The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Luka Doncic & Mavericks survive furious Warriors comeback, force Game 5

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Jason Timpf reacts to Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks' Game 4 win over Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and the Golden State Warriors in the NBA's Western Conference Finals. Does Dallas have a chance at making a series comeback, or will the Warriors finish off the Mavericks in Game 5 at the Chase Center? #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We actually got, I guess you could technically call that not a blowout in the sense that the starters were all in the game there at the end, although technically that was as boring a basketball game as you could have had on a night like tonight. I had seen this game coming based on a couple of specific details. We're going to get into all of that. We're going to break this game down a little bit. Not going to get too far into the details because it was a textbook mail-in effort from the Warriors on a bunch of different levels.

We're going to bring my guy Carson on in a little bit, and we're going to dive a little bit deeper into some of the implications of tonight and looking forward into this postseason run. Talk a little bit about the all-MBA teams that got announced today. and just have some fun talking about some macro topics around the NBA. Before we get started, all of you guys who are tuning in, if you could please take the time to like this video, I would very much appreciate that.

If you guys could subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our shows, that would be awesome. And then last but not least, follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so that you guys can see the video breakdowns that I do routinely on there, just so you can see some video examples of some of the things and the concepts that I talk on the show. So I did a whole thing last night,

might have been last night, two nights ago, where I talked about how the aura that surrounds the Golden State Warriors caused Dallas players who were very good shooters and had demonstrated the ability to shoot the ball consistently well, especially when open on kickouts from the Dallas offensive system, how they would suddenly struggle and lose their confidence under the weight of what the warriors bring to the table as a personality, as a dynasty. And I talked about how I've seen this many times over the years.

I remember watching every single player in a Cleveland Cavaliers uniform not named LeBron James and even a little bit LeBron himself freak out on a big stage against the Boston Celtics in the 2010. and NBA playoffs, despite the fact that they were the better team that had won over 60 games back-to-back seasons, had all the tools in the toolbox needed. But here came the grisily old Boston Celtics who had done a, had a couple of deep playoff runs laid in with veterans, had just won a championship in 2008 and probably would have won one. In 2009, had Kevin Garnett not gotten hurt. They were actually a lot better that year to start that season than they were in the previous season. And they walked into that gym and they had a psychological effect on

the cavaliers and they crumbled. I watched LeBron in 2015 and 2016 have a similar effect on the Warriors. They were the up-incomeers. They were the more talented team. But LeBron had been in the final so many times that he brought that aura and that confidence. And all of a sudden, a lot of really good players, Clay Thompson didn't shoot well in either of those NBA finals series, 2015 or 2016. Harrison Barnes completely combusted. Ironically, there was a chance that had things gone a certain way in game seven, that Draymond Green might have won finals MVP, which I would have disagreed with. You guys know how I feel about Steph and finals MVP's.

He already has one in my book and had they won in 2016, I would have given it to him there too. But you saw that psychological effect impact them. and it may or may not have cost them in 2016 and almost it in 2015. But now the Warriors are in that position where they are the team that is supremely confident in a huge road game three against a very good basketball team. And now the Dallas Mavericks are the team that hadn't been there that was new on the block, role players that hadn't been on that stage before. And they all crumbled in game three.

And it's a huge part of why I'm such a huge believer in the Warriors, moving forward, which we'll talk about in a minute. But I had a feeling about tonight. I went on with Liv Moods, who's one of our huge gambling people here at the volume. You guys should follow her if you don't already. And she asked me when I came on her Instagram live today to kind of help her piece together a same game parlay for tonight. And my thought process immediately as soon as as we went down that path was the pressure's off in this series. You're down 30. You're not going to win. Guys, like, I don't care what you saw tonight. Golden State's win in this series. All you Warriors fans know it. All you Maverick's fans know it. All the other 28 teams and their

fans, they know it. The Warriors are going to win. So what does that do psychologically to all of those same shooters? All of a sudden, the fear that was running through them when they were taking those same shots in game three was gone. By the way, they were wide open in game three. I tweeted this out earlier. Game one, the Dallas Mavericks generated 28 wide open threes. Only managed to make eight of them. Game two, they generated 24 more. Game three, 28 wide open threes. Again, in game three. So they've consistently gotten wide open shots. This series swung on Dallas not being able to shoot the way they did in the previous two rounds. Steph out playing Luca and the Mavericks being completely incapable of getting a stop.

Those were the three major factors that turned this from two really good teams playing each other to it looking like one team was significantly better than the other. So I told Liv, I said, I think our best bet here is Dallas starts making shots tonight because the pressure's off. And you could tell that immediately in that first quarter. You could just see it in the body language. You could see it in the way that the guys were rising into the shots. Maxi Kleba, who was a complete in total head case in game three, was stepping into shots like he was the best player on the floor in the first quarter. That was super predictable.

And so my guess was, hey, Dallas is going to make a bunch of shots that inherently is going to lead to Luca getting assists, and the Mavs are going to win the game because the Warriors just don't take these road closeout games seriously. So we built a parlay, and it was Warriors. It was Mavs money line, Luca oversees. seven and a half assists and Dorian Finney Smith and Reggie Bullock both over 10 and a half points. And it hit tonight at a plus 844 odds there, which was insane. But again, you guys know the deal with gambling.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I also bet a alternate spread tonight minus 14 and a half for Dallas because I figured Dallas would blow them out. And I was staring at the cash out for like a solid couple minutes during the commercial break at the end of the third quarter, didn't take it. So I lost that. But the beauty of that was Luca checked back.

and he played so well early that he wasn't going to play in the fourth quarter. And so him getting back in helped us to get over that assist marker. But my point is, the reason why I bring that all up is there was a basketball thought process for how I put that parlay together with Liv. It was pressures off. Dallas is a team that relies heavily on three-point shooting from role players. They're going to shoot better tonight. And they did.

I thought it was appallingly interesting slash annoying that Dallas fell apart the way they did in that fourth quarter against Golden State's three two zone. They were completely and utterly flummoxed by it, which is frustrating because that's a zone construct that's been around in the game of basketball for a half a century. They were completely content to just go five out against the three two zone and pass the ball around the perimeter

when the middle of the floor was wide open, which is insane to me because they kept swinging the ball. There was no close out necessary for the Warriors guys because they're already in the right spots to guard a five-out unit there. And they just weren't doing anything to try to get the ball into the middle of the zone, which is how it dragged out the way it did. And obviously the Warriors, we talked about this a little bit last night. The Warriors are incredibly deep.

They have a lot of guys in their rotation that would be playing for other NBA teams that don't get minutes for the Warriors when they're healthy, right? Like Moses Moody, really solid wing, doesn't even play for the Warriors. for the most part. Jonathan Camingo, really solid up-and-coming young wing, doesn't even play. Duwantisano Anderson doesn't even play. They have a ton of talent. And so when those guys got in that fourth quarter and they were engaged and they were focused and Dallas wasn't taking it seriously, they fell apart the way that they did. I'm not worried at all about the Warriors moving forward in the series. As a matter of fact, I wanted to take this opportunity. You know, I've kind of

been, you guys know me. I'm not married to a take. I'm going to have a take based on whatever the available information is to me at the time. And if the information changes, I'm going to change my take because I don't have an ego big enough to be obsessed with going down with the ship for whatever reason. I think the Warriors are the best team left, and I think they're going to win the championship. I have been really high on Boston through this entire stretch, but their inconsistent effort and their inconsistent focus, even though it hasn't burned them yet, it almost did against Milwaukee and they're two two in a series against Miami that they've utterly dominated.

And the reason why they're two, two is because of that complete and total lack of consistent focus and effort. You know, there is a town, there may or may not be a talent gap there between Boston and Golden State, depending on how you feel about the defensive end. If you favor offense more, you're going to think gold states better. I lean slightly towards Boston in terms of overall two-way talent just because I think they have better defensive players. But I think Golden State would win that series because of the consistent commitment to the details that Golden State has. And they do have a significantly better offensive engine in Steph. And they do have a lot of offensive talent surrounding Steph, which is going to test

that Boston defense in a way that none of these teams that they've played so far have, except for maybe Brooklyn, who just didn't have the defensive chops to keep up. So as of right now, at this moment in time, I think Golden State's the best team. I know it sounds crazy to say on a night like tonight, but as the information has been coming in, I expected Golden State to lose tonight. You guys, I expected them to lose Game 5 in Memphis. I told you guys they get blown out that night. It's just they're bad in road close-out games.

They're much more comfortable closing out at home, and it was predictable that both of those teams would just be more confident on their home floor in a situation where the pressure's off of them, which is what happens when you fall that far behind in a series. So we're going to get a bunch further into the weeds here. I'm going to bring my guy Carson on, and he's going to start asking a bunch of questions about not just tonight, but the rest of the stuff going on around the league. That's correct, Jason.

That is often what I tend to do here. So obviously, dubs fall short tonight, but we asked in the chat, 79% of people said they thought that this series would be over after game five. What do you think, Jason? Do you think the Golden State closes this out on Thursday? And what's your reaction to that really strong consensus we got?

I would be stunned if Golden State didn't win on Thursday. Now, let's look at it from Dallas's perspective first. You just got to win one game. You go down to Golden State and you win a road game, which you knew you were going to have to do to win the series anyway. If you do, you send it back home for game six, where you'll be favored, just like they were favored tonight. And then if you win that game, it's game seven and anything can happen.

And we literally saw what happened with that with Luca against Phoenix. Now, do I think that's going to happen? No, but that's the approach that Dallas has to have. Go to Golden State and win one basketball game. What do I think is going to happen? I think that Dallas is going to go into Golden State. The pressure is going to be back on the guys to make shots, especially if Golden State makes some shots early and gets a little bit of a lead.

and all of a sudden, Maxi Kleva and Reggie Bullock and Dorian Finney Smith and all the guys that have been tentative throughout the series when they've been open will go back to being tentative. That's what I expect to happen. The other thing too here is I didn't think Luca was very good tonight. Again, I thought he was horrible on defense again. I thought he was forcing the action into the teeth of the defense and missing easy reads again. And I just don't think he's sharp enough right now to go down into Golden State. and lead them to a win.

So I will be on Golden State big in game five. If the Mavs do extend the series, how do you think they pull that off? So a couple things. Luca has to play better than Steph in game five. So, you know, doesn't it, I don't know if you notice this, Carson,

but Andrew Wiggins, it's not just Wiggins, it's everybody on Golden State. Luca's not getting great looks for himself in this series. The stepbacks feel a little bit more contested than they've been in the earlier rounds. All of those like herky jerky shots around the lane, Colin Cowher did a really nice job of calling this out on Sunday night on his show. The discipline that Golden State has shown to not go for shot fakes.

And what it usually ends up happening is when you, as an offensive player, the advantage of the shot fake is if you get a guy off his feet, you're at a great advantage, obviously. The problem is, is once you, you've made the shot fake, you lose all of your physical momentum. And so it gets way, way harder to get lift from the dead stop that you put yourself in in the pump bag. I remember watching Kobe when he was younger and he'd do those like triple pump fakes before he'd rise up into a jump shot. And I was always like blown away that he was able to get the lift that you would need after doing that to rise up and

knock the shot down. But what's happening is Lucas is getting into the lane and pump faking. Golden State's not going for it and he's not getting great looks around the rim. And he's not seeing the defense super well. We talked a lot about this. Steve Kerr has just done an amazing job of disguising coverages and mixing up coverages and making it so that Luca doesn't seem to really understand where his opportunities are or where his open teammates are. It's clearly throwing him for a loop. But that all needs to be cleaned up for Dallas if they won't have any chance in game five. You need Luca to come out and play an excellent two-way game. Secondly, you need the role players to knock down three's just like they did tonight in game four and just like they did in the first half of game two.

And then last but not least, defensive contain. Everybody not named Luca was really good tonight. And I was impressed by that. But outside of Luca, or but Luca, like, when you go on the road to Golden State, they'll be sharper. And Luca will also have to be sharper on the defensive end there. But if they defend well, they knock down shots. And if Luca plays well, they have a chance. I just, I just, I think that all three of those things will probably go south for Dallas. All right. Let's pivot to the other game five that is coming up, obviously, in a series that feels more up in the air right now, perhaps, has certainly been unlike really any other that I can kind of remember in recent conference finals history. So as we look to Heat Celtics, Jason, what is the biggest factor in their game five upcoming tomorrow?

That's interesting. So this game, I think, will end up being our first close game of the conference finals as awful as that is. So I expect both teams to come out focused. As much as I've credited Miami for being really well coached and dialed in on the details, I thought they were a little flat in game four. Now, don't get me wrong, Boston came out and played a hell of a lot. game and Boston's better than them on both ends of the floor. But Miami lacks some of that intensity.

All of that aggression that Bametabio had in game three was just gone. Like, it was like, I don't, it was like he was possessed in game three by someone else's consciousness. I've never seen anything like it. Like, because if you take the three games surrounding that and juxtapose them with game three, it just doesn't even make any sense. So I expect both teams to come out dialed in in a way that they haven't consistently been throughout this series.

The key for Miami is going to be shooting, particularly three-point shooting. They just can't afford to not shoot extraordinarily well from the perimeter with their talent disadvantage. For Boston, it once again is going to come down to offensive execution. We've talked a lot about playing with force. When Miami comes out at the opening tip in game five, you can bet on them to apply a ton of ball pressure and to be sharp in their defensive rotations. And it's going to be imperative early on for Tatum.

I don't know if Marcus Smart's going to play yet. That's up in the air as of right now. But for Tatum and Brown to make a deliberate effort to get into the teeth of the defense and then kick to shooters rather than settling for their pull-up jump shots like they do most often. One of the tricks for Boston is when Jaylen Brown gets it going as a pull-up jump shooter, he doesn't miss much. Like he's a uber confident step back jump shooter.

And the problem with that, and I run into this problem myself in my, in my basketball exhibitions here around the city of Tucson. Like I'm six foot seven with basketball shoes on. I have 610 wingspan and I can jump. So like I can get to a step back three anytime I want. And that's a blessing and a curse because it's a blessing because I get to that shot anytime I need it. And I in my head, I'm like, I'm knocking down half of these.

Like they're going to go in half the time. That's the way I feel mentally. The problem is, with my size and athleticism, if I go to the basket, I'm more efficient, especially playing against amateurs, right? But like, I just, it's a laziness factor. It's so easy to stare at your defender and to know, like, if I hit him with this hard through the legs dribble into a step back, I'm going to get enough separation. And it's a shot that I know it can make. And both Tatum and Brown fall into that trap often, where they just, they're almost too good for their own good. And if they didn't have a pull-up three-point shot in their bag, you'd almost

expect them to me more persistent in their attempts to get into the paint. But that's going to, early on, I'm going to be watching Miami's three-point shooting, how Jimmy Butler looks physically, if he's healthy enough to be up to the task. And then with Boston, are they making a deliberate attempt early to try to get into the paint? Well, let me just say, first of all, Jason, that's huge that he got the positive wingspan. I didn't realize that. I think that really is going to lead you to project well at the next level and is going to move you up some what percentage do you think you are shooting on step back three is you feel like you're going to make half of them if you had to guess though what do you think you actually shoot there

so the reason why i make half of them is i'm playing against amateurs and i have a huge size and athleticism advantage well yeah but i mean again if i was taking those shots against mba defenders i might not even be able to get them off so it's it's it's all relative but yeah against other dudes who just work around the city of Tucson who aren't professional basketball players, yeah, I can shoot 50% on stepback threes. Yes, yeah, that's pretty good. I don't know that you need to play that down. All right. I work extremely hard on it. You see the footage cars. I make thousands of shots every week

in practice. I'm weird. It doesn't make any sense, but I prep like a professional, even though I'm not simply because I love the game of basketball. The damn shame of it all is I wish I would have prepped like this when I was playing in college because I'd probably be somewhere far away from here by now, but it is what it is. Hey, I mean, being a tough bucket is worth million dollars in joy and clout in my opinion. Okay. You're absolutely right, Carson. I think so.

Okay. We're going to quickly come back to a Mavs warrior's topic here, just because we have this post game quote from Jason Kidd, want to get your thoughts on it. He says, the biggest compliment we've gotten is that they have to play zone because they can't guard us one-on-one. What do you think about that, Jason? I think that's foolish arrogance. Here's what actually happened. The game was over, and Steve Kerr played all of his young players. He even played Namanya Bializa, who's been out of the rotation entirely because he's a traffic cone on defense. They, what it was Moses Moody, Jonathan Caminga, it was, Namania Bializa,

Jordan Poole, and I can't remember who the fifth guy in that lineup was. Oh, Damien Lee. So all guys that are out of the rotation, basically, except for Jordan Poole. And I thought Steve Kerr was just like, hey, guys, run 3-2 zone the entire fourth. Like, just work on it, you know, just work on being in the right spots. You guys already, I thought that was literally what that was. I thought Steve Kerr was using the fourth quarter as a practice. Now, what's actually happening over the course of the series is Steve Kerr is repeatedly bouncing back and forth between zone and man. He mixes it up routinely.

And if he actually stayed in a 3-2 zone consistently against Dallas's starters, they'd burn it. They'd light it on fire. Because eventually every zone, there's a reason why NBA teams don't run zone as a base defensive look. I don't think we've ever seen one. Can you remember a single team in recent NBA history or run zone as a base look? I can't think of a single one. So the reason why is because professional basketball players are too good to play a zone against. Zones are designed to do one of two things.

A three-two zone, pretty much any odd front zone is designed to take away three-point shooting. Any even front zone is designed to take away the paint. That's generally the concept of a zone. And against each of them, the coaching is too high level. The offensive execution is too high level. And the skill level of the players is too high level for any of those zones to work if they get repeated looks at it. the genius of Steve Kerr using the zone as he mixes it up. Now, I was critical of them earlier in the show.

Jason Kidd has done a terrible job of navigating against the 3-2 zone. So, Carson, as you probably know, offensively against the zone, you're supposed to go the opposite of whatever the front is. So against a 2-3 zone, so an even front, you want to have an odd dispersion. So you want to have one guy up top, two guys on the wing. that makes those two guys on the top of the zone have to constantly make decisions about who they're guarding, right? And then if it's the opposite,

if it's a three two zone, you want to go two guys out front. And you want to go one in the middle, almost like a dice, think of like a dice, the number five on a dice. You want a guy in the middle of the floor, guy in both deep corners and two guys at the top.

And that's just not what they were doing. Dallas was literally running like a five-out concept against their three-two zone. They were screening the top man of the three-two zone, which is like ridiculous, because what happens if you come off that screen, the other dude in the zone is just right there. It literally accomplishes nothing. And so I don't know if it's just because they haven't seen the look enough that Jason

Kid hasn't really employed a good zone offense against it. What I actually think is happening in the flow of the game is by the time they identify there in a zone, there's already like 12 seconds left on the shot clock and they just don't have enough time to really get set up. And part of the issue here too is like the pace of the game that Luca plays at. You just don't have enough time to adjust once you get across half court. There's just never enough time left. The playoffs are heating up and you can make every game feel like game seven on Fandul's

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Once again, that's promo code Jason T. And if you already have an account, you're all set to bet, no sweat. Either way, you'll get up to $20 in free bets if your same game parlay during the playoffs doesn't win. Fandual Sportsbook, an official partner of the NBA. It is a hilarious quote from J-Kid. I think given the context, given the way the series has gone overall and given how they handled the zone.

Also, their man-to-man has looked great. Their man-to-man has looked fantastic. Yeah, I know. It's great points all around. Jay-Kids live it on his own planet. You've got to have some of that foolish arrogance, maybe, to succeed at the level he has.

I don't know. A lot of guys seem to. Okay. So we talked about some of the biggest factors overall coming up in Celtics Heat. Let's look specifically at the star matchup that we have between Jimmy Butler and Jason Tatum. Jason, who do you think is under more pressure to perform in game five between those two? Jason Tatum, no question. A couple things. Jimmy Butler, his legacy is kind of in stone at this point. He's considered one of the best non-superstars of all time. He's just,

is your textbook non-superstar that in any environment can rise to the level of a superstar and potentially carry a team, you know, to the next level. A couple things. Tatum is newly inflicted with superstar expectations. And then two, like, Boston's way better. Boston is so much better. Like, if you played, if this was, if there was a single elimination game on a neutral court, and both teams were guaranteed to bring 100% effort,

I'd pick Boston by at least 15. They're just way better. They're just so much better. So like the pressure here is like, and by the way, Boston's not out of the woods yet. I think Boston's going to win tomorrow and I think they're going to win game five or six. That's what I expect to happen.

But like, would you be the least bit shocked if they went into Miami tomorrow, came out a little bit slow, Miami shot well, all of a sudden they're up 15, all of a sudden the palms get sweaty, all of a sudden they get a little sloppy. The crowd gets into it. It's a close game. A couple guys make some shots at the end and they win. No, I wouldn't be shocked.

And then you're looking at a guaranteed game seven, even if you win game six, right? So they're not out of the woods yet. And so Tatum has to close this deal. And quite frankly, if he doesn't, this is a massive black mark on his resume. As a guy who is now at the superstar level, you are not, Luca.

You've been in the Eastern Conference finals twice before this. Okay? You've gone against LeBron James. You've gone against the same Miami Heat team. You don't get the I'm New on the Block excuse. You don't get any of that. Now, I expect Jason Tatum to rise to the occasion and to close this deal. But there's no question that Jason Tatum is under more pressure.

How much swing do you think there is in the potential for how we view Jason Tatum, depending on just how the remainder of his postseason goes? Like best to worst case scenario, what is the variation there and how could that potentially change? like the conversations that we're having about him. So the worst case scenario, we just went over that. It's a big black mark on his resume. And then essentially, you know how that goes? Like from that point forward, everyone, like, you're just constantly clawing yourself

out of that hole. You're no longer the, you know, there's kind of like a pathway in the, in the career trajectory of an NBA superstar. It's like, you're the darling. And then, you know, you have some losses and you're cut slack for them. But then there's like the loss that's like one loss too many. And then like everyone turns on you. And then suddenly the flash like it's shined on all of your weaknesses, right?

We're kind of starting. We might this. I don't think this is it yet for Luca. But we're like one playoff exit from Luca away. Like if he lost in the second round next year, I think the public would turn on Luca pretty quick as a guy who's too heliocentric and doesn't defend well enough. But like that's kind of the situation that Tatum's in.

I think Tatum's kind of at that point now. Like if he loses this series to Miami, there's going to be a lot of people calling him a fraud. Now, what him winning a title this year would remind me of is kind of like what Kauai Leonard did with the Raptors in 2019. Now, Kauai has demonstrated that he's been a better regular season player. He was an MVP candidate in previous seasons. May or may not have been the rightful winner in the 2017 year

when Russell Westbrook won. So like, it's not a, it's not a perfect apples to apples comparison. But what it would remind me of is like, because like what is the 2020, 2019 title for Kwai Leonard? Like if you look at it,

in isolated by itself, it's a supreme accomplishment. Like, unquestionably the best player on the team that won the championship against a good team and unquestionably deserve final. MVP in superstar fashion, right? But everyone around that, like, there was some Kauai's the best player in the world, Buzz. I never bought into that. I didn't think he was nearly a good enough of a

playmaker. What I thought he was in 2019 was the tip of a spear. And the spear was arguably one of the most talented spears in the league, right? And as the tip of the spear, he was clearly the best player and he was able to push them over the top. But I don't think, I didn't think he was close to as good as Kevin Durant or LeBron. And that was proven to be true in the subsequent seasons, in my opinion. Like he's, to me, he's clearly just not quite as good as those guys, right? That's kind of where I would see Tatum at here. Like, if you won a title, it'd be an unassailable, definitively best player on the best team in the league, finals MVP, all of that stuff.

But is anybody going to think Tatum is the best player in the league? No. So you might have, Boston fans will. So that's kind of the way I see it. Jason Tatum to me is having a 2019 Kauai-esque playoff run if he closes the deal. I think it's a great comparison. And we've thrown that out there before a couple times.

But stylistically, in terms of the role, the prototype they are is play. players, the two-way impact, and the incredibly talented supporting cast, but not having that second remotely superstar caliber guy, there's definitely a lot of commonalities there. So another story with Tatum today is that he is first team all-MBA, and he is part of an incredibly young group there, all five guys, that being Tatum, Luca, book, Janice, and Yokic, 27 or younger. So, Jason, with that youth movement that we have seen,

and we've talked about the transition of eras that we're kind of witnessing in these playoffs as well, out of those five guys, you get one of them for the rest of their career. Who are you taking? It's such a good question. So I think the answer is Janus, but I have one caveat.

I think Janus is almost guaranteed to be the best player out of that group for the rest of his career. But that I would say that irrespective of general management, meaning irrespective of roster around him. But if I was told that I had a team full of amazing role players that could defend and shoot,

and I needed one guy, I would probably take Luca, strictly because I think his half-court surgery is such a ceiling razor for already talented teams. We talked about this last night. This Dallas construct is kind of genius for me in the sense that the way they space the floor, the way that they attack matchups,

it's kind of like built to succeed in the playoffs, right? So I do think that I would want Janus if I was building from scratch. But if I was told that I already had like the 2019 Raptors and I needed one guy, I think I would take Luca because I think the way that he could elevate the team in the half court while carrying water for them on the defensive end would cover for it. Actually, Carson, you brought this up last night and we were already in the weeds on something else so I didn't want to get into it. But you said, I favor offense over defense a little bit. So I do too for the record. I, where I draw the line is defensive liability. But if I could have a supremely talented offensive player who could hold his own on the the defensive end or a less talented offensive player who was a great defensive player, I would take the offensive player. And the reason why is you can, it's so much easier to

coach up the defensive end of the floor. Look at what Dallas has done. Look at how they've convinced this mediocre defensive team to defend pretty well, although they've got, they've been exposed by Golden State as lacking personnel in the series. But the point is, is like, there's, I can't coach guys into making shots, you know? Like, I would even say that you can't even coach guys in terms of running sets to get good, like to get good looks in the playoffs because of scouting in the way that physicality is allowed off the ball and how much team switch. It's just sets are far less effective than they are in the regular season.

That what works in the playoffs offensively is how much your top end talent can absorb attention, you know? And so from that standpoint, point like in the in the specific environment of that top end uh defensive talents already on the roster i think a guy like luca would raise a ceiling higher than a guy like yonis would but that's that dude like how often do we see teams that are perfectly put together not very often so like i guess i guess another way to frame that answer would be to say i think lucca could beat yonis in a playoff series if he had a really good defense behind him because of the fact that his he could

raise the ceiling on offense but i do think yonis is the better overall basketball player that's a super interesting perspective i think and to me those are the two choices as well as much as i love nico yokic you have the best player in the world in yonis and i think the guy who has the highest offensive ceiling in luka and is also four years younger than yonis so there is an advantage there so that's again interesting because i thought for a time with yonis that there was an argument that maybe, well, definitely he needed more around him offensively, right? And that we've seen what Luca can do with shooting and just, you know, like, competent secondary creation and how he can propel that to an elite offense.

I mean, his second year in the league, he led the Mavs to have the highest offensive rating ever at the time. Like, it was an unbelievable accomplishment. Whereas Yonis, we saw some of the areas in which he could be exploited as a half court creator and whatnot. And he does need some of that permanent creation and big time shot making alongside him. So you think Luca needs more right around him, needs more talent around him to be like best guy on a title team than Janice does.

Yeah, absolutely. But at the same time, like we talked about earlier, which I think we talked about how Luca was vying to pass LeBron and Steph as the best offensive engine in the league, right? And Steph, I think, has proven in this series that he's a better offensive engine still. So Luca hasn't quite gotten to that point. But again, Steph's not an option in this list, and we're looking forward with this group of five players, which, by the way, it's super cool that all these young guys made first team all NBA. I think that's such a cool indicator of where the league is going and that it's healthy and in good hands.

But the point is, like, Luca as an offensive engine, this is perfect example. Janus averaged with the bucks, 82 points per 100 half-court possessions against Boston. do you think there's any chance in the world that Luca doesn't manage at least a 90 or 100 offensive rating against Boston? I think they'd lose still. I think Janus's overall impact in that series was better. But in terms of strictly half-court offensive creation, what Luca brings to the table, I think, is superior to what Janus brings. Yeah, with you there completely. And you mentioned how cool it is to have such young representation on this first team list. And I think that's kind of undeniable.

But as you look at these five, do you have any issues with it? Anything you would change about the first team all NBA this year? Oh, I hated it. So I think it's cool that the young guys got on in terms of this, like, it's kind of a cool moment in NBA history, but I thoroughly disagree with the list. Like, you know, I, I tend to follow the Bill Simmons ideology that the all-MBA teams should just strictly be essentially player rankings. Like, I think they should be a snapshot of like, first team all-MBA is who are the five best players in basketball that season. Second team, all-N-BAs who's the, you know, 10 best players in basketball that season.

That's the way that I would do that. So I don't think anybody thought Devin Booker was a top five player in the NBA this year. I think that's ridiculous. I think even if we look past that to Steph. So for instance, like Steph, in my opinion, even though he didn't shoot as well as he did in previous years,

even his diminished self this season was significantly better overall as a basketball player, in my opinion, than Devin Booker. So I think that's ridiculous. I could go further. LeBron James was, yes, he played on a terrible team. Yes, he wasn't as good defensively as he was in previous seasons, but he was a top 10 player this year. I thought he played better basketball overall than DeMard de Rosen did.

Now, Demar de Rosen had a great season. Had some good playmaking. It was great in clutch time, had an amazing scoring season. His team was better. I 100% agree with you there. I didn't think DeMar de Rosen was better at basketball than LeBron James this season. That's just, that's ridiculous to me. Jason Tatum, as great as he was.

And again, there's a games played thing here happening that gets complicated where I could see why. Tatum was above Kevin Durant. But when I put my list together, I had Kevin Durant first team. Why? Because Kevin Durant was one of the top five players in the NBA this year when he was available. Now, the one thing that gets tricky is the center issue, the Yokic and B thing. And I do believe that you should at least try to functionally have basketball lineups represented in this list. But yeah, like those are those are just like, I just tend to think that these should more reflect essentially player rankings rather than like, you know, team achievement awards. Like, there

to be something separate from team accomplishment in the NBA. And I thought that this would be, I think that this is where that should reside. Unequivocally agree with you there. And the book, Steph one, I think is pretty glaring to me because it's such a product of narrative. Like if you sit down and think critically, their raw production is like effectively identical. Steph, even with his down shooting years, more efficient by true shooting percentage. The on-off data is so overwhelming.

It's so obvious how fundamentally important he is as a. an offensive engine to just a different level than Book. But, you know, the sons are the best team. Book didn't even have a significant games played advantage. And that did make this year weird because it's like everybody missed at least 10 games pretty much. But it feels like you can adjust for that and maybe just say, okay, well, if everybody's missing games, maybe it doesn't matter quite as much.

I think that last point that you made is interesting, though, about trying to have a functional basketball lineup because I think I'm even more all in on the philosophy of this should be who are the best players in basketball. I think that there have been a ton of times right history, you know, where you have two fours together, right? Because how could you avoid that throughout the 2000s? You got to have some combination of KG, Tim Duncan, and Dirk on the first team every single year. That's a really weird, clunky kind of lineup. So I just think Embedd should have been here.

Like Jason Tatum, first 20-something games sucked. And then he was phenomenal post-all-star break. But Embed was consistently clear top five guy to not have him here because of a dated, you know, positional system I feel it's dated is really another complaint I would have. That's fair. And that's definitely not something I'm as passionate about. So I would be, I would be with you in that regard. And I guess at that point, you could even argue that in B, should be an over-Stef. But like, I thought another big thing that on the step, another big thing on the Steph Booker thing, like, like the Phoenix Sun stayed healthy all season.

They were a machine with exception of the end of the season when Chris Paul was. out and even then they were great because as we said frequently on the show i thought the sun's top to bottom had the most talent in the league obviously not counting the superstars right and so from that standpoint like when you talk about what step had to weather through this season like what he had to deal with in terms of guys being in and out of the lineup trying to work clay back into the system trying to work jordan pool back into the system in a bigger role that he had rightfully earned like I thought Steph did an amazing job navigating a really, really difficult season. And the degree of difficulty to what Steph had to do this year was significantly higher than

what Devin Booker did. And that's never factored in enough. The winning culture I totally get. And I think it's so important to not lose sight of that. Like you can't just walk through life making excuses about results in winning and losing because that's, you're just not doing yourself any favors there. I get that. But at the same time, like, I do think it's important context. And it is worth having that conversation. Like, to me, the conversation surrounding LeBron and the Lakers is like, yeah, LeBron's a terrible GM.

Him pushing for the Russell Westbrook move was a terrible decision. He also dropped 50 a few times this year and was one of the best offensive players in the league. Like, that has to be, that has to be, like, it's not, LeBron didn't stop playing good basketball. like that that to me like we we too often allow ourselves to and it I understand it winning is is why we do this we play the game to win you play to win the game as the cliche goes right but at the same time like especially with these kinds of lists I do think it's important to apply the appropriate context like had the warrior stayed healthy guess what they would have beat the sons in the standings in my opinion so like to me it's that simple yeah and I think their record when stephen Dremont was

healthy reflects that. So you mentioned LeBron. He was honored just third team, as you said, but do you think this will be the last all-MBAA team that LeBron makes, Jason? If so, it'll be because of injury. I think LeBron has one final, truly great MVP caliber season in him. A couple of reasons why. One, he still looked great athletically this year. two i think i think we are going to see a motivated lebron that we saw in 2020 like consistently in lebron's career when you put a couple of factors together recent humiliation combined with appropriate talent surrounding him that that allows lebron to believe in the mission those things mixed together to make a motivated LeBron.

LeBron was humiliated in 2019 to the point where I keep blanking on his name every time I try to bring it up. So Carson, if you can remember, tell me. But that swing forward, the European swing forward from the Knicks that blocked him on the game winner in Madison Square Garden. Do you remember who I'm talking about? I can't think of his name. Yeah, I can't remember the play, but I don't remember who it was.

Oh my gosh, this is going to kill me. So anyway, he blocked LeBron. He got in trouble for bringing wine to the bench. He said, I'm activating playoff mode. Remember the whole Instagram post that he did? And then immediately they went like 2 and 13 to end the season or something like that. Like, so the way I see it, like he came out of that, got Anthony Davis. So he saw a championship opportunity.

and was motivated by his recent failures and it amounted in such a dominant, like that 2020 LeBron season was such an incredible start-to-finish dominant season. I'm on the record that I thought he absolutely deserved the MVP over Janus. That was the incredibly weak Eastern Conference that massively inflated all of Janus's advanced metrics and massively inflated the record for the Bucks. The Lakers were basically right there with them in the standings

in the significantly tougher conference. You know, like, and remember, guys, you play 30 games against the other conference. You play 52 against your own conference, okay? So the conferences are a huge impact on things like metrics, on things in the standings. Like, you can't just take it at face value, right? So, like, that was as dominated season as it gets. This coming year, you have humiliated, miss the playoffs, literally miss the playoffs when 20 of the 30 teams get in, okay?

You have LeBron and Anthony Davis on the roster. I think they're going to flip Russell Westbrook for quality. role players. And we literally saw Andrew Wiggins, who was a massively overplayed role player in Minnesota, a contract that nobody wanted, suddenly playing well as a super functional two-way wing in the warrior system. That's the kind of guy that the Lakers need to be targeting, like inflated contracts for role players that were missed cast as stars, try to get those types of guys back. I think the Lakers are going to come back and have a good amount of talent. And I think they're going to have one last final super motivated LeBron season. Here's the problem. If his knee inflates

on him for no particular reason and he only plays 52 games, then he might not make an all-MBA team. So if the question is, is he going to make an all-NBA team? If he stays healthy for one more year, I believe he'll be first team all-MBA next year. I think that that's perfectly logical. By the way, it was the great Mario Hizonia who made that game. All-time Grafuss, of course, got to love that guy. I'm with you completely, and I just think you, look at all the complaints about LeBron this year and the areas in which he fell short and it's, you know, consistent defensive engagement, right? It's leadership stuff, stuff that you harped on a bunch in terms of offensive versatility, in terms of his scoring peak and efficiency and

what he can still do as a playmaker. Like, there's no question that LeBron, when motivated, plays at a top five level. And so, like you said, if he just does that for a full year, then he should be recognized accordingly. And I think you never know. with like just how prolonged peaks have become in modern sports. But I'm tentative to even say to put a hard limit at one more year. Like we just don't know. I don't know when LeBron is going to fall off because we, A, have never seen guys playing for as long at this high a level period

and have never seen anybody playing individually close to the level that LeBron is at in year 19 and at his age. So I think we will certainly see all NBA LeBron again. Yeah, I feel confident. that there will be one more. But yeah, I'm with you. Like, would I be shocked if in year 21, LeBron was, you know, averaging 27, 7 and 7? No, I wouldn't be shocked at all. And, you know, the motivation thing is going to be, yeah, it's insane.

But, like, the big indicator will be training camp, and you'll know right away. And, like, people act like that stuff doesn't matter. It does. Like, the preseason doesn't matter. Well, guess what? The 2020 lake and everybody's ass in the preseason and the 2022 Lakers were losing literally to everybody in the preseason. It's just to me, like, even if the stars aren't playing,

it's an indicator of the level of focus you have in training camp in practice. Because even if LeBron and Russ and Anthony Davis didn't play in all the preseason games, if you were approaching practice with the right level of intensity every single day, you would have won two or three of those preseason games just by playing hard and just by defending really well. And they just did it. And it was predictable that they'd come out the gates in the regular season and do the same thing. So I expect a locked-in LeBron to start next season,

and I think the Lakers will have one last great run. All right, guys, that is all we have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. All of you guys who are listening, if you guys could take the time to like this video, I would really, really appreciate that. It helps us a lot. If you could also subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel

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