Nuggets hype is building in Training Camp

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1:07What's going on, y'all? Hope you're having a fabulous, wonderful day. Ah, man. Sky is outside, bluing. The trees are outside, greening, and the nuggets are outside, playing hoops. It's just a great time of the year. We're officially in fall. Mike Tomlin has a Minecraft world that he just dropped that he's been building for 12 years. If you haven't seen it, it's one of the greatest things you'll see all year. It's on YouTube right now. But before that, I want to talk about a little world that Ryan and I are going to be building today. Y'all know what time it is. That's Ryan Blackburn, this is Swiper. And this is locked on nuggets. You are locked on nuggets. You're daily Denver Nuggets Podcast. Part of the locked on podcast network. Your team every day. And a good afternoon and a good evening and a good morning to you all.

2:08However you may be, wherever you may be. I hope you're having a stupendous Thursday or Friday morning, depending on when you're listening to this. You know what? This is going to be a great conversation because Ryan, you and I have been talking about all kinds of hypotheticals, right? We're going to talk a little bit today. But that's what all summer has been. Hypotheticals, theories, hypotheses. If A does this, then it's B, the natural outcome of this. But we have really good basketball that's been happening. We have great conversations and they would never use this word, but dare I say, there's some glazing happening with some of the Nuggets players about other players and coaches about players as well. Ryan Blackburn, my friend, sometimes my enemy, but always my partner. How are you feeling today? Man I'm good. It's always interesting to wake up to a trade proposal that you throw at me and we talk

3:10about yesterday and you just say, no, I don't want to do that. I want to make this different one. The benefits me a little bit more. Well, let's just get this out here. Right now, the first original trade y'all, James Cook and who do you have? It was going to be James Cook and Josh Downs. Josh Downs for O'Marion Hampton and Ted O'Neck Millen. Yeah, but then I really dove into numbers behind it. I think I'm losing that pretty heavily. So I try to find a more even deal. I don't offer you to buy items and higgins in O'Marion and James Cook and you're like, how about this? Actually, I'll take out T Higgins' spare. I'll take out T Higgins. Now I'm going to put back in downs and then give you who I did. Tony Pollard. Tony Pollard. And then Mitchell, I'm like, I mean, it's not bad. I was just thinking a wide receiver more to the level, that closer to the level of bad items would make it a little bit closer. But we were working on it. We're working on it. Yeah, I mean, we in any relationship, you have a lot of things to work on and a lot of things to work through. So we're going to have an open and honest dialogue about it.

4:11And that's just how it goes sometimes. Right now Ryan is trying to manifest destiny, my fantasy team. And I'm not going to let it happen. He's not taking it over. Just a last year. Yeah. But last year, y'all, y'all don't understand. I almost had a full on till I've never made a tilt trade in my life. I traded Ryan Patrick Mahomes and Josh Jacobs for Josh Allen. And who did you, and Shuba, Shuba Hubbard? Shuba Hubbard. Well, that was before Rico down on the side that he wanted to take over and be the ball. Well, but thankfully, I got Rico back in another deal. But like, y'all, I gave him Pat right before Pat took off. And the next thing you know, Josh Jacob was a guaranteed locked in RB1 rest of the year. And like, I thought I would screw, y'all. But thankfully, I was able to turn it around. But Ryan, you've gotten me last year. You should be nicer this year. I was, I thought we had agreed to one. And then you changed it on me yesterday. So that's the, I was like, I was getting ready to push the accept trade button. I was like, wait, this isn't what we were talking about. Well, I thought I had sent you to, but I sent an amended one as well, but whatever worked out. Um, Ryan, you were at practice today. Yep.

5:11Can you just give the people a little rundown? What were some of the sights and sounds from practice today and what were some of the things that you're, you're getting and you're feeling from practice? Well, first and foremost, it was a lighter day today for the players. They did not practice as hard. David Adam and said after practice that that was his choice. Everybody's like healthy and ready to go. And they could go hard, but he wanted to save it for tomorrow. There's going to be some scrimmaging tomorrow. I know Matt's going to be at that practice. I'm not sure if I'm going to be at that one. I think I probably will be, but like there's going to be more coming up in terms of action and video and a whole bunch of stuff to make some wild assumptions about for everybody on social media. But Prime also spoke today to the players after practice. And I was a little bit too loud in the hallway talking with my guys, Vinnie and Bennett and if somebody come peeking around the corner in that open hallway being like, what did

6:12you say PR? I don't even know who it was. I just saw that somebody had done it. So I was like, oh, I guess I got to be quiet now. But I know it's interesting when you bring in a player like that and Adam and talk about like not even sure how much these guys fully appreciate just how crazy the prime experience was of him playing football and baseball at the same time in a playoff environment. And just kind of going back and forth between those two and how amazing he was. So it's interesting to hear from a coach like that, a player like that. And I mean, while you're on the CU campus, you might as well lean into one of the greatest athletes who's ever played the game. Yeah. So some of the, there's just been a lot of buzz. I feel like that's been emanating from the nuggets base and my coach, it's in players just about like, you know, there's just so much that's happening right now and there's so many different things that are development with, you know, some of the players that

7:13are getting there in the locker room and Kim Whitmore, Alfa Diallo, all that. I just feel like it seems that the players and the coaches have taken notice to certain people. And it makes me really wonder from afar, what does that mean for their preseason stock? Like this is more so like they're going to get opportunities and that's kind of the individual. Is this going to be like, Hey, like they're kind of expecting some of these guys to be rotation players going into the season. What's your feeling? It's just like, Hey, new blood, new energy, or these are guys that we feel like we might be able to depend on down to stretch. Well, there's a lot of ways that they could approach it and they'll probably approach it differently from game to game in terms of a lot of this is about getting the starters ready, getting the main guys ready for starting the season and being in there. And I think that there's an opportunity like that's one of the things that Adam and was talking about in terms of the two way contracts. It wasn't necessarily just about those guys.

8:13It's not necessarily just about how good those guys individually are. It's about getting ready. The main guys from seeing these kinds of players in practice. I actually asked him and followed up about that. It was a conversation that they had with the front office. It's one of the reasons why the front office went the way that they did was they just didn't have as much athleticism on the second unit. They didn't have as much athleticism with their with their deep bench. And they were all playing kind of the same way from the starters and the second unit. And it's just that the second unit wasn't as good at doing it. So they've needed to shake things up and they feel like they've done that. And so you're getting a lot of that action. But also like you're getting somebody like Jamal experience facing a player with the athleticism level of Cam Whitmore or the defensive quality of alpha D all low. And they just didn't have those kinds of guys in there. They're second unit and in their reserves last year. So that's at least the theory of the practice. But in terms of like how much they'll be used, I would expect a first quarter run for

9:18the starters in the first game and then probably play the first half in each of the next two. And then in the fourth game, like it kind of depends on on how people are feeling. Maybe you'll get it an off day there at some point. But I think that they'll just ramp up the minutes as much as possible to the point where by either the fourth or fifth game, whichever one they want to be addressed rehearsal, though, play those guys three quarters. And that's where they'll get it to. Well, y'all today's episodes also brought to you by Fando. Make this your most rewarding season ever. Fando rewards club every week. Check the Fando out. I'm sure that's waiting for you as we wait to see what happened with this Denver Nuggets team here in the next update. And we're going to have a skirmish something like that very soon. There will be there will be something tomorrow. There's going to be some more action tomorrow. And there'll be some stuff to react to for sure. And I'm sure they'll be mixing and matching. I think Adam and said that he wants the guys to go three full quarters tomorrow in terms of like playing consistently with a clock and try to get the under seven under four time

10:19out and just see where that goes to. But we're going to address this question here from Mac tomorrow. Shouldn't the starters already be ready? They've all played together last season. There isn't a new guy to adjust to that unit. Yes and no. Like the yes, they should be able to hit the ground running. And it does seem like that they're doing that. It does like one of the things that they talked about today. Cam Johnson looks very comfortable. Christian Brown looks very comfortable. Aaron Gordon was the guy who they shouted out at the beginning. Jamal Murray and Nicole Yokits are Jamal Murray and Nicole Yokits. So I don't think the starters are what the team is worried about at all. Those guys will definitely be ready to go. It's just about giving them like looks in practice throughout the season and making sure that they are fully adjusted to the kind of athleticism they're facing because I mean, there's a difference between going up against Bruce Brown and Tim Hardaway and like some of the other guys that Denver had in depth, Jalen Pickett for Jamal Murray. And it is like, all right, Cam Whitmore is the guy that you're having to get past every single time and he's 65230.

11:19Like it's just a different feel. On the other side, I have some questions about these guys and I think we're getting an idea of what the Denver Nuggets are also hoping for with a lot of these players. We'll talk about all that and more here. I locked on nuggets. Just don't look into the camera. Welcome to your most rewarding NFL season ever only on Fando. How rewarding are we talking more rewarding than a touchdown with time expiring more rewarding than an 18 point comeback, maybe even more rewarding than an alignment catching a touchdown. This season, Fando is making the excitement go beyond what happens on the field with the all new Fando rewards club featuring exclusive offers, surprises and more. Every week, check the Fando app to see what's waiting for you. Now, I can't wait, honestly. A touchdown with time expiring is tough to beat. An 18 point comeback even better.

12:21And if an offensive lineman catches a touchdown, I mean, that's pretty much the ultimate football reward. Make this your most rewarding. I'm going to say that I'm going to have to be a little bit more rewarding than a chance to touchdown. I mean, that's pretty much the ultimate football reward. Make this your most rewarding season ever with Fando, visit Fando.com to get started. We'll be back for more here and locked on nuggets. And we are back for the second segment here at Lockdown. I'm going to shout out to you all. Thank you all so much for joining us. And every day, also make sure you like, share, subscribe on the YouTube side. That way more more people listen to great content we made here at Lockdown. Nuggets all the way to 15,000 and make sure to give us a fast draw of you and apple eye to Spotify. That way more people listen to great content we made here at Lockdown. Nuggets y'all know what time it is. I'm so excited. The season is finally here in week 40 NFL. It's happening this week as well, Ryan Blackburn cannot wait.

13:21What are your early Broncos 49ers takes by the way? Broncos 49ers takes. I don't have that many. What I will say is like, I think the Niners are are legit this year. You think they look so good. Blackburn, he looks so good. And like, this could just be September, Brock, we'll see what happens with the, like, it gets colder weather rest of the year and pressure gets ramped up a little bit higher. But like, he looks amazing. He looks really good. And obviously, I will always have bias when it comes to Christian McAfry. So like, I'm rooting for that team over because we played together. I could say that. I have to clarify and I understand why. But I have to clarify. I think, I think George Kittle is, he might be my favorite tight and ever behind Shannon Sharp. I also think he's the best at a league pound for pound, like blocking and receiving the back he came back from in the Killy stair and he's already like hooping to start this year off. The 49ers are like my NFC team. I've always liked the 49er who doesn't, you know what I mean? Like the defensive they've had over the years, the offensive pieces.

14:23They're full of Colorado kids, Kyle Shanahan literally the head coach, like Fred Warner is the most fun middle linebacker to watch of the decade for sure. Like that dude is just unbelievable to watch in terms of how he impacts the game and how like how quickly he gets from spot to spot. Yeah. Y'all diversify whatever you like to because you know when the nuggets aren't doing so hot at times, especially on some of those days they lose to the Sacramento Kings, you know, you just, you just don't want to, you don't want to have to like be reliving that all the time. So it is good to be involved in other things as well. But look, I can't wait. I also think Ryan, there's been a lot of hype. We've talked about this, but it felt like there's more hype around Cam Whitmore than we necessarily had a conversation about could even just the, the conversations that are kind of happening with the team and what people are noticing about him and his game. I think people are hopeful that he can take a step forward with this roster and he can be a guy they can depend on. And I think the most ideal world for both the Denver Nuggets and for Cam Whitmore this

15:26year, it's actually that he ends up pricing himself out of Denver that he gets so he's so good this year. He gets about a $7 million two year deal or something like that. And he no kind of, he reminds me of a little bit is to be bay. Now, to be was a better player than Cam was at this point in time at the 50 ball with the pistons, but to be had the injury is obviously and then he kind of, you know, fell around the league a little bit who ended up obviously with the pelicans and then gets a really, really good deal with the New Orleans pelicans. But he was kind of a miscast for several different reasons. I don't think that was his fault out of Villanova, but I just think Cam Whitmore, man, he does the stuff he is supposed to do. And he really just continues to focus in on using the skills and gifts he has to the best of his ability within the keen construct. I actually think he can be a really, really important piece for them to share. He can be and one of the reasons why Cedique Bay worked out was because he had somebody who believed in him as much as their general manager did. It wasn't Joe Dumanars. He was the other guy. I'm blanking on his name. Troy Weaver.

16:26Troy Weaver, that's right. And so when you've got a guy like that who is always going to believe in you, who's always going to be in your corner, it gives you a little bit more confidence that you're going to have some runway. You're going to, like you can make mistakes. You can open it up, open it up a little bit and just trust that you're not going to be cut off from the legs. Like there's an opportunity there for sure. So I do think that the problem that I have with the idea of him breaking out with the nuggets is they have a specific way that they are going to try to run that second unit. And I think Adam would like to run that second unit. And he mentioned it yesterday. It was, hey, we're going to run Tyus Jones, Marvin Bagley. We're going to try to get out and transition a little bit. We're going to run to the corners, fill the lanes a little bit. And if that doesn't work in kind of a quicker pace, we're going to slow the ball down, give it to DeMar de Rosen and let him go to work. And so those are two drastically different things. He also talked about not necessarily knowing whether they want more offense or more defense around DeMar and what that's actually going to look like. So if they want more offense, then sure, yeah, Ken Whitmore is the right guy to have there

17:29because what he's going to do is he's going to hit some spotup jumpers off of the catch when when DeMar de Rosen draws two guys. But he's also going to be a guy who can back cut and who can run in transition and get you some easy buckets because of how athletic and how talented he is. The question is whether that's what the nuggets actually want or if they're going to go look for more of a defensive minded guy or somebody who's going to run some sets off ball like a Julian Strother type, like there's some different ways that they could go with it. Let me ask you this. So Alfred Jalogat is getting hyped a lot too because one of the things out of him and says he is just not getting screened. Like that's just that's a feature, right? The fact that you're able to he was the guy that Cam Johnson shouted out immediately when I asked him who stands out and like he's just like such a professional in terms of how he guards and like he says you could tell he played in Europe, which I think is a good compliment for these guys in terms of the what do you think that means like for the audience maybe I think it's just like an attention to detail on every single play

18:30and making sure that you are doing the fundamental things defensively and not allowing the easy back door stuff and not allowing like like cutting off as much of the easy stuff as you can. That might be wrong. Like I'm not going to want to put my words in Cam Johnson's mouth there, but like I do think that he sees somebody like Alfa Diallo as like, Oh, this is a smart dude who's really gifted defensively and could really help us on that defensive end. And so it kind of conflicts with the idea of somebody like Cam Whitmore who's extremely gifted and talented on the offensive end, but kind of needs more room to grow on that end. He needs a little bit more runway. So what do you think Adam and because I kind of think he defaults to the Alfa Diallo style when he's got a fundamental player in De Mar de Rosa and he's basing most of this around. How does this feel? And intrinsically what it feels like to me is the default for Adam is going to be Alfa Diallo with Yokech and then the default which are more Murray with non Yokech minutes going to be Cam Whitmore.

19:31Mostly mostly because it's like Jamal doesn't need necessarily more defenders, what he does need. Jamal wants to push the pace when Yokech is out. He's going to run. So if you give him as many people as possible that can run towards the rim, because Jamal, one thing he can do that he didn't he doesn't get a lot of opportunity to because he's never really had like a true finisher giving him bagley Whitmore and De Rosa as rim runners when he's in transition. I think that's going to make a huge difference for Jamal. And I think that's where he can use that ball handling ability. The ability just starts to stop and go at will and then on top of that, if he sees you running from the corner weak side when he's penetrating that he's going to throw it up to you and give you an opportunity. I actually think that Cam Whitmore because Nicky be a really good chemistry with Jamal Murray. I like it. I also think that there's a world where Jamal could play next to somebody like Atayas Jones or Ryan M. Hard just because he's six four. We've talked about wanting to play off ball a little bit more with Jamal and kind of take some of that burden off of him. So if you're playing multiple ball handlers at the same time, there's an opportunity to

20:33do it. What I think we're kind of getting to is like, there are a lot of guys that I think deserve playing time that deserve a little bit of runway. And the way that the nuggets are going to play, we talked about this a little bit previously. They're like one of the ways they're trying to do this transition defense stuff is they're trying to play like really hard up to touch immediately after the opposing team collects a defensive rebound. And that's hard to do. And so you have to play very hard for 94 feet in that situation and trying to make sure that you are taking care of everybody else. You're almost sacrificing yourself in some ways. So the way that they're trying to implement that, to me, what that means is you can't just play nine. You can't just play nine players on a consistent basis. You have to play more and rotate some of these guys and make sure that everybody's getting opportunities and getting reps and be in a situation like, okay, see where you've got to get 11 or 12 guys some opportunity so you could play that hard all the time.

21:34Yeah. So on the other side, I want to finish this conversation and I want to talk specifically about some things in turning off of Diallo because there's a world where he's better than I'm projecting him to be in my mind. And I think I've been a little reticent with that, but not because he's not good, but just like, you know, I have no idea. I've never really seen him play. But based on what you're seeing in practice and what we're hearing, you could be a little bit of a showstopper on the defensive end, but we'll have to obviously work to that more. We'll talk about all that more. And lots of nuggets. I'm getting my coffee. Well, we don't have that long. There's not a headbreak. Well, welcome back to lots of nuggets. Thanks, shout out to you all. Thank you. I'll send one for joining us each and every day. Ryan Blackburn in his brand new bachelor's pad that he has has gone to get some coffee for those that are listening on the audio side. You can't hear us at all. I don't know what he's doing, but hopefully he's putting some cream and sugar in his coffee. So chat, I'm really curious about Alphadiyalo because if you hear some of the words that are

22:35coming out of the Denver Nuggets locker room and interviews, Alphadiyalo is looking very good and he looks like a guy that can end up being not as transformational defender in a all in B.A. defense standpoint. But specifically with Denver, there's some things that he can do, I think at a really high level. And I think it's actually noted here, actually want to play your clip that you had with Cam Johnson because I think that's going to be another important context for some folks that might not have got a chance to actually get a chance to listen to him at all. So this is what Cam Johnson had to say when Ryan Blackburn and a man himself asked a question. Because you guys turned over the bench show a lot. Yeah, we're putting this past off season. We're about some of the other guys that you enjoy competing against so far in the first three days. I really like Alphadiyalo. I really like Alphadiyalo. You can see that maturity he has from his professional experience. He's a menace on defense. Absolutely menace on defense. Very much accountable in the right place. An offense can knock down shots. I really like what I've seen from him so far.

23:38Racing Trayvon are really good young players. Trayvon's athleticism, he's all over the place. Runs the floor, offensive rebound, same at Bryce. And those guys have been doing really well. Tyas has been playing really well too. And so with Marvin, they've all looked pretty good. And you can tell that they've been putting a lot of work. I'm with Marvin a little bit over the summer. So I see some of his work times. He's definitely a worker. Yeah, Marvin Bagley shot out as well. Tyas showed shot out as well. This team has a higher defensive upside than I think we and media is giving him credit for. But I think really it's with Yokeh, obviously, it's back of people's mind like how much energy can Yokeh spend defensively. Now we'll say when he's engaged on those big games, you know, rockets, thunder, spurs, whatever, their defense can be really good. It's just going to be versus Memphis. And whoever is he going to bring that same level of effort. But if he's able to play hard and word and us are, when he does play super hard in the defensive end, I do think it's going to matter him having this amount of length

24:39and stuff around him. But again, that's where the floor and ceiling, because they have been very specific right. They are not playing around. Yeah. We are working on our defense. We know what's a problem. We've identified as a problem. They believe an opposite of where Ryan is being 20 second is not, it's not on the table for us because that is inexcusable based on what happened last year. And I guess Ryan, a question is, do you believe that the changes they're going to make are going to be enough or do you feel like intrinsically this team kind of what you're seen to be getting at? There's just maybe a little lazy night tonight defensively. So I think that the plan last year initially would have had them better than 20 second. I do think that I think that the way that they played and the way that they started the year, like there was there was a stretch where they were top five defensively for like the first 10 to 12 games. And they gave, okay, that's probably not sustainable, but that's not a bottom 10 defense either. Like there's some middle ground there in terms of, okay, could this be the 10th to 15th

25:43to like 17th best defense in that general range? Of course. And then they got hurt. And then they changed their approach. And then they had Jamal and Nikola carry a whole bunch on the offensive end. And like it's really hard to play defense when you're doing so much on the offensive end. And then they got hurt too. Not Jamal, but Nikola. And when you're always kind of running that hamster wheel of just recovery and trying to be in that situation of, okay, it's really difficult to kind of gain some momentum back. Then they just never were able to. There was never another moment in time where they were better that like they were 14th in defensive rating in the month of February where they actually had a pretty good net rating, but there are four and seven that you're like in that month because they had some ugly clutch losses and things like that. So I do think that there's a world where they figure some of the stuff out. There's a world where it happens. I think that they have to like, like I said in the second segment, play more players. You have to play more guys and you can't just fall back on the same nine or 10 guys.

26:46And what it really gets down to is the same six or seven guys because they're just your identity and like those guys, they're always going to feel in those situations like they've got the world on their shoulders. And if there's no way for them to rely on that second unit on a consistent basis, then they stop playing as hard on the defense event because they've got to save themselves for the offensive end in a lot of these cases. So if the if the second unit can provide some kind of wiggle room for that, then I absolutely think that they can be better than what I'm projecting defensively. I'm just not sure if I believe that the plan is going to go according to plan. What do you feel like the best way is to get Yoke's rest because Yoke's Murray and Brown seem like the ETS want to say these are your three highest players they're going to have right? It is the easiest way to do it. Stop playing in the full first quarter. Stop just just just say look, we have to get you out by the three minute mark of the

27:47first quarter. Sure. In case then so be it. If you lose the end of the first quarter, so be it. Bring him back a little bit earlier in the second quarter, but the thing that they do oftentimes or have done in the past is they play him the full first quarter and the full third quarter. And then they'll bring him back in with about seven minutes to go in the second or fourth quarter. And suddenly he's playing 38 minutes a game. And that is unsustainable for a player that has so much of a burden that as he does, that is going to turn 32 this year. Like nobody has ever had a higher level of burden on the offense event than him in NBA history at the center position ever. And so when you have that and you have that level of concentration they have to do and you've been doing this for six straight years, which is what he's done. You just you have to let go in some other ways. So find ways to get him more rest early on in games. Don't allow him to just have to carry the team in the first quarter and the third quarter

28:48all the time. It's a bad plan. I also think to this is where the scheme thing comes in. Adam and you have look, I saw Dallas and Washington making use of Bagley at center. Yeah. Like you got enough players, deros and Bagley, Brown, Cam, Julian, a straw through Cam with more than not including Jamal Marin are important. Like in addition to that, by the way, like you don't just have to play one backup center. You could play one backup center and then another one right after that. And like if it's, hey, we're going to play, we're going to play Marvin Bagley then the first quarter like like we always do. Marvin had a really bad run. There are some things that he hasn't done that he didn't do well. We're going to bring in DeRan at the start of the second quarter. We're going to see what he can give us instead. And that could just be the way that they decide to go about it. If like if Marvin doesn't execute, if he doesn't do what they want it, if he does, then that's great. That means he even just for me. I'm doubling up on link.

29:48Like I'm going to play Bagley and Holmes together if need be and then I'll bring Gorton and Jones will play next to Yokeys. That way you're always giving Yoke each one of those players that knows how to play with them. But also like you give him another additional space here next. I also think that staggering Gordon is a good idea. Like I agree. We've talked about this before that like you know what would really benefit if Aaron Gordon is the uplifter for the team in so many different ways and especially for the Yokeutch lineup. You can't just have them play with Yokeutch. I think that is too much and what it comes down to is then he feels like such an overwhelming need to be the best version of himself all the time for the Joker minutes. What he could do and what the Nuggets probably should do is play him five minutes in five minute stretches for three separate stretches and just like not overburden him, not overtax him at this point. But like first five minutes of the game, next five minutes he's off. Then he plays five minutes on. He takes off four minutes and then he plays the last five minutes of the half and that's how you get the 30 like there's is a pretty easy way to kind of break it up.

30:52And then it means that he's uplifting the lineup that's next and he's playing next to Marvin Bagley or DeRon Holmes or whoever on that second unit and giving them an extra boost that I think they clearly need. Yeah, I just like I said for me, Adam, and you just you have so much at your disposal. I'm just going to play every not everybody. But you know, again, you got six players off the bench. You can for sure let go, let go do some things. Just do it, especially at the forward spot, Aaron Gordon and Yoke, there need to be nights for like they're not coming back into a five minute mark in the second quarter because like look, they have dirt in their own flow. They figure this thing out and we want to let them build that lead or hold that lead or get back in the game and then Yoke, you come back and you can be that final pop. And I really feel a philosophical standpoint. I asked you this couple of months ago, I believe should Yoke, it's this year, even from a strategy standpoint, should he be more focused on, I want to lead the NBA and scoring as opposed to leading the NBA in the system this year because I do think there is something to Yoke,

31:55if you're more of a scoring engine more often and so he's if you're a 28.29 point to game anyway, that's a lot obviously. But if you're a scoring mode where you're like average of 32 and a half points a game, I do think that changes a little bit how deep it is defending you because now some of the other stuff is going to be open for everybody else on the court as well. So it's a strategy thing, but I do wonder, can you spend more energy kind of streamlining certain things as opposed to trying to do everything all at once. But again, that's just like a question I've asked myself because the teams are going to load up on you in any way and say, hey, we're just going to let you beat us as a score. Ben Killam, you know, there's an opportunity to do it. And like I think that there should be more times that he tries to press that button early in a game. Yeah. Because if there is like one of the things that he tries to do and he does this in such a non selfish way and it's it's why everybody values him as much as they do. It's like he, like Michael Porter said this consistently, he could score 40. He could score 50 if he wanted to. But what he was consistently trying to do was remove his own scoring opportunity so that

33:00everybody else could get going. And so everybody could be a part of things. And there is a benefit to that, especially for a team that like has been labeled as very, very unselfish. I don't know if it's necessarily selfish for Joker to press that button when he's being single covered. And when when the opposing team is not necessarily willing to double him because of how good his passing is and because of the opportunity that everybody else gets from that, like it's what you're talking about. You force the double team. You force them to send to and to send to early enough because he is going to work on the block or he's like at the elbow and at the the free throw line extended and thinking, you know what? I'm going to just go to work on you and there's nothing you could really do to stop me unless you bring a second body. And then that's where everybody gets their opportunities. But like he doesn't think I don't think he thinks about it that way. I'm not going to pretend and say that I know exactly how he approaches this. He just never seems like that's what his first modus operandi is.

34:01And as a result of that, like everybody does benefit from it and everybody does get a lot of the scoring chances from it. I don't know what like do you think it's harder work for him to like score more and just think it's just not the way he wants to play. Like, but it's not a one as in I can't do it because you've had some of the best scoring performances. He had the two best scoring performances last year in the NBA. Yeah, like, you know, 56 points versus the Timberlake and 17 points in overtime. And then he had a the 52 points in three quarters versus the Clippers last year. So like sick. Right. He got it, but it was sick. You know, like I can do he can do whatever he wants. I just think for Yoke, he's like, remember the Warriors game last year? Like when he first started, and he was just like, he had a triple double, but it was also like, just being able to do it. Yeah, super passive, but it was like, Yoke again in his brain is like. Super, super computer genius, right? Like he's one of the three smartest players ever. So I'm not like criticizing him. I'm just, you know, whatever. It's just like, all right, get everybody on the screen, screen, screen, screen, the relocate,

35:03relocate, D H O, relocate, relocate, you know, slide. I just think for Yoke, bro, get ball, boom, boom, bucket, boom, boom, bucket. And then for me, I think that changes up the pace of the game. You remember the New York next game? What was it? Was it four years ago in the first quarter? He had 20? Um, I don't remember how many years, but I know like they, they've really struggled with that New York team. But like, I remember that one, it was in Denver in New York, New York, New York, scoring and Joker scoring. And that was it. Yeah. Well, he, he just decided that like, I'm just going to, to do this, right? And I do think there's something to, and that's why I really, one thing I do enjoy about Shay is like, Shay's not an elite passer by any means. And, but he also knows who he is. And I just think there's something to like, I'm going to leverage everything that I got in my scoring bag to absolutely kill you at a minute of the floor. And I think Yoke is the best middle of the floor basketball players ever played. But it's like, he operates like a quarterback, like on a, on a wheel, you know, like, it's

36:03just like, all right, scoring blah, blah, blah, passing, but, I don't know. Just manning in terms of like, hey, I know you've got Marvin Harrison over there. I know you've got Dallas Clark over there, but Austin Colley's wide open because that's the right read for the playing. So we're going to throw it to Austin Colley a little bit. And it's, it's things like that. Yeah. That's going to do it for today's episode. That's right. Blackburn, I'm swipe it. Make sure y'all like share it. Describe it to five star view and apple items and Spotify. Y'all know what time it is. See you on the other side. That's a ball knowledge in this episode. Hmm.