2 Burst results for "Luca Brunson"
The Bill Simmons Podcast
"luca brunson" Discussed on The Bill Simmons Podcast
"Yeah. And I, I don't really know what that means for McCollum on that team. I know this time McCollum knew an extension, but you got his, basically got his replacement just sitting there and who could come in and probably put up 95% of the same stats, but he's on a rookie contract. So I don't know what that, that team is, that new Orleans team, they had a big win the other night. Like they, they're clearly something. I don't know if they're going to be able to stay out of their own way. They've had terrible injury luck. Like they've lost like almost their entire bench, but God damn they have so much talent. Like just to bring, Hawkins was like their 11th man and he can come in and have these 30 point games. But I, you know, he's, I, he was one of the fewers, like you could kind of see what he was going to be coming out of the draft. Like, all right, I know what this is. And then he's been even better than I thought. I said, you can just sprinkle him on everything. I compared him. I, you know, I was saying he, he's just like a food item that you can just put on everything. You're like, that tastes pretty good. That's great. Cause he just, he can shoot with movement. I mean, he's, his shot is fast. I think he's at like 36.7 on like, but on a huge volume. And I think that the point I made in the piece is that like he, I, I really think they could ramp him up in like a Miami Heat type way where his attempts could, he's proven that he can do it at a high volume. And if, if they ramp him up and start using him off ball even more, if Willie Green decides to like really hit the gas with that, you pass a point as a shooter where, you know, Steph and Klay obviously are like the benchmark for this, but you get in your mind like, Oh, this dude's crazy. Like he will shoot this ball. Like Duncan Robinson is the same way. Like Hawkins, I think is eligible to do that because I think he's, he can shoot it like that. I want to see him and Trey Murphy play together when Trey Murphy is back and, and fully healthy. Cause I think that would be a nuisance to guard. I like that dude. It's really so hard to come in as a two guard and do a Ray Allen imitation basically when you've been in the league for three weeks, it's crazy that he, they were able to rely on him like that. You had him eight, I would have had him seven. Um, you had a Hawk as nine. That's just shots fired at Scoot at that point. I like Hawk as, and he's, he's a very good role player for Miami and he's exactly as advertised and he's, he's kind of slid into their crunch times a little bit. It's like, yeah, you see all of a sudden you see there's three minutes left and he's kind of still out there. Um, but I think this would be your favorite player. I was teasing you about him. I didn't know if you were sour about it. And you're like, God damn it. No, I love them. I mean, they, you know, they did it again. They drafted the perfect guy for them. We'll see, you know, we'll see what the three point shooting ultimately that's, that'll be whether he stays on the floor or not in the big moments, but he's just, he knows where to go and what to do. And they always seem to have these dudes that that's the first thing you would say they know where to go. They know what to do. I would, I would not have scoot lower than him though, just because scoot had three bad games. And I just, I'm still, I'm buying, again, I'm buying everyone's scoot stock, uh, just quickly racing through the rest. You had Sasser at 11, Jesus Christ, where did this guy come from? He's like, came out of NBA central casting as a heat check third guard off the bench. He's like, he's a mix of 20 guys that we've seen succeed, right? It's like clearly a six man of the year candidate four years from now. And it's just instant offense. He just, he's, he's a guy who was like a big time dribble pull-up shooter and defender in college. He played at a program that like, he just, he likes to defend. He's, he's, he's a guy that looked a little smaller to me when I saw him in an NBA game. I was like, man, he looks really small, but he like, he's a smart, you know, when you have a big playmaker like Cade, you can play a score. I made like a, I made like a very, you know, a pump that breaks, nobody take this like one to one, but it's like, it's the, it's the Luca Brunson thing. You know, when you, when you have a bigger playmaker like that, you can put a guard size guy next to him. So, but he's, he's just been seamless. I think he's a steady. He'll take the Ivy spot. I feel like it'll take a lot of those Ivy minutes. Cause he's the more idealistic version of what you would want next to Cade. I think you're right. Sasser just there's crunch times and he's just out there. Take a big shots. You'd black number 12, my guy, Kabbalah number 13, who's definitely getting punched by Draymond at some point, Vazenkov number 14 fundamentals, he'll end up on the words in like three years. And then, uh, and then you had Amen Thompson at number 15 that Kula Bali, I almost feel like there should have been a 16 cause Kula Bali has done enough and I hate watching the wizards, but anytime I've watched them, I've, I've just been intrigued by him. And it just seems like he hustles, he's got a weird long athletic body and he's just clearly is like, all right, this keep an eye on this dude. I don't know if it'll happen this year for him, but it seems like he's getting more minutes at least. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's one that like, that's a totally valid, valid argument I've heard the most from Wizards fans. And I, they're not out, they're not out of bounds saying that to me. It's I like Kula Bali. Uh, there's a reason I call him Parisian Pippin. I'm a believer. Like he, he was the guy that was like right there that I was just like, I got to, do I need to go, uh, get this guy in on the list. Visinkov's a guy that could slide and I could see Kula Bali climbing on this list. He's, he's just, he's in that cluster of guys that the defensive upside, and you watch him out there and he doesn't look lost. You know, he's a guy who grew a lot. He's one of those kind of point guard size guys that grew late all at once. So he just has a nice processing kind of power. You hear that people, it's a nerdy way. He just thinks the game really well for, for, for a young guy. Really fun draft.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
"luca brunson" Discussed on The Bill Simmons Podcast
"Series might be flipping. And as it turned out, both of them were blowouts. It's just really hard to bid against Luca. That's a thing like if you had a lot of money on the suns tonight, if you're rooting for the suns in its 1610 Mavs and Luca's winking at people in the front row, you're just going, oh no. Oh God, but it doesn't what you said about the talent difference. You definitely feel it when they're down. You don't feel when they're home, but you feel it when they fall behind by 8 ten and then all of a sudden it just seems it's a little like what is happening Milwaukee if you take out Giannis and all of a sudden it's like pack on it and trying to beat people off the dribble and things like that. Yeah, it's the level of versatility in the role players. Talk about the bridges. When you see them get to the lane, pull up 8 foot or make a pass off a drive. It's like, none of the Mavs role players could do that. They're all in such little specialized compartments. And Milwaukee is the same kind of thing as like, these guys can only do one or two things. I talked about the telecast when Bullock or maxi or Finney Smith puts the ball on the ground. You're not sure what's going to happen. It doesn't happen very often. And so it's like, yeah, there's everything has to be going so well, whereas Phoenix bridges especially is a versatile play with a lot of dimensions to his game. And even 8. Yeah, true. The thing with when I think about this stuff with the role guys, that was why I was thinking that 2018 rockets team was a little similar to the 2022 maps. Where it was like, that what the planet is Luca or hardened in 2018. And then you have the second kind of playmaker guy who on that rockets team was Chris Paul and on this team is Brunson. And then all of these guys who basically have to feed off the planets, right? And they kind of can't sustain anything. Eric Gordon could create a little bit on that rockets team or more than a little bit. And I think Dinwiddie was supposed to be that guy for the Mavericks. But I don't know what happened. What happened to regular season didn't with these? He just gone? Yeah, he's been tough pretty much the whole playoffs. He's really not, I mean, it's obviously it is hard with how much Luca dribbles sometimes for other ball handlers. He's just not been good. And this funny you mentioned the rockets because I was thinking about that when we're talking about turning off the role players. And it needs like high level series, that's often the adjustment. I remember what the warriors and the rockets were like, these guys can't beat us. If we stay on our men, it's just hard and Paul, we're going to win that matchup. We have more stars than that. We're just not going to let you don't want to let the top players get the points and the assists. You can turn off one of the two. It's a huge advantage in a series like this, for sure. Our friend Harald bob had a thing about the possession length that Phoenix is basically taking 19 seconds for a make. They're really like, there's a deliberate deliberateness to them. And a miss was 14.1 seconds. Dallas, make was 15.8 seconds. And amiss was 11.5 seconds for them. So they're trying to play a little bit faster. And you saw it too in the Dallas games. When Phoenix is missing shots, the Mavs can run and get like an open three really fast, early in the clock. And they'll just show us the Phoenix making shots, the house can get those shots of transition. It's hard for the rollbacks. So Dallas, do you have them below Milwaukee? If you're just talking about, we're just ranking all these teams, right? I think the Boston Milwaukee Phoenix, I think would be the three. And then Golden State is kind of right there. I think Dallas would you have them below Golden State right now? Yeah, I mean, Malone Milwaukee, for sure, and walk he's got the best player in the game. So you'd have them probably 5. Would you have them above Memphis right now? Well, I guess without job obviously, I tend to change this thing. I mean, Dallas for sure is I always say as the least overall talent of any of these teams left. They've got one exceptional player and a bunch of guys and roles. I don't think it's very comparable to talent level. They have compared to any of the other teams. What would happen to game 6? I have a feeling they went. It's just so it feels like a 7 gamer to me. I mean, I think they've got a chance for sure. The way the crowd gets into it, and then Brunson's playing better and better. And I think there's a couple more justice in maths can make. Number one, Dwight Powell's got to go. They've been playing them for like 8, 9 minutes, and they're getting absolutely killed in those minutes. I may find the number for you. I was laughing about this. Oh, it's like in the -30 range something for the minus again today. And like 30 minutes. It's like every game they're getting absolutely killed in those first 8 minutes. And that's an easy adjustment. It's game 6. He probably shouldn't be playing at all. And I wasn't part of that, just trying to figure out how much you can do with cleaver. Keeping him on the court with the foul trouble and all that stuff. What's the maximum? Somewhere between 30 and 33? Probably, yeah. You're trying to limit max using minutes. But it's like, all right, it's game 6 door died as roll with ice on it. And it's like, okay, we've played Powell as long as we can. He's got to go. And I think we're really digging deep right now. But they're going to need like 5 Frank Miller keynote actually play well. They just need one action. Wow. I'm taking deep fried now. What a moment for our Knicks fan Friends. Frankie nicotine might have a chance to impact the series. The crazy thing kos kept all his stock. He's still only 23, which I think is bonkers. I mean, like he's like 30. He's 23. He wasn't, I think it was the same draft. He was the same graph theory before Luke. I mean, he's had some moments in the regular season. He is, yeah. I always kind of was like hoping he could be like the Alex Caruso, like that kind of player next to Luca. And he's like, he theorized, it's just like purely on theory. He theoretically gives you that versatility we're talking about. We're like, okay, he can defend, maybe shoot. Maybe we could dribble a little bit. You need that extra you need some more juice. You need a guard and give you extra juice. I love to see more Luca Brunson Dinwiddie lineups go even smaller..