The Ringer NBA Show - The Warriors Are Falling Light-years Behind | Group Chat

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

Justin and Rob are joined by the cohosts of ‘Light Years: A Golden State Warriors Pod,’ Andy Liu and Sam Esfandiari, to discuss the Warriors’ struggles this season (03:00). Later, they debate whether making the playoffs this season will affect the Warriors’ future in free agency (39:00). Hosts: Justin Verrier and Rob Mahoney Guests: Andy Liu and Saam Esfandiari Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From in-depth analysis of basketball and football to life advice, Ryan Rusillo has got you covered on the Ryan Rusillo podcast. Join him as he talks to some of the best names in sports while providing sharp analysis and wit you won't find elsewhere. Check out the Ryan Rusillo podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Group Chat, the Ringers' weekly NBA group discussion where we can't lose even when we're winning. I am Justin Verrier joining me today. Rob Mahoney. I think we can still lose. We could still lose. later in the episode, or pretty much coming up right now,

we are going to talk to the Light Years Bros. Andy Liu and Sam and Svendiari from the Light Years podcast in order to get into the depths of Warriors' misery, which seems to be pervasive on my Twitter timeline. I feel like there's a nice combination of just thoroughness and just like the ability to analyze a team, but also batshit crazy that I find endearing. in a lot of the best fan bases.

Most typically we see this with the Nix because pretty much every Nix fan also has a pilot on NBC. But nowadays, I look and I enjoy being by the fire as the Warriors struggle here

and their fans react to it. It's great to see both sides of someone's brain at war in real time between the reasonable side and the reactionary side. And, I mean, the warriors are living that day by day.

There's a lot to vent about. There's a lot to pick nits with and I'm sure we're going to get into a lot of it. Sure. We were going to do an entire podcast on Big Kerm, our producers, takes on Paul Pierce and his firing from ESPN, but he refuses to go on Mike to talk about it.

So we'll pivot here quickly. I might. I'm right. Since you already bought it off. I guess I'll ISO real quick. I'll start by saying, you know, I'll come honest to this podcast. I'm a Lakers fan.

I love this shit on Paul Pierce anytime. I can. But to get fired on your day off because we're on some bodacious women. I have a couple drinks. It's a little unreasonable to me. But that's all I'll say. You know, we're not going to do a whole hour on it.

But I'll leave it there and we can kind of get to the main segment. Did you say bodacious women? Yeah. Bodacious women. That's what the new name of this podcast should be. I can't wait for group chat after dark. You know, everyone subscribe to our Patreon.

Trion are apparently our only fans, and we'll spend that off into something nice for y'all. All right. On that note, we're going to take a quick break when we come back. We're going to talk to the Light Years guys about the Warriors. All right. We're back. And joining us from the Light Years podcast, Samus Fendiari and Andy Liu, gentlemen, thank you for joining us in this, the dark times of the Warriors fandom.

The return to Chris Cohan. The return to the Cohan era is right underway. I feel right at home. That's right. I've been seeing a lot of Monta references these days. Does it feel like we're getting back to the good slash bad times? It does feel familiar. It does feel like the pre-Light Years days where they're saying one thing, doing the other.

It's, you know, Fitz is on the broadcast trying to tell you you're watching the most beautiful brand of basketball of all time. Meanwhile, I'm watching Kent Baysmore dribble it off his foot. and it's, it just brings back memories of like the OOs and kind of the real peak of what we think of as like the Chris Cohen era. Right. So losers of seven of the past eight, 12 of the past 16, the 53 point loss, Curry's tailbone, which seems to be an issue every couple of days. But where for you guys does the discontent kind of start? Andy, is it Steve Kerr? He's the one I see get most of the ire.

but would you say he's like most of blame if we're cutting up the blame pie here? I had no idea the Warriors were told for their last 16. You put it like that. That's embarrassing. Yeah, I mean, for a guy that has as much, I think people don't understand that Steve Kerr has the power that most people think that coach GM people have.

Like he has the ability to pretty much do whatever he wants for this franchise. And I think like it makes sense, right? He's helped the team win three championships. He led him to three titles. The two titles that he lost, one, you can kind of blame on him, but some of them, you just lose. And then the second one, it's injuries, right? Like, you just lose that one to Toronto. But he kind of has the ability to do whatever he wants on this team.

And I think this season, if you were to say, if I were to ask you guys, if there's one thing that the Warriors were going to come out this season with, it's not a championship. It's not a Western Conference finals appearance. It's probably, you guys are probably, hopefully, hopefully, with time. me like James Wiseman looks amazing, right? They would develop some young guys to look great. Maybe Kelly Ubre, stuff like that. But it's kind of been the opposite, actually. So I think it's really the inability to have some of the younger players look good.

Really, it's James Wiseman. It's really like, it's James Wiseman looks awful. And that's kind of the thing that's most disappointing on a team that really has nothing to play for outside of that. To add to that, he looks worse today than he looked in January. that's really where if he looked bad all year we might have a different conversation about scouting

and should they've even drafted him but he looked a lot better in January up until I mean I don't know where I want to pick the drop off point but the first like 20 or so games he looked a lot better

obviously he's been yo-yoed in and out of the starting lineup and you see it you see it with body language Like there was not bad body language in the early part of the year. Now you basically have like, I mean, I thought it was interesting. Like Anthony Slater wrote kind of an article basically saying like, you know, he needs to improve at these things. And you see like warrior players quote tweeting.

Like it's like, why are you attacking him? That sort of thing. It's like I don't know that Slater's article is any more critical than every piece he puts out every other day. It almost feels like like now everyone's aware. that he has confidence issues and they're trying to protect him type of deal going on there. So it's, you know, they said they want to make the playoffs and develop. They want to win while developing. They're going to do neither.

So I would have been okay with them chasing wins and not developing Wiseman or not chasing wins and developing Wiseman, but not chasing wins and not developing Wiseman. It's just kind of like, what are we doing here? Yeah, there's definitely a one or the other quality with that that, you know, I think we do need to, you know, we need to qualify this with Clay's injury, not only how major it was, but the timing of it, obviously, but I think that justifies starting the season's low, 50 games into it, there should be a plan on one of those fronts.

And I think it really, their situation now illustrates how flying by the seat of their pants they were in terms of some of that stuff and just assuming if we have these core guys, it's going to work out, if we have these components in place, Weisman's development, we can kind of take for granted in certain ways. where are you guys on the Warriors as a developmental franchise as it applies to WISR. I mean, this is not a team with a great track record of

developing talent other than the core guys. You know, they've certainly come, a lot of role players have come in and out. How are you? Luni, Luni's out there still. He's out there still. I think it's worth noting that, you know, they have done no developing

since Steve Kerr took over because he took over a 50-win team. He did change everything and took what was kind of a run-of-the-mill solid playoff team and turn it into a juggernaut, which is arguably harder than, you know, the other job. But end of the day, like, they haven't had a lottery pick since he's been the head coach. They, I haven't even thought about player development. So it's kind of, all I'm seeing now is, you know, not all coaching is the same. You know, just because someone is good at kind of scheming it up with veterans and coming up with creative,

creative counters to how defenses want to play in the playoffs does not mean you know what to do with the 19 year old who's quite frankly really raw. Yeah, I think there's different types of coaching, right? Steve Kerr is obviously a very good coach with the right players around him. Like there was no, there was no, probably no other coach in the league maybe outside of like pop.

And maybe like Brad Stevens, I would say, because he runs it maybe a similar system that would have brought this team from that Mark Jackson era to a freaking, title in year one, which is, which is spectacular. But if you're talking about building a system or you're building up younger guys, Patrick McCaw, Jordan Bell, you know, some of those guys that are not as, not as talented, but maybe need more confidence, maybe need more of a system that layers to

their strengths. I think Jordan Poole is probably a pretty good example. We keep talking about James Wiseman, but Jordan Poole is a pretty good example of like a modern A player. He needs to put on his hands. He needs pick and roll. He's not that good. Like, he's not good enough to run, like, the style that Steve wants.

Probably more of a sixth man than, like, a frontline NBA player, just like long term. Yeah. Steve isn't, he's not trying to change who. It's like Mark Jackson for the people that aren't following the Warriors day in, day out. It's like how Mark Jackson, I hesitant to say, kind of went down. But it's like he's not willing to budge from what he thinks is the right way to play basketball, which I think Sam and I don't disagree with because if you get the right, guys, you got a freaking good basketball team.

But man, you can't play that way with Wiseman, Poole, some of these guys who aren't as talented. Kelly Ubre. Kelly Ubra. Andrew Wiggins. This is the entire roster now. Yes, we're naming everyone except for Steph, really. No one's confusing these guys for Andre Agadala

or just like insert any number of high IQ, you know, reads the game, multiple reads ahead of time, players that the Warriors have the past. are all kind of give me one job to do and I'll do it type of players. Yeah, this just strikes me as kind of a Vinnie Del Negro problem or like a reverse Vinny Del Negro problem where like he was brought in to coach up the Eric Bledsoe, like Eric Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, Blake Griffin team. Then all of a sudden Chris Paul comes and it's a completely different situation.

Whereas Steve clearly showed like a brilliant like ability to take a team and see something different in it and organize them in a way that just brought out their best attributes. Now he's being tasked with something completely different, which is a rebuilding situation, whether or not they want to accept that or not. And if there is a criticism that I, like, wholeheartedly can agree with and get behind is just like that he hasn't adapted to the roster and what they have in front of them. He's still trying to recreate some of the ball movement, ball finds energy, motion stuff that, you know, read and react rather than, and this is the big topic du jour, I guess, pick and roll with James Wiseman and Steph Curry.

This seems to be almost like the battleground for a lot of like which side you are on in the Warriors kind of turf war here. Where do you guys fall, Sam, in terms of like maybe reorganizing the system, but also just like leaning more into pick and roll, which Steph apparently does spectacularly. I mean, look at this roster. They should be running kind of a pick and roll heavy, more traditional NBA type of roster.

At this point, James Wiseman, his biggest attribute is this athletic, and size, right? He's shown ability to kind of be a very productive dive man, hit a few spot-ups here and there. None of it's perfect, but it's like he can at least do that at an NBA level as opposed to, you know, some of these dribble handoffs are setting screens off ball, expecting him to kind of read the way the weak side defense is playing him to cut or anything. Like, he's so far away from being able to figure that out. And like, again, I don't know any 19-year-old big man who's really suited for that role.

anyway. It just seems to me, you know, we like to talk about coaches like Spolstra or Nick Nurse or Greg Popovich and like, yes, they're three of the best coaches in the NBA. They have now had how many different styles of rosters and played different variations of basketball. Steve Kerr in some ways, he always likes to talk about how like Phil Jackson and Greg Popovich, and all these guys are his mentors. And you can see little bits of everything in him. feels like distinctly Phil Jackson where it's like, this is my way. I don't care if it's, you will fit into it and or, or will bring in players who do. And I feel like that's what the worries have to decide on. They either need to make a decision. We want, you know, Steve's

not changing what he wants to do. So we need to target those players or figure out how you can get him to change it or bring in a new coach. Because this whole, you know, fitting a square peg into a round hole. I don't know how many more games that I can watch. Yeah, I mean, being like Greg Popovich, to me means putting pragmatism over taste. Right.

Like, Steve clearly does not have a taste for pound the rock, high pick and roll, James Harden's style basketball. He's made that very clear. Greg Popovich also has been on the record for a long time saying he hates threes, hates what they do to the game, hates their impact,

and yet the Spurs, especially in the early 2010s, right there at the top of the league in the top 10 and three point rate and stuff like that. getting Kerr to that point where he is more adaptive, where he's willing to do more pick and roll, where he's willing to do what this roster needs,

it does seem like such a far away for him to go, given the proclivity he's shown this season, I think. There's one last thing I want to throw in this. It's made worse by the fact that every fifth press conference, he mentions how they're going to play more pick and roll. You know, we're changing things up. I mean, I think there's been like 10 different recesses. that's on the Warriors season.

You know, it's like, we got to pull Wiseman out of the lineup. You know, he's going to learn more this way. Now he's starting. We're going more pick and roll. We're going more this way. You know, Jordan Poole has to do that. It feels like every five to 10 games we get like this like state of the union address where it's like going forward, we'll do this.

They do it for one to two games and it goes back to what they're doing beforehand. Yeah, I mean, the latest issue is now that Wiseman is starting, but he just didn't play that much in the most recent game against Atlanta. And so it just takes me back to just the original thing that we talked about, which I wonder if this is just an impossible task in order to bridge the divide between Steph and Dremont and Wiseman and all of these younger guys. And so it kind of brings me to the next possible suspect if we're dividing up the blame here. And I wonder how much it's the front office trying to really have their cake and eat it, too,

by building up the young guys while Simon. simultaneously still, not necessarily playing for a title because I don't know if anybody expected that, but at the very least, I think everyone was on record is saying we could be pretty good. I mean, they're still saying that they see themselves as like a top four team in the West. And so I wonder, like, does Steve have, and Andy, I'm curious your thoughts here, like, have like the raw materials in order to do this? Because I've watched that second unit and I look out there and I'm like, this is terrible. I'm a little surprised because we've had a lot, Sam and I do feel like we're on an island sometimes

with kind of the Warriors' criticism. And it's not Warriors' media fault because you got to protect the relationships. And national media is different because you guys, I'm a little surprised that you guys kind of view that way a little bit about Steve Kurt because we've seen a lot of national media

that's more, well, Clay's out, what can you do? Right. You guys have won a lot of titles. You've got to live with this, right? And, you know, let's see what happens next season when the reset kind of happens. I'm a little surprised because some of this has been simmering for a long time. If you look at kind of the coaching staff that the Warriors have today,

can you really look at the coaching staff and tell me that these guys have an elite, like idea, kind of developmental staff, right? You look at the names and like Brown's a cool dude. Or other teams trying to hire their guys is a better way to put it. Because in the early years, everyone was trying to hire everyone out of the wars. They took all of them now because Luke Walton is on the hot seat every year. Alvin didn't make it in New Orleans. It's nice to have Alvin back.

And I think that kind of goes to the front office, actually. Like some of the stats guys that the Warriors have had, some of the really, you can even go down to the metal. Jerry West is a famous name. Yes. Jerry West is a famous name, but there's really kind of some of the other names that I, like, Travis Schlank. I don't, like, you guys let me know if he's done a great job. I would say it's kind of okay. But it'd be nice to have Travis Slank on the Warriors front office right now.

like he'd be a guy that I think the warriors, frankly, they miss. So I just don't think that the warriors are that talented really, not just on the court, but in the front office and on the coaching staff that people might remember. Like, they're not light years. They're not, they might be light years behind at this point. They're running an antiquated, I think, system that I think was, they won them a title and helped them win a few titles and leered kind of Kevin Durant here. But since then, it's been kind of, it's been behind the times.

I mean, I just go back to what I was saying about Kerr there just a little bit, is I wonder if like this even applies to the front office that you could be good at one thing and not another thing. Whereas like, I guess Bob Myers did strike gold in that 2012 draft, but since then, like, the drafting hasn't been there. But his big moves in like in particular, like, learn Kevin Durant have been good. I think like getting DeAngelo Russell for, for literally nothing was a stroke of brilliance if you're willing to pay that price.

And he turned that into the wolves pick and Wiggins. But like, so there's just like, he's good at the big splashy moves and maybe the the like the existing players and net. But like scouting has just been a disaster where they haven't had a good draft picks in Tremont basically. Well, Wise Men, but yeah.

That's been a fun debate. Is it the drafting or the player development? And my boring answer is probably both. Yeah. I don't think either. I don't think either deserves like an A mark in any sort of. I think it's more development. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we can we can pick and point like it's hard to argue Wiseman over Lamello, but it's also hard to argue wiseman over Lamello. But it's also hard to argue why. Weisman should be as bad as he is also. So it's like that goes, that's kind of a strike against both of them. You pick the wrong guy and you're developing a wrong anyway.

So it's almost impossible to judge when you play this way, right? Like we can't even tell what James Wiseman is when you take a 19 year old and ask him to read split cuts and do things he's not. He's played very little meaningful basketball in his life before showing up to the Warriors. And you're asking him to run and help run one of the most sophisticated offenses in the NBA. It just that part never made sense to me. I think speaks to what we've been talking around here, which is kind of a disconnect between the way that the team is coached and the style they play and the way it was built.

If you want to say that's a disconnect between the front office and coaching, you can. If we want to say Steve is kind of in both camps at once, we can. It's a complex issue. I don't know how to make sense of it because this is a team that usually has a lot of synergy in how it's run. I was going to say, and the one thing I'm seeing now is, yeah, it does feel like there's more and more of a disconnect, right?

It's because it seems to me the front office is being ultra protective of their draft picks. And like really, it almost feels like Danny Angish, like with the Celtics or it's like they're waiting to make only that home run move. And in doing so, it feels like they pass on like all these marginal moves that would have just made them a little bit better. But it's like, you know, we don't want to trade for this guy because we want to get Anthony Davis. Like, well, yes, we all want to get Anthony Davis on our favorite team. But like that sort of thing, it seems like that's where like a big part of the disconnect is. I will say this in defense of Kerr too, where from the time that Clay goes down, they have a decision to make, which is do we want to run like kind of a one year improvisational offense that's more pick and roll based that's outside of what we do? Or are we building toward eventually him coming back and trying to contend again?

I can see the argument against completely changing what you do for a season and the hope. of eventually getting back to the offense they want to run. I guess it's a fair question to wonder, though, if they're ever going to be able to run that offense again if this is what the bulk of their team is going to look like. Yeah, that's the question, right? Like, if you have Igadala and Clay and Sean Livingston, but like, if you have those guys, you can run any offense mostly.

I mean, that's the optimal offense because Iggy can't shoot, Sean can't shoot, and some loony, right, like those guys. But you got to kind of change the idea of that. The craziest part is that the Warriors changed basketball. Steph Curry changed offense. Draymond Green changed defense. And then the rest of the league said, well, we're going to do kind of piss poor versions of that. And they caught, like, those versions have caught up and flew right by the Warriors.

Like the switching defense that every basketball team has done now just kind of, it works perfectly against the Warriors because you got Kent Bazmore handling the basketball. That's what happens. Right. like, Kent Bazelmore probably won't win any playoff games for you or any type of basketball games for you. But if you put him in a situation where he doesn't have to dribble the ball all the time, I think that's what we're arguing. That's kind of what we're arguing. It's that this season, the Warriors were never going to win a title. But they should not be four games under 500.

And they're going to be five tonight because they're playing the bucks who have been awesome in the last few weeks. So it's like, you cannot be four games with this team under 500. It's unacceptable. It really is. they kind of didn't do them any services because they basically built the model for like what teams want and now they haven't been able to find a shooter ever since like everybody wants a 3-indy guy and now it's becoming like it's impossible to really find those guys and if you want to get into the minutia of it the shooters they have they don't play you know that's the other thing about it's like you got damien lee who okay no one's gonna you know confuse him for clay thompson because there's really only one clay thompson but like 40% three-point shooter really good at moving off ball, has good synergy with Steph and Draymond. All lineup data points to when they're next to each other. It is generally above average to borderline elite offense.

He gets yo-yoed in and out of the lineup because they're prioritizing defense, a defense which hasn't really produced anything. I guess they're 10th in the NBA, but they have 109, 110 defensive rating. They're good at causing turnovers against bad teams. It's basically what they're good at. It comes back to like, you know, we're 50 games in and we haven't really learned anything about anyone other than Steph Curry is just as good as he was at age 27, 28. This kind of brings me to Jermon, though, because as revolutionary as Jemann has been on the defense event and like how much of a pop he gave them upon his return and like the ball started moving and the defense started looking good. And he was yelling at Wiseman and that looked cool because it seemed like he was coaching up these guys and really having an impact on thing.

I watch him and I'm like, why does he look like 40-year-old Jason kid without a three-pointer? Like, he's basically a pass for his point guard on the court now. And while like he's still absolutely brilliant, I love watching him just like destroyed things on defensive end sometimes. I'm just like, I don't know if you can really pay that much to that guy and still run a credible offense, especially because like, let's say you wanted to run pick and roll. Well, if you want Draymond out there, like you could see it even in that Hawks game where like the, like, the defenders were dragging basically into the paint. And he just has this ocean of space around him. And he just doesn't know what to do because he's not going to fire it up.

It's almost like you could build a moat in between the amount of space he has and still have space on either side of it because that's how much defenders just won't respect that. And so I do wonder to a certain extent if you're going to devote most of your cap space to staff Draymond Clay, well, Clay is out. And Draymond just doesn't seem like the same player anymore. And I do wonder, like, is that going to be an issue, Andy? what do you think, like, coming up here where, like, maybe Dremont isn't the future of this team if they can get things back together next year.

Which is, which makes the, which makes the Wiseman pick a little more curious. I actually liked the Wiseman pick. I thought, I thought it was fine. You know, I wasn't a huge Mello fan. But part of that, I think the problem with Dremont is, what are we asking for from him? Is it five shots a game? Is it 10 points a game? Because, I don't know, man.

It's not that hard. I'm not, it's hard for me. It's hard for Rob and Justin and Sam probably. But it's, it's not hard for Draymond to average 10 points. You are a freaking, you're a professional athlete. And I don't think it's, it's, we, I spent all season saying, if you just score 10 points a game. I don't care if you do it on 42% shooting. I don't care if you do it on 46, like 35% shooting, which is what he's shooting from the field right now, whatever it is, right?

I think it's mental. Like a lot of this stuff is mental. it's confident. So whose fault is that? Is that Dremont? Is that Steve Kerr? If you guys remember, and I'm sure you do, Dremont shot, I believe,

Sam, correct me, almost 40% from three. 38.8. 38.8. And since then, just downhill, right? And some of that's injury, but how much of that is injury? Because to me, it just feels mental

the way he's kind of just, he's a traffic cop, which is what Sam has said so many times. He's out there just, pointing at people what to do. It's awesome, though, when you have Uber and Wiggins, I think, and Wiseman, I think three of the dumbest players in the league that have no idea what they're doing. It's cool.

I think it's cool to an extent. But then it kind of maxes out right. You just need a guy that will shoot a five-foot floater. It's really not, you're not asking for the world. And I think that's the tough part. People say all, there's all this stuff with Trailmont. It's like, man, like, can you do this? It's not hard to score 10 points playing next to Steph Curry.

Steph Curry, there are three guys on them. It should not be that difficult. He makes it seem like it's pulling teeth sometimes. So, like, he makes a layup and you're like, oh, my God, he made a layup. Whereas it's a layup. And it's worth noting his best stretch of basketball this year is when they played him at the five. And when they put extra shooters in the lineup, again, like, they don't have elite shooting. But like, there's such a big difference between a guy who shoots 38, 39 percent, and, like, demands a close-out.

and Kelly Ubray and Loon, I mean, like, specifically like Loonie and some of these guys on the roster are just like, no one's even going to guard him. And that's literally when that stretch was going on, you know, the Warriors were playing, I don't know, like no worse basketball than, say, Portland or Dallas, which is probably the maximum ceiling of this specific year's roster without Clay Thompson anyway.

I guess I hesitate to blame Steve for this. It's just, it's tough when you got a player that just won't shoot. it's hard. Rob, you're the voice of reason here. So what do you think? Well, I just wish that Sam hadn't shattered the illusion of looking at Dramon's stats as we're going through this. I like to think you have the 38.8, like, tattooed on your bicep in immortality forever.

I mean, it just, look, it took Dramon like two months to be anything but an enormous problem on offense this season. Like, he had to really ramp up even to get to this level. That's just not an acceptable thing for your second. player to be. And there's reasons for that. We can go through that. But if that's your situation, you're going to be a mediocre team, especially when you're relying on young guys. You're relying on new guys who don't know the offense yet at the beginning of the season. You're relying on, as we've covered, guys who aren't suited to a read and react style. What Draymond does poorly, sandbags all

of these other problems to be even worse than they actually are. And so, you know, it's hard to run pick and roll with anyone but Draymond when he's on the floor because of the way defenses guard him. So there's just so many complications that come from his offense. I love his defense. I love his passing. And in terms of the long term, I don't know how you find another player who gives you what he does, especially if you're trying to get back to your style of play.

Those guys are hard to come by. You're probably better off plug in clay back in, hoping for the best and trying to piece together other trades, work around the edges. As much as anything, Draymond does kind of lock you into this style. And there is the other point, which is as long as you have Steph Curry,

you want another player on the floor who can handle the ball because you're just going to waste, you know, the stuff he does off ball if he has to be the, you know, pure point guard in the way that, like, you know, Chris Paul or someone else is. Like, he can do it, but you're wasting, I guess, what makes him more special than like Damian Lillard and some of these other scoring cards, right? So, so getting rid of Dremont, like, I mean, if Dremont's out of the lineup, they literally just have to go straight, you know, conventional pick and roll offense. don't see any other way they could even generate a shot, you know, run it through, uh, you know,

Looney in the pinch post or something like that. Like, yeah, sure, right, that's not going to work. But, um, that's another consideration. So like, you can't even move off of Draymond Green that easily. And that's ignoring the fact that like, he's probably still one of the two best defensive players in the league. He can definitely still play at that level. So he is kind of a difficult player, but like, it's hard to replace all the things he does. for the team. Yeah, I do think Andy's point about why would you draft Wiseman if you are committed to Draymond in the future is a really good one? Because, I mean, I didn't know shit about like these draft prospects. So I'm not going to pretend like I foresaw a lamella ball coming. But like he just

seems like exactly the type of player you would want in that system. And especially since the warriors kind of made their bones in the draft in recent years by just cycling through like first round, last pick of the draft, Big Man and just giving them a shot. Because that's what, you know, like so basically they pioneered this idea that like you can find centers anywhere and they're probably even more prevalent and easier to find these days. I don't know why even though Wiseman has all these skills and like potentially he could be something more and maybe he's like Anthony Davis five years from now. I don't know. But like it just seems like the type of style they want to play. It seems like Lamello would fit that. He seems Lamello strikes me as someone that's like evolutionary Sean

Livingston. And I would love to see those guys, that guy play with Steph and Dremont. We get back to the age old question or problem. It's kind of Steve Kerr. Does Steve Kerr really want to play the style that the Warriors played when they won? Like, it's that small ball style. I think they wanted to play the style with Boget where you kind of have that impossible to guard offense with five IQ guys. 100% he wants to play that style. But did he want to play the Draymond Green at the five style?

Because if we remember correctly, David Lee was supposed to be the starter. And Draymond Green, and he got hurt. and Draymond Green kind of took us, he kind of pipped him, right? He took his job because he was fantastic, and he's still fantastic. So I don't, that's kind of the question. And that Wiseman picks screams to me like,

and people keep saying Bob Myers, Bob Myers, Bob Myers, like, Bob Myers has nothing to do. Like, Bob Myers has no pool in the horse organization. He kind of just sits around and he'll say, yeah, I like wise, I like mellow. And then Steve Crow will say, well, I don't give a shit. Bob Myers has to manage both up and down. Yeah, he doesn't. He's a classic middle manager.

Classic. Hopefully Steve Kerr didn't want to do another edition of the Flying Coach podcast because I don't know if, uh, okay. So I think one thing that, Andy, Andy hit on this and I, you know, I don't want to go too deep into the rabbit hole, but I feel like, no, please, just jump in. When the chips are down, you know, you see someone's true character. And it's worth noting Steve coach, Steve Kerr is the, the person who broke up, seven seconds or less for Shaq. So I was getting there,

saying that's perfect, yep. And in game seven of the 2016 finals, for no explicit reason, plays Festus Azili in the fourth quarter. And, well, no,

actually, we know the reason. Come on. He thought they were, he thought they were getting killed on the, on the boards. Too early for this. They needed size.

Finally, he said it in other interviews. I mean, he's concerned with being able to match up with the Anthony Davis, Yokich's of the world. All of this is, completely in line, by the way, with, you know, Pop and Phil Jackson kind of all their, you know,

kind of orthodoxy on like the value of Biggs and everything in basketball. So I do think, you know, if the Wiseman pick goes sideways, everyone's going to start playing the blame game and saying, like, well, you know, I wanted to take Lamello, but, you know, the front office really wanted Wiseman, that sort of thing. And I just don't think you can do that. I think across the board, I'm not sure that they're as innovative with some of the things as they

claim to be. Like, innovative would have been taking Lamello ball and just being like, yeah, Dremont's going to play the five. We're going to do it. Good luck guarding Steph, Clay, Lamello, Dramon at the five, and we'll find a hyper-athletic wing to put at the

four position or something like that. Like how Wiggins is even in the picture here. Oh, yeah. Maybe he fits a hyper-athletic wing. Yeah. So, I mean, it all, it's, you know, we can debate it. I'm obviously not a huge fan of taking Biggs that high either, but it is what it is at this point. Well, what does the future look like for this team?

Because this year, I mean, maybe they salvage something in order to make something of a playoff run or play and run. But I think the bigger question is more on the horizon because this draft pick almost exacerbate. base the current divide here, the Wool's draft pick coming up here, where it's, if they get it this year, it's going to be a top three pick. And thus, is it top four protected or top three? Top three. Top three. Okay. So it's going to be a top three pick, which means they're going to be faced with the problem of drafting another top three guy or trading it. And then if they don't get it, they're kind of in a similar situation. Do they keep it or are they not? I guess that's the problem. Do they keep the draft pick?

Do they keep building through the draft or do they trade it in order to get help now? Do you guys have a feeling one way or another what you would want to see happen? If they keep the pick and they draft someone, two things. Number one, do you trust him to draft the right guy? Two, do you trust him to develop the guy the right way?

Like, that's like... Jalen Green, I think, is kind of like the name that I like throwing out there this season because he's the guy that the Warriors probably don't really like. And he's the guy that the prize won't really Warriors won't really be able to develop. Like he's a high talent guy. He's like Anthony Edwards,

like, but better, but more talented, more athletic, all of those. Anthony Edwards on St. Same type of player. Yeah, same type of player that the Warriors don't really like.

You're just like, I don't know. Like Lamello Ball, like you mentioned Justin is someone that he, that the Warriors would like, but you know, Steve has a grudge with his dad.

So, you know, that guy's not getting picked. And that's another problem. Uh, the war, so like, what the hell are we doing here?

Um, I think with all that being said, yeah, you got to trade the pick. Can you wait for a guy? And then that's if they get the pick. Can you wait for a guy again? And then they get their own pick, which is probably going to be in the lottery,

maybe in the middle lottery at this point. But then it's like, unless they're drafting Scotty Barnes, who again, can't shoot, but is smart, then what's the point of picking someone? I would trade those guys because the Wiseman stuff is just, it just says so much about this organization. It just says so much.

we're kind of missing the biggest point here. Steph Curry is still one of the five best players in the league. They need to go all in. Like I've tried to talk myself into the idea that they could pull off a spurs type thing where they draft Kauai Leonard and they're able to like never have to do that. And I'm just like 50 games into this, I'm like, I don't know how the spurs even pull that off. It's not happening. It's like how every.

team thought by bottoming out they would get, you know, Katie, Russell Westbrook and James Harden in consecutive drafts. And it's like, no, you're more likely to get like Mo Bamba and maybe Jonathan Isaac. And like, now you're just kind of sitting here wondering like, okay, we've got a couple nice players and a couple busts. But I think they need to go all in and just go for it. because it would be just such a shame to watch the rest of Seth's career be mired in, like, you know, mediocrity like this or from a warrior fan perspective, for him to want to leave in a year because it's like, you guys are rebuilding.

I'm going to go back to Charlotte. Oh, that would be a real blow considering the draft. Anyway, but, like, you know, insert, if he wants to leave, I'm sure he's not going to have a hard time finding a super team. So I just think the Warriors have to be realistic with themselves, which is like, this is the best player we have ever drafted. And, you know, he's like Mr. Warrior.

He's going to go down as the most beloved player in franchise history, right? And the best warrior of all time, right? Like, I mean, Katie and Wilt all have like brief stints there, you know? None of them have been Mr. like decade plus and like everything that Steph means. You got to go for it while he's still playing at this level. Yeah, they've got to trade that pick. And that does awful things to their leverage in those negotiations for trades. I don't know how you're expecting to get good value for it because everyone in the league knows the score here.

Right. I also wonder how much of that was in their plans with Wiseman the whole time, where if they looked at, you know, on draft day, they looked at their trade options. They didn't love them. They took Wiseman as a way to preserve the value of that spot saying, okay, this is a guy who we know will probably be more attractive to a wider variety of teams. than Lamello, who, for as great as he is, I think, had probably a higher bust potential than Wiseman did. Right. And so you basically kick that can down the road in terms of we have to make that decision

later. We don't like what's out there now. You know, this is the same franchise that swore up and down that it got DeAngelo Russell to pair with Steph because they wanted to see how the fit worked, not to trade him eventually. And of course, they traded him eventually. So it's a Ponzi scheme is what you're saying. It's just they keep kicking it down the road. DeAngelo becomes a draft pick.

the draft pick becomes something else. Right. Yeah. I mean, why not? And that's why I made the Celtics analogy, because I feel like they're so, you know, they don't want to sell low. They really, like, think they can pull off the home run.

And I just don't see where it's coming. You know, I mean, granted, there's like a star player who requests to trade every six months now. So maybe it does come. Who knows? But, like, I feel like that's their whole thing. Like, they didn't want to trade the number two pick for, I don't know, like Julius Randall or something like that,

which is probably like the best they were going to get on draft night, right? Like Julius Randall, the nine pick for the number two or something like that. It was like the level of offer that they were fielding. And they didn't want to do that. But it's like the longer this goes, the older Steph Curry gets. Well, let's rewind a bit for a second before we even get to next year's draft. You know, getting into the playoffs, I think, would be a huge. deal for some franchises.

You know, you got your Atlanta's and your Memphis and your Charlotte. Like those teams would kill to be the seventh seed to get in. We know that Golden State not making the playoffs or God, I mean, God forbid, not making the play in would be a disaster given, you know, what this franchise is and where they've been. But like Dremont said, I mean, it's hard to get, when you've been in the finals for five straight years, it's hard to get up for a play-end game. It's hard to motivate yourself for that being the end goal. if we know that missing the playoffs is a clear failure,

Andy, do you think making the playoffs would actually mean anything at this point? All of this is really about Steph, it is really what it's about. It's how do you capitalize on how great he's going to be the rest of his career? And I think people have said, well, you might as well just lose the rest of your games. And I think that's just kind of disrespectful to the guy that really he built a freaking chase center, which is just a billion-dollar stadium that Joe Lekam is going to make so much money off of. the next, you know, 20, 30 years. That's part of it, is that you're kind of just disrespecting the guy that brought you there.

And we're not asking, I don't know if Hessem and I are not asking for the world. We're not asking for a second round appearance. We're not asking for the Western Conference finals. At this point, we're asking for, can you just look like you belong on the same court? Because I don't know how often, God forbid, that you guys watch Warkona State Warriors games this season. Every time they play a contending team, they get blown off the floor within. in five minutes. Like tonight against the bucks,

I'll be happy if they don't, but they're going to be down 28 to 8. You might jinxed it into positivity. That is the point. Bill Simmons reverse chink is really what I'm trying to do. But like it's from day one to now, 50 games in, it is still that they get blown out off the floor

against a contending team. Do you really think that Clay Thompson fixes all that? As much as we all love Clay Thompson. That's, it's, it's disrespectful to Steph Curry. And really, it just, it says so much about what you're doing as a coach. Play with two repaired legs, by the way. Yeah.

Like the guy can barely walk right now, and you expect him to solve the issues that you have against. Like the Utah Jazz, they can't even stay on the floor against. And I don't even know of the Utah Jazz. They're like this NBA title, like, like, confirmed title content.

I don't know. It's a lot. Like, it's a lot to see them just struggle. Like, 50 points to the Raptors who have lost 13 of the last 14. 50 points? What is that?

Let me ask you guys this. Because, like, I think we're all in agreement here. Even if they make the playoffs, we're not getting like, you know, Cinderella run to the finals or something like that. Do you think it matters in their ability to attract players next year? Because to me, the biggest case for making the playoffs and let's maybe making some noise, maybe they can scare Utah, push them, you know, seven games, and everyone will walk away from it being like, man,

they have just a little more talent. They're right through that team. Do you think that matters in their ability to both attract free agents and they're limited in that capacity? But more so be like the next star who demands a trade is going to have to kind of make it known that like they want to go to the Warriors for this to happen. Does this even matter? Or are players beyond that to the point where they're like, as long as Steph Curry is

there, I want to be there or not? Yeah, I think Steph, being Steph again, probably matters more than anything else. I think it's just stars want to play with other stars. And like, I can't imagine Bradley Beal's like firing up league pass tonight and just like watching, turning into the box game. And like, if they don't compete, like, I don't know if that's going to. Yeah, right. Exactly. I mean, I would be if I was Beal, for instance, since it seems like he is probably the most likely suspect this summer as a, as a possible target, I'd be more concerned about Draymond saying shit like he was saying the other day, basically saying, like, I won't get up for the play in

tournament, because what has he dealt with in Washington? If not, just like players, I mean, to a certain extent, perennial playing tournament. Yeah, right. Exactly. It's just like, his problem is just, like, motivating guys in order to get something together. I would be curious to see what he thinks about Dremont, just like not wanting to put the work in in order to, like, coach up some of these other guys. That, that to me is just like, I don't understand that. And I wonder if that's pervasive. I wonder if we're talking about like some of the issues of this team. I do wonder if perhaps like just the mindset of someone like Draymond being like, I don't do this middle of the road shit.

Like that trickles down to some of these other guys. And it just like it creates this situation where when you are at the middle of the road, that is a terrible place to be. It almost compounds all the issues we're talking about. Andrew Wiggins probably looking at this like, oh, this is pretty sweet. Exactly. I kind of like it guys. Like I'm playing pretty well.

Right. And so when they have that, I guess the vets got pissed off when they blew that Raptors game. I don't know how you can have that, but also have the Dremont comment simultaneously. It's just they're in another world, it seems like. Well, I do think in terms of the free agent part two, we should hit on the league-wide respect level for Clay is super high. And I think players by default err on the side of giving other players the benefit of the doubt in terms of coming back from injury and stuff like that. and those two things combined, I think a lot of other stars,

guys on other teams, they would do their due diligence, they would ask questions about how Clay's doing, how far is he along really? And I mean, the realistic part is we just don't know if we're going to get 50% Clay Thompson

or 80% Clay Thompson. There's a really wide range of possibilities there. But in terms of what other stars think, I think they would err on closer to Clay being Clay again, which is a pretty attractive thing to want to play next to, especially if you're a star who could fill in for some of what the Warriors need.

I mean, how many players in this team do we, you know, as we talked about earlier, do we trust to dribble right now? I think that list is pretty small. And so if you're a Brad Beal, a guy who can do some of those things, you may not look at the warrior situation as being that problematic.

Yeah, I mean, if you want to go darkest timeline real quick, Steph, I believe, is a free agent, two summers from now. One summer from now, 2002, yeah. Right, yeah, if we're counting this, yeah, right.

So do you guys worry about that? at all, especially as you get some of these LeBron is talking to Steph pseudo breaking news stories. That's a good one. That was a good one. The LeBron one doesn't worry me. I guess a little bit. I'm also kind of like

I like I like the noise. I feel like the front office needs a little pressure. They need to let's call it out of this. They've been pretty lucky. Like, Steph does not put pressure on them the way other stars around the leagues of his stature do.

And he plays like the good soldier more times. Which is actually a good thing, I think. It is a good thing. It's probably, it's probably the biggest reason for their sustained success over the O, oh, or the 10, do we call it the tens? I never know what to call it. I have no idea. You almost like the odds.

Yeah, it's, and it, whatever. I, the downside to that is, you know, the front office is definitely trying to long view this. Like, whether you think they're really. thinking about like a Wiseman Jalen Sugg's future, or they're just trying to play that game so that they can get the best trade possible. They're posturing that they're not going to make a desperation deal,

for sure. Like, they're not throwing everything they have to get Miles Turner or something like that, you know, which would be like, I guess, kind of like a buy high thing where you like throw up all. Could have just had them for Wiseman. Yeah. Could have just had them.

It comes back to, you know, it is a little worrisome, but I like the noise. I think the noise is good because at some point you're going to have to deal with that and anything to kind of force them to be a little more aggressive is probably good. The LeBron Steph thing reminded me, I can't believe we haven't gotten into this yet because if there was ever a storyline that seemed like it was out of the Light Years Labs, it would be James Wiseman and KD having a constant communication. I'm curious to get y'all's take on on that particular relationship,

which is understandably interesting to Warriors fans. Whoa, that's your boy, Sam. So, tell him. Stop. Stop. I actually, he was referencing an overtime video, which I happened to have seen previously. I don't know. I was on a, you know, James Wiseman YouTube rabbit hole one day.

Anyway. As one does during these times. Hey, got to look for signs of positivity in any way, any way you can find them. I'm going to just pulling up high school film to remind myself he is super talented. Isn't that just kind of how it goes in the league, though? Like all these guys who come through AAU circuit,

particularly guys who are known to be like future top 10, top five picks from age like 15 or 16, which James Wiseman was. There's not a lot of guys who are seven feet with that level of athleticism and coordination, like on the planet, period. It doesn't surprise me, but it's just, it's a reminder that you can't just assume

what happens on other teams and with other players, like doesn't affect you with the Warriors. You know, like the Warriors, I think have loved to feel like they have this insulated bubble that keeps them outside of the drama you see like with like James Hardin demanding a trade or like all these things, which all come from the same place of like players talking to other players

and feeling emboldened about like they're unhappy in their certain situation. So I just think the Wiseman KD thing is like kind of another reminder of that. I think Rob was trying to go somewhere else or he's not. I don't care. Yeah, I didn't take the base. Katie didn't like Steve. Like he liked him in the beginning, but I think by the time

by the time he had left, he didn't like the way that Steve coach and I mean, he didn't like a lot of things because that's fucking, that's Kevin Durant. It's whines about anything. He didn't like the system that the Warriors were running because he felt like,

hey, we're going to win anyways because we're amazingly talented, but there needs to be a little flet. And he said it on the record. So this is, I don't think, he even needs to be sourced. Oh, yeah. I remember those press conferences

where he would criticize the coaching and everyone's like, I mean, everyone was like, does this mean he's leaving? Because obviously, that's the first thing you think of. But like,

in retrospect, maybe we should have took him, maybe we should have took him a little more at face value of having issues. Because he was right. He was right. It just didn't matter. Like,

we didn't care. I think, I think we, I always say the Warriors would have beat Houston in five if they had just run pick and roll instead of taking the seven games. Like, I always say that.

But, Who cares? They won. Like, who gives... This is not LeBron, right? You win, you win. You don't... Even if you lose, you don't make things up to say that you could have won. Like, you win, you win.

That's what matters. But I think you look back now, and this is... I don't know if there's a revisionist history or not, but you listen to what KD said and his thing was, yeah, we just need to be a little more flexible offensively because we probably could win these games easier if we did. More isolation, more, like things like that. I don't know if he's wrong at the time,

but he's definitely not wrong now. And I think that's that's kind of the point. And hopefully he's not telling Wiseman that because we still want Wiseman to be to be good and fun. But you see Wiseman moping out there all day long? Maybe I'll blame that on KD Sam. Maybe that's what I'll do because that's a that's a KD staple of fucking moping all the time. Relax. Maybe Katie was like the cue for this entire blow up.

Like he was dropping hints all along, man. Like Kerr can't coach pick and roll November 7th. next level destruction, like doing it from his his penthouse somewhere in New York, just destroying everything. Yeah. Yeah, this is bad. It might get worse if we find out that Looney is silently talking to Michael Rappaport every day as well. Oh, man. So perhaps there's a worse floor here. I don't know. Let's leave it at that. Thank you so much for joining us, Sam and Andy. We could hear you on the Light Years pod. Anything

else you guys want to plug that's it check out light ears can find an apple spotify anywhere thanks guys definitely on spotify for sure all right thanks guys for joining this uh rob and i will be back week until then uh we'll see it