The Ringer NBA Show - What Happened to Rivalries in the NBA? | The Answer

Episode Date: January 8, 2021

Chris Ryan is joined by Ben Detrick of ‘Cookies: A Basketball Podcast’ to discuss the Nets' defeat of the 76ers without Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant and to attempt to figure out what happened to team rivalries within the NBA. Later, Chris is joined by The Ringer’s J. Kyle Mann to break down player rivalries within the current NBA landscape (26:00). Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Ben Detrick and J. Kyle Mann Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone. Welcome to today's episode of the Ringer NBA show. It's The Answer. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm your host. And we recorded this podcast on Thursday night following the Sixers game against the Nets. I talked with Ben Dietrich about the state of NBA rivalries. And a little bit later you'll hear a chat I had with Kyle Mann about the state of NBA player rivalries throughout the league. But we recorded this podcast before we heard the news on Thursday night that Seth Curry had tested positive for COVID-19. Curry was in attendance with the Sixers at the sixers. this Nets game. He apparently sat on the bench for the first quarter. He had been ruled out of the game with what was reported to be an ankle injury, but returned a positive coronavirus test during the game and was sent into isolation. This is obviously going to have a lot of ripple effects throughout the league in terms of what it means for the Nets and what it means for the Sixers, but the most important thing is that people stay healthy and we wish Seth a speedy recovery and we're thinking about everybody out there. This is an incredibly difficult NBA season to manage from a logistical level, keeping everybody healthy, keeping everybody safe.

It's just, it's unlike anything we've kind of dealt with before. And this is one of those that's going to really be a stress test for the league and a stress test for these teams. And we hope everything works out okay. So let's get into this podcast anyway. We still talked about the game itself, which the Sixers lost, and what it meant for the state of Eastern Conference rivalries, whether the NBA still had rivalries. We had a fun conversation about that.

But we did want to shout out the developing news story that we had. So let's get into the show. What's up, everybody? Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. It's The Answer. My name is Chris Ryan. Thanks for staying with us throughout the holiday break. We're back now.

And today's show is about rivalries. On this show, we try to answer big questions facing the NBA. And the biggest one that I've had this first few weeks of the season watching is what happened to rivalries? I know that that makes me sound 1,000 years old. And I'm just like watching bare knuckle boxing matches in my spare time. It's not about that. It's not about guys getting thrown around. I'm just kind of curious whether or not we've figured out a way to play this game without like competitive spirit in some ways.

Now, I think that everybody goes out there and they try to win and they try to do their best and they're mitigating circumstances, obviously with what things that are going on in society with COVID and the political, sociopolitical situation. But then there's also just like the realities of the way the game is played now and the way the game is reft and the way the game is coached. And I wanted to kind of unpack that a little bit, because when you watch these games obviously happening in these empty stadiums in these crazy adverse circumstances, I think that you would be forgiven for being like this, these feel a little bit preseasony to me. They feel a little bit pickupy to me. And that's not necessarily a bad thing because I think the basketball can be excellent from night to night. But I talked to Ben Dietrich tonight, my buddy, a rare contributor and a podcaster on his own who does a pie called Cookie's Hoops. And we talked about the Sixers Nets game that happened on Thursday night where the Nets pretty handily handled the Sixers

who were coming off the other side of a back-to-back where they beat the Wizards, barely, barely Biel went off. And the Nets were without Kyrie and KD. And they just handled the Sixers. And the Sixers who were coming in as number one defense did not look like that at all. Now the Sixers were missing Seth Curry, but the Nets were missing Kyrie and KD.

Kiree, it's being reported that it was personal reasons. We're starting to get reports as we're recording now. Malika Andrews reporting that Kyrie Irving will not fly with the Nets to Memphis tonight, according to a team spokesperson. So obviously that situation is developing, as Kyrie situations tend to do. But the point remains the same. We're kind of trying to figure out what's going on with rivalries, and we wanted to do it by looking first through the lens of the Sixers Nets game on Thursday night. And then I wanted to talk to Kyle Mann a little bit about whether or not if the teams don't have rivalries anymore, if there don't seem to be any great rivalries between a Lakers and a Lakers and a, a Celtics right now. Do the players have rivalries? So let's get into this week's episode of the

answer with my guest, Ben Bittrick and then Kyle Mann. All right, I am now joined by my buddy Ben Dietrich. You may know Ben from his work for The Ringer. He's done incredible work for us, including many pieces extolling Nerlin's Noel's advanced analytics value and also a couple of investigative pieces that you may remember, like his deep dive into Brian Colangelo's social media activity. And I'm I'm so happy to be joined by Ben so that we can talk about rivalries in the NBA. What's going on, Ben? Hey, thanks for having me. Good to be back.

And it's normal basketball right now. Yeah, I know, right? And everybody should be listening to Ben's pod, Cookies Hoops, which is a fantastic one. I actually just ordered some merch, to be completely honest. Thank you very much. That's very, very supportive. I like to support small businesses, you know what I mean? Ben, we just watched the Sixers and the Nets.

I had asked you to come on the show to talk about this game because I I had high hopes. I had thought that we were going to get a clash of two Atlantic division powers that we were going to see Kyrie and Kady versus Joel and Ben, the flashy new money offense of Brooklyn, the stout Philly defense number one ranked in the league. And sometime around when Bradley Beale put 60 on the Sixers last night, I had a feeling this was not going to be the game I thought it was going to be.

And then right before the game started, obviously Kyrie, I think pulled himself out is the best way to say, pulled himself out of the game. There was some confusion in the beginning because obviously he had not really communicated with Steve Nash or Nash. He reached out to Kyrie to find out what the personal reasons were from missing the game.

I don't really know if there's really much to comment on that. As we're recording now at like 7.30, West Coast time on Thursday night. We haven't really heard an official reason for why Kyrie missed the game. But we're both like pretty pro-Kairie guys and like I'm sure this is just kind of like part of the bargain, right? Yeah, I mean, I think you have to give credit

to Steve Nash for the strategy of disappearing. Harry Irving and Kevin Durant and deflating the Sixers before this big national game. I mean, an absolute genius of coaching strategy and it paid off for the Nets tonight. That's right. And then, you know, they roll out this ABA team, basically. They go back to the Metalands uniforms, the Sky Blue Nets jerseys. And they actually got themselves like a watchable basketball court tonight.

Like I've had a lot of like, am I having a stroke moments watching Nets games this year? But the court looked great. The uniforms look great. Jared Allen looked great. Levert looked great. And Joe Harris shot his mind out. And the Sixers were just in hell all night. Yeah, you may have been trying to tune in for the superstars.

I was there for the Dakota Mathias Joe Harris Showdown. And I only got it from one side. Dakota did not show up tonight. And I have the question if you wanted enough. Yeah, I saw some folks at our Slack view. I think Dan Devive was like, I've officially gotten my first, who the fuck is this guy? of the NBA season.

And Dakota Matthias, I don't even think I remember seeing him in preseason for the Sixers. I was excited for a little Isaiah Joe action, though. It was cool to see him out there. I mean, as a Sixer fan,

I will say, the main takeaway from tonight was the Tyrese Maxie two for one. He did it twice. He went down. I think he hit a three. He went in for a floater and then they got an extra possession.

That's what you want out of a game like this. The rest, you absolutely totally forget your 2020 throwback performance. Right. So Katie out for COVID protocol purposes, Kyrie out for personal reasons.

The Nets still tag the Sixers. Are we just at a point with this NBA season, which I kind of want to talk about more broadly speaking, where we just shouldn't have any high expectations for any game because anything can happen. And all these games are kind of like at 65% of their normal importance to these guys. Yeah, when all the players who were invited to the bubble showed up, there was a lot more, I guess, focus.

and importance to the games, not only because of the Black Lives Matter movement, but also the commitment to going into the bubble and the conversations about what that meant for these guys and the sacrifice and the commitment. This is just much more like regular early season basketball where they only played a handful of games in the preseason, two or three or four.

So we've seen really lopsided and unexpected victories or losses, just margins in games, 50 points at the half. and we're seeing a lot of guys resting. I feel like we need to just be very tranquil here as fans and not get too excited or too devastated by losses because I think you're going to get these kind of results. Philly went out. I think they put up somewhere in like the mid-20s

in terms of three-pointers didn't make them. What do you want to take away from that? You know, they wanted to play against KD. They wanted to play against Karee. They weren't there. They're coming off a back-to-back. I don't think that's worth getting upset about if you are a Sixers fan. And if you're the Nets, hey, you can be happy.

That's a nice victory. You beat a team that was top in the conference without your big guns. Hey, that's cool. It's kind of a nice everybody wins. I feel like the Nets are actually taking this season exactly right. Like the Nets are like the coolest 500 team I've ever seen. Or maybe they're a game above 500 now. And, you know, like some nights their guys are there and some nights they're not.

And when everybody's clicking and everybody's there, they look like this well-oiled offensive machine that's capable of scoring 140, 150 points. And if they're not, they're not. Nobody seems to really mind that much. So far, this team is kind of like avoided a lot of the scrutiny that super teams often get. Have you noticed that yet?

I think it's because they're still almost theoretical. They didn't have the two guys they were supposed to have last year by design. We knew KD was going to sit out. And then Karee got hurt. and kind of just ended the season. So there's still almost an idea. And we saw them in the early games in the season just annihilate people. And we know their firepower.

What I think is most interesting about the Mets is they're not really constructed like a lot of championship contenders and that they are really just kind of a temple to shot making. They have these two completely abnormal scores that are the best at what they do. Like the best ball handler and difficult shot maker ever and the most unstoppable, tall, weirdo shotmaker in history. There's not a Draymond green as connective tissue to tie this together. There's not a Scotty Pippin.

There's not a Rodman. It's just kind of a, again, it's an idea. Can these guys score so well that they beat you? Maybe. Do you think that they eventually are going to need to get a Rodman-Pippen Drayman figure? Or do you think Jared Allen can be that? Do you think that their benchmob can be that?

And they can kind of forge their identity? Have we gotten to the point with basketball where you could actually win a title with a team like that? That's what I'm really curious about, because it does strike me as a different model. And maybe, to your point, someone like Jared Allen, who is a very solid player, can just become that kind of bulwark in their defense. But across the board, I do feel like at some point they'll have to make a move to bring in maybe another wing defender. Just so many guys on that team really are score first. I like Karris Levert as a player, but I would hate to be on his team.

He has that, like he gets the ball and he hunches down and he kind of stares at the floor and he's always just kind of trying to run into the lane. And I don't know if that really works with their other talent. They kind of need a Ricky Rubio in the mix. Someone to just sort of set back and make an extra pass every now and then. I'll say, though, it's kind of cool to have Karris Levert, your back pocket if you have nights where Kyrie and KD

are like, we're doing the buddy system and we're not playing together tonight. I'm a fan of his game, but yeah, there's something that's so incredibly ball dominant about just how he looks on the court. It's like he's like a little hermit crab, like holding the ball and no one else can happen. So you are one of my favorite Twitter follows, specifically because I often can't tell if it's a bit or not, but you have like really like very clear aesthetic and analytical ideas about how the Sixers should be playing, how they should be constructed. I think that like Daryl Morey when he came in and added the shooting around Joel and Ben and then Rivers comes in and obviously has already started to do some Tobias Harris rehabilitation work, which has obviously led to the Sixers along with the Cupcake Schedule, having a really good record coming out of the blocks here. What do you see from the Sixers? How enthusiastic are you?

How much confidence do you have in what you're seeing? You know, I thought that the duo of Ben and Joe has been vilified and second guest for too long. We saw from the moment they stepped foot in the league that they can put 50 wins on the board if they're healthy, even as extremely young players. Yeah. And I thought that with Jimmy Butler, that was absolutely a championship core. And I'm validated. Excuse me.

I'm not necessarily validated. I mean, it's validating for them, not me, to see that when they are, out there with guys who fit better, it works a lot better. Like, I don't mean it for my own opinion. I mean, for the criticism that's been, I mean, it's been really relentless towards those guys. They get it all the time for a couple of guys who've only been in two postseason together. And who were really young, and whose window got like accelerated, I think, a lot by all

the transactional craziness happening around them and like the desire to bring in the Horford's and the butlers. It kind of made you think, oh, well, these guys must be ready to to title tomorrow, and that probably wasn't the case. Yeah, and I think just simplifying the offense and having guys who like to score from different areas of real estate, guys who like to shoot threes, and guys who command gravity from areas that are outside of the paint, it really does show how powerful Ben and Joe are at making defenses react and respect, like, where they are physically on the court.

I will say tonight you saw how frail they are in some ways when they don't have shooters because it really did look like a 2020 throwback. Yeah, no Seth Curry, right. About Seth Curry, you saw guys sort of meandering into the lane, holding the ball, throwing sloppy passes, everyone kind of trying to post up simultaneously, and they don't have a lot of shooting.

It's also worth mentioning that tonight they didn't have Fercon Cork Mazz and they didn't have Mike Scott. Not that those guys are a huge difference makers, But those are their shooters. So they really were very 2020 tonight. So it's interesting because, like, I think for almost any loss in the NBA right now, we could probably go, it would be like, well, second night of backpack. And they didn't have Caruso, you know?

Like, you could go around and you could, like, kind of do an audit of any NBA loss and try to figure out, like, why it happened. But, you know, for guys like us who I think probably were raised on 90s basketball and have these sort of romantic notions about, like, what we're supposed to be watching, even if those things are like really only based on a couple of Nick series from like our memories. I think I like to the idea that every night like teams are trying to go out and basically like they're trying to destroy the team on the other side of the of the court.

And I don't think we always see that. And I think that like I'm grown up enough to recognize that like not every night is going to be Thunderdome. But where do you kind of pin the like competitive nature of the NBA right now? Do you think it's in a healthy place? Do you think it's a little too lax? It's hard to answer this question coming now with the socio-political climate that we're as well. Sure.

Are we supposed to want young black men at each other's throats on TV? Again, I'm not saying that it's a difference when it's sports, but still I have trouble saying they get along too well. No, it's actually, I'm not advocating for like, the Knicks, like the sort of Van Gundy Riley Nix style stuff, as much as I'm like, we've seen a lot of blowouts this year. So I feel like we're seeing a lot of teams kind of being like, we're down 12, man, fuck this.

Like let's just tap out here. And I think also like the NBA is in that weird zone, right? Where I think we talk about it like is the NFL, but we understand that it's basically like more closer to baseball in terms of the way the season evolves. And I was kind of thinking with these baseball style series that some of the teams are going to have in their schedule, that it might be kind of interesting to see a team see the same competition twice in three days. And that like,

you might get some more interesting, not testy or combative, but like basically hard fought games. Right, right. I mean, I wasn't even really talking about like violence per se, just almost more that people have their minds on larger things as well. And sports can be a release or it can be something that gets put on the back burner. And it's hard to know where someone's mind is at in a pandemic while there's, you know, people running up in the Capitol. Like, like, I think Chris Weber, who, you know, is not necessarily the greatest announcer, but did make some great points where he said, hey, some technical fouls and some turnovers

and some, you know, block shots. That's great to have that right now. Yeah. And I thought that was a nice point he made. But to your point about having back-to-backs, we will see a lot of players sitting out. But I thought one nuance from the Sixers Charlotte back to back was that you saw the strategy change a little bit. And maybe it did have that impact of kind of a series where you say, all right, they kicked our ass last night by going into the post. Let's double harder and dare this guy to shoot.

And especially now when guys aren't being necessarily game planned for every single night. Just having two days of game planning might add wrinkles that you wouldn't otherwise see. Yeah. And then you have to add in the fact. that these guys are not going in and facing any kind of like hostility from a home crowd if they're on the road. So I think that that is a huge thing.

And I do wonder about a game like tonight that was supposed to be on national TV. Kyrie and Kady aren't playing. There's no crowd. You're not going out to dinner in New York City. You're not going out afterwards to a party. Yeah. Like it really just like,

you know, the New York Nightlife, L.A. Nightlife, undefeated. I'm like, defeated. Yeah. I know. I know. Just non-factor. Yeah. There's no more, no more Phoenix flu, no more Toronto flu, like no more any of those things. Do you feel like we have any good team rivalries in the NBA right now? Like if you had to pick one that you're particularly fond of or that you always like kind of circle, like, I want to watch these two go out of. Who would it be?

I mean, I really, I enjoy how dislike the clippers already are. Yeah. despite the fact they have only been an entity for a year and change. You could say there's like Clippers Dallas rivalry. There's Clippers Lakers rivalry, Clippers' Sons. Yeah. Just everyone just kind of hates the Clippers. I still feel like we have some residual Clippers Blazers from P.G.'s time in the Thunder.

Yeah. I mean, I think that like I'm actually like, I probably still have the bubble on the brain because I'm like really looking forward to Denver, Utah, Denver, L.A. I feel like those games specifically like Denver played so many close and crazy games in the bubble that like I can't wait to watch them reenact some of that stuff. And obviously they've gotten off to kind of a slow start, probably because they had a really long draining bubble for a young team and then wound up losing a lot of their depth in the off season. But you know, for me it's like I think that I have maybe it's like as a Philadelphian, I need to have like some sort of adversarial relationship for the team. that I cheer for. So it's like just so used to having it be like Eagles Cowboys, Eagles Giants.

I'm used to the Phillies hating the Mets and the Braves. And it's strange to have it be like the Sixers are going to kind of glide through it. They're going to have good nights and bad nights. But it doesn't really matter who they play. Like I think that there should be like a great Sixers Celtics rivalry, but I don't feel like it's there. I feel like Sixers Celtics is pretty good. Sixers heat or some juice.

Yeah, it's coming back around. Yeah, divisive character. I love Jimmy Butler. I think he's the perfect kind of rogue for this kind of antagonism. He's great. The real problem here is the Bucks. They are the problem.

Why? They're really good and kind of no one cares that much. They've been fantastic for two years straight, but they've never gone to the finals. Who hates the Bucks? Well, here's my pet theory about that. this. Three-pointers are ruining rivalries. Because, for one thing, this is so boomer.

It's so boomer. It's so boomer. But it's like when I was a lad, we had to walk up backwards up the hill to get to work. No, if you take a lot of threes, you're not getting in the paint that much. Let's just stipulate that. Although I know that that's not the case. But like, a lot of this action happening out on the perimeter eliminates some of the contact that I think is what leads to people being like, don't fucking do that next time. You know what I mean? and also with these guys like being able to, if they get hot

and shoot 48% from three for the first three quarters of the game, but chances are, fourth quarter is not going to matter because the team bucks are going to be up by like 22 and the other team is going to tap out. So my big thing is that Daryl

ruined NBA Robbins. I think there is absolutely some truth there. And I think it's also tied to the fact that fouls are down. Yeah. As a result, there's less foul shots. There's less contact.

When people go back and talk about the physicality of the 90s, one thing they don't look at is how many foul shots guys like Carl Malone or Sean Kemp or Charles Barkley took. We think of it all in terms of someone just getting hammered and driving their teeth into the hardwood or whatever. But like those guys just sat around and took foul shots all the game. Like it kind of sucked. They just sat there and took free throws.

And that doesn't happen anymore. Barkley was roasting and beat in Simmons tonight. That is true. Barkley spent like most of his life shooting foul shots. I mean, I'm not going to look it up, but he had like a 60 or 70% free throw rate or something. It was just outrageous. All they did was take foul shots.

But to your point, if you're not hacking someone, you're not necessarily going to start, you know, tangling up your elbows, throwing your linguine limbs around, and then, you know, someone gets elbowed. I was at Iverson games where the crowd would just go into an absolute frenzy when he would hit the deck. and he would hit the deck seven to ten times a game.

But people would start screaming at the refs and screaming at the pistons or did it. And it would just get like, it brought out like a different side of a basketball crowd. But I understand like, you know, there's a lot of mitigating factors that are affecting it. But also though, just one other point where I think you are accurate here about this is that

there's so much emphasis on transition defense now and getting back. So you don't necessarily have people streaking down and just windmill dunking on people's heads that much anymore. Right. and then like staring down the opposing bench. Like there's a lot less like vicious transition dunks where you can really straddle your opponent

and look him right in his eyes and let him know that you're Scotty Pippen. We need Harden to start staring down benches after getting his kickout three point foul. Like when he gets hacked, when he flops on a three, he should just stare down a bench. Ben, if you, I want to hold you to anything,

but even given tonight's performance, which was less and stellar, where do you see the six years sort of? of settling in at the end of the season. What seed do you see them at? How far do you think this team can go? I was going to guess, I would say they're probably a three seed. I think they're in the same category as Boston.

I think they're probably not going to have the same record as the Bucks at the end of the year. But I could be wrong about that. I do think so much comes down to the health, specifically of Joelle and Bede, just because their team right now is really built around him. And if there's one concern about the Sixers, it's that they don't have an Al Horford who can shoot threes. They don't have a stretch five. I don't know if you're going to get great offense if Joe is out and you have Ben and Dwight in your starting lineup. Maybe they can tinker with it and they can get more shooting on the court.

But just the results thus far, I think they're offensive rating with Dwight on the court is like a 99. They're like negative 10 net rating with Dwight out there. the defense will be okay. But that's my concern with Philly. The thing is Dwight himself is a one-man rivalry maker anyway. I was just like even today getting the ball thrown at him by TLC. It was just great to see. He is definitely a throwback.

He's just all elbows and shoulders. And he might set a record for offensive fouls per minute's played this year. It's just outlandish. I mean, he could do it before the All-Star break. It's going to be nuts. I want to say he's got like 11 in the, in eight games.

Ben, thank you so much for joining me. We'll have to have you back on. People can check your stuff out on the Cookies Hoops Pod and you write for the ringer from time to time and various other places.

Thanks so much for joining me. Oh, thanks for having, man. I appreciate it. All right, now I'm joined by the ringers Kyle, man. Kyle, what's going on, man?

Not too much, man. Usually people throw the J on there at the beginning year. Do you prefer J. Kyle, man? I always tell people, man, the funniest thing of it's come full circle because my mom always says when I was born,

she wanted to call me Jay Kyle Man, went my entire life all the way to 33 years old, never was called Jay Kyle Man. And then that's all people call me. So I don't know, I'm doing. Me and your mom, like, we differ in this. So I'm going to call you Kyle. And Kyle does these amazing videos for our YouTube page over on the ringer.

You should subscribe to our YouTube page and check out his basketball vids that he does where he breaks down a lot of, whether it's historical, looks at basketball or peeks into some drafts, prospects or breaking down the style of play that some guys have right now. And the reason why I wanted you to come on was I feel like you have a fairly great grasp of basketball history and also might have something to say about this idea of player rivalries. So I talked to Ben Dietrich a little bit

about emerging team on team rivalries in the NBA, which I think the NBA as a sport kind of lacks a little bit, maybe doesn't have the way college football certainly does, college basketball does, and the NFL does with like your Ravens versus Steelers or your Eagles versus Cowboys or Niners Seahawks or something like that. I don't really feel like the NBA has that many really potent rivalries on team basis, but I do think that there are rivalries between players,

even if the players don't know it themselves. So why do you think it is that we feel the need to connect players in this league and have them be foils for one another? Well, I mean, players get connected. for a lot of different reasons. You know, every, and sometimes it can just be just by chance.

You know, we talk about, you know, some of the ones throughout history, I mean, like Jordan and Bowie, you know, Bowie, Bowie didn't ask for that. Obviously, I could attest that he doesn't seem to be wired the same way as Jordan, and he just kind of walked into this, like, thing that was going to be held over his head for the rest of his career, and then you get things like Durant and Greg Oden. Yeah. Just by a matter of being drafted the same year. and I sent you a text about how I thought it was interesting that, you know, Anthony Davis is a guy that doesn't really get compared to anybody, like, just because he, and it's just an example of how just kind of like by chance this is that like even if guys are different ages or not on the same level, you know, Davis was in sort of a weaker draft. So he just doesn't really have any of that baggage that follows him around, you know, in the same way, even though we compare like Zion and Morant, even though those two aren't really at odds. I do have some theories.

Well, the whole reason why, I mean, you brought up Odin and Durant, you brought up Jahn and Zion. The reason why I actually wanted to talk about this was I feel like one of the things that was starting to emerge over the first few weeks of this season was Tray Young maybe closing the gap on Luca Dantrish a little bit. And that was supposed to be this, you know, absolutely catastrophic trade that the Hawks had made. That was supposed to be like a franchise torpedoing mistake on the part of the Sons and the Kings to pass on Dantzich. And while, I still think Luca is amazing and I'm fairly certain he'll win an MVP

in the next five years and Dallas will be able to play off basketball with him for as long as he stays there. I still think that like, you know, he's got a lot of work to do to prove that he is like up to the sort of standard that we've already set for him. And at least in the early days

of the season, it seemed like Atlanta had taken a pretty big leap forward. Now they've leveled out. They've lost three in a row. Trey was not having a good night like last night. We're recording this on Thursday. They played against the Knicks, right? Yeah, they lost to the Hornets, the Knicks, and the Cavs all in a row, which are scrappy teams.

They're scrappier than we would have thought. But those are teams that the Hawks should be beating if the Hawks are a playoff team. You would think so. You would think so. I mean, you were talking about going back through here. You said it was like a torpedoing event. For the Hawks, I don't necessarily think that it is. Like, a lot of people think that there's been like major movement, major shift in this.

I personally don't. Like, I just feel like, and this is something that we do to players. It all is kind of relevant and kind of on the same level, I think, that like, we do this to players. You know, we compare their, their legacies when a lot of that is just in the historical discussions is kind of unfair. You know, like what if where players get drafted makes an enormous difference. You know, some of our favorite, you know, people that we idolize the most if they had ended up in bad culture. And there are just so many other factors like the pieces that go. around you.

Like Jordan, that was the central kind of crux of that story of his career was like his battle with this person that also happened to put great personnel around him. And for the hawks, I don't think it was a torpedoing event. For the kings and for the sons, it stings a lot more, I think, because I just think that, you know, and you and I have talked about this a little bit elsewhere, but like that I still think Luca is the better player. I still think that Luca is probably the best player under 25.

in the NBA. I think he's tier one. I think Tatum is probably number two. I think that's, you know, if you switch their scenarios, their circumstances, I don't feel like there's been a ton of movement. But I have a lot of appreciation for Trey.

It's just, it's both, you know? I don't, we feel this need to pit them against each other, which is the whole point of, you know, what you're talking about. Yeah, so tell me a little bit about this.

Why do you think it is that when, I mean, part of it is like a natural extension of needing to give context to a player. So, you know, when you guys are doing, draft work and like you're going to be on a new ringer NBA show called ringer NBA University with Kevin O'Connor and Jonathan Charks where you guys are going to talk a lot about

prospects coming into the league and guys in their first few years of their MBA careers, especially on their rookie deals specifically. You know, and you're going to analyzing these dudes. When it's the draft time, we're always, all of your editors are always asking you for cops. Tell me who this guy is. Tell me who this guy is. I want you to unite this guy with somebody else so that I have an understanding. And then I think as guys come into the league, the first thing we're trying to do is pair them with somebody else, honestly. It's like, I want to think about Donovan Mitchell in relation to all the guys that, like all the teams that pass on him, who they have now, and now those guys' careers are shit because we're comparing it to Donovan Mitchell.

But outside of like the draft and outside of that, like, why do you think we have this compulsion to pair players like that? Well, I think you hit on one of them is that it kind of, for people who don't pay attention and, you know, being somebody that has a foot in, I like to follow all levels of basketball, get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I think it accelerates people's understanding. They're like, yeah, yeah, tell me, who's he like? And it just kind of like, yeah. It really brings their expectations to a place where they can kind of just yada yada, yada, a lot of that stuff. I don't personally enjoy doing that, but, you know, to each their own. But there are some broader things, I think, about the reason, you know, because there are, there

are players that sort of just naturally great against each other, you know, whether it's, they just don't like the way the other player does business. They don't like the way they play. I mean, there's the players that intentionally instigate, like the lances with LeBron's, like the, you know,

the Raja Bell with Kobe. But that was sort of all just sort of gamesmanship, trying to, trying to create something that would. And usually it's a dynamic between a lesser player and a greater player that you want something else eating up the bandwidth of their basketball mind.

Like he's worried about me instead of kicking my ass just straight up. And then, you know, I think that there are a lot of factors. Like, one of the big ones, I think, is that the NBA over the history of it, you know, we had these rivalries. Like, when you were talking about rivalries, the other, it's such a funky word to say when you start thinking about it. But we even had video games in the late 80s that were built around rivalries. And today, I think one of the reasons I have this theory that one of the reasons that we don't see it as much is because. social media has become such a like toxic gotcha culture where we just sort of like you know beat people like pinatas basically if they make a mistake or they get humiliated like i i was thinking about how like the phrase dunked on has entered culture or are you guys responsible for that by the way like where to dunk i don't i don't think so i mean like to get dunked on as like uh as an idea like everybody's piling on no i mean i i don't i don't i feel like i heard it from you guys first but anyway I digress.

But I think that, like, if you think about, like, how players, basically, if you put yourself out there and you get humiliated, it sticks to you. Like, if you look at somebody like Paul George really put himself out there, there's some players that are more willing to do that, that have less to lose, that kind of exist in that space, like a Pat Bev. There's also just, like, we clip stuff now, and it's like, that's it. Like, Zion's bad at defense now. And he's going to have to do something outstanding to kind of, like, reverse that.

Yeah. And also, I think that there's just sort of a broader, like, narrative thing that applies. to escapism that, like, I don't want to get to, like, read the book Sapiens one time, but I just feel like we, you know, I feel like our technology, this is my theory, and I kind of bounce this off of one of my behavioral scientist friends. I have one of those, by the way. We evolved, our technology out evolved, our emotional and, like, kind of cognitive way to deal with our environment. So we still have this need for, tell me if I'm crazy, We still have this need for action and drama and, like, grating against our environment and surviving and things.

And I think that's why things like sports and entertainment appeal to us. And that's why I think that, like, tribalism kind of is so fun in sports. Now, connecting that today, I think another reason that it's sort of absent from, like, literally right now is that, you know, the adversity of the world that we're in right now, I think has sort of eaten into. And the fact that fans can't be there. So, you know, you're like way to project, you know, the fans in the arena aren't cheering. I think people are a little disinterested on some level and that that is playing a part. When we're talking about rivalries, like there's definitely the one guy doesn't like another guy or one guy gives another guy fits. The thing that I associate with it is there's a common goal between two guys and they have to go through one another to get it.

And in the last five or six years, especially, I think that we have been somewhat robbed of an opportunity to see that. that happen on a more regular basis. Now, obviously, the last season was incredibly infected by COVID and going into the bubble and a Miami team that I think nobody would have suggested was a finals team going into the playoffs becomes like, you know, this almost Cinderella story. But in previous years, you know, it's like we've not yet seen Janus against one of the two or three best NBA players, you know, and get to really like show what he's got. You know, I remember when that spurs team, the last great spurs team before right when Kauai got hurt, that team was essentially built to play the Warriors the closest they possibly could.

They were like, and that was a team rivalry, but I felt like we were headed towards a Kauai-Stef rivalry, if that had sustained itself. And then I think honestly, like, no shots at him, but Durant moving to the Warriors deflated a little bit of this too. You know what I mean? Durant going to the Warriors for a chunk of his prime deflated that ability to be like, what could Durant do against the LeBron, against Steph, against this? Like, you know, we got that 2016 Western Conference Finals with the Warriors. And that was it, really. Like, we've since then had Durant kind of be like on this infallible super team. And now he's on Brooklyn. Yeah. And I think some of the way that we handle Durant ties into this, too, that, you know, we, and you can speak to this.

somebody that studied like, we gravitate towards these like archetypes of narrative, I think, that involve pitting people against each other. There's like a sort of like, it doesn't follow it note for note, like a hero's journey type thing. Yeah, absolutely. And like, you know, with like Michael Jordan specifically, I think that a reason that he is so lionized in people that are my age, probably to your age range too, is that he, he is, his career hit at a time when the narrative machines of sports marketing were like really amping up, you know, because we had rivalries before that, but just sort of his sort of power to best people. I think that that's, and that was kind of how we measured player's success in their career, this kind of idea of like monogamy to a team,

and then you go and fight, and then those things of like entrenched players going against each other over and over again. We've lost some of that because of, I guess, probably because of like some of it was like the player empowerment movement players are moving around so it's more fan bases going at it and you hope that the players kind of get the rivalry you know that's kind of a thing uh but you know and i think we've we've lost a little bit of that and but i think that that's part of the reason that we handle durant the way that we do is because he sort of punted on that whole thing like he he was just like nah i'm going to go to this really good team i'm not going to stick it out and just be judged by these unfair standards that you've said yeah and like waiting for sam presdi

to find a third shooter to play around Mia Russ, you know, and hoping that, like, we get to the playoffs with a healthy lineup, which I think Oklahoma was sort of played by over those years, is that, like, you know, it was either a Baca or Duran or Westbrook would get hurt so that we only really got a couple of runs with, like, a full-strength Oklahoma team there. Yeah, I mean, I've just been kind of fascinated by it, too, because, like, I think that, like, everything else, if you have a player rivalry situation, like, whether, let's say, like, something like

simple like Paul George like when he was on the Thunder versus like Dame Willard or something like that. And PG seems to be also like have a little something to go like Chris Paul. But it's not, that stuff is more like chippiness and not as much like you feel like you need to go through someone to get what you want. I'm sure that there are rivalries. We hear about the, you know, we hear about the most notable loud like demonstrative. These guys don't like each other. I'm sure there are tons of like a little below the surface things that guys just kind of maybe avoid embarrassment or whatever. But it's funny how there's overlap and common denominator.

It's like, okay, Jimmy Butler is in like five rivalries. Joelle M. B.D. CP3, DeMarcus cousins, you know, there's guys like that. You said something about Durant and Russ, which I think we have more like bad blood, bad breakup rivalries that are more interesting than anything else in the past. I mean, like the all-time one was like the Kobe Shack, you know, internal struggle that becomes or like struggle on the team. that later becomes like, you know, we're battling from other teams. I think the most promising, you know, interesting thing that could happen on a rivalry standpoint, from a rivalry standpoint, is if Kyrie and KD somehow can make the finals to play LeBron. Now, AD is just sort of a bystander, you know, it's second best player in the world,

bystander. But, you know, because KD and LeBron kind of have this legacy thing where they like, they've competed. and then Kyrie and LeBron have the weird dynamic that they have. You're right. Maybe the thing that we've arrived at here is that in this current iteration of the NBA, the real rivalries happen on the same team. Because I know as a Sixers fan, there's a real impulse to sort of pit and be in Simmons against one another,

no matter how many times those guys insist, like that's not the situation. That's not the truth. I think the fact that you see those guys play upwards of this year it'll be like, you know, 70 times a year, 80 times a year, you know, normal season, maybe even 100 times a year, like, they're the ones that are the Yankees Red Sox.

They're the ones who see too much of each other, who are on the court more than they should be together, and that you just sort of start to think to yourself, like, well, these guys even really like each other. And that, obviously, the Sixers have had a couple of stories with that with, like, Jimmy Butler and, you know, but, like, it's strange to me that Ben Simmons's rival is Joel and Bidon, not Jason Tatum.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's, it's, there are some, like, across the landscape that I've been kind of interested to look at in the future. I mean, and it's, it's, I think another thing is that people are just drawn to that part of basketball, because if the product alone was, was enough, you know, if, like, people, I observe this as somebody who makes YouTube videos, there's an enormous corner of the basketball YouTube world that is just interested in drama. Like, they, like, the titles are like, they lied to us. this part, you know, like, just, it's all drama. And if it was just nerdy X and O's and things, then, then, you know, it'd be a whole different thing. But I think that we can-

No, but you know what the thing is, is that the other part of that is that, I think in the, like, the League Pass era, I think people are more fans of, like, players in the game rather than, like, their team and their city. At least that's my perception. Now, I'm a Philadelphia expatriate living in Los Angeles, but I still watch, like, pretty much every Sixers game. But it definitely doesn't feel like,

a Philly versus Boston, Philly versus Brooklyn thing. It seems more like, Team Simmons or Team Embed or Team Tatum or Team Donovan Mitchell or Team Damien Lillard. And like that's the thing where people are identifying. They're more wrapped up with players than they are teams now. Maybe I guess it'd be hard to go back and chart the type of fan type of person that would be drawn to that

as opposed like maybe back in the day if you'd be more likely to just be a Celtics fan, the people that are on the fringe. because, I mean, the die-hard, I mean, the die-hard sections of social media, they feel as prevalent as ever. I mean, I see that firsthand if I make something and annoy people. It's just like this enormous, furious group of people. But back to like the, you know, the fledgling potential, like, friction that could be on the horizon. I posited this one to you that, like, I feel like the Michael Porter Jr. Murray thing could be interesting at some point.

But, you know, that's an example of where I feel like one of those guys is going to get traded. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't, the thing with those rivalries within the teams is I totally agree with you. And I just feel like it's hard to imagine Porter being the best version of Porter while they're still Murray on a team. But Porter just to me seems like the absolute like sell high guy. Oh, for sure. No doubt about it. I mean, like it seems like one of the one of the no brainer like sell like things just based on fit.

Because, I mean, the people in the NBA are smart. They see this. If you and I see it, I mean, it's like, I know they do. But yeah, that one, it's less a case of like, you know, something's going to be decided here. It's less that and more of just like this could be entertaining. Yeah. Even I who don't usually care about that thing. I could see that being interesting as somebody who's followed both of their careers.

I think what we really need is just for Lonzo and Deer and Fox to step up and just have a full-on rivalry, you know. But I don't know if the Kings and the Pelicans will be relevant enough for that to matter. I mean, what you were saying is right, is far be it from me from wanting to Brooklyn to go to the NBA. finals, but I think that would be like the kind of thing that the NBA almost needs, which is like a real stars against one another NBA finals with Brooklyn versus the Lakers. Yeah, that would be amazing. I mean, we could potentially, I don't know, I haven't looked at the standings for those two teams. I mean, like if we could get a Fox, Lonzo, I feel like Fox cares more about that than Lonzo does. It seems like it. Lawson seems indifferent towards it. Fox is a fire dude. But, you know, then we also have,

like we talked about, like, these aren't necessarily like, I want to, you know, I want to kill you rivalry type things, but like the passing, the torch matchup things have been interesting throughout history. And like, you know, the Kobe Jordan one is one of the all-time big ones. But these guys don't hate each other. They have like a lot of mutual respect. But like if we could get like a Luca LeBron playoff series, I mean, that would be unbelievable. Or if we could somehow get, I know the fan bases kind of pit these two against each other, but, you know, Devin, Booker, Donovan Mitchell are two guys.

that are kind of, kind of just pitted against one another. Those would be really entertaining. I want our younger stars to start getting tested in that way. Like I want, I mean, and Luca, I guess, in some ways, did go up against, you know, like he played, played against Clippers and did his best. But like, I would love to see a Janus Luca series. I would love to see a Luca series. I would love to see a Janus LeBron series.

Or just give me, even give me Janus a beat. Like, I want to see something where those guys get, get to face off against one another, I think it would be good for the game. Kyle, thank you so much for joining me, man. Again, folks can check you out on the Ringer MBA show feed on a new show called Ringer MBA University with Kevin O'Connor and Jonathan Charks. That's going to be going biweekly on Wednesdays and tell people a little bit about the show. Well, on this show, we're going to be focusing mainly on development. It's going to lean a little bit towards guys that are in the NBA. Oh, I forgot one more rivalry, Dorton Hardin. That's a really good one. That's totally. I mean, we should probably

retitle the episode, Dorton versus Hardin. It would be with Lou Dord's second appearance in an answer headline. I know. Tyler is probably drinking a Miller High Life just because of that. But anyway, yeah, we're going to be talking a lot about players mostly under 25, like Chris said earlier, first contract kind of guys who could be making the leap from, you know, any number of leaps in the NBA and just focusing on where they are, where they're going, and whether they're satisfying us or disappointing us on those fronts. That's awesome.

I can't wait to check it out. Kyle, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me.