The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - NBA regular season reaction: Spurs DISASTER, Thunder ready for title run, can LeBron carry Lakers?

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Jason reacts to the end of the NBA regular season and the playoff bracket being set. He discusses how the San Antonio Spurs hurt their title chances by benching Victor Wembanyama in their regular season finale against Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets, why Shai Gilgeous-Alexander deserves MVP, how good the OKC Thunder roster is (in response to Bill Simmons), the Eastern Conference playoffs setting up in a fun way for Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics, whether LeBron James will carry the Los Angeles Lakers against Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, and more. All lines presented by Hard Rock Bet.  #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend. Well, we have a good chunk of our playoff field set. We have our top six seeds in both conferences set. We have four playoff series set. Obviously waiting on some playing results, but as is always the case on Monday, I want to start with 10 big takeaways from this basketball weekend. We have a jam-packed week for the show. We have Nick Wright coming on the show tomorrow.

We have Brian Winhorst coming on the show later this week. We have eight series previews we're going to get to before we get to Saturday. But today I just want to kind of go big picture and talk about my initial thoughts as we head into the postseason. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Make sure you like this video and sign up for post notifications. That helps us a lot.

The last but at least, you guys want to get mailbags, mailbag questions into future mailbags, drop them in our full episodes on YouTube, and we'll get to them throughout the rest of the post season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So my number one big takeaway from this basketball weekend, the Spurs might have just cost themselves the title by doing one of the stupidest things

I have ever seen an NBA team do. very rarely do you see things line up in a way to where a single regular season game is as straightforward and important as last night's Denver San Antonio game. You regular listeners of the show will remember that over the last few weeks, we have had some important regular season games. I talked about the second Lakers Rockets game as being something that was super important. to the three seat. I talked about that crazy overtime Rockets Wolves game where the Rockets came all the way back and then they blew it in OT.

I talked about that game being super important for the five seat. And here's the thing. At the time, they really did seem important. But there was a few weeks left in the season. Plenty of time for weirdness. What happened with the Lakers? It didn't matter why Luca and Austin got hurt. So they ended up dropping to fourth anyway.

Anthony Edwards got hurt. Jaden McDaniels got hurt. And the Rockets finally kind of hit a little groove. So that game didn't matter. The Rockets passed them for fifth. The Wolves beat them again and it didn't matter. Again, it is very rare to have a regular season game that important as last night's game. And it typically happens in game 82.

Why? Because it's literally the finish line. But last night was a classic example of that game. The Spurs had an opportunity last night with one single home win. against the team that was essentially punting the game. They played Yokic to get to 18 minutes so he can qualify for awards and then they pulled him.

They had the entire remainder of their starting lineup out and several key bench guys out. Denver was punting that game because they had to play San Antonio and OKC no matter what. They either had to play OKC and then San Antonio and then OKC, obviously assuming the seating holds.

I've heard lots of people on Twitter say, well, don't count out this team or don't count out that team. Yeah, the wolves and the rockets are certainly capable of winning series, but we all view them as a tier below those. teams, those teams will be favored for obvious reasons. The nuggets were going to have to play both teams anyway. So they were like, whatever, we're punting the game. The Spurs had an

opportunity last night to make it so that they would only play one of those teams. They had an opportunity to dramatically increase their championship odds. There's some weird matchup stuff with those three teams. Again, I'm talking about Denver OKC and San Antonio. We talked in our final contender rankings last week that I kind of view them as a weird transitive property case where one team is like rock paper scissors in a lot of ways. These were the percentages that I used. I said I thought Denver was in trouble in an Oklahoma City matchup because I think OKC's offense has evolved past the struggles that they had last year in the playoffs against Denver. And Denver has had consistent problem scoring against OKC's defense.

As a matter of fact, in their last seven matchups where they've like played all their guys. OKC is 6 and 1, dating back to last year's playoff series. I have OKC at a 75-25 advantage in a series against Denver. I think San Antonio matches up really well with OKC. Very simply because of Victor Wenbinaima's ability in that specific matchup to stay close to the rim and how that, in conjunction with their ability to have these big perimeter athletes that can contest OKC's pull-up jump shooters, I think they have a real advantage there.

I give San Antonio a 60-40 edge in that matchup. I have too much respect for OKC to count them out. I think we talked about last week in the contender rankings, they're a better, deeper team now. They have some more shooting lineups they can put together to try to space swim, be out. They're just a better team, I think, overall than they were when those early season matchups took place. But I would still give San Antonio a slight edge in that matchup. But I think Denver has a real advantage against San Antonio. Because Yokic is the antidote to what Victor Wimb and Yama does on the defensive end of the floor. He can score on him one-on-one as he showed repeatedly in their last matchup.

And he can pull him away from the rim, which creates openings for their offense overall. Not to mention any sort of close game, we saw this in their matchup on Saturday a few weeks back. any sort of close game, you're getting this much more polished and confident and comfortable half-court attack from Jamal Murray and Nicole Yokic. They just got way better shots than San Antonio down the stretch of that game. So like, if they just keep things close in five games in that series, they just got to win four of those and they win that series. So like, I'd give Denver a 60-40 edge over San Antonio. I would pick Denver to win that series, at least as of right now. With one win last night, one single regular season win at home versus a team benching all of their

best players, you could have accomplished two massive goals. You could have made it so that you only had to play one of those two teams. And you could have made it so that it is more likely than not that the one of those two teams you play is the one you match up with best. Denver is a problem for you. You could have had OKC handle that problem for you. And I had a lot of people in my mentions last night saying things like, like, you know, we're trying to, we're trying to rest Victor Wemanniam and he's banged up. He had 40 in the previous game.

You're about to have a week off. In putting yourself into two, because like, here's the thing with Minnesota. Minnesota is a tough team. And so the alternative scenarios, Denver falls to four, you end up playing a team like Minnesota who beats the Lakers because the Lakers would have had no shot against Minnesota. We'll talk about that later. But if Minnesota gets into the three, you play them in round two, here's the thing. What have we talked about with Minnesota as their weakness over the last several years? Teams that can really protect the rim that can also put athletes on ant, which is like the definition of what San Antonio is and represents.

For the record, Minnesota would absolutely have an upset shot for San Antonio, San Antonio would be a much bigger favorite versus Minnesota than they would be against Denver. And it has a much better chance of being a shorter, quicker series. What does it matter if you buy Wembe, a healthy Wembe who just dropped 40, a day off yesterday, if he ends up having to play one or two brutally tough games against Denver in a few weeks? The rest angle was like completely short-sighted.

This was incredibly straightforward for the Spurs. When one regular season home game against the end of the Nuggets Bench, you get an easier second round matchup, you most likely get a Thunder team that you match up pretty well with. Now you're in the finals. Lose that game. Now you have to face Denver and OKC, and you'll have to face that Denver team that has your number

before you even get to the OKC matchup that you actually like. And in that matchup last night, the Spurs healthy scratched, their entire starting center rotation. All year long, the Spurs sucked without Victor Wemianama and Luke Cornett. In 1,317 possessions with both of those guys off the floor this year, they had a minus 7.1 net rating. Last night, in just six minutes of playing time,

the Spurs were minus 14 with Bismac Bianbo on the floor. The Spurs, yeah, they should have been able to win that game. But knowing the data about how bad, you've been without those guys all season, it exposed you to a completely unnecessary risk. And that risk burned them last night as they got their ass kicked by Julian Strother and David Roddy. Again, it's not a death sentence or anything. This doesn't end the San Antonio title pursuit. The spurs are capable of beating Denver in OKC consecutively. But they just made things way harder on themselves when they didn't need to. And I understand the desire to keep

Wemby healthy, but this was an example of straight up galaxy braining that process. You just made things harder on Wemby in his body. And it made no sense, right? This is something I was talking about before the game. It made absolutely no sense. That's suddenly shaped up to be their most important regular season game of the entire season. Of all 82, the one single game that would have the largest impact on where their title odds would fall as they headed into the postseason and they benched two of their most important players and arguably the most impactful per minute player in the entire NBA.

So here's the thing. If San Antonio loses to Denver in round two, this will go down as one of these stupidest things I have ever seen an NBA team do. Number two, San Antonio's stupidity from last night removed a lot of the variables from this year's playoff run. In addition to dramatically hurting their own playoff odds, the spurs also dramatically increased OKC's title odds.

I talked last week about how I thought if Denver got the third seed, I give OKC about a 50% chance to win the title and repeat. Why? Because in that situation, they would get whatever their playing matchup is for the first round. Then they'd most likely get Houston in round two, a Houston team that is really not set up to handle OKC. They'd be the sixth best team in the West if everyone was healthy. They can't handle the ball well enough to deal.

with OKC's ball pressure. I think the Rockets are doomed in that matchup. So OKC would just walk to the conference finals. And in that situation, they similarly have a San Antonio problem, but what if Denver just handles that problem for them? All of a sudden, you have a Denver team that they've matched up really well with.

Again, they've just been dominating that matchup since the middle of that second round series last year. It just kind of clears the way. Had Denver dropped the four, now it's much more complicated. Second round, you get Denver, which again, they match up really well with, but that makes it far more likely they have to run through

San Antonio in the conference final. San Antonio is really given Oklahoma City problems this year. It dramatically changed their title odds. If Denver had dropped a four, I'd put OKC at like right around a 33% chance to repeat. Now I think OKC has a better than 50% chance to repeat. And it opens up, it would have opened up a lot of things for other teams in the league. Like San Antonio might match up well with OKC, but the spurs are. are far more vulnerable to the top Eastern conference teams than the Thunder are. Like the Thunder would be pretty big favorites versus the Knicks and at least favorites by a substantial like tangible margin against a team like Boston.

I would probably pick the Celtics and the Knicks over the Spurs if they found their way to the finals. So at the Spurs won last night, you could have talked your way into the Spurs winning the title, the Celtics winning the title, the Knicks winning the title, the Nicks winning the title, Thunder winning the title. Like it kind of would have been more wide open. Now it feels like it's the thunder and then a pretty big gap to everyone else. And it's reflected in the odds, by the way.

All of our lines are provided by our partner Hard Rock Bet. At Hard Rock Bet, at Hard Rock Bet, the Thunder moved all the way up to plus 110 to win the title last night. That's how much of a difference that game made. Number three, there is a silver lining with the San Antonio shenanigans from last night. there are three series in particular that I think are going to be very fun to watch that we might not have gotten to watch if San Antonio had one last night and kicked Denver down to four. It would have added more intrigue to the final two rounds,

but it would have cost us some intrigue in the first two rounds. So San Antonio losing last night is going to give us an opportunity to see some more interesting early round series. Had San Antonio done the smart thing and played their guys last night, we would have watched Yokic just kick Shangoon's ass. Denver would have won in five or six, and the Lakers would have gotten annihilated by the wolves. The only shot for the Lakers to be competitive in a first round series was to be able to score the basketball, because that's what you're losing when you lose Austin and Luca, right? And to score the basketball, they were going to need

LeBron James to create a lot of good shots. The problem is, Minnesota has no weak link in their lineups defensively for LeBron to pick on, and Gobert can pretty easily, easily switch ball screens onto LeBron and shut down the Laker pick and roll. That was something we saw in the postseason last year. I think they would have methodically beat down the Lakers. I think the wolves would have swept them. Flipping the script on those two matchups, again, remove some intrigue in later rounds, but now we're going to get a Denver, Minnesota rematch. We're going to get LeBron versus KD. We're most likely going to get a Yokitz versus Wembe second round series. Those are the three series that we might.

not I've gotten to see had San Antonio won last night. The Denver, Minnesota dynamic kind of reminds me of the San Antonio OKC dynamic. Like Denver is the better team overall and they've shown that to be the case throughout the season. They also have shown the ability to win the championship in the past, which Minnesota has not, which San Antonio has not. But Minnesota presents a real matchup problem to the nuggets on both ends of the floor. The wolves have all sorts of big bodies to throw out Nicole Yokic, including Rudy Gobert. They can force him into higher difficulty shots. Yokic has had turnover

issues in this matchup. It's been one of the teams that's been able to force Yokich to pop and ball screens instead of roll with how well they swarm him where all of a sudden it puts a lot of pressure on his ability to make pick and pop threes. Jane McDaniels and Anthony Edwards have both given Jamal Murray issues at times over

the years. And then on the other end of the floor, Anthony Edwards and his ability to get to the rim has been a consistent problem for the nuggets over the years. Now, Denver's fared better as time has gone by in the regular season, but as we know, Minnesota can be an uneven effort team in the regular season. I'd argue more than any other playoff team. So that series, even though I'll pick Denver, that series has a lot of potential to get very interesting and drag on to six or seven games and have some weirdness. And we're going to get

LeBron James versus Kevin to Rand. These two teams basically have no shot to win the title, but they can at least potentially give us a competitive and fun first round series. Houston is the far better team with the injuries. If everyone was healthy, I'd probably pick the Lakers in six or seven games, but that's not the case. With Austin and Luca out, this Rocket's roster is more athletic. They have more ball handling. There's just a lot more talent.

It's a better roster by a pretty wide margin. But with LeBron's ability to hunt weaknesses, the postseason, specifically the ability to put Shangoon and Reed Shepherd in action. That puts a higher emphasis on LeBron's brain rather than his body. In the Minnesota matchup, they would have done a lot of switching. LeBron would have had to beat great defenders one on one over and over again. It would have just been very difficult for him to manage. In this series, he's going to be able to put Reed Shepard and Shangon in action and accentuate his passing game more, which I think will actually help lead to better shots for the Lakers.

On the other end of the floor, we know that Houston, because of their ability to, they kind of have to put together lineups that have multiple non-shooters on the floor. So that kind of plays into JJ Reddick's defensive game planning. I think the Lakers are going to be able to do a lot of double teaming in that series. So I at least think this matchup is going to give us some close games

and close playoff games with LeBron James and Kevin Durant going against each other is a win for basketball fans. And then lastly, like, look, I think it was stupid that San Antonio didn't try to win that game yesterday. Why wouldn't you want to just play one of the top tier contenders instead of two and increase your chances of winning the championship? Like, that to me is pretty straightforward. But in the universe where OKC defeats Denver for San Antonio, we don't get to see Yokic versus Wemby. And so now this gives us a much higher chance.

Again, if Denver takes care of business and as long as San Antonio doesn't get upset in some craziness in round one, it makes it far more likely that we'll get to see Yokic versus Wembe in a second round series, which again will be entertaining in the moment in and of itself as a second round matchup. So again, I do think what happened last night removed some intrigue from the tail end of this postseason run, but it did add some more interesting series here in the next few weeks that we'll get to watch. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock Bet, the official sportsbook partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. The hardwood is heating up as the NBA playoff push rolls on.

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call 1-800-9 with it. In Ohio, call 1-800 My Reset. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Virginia. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, 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 did 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 was... 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, 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise.

Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action

with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Number four, Shagos and Alexander is my MVP for this season. There's been kind of a late season push

for Nicole Yokic, and it stems from a couple of different things. there's always an emphasis on moments when we talk about the MVP. And Yoko just had some big moments. I talked about how I expected Denver to go on a run to end the season in terms of winning a bunch of games in a row just because their schedule had lightened up. And there was some kind of weirdness with teams playing their guys, which ended up taking place with OKC and San Antonio benching their guys to end the season.

And we had that major national TV matchup with the Spurs in Denver that Yolk just looked like the best player in the world. And look, I already talked about that. I do think if I had to right now pick one player in a vacuum where like all the rosters are the same, if I had to pick one player to lead my team for the next two months, yeah, I'd pick Yokic by a small margin over Shegildos Alexander. But that's not the purpose of the MVP award. The MVP award is a combination of who is the best player in the league, who is the best player

on the best team, and who is the most valuable player in the league. Shea has been no worse than the second best player in the league. He's been the best player in the, he's been the best player on the best team in the NBA. And the value metrics are off the charts. The thunder offense falls off of a cliff when Shea is off the floor. And even if we go back to that best player thing, again, I would pick Yokic for the guy to lead me through this playoff run if all circumstances were equal. But I actually think over these 82 games, Shea was the best basketball player I want.

which takes me to number five. Yes, the Thunder would have won right around 50 games this season if Shea Gilgis Alexander was not on this roster. Bill Simmons made more noise this weekend. He's been a regular feature on the show the last few weeks just with his takes. But he made more noise this weekend when him and Tim Legler were discussing how good the Thunder roster is and they mentioned that they thought the Thunder would win 50 games this year if they swapped Shea for Brandon Pajamsky.

Now, they were discussing it as part of the MVP conversation, and I disagree that it would have any impact there. I think Shea's level of play this year has been unimpeachable. This isn't like the 2024 Celtics, or you had a 64-win team, but it kind of felt like their best player was like, six, seventh best player in the league, and they were just getting, you know, carried by this unbelievable roster.

I think two things are true this year. I think the Thunder have the best roster. And I think Shea's been the best player out of any basketball player that I've watched this season. Now, this is where it gets a little more complicated with the MVP thing. One of the things that ends up happening,

and I told you guys about this when we talked about MVP last week. There are a lot of people that put a lot of weight on catch-all metrics when it comes to evaluating MVPs. I'm not that guy. I'm not even going to sit here and talk shit and be like those guys are all stupid and wrong. That's not how I feel.

It's just my own personal philosophy about the game. If you want somebody to break down for you, the catch all metrics that try to synthesize a sport that is more art than science down to a single number, I'm not your guy. I'm just not. It is a, it is like kind of like, it's kind of blasphemous to me personally. So you're just not going to get that for me. There's other avenues you can go. to try to get that sort of thing. That does not mean that I don't believe in data or the use of analytics. You guys know that I prefer targeted analytics. I prefer things that target play types,

that target individual basketball circumstances. Why? Because the game of basketball is so immensely complicated that trying to synthesize the entire game down to a single number is foolish to me. but synthesizing a small part of a game becomes a more achievable task. But even in that realm, I always say even that's not perfect. Like if we're just talking about ball screen efficiency,

how efficient is your pick and roll ball handler on a per possession basis, including passes? That has a ton of variability. Who is your screener? How much of a threat is he? how much of a threat do you have in your other three off ball positions? How sophisticated are the ball screen actions? Is your team just running straight up spread, pick, and roll,

or are they running a lot of double drag and stack and mixing up a lot of different variations to keep the defense on their heels? Some year, this year the conferences were more even, but there have been years recently where the Eastern Conference is just a lot weaker. And when you're playing the majority of your schedule versus the East, you're just playing worse teams every night, which can affect the data.

So, like, even though I use data that is targeted around specific situations in the game, I acknowledge even that struggles to actually piece everything together when it comes to trying to evaluate a basketball player. So again, I'm not your guy if you're going to be talking about catch-all advanced metrics. It's just not the way that I prefer to view the game. but there are a lot of people that do who have influence in the national media and who have votes for awards. So that is what kind of led to this late season push

regarding Nicola Yokic. And you guys know how much I value Nicola Yokic. I think he's the best offensive player of all time. And I do think he has this remarkable ability to consistently generate great shots for all the reasons that we've discussed in the past. And I don't want to spend five minutes breaking down on amazing Yokic.

is on offense right now. The bottom line is, when I was watching Yokic and Shea this year, I thought Shea was a better basketball player. Each team has a unique role for their superstar that they need from that player to win games. And one of the specific things that Shea has done this year that I think has gone woefully underappreciated is he's made 52 clutch shots this year. The Thunder team is designed to drag you down into the mud and get you into close games. late, where Shea has this ability to either draw a second defender or get to a pull-up 15-footer that he's been hitting at such an obscene rate so frequently this season that it's led to clutch win after clutch win after clutch win after clutch win after clutch win after clutch win.

Shea has been the guy that has pushed the thunder from what I think is roughly a 50-win team without him up to being both a 64-win team and a team that I think has over a 50% chance to win the title this season. He also, one of the big things that I think benefits Shea in this debate is he has not had the inconsistency that the other stars in the league have dealt with. We've talked about Luca's inconsistency at length. Yokic, when he came back from his knee injury, was pretty bad by his standards for a while. And the nuggets were losing games. That doesn't mean I don't think Yokic when he's at his best as the best player.

We're talking about this 82 game slate and who did the most to impact winning for their team in this 82 game. slate and Shea was simply the best basketball player that I watched this season. But yes, I also think his team would win somewhere around 48 to 52 games if you just removed Shea, let alone replacing him with a guy like Pods, who was a good NBA player. Pots would arguably not even get minutes on this team in a seven or eight-man playoff rotation because of how good this roster is. And first of all, it's clear in the numbers. Before these last two games were the Thunder literally benched their entire rotation. The Thunder in 2,900 possessions this year without Shea had had put up a plus seven net rating, which would rank fifth in the NBA. If you took

Shea, Chet, and J. Dubb off the floor before these last two games, they had a plus four net rating in 900 possessions, which is literally the same net rating that the Cavs finished with this year. They just have such a depth of defensive talent that can also put the ball on the floor a little bit, shoot a little bit, make reads in the half court, make reads in transition, that they dominate to transition so consistently that they can win a lot of NBA games even without their best players. This is a league, by the way, where we have not had a repeat conference champion since KD left the Warriors. And yet despite that, they're about to, they did finish with the number one overall seed for the third consecutive year. And I do think that they're going to repeat in a league that

really hasn't had that be the case as of late. And most importantly, for all of you fans, out there, especially you Shay fans, stop taking offense to this. Every time we start talking about how good a team is, all the stands get sensitive. It's the biggest problem with Stan culture. We want to believe that these guys are all superheroes who

do it by themselves, and that's just not how it works. Nobody ever won an NBA championship without being surrounded by a lot of talent. It can vary year to year, depending on circumstances, but the dynamic is still essentially the same. At least, one truly great superstar player and tons of talent around him. You guys know I'm a big LeBron

fan. I'm not obtuse to the fact that he won his four titles with some of his best rosters. The 2012-2013 heat were the deepest heat teams. They rectified the depth issues from 2011. LeBron had made massive improvements and that was before Wade's body broke down. Wade broke down in 2014. It was the first year he averaged below 20 points per game. He really struggled in the postseason and they lost. The 2016 Cavs happened to be the one year his co-stars didn't get hurt

and before KD joined the Warriors. The 2020 Lakers, that was literally the one year in Anthony Davis's career as a Laker where he played at a top five level. Even when we look at like lesser talented rosters that happen to win the title, it usually comes with a lot of factors at play

and guys playing a lot better than you would think than they appear on paper. 2011 dirt. That was the year that the Lakers broke down. The heat, because that was the first year they put their roster together, they weren't very deep. That was the year that like Mike Bibby was playing for them. And it still required one of the most legendary superstar choke jobs in the history of the league from LeBron and Jason Terry going nuclear over the last two games of the series. If Jason Terry doesn't go for damn near 50 points over the last two games, the heat win that series.

2022 step. This is my favorite recent example. It was kind of a down year in the NBA overall. The Lakers foolishly blew up their championship roster for Russell Westbrook. The Nuggets had lost Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. to injury. Luca Donchich was young and that Mavs team wasn't ready. Tatum and Brown, it was like their first year in that window of time where they were actually competing for a championship at a high level. And it still required Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins to reach outlier ceilings that they've never reached since. And the very next year, pool and Wiggins declined. A couple of key rotation players like Otto Porter Jr. got hurt.

And suddenly they didn't have any talent. And suddenly they lost in the second round to a non-contender. And if you drop that very same 2022 Warriors team into this field, where are you ranking them? Do you think that 22 Warriors team with that talent is going to be favored over the Thunder? I'd argue they'd be competing for like fourth with the Nuggets. The league is just too deep at the top right now. So the talent might be like relative to the other great teams in the NBA, but you don't win championships unless you have lots of talent around you.

There's no such thing as a backpack championship. You can see it for games, maybe even for a series. I do think among great teams, like I do think that's, Celtics team in 2022 had more talent than the Warriors did. And Steph lifted them over the top, which is one of the great, probably the greatest accomplishment of his career. But that doesn't mean that Warriors team wasn't also great. They just weren't as talented as Boston. You can see it for a game. You can see LeBron score 50 in a finals game and drag them to a chance to potentially win over a way more talented team. There was no shot. I don't care if J.R. Smith didn't forget the

score. And he pitched it to LeBron at the top of the key and he sunk a 35 footer to win that game. and LeBron backpacked them to a win. They would have lost the next four games. There are always too many good teams for a single star to overcome talent disadvantage for four rounds. Great teams win championships led by great players, not bad teams led by great players. If the Thunder were a 35 win team without Shea,

they'd have no shot to win the title this year. And this is where I think it's so, silly. The quintessential job of the all-time great NBA star is to take a great roster and lift them to championship heights because there are other great rosters in the NBA. Maybe not as good as OKC's and that's the outlier. That's why they're fixing to put together all this success in a super deep league. But like, Boston's roster is really good this year because of their success finding more rotation players on the margins and the return of Jason Tatum.

And Nimi Keda developing into like just a better defensive center than what Horford and Porzingis were. San Antonio's roster is deep with talent. Denver's roster is deep with talent. Shea is the separator. That's his job. That's what he's done so well. As good as this team is and yeah, they might win 50 games without Shea.

They are not winning the championship without that guy. if Shea got hurt tomorrow and missed the playoff run, no one would be picking the thunder to win the title. So like, yeah, Shea's taking a great team, maybe even an all-time great team, and lifting them to championship heights. That's not a shot at Shea.

He's just the next guy to do it. And yes, it's a little bit more dramatic this time because there's a spectrum as low as a guy like Steph in 2022's roster to as high as 2017 Steph's roster. And somewhere in between you might land, but you're not winning unless you have really good players who play really good basketball alongside an all-time great player in those situations. That's how you win championships.

It bothers me when we're having those conversations, how much we, because of Stan culture, we just want it to be some sort of superhero backpack job like it is in the movies. And that's just not how it works. You don't John Wick your way to the title. It's a team sport. number six very excited for a potential nix celtics rematch in round two it's very different than last year if you go down the list obviously the nicks are a better version of last year's team they're more well coached they lean on their depth more there's a heavy emphasis on driving early in possessions

which leading to higher quality spot up looks they're just a better team josh hard is a much better jump shooter than he was in years past that's a better nicks team the celtics team it's it's interesting because you'd argue they're worse, right? Like you don't have Drew Holiday, you don't have Al Horford, you don't have Christop's Port-Zingus. Jackson and I were talking the other day about how, like, Tatum doesn't quite look like he has the burst that he had before his Achilles injury. No big shock there. Although I think Jalen Brown is a better player than he was in previous years. But then they've also replaced their talent with a lot of like these young quality rotation players. Baylor Shireman is amounted to a very good rotation player. Nimi Keda has become like a

rock solid starting center for them, getting options like Jordan Wall. and Hugo Gonzalez that they can rely on for short bursts of, you know, basically just aggressive defense and rebounding and the ability to occasionally hit a corner three. Like there, it's a very different look for both teams than they were last season. But the most important thing is the dynamic with the way that the Celtics generate shots has shifted towards Jalen Brown being the number one option. And he has been so incredibly gifted at punishing mismatches attacking the basket, initiating that first phase of the Celtics offense that despite the massive drop in that experienced veteran talent, the Celtics had a better

offensive rating this year than they did last year. So this kind of sets up for a very interesting second round series because on the one hand, the Knicks pulled off the upset last year. As I've talked about, that was like the only time all season last year where the Knicks looked like impressive relative to their expectations. They were disappointing all regular season. They looked mediocre against Detroit and then they got beat by Indiana, right? But in that Celtic series, we saw that specific dynamic of Ogen and O'Neb and McHale Bridges just flying around on defense off the ball, like helping on all of the mismatch attacking that Boston was doing and how Boston kind of towards the end of that pivotal game four kind of like

fell back into just Jason Tatum ISOs. And Jason Tatum was playing really well, but the team wasn't playing super well. This is a very different Celtics look. And this is a better Nick's team. And I think those two are going to give us an awesome second round show. I would pick Boston at this point. I think that I'd pick them in six. We'll see when we get to that point. But I'm very, very excited for that potential second round series. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers.

And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, 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, 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 type.

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 Smigel 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves.

Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Number seven. Yes, it was stupid how much the Lakers were underrated as a regular season team by the national media before the season.

It's kind of weird because on one hand, I was wrong about how good the Lakers were this year, specifically with the ceiling that they flashed in March. I said before the season that last year they won 50 games and this year they were better because Luka was. was going to be better. It wasn't really hard to figure out. You took a team that had no starting center and you gave him DeAndre Aten, who is as flawed as he is, was still the Lakers best center of the season. And then you added Marcus Smart. And Luca Donchich was in the best shape of his life or best, allegedly, best shape of his life. And then Austin Reeves, after the humiliation of the Wolf Series was going to come back and be some better version of himself. The only real downside was like, okay, LeBron's a year older. And that did amount

to a certain amount of decline from LeBron this season. But like, I, I thought from the very start, we talked about it before the season. I thought the Lakers would win right around 50 games as a regular season team. I thought a lot of people galaxy brain themselves. I saw all sorts of projections. They're going to be a playing team. There was projections that had them missing the playoffs entirely. I think Bill Simmons had them out of the playoffs entirely. And like there were just a lot of teams are like a lot of people that were just like, oh, the Lakers are going to be bad. And that didn't make any sense to me because they were the same team from last year more or less with a handful of upgrades and they won 50 games last year. So I thought a lot of people

overthought that. Now, where I was wrong was I thought they had no shot to win the title. I, from the beginning of the season, was like, here's a 50 win team. They'll be right there in the top four in the West. And then they'll lose in the first or second round. That's what I thought. They flashed a level in March because of how great Luca was, because of how good Austin was because of LeBron slotting into that third role where it was like, oh man, like I actually think they can beat

the best teams in the league. Now, okay, see, resoundingly slammed the door on that. But I, they reached a level in March that I didn't think they had in them. So I will freely admit I underestimated their ceiling. But yeah, I didn't

understand, like the people who thought they were going to win 44 games or something like that, that was what I really, really struggled with. because I'm like, where are these losses coming from? This team is going to be able to score the basketball more than efficiently enough to carry them through the dregs of the regular season. That's more or less what happened, right?

For the first two-thirds of the season, they lost every good team, but they were able to get the wins against the bad teams because it's really hard to out-execute Luca Donchich in the half-court at the end of games. And I'd say the same thing as we look forward for the Lakers. Is this roster flawed? Yes.

Does Rob Polinka have any shot to just flip them into some awesome roster in one summer. No. So they're probably going to be a flawed roster again next year. But they're probably still going to win a lot of regular season games because Luca Donchich is just going to win you a lot of regular season games. And they have three offensive creators, which is like a really easy way to maintain a high floor on offense throughout the season, which is going to beat all the bad teams. So like again, I understand that a lot of the skepticism surrounding the Lakers is legitimate regarding the way they stack up with the best teams, but don't overthink them as a regular season team. They're going to be,

as long as Luca Donchich is there, they're going to win somewhere between 48 and 54 regular season games, maybe even more if Rob hits on some moves, and they're probably going to be a top six seed in the West. I did think a lot of people Galaxy bring that before the season. Number eight, LeBron is still one of the most dependably great players in the NBA. Obviously, San Antonio did not hold up their end of the bargain last night. But there was a time yesterday where I was like, oh my God, the Lakers are still going to get the three seed. This is insane.

And the reason why is because LeBron was able to, with this unit that obviously is deeply flawed after you get past their stars, pull out a bunch of wins at the tail end of the season and help the Lakers stay afloat and end up finishing at, what was it, 52 wins or 53 wins that they finished with at the end of the season, 52, I believe. And if you go back to what I said before the season,

one of the things I talked about that was strange with this LeBron thing was for being 41 years old, he's just still one of the most dependable like going to be there every night type of players in the NBA. He played back-to-back 70 game seasons before this year. And yeah, he missed the start of the season with that weird sciatica thing. But once he checked in, he played 60 of the final 68 games of the season. And in a season where Austin and Luca both broke down, LeBron looks as strong as ever going into the postseason.

And it's weird because like there's always been this like kind of weird like skepticism around LeBron. Like, oh, is you going to be able to stay healthy by the end of the season? Which I think was unfairly applied to him relative to his age because there are stars all around the league that regularly end up around like 60, high 50s, mid 60s games played and miss playoffs. games and are banged up at important stretches of the season when they're in their mid-20s, late 20s, early 30s. Meanwhile, LeBron's playing 70 games, the full playoffs, 70 games, the full playoffs, 60 games of the final 68 games, and he's ready to go for the playoffs. I think LeBron deserves a lot more credit for how available he's been as an old man. To put it very simply, he's been above average availability compared to stars over the course of this last three-year stretch.

And then lastly, because of his size, because of his IQ, because of his ability to impact the game in a variety of ways as a rebounder, as a transition threat, as a guy who can post up mismatches, as a guy who can run inverted action at the top of the key, as a guy who was able to do all the offball stuff that he did when he was playing alongside Austin and Luca. LeBron has such a high floor every single night when he's playing hard, that when it comes to big games,

he's still one of the most dependably great players in the NBA. Now, LeBron doesn't have the motor to play as hard as he needs to play to be great for 82 regular season games. And so no one's going to argue that LeBron's a top 10 regular season player anymore. I think that'd be absurd. He's going to mail it in 30, 40 times a year.

But when it comes to the playoffs, when it comes to looking at a two-month stretch where every game matters and there's guaranteed rest in between every single game, I still think LeBron is one of the top 10 guys in the league that I would take. Is he as reliable as a shot creator as he was back in 2020, 2021? No, he's declined too much in terms of his first step quickness. But the truth is, is there's like, how many guys in the league are dependable shot creators? Like, I can count on this guy to create great shots for me all night.

there might be five or six of them in the entire NBA. Once you get off of that top tier, even among the athletic guards, they could have nights where they just aren't hitting their pull-up or nights where they just aren't processing well and are making bad decisions and shooting stupid shots. They're all inconsistent once you get off of that top five or six offensive players in the league.

So yeah, is LeBron inconsistent as an offensive player at this point? Yeah. So is every other. other star once you get off of that top five or six guys. Except for in every big game, you can count on him to be relatively healthy, even banged up LeBron is out there doing things on defense and rebounding. He can guard his position. He can guard on the backline. He can defensive rebound. He brings that transition value in his playmaking talent makes him relatively high floor as an offensive player over the course of any sort of big game. So like, yeah, there's this theoretical,

what if old man LeBron gets hurt. And yeah, he's been banged up and maybe less than 100% in some of these situations. But LeBron is lacing him up and playing in every big game and in most of the regular season games, even into his early 40s.

And when it comes to any sort of playoff environment, he's still like the 8th, 9th, 10th, best player in the league. Like, I said this on my Twitter feed the other day. If you swapped LeBron James and Donovan Mitchell, right now. Do you think the Cavs have any sort of decrease in their chances to win the title? I'd argue their shots actually go up a little bit. And as long as we're talking about the floor part of it, like, do you think Donovan Mitchell is going to suddenly turn his Lakers team into a contender? When you're dealing with that bottom half of the top 10, there is a lot of inconsistency.

There is a lot of like small flawed guards. And I just think, weirdly enough, LeBron is still kind of underrated at this point in his career. Here he is the one guy who's actually ready to go for the Lakers. And like, you look at this series against Houston and do I think I'd rank K.D. over LeBron right now, probably. I think Katie definitely had a better season. But, like, you're not picking Houston over L.A. because KD. is going to kick LeBron's ass. You're picking Houston over L.A. because the roster is way better. like everyone thinks like LeBron can kind of go toe to toe with KD still in this sort of environment,

which is crazy for a guy at his age. All right, two more quick ones and then we'll get out of here for the day. Number nine, I failed to see the connection between tanking and expansion. I obviously the league is preparing to vote to add to expansion teams. Probably will be Seattle and Las Vegas. We'll see what it ends up being when the league actually finalizes this process. And my take on expansion is pretty simple. Like they haven't expanded in a very long time. I don't think 32 teams is some sort of crazy number. I think if you got over 32, it could start to get

a little weird. But like, I mean, the NFL has 32 teams, for example. I think we have the markets to actually hold up these franchises. Like, I think Seattle would do great with an NBA team back in that city. I hang out in Seattle every single summer. It's a big, beautiful, vibrant city that NBA players would love to live in that would love to visit. And frankly, I do think there's enough talent. And this is where I tie it back to the tanking piece. There's this idea that's like, oh, we have all these blowouts. We have all these bad teams. That's why we can't have expansion. And again, if you want to tell me that you don't want expansion because you want to keep the talent in those 30 teams, I think that's a realistic take that I think is fair. But the

idea that the tanking will go, like the tanking is negatively affected or is in some way tied to the talent level is ridiculous to me. Because if you actually look at all the tanking teams, they have a lot of good players that aren't playing. Like Utah has a lot of really good players that they just didn't play down the tail end of the season. Like Indiana has a substantial injury that they're dealing with that has dragged them down. Anthony Davis and Trey Young are just not playing for the Washington Wizards. Like this is, I fail to see the connection there because tanking to me feels like an entirely separate, we're just not playing our good players problem.

Not a, oh, we have 10 terrible teams. We don't have 10 terrible teams. We have 10 teams that are trying to be terrible. That's two very, very different things. So again, the expansion debate to me, I don't really have a strong opinion about it. my basketball fan side's like, let's watch the Seattle Supersonics again. You know, like my basketball fan side says like, I do think we have enough talent to have two more teams and not really dramatically affect the way that the league looks and feels.

I just don't see any sort of attachment towards the tanking side of it. Like if you want to tell me, here's the reasons why expansion is a bad idea, I'd be willing to hear you out and I'm not really married to the idea. But I just don't think any sort of connection exists between like, oh, these teams are trying to be bad. Therefore, we can't expand. It just feels like two very separate issues to me. Lastly, number 10, those of you guys who are new to our show from the season should be aware of our playoff schedule. So the rest of this week, again, is going to be a little tricky.

We're recording with Nick Wright today. That's going to air tomorrow. We're recording with Brian Winhorse tomorrow. That's probably going to air on Wednesday or Thursday this week. We'll have eight season previews that are just going to come out as I. finish them. So I'm going to literally just in every gap of time that I have this week be working on series previews and we'll post them as they finish. So obviously the first four will be the three six and the four or five matchups in both conferences. The seven one or the, uh, uh, eight one

matchups, those will not be posted until Saturday morning. But like over the course of the rest of this week, we'll have daytime content in the form of those two interviews and the series previews. But once we get to the post season, our entire schedule completely shifts from the way it was in the regular season. We will be going live after games on most nights during the postseason with exception of a, you know, a schedule conflict here or there. The vast majority of the nights,

including weekends, we will be going live after the final game of the night. In those shows, we will break down the games live on YouTube. We also bring Jackson on the show and we do kind of like an interactive mailbag. We will, so if you come on the show and you drop questions in the chat,

we'll have like, you know, 10, 15 minutes after our reaction where we'll kind of kind of just deal with some questions from the audience. And then about three or four times a week in the mornings, I do film sessions and I typically target the more interesting series that we have. So like if we have, you know, Minnesota, Denver and it's a super interesting series, or one of the series happens to be two, two after four games and there's a pivotal game five coming up. I'll deep dive into the film because it's a lot easier for me to get more detailed stuff back from the game

when I can watch it slowly and watch possessions multiple times in a row. all that sort of stuff. When I, when we encounter those sorts of situations, three to four times a week in the mornings, we will release essentially just like adjustments for the next game type of videos that will be more centered on the strategy side of things. So again, the entire schedule shifts. We haven't gone live at night, but a handful of times during the regular season. That's not the way we do it during the 82. But now that we're in the postseason, once we get to Saturday, live after the final game of the night, which I think is Lakers Rockets, Sunday live after the final game of the night.

I'm not sure what the final game is on Sunday night yet. Live after the final game on Monday, so on and so forth with some stuff mixed in in the mornings. And definitely follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so I can help you guys just kind of stay up to date as to the daytime schedule when we have other content coming out. But yeah, just be prepared for the schedule to shift as we had into the postseason. All right, guys. It's all a half for today.

As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We will see you guys tomorrow for the Nick Wright interview. 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 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on, a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the Aihar Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your Podcasts. 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 SportsSlice 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 headline. 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. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicelife 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.