00:00Okay, Rockets, 41-27. They've got 14 games left.
00:03They just showed on TV, Seth, on GetUp.
00:08I guess Wemby hit a game-winner last night.
00:12Victor Wembyama, who is rapidly entering the best player, most dangerous player conversations,
00:19he's right there a few years into his career.
00:23For the first time in his career, he hit a go-ahead shot with under 10 seconds left in the
00:28fourth quarter.
00:29So now he's hitting big shots, too.
00:31And they win the game, the Spurs do.
00:33And Wemby's getting interviewed on the court afterwards by the sideline reporter,
00:38and all of his teammates are gathered around him.
00:41And they're all kind of like playfully pushing and shoving him,
00:44and they're dumping water on his head.
00:46They look like a team that I think we were describing the Rockets as when we came into the season,
00:52which is look at this chemistry.
00:54KD came in, and boy, these guys really loved KD as a player growing up,
00:57and he's really excited to work with all these young guys.
01:00We talked a lot about the chemistry of this team early in the year,
01:03especially when they were winning basketball games.
01:05Now I'm looking up at the screen, and this is what the Spurs are.
01:07The Spurs are better than you in the standings.
01:10Their best player is better than your best player.
01:12And they love playing with each other.
01:14And the Rockets are the complete opposite of that right now.
01:17And you know who's noticing that?
01:18Kendrick Perkins.
01:19This is Perkins on the lack of chemistry with the Rockets going on right now.
01:23They look like a team that doesn't like each other.
01:26They look like a team that has zero chemistry.
01:29When I look at this squad, I know when they leave the arena, the practice facility,
01:34they all go their separate ways.
01:36Nobody's going to dinner together.
01:38That's what I watch when I'm looking at this team.
01:41Yeah.
01:42Perk.
01:42Stop texting that guy.
01:46No, I will not.
01:48I was trying to have a conversation.
01:52I can tell when you're texting me.
01:54I know, I know.
01:54You're not reacting to anything.
01:56I haven't logged into the text line in a long time.
01:58I know.
01:58You've been amazing.
01:59There's nothing that drives me more crazy than well-actually guys being wrong,
02:02especially when they're being real.
02:04The draft pick guy is just being stupid.
02:06Yeah.
02:06And he's acting like he's questioning our integrity because he doesn't understand the way things are calculated.
02:13Just wait until the break.
02:13That's all I ask.
02:14No, no, no.
02:14I'm not going to.
02:15I'm logging off from the text line for another few weeks.
02:17It's your fault.
02:18You're the one that brings this to my attention.
02:20You asked me to read that one on the air about the alligator.
02:23You're like, yeah, there's something that's going to trigger you, Seth.
02:25Yeah, okay, this is the thing about the Rockets.
02:27Yeah.
02:27This is the thing that's bothering me now is that I think the last three or four times that we've
02:31played a Kendrick Perkins clip,
02:32we've basically agreed with him.
02:35And that's a rough place to be, man.
02:39He's like a multi-time take-a-mania champ.
02:42And now I'm sitting and I'm stroking my beard as I'm listening to Kendrick Perkins.
02:47He's spitting truth.
02:48The man is a wise man.
02:51Yeah.
02:51This is a wise man indeed.
02:53Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:55I think he's right.
02:56And look, Kendrick Perkins.
02:58Kendrick Perkins is not behind the scenes with the Rockets.
03:00He's just saying what, from his years in the NBA, what he's observing just by looking at that team.
03:05Now, there may be people in that building that he's got a back channel to.
03:09I mean, he played with Kevin Durant for a bunch of years.
03:11Who knows?
03:11Although he's been pretty critical of KD.
03:13I don't know if they still have a relationship or not.
03:15The problem is, it's an old classic, it's kind of like analyzing body language.
03:21It's when things aren't going well, then yeah, guys aren't going to have positive body language necessarily.
03:27It doesn't mean that's the cause of things.
03:29When it comes to a lack of chemistry, it depends on how much you want to read into the chemistry
03:35part of it.
03:36If it's a chemistry, it's clear that there's no chemistry on the court.
03:39They don't have any kind of a functioning offense or any kind of structure to it or any kind of
03:44driving force behind it.
03:46It's clear that they don't have chemistry as an offense.
03:49But how far are you reading into it is that these guys interpersonally just don't like each other or they
03:55don't like the way each other play.
03:57I tend to think more of the simplest explanation is simply that, yeah, they don't have, like, obviously, A, a
04:03point guard.
04:04Now they don't have Steven Adams, and that disrupts the chemistry even more.
04:08And they've got a bunch of young players who are playing out of their comfort zone and out of their
04:13natural roles.
04:14So, yes, there's a lack of chemistry, but it's almost like what tone of voice do you say it with?
04:19You know, like, there's a lack of chemistry where guys genuinely hate each other.
04:23I don't think, it doesn't seem to me that that's the issue here.
04:27Without the burner account stuff, the alleged burner account, would we be reading less into the actual either chemistry or
04:36likability amongst teammates?
04:37I think, would we be reading less into it?
04:41Or would Perkins be reading less into it?
04:42I don't think we would be.
04:43He didn't bring it up one time in that take right there that I heard.
04:47You know, the only guy I've heard bring it up lately is Vernon Maxwell, and he didn't even know how
04:50it worked, the whole thing with Twitter.
04:52He said it was a page.
04:53He said it was like a bulletin board or something like that, yeah.
04:56So, I have, throughout this last rough stretch of basketball over the last week or so, we haven't brought up
05:02the burner account one time on this show.
05:04No, I think the burner account, like, by and large, it's receded from anybody's consciousness.
05:11I guess maybe there's some things maybe every now and then we should revisit.
05:15Kind of like we come back and revisit C.J. Stroud.
05:18Sometimes we come back and revisit the starting quarterback of your football team.
05:21Yep.
05:21Even though you don't want to talk about it.
05:23That, yeah, I don't know.
05:25It's, like, by, I'd be curious what our listeners think of this.
05:29By on-court interactions and everything, and whatever other scuttlebutt you hear or read,
05:34do you worry that guys don't genuinely like each other?
05:38Or that guys are just, like, are you worried that there's something more to it than simply the basic basketball
05:45stuff?
05:45Because I feel like the basic basketball stuff is enough for me to, like, it's not like there's, you know,
05:52there's always going to be displays of frustration.
05:54There have been times where Kevin Durant is torn into guys and everything.
05:57But I don't, it doesn't feel like it's over the top or anything different than normal NBA teams.
06:02Even NBA championship caliber teams, you have those moments.
06:05It hasn't risen to that level for me.
06:08But, yeah, I'd be curious if our listeners feel differently.
06:11The Fred VanVleet injury gets brought up way more,
06:14and I think it's just because this team turns the ball over so much and their offense looks so ugly.
06:19The Stephen Adams, the loss of Stephen Adams feels bigger and bigger to me as this season goes on.
06:24And he played 32 games for this team before he hurt his ankle, and they were 21 and 11.
06:30That's a 54-win pace.
06:3354 wins would have had you as the two-seed in the Western Conference last year by a couple of
06:37games.
06:3854 wins is a really good basketball team.
06:42Since losing Stephen Adams, they're 20-16 in the games without him in the line.
06:47Well, they're 20-16 without him in the lineup, which includes some games early in the year
06:51when they hadn't devolved into whatever they are right now.
06:54They were still playing good basketball at that point.
06:57But 20-16, that's a 46-win pace.
06:59That's a play-in team.
07:01That's a seven-seed.
07:02So the difference between the type of basketball they were playing,
07:07plus they were playing decently against good teams, which there's good teams now.
07:12They don't even look like they belong on the floor with some of these teams right now
07:15that are going to be teams they're facing in the playoffs or even teams out east
07:18that are going to make playoff runs.
07:20The good news is they've only got three games on their schedule the rest of the year,
07:25two Minnesota games and a Knicks game at home
07:27where they're facing what I'll call playoff-caliber teams.
07:30The rest of it are teams that are fighting for the play-in,
07:33have given up on the season entirely.
07:35Yeah.
07:35There's a chance to get some good vibes back going again.
07:39I guess part of this, and this is where the mounting frustration, I think,
07:42with Udoka comes in, is that you might normally say,
07:46okay, well, they've got time, they're going to have a lower caliber opponent
07:49to maybe work some of these things out.
07:52And you could have seen evidence, evidence of some of the way that Durant was operating
07:56in the second Lakers game, even though it was a loss.
07:59But, man, when they were doubling Durant, he was getting the ball out of his hands
08:02and they were running plays.
08:03So even though it was a loss and even though it was frustrating,
08:06it was more of what you want to see.
08:09that I guess there's just not a trust in Udoka that he's going to be the,
08:14you know, he's not an offensive emphasis head coach that somehow is going to
08:19completely transform this team versus good opponents between now and the playoffs.
08:23Right, right, right.
08:25Payne and Pendergast with you.
08:26You know the person I feel most sorry for right now?
08:28Poor Mrs. Eason, man.
08:30She is choosing to do that whole Jon Snow thing where he's got the,
08:35he's got a sword in his hands and there's thousands of people running at him.
08:38in the Battle of the Bastards.
08:40She's taken on everybody.
08:40She's taken on everybody, man.
08:42And she's even, she even posted a gif yesterday of me against the world.
08:48It's somebody that's, it's this person in a pink hoodie that's fighting seven people
08:52at the same time.
08:54The, I guess the thing that she needs to remember about that photo.
08:58It's Tar Eason's mom, for those who don't know what we're talking about.
09:01Is that, you know, Jon Snow does survive that battle,
09:03but it's when the Knights of the Vale ride in.
09:06That's true.
09:07She needed help.
09:07And then, and then lay wastes to the opposing force.
09:11Who's her, who are her Knights of the Vale?
09:13I guess it'd be the Rockets themselves.
09:15Rockets themselves.
09:16That if they, you know, if they kind of come in and,
09:18and just figure some things out.
09:19Or the, like the Rocket, like the pro Rocket Twitter accounts.
09:24Like, in comes the Dream Shake, and Brado, and Will.
09:28Yeah.
09:29And Red 94.
09:30Like, they come galloping in.
09:32I feel like she's lambasted a bunch of those people.
09:33Well, you know what?
09:34There'd be some irony in it then, yeah.
09:36That's true.
09:37Well, it's Game of Thrones, you know.
09:38Friends become enemies.
09:39Enemies become friends.
09:39That's exactly what I mean.
09:40They come galloping in.
09:41I'm bouncing up and down in this new chair.
09:43Yeah.
09:43Ooh, this chair is awesome.
09:45Yeah, that's probably who it would have to be, man.
09:46Yeah, she may need some help.
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