00:00It is the White Mamba, Brian Scalabrini. Good morning, sir.
00:06How are you guys handling my boys' start to this season?
00:11My man, you guys know that Dusty May used to be my grad assistant,
00:14and you know I kind of did the whole thing with Cooper Flagg,
00:17so Dallas is my sneaky team here.
00:20So, we just overreacted in that first segment.
00:24That second quarter was really humbling for us.
00:27I know. It was so rough.
00:31It was like Houston was the varsity team, and they were the JV team.
00:35That sucks.
00:37I'm telling you, though, I'm going to root for Dallas this year.
00:40Dusty May is my boy. He's my boy.
00:43And I'm obviously rooting for Cooper Flagg,
00:45who I think is going to have a really good year this year.
00:47Okay, and I want to talk a little bit more about Cooper Flagg.
00:49What were your thoughts about his offensive game as a rookie?
00:53Because it felt like that blew past everybody's expectations,
00:56and how can that progress this season?
00:58Is it mostly just refining the three-point shot?
01:03No, no, no, no.
01:04It's about being consistent.
01:06Like, that's like the stars, right?
01:09Like, when you're a star player,
01:11it's how often are you operating at that 90 to 100 percentile, right?
01:15And, like, some years, like this year, it could be challenging for them,
01:18so he might need to operate at that area a lot more.
01:21I thought he snapped out of it after halftime, so I thought he was a little bit better.
01:24But, you know, the three-point shot and the pull-up and the decision-making
01:30and reading the double teams and all that stuff, that comes with time.
01:33But you just get better and better and better at it.
01:36And I think, like, that's where the growth is.
01:39Like, if he's a 36 percent three-point shooter,
01:42they have to be close enough for him so he can drive.
01:45But it's still about, you know, maintaining that consistency at the highest level.
01:49And every superstar goes through that.
01:52Some guys can operate at that level longer than others.
01:55But, you know, Cooper is, with his ability to get to the basket,
01:58and when he was 14 or whether he's 20,
02:03he does a great job of sealing off his defender
02:05and being able to hold his line going to the basket.
02:08You know, Brian, I'll go back and watch that video of you describing,
02:11I think it was on Edelman's podcast,
02:12describing the moment you saw Flagg come into your gym
02:16and do all his, you know, what he did.
02:19Was it mentality or actual, like, grown-up skill set
02:24that you saw in him the most at that time?
02:28It's like a touch-by-God skill.
02:31Like, it's not like a step-back jumper or anything like that.
02:36It's the ability to, like, come down on defense and block a shot,
02:38grab the ball, lead the break, hit a guy on time, on target,
02:41that seemed up right when his feet hit, like, the corner, right?
02:44Let's take that type of stuff.
02:46Like, the stuff that Jason Kidd was doing when I was playing with him in New Jersey
02:49is the stuff Cooper Flagg was doing before his first high school game.
02:52So, like, when everyone asks me, like, what's Cooper Flagg?
02:55Is he Larry Bird?
02:56No, he's LeBron James.
02:58And LeBron is a F1 race car, and Cooper Flagg is a Lamborghini or a Ferrari
03:02or whatever supercar you want to use.
03:04Like, LeBron is a freak of nature.
03:06When his prime – and Cooper Flagg is a great athlete.
03:09He's just not a super-duper freak of nature like LeBron is.
03:12But his processing, his ability to pick things up, like, all that stuff,
03:17his IQ, his reading the game, all that is like – I mean, I'm sure, like,
03:22I don't know a lot about football, but I'm sure, like, all these quarterbacks,
03:25when they're coming up, their ability to read the defenses
03:29and do all that stuff, it has to be on a super high level.
03:31So, Cooper Flagg, at one point, he played football, he was a quarterback,
03:35and I guess he was nasty at that, too.
03:37So, that's all part of reading the game, reading the game,
03:42and that's where, like, he just excels.
03:44You can probably tell by the nature of this question that this opinion annoyed me,
03:49but what did you think when people were like, well, if Cooper Flagg
03:52wouldn't have reclassified, who knows where he would have gone in this last draft?
03:57Well, I mean, he reclassified up.
03:59I know.
04:00The other way, he's like, I don't know.
04:03Like, no one – I'm not trying to be disrespectful to anybody drafted this year.
04:09I'm not.
04:09Like, AJ DeBossa, like, by the way, like, I used to go to his high school games.
04:13It's seven minutes from my house.
04:15So, I have – one year I have Cooper Flagg, who's, you know,
04:19like I'm kind of, like, working out and mentoring.
04:21And then the next year I get a chance to, like, go to practices
04:24and watch AJ practice, right?
04:26So, I've seen it all.
04:27Like, the computer, the supercomputer, you know, is – that's what makes great players.
04:33Like, go back in the history of whatever.
04:35People look at when they draft, they look at athleticism, size, how high they jump,
04:41their length, their skill, like their setback, all the stuff that they do.
04:44That's how you get drafted.
04:46The mind is what makes you a generational talent.
04:48So, if teams would have passed up on Cooper Flagg, then they would be paying the price
04:54because you cannot pass up on a generational talent.
04:56He has a generational mind.
04:59There's not many guys like that in the league.
05:01You guys are lucky.
05:02You had one, and now you have another.
05:04Right.
05:05Now you have Cooper.
05:06Like, that stuff is – you think that you can teach that in some gym somewhere?
05:12That is touched by God talent, and not everyone has that.
05:15But even if he was the fifth pick in the draft, which I don't think –
05:18I think he would have went number one.
05:19Even if he was, can you imagine what the fifth pick – like, what that would be?
05:23He would still have this ability to process the game on a super high level.
05:28I'm kind of curious for Dusty May.
05:30What is – what is – do you think will be the biggest challenge for him
05:34going from championship coach at Michigan in the NIL era of college basketball
05:41to now the different group of men that he gets to work with in the NBA?
05:48Yeah.
05:49I think he had some real dogs at Michigan.
05:52Think about Adai Mara.
05:53Think about Yaxel Lindenburg yesterday.
05:56Think about the guys that he had.
05:57He had the Houston Rockets from last night.
06:01He had the big, bad wolf.
06:03He had the physical specimens, right?
06:05Where when you win those margins, when you have guys that can hold their position,
06:11hold their line, wedge a guy underneath for boards,
06:14and you're winning, like, the physicality margin.
06:16What do you think?
06:17In the NBA, we talk about the playoffs.
06:18It's all about physicality, right?
06:21Like, we can dissect anything we want from last night's game.
06:25Like, the Dallas Mavericks were just out-physicaled by the Houston Rockets.
06:29It was the varsity versus the JV.
06:31And just from the physical side of it, right?
06:34So, he had that.
06:35Now he has to figure out a way to coach around that.
06:38But remember, we're not just using the Michigan, you know, like, help me out with the school.
06:44It's Florida Atlantic.
06:45He was at Florida Atlantic, right?
06:47So, he took mid-major guys, and he somehow found himself into the Final Four, right?
06:53So, he's done it before.
06:54Like, I'm really close to Brad Stevens, who, you know, is basketball president of basketball operations here in Boston.
06:59And Brad said, I learned everything I needed to know to run this Boston Celtic team at Butler.
07:05Not when I was a coach in the NBA.
07:07It was when I was at Butler, and I could identify certain things that make winning players, right?
07:12Because that's, I think, like, learning to be a mid-major coach and, like, going through that and winning and
07:19overachieving at that and then doing it at a high level, you start to realize, like, the stuff that's important.
07:24You know the physicality is important, but you also know, like, the little things that winning players make.
07:29And I think that will help Dusty May more than, like, having this physical specimen team at Michigan that he
07:35had.
07:36Talk with Brian Scalabrini right here on 105.3 The Fan.
07:39He hosts the starting lineup every morning on SiriusXM NBA Radio.
07:44You can get that show and every other SiriusXM channel show with the new SiriusXM Sports Pass subscription.
07:51Only $5 a month.
07:54Now, Brian, you have already mentioned Lendeborg and Luka in this segment.
07:59So what did you think about them converging last night and Lendeborg saying he lost all respect for Luka because
08:06all he does is complain the entire game?
08:09And he also said afterwards that you're soft and you can't score on me.
08:14He said you suck!
08:16Oh, he said you suck and you can't score on me?
08:19Which, by the way, he was, and the only shot he made was the half-court bank shot.
08:25So he was 1-for-6 against Lendeborg.
08:27And now, listen, there's a lot of stuff that goes into it.
08:29I would be curious if Draymond Green, like, you know what happened with the Walker-Kessler thing getting the 12
08:36-for-12 because Draymond Green was over-helping.
08:39So, all right, like, I had this one, let me tell you guys this story, right?
08:43This is the funniest story.
08:45It was when KG was in Minnesota and I had the matchup.
08:48And, you know, like, halfway through the game, but maybe, like, in the second quarter somehow, and I'm starting guarding
08:53KG.
08:54I told Paul, I told the group, like, yo, you guys don't need to help.
08:58I got this dude.
08:59Paul, like, kind of smiled.
09:01He's like, you only got him because I'm standing right behind him.
09:06So, I'm thinking to myself, because, you know, I don't see that.
09:09All I see is, like, you know, I don't see KG reading, like, the two guys right behind me waiting
09:14for him.
09:14I just see him fading away and me contesting the shot.
09:18So, when that all went down, I'm like, oh, I got you.
09:22But if I came out and said, man, KG can't score on me, I think the team would then shift
09:26over, and then all of a sudden Luka would have those isos.
09:29So, I love the attitude of Yaxel to think like that, and I love the attitude to say that.
09:37But we had a guy here in Boston, his name was Grant Williams, right?
09:41And he had a really good game against Nikola Jokic.
09:45So much so that he started calling himself Batman because he shuts down the Joker.
09:50And he went, as Halloween, as Batman, the next time Jokic plays, man, he had 50 on him.
09:58So, you always got to be careful dealing with dudes like that.
10:02You always got to be careful of trying to think, like, this is me stopping you.
10:06It's a lot more that goes into it.
