Speaker 1: To kind of an impromptu live hang just talking the
Clippers media day that is still happening right now. I
believe Kevin Porter Junior is talking to the media. It
seems like he's kind of like doing his own thing,
which is fine. I guess I think that makes sense.
Just wondering if they wanted to like make it easy
for him giving him the questions he was probably gonna
be asked, but that is not the most important thing
that was talked about during media day. I'm a little
torn kind of between uh, you know, like there was
some Kawhi stuff. Kawhi I mean, obviously happy he was there,
great to see. We didn't really get any new information.
If you're expecting new information on the Kawhi Leonard knee situation,
I wish we had it. Unfortunately we don't, So that's
where we're at. He does want to be ready for
Opening Night. That was talked about a lot. You'll probably
see some tweets that were worded like Kawhi Leonard intends
to play Opening Night mentally the end of taking it
in this day by day scenario. So I don't know
what I would not expect Kawhi Leonard to play Opening night.
I think you could probably put some solid money on
Batoom being the opening night for just with how things
are going. The full quote from Kawhi was, we're taking
it day by day. Everything has been going great for
the past month, but they're being very cautious. Sure, in
the past, I haven't been able to finish playoff runs,
so making sure I stay healthy for those important moments. Yeah,
I think that makes sense. Yes, Adam is live on
his show. Yeah, he's doing his live thing. I'm doing
ours on Clips and Dip because that is the only
Clippers podcast that I am a part of. Kawhi did
bring up some a good point. He said he went
from zero games to fifty two to sixty eight in
three years. He says he's aware of how he wants
to get back onto the court and all that good stuff.
So yeah, I don't know, I don't know. Want to
say it was a roller coaster of answers from Kawhi Leonard,
but it was up and down. You know, he met
kind of the saddest part. And I don't mean this
like in a mean way. It's just like if you
watched him in that in Game three, I think it
was it, you know, it was kind of it was disheartening,
but he mentioned that the inflammation in his knee is
something that he could have to do with for the
rest of his career. But he says he and the
medical staff have a handle on it and are doing
what his needed to keep it from being something that
will be an issue down the road. So they're working
on it. I don't think any of us thought they weren't,
but it just, yeah, I don't know, more of the same.
They're taking it cautious. Yeah, I probably wouldn't put any
substantial amount of money on him being the starting four
for the Clippers opening night, Steve Rodriguez saying probably out
for all of November. Hope not. That would be bad.
I don't really know if I would subscribe to that thought.
I would not want that to happen. Thank you for
bringing this up, l z O. James Harden really did
sound like he's ready to start scoring again from his quotes.
Aggression was kind of the main thing you heard from
like all of his responses. I think everyone's pretty hyped
up on that. We'll get we'll get some of the
classic stuff. By way, he wants to leave a legacy here.
He says it's he loves playing here. We love that.
I think we ran down one week how many times
he said that for teams that he's played for. But hey,
this actually is home, so that's good. He's excited for
Zubac to be used in the offense more. Whether that
means more pick and roll or more just Zoo shots,
we'll find out. Yeah, I don't know. It feels like yeah,
he talked about kind of pecking order and things like that,
but we're gonna see. I put this on the Clippers
Pod Twitter. How many forty point games do you think
James Harden will have for the Clippers next year? He
had none last year with this new look for the
starting lineup, which we're gonna get into some of the
Norm Powell comments, because Norm Powell was saying he was
very much talking about wanting to be a starter. There's
a lack of scoring if Norm Powell is not in
the starting lineup. I'm not advocating for him to be
in the starting lineup, but since we know it's an
open competition, that is something that could be happening. But
I think James Harden is going to have I put
the line in my notes is one and a half
forty point games for Harden next season over under, I
think it's gonna be over I think he's gonna have
a boatload of these thirty to thirty five point games.
And by boatload, I'm not saying he's gonna average thirty,
but we're gonna get more of those. Oh shit. James
Harden is a system nights, I think from the Clippers
next season, which will be needed. We are going to
need James Harden to be more aggressive if the Clippers
are going to make noise and surprise people, which was
another large theme of this media day. A lot of
Nico talked about it. Terrence talked about it like this
team's gonna surprise people and all that stuff. For reference
on James Harden being more aggressive and scoring again, as
Lzo said in the comments, he took eleven point five
four field goal attempts last season for the Clippers, which
was his fewest field goal attempts since twenty eleven. So
there is some room for growth there for James Harden,
which will be needed. So expect his field goal attempts
to go up if you could find I guess this
is kind of weirdly becoming kind of a betting stream
a little bit. If you can find any number on
his forty point games, if he could get that at
like one and a half or two and a half,
maybe take the over. I don't know. But yeah, James
Harden's going to be more aggressive. There is going to
be this balance between. Okay, so James Harden being aggressive
is great, right, A lot of that is ISO and
as Dime Dropper says, heliocentric ball, which is absolutely correct.
He is the system all that stuff. So finding a
balance between James Harden being aggressive, which is going to
happen in ISO, and then being better than last and
passes per game, which the Clippers were last season, is
going to be difficult for Tyler. That passes per game
stat has really been hammered home these last like two
weeks or so. So I'm interested to see how they
work on this balance. I think it can work. There's
so many new pieces they are going to have to
figure stuff out. We'll talk about Derek Jones Junior and
Norman Terrence in a second two. But yeah, James Harden
is ready to kind of attack again, which is great.
The field goal attempts got to assume they're going to
be closer to fifteen per game as opposed to eleven
and the three point attempts kind of average. He was
at seven six point eight last year. I don't see
that going too crazy. The highest he's ever averaged was thirteen,
and I don't think that would actually be good for
the Clippers. Steve Rodriguez also, thanks for having for hanging out.
I know this is a workday, streams. I appreciate the hangs.
Do you think having made Kawhi play power forward so
much has ultimately harmed his knees? I don't. I think
Kawhi could have played any of the positions, and because
of how things work with his body and with his luck,
it could have happened if he was playing the three,
like It's not like I don't know. I don't. I
don't think so. I don't have like a huge medical background,
but I don't think playing the four is. I think
he just has bad knees right like, I think he
just has he unfortunately has to deal with just having
a degenerative quad and knee issue, which sucks. But I
don't think it was him playing the power forward position
or I also I think and if it was, I
think he could have just been like, no, I don't
want to do this, So I don't think it was
so this is Yeah, another great point that I was
thinking about too. The only concern that LISO has outside
of Kawhi and Norm, no one can really find their
own shot, which is going to be taxing for James.
And this is a great segue into kind of what
Norm was talking about. Okay, shout out Steve Rodriguez for
watching on your lunch break. Appreciate that. Maybe watch when
you're getting paid to the Ultimate Double Whammie. If you're listening.
If you're watching this, thank you. If you're listening. This
was a live I'm probably just gonna put this out
with an intro or something. We'll figure it out. Back
to the concern about shooting, Yes, outside of Kawhi Norm,
no one can really find their own shot. I totally
agree with that. Norm talked a lot about wanting to start.
He also mentioned he wants to help the team anyway
they can. It wasn't necessarily like pointed at like I
want to be a starter, that's it. He wants to
prove the media wrong all that stuff, but he wants
to show why he can start in training camp, and
I mean offensively. I don't think anyone would argue that
an offensive backcourt of James Harden and Norm Powell would
be awesome to watch. That would be a lot of fun.
There is the issue of the other side of the ball,
which is where things get a little dicey. If Norm
Powell uh and uh, you know James Hardner out there together,
that's where things become very bad. I'm gonna I'm just
gonna say bad. That is not a good defensive backcourt
to have for the Clippers, and I don't think you
can really argue against that. I love again, I love
the offense, but the defense of that rough. So that's
a weird thing to balance. It's gonna be an odd
balance year, I think is a theme we're gonna see.
There's a bunch of new guys, so it's not super surprising.
But for me, I think Norm showing why he can
start it starts with defense. It really just does the
lob the jam. The Pod brought up a great point.
They said Norma is the most kind of Paul Georgie
type of player of the Clippers have to fill a
lot of the void left by George offensively, there's a
real debate that he's the cleanest fit to start to
maintain a bit of what the team looks like last year,
but the defense would take a big hit. It's just
and if you put him over Terrence Man in the
starting lineup, the team is real small, right, So you
got like you got Harden, Norm at the two, DJJ
Kawhi and then Zoo. It's just not I don't know
the camp battle for the starting two spot, which I
think is Terrence Man's to lose, especially if you look
at the contract he signed that was starter money. Law
Murray was correct about that. He's right about a lot
of stuff. That's gonna be interesting to see because there, yeah,
there is gonna need to be some offensive punch, like
who is going to bring that. Obviously James Harden's field
goals attemps are going to go up, but so did
Terrence Man's. We need Terrence Mann to take more threes.
That is something that he's talked about. It's it's a
lot of stuff, so it's going to be interesting. That
is the biggest question that and also what the hell
is going to happen with the EATSA Zubot sits on
the bench, because it's not like there's a super clean
fit at the backup five for that scenario. Another thing
Norm talked about was wanting to show off his pick
and roll abilities, which if you're a longtime fan of
the Clippers, you know that we do have some backup
point guards who have some phenomenal We have a history
of a pedigree of a great pick and roll with
the backup two. So I don't know. I'm assuming he
wants to show off the playmaking and the pick and
roll with Zubots because that would be the only other
person that I could see running an affishient pick and
roll with Norm Powell. I don't think Mo Bamba or
Kai Jones would help Norm work on his pick and
roll efficiency. I think that's got to be Zoo. That's
got to mean he's starting. Hey, Lloyd Tack will thank
you for the two dollars, got Lee's packs a cider
for new season. Go clips. Hell Yeah, love the energy
that is that is peak media day energy, Lloyd. I
appreciate it. Excited for the new season, Go Clips, appreciate
you Am Productions. James will be leading score in assistpan
this season. Yes, I agree, one hundred percent. Uh. Someone
on my Twitter was saying that because Kauhi is out,
there's no second option, which is wrong. I think Kawhi
is the second option. James Harden is the first option.
This is I don't mean that disrespectfully or anything like that.
Like he is the first option. He's more available, He's
going to play more, He's going to be asked to
score more offensively. James Harden will be the first option.
But am Productions, You're totally right. KPJ will shock most
of Clipper Nation. He can be our joker. Do you
mean Jokic or the Joker the fictional character. I'm lost,
I don't know, unclear on what the KPJ situation is.
He's talking to media kind of right now. Actually, you know,
he always believed in himself. He's doing counseling. Yeah, you know,
things he like learned when in his time away from
the league. I do want to point out one thing
about Kevin Porter Jr. And I don't think this is
going to go the way people think it's gonna go.
He wore some big ass boots to media day today
and I think everyone should see that. If you missed it,
here are the boots or these are huge. Why is
he wearing such big ass boots? I don't get it.
Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this is funny,
but this fit. I'm dying at this. These are the
biggest boots I've ever seen at media Day. These are
maybe the biggest boots you've ever seen in your life
because it's an NBA player. I don't know. I thought
this was funny. Off on the comins if you think
KPJ wearing the biggest boots in the history of media
Day was funny? All right? Enough of that? Uh, Luca
each two three, one of our international listeners. Thanks for
hanging out, Luke. I appreciate that. He They ask a
very fair question, how disappointed you and Zubot not growing
his hair out over the season? Constantly disappointed? My disappointment
knows no bounds, and my sadness is immeasurable. Uh No, Zoo,
it was so great to see Zoo. He mentioned he
was happy the Clippers resigned James Harden, which, yeah, I
would be too. It looks like it like he just
why was he wearing those boots? If I were at
Media Day and I wasn't having to work, I would
have held up my hand, and I said, and what
about the boots. Okay, back to back to zubats Uh.
He's happy that they resigned James Harden. I think that
makes sense. He looked phenomenal with James Harden when he
was running the pick and roll. He also mentioned that
he thinks he's going to see an increased offensive workload
this season with the major departures. He talked about his
post game, he said, just being painthent when patient, excuse me,
when I get the ball down there, taking my time,
using my body, my strength and my height. If there
is one thing Paul George got right, it was that
Zubots needs to play like the biggest guy on the court.
He was totally right about that, and I think we'll
see that. There was a great stat about his hook
shot last year. Sixty five percent on hook shots last season.
Very efficient shot, pretty easy thing to do. We're gonna
see more pick and roll. And there's a guy on
my twitter, Coach Bell, who mentioned I mentioned that a
big way to get this going for Zeus is just
play in more minutes. He needs to probably be at
like thirty or something like that, but also just more
Zoo centric possessions. Outside of being you know, set in
the screen in the pick and roll, which is very important.
He's very good at it. He can pass out of
the short roll well, just giving him the ball and
saying go to work, just go do your thing, giant Croatian.
That will be good to see. Zoo seems ready for it.
He seems excited about it. So yeah, good to see.
And again a great off season from Zoo. Just a
great showing at the Olympics. It's good stuff. Oh, this
is an interesting call. I didn't even catch this. Great call.
KPJ used to wear number three. Does this mean CP
three jersey retirement? I don't know. That would be pretty cool.
We talked about on the show. We would want one
of Blake or CP three's retirements to happen when Paul
George returns, just to take the thunder away, take all
the thunder away from Paul George returning, retire CP three's
jersey when they do that. They'll probably do it when
the Clinton Spurs. That's an interesting catch though, Thank you
for catching that. Let's keep an eye on that. Jeremy
Morrien says, Subchuck, what's going on? Jared Chunk is very
excited for James Harden. Yeah, this was a you know,
media day is so funny. I don't know how many
people are you know, used to media days, but they're fun.
The optimism is good to have, right, Like it's a
whole new day, you know, new season. It's all good stuff.
It should be a good time. And this was a
fairly it's kind of a boring media day, but you
want that. You don't want an eventful media day. The
first media day in the two one three era after
we got Kawhi and PG Doc Rivers didn't talk to
the media, and I remember being like, this seems weird
and bad. I don't know, just something. Yeah, Lloyd, I
think this is gonna happen. It should happen. I don't
think anyone would argue against that at all. We talked
about hard, and we talked about normal. We talked about Kawhi,
we talked about Zoo. Nico's back. Nick Patoum was back, obviously,
everyone very excited about that. Said he tried to beat
Team USA in the summer, couldn't do it, which sucks.
He added to the thread of you know, the Clippers
surprising people and things like that, which it's true and
there's no one better to have on the team to
help you set a tone defensively than Nick Patum. I
also believe he'll probably be starting Opening night for the
Clippers out the four. Just we don't know if Ka'
is gonna be back from Niko's the second best one
on there. Yeah again with the with the surprise, so
chunk Sampson in the comments saying, we honestly are so
deep though I always forget someone, Oh we got Patumb,
Oh we got done and you know we got DJJ,
we got I think we're gonna surprise people. Yeah, there's
no expectations. There's no expectations, and there's no incentive to lose.
It's not we do not need to be the team.
We can't be the team who's like looking for draftics
and stuff like that. So we need to surprise people. Basically,
Terrence Mann spoke. I didn't see a bunch of quotes
from Terrence. I saw one quote from Joey Linn, which
thank you for posting that, Joey. Jeremy Morton, I think
this team is being underrated. Yeah, very good point. Love this,
I love this take. Yeah, but just not a lot
of Terrence quotes which I thought was interesting. You know,
he did get the new contract, which we haven't talked
about on the show as a collective, yet we were
all hyped on it. It's incredibly it's an incredibly team
friendly contract. It lets him get another big contract after this,
which is cool, and it's flexible if they have to
trade him. I don't want to trade him, but it's
flexible if they have to. I'm trying to find some
more Terrence Man quotes, but he had. You know, I
think Terrence Man was maybe king of the cliches today,
and I don't mean that in a bad way. Sometimes
you just got to fire off some cliches, you know.
We gotta be a competitive team. A lot of dogs
on the roster ready to go to war. Can only
get through so many cliches, you know what I mean.
But his contract locked up, which is great. I was
kind of worried about that, just from like a how
are we gonna pay him? You know, if he's not starting,
because he's not guaranteed a starting spot. I do believe
that he very much has the inside track for the
starting spot, but it's his to lose. He does have
to show he needs to shoot more threes and he
needs to rebound better for his position. We can all
agree on that. I love Terrence, but he does have
to do those things. Yeah. Derek Jones Junior spoke he
was told to be aggressive on offense and he threatened
malice under the rim if people are there. I agree.
I also think, like, hey, the dunks, those are gonna
be great. I'm very excited to see the dunks. We're
gonna see some hardened DJJ lobbs. They're gonna be reminiscent,
obsity vibe wise. Maybe not levels of success wise, but
Lisa saying, I think the key to success is if
t Man and DJJ hit their threes huge. That is
so important for them to do not. Yeah, Derek Jone
Junior needs to shoot like the first three rounds of
the playoffs last year, kind of the whole year for
the Clippers. Career wise, he's like thirty four point eight
or something. Let me look it up real quick. Also,
if you're on stream and you are thank you for
dealing with my typing. I know you can hear the
typing and it's annoying. Yeah, he was Okay, he was worse.
He was at thirty four percent on threes last year.
He's gotta be I don't know, four points percentage higher
than that. He's got to be at thirty eight or
something like that, like this is this is You're absolutely correct,
lz Ouh. It's very It's key and he again, he's
gonna be aggressive on offense. He's got to make the threes.
Him and Terrence both have to take and make their threes.
Derek Jones Junior averaged three point one three point attempts
last year, and I believe Terrence was at it might
have been the last two point seven. Both of those
guys need to be at at least five. That it's
crazy that Terrence was averaging fewer than Derek Jones Junior.
That shit has to change. Both of those guys need
to be over five. They have to be over five.
The issue is going to be finding that balance of
the ISO basketball that Harden will need to play it
sometimes and being able to move the ball get they don't.
They can sag off Derek Jones Junior right now, you
know they He has to prove to other defenses that
his shooting from outside is real. Same with Terrence Man two.
Very important and it's gonna be a lot the starting lineup.
It makes one of the things that's going to be
difficult this year is figuring out just what lineups work
best without Kawhi. It's going to be he's going to
be in and out of the lineup. We don't. I don't.
I'm not gonna, you know what I mean, like sit
here and pretend like he's going to be sixty games
or whatever so that it's going to be difficult to
find some rhythm. So we I hope they can hit
this soon. Jeremy Moreman asking does the league have to
decide whether KPJ will be suspended before the start of
the season or is it just whenever they decide. I'm
gonna be honest, I have no idea. I think it's
whenever they decide. He's at training, Candler flying to Hawaii.
I think tonight. I just think it's whenever they decide.
I have no insight on that. If I hear something,
we will let y'all know. I did think it was weird.
I don't know if you're gonna sign a guy like KPJ.
He's still gonna answer questions. Why do it off to
the side, Like, I don't nothing crazy is gonna happen.
Thoughts on the starters. I think the starters for opening night,
I think it's gonna be I mean the guaranteed spots, right,
James Harden, Aviatzazo Bots. I think the other three spots
are gonna be Terrence Man, Dirk John Jr. And only
because we don't really know Kaui's availability. Again, he intends
to play, but he always intends to play. And again
I don't mean that disrespectfully. He always intends to play.
He just gets hurt unfortunately. Yeah, so I think I
think we'll probably see Nico, but I think I think
it's gonna be Terrence Man and Derek Jones Junior. I
don't know if they're gonna open the season if Kawhi
isn't available. I don't see how you can open the
season with Norm at the two because then the defense
is just like we're just all over the place defensively. Offensively,
it's still weird, right because you have Nico with the four,
who is not someone who can get his own shot.
He can hit the open three, but he's not getting
his own shot. So it's gonna be the lineups are
gonna be wonky. Not that we haven't dealt with wonky
lineups from Tyler before. We're gonna see some three yard stuff.
That's just how it goes. Whoa l z O asking
what would you have to happen for Kuhi to be
on the training block come the deadline? I mean, it'd
have to be playing out of his mind, but I
don't think again, there's no incentive if the Clippers had
their draft pick this year. I think it's a way
different conversation, you know what I mean? But I just don't.
I don't even know what Kawhi's value is. What is
Kawhi's value? It seems incredibly low. I think the Clippers
kind of showed last year, right, like we got the
sixty plus games, then he couldn't play the playoffs, so
like they kind of inadvertently showed like it's kind of
impossible to figure out Kawhi's value. And again I don't
mean that disrespectfully, but like, what is it someone put
in the chat what you think the return for Kuhi
would be? Realistically? Don't send me anything insane, But I
generally don't know what it is at first round pick, right,
It's weird, he's not He's not even ready to play
right now. It seems so. I don't know. This is depressing,
fair question, but depressing. Jayden arm Song saying, damn those
Clippers picks that okay see have is going to be
so nice for them. Yeah, we'll see. Maybe it is
a mystery box, Jeremy, it is absolutely a mystery box.
We have no idea. Uh, Brandon Miller for Kawhi one
for one, No, I don't think they would do that.
I don't know. I don't want to talk about traits anymore.
It's media day. We should be full of hope now,
I don't know. It's yeah, we're gonna see the growing
pains are really going to be on offense. We gotta
figure out how to get to be not last and
passes per game, and we were like dead last and
passes per game like a large percentage lower than the
twenty ninth team, which I think was the Maps or
something like that. On the pick and roll, I think
you will see the Clippers were top ten in points.
I don't know where this sums up is coming from. Uh,
the Clippers were top ten in points per possession in
the clipping roll in the pick and roll last year,
but they were I think twentieth in frequency. We're gonna
see so much more pick and roll, which is good.
We need that. As for the whoever's gonna run on
the second unit when zu bots is out, no idea.
I'm assuming it's gonna be Kai Jones because he has
a better post game than Mobamba. I think that kind
of hurts my head to think about. So we'll see
Renzo the gamer. Kawhi is gonna play fifty games this season.
Sign me up, Sign me up, Renzo. We figured out
there's already like sixteen, there's how many back to backs.
He's not gonna play back to backs. I don't think
how would you feel if I would be kind be
like what he doesn't? No, don't do it. I would
love fifty games from Kaui. Again, we want Kauwi to play,
but he's also you know he mentioned too, the training
staff wants him to be, you know, ready for the
important moments. You know what I mean, Like the the
important moments is the playoffs and things like that. So
we're gonna see some generational load management from the Clippers
I think this season, and that should happen again. Kawhi
is a hurt guy. It sucks but it is what
it is, all right. We got a couple more minutes here.
If you guys want to keep sending questions, that's great.
If not, probably just gonna wrap it up in a
few I want to give before the season starts. And
I'm sure if you're watching a Clippers stream at noon
on a Monday, you are already aware of this show
us some love to the Beat reporters. They do a
lot of great work for the Clippers, which is a
very differfficult team to report on. If you think you're
frustrated with the amount of information that the team is giving,
you think if your entire job depended on writing about
that team. You guys know, you guys all probably have
a favorite Beat writer. Shout out to La Murray, Shout
out to Tomayr, Justin Russo, Joey Lynn Farbaud Die I'm
counting dime. He covers it every single day. Law Kelly
Johnson Like there's just I don't know. Follow him on Twitter.
Remember the great work they do throughout the season. Read
their stuff leading up to the season. Shout out to
the Beat writers. Yeah, here's to the clips. Okay, I
like this take. We're gonna go out on this follow
pieces fall correctly, I can see us having a twenty
twenty two Warriors type of season. Sign me the hell up,
let's do it. Yeah, I would take that, like anyone
watching this would take that. M Yeah, that about wraps
it up for me. I'm gonna go back to work.
Thank you for hanging out. We're gonna be back with
the full crew on Wednesday. It's gonna be Adam Will
and myself and then we're gonna be talking to the
Clippers preseason game. It's happening on Saturday, which is going
to be fantastic. There's a heat wave coming back, so
everyone please stay cool, and we'll be doing a live
stream after the Clippers Game two on Saturday to talk
what I'm sure will be an eye opening, wonderful victory
for the Clippers. Thank you for watching. If you're listening
to this, thank you for listening to this. We will
be back on Wednesday, and as always