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The Ringer NBA Show
Mailbag: Most Improved Player, Postseason Narratives, Life Lessons From Basketball, and More | Group Chat
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- [00:00]
Rob Mahoney
This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable Internet means everything for your business and even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected
- [00:12]
Kyle Mann
with Internet, advanced wi, fi, phone, tv,
- [00:14]
Rob Mahoney
mobile services plus 24. 7 US based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit spectrum.combusiness to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana.
- [00:33]
Kyle Mann
Car shopping shouldn't feel like preparing for
- [00:35]
Rob Mahoney
a marathon of paperwork. That's why Carvana makes buying and financing your car easy from start to finish.
- [00:42]
Kyle Mann
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- [00:45]
Rob Mahoney
all online, all on your time. And when you're ready, your new car shows up right at your door. It doesn't get better than that. Buy your car the easy way on delivery fees may apply. Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Rob Mahoney, with me as always, JKyle man, Kyle, how are we doing today?
- [01:21]
Kyle Mann
Doing pretty good. Got up. The weather's turning nice here, Rob. I got up and had a nice black coffee and a breakfast burrito, which I know that you're enthused about. You're enough aficionado of the breakfast burrito. Not as many good ones out here as there are in la, though, I
- [01:36]
Rob Mahoney
have to say, I imagine it's a bit of a problem. You know, as from a humanity standpoint, we really went off when we invented the breakfast burrito. It's. It's one of our finest creations. I don't know that we've done anything better since, but boy, am I glad that it exists. Are you?
- [01:50]
Kyle Mann
Are you?
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Rob Mahoney
What's the profile? Sausage, bacon, avocado. What are we throwing in?
- [01:54]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, man, I'm a sucker for any kind of. Like avocado. I mean, grilled chicken's fine also. Okay. What? I mean, I could do some. Well, I guess for breakfast, maybe you don't want to go grilled chicken. What are the typical meats in the breakfast burrito for? I mean, sausage. Yeah, in terms of. I'm not a big bacon guy, so yeah, I'd say sausage. You know, dude, one of the best breakfast burritos I've ever had was in LA at that place Doubting Thomas. Have you ever been there?
- [02:18]
Rob Mahoney
No.
- [02:19]
Kyle Mann
Shout out to them. Really, really good.
- [02:20]
Rob Mahoney
Anyway, this segment is now sponsored by Doubting Thomas. We're gonna give them a clue.
- [02:25]
Kyle Mann
Try not to pull the Justin and get to. You know, I didn't finish the burrito because I could tell I was gonna be in a coma. But anyway, it was a great it was a great start to the day leading up to this podcast that I was looking forward to.
- [02:35]
Rob Mahoney
Well, as you can tell, Justin is not here to talk about whatever breakfast burritos he has or has not or refused to finish eating. We're gonna have him back soon. Hopefully the bathroom renovation is going well. Hopefully on top of that, he's listening to this podcast as he does the bathroom renovation and, and we can get the full update. Kyle, I do have a friend in my life, my friend Amanda, who had a kid recently and thus was like significantly delayed in her podcast listening and is three months behind us in podcasts as she tries to catch up to the season. And she has been asking me, are we gonna get just in bathroom updates along the way, Is this gonna be a recurring fit? As if I'm spoiling season four of group chat for her while she's still in season one. All of which is to say the people are interested. They're invested in Justin's journey.
- [03:23]
Kyle Mann
I mean, I'm glad to hear it. Kudos to somebody who can like, catch up. That's commitment and I think that's a real endorsement that shows that you're all about the, the product. If you're, if you're willing to go through a, a news driven basketball show and chronolog. I don't think I could do that even with something that I like if it wasn't current good for good for her. I, I like to hear that. That's good news.
- [03:43]
Rob Mahoney
It's true sicko behavior. But this is an episode for the Sickos. We announced we're going to do a mailbag this week. The group chat listeners responded overwhelmingly. Our inbox overfloweth. I would say this is like our most prolific response to any mailbag calling we've ever had. Thank you to everyone who emailed in to ringergroupchatmail.com you can keep them coming on an ongoing basis about anything we talk about. Maybe we'll read them on the show regardless of it being a mailbag or not. But we gotta get into it, Kyle. Cause we have a lot to dig into today and to read those questions. As always, our producer Isaiah Blakely is gonna join us. Isaiah, can you cue us up off the top with the first question?
- [04:20]
Isaiah Blakely
Yeah. So first question is from Steven. Your clever title pirate got me wondering. How does Vegas allocate their own title pyri right now? So I downloaded the latest title odds from FanDuel and worked out the implied probabilities adjusting for the house edge that's built into the listed odds, and then Robbie will walk us through the percentages.
- [04:40]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, first of all, the sponsorship synergy is crazy. Like, we didn't ask for this. We didn't prompt him in any way, but here we are. The title pie is presented by fanduel. I'm. We're going to break this down kind of like in chunks, I think, Kyle. And you can tell me what strikes you as being out of character with your perception of the league. A little too high, a little too low, Whatever you like. As we go, the first group of contenders, according to FanDuel by percentage, broken down, the Thunder at 38%, the spurs at 13%, the Celtics at 13%. I would say the Thunder in particular. That's right in line with where we've had them in our title pie conversations all year.
- [05:19]
Kyle Mann
No. Yeah, I think so. I think we came down a. I was going to say, can we get the. The metadata on whoever sent this email? Was it from a FanDuel? Was it my cubicle at FanDuel 38? I think we had kind of all three come down a little bit from that and brought San Antonio up, if I'm not mistaken, because we were hovering. Hovering in, like, the 30 to 40 range. Maybe. Maybe. It's spot on. The one that jumps out to me there is the Celtics, but, you know, you. It's the east thing there, the enthusiasm and the confidence in them that has swelled, swollen lately. I think it's been one of the more interesting kind of stories in the NBA. But. But we are. We. We're past the honeymoon thing initially of where people were excited that Tatum's back, and now I am starting to hear a little grumbling of, like, maybe we're soloing a little too long on this instrumental break for Tatum. Like, are you catching wind of that? Do you think that it's a shoe in that it's. Or is it going to be maybe a little bumpy as we go into the playoffs?
- [06:11]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, the chatter is there, and certainly, if you want to parse the words of everyone involved, you can see the moments of frustration. But then they'll go beat the Thunder and everything is fine again. You know, like, they. They just have enough signature wins on their resume. They have the roster for it. They're just like, especially by Eastern Conference standards, one of the most complete teams out there. So it's not shocking to me that they're this high. But I would say it is a little surprising to me as we dig into this next group that the Cavs at 9%, the Nuggets at 8%, the Knicks at 6%. The Cavs are one of those teams that, for whatever reason I feel like, are always, like, favored quite strongly by these sorts of odds mechanics. I don't know what it is about the way that their season is going. This is not. It's not like it was last year where they were just rattling off wins and the net rating was blowing the doors off and all these things like, they've had a good season. They have a very impressive roster. They have a strong core. In particular that we've talked about and we talked about earlier this week, does it shock you at all, though, to see Cleveland at 9% of the, you know, the Vegas title pie?
- [07:14]
Kyle Mann
I would probably bring the Knicks and the Cavs a little closer together. Yeah, I think that was, that was one that jumped out to me. And, and I'm pretty fascinated by. There does seem to be. Well, let's. Let's just start there. I mean, do you think that that's fair? I mean, I don't think that the gap between those two teams is really all that big in terms of, like, playoff success in the past few years. Have the Cavs moved enough in terms of, you know, the Harden edition? Granted, they're still banged up with the Jared Allen thing, like we talked about. All those things make me think that those teams are a little closer together than. Granted, it's not a huge gap, but they're a little closer together than, than, Than that. I think. Personally.
- [07:50]
Rob Mahoney
I think so too, and I think closer together, frankly, across this sort of tier in the Eastern Conference, including some teams that are a little further down. It's just one of those things where if OKC is going to have 35 to 40% of the share to win the title, that's going to depress what the spurs are capable of. That's keeping the Nuggets in this range. And so naturally, a lot of these other contenders, like the Cavs, like the Celtics, like the Knicks, are going to be, I think, clustered around each other just because there is so much more parity overall and sort of like whatever you consider the top tier of the east to be. That brings us to our next kind of sub tier, which is the pistons at 4%. Oof. Like this is. I mean, that's tough considering how the highs, like the highs of their season to date. I understand it from the perspective of Cade Cunningham's collapsed lung and the lingering effects of that and who he might be. Even on the other side of it. There's Like, a lot in the air, but 4%, I mean, just feels incredibly a disastrous turn of events in and of itself, given what they could have reasonably expected even a month ago.
- [08:56]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, I mean, the push and pull of the misfortune of Cade being out and then trying to get back in time to the playoff and the nature of the injury, like we talked about, granted, we're being YouTube doctors here with this. Not even YouTube doctor. I'm. I'm a. I'm a YouTube witch doctor. this point, I'm not even qualified to even lightly speculate about it, but based on what I've heard people say for the, you know, the style, the sport and what's going to be asked of him coming back with that injury, that's. We'll leave it at. That's going to be really complicated and leaves you with a lot of doubt. And then, you know, the. The other fact that we were just talking about is that some of these teams got better at the deadline. Whether it's not, you know, I mean, Tatum coming back wasn't a deadline thing, but more of a him just, you know, getting healthy, coming back from that injury. And then, you know, the Cavs did take a jump up, you know, so those things are working against them. And I think also there's. The other part of this, is that we all kind of. If you watch basketball, you see these patterns of teams that have one star that are on an ascension who still need to figure out the other kind of silos of their offense because the playoffs are all about flexibility. They're all about adjustments. We did a. A spaces yesterday. I. I've been lucky to do some spaces on Twitter with the NBA and. And Jerry. Jared Dudley was just on there talking with me and John Schuman and Ben Taylor about the amount of adjusting that goes on. And I don't think that it even. I think the. I think the general public is aware of, like, oh, they went zone here or whatever it is.
- [10:18]
Rob Mahoney
And.
- [10:18]
Kyle Mann
But then the layers below that of the minutia of this is what's going on within the zone. These are the triggers for the zone. These are the principles and things like that. Those are the little things that cause a team to be like, all right, we need a release valve for our superstar. Good as he is, good as Cade might be. Um, and the Detroit is still in the process of figuring out who that would be. So I just think you have all these different factors that. It's brutal. It is really brutal. But I understand why the 4% is there. Do you have more optimism than that.
- [10:48]
Rob Mahoney
It's just hard to feel more confident than this. It's more like disappointment in the way things have turned out than it is like I'm strongly pushing back on this idea that this is what their title odds are at this point. I think you nailed it. Yeah, the. All of the uncertainty around the injury bolstered by the fact in this case that to the extent that they have a flexible roster, it's a lot of offense or defense. Like you have to make a compromise one area or the other. Like if you want to get more shooting on the floor, it's coming with huge caveats for a team like the Pistons in terms of what their defensive identity is and how they can hold together structurally. That's really tough when you get into a playoff setting when you have to make those sorts of one or other concessions. Like you need well rounded, a well rounded roster. Even when you think about a team like the Thunder on their March last year, which is like ostensibly a similar model. Right. Like driven by one primary creator. Granted there's no Jdub in Detroit, but a defense first team that tries and works really hard on that end and that's kind of where they hang their hat. It's a similar formula but they don't have like the oh, we can play big and small flexibility necessarily. Unless you're just super into B ball Paul, which go with God.
- [11:54]
Kyle Mann
Many are. Many are.
- [11:56]
Rob Mahoney
Look, he's. He's a fine player, but he's not a playoff answer. And, and that's the issue with a lot of Detroit's role players and supporting cast is like these guys are good players. They're clearly up to performing in the regular season. They've had some good wins even without Cade. It's just hard to think that this group as constructed has everything they need to outlast what's an increasing list in the Eastern Conference.
- [12:17]
Kyle Mann
Man, imagine how much Detroit. What, what they would give just to have an A.J. mitchell or just to have a case in Wallace. Like we're not even talking about like even to the J dub level. Just one more, one more, you know, drink stirring player like that would. Would really make a huge difference for them.
- [12:33]
Rob Mahoney
And that's with Dana's Jenkins already having a good season. But they need more and they need more and it's. It's going to be their kind of project for the off season, I suspect. But let's get through it first and to. To kind of round this out. We've got the Lakers at 3%, the Wolves at 2%, the Rockets at 2% and the Hornets, Magic, Heat, Sixers hodgepodge at 1% a piece. Because I think this is respectful to the Hornets, but also Vegas will, or in this case fanduel will take anybody's money. So if you would like to bet on the Hornets or the Sixers to win the title, you know they're not going to turn you away, right?
- [13:06]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. As well. I'll take anybody's money. I'll tweet out a, you know, a Venmo link if you guys want to hit me up and just give me money. So.
- [13:13]
Rob Mahoney
Cash app to Jake. Kyle, man. But Isaiah, hit us with the next question from Kevin.
- [13:18]
Isaiah Blakely
Yeah, so from Kevin. March is notoriously the month of the NBA season where the most nonsense occurs. That said, year after year, many of the finalists for most improved player had popped to some degree in the final weeks of the previous season. Who would you guys nominate as candidates for next year's most Improved race? Based on the flashes you have seen in the past few weeks? My picks would be Matas Bozelas and Taylor Hendricks.
- [13:40]
Rob Mahoney
I do like both of those picks. Can we talk about Bouzelis a little bit off the top, Kyle, because he was my preseason pick for most improved player. Jumping the gun as far as what he could be this season, I think. But over these last couple weeks, I think he's like pretty consistently looked like the best player on the floor for the Bulls. The all around game has been there. The shooting has come on really strong of late. His willingness to take those shots, which is like, I think just such an important variable in his development, feels like it's turning a corner. But he's just putting it all together in a way that I could actually see him winning this award next season, even if I thought he might be able to win it this year.
- [14:16]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, Kevin may have answered his own question there. I think that it's. He's got great positional size. He's obviously got the motor and the, the aggressiveness and the confidence and those are all just sort of like, you know, micro skills. They're not even micro. Those are, those are just intrinsic personality traits. I think that, that a superstar needs to have, you know, great athlete. And the Bulls seem like they are, they're resetting, they're trying to reset their culture. And, you know, Bulls fans, thankfully for them, you know, Bou zealous is something to be excited about. They have a million other questions to answer. I had a few. I, I went past and just tried to like thumb down in the Crates a little bit. I don't know if you did to try to pick some other candidates. There were a couple here. There's a few jazz guys that are. That are pretty interesting. You know, he said Taylor Hendricks. I. I had totally just forgotten that he got shipped off to Memphis. I know Bryce Sensabaugh is somebody that you hear is. Is. Has been playing better. Yeah, Yeah. I. I just think this would be a fun story. I would love to see this happen. I don't know that it's going to happen. I just think it would be really fun if Cody Williams broke through finally. Yeah. Yeah. He's been granted. This is like, you know, Cody scoring 34 and a loss, a narrow loss to the Kings is the probably the most tanking vibe thing I've ever heard in my life. But sometimes, you know, for all the hand wringing that's going on about the tanking at the end of this year, if some byproduct of that is that our guy Cody Williams, who's been Rob, frankly, he's been just mocked. I, like, I felt bad for Cody because a lot of people, A lot of people have made a lot of snide comments about, you know, does he belong out there? I think it'd be a really cool story that I would just enjoy seeing if he can find a way to make any kind of elite next year.
- [16:00]
Rob Mahoney
It would be an awesome story, I think, in part because, look, some of that mocking. I'm not going to stand by all of it. People on the Internet can be very mean. Not at. Not like entirely undeserved, though. I think it's just been. It's been a long time since we've seen someone be selected in the top 10 and look in their rookie season. So clearly not like an NBA player, like just completely unprepared to compete at this level of basketball. That has not been the case this year. And so that in. Like that on its own is a huge development for the Jazz, potentially. I think it's one of those things too, where, like, the bar sets itself as far as what most improved means. And so the fact that he's coming in so cold and now showing signs of life, and if he has a big, big year next season, like, that kind of makes the case for this sort of award and this sort of candidacy. It might be a bit of a long shot, but as far as what we can take away from March, I'm hopeful there's something real in here.
- [16:54]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. And I don't know if you, you know, subscribe to this. But I know a couple of years ago, sir, and I did like a series of shows about the nature of each award and I always kind of thought that this award was about, you know, because if you're on. If you're a lottery pick and you're on an upward trajectory, I kind of just don't really put you in this category of play. I think you have to really go. If you go aw the way that Cody has.
- [17:17]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [17:18]
Kyle Mann
And right. The ship. I. I really think that those are the types of players or you just come out of nowhere and you make a. A significant elite. Maybe you were other undervalued. Those are the kinds of guys that I'm kind of more apt to put in this category. So Cody would be in there. Another one is. I think it'd be interesting if G. Santos continues to grow.
- [17:37]
Rob Mahoney
He's been good.
- [17:38]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. How do you feel about that one?
- [17:39]
Rob Mahoney
I think. I think G. Santos. And we should mention Moses Moody as well, who was playing quite well for the. For the warriors before this. I mean just terrible. The. We wish him a speedy recovery. But those are two guys who all of a sudden are just like turning over new pages in their games. I. I like the G. Santos call. I. I wonder just because the construction of ne next year's warriors is so up in the air how prominent of a role he will end up playing. But I think because of the finances of their roster and if they are going big game hunting, if they are trying to bring in other stars or angle for LeBron James or whatever it may be. Santos salary slot is like uncharacteristically important. Like getting his level of production out of that place in the roster has turned out to be really crucial for them. So maybe he will end up just being vital for the warriors now and forevermore.
- [18:27]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, I was going to say is there going to be. Do you think there's going to be a lot of time for development next year? I would say this is probably going to be one of the least conducive to development teams in the league because they are going to be chasing it.
- [18:38]
Rob Mahoney
It's true. But at least he can play. I want to run through some other guys who are playing well right now who will not win this award. But because we're kind of running out of time in the regular season, I want to sort of give them their moment and their flowers. Jairus Walker, of course, I will probably bring him up again just because that's what this podcast has become. Gigi Jackson, Josh, who in in with The Nets has been just given a chance to do some more stuff offensively and really taking it and run with it.
- [19:04]
Kyle Mann
Everybody gets a chance with the Nets. They actually emailed me the other day and asked me if I wanted to blog some and I was like, let me. I was like, I can't get away from my job. Sor. But yeah, it's, it's.
- [19:13]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, even at the point where we're in crunch time and it's a legitimate possibility that like Ben Sarof is going to drive and finish and complete out this game and beat teams, literally anything can happen. I, I would believe it all. Pella Larson, who I've liked for the Heat, but I think has been especially good and, and really solidified his spot with them. Omax Prosper. I. I don't know what. He is apparently a center sometimes, theoretically, at least for a tanking team. The Grizzlies in general, though, they're not going on there.
- [19:45]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, they're not good.
- [19:46]
Rob Mahoney
There's a lot of things happening, but there are enough guys doing stuff on a regular basis that I'm like constantly turning my head seeing, like, what's going on with Walter Clayton Jr. What's going on with like Dejan Giraud? What. What is his whole deal? You know, like, there's just so many weird prospects who have like eye popping games all of a sudden that I gotta admit, I can't stop watching. The Grizzlies.
- [20:08]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. Cavalcade of, of mysteries and just spec sights to see with that team. It's. It's a lot like the Nets. You just never know who's going to pop up on a given night. I mean, they're just. The Grizzlies are just a creature void of form right now. So we're just, we're seeing all kinds of wild stuff.
- [20:23]
Rob Mahoney
I want to float two actual possibilities, actual answers for this question before we get out of here. One, if Ben Matheran continues to do what he's been doing for the Clippers next year, I know he's put up points in the past, but the way he's being thought of and considered around the league, I think is shifting. And that's an important part of this. I could see him having like a sixth man and most improved case next season, which would be fun. I also think, weirdly, and I'm kind of talking myself into this, that Moussa Diabate is just going to continue to be a more and more important part of what the Hornets are doing. And he also has that gap where he could Play more minutes and he could do a little more offensively that I wouldn't be shocked if he's on some people's ballots for most improved next season.
- [21:04]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, he made, I mean he's made such a huge perception shift this year too. So maybe not in the way of just like raw points that I think people typically look for. Like you. You go from somebody who's like an occasional go off guy to like a. Consistency is really the thing that kind of, you know, separates the, the, the real from the fake in this. But Devonte. Yeah, an offensive, an offensive uptick would be nice, granted. The shots, are they going to, are there going to be enough to go around on that team? That would be my question. It's like where and when is he going to find them? I think that would be the outlying, the outstanding question.
- [21:39]
Rob Mahoney
It's a great question. Isaiah, what's next for us?
- [21:42]
Isaiah Blakely
Most improved is so funny because it's just going to be like Austin ruse with no LeBron next year. Getting 20 tonight is most improved might be.
- [21:49]
Rob Mahoney
Well, I was wondering, within this season is there an argument that Wemby is the most improved player from opening night to now, who has taken the biggest jump in the league? It might be Wemby.
- [21:59]
Isaiah Blakely
Baylor Shireman.
- [22:01]
Rob Mahoney
I'm sorry for the Baylor Shire men erasure, the number of Celtics who have just become oddly relevant. I'm not equipped to deal with it this time. I'm sorry.
- [22:12]
Isaiah Blakely
But the next question is from Phoenix. Looking at the three point shooting for championship contenders this season, none of them seem like major threats from beyond the arc. Thunder, Spurs, Pistons and Lakers are not top 10 in 3 point attempts or 3 point percentage. Does this mean that we are entering an era that is less reliant on shooting threes for championship level teams? Or is this merely just coincidental and an outlier?
- [22:33]
Rob Mahoney
Kai, what do you make of this? This has been kind of in the air stewing for a minute now. Can you make heads or tails of it? Do you have any like grand unifying theory on the state of three point shooting?
- [22:43]
Kyle Mann
This one is going to require like a really big study and I'm sure somebody's going to. I'm sure lots of people. Maybe it'll be me, I'm not sure. But this has been going on at the college level too where I think there's some macro things that I'd be curious to get your opinion on. Just that. Go on. Not just in basketball, but it's just, you know, whenever there's an early adoption there's a There's a copycat theory and then it kind of gets taken to the max and then there's sort of a, a cooling off period where you know, people zag and we kind of meet in the people zag and go away from the three point shot and are like, we play stylistically this totally different way because I've talked a lot about how in the Pace and space era we, we've had like a new type of piece player that comes in with more of the, the crossover of the spot up and the secondary creator pick and roll type stuff. Like you need to be able to make a decision with a ball screen and hit a pull up three. And it's just like that skill set I think has become more ubiquitous. But then we've also kind of seen the league go the opposite way. And like I was saying in college, we had a big pace in space movement where like teams like Villanova in like 2018 became you know, four out one in a lot of three point shooting. A lot of those guys are in the NBA now, but if you look at it, it's kind of slowly trended back towards smash mouth. So I kind of alluded to this on a recent episode where we were talking. I mean it was ridiculous and I was, you know, half kidding. But the, the Hungry hippo thing of just. I have heard a lot of talking from coaches about the. The economy of possessions has kind of become more the focus in all the different areas where you can do that. I also would tack on that. Well, let's just stop there. I mean, like what's your initial reaction to that for us saying anything else?
- [24:23]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, I think a lot of that stuff isn't mutually exclusive. Like the version of smash mouth basketball that Is played in 2026 still involves a lot of three point shooting and the position, like if you're going to maximize the possession game, a lot of those teams also still take a lot of threes. And so it's one of these things where I think you nailed it, that anytime there's like a big strategic shift, there's a period of catch up. And in that window, the teams that dominate are the ones that understand the value of the new thing. Right? Like there was clearly a period of time where more teams understood how useful three point shooting was and some teams didn't. And the teams in the former category just had an enormous edge. Everyone has caught up to the point that like the 2015 warriors who ostensibly started the three point revolution would be dead last in three point rate this year. Everyone is shooting at that level or more in terms of frequency now it's just I think where we are now is like it's not three point attempts that kind of make you a good offense. It's not even 3 point percentage that makes you a good offense. It's do you have the credible spacing to do other stuff with it? And if you have enough shooters on the floor, if you have that space to run high functioning offense, that's the prerequisite. It's not really about how many threes you get up. It's like do your guys have to be guarded?
- [25:35]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, it's like that core competency of three point shooting has really leveled. And I think that you're absolutely right that teams still take it seriously and cultivate that and try to find that as much as they can. Because if you can't, I mean it's the, the timeless truths are still, are still there. Which is, you know, if you have areas where we can dare you to do something that you can't do, those are still glaring. Like, you know, so teams, I don't know necessarily, I mean like the spurs don't depend on threes but they, they have to have guys that can hit them still.
- [26:06]
Rob Mahoney
Right.
- [26:06]
Kyle Mann
And I still think that that's the thing that's going to come to head in the, in the playoffs, don't you?
- [26:10]
Rob Mahoney
I think it inevitably will. And that's where you see kind of like the magnifying glass or I guess microscope kind of case studies. Right. It's like three point shooting on the whole may not be the thing that is driving winning and losing at the level that it was eight years ago, but can Alex Caruso hit enough threes in this crucial moment? Can Steph Castle hit enough threes in this crucial moment? It still determines like which players supporting and otherwise can stay on the floor in those games.
- [26:37]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. So it's like the highest of highs of like volume three point shooting that as your identity. I, I also. Well, that as your identity is still. This will speak to that point. I also think it's possible that the league ebbs and flows. It's. It depends on who's in the league. I know that seems like a pretty obvious idea but like you know, our superstars right now have certain talents. You know, it's like whimsical. Wimby is a rim pressure player. Like his rim pressure on both ends or his anti rim pressure on the other end is a big factor. You think about Luka getting to the basket is just as much and generating Free throws and generating, you know, ball movement, things like that. Shea, obviously, his driving force, he's. He's become. He's cultivated a competent three point shot, but his driving downhill stuff is kind of the. How much of it do you think is that, too? It's just that, like, we went through an era where jumps we had like, you know, Durant, we had Steph Curry, we had James Harden, we had. We were really lucky to have a cluster of players that happen to be really, really talented dribble, pull up shooters. And it just so happens that in the ebb and flow of talent coming in the league right now, we just have a lot of downhill rim pressure players that are really talented.
- [27:46]
Rob Mahoney
I think it's a huge part of it. I also think that those players are coming into the league having been in a basketball ecosystem that has been so shooting heavy for some of the formative years of their developmental careers. And so it's not really an accident, right, that those guys had the downhill Runway that they've had and have become great drivers because they've grown up with all the shooting.
- [28:06]
Isaiah Blakely
Yeah.
- [28:07]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. And I don't. I don't know if I have anything to add that. Yeah, that's. That's good.
- [28:12]
Rob Mahoney
Isaiah, hit us with what's next.
- [28:13]
Isaiah Blakely
What we got from Thomas. What is your Mount Rushmore of ought indie rock artists?
- [28:18]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, this is our bullshit, Kyle. This is. This is our time, Justin can't stop us. No one can stop us. We have.
- [28:24]
Kyle Mann
Isaiah seems so enthused by that question. Did you just. It's just dripping. Oh, my God. He was so. He was like, what is this? He didn't even know what the word aughts was. I was like this. Gen Z.
- [28:36]
Rob Mahoney
That was hurtful. That was very hurtful to us. Where do you want to start with this? First of all, let me ask you this. Do you want to try to build a mountain, Rushmore together, or do you think we're capable of that? Or do you just want to have our own little separate mountains?
- [28:49]
Kyle Mann
I think we need to have our separate mountains. It's so subjective.
- [28:52]
Rob Mahoney
This is.
- [28:52]
Kyle Mann
We're talking about art here, Rob. I don't have to agree with you. Damn it. I mean, I refuse, honestly. But I do think that we'll agree with things. Yeah, I do think we will.
- [29:00]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah. What do you think is the band or the artist in terms of indie rock music of the aughts, which we should clarify, we're thinking like 2000 to 2009, primarily. That window of time, if you want to include 2010 and blurred the line. That's cool with me too. But who do you think we're most likely to agree on?
- [29:19]
Kyle Mann
I don't know about agreeing. I mean, I'm not trying to do a Pitchfork kind of approach where we as an organization, kind of composite thing. It's just like, I get it.
- [29:29]
Rob Mahoney
You don't want to be on my team. Was on you, Kyle.
- [29:33]
Kyle Mann
Well, I think the obvious one. I think you have to be specific, though. I think if you're talking about Death Gab, I think you got to talk about the Bar Suck era. Because when they go over, I guess it's to Atlantic, right? And they make plans. This is really getting in there. Granular. They're not an indie band anymore. They had like a hit on. They have like Soul meets Body on like.
- [29:50]
Rob Mahoney
Right.
- [29:51]
Kyle Mann
Trl. I don't think it counts. So that would be my first one. I think you're talking about photo album. Transatlantic Death Cap, I would say, is one one of them.
- [29:58]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah. And we have the facts too. Like, I mean, that's an era where those are banger albums. But we've stumbled into the larger indie rock debate of is what makes indie rock a sound or a feeling? Or is it literally being on an independent label or putting things out yourself? I don't really know how to suss all that out, to be honest with you. There's a philosophy behind it that I will defer to the actual music experts to parse. But it brings up a band that I want to talk to you about because they would be on my Mount Rushmore if they qualify. Is Jimmy World an indie rock band?
- [30:32]
Kyle Mann
Oh, well, their hit album, they produced themselves.
- [30:36]
Rob Mahoney
They did famously.
- [30:37]
Kyle Mann
I think that is the essence of the conversation. So, yeah, I mean, Bleed American, I think is. I still pull that out. I mean, Futures is too. And Goodbye sky harbor and everything. Yeah, great too. But yeah, man, Futures is an all time classic. It got bought by a label. It did, I think. I think it qualifies because they recorded it themselves.
- [30:57]
Rob Mahoney
Well, in that case, yeah. Death Cab and Jimmy World, I think, are easy inclusions on this list for me. Do you have anyone else you want to go to?
- [31:03]
Kyle Mann
I would quibble a little bit there because I think. Do you think they're pop punk, though? Do they count as indie? Purely there, I think they. I don't know them. A little more towards pop punk. I. This is one of my favorite bands. I've tried to get Rob in on this. This is one of my all times. Their early stuff is still incredible. Broken Social Scene From Canada is. I just think. I think they put out one of the best albums of that decade with Forgot It People. I went and saw them perform it live, met their lead singer. I love that band. They would be on my rush more. I think they're unbelievably good.
- [31:32]
Rob Mahoney
The humble brag of. I met Broken Social Scenes.
- [31:34]
Kyle Mann
He was just standing out in the venue. They're at that level of famous where that could happen. And we got. Yeah, we were. I could tell he was drunk, but we were. We were chatting it up and he was a nice guy. Yeah.
- [31:43]
Rob Mahoney
I got to be honest with you. I don't know why I don't like Broken Social Scene more than I do. But they just always like. It washes over me. I listen to the albums, it's all fine. I like it. Do I return to it? I can't say that I do. A band that I do return to often, Rylo Kiley. I think they're basically. Their Entire run is 2000s. I think they gotta be here.
- [32:04]
Kyle Mann
No, no, I don't really have any. They're one that I just. I'm not. I'm pretty ignorant on. I haven't listened to em much, to be honest with you.
- [32:10]
Rob Mahoney
So they're your Broken Social Scene?
- [32:13]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, maybe a little bit there. The other one that. I know we don't want to linger too long in this because I know people's eyes are glazing over. But Deer Hunter is one of my just all time favorite bands. I think they just rock, they fucking slay. If you ever listen to Cryptograms. If you ever listen to Weird Era Continued. If you ever like. They're just. They're awesome. Anytime I was writing music, I was just like. In the back of my mind I was like. I would just really like to be Bradford Cox. Cause I just think he's awesome. So Deer Hunter would be on mine.
- [32:39]
Rob Mahoney
No argument with Deer Hunter. I went more basic with the Strokes. I think there's a lot of like good easy answers.
- [32:45]
Kyle Mann
But I can't say they're indie. Are they indie though? They were like major labels were like laying down in the street. Like just true. Like I.
- [32:54]
Rob Mahoney
Well if they don't. If they don't qualify, like again, this just depends on spiritually what you think indie rock is. And I. I can't even tell you anymore given how many cycles we've gone through all that. But like if not them, do yeah, yeah, yeah qualify. If not them do the New Pornographers qualify. If Party qualify, like I will go as far down the list as I must. But I'm gonna try to get these bands included if I can.
- [33:17]
Kyle Mann
One of the times that I almost strangled a person and went to jail was the lead singer in one of the bands that I was in called deloreans. They the New Pornographers were coming to Louisville and they asked to play with the deloreans. And the guy that was the lead singer who picked, he was like, I've never heard of him. And he said no. I was like, I'm gonna fucking murder you.
- [33:36]
Rob Mahoney
Oh my God, murder you.
- [33:38]
Kyle Mann
I was like, what is wrong with you? Anyway, Sea and Cake would be a band, I would add, and then Modest Mouse would be another Mood in Antarctica. That's all Time Goated S Tier and then Low Destroyer. Those are some more for me.
- [33:52]
Rob Mahoney
Oh, I love Destroyer.
- [33:53]
Kyle Mann
Throw some hip hop in there. Ugly Duckling, Binary Star if you wanted to. Those are. Those are some of my favorites.
- [34:00]
Rob Mahoney
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Kyle Mann
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Rob Mahoney
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Kyle Mann
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Rob Mahoney
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Kyle Mann
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- [36:47]
Rob Mahoney
Tommy.com Isaiah what do we have next that's not from the aughts?
- [36:52]
Isaiah Blakely
Yeah, no notes there. All great picks. This one is from Hunter. For Kyle pick an NBA starting five of Kentucky alumni from any era.
- [37:03]
Kyle Mann
Rob, you'll be able to participate in this too, I think. Oh sure, I do have a list
- [37:08]
Rob Mahoney
of like my personal favorites. But this is your time.
- [37:11]
Kyle Mann
Like why don't you start then? Go ahead, start.
- [37:13]
Rob Mahoney
Okay, well these are not. Look, they're not the best players. I can't even speak to who they were at Kentucky. But in terms of Kentucky alum in the NBA, these are five guys who I really love who I tried to craft into a starting lineup. John Wall. I mean just one of the transcendent athletes and playmakers and like the YouTube hype machine into him coming into the NBA if you weren't there I don't know how to explain it. Kayson Wallace, who's just become one of my favorite players in the modern NBA, obviously Michael Kidd, Gilchrist just extremely my shit. Never figured it out in terms of how to be an offensive player as a pro.
- [37:47]
Kyle Mann
But he had some era misfortune for him to come into the league and have the problems that he had and then the game changed. I think that exacerbated what was going on.
- [37:57]
Rob Mahoney
Unfortunately he's one of those players who's not even like one ERA too late, but maybe like 25 to 30 years too late in terms of when he came into the league because yeah, he could have been a great, a great run and finish guy on the Showtime Lakers, you know, like there was really a time for him and unfortunately was not with the Charlotte Bobcats. Jamal Mashburn, I mean one of one of our great mid range merchants of all time. Nerlands Noel, who I always really hoped would be a bigger deal than he was style for days. Don't know that he ever like took basketball 100 seriously on like a possession to possession focus level but could not help but love him.
- [38:32]
Kyle Mann
Very childlike. Nerlens Noel Speaking of the John Wall thing, man, just the, the real pure mixtape era of the Internet is really just a, a really a time that I miss. And I've told this story before that like right after college when I was an aimless moron, that was a really long era actually might still be going on. But I was substitute teaching and playing music but I was substitute teaching at the school in eastern Kentucky and over the intercom Kentucky was recruiting John Wall at the time. And this is how, this is how sick it is here. The principal came over the intercom and said John Wall just committed to the University of Kentucky. And people in the class cheered. You heard an audible cheer. I was like yeah, that's, that's just that that doesn't happen in other parts of the world. So anyway, I made an actual lineup up. We'll just go through here. I love Jamal Mash for needing to make my list. Another honorable mention. A guy who is my age and from my part of the world. Rajan Rondo, who has a son who is in eighth grade and is kicker Pierre Rondo. You need to check it out. It's depressing, I know but anyway at sitter I've tried to field a basketball team pre injury.
- [39:37]
Rob Mahoney
I mean so, so did I. For the record, that's at least like up down the positional spectrum. We're going to start with can anybody shoot? Who's to say we're going to start
- [39:45]
Kyle Mann
with pre injury Demarcus Cousins? I think he, he was just, you know, obviously I was rooting for his redemption arc there with the warriors because I just wanted to see it. But you know, Demarcus has had his moments where he's made mistakes that I can't apologize for, but he's always kind of that, like that. That son that you're. It's in your family where when they screw up, you're just like, come on, man, don't. Come on, let's. Don't. Let's not do that. Anyway, we don't write him off. We still love him here at the four though. I'm gonna, I'm gonna play Anthony Davis at the four with DeMarcus Cousins. The Pelicans experiment, you know, I don't think we need to defend him at the, at the three. I'm a Tayshawn Prince guy, man. I love Tayshawn Prince. I think he's the perfect glue role player, could shoot the ball. He's probably my favorite all time Kentucky player. I've told this story. We were at summer league one time and he walked by and I was sitting with Bill and Bill elbowed me and said, that's. Hey, Kyle, it's Tayshawn Prince. And I fluttered and had this look on my face and he said, you look like your high school crush just walked by. And I turned and said, my high school crush did just walk by. Tayshawn Prince, my favorite at the, at the 2. We need some shooting, movement shooting. Jamal Murray. Actually, I'm going to put at the two.
- [40:54]
Rob Mahoney
Okay.
- [40:55]
Kyle Mann
And then. And then at the one, I'm going to put mvp. Possibly two time mvp. Shea.
- [40:59]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [41:00]
Kyle Mann
Come off the bench. Devin Booker. That's my, that's my lineup. I think we're going to be pretty good, Rob.
- [41:04]
Rob Mahoney
Pretty fucking good team. You know, that's. That is an actual very competitive and I have to say, very modern basketball team. How do you feel about kind of the present skew of that group?
- [41:13]
Kyle Mann
The present skew in terms of like what they are now? I mean, the Marcus isn't going to give me much now if that's what you're talking about.
- [41:19]
Isaiah Blakely
But.
- [41:19]
Rob Mahoney
No, that part is true. But in terms of like everyone you picked, if I'm not mistaken, is like been in the NBA over the last, what, five years?
- [41:27]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think. I legitimately think that would be. That. That's not a hot take. I don't need to say that I mean, that would be an incredible team defensively, both sides of the ball, they'd be good. But the. It's. It's wild, man. I mean, even just in the Cal era, you could put together a few. There are so many players I didn't even mention. And you could put together an awesome team.
- [41:46]
Rob Mahoney
It's true. Also, I forgot Tayshawn. So you. You did reach. You know, it's not all. It's not all current guys, but Isaiah, what do we have next up?
- [41:53]
Isaiah Blakely
Definitely Kyle's team in four there, but okay, come on.
- [41:56]
Kyle Mann
I knew Isaiah would have a comment on that.
- [41:58]
Rob Mahoney
Some of us are just trying to name some guys out here.
- [42:00]
Kyle Mann
All right, dudes.
- [42:05]
Isaiah Blakely
I'm a Pelicans fan, which is weird. My question stems from the fact that I can't imagine a future for this team. Every time I try to work out the next few years, my brain hits a wall. But what if you were the gm? What would your three year plan look like?
- [42:19]
Rob Mahoney
I want to say more broadly. The number of emails we got from fans of bad teams having full on existential crises was at an all time high for this mailbag. Chad's is representative of that, but the Pelicans are quite a quagmire. Kyle. I understand Chad's frustration and the running into the wall logically over and over of how you dig your way out of this because as you start kind of like plotting the steps, it's just. I think it's just going to be quite a while before this team is actually good again.
- [42:49]
Kyle Mann
Oh yeah, I enjoyed Chad. I enjoyed Chad's wording. And even in the first sentence of I'm a Pelicans fan, which is weird. That got a snick snicker out of me. You can already. You can already just hear the indecision in existential just floating in the ether that's going on for this person. What? I mean, do you have any like real. Cause I started to think of like real procedural things, but I was curious to get your opinion. I'll serve to you to start on what. What can they actually do here?
- [43:14]
Rob Mahoney
So I have a couple procedural notes I would say from a. From a zoomed out perspective. I think Zion's presence and shadow over this organization is one of the biggest impediments to them like actually moving forward. And so trading him, even if it's for value, that you would necessarily prefer, I think is in the Pelicans best interest at this point. I think he's just one of these guys where he's not disruptive. He's been healthier this season than maybe any of his NBA seasons to date, to be honest with you. He just seems to warp the logic of the team by existing. Like, his continued presence is in part, I think, what pushes them in the direction of wanting to be more competitive now when they really shouldn't be. It lets them talk themselves into thinking, oh, we're a team to take seriously, even though the rest of our roster suggests that we're not and our record suggests that we're not. He's in this, like, superstar uncanny valley, basically, where in theory, yeah, the Pelicans, led by Zion Williamson, should be good, but they're very clearly not. So what do you do with that information? I think you have to trade him from there. I think there's a lot of reasonable arguments about guys up and down the roster in terms of what you want to do. Weirdly enough, Kyle, I think a lot of this comes down to what is happening with Giannis Antetokounmpo, because if he continues to be a member of the Milwaukee Bucks, that has a radical impact on the Pelicans draft future, considering they have a swap with the Bucks. So if the Bucs are going to continue to try to be good, that would mean that the Bucs pick, therefore is not as valuable, which means the Pelicans themselves need to tank and lean into being as bad as possible in the present tense, which they're not capable of doing based on recent history, or at least don't seem to want to do. But I think that they should if Giannis leaves the Bucs, as we all expect him to do, but also, we expected him to leave maybe a year ago. So who's to say that gives the Pelicans a little more latitude to try in the interims? So if they wanted to keep Zion, if they wanted to keep Dejounte Murray, there's a little more room to do that if the Bucks are bad. But it's just frustrating to be a team that kind of should be rebuilding but is resistant to it, and also, even then, is a little bit reliant on another team's draft future to determine what you should be doing.
- [45:26]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, they're pretty. They're pretty leveraged in some. Some tough spots here. I have. I have a little bit more of a practical solution here. The first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to hire an AI slop farm slot farm somewhere in the world. And what we're going to do is we're going to set to making videos of to make it look like Zion is working out with Drew Holiday in the off season on his defense. And he's very serious. We could even do another. We'll have a few different options. We'll have another video where he's going to be doing, like, a rocky montage where he's getting in shape, he's doing, like, those sit ups where he's hanging in the barn. Like, it's going to be that kind of thing. And then what we're going to do is we're going to figure out a way to game Vivek Ranadive's algorithm so that he sees this on his phone. And as we know, the older generation fooled by these AI videos. What's going to happen is Vivek is going to be like, oh, oh, shit. And, you know, text their GM and be like, you know, I think Zion's got some stuff going on. I think this is one of our more credible, legit options if we can move. Because really, you got to think about who. Who are we targeting in the league, and I think Vivek is the target for that. So, you know, we're going to get to work on the AI stuff. We'll figure out how to pay for it later.
- [46:29]
Rob Mahoney
Well, first question. What. What algorithmic lane do you think we need to tap into to feed Vivek's phone? Like, what is he being fed on Instagram right now?
- [46:39]
Kyle Mann
I don't know, man. There's a lot of layers to this. We're going to have to have. It's going to. It's going to be. It's going to be a pretty tricky operation. I can't speak to all the parties that are going to be involved, but I'm going to outsource some of that to some. Some smarter tech people than me.
- [46:52]
Rob Mahoney
I think you're right, though, that maybe the ultimate market inefficiency in the league right now is a slop. And trying to get ahead of it before everyone fully catches up to being able to identify it at all times.
- [47:01]
Kyle Mann
Just trying to be early adopters, you know, I think.
- [47:04]
Rob Mahoney
I think you've got the right idea. All of which is to say the Pelicans are kind of screwed. I'm sorry to say, Chad, it's going to be a minute, but I don't really see a lot of, like, immediate ways for them to just move heaven and earth and all of a sudden be on the right path. It's going to take some time to untangle. I do think, like, Herb Jones is a part of this Trey Murphy is a part of this. Those guys are constantly in trade rumors. I don't feel or see any urgency to trade either one of them. Do you?
- [47:31]
Kyle Mann
Well, I was going to say Herb at the deadline was good, but he's on such a good contract. It's like you're not going to kind of hurt you in terms of value, the returning value there. Herb was the guy that I thought made the most sen sense to sort of align needs with a team. That was close. I could see because he's such a difference making defender. Trey somebody I'm going to keep around. I think you just think it like the solid, you know, the solid pieces that I want to keep. And I mean, I would say Queen is still there. I've always kind of worried about fears. But Trey, Trey Murphy is another guy that I would, I would want to keep around in terms of personnel, core personnel. It's a mess, man. I really don't. Yeah, I really. There's nothing. But I don't. I don't blame Chad for feeling like you're hitting walls, because I think they have hit walls that they constructed themselves, honestly, to be honest with you, so completely.
- [48:18]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, it's. It's just hard to make sense of the fact that Trey Murphy is this good and he's 25 years old and so you don't want to trade him. Zion Williamson has been good this season. Dejounte Murray has come back and I think it's been a little lost in the Jason Tatum focus, but has looked quite explosive for a guard coming off of an Achilles injury. And yet there's still this. Even with all those things breaking right. This is who the Pelicans are. So best of luck to New Orleans front office. We will not be running it, but we may feed them some contracting fees for the AI slop farm. And in the meantime, we're going to keep answering questions. So, Isaiah, what do we have next?
- [48:52]
Isaiah Blakely
Yeah, so the next question is from Jake. Why do pods always talk about wanting matchups? Like, how do you want a certain seeding so you don't play a particular opponent? Wouldn't you want to play a good opponent earlier? As teams go along, their rhythm sinks in and they get harder to beat.
- [49:08]
Rob Mahoney
I think this one's kind of open and shut, Kyle. You just want to create more opportunity for things to go wrong for other teams. Is it any more complicated than that
- [49:19]
Kyle Mann
in terms of wanting certain matchups like you're like, who you'd rather see than somebody else?
- [49:24]
Rob Mahoney
So I think the idea that Jake is talking about is something that we raise, other teams raise, where it's like, oh, if you can stay on the other side of the thunder in the bracket. If you can stay on the other side of, like, if you don't think you match up well with the Celtics or the Knicks. Yeah. Wanting to delay as much as possible. Jake's argument is like, if you are catching teams later, they're going to be harder to beat because they're going to be in rhythm. I think that's going to be true of almost anyone at that stage. And so if there's a team that you don't think you match up well with, you want to create opportunities for their bad shooting to lead to them losing, for them getting upset, for them, you know, God forbid having, like, serious injuries that compromise their seasons. Like, you just want to get them off the board without having to do the work yourself.
- [50:07]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. And there's so many different conditions, too. This was another thing we were asking Jared Dudley about was like, you know, for the Nuggets in particular, like, I'd rather see the Nuggets earlier because they have so many things that they're figuring out. I definitely team. Teams go into the playoffs in varying states. You know, a lot of teams will have like, okay, we're trying to get right. It's. It's really not typical that a team is going to go in and be just firing on all cylinders. Like, we're seeing that with the Pistons. Just so many different things can go wrong. So honestly, I don't know that it's like a blanket beginning. You know, it just. It varies a lot. So I don't know that there's any one answer to that.
- [50:42]
Rob Mahoney
It's a great point. Isaiah, what do we have next?
- [50:45]
Isaiah Blakely
Next one is from Josh. My question is a little out of the box, but I've been wondering something. How do you all watch all the games with so many games being played each night? What is your process to stay up to date and informed? Do each of you have a different process? I'd love to hear your process and how you prepare for each show.
- [51:02]
Rob Mahoney
How do we watch all the games? Simple answer, Josh. We don't. How could you. How could you possibly.
- [51:09]
Kyle Mann
Physically impossible. Yeah.
- [51:10]
Rob Mahoney
Over completely overwhelming to keep up with the entire schedule. So, I mean, Kyle, we pick and choose, right? Like, what is your general approach in terms of how you are watching NBA games and you're. And granted, you're having to keep track of everything going on in college basketball too.
- [51:24]
Kyle Mann
Oh, God. I mean, I. I definitely. There are Several. Lots of nights. You know, I would say in the dozens of dozens and dozens where I try to get the command center going, where I have as many as six games going at once. But to be honest with you, I mean, like, you get.
- [51:40]
Rob Mahoney
You get.
- [51:41]
Kyle Mann
The more games you watch, the fewer games you watch. Has kind of been my thing lately. It's just like I'd rather. I would rather sit down with one game and really, really watch it. And if I watch, I'll. And a lot of times I'll start with several on the screen. And we're just talking about the live experience. You know, we're not even talking about the time when you can go on Synergy or whatever platform it is. I mean, I have the League Pass app where I can go back. You know, we've had second Spectrum in the past, but I'll. I'll go and folk start in. Maybe one will draw my attention if there's a blowout. They just kind of discard themselves as we go. In terms of live experience, how do you handle that? That's kind of how I go about it.
- [52:16]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, I'm getting to the point where I will watch, like, big matchups live as much as possible. You know, if it's a marquee game or. And that includes, like, my own personal marquee, you know, based on what I'm interested in seeing or what I kind of feel like I need to see this week. Like, for example, the Hawks and the Celtics play tomorrow. That's a game I would really like to watch live. That's one I want to be plugged in for, to see kind of what's up with the Hawks and see this as a measuring stick game for them. But other, like, I'll do the marquee game. I am a one game at a time guy. I just do not have the capacity to watch multiple screens, and I get lost a lot bouncing between them. So I try to lock in on one game. I just find myself increasingly relying on those other resources you mentioned. In particular, Synergy, where I have it down to an art, or down to a science, I guess is the preferred term. Where I can. I can crunch out a game in like 65 minutes, skipping free throws, skipping timeouts, just like every dead ball that I don't need to be watching. That will not tell me something. I'm going to try to get out out of that as much as possible.
- [53:15]
Kyle Mann
And key commands, that's. You got to know the key commands. You got to be, you know, scrubbing two seconds. I'm like two seconds. Two seconds. Two seconds.
- [53:22]
Rob Mahoney
You know, scrubbing two seconds at a time has literally changed my entire life. So this is what we do now. You know, I try to. I plug into games, plug into games at night. Especially if it's one that you like is a big deal or you want to be a part of the conversation or whatever that is. But I'm doing a lot of work the next morning at this point. That will change during the playoffs where that's like not an option anymore and you're just watching live all the time. But for the regular season, I mean, you gotta pace yourself.
- [53:47]
Kyle Mann
You do. And in terms of. And there's also the sort of journey of just trying to follow and find out what you need to be watching. You can, you know, you can box score comb and things like that. Oh, like, oh, wow, you know, what happened there? Why did that happen? You know, that kind of thing. I mean, you and I've talked a lot about this. When you're trying to look for patterns and interesting trends and things like that. I use lineup data. I mean, I love charx. Turned me on to popcornmachine.net which has been down.
- [54:13]
Rob Mahoney
I know he's.
- [54:14]
Kyle Mann
Bring that site back, please, please.
- [54:16]
Rob Mahoney
Who do we need to talk to? Do we need to start a GoFundMe? What do we have to do to get popcorn machine back?
- [54:21]
Kyle Mann
Somebody relayed to me that the person who's on Blue sky said that they were working on getting it back. But I would use that site to see like, okay, they went on a run. These are the players that were in. And then I would cross reference that with. With the timestamps on synergy and look at the play type data and be like, okay, that's really interesting. I'll watch that stretch and sometimes you'll find something and sometimes you won't. And like tracking data can be. And all the interesting thing is tracking data for people who don't have access to synergy. Tracking data is all available on NBA.com and play by play video is available. So if you're really savvy, you can go into the play by play that is available on NBA.com and watch the clips and get access to video. You don't even necessarily have to have synergy. So I don't know if you knew that or not, but not saying you rob, but there's a lot that's available. If you're on the other side of that wall out there and you want
- [55:07]
Rob Mahoney
to see it completely, I think for guys like us, or if you're covering the NBA in any capacity. It really boils down to two buckets. It's like, what are you watching as, like, a confirmation exercise, Right. I think this thing, and I want to see more evidence of it to nail down whether it's true or not. And that usually requires, like, digging into full games, understanding the ebbs and flows. Like, if you just jump into someone, like, I just want to watch every shot attempt that Cade Cunningham has taken, you're going to miss the vast majority of the way he's manipulated the game. So you have to be very careful about that kind of stuff. And then the other part of it, I think is pure discovery, which is what you're talking about with the lineup data, which I think you can glimpse in a box score and go back and reverse engineer and you can look at rotation patterns and try to go back and watch. You'll also just, over the course of these games, just be plugged in and be like, oh, my God, I didn't know Gigi Jackson was doing this this season. And so you really need that healthy balance of I think something and want to prove it right or wrong versus I don't even know what I'm looking for. And I want to be caught by surprise.
- [56:06]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. And there's the element of me laughing at myself, stepping back where you mentioned, you know, trying to find patterns. And the confirmation thing, I know you've had this happen if you do this job, is that there are many, many times where I thought that I saw a pattern, and I get far and I pull on the rope that I think is really, really long, and then the rope just stops. And I'm like, oh, man, this thing that this pattern that I thought was. Or I watched the tape and I'm just like, yeah, that's not all. Which I'm sure in the industry, I'm not being accusatory. I'm sure there's a lot of people who get to the end of that rope and they're like, I've invested the time. I'm just going to go ahead and make the argument and just go through, just push through. But, yeah, those are some pretty hilarious moments where I'm just like, man, I drove down this road thinking there was an exit and there. There is not. So that's. That's just part of it, man.
- [56:52]
Rob Mahoney
Those people are definitely out there in terms of who are just. Just justifying the effort with the take or just. It's such a novel thought that you want to make the claim even though, you know, in your Heart of hearts. Oh wait, I just looked at their sch and they just played the nets three times in a row. And maybe that's why this is happening.
- [57:07]
Kyle Mann
That's one that'll get you.
- [57:09]
Rob Mahoney
But so it goes. Isaiah, what's next?
- [57:11]
Isaiah Blakely
I'm a big multi view guy. I watch probably too many games at once. Or like I'll just box score like later in games and I'll be like, oh, the Knicks and Pelicans are in a game. Let me turn that on. So you're like, I share my fears cooking. I'm like, great, nice.
- [57:26]
Rob Mahoney
You're NFL red zoning. But just for like, where's the Jeremiah fierce pop in the slate?
- [57:31]
Isaiah Blakely
I look for scores and I'm like, well that's a weird score. Like why is that game close? Or like. Or you look at a boxer and you're like, why does the eighth guy on the Grizzlies have like the Burton kid the other night had like 25 on the Celtics. I'm like, what is happening here? Just stuff like that. It's like, I guess how I watch more teams.
- [57:49]
Rob Mahoney
It's a good coverage.
- [57:51]
Isaiah Blakely
But the next question is from Justin. If you zoom out beyond pure basketball and think about just narratives, which team winning the title this year would make for the most compelling overall story?
- [58:02]
Rob Mahoney
It's a good question from Justin, which I assume no relation to our Justin, but who's to say, you know, this is the kind of thing he would want us thinking about, you know, the narrative standpoint of this year's playoffs. Kyle, did anything jump out to you in terms of what makes the best story for this postseason?
- [58:19]
Kyle Mann
Well, just starting from the Knicks perspective, I think for a, for it to be like a compelling like the titles come home kind of thing, I think we. You have to. There is a long, long, long arc for that to that there has to be a long arc for that to become a thing. To the point where I think about baseball, I think about like the 2016 World Series. Like I was very invested in that because my father in law is a big Cubs fan. But it has to be like a drought that is so long that it's taken on a Persona of like there's a curse attached to it, whether it's the goat or the bambino. Like it has to be that to me is the only way that it can reach that level to start with. I don't know if you have a thought on that.
- [58:57]
Rob Mahoney
I think you're right. We get a little over the top in terms of those sorts of stories where it's just like, oh, this team hasn't been good for 10 years. And thus this is like a great reawakening of everything they used to be. I don't know. There are enough truly long suffering franchises that I think we can tip our hat to the truly distraught among us.
- [59:17]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, the other one, you know, we were talking about, the ones that he listed out here, you kind of run into this question of guys bolstering or, you know, whatever, whatever word you want to, you know, solidifying their, their case to varying degrees. Like, Jokic is probably trying to like, solidify his like, top 10 or whatever it is. You know, I'm sure somebody will like, you know, shake their fist at me for even saying that, but. Oh, you know, Steph was an interesting one. I think I find myself more interested in these, like, guys who are on an upward trajectory, proving it a little bit earlier than we thought. I think we've had a lot of compelling examples of that. You know, Jordan in 91, breaking through finally after just kind of like going up the hill, running up that hill and getting the boot to the face back down. You know, The warriors in 15 being a little bit ahead of schedule. Honestly, probably they're, they're ahead of schedule. Series we're probably 13 and 14. But that one with the paradigm shift, that was a really interesting one just because it was such a harbinger of like, the way things were going to change. I don't know, like Magic Johnson playing center, you know, so. And playing and winning a title back in like, 1980. I think Wemby, for that reason, is probably the most interesting one to me. Agree, agree or disagree there. There you go.
- [60:32]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I'm, I'm on the same page. I think in part because him winning would represent just a complete defiance of what we consider to be like the requirements to win a title.
- [60:42]
Isaiah Blakely
Right?
- [60:42]
Rob Mahoney
Like, you have to have these kinds of players. You have to have this level of experience. You have to go through those trials you were talking about with Jordan, like the, the, the arc and the hero's journey of what makes an NBA superstar is pretty tried and true at this point. There are exceptions to it, and most notably, one of those exceptions was Tim Duncan coming into the league and winning in year two. But this would be Wemby winning without a David Robinson, unless, Unless Steph Castle just becomes David Robinson somehow. But, like, it would be a build of a team and a style of team. That would be a holy shit moment because of what it represents for Wemby and the spurs and the future of all this.
- [61:17]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. I mean, do you. So you say you don't care about LeBron getting another ring? That. That doesn't really. That would be pretty incredible.
- [61:23]
Rob Mahoney
It would be very cool. I don't. I just don't think it's all that plausible. Like, part of this question to me is like, what are the things that could realistically happen? And the Lakers winning a title is just realistic enough to put them on the title pie and all that, but they would have to overcome a lot, and I think it would just be almost too long a shot at this point to really pencil that one in.
- [61:44]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, I. I think the answer is wimby.
- [61:45]
Isaiah Blakely
Yeah.
- [61:45]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah. One other answer. I do think the Celtics winning would be a great story from the perspective primarily of, like, a. A team of, like, strivers.
- [61:56]
Kyle Mann
Let's get Isaiah on here. He. Come on back.
- [61:59]
Rob Mahoney
Come on.
- [61:59]
Kyle Mann
What do we do?
- [62:02]
Rob Mahoney
Gritting like, those are dudes who decided not to take a gap year as a gap year. And if they did that to withstand Jason Tatum's absence and then his rehab and then he comes back and is good and they win the title, that would be an amazing story. It would also make working at this company completely untenable. So I'm not, like, rooting for it, but it is something that you would have to acknowledge, like, wow, they really put that thing together.
- [62:26]
Isaiah Blakely
I also think it'd be cool in a year where, like, we've done so much hand wringing about tanking and, like, how bad it is for the league, and then a team that was. Everybody thought was going to and then somehow found a way to win the title is pretty cool. And, like, a lot of these guys were on the team that won in 24 but didn't play.
- [62:43]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [62:44]
Isaiah Blakely
And now they're, like, big contributors. And, like, I think that's also pretty cool. Like, Kata being a starting center now is like, whoa. Right? Like, I think. I think I'm biased, obviously, but I do think it'd be pretty cool.
- [62:56]
Rob Mahoney
I think it's a great point, though. Like, what do we want to see rewarded in the NBA? It's teams that go for it. Teams that don't take the tanking out at the easiest opportunity. And you're right, Isaiah, about the build of the team. Like, this is five years of acquiring guys at the end of the first round, beginning of the second round. You know, undrafted free agents. Like, guys who are in that zone that is theoretically attainable for everyone, and they made good decisions that have turned out to pay off, and they took A minute they took the patience to cultivate it, to develop those guys. But there. There are a lot of stories on that roster worth rooting for.
- [63:30]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, I think they're div. I've talked. I mean, this is my lane, obviously, but the developmental story with. With the Celtics is one of the more interesting ones in recent memory. Just because if you look at. I mean, they took Luke Cornett, who was a guy who was considered like a. Like a. So. So, you know, catch and shoot, you know, pop pick and pop big. And he. That's totally not what he is anymore. He's. He's way, way more like little intrinsic kind of, you know, tying it all together kind of thing. And then, I mean, Shireman, they figured out a way to make him play. It's just on and on, they. They've really gotten a lot out of these guys. So, yeah, the. The Celtics, Pena is going to be insufferable if they win. I don't want to be around him.
- [64:06]
Rob Mahoney
He's worse than me. He's going to be on another level. I also just don't think, like, Chris Ryan's heart could take it if he has to go through another round of Celtics exceptionalism. So for all of our sakes, you know, I don't really want to say, like, I hope they don't win, but honestly, for my personal sake, I kind of hope they don't win. Isaiah, what do we have next?
- [64:28]
Isaiah Blakely
The next one is from Michael. I've got a funky question. What musical artist comes closest to approximating what Steph makes you feel when you watch him? The combination of awe inspiringness, the holy shit he's pulling from the logo, but that's somehow a good shot for him, making everyone better in such a unique way. And I know I've seen this before, but I still kind of believe it's happening. Piece. What musician makes you feel something close to that?
- [64:51]
Kyle Mann
Why I feel like Michael lobbed this right at me, I don't know.
- [64:56]
Rob Mahoney
Well, let's hear it. You know, tee off. What do you have, Kyle?
- [64:59]
Kyle Mann
I'm happy to oblige. I was. I was contemplating this. I think it. I think I was listing out my criteria here. I think it has to be an artist in a live setting that can reach incredible virtuosic highs. So naturally your. Your mind would go to. Okay, so who's virtuosic, you think? Okay, well, jazz is usually where organic, like, moments that could go anywhere happen. But I don't think it's jazz. I think it needs to be somebody that has jazz qualities, but they also have pop sensibility. So they need to appeal to people who are not music nerds. But also they need to have layers below what they do, where music nerds are also simultaneously being like, oh, my God, there's so much to chew on. The first answer here, I think, is just Prince. I mean, Prince in the live. Prince in the live setting. If you could. If. Good Lord, Prince. Just release. Make us pay for them. At least I would pay for them. Like, live performances, you know, there's so many vaults. You know, there's so much footage out there. He's the person, I think, that, you know, I remember he. He was just playing, like, a cover of, like, Creep, a Radiohead song that's not even my favorite. And he just rattled off some solos. I was just electrified musically. He's interesting if you listen to dorks. And then he. He also has a song like Little Red Corvette that'll make, like, somebody who's.
- [66:11]
Isaiah Blakely
No.
- [66:11]
Kyle Mann
Knows nothing about music or whatever it might be. Get excited. So Prince is the first answer for me.
- [66:15]
Rob Mahoney
I think that's the one, like, both in terms of shattering the mold of what an artist and a guitarist is, but doing it in a way that isn't alienating to pop audiences. Like you mentioned, he is so virtuosic, but he's also incredibly unselfish as a performer in the way he shares the stage. But when the moment comes, I always think of. I mean, there's the clip that circulated from the Rock and Roll hall of Fame where him and Tom Petty and everybody's doing While My Guitar Gently Weeps and everyone kind of has their moment, and then Prince's moment comes, and it's just like. Like what the. Like, everyone is like. The people on stage are basically bowing to him in deference. And if that's not like, a double bang for a performer, like, I really don't know what is.
- [66:55]
Kyle Mann
That's a real, like, wow. We'll say that. But I was gonna say there's. There's one that I would throw in that's a little less off the. The beaten path that I think. This guy. This guy has this quality. He has jazz sensibility and pop sensibility, and I. He's my favorite guitar player, and that's Reuben Nielsen from no More Orchestra. I've seen him live a lot of times, and he. He has access to things like modalities in his. In his solos that, like, other players just don't. If you listen to his solo, even on Like Honeybee as a track by Umo, I would go check out. It has, like, one of my favorite pop solos. It's like he's. He's really, really good and I think underrated. It's a popular band, but. But I. I personally think that he's got that same. So. Oh, I had a quick, really quick story. This is Prince Tyen, too. Too. Some of my friends were playing a Prince. Like, it was around Derby, and a popular thing for the bands in my city was like, play like a tribute show. So you just. You just. It was like Halloween as a band. Basically dress up like them. They were doing a Prince thing. There was this festival called Forecastle. Have you ever heard of that? It was going on in Louisville. It was a great music festival. It's. It's gone the way of the dodo. It's not around anymore. But when it was going on, I went to see them do this, and it was like on a Sunday night, weren't as many people there as on the Saturday and Friday times that they did it. But they get to Purple Rain and they're playing it and it's getting to the spot where the solo's gonna happen. And this little short guy goes up on stage. And I was like, oh, my God, that's Ruben Nielsen. Ruben Nielsen. I don't know how they did this. Reuben Nielsen from Umo goes up and plays a purple. I don't know if anybody has video of this. My brain oozed out through my ears. It was the most unbelievable thing that I've ever seen in my life.
- [68:31]
Isaiah Blakely
Life.
- [68:31]
Kyle Mann
So there we go. Even another Prince tie in. Go listen to Umo. Damn it.
- [68:35]
Rob Mahoney
They're.
- [68:35]
Kyle Mann
They're awesome.
- [68:36]
Rob Mahoney
The way you close the loop on that. I mean, just master.
- [68:38]
Kyle Mann
I didn't even realize that was going to happen. But, yeah, that was one of the crazier live things I've ever seen.
- [68:42]
Rob Mahoney
Look at you. Just. Just really doing it. Better than anyone has before. Kyle. I appreciate you, Isaiah. What do we have next?
- [68:48]
Isaiah Blakely
Next question is from Arie. What is the most important thing about life that you learned from basketball?
- [68:55]
Rob Mahoney
This sent me down quite a rabbit hole, Kyle, of introspection, of self reflection. I took it almost as like a little less about what I've learned from watching basketball and more what I've learned from playing basketball. Although they're on some level, one and the same. It's all experiential. But I think I settled on two things. One, there's nothing cool about not trying. And there are so many areas of life where people just kind of float through and can seem standoffish and ethereal and think that it gives them a sense of import because they're not going for the thing. I've just come to accept that, like, the coolest thing you can do is to really fucking go for it. And I really respect people who do it. And certainly if you're playing basketball and you're on a court with people who think they're too cool to actually play defense or to actually grab a rebound or just are kind of standing around chucking threes, it's just the worst basketball experience you can have as a player.
- [69:48]
Kyle Mann
That's a good one. I mean, yeah, we definitely went through, you and I being, like, vaguely the same age. I mean, we definitely went through an era that I encountered that I didn't particularly enjoy. I guess that was the jaded, ironic, you know, millennial Internet with the, like, car list and, like, hipster runoff thing where it's just, like, not cool to try. I think we kind of gotten away from that a little bit. I agree with you. I've always been somebody that tries. I don't really know any other way than to be sincere and go for it. You know, some people, you know, you don't want to be cringe. I think sincerity and effort are just, like. They're endearing qualities. So I'm with you. I don't really see. I've never. And I've never. It also speaks to the fact that I've just never really been very cool. So I've always just kind of like. Like the. Being standoffish and, like, not going for it. It's never been. Can pull off because it's just not me. So I'm. I'm with you, Rob.
- [70:36]
Rob Mahoney
That is our opportunity, right? By not being cool, we can lean more into not being cool. But, like, if trying is cringe, give me all the cringe you got. Like, I. I just think that's it's a better way to live. It's a more infectious energy when you're around people who live and operate that way. So, again, I really respect it. The other one, for me, Kyle, was you can be selfish even while doing the seemingly unselfish things, and you can be unselfish even while doing the seemingly selfish thing. And I say this in part because there are guards out there in particular who are, like, they get a ton of assists, they make very flashy passes, but they control the ball in a way that wears down the game and takes all of the energy out of it. And on the other hand, on the other side of things, there are people who take a lot of shots or who score a lot, who are doing it in a way that is kind of unselfish, that by overpassing they would be doing a detriment to their team. And so I think you have to rewire your brain with basketball a little bit beyond just like, oh, points are a selfish thing, or scoring is a selfish thing, and assists are unselfish because there are just so many arguments to the contrary. And you really have to feel it.
- [71:42]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, the volume assist thing. I feel like the 2016 MVP race was like one of the real culminations of that conversation. And then I think as it segued into like the Helio era, where it was like just be controlling it too much and then it hits a wall, as we've seen. But then we saw it sort of like go back the other way with the warriors winning it and then like LeBron as a hub winning it with the Lakers not trying to make it into the immigrant. But that, that does kind of segue to something that I've noticed about my play style. I think the next question is probably a nice jump. I. I don't know what it is, Isaiah, but I feel like the next question that's on our list would be a nice next one for this, but for me and I'll call back to charx again. I think we had a podcast where we were talking about just how just dumbasses we were. We were younger and just being, you know, like I loved to score when I was younger. Yeah. And it was very like I was somebody that had to learn a lot of hard lessons about like just playing, suiting what was going on. Even as a musician, I think I went through this process of just figuring out how to do less. Like, do less, be less, less ostentatious, be less visible, suit the thing that we're all doing here together. And I think there was a lot of commonality between, you know, I think your personality really does come out on a basketball court. As I've gotten older, I've talked a lot about how like assisted usage. You know, I had a funny. And I think John and I talked about this. I had a funny realization one day where I was just like, I love this stat. I was like, what's my assistant usage? I was like, it's not very good. And then I started thinking about. And then I started thinking about my. My like just day to day life. I was like, what's my assistant usage? I was like, my like usage and Worried about, like, what I'm doing is pretty poor. I was like. And I was just thinking about, like, what could I do for my wife today? What could I do for my parents? What could I do, you know? And I definitely think that those things, like, group dynamics are all over the place. People ask me about, like, why do you bring up music so much? With basketball, I'm just like, they're remarkably similar. Like, suiting a song is very similar to, like, suiting a possession in basketball or shooting a run and just things like, those kinds of. And I honestly treasure those things more as I get older. Just that, like, they're just. Just. It's really fun and. And it's like, this is a little bit more hit the bong, a little more sentimental, but I think it's just kind of how human beings were meant to be, honestly. And increasing in this, like, customized, siloed off, your earbuds are in, everything is tailored to you kind of world. I think Covid revealed a lot of this, too. I'm really rambling now, but I just think that. I think those things are increasingly water in the desert for me, those kind of group dynamic. And it's why I miss music, frankly, so much. But I. I think basketball is a reflection of that. Is that a good way to tie it off?
- [74:22]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I think it's completely a reflection of that. And a lot of those realities, we took some detours. But I think you're absolutely right about human nature and kind of what we crave and the environments in which we're best suited. So many of those are independent, especially, like, here in America, it's just kind of what we do. But I feel like you can really tell who grew up playing team sports and who did not. When you meet adults out in the world, kind of like, who is conditioned to that environment? Who understands the give and take of circumstance? Who knows, like, you're saying, like, the virtues of doing less sometimes and what that can do for a collective. Not everyone is good at it. And certainly there are plenty of people who grew up playing team sports who were still very bad at it. But it is a skill set in and of itself, and I think one that is just deeply admirable.
- [75:06]
Kyle Mann
I had a roommate. My. Two of my roommates in college were these Venezuelan guys who were jazz majors. And it could have been a TV show because they understood this and I didn't. When I was younger, I remember we were playing music, and one of them pulled me aside. Just forgive this Venezuelan accent for just a moment goes, come in you're doing too much. He would say that to me all, you're doing too much. And I would get very resentful. But he was right. So just. Just think about if you're doing too much.
- [75:31]
Rob Mahoney
Well, do you want to take yet another detour into. We got a question from Damien about our pickup basketball lives, whatever direction you want to take. This your personal scouting report? Your shoe breakdown? What is it that you want to tell the people in the group chat listeners about Kyle Mann, the pickup basketball player? Player.
- [75:50]
Kyle Mann
I feel like more is out there about me as a bass pickup than you, Rob, because I've released the tape. I've released tape of me shooting the ball. I've had it in videos. I feel like it's been out there, I think.
- [76:00]
Rob Mahoney
I don't know.
- [76:00]
Kyle Mann
I'm. I've. Is it fair for me to just bounce it back to you first on this one? Because I'm more curious.
- [76:05]
Rob Mahoney
That's fair.
- [76:06]
Kyle Mann
Go ahead.
- [76:07]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, I've been in. In media runs for, I don't know, going on 18 years now. So, like, the people in the industry are familiar with my work. Is there tape of it out there? I don't. I don't think there's a lot of it. You know, some things are best kept behind, closed do. What's the sign you're inside, though?
- [76:23]
Kyle Mann
Signature. Signature move that was on there. What's. What's a signature? What do you. What's your go to, Rob?
- [76:28]
Rob Mahoney
I do. I mean, look, I am a classic. Like, you go to your move until you're stopped. And so, like, I am a low post, like, back down, back down, baby hook kind of player first and foremost. But you take that away. I'm going one foot fader, Dirk style on the baseline. Like, that's just who I am and how I was raised. So. So that is a signature move of a kind for me, for sure.
- [76:50]
Kyle Mann
I have a couple signatures. One of them is people. It is like a joke where people think it's coming, and it's like, I go to it a lot. If I have a small, I'm going Dirk, like, I can. And I can do the Dirk in transition. I'll do it fast. It doesn't even need to be in the half court. I'll do it and I'll bump you and then spin and shoot it.
- [77:05]
Rob Mahoney
Love that.
- [77:05]
Kyle Mann
My percentage on that one used to be incredible. I have another one. It's increasingly not as good because my left knee sucks and I shoot it off my left knee. I have another one where, if I'm posting on the right side. Side. I do the Rondo going to the left. Yeah, going to the left. Scoop under the defender's hand with my right hand. People. People never see that coming. You remember Rondo used to do that?
- [77:26]
Rob Mahoney
He did all the time.
- [77:28]
Kyle Mann
You know, floater game. I mean, I honestly, like, I grew up, I over the years have kind of changed it. I used to shoot a ton of like Rip Hamilton and Ron Mercer were my guys. Running off of like floppy action and like shooting dribble pull ups and things like that. Those are just harder to shoot as you just wear and tear on your knees and your calves and your heels. So I don't do them as, but that used to be a pretty big part of my game. Aside from shooting a ton of threes.
- [77:50]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, that's a, that's a great staple for pickup, especially where everyone is tired and running ragged. Like, if you can be a movement shooter an hour into your pickup run, I mean, that's just easy money as far as I'm concerned.
- [78:02]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, I was definitely a like, please stop moving type person when I was younger. Like, it's not as much anymore, but yeah, my wife will see me from the walking track of our gym and then she'll be like, oh, you're going to exercise? She's like, I've seen you play basketball, you're not exercising. She was like, you saunter. I was like, oh my God.
- [78:17]
Rob Mahoney
This is another reason why it's best to not be on tape. Like, once you see yourself lightly jogging up a pickup court or like a men's league game or whatever, like, there's just no coming back from that.
- [78:27]
Kyle Mann
How about the shoes? What do you. What do you got?
- [78:29]
Rob Mahoney
I'm mostly a LeBron guy. Like, I need the stability as like more than anything. So I usually go for like a pretty heavy shoe and I just do not trust the lower profile of a lot of more modern releases. So I'm usually like opposite. Yeah, because you're. You. You're really low cut. Are you still rocking Pumas? Is that still where you want where you are?
- [78:50]
Kyle Mann
No. I mean, I was, I was a Kobe 9 guy for a long time and I would just get them wherever I could. Obviously his passing made it harder to get them for a while and when it seemed like the vault was closed, now it's back open. But when, when that was going on, I switched over to and I became a Puma guy. I think Puma. If anybody has any pairs or Puma wants to send me some Puma Clyde, all pros. I'm always on ebay trying to find them. Kobe 9 and Puma Clyde, all probably pro. Jordan 28 was another one I really liked a lot. But I'm all about low to the ground. Tracky start and stop. No, I like the love stuff. See, I'm not sure. Puma Stewie 4 was really, really good. Yeah, I'll say. Those are harder to get in mint sizes, though.
- [79:27]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I mean, that. That is now our struggle. You know, it's very tough for men's basketball players out there, but there are an increasing number of like, very great signature shoes coming from women's basketball players that we're trying to get our hands on. You know, we're trying to get the appropriate sizes. This is our struggle. Please sympathize with us, Isaiah, Why don't we go to this question from Brendan about Nikola Jokic.
- [79:48]
Isaiah Blakely
I also have to say, I cannot believe you guys are both Dirk Fade guys. I did not see that one coming. That is incredible.
- [79:54]
Rob Mahoney
We are of our era, you know. Well, Isaiah, what's your signature move? You're a prolific hoops player yourself.
- [80:01]
Isaiah Blakely
I mean, I'm definitely like a grab and go guy. Like get the board and push immediately. I like to play in space, but I'm very much it. In and out, right to left cross.
- [80:10]
Rob Mahoney
Hell yeah.
- [80:10]
Isaiah Blakely
Finish with the right hand, ideally on the left side.
- [80:13]
Rob Mahoney
Ideally don't make me go left kind of finisher.
- [80:17]
Isaiah Blakely
I like to go left even though I'm right handed. But I do not finish.
- [80:20]
Kyle Mann
I do too. I like to shoot. I dribble, pull up, go left. My. My floater has just gotten deeper and deeper. I'll take it from like 16ft, like, because I don't want to finish anymore. I had like a year where I turned my ankle like two or three times in a row and I just started becoming the floater guy. Like, and you can catch people really off guard because they're backpedaling you. So like, and they're like, oh, like I didn't even get a chance. Yeah, yeah.
- [80:41]
Isaiah Blakely
My dad told me, like, everybody's going to sit on your right hand, so just go left. We didn't get to the part where I finished with my left, but I always go left.
- [80:47]
Rob Mahoney
You got the first part down.
- [80:49]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, I have no left and it's awful.
- [80:52]
Isaiah Blakely
But yeah. This question from Brendan. I want to hear your thoughts on the flip and defensive strategy that teams are using against Jokic with more and more small guards fronting him and really frankly hacking the shit out of him. Before he gets the entry pass. He has clearly been bothered and has been throwing the ball all over the court recently. But is it too early to have pulled this move out against the smartest basketball player of all time, giving him time to adjust his decision making before the playoffs?
- [81:17]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, this has been a real capital T thing going on in Nuggets games where everyone is Alex Caruso now. Everyone is like the wing or the guard fronting Jokic, fouling him a lot. Like, I do think that's a fair thing to say. Making him kind of come over the top to draw fouls or try to really bully guys. Guys. I don't know about the idea that like, should teams have waited to not show YIC this? Like, they're not operating in tandem. They're not a coalition. They're trying to win that game. And so the idea that they should all be working together to not do something against Nicola yic, I. I just don't think the world really works that way.
- [81:52]
Kyle Mann
Oh my gosh. Yeah. With y. I mean, I understand the thought process of Jokic. Has Jokic not seen this? I think that's an interesting thing to go back and track. It's like, has he never ever seen this before? He's also. Also been a little bit. He's. He's physically still kind of not quite the same, but I don't know if he's going to get there by the end of the. The run here. That can be an issue too. Right.
- [82:12]
Rob Mahoney
I think that's a huge part of it. Especially like, I mean, when you're on the court as a player and you're injured at all. The most comfortable things to do are the things you see all the time. Right. Like the bigs that you know, what buttons to press, what moves to go to, how to get your up and unders, how to set them up. That stuff's easy. I feel like the smalls and the pressure that they're applying in the front end is like just enough of a divergence while you're still recovering to make everything that much more uncomfortable. And I don't think it's a coincidence that in a lot of these games, it's really the only times you see Jokic rushed a little flustered, throwing the ball around high turnovers. Like that stuff has been going on for a reason. And I think a lot of it is just because of how he is feeling in tandem with the pressure the teams are applying.
- [82:54]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, it's like size to size. Jokic has proven that he puts those guys who maybe don't have the lateral mobility, the patience to play away from the basket, the, the just start, stop, torture that he puts you in. Big guys just. There aren't a ton of them in the world that are like ready to do that. And even the elite ones like Anthony Davis, I mean, he toys with those guys. So it's just kind of like. It is an interesting curveball to throw at him at this stage of his career. I guess my question would be, I don't know that I have like a prescription right now other than like him being physically up to, up to the task and things like that. I mean, do you think this is something that he's going to figure out? Is his aging curve going to, you know, make this a problem, a place on the floor that they could put him more frequently? What do you see as the fix for this?
- [83:42]
Rob Mahoney
I don't think it's a long term issue, especially once he's feeling healthier and coming into, you know, next season. I don't, I don't think it's going to be the kind of thing we continue to talk about. But could it be an issue this season? I think it's a realistic possibility. You can move Jokic all around the floor, though, and so it's not really a matter of like, do you put him here or there? The world is your oyster. You can move him up the floor. The issue with Smalls guarding him is it makes it easier and fierce to do more switching in terms of handoffs or pick and rolls With Jamal Murray, like, it just makes the interchanges of guarding what the Nuggets do a little cleaner. So it has to be, I think by default a little more low post or mid post oriented. And it may just be as simple as sometimes the move is getting Jokic the ball at the elbow and shooting over the top or going to that kind of one step floater that he has better touch on than almost anyone else in the sport, maybe in the history of the sport. So there's lots of avenues available to him and we should say this stuff is bothering him. He also just put up 23, 21 and 19 against the Mavs last night while Jamal Murray was going for 53. He's doing all right. You know, he doesn't always look fully comfortable or fully himself, but I'm not too worried about Nicola Jokic.
- [84:48]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, what makes him sweat is gonna. It's a little bit different than, than, than other players because he's just able to impact the game in so many ways. The whistle's gonna Matter a whole lot too, obviously. You know, it's. If a team has the depth to continue to throw that at him, I mean, that's one thing. But if he.
- [85:06]
Rob Mahoney
If he. If.
- [85:07]
Kyle Mann
If it's dictated on a certain night that it's going to be called a certain way, it might be advantageous for, you know, the team to just be like, all right, this is, like, this is not. Pull it back. This is not a rope that we need to continue to pull on. Maybe we should try to. Try to push other buttons.
- [85:21]
Rob Mahoney
But that officiating, I mean, that's the big variable. And bigs in the league get such a raw deal, like they can be hacked and slapped and scratched in a way that basically no one else at any other position, regardless of where they are on the floor. I think it's smart for defenses to lean into that as much as possible. And as far as why teams are doing this now and not waiting, the other part of it is your smalls have to get used to playing this way. Not every guard knows how to front the post, especially against someone like Jokic, and get away with it and get. And understand where the line is in terms of that physicality. So I think there's a learning curve that's going both ways right now. Isaiah, why don't we wrap up with this question from Jake Jared?
- [85:58]
Isaiah Blakely
All right, last question from Jared is. Of the 10 NBA franchises that have never won a title, Nets, Hornets, Pacers, Clippers, Grizzlies, Timberwolves, Pelicans, Magic, Suns, and my beloved Jazz, which team do you think is the closest to winning it all? And more importantly, who do you think is the furthest from that achievement?
- [86:18]
Rob Mahoney
Ending on a bit of hope? Kyle, I think. Can we put the Pacers aside? They just went to the NBA final. I feel like they might be cheating. Is that. Is that fair?
- [86:28]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, I wrote this down. I was like, yeah, the Pacers have an argument that they're close because they got insanely close. Granted, they did lose some key pieces, but they did. You know, they're. I don't know that I would include them. You want to start at, like, most favorable and least favorable or most likely? Mostly, yeah.
- [86:43]
Rob Mahoney
Where are you thinking most likely of this group?
- [86:46]
Kyle Mann
The team that's the closest? I think that could, like, even. Even for the next couple of years could make, like, a minor tweak that could make a huge difference. You gotta say Minnesota, right? Is that.
- [86:56]
Rob Mahoney
I think it has to be.
- [86:58]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. I mean. Cause they have it. They have a player who's on a trajectory to that is pretty damn high. What could start to creep in is like you know Gobert and Randall's timeline, how it sort of interacts with him in that way. But they seem like a team that if they made a move maybe not even if in the margins if they there there's a move to be made that could make them. I still even I'm saying they're close, but I don't even know that they're going to win even still. So it's.
- [87:23]
Rob Mahoney
They might not.
- [87:24]
Kyle Mann
Who knows what that means But I think they're probably the closest.
- [87:27]
Rob Mahoney
But being able to envision it if you're the Wolves I think is just something that that franchise has almost never had really. They've had a couple of glimpses at it during the KG era where it's like okay, you can see the path in 04, right? Like get past the Lakers, get to the Finals, somehow outmuscle the Pistons. But that team had a lot of guile, a lot of talent, a lot of sacrifice. You could envision the track to get there. I think this is probably the first time since then that that vision even exists. And that's a huge thing for an organization. Certainly one of these long suffering fan bases who's just had so many droughts throughout its relatively short history compared to other franchises. But they've been so bad for so long that I think it just means a lot to know that you have a player like Ant through whom all things are possible. I think it has to be them. I do think you're right though that they're going to have to re envision their front court at some point. Like the Gobert, Nas, Julius Randle triangulation. It's not going to be who they always are just by contracts and age and all of that. And you can already see them kind of playing around with some other possibilities here and there with like hey Kyle Anderson, you're going to be like a big for us in this surprisingly important capacity. They're going to be a team that's changing shape over time. But with aim you can afford to change shape in a lot of different ways.
- [88:42]
Kyle Mann
I had a Wolves related thing that was minor, minor anecdote. The other day I tweeted out something. I thought it was vague, but I just tweeted out a cancerous trait in a basketball team is when they have an inability to feel to feel urgency unless crisis is upon them. And I can't tell you how many people hit me up and were like that. He's talking about the Timberwolves he was.
- [89:02]
Rob Mahoney
That said, their comeback last night against the Rockets was some of the most thrilling basketball I've seen all season. And that was without Anthony Edwards, without Rudy Gobert. Nas Reed got ejected. Well, Rudy fouled out. Nas got ejected. I believe Jaden McDaniels left early. And yet here's Julius Randall, like every fucking big Play. Here's Dante DiVincenzo hitting huge shots like they, they just have something. And I don't think it's going to get them all the way this year, per se, but it's, it's enough to convince me that great things are possible for them. But who's on the other end of the spectrum for you? Who do you think think is the farthest? The furthest, I should say, from the NBA?
- [89:39]
Kyle Mann
I did. I did the same thing in my notes. Furthest, farthest. Gets me old. Yeah, it's the Nets, man. I mean, I, I just don't, I think it is. I don't know if there's much argument here. Even the, even the teams that are down there in the, in the basement with them, like, I mean, the Jazz have a lot more going on right now. I mean, I'm not even going to say the Hornets because they're, they're a rocket ship right now. Yeah, the Pels.
- [89:59]
Rob Mahoney
That's kind of the argument, I think. Right? It's. I think it's either Pels or.
- [90:02]
Kyle Mann
No, we don't even think. But the Grizz aren't down there too. I, I think the Grizz probably might even be underneath Pels. I don't know. It's just we lack, we lack real direction. We think we have a little direction. But yes, the Nets are the, the five first round picks thing is becoming an increasing. Like, I can't tell you how. I don't know if this comes up with people that you talk to, but like there's been a lot of victory lap laughing going on about that and
- [90:30]
Rob Mahoney
I. Danny Wolf pot shots. What are they doing?
- [90:32]
Kyle Mann
I'm somebody that was a. Optimistic about it. Maybe not all five guys, but maybe a couple of them would hit. But if you hit of two of the five, I guess that's not total, but they're not in a great spot, man. They really, really need to get the top pick in this or at least I don't know which one it is, but they need it at least to get one of the top three picks in this draft.
- [90:51]
Rob Mahoney
I think the question here is do you think the teams that are further away are the teams that have something right now that they still have to dismantle, but, like, have a talented base base and just have to go farther because they have to take that extra step? Or is it the teams that are already at the absolute dead bottom and don't really have the prospects worth investing in right now and thus have so much more to build? I. I kind of think that team, oddly enough, unless you're in, like, a Chicago Bulls level of mediocrity, which, honestly, maybe if the Bulls were included in this conversation, I might be inclined to. To throw them.
- [91:22]
Kyle Mann
Maybe they should. Maybe they should. They're in purgatory. Is like, oh, yeah. Somehow. Somehow worse than. I like the idea of the question, though, of, like, is it harder if you have to make some. If you have some things and it's not working to figure out?
- [91:39]
Rob Mahoney
There is a certain clarity in being the Nets, right? Like, you know exactly what you don't have, and thus you can move heaven and earth in theory, to get those things done. This is kind of the problem we were circling around with the Pelicans of, like, what are they willing to do? What is. What is the interest of that franchise? Is that a team that even if they understand intellectually, they should trade Zion Williamson? That can actually bring themselves to trade Zion Williamson?
- [92:02]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, it's like, it's that whole thing of, you know, you really in the NBA, if you're looking for the title race, you're trying to get a dollar bill of a player and you can have a lot of quarters and find yourself be like, I just. I have all these quarters if I just had a dollar bill. It's like, I just feel like. I feel like Orlando is kind of in that situation right now. But I like some of their pieces. It's like, I don't know, man. That's. That's a tough one, I think.
- [92:28]
Rob Mahoney
Let's give it to the Nets. They got a long way to go regardless, so even if they do pull it off someday, it's going to be in the distant, distant future. Kyle, this has been fun. Our next podcast will not be in the distant future. We're going to be back on Monday with JV in tow. Thank you in the meantime to Isaiah Blakely, not only producer today, but presenter. Thank you as always, Isaiah, for helping us with these mailbags. Victoria Valencia, Ben CR Cruise. We will return. We promise we will return. Thank you to everyone who emailed in to ringergroup chat gmail.com with questions. We had so many. We were even planning to get to today, but didn't thank you again for chipping in with those and we'll see you soon. See you 21/ and present in select states For Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. kentucky or Wyoming gambling problem call 1-800-Gambler or or 1-800-Myret call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here.
- [93:27]
Kyle Mann
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Rob Mahoney
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Kyle Mann
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Rob Mahoney
That's the OG.
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Kyle Mann
It kicked off this whole zero sugar
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Rob Mahoney
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Kyle Mann
You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise and Vice Guava. And they all bring the Monster Energy punch.
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Rob Mahoney
So if you've been living in the
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Kyle Mann
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Rob Mahoney
Ultra's got a flavor for every every vibe.
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Kyle Mann
And every single one is Zero Sugar.
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Rob Mahoney
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Kyle Mann
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Kyle Mann
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