- 3 months ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00I mean, actually, we're about an hour and 45 minutes away from the actual tip-off of the NBA season,
00:04the Thunder and the Rockets, so we'll have that on here at Splash also
00:09as we're getting ready for Warriors-Lakers later on tonight.
00:12We'll get to see Kevin Durant, first look in a Rocket uniform, going against the Champs,
00:17and I mean, that really brings to mind what the Warriors here have in front of them.
00:21The West is loaded. There's no way around that.
00:25The journey that each of these teams will take, the injuries, the bumps, the bruises,
00:29the good play, the bad play, it's all about to unfold, but I'll just say this real quick,
00:35and it'll lead to a bigger conversation.
00:37I keep hearing people look at the West and go, well, you can't beat that team,
00:42and you can't beat that team, and you can't beat that team.
00:45Okay, Rockets. Okay, Thunder. Okay, Nuggets.
00:47And here come the Timberwolves, and what about Dallas and all of this stuff?
00:51And sometimes I wonder, I go, you know, if you weren't a fan of the Warriors
00:57and you lived in a different city, you would look at the Warriors and go,
01:00yeah, they've got superstars too.
01:02I don't know why sometimes you look at the West and you go, oh, Dallas has a bunch of big names.
01:08Jimmy Butler is here for a full year.
01:11Jimmy Butler plays here alongside the chef.
01:14Like, I'm not telling you that the Warriors are the favorites in the West,
01:18but, man, there's a lot of good teams, and we'll see how this shakes out,
01:22and the Warriors are absolutely one of them, and I don't think they're afraid of anybody this year.
01:26No, they're in the mix, and if you wanted to match up big threes versus big threes
01:30or starting five against starting five, however you want to divide it up,
01:34the Warriors are definitely in the conversation,
01:36and I think tonight's opponent is a great example of that
01:40because they don't have LeBron James, and they won't for a couple weeks, two, three, four,
01:45who knows how long, but they've got Luka Doncic,
01:47and they've got a lot of great supporting players,
01:50but you're right, Mark, about when you look at the Western Conference,
01:53if you want to look at who has no chance, quote-unquote,
01:57you might get to two teams, maybe three.
02:00I mean, three, I think, might even be a stretch as far as, like,
02:03but Sacramento, I do think, is going to be hilariously fun to watch
02:06because there's going to be times where they put up a buck 43
02:09and times where they hate each other.
02:12Yeah, exactly.
02:12So I do think that the Western Conference, to your point, is very tough,
02:16and it's very deep.
02:17It's not necessarily top-heavy.
02:20I don't know if Oklahoma City could do again in the regular year what they did last year,
02:24but there are three or four or five or six or whatever many good teams
02:28that are going to be tough to beat, and I threw that on our show thread.
02:32What do you think about the Warriors?
02:34Will they be, at the end of the regular year, seated one through four,
02:38five through eight, ninth or tenth, or out of the entire play-in bracket?
02:43And how would you answer it?
02:44I would answer the same way you did, five through eight.
02:46Our very own Mark Grandy was like, pom-pom city, first through fourth,
02:51first through fourth, go Warriors!
02:54He's very excited.
02:56He's super excited.
02:57And I actually would.
02:57And I love that.
02:58But I would throw this out to fans.
03:00He was born an hour and a half ago.
03:02Well, people don't necessarily know all the ins and outs of Mark Grandy.
03:07He gets to do a lot of the work around the games,
03:09but he doesn't have four hours a day like we do to really let everybody know exactly who he is.
03:15And I think if you take his prediction to heart, it should make you feel good
03:20because, Grandy, you could stop me if I'm wrong.
03:24Oh, no, you're right.
03:24I think Grandy looks at sports through a very analytical and X's and O's kind of a way,
03:32not necessarily the emotional way that many other fans look at it.
03:38And there's no right or wrong answer to that.
03:40But I think what Grandy sees is a lot of answers to basketball-related questions
03:47that the Warriors franchise has faced the last two years.
03:51I don't know who's going to get hurt.
03:53I don't know who's going to overperform or underperform.
03:55But right now, all is on paper, and he sees a lot of answers to basketball questions.
04:02That's a good thing.
04:03It's a great thing.
04:04That's a good thing.
04:05And he's a realist, and I don't want to speak for him, but he's a young person,
04:09and most young people would be much more emotional,
04:13but he's much more analytical as a guy who hasn't even had his 30th birthday yet.
04:17So the fact that he has him as a top-four seed, and I made fun of him with the pom-pom thing,
04:23I thought it was a funny bit.
04:24Apparently no one else did.
04:25No, I liked it.
04:26I mean, but, Grandy, you're very analytical, and I love it.
04:29Yeah.
04:30Okay, so really quick.
04:31The Warriors last year, when Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler played in games together,
04:36they were 27-8.
04:3727-8 when those two play.
04:39And then what happens in the offseason, you lose Kevon Looney.
04:42That's a big loss, no lie.
04:43But you get Al Horford, you get D'Anthony Melton back.
04:46He's probably not going to miss that much time.
04:47You get Seth Curry back.
04:48You bring GP2 back.
04:50I think, not going to expect him to play at a 27-8 clip all season long,
04:55but that's clearly a good baseline, and they definitely got better in the offseason.
04:59There's no question.
05:00It is a deeper team.
05:03They've got, as I put it, they've got answers to more basketball questions.
05:08But now, the actual journey unfolds.
05:11And so, we redo all of the how's your health, what's the fit.
05:15Like, I will say this, when comparing right now to last year, remember last year?
05:21I think we do such a bad job of remembering things.
05:24It gets hard.
05:26Through the years, the world just starts to blend all together.
05:29But last year at this time, do you remember what Steve Kerr was doing?
05:33Like, people, if you're just joining, there is a report that Steve is leaning towards starting Jonathan Kaminga tonight.
05:39Okay, we'll get to that in a minute.
05:41Do you remember what was happening at this time last year?
05:44Steve was basically putting a blindfold on and hucking five names onto the floor and playing everybody.
05:52It was a 12-man rotation, and they spent the first few weeks of the season going,
05:57we're just totally checking stuff out.
06:00Like, the Warriors would enter a basketball game the way a couple walks into a house when they're shopping for a new home.
06:06Ah, just check it out.
06:07Does this room, what's it smell like in here?
06:10Total exploration.
06:12That's not the case this year.
06:14There might be a couple things.
06:15A couple things.
06:16If Jonathan starts tonight, let's see how that three-man rotation, Draymond, Jimmy, Jonathan, can they play together?
06:24That's been such a discussion point.
06:26Okay, but that's just tonight.
06:27And I think the exploration mode is much smaller and much quicker this year.
06:33Again, they know more about who they are at the beginning of this season than they did last year.
06:38They do, but I also think that you're going to see a little bit of that same exploration early on.
06:44Now, I'm looking at the opener last year, and they beat Portland 140-104.
06:49They played 14 players.
06:50Now, they played 14 only because it was a blowout.
06:53And if you look at it, Lindy Waters III, Guy Santos, they played five minutes each, and that was total garbage time.
07:00But if you look at the other players who were in the rotation, Kyle Anderson, he's not here.
07:05Kavon Looney, Kavon got hurt, and you hate to see it.
07:09He's got a badly sprained knee, and he's going to miss time with New Orleans.
07:13But you've got, you know, D'Anthony Melton, who played well early, and then he was gone.
07:18Trace Jackson Davis actually started with Kaminga in that opener.
07:21So, as you look at the way things evolved early, I do think that it's going to be a little similar.
07:28Like, tonight, I would bet if it's a close game, Steve Kerr's probably going to play 10, if not 11 guys.
07:34I see 10.
07:35As you try to figure out, like, who you really want to have in the rotation.
07:38Yeah, let's have fun with that for a second.
07:4010 names.
07:41Who do you think?
07:42Obviously, Steph, Dre, Jimmy, Jonathan, Kaminga, Brandon Pajemski, Al Horford's going to play.
07:48And Buddy Heal.
07:49Buddy Heal.
07:49That's a quick seven.
07:50All right, who else?
07:52Who else gets minutes tonight?
07:53I think you're going to play GP2.
07:55He'll get minutes, especially considering the team you're going to face.
07:59Moody is out.
08:00Right.
08:00I do think you're going to see a little bit of Gi.
08:02And I was thinking about this on the drive-in today, listening to Steiney and Goo.
08:07I see Quentin Post as kind of a backup catcher.
08:11A backup catcher.
08:12Especially when you look at the season that's coming up, and you've got, in the first nine games, the Warriors have three back-to-backs in the first nine.
08:21Yeah, yeah.
08:21And I don't believe Al Horford's going to play in back-to-backs.
08:24I thought that was the word that I heard from Steve Kerr.
08:26I've heard that.
08:27I don't know that that's been confirmed.
08:29We should ask him that tomorrow.
08:30We will.
08:30Well, let's get a confirmation sensation.
08:32That's a buck, and I'd be happy to take that buck because I'm curious about that.
08:35But what I was thinking is, for me, Quentin Post is kind of like the Kisner.
08:42I can't remember his first name.
08:43Oh, yeah.
08:44It doesn't matter.
08:45Brent Kisner or whatever.
08:46I don't even know what it was.
08:47Andrew.
08:48Whatever.
08:48Thank you, Andrew Kisner.
08:50And the end was silent.
08:52But I do think that Quentin Post is going to play more in those spots where Al is out.
08:57But I do like Quentin Post as a six- to nine-minute night guy to come in and step in and shoot a three.
09:04I think that's your ten.
09:06I think that's your ten.
09:07I know you'd love to see Will Richard play.
09:09And we will.
09:10We will.
09:10And we'll see.
09:11Trace Jackson Davis, don't know.
09:13Pat Spencer, probably not.
09:14Yeah, I think so.
09:16It's more condensed than it was last year for sure.
09:20And part of that is also Moses Moody being out.
09:23And so Jonathan may or may not.
09:25Sounds like he's going to get the start.
09:26We'll see how long they stick with that, what it looks like, and all of that.
09:30But here's the thing that I kind of want to get to.
09:33Because while I'll buy what all of us are saying, to start this year on paper, this team is better than last year.
09:43It also was a very, what I would call, a unique offseason.
09:48Not a bad one.
09:50I don't know if it was a good one either.
09:52But it was a unique one because it basically lasted the whole offseason without being an offseason.
09:58The Warriors, because of circumstances we all understand, essentially from a news standpoint, gave their fans nothing.
10:06Nothing.
10:06Nothing happened.
10:07It was the huge waiting game.
10:09And then suddenly you get to the end and it's Kaminga, Al Horford, Seth Curry, November 11th.
10:16All of the little things that suddenly happened with this basketball team happened three days before training camp opened and then here we go.
10:24And so normally when a fan base, when you have an entertainment product and you're going to come back for a new season, you want to have offered your fans the big new thing.
10:38It's kind of like that menu item that you just talked about.
10:41Oh, delicious.
10:42Splash has come back for a new season.
10:44We have new menu items.
10:47Yes, the Warriors have them.
10:48We barely got a chance to even really massage it before the season was here.
10:53So did the offseason feel good to you?
10:58Did it feel like as a fan you have been offered the opportunity to get fully excited about what's about to unfold?
11:08Yeah, I think a little bit excited.
11:09And I think if you look at it the way you laid it out, like this year versus last year, last year you had slow-mo Kyle Anderson and you had Dennis Schroeder for a time.
11:20I do think that the fact that one of the guys you added is named Curry, and I know he's been waived, but he'll be back.
11:26And you've got Al Horford, who actually seems like he fits really, really well.
11:31And D'Anthony Melton's back.
11:32And Melton in a short sample size last year was awesome.
11:35So you could look at it and go, yeah, you're a little bit better, and the word you used is the D word that I like.
11:41You are deeper.
11:42You're deeper and better deeper.
11:45And all your other young guys, they should be at least a step better.
11:48Gee, Pods, Kaminga, Quentin, whatever.
11:52So I do look at this year and think it's a little bit more sustainable even though you're a little bit older.
Be the first to comment