The Mismatch - Giddey the Leader, Biggest Issue in the League, and Eight Questions With Kirk Goldsberry

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

(NOTE: SHOW WAS RECORDED BEFORE THE NEWS OF TAYLOR JENKINS'S FIRING) Verno and Kirk Goldsberry (who’s in for Jacoby) break down Josh Giddey’s half-court game-winning shot against the Lakers and why this will be the turning point for Giddey and the Bulls (02:59). They also discuss the struggling Grizzlies after another loss to the Thunder and why the Clippers and Warriors have a chance to steal a top seed (12:35). Next, Verno prepares eight questions for Kirk (30:21). They discuss everything from the most underrated teams, top seeds who are in danger of a first-round exit, players who have grown on Kirk the most, and so much more. Leave us a message on our Mismatch Voicemail line! [phone] Walmart Express. Dinner, delivered in as fast as an hour. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kirk Goldsberry Producers: Jessie Lopez and Tucker Tashjian Social: Kiera Givens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, I need to give a heads up to all the mismatch fans. Me and Kurt Goldsbury recorded this episode of the mismatch this morning. Everybody went their separate ways. I went down to work and then I find out that Taylor Jenkins has been fired from the Memphis Grizzlies. That's why it is not included in this episode of the mismatch. I will just say this very quickly. I am of the opinion right now that after getting smoked by the Oklahoma City Thunder,

last night, you know, it's gone on a long time. The Grizzlies have gone the wrong way very fast, and they have not beaten a good team in the better part of two months. So I think they're trying to do something. They think that if they kept on doing what they were doing, you're going to have to play a good team in the playoffs, and then you're going to get smoked out of the playoffs. And so what can you do with 10 games left in the season

to try to change that trajectory. Maybe they'll be wrong. Maybe they'll be right. But since the calendar turned, things have gone the wrong way, and they have been totally unable to beat good teams. And you have to play a good team when you get to the playoffs. And so the coach is the one that ends up getting the blame. Taylor Jenkins is a really good guy.

I think he's going to win a lot of games in the NBA as a head coach somewhere else. and I hate to see them go. But this is professional sports. And if you're not getting it done and you're a team with high hopes and those high hopes are unwarranted because your team turns a ball over a ton, the defense has gone to hell, all of that,

then unfortunately you get what you get. It is absolutely shocking. I can't believe it. We'll obviously talk a lot more about this at the beginning of the week when Jacoby rejoins me on the show. That being said, I wanted to get that out of the way, let you know that that happened after we recorded.

Kurt Goldsbury is absolutely amazing, and you're going to love this episode. Thanks. Welcome to The Mismatch. I'm Chris Vernon, and joining me this week from the ringer.com is Kurt Goldsbury. Kirk, thanks for being here, man. Oh, man, it's a dream come true.

Thanks for having me, dude. This is the best. We want to give our thoughts to Jacobi, and his wife are big congratulations. We've talked about it a lot on the show over the course of the last couple of weeks, and the baby came. Everybody is healthy. Jacobi will be back next week,

but super exciting news in the Jacoby household. Kurt, let's start with last night, and we'll just hit a couple big things that happened. Maybe the best ending or most exciting ending of the year in the Bulls' Lakers game. the Bulls, you know, after the Pacers-Lakers game where LeBron got the tip in, I remember as he's walking off the court, he's like, look, we got to go get our rest because in the same way that the Pacers grab the ball off the rim and ran, ran, ran, ran, ran, that's what the Bulls

are going to do to us too. And certainly it looked like with what, less than 20 seconds left, the Lakers had it in the bag. Yeah. And this is, you know, I think 99% of the games kind of all blend together. I feel like we're going to remember that one, right? Well, they're positioning for playoff seating right now. So every loss is a big loss.

And they won by the skin of their teeth in Indiana the night before, which I think is a relevant point. Because it's a back to back. It's a road back to back. LeBron is old AF, as the kids say. And I think they ran out of gas. No disrespect to Josh Gidey. and it was a great, great game from the Bulls perspective. But they hadn't played since Monday.

And I think it was just a case. If you ever play pickup hoops, it's like you stay on for one game too many. And you start to look like LeBron looked at the end of that game. You throw a sloppy bounce pass. You don't close out on jump shooters. And that's what I attributed to. Again, no disrespect. One of the highlights of the season for anybody.

But Josh Giddy really just looked like the best player on the court last night, too. Okay, so let's start with, we'll get back into Giddy. Let me ask you, one of the things that Jacoby and I've been talking about a lot is the challenge of whether or not we should draw a lot from these games down the stretch. You have this bizarre combination of guys trying to stay healthy, players sitting out for teams just trying to get to the finish line that is the playoffs. And then you have a slew of teams that are actively attempting to lose. And when I watched Cooper Flagg last night, I was like, all right, you know. kind of makes sense. How much should we draw?

Should we just delineate which ones we're going to draw from? Because I felt like, you know, that Pacer's Lakers game was super high level. And then I know what inevitably comes from the Lakers losing a game like that to the Bulls. And it's like, well, look at the Lakers recently. You know, it started off hot with LeBron and Luca, but now it's kind of gone the wrong way. What do you make of what we should? draw from these individual games down the stretch. It's the weirdest time of the season, right?

Because you don't know what to make. Like you're saying, you turn on league pass on a Wednesday or whatever and there's 10 games. Like five of them, you can almost throw out right away because we have teams that are just like, bro, I want Cooper flag. I'm doing whatever I can. So Sixers Wizards, here we go. What can you take from that?

I don't know. But I think in the case of a game like Bowles Lakers, these are two teams that are posturing for better playoff position right now. They're trying to win that game. I think the Lakers are trying to develop some kind of rhythm with their new look, their new roster, and they are slumping. And I think if you look at like a five-game set of games, like your Grizzlies, too, they're kind of slumping at a time where they're trying to win to get a home playoff series in round one.

Chicago is trying to get into that eight spot in the east. And I think when you could just say, Verno, like, hey, both teams are trying to win here. I can tell you. Then it's fair game analytically. fair game to sort of connect dots into the playoffs from a performance like that. And ultimately, I think that was a great game for the Bulls, who, by the way, dude, one of the hottest teams in all of the NBA right now. Like, watch Josh Giddy.

This is his breakout. And I think last night, from a Bulls perspective, was like proof that they have a guy now. Josh Giddy's a guy, dude. Okay, so what do we make of this? Because, look, just for the numbers, since the all. Star Break. Josh Giddy, 23 points per game, 10 and a half rebounds per game, 9.2 assists, 1.6 steals shooting 53% from the field, 52% from 3, and 81% from the line. And then last night had 25, 14, and 11. It's more than the stats. He was a leader last night. The crazy thing about

the buzzer beater, for those of you who missed it somehow, he hit a 47-foot buzzer beater from the bowl logo to beat LeBron and Luca in a magical moment. But the craziest thing about that play, Verno, is he imbounded the ball at the baseline. He is the grown-up on the team. He's a very young player. He's like their leader. He imbounds the ball. I forget who catches it, throws it right back, and he dribbles from one baseline to mid-court and hits that shot. He was the impounder on the key play before that, too. He had the steal against LeBron. It's not just the stats. He was the one making all of the plays for the Bulls, not just the shot that will go down in Bulls history to beat the Lakers, but all of the plays and that incredible comeback had Josh Skiddy's fingerprints on.

And to me, it just epitomizes the stats are one thing. This is not just an empty stats guy. He's starting to become a leader of a good basketball team. I mean, it feels like over the course of like the past couple of weeks, he might have made himself like $100 million. I'm not kidding. I don't know what the price prediction for Josh Giddy was whenever extension time comes up, but it feels like it's gone up exponentially. Like the way we and the way you're talking about Giddy is just not the way we talked about him a month ago. No, not at all.

And I think it's a profound point. And I think the Bulls, like I said, have recently got off Zach Levine. they got off tomorrow, and I think they're starting to see they might have something here. And it's great news for a franchise that you know, dude. They've been middle of the pack, that NBA purgatory for it seems like longer than any other team.

This dude feels like he could be a piece of a playoff team for a long time. I don't know where the ceiling is now, but like you're saying, it's higher than I thought it was three, four weeks ago. It's higher than I thought it was three or four weeks ago. And I think last night, you can read into a performance like that. Because in a game featuring LeBron James and Luca Donchich, that dude looked like the best player on the court when it mattered the most. And I think not many NBA players can say that.

Not many NBA players can say that in a big win like that. It's so crazy because you watch last night and obviously when you are, when you've won 60 games, you have no regrets. Right. And you do watch it and go, man, are we going to look back on this? This is like, you know, you don't want to get crazy like a hardened thing. But it's like, bro, the guy that you gave up ends up because that has happened. It feels like there are other guys that we have seen that have popped off that like Oklahoma City just like didn't have room for. Right.

And it's like they just over and over again find these guys. And it's like, man, maybe Giddy wasn't going to be the ideal fit for Oklahoma City. but look at what he looks like now and obviously Colby White. You look at it and I know they're excited about Bezellis and you're like, geez, this team that we just thought is like this consistently middle of the pack, mediocre, the play in Bulls, as it were. Like maybe the future was right there and we just didn't even notice it. Yeah, they've won eight of their last 10, four straight.

Aside from the Celtics or the hottest team in the Eastern Conference, They're currently a playing team. And if they can climb in, I mean, it's just, we need good teams, by the way, in this Eastern Conference playing situation. So it's good news for NBA fans, too, that there's some competent looking team in that Eastern Conference playing. Because right now it's Hawks, Magic, Bulls, Heat. The Heat are doing everything they can to end their season. And so we need this Bulls team from an entertainment perspective for the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. I think they're a year away from being a year away to paraphrase Fran Fasilla,

but that's better than what I was saying about the Chicago Bulls before the trade deadline, dude. And you also look up and you go, now you go, geez, man, if you could pair Giddy up with one other guy, you're not that far away from maybe having an awesome team. A hundred percent. He's, he, look, he had 14 rebounds last night. He led the game in rebounds. He is the type of player that makes people around him better. like a rim running big would look good next to Josh Giddy.

You know, they have something to build around. He's not just a guy. He's a guy who could make players better around them. So I think the Bulls have something to be excited about here. And I think Josh Giddy is emerging as one of the most surprising players of this whole season. And maybe not most improved this year. There's a lot of candidates for that. But, you know, last night was one of the most.

sort of shocking moments for a player that I remember. It's like, oh my God, like Josh Giddy. Jesus, like go watch the last minute of that game. He did everything. And it was a great moment for the Bulls. All right. The team that he left, the aforementioned Oklahoma City Thunder, all right, this is where you've got to be a counselor, Goldsbury.

So SGA had 37 points at 34 minutes. His 25th, 35 point game of the year. The next most, by the way, in the league is 17. He was otherworldly. I was obviously watching this game. It was 99 to 99 with seven minutes left, seven minutes and 20 seconds left. And Memphis lost 125 to 104.

It was, I mean, the second they just decided to crank that thing up, Memphis could not score and Oklahoma City could not miss. They sweep the season series. They have dogwalked the Grizzlies. throughout this year. And it has been a long time since Memphis has got a win against a good team. I guess they'll get a crack this weekend when they're playing against the Lakers. But what happened to my team?

Well, you don't have your SGA character. I don't know what's going on with your guy. That's where I'd start because I love the team when it's fully healthy. This is, again, the Western Conference is loaded. I'm not going to say they're a favorite. it, but when they're fully stocked and they have their guy, I like them a lot. So I think whatever is happening with Morant needs to resolve itself. You know, if you said, hey, we're playing Oklahoma City without John Moran.

I say you're going to lose by 10 or 15. He lost by 20. Okay, fine. So I don't take a lot. You asked earlier, can we take a lot from these games? No, dude. You can't. You go to Oklahoma City without John Morant and you play them.

and what would you expect to happen? So I'll excuse that one. They are sliding. They need to get everything in a row before the playoffs. It looks like they're going to play the Lakers in a four or five. It remains to be determined who's the four and who's the five. And I think as somebody who's prepared for a Memphis playoff series, that's a big advantage for Memphis to have four of the seven games in Memphis.

So they need to end the season strong. I see they have the Celtics, the Nuggets, the Nuggets, the Lakers, the Warriors, the Pistons, the Wolf. So it's going, they're going to lose some more games, particularly, dude. And this is what I'd ask you. It was like, when are we going to see your guy come back? That's the biggest question in Memphis. The hope is tomorrow night against the Lakers.

But this has all been quite bizarre because he had his best game of the season. He was the best player on the floor against Cleveland. He had nobody else come for the ride with him. But he was over 40 points and he was the best player on the floor. And then the next night, second half of a back to back, he hadn't been playing second half of back to back. He's been dealing with the shoulder thing, kind of the whole year. They say he's out with shoulder soreness.

Yeah. The next game, he's listed with hamstring soreness. The next game he's listed with hamstring soreness, and the next game he's listed as hamstring strain. So we can't figure out whether or not like something happened, did it happen in practice, whatever, or like is something wrong with this hamstring or is this just what we're going on and this is happening around the league which is bro you got to just bubble wrap people until you get to the playoffs because the only thing that matters right our seed is much less important than having john moran out on the floor and so if there is the slightest ailment it's not worth even if you lose what what's what it's not worth is God forbid he tweak a ham because you know those soft tissue things.

If there's something wrong with them, right? Those soft tissue things, God forbid you tweak that. Now you're out. And now you're not even playing in the playoffs. And so, yeah, that's what we were talking about when we started out. You've got this weird deal going on in the NBA where it feels like what matters most is not the game that night. What matters most at this point is having your guys available for the playoffs. because we see how it dictates everything, right?

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And it's one of my nitpicks with the NBA product right now is if I were in a front office, if I were in the Memphis front office, I'd be like, yeah, let's just, like you just said, I don't care if we're four, five or six. I care if we're whole. The craziest thing, though, is even six isn't safe. Like, when you look at the state of the Western Conference, you have pretty good teams like the Warriors and Timberwolves lingering.

The Clippers might be the hottest. team other than the thunder in the whole league, they're climbing the ladder right now. And even 500, four and six over these last 10, you're playing with fire, dude. I went through it. I went through it yesterday. And I thought the number for Memphis or anybody else when I went and looked through all the schedules. And I think the clippers were the one that I was like, because they very well may get to

47 or 48. I thought 48 was the number that you need to get to not be in that play in. Right. And so, but again, if you're Memphis and you go four and six, like that barely gets you there, right? Down the stretch. And so you've got to, I think 48 will probably, for any team out there, keep you safe from having to play your way into the playoffs or win a game. 47, you're playing with fire at that point.

But, yeah, so it makes games like tomorrow night's game between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Los Angeles. You ask what you can take. That's a big game. And if Morant sits again and the Lakers win, I think that puts the Lakers sort of in the driver's seat, at least in that pair. Yep. But the Lakers also have a hellish schedule, probably the hardest left in the West. And they are slumping, too. So what's interesting is you have these four and five teams that have hard.

schedules who aren't playing great basketball, and you have these climbers below them, they kind of look just out of reach, but no, I'm not going to go there. If the Clippers play the next 10 games, like they just played the last 10 games, they're stealing one of those spots. They're stealing one of those two slots. If Steph and Jimmy get going in Golden State, they could steal another one of those slots. So there's a world where one of Memphis or the Lakers is suddenly a playing team in two or three weeks. And that's crazy to me, because I thought we were safe and we're not safe. Similar thing in the Eastern Conference, by the way.

Some of the better teams playing basketball at the end of the season are road teams in the playoffs. And that is good for the product. I'm excited to see teams like the Pistons or the or I guess the, let me see that the Pacers are red hot. Like this. It's going to 162, Kirk. Like, all right, so you spent a lot of you have all like the graphs that you've done over the years. You've read books about analytics. You know, look, I don't think you need to be an advanced mathematician to understand.

In my opinion, in a regulation game, there should not be time to score 162 points, right? There's a 24 second shot clock. There's 48 minutes. So you have to score over three points a minute. dude over the course of an entire game like there shouldn't there should be a time constraint that does not allow you to get to 162 and Cooper flag is to blame here dude I mean because they played they did that against the wizards who I always say are technically an NBA team but 162 points is insane bro that's a franchise record uh but Indiana and j j reddick said it

after they, again, won by the skin of their teeth to avoid what would now be a five-game losing streak for the Lakers. That's a good team, he said, over there. They're going to be a very tough out in the Eastern Conference playoffs. You know, this is a team that got to the semifinals of the NBA playoffs last year. I think that people have forgotten that the Pacers are a real team. As I said, I think the Pistons are a real team. And I think my big note, as we sit at the end of March this year, Verno, is that when you, look at the seeds and you look at who's hottest entering the playoffs, it's one of the biggest

disconnects we've seen. Boston is good. OKC is good. Fine. Cleveland's kind of wavering, but you have teams like the Lakers or the Warriors and the Pacers and the Pistons whose hotness does not correspond to their seed. And I think it's going to make for a very interesting first round on both sides of the bracket. Because some of those teams, it felt like post-trade deadline were watching them as like, oh shit, here comes Luca and LeBron. Oh, shit. Here comes Jimmy and Curry.

And they've kind of tapered off, right? Like last year, we had Dallas make those deals. And then anybody that had an awareness of what was going on, like those last 30 games we were like, oh, boy. Yeah. Like they are not, what their season record is not indicative of what that team is. is right now. Right.

And people, I think analytically, we've been thinking about this for a while, but the 82 game season has a lot of issues. And one of them is like, cool, your regular season record includes wins from October, November, and December. Well, ask people in Dallas how long ago that was. Like, the whole, it feels like a different season, dude.

And I think if you look at who's hot since the All-Star break, you still have a big, 20 game sample and you see teams like the Pistons as the third best team in the Eastern Conference since the All-Star break. And it's not particularly close. The Warriors are 13 and 4 since the All-Star break. Again, if you look at their record, who cares what the Warriors were doing in December? They're a completely different group right now.

Right. There's a completely different vibe. The 82 game season is misleading. It's like, cool, cool. It's a marathon. But I'm also interested if I'm. I'm looking at the tournament that starts in April, dude, who's been playing well since February. That's really, to me, more indicative of what we're going to see in the playoffs.

Now, there are some other things we look at, like is John Moran sitting out? Are we resting players, as you mentioned earlier? But I think who cares what you were doing in November? I think it's almost irrelevant, and it's another thing that's annoying about this 82-game marathon. We're forced to endure every year. Well, and some of these teams, it might even be, you know, more recent. Like I take, for instance, like, let's say Dallas. Yeah.

Okay. So Dallas has, they've been able to win all the games at AD plays. But again, we have like virtually no sample size, right? And then you look and they've like, because stupid Phoenix did not take advantage of Kyrie and AD being out, like really just extend that by getting, being able to get on a. wind streak to separate themselves. Now Phoenix is in like true peril because if Dallas has AD the rest of the way, they could be theoretically problematic for somebody. Like you don't want to see him.

You don't want to see him if you're one of these seven, eight, nines and having to play him in a two game set. Like the idea that he could be the best player on the floor for two straight games. Is that crazy at all if he gets there and it's very likely that 10 seat is either going to feature Kevin Durant or Anthony Davis, which is wire. I think I'd take Dallas right now for that 10th spot. And again, this is the time of year where remaining schedule is sort of a trope. But it is for a reason.

If you look at Phoenix, they have literally the hardest schedule left. They play the Thunder, the Celtics, the Red Hot Rockets, by the way. We haven't even talked about them. The Knicks, the Warriors, and the Wolves. That is six of the best teams, again, in the current NBA, post-All-Star Break NBA. And when you look at Dallas, they play your gris. Who knows what that's going to look like? The Lakers, they have two against the clippers.

But they have more winnable games. They play teams that aren't trying to win. That's a huge part of the equation right now. They're playing the Raptors and they're playing the nets. Like those types of games, those are almost like gimmey games, are a huge part of how we project where people are going to land. It's like, oh, do you get to play the wizards or not? because I have two games against the Wizards. That could differentiate the whole thing.

Who makes the playoffs and who doesn't? Well, look, you know, we mentioned the Memphis game against Oklahoma City earlier this week, a couple nights ago. I'm watching them play against Utah. Utah scores like 60-something points in the first half. They come out in the second half, and there's no, there's, Colin Sexton doesn't even play. I'm like, thank God. Like, no, to your point, it's like, bro, they might have beat Memphis. But they just decide, okay, no, it's going to be Bryce Sensible and KJ. Martin and whoever.

You know, I know Tom Haverstro has written a bunch about this, that now teams are doing the soft quit, which is we're going to put the guys to start the game, but then we might get to halftime, and you just may get to see Isaiah Collier the rest of the game, and we're not even going to play Colin Sexton, because God forbid, Colin Sexton lead us to a win. Dude, it's, yeah, the quiet quitting is a real thing. I remember when we, quote, unquote, fix tanking a long time ago. Well, here we are. And like, no joke, dude, I think it's the biggest problem in the NBA right now.

Maybe the biggest. It separates our league from other leagues. You would never see a college basketball team. You would never see an English Premier League team. You would never see maybe an NFL team. I remember the Patriots had the number one pick. They go into the last week of the season and they win and drop to number four. We're not seeing this kind of obsceney.

seen posturing in other sports. And I think it's one of the Adam Silver challenges. I think it's gotten to a new level this year. Again, I said it earlier. When I turn on league pass on a Wednesday, I love it. I have 10 games to choose from. Well, when five of them aren't competitive for one reason or another, like, that's not great.

And it also affects who's going to make the playoffs. And maybe in an unfair way, if I'm playing against teams that we're trying to win early in the season and now trying to lose, that does not seem like a good way to end our season and determine who makes the postseason tournament. Just the fact that you can look at a schedule and go, thank God we're playing a team that doesn't want to win.

Like, what is that? I was like, we know going in like that Utah game? All right, all right. That's a win because they don't want to win. They don't want to. Like the idea that you are having basketball games where one team does not want to win the game is that is,

the essence of sport is the competition. What are we doing? Go to a kids league game and be like, oh, you know, my kid's going to win today because the other team's not going to try. Like, that's like, it's the opposite of what sports is supposed to be. Like if you get, and I love this Tim McMahon joke calling the top sixers, because they're desperate to try to get into the top six. Yeah.

If you get the sixers, the jazz, the raptors. and I'm looking at Atlanta has three of those. Give me games left. That's going to affect the Eastern Conference playoff picture in a way that I don't think is great for the overall league. When we're talking about basic concepts like sportsmanship and competition, the best basketball league in the world has teams that are actively trying to lose. And I don't think that's ideal. This episode is brought to you by Walmart. Life gets busy and we could all use an extra hour or save one.

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Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. All right, eight questions with Kurt Goldsbury. I've got one chance to get you on here. I am going to pick your brain about a myriad of things. We'll go one by one. Number one, an underrated team in the NBA is... I think it's the Rockets, dude. I think people are sleeping on E.

E. Mea Doka's team. I don't feel. think they're this is the year for them, but I don't think they're getting talked about enough. I think they've won nine of their last 10. They are the toughest, maybe the second toughest defense in the West behind the juggernaut. And I love that team. And I think hiring I'ma Doka was one of the best coaching transactions of the last five years for the Houston Rockets. It immediately gave them an identity transplant and immediately helped their player development,

which had so many young talented guys, but credit to EMA, credit to that brand. They got a brand down there. So Houston Rockets. And, you know, we always talk about augmenting a young team with the right kind of vets and obviously Van Vleet and Dylan Brooks and Stephen Adams. These are the kind of guys that you want,

you're real pros that take their jobs, very seriously and also compete. They care about winning. Every single time they're out on the court. That bleeds over to those other guys. And you have to wonder, especially given the way they've taken off since Fred has come back, what if they didn't lose Van Vleet for all that time?

Like basically this terrible ankle injury that kept them out for, you know, like he got hurt in January and the guy came back in March. And it's like, geez, what if they would have had him? him. Like, their record might be more obscene than it is this season because they were, they really struggled. They lost him. Then they lost Thompson for an amount of time, obviously. But the Van Bleet thing felt like it had an outsized, uh, effect on them because, you know, Jalen Green's play went down. They were really kind of playing without a point guard. And they just

need him to organize everything. And when they have Van Vleet, I bet their numbers are through the roof. Yeah, they're going to win 54, 55 games in a Western conference where there's not a lot of easy wins. And I think you're right. I love the point. I love Stephen Adams. I know he's not the player we remember

from Oklahoma City, but he's still that toughest guy in the NBA by a lot of people's standards. And he brings that professional element. So I think you're right. Dylan Brooks, love them or hate them. And I know you guys have some opinions, but he

is defensive attitude in a can. Oh, yeah. He, look, look, as much as I, my big thing was with Dylan was always shoot less or make more, right? He had the,

I mean, he took, he made less shots than literally anybody in the league percentage-wise. Like, here's how many I took and three-pointers, okay, his last year of Memphis. So it was always,

But the good was always undeniable, which is he cares every single night. And that is honestly about 1% of the lead cares every single night. And he cares every single night whether his team wins or loses. And it does bleed over to the rest of the group. There's no way around that. In a locker room with that guy, Stephen Adams, Nime Adoka. You can't be a young knucklehead. That's right.

That's what they did. And credit to everybody who put that together because the chemistry is working. They're the most surprising team for me in the Western Conference. And I think they're the most underrated team in the NBA. An underrated player this season has been. I think I'll go Beasley. I don't think people quite realize that Malik Beasley is Clay Thompson now. I don't think.

This guy is a sprawball king. Wow. I mean, he is a catch and shoot. This is why you wrote the book. Yeah. This is the kind of player who you need on your team. Yeah. And he might be the best catch and shoot guy in the league right now. And I don't think people realize that. I don't think people realize how important he's been to this resurgence in Detroit.

He is the perfect spacing weapon next to Cade Cunningham. And I love him. I love his little shimmy. He's brought that, that little, you know, positive vibes. to Detroit. I love what I'm seeing from Detroit going into the playoffs. And Beasley, to me, is the name when I think of who's most underrated in the league in 2025.

Isn't it so strange that he is, he's one of these guys that, like, it's not like he languished away on sorry teams. He would feel like the perfect compliment to LeBron or to Yombe. Or to like all these places he's literally bit or Yokic like all he's played he's played at all these places. And yet it takes the most when he's playing off of Cade Cunningham and Tobias Harris. It's very strange. I mean, it's a real psychological thing catching and shooting a basketball. And you know, you shoot 35% one year and 40% the next year people like, whoa, oh, this guy's good.

Like, that's a, you shoot a hundred threes. You make five more. Like, that's the difference between average and good. It's a crazy psychological thing, like being a closer in baseball. And, you know, somebody, because it's a lot of mental toughness. And he's survived it. But he's had a couple of those years that I think the Lakers fans listen in right now. Like, cool, where was this when we had him?

Like, oh, he was below average. And that's fair to say, too. But right now, he's the best catch and shoe guy. the whole league. You know what? There's part of it too. And maybe we are seeing this with Josh Giddy. And the part of it is development.

The other part is maybe it's just way, like you, like you, you, you jarred my thoughts when you said mentally. Just the idea that like, when I miss this shot, nobody's groaning. You know what I'm saying? It's almost like, if any shot you miss in Milwaukee, Any shot you miss with the Lakers, any shot you miss, frankly, for Giddy in Oklahoma City. But nobody cares if Malibisley misses a shot in Detroit. And nobody cares if Josh Giddy misses a shot in Chicago.

And there's something about that freedom where it's like, okay, look, I'm really just going to get six shots. And any of them that I miss, people are going to be like, oh, just get him out of the game. Yeah, LeBron starts looking over at the bench and get this guy out. It's like, maybe it is just something as Cape Cunningham being a better vibe for him as his quarterback. I love that note. And I think that that could be part of it. And it's just like a lower pressure situation. But for whatever reason, I think he deserves it as what do we say, most underrated player in the league right now.

All right. If there is a dangerous likely play-in team, it is. You got to say the Golden State Warriors, right? You got to say the Golden State Warriors. These guys have won the Western Conference six of the last 10 years. And I know this is a different team. I'm not saying they're going to win the Western Conference. I'm saying when you look over and you see Jimmy Butler,

Draymond Green, Stefan Curry, and Steve Kerr are game planning against you. That kind of sucks if you're a two-seed or a one-seat. I mean, what a night. Look, I've lived this because the Grizzlies were the, the two-seat two years in a row, and you look up and now you're playing LeBron and AD. And it's like, oh, God, right? Like, I mean, if you're Houston, that is such a booby prize. Like, you just got to hope that it's not.

There really aren't very good options outside of, honestly, Memphis. Like, they're the only ones that you would want to drop to seven because you feel like, okay, we're not having to play some kind of veteran-laden team. the rest of those, whether it's the Lakers, whether it's the Warriors, whether it's, you know, the clippers. But those are all like, geez, man, I don't want to have to play them in a seven-game series. Dude, it's the difference between the West and the East. And this is something we'll vibe on because when you're the Spurs and you're the one seed and you remember this, you get Memphis and you lose. Like there's a world where a one or two seed in the West can lose this first round.

Even OKC, if they get the wrong matchup and they get an injury at the wrong time, this thing could end. Ask my friends in San Antonio, you can lose to an eight seed in the Western Conference. You know, you can't lose in the Eastern Conference an eight seat. The Celtics and the Cavs are enjoying a different privilege, Eastern privilege. The Western Conference, one seed and two seed just rarely get something like that. And whoever comes at a playing tournament is going to feel pretty good because they're going to be, like the wolves or the warriors have talent, have playoff experience, and are going to feel confident going into a first round series in a way that I'm sorry,

the Hawks, Magic, or Bulls won't feel confident going into Cleveland or Boston. All right. So you're going Warriors on that. All right. A change that would immediately benefit the NBA. We said it earlier, dude. They got to fix this tanking thing. It's polluting 10, 20, 30 percent of our inventory. It's polluting the end of the season.

You go to a game, and I was up in Boston for the Sloan conference, and I went to Celtics Sixers. Again, top Sixers, shout out Tim McMahon. They were in full top Sixers mode. They're trying to preserve their top six protected pick, and I got treated to a G-League lineup from the Philadelphia 76ers. On one of my only nights to see, you know, the defending champs in their own building, the Celtics react by putting in their B lineup. And it's like, this sucks. And you look over and you're looking at a family of four from New Hampshire that spent $600 and eight hours of driving time to go see their one Celtics game of the year. And just like, this sucks.

They need to fix this, dude. Again, this is the problem they need to fix. It hurts the television rating. It hurts the positivity around the product. Tanking is a scourge on our league. So I had a guy tweet us, because Chicago. Toby and I have talked about this quite a bit. Like, what can you do?

And let me throw this idea at you. I wish I would have gotten his name. I'm sorry. I don't have the name offhand. But his idea was basically, how about this? What if that if you're in the lottery, then after the next year that you're in the lottery, you cannot get the number one pick. And the next year you're in the lottery, you can't get the number two pick.

And the next year you're in the lottery. So if you are. are consecutively in the lottery, you cannot get the number one pick and then number two and then number three. Right. So I can't get Cooper flag if I was in the lottery last year. Right? Yep.

And so it's basically encouraging these teams in order to be, right? Like, okay, that biggest prize, that franchise altering guy is not there. it was least an idea that gave me a moment where I was like, you know, I mean, these are the kind of penalties that people will respond to because, right, like you even think about the way the money thing's gone, Kurt, where they've looked at like Balmer and they've looked at Ishbia and they've looked at Ishbia and they said, okay, these financial penalties are of no consequence. We have to add basketball penalties.

Right. And now, even this guy that just been. $6 billion on the Celtics. When he talked about it and he talked about the roster going forward, it was basically like, hey, it's not the luxury tax we're worried about. We're worried about the basketball implications of this. That like we may lose a draft pick down the road. We may have these kind of things take place with us. And so I don't know.

I don't know what kind of basketball penalty you could assess someone that would discourage them from losing on. purpose. Well, I think you look at what's incentivizing them to lose on purpose. And it is the NBA draft is the problem. And if you look at college basketball, the best bat, Cooper flag, he doesn't go to the worst team in college basketball. That would be ridiculous. Right. Right. That would be ridiculous. Okay, you're going to go to Prairie View A&M, Cooper or whatever it is. You're not, they tried to, they tried to keep him in Maine. Like, there was that moment, remember? There was that moment. He should have played for the black bears, man. He would look good in that light blue. But,

But I think there is a, imagine, and this is the mind exercise I like to do when I talk about tank, imagine if Cooper Flag could sign with any non-playoff team as a free agent. And only, maybe the worst your record is you get a little bit more money to give to this player. All of a sudden, they'd be auditioning for this dude. And the games that we're watching right now, like, look, you could play with this guy. You could play with that guy. Our coach knows what we're doing. You wouldn't be throwing these games away.

You'd be trying to say, hey, we're pretty good. instead we're like we got to get into that top four or the top five or whatever it is. So the draft is the problem. The draft odds or the problem. I don't have the solution hand up. But I think we can all say what's currently happening is not working. Well, and the other thing, Kirk, and I talked to Kevin O'Connor about this earlier this week, where I told him, I again, I don't have all the answers, but I know this.

If you're Adam Silver, and obviously they started with this, you know, $100,000 fines and all this. crap. There's going to be a real meeting that takes place this offseason about it because you cannot put this stuff on NBC, Peacock, Amazon. Like, they got all the money, but the last thing on earth they can have is that, all right, I've got all these new outlets. They've spent a fortune on this. They've spent a fortune on their in studio talent.

they've spent a fortune on like the infrastructure for them to carry the NBA and then it be a huge flop because people tune in and they're they're not getting to see the stars play. And so I would imagine that there's going to be a massive onus put on this simply because it's the first year of this new TV deal. They have to look this, the product we have this year or the example that you gave of going to that can't happen. But it's happening all the time. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's a bigger problem than just the lottery. So I think if they could fix tanking and all of the games were competitive, what a concept. That would be the best thing for the product. The top three seed that should worry the most about a first round exit.

Oh, this is a good one, dude. I have candidates for this one. Got the Knicks. Okay, they're a candidate. Okay. I got the rockets. And I got the nuggets. Those are my three candidates.

And let's start. The Nugget! Hey, the bottom of the Western Conference bracket is not a bunch of idiots. Right, I know. There's going to be some Hall of Famers and some teams with championship rings. Right. So the Nuggets, yeah, the Nuggets can't play defense right now. They are not a perfect basketball team by any means.

Right. So they're on my list. I think I would say the Rockets out of that group. of three, although the Knicks are drawing my eye or two, they're not exactly peaking at the right time. And this is before the Brunson stuff, before the Brunson stuff. I think the Pistons are not going to play them. I don't think there was a time where I was like, I'm going to pick the Pistons over the next. I think the Pistons beat them twice in Madison Square Garden this year. But I think they're good, I think the pistons are playing so well than the five. So I think, and then you look at the

Damien injury. I think we're looking at Milwaukee, New York, which is also no easy. thing. If Janus is fully healthy, I don't care that Damien's not out. That's a championship team. Like, Janus has a ring and Brooke Lopez has a ring. But I think my answer, unfortunately, is the aforementioned Houston Rockets, who are just too young. They haven't seen it. They're not going to have the guy at the end of the game, which I think is the biggest flaw in the architecture. Fred Van Fleet, trying to get a bucket with three minutes left in a game three, that's a tough look for me when it's Jimmy Butler guarding him or when it's Anthony Edwards guarding him. I think that's a fair comparison, a fair criticism of the rocket. So I like where they're at,

but dude, I think the Western Conference is so thick that that first round matchup is going to be tough. And it's the part of, as I always talk about getting your playoff scars, every team has to do it, right? You have to go through it. You have to get the reps, the bright light, and then the next time you're infinitely better for. it. But most of these teams, any of the teams that have turned into something, generally, they've had to be in the playoffs. Even the Warriors, you know, in 15, they'd been to the, they had been to the playoffs twice before they ever, right? And had three different playoff series before they were able to break through. But it's very difficult for young teams at the, at the outset. And so, all right, you go rockets on that. And I think that's fair. It's just this is not, and this is not a demerit on the. This is credit to the strength of the West and the fact that it's a bunch of veteran-laden teams down there. If that Kauai Leonard looks like he did last week against the calves, good luck. Well, I mean. Yeah, dude, so the clippers are nasty officially.

And I want to talk about it briefly because Kauai is back, Hardin is looking good. Ty Lou is one of the best postseason coaches in the league. Ben Simmons. I know. So here's what's going to happen. They're going to end. How about you watch them? They bring Derek Jones Jr.

They bring Ben Simmons. It's like all these condors and they're all like long and athletic and obviously Van Gundy. Like this, his dream is for you to play him in an 88, 84 game. And so some of these young teams, they're going to drag them down into the mud when it gets to the playoffs and be like, all right, we're going to play. We run a play, you run a play, and let's see. Yeah. And again, we talked about Van Fleet. Okay, that's your go-to score at the end of the game.

Well, the Clippers have two guys better than that at the end of the games. Now, Hardin's playoff resume deserves a mention here. Ben Simmons' playoff resume deserves a mention here. The Clippers are going to be, here's what's going to happen. They're going to end is probably one of the hottest teams in the whole league. And then we're going to look at them as the sexiest underdog. in the Western Conference, and then we're going to say, oh, but they have James Harden. Oh, Ben Simmons is playing 15 minutes a game for these dudes.

What do we do with that? Because it's still, if Kauai, and you remember one of the best games Kauai ever played was in Memphis and the Take That for Data Series. Oh, my God. Yeah. And it was, yeah, Conley? Him and Conley went back and forth for, I don't know. It was a great game, but Kauai Leonard is one of the dudes that can go win a playoff game.

And I'm not saying that he's going to be reliable, but that's going to be a really hard team to pick in the first round of the Western Conference. No, a healthy, if you told anybody, you get a healthy Kauai Leonard, I mean, we know. He's one of the best five playoff performers there is. Yeah. Right?

Like, you don't want to see him. The player this year that has made you like them much more than you used to, this should be called maybe like the Demar de Rosen Award, right? Remember when everybody, especially in the analytic community, or analytic community, like, couldn't stand to Martin or Rosen. And then he, like, all of a sudden, like, everybody started warming up to him. And they're like, you know what? We've been too low.

Like, he's actually pretty awesome, right? Yeah. Who is the guy? Yeah. I got three candidates for this one, too. I love what's going on in Cleveland. And I personally have felt an affection for Darius Garland that I hadn't had previously. Donovan Mitchell, I would also put in that category.

But Garland from that team. And then when I look out west, I have to say Josh Giddy in Chicago, too. And then out west, it is Norman Powell from the aforementioned L.A. Clippers. And I like Norman. I've always liked Norman as a player. But I didn't know he could score the ball like this. I didn't know he could sort of be a leader on a team. And I think he's a differentiator as a third scorer now in a Clippers lineup. So ultimately, I think I'm going to say Norman Powell, because I just have always liked his game.

And I think he gives them just another great scoring option. They get Bogdanovich, too. Like, if it clicks, dude, they're pretty low. I know. If it clicks. What kind of odds could we have gotten on Norman Powell being infinitely better than Paul George? I mean, honestly, hey, what kind of odds could we have gotten on Tobias Harris being better than Paul George? It's all so crazy.

It's also crazy. Yeah, Tobias Harris is out of nice renaissance, too. And I think that's a good story too. You could put him on this, Liz Roano. Crazy. But I'm going to, I think, you know, I don't want to be prisoner of the moment and go giddy. He just had, you know, the night of his life. But I'll say, I'll say Norman Powell.

Norm Powell. All right. Kurt Goldsbury, I give you $1,000 to put on one team to win the title. You put it on? The question is, do I have the odds? Am I betting? Yes, yes. You get the odds.

I think the best price right now is probably the Boston Celtics. I think the best price right now. I think the favorite deserves to be the Oklahoma City Thunder. I would say the Celtics, again, because the sneaky thing is they have an easier path to the championship than the Thunder do. They have a relatively easy path. There's no easy path to the finals. Don't get me wrong. But they stomped the Eastern Conference last year in the playoffs.

I could see them doing that again. I love what you say about playoff scars. Maybe Cleveland just needs one more year. to be that real ferocious competition to Boston and the East. But I just think they're so good. This is a classic title defense. They've had a long year, but I think the Celtics, and again, I think the reason I'm saying that, Verno,

is the West is just so thick, dude. It's so thick. The Thunder have to win two, maybe three really hard playoff series, whereas I don't think I'd say the same thing about the Boston Celtics. Right. The players you would have to go through and the fact that they and their resumes. Right. I mean, if you have to fate, like somebody is going to be in a war versus Curry and Draymond and Butler. And somebody's going to be in a war versus Yokic. And it's like, these are not. LeBron and Luca, bro.

LeBron and Luca, I mean. There's none of that on the East. There's no, like, there's no LeBron James like being a mediocre playoff team in the Eastern Conference. That character just doesn't exist. And there's like four. of them in the West. Well, because the only one that's won anything is Janus and his team is now, right? Yes. The only one that's got like you look and you go, all right, this guy's won the title and has got an awesome team. Like the only one would be Janice and Janus's team is now, you know, destroyed. Yeah, destroyed. I mean, the player they were counting on being the number two there is not going to be there, it looks like. So yeah, that's exactly right, Bruno. So again, I think the Western

conference deserves respect here. And that's why I'm picking, if I'm betting a thousand dollars on somebody, I'm picking an Eastern Conference team. And I feel like the Celtics are still one notch above Cleveland when it comes to playoff basketball. Part of the Kurt Goldsbury bio is that he once worked for an NBA team, the San Antonio Spurs. The best part about working for an NBA team is.

It's the fellas, dude. You're part of a tribe. You're part of a crew of people that is all aligned towards one goal. And those kinds of relationships, those kinds of coworkers, it is really special. And you develop really close relationships and friendships that you don't do in other facets of life. I love media. I love writing. But when you're working on a team and you're working on beating the grizzlies in the playoffs

are beating the thunder in the playoffs, and everybody from Tim Duncan all the way through Manu Genoobli and down to me on the low part of the Total Bowl is, like, obsessed with this goal. It's just unmatchable in terms of the kind of relationships you build and bonds you form. So, yeah, it's the human element. And I wonder, I wonder, like, I wonder how different your experience was

because you were part of such an amazing franchise where it's like the whole thing. is everybody pulling the same rope. But there's probably other people that didn't have that same experience when they worked in professional sports or whatever. So I always love hearing how much you liked it and how much you enjoyed being around the people and like the whole because it's very healthy environment.

Yeah, and the people I got to work with, EMA was there, Becky Hammond was there, Barago was there. Ederet Messina was there. Pao Gasol was there. I'm of course, Tony, Manu and Tim and Popovich and R.C. And it was just like Scott Marks. It was a ridiculous murderer's row of basketball experts that I would bond with and learn from, man.

It was a one-of-a-time in San Antonio where, you know, we didn't win the championship, but we had an absolute just depth to our greatness of people. And it was a really special time for me there. Oh, that's a good. It's a good one. We can end up because I want to ask you, because we'll talk about the aforementioned. You mentioned Emeo Doka, right? It's a guy that you said earlier, like that Houston team and what a great hire that was.

Obviously, you knew him way back when. Did you see it? Yeah. I mean, he is the coolest guy. You saw it. Yeah. I mean, he thought, you thought this guy is going to be one of these, you know, guys, one day. He'll be on a sideline like Popovich is.

Yeah. And in part because we'd seen Bud and we'd seen Will Hardy and we'd seen a lot of these guys go out and do stuff. But EMA always had not the analytics stuff. I'll tell you that. But he has the man-to-man stuff that is very rare in this league. How many coaches can get in a player's face and tell them that that rotation just fucking sucked? And how many guys can do that. That's a question. I don't care who your team is. Ask yourself if your coach could go to the star

player and be like, bro, that rotation fucking sucked. And the player takes it. And that's rare. And so, E. Me Adoka is, dude, probably the most competitive person

I've ever met. And that's saying a lot when you work in the NBA. He is obsessed with winning. And I think that comes across. But his way with the athletes dude is a differentiator. And so I always knew he had that.

And I'm thrilled that he's found a place in Houston where it's really, that's what he's done there is he's turned a guy, a bunch of guys, you said it earlier, the 1% thing about guys who care. If you're, if Emaidoka's your coach, you're going to care or you're not going to play. And again, could you say that about your team? And it's not just, it's not just his own team. He called LeBron a bitch last year. Who could do that?

That's right. Who calls a project? That's what he is. There's a lot of ways to be a great coach. You can be the great X's and O's guy, or you can be the motivator, and we know what EMA is. He is the toughest motivator in that cohort of coaches in the NBA right now. He is. Kurt, Galsery.

Kirk, thanks so much for coming on the show today, man. Thank you, Verno. We'll do it again soon. Thank you to our producer, Jesse Lopez, as always, and we'll talk to you next week. Must be 21 and over in present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 over and present in D.C. Got a gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. Call 1-88-88-789-7777 or visit CCPG.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MD gamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here.

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