Speaker 1: I love these guys. Oh man, I gotta say once.
Speaker 1: I took the four down to Brooklyn out of French
Speaker 1: seventy five and a Mancho Lte just checked him out outdoor.
Speaker 2: Venue is small, two thousand people. It's one of my
Speaker 2: favorite bands. Who this is?
Speaker 1: This has to be uh, this has to be the
Speaker 1: airborne toxic event right as you know I introduce.
Speaker 2: You to them. I liked him two minutes ago. I
Speaker 2: liked him before. It was cool? Man, you did? I did?
Speaker 2: And yeah, you showed me them at the commercial break?
Speaker 2: Who's on? Who's our next guest? Mister Howard Beck?
Speaker 1: Oh, what a coincidence on a Friday, Howard?
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 1: Sir?
Speaker 3: That was a great bit? Did I fantastic? Did great?
Speaker 2: Did I check all the boxes?
Speaker 3: I'm not a Macha guy. My daughter who is born
Speaker 3: and raised in Brooklyn very much a Macha person and
Speaker 3: a Mancho Latte person. Not me. I'm like, clearly not
Speaker 3: quite Brooklyn hip enough. But I do appreciate being brought
Speaker 3: into the uh phenomenal uh tones tunes of everyone talks
Speaker 3: the event. I believe I mentioned to you just a
Speaker 3: week ago at this.
Speaker 1: Time you did, and you caught me off guard. So
Speaker 1: I did my research because you know me, I do
Speaker 1: my own research.
Speaker 2: Me and stock. That's how we roll, and uh jammed
Speaker 2: out to some.
Speaker 1: They're very good. So I appreciate you bringing them into
Speaker 1: my life.
Speaker 3: Uh, you're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed them. There there's
Speaker 3: quite a broad catalog of theirs to explore, so very nice.
Speaker 1: So, Howard, the best time to do what the Jazz
Speaker 1: are doing was two years ago. The second best time
Speaker 1: to do what they're doing is now. I'm ordering my
Speaker 1: Cooper Flag Jazz uniform. I am all in now. We
Speaker 1: have a fan base that's bummed out. But I have
Speaker 1: not been this optimistic about the Jazz for a number
Speaker 1: of years. Oh and six baby stack those el's.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're doing a fantastic job of tanking without
Speaker 3: even like they have even pulled the plug on marketing
Speaker 3: yet or any of the other vet they have been, like,
Speaker 3: you know, traded Jordan Clarkson for five second round picks
Speaker 3: yet or any of that, and so plenty of still
Speaker 3: you know, tank delicious maneuvering to look forward to.
Speaker 1: This has to be the deal though, right, I mean
Speaker 1: I've talked about this earlier. Somebody who has been on
Speaker 1: this side of a microphone for eighteen years, but spent
Speaker 1: years on the other side of the doors, where some
Speaker 1: decisions are made. Teams will tell you what the message is,
Speaker 1: but you have to watch what they do to understand
Speaker 1: the actual deal. So when they say things like developments
Speaker 1: and youth movements, it's like NBA lingo for we're probably going.
Speaker 2: To lose a lot this year. This has to be
Speaker 2: the deal, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, like we've talked about this that the
Speaker 3: youth for the last couple of years, and I think
Speaker 3: even the messaging coming to this season. The Jazz were
Speaker 3: not in the category of say Brooklyn or Washington, who
Speaker 3: have made their intentions very clearly known by what they're doing.
Speaker 3: Neither of those teams have, say a lowry marketing. The
Speaker 3: Jazz have been try trying to kind of like be
Speaker 3: cute with this or play it down the middle, or
Speaker 3: maybe do what we call the middle build where you're
Speaker 3: still good and you're not terrible, and you don't tear down,
Speaker 3: you don't play the lottery game. But I mean you
Speaker 3: are by default, if not by design at this point
Speaker 3: and maybe by both. And you know, it's fine. I
Speaker 3: hate to say it, but it's fine, and it's probably not,
Speaker 3: you know, real enjoyable for jazz fans. But I think
Speaker 3: Jazz fans, like Nets fans, like Wizards fans, probably sitting
Speaker 3: back at a certain point, going, you know what, there's
Speaker 3: no point in winning thirty or twenty five. We might
Speaker 3: as well be bad. There's a great and it's not
Speaker 3: just Cooper Flag, right, like the two guys from Rutgers,
Speaker 3: Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper are you know, it firmly
Speaker 3: in the mix and like it's not all or nothing.
Speaker 3: You know, this is not one of those drafts where
Speaker 3: it's like, well we're gonna we're gonna tank, we're gonna
Speaker 3: have a terrible record, and oh man, we didn't win
Speaker 3: the lottery and now we're gonna regret it all. Now
Speaker 3: there's like at least three really good players and maybe more.
Speaker 3: And you know, as you know, I'm not the draft
Speaker 3: expert here, but I talked to scouts and talk to
Speaker 3: people who followed the draft, and they're pretty excited to
Speaker 3: blot three of those guys and possibly more so. It's
Speaker 3: it's a good year to be bad, and there's more
Speaker 3: than one potential price who could change the trajectory of
Speaker 3: your franchise, and you know, it's it's just the reality.
Speaker 3: It's where they are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, for me, I
Speaker 1: actually think it's great news. I wasn't sure if they're
Speaker 1: at what they were ever going to do it because
Speaker 1: the DNA of a coach is he always wants to win.
Speaker 1: And you know when you hear the ownership group or
Speaker 1: front office talk about their desires, it's big game hunting,
Speaker 1: it's ad vets and there was never a realistic avenue
Speaker 1: like this has to be the deal. But I did
Speaker 1: want to ask you one thing because I always hear
Speaker 1: people say like, well, in Salt Lake you have to draft, develop, retain,
Speaker 1: and yes, you do have to do that. But isn't
Speaker 1: that what Golden State did. Isn't that what Boston for
Speaker 1: the most part has done. And I think and we
Speaker 1: actually did see this a little bit now Mike Conley,
Speaker 1: of course at twenty five would been a bit different here,
Speaker 1: you know, at thirty three, thirty four. But once Donovan Gobert,
Speaker 1: you know, Quinn, really good coach. Once that group started
Speaker 1: to evolve and rise a little bit, then Dennis Lindsay
Speaker 1: was able to expedite to rebuild or excuse me, expedite
Speaker 1: the process by trading for Boyan, Bogdanovich and Mike Conley,
Speaker 1: and those were really good teams. So once you draft,
Speaker 1: develop and retain like Golden State did. Yes, you added Durant,
Speaker 1: which which makes it unfair, but draft, developed, retain is
Speaker 1: not just a Salt Lake ethos like kind of doesn't
Speaker 1: matter where you are.
Speaker 2: That's more or less what you have to do everywhere. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: and no.
Speaker 3: If you're a small market, it's pretty much your your
Speaker 3: only path. They Oklahoma would be another great example of it, right,
Speaker 3: both the current version and the earlier iteration when they
Speaker 3: drafted Durant and Westbrook and Harden and Ibaka. All that said,
Speaker 3: if you want to shortcut it and you're in a
Speaker 3: big market, you might be able to do it differently.
Speaker 3: Right now, we've seen big market teams flail and with
Speaker 3: over and over and over by clearing cap room and thinking, oh,
Speaker 3: just because we're the big market, they'll all want to
Speaker 3: flock here, and it doesn't work. We saw the Knicks
Speaker 3: fail at this, We've seen the Lakers fail at this.
Speaker 3: The Nets quote unquote succeeded at it when they got
Speaker 3: Durant and Kyrie Irving and it still did not end
Speaker 3: so well. And the Clippers similarly, where you know, Kawhi
Speaker 3: was the free agent and came with Paul George via trade,
Speaker 3: and you know, we could have a whole other discussion
Speaker 3: about how to qualify or assess that experiment, but like
Speaker 3: it was a success on some level and didn't go
Speaker 3: where they wanted it to go. The Sixers drafted Embiid,
Speaker 3: developed EMBIID, drafted Maxi, developed Maxi. But because of the
Speaker 3: success of those guys, it enabled them to then land
Speaker 3: Paul George. And again, you know it's early, we'll see,
Speaker 3: you know, wait for Embid and Georgia get healthy. But
Speaker 3: if the Utah Jazz or the Oklahoma City Thunder or
Speaker 3: the Memphis Grizzlies tried to do the same thing, I
Speaker 3: don't think Paul George is joining embiid in Maxi in
Speaker 3: Memphis or joining m beating Maxie in Charlotte. Like that's
Speaker 3: just the reality of the NBA. It might happen, It
Speaker 3: occasionally happens. But the truth in what you were the
Speaker 3: premise you were putting out there about, oh is it
Speaker 3: it just a Utah thing? It's small markets have to
Speaker 3: assume at the outset we're probably not landing superstar free agents,
Speaker 3: so we're gonna have to get talent the other ways,
Speaker 3: drafting them and developing them or trading for them and
Speaker 3: hoping they want to stay.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, well well said, all right, moving on now.
Speaker 1: So San Antonio was in town last night, and you know,
Speaker 1: for me, as you and I have talked about and
Speaker 1: I talked about pretty often, you know, it became pretty clear.
Speaker 1: And the jazz knew this because they had freaking Rudy
Speaker 1: Gobert here and wem ben Yama kind of burst on
Speaker 1: the scene when he was young and he was French
Speaker 1: and there was this video of him beating Gobert one
Speaker 1: on one and then I'll never forget the first time
Speaker 1: I saw the side by side of Wembenyama and Rudy
Speaker 1: and I'm like, he's like four inches taller than Gobert,
Speaker 1: who is huge. And so the best time to do
Speaker 1: what the jazz are doing now was two years ago.
Speaker 2: The second best time is now.
Speaker 1: So the jazz fans had a front row look at
Speaker 1: what they could have at least been in the mix
Speaker 1: for and there's no guarantees. And he rolls in and
Speaker 1: he puts up the dumbest statellite twenty five points, nine boards,
Speaker 1: seven assists, five steals, five blocks.
Speaker 2: There were plus forty three in his thirty four minutes.
Speaker 1: What do you think this process is going to look
Speaker 1: like with San Antonio as they now have the next
Speaker 1: great thing and now it's on a very good front
Speaker 1: office and coaching staff to make sure he's properly surrounded
Speaker 1: by players that will allow him to grow and what
Speaker 1: we all think he can be.
Speaker 3: I think what's interesting Spence about this moment for them
Speaker 3: is that they know exactly what they have. The whole
Speaker 3: league knows exactly what they have, and the potential for
Speaker 3: weemen Yama to anchor a contender for the next ten
Speaker 3: to fifteen years is right there in front of us. Right.
Speaker 3: We can all see what he's capable of, what he's
Speaker 3: already done, and with all the growth potentially to go.
Speaker 3: The interesting part to me is how quickly do you
Speaker 3: go into this phase of o case surround him with talent?
Speaker 3: Right is it? Are you developing young talent? Are you
Speaker 3: trying to go out and attract free agents who might
Speaker 3: want to play with them min Yama? Are you trading
Speaker 3: for guys, and how soon are you doing all that?
Speaker 3: What's the urgency? And it's funny, like it's not funny,
Speaker 3: but it's so telling. It's the time that we live
Speaker 3: in that already within the last few months somebody had
Speaker 3: written one of the you know, how long can can
Speaker 3: the Spurs afford to wait to create a contender? When? When? When? When?
Speaker 3: Man Yama? That's like, man, I understand, we're in a
Speaker 3: time where everything's accelerated and guys get impatient and asked
Speaker 3: out sooner and sooner. But man, nobody's asking out while
Speaker 3: still on their first three years of their rookie deal,
Speaker 3: like they have time. The urgency is not that high,
Speaker 3: but that is that is the world we live in now.
Speaker 3: And so you know, look, Devin Vesselle is a really
Speaker 3: great player or a really good player for them, and
Speaker 3: he's hurt right now. Kelton Johnson's you know, got got
Speaker 3: some some promise and was produced during their bad years.
Speaker 3: Do they have the right pieces? Are they looking for
Speaker 3: the you know, for the right pieces immediately? You know,
Speaker 3: Chris Paul is obviously just a stop gap and somebody
Speaker 3: who can help mentor Webb Yam and the other young
Speaker 3: guys but you know he's he's you know, very close
Speaker 3: to retirement. So they're they're they're not through their actions
Speaker 3: so far, they're not showing an urgency to say we've
Speaker 3: got the pedal right now and become a contender immediately.
Speaker 3: And I don't think they have to either. Like I,
Speaker 3: you know, Weyama strikes me as a very smart, very
Speaker 3: savvy guy, and I think he understands he's got a
Speaker 3: long road ahead of him. And you know, there's any
Speaker 3: franchise you should trust on day one as a rookie,
Speaker 3: it's the Spurs. So I'll be curious though, to see
Speaker 3: when do they finally hit the gas pedal, you know,
Speaker 3: when do they think it's time. I think it makes
Speaker 3: sense to not try to rush this right now, partial
Speaker 3: because they've got some young guys who you know, could
Speaker 3: develop into foundational pieces, but partially because you know, the
Speaker 3: West is stacked and you know, trying to be all
Speaker 3: in right now when you're when you're you know, still
Speaker 3: kind of on the on the rise, you don't you
Speaker 3: don't have to rush it. There's gonna be other teams
Speaker 3: that are going to start.
Speaker 2: To fall out.
Speaker 3: Like you know, again, we may have talked about this before.
Speaker 3: So you know, excuse me to the listeners if I
Speaker 3: if I'm repeating myself, but you know, the Warriors and
Speaker 3: the Lakers, the Clippers, the Suns all built around older stars,
Speaker 3: and you know the Clippers are already you know, they
Speaker 3: let Paul George go. Kawhi is hurt. The Clippers are
Speaker 3: are on their way down right. The Warriors, I think
Speaker 3: has done a really nice job of reloading right now.
Speaker 3: We'll see how much longer they can prolong their their
Speaker 3: time with Steph Curry. But it's a matter of single
Speaker 3: digit years, you know. And on the you know under
Speaker 3: five that they have left with him, and Lebron is
Speaker 3: turning forty soon like there's you know, the West is
Speaker 3: going to start to open up, and so you I
Speaker 3: think it makes sense to try to time your build
Speaker 3: around Wembenyama for when you see the opportunity to actually
Speaker 3: join the elite and have you know, the decks are
Speaker 3: not going to be clear, like the Thunder aren't going anywhere,
Speaker 3: and the Mavericks aren't going anywhere. Timberwolves may not be
Speaker 3: going anywhere, but you can you can kind of see
Speaker 3: the outline of where the West is going to be
Speaker 3: in three to five years.
Speaker 1: I want to follow up with something you referenced as
Speaker 1: far as Webbin Yama's mentality and his makeup. I have
Speaker 1: never met him, and i've never I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about him other than the first time I saw him.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, it reminded the fruit. It reminded me
Speaker 2: of the.
Speaker 1: First time I saw Lebron when ESPN televised his high
Speaker 1: school game and Walton was on the call, and that
Speaker 1: was the first time I saw it with my own eyes,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, I know he's eighteen, but he's
Speaker 1: different at seventeen or whatever. So you can tell he's different,
Speaker 1: you can tell he's next. But have you ever been
Speaker 1: able to kind of ascertain how this was created in
Speaker 1: the lab, what the makeup is the people around him,
Speaker 1: and why he seems to have had this reputation for
Speaker 1: having the perfect mentality to complement his skill set.
Speaker 3: Great question. Don't know have met him once and have
Speaker 3: not done any You know, I'm not one who's who's
Speaker 3: gotten the nice junket to France to go do the
Speaker 3: big deep dive on Wemby. So I don't have anything
Speaker 3: firsthand to tell you. But he it's so clear like that.
Speaker 3: It's there. There are play of guys who are really tall, right,
Speaker 3: there are play of guys who have been really tall,
Speaker 3: really skilled or just really skilled or whatever, the guys
Speaker 3: that succeed in this league. And the guys have become
Speaker 3: superstars because they've got other special elements to them. And
Speaker 3: and Whenben Yama's case, you know, his parents clearly raised
Speaker 3: him very well. He's very steady, he's thoughtful, he seems
Speaker 3: incredibly humble for all that that he has already been
Speaker 3: able to enjoy through his success. He clearly works hard.
Speaker 3: He's about the right things. And so you know, every
Speaker 3: team hopes to get a player at some point who
Speaker 3: has like, you know, transcendent athleticism, transcendent skill, just you
Speaker 3: know talent that that is you know, you know, off
Speaker 3: the charts, right, they go without the fine cool, great
Speaker 3: you can there are guys like that every year in
Speaker 3: the draft, but you want to get the ones who
Speaker 3: actually care and work hard and are coachable and easy
Speaker 3: to work with and are good teammates. And he seems
Speaker 3: like a dream because he seems like all of those things.
Speaker 3: The chemistry behind putting all that together from his you know,
Speaker 3: his earlier coaching his family, whatever else, all that that
Speaker 3: fed into that. I don't know. But whoever, whoever helped him,
Speaker 3: you know, along the way over the first whatever twenty
Speaker 3: years of his life, did a damn good job.
Speaker 2: It's something else to see him, man, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 1: Uh, Like I said, it's like nothing I've ever seen before.
Speaker 2: But we can move on.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get your I'm not a huge Like
Speaker 1: the ratings are down, so the league's in trouble, guy,
Speaker 1: But the ratings are bad, and you know, we have
Speaker 1: the deal in Philly with them beating Paul George, and
Speaker 1: I just I will never ever fully accept basketball players
Speaker 1: went healthy deciding they just don't feel like playing basketball.
Speaker 1: And I'm not being dismissive of injuries because those things
Speaker 1: are real. But look, it's also fall NFL college football.
Speaker 1: The World Series numbers were through the roof. But any
Speaker 1: Howard Beck thoughts on why people at this point don't
Speaker 1: seem to be consuming NBA basketball the way they used to.
Speaker 3: No, don't because it's we're a weekend, and like reading
Speaker 3: anything into ratings right now, reading anything in their early
Speaker 3: season trends right now, statistically, fouls, free throws, whatever, like
Speaker 3: it's such a small sample size, none of it means
Speaker 3: anything yet. And you know, we had the overlap of
Speaker 3: a World series involving two major markets. Is that part
Speaker 3: of it? I don't know. And that's the thing too,
Speaker 3: Like there are the people who are way smarter about
Speaker 3: ratings and how to parse them than me, and they're
Speaker 3: so contextual and subject to I'll just put it this way,
Speaker 3: people who cite ratings good or bad usually have a reason.
Speaker 3: That's usually an agenda, so and I just don't want
Speaker 3: to feed into that. Like, you know, if the ratings
Speaker 3: are dramatically down a month two months from now, and
Speaker 3: it looks like it's going to be a season long
Speaker 3: trend and something has changed, then there's a discussion to
Speaker 3: be had. But right now, there's plenty else for people
Speaker 3: to be talking about. I'm not blaming you, Spence. I'm
Speaker 3: just saying, like, my exasperation is more that I can't
Speaker 3: believe sometimes how little data we're going to go on
Speaker 3: to start trying to you know, divine meaning from a
Speaker 3: handful of numbers over the course of one week of games.
Speaker 3: It's a little much.
Speaker 1: And it's also silly to annoint or dismiss the team
Speaker 1: after four or five games. However, Milwaukee Milwaukee Howard and
Speaker 1: we're Dame fans out this way. He played his college
Speaker 1: ball about thirty miles north. So like, look, I know
Speaker 1: one in four only you know only five games so far.
Speaker 1: And I'm a doc guy, but I might be alone
Speaker 1: on the island at this point. And yes, we'll see
Speaker 1: how it plays out. But you've got to be a
Speaker 1: little bit concerned at the way they've looked so far.
Speaker 3: No, I think you gotta be a lot concerned. Listen,
Speaker 3: there's a difference. We always do like overreaction theater at
Speaker 3: this course, this stage of the season, right, and it's
Speaker 3: fine sometimes it's just for discussion purposes. But there's a
Speaker 3: difference between overreacting to a team. Like if you're freaking
Speaker 3: out about the Sixers, I think you're overreacting. Two of
Speaker 3: their three best players haven't played yet. They're gonna get healthy,
Speaker 3: they're gonna play, and then it's just a matter of
Speaker 3: can they stay healthy. But you can't freak out about
Speaker 3: the Sixers. That's ridiculous. I'm being worried about the Bucks
Speaker 3: or the Nuggets. I think is totally justifiable because you
Speaker 3: look at the fundamentals and the fundamentals don't look great
Speaker 3: like the Nuggets have, you know, demonstrably eroded since their
Speaker 3: championship a year and a half ago, and the Bucks
Speaker 3: have demonstrably eroded since their championship, you know, three and
Speaker 3: a half years ago. The the Yiannis game fit is
Speaker 3: not as great as certainly they hoped or as a
Speaker 3: lot of us expected. Their defense is not what it
Speaker 3: used to be. Middleton's hurt and when he comes back,
Speaker 3: maybe that makes a little bit of a difference. But
Speaker 3: I mean, Chris Middleton alone isn't going to fix the Bucks,
Speaker 3: to know, I think there's reason to be concerned. And
Speaker 3: on top of that, my buddy Bill Ryder at CBS
Speaker 3: Sports reports yesterday and I've checked with a few people
Speaker 3: and they pretty much confirmed that, Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of buzz around the league that the clock's sticking on Yannis,
Speaker 3: that you know, he's certainly not agitating for a trade yet,
Speaker 3: but that that day could come sooner than later. And
Speaker 3: that is worry some for a team like Milwaukee Torison,
Speaker 3: for any team with a player of his caliber. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, you take all of that and then you
Speaker 3: take you know, three coaches in a year and you
Speaker 3: know Doc has now had them from training camp on,
Speaker 3: so you can't just say, well, he came in mid season.
Speaker 3: They had to try to figure it out the fly,
Speaker 3: like no, you know, Doc had Dame Doc Damon Giannis
Speaker 3: have now had you know, half a season plus training
Speaker 3: camp and this you know, first week together and it
Speaker 3: still doesn't look good. Like that's legitimately concerning.
Speaker 1: So since you referenced Denver, let's move over there for
Speaker 1: a moment, and you know, maybe we shouldn't be all
Speaker 1: that surprised based off the talents Excuse me, they've lost.
Speaker 2: Over the past couple of years.
Speaker 1: They're clearly one of the teams that does not want
Speaker 1: to touch financial implications of spending too much cash. And
Speaker 1: we've seen it, you know, with Bruce Brown and Contavious
Speaker 1: called we all Pope, but they have in my estimation
Speaker 1: still and honestly, when I watch him, it's kind of
Speaker 1: by far.
Speaker 2: The best player in the world in Nicole Yak.
Speaker 1: Are we seeing the potential of what the Colts did
Speaker 1: with Andrew Luck are they gonna They already won a title,
Speaker 1: so he's got a ring. But I mean, this is
Speaker 1: the guy that with a market like that and they're
Speaker 1: bigger than we are, but not by much. You pray
Speaker 1: to having a Kola Jokic to build around because you're
Speaker 1: not in South Beach or La or whatever. Are they
Speaker 1: in danger of wasting this generational talent?
Speaker 3: Yes they are. And you notice I'm not hesitating here,
Speaker 3: And you know me well enough to know I am
Speaker 3: not prone to hot takes, and I'm generally one to
Speaker 3: push back on anything that seems like a hot take
Speaker 3: and then give you a bunch of really boring nuances.
Speaker 3: But they're in danger of wasting Jokicic's prime, for sure.
Speaker 3: One of the things that you've heard me talk about,
Speaker 3: I think is that in this era of the NBA,
Speaker 3: there's all these different ways you can now create a
Speaker 3: contender or a championship team. Right, you don't have to
Speaker 3: have Lebron and Wade and Bosh, you don't have to
Speaker 3: have a super team. You can have you know, Jannis
Speaker 3: plus Middleton plus Drew Holiday, Right, those those other two
Speaker 3: guys really really good perennial all NBA. No MVP caliber, No,
Speaker 3: But it was Jiannis in a great ensemble, and it
Speaker 3: was Jokic in a great ensemble. But that ensemble had
Speaker 3: very thin margin for error, right, Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Junior,
Speaker 3: not All Stars, not going to be. Jamal Murray has
Speaker 3: not been All Star or All NBA. Has that kind
Speaker 3: of talent, but doesn't stay helped you long enough to
Speaker 3: get those honors. An he's kind of a borderline guy
Speaker 3: in those categories anyway. So this is not a team
Speaker 3: that has great talent and has a lot of room
Speaker 3: for error. They were a better than the sum of
Speaker 3: their parts team when they won the title, and then
Speaker 3: they lost their sixth man and their seventh man, and
Speaker 3: then this summer they lost their you know whatever, third
Speaker 3: fourth man wherever you want to put Contavious Calblo Pope.
Speaker 3: So you've now got three of your top seven players
Speaker 3: from when you won the title. You've done nothing to
Speaker 3: replace them. You drafted a bunch of young guys that
Speaker 3: you've got a lot of faith in and hoping that
Speaker 3: they can replace the guys that went out the door.
Speaker 3: But so far none of that has happened. You know,
Speaker 3: Christian Brown's being okay, but like you know, Julian Strawther
Speaker 3: and the rest of these guys, like there's there's no
Speaker 3: indication yet that they're going to be able to fill
Speaker 3: the kind of roles that Contavious Caldwell, Pope and Bruce
Speaker 3: Brown and Jeff Green played in winning the title. And
Speaker 3: aside from that, the league has gotten better, and since
Speaker 3: the Nuggets won that title, in the West has gotten better.
Speaker 3: And Jamal Murray doesn't quite look like himself, you know.
Speaker 3: They had a not a great playoffs and and just
Speaker 3: a really you know, much worse Olympics, and so doesn't
Speaker 3: have another start to lean on. He's having to do
Speaker 3: more than ever. And they just had back to back
Speaker 3: nights where they had to go overtime to beat a
Speaker 3: couple of bad teams, including in my backyard here in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: So you know, I don't I don't know where the
Speaker 3: pivot is, if there is one, or if the Nuggets
Speaker 3: even have the ability to do it. But yeah, it's
Speaker 3: very plausible that Yokis does not make another despite being
Speaker 3: the greatest player on Earth right now.
Speaker 2: Last one, how then I'll set you loose.
Speaker 1: And like you know, Kenny Atkinson obviously is a well
Speaker 1: respected coach, and he's been a head coach before, and
Speaker 1: it's interesting watching what Golden State and Cleveland are doing,
Speaker 1: and that's playing like thirteen guys a ton of minutes.
Speaker 2: But I was skeptical.
Speaker 1: And you know, I watched the Cavs because we cheer
Speaker 1: for Donovan, well with some of us do. But you know,
Speaker 1: they beat the Rafts, they beat the Pistons, they beat
Speaker 1: the Wizards, but then they beat the Knicks and they
Speaker 1: house the Lakers and we're sitting here at five and oh,
Speaker 1: are you starting to believe that this could be a team?
Speaker 2: Because everybody talks about Boston, maybe New York?
Speaker 1: Could Cleveland have something to say about the East when
Speaker 1: it's all said and done, Tony.
Speaker 3: I like Kenny Atkinson a lot. I've known him since
Speaker 3: he was an assistant on d'antoni's staph with the Knicks
Speaker 3: and Kenny was working with Jeremy Lynn back then. Kenny
Speaker 3: did an incredible job with the Nets during a period
Speaker 3: of time when they had, you know, no real a
Speaker 3: level talent, and they were achieved every year. I'm glad
Speaker 3: to see him get another shot. And the thing I
Speaker 3: wondered going into the season was could Kenny Atkinson being
Speaker 3: a very offensive minded coach and somebody who's you know,
Speaker 3: worked under d'An TONI worked under Steve Kerr with the Warriors,
Speaker 3: would he be able to do more dynamism and variety
Speaker 3: in their offense that could have locked some things because
Speaker 3: they've got so much overlap, right, Like, I'm not convinced
Speaker 3: as I think, you know, I'm not convinced Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 3: and Darius Garland makes sense together. I'm not convinced that
Speaker 3: evan mobling together. And there are times when it seems
Speaker 3: like that team has been better when it's only you know,
Speaker 3: one guard, one big and then some bench guys as
Speaker 3: opposed to all four of their of their stars. And
Speaker 3: he looks so far, so good. Kenny Atkinson's you know,
Speaker 3: done some things too, I think get the most out
Speaker 3: of that that uh, that foursome. And this is despite
Speaker 3: missing Max Strus, who's their their fifth starter. Usually it's promising,
Speaker 3: It's it's only five games, so I'm not gonna say,
Speaker 3: like this is it. The Cavs are now in the
Speaker 3: mix to win the East or to be the team
Speaker 3: most likely to challenge Boston. But maybe maybe, especially given
Speaker 3: that the Knicks are you know, having a little bit
Speaker 3: of a bumpy right so far, and the Sixers aren't
Speaker 3: healthy so far, and we discussed the Bucks and so
Speaker 3: the Calves, right, now look like a really legit team
Speaker 3: to battle with Boston. But again, we're a weekend, all right, Howard.
Speaker 1: I'll let you go so you can drive your gearless
Speaker 1: bike to the closest vintage clothing spot and Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: grab a T shirt for the weekend.
Speaker 2: And I always appreciate the time, my friend. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I need to go pick up some artisanal honey
Speaker 3: on my way there, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah we go. Thanks buddy, have a good one.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Bet.
Speaker 1: The hippiest NBA riding around it is Howard Beck at
Speaker 1: Howard Beck on Twitter.
Speaker 2: I say it all the time.
Speaker 1: He's one of my favorite riders and has been for
Speaker 1: like twenty years, so I appreciate his time. It's always
Speaker 1: fun to catch up with him.