# Tom Haberstroh on Anthony Edwards has NO FEAR of Wemby, Jaylen Brown Drama & the Jokic Analytics Debate | 05.06

An episode of [The Right Time with Bomani Jones](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/982639043), 6 May 2026, 1 h 01 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/370fc844-36bd-4f61-8b8f-b4bb010de39a/b69b6744-a283-4a01-ba0a-b4bb0113500a/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=919a7cbe-003c-4146-b592-b4bb010de3a5

Bomani Jones is joined by Tom Haberstroh to break down why Anthony Edwards feels like the NBA’s new legend killer, what Victor Wembanyama still has to prove in this playoff run, and why the Wolves aren’t backing down. They also dig into Jaylen Brown’s on/off numbers, whether the Celtics’ title window is closing, what’s gone wrong in Boston, and why the conversation around Nikola Jokic, Rudy Gobert, and analytics keeps missing the point. Plus, thoughts on the Knicks, Mike Brown, and Karl-Anthony Towns’ evolution. Topics include: • Anthony Edwards vs. Wemby • Jaylen Brown and the Celtics’ future • Rudy Gobert’s reputation shift • The Jokic analytics backlash • Why the Knicks look dangerous Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Wave.
[0:09] Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A wave original.
[0:13] Speaker 2: My name is Bobani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
[0:15] Speaker 2: get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
[0:19] Speaker 2: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
[0:21] Speaker 2: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
[0:24] Speaker 2: a hater. It is that time of week where we
[0:26] Speaker 2: have a guest join us. Check him out at Yahoo Sports.
[0:28] Speaker 2: Check out his excellent newsletter, Tom the Finder. Check him
[0:32] Speaker 2: out with the Portland Trailblazers, pre and post.
[0:34] Speaker 1: Tom Haverstraw, what's going on, man?
[0:36] Speaker 3: What's happening, Bomani?
[0:37] Speaker 1: Hey, man, it's all good. Shout out to every listener.
[0:41] Speaker 2: Every time we do this, we have one listener. who
[0:43] Speaker 2: finds out that Tom Haberstroh is white. There's always one
[0:47] Speaker 2: that learns this. It is a fascinating thing to me
[0:49] Speaker 2: that they did not know this already. It's kind of
[0:51] Speaker 2: like it's a lot of white people that think that
[0:53] Speaker 2: Jason Kidd is one of their own.
[0:55] Speaker 3: Hey, man, if they want to call me Tyrone Haberstroh,
[1:00] Speaker 3: that was what my name was a few weeks ago.
[1:02] Speaker 3: I'm okay with that, but it is Tom. I would
[1:04] Speaker 3: just say it is Tom.
[1:05] Speaker 2: Hey, look, I'm just telling you, man. Tom ain't no Tom,
[1:07] Speaker 2: but I hung out with Tom at a wedding in
[1:09] Speaker 2: Gardena last.
[1:11] Speaker 1: Summer, man. He fit. He was crew. He was well
[1:14] Speaker 1: under control. You know what I'm saying? But look, NBA playoffs,
[1:17] Speaker 1: we're here.
[1:17] Speaker 2: We're going to have Wednesday night, San Antonio- Minnesota, Monday night.
[1:24] Speaker 1: Look, it's only one game. The series has to go.
[1:27] Speaker 2: But I've been calling Anthony Edwards the legend killer because
[1:30] Speaker 2: he just comes.
[1:30] Speaker 1: And he has taken out all his heroes.
[1:32] Speaker 2: Like you can look one by one, year after year
[1:34] Speaker 2: after year, the Timberwolves are taking out some hero of
[1:37] Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards. And now the legend killer is going at
[1:40] Speaker 2: the legend before the legend even got there. He's not
[1:43] Speaker 2: even supposed to be playing because he's got this bone bruise, right?
[1:46] Speaker 2: They win this game against San Antonio. And I think
[1:50] Speaker 2: the most impressive thing How many shots did Victor block?
[1:55] Speaker 1: 13? 12.
[1:57] Speaker 3: But according to Chris Finch, it was three. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[2:01] Speaker 1: He eliminated all of those.
[2:03] Speaker 2: But I want to say they had something like 40,
[2:05] Speaker 2: 50 points in the paint. They were completely unafraid of
[2:08] Speaker 2: continuing to go in the paint, even though Victor was
[2:11] Speaker 2: pitching a shit all over the place. And they got
[2:14] Speaker 2: another one of these wins where for me, I know
[2:16] Speaker 2: that people get locked into the numbers. Anthony Edwards seems
[2:20] Speaker 2: to be the leader guy in the NBA.
[2:23] Speaker 3: So the thing about Anthony Edwards is he not only
[2:27] Speaker 3: talks the talk, but he walks the walk. And I
[2:28] Speaker 3: love this about Anthony Edwards because he is the perfect
[2:31] Speaker 3: character in the NBA media to put him on a
[2:36] Speaker 3: pedestal and broadcast him to the masses. The energy that
[2:41] Speaker 3: he brings, he came off the bench in this one,
[2:43] Speaker 3: coming back from injury, is the exact kind of storyline
[2:46] Speaker 3: that David Stern would be doing backflips for. Is Anthony
[2:49] Speaker 3: Edwards coming for every one of his, whether it's Kevin Durant,
[2:54] Speaker 3: or whether it's every star player that you need a
[2:58] Speaker 3: rival for, and a guy who's good looking, can talk,
[3:03] Speaker 3: and can absolutely play and back it up, where he's
[3:06] Speaker 3: got maybe five of the top 10 dunks that we've
[3:08] Speaker 3: had in the last five, 10 years, It's Anthony Edwards
[3:11] Speaker 3: just bodying people. So he has that it factor. And
[3:15] Speaker 3: then going against, you know, you and I are both huge,
[3:18] Speaker 3: huge believers in Victor Wembenyama and that feeling like this
[3:23] Speaker 3: league is about to be taken over if it hasn't
[3:25] Speaker 3: happened already by that guy, Victor Wembenyama. And Anthony Edwards
[3:31] Speaker 3: came back early and I was just, man, shivers went
[3:34] Speaker 3: down my spine for the Spurs because Anthony Edwards just, man.
[3:40] Speaker 3: He's about this life in the NBA. He's about it.
[3:43] Speaker 3: And when you go at Wemby and then you have
[3:45] Speaker 3: Julius Randle doing the more, uh, Marcin Gortat screen and
[3:50] Speaker 3: being physical and taking them out like a, like a snowplow,
[3:54] Speaker 3: taking them out of the paint. We're having to see
[3:57] Speaker 3: Victor Wemby Yama respond in ways that, that I feel
[4:00] Speaker 3: like playoff experience is overrated and more so overrated in
[4:04] Speaker 3: this era because injuries are way more important in today's
[4:08] Speaker 3: era and three-pointers and the variance is way more important
[4:11] Speaker 3: than quote-unquote experience. But Victor Wimbonyama has got to respond
[4:16] Speaker 3: in a big way because there's a lot of juice
[4:18] Speaker 3: in this series and Anthony Edwards is here for it.
[4:20] Speaker 2: Well, I think something else interesting about Edwards, and I'm
[4:22] Speaker 2: curious what you think about this. He is not a
[4:25] Speaker 2: high achiever in your advanced metrics, right?
[4:29] Speaker 1: Like you could go through the numbers that it makes.
[4:30] Speaker 2: He's the sort of guy that we've looked back in
[4:33] Speaker 2: the past. Kobe Bryant is somewhat of an example there
[4:35] Speaker 2: where his reputation is not quite matched by some of
[4:38] Speaker 2: the advanced numbers behind him. But every now and then,
[4:41] Speaker 2: you just need to go out here and win a game.
[4:43] Speaker 2: And there are some things that I think are not
[4:45] Speaker 2: necessarily quantifiable. And Edwards seems to be the modern case
[4:49] Speaker 2: of that one. Because one could try to make the
[4:50] Speaker 2: argument about him that he's more in the class of
[4:52] Speaker 2: calling it Carmelo Anthony, right? Who we all think was
[4:54] Speaker 2: an excellent basketball player. But it was fair to raise
[4:57] Speaker 2: the questions about how much he affected winning.
[5:00] Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards clearly.
[5:03] Speaker 2: affects winning because i don't know who these motherfuckers are
[5:06] Speaker 2: on the team with him half the time and you'll look.
[5:08] Speaker 1: Up at one of them scoring 45 points.
[5:10] Speaker 3: Yeah i would assume who uh was just basically like
[5:13] Speaker 3: handed to them by the chicago bulls uh and kobe
[5:16] Speaker 3: white who like saved the charlotte hornets in that play-in
[5:19] Speaker 3: game also just handed to the charlotte hornets in ways
[5:22] Speaker 3: that wait a carolina guy's falling from the skies you
[5:25] Speaker 3: can actually play and be the second creator on a
[5:28] Speaker 3: playoff team The Bulls, just call up the Bulls and
[5:31] Speaker 3: be like, yo, can we get Alex Caruso? Great, we'll
[5:34] Speaker 3: take him. Io DeSumo, great. 43 points, scored more points
[5:39] Speaker 3: in that series than anyone on the Denver Nuggets. Great,
[5:41] Speaker 3: we'll take him. And look, Anthony Edwards coming back in
[5:44] Speaker 3: this series. He was coming off the bench. He only
[5:47] Speaker 3: played 25 minutes. But you know that that's going to
[5:50] Speaker 3: be closer to 35 here in game two. And Victor
[5:53] Speaker 3: Wembyama is already here saying, I got to figure out
[5:57] Speaker 3: my energy. I got to figure out my minutes. Like
[5:59] Speaker 3: I came out dedicating way more energy to the defensive
[6:02] Speaker 3: side of the floor. And it's ironic that he plays
[6:05] Speaker 3: for the San Antonio Spurs because a lot of these
[6:07] Speaker 3: blocks that I saw him making in that game one,
[6:10] Speaker 3: I would say, can you be a little bit more
[6:12] Speaker 3: like Tim Duncan? Can you just block it a little
[6:15] Speaker 3: bit and get it back and then start the break
[6:17] Speaker 3: the other way? You don't need to slap it across
[6:19] Speaker 3: the backboard or slap it out of bounds. Just get that, that,
[6:23] Speaker 3: little block steal as I like to call it. A
[6:25] Speaker 3: lot of times players would swat it into the third
[6:29] Speaker 3: row and feel like they did something and then they
[6:32] Speaker 3: inbound it and then they score a layup and it's like, hey,
[6:34] Speaker 3: he gets a block for that, but did he get
[6:36] Speaker 3: a stop?
[6:37] Speaker 1: No.
[6:38] Speaker 3: And sometimes I do wish that Victor Wemunyama would just
[6:40] Speaker 3: look for the stop rather than the block.
[6:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, and I also wonder to a degree
[6:45] Speaker 2: whether somebody there has given him like the John Thompson
[6:48] Speaker 2: lecture to Patrick Ewing, just to go out here and
[6:51] Speaker 2: beat the shit out the ball And because they'll remember
[6:53] Speaker 2: it and then go from there.
[6:55] Speaker 1: Right.
[6:55] Speaker 2: Like there is the block it out of bounds is
[6:57] Speaker 2: a bit of a waste. But in theory, it'll get
[7:00] Speaker 2: into their heads. And Minnesota was like, no, bro, not
[7:03] Speaker 2: going to. It's not going to do that at all, actually,
[7:07] Speaker 2: to us. But I also think for San Antonio, they've
[7:10] Speaker 2: never played a game with these stakes. And say what
[7:13] Speaker 2: you want about Minnesota. It's not the whole roster, but
[7:15] Speaker 2: the guy in charge, he and Gobert, Julius Randle, Nas Reed,
[7:22] Speaker 2: these are guys who have played games at this level.
[7:25] Speaker 2: The Spurs basically have Harrison Barnes. Nobody else has been
[7:28] Speaker 2: in a game like this. And it's interesting how these
[7:31] Speaker 2: different levels of being in the playoffs or whatever, different
[7:34] Speaker 2: levels of stakes, truly add to the pressure in a
[7:36] Speaker 2: different way. Like I was thinking about the time I
[7:39] Speaker 2: went to the Carolina Duke game at Cameron. I have
[7:42] Speaker 2: been to Cameron for other games. You just notice how
[7:45] Speaker 2: much hotter it is when it's the Carolina game, right?
[7:48] Speaker 1: Like physically hotter.
[7:49] Speaker 2: Part of that may be some decisions from, you know,
[7:55] Speaker 2: the thermodynamic department, but also.
[7:58] Speaker 1: Wait, wait, wait, wait.
[7:59] Speaker 3: Are you alleging Greg Popovich didn't have something to do
[8:02] Speaker 3: with the LeBron cramp game in the finals?
[8:05] Speaker 2: I am simply saying that at times things can be different.
[8:08] Speaker 2: But what I am saying in this case... It's just
[8:12] Speaker 2: more pressure. It's just a different energy. And so when
[8:15] Speaker 2: Victor talks about, hey, I got to figure out how
[8:17] Speaker 2: to regulate my energy, that's a man who misunderstood how
[8:21] Speaker 2: this was going to feel once he.
[8:23] Speaker 1: Got out there.
[8:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, but I also feel like he updates his iOS
[8:26] Speaker 3: system better than anybody.
[8:28] Speaker 1: Yes, he does.
[8:29] Speaker 3: He's learning so fast. And you know that he's a
[8:32] Speaker 3: dude who, when he goes out there in his age
[8:35] Speaker 3: 20 season, and leads a team to a 60-win. And
[8:40] Speaker 3: it wasn't all him. He missed a bunch of games
[8:42] Speaker 3: this season, and they played well without him with De'Aaron
[8:45] Speaker 3: Fox and Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell, and Dylan Harper, the rookie.
[8:50] Speaker 3: But I feel like Victor Wembanyama thinks about the game
[8:54] Speaker 3: in ways that are well beyond his years. And I
[8:57] Speaker 3: feel like this is a huge, a massive game, too,
[9:00] Speaker 3: for him because a down 0-2 hole going back to Minnesota–
[9:05] Speaker 3: with a team that's already been to the Western Conference
[9:07] Speaker 3: Finals twice, and every day that they play is another
[9:11] Speaker 3: day that you're going to see five more minutes out
[9:14] Speaker 3: of Anthony Edwards, they can't play with their food too
[9:16] Speaker 3: much here, Bomani. And the offensive balance for Victor Wembenyama...
[9:23] Speaker 3: He missed all of his three-pointers. De'Aaron Fox also did, too,
[9:26] Speaker 3: in some of that shot variance. If that shot goes
[9:28] Speaker 3: in from Champagny, a wide-open three at the last second,
[9:32] Speaker 3: if that goes in, this is a totally different narrative
[9:34] Speaker 3: going into game two. But I do think that Victor
[9:37] Speaker 3: Wembenyama needs to expend more of his energy offensively, getting
[9:40] Speaker 3: down in the paint, get that vertical spacing, and play
[9:43] Speaker 3: more of a bully. But as we saw what Rudy
[9:46] Speaker 3: Gobert did to Nikola Jokic and Julius Randle is a bull.
[9:50] Speaker 1: He is insane.
[9:52] Speaker 3: He is strong as it comes when you talk about
[9:55] Speaker 3: big men who want to go through you uh and
[9:57] Speaker 3: are willing to be physical Julius Randall is a different
[10:01] Speaker 3: guy than say most of the fours in today's NBA.
[10:05] Speaker 2: Also Rudy Rudy this is round two of and I
[10:09] Speaker 2: took that personally if Rudy Gobert was ever going to
[10:12] Speaker 2: take anything personally right Jokic who has dominated him For
[10:15] Speaker 2: basically a decade, he decided he wasn't having it.
[10:18] Speaker 1: This go around. Victor, who, I mean, Victor's reputation was made, right?
[10:23] Speaker 2: When there's some interaction with him and Rudy where he
[10:25] Speaker 2: destroys him, and I keep talking all the time about
[10:28] Speaker 2: two years ago when Victor said, congratulations, but win a
[10:30] Speaker 2: defensive player of the year, you'll never win it again.
[10:33] Speaker 1: Just throwing it out there.
[10:34] Speaker 2: I can't imagine how insufferable Victor was to the French
[10:38] Speaker 2: basketball people when he was like 17, right? Like that
[10:42] Speaker 2: actual asshole age. And now you're coming in and you're like,
[10:47] Speaker 2: I'm better than.
[10:47] Speaker 1: All of them. And they're like, yeah, we're going to see.
[10:49] Speaker 1: And then you are.
[10:51] Speaker 2: Yep.
[10:51] Speaker 1: Yep.
[10:52] Speaker 3: And that's, and that's the story of Victor Wembanyama. And
[10:54] Speaker 3: this was when we were talking about this season was,
[10:57] Speaker 3: can he ramp up and be that guy in the playoffs?
[11:00] Speaker 3: If he's playing like 27 minutes, like he did in
[11:02] Speaker 3: the regular season. And now you're seeing the fatigue factor
[11:06] Speaker 3: is impacting him in ways that I, I'm hoping just
[11:11] Speaker 3: for the drama that we get Victor Weminyama against Chet
[11:15] Speaker 3: Holmgren and Shea Gildress Alexander in the Western Conference Finals.
[11:18] Speaker 3: I feel like that is so necessary for people to
[11:21] Speaker 3: buy into Wemby is him having these moments in the
[11:25] Speaker 3: playoffs where he overcomes. I remember it was his rookie season,
[11:29] Speaker 3: I want to say. I told all my friends and
[11:32] Speaker 3: their kids to watch Victor Weminyama's debut on national TV,
[11:36] Speaker 3: and he did a clunker. He had a stinker on
[11:39] Speaker 3: national TV in his debut, and I felt like he
[11:42] Speaker 3: needs to have these moments, and he did it at
[11:45] Speaker 3: Madison Square Garden against the Knicks on Christmas Day. He
[11:48] Speaker 3: needs to have this in game two where it's just like, oh,
[11:52] Speaker 3: he's already here. And what he did against the Portland
[11:55] Speaker 3: Trailblazers in the first round, that's great, but against Anthony
[11:57] Speaker 3: Edwards and Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle here in the
[11:59] Speaker 3: second round would do wonders because 11 points is not
[12:03] Speaker 3: going to cut.
[12:03] Speaker 1: I get it.
[12:03] Speaker 3: He had a triple-double with blocks. But we see Chris
[12:06] Speaker 3: Finch out here playing the whole officials and the media
[12:09] Speaker 3: game in between. Frank Vogel used to do this with LeBron,
[12:12] Speaker 3: that he gets officiated differently than everybody else. And they're
[12:16] Speaker 3: trying to play the referees in the press conferences. I
[12:20] Speaker 3: don't know if that will work, but Victor Wembanyama has
[12:23] Speaker 3: to be better than just getting five baskets inside the
[12:27] Speaker 3: three-point arc as he had in game one.
[12:29] Speaker 2: Well, that was the mistake there is, hey, man, you
[12:31] Speaker 2: don't have to keep shooting all those shots from out there.
[12:34] Speaker 1: You're eight feet tall.
[12:38] Speaker 2: We have other people who can do that, but you're
[12:40] Speaker 2: the only guy we've got that can be eight feet tall.
[12:42] Speaker 1: So, like, you know, if you want to go do
[12:44] Speaker 1: the eight feet tall things, yeah, it's cool. I understand.
[12:46] Speaker 1: You're a renaissance man. That's fine.
[12:48] Speaker 2: Go down there and be eight feet tall, and that'll
[12:51] Speaker 2: probably be better for the rest of us. For those
[12:53] Speaker 2: who don't know, with Chris Finch, he did off-day availability
[12:57] Speaker 2: with the media, and he talked about how, what was it,
[12:59] Speaker 2: he said four of Wendell Banyama's block's were goaltends and
[13:03] Speaker 2: he had a fairly decent case on them i just
[13:06] Speaker 2: want to point out that if we take away the
[13:08] Speaker 2: four that were goaltends there are still eight.
[13:11] Speaker 3: Left yeah and i went back and watched those i
[13:15] Speaker 3: think one is a legit goaltend and then the other
[13:18] Speaker 3: ones are iffy that it's still incredible to me bomani
[13:22] Speaker 3: that we've got all this technology in the world but
[13:24] Speaker 3: we can't figure out goaltends It's a literal, just the
[13:28] Speaker 3: ball is on its way down and we have VAR
[13:31] Speaker 3: in soccer, but we can't figure out if the ball
[13:33] Speaker 3: flight is decreasing. How is this possible in the, in 2026,
[13:39] Speaker 3: we are still doing goaltends by just three dudes watching
[13:43] Speaker 3: the ball flight.
[13:44] Speaker 1: I'm okay with that.
[13:45] Speaker 3: I'm okay with that.
[13:45] Speaker 1: I'm okay with it.
[13:46] Speaker 3: We should have the tennis VAR where if it's on
[13:50] Speaker 3: the line or if it's not on the line, we've
[13:51] Speaker 3: had that for a decade now, it feels like. Why
[13:54] Speaker 3: can't we have this with ball flight? I don't understand
[13:57] Speaker 3: why we're still doing this like we're cavemen.
[13:59] Speaker 1: I do think the Cyclops is a good tool, right?
[14:02] Speaker 1: That's the tennis technology. I am with that.
[14:06] Speaker 2: I just feel like, to a degree, what you're talking
[14:09] Speaker 2: about is us making ourselves slaves to these robots.
[14:13] Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? Like, it's- I'm not saying everything.
[14:16] Speaker 1: I know, but it's- I'm not saying everything. I'm saying goaltend.
[14:19] Speaker 1: That's how it starts. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's, that's,
[14:22] Speaker 1: I understand you. I feel you.
[14:23] Speaker 2: And goaltend is the tricky one because it's the, you know,
[14:26] Speaker 2: the idea of the ball is on its way down
[14:28] Speaker 2: and cats like Victor can get called for goaltending because
[14:31] Speaker 2: people just can't conceptualize that the ball is that high.
[14:33] Speaker 1: Like, have you heard Kevin Garnett tell.
[14:36] Speaker 2: Them stories about Olajuwon where Olajuwon talking.
[14:38] Speaker 1: He said, I am testing his lateral movement. I am
[14:40] Speaker 1: testing his lateral movement.
[14:42] Speaker 2: And Olajuwon used to get called for travels in the
[14:44] Speaker 2: playoffs and.
[14:44] Speaker 1: His thing was, they have never seen lateral movement.
[14:47] Speaker 2: Like, they simply could not imagine that this is not
[14:52] Speaker 2: against the rules. And then you watch the clips and
[14:54] Speaker 2: be like, yo, they were just not ready for the
[14:57] Speaker 2: lateral movement.
[14:59] Speaker 3: And one thing that I think people don't realize is
[15:02] Speaker 3: These guys don't have full battery packs while they play basketball.
[15:07] Speaker 3: And it's one of those things that makes 82 games
[15:09] Speaker 3: different from the playoffs is that Victor Wemby by trying
[15:12] Speaker 3: to block everything and jump and be locked in is
[15:15] Speaker 3: the same reason why Jalen Brunson moving off the ball
[15:19] Speaker 3: in the Knicks postseason run is so big that I
[15:23] Speaker 3: don't think people realize how hard it is in the
[15:25] Speaker 3: same way that Wemby is exhausting himself trying to protect
[15:28] Speaker 3: everything in the paint and block everything in the paint.
[15:31] Speaker 3: and he doesn't have any energy left offensively. It's the
[15:34] Speaker 3: same reason why Cat, Carl Anthony Towns, becoming the hub
[15:38] Speaker 3: of the offense and their flex offense and having Jalen
[15:41] Speaker 3: Brunson be able to get his heart rate down and
[15:44] Speaker 3: not have to dribble seven, literally 150 dribbles fewer per
[15:49] Speaker 3: game this postseason for Jalen Brunson than last postseason. That
[15:54] Speaker 3: matters in the terms of the stamina and the energy
[15:57] Speaker 3: that it takes to exhaust yourself through an NBA playoff game.
[16:01] Speaker 3: That is going to help the Knicks in ways that
[16:03] Speaker 3: I think Victor Wembanyama needs to chill a little bit
[16:05] Speaker 3: defensively in order, because I think there's some Rudy Gobert
[16:10] Speaker 3: mind games that are happening here where he wants to
[16:12] Speaker 3: prove himself to Rudy Gobert and his fellow Frenchmen in
[16:16] Speaker 3: ways that I think is detracting from the overall goal
[16:19] Speaker 3: of winning this series. It seems like he wants to
[16:21] Speaker 3: prove something to the guy that he used to go
[16:24] Speaker 3: up against, his big brother, so to speak. And we've
[16:26] Speaker 3: all been there. playing one-on-one against your big brother. And
[16:30] Speaker 3: it is something visceral. I used to cry every single
[16:34] Speaker 3: time in my backyard playing on my hoop with my brothers.
[16:38] Speaker 3: And every time it would be the same outcome. And
[16:42] Speaker 3: I just had this thing inside me that I wanted
[16:44] Speaker 3: to prove to my big brothers that I could beat
[16:46] Speaker 3: them one-on-one. And I think that's what's happening with Rudy
[16:49] Speaker 3: Gobert and Victor Webanyama here. And I think he needs
[16:51] Speaker 3: to recalibrate things to make himself more effective over the
[16:54] Speaker 3: long haul.
[16:55] Speaker 2: Hey, man, I got to go here because you brought
[16:56] Speaker 2: it up with the Knicks and going through Carl. And
[16:59] Speaker 2: I'm curious, where are you on Mike Brown.
[17:00] Speaker 1: As a coach?
[17:03] Speaker 3: I was out on him up until game four of
[17:05] Speaker 3: that series with the Atlanta Hawks, and then everything changed. Like,
[17:08] Speaker 3: to get Carl Anthony Towns to buy in being a
[17:11] Speaker 3: guy who was going to be a hub and not
[17:13] Speaker 3: worry about getting 25, he was more worried about, hey,
[17:17] Speaker 3: can you make sure that you get six assists a
[17:21] Speaker 3: game where you're going to make things so much easier
[17:24] Speaker 3: for everybody else. It's something Tom Thibodeau couldn't do. In
[17:27] Speaker 3: four games in that series, Carl Anthony Towns had more
[17:30] Speaker 3: assists than he did all of last season in the postseason.
[17:34] Speaker 3: 18-game sample size. He had, under Tom Thibodeau, he had
[17:38] Speaker 3: fewer assists in the entire postseason run to the Eastern
[17:41] Speaker 3: Conference Finals than he did in four games in that series.
[17:45] Speaker 3: against the Atlanta Hawks. So whatever Mike Brown did, because
[17:48] Speaker 3: we kind of felt like we slept walk through that
[17:50] Speaker 3: first 82 games of the season, I didn't see enough
[17:54] Speaker 3: to lend me to believe that he was reaching Jalen
[17:56] Speaker 3: Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns differently. The one thing he
[17:59] Speaker 3: did differently in the regular season was he lowered their
[18:02] Speaker 3: minutes totals and recognized we can't be running these dudes
[18:05] Speaker 3: into the ground. Mikel Bridges, OG Ananobi, Carl Anthony Towns,
[18:10] Speaker 3: Josh Hart, and Jalen Brunson, they played something like 35
[18:13] Speaker 3: minutes a game as a unit. in the postseason. As
[18:18] Speaker 3: a five-man lineup, those five guys are on the floor
[18:20] Speaker 3: about 30 minutes a game, and Mike Brown has established
[18:23] Speaker 3: two things. One, we're going to lower those minutes and
[18:25] Speaker 3: depend on the second unit a lot more to preserve
[18:28] Speaker 3: the energy of these guys. And two, we're going to
[18:31] Speaker 3: run the offense through Carl Anthony Towns to preserve Jalen Brunson.
[18:35] Speaker 3: And those two things, what they did at the second
[18:37] Speaker 3: half of that Atlanta Hawks series, makes me think a
[18:40] Speaker 3: lot better about Mike Brown's tenure over Tom Thibodeau.
[18:44] Speaker 2: I've always thought that Mike Brown was a bit underrated
[18:50] Speaker 2: as a coach. And I think like his success with
[18:53] Speaker 2: the Cavs was easily discounted because he had the cyborg
[18:57] Speaker 2: version of LeBron James. His time with the Lakers, I
[19:02] Speaker 2: think they find out that the owner's dying five games
[19:05] Speaker 2: into the second season of his tenure and they panic
[19:08] Speaker 2: and they decide to fire him after they've overhauled the
[19:10] Speaker 2: offense and everything else, right? Like I think He got
[19:13] Speaker 2: to the playoffs of Sacramento in a game seven. He's
[19:15] Speaker 2: clearly worked under some people where he's learned some things
[19:18] Speaker 2: and what his shortcoming was when he first started as
[19:20] Speaker 2: a coach was offense. His offenses were bogged down. Nope,
[19:25] Speaker 2: he did that apprenticeship under Steve Kerr. He seemed to
[19:28] Speaker 2: figure some things out. They got this thing going. And
[19:30] Speaker 2: then what happened in this, for the last, I guess
[19:34] Speaker 2: now four games of the Knicks, which is interesting, they
[19:37] Speaker 2: seem to turn it.
[19:38] Speaker 1: On, right? Which is something that's odd for a team
[19:40] Speaker 1: that's never really won anything.
[19:42] Speaker 2: They's like, okay, I think maybe we can just stop
[19:45] Speaker 2: fucking around here because we're better than everybody else that's
[19:47] Speaker 2: left in our conference. And it looks very clearly at
[19:49] Speaker 2: us of right now that they are, in fact, better
[19:52] Speaker 2: than everybody else that's in this conference.
[19:55] Speaker 1: Like they should win it.
[19:57] Speaker 2: And getting Carl Towns to buy in is interesting because
[20:00] Speaker 2: I think.
[20:01] Speaker 1: You and I would agree on this. He's an excellent passer.
[20:04] Speaker 2: The thing with Towns is he's an excellent everything if
[20:07] Speaker 2: he doesn't. Like, why he's not better is maddening and confusing.
[20:12] Speaker 2: But if you get him to be that passing guy,
[20:15] Speaker 2: because you can't have your 6'2 guard dribbling the ball.
[20:17] Speaker 2: James Harden is a 6'5 tank, and him dribbling the
[20:20] Speaker 2: ball over and over again has worn him.
[20:22] Speaker 1: Out postseason after postseason.
[20:24] Speaker 2: Like, I've seen people say that they think this series
[20:27] Speaker 2: with the Sixers is going to go a long time.
[20:29] Speaker 1: I don't. I think this is going to be quick.
[20:31] Speaker 3: For the Knicks, it's huge. The Carl Anthony Towns being
[20:34] Speaker 3: that Jokic, Shane Goon hub at the top of the key.
[20:38] Speaker 3: The Hawks haven't figured it out. The 76ers haven't figured
[20:40] Speaker 3: it out. It's a basic. Bomani, I played that offense
[20:43] Speaker 3: in high school. The flex, we call it motion. It's
[20:49] Speaker 3: the most easily teachable offense. And Mike Brown is installing
[20:54] Speaker 3: it as Carl Anthony Towns is at the top of
[20:56] Speaker 3: the key. And these defenses have no idea how to
[20:58] Speaker 3: stop it. And for me, it's like Tom Thibodeau, the
[21:02] Speaker 3: thing we kept talking about with Tibbs was this rigidity,
[21:04] Speaker 3: is that he just has this view, a narrow-minded view
[21:07] Speaker 3: of what works in the NBA, and that's always how
[21:09] Speaker 3: he's going to go. He went on a sabbatical. I
[21:11] Speaker 3: talked to him. He's like, yeah, I'm a new coach.
[21:13] Speaker 3: I went and I met with medical professionals and sports
[21:16] Speaker 3: scientists and all this, and he kept doing the same things.
[21:19] Speaker 3: Once he got right back in, we realized that the
[21:20] Speaker 3: tiger doesn't change his stripes. Mike Brown, I think the
[21:24] Speaker 3: tough thing about Mike Brown is, He learned the power
[21:28] Speaker 3: of having that big man as your hub with Damanis Sabonis.
[21:34] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[21:34] Speaker 3: And I don't know if that's a good selling pitch
[21:37] Speaker 3: for an NBA star. It's like, hey, man, look what
[21:40] Speaker 3: we did with Damanis Sabonis. You need to go do that, too.
[21:42] Speaker 1: I mean, I would say this.
[21:44] Speaker 2: Like, you turned Damanis Sabonis into a 60% shooter from
[21:47] Speaker 2: the floor and everything else.
[21:48] Speaker 1: Like... He turned Damanis Sabonis into something.
[21:51] Speaker 2: And by the way, with an all-time great offense by numbers,
[21:55] Speaker 2: it's not the worst celebration you're going to make.
[21:57] Speaker 3: I know what you're saying is, but for NBA stars,
[22:00] Speaker 3: do they want to be Damanis Sabonis? I don't know.
[22:03] Speaker 2: It's kind of like when George Carl told Carmelo, I
[22:07] Speaker 2: see dead left shrimp in you.
[22:09] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[22:10] Speaker 3: What was it? When Reggie Miller went out on national
[22:14] Speaker 3: TV and was like, you know, Caitlin Clark reminds me of?
[22:17] Speaker 2: Yes.
[22:18] Speaker 3: Peyton Pritchard. It's like, Oh, right.
[22:21] Speaker 2: Kobe Bryant told Dwight Howard, you could be our Tyson Chandler.
[22:25] Speaker 1: It didn't understand why that went over poorly.
[22:28] Speaker 3: And, and, and you know what? We'll sue that is
[22:31] Speaker 3: when you're down one, two in a series and you
[22:35] Speaker 3: are given the keys to being the hub and everything
[22:38] Speaker 3: turns around for you. So, I don't know how sustainable
[22:40] Speaker 3: this is. It still worked against, against the Sixers and
[22:43] Speaker 3: Embiid just got ruined. Like they were putting them in
[22:46] Speaker 3: pick and rolls nonstop. And they were saying, we're going
[22:48] Speaker 3: to have you guard in space and we're going to
[22:50] Speaker 3: try to figure this out and wear you down after
[22:53] Speaker 3: having a couple of weeks out with the appendicitis. And, and, Man,
[22:58] Speaker 3: the Knicks look great, and I was out on them. Man, Bomani,
[23:02] Speaker 3: I pronounced them dead on the scene at the end
[23:05] Speaker 3: of that regular season down 2-1 against the Atlanta Hawks,
[23:08] Speaker 3: but kudos to Mike Brown and Carl Anthony Towns. We'll
[23:11] Speaker 3: see if this is sustainable. He had more assists in
[23:14] Speaker 3: this postseason than the first three postseason runs combined. This
[23:18] Speaker 3: is a new groove for him, man, and we say
[23:21] Speaker 3: that a Tiger can't change its stripes, but Carl Anthony Towns,
[23:26] Speaker 3: he's at this age and this stage of his career,
[23:28] Speaker 3: he's showing me something in ways that I did not
[23:30] Speaker 3: think he had it in him.
[23:32] Speaker 2: I was saying this one thing right before we go
[23:34] Speaker 2: into break, because you mentioned Thibodeau, and I think this
[23:36] Speaker 2: is funny, and I'm curious if you deserve this. Thibodeau,
[23:39] Speaker 2: Stan Van Gundy, very similar guys, right? Not necessarily, they're
[23:43] Speaker 2: not the same exact coach, but they are of similar schools,
[23:45] Speaker 2: and they both have the same thing in common. They
[23:49] Speaker 2: seem so happy when they're not coaching basketball. and so
[23:52] Speaker 2: miserable when they are, and I never understand why they
[23:55] Speaker 2: ever coach basketball.
[23:57] Speaker 3: It's weird. It's the Van Gundy tree, right? It's Steve
[23:59] Speaker 3: Clifford in Charlotte. When you see him on the sidelines
[24:03] Speaker 3: here in Charlotte, he was the former coach of the Hornets,
[24:06] Speaker 3: and oddly enough, also the Orlando Magic. So if people
[24:08] Speaker 3: are thinking Tom Thibodeau is going to take that magic job,
[24:11] Speaker 3: Steve Clifford did a similar thing there in Orlando. Steve
[24:15] Speaker 3: Clifford is like the happiest, most jovial dude But when
[24:19] Speaker 3: he's in between those four lines, he's as curmudgeon as
[24:22] Speaker 3: it gets. With Tom Thibodeau, Jeff Van Gundy, and Stan
[24:24] Speaker 3: Van Gundy, awesome to talk to off the floor. People
[24:27] Speaker 3: don't realize, Tom Thibodeau's a great hang on a TV set.
[24:30] Speaker 2: When he would walk around the seaport at ESPN, he
[24:34] Speaker 2: got a little swag to him.
[24:35] Speaker 1: He'd be like, look at me.
[24:36] Speaker 2: He's the guy to give you a point from across
[24:38] Speaker 2: the room.
[24:39] Speaker 3: I've hung out with Tom Thibodeau. I got lunch with him.
[24:43] Speaker 3: I've seen him even at the Sloan Conference. You're hanging out,
[24:46] Speaker 3: and I'm like, this is not the guy that I
[24:49] Speaker 3: thought you were. He is charismatic in a way when
[24:54] Speaker 3: he's not coaching that I think would surprise a lot
[24:56] Speaker 3: of people. But it is crazy is that all of
[25:01] Speaker 3: the stereotypes, the narratives about Tom Thibodeau oftentimes come true,
[25:06] Speaker 3: and we'll see if he gets another job here in
[25:08] Speaker 3: Orlando Magic. It sounds like the Billy Donovan left at
[25:13] Speaker 3: the altar story from a few years back. Maybe they
[25:17] Speaker 3: finally consummate that this time around. But, man, if Tom
[25:21] Speaker 3: Thibodeau takes that job, I would pray for Paolo Bencaro
[25:24] Speaker 3: and everybody else's knees and their miles on those tires
[25:27] Speaker 3: because it just doesn't seem like Tom Thibodeau is not
[25:31] Speaker 3: going to change.
[25:31] Speaker 2: Hey, man, I understand letting Mosley go, and I understood
[25:37] Speaker 2: the allure of of Billy Donovan in 2010 or whenever
[25:42] Speaker 2: that was that, you know, he left and then decided
[25:45] Speaker 2: to come back to Florida. After 10 years in the NBA,
[25:49] Speaker 2: Billy Donovan has demonstrated himself to be a replacement level
[25:52] Speaker 2: NBA coach.
[25:53] Speaker 1: Not bad, certainly, but no reason to think he's great.
[25:57] Speaker 2: I can't believe they are still that enamored with the
[25:59] Speaker 2: idea of hiring Billy Donovan.
[26:03] Speaker 3: That Florida Gators stuff is strong down there, man.
[26:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
[26:07] Speaker 1: It is.
[26:08] Speaker 3: So look, the, the, the Nick story is huge. It's
[26:14] Speaker 3: I feel like it's the most, it's hard to see
[26:17] Speaker 3: because we want our stars to be averaging 25, 30
[26:20] Speaker 3: a night. But when you have a guy who recalibrates
[26:23] Speaker 3: his whole portfolio of what he offers for your team,
[26:26] Speaker 3: like Carl Anthony towns and, and look, the defensive stuff,
[26:30] Speaker 3: He's been playing a lot better defensively and all the
[26:33] Speaker 3: ticky-tack fouls that we get so angry about.
[26:35] Speaker 1: That's the key.
[26:36] Speaker 3: With Carl Anthony Towns, that still might come up and
[26:40] Speaker 3: be the boogeyman in all this thing. He can be
[26:42] Speaker 3: the hub all he wants offensively, but if he's going
[26:44] Speaker 3: to be in foul trouble early against Joel Embiid like
[26:48] Speaker 3: he was, where it's like, oh man, that's still an
[26:51] Speaker 3: issue with Carl Anthony Towns. We're still only one game in.
[26:54] Speaker 3: But right now, I would say the Knicks, I feel
[26:57] Speaker 3: better about their chances than anybody else in the East.
[26:59] Speaker 2: All right, look, coming up next, I understand not everybody
[27:03] Speaker 2: thinks that talking too much on the internet is a
[27:05] Speaker 2: tradable offense.
[27:07] Speaker 1: But what if I do? Talk about Jalen Brown.
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[28:10] Speaker 2: hyphen offer hyphen terms. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
[28:16] Speaker 2: May is Mental Health Awareness Month. A reminder that whatever
[28:19] Speaker 2: you're going through, you don't have to go through it alone.
[28:22] Speaker 1: Life is a journey. Some days feel good and others
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[29:17] Speaker 2: at BetterHelp.com slash Bomani. That's BetterHelp.com slash Bomani. All right,
[29:26] Speaker 2: we are back with Tom Haverstraw. Tom, Jalen Brown, we've
[29:30] Speaker 2: talked about this a little bit here. He got on
[29:32] Speaker 2: the live stream talking crazy. The NBA found a $ 50, 000
[29:35] Speaker 2: for claiming that the referees had an agenda against him.
[29:38] Speaker 1: And by the way, I think it's.
[29:39] Speaker 2: Entirely possible that they do. I don't know if this
[29:43] Speaker 2: is correct. I don't watch them enough to know if
[29:45] Speaker 2: he's really being officiated unfairly.
[29:47] Speaker 1: But it's on the board.
[29:48] Speaker 2: They are kind of petty like that. It's not like
[29:51] Speaker 2: it's never happened before. However, I bring him up just
[29:56] Speaker 2: because I think the window is probably closed for the Celtics.
[30:02] Speaker 2: Jalen Brown has played 10 years in the NBA. I
[30:07] Speaker 2: don't know what version of Jason Tatum they're going to
[30:10] Speaker 2: get back. Most people have said that Jalen Brown has
[30:13] Speaker 2: been an all-NBA caliber player this year, a top five
[30:16] Speaker 2: in the MVP vote, and that is largely buoyed by
[30:19] Speaker 2: the team's success of the Boston Celtics. But Tom Habershow,
[30:23] Speaker 2: I ask you this, as you're the sort of person
[30:25] Speaker 2: who pays attention to these things, Have you taken a
[30:28] Speaker 2: look at the Jalen Brown on-court, off-court differences from this season?
[30:34] Speaker 3: This is why I did not have him on my
[30:36] Speaker 3: first or second team All-NBA. Because the team was not
[30:40] Speaker 3: just on-court, off-court, the differential. And this is one of
[30:44] Speaker 3: those things why the Nikoli Jokic analytics, how he became...
[30:50] Speaker 3: the patron saint of analytics is a lot of the
[30:52] Speaker 3: introduction of on-court, off-court metrics. And what that is, is
[30:57] Speaker 3: in the play-by-play era since 1997, we can now see
[31:02] Speaker 3: how well your team does when you're on the floor,
[31:04] Speaker 3: meaning how many points does your team score minus how
[31:08] Speaker 3: many points your opponent scores. And that differential, how does
[31:11] Speaker 3: that look? That margin of victory, what does that differential
[31:15] Speaker 3: look like when you're off the floor? And for Jalen Brown,
[31:19] Speaker 3: It was very confusing because a lot of people were saying, hey,
[31:22] Speaker 3: he's carrying that Boston Celtics team. But their record this
[31:26] Speaker 3: season without Jalen Brown was fantastic this season. Without Jalen
[31:33] Speaker 3: Brown in uniform, they were still a 50-win team and
[31:36] Speaker 3: even better without him in uniform. And then you go
[31:40] Speaker 3: to the in-game, on-court, off-court metrics, and it does not
[31:45] Speaker 3: paint a pretty picture about Jalen Brown's ability to raise
[31:49] Speaker 3: your team's ability to win games was not favorable to
[31:53] Speaker 3: Jalen Brown this season.
[31:54] Speaker 2: And just to be clear for people, offensively with him
[31:58] Speaker 2: and without him, they were roughly the same this year.
[32:01] Speaker 1: Not exactly, but they were worse.
[32:03] Speaker 2: But it was too close to be like, oh, they
[32:06] Speaker 2: were worse without him on offense, right?
[32:07] Speaker 1: That would be a bit dishonest.
[32:09] Speaker 2: But defensively, the gap was a little bit bigger. They
[32:11] Speaker 2: were better defensively without him. And in this postseason, they
[32:16] Speaker 2: were way better.
[32:18] Speaker 1: When he was not on the floor than when he
[32:20] Speaker 1: was on the floor.
[32:21] Speaker 2: And looking at those numbers and them being combined with
[32:25] Speaker 2: the sort of things he was saying about enjoying this
[32:28] Speaker 2: season the most out of any other season, I would
[32:31] Speaker 2: love to know how the rest of the Celtics felt
[32:33] Speaker 2: about this, because even if they aren't looking at that,
[32:37] Speaker 2: I don't talk about players, even if they aren't necessarily
[32:39] Speaker 2: looking at the numbers, they know intuitively.
[32:43] Speaker 1: Hey man, we're actually better when he's not here. Right?
[32:45] Speaker 2: Like, I don't think you have to hand them to
[32:47] Speaker 2: stat sheet. They may be like, you know, I felt
[32:48] Speaker 2: like it was going that way, but they are quantified.
[32:51] Speaker 2: They were quantifiably and clearly better without him this year.
[32:55] Speaker 1: Yes. Yes.
[32:56] Speaker 3: And when you talk about him saying on a stream,
[33:00] Speaker 3: He knows what he's doing. This is one of the
[33:02] Speaker 3: most calculated guys in the league. He knows what he's saying.
[33:06] Speaker 3: He is out here on a live stream where he
[33:10] Speaker 3: knows how big of his audience is and he knows
[33:12] Speaker 3: that it's going to be clipped and aggregated where he
[33:15] Speaker 3: says so much by just saying this was my favorite
[33:18] Speaker 3: year in the NBA.
[33:20] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[33:21] Speaker 3: But, Mani, it's a wrap. It's a wrap after that
[33:26] Speaker 3: because you had Jason Tatum over here. Out with an
[33:31] Speaker 3: Achilles tear, rehabbing out of the picture and having an
[33:36] Speaker 3: NBC documentary about his recovery and coming back and this
[33:40] Speaker 3: whole movie that is being produced over here. But Jalen
[33:46] Speaker 3: Brown is the main character of this other movie, which is,
[33:50] Speaker 3: I'm the number one guy on a 50-win team. I
[33:53] Speaker 3: told you all I can do this. I won a championship.
[33:56] Speaker 3: I won the Eastern Conference Finals MVP. And I won
[33:59] Speaker 3: the Finals MVP. And you guys still didn't believe me.
[34:03] Speaker 3: And this is why Jalen Brown is so happy with
[34:06] Speaker 3: this season, because he proved... to himself that with a
[34:11] Speaker 3: roster that I don't think people, I think the over-under
[34:13] Speaker 3: on the Celtics this season was like 42 wins, 41.
[34:17] Speaker 1: And a half.
[34:18] Speaker 3: They won 56 games this year. And for most people,
[34:21] Speaker 3: they're not going to be looking at on-court, off-court numbers.
[34:24] Speaker 3: They're just going to look at 56 wins with Jalen
[34:26] Speaker 3: Brown and an Achilles tear for Jason Tatum and say
[34:29] Speaker 3: that guy deserves to be a number one on another
[34:31] Speaker 3: team or have his own team. But the on-court, off-court
[34:35] Speaker 3: numbers were disastrous for him this season. Peyton Pritchard coming
[34:38] Speaker 3: off the bench, much better for the Celtics this season.
[34:43] Speaker 3: But one thing I will say about Jalen Brown, man,
[34:47] Speaker 3: the 56 wins mattered a lot more than his effective
[34:53] Speaker 3: field goal percentage. His ability to shoot efficiently is different
[34:56] Speaker 3: than what I think people realize they saw, he is
[34:59] Speaker 3: averaging a damn near 30 points per game this season.
[35:03] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[35:03] Speaker 3: But what they didn't show you is that his effective
[35:06] Speaker 3: field goal percentage, meaning once you incorporate the extra value
[35:09] Speaker 3: of the three pointer, uh, it's like slugging percentage in baseball.
[35:13] Speaker 3: It's not efficient basketball. He's shooting 22 times a game
[35:18] Speaker 3: and he's not doing a great job of making the
[35:20] Speaker 3: most out of those scoring opportunities. And so, yes, he
[35:23] Speaker 3: is averaging close to 30 points a game, but, but
[35:25] Speaker 3: he was very in the bottom percentile in terms of
[35:28] Speaker 3: efficiency and in the playoffs that reared its ugly head.
[35:32] Speaker 3: And without Jason Tatum playing in that game, everything kind
[35:36] Speaker 3: of crumbled for the Boston Celtics. And I do think
[35:38] Speaker 3: that Jason Tatum is going to feel a certain way
[35:39] Speaker 3: about those comments. And I think that's the point. I
[35:42] Speaker 3: think Jalen Brown wanted Jason Tatum to feel like, Hey,
[35:46] Speaker 3: this was my favorite year without you on the floor.
[35:49] Speaker 2: And this is, I think there's some extension that he
[35:52] Speaker 2: is eligible to receive, uh, in this year and NBA
[35:55] Speaker 2: teams now we're all about signing these guys up for
[35:57] Speaker 2: the money. Cause the $ 70 million sounds crazy now, but
[36:00] Speaker 2: as the cap changes and everything else, right? Like maybe
[36:03] Speaker 2: you feel like you're getting in on a discount doing
[36:05] Speaker 2: this as it goes, but they, Brad.
[36:08] Speaker 1: Stevens has a lot to figure out. Um, it's fair
[36:11] Speaker 1: to ask if he's going to have to figure out something.
[36:12] Speaker 2: About his coach, because while I find his coach to
[36:14] Speaker 2: be a lovely personality, um, How far you can go
[36:20] Speaker 2: with this style of ball.
[36:21] Speaker 1: Of course, yes, they've won a championship, but that roster
[36:24] Speaker 1: was loaded.
[36:24] Speaker 2: Like, I think it's very easy for us to forget
[36:26] Speaker 2: that Derek White's the fifth best player on that team.
[36:30] Speaker 2: That's not what this roster is going to look like.
[36:32] Speaker 2: I'd seen it being proposed. Well, maybe you can somehow
[36:34] Speaker 2: turn Jalen Brown into Giannis. And I think Jalen Brown
[36:37] Speaker 2: would love nothing more than to be on a team
[36:39] Speaker 2: like the Bucs with nothing to do but go get buckets. Like,
[36:42] Speaker 2: I've already got my ring. I've been to the finals
[36:44] Speaker 2: a couple times. It's been the first 10 years of
[36:45] Speaker 2: my career going to the playoffs. Let me go out
[36:47] Speaker 2: here and get these buckets.
[36:50] Speaker 3: Well, Bomani, are we going to talk about the fact
[36:53] Speaker 3: that that 24 run was maybe the easiest path we
[36:56] Speaker 3: have seen for a championship team in terms of the
[36:58] Speaker 3: injuries that they didn't have to face? Jimmy Butler, that
[37:01] Speaker 3: Cavs team was shorthanded. Pacers team was shorthanded. And then
[37:04] Speaker 3: they go against the Dallas Mavericks. And yes, they beat
[37:07] Speaker 3: that Dallas Mavericks team, but they were not a juggernaut
[37:09] Speaker 3: going into the postseason. It was Luka Doncic's first run
[37:12] Speaker 3: there in the finals. So if you want to talk
[37:14] Speaker 3: paths to the NBA finals and the championship, we did
[37:17] Speaker 3: the whole asterisk thing last year with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
[37:21] Speaker 3: If you haven't read it, I write this every year,
[37:24] Speaker 3: is I put an asterisk on every NBA championship because
[37:27] Speaker 3: if you want to, we can play that game with
[37:30] Speaker 3: just about every title team. That's something weird happened along
[37:32] Speaker 3: the way. So I am not out here saying... that
[37:36] Speaker 3: the Celtics were lucky in ways that other champions are not.
[37:41] Speaker 3: I'm just saying we have to remind ourselves the path
[37:44] Speaker 3: that they had going to the NBA Finals that season,
[37:48] Speaker 3: the path was laid down by a bunch of guys
[37:50] Speaker 3: in street clothes in ways that we have not seen
[37:53] Speaker 3: in a long time.
[37:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, yeah, all of that is correct.
[37:58] Speaker 2: And that was, they're another team that was kind of
[38:00] Speaker 2: like the Nuggets in the sense that... The Nuggets window
[38:04] Speaker 2: had opened before people fully.
[38:06] Speaker 1: Realized it was open. It's just that Jamal Murray was hurt, right?
[38:09] Speaker 2: And so 23 was toward the end of the window.
[38:12] Speaker 2: The beginning was actually 21, and then Murray got hurt.
[38:15] Speaker 2: The Celtics had been so good for so long. How
[38:17] Speaker 2: long do we think the window really was, right? Like
[38:19] Speaker 2: they've kept this thing up for like 10 years. At
[38:22] Speaker 2: some point, that has to slow down, and that would
[38:24] Speaker 2: have been independent of Tatum and the Achilles injury where.
[38:28] Speaker 1: It is amazing that he came back, but I think.
[38:30] Speaker 2: It was solidified that he's not going to be the
[38:33] Speaker 2: player that he was ever again. That's just too much
[38:35] Speaker 2: to ask out of somebody, especially because he has a
[38:37] Speaker 2: very physically demanding game.
[38:38] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[38:39] Speaker 3: Do you think a little bit of Brad Stevens is
[38:41] Speaker 3: glad that they lost this series in a way that
[38:43] Speaker 3: now he has the pretext to break this thing up
[38:45] Speaker 3: and the fans wouldn't revolt?
[38:48] Speaker 2: That is a very interesting question because you can't break
[38:51] Speaker 2: it up as good as they had been. They did
[38:52] Speaker 2: it a little bit at a time though, right? Like
[38:54] Speaker 2: for tax reasons, get Drew Holiday.
[38:57] Speaker 1: Out of here.
[38:57] Speaker 2: Got Porzingis out of there a little bit at a time.
[39:00] Speaker 2: That is what they did.
[39:02] Speaker 1: Now, so what do you do?
[39:04] Speaker 2: You keep Tatum, you trade Jalen Brown. I don't know
[39:06] Speaker 2: what you get for Jalen Brown, though, do you?
[39:10] Speaker 3: So this week on the Kevin O'Connor show, the Yahoo
[39:13] Speaker 3: Sports show that we do, he proposed Giannis to Boston,
[39:20] Speaker 3: Jalen Brown to Atlanta, and then picks and young pieces
[39:24] Speaker 3: from Atlanta and Boston going to Milwaukee. in a way
[39:28] Speaker 3: that you get a start player that is on the
[39:31] Speaker 3: other side of 30 for the Boston Celtics. And you
[39:35] Speaker 3: have that kind of force in the two point area
[39:37] Speaker 3: going downhill and getting buckets and have Joe Missoula's three
[39:41] Speaker 3: point offense. It might work with Giannis and Jalen Brown
[39:45] Speaker 3: goes home to Atlanta. I'm not sure. The history of
[39:48] Speaker 3: the NBA suggests that coming home is not all that
[39:51] Speaker 3: it's cracked up to be. We can have LeBron James
[39:53] Speaker 3: going back home to Cleveland, and that was a storybook
[39:56] Speaker 3: fairytale ending there. But most of the time, guys, NBA
[39:59] Speaker 3: stars going back home, it does not work out for them.
[40:02] Speaker 3: So that is interesting to me is that the Atlanta
[40:05] Speaker 3: Hawks have the number one overall pick potentially in this
[40:08] Speaker 3: draft because of the New Orleans Pelicans trade last year,
[40:13] Speaker 3: and they could get Jalen Brown for– probably not a
[40:15] Speaker 3: lot in terms of the assets and the, and the, the,
[40:19] Speaker 3: the trade that you would have to make to get
[40:20] Speaker 3: Jalen Brown. I just, I'm not as much of a
[40:24] Speaker 3: Jalen Brown guy and Jason Tatum. I feel like, I
[40:28] Speaker 3: feel like Boston got that championship out in 2024, but
[40:32] Speaker 3: part of me thinks that Brad Stevens is relieved that
[40:36] Speaker 3: he can go to the lab and figure out what
[40:39] Speaker 3: is the best opportunity for me to improve this Boston
[40:42] Speaker 3: Celtics roster and without having Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum
[40:47] Speaker 3: feeling that I have to force that marriage to work.
[40:49] Speaker 3: Because it does seem like with Jalen Brown's comments and
[40:51] Speaker 3: this season and the early out against the 76ers, that
[40:55] Speaker 3: he has as ready of a ripe opportunity to make
[40:58] Speaker 3: a pivot here than I think he's had in a
[41:00] Speaker 3: long time, if ever.
[41:01] Speaker 1: And also, let us.
[41:02] Speaker 2: Not forget that this is a team full of guys
[41:05] Speaker 2: that Brad Stevens is like, hey, I don't want to
[41:06] Speaker 2: coach them anymore.
[41:08] Speaker 3: That's a good point, too.
[41:11] Speaker 2: There are levels at which he's looking at all these
[41:12] Speaker 2: guys like, eh. Hey, I don't know if I don't
[41:17] Speaker 2: know if I would want to have to do this.
[41:19] Speaker 1: Maybe you guys could do it. But where are you
[41:22] Speaker 1: on Missoula? Because I do understand. I do think that
[41:25] Speaker 1: part of what got.
[41:25] Speaker 2: Them in that series was a bit of the rigidity
[41:27] Speaker 2: of Missoula ball. And we're just going to keep chucking
[41:29] Speaker 2: these threes up here. There's nothing in there for let
[41:32] Speaker 2: me get a quick bucket right fast.
[41:35] Speaker 3: Well, I could not believe that he was starting Ron
[41:37] Speaker 3: Harper Jr., Luka Garza, and Baylor Shireman in that game seven.
[41:42] Speaker 3: I felt like that was a statement in ways that
[41:46] Speaker 3: he was trying to flex in ways that was his downfall.
[41:50] Speaker 3: And when I'm watching that series, in no way was
[41:53] Speaker 3: I like, oh, you know who's the missing piece here?
[41:55] Speaker 3: Is Ron Harper Jr. and Luka Garza. Just didn't make
[41:58] Speaker 3: any sense to me. I know that they had to
[41:59] Speaker 3: scramble without Jason Tatum and they wanted to keep that
[42:01] Speaker 3: second unit intact. but it did not look like Joe
[42:05] Speaker 3: Mazzulla was coaching with maximizing his potential to win this series.
[42:11] Speaker 3: It seemed like he was trying to say something else.
[42:13] Speaker 3: I don't know what that is, but the rigidity that
[42:16] Speaker 3: you mentioned, the three-point volume, analytics, to me, analytics is misbranded.
[42:24] Speaker 3: I've always said that analytics is the study of what wins. Bomani.
[42:30] Speaker 3: It is not dogmatic in that you must take this
[42:32] Speaker 3: many threes in order to win basketball games. It is
[42:34] Speaker 3: that if you study the length of the NBA history,
[42:37] Speaker 3: that three is more than two, and it was undervalued
[42:39] Speaker 3: in the way that on-base percentage was undervalued in baseball.
[42:43] Speaker 3: But that evolves. You cannot be dogmatic about what wins
[42:48] Speaker 3: in the NBA because as rules change and as defenses
[42:52] Speaker 3: change and as trends change, And the circumstances change. Jason
[42:56] Speaker 3: Tatum is out. We're in the playoffs. We need to
[42:58] Speaker 3: win this one game. Point differential doesn't matter anymore. In
[43:03] Speaker 3: the regular season, you might go maximal point differential is
[43:07] Speaker 3: that in the long run, shooting this many threes is
[43:10] Speaker 3: going to help us to maximize our point differential in
[43:13] Speaker 3: an 82-game season. But in a win-one-game situation, the math changes.
[43:20] Speaker 3: And so I don't want to blame analytics in general
[43:23] Speaker 3: as a, like Joe Missoula believes too much in the
[43:26] Speaker 3: three point shot. I think that he just went too
[43:30] Speaker 3: overboard with believing that that'll win in an 82 game season.
[43:33] Speaker 3: And we won in 24 using that. And I think
[43:37] Speaker 3: sometimes you need to recalibrate what you want to do
[43:41] Speaker 3: offensively in order to maximize that one game. And that's tough.
[43:45] Speaker 3: If you've been preaching one thing the entire season to
[43:48] Speaker 3: adapt in the Doesn't seem like that's Joe Missoula's strength there.
[43:52] Speaker 1: All right.
[43:52] Speaker 2: I will switch gears right fast as we get out
[43:54] Speaker 2: of here where I saw something interesting.
[43:56] Speaker 1: Have you seen this?
[43:57] Speaker 2: The athletic survey, right? I think it's the player survey
[44:00] Speaker 2: with all kinds of stuff. Most underrated player, most overrated player, best,
[44:03] Speaker 2: you know, all that type stuff, right? Fascinates me about this.
[44:08] Speaker 2: There's 151 votes cast for the most underrated player in
[44:11] Speaker 2: the league. Nobody got more than 4%.
[44:16] Speaker 1: Of those votes.
[44:16] Speaker 2: Like it's a, it seems to be a decent cluster
[44:19] Speaker 2: of the same guys, but it doesn't sound like guys
[44:22] Speaker 2: just really get that passionate or worked up about talking
[44:25] Speaker 2: about who the most underrated player is. Most overrated only
[44:29] Speaker 2: has 81 votes, which implies that people are falling back
[44:32] Speaker 2: off at Alvin, but buddy, the distributions are a bit
[44:35] Speaker 2: more concentrated. 12% of that 81 say Alpie Shingu. Up next,
[44:41] Speaker 2: Rudy Gobert. After that, Trae Young was tied with Rudy Gobert.
[44:45] Speaker 2: Then Carl Anthony Towns. Then a tie for Paolo Bancaro
[44:49] Speaker 2: and John Moran. And I have to say, I believe
[44:52] Speaker 2: we are at a point where it is impossible to
[44:54] Speaker 2: call Rudy Gobert overrated. I think it is very clear
[44:58] Speaker 2: that he got, we've been so down on Rudy that
[45:00] Speaker 2: he has clearly become underrated.
[45:03] Speaker 3: Do you think that we are nuanced enough or that
[45:07] Speaker 3: we have the ability to hold two thoughts at one time,
[45:10] Speaker 3: which is Rudy Gobert is a flawed offensive player, but defensively,
[45:15] Speaker 3: he still is an incredible, one of the greatest defenders
[45:18] Speaker 3: of all time.
[45:19] Speaker 1: Yes.
[45:21] Speaker 3: And if he gets tripped up by Luka Doncic, or
[45:23] Speaker 3: if it's going to be Dylan Harper or D Aaron
[45:26] Speaker 3: Fox in this series, uh, We don't hold that against him.
[45:30] Speaker 3: We don't ask Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to guard Michael Jordan out
[45:33] Speaker 3: at the three-point line in a game-saving moment. But we
[45:36] Speaker 3: do it with Rudy Gobert.
[45:38] Speaker 2: I think it is amazing how well he plays when
[45:41] Speaker 2: he gets switched out on the perimeter on these guys
[45:44] Speaker 2: at 7-3. But it is all jokes somehow when the
[45:48] Speaker 2: 7-3 guy can't guard.
[45:50] Speaker 1: Luka Doncic at the top of the key. It's nuts, man.
[45:54] Speaker 2: Like, the idea that you even let him try is
[45:56] Speaker 2: a testament to what is good about him.
[45:59] Speaker 1: Now, you see guys like.
[46:00] Speaker 2: DeMarcus Cousins that always made this point, and I understood this,
[46:03] Speaker 2: that can you say that Gobert is the best defensive
[46:05] Speaker 2: player in the league if his impact is really just
[46:08] Speaker 2: as a team defender and that it doesn't necessarily bear
[46:12] Speaker 2: itself out when he's matched one-on-one with somebody? That was
[46:14] Speaker 2: the big thing about this series against Jokic. You know,
[46:17] Speaker 2: the Jamal Murray brother, I have 47 story, right? I'm
[46:20] Speaker 2: just like, Yogi's putting these huge numbers up on him.
[46:23] Speaker 2: And you're like, okay, you can have all this team
[46:25] Speaker 2: defense impact. But if somebody is just being guarded by
[46:28] Speaker 2: Rudy Gobert and they can light him up, how good
[46:30] Speaker 2: is he actually? I understand that argument, but he is
[46:34] Speaker 2: a game wrecking defensive force. Always has been. It just
[46:39] Speaker 2: gets dogged. Like no player as good as him has
[46:42] Speaker 2: ever been more disrespected by his peers.
[46:45] Speaker 3: Well, what he did was he completely changed Nikola Jokic's legacy.
[46:49] Speaker 3: And we're not going to give that to Rudy Gobert.
[46:51] Speaker 3: We're going to say it's a shortcoming of Nikola Jokic
[46:53] Speaker 3: that he wasn't able to win that series. And the
[46:56] Speaker 3: credit is not going to go to Rudy Gobert. It's not.
[46:58] Speaker 3: That's not how the conversation works. But I can't leave
[47:01] Speaker 3: without talking to you about the Nikola Jokic conversation here.
[47:04] Speaker 1: Let's go.
[47:07] Speaker 3: You've texted me on the side about the Jokic stat.
[47:13] Speaker 3: of him not playing with an all-star, all-NBA, defensive player
[47:18] Speaker 3: of the year, all-defense player up until this season. Jamal
[47:21] Speaker 3: Murray was the first time this season that Nikola Jokic
[47:24] Speaker 3: had an all-star or an all-NBA player or all-defensive. He
[47:28] Speaker 3: still hasn't had an all-defensive guy on his team. It's
[47:32] Speaker 3: never happened before with an MVP in NBA history. We've
[47:36] Speaker 3: never seen a guy through 10 years not have a
[47:39] Speaker 3: single teammate while playing with that guy the MVP, not
[47:43] Speaker 3: playing with an All-NBA or All-Star player. It's incredible. The
[47:48] Speaker 3: average that we have seen in NBA history up until
[47:51] Speaker 3: this point in Jokic's career, the number of All-NBA accolades,
[47:57] Speaker 3: whether that's All-Star, All-NBA, or All-Defense, is 16 accolades at
[48:03] Speaker 3: this point by teammates. And he had zero coming into
[48:06] Speaker 3: this season. Jamal Murray finally got the All-Star. And the
[48:10] Speaker 3: funny thing happened was he turned into a pumpkin in
[48:12] Speaker 3: the postseason. So it's like he can't win. I'm not
[48:16] Speaker 3: making excuses for Jokic, but if you had Jokic with Giannis,
[48:21] Speaker 3: this is a different conversation about whether Jokic is really
[48:24] Speaker 3: that dude. At this point in his career, Magic Johnson
[48:29] Speaker 3: had 38 wins. teammate accolades, whether it's all-stars, all-NBA, all-defense
[48:35] Speaker 3: Michael Cooper, Kareem.
[48:36] Speaker 1: Abdul-Jabbar, A.C.
[48:37] Speaker 3: Green, Norm Nixon, all these guys, James Worthy, Jokic has
[48:41] Speaker 3: not had one of those guys. And We've seen it
[48:44] Speaker 3: twice with Jamal Murray going on an all-time run in
[48:47] Speaker 3: the postseason. But outside of those two runs in the
[48:50] Speaker 3: bubble and after that, the championship run, Jamal Murray's just
[48:53] Speaker 3: been a 20-point scorer. And he shot 35% in this
[48:57] Speaker 3: series against Minnesota. And the whole entire referendum is about Jokic.
[49:03] Speaker 3: And I just feel like the supporting cast conversation, the
[49:07] Speaker 3: individualism of the NBA that's happening, I feel like we're...
[49:13] Speaker 3: We're trying to take down Yo Kitchen through the lens
[49:15] Speaker 3: of analytics, but I think this is a straw man.
[49:18] Speaker 1: Yes. I think.
[49:20] Speaker 3: him being the patron saint of analytics, he won those
[49:25] Speaker 3: MVPs because he averaged a triple-double.
[49:28] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[49:29] Speaker 2: Well, it's funny because I was talking about what's really
[49:31] Speaker 2: happened is it's a pushback against the dorks is what
[49:34] Speaker 2: this has been. And people are like, oh, you're not
[49:36] Speaker 2: a Jokic dork. I'm not in this with Jokic for
[49:39] Speaker 2: the dork stuff. The eye test was good enough for me.
[49:42] Speaker 2: The dork stuff was also there, but I felt like
[49:44] Speaker 2: people just got too ahead of themselves. And this is
[49:47] Speaker 2: one of the 10 best players in the NBA.
[49:48] Speaker 3: Well, where did that come from? Is that a straw
[49:51] Speaker 3: man too, the top 10 NBA?
[49:53] Speaker 1: Did I miss this?
[49:54] Speaker 2: I think that's a wing of internet chatter that I
[49:57] Speaker 2: have seen. It's like the people who will tell you
[49:59] Speaker 2: that Jokic is better than Akeem Olajuwon.
[50:01] Speaker 1: For example.
[50:02] Speaker 2: Now, Olajuwon becomes an interesting point because I wonder what
[50:05] Speaker 2: people would have said about Olajuwon from 87 to like
[50:09] Speaker 2: 91 or 92 when they weren't winning any series and
[50:13] Speaker 2: he was out there by himself. Would you have talked
[50:15] Speaker 2: about Olajuwon the same way? The comp, I did a
[50:18] Speaker 2: pod with Ethan yesterday. To me, the comp with Jokic
[50:22] Speaker 2: that I hadn't really thought about until recently, what if
[50:25] Speaker 2: the comp is David Robinson? where David Robinson was an
[50:28] Speaker 2: advanced stat monster and also one of the greatest players
[50:31] Speaker 2: that we'd ever seen. And until Tim Duncan showed up,
[50:34] Speaker 2: never had anybody there with him to really put up
[50:38] Speaker 2: a fight, except for like the two years of Dennis Rodman,
[50:40] Speaker 2: if you want to say that that's the same thing.
[50:43] Speaker 1: Duncan came.
[50:44] Speaker 2: I still think Robinson was the best player on the
[50:46] Speaker 2: team when that first year with Duncan. Duncan was the
[50:48] Speaker 2: center of the offense, but David Robinson was still an
[50:50] Speaker 2: excellent player. But we dogged David Robinson out largely because
[50:54] Speaker 2: of one series. But that was the only time he
[50:58] Speaker 2: got to the conference finals before Tim Duncan showed up.
[51:02] Speaker 2: Jokic had done more with his guys than David Robinson, who, again,
[51:08] Speaker 2: if you're too young to remember it, you drop David
[51:11] Speaker 2: Robinson off right now, David Robinson.
[51:13] Speaker 1: Is killing the NBA. David Robinson was so extraordinary and special.
[51:19] Speaker 2: As my daddy always says, he almost got Navy to
[51:22] Speaker 2: the final four, right?
[51:23] Speaker 1: Like David Robinson was that guy.
[51:25] Speaker 2: Jokic, I think, actually has a career at this peak
[51:29] Speaker 2: that kind of matches up with what Robinson had been.
[51:31] Speaker 2: Different types of players, but similar performance and similar shortcomings
[51:35] Speaker 2: with what was around him. If in the end, what
[51:39] Speaker 2: we say about Jokic is he's as good as David Robinson.
[51:42] Speaker 2: That's a hell of a compliment, no matter what anybody
[51:44] Speaker 2: says or anybody remembers.
[51:46] Speaker 3: What about the KG thing? Because I remember talking to
[51:48] Speaker 3: Chris Bosh about this when I was covering the Miami Heat.
[51:51] Speaker 3: I sat down with KG. I mean, I sat down
[51:54] Speaker 3: with Chris Bosh talking about his quote unquote legacy and
[51:58] Speaker 3: winning a championship and how that changed his legacy and
[52:00] Speaker 3: what people think of Chris Bosh and going to Miami
[52:04] Speaker 3: and what that did for his how people remember Chris Bosh.
[52:08] Speaker 3: And he thinks very positively. Obviously, after 2011, he didn't
[52:11] Speaker 3: feel good about that.
[52:12] Speaker 1: Right.
[52:13] Speaker 3: But 2012 and 2013, the way that he came back
[52:15] Speaker 3: from it, his abdominal strain, his groin basically detached from
[52:19] Speaker 3: his body in that series. And he came back, beat
[52:23] Speaker 3: KG and went to the NBA finals and was able
[52:27] Speaker 3: to vindicate himself in ways that people don't realize how
[52:30] Speaker 3: much hate. Like we think about LeBron's legacy was in
[52:33] Speaker 3: the balance. Skip Bayless was out on ESPN calling him
[52:38] Speaker 3: Bosh Spice.
[52:39] Speaker 2: And Chris Bosh got on TV with him and asked
[52:42] Speaker 2: him to stop.
[52:43] Speaker 1: And he said, no. And he didn't slap him.
[52:49] Speaker 3: So this, this, this whole thing comes back to Jokic
[52:52] Speaker 3: because Chris Bosh told me that while KG was destroying
[52:58] Speaker 3: him in the playoffs year after year, At that 2010
[53:02] Speaker 3: free agency, he reached out to KG and said, yo,
[53:07] Speaker 3: you left Minnesota, and I have an opportunity to leave
[53:11] Speaker 3: Toronto to try to change my narrative about, change my situation.
[53:16] Speaker 3: And he goes, man, loyalty is overrated. KG told him,
[53:20] Speaker 3: loyalty is overrated. Go. Leave Toronto and go somewhere else.
[53:25] Speaker 3: And that gave Chris Bosh... the emotional fortitude that if
[53:29] Speaker 3: KG tells me to do it, and I saw what
[53:32] Speaker 3: happened with KG's legacy and the way that the Boston
[53:34] Speaker 3: Celtics changed everything for KG, and he had Wally Zerbiak
[53:39] Speaker 3: and Tom Gugliotta riding with him for so many years,
[53:43] Speaker 3: Chris Bosh said, thank you, KG, because I took control
[53:46] Speaker 3: of this situation and it changed the way people talk
[53:48] Speaker 3: about me forever.
[53:50] Speaker 1: So thank you.
[53:50] Speaker 3: He owed a lot of gratitude to the guy that
[53:52] Speaker 3: was shit-talking him in ways that would make you cry.
[53:57] Speaker 3: in the middle of the 94 feet. But Chris Bosh
[53:59] Speaker 3: always gave that nod to KG and thanked him. And
[54:04] Speaker 3: in that analysis of fewest star teammates through 10 years,
[54:09] Speaker 3: 11 years in their career, there's only two guys. It's KG,
[54:14] Speaker 3: Kevin Garnett, and Nikola Jokic. And in a similar vein,
[54:18] Speaker 3: I feel like Jokic is not going to be out
[54:20] Speaker 3: here and saying, I need to get a star player
[54:23] Speaker 3: next to me. He said, as far as he's going
[54:25] Speaker 3: to say, it was in Serbia, we would all get fired.
[54:27] Speaker 1: Yes.
[54:30] Speaker 3: Is KG also a comp for Jokic in the terms
[54:32] Speaker 3: of the way we look at this guy and when
[54:34] Speaker 3: he gets star players, then it changes the way we
[54:37] Speaker 3: view him and his legacy.
[54:38] Speaker 2: So it's interesting to me with KG because I think
[54:40] Speaker 2: for KG, it was not simply KG getting star guys.
[54:45] Speaker 2: It was also getting KG guys who could take those
[54:48] Speaker 2: shots that KG didn't really like to take. There's game
[54:52] Speaker 2: seven against Sacramento where he used to jump on my
[54:55] Speaker 2: back and he brought him home. This is a conference
[54:56] Speaker 2: semifinals in 2004, right? Like that is to me, the
[54:59] Speaker 2: defining individual Kevin Garnett game.
[55:01] Speaker 1: He made it happen. However, that is a dude, Tim Duncan,
[55:06] Speaker 1: by the way, also on this list, a little yippy.
[55:09] Speaker 2: When it came time for that big shot, that's not
[55:11] Speaker 2: really what they would like to do. The classic Tim
[55:13] Speaker 2: Duncan turnaround shot before the Derek Fisher shot in 04,
[55:17] Speaker 2: the one lucky shot deserves another.
[55:18] Speaker 1: As Shaq called it in that point. Duncan was aided
[55:22] Speaker 1: by having other people who could come do that. Come on, man.
[55:24] Speaker 3: Don't come for Duncan.
[55:25] Speaker 1: Don't do this. I'm not coming for Duncan.
[55:27] Speaker 2: I'm just saying you can still be Tim Duncan while also.
[55:30] Speaker 1: Like Karl Malone, a bit yippy. Charles Barkley. a big yippee.
[55:36] Speaker 2: Like you could go through and look at some of
[55:37] Speaker 2: these great players and would love to have somebody else
[55:40] Speaker 2: who could take that, who could be there to take
[55:41] Speaker 2: that shot. And then Kevin Garnett could be all encompassing
[55:45] Speaker 2: leader guy. It's still his team, but in a way
[55:47] Speaker 2: that does not require him to take that shot, right?
[55:50] Speaker 1: Jokic is not the same. in that regard. Jokic can
[55:55] Speaker 1: be that guy. He needs other players.
[55:57] Speaker 2: But I do think that Garnett needed a, like, you
[56:00] Speaker 2: couldn't give Garnett another glue type of guy because Kevin
[56:02] Speaker 2: Garnett is like the advanced version of Rasheed Wallace, a
[56:05] Speaker 2: super talented glue guy, right? With Jokic, I think my
[56:09] Speaker 2: question just is, you look at the Nuggets and Jamal Murray,
[56:12] Speaker 2: I think that, I think that Jamal Murray is Jamal
[56:15] Speaker 2: Murray as we think of Jamal Murray because he's played
[56:17] Speaker 2: with Nigel Jokic.
[56:19] Speaker 1: I think it's a fair point for us to make.
[56:21] Speaker 2: I don't even know who the guy is to put
[56:23] Speaker 2: around Jokic because I've seen what he's done and it's
[56:26] Speaker 2: been so excellent just with these dudes.
[56:28] Speaker 1: I can barely imagine if this is an extreme example.
[56:31] Speaker 2: What if Giannis somehow gets dropped off there?
[56:34] Speaker 1: I don't even know what to say.
[56:38] Speaker 3: What if it's Anthony Edwards, right? I mean, I'm not
[56:40] Speaker 3: saying that that's ever going to happen, but just the
[56:42] Speaker 3: guy who has that energy and also the off ball
[56:44] Speaker 3: and the size and he doesn't need to be the playmaker.
[56:47] Speaker 3: That's the one thing you can knock Anthony Edwards on
[56:49] Speaker 3: is that If you throw a double team at him,
[56:51] Speaker 3: he gets flustered in ways that he's just, he hasn't
[56:55] Speaker 3: developed the secondary playmaking that you would want at this
[56:59] Speaker 3: point in his career. But with Jokic, you don't have
[57:01] Speaker 3: to really worry about that as much. So I don't know.
[57:04] Speaker 3: And then like, it just aggravates me because it gets
[57:07] Speaker 3: bogged down in analytics when it's not, it's not, it's
[57:11] Speaker 3: not about analytics with Jokic to me. It gets, I
[57:15] Speaker 3: tweeted this out and people got all upset about it.
[57:20] Speaker 3: The Athletic tweeted that Jokic has never beaten a 50-win
[57:24] Speaker 3: team in the playoffs.
[57:26] Speaker 1: I saw that. The Clippers, by the way, won 49
[57:29] Speaker 1: in the short bubble season, I think. Why do we
[57:31] Speaker 1: do this?
[57:34] Speaker 3: It's intellectually dishonest if we're going to say Nikola Jokic,
[57:38] Speaker 3: when playing in two bubble years or COVID-shortened seasons, that
[57:42] Speaker 3: he hasn't won a 50-game, beaten a 50-win team. When
[57:46] Speaker 3: the Utah Jazz that year were a 50-win team, and
[57:48] Speaker 3: the Clippers that year were a 50-win team in 2020,
[57:52] Speaker 3: and they just had a COVID-shortened season. They had a
[57:55] Speaker 3: win percentage of a 50-win team and a 56-win team.
[57:58] Speaker 3: So it just seems like, to me, we want Jokic.
[58:03] Speaker 3: Because we've never seen anything like Jokic, there has to
[58:06] Speaker 3: be a reason why he's having shortcomings. And it's because
[58:10] Speaker 3: analytics overrated this guy. And I think it's more that
[58:14] Speaker 3: he hasn't had the complimentary supporting staff in ways that's
[58:18] Speaker 3: unprecedented in NBA history. And I think that should be
[58:22] Speaker 3: more of the conversation rather than analytics ruined the conversation.
[58:29] Speaker 3: Jokic is overrated through the analytics.
[58:31] Speaker 2: I also think it's just possible to say, Hey man,
[58:33] Speaker 2: dude had a bad series.
[58:35] Speaker 3: True.
[58:36] Speaker 2: Right.
[58:37] Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be much deeper than the guy
[58:39] Speaker 1: had a bad series, but that's not what we do. Right.
[58:42] Speaker 3: It's we take these things that happen in the playoffs
[58:46] Speaker 3: and we, we level it up into a larger conversation
[58:49] Speaker 3: about what this means for Jokic. And I'm not saying
[58:51] Speaker 3: we can't do that sometimes, but I just want to
[58:53] Speaker 3: make sure we're talking about it through the right lens.
[58:55] Speaker 3: And I just, I don't know. I feel like Jokic
[58:58] Speaker 3: is being represented as an analytics darling in ways that
[59:02] Speaker 3: it feels like basic stats. And if you just watch
[59:04] Speaker 3: this dude play basketball, why Stan Van Gundy says he
[59:07] Speaker 3: is the greatest offensive player he has ever seen. I
[59:12] Speaker 3: stay by Gunny is now you're saying he's a good
[59:13] Speaker 3: defender right he's saying he's the greatest offensive player he's
[59:16] Speaker 3: ever seen and the way that he passes and shoots
[59:19] Speaker 3: he had a bad series against Rudy Gobert he did
[59:22] Speaker 3: not post up and Rudy Gobert frightened him in ways
[59:24] Speaker 3: that I hadn't seen Jokic cower in that moment and
[59:28] Speaker 3: man I Just got to give Rudy Gobert his flowers.
[59:33] Speaker 3: At the end of the day, we're here in May
[59:35] Speaker 3: 6th as we're recording this. And at this point in
[59:37] Speaker 3: his career, Rudy Gobert is still changing the story of
[59:41] Speaker 3: his career.
[59:42] Speaker 2: Tom Haberstroh, check him out. Tom the Finder, check him
[59:45] Speaker 2: out at Yahoo Sports. Check him out with the Portland Trailblazers.
[59:48] Speaker 2: My brother, I appreciate you.
[59:50] Speaker 3: You got it, Bomani. Anytime, man.
[59:51] Speaker 1: All right, man. Ladies and gentlemen. Check us out.
[59:54] Speaker 2: BomaniJonesLive.com. Doing a live show in Atlanta. I said the
[59:58] Speaker 2: other day that it was May 13th. It's May 15th.
[1:00:00] Speaker 2: It's on Friday. BomaniJonesLive.com. Get your tickets there.
[1:00:04] Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here
[1:00:05] Speaker 1: on The Right Time.
[1:00:06] Speaker 2: We do this four days a week. Ryan Brumley handles
[1:00:08] Speaker 2: everything behind the scenes.
[1:00:09] Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.
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