Chapter 1: What are the holiday plans for the hosts?
All right, welcome to the NBA Daily Morning Shootaround. We are live on YouTube. We got dogs in the house.
Not my dog. We do. I'm not going to call her over. She left, but yeah.
That's why you have to have a small dog. Because small dogs, they just have to go wherever you tell them to.
I'm Dave DeFore. That's Zena Keita. Espera Henney, you just heard. No Andrew Schlecht today. Yep. Christmas Eve. How's it going, guys? It's going well. Having a jolly holly Christmas, yeah? Yeah. You guys got family in town? How are you guys doing the holidays?
I am the family finally in town. I am staying in the Bay and I'm so excited to be at home.
Yeah. Yeah. Most of my family is, is always in town for Christmas. So we ended up doing, doing, you know, the holidays and whatnot with the parents. It's good that our, both of me and my wife's parents live next to each other. Not next, not like neighbors, but they're very close. So we can kind of like two birds, one stone it, you know? Right. But yeah, it's good.
yeah um i'm gonna walk my dog in the rain i'm assuming on christmas look this whole it never rains in southern california thing uh it gets me every winter and we've got just four days of rain coming like historic rain so i'm i'm excited to hunker down for that um speaking of uh hunkering down Christmas day, bunch of games. We got five games tomorrow morning, Christmas morning.
We've got our Christmas day preview. It's me and Andrew and S we go through the games. We've got a nice gift box from the NBA that was highlighting various games. So we went through the box and talked about the games quite a bit. Had a fun time. Zena, any, any thoughts on the Christmas day games before we get to the mailbag?
I'm excited for the Warriors to get a nice little reunion. I think it's a perfect timing after everything that's been going on with the Warriors this week. They need a little family reunion, and Clay is the perfect energy to inject into that. But no, honestly, after...
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Chapter 2: What are the highlights of the upcoming Christmas Day NBA games?
Guys, I just got Invisalign, so if you're hearing me lisping on the camera... Oh, don't worry.
Invisalign doesn't sponsor the show, though.
No, they don't. But I'm excited for it, but I'm just saying, if you hear that. And of course, the film, I have to say, has three S's in it. But yeah, This Christmas, it's such a good family story. It's got great singing. It's got a lot of heavy hitters, especially... Black community. And it's great from 2007. And little Chris Brown's character, Baby, is trying to secretly become a singer.
And it's hilarious because obviously he can sing. But no, there's so many different storylines within this family. And it kind of perfectly plays out. There's comedy. There's some sad stories. There's some various secrets that kind of come to light in the movie throughout the family. And yeah, it's just a good old time.
Mine are pretty basic. You know, the classics. It's a Wonderful Life. I think it's an amazing movie.
Oh, wonderful movie. That's the one I was going to say right now. For lack of better words, yes.
Especially, you know, if you happen to share my politics, it really is kind of an amazing movie. And, you know, and Die Hard. Just two classic Christmas movies. I agree. Watch Die Hard the other night.
Die Hard is absolutely a Christmas movie.
No, they made it as a Christmas movie. It's not even a debate. It's funny that it comes up. I gotta rewatch that. Just because it's not Santa Claus saying yippee-ki-yay. I would even say the second one is also a Christmas movie. Which actually, that works, by the way. What if it was, instead of John McClane, what if it was Santa Claus doing yippee-ki-yay?
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Chapter 3: How do teams approach the concept of tanking in the NBA?
A lot of people asking, you know, about tanking so far. Obviously, it's a big, big story that came out that the NBA is going to try to solve this problem that they're looking for the guy who created. And we're going to figure this non-existent problem.
So I feel like teams have to tank. It is a part of the life cycle. I know we hate it and I know it sucks and et cetera, et cetera. And we've talked about this a bunch of times, but you kind of have to tank in order to get results. The franchise changing talent. And I know I bet you there's people right now in the comments saying, well, the Mavs didn't tank. They just, you know, they got lucky.
They got Cooper flag. The Hawks didn't tank. They got lucky. They got Zachary to say, I think that's true in some cases. But if the Wizards want a franchise-changing star, they need to suck, and they need to suck bad for a few seasons in order to get an opportunity to get a Darren Peterson or a Cam Boozer or whoever because those guys aren't walking through the door in Washington.
You can't do it on the honor system of just like, oh, no, we're actually this bad, right? This is why the rosters look the way they do. It's like why the Brooklyn Nets are built the way that they are. Those players don't tank. Organizations do. Absolutely. The way that they build rosters.
And so, look, again, if you incentivize losing, you're always going to have teams that lose on purpose, period. But you also always need a loser. And they're bad teams, though. That's the thing. Nobody's tanking a good team.
Yeah.
Period. Yeah. But we have seen teams tank out of the playoffs or the play in actually here in the last few years. Yeah. I think that's a concern, right? Why are you not trying to compete for the postseason? Anyway. All right. Let's get to the questions. DK 42 from the discord asks, what would your ideal lottery layout look like? Would it be flat odds?
No repeat top four picks the, the, what we have now. Do you have some new idea? We're going to make a change? I know, S, you've thought about this so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's hyper into the draft. Because I do like the draft. I don't think the whole soccer system could work where it's a free market and everybody just gets to draft whoever they draft and sign whoever they sign. I don't think that would work in the NBA. The big markets would just have the advantage.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the NBA lottery system?
So I think the teams that are bad and naturally bad, so I'm looking at the Wizards, I'm looking at the Nets, who have gotten themselves in this situation here. Yeah. Those teams need to win the lottery. And so my case here is instead of making it even odds, is give those teams a higher percentage at this thing. So it used to be 25% for the top three picks or top three odds.
Give them 25% again, but also incorporate the rule that you can't be in the top four two years in a row. Why do they need to win the lottery? What got them there?
What if I, what if this was my plan? Well, this is my, what if I was like, I got to win the lottery guys. I got to go out. I got to win the power ball. Otherwise I'll never be able to make it. Well, you would tell me, go get a job.
Go get a job. This is fair, but I think to ensure parity is, the league is going to need to give a star player to every single team over the course of a period of time. But I think the biggest thing is that we want to discourage intentional losing. We don't want teams to be tanking, but there are some teams that aren't trying to lose that are still losing.
And that is why I think that let's introduce... actually looking at how teams are competing, point differentials. Let's say two teams missed the playoffs. Who in the last month were they losing games on purpose versus competing and losing games? Or maybe they won eight of their last 15 versus the other team that won one game. Okay, you're competing. You're trying.
You just still unfortunately suck. That's okay. You were competing. We're going to actually raise your odds because of that. So it's still going to be the non-playoff teams.
Oh, we need a formula.
I feel like there could be a formula where there's still not a mathematical formula, a non-playoff teams. Those are automatically in the pool, but then there's tears to it. And you're looking at the people that are at the very bottom, but how do they compete at the end? What's that port differential? Like, what are those, those matchups looking like?
Um, and then from there, you then have some sort of formula that helps increase your odds because you are competitive, but this, this checks a lot of boxes.
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Chapter 5: What new trends are emerging in NBA strategies this season?
Okay. Well, kick us off. Yeah. I want to look this rookie class. This is a little bit of a cop out. This rookie class has more all NBA level players than any rookie class I can think of. Yeah. Yeah. I'm shocked. And like the number four pick, being the guy who looks like he's the front runner for rookie of the year. out of nowhere, you know, Cooper flag obviously is just breaking rookie records.
It's, it feels like every single night. What was it? S 33, nine and nine last night, youngest player ever to have those stats. Um, This rookie class, I've been extremely impressed with. I feel like they've added new all-stars this season, it feels like. It's a lot of new players that you have to pay attention to. Unlike last year, which you didn't, to be fair.
I mean, it was a revolving door of main characters in the rookie class last year. And this year, it just feels like this class is just overwhelming. Even Derek Queen, who... We kind of got to a little late. I think we've all fallen in love with the way that he plays. That's right. That's a really good one.
My favorite new thing is the rookie class. That's a really good one. I don't know that mine is a new one, but I think that the league is... reverting back or turning back and being like, you know what? I'm so sorry that I wasn't paying attention to you. Let me bring you back. And that's double big lineups.
I'm loving the size that you're seeing across the league just from, and being able to see off course post being able to stretch the floor, et cetera. But I feel like the Warriors for a while dominated the, have one big, that's a true big, and then have a bunch of, guard-like or, you know, wings that can play alongside of Stephen Curry, guards, basically small ball.
And now we're seeing a nice little reversion to like old school NBA of, you know, Stephen Adams and Alfred Changoon, Isaiah Hartenstein and Sheck Holmgren. Like, I mean, it's just been so many different, bigs, big lineups around the NBA that I'm like, okay, I'm a fan of this.
I mean, I think Cleveland had a little bit of it last year with Evan Mobley and Jared Allen being really loud about that double big lineup, but This year, more teams are tapping into size. And I mean, we just watched Dallas last night. I think Denver still doesn't, they don't have the talent to be able to have a double big lineup.
But even size, I mean, Jonas Valanciunas being in Denver, I really like that as a backup for Jokic. So yeah, as a person that's big on bigs, I like that the NBA is like putting some respect on size again.
Yeah, it's always kind of funny because you look at the when we joked about this a couple days ago, but you look at the Warriors and the Warriors are one of the only teams that haven't leaned in on this size phenomenon that's happening. And it kind of feels like they're being left behind in this. Yes. Right. Yes.
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Chapter 6: How are injuries affecting team performance this season?
They have a finals run in them. So yeah, Nick, good.
I love that. I got one more new.
Oh, I was going to say Lawrence field in the, in the chat on YouTube mentioned the high press. And I should say, I'll point you to Fred Katz. Fred Katz over at The Athletic last week, he wrote a story about how the high press is actually dying. Yeah, there's numbers are way down.
So, you know, again, like things, things that we see early on in an NBA season, like a lot of times, like you'll see referees calling moving screens for the first 20 games. And then that goes away. I think the high press is one of those. It will come back for the playoffs. Teams were working on it early. And I think that what we've seen is an increase in that in the playoffs.
From the Pacers two years ago, picking up 75 feet up to obviously what we saw last season. So the high press, I'm guessing we'll see it in high leverage moments, but it was more an early season. I think working out the kinks sort of thing. All right. From deleted user and then a bunch of letters. I don't know if this person deleted their account. I don't know if this is just...
Anyway, what do you guys think of the idea of either choosing to inbound the ball or to take two free throws after being fouled in the bonus? It could solve the HACA, you know, whoever. We got to come up with something that's not HACA. But it could solve the intentional fouling. Like, you know, I don't want to watch...
a free throw contest between mitchell robinson yeah and you know the washington wizards for instance they stink so what what would you guys do would you would you like the idea of being able to take the inbound to me i'll tell you this as a coach uh the inbound is a great way to have more turnovers i don't really want to do that i'd rather take the points Hit your free throws? Yeah.
I would like a solution also for adding on to it the foul up three stuff at the end of the game. Well, we'll talk about that after. I've got a follow-up for you. Okay.
Yeah. But in this instance, the intentional fouling? I'm with the... I'm with the option, the optionality. I think that is going to be the answer to hack of whatever, fouling up three. All of it, I think, needs to have some level of a risk component to it, some sort of strategy of assessing the risk. What you're talking about, Dave,
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Chapter 7: What changes could be made to improve NBA officiating?
If you foul up three, it's two shots plus the ball.
So what happens in a league where defenders already cannot play defense? So now we're just saying, see, now we're going the other way, guys. See, this is why this is a hard problem to have.
It's a spirit of the game.
I agree with you there. It's a spirit of the game rule that they need to adjust. But also you're going to have to have the referees and NBA owners can't stand this, but you're going to have to have the referees
Make decisions.
Be guys who know basketball and say, hey, I'm interpreting the rule like this. It's an intentional foul. Right. It is a harder problem to solve than it looks. And I know that I've been like leading the charge on that. I'm not saying it's going to be an easy one to fix. Period. Europe, I mean, we can look at what they're doing.
But they need to fix it.
It has to be fixed for the game. I mean, it's much more fun.
But don't you think that if a team knows that they're going ā if they don't play impeccable defense and they do intentionally foul, that they could potentially not only get two shots but also give the ball away? You are going to be ā I mean, going back to fundamentals, slide your feet, hands up, like ā Your butt's going to be down to the ground.
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Chapter 8: Which teams might be relocated or shut down in the NBA?
Because everybody thinks of SGA, unfortunately. That's funny. For me, honestly, it's Jalen Brunson. Jalen Brunson, I was going to say.
The two of them immediately come to mind.
Hey, hey, hey. I'm not the SGA foul baiter guy. Don't throw it on me.
What was the term that was thrown out there during the finals? I don't want to repeat it here. All right, guys, we got a question here. from YouTube. If you're listening to the show on audio version, thank you for listening. Give us a five-star review. If you want to watch, hey, we smile a lot on YouTube. Yeah, we're hanging out over on our YouTube channel.
All right, guys, from Shaft1519, question, if you could shut down two teams and change their location, Who would be shut down, and where would you relocate them? So, okay, this is just moving teams. This is not shutting down teams, but if I was shutting down teams, man, I think probably the Pelicans and the Wizards. Maybe the Hornets.
What, the Wizards, Washington? Maybe the Hornets. I feel like, yeah. Washington should have a team.
I just, look, I would change them back to the Bullets, but, you know. That's, yeah.
I know.
Rebounding Owls, man. Rebounding Owls. I don't know. I mean, the Pelicans and probably the Hornets. I feel bad, man. Oh, not the Hornets. No.
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