The Ringer NBA Show - The Bucks Stop Here, What's Next for Billy Donovan, and Playoff Rondo Manifests | Group Chat

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

Justin, Jonathan, and Rob are joined by Ethan Strauss of The Athletic to discuss what the Bucks can do to move forward from a disappointing loss in the second round and the role of star players in shaping the landscape of the league (1:53), plus how the Heat pulled off the upset and what could be the key to their next matchup (hint: it rhymes with ham) (32:03). Then the Group Chat crew takes a look at what Billy Donovan's departure from the Thunder means for the team's future (41:00) and what the sudden appearance of Playoff Rondo means for the championship-hungry Lakers (51:10). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Jonathan Tjarks Guest: Ethan Strauss Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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should have been Fandual, more ways to win. 21 plus and present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, or Colorado gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or in West Virginia visit www. www. www.1-800 gambler.net in Indiana, call 1-8009 with it, or in Colorado call 1-800-5-22-4-7-00. Now to group chat. Basketball is very good. Hello and welcome to group chat. The Ringers' weekly NBA group discussion

where we talk about everything from playoff rondo to mutual parting of ways. I'm Justin Verrier. It is 9.30 a.m. Pacific time. And we're going to try to get through this podcast without any technical difficulty. Sorry for the last few. Those were pretty much all my fault.

But joining me today, Jonathan Charks. What's up, guys? Rob Mahoney. Hello. And our special guest, our first acclaimed author on this podcast, from the athletic, Ethan Sherwood-Strautz, what is up, my friend? I come to you from the literary world. You're welcome. You are wearing glasses, which I equate to being intelligent.

Let's close it up. Close enough. Okay. So we're going to talk about a lot of things here. We're going to get to the Lakers and the Rockets, game three. We're going to talk about Billy Donovan. But first, we need to talk about Janus because apparently this is a pretty big deal. Last night, the Bucks were officially ejected from the NBA playoffs.

They lost 104 to 94 to Miami. Zach Cram has been tracking some of the biggest upsets in recent playoff history. It is the eighth biggest series upset since the field expanded to 16 teams. We'll get to talking about the heat in actual basketball. all, but I want to speculate wildly to start with. And let's start here because I think this is really interesting. After the game, after the loss, Janice didn't play in last night. He talked to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, basically said that he was committed to staying

in Milwaukee. A specific quote here is, some see a wall and go in, in brackets, another direction. I plow through it. We just have to get better as a team individually and get right back at it next season. So I think this is interesting because ultimately a lot of free agency talk just comes down to how much we believe someone. It really becomes just the guessing game about someone's interests and what motivates them as a person. But this is the first time where I find myself kind of ignoring my bullshit detector, where I think that like maybe Janice has a point here. Maybe he's being genuine.

Ethan, when you hear Yanis saying these things, do you believe them at all? Yeah, at least in the short term. And I think sometimes we can be too cynical or at least not understand how to read people. And we can say, this happens in politics too, where we'll say, oh, politicians lie about everything. Yeah. But it's way more likely that a politician is going to enact a policy that he's talking about than one that he isn't talking about. It sets a certain pretext.

It sets certain expectations. So even if we do have these examples where KD and Oklahoma City was saying one thing, but he did the other thing, I still think that this is something that has to make you feel great if you're a Bucks fan. If you're a Warriors fan or one of these other teams that wants to have a hostile takeover of sorts, it has to dampen your expectations. And it is very explicitly. He's explicitly saying that he's not going to do it. I think that's quite the development.

And if I'm going to, hey, here's how you read people. there are a lot of signs if I'm he harkening back to Kevin Durant and the Warriors that he was going to leave but one of the main signs is he never said he was going to stay

and as much as fans who wanted him to stay were rationalizing this or that when he would be asked about it it was this defensive why are you asking me about it blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

if Kevin Durant had just said no this is ridiculous I'm coming back to the Warriors then it would have been a totally different story in terms of the expectations So I do think this sets expectations. It doesn't mean that he's staying through, I don't know,

through a whole season, and it doesn't mean that he won't test free agency, but at least you can probably shove aside for a while the idea that he's going to force a trade. I mean, I don't think it's going to stop the thirsty Photoshop's. I don't think it's going to stop a lot of the ramp in speculation. And certainly, if you're a team like Miami, a team like Toronto, these teams that have been openly kind of linked to Janus

in terms of its free agency in 2021, I don't think it changes that trajectory at all. What it does do is kind of reshape the interim, right? We're looking at at least the Bucks have one more season to see what they have, to see how far they can go, to see what they can tweak. That's a meaningful thing. A year is a long time, though.

And, you know, when you look at the KD situation, when you look back at LeBron leaving Cleveland in the first place, or even I got like Dwight Howard and Orlando, I kind of, I don't think they were even lying, per se, when they said, I love it here, I want to stay here. I want to make my career here, you know,

things to that effect before ultimately leaving. I think guys just change their mind. And they're given new evidence. They're shown new things. This is, you know, this playoff run is one big piece of evidence for Janus.

I think it's, it's a right, you know, an area to be rightfully concerned. But now you have a whole other year to show him we can evolve beyond that. And that's going to be the most meaningful thing

you can have leading into his free agency. What cracked me about that quote was talking about, I just plow through a wall, maybe stop to pull up jumpshot, I don't know. Right. It might be a better strategy.

There's the style of play metaphor in there. You also wonder if the roster is the wall to which he refers. And I mean, that's the other thing. So the positivity, the buck's positivity is, of course, you can maybe hold off on him forcing a trade in an ugly Anthony Davis situation ensuing. But there are these questions of how do the bucks get better? I don't know where you guys come down on this whole thing, but the analytics community or just smart people who know basketball really saw them as a title contender.

I didn't. I never thought they had it. They're just not that to me. And I don't know if I'm being wrong or if the probabilities, it was just a probability game or a matchup thing, but they just don't look like they have enough. And I do have questions about how they would get there. I think they could have enough to get to a finals, but it is hard to look at them and go, yeah, that's a championship team.

Given the aforementioned Yannis holes in his game as great as he is and the holes in the roster. Yeah, I mean, if Yannis, if we do take him at face value, if we do believe him, the situation is kind of unprecedented in the paradigm that LeBron has kind of set up, where the Bucks might be in the situation where they are the team trying to build a super team with the one star. they are looking for the other pieces in order to complement it as opposed to trying to hold on to this guy and basically as soon as he doesn't sign the extension, they're forced to kind of get rid of him

and think more poor to rebuild. The problem is I just look at the buck's roster and specifically there's the asset load and I don't necessarily see where they could really find anything that works. I think this ultimately becomes a Chris Paul conversation. And so on the one hand, I think Chris Paul would help them in the interim. If he can continue to play this well at age 35, let's say,

and then he'll be into age 36 when he accepts his player option the following year. That might help for next season, but there's really like a stealing from Peter to pay Paul, like literally sort of thing going on here, where like the problem would then become the runway, it would become the next season because then your future would be completely just thrown into whack, and then all of a sudden, maybe, like, Janus would actually have a better reason in order to leave.

I don't know. It's like there aren't any easy answers here, even though I think Paul probably makes the most sense right now. Well, I think Paul comes up in part because we've identified the problem with the, at least the starting lineup, which is that Eric Bloodsoe just isn't good enough or a good enough fit with this group. Like, I think Chris Middleton is good enough to be a part of a kind of star core with Janus, but, like, you need more and more complementary talents out of that point guard spot than Bloodso is giving you right now. And so he becomes the natural trade piece. And I got like Paul, who's just an expert at managing games, becomes a really natural candidate for that fit. I think too with Paul,

one thing I would like about him, I think he would call Budden on some of his stuff. He'd be like button holes or play your best players more minutes. I'm Chris Paul. That's stupid. We're not doing this anymore. Like to me, I would can bud tomorrow, honestly. I think he's very limited coach. And I think that's the only spend money too. Going to luxury tax is going to get a title contender. I mean, that's the next question, right? If it isn't Paul, if it isn't some, like, superstar X that comes and play with him, like, should Bud just go? Is that enough in order to change, like, what ails him?

I mean, to me, he's Scott Brooks. He ain't good enough. Whoa. Wow. Whoa. I love Jarks takes, man. Jarks just, he doesn't mince words. He just comes with it.

And I'm not saying, whoa, isn't that's an insane idea. It's just, it's strong. It's strong. I, look, obviously, I wouldn't say that, but as Scott Brooks just because he implemented a system in a way of playing that elevated the franchise. But there are those coaches that can take you from D to B, but maybe not take you from B to A. And he might be that guy just because of how conservative he is in the playoffs, how he doesn't seem to make the necessary adjustments again and again and again.

And I don't know what that block is. I don't know why he does that. But theoretically, you could have a coach who can have the Bucks playing a similar style, but can also be flexible enough to make the adjustments when needed. I was just going to say he's the Vinnie Del Negro of this situation.

We are killing Bud. Probably more Dwayne Casey, actually. He's Dwayne Casey. He has a good system, a good culture, but he needs an aggressive coach to kind of come in for the final step, a Nick Nurse type. I mean, we're talking about an excellent regular season coach.

Like one of the best regular season coaches in basketball. When I look out at the field of candidates, and there's a lot of good coaching candidates out there for teams at various stages, who is the good playoff coach of that group? Like even if you're a Mike Dantone person, his record is mixed. I mean, Ty Lou could potentially be a candidate, but there seems to be a lot of heat between Ty and Philly and connection there.

So if that happens or not, maybe he's a candidate. But like, you know, Billy Donovan's now available. Is he the playoff coach of your dreams? Kenny Atkinson, like it or if you're looking at an assistant, like a Mike Brown or a Steven Silas or Chris Finch, like none of these guys are screaming. we're going to take a great regular season team over the top, except for maybe Ty Lou, who may already be spoken for.

Who was Nick Nurse last year or two years ago? That's fair. That's fair. But Nick Nurse is special, man. I mean, Nick Nurse is like a top three coach. I don't know if maybe there are a bunch of Nick nurses growing on trees. Maybe, maybe. I just don't know if everybody is going to have that kind of impact on a team.

And frankly, be that bold. I mean, that's what's great about Nick Nurse is that he takes risks, man. He does interesting and strategic shifts within a playoff series. I don't know if, I don't know they have some assistant on staff who can do that. I'm imagining Nick Nurse is growing on trees with their personalized hats like and they just drop from the head when they're ready to throw. They got a guitar hang on the side.

Yeah. A couple zip-up polos. Yeah, I feel like if we're saying we need like a coaching savant in order to solve this situation, we're already like in a bad place. I think, I mean, I do wonder like what specifically, like what quality specifically do the Bucks really need in an ex-coach? Because Buc's system worked in the regular season. They won 60 games. And they were far and away the best team.

There are statistics that like suggests that they were one of the better teams in recent history just based on just plus minus and all those other stuff. But now like what do you need in the playoffs in order to take them to the next level? Do you need a technician? Do you need someone like Lou who could speak to your stars and ask them to do? do different things. I don't know what the answer is. I guess I would say they look limited in terms of roster. Do you think the roster is the ceiling or are you more trending towards the coach is the ceiling? I guess it's kind of both really. I mean, they should have kept Brogden, obviously, looking back on it. They had some quote. I was like, oh, he's a, he's a luxury.

We come with Wesley, Madison, Kyle Corver. Like, that's a very bold take that did not really age well. But I would say for a coach, how about a coach who plays his best players a lot of minutes? Let's start with that. Like, that's not too much to ask for. Yeah, the Brogden thing is funny because it's almost become like the original sin for the bucks. And it's also become the only thing that anybody wants to talk about online. Just the optics are so bad, right? Like, it just looks so bad.

It's not defensible. There's also like a really interesting ancillary conversation about like risk management in terms of injuries that's going on right now, where it feels like the like Denver with Michael Porter Jr., the Pacers, with Brogan, there's a few other examples, but like, I wonder at what point the injury risk is like worth it, especially for a player like Brogden where you're basically trading a fringe all-star level player for the possibility to add more. And it looks particularly bad now because we're saying, hey, the bucks need assets in order to get another guy next to Janus. This first round pick from the Pacer should be like that asset. If you're not going to get something in order

to get the next guy, you've kind of like almost wrapped yourself in the no-win situation, basically. Well, he also, not getting Brogden also kind of backs them into a corner now. And, you know, like, we fetishize as a media collective, like the idea of flexibility, probably, you know, way beyond its value. But if you have a guy like Janus and you run into a wall roster-wise, you're kind of stuck. And, like, they have a couple picks they can trade. But, like, having Brogden is valuable for having Brogden.

Like, they're a better team today. maybe the series is still going on if he's on the roster. But also, that's a big contract. You can now throw into a trade to get another potential star and a guy who has inherent value. Versus, you know, if you're throwing Ersan Il Yosovo into deals and Eric Bledsoe and, you know, let's get George Hill's contract in here. Like, those are not net positive pieces.

Malcolm Brogton is a good player who's on a deal that could get you another star if you needed to trade him. That's where the bucks kind of blew it and where I think they got a little bit too cute in terms of managing their finances. Like one thing I'm wondering, like, If you look at Chris Paul, would you try him to Philadelphia or Milwaukee if you're Oklahoma City? I feel like Philly has more assets.

Well, what does the package look like coming back from Philly? So Thibyl, Shake Milton, some picks, and like Tobias Harris. I don't know. Yeah, because the best the bus can do is DeVincenzo in terms of like actual young players you could build around. And I think we could all probably agree that Thiebill would be head and shoulders above it. They don't need draft picks, right? And that's really what the Bucks can offer in. Well, I think if you're the Thunder and you're looking at a deal with the bucks, you're looking at those 2024 or 2046.

Why not 2026? I mean, that's future assets. That's the true same presci vision. But like those two picks like trying to get them like an agor and dragetch like unprotected, like deep future firsts basically betting on Janus to leave. Like that's what you're doing if you're looking at this kind of trade package. Yeah. Well, I think one thing that could be interesting here. is I wonder if the willingness to spend becomes an advantage like it had been in baseball.

So we're going to talk about Oklahoma City later. And it seems like in part because of the financial crunch that's coming, the Thunder no longer want to be a contender. They probably are going to get rid of some of their high-level guys. I do wonder if a team like the Bucks, if they would have to figure out the math and it's a little complicated. But if they just wanted to like take contracts on, like let's say that the Thunder couldn't get rid of Shruder. in addition to Paul, I don't know how the math would work specifically, but if there's a situation where they could just take on a lot of long-term money, except the long-term risk, and all of a sudden, that is now a new advantage in this marketplace.

They should be willing to. I'm not an expert on their finances, but they're run by people in private equity, yes. I'm not making that up. Hedge fund guys, yeah. Yeah, hedge fund guys. And so there's a financial disaster imminent for the MBA, of course. but you would think that it's a little bit offset by certain owners having their money in industries that have been oddly untouched. The stock market has been surging, seemingly decoupled from the rest of the economy. So some of these owners who are in private equity and in real estate and other ventures, I think, are insulated versus Tillman Furtida, not so insulated owning hotels and casinos and restaurants. And Joe Lacob of the Warriors, even if he's a venture capitalist, I think, has been fairly over leveraged into building the Chase Center with private money and then not being able to make any money off of it.

So it seems like theoretically, even though they cheaped out on Brogden, that the people running the bucks should be able to absorb some financial hits if they want to be competitive. Yeah, I think the other question here is, if not Paul, then who? Do you guys look around the league And free agency seems a little bleak at this point And it seems like the few players Who are going to hit the market might cash in Simply because there's just no one else to go for Who else could they even trade

Or what do they even really need at this point In order to fix what they have Is there a way for them to get in On a potential Brad Beale conversation? I like a Brad Beale conversation I don't see how I mean they just want any pieces to move But they can get in on a conversation

they can have a conversation. I think the MVP would be short. I love that with MVP. Yeah, he shouldn't be MVP, but he should be part of the conversation, okay? Why are we having a conversation if he's not the MVP? But yeah, they could have a discussion of Bradley Beale. It's just not going to turn into Bradley Beale necessarily.

It would be the Bradley Beal MVP discussion of the Bradley Beal trade talks. Someone more like Bogdan Bogdanovich. That's probably the kind of guy they could get with their ass. sets. Well, what about Gallo? What if he becomes, he would probably have to take a discount in free agency because I believe the bucks have the non-taxpayer mid-level exception available to them this summer, which maybe could buy someone decent, but could Gallo become like the new mirror titch for them, mirroitch like actually playing well for them? And all of a sudden you have a little bit more stretch, maybe Brooke Lopez when he's not shooting threes as well as he did at some

points this season, ultimately he becomes that answer. Yeah, I don't think he's the new Meritich. I think he's the flex, Brooke Lopez. If you're taking a look at Gallinari, that's what you're saying, we want to play Janus at center a lot, or we're going to wing it with Gallo at center, essentially. Wow. I like that idea. I mean, what do they need most, though?

Do they need a creator like Paul or do they need another wing defender? Do they need a big who isn't just like Brooke Lopez, who just like runs at the speed of with gravity boots on essentially. I don't know. Well, I don't even think Brooke is their problem. They need people who are calm in half-court offenses under pressure, and they need people who can hit shots. And, like, Chris Paul is both of those things.

I would say, like, any team, I need big wings who can defend and shoot, right? That's the goal in the NBA. Get those guys, you're always in good shape. So the darkest timeline here creeps up pretty quickly. So if the bucks can't make this work, then all of a sudden he gets traded to the Warriors. Is that right, Ethan? I almost think it's hard to see that. It's just hard to see that.

It's not the buzz recently. And you've got the Maasai connection for Toronto. I mean, I think, look, it is about whatever Janus wants, right? That's how I see it. Superstars make the league. They call their own shot. People have said before that if he did choose the warriors that, oh, that's impossible, it won't happen. The package isn't a...

Dude, it's really about the Superstars. Superstar saying, I want to be there. And I'm not playing for anybody else. And I'm willing to tank my value for anybody else. So you better get it done now. If he took that tack, then it would happen. I'm not seeing much, many signs right now that that's how he wants to play it. But we do seem to be in an era right now of me agency or whatever you want to call what free agency is of, look, I can take my value to anybody else. And if you trade me there, you'll get something. this is the threat. This is what Anthony Davis did. And what few people talk about is that Anthony Davis is so much better for doing it. Maybe we want some morality play to happen where we go, oh, this guy did this

very unpopular, ugly thing, and it worked out bad for him. Don't be like him. But Anthony Davis has provided an example to the other superstars in the league that theoretically you can do the worst things possible for your public relations. And you can completely anger any fan locally and still on the other end of it as long as you wound up on the right team and you're competing for a championship so long as you didn't exit a team

that has a fervent fan base like Oklahoma City if you exit say in New Orleans or some of these other teams we're all going to shrug and just forget about it it worked out well for Anthony Davis and you have to wonder do other superstars take that lesson?

I mean he also did it and he's winning again that's the contradiction here where it's like he did this thing that is kind of inherently selfish in terms of the way he exited the Pelicans. And he did it. I'm not assuming his exact motivations, but like the end result is he's winning a lot more than he ever has. And he's on a team that's a lot more relevant than his teams have ever been. It was also like, it was easy to tell that Anthony Davis was full of shit at this point. Like there's a huge distinction.

Let the hate out, barrier. Let the hate out. That's all folks. So I completely agree with what Rob is saying. If AD wanted to go to the Lakers and play with LeBron, like more power to you. he's definitely better off for him. We're going to talk about that later. But you could definitely tell, like, even as he was trying to say the right things, there was, like, this tinge of, like, I don't know if this guy, like,

we can believe this guy. There's, like, this really funny story amongst beatwriters where Anthony Davis, like, they had All-Star New Orleans, and he became the unofficial ambassador for All-Star Weekend and air quotes. And so he just started, like, making up stuff about, like, how he liked Gumbo all of a sudden. And he's like, it has that little spice. And so now me and some of the beatwriters always say that back to each other because it was like, it was like the point where you could tell that he was trying way too hard. Whereas with the honest, like to circle back to the early discussion, like he seems genuine. I don't know if it's because of like residual effect of him coming into the league is this like adorable guy who like loved smoothies and this was great.

And everything was so fun. and like we built up that kind of association with him. Or I do wonder if because he doesn't have the relationships that some of these star players have, the fact that he isn't close personal friends with Devin Booker, like Carl Anthony Towns is, like DeAngel Russell is, that there really isn't as much of a easy pathway to getting to like an Anthony Davis situation or like even bringing someone onto his team because, quite frankly, this is like a relationship business, even amongst the stars. and he probably just doesn't really have those type of relationships.

I think it's fair to say. I mean, Kauai didn't seem to have those relationships and he still got out. So it can be done, although I do think there's something to what you're saying. I love you pointing out that Anthony Davis was reflecting back to people what people wanted from them. That's such an NBA thing. That's such an NBA thing. And you can extrapolate way beyond just local tastes. I think that there's just often a worldview that players,

are lying to people about and reflecting back to the audience because it's what they want to hear or it's what social media wants to hear. And if you're on the ground in the NBA, you quickly learn that they're all liars. It's all Hollywood. It's all completely phony. Completely phony. So I like you noting that. I think that's a thing, the lack of the AAU connection. But he does seem, again, he has that relationship with Steph Curry. I don't know if it actually amounts to anything. He does seem to have that very close relationship with Messiah. I don't know if it amounts to anything. So I do think that Janus has relationships theoretically that could propel him out of there. It's just about whether or not he wants to take on the ugly exit. All I'm saying is

there's a team with two European stars under 25 with a lot of capspace next summer. Luca, get his number, please. Start texting. Get on those Skype calls. Now I have to look up whether Slovenia and Greece have any issues and how that all comes into play. It does really come down to that. I mean, Ethan, you've been in this situation before, and I think it's really instructive to look back on this sort of thing. Like, at what point do you feel like the Katie to the Warriors thing became real? Like, were you seeing signs this early where Janus is? Yeah.

I would say so. I think it became almost finalized in winter of. that season is when it became sealed. But yeah, I'm trying to remember. It's almost hard to remember when did this start to become something that many people expected. And we often do this creeping determinism, as it's called, where something that was totally unexpected, we look back on as obvious because we're pattern-making beings and we like to feel secure in the events of the world. So we convince ourselves that we all saw something coming that we didn't necessarily see coming. I know I was talking about it with people around the winter time. Now, was it an

expectation in that summer leading up to it? I don't think so. I don't think at that point I was saying, oh, yeah, that's going to happen. Or yeah, that's a floated possibility. So this is probably earlier than when Katie to the Warriors became completely real. And it's still early. There's still time for the Bucks to improve their situation, I think we're just all looking at it from the perspective of, I don't know how they're going to get it done. Well, and correct me if I'm wrong, Ethan, but it seems like I hear more about the Steph Janus connection relationship. Maybe it's just because he threw an alley-to-him at the All-Star game, but like,

oh, they do a lot of public flirting, man. There's a lot of public flirting. Again, it might add up to nothing. It might mean absolutely nothing. If Janice right now is saying that, hey, I'm not forcing any kind of trade, then that is the theoretical avenue through which the Warriors would get him. So I almost weigh that more so than the public flirting. But I think the public flirting adds a lot to it. And who knows why Janus does that?

Maybe he has fun teasing the audience. I'm not sure. But I think a lot of it's based on that and the fact that they share an agency. Well, and all to say, I don't remember that between Steph and KD. I don't remember them having any kind of public relationship in that way. They've never really had it. They've never really been close. It was a situation where people had to come to Steph and say,

hey, are you cool with this? Are you okay with bringing Katie into it? But definitely, Draymond was way more the emissary to Kevin Durant to help get that done. And yeah, I don't think that that relationship, frankly, ever became tight either before or afterwards. cordial. They hugged each other right before the pandemic hit when I was in Brooklyn. So there was that. But again, as we all say, as I was just saying, the NBA, phony business.

Very phony business. Well, I mean, I think what we're getting at is that ultimately the plan is to recruit Steph Curry to the bucks. Like, we got the pursuit here backwards. I think that's the next move from Milwaukee. I don't think that's going to happen. I just don't think that's. probably going to happen. That would be a shocker. That would be interesting. I don't even know how we'd absorb that as sports media. I don't think people would be that angry at Steph. It would just be

really? On the flip side, though, Ethan, is there anything worse in media than following a superstar who might switch teams? Well, if you get yelled at in a press conference, it's suboptimal. I guess that was the flip side of that. Yeah, that was suboptimal. I mean, it gets, annoying because the fans are on edge and the fans are often, and I'm not condescending to the fan. I say the fans. There's a range of opinions among fans. I think we get into a danger in our position of acting like we are at a level above them and they're idiots and we are edifying them with our knowledge and they just won't hear. I don't want to say that, but there is a contingent of fans who don't want the guy to leave. And so they are wishcasting and they are pretending him back into

the fold and there's this annoying tension where you're trying to say, look, at least in the case of Kevin Durant, have you guys noticed, if you guys noticed that he's never saying that he's coming back, that that's never happening. He's never going, not only that. In the case of Kevin Durant, there was never ready in the press conferences, man, my teammates are good. They are, they're really good. That wasn't even happening. I love Andre Robeson. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so it's often what they're not saying and trying to read between the lines on behalf of the customer. can sometimes get a little bit frustrating, and especially the super star tends to get mad,

and there's a little bit to protest too much. The whole thing is awkward and ugly, which is why is to just get in a book deal out of it if you can? They'll get something out of it. I just like Ethan stepping down from the ivory tower and trying to become a man of the people by appealing to all these different fan sensibilities here. It's a good play.

Yeah, well, you know, they call me Populist Trous for a reason, I suppose. No, I try to guard against it. I worry about it sometimes. I think it's really easy because we get feedback that's totally insane and annoying to then define the fan by that and then start talking to all fans as though they are that idiot or not even that idiot, maybe just that emotionally motivated person. So I'm just trying to guard against my own tendencies because it can be an easy trap to fall into.

The feedback that I usually get is I don't know anything. So I actually feel really grounded in my take. I know exactly as much as everyone else. I want to talk about the heat, though, because I don't know if you guys noticed, but they actually won the series. What? So I thought it was interesting. Like, it almost became, like, this big conversation or almost like a series about how

we use centers in the modern NBA. Janus obviously literally, like, crashed into a wall several times. And we didn't get to see him ultimately kind of bounce back for that because he was injured the last two games and then obviously he went out. But Bam, on the other hand, definitely flourished. This was a big series for Bam.

Charks, what did you see? And we could call this our a bridge version of nerd corn because I don't... I knew it was a Jarks take in the group chat. I knew it. Sorry, I don't want it to interrupt. I guess for the record, it's Charks. So, C.H.

I'm sorry. I say it with a G. I took years to get honest. I've heard it all. This is becoming like a new Patriarch. Brian, where Ethan is like just getting Charks takes for free? It was a great, look, it was a great take by Sharks. No, nope, once again, once again, start over.

C.H. Jonathan had an incredible take. No, I just do it. When I saw that strategic and I wrote about it and I was writing on that topic, I will stop filibuster and interrupting. I just, I know, I know how your mind. works. So when I saw that, I knew that came from you and it's a fascinating topic. Go on. Well, there you go. So basically, I thought the hidden move Miami made in game one of last

series, they benched Myers-Leonard and Kelly O'Linnick. They played BAM at the 5 full-time, and they started Jay Crowder. So now instead of playing, yeah, and it's between the bucks too, right? So now instead of having a stretch big in this hybrid four and three guards, you have a hybrid five and four guards. I think that made them so much more dangerous, just having that extra flexibility. And obviously, like, Crowder couldn't miss for a couple games. That was really nice, too.

But I think I look, I say, if Bam can play 40 minutes at the center, why can't Janus or AD, right? I just feel like it's obvious. When you watch them play, it's more effective. I just think the strategic implications are interesting. And the idea that it was more devastating for Bam to be at the five than for Bam to be at the four alongside a strategic. stretch five, I do think that that's not isolated. And I do think that's where the league is going

in a weird way, these bigs like Brooke Lopez, these bigs like Brooke Lopez who are lumbering, but they're at least stretching the floor, that adds something, but it almost in a way hastens their demise of their role. Because the right way to guard that is not with a guy like Brooke Lopez. It's with a guy like Bam. So even if they are adjusting to the modern NBA as these behemoths and adding the stretch, they're still part

of this phenomenon that is delegitimizing them or marginalizing them in the future because it just seems like the future is speed and versatility and swarming on defense versus big and slow. It's always an advantage to be big. I mean, to be

clear. With all things being equal, it's good to be big. But in the trade-off game, it seems like in the NBA, it's trending more towards speed and agility and less towards size. I mean, the secret with the Brooke Lopez types two, defenses don't treat those guys like shooters. They don't respect them. Like, you're going to live with Brooke Lopez, you know, occasionally hitting some corner threes, punishing you for overextending in other ways. Like the value of a shooter is what it does to the rest of your defense. And I think there

maybe two or three actual bigs in the league who are, who hit threes at a rate that's high enough and are able to get their release off quick enough where you have to actually guard them like you would a shooting wing. And so that changes the math on all this stuff and really distorts the value, you know, again, in the regular season, it can look really good. It can look like it's facing the floor. It can look like it's helping you. And then in the playoffs, those guys don't get guarded in the same way. And it just reps your entire offense. Rob, you had that great piece to last week about playmaking bigs. You know, I want to like to give it the quick spiel on that. because that was the way I thought kind of laid it out pretty well.

Yeah, I think if you look at it, it taps into a lot of what we've been talking about. The state of the league, the direction of the league, it's kind of shifting from being very pick and roll oriented to being very dribble handoff and handoff oriented. And that favors guys like bam, who can make plays, who can make reads as the offense goes back and forth around him. That's where the power center of the NBA is right now. And so you want guys who can keep some fluidity to your offense, who can improvise, who can do all the things. things that help you over the course of a seven-game series as the other team is constantly adapting to you. You want those kind of intuitive centers versus these pieces who are just entirely reactive like a Brooke Lopez, like a spot-up shooter. That player, like to Ethan's point, I think is being

marginalized on both sides of the floor. You're taking away a lot of the value of having size if you're just parking them on the outside. But bam, on the other hand, can fake a hand off, turn a corner and get a dunk if he needs to. Like the proximity to the basket combined with the playmaking, that's the future the center position to me. Ethan, one of the thing I was thinking about, we talk about like Draymond types a lot, and most guys aren't like, like most guys aren't that,

but I feel like Bam actually has a Draymond type. Can you say that in his game? Yeah, I think so, and it's, I'm trying to make fetch happen here, but I'm calling this new position in the NBA, the Draymond position, the band position. They're Forbes, you know, they're not quite a five in the traditional sense,

and they are the size of a forward. They are a weird hybrid that has become oddly perhaps more powerful than the traditional lumbering five. Now, still, as Drayman himself said, if you're Yokic, if you're Embed, if you're Cat, if you're one of these guys, you still have immense value, obviously. But at least in terms of players who are not just completely overwhelming offensively as seven footers, this seems to be the way things are going. and I do think that Bam is that Draymond comp. A lot of people were making that comparison and he might even have more upside, probably does have more upside.

And it really adjusts how I'm looking at the draft. I look at somebody like in a Congwu. I don't know if a Congu is the quix that Bam has. And I don't know who that is, Ethan. Me and Ethan, we'll have our own draft corner talk here in a second. Is that the USC guy? The USC guy, yes. The center on USC.

who's six, six foot nine. So you would have him over Wiseman if you're Golden State, a conglu? I do, but a lot of people don't, and I will plead some ignorance in just, Wiseman only played one game against a real team. So it's very difficult.

You don't know, yeah, you don't know more than you know. And so that has to be the big caveat there. But I do wonder when I look at a player like that, is he that guy who's going to be able to toggle between the four and the five, to guard both positions as we're seen, to play the four role, as it were,

that I think is becoming the big trend in the NBA right now. It needs to be an acronym. Like, if it's bam, it has to stand for something, like ball handling ass man, you know? I mean, it's pretty obvious what bams is.

Two curse words of bad bam. Yeah, sure. I do think we need to get like four or four, five more people in here and really focus group forv because this is a great concept with some pretty terrible marketing i will admit when i wrote it it makes way more sense when you say it's awkward to say you feel like you're speaking welsh just what are you saying when you say forv i'm kind of into it though well i mean this is a a good segue into the celtics here well we'll just assume that the celtics come out of this next series but i guess even like if the heat have to face the raptors it'd be

interesting too. Is Bam are these fours the key to that next series? Charks, what do you think? Yeah, to me, if you look at Miami, that's the one edge they have. Is Bam versus Daniel Thice or Grant Williams or even Time Lord? Like, can Bam get you 25 points against the bad matchup, right? Bam is a very good versatile distributor defender. Can he give you 25? Because if he can, I think he gives him the edge against Boston. I don't know if he can, though. You know, out of respect for the Raptors, I don't appreciate this line of conversation and I won't respond to it. Great. I think that's a good place to end it. We're going to take a quick break.

Ethan is unfortunately going to leave us, but we will soldier on with Rob, Charks, and myself. We're going to talk about Billy Donovan being out in OKC. We're going to talk about the Lakers and much more because this is a free-flowing conversation. We'll be right back. All right, we're back, Charks, Rob, Justin. All right, we're going to talk about Billy Donovan. We talked about the Chris Ball component, but I think this extends. past Paul and into the rest of the roster and obviously into the coaching ranks here just because

Billy Donovan and Sam Presti decided to mutually part ways in air quotes, which I feel like is just the difference between being fired and mutually parting ways is like a relationship with Adrian Wojanovsky. It seems like at certain times. But the way it was painted at least based on reports was like Billy Donovan and San Presdy just cracked open a couple of a couple bruise and stared off into the sunset and like decided to have themselves a real heart-to-heart conversation. It was basically the scene from like the end of Friday night lights. I'm picturing like on top of a roof. Texas forever, Justin. Texas forever. That is the theme of this pod. But the specifics from Woj and this is in his ESPN news air with reduced league revenues amid the pandemic.

There remains uncertainty about how long the thunder will continue with key veterans in place before changing course on being in playoff contention in the Western Conference. I think it's pretty easy to read between the lines here that OKC probably wants to blow it up. We talked about it earlier, about maybe that's just because of the way the owners and finances are going to go amid this pandemic, amid this financial crunch. But Rob, if you are to get rid of Chris Paul, well, let's start here, actually. In the big picture, do you think this is the right approach for the Thunder to just like kind of pack it in after this good, but, you know, not great, mildly encouraging, but like what's the long-term future sort of season?

Yeah, I mean, it was always headed to this point, just given the way their roster was set up, the contracts of these guys. Like, this is a natural pivot point. If you weren't going to trade Chris Paul during the season over this previous season, now you're going to start looking at those considerations more seriously, along with guys like Dennis Schroeder, along with the other valuable players of your roster, who aren't going to be part of the next really good Thunder team. As for the coaching position, I mean, I do buy that Billy Donovan may not have wanted whatever is next.

You know, there's kind of a material difference between, you know, he's already been linked in reports to jobs like the Bulls, to a team that's building up talent that it already has to one that's really just kind of starting to tear it down. And, you know, that's a couple years where your life is totally different as a coach. So I kind of buy that he might have wanted something a little different. The mutual parting of ways language while, you know, you know, kind of sweet. I kind of do buy it. It reminds me of Doc Rivers when he left Boston the first time. When he left Boston for the clipboard. Sure.

It's best for both parties. I mean, but that begs the question, like, what is the right team for Billy Donovan? Because what we saw, like, I think we were pretty critical,

maybe not us specifically, but just in the broad sense, like pretty critical of how he managed some of the superstar-driven Thunder teams. They played well, but they got beat in that 3-1 series. So, like, what is the right team from?

Can he stand up to a Ben Simmons and a Joel M. Does he have that sort of sway now because of his years with Russ? And he's been in the league like a pretty long time, like under the radar. Or is he better for the Bulls who like, let's be honest, they're not necessarily a rebuilding situation if they decide to go forward with this kind of core that they've assembled. But they're pretty young and pretty green. And oh, by the way, like, I don't know how much better Zach Levine is as just like a person to work with than Russell Westbrook.

I think Donovan's a culture guy. I can buy him as like he's a real nice dude, pretty solid guy, everyone likes him. Young team needs discipline and stability. But yeah, to me, if I was like a playoff team, I wouldn't really want him. So for all this talk of like, oh man, Billy Donovan really coached up some underachievers, the last four years, he's had Russell Westbrook, Victor Oladipo, Paul George, and Chris Paul in some combination. That's a lot of talent. and he's gone seven and 16 in those four years.

Some of that's on the coach. I mean, I think in this Rocket series, you saw that. He kept playing Stephen Adams. He never started Dennis Schrooter. It's just like basic matchup stuff he didn't really do. So for me, if I was like hiring Donovan, it's like hiring him for a young team that's getting better. I don't think he's like a finishing piece for a team.

Yeah, I think his track record during those years should basically disqualify him for the Sixers job specifically. because so much of his time with the Thunder, especially his overlap with Russell Westbrook, was his inability to get Russell Westbrook to do things that Russ did not want to do or to stop doing things that Russ did want to do. And now you're dropping him into the Sixers

where Brett Brown has been trying for years to get Ben Simmons to shoot jumpers for years to get Joelle Embed to take conditioning and stuff more seriously. That's not a fit to me. I think there are a lot of jobs out there. I think Billy Donovan's a good coach. He's just in the like comfortable, bloated center of the bell curve in terms of NBA coaches, right?

Like most of these guys who are in the league who have done, you know, been on playoff teams, they're good coaches. They're not just, they're just not going to change your world. Yeah, I think it's interesting, though, because the Thunder, it seems like they've all waved the white flag on this team. I'm a little disappointed there because I think there are ways considering how many long-term assets they have, how many first-round graphics and trucks you wrote about this pretty recently.

This team almost seems set up to be able to have their cake and eat it too, to be able to continue forward with this core of Chris Paul, some of these veterans, slowly bring around SGA and bring these draft picks in. My guess, this is purely speculation. It's going back to what Ethan said earlier about this NBA is a star-driven league. My guess would be Chris Paul asked him to trade him. He said, I came here for a year, I did my time, rebuilt my value. you'll get trade picks for me.

But we're not going to want a championship, obviously. I want to win a title. I think, like, looking back on it, he left Houston for the same reason. He said, because if you remember those leaked things, the first thing was that Chris Paul wanted out, much as Hardin wanted him out. I think, and Houston, Chris Paul said, Hardin's not good enough.

We're never winning. The style of play sucks. Get me out of here. He gets to OKC, has a good year. He says, I've done my part. Let me go play with the honest or Ben Simmons. Let me just get out of here now. Yeah, I mean, he has played the role of good soldier.

I think we all expected this to blow up much sooner. So I could definitely see where that happens. I think then the questions become, if Chris definitely wants out, what happens to some of these other guys? What happens to Gallo? As we mentioned, he's a free agent. But Schroeder is or was a leading candidate for six men of the year, ultimately went to Montrez-Herald.

But, like, they have some veterans here that they can move. do you see Rob any place for Schroeder on another contending team? Or is he the type of guy at this point that you could kind of like plug and play him into most teams? Because he's almost like a rich man's Jamal Crawford in a lot of ways sometimes. Yeah, he seems like the kind of player to me who we're going to be talking about at next season's trade deadline. There's some contender looking to bump up to get over the top to maneuver within their conference. That's a guy who I think could be in that mix. And I mean, Schroeder looked really explosive this year.

I think, you know, more so than I've ever seen him in his career, just blowing by guys, more dangerous as a score and more controlled as a score than he's ever been. I think there's going to be a lot of appeal for a guy like that. You know, I would love him like on the Lakers. Like, that would be nasty to get Schroder on team like that. Yeah. I do think the more we talk about this, though, if the Thunder are becoming more and more the natural partners for the Sixers, like if you are. Sam Presti and you see that Tobias Harris is becoming, let's say, a little bit undervalued or underrated because of how much he makes is probably the better way of saying that?

Like, is there a way to get him in and then just dump all of your contracts onto the Sixers on a team that is looking to make moves immediately in order to get back future value? I mean, it gets into the question almost like how much money are the Thunder ownership. Is it willing to accept? But I don't know. It seems like it would serve both parties there. Am I wrong? Well, this is also kind of the flip side if you're Tobias Harris of taking a contract like the one he did, which get your money. By all means, that's item item one A on the agenda, get paid. But the cost of that is it kind of sets you up to be like the filler score on a bad team to get flipped for some kind of star down the line. Like his salary, he's getting paid like a star and not producing like a star on a desperate franchise, like a real.

really desperate franchise that needs to have some positive momentum. That seems like his future to me, unfortunately, for Tobias, is to get traded to a thunder to one of these other transitional teams who are willing to take on that salary. And Justin, I think you hit it. That's the big question mark in a pandemic NBA, which ownership groups are willing to take on Tobias Harris's contract. Well, I mean, how many picks you to get, right? I mean, you can get a lot of picks for that. Yeah, I think it's also interesting because these are two of the only teams who have doled out or have so many bad big money contracts. Like, Tobias, Al Horford.

Stephen Adams is still on the books for $28 million next year. That's like, I don't know who is accepting that unless you're attaching some future assets in order to get off. I don't know. Stephen Adams, by the way, a perfect example of the kind of center we were kind of talking around earlier as a guy who's just been kind of left behind by the transitions of the NBA. Yeah. It would be interesting to see him latch on to another contender.

like maybe he still has something as like just a smart backup big man like yeah ultimately like maybe he would be the right sort of guy you want behind joel and beat he doesn't have to be available all the time uh but you know he could man some of those minutes and he could do a little bit more than you would you would expect from i don't know jaccar samson or someone it's kind of like uh dwight howard at one million's a great value white howard a 30 million not so much right right right that makes sense all right um well speaking of the lakers thank you charles thank you sharks for setting us up brilliantly. The Lakers won last night's game, 112 to 102. They're now up on the Rockets to 1 in this series that seemed like it was going to, at a certain point, tilt toward

the Rocket. The Rockets won that big game won. And then all of a sudden, you can't stop Markief Morris. And now you cannot stop playoff Rondo. Rondo was brilliant last night. Let's just get that out of the way. 21 points, nine assists played really good. defense on James Harden, some of these other guys. I ultimately think, though, like that this is the longest con the NBA has going right now, where Rondo plays so poorly in the regular season. And he has for several seasons,

even during that season with the Pelicans, like you talk to anyone who watched that team closely, some of the defensive mistakes he would make during the regular season were just, like, atrocious, and they just never got better. And he has this long history now of getting up for national TV games T&T Bulls, National TV Rondo, playoff Rondo. Like, can he just not play well all the time?

Like, it's great that he's showing up in these big moments. But why can't he do this all the time? Am I wrong? Charks? I mean, as long as you do it when it matters, right? I'm looking at his numbers, 40% from three of the last two playoffs.

Right? If you make it what it matters, then you're in a good team. More power to you, I guess. I think, you know, this game in particular, I think kind of illustrated what his value is, which is that he's just so different from so many other players.

Like James Harden just seemed caught off guard by the way he defended more than anything. You know, the Lakers mixed in some zone stuff, and Rondo would just kind of poke the ball away at times that Hardin wasn't expecting. Like, he was playing really good intuitive defense. Now, you stretch that out over 85 games and counting, all of a sudden, like, all of his weird gambols,

his timing stuff, like, it doesn't play quite as well. I think when we talk about play, playoff Rondo or the T&T Bulls or whatever. What we're talking about is a player who's really good in small sample sizes. And over a long enough stretch, will irritate the players on his team, will alienate his coaches,

and will be picked apart by teams that know how to attack him. But you know what reminds you right now, the way he's playing, I'm not saying he's this guy, but he's filling the same role Jason Kidd had for the Mavs back in the day. When he was his big, older point guard, could spot up off the ball,

guard positions, multiple positions. But can he shoot consistently over the, next three weeks. I can't believe that he can, but if he can, then he got something real here. Which makes it even funnier than when the Mavs brought him in to be their next Jason kid at point guard, he just detonated one of the best offenses in NBA history. How long ago was that? What a wild career that Rondo has as this like undervalued guy on this Boston Celtics championship team ultimately becomes a guy who could like stand up to any superstar in the league, has these big playoff games, has these big games on national TV.

And then he's had this extended, almost like probably half his career at this point is the guy that no one really wants, but you kind of have to put him in there because you know you get games like we had last night. Like he was on the maps. He was on the Kings. He was on the Pelicans. He was on the Poles. He was on the Lakers. Like this is like half of his career at this point. I can't think of another player like this except for like maybe Dwight.

Is Dwight the only like really comp we have here? Also a Laker. Also a Laker. I mean, all right, this is a good question about the Lakers, though, because it does feel like they're getting into these situations. And we kind of expected this where they have two incredible players. And when they're used properly, when they're engaged, when everything's going on, like, they're exactly what we expected them to be. LeBron had four blocks last night. And I do wonder, and I kind of want to talk about this later, but like how much he can be more engaged on the defensive end in these smaller lineups.

But they're kind of like, it's almost like you're playing yachts. and you're just like rolling multiple dice at the same time and you just need one of them to come up in a positive with all of these other role players. And so on the one hand, I do wonder if that's an underrated strategy that you have so many good players who like one out of ten, you could times would would be a helpful third player. But on the other hand, like that seems like a very risky and unsound mathematically like a proposition to really base your championship quest on. But it's worked so far, question mark?

I don't know. That's kind of the two-star model, right? Is you're betting on a cast of role players to all have their night? And in the first half, I don't know, it didn't look that great. Like LeBron and AD were dominant. And then you were looking, you know, throughout the rest of the roster. I think the rest of the roster combined had something like 18 points in the first half. It was a lot of like two points for this guy, four points for that guy.

Danny Green, again, has been kind of invisible. Kyle Kuzma wasn't really locked into the game yet. And then in the second half, I mean, I think what we're getting down to is it works if your stars are AD and LeBron. If your stars are anyone else, the two-star model can be a little bit suspect unless those role guys are just really good. I mean, I think for me, if I'm Houston, if Rondo beats me, if Marquiv beats me, then so be it. Like, I lost. I think if you're Houston, you just live with it. Yeah, and this brings up kind of an ancillary discussion, perhaps maybe even the bigger one.

what exactly has happened to Danny Green in the playoffs? I know that he floats in and out and he's older for sure, but they really need him to be the third guy. All this talk about Kuzma and Playoff Rondo and all this other bullshit. They signed him to be the third guy. And I do wonder if like the deciding move of the Lakers-Clippers kind of rivalry and just like this big clash is that Kauai took so long that the Lakers could only get Danny Green as their third guy.

That's a real power move. I don't know how conscious that was of a decision, but he really put them in the situation where they need Danny Green most of the time. Well, he was a good fit conceptually. And coming off of, you know, like, he wasn't perfect for the Raptors, but it was a really important piece of that team.

And if you think about what do you need, if we're going to run kind of a point guard light team where LeBron's going to have to do a lot of playmaking and we're relying on guys like Avery Bradley to fill in minutes at the point, who, again, they don't have right now. You need a perimeter defender who can guard point guards. You need a guy who can hit shots.

You need a guy who can still be impactful in the transition game defensively. He's just been such a non-factor, especially on offense, but even on defense where Hardin's been kind of walking around him at times. Like his element of, his involvement in some of their double teams wasn't really that impactful. I'm not quite ready to box up Danny Green and put him in the attic just yet, but I'm kind of thinking about it, which is not where you want to be if you're the Lakers on your way to a potential championship run. I mean, I will say, like, I'm looking at his numbers from last year.

So game six and seven against Philly combined for 10 points. Game 5 and 6 against Milwaukee, zero points. He averaged three points game in that series against Milwaukee. I cannot say I trust him. He could do well against the Clippers, but I don't trust him either. Know what this is setting up for? Playoff Danny. He sucks so much that all of a sudden he hits a couple threes.

He hits six threes like he did in that NBA finals. We're like, finals MVP, Danny Green, which is like the most ridiculous conversation we've had. I think it's funny. You go back to like when you play with LeBron, literally your whole job is to hit wide open threes with no one around you and you're a hero. That's all you have to do.

So hopefully one of these fools can do it. It's so hard. And it seems like it's so hard to actually find these guys when he's actually on these teams. We'll see what happens here. But I do want to talk about the Rockets briefly. It seemed really encouraging their start. And at times, even in these losses,

it seemed like they might be able to flip the Lakers and turn the series more into a rocket series. Rob, are you worried now, based on how things are going, that the rockets might be cooked a little bit? Well, I mean, it's worrisome that we don't really know what's going on with Daniel House, and if he's going to be available going forward,

concerning this is a team that could really only trust six or seven guys in the rotation to begin with, and now you take one of them out, that hurts. But also to get kind of what's on the better end of the spectrum in terms of cases for a Russell Westbrook shooting game, you know, 13 of 24 from the field, made half his threes, and the Rockets lose. Like, if you can't win under those circumstances,

it's going to be hard to beat the Lakers, period. Yeah, to me, I go back, like, once the Lakers went small and got rid of their big men, it just became almost a matter of, like, two-on-two were shooters. If you have Westbrook and Hardin, and I have LeBron and Davis, I feel pretty confident about my chances. Yeah, I really thought that Tucker, and I know this was a conversation around game one,

that Tucker would have been the best possible guy to go up against AD, because dating back to sons and Pelicans territory, the bigger wings, Dremont, PJ were always the guys that gave AD trouble. I think he's actually because he's not as physical a player as you probably expect him to be, these are the type of guys who can move with him, who can get in front of him and all of a sudden he's like pulling up for jumpers. And I guess to bring us back to the playoff Rondo conversation, I do feel like having that accelerant for AD has almost,

been able to unlock his best basketball. Yeah, they're playing in smaller lineups and that's obviously a big part of it. But AD, I mean, I've talked about this a lot, so I won't belaborate it. But like, he needs someone else to set him up. And if you look back throughout the course of his career, he's played with a lot of pass for his point guards. And I think like he's used to it. And I think, well, it's not an ideal situation for your point card not to be able to shoot threes. I think it's, it works to a certain extent. Like Tim Frazier was a starting point guard next to Anthony Davis for a very long time. Drew Holiday was first groomed to be more of a pick and roll point.

guard with Anthony Davis before he kind of swung into this weird like combo guard defensive juggernaut sort of guy. And so I do feel like there are times where I watch Ronno connect with AD. And I'm like, that's, that works. And it worked for the Pelicans and it's working again. Justin, playoff Rondo shoots threes. Let's, let's catch up here. She's stroking threes now. Come on. I know. Well, there's an example of a guy who can hit the wide, wide, wide, wide open threes that playing with LeBron or AD creates apparently. I mean, that's the thing about Rondo is like his percentages in the playoffs are always tempered by that fact

that there is no one within three counties of him and he hits a pretty good percentage on those shots and you need to game plan for him that way like run at him a little bit, jab at him a little bit, make him think, like he's a really cerebral player and the way you fight cerebral players sometimes is they get them to overthink. You know, you want to put something in the back of their head

where it turns the gear that then makes them think about the option on the other side of the floor. I mean, this isn't all that different. different than Ludoort, you know? You give someone the open shots, but seems to be like the Rockets, as we know, like are going to these extreme styles. Like, it seems like they're willing to give those shots

to the players that they think won't hit them just statistically. But in a short series, I wonder if that's almost like too bold of a strategy, especially when like guys start to hit them like and you don't adjust to it. Well, speaking of the Ludoort comparisons, which is now the highest form of flattery we have, PJ Tucker's, like, defense in isolation is basically at Lou Dort levels over this whole playoffs.

And he's defending guys like AD. I mean, for one thing, Lou Dort did an amazing job against Hardin. Tucker, I think, is giving the Rockets everything they need from him. And guys like Covington have been really good. Eric Gordon's been a little spotty, but he's had his moments. I mean, that's what concerns me if I'm Houston. It's like, if you're getting these other factors to break your way, you have to win these, these games that are, that are there for you in the fourth quarter. And yet, they just haven't been able to pull that off.

I think one thing to watch for Houston, I blogged about this morning is like Westbrook only took two free throws last night, or three maybe. He's got to get to the free throw line more. He's not going to be shooting threes. He needs him more efficient. Westbrook should be getting like seven, eight three free throws a game if they're going to win, I think. What happened there in terms of Westbrook's ability to create contact? Because he was making layups last night, which is helpful. he's not been particularly great around the rim in terms of contested looks in general but I mean he's falling to the ground a lot

he's doing the usual things that Russell Westbrook does I wonder if just that little bit of sapped athleticism of explosion teams just don't have to be as physical or foul him in quite the same way because it really does seem like he doesn't get to the line as much I mean part of it's had been guarded by Anthony Davis like AD give him some props

he's shut on Russell Westbrook playing the five he's doing what he has to do and he's doing it well Well, and to take away a little bit from Anthony Davis, it doesn't seem like he has any idea what to do with James Hardin when he drives. Like, you see these guys who, you know, for whatever reason, a particular big man kind of gets the timing of a guard as he, as he's driving. Anthony Davis does not get James Hardin. Like there's a clear disconnect there in terms of contesting Hardin's drives,

which is when Houston has looked the best, when, I mean, Hardin has gotten some stuff where's just walking through the middle of the paint for layups and dunks at times. Okay. I got to ask Rob, like if you're Houston at some point, do you bench West Brooke, can you do it? Get a good more shooting on Hardin? I don't think so because you can't put that glass back together once you break it. You know, like once you bench him, Westbrook, to me, this is just me kind of guessing from outside, seems like the kind of guy you are losing completely if you bench him.

Like, just mentally is not going to be plugged into the series in the same way. So you almost have to ride it out with him. I mean, that's the Westbrook conundrum. Yeah, I do wonder if you don't have Daniel House, who are you turning to in these situations for an extra like three-point shooting? you also don't have Tyson Chandler, so you don't have crucial, like extra style and nose rings and guys who could hit two free throws. There will be no Tyson slander on this pod, none, not having it.

He's a legend. He's a Dallas legend. He's almost as popular on this podcast as Ludoort. All right, that's a good place to end it. Always good to end on a Loodort, no, no. That'll be it for us. We'll be back next week. Thank you to Sasha.

Thank you to Rob and Charks. And thank you to Steve Allman, who has been producing us for the past couple episodes, but I believe this is his last run here. Steve is going on to the Connect. He's going on to a better place. All right. That's it for us. We'll be back next week. Until next time. See you later. Basketball is very good.