The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Saturday Special – Colin Speaks with Kirk Goldsberry

Episode Date: April 20, 2019

Colin talks with former Spurs VP of strategic research, Author and NBA Analyst Kirk Goldsberry about the NBA changing to such a perimeter oriented game.  They also discuss what positions are becoming even more irrelevant and what changes Colin would like to see made to the NBA in this exclusive podcast. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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 I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think contact allowances are one of the areas in the game of basketball where we can restore some parity amongst the position base. Because right now, you can't even look at Playtops in the wrong way. All right, everybody. Welcome to our Saturday morning podcast. We like

to, you know, throw a little a change. up with this. We bring people on who see the world differently. And it's one of my favorite things I do. That's why we created it. And Kirk Goldsbury is fascinating. A University of Texas professor, a former vice president of strategic research for the San Antonio Spurs, who we've always thought they're the New England Patriots of the NBA. He's a former senior analyst, Team USA Basketball. And he pioneered something that I just kind of caught on to recently. I was fascinated by it. hexagonal NBA shot chart. He's got a new book called Sprawl Ball, a visual tour of the new era of the NBA. And he basically looks at what it used to be, what it is, and where it's going. And there's

kind of a midway point between two dramatically different aesthetics, where mid-range shot, gone, center's gone, three-point shot in. And it's my pleasure to bring in Kurt Goldsbury. Kirk, how are you? I am great. Great to be here. Thanks for having me on, Colin. You bet. Now, most of us believe the three-point revolution began with Steph Curry. Did it? it's not for me to say i think it began truly in 1979 when the league suddenly added a three point shot um and it's been a steady increase kind of like a frog in boiling water so to speak one or two percentage points each year i think step is undeniably one of the main characters and sort of the awakening that that used to be sort of a believe that you couldn't win the NBA title

the quote unquote jump shooting team i think step more than any other player really showed that you could do that and became the first ever unanimous MVP and NBA history by dominating the game from the perimeter more than anybody else. So I think he's the most visible character in the revolution, but I wouldn't say he started it. You know, the NBA, and it took me a while to embrace the three-point shot, I said this two years ago. I liked the NBA. I felt I did. When there were two or three guys on the floor who could not shoot. When there were a lot of Tristan Thompson's, you look at those New York Nick teams that everybody, you know, those fabled Nick teams we all love, Charles Oakley,

Anthony Mason, even Jonathan Starks. John Starks was not a great shooter. That team does not work today. That team would be, it's just an odd ball collection of guys who can't score. I do miss sort of the back to the basket, the Kareem, the big. But I would say, could I not argue, the game is prettier today. It's certainly prettier. I think in beauty's eye and the eye of the holder, of course, but you know, you're exactly right. And one of the things that makes sure to do early in the book

and often in the book is today, look, I don't want to go back and watch those Anthony Mason and Charles Oakley teams. That was ugly. Yeah. But what's happening right now, Colin, is the league is in the midst of a major, major metamorphosis. And you hit it on the head earlier.

We are at the midway point between two, very different versions of the sport. And I happen to think that the game looks beautiful right now. It's open, there's passing, there's diverse types of scoring. However, if you like where it is right now, then counterintuitively, you might want to think about changing it because the changes are so rapid right now. If you love what you're watching in 2019, it's not going to be there in 2024 because we're in the midst of, I always say it's like the ice cap melting. If you like the size of the ice cap right now, well, then you might want to change something about what's going on because here's one crazy stat.

If you look at the history of the three point line, like I said, it's been an increase pretty steady since 1979. However, three of the biggest four year-over-year increases in three-point activity have been in the last three years. And so Houston is a prophecy. If you like watching the Rockets, then you're going to love watching the future of the NBA. If you like watching James Harden, you're going to like watching the future of the NBA because that's where they're going. They're taking over half of their shots, Colin, from the three-point area, which is the first team. ever in the history of the league to do that. I always joke with my friends, they should call it the two-point line in Houston,

because they're more likely to shoot behind that thing. It's actually, you know, a rarer thing that they shoot a two-point shot, which is crazy, and that's where this is all heading. I love the three-point shot. It has opened up the game. That was a goal. The question becomes calling, how much is too much? Yes.

You know, how much is, it's like ketchup on a hot dog. You can have too much ketchup on the hot dog. How much is too much? This is interesting, Kirk, because the C.S. NFL in the Big 12, they don't run the football. It's spread it and pass. The NFL at the end of the year, as the weather turns, the bears make the playoffs without an elite quarterback. The Ravens make the quarterback. I like what the NFL does. It's very much always been in my lifetime. The NFL's been the tweak sport. I mean, they'll tweak mid-season on stuff. And I think there's

value to physicality. I think it plays to Middle America. You know, in the bad weather cities, I don't think you want an NFL football that looks like the Big 12 or looks like the CFL. Although I do believe Kirk adding components of those sports, I even like the NFL borrowing stuff from the XFL. But I do believe, and this is where I think you could get a turnoff. I don't want to watch just three-point shooting. I think physical players relate to the fan base. People love Charles Oakley in New York. There is, people love Lambere.

Could I not argue that if we move into the Hardin era, it's just becoming a one-on-one basketball, the fan base likes tough. America likes tough guys. We like our Budweiser. We like our hamburgers. You don't want to get too pretty. Could I not argue that? Yeah.

And I think the NBA is my favorite sport in the world because for my entire life, it's been, you could be a superstar, that you could look like Shaq could be a superstar. can look like Steph and be a superstar. And to me, the value isn't in physicality or spacing. It's in that diversity, Colin. And I think the league should be really trying to make it possible for all those five traditional position groups to thrive in different ways, in the mid-range, on the block, in the corner, and pick and roll, whatever it is.

We need to make sure that all of those venues are still relevant in the game. And I think where we're going as a sport is we're diminishing the value of some of those venues. and while the other ones are becoming sort of caricatures of value. And the spot-up shooter is way too important in the league, in my opinion right now. And what he does isn't that fun to watch at the arena. Do you really love watching these endless three-point shots? I don't, and that's where I bring my own personal beliefs into it. I think the NBA is at its best when there are physical players, when there are athletes,

when there are sharpshooters, and all of these guys come together and who knows who's going to come out. And I think, yeah, one of the things we want to think about as a league is how do we preserve these five position groups and the ability for all of them to be superstars. You have a chapter on James Hardin called The Investor. Go into detail on that. Well, you know, I'll steal from Pablo Tori, a friend of mine, and one of the best young thinkers in sports media. He says James Harden plays basketball like a tax attorney. And I think that's a really clever phrase. but I call him the investor because Hardin is complicated.

For me, he's complicated. On the one hand, he's the best, smartest superstar we have. He is shrewd. He only does things that are sort of analytically correct. As an investor, he invests in the exact right behaviors, and he doesn't touch things that we know are inefficient. He has honed his entire portfolio in on what's smart. And part of the credit goes to him.

Part of it goes to Mike D'Antony, and part of it goes to Daryl. Regardless, what he's seeing right now, I think is the closest thing to a basketball prophecy that we'll ever see. He's the future of the sport. And some of my friends don't like watching it. And that's where it gets complicated. He is so smart the things he does, particularly drawing foul, is the smartest play in the league. As Dean Smith said, years ago, the best place to score on the basketball court is the free throw line.

And he knows that and he exploits that more than anybody. I mean, the stat that I think sums hard enough more than almost anything, Colin, is when he won his, his MVP award last year. He was the first MVP in NBA history who at the time of his award had made more free throws than he made field goals. That tells you it's very smart, but it's kind of maddening. And for many of us, like, if it's true that he's a prophecy, is this what we want to see going forward? As any coach or general manager will tell you, the foundation of any great team is great talent. So it's no surprise teams dedicate so much time and effort towards finding the right players. And the same rule applies when it comes to hiring. You need top talent.

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ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. Play Kate me for a second on this. Baseball has defensive shifts, and I think it hurts the game. game. And I know this is very TV of me. Okay. I want Bryce Harper on base. I want the camera on him. He's handsome. I don't want him hitting home runs or only striking out. The defensive shift takes him off the bases. And I think one of the things baseball struggles with is their stars are either in the dugout, circling the bases back into the dugout. And whereas the NBA stars on the court for 40 minutes, NFL star, Brady gets 60 snaps.

NHL guy, he's out quickly back on the ice. In baseball, the defensive shift, I think analytically, is savvy and clever like Hardin, but it hurts the television product. And I think hockey says you can't stay in the crease. Basketball says you can't stay in the lane. Football has all sorts of provisions based on where you can stand and not. I think the defensive shift is just bad for business. And so could I not make an argument that Harden, though is not aesthetically pleasing and that you'd have to tweak it?

Maybe move the three-point line back. How about this? Kirk, what about bringing the hand check back in the league? Right. Yeah, I think contact allowances are one of the areas in the game of basketball where we can sort of restore some parity amongst the position groups. Because right now, you can't even look at Clay Thompson the wrong way without getting. in a three-shot draw. Yeah, it's incredible. But Lamarcus Aldridge or Carl Anthony Towns who are foolish enough to put their back

to the basket on the block can get pounded and arm bar. Imagine if you put an arm bar into what are these perimeter shooters are. Suddenly, their efficiency isn't there isn't that good. So I do think, Colin, you hit the nail on the head. And I want to come back with baseball in the second, too. But you hit the nail on the head because this is a lot about what happened in 2004. You remember the Lakers with Kobe, the Bryce Harper of the NBA at that time. He gets shut out by an ugly defensive pistons team. That's the summer where we outlawed hand-checking. The next year, Steve Nash comes out of relative obscurity to win the MVP award.

He's tiny. He's brilliant. Don't get me wrong. But when you can't touch him, suddenly the best players in the league are different than who they were two years ago. Sure. He wins two MVP. Baseball, you know, Pop had this great quote earlier this season in Chicago,

Coach Popovich, about playing analytically correct basketball. And I love that turn of the phrase. It meant a lot from him. But what is aesthetically correct? After you said, you know, baseball isn't a crisis. There was a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal last year. I think the article was by Jared Diamond. And one of the stats that stuck out in there was that it's about four minutes on average

between balls hit and play and baseball game right now. And that's just too long. Imagine four minutes. Somebody can run a mile in four minutes. This is a long time if you're at a game, particularly if you're watching on TV. And I think you bring up a great point. Let's not pretend these aren't entertainment businesses. Let's not pretend that the aesthetic of the sport isn't the most important thing for the sport.

Yeah, Kirk, NFL is always considered themselves a television show. I mean, they change rules for the box that I watch the game on. That's right. No, that's a great point. And like, let's not pretend that these things are holy. Now, as a steward of the game, I like to think especially youth basketball, we need to make sure that pro sports are good for our youth and they're learning good habits and good traits and becoming better citizens as they play these games more and more. But yeah, I think we want to make sure that our sports are entertainment.

I mean, it's hard to watch a baseball game when you have a tablet in front of your phone next to you or you're a baseball game. It's becoming harder and harder as the trends that analytics have brought to pass. Now, here's where I would say it's really interesting. People are quick to say analytics ruin baseball. No, analytics just uncovered what was always there. The rule base is what analytics. They're just exploiting things that are in the rule base. So if you don't like what you're seeing from the analyst community,

go change the rule base and they'll conform to it, and they'll find ways to optimize whatever playing surface and rule base you come up with. And I think that's where both sports and probably football as well. But I'm more interested in baseball and basketball, how can we design an analytically optimal aesthetic for the future of our sports? Yeah, I always said that with Twitter. All it does is unveil what we always thought was true. There's a lot of right-wingers out there, and there's a lot of liberals in the media, and that's fine.

They were always there. It just unveiled them. 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.

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Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WMBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't.

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ESPN NBA analyst, staff writer, University of Texas professor, fascinating, former VP strategic research, San Antonio Spurs. He's got a book called Sprawl Ball, a visual tour of the new era of the NBA. And it's fascinating. looks at the old NBA, the current NBA, and where it's going. And we're in the midst of a revolution here. So I'll tell you a player I love. I loved his, he wasn't a rookie because he got hurt his first year, Ben Simmons. But this becomes very fascinating. I think Ben Simmons and Russell Westbrook are similar. They're body reliant. Simmons size Westbrook's athletics. Neither can

shoot. I don't think either is easy to coach. So what do I do as a general manager? I've got a Ben Simmons or a Westbrook. And Sam Presti chose Westbrook over a better shooter in Hardin and a greater player in Durant. And now people say he didn't choose Westbrook over Durant. But when Durant left, he made several comments that he felt the organization enabled Westbrook and babyed him. So what do I do? It's pretty clear now that Westbrook is enigmatic or problematic in the postseason. What do I do, though, going forward for 10 years with Ben Simmons? Let's say you run the second. Well, Embed, I'm already paying, and I can get 20 and 10 a night from him.

Jimmy Butler can shoot. Tobias Harris is okay. I wouldn't pay him big money. But Ben Simmons on the open mark, I don't think he plays well with Embed. On the open market, you could get a ton. But what is Ben Simmons value going forward, Kirk? He doesn't shoot and has no real interest in, and I don't think he'll ever be an elite shooter. What do I do with him?

That's a fantastic question. hope to give you a decent answer. I would say look no further than Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where they have a young man who can't shoot, who's very talented at getting to the basketball hoop and finishing and a capable passer. What Janus can do as a finisher, Ben can't do, but he's pretty good. And he's a better passer. So what did Mike Boondholzer do to win coach of the year, in my opinion this year? And what did John Horst do in Milwaukee as the general manager to win executive of the year? They built a system around this guy. And this is something that the Lakers failed to do this year in Los Angeles.

And this is something that Joel Embed, to your point, gets in the way of this idea. But yeah, surround both Westbrook and Simmons with five, four shooters. So at all times, you know, Ben Simmons is number three in the NBA and three point assists. He can't shoot it himself, but 82% NBA threes are assisted, right? So who's creating that shot? Well, it takes a lot of energy tactically to actually create those shots. And few players can actually generate those assists like Ben. and Russell as well.

And Oklahoma City isn't a very great team right now because, again, they're shooting on the edge around this shot creator, aside from Paul George, is weak. So LeBron, again, much better interior force led the league in paint scoring all decades. A great passer, his best teams in Miami and Cleveland were surrounded by dudes like Ray Allen,

Shane Badi, Mike Miller, Kevin Love. They don't have people like that in Philly. They don't have people like that in Los Angeles. So I would say look to what the bucks have done to become the top five offense in the league out of nowhere by surrounding their similar player with shooting,

shooting, shooting. It's about three-point shooting stupid, the paraphrase and old president. Like, they need to be surrounded because you can't. Remember, you said earlier in the conversation, you have to have two or three guys. You like the NBA when it was two or three guys who couldn't shoot on the court. Those days are gone. I think you can have one, maybe

two. And with Ben Simmons and on the court, your point guard's already one of them. So you need everybody else on that team to be able to shoot. Yeah, and I think in a seven-game series you can really marginalize a team without with two non-shooters. I mean, you can just don't guard him. You don't have to guard Draymond Green. Now Boogie Cousins

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I want to wrap this up. Kurt Goldsbury, fascinating stuff. You created, you pioneered the hexagonal NBA shot chart. Now, we're doing a podcast now so people can't see it. But I would tell my audience, I'll even spell H-E-X-A-G-O-N-A-L, the hexagonal NBA shot charts. One of the first times I was introduced to you, and it talks about efficiencies, Houston's a very efficient team now. For the record, I think on your shot chart, Utah is too, but they're getting crushed in that series.

Explain as well as you can for a podcast audience, the hexagonal shot chart. Okay, well, the shot chart is essentially looking at where a player's shoots most often and where he or she is most effective. So there's two sort of characteristics of everybody in the world who shoots basketballs, a lot, yourself and myself included. Where are we shooting? Number one, and how good are we shooting at those places? So the charts that I developed in 2012 and percent of MIT, now my background is cartography and data visualization. I was a professor for a long time before I got into sports. How can we visualize these new data sets that started coming into sports analytics? So the hexagonal shot chart is

an approach where we look at a tile of hexagons all over the basketball court and identify which of those hexagons players are most active in and which they're most or least efficient in. So it tries to characterize those two primary elements of shooting evaluation over the space of the court. So you can quickly realize, oh, yeah, Ben Simmons doesn't even try to shoot threes. Russell Westbrook does try to shoot threes, but he's not very good at him. Steph Curry shoots a lot of threes and he's very good at them. So these charts intend to show people that not just tell them those facts, but show them. And I encourage anybody to just look up my name.

And if you do images, you'll see about thousands of these charts anytime you look my name up. Because I do think they do a really good job of helping individuals quickly grasp what a player tries to do to score the basketball in an NBA game. You know, Kirk, it's funny because Darry is a friend of mine and we talk often. And he uses – I use a line called Maniletics. is that I'm a proponent of analytics. But let's not nerd out here. We are dealing with 24-year-old alpha-male millionaires. You cannot reduce them to numbers.

It'll piss them off. They'll tune you out. And so I think Barclay goes over the top, and, you know, he's just, it's like clubbing baby seals. He's always picking on, you know, all the analytic guys. But I do now, and you can rip me on this, I do think there's value in Manilic. is there are certain guys.

Chauncey Billups was one of these guys. He lubricated the room. He was good with other men. He knew, he could, he smart, knew the temperature. Carmelo, I thought, had a very, he was bad for the room. He didn't have the self-awareness I like. So talk about that. You want analytics, but we are dealing with high, successful, rich men.

Do you ever have, do you ever think some of this? when you were with the Spurs? Was that discussed a little? Oh, no, for sure. I mean, I think it was, and I learned nothing more at the Spurs than learning about the human element. This is a small tribe of humans that we're trying to sort of go do elite things with, and you have to look at that human element. And yeah, like, presentation of these things, Colin, can go really bad. And a lot of analysts, a lot of analysts have failed to breakthrough. And my time with Team USA and working with Coach K and my time at the Spurs, working with POP, you quickly see these guys are expert communicators. They know how to run the

tribe, so to speak, and they are very good leaders in part because they don't just throw random esoteric information at these dudes. They wait for their moment. They learn how to message it, and they take the stuff that you want them to communicate, and they decide when the time is right, and when the method is correct, and they'll deliver it in that way. And I think Darryl Morey is a legend because the hardest part of sports analytics isn't the models or running the computer stuff. It's implementing it in a pro basketball environment. And he's done that better than anybody. And so that is, like I said, that's the hardest part of analytics.

It's getting it implemented in this environment that you're describing. An analytics, whatever you want to call it, I love it. It's just you have to be a really good communicator. and a strategist sort of in a political way to successfully implement these ideas and communicate them. And I can think a no better example than Darrell, who's done this so well for the last number of years in Houston. And now look, they're a legitimate contender to win the NBA championship. This is a real pleasure for me. Kirk Goldsbury, a sprawl ball, a visual tour of the new era of the NBA. And it just kind of explores the past, the present, and the future of the league. And it's

really in transition. It looks like, obviously, Golden State, but Houston is really in front of this thing. And, Kirk, good luck to you. And thank you so much for giving us time. You've got stuff going on. You live in America's great cities. I imagine you live in Austin, Texas. I live in the center of Austin, Texas. Oh, God, what a city. Oh, great food, good music. Thank you so much, Kirk. Hey, thank you, Colin. 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 SportsSlic on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slices Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. 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 podcast. Wife is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports.

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.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.