate to get back to, I guess, 80% Tatum, that's what we need to see. Yeah. They can,

like, this is kind of like the. of one, it's even more to agree. I said that's the one that has the biggest impact on the title swing one way or another, but you're right, it's clearly Jason Tatum. Like, everything you're saying about the realistic pathways and how we shouldn't expect him to be prime Tatum, but he can kind of fit in with all these guys, but it's essential we get something great out of him. If he gets back to even close to that, like, they should stomp out the East. Like, is there anybody that, especially now with Kit Cunningham's injury, is there anybody else in East you feel like should have a remote chance of them if Jason Tatum is low-level,

all-star level? There's a couple of other people on my list of like X-Factors that I think can like swing some stuff. Yeah. But like assuming everybody else is normal. Like if we get good Tatum, like this should be their conference easily, right? It should.

Yeah, it should. And I just like last, last night was really, really crazy to me because Aunt wasn't there. And Julius Randall also wasn't having a good game. They were getting cooked by Bones Highland. Nodz Reed was turning up. Like everybody else was having a really good game. And there are,

always gets to be a certain point and maybe sometimes you know you like over index on this whatever but you're going to have to have whether five minutes stretches a whole game whatever of hey i'm putting on my superman cape i'm gonna get us through this time and then we're gonna keep playing this this team basketball he they needed somebody to do that last night jaylon brown shot horrendous he was like nine for 26 it was a tour date but if he's not there okay who's the other guy it's him because i'm damn sure Game four, we're down 2-1 or we need to do something else. Payton Pritcher come save me, like, come save my title hopes.

It's possible I wouldn't like to lean on that once we get into the second and third round. I mean, this is what he signed up for. This is what he wanted to come back is the chance to compete as soon as possible. So I understand that, you know, these like 10, 15 games is the ramp up period. Better figure it out quick, though. I ain't go on my. That ramp better get steep. Yeah.

These 38% from the fields, can we get it up to 44? You know what I'm saying? Can we get it up to 45? 38's kind of crazy. That's a lot of wasted shots. That could be someone else is right. See, but that's the thing. I don't think.

The process is good. Let me say that. The process is good. It's certainly not wasted because of what you said, to ramp up and you need a lot of shots. Yeah. You know, you kind of, it's a price you wanted to pay. If we hurt our season-long offensive rating

and we don't have the certain metrics at the end of the year because Jason Tamm has come out here and gun it and kill the offense a little bit at times. So be it. It's kind of the warts you need to work through. Yeah. And I, they, they kind of have to do it. I think it might be cooked after, after last night because they were like, I think they were, there were four games behind Detroit last night. Now they're, now they're four and a half. And they're five games behind them in the, in the lost column.

They, there was a moment where they probably could have made a push to get the one seed. Yeah. And I think that's off the table now. So I do think that, like. I think the Knicks are only a half game bet. Yeah, so you have to defend yourself against them. But there is, there does have to be some moment of like, hey, we really have to make sure that Tatum is on top of it. He's also playing 30 minutes a game.

Like they said from day one that he's not going to have a minute's restriction. And so he's playing all of these minutes as well. I, again, it is as unfair as unfair can be to say you have played less than 10 games after rupturing your Achilles. 10 months ago, I need you to come in here and be an all-star and be this all-star version of yourself. I know it's unrealistic. I know it's unfair. That is the situation that we're in right now, though, because without Tatum, we all thought, hey, very cool two-seed, right? Maybe you have a puncher's chance, but you're probably not going to get to the finals or win the finals.

If Tatum is there, they legitimately can get there and they can win a title. He just has to be that level of himself. Yeah. So. How confident are you feeling right now, B. I'm going to say six. I feel like that's an overreaction to what happened last game. But yeah, I just think Tatum is our X factor.

He has a difference between us winning a championship, getting out the east and not, and with the way that he's playing. I understand this is a part of the process, but the reality is 39% on like 15 shots is hurting. It is hurting us. It hurts your soul a little bit. to see the downside that you knew how to come,

but now we actually see it, it's like, damn, maybe Achilles ruptures are kind of serious. Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to go as far as what other people are saying of like, oh, Katie is the only guy who come back from his Achilles there. Like, they're kind of counting out Tatum already in that regard. Let's calm down. Yeah, well, got some time.

Yeah, Katie missed a whole year. So he gave himself ample time. Yeah. Now, will we eventually ignite the convoy that maybe came back too soon? Tom will tell. Yeah, that would be the real thing. Maybe he sucks this year, but next year he's good. We'll be like, yeah, man, you didn't need to do all that.

You put yourself at risk for no regain. We'll get there, but that'll be hindsight, obviously. Yeah. Next player to talk about, we're talking about all these big wings. We're talking about all these point forward type guys that can swing the playoff picture to get back 100% after an injury. Let's talk about the best one to ever live. LeBron James is our third X factor of these 2026 playoffs.

About seven games ago, six games ago, we were talking. Oh, my God, is a team better with that LeBron James? Do they have a better chance of winning the title without their third must Keteer, which is going, Austin Reeves, Luca basketball with all these guys around him that just fill in the voids offensively. It made sense of the time. The net rating with those three on the court

was bad. It was negative for the year. It is no longer that. They are now positive with those two players in the court because in the last five games they figured it out. And if this sticks, Lakers getting scary. LeBron James' last five games, down to 19.2 points per game was 21.5 for the first 45 games.

But his true shooting is up to 66 previously at 58, he is tremendously more efficient. He's focusing on being the third option, running in transition, being a play finisher, being a spot-up guy, setting a lot more screens than this time. Shout out, Jeteretic. He got in a lap and he figured this shit out. They knew they had to empower Austin Reeves.

They knew he to sit LeBron down and be like, you're the third option, we got to play like it. We're seeing that play out really well. LeBron finally bought into the system. He really did. We gave him a past through LeBron. There was some element of like, I'm going to still have the ball in my hands do some stuff.

It was ugly in the half core. He can't blow by anybody. He tries a dribble. He just, he loses his handle a lot because he's slower now and isn't used to it. Ugly jumpers being taken. It took him a second to buy it, but he's really, really buying it now. And the one number on the screen right now, that three point percentage from 31% to 40%. If Brian's going to shoot 40%, awesome.

The on-ball stuff, that, like, you, the Rockets game where he went, he went ballistic, right? Basically, didn't miss a shot the entire game. that game I think you saw the full potential of what third option LeBron could be and the best part about that was he was jumping yeah I mean catching like five dunks yeah let's go down a little bit on this too all that's true everything you're saying but like look at the small stuff too his rebounds are up in this time his steals are up his defensive intensity looks a lot better you can tell he's buying in there understands he needs to he's jumping like you said offensively and defensively uh minutes per game is up a little bit because of that because less is being asked of him plus minus

through the roof. Part of the conversation of like, when we talked about the are they better with the LeBron thing, I was like, no, they need to win, they need LeBron to win a title. Big picture they're not better

with all LeBron. But in this moment, it makes sense why the lineup data is suggesting that they are better without LeBron. It makes sense that in this moment when he sits, they're a little more natural

and can win a regular season game on a given night a little bit more consistently. That was true because at that time LeBron's playing a lot more on ball. He couldn't shoot threes to save his life, as you see 31% before these five games, wasn't grabbing a lot of boards, only 5.7.

wasn't impacting shots at the rim as a defender as any type of like power forward size big man defender and wasn't good enough on ball to justify the lack of impact on the other areas none of that screen third option is going to succeed well next to luca d'unshish and next to austin rejuv now that we fixed all that there's no questions offensively this trio was working as expected and it's lethal and even when you have games like

like yesterday against against the uh against the magic or was yesterday two days ago yeah when you have when you have when you have those types of games where 5 or 13, right, over 2 from 3, it's not anything, anything crazy. You're still putting yourself in position to where you can have a shot at the end to win. The game feels a little bit more natural and it doesn't feel like, oh, dang, we just went into this dog fight with Orlando. Like, that's kind of where you want to be at. And the fact that he could have 12 points and you still win a game, that's probably what the formula is going to look like in April. and then you look over, you say Luca, go score, go score 40,

and then somebody looks at Luca, says something crazy, Luca, go score 50, like there's so many pathways to, to Braun being like the best third option, which is also what we ask of basically everybody over, over a year 17, it's like, can you be super soldier, Draymond Green, can you, can you buy it, can you do all these things? He's clearly the player probably in, NBA history most equipped to do that stuff.

Yeah. He's fast Paul Millsap now. Yeah. What a player. Which is crazy. That's a good player. Paul Milosop can run that quick. That's a great player.

I ain't going on line. It's a good player. That's a good player. Let's double up a Lakers talk because I mentioned one. I talked about all these factors here on why they're kind of getting together in these last five games with LeBron James making these improvements. Let's talk about the elephant in the room. The clear X factor that's been the case for every single Lakers discourse. When he has a bad week, the sky is falling.

His team sucks. When he has a good week. Oh, maybe sneaky contend. or DeAndre Aiton is also a next factor for this playoff run. Big Aton. Crunk juice. Crunk juice. Not that guy Aiden.

Self-proclaimed. You won't vote those quotes. We haven't got a chance to talk about it because it happened right after our last episode. There was a quote in the media where he said he went to himself, looked in the mirror, and said, damn, you're not him. Stop trying to be him. Everybody else around you is locked in. You're not locked in. Do the little things.

He looked at his bank count and said, fuck. They're not going to want me to pick up this player option. They're not going to give me more name of the year. It's time to realize I'm not that guy and go be a role player that can earn my $12 million a year. And he's also been playing great in his last five games because of that. His level of intensity has been fixed. We're seeing early season Aiden. He's not scoring as well as he was early season because LeBron's there now.

And that was kind of why Aiden was like a walking 18 points per game. But he's doing all the small stuff that he was doing when the buckets are going in that fueled his effort level. Now he's doing without the buckets. And that's quite encouraging. Yeah, obviously I'm not a massive Aton fan. But I got to be fair. We were up here, praise in Palo. Oh my goodness.

Like, listen, that's great self-awareness. You love to see this. You are a critical piece to your team and their title chances. I just need you to lock in. And for DeAndre Aiden to do all of the same thing and lock in, hey, shout out to you. Because this is legitimately, if you had, if he had like 10% more self-awareness throughout his entire career, his entire NBA legacy would be different. Yep.

if he was slightly more separate. So as a Lakers hater, this is scary to see it. I'm at the right time. By the other one, he said I'm not that guy. Yeah, that's crazy. At the right time, DeAndre Aten is back, is back to being one of the best value contracts in the NBA. You have LeBron James being the best super soldier of all time.

You have Luca and Austin Reeves clicking together. Like this team is starting to come together in a Western Conference that you go. up and down the sand. After OKC in San Antonio, it's kind of sweet. It's for the taking. It's them.

Like right now, it's them. It's for the taken. It can be had. And they look like a team that is going to go out and get it. Yep. And that all hinges on LeBron being able to keep up this level

of production, this efficiency as a third option, continuing to get better there even. We're seeing the beginning of it. They can still improve there. He can get even more lethal a screen setter. And it hinges on Deon and Dr.

And it hinges on Deon and Dr. And continuing this level of self-awareness, this level of effort night in night out. That's the part that history says don't bet on that consistently. He'll have some downstitches, I'm sure. We'll get to the first round. Maybe he gets punked in game one and comes out game two. Looks like shit.

We got to close the game with Jackson Hayes. Fuck. That'll come out of game three and he'll have his up and down. He'll have his effort moments. He'll have his, oh, he's still eight in moments. We're going to have to live with that and just hope that we get a two-week stretch where he's locked in the whole time. Just put my head down every other game.

Looking at the bottom of the fucking feet. This is a crazy call. Yo, bro, you're not that guy. you don't need to be that guy in this team doing all that this team you came here to be the effort guy he legitimately was like looking in the mirror like green goblin and that's real

that's real though you have to do that you have to do that like not even have green goblin though it's not the opposite he was looking like you keep the Spider Man and how would you go on like a Spider-Man in three when the guy who became Venom was looking in the mirror and he's like you're a loser I was wearing him where he was like stop being a bum

imagine how he did this in December Lakeis could have been a two C right now I don't know about that. Spurs are pretty high up. If Aiden had locked in for a majority of the year, maybe it would be helpful. But we also forget that like Reeves missed so much time.

Come on, man, you got Luca. I will say with all the Lakers discourse, you would think they were like a 39-1 team. I look up, ooh, they got 47, huh? Okay, okay. This life, and you have Luca Donci and LeBron James on your team. Incredibly over-analized, incredibly emotional, back-and-forth swings the discourse.

But also you have expectations. So, like, they weren't playing at that level. They were a, they were a bit of a paper tiger with their record a few weeks ago. But now I believe it. Now they actually are playing like a mid-50 wins team. Yeah. Donovan, who's next? Who's our fifth X-Factor?

Mikkel Bridges. Oh, my good. You look in the mirror too this morning? Hmm? You look in the mirror as well this morning? I hate you. I think, I mean, McKill Bridges is going to have, he's going to have to step him. He's going to have to, whatever's going on.

Listen, big, bro, I'm going to need you to lie. going on? Tell me. He's not playing well. He's not playing good. And it's a problem. Because every time, every time that the McCle Bridges doesn't play well, instantly pay five first round picks for McKell. You could have had Yonis. You could have did it. I understand. That was the price at the time. We were overpaying for friendship and for chemistry. I get it. However, last year, the path to the conference finals was through Boston. The path through to the conference finals was McKell Bridges making making two insane insane defensive plays

y'all have to stop and just let me talk before foolishness gets on the screen last three games mcale bridges 7.7 points per game 39.6 true shooting ben serif 10.7 points per game 61.6% true shooting Netsmew says this can't be real life but it is

getting true 3% mocked by Ben Sarif Yeah, it's tough. And it's been like this for basically half the year. Damn. The first half of the year, McHill Bridges, 16 points a game, shooting 40% for three. We're like, okay, we're out here. The emotes are fun.

Everything is cool. Now, I like emotes. Yeah. I love emotes. And we know you do. Now, the second half of the year, dropping all the way down. down to like 33%. The scoring is down. The assistant, like everything across the board is down.

And the only thing that's like halfway stagnant is free throw attempts. And that's only because he's getting one free throw attempt a game. The problem that we- That's a crazy sentence. Let's not, let's not blow past that. This is bad. I didn't know. One free throw attempt a game, first of all, not possible. So he's getting like some game zero, some games one trip to the line. Dude. Yeah. It's, it's a, it's an. It's an. It's a. It's a. and won every game. And that's, that's, that's fair. It's always been that way.

I mean, when you're like the fifth option, it is what it is. You're not going to be driving a lot. So some grace there. Not great. Not great. And that's the problem, though, is that there are nights and there are moments and there will be moments where he's not going to be the fifth option. And he's going to be, one, fourth option at best.

But you know that there's going to be so many opportunities because you are going to going to play these lineups where it's going to be Brunson, it's just going to be Mitch, and then you're going to figure out the defense around it. We saw last year that McHale Bridges also wasn't taking pretzos, but he was actively avoiding contacts, taking fadeaways at every single moment. That's fine. Well, it's not fine, but I'll live with it because it's in the past right now. Don't do it again.

And I do think that if there is a version of McHale Bridges, you digger. deep, you come back out, right? This is like the closing act to every sports movie. You have some conversation. You realize that you can be better. If there, if we get a better version of Mikhail Bridges, I do think that the Knicks look much different than how they've looked against some of the top teams, some of the losses that they've taken to the top teams look a little bit different. And then the Eastern Conference, again, it looks getable. And if the Celtics are there and if Jason Tatum continues to, if he just has this entire playoffs to basically be a ramp up and he never fully quite gets it, there is a path that the Knicks can get to the

finals. For sure. And a lot of that hinges on Mikhail Bridges playing at his peak. A lot of it hinges on Kat and really everybody playing it at their peak, but it's never going to feel, it's going to feel the most from Mikhail Bridges because when he doesn't play well, the number one thing that you see is, oh, you paid five first-arm picks. The opportunity cost for McKell Bridges is the highest of anybody on the team.

Do you trust them? Do you trust him to play at the level he needs to play at? I have no idea. I legitimately don't know. So I guess right now, no. Like, if it's not a yes, then it's a no in terms of trust. Yeah. So, damn.

I think. Tough. I think he. It's not a yes. It's a no. Fuck. No nuance. Yeah.

I think he can. I think he can do it, but if I had to bet, is McHale Bridges going to turn into a 45, like a 40% three-point shooter instantly after playing like this for half the year? I'd probably say no. Tough. Yep. So that's pretty easy.

If one of the most important starters on one of the biggest contenders in the conference is actively ass, you're probably not going to win finals. If he's actively good, you got a good chance. Speaking of, a similar situation. Julius Randall is number six on our Biggs X Factor's list over the last 15 games.

Julius Randall's averaging 16.7 points per game on a 54.8% true shooting. He has been outright dreadful for about two months now. But to be fair, on March 15th and 17th, he dropped 32 in Back to Back Games against the Thunder and the Suns, seemingly getting it together a little bit. Then Angar hurt past few games, and he's had a more bigger role. So we'll see if he continues to propel that forward into more sustained success. He did not yesterday against the Celtics, 28% true shooting, nine points in the game. Nevertheless, despite the recent games, whether good or bad, or a long time now,

Julius Randall has been struggling in a way that we don't going to get too deep into because it's just Julie's Randall basketball. We've gone through an entire career in which he has these stretches where the shot doesn't fall, the defensive intensity wanes because of it,

potentially wained the most I've ever seen this year. There's been some horrible low lights and everything kind of cascades on whether or not he's making jump shots, at least in a long regular season perspective. I think he's also shown us that he'll kind of ramp up a little bit in the playoffs when necessary.

So not going to call him like the biggest liability or anything. but for a team that's in back-to-back conference finals and a flawed roster, they are essentially a team that every year, they need to get the best version of every single player they have to make a deep run like they have in the last two years. And Julius Randall has not been given them the best version of anything as of late.

Man, he better. He has to step up. This is last year, the way that Julius Randall played, everybody was like, hey, Julius Randall quieted all the haters. He was locking up Luke on switches? Yeah, locked up. He is a playoff performer. He's not this, he's not this playoff dropper that everybody likes to say.

You prove that you can have winning competent basketball with Julius Randall on your team. You're about to make that conversation come right back into the light. Everybody's about to have all of those conversations and use last year and say last year was fake. Last year was Fugazi. And I just, like games like last night are the ones where it's tough because it's not there. you this this should be your moment yep right you if you think that you are like this guy and you can come out and you can you can hoop you can do all these other things with the team on your back it's your opportunity i got this random tweet from random guy with eight legs julie randals won't pretend

he couldn't lead a team to a lake yeah that's that's that's that's hard yeah we don't have got too much time on julius randall we know what it is he needs to be able to make his jump shots and have everything else build off of that. Has them been the case. And I don't know. I mean, they do have the upside of this new back court of two cool role players in Bones Highland and I.O. being really good together.

They give a nickname for the back court. They're kind of thriving a little bit in the Anthony Edwards' absence. Hopefully that gives them enough juice now to feel good about their chances to come play out time with or without Randall returning to form. But I'm personally not going to feel great about them getting out of the second round without Randall playing like peak Randall basketball. Which is pretty good.

When Randall's good, he's really good. Right now. they're on if they got to to the second round they're playing the spurs good good fucking luck without randall good luck period we need to have super star randall we need to have him playing above his head this team is not yeah this team right now is not it's not prim to to get back to to a conference finals and they're probably gonna probably gonna make some changes in the offseason um but yo like the julius randall's bricks his bricks are louder

than a lot of other people's bricks. Top three bricks? Gotta be. I think so. When it comes a volume and intensity, it turns out like you, you feel it. Yeah.

Yeah. Top five for sure. It means it's Russ than Randall, I think. Damn. Rough. I mean, rest is one, obviously. Like, clearly wrestles one. Randall might be two.

In turn, okay, yeah. In terms of, but also like in terms of playoff contenders and people who are On playoff teams, Randall is definitely top three. Yeah, Hardin's two, actually. Hardin's one? Hardin's two.

Russ is one clearly, maybe all time. And it comes to playoffs, too, Hardin is number two bricklayer. All time. Tatum bricks be loudest. Oh, Tatum's four. Tatum's up there too. Tatum's a bricklayer sometimes. Oh, my goodness.

That game six versus Philly in 23. Yeah, Tatum's up there for sure. I turned on my guy until the last four minutes I didn't go like. I was off the ship. Fully off it. Tedham's up there for sure. Palo's bricks are loud. But he hasn't done the playoffs yet.

He hasn't been a brick consistently in the playoffs. So that kind of, oh my goodness. Playoff bricks carry a lot of weight in this conversation. I will say off of just like pure like decibels volume. Jalen Brown had a shot last night. He had a three that hit the side of the backboard. I muted my TV.

I was like, this is too, this is too much. It was so loud. He said, it was so loud. I couldn't I deal with it. You got a fabric. All right, that is six players. Next one, I'm going to double up.

We're going to do two and one because of the same conversation for the same team. Stefan Castle and Dylan Harper are our next X-Factors as a couplet. These two players together. A couplet? Yeah. Not just a couple? Not together. Is a couple of the thing?

It is a word, but I think I probably use it wrong. It is a word. But I'm free certain. I've never heard of a couple in my mind. but it is a word by I don't think that's the context Mo what do you think he doesn't know Castle and Harper together

Castle is a two point shot going to be there I think he's proven that he's going to be one of the most consistent point of attack defenders a beautiful fit with Wembe as a rip protector that duo defensively is going to carry a lot of water can playoff time we know what the offense is going to be his lob throwing

is beautiful they've seated a lot of the on-ball reps from Deer and Fox to Castle because of that He's much better on ball than his off ball. If he does not shoot better than 30% from three for a stretch of time, playoff defenses will not respect him and shit will get spooky real fast. You don't think that him... Okay, obviously, yes. Everybody has to, has to shoot well.

Do you think it's going to... So you think it's going to matter? It'll matter tremendously because their spacing isn't like insane. It's good enough with Wembe especially as a five-out guy, but we know what it's like with these own players in the playoffs. Whenever you can help off them and really scheme around a lack of jump shooting, the slashing gets harder to. to take advantage of when people are helping off you so dramatically

or throwing even more bodies at Wembe and we're making you beat us as a jump shooting team he's a streaky shooter when he gets hot he gets really hot but when he gets cold it's like I'm in Thompson timing sometimes yeah and that's that's how I'm looking at him and I'm looking at him in the same light as as J-Dubb from last year and we talked about you know what J-Dadev did if you can get one game of series

where Sipon Castle is four for seven from three you know, five for eight, some crazy, some crazy three point game, I think that that's going to be enough because I do think that defensively, the combination of him of him and Wembe in a playoff context, specifically Wembe in a playoff context, is going to cover up so much. Yeah. That I'm really, I'm just looking at one game where if we can get a lot of production, it's fine. I do think that more often than not, we're probably going to get two for, two for sevens, right? a one for five.

You'll probably get more of that. You'll get a mix of both for sure in his first playoff run. But obviously, if the shooting comes around, then, hey, title, obviously they're already a title contender, but now I'm looking at you going into it with even more faith that you can beat OKC if your March basketball stats, which are obviously fake to some degree. But you also look at it and just say, hey, we're getting high at the right time. Yeah, 41% in the last five games. If that happens, they're going to be insanely difficult to stop.

And the other part of that couple, which I just looked it up. I did use a couplet wrong. I used the wrong word back in it. But it was kind of a bar by accident. A couplet is like a poetry saying. It's when two lines are back to back in a verse, typically rhyming and having the same meter or length. These two young guards rhyme.

They're kind of the same. I kind of got it off accent. Are we giving that to him? Orange door hinge. Right. What the fuck? You know, obviously diving them clip? No.

Oh, I know. I don't hear you're talking about. So again, I didn't mean to say couplets, but it kind of works. They do rhyme, low key, because... Wait, Harper and Castle? No, not the motherfucking words. The players, genius. They're both two young guards.

It all comes down to fact, will their jump shots fall? And with Harper, it's been falling as of late. The slashing's coming together. His defense at times when he's really locked in. They have two of these athletic young defenders that can really fight around screens. They're both clicking at the same time. everything we said about Castle also applies to Harper, they can be fucking filthy. Just disgusting.

You just be talking. I was like, yo, we're definitely not giving that to him. What the fuck? There's no thought behind your words. Y'all realize, oh, you guys already have realized that. I just be yapping. We have a couple of the castle in Harper. If those guys play like the peak version of them that maybe we look up,

up and say, wow, we just saw in the playoffs is a glimpse of what we're going to see for the next decade future dynasty that we can be looking at like, oh, the Wembe Air is here now and they're in the finals. Yeah. Those two are playing at their peak. They're wiping through O'KC.

Like they... Well, I don't know. Wiping through. That's tough. Four games. But if Jada doesn't speak, fuck them. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Because we have, we have seen, like, and again, this is what I'm saying,

I then take you so much more seriously because we've seen versions of San Antonio Antonio where like Saffan Castle and Dillon Harper, especially early on in the season when they were shooting much better than what they have been. Even like going into March, those versions of the Spurs are much more dangerous. And I think that if they can't get past the Thunder, they could do it right now. But if Saffon Castle is playing well, there's nobody in the East that is going to challenge them. he's shooting 37%, you know, forget 42%. Yeah, I think honestly, if they get through the West and make the finals,

I'm not picking anybody in the East to even touch them. Because with the Spurs, they're a very unique situation, right, where they are this young team. They are like, oh, strange, roster construction relative to how successful they are. Like, they don't have the, like, greatest slew of defensive wings, but they may do because their guards are so good defensively and Wendy's a cheat code. And the shooting is really, really hinges on these young players.

that are X factors for this reason like we're saying. You can imagine a world where all that kind of goes to the negative and they're this incomplete team that's like a year away. But if they answer all those questions and win three straight playoff rounds in the West, that means like all those things don't matter and their strengths carry them so far. So if that's the case,

nobody out east is competing with them even closely, I think. If Tatum starts to roll around, I think I might take Boston, even in that scenario. But yeah, it would... Hell, no, with those bigs. That would be the only thing that I would... That would be the only team that I would...

Well, Tatum rolling around is a tough thing for me to dismiss because if that means you get a top five player back, then that changes things clearly. But with a relative expectation of what we can expect from Tatum in a good scenario, if the Spurs win three playoff rounds, I'm not even thinking twice.

I'm going to pick the Spurs and one of the finals. Yeah, Fox's got to have the best job in the world, man. Facts. No one is talking about him. He's just chilling, which I love that for him, but like talking about, when we have these conversations about the Spurs,

we talk way more about Wemby, Castle, and Harper than Fox, even though Fox is like the second best player. Because he's a lower scene on him. and a way higher floor than the other two guys. He just is a nice, glue guy in the middle.

Yeah. He's there, Derek White. This is a weird, weird way the Deer and Fox's career has developed, but it's what he wanted. And it was a smart business decision to go latch himself next to Wemby

and go be the dirty guy, the dirty work guy to do all this stuff next to the goat. Yeah. It's a good job to have. Now, did he necessarily expect? They draft the top two point guard in the draft next year.

No, not at all. But sometimes shit happens. Amen. And in a few years, I think Deer and Fox will have more opportunity for usage on another team. But for now, he's chilling.

Trying to break up the dynasty before it starts. That contract is to bring up eventually when we got to pay Castle in a couple of years. Shit will have to be done. And you know, that's like a good scenario to have to eventually graduate to only having two great young guards, the horror. Salute. Who's next? Darius Garland. As a playoff X-factor for the Los Angeles Clippers?

Yeah. All right. Yeah. Because. So one, Garland just had a great game. He did. 41 points. And 11 assists looked crazy, was scoring every, every which way the jumper was falling,

moving off ball, who was cooking people on ball, all this stuff. If the clippers can get to the seven seed and they play the spurs in the first round, that is the only matchup that, one, I feel like the clippers can have any opportunity in. And we just talked about Castle and Harper and a situation where you can see all of that going towards the negative. If we get into the playoffs and the lights are just too bright and the shot doesn't fall, you have Kauai playing at at peak level, you have Darius Garland coming back to play at a peak level. If there was ever an opportunity that you can maybe get a upset in the first round, this would be it. And I think that Garland coming around is like, we kind of dismissed it because

James Hardin going to the cabs was a very, very big shock. We didn't have a lot of high hopes for the for the clippers and it's really like a all right we'll see what happens next season type of type of trade but if garland is is playing like dari's garland which obviously going into playoff basketball we haven't seen that in years at this point but if he is like that the clippers do pose a threat to san antonio where in the first round and the first time that they've been in this environment maybe they can be got and i think that that would be the only situation because Like none of the other teams in the in the playing like Phoenix is not going to do anything the clipper uh the troblayers and the wars like they don't have the high end talent to even compete with san antonio or push them to any sort of level and so i'm thinking about this duo of garland and kawai and them rising to a certain place that would be the most interesting thing where if they like two seven they're they're peaking they beat san antonio whole whole west looks entirely different without san Antonio yeah i would still pick San Antonio, obviously, but it is the most, like, interesting thing.

Yeah, and even if God and God isn't necessarily realistic, they can get pushed. Yeah. For sure. Like, I give Kawhi. The Garland X-Factor thing is you give Kauai just enough help for him to be able to go Superman mode and try to win three playoff games that you don't expect to win. Shout out, Garland, man. Let's go to the other half for our final X-Factor, the other half of this big trade that happened

that sent Darius Garland to the Clippers. James Hardin is our 10th X-Factor, though, will decide these 2026 NBA playoffs. We just mentioned Darius Garland. So a lot of good things about him You would have think that maybe he's like Broken will never hit his prime again or he's too old He's young as fuck I think he's 26 years old

And his team shipped him away for a 36 year old guard Because they have all the faith in the world That that that 36 year old guard Will give them a better chance of winning The 2026 NBA playoffs For three rounds For four rounds They think that James Harding gives him a better chance

To win the finals this season When they have a peak window With Prime Donovan Mitchell playing As an all NBA level player Big Uno. Big Uno. You give up Darius Garland for 36-year-old Big Uno. You better make the conference fucking finals.

He better play well. He better dismiss the playoff James Hardin. Moniker. He better play at the level he plays in a regular season and some. Because if they disappoint and if it disappoints off the strength of him, shooting tour dates like he tends to do in the playoffs and big moments, my God, you have entered a doomsday scenario. We should give up a young All-Star for a run that amounts to nothing.

Little Uno in that case. Little Uno is possible. seen it several times in the playoffs you've seen micro uno listen you're so easy all i got to say is micro i just kiss you every time james tartet and i i i do agree like don't call me easy that's crazy my bad my bad probably another man easy go ahead man my bed my bet my bet let me let me be lucky it's crazy it's crazy because he It's easy. Look at him. He's still giggling. He's so easy.

Yo, stop, man. I'm brushing. I mean, the James talking to X-Factor stuff is like, you're just going to have to be a different person than the person you've been for the last 17 years of your life. If you can prove that the last two decades have been a farce, yeah. Yeah, we can do some things.

But every time, every time that a team needs. James Tarden to play two or three consecutive games of high-level playoff basketball, it has not happened. And so that's why I didn't have a lot of, like I didn't understand the trade for the cabs when it first happened. I agree that he is an X-Factor because if it happens, it happens. And we've seen, we've seen some, we've seen moments in sports all across the globe of people not being a certain guy and then all of a sudden being that guy because everything

then clicks for two months. And this might just be the perfect storm. And we might get, you know, we might avoid the five for 16 game. I don't think we will. But if we can, or if DeMitch can carry enough to where you can survive that 5 through 16 game, then the Cavs become a little bit more of a threat

than what they look to be right now. But I have no faith in James Hardin to, to not be James Hardin. Would we say this is the most amount of offensive talent Hardin's had around him? No.

He played the story. Outside of Brooklyn. Even then, probably not. I mean, he did play with Chris Ball and a lot of shooters, which is like, okay, his offensive talents a different way to phrase it.

No. But let me rephrase in these, like, later years. He played with Grohl and Beade. He had a lot of help was what we're saying. He's not a lot of good opportunities. I'm really trying to,

I'm trying to give Uno Bill right now, man. I was going to say, maybe you're cooking this the first time he's had a guard next time him was better than him but joan and beep was better than him so like he's been in a situation before and I think the first year with the six years he wasn't quite 100% still recovering from the hamstring didn't look good but the next year he looked really good had that game one where he played by himself

and NW&B dropped 40 so we've seen the up and the downs of like second option Hardin. And he was playing with Maxie. They're my man. Yeah I don't you get it out of thinking the same thing like oh maybe this is the difference where we can sell ourselves and this being better he's had a ample amount of opportunity also in that in that series. Also, it's one of my,

it's one of my favorite, like, just hating stats. Because he dropped 40 twice in a seven-game series, average 20 for the series. That's hilarious. He had 45 in game one, 12 in game two, 16 in game three,

42 in game four, and then 17, 13, and 3-4-11, nine points in game seven. And even last year, he had Harding, Norm Powell, and Zubatch.

That's like a better offensive supportive cast than this year. A bad, I do know. You tried? I tried. Had 28 points in game 6 last year. Shocked 50% from the field was hooping.

Game 7, what did he do? Two for eight, seven points. And that was like, that was a sell-sell. Like all caps, S-E-L-L. That was a terrible game 7. Like, I don't know people remember

where we were at this time last year. The Clippers were surging. They were the story of the second half of the season. Kind of like what we saw from the Hornets this year. but to an even greater degree because they had Kawhi Leonard and James Hardin, like big names

that we can seemingly trust in the playoffs. We picked them to beat the nuggets in the first round. They should have. They should have. They got to a game seven against a great Nuggets team

that was a little depleted, but still very good team but had the best player in the world. We're in position to beat them and James Hardin had a James Hardin stinker. There were multiple games, multiple games that series. Game 5, 3 for 9.

The year prior, 5 for 16 in game 7, 2 for 12 the game before. The year prior, three, four, eleven, four for sixteen in game six and seven. The year before, five for thirteen in game six, four for nine in game seven. Every single time we get to game six, game five, six and seven, and you need James Hardin to score or just do anything that he's done for the last six months of the regular season,

it's not going to happen. So yes, at every point we can look at James Hardin and say, if he plays like normal James Hardin, he is one of the biggest X-factors, at this point we can look at him and say, you are who you are. I want to look at those averages after this. Like his averages between games 5, 6, and 7 versus the first four. I want to see how different they are. Probably pretty different. You know, pressure sometimes gets the best out of people.

Sometimes it is not. Sometimes it makes your stomach hurt and you start missing shots. All right, that is our 10 X-Factors for this year's playoffs. Pretty good list, I think. Shout out of Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon. You guys are honorable mentions. Oh, yeah. Just can't have a good game.

Thank you. The only reason I put him number 10 is I just don't think he matters as much as as James Harding does in terms of like percentage of impact on his team. But we will be watching Cameron. Intently. Closely. Now, with that being said, let's talk about the biggest news of this week, the biggest roundup of news stories that have happened since we last spoke.

It is only right that we start today's conversation by talking about the one and only Luke Donchich. I don't know if you heard. the old Luca Donchage is back The old Luca How old is he? 27 25 real Luca is back

In the last 10 games He is averaging 38.7 points On the 62.7% True shooting Shooting 58.6% from the two point line And 39.6% from 3

He has been a fucking demon capped off by a 60 point game as of late He is going berserk The three point shot is once again falling And you know what happens When Luca Doncha's two point shot falls he looks like Michael Jordan.

He does not know how to stop making shots. He is incredible. You know what comes with that? MVP chatter. Best in the world agenda pushing. We're back. We're back to 2024. We're having convos led by gambling companies.

I want to take your money because he wants you to stupidly bet on Luca Dant's MVP odds. But we are here is Luca Dantchechard's one of the best players in the world again to you. I mean, yeah, he got it. See, I'm asking you, as you have been the loudest hater. Well, I've been like, yeah, we can acknowledge. he's not playing his best. The people when shot it's been following. You've been like, fuck it.

Fuck that shit. Proved to me you're a top five players still. And he's proven it. Oh, there he go. Round of applause. He's not. He's proven he belongs in Donovan's top five. He's no longer in Anthony Edwards' conversation.

Listen, first team, all NBA was getting scary. You locked it down. You locked it down. Lucky some people got hurt. It's okay. But I think like this is, this is the version of Luca that everybody wanted, wanted to see. And from day one. Not that I wanted to see.

That's fair. But from day one of the season to now. And I think the, my biggest gripe and part of the reason why I've been so like, quote unquote, anti-Luca is just because every time that he has scoring stretches like this, it's like, oh, he's the MVP. He should have won three MVPs by now. Yeah. But he wasn't getting arrived.

He's the best in the world. And it's like, okay, cool. And we go through lulls every single year. where you have stretches where he's playing subpar of his standards. And we know that the Luca can get to these places. And it has felt like at certain times that this is also, it's not true. By the way, this picture. This is not true?

No, he was not that big. That's not an edited picture. You're lying. That's the real picture. You are lying. No, that's the real picture. I'm pretty sure. I don't think that's edited.

Yeah, I don't think so either. Oh my God. Okay. Okay. Yeah, for context, there's a picture on the screen right now, a tweet that's showing Luca in his, in his Laker debut and then Luca now. I thought that this was very clearly, like, edited to make him look bigger than he was. It's a bad angle. It's a bad angle.

He doesn't always look like the neck isn't always that big. It's just a low shot. The camera guy's on the ground. So, like, it's a terribly unflattering angle. But I know it's real. The chest size, the arm flubbiness. This is real. He made this type of go up.

You know what? Yo, Luca, you are locked and you are the second best player in the world right now. This is insane. He was saying all this hate shit trying to preface it by, oh, you know, he has these moments. He was trying to really get some more hate off. He sees the transformation. He's like, you know what? Salutes.

You've been working. You've been grinding. And that's why I feel. You know what the is the phrasing now? We've been hard on Luca all year. And not even we as like us personally. You have because you're a fucking Laker hater, obviously. But the NBA world has been hard on Luca this year.

because that's the territory that you get when you are one of the best players in the world and when you are at Laker, when you combine those two things, you get immense criticism because you're expected to play the best version of yourself as you enter your peak years and he wasn't doing that early in the year.

Which is fair though. It is perfectly fair. It's fair. And I think my, yeah, my issue was that when Luca wasn't playing well, like there was a lot of conversation about, well, the roster construction just isn't good enough. And DeAndre, and it's like, okay, yes,

that's also true, you also just have to play better. Sure. And so, and so, like, that was my, my biggest regard was that I felt like there was a lot of pushback of saying, oh, like, everything else and a lot of, like, excuse making. Him playing like this right now does so many things for one, him, himself and the perception of, like, Luca Donches, and then two, obviously, we've talked all day and for the last, you know, a couple weeks about the Lakers impending title chances and how they keep getting bigger and bigger. And this also allows you to really set it in stone of like, Reeves your two,

Bron your three. Yeah. And so to your point, yes, Luca fans are intense. Luca has one of the most diehard fan bases that happens with essentially any international player in the NBA. They have a whole market, a whole country behind them. Luca fans are especially intense because they've been following him since he was a young kid. He's a very paris social fan base that rides and dies with their guy will defend him to high hell. We won't let you say a single, thing. If you say he's a fourth best player in the world, that means you're saying Luca's a bum to me. And they're intense and obviously people like you can't stand it. I get it. On the other hand, the roster stuff was true. The roster's coming together better.

LeBron's playing better. He mentioned that DeAndre Aidan is being consistently high effort. Everything's kind of coming together around him. And when we're talking about Luca struggling early in the year, it's the most first world problems ever. He's the best struggling player in the world. Struggling for him is playing the fourth or fifth best player in the world, being slightly less efficient than you want, having slightly less defensive value than you want, but still giving you 32 and 8

on every night basis. We got to kind of contextualize that. We treated him like we treat the Lakers like they're horrible when they're just good, not great. And now he's back to being great. So it was never undeserved criticism because that's what you get when you're the best player in the world candidate.

But it is important not to lose sight that he has been great this whole time. It was never a conversation of him being second team all NBA. That was always ridiculous garbage to consider Jalen Brown or Kid Cunningham above him. He was still the fifth best player in the world. And now he's playing like the second or third or maybe even one. The, the, okay, I agree.

The Jalen Brown stuff, way, who gave you? The Kade thing I actually do. Kane is a 55% true shooting. It was bullshit from the jump. I respected more than the Jaylon Brown thing. Luca was still so much better. Cade had a much better argument should be first team all NBA over Luca than Jalen Brown.

The Jailen Brown stuff should have never been. been brought up. Either way, Lucas still, I think should have been, even if he didn't turn up, he still should have been first team on the NBA level,

and it's just important to realize the Convo's talking about that, that's a big difference between barely first team and potentially MVP candidate, but it's not quite the gulf that some people treated it.

Fair. You know why? Because to me, whenever we had those Convo's in the year, I said the one thing I mentioned, I tried to pay credence to the criticism and say,

okay, he needs to be a little bit more bought in defensively, to say the least. He hasn't been doing that as of late. He needs to have more of a focus on playmaking and not gunning it because he feels like the team around him

isn't good enough so he has to score a bigillion points. He's been doing that. But also, it really did come down to the three-point shot falling or not.

In December, he had a treacherously terrible three-point shooting stretch where he was shooting like 30% on nine attempts a game. You're never going to look pretty when you're shooting that many threes and breaking that many.

Now that he's shooting 40%, which is the other opposite end to the spectrum that maybe he's unsustainable to some degree, now he looks like God. And a lot of times the players like this of this high volume score,

it really is as simple as like, is the three falling or not. Yeah. I've always said the criticism with Luca was never really about the defense or the other stuff because none of the criticism this year was new. It's been stuff that we've been talking about for years.

So for me, the only difference was that his offense wasn't compensating enough for his defense. As much as people wanted it to, with the turnover problems, the not even foul baiting, just the complaining for the free throws, the three-point shot not falling. But now that it's up,

man, Luca could have been playing bad defense this whole time and no one would have said anything about it for a real. And he's playing pretty good defense now. Now, Luca fans, like I said, are very perissocial, very crazy. They find, like, one reporter will put out an article where they have like a very niche advanced analytic. Like when you have on screen right now,

95th percentile and shots contested, 87th percentile on rim contest. They'll find these very niche stats and be like, oh, see, two-way demon. He's elite. He's amazing defensively. Fuck Shea. This is the real two-way.

Great offensive player that can play defense. And they do a lot with that. They carry a little too far. He hasn't been an elite defender. thing. But he has been much better. That's noticeable. And that plays a big part of this buy-in for this era where they're really turning around late season. Goes along the lines with LeBron James, turning it up as a third option, goes along the lines of Deionard Trayden, turning it up saying, I'm not that guy. I got to do more small guy stuff. All that is happening

at the same time and allowing these improvements to really pile up, make everybody look better. Good for him. Good for him. It's like, also the, the, the complaining was ridiculous. It was. It was at a, at, at, the vibes weren't good. At like, some of the highest levels that we've seen from Luca. And so when you aren't, it's everything that that's saying of like, yeah, when you're playing 40% or when you're shooting 40% from 3 and you're scoring 60, you can go slap a ref and nobody would care. Like, like, your fans are going to be fine with it. Yeah. But if, if your 3 is not, it's not falling and every time you hit the floor, then it's like, you're looking for a call. Then that, that is annoying. And so,

at that point, like, nothing was clicking, and now everything is clicking for, for Luca and the Lakers, and they are, they're legit. And so, I, I think, I,

I so badly want to see a full year of, obviously not, this is crazy. If you do a whole year of this, you legitimately have, like, you know, you're actually Michael Jordan. Yeah. You're actually one of,

you have one of, like, these scoring seasons of, all time. And I would like to see, I hope we can see it at a certain point. And it's just funny how he's one of those players now that has one of like the calendar graphics of every single part of the calendar

has a very specific timeline and every year follows that timeline. Oh, I go as far as to say he's the calendar athlete of all time. That this far in his career, he has the most recognizable calendar patterns. Come into the year, play yourself into shape usually. This year he came into more shape.

But, you know, most of his career, coming a little tubby from enjoying your summer overseas got to play yourself into shape have a good stretch December, January comes around, the three point shot goes cold because it's a long season. We say, ah, fuck, this Luca Donch's lead team is back in the playing range, back in the 60, whatever. Turn it up

come March, come playoff time. You don't want to see Luca. He's playing back to Best Player in the Royal Calibur. That cycle is probably more consistent than any star I can ever remember, besides Russell Westbrook in the other direction. Yeah. It's also going to be super interesting. Because I

listen, first round playing a lot oh my God. Here he goes again. Fuck off. It would be, it would be cinema.

It would be. Right? It would be cinema. One battle after another, sinners, it's up there for best picture of the year. If the Lakers,

if the Lakers losing the first round. No, if Ant beats him again? You know, it's cinema. Who would they face or no? Would it be Minnesota?

Today, no, it's fluctuating a lot because of the standings are so tight. I think it would be Minnesota. Today there are three, yes, Minnesota's in the six. See, now last year I thought that they were going to wipe Minnesota.

I thought that they would beat the wolves in the first round. So, yeah, let's get into that combo now. Obviously, he's back to playing like one of the best players in the world and getting that recognition. He's playing better along the margins and being like Luke of old, right? People want to take that to say MVP convo. He's turning up when it matters most. Hell no. MVP convos been dead.

Shea is going to win it. I guarantee it unless he gets hurt. Don't waste any breath or agenda pushing to try to see Luke is the MVP. you're just not going to have a good time. The race has been over. She's having, he's a 66.7% true shooting on a 32 points per game. He's having one of those seasons.

He's not going to lose it. But the other end of that, when you have the MVP, usually that comes with title favorites, or at least saying, I have the best player in any series. You can push that type of agenda with Luca right now. You can say that he's back to being one of those guys

that you can say, because he's here, and if a supporting cast is healthy, it can be flawed as long as it's healthy and whole, and they have the chemistry. When you have a player that's good, you can be anybody in the playoffs. Those are the convos that I can kind of respect now.

If you want to say he's that level of player again, that despite the weaknesses they might have compared to the Timberwolves, despite the weaknesses they might have compared to the Nuggets, or even the Spurs, if you want to say you feel like Lucas playing at the level that you can feel good about them having a chance to win that series, I can rock with you a little bit. So right now, what are your expectations in a playoff front?

I'm just happy to be here. I'm just happy the team is clicking. My expectations, I'm a doomer. I immediately go to. Fuck. If only they traded for Angie Wiggins, then I could really feel good about this team because they were one wing short.

So I'm a little bit like, oh, what could have been? Second row. They should win a first round series. They should beat Minnesota. Okay. They should beat the Rockets. If somehow the Nuggets fall to six, they can beat the Nuggets.

We've seen that since they acquired Luca. They match up much better now. Not to say that's a guarantee, because I very much respect the Nuggets with Aaron Gordon, but they can beat those teams. Do I think they can beat the Spurs? Sure. If Luca's going complete God mode,

and we get one of those of vintage series, and J.J. Reddick gets really deep in his bag, doing his style of leaving open shooters open and really, really capitalizing on those young guards and being able to shoot threes well enough and all this swing stuff goes to Lakers way. Sure, maybe they can beat the Spurs and get up the conference finals.

I don't think they have a chance of being the Thunder, and I probably wouldn't pick them over the Celtics because we know how good Joe Missoula is at game playing for Luca. But if you tell me, we look up and we have one of those type of historical runs and Luca just carries a team that maybe isn't good enough to a finals we don't expect, I won't be entirely shocked.

Yeah. Also. We just wanted it on record. Yeah. Yeah. Like as a Lakers fan, I'll allow myself that hope to like say that that can happen. Crazier things have happened. Like we see teams that shouldn't be there get there all the time that patients just got there.

The Lakers could be this year's version of that. That's super possible. But if the playoffs started today, I would not be picking them over the Thunder in a series. Yeah. I also want to see. And I'm not going to use it to, like, say that he's bad. I do want to see a full playoff run from Austin Reeves, though. I don't like the the conversations of people like you know he can't he can't do it in the playoffs I'm not going to go that far yet if it doesn't happen again then I'll probably be on your side yeah but I like also reach has ascended every single year to being better and better and better and we keep elevating him in the standings of you know the NBA players of our of our rankings I want to see him have a solid playoff run from top to bottom yeah pull this back up again uh in March he would in this stretch talking about Luca where he's at

36.8 points for game, 62% true shooting, being a dynamite score, right? LeBron's not a 19 points for game, being the true third option, being highly efficient again. Austin Reeves, 21. Still good efficiency, not otherworldly like it was early in the season. That's kind of what I expect. There's only so many shots to go around. And the early season stretch he had where he was averaging fucking 28 without LeBron James there was great. And I do think he's capable of being a high volume, one of the more effective offensive players in the league as a league guard. Like, if he swapped him and Devin Booker, I do think, I still do truly believe Austin Rees, can do just as much as Devin Booker can on that Sun's team.

But I do want people to realize that this is a deep team with the highest volume score in the league and an extremely qualified third option that's going to give you 20. And Aton, who requires some touches still, there's going to be some nights where Austin Reaches doesn't have a lot of opportunities for a lot of points. And on those off nights where maybe he's not even an off night, maybe he missed a couple shots, but he only had eight opportunities. People are going to be like, oh, you see, Jamie McDaniels are too athletic. He can't do anything about it.

when you have so many cooks in the kitchen there's going to be a natural variance there that I'm kind of ready for mentally It is weird though Because though Just because we're having the conversation of like LeBron is bought into like this third option And obviously it's not like a very like

Strict and linear like First option gets 20 shots Second option gets 10 shots You know like With Luca Loki is But it's also Bronn as a third option So like you know that there's moments And there's games where he can also have like

not play like your typical third option. You know, like, like, like, Braun as your third option, is not the same as,

like, McHale Bridges or like, or like, McDaniels as your third option, you know, like, well, those are fourth or fifth options.

You know, that's not, it's not, it's not going to be like that. Um, and so I do think that, like, I can understand that,

that point for Rees, but there are, there will be, if you do think that, like, it is slotted like that, especially with the volume that Luke has, I,

the, like, I want also Reed to empty to empty the clip. I would, I just think that there, that there will be moments for him to, to get his game on. And I, and I just want to see that. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think there will be those moments and there will be moments where he has to play backseat and he missed some shots and he has a stinker relative. So be prepared for both.

And that's going to be the nature of anybody that plays next to Luca, I think. I remember finals, Kyrie. It's going to happen when you don't have a great rhythm there, you know, like, and great defenses. That's also part of it. I'm, listen, I'm not putting that on, on Luca or I'm not putting that on, on, on, on the offensive hierarchy. I'm playing that on Kyrie. Sure, but so yes, true.

And yes, Kyrie shot like shit, it's easy to shoot like shit when you're the second option against elite defenses next to Lukashic where the rhythm might not always be there is real easy to shoot like shit

even when you're winning the most gifted scores of all time and you're playing elite defenses in every round. We're talking about the Thunder that brother was fighting demons. I think, yeah, I think Kyrie's a weird conversation. Sure, sure.

Whoever you want, like there's a lot of reasons that like you can expect some awesome for your stinkers all I'm saying, that I'm not going to necessarily make a grand proclamation by it, but like people should have the reputation set that like he's going to have bad nights. Yeah. Luca fouled out in the playoffs and they were like, Kyrie saved us.

And he was like, nah, bro. I'm gonna do my own thing. You saw Luca got his 16th tech and got a suspension that they rescinded. And he got his 16th tech because granted, he very much didn't want to get it. He knew he shouldn't get it. He tried to be his best and not argue too much with officials. But then Goga Batadzde at the Frito line got an altercation with him. And they yapped a little bit and both got double text.

That was rescinded. Because he says, Goga said at the Frito line, he will fuck my whole family. And at some point, I just can't stand it. I got to stand up for myself. Goga said that Lucas said that about my mother. And I just responded with the same energy. And I went up to.

And all this shit talking happened in Slovenian, by the way. So the rest couldn't tell what was going on. Shout to Luca, man. I'm happy he got his he got his tech rescinded you happy he stood up to Goga Batase yeah have to have to

that's crazy to say ridiculous at first I thought like do you believe Goga that Lucas said it first yes okay in that case it's not that ridiculous no but it's if we believe Goga then what Goga said is not crazy

if he just went up to him like because Luke started it I just think anybody I'm just imagining the exchange of conversation and he goes oh yeah I'm gonna do it to your whole family whoa

like come on bro you open the cat of worms yeah that's you chill if Lucas started it

I don't know if I believe that Lucas started it I don't know if he would react that way if he had started it because I think he would understand ah fuck he said the same thing so maybe I don't quite believe Goka but

But it is just like, like, bro, we're hooping. You know what I'm saying? Like, we're hooping. Like, and I understand we're NBA players. We're playing basketball at the highest level there is in the world. It's going to get competitive. But why is that coming out of your mouth right now?

My grandma? Oh, come on. My aunt's like, bro, you hit my hand. You filed me. and now my whole family my whole lineage just called like come on you know what probably happened

he probably just called him a motherfucker and go go yeah oh that means he's saying fuck my mother oh kiss your whole family

like I meant Luca just called my motherfucker and that's all he said you motherfucker well bring that gram with you

since you want to talk that might be one of the the most diebottle you've ever said I'm just talking from Goka's perspective He said, bring that grandmother. It's nasty.

Hey, but they were sending the tech. Lucas back playing as a business tonight. And Google Let's talk shit another day. Let's go. He's back. He's back. Let's talk about a less fortunate new story. Kate Cunningham has a collapsed lung.

He does. Unfortunate. Coming at the time where they're wrapping up to the playoffs, this is an injury that Cedric McCollum has had twice. the, from what I've seen, the expected recovery time is about four to six weeks could be on the lower end,

could be on the higher end. Is possible he's back for the first round of the playoffs, but it's also possible that he's not there for the first in the playoffs, which for the Pistons specifically, probably the team in the playoffs

least equipped to lose their sharp point card. This is kind of a fucking disaster. Hey man, they better hope Charlotte doesn't get the A-C. If Charlotte gets the A-seat and K's not there, I think I'm rolling with Charlotte. Oh, duh.

easily. Like I won't even think about picking the Pistons. Yeah. It just, it just sucks because Cade has had such like a crazy year and has been in, like has answered everything, has taken the next leap after last year and being, you know, like, oh, wow, like the Pistons,

they're finally competent. They're finally doing this. We're finally seeing the potential of Cade. And then for Cade to, again, take that step forward and lead this team to the number one seed. They also might still hold on to it even without Cid. which is, you know, shout to them for not losing it. But it's just, it's highly unfortunate.

Yeah, highly unfortunate for them. You guys know what to expect by that. You know who it might not be highly unfortunate for? One Jalen Duren, who might now make an all-MBA team because of Kate Cunningham doesn't play enough games, award voters might say, let's give Duren third team. If that's the case, Cade Cunningham Mason-Time could potentially open the door

for Jailen Duren to make an all-MBA team, making him eligible for a contract worth $288.8 million over five years. Supermax Jalen Duren 288-5? Do you have to give the Supermax? Kind of, yeah. Yeah, you kind of. Unfortunately, I would hate to do that.

I would also not love it. Love it for Jalen Duren. That's a lot of money. Yeah, yeah. I would not love it because the reality of the modern NBA is if you're an All-Star player, you get exactly as much as you're possibly able to be given. You get the max every time.

Yeah. Maybe not. I mean, I feel like now we've seen a couple ways. And like the, I think the Chet and the J-dub stuff, what their contracts were really interesting because OKC didn't automatically just go and give them the largest max possible with every, with every kicker, every accelerator, like there were some stipulations. So you look around the league and you look at people who are in that range. And that's where like the J-Landering contract is going to be interesting.

But also, again, if I'm him, I make, I make 13, me my age of all walking in there. there. I'm not leaving with anything under 288.8. I see one of these tweets you have on this doc says performative brawn. What is that? I don't know what's on here. What is performative bra? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you for. All right, Don't know me about this? Thank you. LeBron was seen outside with Jay Coles, with the vinyl of his new album of the falloff. This is as performative as it can get. Is it an accessory? Yes. Now, now, I will say.

It goes with that. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. I respect it. However, it is performative. It is. There is no record player in sight.

You can't listen to that. Like, I would, even if it was like a walkman, like a old, like cassette tape type of thing, that's something different. If you were holding the CD itself, that's something different. You're going to be in your car. You can still play that. The vinyl, I wonder if the Lakers have any record players in the facility at all. I want to know where he's going to because if that place doesn't have a record player

and you legitimately are doing this, it is performative. At least he took the plastic off at the very least. What if he's leaving the record store? What if he just got it to his hand to this? He's not leaving the record store. How do you know? What if he's at some event and they gave it to him?

If they gave it, do you think he opened it brand new at the record store? Is it open? Are we sure? Yeah, he said the plastic's not off. Or the plastic is off. Yeah. How do we know that?

Zoom in. You got some good eyes. Look, you've seen the plastic difference? Good for you. I can't tell. I'm going to zoom in. Just so I don't get any allegations. No, the plastic is actually there.

You see that line? Oh. The plastic is very much there. Damn. Nah, he's performative maxing. Is that more performative for it to be unopened? Now you're just putting it on. That was straight up just part of the fit.

Wait, what's in his other hand? Is that a speaker? A yoga mat maybe Like a foam roller Something of the sort Yeah I think it's a foam roller Okay I was about to say If you were carrying the JBS speaker

And then the vinyl video We get it bro You like rap You study the You study hip hop Cole's one of your peers One of the day ones I understand

You made deluxe albums In fact you invented deluxe albums Put a feat Give them more You go two more for you Would there be a problem I see LSK roast What does that mean?

Stop comparing number 10 in orange And he's talking about Nate Emmett Yeah To Kevin Durant That man is Christopher London And Christopher London quotes it Dot dot dot dot dot dot What he's the fuck me for

That's pretty funny Okay I need to start using that Christopher London is a hilarious Insult for a big wing That's hilarious For Zach to reverse a shake That is hilarious

We got to start pulling on more YouTube Hoopers as insults. Your flight reacts. They'll let Jadip have a bad game. That's cash nasty on the course. Lou Dort. Oh, cash nasty. Yeah. What else we have here?

Ban beef. Who's band beefing with? Everybody. This is stupid as fuck. My grocery store didn't get the update, bro. We call him the BAM beef now. I thought he had some altercation, said some words on Twitter that maybe he had a problem with the way he's being perceived post-83.

Nope, it's beef. Real beef, though. Like, real beef. Chuck Sirloin. And you know what? I can never say that you lied to me. You did write Bamb beef. You did write that in the document.

I can never call you a liar. Yeah, man. BR put out a list of their top 15 purest scores of all time And normally when we get these lists I have us react to it and make a little game out of it If you guess This shit is so incomprehensible We just gotta look at it

I haven't seen me yet They're purest scores of all time Don't even still know what that means It's such a meaningless Just mashup of words Hooper Hoop might as well make a hooper list At this point Even if that was the case number one is Steph Curry

Perplexing to be over Michael Jordan And what I perceive a pure score to be LeBron number five 4, Shea 6, George Gervyn 7, respect, Luca Dunch's 8, Nicole Eukish 9, Kobe 10, Yonis 11. See, when I perceive Pure Hooper, I feel like people think about the, like, aesthetic, off the dribble, like, just about their buckets in a very, like, a very specific style of way that people perceive as like a Hooper. I do not think about Janus and Shaq in that mold. And I definitely think about Donovan Mitchell and Nasty Man as 14 and 15. Think about it.

Like pure Hoover is basically, it's just pound for pound. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, why the fuck is D-Mitch number 14 all time? Maybe in Bucky sometimes. But again, it is a lot. It is way too high for, for D-MIS to be up here. But, I mean, Michael Rill was mad on the timeline. But which part? Also, he said no Larry Bird.

Yeah, right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. No. Overgianus? Like, yeah. is it just, like, I don't know. I don't know what it means.

They won VR They did their job They made a list That will call some discourse That's really the only purpose They jump to shark though Normally it causes discourse

And you're like what It's crazy to say so and so I don't know what I'm looking at This part right here is debate And go down too Go down 15 Like The whole stretch

Yeah I mean Larry Bird not being In the top 15 Is kind of wild And to put some of the bigs on there and like Malone over Will like if you're

if you're gonna do that if you're gonna play that game will it should be on there but I don't again I don't subscribe to that but I think I hate that game huh

but yeah so it's like yeah this is bad and I love stuff but if we're pure Jordan should be one KD should be two in this list, which again is very arbitrary,

Kyrie should be like top five. Pure scores. Again, we would need to get into the definition of what a pure score. Yeah, I'm sure the article has an explanation. I can't, okay, so the only reason why I would agree with this is just because Can you pull the article? Can you go on Google VR top 15 pure scores?

In terms of pure scoring, Kyrie has a combination of the handles to get to, like the handles are so much a part of the scoring where I think everybody else is like, I can, I'm only going to use one or two moves where Kyrie's putting together a lot of packages

to get to the shot, to get to the rim. And so... Yes, that one. And so that's why he probably isn't super, super high. Yep. Go ahead on. Let's see what the explanation is. You zooming? Yeah. There you go. What those? Click no thanks.

Kevin Durant just passed, yada yada, yada. Okay, and it has his wondering, who's in Katie's league when it comes to that second adjective, that being pure. Pure is a word you often hear attached to Kevin Durant's name. It's not hard to see why. His jumper is mechanically and aesthetically flawless, or at least close to flawless. He's a genuine three-level score.

He's never been reliant on the whistle that get us points. Oh, brother. And even without the freebies, he's wildly efficient. So which other players across the league history check those boxes? Which are the most dominant enough in some that they can get away with weaknesses and others? Okay, so three-level scores that aren't relying on free throws? That's something? aesthetically.

So, okay, so he said aesthetically pure mechanics. Oh, wait, no. They, what makes it pure score? They have something. It better not be 17 slides of just the definition. If you take the top 100 players in the NBA history by points of 75 possessions and then sort them by the average of the ranks in that number, relative to shooting percentage, and free throw attempt rate, it being low,

you get an order that nearly passes the sniff test. Okay, so that's what it is. It's a numerical-based thing. Of points scored, efficiency, and less reliant on free throws. Okay. You know, okay, at least you put a formula to it. Oh, there's a, oh, this is one of those lists. I respect that more than just like, oh, these guys are tough.

I mean, to some degree, if they're doing this pure hope or nonsense, like, so they said the highest volume, most efficient and not rely on free throws. Man, they put two filters on basketball references and say, oh, yeah, we got a, no. Yeah, we got a list. At least it's something. At least, at least I can understand the logic, at least. At least it's not just pure nonsense. It is pure nonsense.

It is pure nonsense. I mean, you might think it's not the right, it's not nonsense. You just saw the explanation. Like, it's not like, oh, I think this guy's cool. I think this guy's not respectable. The explanation is nonsense. You scoffed when you read. I'm not saying this is good.

That's what I'm saying. It's all nonsense. I'm just saying at least it's like before when I saw these names. I'm like, how the fuck did you get here? There's logical nonsense? It's just, it's a formula. I'm like, at least I know that it's like just spouted out. And I'm not like, how could one's mind say Janus is a more pure hooper than Larry Bird?

At least it's just numbers. No, man, take a stand on something. Don't hide behind the numbers. Tell me what you really think and how you really feel. That's what I'm doing. You don't want that. You don't go fuck what they feel. If you're going to put something out,

I would rather you put out the list based on the things that you believe rather than, oh, yeah, I put two filters and now I got this list. But it's just not that list anymore. Now it's just like, here's just numbers. It's not even like attempting to be a curated list. I know. Did they even write this? A.I.

Probably not. But I don't know. All right. about the PR peer hooper's list who gives a shit? Who do you guys think who wins six man of the year? Right now,

Hamihakis is the betting favorite. I feel like there's been zero it's from the bottom. There's been zero talk about six man of the year this season. Because it's probably just going to be here. I don't really know if anybody has a...

Right now they have Hamie Hawke's, Nasreid, Keldon Johnson, Reed Shepard, A.J. Mitchell, Tim Hardaway Jr. Also,

shout out to Reed Shepard being on this list. Like, I guess he can, can kind of get there, but I'm not doing it. Fourth best odds. I'm not doing that. I think Keldon,

off of vibes, Keldon could get the award. Yeah. But it probably is, Hyman. He probably does have this online. I didn't realize he's such a runway favorite. Yeah,

people have been talking, talking about him for a couple months now. As six men of the year. Sixth man of the year also feels, feels dead. This year specifically, yeah. Yeah. And you know why?

though and obviously like you have to play like you can't start too too many games but there's so there's so many games for like across the league where everybody's just missing so I feel like you do get a lot of moments of guys starting games where it might feel like this guy's not like a true six man also he's on the heat and the heat are just mid and just blah yeah that's really what it is all right let's get in some tic talks before we end this episode we have three games to play today first thing we're going to do I'm going to name some NBA players that do not exist, and you two have to blind rank them. Perfect.

Okay. First player that doesn't exist. Kevin Durant, if you got obsessed with weightlifting in 2010. If he got obsessed with weightlifting? Obsessed. Like, it's his favorite thing in the world is to get jacked to no end.

He just wants to be Ronnie Coleman. He wants to be huge. Ooh. That doesn't make him better or worse? I don't know, but that's what he does. Yeah, that's where my mind is going. Does that make him better necessarily? Is he to be honest now?

he's still afraid of doubles. So how many, how many, how many, how many rankings? Five. Five. Do you want to put him at five? Above KD is five. That feels wrong. All right.

Four. Four. Okay. Maybe he's a worst shooter now. Maybe it's worse for him to be honest than it is for him to be Katie. Yeah, because if you're going into like that bodybuilding world, are you still working on your mobility? And he's obsessed with weightlifting, not just like a normal basketball player.

He wants to be huge. Oh my goodness. He's obsessed Eating 4,000, 5,000 He's like he's something He's eating 7,000 calories a day That's what I'm saying He's not even taking jump shots anymore

He's so obsessed with getting above The main thing isn't the main thing anymore Honestly KD but strong That's brough Fuck out of you Jason Tatum if he was born in Slovenia Jasonovich

The Tatumvich I mean that's a That's a number one play in the world That's an MVP He's getting that respect? Yeah Now, ooh, his secondary passing reads are crazy. If Jason...

Jason Tatum was from Slovenia, everybody would look at him and be like, you just got to do what they're doing, man. It's like, they're just playing the game the right way. We just have to follow their lead. They play defense. Wow. So, oh my gosh, this is so well-rounded of a play.

This is what's wrong with A.A. He's so smart. Also, never mind. Yeah, one, two, three, and five. Listen, overseas. Tatum is one. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not stopping you from putting overseas Tatum out one.

Because he would fit the mold that the media is trying to, is trying to create right now. DeAndre Aidan with Patrick Beverly's mindset. Oh my goodness. I am so sorry. This is one. This is one. Do you agree? Yeah, that's Shaq, so.

D'Andiang is number two. Bro, they were, they were comparing DeAndreira Aton to David Robinson as a, when, as a drive prospect. Yeah. If you put dog and DeAndre Aiton from day one, he's still on the suns. It's him and Booker rocking out every single year. Jalen Green, if every month was March. Oh, shit.

Wow. Jonathan Mitchell. Wow. It's Kobe. That's Jordan. In space jam. Like, he's just, he's unstoppable. He's dunking from half court.

Oh, yeah. Wow. three or five. Mm-hmm. I mean, I guess we have to go three. I told you, KD. should have been five. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty.

Last one at least, number five. Shack, without the God complex. Oh, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine. He'd be worse without thinking he's Jesus? Yes. A hundred percent.

To be great, you have to have, you have to have an ego. Okay. And you have to be crazy to a certain level. I think Shaq, Shack without a God complex turns into Diadreus. Ah, damn. Now, now Shaq's the thing he hates the most. Dwight Howard Tough

Yes Even Dwight had a little bit of a god complex Just a little bit I don't know if I call him The God Complex He had an ego It's different

To hit God Complex Yeah God Complex You gotta cross a bar There's no There's no small God Complex Either you got it Or you don't And you know

When you see it You either kind of you're not You're not That's it That's it The next thing we're gonna do You guys are gonna say NBA players in the category that you have chosen before we recorded, or maybe you're going to choose now,

I don't know if you remembered, you're going to send each other a category that you've decided and think about players that fit that category, and you were going to say them back and forth until I can guess what the category is. Okay. Are you guys ready? Have you decided? Yep. Yep.

Okay. Ant. Okay. She. Young Ohram. Tatum. Okay. I guess so an Ohram, okay.

Jalen Brown in a two-week span earlier this year Jaylen Brad had two-week span so free trial Jenyn Brown Yeah okay March Jalen Green Okay I'm sending buckets

Kate Cunningham the night the night his interview dropped and then he scored 38 at the garden 440 at the garden Are these is just elite scores no not quite yeah on the roll something about them okay

yeah something about them um bam bam he's legendary scores jalen durren Jalen durren yeah

okay now I'm lost because the only thing I think about Chinat Duren these are handsome bucket getters um it is not that Kate specifically in mom

we get warmer okay You hear me? No. Cade and Montberg. Cade and Montberg? Cade and them. High school Cade? What the fuck?

I'm lost. Let's see. We will go Braun when he's doing like a Tomahawk dump on the fast break. Aggressive scores? I feel like I'm close.

I'm close. I'm begging on the door. You're very close. You're going to let me in eventually. You are very close. Give me the key. Let me see. Give me the key.

Give it to me. A la fuck you three. A la fuck you three? Yeah. Is it scores with aura? You know what? Close enough. I'm close.

Wait. We'll say one more. No, just go. Say one more. I think he gets. I was going to say, Steph pointing to his ring. Is this scorers who are tough? It's actually just or.

Just play as you are. I said that in the beginning Yeah, you're looking earlier with it So we're just like, let's keep going Can't fuck this up Sometimes the answer is obvious I'll just do another one A dime we'll put B-soles on the spot this time

What do we want to do for him? Oh, okay Me and my head, shit fuck Okay, This is real funny. I hope you can think of enough players that fit this. All right.

First name. Luke Conard. White. Luke Cornett. White again. Alex Caruso. Chris Kamen. Conservative whites?

I'm not putting that out of Caruso. I don't know that's true. I don't know what you're putting on these people. I don't know. Not bad. they mix it up Derek White's I think counts Al Horford

Okay all right y'all y'all threw me for a fucking move Al Horford is kind of tough I guess he does A little bit If you put him in the uniform He definitely would A uniform, okay Let me get off it

You know who else fits this for some reason in my head DeAndre Hunter DeAndre Hunter I don't know why Elite low-key Low key. Low key. I don't know why.

This is an aesthetic bias thing. Aesthetic bias? Yes. Um, yeah, this is, this is, this is weird. It's a very specific niche thing. It's very weird. Reed Shepard. Yes, Reed Shepard.

Read. Let me stick to the roots. Brian Scalabrini. Meem players? Mean? Meem? No, they're not memes. No?

No. Not we're really good for. Is it on the right track? I'm trying to think that is helpful or not. I don't know. Okay. It's not unhelpful. Who else fits this mold?

Low key. Low key, shave his head, give him a less orifle haircut. Jalen Brunson. Jalen Brunson? Rookiee Jalen Brunson fits this, I think. Yeah. Um, on a, on a higher level, Jalen Brown. No.

I think. Okay. Persona, I guess I understand that. Yeah. Yeah. Looks wise, he doesn't fit the mold. But when you think of it. Is it about looks? Kind of. Yes.

Yes. Yes and no. But Jalen Brown is more so for personality. Yeah. Okay. Fair. Oh, Con Cinnipple. Is it the P word?

I don't know what the P word is. Performative? No. I don't want to say too much. I had no idea what I was. It's the opposite of performative. The P word. I know I've been trying to limit myself.

Pat Conantin. A.J. Green. A.J. Green. I'll just name it a bunch of white players and then mix it up. We're exposing a bigger problem. Let's talk about why we're saying these names and not others. Let's talk about why we haven't said Bobo.

Why we haven't said Bobo? You know what, Deere Fox? Deerreville. Oh, my God. What the fuck? Deerne? American? No. Okay, I'll say the opposite of Zion.

Not a freak It's not doing freaks Okay Well kind of I mean you wouldn't want a freak in this role In this role he said Yes In this role

You don't want a freaking this conversation Family man Close Uh Not Josh Who else fits this mold I'm trying to Josh giddy

Oh you know who fits this personality wise Tyrese Halliburton Nerd Kind of kind of We're kind of getting there. Think about how, kind of,

not quite. In the spaces in which, like, you know, they operate. Yeah, yeah. Gamer? No.

No. Jalen Suggs? I guess. He has one class. Colin Gillespie. Colin Gillespie. Yeah. They read books.

Okay. Who do they read books to? To kids? Yes. Okay. Now there's still that. Distill. These are big words.

It's fine Mason Plumley What was the last book you read? Don't ask you that question Mason Plumley Mason Plumley Players that read books To kids

He said And what do I add to that You're not adding You're combining it into one Sucinct thought What the fuck? Okay We said earlier

That you don't want somebody In this role now you know that that role you know that that role reads books to children let's use context clues here and let's put them together you don't want that person brother brother brother so zion we have established that zion is a freak and you don't want a freak in this role correct yes okay take that the role in which we're talking about reads books to children. Okay.

Now, in what you don't get it yet? Now in what situation would you want a non-freak who reads books to children? A non-freak in every situation. What the fuck? You're pissing me off.

The answer is players who look like substitute t-shirts. What the fuck? How is that supposed to get? Nah, bro. You know, it was gas like out of the dumb ass. No, bro. I'm not supposed to get that.

You should have said teachers. We walked you to water and you said I'm not thirsty. You said, you said nerd. I said think about the spaces in which they operate. So you had nerd, you had non-free, you had read books to kids. You said read books to kids and didn't say teacher or librarian. Who the fuck else reads books to kids? A mailman.

And honestly, somebody. Listen, the last book was Percy Jackson. If you're not a T-Changers out here, just reading books to kids. Get the fuck out of my neighborhood. That's freaky. That's weird. Okay. Okay. God.

The answer to the question, the last book was Percy Jackson. How old are you? 13, I guess. Damn. You read books in high school? Those don't count. I'm not talking about the books. Okay.

By choice? Yeah, by choice. I'm reading this. Okay. Yeah. Damn. It's been a decade. Plus.

You never found a good book club you like? Nah. Oh, you know what I did? I did try to read Atomic Habits. That was like, ah. You tried? It's a mad easy book to get through, by the way. I tried.

How deep did you get through it? How deep did you get? 20 pages. Wow. That is the most accessible book. I have the book, too. The most accessible book on my bookshelf. Yeah.

It's actually pretty funny. Let me. Not being able to finish atomic habits. It's trying to teach you how to lock it in and you're like, no. That's hilarious. He said, just keep doing this stuff every single day. Just a little bit. He's like, no.

Imagine being starving and you won't eat the free samples. Now you'll be able to do it. You haven't even weeks to give you chicken skewers. You say can't do it. Yep, that's me. You should read a book. over the next week and report back. Producer Corn is now just a book club.

It gets you two chapters a week until we get you one through one nonfiction book or fiction, whatever you choose. Which crazy is my girl's like a heavy reader. I know. She reads like 200 books a year or some shit. 200? I don't know what the scale is.

Every other day. Oh, maybe 100. I don't know what the scale is. I don't read. I don't know how long it takes. 200 is crazy. Does it take two hundred? hours or two months, I don't know.

Yeah. She'd be reading 300 page books in three, like three days later. Oh, I finished it. What? What? What do you mean? That's like three hours of reading a day for three days. She can probably read 100 pages in three hours.

Yeah. That's fast, though. We've tried to read together. Your finger on the page. Just so she can figure out how fast I read. She blows them out. No, she'd be getting pissed at me. She's like, are you done?

Are you done? Get up. Look the page. like yes yes I just finished good the boy went to the well popcorn reading I don't know about to call me

kaisen that can you be catching that or read up I was like to defloid my weather I'm good man hey we got a gamer throws book right there you want to open it to a random page oh hell no that'd be so mean

go read a book Game of Thrones when you haven't read in a decade. You know what I figured reading wasn't for me? It's an essential skill. The fourth Harry Potter book. The fourth Harry Potter book? Yeah, that's when I was like, ah. Is it the most exciting one?

LeBron, we're good off of you. You could get to a tournament arc? No, bro. The first three, good length. Pause. The fourth, 500 pages. But the pages aren't more intense. There's just more of them.

We're good off you. We got Twitter now. We got Twitter now. You're trying to read Harry Potter in 2016. Mind you, people read that with their age. I chill. You can't tell me to chill when you say reading's not for you. That's not a chill word of your statement.

That actually is one of like the craziest things you've said. I can't just get off that. No, I'm talking about like it being like, My habit of choice, you know, my go-to pastime. Like, it's for me. You know, I read, right? Yeah. It's not books.

Just YouTube titles? Yeah, titles, thumbnails, articles, Wouge articles. You read articles? Yes, yes. Loz hasn't been in the game for a year now. I go back. I go back into the archive. He's reading old news dumps.

He said, oh my God, LeBron's out with the Lakers. He's a Tyreek Evans? just trade it. Suspend it. Yeah, man. All right. Yeah. I've been trying to read Game of Thrones books.

Try to catch up in case the next book comes out. Now, those bitches are hard to get through. There's so many words on each page. It's outrageous. I've never read Game of Thrones. I'm trying. It's a tough read. There's so many words on these page.

Are they hard words? I mean, it's harder than Harry Potter, but it's not like, I'm an adult. So it's not like I can't read it. It's just, it takes forever. ever get through a page. That's a very real question, but it's just funny. Are they hard words?

Was that word you said that tripped me up earlier? I said distilled and you fucking short circuit it is. And it says succinct and you didn't want to try. I didn't even hear you say succinct. I heard you say saint. I was like, I let me just use my context exclusion. Figure out what this word means. Distilled.

Not even that big of words, to be honest. Like, how do you even distill words? Distill means to, I don't even want to explain it. You know, what's the next TikTok, bro? God, damn. Would you get a lot of factors and you combine them into one thought? You're distilling information into one thought. He still explained it?

I can't help it. He's so bothered by my lack of knowledge. I got to help him out. By his lack of knowledge. I hate when people don't have. knowledge. You got the ick. What a look this Friday?

Where am I paycheck at? You're cut. Read the book, bitches in the back. Checks on page of hundreds. Well, with that being said, if you're still here, comment what you think, B. Social should read next. And we'll see y'all tomorrow on Housecall

and Thursday for our next full episode.