The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - NBA All-Star Reaction: Steph Curry leads Team Shaq, LeBron sits, Draymond criticism

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Jason Timpf reacts to NBA All-Star Weekend including the new format, Mac McClung in the dunk contest, and Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James not playing in the games. Later, Jason breaks down who would win a 1-on-1 NBA tournament featuring players like LeBron, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Nikola Jokic. Jason closes the show by discussing Draymond Green's critical comments around the NBA and why Jason disagrees with the Warriors star on many of his talking points. Timeline: 4:00 - Intro 5:00 -  New All-Star game format 9:45 - Mac McClung wins drunk contest 14:00 - LeBron James doesn’t play 21:00 - Who wins 1v1 NBA tournament  31:30 - Draymond criticizes NBA #Volume #Herd Follow Jason Timpf on social: https://twitter.com/_JasonLT https://www.instagram.com/jtimpf15/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you.

you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the ice. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.c.c-o-slash-B-Ball. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys had a great weekend. We're going to get into All-Star Weekend today with our five major takeaways from this year's All-Star weekend.

We're going to talk a little bit about the new format. I want to talk about what a one-on-one tournament would look like in the NBA. I actually put together like a sample tournament and talked through it, bracket-style. which will be a fun one for us. We're talking a little bit about LeBron showing up late. We're going to talk a little bit about the dunk contest,

and then Draymond Green just went on a rampage, just shitting on the NBA over the weekend. I want to talk a little bit about that at the tail end. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT, so you guys don't miss any show announcements.

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So first, major takeaway out of five today, thoughts on the new format. I actually really liked the tournament format with shorter Elam-ending style games. I'm generally a huge fan of the Elam ending. I think that it turns it into. a contest of basketball instead of some weird gamesmanship at the tail end of games. I also think shortening the games makes it so that there's less opportunity for cheap baskets. You know you're out there for a shorter period of time. It just kind of like naturally breeds a tiny bit of urgency.

And as far as the tournament format goes, it advances the teams that are playing harder. So like, I think that makes sense. Like if there's a couple of all-stars out there that don't give a shit, get them eliminated in the first game and then have the guys that want to play hard, play in the second game. I think the format makes sense. I saw Sam Amicoe tweet a quote from an NBA GM that said, quote, Adam Silver is obsessed with tournaments. Playing in season, now All-Star, they've not proven to benefit our league.

And I just completely disagree with that line of thinking. I think the playing in tournament is great because it just gives us more high leverage basketball. Those have been excellent games. When the playing tournament is on, we all want to watch. And I think that that is just a case. enough for it. It gives you just a little bit of interesting basketball to kind of bridge that gap between the regular season and the playoffs. The in-season tournament is only two years old,

but I already like it, and I wish they'd expand it. I'd make it a 16-team tournament. Just add another round. Same sort of thing. I think we get high-leverage basketball in December. It's a great way to like scratch that itch, so to speak, our desire to watch high-leverage basketball in the middle of a regular season that can drag on, like it goes October, November, December, January, February, March, April. We're talking six months here solid, if you count the cut off the half of April and the half of October, six straight months of basketball. And if you can bridge it so that two months in, we have the in season tournament, and two months in we have trade deadline, all-star break type of stuff, it just kind of like provide some tent pulls. You don't have as much slack there in the middle where we all get bored, right? So like, I'm a big believer that the in-season tournament is good for the NBA. And as for All-Star, I mean, here's the thing. Last night was, by far the hardest that those guys have played in the last few years. There were two things that cheapened it a little bit for me.

Like, I agree with Draymond. Like, I just don't see the point in letting non-all-stars play with the all-stars. Like, I was intrigued by it. Like, I wanted to see what it would look like. I just wanted to see the young kids come in there and play super hard and see if that would trigger something. And it did to a certain extent, but they're not all-stars. And I think there's a way to do the exact same format.

And instead of doing three eight-man all-star teams, just do four, six-man all-star teams and let them run that same exact format and you get to see all all-stars playing. And then also, I just get rid of the gimmicks. Like, I was watching Victor Wemann Yama and Jaron Jackson play super hard and try to change the dynamic of the all-star game. And I'm listening to Kevin Hart do stand up in the background or like the inside the NBA crew just like shooting the shit. I was actually embarrassed for the league during some of that stuff, especially the Mr. Beast one where like Mr. Beast is out there like distracting the kids. while he's trying to shoot.

He's like making these weird comments about Dame missing a couple of jump shots like that. It was all just really weird. I saw someone on Twitter say, the NBA has lost the plot because we just want to see the best players in the world play basketball. And I could not agree more. Get rid of the lower level players. Get rid of the gimmicks or at least move them to the periphery. If you want to do the musical performances and the jokes from the studio crew and here's Kevin Hart

giving a stand-up routine, put them before the event or after the event. instead of in the middle. Actually have the event start on time. Make it so your fans know if I turn on the TV at this time within 10, 15 minutes, I'm going to get to watch my favorite players play basketball. Streamline it. And again, the beauty of the tournament style is it helps breed competition. The lazier teams will lose in the first round and we'll get the two more competitive

teams of All-Stars playing in the final. And again, the shortened games, get rid of some of the cheaper baskets. You want to bring basketball back to the forefront and put the only on the players to entertain us. Now, will it ever be a monumental basketball event again? Probably not. But then again, the All-Star game is trashed in pretty much every sports league,

and it's not really a fixable problem. I just am saying that I'd rather go down with basketball than go down with gimmicks, and I'd put the onus on the players in that regard. Second biggest takeaway. My thoughts on Mack McClung and the dunk contest. This is probably one of the biggest things that I disagree with the masses about. Like, the masses are obsessed

with this idea, like, we got to convince stars to participate in the dunk contest. And I think even if the NBA could convince John Morant and Anthony Edwards and Zion Williamson and someone like Donovan Mitchell or whoever it is to do the dunk contest, it would have some intrigue because of the stars, but the actual dunk contest itself would be lacking because game dunking and contest dunking are two entirely different sports in my opinion. And like, there are certain players in the NBA that are good at contest dunking, but they tend to not be superstars and there's there's just not enough of them.

Professional dunking is like an entirely separate sport. That has a massive following. There are dozens of excellent professional dunkers all over the world. I've seen three of them come through Arizona over the years. Two of them, I've seen them do practice sessions before. And like, they just dunk over and over and over and over again.

They're constantly trying new dunks. They'll miss a hundred times before they actually master a dunk. It's like, and that's the thing too. It's like 25% vertical leap. And like 75% of it is like, intricacies of coordination and timing and creativity and all these different things. It's a different sport. And it's basically impossible to find four NBA all-star level players that can reach

that level of art in professional Dunkin. There are a handful of players in the NBA that had that gift, right? Like I thought Stefan Castle last night had a little bit of that flare. Or on Saturday night had a little bit of that flare. When he had that East Bay where he put it through his legs off of the ball coming through the net, like that was really, really impressive. impressive dunk. We even had a few years back. We had the Zach Levine and Aaron Gordon showdown, right? But that was kind of a flash in the pan kind of thing. It was just kind of a confluence of

events where two of the very best contest style dunkers in the NBA happened to kind of meet in that situation. That's not a thing that's going to organically happen very often. Right. And even, like, and even those guys were like, I don't want to do this anymore, right? Mack McClung is an NBA player. I saw a lot of people talking about how he's not an NBA player. He's a fringe NBA player, but he is an NBA player. He's played in five games for four different teams. I'm of the opinion that once you put the jersey on and you step on the floor, you're an NBA player. That's sacred to me. If you've accomplished that, no one can ever take that away from you. I think that that matters.

But his main talent, the thing that he's best at compared to most people in the world is he is a professional contest dunker type of athlete. And he's one of the very best in the world at it. And he's kept the event of float in recent years because people are amazed by his creativity in his athleticism. I would actually just lean into that concept instead of trying to get NBA superstars to participate. Going back to that comment I saw earlier, in the same way that the NBA All-Star game should just be the best basketball players in the world playing basketball, let's make the NBA dunk contest the best contest dunkers in the world competing in a dunk contest.

Get Mack McClung in there. Get seven more of the greatest contest dunkers in the world. Get seven more of the greatest contest dunkers in the world, and hold a contest absolutely loaded with the wildest and craziest dunks, with real NBA All-Stars standing all around the sidelines celebrating, and celebrate that sport, which is a different sport, that probably should be showcased as a completely separate sport with these different athletes. I think it has way more potential to be like a must-see event every year. If you have all the best contest dunkers in the world,

instead of four NBA superstars that don't really have the time to practice anything other than a windmill or a 360 or a East Bay through the legs, wherever you want to call it. Like, I think, I think, like, that's the thing. You go back and look at the stars old dunks. Like, at the time, we didn't even know what contest dunkers looked like. And, you know, Kobe'd go through his legs or Michael Jordan would jump from the free throw line and it was this beautiful, iconic thing.

But now we've just seen too much. We've seen too much of the top end of real dunking talent. And I think that that would be the direction I'd go if I was the NBA. I'd be like, hey, we're having all the best contestunkers in the world on Saturday night come play. Like, I think that makes the most sense. And I mean, Mack McClung and the success he's had there to me is a perfect example of that. Number three, thoughts on LeBron showing up late and then not playing. Here's my take on what LeBron was thinking.

The Lakers just got Luca Donchich, and they haven't had any opportunity to really practice and implement him into their system. They have a makeup game from the fires this Wednesday against the Charlotte Hornets. They're the only team that plays on Wednesday. Everyone else is waiting until Thursday. I bet they're practicing today. And if they're not, they're certainly practicing Tuesday. So LeBron, his only opportunity to take a break with his family, was that stretch right before the All-Star game from Thursday through like Saturday night, right?

I don't blame him at all for at 40 years old trying to maximize that time, since we're probably going to see a more engaged version of LeBron than we've seen since 2020 once we get to the other side of this break. So it made sense to me that if he was going to try to take a rest, he would do it Thursday, Friday, Saturday there right after the Jazz game. And that was going to imply that he would be traveling back into the Bay Area on Sunday before the game. As for not playing in the game, I think he was kind of protesting the format. I think he looked at it and he thought, why the hell, when I'm so damn old, am I going to go out and play in an exhibition game against Zach Eadie and Dalton Connect. I don't blame him

for that at all either. I personally didn't agree with that idea from the league. Now, here's the thing. If you want to criticize LeBron for getting stars to stop participating in the dunk contest over the years, I think that's fair criticism. He was kind of the first guy. Now, I mean, I think he's maybe started that trend, but you could argue it would have inevitably happened, right? But as far as far as the game goes, this isn't even the first year he waited until Sunday to show up. It isn't even the first year he sat out part of the game. Like, there was a year recently where he barely played it all. So to me, this is like kind of a LeBron Rorschach test.

Like, if you don't like LeBron, you're going to cling to this, you're going to make him the villain, Amy's going to be the sole reason no one cares about the All-Star game. I'm sure we'll see a clip of Rob Parker or somebody like that later today, just blaming LeBron for the death of the All-Star game. But, like, if you don't dislike LeBron for whatever reason, I bet you just don't care. And I'm right there with you guys.

just don't care that LeBron showed up late and didn't really want to play in that, that specific form. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there.

But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas.

And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel.

Help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one hot flash and hormonal crying jag at a time.

You ladies know what I mean. I'll bet you a perimenopausal chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast. How hard can it be with Deanna Maria Riva, where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden, I'd had hanginess happening on my own. I was like, what the hell is that?

I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that nest was going to be. Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex? Dating at 45. How high can it be getting naked at 50 with the new guy? That one's kind of hard, you know? Well, that's lighting. They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try.

So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter, and dive into it unfiltered and unbothered and ask, how hard can it be? I cannot believe I'm about to say this out loud in public. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva as part of My Cultura Podcast Network available on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed.

And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reed. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense.

And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nass would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. man, he running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, after you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get to the fun stuff, the one-on-one tournament. I think this is such an interesting concept and one that I want to get a little deeper into today.

First of all, I want to shout out Nefisa Collier, who won the WMBA, or the unrivaled tournament, the one-on-one tournament. against a bunch of WNBA players. I was so impressed by her in the WMBA finals. I thought she was clearly the best player in that series. And then she dropped the bar after she won the one-on-one tournament where she said NBA players need to be willing to put their name on the line in a tournament like that. So someone needs to just like Photoshop a cigarette into Nefisa's mouth

just so that she's just one of the coolest hoopers on the planet. And she just keeps showing that time and time again. But I wanted to try out this theoretical concept. So we're going to run a simulated tournament. today. I chose eight players, and I used a list randomizer for seating. First of all, some preliminary stuff. I went based on the top 10 players in the league, because I think that's more interesting. But in all

likelihood, a guy like Yokic would not participate in this tournament. LeBron probably would not participate. You're going to see a lot more of guys like lower level players in the NBA, like a Kyrie Irving, like a James Hardin, instead of like a Yokic or a LeBron. But I want to just for the sake of like actually making it look closer to what the WMBA did, I wanted to do all the top players in the league. Okay.

I went with Make It Take It, meaning if you score, you get the ball back. That's generally the rule for one-on-one basketball around the world, and that's how the unrival tournament went. And I went with no dribble limit, mimicking what the WMBA or the unrival tournament did with a seven-second shot clock, which on that front,

like on lower levels, like even high major D1 and like lower-level pro hoops, you'll work on a dribble limit, like a two-dribble limit or a three-dribal limit, because you're practicing being efficient with movement. Why? Because there's only a few dozen players in the world who are good enough to just dribble the air out of the basketball without having it hurt their basketball team. Right. Like most players need to be able to score quickly and efficiently as part of a five-man

context, right? But these guys, the guys who would be playing in this tournament, are absolutely in the group of guys who would regularly use lots of dribbles to get to their spots. So no dribble limit, seven second shot clock, random list, top 10 players in the world, make it take it, you guys get the drill. Here's how the order came out after I used the randomizer. So our number one seat is Nicola Yokic. Two seed is Anthony Edwards. Three seed is Yonisantan Tancic. The four seed is Luca Donchich. The five seed is Jason Tatum. The six seed is Kevin Durant. The seven seed is LeBron James and the eight seed is Shea Gilges Alexander. So our one verse eight is Yokic versus SGA. I think Yokch takes this matchup relatively easily. I think he just plays back off of SGA.

and tries to bait him into jump shots. And as long as he doesn't literally make six mid-range jump shots in a row, Yokic will get the ball. And Shea shoots 54% on jumpers inside of 17 feet, but he's probably not going to go six for six. So Yokch is going to get the ball. Once Yokch gets the ball, Shea has quite literally no way of stopping him from getting

just a bunch of layups in a row. Like there's no variance, no chance for a miss there. So I think Yokic advances relatively easily against SGA. Our four versus five matches, up Luca Donchich versus Jason Tatum. This is a much closer matchup in my opinion. Like, Luca would basically have to concede pull-up jump shots to Tatum because if he plays up on him, he'll get blown by just constantly for layups. I mean, we saw that a dozen times in the NBA finals, right? But we also saw Luca repeatedly cook Jason Tatum one-on-one in the finals.

He's too strong for Tatum, and once he gets an angle, he can just work closer to the rim and give him issues. I'm going to go with Luca here slightly. I think Tatum's value is in his utility, but I just think Luca is a more gifted one-on-one score who would be able to work Tatum closer to the rim for higher percentage shots. And Tatum, as far as his jump shooting goes off the dribble, he's actually a low field goal percentage guy. He's a high, effective field goal percentage guy because he takes a lot of pull-up threes, but he will miss pull-up jump shots. And Luca is going to force him into some misses by playing more, playing the drive more and forcing him to shoot. I think it would be a very close game, but I think Luca is just a more gifted,

craftier one-on-one score, a much more reliable shotmaker when he gets like into that short to mid-range area. So I would go with Luca advancing in that four or five matchup. Our two versus seven, Anthony Edwards versus LeBron James. I think Ant takes this one. With LeBron in his prime, he would have been able to match Ant's athleticism in a way that would have allowed LeBron's size to carry the day. But there are two reasons why I'd take Ant at this point with LeBron at age 40. One, Anne has put all defenders in the league into a bind because he's become one of the best three-point shooters in the league. You basically have to choose between taking away the drive

or conceding the jumper, or taking away the drive and conceding the jumper, or taking away the jumper and conceding the drive. Ant would get great looks every single possession. And then two, Ant is a bad defender in a lot of ways. Like he's really bad at navigating screens. He loses shooters and rebounders off ball constantly. but he's absolutely awesome at one thing on defense, and that's one-on-one defense.

He's one of the most laterally quick players in the league, so you're not going to go around him. You're going to have to go through him, and he's an absolute fire hydrant. It's basically impossible to go through him unless you're absolutely massive. And for the record, LeBron's a big dude.

He would try to bully Ant. He would win some of those battles, but I think Ant would also win some of those battles. And then on the other end, I think LeBron basically has to concede jump shots to him, and Ant's one of the best jump shooters in the league. So to be clear, I would take prime LeBron over,

Ant, but in this format in the year 2026, I'm going to take Ant to advance in a somewhat close game. Three versus six, Kevin Durant versus Janice and Tenacumbo. This is a very interesting matchup. On the one hand, this is a terrible format for Janus because he's the opposite of Ant. In that, like, he is very little in the way of shot making. If guys actually take away the drive and make him make shots over the top, that's not a strength of his. And while Ant is great on the ball, but terrible and everything else on defense, Janus is great at everything else. else on defense, but he can struggle a little bit guarding in space. He's especially struggled guarding KD over the years because KD knows how to get him up out of his stance with hesitation

dribbles or get him leaning one way before crossing over and getting dribble penetration. It's a matchup that KD's had a lot of success against. But on the flip side, Janus is probably the best power player in the league, not named Yokic. And KD. can struggle with power sometimes. We just talked the other day about how Jaron Jackson gave him some issues by ducking in in the post in that game that they lost to Memphis the other night. So I actually do think Janice would give KD some issues when Yonis had the ball. But KD does have the length to bother Yonis around the rim a bit.

We've even seen skinny or longer players like Wembe give Yonis some issues. Now, Wembe obviously a different challenge than KD, but I do think KD would win some of those battles. And I just think KD would do more damage to Yonis when KD has the ball than Yonis would do to KD in return. So I have KD advancing in a close game. Our second round, our one-versely,

four matchup, Nicola Yokic versus Luca Donchich. I actually view both of these guys as kind of similar in this format in that there are two players that would both need to concede jump shots to faster players so that they don't give up triple penetration and just basically hope they miss. And then on the other end,

they both have massive strength advantages and short range shot making advantages that they could exploit to score time and time again close to the rim. But Yokic is just so much bigger than Luca. I think he'd be able to force Luca into tougher shots further from the rim.

I think Luca would be more susceptible to variance in this matchup, and I still think Yokic can bully Luca really close to the rim. So I have Yokic advancing cleanly here to the championship. Our two versus six matchup, Anthony Edwards versus Kevin Durant. This would be an epic matchup. I talked earlier about Anzability to be a top-tier downhill threat while also a top-tail shooting threat and how that makes players make a decision.

But Kevin Durant has top-tier length. That gives him the best ability out of any player on this list to give space to contain the drive while also having the length to contest pull-up jump shots. This is a big part of why Kevin Durand is consistently one of the very best ISO defenders in the league. This year, players are shooting just 31% field goal percentage against KD and ISO. Last year, 32% for two years in a row now, players are missing more than two-thirds of their shots against KD in one-on-one. And the volume is super low because players know better and don't really try Kady. I think Ant would be able to stonewall Katie a little bit when he's on defense and force

KD into some mid-range jump shots, but KD is arguably the best mid-range jump shooter ever. We're going to talk about that in a minute. Even though I think Ant is excellent in this format, I think KD is kind of his kryptonite in this matchup. So I have KD advancing to the championship. And then our championship would be Nicole Yokic versus Kevin Durant. I think this is a super interesting one because I don't think either player has much of a chance at all to guard the other. KD is shooting a league best, 58% on jump shots inside of six.

17 feet. 4% better than anyone in the league, including Shea, Yokic shoots 61% on hooks. So Kady's mid-range jump shot is nearly as efficient as a Yokic hook. I also think KD would actually be able to get past Yokch a few times by using that hesitation dribble and some of those crossovers where Yokch would bite on trying to contest one of those short-range jump shots. Then on defense, now again, Yokch would bury KD a lot, but KD would have the length to get some good contests on Yokits around the rim. The trouble would be for KD, Yokic just completely bullying him right under the rim for layups. But that's where Kevin Durant's length could potentially force a miss. And again, I just think Katie's game is just built for this format. He's always been one of the

best defensive players in the league when he's engaged. And I think he's the best one-on-one offensive player in the history of the league. I think he barely beats Yokic, but I think Katie beats Yokic with a combination of short jump shots, nasty counter moves, while just forcing Yokic into one or two misses closer to the rim that he would need to survive. And as I kind of zoom back out from this tournament, it makes sense. KD's the greatest one-on-one player of all time, in my opinion. So it would make sense that he would win this type of tournament.

I'd have KD winning, and man, I really hope we get to see it next year. All right, before we get out of here for today, I want to talk a little bit about Dremont's comments. So Dremont went like really aggressive. shitting on the NBA last night. He was very critical of the rising stars playing with the All-Stars, which by the way, that part I agreed with,

as we talked about earlier. But then he just randomly decided to start shitting on the state of the NBA by like just parroting all the same talking points that we constantly hear from the old heads. He said, quote, it's just who can run faster, who can hit more threes, it's no substance,

I think it's very boring. Here's the thing. The NBA regular season does get boring sometimes. We can all admit that. There's some ugly back. basketball, there's a lack of urgency sometimes. It is far from perfect. But I promise you, it used to be way worse.

It is crazy to me, the rose-colored glasses some folks choose to look back at the old NBA with. If you think pace and space and spread pick and roll and modern transition basketball is ugly, go back and watch games from the early 2000s. Go back and watch games from the 90s in the regular season. Watch guys standing around in the paint. Watch a million of these horrifically ugly post-ups between these big, bulky forwards and centers

as guys are just throwing bullshit up at the rim. Watch Drew Gooden and David West take a million 17-footers. In my opinion, the game of basketball is different now, but it's absolutely better. The thing is, is it's far more sophisticated on both ends of the floor. The sets teams run are way more sophisticated than ever. The little offball actions and tricks that teams use to create space, like using the roll man as a lead blocker or like using non-shooters as screeners, adding a

third man to ball screens to make them harder to guard on defense, the gaping, the passing lane close outs, the crispness of rotations, even the strategic quirks, like how Boston used Tatum and Brown to shut down opponent ball screen attacks by putting Tatum on opponent's centers and putting their center on week above the break shooters. Like, the game is far more sophisticated now and far more entertaining as a result, in my opinion. Even though it can get ugly sometimes. It's just bullshit the way we look back at the old

NBA. I don't get it. And the thing is, is like, I personally think Draymond knows this. I think he knows it. The whole thing on this weekend kind of came off as like deliberately confrontational to me. And I don't really understand why.

The problem I have with it from Dremont's perspective is I think he's one of the biggest ambassadors of our game. I think he has responsibility to be an advocate of our game. He should be one of the guys going around and actively fighting these false narratives and explaining to the younger generation how sophisticated our game has become. And I think he's kind of fumbling that responsibility right now. And I hope he changes his tone soon. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. I am working the rest of today

on our updated contender rankings. We'll have content surrounding the contender rankings coming out on Tuesday and Wednesday. And then we're back to basketball on Thursday morning with a breakdown of Hornets Lakers. I will see you guys. The volume. What's up, guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to

and supporting hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys, I appreciate us. But if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.

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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 crying. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven,

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