- 3 months ago
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00:00That was also the best 9.5 rebound effort I've ever seen in my life.
00:04From?
00:05Jonathan Kaminga.
00:06Solid.
00:07Like, again, is that five boards or more in all of the games?
00:12I believe so, yeah.
00:13Did any?
00:14Is that less than five?
00:15I don't think he had five versus Denver, but I might be wrong.
00:19Okay.
00:20And, again, what I'm looking at when I watch Jonathan Kaminga play basketball,
00:26there's a piece of nine points that, in a game like that,
00:30I love even more than if he were to go out there and score 19.
00:35And the reason is you're continuing to watch him make good decisions.
00:41This is all anybody ever wanted.
00:44That pass that he, that bounce pass to Curry last night, I mean, it's just,
00:53dude, he looks fantastic.
00:56He looks fantastic even when the numbers don't suggest it.
00:59And so I wanted to throw this out because I hear people flirting with it
01:04and nobody wants to go there because they're kind of,
01:08I think everyone's sort of like either scared of what the reaction's going to be
01:12or they just don't have the energy to get into the battle.
01:16But I want to throw it out there and see what you think.
01:19And 888-957-9570, let's hear you.
01:21The way Kaminga's playing this year,
01:25did he finally just start doing what the Warriors asked him to do?
01:29Or has this been there all along and he just needed the opportunity?
01:33How do you see it?
01:34Probably a little bit of both.
01:36Okay.
01:36And I do think that it's been there all along.
01:39And I also think that there have been times where he's done things
01:43that aren't incorporated with what they want to do
01:48and he's gotten a little bit more of a quick hook.
01:50And I think now that you're not getting the same quick hook
01:53and he's got the contract
01:54and I think he's playing more often like they want him to play
01:59and so they're giving him a little bit more of a leash
02:00to go out there and play the way they want him to play.
02:02And you're not, right now, Game 5, you're not in a championship window.
02:08And you might be Game 65, but right now, 5 games in,
02:12you can go ahead and let him play through mistakes.
02:15And last night, offensively, he had some plays where you were like,
02:19ooh, that's the old JK.
02:21Like a couple of plays where you would have liked him to make a different choice,
02:25but who cares, it's Game 5.
02:27And you were up and you were in control almost the whole way.
02:30And so it's much more allowable and you got to last year,
02:34you got to April and he got back off the ankle
02:37and he had Jimmy Butler and he was doing things
02:38that you didn't want him to do
02:40and he was not making the plays that you wanted him to make.
02:42And it's like, we have no tolerance.
02:44It's Game 82.
02:45We need to beat the Clippers
02:47and we need to go in the playoffs and win these games.
02:49So now you can be a little bit more lenient with mistakes.
02:53And I did think that last night might have been his worst of the five games.
02:58It was still a good game.
02:59Yeah, I did.
02:59But I don't, I mean, whatever.
03:01If you want to like rate the five games that he's played,
03:04it doesn't even matter.
03:06My point is not to denigrate what he did.
03:08My point is to say that what they're doing early in the year,
03:12they're allowing people to go out there and do things
03:15that are, you know, explorational in their nature.
03:20See, I see it a little bit differently
03:21because to me, like, the whole idea of allowing them to go make mistakes,
03:26I don't see that many mistakes.
03:29I really don't.
03:30I did in the first half of Game 1.
03:33I did in the first, and Steve Kerr spoke about it.
03:35And he said that Jonathan,
03:37all he wanted to see was that Jonathan knew that that was not the way to go.
03:42And he talked about how Jonathan had a very, very poor shot selection a couple of times
03:48and then immediately waved over at Steve, like, I got it, I know I messed that up, on we go.
03:54And that's the kind of thing that an organization, to me, is looking for.
03:59It's not that you're intolerant to mistakes,
04:02it's intolerant to the idea of mistakes when the person doesn't even know the mistakes that they're making.
04:08No one has time for that in any business.
04:11That's why you don't see 21-year-old show hosts
04:15in a business that everybody wants the younger listener.
04:18Why don't we just put young people on the air?
04:20They don't even know the mistakes they're making.
04:22They don't even know.
04:24It's any business.
04:25And so, to me, yes, you're right, it's early in the season and all of that,
04:32but if it wasn't, he would still be out there
04:34because he's just, he's not making that many mistakes.
04:36And when he does, he knows the mistake that he made, so that's fine.
04:40Everyone does it.
04:42Gosh, Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler turned the ball over.
04:44It's not like you're not allowed to make mistakes.
04:47It's that you have to, A, you have to be willing to do what your, in this case, employer wants you to do
04:53and your coworkers want you to do.
04:55You have to be willing to do it.
04:57And then when you do it wrong, you have to know where you messed up
04:59so that you can get better, right?
05:01Doesn't everybody say that?
05:02You don't want people making the same mistake two, three, four, five times.
05:04That's what I see, but I also think that Jonathan Kaminga has, it's almost become like politics.
05:13If you are a Democrat, you think Fox News lies.
05:19And if you're a Republican, you think CNN lies.
05:23And you might all be right.
05:25I have no idea.
05:26But, because I don't even watch that stuff anymore,
05:29but that's kind of the point.
05:32Like, I would really love to dig in to what it is that people on both sides of the aisle
05:39think has taken place here.
05:41And I would love the middle ground to be,
05:44I see a player who has clearly grown into the other aspects of his game
05:50that the organization has been asking him to do.
05:52It's literally what he said with his words last night after that victory.
05:58But he deserves the credit for that.
06:00Like, he's still only 22, 23 years old.
06:02So he deserves the credit for that.
06:05But, for instance, when I threw this out there,
06:07the first thing that comes in on the Boxer and Gerson work injury attorney's text line,
06:11510.
06:12J.K. has been that guy.
06:15Kerr tried to ruin him,
06:17but now will try to take credit for him.
06:19If I'm J.K., I still want to leave.
06:22Okay.
06:22All right.
06:23Like, again, he's allowed to want to leave,
06:25but they have him for this year and next year if they want.
06:28Correct.
06:28With a team option.
06:29And, you know, Steve Kerr ruining him,
06:32I don't think that that's 100% fair.
06:34I do think that Steve Kerr and the coaching staff
06:36did some sort of a disservice to him by not giving him consistent run,
06:41but they did that in the idea that they wanted to actually go out there
06:45and win games and win championships.
06:47And so it's a two-way street where, you know,
06:50you win a title his rookie year,
06:52and, yeah, you're a rookie, and that's fine.
06:54You win the chip, and then the next year you're chasing it,
06:57and the year after you're chasing it,
06:58and then last year, you know, he got hurt,
07:01and so he didn't have that same run-up to where he could actually get that.
07:04And I do think that they gave him a certain amount of good faith
07:08with the contract this year.
07:10They could have just said, all right, qualifying offer.
07:12Yeah, go play on that.
07:13Play for 7.9, and we will treat you like a 10th man.
07:17It's never going to happen.
07:18No, but they could have.
07:19To the point of the texter, if they really wanted to, like, keep him down,
07:24they could have done that and said, all right, you play on the QO,
07:28and we're going to treat you like Guy Santos.
07:29We're going to give you Guy minutes,
07:31and we're going to give you, like, six to eight minutes a game,
07:34and you'll get no time and this and that.
07:36But they didn't think of him in that vein.
07:38So I don't believe that what the texter is saying is fair.
07:42I do think that there's a lot of push and pull in what the journey has been.
07:46You're not on a team that's terrible.
07:48So when you're on a good team as a developing player,
07:51you don't get 30 minutes a night guaranteed.
07:54No, I just love the mere idea that players don't have to play the way a coach
07:59and, by the way, his teammates want him to play.
08:02Like, if you don't hear that this isn't just coming from Kerr,
08:05if you don't hear what these players, these Hall of Fame players,
08:11are saying after every game, I don't know where else to look.
08:16That's the good stuff, is those guys talking about how Jonathan has come back this year,
08:22Draymond said it the other night, and is now making winning plays.
08:25Winning plays.
08:27Not cooking, okay?
08:29Not filling up his stat sheet.
08:32Making winning plays.
08:34That's all they've been asking.
08:37It's really not that complex.
08:39And Jonathan deserves a ton of credit for spending, as he put it,
08:43a lot of time this offseason focusing on those things.
08:46And now you can see it.
08:48I mean, the mere idea of Steve Kerr trying to ruin a player on his team
08:52is just a ridiculous idea.
08:55Why would any coach effectively go out with some sort of a vendetta
08:59and willfully try to ruin a player?
09:03J.K. has not been, as he puts it, that guy.
09:06He's not.
09:07He has not been a rebounder in his career.
09:10He has not.
09:11Go look up the numbers.
09:12Even in the minutes he's played, he has not been a rebounder.
09:15He is this year.
09:16He is this year.
09:18And then last night, those were his words.
09:20I'm focusing on chasing every single rebound.
09:24And I don't know about you all, but when I watch the Warriors play,
09:28you can see it.
09:29You can see his effort getting ramped up on all areas of the basketball floor.
09:35This is going to be the thing that makes the Warriors a real contender this year.
09:40So it's very exciting.
09:42And he deserves a ton of credit for it.
09:45But also, yeah, that's what the Warriors have been asking for for a long time.
09:50Right.
09:50And I don't know why it's coming now.
09:53I do think that it's partly the contract, and it's also partly the fact that he's now
09:57playing with Jimmy and Steph and Draymond in full.
10:00But, you know, if you're Jonathan Kaminga, and you do have that big contract now,
10:05it's not huge, a long, nine-figure deal, but it's a good deal.
10:08And now you have a chance to just go out there and play, and you play a role.
10:11And he's getting minutes, and he's starting, and he definitely has much more,
10:16I think, of a crystallized, clear, firm role of, like, this is what we want,
10:22and this is what you can do, and go out there and do it.
10:25Steph Curry last night on Kaminga and how he's impacting the game other than scoring.
10:32He's going to get a lot of assignments on ball for the, you know,
10:36other team's top scorer type vibes tonight on James.
10:40James had a big first half, but I feel like he had to work for a lot of it.
10:43He got to the foul line a good amount, but, you know, every possession.
10:47He had bodies on him, and J.K. was, you know, again,
10:50just trying to force him into a crowd and use his athleticism and strength.
10:54And, you know, we need that point-of-attack defender, you know,
10:56out there to take on that challenge, and he's been doing a great job of that.
11:00The scoring, whether it's there or not, you still have an impact on winning
11:04by doing the little things.
11:05James Harden and Kawhi Leonard last night combined to go 13 of 32,
11:10from the field, only combined for 38 total points,
11:15and their team only scored 79.
11:18Jonathan Kaminga had a huge hand in that, even though he only scored nine points.
11:21In the first half, certainly, I mean, and James was, you know,
11:24getting to the foul line, and, you know, Kawhi was not sharp.
11:27They missed a lot of easy shots, and I'm going through every shot attempt right now
11:31the Clippers took, and there were so many shots that they had
11:34that were open shots that they missed.
11:36And so, yeah, you'll take it.
11:38It's not necessarily like, oh, boy, the D, they locked him down.
11:41The D was good, and especially Quentin Post.
11:44There was a lot of Quentin Post, like, down low, where he played good, solid defense,
11:48but the Clippers missed a bunch of open shots.
11:50But I do think the part that you're talking about, especially with James Harden,
11:55where Kaminga made it a little bit tougher on him when he was the primary defender,
11:59and, you know, Harden got to the foul line, and that's fine.
12:02But in the second half, they totally took him out of the game,
12:05and in the third quarter, they took the game over.
12:08Jimmy Butler at the podium last night was asked to what level he's taken Kaminga under his wing.
12:14There are so many people that are in his corner.
12:16I'm one of them.
12:17There's so many other individuals in this organization, on this team,
12:21on the coaching staff as well, that want him to be great.
12:23And it's okay to make mistakes.
12:25You just got to listen.
12:26You know, sometimes it may not always come off the way that you want it to,
12:31but I tell him, I promise, it's in good faith.
12:35Like, nobody's just yelling at you to yell at you.
12:37And he's happy.
12:38He's joyful.
12:40He knows that he's playing at a high level.
12:42He knows that everybody wants him to continue to do that.
12:44And I'm just here to make sure that he stays level-headed.
12:47Oof.
12:48That's a big one.
12:49Yeah.
12:50I think I might want to play that again.
12:52Because do you hear what Jimmy is saying?
12:56You just have to listen.
12:58You just, listen.
13:01Even though it may not sound like what you want it to sound like,
13:06you have to listen and understand that those people who are talking to you
13:12are actually on your side.
13:14And then, he says, Jonathan's happy.
13:17There's joy.
13:18That's a game changer.
13:20Listen to this again.
13:20There are so many people that are in his corner.
13:23I'm one of them.
13:24There's so many other individuals in this organization,
13:27on this team, on the coaching staff as well,
13:28that want him to be great.
13:29And it's okay to make mistakes.
13:31You just got to listen.
13:33You know, sometimes it may not always come off the way that you want it to,
13:37but I tell him, I promise, it's in good faith.
13:41Like, nobody's just yelling at you to yell at you.
13:44And he's happy.
13:45He's joyful.
13:46He knows that he's playing at a high level.
13:48He knows that everybody wants him to continue to do that.
13:51And I'm just here to make sure that he stays level-headed.
13:54That's a big one.
13:55He's joyful.
13:56That is a big 32 seconds from Jimmy Butler.
14:00Yeah.
14:01I mean, basically, Jonathan is doing what he's supposed to do,
14:05and he's joyful.
14:05And, you know, we're not yelling at him, just yell at him.
14:08We're trying to help him, and he knows that.
14:10And so he's taking it in the right way, and he's getting better.
14:13And he's doing the things that they need him to do
14:15and things that he actually wants to do.
14:18That's why I'm so excited about this 4-1 start.
14:20It's not like, I mean, the ebb and flow of a record.
14:23Yeah.
14:23Right?
14:24You're 4-1.
14:25I mean, some people are like,
14:26oh, well, why do they look so crappy in Portland?
14:28Well, some of us want to, like, flick that one off
14:31because, right, three games, four nights, road trip.
14:34Al Horford's not playing.
14:35All of a sudden, the guys look tired.
14:37They played in overtime the night before.
14:38You can do that.
14:39Or you can be like, no, they need to look good every night.
14:42The ebb and flow of the record is one thing.
14:44My excitement is due to the fact that if you dive deep
14:47on the puzzle pieces, this team has it.
14:52They have more stuff.
14:54Steph and Jimmy don't look exhausted.
14:57They don't have to play 35 minutes and do this all by themselves.
15:01The younger players came back with another pitch,
15:06almost all of them, and more players are coming.
15:09This is depth.
15:11This fits.
15:11This is going to be a problem.
15:14For other teams around the West.
15:16Even when you get to spots where you might miss a guy or two guys
15:20or three guys, the depth.
15:21Like, you're talking about, like, the whole idea of different pitches.
15:25And I look at Quentin Post last night where he played a lot of minutes
15:28and he played great defense.
15:30He was able to be a little bit of a rim protector
15:33and he was able to, you know, cause trouble for guys going to the basket
15:37and contain Zubats a little bit.
15:39And so, yeah, it's another piece.
15:42And like you talk about, another pitch where, again,
15:45Steph didn't have to have 34 for you to get a win.
15:48You had Steph.
15:49You had Jimmy.
15:50You had contributions from many of the people.
15:53And ultimately, the defense is what won that game.
15:55GPD is on the line.
15:57Let's go to Graham, Paul, Daddy, and Hayward.
15:59Hey, GPD.
16:00Thanks for the call.
16:03Hey.
16:04Well, thank you guys, man.
16:06You always make my day.
16:07I love listening to all you guys, everybody.
16:11Appreciate you, GPD.
16:12Listen.
16:14I appreciate you, too.
16:16You know, you guys are just, like, really hitting it all in the head
16:19from both sides, dibs and you.
16:23You know what it really boils down to?
16:25And I use this example to everybody.
16:29Man, anybody that has a job, if you've got skills and you feel
16:35undervalued and you feel you're not getting paid enough,
16:38you're not going to do the work as hard.
16:41When you start getting recognized and you start doing it and people pay you,
16:46you're going to work harder.
16:48I'm telling you, it has everything to do with him getting the bag.
16:51He's been sitting there for four years.
16:53And they've been curious.
16:56And like you said, Mark, they're not there to not make you better.
17:01Steve Kerr doesn't have a vendetta to bring you down.
17:05He wants you to excel.
17:06We watch, everybody wants you, when you're a boss, when you're a jefe,
17:11you want your guys to be better always.
17:15But if they don't listen and then you say, look, man, get on the sideline, man.
17:20Dude, you're not listening.
17:22You're a youngster, you're not listening.
17:24And then Jimmy, he's doing, boy, he's worth his money in gold.
17:30It's that wisdom of taking the youngster because you always don't want to hear it
17:36from your mom or your dad.
17:37But when one of your peers or someone tells you, hey, hey, check this out, bro.
17:42Let me tell you, man, we got your back.
17:45You just ain't listening.
17:47Look, just listen, and you will be better.
17:51We're not yelling at you for nothing.
17:54We yell at you because we love you and we see your potential.
17:58You can do this.
17:59And then you pay him?
18:02Look at him.
18:02Now he's rebounding.
18:04Dude, they've been telling him to do that all along.
18:08He just wasn't doing it because he thought that, oh, you don't like me,
18:12and blah, blah, blah, and you were right, Jimmy just came in
18:15and then Kaminga was injured, and then when Kaminga got off of the injury,
18:21they didn't have no time to bring him in and give him a little bit of rope
18:25so he can make a mistake.
18:26Now we're fresh in the season.
18:28We're fresh with everybody.
18:30Dude, it's the sky's the limit now, baby.
18:34Bang, bang, warrior game.
18:38Yes, sir.
18:39Grandpa, daddy.
18:40Oh, DPD, that's well done.
18:42Bang, bang, warrior game.
18:44Yeah.
18:45Yeah.
18:46And I think that fits for Jimmy and Kaminga, too.
18:49They both got the bag, and they both have that sense of like,
18:52okay, you're here now.
18:54This is what we need from both of you, so now go out there and do it.
18:58And Jimmy's bag is bigger than Jonathan's, but Jonathan's 22, 23,
19:02and so, yeah, come out here, and if you want the next bag, Jonathan,
19:06then go do this like 75 times, and it'll be there.
19:10Oh, and I wonder if he realizes that the league, if it were based on these five games,
19:18would immediately pay him that 35 or whatever it was he wanted per year,
19:26if you were just going to spotlight these five games.
19:29Like, the league is not stupid.
19:32Not all of the general managers.
19:34There's not like 30, 32 stupid general managers.
19:38They are looking at like, there's a reason.
19:40Part of it was, I understand it was a year where there wasn't a lot of cap space.
19:43Yeah.
19:44But nobody in the league thought that Jonathan was worth five years and $150, $60 million.
19:53Nobody thought that.
19:54But I bet they would if you only showed them these five games.
19:58So he is going to make more.
20:00He is now going to be more valued around the league if he continues to play this way.
20:04But you have to trust.
20:06You have to put your trust, your faith in other people in order to achieve that.
20:11And I get that that's hard.
20:12That's hard for a lot of people.
20:13I think that's what's at the core of all this.
20:15I think Jonathan was like, I don't trust you.
20:18I need to score 25 a night.
20:20And the Warriors and Steve Kerr are like, you don't.
20:22You don't.
20:22You need to rebound.
20:24And he's like, no, I don't.
20:25I need to score.
20:26Right.
20:27And this went on for three years.
20:29But when you have Jimmy and Draymond and Steph, and now you have minutes, too, and you can
20:34have an actual body of work where it's working for you and it's working for the team, now
20:39you can get that confidence of like, yeah, this is what they want and this is what I want.
20:44I'm playing a lot and we're winning.
20:46So it becomes kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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