Speaker 1: Keith Smith from sport Rack spot Rack rather for a
Speaker 1: long time. You can follow him on Twitter or on
Speaker 1: x at Keith Smith NBA joins us here on ex'es
Speaker 1: and bros. On this Friday morning. Keith, appreciate the time.
Speaker 1: How are you, my friend?
Speaker 2: I'm doing one.
Speaker 3: I appreciate the Beasty boys coming back.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm bad, let's go. Yeah, it's not bad. It's
Speaker 1: a good way to kickstart the weekend. So they named
Speaker 1: the reserves last night, and you know this, and you'll
Speaker 1: talk to a lot of your colleagues and a lot
Speaker 1: of players about this. Anytime you get these type of accolades,
Speaker 1: these types of votes, you're going to have snubs involved
Speaker 1: all the time. We don't necessarily have to dwell on that,
Speaker 1: although I do think Sabonis got totally jobbed Caid Cunningham
Speaker 1: getting there for the first time as a Piston, in
Speaker 1: the first Piston since twenty nineteen. Why do you think
Speaker 1: he's so deserving like we do here in Detroit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's played really well himself. And obviously part of
Speaker 3: what factors into this with the reserve vote, because the
Speaker 3: coaches vote for that, is his team performance. Fact that
Speaker 3: the team has played pretty well. I know they're on
Speaker 3: a little bit of a slide right now, but they're
Speaker 3: battling around five hundred fighting for a playoff squad.
Speaker 2: He's really earned it.
Speaker 3: You know, he's more efficient, which is shocking. They put
Speaker 3: a roster that makes sense around him, and he's playing better.
Speaker 3: But you know, he's really, you know, taking a major
Speaker 3: step forward this year.
Speaker 1: Why should it matter how well a team is doing
Speaker 1: if a player is getting into an All Star Game?
Speaker 1: Do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think it's one of those things where it is
Speaker 3: kind of a tiebreaker and by the time you're getting
Speaker 3: down to those last couple of spots in each conference,
Speaker 3: it is all right, we gotta you know, you got
Speaker 3: to do something to differentiate these guys. They all have
Speaker 3: good individual stats, and I think a lot of people
Speaker 3: start looking at and saying, all right, who's winning more?
Speaker 2: You know who.
Speaker 3: Goes and again with the coaches, they value that, They
Speaker 3: value guys that are driving winning. For example, a guy
Speaker 3: like LaMelo Ball, he has great stats, but his team
Speaker 3: is terrible, and the coaches are going to look at
Speaker 3: that and say, yeah, but it's not like he is,
Speaker 3: you know, overwhelmingly great stats that he needs to be
Speaker 3: in the game. So we're we're going to push forward
Speaker 3: with you know, guys who will learned it. There's also
Speaker 3: a sense to with teams, you know, like the Houston Rockets.
Speaker 3: They've played so well in the Western Conference, it was
Speaker 3: going to be very hard to say, yeah, he played great,
Speaker 3: but you don't have a single All Star even though
Speaker 3: you've got the third best record in the league. Like,
Speaker 3: that's going to be very hard. You have to justify.
Speaker 3: So that's part of the reason that happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Devin Booker is another really good example, uh DeVonta Sabonis,
Speaker 1: two teams that as of right now would be on
Speaker 1: the latter stages of reaching postseason play, but they would
Speaker 1: and Booker's got really good numbers. Sabonis leads the league
Speaker 1: in double doubles. That that whole debate rages on. It
Speaker 1: continues in all sports, it's not just the NBA. Keith
Speaker 1: Smiths from Spotrack joining us here on Exes and Bros.
Speaker 1: On this Friday morning. What is it you think is
Speaker 1: important about the NBA All Star Weekend in general?
Speaker 3: It's a chance to celebrate the game. I think people
Speaker 3: kind of have taken it too far that the game
Speaker 3: itself is bad I look at it. So let's let's
Speaker 3: use the Kid Cunningham as an example. Guys are out
Speaker 3: there going to, you know, full hundred percent effort and
Speaker 3: Kid Cunningham suffers an injury. That rest of the rest
Speaker 3: of the Pistons season, no one's going to be happy, right,
Speaker 3: and everything to be like in this game, that didn't matter.
Speaker 3: You know, why were you playing so hard?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: It doesn't need to turn into the complete circus that
Speaker 3: it's been, excuse me, the last couple of years. That's
Speaker 3: the problem. So I think what we're seeing is the
Speaker 3: league is trying to find ways to find a happy
Speaker 3: medium there where guys can play harder, but guys don't
Speaker 3: have to go all out and we can have a
Speaker 3: better product. But really it's about let's celebrate the game.
Speaker 3: Let's have a little fun. But you'll get this mid
Speaker 3: season break in and then you'll get back added after
Speaker 3: that and for the start run.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I respect that, and I think you're right about that.
Speaker 1: Let's celebrate the game. It's important going hard. Just that
Speaker 1: type of phrase bothers me a little bit because don't
Speaker 1: expect me to pay one hundred percent for guys who
Speaker 1: are just going to it's just a showcase. That's all
Speaker 1: it is. It's to show off some skills, high high skills,
Speaker 1: and that's fine as long as we admit what it is.
Speaker 1: It's not really a game, and obviously it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't want Cad Cunningham, if you're a Detroit
Speaker 1: Pistons fan, to get injured by any stretch. But I'm
Speaker 1: just not sure of the whole purpose for it. I
Speaker 1: think baseball is really the only All Star game that
Speaker 1: is worth the damn anyway, so basketball is not alone
Speaker 1: in that regard. When you see the Pistons from a national,
Speaker 1: you know, a high level scope here, What do you
Speaker 1: like about what JB. Bickerstaff has done with this team
Speaker 1: to make them so much better than that god awful
Speaker 1: season of a year ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this one's really simple.
Speaker 2: They're just more organized on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 3: You don't see all of the kind of chaot a
Speaker 3: defensive scrambling around, running around. Nobody's on the same page.
Speaker 3: Guys are all over the place. And then on offense,
Speaker 3: they are really they know what they want to run,
Speaker 3: they know who they are. They run good stuff. They've
Speaker 3: run good stuff late in games too. That win over
Speaker 3: the Knicks in New York, where kid Cunningham, you know, really.
Speaker 2: Accepted the double team and it was.
Speaker 3: Coming and got off the ball and they got it
Speaker 3: move in and got a couple open.
Speaker 2: Shots like that. Those are the things that are.
Speaker 3: Huge for this team going forward. So yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that's the big thing. They're just more organized. They play
Speaker 3: a more reasonable brand of basketball now, and some of
Speaker 3: that is the roster as well. That they've put better
Speaker 3: shooting around guys, guys that are veteran players who know
Speaker 3: what they're doing. But all around, it's a far better
Speaker 3: product in Detroit.
Speaker 1: You know, Keith, It's interesting. I think if you're not
Speaker 1: following the league in general, and you do, you're watching
Speaker 1: more than just one game. We in Detroit or the
Speaker 1: state of Michigan are probably watching just the Piston play.
Speaker 1: You get a better sense of who the really good
Speaker 1: teams are and why they're that good. We look at
Speaker 1: standings and say, well, Cleveland's number one in the East,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City's number one in the West, they've got to
Speaker 1: be the best teams. I look a little bit deeper,
Speaker 1: I see some of the other numbers that are associated
Speaker 1: with it. Do you think those two teams are as
Speaker 1: legitimate as their records would indicate, and who would be
Speaker 1: the biggest threats in each of the conference to those
Speaker 1: two teams if you feel that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they are legitimate. I think those two
Speaker 3: teams have played really, really well and we've seen it
Speaker 3: coming with both of them over the last couple of years.
Speaker 3: Both franchises is kind of taken the traditional path of
Speaker 3: get into postseason kntanting, get into the playoffs, be more
Speaker 3: competitive in the playoffs, and then it advance into being
Speaker 3: real contenders. And that's where they both are right now.
Speaker 3: I mean the Thunder they're doing historic level stuff. Up
Speaker 3: until a couple of days ago where they slipped a bit,
Speaker 3: they had a historic scoring margin that was one of
Speaker 3: the best we've ever seen in NBA history because they're
Speaker 3: just you know, blowing teams out left the right, and
Speaker 3: the Cavaliers aren't far behind.
Speaker 2: All that said, they have come back to earth a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 3: These are not going to be seventy win teams that
Speaker 3: that feel very clear now. And the teams behind them
Speaker 3: in the East, Boston's right there and they're the defending
Speaker 3: champs and they're going through what every defending champ does,
Speaker 3: which is just get us back to the playoffs. These
Speaker 3: games are you know, we do. We got to get
Speaker 3: through them to get a win, enough of them, but
Speaker 3: get there.
Speaker 2: And then in the West, you've got Denver is.
Speaker 3: Still lurking, the Lakers are there with their star guys,
Speaker 3: the Mavericks are playing better, they're going to get luc
Speaker 3: And back, and Timberwles are finally starting to put it together.
Speaker 2: So there's gonna be challenges.
Speaker 3: To the Thunder. And I think the big thing that
Speaker 3: happens in the NBA, until you prove you can win
Speaker 3: the big series and get there, we're going to have
Speaker 3: a little bit of hesitation, and that's kind of where
Speaker 3: we're at with both the Calves and the Thunder.
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting too in the West, at least
Speaker 1: you're right, the Lakers have come on strong. They've won
Speaker 1: seven of their last ten. They're the only team in
Speaker 1: the top five in the West who have a minus
Speaker 1: point differential. It's very slim, but it's a minus point differential.
Speaker 1: We see the incredible amount of numbers being put up
Speaker 1: by teams in terms of three point shooting, and you've
Speaker 1: written and spoken about this before. What is the biggest
Speaker 1: issue you think the league has fans have and do
Speaker 1: players and or coaches have with the amount of falling
Speaker 1: in love with a three point opportunity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think from the player and coach side, I
Speaker 3: don't ever hear any of them complain about its. Lebron
Speaker 3: James had a couple of things to say, but he's
Speaker 3: always kind of been that way because he's never been
Speaker 3: a big three point volume guy himself, even though he
Speaker 3: is starting to take more of them as his career
Speaker 3: has gone along. I think, you know, from the fans side,
Speaker 3: it's to your point, a lot of fans are watching
Speaker 3: one game a night, so one team that there was
Speaker 3: watching issuing a bunch of three pointers. Then they start
Speaker 3: making all these statements, Well, everybody plays the exact same way,
Speaker 3: and this CEO it's boring because it's just a bunch
Speaker 3: of three point shots going off and there are a
Speaker 3: lot of three pointers. I'm not gonna, you know, pretend
Speaker 3: that they're armed. But the problem is, I don't know
Speaker 3: what people are pining for. Do they want people taking
Speaker 3: less efficient shots and missed just as often because the
Speaker 3: spacing and defense is tighter on them. I drew up
Speaker 3: on the NBA of the eighties and the nineties, and
Speaker 3: if you go back and rewatch those games, you're gonna
Speaker 3: laugh at just how bad it is.
Speaker 2: It's, you know, it's a bunch.
Speaker 3: It's seven eight guys all standing within ten feet of
Speaker 3: the paint, and it's it's almost how did we ever
Speaker 3: get a shot off here? And the offense is just
Speaker 3: really really bad. The games were slow paced. It just
Speaker 3: wasn't a super watchable product. A lot of it, I
Speaker 3: think comes down to nostalgia. It's still there. And then
Speaker 3: I think the bigger chunk of it, too, is everyone's
Speaker 3: trying to solve for people not watching as much. People
Speaker 3: aren't watching any sports as much as they used as
Speaker 3: they were a while ago.
Speaker 2: Even the NFL has fallen off now there's so far.
Speaker 1: Not by much, so not by much my NFL and
Speaker 1: the NFL is still there's still the top ten programs
Speaker 1: on those days, not even close, but it's still.
Speaker 3: Less right, Like it's like they can mose a lot
Speaker 3: and not even feel it right. And if that's the thing,
Speaker 3: I think that people are trying to find an answer,
Speaker 3: and some of these things are just they're just a lot.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of other soft to watch in the NDIA.
Speaker 3: It's not a definition viewing either.
Speaker 1: No, it's really it's not that's the problem. No. I
Speaker 1: agree one hundred percent with you, and you bring up
Speaker 1: some interesting things because I can call my cell phone.
Speaker 1: I think self reflection is really important. I was a
Speaker 1: product of the eighties and nineties as well. I thought
Speaker 1: it was better basketball. I thought those guys could shoot better.
Speaker 1: I would rather see you know, George gervin late seventies,
Speaker 1: early eighties. I'd rather see Alex English. I'd rather see
Speaker 1: guys like that shoot than some of the shots that
Speaker 1: are taken. So I think you're right about that though,
Speaker 1: I really do. I think because we're not watching every
Speaker 1: single game like you are. But I would say forty
Speaker 1: eight and a half three point attempts per game is
Speaker 1: a lot, and it's one thing you're shooting him. It's
Speaker 1: another thing if you're making them. And there are certain
Speaker 1: teams that really aren't making them. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where a lot of people it's almost like settling, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't think there was a pace of I don't
Speaker 1: look at length of games. So we just had this conversation.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, Keith, because Adam Silver was on Dan Patrick's show,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was this week or last week,
Speaker 1: talking about the NBA and how they're possibly going from
Speaker 1: twelve minutes per quarter to ten minutes per quarter, and
Speaker 1: he used an asinine example of Major League Baseball. When
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball's average game before they changed the rules
Speaker 1: with three hours and six minutes, the NBA average game
Speaker 1: is about two and a half hours. It's still the
Speaker 1: fastest game. Why do you need to change it? Why
Speaker 1: are they always chasing? Why not just embrace who they
Speaker 1: are except who they are and move forward and try
Speaker 1: to like lessen some timeouts if you want, by coaches
Speaker 1: and make fouls more important. Don't have men as many fouls.
Speaker 1: Why do you have to change everything? Or in terms
Speaker 1: of the time and stuff.
Speaker 3: I am one hundred percent with you. I think changing
Speaker 3: to ten minute quarters is it's a joke. That would
Speaker 3: be the equivalent to Major League Baseball saying, you know,
Speaker 3: games are only going to be seven innings now, right,
Speaker 3: like they did for double or something?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, And I kind of gob why in the
Speaker 3: you know, COVID impacted seasons, they did what they did
Speaker 3: with those and all of that stuff. But I'm saying,
Speaker 3: you know, well, we're in our regular environment. But I
Speaker 3: think here's the challenge for the NBA too, is you
Speaker 3: can if you want to shorten the lengths of games,
Speaker 3: not the link of the game itself, but the length
Speaker 3: of the overall time investment. You know, like you said
Speaker 3: timeouts reviews, limit them to sixty seconds. If you can't
Speaker 3: figure it out in sixty seconds, false stands. We move
Speaker 3: on and we play like you know, what the thinks happened?
Speaker 3: You know, And if somebody wants to get down to
Speaker 3: the you know, you know, one hundred million times magnified
Speaker 3: in to see who have all went out of bounds
Speaker 3: off of like what are we doing anyway? You know,
Speaker 3: let's just keep moving on. So I think those are
Speaker 3: the things you can do. A lot of fans said,
Speaker 3: why don't you just simply start.
Speaker 2: Games on time?
Speaker 3: If you say game tips at eight o'clock, why isn't
Speaker 3: tipping at eight fifteen? You know, if that's your worry,
Speaker 3: you know, there it is. You know, there's fifty more
Speaker 3: minutes back. You sure know all this sort of stuff
Speaker 3: without changing the fundamentals of the game. Because the other
Speaker 3: thing is you cut eight minutes off a game you're
Speaker 3: gonna then teams are going to completely approach roster building differently.
Speaker 3: They're gonna say, hey, yeah, we can go super top
Speaker 3: heavy because you know what, we only need six or
Speaker 3: seven guys to get through this, so let's go really
Speaker 3: top heavy, and then we'll you know, never play the
Speaker 3: other guys on the bench. Like it just gets You're
Speaker 3: going to change it too much for me that when
Speaker 3: there's a lot of more simple fixes to accomplish that,
Speaker 3: and if having to fit everything into a two hour
Speaker 3: window too. I had at that part. I you know,
Speaker 3: I'm just not sure why you know that is. I'm
Speaker 3: sure they have, me know, all kinds of metrics that
Speaker 3: tell them that's better, but it just seems like we're
Speaker 3: overdoing it a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I agree. If he's going to use the example of
Speaker 1: college basketball, I said, just go to two halves then
Speaker 1: instead of four quarters. They won't do that because of
Speaker 1: the TV money and the number of timeouts. Keith Smith
Speaker 1: from Spotrack joining us here. You can bomb on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Keith Smith dot NBA and he's only got a
Speaker 1: minute left for us. But I did want to ask
Speaker 1: you in general, I want your opinion on why or
Speaker 1: why not the NBA is in a really good place
Speaker 1: right now in terms of the sports land cape landscape.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think one of the reasons why
Speaker 3: is that I don't know that the league's ever been
Speaker 3: more flushed with talent across the board. And again, you know,
Speaker 3: I think, you know, we had super duper stars, you
Speaker 3: know when I was growing up, you know, the guys
Speaker 3: that are all you know, the Hall of Fame legend.
Speaker 3: But if you look across the board, are there bad teams?
Speaker 3: Sure there's bad teams, but there's always been bad teams.
Speaker 3: There's bad teams every year. But you you know, every
Speaker 3: team seem to have at least one or two guys
Speaker 3: that if they're not there already, you can't kind of say,
Speaker 3: all right, they're going to be there in a year
Speaker 3: or two. And that that's great. Where we're in a
Speaker 3: small where there was real worries the Lebron's was moving
Speaker 3: on eventually who's next, And now we've got you know,
Speaker 3: seven or eight guys to pick from. That it feels
Speaker 3: pretty good about that. It's you know, here we go
Speaker 3: and there's more of them coming, you know, including in
Speaker 3: this next draft and the draft after that, So that
Speaker 3: that's a great place. Why is it not in great shape?
Speaker 3: Is Yeah, I think I think the NBA's single biggest
Speaker 3: fundamental problem is they're partners who cover the game on TV,
Speaker 3: which you know drives how a lot of the perceptions
Speaker 3: of the league. They crap on it all the time,
Speaker 3: and that's to me, that is a huge problem when
Speaker 3: you have your partners on ESPN and tn T and
Speaker 3: other places continually dumping on the game and saying it's
Speaker 3: not as good and these guys aren't actually good and
Speaker 3: these teams are all actually bad even when they're winning.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've watched the Kendrick Kerkins, you know, say
Speaker 3: the Celtics weren't good all of last season when they
Speaker 3: were historically good. It just doesn't make sense to me
Speaker 3: because if you're going to continually if you tell me, yeah,
Speaker 3: that TV show is really bad, it's really bad, you
Speaker 3: know what, I'm not going to do watch that TV show, right,
Speaker 3: you know, And that's you know, I think a huge
Speaker 3: problem that the weak have to fix it has a
Speaker 3: real opportunity here, and they bring in some new TV partners.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. The way
Speaker 1: to fix that is, don't watch that joke of a station.
Speaker 1: That's the way you fix it, because yeah, because all
Speaker 1: that is you know this, Keith, I'm not telling you anything.
Speaker 3: You don't know.
Speaker 1: All that is is sports talk radio on TV, and
Speaker 1: I am just trying to get clicks and I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to get people to notice me and talk about me.
Speaker 1: I don't truly believe it. If that's how he believed
Speaker 1: last year. And I don't know because I don't watch it,
Speaker 1: But if that's how he believed, then that tells you
Speaker 1: about the credibility. He should not be doing it in
Speaker 1: the first place. Just because you played doesn't mean you know.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate all your knowledge. Thanks for the insight.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the conversation very much. Have a great weekend
Speaker 1: and continued success for the time, Blake.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, and thank you so much for having
Speaker 3: me