An NBA Mini-Mailbag and All-Star Picks, Plus Kon Knueppel Stops By

26:57And Jacoby saw it for years and years. You just kind of lay low and then you use quick hands and you try to strip them before they, before, as somebody makes it, you kind of play possum with it and then you jump on it. And he's one of the best I've ever, the best ever at this was Jason Kidd. Jason Kidd was either, he would strip the guy, he would draw a charge. It was almost like if it was a two-on-one or a three-on-one and Kidd was the guy back, you felt like Kidd had an advantage. There's never been anyone like that. White is really good. I would throw him in there, guard blocks or that. The Jokic 70-yard one-handed passes in there.

27:34Pritchard's end of the quarter shots, I wish he was a little better at this. I really wanted to put this in there because they run anytime there's four seconds left, They always have Pritchard. They cut it out. And he's really good at getting the shot he wants, but he's been cold lately. I don't think he'd win. And then this might be too good of a skill, but Michael Porter Jr.'s coming off a pick off balance, almost like he's 45 degrees floating and being able to straighten up and shoot is unlike any other. And he's been doing it, by the way, since the Nuggets. He's just shooting them more in the nets.

28:09But that's the one that always makes me marvel. I just think it's so freaking hard to do that. And when I watch him play in the Nets, I'm always like, how does he do that? So I think that counts as a weirdo skill, but I would say Pritchard would be minus, I'm sorry, McConnell would be minus 180 to win that award. Ricky Brackett asks, since it appears an NBA team is nowhere close to coming to Seattle, I have another idea. Let's make Seattle University an awesome college team that becomes the city's team. Couldn't a rich guy basically buy a coach and some awesome players and make them one of the top 10 teams in the country?

28:47Short answer, yeah. I love this idea. This is one of the best ideas we've ever heard. Seattle's not getting an NBA team anytime soon. If anything, if they do expansion, it's just going to be Vegas and that's it. I don't see Seattle. I don't see it happening. I'm sorry. they just reached the seattle university just rejoined the wcc which is the the one with uh gonzaga all those teams um pepperdines in there whoever just blow everyone out rich guy there's rich people in seattle just go in all of a sudden seattle you people are buying the merch great idea i love it um i think elja baylor went there too so rename the rename the arena the elja Bale Arena.

29:31This could work. End of the game situations. Amir Schur writes saying about, how do we fix close games turning into a free throw parade? What if we make fouls in the final two minutes result in three free throws instead of two with that strongly discouraged intentional fouling? I was there for three free throws to make two as a kid. I think it was the 1980 season, somewhere around there. A complete abomination. Please never do that again. I would go the other way. In the final minute, if a team is up by four points or more and they get fouled, they go to the free throw line. That first free throw, if they make it, counts as two.

30:09And we just keep the game moving. And the guy gets credit for two free throws, even if it's on one shot. If he misses the first one, gets to take the second one. So it's still advantage to the shooting team, but I really think that would move along. I think, how about this? Find me somebody who disagrees with that idea. We're going to have less free throws. I think everyone's like, great. I would also, you cannot call a timeout after a timeout. I've been saying this for 20 years. I think I've been saying it ever since I've become no timeouts after a timeout and we're good. Chris Leary asked about the, where did you come from award?

30:44Which he really liked for, that was my idea for the break, the most improved player. Instead do a breakthrough player though. where the fuck did you come from award? He tweaked it to, could it be a guy last season who had no chance of having his own shoe, but now as we're voting for the awards, he actually now has a chance to have his own shoe. I thought that was pretty good. So he said like people like Jalen Johnson, Stephon Castle, et cetera. People that before the year, he would have said, no way that guy's going to have a shoe. By the end of the year, like that guy might have a shoe. It did prompt me to look at all the people who have a shoe and I was kind of stunned.

31:19LeBron, Durant, Ja. Not sure how much longer Ja's going to have a shoe. Giannis, Booker, Wemby has one. Cade's got one coming next year. That's all with Nike. Shea's at Converse. Jordan Brands, Luka, Tatum, Zion, Russell Westbrook. Probably coming to an end soon. Adidas, Harden, Edwards, Dame, Donovan Mitchell. I mean, we're already at like 16 players. Curry is a free agent right now, but he'll have one soon. CJ McCollum is Lee Ning. Kawhi's at New Balance. Austin Reeves is at Rigor. Rigor?

31:58361 degrees. 361, whatever you call it. They have Aaron Gordon. Puma has Lamella Ball and the Scoot Zero, which matches the number of minutes he's played this year. And then Anta has Klay Thompson and Kyrie. That's a lot of guys. So it's almost like the ones that don't seem to have one are Jokic, which is hilarious. who's been the best part of this decade, hands down, doesn't have a shoe. And a couple others. But I like that idea of the, oh, he might get a shoe now. It would be a fun, goofy word. I'm keeping track of all these at the end of next year. All right, two more. Next question. This is from Mike Grandy, and he has a theory in the best trade of the year.

32:38It's a conspiracy theory. So he's activated a conspiracy bill. He mentions how Halberton hurt his calf in the finals of game two. The Pacers traded... Their first round pick that year for next year's first round pick to Atlanta, right before game five. And he hurt the calf even more in game five. And he's wondering, did they do the trade as an insurance policy for exactly what happened? Everyone keeps saying they got lucky. It was a cap move. Mike Grandy thinks they did the deal as insurance in case something worse happened to his calf that they knew he was playing on. It was too risky. And it was almost like an insurance policy.

33:15I got to be honest. Even Conspiracy Bill wants no part of this. It's good. He appreciated it. He likes the way you're thinking. You're thinking outside the box. You checked a lot of Conspiracy Bill boxes. Staying away from that one. Not staying away from this one, from Marcus in New York. My friends and I are 30 and we're recently talking about how crazy it must have been when the NBA Finals were interrupted by the OJ car chase. I can tell you it was amazing. I've talked about this before, but I was in Portchester, New York, at my buddy Jim Grady's house. with him and our buddy Camp and a couple other people.

33:49We were drinking and we were gonna go out and we ended up watching this finals in the car chase and we never actually went out. And we just could not believe that OJ Simpson was being chased around. Marcus asks, who would be the 2026 equivalent to OJ from a fame talent standpoint to be in this exact situation? His first thought went to Barkley and Shaq. Then he asked if it was a basketball player interrupting the Super Bowl, if you need a cross-sport interruption, if it was Shaq with the Super Bowl cutaway. He goes in a lot of directions here. And then asks who the least famous, least famous talented athlete they would cut away from the Super Bowl to if they were in a car chase like OJ.

34:27And he said, Carmelo might be the border for basketball. He thinks the news waits until the commercial break for Carmelo. But if it was Dwayne Wade, they cut away during the game. And then he asked for my lines. He said, football breezes the line, baseball poo holes. Great question. So if you're using the OJ blueprint, because OJ was massively famous, you can see OJ behind me. See that? See that poster right there behind me? It's a spot-built OJ poster, and it says, the juice is on the loose. And it was made well before he actually was on the loose. It's a super famous athlete who remains super famous after they stop playing.

35:07That would be one. It would have to be a complete suppress, goes without saying. It would have to be somebody that everyone likes. And that's a tough thing to say in 2026, but there's a like test that you could say. People that you're just instinctively like, oh, I love that guy. We all loved OJ in the 70s, 80s, early 90s, especially with Naked Gun. We were all in on him. So my nominees, none of these are the winner, are Charles Barkley, Serena Williams and Jason Kelsey I was really proud of the Serena Williams idea because you think it's mail but what if we switch over everybody loves Serena Williams Serena Williams, Charles Barkley, Jason Kelsey nominees and none of them are the winner because the winner is Peyton Manning it's clearly Peyton Manning I think they would cut away from any sporting event if Peyton Manning was trying to escape the police after a murder involving his wife and a waiter.

36:09I don't care what the, it could be the Oscars. It could be anything. They're cutting away to Peyton Manning and the white Bronco. Cut offline guys. I have Wade for the NBA, David Ortiz for baseball and ironically, Eli Manning for football. I thought that was funny. I would all came around with the Manning brothers. So yeah, I'm pretty sure this will never happen again. I think the OJ car chase, which was the most unbelievable TV experience I think of my lifetime. It's in the running. I'm pretty sure it's not replicable. All right, we're gonna take a break and then I'm gonna do my all-star picks.

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37:21Good luck. You must be 21 plus president select states or 18 plus and president DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt-in required bonus issued It has non-drawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount, see terms at sportsbook.fandler.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. It's no secret that great teams need great teammates. And when it comes to insurance, State Farm is there to help you find the right coverage for your home, for your car, and for much more.

37:58whether you need an in-person or digital assist, they're ready when life hits you with a full court press. Get a game plan that helps fit your life. Talk to State Farm today. State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. All right, I'm back. I'm gonna quickly go through my all-star picks. Thanks to everybody who sent in a question, by the way. It was fun to, it was a mini mailbag that somehow ended up being almost 40 minutes. So classic me. All-star picks. I'm going to try to make these really quick and then we can bring in Conk Nipple.

38:33We had to hand in starters today. For the West, I did SGA. I did Joker. I did Anthony Edwards. I think those were the three that had to be in. No question. Don't need to make the case for any of them. My fourth was Steph Curry, who is averaging 29 a game, 47 % field goal, 39 % from three. He's Steph Curry. And selfishly, I want to see him in the game. So shoot me. It's basically him versus Jamal Murray and Devin Booker for that spot. And I thought long and hard about giving that to Jamal Murray because I think he's been amazing this year. He's been 25-4 in the eight, 48 % shooting 44 % from three.

39:20He's been awesome. You think about last year, early November, how depressed everybody was about how bad he looked. He just signed that contract and it felt like he had sunk cost potential for the Nuggets. And now he's come like a bat out of hell. And I really wanted to vote for him. But Curry's one of the 10 best players of all time, 12 best players, whatever your list is. He's intent for me and he's having a really good season. And it's not his fault that he's on this weird Warriors team that he's on. fifth one you could have talked me into Murray for this spot too it's a begrudging one it's Luka Doncic clearly has to be on this averaging 34 a game 34 8 9 typical Luka season it's tailed off a little from the ceiling of where it seemed like we were going to be a couple months ago first month of the season when it seemed like it was revenge Luka the defense is really bad the the The mono ball is really bad sometimes too.

40:20I'm not positive he's that fun to play with some nights, but as a force of nature, I don't know how you don't have him on there. So West starters, SGA, Joker, Ant, Curry, Luca. I don't think any of that is that controversial. For the East, Giannis has played enough games, I think, to be on. So I'm putting him on 25 games. And then Jalen Brown, if he's not out, I don't know what we're doing. I think he's an MVP candidate as well. Averaging 30 a game. one of the many reasons why the Celtics are a two seed. Three guards I have after that. I have Maxie, Cade, and Brunson in that order. And it's interesting.

40:59Some people have that ordered a little differently. They might go Cade, then Brunson, then Maxie. I would have Maxie first. I think what he's been able to do on that kooky Sixers team where you never know who's playing night to night, the most reliable other player they have is a rookie. you never know if Embiid's playing you don't know if Georgia's playing it's just a bizarre team and night after night he either brings they're down 10 and he'll just max it up for two minutes and bring them back he's relentless I think he's been really good at the end of games unusually good at the end of games especially because you know he's probably shooting and I don't know how he's not the first guard out of all those guards Cade's been great and is the biggest reason Detroit is good.

41:47And if you want to say Cade over Maxie, that's fine. But both of them have to be on there and then Brunson as the third guy. And Brunson's still looming if the Knicks can get going as MVP candidate. So Giannis, Jalen, Maxie, Cade, and Brunson for that. Okay, reserves for the West. This is what I have. I have four locks for me. Jamal Murray, Devin Booker. I still have Shangoon. And you could feel Shang-Goon when he wasn't in those Rockets games. You know, to have a big guy who's 22-9-6, I just think he's the one that tilts the Rockets so they become really unusual and really hard to play when they just seem like they have too much size and too much offense.

42:30And once you remove him out, they seem a little bit more normal. So Murray, Booker, Shang-Goon, and then Wembenyama has to be on there. I don't care that he's played 25 games. I don't care that he's probably going to get to 1 ,800 minutes for the season, whatever he ends up in. He's 24 and 11 and 3. He's three blocks a game. They played the Celtics Saturday night, and he was on a minute limit. And every minute he was out there, it felt like they were going to go on a 10-0 run. The stuff he does on defense, which you don't need to hear me expound on it for 10 minutes, but it's the most important defensive thing anyone's doing.

43:11He's in everyone's head at all times. Even Jalen Brown, who all year was able to get any two-point shot he wanted and able to go to the basket anytime he wanted. There was a couple times he was just like, ah, I'm pulling this back out. But Wemby stuffed him in the second half on one play that Jalen's gotten it all year. Wemby's like, no thanks. He tilts the floor in all these different ways so that a 12-footer now becomes a 15-footer. and then offensively it's getting better and better with figuring out how to use him against the Celtics they won the game by just going to Wemby over and over again right around the foul line and have him shoot over people it feels like he's going to make it every time so he has to be on there that's nine I'm just I tilt all star toward the proven famous guys sometimes everybody's got their own method for it but to me KD has to be in averaging 26, 5, and 5.

44:03There's good advanced metrics with him too. And eye test-wise, end of the game, still seems like he's 95 % of where he was seven years ago. It's amazing. Have to have him. Abdi on Portland doing 26, 7, and 7. Keeping them near 500, which makes no sense at all. And it was a team that, when you thought in the West, was just going to have no chance just because how lopsided the West was. but he's been... I don't know where this one ranks on biggest goddamits for the Wizards that you've had this century of just like, ah, goddammit. But he's got to be way up there. And then the last one I have... So on the bubble, before I say who I gave the last spot to, Kawhi was the toughest cut.

44:54I just think the team record disqualified him. It's not his fault they're 16-23, but he has been on the team the whole year. and they're 16 and 23. And as good as he's been for the last month or so, I just, somebody's going to get caught and it's going to hurt. Brooks was another one because he's the tone setter of that Suns team along with Booker. And I just love what he's doing game to game and how competitive he is. And I think the culture that he brings in really matters. Never thought I'd say that about Dylan Brooks. Chet Holmgren, sure. It's just weird to only have one OKC guy. Um, I'm in Thompson was another one as a two way guy, also averaging 18 a game marketing with the scoring.

45:36And then, uh, I would add Fox in here until about, uh, 10 days ago, but I felt like he's gone backwards a little bit. And castle is another one. I don't think they've done quite enough. My 12th spot goes to Randall on Minnesota because that team has really rounded into being an actual contender. And Randall is now at 22, seven and five. He's 50%. They're plus 6.2 when he plays. I test wise him and Edwards. I just like them together. I really feel like they figured out him, Gobert, Edwards, and just how those three guys work. I really enjoyed watching Randall this year and I wanted to reward a second guy from that team.

46:18So I would rather go Randall than Kawhi. And I think if you switched Kawhi and Randall, I don't know if Minnesota has a better record with Kawhi. I'll just say that. Plus he's not as reliable as a dirt ability standpoint. So that's who I have. SGA Joker, Ant, Curry, Luka starting. Murray Booker, Shengun, Wemby, and then KD, Abdi, and Randall. That's in the West. In the East, already said as the starters, Maxie, Jalen, Cade, Brunson, Giannis. Mitchell was the toughest cut. He's got to be in there. He's averaging 30 a game. It typically, week after week, just a Cavs team that seems like You're on a double date with a couple that you're driving home and you're like, oh, man, you think they're going to break up?

47:04That's how you feel about every Cavs home game. Jalen Johnson has to be on there 24-10-8, and they traded Trae Young to make it his team. We'll see if he can deliver. Scotty Barnes, 19-8-5, 50 % shooting. Some bully ball defense, some bully ball stuff in general. There's a physicality to him that he's always had, but I feel like he's channeling it better than ever. he's got to be on and toronto is overachieved he's the biggest reason jaylen durin up to 18 11 and 2 this year um 63 shooting and a physicality and an intimidation presence just an old school you could see him on the 2004 pistons which is the highest compliment you could play he absolutely could have played on that team in one of those spots and you wouldn't have lost a beat i love how competitive and hostile he is in a good way, not a bad way.

47:58So he has to be on for me. I had to put Michael Porter Jr. on. He's averaging 26 a game, 8 rebounds. I look at it this way because this is I think they have the worst record of any all-star I put on. And I'm deliberately zagging from my same Kawhi take that I had earlier, but there's less less all-stars in the East. So it's more defensible. If it was in the West, he wouldn't have made it. There's been eight to nine games this year where he's just been the best player on the court or he's going against somebody who is a top 10 or a top 15 player and matching that dude, which is the same case for Jalen being an all-NBA guy and an MVP candidate.

48:43You have to have a guy like that in the league now because the league is so deep and so good. You kind of need your... And Abdi has been the way for Portland and Cade's been the way for Detroit. You go through, if you don't have that guy, you get in trouble. That's like the case for why Sacramento is in trouble, among many other reasons. They just don't have that guy to match the other good guys. Porter's just been, if you didn't know anything, if you're in a coma for the last five years and you just watched this season, you watched him play, you would have thought he was like a five-time all-star or something.

49:12It doesn't make a lot of sense. and I think he's an incredibly important trade piece especially if Golden State can get him which I've talked about earlier if Golden State can get him I don't think they win the title with him but it raises their ceiling and he's exactly what they need somebody who can create his own shot another three-point shooter another variable a heat check guy everything if they can get him interesting alright two spots left for three guys Norman Powell and the Heat basically a 500 team. He's 24 a game and has played with a massive chip on his shoulder all season because he can't believe the Clippers traded him and I've really enjoyed it.

49:53Plus 2.6 is advanced metric for on-off. Towns, 21 and 12. Catch him on the right night. Seems great. Gets a little gamey every couple weeks. You'll watch a game with the Knicks every once in a while where it just doesn't seem like he's interested in guarding anybody. Zach and Mahoney, Zach's podcast last week, they talked about him and whatever Zach said, I agreed with where it's like, it seems like he should be an all-star, but something's holding me off. And I feel the same way. So we'll just complete the exercise here. Bam and Mobile are out, by the way. They're not even in the bubble. The third one is Derek White, who the way to ding him is he's only averaging 19 a game and he's shooting 40%.

50:45And part of that is because if you watch the Celtics, there's times when the plays break down and whoever has the ball with four seconds left just has to put up a bad shot. He's plus 8.2 on off. More importantly, they have the second offense net rating in the league. Miami has the 21st rating, for example, with Powell. So if you're saying, well, Powell's a better offensive player, what happens if you switch White and Powell? what happens to those two teams? Are the Celtics still the second best offense? Is Miami better than 21st offense? I don't know. It's an interesting thought exercise. I think Towns, unfortunately, has to make it because you really only have four bigs, Giannis and Durin and that's it.

51:28And you have too many guards and forwards. And the Knicks probably could get two. So it comes down to White and Powell. and if White was shooting 44%, 43%, I'd feel better about it, but it's like 39.7. It's right on the cusp. I think he's, it's almost like if this was the MVP voting, I think he would be higher than Powell. But if we're just talking about all-star, somebody killing it, and Miami doesn't have an all-star, the Celtics already have one. I think I'd feel like a homer if I gave this to White. And I, as I joke about all the time, I like to take my vote seriously. So my heart says it's Derek White, but my heart also says that I might not be thinking about it rashly.

52:13So I'm going to go Powell. So Maxie, Jalen, Cade, Brunson, Giannis starting. Mitchell, Jalen, Johnson, Barnes, Duren, Porter, Powell, Towns. Toughest Cuts, Derek White and Kawhi. And I think if anyone gets injured, so we're already going to have Jokic is, I would say probably going to miss the All-Star game, but somebody will miss it between him and Wemby. so then maybe Kawhi makes it anyway. And then maybe Derek White makes it if there's an injury in the East. But I think that's the list. Those are my all-star picks. Thanks for listening. Thanks for hearing me pontificate. We're gonna take a break and come back with Charlotte's Khan Knipple.

52:54All right, we're taping this on a Tuesday afternoon. The most efficient rookie in the history of the NBA is here, Khan Knipple. Did you know that? I did not. Yeah, you're shooting stats and all the, You're very efficient. Try to be. People have been comparing you to players from the eight decades of the NBA, and they're like, you know who's really efficient? Con. You passed. Last time I had you on the pod, people still didn't totally know how to pronounce your name who are NBA fans. Now it's like, I don't feel like you get any knipples. Yeah. Right? We got it set now. And you're having a really steady, awesome rookie year, which I don't fully understand because you're the youngest podcast guest we've ever had.

53:32Really? Yeah. My daughter was the youngest, but she's May 2005 and you're August. Yeah. So you beat her by three months. Beat her a couple months. That's awesome. But yeah, I don't understand why you seem like you're 27 years old in these games. So what is it? How did you fit in so easily? Yeah, I don't know. I definitely have a more mature game. Just growing up playing in adult men's leagues all the time. My dad's run a men's league in Milwaukee for 20 years. so had to develop that aspect of playing off the ball that youth basketball doesn't really get you. Like just trying to fit in? With the whole AAU world.

54:12And the Instagram trainers and all that stuff, it becomes more about one-on-one skill and stuff. But playing in that men's league, I think you learn to grow and be more physical, how to move off the ball, all those things that are really important in today's NBA. and rebound. Rebounding. That was the one thing I told you before the season. I said, don't forget to rebound. You're like six a game. Yeah, almost. I'm getting down there. I think I'm at five now. now your whole team's back. Yeah. I've been watching a lot. It's been my favorite league pass team. And even though your record, when you're like 12th in the East, but you've been in a lot of these games, you haven't had Lamello the whole time.

54:53And Lamello is somebody I think I've changed my opinion on a hundred times, but he's looked awesome lately. Yeah. And it's the first time you can see your team like, oh, this is what the team could look like, right? Yeah, and we're playing our brand of basketball. We want to play fast, we want to play unselfishly and together. And we're a good rebounding team and we could hang our hat on that on the offensive end. I don't know if you watch Diabate at Al Moussa, but man, he's just all over the glass every night. You know, it's a fun brand, fun brand of basketball to play. Yeah, everybody seems like they give a crap.

55:27Yeah. Likeable team, good future. All right, we did the generic basketball stuff. I want to dive into rookie season. So you go in, training camp starts September. You've never had a job before, really. Does Duke count as a job? I don't know. I guess you're getting an I.O. money. Yeah, it still doesn't, though. You're in class, and that's fun. So you have a job. So, all right, walk me through. Do you buy a place? Do you rent? How did that whole thing go? In Charlotte, what do you do? Yeah, I rent. Okay. Yeah, a nice apartment. Do you have a family member, anything, anybody with you, or are you just on your own?

56:02No, I'm on my own. On your own? Interesting. No roommate, nothing? No roommate. By myself, which is obviously the first time ever, which I've kind of enjoyed. It's kind of cool having my own space. I was worried about that kind of at first, but that's new. And to do it when you're 20 is a little bit earlier than others. But I'm in like a nice part of Charlotte. A lot of young people, growing city. So good spot to be. You're just so much more impressive than I was as a 20-year-old. We moved off campus when I was 20. And I was sharing a room with my buddy Jacko. We had two beds. And we lived with two other guys.

56:39And we thought like we were really... What a blast though. Yeah, we had four people crammed in a small two-bedroom place. We thought we were really living it. You're by yourself living in Charlotte. All right, so training camp starts. Did you get a car? You leased a car? No, yeah, I bought a car. Okay. So you buy a car. Are you like a cheaper guy or are you like an extravagant guy? Probably say cheaper. I got a Ford Explorer. Right. Oh, that's smart. Okay. All right. So practice starts. You're fitting in. Do you feel like the rookie? Are people nice to you? What's happening? Yeah. I mean, we got a great squad of just, you know, guys that kind of embrace you right away.

57:14You know, sometimes it doesn't happen. Obviously, we have a younger team. Which is good for you, I think, right? Yeah. And we have four rookies. Yeah. So you're coming in with three other guys, kind of going through the same stuff. But also just the vets on the team being really receptive to a rookie is not something, giving us advice is not something you see on every team, so I hear. Well, plus you were part of this incredible rookie class. Yeah. I kind of can't believe how good it is. It's a good group. It's fun to see the success around the league every night. It's a good group of guys. Hopefully it continues that way.

57:50And how many of them have you known since you were like 13? You know, I was a little bit later onto the... The circuit? Yeah, like I was playing UIBL, but I'm from Wisconsin, and I wasn't getting really invited to some of the bigger camps early on. But you're aware of the guys, and playing in the Nike circuit, you play against a bunch of the players. Right. Play Dylan Harper, Liam McNeely, like all those guys we'd play on, And Derek Queen, we played on the circuit. So you see the Queen stuff where they trade the future pick for him. Everyone goes nuts, including me. Like, how can you do that? Well, I didn't like that.

58:28I didn't even put a protection on it. But then he starts playing, and he's just as good as he was in high school and college. And then people are like, okay, I didn't love the trade, but he's really good. Yeah, and his game just translated to the NBA, it seems like. He was awesome in high school. Yeah. Like we're playing in the NBA. MBPA has their camp in Orlando. Like he just, every time he threw it in there, it was like basket. Yeah. Obviously super skilled. He's having a heck of a year. And then Dylan's fit in on a really good Spurs team. Flag's been, I mean, that's your guy. Yeah. He's awesome.

59:04Pretty strange Dallas situation for the most part. He's following that trade. Yeah. Kyrie's not there. Davis has gotten hurt multiple times. The season started out badly. They're playing a point. Were you surprised they were playing him a point guard? It seemed like a big ask. Yeah. I mean, I think for your first 10 games in the NBA, you're going to try to figure it out. I feel like it's tough. I think he definitely embraced it, embraced the challenge. But, you know, that's tough to do, playing out of position like that. It was your first time playing in the NBA at all. But I actually thought he did pretty solid.

59:37Yeah, it was, in a weird way, probably not the greatest experience, but then also a great experience because you're literally thrown into the fire. You have to make all these decisions with the ball, so there's no way some of that. But you had the opposite. They put you in. You're doing all the stuff you're good at. You only have to worry about that. I don't know. I thought it was a little unfair, but it seems like he came out of it all right. Yeah, he's playing great now. Is there like a Duke text thread with all your old guys or no? We do. It's Coach Carowell, Sewell, his assistant, and he'll text us on a group chat at certain points.

1:00:15but you know when we were in Cleveland me and Sian went over to Tyrese Proctor's place for a little bit just hang out and enjoy some time together well the most fun thing you did was you brought your entire team to your house which went viral for like two days people loved that for some reason yeah we didn't think anything that it was that big of a deal I think people like knowing that NBA players are normal and that you would just go to somebody's house when you're on the road I don't think people think of the players like that sometimes. Right. I mean, you know, we, we were on the plane and, and obviously I'm from Milwaukee.

1:00:48So yeah, Grant's like, where are we going to eat? Grant Williams. Um, I was like, well, I'm going, I'm going home. Yeah. And they're like, oh, we're going to Con's house, I guess. And then I thought about it. My parents were like, invite it, whoever you want. And I was like, I'm going to invite the whole team over. Um, so yeah, the guys came and so what'd your mom make fajitas, chicken fajitas. Oh, wow. Yeah. Um, there's a nice Mexican grocery store in in Milwaukee, El Rey. So she, she got all the, the fixings and everything from there. And, you know, just in the crock pot and yeah, the guys enjoy it.

1:01:23Like we don't get to do stuff like that. Yeah. Very often, especially like when you're in Milwaukee, Detroit, like Cleveland, like it's cold. You don't, you don't really want to get out of the hotel. So that was a good experience for us. Yeah. I mean, when I talked to different coaches, players, whoever, they all say the schedule is so unforgiving with like not being able to practice enough not being able to actually do anything like you're you're in LA right now you had a game Monday against Clippers you have a game Thursday you actually have a couple days to right kind of hang out maybe even have a practice work on some stuff relax the schedule doesn't really work that way yeah it's uh it's interesting like I can't remember the last time we had practice like in our facility in Charlotte like it was probably two and a half weeks ago three weeks ago yeah And that's not good.

1:02:09And that's, I mean, just with how the schedule changed where you're basically playing every other night, it makes it so hard to practice because your body can't really physically handle practicing on the in-between day when you play every other night. It needs a catch-up day. I mean, the good news is the travels, can you imagine doing this in the 70s when they had you flying like coach and doing trains and stuff? That would be crazy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and then wearing Converse. Yeah, wearing the shitty sneakers, like all that stuff. Eating like cheeseburgers at three in the morning. Smoking cigarettes at halftime.

1:02:46I don't know how guys did it. Yeah, it's a little better now. Yeah, so you played 39 games. The season started, I guess, like October 24th range. So it's like 39 games in two and a half months. Right, and we played 39 games at Duke last year. That was a whole season. Are we in rookie wall? When is the rookie wall? Is it 50 games or 40 games? I can't remember. Somewhere around here. I'm not sure. Did you feel it yet? Do you feel it in your body? I think... I think it honestly I feel like it's more mental than anything else like it gets really repetitive and you know it's just the same thing like you're shooting around again today going over to the gym in the morning I think that finding a way to embrace that and enjoy that every day can get tough especially for younger guys you have the wild card if you play with LaMelo who is such a wild card game to game and can go on these I can't imagine what it's like to play with somebody like that I mean that in a good way like you just don't know when he's going to go off.

1:03:49Like he had that game the other night when he had 33 off the bench. Yeah. And it seems like there's, it definitely seems like he has his bounce back. Yeah. Right? And he's got his first step back and is starting to seem unstoppable again. Yeah. But we haven't really seen a stretch like this in a while where he can just like stay healthy for four months. But when you're playing with him and then you're seeing the other guards in the league, like it feels like athletically and talent-wise, he's with those guys, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, and he's doing a really good job, and I think the training staff just trying to manage his minutes to maximize the amount of games he can play, and that's tough to do.

1:04:29It's tough to get in a rhythm sometimes when you're going 28 to 30 minutes. You know you're going to come out, or there's some times in the fourth quarter when you want to be in there and affect the game. So he's been battling that, and he's been really locked in this year. Have you gotten to the point playing with him where you can kind of tell when he's about to go off? Like you can notice when he's feeling it on the court almost? Yeah, and there's just some situations where he has the ball, especially in transition, where it's just like he has those alley-oop passes from like half court. It's like how do you throw that when Brandon Miller's at the free throw line?

1:05:08Right. And he's throwing it, but it's like a quarterback anticipating just some of those plays he makes, pretty head-scratching. Yeah, and then you had Miller come back, and he's shown flashes of, like, if you catch him on the right night, it feels like he's, like, going to be an all-NBA guy. Yeah. You know, and he can rebound. He's a little, in a weird way, like, a really nice compliment to you because you guys both rebound. You guys can both shoot threes. You can both handle the ball and play without the ball, but I like the combo. Yeah, I think, you know, he's a really talented player, and just the athleticism and, you know, He has some of that chase down block stuff too that he can just make plays like that that a lot of guys can't make just with his frame and his athleticism.

1:05:55It's a fun group to play with. Yeah, he seems easy to play with. Like all your bigs kind of know where to go and what to do. It's a fun team to watch. I'm not even sure. I'm sure in the summer when they try to add to it, figure out what's next. I'm not even positive. I'm sure rim protection would be something. but for the most part, it's got a nice nucleus. Yeah, I feel like when we have all our guys playing, we're in a good spot every night. It's a good upset team. It's like one of those teams you'll be like a giant underdog somewhere, and I'm like, I don't know, they got all their guys. Watch out for them tonight.

1:06:31All right, so you're going through the league. You've played just about it. You haven't played the Celtics yet. I haven't played the Celtics. They're one of my favorite teams to watch. especially on film we were watching because they played the Clippers recently. I went to that game we kind of killed them. Yeah we were watching with Jalen Brown, right he had 50 we were watching them just defensively and how they guarded Kawhi and Harden and they just have a bunch of guys that are always in the right position defensively so we were just watching them, how they shipped off the ball it was a good game to watch just how they guarded the Clippers.

1:07:12So is that part of the process? You guys tried, because you have a really good coach. We had him in Boston for a little bit. But you try to, if you're playing a team, you watch a game where somebody did something successful against that team and figure out what they, try to unlock what they did? Yeah, so we have a bunch of clips that we'll watch together as a team, just from games. But I think in general, just as a player in the league, like if you know who you're playing on the schedule or just catching a game, Because we all get league pass. Right. Just catching a game of, you know, who you're going to play is always good and see what they want to do.

1:07:47Seeing it for a whole 48 just as a watcher. Seeing your hotel room at like one in the morning just zipping through the NBA app trying to watch who you're watching. Yeah, that's got to be so much easier than the 70s or 80s. Yeah, the tape delay. Well, yeah, you got the tape delay. You have no games were actually on. You wouldn't, if you had to queue up something, you would have had to go into like some video room and they would have to have like the projector showing you clips yeah i mean it's it's the video the video guys that we have like do a really good job or even uh i don't know synergy have you heard of synergy oh yeah yeah we just you just look up i want to see all of peyton pritchard shot attempts or whatever right and you can watch them all well you can scout yourself too right like you can look at every single time you dribbled off the pick going right and what you did yeah like each each move hot spots on the court all that stuff is really interesting it's the league I was trying to figure out my all-star stuff because I have a vote and I was and I always write down everybody's points rebounds assist stats and then their shooting splits and I'll do like PR out a couple things and I just put everybody on a list the shooting stats are unbelievable now yeah and it's it's like and you're kind of the poster boy of this next generation that like just efficient everything where everybody's kind of like high 40s field goal.

1:09:09Somewhere between 38 and 42, 3.78 to 85 free throw. And it's like everybody. Maxie's 31 a game, but all his shooting splits are really good. It's not like he's a volume shooter. They're good shots. I think the shot quality throughout the league is a lot better. Where it's just an emphasis on at the rim shots, at the rim 2s, free throws, and quality threes. Open threes in the spots that you know are the right spots. Right. Yeah. Or then I call them shots of mastery. So a guy like Harden, his step back, it's a shot of mastery. Right. Or a Kawhi mid-range fall away. Those type of shots that are really maybe not efficient for everybody, but for certain guys.

1:10:03Well, you have one of those. You have the, like, right around the foul line, like when you do the hard dribble and you come back a little bit. A little fadeaway to the left. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that one, that feels like your shot. Yeah, I like getting to that spot. Yeah. It feels like the 2.15 footer is coming back. Jalen reinvented himself this year with that. Like, he added two moves and he became an over 50 % 15-footer guy out of nowhere. Yeah, I mean, if you can add one of those shots in between, you just become a little bit harder to guard. Yeah. Keep you honest and you can shoot really efficiently.

1:10:40Those are good shots. Yeah, it felt like the league was 2-3 happy there. I mean, there's still a bunch of threes, but the pace is, there's just more shots. Yeah, the pace is crazy. The pace is crazy. Like, Denver was at 124 a game before Jokic got hurt. You think, like, that would have been inconceivable 20 years ago that anyone would average 114 a game. Right. You know? Yeah. But I like it. I think for the most part, they've really figured out the rules stuff. I mean, I'm sure like when you're out there, like how slow the last five minutes go must be annoying, right? Yeah. With all the timeouts and reviews and...

1:11:15Yeah. Just trying to stay like... Keep your energy... The challenges and all that stuff. But I think the challenges are good. I think they're a good addition. Your pro challenges? Have you played the FIBA where it's like it kind of just goes? like soccer almost? You haven't played in that year, right? No, I haven't. You'll probably be on one of the teams we have pretty soon, I would guess. I predicted you for the 28 Olympic team. You were my dark horse when I went on Zach's part. Yeah, I saw that. And he got the, whoa! Now I'm feeling like I might be in on that one. We'll see. We'll see. That'd be awesome.

1:11:49You're at a good pace. That'd be one of my better predictions. My football picks have been shit this year. That might have been my only good prediction. Yeah, that'd be pretty sweet. Yeah. I'll prove you right on that one. But yeah, it does seem like there's more twos. The games are more interesting. There's more big guys, too. I feel like we have the most big guys we've had in like 25 years. Yeah, you know, the small ball thing was getting real popular there for a bit. You can't do it anymore. Yeah, you got to have a good big. Even you guys, the question with Charlotte even being competent this year was like, well, who's playing center?

1:12:20Like they traded Mark Williams. But you've patched it together. There's like we did it with the, I say we like I'm on the Celtics. We did it with Kata and Garza. Garza. And all those guys do. They set picks and they protect the rim. They can stretch it. Kata knows he can't shoot threes. Garza shoots threes a little bit. So I don't know. Your generation is coming in and all the big guys know how to play 20 feet from the basket instead of just clogging the lane. You know what I mean? Something has shifted. Yeah. I mean, I think just from an earlier age, I think guys are you know learning to play basketball in an applicable way to maybe future levels or higher levels of hoops well the big guys want to shoot threes right?

1:13:07every big guy you ever play with probably want to shoot threes wants to stretch the floor and affect the game in that way so I think we're moving in the right direction basketball wise can we go through some of the guys you played against without getting you in trouble? so you played Giannis a couple times already what's that experience like? I mean there's no way you ever played against a 7 foot alien who's just made out of concrete before right? Yeah just so strong. Did you bounce off him ever? Did you have one of those plays where you just like get swatted like a mosquito on a windshield or something?

1:13:38You know he has a little chicken wing that he gets guys with and it's really hard for the officials to see. What is it? Explain it. He just loves going baseline so he's on the baseline and he'll kind of get you with a high elbow. If he gets you up and... Oh, to push you back a little bit? He'll just... No, he'll get it around you, around your body. Oh. And kind of... It's quick. So it's hard for the officials to see. And he's really, really good at it. And that chicken wing just kind of gets you off and he'll get you a baseline. It's really hard to stay in front of him. And then obviously in the full court, how he's mastered the gather rules and all that stuff, it makes it really hard to guard.

1:14:18It makes one of us, because I have not mastered the gather rules. I think I'm too old. I think it's a travel night. Every time. I just, every time I travel up, then call it. Yeah, it's one of the things that I've really had to work on that I've gotten better at is we've been working on the low pickups, but as soon as you put that second hand on the ball, that's a zero step, the step you're on. Then you get two more. Two more. It's a different footwork. It's a little bit tricky to learn, especially coming from college and high school where they're calling Euro steps of travel. But yeah, I think the way he does it, especially in the full court, how he can throw the ball to himself and then gather, and it looks like it's three steps, but it's not.

1:15:01Well, you played, we're taping this Tuesday, you played Harden last night, who's another one who's, I don't understand how he does it, where it seems like he's going 12 feet with five steps, but it's two steps because he used to gather. Yeah. And he's going right, left, right. You can't even keep track of what he's doing. Yeah, it's a gray area too. And it's really hard sometimes to appreciate. And the guys that are good at it and work on it all the time becomes really effective. Lamella's got a load of it. He'll throw it out from time to time. He'll throw in the slow step too. I didn't see the Clipper game last night.

1:15:34Did you have to guard Kawhi at all? I was guarding Harden. Oh, Jesus. What was that like? It was good. It was fun. In the third quarter, he moved into ninth. Oh, yeah. All-time scoring. so they put that up on there i'm like man this is it's pretty pretty cool i'm gonna garden a top 10 scorer ever yeah um no it was great who's been in the league almost as long as you've been alive because he was 2008 2008 yeah so i was three unbelievable yeah it's wild wild how these guys can you know reinvent themselves and like lopez too or pen lopez last night and even right that's a that's a guy who's reinvented his his career to be able to play yeah him and al horford there's a couple of them.

1:16:15They were back to the basket guys who just flipped it. And like awesome all-star back to the basket guys who can reinvent themselves, shooting threes, stretching the floor. Just stick around and be effective. Did Harden get you at all last night? Because you're trying to play him a certain way, right? And he still gets the shot he wants anyway. Yeah, well he got me with a foul too. Oh, you got the flop one? No, I had my hand in the one, I got my hand in the cookie jar. And he went right into the three. and you got your hand out here and you got me. It's probably my least favorite call. I just think that should be a foul.

1:16:52I don't think you should get free throws for that. Yeah. But there's a bunch of things that would change officiating-wise. It's really hard because the guys like him and Shea, the way they... It's a skill. It's a skill. You feel the guy's hand on and you just rise up and get somebody's hand caught in there. have you played OKC? yeah we played him twice so did you have to I guarded Jalen Williams a lot but you know he gets switched on Shea a couple times and then you're like shit he's really hard to guard you just gotta stay solid stay square keep your hands out of there I'd be so scared because you'd think you would get him and then he can do like one more spin or like a second and then all of a sudden he's going another way.

1:17:42He's like plastic man. Shot fake. Got to stay down on the shot fake. Yeah. Got super long arms. Guys are really, really skilled. You know, it's fun. Fun to compete against those guys. Yeah, we have, uh, Maxie's another one who has just become almost impossible to guard. And we have Jordan Walsh. I say we like him on the team. And it was one of like Jordan Walsh's breakthrough games. Like he kind of figured out how to defend Maxie for like two minutes. I don't know if it's sustainable, but he just kind of unlocked what to do and Maxie was getting bad shots and was like oh my god somebody unlocked Maxie and then Maxie probably fixed it the next game but when people have like the three moves they can do at any time and you just don't know what they're going to do and they can just and then that's it those are like the best scores and like Brunson's like that too Brunson is we played them twice as well he's different than some of the other guys because all of his stuff is a lot of his stuff I should say is off two feet.

1:18:43And the pivots and the shot fakes. And it's almost like he's posting up at 16 feet. Crazy. It's like this herky-jerky stop and start bouncing off you. And he's six foot tall and strong. He's got a little different herky-jerky game. Yeah. But he's just as fun to compete against as any of those other guys. Did you have Ananobi and Bridges defending you that game? You must have. Bridges Brunson guarded me a little bit yeah I don't think Ananobi played when we played them both times who was the one who the defensive player we were like oh my god I'm in the NBA first time we played OKC, Cason Wallace oh he's a nightmare yeah I had a tough game it was a back to back, we just played the Bucks in Milwaukee came back home to play great game in the Milwaukee game good game we lost in overtime I played like 40 minutes.

1:19:42It was a tough one. It was like one of our first back-to-backs. And then you have to play OKC. We can play OKC at home. Off the flight, we get in at like 2. Because you lose the hour coming back to the East Coast. Yeah, that was tough. And Kaysan Wallace is waiting for you with a fork and knife. Yeah, and I don't think Melo played because it was a back-to-back and he was resting, so it was a tough one. Oh my lord. Yeah, and they have dorts no prize either if he decides to dial it up. I mean, he's huge. He's jacked. And the Caruso's doing the swiping and everything and bouncing. Yeah. They're a tough defense.

1:20:19Yeah, it's weird. Hartenstein is so, like, because we played him the second time at OKC, and we beat him. Yeah, that was one of the upsets of the year. Yeah, we played great. But Hartenstein was out, and he makes such a difference for them. He's physical, on the glass. just defensively and what he can do in the pick and roll defense and what he does offensively too, running all the dribble handoff actions and zoom actions with all those guys. He's a really important piece for them. And you play Joker, right? Yeah, we did play Joker. How was that? Yeah, he seemed like he wasn't even trying that hard.

1:21:02And you look up and it's like 29, 13, and 9. Yeah. He just moves at a certain speed. He was like 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter, and it was like he just dominated the game. Right. He seemed like he was jogging around. We played them too. Murray had a really good game. He had like 20, 25 in the first quarter. Yeah. Yeah. Jokic was just impressive. I have Murray. I always, every week I do my all-NBA team. Yeah. Just as a process, because I'm one of the few people that actually cares about the shit who has a vote. Yeah, how do you feel about the non... positionless. Oh, I hate the positionless.

1:21:40I always try to make it look like at least somewhat of a basketball team. So even if it's not necessarily a center, I have to have a rebound. I can't have four guards. I really want to have a wing forward I try to have on each team. I think it's kind of a disservice too where you can just get five guards and it's kind of a disservice to the history of the game. You look back at the 80s or whatever, you've got three centers or, you know, like Andrew Bogut's on third team. Right. Like you're not going to see many of those anymore. Well, there's really, there's guards, there's wings, and there's bigs, right?

1:22:16And I feel like each team should have at least one of those three positions, and then you can go nuts with whatever else you want to do. Right, whatever, yeah. Or two guards, one wing, one big, and then you can get wacky with the fifth spot. It should be five guys that could conceivably play basketball together. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So like for me, I still have Shang-Goon on my second team, all NBA. I don't think he's been one of the best 10 players in the league, but I think he's been the second best center. Right. So he's going to make the team for me. But yeah, Jamal Murray is definitely going to make it for me.

1:22:51I mean, we're halfway through the year. Especially what he's doing without Joker is nuts. Yeah, they're playing well. They came in and kicked the Celtics ass, I'll tell you that much. I feel like the guards are as deep and scary as we've ever had. I mean, there's like 30 good guards. Yeah. I think there's like 30 capable all-star guards. It's insane. Yeah. Even you see teams like Garland, who doesn't have an all-star case this year, but even if he had his own team, I feel like he would probably be putting up 22 and 9 on his own team. Yeah. We played them a couple times too, and he's quick. He's tough to stay in front of, and he's got all the boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, handle stuff.

1:23:33Have you played Indiana? Yeah, we lost him twice. So you had your first McConnell experience. He's unreal. He's one of the hardest guys to guard. He's another herky-jerky, weird, can't-figure-him-out guy. And he's so low to the ground. Yeah. Like, his center of gravity is so low. He's really hard to stay in front of. And then he has that rise-up, like, mid-range, like, 10-footer, where he's got the ball, like, way above his head like that. Yeah. He's really hard to guard. It's like the, it's brought back the golden age of these guards that can go in the paint and bounce off people and do footwork stuff.

1:24:09Like Pritchard does this too now for the Celtics. McConnell does it. Brunson does it. There's a few guys in the league now. I don't know where it came from. And nobody wants to foul them because they're always going to call it when you're trying to foul a little guy. But yeah, McConnell, they beat the Celtics last night in a very frustrating Celtics loss. And it was like, you realize how good the league is because they're finally healthy. They made the finals last year. They don't have Halbert and they don't have Miles Turner, but they still have a lot of the DNA of last year's team. It's like they're not easy to play.

1:24:40Yeah. You know, they're, and they play hard and, you know, Carlisle's obviously a great coach. Yeah. Yeah, we lost them at the buzzer and then they go. I watched that game. Yeah. It was a little, yeah, it was a defensive mix up at the end. Yeah. It was frustrating. I'm always reading for the Charlotte, Charlotte franchise. They're my league pass team. we appreciate it yeah I was like why don't you switch out don't say the team because I don't want to get you in trouble but did you have an NBA experience yet where you played a team and it felt like the team didn't like each other or there was like the vibes were off and you could just feel it on the court you know Mason Plumlee says that half the battle in this league is having everybody still like each other in February that's a great quote that's what he says so maybe you're not there yet maybe you'll see it a couple times Yeah, I don't know.

1:25:31Maybe you'll see that Thursday night.

1:25:36But yeah, we're right around the time when some teams start getting gamey because either you're not as good as you thought you were going to be or you're about to start tanking. Guys are in trade rumors. You guys, you haven't had any trade rumors stuff with Charlotte, I don't think. You're one of the few non-playoff teams. I haven't seen anything. But there's other teams that the names are just, it's like trade season now. It's been flowing around, yeah. Yeah, it's great for a contest. people like me. Yeah, that's got to be. I mean, just ignoring the noise is a skill that I think teams have to have to kind of keep it together and still compete at a high level every night.

1:26:12How online are you? Yeah, are you checking this stuff? Are you going to NBA Reddit, places like that? You know, I don't have social media on my phone anymore. Great idea. Just kind of deleted it. Really smart. See, this is why you're the most efficient rookie in NBA history. deleted social media more so just like i don't want to be like scrolling on my phone and be like oh there's three hours that just went by right it's more so for that uh than anything else um so i've been off it for you know almost a week and a half now because it's kind of a recent thing um that's really it's a good new year's resolution yeah i guess it did kind of fit around that time um but yeah so i've been off it a little bit but obviously you know keeping up with podcasts and stuff like that is something I like to do.

1:26:59Oh, so you listen to some of the NBA stuff? Yeah. Oh, yeah. NBA, NFL. I got a big sports podcast listening. I listen to a bunch of stuff. Oh, I want to talk NFL with you in a second. We got to talk about a couple more players. You played Kawhi. Yep. One of the strangest games. I mean, he's one of the top 30 players of all time, but the shot release, the line drive shots. Yeah, line drive. It's a strong shot. Quick release. Yeah. Physical as shit. Crazy hands on defense. Dribbles the ball harder than anybody I've played against. Really? Just pounds the crap out of the ball. It's weird. But I mean, he doesn't lose.

1:27:36Doesn't speak. Doesn't lose. Yeah. Yeah, he didn't say much last night. He's not talking shit. He's not there to make friends. No. But just one of the more impressive players I've played against. Just the shot-making ability. Yeah, Kawhi's back. All business. They're 16 and 23. which before they were like 6 and 20 or something so they're like I don't know they're on a good run here yeah and he's yeah he's he's unbelievable and you got you got Harden still too they're just really really tough to guard what about Minnesota did you play them yet? we played them early no ant so I well if you're ready for somebody to talk shit to you he's your guy he'll have some he's great for the league he's been awesome it's good to have a guy like that you know just I didn't get the chance to play against him, but he was talking shit.

1:28:27I could see him kind of in the corner. He was talking stuff a little bit, which was cool to see. Well, in 28, it'll be you guys leading America against France and Germany. Be the two of you. I love the way they've been playing lately. Randall, I think, is going to make my all-star team. Gobert, if Wemby doesn't get the limit, the 65 games. Gobert's probably the defensive player of the year, but I like the way they're playing. And it's been unbelievable. I mean, he's just a top five guy now by whatever list you have. And I mean, this is a shooter too. Like, doesn't miss. Yeah, he's shooting 10 threes a game.

1:29:11He's shooting a great percent. Makes like four of them. Yeah, it's ridiculous. And he's been clutch. The thing I love about him, and I think LaMelo has this quality too, actually. these guys that really do think they're the best guy on the court they might even be wrong but they think it he definitely thinks he's the best player in the league and I think Lamello sometimes you can see he just thinks he's the best guy on the court it doesn't matter who else is out there but I do think you need that if you're going to actually try to win the title Ant plays OKC he's like I'm definitely not afraid of these guys I think I'm better than Shea I'm better than all these guys we're going to beat them and he really does believe it.

1:29:51Yeah, he's exuberant. Confident. Very confident. Like I said before, I think it's just good for the league to have a guy like that. Super confident. Talks his game. He was in Hustle when he was young. It was a good movie, yeah. It was great. I mean, he's great in it. And I just think having guys like that in the league is really, really good for it. I think Wemby has that too. They beat Boston on Saturday night. Yeah, I think Wemby thinks he's the best guy in the world. He kind of came back in with three minutes left, and they just kept giving it to him, and he just kept scoring, and he had a real disdain for the Celtics.

1:30:28It was like one of those. Yeah, on opening night, who were they playing on opening night? I forget. Or the first game of the season. Who were the Spurs playing? I forget. We had like 40. Rockets? Yeah, somebody. Something like that. And I was like, oh my God. You played him yet? No, we haven't played the Spurs yet. It's like, oh my God, the league might be in trouble. I think the league is in trouble. Yeah, I think so. We'll see. He's so freaking tall. I worry about him over the course of 10 years. How do you stay in the court? He has no room for error with guys around his legs. Yeah, everybody's around his legs.

1:31:02Yeah, everybody. Yeah, he looked... That team is really scary. Yeah, they're very good. Because way before your time, the 1986 Rockets, your guy, Bird, wasn't your guy. you're a Milwaukee guy but he's my guy he's one of my he's one of my favorite one guy okay good the 86 we were supposed to play the 86 Lakers in the finals it was like heading this way we'd put them in 84-85 and then the Rockets had Hakeem and Ralph Samson and they just like killed the Lakers like just like out of nowhere they just beat the shit out of them and it was like a mismatch and they were just too big and too and I do wonder if the Spurs can do that to a couple teams in the playoffs where they just they're kind of a little bit ahead of ahead of schedule.

1:31:47Yeah. I think it's in play. We'll see if they're healthy. I'm trying to think what are the other great players? You didn't play against Jalen yet. That's coming. And then Joker. I think we covered everybody. We played Luka. We played the Lakers already. Did you have to guard him? A little bit. Not. Just a couple of switches. Not really. He's one of those like you just can't talk shit too. Yeah, he's talking the whole game. You almost have to go the other way and be like, Luca, it's an honor to meet you. I can't wait to play basketball against you for the next three hours. And just like butter him up.

1:32:28He's great though. He mean some of the shots, some of the difficulty of the shots he was taking and making against us. You know, just 19 footer, one-legged off the glass. It's crazy. Yeah, he's really good. Reeves was really good too when we played. I mean, he had an off-night shooting, but, man, before the calf strain, he was having a heck of a season. He's another one of those guys who just knows where to go and what to do. Did you have a holy shit, I can't believe I'm playing against this guy guy? Like, who was your hero growing up? Or did you have one? Did you have a favorite that you had to be on the court against?

1:33:05Our third game of the season, we played the Wizards, and we played Middleton. Middleton, being from Milwaukee, like one of my favorite guys. And so most of our staff, you know, Charles Lee was assistant for Bud in Milwaukee. So most of our staff was in Milwaukee. And they're like, oh, yeah, well, they're all saying it up to Chris Middleton. And, you know, I got to meet him after the game. And that was like the first time after that, after a game or something, I talked to a guy. And that was pretty special for me. Oh, that's awesome. Just because, you know, rooting for him all the time growing up.

1:33:35And something as simple as, you know, just like, nice to meet you. Appreciate all you did for the city. He was a good basketball role model for you too, right? Just a completely additive player. Knew where to go and what to do. Defended. Good shot maker in the mid-range. Three-point shooter. Knows how to pass. Knows how to play. He was awesome. Are you ready for all this All-Star Weekend stuff? It's going to be in LA. Yeah. I assume you'll be in the all-rookie game. That's the most efficient rookie in the history of the league. I think they're going to invite you. Yeah. I think that'll be cool.

1:34:11I can't remember the last time I watched the Rising Stars game. Yeah, I might have wagered on it a couple times. That would be the only reason. A little gambling. Yeah, I might have. But add some money in it. It would be sweet. It would be cool to get out there with some of the rookie guys and see them again. Well, it's good because it's like the way the league goes. You start there, get to go to All-Star weekend. You're like the wide-eyed little baby of the league. You get to go through. And then by year five, you're an All-Star. And you're like, oh, I remember that time when I was like the wide-eyed rookie.

1:34:43Now I'm used to this. You know, you get to do a, then you'd be the grizzled guy trying to make it one more time. Try to have the long career. Yeah. That'd be sweet. The last time you were on, we didn't really dive into your brothers. And I was told that it was the, one of the great misses of my podcast year last year. This whole. By who? This whole, one of our ringer guys, J Kyle Mann, who's obsessed with the Knipple family and thinks you guys have a chance to potentially have three to four NBA players conceivably. We'll see. Let's do the proper D. So how many brothers are there? Four. I have four brothers.

1:35:22Five of us total. Four brothers and all of them are good at basketball. Yeah. So what are the ages? My brother Cager is a junior. Kinston is a sophomore. Cash is a freshman and Kidman's in eighth grade. And do the high scorers play to get there on the side? All three of them are on the varsity team. But the eighth graders on the... Eighth graders on... He's just the middle school. Middle school team. So the law of professional sports says the eighth grader is going to be the best one. Right. Because he's trying to... That's what happened with Drake May. Because when I started getting in the gym every day, I was in fifth grade and he was five.

1:36:01So he's been shooting and getting shots up since he was five. And he's just trying to catch up with you guys. Yeah, he's annoying. He's like, get out of here. You're not big enough to play yet. Typically, the youngest is supposed to be the best. Yeah. That was the Drake May thing. His brothers were like great, great, great athletes. I'm sure you've seen the draft video where they're like, pretty boy. Yeah, that video's great. He was a good hooper too. Yeah. Did you ever see the videos of him playing hoops? Yeah. He's from Charlotte. He's Myers Park. He's a Charlotte kid, so he's a Hornets fan.

1:36:36He wants to come to a game. No, he's a Celtic fan now. We've corrupted him. We brought him over. So what are the heights of the brothers? Cager is 6 '9". Yeah, he's huge. That's way taller than me. Kinston is 6 '6". Cash is like 6 '2". And Kidman is like 5 '10". Yeah, Cager's a big boy. So 5 '10", 8th grade. Yeah. 6 '9". Yeah, he's huge. So is he a legitimate big man or is he like a 6 '9 shooter? No, he's a shooter, stretch for super long arms guard the best player on the other team yeah so what is his like like is he on the list is he i should have researched this i actually wanted to find out from you but i didn't want to cheat but is he like on the list like is he gonna play like i did one yeah he's he's got a couple of offers um uh butler de paul um he's got a couple visits Purdue, Marquette, Xavier they're at one of his high school games so we'll see he's only a junior so he's still got a little bit of time we'll see how it keeps getting better worst case scenario you can just have you're a franchise guy for a team and just all your brothers have contracts they're all with it you just have like the three guys a couple times 15 man roster, there's like four knipples on the team so the young one 5 '10", 8th grade.

1:38:07That's the one with the most pressure because of the younger brother thing. Yeah. I guess we're putting that on him. Yeah, I'm going to throw that on him right now. So how's the family after the Packers thing? One of the worst playoff losses of the decade. Yeah. Still reeling for them. I wonder how many of those... Did you put a list together? I did it on Sunday night. I went through like 20 losses. 20 losses? How many of them were Packers losses? No, I did all the Packers losses. Oh, you did all the Packers? All the terrible ones they had. I mean, like, they own five overtime games. Yeah, I was putting that together in my own notes.

1:38:41The one in Seattle is one of the worst. I was like, nine or ten. Yeah, because even that involves, when the onside kick gets involved, it goes to another level. Onside kick, I think of, well, Morgan Burnett had an interception in that game with five minutes left. And he slid down with like 30 yards of running room in front of him. and my grandma, who's a Vikings fan, was watching the game with us and was like, looks like the Packers are going to the Super Bowl. And my dad was like, no! Don't put that out there. Yeah, so I mean, there are a lot of playoff heartbreak. I think of the Cardinals when Rodgers had the two Hail Marys.

1:39:23Yeah. And then the, what was it, a fumble touchdown or something? That was the Favre. Yeah. Favre had a fumble touchdown to end his thing. Oh, no, that was Rodgers' first game in Arizona. So you had two horrible losses in Arizona in the playoffs. Well, you were too young for the Freddie Mitchell 4th and 26th. That was abominable. My dad has horror stories about that one. I think of Rodgers' last playoff game in Lambeau. Blocked punt, touchdown for San Fran. And then there's just ones where he just got smoked by Atlanta. San Fran, where he mostered at 200 yards. I think this one is I mean it's to the Bears this one was way up there this is top two I think the only difference with this one is I don't think anyone thought it was a Super Bowl team but you lose to the Bears so that kind of it would have been a successful season with all the injuries went if we would have beat the Bears in the playoffs in Soldier Field I feel like it would have been successful considering the Parsons injury and all that Tucker Craft Tucker Craft.

1:40:32Yeah, I said to Sal, it's weird because the Packers have won two Super Bowls in the last 30 years, right? Yeah. Like, if you're the Jets or the Bengals, you take one of those, you're made. Yeah. But you've also had all these awful playoff losses and they never get, the Packers never get thrown into the tortured fan base list because you won the two Super Bowls, but then you had all this other pain. Yeah. And it also means the most there. You know, it's like... Yeah. Yeah, and to have Favre and Rodgers, the two of the top five quarterbacks ever, depending on how you want to look at it. And to have those guys, and each of them gets one, but you feel like the window was open basically every year they were the quarterback.

1:41:18Yeah. That's a tough, tough feeling. I was talking to one of my teammates. He's a Panthers fan, and they've had a couple of Super Bowl losses. But when you're out of the playoffs, you'd much rather be in the playoffs, like rooting for the Packers in the playoffs every year. But it's way more painful to lose like a game away from the Super Bowl or just like a heartbreaking way in the playoffs than it is just like, oh, we missed the playoffs. You want to be in those situations as a fan. You want to be in the playoffs. But sometimes it's like, all right, we missed the playoffs. It's a little more painless.

1:41:52You're walking me through where I might be on Sunday after Pats-Texans if the Texans defense kills the Pats. I actually think the Pats are going to be in good shape, but maybe I'm not too. Yeah, Brable's awesome. We have a great coach, and I think our quarterback legitimately has a chance to be one of the great ones. Yeah, it's crazy how quick that happened. He's awesome. Drake May's awesome. Good demeanor, too. But it's interesting. The way the teammates talk about him, I think you almost have to— I always look at that stuff when the other guys are like, this guy's special. yeah like this guy's a crazy competitor like i love that like they just kind of go out of their way to say these things and after a while you're like maybe they're saying this for a reason like i've just seen this in the past usually the guy's special when the teammates are and i love i love how he deflects in the in the post game oh yeah just like the mvp chance and he's like i think those might have been for baker yeah how he deflect or you're leading the league in passing yards and he's like that's because we haven't had a bye yet right i love that stuff too yeah he's not cock not remotely cocky but he's crazy competitive which is a good combo great combo he's definitely not one of those look at me look look over here yep um we'll see what happens i it's everything's heading toward josh allen potentially coming to new england for the super bowl who's the mountain that they now have to get over as a franchise guys anyway.

1:43:21He kind of took the Brady spot. But it's a really fun football season. I'm getting killed in my picks, but I've enjoyed the games. Yeah, it's been good, and it feels kind of with everybody we have left, it feels kind of like I'd feel good about anybody winning it, whatever team. It's a goofy season. Yeah, it is kind of funny. Wait, tell the story about you trying to find out what the Packers score was when you were playing. Yeah, we were playing the Jazz. Killed the Jazz. Yeah, we were up by a bunch. but I watched the whole first half, and it's 21-3 at halftime, so I'm like, great mood. So you're playing during the second half?

1:44:02The Packers game, yeah. Your game is happening, and the second half is happening. We're up huge. We're up like 77-38 at halftime. It was a blowout. And so we have an assistant coach who's a Packers fan as well. and you know the game the game was over later in the fourth quarter we're like yo what's the score and it was like you guys are down four and with like a minute 40 left and we were like what like we were up 21 to 3 yeah yeah that was probably one of the worst worst feelings I got a bunch of Shire from from Duke as a Bears fan I'm getting all these texts oh he's talking shit yeah just kicking me while I'm down come on yeah Yeah, definitely a brutal night after we win by 60.

1:44:52It was great. Did you have any Bears fans on the team? On your team? No, no Bears fans. Well, Drew Peterson, Celtic, is a Bears fan. We waved this year, but he texted me after the game. I was like, I hate you.

1:45:14I'm glad I didn't get to see it. would have been tough. You had two first downs in that last drive. You're up three with the ball. They have two timeouts left. You're in there at 21. And it's like there's no scenario where they should win the game at that point. You're either running the clock out or you're killing enough clock that they can't do anything. I don't know if you saw the graphic about teams being up 10 points with five minutes left and the record. Yeah. Weren't they the second one ever to blow the lead? Everybody is like 300. Since 1970, it was like 300-some-and-two, or one. And the Packers this year were 6-3.

1:45:51We lost three games this year with a 10-point lead with less than five minutes ago. Jesus. Did you ever play football or no? Yeah, I played in high school. Played my freshman year. And then you realized the mail ticket was hoops, yeah. Yeah. Which is tough. That's kind of how it goes nowadays. Yeah, I mean... More specialization. Football's a tough one, though, because there's some wear and tear you probably don't need. We run the option, too. Quarterback gets hit every play. I played QB. You played QB? Interesting. Yeah, so you're getting hit every play. Could you do any little side flag football stuff with the Hornets?

1:46:33Could you have a game? Couldn't you guys go get a field? Organize a flag football game? We should. That would be awesome. I'd love to see LaMelo running. Oh, he can throw the ball. How about Miles Bridges would be crazy too. Yeah, he'd probably be a pretty good tight end. Lomelo would be the other QB. So you go back and you get Brandon Miller. Lomelo and Connaughton can throw the ball at Country Mile. I forgot the Connaughton piece. Yeah, Connaughton, I think, played, didn't he? He played baseball. That's what it was. Pitcher. Yeah. Yeah, we'd have a couple of good arms. So you guys have a couple of really good vets on the team.

1:47:06Yeah. And the whole concept of a vet, I think, is... I've been around the block. I've seen some things. Let me impart my wisdom. Yeah. And yet, most NBA teams forget to put vets on teams with young guys, but the Hornets did not. Yeah. See Plumlee and Connaughton who've been around the block. Plumlee, Connaughton, even Grant Williams. Yeah, Grant's been around too. So, you know, those guys have been great. Seen some things, been in some different situations. Yeah. Kind of taking us under the wing too and, you know, treating us just like any other teammate, which has been great. Not really getting the rookie treatment to go away.

1:47:50Carrying bags. Yeah, which has been great. Connaughton won a title. Anyone else won a title? I think that's it. I think that's your only title guy. Miles didn't win a title. No.

1:48:05Yeah, just... Charles Lee won a title. Yeah, Charles Lee. Most of our staff was in Milwaukee. or Boston. Yeah, that was a good hire. Connaughton won a top. Josh Green was in the finals, but he didn't win. Yeah. Yeah, Connaughton. Milwaukee, baby. What's going on with the ladies? Is there time? Do you have a girlfriend? I got a girlfriend. How long have you had a girlfriend? Three and a half years. Oh, interesting. And where is she? She's at Marquette. She's a freshman at Marquette. So your long-distance relationship the mark okay yeah how's that going good yeah she's she's great uh you know she comes down as much as he can uh we expecting that answer to how long distance with the marquette student i knew i would i wasn't in my high school yeah yeah she's great she turned break she got to come down a couple times um yeah she's she's awesome maybe you'll end up like jake may marrying his sixth grade girlfriend.

1:49:07Is that what it was? Yeah, that's what it was. Sixth or seventh grade, yeah. They just stayed together ever since. The Pats fans loved that because they were like, obviously, incredibly loyal guy. Yeah. And she's cool, but it's like, well, that means we'll have him for 20 years. 20 years, she's a loyal dude, yeah. That's a great call. So girlfriend, long-distance girlfriend, wow. Yeah. So you're on the road, a little FaceTiming. FaceTiming. But then when you go into Wisconsin, she can come to a game. Yep. Go to Milwaukee. She came. Chicago, she can come. Yep. She came to the game. Yeah, it's great.

1:49:44Just getting updates. She loves pictures of the hotel room. All that stuff is cool to her. The nice resort that we're in here in LA. We did a tour of Sony Studios today. So we're getting pictures of the car from Ghostbusters, the original. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or the RV from Breaking Bad. So I sent her all that stuff. And you said you'd never been to Los Angeles before. Never. First time. Is there any other? It's a shame. LA's great. Yeah. It's really nice. It's January. It's January and I was walking on the beach. Well, you can see why all the NBA players end up coming this way, right? Right.

1:50:20Yeah. Yeah. That's why they've signed all these free agents. Right. It's the best time when everybody looks forward to the trip. Yeah. Come out here. That's been nice so far. The other big trip that everybody loved but doesn't exist anymore was the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver trip for some reason was a popular one. And then I guess Texas would be a trip, but I don't know if that's as exciting. I have a funny story about my mom. She knows basketball. She played. She knows basketball. Yeah. But she doesn't really keep up with professional sports like that. So we were getting my passport. I had never been outside the country.

1:50:56So before the season, we were getting my passport. Because we played Toronto kind of early in the season at Toronto. Yeah. and so she's like, all right, when do you play Toronto? Like, we got to get this. And I was like, we play them in November. And she's like, okay, what about Vancouver? Oh, she thought they were still around? She's like, yeah, they haven't been there since like, I don't know, 2000. Maybe she was factoring an expansion. Yeah, maybe we're going back, going back to Vancouver. That was the last thing I wanted to talk to you about was the parents thing. Yeah. Because you have a pretty close family, you have parents like, so how, how much do you check in with them?

1:51:28Do they check in with you? Do they make, I'm trying to think of what I would be like as your dad in this situation and being mad. We didn't hear from Khan. He played last night and he even sent us a text. Like how much parent maintenance is involved here? My mom, she kind of works for me as far as like. Oh, handled all your off the court stuff. off the court stuff. She, she really helps out with that. So she, she comes down a decent amount, you know, to help take care of things at the house, but yeah, or at the apartment. so she does some of that stuff but you know they come down probably for a game once a month maybe are they sending tips?

1:52:08your dad like I watched the Wizards game last night what were you doing in the third quarter? crash the offensive glass no they'll text me before every game my mom will just be aggressive play hard dad will be say something light him up DM up he always texts me that text all of us that so they'll they'll hit me with that stuff before the game um and then they're going to all their kids games too yeah so it's this it's awesome every day so my brothers have a high school game tonight so in the family group chat light them up dm up cash kinst cage yeah whatever and then uh it'll be the same thing if i'm playing or kidman's playing um so yeah that's that's kind of cool but no more no more tips really anymore Did you win a title when you were there?

1:52:56In high school? Yeah. Yeah, my senior year. Undefeated, 30-0. Wow. Yeah, so we won my senior year. They won last year. So my brother's - What school is this? Wisconsin Lutheran High School. So my brother was on both those teams. Yeah. And they went 28-2 last year. So they were 58-2 in two years. And they have two state championships. So Cater likes to brag. He didn't even play his freshman year, but he likes to brag. I got two losses and as many rings as losses. Yeah, and they have another great team this year. My cousin's on the team. Your cousin? What the hell's going on with this family? He's a stud.

1:53:41He's going to northern Iowa. And then the coach's kid is on the team, and they all play. So it's a heck of a high school squad. did you get used to the eating schedule of and playing at night and all this stuff and traveling and like when do you when do you eating dinner at 11 o 'clock at night all that stuff yeah we had like a team dinner after the game last night and it's like 11 30 but it's 2 30 on the east coast you're like kind of barely adjusted yeah i'm waking up at like 5 a.m out here but um no i the eating stuff it is it is kind of different because i was never a big I wouldn't eat much on game day it's like you play 82 games you gotta eat food because you don't want to lose weight you don't want to be skinny I've got a good kind of operation where I'm always eating a big brunch after shoot around and there's not really time to work out it's almost like recovery stuff so yeah a lot of recovery but we'll lift before and after the game like it'll be kind of split in half because you want to take advantage of the days where it's like this is a high effort day we're playing a game so we're going to lift on game day and then tomorrow will be a complete off day so what's the right number of like what would be a crazy number of minutes for you to play this year looking up when someone we had Brandon and Melo out there was a couple games I played 40 but I'm saying for like for like the season how many minutes is like 2400 realistic for you?

1:55:23I don't know what the math is. Hold on. I'm looking you up. So you're playing

1:55:3032.5 a game. You played every game. I missed one. So you played 39 of 40? All right, so if you're on a pace of 80 times 30, that's like 2 ,500 minutes. It's impressive. It's a lot. Yeah, I was ticked. I missed that game. What'd you miss the game? I sprained my ankle pretty bad in Orlando. I saw that. I thought you were going to be out for like three weeks. Yeah, we did a great job. Training staff did a really good job. They fly you to Italy? It wasn't as bad. And the Kobe Jet? Yeah, the Kobe Jet. No, it wasn't as bad as... I broke both my ankles in middle school. So every time I roll my ankle or sprain my ankle, playing basketball, you broke your ankles.

1:56:10Jesus. Um, it, uh, it kind of feels like that pain. Yeah. And it's, um, cause your, your, your mind just kind of does that or like, it feels like that sharp pain. So I thought I broke it right away. But then as soon as I could put weight on it, I was like, okay, like that's kind of the telltale. If you can't put weight on it, you probably broke it. Right. Um, so I missed that game. I'd missed the game in high school or college, so I was ticked. Oh, man. You're like putting together the, who's the street guy now? Bridges. Mikkel Bridges. Did he cheat, though? Did he do the thing where he came in for one minute?

1:56:42He did. I'm against that. A.C. Green started that. Josh Allen did that. This little Laker guy started it. Classic Lakers just starting some dumb. Yeah, Josh Allen did it. He came in for one play and left. Yeah. And I was like, come on. What's your theory for all the tendon injuries that we're having in football and basketball and all these calf strains and Achilles stuff? Is there something we're doing wrong? And they're being really careful with it too. If a guy has a calf strain, we're shutting you down for a month. Yeah. They just did that to Reeves. Reeves. Mason Plumlee had one early in the offseason.

1:57:23So you think they just know more about it now to be more careful than they used to be? Maybe, or they're just kind of scared from seeing it happen. I think we are playing a lot more possessions in games, in the pace. Everybody's playing fast. But it's happening in football, too. Right, so I don't know. So I think it's a combo of... Do you think it's maybe the specialization? I've heard that, where it's guys that played a bunch of different sports are more durable because they're using different muscles in high school. I don't know. You're playing... I've been playing basketball for basically year-round for, I don't know, 10 years.

1:58:01It could be that, maybe. I think basketball, I argued about this with Eddie Johnson, the former NBA player, because he has that serious NBA show. We argued about it once because he's like, basketball's not harder to play now. And I'm like, dude, watch how much running there is. I guess there's no way to really measure it. They'd have to have somebody measure all the games in the 80s versus now. There's no way you're not running more now because you have to run out on defense. Well, you just look at the possessions. We're playing way more possessions than teams did in the 90s. No question. And then you talk about the spacing.

1:58:34We get a rebound. Most of the time, it's like sprint to the corner for the spacing. So you have to be in really good shape to sprint to the corner. And you're doing that 30 more possessions. But then on defense, you have to sprint to the corner to go get a shooter. Right. And so you're just covering a little more surface area. I was looking at something that the guys that cover the most ground in the league like it was like top five I was running like two and a half miles and that's just like a game you just run into the corner the fucking refs are getting hurt now Bill Kennedy just got hurt yeah it does seem like way more running than it used to be yeah a lot more possessions I think that might have something to do with it because if you watch the 80s and 90s games stuff's packing in it's more physical yeah but there's more time to kind of you're playing but you don't have to move as much now I just feel like guys are chasing they're chasing guys around picks yeah I mean if you watch like 90s early 2000s like Mark Jackson's bringing up back and down yeah running the show all right we're gonna dump it to this guy in the post everybody kind of matter who it is like Latrell Sprewell in the post or something and it's like posting up your three-man your four-man your five-man kind of um and everybody's you know kind of watching.

1:59:50It's just a different, different type of game. I got to say, it's amazing to watch now. And I was there for all of it. And now when I watch it and I see the spacing, I'm like, how did we not know? Think of this. Yeah. How did we not know that you're posting up McHale and two other guys can just jump down on him because the shooter's 10 feet away from him. Like, why did he not just move back? What were they doing? But they just didn't have any idea. Yeah, it is, it is different. And then it's hard. It's, it's so much harder now to compare. You're in the business of comparing eras. There's no way to do it.

2:00:23The stats are all fucked up now. Yeah, and when you came out with your book too, you didn't really see that coming either. It was hard to. It was 2010. It's like you could still kind of compare 80s to 2008 Celtics. It was a similar game. Yeah, I was thinking about it. Somebody sent me a good email about maybe there's like four different eras and you just have to... There's the era before Russell. Then there's the era from basically Russell all the way to when the leagues merged, 76. And then it's basically 76 to when Curry has his first good year. So it's like 2013. All that, you can... The stats kind of make sense.

2:01:07Pace of play. Some seasons are fast. Others are smaller. But around 2013-14, it shifts. And it's almost like once Horford and Brooke Lopez start shooting threes, the game's different. You know? And even, I think I saw something like the Warriors' offensive efficiency from like that 14-15 season is like middle of the pack this year. It'll be like 17th. Which is unreal. Like we're even now at a higher efficiency from 10 years ago. The thing that's nuts to me, like the Celtics had the second net offense this year so far. We'll see if it drops down a little. But no Tatum. Yeah. And you look at the team and it's like, this is...

2:01:47one of the 20 best offenses in regular season history. Like with the guys we have, like I don't know, but they've just kind of figured out all the math and the possessions and the pace and the right shots and crashed the offensive boards. Guys know how to play together. Yeah. The offensive boards is a big thing for, for, for, for efficiency stuff. Yeah. So it's like more shots. Like we defend. Don't care if you give up a fast break basket because the offensive rebound is more important. Yeah. Well, I mean, we'll see. we put a huge emphasis on crashing the offensive glass. And so you'll have a wing like me is getting one offensive rebound a game or one and a half, getting a hand on a ball.

2:02:30All that stuff is important. Just gets you maybe one more, one more three or one more opportunity at a shot. So Doc Rivers, his last couple Celtic seasons, when they almost made the finals in 2012, and they're an older team, and one of his rules was, we're giving up offensive rebounds. We don't want to give up fast break positions at all. So it's basically one shot as many people back as possible. It's completely different than what you do now. Now Doc's coaching Milwaukee probably telling everybody to crash the boards. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's the math. I think they just figured out some shit with basketball.

2:03:05We just didn't have this stuff 20 years ago. Right. The analytics, like basketball, baseball. It's harder in football. In football, to figure out. It's almost like defense came back a little bit in football. Oh, yeah. You know? Definitely. I mean, just how they disguise. Yeah. It's just harder for quarterbacks now to decipher defenses, but it's a little bit hard. Like, the analytics decisions are harder in football because at the end of the day, you still got to go execute. Like, it could tell you to go and go for it on fourth and two. Like, we should go for it, but you still have to be in the game.

2:03:38You still got to go out there and get the first down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This first round, which you probably missed because you were playing, but they were way too fourth down heavy in this first round. The Bears. And it burned some teams. Bears were 0-4 and fourth down and one somehow. Yeah. Or one and five, whatever they were. Yeah. Yeah, we'll see. Did you learn anything from all the analytics about you of things not to do? Like, do you think about that stuff? You know, like I said about synergy, I try to look on that a little bit. Like what your weakness is? Yeah, or just like, man, there was like halfway through the season, one of the corner threes was like below average.

2:04:13Really? And I was looking at it. I was like, one corner I'm like 56 % and the other corner I was like 38 % and I was like, oh, that's interesting. It's evened out now, but it's kind of... Yeah, because that could just be a small sample size. Yeah, smaller sample size, but I'll look at that stuff and it's kind of interesting. You can see in different areas where you rank and it's just like a scale of excellent, very good, good, average, below average, poor. so you can kind of look at that stuff to maybe get a it's depressing oh my god I'm poor I'm in the poor category do you look at like five man lineups and all that stuff I looked at that a little bit I did that in college there was a Evan Maya did something that I was looking at but I enjoy that stuff it's interesting to look at I look up different players to see who's really good like Shays is unbelievable Yeah.

2:05:09He's like green everywhere on the court. Yeah, he's like plus 18 no matter what the lineup is. I like looking at the three-man stuff sometimes because sometimes there'll be these weird combinations of players. Combinations that are like good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That you wouldn't expect. Well, with the Celtics, you would expect it's like Keita, Brown, and White all together. Now, they play a lot of minutes together. Yeah. But with those three, you can kind of fit any other two around them. And if you have those three, we're going to be good. But sometimes there'll be ones that surprise you. Yeah.

2:05:37And there'll be ones where like, OKC will have like Wallace, Dort, and Caruso. And it's like small minutes, but their defensive rating is like 88. Yeah. And you're like, yeah, that makes sense. Those guys are like three pit bulls trying to bring the ball up. But, all right, we covered everything, I think, right? Yeah, I think so. So, rookie wall hasn't happened yet. Girlfriend's still going. You're on pace for 2 ,500 minutes and incredible efficiency. Team's coming together. Lamella's got his mojo, it seems like. And he gets to play the Los Angeles Lakers in L.A. it's amazing LeBron James can't get any better this could be his last year who knows yeah yeah that'll be sweet alright well congrats on everything it's been fun to watch I appreciate it thanks for having me trying to think when we do the third pod together we'd have to I don't know what the what the inciting incident will be this was we did one before you got drafted now we have one halfway through your rookie year so we gotta figure out like the next for the trilogy when that is maybe that's like right before the playoffs or something first playoff if he can make it.

2:06:39Probably not this year, but maybe a year from now. All right. Thanks for doing this. Yeah. Thanks for having me. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Khan and Gahal and Eduardo. Don't forget, Rewatchables went up Tuesday night, What Lies Beneath. And don't forget, I have another podcast coming on Thursday, Football Podcast. So that'll be the fourth one of this week. You'll be able to watch it on Spotify. You'll be able to listen to it wherever you want. You could also watch it on Netflix. So please watch it in one of those places. I will see you in 24 hours.

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