Is Jaylen Brown a lock for First Team All-NBA? / Best part of Jayson Tatum’s return

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Hi, noon, Jones and Keith,

WEEI.

It's time now for pure hoops

with TURP, Justin Turpin,

of WEEI.

We're a little late here at TURP.

I apologize, Tony Marinero.

He's kind of near time.

We needed a...

It's done hiding.

Well, we needed a...

Sure.

Pull teeth and actually get an answer out of them about...

He was not willing to go there.

No, I mean, finally he went there.

Did he really think he was going to call it

and just talk about the Canadian's Bruins game

and Team USA baseball losing?

That was it.

I think so.

Canadian's Bruins game in March.

Correct.

Yeah.

Want to talk about that?

We were talking about...

Oh, by the way, you're not the best baseball team.

Yeah, no.

We were talking about that.

The Bruins was bad loss.

The USA even worse lost.

Now what about Canada?

Yeah, it's not that hard to say.

That's true.

Beats to get a point though.

That's a good point.

Storm was pumped.

It's a good point.

Should they hand out loser points in the NBA?

Oh, that's a stupidest thing ever.

You shouldn't get a point for losing.

That's a good point.

What about double assists?

What about that?

How about two assists?

Oh, I'm a hockey assistant.

You're in the believer of the potential assist.

So I guess if you want to go to hockey assist,

that is something the NBA tracks

and it's under the tracking data.

But the hockey assist is dumb.

Double assist.

I mean, James Harden would have 40.

Yeah.

Some of those point guards,

every time you put on the ball at the court,

either they get the assists or somebody else gets it.

Everybody would have a triple double.

Just about.

Or at least double double.

Actual hockey assist?

Yeah.

No, that shouldn't be tracked.

I mean, I guess it isn't interesting

to look at if you're into the tracking data,

be like, oh, they kind of directly affected this play.

It's more representative of the actual ball movement

from the team, because if you have just one assist,

you can dump it into a big man on the post.

He takes one dribble and goes up.

You get an assist for that.

That's an unnecessarily indicator of the ball movement

of the actual possession.

So I guess in that sense,

I kind of do like it,

but no, for actual counting numbers, no, I don't like that.

While we're here, you should also get an assist.

If you pass it to a guy who gets fouled,

then he hits both free throws.

He's got two points.

They say he throw it to a guy and it's like a dumb,

but he can't really do it on one free throw, right?

No, it has to do it.

Even though it's still the same pass,

you got to hit both.

It's wonky, but it's the same idea.

I could be talking to the guy who scored two points.

I haven't talked into that.

Yeah.

Okay.

They give the assist for some ridiculous things.

They definitely do.

We don't remember when we voted through.

We voted through.

We voted through.

And then we have a stamp of approval.

In my NBA.

Yeah, yeah.

My NBA, that's what we do.

There was one a couple of years ago

where Tatum was going for a triple double.

It's like late in the game.

He hit Grant Williams in the corner.

He took like six dribbles,

laid it up for a first layup.

They gave the assist.

It was like, come on.

That's not good.

Well, Tatum tends to get what he wants.

So that's a good segue into how this plays out.

I was very encouraged by that game the other night term,

where I thought it's the first time

Tatum really deferred since he's come back.

Maybe if you wanted to stay early in his first game

back, the Dallas game,

he was a little passive and feeling his way out.

I haven't felt like he's deferred much.

In fact, and we've talked about this consistently

since he's come back,

he's been pretty much shot for shot

with Jalen Brown and the games they both played in.

Some of that is skewed a little bit

because Jalen left the San Antonio game early

and Tatum played the whole thing.

But on a per minute basis,

he's shooting more than Jalen Brown.

I thought the sun's game,

and it was a close game and a win.

I thought that was the first time we really saw

Tatum defer to Jalen.

And I think that's encouraging

because I think for them to get to where they want to go,

that's got to be the setup for the rest of the year.

Agree or disagree?

Yeah, I mean, and we kind of heard them talk about it

after the game the other night.

I don't think it was ever a question of if or if or can.

It was a matter of how they do it, right?

How does it look?

How does this kind of sacrifice look?

Because at this point,

we've been flavoring the point for weeks now.

They've been playing together for this their ninth year,

eight years prior.

We were looking at it.

They can clearly make this work.

And Jason Tatum talked about that the other night.

It wasn't a matter of if they can or how they do it.

It was how they do it was the question.

And I think that was a good indicator of the other night

where he has shown the willingness to go to the corner

and be a spacer.

And that is something that he's going to have to do now.

And I think they both have to assume that role of sacrifice

and that's what's going to happen.

How many teams can win the East, you think?

It's really as wide open.

I think there is a little bit of like a Patriots feel to this, right?

Where like the AFC was wide open.

And they took advantage of it and kind of similar with the Celtics.

Because all the teams in the Eastern Conference have question marks.

And we've talked about this I think last week

where the Celtics have the fewest question marks.

I think especially with Jason Tatum now coming back,

like Detroit, they can't really shoot.

New York, they're super inconsistent.

We're having players only meetings two months ago.

I can't forget about that aspect of it.

And with Cleveland, they've been playing much better defense as of late.

But you know, they bowed out early last year.

And it's James Hardin.

Right.

We know how he is in the post.

So when the East, I would answer it.

It's three, three, right?

Detroit, Boston, New York.

Yeah.

I don't count.

Cleveland.

I don't think they can't.

Yeah.

I don't think so.

And then nobody off after that.

There might be like a one off.

Maybe you have an upset.

Do you include Cleveland?

I wouldn't.

No, I wouldn't include Cleveland.

Like another, like again, they've been playing better defense as of late.

But they've shown me nothing in the postseason.

Any of these players on that team have shown me anything in the playoffs

like to believe in them actually upsetting a team in, you know,

and root to winning the East.

And when you're looking at like the championship experience, right?

Like who in the East has any besides the Celtics?

Like that core.

The next don't have any.

No.

I think the next have some good playoff experience.

But they don't have a championship pedigree.

No.

Like last year's good example for the next.

But like you don't have any championship experience.

Same thing with, you know, Cleveland.

Like they don't have any championship experience.

Detroit has no really has playoff experience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like that.

Yeah.

Spulstra.

And those guys like, you have to go, but they're not even in the top six, right?

Miami, you'd have to go down to that.

And I think that stuff is important.

Like I think we saw it with the Celtics in 2022 when they played the Warriors.

Like that championship experience.

And great.

And that's kind of an extreme example.

Oh, why?

Because that team is really, really talented.

I think it's real in the NBA.

Oh, it's totally.

You know, like Oklahoma City hadn't been to a finals before with this group.

And they, they broke through in one, but they had been on a deep run.

And yeah, I think I do think that's a real thing.

I do.

I don't really believe in Detroit, but if you're asking me, could they win the conference,

I still would say yes.

They're very talented.

But again, they're shooting really concerns me.

Like they're not a great three point shooting team.

And if you're going to be playing a team like the Celtics in the postseason, it's going to be hard

to keep up if you're not making those threes.

You're not shooting those threes.

And like they're percentage wise, they're not great.

So, and I think the Celtics have played them tough.

Like obviously they haven't, we haven't seen them play without chasing Tatum.

But all four of their games have come down to seven points or fewer.

Like they've been really, really close games.

They said anything about the plan for Tatum because Tatum's talks post game about some of these things

where like Art is 27 minutes for three games.

Then he sat one out.

It's been 32 minutes each of the last two.

You know, they don't have another back or they don't have a back to back until the very end of the month.

Then they do have another one in April.

How many games do you think he's going to play?

What's the ceiling for minutes?

Any kind of guesses on that?

Yeah, the schedule.

They don't have as many back to backs, but they play essentially every other day for like the rest of the season.

So it is a compact schedule and it's a taxing schedule.

So they haven't really said much about that.

Tatum talks about it.

I think it was Saturday night where they were going to ramp up his mittens this week and see how he responds.

But he seemed pretty confident in talking about how, you know, the ramp up process will go

because he said he's responded well to pretty much every challenge that they've thrown at him so far in terms of the minute ramp up.

So I mean, we've been talking about it for a little while now that he's clearly way ahead of what people thought he was going to be.

He's clearly been practicing extensively five on five for quite a while now because the guy doesn't come back

and look like he has if they haven't been ramping up for a long time now.

And I think we've all said too that we feel pretty good about how they'd fare in the first round against whoever they draw.

Maybe not Charlotte, but again, that was one game and they have two more against them.

So we'll get a better idea of that.

But you kind of use that as a ramp up process too.

So when we're talking about the Cleveland's, the New York's, the Detroit's when they're playing them later on in the postseason series,

like you'd imagine by then he's going to be closer to like the Jason Tatum that you want him to be at.

So I agree he's further along than I would have thought I was surprised he came back and played 27, 27, 27.

I hated that he missed the OKC game, but I get it.

He's up to 32 minutes now. It's only going to be higher and hopefully better by the time the postseason rolls around.

I like that he's deferring to to Jalen Brown in that sun's game. So I like all of that.

If there's an area where he needs to make strides, what would you highlight as the area where he needs to improve the most or his game is lacking the most right now.

Right now it's just a shot making and I think that will naturally go up just because of the type of score.

He is the shooter. He is some of them have obviously been forced the one leg in three.

I think on he had one against San Antonio and he had one against Washington as well.

It's like that kind of stuff.

We don't need to see those one leg in threes. Those are kind of forced.

But you kind of expect that from a guy coming back from a torn Achilles kind of, you know, reintegrating himself back into the lineup.

How do you think he's done with the contact?

Because in some ways I think he's been a little more physical than I thought, defensively rebounding.

I can credit for that.

I feel like you see it on offense a little bit more where he is really in love with those three point shots.

Do you think he skewed two foot like could he could he correct his shot selection a little bit to help his efficiency?

This is kind of his shot diet before the injury anyway.

You know, it's very similar and really with the contact and the physicality.

That's what surprised me the most like his willingness to rebound in traffic.

His willingness to get downhill and finish through contacts was that was one of the biggest questions is how comfortable would he be mixing it up?

You know, down low with whether it's his rebounding or is driving like how comfortable would he be?

And there are clear moments in the game where you see that he's trusting his body.

He's trusting his Achilles and he's not really thinking about it.

And I think that has been one of the most encouraging signs is how confident he appears to be in his body and his willingness to actually mix it up with the contact and all that.

Because I think that's been a really big bright spot because of course, just the way he plays, you've always seen him take a ton of threes.

Like that's part of his game and it should be.

He's a great three point shooter, but his willingness to do that dirty work.

It's really impressed me.

And I think that's been one of the better things we've seen from him.

And for the last 10 years, the Golden State game was always the one that everybody's like fighting for tickets tonight.

Not tonight.

No, tonight not so much.

No Steph Curry.

Not even an Al Horford.

Kind of a kind of season for the Warriors to this point.

Maybe Port Zingas though.

Yeah, he was in our top players of the night.

He's on the bench.

He got in there.

But yeah, I don't know.

I mean, this is another team that they're actually probably even worse than Phoenix, right?

The last team they just played.

Yeah, that's a lot of a challenge.

I mean, Phoenix has been really kind of tough this year.

Like they've been a really good team this year relative to their expectations.

And that's why Jordan ought has been up towards the top of the coach of the year rankings.

Never, never heard of that guy by the way, Keith, until Tarp tweeted out the pregame interview,

where I'm like, who is this coach for Phoenix?

There is never heard of that guy.

Wild coaches in the NBA.

Yeah.

Like that is a tough trivia question.

Even for NBA fans, you're like, who are some of these guys?

Well, they change them out so often.

And they get recycled.

Yeah.

It's a tough feeling.

Once you have one job, like at least in the NBA, you're going to get another shot.

No matter what happens.

I swear to God, I never heard of that guy.

So you had the pregame, the pregame conversation with him.

He's been great.

The other day, you should do a game like NBA head coach or like random baseball player or like actor nominated for an award.

That's a bad because that is a, it's tough.

It's not household names.

But the Warriors, yeah, they've been a mess.

And it was kind of like when they went out and got Jimmy, obviously it was one last run.

Or Jimmy Butler, that is to one last run with Steph Curry, try to give him one last chance to go out and win.

It just feels like that's, that's gone.

That's it.

Like they went, they were so much an older team, right?

Like with Dremon, with Steph Curry, with Al Horford, who Al Horford's been very inconsistent.

The worst thing about his season this year is he's been so durable throughout his career.

And now it's been injuries that have kind of derailed this season a lot this year.

So he's probably going to be kicking himself a little bit watching this team and the success that they're having.

Obviously like, what was it about basketball reasons why he left?

That was not that small.

I think everyone kind of sees that it was a money thing.

It's Charles Barkley here with Wayfair.

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Because Brad Steven said it over the offseason.

They made offers to both Cornette and Horford.

Did they, I think they won the Drew Holiday trade.

I think they won it with Simon's.

I think they've won it now if you want to extend that out to Vuchavitch.

Although he's not healthy now, so maybe you'd argue with that.

Holiday has been pretty productive in Portland.

Didn't they won the Porzingis trade?

I get having to do it for luxury tax purposes and apron purposes.

Do you think they won that trade?

They really got nothing for them.

They got nothing for them, but the fact that you're able to move off the contract

and didn't really send out any draft capital with it.

I would consider a win because you had to get away from him.

That's why I think it's a win.

I think it's a win because you can't rely on him.

He might give you a 30-point night.

Then he's going to disappear for a while.

I think it would have affected the development of all these other guys

that were giving Brad credit for finding.

Because he would have eaten up minutes.

He would have eaten up different times.

Vuchavitch trade wouldn't happen if he were here.

Don't get Vuchavitch now.

Unfortunately, he's been weird though to be like,

you don't know what you're going to get out of Porzingis

when Vuchavitch literally is hurt right now.

Even some of the other guys, I feel like

just the way Missoula has played different players

and gone with a lot of one big lineups.

Maybe we don't see half the amount of time

of guys that you might end up relying on.

Does Baylor Shireman even play

if you still have Porzingis?

I think there's an interesting trickle down there

where you weren't really going to get a lot out of them.

Because yeah, I don't care if they saved the money or not.

I thought it was a net positive really to just move on.

In just addition by some action.

It is pretty crazy that we're talking about moving on

from like a bunch of all stars here.

Drew Holliday has been great this year.

He's by far been the best out of the bunch,

but he was hurt for a little bit earlier in the season.

But you're talking about moving on from Drew Holliday,

Al Hoerford, even Cornette, throw Cornette in there,

Christophe Porzingis.

And you're like, maybe it was the best thing for them

to move on from those guys.

Like, if you were to say this after all these trades were going down

and you're obviously you're looking at like Jason Daydom

could be out for potentially the whole year at that point.

Like you didn't really know.

I think everyone kind of thought he was going to come back,

but it was far from a sure thing.

And now sitting here,

they're the second team in the Eastern Conference

where only it's six weeks from the playoffs,

whatever it may be.

And we're talking about like Baylor Shireman

and Namesh Keda.

Like these guys being contender, like legitimate contributors

for a team that could win the Eastern Conference.

I mean, it's wild.

It's still crazy.

And I know it's been kind of talks about all year

just the development from up and down the roster.

But that is by far been the biggest storyline of the season.

That you're having Keda, Garza, Shireman,

Walsh in his minutes.

Hell, even my not when you go up and down the roster.

If you were to get two or three of those guys

to be able to contribute to the next iteration

of a championship contending team,

you would have chalked that up as a win

to get pretty much all of them to be contributing

and actually having a solid role with the team.

It's fascinating.

I, uh, Terpen and I last year did our all NBA teams.

So I know he keeps up with this stuff.

It's very important to me, the all NBA teams.

I would assume Jalen Brown is a no brainer first team

all NBA guy.

I don't think he's an MVP,

but I think he's like at least in the discussion,

sort of similar to how Taylor has been the last few years.

However, I was looking at something from,

I think it was the athletic.

And obviously all these guys need to hit their 65 game minimum

to qualify for all the awards.

But there was a decent case for Brown,

not even to be first team.

So you have SGA and YoKitch, which are kind of obvious.

Those guys are, those guys all three are on over there.

All three.

They're assuming that they get that.

Yeah.

They have to get the 65.

Okay.

So those three, I think are the top three MVP candidates.

From there, I personally would go Jalen Brown four,

but there was a case made for Luca

and a case made for Kauai Leonard.

Not Kate.

Not Kate.

Or you even get to Kate.

No, no, no, they had all those guys before they had Brown and Kate.

No, I'm sorry.

I was asking you personally,

would you have Kate fourth or would you have Jalen?

I personally would have Jalen fourth or maybe Kate fourth.

I would go fifth,

but either way, I'd have both of them in there on the first team.

And I would have Luca and Kauai on the second,

with maybe like, I don't know, Bronson and Edwards and things like that.

But how would you handicap it right now?

Because we also know fair or not.

Jalen Brown doesn't always get the benefit of the doubt

with some of these voting,

with the team USA stuff.

Like, is he a lock for first team all NBA?

I would have them up there.

I don't think it's a lock necessarily.

Okay.

Which is kind of crazy to say when you're looking at, you know,

the prediction he's had this year.

His stat lines only been matched by Luca and Nicola YoKitch.

But I think just given how talented League has been this year,

I think it's necessarily a lock.

I mean, I'd have them on there.

And the main reason is because I'd look at the team's success, right?

Agreed.

Definitely.

I would give Jalen a tiebreaker over Luca.

Luca and Kauai.

Same.

That's kind of the difficulty.

I agree with that.

If you want to give Cunningham the tiebreaker over Jalen,

that's a consistency.

But Jalen should get the tiebreaker over the other two.

I agree with that told me.

I think the good thing for Jalen is that it's position list.

So you could have all those guys on there.

And, you know, I keep going back to the expectations as well.

And if he's going to be a top five MVP candidate,

it's hard to leave him off that list.

Definitely.

That's quite literally what it is.

Top five player in the league.

That's what the first team would be.

I agree.

He's out of top five season.

He should be on there.

But I think it's closer than some people are saying.

Because a lot of the conversation around here is like,

will he get MVP votes?

You know, you might get votes.

But like, he's not even guaranteed as a top five.

No, he might get the leagues.

He might get some down ball at MVP votes and be second team all NBA.

Yeah.

That's possible.

I guess depends on how voters look at it, right?

Yeah.

Us three will look at the winning.

But if he's not the most popular guy.

And I think some people also look at it and still vote by position, right?

Like they want to vote it like how it used to be.

And they're still going to put in like, you know, the two bigs and whatever it may be.

Whereas, you know, I don't know.

I think winning should be what it comes down to.

But that's not a lock.

Right.

Pure hoops with tarp every Wednesday at high noon.

Turb good stuff.

As always, the purest of pure hoops get started tomorrow.

I can't wait to celebrate the great game of basketball with you guys tomorrow.

Oh, it's going to be at Jake and Joe.

Have you looked at the menu yet?

Oh, I'm, I'm a frequent over at the Brainsery one.

So I'll bring you a cigarette.

Well, well, well.

Twitch Mitch is going to be there tomorrow.

He is.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, he's just there.

He's just there to slurp down some beers and watch some pure hoops.

Oh, good.

He's a twitch.

Twitch mitt off the clock.

Twitch Mitch told me he's going to be there tomorrow.

Turb, you'll be there on the clock.

Oh, yeah, I'll be there.

But you'll be with us.

156.

We'll get a beer going.

I like that.

Okay.

I'm in.

Maybe a little earlier.

Maybe 12.

Anyway, that's pure hoops with Turb.

Go get them follow at Justin M.

Turpin.

Turb, as always, appreciate it.

Thanks so much.

All right, guys.

I'll see you tomorrow at Jake and Joe's in Wuburn.

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Visit Blinds.com now for up to 45% off-site wide,

plus a professional measure at no cost, rules and restrictions apply.

Breaking news from good ranchers over 85% of grass-fed beef and stores is imported.

Most grocery store meat contains antibiotics, hormones and harmful seed oils.

Good ranchers does things differently.

All their meat is born and raised on local American farms.

No antibiotics, no added hormones, no seed oils, just one ingredient.

Meet.

Visit GoodRanches.com and get $25 off your first order with Code Ranch 25.

That's Code Ranch 25 for $25 off your first order.

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American Meat Delivered