The Shot Clock Pod - NBA Week #18

[00:00:00] Alright, it's time to talk basketball. I was a Salviati editor at the PeachBasket.net. He's Steve Percielo, a long-time educator, vice principal, high school basketball coach and athletic director. And this is the Shot Clock Pod, the best 15 minutes of NBA Random Thoughts online anywhere. This is your first time listening. Welcome. We're glad you found us. This podcast was born out of the content of Steve's 13 Rules Random NBA Thoughts articles, which he publishes weekly. Today, we'll discuss his latest 13 Rules Random NBA Thoughts article.

[00:00:30] We're working shares of thoughts after week 18 of the 2024-25 NBA season, which did include the All-Star Game. We'll talk a little bit about that. Steve, are you ready? Ready. Let's start the timer now. And we're off. And we are going to start with the All-Star Game. Everybody's got an opinion about it. The NBA tried something new this year to see if they could drum up interest in the game from the players and the fans. What do you think? Did it work? No. A little?

[00:01:00] It's not at all. It's the same mess that it's always been. Nothing will change until the players decide they want to play. This generation of players, the leaders of this generation, don't want to play.

[00:01:16] A true basketball fan doesn't want to play. A true basketball fan doesn't want to see dunks and alley-oops and three-point shots without defense. They just don't want to see it. It's stupid. It's boring. The whole weekend, while originally years ago was a great idea, has almost, you know, it's past its time.

[00:01:35] And they really need to do some serious thinking about how to fix the whole weekend. You know, if you were to talk to one of the All-Stars, I'm sure they'd say it's a nice honor to be there. However, with what it is, they'd rather be off for a week and go to an island or do whatever it is they do because it's just, it's silly.

[00:02:02] The whole thing. And then this weekend, having Kevin Hart, it was just, it bored him on the ridiculous. It was catered for the young person. And what they forget, the NBA is forgetting, and they're going to sell it out. But what the NBA is forgetting is the older people have the money.

[00:02:23] They're going to spend the money on tickets and be involved in the NBA. So don't cater it for the young. Cater it for a little bit the older generations because those are the people who will spend money. And it's very expensive to go to a game, spend the money to go to the game. So I just thought it was silly. Even the dunk contest is worn out.

[00:02:43] One of the things they hit on and they didn't do it this year was having an NBA great like Steph Curry in a contest like he did last year when I and Escu. That kind of stuff is an interest. So it's almost like one-to-one makes some sort of interest or builds interest in the game or in the festivities.

[00:03:08] I usually don't chime in with my opinion, but I'm going to share a little bit of it here because the All-Star game is an interesting case study, I think. Growing up, it was nice because you got to see players who never would play together, right? You got to see Magic pass the talent seamless. Going back to my era. These are two players that would never play together. But you got to see them in the All-Star game. It was unique. It was special. It was fun.

[00:03:33] Today, there's so much more movement in the NBA and these guys all tend to be buddies, which they were back in my day. So I think maybe that took a little bit of the edge away too because there's nothing special about seeing KD and Steph play together. Because they did it in the Olympics. KD and Harden played together at the start of their career.

[00:03:56] So I wonder if that had a little bit to do with it. What was special about it, watching these guys play together, isn't that special anymore because there's so much movement in the NBA. Any merit to that, you think, at all? Well, I go back. You talk about All-Star games. I go back to 60. In the 60s, I remember Adrian Smith, a little guard for Cincinnati, winning the MVP in the game. And the game was during the week, if I remember right. And it was on TV. We didn't get as many games on TV.

[00:04:21] But what you're talking about is interesting. My thought is, and I've said this, the agents have gotten involved. And they're telling their players, don't get hurt. So how do you not get hurt? You play like they do. They stand around and throw the ball and lab it and dunk it. And there's no chance to get hurt. What was interesting was with Kevin Harden, and then they gave awards to TNT and all those things. Yeah. The players sat out for a long time. And you know what?

[00:04:51] That's where they're dangerous, where they can get hurt. And that was sillier than anything else. And for the life of me, I don't understand why. Let the game do the talking, not Kevin Hart or somebody else. I don't understand why the NBA would even think of doing that. But I understand what you're saying. And don't forget, in today's world, the AAU world, these kids, these guys have played against each other.

[00:05:19] And they probably, they met up when they're 15, 16 years old. So it's been forever. Yeah. Yeah. The NBA's got some work to do. We will probably still watch to your point. But it'll probably still be sold out. But if they really want to fix it, they got some work ahead of them. Oh, God. That's what you've won. You talked about Draymond Green. I got some thoughts on this too. But he proclaimed recently that the Warriors are going to win it all. They're currently two games over 509. What do you make of Draymond's proclamation?

[00:05:50] Draymond talks too much. But I think you need to wait until you get maybe a little closer, like fifth, sixth. First of all, you've got to win a play-in game. At least one, maybe two play-in games to get into the playoffs. Now, I know they've had some success with Jimmy Butler since he got there. I think they're three or four and so on. And that's great. It's great. But it kind of lets slow down with the talk, you know?

[00:06:16] And come on, just play the game and at least build some credibility. Get your team in a higher place. I want to hear your thoughts though. I think if I'm the coach, that's what I want Draymond to say. You got to go into it thinking you're going to win it all. I probably wouldn't want him making that prosecution on a podcast for everybody to hear. But I want my players to feel that they can win it all. That's the approach I want. And I think what's odd for Draymond is he shouted it from the rooftops, which probably wasn't brilliant.

[00:06:45] That's it. I like the approach. I like that attitude of the player. I think what we all miss is they did get Jimmy Butler. Jimmy Butler appears to be motivated, which this week, that's great. They still don't have a lot of size. They're using the kid Quentin Post, I believe. A good shooting Lou Cornett. So you're not going to win a title with that kind of player. And Cornett's probably a much better defender.

[00:07:12] So you're not winning a title with him as your five. It sounds good, though. It's nice. Yeah, I think Warrior fans and Lakers fans feel like they're, because they're Warriors and they're Lakers and they've got that kind of history, it counts for something. But it doesn't, right? This season is the season. But anyway. As long as they keep keeping score, I don't think that means a damn thing. But it's nice. The Warriors won a few titles, a bunch of titles.

[00:07:41] And the Lakers, they just won big last year in that tournament. So I guess they have a title to talk about. And so that's good. That's real good. And I guess that gives them the right to shoot their mouths off. All right. On that note, we will move on. You called out the Toronto Raptors. Not that we've ever discussed the Raptors. I might be wrong. I don't remember them coming up often. But I like what they've done. They've got their core.

[00:08:08] Now, you could argue it's not a core that's going to win you any day. But they've got their eggs. They put them in the one basket and on the other. And they see where this right takes them. Do you think they have enough? Of course not. I think what's interesting is they're going to probably be in the second apron. And that restricts you tremendously. And you don't want to go in the second apron unless you think you have a shot at the title.

[00:08:30] You tell me, is Brandon Ingram, Pirtle, Scotty Barnes, Quickly, and RJ Barrett as you're starting five, is that good enough to win a title? Yeah. Not now. Not this season. No. But what I like about them is they're relatively young. And they're going to stay together. They've made a commitment. And this is what I don't see from teams. Right? I just don't see that a lot. We talked before about the Lakers. They had Lonzo Ball. They had Kyle Kuzma.

[00:09:00] They had Brandon Ingram. But they didn't stay together. So I like what the Raptors are doing. They're not good enough to win this season. But two, three years down the road? Who knows? Do they have a player in the top seven in the NBA? Or a person with a future that could be a top seven player in the NBA? Same answer. Not this season. But who knows? Well, Brandon Ingram probably has reached his ceiling. Do you see any of them having that? That's a better question. No. So let's think about this.

[00:09:29] How many NBA titles? I can only think back to a glorious year when the Detroit Pistons beat some team from out in California in the playoffs with top seven or ten player. But I can't think of many times in the NBA history where a team didn't have a top seven to ten player except for that year. And who did they? I forgot who they beat, but it was convincing. I think it was five games or so. But the convincing team is serious. I'd have to look it up.

[00:09:58] I'm not sure what you're talking about. But yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. But I think in general, the makeup of the team is good. They've got a solid center. I like Portal. Jacob. Yeah. Callbacks. I like the pieces around them. They may be a superstar away. But you build a good core like that, then you can maybe bring in, you know, maybe a Shea Gilgis Alexander, you know, just to throw out names because who knows? Two, three years down the line, who knows who'll be available? Anthony Edwards.

[00:10:27] At least now, if I'm a Raptors fan, I can see the path forward. And that's something that from a Hornets fan, there's more teams on that end of the spectrum than when the Raptors are. So I'll give you that. I'll give you that. But again, look at the roster. You just not, you just, you know, NBA teams, they evolve. Like you talked about the Hornets. What I'll say to you about the Hornets is, well, Melo Ball's got to change some of his

[00:10:57] game and become more of a team-oriented player. But you've got Ball, Miller. You've got some players there that could, I think they have higher futures than anybody on Toronto. And you forgot something important here. All five of those Toronto guys that we talked about, every one of them has injury problems. In other words, not one of them is known for playing 75 to 80 games in a year.

[00:11:26] Think about it. This year, Quickly's been out a ton. Barrett has been out. He's missed some games. Pertl misses a lot. Barnes has shown himself to be susceptible to injuries. And Brandon Ingram, I think he's using vacation days because he's been out forever. He's going to be out a day soon. But he's been out forever with a sprained ankle. To win a title, you're thinking that these five guys are going to have good health for

[00:11:56] a season. That's a tough bet. But again, look at the teams that win the titles. I'm going to bet their alpha dog plays over 70 games. So it's so difficult if you want to win. And yeah, there's some talent there. But what is that? About a fifth place team, fourth place in the division? They get it. No, fair point. It's unfortunate, right? That health matters. But health matters. Oftentimes, it's not the best team.

[00:12:26] It's the healthiest team. And that is a conversation in and of itself. We're winding down our time. And I want to leave a couple of minutes to talk about the New York Knicks. We talk about the Knicks a lot. We don't talk about the Raptors a lot. We talk about the Knicks a lot. But they were walloped again last night. And they're up against the defending world champions tonight on their home court, on the defending champs home court. Do you still think that Mitchell Robinson is enough to get this team over the hump?

[00:12:53] Or are the Knicks just not as good as top tier, as other top tier Eastern Conference students? Well, I think the question should have been, do you think Mitchell Robinson can stay healthy for two months? Okay. But so that's my answer, I guess. But more importantly, and without going into depth, I will go into a little depth. What happened here? And it's really interesting. I think Tibbs is a great coach. I think he's great. But coaches are interesting.

[00:13:21] And coaches work best with different types of teams. I think he's great at getting more out of average. And he's great when he's got guys that really go out and just they're gritty and they play. Last year's Knick team was a fun watch because they were gritty and he hung in and played every game hard. This year's team, when they bought in towns, they bought in bridges, the grittiness kind of went away.

[00:13:52] DeVincenzo and people, it opens up a lot of problems, I guess. And right now they don't defend. They just, what, they got hit for 140 the other night by Cleveland. I don't know what to say or what to think. Today, we're going to learn a lot about them because if they don't play hard, that's telling you that they might have packed it in on their coach. If they do play hard, it says good about the coach and it says that the situation could get better.

[00:14:21] I keep coming back in my mind, there's five decent players, good players here. Five good players with no bench. If one of them gets hurt extended, nobody just did. And what's that in heart? Who's their Swiss Nile Army? If those guys hurt, now you're making the bench play and boy, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. So, that's where it is. It's a fascinating study. I've watched the NBA for many years.

[00:14:49] This is one of the more interesting teams I've watched and how they change. They put all their cards in for Carl Anthony Towns and Bridges. And I don't know. I think to myself, would you rather have quickly Barrett instead of Ananobi? I know, Kenny, if you want Bridges with five draft picks, it's crazy. You sold your future. Okay. And then would you... I love DiVincenzo. I thought he was such a good player.

[00:15:19] You want to give him up? You know? And he played his best basketball of his career last year. So, you know, I just... I don't quite get it. But that's my two-minute spiel on that. Outstanding. But you know what? This is why we watch sports, man. For games like this. A must-win game. I think it's fair to call it a must-win game for the Knicks. They got to win today. They got to win.

[00:15:44] They got to show that they can beat, at least once, that they can beat a top-level Eastern Conference team with the playoffs just a few months away. That's it. You heard the buzzer go off. We went right through it. Shot clock violation is what we do. But thank you, as always, for listening. Make sure to read Steve's entire 13 Rules, right? Maybe this article we will link that wherever you are watching or listening to this article or to the show. If you have more random thoughts after week 18, this week, we're 425 NBA season. And please consider subscribing, liking, commenting.

[00:16:14] All that stuff matters. And we appreciate all of it. All of it very much. Thank you. And join us next week on the Shot Clock Pod. The best 15 minutes of random NBA thoughts anywhere. We'll talk next week. Thanks, Steve. Take care.