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Legendary college basketball coach Jim Larrañaga joins the show to preview the NBA season including his favorite current players to watch and his perspective on the Heat’s low expectations coming into the new season.
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00:00Well, Jim Laranega has returned to the show on the Toyota of Hollywood hotline, head coach
00:06of the University of Miami basketball program for over a decade.
00:10He revitalized college hoops in Coral Gables.
00:14None of us will forget even Crowder, who's a Gator.
00:17None of us will forget that magical final four run just a couple of seasons ago.
00:22So welcome back to the show, coach.
00:24We missed you.
00:25I missed you guys and really enjoy being on the air.
00:31I really appreciate hockey because I kept texting you, calling you and asking you when you're
00:37going to bring me back.
00:38And then and then you hit me up at like 1230 this afternoon and said, how about today at
00:43330?
00:44That's how we operate on this show.
00:46I always operate as if there's 20 seconds to go in the game and we got to come up with
00:50a new play.
00:51Well, that's what you did because I was scrambling and I love listening.
00:56I was listening because you said Michael Jordan told a great story last night on the opening
01:01night, but I couldn't watch.
01:03I couldn't listen.
01:04I was at the University of Miami Law School speaking to the Citizens Board and the University
01:12of Miami Law School students and some alums.
01:15And so I missed.
01:16So tell me, what's this great Michael Jordan story that he told?
01:19I'm glad you asked.
01:21I'm glad you asked.
01:22I will give you a very abbreviated version of it.
01:25Michael Jordan was being interviewed by Mike Tirico and Michael Jordan.
01:30You know, for those my age, Crowder's age, your age, Michael Jordan was the NBA on NBC,
01:35right?
01:35I mean, he's the he was the the the spine that kept it all together because he was the NBA
01:41back then.
01:42So he's part of the broadcasts in a very ancillary fashion.
01:46He's going to tell stories and do interviews.
01:49So Mike Tirico sat down with him last night and Crowder maintains it was wildly uninteresting
01:55and his eyes, his eyes were closing.
01:58I grew up in Chicago, so I'm a giant Michael Jordan.
02:02Michael Jordan is my athletic hero.
02:04Walter Payton, Michael Jordan.
02:05Those are my two athletic heroes.
02:07I could listen to him say anything, but Mike Tirico asked him a story and he said, when's
02:12the last time you've picked up a basketball?
02:14And he said, it's been years.
02:16I just don't pick up a basketball.
02:17And Mike Tirico said, why?
02:19And he said, well, you know what?
02:20I take that back at the Ryder Cup.
02:23I got an Airbnb and the owner of the Airbnb came by to take some pictures with his grandkids
02:29and he has a basketball court out in the back.
02:32And he said, let me get a picture of you taking a free throw back here.
02:36And Michael Jordan said he was so nervous because he's Michael Jordan and those kids want to
02:45see him make the free throw.
02:46And he said, I haven't picked up a basketball in years.
02:49And so I was nervous.
02:51I was legitimately nervous taking that shot.
02:54And Mike Tirico said, well, did you make the shot?
02:58And what did he answer?
02:59Crowder?
03:00What did he say?
03:01What do you think?
03:02I know what he said.
03:04What do you think?
03:05What do you think?
03:06And I thought it was a great story.
03:07I thought it was a great example of why Michael Jordan is a champion, a guy who will never
03:12be replicated, which is even in that instance with a couple of kids watching his drive to
03:21be perfect, to never fail, is unparalleled in anyone we've ever seen in sports.
03:27And I would submit to you, which I submitted to Crowder, I would submit that if he was in
03:32the backyard by himself with no one around, he'd be hesitant to shoot a free throw because
03:38he doesn't want to miss a free throw.
03:39And he knows as he gets older, he might miss a free throw in an instance where he wouldn't
03:44before.
03:45And I thought it was a great example of why MJ is the greatest of all time.
03:50And Crowder just figured, get that story out of your arsenal.
03:53It's boring.
03:54Coach, I've heard you tell 20 stories better than that.
03:58And I took the story as Michael shot a free throw in front of some rich kids.
04:03That's not a good story to me.
04:05Hey, I spoke to the law school last night.
04:07I had five stories better than that one.
04:10That's a great story.
04:11How dare you?
04:13Michael Jordan, he went to that foul line and, and his, the level of confidence that
04:19guy has in himself, he says he was nervous.
04:23I think that's the part of the story because he wanted to make the story interesting and
04:28he go, Oh yeah.
04:29What do you think?
04:30That's because he knew before he ever launched, he probably been practicing for three or four
04:36hours.
04:36He didn't want to miss the shot in front of those kids.
04:39You guys are so cynical.
04:40I'm surrounded by cynical people.
04:43I don't dare you all.
04:45But how about game one though?
04:48The OKC double overtime KD having a very solid game.
04:5423 points saying, what did he have?
04:5739.
04:58He was a monster.
04:59I hadn't watched him play that much.
05:01He was a monster.
05:02I, I, you, you think you're watching two of the, and I know your son coaches for the
05:06Clippers.
05:06Are you watching the two class teams in the West there?
05:10Well, I, I think they might be.
05:13I mean, Denver is also my guy, Bruce Brown is back with the Denver nuggets.
05:17Yeah.
05:18You can't count Jokic out.
05:20He's, I think the best player in the NBA and has been for the last four or five years.
05:25So the West is loaded.
05:27I like my Clippers.
05:29My son's team has a lot of good veteran players.
05:32And, uh, sometimes veterans can really lead the way.
05:37Sometimes they, they're a little bit too old and they get banged up during the season.
05:42But why did LeBron sit out last night?
05:44You guys were talking about like.
05:46Glute.
05:47He's got a glute issue.
05:48Sciatica.
05:49What is he, 70 or what?
05:52That's my issue.
05:55It's booing hurts, coach.
05:57It's booing hurts.
05:57Yeah, well.
06:00I, I, again, I didn't, I get it, didn't get a chance to see it, but, but, uh, you know,
06:05the Lakers are in a situation, uh, with, with Don Cicci scores 43, lights it up.
06:11But, you know, it, it's all going to come down to the NBA playoffs and who's healthy and who's
06:18not, you know, one of the, one of the, I watched the, the heat again, against, uh, the Milwaukee
06:25Bucks, uh, one of the first exhibition games.
06:29And, uh, they, they got miles Turner.
06:32Now the bucks to go along with the honest, what a one, two punch at the four or five for
06:39them.
06:40So, Hey, Hey coach, I wanted to ask you about the, uh, the OKC or really SGA.
06:46I saw Eme and Doku cuss out Ahmad Thompson for trying to guard SGA.
06:51We know what he's going to do.
06:52He's going to go down on the left elbow.
06:54He's going to do all that jerky dribbling and he's going to pull up mid range.
06:57Katie fouls him in, I think double overtime to put him on the line to win the game.
07:02Is there like, how do you coach to stop that?
07:04Cause he's done it now to an MVP season.
07:06And I watched him last night, come back game one, the same spot on the court and continue
07:11to do it to win game.
07:12Okay.
07:13This is, this is something I said to my players every single day for, for almost 50 years.
07:19I was like, every single player that's ever played the game loves to block shots and will
07:26jump if they think they can block your shot.
07:29So what you should do shot fake.
07:34And if you shot fake, that guy's going to jump, you create contact and you go to the
07:39foul line and that's the best way to score the ball.
07:43You're by yourself.
07:44That's why they call it free, a free throw.
07:47You shoot the free throw.
07:49You make the free throw and, and you thank the guy for fouling you.
07:53I could never understand when a player got fouled, he'd get angry at the defender.
08:00I'd be thinking, Oh, thanks for fouling me.
08:03These are an easy two points for me.
08:06Keep doing that.
08:06SGA shot, uh, shot faked, uh, KD into falling out last night.
08:11Yes.
08:11Yeah.
08:11That's the way you play the game.
08:13You, you control your defender.
08:15You got to be in control of yourself.
08:17Then you got to be in control of your defender.
08:19And if you're really one of the great players, you can actually control the other eight guys
08:24on the court with your ball handling and your passing.
08:27That's what magic Johnson did.
08:29That's what Larry bird did.
08:30And now you see guys like SGA.
08:34He's, you know, the next coming, he's a tremendous player.
08:38What about the way the game has changed at the center position coach?
08:42You just talked about Joker.
08:44He's the best player.
08:45One of the best players in the league now for the past five seasons.
08:47We're looking at Chet Holmgren last night, who sure he's rim running a little bit.
08:51And I think he put on some more size, but he's running around the perimeter.
08:56A lot of actions are being run outside in the perimeter for him.
09:00Shangoon has that face-up game, but he can step out and knock down perimeter shots as well.
09:05Joker is a point guard, but he's seven something, 300 pounds.
09:09He's lumbering down the floor.
09:11And then you look at a guy like Victor Wambanyama, who could be transcending the position.
09:15Do you like the way that the big man has changed from, you know, your era where it was, you got to have a post-up game and you have to have the sky hook and you have to have the dream shake in order to dominate the game as a big.
09:30Yeah, there's, there's no players like Kareem or Hakeem Olajuwon, Moses Malone, Kevin McHale.
09:39Those guys, they weren't out on the perimeter shooting threes.
09:42The NBA game, but even the college game now has, has become five out.
09:48Everybody is a skilled player.
09:50Everybody's shooting threes.
09:51Everybody, everybody, everybody wants to be Steph Curry and like, you know, develop your own style, your own strengths and, and make the game better for you.
10:04What, what too many guys are doing is they're, they're taking on the persona of being a great perimeter player when they're only a very average perimeter player.
10:14And if you're six, 10 or seven feet or, you know, Victor, uh, when Bayama is, he can do a lot of things on the perimeter, but I would love to see some of these big guys develop into a Moses Malone or a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or, or maybe the dream, uh, Akeem Olajuwon that, those guys were unstoppable.
10:36But coach, wouldn't, wouldn't you miss, wouldn't you not be able to keep up?
10:41Because if you get back to it, if let's say there's another Shaq born, Shaq was unstoppable in the paint.
10:46Well, if you're playing that two point game and then you're playing the warriors who are playing the three point game, isn't the number, isn't the math not going to work out for you?
10:55No, I was a math major.
10:57I know exactly how the numbers work out.
11:00So if, if I'm shooting 60% from two and I take 10 shots,
11:06how many points do I get?
11:0860% six out of 10, two point shots.
11:1251.
11:13What?
11:14How many?
11:1712 points.
11:1812 points.
11:19Okay.
11:20Do you know how many, do you know how many guys they shoot 33% from three?
11:25So they shoot 10 of them.
11:27They get nine points.
11:28Okay.
11:29If, if they shoot 40% from three,
11:32they only tie the two point shooter at 12 points on 10 shots,
11:37but the best way to score in high school,
11:41college in the NBA is get fouled because you shoot a much higher percentage,
11:48especially the good shooters.
11:49They shoot such a high percentage from the foul line that it's almost automatic.
11:55And it used to be, I just talked to my former assistants about this.
11:59It used to be to win a game on offense.
12:02You had to score one point per possession.
12:04It doesn't sound like a lot, but it's every possession.
12:07You average one point.
12:08Now it's 1.1.
12:10All the analytics say that in the NBA,
12:13if you only average one point per possession, you're losing.
12:17You got to be 1.1, 1.12, 1.15 to really be effective offensively.
12:25So the NBA is just starting.
12:27You got to get the tune in and, and watch the NBA on, on, on, what is it?
12:34NBC.
12:35Wow.
12:36Jim, every week during basketball season,
12:40we have a lot more basketball to talk about.
12:42We're going to run out of time here.
12:43So I'm going to ask you real quickly, since the heat opened tonight,
12:46um, when you were coaching,
12:48did you relish what Eric Spolstra is going into this season with,
12:53which is expectations are nothing.
12:55Vegas has their win total at 37 for the season.
13:00Did you prefer entering a season under the radar,
13:03or would you prefer entering a season, all eyes on you?
13:08Well, in, in my mind, whether we were picked very,
13:12very high with high expectations or, or the,
13:16the expert said we weren't going to be very good.
13:18My own personal feeling was, no, we're going to be good.
13:22And we're going to out outshine a lot of the people who might be picked higher
13:27than us in the preseason polls.
13:29You have to be driven as a competitor to believe every time you take the court,
13:34you can and will have a chance to win that game.
13:38And so whether we were playing Duke,
13:40the number one team in the country,
13:42or we were playing someone in the,
13:44in the non-conference that was not highly regarded,
13:47we knew we had to prepare to be the best we could be that night.
13:53And so the heat I'm cheering for them.
13:55You know,
13:55I love Pat Riley and Eric Spolster been following the heat since I came to Miami
14:00and Orlando is very good and very talented.
14:03So, you know,
14:05you just got to hope that your team plays as well as it can that night.
14:09You never paid attention to preseason polls in college parlance.
14:13You never paid attention to preseason polls.
14:15Oh, I always paid attention to when I use them in, in, in my favor.
14:19So if we were picked low, like the year we went to the elite eight,
14:22we were picked 11th in our league.
14:24And I just told the team, no one knows how good we are, except us.
14:28We know we're really,
14:29really good and we'll show the world how good we are.
14:33Once this season starts, when we were picked very high in the league,
14:37I would say, everybody knows how good we are, but understand this.
14:42That means we got a target on our back and everybody's going to be shooting at
14:46us and giving us that best effort for us to then stay up on top and to meet
14:51expectation or exceed expectation.
14:54We've got to be at our best because of course, we're, we're like the heat.
14:59When, when, when LeBron and D Wade were here.
15:04Hold on.
15:04I can ask him, but coach to that point, I know what you're telling the team.
15:07Cause I, you know, coaches, you got to get your team going,
15:10but you're up late at night watching film.
15:13Have you ever said, I got to coach my tail off this season.
15:16Let me get deeper in my playbook.
15:17Cause we can't out talent people.
15:20Oh, I said that no matter how good the players thought they were.
15:24I was like, these guys stink.
15:26I got, I got, I got, I got to motivate them.
15:30I got to inspire them.
15:31I got to help them improve their skills.
15:33And, and, uh, off oftentimes how you motivate yourself,
15:38how you prepare yourself is then how you deliver those messages to the team.
15:42You know, people don't respect us.
15:45We, we gotta, we gotta show the world we're, we're better than this.
15:49That's the, uh, headline for the podcast, Solana.
15:52These guys stink.
15:53Yeah.
15:54Who knows what he's referring to?
15:55Thank you for bringing me back guys.
15:59Am I on next week or not?
16:01You are on next week.
16:02Every Wednesday.
16:03We'll talk to you next Wednesday, coach.
16:05All right.
16:05Cause the college basketball season is just around the corner.
16:09I know we need to talk college hoops.
16:11Absolutely.
16:12Thank you, coach L.
16:13All right, guys.
16:14There you go.
16:15Jim Laranega.
16:16He is going to join us every week to talk NBA and college hoops.
16:20Once that's a hot and heavy as well.
16:23Yeah.
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