The Ringer NBA Show - David Aldridge on Ben Simmons, Postseason Injuries, Kevin Durant’s Greatness, and More | Real Ones

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

The Athletic’s David Aldridge joins Logan and Raja to talk about the 76ers' collapse against the Hawks on Wednesday night and the role Ben Simmons played in that Game 5 loss (0:30). Then they talk about Paul George holding things down for the Clippers against the Jazz after Kawhi Leonard injured his ACL, and the state of injuries this postseason (23:30), as well as Kevin Durant’s greatness (38:30) and predictions for Thursday night’s Bucks-Nets Game 6 (1:11:18). Hosts: Logan Murdock and Raja Bell Guest: David Aldridge Associate Producer: Sasha Ashall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Flying Coach is back for a second season. Peter Schrager and Rams head coach Sean McVeigh are joined by guests from around the sports and entertainment world. They're discussing the latest NFL news, telling stories from their careers, and breaking down games from their unique perspectives. Check out Flying Coach Season 2 on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. What's popping? Logan Murdoch here, Roger Bell, we have a special guest. And now I know we have a former player, you know, you do the intros, but this is a, this is an OG in my profession. this is someone,

I'll give you a quick story real quick. I was interning at Turner in 2016, and it was during the start of free agency. And this guy, already a legend, I remember he left his phone around, he was about to do TV, and a very prominent GM called him. And this is one of the most elusive GMs in the league,

and he called him. and called him back. And I was like, wow, one, he's a legend, but this is somebody seeing him personified, seeing a legend personified. And it showed me, because he looked like me, and it showed me that I can be in this business too. So with that being said, we got the legend.

David Aldridge is in the building. What's up, David? How you doing, man? Man, how you doing, man? Good to see you. Good to see, Roger. Man, it's a pleasure to be on with you guys today. Man, man, thanks for coming up.

You know, you know, D.A., Of course I know, D.A. You said, listen, I don't know him as a player. I would say I know him as a player. Like, my man is, that's a G, bro. Like, David Rogers is a G. Like, he, he's one of the people that when they hit me on the phone and you know how elusive I can be on the phone, Logan. Oh, I do.

You do, right? When D.A. hits, I hit back, right? Like, because that's, you know, that's one of my two. Logan, Rodgig, one of the great series I ever covered was in 07, man. when they came in the Lakers and he and Kobe got after him, boy. And what I loved about it is that he didn't stutter. He didn't stammer. He was like, yeah, I did it.

He was going at Kobe on the court verbally throwing everything he could at him. And I was like, mad respect for this dude, man. He ain't this. He ain't backing down for no titles and no names and nothing. He's trying to take this. You know what I mean? And I really respect that because so many guys when it comes to what I call Freddie Carter, the great Freddie Carter used to call nut cutting time.

When the real hits real, they back up. When Kobe comes out, they back up. And Roger didn't back up an inch, man. And I was like, man, big respect. Big respect. Appreciate that, brother. Yeah. Big respect to Rai Rau, man, because he is a real one for show.

But speaking of real ones, man, let's get it. Let's get right to it, man. Let's talk about the Atlanta Hawks, who came back from 20, I believe 26 at one point, maybe more than that. But they came back and they won in Philly. And me and DA were talking about this early, and I know Rajah can attest to this, how difficult an environment that is to go on the road and win in Philly. And not only win in Philly, but win against two All-Stars, two MVP candidates, two defensive player-a-year candidates. and Tray Young and the boys went down there and won that.

I want to get to the Hawks and how great they were, but I want to start with DA. I want to get to the Hawks first, but I want to start with the Sixers. Does this, is this the kind of loss that can cripple a season, or does, or do the Sixers regroup and win this going back to Atlanta? What does this do for the Sixers psyche? And by extension, Philly Psychie. Yeah, I mean, look, I've been around long enough that I never say, never, never say always. You know, you can't sit here and say definitively, well, this series is over now.

Because, you know, Philly's fully capable of going down to Atlanta and winning a game and then riding the whole home crowd in game seven. But losses like this can, because I've seen it happen, the circumstances of a particular loss can really damage a franchise. And I go back to Orlando in 95 when Orlando has Shaq and Penny, and they were rolling. And it looked like, man, it's just, we just got to, it's not how, it's not if, it's how many titles are they going to win, you know?

And then they played Houston in the finals. And God bless him. Nick Anderson's a good dude and I was a hell of a player, missed four straight free throws. And they lost game one and they got swept. And that was it. It just, it was so devastating that. The franchise just kind of came apart at the seams, and I'm not blaming Nick Anderson for that.

I'm saying some things can be a catalyst to work on other things that are already in place, that are already happening. They're already a potential problem, and they can kind of just filter down. And you wonder if this will do that. I'm not saying it will, but I've seen this happen with franchises before that were on the uptick. And something traumatic happens on the floor, and they just never get past it. You know, it's, Roger knows is way better than you and me, Logan. Yeah.

The emotional capital that you expend in pursuit of a championship, I can't, I have no, I have no way to understand it. You have no way of understanding it because it can only be understood by the people to actually do it. Yeah, yeah. And when you do that and you fail, sometimes it's hard to kind of gear back up that next year. You know. Yeah.

Yeah. When you were thinking about it, you've played in Philly. You've played in this environment. What is the psyche of Philly from what you remember in that city? And what do you think is going to happen going back to Atlanta? As a town, Philly is, there's no apologizing to that fan base. Like they don't, they suffer no fools in Philly, man. That's not a place to fall asleep at the wheel.

What I will say is they respect you if you are that underdog fighting, wearing your chest on your, you know, like hard on your sleeve and you come up short. They're not going to have a lot of tolerance for what happened last night, though. Like you were the better team. You're up 20 some points and you fell asleep at the wheel. Guys look like they were scared. You know, Philly's not that type of town. They don't play that.

That's a grimy city. They're lunch pail, you know, blue collar hard hats. And so that's going to be a tough one to forgive. The only thing that's going to save them is to go down to Atlanta, get that win and then come back. And it's an incredible environment to play in, man. Like some of my best memories, I always told you the Suns is my favorite stop along the way just because of the success I had and the role I played. But the best environments I ever played in were the 01 playoffs.

When we went seven with just about everybody and we saw, you know, know, Vince in the building and then Ray Allen and Big Dog were in the building. Those, that atmosphere is electric in Philly. So if they can get it back there, there's a chance. But I tend to agree with DA. And I said it, I tweet, you know I don't tweet, but I tweeted about the bucks in the same light. That's a tough loss. That's not a regular loss.

Like when you have that shit in the bag and all signs point to like there's a 3% chance that that other team can win and you fumbled that bag, it is exhausting. And it is deflating. And, you know, the energy that you've expended that night is one thing. The emotional energy that you expend, like, deliberating over what could have been done and how I jacked that up and, you know, what, that's even, you know, that you can't quantify that. And that's going to happen over the whole next day or so.

So how they respond in Atlanta, I don't know. But that could be a catastrophic loss. I agree. One thing I seen, I saw about the Sixers is their offense in the second half. And I want to get to D in a second, but like, Ra, you're the guy. that we're talking about basketball with the only people to score in the second half was D.L. Embedd. And Seth Curry. Listen, I'm D.A. You know, that's fucking absurd. All right? Like, I should say that. That's fucking absurd. That does, that happens in sixth grade

AAU tournaments, man, where you have one guy that can dribble and a big, they can offensive rebound. And then, you know, shots don't go in. That does not happen in NBA games for a half of basketball. Like, and I know we talk like, you know, I defended Doc a little bit. it with you and bill we were when we had bill on one time uh i'm not saying that he is absolved from any like uh of the blame but that's not on coaching though bro like coaches can't make you make shots you got get your ass out there and make some shots make a play players make plays you know what i mean like there's your strategy we could talk about if we want to dive deep and stuff like that but you know that's why you can sit around in a locker room and d a d a know's this

Blokin, you probably know this too. But teammates really know this. Not everybody's built for that. Some of them are built for like 82, you know, maybe even 80, what is it, 80, 85, 86. But they ain't built for sixes and sevens. You know what I'm saying? And then that's, you know, Philly's got to find out what they're about. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, D.A, I want to get to you when you talk about, you know,

the Simmons and Embed partnership, right? And it seems like for stretches, obviously, Embeded has been great in this series. Even when he's not great, he's been admirable, you know, when he's playing with that knee. But Simmons not being able to score, and they're doing the hackabin, they're doing all these things, he's not being able to score down the stretch.

Is it now or never for this group, D.A.? Do you think that this is one of those things? because we know that Ben Simmons was in trade talks earlier this season, right? But do you fit that sense? I mean, I'll just say this. Gerald Moore is not known for his restraint. You know what I mean? Darry, one of them guys is like, let's keep this group together for another year and see what happens.

That's not his history. I'll put it that way. Right. You know, so to me, it's not so much the misfree throws because there's just some guys that can't shoot free throws. For whatever reason it's in their head, they just can't, they can't relax, they can't get it going.

We're seeing it with Yannis. You saw it with Shaq. You've seen it with guys. There's just some guys that can't make free throws. Everybody can't do everything. I understand that. What bothers me is the lack of field goal attempts. That's what bothers me.

What bothers me is he didn't, to Roger's point, create something with his ability, off the dribble with his size, where he just gets to the front of the rim and gets a shot up within five feet. You know, if that's what you do, then go do that.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And I do think, Doc's got to wear some of this. You got to drop a play for a dude. You know, if you have to put, you have to put Embed up top,

we're just going to direct post Ben Simmons against whoever he's, I don't give a damn who's guarding him. We direct post him Ben Simmons. And he gets the ball on the block. Go to work, big fella. You know, we need to get you going. You know what I mean?

So that's, so that's where everyone. Everybody has to wear this to me. It's a system-wide failure of a championship level organization. It is. I agree 100%. Not to cut you off, Logan, but, you know, first of all, the guys you talked about DA, like all, you know, those shacks and Janus is, like, people that you would hack

because they can't make free throws. I mean, you're trying to hack them to get them off the court because if they're on the court, they are going to get buckets and hurt your team. You know what I mean? Yeah. Ben is just out there. And my fear for them and why I think it has to be, it has to be blown up if that's what you want to call it. I don't think it's in him.

I don't, I don't, I don't think that's in him. I don't think that he wanted the ball. And that's, you know what I mean? Like, I see, I say this about kids sometimes maybe this isn't fair, but I'm going to boil it down to this. Like, I'll watch a kid play. Their parent will ask me what's up. I'm like, he's just out there hiding. Like, he's not playing.

He's hiding. He's playing by definition because he's on the court and he's running around and he's sweating. Like, yes, he's playing. But he's not trying to insert himself in any actions that are critical to winning and losing. Like, he's just running around trying to hide out there. And, you know, it's on a different scale, but that's kind of the way I felt. It's kind of what I feel like you're, I don't mean to put words in your mouth. But that's what when you say that, that's what my eyes told me.

Like, you just don't want to be inserted into meaningful situations. And that's, that's, you're going to. have to do something there. Do you feel like, Roger, would you've been more, would you've been more accepting of what Ben Simmons does say if he went like six of 30 or something, but he tried to he tried? He really went out at a Blades of Glory and tried. This is personal preference, but 100%. If you are out there slugging it out, throwing them bows, just giving it whatever you have, and I spoke about this a few minutes ago from a Philly fan perspective, I can ride with that.

The fan base can ride with that because you will lose games because you can't win them all, right? And you might not be on your best at night, but you gave yourself and you gave your team and you gave that city everything in you to give it a shot. And I don't feel like that was the case. So yeah, to answer your question, I would feel better if he did that. I used to, well, I say this all the time. And it's not a fair comparison because nobody's Michael Jordan. But I've always said, I saw many games when Michael Jordan was 9 to 22 through four.

Many. Lots. lots. Sometimes you miss. It's okay. I mean, you know, great players miss sometimes, you know. But he shot the ball. He never didn't shoot the ball. You know what I mean? Like, he always shot the ball.

That's what he, yeah, yeah. You know, and you got to have that mentality. You know, there was a great story and it's apocryphal, but it's so apocryphal that you wanted to be true that there was this great player in Chicago named Al Frederick Hughes, you know, in the 70s. And his team got to the NCAA tournament. And Al Frederick Hughes,

missed his first 26 shots. And then he made a layup at the buzzer. He made a lay up in garbage time. And his team lost the game. And they went to him afterward and said, Al Frederick, man, how did you get me? What happened out there, man? I mean, one for 2070.

He said, yeah, but that last bitch went into it. And that's the mentality. Yeah, man. Because they don't, yo, like, if you hit the game winner, and we notice, I know there's been a rise of analytics, but if you hit a game winner, Nobody cares that you, nobody gives a fuck that you missed all those shots.

They don't care. Logan, Logan. Dave, DA, I don't mean a district, listen, man. You good, go ahead. I like, I've always defended Ben Simmons. I think, you know, these playoffs are hurting him. There is no excuse for a guy of his talent level and his size. And I just keep it a buck.

To be two for four from the field in 38 minutes. Yeah. There's no excuse for that. I want to put this in perspective. I'm a 44-year-old. I could barely get up and down the court with my kids on the park. I am very confident that in that amount of time, like, I could go out there and I would get up more than four shots, number one,

because I'd be open. I'd get up shots. And I think I would score in a second half of a basketball game because I'm going to make a shot. Talk your shit, Roger. I don't know. I don't mean that because I'm great. I'm simply saying that's how crazy that is for a guy of that magnitude

to be out there on that court. and not have an impact offensively. But I think, though, what an overall thing with Ben Simmons, and I'm sure you could attest it as DA and Beau Vroja, it always, and when we talk about his three-pointers, and we talk about him shooting in general, there always seems to be a, you know, just not, I wouldn't, I can't say a fear, I don't know him,

but there always just seems like a hesitation whenever he shoots, right? What is, is that something that, how should we play that? Is it a, go ahead, Dia, I know you have some sense. feast or famine with him. You know, like, there'll be this game where he shoots, when he takes four shots in 38 minutes and in the next game, he'll be nine of 11.

You know what I mean? Like, so you go, it's in there. You know, like he's capable of doing this. And because he smartly doesn't take three-pointers and he smartly sticks to the paint, when he shoots, it usually goes in. You know, like he's really close to the basket. So why not utilize that?

Why not? And especially if they're going to, to be double team and Embed every time he touches the ball. That's the release. That's the pressure release. He's the pressure release. Okay, you're going to double Embedit. We're going to make you pay.

We're going to make you pay. He's going to make you pay. And it's, and we saw it in the first round against Washington, where he was just not there for a game. And then the next game, he dominated. So you go, okay, we know you can dominate. You have the capability. We're not asking you to do something.

something you're not capable of doing, you know. So that's the, I think that's the frustration that Raj's talking about. Yeah, and sometimes, like, because clearly, like, and I say all of that, you know, fully understanding and saying that he's too good to do that. Like, I know he's really, he's a really good player.

Yeah. And DA touched on the coaching. I think calling plays is absolutely one thing and getting him in positions. But, man, so much of coaching at the NBA level is, is being a therapist, right? is having those, is being able to, you have to articulate to that, man, the importance of, of him to the team and to the final product and explain to him and empower him.

Even if he's, even if, like, I was a player whose ego could be up and down at times, especially when I was young, right? Like my, my confidence. When I was young, man, you know, it was a roller coaster ride. You weren't sure. You know, I stabilized once I got a coach who exhibited the utmost confidence in me. And that's why I love him will defend Mike Dan Tony. to whenever. Don't give a damn.

Stephen A, I hear you, bro, but you kiss my eyes. Mike is a boss. And for me, he's a boss because he was riding with me and explaining to me, even when I was getting shy of shooting the ball, why he needed me to do it and why the team needed me to do it. And those conversations kept me doing

what the team needed me to do, even in moments when I didn't really think it was my job. And so Doc has to do that. I can't say that he hasn't, But that's part of it too, right? Is helping that kid get to where he needs to be. Yeah. I do want to get into the Hawks.

Chris Kushner, the athletic wrote a really good P-S-D-A about the just, he wrote that. But just really getting the feeling of how the Hawks feel going back to Atlanta, right? It just feels like there, it was a very underdog tone. Like, we did this. When I think about the Hawks, I think about an exciting team, a team. a team that is very naive, but in a good way. Like, they don't care who is in front of them. But my question to you, D.A.,

are they ahead of schedule right now? Oh, sure, sure, sure. They're on what Riles used to call the innocent climb. You know, like, no expectations. Everything's gravy from, you know, they won a series. They won around. Nobody expected them to win around. You know, this is all, they're playing downhill.

There's no pressure on them. You know what I mean? Like, there's zero pressure. on them. Even if they lose the last two games of the series, nobody is going to be like, wow, how did you guys blow a three to league? You know, like there's zero. You're supposed to win. Yeah. Yeah. That will start changing next year. But right now, to Rogers' point, they're just playing. You know what I mean? Like, they're just playing. Nobody's afraid. Nobody's like, oh, if I missed this shot, they're going to, they're going to

blow the team up. They just shoot the ball, you know. And you can tell by the way they came back. because they didn't do anything, they didn't do any grand strategy to come back. They didn't, you know what I mean? They didn't start trapping full court or doing a lot of crazy stuff. They just ran their offense. Lou got hot.

Lou gets hot. You know, Lou gets hot. That's what he does, you know. And, you know, the Gallinari made a couple shots and then all of a sudden, instead of being down 24, you're down 12. And that's manageable. You go with the three-pointers,

especially you go, well, wait a minute. Let's see, if we play hard for another three minutes, let's see what happens, you know. And then all of a sudden it's eight. And then all of a sudden it's six. You know, and so, and you could see them just continuing to play because they have zero pressure on them and Philly tightening up, like literally tightening up with every possession and the crowd.

And this is when it's bad to be at home when you blow a big league because the crowd is like, what's going on? You know, I don't feel that. You know? You can feel that for sure. The pressure gets to you, I think. Yeah, you can feel that. I think, you know, it's going to be really interesting because that's what makes them so

dangerous to me, right? I mean, I talk about this a lot. You got a team playing with no pressure, house money. I mean, that's danger. They get hot in one game scenarios, which is what this is now. Like, that's a dangerous thing to walk into. But the fascinating thing when I played for me was how the complexion of a series really does change from game to game. Like, I mean, when you're in that locker room, I know fans say it, but when you're in that locker room, it really feels like either you're about to die or you are invincible. Like, do you know what I mean? From game to game.

And so it's going to be interesting to see how the Hawks who play pretty free, and to your point, kind of on that innocent rise, now you got close somebody out. Now you got close them out at home because that's pressure in end of itself. Because in the back of your mind, you're like, oh, shit, we got to get this shit now. Because we don't want to, we don't want to go back to Philly. This has to happen now.

And you could come out a little tight, right? So that's going to be interesting to watch. Roger, a quick question for you. Is it funner to have a comeback win on the road or at home? It's a great question. By the way, I love Stephen A. Smith. I just tell him, he likes to fuck with my man, Mike. So I was funner to win.

I think for me, I was the villain. So I like to do it on the road. There's nothing like winning in your home building. I mean, you know, you're at home. You're with your family after you do that. Like, you guys probably go go out and have a good time, everyone together. but on that road when you could look them folks in the eyes

and trust me you're looking at them and you're talking shit the entire fourth as it's unfolding and unraveling in front of their face and you just see the look like all of the joy sink out of their face there's nothing like that bro like you know that's that's a great feeling

yeah yeah let's take a quick break and we are back I want to talk Clippers Jazz I also want to point out Raja that ever since Jemmy went to Palmdale, the NBA has been in a tailspin. It's been in a tailspin. The NBA has been in a freaking tailspin.

And because of that, since Jemey went to Palmdale, I feel like I need to, like, walk back everything I've ever said negative about Paul George, because he went into Salt Lake and bald. Do you think,

you know, we know this about narratives, DA, do you think that this game will change the collective dialogue about Paul George? Does he still have to, he still has more work to do. What did this do to exercise some of the things that he's been, that's been said about him? Well, they got to finish the series, first of all. It doesn't matter if they don't win the series. None of it matters if they don't win the series. So they have a great shot now. They have a terrific shot to finish this at home. I think that's a team that does feed off

of their home crowd so they could play better. They should play better. But he's got to win. No, he's been, he's been terrific. And he played, I just believe, and I haven't talked to Paul about this, but I just, I think he may never admit this, and they may never admit this organization. I just feel like he has deferred to Kaua the whole time he's been there. I think he's been in a deferral position the entire time. He's been there.

And last night was like, oh, I can shoot whatever, how many shots I want tonight? Oh, bet. Oh, it's on. You know, and he just played so much more, again, freely. It's just the word I keep coming back to because he knew it's on me. I got to empty my quiver tonight and get out and I can shoot as many shots as I want. And I don't have to worry about, oh, damn, Kauai hasn't touched the ball in five minutes. Let me let him take it for a little bit.

I just think it's really hard for two players, not the same position, but who essentially are in the same space on the floor to kind of, play with each other. It's easy when one's a guard and one's big. They stay out of each other's area. But they're both wings. They both like to take it off the dribble. They both like to pull up.

They both like to get to the cup. There's only so much space that you can do that. And it makes the other person a spot-up shooter. They don't mean to make the other person that. But that essentially is what they become. And I feel like Paul has deferred in that sense. And last night we know why he didn't have to defer to anybody. We saw your hands raised, Roger.

Well, what's up? Do you echo those sentiments? I'm glad D.A. said it. And I don't have relationships to protect. Like, I'm not in the business. And I'm not as great as, you know, journalist as DA. So I will say it like this. He has deferred to Kauai.

And that's the role, you know, that he either perceived he was supposed to play or that organically kind of transpired there or played out for him there. And it's not a bad thing. That's what made the heat so remarkable, right? And Dwayne Wade and LeBron. is that they were able to figure that out because it's not an easy thing. And I'll use like a movie analogy. You can have like phenomenal A-list Oscar actors.

One of them may be able to be a supporting, you know, or a supporting cast in a movie and be great in that role. Some of them can't. They can only probably lead. Do you know what I mean? So when you're taking someone out of that role that he's normally in and asking him to play a supporting role, you know, it just might throw him out of rhythm.

He was free last night. Like he was the leading man. He was able to, you know, carry the movie and give you his chops. That's not taking anything away from Kauai's brilliance either. It's just, you know, to some degree you get marginalized when you're playing alongside greatness if you can't figure out how to be a great spot-up shooter, right? Because no one's ever asked you to do that. I would talk to Big Perk, Kendrick Perkins, and he always says that, you know, there's always that guy.

He talks about LeBron and, you know, Kauai to assert, Kauai, too, and Kobe and all these guys. These are guys that can get you a game. Just get you a game in the postseason. Do you think D.A. that Paul George forgot that he was a guy that can just go get you a game? No, I don't think you forgot. Paul has the personality that naturally would allow him to kind of take a secondary role if that's what you want to do. Because Paul is not tripping off of the endorsements.

He's not tripping off of being a superstar. He likes to whoop. I'm not saying he doesn't like to hoop. I'm not saying he's not competitive. I'm just saying he's got that personality. He doesn't need to be out front all the time. You know, to Roger's point, he could be a supporting actor. He's cool with that if that's what the team needs.

I just think it's hard when you've been an alpha male on your team. That was the Pacers, Paul George, we saw last night. That was the guy that bawled out for the Pacers when they were really good. And he was the best guy when Hibbert and all those guys were on the team. They had a good team, really good team. And Paul just took over, you know. and I haven't seen that Paul George in a while, you know. And then that's part of playing, whether you're playing with Russ in OKC and Carmelo in OKC

or you're playing with Kauai in L.A. It's just, I just think it's hard, harder, not hard, harder for a great player to take that. I mean, Roger mentioned the heat, the heat doesn't work if Chris Bosch just says, I don't care. Y'all, I'll take two shots. I don't care. I'll just rebound and play defense. And he's a great player doing great things to help you win championships.

If he had said, no, I need my touches, I need my minutes, I need my shots, it would not have work. Yeah, yeah. But Chris has that kind of personality. It was just like, I don't care. You know, I know what I need to do for this to work, you know? Yeah. You know what's really interested about that? Because Kevin Love did that, too, DA.

Yes, yes. Kevin Love did it. And, you know, I just coming, like, as we're speaking now, Paul George talked last year about his mental health. Yeah. Kevin Love has come out and talked about mental health. It takes a toll on you as a competitive alpha personality to sacrifice all of that in quest for a championship. And every fan just says, oh, man, why wouldn't you? Well, like, why the fuck has got to be me?

You know what I mean? But no, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. But like, why it couldn't be them? And I'm not saying those guys had that approach, but I do know that that starts to weigh on you. right? Because there are things that you feel you could do and you're going to catch all of the media ire for not being the guy that you were in the place before and there's just not the

opportunity to do that. That has to weigh heavily on people, you know? Yeah, for sure. We talked about Paul George, but I think the big elephant in the room is Kauai. I'm sure when this maybe when this this this pod comes out, maybe we'll have a bit more clarity on his injury. but how much do you think, how much does Kauai have, whether he gets injured or not, D.A., because, you know, he has, they say it might be an ACO injury,

I believe the athletic reported it. And so he's already had a long list of injuries. We know what happened in San Antonio. How much does he have? What can you think we can reasonably expect from Kauai, whether he's injured, this is catastrophic or not? Yeah, I will never, you know, Logan, I'll never, I can never predict to speculate on an injury and what it does to a player because everybody's different.

Everybody has different pain tolerance. Everybody's body is different in terms of what they can and can't do with an injury. I would think it will make it very difficult for Kauai to play effectively, you know, just because of the type of player he is. And depending on the severity of the injury, we don't know if it's grade one, grade two, grade three. We don't know. You know, until we know that, I can't speak with any certainty on it. you know, and B's playing with a meniscus tear, you know,

but it is torn cartilage in your knee. That's not nothing. That's big. You're not as good when you're injured as you are when you're not injured. So I would think that it would be very difficult for Kauai to play at an effective level, much less the level we are, we normally associate with Kauai letter this time of year. Yeah.

Roger, when you, when you, you know, LeBron put out a tweet, just talking about the start of the season and how many games that the players have been playing over this last year and a half, two years. Points were made, you know, that there has been a quick turnaround, and we also know that business usually takes presidents over health, and that's something I mean you have talked about, Roger.

But in terms of the toll with this turnaround that it can have on a body, we already know what basketball the toll it puts on a body in general. When you have that turnaround and you're continually playing into the post, season. What does that do to your body when you're doing that? It just continues to wear it down. Logan, it's the best way I can put it. I mean, you know, the body requires after an NBA season a certain

amount of rest. You know, that's just to get it, that's just to get it back to neutral and get it back to a good base of health where then you can start to build it back up the layers of armor that you need, right? Because we're talking about, right, a body, right? And I'm going to lift and work out and do all my stretching and everything, and I'm adding layers of armor to my body to withstand the toll of an NBA season, right? So after the season, it's all been stripped away, and some of it's been taken, you know, I'm hurt.

So now I've got to get to just a base, and then I've got to build the layers of armor on top of it. You just don't have the time. You can't do it, right? So you're now coming off of a shortened season. You don't have enough rest. You're still probably a little injured when you start to try to build the base.

Now your armor's not thick enough. And so it's just going to wear out. I mean, it's simple math. There's not enough time for you to heal and get enough working to be the player that you need to be. So you're going to run into these things. I would just say again,

some of them, I don't think how to do with the rest, right? Freak accidents happen. Carreve rolls his ankle that's got nothing to do with. Like that's part of playing a sport. It's an inherent risk. But this is a business. And I don't, look, I might be singing a different tune if I was still playing right now.

But at the end of the day, if this wasn't just, hey, we want you guys to get out there and play and there's no money at stake, but it's what we want. That's one thing. If the league is coming to you saying, hey, fellas, we have to contractually, like, fulfill an amount of games played

or we're going to lose this bread. And you got to do what you got a damn do. You know, I mean, you got families of fee. That's what I'm saying. And while LeBron, with all due respect, I love LeBron, I think he's great. I say that all the time. You may not care if you lose $8 million. I mean, $8 million.

You may not care. Like, when I was making $3 million a year, if you ask me to give up 1.5 of that, no, no, no, I can't do that. And so you got different people at different stages of careers and different levels of money making. You got to get out there and play ball, baby. It's part of it. It sucks, but it's part of it. Yeah, DA, wild points for May. Do you think it got lost in the tweets like, this is a business and it's collectively bargained? Like, it wasn't just one, I mean, I know LeBron's a big voice, but it was also collectively bargained. How do you feel about those tweets in a vacuum.

Well, I mean, I think you have to, you can't ignore the fact that the union signed off on all of that. You know, the players didn't, players wanted to start on Martin Luther King's birthday. I think that's fairly well known by now. That's when they wanted to start for a bunch of different reasons. Rest also honoring Dr. King, also social justice, all of it made sense to the players to start on Martin Luther King's birthday. The league said, we've got to start on Christmas.

We're going to lose $500 million. Choose. You know what I mean? So, you know, they made a choice. Like, I mean, I don't think you, you know, you can't, you can't absolve yourself of your, of your, of your, of your participation in the choice that was made is what would be my point. And I'm not mad at you for choosing a 500 million dollars. Don't get me wrong. I'm choosing 500 million.

But that comes with a cost. It will come with their potential cost, you know. And so you have to live with that potential cost this season. and it impacts the playoffs to be sure. You know, I wrote this a couple of weeks ago. And there's no disrespect to Utah or Atlanta or Milwaukee. But my point was, if it's the bucks and the jazz and the finals, are you going to watch NBA fan that complains about LeBron all the time?

I'm sick of LeBron. I'm sick of the Warriors and Splash Brothers. That's all you're talking about. You're kissing their ass all the time. Okay, great. now it's Janice and Donovan Mitchell. You go watch? I don't know.

Points were made. Points were made. Got what you wanted. This is what you wanted. Now, back with some ratings. Yeah. No, and that's an overall thing of like, we see this Twitter discourse and discourse in general

about what's your point is of the Stephs and the, and the LeBrons and all these things. That's what? Those Warriors series were some of the highest rated series that, that we've seen. Dude.

I mean, I worked at ESPN and at Turner, okay, which are the broadcast partners. I think I have some knowledge about how those shops operate. They're not stupid people in programming, okay?

Yeah, yeah. They say, who draws the most ratings for us? What, shockingly, is LeBron James and Steph Curry. Yeah. So who do you think is going to be on TV most of the time? You know what I mean? And I get it.

People say, well, that if you put other people on, they'll get, you know, people will know more about them. I don't disagree with the idea. All I'm saying is businessman, executive, TV executive, whose job is on the line if they don't produce ratings is not going to be in a position to experiments. Okay. Right. I remember my last year covering the Warriors.

And my last year covering the Warriors was when Steph got injured, four games into the season. And you see the least. The league's discourse of like basically collectively on a league from a program at a point, like, what the hell are we going to do? Like, Steph's out. And for however many months, the four months he was out, it was pretty dead just around the league and especially around the Warriors. But when he came back against the Raptors for that one game, it felt like a playoff

atmosphere. And a lot of it has to do with the league knows who, who butters its bread. They already know. Some guys have moved a needle. He's one of them. Yeah. So, you know, injuries play a part. LeBron plays a part.

But money plays apart, O'Ball, above all. So let's take another quick break. And I want to talk about the Mavericks. One break real quick. And we are back. I want to talk about a team that Raja played for, the Dallas Mavericks, who seemed to be in all sorts of shambles right now.

Thanks, of course, to the athletics, Sam Amick and Tim Cato, who did a great job, who basically, who broke the story about the, what should I call it? The dysfunction in Dallas in their front office that resulted in Donnie Nelson being ousted, parted ways, whatever you want to call it. He is no longer with the team. And Donnie Nelson has been with the team for 24 years. They seem to be a power struggle within the front office with Donnie Nelson, a front office executive, and Mark Cuban. And Luke Godch has got some, there's some dysfunction in there as well. The A, when you see a report like this come out, what do you, what does this immediately tell you when you see dysfunction like this in a front office from a journalist standpoint?

What does this tell you? I mean, it's not unusual. I'll put it that way. know, everybody is trying to get the ear of the king, right? Like everybody does. This goes back to medieval times, right? So whoever the king or the queen listens to, they have a lot of power. They have a lot of authority.

And so it's not surprising. It's not unique to Dallas that someone could come in and take some of that attention from Mark Cuban or to Mark Cuban that Donnie Nelson may have had. It happens in other places all the time. There's always kind of a push and pull between the basketball side of a building, you know, the management side, increasingly now the analytics department, which has its own power base now in most organizations that influences what teams do in the draft. It influences trades and free agency. So there's always kind of that push and pull. If you have the bigger the organization, the bigger the potential for conflict, right?

and it's not surprising that that happened in Dallas because Donnie, rightfully so, says, hey, I got Luca here. You know, I'm the guy that got Luca here. I should have, you should. I also oversaw a championship roster. I'm the one that built a championship organization around here. The one chip y'all got, I was the guy that built that team.

And there's a certain amount of truth to that. But that, again, was 10 years ago. And so other people come in, this guy that you all know very well, I'm sure, has come in. And, you know, when Mark says a story is total bullshit, it's usually not. Usually not. And I think the proof is into putting on this one. Yeah. How does that, how is that from a player standpoint? Because we already know when you have a star, inherently there's going to be power struggles in the organization. And that just is what it is, I don't think that that's anything new.

But from a player standpoint, Roger, how do you navigate that, even as a role player, just a fixture within the organization? How do you navigate that type of thing? My job is to play ball. That's what I'm paid to do. Now, you start getting into the Luca stratosphere and stuff like that. There may be more of an impact because your dialogue, your input is more meaningful to the organization than mine would be.

but, you know, from a role player on just good teams, like our job is to play ball. That's stuff behind closed doors is kind of above our pay grade. Like, it's not my business. Now, we all have, like in any organization, when a guy brings you in and you have a relationship and a guy had faith in you, when he leaves, there's a chance that the guy coming behind him isn't, you know, a fan of you possibly or you're not their guy. And then there are ramifications for that. Like, there could be trades on the horrendous.

rising but you really got to you know the NBA's you can't really be diving into those possibilities you got to be in the present and you have to be focusing on doing your job and that's how you make a career out of that if you're worried about all that other shit like I mean you're going to get wrapped up and swept out the door very quickly I'll just say to Donnie I you know I worked with Donnie I worked with Big Don 24 years is a long time to be anywhere it's a long time to be anywhere and it's those are long times to have relationships um And sometimes things just run their course. It doesn't mean there was anything nefarious taking place or anything like that.

It could just be, you know, things run their course. Donnie did a great job. You had Luca and Dirk. Like, Donnie swung the tractor trailer, you know, got rest of soul for Dirk. You know, Donnie was doing his thing over in Europe. But it's a new day. And I think this speaks to that, you know, Donnie's an old school. Dad was as old school as they got.

Now you have this analytics wave and this purely numbers wave that's coming up. And I saw when I was in Cleveland, we just happened to be. lucky enough to have really good guys in that analytics department that could appreciate the basketball side of it so everyone worked well together. But they can really be at odds at times. And if you don't have a great relationship there, they just juxtapose each other really, you know, because, you know, it's just one, it's a weird dynamic in a building. And it seems like Mark is going with the, with the analytic approach. I would caution that, though. We'll see on that, too. We'll see on that one, too. Go ahead. We'll see. I would just call it.

cautioning it to go, you know, to dive too far into the analytic way, because I still believe, and this could be, I could be in the minority, that the basketball eye and the basketball feel is really important to your building, too. You can have analytics as a big part of what you do, but you got to have some feel. Yeah. And then when you, when I look at the story, right, and it seems like they, for whatever reason, Donnie Nelson, who has a great relationship with Luca is out. And the person as of right now that presumably doesn't have, have the good relationship with Luca still has a job. That's pretty unusual, right?

In my eyes, DA, should we look into that? I know that in the reporting it said that Luca's still about to get that bag. He's still about to sign that $200 million extension. But what does that do? Lucas a made man. Come on now. Lucas is a maid man. He'll be there as long as he wants to be there.

They're not going to do things that, you know, a bunch of different things. to piss Luca off or to make him unhappy there. They understand, he understands his position there, and they understand his position there. So when push comes to shove, if Lucas says, get rid of this guy, guess what, they'll get rid of him. I don't think he wants to be in that position right now.

He's young, to Roger's point, he just wants to play, he just wants to ball out. You know, he wants to be comfortable, but he wants to ball out and wants to play. So I don't think it's not, to me, it's not, it doesn't rise to the level that it might on other teams, where the star player might be more vulnerable.

I don't think they'll implode that building if they'll look at Johnson Schlittown. That building will implode. It will not be there anymore. They're not going to let Luca out of Dallas. I just can't see a circumstance right now where they would let that happen. I just can't believe that they would let that happen.

That would be stupid. So I think he's in good shape there. When you see that, because it's funny, because we're starting to see these stories come out. We saw the Lucas story. And this morning, I'm just plugging y'all right now. The Athletic put out another story. We got good reporters.

No, no, no. Y'all got great reporters. It's love and respect. But there was another story that came out about Zion and his discontentment in New Orleans. Yeah. But when I see this, right, and you see a guy like Zion who has all the potential and all the ability in the world, but hasn't necessarily won. Let's just get real.

He hasn't gotten to the postseason. How do you see the, I want to start with Raj on this. How do you see the Luca, the Luca player empowerment type story or the Luca discontent story versus the Zion discontent story where he hasn't won playoff games, whereas Luca has won more than Zion has. How do you look at both of those stories of discontentment? Yeah, I mean, that's interesting, right? because Zion, I mean, analytically speaking, is fantastic.

He's done stuff that, I mean, I don't know, very few people have done in their first few years in the league. I think that's accurate. But for some reason to me, I don't feel like I would be as inclined to have Zion hold me to my feet to the fire as I would Luca. I don't know if that makes sense. At this point, at this point. At this point. I want to say if you want to do it at this point. Yes, thank you.

You know, and that's, I don't know that that's fair to Zion. I'm just saying, you asked me, I didn't have time to prep for that. I'm just thinking about it. Like, I, you know, Luca, Luca does so much for that team. And Zion still has to prove that he can carry that team a little bit more for me. You know what I mean? Before I start to relinquish a little bit of control. They're levels to everything.

And even within superstardom, they're levels, right? And I'm not saying, like, Zion is a star, superstar. But they're levels to that shit too. And so, you know, if you want power, you know, I say this, I say this to my kids all the time. Like, you know, if that's what you want, then show me why you deserve it. Mm. That was just going to ask you that. My question was player empowerment.

I want to get to DA and then I want you to get to answer this, Roger. Is it, do you think player empowerment is something that has to be earned, right? It's not something that, like, you just get. What do you, how do you, how do you, has Zion earned the player empowerment? route yet? I mean, it probably doesn't matter. No, not yet. Yeah, not to me, but, you know, again, this is where, you know,

I love NBA fans, but they tend to talk out of both sides of their mouth sometimes, you know, because they're the one, you see this all the time on Twitter, ah, rings culture, it's bullshit. You know, you guys just, that's not how you determine worth and value and all that. And guess what? When the team loses in the playoffs, what's the first thing they say? He's got to get traded. Get him out of here. Get that. No, we need, you know,

everybody loves Damian Lillard for being loyal to Portland. Everybody loves Bradley Biel for being loyal to D.C., but the second their team loses in the first round, he's got to get out of there. He's got to demand the train, go someplace where he can win. So again, y'all are contradicting yourselves. You're telling on yourself. People, it's about winning, okay?

This is not an amateur, you know, voluntary basketball. You know, you get paid a lot of money to win. Okay. And so Luca has won in the playoffs. Okay, he's shown you that he can carry a team at least for a round and get you, if not to the second round. He's so good that you're like, damn, he needs help. That's how good he is so early. They're just like, damn, he needs help. Now, Zion hasn't done that yet. Now, part of that's because he was injured last year. I'm not going to hold that, you know, hold him to account for that. But he hasn't done it yet. And so he has to show that he's good enough to take a team to the playoffs and content. Dame's shown you he can win around by himself, not by himself. He can be the dominant player on a team that wins around. He can do that.

He's done it multiple times. You know what I mean? So that gives him a certain, to Rogers' point, there's a level of super starting that Dame is at, that Luca is not at, and that Zion's not at yet. I also think, and I don't know that this is fair to Zion, but as he continues to evolve as a player, when you're talking about that level,

I have to be able to give you the ball and get out of the way. Now, you just said there are guys that can win you a game. Big Perk talks about a guy that can get you a game. You got to be able to give me a game. Like, I have to be, this can't be like, yeah, I'm going to, you know, run some action. Not a regular season game in March. Not a regular season game in March. No, I got to be able to get you the ball when all else fails,

and Logan's not making shots and Rajas not making shots, and DA's not doing what he's supposed to do where you say, I got it. We don't throw the ball to Sasha. We don't throw the ball to Sasha. Sasha cook and bring us home. cook, you know, and that's where, you know, he'll continue, he's done it every year so far. He'll continue to grow. We're just making the point that he's not ready now. He's not ready

now to do that. Yeah, I mean, people develop at different speeds, you know, especially, it usually takes big men longer, just because it does. It's a dependent position. You don't have the ball in your hands all the time. So he'll figure it out, you know, it's not a criticism of him. You know, that's, you're just pointing out that he hasn't done what other people in the star category have done so far. That's all. That's it.

Sure. Speaking of, but stars that have done the work to be that dude and, and have the player empowerment, Kevin Durant. I see Roger's face, but we're going to get to what Roger has to talk about in a second. But before that,

I want to give Kevin Durant as flowers. My man bawled out against the bucks. And you want to talk about give somebody the ball and just get out the fucking way, KD. in game five. Was that? Now, I've covered Kevin. You've covered Kevin longer than I have, D.A.

I think this was the best performance from Kevin that I've ever seen. Just based on the stakes and, you know, him coming off of the injury that he has done. Yeah. I think it's the best performance he's ever done. Do you share that sentiment? I mean, it's certainly up there.

I mean, he had some great game. in O KC. Don't get me wrong in playoff games. He had some monster playoff games in OKC. But yeah, I mean, everything has to be viewed. You have to view everything he's doing. You know, and I get, I understand that people, and this is where I think we fail as journalists, among our many failing, but this is one of the biggest ones, is that we failed to, we fail to tell the public, we failed to show the public how fucking hard it is to be a great athlete. It's really hard. I couldn't do that.

I couldn't do that shit. I can't do that shit. Not even close. It's really difficult to play at a professional level. And whatever it is, you're a professional at. Yeah. You know, I one time covered, I got, didn't cover it. I was at a U.S. Open, a golf tournament.

And I was just in the gallery watching. And I've never heard a ball like that. Like a professional golfer hits a ball. I was on the green whizzing by you. It makes a difference. different sound. I was on the green with Phil Mickelson once, like walking to green with him and Steph.

Yeah. Even like we know Steph's a good golfer. Like it's great golfer by NBA standards. But to hear the difference between his, the way he hits the ball versus how Phil hit the ball just on like a, whoop. He's a professional. You heard that, you heard that sound for miles. Yeah.

And so for Katie to do this, and I don't care if it was two years ago, it doesn't matter. He ruptured his Achilles. That was a career. ender when I first started covering this league. People stopped, didn't play anymore after that. And then it became, okay, they come back, but they're never the same. They're not close to being the same player that they were before. They're just out there trying to. He's by and large the same player. Yeah, not the same guy. This guy is the same guy. It's the same guy. And it's unbelievable that he's doing this.

And to your point, situation, Irving's out, Hardin's playing. But, you know, again, he's playing hurt. He's playing admirably, though. He's playing admirably, though. I got to give him his flowers. Big respect to James Hardin for doing that, for going out there when you know you're not at the best. And more importantly, they know you're not at your best.

And you still go out there and you do what you can to help your team win. Big respect to James Harder. But what Katie did, yeah, I mean, that's as good as I, I've ever seen, period. Forget him, period, ever in a playoff game. For one guy to do that, to, it was unbelievable. I mean, I can't really add to that. I would just say that when he got injured, I said,

I don't think he'll ever be the same. I mean, just because everything that I had ever seen with an injury like that suggested that you would come back and not be the same. Like, you know, and it really is remarkable that he is the same. It was not taking anything away from his brilliance. It's just like, especially that late in his career, bro.

It's 12 years in the lead, yeah. It's absolutely unprecedented. It's crazy. He is, I mean, he might be the most gifted score of all time. I'm, you know,

like, I know we're going to get the, I love MJ, you know that. There have been some phenomenal scores. No, but that's an alien, man. Yeah, that's 611.

And DIA hit the nail on the head, and I deal with this a lot. Just your average hooper, man, at a park, up every day for the pickups. I'm the best player out there or the second best. Like, they think that they can hop in an NBA game and go to work. And it's crazy because I try to explain to some of them.

Not only will you not go to work, you're not going to get a bucket. Right. No. Do you know what I'm saying? You can't guard anyone out there. That's the, and the normalization of what an NBA, like, it's just baffling to me. I deal with it all the time. I'm like, you're just, I, you know.

I say this all the time. There's about 450 players in the NBA. And if you rank them 1 to 450, the worst player in the NBA, the worst, categorically, by definition, by any metric you want, the worst guy playing in the NBA was an all-American, okay? Yes. Right. It's crazy.

It's an average, like, 25 a game in college, okay? Yeah. I keep cooking people. Don't say what he, don't even think about what he did in high school. Right. So what are you talking? It's like these idiots that say, oh, I can get a set off of Serena. The fuck you can. Oh, we'll turn a starve of hers. Are you nuts? No. I remember talking to Jason Collins' assistant in the words, who we both know, DA, was a, and I was asking him, forget, Jerry, Jerry, my bad. Jared, Jerry, Jerry, you go. And I was asking him, forget skill, forget that, because we already know that. that, Roger, you're better than me.

You'll be better than me in every sort of way in who. Forget that, right? From a win standpoint, me getting into the best shape of my life, right, to get to play to a preseason basketball game, I have to get to the best shape of my life. To do a preseason basketball game, I could probably get up and down the floor for a preseason basketball game, probably twice. Forget, forget the skill. And then I could probably only get one possession in a regular season game.

one screen in a playoff game, I'm dead. Like I'm done. Just from a wind standpoint. Now you put from that and then say from a skill level, mortals don't have a chance against you. And then to say that and then to be at the top of your game as a savant, the way Kevin is, the way LeBron is, the way step is, the way all these guys are historically is a great feat.

And then to do it on a stage the way Kevin did is phenomenal. It was just phenomenal. Look, so listen, for, if most people see Kevin Durrani, it's the tallest person you're ever going to see in your life, okay? Yeah, yeah. The tallest person you're going to run across in your life. I mean, unless you're just hanging out in basketball, in NBA locker rooms. So take that with the handles of possibly Kyrie Irving, you know,

and the jump shot of, you know, any, any of the greatest shooters of all time, and just an ability to create, like, in his mind, the creativity of what he does. This is brilliance. You know, this is excellence. When you talk about there's nothing anyone can do. And the people that are defending, do you know what an artist, P.J. Tucker is defensively?

Oh, my goodness. I mean, an artist. Like, people don't give that shit credit. I get it. Nobody wants to see us defend. But that takes a level of artistry, too, and a level of, like, you know, know-how and creativity and physicality.

And so you got him and two other people at most times, at least somewhere in the, vicinity. And this man... PJ is a bull, too. PJ is a bull. Oh, yeah, he's not even, like, I couldn't even compare myself physically to him. But like, he, and this man is just, he's not even seeing it. He is playing essentially above their heads. And I mean that, like, in a lot of ways.

Like, he's, like, he's above their head in terms of they can't stop him. But he doesn't even see them because he's so, he's just getting up in the air and he doesn't see what's happening underneath him. It's, it's, I mean, it'd be like watching, you know, people who love opera or ballet or whatever it is, though, what you know, what you know, you watched if you watched that the other night, that's excellence. Yeah, yeah. I'm just, I should have went this last year right.

Did you see, did you see Steve Nash hug him, no. I did. I did. Thank you. That was a thank you. But that was exactly. Listen, if we had that hug in real life, if we had that more hugs like that, there'd be more, they'll just be, the world would be a better place.

There would be a better room from different races and just different, just a hug like that. We need to come together. That's one of those memes where if you had somebody that hugged you, like Steve Nash hug Kevin Durant, boy, you lucky, bro. You're lucky. But listen, can I just, I know we're joking and shit, but I don't know if you saw my tweets during the game, Logan. I don't tweet.

I certainly don't tweet during the game. I was really disappointed, man. Like, I'm cheering for Brooklyn. That's my guy. I'm cheering from Berlin, right? But watching Milwaukee down the stretch, I don't even know what to say to you about that. Great transition, Roger.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Is that where you were going? I mean, that's exactly where I was going. I could barely watch it. I just, I found it irresponsible. And I don't know who to blame. Maybe DA can, you know, like, I'd love to hear his thoughts. I don't know who were at a place to blame because there were a lot of culprits, but I just couldn't figure out what was going on. What I didn't understand, and this is not the first time, unfortunately,

I don't know what they're trying to do at the end of the game sometimes. Like, what is it that you're trying to accomplish with your, on an offensive position? that shit. Like most plays are like, we're trying to get the ball to this guy or we're running dummy action. We're running, we're going, you know, we're doing misdirection to get the ball to the other side of the floor so that guy can shoot. I don't know what the bucks are doing. I don't know what it is. They're trying to accomplish down the stretch of a game. Like, what is, who are you trying to get the ball to? To do what? You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's beyond random. Random is I have a matchup. I'm hunting a guy. I'm going to take him off the dribble and get to the

cup. That's random. Yeah. No, what they're doing. They're not even hunting. There's just a guy gets the ball. He takes two dribbles and he jacks up a shot and then they go back down to the other end of the floor. I'd have to think this is coaching though, right? I just, the only thing that I can see in this is coaching because we, DA, you've been around us a long time, Roger, you've been around us a long time. there have been great teams with great players that just can't get it done down the stretch for whatever reason and who have all world players. Yonis is an all world player.

Whatever you want to say, MVP, if you can't get him into positions where he can be successful, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to say. I don't know. Maybe there's a, do you see anything from Yonis that maybe he can approve down the stretch? Because I just don't know.

If your offense is that predictable day in and day, or year in and year out, I think it has to do with coaching, but Roger, correct me if I'm wrong. I should have written this down. Maybe note to self, be better at your job. I should have written this down because I want to touch on it all. To DA's point, they don't know what they're trying to achieve down the stretch. That's a huge problem.

It's a huge problem. And that is a coaching issue, Logan. And I said it to a friend of mine last night, like, either you can't give them the right answers to structurally get them in things that they need to be in down the stretch. That's one problem. Or they ain't listening to you to do it. That's a whole other problem. In either case, you ain't doing your job.

Right? So I, as your boss, have to wonder about whether you can be there. Because it's one of two things. You're either, you're not giving them what they need or you're not making them do it. And they ain't listening to you. Okay. So Janus has to stop shooting threes. I don't give a shit.

Who told Janus that shooting a three? So you would shoot threes to keep people honest, right? That would be the logic behind shooting a three because there's no logic in shooting 12%, right? So you're saying, hey, man, shoot the occasional three. They'll keep them a little bit more honest, opening up your lanes to get to the basket. They don't come out. You're not keeping anyone honest. They're not challenging those.

So stop doing it because you're wasting the six or seven possessions of cast up threes. Plus, it changes the way it puts something in your mind late in the game that would allow you to settle if you were a little bit tired. And that's what a defense, if it's a defender, I want you to settle. I want you, you got me on the hook. I'm in that iso. He's settling for threes, man. You're going to give you a foul or you're going to finish. You're going to settle.

So if you stop, if you minus the three from the equation, he's not even going to think about settling. I don't want you settling at all. So then the action that they're running, or the lack thereof, it forces this man or any of them to just be on the ball out in space and you're in an ISO situation. You could run any number of things. and we talked about this in the bubble last year with them against the heat. The hardest place to score a lot of times for a dude like Janus,

when everyone knows what's coming is right at the top. Right? Because they built this wall. Now you've got to go through all of those players. For a guard who can pop, you know, that's fine. They've got space, but he ain't doing that. He's going to the basket. So, you know, twist that man.

Give him the ball. He likes to initiate offense, right? Bring him down the court. Let him run into a D.H.O. Either side of the court. As that's happening, run something behind him along the, baseline to allow it to screen for him as he runs the baseline to the other side. The ball continues to travel to the weak side.

And now he's on a post up down on the opposite block. You've had ball movement. You'd have people movement. And he's got a live dribble in the midpost where he can affect the game from a sweet spot. Like there's none of that shit going on. And when they did get switches and Janus had Joe Harris. I almost lost my shit. He had Joe Harris on a late possession.

It's everything you want. And Drew Holiday, who I love, you're out there choosing the ISO, Kevin Durant, on the wing. with a loaded block? Like that's not, like that's, that's, are you getting pissed off all over again? Are you getting hot right now.

I'm getting hot right now thinking about it because I'm like, that's, what are we doing, fellas? This is, this is, this is nut crunching time

to, what was the gentleman who, who's, who's, yeah, this is not crunching time. We got to be on the same page.

And it was just, it was a mess. And there were a lot of people, you know who looks the best in crunch time? Who? You know, who's her best player in crunch time? Chris fucking Middleton.

Yeah. Flowers to Chris Middleton. No, it is because he seems to understand where he's going to get his buckets, where he's the most effective. And in the lack of offensive continuity, I think he's the best all-around guy. Like he strokes it from deep. He could get to his mid-range and he'll go to the basket. I'm not saying he's the best player, but he looks the most comfortable in those moments. So you got to run some shit.

You got to have some action. I just don't, I've been waiting for a one-three-pick-and-ro. with him and Drew, like make the defense, make a decision. You know what I mean? Like, they have to make a decision

on who they're going to guard and who's going to guard them. And then you can attack off of that. You know, you can figure out who do we want? We want to put Hardin in this matchup. Do we want to put Joe Harris in this matchup? You know, do we want to put,

oh, that's just, you know, whoever, not Durant in this matchup that's on the floor for Brooklyn, Well, you can manipulate that to make that happen, and you can still always get the bold I'm on the block. So it's always the default you have. So I don't know. I'm with you, DA.

I'm with you on. But I think part of it, but I think Janus does have to own some of this, Logan, you know, like, you got to know. Yonis legacy talk? Yonis legacy talk. You have to take your ego out of it, I think. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think part of it is, oh, their place, it's a drop. He drops every possession. I have to make this shot. Well, no, you don't, because even if you make a couple, they don't care. They win. They win.

We don't care. It used to, they used to, they just don't care. And it, and it, and it, you know, and again, I don't, I'm no expert on X's and O's, but I would think that they would see that, like, as a group. Like, I, if Joe, listen, I love Joe Harris. I love Joe Harris. But I am, I mean, the basketball was, on finding a matchup, getting that matchup, putting it in a position to expose it and riding with

that. If we're not doing that, we're just kind of like throwing shit at the wall offensively. And that's a bad way to play down the stretch. I don't care how good you are as a team. The other thing that bother me, and I get it, it's your defensive philosophy. You have possibly the three best offensive players, if you're Brooklyn, in the game today at your disposal at all times when healthy. tonight or two nights ago, you had one of them. Because James Hardin was not going to do anything down the stretch. We all saw that.

And I too loved the fact that he was out there for his team. Why in God's name, would you allow Kevin Durant, arguably the best offensive player of all time, to cook one-on-one? Now, they weren't even, if you told me, hey, man, they're just really spacing the floor. KD's bringing it up. So it's a long run for a trap and then he can just kick it out. I would say point.

I would still challenge one of those dudes to beat me. But that wasn't even the case. They were running pick and roll. And there was like a hedge and the guy was getting over the pick. And then there was this weak spot when the hedge would leave and the guy wasn't back in front of KD. And it just caused a lot of trap that shit. Get the ball out of his hand. Somebody else beat me.

I couldn't for the life of me. Yeah. You know, if you want to be the man. and you say, I'm the best defensive player in the league. I'm the defensive player in the year. Okay. Stop him. Facts.

It's facts. You know what I mean? And did I say it was easy to stop him? No, it's really hard to stop him. But you also that dude. It's really hard to stop him. But you claimed it. You said it.

You're 6-11. The one thing that Katie does is shoot over the top of people that are smaller than him trying to guard him. That's what makes him. part of what makes it devastating is that he's seven feet tall shooting jumpers. That's what made dirt devastating. He's seven feet tall and he can make shots. Well, the one thing that you haven't tried yet is matching his length.

And maybe he blows by Janice and dunks seven times. Let's find out. Let's find out what happens. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you know what? No defensive player of the year has ever said, and I'm not saying that Yon, his has, but I know unequivocally no one's ever said. You guard him. Yeah.

That's not the way, you know, the we, and I wasn't a defensive player of the year, but I was usually tasked with being, you know, the defender on our team. And I'm not criticizing it, you honest. All I'm saying is that you have with much, what is the saying of whom much is given, much is expected? I think he did it last year in the playoffs, right? Didn't he say, look, give me Jimmy Butler. Was it?

Yeah. I think I remember something like that. He guarded Butler in the first round this year. Guard him will. What you need to do, bro. with you, DA. You need to take that challenge. And the thing is, the rent might still get 50.

We got to see. He's that good. But at least I put my best guy on. It's my best guy. I got to live with that. All right. Let's, real quick, before we get to run on the week, predictions for tonight, game six. Bucks are the Nets?

I'm going to go with, I'm going to go first. I'm going to go to Raja and we'll go to you, D.A. I have the, I, I got the Nets because I picked, I picked the bucks in the last game, and I got, and Kevin just said, fuck you. So, um, I'm gonna go with the debts. Roger, who you got going to close the series? If you got the next closing series out,

you got the bucks force in the game seven. Nah, the bucks force of game seven tonight, man. They're gonna, your pros for a reason, man. Like, they'll figure some of that stuff out down the stretch. Sneaky, hard place to play also. It's Pfizer now, I think, what it is. They get it rocking. Yeah, I think they get to win.

I think they get to win. That takes a lot. Kevin Durant, like, as brilliant as that is, that takes a lot out of you. Sure, sure. All right. Dave, who you got? Oh, I think the bucks.

Role players, you know, everybody plays better at home. Role players, stars. Everybody plays better at home. They just do. And conversely, you don't play as good on the road as you do. Most people don't play as good on the road as they do at home. So the guys that made big shots, like no disrespect to Jeff Green, let's see him make seven threes tonight.

And if he does, they're going to win. That's right. If he does, they win the game. But we'll let's see him do it. You know what I mean? Follow up to that for both of you guys. What kind of performance did they need out of Kevin, them to win if the bucks i mean if the nets we're going to win what kind of performance do you do

do they do they need from kevin start with uh yeah okay he did the other night that'll do that's that's a starting point i mean now he'd have to be in that stratosphere i mean you'd have to i don't see i don't know how much better james hardin's going to be tonight i james hardin wasn't bad because james hardin like his skills are all he's he's just hurt like and he's not a hundred I don't know how much more percentage-wise he's healthy this game. So it's going to require, and to DA's point, I love Jeff Green. I think he's been fantastic for them. You're probably not getting that.

Like, that's how he does every night. So, do you get these don't have to cook it again? Yeah. Let's get to Rowan of the Week. Roan of the Week is a segment where we shout out a person, an entity, an organization that won the week. I will go first. Raja will go, and then our guests, DA, will go.

My first one, I'll go. first. Kevin Durant. I mean, self-explanatory, I don't have to say much. That was just a, that was an incredible performance. Roger, who you got? Give me a minute. I thought about a lot of players, but I'm going with a youth basketball player who happens to be my son, Ty Bell. I took, I took Ty Bell up to the CP3 middle school combine as a fifth grader. They don't have a fifth grade division. He played sixth grade. When we got there, I was appalled to watch what the parents were telling their kids to do. It just became an ISO 24 foot shot after 13 dribbles, no passes, a zero pass possession type of camp. And so Ty was really frustrated and he came to me after

game one and said, hey, I'm going to just start being selfish. And I said, don't do that. Play your game. Like, try to win, help make other people better, defend the heck out of people. Someone here is going to see the value in that because I fail to believe that all of these people evaluating are just knuckleheads. So, trust me, do that, play the right way. He did it and he made top 20 as a fifth grader in the sixth grade division. And so my shout out in real one goes to tie. Not because he made it though, but because he played that shit the right way and he didn't buy into that that silliness.

Also shout out to my little homie Dia, who your other son, who went to the U camp, went to the University of Miami camp. I see you out here. Yeah, he's rocking too. Dea, who is your real one of the week? Oh, the winner of the week is probably Adam Silver because he's, he's closer to getting what would be a very good salvage to this season, which would be Brooklyn Clippers in the finals. Yeah.

Top two media markets in the country. I can work with that. Yeah. It was a long road and it happened. Yeah. If it's not the Clippers, it'll be Chris Fall, which is a great story. And people watch that. So I think the league will be fine with Brooklyn, whoever, in the finals.

But it would be better for them if it was Brooklyn, L.A. or Brooklyn Phoenix. All right, man. There you go, man. Thank you so much, D.A. Friend of the show, come back anytime, man. That was another edition of... Of course. Anytime, fellas. This was fun. This was fun. Enjoy chopping it up with you guys. Anytime. Anytime. Yeah, this is another edition of our Thursday edition, The Real Ones Pod. You guys, check out everybody, everything else on our other feeds. Check out mismatch. Check out group chat. Check out the answer. Check out Black Girl Songbook, which had a special Tupac episode with who, Rajabelle. Who else, that's town. Daniel Smith, Tupac. Okay. You guys check that out. We also have R2C2 with who, Roger Bell.

Vallejo Legend closely related Vallejo-Legent C-C-Sabathia. Yes, sir. Make sure you check out the Ringer Music Show. Make sure you also check out. Ringerverse with Jomi, also with Van, also with Mao. We will see you on Monday. Talk to y'all soon. Peace.