The Ringer NBA Show - The 7 Most Interesting Questions About the NBA Finals | Group Chat

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

Justin, Rob, and Tjarks attempt to answer the seven most interesting questions about this season’s thrilling Lakers vs. Heat NBA Finals, including who the most important player in the series is (1:23), whether Erik Spoelstra is the best coach in the NBA (18:54), what the biggest takeaways from this postseason are (43:20), and whose legacy will be most impacted by the outcome of the NBA Finals (53:34).  Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Jonathan Tjarks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to group chat, the ringer's weekly MBA group discussion where we talk about everything from did you hear that Jimmy Butler selling coffee in the bubble to did you hear that Jimmy Butler selling coffee in the bubble? I am Justin Verrier. It is 116 p.m. Pacific time. We're coming to you a little bit early today because it's a special occasion. This is technically for us finals Eve and for you the morning of the finals. So we wanted to get this into your feed a little bit early for your commute to, I guess, your kitchen or perhaps to your other room in your household. Joining to meet today, as always, Jonathan Sharks. I was going to say special occasion.

We got no guests this week. It's true, but we do have Rob Mahoney. Hello. Which is always a special occasion. So in addition to our podcast, the Ringer MBA show is going multiple times this week. We have our regular rotation, the mismatch, and real ones, the newly named podcast with Logan and Raja. So keep checking that out.

We'll also have a couple of. reaction podcast to some of these finals games. So stay tuned for that. And the Ringer NFL show is going five days a week on the Ringer podcast network and on Spotify. So check those out. But today, we're talking about what we've been driving for or driving toward for about a year now. It's finally here. Charks, are you excited for the playoff matchup between the Lakers and the heat?

I mean, it's literally a year, right, since Clippers Lakers last, it feels like it, right? Rob, you're definitely showing signs of fatigue. I'm dying over here. I'm ready for this thing to get going. I'm ready to get into the thick of this matchup. I think, honestly, basketball-wise, this is a great one. But in terms of the season itself, this thing is becoming a little bit of a slog, guys. You could tell how much this is wearing on us by how many tabs are open on our browsers right now.

I'm getting into the 20. So I look forward to the time where we can clear those all away. So today, because we're right on the cusp of this final. we're going to go through seven questions because there are seven games in this playoff series to come. Perhaps we'll get all seven of them. This is the seven most interesting finals

or finals adjase questions. Let's start right from the top. Number one, Charks, is Anthony Davis the most important player in the series? Kind of feels like it, doesn't it? You are the AD expert, and we really just kind of see AD really bloom in the last couple weeks.

He's putting up, I think the numbers were, it's like 28, 10, it in 6-4 or something. And it's the highest number since Kareem in the playoffs. I mean, he dominated the rockets in a small ball series, dominated the nuggets in a big ball series. Like, how do you guard this guy? Maybe more accurately, who can guard this guy?

Can Bam guard him? Because if he can't, then my goodness. I think on the other side of that, it's about who AD guards, right? Because the way to shut down Miami, you have to have length on Bam at a bio. You have to have someone who can be active, who can be up into all those dribble hand-on-

all those shooters. That's to me where this series comes down to on both sides of the balls. Those two guys potentially guarding each other, especially if LA keeps going smaller and smaller over the course of this series, which Miami's not a team that's going to punish you for doing that per se. Yeah, as we've seen in the first couple series for the Lakers, there really hasn't been a clear answer for Anthony Davis. I do wonder, though, if you were to create an Anthony Davis defender

or maybe even someone to attack him on the offensive end, is that guy bam out of bio? because as we've seen, AD can kind of give it to some of the bigger guys. He could work around them who aren't quick enough to stay in front of him. And for some of the smaller guys, he's been able to just kind of pop over them, shooting over them in the mid-range. So I don't know. If I was trying to come up with someone who could give him difficulties,

I might look at BAM. I would say, Yonis, I think you need something even bigger than BAM, most likely. Like, you just need the number of guys who can probably actually guard 80 101 is probably in like, I don't know, two fingers. maybe three. Well, I think it's telling too that, you know, as those three guys are kind of juxtaposed, that the heat were so effective at stopping Yannes, in part because you have the option of bam, because you have all these bodies. I'm sure we're going to see a lot of different looks from the heat. And especially, you know, we talk so much about their zone, that's going to

have to figure into slowing AD down. And that's where things get interesting because the way the heat runs zone, they like to put all their length up top. They like to show it to prevent the ball from even getting into the action. But if AD is working the wings and the posts against Duncan Robinson and Tyler Hero, like, this series is over. You have to really quickly adjust those kinds of matchups and the whole orientation of what Miami's been able to do with that zone look. Well, because Miami likes to put those longer defenders at the top of the zone, right? Would it make sense to just flip that and go to a more traditional approach to that?

Or does it not matter? Is it AD, if you have him patrolling that dunker spot or even anywhere near that, he's just going to take advantage of the extra space and the lack of, like, maybe crowding? I mean, there's also AD in the high post, right? if you do that, is he can kind of move around the floor to attack you. To me, the number that really jumped out to me when looking at the Lakers, they are undefeated when they shoot higher than 30% from three as a team in the playoffs, right?

Because, like, it's pretty simple. Nobody can really guard LeBron and AD, so you got to send help one way or the other. If you send help, the Lakers got to make you pay with the threes. If they're missing threes, you have a chance. If they're not, it gets really tough really fast. Well, to me, that's, you know, to jump ahead to our second question, who or what is the biggest X factor in this series. That to me is it. It's all about the three-point shooting.

In the Western Conference finals, the Lakers shot 28% from three. That's the kind of thing we're in this matchup, given the volume of threes that the heat are going to shoot, and if any of their guys who have been kind of hot and cold go hot again, it gets really interesting. You know, you're looking at J. Crowder, looking at Goran Dragach, who's had a really good playoffs, but it's cooled off a little bit in terms of his long-range shooting. If those guys are there and on point and hitting threes and the heat are just shooting 15 more threes on volume than the Lakers are, that's going to swing a game in all the ways, you know, to kind of wipe out all the good things that a guy like Anthony Davis is getting you.

Well, that's a good question because on the flip side of that, you think the heat just allow the Laker shooters to get those looks and just hope that they miss them because, as you're saying, they're kind of been hit and miss. I think Rondo is the only really score who scored over 20 points. I believe that's correct in these playoffs. And so you're kind of hoping on Alex Cruz with some of these other guys that make shots. And if I was, like, drawing up a game plan, I would do just that. I would just force those guys to beat me. I mean, easier said than done, but yeah, right?

Like, I think we have a stat here. 80 and LeBron are both shooting almost 80% at the rim. Like, you gotta do anything else. And especially if it's Coosma, Rondo, Morris, bomb, and threes. Like, any day all that let those guys shoot. Well, especially when you have guys who are long enough to make late contests on the perimeter, right? Like, if you have Andre Igu Degu Dada digging down to help and clog the lane, he can actually get out to get a hand up on a Kuzma, on a Caruso, to alter those shots a little more than some of these smaller guards or other perimeter,

than a Jamal Murray or a Gary Harris or any of the guys that the Lakers have really run into. I think that packing the paint is just the default strategy against the Lakers. You cannot live with letting Anthony Davis and LeBron walk to the rim every time. And the only way to really stop them is to put five bodies in their way. Interesting you say that about like perimeter length. That's what that to me too about both these teams. Like, there's not a lot of small guys in these rotations, right? The Lakers have big guards.

The Heat had pretty much big guards. I think Rondo's the only guy under, like, six three who's going to play at all. Like, there's no Kemba Walker's anymore. Everybody can contest shots at this level. Had to do it, Justin. That's hurtful. So, I mean, the Heat had the best success against Janus than any team had had this season. And so what we're basically saying is they might have to take the same approach

where they just have to wall off LeBron and AD in the middle and just like let those shooters be who they are? Well, especially in transition, right? Like if you're going to cut off all the easy points for the Lakers, it's about getting back and walling up just like it was against Janus, except now you have LeBron who I think can truck over some guys and get, in a lot of cases, foul calls going in his favor. Like he just is officiated very differently from a guy like Janus,

but also just has the vision to pick out cutters and passers in a way that Yannis doesn't yet. Yeah, especially at the end of that Denver series. In those fourth quarters, it was like Lakers stops, slakers runouts. Like Miami's got to control transition against LA because they don't shoot that well. If you don't control transition, there's just no chance. Well, Sharks, you wrote about this and this is pretty much your prescription for all teams in the playoffs. And pretty much dating back to a couple of years now, going small has had been a key for the heat in that Celtic series. They pretty much did away with all their centers. It's pretty much Bamadabio. And then Andre

Goda at this point is playing back up center, getting a little bit of throwback, Andre, back to the Golden State games. Do you think they're going to be able to do that, considering that the Lakers, I would imagine, are still going to want to play a good deal of Dwight and maybe some Javel? See, I think if you're the heat, you want Dwight and Javail out there much as possible. I mean, I think that's

like, because that gives you guys who don't space and really can be attacked on the perimeter on the other side of the ball. And here's a good way to look at it. Like, yes, in theory, the heat should have more big bodies on AD, but if your big bodies are Kelly Alenic and Myers-Lennard, like what

right? At that point, what's the difference anyways? I mean, if you're Frank Vogel and you decide you want to start with either Javelle or Dwight in the game, who do those guys guard to start? Because if you're putting them on BAMM, you're asking them to show on a lot of threes. Maybe you put him on Jay Crowder, the same strategy that the Celtics used to hide Kamba effectively and just kind of bank on the fact that Jay is going to continue to miss. Do we think that Jay is going to continue to miss? Because I think I would have said that in the first round,

and yet he continues to hit these threes. I mean, I feel like Jay Crowder is the guy that no team actually wants, but every team actually needs. And if you go back to the trade deadline, it seemed like the heat were pretty set on getting Danilo Gallinari from Oklahoma City. That didn't work out. I think, according to, I believe it was Zach Lowe, suggested that they wanted to think more long-term, wanted to make sure their cap was clear, and Danila wanted a extension if he was going to get traded there. And all of a sudden, Jay has been pretty much gallo without just the Italian flair, without the same palette for pasta. Then what are you really? You know, if you're gallo without the Italian flair, what are we talking about?

It's true. But I do wonder so much of their success has been in that starting lineup with Jay in there. Does eventually, does Cinderella's time run out, I guess? I think it already has a little bit, just in terms, you know, he's getting great looks in that conference final series, especially towards the end. and it just could not hit a lot of them. And to his credit, he started cutting more, he started finding ways to chip in defensively a little bit here and there more than usual.

Like, you're still a useful player. But I think, you know, over the course of any playoff series, especially a final series, ultimately what we're talking about is by the end of it, who's been kind of winnowed out of the rotation? Who are the players who just could not stick, who couldn't hang for whatever reason

because it went big, because it went, usually because it went small. I think, you know, the heat are uniquely positioned because they have so many guys who could be dependable in a series to close games, to play big minutes, that it almost doesn't matter

if Jay is great every game. It doesn't matter if he's hitting his shots every game. He just needs to have one or two pretty good games, maybe a couple more than that if the heater really going to be competitive in this series. The thing I'm watching are,

can they run out Andre, Jimmy, Bam, lineups to end of games? Because that's a great defensive trio, but obviously there's spacing issues. Andre, I think he went five for five from three in game six, which was amazing. But that's probably not sustainable, obviously.

Does Andre, I was thinking about this during that series, does he have more crunch time late clock strips than any player in history? For sure. I mean, unbelievable hands is just like come down clean on the ball better than anybody, I think. It's also crazy how you would expect him to miss a lot of these big crunch time threes because he's getting J. Crowder room plus an entire bedroom's worth of room. and he still manages to make these shots. And I'm still surprised considering, like,

there were times during the regular season, especially when he got into the heat and he had to shake off all the rusts from, I guess, just hanging out in the Bay Area, just like counting his tech stocks or whatever he does up there, where he looked cooked. I thought he was done.

But there are certain times where he just steps up. And I wonder if that is the answer to our question here when we're talking about number two, where what is the biggest X factor? Is it would doll up both in terms of what he provides, in terms of lineup flexibility, in terms of championship know-how in terms of just everything else he brings to the team, whatever he's whispering into the ear of Bamadabio in some of these timeouts? Well, certainly if you're going to go small.

I mean, that's where, you know, we've been talking about how the heat have looked at him in that way and played him some at center. And I think it's viable in certain matchups. The question is, if you're asking him to defend the Lakers Biggs, is that enough relative to what you would get from a Kelly Olinick, who hasn't been the most productive or effective player in these playoffs, but just has a little bit more brawn if you're talking about banging with a guy like Dwight on the glass, for example.

To me, it's less about, you know, what kind of defensive role, Iguodala can play in terms of getting deflections, getting stops. It's about if you play him at center, big minutes, and maybe you don't because Bam is just getting stretched further and further. But like, what does your rebounding look like in those situations? That's where I would start to get a little concerned. That's a good point. I think also we're talking about is the whole Robinson here.

thing, especially on defense. We know LeBron's going to hunt those guys. Can they stay on the floor? Do you go in the zone? How is that dynamic going to work out? Because, like, they've never been hunted, but they're about to get hunted. Like, it's hunting season. LeBron's got his double barrel.

He's going out to the countryside and he's going to work. It's going to be hard for them. The Vanilla Bros. So, well, that's a good question here. How much can we expect from Hero in a situation like this? Because two games ago, it seemed like he was the next. next coming of whoever, and now all of a sudden it seems like some of his flaws might be more easily exposed against someone like LeBron James. For sure. I think defensively, John nailed it.

Like, the way that LeBron is going to hunt out these guys is a huge problem. And that, you know, circles back to what we've been talking about with Crowder, with Iguodala, maybe the veteran hands are the guys who supposedly leans on for that reason, just because they're a little bit more difficult to target in that way. But in terms of scoring against the Lakers, that defense is so good. and AD in particular, his length is so incredible and effective, you really need guys who can do more random scoring for you. And hero to me is the epitome of that, a guy who's just going to kind of break out of a pick and roll,

hit his weird little kind of bank shot from the wing. He has a lot of improvisational offense that I think could suit them in this series. Can you just hear Dionne Waiter salivating when you said random offense? Is he going to get a ring, right? Either way. That's how this works, right? what it sounds like.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. There have been a lot of guys, though, in that situation in the past who have said they don't want it if they didn't play, like, a certain amount of time. There was this weird situation. I don't know if you guys saw this about Matt Barnes, where he, like, he officially got the ring at a ceremony, but then he left it there, but then he didn't really want it. It's very strange, but the unwritten rules of this is like the next ringer feature,

I think we should be assigning. My question is, you know, this question came up with Anderson Verjeu, when he was kind of a double agent between the Cavs and the Warriors about like, you know, oh, can he tip off, can he tip off the Warriors about what the Cavs are running or vice versa? Like, do you think Dionne Waiters remembers the Heat Playbook?

Didn't he miss both like actual championship wins? Like, he wasn't on the Cavs team that won and he wasn't on the Warriors team that won? That's correct. That's right. So he owes both of those franchises a ring, I think.

That's how it works. Well, I think one thing that's interesting It's not necessarily a player X-factor, but something that has come up in the conference finals is there seems to be this huge disparity about how both of these two teams are closing. The heat had been really good in the fourth quarters in this conference finals. The Lakers, not so much. Could be colored a little bit, the statistics, which are plus 22 in the fourth quarter and Lakers were minus six. I crib that from a John Hollinger column, so thank you for doing the work for me. I do wonder how much that's a product of the Lakers

like the first game they kind of blew them out and so they didn't really have to play as much then or play their superstars then but it does seem like there is an advantage call it heat culture, call it whatever you want where they do have an extra kick at the end of these games where a team like the Celtics just didn't. Is there something to that John?

That's a good question. I don't have a great answer for that. Rob, what do you think? Like that's Sumbergent thought to me too. I guess it may be this stamina. I don't know. I mean, it's super notable and definitely indicative of the way that series went. I just, with these things, I hesitate to ascribe meaning to what seems like it's probably randomness, right? You know, just like the sample is so small that it feels like that's probably just kind of a glitch in the system to me. Yeah, I mean, and you would think it would go the opposite way, just because you want someone with a steady hand in crunch time and some of these big moments like the Bron James. I mean, if I were to guess, maybe just the amount of options that the heat have,

they can spread it around and you can't really focus in on one guy where at the end of the game against the Lakers, you know what's going to LeBron and LeBron probably kicking out to AD at a certain point. So there's a little bit more flexibility, a little more probably improvisation. Although as we saw at the end of like the Lakers series, when LeBron wants to turn it on, he can still turn it on. I do want to flip back quickly to our first question here, which is the most important player in the series. Did we all agree that it is AD or is LeBron even at this stage? of his career, the guy you have to worry about most in these situations, Rob. I mean, if you're picking and choosing, that kind of speaks to where the Lakers put you, right?

Like, just the fact that you have to focus on one of these guys or another at any given time, it's such a dangerous place to live as a team, even for a really good defense in the heat. So, I mean, it's going to shift from night to night. It's going to shift from minute to minute, but both of those guys are just completely deadly in a playoff setting, you know, crunch time, first quarter, big runs, whatever it may be. you know, we can debate over the semantics of who's more important, but to me, both of those guys are just monumentally so, especially because the rest of the Lakers are pretty unreliable.

I think it's probably telling that we haven't mentioned any heat guys in that conversation yet, which brings me to my third question, is Eric Spolstra perhaps this biggest superstar on the heat, and thus is he the best coach in the NBA? Charks, what do you think? As a fellow Filipino, I have to say yes. I mean, expose the man. He does it all.

He's a great culture coach. He's a great ex and O's coach. He's got it for 10 years. He just wrecked Brad Stevens. I mean, just wrecked them. What more can you say? The guy's great. Yeah, I mean, if it's the culture, the exes and O's that John mentioned,

you've got the player development part. You've got his relationship with stars. Like, I run out of reasons to explain how he's not the best coach in the league. I think you can certainly make a case for a lot of different guys, but there's really just no argument against him, save for the fact that he and the heat are, are so big on the idea that they're not for everybody, right? Like, that you need to be a specific kind of player to play here.

You could probably say the same about Greg Popovich or Phil Jackson or a number of other great coaches. There are certain personality types that are just not going to work. But other than that, I mean, Spoh has pretty much as compelling a case as anybody. Yeah, I mean, I guess the counter would only be recency bias, which I feel like comes up in a lot of sports conversations at large, but also... Really? Yeah, it's surprising enough.

But also in the coach... conversation. I mean, I feel like if we had this conversation two rounds ago, we would have been just like extolling like how great Nick Nurse is, just talking about his half-zip pullovers and just all of those those great things. But all of a sudden, Spowe has kind of gone to the forefront of this conversation. It's really interesting. I mean, this comes at a time, we're talking about at a time when Doc Rivers just got fired from the clippers. And I think we could talk a lot of different ways about this, but the one thing to me that stood out is that I feel like coaching is the black box of NBA media where, like, I could really say anything about any of these coaches, and I think

nobody can prove me wrong, because what a specific team needs, we don't really have a good handle on. You could see some of the X's and O sort of things. You could see what guys say about their certain coaches. But, like, what's really differentiating Eric Spolstra from a Frank Vogel other than maybe perhaps, like, we just ascribe this idea that LeBron is actually the coach and the GM of the Lakers. It's very strange, but I don't know. I just feel like the coaching conversation is really hard to pin down. The only thing I know that is Spolster is doing a good job because he's in the finals. Or maybe it's a bad job.

Who knows? It's in the black box somewhere. I do think coaching is vulnerable more than anything in sports to, like, what you see is all there is problem. We look at the most superficial indicators of what a good coach is. Take case and point. They're in the finals. They seem to be making adjustments. We can chart these very specific things on the court that we see in action and all the repercussions of it.

We just have so little information about what goes on behind the scenes. And that speaks even on the reporting side. Like we can poke around. We can ask people. We can try to get the relationships and connections to have a better idea of what's going on. But you're just never going to know until you're in that building. And it's one of those things that comes up, you know, I'm always asking coaches about other coaches, about like, you know, who do you think is doing a good job?

What do you think of this particular situation? A lot of times they're very reticent in the same way that doctors are reticent to, you know, prescribe some patient they've never seen before because you've never seen that team. You've never seen that locker. You don't know what that other guy is dealing with. It's funny you mentioned that because so Rick Carlisle is the president of the Coaches Association. And you ask me about a coach, it doesn't matter what that coach is. That's incredible. It's some straight like blue wall stuff.

Like Rick Carlyle will always defend another coach no matter what they've done. It's pretty funny. And I think the broader point, I guess, is like, it's like comparing anything. It's all about context, right? Like, I love Spoe, but he's coaching for Pat Riley. The organization has been there for like 25 years. There's a lot of stability, right? It's always your situation, too, is part of it.

But that's no fun to get into. Well, it reminds me of a couple years ago when there was kind of a low-key level of jealousy and resentment aimed towards Brad Stevens in the coaching ranks and the way he was treated, the way he was talked about. And I could see coaches, you know, I haven't had these conversations, but I could see them feeling that way about SPO in a sense. Like, yeah, if Pat Riley had my back, yeah, if I was an institution with a franchise up from the video room and basically, you know, unmovable as far as my position there, then, yeah,

I would be in a position to hold my players accountable. I would be able to implement these things that I've always wanted to do. These positions are not congruent. You know, one job is not at all like the other in terms of the difficulties of managing. it. I mean, you look at Frank Vogel, right? You're just coaching Orlando for two years, and he got canned. That's not like it was it. Now he's with the Lakers, like coaching is very much the mercy of everything else, right? But hey, it's what the money's for, right? They get paid a lot of money to just deal with people like us complaining about them. Yeah. I remember going to Orlando for a Pelicans

and Magic game, which, wow, I can't believe I went to a Pelicans in Magic. Already, the story sounds very sad to begin with. Yeah, well, Drew Holiday was like about to come back from the kind of a couple months break he had in order to tend to his wife. And it was just like, oh, be there just in case he actually comes back on the road. But I just remember Frank Vogel being there with his like sad light beard. And I just like felt so bad for him. And now I say this as someone with my own sad light beard. So perhaps I shouldn't be saying anything.

But what a come up for him. And I do wonder, Rob, like, what. really is the difference between something like that job and this job. I mean, I guess clearly it's the players that he has in front of him, but has he done anything this year that you've seen that maybe another coach, maybe a Luke Walton wouldn't have done? I think the thing that's impressed to me is that the Lakers have kind of explored the possibilities of their roster over the course of the extended season, but they've never really tipped their hand in a way that, like, we have to play this one way. We have to lean in this direction. Like, they're,

flexibility is their strength. It's the idea that, you know, as we talked about, they can play Dwight if they want, they can play Javille if they want, they could play Markief Morris and bench both of those centers and it's not a big deal. Like having that kind of optionality and it helps when none of those guys are exactly super dependable enough to lock themselves into a rotation spot. But I think Vogel has done a good job of managing all those pieces, which in doing so requires a lot of ego soothing, requires a lot of talking to guys, pulling them aside, communicating in advance, oh, we might not use you tonight. Oh, we might play you extended minutes tonight.

That's kind of the logistical part of that kind of job that strikes me as being pretty impressive. Yeah, I think that's a good point. It's like the most important thing Vogel did was earn LeBron's respect, which is he a better coach than Luke Walton probably, but what matters is LeBron thought that he is? And that's, if that doesn't, that's all it really matters, right? And like, it's like with like David Blatt and Tehran Lou. Maybe David Black could have done what Lou did in Cleveland, but LeBron didn't think he could,

and that's all it really matters. Right. And I guess you turn to the other side of the L.A. city, I guess, here. And Doc Rivers is dealing with the complete opposite of that, where I don't know what Doc's issue was specifically, but he's now out, as we mentioned at the top of the show. Charks, would you think about that move quickly just because we're talking about about coaches. I guess, like, from a very cynical perspective, the first thing I thought was,

this is why you don't have Thai Liu on your staff, right? Why would you have an assistant who's one of an NBA championship? It makes it way too easy to fire you if this guy's sitting on your bench. How crazy is it that Jason Kidd didn't get Vogel fired, and yet Ty Lou is here, perhaps, to pick up the pieces from Doc? This is taking a Machiavelli in turn, guys. I don't think there's quite as much like Game of Thrones politicking going on, but who's to say? Yeah. I just, I mean, considering what Doc meant to that franchise, been there, what, seven years? He brought them through like the darkest times of the Sterling regime. And I mean, just as recently, he almost became a spokesperson for the entire league with what he was saying down in the bubble, especially on social justice and all its other stuff. But I guess if you're in a bottom line business, if you're the clippers and everything is built toward these next two years, you need to ensure that this next season goes, to plan. And if it doesn't, like, they're looking at some pretty drastic, perhaps repercussions now? I would say the stat, if you really want to get down to it, Doc Rivers has won

as many playoff series in L.A. as Frank Vogel has. And there's always stimulating circumstances, but my gosh, you've had Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Kauai Leonard, Paul George for seven years, and you won three series. Like, we talk about how much coaches depend on players. You've had a ton of talent. It is hard to win. I get it. I get it. But at the end of the day, You've had your chances. You've had a ton of stars, and you haven't gotten it done. So it's hard for me to feel too bad about it. Yeah, it's crazy, though, because in one sense,

Balmer is, like, basically signaling that they need to make this next season work. On the other hand, he's really putting everything on himself to really get this decision right, which I guess doesn't matter if you are the owner of the team. There's no one really holding you accountable except for yourself and whatever fan base you can cobble together when people aren't watching Lakers games. in I guess LAFC every once in a while. But in a sense, the decision that he makes probably ripples for the next decade with the clippers, there's a chance that if he does not get this right, that in the darkest timeline,

Kwai leaves, Paul Jordan leaves if they haven't traded him beforehand, and all of a sudden you are left without your two superstars that you traded everything for and no draft picks and probably Montrez-Harrel, which, as we've discussed, probably didn't do as well as he probably should, which is probably one of the reasons that Doc isn't coaching there right now. I mean, there's also the middle paths here too, right? Where they do really well in the interim

under a new coach and those guys bolt anyway to go play somewhere else with other stars. One of them gets sick of the other, whatever it is. Like, there's so much uncertainty. I think that more than anything, more than any of the coaching performance stuff would be the reasoning why you keep Doc, as you mentioned, Justin.

But the record that John laid out kind of speaks for itself. They've had so many opportunities. They've had so many would-be contenders come through the clippers. And at some point, you've got to put something together. And if you're the one constant piece through all that, including ownership, you know, the buck stops somewhere. I would say, too, like, that was a spot the Nets were in three or four years ago. Like, let's not forget that Clippers play in Los Angeles.

They have new owners. I just saw a article like Bradley Biel bought a house in L.A. last week. The Clippers will always be appealing because they, play in Los Angeles. For the same reason, that's where I played in New York. So even the worst case scenario, it probably isn't that worst case. So who would that be setting up as the suitor for Bradley Beal? Like, I love this because every NBA superstar at this point owns a house in Los Angeles. Yeah, exactly. They're all there anyways. Like, does that mean he's going to the Clippers? Does that mean he's going to the Lakers? I don't know. I think it's more of a timeshare

situation. Ian Paul George, one gets one half of the season, one gets the other half. It is interesting, though, because on the one hand, it might be the hardest job in the NBA because of those expectations. You're basically walking into that job and expecting to win a title that season. And if not, it's a failure. On the other hand, if your agent gives you multiple years on your contract, it might be the best job in the NBA. Because if you don't win the NBA championship, you might get fired and still get paid, which I think is not a bad fallback. It's almost like there are a lot of expectations.

So if you meet them, great. If not, it's like, well, I mean, it doesn't really matter because you're really set up to this one thing. If you were a coach, would you want the LA job or would you want the Sixers job? Ooh. I'd want the Clippers job, I think, because you have Kauai. Kauai's proven he can do it.

And like you say it's the hardest job. You know what the hardest job in the NBA is? Coaching the Cavs or the Hornets. Like, come on. If you're a coach, you can coach Kaua Leder and Paul George. This is why you do what you do in the morning, right? You get up to coach great players. If you can't, when you can't,

but it's exciting, right? The coach elite player, that's what you do this for. I would probably say the Sixers, if I had my choice, just because there are so many more options there, like, unless you really are trying to trade Paul George,

and then that gets into the really, the thicket of how much does Kauai want to still play with George and how much you can get with George, considering the postseason he just came off with. With the Sixers at the very least, you have a young, cost-controlled All-Star, that you could potentially trade if things go worst case scenario.

Best case, you know, you can put your stamp on a team that still has a lot of talent. I don't know. I mean, it would probably come down to how good you are coaching big men, to be honest. Well, I mean, the fact that they have two guys who could potentially be moved or reconfigured, maybe that's a reason against. If you're a huge Ben Simmons guy as a coach going into that situation where you may not have the power to decide if Ben Simmons is a part of that team in the near future, that would scare me a little bit.

But I think it's such an interesting idea because both those, teams, as we've discussed, massive expectations, have to be able to put something together in the short term, have, you know, big stars that you have to funnel in the right directions that you have to manage. Those are tough jobs, but I mean, those are the ones you want. Those are the compelling, the really challenging jobs. Yeah, and I don't know, it seems like Mike Dantone is the frontrunner in the Philly job, which we talked about last week. I just don't see the fit there with Dwell and Bid. There are rumors, which I think Bill talked about last week on his podcast about maybe James Harden for Joel Embed,

which would be shocking to say the least, but at the very least it makes a little bit more sense, considering what Mike wants to do and what probably fits that talent best enough. I don't know. I kind of think that Dan Tony would be better off in L.A. with the Clippers, maybe a little bit of revenge for his run with the Lakers,

which wasn't actually fun. This one would be fun, considering just that team is built to play small. If you want to just, if Harold can get over whatever you got in the bubble, you can play all these switchable wings. And it seemed like it would be the most talented version of what Dan Tony is always trying to accomplish. Well, and while we're playing musical chairs, Doc Rivers could just go coach the Sixers and we can pencil that one.

And like, I honestly don't hate that fit. I mean, Tai Liu is a great option for so many of these teams. But if you're not going to get Tai Liu, if you're not going to get, you know, a young coach with his kind of credentials, I think Doc could be interesting for some of these groups who are trying to win. I would say too, though. I think one thing that gets underrated when we talk about these things is the sheer amount of coaching talent and the assistant ranks in the NBA.

Like, there's probably a dozen coaches right now who are sitting in assistant jobs who could be good head coaches. I saw in the Clipper, like some articles, like they'll dig under every hole. They should. There's a ton of good. I mean, like, what's the West Unsold Denver? You should be a coach somewhere. Like, there's a ton of guys like that.

And I would have no problem. I feel like going outside the box makes sense because like there's no one mold for coaches, right? The best coaches come from all over the place. You never really know till they get in the job. Right. And you see this with teams a bunch too. They go to the guy who's a proven veteran, the Chris Anderson's of the world, the, you know, the Brennan Haywoods of the world, when if you just like turn over a couple stones, like the heat have and just take some chances on some of these G League guys, you could see what like maybe could come of it. This is a big like quant argument, right? That teams tend to favor what they know rather than like actually going

out and taking some chances on some of these other guys. There's a guy on the heat bench that you probably never even heard of that maybe like next year all of a sudden they're playing significant minutes. I mean, it's also a process argument, right? In terms of, you know, having a team that's bad enough that you can uncover a Jeremy Grant on your roster, that you can find these guys who turn out to be pretty good players, even if they are pretty good players for other team after each other teams after you've been fired. Okay, let's take a quick break here. When we come back, we'll get to the other half of our seven finals and final and also adjacent questions.

Fantasy football is back, and you don't want your team to suck. My favorite fantasy football punishment I've ever heard is the last place guy had to spend 24 hours in a waffle house, and every waffle he ate was one hour off of his count. I want numbers. How many did he end up eating? 12 waffles and 12 hours.

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I want to talk about something that I cribbed from Reddit. Oh, boy. Where all the great ideas come from. No, this is actually a good one. I'm sorry I didn't jot down the Reddit user who put this down. Shameful, Justin. Shameful. I know.

Give them as props. Well, most of the times, we'd just steal things and don't say it. So at the very least, this is halfway to a shout-out. The specific comment was about how Anthony Davis and Andre Aguadala had both held their franchises hostage. Davis did last year with the Pelicans. Iwadala obviously held out from the Grizzlies. Didn't even make it down there to Memphis. And nobody seems to care at this point. And it seems like both players benefited from it. If you wanted to throw Jimmy Butler into the mix, you could just considering what he did in Minnesota. Now all of a sudden, everyone's talking more

about like, wow, Jimmy just found the right fit for him. Heat culture go all the way. Like this is great. and they're not talking about how he practically imploded a franchise. Are we at the point now where when guys do this, does it really matter? Are there any real repercussions that should stop the next star from this, perhaps a Bradley Beale, from taking the same path, Rob? It's a great question. I think the Butler's situation is kind of in a category on its own to me

because I'm a little fuzzy in remembering exactly the specifics, but I feel like he wanted a bigger extension than they offered him. something like four years, $100 million, he ended up getting a much bigger deal than that with the heat. He wanted more of a commitment from the wolves than they refused to give it to him. That's kind of a different financial argument to me. The AD Iguodala thing, again, two very different cases from each other.

I would get why if you're a small market GM, you would be a little ticked off by all this. But if you're a fan following the game, if you're just interested in seeing good basketball, if you're just interested in following LeBron's career or Jimmy Butler's career, whoever, I don't really see why you would care that much. Unless you're, again, really invested as a Grizzlies fan in, you know, world champion, Andrea

Guadala, finals MVP coming to your team. It just doesn't seem like that big a deal to me. And I mean, if anything, the Grizzlies really benefit from the Guadala. For starters, they got a free first round pick out of just taking them in a trade for nothing. Then they flip them for Justice Winslow, a younger player who fits their timeline more than Guadala does. Like, it was a massive win for Memphis. It was no big deal to have them on the roster not there for three months.

Who even cares? So I think that's not a big deal. And the AD stuff, yeah, that was kind of messed up. But look at New Orleans now. I mean, they've got a trillion picks, a bunch of young guys. He was leaving anyways. So didn't it benefit New Orleans and Memphis to trade those guys when they did? Right.

It was win-win for everyone, just about. Well, what is, I've been thinking about this in relation to LeBron leaving the heat. You know, there's been a lot of conversation about how that happened, whether Pat Riley's feelings, you know, whether he was a little miffed by what had the process of LeBron leaving. what is the right way for a superstar to leave? Because I'm not sure we've seen it. Everyone always gets pissed off no matter what they do. Not saying AD did the right thing.

It was certainly in the categories of wrong, very wrong, the way he chose to handle that situation. But if you wait until free agency and then bolt, people are going to be mad at you anyway. Yeah, I remember at the time, so everyone wanted to bring up Kareem as the example of why this dates back to decades before Anthony Davis. Like, stars have been forcing their way out of situations they didn't want to be in for a while.

It just happens and life goes on. But it's funny if you look specifically at some of the comments that Kareem made at the time of the Anthony Davis kerfuffle, whatever you wanted to call it, when he basically sat out or kind of like sort of sat out and they tried to play him. But then they had to pull him and then actually pissed off ownership more when he just like half ass played rather than didn't play at all, which was a total mess. and we can get into that some other time. But Kareem was basically like, yeah, no, I don't, I don't like knock Anthony Davis for wanting that.

On the other hand, he kind of was a dick. Like, he probably shouldn't have done it the way he did. I'm obviously paraphrasing here. Kareem would probably, like, have a very rational, well-thought-odd opinion that he put into a column for the Huffington Post rather than call someone a dick. But, yes, on the one hand, like, the optics of what Anthony Davis did really, really, bad, but I don't know who's really sore from it other than Pelicans fans in like no shade, but there just aren't enough of those to really like combat the millions and millions of followers

that see Anthony Davis hanging out riding bicycles with LeBron James in the bubble. Well, to me, that's the issue. If you're a fan of the NBA and especially any of the other 29 teams, it's not that Anthony Davis left the Pelicans. It's that he went to the Lakers. It's that another star a la Karim forced his way out of a small market to specifically this franchise. And, you know, the NBA has has a parity problem, has had it for a long time in terms of even just getting teams into the later rounds of the playoffs. Part of the reason why the conversation

around Milwaukee was so fraud this year. But like that's, that's the problem. If you're looking at what is the issue with Anthony Davis trying to force his way out of New Orleans, it's not a guy trying to find another place to work. That's just not that big a deal. It's the fact that he wanted to work at the same place. Every other star has wanted to work pretty much over the last 20 years. I mean, it's the same in every sport, right? You got the Yankees, you got the Lakers, you got FC Barcelona. I mean, it's just part of it. And I think, you know, the NBA needs the Lakers, right?

Like, the Lakers are a boat that rises a lot of ships, right? The NBA's ratings are down. They need stars boosting everyone up, right? Everyone's making more money this way. Like, it's all good. Charks, ever the businessman in this situation. I got a kid, man. I got to think about this stuff.

That's true. Yeah. No, I guess life just kind of goes on here. And to Charks's earlier point, the cost of acquiring one of these superstars is at an all-time high. We saw Davis go for practically every young good player that the Lakers had, except for Kyle Kuzma, who, I don't know if you've checked in on Media Day today, but he is living it up. I saw one quote come through and be like, yeah, it could have been me, but it wasn't. I could have been home hanging out with Lanzo Ball. Like, changed my age. I got to see these quotes. That's hilarious. On the flip side, though, yeah, the prices were really, really high. And at this point, if you're a team who has a disgruntled star, you could turn to that as precedent. I do wonder if the thing flips on the clippers. If the clippers don't make good on this run with Kauai, Kaui leaves next summer, are we talking about this a little bit differently where now teams would be a little bit more hesitant to give up some of all of their great assets? and all of a sudden, like, it's a little bit more difficult conversation.

I mean, it has to depend on what you value as a franchise, right? If you're a team like the Clippers that wants a foothold in your own market that you failed to get for years and years, if you're that desperate to compete for a championship to be on that level, the mercenary life might still be for you. And it's going to cost you some picks in situations like this one, potentially, if those guys ultimately leave. But that doesn't mean that the gamble isn't worth it. Just like, you know, I think the Raptors are pretty happy with the way their Kauai Leonard's situation worked out.

They had no guarantees he was going to stay. They gave up, you know, one of the most beloved players in their franchise history. We can debate his relative value in NBA terms, but Demarra Rosen was an important player to that franchise. To get Kauai, to have that chance, worked out pretty well for them. And now here we are. So let's move on to the next one. So this one is particularly suited for the group chat. Number five, what will be the most important trend or big picture takeaway from the postseason?

We've talked about a few of these in the past. Rob had that article on playmaking big men. What do you think, Rob, when you look at just the postseason that we've had this far? Is there anything that stands out to you? I think the thing that stands out to me more than anything else is that these teams, these really good teams in the NBA right now, these are not the Warriors. These are all beatable teams. So if you're on the cusp right now, if you're a pretty good team in either conference

and you're debating whether you want to push in, whether you want to make a run, whether you want to target this free agent or that guy in a trade, this seems like a good time to do it. The NBA seems very open, and these teams, even the ones that are in the finals, can be beaten. Yeah, I mean, for sure. I would say for me, I would say even going big picture, I look at LeBron. I would say right now, right, coming in the year, it was like LeBron, Kauai, and Janus. And I feel like if you look at these playoffs, and it just seems the level of control LeBron had on his franchise.

And it seems like, so the Lakers won each of their first three series, 4 to 1. what that tells to me is they won those series for they ever were played. Does that make sense? Like when you went four to one, you're just a better team. So LeBron got to the finals with moves he made last summer

and two summers ago. And to me, you see with like what Katie did in Brooklyn, it's like when you're on that top, top level of the game, you've got to be able to control everything. You've got to be able to read, kind of like know your locker room,

know your coach, know your co-star. Because LeBron's doing it. And if, like, LeBron is, like, outthinking guys, right? Like, I think looking back on it, LeBron outmaneuvered Kauai, and Kauai lost, didn't get to play LeBron, right? Janus didn't even have a chance. He wasn't even playing the game.

He didn't even playing the game. He didn't know what game was even being played, right? Kauai and LeBron are playing chess, and Yonast thinks playing basketball. Like, LeBron Wednesday's series before they even happen. That, to me, is the biggest thing I've noticed. Just, like, the ability to control your team and, like, don't put yourself at the mercy of these situations. Think proactively.

If you're the best play, if you're the best play, If you're like, the stuff LeBron does on the court for as incredible as it is, to me is only the layer icing on the cake. What he does in the off season and controlling people. And like just knowing personalities. Like LeBron knows the kind of guys he wants on his roster, right? Like looking back on it, LeBron came into L.A. and said, I'm going to spend a year scouting my own team, scouting my coach,

that I'm making moves, right? I'm cutting Luke Walton. I'm moving Lons. I'm moving to Ingram. Like, he had this whole thing in his mind and he won before the game got played. I'm just imagining LeBron in their crunch and film pulling up you know pulling up synergy on Lonzo ball

watching all of his transition misses like I think he was really in there doing the work he was scouting Caruso ahead of time oh yeah he was at their G league gym doing that he's watched them in practice Charks you wrote about this on Tuesday it seems like that is the biggest

takeaway he learned from his Miami years to build a culture like Pat Riley yeah I just think like looking for me what stood out to me the most was in that Clippers Nugget series where Doc felt like I can't take out Montres Herald because blah, blah, blah,

six main of the year, he's a free agent, he'll lose him. And like, that cost him the championship right there. Right? Like for everything else that happened, playing Montres Herald

against Nicola Yokic cost him any chance to the title. And looking back on it, LeBron, I really do think LeBron would have saw that coming a year in advance, said,

we can't have a guy like, So LeBron said, I want centers who are older who can be flexed out if need be. Like Dwight Javail, and he had to Marcus Cousins for a while before he got hurt. These are old guys on minimum contracts. If we got to bench them, they're cool with it. Either if they're not, they're out of here. Whereas like, I'm not going to be tied to a center. I can't bench in a playoff series.

To me, this stuff that we're talking about with LeBron, you know, the conversation comes up a lot with stars around the league where they're complaining about all-star votes, they're complaining about all NBA votes. They're wondering why they're not regarded. the same way some other guys regarded, why they don't get the love that a guy like LeBron does, I think this stuff has a lot to do with that. There's a level of, I want to go out and I want to play really good basketball at a high level at perhaps an all-star or an all-N-B-A level.

Then there's the point where you have to actually manage the people in your own organization. And then there's the LeBron Galaxy Brain level where you're thinking all across the league, all possibilities, who can come into my team, who can we get out of here. It's just a totally different game like John Lillard. laid out. And it's something that I think a lot of guys don't even know what they're getting into when they say, why can't I be a LeBron? Why can't I be the best player in the league? They don't have any idea of the stuff that goes into that. Yeah, I might bridge the two ideas that both of you are talking about here. So a lot of some of the superstar moves were made, well, at first,

because of LeBron's big three, that kind of set off the dominoes, but then eventually the heat formed this big five. They have some of the best talent ever assembled on one team. And so it forces guys to come together, stars who wouldn't typically have played alongside each other in past decades. All of a sudden, you need at least two of those guys in order to have a chance. LeBron goes out and builds these big twos. So all of a sudden, the Warriors aren't around this year. And now you have scaled down versions of that where guys are playing, where it's just two superstars going against each other. And then they fill up the rest of their teams. We thought the clippers would have an advantage simply because they not only had a big two, but they had all these

guys around them. I do wonder next year, is this just going to be a stopgap sort of situation where a big two is going to get you to the finals, as we've seen with the Lakers this year? Or is this just going to be a blip when the Warriors, when they're back in the conversation, when all three of their superstars that they still have are still healthy, they have a first round draft pick number two in this upcoming draft, are they just going to take over yet again? Is this just going to be a bridge until the Warriors can reclaim their throne? I don't know. I mean, I think definitely you want to see the Warriors play the Lakers. I think to me, like, what we're not talking about enough is, like, not having Steph,

not having KD in these playoffs. Those are two nuclear weapons who pretty much ran the league for three years. They took the year off. And talking about Rob's name like parity. Next year, you're going to have two Brooklyn and Golden State. I cannot wait to watch those teams next season. That's going to be so much fun to watch those two. The Warriors are going to be really good.

And part of the problem, too, in terms of looking at the league-wide landscape and wondering who's going to challenge the Lakers or the heat, how are the warriors going to get into this conversation? Who are the mystery challenge is going to be? It's hard to know right now which ownership groups even have money to spend, just due to the state of the world, due to their, you know, their own strapping financially and their own businesses. Who's going to be willing to dig into the luxury tax? Who's going to be willing to pay for that extra guy to make that deadline move that puts you over the top? You know, the heat trade for Jake Grutter and Andreo Godala, as we mentioned, maybe a team next season in the throes of maybe a hopefully not a continued

pandemic, but maybe a continued pandemic. Maybe they don't make them. Maybe another franchise doesn't make a similar move. Yeah, not to look past the heat here, but I guess this is what we do on this podcast. I just find myself wondering, you know, what does it look like when the Lakers size goes up against a team like the Warriors shooting where it's like clearly the heat have found something in these smaller lineups like we talked about, but all of a sudden it's Steph Curry instead of Tyler Hero. It's Clay Thompson instead of Duncan Robinson. And all of a sudden,

this looks a bit different. Are we just like, is it just a waiting period? Because I mean, Brooklyn's a great example. Everyone is talking about how the heat have emerged from the east and maybe this is the team of the future. And maybe that's true. But the one thing I look back on, on every playoffs, when we talk about some of these teams that kind of excel above what we expected, Nuggets this year, maybe you could throw the Celtics into that. We just assume that progress is linear, like that the team that are young are going to keep growing and they're going to take the next step. But that doesn't really often happen. There's often stops and starts. And I do wonder, if you look back at the history of the league, it's dictated by only a handful of players. If you put these guys back on

the board, KD, Steph, all of a sudden, this is a completely different NBA. Well, and that's where you hate to be the Grizzlies, the pelicans, these young teams that have up-and-coming players who, I don't know, there are maybe 14 teams in the West next season that have a pretty, a pretty good shot of making the playoffs or at least think that they do, it's going to be really tough for any of these teams to really get a footing in that kind of picture. And to compete at that level, which is such an important part of that development, you know, it's not always going to be a linear, but you want to get guys, you want to get Luca Donchage into a playoff game to see what he can do. You want to get John Morant into more high stakes games and see what he can do.

You know, if you're fitting Golden State into that playoff picture, which they obviously would be with a healthy roster, so many of these teams are just going to get bumped out. And, you know, Maybe that pours a bucket of water on a team like the Suns, for example, who I'm just not sure how they get back, given the kind of attrition in the West. Yeah, the West is stacked. I guess one thing I was thinking about, you're talking about the Warriors. To me, the question is not much of shooting. It's like Draymond against AD. And I remember watching that Nuggets Lakers series.

And I'm watching AD versus Yokic. It felt to me very much like Dirk versus Duncan back in the day. You had these two Hall of Fame seven footers going at it. And then I was thinking about the last decade in the NBA, how many all-time great seven-footers were there in the last 10 years in their prime? Just KD, right? Turns out of the great, great seven-footers. Does Dirk count?

How tall is he? He was out of his prime, though. He was a 2000. I'm talking about 2010s, right? Sure. So the 2000s you had like Dirk, KG, Duncan, Shack. Right? So like maybe the 2010s, that was a down year for seven-footers,

but it seems like now you got Janus, AD, Yokic. it feels like the seven footers are coming back. That to me, I guess, in terms of purely basketball, like the seven footer is rising again. And, right, like, the basketball is a game with the flops 10 feet in the air.

The seven foot guy always has an advantage if he's good enough. Right. Well, I think this is a good pivot now to the stakes for this finals upcoming. So our next question number six, whose legacy is most affected by the outcome of the finals.

And we can talk about LeBron. We can talk about Pat Riley, but just going off of what you're saying, I wonder if Anthony Davis, if we look back on this in 10 years, when we see this as the pivot point for Anthony Davis, we're seeing it already in this postseason where we go into every series

that the Lakers play, and we basically say, Anthony Davis is the Trump card here. Like, you could worry about the Laker shooters. LeBron is going to do what he does, but who's going to guard Anthony Davis? How are, like, how are the Lakers going to put him in the best position to be the best guy he can be?

LeBron basically admits it every day where he's basically like, yeah, we got a feed AD, we got a feed AD. some of his probably like psychological motivation and everything that LeBron does. But I do wonder if this is kind of the ascension of Davis. And if we look back on this all of a sudden, this is where his career turns and where the NBA could potentially turn. Because I do think like probably the next decade is going to be defined by Janus, maybe Luca and Davis. And there has been, it hasn't been like really talked about.

But subtly there's this clash between Davis and Yonis. And when Davis was in New Orleans, he was a little upset because Janus got a little bit more shine. He was kind of talked about more. He got the love from Nike. He has his own signature shoe. And I think that upset Davis, which led off a chain of events to where he is now. And I do wonder if this is like this is where the next, that Davis basically is going to define the next, like, couple years of the NBA. We just don't know it yet.

I mean, if you look at it like this, right? Going into next year, when everyone makes those top 100 lists, which, Rob, you're an expert at that. You do that for like a decade probably. Never have made a top 100 list before. Certainly we'll never do it again. Right. We're talking about that. Isn't it most likely next year that AD is at the top of the list, right?

LeBron is older. Kauai had down playoffs. Yonis had down playoffs. Katie and Steph for comeback to injuries. Probably 80s number one on those lists next year, right? Rob. I mean, I think the- God. Those conversations get hard just because, I mean, Janus, Janus doesn't have the luxury of playing next to LeBron.

That's true. For his, I mean, AD is a brilliant player. But the safety net that is, oh, maybe the best player of all time is setting me up with passes every game, all game. It's pretty nice when the alternative is Eric Bloodsoe. That's a fair point. I had this conversation with both of you guys when I, like, I might write about Anthony Davis for next week. and I'm kind of thinking, like, what is the difference with Anthony Davis this year? As he changed his ball handling? Is he better a little on defense?

Both of you guys had pretty much the same response. He plays with LeBron James. And I mean, maybe that's the difference. And maybe, honestly, as much as we talked about Anthony Davis on this podcast, maybe that's the difference in this entire finals. Well, you know, I think the Pelicans fans at home are screaming with all their small market energy about how great AD was before he left and no one noticed him. and now he's just doing the same things on a bigger stage.

I think a lot of that is fairly true. I think there's some small change in his game, but playing with LeBron, pretty good. Playing with championship expectations every night pretty good. And that was a big thing for Davis too, is like it's just hard to get up and go and really dig in to be a defensive player, the year caliber player,

when you're also carrying the entire load on offense, when you're not sure if the random assembly of small forwards who are now on your team are going to hit their shots tonight, I guess the Lakers also kind of have that problem too in terms of some of their wing guys, but it's just a totally different situation for Davis to be transplanted into.

And I think you can't underestimate the importance of mentorship, right? Like, AD, now he has someone who's been there before who can show him how to do it. It's as simple as that sometimes. Like, you walk in a league at 19, what do you know about the NBA?

Remember talking about LeBron's Galaxy Brain stuff? Like, who's going to tell AD that stuff, right? if it's not someone like LeBron. And even if someone could tell AD that, who has the credibility LeBron has to give these lessons, right? Because, like, I could tell AD all kinds of dumb things. He wouldn't listen to me because why would it, right?

But LeBron tells him something, like, he's going to listen. It's like mentorship, credibility. That's so important for just life in general. What would your life advice be for Anthony Davis? Would it be to buy stocks, blue chippers? Jesus, man, but that's a different conversation. Hey, he had Kendrick Perkins, by the way, for that one season until they wouldn't bring him back. And it set out a chain of reaction where Perk pretty much went off on Dell Demp's on Twitter that one time.

But that's another story. No, I think it's a good question. You could definitely see it happening in real time, too. Davis and LeBron are pretty much a buddy cop at this point, or a buddy film at this point. and like they're talking about which guys the stepbrother from the movie stepbrothers and like which one is which they're literally driving like bicycles together around the bubble it's like it's honestly adorable yeah i know and it like it kind of comes back to the main tension with davis which was like maybe he didn't rise to the occasion enough as the number one guy in new Orleans they constantly had to bring in guys to kind of fill that role i mean i joke but perk was was was that and Rondo was that for the last playoff run they went on. But I also, if you look at it from a different

perspective, isn't he like the perfect guy to play next to LeBron because he isn't Kyrie? He isn't the type of guy who's going to be upset about some of the handholding, some of the passing down the leadership, the mentorship. And I don't know. I just think like

this combination of skill and like submissiveness from Davis, like I don't think you'll ever find this ever again. And I think it's probably in part why he's the best teammate for LeBron he might ever have. Well, it seems like he just wants that part of it. I don't think Davis doesn't need LeBron to be a productive NBA player. He can certainly do that all his own, but he needs his expertise.

He needs that experience. He wants that part of that relationship. I think his legacy will certainly be affected by these finals one way or another. We're going to be talking about him in a different way. But if they lose, I kind of think he's already at this level. He's already going to be taken more seriously. he's already going to be talked about in a different way. So when we're talking about the swings in Legacy,

to me, Jimmy Butler is that guy. Just because if you can be on the, even if it's a one-shot finals team or a one-shot championship team, it can completely change the way that generations after you look at you as a player. And if the heat win this series, which they certainly have within their power to do,

they're tremendously well-coached, really talented, deep in all the ways we've discussed, you know, there's going to be a coronation for Jimmy Butler beyond what we've already seen in terms of people pulling out the receipts on all those other franchises that bailed on him. Yeah, I mean, the whole Miami roster, right?

I mean, Bam. Goran Dragich. Like, Goran Dragich, right, he's this European legend, Euro Basket champion, Euro, was it Euro basketball? I was, Euro, whatever it is, the Euro tournament with Luca.

He won that, bam. There's all these veterans. It's like the 2011 Mavs a little bit where all these guys could increase their legacy because, right, the Lakers are the heavy favorites for a reason.

So if the heat pulled us off, it's like, you can't tell them anything ever. Like, it just, it'll be an incredible win for them. Yeah, well, I mean, you guys were both pretty close to that Mavs team. I was just about to bring them up. Like, is that the comp for this heat run? Because they do feel like even though they could go on a run here where they are contenders in the East for a long time,

it could also be an outlier situation where they never get to this far again. Honestly, I put the odds on them not getting this far. In a way, I think their win over the Bucks was kind of like their version of the Mavs sweeping the defending champion Lakers. It was a really tough first round series against Portland for that Mavs team, which is a little different juxtaposed with the heat and the pacers.

But then they come in that second round and just blow the doors of a team that is supposed to be very good. It's supposed to be a serious contender. I think there's some parallels there for sure. And I mean, there's obviously a little bit of magic going on and whatever the heat are doing. Like there's one of these teams that, you know, they talked a lot about how they were thriving down in the bubble, which sounds to me like heat culture propaganda, but I really can't argue what there's. You know, it's funny, and like maybe the biggest parallel is next summer they can get blown up regardless of what they do now, right? Because the heater chasing 2021 guys.

It reminded me, I was reading about the heat, a bunch of articles the other day, and they were talking about that team with Dwayne Wade, Karam Butler, and Lamar Odom. And what a fun, up-and-coming team they were. And Pat Riley was like, oh, Shaq's available. Peace. Yeah, maybe that's actually the answer here that the legacy most affected is Janus's. Because if the heat don't win this, then they are set up pretty well. in terms of assets in order to put together a package for Janus

and if you're honest, do you not look at that and say like, oh, Jimmy Butler and whoever's left, whatever Vanilla is left on there? Does that not just make a ready-bake contender? I don't know. I mean, shit, if the heat win, that package only gets more attractive. All those role players

have that championship shine. I'm not trying to trade Janus off the bucks just yet, but if that's the possibility we're talking about, the heat winning is only going to add to that fire, I think. I guess you can say Pat Riley too. So I guess it was like year 50 in the league for him. This is his fourth different

title contender in Miami. It's really incredible. I mean when he said in 2014 about how like oh, the organization, who would have thought he was right? Like he came back. He came back from the dead to pull his team out of nowhere. This is like truly a capstone for him and team building. Do you think if they win the let him out

of that plastic box that he seems to be in every time they show him up in the stands? We got to get Pat's mask flipped right side up. It's driving me crazy. The OCD and me from the couch is just, it's going bananas. Do you think that's just like

how NBA players used to flip around their headbands? You think he's just starting a new trend down there? I would not put it past Pat Riley to start whatever damn trend he wants. I mean, the guy we didn't talk about and I think we have to is LeBron James. So this is his ninth

out of ten straight finals for him, which is absurd. And one more title. And I think we have to have the goat conversation. It's the conversation I think everyone is actually having, but nobody's actually having. Because it's, you know, especially like, you know, professionals like us, because I feel like it's the type of thing,

yeah, professionals, and air quotes. It's the type of thing where it's just really difficult to do. And it almost you lean, it almost feels like you're getting into hot take territory when you say anything because it's religion at this point. but I don't know, four titles, all these finals, he's probably going to keep playing for like five years and be better than we ever thought he would be.

So I think if he wins this, I think we got to have it. I mean, I'm going to slide one little piece of information into that conversation, which, again, I like you, do not really want to have. But if we're going to talk about who is explicitly the best basketball player on the court, let's pour through the basketball reference page, let's look at their accolades, let's see how many all NBA appearances, let's watch the film, all that stuff is well. good. I think with LeBron, as we've been discussing this conversation, we're just talking about a

totally different thing, him going from team to team, as John laid out, refashioning these teams in his own image in a lot of ways, there's just a different level of responsibility and authorship there. He really is just a different kind of presence within a franchise than Jordan was who, you know, for the last dance of it all was still very much like a show up and do your job, practice really hard, to go gamble all night, play 36 holes of golf, whatever. But was it maneuvering in the way that LeBron is? And so it just depends on if that's a plus or a minus to you. Is LeBron conniving and forcing people out and getting coaches fired?

Or is he raising the stakes for franchise after franchise that he walks into? I would think if the Lakers do end up winning, what to me it sets up is like, well, what's going to happen next? You know, like, okay, AD is 27. LeBron only has a year left after this year. So if you're the Lakers, and then your cap space opens up really fast, it would seem to be the next move is LeBron, as his deal comes up, they get a third younger star in,

and then LeBron can play until he's like 41, 42 as a third guy. And maybe we're talking about racking up a whole slew of championships, right? It's all on the table for him now. And kind of what Rob was saying, to me at this point, it's like, what LeBron's doing now is setting him up for what comes. next after his career is over, right? Because MJ owned a team. I think the end game for LeBron has to own a team.

So it's like, what if MJ owned a team and could build a team too? That's me as the end goal for LeBron. I think what's next is if you're any other franchise in the league, you draft Brony James as soon as he's available and then tell the Lakers, if you want him on your team to play with LeBron, it's going to cost you four first round picks. I'm just extorting all of that leverage that LeBron has within that organization. if I'm a small market team out there.

I mean, Costas and Tedocumpo might get a ring this year. So their team's already doing some version of it. I would imagine, or maybe I just hope that LeBron gets into coaching.

I mean, he's already coaching every team he plays for, if not just like drawing up plays, then definitely doing it on the court just like seeing things and like passing it down. I wonder how he would be as a coach. Maybe he could own the team.

He's the GM. and he's the coach, and he'll play. It'll be the coach, player, GM executive. He'll be the new Bill Russell. I mean, we found out that the coach GM thing doesn't really work that well when you have both roles at once, but maybe the problem is that they don't have enough power.

You've got to give them that ownership stake, real firing power, real authority to do whatever they please. I think that's the move for LeBron for sure. Although, honestly, like this Draymond stuff and his appearances on T&T, man, if we could get one, like a week of a future LeBron walking us through a playoff series, telling us what he sees, I mean, it would be incredible to see him on a broadcast. But, you know, he's the kind of guy who's going to have whatever basketball job he wants.

LeBron's not getting the knowledge away for free. So that's not going to happen. And he probably start his own TV company. That's true. He's going to buy the NBA rights. I mean, I was looking at the Suns. So LeBron's one of his best friends, James Jones, is a GM. And you can kind of see they make some.

similar kinds of moves. And the suns for a while was like, what are they doing? And all of a sudden, in the bubble, you kind of saw James Jones's vision kind of play out. So to me, like, LeBron's never going to coach because it's too much work. Like, it's small time stuff. LeBron's a big picture guy, right? He's going to make a big trade, put a free agent. He's not going to fly to Charlotte twice a year. No. I will say, just in the immediate, it does feel like the Lakers are set up. let's say they win for next season to swing the type of trade that we all expected them to do at this trade deadline. So the issue was that Kyle Kuzma just didn't make enough in order to really make the money work in order to get a veteran back, a guy who could win now and still

give up Kuzma, who is at this point their only asset. All of a sudden, Danny Green is on the books for $15 million. And that could just be an expiring contract to a certain team. And you give up Kuzma, you give up Green. this team could in theory be better next year. And then if you want to wait a year after, LeBron will be 37 at that point, but will still probably be one of the best point guards in the league, then all of a sudden you get all of that money off the books

and you're looking at a completely different team. Maybe AD is the lead guy. You only need LeBron to play. Maybe not Rondo minutes, but, you know, somewhere around that. I don't know. I think there's a pathway here where they could just dominate the next couple years.

They're going to have a ton of space in 2021. a ton of space to get anyone they want. Who do you like for him? If I was the Lakers, I would want to try to get Dame. Maybe he gets frustrated in Portland at that point. Can you imagine Dame on this team? Like, forget it.

Pretty good. Saja shimes in would be so sweet. Our producer, who is also, it's worth mentioning, a Lakers fan. All right, last question here. Who wins? How many games? Sharks, what do you got? I feel like we've talked about the Lakers so much.

I almost feel bad in making this pick. I'm going to say Lakers and 6. The Heat are a really good team. We probably should talk about it a little more, but it's the Lakers. I think Lakers and 6 is the move. It's hard always to pick against the LeBron team. You want to give the Heat some credit, some competitive fire in this series to steal some games,

but I think their offense is going to hit a bit of a wall dealing with the front that the Lakers can put up. I would be worried a little bit about that. There's a little bit too much faith in LeBron and AD to do their thing, where every game the Lakers lose, it's almost going to be because of the other guys because they didn't chip in enough

because they didn't score enough. LeBron and AD are too good. I kind of feel the same way I did about the Lakers Clipper discussion going into this season, where my head says the clippers are so deep, they have all the components you would want when you're drawing up a team to win the title.

And yet my heart just is like, how do you ever vote against LeBron? Like, he just manages to come through in these situations. And if you look back into recent, history. Charks, you were talking about this to us just before we came on here. It seems like LeBron tends to win the series where he has the better team.

And maybe if we look back on some of the losses, the teams that he lost against in the finals in recent history before he left the Cavs, or excuse me, after he left the Cavs, seems like those are the teams where you can kind of see where, like, you give him the benefit of the doubt, they just didn't have it that year. Yeah, I mean, the last since losing to the Mavs, he's lost to the last year of the last year at Duncan Spurs, one of the best teams of all time, then three of those Warriors teams. Like, a team that beats LeBron James is like almost by definition,

one of the best teams of all time. And they'd have been a great story, but I just don't see them in that class of team. Maybe I'm wrong. Right. So I would probably go Lakers in seven just to be different. Love it. Put a little bit more of respect on Tyler Hero's name.

Sasha, I'm going to force you to come on the podcast here and represent for Lakers Nation. Who do you have here? I am also taking the Lakers unsurprisingly. I'm going to take Lakers in, I'm going to do six, too, but I think the arguments you guys made about the heat three-point shooting were very compelling. And something that actually did freak me out a little bit because that's just not something we can do. We can't be in like a three-point shootout.

It's just not going to go well for us. But, yeah, it's pretty much impossible to bet against LeBron James. However, I know one person who has, and that is Chris Vernon. Oh, he picked the heat? He has the heat in six. Love it. Yeah. So I almost wanted to scream.

Who are you going to feel best for if the Lakers win the title? Is it Coos, the original Laker? Oh, my God. What are I going to feel the best for? honestly, Dwight Howard has been my feel-good story of the year and Dwight Howard

winning a ring with the Lakers as like well, maybe a starting center but also like off the bench and kind of starting he's been doing both I would,

that would be like a really wonderful feel good for me. I would love that. So Dwight probably not finals MVP but finals MVP in our hearts. Our hearts.

I think you're the last person still rooting for Dwight. I don't know what the heel turn he's going through these playoffs. But if he gets a ring on of it, maybe it was all worth it. There's been this weird. I get angered sometimes by things I see on Twitter, as many of us do. And someone was like, the riffs aren't calling Dwight. They're just letting him do whatever.

And I was like, that is the worst take I've ever heard of my life. Because Dwight is targeted by the refs more than anybody else on the court, honestly. You heard it here first. Leave Dwight alone. Leave him alone. All right. On that note, we're going to sign off here. We will be back next week. We'll be coming to you right after that game, which is what? Game three? Game four. Game four, Charks tells me. We're all holding up four fingers just like the Lakers did after they won in their locker room in the Western Conference Finals. Until then, for Charks, for Rob, for Sasha on production. Thank you to John Robinson for our music. We will see you next time. You know,