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Seth and Sean discuss the Rockets' big week this week with a couple important games vs the Lakers, Fred VanVleet talking mess about the Spurs on his podcast, and react to Kendrick Perkins ranting about Alperen Şengün yet again.
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00:00It's a big week for the Rockets.
00:01They are fourth place in the Western Conference right now,
00:05which feels amazing because it feels like they have not played good basketball
00:08in a month and a half, consistently at least.
00:10But yet they still sit at fourth.
00:12Now it is a very top-heavy Western Conference.
00:14There's Oklahoma City, who's 53-15.
00:18The next closest team is San Antonio, who we'll talk about here in just a second.
00:22They're three and a half games back of OKC.
00:24Then there's this huge drop-off from San Antonio to a gaggle of five teams
00:31from three to seven that are all within three games of each other.
00:35The Lakers are third right now.
00:36They are ten and a half back of the top of the conference,
00:39and the Rockets are a half game back of them.
00:41They play each other tonight and Wednesday at the Toyota Center.
00:44These are massive games for the Rockets to try to stay in that three or four spot
00:51and get a home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
00:54Look, they're two and a half games from being in the play-in tournament right now.
00:58So they've got work to do.
01:00These are a couple of big games with Luka and LeBron in town tonight
01:03and on Wednesday to face the Rockets.
01:07Fred Van Vliet on his podcast last week, Seth,
01:11we just went through the standings, and the Spurs are sitting at number two right now.
01:15The Spurs have made a rapid ascension here in the Western Conference.
01:18Not even a playoff team last year here in, what, year three or four of Wemby,
01:22whatever it is.
01:24They're one of the best teams in basketball.
01:26They're three and a half games back at the top of the Western Conference.
01:29They're a really good basketball team.
01:30And when these two teams last faced each other on Sunday,
01:35the Spurs and the Rockets a week ago, eight days ago,
01:38the Spurs ran the Rockets off the floor 145 to 120.
01:43It was a total mismatch.
01:45Fred Van Vliet has a podcast.
01:47Shout-out to Big Sarge, who's now co-hosting it with him.
01:49This was the first episode that Sarge was on with him.
01:51He's the other voice that you'll hear in this exchange.
01:54I don't know that I like Fred Van Vliet talking this way about the San Antonio Spurs.
01:59What's the finish line?
02:01The finish line is to win the finals.
02:04So, have they done that?
02:05They haven't yet.
02:06Have they had a playoff series?
02:08They haven't.
02:09Okay.
02:10So, everybody slow the f*** down.
02:13It's a marathon.
02:14It's not a sprint.
02:16They're in front of us right now, literally, in the standings.
02:19And then, yeah, you could judge everything based upon they look like this,
02:22or they look like this, or this player is better than this player.
02:25Yeah, Wemby's an alien.
02:27Castle's a really good player.
02:29Harper looks like a really good player.
02:30I actually played with his brother in Toronto.
02:32So, like, yeah, I like their team.
02:35They got it.
02:35But, like, Fox was a great addition.
02:38They rolling.
02:39They having a good year.
02:39But, like, what's the finish line, though?
02:41You know what I'm saying?
02:42It's easy to say that now, in the moment.
02:45And being 100, they beat our ass.
02:47They beat the skin off our ass.
02:48Yeah.
02:49Yeah.
02:49But I don't remember, and this is my ignorance to the fandom
02:53and the social media verse of how we consume the game,
02:58everybody taking all these victory laps, and we was just beating their ass.
03:01Okay.
03:05So, this is how I feel about this, Seth.
03:08Look, there's nothing Fred VanVleet can do right now as a player
03:11to affect anything having to do with the Rockets.
03:14I mean, I know he's on the bench, and he's in the locker room,
03:17and I'm sure he's having a positive effect on,
03:20especially for a guy like Reed Shepard, to be able to lean on Fred VanVleet.
03:23I'm not saying Fred VanVleet's bringing nothing to the table,
03:27and now he's out here saying things about the Spurs, what the hell is going on.
03:30But this felt like something that is going to come back to bite Fred in the ass
03:35because I think, and the Rockets, because I think the Spurs are a really good team.
03:39I think Victor Wimbayama is a transformational player,
03:42and this is just a Rockets team right now that is not equipped to cash any of these checks
03:47that anybody writes with their mouth right now.
03:49Yeah.
03:50I guess part of it, though, too, is almost that, all right, the old classic,
03:54all right, how much does bulletin board material really factor in or matter or anything?
04:02I think for the fans, like having to deal with that, when you hear him say that,
04:07I feel like a lot of people are like, oh, I'm going to have to hear all this,
04:09boy, after the Spurs do whatever they do versus the Rockets in the playoffs,
04:14I'm going to have to deal with the fallout from all of this.
04:17Yeah, it's hard.
04:18It's hard to, all of a sudden, this was injected into my life.
04:21I'm like, man, I don't want to be criticizing something Fred VanVleet is saying
04:25where he's sticking up.
04:26He's sticking up for his own team, and he was really just playing off of what Sarge
04:30had said there initially.
04:32It wasn't until the end where he gave the actual choice soundbite of, you know,
04:37they weren't saying anything when we were beating their butts and all of that.
04:41If anything, he was giving them a lot of credit for what they've done.
04:44I mean, he pumped the brakes.
04:45He's still got to play the tournament and everything.
04:47But he turned it into, he turned it more personal there at the end.
04:51Yeah.
04:51And I guess that's where the bulletin board material comes.
04:54This is where, this is the comparison I make.
04:59And you've said this many times.
05:00The guys get on these podcasts, man, and they start getting loose,
05:03and they start feeling like they're just having a conversation with their buddies,
05:06which is what makes podcasts really, the podcast format, a very interesting listen,
05:12that sometimes you do get stuff like what Fred VanVleet just said.
05:15Can you imagine Fred VanVleet, if he just got done practicing,
05:18and he was getting a knee injury, but let's pretend he's an active player for a second,
05:20and he's standing up against the wall with the media around him
05:23doing those post-practice scrums, and he said that?
05:27It would be on SportsCenter.
05:28Yeah.
05:29If he was standing there in a media scrum saying everybody needs to slow the F down
05:33on the Spurs, they haven't played a playoff series yet,
05:35they would be talking, and they may talk about it today on the first take.
05:38Who knows?
05:38It came out on Friday.
05:39But this is where, okay, this is the part of it that I kind of appreciate,
05:43whether maybe she should have said it that way or shouldn't have said it that way.
05:46I do think that, man, when you think about taking the temperature of that team right now
05:52and you wonder what the young guys are thinking necessarily,
05:55if there's any kind of doubt about how a team can change during the season
05:59or that, hey, we've got these issues, we've got to fix it,
06:02but we can do it, and the playoffs are the playoffs.
06:04I do appreciate it as a message to the team, and I don't know,
06:09maybe a bit of braggadociousness or a little bit of bow in your chest,
06:13you know, puffing your chest out a little bit might actually be good for them
06:18if you need some kind of an injection of confidence
06:20because they do have to start operating differently than they have been operating.
06:24Yes, no question.
06:24And I guess that if you change the phrasing a little bit,
06:27you can hear this more as, hey, look, we've got the rest of the regular season
06:31to play and figure things out, and then in the playoffs, it's us versus the opponent,
06:36and that's all that really matters.
06:38It doesn't matter what you've done so far.
06:39They haven't – everything you said was factually true.
06:41They haven't won anything yet.
06:42No.
06:43The Spurs haven't done anything in the postseason yet,
06:46and there's still time to be the team that can beat that team in the play.
06:51Neither has this group of Rockets, though, either.
06:53Right, but nobody's saying that they are.
06:55Yeah.
06:55I think that's the – right.
06:57Like, that's exactly what I'm saying.
06:59Right, nobody's saying that they – they don't look like a team
07:01that's capable of beating the better teams.
07:03So what do you do between now and then to become that team?
07:05Yeah, his mistake was listing all the Spurs.
07:08Like, yeah, I know Wemby's this, and I know Castle's that, and Harper's this.
07:11That's where – you know what?
07:12Yeah, and that's where – when you name the individual names,
07:15that's where the bulletin board stuff doesn't matter, man,
07:17especially in the NBA playoffs.
07:18Right.
07:18It's like the emotional swings and how guys are when their ego is challenged
07:25or when their back's against the wall.
07:27Yeah.
07:28I think it matters when it's on that level.
07:30He was talking about the Spurs, and that's – yeah.
07:32That's – Kendrick Perkins went off on Alperin Shen.
07:35I don't know that there's a person in the media that hates an individual player
07:39right now in a sport more than Kendrick Perkins hates Alperin Shen.
07:42Good to the point where he won't even pronounce his name correctly ever.
07:45At first I thought it was just a mistake or something, but he actually –
07:49for the first time I've heard when he's going off on Alperin Shen-Goon,
07:52he at least gets checked on the pronunciation of his name.
07:55Shen-Goon.
07:56Alperin.
07:57What up, Alperin?
07:58He makes my f***ing skin crawl.
08:01He was called a baby yokeish three days ago.
08:03No, man, I switched that.
08:03I switched that s***.
08:04He's nowhere close to what I would, like, expect out of –
08:09talent-wise, offensively, he has that.
08:12But it's a mindset, bro.
08:14So, defensively, against the Spurs, they went at him –
08:18Dylan Harper said they went at him 15 straight plays.
08:2215.
08:24You know how f***ing disrespectful that is?
08:26Yeah, I just watched the Washington Wizards play.
08:29I know.
08:29No, but what I'm saying is that they know that you're not going to put your feet
08:33in the ground and be willing to slide your f***ing puppies for two steps
08:38and take pride in defending.
08:40No Steven Adams.
08:42You're the starting center.
08:44At some point, you're going to have to say, man, you know what?
08:47I've got to anchor this defense.
08:49You can't give me 110% offensively down the floor
08:54and give me 40% on the defensive side of things.
08:57I'm not saying he's the most athletic, but those guys cannot coexist.
09:02The problem with Shingun is he's not been good at either end of the floor of late,
09:06and I think he may be one of those guys, Seth, that there are certain players
09:10that when you're getting a – you know, Shingun is an offensively-oriented player.
09:14We know he's not a good defender, but you've gotten better versions of Alperin Shingun
09:20defensively when he's been playing well offensively.
09:23He might just be one of those guys where it's got to be working at the primary end
09:28of the floor for him for it to be at least passable at the other end of the floor.
09:32Well, then the thing is we saw him – right.
09:35We saw him play much better defense last year than he's been playing this year.
09:40And whether it's a matter of conserving energy for the offensive effort
09:45and the way they're using him this year or whether it's his injuries or whatever it is,
09:48we know he's – I feel like it would be less frustrating
09:51if we didn't know he was capable of playing better defense.
09:54But then on the offensive side of the ball, it's the conventional big men stuff at points.
09:59Can you scream?
10:01Like, can you do some things to help these other guys out?
10:05That's where it's just – it's suffered all around.
10:08And the beginning of that clip, in the full clip, he says Alfred Shingun.
10:12That's where she was correcting him on that.
10:13Sorry, that one got cut off.
10:15The clip I did originally – I guess I watched the whole interview.
10:18He says Alfred Shingun.
10:20Alfred.
10:20We've noticed that before.
10:21You can't tell whether – is that his accent or is he saying Alfred Shingun?
10:24Right, right, right.
10:25Yeah, is that –
10:26So she corrected him on that.
10:27Beaumont, yeah.
10:29Yeah, and I don't – that's one of the ones where you're wondering just,
10:33yeah, what is the answer at this point?
10:34Yeah.
10:34I mean, does Reed Shepard operate better with Capella than he does with Shingun?
10:39In some respects, I think he does.
10:41There was a – there's an NBA analyst from Turkey named Khan Karal who had some quotes
10:46about Shingun on their podcast last week.
10:50And I thought this was interesting.
10:51He said, Shingun's biggest problem is he isn't being used in the most ideal, efficient
10:55way.
10:56It leaves him stuck doing things that are more difficult, more complex, things he's not
11:00good at.
11:00It's a chicken and egg situation.
11:02He does inefficient things.
11:03And as he does, he tries even harder psychologically, leaning into more difficult plays.
11:08I mean, he's nailing this right now, saying this.
11:10I know Alperin doesn't usually have issues with self-confidence, but when the process drags
11:14on, you lose your rhythm and proper habits within that struggle.
11:17I think he nailed it.
11:19And he talks about the lack of a person to initiate primary action with the offense,
11:23which would be Fred Van Vliet.
11:24And I said that last week when you and I were kind of listing the guys that are hurt the
11:28most by Van Vliet being injured.
11:29I think Shingun is number one on the list.
11:31He's doing exactly what Khan Corral says right here.
11:36He's stuck doing things that he's capable of doing, but they're not the best things he
11:41does.
11:41And I think it's dragging his whole game down right now.
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