00:00Is this, if they win this series and they advance to the second round and this is a team that
00:05has not been there in a while and this would be the natural progression, last year they made the playoffs,
00:10first year under Udoka, they almost made it in the play-in, last year they were the two seed and
00:17lost in the first round in seven games to Steph and the Warriors and then this year they will beat
00:22the Lakers, they go to the second round to face off against the world champs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, all
00:27things would point towards.
00:30Would it be a successful season if they won a playoff series and advance to the semis in your mind?
00:38I don't think so.
00:39Yeah.
00:40Not in this fashion.
00:43You know, I think as I said in the crosstalk earlier, I don't think this is as good a basketball
00:47team as the team that we had last year and that's saying a lot.
00:53I mean, you take Dylan Brooks and Jalen Green and then obviously right now as a playoff start last year,
00:59we got Fred Van Vliet back and this year we're obviously not getting him back.
01:03But, you know, I think the team last year was better.
01:07I think the team last year had an identity.
01:09I think the team last year had a plan.
01:12And I'm not sure that either that's the case.
01:14Now, you've got an all-time great scorer.
01:15I think you feel a bit better about their chances maybe to win because of Kevin.
01:19Yeah.
01:19Well, I mean, look, I don't know.
01:21I mean, do I feel better about their chances to win if it's one singular moment in a game?
01:27Yeah.
01:28Do I feel better about their chances to compete with a really good basketball team?
01:32No.
01:34I think last year they didn't have closers.
01:36I think last year, and that's why Fred Van Vliet was so important because he came in and was that
01:40guy and was a lead scorer.
01:44I mean, I think, and it's, look, if you were catching the Lakers right now, as I said before, I
01:50wouldn't want no piece of the Lakers if you had the two guys were healthy.
01:55And LeBron was your three.
01:56And LeBron was your third.
01:57Yeah.
01:57I wouldn't want no part of them.
01:59Right.
01:59So I can't let that, I can't let that match up in that reality that they're missing two of their
02:03top three players all of a sudden cloud what the season has been.
02:07That's fair, because if the Lakers were at full strength, you wouldn't, you wouldn't feel great about the Rockets.
02:12Personally, I wouldn't.
02:13To win this season.
02:14I'd rather see Minnesota.
02:15Yeah.
02:167-1-3-5-7-2-4-6-10, base power text line, YouTube and Twitch.
02:21Do they have to, if they win this series, which they're heavily favored, if they win this series, 52 games
02:28this season,
02:29fifth in the West, as opposed to second last year, but 52 games this season, finishing off
02:34the year 9-1, winning a playoff series, and then playing the Thunder, would you look at
02:41this team as a successful season?
02:44Someone text in, it depends on how they played against the Thunder in the second round.
02:49Yeah.
02:49If they're competitive with the Thunder in the second round, I think that's a game changer.
02:54That changes.
02:54If they were to take it to sixth, that's fair.
02:57I don't know, man.
02:59When I first look at this, I think, hell no.
03:02Fifth seed?
03:04Like, I do think we had to adjust our thoughts about this team, and some of it was due to
03:11the
03:11Fred Van Fleet injury, but not as much as, for me, not as much as what some put on it.
03:18I came into this year thinking, and we talked about it before, when they got KD and we started
03:23seeing the moves that they were making, I came into the year thinking, for me, my expectation
03:29is the Western Conference Finals.
03:31Not saying the finals, not saying they got to win a championship, but to get to the Western
03:36Conference Finals.
03:37I looked at this, and the only team that I looked at and said, yo, I don't know if they
03:42can get is the Thunder, right?
03:45I thought with the additions they had, they could play with the Nuggets.
03:49I thought with the additions they had, that the Spurs weren't ready yet.
03:54What was I wrong?
03:55And the Lakers, I didn't think that they would be able to handle them either.
03:59So I had Western Conference Finals, even though it's changed because I've watched them play
04:05all season, how I actually feel about the team, still, for me, when you add KD to this
04:12team that was the two-seed last year, that you got to lose, that's what everybody says
04:18in the NBA, you got to lose before you can really advance.
04:21And they had a gut-wrenching series loss, and they then brought in reinforcements.
04:26I thought Western Conference Finals, that is a successful season for this team.
04:31And because I don't know if they're going to, I don't believe they're going to reach
04:35that it, to me, just winning the series against the Lakers, and to the point you're making
04:39a clearly compromised Lakers team, beating them is not enough.
04:46Because we saw a lot to where, I mean, halfway through the year, we looked at this team and
04:53had to reshuffle our thinking of them being a championship-level team.
04:58And that is, that's a tough, tough way to go.
05:01So they should win this.
05:02Now, if they lose this, people got to go.
05:05Like, multiple people got to go.
05:06If they find a way to lose this series, people got to go.
05:09But I do, I don't think it's just a success because they win, they win a series.
05:15Now, you're right, I could, like, I could feel different.
05:18If they took, if they, if they took OKC to seven or something.
05:22Oh, it's a different game, game changer.
05:24But then my thought would be like, well, damn, where was that all year where you didn't
05:26have to face them?
05:27Yeah, no, that changes, that changes the, that changes the calculus, as Nick Casario
05:33would say.
05:34Yeah, you go show that you can go toe-to-toe in seven games to the best team in the
05:37league
05:38to, you know, start to finish.
05:39That's a different deal.
05:40So, beating a team that's missing their top two scores and their top two ball handlers,
05:46yeah, that's not going to, that's not going to resonate much with me.
05:50Text line coming in, bottom line.
05:52Last year, the coach upped the game of all the young players and made them believe in
05:57themselves and they played together and then off, off each other in what made for a special
06:04and unique, my, my opinion, all of those players are now playing down because they've lost their
06:09identity from the previous year and don't really know their roles on the team coming
06:13from, from the text line.
06:16I don't disagree.
06:17That's, I think that's fair.
06:20Yeah.
06:21Yeah.
06:21Cause I tell myself coming to the year, let's say they won around and they lost in the semis
06:26with that, would, would you be good with that?
06:29And I don't think I would have been.
06:31Um, and I understand the West is, is, is a, is a tougher conference, but I don't know.
06:36I don't know that, uh, that I would have, um, no, this, uh, this, this should be a series
06:40they win.
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