← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Colin Cowherd Podcast - Has Luka Already Peaked? Lakers NOT Built For Playoffs, Celtics Surprisingly Good, Knicks Worse Than Last Year
00:45:20
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Running a commercial plumbing or H vac company isn't easy. You're driving revenue, managing payroll, coordinating marketing, juggling projects, and keeping customers satisfied all at once. You need software that keeps up. It's time to upgrade to Service Titan, the one solution built to help companies like yours run smarter, grow faster, and scale with confidence. See how the most successful contractors are doing it today with Service Titan. Visit servicetitan.com to learn more. That's servicetitan.com the volume. All right, Jason Timf and I all things basketball for about the next 30, 35 minutes. And I was thinking about this today. So basketball has a, a very unique place in our sports consumption. We wear A lot of people wear their favorite basketball player because of shoes and a pair. We don't wear our favorite hockey player unless you buy a stick or something. We don't wear our favorite baseball player, our favorite football player. We're not around wearing cleats to work or at least shouldn't be. But in basketball it's different. There's a loyalty to your favorite basketball player because it's, it's part of your being. And, and, and because of that I think people are it's just hard to let go. If you're a Knick fan with all his flaws, it's hard to let go of Carmelo, he's your guy. It's not about, like, a baseball card. It's like, I got his shoes. You know, I. I've got his apparel. And so I've always thought, like, basketball fans are more loyal to their stars. I'm not talking teams. Fans are all loyal to their teams. They're more loyal to their stars. And I do wonder, because as much as you love the NBA, when somebody's on your team, you see all the warts and the flaws that you don't see on the highlights or YouTube or when they play your team. And now we're a year into Luka, and he's got more technicals than he does defensive stops. I think he's at 13. I think he's at 13. And I was saying this today on the show in FS1 is that of the 22 Laker losses, 19 are blowouts. And the team doesn't have a ton of resilience. When the going gets tough, sometimes they just fold. And I said, I'm not blaming Luka for everything because he's a gifted offensive player, but you do kind of follow the lead of your guy. And even if LeBron had a bad night, he played his ass off. I mean, now it's different. For 15 years, Kobe, MJ, they had bad shooting nights. They didn't have bad effort nights or bad commitment nights or bad focus nights. And when you watch Luke on a nightly basis, do you think sometimes when he kind of mails it in is the wrong word, he becomes a little dispassionate? They're down 11. He gets a bad call, he's barking at the ref, the Celtics are racing down to the other end of the floor. Do you think part of that makes it hard for him to be a true emotional leader? Not talent. An emotional bedrock player like a Duncan or an MJ for a franchise or a D. Wade?
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Well, to put it very simply, I think if you talk to anybody who covers the Lakers, who roots for them or watches them very closely, Luka's not the emotional leader of the team. It's never been really something that he's particularly gifted at. He's very much a. I lead by snatching the other team's heart, and hopefully everyone just gets in line behind me kind of thing. And, you know, it's funny you mentioned the. The dynamic when you're rooting for somebody, because I've experienced this directly. I mean, I cover the league at large. I watched tons and tons of Luca over the course of previous years. I had deified him in my head after those playoff performances in 2024 and in 2022. And then when he came to the Lakers. It's not just watching him every day, but also seeing as he's headed into this phase of his career where he's declined a little bit physically, which has kind of accentuated some of these wards. Doesn't have as much burst going to the basket as he used, as he used to. It's crazy. You look back with Luca towards his early career, he used to get a dunk every couple weeks that like now it's like he might get one a season, you know what I mean? Like there's a difference in the level of explosiveness.
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And he's 27. He's 27, isn't he?
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I know this should theoretically be the time when he's peaking athletically. This should be when it's all kind of coming together for him and he has made some improvements over last season when he was downright completely out of shape for most of the season. But you know, the big thing that stood out to me after covering him very, very closely over the last couple of seasons is how different his floor is compared to the other stars around the league. I would actually argue Luka's ceiling is the highest in the NBA specifically because he's got that step back three at his size which is basically unguardable. And so, right, you know, Nicola Jokic, there's a certain like, you know, he's not a guy that's going to break you down off the dribble a ton. You know, he's a guy that runs a lot of two man game and works out of the post for the most part. Shay, Gilders, Alexander doesn't take a ton of threes and so those two guys are much more reliable night to night. But Luca has this like, oh, but what if he goes 8 for 12 on step back threes kind of thing going on where he just becomes borderline impossible to guard because it's got the efficiency of step Steph Curry with the unguardable step back three that Luca has. Plus he's the short range shot maker that that Shay and Nicola Jokic are and he's this unbelievable playmaker. But when the step back three is not going in for him, it just becomes a little, a lot more dicey. And like to put it very frank, the difference between him and Shea and him and Jokic at this point is Luca is way more prone to bad games. And when he has a bad game like last night and last night he was actually 4 for 7 from 3 but on, on twos that were away from the rim, but inside the three point line. So the mid range stuff, he was 1 for 11, which he's typically very good at, but wasn't going in last night. He doesn't have like an alternative method to impact the game and that makes it really tough. Like Shay has this rim pressure element. He's good at beating people off the dribble that raises his floor on a night to night basis. Nicola Jokic, he operates within seven or eight feet from the basket, so he just doesn't deal with the jump shooting variants that a guy like Nicola Jokic does or that Luka Doncic does. And then among all of the stars at the top of the league, you can throw Ant in there, you can throw Wemby in there. Giannis, Luca, Shay Jokic, he's by far the worst defensive player in that group. And so he's so dependent on his ceiling and his ceiling has such a high variance element to it that it just makes him prone to bad nights. And you know, I've been asked this a bunch, like why is Luka, Luka. There was the big straw poll that came out with ESPN where they go around and they, they ask all the people who have votes. Yeah. And he came back fifth in MVP voting. And so to put it very simply, this is going to be like the fourth consecutive year where we went into training camp where we're like, Luke is going to get mvp. This is the year. And it's like actually no shot, like literally no shot. And until he fixes his floor, until he becomes a player that does enough things consistently well night to night that he doesn't have those kinds of bad games, he's never going to be able to compete with the guys at the very top of the league.
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Yeah, the. Yeah, it's just I like him and I think he's a remarkable player. But I do think the first thing you said is he is now a more academic player than athletic player and he is 27. LeBron slowed down at 39 and a half. I mean honestly, Brady could have still played last year. Like at 27, he's starting to break down. And that goes to my mellow comp, which is Carmelo's last all NBA season was 28. That's like, that's it. It's like yeah, that, that's it. And that's why I always said like Dwyane Wade doesn't have nearly the offensive elegance or ceiling of Luca. But man, did he squeeze every ounce out of that? He looked like a running back. Like he just. There, there was like they always say, like alcohol ages you. And in the NBA, getting in the weight room and really grinding. Extend your. Extend your. Jordan was great every morning. I mean, LeBron James to this day is a weight room warrior. I covered Rasheed Wallace. He would pay the fine before the season. Like, I'm not going to go to the weight room. Rasheed was great, good over. And so, you know, I was watching Oklahoma City yesterday. They were missing four starters, four really high end players, and they still beat Cleveland, a top seed in the East. And I say this about the Lakers and I don't want to go all Lakers here. But regular season football and postseason football is largely the same. The weather gets worse, but you have to be able to run the football. You have to be efficient in the red zone, win the turnover battle. Coaching matters. Postseason baseball, regular season baseball, need good starting pitching, one good closer. Situational hitting, can't be bad. Defensively, don't have to be great, can't be bad. NBA is different. The NBA, the regular season is not the postseason. First of all, the postseason becomes much more situational. And getting baskets and buckets matters more than the high volume of threes, right? Like in the regular season, the math is shoot threes, defend, you're going to win a lot of games. And so I think the Lakers are a little bit of fool's gold. I think they're built for the regular season. I think if they walk into town, you're not rested. Austin, LeBron, Luka can really be a handful. Especially if like Austin's hitting, it's like, oh, shit, okay, now we have our hands full, but if I can play you five times, we're equally rested and I can hunt Luka or Harden or Austin. It's a different, It's a different team. Last year, Minnesota did this. Remember we went into that series thinking it's gonna be a six game series. And you watch it, you're like, well, this is a mismatch. Do you see this? Where this Laker team, it can be elegant and beautiful. The spacing's good. I think Reddick's a really good offensive coach in close games. The clutch numbers I think are still remain very good, but they are not built for the playoffs. They are, they are. They have no bench. I mean, not that bench is everything. They don't have a great bench. They don't protect the rim. They don't have. This is well documented athletic wings is that we're people in Los Angeles. They're going to get a, they're going to be a four seed in the west, but they're not really a true 4 seed. They're like the Miami Dolphins when they made the playoffs with tua. Nobody thought they're going to go up north in the cold and win a playoff game. It's like they have no chance to do that. The Lakers really have no chance with the depth of okc, the defense of Oklahoma City facing Jokic, they really have no chance against those teams in a long series. Or am I totally off?
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No, you're, I mean, you're, you're in line with the consensus there. I think like the, the, the metrics that come out from this Lakers team make them stick out like a sore thumb among the other good teams in the league. And it really comes down to that dynamic you're talking about. The Lakers are great at one thing half court offense. They're the third best in the league behind Denver and Oklahoma City. And it's because they have these unbelievable shot creators that can go nuclear in any given night. But that is a large sample size trend. It is an issue like the offense did not look good last night against Boston. And really the problem when you look at this Lakers team is they have chewed up and spit out every bad team in the league and that has carried their record. So here's some crazy stats for you, Colin. The Lakers this season, when they play teams in the bottom 10 in point differential, they're 18 and 2, which is tied with Oklahoma City for the best in the entire NBA. That means they're 16 and 20 against the rest of the league. So they are below.500 against anybody that's not in the bottom third of the NBA. Even as you zoom individually in on it, just against the top 10 teams in point differential, they are getting outscored by 13 points per game, which ranks 28th in the NBA. Only the W and that Brooklyn Nets team have been worse when they're playing the good teams. It's funny if you look at all the teams just in their games against the top 10 teams in the league. So just erase all the filler games in the schedule and just look at the benchmark test, just the measuring sticks. The top nine teams are all the teams you'd expect to see among contenders. Detroit's number one, Minnesota's number two. They're always. They've been my sneaky championship contender this season. I love them. Oklahoma City, Houston, San Antonio, Boston, Cleveland, New York and Denver. That's the top nine. That's what you would expect to see. And then it's all the way down to number 28. Is the Lakers. Like that's literally what you're talking about with this team. They have been consistently outclassed in these matchups. And the reason why is there is a clear game plan for how to beat the Lakers. And all of the good teams understand this game plan and they execute it well. Number one, ball pressure. If you pick the Lakers up full court, you'll wear them down. Boston did this all night last night. Even on every possession they didn't pick up Luca. You see Missoula yelling and screaming and pointing like pick them up, pick them up. Like they just, they want to pick up full court the entire game. Why? The Lakers allow 19 points off of turnovers per game. That's the seventh most in the entire NBA. If you pick them up full court, you'll turn them over, you'll get out and transition two deep drop coverage. Boston did this last night. Just have Vucovic and Nemi Ka sit way back at the basket, chase Luca and Austin off the three point line and funnel them into the rim. It allows you to stay home off the ball and force them to take all of those tough contested twos. That's where Luka is always trying to draw fouls and stuff. Their offense can fall apart in that sense. That's a big part of why the Lakers can't get quality three point shots up. That specific defensive look. And then lastly, run on them like crazy. Cleaning the Glass has this catch all metric they use for transition defense. They call it transition points added per 100 possessions. The Lakers literally ranked dead last in that stat against teams, against teams in the top 10 in point differential. So pick them up full court, run on them all day, run that deep drop coverage. You're not just going to beat the Lakers, you're going to make them quit and blow them out by 20. It is a consistent game plan that we have seen all season long from the good teams against the Lakers and they just fall apart in that play style. And so honestly, like when you see something over and over and over and over again and like last night was another chance they could have beat Boston and change the narrative a little bit. Nope. The exact same damn thing happened again and that just keep keeps happening all season. And when you're that bad against the good teams, when all of the other good teams are good against the good teams, that's a giant red flag for your hopes. In this case,
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I think everyone's surprised that they're as good as they have been. I think that I think most of us expected them to be just kind of A middle team in the east, like in that 5 to 8 range, like win more games than you'd think. But like, I think both Indiana and Boston have been shocking in opposite directions. Like, we all thought Boston and Indiana would be kind of in the middle. Indiana went completely into the tank and Boston is still competing for a championship. And honestly, if it wasn't for JB Bickerstaff having a really clear coach of the year case just because of how good the Pistons would have been. Joe Missoula is an awesome coach of the year candidate because I think this season has been a testament to the basketball culture that he's built. Again, you're in the mid second quarter, you're beating up on the Lakers like you're dominating the game. You've been doing your job all night long. In one time, someone didn't pick up Luka as he's dribbling in front of the Celtics bench. And you could see Joe demonstratively like yelling at his guys to get over there and pick him up. There is a, an accountability that he has established with this group.
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Yes.
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Where the expectation, if you're going to play for me, this is what you've got to do. And it goes even deeper than the ball pressure. Like they crash out of the corner so. Well, this is a team that you would have thought would have tanked as a rebounding team because you lose Tatum and you lose your entire center rotation. No, they win the rebound battle. They, they win the second chance points battle every night because their guards are so scrappy, coming out of the corners, getting offensive rebounds. And then the last thing that I think is super impressive with Boston, Colin, they lost Drew Holiday, Jason Tatum, Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis.
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Yeah.
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And they have a 120 offensive rating, their second best offense in the NBA. And I think that's where like, honestly, for all the talk about Joe Missoula's offense and then like hunting threes. Joe Missoula never said take bad threes. He wanted to run quality offense for good looks from three. And what's happening is over the years, they've gotten better and better at running his system. And even though those guys are all out of the lineup, Hauser's been there a long time, Pritchard's been there a long time, Derrick White's been there a long time, Jaylen Brown's been there a long time. Even Kate has been there for a few years now. And so there's some continuity in this system. They know how they want to play and so honestly, like, if you look at the strongest basketball cultures in the NBA, Boston has clearly demonstrated this year that they are one of those teams. And as far as their chances this year goes, I view Detroit, New York, Boston, and Cleveland all kind of in the same tier. I lean very slightly Cleveland because I just think they're a very complete team after the trades they made, not just Harden, but the other deals they made at the deadline. But Boston absolutely has a shot to come out of the East. And I mean, it really just comes down how good Tatum is when he comes back. If he comes back and he's all NBA. Tatum. They have a big experience advantage. They have a big continuity advantage. Those guys have been in so many big games.
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Do we know exactly when he's coming back? Do we. Do we know for sure?
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The rumor is, like, early March, so I would assume, like, I mean, I'm. I mean, he's was. He was photographed practicing with the team literally just a couple days ago. He's already been doing five on five for, I think, a couple weeks now. So I think we're like a week or two out from him coming back. And, like, he addresses a very specific need because the one thing they don't really have is a big forward because Jalen Brown's very much a three. And then they have these, like, role player forwards, you know, guys like Jordan Walsh that can play a little bit, but it's like they don't have, like a big, strong forward that's really switchy and can defensive rebound and stuff. Like, if you remember when Boston won the title, the way they won the title is Tatum guarded the other team center every single game. They don't really have that right now. If Tatum can come back and provide all of those elements. And really just the big thing I'd worry about is him janking up the offense just because it's a weird rhythm thing to add a new player like that.
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Well, hell it was.
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Yeah, if he can fit in.
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He and Jaylen Brown had a rhythm
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issue in being in the past.
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Yeah, yeah. I mean, I. I think that's just kind of always going to be an issue because I think Jalen's a more aggressive athlete. Tatum's a little more passive. Tatum's probably more talented. I agree. When Tatum comes back, it will look weird. It will.
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At least at first.
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Absolutely. You know, it's interesting. Detroit is a physical, tough team. The Knicks are. We know this. Brunson's a poor defender. Cat's kind of a flaky, talented, bit inconsistent, kind of a finesse player. Although he has moments. I mean, he'll have moments when, when he's inspired or when he's prodded. But I. The two times I've watched the Knicks play the Pistons this year and I go watch it, it's very clear that Detroit has unbelievable confidence against New York. They think they can push him around, they don't respect him defensively. And I look at the Knicks and even though Giannis, you'd have to give up a ton for him, I kind of do believe if you move off Tibbs, which they did, you're kind of spinning your wheels with this group. Right. Like they're always going to have. I mean, when you let go of Hartenstein, they couldn't afford him. All right, well, we lose somebody that crashes the boards, somebody that plays defense limited offensively. We lose size. Well, Carl Anthony Towns, he's a little like AD. He'd rather just be a 4 and score like he, like he likes the fun of basketball. He's highly skilled. I do, I think, I think, I look at the Knicks and I think, I think they're a worse version of last year and I think, I think the jury's out and I think Tibbs squeezed the most out of him defensively and I could be wrong, but I feel like when the season's over, if Detroit matches up or Boston with Tatum, they're going to beat the Knicks and it's going to be quicker than you think and the Giannis stuff will heat back up. I mean, I, I just feel like the Knicks are a worse version. Last year people knocked Tibbs because offensively he's not a creative guy. But they were a better defensive team and they had a certain stylistically, a certain feel to them. I don't really feel like they do this year. I don't think it's. They lack dog. I just think their roster is what it is and there's defensive holes.
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Yeah, it is what it is. And the main thing is, is there is a clearly defined ceiling with this group that has repeatedly manifested itself over the course of the last few years. And it's just simply that they have this incredibly mistake prone big in Carl Anthony Towns. He's again, I talk about this a lot on my show, but like you can be a physically limited defender, but if you do your job, a coach can game plan for you. Like every team has a bat. Like if you go back through NBA history, like you don't think teams attack Shay Gilders Alexander as the weakest defender on the Thunder. You don't think teams attack Jokic or Jamal Murray when they won the title in 2023. Teams have been attacking Steph Curry for years. He's got four titles. Like, a physically limited defender is just a part of an NBA team. You, if that guy can do his job, then as a coach, I can draw up a scheme to plan for what this guy, what his limitations are. But if you have a mistake prone defender, there's nothing I can do because I can go over there. I'll be like, all right, Cat, here's what I need you to do. And if he goes out there and does something else, it doesn't really matter. And so Cat is extremely mistake prone. And that is his biggest issue that undercuts this defense. Jalen's just physically limited. That's his issue. You put the two of them together on the floor there, it just puts so much pressure on those other three guys to fly around and cover for them defensively, which is just really hard to do. And I, I, I talked with you a little bit about this on, on the Herd last week, but like, most of my pessimism surrounding the Knicks centers around just how good everyone else is. It's like, I know what the Knicks are. I know that they can beat teams in the playoffs. Like they just made the conference finals last year. Like they beat that Celtics team even before the Tatum Achilles, that series was over. The Knicks were going to win. Like, to their credit, I know what they are. But they just inevitably run into a team that's got a higher ceiling than them and at, at some point in a later round. And so to your point, I think it's almost a certainty that if they end up losing in the second round or something like that this year, I am, I think it's almost a certainty that they end up breaking the team up because there's just a clearly defined ceiling with this group.
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Yeah, no, and I think Giannis is just sitting out there and you know, you know, they gave up a lot of picks. Was it five? To get Mikhail Bridges? So they don't have as much. Yeah, I mean, at the time you're like, well, Brunson and Cat have weaknesses. Okay. McHale's a mid range. He can hit threes. At the time, I didn't think it was a terrible move, but the league now, Sam Presti was about two years ahead of everybody. Is that like he was building his team based on what was going to happen to the cba? And now he's got like, cost certainty, draft picks everywhere, the kind of depth where they can have four guys out last night and still thump Cleveland. It's like, you can see. I, you know, I will defend Adam Silver on this. David Stern took over a league that was uninteresting. And so he didn't care if it became dynastic if New York and L and Boston and Philadelphia dominated. Like, that's how you solve that Rubik's Cube. It's like, we're not an interesting league. We got to. I mean, there were rumors of a cocaine problem. They had a bad TV deal. You know, the big advertisers didn't care about the players. Like, that's the league David Stern took over. So we lean into it. Well, Adam Silver took over a very financially stable league that was really popular, and the owners were all bitching that the power was in, like, six, four teams. And so Adam's like, okay, I'm going to spread this out. And it's like, I get what Adam was doing. And in the big picture, it's a more reasonable, fair way to make a larger percentage of the owners satisfied. But I'll throw this out to you. This phone. We're more distracted than ever. And baseball's like, the hell with parody. The Yankees, the Mets, the Phillies, the Cubs, the Dodgers, the Astros are good. Go for it, fellas. You don't have to worry about the bottom teams that are all making money. The NBA is like, no dynasties. And I do wonder, Jason, that in this world that's got so many options. Tiktoks more platforms streaming these Hockey, baseball, basketball, Monday through Friday, volume game. Sports dynasties attract attention. The baseball has a bad guy. They've got a villain. And I do think that Oklahoma City is one of the great defensive teams ever, but I'm not sure they're captivating. I'm not sure when your GM is. The North Star is the second most important person to SGA in your franchise. I'm not sure it's great for the league. Right?
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Yeah, the. The way that the new CBA is structured makes contending windows, like, way too cyclical. And it just simply. It's simply a product of the fact that it's borderline impossible to sustain large amounts of talent because of the way that you have to pay everybody and the constraints that can take place. And so what ends up happening is you have these teams that have these two or three year windows, and then suddenly they're completely deprived of assets, and they really have no choice but to blow up at that point. I mean, even Oklahoma City, as good as they Are like, what's going to end up happening is like, okay, if AJ Mitchell is this two way guard that can beat people off the dribble and create shots, he's all of a sudden he's, he's a $20 million player. And it's like Alex Crusoe is a $20 million player. Isaiah Hartenstein's a, almost a $30 million player. J dubs a $50 million player. Shay's a $60 million player. Chet's a $60 million player. Like at a certain point, like Oklahoma City is going to start hemorrhaging players here pretty soon. And then guess what? San Antonio is going to look like a way more talented team and then San Antonio is going to run into the same damn problem two years after that. And like it's so cyclical and it's become more difficult than ever to actually maintain your like consistency in your roster year over year. And I think that that actually has a deeper problem that goes further than just like the dynasty point that you're making. I think it's also leads to lots of roster turnover, which makes it harder for teams to resonate with local fan bases. Like it should be. Every team should be heavily incentivized to keep their own players. And the only way you can do that is if you have system in which your draft picks, not draft picks you've traded for, but if your draft picks should have some sort of exception with the cap to where if you have a team that drafts well and you obtain these players, if you had more ability to, to maintain your roster control year over year, you'd resonate with your local fans. Like that's a big thing that I think makes a big difference. Like what are the most popular teams over the course of the last 15, 20 years in the NBA? It's like golden State, same core year after year after year. Denver is one of our biggest fan bases over at hoops tonight. A big part of that is they've had Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and Nicole Jokic forever. Jokic and Murray have been running two man game for 10 years now. Like it's like there is a consistency in the roster that I think is a big part of this. And when you have the, the turnover that all these teams have, it just makes it really difficult for the landscape of the league to stay in one area long enough to resonate with fans. I think in general, the new cba, it was intended to make things easier for the teams at the bottom, but all it's really done is kind of remove A lot of the intrigue that comes comes along with the rivalries of like having, you know, like the, the NBA Finals ratings when it was Cavs versus Warriors every year were great. They were great ratings every year. Like you, when you have that sort of continuity, it resonates with fans more. It builds rivalry, it builds intrigue and urgency around the game.
- [34:52]
B
Remember when Oklahoma City had Durant and Kyrie Irving and James Harden? They were the lowest rated local broadcast in the league with, it should be noted, they kept winning on an annual basis, the best local broadcast. So it wasn't quality of broadcast. And you bring in all these stars. It was like, we don't know them. They're not us. They're interlopers. Like, people want. They want their guys. And I think Adam Silver believes in that. But. But, you know, I want to end with this topic. So, you know, if you ask people the top seven or eight players, I mean, I do think there's some exceptional. Last year's draft class was really good. I mean, like, it could go down as the best in 10 to 12 years. And we all know the headliners, the top players in the league are largely international players. If I had, if I ask you to name a starting five in the NBA, it's the great but not household name starting five. The best player on that, to me would be Stefan Castle. You know him? Spurs fan know him. People that listen to this podcast know him, but the average fan has no idea who this UConn kid is. And literally, if you watch the spurs play, he jumps through the television. That was always been one of my rules. He just. Your eyes go to Stefan Castle. He is a complete dog defensively. He can be a killer offensively. I think he's like a more talented in a weird way, Jaylen Brown, like almost sometimes like intimidatingly aggressive. So your thoughts on Stefan Castle and give me four or five guys in the league that are not household names. But you view. I mean, Cooper Flag, because of going to Duke is one of them. He is an ascending star. Give me guys in the league that you love that we don't talk about.
- [36:46]
A
Okay, so Steph Castle is. Steph Castle is one of my favorites. I actually had a debate earlier in the year about whether or not I liked him or Amen Thompson more for the future. And I voted Steph, even though I'm really high on Amend Thompson. But Steph, to me is a super unique prospect in that, you know, who he actually reminds me of is like a mix between like more of a point guard, naturally in Jimmy Butler. And the reason why I draw towards Jimmy Butler is there is a physical size with Steph. He's huge. Like he's built like a truck and he's six foot six. He can really bolt. You can really bully players.
- [37:19]
B
Oh, he's intimidating. You can see he's intimidating.
- [37:22]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And he plays off of two feet extremely well. This is his strength and this is what Jimmy Butler did so well forever. And what made him such a gifted player around the basket. For more of a perimeter oriented player, Steph constantly plays off two feet. And why this matters is when you play off of like straight line drives and off of one foot, it's very easy to knock you off balance one way or the other. But Steph kind of controls this radius around him because he's so strong and he always plays off of two feet that he can get to his spots wherever he wants to on the floor. He's one of those guys that for not having like a lightning quick speed element to his game, he gets to the basket a ton and people just can't guard him. There's the second piece of it is he is an extremely gifted passer. His natural feel alongside Victor Wembanyama. He is connected on so many lobs with him this year. He's a very natural two man game partner with him. And then the last piece of it, like you said, I've seen him put together stretches of like top tier perimeter defense this year where he's guarding an opposing star and getting physical underneath him and using his size and quickness to beat him to spots. I think he's the kind of guy that like you just look like you look at as a bona fide number two next to Victor Wembanyama. Like when you're looking at the spurs as a team, you can talk about this particular window of time where you've got Darren Fox who's kind of old and like Dylan Harper who's kind of young and some of these other flawed young players. But it's like, I know it's going to be Steph Castle and Victor Wembanyama for a very long time moving forward. This is, this is, these are really good. This is a really good question. Keonte George in Utah is a little guard that I really, really like this year. You want to know why the Jazz went all in at the deadline and traded for Jaren Jackson instead of going the opposite way and trading Lori Markin in? It's because they've been kind of sneaky feisty this year and Keonte George, their guard, took a massive leap into a guy who's in that mid-20s in points per game and super efficient in terms of his shot making and a high level playmaking talent. They're betting on him. Lori Markin and Jaren Jackson and this Walker Kessler guy who had the LeBron injury to come back next year and they want to be like a serious playoff team next year. Keonte George, really, really good. Let's see as I go down, Jalen Johnson in Atlanta, he's kind of a guy who's coming onto the, on onto the scene as like a kind of like a big forward who attacks the rim. A lot of playmaking talent he get. He's a guy flirts with triple doubles every single night. Dylan Brooks went over to Phoenix and became like a borderline star. Yeah. And there's like a whole conversation to have around the Suns. Colin, because they, first of all, to your point about interlopers, Suns fans hated the last couple of years. They love this team. They love this team and it's because it's, it feels like they're building a culture. Dylan Brooks has come in and brought like a defensive intensity and also Dylan has become one of the better pull up jump shooters in the league which came out of nowhere because he's got such an ugly shot. But it just goes in and he's averaging over 20 points a game this season. Mark Williams, the guy that was traded for by the Lakers that they backed
- [40:23]
B
out, couldn't stay healthy.
- [40:25]
A
Yeah, couldn't stay healthy. And he had a reputation in Charlotte of being an awful defensive player. He has turned into a defensive anchor for Phoenix. They've turned him into a very good defensive player. All of a sudden Phoenix looks really, really good. Let's see. I'll try to come up with one more. I'll go with A.J. mitchell from the Thunder. So A.J. mitchell represents a type of player that Oklahoma City desperately needs because Jalen Williams is a little bit slow on his first step and so guys can beat him to spot sometimes if he's not in the open floor. And it can turn him into an over the top jump shooter which can cause things to get a little stagnant for him. And J Dub's been a little bit of an up and down player for the Thunder in recent years. Shea is the guy that is the driver of their engine on offense because he can get wherever he wants to on the floor. AJ Mitchell is lightning fast, can make all the passing reads, is an excellent defensive player. He is a guy that has come Onto the scene as on many nights as their second best offensive player. Dealing with an injury right now that has him out of the lineup, but he's a guy that I think has really come onto the scene as a ceiling razor for Oklahoma City. There's a lot of talented young players coming up around the league. Colin, and I mean this draft next year. Colin, I'm telling you, I dove into it for the first time last year. I usually wait till the finals to do the draft, but we're doing it a little bit earlier this year. And AJ DeBonsa, unbelievable. I was watching him the other night with my buddy against Iowa State. He goes for 29, 10 and 9 and I was digging into some of his numbers and he's getting to the rim at an insane percentage. And he just has this, this feisty, aggressive motor. Plays super hard all the time, seems wired the right way. And then you go down the list and it's like, Darren Peterson looks like he's awesome. Cam Boozer looks like he's awesome. This guard Acuff just went for 48 points the other night. Like there is a huge influx of young talent coming in around the league.
- [42:19]
B
You know, Boozer's interesting. I said this today. He's not Chris Weber. He's not that good. He's not that athletic. But when I watch Boozer play for a big, he has great hands and great feet. He is really, you know, dad spent, you know that you got twins. Dad spent some time with those, with his sons. Because maybe it's just basketball in general. Players are more developed more quickly. The coaching's better. It's like quarterbacks now, the seven on seven camps, I mean they're 24 years old and you're like, oh, these guys, they've had 10,000 snaps. Boozer is one of those guys that's not flashy. But I was watching them this weekend and I'm like, oh yeah, that game, that's going to work in the NBA first year. He's just got good hands, good feet, he's mobile. He's not one of those guys that's awe inspiring athletically, but it's just really smart around the basket, very resourceful with his moves. And you're more of a scout on this than I am, but I'm like, he's not going to wow people. Especially when you got, you know, Peterson at Kansas who looked, it plays a little bit like Kobe and he's got some injury stuff but it's not going to hurt him because he's just too damn Talented, but I. Boozer is one of those guys that again feels like a guy that's going to have a 13 year minimum productive career and it's going to be really good year one.
- [43:35]
A
No, I totally agree. Like he doesn't have the unbelievable raw talent that Darren Peterson and A.J. debons to have, but what he does have is like this game that's kind of built for the modern NBA. We've seen a lot of this type of success in recent years. Jokic is the biggest example, but I put Sengun in this group. I think Derek Queen coming in last year, coming in last year's draft and having a lot of success this year meets this criteria. But these big forwards that are good at attacking matchups and that can pass is the key because what ends up happening is a lot of NBA teams switch and there's always these smaller guys on the floor that you can attack. So when you have a dude that can back him down and hit little short shots, but that can read the double teams really well, Cam, of all those dudes in that top tier, Cam has by far the best like passing feel of any guy in that group. He's very much like power forward Jokic in that sense. He just sees things before they happen, anticipates the reads, gets the pass out on time, on target. He's that kind of guy that like everyone's going to love playing with him. He's just going to be a guy that greases the wheels.
- [44:40]
B
You can tell his dad has told him like the right things.
- [44:45]
A
Yes.
- [44:45]
B
Like he, when you watch his game, you're like, oh, that's going to work. People are going to want to play with him. Like John Morant. People just don't want to play with John. You get guys like that where it's just I just don't want to play with him. You watch Boozer and it's like, oh yeah, that guy. You know, as good as talent is a lot of players. I always said this about Klay Thompson. Catch and shoot guys work every Peyton Pritchard, Klay Thompson in his prime, everybody. Kevin Durant, he could be 44 years old, like get him the ball late in the clock. There are guys that just you want to play with. And that's an under discussed, underrated part. You know, the AAU culture, you know, a lot of it's a million games losing doesn't necessarily matter, not enough practice, too many games. Whereas the, you know, we know this, it's well documented, the European culture is more practice, fewer games. The games matter more. But I do think sometimes our culture develops players that they're not necessarily fun to play with. They're just super talented. They're long, they're talented. And I guess, you know, I haven't watched enough Boozer, I've probably seen him play five times this year, but when I watched them against Michigan, I'm like, that's an NBA game. He's just. He's just a year away from it, but it's like it almost has a slight European feel. Cooper flag's got this where you're like, he's got a left hand, he's got a floater. It's like, that's a really developed game at 19. And I think Boozer's not nearly as talented, but I think Boozer has that, yeah, Cooper.
- [46:14]
A
That's the big difference between Cooper and DeBonson Peterson, because those are the three guys that got kind of get lumped together from these last two drafts as, like, real, like superstar level prospects. Right? And Cooper just had this unbelievable natural passing feel that stood out immediately at Duke and stood out immediately at summer league, and stood out immediately when he started playing in the NBA. I mean, for example, like, Darren Peterson has more turnovers than assists. Perhaps this year, like, that's a huge red flag for me in terms of passing feel when a player has more turnovers than assists. Cooper, already as a rookie this year is like at a 2 to 1 assist to turnover ratio, which is a really strong number for him. Like, there's a. That passing feels so important, Colin, because, like, there is such a sophisticated element to defense now. The defenses are good at getting the ball out of the hands of the good players. They are. And so it's like, look at Cam Thomas. When you have a guard who's like, the one thing he's good at is putting the ball in the basket. You're gonna have a hard time finding a home in the NBA because so much of this is about read and react, playing with advantage, quick decision making. You watch Boston, you watch okc, you watch Indiana, you watch these good teams around the league. They're driven by quick decision making and the ball popping around. It's just harder to guard. The simplest way I can put it is if you dribble up the floor like Luca, and this guy stands in the left corner, that guy stands in the right corner. Opposite wing here. Let's run a pick and roll. I have to guard one action. If I defend that pick and roll well, I win the possession. We're going out the other way. If we go up the floor and it's four or five actions in the same possession, you're gonna make a mistake somewhere in there and someone's gonna get open. And that's the thing like playing quick, quick decisions, getting the ball moving. It makes everyone have more fun when they're out there. It keeps everyone in rhythm and it generates more mistakes. It generates the open shots that you need in order to have sustainably good offense. And I just think. I just think Cooper in particular, and I think Cam Boozer falls into that group. That passing feel is such an important part of a young prospect.
- [48:13]
B
Jason Timp, good talking to you, buddy.
- [48:15]
A
Good to see you, Colin.
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B
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