The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Reaction to Bradley Beal traded to Phoenix Suns, joins Kevin Durant & Devin Booker

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to Bradley Beal being traded from the Washington Wizards to the Phoenix Suns. He breaks down how Bradley Beal will fit next to Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and DeAndre Ayton, and discusses if they should be title favorites over the Denver Nuggets. #volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at it podcast. For 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English.

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The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having an incredible weekend. I'm coming to you guys from Ennis, Montana on vacation. We were planning on not working, but I knew there was one thing that could happen that could potentially make us work while we're out here, and it was Bradley Biel getting traded. And I was actually just joking with Ryan, our producer,

and we were saying, if you got traded to Miami, it might not have been as big of a deal, but a trade to the Phoenix Suns that does not include DeAndre Aiton puts together most definitely the most talented top four in the NBA. Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and DeAndre Aton, from a sheer talent perspective, we'll go ahead to toe to toe with any group of four players, probably that's played together in the history of the league. It's definitely going to be an interesting group there, but it presents some basketball issues that they're going to have to address. And so I just want to share a couple of quick thoughts on the move and how I think it's going to impact the suns this season. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the

volumes YouTube channel so 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. And if for whatever reason you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. All right. So with Bradley Beal as a basketball player, I'm not going to go too deep into that again because we did that in kind of our trade when when the first report came down that it was kind of imminent that he would be traded, I did a deep dive into the basketball side of thing. So if you want to see that go a little bit further back on the volumes YouTube feed,

and you'll find the video where we did that deep dive. That said, quick synopsis, he's way better than people think he is. This is a very common thing that happens in the NBA. As soon as the guy signs a long-term max contract and has a couple of seasons where the team isn't very good, he instantly starts to be viewed as a negative asset, which I don't understand. A couple different reasons for that. First of all, it's a max contract. Like, you can't just pay a max contract to Steph Curry and Yannas Antenacumpo and Nicole Yokic. Like, there's a lot of stars in the league. So just about every team in the league

is good, if they have any intention of winning a championship, it's going to have to pay a max contract to certain people, not to mention the fact that in the long run as a new TV deal gets signed, these numbers may not seem as intimidating as they seem at this particular moment in time. But just like it with anything in life, you get what you pay for. And if you want a really good basketball player, he might be expensive. Bradley Beale is a very similar type of player to Devin Booker in the sense that he relies heavily on pull-up jump shooting. But at the same time, like Devin Booker, he gets to the rim really well compared to a lot of the guards at his position. As a matter of fact, Kevin Durant gets to the rim, a tiny fraction as often as Bradley Beal and

Devin Booker do. So it kind of helps them with some of their rim pressure things. I do see some redundancies there. I've talked about this concept before, but it's like, It's like diminishing returns. So when you have three really high-level ball handlers like this, is there a point where the value of what the third ball handler brings to the table is lessened by the simple fact that you already have two players at the position who are better at what he does? Right. So I'll give you an example. If I have Devin Booker and Kevin Duran on a basketball team,

and those two guys are creating lots of defensive rotation situations where you've got a guy in a close-out situation, Devin Booker, or excuse me, Bradley Beale might be many times better than Cantavius-Caldwell Pope at attacking a set defense. But in pure close-out situations, when it's just knocking down open threes or driving a close-out, making a play

when the defense is already warped, how much better is a guy like Bradley Beale than a guy like Contavius-Colwold Pope? Really? In that specific role? That's what I mean by the concept of diminishing return. I think it's vitally important to have multiple top-tier shot creators. That's why the Booker, Kevin Durant pairing makes a lot of sense on the surface. Once you get to that third guy, though, I really start to look at what are you good at that doesn't involve having the basketball in your hands.

And that's going to be the big challenge for this big three for Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and for Bradley Beale is even though they managed to keep DeAndreighton in the deal, chances are like you're going to have to fill out the rest of the roster with veteran minimum contracts. And like we talked about in our 10 characteristics of champions video, every recent NBA champions got highly paid, highly qualified role players down the roster. And this son's team is not going to have that. It's going to be a lot of veteran minimum contracts. Maybe if they're lucky, they can poach a really good forward on the mid-level exception to help them on the wing. But what that means is you're going to have a lot of guys on the team that aren't necessarily great at anything. and that's going to put a lot of pressure on guys like Devin Booker, Bradley Beal, and Kevin Durant to take on duties that go beyond their ball handling.

So if the question is, hey, Jason, can this big four work? The answer is yes, as long as Kevin Durant plays like an all-defense player. As long as Bradley Beale and Devin Booker bring enough to the defensive table to make up for some of the inability to surround them with higher quality role players. It's going to be a lot of pressure on those guys to be great in the game. those areas. That said, this is a very competitive group. Devin Booker in particular is very competitive. Bradley Beale, I know a lot of people are down on him, but I've seen enough high leverage basketball from him, especially in playoff situations, to know that he's a gamer and he's going to fight in those situations. So I definitely think it can work. That's just going to be the delineation right there. If they try to play the same way they've been playing at all their previous destinations, it will

fail. If all three of them embrace the dirty work to another level, it will succeed. That's going to be when your entire payroll is taken up by four stars, those stars better do the dirty work. They got to do what Bam and Jimmy Butler do. They got to do what LeBron James and Anthony Davis did in 2020. They've got to do what Janice and Tenacupo and Drew Holiday did in 2021. Or even like that Warriors group, where you've got, you know, a bunch of different archetypes of players and only one Supreme ball handler. But they're all stars. in their roles in different ways. So that's going to be the challenge. Definitely need to try to use that mid-level exception slot to track down a good small forward that they can put out there.

They're an athlete that can help them in those specific areas of the game. And then all three of them on the offensive end are going to have to really work on being active off the ball to maintain rhythm. Rhythm is going to be the biggest challenge. When you have three guys that work off the dribble and high pick and roll a lot and they're looking for pull-up jump shots and things along those lines, it's going to disrupt their rhythm as they divide their usage. And so having one of them in particular potentially dive into more of an off-ball role could help. Kevin Durant, a guy who's had a lot of success in off-ball situations in his career, but then you run into the problem where if you put him off-ball,

then you're not getting the high-end benefits of him being on the ball. So I'm really curious to see how it all comes together. I will do a deeper dive into this trade in all of the ensuing details when I get back into town, but I just wanted to give my initial two cents. I really don't understand why Washington did this. I feel like that there was probably a better opportunity out there if they were more patient, maybe tried to get some more bidders involved. But it's always complicated when there's no trade clause.

There may or may not have been some nepotism at play with the agent for Bradley Beale and his son being highly involved in the basketball operations for the Phoenix Sun. So who the hell knows what's going on with all that? But if this trade gets finalized and goes through, it's the most talented top four in the league. And one of the most talented top fours of all time. And it's going to be a really, really interesting dynamic from there. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. I'm going to enjoy the rest of this trip.

And I will see you guys for the NBA draft and some other stuff next Thursday. 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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential.

Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at a Podcast. For 1979, that was a big moment for me.

big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors.

Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. It was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Thank you.