- 2 days ago
B Scott also weighs in on Giannis Antetokounmpo’s possible trade situation and what it could mean, along with a bigger-picture conversation about the Rockets’ championship window.
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00:00So I listened earlier to our friends on The Morning Show, Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast, kind of make fun of Kendrick Perkins' –
00:08The pride of Beaumont, Texas.
00:10The pride of Beaumont Ozan High School, Class of 03, McDonald's All-American and all of that.
00:15Damn, his whole – he got the whole resume out here.
00:17Yeah, he was in that class with LeBron James coming out of high school, you know, and all of that.
00:22People forget about that.
00:23Going against Chris Bosh.
00:25Yeah, man.
00:25That was a – it was a movie back then.
00:27But he had a take that the Rockets should be involved in the Giannis trade talks, that they should trade Alperen Shingun and a handful of other players and some picks to go out and get Giannis and double down on the Kevin Durant trade and go all in, essentially.
00:44Yeah.
00:44And it seemed like the morning guys found it comical.
00:47It seemed like some of the audience listening in the morning found it comical.
00:50And I was just listening.
00:52I found it interesting how differently we viewed the whole thing.
00:55Because while Kendrick Perkins as a figure and ESPN figurehead can be pretty funny, I thought he was making some pretty decent points.
01:05Here's my feeling on the Giannis idea.
01:07If the Rockets are not at the very least having serious conversations about what it would look like to acquire Giannis to come out and who they would be willing to part ways with and what they would be willing to part ways with to do so.
01:22And what the opportunity cost would be to do it, then they are not doing their due diligence.
01:29They should absolutely be interested or at the very least be talking about doing it.
01:33And now maybe the conversation arrives you to a place where, you know what, we don't want to do it.
01:37We don't want to give this up.
01:38We believe in this.
01:39We believe in that.
01:40But you should at least say it out loud.
01:41Do I think that Alperen Shingun is better than Giannis Antetokounmpo?
01:47The answer is probably going to be no.
01:49You should say out loud, at what point in his career do I think Alperen Shingun is going to be better than Giannis Antetokounmpo is right now?
01:59Not even MVP and finals MVP Giannis.
02:01I'm talking about today's 31-year-old Giannis who's been through injuries and is injured right now.
02:08At what point in Alperen Shingun's career is he going to be as good as that player and give you as good of a chance to win a championship as that guy with the combination of Kevin Durant, even at 37 years old, playing like an all-NBA player?
02:23It's something they should absolutely be considering.
02:25I don't think you're crazy, even before you said that.
02:29But we brought this up.
02:31I brought up Reggie.
02:32Mine was more question than anything.
02:34And I'm with you on you've got to have the conversation.
02:37You have to say it out loud.
02:38I also feel there's a fatigue factor here, you know, and you brought in Kevin Durant.
02:44I don't think it's crazy.
02:45And so I think if you're in, you're in, right?
02:50If you're in, you're all in.
02:51And so that was the question.
02:53I mean, are you willing to do that to have a legitimate chance?
02:56Because I think this started, Reggie, when I asked, or you asked, you know, where are they right now as a contender?
03:02Right.
03:02You know, because they're not.
03:03Which is another big question that they need to ask themselves.
03:06They're not a contender right now.
03:07I think this was yesterday, actually.
03:08It was literally yesterday.
03:09What is the reasonable expectations for them at this point?
03:12Because they started the season as championship or bust, and that can't be the answer.
03:16And started the season off 15-5 and looked like they could play with anybody at that time.
03:20And I brought up the whole Giannis thing.
03:21Not really having a strong opinion, but I think they definitely should kick the tires on it and look at it.
03:27I really do.
03:28But if he comes in, this whole what are they and are they a contender, that conversation ends.
03:36They're a contender.
03:37Yes.
03:37Right?
03:38Yes.
03:38Not only are they a contender, but they're – so, look, the big issue is that Giannis is hurt right now.
03:46Yeah.
03:46And so, like, part of my logic, you know, before his injury would have been, you give yourself a better chance right now and at the very least next year, when based off of the way that Kevin Durant is playing now, you got to at least think that even if there is a slight drop off, he's not going to fall off a cliff.
04:01He's still going to be a very good player next year.
04:04And my whole thing is, with Giannis and KD, over the next however many years that lasts, and that is the caveat, you don't know exactly how long that's going to last.
04:13But however long it does last, to me, it gives you a better chance to win a championship, to be a contender, as you're saying, than any stretch that you would have with the rest of those guys.
04:23Even factoring in growth and development and all of that kind of thing.
04:26The thing that's tough for me is the idea of an in-season move.
04:29Yeah.
04:30Is what makes this untenable in my mind.
04:34Now, we start talking about off-season, and I think I'm a lot closer to where you are, even more so than I would have thought.
04:40You guys were just talking, and I heard some of it, but I just got knocked out.
04:44You know how you see something and knock you off, proverbially, off your chair?
04:47All the time.
04:47I'm out every day.
04:49Why does Giannis shoot better from three than Alper and Shangoon this season?
04:52Now, both of them pretty low percentages, but I was just like, wait, what?
04:57Yeah.
04:58Well, Shangoon just flat-out stopped shooting him.
05:00There was a point in the game the other night, which I was at, against the Spurs, where he's got a wide-open three and passes it up.
05:08He's completely lost confidence in that shot.
05:11Never mind the fact that he's probably justified in not having much confidence in the shot.
05:15So, yeah, he's definitely not a floor spacer at this point.
05:18I want to get into something you said, Reggie.
05:19Because you said midseason might be a non-starter for you.
05:24Yeah, it's a non-starter format there.
05:25And the reasoning, I'm not putting words in your mouth, would be like, okay, you've got to kind of start over.
05:30You've got to implement a new offense, et cetera.
05:32Yeah, the things that you need around Giannis is not necessarily well-situated right now with this team.
05:39Yeah, but here's my counterpoint.
05:41You're still trying to learn this offense yourselves with this group.
05:44You don't know what you're doing offensively right now.
05:46I shouldn't say you don't know what you're doing, but you haven't established that offensive identity right now.
05:51So, why would that be a non-starter for bringing in Giannis right now?
05:57Yeah, and I think you just sort of substitute answers, right?
06:01The Shingun hub is a big part of what you do now.
06:03Yeah, the post-ups.
06:04And the post-ups, I think, just allowing Giannis to do what he does.
06:08And then I think perhaps a little bit more, I think you would be encouraged to do a lot more Kevin Durant and Giannis pick and roll
06:15than you've been doing Kevin Durant and Alpern Shingun pick and roll for whatever reason that they haven't been doing that.
06:20But here's what I would say about the whole in-season versus off-season thing.
06:24I understand those concerns that you would have about it.
06:26I would also look at the other side of the market in the off-season.
06:31I feel like it would be a much more robust market.
06:34It would be a lot more that you're competing with to get Giannis.
06:38Now, I still think that you would have the best or among the best packages to present to the Milwaukee Bucks,
06:45both now and later.
06:46But this is a strike while the iron's hot.
06:50Maybe the timing of it in terms of the market suits you better than waiting in the off-season.
06:55So, you kind of have to just take those negatives that you're talking about,
06:57having to figure out chemistry on the fly and what does that do.
07:01What does it do to team chemistry doesn't bother me as much now that I don't feel like they're a legitimate contender?
07:08Because, like, what am I concerned with disrupting a team that I feel like is going to finish no better than third or fourth or fifth in the West
07:15and win maybe a playoff series, you know?
07:18Like, I don't see them in the Western Conference Finals.
07:20Certainly don't see them winning it.
07:21So, I'm willing to disrupt whatever that actually is already.
07:25The other thing is I think that I don't know how comfortable I am with flipping the entirety of the scope of what the organizational arc is in the middle of a season.
07:37Because, as you mentioned, it would be a I'm not here for a long time, I'm here for a good time type move.
07:43You would be looking at severely shortening the window of what the long-term arc of the team is.
07:48Still having, hopefully, a young player like Ament Thompson to still be, you know, the longer-term curve of it.
07:55But you'd be doing more of cutting into the youth movement that you have here that feels like some level of foundation for a number of years
08:02as opposed to what would then be, which is the short-term of Giannis and KD's window of trying to win.
08:08And then after that, a little bit more lack of clarity beyond that.
08:11Yeah, for me, this is the part where, like, all of us who get in the weeds kind of fall into the, in my view at least,
08:19the trap of just being fascinated with development and this long runway that we talk about.
08:25And, look, maybe that's what it does.
08:29But what I'm saying is even in projecting that, I don't see that being better than, like, this long runway that you're talking about does not give championship to me.
08:39It gives very competitive, very entertaining.
08:42There's going to be some all-stars and some all-NBAs in there.
08:46They'll be one of the better teams in the West for a long time.
08:49Is it giving championship at any point?
08:51I'm not – I just am not seeing it.
08:53I can see it with this combination that I'm proposing.
08:56I think the baseline of that, though, is the question at the heart of it, how much development do you still think is on the bone for Alpern Schenkel?
09:03Well, my thing is with B. Scott is, if we're just being brutally honest, do you think KD really cares about the long – the runway?
09:14No.
09:14No.
09:15To some degree.
09:16I think that's part of why he comes in.
09:18He won't be here.
09:19Yeah, no.
09:20It's that Magic Johnson mean.
09:21Yeah, yeah.
09:21I mean, he cares.
09:22He wants to help.
09:23I mean, he's a hoop junkie.
09:24He wants to help and do good by these guys in this organization.
09:28But he's not here for the development of other guys and what it looks like in five years.
09:32And then to Reggie's question about the development of Alpern Schenkel and his potential, it is, for me, decidedly not Giannis.
09:41Yeah.
09:42So this is –
09:42Yeah, it's not Giannis by itself, but you're also giving up some of the pieces that you started putting around what this team is.
09:49Like whom?
09:50Like Tari Eason, who you might be parting ways with anyway?
09:53It's possible.
09:53Yeah, so I mean, like, I'm not going to let Tari Eason, as much as I like him, and even Alpern Schenkel, when we're talking about Giannis,
10:00I'm not going to let the idea of their development get me in the way of, hey, let's make me a championship contender right now today.
10:08Well, there's those and some of the pieces that you would use to build around as well, because you also talked about future draft capital.
10:13That's what the Bucs would be looking for as well.
10:16Yeah.
10:16Well, sure, but I feel like as important as it is, I'm not trying to downplay it.
10:20Yeah, but that's the capital that you use to build it.
10:22I'm not trying to downplay it.
10:23But as important as it is, I feel like we get too much caught up in the future.
10:27Right.
10:27The future.
10:28Right.
10:28The future.
10:29Because Reggie keeps talking about that's what you use to build this team.
10:32What I'm saying is build what team?
10:35Yeah.
10:35The team that is fun, much more fun to watch now than it was before, but still is not at that ultimate level that I'm asking for.
10:45And by the way, real quick, KD is playing his ass off right now.
10:47He's playing great basketball.
10:48This season, he's playing his ass off.
10:50I also think it's a credit to, and this very much gets lost, I think, but even going back
10:55to Jalen Green and now with this conversation I'm having with Alperen Shingun, I do think that it constitutes success when a player turns out to be good enough to maybe not necessarily make you a championship contender,
11:07but can be the centerpiece in a trade that gets you a Kevin Durant, in a trade that gets you a Giannis.
11:14Like that in and of itself, when we're talking about it.
11:17That's building.
11:17That's building.
11:18That is a success.
11:20Maybe he didn't turn out to be, maybe Jalen Green is not Kobe Bryant and Alperen Shingun is not Nikola Jokic.
11:29But they're good enough to get you one of those guys.
11:32That is success to me.
11:33I think you guys make great points.
11:35I think the thing that ultimately is at the heart of some of my skepticism on trading some of your future for now is also an understanding of what ending in the league in this very short stand.
11:49But you look at, you know, the likes of the way that the Pacers have built, the way that the Thunder have built.
11:53The things that feel like they work right now are not top heavy teams that you then surround.
11:58It feels like we have gotten to a point where the league is you go one through nine of really good players that maybe the top end isn't as good.
12:04How do you feel about Tyrese Halliburton?
12:06Because I don't think he's a top five player, but they have a team of that caliber because of all of the depth that they build around.
12:12And it feels like you'd be moving somewhat away from that style of team building to one that is a little bit more of what we saw from anywhere from 2016 till to maybe a handful of years ago where it was a little bit more top heavy.
12:25And then you were like, we'll figure out the rest later.
12:26Yeah, I think that there's something to that, especially if you're following league trends.
12:30But then to me, it just becomes a new challenge.
12:32Sure.
12:32Build around Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
12:35Good luck.
12:36And I think that that's I don't think that's an unreasonable task, even if you give up some things.
12:40Yeah, the question I have is, are we being too hasty on a season where you had a couple of really unfortunate load bearing losses?
12:47Are you then changing up the entirety of the plan because you're you're reacting to Fred Van Vliet and Steven Adams?
12:54Similar to last year and getting Kevin Durant.
12:57It's not like it's something that you absolutely have to.
12:59That's our benefit of it is that you have options.
13:01You can stand pat and kind of just rock with it or you can up the ante because these players have turned out to be at least good enough to yield you better play.
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