The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Gottlieb - All Ball - w/special guest Sam Vecenie

Episode Date: September 28, 2018

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What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was harmed. you just understood.

That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Mark keep coming until he's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball.

So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, welcome in. This is the all new, all ball. I'm Doug Gottlie. You can listen to the Doug Gottlie show Weekday from 12 to 3 Pacific, 3 to 6 Eastern Time, Foxport Radio, the IHeart Radio app. Last couple weeks, we've had long-form interviews, Jay Billis, ESPN's League College

Basketball Analyst. You should download that one if you've missed it. And also with Scott Brooks, who's the head coach of the Washington Wizards, we've got some more of those interviews returning in the coming weeks. Just kind of tease ahead for it. But this week we're going to kind of get into some hoop because you have college practice starting. You have NBA training camp starting as well.

This is a shout out to the guys who are. training camp fodder never got a chance to be training camp fodder all i wanted to be was training camp fodder and i could not make a training camp roster and there's some hard decision times for some of these guys who could go to training camp and go through the g league or you go and make more money overseas rooting for all you guys that have the two-way contracts to get or even the ones that don't have the two-way contracts to get called up into the g from the g league to the league this year um i am fascinated by the NBA. I think the NBA has found new life. It's really good ball in comparison to the NFL in terms of popularity. It's growing, not shrinking. And there is no risk of long-term brain damage. But also,

they figured out long ago what the NFL is trying to figure out, which is offense wins. Defense still wins. Championship's got to shut people down. But offense gets attention. I would only warn you that if you're comparing this generation to previous generations, it's not just the use of three-point shots, more possessions, it's offense-friendly rules. All of these things have sped up the game. It's given more possessions, more possessions, more three-point shots is more points, less protection at the rim, less bodies in the lane means higher efficiency finishing in the lane.

Less post-ups, post-up shots mean more efficient basketball. There's still room for post-up, still room for the mid-range pull-up, but we are getting smarter and smart. It's harder means more points and more possessions and a better watch. And the NFL is trying to play catch up with the NBA figured out a long time ago. LeBron is in L.A. That one of those things where you might have thought it was a possibility. And last year this time, everybody's saying, hey, LeBron's going to be a Laker next year.

But I'd heard that before. I'd heard Kevin Love was going to be a Laker. That didn't happen. I heard Paul George was going to be a Laker. I've heard lots of people are going to be Lakers that didn't end up being Lakers. LeBron is really a Laker, and that really does change so much of the Eastern Conference, but also the Western Conference. But I'm interested in Rondo being named starting point guard before they ever had a preseason

practice. Some of that is Zoh coming back, but isn't that a kind of tweak at Zoh? And, hey, dude, you're going to have to earn it. You have to take it from Rondo because we just can't hand you the keys to this kingdom. And then I think the Boston Celtics are suddenly the most underrated team. And Terry Rozier was their fourth guard, and Jason Tatum probably wouldn't have started, if not for Gordon Hayward's injury. Gordon Hayward being back, and if he returns to form before he got hurt, he was an All-Star in the West. And he's gotten better every year.

I'd expect him to have a huge year. And I think the Celtics are viable challengers to the Golden State. We're a year removed from the FBI arresting a bunch of coaches and the entire college basketball world freaking out. And there's no better guy to come and have a conversation with about this than Sam Bacini, who also has been arrested by the FBI in the past. But that stuff went, I'm kidding. Got brushed under the rug. He writes for the athletic.

He joins us now. He has his own podcast. It's a really good one. Okay. A year later, where are we with this stuff? Rick Patino lost his job. A couple of assistants lost their job. And that's kind of all that happened, right?

Yeah, that's all. I feel. I mean, you could say the fall. out is that Rick Petino is no longer at Louisville, so we had to deal with Rick Petino in the media for a year. And then Chris Mack is now at Louisville, where he's absolutely killing and recruiting, and he's going to turn that program around and everything's going to be great. Travis Steel is now elevated at Xavier. There's been some fallout there. There's been some fallout with recruiting, like who knows what happens with Romeo Langford's recruiting.

If Rick Petino and Louisville are still at Louisville and still at the level that they were before this entire thing, went down, but at the same time, nothing has really changed in the grand picture. Like, in the big picture, that stuff, it may not seem small, but it kind of is. There's no real momentum toward a reform in college basketball. We had this commission on college basketball that was set out with trying to change the game and really trying to make it so that this stuff, quote-unquote, won't happen again. But at the end of the day, you look at what the changes are, and they were. really aren't that significant other than to the recruiting calendar.

So it's really just been much ado about nothing so far. Now, I assume the FBI investigation isn't over, but, you know, so far, it's fair to say that where you're out and not much has really changed. Yeah, it was super weird, right? Super weird, especially when the FBI, they had this like, hey, we got your playbook. We got your playbook. We know how you operate. Like, oh, well, they got some people here.

You know, basically come out with your hands up, admit that you did it. Nobody did that. And there hasn't been much of anything outside of some embarrassment from Adidas, you know, a couple of players losing their eligibility. An entire kind of freshman class kind of gets caught up in it. And then we move on. All right. So the recruiting calendar changes.

You and I have been to these events. You go to all of these events. You know a lot more. What has, what really has. anything changed in the recruiting landscape? Not yet, but I think that it genuinely will change. Like, you're talking about a schedule now that is markedly different. Like, there is no longer a live period for coaches to go to Las Vegas at the end of July

and go see a bunch of players in a singular circumstance under the AAU umbrella. There are now these camps that, you know, USA basketball is supposed to be involved with. And the NCAA is supposed to be running. that college coaches are supposed to basically hand over their recruiting lists and say, hey, you should invite these kids to these events. So, I mean, it's going to change. It just hasn't changed yet. We'll see what the changes are.

Like, the funniest thing about this is I think that the NCAA, and it's not really funny. It's actually kind of sad. They've made it harder for kids to get found in my opinion. And I'll give you a great example of this. Like I talked to Dylan Wendler out at Belmont last week for a story I'm going to run at the athletic at some point. And Dylan was a kid who played golf throughout his first, I would say, like two years of high school and played basketball on the side. And then the summer before his senior year, he goes and plays on Kyle Guy and India League in the AAU circuit.

Belmont recruits and sees a 6'7 kid who can shoot, says, hey, we want to get this kid. Last year, Dylan Wendler was the only kid in America to average 17.9 rebounds and shoot 40% from three while having three assists a game. he doesn't get found by Belmont. He doesn't get found by all of these other schools that offer him scholarships if there's no grassroots system that he can just easily join because he's been found previously. So it's going to hurt kids in the long run. And that's what's frustrating to me about it.

And that's where I think the biggest change is going to be. A lot of these under the radar kids are going to end up not getting sound and you're going to see D2 kids end up transferring up to D1. Yeah, I mean, like I don't, I agree with you. There are problems with AAU basketball, and there are problems with the connections with the shoe companies. On the other hand, and I do like that some of the powers being put back in the hands of the high school coach. But even that, there are shoe companies that control the high schools and the high school coaches too. It's like we're completely missing the point.

and I'm not sure if we didn't just kind of move things, furniture from one side of the room to the other. And yeah, if a player like him is coins stuck under the couch, he's still stuck under the couch, only it's harder to find because now we've rearranged the furniture and the thought is that you've already gone through that couch and you have not. So, okay, we're heading into college basketball season.

We're heading in the NBA season. I don't want to get too lost caught up in in the college basketball. college basketball thing just yet. I do think one of the great adjustments that's been made to the college game is that teams are already practicing. Like that, to me, is awesome. I've always felt like, and look, I do think that college coaches can't evolve, but some of it, they're kind of working on the fly and plugging holes and you don't know what

you have to you play live games. While we can be smartly critical of their changes in the recruiting calendar and how some of it doesn't make as much sense as they think it does, we could both. agree that more time together earlier in the year is better for the overall product once we see it in early November, correct? Yeah, no question. I'm excited that we're going to have more together college basketball teams, and I think it's ultimately good for the kids that they get more time in front of coaches.

Now, I think that we have to hope that coaches don't abuse it, but at the same time, I think it's great. You know, here's that, this is a big misconception, though, I think, that, that, you know, some people have is that the point of coaches abusing how much time they have with their teams. You can lose a kid. You can lose a team. I bring up Duke's team when they had Austin Rivers. I don't know if you remember that year they went to Beijing and they went to Dubai. And I called those games for ESPN. I didn't get to go to Dubai in China. I did it from a studio. But I talked to the coaches. And then I talked to, I remember talking to a couple of the coaches in like February. February. And I said, why aren't you guys better? You know? And he said, you know what? You're around each other too much. Like too much, like just too much. We, we started the year before we ever got to school. There's just kind of a natural evolution of a team. And we kind of jump started the process by having those nine practices and then going overseas. And guys are already around each other from the moment they start school until the moment that the season is over. But we were just around each other too much. And I,

I do think that one of the misconceptions is, hey, look, kids are going to be in a gym anyway. It's better off when they're under the watchful eye of their college coaches. I actually like, I would actually like to be no hours limits. Because I do think it's really hard for a coach to abuse those numbers, abuse the hours because you can, one, wear a kid out, too, they tune you out after a certain number of hours. They just don't have that attention span. And then, you know, you'll get infighting within a team simply because guys, around each other too much.

Yeah, no question. I think that's absolutely right. And then I would even throw in it in addition to this, that the advent over the last, let's say, like, four years of the, like, personal trainer that goes around and, you know, kind of helps these kids out. Some kids have them. Some kids don't. The higher-end kids, for the most part, have them nowadays because it's big business for

the trainers to get involved earlier on. It does help a little bit, I think, as well, in terms of these co-consumers. is not being able to be on the court with their players, but having someone there who hopefully, and in most situations and most trainers that I've met, are very smart and can help kids get better at basketball. Yeah, I also think the other thing that's changed in the last, this is like 10 years, is everybody has a facility now.

And so kids can get in and they're getting shots up. Like you said, they either have personal trainers or you have a group of managers that are feeding kids, and that's why I do think that having practice time and workout time with coaches on a daily basis. They're going to be in a gym. Why not? You know, it's like, would you rather a kid lift on his own or lift with your strength coach?

Would you rather kids shoot in his own or shoot with your coach? So he's taking game shots and working on stuff. You do want some other voices in their ears so they don't get tired of you. But I do think that having those basketball facilities, which almost everybody at the high level and even mid-major level has, I do think it's changed how much kids kind of live in the gym. It's helped the skill of players. The question is, does that skill fit in with their role in college?

Sam Vassini is our guest here on the All-Ball podcast. All right, NBA teams have had their media day. And let's start with the Lakers because that's the biggest change for a team. I would say them and the calves, obviously cats are the worst, Lakers for the better. My couple quick takeaways are LeBron is smartly speaking the truth in that, hey, they're building this thing kind of from the ground up. They are chasing the Warriors, but they are not even close to being competitors with the Warriors. And I think he seems sensible about his own expectations, and maybe he's lowering our expectations.

I found it a little bit curious that the Lakers already announced that Rondo is going to be the starting point guard at the start of the season. What are your thoughts on the Lakers now that we're two or three days in to training camp? I was surprised by the Rondo news. No question. It wouldn't surprise me if they end up starting both of those. guys. I don't think there's been an announcement on like who the starting two is going to be. But I'm not surprised that Rondo is going to start the year as a starter. I'm sure that there was some sort of statement made to him that he's going to come in and have a specific role.

And, you know, Rijon Rondo is coming off of a year that I think was drastically underrated. Like over the last couple of years, he's gotten a lot of crap about being a player who dominates the ball and pounds the ball into the ground and doesn't defend. Well, he's not a great defender anymore. I think that that's clear, but you look at his role on those New Orleans teams, and you look at on that team last year and you look at how he performed in the playoffs, he was really good. He was really useful for them, I thought.

And then the other big takeaway, I agree with you, is that LeBron is starting to kind of lower expectations for this team. Whenever he signed there, my assumption was that he's playing the long game here. He's playing the game to where he knows that this year is a developmental year. He wants to see which of these young guys. He wants to keep around long term, which of these young guys can be used as trade bait going forward. And they're in a good situation where now that, you know, Anton Davis is signed with Rich Paul as his agent, they could potentially go down that road for a trade. Or they could also have the option of using their max cap space next summer.

And it could be a situation where they use both. So he is in a year where I think he knows this is, I don't want to say it's a wasted year, but it's a year where he's probably not going to be competing on the highest level. And he's trying to position the chips on the board to where he can compete at the highest level with the Warriors again, especially when we can talk about the Warriors situation as well. There's no indication right now that Kevin Durant is for sure going to be in Golden State next year. Yeah, I want to get to that. Let's conclude here on the Lakers.

I'm trying to figure out, though, like I do think there's a certain amount of tweaking taking place to where they're trying to figure out if Lonzo has it, right? Like, I think they, I think the coaching staff, the parts that I, the guys that I know, they like, look, we really like Lonzo. He's a very good rebounder. He's an incredible passer. And he's a good teammate and a good player in that he, you show him something on film and he legit tries to make an adjustment.

And like this is basically freshman year to sophomore year. His body has changed dramatically. And that should help his game all around. On the other hand, he didn't get to play that much with that body because he had the knee surgery in the offseason. That said, I don't know. I feel like announcing it that early is either to pacify Rondo or to motivate Zoe or maybe both, right? Like they didn't announce if KCP starting or if it's Josh Hart. They didn't announce anything else.

Like, what are they doing with Kyle Kuzma? You know, Coos in many parts is better coming off the bench. See, you can be a star, see me a bench player. I do feel like they're tweaking Zoe a little bit to, try and figure out what he's got between his chest and if he can stand up and take the job from Rondo. Is that a fair guess? I think that's a reasonable guess. I am fascinated by this Lanzo Ball, Rajan Rondo situation, just because I think it's incredibly combustible in a lot of ways. Yes. Like if Rondeau is starting, we've seen what Lavaar ball is like whenever

Lonzo is wronged in Lovar's mind. So it's a combustible situation, but, I think Lonzo proved last year that he is a useful NBA player. He's a very good defender last year. He's a very good passer. He plays team ball in the manner that I'm sure Luke Walton wants to run. And his body makes it so that he's a lot more useful in their defensive scheme where they want to switch all actions. So it's a complicated situation. But I think I agree with your initial point that it is a place where they're trying to challenge Lonzo ball to come back from

this injury with a vigor and with a verve and to get used to his body and to figure out everything that is going on with his game. And then there's the part that maybe I don't get, which is I like Rondo, but, you know, a guy like me can appreciate how you can play this long and be this success without a jump shot. But that's not traditionally what LeBron likes for his point cards, right? And LeBron know he wants to handle it. And even LeBron plays out of the post, like, are we going to have, you know, Rondo back you know, in what's called the ghost, which is the position,

if you take the backboard and you go all the way out to the end, edge of the court, like below that level closer to the baseline, that's the ghost position. That's where Boston would put him offensively so that his man couldn't help or double team or get in the way because he can't shoot. Like, is that where we're putting Rondo? Is that, because that screws up your defensive balance as well? I just, I'm fascinated to see how the Rondo-Lonzo thing works out,

how the Rondo and Luke things works out, and then how the Rondo and LeBron thing works out because those are not pieces that traditionally would be aligned. Yeah, no, I 100% agree with that. But even more than that, all of those combinations, fascinating, I agree with you. But the most important thing that the Lakers have to find out this year are how Lanzo Ball and Brandon Ingram play together with LeBron James.

Because Brandon Ingram, not a super comfortable shooter yet. He shot, like, I want to say 40% from three last year, something in that range. did it on like one attempt to gain. Bonzo Ball obviously struggled to shoot it last year. I'm a big believer in body strength and just improving your frame, improving your muscle tone and definition can really help a jump shooter because it becomes a little bit easier to keep your mechanics consistent throughout the long grind

of an NBA season. So I think that that could really help his jump shot. But again, we're talking about a guy who's an unproven shooter right now at the NBA level. So how did those two guys? morph with LeBron, who is traditionally, as you said, love to have shooters around. I am fascinated, and I think that that is the absolute biggest thing that the Lakers have to figure out in the first year of the LeBron experiment here. All right, Stan Fissi, join us.

Let's get to the Golden State Warriors. There is kind of this plavre, this slow murmur of, hey, Kevin Durand doesn't, he's not tied to any one place. If you had to put a percentage chance, he leaves Golden. state? What would it be? It sounds 50-50 to me, to be honest. It really sounds like it's up in the air that at some point over the next year, probably in free agency next year, he is real potential to leave. He talks to people around the league. You hear New York. I've heard something like Rich Climmon is close with the Knicks front office. He grew up a Knicks fan. Like he's going to kind of, you know, maybe push Kevin Durant that way. Or, you know, I don't think anyone will push Kevin Durant,

but he could end up playing a role moving Kevin Durant that way. You hear about Los Angeles Lakers. You hear about the Clippers. You hear all of these teams that are going to have max cap space next summer. They're going to be in the Kevin Durant market. And I don't know what Kevin Durant still has to prove in Golden State right now in San Francisco. I'm just unclear what his motivation would be for staying unless he genuinely just wants to win seven or eight championships. Like, that's fine.

That's totally a real. reasonable assessment. But if he wants to go down as one of the five best players to ever play the game, which I think is a reasonable approximation of where his feeling is, he probably has to go somewhere else and prove that he can do it on his own. Why? Why does he have to go somewhere else? I mean, like, look, if at the end of the day, he's led to the league in scoring, he's won an MVP, and he wins, let's say they win it this year, and he wins four or five or six. What is he? I don't, I don't understand what's going. I don't give, you know, everybody wants, everybody wants to be the guy that fixes

the Knicks, right? And I could go through the Phil Jackson and Larry Brown and Carmelo Anthony and like you could go through the list of guys that over the last 30 years, Rick Petino, over the last 30 have tried to be the guy like, yeah, Maris Stottomier's a penny hardaway. I mean, but there are plenty of guys who are like, I'm going to be the guy who fixes the New York Knicks. It sounds like a great idea. And at some point, somebody is going to find a way to win, right? We see utility streaks come to an end. But, I don't know. I don't know why he had. Why would you ever split tens? And he doesn't even if he's splitting tens. He's got 21 showing.

Yeah. No, I generally agree with you on this. But you're always going to hear that from other people who do these legacy type conversations. Oh, he had to go join Stefan Curry and the best team ever to win a title. He couldn't win on his own. So he couldn't win with Russell Westbrook, who's an MVP. he couldn't win with James Harden, who's an MVP, so he had to go do it with the best team ever. That's going to be a thing that is said about his legacy. Like, we did it with LeBron until LeBron won in Cleveland by himself,

essentially, with help from Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, but it's very clear that he's on a different level than those guys. So, look, I agree with you generally that we shouldn't hold this against Kevin Durant. You know that with the way that this stuff goes now, that's going to be what's said about it. Like, that is going to be what his legacy would be if he was to win, five or six titles in Goldberg State. No question.

It's funny. It's at least interesting. Maybe I don't know if interesting or funny. It's like LeBron, like, look, when LeBron went to Miami, they went and got Chris Bosch and Wade and Wade was already there. So one, that was essentially a super team, right? And then they added, you know, Ray Allen, right? So you got, you got four Hall of Famers on a team.

That's not a super team. I don't know what it is. And three of those guys were playing in different locations, you know, before they got to Miami. so it's not like they were homegrown. And people held it against him that he left Cleveland, but nobody said, hey, you joined a super team. Now you have, and he got to the NBA finals,

couldn't win. He got to the Eastern Conference finals and lost. Kevin Durant does the same thing in Oklahoma City. He leaves and joins the Golden State Warriors, and all of a sudden, well, he's the only one joining a super team. I don't, help me out, I don't understand that. Is it because the Warriors beat the thunder and the heat didn't beat the calves? That's the logic behind it?

Are you saying that you think that the narrative was that LeBron didn't join a super team? Yes. I think the – Oh, I think it definitely was the narrative. Like, from what I remember, at least. Like, that's all I remember is – No, but I think that people are forgetting that part of the narrative. Now it's because he won and because it's time – because he went back to Cleveland and ultimately won.

And, like, look, when he went back to Cleveland, Kyrie Irving was waiting there, and they went and got Kevin Love instead of keeping that number one overall pick which was Wiggins. So, I mean, there was a super team kind of form there too and let's just be honest. But I don't think that's... Yeah, I agree with you.

So won't time heal that wound with Kevin Rand? I think that success healed that wound for LeBron and the idea of quote unquote going home kind of brushed over it in many ways. Bringing Cleveland their first title is a city in what 60 years something like that yeah i think that that brushed over it in a way that continuing to win titles in miami couldn't ever really brush over for his legacy uh for some people with kevin durant i think that he needs to do basically what lebron did their careers are on

stunningly similar tracks right now in terms of team success both of them went to an NBA final before leaving their first destination, and both of them ended up being unceremoniously, kind of beaten easily. And then they go to a different home. They win a couple of titles. They're very clearly established, in my opinion, Kevin Durant established himself

as the best player on that team last year at some point. So they've established themselves over the incumbent star as the best player on the team. And now what happens next? This is a big question. How does this go from here? and to me, some people are always just going to hold it against Kevin Durant. To me, I'm a big fan of do whatever makes you happy, Kevin.

Like we see Kevin Durant have to create burner accounts and talk to people online because there's clearly something there that is, I don't want to know if it's an insecurity. I don't know if it's just something that he's not pleased with in his life. I just want Kevin Durant to be happy. I want him to feel fulfilled in his life. And I wonder if he will get the respect that he's so meaningfully required if he stays in Golden State. I just don't know if that's going to happen. He's had his success.

He's had his title. He has established himself, in my opinion, as someone who will go down as one of the 10 best, 15 best players ever. I think to raise into that next echelon, which is genuinely where his feeling lies, he's going to have to go somewhere else for a lot of people. Boston Celtics are the second best team. I don't really feel like it's close. I think Oklahoma City has improved. I'm not sure Houston. I don't think Houston is as good a team,

even though they have really, really good pieces. But I feel like people are underselling how talented, how talent laden this Boston team is and how I actually think the pieces fit together really, really well. Would you dispute that? No, I agree with you 100%. Like you said, they're kind of a perfect. modern basketball team and that the pieces fit together super, super well.

You have young stars and Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum and Terry Rozier, who are kind of motivated, I think, to continue their rise into the upper echelon of basketball teams. You have older stars like Al Horford and Kyrie Irving who are looking to establish themselves as preeminent players who can lead a team to a title, you know, as the leaders of the group. And then you have Gordon Hayward, who if people forget, since his injury was genuinely one of the 20 best players in the NBA when he signed in Boston. So the pieces fit together. They have a legit bench in Terry Rozier and guys like Marcus Morris, Markets Smart.

Yeah, all of these excellent players. They're loaded. I think they're going to win like 65 games this year loaded. Yeah, it's really fascinating on how people have, I don't know what it is, is maybe their infatuation with Tatum and with Rozier, and that all of a sudden they dismiss Gordon Hayward, like, well, maybe he'll come off the bench. Like, he was an all-star in the West. You know, he was the biggest

free agent prize and they landed him. He's not coming off the bench. And, oh, yeah, by the way, he's a guy who can play four positions on the court and has improved every year he's been in the NBA. Why would he, Jason Tam has a chance, has a chance, somewhere down the road to be a better player than Gordon Hayward. He is not close to being that player yet. Gordon Hayward did not play last year, except for what,

a couple minutes, and Jason Tatum average 14 a game in the regular season, and then they were like 17 a game in the postseason. Like he has a chance to be a really good player, but he's not there yet, and Hayward's not coming off the bench anytime soon. Yeah, I mean, if Hayward returns to what his peak was in Utah, he's not, or Jason Tatum's not as good as he is yet. It's just a reality of the situation. But I think that's where the question comes in, right?

Is Gordon going to come back and be that same guy, or is he going to be a slightly diminished version of that coming off the knee injury? I tend to think that at this point, medical expertise has come so far that ACL injuries, you miss a year and you come back mostly the same. So we'll see. I think it's probably going to be fine. I think he's going to return and be every bit of what he was in Utah. Yeah, yeah.

You break your leg. I mean, all we can go by is Paul George, right? I mean, break, you know, that's like the only guy who's had that kind of injury and he's come back. And Paul George wasn't great right out of the shoot. but Paul George, and Paul George broke his leg in the summer. This one happened early in the fall. But I think Gordon Hayward's been ready to go for a while now. All right, last thing.

After the draft, I thought, well, Trey Young, because he's on a terrible team, and he's going to shoot the ball all the time, is going to be a rookie of the year. Like, just the sheer volume of opportunities that he's going to get leads me to think that he's going to be, he's going to have some crazy nights that are good, some crazy nights that are awful. And winning doesn't really matter.

so the stats will carry him through. But everyone I've talked to about Luca Donchick has said, like, look, you guys realize he's ready to play and contribute and be good in the NBA for a good team right now. And I don't think the Mabs are nearly the train wreck that they look like they were because they were trying to lose games at the end of last year. If I make you pick a rookie of the year before the season has ever begun, who is it? Yeah, I picked Luca at the draft. I picked Luca a month ago when I got lucky and got him at 25 to 1 to win rookie of the year.

And I am picking him now. Like I've seen no reason to believe that he's not going to be the best rookie. He is very clearly the, like, most ready to step in and see the guy for a Dallas team. He's going to play just as many minutes, I think, is what Trey Young does. I think he's a better player right now. So I'm going to Luca Donchich, and I agree with you to this Dallas team, not nearly as bad as what people are expecting. DeAndre Jordan is going to play a significant role, having adults in the room like Harrison Barnes, Wesley Matthews, Dirk Novitsky,

that's going to help a lot. And then a year of maturation from Dennis Smith is going to help. Yeah, they're fascinating. Look, the Grizzlies were trying to lose games. The Mavericks were trying to lose games. I think the Sons, if they can get a point guard, looks like they may get one as part of this Minnesota Jimmy Butler trade. I think that's going to be fascinating.

Sons can get a point guard, if they can start trying to win games. Last thing, let me ask you about Jimmy Butler. he was supposed to be the guy that was the best fit for Tibbs, and yet now it turns out he and Tibbs don't actually like each other all that much, and he wants out. I had been told that he didn't jive with Carl Towns or with Whig all that well going back to last year. What are we left to,

we're left with Minnesota, a team that finally got to the playoffs and we thought we had some hope. And now Jimmy Butler's on his way out. Like, what are we left with here? in jimmy butler's case i think we're left with questions on a does he fit personally with anything but a select few players in the nb a like let's just be honest not everyone in the nbba has the work ethic that jimmy butler does it's i think okay to just admit that and i think that jimmy has to maybe recalibrate that when it's sometimes he doesn't quite he said this in the past

He doesn't really get that everyone doesn't have the drive that he does. I think that's more of a personal adjustment he has to make. And then secondarily on the Minnesota side, they have to figure out what they want to do because you hear reports out of Minnesota, you hear reports nationally that there's a real power struggle going on right now in terms of who's going to complete this deal. And if this deal is going to be completed, Tom Thibodeo doesn't want to complete this deal because he doesn't want to rebuild.

Glenn Taylor kind of sees the writing on. on the wall and is reading the tea leaves. He says we should do this and just cut our losses. Teams that have gone into contact with them are struggling in terms of the breakdown of communication on trade talks.

So it's a mess up there, man. I am fascinated to see how this thing ends. It seems like Miami maybe is taking the lead, but there are a lot of teams that could use Jimmy Butler and use him potentially in the Eastern Conference is a propelling point to move from borderline making the play. maybe being a four or five seed to legit competing, I think, at least for the number two seed behind Boston.

Fascinating, fascinating stuff. Sam, look forward to reading your work, hearing your work on your podcast, and, of course, hanging out with you and talking ball the entire season long. Thanks so much for joining us in all ball. Anytime, Doug. I feel like so many of my brethren who cover college basketball and who do, in fact, love college basketball, we're like trying to shake every dollar out of college basketball to get to the players when they're already really well compensated. And we're trying to chase guys to the NBA, even though there's a natural progression from college to the NBA.

And there is no one kind of protecting it. You know, for years we've heard from college basketball coaches saying, you know, why not put the baseball rules in? The problem with the baseball rules, in addition to the fact that baseball players don't actually get paid until really their fourth year. in professional baseball is you get college baseball, which as good and gritty as sport as it is, is not nearly as well regarded, as well funded, and as well watched.

So with every game being on TV, with the arena is getting bigger and so the crowd sometimes gets smaller, you lost some of your built-in traditional rivalries with conference expansion. I think college basketball, is it doesn't mean it stinks. I mean, it's still going to be awesome.

Gonzaga. We're going to talk about Gonzaga and Kentucky and Duke. And to a lesser, slightly lesser extent, a couple other, I mentioned Kansas. Like, those are the four probably favorites coming into the year. Four big boys that have all kind of been to a Final Four recently, one of national, many of won a national championship recently, or Kansas and Gonzaga have been really close.

Those are the four favorites. And then there's, you know, the Carolinas and the Syracuses and some of these other teams that are trying to kind of climb that climb that ladder to being in the final four. It should be a great college basketball season. I just, I wonder if as basketball people were doing a good enough job to protect the sport. As to the NBA, the couple interesting points that should be made about this NBA season that are

not, I think, sometimes in mainstream media. Anyway, as good as the San Antonio Spurs were last year, I mean, think about what they're going to throw out there this year. You know, you added Damar de Rosen to Lamarcus Aldrich and DeJante Murray, as your starting point card for the second consecutive year, you'd think he'll develop some offensive game. He's already stellar defensively. The Spurs should be better. Look at the West and you tell me where the easy nights off are. I look at the Milwaukee Bucks and I think the Bucks and the Wizards among other teams and, of course, the Raptors should be.

I think they're better getting Kauai Leonard. And remember, you're like, wait, you just said the spurs are better because they lost Kauai Leonard. No, Kauai didn't play last year except for nine games. So Kauai Leonard, healthy playing in Toronto. Toronto will be better. He's better than D'Mar de Rosen. But DeMard D'Rosin playing is far better than Kauai Leonard not playing last year. And you've got teams like the Utah Jazz.

Portland Trailblazers probably overachieve. They take a step back this year. The point is the NBA has done a really good job of kind of controlling the narrative, the storyline, all of basketball, that's what we're talking about, not really the college game, with the exception of Duke because they're a trip to Canada. And I think the West is stacked, but I think the east, at least the top of the east, is better than it has been. Or, you know, in many ways the Celtics are a better team, I think, if healthy, than the

calves were over the past couple years. Do they have any one player who's as good as Pete LeBron James? No, but they have Kyrie, and I think Kyrie should be a better version of of himself with Brad Stevens, with this lineup, second year in Boston plus coming into his prime. And their supporting cast is better than that, which the Cavs had. Hey, make sure you listen to the Doug Gottlieb show

Weekday Afternoons, 3 to 6 Eastern Time, on 12 to 3 Pacific on Fox Sports Radio.com, Fox Sports Radio affiliate, the IHeart Radio app. And I believe we're back on Sirius XM Channel 83, but don't hold me to that. Fired up for basketball season. We'll continue to throw great interviews, and we appreciate you downloading, subscribing, and listening to All Ball.

I'm Doug Gottlie. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headlines. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment and the stuff nobody gets to hear.

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I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker walks up to me, he goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Time out. Quarterback on office blue of 42.

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