The Mismatch - Is There a New Alpha in Boston? Plus, Exposing the Lack of Foul Calls.

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

Verno and KOC discuss Al Horford and Jaylen Brown’s performance in last night’s Celtics win over the Suns (01:48). Is Brown quietly becoming the new leader in Boston? Next, the guys dive into Tom Haberstroh and Ethan Strauss’s recent reporting about how officiating has changed and the lack of fouls being called in games (23:05). The guys speculate about whether this is something Adam Silver has quietly done to improve the game for potential future broadcast partners and whether this could lead to more rule changes down the line. Got a question for Verno and KOC? Send them an email at [e-mail]! Or you can send the guys a tweet @ChrisVernonShow and @KevinOConnorNBA! The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out http://theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Producer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every true football fan knows that the NFL season truly begins after the Super Bowl champion has been crowned, and the ringer NFL feed will keep you on top of all the news still happening around the league and heading into the 2024-25 season. I'm Sheila Capadia, and every Monday and Friday, Ben Solac and I deliver Sharp takes the debates on the draft, free agency, training camp, and beyond an extra point taken. And every Wednesday, it will have dual threat, where Stephen Ruiz and yours truly, Nora Princeati, dive deep into all of the big offseason developments, with Ringer favorites, Austin Gale and Lindsay Jones,

stopping by occasionally to share their expert football analysis. Subscribe to the Ringer NFL show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to follow the Ringer NFL on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and X at Ringer NFL. Welcome to The Mismatch. I'm Chris Vernon and joining me on this Friday morning from The Ringer.com. It's Kevin O'Connor, A.K.A. Kevin O'C. O'C. Kevin O'Cle, Kevin O'Cle, Kevin O'Cle, Kevin O. Camera, Kevin O'Conflict, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Blessarian, Kevin O'Berdo. How are you doing this morning? What's up? I am doing great. We now are heading very quickly towards the NBA playoffs. It seems like there are a lot of competitive games.

We also seem to have a very interesting happening going on in the league that we care about the most. which we will get to. Let's start with the premiere game last night. The national TV game was Phoenix and Boston. Boston was without Chris Stap's Porzengis. But this is like, I think, a 65-60 game at halftime, pretty high scoring, and then get to the second half, and Boston runs off on Phoenix. They are shooting absolute fireballs from three.

and I got done watching that game and I wrote down in my notes, we could just fast forward to them holding up the trophy if Al Horford is going to make every shot. Because as I'm watching that game, it was a Horford Renaissance. You know, it plays out in some ways like a playoff game. You know, Frank Vogel's always got a game plan

for each and every game. And you got to give up something. and there's no doubt that one of the some things that you've got to give up is, all right, Al Horford's going to be left alone at the three point line so that we can try to cut off drives, et cetera, et cetera. And so he's going to get open looks from there. He's going to get kickouts from there. And if he kills us, he kills us.

And my God, did he kill Phoenix last night? Because you could expect Jalen Brown to be fantastic. You can expect Jason Tatum to be fantastic. You might even expect Derek White. to be great or Drew Holiday to have a big defensive impact, which he did. But the Horford turning into Larry Bird, that one, if Boston's got that going, then you can forget about it. Larry Bird, that's where you go with the player comparison for Al Horford. He was never missing.

Never. It was like drive, kick, auto. You know, like every time. And that is one of those things. And I think the same will be true of Porzingis, right? It's this stretch five thing that they could pull. You know, even Tillman hit one when he came in later in the game. They do have Tillman hitting threes.

That's true. They have him taking them more often. But this is the kind of thing. I'm saying that like stretch five position that they play. It's like there's so much drive and kick. There's so much get a paint touch. throw it back out. If their bigs are knocking down threes at a very high rate,

Hauser came in knocking down threes. If their bigs are knocking down threes at a high rate, that unlocks something that absolutely no one has an answer to. It's obviously been the story throughout this year, which is why their record is so absurd. But, you know, we looked at all of this through the prism of the playoffs. And I do think that that was one of those nights where it's like, I don't, I don't take that much away from Phoenix because I don't care who you put out there against Boston last night.

You're not beating that team if they're going to shoot 53s and make over 20 of them. You're just not. Yeah. I mean, if you take 503s and make 25 of them, you're not winning. You've got a really high percent chance of winning, which made me think about the Kevin Durant comments after last weekend's game when the Celtics won that game, not even shooting as strong. as they did on Thursday night. Katie kind of praised Joe Mazzul's strategy after the game, saying, you know, you stick to it eventually.

You know, they started off slow that game. It comes their way. They ended the game hot. They ended up winning the game by sticking with their strategy. And you juxtapose that against Phoenix, a team that their stars don't take a lot of threes. Like, KD. shoots 5.3 shots from three per game. Sam Hauser, who takes six shots a game total, takes five point.

four three is a game. He doesn't shoot two. It's like four guys on Boston shoot more threes than Kevin Durant. One of the heaviest mid-range guys in the entire league. And sometimes you watch Phoenix and yes, Katie makes half of his mid-range jumpers, but he also makes

40% of his threes. You do wonder if you know, maybe the Suns should be taking more, pull-up threes instead of pull-up twos. You could also see they get to the playoffs and they've got a math problem. Yeah, with the amount of mid-range that they take. They got Grayson Allen.

And Royce O'Neill is getting blocked by Joe Missoula. So he's not making anything. I mean, you know, and like whether it's, you know, Missoula's defense on Royce O'Neill or the mid-range pull-ups, I think it comes back to two things. Al Horford, the threes that he hit, like you compared him to Larry Bird. I mean, it was really just like vintage, you know, Al Horford turning back the clock with his ability to score in volume. But the way Boston got him going was really just the way that they would get any of their role players going.

And sometimes that's just in motion. Like they would, I think the Sun's defense in that game showed throughout the entire game that they're helping hard inside the pink. Like there's this three-pointer that Horford hit in the middle, I think the first half, maybe this, even just the second three that he hit, where it was a simple little action where Drew Holiday kind of just slipped his way into the paint after setting an on-ball screen for Jason Tatum. And, like, Beal sucks in, Booker's pointing to help for Drew Holiday,

who's pretty open inside the paint. You got Nurkich outside on Tatum, Katie outside on Tatum. And meanwhile, Al Horford only needs a sliver of space with Booker helping off of him. And that happened throughout the game against different guys with the Sun's defense, which we know is weak in the perimeter, which we know doesn't have size. And it felt like Boston was trying to exploit that with driving kick, but also some slips to the basket. Like one of, you know, Brown's passing this year has been better. Jalen Brown has gotten better as a passer as a decision maker. I think that's one of the reasons for the positive side for Boston, if you want to feel optimistic about their playoff chances.

His left hand has improved. His playmaking has improved. His defense has improved for that matter, too. His defense on perimeter players has been absolutely awesome. Yes, much better. You know, Harlan even shouted him out on the field goal percentage of several stars that they have played recently in their matchups with Brown. He has obviously taken that challenge to become an elite-level defender very serious. absolutely no doubt about it so like he's improved in the ways that he needs to as a star player

entering the prime years of his career and and whether it's defense or you know decision making i thought last night like boston's up 15 so in some ways you kind of you know if you're the sons maybe you understand taking a little easy but it's still three minutes you know four minutes left i remember he he attacked grace and allen off the dribble you know going with his left hand and Alan contained him pretty well. And while the play was happening, you had Derek White, who Bradley Beale just explicitly left completely wide open behind the ark. It's like, this is Derek White, who takes a ton of threes per game.

He's a knockdown guy. And Bradley Beal, for no reason and all, is just helping inside the pain on a pretty well-contained Jalen Brown by Grayson Allen, who played good defense in the closing moments. and White's wide open behind the arc. Bradley Beale way too late to close out, and White hits the three, turns a 15-point lead into an 18-point lead. The game was pretty much over at that point already. But there's just one of many examples that I thought illustrated,

A, Jalen Brown's approved playmaking, he drove into the paint, saw two, immediately finds the open guy behind the arc. And then also the Sun's defense that I thought throughout the game just wasn't very good at all at containing little slips to the rim from Austin driving kicks. It just felt like a team that, you know, showed their biggest weakness, which is perimeter defense. Yeah, and Grayson Allen may have contained Jay LaBroner one position, but not when he got his head cracked on. No, no, no, not much often, not very often.

Flex like a WWE wrestler after he had cracked on his head. That's probably why he was locking in. He's like, I can't let this happen again. Yeah. So, and let me make clear, I am not. saying that Al Horford is Larry Bird. Sam Hauser's actually Larry Bird. But the point is when they are, when they've got those drive and kick things and literally

everybody can make the shots off those kicks, like they're getting the drives. So now it's the collapse and you've got a huge problem if the guys that are playing the power forward and center positions are going to reliably knock down. threes. And we have seen this happen in playoffs past. Once upon a time, the very famous Grant Williams game, where he was the guy. Like, those are the guys that are going to be left open. You've got to give up something. And so those are the guys that are going to be left. And if those guys are going to reliably knock down a reasonable percentage from three, you have, especially if you're in Phoenix's case, you've got a gigantic math problem, as they did last night. You know, you brought up just Jaylen Brown, you talk about it improving. He got that huge contract in the offseason.

And one of the things that I wrote down when I was watching this game was there been two very high-profile games that have taken place that we have both watched over the last two weeks. The Denver game first and then that game last night. What I wrote down was, is this quietly starting to become the Jalen Brown Alpha team? Now, just hear me out here. Hear me out. At the end of that Denver game, when they started to get down and then they mounted that comeback, they went into a huddle. And Chris Haynes does this report.

And I should have mentioned this when we did that show last Thursday. But I had it written down into something that stood out to me. And he said, Jalen Brown gathered everybody on that bench. And he said, guys, look, we're down by whatever it was, nine. we have got to get stopped. That's what that's going to get us to where we want to go. We can't just be playing. We run a play, you run to play basketball.

We've got to get stuff. And he was like, he said there was this impassioned speech that they did on the bench. We know that Jalen Brown was the most standout player in that game. And so that's two very high profile games most like what would mimic playoff games. I'm not nearly as interested in what. happens against Charlotte or what happens against Washington, as I am against what happens against Denver, what happens against Phoenix. Because you know the stakes are high, you're on TNT, the lights are brighter. And we have seen Jalen Brown step up in this way. They have needed someone

to fill that void. It's one of the things that people have had a concern with regarding Tatum. Is he the alpha? Is he that guy that will gather everybody in the huddle? Is he the guy that says, no, this ain't happening tonight. Jump on my back like, you know, Jimmy Butler would, like other guys around the league would. And I went and looked it up. Just in March so far, Kevin, the leading scorer in the NBA will not surprise you at all. It's a Luca Donchich, right? He's averaged 34 points a game. Second is Janus. Third, Kevin Durant. Fourth, SGA. Fifth, Jalen Brown. He is 52% from the field, 40% from three. And then all of this, while a miserable 63% from the line.

And he's averaging 30 points a game. Now, Jason Tatum is not far behind. He's at like 10th and averaging 27 a game while shooting 47% from the field, 49% from 3 in March and 88% for the line. But if you just look at March and what we've seen thus far, Brown's 23 attempts and Tatum's 20 attempts. And so I just wonder, are we seeing before our eyes maybe something that will be instructive as we get towards the playoffs? Because I can't help but look at these last two very big games and go, if there is that void of who's the guy, there's no question.

Tatum is the most talented player. He is the most decorated player. He is the one that people consider the better play. player. And yet, in the absence of him being like a dogmatic personality, you wonder if this is slowly becoming Jalen Brown's. Like, they've always been 1A and 1B, but maybe that is changing more to a 1A and 1A. It's an interesting thought with Jalen because, you know, you mentioned the March stats, just to, you know, give a little bit of an even bigger sample to bring it back to the All-Star break.

Since the All-Star break, he's averaging 21.1 shots per game, which is two more than Tatum at 19.3. So that's in 10 games since the All-Star break. Prior to the All-Star break in 50 games, he was taking two less shots than Tatum per game. Tatum was at 19.5, pretty close to the 19.3 he's had since the All-Star break. Brown was at 17.3 shots per game before the All-Star break. that's up to 21.1 now. So with Jalen, I looked up the touch stats as well.

It's not like he's getting fed the ball more often. Prior to the break, he was getting 53 touches per game. After the All-Star break, only 50 touches per game. So it's not like he's getting more touches with the ball. It's not like he's getting more possession time. But there does seem to be that there's a shift in his responsibilities, that he's being empowered more often as a score, whether that's by the coaching staff,

whether that's by his teammates, whether that's just his own decisions, or whether it's the fact that he's having some of these hot, ridiculous performances, and therefore he's shooting more. We'll see how that sustains. But I do think you are bringing up an interesting thought there with Boston, a trend to monitor, because the more this happens in these big high-profile games, the longer it happens, even against some of the Charlottes and the Washington's of the world, as you're saying, if it happens more continuously over the course,

course of the year. I do wonder if maybe this is them getting in playoff prep mode. It's just like he's the guy that's like, I'm here for this. Yes. I'm here for this and I am making Jalen Brown is like, I'm making my imprint on this game. And sometimes Tatum, we, that's the criticism. We know what you are capable of, but there are times where you do not make your imprint on the game. you are not the guy that it's like all right it's me versus the other guy we've seen the clutch stats we know all that but we also know that he's had big moments in the playoffs he's got a 50 ball like he's had big moment but there's also the times where it's like bro are you on the team and it's like Tatum's kind of or i mean brown it feels like it's taking the bull by the horns and being like that it stood out

to me that he's the guy yelling at everybody in the huddle it did and then you just watch him he mega aggressive in these big games and had some big, like double-digit quarters. These are both national TV games the last two weeks that kind of mimic that playoff feel. Something to monitor. Yeah, it is. It is.

And I think with Jalen, he had just went through one of the stretches of the season where he wasn't shooting nearly as often as he was earlier in the year. So I think he was at 16 shots per game for the 20 games prior to the All-Star break. That's a big jump to go from 16 shots per game prior to the break

and the 20 games prior to the break to the 10 games since the break at 21 shots per game, 16 to 21. That feels like a philosophical change, something that they internally have said, we need to get Jalen more shots more consistently because of his improvements as a passer, because of his improvements as a decision maker. Let's empower him into being the player that will need him to be in the postseason in those big performances. Perhaps this was an organizational or coaching decision rather than just riding the hot hand. Because I do think it's more than that. I think you might be on to something, Chris.

I mean, it's just, you know, at the beginning of the year, we were like, he's the guy that's going to have to sacrifice the most. He might have signed for a third of a billion dollars, but what's it going to be like for him now that they have Porzingis? And instead, he's the leading shot taker this month. when they've had two very big premier games. He's a leading shot taker in both of those. He's the guy in the huddle yelling at everybody. It's like maybe the guy they gave a third of a billion dollars to is now, it's his team. Like, is he the one that's going to go in the locker room and yell at everybody?

Is he the one? Him and Marcus were really, really close, right? And there is always going to be that, you know, you're probably a little timid to be that way if you're Drew Holiday, though you're the veteran leader. Horford's not really that personality. Like, who is the guy that's going to break the chair in the locker room? Who's the guy that's going to yell at everybody in a huddle, whatever? And it's almost like, Jalen, when you're talking about all these improvements that have taken on the floor, it feels like off the court too, he's now comfortable to be that guy that Marcus was.

Because that was smart. And that's why Boston had to let go of Marcus smart. Aside from the improvements on the court in terms of talent getting Porzingis and then later getting Drew Holiday, Boston removing Marcus Smart from the equation as a leader, that is what opened a void for some voice to take over. For somebody to be that guy. Yes. I think Jalen Brown is the guy that they perhaps hoped would take that, knowing that Tatum's more on the quiet side and Horford's a leader by example. and a lot of the guys on that team are leaders by example

with effort and hustle occasionally saying something. But Jalen, he's the guy who's vocal in every way, on the court, off the court. He's not afraid to use his voice and make a difference in the world. And I think with the Celtics, perhaps that they anticipated that he would be the guy to be that person in the huddle, to be that person being that motivator. And we'll see, come playoff time. That's when it's going to matter most how much that voice resonates. But it does seem like Jalen could be the guy taking the whole.

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with a wide range of bet types, including quick bets, player props, and a whole bunch more. And guess what, North Carolina, the wait is over. Fandle is officially live in the Tar Hill State. So visit Fandul.com slash mismatch and make your first bed a layup. FanDul, official sportsbook partner of the NBA.

Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit the ringer.com slash RG. First online real money wager only $10 first deposit required. Bonus issue. Just not withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. See terms at sportsbook.Fandul.com. So I was texting you. I was texting my other NBA friends last night watching that game because it has been

in the back of my mind, or really at the forefront of my mind, all of this reporting that has been done and conversation that has been had over the course of the last couple of days, even since we first recorded our pod at the beginning of the week, about the bottom dropping out on foul calls and that the whistle swallowing is happening at a very, very high rate. Tom Haberstro wrote about this, then Ethan Strauss. Well, Ethan wrote about it, you know, wrote about it. Maybe 10 days ago. Well, and Haberstro had a bunch of stats. These guys have been on top of it. Ethan Strauss and Tom Haberstro has been on top of this story. And they have bullied it into the national conversation.

You know, Ryan and Bill talked about it earlier in the week. And now Tom updated it again yesterday on his substantiated. of which I was a subscriber to with all kinds of numbers that were mega fascinating. And of course, I was very interested because one of the games that he even mentioned in his article that he had put out was a game that I was at. I was at the Memphis Charlotte game where Charlotte did not go to the free throw line for the first three quarters of a game. That night, a few nights ago, there were two games.

A game going on in Portland and a game going on in Cleveland and New Orleans. and then the game going on in Memphis where there have been 2,000 games played. It had not happened where a team had not taken a single free throw in three quarters. And yet on this night, it was like everything is coming together. This has been a part of the conversation. People are starting to talk about it. And now you have this apex moment of two different games that feature teams that did not go to the free throw line for three quarters of a game. Last night, I'm watching Boston and Phoenix.

There are a million things taking place in that game that you know we're called differently. Four weeks ago, anybody that is an ardent fan of the NBA can notice that this is different, that the whistles are not being blown at the same rate. Now, I'll give credit where credits do. I think Tom was super tipped off to this by Ben Fox, who covers a lot of gambling stuff, had tweeted out at one point a while back that post All-Star Break, the over-unders that are posted in NBA games, unders had hit at 71% just an insane amount and so that's like what's going on here right like this never happens and this is obviously now the NBA is all tied into all the gambling and everything like what's happening here well points are down 10 to 15% you know and you could and

So it was like at 116 a game. Now it's more like 110. They're allowing more physicality, calming down on fouls, 50, 50 balls, you know. And it's all very real. This is all very, it flushes out with the data while, meanwhile, Mark Stein then picks up on it, asks an NBA spokesperson, and they say, this is just a statistical anomaly. What you're seeing is not real. Ridiculous.

And yet, February was the third lowest free throw rate month in NBA history. You had two teams the other night that did not take a free throw through three quarters. And there's less defensive three seconds being called, much less. Much less, 41% less defense of three seconds. Tex are down? and non-shooting fouls are down significantly. Like all of the freedom of movement stuff. That's down.

And so, and the interesting thing is that the tax being down while doing this, that one surprises me because guys are getting madder because stuff that wasn't being called earlier there. Like, it took Frank Vogel going to mid court, getting in Ed Malloy's face last night and going, call a f fowl for them to tech him up finally. You remember this? They finally decked him up when he, I mean, he's like an inch from the guy's face yelling call an effing foul. And because they're just flying up and down the court.

You know, I'm, as I mentioned, I don't expect anyone in the free world to have been interested in this miserable group of games that I watched the other night. But that Charlotte Memphis game that I was at, I sit right at next. to the radio broadcast. And I can't remember what the guy's name. Let's just say it's, I'll just name him John Smith. His name's not John Smith, but as a referee. And our radio guy said,

John Smith's refing this game like he doesn't want to be here. And by the way, it was in no reference. Like Eric Haslton is the radio voice. He has no idea what's going on with all of this stuff. He's not keeping up with Tom Havastrow's substack and whatever. He's just seeing that with his eyes. And anybody that is a fan of the NBA that's watching is going, boy, they sure are letting a lot of stuff go tonight.

And I am so fascinated by this, that there is a sea change that if you polled fans would be insanely popular, the product has gotten much, much better, the times of games has gone down significantly, and yet the NBA just continues to say, no, nothing happened. No edict was made. No, it's not a point of emphasis. Nothing's different about the way this game is being called.

This is a statistical anomaly, and what you're seeing with your eyeballs is not real. This is just the blit. I am so fascinated by this, that obviously something happened. They don't want to admit something happened. And with each data point, it becomes more persuasive that something happened. What do you think?

Something absolutely happened. There's no question. I mean, we have the quote from Joe Dumars, and this is where Ethan introed his article about this on March 9th. Ethan started his article, here's a January 31st quote from Joe Dumas, executive vice president and head of basketball operations of the NBA. And the quote is, we're going to see offensive eruptions with this kind of pace and the amount of threes people shoot. But there's no push here at the league office from me or anyone else that we want to see a certain score.

Well, since January 31st, you mentioned the Haversstro Stats. He did an awesome job on his substack with his article, you know, going month by month. month detailing the statistics. Stravin at S-R-A-V-A-N-N-B-A on Twitter, they put out something before and after January 31st. So since the Joe Dumas comments. And you go like fall by foul, offensive falls, down 10%. Loose ball falls, down 14%.

Charge falls, down 32%. Defense of three seconds, down 41%, files overall down 9%. So it's like regardless of the type of foul call, you name it, like it is down. And even transition take files down 14% for that matter. It's like everything's down. And I don't think it's coincidence that Joe Dumas

says that on January 31st, that Adam Silver, All-Star Weekend, he's like, you know, trying to encourage the guys to play defense and to play hard. And then, and then the points, you know, balloon up to a record high. And after he's handing out the trophy and he is like, congratulations. He clearly disappointed. You set a record. Yeah.

And I don't think it's a coincidence at all. Clearly, what this has shown for better or for worse, it has shown the power of officiating. We've known the power of officiating for a long time that early foul calls can change the way a guy has to perform on defense. That's why fans get so mad when a guy gets too early on. A coach has to change his rotations. We've known about the power of officials that way, how a game can be dictated. What we didn't know is how the entire complexion of the game of basketball can be changed as a whole merely with their decisions. on the floor.

It's not just rules. It's just the amount of times the whistles being blown. And I think that's where Ethan's article, the one on March 9th, is interesting, because he kind of had like

a theme throughout that where it was like, wait a minute here. Like GMs and coaches are like, you're changing the rules mid year? Mid year on us?

Because, right. And I understand their frustration because they've got to adjust on a fly. I'll tell you, many years ago, I went to a preseason game. It was Memphis versus Houston in Birmingham.

And it was the year that they were going to implement freedom of movement calls. And so in that preseason, if you went back and were to look, there were a billion fouls called. Because what they were trying to do was to say, guys, this is now different. and I believe maybe is Mike DeAntony or somebody I think somebody even got thrown out of this preseason game like it was that crazy and the game took forever and because and like you know you're interviewing these guys afterwards and they're like yeah this is going to take some getting used to like the way we play basketball is changing dramatically because they were making sure that they you know the preseason was the the Petri dish to say, this is the way this is going to be called now. So you can't play defense like you've played defense anymore. And it took some real adjusting. And so now when you're doing that in the middle of the season,

I understand like I've been getting this call all year. Now I'm not getting this call. You've been calling this defensive three seconds all year. Now you're not calling this anymore. You've been calling, you haven't been taking any feedback from players, and now you're not calling text and throwing guys out of the games anymore when they get demonstrative. And it's like, I get that. And I have wondered if it's so fascinating to me that something that is so popular with everybody I talk to. Everybody.

Everybody has. Everybody loves this. And so why would you not admit it? And I think maybe the two reasons that are most plausible to me are, number one, everybody getting the league and that it wasn't a board of governors thing and that it wasn't, you know, it's almost like this cloak and dagger type stuff that this happened. And so everybody wasn't involved. And so then you get, you know, people, GMs and players or whatever, they're upset about it. like, yeah, you did this and didn't even tell us. And the other thing that is a real possibility is the gambling angle.

Oh, the gambling aspect has to. There's no way around it because that, look, I just told you that somebody caught onto this and made a fortune. If we would have caught on to it, you could have made a fortune. If you knew everything was going to be called differently, then you could start hammering these unders. Oh, you could do, you could do. in a way that you can do parlays for unders and make an absolute fortune. It has made more millionaires than Bitcoin's making right now, you know? Invidia stock, right?

Right. It's crazy. Oh, my God. And so you're in this weird spot where if you're the NBA, in any other circumstances, you could proudly announce, hey, we thought our product needs some changing. and we thought that this is the best way to have a better product. Instead, it's like they,

it feels like they mysteriously said, all right, here, here's how we can make the product better. And, you know, we're just kind of kind of do this. And if anybody notices, we'll just say that it's a statistical anomaly and you're out of your mind.

It's like, it's the weirdest scandal, not even a scandal, conspiracy ever. Because everybody likes it. And yet they're like very clearly not being truthful about what's happened. Yeah. I think Ethan had this in his article that this thought. He mentioned how Amazon, all the meetings that take place at All Star Weekend and, you know,

about the next TV rights deal and all that, he speculates, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if some of these rights buyers could have expressed, you know, concern over the scoring inflation affecting the quality of the game. and that that then therefore would influence the NBA to change the way the game looks. And I think that is plausible. It's a million percent true. Kevin, the reason we have this, you know,

we're going to get down to the end of the season. They're going to give out the awards and like say, Donovan Mitchell's not going to be all NBA. And everybody's going to say, well, that's because of 65 game rule. And then there's going to be somebody that doesn't win an award because of a 65 game rule or whatever. And everybody can say, well, they wanted to get back to basketball. They wanted to have their stars, you know, playing.

Bro, we know this, you know this, because we recorded podcast, you know, 90% of the Thursday nights last year. It was awful. Awful. Every time. Awful. We started recording early almost every time because it was. Almost every week, Chris. Every week.

It really was. Well, we would plan on recording, oh, we'll record after the, you know, the sun. Clippers game. And then why Durant and Booker are not playing and it's like, what the hell? Who even cares with the outcome? We'll start it having it to show out earlier. That's right. That's what it would turn into.

Week after week last year. Never mind. We're doing this. It's our jobs. Never mind as a fan paying to go to tickets to the game. Staying up late watching the game with your dad or whatever. Like whatever it is, whatever the situation. The fans lose the most more than anybody else.

But that was for it. Look, the reason. that people are going to bitch about this 65 game thing, it was all for TV. Yes. So, of course this is for TV. They want it to be the best product. If we were not in a TV negotiation year,

the product would not be as good. And they wouldn't care as much about making the product the best it could possibly be. So making the product the best can possibly be, number one, have your best players playing regularly. number two, have it be the most aesthetically pleasing product it can be. Not something that is a two hour and 45 minute, you know, 70 free throw foul fast. Nobody wants to watch that filled with challenges and reviews and everything else.

When we were watching during the summer, we got pretty in tune to what was going on with Team USA. and you could probably go find it, where you and I had a conversation during the summer, and I came on here, and I told you, and you agree. I said, you know one of the things that stuck out to me from watching this, it is so much better to watch. The basketball is so much better. I go to games 50 times a season,

and there are several times where I turn to, whoever sitting next man, I say, bro, have they gone three straight possessions without a stoppage? And yet there we were watching FIBA and we go, well, this is possible. There's so much action. There's so much flow. I get the whole TV timeouts. I get the commercials. That's not going to.

But there's less timeouts and there's more freedom of movement. They're playing basketball. There's a flow to that game. and then a stoppage is like a random stoppage, right? It's like, oh, somebody got fouled or whatever. Whereas so many times you're watching NBA games and it's like, ugh, here's the free throws and now the other end, we're doing more free throws and now we got a TV timeout,

now we got a frigging coaches challenge. Next thing you know, the game's taken two hours and 40 minutes. And so when Haberstrow wrote his column was like, is this the new pitch clock? where they put it in for baseball to make it more palatable. More people were going to be interested if they weren't having to frigging dedicate three and a half hours of their life to watch a baseball game. And I think you're dead on as is Ethan in those TV meetings. Guarantee, you're just trying to make this the best product.

And so, again, you're making it better. we all would vote for this. It's all better. It's been better. Everybody would vote for this. But I get players and GMs being pissy, and I get that you open yourself up to who knew that this was going to happen, because now you got all this gambling crap involved with the league.

Absolutely. I mean, there's definitely those angles, right? Yeah. For sure. That goes without saying and the problems and doing that. At the end of the day, as an entertainment business, if it makes the game better and more entertaining

and more aesthetically pleasing to the common fan that becomes an overall win for everybody if there's more eyeballs on TVs and more people watching games games even going by quicker games have been quicker

for that matter too and you can't tell me that something's not going so you know in my role where I go on that Memphis Post game show yes all right I am typically

you know our show generally runs from roughly 930 to 10, right? And you know, you're never getting it right on the clock. But there's tons of times where we haven't started until 940 and then you're off a little bit after 10. Or because it's not, they're not like hard because it's a, you know, it's a it's a ballet sport Southeast. it's not like a hard in a hard out on this like you just kind of waver whenever the post game and then you end whenever you end and it's not like it doesn't have to be done at 10 on the dot right but there's a lot of times where it's gone after 10 i would tell you i went to two games this week two both of them i was out of that arena by 945 both of them probably the earliest all season right by far the earliest all season. That's because you had referees

reffing that didn't want to be there. Correct. Well, and also look, they, look, those guys, you're talking like, we were, we didn't have Scott Foster, Ed Beloy, and Bill Kennedy there, okay?

Like, you don't even know who these refs are. It was the freaking grizzlies of the wizards and the grizzlies of the hornets. So I understand we didn't exactly get 1A assignments here.

That being said, the point is, those games were both two hours on the, like almost two hours on the dot. So the NBA, they want to make the product better. I mean, we don't know factually that this was league driven. I believe it is definitely league driven, okay? Definitely. Like, almost like 100%. 99.99.99%. They want games to be quicker.

They want to get the runtime near two hours or under two hours. They want defense to be more aggressive and they find more balance between offense and defense. They want to make it a better overall product, right? So we see this right now with what's happening. Does this indicate that the league is therefore going to be aggressive with rule changes to further make this dream a reality that they want the league to look like? Will they push for something like, you know, one free throw instead of two, free throw, something that they've experimented with at the G-League level.

Will they try to remove defensive three seconds to allow the rim protector to stay in the paint and, you know, protecting his driving. They basically are. Yes. Right now, right? They're starting to. Exactly. So is what we're seeing now a little bit of very light experimentation with some of the intended

or potentially proposed rule changes that we could then see over the off season? I just wonder from a, you know, from that percentage. perspective, what does the league have planned next in order to make all of these things that they want truly permanent? I wonder what could be coming this summer when it comes to those actual board of governor meetings, the actual Rules Committee meetings, what is going to be on the table this summer, how extreme will they get? Because clearly, if they're doing this mid-year, despite all the concerns you're talking about, all the conspiracies and all that, they clearly want to get something done fast. All right, you really want to go to, you really want to, you really

want to get hardcore with this? Sure. Check this out. All right. I think that it, even in the course of the game that I was at, I think that there would have been headlines that that was the fastest NBA game ever played. If not for the fact that I told you, Charlotte did not go to the free throw line at all in the first three quarters. They went 13 times in the fourth. That game was not, so there was part of me that's going, bro, this game is going to get over it in an hour and a half.

This is going to be crazy. And then they went to the free throw line 13 times in the fourth quarter of that game. They had zero. Now, what's crazy is down the road in New Orleans, Cleveland went to the free throw line. Like theirs was zero and it didn't get to 13 in the fourth to make it like maybe somebody won't know. is this. They ended up going three, which then created the headline. They went to the line three times.

The least amount of free throws the Cavaliers have shot in a game since 1994. Unreal. 30 friggin' years. 30 years. So what I'm saying is. is, you know, I think that probably somebody looked up in that game. You could go back and maybe watch them all. But it's like nobody's calling anything.

And it would have been hilarious if a frigging NBA game ended in an hour and a half. But instead, 13 fouls, you know, 13 free throws were taken in the fourth quarter. And by the way, 13 free throws. And it's not like the game went down to like, you know, it was always a. you know, 10 to, I think Memphis might have cut it to six, but it's basically like a 15, 10, 12 point game, pretty much the whole game. You know, they would get it to six,

Steve Clifford to take a timeout, Charlotte would come out and score, and then it would be ballooned back up. So it wasn't like you're filing on purpose or anything, when you see 13 in a quarter. I think that game was going to end in the fastest amount of time, like,

recorded. And so something had to be done, probably. It's like a game that created no free throws, then all of a sudden created 13 in the fourth quarter? A little call from above? No, maybe not a call from above,

just like a referee is looking at the score sheet after a third quarter. Yes. Whoa, whoa. Bro, zero? Like, all right, dude, we got to call us. shooting foul. Right? We have to call at least one shooting foul.

Because no one's going to, like, otherwise, it's going to raise up red flags. And even our bosses are going to call us like, Jesus Christ, guys, we said don't blow the whistle as much, not don't blow it at all. You can't just oversee the game and run up and down the court. And so they're like, all right, maybe if we, maybe if we get this to a palatable number, nobody will notice. But there's Tom Haversstrow immediately the next day going, something happened last night that hasn't happened in 2000 NBA games. And it happened twice. Two different teams didn't take a free throw in three quarters. And the crazy thing is,

I love that the edict went even further. So what's happening, Kev, is the fouls aren't being called and then the people are you know coaches and players are getting more mad right because it's like and more demonstrative because it's like bro i got fouled and they probably did get fouled but more importantly it's a foul that's been called all season long for 60 games and yet techs are significantly down. So not only are they not calling as many fouls, they're also putting up with you telling them that they're effing idiots for not calling fouls. That's the crazy thing. You would think techs would be way up if you were calling way less fouls, right? But they're just like taking it. Whereas they all had short fuses earlier in the year. You remember it became a problem where they

kicking stars out of games. You know, they throw Yokic out of that game. And then the Chicago broadcast is like, nobody signed up for this. This is a joke. That was like Serbian night in Chicago too, right? Yeah, right. Read the room.

That's hilarious. I mean, I think Ryan said it on Bill's show. He's like, wait a minute, they went from something that sucks to watch. is something that's good to watch. Right. It is much better. Basketball is more enjoyable. At the same time, I do understand the team GM side where they're like, wait a minute,

you're doing this mid-year on us? Like, we had this whole understanding of what the game was looking like or we assemble our teams and we build our strategies and all that. So who does this help? Who does this hurt? Hey, and then the answer, Kevin, is, yeah. And then I asked you guys to play defense and you assholes played a 211 to 1st, into 186 game.

Yep. So go to hell. Yeah. Yep, I agree. I agree. I agree. That would be, if that's me and I'm Adam Silver, I'm like, yeah. Yeah.

We didn't tell you. We've asked you. Yeah. We've asked you nicely. Mm-hmm. And your response was to play a 211 to 186 mockery of our signature event. I am negotiating every day with Amazon, NBC, ESPN, TNT, and everybody else. And you are screwing me over and over and over.

You won't fucking play. When you do play, you let the other guy score 70 points. So I'm doing what I can now. And you will thank me in the end because our TV contract is going to be better than anybody's predicting. But don't yell at me now about this. This is for the benefit of everybody. I tried being nice. And he just doesn't have the guts. Like you do feel like David Stern, God rest of soul would just say, yeah, our product sucks. And we told everybody we got to fix this. What's most important is the product. TV brands don't like it as much. Our fans don't like it as much.

And we need to change. And so sometimes that's what a least. leader's got to do. He's got to walk in and say, this is what's most important. I actually appreciate this from Adam Silver. I think you can say what you want about his leadership, you know, being up and down over the years. He's received a lot of criticism and rightfully so for favoring players. And I think that for being too friendly with players, I think this is an example of him stomping his foot down saying, okay, we're going to make a change and we're going to be aggressive about it. And so hopefully this continues. And it's not a statistical Anomalies.

Statistical anomaly. Oh, God. The worst case scenario is that all of these guys have done this reporting. They have all these smoking guns.

And then the NBA is like, all right. Time to go back. Yeah. They're on to us. So who does this benefit the most? Who does this hurt the most?

Oh, the more physical teams. Yeah. No question. The more physical teams. So like the defensive teams. You think of the defensive teams, like a healthy mix. Yep.

Somebody like that. You think a team like that it benefits the most. Heat. Yeah. They're going to let these be wars. If you're going to let you be physical, the ones with men. And the ones that don't need to be bailed out at the free throw line every time they have a big game. Lakers.

They won't benefit as much. How about Minnesota? Do they benefit? If they allow defensive three seconds. I mean, shit, Zach Edie's going to go number one in the draft if they allowed defense in three seconds. It's going to be like college. You stand his big ass back there.

Right? Yeah. Wouldn't it be hilarious if they said they're going to allow defense in three seconds? Edie goes to the top of your board. Like, dude, you got to have a guy like this. If they're just going to let you stand in front of the basket. Who doesn't hurt the most then? You think it helps the physical teams?

Who does it hurt the most? I think less physical teams that have less veteran players and grown men. You know what I mean? That are willing to play through. Or ones whose players benefit the most from a very tightly called game. Like if you're star players, I mean, we saw when they stopped doing all the, you know, the headwip crap and the hunting for fouls, I mean, it affected Hardin. We saw it affect him, right?

It'll affect, it could affect Trey. Obviously, he's not playing right now. But, I mean, like, you know, guys that you feel in many cases are playing with the intent of going to the free throw line. You know, that you're playing four foul. and so I do think that those are so guys that you can get more physical with

if they're going to allow physicality players that you can get I mean I don't think it'll ever get to the point where it's like you know when we say the 90s and we go oh well

if this guy played in the 90s and you could put your hands on him but there's no question that there are guys that are more built for a physical game and I actually think that serves I think you're seeing it with Jalen Brown, right?

He's not a guy that routinely bitches about calls nearly that much, and he is, he is big and he is strong and he will play through your contact. One of the things that's interesting when it comes to the, you know, the types of players you're talking about, again, you know, to reference a graphic posted by Stravon on Twitter, he posted the free throw attempt change after, you know, January 31st for players, right? Damien Millard from eight free throw attempts per. game to five. Stefan Curry

from 5.5 to 2.8. Those are the guys on the top of the list. And if you look at the top 10, smaller guys, mostly smaller guys. Trey Young's up there, Dearen Fox is up there, Kyrie Irving is up there, all in the top eight. It's a lot of smaller guys. And, you know, Spencer did what he's up there too. Grant that he's had a role change, team change as well.

But it's a lot of guards. It's Tyler Hero. It's Darius Garland. It's Tyreys Halliborne, who of course is also injured. It's Derek White, for that matter. It's even Kianti George. It's SGA in the top 20. So it's a lot of guards in the top 20 for the biggest drop-offs and free throw attempts per game. And so, again, I think I think it's interesting to see that it's sometimes not exactly the most physical guys that are having the steepest decline. It's they get because, this is what I tell you, they get the bump calls. Yes, and that's what they're not calling.

No, whereas, you know, the Browns and the Lucas and those guys get the shit hacked out of them. Because you have to hack the shit out of them. Whereas the smaller guys, they're going to the basket.

They get bumped. And they're getting that out. That's what's being removed. Those little bump files that are, those are the most annoying files of all. For me personally, I thought a great analogy that Simmons gave, which is two cars running parallel down the street. Oh, this is good.

You're in the left lane and I'm in the right lane and I veer over and run into you in the left lane and then I get back in by lane. And in the NBA, they say that's your fault. That's your fault. Like I just veered straight into the side of your car and then went back. like I created that contact. I initiated that contact. And that's what's not being called anymore. And it's so much better.

So much better. Oh, it's so much better. It's a better product. Yeah. You know, it's, it kind of stinks they can't be truthful about it. I know.

Maybe it's, has anybody ever improved something so greatly and yet be scared to say? You know what I mean? Should they have been honest about it from the, from the jump? Should they have like came out and said, Hey, we're gonna. I think it was just too late.

Too late, yeah. Right? I think it's too late before everybody caught on. Truthfully, this is too late, period. How many years ago should this have happened? Sure. Right? I'm with you.

I mean, sorry, we can praise them for doing it now in the middle of the season, but at the same time, they deserve criticism for not seeing this years ago. It's late. It took a TV contract year. Yep. It's some very egregious statistical anomalies. Yeah. And teams are scoring 120 every night.

It's like, dude, people don't want to watch this as much. What they want is competition. They want competition. They want to feel like possessions are fun to watch. And, you know, if you tamp down calls and you tamp down scoring, you're going to get a lot more competitive, especially when you've got already something making these games non-competitive, which is the amount of three-pointers that one team can make over the other.

If you could tamp that down, now all of a sudden, I mean, six points is significant. If we're talking about on average, team scoring six points less because you're probably not beating the team that could put up 130, even like what we saw last night with the Celtics. Like, you're just never winning that game. But, you know, if you're playing in the 110s, and you're seeing a lot that are a lot lower than 110 now, you're seeing games in the 90s against each other. I can't wait to watch how it all plays out.

But it is easily the most interested I've been in a non-on-the-court team-related topic in a long, long time. It's going to be some fun games that are going on this weekend for sure, as we hurdle towards the playoff races and teams are all jockeying for positions in their respective conferences. Conference tournaments and NCAA tournament Selection Sunday is this Sunday. Conference tournaments are coming up.

I will tell you, you can comment on this if you like. I have marked down. I want to try to check out Colorado because you've got two of them. Cody Williams and Tristan De Silva, both in your top 25 guys. I love, love Tristan Desilva.

Silva. You do. Yeah. Okay. KJ. Simpson, I don't have on the list right now, but he'll eventually be in one of the updated Skyder reports. He's a very fun guard. Okay. Two other things real quick. Stefan Castle, obviously I want to watch again from Yukon. Jacobi Walter from Baylor.

These are like American college basketball players that are like kind of in everybody's lottery. And so kind of marked them as guys that I want to go out of my way to watch. And I do have to ask you one thing. Is is we talked a couple weeks ago about pack 12 player of the year. Remember, and I went back and I was like, boy, this is a pretty high rate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could just randomly draft the pack 12 player of the year. Or no, I'm sorry, the pack, yeah, Pac 12 player of the year throughout history. And there's been like some second rounders that have turned into guys, that there have been others. And I saw that guy, Caleb Love from Arizona, won it this week. And I wrote it down. I was like, okay. I know this is a terrible Pact 12 this year, but am I going to look back again?

This came up when Hockes was killing it again. It's like, oh, there's another Pact 12 player of the year that's drafted too low. You could just kind of blindly take those guys over the years and you've got a pretty great hit rate. Is Caleb Love like a pro prospect? I mean, I don't have him on my board. He's not in my top 50. He's somebody that's going to get a shot. Who knows, right?

But I think he's the type of guy where there's just various Arizona teammates, Boswell, Larson, that have a better shot at, you know, carving out a long-term NBA career. But, I mean, certainly like him, you know, like we said, with the history of Pax 12 players of the year, Caleb will get a shot. He had three good years at UNC. He's a bucket getter. This was his most efficient season of his collegiate career. If he continues trending up, hey, you never know.

I just thought it was interesting. As soon as I saw it says, Caleb Love wins Pact 12 players of the year. I was like, I'll be damned. Like maybe he's going to fall. Maybe we're going to look up in a year and a half. We'll be going,

why the hell did Caleb Love Drive? Right? Like, the guy was good. He won't Pek 12 player of the year. Because it feels like we've done that too many times. Who knows? It's want something to check out. And maybe if they make a long run,

he'll certainly get in that conversation. right. All right. Kevin, it's always a pleasure. Thank you to our executive producer, Jesse Lopez, as always, and I'll talk to you next week. Have a great weekend. Must be 21 plus in present in select states. Fandah is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with the Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem.

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