Speaker 1: Special thanks to our next guest as we go from
Speaker 1: one goat to the next goat for being a little
Speaker 1: bit adjustable today and versatile today. Tom Haberstrow for some
Speaker 1: NBA basketball to Monday Tom, Happy Monday man.
Speaker 2: How are we doing doing great?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: How I'm good? I'm good. So we'll do a little
Speaker 2: jazz here.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna do We're not gonna do a ton
Speaker 1: of jazz because I think we all kind of know
Speaker 1: what time it is, we all kind of know what.
Speaker 2: The deal is.
Speaker 1: But I'll say this, over the past seven or eight games,
Speaker 1: at least offensively they don't guard anybody, they just don't.
Speaker 2: But offensively they've been a lot better.
Speaker 1: And I thought that went over the Knicks on Saturday
Speaker 1: here in Salt Lake was probably the best game I've
Speaker 1: seen him play all year long. But what are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on and if you have anything specific about the
Speaker 1: past seven or eight games, why is the offense look
Speaker 1: so much better?
Speaker 3: To think, Well, first of all, marketing helps. Ye, that
Speaker 3: guy is really good, and of course really good against
Speaker 3: the Knicks too. But I think another thing that you
Speaker 3: have to really pay attention to is the shot selection
Speaker 3: is very modern. NBA We've got a head coach and
Speaker 3: Will Hardy, who is as astute as it is when
Speaker 3: it comes to what is the best way to win
Speaker 3: in today's NBA. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 3: the Utah Jazz are the leaders in one category offensively
Speaker 3: that probably is a little under the radar, but I
Speaker 3: just wrote about this at Yahoo Sports. There are these
Speaker 3: things that I'll coin as shot desert games. These are
Speaker 3: games in which teams do not make a single shot
Speaker 3: in the mid range. They don't take a single shot,
Speaker 3: make a single shot, they don't score in the mid range.
Speaker 3: They just abandon it. And while it is for us
Speaker 3: who grew up in the nineties, it is kind of
Speaker 3: sad to see how the mid range game is dead,
Speaker 3: but it is the smart way to play, just in
Speaker 3: the same way that in baseball, the smart way to
Speaker 3: play is to try to hit it over the fence
Speaker 3: and get walks. And it might not be appealing for
Speaker 3: a product standpoint, it is what the math tells us
Speaker 3: to do, and what the math tells NBA teams to
Speaker 3: do is what the Boston Celtics did last season is
Speaker 3: bomb away from three and attack the rim and go
Speaker 3: for rim attacks and the Jazz lead the league in
Speaker 3: most games in which they don't score from the mid range.
Speaker 3: You normally might say, hey, that's a bad thing. Well, no,
Speaker 3: the mid range game is kind of a dead zone.
Speaker 3: It's you don't get fouled, it's a low percentage shot,
Speaker 3: and there's only a few players that it makes sense
Speaker 3: to be living in the mid range, whether it's Chris
Speaker 3: Paul or jamar Derozen and the Utah Jazz continually do this,
Speaker 3: and even you know, in Saturday's game against the Knicks,
Speaker 3: they scored one hundred and twenty one points and only
Speaker 3: one basket was in the mid range. And they have
Speaker 3: more shot desert games than any other team. It's four
Speaker 3: to this point in the season, and this number is
Speaker 3: exploding league wide. You know, we didn't even have a
Speaker 3: single team a decade ago with any of these games.
Speaker 3: And now we're on pace for about one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty desert games where they don't score from the mid
Speaker 3: range for the entire game. And so we're almost double
Speaker 3: what we're you know, we're pacing at almost double the
Speaker 3: rate at what we normally see over the last couple
Speaker 3: of years, and there's a real inflection point. We're seeing
Speaker 3: in the NBA where team smart offenses, even if they're
Speaker 3: not being able to make all the shots from downtown.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's not every night that you see
Speaker 3: the Jazz shoot. You know, what was it seventeen nineteen
Speaker 3: to thirty four, fifty six percent from downtown. But this
Speaker 3: is kind of by design, is that they have made
Speaker 3: the team buy into this, you know, threes and rim shots,
Speaker 3: you know, attacking the basket and not worrying so much
Speaker 3: about the mid range, try to get to the free
Speaker 3: throw line, try to take threes, and so far, I
Speaker 3: think that shot profile is really helping them slim the
Speaker 3: talent gap. And you saw it on Saturday night, just
Speaker 3: how good they look when the three ball is falling.
Speaker 3: But it's not a matter of being lucky. This is
Speaker 3: a team that is designed that way and the offense
Speaker 3: is designed that way, and I think it's really smart,
Speaker 3: even if it's a little sad for us watching and
Speaker 3: growing up watching Michael Jordan. This is the way to
Speaker 3: win in today's NBA, and they're doing an excellent.
Speaker 2: Job of it. So do you think the league will look?
Speaker 1: Because I read your piece and that's kind of why
Speaker 1: I asked you the question to lead you into that answer,
Speaker 1: so you could explain it to our listeners because you
Speaker 1: unpacked it better than I could. But the fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is, you know, you and I will watch
Speaker 1: NBA basketball, but a lot of people aren't.
Speaker 2: The ratings are suffering. I don't know if it's the product.
Speaker 1: I continue to believe until stars show up every single night,
Speaker 1: you know, unless we got to say it, unless they're hurt,
Speaker 1: I know, but you can't argue with the numbers. And yes,
Speaker 1: they can throw their P and L statement at me
Speaker 1: and say where's the problem?
Speaker 2: I say, Okay, I get it.
Speaker 1: But do you think the decline in NBA rings as
Speaker 1: because nobody wants to just watch a team, you know,
Speaker 1: shoot sixty plus threes. Nobody wants to, you know, watch
Speaker 1: a three point shooting shooting contest unless it's during All
Speaker 1: Star weekend, And as numbers tell us, people don't really
Speaker 1: like to watch that either. Does the league have a
Speaker 1: problem with this style of play that you outline in
Speaker 1: your piece? Do you think they look to do something
Speaker 1: about it?
Speaker 3: I think they're always looking to do something about it.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a This is the same league
Speaker 3: office that introduced the in season Tournament, the play in Tournament,
Speaker 3: as well as the elam Ending and the All Star,
Speaker 3: the NBA draft for the All Star. They're trying to
Speaker 3: figure out ways to augment or gimmick or gamify the season.
Speaker 3: And I don't think that they're you know, the shot
Speaker 3: selection is off the table in terms of how do
Speaker 3: we adjustice to make it more appealing for the audiences.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, Nick Wright, the kind of
Speaker 3: the reason why I did that story was Nick Right
Speaker 3: went on his podcast. You know, it wasn't on Fox
Speaker 3: Sports one, but it was on his podcast that it
Speaker 3: went viral where he was like, the India has as
Speaker 3: a as an entertainment problem is that it's not as
Speaker 3: entertaining as it used to be, and a lot of
Speaker 3: that is because of all the threes. And he suggested
Speaker 3: the idea of making dunks worth three points. That was
Speaker 3: one of his proposals. And I think it gets at
Speaker 3: something that I think we do need to consider is
Speaker 3: should we make the mid range alive again and make
Speaker 3: more shot diversity where it doesn't feel like it's just
Speaker 3: threes and rim attacks every time down the floor. My
Speaker 3: suggestion is this two three four system where you shortened
Speaker 3: the three point line to about fifteen feet to bring
Speaker 3: back the mid range, and then you extend the current
Speaker 3: three point line to a four point line at about
Speaker 3: thirty five or forty feet. You make it far enough
Speaker 3: that it's a real challenge for NBA players to hit it.
Speaker 3: So it's not just gonna be a bunch of do
Speaker 3: who is pulling up from half court every time. But
Speaker 3: you also want players to want to go to the rim,
Speaker 3: to want to shoot from twenty feet, and want to
Speaker 3: shoot from forty feet if it makes sense, And so
Speaker 3: I think that proposal is one of my favorites that
Speaker 3: I've heard. There's also, and I talk about this in
Speaker 3: the piece, the idea of do we get rid of
Speaker 3: the corner three so that you don't have two guys
Speaker 3: standing in the corners and then getting a short, shorter
Speaker 3: shot because the NBA dimensions make it such that the
Speaker 3: corner three is about a foot shorter than a normal three,
Speaker 3: and so there's an advantage there. Get rid of that
Speaker 3: advantage and you won't see as many three pointers. There's
Speaker 3: another idea that I've heard is capping the number of
Speaker 3: three pointers that you make or take sorry to about
Speaker 3: twenty per quarter, So basically you have like or sorry,
Speaker 3: twenty per game, so you have basically twenty three pointers
Speaker 3: to play around with, and then after that any three
Speaker 3: pointer is worth two points. All those ideas are getting
Speaker 3: to the same trying to solve this problem, which is
Speaker 3: it feels like the NBA is all about threes and
Speaker 3: all that rim attacks and some of the creativity and
Speaker 3: ingenuity and spontaneity of the NBA that might have been
Speaker 3: around in the eighties and nineties it might be overstated.
Speaker 3: How you know, the x's and o's were amazing, and
Speaker 3: the game was amazing because of this, A lot of
Speaker 3: those games were just they were It was wrestling. It
Speaker 3: was a different sport. It was not the same thing
Speaker 3: as what we're seeing today, and in a bad way.
Speaker 3: So I'm not saying that everything was perfect in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety five. It wasn't. But the idea of there's too
Speaker 3: many threes and it might be repelling some people from
Speaker 3: watching the sport, I understand that viewpoint, but I don't
Speaker 3: think that making dunks worth three points is the answer.
Speaker 3: I think it'll make more injuries because of you know,
Speaker 3: it's a violent sport already, but making it a dunk
Speaker 3: worth three points would only increase the mid air collisions
Speaker 3: and you'll see Chet Holmgrens of the world land horribly
Speaker 3: and be out because of a broken hip. I think
Speaker 3: that would be more commonplace in a league with a
Speaker 3: three point dunk. But I do think I think bringing
Speaker 3: back some shot diversity and bringing back the mid range
Speaker 3: in a way that makes sense, I think could go
Speaker 3: a long way to bringing back some viewers who feel
Speaker 3: like this game is just make or miss from downtown
Speaker 3: and that's going to dictate everything is whether my team
Speaker 3: made threes, and certainly the Utah Jazz on Saturday night
Speaker 3: we're evidence of that is how good they look when
Speaker 3: those threes are dropping. But some other nights it's pretty
Speaker 3: hard to watch.
Speaker 1: What do you most attribute the lack of solid ratings to, Tom,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just this, Maybe it's just this, And look,
Speaker 1: historically speaking, it's been a number of years since pro
Speaker 1: basketball was even within a earshot of Pro football, and
Speaker 1: this time of year, most everybody that are sports fans
Speaker 1: are you know, they're watching football, college and pro. Sunday
Speaker 1: Night football is the highest rated television show in our
Speaker 1: country not sporting a d television show.
Speaker 2: So we will see the numbers improve come, you.
Speaker 1: Know, February January, February when bowl seasons behind us, the
Speaker 1: Super Bowls behind us. But it's undy liviable that these
Speaker 1: NBA ratings like the first couple of weeks like whatever.
Speaker 1: But now we've got to sample size. We're approaching Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: where some of the time slots are down as much
Speaker 1: as like thirty forty percent. This is not five or
Speaker 1: six percent. Why do you think people are watching pro
Speaker 1: basketball right now?
Speaker 3: Well, I think large majority of that slide is due
Speaker 3: to the absence of Stars, And you hit on it
Speaker 3: in the beginning, and I'll just give you this that
Speaker 3: games missed by Stars is up fifty two percent compared
Speaker 3: to last year, fifty two percent increase. Through fifteen games
Speaker 3: of the season, we've had one hundred and fifty two injuries,
Speaker 3: and last year at this point there was one hundred
Speaker 3: games lost due to injury. So last year we had
Speaker 3: one hundred games lost due to injury for Stars, and
Speaker 3: now we're looking at one hundred and fifty two over
Speaker 3: that same time period. So what we're seeing is, you know,
Speaker 3: a nice return of stars, say Murray, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beale, chrisafsperzingis.
Speaker 3: These guys are coming back, but a lot of players
Speaker 3: are not that. Luca Dncrich is out for a week.
Speaker 3: You have Joel Embiid, who knows what's happening with that guy.
Speaker 3: Kawhi Leonard is still out for the season. Chris Middleton,
Speaker 3: we have no real, real timetable for his return. And
Speaker 3: we're seeing star players miss at extreme rates compared to
Speaker 3: the recent history. And I think there's this there's this
Speaker 3: happy medium between being smart and being good business smart, right,
Speaker 3: Like there's smart in the medical sense of like, hey,
Speaker 3: we're holding out these players because we don't want to
Speaker 3: hurt them for the long run, or we're having preventative
Speaker 3: treatments so that you know, this knee brain doesn't turn
Speaker 3: into a torny acl I get that, but also there
Speaker 3: has to be a happy meeting between that. And we're
Speaker 3: seeing now where injuries or games lost due to injury
Speaker 3: or absences are up fifty two percent, and so you know,
Speaker 3: it's not good for business to have a Thursday night
Speaker 3: game without any stars. Or have you know the Clippers
Speaker 3: playing the Sixers in the opening week of the season
Speaker 3: and only Paul George is playing. You got no Joelle Embiid,
Speaker 3: no Tyrese Maxey, no Paul George, no Kawhi Leonard. And
Speaker 3: that's not good for the sport, not just for that night,
Speaker 3: but also the message it sends to potential viewers is, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm going to watch this Sixers Clippers game. Wait a minute,
Speaker 3: those guys aren't playing, ah man, Like this is just
Speaker 3: another game where the NBA stars aren't playing. That can
Speaker 3: kind of really poison the well. And I'm hoping that
Speaker 3: this avalanche of injuries is really coming to an end
Speaker 3: here because we are seeing some players come back this week,
Speaker 3: which is really good for the NBA Cup. The NBA
Speaker 3: Cup is coming up, and I really hope that we
Speaker 3: have a full, you know, roster of star players because
Speaker 3: this is a star league and when you know injuries
Speaker 3: or games lost, Dude, injury to star players is up
Speaker 3: fifty two. That's about as much of an explainer as.
Speaker 2: Anything well said. Good stuff.
Speaker 1: Let me go back to the Jazz for a moment
Speaker 1: and uh just kind of kick the tires with you
Speaker 1: on some potential storylines and topics you know, this year,
Speaker 1: and they took a big step back with their developmental
Speaker 1: program after Taylor broke his leg. Poor kid, because he
Speaker 1: came back in great shape and he's looking pretty good.
Speaker 2: Marketing cannot be traded.
Speaker 1: Maybe all I need to say to real NBA fans
Speaker 1: about who the jazz are is John Collins might have been.
Speaker 1: They might be their best players so far. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: that's all you need to know. But you know, certainly
Speaker 1: Danny Aing's Justin Zannik open for business at all times.
Speaker 1: Do you think any of these vets are going to
Speaker 1: be on the move, because there is part when I like,
Speaker 1: when watching the Nick game, I'm thinking, all right, Marketing's back,
Speaker 1: you know, here we go again.
Speaker 2: Are they going to start winning a little?
Speaker 1: Because Lowry's that good and when they're hitting shots like
Speaker 1: they were, they have the ability to win some games,
Speaker 1: which I they very much do not want them to do.
Speaker 1: I've been on that page for two years, as you know, Tom,
Speaker 1: So I'm bring on the losing, Like when they started
Speaker 1: losing big, you know, like where it seemed to be
Speaker 1: pretty obvious that they were leaning into this development. They
Speaker 1: started losing, and I felt better about their direction that
Speaker 1: I have in two years. But you think we're gonna
Speaker 1: see Danny and Justin maybe break this down to like
Speaker 1: if they start winning tom if they go on some run,
Speaker 1: whether they win like twelve of fourteen, which I do
Speaker 1: not believe that they will do. But if they do that,
Speaker 1: will they start breaking this down prior to the February
Speaker 1: deadline this time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just the perverse incentive structure of the NBA, right,
Speaker 3: is that we're rooting. If you're a Jazz fan, you're conflicted.
Speaker 3: You're rooting for them to lose because they might give
Speaker 3: them the best chance at a star in that market.
Speaker 3: It might be the best route, the best path to
Speaker 3: getting a foundational star. But it's also you look at
Speaker 3: the Detroit Pistons. You look at for so long, the
Speaker 3: Sacramento King the Minnesota Timberwolves when they got Andrew Wiggins,
Speaker 3: and then only saw, you know, all of that mediocrity
Speaker 3: to continue under Andrew Wiggins and Karl Anthony Towns, and
Speaker 3: it's like, we got two number one overall picks and
Speaker 3: we're still not anywhere until they moved Andrew Wiggins and
Speaker 3: then they got Rudy Gobert and of course Anthony Edwards
Speaker 3: another number one overall pick. It's not it's more art
Speaker 3: than science how to build a championship team. But the
Speaker 3: problem is that the incentives are right there is you
Speaker 3: have more ping pong balls if you are not good,
Speaker 3: and so I think that will be the you know,
Speaker 3: telling factor is how much they got to be in
Speaker 3: the bottom five. But it doesn't have to be necessarily
Speaker 3: the worst team. But I think if they're going to
Speaker 3: be record wise, you know, on that five to six,
Speaker 3: you know, bottom of five six teams, I think that'll
Speaker 3: be enough to you know, give them a solid shot
Speaker 3: at a star in the draft. But you know, the
Speaker 3: question is you look at a team like the Houston Rockets,
Speaker 3: where there now as have won as many teams. And
Speaker 3: I wrote about this for a Tomdefiner dot com I substack.
Speaker 3: They're twelve and six right now, and they've built through
Speaker 3: the draft. You look at Alphera and Shane gun Jalen Green,
Speaker 3: Amen Thompson Reed, Shepherd's glued to the bench because there's
Speaker 3: just so many good young players on that Teamtari Easton's
Speaker 3: been fantastic for them. They made one signing right there
Speaker 3: with Fred van Vliet, and he's kind of set the
Speaker 3: tone for the locker room and that is a model
Speaker 3: for the Utah Jazz. Is like building, it's going to
Speaker 3: take a few years, but building through the draft and
Speaker 3: seeing where it gets them, but you have to hit.
Speaker 3: And the Houston Rockets, the Oklahoma City Thunder, they've built
Speaker 3: through the draft in a way that is a nice
Speaker 3: model for Houston, but you have to make sure you
Speaker 3: nail those picks. And so for the Jazz it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we can build through the draft, but if we don't
Speaker 3: get Cooper Flag in the draft, will this be all
Speaker 3: for not? And unfortunately the NBA, for a small mart
Speaker 3: the team, the odds are not great to begin with,
Speaker 3: and the odds that might be best if you build
Speaker 3: through the draft like OKAC and Houston has and hope
Speaker 3: you can nail those picks and you can get an
Speaker 3: Alpera and Shane Gun. You can get a check Holme
Speaker 3: Grin or a Jalen Williams. But the history of the
Speaker 3: NBA shows you know you need a superstar and probably
Speaker 3: two or three of them in order to win a championship.
Speaker 3: And for Utah, it's just gonna be really hard to
Speaker 3: bring one in without having enough bites at the apple
Speaker 3: at the.
Speaker 1: Top before I set you loose, because I know you
Speaker 1: got to go, and if you need to go quick,
Speaker 1: Just be quick, quick with the answer.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I've never considered anybody to be able to win a
Speaker 1: quote triple crown in pro basketball because I simply thought
Speaker 1: it was entirely impossible. And Nikola Jokich is second in
Speaker 1: rebounding right now, he's second in assists.
Speaker 2: Uh no't excuse me.
Speaker 1: He leads the league in rebounding, he's second in scoring,
Speaker 1: and he's second in assists, and he's shooting like forty
Speaker 1: three percent from three. Maybe we're numb to it, but
Speaker 1: he strikes me as like this virtue. Also, who's mastered
Speaker 1: the cello and wants to retire and go do something else.
Speaker 1: What do you make of what we could potentially see
Speaker 1: with the Jokics this year?
Speaker 3: I hate to correct you, but I'm only doing it
Speaker 3: because I love you, and because it's even funnier. The
Speaker 3: stat is, Yoki isn't shooting forty three percent from downtown.
Speaker 3: He's shooting fifty six.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I must have had the wrong stat
Speaker 1: that's insane.
Speaker 3: Say fifty six percent spence from downtown and it's you know,
Speaker 3: do you have to qualify it? I'm not so sure
Speaker 3: he qualifies right now. Just because of the games played
Speaker 3: from the three point standpoint, but fifty six percent from
Speaker 3: downtown first and rebounding not quite like you said, not
Speaker 3: quite assists and points right now, but he's right in
Speaker 3: the mix of it. I never thought i'd see anything
Speaker 3: like that, But then again, I thought i'd never see
Speaker 3: Lebron James score forty thousand points, and I thought i'd
Speaker 3: never see someone break off for Robertson's triple double record,
Speaker 3: and then basically Russell Bosper did it three times. So
Speaker 3: I can't put it past Jokich. He's a virtuo. So
Speaker 3: he is the best player in the NBA, and I
Speaker 3: don't think it's particularly.
Speaker 2: Close this season.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you'll have the volume or he'll
Speaker 3: continue to shoot that well from downtown, but it's all
Speaker 3: things are possible with that guy. He is a savant.
Speaker 3: He is the chosen one in terms of like basketball skill,
Speaker 3: and he's got incredible hands. He's second in the NBA
Speaker 3: in deflections. We're not even talking about those steals and
Speaker 3: block numbers for Jokic, but he's second in the NBA
Speaker 3: in deflections per game, behind Dyson Daniels. Which no one
Speaker 3: realizes is that he's just got these ridiculous myths that
Speaker 3: not just has the touch but also just the hand
Speaker 3: eye coordinations ridiculous. And so Jokich is incredible. He's my pick,
Speaker 3: easy pick for MVP at this point. And it's certainly
Speaker 3: within the realm possibility that he could have that triple
Speaker 3: crown so to speak, and points, rebounds and assists. But
Speaker 3: also that three point percentage is in sane fifty six
Speaker 3: percent unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Heading back to the motherland Tommy tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So I'll pay my respects to the great I'm sure
Speaker 1: Tom Haberstrow statue that's outside of Staples High School at
Speaker 1: some point.
Speaker 2: So have a great thanksgiving, my friend, Thank you for
Speaker 2: the time. Okay, you too.
Speaker 3: And I'll just say this. Charlotte, where I live, they
Speaker 3: just announced Dave Matthews band is going to headline a
Speaker 3: festival here. So I'm already trying to get in line
Speaker 3: for tickets.
Speaker 2: Stop it, I'm gonna I'm gonna fly out. We'll go
Speaker 2: to a Dave show together. Let's do it, dude, come
Speaker 2: me in there.
Speaker 1: It is Tom Haberstrow, the Great Tom Haberstrow, one of
Speaker 1: my favorite NBA guests. All of his work he's very busy.
Speaker 1: He's about to go record a podcast. He does like
Speaker 1: five a week. Tom Thefiner dot com is a substack.
Speaker 1: He writes a column for Yahoos Sports, and he's on
Speaker 1: the Blazers broadcast team. My man has like seven jobs
Speaker 1: at Tom haberstrow is where you find him