Windy’s Rant: Done With Tanking & More + Spurs Finishing Strong & Knicks Rollercoaster

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the hoop collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Thursday evening, joining us from Northern California, home base, San Toni Slater. - I'm just glad all star weekends now here this year. - Yeah, by the way, I think America has come to know your backyard. - I think it's your backyard. - You really put it on blast. I mean, they were probably like, oh yeah, I guess I've thought about that. And you just planted it on a viral comment where you were ranting about something that I'm sure you're gonna be ranting about soon again. - Never, I'll never do that. Joining us from Los Angeles, where thank God I escaped from today, but Vince Goodwill will hold down our coverage this weekend. - Not the only one, trust me, but this is the day before the hell hope begins in LA, Wendy. - Slater, Vinny was, sorry, Vince was too clean on NBA today. His suit that he had today was like, we don't meet that standard NBA today. We dress up a little better. - I heard some sunglasses too, right? - I don't even know what that was. - That's a, it's a Detroit thing. That's all, it's a Detroit thing, Slater. - That's what Mellow does. Mellow has the shades, like the half shades, when he's-- - Mellow, you can't even see his eyes. I have a, the tint is darkened up. I got some nice eyes. - They're not transditioners, right? Where it's like, they are a little bit of low transition. A little, Hennessy, Hennessy Tent is the exact phrase. - There you go. - As if it wasn't black enough, it's called Hennessy Tent. That is the exact time I promise you, this day in black history. - All you need to know about, about Vince Goodwill Slater is that I once went to a black tie wedding and he wore white. - What was it? What, you didn't wear, you wore a different color tuxedo. You know, you wore blue, you wore a blue tuxedo. - It was a blue tuxedo. - I was gonna say white to the white. - White, what of the-- - Take it back. That was a total foul by me, total insult to Vince. I want to pretend like I didn't say that. He wore a blue tuxedo to a black tie wedding and he pulled it off. He wants to stand out. You know, I get it. Just telling you, he operates on a different level. We're all following him. Okay. - That's Q Wendy. - All right. This is where we're gonna start where I'm gonna ask you guys. Now, I've gone on Rance for you before and feel free. You guys sort of sit back and let me rant, but feel free to jump in on what we're about to do because I have some announcements we're gonna make. - Can't wait. - I intend to follow through with these edicts that I'm going to make. They're edicts for myself. I would never issue an edict for anybody else on my podcast, but not my podcast, our podcast. With peace and love, I'm going to retire discussing several topics because I just, I can't do it anymore. Okay. First topic that I'm going to, I'm prepared to say with peace and love, I am not going to discuss the tanking situation anymore. - Prior to March and April is the time you're gonna retire that, isn't that like tanking season? - Slater. With peace and love, I am going to settle all family business. I'm waving the white flag. I am done with it. Okay. I am not gonna ask any questions about, and I feel terrible that Jaron Jackson Jr. now needs knee surgery. I am not going to ask any questions about why the physical wasn't failed and why Utah did not ask for a draft pick compensation for a player who needs knee surgery. I'm just going to wish him the best. I'm not going to analyze anything. - You see the subtle analysis that he's providing within these announcements right here? - I am nope. With peace and love, Washington, Sacramento, Indiana, Utah, do your thing. Vince, this is kind of like certain people in prison get like a pass on certain stuff. You all have a pass. You're all good people. I respect you as people. You all got to do what you got to do. All right. I am judging. - You know, this is like Wendy. This is like the family rehearsal dinner at a before wedding. - You're so right. - This is a family rehearsal dinner before wedding and the drunk uncle gets up and says. - I'm stone cold sober. - I don't like how this is going. But I'm not saying nothing and then goes and lists his grievances on why his niece should not marry this man and then finishes off by saying, but I ain't saying nothing. I support it. I'm here. - Good luck. - So Wendy's the drunk uncle. Vince is over there in a completely off-colored suit at this point. I like it. - Yes, correct. I wish I could, you know, there are good people who have to sometimes do bad things. Okay? - I'm just saying you guys do what you got to do. I'm not going to ruin any relationships by talking about it anymore. It's just going to happen. - Can I ask? Are you just going to willfully like, let's say in late March where there's like an important game and it's clearly decided because the jazz, you know, bench all their guys or whatever team you're just going to be like. - I don't think we should change that. - I think we should change that. - Very easily happen with other people. I don't, here's the thing. I don't want to ruin any more relationships and harm any more relationships than I have apparently have harmed by talking about things that are happening. These teams have to do what they have to do. If I was in their situations, I would do it. The incentive is there. They're just, they're playing within the rules. They have to do it. And so I'm just, with peace and love going forward, it's just going to happen and I'm just not going to talk about it. You can find your tanking coverage on other podcasts and your favorite platforms. I'm just not going to do it because, okay. Second thing, the apologies to you Vince because you're there. I ain't talking about all-star. - I'm working on that. - I ain't talking about how in the celebrity game, there's an NBA player in the three point contest. I don't understand why Jared McCain is in the celebrity game three point contest, but guys you do you. I am not going to talk about how Mack McClellung said that he didn't go in the dunk contest because people said they wouldn't go in the dunk contest if he was in it. And then literally like nobody did the dunk contest, I'm not going to talk about that. I do not care about the world team, you know, having a bunch of Americans on it who like declare that like, you know, I'm not, I can't be asked about and I can't give a level-headed assessment about how this is supposed to be like nationalism and stuff when you got a bunch of Americans on the world team. I'm not going to talk about Vince. You are there. I will rely on your coverage. Are ESPN consumers will rely on your coverage? I'm not going to talk about it. I'm not going to watch it. I'm not going to talk about it with peace and love. Okay. - I agree with that one. No complaints there. - Okay. I am not going to talk about Jonathan Camingo with peace and love Slater. I hope that he averages 20 and 10 the rest of the season with Atlanta. I hope he gets paid in this off season. Vince, did you read the story that, that, um, it was very well done. It was very, every single detail from Anthony Slater from too much food in the family room to ask your man's. - Apparently there was not enough food Slater. That was the issue because there was be. - There you go. Petty, Petty drama. Yeah. I mean, the one thing with that is you might not, but if the Hawks are in the playoffs and he's a contributor, it might be that one. - Yeah. I mean, I'm just saying until there's new events. - Well, I will tell you what you're not going to be talking about, at least for the foreseeable future. His, you know, gripes with an organization who has gripes with him back because he, from everything I've heard, is very happy and settling in in Atlanta. So fresh start. - Yeah. I will just say that, um, when I was a beat writer in Cleveland, when I was covering calves every day from 2003 to 2010, and then I did it a lot from 2014 to 2018, the food in the family room, when there was leftover food, they would bring it to the media at late at night. So it would be cold. It was much appreciated. And lots of uncrustables, Vince, because, you know, they brought him for the kids. And like, though, you know, once it, you know, once an uncrustable like has been like defrosted or whatever, like you, you know, it's, it's, it's one and done, like it's perishable. So like, they would just bring these big giant buckets of uncrustables and like, they couldn't go to waste. And like, the media just, I mean, you know how an uncrustable hits at like 12, 45 AM after doing SVP, like, you know, the pizzas they brought were a little bit rough. But listen, it was a kind thing that the calves would do was to dump us with the, the food they were going to throw away. And I have to say, like, I would, you know, I would feel a certain way. Slater, if I, I am, maybe I shouldn't be, maybe this was the naivety of me, but, you know, I wrote that story. I did, as I was going through like the final stages of like, yeah, you know, this, this anecdote is going to like, you know, make a little bit of headlines. But I didn't know it was just going to explode to such a degree where it was just like meme city yesterday. And, you know, you worked so hard on a feature story. And you know, you, you do like, you know, there's like tough quotes in there and everything like that. This happened with, I think, I think it was, it was a Christian Clark with the New Orleans newspaper when he wrote the story about Zion Williamson and David Griffin. And it was like, David Griffin would play the piano or something for Zion. Like, there was all this like reporting about it. And everybody just focused on, you know, the concept of griff playing the piano. Yeah, that was yesterday. Yeah. But, I mean, by the way, like the story is one of those stories that sort of goes deep into the, I'm not going to talk about it. But let me say this because what you are voicing with your, you know, on your soapbox about all the things that you are never going to speak. again, you're voicing what felt like a fatigue from not only you, but a lot of consumers about the Jonathan Cumminga experience. I can't imagine you. You lived it for years. A pack your heart right here. And the idea that like, why is there so much coverage about a guy that has been like a fourth man and then a seventh man and then a eighth man. But as I was trying to convey in the story and I think throughout this process, if you took two steps back bigger picture, it was always like, this was about so much more than Jonathan Cumminga. It was about the warriors. This was about this brand franchise and the fading days of one of the most popular players in NBA history and this dynasty and this tug of war and the castle politics, you know, of it all in the two timeline era and what Jonathan Cumminga represented. I mean, that's how I'd describe it. And but obviously within that are fascinating human elements of like stubbornness and ego. And you know, it really, you know, Jonathan Cumminga's experience, particularly over the last year as he really tried to get away from the warriors this summer, really struck a chord with former players. I mean, you saw how many former players came out and I think they saw, hey, young player really is trying to get away from situation that he feels is holding him down and maybe he is wrong. Maybe he is right. But they seem to, you know, I guess understand that. It was about so much more than, hey, why are we talking about a seventh man was always happy. Yes. I do understand that. I will just say you got Steve Kerr on the record on a lot of this. Yeah. You know, Steve Kerr was like, okay, I'll talk about the relationship. So I feel like Steve Kerr, am I wrong? I mean, he's always been pretty good with the media. But am I wrong or is Steve Kerr been like extra honest this year? Yeah. I mean, he's one of the more open communicators, probably in league histories, consider one of the best analysts on TV, right? And there's like TNT days. I mean, the guy went on the DNC and gave like one of the closing remarks at one of the DNC nights. Like he's out there and he's willing to like express himself. Well, it's one thing to say something about politically. It's the only thing to talk about your team and say we're a fading dynasty. Yeah. Well, you know, look, it was in the story and part of what I got him on the record was that was a lot of the issues for Jonathan Caminga was how many times he openly talked about Jonathan Caminga and at times talked about how he didn't think Jonathan Caminga fit. The ceiling that Jonathan Caminga had and yes, that was like a lot of like Jonathan Caminga's hurt in his sense was like he knew his coach who was controlling his future, did not believe in him. And he knew it because he would read about it. And he would see it. I put a story in there in the locker room in Chicago after he's getting a DMP and he, you know, Jonathan Caminga does the very political, you know, I'll be there when I'm ready. That's coach's decision. And then it's like, Hey, come over here. Did y'all, you know, and he's asking me, did you guys ask him about meat tonight? And it's like, yeah, of course, what did he say? And it's like, he, you know, Steve Kerr said, Hey, it could happen to anyone other than the stars in this league. And he's like, you know, again, why, you know, why does he have to keep, you know, making these headline quotes about me and I said, so to your point, and Steve talked about it, it's just like, look, I'm honest. I'm forthcoming and sometimes you have to tell players hard truths. But yeah, this season he has on the last year of his deal. And I think we've talked about this on past podcasts, but there's a freedom to the way he is communicating for sure. Wendy did, you know what? I don't think Steve Kerr even figured out though, or maybe coming to didn't figure out like the correlation because you had a line and there are a couple of lines in there about Kerr giving him like inspirational text messages and stuff like that. And those messages not being returned. So him not being returned and then him talking about it in the media, I'm betting those two things are probably related in some way. Steve Kerr feeling rejected by a player when I'm sure if he went off on Draymond Green, Draymond Green might, you know, MF on right back, but he at least replied, "Kominga gave him nothing. He gave him dust." So that probably prompted a lot more of this, you know, sort of media psychology. Like all of this I think is tied. Like, you know, what they say with the wire, all the pieces matter. Like all of this stuff happened and I think for Kerr, Kominga is the one guy he couldn't figure out. I think it's what the grieber probably eats at him that he couldn't figure out the guy. Or he did figure out the guy figured out, "Hey man, this, me and this dude just ain't going to work." Also, you know, contracts in future situations matter and I think the Warriors this past summer announced to the world that Jonathan Kominga, who prior to Joe Lake of and Mike Dunley for an office in year two, year three represented, you know, the guy, one of the guys they wanted to hand the keys to, this past summer they told Jonathan Kominga to his face and told the world, "No, you're trade bait." And in a lot of ways, I think that freed Steve Kerr to coach him, however he wanted to coach him and put Gisanto's in over him if he wanted to and say whatever he wanted. And you know, again, I think the way he was handled above led to the toxicity below. And part of that was, yeah, I don't think, you know, Steve, no, look, you're just trying to get this guy to the deadline to move him. I don't have to soften any part of my coaching of him. By the way, I liked last night I was watching the Spurs Warriors game and Kerr called Dre Mondover in the middle of the like during a free throws and like was, you know, coaching him up or whatever. And then it was done. They gave each other a slap high five. You really see, you really see the mid game slap high five after coaching, you know, usually you know, you get it like when you're coming in on and off the bench like, you know, that's a greeting. I like that move. You get all of it, man, I'm not talking about coming anymore with peace and love, with peace and love. The last thing I will say, and I've heard this from a couple of people in the last couple of days, they've said because of like, you know, the profile name profile he's gotten through a lot of this, they were saying, hey, look at the hawks league pass ratings, you know, the first few games coming in place. There's some real curiosity if the Warriors fan base, which has always been in a fervor over this, if they're going to be watching some of these like 4 p.m. hawks games to just argue with each other about what, you know, this 22 point game means this, no, it doesn't. So I am curious to see if there's a little bleed over on the storyline. And by the way, they play each other in marks that we will do things. First off, he hasn't played for the hawks yet. Number one, number two, how do you get lead pass ratings? Do you have like a secret? No, I should like the right, you know, just ratings of the, how many people watch the game? You know, how many people I don't even know. You can get ratings or I don't know. I mean, look, the hawks should know if, hey, we got double the viewers that would normally watch hawks hornets tonight. Hey, man, the hornet sir must see TV. I would watch it for the hornets with the whole due respect, the whole due respect, you know. All right. But by the way, speaking, sorry, what else are you talking about? I think that's it. Wendy. That's it. But before we move on to actual, I mean, that was an actual topic. For who collective podcast after this. But before we move on, as long as you're talking about food, team food, you know, like it's generally frowned upon to, you know, eat team food. And so I've told the story before, but it's been a few years. Vince, have I ever talked to you or later have I ever talked to you about the clippers playoff food? No, I know. I know. And you remember the Boston lobsters before the fire? Well, media food is different. Like, I, nobody cares about like what food media. It's nobody cares about that. I just want to say to you guys, so a few years ago, it's covering a playoff series. I was covering a clippers. Suns playoff series. And it was, it was the, it was the series where Kauai, unfortunately, heard his knee, you know, the twice he's had knee injuries in, in the playoffs, which, you know, as an aside, you know, this guy is, they've waited for years for this guy to, to be, you know, to be the great player that they, that they signed in 2019. And he's that player. He's almost never been better. And now is when they take their team apart, you know, it's crazy. I saw, I saw him killing a man tops in a crush time yesterday. The game winning basket that he hit in Houston, where he made like a spin move for, it was so robotically done, but like, such control. It was one of the most impressive things I've seen this season. I mean, it was just like, it's maybe the best wing athlete in the league. Maybe. Yeah, I was going to say that that's the part I was going to say. Kauai looks like a very mechanical version of 96 to 98, Michael Jordan. And I know what I'm saying. I'm saying the aesthetic. I'm not saying that because of the mid range saying because the big range game, yeah, he looks like a old older not old because old Michael's with Mike and older late prime, but still best player in the game, Michael Jordan. And you could make the argument, Wendy. And I know we're going to get back to the clippers part of this, the clipper story you got. But you can make the argument that posts, like what he's played 40 games this year, 40 out of the 54 games or whatever that since he's been playing basketball this season, you can make the argument. Kauai's learner's been the best player in basketball. Wow. Let me think about that. Do I? You know, there's been so, you know, like, you know, one of the complicating factors with when you like judge the MVP race right now is like, so Yokech is back. And he's back just ahead of the game threshold that remain the MVP. And he's put enough triple doubles, but he's not the same players he was before. He's got the injury. No, he doesn't look like himself. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's, he's turning the ball over like crazy. Like one of the things that Yokech does that's just when you watch him, his mastery of the control of the ball. Like even when the ball is out of his hands, he's got incredible control over it. Like when he shoots the ball and the ball lands on the rim. and it looks different. He has a way of shooting the ball, so it has a better chance of rolling in on the rim. Somebody who knows him really well told me that people think it's water polo, but he actually learned how to manipulate the ball, playing volleyball, and they pointed out to me that when he is at the free throw line, and he does a two handed dribble at the free throw line, that's what a volleyball player does before they, like the way he dribbles a basketball, is the way a volleyball player dribbles the volleyball before they serve. Yeah. And since I've been told that, I've been like, wow, that is actually 100%. So is he deflating the ball as he's dribbling in it? Is this like the flake gate? No basketball style? I don't know. Like, there's something going on. I'm just telling you, the ball looks different on his rim when he hits the rim when he shoots it that everybody else does. Anyway, he just hasn't been quite as sharp. And so, like, while he's playing, he is not looking like the MVP. The nuggets are winning, and they've got other injuries, and so him playing is really important, et cetera. But, you know, so when you say, "Kawaii, let me just tell you," "Kawaii is played 41 games," and that is more than he played last year. The most he's ever played with the Clippers was two years of Clad played 68, by the way. And he is averaging, eight points, which is the most points he's ever averaged in his career. He's averaging, by the way, 2.1 steals a game, which is leading the league. Okay? He is shooting 49% from the field, 39% from three, and 91% at the line, so he's very close to being on the verge of a 50, 40, 90 season, which I don't think he's ever done. So that would be on that verge. So-- I also think he becomes a very fascinating trade candidate in the summer, depending on what happens with this aspiration, you know, the aftermath of that. I don't know what's going to happen with the aspiration deal. I'm not going to pretend to know. But as people have talked about, oh, well, when Joe, when the wolves got busted with Joe Smith, you know, ABCDEFG happened. And so that'll happen again, or whatever. First off, that was David Stern. And if you think-- if you want to compare apples to apples, you ain't comparing how Adam Silver does justice to David Stern. I mean, we're in a-- that's a whole other side conversation. The second thing is Joe Smith's contract, did get voided, which was good because it was a BS contract. But he didn't get punished. Joe Smith didn't get suspended. He was able to go sign whoever he wanted. Yeah, I was going to say, if Kauai just got voided, then he just becomes a fascinating free agent. Yes, I got it. You know, like I don't pretend to know what Kauai is going to-- they could find him guilty of. But I think it's very unlikely that he personally faces discipline that would keep him-- Even like a suspension, you don't think? For what? Right. What he doesn't spend-- You see, what we're around is contract to-- Honestly, as you read and follow the details, I know this has been on months on months, I think he's kind of one of the villains in the whole situation. It seems-- Well, maybe a villain, but what rule is he breaking? He's not in charge of giving himself money. Allegedly, it's all been alleged. You can ask for whatever you want. If someone gives it to you, that's the problem. Listen, my father once told me Vince, you can only get what you asked for. That's a very simple but good advice. But I will say-- He actually-- the way he actually said it was, you could only get what you can ask for with a straight face. But that doesn't even apply to Kauai because he asks every conversation is a straight face. Like he's-- he'd be an incredible negotiator. And maybe he is. I think he-- him and Uncle Dennis are probably very shrewd about how they move. I will say this, when the clippers started off really slow-- and I don't know if it was ever reported or whatever-- but there were a couple of contenders that was doing some real homework on Kauai to try to figure out, hey, if the clippers are going to blow this up, we still think Kauai is really, really good. And the bet would have been a good bet considering what we've seen from Kauai since then. But it's a self bet that the clippers didn't make a move on him. The question is, they're not going to extend him, right? They want to keep the books clean in 27. What happens next year? Like this year's a wash to me, right? Like the clippers are so far behind the succeed. Yeah, they punched. They punched. No, but not just that. They weren't going to give hard and the money. If Hardin was willing to play, then they would have played this year out with Hardin. Hardin forced at him because Hardin wanted to get paid, and they weren't going to pay him. And we all know what happens when James Hardin doesn't get his money. We sure did. It gets bad. You know what I mean? So, hunting on this year wasn't necessarily the choice. I'm curious what Kauai's appetite is after next season. Is he going to be tied to standing LA? Could that be him opening the door to be a third guy with the lakers? Like, I am so fascinated by what this means for Kauai. If finally, his body is holding up in a way that he can manage it and be maybe a third guy. If he finishes this season strong, why wouldn't he go and say give me a new contract? And if he doesn't get it, why wouldn't he take action? He'd be an obvious warriors candidate. I mean, secondary, obviously, they've been in the honest chase, but that's exact. They need a big wing who can score and defend. Well, this is a thing. As soon as they traded Hardin, and I heard, basically, as soon as they traded Hardin, I checked on Zubots. And the answer that I heard was, I didn't hear no. And so for two days, I was like, I think Zubots is going to go. And he did. And I said, Zubots is going to go, then what about Kauai? And so Vince, you're talking about teams investigating Kauai. Trust me, they did. I believe there were trade talks with Kauai. I don't know if anything ever got serious, but I know teams called. Because why wouldn't they call? And I expect them to re-engage over the summer. But none of that has anything to do with the fact that in the playoffs a couple years ago when Kauai got hurt. I was finished-- I was working this night in Phoenix. It was like three years ago. So the three names ago for the Phoenix Arena. And you guys didn't like that. So the Clippers media was like, hey, the team just left. We should go down and get some food. And I was like, man, I don't need teams food. With all due respect, that's just not what I do. Journalism 101? Well, I feel weird about it anyway. Beyond that. Media-swears. Yeah. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. And I was like, no, man, I can't. And they begged me, you have to come down here. So I went there to the Clippers locker room. I've never seen a spread like this in my life in terms of a buffet. It was like going to-- it was like-- I don't even know. The Detroit Pistons press room? There have been-- Lesson League right there. Not incomparable with all due respect, respectfully. It was like there have been many-- I've gone to many wedding receptions for 100 people that didn't cost what they were-- I'm not kidding, you compare. This food was so unbelievable that they had-- and they only ate half of it. And so once I saw it, I started running out into the hall like trying to find staff members at the arena, just begging them to come in and have some of this food because it was a crime. I'm like a Disney movie. I'm telling you-- I'm telling you-- We walk on the chocolate factory doll. The Clippers. The Clippers. The Clippers. He got the go windy found the golden ticket. This is man. By the way, since the first of the year, Steve Balmers lost $20 billion in Microsoft stock value, you think he's worrying about what aspiration might happen or what will happen this weekend at all. Stargabies lost $20 billion. You can't just do it here, but I just said $20 billion. And by the way, that's like 12% of his net worth. How's about to say, does that make him still make him the richest owner in the league by-- Yeah, I think he fell below the Walmart, the Walton family. I mean, 12% is a chunk. So if I said to you, think of this sentence, hey, man, guy over there lost $20 billion. He'd be like, oh my god, he lost $20 billion. Yeah, he lost $20 billion. She'd be like, oh my god. Yeah, it's 12% of his Microsoft shares. I'm sorry, what? So yeah, 12%'s rough, but he's still living all right. Yeah. Anyway. [MUSIC PLAYING] On Wednesday, the Spurs were in Oklahoma, or in San Francisco, later in-- So I was watching the game. We had the game on ESPN. I'm sitting there with our crew, Kendra Perkins, Michael Malone, and Leake Andrews. And at one point in the late third quarter, it was a 16-point game. The Warriors were up by 16. And it was the second I have a back-to-back for the Spurs, but the Warriors were missing. Drain Mao was playing, but obviously no stuff, no Jimmy Butler. And they were riding Gis Santos. Riding him. He looked awesome. He's had a real year month. No rush. And Victor's about to check into the game. And he's doing his thing where he's doing his visualization. He's putting his shirt over his face. And he's talking to himself. And I was like, well, they showed it on TV. And I was like, I leaned over to one of our producers, Jaren Yang, who's a big Warriors fan. And I go, I think your boys are in trouble. And they just walked him down. Quickly, very quickly. Yeah. Yeah, it flipped in the arena. It was like that. The game had gone from 16 down, 16 up. And the night before, you know, the makers I was playing, you know, second string team, all five of their starters were out, but the game started and Jake Leravio, with all the respect, was assigned to Victor to start the game. And I don't think Victor was intimidated. And so that after he scored 25 points in the first quarter in seven minutes, JJ Redock went to zone. He also tried Maxi Kleeba on him too. He was not impressed. And then he went to zone. And you know, the Lakers zone's actually been working a little bit. Like it's, you know, the Lakers have been playing some better defense in the last few weeks and mixing in the zone has been helping. And for some reason, for several possessions, they had Luke Canard in the center of the zone. I'm sure there's, I'm sure there's strategically good reason that they had that, but that's who Victor ended up basically posting. And so Vince, he scored 37 points in the first half. He probably could have in the against that particular team, you know, he probably could have challenged Wilts record. One of the Warriors younger assistants had the scout for this verse. And Steve Kerr said he texted them at halftime watching the game and said, you got this, right, when he had 37. And he's like, yeah, you got this man. We believe in you. Well, we'll see your game planet at 10 a.m. Have a good night. Well, the crazy thing for me when this everything not only just looks so like easy for big Vic, it looks like he's toying with the league. Like it looks like he knows that he's that much better than everybody. And he doesn't have to like figure it out anymore. Like he's going to have some off nights. He's going to have some nights where it doesn't work for. But it looks like he has mastered whatever he has needed to master at this level. And he's nowhere near where he's ultimately going to wind up. Like that is the part that is freaky and it is scary for me. And contrary to what you think, I am looking forward to seeing Bixlem at all star weekend and seeing if he wants to embarrass everybody. Like he may be the guy that can save all star weekend because he may shame you with by blocking 10 or 11 shots and sending your stuff all the way back and forcing you to play hard. Like I'm when the I am legit looking forward to seeing Bixlem this weekend. Did you all see castles fall in the ladies? So I saw that he went up for it was an incredible block shot. Yeah. And then he had a delicious just fall to the court and he left the game and didn't come back. This was on Tuesday night. Yes, Tuesday night. And you know what league we cover and you know what's coming up all star weekend and back to back with the Warriors. I just presumed he was out for that Warriors game right? No chance. A fall like that, a back to back. The all star weeks coming. Young guy, you know, typically these franchises are very protective of of their players at this point of the season. And the fact that he played, I was like, man, there's a serious nature to their approach. And I think you saw that in a second half, but just like that strikes me from one beyond a from Castle from Fox, who was just named the all star like where they're second. And I think only like three and a half behind the thunder entering the break. Is that right? Obviously they have the tiebreaker right because of all the times they beat them. And no shame. We'll see. I mean, he's getting reevaluated out of the break. Jalen Williams last night, Hammy, you know, he's not playing tonight. Who knows that they've got to that's a concern. That's later. Don't be lost, but that's a concern. I don't know. He was kind of grimacing on his wrist the other day. Got hit when he was playing the Lakers and Aiton. And to the point of like it's obviously the thunder roared out to that start where we were talking 73 wins. Like the way this spurs are attacking the season right now and where they are at as a team. I'm the one seeds within reach for them. I think he ever covering from injuries and Oklahoma City and considering we're in an era right now where there's a lot of attention focused on people who don't play. Shout out to Nikola Topic who it's in the evening right now. The games haven't started, but he is available to play tonight for the thunder. And I think there's a good chance he's going to make his NBA debut. He has come back from testicular cancer. That happened this season. Yeah, he played in the preseason day. He's got a few and then it was discovered like he played in their opener in the preseason. So there's some guys who are you know, look, teams got you know teams are incentivized. It's not if a player is not playing because the team has him listed his rest. It's not a commentary on the player. You know, the team, you know, the team is does it, you know, the team's going to make that call. So it's not comparison, but just as a, you know, a profile and courage. How about it? I'll last year with a 20 CL and now he is all ready to play, you know, plays in the summer for his national team and then it was Serbia. And then he is ready to go for a, you know, make his debut. He's going to, you know, play for the champs and gets, you know, has this terrible diagnosis, you know, gets treatment immediately for it and works his way back. He's by the way, he's played a couple of games in the G league and, you know, had, I think the one game I saw he had 16 minutes. He had seven points and seven assists. So yeah. It's really a cool story right ahead of the All Star break here. So, but yeah, I mean, the spurs are, you know, if you're going to create the case that they're going to win multiple series, it starts with having home court. And as far as the All Star game goes, which I promised I wasn't going to talk about Vince, but one thing I will say is the All Star game, you know, part of the reason why I think the All Star game has lost its importance is that between 2005, if you look at the 2005 season, okay? The max salary was between like 12 and 16 million. So if you were like the low max in 2005, 60 made 12, if you were the high max, you made 16, okay? 10 years later, so 2015, 16 season, which I'm picking 20 and 10 years ago, but it was also right before the cap spike. The salaries went from like 12 million to around 14, it was lowest max to like 22 million was the highest max. So, you know, the super high, the highest paid players went from $16 million a year to $22 million a year in that 10 years, okay? And part of that was affected because we had a global financial crisis in between there, but you know, that was the growth of the top end players. 10 years later, 25, 26, the low end of the max is 38 million and the high end of the max is 54 million. So 10 years ago, the highest paid players are making in the low 20s and now they're making in the low 50s, okay? So if you tell me why are, why years are not a lot of incentive in the All Star game, I would say, well, why was there incentive to do anything? The money is flying at the players, just flying at them for the, for the star players. Like, what is their incentive to, you know, you know, it's hard, it's a hard sell to them to say, you know, go out there and sell the game. Well, this is the, you can't make me generation too if you think about it. Well, you can't make me as one thing, but then you can't make me and you also, look, every, every year my paycheck is exploding, exploding, exploding. Why should I talk about incentive? Well, I mean, also, I tweeted this yesterday and when you think about the league as a whole, you've got everybody will say it's a negative thing. It's just a factor where we are. Everybody's thinking about themselves, right? The players think about themselves and I think about growing the game when we talk about tanking, the teams, no one's thinking about the greater good of the league, right? Now, nobody's thinking of themselves as a business partner in this enterprise, this competitive enterprise, but a business partner in this enterprise that's still supposed to be grown and like not to get on the soapbox or anything like that, Wendy, but everybody's caching in on the stagia, but not creating any like every like the throwback jerseys and everything else, what classic things are we creating now we're not creating anything classic. We are just caching on it and the players are being our function of that. Like, they don't, you don't have to tell them to play like there is no incentive for all star weekend for them to go and do more things because it's going to be a financial reward on the back end because they're making so much money. No shade to them. Get all of your money. I want those people to get all your money, right? But there is no incentive for them beyond. There's no way you can emotionally bribe them anymore or in a motion to incentivize them and growing your paycheck, right? That's code. Yeah. So if the paycheck is already exploding, what incentive do you have to do that? The other thing is in 2016, that's when Kobe retired. So you have the explosion of salaries plus the guy who was Mr., you know, we talk about holding people accountable in the all-star game. You remember that one game in Orlando. I don't remember what year it was where LeBron didn't take the last shot and Kobe, you know, it was against Kobe's team, you know, and Kobe was holding LeBron accountable. Like, what are you talking about? You're going to get to. I didn't wait. Like, break Kobe's nose. Yeah, that was that game. That was that game. That was that game. That was. And Kobe won it just to challenge. Even if LeBron busted them in his face with the shot, I think Kobe would have respected it had that happen. But he saw LeBron chicken out. You will never see that level of accountability from player to player anymore. A, because Twitter hosts players accountable in ways that we will never like the fourth wall has been broken. So players are so afraid of being dunked on or being crossed over. Somebody doing something of being embarrassed in some way that they'll never try hard again in these games. They're so afraid. They've become such snowflakes to some degree. And he says snowflakes. snowflakes. And it's the other thing. If Kobe was the guy that was holding all the guys accountable because Kobe was the standard bearer. Kobe was the old guy. We got to look at today's old guys and say they're not holding up there into the bargain. Not when it comes to this. That's why I made my rule. That's Katie is all I did. I didn't even make a mistake. I didn't know what it was. I was going to say that you are violating your rules. I'm already. I'm not even holding myself. Brian, I made you violate your rule. I'm bad. This is my fault. Blame the black guy. So that was going to do. I was going to wait till we're off the area to do it. By the way, speaking of that, did you see TJ, Jaylen Brunson crossed over TJ McConnell like, "Helaciously" the other day in the garden? Yes. And Jaylen, you know, crossed him over. TJ fell. He went on step back, took a three, and he missed it. And then TJ put his arm around Jaylen and said, "Thank you for missing that shot." I did not need that on my clip resume forever. Well, maybe that will be what Victor does. I mean, I don't know if, you know, I don't know if a player of Victor's profile, you know, a young player, French player, who's yet to win anything meaningful on the stage can do that. But he can certainly show him up. More hoop collective podcast after this. Speaking of the Knicks, Vince, we've had two Knick games in the last week on ESPN ABC. So doing a lot of prep work with that and watching them. One game was in Boston, and they absolutely destroyed the Celtics. It was an extremely impressive performance. As good as I've seen the Knicks play defensively all year long, then they lose at home to the Pacers in a game where they were favored by 15 points. Now, in the NBA-- Was that worse to the year? I don't know. I don't have the end. I don't have that data, but it's got to be pretty close, you know. In the NBA, you know, a lopsided line is what, like, six and a half, seven and a half? Yeah, yeah. This was 15 and a half and the Pacers won. Of course, the Pacers have had a lot of success in MSG over the last three years. So, you know, maybe they just still home there. He's just a match-up. I guess. But it was an overtime. And then they play the second I would back-to-back in Philly. Now, Philly, no NBA. They're coming off the West Coast, et cetera, et cetera. But they have one of the best offensive games I've seen from them all year. And after the game is decided, Jose Alvarado gets deployed and knocks down eight, three pointers off the bench and has five steals. It's like 19 minutes or something. I don't know. It was something like that. It was 19 minutes. Yeah. 28.5 steals. The Philly fans all left and the Nick's fans were all there. And it turned into a massive square garden south again as they were celebrating Alvarado. Alvarado's first game, he scored like 12 points and like 15 minutes was unbelievable. Comes home to the garden. It was awful. Goes to Philly is unbelievable. He's already a Nick. He's, he's, he's fit right into. He's practically a Clyde Frazier. He's so much of a Nick right now with that. They say to me, who's going to win? Who's going to win these? And I go, I don't know. And people are like, what do you mean you don't know? You said your job. What do you want me to say? Look at this team. I've watched them in the course of five days. I've watched them twice dominate teams that I think they could face in the playoffs. One on one end of the court, one on the other. Get obliterated, you know, lose to the one of the worst teams in the league. And by the way, the game before the Celtics game, they played in Detroit and lost by 40. What am I supposed to do with this, Vince? Their highs are so high and their lows are so low. Like offensively because you got so many guys that can shoot from three. Because you have some, you know, like the wing that potentially not it, you know, and Jeremy so had them looking forward to seeing what color he's going to wear his hair. But the highs are just so high. Like they can bomb the way, you know, from you from three. And if Carl Towns is engaged and not in foul trouble, right? And not in his own head, then they have an element of talent that nobody in the East can match. But the problem is the second something goes wrong. And this is the problem. To me, the great indicator of being in the playoffs is how well will you play when things are not going your way? Can you manufacture a win when something goes wrong? The problem with the mixes when everything's going right, they can overwhelm you. But when one thing goes wrong, they don't know how to handle the slightest bit of adversity. Like even Jaylen Brunson the other night against Indiana just went full. I'm taking every shot. Like in the last five minutes or so and he hasn't done that in a long time. Because normally he comes up big late so you don't pay much attention to it. But when he's off, it's very noticeable. When Carl Towns is on, it's very noticeable. When he's off committing offense of files jumping on people's back plan the bond goes or whatever it is, you see it all. The question is you don't know what to believe because their highs are so high and their lows are so low. He's calling him front runner, Sprion. I said nothing of the sort. Can a team like that win three playoff series and when the east a team like that can win two playoff series. A third playoff series unless you're playing to me against a team that shouldn't be there. They're going to capitalize on the east is very possible. You're playing against somebody that's not your typical just a wire across the way. I mean, but think about it like this. Now I challenge you a little bit. He loves these this year. No, no, no, I don't. I don't trust me. I don't. If Philly gets to the conference finals and they're planning this, they will have enough sweat equity in the playoffs for you to say they their legit. If Cleveland gets there, you will say the same thing. If Boston gets there with tell you know, you're going to say that same thing for Detroit whoever gets there is going to earn their way there. And they're going to be confident by the time they get there. So I don't think it's a matter of all man. This is a week east unless there's some crazy upset in Atlanta gets their Orlando gets there. I think you get some quality teams that just have not put it together consistently and putting the damn New York Knicks. You caught on front runners. I just I just you just you just have the exact definition of front runner and I don't don't don't do that. You make a great point. It's been about how the difference between winning two playoffs series and three or four like it's always you win two you win three. The level of competition that you step up to like I'll never forget the first time I ever covered an Eastern conference finals game. I was a young and it's like my second year. I was in Detroit was Detroit against Miami. I think. And I felt I why I covered that game. I was like wow. This is another level. And I remember Durant talk about remember of course in the the COVID year where Durant had the shot where his toe was on the line. Otherwise the next one won the game and you know and the bucks end up winning and over time and then they win the title. And people always used to say you know if Durant toe is you know sent him two centimeters shorter you know people said he I guess Durant sometimes wore a size shoot bigger than he needed because he liked the way it felt. You know if you wore like one size smaller shoe like and Durant like call them out on that he was like. You're talking about winning the second round he goes you know how much you know get to answer guy who had won championships like you know had been to like three finals like he's like he knows like. You know how but the differences between winning seven playoff games and winning 16 is. Because that's what they won the one seven he's like he's like you know because I could carry a gun hurt you know and hard and have been hard was hard hard and had a hamstring growing or hamstring yeah and he's like you're crazy he's like you weren't winning that championship. He's like you have any idea the difference between winning a second round series of winning a conference final series much less winning a finals game and like that is damn right. And so that's important when you look at these teams I'm like you look at the spurs to like the spurs I think can beat anybody can they with the team this inexperienced and you know my concern with Victor like last night I'm watching that game Slater. And while the warriors are behind I'm watching. You know there's three four or five possessions in a row where Victor never goes inside the three point line. On offense and I know we can hit the three in fact he's been shooting the three better and better as the season goes along. But I also know that if he does that at the wrong time he's bailing another team out which is what Durant was saying the other day when the rocket speed him he's like you're bailing out. And so like I I believe that Victor will I could be proven wrong because he's that type of guy but I believe the Victor will learn will end up learning the lesson that you can't go down in the playoffs with him shooting three. If they're going to go down it's with him just might take a minute elimination to learn that not he might never will see who knows I agree that's why I look at Detroit and I'm like can the team doesn't ever want to play off series go from being eliminated in the first round to go on all the way to the NBA finals that's asking a lot that's your experience talking and I know that it's frustrating to I'm sure players and fans who hear that. So like hell yeah we're the best team you know Detroit's like we've been the best team since October you know and then they see them with the third or you know best odds or whatever it's just like somebody got to come out these though well that's true and I mean maybe this is a year where where you see an experienced team do it because all of the teams have flaws but you know what I I was talking to an Eastern conference head coach the other day and he said to me he goes New York's the best team and I was like you know oh well but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. Well but but but but he's like no New York's the best team and I was talking to like an executive in the Eastern conference high ranking executive who's been doing it for a long time and he goes yeah New York's the best team they can be the best team would they play the best when it comes to you. Yeah. Right. Well, that's the thing. They didn't say New York was winning the East. They said New York's the best team. Two different things. Y'all would be much more the experts than me on this, but every time I flip on a Nick's Pistons game, I know who the best team on the floor looks like in that matchup. Vince remind me. So I was working with JB Bickerstaff a little bit last year when he was after they got eliminated. He came in and did some studio days with get up and first take. Yeah. I looked to see what he said. Did he say we're like, he said something like we're not going to lose to the next again or something like that. No, I think I don't know if he said that on air. I think Steve said that he said that to him. I can't remember it, but I would not be surprised if those words came out of JB Bickerstaff's mouth. Because if you look at it, he was if I said it's through a place in that series, Carl Towns doesn't do a Carl Towns does. That's true. Yeah. That's the first thing of you know this mean a Troy guy. That's what the Pistons first thing they say is well, we didn't have beef. If he's healthy this season, that changes the math, especially in a Pistons Knicks matchup. Because Carl Towns is supposed to be the one guy that is the matchup problem for everybody he goes against. Then if you got Jaylen Brunson, he was put on lockdown by a Sar Thompson in Detroit. I talk myself out of saying Detroit and then I give you all the reasons why Detroit makes sense. I know. Yeah. I got into a back and forth with Perk about the Spurs about like because I was breaking up experience and he was like, you know, he was trying to basically tell me you're you know, that's this team is so good they can win. And then we got off the air and Malone was like, I like the Spurs a lot, but you know, you're right. A lot of times teams who don't have experience and shows up, you know, experience, you know, two things show up at the end of the game. And I don't care if you're playing high school basketball, if you're playing low major division one, you're playing NBA files. Two things show up at the end of the game. Size and experience. I'm not saying that that always determines the outcome. Size and experience always show up. And so look out when Victor gets experience. This what I'm saying. But size and experience show up. And so I don't know. We'll see the Knicks have got a lot of reps with this unit. They got some scars, but this unit has put some years in together now. They better win this year. They're the ones who need to eat that better when. Yeah, I mean, that's one thing Detroit's stress level is completely different than New York stress level. You know, Detroit gets down to own a series and New York is down to own a series of totally different feel, you know, or you know, they've been a phase elimination game. So, but the one thing I'll say before we go every year, I see the same. One mistake it made. And it's a lot of times made by people who have been around the game for a long time. That mistake is thinking that the regular season has anything to do with the playoffs. Different sport. Plays and regular season, different sport. Yeah. Jackson gave the current draft Kings odds for the Eastern Conference. Caves are plus 300 that are favorites. That's your plus 330. That's essentially the same. Pistons plus 350, Celtics plus 380. So you're basically getting 3 3 1/2 to 1 on all of them. And the 76ers, as of last night were more plus 1100. So 76ers were 11 to 1. And I was trying to talk myself into saying that that's a undervalued. Don't do it. Don't you do it. And then I saw what happened to Andy. Don't you do it. Which indeed got hurt. And then it was never a game. So I had a, I'm glad I didn't say that. So maybe they're properly valued. So all right. Slater, enjoy your All-Star weekend. I will. Vince, I'm looking forward to your robust coverage of the. Robust coverage. Robust coverage. Yeah. We'll be fine. You were built for All-Star weekend. I don't say, I don't know how, we made, Vince is a little man in the Totem pole. So we made him go. I don't know how you got out of it. Slater, I think you should be there. I'm going to call a meeting of management. There are also zero warrior participating in All-Star weekend. So that's how it is. Be there as it may. I think, you know, I know. Well, I'll do respect. He's going to say that for like the eighth time today. Respectfully. That was like Jordan Clarkson. Did you see that the other day on X? Somebody, somebody says something about him and then he told them to do something to part of his anatomy. And they followed up with another post respectfully. I loved it. Respectfully. You know, even though you guys got like decades in, like, you know, how you didn't get that assignment later, I'm off to speak to somebody about that. We're going to adjust that. We're going to make you cover the draft. Skills challenge. Yeah. Yeah. The skills challenge. We're over the plan. No worry. Yeah. Yeah, the plan. All right. Thank you very much to our producers, Tucker. Mark, Devon and Jackson. Thank you to Vinny, Vince, Goodwill and Anthony Slater. Thank you for watching Listen to Hip-Gleictive. We'll talk to you next week.