Speaker 1: What is up, fella, Siko's I am Dana Valley coming
at you with the one, the only, this certified, fantabulous
mister Grant, who's on behalf of the two of us.
I would just like to say, we fucked up and
we are sorry. We got many things wrong heading into
the regular season. But now as we close out the
twenty twenty five twenty six NBA regular season, we are
going to a tone for our biggest macro misses. The
best way to do that is by looking at we
did win predictions, how much were we off buy for teams,
and that will be able to vault us into different
discussions for each different squad. Grant, before we get started here,
how the heck are you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm not sorry you. I will not jump in with you.
We did, we did make some mistakes. Mistakes were made.
Let's use passive voice to absolve ourselves of even more
responsibility and we'll not be apologizing. Actually, I feel better
about how we performed this year than last year. You
mentioned to me that we were because and I blocked
this out, that we were both under five hundred in
our over under predictions last season. We are significantly better
than that. That's not to say we did not make mistakes.
We did. I would argue, though, I have a great
explanation for every single one of these. So it's gonna
be very There will be no contrition. There will just
be some excuses I think on my end.
Speaker 1: And so the way we're gonna do it, we're gonna
go through our We'll call them the ten biggest misses,
but it's really the five biggest like win jumps. So
who were we under Who were the biggest overachievers relative
to our expectations versus underachievers? Because this podcast is true
hive mind, we had the same ten in that category,
which is different orders, which is just hysterical. But we're
also going to base it on the order of which
teams because we want this to be more reflective of Okay,
which team's actually overachieved everyone's expectation. We're going through the
over unders, and we're gonna see which team's overachieved and
underachieved just in order of the biggest discrepancies, and in
either direction, we will announce this would be a reason
to join our discord once the season's over, because there's
still someone I was going through our over and under
records right now, there's still a couple of swing teams.
So people announce at the end of the season the
winner of our over under competition, who gets whatever piece
of merch from the hardware not shop they want, as
well as the opportunity to come on and read guess
the players to you and I which people are clamoring
for guests of players again, go give us more guests
of players if you want us to do guests of players.
Speaker 3: That would be my advice to everybody. So join our discord.
Get in there. This is gonna be fun. The first
team did you?
Speaker 1: Oh, you have the list in front of you, so
you're not even gonna be able to guess who's the
biggest miss. But the biggest discrepancy in the over under
not our biggest discrepancies, I'll note I'll denote which are
like what we're our biggest misses. The Indiana Pacers grant
they underperformed there over under by eighteen point five wins
minus eighteen point five is a lot I don't have.
I can't figure out any earthly reason why they would
end up here.
Speaker 3: This is inexcusable in might love.
Speaker 2: Well, So we should know that these are based on
projected finish like this might be within one you know,
might swing one win or one lost one direction or
the other. But yeah, so they're over under coming. Into
the season was thirty six and a half and they're
on track for less than half of that total eighteen wins. Essentially,
they I think it was a franchise record. They lost
sixteen in a row. Just recently. I think they snapped that.
They're one of those teams I've stopped paying attention to
full disclosure, Like it's just I.
Speaker 3: Think they did snap that. But that's that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure they did. I was
trying to think who they beat. Was it Orlando? I
can't remember either way. This line was always too high,
wasn't it? Like we didn't This was not among our
our individual or collective misses. This was just like a
This was just a bad line that did not seem
to understand the downside potential here.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was one of my It was my fifth
biggest miss, even being lower on them than projections. They
underperformed my whin projections by sixteen. They underperformed yours by fifteen,
So you were kind of in lockstep there with me.
But this was a team without Tyres Haliburt and you
kind of thought, I'm actually surprised that there weren't more shenanigans.
Speaker 3: From them throughout the season.
Speaker 1: The record is the record, but I just assumed that
Pascal Siaka might be shut down in December or by
Christmas or something, and so there's a very like clear
catalyst for why they're going to be here. But what's fascinating,
Grant is that this is a team that made one
of the most aggressive plays at the trade deadline as
well despite being here, because they're so sure or so
determined to re enter the contender mix next year, which
I just think is fascinating because I'm all for teams
doing that. But to me, it's a little different when
you have someone like Tyre's Halliburton coming back from an
achilles injury, because you do have to wonder or well,
what does he look like upon return? Are we accelerating
this little too fast? Should we see what he looks like?
Or does the urgency just make so much sense? Pascal
Siakam's not getting any younger, so you might as well go.
Speaker 3: All in with it.
Speaker 1: This is it's truly fascinating, and by the way, they're
gonna be one of the more intriguing teams to watch
on Draft LOTO night because it's, oh, are they gonna
send a pick to the Clippers or are they keeping
their pick this year? And then that becomes it If
they keep it, that becomes a different discussion.
Speaker 3: Are you developing this player? Are you trading it for
another win?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Trading him for another win?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Piece it's the pacer, So.
Speaker 1: I guess would be if they keep the pick, they'll
draft and develop a player. But yeah, this for a
team that underperformed relative to expectation, relative to projections, just
such a bizarre season.
Speaker 3: To me, I am with you. I think the problem was.
Speaker 1: Is you come off the we do the season look
aheads and you come off when you speak about it
feeling better about pretty much every team. There are a
few exceptions, but they were one of them. When I
sat there and did the wins, though they were a team,
I started stripping them away from because you look at
the roster in the circle, it's no like the Pas.
The Pacers aren't more. They're not better like without their
best player than necessarily another team, and they're not above
sum shenanigans, which we have seen.
Speaker 2: Well right, So I guess I have to apologize already
for even though I said I wouldn't apologize, but I
did just make a mistake. I thought we were closer
on this, but so just looking at like yours, for example,
you were sixteen wins off, which means if they're projected
for eighteen, you thought they would win thirty four, which
is still under the thirty six and a half, but
fairly narrowly. And I'm right there, I'm fifteen off. So
I win, No big deal, I win. I was one
win less wrong than you were. Okay, so I've already
decided that I knew they were going to be this
terrible all along, and that's not the case. I knew
they'd go under, but I thought they'd be in the
low thirties or yeah, low thirties and wins. That's uh,
I guess right. You can't have foreseen that they'd have
every every other player who mattered get injured at some point,
but and and all that stuff. I mean that that's
a tough one. I just it's hindsight, man. Hindsight's real tough,
all right.
Speaker 1: Don't you think there was the element maybe we bought into?
Because I'm saying we eventually did dismiss it, but we
bought into the idea that no, the Pacers are they're
still gonna go for they're not.
Speaker 2: They always do. Yeah, they're not gonna pack it in,
and if they do, it'll be it'll be late. It
wouldn't be okay, I'll say this. I don't think we
expected it wasn't likely that they would be a full
season start to finish tanker. I think the way that
I envisioned it was, you know, you get to the
trade deadline, you certainly don't make it the type of
trade that they that they did make, and then you
pivot into it and you win thirty one games or
whatever it is. It's sort of like a more of
your classic like Portland Trailblazers late season and tank type
of thing years ago. Didn't see this one coming. That's okay,
that's all right, that's all right. We were better than
the consensus, though, which isn't saying much.
Speaker 1: Well, we were over on the next team, the Charlotte Hornets,
and yet they outperformed their win total by seventeen and
a half wins, which is just we've been We've been
on them since Thanksgiving or we've been on the fact
that they are top There are two teams straight residents
yet since Thanksgiving that or three teams that rank in
the top five of offense and defense. It is the Celtics,
it is the Spurs, and it is the Charlotte Hornets.
Just like everyone predicted, right, we both under no, not
the thunder.
Speaker 3: Who were they?
Speaker 1: We both went over, but I had them. I was
still off. I had the bet because they're over. Under
was set at twenty six and a half. I had
them thirty three. They're going to be on pace to
win between forty four and forty five right now. So
they weren't one of my actual quote unquote they're my
top ten, but they were eight on my swings, like
so plus eleven but plus seventeen and a half relative
to the line is a monster number.
Speaker 2: Also my eighth biggest swing. I guess miss several things.
LaMelo Ball stayed pretty healthy, Conkin Nipple was orders of
magnitude better than anybody thought he would be. And I
think that includes the Hornets themselves. Like you just can't
ever predict that a rookie is going to be. Like
I was doing some early all NBA stuff and conk
Nipple has a legitimate All.
Speaker 1: NBA case just as well, especially if we're going to
start to not going to qualify.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's why, like he would I don't
think I would call him a top fifteen player if
everybody was, if we had all hands on deck, but
we don't, and so he's a real thought there. Brandon
Miller has looked kind of like you would if you
had flashed forward from the moment he was picked and
said like it's going to be like an eighty fifth,
ninetieth percentile outcome, Like he kind of looks like this guy,
and so just a lot. Charles Lee is a good coach.
The defense is the thing that still confounds me. I
just don't even if you were sitting there in October
and putting together really optimistic scenarios for Charlotte, I really
don't think you would ever get to since Thanksgiving or
over a fifty game sample, they'll be like a contention
caliber defense. Like you just there's no way you'd guess that.
Speaker 1: We're talking like almost three quarters of the season at
this point, where they've just had the profile.
Speaker 3: But that's insane.
Speaker 1: And when you watch their defense too, it's Okay, there's
a bunch of like high pickup points, a ton of pressure.
Musa Diabat is kind of a psychopath and that and
to Brandon miller's been great for them and they've gotten
like being able to plug into Grant Williams or being
able to plug into Josh Green. And then you go
out and you trade for Kobe White too, which is
just he's gonna end up being a perfect fit for
this team. This is watching them since like coming into
the season because of the health issues with LaMelo or
even Brandon Miller. I don't think there's any way you
could have recently been like this is a forty five
win team.
Speaker 2: No, No, I mean I want I want the It's
probably like a Charlotte podcaster or blogger that just was
wildly optimistic. I want, like, can we crowdsource find me
the rosiest preseason prediction for the Hornets, and I want
that person. I want to know who that is so
I can go read it and just see like wow,
this and then have them give me lottery numbers because
they're obviously clairvoyant.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So even if you would have said everybody stays healthy, I.
Speaker 1: Don't Maybe I would have bumped them up to like
forty one or forty two if you could have said that.
And now we're at the point where I want to
ask you. I've asked you this question once before, but
legitimately want to ask you, given the state of everything, health,
the standings, how many teams in the Eastern Conference are
you prepared to guarantee would beat the Charlotte Hornets in
a playoff series?
Speaker 2: Guarantee is a very strong word. I mean, I start
with Boston. That's so I feel good about.
Speaker 3: Boston at Boston because that's my end.
Speaker 2: I thought you might end at Boston. I think I'm
hesitant to say that anyone else, for cer Is just
is going to have no problem with Charlotte. The Knicks
have their issues, Cleveland has its issues. I don't know.
I mean Detroit. If Detroit doesn't have Kate Cunningham, they've won,
you know, pretty surprisingly without him, at least in the
early days of his absence. But I mean, you just
can't ignore the fifty game plus sample where Charlotte just
is that team. So yeah, I guess I'll go with one.
You could definitely it's a coin flip for probably at
least three other teams, but even that is kind of
wild for a team that had a twenty six and
a half over under to start the year, Crazy.
Speaker 1: Grant, I'm anxiously awaiting your apology for this team to
San Antonio Spurs your biggest miss. I say this knowing
they were my second biggest miss. But the Spurs were
projected for forty four and a half wins currently opious
to exceed that by seventeen and a half wins as well.
Is there anything you would like to get off your
chest in a tone for here, because clearly I'm resolved
of all blamed because you this was your biggest mess.
Speaker 2: It's it's uh just pure cognitive dissonance because I I
thought wem Binyama would win Defensive Player of the Year.
I thought he would be a top five MVP type player.
You know all that, And so then the question is,
if you think that, how are the Spurs not one
of the best, like three or four teams in the
conference at minimum? I think they're better than that. So
I just I don't know what I thought this season
would look like. I guess I thought wembin Yama would
be spectacular, and nobody else on the Spurs was going
to be all that impressive. But even then, if he's
that good, what we were seeing this is the underdiscussed
aspect of the Spurs that I think speaks Tom to
Wemby's MVP candidacy. When you have a guy that's that dominant,
it just makes everybody else confident and their best self,
and it just it has all these crazy trickle down
effects to where everyone's just better. He's a level raiser,
He's that caliber, He's that rare caliber of player that
if you're on the floor with him, you're just better
because you think everything's possible and you have the ultimate
safety blanket and on and on. So I I just
blew it in predicting he would be great, probably not
this great. I didn't think he like I might pick
him for MVP. I don't know. It's it's a real
just it's a real uh thing I've been thinking a
lot about. But I don't know how he can be
all that and then the Spurs win. What did I
say they were gonna win. I'm twenty I'm twenty one
off and they're gonna yes, like in the forties, like,
no way, really bad. I assume you're in the same boat.
Speaker 1: Right, And I say I was also off by twenty
one wins with them, but it's just that I had
a bigger miss than that.
Speaker 3: So it was the real way.
Speaker 2: Are here the thing?
Speaker 1: The only thing that I could add and this might
be a big part or should be a big part
of if you're going to make the MVP case for him,
is we do tend to zero in so much on
the defense. And then also now it's been more about well,
look at the gravity he has in the pain and
the number of corner threes that the Spurs are taking.
He's having an impact on all of this. That is
a huge part of the MVP case. The other thing
is he's just a better self starter than he was
too and so if he is it was the game
winner again was that the suns where he hit the
game winner? But he might be a player, perhaps not
right now, but if he just becomes somebody who gets
the ball can take it to his spots and hit
these jumpers off the dribble whoever he wants, or get
to the basket off the dribble whenever he wants.
Speaker 3: What are what are you supposed to do? Well?
Speaker 2: I think here the thing is like so that's a
question we have now, which was not really. I don't know,
he hadn't progressed to the point where that was part
of the calculus earlier this season or before the season.
I just I'm struck, most recently by how much better
of a player he is today than he was two
months ago and four months ago, and certainly by the
by the time he was done with his truncated last season,
like all bet all bets are off, all bets are off,
Like he is not fully formed and he's the growth
just in season. I struggle to remember a player that.
I mean, it's not to say he wasn't a great
player to begin the year, but the things that he's
doing now are just different and and like the one
handed touch passing stuff like around the perimp like just
the dexterity, the the like the danger he's started he's
starting to pose in transition, like the gravity all like
it's all just I don't know, man. Yeah, so we
we mildly, I guess, underestimated when mien Yama, but by extension,
grossly underestimated this burst. That's kind of what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, is Steph Casseo leap to talk about
someone other than Wemby uh the d we were worried
about the guard fit.
Speaker 3: Dalan Harper has been better than expected.
Speaker 2: That's another rookie has been exactly you know the other.
Speaker 3: Guy, Devin Vessell.
Speaker 2: Dan. I was gonna say a Dan special Devin Vessell.
You he the what wem Binyama does for the Spurs
allows Vassell to just be the very best version of himself.
Like he's a better player. He might be the same
player he's been the last couple of years, but he's
just better because he's more confident, he has the support
around him he has. Like it's like you'll try harder
tricks on a trapeze with a safety net and when
Benyama is a safety net and Vassill's just exploring the
limits of his game. He he Yeah, it's just a
it's a top down effect with with someone as great
as wem Banyama, It's it's it's super rare. That's the
other thing is like they're just there's you can count
on one hand the guys that have made this kind
of impact over the last fifteen years.
Speaker 1: The Sacramento Kings, relative to productions, are the fourth most
that they were off by the fourth most, and that's
kind of saying something. Greg Wissinger came on this podcasts
before the season and said he's prepared for this to
be just one of the most depressing seasons writ large
that he's watched with the Kings, and then he said
sold undersold he said halfway through he said, oh, yeah,
undersold it because they were predicted to win thirty five
and a half h they are currently on pace to
win twenty one. That's not good, and it's made even
worse by the fact that, okay, you'll have a lotto pick,
but what else do you have to show for any
of this? It's we still don't really know what Keegan
Murray is like, Knee Clifford his rookie year, Devin Carter
doesn't seem like he's going to be a thing. They
found Dylan Cardwell and Maxim Reino. Those have been good
fines for them, but just where do they go from here?
This is one of the more aimless misses that are
out there, and we both still went under and ended
up missing. Pretty I was minus they're underperforming by my
own projections by minus twelve wins, so not like a
huge gap, but it was just there. You could not
underestimate this team. The Kings franchise always has the ability
to go lower.
Speaker 3: It's almost impressive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say they're a team that I don't
know if this is even a term that exists, but
when you were going through, oh, here's a bright spot
or here's something like with just take take Raino, is
it possible that like what the Kings are actually getting
right now from him is like negative not negative information
doesn't quite feel right, but it's like it's just misinformation
because you what you might do is look at his
production and say, well, there's something here, and so we'll
make decisions going forward based on the belief that there's
something here. Except you're making that assessment in totally meaningless games. Again,
it's it's an old argument of just like can you
trut It's the Jalen Green can can you trust what's
happening in a meaningless stretch of a meaningless season against
competition that just is not bringing it and don't care
because you're just a pushover. I wonder if he's actually
if they're gonna come away from this season saying well,
at least we know we've got a future starter at center,
and it's like, you don't know that because of the
level of competition and the stakes and all that stuff.
And it's also I don't think you do know that.
Speaker 1: You try playing him a little bit with Sabonis, and
you try playing him with Dylan Card Well, so do
you view him as a primary starting center? I don't
even know if they're going to view him in that vein.
Speaker 2: This is like this is it's like, you're the things
are going to be starting next season like below zero
because they just they don't they don't have any good information.
I don't think on any of these guys that might
or might not matter, so like even next year as
they're you know, whatever the rebuild looks like when you
still have a bunch of bloated veteran contracts on the books.
Speaker 1: By the way they are, if they don't make they
are projected to be in the luxury towsk.
Speaker 3: We should move on.
Speaker 2: There's nothing to say here there. We knew they'd be bad.
We didn't know they'd be this bad. All the memes,
all our expectations were low memes.
Speaker 3: Uh, the Dallas Mavericks are next up.
Speaker 1: They also missed their projections by fourteen and a half wins.
Speaker 3: They were there.
Speaker 1: Over under was forty point five. They're on pace for
twenty six and a half. I had them at forty wins.
I don't I'm looking back. I guess I didn't think
they were gonna trade Anthony Davis, and I assumed that
both he and Kyrie Irving We're gonna play a bunch
of games, which kind of, in retrospect, is really dumb.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I this is one of the rare teams
that I really do remember the theory of why I
thought they'd be. I think I had them at forty two.
I think I was, so that means I was more
a little more off than you. Uh yeah, I was
sixteen wins off. They're projected till this was like, Okay,
they're gonna play Cooper Flag at point guard until Kyrie
Irving comes back. The offense is gonna be bad, but
I think they're gonna be really huge across all positions,
and they're gonna rebound and they'll defend, and so okay,
it's a it's a number ten defense and a number
twenty offense or or five and twenty five or whatever.
That's about even. That's about break even. Kyrie comes back,
the offense looks good. That was my theory that they'd
be around five hundred, because I thought they had real strengths,
and then they just nuked it. It's just the Davis
injuries and the Flag experiment, at least initially at point
Guard win even worse offensively than most people thought. And
Irving isn't coming back. So a lot of a lot
of contributing factors to the inaccuracy on that one.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about them moving forward though, just
because of how like Flagg has had an excellent rookie
season overall, and they just have a bunch of guys
still Marshall, PJ. Washington, Gafford, like even getting like even
getting moments from a Brandon Williams and Max Christie's been
great by and large this year.
Speaker 2: I think it's hard to feel bad just because Flag
does look like the guy and so that's a starting point.
That's good. I still, you know, they don't control there
after this year. They don't control their first for the
rest of the decade and change, right, So yeah, that's
not great. But in theory they I think if you
have a halfway capable or better lead guard, so Flag
doesn't have to do all that stuff, and he gets
better at that stuff in hopefully a secondary role. There's
still enough. They got all these big wings and combo forwards,
and they got an There's there's a lot here. I
might just picking to be a five hundred team again
next year on a lot of the same thinking. So yeah,
I don't I don't feel too bad about him. There's
a lot of teams I feel much worse about. If
Flag alone is you know, you're okay.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: I would love to see and I don't know who
would be the ideal one, but I would like to
see him alongside more of a floor spacing five who
when you're going that route, you're not giving up size
necessarily doesn't have to be your core lineup.
Speaker 3: But I also don't like Oh PJ.
Speaker 1: Washington and Flag as your only front core because then
it's Oh Gafford and Naji Marsham. There's other guys that
are just on the bench. I just want to see
what he would look like next to a true stretch five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's fair, especially if if one of
the things he continues to not do at a super
high level is hit threes, because because then you just
you're kind of stuck with a pair of spacers.
Speaker 1: Might not so hot to take those that. I think
he's gonna be able to hit hit three in the jump.
Speaker 2: I think so too. I think so too.
Speaker 1: Next up, the Phoenix Suns outperforming their projections by plus
thirteen and a half wins into the season. They're over
under was thirty one and a half. They're currently on
pace to be a forty five win team. I missed
on them grant by eighteen wins. They're outperforming my own
win projections by eighteen. You were at seventeen. I can't
say enough good things about the Suns. I don't know
if my well of perception was poisoned because of the
Kevin Durant earon. How bad, the how rotten the vibes
just were. But credit to Jordan Ott for instilling this
system where these guys compete their asses off defensively, they
crash the offensive glass. I think Devin Booker is again.
I don't know how many times I've said this about
Devin Booker. I think his season has been underrated. I
don't know, O. His efficiency is not as high as
you want. Okay, shut up, look at the talent that's
around him. The defensive attention he draws in his passing
is pristine.
Speaker 3: For the most part. I just this the Dylan Brooks.
Speaker 1: I did not see him being like one of the
most efficient self created shot makers in the league before
his injury. I didn't see like this the way they've
been able to come together center play. It was Mark
Williams kind of stood out at one point, and then
as he he retreated, it was like, look what Osoe
Gadaro was able to do for you.
Speaker 3: On the defensive end, they're.
Speaker 1: Getting They've gotten better stints from common model watch Rashier
Fleming's been like just sort of this fine for them.
They've been able to just their rotation has sometimes been
all over the place, but they've just been able to
plug certain holes. They're tough to play. I think if
they make it to the playoffs, their offense is gonna
be awful. Still, you would need really like you need
a jail in green post All Star break like circa
Houston Heater.
Speaker 3: So I think really match up well there.
Speaker 1: But I don't know how to feel about them going forward,
just because they don't have a ton of meaningful ways
to improve. But this is a team you're gonna feel
when you play them, and they're kind of a fun watch.
The offense can be a little bit of a I
wish they would play faster the relative to personnel that
they have. That's not necessarily Devin Booker's mo though, But
defensively just look like Jordan Goodwin maniacal that and before
they're just they're a fun team. And part of that is, Okay,
they obliterated expectations.
Speaker 2: Right, I think, uh, you probably actually I don't know
where you start, because because my first thought as you're
going through it is pretty pretty damning assessment of Kevin
Durant's impact on a team, pretty glowing assessment of Dylan
Brooks's impact on a team. I think just that if
you just view that as a one for one swap,
which really it's not. But if you just look at
it that way, hard to argue that. I mean, say
what you want about Dylan Brooks where sunglasses inside. We know,
we know where we stand on that, but it seems
like where he goes things get better competitively, and where
he leaves things get worse competitively. That's an oversimplification, but
that's a factor here. I think as much and and
and it's very much related to Jordan, not just kind
of getting to play completely differently than they played last year.
Easier to do if you don't have really highly paid
established stars outside a booker, get easier to get buy
in from really hungry players, like all those guys you mentioned, Gillespie, Grayson, Allen, Like,
there's been a lot of like, well, that was a
much better performance than I would have ever imagined from
this player. And there's probably a half dozen of those
on this team. It's a combo of the personnel swap
affecting the vibes, better coaching, just it's all has kind
of gone right. I too though with you where it's
so what is this? What are the Suns going forward now?
Because a lot of times when his team has this
year over year transformation, a lot of it which is
attributed to playing harder, you know, defending with a lot
of purpose, out competing all that other stuff. It's pretty
hard to carry that over into a second season after
you've had one successful one. So where does that leave them?
I'm not sure? But where that leads at the moment
is they've just smoked expectations and good for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even like they have the second year on
the Hayward high Smith mid season contract, who's been really
good for them. It seems they feel like a smarter
organization now under when you're gonna look at it from
the front office down to the coaching staff, and that
they're more in tune.
Speaker 3: So I don't I don't.
Speaker 1: You're right, I don't know what they could do to improve,
but I wonder they would be if they're sort of
the not John Moran or someone on that love but
if there's the distressed star who you can just acquire
by cobbling together.
Speaker 3: I still love Zion for this team.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's the area of upgrade focus for me,
is that even if you have confidence in Jayalen Green,
it's I they just need a front line offensive upgrade. Yeah,
I think that's so That's what I'd like to see
them do. But I would just like to reiterate my
Devin Booker point. He leads the league in potential assists
per one hundred passes, so that's he's throwing passes that
are leading to assist opportunities. And he's also among the
league leaders in high value assists. When looking at looks
that he's creating from three at the m and then
passes that end in free throws. I think that his
efficiency hasn't always been there. The on off splits have
sometimes been weird. I He's like, this is where is
this team without him? Like just because the defensive tension
that he had drawn, he's able to draw.
Speaker 3: So the signs of I mean, they've they've shocked me.
Speaker 1: I probably said, I don't remember what I said exactly,
but I said, all seems like.
Speaker 2: Everything a couple of final points here because we owe
it to them. I think one is like, I think
you alluded to this, but but the idea that just
like the well is just poisoned here. There's just like
nothing good can come of this based on how the
last two years have gone, based on what it seems
like ownership and management's priorities are, just how out of
touch they seem to be with like what it takes
to compete with the rules being what they are, you know,
all the second apron stuff, all the and the other
thing too. I think lastly is because of the way
that Matt Ishbia kind of conducted himself and because of
the decisions that were made with respect to roster building
on his watch. I think I was rooting for failure here,
if I'm being honest, like I think I wanted the
Suns to be punished for the way Ishbiah was running
the team. I think I've that felt like that would
feel just if you go all in to the nth degree,
set all your future first on fire and then have
to blow it up because it doesn't work, like you
should endure some pain for that. And I was almost
wanting that to happen, and they just didn't. It didn't
happen at all. They they're having a great season.
Speaker 3: I was still.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite social media moments of the season
is Matt Ishbia using the clap back of right, yeah, well,
you guys all thought we were gonna be good last year,
so we showed you.
Speaker 3: We showed you.
Speaker 1: Ah Grant, there's gonna be tough for me. This is
my biggest miss the Boston Celtics. They outperformed. You gotta
give kudos to the folks over at Vikas. They only
missed by thirteen and a half wins. The Celtics are
on pace for fifty five and they had an over
under a forty one.
Speaker 3: And a half. I had them penciled in for thirty
two wins.
Speaker 1: I was convinced they were gonna duck the tax and
just use this as a gap year. Maybe Jason Tatum
would play at the end, but they were really gonna
come back in full force next season. Well, they ducked
the tax and they're just gonna win. Jason Tatum came
back and they're just gonna win fifty five games anyway,
despite not having him for most of the year, despite
shuffling around a huge chunk of their roster, including a
major piece. When you look at Anthony Simons at the
trade deadline, and now we're sitting here basically in April saying, yeah,
like they probably deserve to be the Eastern Conference favorites, right,
Like Jayson Tatum hasn't even really been Jason Tatum yet.
It looks like he's moving fine, but the efficiency's not
quite there. I don't I was even I thought that
there was a chance they might finish with fewer than
thirty two because they would be so committed to like
being a bottom feeder with Like if you had to
ask me before the season, I bet you I would
have said this and maybe this, maybe the win totals
I should look a see if it reflects that which
team is more likely to win fewer than twenty games,
Boston or Indiana? And I just would have said Boston
because I thought they would have been more committed to
the tank.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right right, I think I agree with that, So
they're over Under was forty one and a half, which
I'm I can't now, I can't remember. I'm sure I
went way under that, but that one, I I just
what do you so, what do you think the biggest miscalculator?
I guess the biggest miscalculation was that when things started
to go not great, they would steer into it. And
that's how you get to the hypothetically you just brought
up of like who's like, who's likely to really have
a low time?
Speaker 1: You had to make thirty seven wins, by the way,
so you're only off by eighteen.
Speaker 3: I was still I was within five of the.
Speaker 2: I think. So I'm asking because I don't know, is
it like? Oh, well, the takeaway is that Joe Mizzoula
is just a better coach than we thought. The system
works better than we thought it would with whoever you
want to plug in there, Like, it doesn't matter that
baylor Shire and Ugo Gonzalez and whoever else and Neimeius
Caita are just in place of Al Horford and Porzingis
and Holiday and on down the line, Like is it
that the personnel doesn't matter? Or is it that Boston
quietly is really good at finding replacement personnel? I just
I'm not. I don't think I'm ever gonna understand it.
Too many things happen. So what do you think that
the biggest driver, the biggest surprising driver of success, was
that made us so wrong?
Speaker 3: The biggest driver of success? That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I think it's we underestimated Joe Mizzoula just as a
coach because Missoula ball was they take a bunch of threes.
But then you kind of look at how the non
Jalen Brown players have been used this year, and I
think the other thing this was the cliche flaw to
point out their center rotation should have been the worst
in the league, and they've just been able to piece
me all together with like what do we even want
Vouch playing?
Speaker 3: Like why don't we just run smaller?
Speaker 1: Like because they've been able to do that and I
really didn't think I mean, Ugo Gonzales and bell Or Shireman.
I probably didn't if I was building out ten man rotations.
I don't know if I had either of them in
Boston's coming into the year and so, and I think
that would actually be the final thing. Is I underestimated
if you just have a lot of like bigger, gritty
wings who are gonna play hard on defense and crash
the glass like that can help paper over some of
your size and or traditional physicality deficiencies.
Speaker 3: I am interested to see.
Speaker 1: Not that I'm I am skeptical, like just what does
this look like in the playoffs when you're leaning on
some lesser experienced guys, when maybe it's can you play
vouch in the playoffs with if Kate is having a
bad game, do you downsize at center?
Speaker 3: How many minutes can you get by?
Speaker 1: If it's a Luca Garz or is it a Jordan Walsh,
are you going like super small? So there are some questions,
but they've earned more than the benefit of the doubt
at this point.
Speaker 2: Definitely. I think the last thing I'd say is h
Jalen Brown choosing to use this year as a as
like an I'll show you year as opposed to well
we'll just there's no point, we'll wait it out. I
think if the guy that is at the top of
your team food chain basically decides that, it convinces himself that, no,
we're not actually a forty one win team or whatever
it is. We because I'm here and because now I
get to do what I've known I could do all along,
just trying to crawl inside his head. You know we're
going to be great, because why wouldn't we be? Because
now I get to just And I think maybe that
has an effect on the rest of the team where
it's you can't you know, if Jalen Brown is going
to play this hard and this well and this consistently,
and you're the if and you're Baylor Shireman or whoever else,
you don't get to, like, treat this as a gap year.
If the top guy's not treating it that way, you
don't get to either. So there's some of that. It's
Missoula and Brown and just I don't know that the
Celtics are good at every other aspect of tactical basketball
and team building and everything else. Just pretty pretty top,
pretty impressive start to finish for them.
Speaker 1: Grant if warning a fan base that progress isn't linear
was an Olympic sport. I would have gold medaled. When
it came to talking about the Detroit Pistons. Heading into
the season, they were projected to win forty six and
a half and I claimed that was too high. I said,
they're gonna win forty four. They're currently on pace to
win sixty.
Speaker 3: That is stupid.
Speaker 1: And they've been playing well without Kate Cunningham too, while
he's recovering from the collapse along. This is their identity.
I don't think it, like, what what do you think?
What's the biggest surprise about them? Because their identity is
what you would really expect. It's yeah, kde on offense,
and then they have just a ton of versatility and
size and physicality on the defense. And the end, what
is the I'm sure neither of us had Donnis Jenkins
penciled in for like coming onto the scene, But what
is it about this team? And even though so they
out I'm sorry I didn't, they outperformed there over under
by thirteen and a half wins in total, so right
in line with the Suns and the Celtics relative to
overall projections. But like in hindsight, it's sort of one
of those things where they're doing everything that they did
last year. I gues's just really better like every like
Joeen Duran I think is probably the most notable just classics.
Speaker 2: The one that's the one where he almost doubles his
points per game and does it in a way that
I think it's him and Jenkins, and probably the supporting
shooting being I don't know, still not good but not
a complete disaster. It's kind of those three things, because
I think we could foresee Cunningham making a leap to
this level or right around it, even if that's not
even a leap, like he was fairly close to this
a year ago, and the defense being good and them
being physical and all of that stuff was built in,
I guess because I was right there with you. By
the way, sixteen wins off exactly the same. I guess
what we didn't account for was that the offense would
be capable enough, even though that's still our thing we
harp on. It was like, Wow, if kid can't generate
the shot, there's no shot getting generated. That's a problem.
Speaker 3: Tobias Harris was right there.
Speaker 2: It was just right there, just sitting right there. So yeah,
I guess. I mean, I don't feel like we were
that off in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of
the Pistons. It's just the strength was a little stronger
and the weakness wasn't quite as pronounced maybe as we expected.
That doesn't account for sixteen wins, but it makes it
at a little easier to understand, especially when I was
sitting here extolling the virtues of them, like getting Karris
LeVert right season has been uneasy matter, to put it charitably, Yeah,
I don't. I don't feel like he's made an impact.
So yeah, that you know, that's a pleasant one, like
the Phoenix one. Nice. Nice for them to beat expectations
in a positive way by so much.
Speaker 3: The other thing that happened grant my streak being wrong.
Speaker 1: About the Memphis Grizzlies when it comes to predicting they're
over under has officially ended. They were projected to win.
What were they at in their over under.
Speaker 3: Thirty nine and a half thirty nine and a half.
They were going to win a lot less than that.
Speaker 1: They're on pace four twenty seven, so they are minus
twelve point five.
Speaker 3: I had them projected for on my own. Why don't
I see it here? I had them at thirty eight,
so like not, Oh no, I had them? No, what
did I have them at? I can't. I can't find it.
But we didn't.
Speaker 1: I was off by I was still off. I wasn't
low enough by them. I missed by eleven wins. So
no greade shakes there. But I hit the under and
they're gonna clear the under shout out to me. Then
I guess, but what is this?
Speaker 3: Was? I we probably should have.
Speaker 1: Been lower on the Grizzlies after the Desmond Bay trade.
That signaled something was I we didn't buy into, oh,
this isn't going to be a rebuilder transition year. But
I guess we assumed they weren't gonna trade Jared Jackson
Junior had Maybe I also probably assumed that Tai Jerome
wasn't gonna miss two thirds of the season, and then
I also probably assumed he wasn't gonna come back and
be an MVP candidate, which he basically has been.
Speaker 2: So I think I think you throw in the jaw.
You probably you don't get to say, well, I didn't
think it would be this bad for Jaw because that
was on the table. Even though I missed I missed
by more here I was sixteen wins off, so I
was even more optimistic about Memphis, and that had something
to do with I don't think Jaw is going to
have a complete zero of a season. I also thought
that the combo of Jerome and Scotti Pippen Jr. Would
make it so that even if Jaw was not good,
their point guard position would be totally fine. Between those two.
I probably assumed that Edie would play. I mean, Edie
was a super duper star for the like five seconds
that he played this year, so that hurt and and
I don't know, maybe expected more out of the Wings
like Wells and KCP, and I could can't profess to
have known anything about Coward, or at least nothing that
would have made me optimistic about them, but everything went
wrong and then they blew it up, So I don't know.
I don't feel as bad about missing this as I
do like say Phoenix or Boston, but pretty agree much
more egregious miss for me than for you.
Speaker 1: This is you having them at forty three wins is
that's not your biggest discrepancy, but that is that I'm
surprised them that high.
Speaker 3: I had them at thirty eight.
Speaker 2: It's tied. Them and Dallas are tied for my biggest
overestimations of the season.
Speaker 3: This is so neither of us had this net.
Speaker 1: We have another team, we have two more teams that
we're gonna get to, but this is the tenth team
that according to projections, the over unders coming into the
season had one of the biggest discrepancies. The Bucks minus
nine and a half wins below.
Speaker 3: They're over under.
Speaker 1: I I don't know why. I don't know why people
were as optimistic. Even I kind of talked myself into like.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe the whole they just have all this.
Speaker 1: Dead money from Damian Loward on the books, they might
just end up being Okay. Did we expect, given Giannis
is just injury history, that he would somehow play in
more games than normal, and like, maybe he's been on
the extreme end of dealing with the injuries here At
the same time, you even look at the number now,
they were at forty two and a half and I
had them penciled in for forty three, so I went
slightly over and they're now on pace to win thirty three.
I guess that number just felt so low in an
Eastern Conference where it was. Oh, the seventy six ers
are implosive, and we weren't taking in a ton of
this level of improvement from the Pistons.
Speaker 3: I don't. This is just I think in retrospect, coming
into the season, everyone should have had the Bucks below
five hundred. We did not. Vegas did not. Therefore I apologize.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to see what I had him at. So
I went under there. I had him at forty two,
so I was half paint under just bold, really bold
by me. I'm trying to I wish I could remember,
or I'd say this every time we do this. I
wish I could remember if we were pricing in uh
Yannis trade. As you know, well, we got to adjust
a few wins downward on the on the odds that
they move him. But that still doesn't that doesn't ex
We're both we did.
Speaker 3: I think we didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe he didn't, so we were right.
Speaker 3: They didn't trade Giannis.
Speaker 1: We were wrong that that's going to lead to more
than forty one wins.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't have a lot to say other than
just this is a rough situation in Milwaukee, and I'm
sorry that you guys have to go through this. Yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 1: Was that just that like smitten by the Miles Turner addition,
I was not it has to be.
Speaker 2: They have Yannis, how bad can it get? Maybe was
was the was the thinking? So yeah, I don't know.
We weren't crazy off, but but that's a well I
guess I would say I didn't foresee him missing as
much time as he has because he's never really had
a season quite like this, where he's just had several
prolonged absences, all of which he's wanted to shorten. But
the Bucks are.
Speaker 1: So this final team was not one of Vegas's ten
Biggas misses.
Speaker 3: It was one of ours.
Speaker 1: The Warriors by Vegas, We're gonna miss their win total
by seven and a half victories. I was eleven wins
too optimistic, Grant was ten wins too optimistic. Who's the
real Dubs fan around these parts? It is my question?
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't feel like I have to explain
myself at all on this one. We had a lot
of conversations about, well, this is a pretty old group,
like what happens if they break down? It's like, well,
there's nothing in the profile indicates catastrophic injury. Is likely
for like say Jimmy Butler or anybody, and then there
you go, and then Steph having the weirdest nagging two
months out plus now he's gonna get over two months
before he's back with runners knee. So the old guys
got old Horford's out. Now it's just you know that
was in a lot of ways. This one is if
you had just I'll say me, if I had just
viewed it objectively, like this isn't the Warriors, this is
some other team and the best players are thirty seven,
thirty eight, forty and whatever, what do you think is
going to happen this year? I would say, well, they're
all going to get hurt, and that's what That's what
should have happened here. But it didn't.
Speaker 1: To be fair, Steph one healthy is still a top
ten player, so it's easier to I think, fall in
the more.
Speaker 3: Optimist again in the spectrum. But you but you are correct.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would have predicted Jimmy Butler
tearing an ACL that Moses Moses injury was brutal. I
don't know if you were watching that in real time
and I was. Peacock went in. Did you get the
zoom in on the injury.
Speaker 2: They only once though, they only really zoomed in the
one time, and that was enough. Oh that's okay, he's
gonna be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, seeing your knee kind of have that Like Concave
was not not great. I haven't heard, by the way
that was was that American Airlines Center. I don't know
the last time I heard an arena that silent when
it happened? Was it even that quiet when what happened
to Kevin Duran or Klay Thompson? And if I just
use the Warriors as an.
Speaker 2: Analog, it's it's hard to say. I mean, are there
degrees of silence, Like it's either silent or it's not.
And it was. It was, it was silent. There was
a road a road arena too, like everybody. Everybody knew
right away. You can tell by how the bench reacts
when the hands go, when guys go like that, I'm
putting my hands on my head for listeners, it's just
they know, it's they know. And this was an instant
case of like fuck, Like guys on both benches were
sure right away, this is a big deal.
Speaker 1: H Do you have any closing thoughts on the over
under exercise as to you know you are on pace
to be eighteen and twelve, and keep them on pace
to be seventeen and thirteen. We will announce the winner,
like we said, once the season's over.
Speaker 3: Of the discord, Okay, I can tell you with confidence
that neither of you were to win.
Speaker 2: Something's wrong with either of us. I'm always looking for takeaways, like,
what's the rule, what's the lesson we can glean from
this that will make us slightly less bad at this
exercise in years to come? And is it maybe? Nah,
it's I was just gonna say, well, maybe don't count
out a once contender that seems to have fallen on
hard times. But even that rule doesn't make sense because
it applies us to Boston but not Indiana. So I
just I just don't know the fact that those two
teams went in such completely opposite directions well, having like
a lot of very similar similar problems. Wow, it's it
could be a gap year. Our best player has the
same injury at torn Achilles, may or may not be
back like we've we've had some talent drain. We've the
Pacers lose Turner, the Celtics lose sixty percent of their
eight man rows. I just I so I guess I
don't know. I don't know. I don't have a final thought.
I don't have a lesson. We've learned nothing by sheer happenstance.
I think we were better this year than last, and
I don't I can't prompt us that trend will continue.
Your victory lap should be you hit three teams as
win totals right on the head as of right now.
You had the Hawks at forty six, the Knicks at
fifty three, and the Wizards at nineteen. I don't believe
I had any exact I should I'm gonna check that
really quickly and see.
Speaker 3: But you having three, I mean like, hey, look at you.
That's grant.
Speaker 2: That is ten percent. Ten percent nailed it right. I
mean I had two.
Speaker 1: So I had the Heat at forty four wins and
the Jazz at twenty four wins, which they're both on
pace to hit. So I had I had those two.
Speaker 2: I mean this, The Hawks have gotten here through a
route that I did not foresee, so I don't feel
like I can claim any And they had to win
fourteen out of whatever fourteen they go fourteen and one
or something against the softest schedule slate anybody's had all year,
and now they're on pay. Who knows. I will take
the Knicks though, I felt the Knicks have not way.
They've been on pace for what they're about to do
all year, and it's film a nice fifty three.
Speaker 1: I was drunk on preseason basketball when looking at mckel bridges,
rim pressure the Knicks playing at a faster base, never
a that was.
Speaker 3: That was on me. They don't play a bunch faster.
Speaker 1: Mckel bridges is fading away from the basket as we
speak right now.
Speaker 2: Probably so he walked he was walking down the street
and saw a basket like the kids are playing pick
up on and he instantly moved three feet away from it.
Just couldn't help himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was I was. I was a little
bit too high on them. You want to get to
some news. Okay, let's talk about this one.
Speaker 3: We're gonna get the tank ging. Let's do the NBA
PA stuff.
Speaker 1: First, they came out and railed against two things, the
Bucks trying to shut down Giannis Attenta Kumbo for the season,
and then coming out against the sixty five game threshold rules,
specifically mentioning Cake Cunningham, who's had a first team All
NBA caliber season.
Speaker 3: I I think we both sayanas stuff was.
Speaker 1: I probably had a little bit stronger feelings on it
than you did, but we both aligned in the sense
of it's just a bummer that the games played threshold
is incollectively bargained and that the players had absolutely no
say in determining whether that was. And I say that,
by the way, as someone who's not really a fan
of the sixty five games played rule, and I've seen
a lot of hand ringing over why do you want
an MVP to be able to play in fewer than
sixty five games? That's probably never gonna happen. I guess
this year, if Shay, Jokic and Wemby all missed the
sixty five game cut, it was a possibility. But like,
this was more about the All NBA discussion, because now
you might get these weird ass teams and it's trust
the voters to decide whether someone playing in sixty games
or K Cunningham's K sixty two games, sixty one, whatever
it is, is deserving of an All NBA spot.
Speaker 3: Give them.
Speaker 1: If you don't trust them to make that decision, then
they shouldn't have a vote and just pretending I'm also
tired of pretending that this wasn't about like the NBA
generating their current TV contract.
Speaker 2: That's the other thing is like the effect, what it's
having effects on voting was just had nothing to do
with like the reasons for the rule being put in place.
It was to have these bidders in the TV provider
media right, TV media rights war. It was to assure
them that the product you're purchasing will have, to the
extent we can make it possible, will have the best guys,
the most marketable players available as much as we can.
That's why the rule exists. It's not there's I mean again,
it runs counter to the idea that like NBA basketball
is harder to play than ever, guys need more rest.
It's crazy in this one sense to have a rule
that requires them to play more than maybe the otherwise
would for awards consideration, for whatever else, Like the incentive
alignment is all out of whack on that one. But
it and I think maybe it's because it feels like
there's just a lot of complaining about the product right now,
from tanking to gambling, podcasting to podcast to the lottery reform.
Nobody's happy with anything, and then for this to come
out where the Players Association is bitching about a rule
that it had every opportunity to fight against. Now, I'm
sure the Players Association got stuff in exchange for agreeing
to this. That's fine, it's collectively bargained. I don't want
to hear it. I don't want to hear like we
all know, we all get it. We don't like the rule,
but we all didn't agree to it. You did, so correct,
Shut up. I don't want to hear it. It's it's
it right like to me, that's kind of where it ends.
I just okay, next time you collectively bargain, think a
little think about whether you're gonna want this. And this
is not exactly difficult to force consequence. This is like
you know this, This is eminently foreseeable, and I hope
was discussed and probably it was decided not a big
enough deal to say no to this because we're getting
other stuff we want as we're negotiating the CBA. So
like I, I have no time for it.
Speaker 1: The idea behind whenever we come out against this, we
get a lot of comments about oh, in other eras
they played all these minutes and all these games, there
was Even if you think the game was the big
beautiful game was better then than it is now, it
just wasn't as there wasn't as much of a demand
on the bodies relative to the style that they're playing.
When you're getting up and down the court, when you're
looking at the way guys move, it's a facial that's
a fact.
Speaker 2: Like this is not a discussion anymore. I won't another issue.
Speaker 3: I'm not.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear no, I won't if you're
if you're not willing to branch out at least consider,
I'll talk with anybody. Actually, I think it's a problem
that that's a perception, Like that's a perception problem that
if you were the NBA, I don't know what you're
supposed to, but like it is a problem, so it's
worth addressing. But if you're not even willing to consider it,
or you're just coming in flat out and saying that
it was better about like Michael Jordan will cow many
minutes he played and just the game was different, then
even if you preferred that game, fine, that's all, listen
to that. But the game is more physically demanding right now.
The other pushback we get is why does everyone not
want to see the players play? We have to show
up to our jobs every day, this and that. Yeah,
no shit, I want to see the best players play.
In in spirit, if you could turn injuries off, yeah,
it should be an eighty two game rule then, but
you can't turn injuries off. And so while I do
agree that, yes, I want for the fan experience, which,
by the way, this was not about.
Speaker 3: This wasn't about the fan experience. This was about the
TV deal.
Speaker 1: It should have been about the fan experience, but the
almighty dollar is gonna come over everything, including the fan experience.
I don't know that the sixty five game rule. If
you want to sit and use that as a rationalization,
explain to me how this has improved the fan experience.
I don't think that it has other than giving us
something else to argue about. I want the best players
to play, but I also do believe that there are
players who have come back earlier than expected from injury
or tried to play through injury that should not have
because of this rule. And the rule is then that
comes back to do you have the sixty five game rule,
but you no longer tie a all NBA. Let's say
to your contract status, the ability to get more money,
like especially coming out of your rookie extension. Maybe that
would be a potential solve, but this isn't. We don't
want to see Caid Cunningham play basketball. We don't want
to see Nicole Jokich or Victor wm Byama play basketball. No,
we do, but I don't want to see these players
get hurt or if they do get hurt. In the
case of kid, how many Look at how many of
the Pistons games, even the disaster rule whatever it's called,
the catastrophe rule, Like he didn't even qualify for that
because he appeared and you need to appear an x
amount of games like before your quote unquote season ending injury.
Speaker 3: And so it's just like that sucks.
Speaker 1: But I am with you in the sense of I
don't want to hear it from the NBA Players Association
because they are at maybe not they're they're half responsible
for this, Like right.
Speaker 2: I think I would imagine that the Players Association knows
that our reaction is what's gonna like they know we
don't want to hear it, but their job is to
advocate for I'm just trying to like, this doesn't excuse it.
What I think. What I'm what I think is happening
here is the Players Association is supposed to advocate for
the players, and this is very much performative like that
Kid Cunningham is just like, okay, that that's a nice isolated,
high profile case where we need to show our players
and maybe even kid specifically, Hey man, we're doing our job,
like we're here. We are here to support you, to
advocate for you, to take up your interests, and on
and on and on. So we got to say something.
We know everybody's gonna like, turn it, just roll their eyes,
but we should say something just so we're we're performing
our duties even though we know this won't change anything,
and everybody's gonna roll their eyes and think this is
stupid because yeah, we remember we did collectively bargain for this.
We didn't forget that.
Speaker 1: You know, I guess here's my I I would probably
agree with that. Here's my issue with the risk reward
profile of doing that. Where was this, just to use
an example, where was this last year when Wenby could
have been Defensive Player of the Year while playing in fifty.
Speaker 3: Eight games and wasn't. I don't know, like, why this why?
Speaker 1: Like Kate already got his max contract too, It's like,
why this why now? Especially when you're not like it
does If I'm Kay Cunningham, unless I was for the
sixty five game rule and involved in the bargaining of that.
Speaker 3: I'm seeing the NBA PA come out. Why am I
feeling better? You don't have my back.
Speaker 1: If you would have had the back of players, you
would have done something about this during CBA negotiating means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I again, I think who knows what was coming
back in that negotiation in exchange for agreeing to this rule,
because it should have been a difficult one for players
to agree to. I think just trying to imagine myself
in the room. I do think as far as for like,
well why now, as opposed to the example you give
of last year, I gotta believe that the Players Association
is taking the temperature and realizing, like everybody hates this rule.
It's just like public sentiment has reached a point where
now it's like, well, they'll think we're being stupid for
complaining because we agreed to this, But at least the
the thing we're saying is public is like.
Speaker 3: Sort of because you have different leadership too.
Speaker 1: It wasn't was involved with that, so that's I didn't
I failed to consider that.
Speaker 3: There's a few things.
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't change the fact that I think we're
correct to be like fuck off, Like I don't want
to hear like this is enough about this.
Speaker 3: Like do you have any impressions about what they.
Speaker 1: I did find it funny with the Yannis stuff about
them coming out in support of like the ability, Like
that's not something that they did negotiate it. So it's
this whole like the league still has the ability to
shut players down, but you want them to play, and
you're signing a player participation policy that you weren't consulted
on or didn't have any power in negotiating. It's just
it's so weird. I don't know where the y honest stuff.
I actually just think is the Buck's fault. Is that Okay, yes,
you know who Yannis is and what he's wanted to
do in the past. Now is Yianna's being excessively stubborn
because he's trying to look for any cover if and
when he does decide, oh okay, I want out and
did everything for Milwaukee.
Speaker 3: Okay, he might be, but none of this is new.
This is you had.
Speaker 1: There's been stories that with Seth partnow pointed this out,
they had to lock him out of the gym at
one point to force him to take rest. How do
you not settle this type of scenario like before the
trade deadline, Well, you're just weighing your future entirely, And
I honestly think, yeah, they're looking out for their own interest,
preserving Honest as a trade asset, and also like making
the record worse or the less favorable of the picks
they get this year might be better. I look at
it from the perpeps of you're going nowhere, and I
don't want to see Yannis get any more injured that
he's actually injured.
Speaker 3: That's he's actually injured.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, there's you're gonna portion the blame
to more than one party. But this, this, it reflects
the worse on your honest to me, because it's so stupid,
it's so this it feels I'm being cynical, like maybe
it is the case that he's just so hardwired that
like it doesn't it could be the last game of
the season and the Bucks could have twelve wins, and
he would like, I'm playing because I'm healthy. Like that's
what he's saying. Taken too the extreme, I just think
it's ridiculous. It doesn't serve anybody's interest for him to
play other than his own. Again, cynical take desire to
be perceived as someone that like if I've if I'm
still breathing, I'm gonna compete like that. Like that feels
like what he's trying to project, and maybe he really
does feel that way, but someone needs if he can't
do it, someone needs to tell him, like that's dumb.
There's no upside to you playing. It's not like you're
gonna go have a good game and suddenly the trade
market is more interested in you. It's just it's like
you're there's nothing that good that can come of it.
And sorry, Finally, I just think like I don't know,
go go ahead, go ahead. I I don't know.
Speaker 3: I was just gonna can I give.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this would be the romantics take
on it, but could he just not want his time
in Milwaukee to go out with him having already played
his last game for the Bucks. That may be the
sentimental value of it all because if you just between
what was a Wes Eden saying that and the ramoter
Shelbourne piece, the fact that he has informed the multiple
occasions he thinks it's time to move on, the whole
thing is ridiculous. At the same time, he clearly means
a lot to that city. The city clearly means a
lot to him, Like if he's played his last game
for the Bucks, that's kind of a bummer. It is
in the best long term interest of him and the franchise.
But if that's where he's coming from, he knows that
his swan song is being played and now it's already over.
I could understand. I do tend to because I am
inherently cynical. I think a lot of it is what
you're saying as well. I just can't believe there's still
this disconnect. Shouldn't exist in two ways. It should have
been tackled like leading into the trade deadline mapping up, Hey,
if you're injured, right and also if you claim you
want to stay here, us doing this it might increase
the value of a draft pick for us to trade
and get you help. That would make you want to stay. Yeah, Yeah,
that's really where it ends, and so.
Speaker 3: Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 2: The the other thing is is, why do we know
about this? Why why are we talking about this? Who
the this? It's probably coming from Gianni's camp, right like,
because it doesn't serve the Bucks to be releasing the
fact the idea that like, well, okay, either way, I'm
asking retort. I'm again, I'm just wanting to pin all
this on you, honest because I'm annoyed by how he's
handling this. But we shouldn't know about this. This should
be an internal discussion. There's no reason for this to
be out there. And that just speaks to some of
the stuff in Ramona's art, like I know, or Ramona
Shelburne's piece on Bucks about how like it's kind of
hard to figure out who's making decisions and that's only
making a very fraud situation more fraud. So this being
discussed publicly when there's really no reason for it too,
is just another symptom of if I'm honest, I'm like,
what am I doing here?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: Like it just it's not a functional or situation right now.
Speaker 1: I think it serves the Bucks better if if it
was a side that thought this would make them look better.
I believe it would be the like gianness is incentive.
If it's coming from him, I don't we there.
Speaker 2: Gianness looks irrational. It makes him seem irrational, and it
makes the Bucks seem rational. So I guess, yeah, if
it is coming from you, honest, then he's even more
out of touch with like what the right play.
Speaker 1: Here's probably time for new representation. If they are apparently
asking the Bucks for a trade that you didn't know about,
and they're also.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's a whole other layer. I don't know. It's
just it's, uh, we shouldn't. We shouldn't. This isn't a
conversation we should be having. We should not know any
of this, and we do.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about tanking again. We haven't talked about it
on this podcast. I think in a grand total of
we might have made it like fourteen days if there
was a little chart.
Speaker 3: It's been fourteen days since we talked about tanking.
Speaker 1: There are three proposals on the table to deter tanking
moving forward. None of them were our idea, which I
think is the most egregious thing because the perfect idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, biggest mistake.
Speaker 1: But none of them incentivize actually winning, they disincentivize losing,
is how I would categorize it. So you want to
work one by one, I'll read us through the first
one and just see where where we're at with them.
This is all from ESPN shamp Serania. In the first proposal,
sources told Toronto eighteen teams, the bottom ten that missed
the play in tournament and the eight that qualify it
will all be part of the draft lottery. The bottom
ten teams will have an equal eight percent chance of
moving up in the lottery, with the remaining ye twenty
percent of the odds being split among the eight playing
teams in descending order from eleventh through eighteenth, all eighteenth,
all eighteen spots would then be drawn as part of
the lottery in that format. This is the closest it
gets to your idea of just put all eight teams
in the lottery or whatever you add in pten it.
Speaker 2: Right, Which is why I kind of I like some
aspects of it. I like the worst ten teams have
eight percent have an eight percent chance of moving up,
so you have so again, all of these are some
version of just moving the sort of inflection point of
where tanking makes sense, and so Now if you're the
nintheenth or whatever. If you're if you're just outside that
bottom ten, maybe you that's when you start to tank
because you want to get that eight percent shot at it.
But like if you're at that level, so yeah, that
would be bad. If if you have a team that
I don't know where that team would be, it's it's
a playing team or close to it where there's like, no,
screw it, we're gonna we want that eight percent.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: I think I think that's fairly unlikely to happen. Uh,
it'll still probably happen, but I don't know. Again, all
of these are by definition half measures or they're it's
what it does show is a pretty clear unwillingness to
incentivize winning because there are a lot of ways to
do that, and they just based on these three proposals,
that's just not the route that's going to be taken.
So if if short of that, which is the way
to go, I think we all agree you just have
to find a way to make winning the goal. This
makes losing less helpful. So that's okay. Uh, It's it's
not a it's not going to solve everything, but I
I kind of like this. I think it's a good start.
Speaker 1: I I think if you like it, is it because
of the chaos of what will unfold in the lottery?
Because I don't know how much this changes team? But
what about go single out any one of these teams
right now that are terrible?
Speaker 3: What behavior patterns?
Speaker 2: Yeah, of these rules?
Speaker 3: Would it have changed?
Speaker 2: Let's take Washington, I guess just to pick one, right,
so they instead of what is it if you're the
bottom for it's like a fourteen percent chance at number
one or something something like that, right, and so whereas
here it's eight percent? Is that it's not you have
an eight percent chance of picking number one if you're
in the bottom ten based on this proposal? Is that
how you're reading it? So does Washington do anything differently
if the best it can do is eight percent versus fourteen?
Maybe not?
Speaker 1: I mean I mean you might maybe not because maybe
not what I think people would point to to stick
with the Wizards as an example, Well, would Ad and
Trey Young be playing right now?
Speaker 3: They probably still make those trades?
Speaker 1: The answer is no, because you're not They're not doing
You're still just gonna get eight percent whether you play
them or not. Do you know what I mean, And
so you're gonna look at it in the same through
the same lens and say, well, we don't want to
risk further injury to Trey Young, which apparently he suffered
further injury, and we're not gonna risk like injury to
a d when we're trying to be good next year.
So even if the thought process was like do you
think that or now if you want to use it
for example, because the Wizards were just they were the
type of team that wasn't so much tanking as they
were tanking, but like they were gonna be organically bad.
Right played CJ McCollum, you played Chris Middleton. How how
much better were they actually supposed to be? You wanted
them to go out there and trade for Anthony Davis
over the summer, But is that what you're hoping would
incentivize take another team?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 1: Like, what is the team I guess this year that
we think pivoted into a mid season tank?
Speaker 3: Like, I don't.
Speaker 4: Know, Dallas is kind of that team I guess, or
I mean Indiana was Indiana got hurt right away, so
they didn't really have the opportunity to see how good
they were before the tank started.
Speaker 2: I take your point. I do. I guess, yeah, if
you're if you're focused on how is this gonna change behavior?
I guess the best thing you could say for it
is it'll change the behavior of teams that are not
just gonna be at the bottom no matter what, because well, yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 3: Actually like my hot my hot take would be.
Speaker 1: And then I think there's a chance that this increases
tanking because you don't have as much middle of the
pack pivoting out. And so if the standings are close
in a season, what the Remember what the Mavericks did
when they pivoted out of a play in That was
different because it was such a specific window of a pick.
If now of a sudden, it's the difference between you know,
they were gonna have a less than one percent chance
then their more pick versus eight percent. Yeah, you're you're
gonna be more likely to see that. I'm not guaranteeing it,
but I think that would be an unintended consequence that
there's maybe not as much egregious tanking at the bottom.
But you're those teams aren't incentivized to actually be a
lot better.
Speaker 3: And two, now.
Speaker 1: You've bumped up water team's in the bottom of the
middle now going to look at like you if the
Warriors were healthy, like, would they have looked at like,
is it really worth us to go for to be
in the play in tournament here?
Speaker 3: Like do we pivot out?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, I think you're right. I think there
are some real like potentially even worse consequences here, or
at least you might incentivize tanking at in a section
of the standings that is more problematic than you've got
right now, right because if so, like exactly so, if
you can have an eight percent chance at moving up
in the lottery and you are let's say you're you've
got to be in the bottom ten. So I do
like that kind of the rest of the play in
teams are lumped in here. But yeah, I think you're right,
there are some negative let's you know what imperfect imperfect
solution is where I would land. I still, you know,
at least they're trying. What's the sec I want to take?
Speaker 1: So the second one is, sources told Toronti had twenty
two teams the bottom ten teams that missed the play
in tournament, they eight that qualify for it. And the
four playoff teams that lose in the first round will
all be included in the lottery and will be ranked
according to their record across two seasons. The last part
waiting teams by their record across the prior to seasons
is how the.
Speaker 3: WNBA waits its lottery system.
Speaker 1: Under that system, each team would need to reach a
minimum win total floor in each season to mitigate the
need to lose every game possible. For example, if the
minimum floor for individual season was twenty wins, a team
that went fourteen and sixty eight would be twenty and
sixty two for lottery purposes, and if a team wins
forty games one season and twenty games the next season,
it would go in as thirty wins for the lottery.
Sure in this system, the top four spots would be
drawn as part of the lottery, as is currently done.
Speaker 3: Do you think that's a lot of that.
Speaker 2: Let's take it one at a time. So, because this
has quite a few more prongs. So the first aspect
of it is you're expanding even moreless than proposition number
one in that now first round outs are in the lottery,
but the lottery one is weighted over two seasons. Or
your win totals are weighted over two seasons. And then
also it's not the same as the first proposal, where
a certain number of teams all have that same eight
percent chance. Right, so it's the bottom four still get
an outsized shot at moving up. Did I imagine that?
Or I think that's part.
Speaker 1: Of it RCT, but your your capped it Also, I
guess there could be a tie because in theory, let's
just say you're terrible during the two year window, you're
just going to be counted as forty wins, twenty and
sixty two for each season.
Speaker 2: Right, So let's take what do you think about including
teams let's just forget everything else, including teams that get
eliminated in the first round, in addition to play in
in addition to what we would used to refer to
as lottery teams. What do you think that the impact
of that is, So you're adding four more eight more teams,
you might Yeah, you might be adding a team that
has the number two seed in its conf and loses
to a seven. That team is in the lottery. Now
assuming it's I guess that's not true because it would
have to have Uh, you're weighing this year and.
Speaker 1: Last year, right, well, they would be insert Yeah, so
they would, they would be inserted into that.
Speaker 2: This one's already too complicated. It's already there's too many
things happening.
Speaker 1: Well the other thing too is but yeah, you're right.
So let's say like there was an upset and so
there's the two seed loses.
Speaker 3: So there all of a sudden they're in the lottery.
Speaker 1: But last year's when I don't know, I would be
curious to know what does the odds actually become. At
least it's it's sort of a consolation prize if you
do get upset in the playoffs. I do think when
you're looking at it, if we're expecting chalk, it does
eliminate what we were talking about the previous proposal of
teams that are in the bottom of the middle or
fringe play in fringe playoffs aren't gonna pivot it out
to try and get that eight percent chance, because there's
a chance they're thrown into the lottery fold regardless, and
one that eight percent chance also just doesn't exist now
to drop out of that, right, the part that I
don't first of all, I don't really know like how
like really what that does. Aside from to me and
maybe I'm just misreading it, it seems to engender chaos more
than it does penalize losing necessarily. If anything, it encourages
multi year awfulness. Now, if there's a team that's terrible,
are you ever gonna just be isolated bad in one year?
Speaker 3: Windows Probably not?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right, because it might not, am I to
help you that much? It does, You're right, because I'm
trying to think of a good example of you know,
a lot of the time we're we're looking at up
and coming team this year because right, right, But that's
an example. The other another concern is we look at
up and coming teams you know you and saying you
and I and the sort of NBA media collectively, it's like,
when are they gonna make the move, right, like the
the pull the trigger move to go get someone to
fast track. Now, it's like, if you had a terrible
year last year and you're in the position to make
that move to get you you're you know, it's not
gonna make you a contender, but it's going to move
you from a play in team to like a like
just the magic going for Bane or something like that.
As an example, that's not not quite a perfect situation,
but you might put that off because you're like, we
need to be bad for two years to really maximize
our lottery odds. That so you know, that's not tanking,
but it's also like not going for it when maybe
you could, which also runs against this idea that we
have in the new CBA where if the windows open
a crack, you better go because you can't keep this
thing together for very long. So it seems kind of
it's it doesn't feel like a clean fit with a
lot of the other realities of the league.
Speaker 1: Now, third and final scenario is a five by five method.
In this one, mister Grant hughes the same eighteen teams
from the first proposal. The bottom ten that miss the
play in plus the eight that make it would be
entered into the lottery. The teams with the five worst
records would then all have the same odds with them
descending from there, and there would be a lottery drawing
for each of the top five picks in the draft.
After those five picks are selected, there would be another
lottery drawing for the remaining thirteen teams. If any of
the teams with the five worst records didn't land one
of those top five spots, like last season, when the
teams with the first did Utah Jazz, second Wizards, and
fourth Pelicans worst records all moved back to fifth, sixth,
and seventh, respectively. The lowest they could wind up in
the second lottery drawing would be tenth, preventing a bad
team from falling too far down the draft board over
the I don't.
Speaker 2: This doesn't feel that different from what we have now,
and it doesn't seem to address like, how does this
All you're doing is just wanting to be bottom five, right,
You're just you've decided you've now moved it from bottom
four to bottom five, is basically my read on this. Yeah,
And I don't think like so the idea would be this,
this doesn't work at all because because the fear, what
you're doing is limiting how far the worst teams can slide, right,
which if you're trying to curb tanking, I think it's
it's scarier now if you're the worst team and you
can you can fall farther, right, So, so like this
almost incentivizes tanking, unless I could be just completely brain
addled on this, but I don't like this one very much.
Speaker 3: Either, do you it's well, it's go ahead at the moment,
like you like, I don't. The furthest you could fall
is what in the lottery right now? If you're so,
I don't. I don't know how this materially changes it.
Speaker 2: Well, are you guaranteed this is I don't know this one.
This one seems too similar. This doesn't seem to change enough.
I like the first proposal, I guess just because one
it's simpler than this than number two, and it's close
to what I think makes some sense if you're not
going to truly solve the problem, which is just flatten
it so that there's less of an incentive to be
truly horrible. I don't know. These aren't great.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: No, so actually, can I push back here? I think
there's a we can play the well, at least they're
trying card. I just don't there's we talked about the
NBAPA being performative. These feel like performative solutions.
Speaker 3: By and large.
Speaker 1: The first one comes closest to whatever. This just feels
like they're putting lipstick on a pig type deal, because
if they were really concerned. And by the way, I
also understand why owners or teams. As a bad team,
you need the infusion of talent, So I understand not
wanting to tie it to wins, but if you really
wanted to deter tanking, there would be some type of
incentive for winning, not purely just trying to punish teams
for losing too much. And I don't like none of
these accomplish the former. It feels to me they've talked
about this for how long now, and this is what
they came up with, even if they really only focus
thought at this season. I'm reading these and it's like,
that's it, that's the these are the big solves.
Speaker 2: They're they're half measures, and they're they're sort of in
a class of measures that aren't even the best class
of measures for addressing the problem, which is incentivizing if
you're like we've said, this has been the drum beat forever,
not just us, but like the problem is, you are
not incentivized to win every game, and until that changes
you you the best you can do is stuff like
we're talking about is just you know, you move the
section of the standings where tanking makes sense. You make
tanking slightly less statistically beneficial, but it doesn't change the
fundamental makeup of the system. It doesn't she is. So
you might tweak team behavior, you're not going to change
the overarching incentives, which say you should lose if if
you can't win, you should lose. And and until we
address the core issue of winning, isn't the best thing
for a lot of teams, Like you're never gonna do
better than like a C minus on any of these things.
I don't think.
Speaker 1: My other question would be I've never sat there and
ranked what I think are the NBA's biggest problems. But
anecdotally speaking, I don't hear a lot of people like
I don't watch the NBA because these teams are so
bad and they're tanking. That's never been interesting, though not never,
But that's not something I hear a lot. It's more
so focused on teams shoot too many threes, stars don't play.
Every team plays the same way, and those all have
varying degrees and levels of truth slash false falsities to them.
I do wonder is there an over emphasis on over
emphasis on trying to fix tanking or do you think
that it's a huge because if to me you mentioned it,
it's half measures so to me, you need to decide
is this a wholesale issue, and if it is.
Speaker 3: Go whole hog.
Speaker 1: Apparently I'm just gonna stick with the pig analogies here,
go whole hog and like actually incentivize winning and if
you don't, if you think it just needs a tweak,
are the we're gonna do bottom five?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they we're really good, right right then?
Speaker 1: Okay, sure, but like don't and then they didn't even
like change the pick protections. Maybe that'll be a different
discussion that they thought would have helped.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious as to they probably have other issues
to solve, which is it doesn't seem like I mean,
the issues would be like the schedule is probably too long,
that's never gonna change. But I don't know that addressing
tanking is a way of well, the longer schedule be
made more compelling. I'm just curious one whether that's possible,
and two whether any of these proposals that we just
went through do that even on a minor scale.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I think that's fair. I think I think
to me, I get there's you know, the discourse is
what it is, and it's hard to again like we
talk about all the time offline. It's like it's hard
to know what's real because depending on the silo you're in,
something could seem some issue could seem like a ten
out of ten, and your next door neighbor is like
unaware the issue exists. We just we don't have a
good sense of the scale of problems. I don't think personally,
other than the length of the season, tanking is to
me the biggest issue, like just for my my personal
consumption of the NBA. What what I think an issue
as a as an avid sports gambler. I know, I
just think to me, it matters more than the perception
of like free throw discrepancy or like stylistic homogeneity or
whatever other things things have come up. I think tanking
is gambling. I think tanking is a bigger issue than gambling.
I just I think it's a pretty it's a It's
as core of an issue to the quality of the
game as you can get excluding length of season.
Speaker 1: So I can I ask you a question, though, do
you think it's because of the length of the season
that you viewed tanking is so egregious?
Speaker 2: They're related? I think, I know, I do. I think
they're related. I think almost almost all of the issues
that you might talk about are related to the length
of the season in some way. So yeah, so I
do think it's a big deal. I like that they're
doing something. This is These aren't like abominable solutions. They
do feel like you might you said performative. There might.
They're certainly a performative aspect because the league is like,
everybody's pissed about this, we must do something. But it's
better than nothing. It's certainly not as good as the
solution could be if you were really going to actually
address the core problem. Can I ask you something unless
you want to add to that the proposal, it's not
a proposal, just someone was kicking the idea around of
what if the games were forty minutes long instead of
forty eight, and you could keep eighty two, but they're
forty minutes, Like how long? How far would that go
towards solving a lot of the season's too long issues.
Speaker 1: Now, you might run into the same problem if you
did noticeably short in the schedule. But I wonder how
long it would take for data to show that if
a player is playing twenty six minutes instead of thirty
four when you shorten the game by eight, that they're
just going to be better healthier. I just think that
would move towards that discussion. And I almost wonder for
the sake of records if you're gonna make that dramatic
of a change, like when looking at the league's record,
which I'd rather just see you shorten the schedule than
eat into the gameplaytime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I well, I mean, I ask because I'm
not sure. I do think the argument that I ran
into or was raised first against the forty minute thing
is like are going to ruin like historical stat comparisons,
you know, like suddenly like no one's gonna average thirty
points a game, all all the per game numbers will
be down, which which yeah, but like it seems pretty
short sighted for a sport that's eighty years old to care,
like baseball's one hundred and whatever, one hundred and forty
years old. One hundred years ago, like it was unrecognizable.
The sport was unrecognized, Like pitchers would throw forty complete
games a year, and they you know, it's just like
now with the lee leader throws two or whatever it is,
and it's just like we still say that the strikeout
and wins records and all this other stuff matters, Like
no pitcher's ever gonna win three hundred games. Again, it's
there were plenty that did years ago, like we can
get past, I can get passed. Look at like the
Wilts and Oscar Robertson numbers and just all these insane
numbers from not that long ago. Relatively speaking, we can
all look at those and say like, well, that was
what happened in that era, right, we could do we could.
I'm not persuaded by the stats are gonna be ruined
argument if we shorten the games or the season. Shortening
the games just appealed to me because you don't run
into the well, we're losing gate revenue, we're losing entire
broadcast games that were being paid for. It's just they're
just a little shorter. That's okay. I mean the product
would be better too. You could get in and out
in two hours, like I think fans want that. There's
a lot of I don't know this, I'm taking us
too far afield, but there's a lot of appeal to
the forty minute game. If we're never gonna shorten the
season for eighty two to.
Speaker 1: That's interesting too, And then in theory you might increase
the variance because it's would it be the same as
if you shorten a playoff series to best of five,
it's more likely if there's an upset, So is it?
Speaker 3: Does it make it?
Speaker 1: If you're extending the game, and theory the team that's
the better team is going to prevail most of the time,
you would probably be increasing variants as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the puncher's chance, it's more appealing to try
to be a puncher if if you know you only
got to catch them a couple times. I don't know,
can I ask?
Speaker 1: Because I'm two in the basketball so I like follow
basketball now and like my I just don't have the
capacity is basketball and.
Speaker 3: Like tennis a little bit.
Speaker 1: I keep getting this when I do any podcast spots
or radio spots. They always ask me when I when
I bring up the schedules, say it's not going to change,
but the schedule is too long, and that's the root.
Speaker 3: Of a lot of this.
Speaker 1: Then well they don't have that problem in baseball and
there's one hundred and sixty two games.
Speaker 3: What is do you have?
Speaker 1: I know you follow baseball a little bit, like what
is the what is the pulse on that with fans
and what makes it so different from what the NBA
is dealing with.
Speaker 3: As whether functionally or perceptionally.
Speaker 2: I mean, part of it is the sheer age of
the sport. It's just, you know, it's been one hundred
and sixty two games for a long time. I actually
I don't know. I'm it hasn't always been one sixty two.
It's not an issue for several reasons. I think one
is Baseball's is predominantly a stationary sport. And the physical toll. Yeah,
there's a physical toll, Like guys are broken down in
August or whatever it's that, they call them the dog days.
It's just baseball's rough around. Then it's kind of like
January in the NBA. It's kind of just like, oh
my god, we how much longer do we have? I
don't think there's the same. The physical toll is different.
I think there's also again, there's not an incentive to
tank in baseball. It's it's just a totally different set
of circumstances. So like if you think the length of
the season is somewhat related to tanking, like that's not
a threat that that that doesn't apply in baseball, there's not.
To me, there's there hasn't been any discussion about shortening
the baseball season. I don't think anybody wants it. Maybe
I'm wrong, but it's it's certainly not anything close to
the level of the NBA where it's like this is
the number one thing that everyone agrees needs to happen,
and it hasn't happened.
Speaker 1: It's not like that at all, which I just find interesting. Then,
because it's like one hundred and sixty two games is
a lot. It's a lot of those games are longer
than most NBA games, aren't they They're long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's the other thing. Baseball has been
very proactive in improving the product for fans and viewers,
like they're shortening games. They've instituted the pitch clock, and
it's you're getting a lot more two hour games now
then you there was a minute there where you could
get three and four hour games like very routinely, so
they've addressed that. I just think I think because the
season is too long argument makes so much sense in
the NBA. Is it's just like it's very obvious that
teams and players are breaking down and I don't feel
like that's There hasn't been a one to one connection
like that in baseball that I'm aware of.
Speaker 1: And by the way, just to close up the thing
that needs to be mentioned whenever it's is in basketball.
I think it's always going to prevail to some extent
because it is the team sport where a singular person
can make the biggest difference, and that's something that gets overlooked.
Speaker 3: I feel like a lot in those discussions. Yep, yeah,
gready to take us out of here, sir, yep.
Speaker 2: Thanks everybody for listening, for watching, for listening to us,
and watching us solve all of the problems that face
the league. At least we've done at least as much
as this latest round of solutions from the NBA has done.
I would say, if not more, please murder, rate, review
and subscribe. Join our discord links for that in the
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Speaker 3: Let us know your biggest misses too.
Speaker 1: If you had any that diverge from this list, I
think a lot of the misses were probably like the
Suns and the hornet showing up feel pretty consensus. I
think a lot of people might have been in front
of the spurs more than we are.
Speaker 3: I'm sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet that's the one where there's the most
the largest share of people will say, well, we we
didn't predict Wenby to be a super duperstar, and this
first also not be very good because we're not idiots.
We we parlayed that. That's a that's a classic avid gambler.
That's a parlay. So you're probably gonna want to want
to get on the on the ticket, Tell your friends,
tell your enemies. Shouts Franklin like Kino. Apologies, Jared Allen