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A show about basketball
0:00:00
Welcome to Gucci Row on the Rebel HD2. I'm your host Kevin Kelly with co-host Will Despart. Thanks for tuning in to our courtside conversations covering all things NBA. Welcome to the first episode of Gucci Row. I'm your host Kevin Kelly. I'm here with my co-host, Will Despart. And since it's episode one, we'll just start with a bit of an intro about both of us, you know, how we got here, why we like talking about what we're going to talk about, what we're going to talk about. So I'll start. I'm from, well, we're going to talk about basketball in this podcast. We both have a lot of experience from being around the sport, playing, watching, yeah, throughout our whole life. So a bit about that, I started watching when I was five years old during the 2004 season. And luckily, a year or two years later, I got to see my favorite player and my favorite team, the Heat, win their first championship. So, Will, a little bit about your watching.
0:01:31
Well, I'm Will, like we mentioned. I'm currently finishing up at UNLV, so I'm a student here, and I work for the Review Journal as a sports stats editor. So hopefully that can be where I can provide some expertise as far as statistics and history and stuff goes. Like Kevin said, we're from a small town outside of Albany, New York called Avro Park. I played basketball up until high school. I've been watching basketball my whole life and I'm a fanatic for it, just like I am for pretty much every other sport, but basketball especially so hopefully we can share some good things.
0:02:05
Yeah and we both we played together you know growing up on our our you know local area teams and whatnot and yeah I played up through middle school and high school and and then stopped playing after that and then honestly my appreciation and viewership of the game since then has gotten way bigger like I'm more involved and engaged in the game than I have been for the previous 15 years 17 years of my life. So for the podcast itself it's obviously basketball we're going to be, hopefully, avoiding the hot take, clicky style of what Twitter has turned into and ESPN and all the talking heads.
0:03:00
If I can interject, it'll be like the anti-first take. We're not trying to push out hot takes, we're kind of just trying to analyze basketball from an objective standpoint.
0:03:09
Exactly. I think JJ Reddick's newsletter puts it well, it's called Death to Hot Takes. So I think that pretty much describes the tone we're going for. Because to add to that, I think that the game has never been better, I think that the league has never been better, the personalities, the gameplay, but somehow it gets taken away narratives that talking heads use to just bring clicks and people to their company. Absolutely. So, in that tone, we're going to try and break things down objectively and use real analysis of basketball as opposed to, you know, interesting storylines that people might want to hear and isn't even necessarily reflective of what's going on. So, to start, the sweep in the playoffs and they swept LeBron which was his third time being swept all-time. The two others came in the finals in 07 against the Spurs and then in 2018 against your Warriors. And so that puts LeBron not to spend too much time on the Lakers and LeBron because they got swept but that puts him at 12 and 3 all-time in sweeps. He's been on top of 12 of them and this was his third time going down 0-4. Jokic had the most triple doubles ever in a single run before the finals even started with eight and he passed Wilt with seven. I don't know if you want to just get into a bit about Jokic and what he's done in
0:05:08
there. Well he's the best player in the NBA I think that's pretty objective at this point if we're going to talk about objectivity. I think the one criticism he could have, you could have had about him coming into this playoffs was his playoff performance, which I think wasn't even that warranted considering last year his partner in crime was Fasu Campazzo. I don't know if I pronounced his first name correct, but he certainly, I don't even think he's in the NBA at this point. If he is, he's at the end of the bench. He lost to the defending champions as well. So I don't, I never bought into that narrative to begin with and I thought going into this series I thought they were just objectively the better team than the Lakers and the Lakers the Lakers fans are kind of like you could tell Laker fans and like fans of the bigger market teams are just not familiar with Jokic and how serious his game is and how much of a force he is it's kind of like you see him and he's going to be like one of the greatest big men to ever step on the basketball court. For sure.
0:06:09
For sure it's a good point and I think that also leads into what we were saying about narratives and about how despite this guy winning two straight MVPs and leading his team to the number one seed in the West people find like like chris mannix find him to be just unenjoyable to talk about which is insane i can't even like by into that because just to me it's um... did the and run the deal kitchison right now is are pretty reminiscent of yoke it's been in there and sorry of janice and the uh... and the narratives that were uh... going around him after he won his two mvps and hadn't really had any playoff success. And people were saying like, you know, is he really that guy? Can he match this in the playoffs? And I think we're seeing just as he did show everyone in 2021, Jokic is showing everyone this year that he is fully capable. And like you said, just didn't have the cast around him.
0:07:06
And I think, I think if the Nuggets were like a sexier team and a sexier franchise and Jokic was like a sexier player so to speak as in terms of like play style and like appeal to the fans I think they would have been the overwhelming Favorite going into the Lakers series and they would have been the overwhelming Favorite to win the championship after the Suns series and that just didn't happen because people it's like they don't pay attention
0:07:28
Yeah, he's not the fastest in the league. He doesn't jump the highest by any means And he's not a guy who is gonna go into a presser and say the most click-grabbing things. He just, you know, is really himself and not afraid to be. So going back into that, he averaged 27.5, 14.5, and 11.8.5 in the Western Conference Finals on his way to the Western Conference MVP. After that, he was asked about it, and his quote was, to be honest, I don't think about MVPs anymore. And although that might be a cliche type of comment that a lot of top players in the league sort of get to, I don't think any of them really mean it, whereas Jokic doesn't seem to care about anything individual.
0:08:20
Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. I also think when you get to the point where you win like two or three MVPs in the NBA, you're just, you're going to recognize the point that it's going to be a lot harder for you to win that third or fourth MVP because of the historical context that would put you in.
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And you're going to, it seems, focus way more on team success at that point after you've already reached a certain pinnacle of individual success.
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Especially if you're someone like Jokic who needs the playoff success to establish his legacy and certify himself as one of the great big men of all
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time. Yep, 100%. So to stay on this series, it would be a complete injustice to not mention Jamal Murray, who averaged 32.5 points in the series as a second option, which is insane. It's 11th all time in points per game in the conference finals. And he also averaged 6.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists. finals and He also averaged six and a half rebounds and five and a half assists again as the second option I'm not sure that any second option in history has averaged 30 in the conference finals It was probably the closest second option We've seen as far as like a guard to like Kobe and Shaq like it really did seem like a Kobe and Shaq type of The big man is established but the guard is still making his way up and and you know how Murray relies so much on shot making as opposed to Distributing and he hit a lot of clutch shots in these this series it's so incredible how efficient he is too because Like yeah I this is a new thing in the NBA where All these guards are so efficient and there's these points aren't coming in like I was looking at old Allen Iverson stat lines and he was going like 10 for 21, 10 for 31 in these games and like that's not an efficient game. Kobe wasn't playing efficient basketball most of the time. Like Jamal Murray's out there and he's having incredibly efficient games. Yoka just having incredibly efficient games. 52% from the field, 40% from three, and 95% from series. Yeah, just as efficient as it gets. And so, somehow, the narrative has not been about these things that we just mentioned, and it's about Lakers and the LeBron future, which to be fair, he does seem to have a knack for making things revolve around himself in the offseason. So, to move on to the next series, the second Eastern Conference Finals was the Heat vs. Celtics. And this one was a real roller coaster. The Heat won the first two games on the road. Jimmy averaged 31 and 9 steals through the first game. Sorry, 31 points per game and had a combined 9 steals through the first two. The Celtics go up 7 in Game 3 and then Grant Williams hits a 3 and talks to Jimmy. And that is where a lot of things flipped. The Heat went on a 24 to run after he got in Jimmy's face and it's clear that he woke up the bear. I was wondering your thoughts on that. I don't know. I didn't really buy into the whole waking up the bear narrative as much as others did. I'm sure it had an impact on Jimmy's play, but I felt like Jimmy was going to do what Jimmy was going to do at that point regardless. And I don't even hate that Grant Williams got in his face I think that's the type of edge you need in those games so I think that's fair and and I think there's something to be said about even if Jimmy does say that that helped him he would have got the edge anyway but he was quoted as saying that that Grant doing that definitely you know turn the switch a little bit for him. I also just think Jimmy's gonna say that cause he likes to stir the pot. Yeah, no it's true and there was a lot of mutual respect there. It wasn't like, you know, either one of those guys would be going up to the presser and not respecting the other one as a player and as a man. I think if anyone would respect
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that type of brashness it would be Jimmy considering the calls he's made before these playoffs.
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And Grant too. I don't know if you remember their series against the Sixers, Grant had his head stomped on by Joel Embiid and he chalked it up to being just playoff basketball. So I agree. And then so also in that game three, Gabe Vincent had a career 29 points on 11 of 14 from three whereas Tatum and Brown combined for 26 points. Early in the series both Tatum and Brown just couldn't find shots, forcing shots, not getting into just flowing offense, a lot of ISO. It definitely seemed like the
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pressure got to them the first couple games were like you could tell I think maybe they bought into the ESPN analytics, maybe not really, but everyone didn't give the Heat any type of chance. The Celtics were supposed to cruise in and sweep.
0:13:23
97%? Yeah, no, I agree. I think at the very least that was what gave them a slow start. You know, eventually after game two, when you lose game two at home against the A-team. Yeah. If that's not enough, yeah, for sure.
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They're also just not a team that's performed that well when the cards are stacked against them or when they need to like push it. Like until they got down three-0, like historically this isn't a team that like does what they need to do when they need to do it.
0:13:54
Right, I mean, they have had so much young success in their career but just seem to flush out every time I heard this morning Jalen Brown because he's got his Extension coming up where he might get 300 million and obviously there's been talks for the last year About he was in the KD trade rumors And whatnot and so It just is interesting to see where they go from here for sure so then here. For sure. So then that said, after game three, the C's did turn around and dominate games four and five. That those two were, it's not much to say about it as a Heat fan, other than it felt like every single shot they took was going to fall, whether I was watching the screen or turned away because I couldn't. Once I saw the Vegas line for game four, it was it was like eight and a half Celtics. And I was like, see there's something that's going to happen. They know something we don't because there's no logical explanation for that. So I figured, okay, the Celtics are probably going to come in here and win by at least 15, push it, and they did. And they did, yep. And then, so they won 4-5. Game 6, they came back to Miami, which was a Celtics win, 1-0-4, 1-0-3. One of the great basketball games of all time. Easily the best game of the series. Yep. Coming down the stretch we were down two, the Heat were down two, sorry. Jimmy got fouled on the baseline by Al Horford and they reviewed it and found that he had both feet behind the line and then instead of three seconds they put 2.1 on the clock. So Jimmy hits all three free throws. We go up one and then on the other they call a timeout, one of Missoula's good timeouts. He's saying we because he's a Heat fan, by the way. Correct. And then so on the other end of the floor, on the inbounds, Max Struis is guarding White, who is inbounding the ball, and he's turned away from him, kind of helping deny Tatum the ball, because clearly they want the last shot to go to him. So he does, he's able to force the ball out of Tatum's hand, they pass it into Smart, and Smart immediately gets into a deep follow-away three, which was in and out, and frankly I thought was going to go in, but after the pass, Derek White jetted towards the hoop out from the inbounds, and Struce was kind of off towards the top of the key and wasn't able to recover as quickly. And Derek White flew in and got a tip-in with.1 left to win the game.
0:16:32
And it really happened so fast. Like, watching on TV, I didn't even process what had happened. Like, I thought, okay, did he, did it go in? Did he tip it in? When he tipped it in, was there enough time on the clock? And at the time it looked like there was no way all of those things aligned and that this would count. And then you see the replay and it's like
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your jaw drops. Yep and I want to say it was ESPN so Stan Van Gundy was talking about how there was no way it was before the buzzer and the game's over the heat won. Jeff Van Gundy. Was it TNT? Well Jeff is ESPN, Stan's TNT, isn't it? No it's the opposite but regardless one of them one of the Van Gundys you know couldn't believe it. And in the moment, maybe it's just because of my bias and my, I guess, pessimism for lack of a better term, but I didn't have any hope that it was after the buzzer. And so, you know, that felt like, that felt like the nail in the coffin almost, because that was three in a row, it felt like that was the game to win. We were at home, we were up, we got a late lead and we blow it on the last play. So that one definitely felt like it'd be tough to come back from. But then we game seven, we come in to Boston and just dominate. From the jump, there was a... The Celtics only came within seven one time and it was Caleb Martin who just completely shut that run down and secured us the win. So I guess to bring some stats and context into this, there has only been 150 including the Heat Series, games that went to 3-0, and of those 150, it has only went to game seven three times and the trailing team has never won, which luckily is still true. But just just an unfathomable series from a rematch of last year's conference finals and it certainly lived up to it. For sure. After the game Jimmy when talking about heat culture, because I think it's important to mention, this team was down late in the second game, the second play-in game. Lost to the Hawks the first game, had to face the Bulls, and late in the game were down looking like we weren't going to make the playoffs at all. And we win that game, get the 8 seed, and now without Tyler Hero or Victor Oladipo, we make a deep 8c run and get into the finals. So on that, Jimmy was quoted as saying, when a guy goes down, the next guy could fill in that gap, but do exactly what that guy did when he went down and do it at a high level. He said, then be humble enough to know that when that guy comes back, you've got to take a step back and do your role. Nobody ever complains, they always do exactly what you ask of them to do, which is why you want to play with guys like that, which is why they are the reason that we win so many games. I don't call them role players, I call them teammates because your role can change on any given day." I think that that is, that quote really embodies what people say when they talk about heat culture. I mean, I thought it was a great quote too, just Jimmy knows, like he's got it, he needs these guys for the finals, he can't do it by himself, especially against a team like the Nuggets, so there's no point taking all the credit. Exactly, and with guys like Caleb and Caleb Martin and Gabe Vincent, just shined out of their role and got us here, which I agree, we would not be without, so I think it's important and Got us here, which I agree. We would not be without so I think it's important to mention Caleb Martin for the series average of nineteen six and a half rebounds and over an assist on 60% from the field 47% from three and 89% from the free-throw line Only six guys in history have scored more points per game on 60% those being Shaq, LeBron, Dwyane Wade, Sean Kemp, Kareem and Dwight Howard. Pretty good company.
0:20:56
All right next we'll be discussing a bit about the
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front office decisions and moving of coaches around the league which seems to me like it's been a lot busier than than a lot of more recent years uh... big will begin with uh... the pistons who've who not fired but moved to win casey from their head coach to the front office and while their head coach is still unfilled they uh... the top candidates are monty williams charles lee kenny atkinson, and Jay Wright. I don't know if you want to get into any of those, but right now it seems like Monte is their highest priority.
0:21:46
Yeah, I mean it all checks out. I think Kenny Atkinson would be a great hire for them. I think he's probably one of the better assistant coaches on the board still, but I think Monte deserves a job, obviously. I don't think he should have been let go in Phoenix.
0:21:59
I think that's what we'll get into a bit about, you know, whether these are justified or whatnot. But I agree. I think Kenny is one of my favorite young coaches in the league. You know, he had the offer with the Hornets last year that he took and backed out. Yeah, I kind of, I understand, but I think the Pistons would be a good fit for him. I'd like to see him there. The next one is the Rockets who fired Steven Silas and brought Ime Udoka in, who was let go by the Celtics last year after a controversy within their front office and employees. So the Rocket, I thought this was interesting, the Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, who hired Udoka, said that he is, quote, not concerned about the behavior that led to the year-long suspension. Yeah, it's about on par with him, Tillman. Yeah, I remember seeing a video of him like a month ago, and he was in New Orleans, and someone asked him about Victor and he said, pray for Victor. So yeah, he doesn't seem like one of the more quiet owners. Next will be one that I thought was really interesting. The Bucks fired Mike Budenholzer after he won two time coach of the year in 2015 and 19 and then led them to the finals championship in 2021. I think this one is interesting and we really get into talking about like whether it was justified or whether it's scapegoating or and I think that I think that Budenholzer had some some issues as was seen in the Heat series and you're always going to have to answer questions when you lose as a one seed to the eight seed that's for sure. I think the Bucs like probably wish they waited a bit longer to fire him because considering what the Heat did after it's kind of just like especially since the Heat have had the
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Bucs number I guess you could like use that as a reason my Bodenhoser had to go
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but and it just seems to me like they stuck by him for so long without seeing success. It seems weird that you jump ship two years after seeing such high success. They brought in Adrian Griffin of the Raptors who was their assistant coach. And they're working on a contract with him right now. So we'll see how that works. The Sixers fired Doc Rivers, who is 17 and 32 all-time in series clinchers, the worst in the NBA. This one I think is maybe the most justified and I don't want to say that to speak down on Doc. I think Doc Rivers is an extraordinary coach a Lot of his winning resume really speaks for itself, but There was some serious issues there that weren't being addressed and I Think it's time for just new leadership. They they've gotten so far and sputtered out so many times Yeah, doc. You can't count on doc to get a team over the hump at this point like it's yeah no I agree and I agree it's tough because he's got so much you know winning in his history but just when those moments he's always flamed out he wins until he has to win like the 2008 ring carry so much weight for him and really that was an extraordinary team that shouldn't have lost at any point. And if you look at their playoff run, the 2008 Celtics almost lost in the first round.
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They got taken to seven games by the Atlanta Hawks.
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And then I guess his other...
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Doc is so close to just being a guy who lost in history as just a player who failed at
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coaching. Right. Where, you know, they had a pretty, not exceptional, but a pretty good roster. One of the best in the West many times and didn't really get there.
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Looking back on those Clippers teams though, I don't know if there was ever a year where the Clippers should have made the finals. Like they shouldn't have lost the series they lost, like especially to the Rockets I think when they went down, when they were up 3-1 and they blew it. But I mean, I don't really recall there being a year where the Clippers were like the favorite coming out of the West for like the entire season, not just pockets of the season where
0:27:00
Chris Paul was looking like an MVP and the Blakes were looking fine. It just seems that you could have got a little more out of Chris Paul's prime, is what it seems to me. But no, I agree, mostly. Next would be the Suns who fired Monte Williams, who was the last year's coach of the year and the 2021 Western Conference Finals champ. Their head coach right now is on field, but Kevin Young, who is their assistant, and Doc are the highest odds.
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How would you feel about KD and Doc together? I mean, if he can, like, form a good relationship with KD, I think it's fine. I think the key to the Suns' coaching position is managing the personalities, less so than being an X's and O's coach. And I think that's Doc's strength, is really managing personalities instead of being an X's and O's coach, because he's shown he's not very good at making adjustments, and the teams that he's led to victories were teams that had plenty of star players who played their roles.
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That's a good analysis. I agree. I think that it would be the best fit for Doc for sure. Moving on, the Raptors also fired their coach of the year, Nick Nurse, who was a 2019 champ. Their head coach is also unfilled, but the top candidates right now being Steve Nash, J.J. Redick, and Mike Budenholzer. Any thoughts on that? The Raptors-Nick Nurse firing was probably the one I didn't understand out of like the most out of all of them because like he is a fine coach like he gets the job done and the Raptors weren't a team that really had any expectations going into this season. They were a team that at the deadline was expected to sell. I mean I don't I think that's just one of the lateral moves like I agree fire Nick Nurse. Who are you gonna get that's better than Nick nurse not Steve Nash because Steve Nash showed he was terrible in Brooklyn yeah I mean JJ Reddick's never coached at the NBA level in his life that could just be another Steve Nash moment and then I don't know I feel like that was just I feel like there's no improvement that would make that firing worth it in year one no I could agree and I think that you're saying that because nurses may be the most sought-after candidate on the market But so that makes four of the last six coaching coaches of the year out of a job Which is pretty insane and seems to me like it's the most volatile job in sports and they said the quote is that you're hired to get fired According to the SportsTeller website in the last 13 seasons, seven teams have made five or more coaching changes, with the longest tenured coaches in the league being Pop from 1996, Greg Popovich, Eric Spolstra who's been around with the He's since 2008, Steve Kerr with the Warriors since 2014. It's crazy he's already the third longest tenured coach. It shows how the carousel revolves yep and it only gets More recent from them and then Mike Malone is for on the Nuggets which was he's been there from 2015 and Then fifth you get all the way up to Taylor Jenkins who's been with the Grizzlies for only three seasons So That that seems that's uh, it definitely seems like it's at least somewhat of a scapegoated position. So closing up here, I think that this is going to be a finals for history. that I'm not sure that I'm extremely confident in my heat but I love Spoh's chances to put things together and hopefully Hero comes back and offers us something and we make it a fun series but I think the Nuggets sweep let's put that on a record I think the Nuggets sweep I think the Cinderella story ends and I think Jokic wins his first finals MVP well I guess we'll find out. Hopefully it's Jimmy that does. That's a wrap for Gucci Roe this week. Thanks for tuning in on The Rebel HD 2 with your hosts Kevin Kelly and Will Dusparte. You can find us on Instagram at hosts Kevin Kelly and Will Dusparte. You can find us on Instagram at 1kevkelly and Will Dusparte. We'll see you next time on The Rebel HD 2.