A highlight from Denver Sweeps L.A. & LeBron's Future

Automatic TRANSCRIPT

Sports capital of the world, manics. What doesn't Miami have going for right now, the Panthers are up three zero in the Conference Finals, the heater up three on the Conference Finals. Messi is going to sign with inter Miami. I think the Marlins are leading the MLB in one run win games. This is it. This is where it's all happening. I think we had an F one race here a few weeks ago. You can't ask for much more. All right, we're going to talk a little bit about the heat Celtics series. I don't know. I'm not Rohan was going to throw it in the welcome to Miami song from 25 years ago. I just decided to move past that. I just thought whatever he was talking about. My eyes kind of glazed over. Checked out. I didn't care. You just sports capital of the world, whatever, whatever. I was Rwanda. I was sitting there. I was sitting next to Nick for Dell from ESPN before game one or during game one of the Celtic seat series. And like that first half is going on, the Celtics are rolling and they're up by double digits. They could have not even before. And I was thinking about texting you being like, there's no way Miami beast is watching. There's no way. And then the whole thing just completely unravel from there. So we'll talk more about that series specifically. The buzz around Joe Missoula, the Celtics coach, who is on thin ice, it seems like right now in Boston, but I want to start talking about what we saw in Los Angeles on Monday night. The nuggets, your nuggets Rohan, defeating the Lakers in four games, a tremendous performance in that game from Nikola Jokić, who has 30 points, a triple double, his 8th triple double in this postseason that moves him past Wilt Chamberlain on the list for the most triple doubles in a playoff. That's a decades old record that Nikola Jokić just zoom past. He still has at least four games to go to add to that list. We're going to get to the Lakers side of it specifically LeBron. But Denver has been one of those teams that has long believed it has been disrespected. That Nikola Jokić doesn't get the respect he deserves as a superstar player that they don't get the respect they deserve as one of the great teams in the NBA. Rohan did Denver prove something in this series with the Lakers. Yeah, I definitely think that they are turning the tides in terms of the national discourse about them. The awareness about them, you know, I went to Denver last march to write about kind of jokic, but also this phenomenon, right? Like jokic one, when he won his second MVP, he still didn't get a Christmas Day game. This a team that is not really, you know, put front and center by the NBA in many ways. And I think that they realize that. And when I talk to Michael Malone that day, you know, he's like, listen, it's not a rallying cry. We're not expecting to be the first segment on first take every day, but, you know, we also think that we have one of the best players in the NBA and we're not getting any kind of respect for that. And I think when you're in a matchup with the Lakers and you play the way jokic did, I think this is the first time a lot of casual fans, a lot of people who are even bigger NBA fans just don't get a chance to watch the nuggets play, right? Like they play they're kind of more of a West Coast team, their games are on late. They don't have a ton of national games. They had a Christmas Day game this year, but it wasn't the marquee one, so I definitely think that they are starting to not only win over fans, but even people who are like, why did jokic when two MVPs, that was an analytics MVP, the nerds wanted him that, et cetera, the fact that he's had this, it's a historic playoff run. He's averaging a triple double. There's something I'm probably going to write about. We're obviously in a little bit of an era where stats are higher than they've ever been before. But you could put his playoff run up with the best of KTs, the best of steps, Lebrons, and you name you name the NBA great. He's right up there with any of them. So I definitely think that I don't know how much longer Malone's gonna be able to play that nobody respects this card because I think a lot of people are gonna pick them to win the finals no matter who they're playing and I think a lot of people now are seeing why jokic won those two MVPs. Well, the nobody respects jokic card never really made a lot of sense. He won two straight MVPs. You are respected. You are noticed by the voters. Herring, I look at the nuggets as being a proof of concept of a couple things. One, the draft works. Like if you draft well, you are going to have success. They draft a call to jokic in the second round. That was as brilliant a pick as it was lucky, but they get him to be the tent pole of that team. They draft Jamal Murray. They draft Michael Porter junior when Michael Porter junior had about a dozen red flags around him because of that back and they stuck by him and he was excellent. It has been excellent during these playoffs. There are testament to the process, the draft process and seeing that play out in developing players internally.

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