Jalen Brunson’s Moment, Wemby’s Next Move, and Finals Ripple Effects | Group Chat

Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Barrier. Joining me, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle Mann. Gentlemen, the Knicks, they're champions. Who'da thunk it? Genuinely, who'da thunk it? I have to say, I, in the back of my mind, had considered that I might just go until I die without ever seeing the Knicks win an NBA championship, given the way that, I don't know, the first 30-something years started since I've been alive. And yet, here we are. I can only imagine how it feels to be an actual Knicks fan who has gone along for that ride. Yeah, man. I mean, if you had told me before the season, hey, Kyle, if I'd gone in a time machine, like, hey, the Knicks are going to win the title, I wouldn't have been like, That's when you're using the time machine? No, I'm just saying, I would use it for many things, but I wouldn't have just fallen down from shock, but it definitely would have been a, like, oh, really? Wow. You know, it would have been a much bigger surprise than if you told me OKC or the Nuggets or whatever it is. It's a nice surprise. I mean, I picked them to get to the finals, but I still am feeling pretty, like, it's pretty impressive, and it's a nice surprise that they won it, even though I'm not, like, you know, utterly shocked. Do you all feel the same way about that? I don't know. The way you wove in there, that you picked them to make the finals, like, you didn't make a big deal out of it, but you just made a little bit of it. Oh, I've said it repeatedly throughout the playoffs. I've said it repeatedly. I had a moment at the beginning, Pina and I had a funny back and forth at the beginning of the playoffs where I was, like, really, really regretting that decision initially, where I was just like, what was I thinking? And we had a funny ongoing thing about Brunson who we can get to where I was just like, is this doable in the playoffs? And my goodness, is it ever doable? Turns out. Well, that was the last time that they were down and they would not lose two games in a series ever again throughout the playoffs. What a time for New York. What a time for amateur arsonists out there. But Rob is right. It does feel like everything that we were told for so long in sports, like this team's sad sack franchise, never gonna happen for them. It feels like those things, time has just kind of had a way of meting those out, like the Red Sox growing up were sad sacks when I lived out there. The Cubs, for instance, the Knicks were on that level. Sure. Fortunately, there are some teams that probably will literally never happen for, like the Sacramento Kings, but you know, 50 years down the road, perhaps, maybe spaceships will be there. Maybe they can ride on motor scooters or whatever while they're playing and that'll be the difference. That's the thing. Like when we're still doing this pod 30 years from now, still working out technical difficulties, I think that's when the Kings are gonna finally do it. And we're gonna be there live to podcast on Netflix about it. This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. Don Turturro gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Turturro stars as an aging master pickpocket whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. Also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Opens only in theaters October 23rd in New York and Los Angeles nationwide October 30th. Putting heads. And like back to tanks on Futurama or whatever it is, whatever the, I forget the mode of technology they use there. But the big thing here is, I mean, you know, we joke about the aftermath. People always get up in arms about the stuff that happens after a title happens. I got news for you, it happens everywhere. It happens in Lexington. It happens in stores. It happens in every city. But the intensity of this one is, Justin, you can speak to stores more specifically, I'm sure. But I got on, my immediate reaction was, I need to go get on the live traffic cameras for New York. I just got on there. I was just scrolling through them. I know a lot of people had this experience of, I was just trying to see what was going on. And the partying, yeah, it was more, I was joking about it on Twitter because, you know, we can talk about the crime and things and get into some of that more specifically. But they care more than anybody else. And that's the thing about the, you know, the juxtaposition of their misery. It's inextricable from, from how much they care. You know, a lot of cities care, but it's so woven into the fabric of New York and the generations of Knicks fans. Just when you start getting that into the kind of tapestry of who you are as a fan base, you grow up, I don't know. Did you all have a fan experience like this? Like, did your parents tell you like these larger than life tales about, because that's a thing in Kentucky. And that's a big thing about when you grow up is I hear, you hear about these guys who become larger than life. That's a huge part of the Knicks experience of just like, man, let me tell you about Bernard. Yeah. Yeah. Let me tell you about, you know, Mark Jackson and John Starks. Like, yeah. For what other fan base would John Starks become an immortal piece of lore and just like a banner carrier for everything the Knicks are and have been to this point. I just, I am caught in the wake of all this. Around this time, every year we reflect on the season. We reflect on the championships. We talk about all the things that they pulled off the incredible like team building maneuvers that it took to get to this point. But like, we don't have to pretend that all of these things are the same. That every championship feels the same way. And it's, it's, I would say particularly striking coming off of the Thunders win last year where an incredible run that the Thunder had to win the title, a seven game NBA finals. And yet this is just a different thing. And that's okay. And it's okay to acknowledge that. And I think part of the reason this has been such a joy just in terms of watching the finals, but also kind of basking in the aftermath of it is just this like incredible emotional connection that not just Knicks fans have with this particular team, but basketball fans. And basketball fans as a whole kind of got wrapped up in it. And the bandwagoning of really the entire sport has just been on a roll for weeks on end in a way that has just been incredible to watch. Yeah. All right. We need to get into all of this. We got to talk about the Spurs. We got to talk about some ripple effects from the finals, but we also got to dig into Jalen Brunson, the New York Knicks and everything that happened in game five, right after this. This episode of the Ringer NBA show is presented by Ferrero. The world is watching. Go all in for your team this summer with Ferrero. Enter for the chance to win a range of prizes just by purchasing your favorite treats like Kinder Bueno with an irresistible chocolate wafer and creamy hazelnut filling or Keebler Chips Deluxe Cookies with indulgent and rich chocolatey chunks or Ferrero Rocher Squares with crunchy hazelnuts and milk chocolate wrapped in iconic gold. Go all in. Buy any two Ferrero brands and you could win $1 million. Official rules apply. Learn more at goallinandwin.com. So why don't we start? Here, because I think Rob was right before we went to the break here that this one feels a little different, not only because of the emotional aspect because of New York and all the suffering and everything kind of coming around there, but this game five and the way that they won just felt so like, oh, like you felt it in your gullet, this one. And I think this stat says it better than anything. And this was from ESPN. I think they mentioned this on the broadcast. The Spurs actually led the finals 69% of the time. Which, you know, it's just like you wince when you hear that thing. Because the way that they lost it. So Wimby's quote wasn't wrong. Oh, he was absolutely right. He was right. But then obviously the way they lost in game four and then it happened similarly in game five. There was just a real like reach into your heart, rip it out and then just like eat it in front of you quality to this Knicks win. Like a decisiveness that hadn't been there previously. Where it's just like, oh yeah, there are no doubt. They really just kind of waxed them in the most like embarrassing, fashion, unfortunately. Yeah, I think when the Knicks started something like four of 22 from the field and the Spurs defense was amazing to start game five. Like they deserve all due credit for holding the Knicks to that kind of shooting percentage. But the Knicks were shooting like four of 22 and the Spurs were only up like seven or eight points. I was just like, okay, this thing is, this is going to be a wrap. The push is coming. The comeback is inevitable. I just, at this point, have the utmost faith in the Knicks and Jalen Brunson to close out any of these games. These games that are even remotely close. And the incredible accomplishment of their run is that several of these games were close at all. That they had the comeback gear to just like dismiss a start like that. To come back to swat away an opponent that's winning 69% of the time for an entire series and pull out just improbable win after improbable win after improbable win. And when that happens enough times, it just ceases to be improbable to me. Yeah, big, big boogeyman's, big boogeyman in Widow's Bay vibes from, I don't know if Justin's watching that show where he's basically Jason Voorhees. Well, it's basically Jason. Yeah, like, yeah. I mean, more kind of Michael Myers almost. Yeah, well, yeah, you're right. It's, I mean, they're derivative, but you get these situations where the Knicks are, the Spurs come out and they think, all right, we're going to hold our taser or whatever it is, our, what is it? Stun gun? Stun gun to the gasoline and catch him on fire. And it's like, he's on fire. I think we're in good shape here. When really you kind of have to be Patricia with a shotgun to the Knicks head, all the way to the, all the way to the, the crematorium and make sure that they are dead because they just time and time again. And I think this is a function of, they came back, like you were saying, these felt scripted almost in a way that was flipped from the way the Boston series went. Was it, was it in 2024, the one where the Knicks kept coming back and late game. But I think this is a function of at the NBA level where you don't really see this in college that the amount of good players that can accrue, on a good playoff team. can really put together these sequences in a game where if you don't have great depth, the Knicks just repeatedly would come back during these stretches where the Spurs had problematic stretches within their rotation that they just kept losing over and over again, which will factor into some of their off-season conversations that we can get into. But they just seemed kind of unkillable. It just seemed like Brunson repeatedly was like a boxer just prepping them for the late round. I'm going to hit you with the heavy stuff. And he paid off. He delivered. Well, that's the flip side of the first half defense where the pressure and how high they were picking them up and how much physicality they were exerting gave way to what happened in the second half, which is it didn't seem like they had the same sort of pep. Wemby in particular, we're going to talk about that a lot, I'm sure, later in the episode. But also just to have Brunson to be able to turn to to go to work there. I could just watch him pivoting and making these small little head fakes and a look off. In order to get downhill in the way that he was pretty much all day. I'm curious why the Spurs defensively still, despite the fact that he seemed like he was getting a free run to the basket, kept picking him up so high. Like there was a really crucial possession where Castle was basically picking up a half court. Brunson makes one move and he's basically at the rim at that point. I think that's something like the Spurs need to ask themselves is just like their process coaching wise in the midst of a game. I don't know if you guys saw the clip from game four as well, where the last, last final possession where they didn't know who they were guarding and actually got mashed up on the wrong guys, which led to the switch for Wemby, which led to him being so far out there. There's a lot of that going on there, but obviously I think this is Jalen Brunson's moment, 45 points and out of the 94 that the Knicks had in this game. I also just felt like his walk-off interview with Lisa Salters was just like so affecting. Like that's literally everything you want from sports from this moment. Unfortunately, it was a pretty, stark comparison to what happened with Jason Tatum probably two years ago, a moment that felt a little too manufactured, a little too like he had rehearsed what he was going to say once he got to that point. Brunson was basically like couldn't talk because he was just so emotional in that point. And I was just thinking like throughout the year, we've talked so much about face of the league and like how the league is selling itself and like what works, what doesn't, the tanking and all this stuff. I feel like that was probably one of the dominant storylines throughout this NBA season, at least the regular season. But like once we got to this point, like I felt like this is exactly why we all plug into sports, like to watch someone like Brunson, who's a bit of an underdog, overcome adversity time and time again in order to win in the biggest moments. Like, I don't know. This is why Jerry Bruckheimer is a zillionaire. You know, it was a real like this. How can you not be romantic about basketball moments? And I have to say like it was special. I felt that in ways that probably I hadn't in even recent years when other teams have won. I think it was incredible. It was incredibly special. I don't, I can't remember a quote to come out of the finals that I will think about more than Jalen Brunson saying you're allowed to think about the worst case scenario, but then you have to go do something about it. Like, I'm just going to put that in the pocket for the rest of my life. And I'm going to think about many of these Jalen Brunson plays for the rest of my life. Like this was an all time showing. I don't know that we've seen a better finals closing performance in terms of the closing of these games since, Michael Jordan, since at least Dirk in the 2011 finals. Like they had comparable percentages in terms of their scoring for their teams in the fourth quarter of this series. But this was incredible stuff. And of all of the plays that Brunson did, of all the things he pulled off, I keep going back to that one ISO possession he had against Wemby, like midway through the fourth quarter. I believe it was trimming the Spurs lead from six to four and one-on-one throws Wemby off balance three different times. Like first with an incredible cross to break free of Wemby on the, like from the perimeter in the first place, then hits him like with a bump midway through his drive, throws one of the best defenders, a guy who's so much taller than him, completely off balance, then hits him with like the little head fake inside just enough to sell Wemby that he might be pulling up for that floater. All to, all to get this crazy layup that I'm not sure any other player in the entire league could make other than Jalen Brunson. And to me, that's just like the whole experience in a nutshell. It's like three absolute, absolutely elite individual fundamental plays to make just like an all-time title securing bucket. That's the kind of run he's been on. That's the kind of run the Knicks have been on. And I just don't, I'm never going to get tired of celebrating that or of what Jalen Brunson just did over the last few weeks. Yeah, you're right. It cut it to four. That was 83-79. Cause I wrote down that entire run when he came back in, it was at the eight minute mark and it was 73-83 was the score. And yeah, I mean, he, he just kind of wove together a sequence that was, it felt inevitable. I mean, the people I was watching him with, we all were just like, it's coming, here it comes, you know, and, and he, and he delivered. And, you know, some of it was the pickup point stuff. Like you were talking about Justin, where, you know, as much as Castle is equipped to be lanky and give the right, the right types of bumps and in combination with lunging towards the ball and his explosiveness, like that set him up to guard Shea. I think in a way in the isolation, I think we've talked about this on the show a little bit, but in the mid range, it's not the exact right tool bag to guard Brunson, because I think the, the playing uphill stuff, Brunson just gets in there and he just has such a great feel for the consequence of, of every just tiny little thing that he does. Like he gets into the, he plays more like Luca than he does like Shea, honestly. And I'm not gonna, it would be funny, I think, to assume that maybe their time together, I'm sure he learned some things from Luca, who knows. - Oh, definitely. And yeah, I mean that play, that play on Wimby, but there were just a few different times where his certainty in transition, the Spurs were scrambling. I mean, Champagny, he took that ball off the rim, Champagny fouls him. He just time and time again, got them in really tough situations. And I think that Brunson has affected the small guard Pantheon, the word we love at the ringer. Now it's Isaiah Thomas. Now it's Steph Curry. Who's hey, Steph's six, three, six, two and a half, but, and then it's Brunson. I mean, Iverson got to the finals, but you know, got up against a behemoth in the Lakers. And then it's Chris Paul, Steve Nash. Those guys never got to the finals. I think he's really affected that conversation in the way that we look at small players, even going forward. It's just kind of like, but I think it's really special what he did. I don't even know if it's replicable to be honest with you. - Well, I do want to talk about that. I had this later on, but we should talk about it now. You're right. Like Steph feels like a completely separate thing. He basically ushered in a different style of basketball being played with the shots that he was making. And so like, he feels like his own little subcategory to that in terms of small guards. It just like, it just doesn't happen this way. And I do wonder how much a result of the Knicks success just came from insulating him with the exact right team you would want around him. And I think that gets us into the conversation about like how much did his initial pay cut on his extension really just basically outfit him with the right team in order to do so. On the one hand, like I think the pay cut thing is a little misleading because ultimately in the long run, when he gets to his next extension, he isn't going to lose that much money. If anything, he's going to make it back. It does take a lot of faith in your organization that when you sign an extension, you're going to then get the maximum amount on the next extension coming down the road there. And so there's that, but it did feel like, you know, him doing that allowed him to have this sort of top heavy team. It's basically a big three. When you look at just pure salaries with OG, him and Karl-Anthony Towns. Obviously you added McHale. And so like, was it as much Brunson's like just particular style of brilliance one Rob, or is it as much about like him getting exactly what he would need by doing the pay cut in order to put himself in position to be on this sort of stage? - I mean, it's very much both, right? Jalen Brunson is not LeBron James. He's not even Steph Curry, like historic, like these are all time incredible players. Who are going to be in the top 10 conversations in the history of the sport. Jalen Brunson, not there yet. Maybe he will be, maybe he's going to like rattle off three or four incredible years here. And we're going to have that talk. This isn't that like it is a more balanced champion. And that's part of what makes the Knicks story so fascinating and so interesting. And I think also part of what made the regular season so challenging was figuring out how to balance all of these different pieces to their maximum effect to not just be this ISO driven version of the Knicks all the time. They had so many different gears. They had so many different speeds, so many different ways to throw teams off balance. And then when it came down to it, it could be Brunson throwing the haymakers because he didn't have to do it every step of the way, 82 games and through an entire playoff run. But I think he is uniquely conditioned to be dominant because of the fundamentals of his game, because of the way he scores. And also just with where the NBA is right now, I think so much of 2014 or so until 2022 was about like, how do we create space, right? How do we stretch out the floor to the maximum possible effect? And the swing back I would say since that time is how do we use that space? Not just how do we get a bunch of three and D wings on the floor, but who are the guys who are so uniquely attuned to that body control that Kyle was talking about in terms of the bumps and the manipulations of defenders. Like if you can get one guy on an island, even if that one guy is the best defensive player in the world, who are the players who are so good at dialing in those exact exact possessions and getting the most out of them and Jalen Brunson is among that class of player. Yeah, it's interesting watching, you know, they had those like this day on the playoffs over the years. I don't know if you all saw those clips. The NBA was posting them. It was interesting to watch. I guess it was the 2017 finals or maybe it was, I think it was, it might even been 2016 when, because all the Cavs, Warriors stuff runs together as we know. But it was fascinating watching Steph's style of play in those clips where I was like, that feels like a long time ago. And I know we all were so convinced where, which it is increasingly long ago, but stylistically it feels even further away because we got so obsessed with what you were talking about, Rob, about like, how do we, how do we make the floor bigger? How do we, how do we get more evasive? How do we make teams scramble around? And those things still do exist. It is interesting. And I think important to note that the concert between cat and between Brunson is also very important. Both of those guys are three, two level scores, which I think the Spurs don't currently have, which we can talk about more in a little bit, but his ability to pull Wimby away was huge at very critical times in this game. That one play where, and this speaks to the, just the small things that Brunson's able to do. He had a play. I rewound this so many times because I kept trying to pause it at the spot where he did it and it wasn't working. So I had to do one of those, just, you know, cursor scrub kind of like drag it moments. And it's where he drove on the left side and Carl is in the left corner. When B lunges at him, like, like a gigantic mechanical spider or something. I mean, I can't imagine when B stunting at me, it'd be just so terrifying. Brunson just gives him a split second ball, fake head, shoulder fake to cat and w and Carl's such a good shooter that when B scrambles back out there and it's like that kind of stuff is partly what makes him so great. But then, but I do think that their skill sets in, in concert together is a really important thing. Even, even if Carl didn't produce to the level of a superstar in this series. Yeah. And Mon Schumpert talked about this a little bit on the hoop collective, but like Jalen Brunson's eye fakes are so devastating in that way. I mean, it's become a signature part of his game, like that specific manipulation. He didn't invent it. Guards have been doing it for a long time, especially great playmakers. But I think the discrepancy for him as a guy, who's not necessarily known for passing, being like a pass first point guard in the traditional sense, still being able to sell that. So convincingly is a huge part of what allows him to kind of wedge his way. Open. Yeah. And I have to imagine that by game five, that Brunson was probably in their heads a little bit based off of some of those slight fakes and hesitations and pivots and whatnot, that they were just like, they didn't know where to go because it felt like he was just getting Scott free, especially like that one play late in it. I don't remember the timing was where castle just like was at the dust, but he picked them up at half court. Just didn't have any shot at it. I have to imagine he thought he was faking one way and he just went. And that's like the own personal blend. Or that Brunson had in contrast to like what they were doing with just the past and some of the other possessions, just like watching the Spurs get moved around, especially when B with the way that they were moving, the ball is something that like, I will always remember. And we talk about space. Like that was the, the Nick's own like special quality in order to manipulate the space was to get guys moving and in rotation and just trying to be able to follow the ball because everything was just so on a string in comparison to what was happening on the other end, where it felt like the Knicks, we're able to play to their strength, play to their size because of the lack of shooting with the Spurs there. Do you want to talk about the Spurs? You guys have anything else you want to talk about the next or should we, I would say just one other thing about the Knicks, but really it's about both teams. Like a lot of what we're describing to me is the psychological battle of what someone like Jalen Brunson and really the next broader offense does to a team like the Spurs versus the physical wear down that San Antonio was trying to extract from Brunson in the first place. Right? It's like part of the reason they're picking him up so high. It's just hoping beyond hope that if you do this for 40 minutes, that in minute 40, he's not going to hit the crazy shot that he's obviously going to hit. But the trade-off for that is if you are pressuring him that much and he just keeps beating it and beating it and beating it in route to, you know, what do you end up with? 45, 45 points in that game. That just devastates your defense in a way that is like, it is not an X and O thing. It is not a tactical thing. It's just like a, a deeply spiritual wound that I think is really hard to recover from in real time. And scores like Brunson had the unique ability to do that where you throw everything you have at them. You're hoping that the attrition of a final series wears them down, but instead they just kind of pick you apart from inside out. Yeah. There's, there's like a paralysis of tedium. I think with, with Brunson where he just brings you into that world that I was talking about that. And you're just so on edge. And I think it's mentally fatiguing. I honestly thought they should have thrown Harper on him more. I know I made a big deal about, about that. And after the last game, I just thought he, he had, he had a better fit. There was a play. There were a couple of ways down the stretch where Harper picked him up and I think walled him a little better than castle was doing. But yeah, it's, it's really cool because I think the, the simple thing that you could get lured into watching this team is just think like, Oh, this is a little guy, Helio team. And he's just slowing it down and man, they can't do anything about him. But it's like, that was the, once the Spurs are tired, that's the thing. That's the thing that they were the least equipped to do, you know, because I made a point is to slow that down because I made the point about the Wimby stunning at him thing. Like Wimby was just stretched mentally. Physically. He was worn down, you know, one follows the other, but I think at that point in the, in the series and in the game, he was just so stretched out and worn out mentally that I don't think he was in his right mind. I think he overreacted to that because he was so tired. So another thing too, that I don't know that we've talked about on this show is the fact that the Spurs, the Spurs are an excellent zone offense team and the, or the, the Knicks are an excellent zone offense team and the Spurs play their own type of zone with Wimby. And I think that that was another thing that really hurt them is that they could get them into that ball movement blender. And that just wore the, that wore the Spurs out by the end. I mean, if you were going to create a team in a lab to beat a zone defense, it would have the high post shooter and passing and cat. It would have the mid range killer and Jalen Brunson, and it'd have the backline offensive rebounders like Josh Harden, OG and it'll be like, they have everything you need to punish those sorts of strategies. So I think Kyle's right about Wimby where I think the thing that's most, you're welcome. The thing that's just most concerning or the thing that's most disappointing, I'd say is just the way that he comported himself down the stretch there, where you really remembered for the first time in a very long time that he's 22 years old and still figuring this all out in the fly. I guess one thing to be fatigued, especially coming off of last, last, last off season where I think people forget, like he literally couldn't do a lot of basketball stuff. And then part of the reason why he went to Shaolin with the monks was because of the blood clot limiting what he could do on a court. And so like, he basically missed the bridge year between his second year and third year of off season working and just like working at his game and all this other stuff, like, which is wild to think about that he is where he is without that. Um, but it just felt like that's one thing, right? We can talk about like the, the specifics of his, his gameplay and all this other stuff, but like, it just seemed like he was melting down and things were just getting out of his grasp. And it almost felt like he was becoming overly physical to the point of like a little dirty as a result of it. He probably would have gotten suspended for game six, uh, as a result of like going under Brunson and, uh, not being called for the flagrant on the landing issue. And just, I don't know, just, it just really felt like he completely spiraled in a way that we weren't used to seeing him. I, I guess, this is just the moment, I guess it's just the pressure and all that. It's nothing to be concerned about like super long-term, but like, I think the lasting image of, of when B I'll have is him kind of just being a little bit of a dick and a little bit too physical as a result of him not being able to affect the game in the way that he's used to doing so. Yeah. I mean, he was frustrated constantly in this series and sometimes that manifested in him, like taking it out on the game and being really aggressive for minutes of a time and minutes at a time pursuing his scoring. And sometimes it manifested in him, two arms shoving Jalen Brunson for kind of no reason whatsoever. Other than these are difficult games. Like these are unique challenges. And not only was when B not particularly ready to respond to everything that the Knicks threw at him, I'm just not sure he was ready for 40 plus minutes of intense, not just physical exertion, but absolutely intense focus in these games. It's a really difficult thing. And when you think about someone who during the regular season, the Spurs went to such great efforts, to keep his minutes down, right. To limit his intense competitive windows for the sake of getting him here. Some of this is the trade-off like in game four, as the Knicks are pulling off the most unspeakable comeback in NBA finals history, when B was completely gassed down the stretch, missed crucial free throws made mind like blundering mistakes. And that's after already earlier in the series, he threw the, you know, the pass office, Stefan castles, but like this, this is kind of where his finals legacy, his beginning, right? You come in and you get absolutely humbled. And I think his comment about how the Spurs had a lot of this series in hand and the lesson of it is just how painful your mistakes are just rings. Absolutely true. Like the smallest margins get blown up in terms of what one error in judgment can do. And down the stretch of these games, whatever the cause may be, if you want to say it's physical, if you want to say it's mental, if you want to say he's just too young for it, he just was making so many of those mistakes at an uncharacteristic frequency. that I mean, we'll see how he responds to that and starts to kind of put those pieces back together yeah it'd be one thing if it were just kind of in you know a vacuum if we're just playing basketball straight up can you answer these problems but we all know that that's just not the way it works and i mean this is just a we've done the sun zoo warfare thing before it's just like the thing happening on the battlefield is not the is not the totality of it there's there's the psychological there's information there's a lot of different ways that people go about trying to get the job done and i think that's true of basketball too and i think that the mental toll that a lot of it is yes there there were the bumps that he was taking on every roll to the basket and i think of his body type he's got a lot of things he's got to figure out of just getting stronger and improving you know i know the spurs know that they have this really really special talent and they try to take care of him during the season but maybe that his cardio they they work on it in some way and just try to get him more ready for this but there's also on the other hand um there's a there's an interesting and i think i've alluded to this before watching him in international play when he was growing up or watching him with nonterre or mets 92 um there's a big like wherever you go there you are psychological thing going on with him where he was prone to this stuff and i don't think people i don't think americans saw it like in the early part of his career with the spurs where it's not dissimilar from yokich where yok he wouldn't fly off the handle the way yokich would just get like teary-eyed and scream and yeah things like that but wimby would get would fly off the handle and psychologically take himself out of the game it was a thing that we saw when he was younger and i think it's something that he's gonna have to figure out on the other hand um who you are as a basketball player from 15 to 18 from 18 to 22 from 22 to 26 those are big mile markers in who you are we're at 22 who he is he has a lot of stuff to figure out i and i've heard people like narrative wise if wimby's career had gone this way it would have been like jumping from a new hope straight to return to the jedi i've been like luke special luke conquered the galaxy it's like no every single superstar we talked about this on this show where it would have been weird if he had just conquered the league in his first go at it we need the empire strikes back part of wimby's story where it's like and i think we went into it where it's like he's got stuff he's got to answer in terms of his game he's got to figure out how i want can we talk about the spurs hierarchy as a team because i think that's what this launches into because i could go on about this but that's just saying i think that how much they use dearon fox despite the fact that he couldn't hit a goddamn shot let's do it let's talk about the spurs hierarchy because i think it fucked them at really really brutal times in this series this episode is brought to you by major league baseball there is nowhere left to go two teams one championship watch the world series yeah the world series presented by capital one on fox and fox one no time like october visit mlb.com slash postseason to learn more old eosinophilic esophagitis or eoe can mean you're stuck in many ways like cutting your food into tiny pieces or stuck chewing food for a long time dupixent dupilumab a prescription medicine for patients one year and older weighing at least 33 pounds can help with that it's a breakthrough treatment that can reduce inflammation in the esophagus and improve swallowing how about this dupixent is not a steroid it proactively treats eoe so you can get ahead of it severe allergic reactions including skin reactions can occur get help right away if you have trouble breathing or wheezing or swelling of your face mouth tongue or throat tell your doctor of newer worsening joint aches and pain or a parasitic infection or asthma don't change or stop other treatments without talking to your doctor feeling stuck with eoe start treating with dupixent talk to your gastroenterologist or allergist today about dupixent learn more at dupixent.com or call 1-844-DUPIXENT well obviously he sucked in that game and i think he opens up a lot of questions about his long-term viability on this team i found what they were saying both vassell and others about just like harper not being happy with his role i don't know what was going on i saw michael wright at espn suggesting that was much earlier on in the season when harper wasn't playing like enough versus like what specific role he was playing later on and so clearly harper wants to be a bigger factor and if you watched any minute of the finals you would know that he deserves that because at the end of the game five when they needed someone the most he was the best player on the floor and i have to say like if he was unhappy with his role even in the playoffs or even when things were going right i fucking love it like this is what you want from the guy that you're hoping is going to be the counterpart to to wemby and lead you into this new era of prominence like it's okay to be like the best teammate who like sacrifices all this stuff if you're a role player if you're the number one guy if you're a potential mvp candidate down the road i want you to be the fucking dog who like wants it like now and is unhappy when you don't get it and so like the spurs have some stuff to figure out i guess for me i think it's pretty clear cut where it's just like give harper as much as he wants as soon as he wants it yeah i think it's going to be a huge part of their journey next season is just figuring out one way or another how you get dylan harper up to the level of running offense where you feel super comfortable just giving him the keys down the stretch of some of these games and maybe maybe that is you still start darren fox but when harper comes in he gets to run the show a little bit more within his role maybe if you have the political capital to do it you just move fox to the bench and start harper out right but if you're the number two overall pick and you're playing 22 minutes a game in the regular season yeah you should want more than that like i would be concerned if he didn't want more than that there's big kobe eddie jones vibes with this aren't there is it a little bit yeah it's remember kobe kobe was like i should be starting i'm the best player in the team and remember like nick van excellent and a lot of the vets on that team i think byron uh byron scott was like on his way out but we're talking like 96 97 yeah it was you know they were like this kid jesus christ like there's there's that vibe to this and kobe shown showed in big moments it was like he did some brilliant things and he did some you know some rough stuff but that's what that reminds me of but that's where it's different like if any of you guys are a fan of kobe eddie jones between the two guys darren fox is the one making the young player mistakes like he's the one settling for bad shots he's the one with some heinous turnovers finals altering mistakes in terms of like going up for that layup against og and game four for example not saying harper's perfect he had some bad turnovers too i i actually don't think for as much as we have clamored for more for dylan harper more for dylan harper more for dylan harper he just like does not have the level he's a great driver an unbelievable finisher especially for his size he's going to do amazing things in the league i don't even know that he was entirely ready for all this i think that is the big question is how much do you need darren fox's steady hand to organize things when fox is going right and i think it feels a little too soon even next season to get away from that quality now do you need that specifically from darren fox a guy who is going to be making a shit ton of money in the very near future i'm not so sure do you need basically just a a stopgap solution like a point guard like a almost like chris paul four years ago or he's past the point where like throw chris paul in there that'll calm it down well just late era chris paul where you just need someone to do the organizational stuff the adult stuff in the room so that your young material talents can can go be that because like some of the lineups where it's just like harper and castle for instance like they don't work totally part because of the shooting in part because i think they're still trying to figure things out i think castle like kind of got away scott free with a lot of blame there i mean he was very bad in game five but like really sometimes he would just be overzealous defensively i don't know if playing with wemby almost like lures you into a sense of false comfortability because you could be so aggressive and then like if he's not right then like things just fall apart there but i think castle still has so much left to do like a lot of what he's getting by on is a lot of just like innate physical gifts and intuition and he has awesome things to do and i think that's a lot of things to do and i think that's a lot of things to do and i think that's a lot of things to feel but like he's not refined at all and so i i think that's the question is do you need fox because clearly you need what he can bring when he is right i think you need somebody on this team who can actually settle the team down into their offense and make them feel like stable and level and right now they just didn't really have those guys like they were not a precise team in terms of their execution sometimes fox would have those huge moments where everything kind of turns to him and he would hit an absolutely critical like step forward and he would hit an absolutely critical step back mid-range shot in a way that is very important for what their offense was that just shouldn't be what the trajectory that the spurs are aiming for is and i think some of that could come from harper some of that could come from castle settling down i think a lot of it too is going to have to come from victor webb and yama having an avenue for offense that is a little more sustainable and like just something you can dial up beyond roll to the rim and we're going to play out of that like he needs go to definitive mid-range offense that's the purview of stars that's what's kind of expected of someone in his position and he's physically suited to do it like i know you know zach has been clamoring on his pod for like the the porzingis type shot from victor webb and yama i think that's a great call but also before it was the porzingis shot it was the tim duncan shot like if we can get tim duncan off the paintball course for a couple days over the summer to talk to wimby about like free throw line extended elbow type offense that could be such an easy easy thing for him i think he easily either needs that or he needs the dirk lamarcus aldridge style baseline like turnaround right like one of those two shots is going to be really important to his development and the speed at which they come on could determine how quickly the Spurs are able to get back to a stage like this oh I have a lot of thoughts about this um Fox I think that one of the big issues is you nailed it when you were saying like they need the steadying thing but the problem is that you can't I made this point on Twitter that like Fox is not like Conley where he will come in and just steady and pick his spots if you bring Fox on to steady you're getting the other stuff too because Fox in his mind rightly so all-star plays like he thinks he's Michael Jordan but really he's probably closer to the best version of his probably more like Warriors Jordan pool to be honest with you it's just like the scoring like it's oh okay now we're no way no the mud no I just think that the best version of pool I'm just saying of like in on title team I think he gives you buckets but I think the moment you start to lean on him you court these types of things and I think this has always been my thing with Fox this is why like I've enjoyed shit at Kentucky fans because I've always criticized Fox for this um yeah stepping out of line with the with the fraternity here no they had a seven play sequence down the stretch of this game and this this encapsulates what I'm saying they needed Fox to steady them uh I wrote this down uh when it's 83 the cool stat drop do we have that available to us it's not a stat this is just kind of a secret so a seven play sequence and I think four or at least three of them he settled for I think they have a hierarchy problem where Rob what you're saying is correct Victor needs to find more consistent ways where he could get to his own offense if he's facing up it's almost just like I'd rather him get the extra point just take a three the long twos I understand why they maybe wouldn't want to do that yeah you put him in a position to rim run and maybe go get it um but this is my I think that's an area where I get like a points per shot expected value conversation says one thing and I genuinely think the difference between being a 42 mid-range shooter and a 35 three-point shooter is like a meaningful gap like when you're talking about settling possessions I don't even care about the points I care about what makes you feel stable and chucking threes especially for Victor Web and Yama I don't think he's ever going to make this offense feel stable but he's like a 30 percent three-point shooter right really and truly as good as it looks it's it's pretty streaky well this is probably my strongest feeling about this but go ahead yeah well how much is like a mid-range shot like that bad at this point when you're that tall and you're basically just like not jumping and throwing it like into the hoop basically it's just like if teams are going to sell out on keeping him from the rim and it feels like the fate of the league is going to be dictated by whether or not he could be effective at the basket just having the natural counter of being right there whether it's a sky hook whether it's a Tim Duncan bank shot whatever it is just like just a pure mid-range set shot like I think would just completely unlock it because another part of this is like I also think the Spurs inconsistency from deep is also like a pretty good thing I think it's just like a pretty significant thing where it's like it feels like champagne he's the only consistent three-point shooter and even he has like really like stark bouts of inconsistency even half to half like even when he has like six threes it's just like a lot of them come in bunches from the start but then he's a role player dude the champagne thing is a problem he was up like in not that's the problem highlight snort emoji oh my god he was such a problem on defense in this series that's a whole other yeah I gotta figure that out that's a thing well if you had a more stable better version of that four which we have been saying in mock trade scenarios for what two years at this point give him a lot of remarking him give him this guy give him that guy like I think that would help I love champagne I think he's a really good rotation player they're gonna bring him back probably on an extension this summer he's gonna be part of their top seven top eight but like should he be eight maybe that would be a better suited role for him here an idea I had just like trying to think through this sort of situation like would you trade Fox for Michael Porter Jr. right now I don't think the Nets would really you don't think that they would take take a bet on just the the talent and just like having a star because I think the Nets the problem with the Nets is like they just don't have anything at this point yeah out their pick next year they're just counting on some of their many draft picks to to pop at the very least like Fox gives you a north star to sell to fans but having said that I don't think they would trade Fox for Michael Porter Jr. I don't know what they're going to be selling to the New York fan base coming off a Knicks title like yeah fuck business-wise for another couple of New York fan base that just lost that just won a finals in large part because of Fox's problems yeah you send him to Brooklyn that's gonna be really hard to get excited about I think Fox's contract is going to be pretty rough for whoever is in the in the market to trade for it and take that apart out of it I think there's a pretty decent basketball case that Michael Porter Jr. is just going to be a better player from here on out than De'Aaron Fox is going to be they're similar ages similar points in their career Michael Porter Jr. is adding things to his game and everything we're saying about De'Aaron Fox granted played through injury during these playoffs I don't want to discount that and the effect it had on his efficiency and his stop and go all of these things but a lot of it is just like the way he processes the game as a playmaker and he is he is a scorer he is somebody who can draft off of a playmaking big who can work off of who can play the pick and roll with someone like Victor Webinyama certainly but I don't think they're going to be able to do that because they're I don't know that he's a star who really changes your outlook even if you are a team like the Nets I think it's more about doing something right Kyle like maybe I'm underestimating where the Nets are in their trajectory but I feel like they just have to square one yes take a step toward something yeah if anything Porter Jr. is probably going to help them are you building around him yeah it just kind of feels like he's probably a piece to like to swap to move forward you mentioned the Fox salary I mean doing a little spot track spot track whatever it is um yeah that Fox deal is in the vicinity of Lucas Yakim Anthony Edwards Tyrese Halliburton that's the type of money you're talking about god um and it's tough because if you were ever going to be in a disadvantageous leverage situation it's like watching a team flounder the way that they did in the finals with it with him at the center it's like you'd have to give up you probably have to give up like Carter Bryant the 20th pick Fox like give it you'd have to give some kind of realist serious asset up here my big kind of take finishing kind of bow thing I think if you're if you're looking at the Spurs going forward is I in kind of conjunction with whether or not Wimby develops some you know self-created offense whenever strong teams that are and these that's the other thing too is these teams are requiring bodies because the blueprint is there for how to bother Wimby now so you're going to start to see teams accrue these guys that I don't think that it's a size thing I think it's like solid bodied guys that can move like Mitchell Robinson Robinson and then Cat um who are going to who stop his downhill progress you're going to start seeing teams try to go get those guys um I think that this Spurs era is going to hinge on whether or not Dylan Harper becomes an above average primary or an elite primary because I think ultimately Wimby is going to be like an offensive Pippen type granted a very different type of thing I just think that it's going to be so hard uh because teams are going to game plan to stop him from getting to his spots if Harper can become an elite primary I think that's the thing that's going to cause them to win a title like um react to that what do y'all think I think it's even different than a Pippen thing like I get what you're saying spiritually kind of like 1a 1b or one first option versus second option but responsive like I think it's going to have he's going to be responsive but Pippen was driving offense like he's a ball handler I think the difference with Victor Webinyama is like he needs to be dominant in the way that historical bigs have been dominant but all of those players had defining post games whether high or low and Victor Webinyama doesn't have that right now he is a defense first star who creates a bunch of offense because of his size because of his talent level because of his handle but it's not refined enough yet in a lot of ways that the Spurs are not refined enough yet now I want to be careful with this because I want to I want to thread this needle for all of the criticisms that we're levying at the Spurs they just got to the NBA finals they got to the well that's the correct I mean yeah that's crazy with the bars just so high yes they have these types of questions completely crazy but the reason I think it's fair to bring this stuff up with Wemby with Fox with Harper with just the youth of the roster champagne like all of these things we're talking about as far as limitations that they have right now is you just can't count on the fact that you're going to be back you can't just like put it in pen you have to earn it you have to change you have to grow to get there like if this is the Empire Strikes Back part of the arc like you got to go out in the wilderness and like build that goddamn lightsaber show up to Jabba's Palace with absolutely no plan and wing it and somehow win Jesus Christ Kyle frankly is this the one with the the dual lightsaber oh come on don't don't pretend don't give me dork condescension when you're talking about maters and cucumbers come on I'm living off the land here man I'm living here in America just digging in the dirt and you guys are out in space fucking talking about jabberwocky whatever I think I've seen them all but can't say I've ever been a Star Wars guy um you guys are Star Wars guys I feel like we're like definitely a Star Wars guy no yeah guilty huge it's not a good it's not a good kind of guy to be these days but you know we are who we are times are tough no if you speaking about the like getting back thing i mean the the thunder really amused me i'll just go check on their their reddit and their twitter kind of stuff it's they're just seething about this and laughing about the spurs thing too but they're gonna be i mean they're gonna retool that's the thing is like they were dinged during that series they're gonna they're gonna become i think it's pretty possible the spurs don't get back next year just because i think they're gonna be teams getting healthier and getting stronger and it's gonna be interesting to see very likely they could but i just think um you can't take for granted getting there the way that they did so i don't know i just think the hierarchy thing really hurt them at different times whether or not it's like not knowing who gets the ball like the knicks knew we got we've got a transition sequence here like go like hand off into the stomach of jalen brunson like this you get the ball here and you saw that time and time again and you saw some moments of indecision and you saw some moments of indecision and you saw some moments of indecision and you saw some moments of indecision and you saw some moments of indecision where you know what we run like i think harper is gonna have to grow into that guy and it's interesting because the spurs are just in such an interesting like historical spot where they have and this might be hyperbolic i might get struck by lightning for saying this but they kind of have like a spiritual kareem on their team and a spiritual duane wade like this like it's crazy and they're both under 22 22 and under like it's gonna be i'm gonna be really riveted to see where this goes well just to put a bow on the harper point because i agree with what you're saying look for him what is the next step is it more decision making is it being able to run an offense is it shooting is it all the above or like how would you kind of like rank which one is most important for them to take a step i mean all of those feel like kind of pieces of the same thing to me like right now i'm not saying he's a tunnel visioned player but dylan harper's scope of what makes him excellent is pretty narrow it's like between him and the bass mostly in straight lines through whoever you want to put in front of him like he's better at breaking down individual defenders and scoring through them than almost any guard in the league frankly especially guards who are not superstars yet so it's about like how do you balance that incredible like scalpel sharp skill with the ability to okay i'm now bound i'm now weaponizing that to do what jalen brunson did like looking people off to make me even more potent or hitting the timely passes or passing out of pressure like i'm not saying he's a tunnel visioner but he's a tunnel visioner so much of being a lead guard is about understanding what you do in context and you can't watch a team that has floundered in the way that the spurs have floundered down the stretch of these games and feel like okay any of these three guards has a really precise feel on what the team needs in this moment like dylan harper is frankly too young for that and part of it is taking your lumps but also part of it is expanding that field of view to get if i am this good at getting to the least you want to get to i think the litmus test for like a superstar prospect if they if they're on that level is like what's implied about the way they play like offensively i probably said this during our young court thing but it's the way i always look at it where you know you'll see guys coming in the league you'll be like i can do a little bit of everything so you can shoot a little bit it's like but there's another level of this guy does this thing so efficiently and at such volume that we got to stop him from doing it and and harper already has that he already has that that that super trait that you want to have he can get to the rim like rob was saying it's a little like ann edwards when he came into the league where it was like he was getting to the rim and you you have that and so you start on the process of developing the counters to that and that's going to be you know can he hit dribble pull up jumpers can he start getting into the minutiae that jaylen brunson has mastered and i think there was a play that kind of encapsulated that where harper came around a ball screen and hit the brakes and thought somebody was going to hit him and shoot the ball it's like those little things those are the things that i think he's just really at the beginning stages of figuring out because he's just such an undeniable downhill force i think he can pass the ball i think his right hand's going to need to develop a little bit more because you see a lot of what he does is that initial move get to my right hand um i think that bridges and og bothered him down the stretch where he started to anticipate meeting somebody there and that made him miss that last layup but yeah just starting on the the counters of the playmaking and and the shooting and things he just is going to have to start on the journey of developing those things yeah all right why don't we take one more break we come back i want to talk through some trends and ripple effects from the next winning the ringer nba show is brought to you by fanduel another nba season is in the books but the fun doesn't have to stop there on the biggest stage in the world fanduel is changing the game because sometimes your player gets subbed off and your bet goes with them not anymore with fanduel super sub if your player is subbed out your bet stays in that's right if your player leaves the match your bet continues on with the substitute so you're still in it until the final whistle because in matches like these anything can happen and now your bet can go the distance visit fanduel.com slash ringer nba to get started now 21 plus select states or 18 plus dc kentucky wyoming gambling problem call 1-800 gambler call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in connecticut all right it was a big day for a lot of people obviously new yorkers obviously long time nix fans or nix employees big day for alicia keys certainly the royalties can you imagine did you get hype on that one balcony video at the top where the crowd was singing the song i was like oh shit that's a good timer was worried about the fire escapes they're a little shaky having said that i don't like being in big crowds like that i don't like being touched by by sweaty people and so i probably would have gotten out of there before that well you would have been on the fire escape you know you're a little perch up there from your ivory tower i also don't do heights well so that's a whole other issue um but we're laying for like in star wars right you're a cool guy one's a fear okay i can't i have no control over that well we're driven by love and you're driven by fear i'm afraid of the world but i did want to talk about outside of just the obvious people who celebrated i want to talk about like what was a big day for these certain things certain people certain just aspects of of around basketball and whatnot i think first and foremost as i was thinking through this what a big day for the nba cup because now we really have a nice little body of of history here where it does feel like more like a precursor to what will come later in the season then even what it was sold out for which is like oh this nice little thing like maybe the young teams will get involved and like this will be a showcase for the up-and-coming teams to have like a moment when people aren't really watching them really what it's become year after year is almost like a like a early marker of teams that will go on to have success like even the first year pacers go to the eastern conference finals last year uh thunder go to that final game and then this year obviously we had the two teams that ended up playing in the finals like all of a sudden the cup has some juice i like it not just the two teams but the two teams that ended up playing in the finals like all of a sudden the two teams which i suspect you know for the 2026 cup we're all gonna have that conversation about whoever makes it they're like oh is this an nba finals preview like it was last year but it was also like plot point for plot point almost a replication of the finals like the knicks winning in that game with like veteran savvy and physicality and know-how turned out to be exactly the way it played out so huge win for the nba cup huge win for people like us and people who are invested in the regular season project of the nba and any of this stuff me now there's another thing that could potentially mean a lot early in the season uh probably i went for adam silver in that particular regard as well he needs him he really does given a shit is is still in style you know in some way right you know the teams that have gone into the cup and done well it's these teams that are serious it's the laissez-faire like oh who cares we'll turn it on like it seems like that's out of fashion right like the the pacers the it's the the give a shit meter you know the the more you know red line is going to be the one that's going to be the one that's lining it is that it's that it seems like the cup has been a good indicator of that so far well i'm glad you brought up the pacers again because i do think that's another thing that probably had a big day here which is teams that are just like fucker we're just going to build the best possible team that we have uh we saw the pacers last year haliburton pops immediately just go out and get them help and build just a deep good basketball team that hit its stride and all of a sudden they're back in the finals one win away from winning it all the nicks also feel like a similar type of team where especially considering their history chasing every fucking star every year for so long all of a sudden we're just like all right we have brunson we got a guy coming to us and then they just went out and just built around him steadily getting the sort of big bodies they needed around him to stretch around him in order for to really highlight who he is i do wonder rob as we're kind of kind of transitioning to this new era of the cpa like is there something there where it's just like teams aren't futzing around with the time line and like punting this pick and that pick or just for instance just diminishing their possibility of winning in order to potentially get a top pick in the neftrax just basically saying like we're just going to be the best version of ourself and hope that something good comes of it by continually being there in the moment in the playoffs and just kind of like giving ourselves a shot i think that's what this era of the nba basically demands if you want to zoom out on the eight seasons with eight different champions this like era a parody we have all kind of stumbled into together and frankly that the nba has engineered with some of its rule changes the the whole idea of we're going to play the long game we're going to play two timelines that is like dynastic hubris right that's like oh we have steph curry and clay thompson and raymond green and andre godalla fuck it let's draft james wiseman and like let's let's slow play this thing so we can roll into another dynasty it's like uh it's like hyper decanting you know like from success your success it's like decanting's out hyper decanting's in not only is hyper decanting that's one regular decanting is out the only a game in town right now is popping that cork and just swigging from the bottle as fast as you possibly can because like your window is right now and it may not be there next year these things are evaporating so quickly in terms of team's ability to even get back to the finals much less to repeat as champions yeah i think the only unfortunate thing that's happening is that the team's ability to even get back to the finals much less to repeat is that perhaps the window to use it almost as an advantage almost as a zag against the established like way of doing things might have just like the door closed with this year because of the new tanking rules in place whereas like you're right it feels like teams are gearing up in order to play in the regular season god forbid uh like we've never seen before whereas last year like a third of the league was basically playing for draft picks they can't do that anymore like the jazz are who they are some of these other teams are who they are and they're not going to kind of are just going to make the best out of their current situation i almost feel like the nixon pacer stumbled upon it when it was a kind of a market inefficiency now it's just like how you have to operate because you do not know where these picks are going to land having said that like there's probably always going to be teams that do the opposite that try to go against the grain like maybe a team like the nets that doesn't have anything is like oh actually you know this picks odds of getting the top pick are more diminished but that's still better than what we have we'll play for picks while everyone is playing for now but like it does feel like we're entering that era of the nba where it's like no just just build the best fucking team and let's just like go here and honestly i'm looking forward to it like the regular season could be awesome next year there's a bit of a tension between those things though where if the odds are kind of flattened in terms of the draft possibilities for many different kinds of teams i don't know that we're going to see a lot of like mikhail bridges style deals right like where you're just throwing a whole trove of picks at a player who is not even an all-star necessarily but could be a great finishing piece in terms of the draft possibilities for many different kinds of teams i don't know if that turned out to be an amazing finishing piece for your team there's just like this i think a tension between the very aggressive kind of team building that often leads to championship level basketball and the natural restraint that will come from flattened lottery odds in the first place well it's like the halliburton and brunson parallels are interesting because halliburton hadn't signed his max yet right when they made a lot of those moves i think he signed it is that right i'm i'm fuzzy on the timeline admittedly i think it was before when they built the title what came to be yes final because i think his extension clicked in after the finals yeah and then brunson's situation obviously being really unique um well that's that's the whole like rookie qb thing where it's like your rookie player stuck to the rookie scale is exceeding what a typical player in that age range would do and so you could allocate that money elsewhere that still seems i mean that's basically what what the spurs did with fox for instance um and so like you're right like it's still a lot of money that's still a lot of money that's still a lot of money that's still is valuable to have a good rookie player above all like if the mavericks hadn't cluttered their books with so many like just league average like rotation players like they would have that with flag for instance yeah i was trying to think of who else across the league is in that situation flag comes to mind obviously i'm trying to think of other well the jazz like the jazz are about to add a top two pick and they've had all this money in jaron jackson and laura markin already yeah so that still seems advantageous um all right another one i have down here being an asshole to your son uh because the brunson's obviously have a nice little buddy cop thing going on here uh but to be fair it's also being an asshole back to your dad like once you've gotten to a certain level of stature you get to dish it back a little bit but yes but uh it there are also all those like videos of of brunson and his dad on the blacktop or his dad just like really giving it to him like oh yeah seemed like he he thought something about the way his career went and he knew that he had to get his son to to dial in in a way that like perhaps he didn't previously and so kyle asked you as a resident dad on the pod oh jesus this says anything about the the the way parents are going to go about teaching their sons from now on oh man it's funny because they always make sure to include i'm sure just to avoid uh any kind of just chatter that would be annoying for them the uh he he asked me every day do i want to do this they always include that little he opted in you know yeah he's like i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this yeah no i mean i don't know at five i haven't really entered into like we're serious about any kind of discipline or pursuit or anything but it's it's a really interesting dance of um you know the bobby knight forcing people to learn a certain way model i feel like that has we've figured out over time as a society maybe certain parents are still clinging to that one but forcibly you know getting people to do skill acquisition just doesn't seem to work in most cases i know like i grew up with there were some forceful dads in in our orbit when you know in youth sports when i was growing up rob i don't know if you had this experience but a bunch of those kids like we had kids that were like the best guys on our team that had like really really forceful dads and they quit a lot of them burned out didn't even make it to varsity um it's a good way to make your kid fucking hate whatever it is you love to behave that way with them oh yeah i think this is yet another way why like jalen brunson is a totally like for every jalen brunson there are hundreds if not thousands of kids who hate their sport because their parents treated them that way so i guess you could take that as a blueprint if you think you're the one in the thousands but i would advise against a lot of nba parents that have kids that aren't interested in sports i remember like i interviewed stan van gunning we were joking i was telling him i was like yeah my son my son will like obnoxiously announce like because he thinks it's funny he'll he'll announce that i'm a basketball expert that's a pretty funny one that his sense of humor is becoming more and more of a problem but i was telling stan van gunning i was like my son doesn't give a crap about basketball and he was telling me that his kids multiple like don't care at all so i mean it's kind of a thing of you just wait to see what the interest level is and then you kind of just it's a dance of inviting them in asking them if they want that intensity and then you know i don't know but hands off is the way to go man i feel like the more the more i like kind of back off and let him acquire the skills this is a parenting conversation so yeah so trauma isn't having a moment is what you're saying no not really trauma specifically the indirect stuff is still still there it's gonna happen oh certainly let him think he discovered it himself and that's the magic that's how you that's how you get him to learn shit i like that i like that uh all right it's also a big day for remembering what leon rose looks like like i've known this for years yeah every time he shows up i'm like seriously you're talking about because this is his first media availability in like five years you know yeah he definitely on the days he definitely sounded like it as well i think he could have used a couple practice chops at it maybe do one press conference a year as opposed to like zero and however many years he's been running things but yeah nice to see him good job by you absolutely still just flummox every time that that guy is leon rose would you want to explain it what is it the flummox yeah no he's he's a he's a very squat jewish man as opposed to a black guy he's you know what i'm sorry i asked you think leon rose sounds like a black guy's name okay yeah i mean i mean you know many you saw jerry crowns in general i i think some of that might just be leon is phased out of style a little bit you know okay these days they're all adans but spelled counterintuitively so like what can you do okay so you guys aren't aren't surprised by leon rose i'm just surprised he's a real person and not like five people pretending to be shakespeare but like you know i'm just surprised he's a real person and not like five people pretending to be you know there you go i think leon rose could probably kick your ass justin just looking at him i don't know i'm sure most people i have no shot against most people in the world you said squatty i was like all right i'm gonna defend leon rose here a little bit you know low center of gravity it's got that that wide base he'll be fine uh since we're talking about names uh big day for jaylen's like huge holy shit we're in like the the apex of of jaylen's last three finals jaylen brown finals mvp last year jaylen williams winning it all this year jaylen brunson being the guy i have to say like is this the peak of all jaylen accomplishments that jaylen brunson led the knicks to the title given all the trauma with knicks fans and all that other stuff there's some nfl jaylen's too though right yeah but they're not as good but the fact that we're saying there's some nfl jaylen's like if there was one on the level with what's the see i don't even know that jaylen hurts compares to this what did he uh yeah that's where i'm just gonna embarrass myself with lack of football detail knowledge but uh yeah yeah they didn't well they won he won the super bowl right yeah but not like this unless you're just a philly sicko yeah he's he's always been a kind of a mixed bag i think i think he's had some success but even last year i think he he struggled and so fans are always somewhere in the middle on him yeah we're seeing a spike of babies named jaylen as a result of this moment like a second wave of jaylen's oh wow a second wave jay jaylen new wave jaylen i think we're gonna see a whole wave of nicks fans popping up as if there weren't enough of them across the country across the world as a result of a run like this like genuinely i think it's a real thing and certainly jaylen is going to become a household name in a very different way did you have a sports name in state that was like big in like texas and connecticut what was the what were the what were the sports names because kyle is i'm one of many many millennials named kyle because of kyle macy for kentucky he wanted to talk like people my parents age a lot of a lot of white dudes named kyle in my state i thought for texas it would be like emmet or nolan or something like that but i don't know that i actually knew that many kids named those things i've been waiting to name my kid khalid uh there's still time i haven't gotten there yet there were a lot of kembas a lot of kembas not necessarily that's not necessarily yeah like humans a lot of a lot of dog kembas oh sure kemba is a great dog's name yeah yeah okay get the vowel sound i can't say people who name like their dogs you gotta have the vowel sound at the end of the dog name yeah yeah um i have disagree rob you got a you got a consonant dog is that what you're saying it's gonna be the i mean i technically do have a consonant dog but it is a vowel sound so i guess we kind of skirted the rule on that okay uh small guards i have down here we talked about that uh abstinence big time for abstinence you're you're assuming they adhered to it yeah apparently jim dolan i don't know if you guys caught this in the nina begley story jokingly in air quotes was like you guys should refrain for sex throughout the entire playoffs i just like i was just thinking to myself like what if bill went up to to rob and just like this entire playoffs of pods you just you just can't afford to get me i just want to i just keep thinking through he wouldn't bother rob's such an animal it's like bill would just be like oh my god i don't know i don't know i don't know it's not worth it yeah i have nothing to say about any of this let's keep it moving uh the ringers top 100 because the top spot in our rankings is is just like impossible to figure out to the point where we did an initial wave of ranking i think after game four and it was split between six voters two for wemby at the top spot two for yokich two for shay and now we're at the point where it's split two ways between shay and yokich wemby has fallen off but because wemby is number two on every ballot i think like he might be number one so we have a weird tie scenario you guys will find it out on tuesday i'm sure everybody's just on pins and needles waiting for this to happen but well nothing gets nothing gets the people more hot and bothered just in the rank choice voting like that's really what gets the blood pumping that's right in particular um so i think it's just tougher than ever to figure out who the best player in the league is right now because i think you could make a case for all three of those guys where you fall i think depends on like probably where you were going into the playoffs as opposed to like even some of the things that like happened later on yeah i think we've learned a lot about a lot of different players and guys like cat for example i think have moved tremendously in kind of the public understanding and imagination i don't know that we've learned a lot about a lot of different players and guys like cat for example i think we've learned a ton about yoke itch that we didn't already know and i don't i frankly don't even know that we learned a ton about shay that we didn't already know other than when several of his teammates are hurt he can't get past a team as good as the spurs which fair enough well i'm weird about yoke itch so i obviously tread cautiously in this conversation but um you're not i still think that there's a uh there's a yoke itch there's there's another strong yoke itch outing i feel like i feel like that a year from now do you think that how much do you think he could win i don't know i don't think he could win i don't recalibrate that conversation and say i'm back bitches is that is that in play easily he's he's nicole yokich like he's fucking awesome if he's not the best player in the world he's the second best player in the world not according to our rankings um yes i think it really depends on how much they sort things out over the offseason just feels like their team could be completely upended in certain ways or they just need to find a way to finally pay for what is an appropriate supporting cast but peyton washington's day they should open up space for him somehow and that should be it but it's just not going to be as simple as that and so like it's already talked about trading aaron gordon because teams want him over you know cam johnson uh or jamal murray or something like that so let's see what happens in the offseason but if they figure it out obviously i think they have another another go at this can i throw some other small victory winners at you justin yeah i have one more but go ahead well let's let's hear your grand finale what do you have we'll let we'll end on okay uh how about the clutch gene believers in the clutch gene do we feel more confident that there is an inextricable thing that jalen brunson has that other players don't but you say that but deer and fox literally won the award it's true for clutch player of the year but that was our misidentification of the gene like the testing is not credible ironies ever yeah that's like wow uh did you have more than that yeah well hold on i kind of just i think the clutch gene is like most sports conversations but also basketball discourse which is like clearly there's something there that allows a player to rise in the biggest moments maybe it's even just like dispositional maybe it's like the ability to handle pressure maybe it's just like your anxiety levels or something like it exists but it got to the point where it became kind of an in-joke where it's like clutch gene is just like it's this silly frivolous thing that we all ascribe to someone just because they happen to uh have an in-joke and they're like oh my god a lot of highlights in those moments and so i think like recalibrating it to the point where it's like yeah jalen brunson comes through when it matters like i think i think we're back to an appropriate level of the clutch tree i like that we just needed to reclaim it from the people who like have those reputations but shot 32 in crunch time like we can take it back we can take anything back um other winners of this postseason other small victories casey smith uh had athletic trainer for the new york knicks was chased out of dallas by nico harrison fired over zoom while he was attending to his ill parent guess what the knicks just had a very healthy playoff run and also historically great one so shout out to casey smith mavs fans really hate is that the is because there's a lot of uh disdain for like mavs training of course they fired the whole staff recently right that first they fired casey smith and some of his staff casey smith one of the most well-regarded trainers and medical professionals in the sport uh like has worked with team usa for many years so it's like very very strange thing that nico harrison did before the other many strange things nico harrison did but uh having said that i agree with you that that is a nice little victory lap for casey uh but then brunson winning on the stage after letting him go doesn't reflect like great on the previous regime oh sure uh because like i don't know i think everyone wants to describe this as a purely nico harrison thing but i feel like mark cuban's track record is more checkered than it is good like and he comes off trying to like take victory laps on like all the good things that happen like i didn't do luca like there's a lot of stuff going on in dallas for many many years the best thing that ever happened to mark cuban's pr was nico harrison like let's be very real about it yeah cost plus drugs maybe so that remains to be seen on that one um how about this for other winners the eastern conference like i have been a proponent of western conference supremacy for a long time if you want to look at regular season record it still tilts pretty heavily over basically any time frame you want to look at four and four in the last year i've been a proponent of last nba finals east versus west yet another win for the era of parody in the nba i guess i do think it helps that the west is a bit of a bloodbath you know the spurs having to go through the thunder is something that the knicks didn't have like true as a little crucible there um and so that that helps but that's more of a reason why i was so flummoxed by certain teams not hitting the button the pistons in particular to take advantage of the window like if the path is easier there you got to take advantage of it and now the pistons are going to take advantage of it like i mean we don't have to do like future power rankings for next year or whatever but like they're starting from behind in a place where they probably should have been dominating the league this year the east this year it's true it was kind of their shot but they they turn out to be flawed in a way that we're going to see if they can reconcile yeah uh i you hit on most of the ones that i was thinking about the only other one that i have that's not really serious is uh nike commercials big win huge yeah huge win for chipotle in these finals fueling mikhail bridges his entire life oh that's right what is it with chipotle specifically that people just have to have it daily there was like the danny ange thing there's several better be careful because that's a sponsorship i wouldn't turn down watch it now no i i don't even think we're throwing aspersions i think it's like it is first of all it's like at the top of the slop bowl mountain i think as far as modern capitalistic lunches go reliable in every market in america like you can just go find your little bowl of slop eat it down be somewhat healthy if you choose to do that and then mikhail bridges his case get all the carbs you need to be a professional athlete no aspersions though but bowl of slop that's just what it is is it not here's my thing with chipotle i actually think i would go more if they stopped giving me so much like they think abundance is like what people are after if anything it's just like you can't even wrap the burrito now like it's just it's just fallen out whenever they give it to me i just want a contained like good thing not something that's just like gonna slop all over my hands just i feel like you're disconnected with america i feel like the rest of the country is complaining that like oh chipotle is shrinking their portions you're like give me less food for my money please i'll tell you the god honest truth here it's that mo's is the best restaurant of all those restaurants in that category simply not true the salsa bar excellent they have so many options there they're hitting it out of the park it's just and you get q dova but on the downward slide q dova's not good uh yeah um but in total capitalism back nike ad this ad was not the golden era of the uh legitimately great the golden era of the wyden kennedy nike tv ads we had one like there was just a crazy there was an ocean of them just great ads and i just don't feel like it's been that was nice to see that i watched that was like bullseye the only one i have down here is the baja men i feel like they're back sure uh we were talking about it when it happened but like mike brown he went for it and i respect it you know okay it was a little fun thing that they did love to see a little little color show on that which is a very stayed definitely a situation where they're on the day it's like just giving canned quotes but then he he kept going like he took two laps and i was like brother like you're doing a little much so all you gotta do is go for it and you're off the hook is that what we're establishing here you're like well he went for it and then he's like it's like you should so every single time in every situation if i just go for it you guys are gonna love it obviously not like don't turn this into a tim robinson sketch like i'm saying if you're a champion you're allowed to live a little i don't mind revealing your personality and doing whatever you want in that moment because it is your moment i think it's like just knowing like what is what is like acceptable and like just not cringeworthy i guess like to keep going to make it a bit more cringe-worthy i guess like to keep going to make it a bit more cringe-worthy i guess like to keep going to keep going to make it a bit like a 10 minute thing where it becomes a little uncomfortable i think that's when it's i think ideally if you are going to let the dogs out you need one round of the who's and then you gotta get out of there like you gotta eject after that thing it's an in and out for sure yeah all right we'll be back later in the week uh i think wednesday or thursday we're still trying to figure out our schedule going forward here but thank you to ben cruz thank you to isaiah blakely and thank you to victoria valencia i mean especially for the triple if not quadruple overtime that they have been pulling all playoffs long like we get on here on the mic and just like spew our takes and get out of here but incredibly grateful for the work that they do incredibly grateful for the two of you this has been i mean honestly an awesome playoff run i love doing this pod with y'all who let the dogs out it's all of us on this pod the people behind the scenes people in front of the camera we're all dogs and all dogs go to heaven just make sure that your name ends with a vowel with a vowel exactly you got to do it all right see you next time 21 plus and present in select states for kansas in affiliation with kansas star casino or 18 plus and present in dc kentucky or wyoming gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in maryland hope is here visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24 7 support and support in massachusetts or call 1-877-8 hope and y or text hope ny in new york louisiana call 1-877-770-7867 having uncontrolled eosinophilic esophagitis or eoe can mean you're stuck in many ways like cutting your food into tiny pieces or stuck chewing food for a long time with that with that 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