The Ringer NBA Show - The Four Most Undercovered Stories or Players from the 2019-20 Season | The Mismatch

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

We revisit some of the stories and players that we dropped the ball on covering this year—including Goran Dragic (the unsung anchor of the Miami Heat), Victor Oladipo’s return to form, Alex Caruso, and more. Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Microsoft Teams. Hey, NBA show fans, we all know meetings. Struggling to pay attention, files seem impossible to find. Luckily, there's a solution for all the meeting-related issues that we constantly complain about. Welcome to the new slam dunk to work together, Microsoft Teams. Using Microsoft Teams is one play that's guaranteed to work every time. Chat with coworkers so you're never out of the loop. Find all your files and even edit them in real time in one convenient place.

The greatest NBA teams have mastered the art of communication and organization. When you're ready to unleash the power of your team, open teams because meetings of the past are for rookies, right? Learn more about how to improve your work efficiency at Microsoft.com slash teams. That's Microsoft.com slash teams. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Varner. And join him as he does every Friday from The Ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, A.K.A. Kevin O'Bomber, Kevin O'Clymer, Kevin O'Conflict, Kevin O'O. concert. Kevin O bearded bumble god. Kevin O. Camera. Kevin O. Candyland. Kevin O. Comeback. Kevin.

Berdo. What's going on today, buddy? Everything is still abnormal. You know, actually, on my way in this morning, I was listening to the beginning of the podcast that Bill Simmons did with the guys from Pearl Jam. And one of the things that Eddie Vedder said made me think about you, honestly. And he was talking about about something that we had taken for granted, because we always joke about don't take LeBron James for granted, don't take this for granted. But one of the things he said was the ability to gather in large groups, whether that is to watch a game or whether that is to play music or for whatever reason. And I thought, you know, that's one thing that's easy to say on the surface.

But as he extended the conversation, he said, because you get these communal experiences where everybody likes the same thing or everything, everybody is rooting for the same thing. And all differences in that moment are set aside when you're at a concert or you're at a game or wherever it may be. And so many times it feels like, you know, especially now when everybody is quarantined, that there's just sides to everything, right? And you have to take a side on things and our differences become highlighted. And that is one of the things that you greatly miss when sports, music concerts, and the others are gone.

So there it was, Kevin. True to your form, Eddie Vedder is telling us, hey, there's something that you never expected to be taken away. But it does affect you a great deal. Yeah, man. I think you and I have hit on that type of topic quite a bit this past year. it's important you know you can't take for granted the those moments that you have in life and right now it's just kind of weird not having anything like that i i think you and i went back and forth on tuesday about this and it's like it's just weird for me to see people together you know in a public place on tv right now whether it's a movie or documentary or whatever and for now however long this lasts that that's gone it's just the simple things like that um that we often don't even think about aren't even here right now. I feel like whenever it comes back,

I'm not going to take that for granted even one bit. You know, what's funny is I did catch up on American Idol, as I said, I would. Oh, yeah. And at the end, you know,

at the end, they put all the kids in the, in the room, and they're going to tell them who made it and who didn't make it, right, to the next round. And they've got it flashing

across the screen previously recorded, previously recorded, previously recorded. Oh, I know, I know. that's what it made me think of when you said it's weird to see people in big groups because that was like it was just so odd to watch that and for them to have to make sure that they were expressing to everyone this is not going on right now all these kids are not within one

inch of each other sitting you know in a room waiting for their waiting for their show fate Well, that's the thing. You know, with American Idol, this is a pretty good season. I think there's a lot of talented singers. And, you know, that show's going to have to be postponed until people are allowed to be together again. Like, I think there's two more weeks of it or something like that with more with more of the audition phases before going to the live shows. But they're not going to be able to start the live shows. The only thing we're going to get in the reality TV realm might be this big three, big brother crossover event that could be happening.

Chris Haynes from Yahoo reported this morning that, The big three might have their quarantine tournaments working with the people who produced the show Big Brother, which has been on since 2000. I've watched that nearly every single season since 2001. I was 10 years old during the first season that I watched with Big Brother. And I've watched nearly all of them. So if this happens, and we'll see if it does. But if this happens, I think it's going to be really, really good TV for anybody interested in basketball and or Big Brother. and I happen to fall in the latter category that loves both.

The first week of the big three was supposed to be in Memphis. And, you know, when they announced Zbo was playing on one of the teams, Zach Randall is going to be on one of the teams for the big three. I wonder if he'll do the house. Would he do that? I don't know. I was super excited to get to, you know, for that, for that to tip off and to be able to get to go to that. because obviously they travel from city to city

and they put on a ton of games, right, in one day. And so I was excited because I have not seen the Big Three in person, much less with a team with Zibo on it. But obviously that's all getting pushed back and everything's changed with that. Also, hey, I will say this, you had given me a couple of names a couple of weeks ago. There is a tremendous amount of talent on that American Idol.

Tremendous. But I find myself every time that, that Arthur Gunn kid performs. I'm like this guy. Oh, yeah, yeah. He sounds, he, like,

I'm big on, if I hear that person, I'm not sitting there going, who is that? Like, you hear him, you know that's him. And nobody really sounds like him right now,

even in popular music. I like that guy. I think he's way talented. Arthur Gunn, like I haven't fully assembled my top 10 rankings, but I think there's enough talent in the pool this year. in the current top 40 to put together a top 10 list of legitimate potential winners.

And Arthur Gunna is right there, you're the top of those rankings. He's the Zion Williamson of this class of American Idol. There's a handful of others that have a chance to be really good. You got your John Morant types in there. You know, you get your Cameron Lee Smiths. You got your Dylan James and your Franklin Boone's. There's some good talent in the American Idol top 40. We should break up.

Arthur Gun is number one. We should break them down like prospects. And for anybody out there, just to, for point of reference, for those of you that don't watch, this is very easily accessible for all of our listeners. Just type the kid's name in on YouTube and you'll see him and watch his audition. And this kid is, he did, have you ever seen the rain? Yeah, in his audition. And I was like, what in the world is going on?

This guy is awesome. But then he did his own take on it. That's right. During the Hollywood rounds. Switched it up. Yeah. And it was his, and I think. It was a wise decision because you get all these contestants to come in and do their originals.

There's significant risk in doing that. But what he did was he took a middle ground. He took a well-known song, a song that he already killed during his audition, but he showed that he has songwriting ability to do his own take on it. The other thing, Kevin that you want to show. How about during the show, they say as the kid comes out, right? So you rehearsed at the band, the musical arrangement he had put together was, too complex for the American Idol band.

I was howling. I was like, I mean, it's all these professional musicians, theoretically, right? And they're like, we ain't got, we ain't got time to play the song like this, all right? Do you want to play this? Because we're basically like playing karaoke here, brother. Like, we don't eat all this Mozart stuff. I thought that was a trip. But yeah, I did, I did catch up with it and found that to be.

rather entertaining. I do have to ask you before we get into our topic of the day. Have you watched White Men Can't Jump yet? I have not yet, no. All right. Hopefully this weekend. I will get to that eventually. I have in the past couple days, the content that I have ingested. I've listened to the new Dua Leapha album, which is really, really good, really strong sophomore effort from Dua Lepa after her self-titled debut. And I've also listened to a couple of times now the new Father John Misty live album. And it's fantastic. It's a It's all for charity as well, Father John Misty's new album. And yeah, he's one of those artists that I think there's, so with my dad, like, he was a

classic rock junkie, as there are many classic rock junkies. There are certain artists putting out music today that I think can serve as a bridge to somebody who only loves 70s or 80s music to realize, oh, there's good music being made today. Father John Misty is one of those artists and starting with Offkey and Hamburg, that new live album is a good place to start to show that. The War on Drugs are another one. You know, Mount Joy we've talked about, you know, before.

Arcade Fire, the older stuff. A lot of good, a lot of good modern music being made. So you just dove into music. I mean, I'm always, I'm always swimming in music, you know? All right. So that's not changed. But there's just been some good stuff that's come out this week. The one I listened to that came out this morning is Joyner Lucas.

You know who that is? He's a rapper. This album has been supposed to come out for a long. time. I love him. I think he's, there's a song Isis that he's saying, it's him in logic. There's probably my favorite rap singles come out in the last year. But anyway, his album finally came out and it is absolutely awesome. And he's like, because I love him because he's like a real rapper and he's really saying something. It's not like, you're not just mumbling and bumbling, you know, girls, cars, drugs, jewelry, you know, I mean, like it's, like he's actually

rapping. He's got something to say. He has something to, Jordan Lucas has something to say, which is a lot more like the guys I grew up listening to. Sure. And, you know, I think the other thing that I've done the past couple days this week, I've caught up on some shows. I've watched devs. And I'm excited to talk about Westworld on the Westworld recapables this week with David Shoemaker and Danny Hyfitz.

I'll be on that show after this Sunday's episode of Westworld. I'm stoked. This season's been awesome. I'm very, very excited to talk about that with those guys. Oh, really? Yes. I'm so excited, man. You are. Me and Kevin are two-timing on you, Verna.

What? Unbelievable. What? What is happening here? What happened to me? I would love. I would love if Chris watched Westworld. I just feel like him and I, I feel like we would have totally different perspectives of the show.

Yeah, but didn't people say I wouldn't like it? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I think it would just be a lot for you to try to catch up on and consume at this point. It would be because this is now the fourth episode of season three. So there's been like, what, 12 in the first two. So like 24 total.

It's not impossible to binge watch that, but it's a heavy, dense show. So I think it could be a lot to. Hey, I'm going to tell you this. There is a, there's a show that I need to go back and watch. because this guy who's one of our listeners, Eric Milligan is his name. He was on the TV show, highly popular TV show, Bones. And he's one of our Ringer NBA show listeners. And the reason I know this is because Eric, who he played the character,

Zach Addy on Bones, which I did not watch Bones when it came out. My mother is a fanatic. And when I told her that Eric Milligan, this guy, I said he played this character named Zach Addy. You know, he had nominated me to do this thing for a school district that you'll see later today when I tweeted out. But Eric is a big ringer NBA show listener, nominated me of this thing. I go look it up, right?

He was on this show, uh, Bones. And I'm like, well, hell, I need to go back and watch Bones. My mom knew everything about his character, everything. She like, she thought that was the coolest thing ever, right? She doesn't care that I'm on the show. But she's like, this guy, she's like, Zach Addy is the one that tweeted? you and I was like, yeah. And so, because he was doing, and I'll tell everybody, because you'll see me tweet it out later,

it's a problem of the day that they're doing in Southern California. And they were, so kids are getting like, they're doing their school online, right? So they're trying to make it more fun. So they're asking people to, that have a voice or a following to put together, like, to read their problem of the day for them, right? And so the kids log in and their math problem or whatever of the day is read by somebody. And so this guy, Eric Milligan, did it and he nominated me. And so I did it this morning.

It got my kids involved. And so hopefully it'll turn out pretty well. But now I need to go back and watch Bones for sure, right? Just to see our guy Eric Milligan on there. I want to see that. That would be cool. Yeah. I think that. There's a lot of good TV, a lot of good TV, including some listeners of the show that are on.

I know. Who knew, right? Yeah, right. Oh, no. Hey, do you want to, the funniest one that I've gotten over the last like six months was a, one of the girls I work with, um, Megan Triplett says to me, we, so they were doing college game day here. And we had booked, Maria Taylor to come on the show while she was here. And told the story. before? I think I told you off the pod. I think I told you off the line. And so anyways, long story short, Maria Taylor was going to come on and then we got mixed up on the times and whatever and then we're going to try to reschedule. And then Megan said something to her about it. And she was like, wait, what did you say his name was? And she said, my name. And she said, is he on the ringer show? And then pulled out her phone. And it was one of the podcasts she subscribes to you. She's like, I listened to every episode. I had no idea that too was that I was going to be doing the interview with. And I was like, Maria Taylor, what? You got to be kidding me.

So shout out to Maria Taylor. She does great stuff on TV. Shout out to her for sure. Yeah, right. Yeah, no, if you're super famous, hit us up. We want to know that you're out there listening. All right, today. What up Obama? Let's not push our luck. All right. Today what we are doing is we did shows throughout the entire NBA season until it got postponed. And typically, when we're coming on once and then twice a week, we are focusing on whatever the stories of the day are. It's a 24-hour news cycle. Things are always rapidly changing and new topics are coming up every single day. And so we talk about specific games, and then we will talk about big widespread topics that are going on within the NBA. During the course of that, so much of it is going to be the time sensitive, you know,

giving our opinions on certain things that are in that new cycle. And so we don't get to mention everything that deserves mentioning throughout the year. And so what we are going to do today is to, for whatever reason, throughout the season, we didn't feel like we highlighted these people or things enough. and upon reflection of the season that we had, wished we had. And so we each came up with four because we don't have five. I know everybody does top five. We don't have five.

We have four. We have four each that we think we should have a deserve. Chris, let's be honest. We just don't know how to count to five. We don't know how to count to five. So we are going to give you four things each that we feel like we should have. have highlighted or mentioned while the NBA season was going on, but for whatever reason, we did not. You want to go first or you want me to? I'll go first. All right. So,

Joellen Bede's improvement as a post score, we've hit on, but I don't think we've talked about or enough because when you look at the Philadelphia 76ers, granted, they've underachieve this year. Right now, the sixth seed, they've had their issues, of course. But looking individually at Joelle-L-L-A-Bed, he's scoring a career high 1.1 points per possession on post-ups according to Synergy. And when you dive deeper into the numbers, you find that he's gotten way more versatile on the post. He's better from the right block than he's been in years past. He's better at facing up. He's improved as a passer. And the one thing that I think is critically important for his success is the fact that he's scoring efficiently without getting fouled.

That was one of the problems for him in the past when going against defenders like Al Horford in the playoffs, they were able to defend him without falling. And that meant Embed's post possessions were typically just resulting in turnaround jumpers or, you know, lay in attempts, you know, hook shots. But now he's gotten more efficient at all of those shots, better at facing up, better at hook shots, better at creating his own shot and playing with patience.

And that makes him a far more interesting threat. when you talk about what the Sixers could be in a playoff situation, because in the past and tough matchups, hard to go to Embed and get an efficient look, but now he's become a player that you can get an efficient look with him being a creator in your offense. I like this one. And you know what came to mind as soon as you said that?

Was game on the line, the Eastern Conference ran a Joel Embed post up. And he made it. Yeah. You remember that in the All-Star game? Yeah. I mean, it was like, okay, here's the best of the best guys.

They are trying like hell to win that game. And they came down, and that was one of the key possessions of the game at the end was a Joe L&B post-up. And the other thing that I thought of was, you know, we just discussed this last week where people were talking about what would it take for the NBA to change. And sometimes we'll say like rule changes or whatever it may be. But one of the things I mentioned was like who is the dominant player

and what do you have to deal with. And he is the closest thing we have. When I said about Shaq or a Dunkin or where would these kind of guys, like if these are the guys you've got to get past in order to win, then all of a sudden you see a lot of teams starting to become equipped

to try to beat that team. And if you've got somebody that can just absolutely mangle you in the post, well then, and that team becomes, a dominant team, then theoretically you are going to have the teams underneath them say, look, if we want to be able to win this conference, we're going to have to get past this guy. And so all of a sudden, you care a lot more about who your big guys are. You understand? Sure.

And that's one of the reasons why I've always had issues when people say, you know, you know, bigs are dead or bigs are dying because I think you look around the league. You look at a guy like Embed, you look at a Yokic, you look at an Anthony Davis, having size or at least a guy who could defend big players is still important. And there's very few PJ Tucker's. There's not a lot of those guys that you can put up against an AD or an M.B. And feel like, you know what? We can live with this.

We can live with this matchup. It's not going to kill us. But you got to find those guys in order to survive playing smaller against these behemoths. Behemoths, because there's still a lot of them out there in the league. And a lot of them are younger and still getting better. All right, my first one is actually also an Eastern Conference representative, and that is Nick Nurse. I don't think this guy, we have not talked about him a lot throughout this year.

You would freely admit, right? We've talked about the Raptors and the surprise that they have been, being that their record is so outstanding, given that they lost Kauai Leonard in the off season. But this guy and his whole story, you know, he won those D-League, which is now the G-League championship, He was there for a long time, six seasons, and had 23 different players called up to NBA rosters while he was coaching those different teams. We know a lot of his background from when he got thrown into the spotlight last year.

But he took over for doing Casey and he won a title last year. And yes, he was able to coach Kauai Leonard, right? which Quai Leonard was the best player during the playoffs last year. Well, he doesn't have that this year. He doesn't have Kauai Leonard anymore. And yet this guy who won 58 games and won the championship last year is on pace to somehow have a better record this year than they even had last year. And I think we've talked about the Raptors and we talk about, you know, how many good players that they have. and this collection of guys.

But I mean, one of the things, one of the most important things for any coach is to maximize the talent that he has. And how many guys end up playing their best basketball when they're playing for said coach? And can I get the most out of these talents? And I think sometimes we sit there and we go, well, geez, you know, Norma Powell is what he is when you're this far into a career, six years or whatever it is into a career. but Norman Powell's been unbelievable this year. And we've seen the step that Siakum has taken now.

And we see that they draft these undrafted guys. And now they got Terrence Davis, who's like playing a pivotal role in a lot of their wins this year. And you can go on and on. And I think the whole, there's never any drama. There's never any drama out of there. And coming off a championship is hard anyway. And for them to be in line to have an even better record this year,

I think this guy deserves an immense amount of credit throughout the season. I should have given it to him more. I should have mentioned him more. Sometimes coaches end up going by the wayside, but I do think that he is a real reason. Sometimes coaches aren't a real reason that a team might win in an ordinary amount of games, but I think he is absolutely a big reason why the Toronto Raptors are having the success that he have. And I think he's proven that in spades this year.

Sure. I think up and down Toronto's organization, they have alignment on their goals on the type of team they want to build. And Nurse has only enhanced that talent by putting them in positions to succeed. I think we really last might a hit on this in December when I wrote a story on Toronto's defense. But other than that, I still agree with you that what he's done with this roster has been a bit lost. I mean, they're second in the Eastern Conference after losing the finals MVP. That's a remarkable achievement. And I think he's taken the players that Masayu Jiri and Bobby Webster in Toronto have assembled,

the OG and Inonobes of the world, the Fred Van Vleets, the Norman Powell's, and he's just making these guys thrive because they play a different defensive scheme almost every night. It's very NFL-like in the way that they operate and change game plans. You see so many teams in the NBA, they pick one plan, and they typically stick with that for the part over the course of the year. But with the Raptors, there might be one night you see them trap a superstar score. There might be one night that you don't see them do that. They play a little bit more soft coverage.

Their game plans and schemes are hard to predict and react against, never mind the fact that they also play more zone defense than anybody else in the league as well. So they're hard to go against because they're constantly throwing breaking balls at opponents that make them hard to game plan against them. That's just one thing that gives this team a bit of an edge, maybe over, what their actual talent level is. Granted that they do have a lot of talent, despite losing Kauai,

but the scheme and the system makes everybody a little bit higher level than otherwise playing at a standard system that you might see from some other coaches. And he has a different way of getting to where he got, I mean, if you ever get a chance, go check out his resume and see how many of the teams you recognize even what they are.

Like the Birmingham Bullets, the Manchester Giants, the London Towers, the Brighton Bears. I mean, like, what is? The Oklahoma Storm? The Derby Rams? Like, it's just unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

You guys have been coaching since, you know, the late 80s, early 90s, being an assistant and coaching all of these different teams over time. And then the Iowa Energy in the G League, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. He won. In fact, last year he became the first coach. to win a G-League championship and an NBA championship. But this guy is absolutely great. He didn't just get to take over a great situation.

He has made what was a very good situation great. Well, you mentioned coaching since the late 80s. This is from his Wikipedia. He was the Northern Iowa assistant, 89 to 90. But in 1990, 1991, he was a player coach for the Derby Rams. in the British basketball league. Unbelievable.

Unreal. That is truly unbelievable. One of my buddies, Steve Forbes, who is the head coach at East Tennessee State, who I just, I cry for him.

He had a squad this year, Kevin, that was one of those that if the NCAA tournament takes place, they could have been Cinderella. They could have really knocked some people

people off. They had like a 30 win season. But Forbes was like, he's been friends with this guy, Nick Nurse for like, you know, 30, 40 years. They grew up in Iowa together and like played together and stuff. And when Nurse got the job, he called me and was like, hey, my buddy, Nick Nurse got the job in, in, in, in, uh, what's it called? In Toronto. I'm like, how do you know him? He was like, I was like, how do you know him? And they were, they go way back all the way back to Iowa together. And one of them, Forbes is now that he's the head coach at East Tennessee State. And obviously Nick is at Toronto.

But they are still great, great friends to this very day, interestingly enough. But yeah, grinders, like guys that have just been at it for years and years and years, but great, great basketball minds. All right. So I got, you've named Joel Ambide's post game we should have mentioned. Nick Nurse, we should have mentioned more. What's your second thing we should have mentioned more? Let's go with Dejante Murray.

Obviously, it's been a disappointing season for the Spurs and Chase Serrano. But the fact is, is Dejante Murray has made some positive progress in his development. First year back, this season, he's shooting 42% on catch-and-shoot threes. Only 76 attempts, but 42%. 46% on pull-up 2s, 80% from the free-throw line. And compared to the last two seasons that he played, 33% on catch-and-shoot 3s, 33% on pull-up 2s, 71% from the line.

So he's improved his jumper off the catch from 3, off the dribble from 2, and from the free-throw line. So for Dejante Murray, when he was coming out of Washington as a freshman point guard, fell to 30th picked by the Spurs. A lot of people thought he was going to be a lottery pick because of his obvious talent as a playmaker with a son. slashing ability with his defensive ability. But his jumper was disgusting.

His, if you looked at his shooting chart, it was all bloody red outside of the paint. Now it's not. It's green out there. He has become, at least in a small sample, about a half a season, a reliable shooter from the perimeter. And if you're thinking about what he can become long term from what he already is, a top end defender, a good playmaker, a guy who gets to the rim. you might have a guy that has a chance to be one of the better point cards in the league.

Still has to improve in other areas. He's at-room finishing actually has to get better. He needs to get way better there. But the fact is, he's a young point guard, and he's made improvement. And for a Spurs team that's in a transitional phase now, it's nice to have this guy making significant strides. It's just hard to get the credit when we're talking about point guards, and especially in the Western Conference when we are adding new ones every single year, right?

Like you had mentioned, like John Morant walks into the league this year. And we have Deere and Fox, still a really young point guard. And you could go up and down throughout the Western Conference. And it's just hard to get your shine, right? If you're somebody like DeJante Murray,

because there are just so many good ones and there's so many good ones coming in every year. but Murray what do we think like what's a ceiling I mean with him so much is dependent on the at-room finishing aspect with him you know he can be a really good he can continue to become a really good playmaker in a multi-ball

ball handler offense he can continue to be a top end defender at the point guard position and right now he's a low volume shooter from the perimeter if his volume continues to improve and if his at-room finishing improves sure there's a chance that he does become one of the better point guards in the NBA. Look, he's only 23, right? Hey, we know he's an outstanding defender, right?

So maybe Drew Holiday? Oh, you mean like a player comparison? No, well, I'm just saying like, yeah, I think, I think a holiday type makes some sense. Drew Holiday's awesome. I mean, you'd love to have him as your point guard, right? And so if we look up in, you know, five, six years and DeJonté Murray's like one of the best perimeter. I mean, look, when Drew Holiday got his chance in the sun,

you know, in the playoffs, he was there for it. And I think he has shown everybody that he's a, he can be a big time player. Yeah, I think he would be thrilled. Holiday is still at his best, though, in a two-guard role, though, like sharing the ball with another playmaker like what he has

right now with Lonzo Ball. That's when he's at his best. That might could be true of Murray down the line, though. You know? you never know. Drew Holiday wasn't, I mean, he wasn't much of a shooter coming into this.

And you can develop, and certainly, Lord knows, the Spurs have been good at developing guys into being much better shooters than they once were. Sure.

I mean, would you have Chip England coach like him? Absolutely. And that's, I'm sure, that's played a significant difference in his development. All right,

I'm going to give you one that is going to, I think it's going to make you chuckle when I mentioned it. Because the only time that this guy was mentioned, was almost as a light-hearted goof, as it were. But I do think it bears noting that he is having an extremely good season

and has been very good for a team that has gotten an immense amount of attention, but we don't focus that much on the complimentary parts. And that is Alex Caruso. Yeah. Let's go, Chris. There we go. Look, Alex Caruso, this guy's got a net rating of 10. Now, I understand, right? You're always going to- Braun and AD. That's what everybody's saying right now. Right. I understand, right? Like, you look up and down and yes, a lot of the guys that are

going to be high in net rating are the guys that get to play among superstars. But that's not true. Everybody else, you know, Catavius Caldwell, Pope and a plus 10. Kyle Kuzma ain't a plus 10. Like this guy, they have won with this guy on the court in large measure. And sometimes it's just about the way you fit with what a team has. And I do think that this guy, I mean, look, you look it up, he's playing 18 minutes a game, he's only started one game. It's like five points and it's one rebound and it's two assists.

And it's not all that impressive. even the numbers from the field are fine. It's 42%, it's 36%. But for whatever reason, he has been a fit, and I do think that he is worth noting, simply because I'm noting to you that an extremely good team has been even better than they normally are when this guy is on the court.

For whatever reason, right? Keeps the ball moving, knows how to play a role, can make some big plays. He's a lot more athletic than I thought. he was when I last saw him in person, right? This guy ain't like Dahlavadova. This guy can, he can get up now. And I think that when, anytime we're talking about great teams, assuming we are able to finish this thing off, there are going, there is going to come a time where it can't just be a two-man band. Other guys have to step up. And I think it's going to be very fascinating to see what is Dona

Caruso. And I have seen Laker fans even before. And sometimes I, I would, would be like rolling my eyes saying that Caruso should actually play more and that they get frustrated that, you know, Caruso should be in the in the mix more often. He's clearly a fan favorite. This guy, he has helped them win games and they have been much better with him on the court. And you can make up whatever reason you want for that. But this guy deserves to be shouted out. And I could see him mattering when you don't think somebody like him is ever going to matter. I could see him mattering. When it comes to playoffs and you need guys to step up and do stuff and give you minutes,

I could see his name becoming a thing. Much like Delvedova did once upon a time. I got one stat for you to follow up with what you said. This season, when LeBron James is on the court with Rondo and Caruso off the court, the Lakers outscore teams by four points per 100 possessions. That's good. But when LeBron James is on the court with Alex Caruso and Rajon Rondo is off the court.

The Lakers outscore teams by 21. Unbelievable. Per 100 possessions. Their offense goes up by nine points for longer. Their defense gets better by eight points per 100 possessions. Ridiculous difference. Let me tell you something, Kevin. When you play with LeBron James,

one of the great talents you can have is to get the hell out of the way and give him the ball. Well, and look, this is, this is something that. Get out of the way, but also be a threat. And Caruso is a more potent. catch and shoot three point threat than Rondo. And he's a better defender than Rondo as well. Rondo in the past was one of the best defensive point cards on the league.

He stinks now on defense. He's not good on defense anymore. And it's disappointing for me to see as someone who has long loved Rondo. But Caruso is a guy who embodies the heart of that Lakers team. You know, LeBron really sets the tone as the leader. AD does as well with his room protection. Crusoe on the perimeter alongside Danny Green is one of those guys that's part of the fabric of their defense.

Rondo's not. Oh, man. See, look, we should have, like all of these so far. We find ourselves agreeing on all of this stuff. I love it. I know. Isn't it sweet? Isn't it nice?

Look at us on the same page. I actually thought at the beginning when you first reacted to it. I was like, oh, no, is he going to kill me on this? No, I love, look, I love Caruso. I actually pitched a video What makes Alex Crusoe so good. Well, and here's the thing. I think, let me just explain this real quick

because you said talking about being a real threat. It's not about the number that he shoot. 36 is a 5 percentage. It is about having to be honored all the way out to the three point line. And he is honored, which then creates the necessary space for LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

And when they are on, an island against you, you are a dead man. And so it doesn't matter if the guy bangs every three he knocks down, right? Just the fact that when you got like a Danny Green and when you've got a Caruso who somebody is having to stay with at the three point line, Rondo, they'll just come double you. They just will. They'll come W. Right? His man will run down. Caruso's man doesn't, you know, as much, as much. And so I think there could be some sentiment that like, what he shoots 36%?

What are you guys talking about? It's about the ability to stretch the floor, which he does get honored more so than Rondo does. And I do think that's probably an element to why you see that level of success, besides the fact that Rondo's a guy that, you know, he's got the ball in his hands a lot more. Well, and that's one of the other issues there. Rondo isn't, should it be the guy.

And also Caruso, yes, he might only be shooting 37% from three this year. But last season, again, limited minutes. But last season, he shot over 40% from three point range. He's not somebody. People are leaving wide open. No, because he has a proven track record since he was in college as a good shooter. Rondo has a proven track record of being a subpar shooter ever since he was in college. Caruso was not a great shooter in college when he was fine.

just like he's a good he's a good he's a good he's a good hopefully hopefully frank vogel plays cruiser over on the playoffs if the lakers want to have any opportunity to upset the grizzlies in the first round all right what's your third one um larry nance has become a more completes player in cleveland i figured might as well take it from uh the current lakers to a now former laker larry nance when he was in college at wyoming he was largely what he was as a young player with the Lakers, a lob guy playing that big man position. But at Wyoming, he did show off a reliable mid-range shot. And that's what's changed in Cleveland.

He has extended his range from mid-range to behind the three-point line. The last two seasons, he's shooting 37% on catch-and-chute threes. And he's made himself into somebody who can not only roll down the lane and throw down lungs like we saw with him at Wyoming, like we saw with him with the Lakers and still do now with the calves, but he's now somebody who can screen and pop from threes, who can make plays off the dribble as a passer or as a creator for himself. And on defense, Cleveland has gotten creative with using him as a three. So you're using a guy that sort of has a reputation as a smaller five. He now he's playing the three next to two bigs oftentimes, and he's done it quite well. He

held his own against somebody like DeMardo Rosen. He's only done it for 74 minutes total. But Cleveland has performed pretty well with Nance at the three, which is surprising to me as somebody who on paper, you think about like a drum and love dance lineup and you think that's going to stink. But they've actually done pretty well with that size on the court. And one of the big reasons why is Nance turning into the Swiss Army knife that he is today. That's fascinating because, you know, when the draft was coming around and do you remember there was the trade up that the Grizzlies made from Oklahoma City, to get up to take Brandon Clark, which everybody loved, right? And one of the guys that I talked to, when I went back and looked at my notes, said of Brandon Clark, he's Larry Nance.

And when I went around and talked to people about it, they're like, no, he's way better than Larry Nance. And it was kind of like, I don't know, the perception or whatever. I feel like Larry Nance got beat up too much because he's been, you know, he had to be at that Maribund Laker team, and now he's been on this crappy clear. Cleveland team. Like, I think Larry Nance, if you could ever get him out of Cleveland, I think he could be a real rotation winning player for somebody. And I don't think like, you know, look, Brandon Clark could very

well be better than Larry Nance. But Larry Nance is not a dog. You know, people were talking like, oh, wow, he's way better than him. I'm like, you know what, being Larry Nance would, that ain't a bad day. That ain't a bad career here. And I think Larry Nance has probably got some better basketball ahead of him. And he's been in, how many times we talk about this, Kevin? We talk about your situation and your opportunity. And his have sucked, you know, since he came in the league. Whereas Brennan Clark immediately falls into a situation with Jomarantz, a point guard who could already run pick and roll at a very nice level. And then Jaron Jackson, a big man who can defend bigger guys and can space the floor from three.

So Brinan Clark fell into the ideal situation. Look, I would have liked Brandon Clark anywhere. But when he got drafted by Memphis, I think I screamed out loud because I was so stoked. And already the results for him, look, we've talked about Clark a bunch. This is one guy that doesn't need to be on this list for sure. But fact is, is Brandon Clark as a rookie is already one of the most efficient scoring big men in the league. And he is already somebody who's a reliable defensive player as a rookie. Yep.

All right. My next one. You're lucky. You're lucky down there, Chris. You're lucky. I know. Oh, trust me. I thank God every day for that draft that took place last year. I mean, no, no lie. This is a true story. Kevin, I, when they got the second pick in the draft, I walked into my kitchen. I told my wife, I said, our lives just changed for the better. Wow. Wow. Oh, well, now look, she went to Murray, so I had watched all the, I had watched. So great to have high draft picks. I had watched all of the job. Dog games. Me and my kid had gone out of the way to watch those. Oh, listen, I had the liquor set out because I knew they were going to convey their pick to the Celtics. And I was like, what the hell now? Like how the hell? Are we trading Conley to try to rebuild? Or am I going to go through another 20-win season? Like, what the hell is happening? And when that showed up and it was going to commercial break and it was either going to be one or two, I was fine either way. you love to have Zion. But I was convinced

Morant was going to be a huge superstar and I know how much guards, how fun guards are. Anyway, I'll move to my third one. This is going to be a weird one. Gorin Dragage, I don't think his name has been uttered one time. This Miami team is really good.

And Goran Dragich still really, really good. He's the third leading scorer on that heat team this year. And he has been in the league now over a decade. And I think that we typically, you go, oh, it's a 33-year-old point guard, right? Well, like, here's another one.

Here's another example of a guy who is still fantastic at age 33. So many times we can become agist and we can think that guys are like, you know, like they're done by the time they're in there, like 33 to 35. Well, here's Dragich. He still gets you points. He still get your rebounds. he still gets you assist. He still runs your teens.

And the guy is just a flat gamer. And I'm glad, you know, there was a lot of talk that he was going to be moved during the offseason, even last year at the trade deadline. And here you are. And I can't tell you how many times I've watched Miami and it'll get to the fourth quarter winning time. And like this guy's coming up with a big play. And I feel like we've talked about bam a ton for good reason.

Jimmy Butler and the impact he has had there. We've talked about Tyler Harrow. We talked about Kendrick Nunn. We have never mentioned Goren Dragich, and here he is one of the top three scorers on what is a very good team and just a flat out gamer and a guy that I want on my team when the going gets tough and playoff basketball comes around.

But him still being so good at 33 and still being, there are other 33 point guards that are around the league that they're not even, they're not essential at all to what teams are doing. But Dragich is he just gives them a whole another element. And I've always been a big fan of him. And the guy is still good.

And I don't think ever, he's so far down the list on recognition that anybody would give to a player off of the heat. So Dragich is my shout out for a guy that should have gotten mentioned at least once throughout this season. That's because we spend all our time talking about Bamatabio. I know. His greatness. I know. I know.

It's always Bam or Jimmy or, you know, these other guy, Harrow, you've got Duncan Robinson, who I talked about, you know, last week, who's about to, you know, was on track to set this NBA record. He was on the JJ Redick show with JJ Reddick and Tommy Alter recently. I heard it. I heard it. He is, golly. You know, I mentioned a couple weeks ago. He's going to set that record for the least amount of two-point shots taken in a season.

Like the record's like PJ Tucker. I mean, he's taking. He's going to shatter it. He's taken 613 shots. 543 of them or threes. It's unbelievable. I know. It's nuts.

He's going to shatter the record this year for the least amount of twos taken in a year. All right. What's your last one? What's your fourth one? So this one, we would have talked about it, had the season kept going. But it didn't. So Victor Oladipo was starting to look like himself at the time the season got canceled. After rupturing his quad tendon last January, very scary, scary injury.

He struggled when he first came back, which is what you would expect. But over his last five games, he averaged 19 points and four assists, shot 40% from three. He was more efficient overall from the floor, looking more fluid and explosive with his typical burst on drives to the rim. And in his last game against the Celtics, a loss for the Pacers, he did score 27 points from all over the court. He looked a lot like the Victor Oladipo that we've gotten accustomed to seeing since he broke out with Indiana. I'm glad you mentioned Oladipo because, you know, there's been so many guys that were injured this year that, you know, when they're not playing, they're just not talked about. We don't, like I heard Simmons and them talking the other day saying,

I mean, imagine that we're watching the finals last year. And then this year, we see Curry, Thompson, and Durant play a combined five games, which is true. And so when you're injured and you're not playing, you're just off the radar. And Oladipo this year just been off the radar. We didn't get to see him play all that many games. But that was going to be super fascinating, especially with how good Brogden had been for them this year, to see those two in tandem going into the playoffs. because I don't care what you bring to the table.

That's going to be a frigging hard matchup, you know, just backcourt versus backcourt. Because Brogden and Oladipo, I was excited to see them together more in tandem, you know? And so hopefully we'll get to. Hopefully we'll get to. And now, you know, one of the things we had not talked about, Kevin, that much is all those guys that were injured,

by the time this thing gets cracking, like, hopefully, you know, the injured guys are going to be able to come back uninjured and healthy. This is given a lot of people the ability to get healthy. Let's think about this the other day. I don't know how many games we're going to play, but by the time you come back, we were just about to get Zach Collins and Nurchitch back for Portland, right?

I mean, after this whole lay off, by the time we play basketball again, they're going to have their roster. Yeah, that's true, but I do worry about how much of a runway do you need for guys to get back in basketball shape. How long does this, you know, well, because they're not doing anything or whatever.

My studio overlooks a practice facility and it's been dormant. Well, well, because the practice facilities are all closed. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. They're all out there. Well, no, at the very beginning, at the very beginning of all of it, before they did that, there were guys you could see going in there doing like individual. Yes, exactly.

And that doesn't even exist now. So I don't even know. If you ain't got a basketball goal at your house, what the hell are these guys doing? You know? Well, I mean, teams are, teams are sending workout game plans for what players to do at home or in their own personal gyms or or the gyms that they sneak off to with no way knowing. But yeah.

The fact is that that's that's still not what you typically get before a full season with all of training camp. Everything that happens then, the preseason games, the early regular season slog for certain players getting back to shape. I mean, it's going to be really unique circumstances if the games do return. but ultimately like if we do get to that point that's a good problem to have because it would be a sign of progress for us as a society but also a sign that great we're going to get some basketball games back all right and my last one is going to be it's interesting that we just mentioned things that you forget about as the season all goes on and so then it just doesn't even get mentioned because it's forgotten right and this is the lake

debacle and how it just didn't matter at all. And if you recall, it was the craziest deal that all season with the whole Magic Johnson saying he's leaving and then going on TV like the next day and just throwing a knife saying that Rob Polinka stabbed him in the back and all. And like, it was all just a PR debacle and Jeannie Buss in the middle of it. And then you've got Rob Polinka on this side. And you've got Magic Johnson who's like, you know, one of the biggest, most prominent Lakers ever. And also like the guy running the team.

And he just leaves. And then he goes on and says that this other guy, you know, has stabbed him in the back. And I think it's just sometimes. when we get to talking about things and we make a lot out of these controversial stories and they're fun. In the end, if you got LeBron James and Anthony Davis, that's all it was going to take. And so the fact that just none of that crap mattered at all, it just didn't. It was like a blip on the radar. And to think about that in retrospect, when you think about those highlights and that clip of Magic Johnson, you know, I knew I was gone.

on ha ha ha ha ha, you know, leaving. And then him going on with Stephen A. Smith and just, you know, setting fire to everything, the fact that we look back and it's like, it's like that didn't even happen. It's like they're a totally normal, well-run organization. And so the old adage that, you know, winning cures everything, it could never be more true than what we experienced over the last six months in the Lakers situation. because none of that crap mattering is absolutely hilarious to me. Two of your four were Lakers related.

I know. I didn't mean for them to be. I didn't mean for them to be. This is supposed to be about things we never talked about. Well, we didn't. You don't know what I mean? We didn't talk about them. And we certainly didn't talk about what took place with their front office and Magic

Johnson just quitting in the midst of it. I feel like we spent a lot of things. time on that. I went through like all the teams that we don't normally talk about. And I was like, I feel like we've talked. I, you know, I don't want to, you know, I, I don't want to pat ourselves on the back too much. But like I went through the teams outside of like Charlotte, which you probably haven't spent much time on. Even though we highlighted. If I had a fifth, it would have been Terry Rosier related. But we highlighted DeVante Graham, you know, when when that was going on. So I was going through them and I was trying to find like, all right, who are some of these guys or who are some of these things that I feel like, you know, we would have talked about if not for what had taken place. And I feel like we have, I feel like we've hit on most of the, most of the teams. There's nobody I felt like we had never talked about.

I think, I think we really have covered these teams quite a lot. Because I was thinking about when we were prepping for this podcast, I was like, well, what about the Warriors? And I'm like, yeah, we, I've talked, I've rambled about their supporting cast and Chris has gotten mad at me for that. You know, I looked at Minnesota and I'm like, yeah, we've talked about their defense and how it might still not be good with, with Russell and towns. And that's what really needs to change. I'm looking up and down these teams and I'm like, we've hit a lot of them. We have.

Oh, no. Like, even earlier this week and last week talking about the pistons. I mean, you know, I feel, I feel like we haven't just hit the most popular teams. One team we've probably talked about more than any other team is probably New Orleans. I think that's probably true. I mean, even when I was going down, I was like, we highlighted, you know, Shea Gildjus a great deal many times throughout the year. Even with Cleveland, with all that B-line stuff and then Colin Sexton and whatnot, we talked about them and Kevin Love. Sex and getting better, you know.

Yeah, I mean, there's been the majority. We talked about freaking Cam Reddish for a, you know, for a couple minutes at a time. Yeah, I mean, going through it, I feel like we talked about most of these teams and most of the relevant subjects, you know, pertaining to them. I think this is a perfect transition to say next week we're doing a mailbag again. And so if there's anything that we haven't talked about over the course of the season, they're like, no, no, no, you didn't talk about this. Put that in our inbox, NBA mailbag at gmail.com because we're going to bring back the mailbag on Tuesday's show. least a portion of the show will be mailbag. So submit questions about whatever

can be music, TV, movies, but also stuff that we haven't talked about with basketball that we should talk about, too. I mean, what a friggin segue. What a broadcasting professional you have become. I learned from you, Chris. I learned from you. No wonder they're having you do other shows.

I'll learn from the best of veteran. NBA mailbag at Gmail.com and send us what we should have talked about that we did not because we will get back to a mailbag next week. And we've still got, you know, probably 100 leftover questions from the last one. So we will certainly sift through and try to find the best of those. Kevin, you have a great weekend. Watch white men can't jump when you can.

Sure well. Thanks to Bobby Wagner for producing another episode. If you dig what you're hearing, go give it's a rating and review on iTunes. Five stars, five stars. It really helps. Everybody have a good weekend. We will talk to you next week.