And now the low post-pods. Welcome to the low post-podcast on a Monday morning. Lots going on in the basketball world, kind of. Team USA, losing to Canada in the bronze medal game after losing to Germany.
The FIBA World Cup Champion, German team, congratulations to them. I have the request out for a Wagner Brothers joint appearance on the low post-podcast. We'll see about that. Dennis Schruder, holy smokes Dennis Schruder.
What a shocking outcome for Germany being Serbia, and the gold medal game Serbia balled out the entire tournament. At Cola Yovitch, bumping up his straight value for the Miami Heat. We got Christian Woods signing with the Lakers. I haven't addressed that.
And just hot off to presses as we're recording this Tim McMahon. Adrian Wojnarowski reporting. The NBA Board of Governors meeting this Wednesday in New York, maybe it's Tuesday and Wednesday, but the press conference I know is Wednesday, are gonna try to vote on, slash vote on beefing up the penalties for resting players trying to ban teams from resting to quote unquote star players at the same time. We'll see who counts as a star and beefing up the fines that you can hit teams with for resting players on national TV games in particular.
I think we'll be the focus of this. I know the league is, I believe in the schedule, kind of built in the biggest national TV games like the ABC Saturday night game so that no one is playing a back-to-back on either end of this. Where would you like to start Tim McMahon? It's been a long time.
Do you care about the resting rules? Well, first of all, Howdy, partner. Listen, company man here got the ESPN t-shirt on. I'm big on these resting rules, baby.
I think there should be like, you know, potential prison sentences, all kinds of stuff. Like let's get those ratings up. Come on, let's get the stars on TV. So I'm really- TV TV TV TV.
Can you spell that for me? That's still, do you have one of those in your home? Does anyone have those in their homes anymore? I got a bunch of them.
I got my big screens and- Can people buy televisions for anyone listening under 30? Can you go out and buy a television and subscribe to the cable television for me, please? Thank you. Anyway.
That's a man. I'll tell you what, I was trying to figure out how to get the damn red zone yesterday. Now that- Well, that's neither here nor there. This is not about our football podcast, but- There are a few more gray hairs after that experience, and no red zone, but such is life.
I got no hot takes on the resting policy other than- Sounds good to me. I'd like to see the star players play in more of the basketball games. That is the point of the basketball league is the basketball games. I'd like to see the stars play in them.
If the league has taken care, at least somewhat, to space out games so that the national TV games or at least some chunk of them are back-to-back free on both sides, play. If you can't play, prove your hurt, and if you can't prove your hurt, your team is going to pay some money. That's that. Look, this is literally being tweeted by Woj and others currently.
I have not thought more about this in a while. I remember this was a lot of the talk at the competition committee meeting at the draft combine. There was a lot of talk about beefing up penalties for resting star players for the old DMP rest. Is there a counter-argument to this?
It seems like a good idea to me to play the basketball games. I would think so, and I think that's the other thing, is your- I think teams are discovering, hey, it's probably a good idea for our star to be on the court more often than not, because, geez, Louise, this hasn't exactly worked out for the most rest-centric teams in the league. Tylu's on as big the regular season matters, crusade, all of a sudden, it's like, yeah, apparently. Yeah, Clipper, I like one of my favorite moments of a very eventful, just eventful absurd offseason.
The absurd wing of the Hall of Famers, a lot going on, was the Clippers, in particularly Tylu, talking about taking the regular season seriously as if they had made some scientific discovery. I don't know if you guys have thought about this concept, but we got to take the regular season a little bit more seriously. Our producer, Andrea, said, in our video producer, Andrea said, and as we were talking through the wrestling stuff, are Kawai and PG going to flip a coin to see who has to play in these games? I said, man, if they flip a coin, they might injure their wrists, like there may be a DNP right wrist soreness two weeks.
Do not rule out, then decide, okay, Kawai, I'll take the second half, you got the first half. You know, Kawai, there have been decisions made on a half-by-half basis with him before, not necessarily in consultation with his coach. If my screen freezes halfway through this podcast, that means I just left, took the second half off and you just have to carry it the rest of the way. Team USA.
I started its way out of the People World Cup, close lost to Germany, overtime lost to Canada after like an, this is the year of the missed free throw, turning into a clutch overtime forcing gorgame winning basket. Donovan Mitchell did it twice, both were lane violations that were not called. Luca most famously did it against the Knicks and did his little tippity tap dance afterwards and the kill bridges, did it somehow resulting in a corner three and we lost anyway. We, I'm going back to we, I got to stop with the we.
Yeah, I can't do we. Because anytime somebody says we, I say, well, what number are you, and I don't have Jersey, so it's Team USA, it's not we. So I would say, I would posit that there's a small minority of basketball fans who are like really up in arms, like, how could the US lose the, like they will use the we, like we got to feel the best of the world is catching up and the majority of the fans are like, there was a world cup that happened, like what, there were games, somewhere the US lost. You know, we're really early in the morning is what the games were.
So Team USA finished five and three with a plus 17 scoring margin. That's not great for the US. Here are wins game against the following teams, Jordan finished 30 second among 32 teams in the People World Cup. Here's without Yannes finished 15th, Montenegro 11th, Italy 8th, New Zealand 22nd.
We lost to Lithuania, Canada and Germany. All of that is a fancy way of saying we lost to every good team we played and played and beat only the bad teams. In the last six People World Cups, the US has won only two of them 2010 and 2014, we came fourth this time around and seventh in 2019, team just didn't play very well, particularly on defense. I thought the US defense just fell apart.
The last three games blowbyes all over the place, bad angles taken on closeouts, bad screen navigation, certain guys on our team, particularly Reeves and Brunson getting hunted maliciously. But I just, you know, Jared Jackson Jr., our defensive anchor, could not A stay on the floor or B get a rebound the latter of which was much more disturbing to me as a neutral observer in these national battles, international battles. So all of that is now done. It's over.
Congratulations to Germany. Congratulations to Serbia. Congratulations to Canada. Blake Murphy will be on shortly to discuss Canada's biggest moment in global basketball, maybe ever.
Now it's time to look to Paris where all of a sudden, very predictably, Ryan Williams reports this morning that the big guns are coming. LeBron wants to play. He's already called Anthony Davis, Steph Curry, they've had a confab. They all want to play.
This is what happens. The US cares about the Olympics a lot. And look, I mean, like I just said, two out of the last six is all the US is one of the world cup. Like if we don't bring our best players, we're not really a good bet to win these tournaments against teams that have A, played longer together, B are familiar with FIFA rules which are very different and C have all or most of their best guys.
So I said, let's play a fun game and I gave you three things to do, but I'm actually going to add a fourth right now. From this 12-man roster, so pretend you're Grant Hill, Sean Ford, Steve Kerr. You have unilateral authority to pick the US on the team for Paris. Pretend everybody is healthy and everybody actually wants to play.
And by the way, as we saw with Chris Middleton and Drew Holiday, if you make a deep playoff running NBA, this is an instant turnaround to the Olympics. I think the Olympics started even earlier this coming year. Yeah, but not quite as instant because that's when the schedule is still a little bit off of the norm because of all the pandemics. But it is a quick turnaround for sure.
Okay, so question one, how many people on this current team that just finished fourth, where you bring into Paris and who are they? Okay, that's the one that you didn't, you didn't give me that one. That's a tough one. Probably not very many.
I think Anthony Edwards is going to have a shot there. I think that I still think Bridges would have a shot. I think Halliburton would have a shot. Those are the three that would be my top three picks.
I'm bringing two, I'm bringing two, I'm giving these two guys spots. I'm bringing first because I just think he played great on both ends of the floor and he's a hand in glove fit on a team that is going to have more superstar talent and fewer chances for him to have the ball. Ants fit on that team is a little bit murkier. I think he'd probably go back into the Dwayne Wade bench roll that he did not seem to love when Steve Kerr first pitched to him this time around.
But I do think a guy who took the number one option, Mantle, and owned it, led the team in scoring, didn't always love his pass or shoot decision-making balance. I thought he got a little hagi at time. There was no decision-making there. You say pass or shoot.
He had the one game against Italy, or was it Italy or Monte Negro where he just didn't shoot and was passing all the time. But I'm rewarding him with the spot. We got to figure he played mostly hard defensively, his off ball defense was hit or miss at times. I'm rewarding him.
Halliburton was number three for me, and I just think I got to go TBD with him based on how many stretchy ball handling, three-point shooting point guards that are better than him that I can get on the team. Like if I have Steph and Dame or Steph and Shrei Youngle, I'm not sure I would take Shrei Youngle over Tyree Salabern. If I have two of those guys, I'm not sure I need him for a third roster. So right now I'm only committing to two.
Number two was you get three picks. They all have to come. You get three dream picks for 2024 American players. They're all going to come.
They all want to come. I stop you at three. You might have six guys that are on your list of like, I would love these guys to all play. But who are your top three first phone calls, first yeses you want to lock in?
No, two of them sounds like they are on the way, LeBron, and Steph, Steph never played in the Olympics, which is insane. You know, LeBron hadn't played in a long, long time, obviously, sounds like he's looking for Alastair Armstrong. There will be some camera, camera crews and producers hired to document the experience in Paris, which is a pretty attractive place. And then the other one, there's an asterisk on this, because you ask me about the Americans.
Well, I'm getting Joellen Bead. It's going to be a recruiting process there. You got to convince him that he's American and not French, despite the fact that he's from Cameroon. But he is eligible and boy boy do the Americans need a big man.
So Joellen Bead is top priority. So I put MB to the side and I assumed that we would not be able to convince him to play for Team USA. Some size, some post-defense, some rebounding, some room protection. And if you can also get some baskets doing all that awesome, and Joellen Bead, the MVP, checks all those boxes.
My top three, lock picks. Curry. Give me someone who just makes it so easy. Like, we had no continuity on offense unless both Reeves and Halliburton were in the game.
And even sometimes then there would be like one action and everything kind of slows down. Brunson, I mean, I was going to ask you who kind of disappointed in the tournament. We already mentioned Jair and Jackson Jr. Brunson's numbers are okay.
He shot I think 51% overall, 54% on twos. It just never felt like he really impacted the game that much. He's not. He's a good pick and roll player getting downhill for his floaters and his little spinny, pivety footwork things in the post in the mid-range.
I yearned the whole time for someone who either through sheer speed or like Steph drawing the defense 35 feet from the rim could just get the ball from point A to point B a little easier and a little faster. And what Steph does to defense is just unfair. Brunson, I just, it made you appreciate how well he fits in New York's more like just ISO mismatch hunt. Take your time.
Like that's more his game than the way team USA was playing. Yeah, I've been branding. I've had a tough time fitting into. I think if you're looking at disappointments, he's out.
He's out for me. He's definitely on that list. You know, Brunson didn't have a great tournament. There's no doubt about that.
And look, I mean, he's a hundred four million dollar bargain, but he's not a superstar. He's not a guy. You know, I think he's an all star caliber player, but he's never been an all star. Like, I don't think that there should be this expectation that Jay and Brunson's going to, you know, absolutely dominate every tournament that he's been in.
This is the guy who the Mavericks didn't think was, was, was good enough to, to give a $56 million extension and not have the option to trade it. That, yeah, that didn't work out for them. We're going to talk about the Mavericks later because obviously there's the Slovenian connection to, to the feeble World Cup and the Dallas Mavericks. Slovenia may not have won a medal in the feeble World Cup.
They definitely, they finished seventh. But first in whining, just gold medal for whining. Congratulations to Luca Donchich and the Slovenian team. You're going to get Cuban to say nasty things about you again.
He does not like when you talk about Luca. I know what you're talking about. I have said many times if there's one, like, I remember talking to Clippers people when they manipulated the seedings to kind of not necessarily face Dallas, but avoid being on the Lakers side of the bracket. And Dallas was the sort of collateral damage to that.
And I said, I wouldn't want that dude for a seven game series. That dude is by himself going to tear apart whatever defense you throw at him while he's doing it. He's going to whine about every call and non-call and every time he's touched and get thrown out of a game. This is too straight major international tournaments.
He's been tossed out of, he was tossed to get when they lost a poll and then made her upset in your basket. And then he was tossed this time when they lost a can of that. Did you like them? You know, I watched the fair bit of the World Cup.
I watched all the elimination games, knockout games or whatever were calling these games. All of the US games, most of the Canada games, did you like the FIFA games, like how they float, how they play it, the physicality, the officiating? I like the NBA game better. What I enjoy about FIFA is like the, you know, it is a different sort of pride without question.
You know, I enjoyed that. You know, having been to group play of Eurobasket, like the atmosphere is awesome. I'm not sure how it's different when it's Eurobask and it's a lot easier to travel. But just in terms of aesthetics, I prefer the NBA games.
I don't disagree with you in aesthetics. I will say, and I was texting with a bunch of people in the last couple of days, including some people who are in Manila with an around team USA, about, you know, why does FIFA seem friendlier than the NBA to certain types of players? Why do certain types of players seem to do better in these competitions than they do in the NBA? And I specified to these people, I mean, kind of slow-footed big guys with post skills and we saw Lithuania, Serbia, Thrive with these guys and Spain didn't make it through, but you know, Billy Hernandez is an awesome FIFA player.
It was Eurobasket MVP last year. Luis Skola, it could probably get on the floor now and average 20 a game for Argentina. The guy just never stopped putting up 20 in 10 for Argentina. He was like 45 years old doing this and guys who are defensively challenged, but A plus shooters do not get played off the floor as easily in FIBA.
And some of the answers were obvious and most of what I got back match up with what I thought. The defensive, the lack of a defensive three second rule really benefits the slow-footed big game because they could just hang in the paint. That combined with the fact that the three point line is closer, there's just less space for these slow-wish defenders to cover. The help is coming earlier because you have your big guy planted in there a lot of the time.
So the stress on you is a little bit less and you can actually touch people on the perimeter which you can't do in the NBA. In the NBA, you can basically take a steel chair to someone's knee in the post, but you can't breathe on them in the perimeter. I find that much more balanced in terms of how the areas of the court are officiated. If you've got a lot of officiating issues, not the least of which is if you make a nice face in the general direction of an official, they will freaking call you for an unsportsman like foul and throw you out of the goddamn game.
Like take it easy guys. I make unpleasant faces all the time. I get thrown out of Phoebe games quickly. But I kind of like that there's something to be looked at there in terms of the physicality, the allowance for more physical defense, and the trickle-down effects of that of a little bit more of diversity of the kinds of players that can thrive and what that does stylistically to the game.
That's just something to look at. There are things to look at. No, it's much easier to defend than Phoebe. Obviously, you can tell that if I watch from Team USA, you have up 113 points per game in a 40 minute game.
That's honestly one probably the most embarrassing thing about Team USA is they were that bad defensively when the rules make it much easier to defend. Anyway, back to my top three locks. I didn't have LeBron. Is that sac religious?
He's going to be almost 40. Is that okay for me to just say that I'm trying to create some content here? I'd love to have him on the team. I want him on the team.
I just, if I limited myself to three, I'm going Steph Durant, who will be 35 I think by them, but he's been an A plus Team USA player, obviously one of the greatest shooters of all time. But I want Jason Tatum, because I want two-way wings who can shoot in their prime. Size, defense, shooting, enough play making. Then I'll call LeBron after that.
I got to have Devin Booker. Got to have Devin Booker. Who doesn't get talked a lot about for Team USA? I think he's only played once, 2016 Olympics.
I'd really like to have Jimmy Butler. Can I just have a mean ass kicker? Just a guy who's going to be not mean like Charles Barkley, Elbowing, the poor guy from Angola, but just someone who's going to say, I don't really care that we're supposed to be statesmen. I'm just going to be kind of mean and talk trash and maybe hit some people and get some two-point buck.
I want Jimmy Butler. Listen, sportsmanship's the most overrated thing about sports, and so I appreciate Jimmy Butler's approach. So those were my picks. Dan, I said, if none of your top three are big men, which they were not, nor am I.
We need some size. And Steve Kerr said this after the loss to one of the losses, one of the two recent losses. He said, everyone wants us to have size. We all know, Jared Jackson Jr.
is not really getting it done. Walker Kessler was like, D8 was kind of an emergency player. Paolo Bancaro was nice as a backup center. He's a four.
And he said, we all want size. Who do you want me to bring? Who do you want me to bring? So give me your two big men that you would bring.
Answer his question. I mean, AD, although he thinks he's, you know, the whole, the annual AD doesn't want to place center like to do your center. AD and BAM. That one didn't take a whole lot of time.
I've already got him beat on the roster. So it was my three. Yeah, you, I just qualified. I just qualified.
Let's pretend. Let's, I'm a worst case scenario guy. Like I just, I think what's the worst case scenario we don't get in beat. So let's pretend that.
BAM and AD are easy choices. That said, how are we counting Draymond Green in this discussion? Because he is in Brian's report about the early group of former veteran stalwarts of team USA, decorated NBA players with Steph, LeBron, et cetera. He's obviously, you know, Steph's most, well, their pick and roll partnership is legendary.
He's close with LeBron. He has declined offensively in the last two or three years. Defensively, he's still a monster. Do we think we, he's still a lock?
I don't know. I think if Draymond really wants to play that he's going to end up playing, I don't think Steve Kerr is going to tell Draymond, hey, I know LeBron and Steph and all these guys want you on his roster, but me, who, the guy who has to deal with you for 82 plus games per year is going to be the one who stands in the way. And look, Draymond's a winner, is he, I don't think you can just count Draymond as a big, though. I don't think you just say, hey, this fills our, you know, quota center, avoided center.
I think you have to consider him a four who can play some five in small ball lineups. If that's the case, then he's going to take a spot from, you know, name guys that you're interested in maybe having on the team, a jail in Brown, Paul George, Damian Lillard, like a non center spot. I don't find any of those to be fine with that. And then I said, last one, some, some under the radar, maybe it's hard to find under the radar, but maybe some names that aren't really talked about in the team USA conversation all that much that you czar Tim McMahon of USA basketball, would like, you want to at least have a face, you're not just a phone call, you want to go to a coffee shop and have a face to face meeting with this guy or these guys.
Another warrior. Kavon Looney. Oh, I like that. The rugged rebounder.
Yeah, rugged rebounder, you know, he's going to, I'm assuming Steph's on the roster, you know, playing for Steve Kerr, like he's going to be in the right places. He's going to be physical. He's going to be smart. So that would be, you know, you asked me for an under the radar and your definition was a guy who hadn't been an all-star in the last few years, or has never been an all-star.
And that's the name that came up for me. I'll tell you what, if it's another one I considered, I'm just Mitchell Robinson. You know, I'm just, I'm just thinking, I'm thinking in that case, I'm thinking obvious, you know, rim protection rebounding. I didn't think of him.
That's not a bad name. Wouldn't, wouldn't necessarily make my cut. Looney. I'll tell you what, if US played Lithuania and Sibones was playing for Lithuania, full strength, I mean, I never thought I would see anybody brutalized among the Sibones on the boards.
Like Cavone, who he did in that seven game series between the Kings and the Warriors in the first round. My picks were, and this guy's been, Steve Curtis mentioned him, so it's maybe cheating. I like the idea of Desmond Bain on Team USA. I like the idea of give me a guy who is a sprinter-mover shooter, not just a shooter, but a movement shooter, not even just a movement shooter, a turbo movement shooter, who has a lot of experience playing that role in the NBA, who tries hard on defense, strong.
I like him. Brooke Lopez played for the 2019 World Cup team that came seventh. He may be aging out of this, but if we're looking for size and shooting and defense, that name was interesting to me. You know, we've tried.
He's one of the Kings of the, like, he doesn't get a lot of rebounds, but he's always good for his team's rebounding. If the US doesn't have enough faith in everyone else to grab the rebounds, all he boxes four dudes out, that's another thing. Miles Turner got a shot. I didn't like the way he looked international play.
I didn't like to, I mean, Jared Jackson Jr., all the defense and rebounding stuff has gotten a lot of attention. He just did nothing on offense. Like they would throw in these token post-ups and he looked okay doing that. No pick and pop threes, nothing off the dribble, it would just like he would pick.
He would never roll. He would just pop, wait around for like, I'm going to come and get the ball from me for a handout. It was just like, it reminded me of Miles Turner. There's another name that never comes up that's definitely not under the radar that I would love to see play FIBA.
I think health would mitigate against this ever happening. I would love to see Zion Williamson in international play. I thought you were going to say Kawai, but yeah. Oh, I've given up on that one.
Yeah. I mean, I would love to see what in the hell that looks like, that freight train coming at you in the open court in FIBA. And this is not under the radar guy either, but remember what I said about point A to point B. If he has a good season, another good season.
I think Darren Fox is going to earn a major, major look for a spot on TV. I say, even if it's over, maybe more decorated, but you're sneering at this. No, no, no, I like Darren Fox. When you said point A to point B, I thought you were going to say, John, but he and Fox definitely gets there off the quickly too.
So John, John, John, John's on the long list here. I think John, I just think given the last calendar year, I've only got 12 slots to work with. Like I can go other places that don't have that same amount of back. It's not to say that all the gun stuff and the court cases and stuff that got him suspended both last year and to start this year is some sort of permanent like stain.
It's just, it's going to be pretty recent. And you guys are coming back to do a lot. That's all and team USA for, you know, it's team USA. Ellen, and you don't want to have somebody who you feel like you need a babysitter at the hotel with.
Straight up. The Olympics are going to be fun, man. I love the response of awkward silence. The Olympics are going to be a lot of fun because Germany's legit.
They might be the way at Cleveland. Although I didn't, someone alerted this to me today. I missed the whole Dennis Schruder, Maxie Cleba blood feud. Well, Schruder basically said, you're not welcome here.
Schruder basically said, he's like, you're not even good. He says, he has these quotes like Maxie doesn't have any game. He stands in the corner and says, he's like, what is he saying? Well, so the thing was Maxie did not play in Eurobasket last year.
And the whole thing, they want like a three year commitment type of thing, you know. He was inter recovering from injury. Yeah. And he was getting a contract extension done.
But Schruder was talking about, you know, you can't say you want to work in your game. That's when he was talking about, you don't have a game. Like, you know, so you're not like, it's not like you need to work on skill stuff, like whatever. But the greater point Schruder made was you weren't here last year.
You know, basically that means you didn't want to be part of the program. You essentially opted out. So we don't need you. Maxie's awfully, you know, I think you could still help him.
Hey, they won't work up without him though. So yeah, it's super awkward, especially because, you know, Maxie and Dirk are so tight and Dirk obviously has such a prominent role in that, you know, the German basketball world. I have, I have a line to Dirk. I've really resisted to urge to text him.
See what happens when you retire? You know, even Egypt big fella is like moving some of these dorks out of the picture. Hey, they don't need anybody from Wurzburg. They don't need Dirk or Maxie.
But yeah, Maxie was ready to roll this summer and Schruder basically made it clear. I don't want you around. And so Maxie bowed out instead of, you know, creating a situation where there's going to be this huge clash. He was like, okay.
Hey, and Schruder, look, let's be polite and say Dennis Schruder has been a polarizing black room presence everywhere he's gone in the NBA and in some. Yeah, and in Germany. And in Germany. Can't argue with the performance.
He talked to talk and he walked the walk. He was the best player. Start to finish for the team that won. World Cup MVP deservedly so.
I think Franz Wagner is the best player on their team. And you don't want to read too much. He missed half of Germany's games. He played sensational when he played.
I think the magic, I mean, I was already confident the magic have two future multi-time all-stars on their team is building blocks. That is to me is a stone cold lock at this point. Both those guys are all stars. And again, I've eaten crow with you many times on this one.
Then I then I take back the crow or like throw up the crow because Jonathan comminga has like three good games in a row and I talk myself back into it. When I said I wouldn't lose any sleep. If I were Bob Myers and Steve Kerr in the brain through the lake. Light years ahead about drafting Jonathan comminga over Franz Wagner.
I said that a couple of years ago I wouldn't lose any sleep. I would now need some melatonin to get over that one. And look, I've always gotten the fit. Like he's off ball, on ball, switchable, incredibly high IQ player, cutter, shooter, mover, can abuse mismatches.
He can run. He's everything past, everything the Warriors want a player. I just get so seduced by Jonathan commingas semi-weekly or bi-weekly? What's every two weeks bi-weekly?
The JCPenney bi-monthly sale. The Jonathan comminga bi-monthly burst of athleticism. I get so seduced by it. I'm wrong.
I was wrong. Hey, should I pick Franz Wagner? Let Chris Paul take him under his wing. You know, there's time here.
There's time here. But no, I mean, I agree with you on Franz 100%. Like, hey, you think that the Warriors should be losing sleep. How about the math?
Or I'm sorry, the Bulls. How about their pick? The Bulls. How's their pick?
Yeah, the Matadors got some of the little swords that have been in the Bulls on that one for a few years. I like bullfighting. You ever seen a bullfight? I can't say that.
If I got free tickets to a bullfight, I don't think I would go. Would you go? If I was in Spain. It's just, it's a lose.
You have a bull loses or you see some sort of catastrophe where the human loses. And I don't want to see that. Like, what is that? What is upside for me going to a bullfight?
Would you do the running of the Bulls? Would you ever do the running of the Bulls? Hell no. No.
That's in Pamplona, right? Pamplona, Spain? Sounds accurate. But no, because the risk reward there is way out of whack.
You know what I would do? I would go to like the fringes of the track or wherever they run and then run directly to a place where they can't get me. But then I would tell the story of like, I was right in the middle of it. The bull was like, I could feel his breath on my butt.
Then I would be like one of the 100,000 people was like, well, Chamberlain's 100 point game. You can't wait that shirt when you do it. That's for sure. Oh, no, this shirt would be.
Yeah, you're right. You got to be careful. OK, that's it for my team USA thoughts, I think. Congratulations to everyone else.
And to particularly to Germany and Serbia, who clinched their births to the Olympics. No yolk itch. Serbia rolls right along. Presumably he will play in the Olympics.
And we still got four spots, I believe, to be determined. Croatia. Croatia swept through the Olympic pre-qualifying qualifying tournament in Turkey. They still got shot.
Don't get them out. Hey, also watch out for the Bahamas. They've got DeAndre. They've got Buddy Keel.
They've got Eric Gordon now. They won in Argentina to give themselves a chance. And one of those Olympic qualifying tournaments. Listen, those tournaments are going to be fun too.
No, there's, I mean, it's hard to make 12 teams. It's hard to make the Olympics. The Bahamas, Krista Marko, Assistant Coach for the Warriors, has done a tremendous job building that program up. Getting Aiden, getting Gordon, getting healed all to buy in.
And beating Argentina in Argentina. I don't really care who's playing, who's not playing what the circumstances are. That's a good win. Croatia beat Turkey in Turkey to win.
It's qualifying. And Shungoon, I know, was playing for Turkey. A couple other good guys. Those are hard wins.
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It's all the ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Lakers, the most consequential free agency signing of the last couple of months. Christian Wood, your old friend from Dallas from whom they traded a first round pick.
That off to an okay start was kind of doing what you expected him to do, which is score a lot of points in a six-man role. I predicted he would win six-man of the year last year. Didn't turn out like a good prediction. Then it was spot start when injuries determined that he should start fit.
You put a shooting five next to Luca. There's not going to be any answer for that defensively. Then it went sour. An extension never happened.
He was eligible for an extension. Didn't get one. And signed with the Los Angeles Lakers for the minimum, the veteran's minimum, joining a team that is pretty loaded in terms of just like I don't know how many minutes he's guaranteed. If you pencil in their starting five, in pencil would be D-Lo, Team USA hero, Alston Reeves, LeBron.
I'm going to go Rui, Anthony Davis. That's my starting five. Off the bench. I got Gabe Vincent for sure.
I think Jackson Hayes for sure at the one in the five. In between, I got like Torian Prince. Max Christie's going to get a chance. Jared Vanderbilt's an incumbent starter.
Can't radish might get a chance. Christian Wood is like, I bet he'll start the season as they're back up for sometimes five, sometimes paired with AD. But it's not like you look at this roster and see like 25 guaranteed minutes every single night for Christian Wood. Listen, listen, he said he talked to Darvin Hamm, who was with him in Milwaukee during his like 13 game stand with Bucks.
And he told our Hall of Fame friend Mark Spears that there's a big role for him. This is Christian Wood. You know, talk about what Dallas did to him and it's going to be different in L.A. Communication with the coach is much better.
Let's see. He says, Coach Heyman, I go back to our Milwaukee days and we've had great conversations every day about this opportunity. He believes in me and told me I'll be playing a big role and knows what I can do. I'm looking forward to this and fussure motivated after what Dallas did.
And you know that fussure is a capital F, A-S-U-R-E, plus sure motivated. Listen, he ain't just motivated. He's plus sure motivated. Average 26 minutes a game in Dallas.
So if that's not a big role, I wonder what this big role he's guaranteed in L.A. is going to be? You know, the ultimate problem with Christian Wood. Well, there is, I mean, the basketball problem with Christian Wood.
Offensively, there's no doubt in his talent. He can shoot it. He can score one-on-one. He's not quite as explosive and quick off to dribble as you might think.
Like he doesn't get by even centers as easily as you think, but he's a good kind of tricky score. He can get you a 15-game off-dimension. And loose in your spacing. Defensively, you've heard a lot of buzz over the years about, sometimes doesn't remember the scheme or the coverage, every trip down the floor.
And he is just the ultimate. He's the size of a center, but he can't play center on defense. So you have to find a place to hide him. And if the other team doesn't have one of these sort of non-stretchy, non-explosive fours that you can stash him on, it's hard for him to find a home on defense.
When you do have that sort of opponent, the idea of him and Anthony Davis together makes a whole lot of sense. But in that scenario, Anthony Davis is still playing center defensively, which maybe we keep hearing this. He doesn't want to do. He'll help them here and there in the regular season.
I'm just curious where he fits. What I'm more curious about from your perspective, and I've made some calls about this around the last few days. It's like the intel on Christian Wood. Look, he's how many teams are we at now?
There's a lot of teams now. And the intel has never been great, but it's always been sort of like a, I don't want to say harmless, but like, yeah, even like some old school coaches who have had him before have told me he's such a nice guy. He means, well, he's just late sometimes. He's a little bit of a space cadet.
Nice guy, not a bad teammate. And I'm like, what happened in Dallas? Did something happen in Dallas that he just went from like that to now he's signing two months in for agency for nothing? Zach, like there's a long list of teams didn't want him back.
The Rockets tried to trade him for a year. Like, and you said the map escape of the first round pick, they gave him a late first round pick, and four guys, they did not want at the end of the roster. That was like, that was a roster, and listen, they screwed up what they did with those roster spots, but the primary motivation for that trade was to create the roster spots. And Jason Kidd never wanted him.
He never wanted them. And you can blame JKidd for poor communication. I think that's, you can have some fair criticism of Kidd on that. But the Mavericks asked Christian Wood to be a bench scorer, Wood, and really more so the people he listens to consider that to be some great insults.
Right, it's an insult to the max player, right? You know, I'm like, dude, that's what the entire league sees his potential as. Like, do you, here's the thing, I feel for him in this sense, if he would have embraced that role, okay, hey, I'm going to be the best bench scorer in the league. Cool, six man of the year is a great goal for me.
He'd have gotten at least the middle level. Oh, I think he would have gotten like four years, 75 million. Right, but you know, you've already got this rep as you say, he's not a bad dude. He's a nice guy.
He's not a bad dude. He's a doofus. There's a difference. But every coach he has seems to be very eager to move on from him.
You know, punctuality's been a big problem in the past. I understand it's not so much in Dallas, but at the meeting started at 10, 15 in the hotel room. He was, you know, he was grabbing breakfast in the room at 10, 15, that sort of thing. But it's just the, like I always say, his most frequent defensive stance is a shrug and bewildered look as the ball's going through the basket.
He's trying to figure out how exactly he screwed up that rotation. And I think that got worse last year. For whatever reason, I think that was, there was a regression from where even he was coming into the season defensively in terms of just awareness schematically. He had a five or six game stretch earlier in the season, where he was pretty dialed in.
They were using him at center. He had like some big shop-locking games and some high leverage. Winning shop against, yeah, against the Lakers in LA. Some late game shop.
Two men reports that it was a foul, but hey, it went down as a game when he blocked. It counts. But like I said, him and him and kid was just, it was short, like you knew that a week into the season. The Mavericks blew a 16-point lead in the last four minutes and lost an overtime to Oklahoma City.
And then JK had post-game, basically said, hey, people want to see Crystalwood closing. We put him out there with the closing lineup. Look what happened. Like wow, if there was any wonder about whether this thing was going to work, it was, you know, it, you could figure it out right then.
And then the Mavericks, they definitely put out their, hey, we're going to discuss an extension with Sea Wood. Not more than two years. We talked about that at the time. I reported it.
Yeah. Well, I've come to find out that was a bluff. And they figured he wouldn't take the bluff, right? Well, we'll put out, because they were trying to kind of keep things like peaceful, I would say.
So I'll put out there, we'll want to talk two years, because he's not going to take that. Now, what would happen if, if Crystalwood and his agent, Adam Pinsak, who should negotiate by him to get that player option on the minimum meal, what would have happened if they would have called that bluff? I don't know. We'll never know.
I think the Mavericks would have signed the contract, to be honest with you. Depending on when it was, if it was December- It was December- It was, yeah. I think it would have signed it. I think it would have signed a two-year, 30, whatever contract.
He became eligible for the extension. The first game he was eligible, extension eligible was Christmas Day. That's when the Lakers were in Dallas and he had great game. He had 30 pulling, like 30 and stuffed a box for, played really well.
Fans love the guy, because he can score in a lot of different ways. He just doesn't ever make his team better. And even as great as he is as a score, when you look at one big lineups, the Mavericks were much better, offensively and defensively with White Powell on the floor, than with Christian Wood. And it's hard to make sense of that, because you watch it.
Like, how can that be? It's just a simple fact and matter. I say this respectfully to both Cockroaches and Dwight Powell. Dwight Powell is an NBA Cockroach, man.
You cannot stamp that guy out. I'm sitting here previewing the Dallas Mavericks in my head, the right down lineups. I'm like, God damn it. He's going to be their starting center again.
Now, I think there'll be some open competition. I think the coaches there would like there to be, perhaps some open competition for that spot, between him and maybe for Shawn Holmes. They like the lively kid. I doubt he'll be ready for that kind of responsibility.
Cleebo, they'll toggle between both positions. They have some nice front-court versatility in Dallas, with Grant Williams and Derrick Jones Jr. They can do a lot of funky stuff. And that's my Dwight Powell remark.
Yeah, I think Christian would help the Lakers. Like, what the Lakers have now is a guy who now knows. You would hope that there would be some self-awareness from both Christian and his people. The whole league has now sent a message.
Yeah. Not only are you not a max player, you are now a minimum player. What is essentially you hope a one-year deal and approve a deal. You're on a team that is not going to tolerate anything less than full commitment to defense and winning.
That's how the Lakers won their title. Defense. That's how the Lakers saved their season and rebounded last season. Defense.
Their offense was never very good. Their half-court offense was never any good at all. Regular season or playoffs. Even if you parse the numbers with LeBron and AD on the floor, it wasn't very good.
Some of that maybe was LeBron's foot injury that happened against Dallas, I believe, and lingered all the way through the season in the playoffs. But they make their bones on defense. That means they need his skill set. But if he takes too much away from what they're really good at, he's just not going to play that much.
And before we leave the Lakers, I did want to ask you, like, what do you make of the Lakers? Because when I talk to people around the league about projecting the West and who's a real title contender, you know, obviously Denver is the favorite. You hear a lot of talk about Phoenix. There's all of this sort of Warriors machine from the title two years ago.
Deservedly so. And then interest in the Chris Paul trade and how that's going to fit. I don't, for a team that made the conference finals, and yes, they got swept. And as you've said, as you've coined on the hoop collective, they won the bronze broom for a competitive sweep.
Congratulations in the conference finals. You don't, there seems to be sort of a fulfillment of what exactly to make of their team, both how real was their run last year after trading Rust and sort of reorienting the team and discovering how good Reeve's really was. And even after an off season, that was pretty universally lauded, ending with this Christian wood signing. I just don't hear a ton of like, oh, man, that team is feared.
And even you look at the over-unders, it's Denver, Phoenix, then a three or four win drop to Warriors, Lakers, Clippers, Grizzlies, kind of all bunched together. What's your take on that? I mean, I think that you have to respect them as a team that's going to have a chance, but they're somewhere in that, you know, I agree it's the nuggets are on their own tier. And then I would say sons, Warriors, and Lakers are somewhere at the top of that next one.
Obviously you got Warriors definitively above the Lakers, even though the Lakers beat them in the playoffs last year. Definitively is probably too strong, probably too strong. But the biggest question with the Lakers to me is LeBron and AD's health. Like how many games are they playing?
Are they going to be healthy? If they're healthy, come play up time, they're going to have a chance. I mean, LeBron is still, I don't care how old he is. He's still one of those dominant forces in the game when he's healthy.
AD that the postseason he had defensively was, I mean, unbelievably impressive. Austin Reeve is an ascending talent, and I think he can be an all-star type of talent. And then, you know, we'll see. Even if he's not an all-star type of talent, if for this coming season, Austin Reeve is what he was last season, but 10% better, if he is their version of, but better than this player.
If he's like prime Nick Batum, but a little bit better offensively and a little bit more aggressive offensively, I think this team can contend. Like if they're healthy, I think they're an inner circle contender. And I understand that if they're healthy is the caveat that they face more than everyone else, because LeBron's his age, and he's number now at number two all-time in minutes, regular season of postseason, number one, and postseason minutes by a mile. AD is always nicked up somehow.
I believe in what they did last year. I think it was real. I picked the Warriors to beat them in the playoffs, because I thought the Warriors were just kind of a more diverse, just a little bit more of a snappier, more reliable offense. All of them could spread the Lakers out in ways that would trouble them, and they straight up physically beat the Warriors up in one that series.
I'm glad you mentioned AD's defense, because I just, I went crazy on get up during the playoffs, because every day that AD would score like 22 points or less, there would be this like, I want this guy to average 35 a game, he had 40 in game one. Where is that guy? And I'm like, I said, I said, like, can we talk about defense for a minute? Like, is that even allowed?
He's been the best defensive player in the postseason, period. Here is postseason numbers. 23, 14, two and a half assists, three blocks on 52% shooting. 22 and a half is not enough.
He needs to score more than that. In the regular season, he averaged 26 a game, shot it a little bit better. He's used to trade in the playoffs fell from 28% of his team's possessions to 24%. 24% would be his lowest usage rate since his rookie year in the regular season, and his lowest in the playoffs by far.
Something did get lost in terms of finding him touches. And if you look at the numbers, one of the things that got lost was the LeBron AD two-man game. In the regular season, 18 pick and rolls per 100 possessions, LeBron and AD in the playoffs, that fell to 10. And that's despite AD playing center, essentially full time with the lane, semi-free for him.
Now, excising Vanderbilt from the starting five would really free the lane for him, and I didn't think they just went to that well enough when Vanderbilt was off the floor, and I don't think Vanderbilt will start this year. Part of that might have been LeBron's injury, and just sort of like an inability to just say, this is my game, I'm gonna control it the way I want. Something was definitely lost offensively from AD. But if you look at the last two rounds of the playoffs, just the Warrior Series and the Nugget Series, 24 a game, 14 rebounds, three assists, two and a half blocks.
That's tied for 10th in scoring over those last two rounds. Behind Jalen Brunson only played five games, Yokech, Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, Jason Tatum, Steph Curry, LeBron, Embiid, Jamal Murray, tied for 10th with Jimmy Butler. It's not like he vanished. He had some big games in that run.
I like this team a lot. I think they're deep. I think Reeves will get better. I like what they did in the offseason season.
To me, their story is their half-court offense has to be better. Part of that is AD, part of that is health, part of that is LeBron. I buy them as a contender. I like their team.
Yeah, I think it's fair. I mean, they did just play in the West Finals. Well, and speaking of that series, they have the disadvantage that every other team in the league has, which is I just don't like with all due respect, as I've told Richard Jefferson, any sense of that? Sorry for the all due respect is not going to end well.
Respectfully, with all due respect to Jackson Hayes, I just don't know what their answer for Yokech is, because it wasn't Anthony Davis in the conference. It's not Anthony Davis, but like you said, who does have that? Well, he beat the hell out of Anthony Davis so badly that they decided both to protect him and to try to help their defense to use AD as a rover of Aaron Gordon and Guard, Yokech with Hachamura and sometimes LeBron. And despite Rui Hachamura almost solving the riddle in game one, Yokech figured that one out.
Mike, or Michael Malone really liked that. That was a little temporary narrative, didn't he? He did, he enjoyed that. But that's like everybody has that problem, because the answer can never be double team every time he gets the ball, because you're going to lose.
The Heat actually were pretty good fronting, doubling, mixing coverage. That's the only answer, but like, if AD is not a big part of that answer, but that's but every team has that problem. That's every team. If AD is not the answer, if they're not a bile is not the answer.
Like, I don't think there's an answer. Well, but that's the reality, like every half decade in the NBA has a couple of players like this. That's just the reality for every team in the Western Conference. You either, you don't have an answer, so you either have to cobble something that can last for four wins or out score them.
I mean, and that's where Yokech has ascended to is all of these teams that want to win have to have an eye on Denver in their offseason transactions. They have to do something, try to do something. And for Golden State, it's we still think we can go five out with Draymond at center and spread them out to a point that Yokech is hurt defensively and Draymond can stand him up in the post. And like, there's proof of concept for them.
Now, Denver was without several key players in that series, but still anyway, that's the Lakers. We were supposed to get to Dallas. We can save Dallas for another day. Totally Dallas.
I like Dallas's team. I just the West is, it's gonna be tough. I like their team real quick. You like them and you would pick them to finish where in the West.
Well, that's the thing. I mean, if I'm if I'm if I'm going through the teams, let me go through the over unders because that's an easier way than last year standings. If you told I somewhere between like fourth and ninth, I mean, that's but that's the reality for all of these teams. It's like Memphis, they've got some issues.
The Clippers always have issues. The Kings are not going anywhere. The Timberwolves are gonna be better this year. The Thunder are gonna be better this year.
The Pelicans, if Knock on Woods, Zion is ready to start the season. And I think Zion is gonna be ready to start the season. Like everybody's trying to win, except San Antonio, who just got the generational guy in the draft. Even the Rockets are trying to win.
So, you know, I don't think Dallas's ceiling is super, super high just because everything goes back to who's the third best guy on the team and you start to answer that question. Oh boy, but I think they're floor if they're healthy, if Lucas, healthy in particular is pretty stable. Despite the floor collapsing. I was gonna say, they ended up in the basement last year.
So, we shall see. What do we got to look forward to, Tim McMahon, other than dealing with the ongoing harassment from Tim Bontemps on the hoop collective podcast? Oh man, a few more weeks of hopefully some quasi-summer and then off we are to into the media days and back to the grind. I'm just trying to enjoy just a little bit of downtime here.
What's the best media day this year? I guess this is really an easy answer. The best media day? Just the spiciest most on media.
Full state. You think so? Yeah, the whole CP3, I mean, I'm supposed to come off of the interesting. If I'm not starting, I'm not departing.
It's Philly, it's got to be Philly. Yeah, you're right about that. And then look, also what's going to be, like is Dan still going to be technically on a blazer's roster, come media day? I don't know.
Tim McMahon, second to none, we love you. Hopefully I'll see you at an NBA arena soon, my friend. Last time I saw you, we were in Denver? There was a lot of, it was a late night and there was wine.