On today’s super-special Podcast episode, we bring on ESPN Truehoop Founder Henry Abbott to talk about all kinds of things. We talk about Contraction threats and if they have teeth, commiserate with Henry about Brandon Roy and see if there’s anything to learn there when it comes to extending Paul. We then move on to talk about “love of the game”, the Sloan Conference, McNamara loses again when he tries to refute stats and rely on the Eye test, and lastly, we talk about how the Western Conference will shake out and which teams are dangerous. McNamara is wrong there too. It’s a fun an intelligent conversation, mostly because there’s much less of me.
And yes, that’s a lot of stuff. So the podcast is very long. It’s fantastically worth it, though, you NBA junkies.
Please don’t forget to Donate, if you get a chance!
8 responses to “In the NO Podcast Episode 24: Chatting with an Abbott”
LMAO!!! “Dunk that shit!!!”
Yeah, hilarious.
Who knew Mr. McNamara could be funny?
Definitely. Dunkdatshit! I feel CP3’s pain, not having a reliable lob partner on this team. Why couldn’t they just give us a shot at Gerald Wallace? DeAndre Jordan or somebody? JaVale McGee can be turned into a real basketball player, I’m sure he can. Somebody who can dunkdatshit. Is that too much to ask? The best table setter in the game and we can’t find anybody who can hop on a chair and go get it? Our top guy could walk away next year because he can’t find anybody to dunkdatshit, in a league that has a bad reputation as all dunking, all the time. It’s really kinda amazing.
The podcast was the best yet. I read Abbott’s article and his stats confirm my recollections as a longtime situational playoffs Lakers fan (mostly out of hatred for Boston and San Antonio). Since you did this podcast before Kobe’s latest end-of-game ball-hogging act, it kinda puts the exclamation point on his case. The Lakers are 90% aura and 10% luck at the end of games, and it wasn’t Kobe that got them there. It was people like Magic against Boston in 87, and Fisher against San Antonio in 2004 and Horry about a dozen times. When Kobe had his first chance in the spotlight in an iso at the end of the 5th game of the semifinals against Utah in ’97, he choked then, and has gotten way too much credit for a handful of buzzer-beaters since then. In the 2010 playoffs it was Ron Artest’s psychiatrist who actually won game six of the Phoenix series and game seven against Boston, but it went down as Lakers “Clutch,” when in fact it was a total fluke that the ball even got to Artest in those moments. How Kobe’s end-of-big-game reputation survived that finals game seven meltdown is not really clear. The Lakers’ last shot instructions should be “Kobe, passdatshit.”
As far as fears of contraction, why didn’t anybody think to make Larry Ellison King of Bacchus or something this year, so he could buy the team as a hobby and agree to keep it here?
Really good show guys. Keep up the good work.
If $tern contracted Toronto, Minnesota in the East and Sacramento and Golden State in the West, quite frankly I don’t think true NBA fans would care or notice.
Separately, I think Abbot’s home brew hard cap system is 8 steps away from communism. On paper it sounds good, but in real life certain clubs would benefit from others clubs contractual agreements, despite having nothing to do with the transaction. Mind you, I say this with all due respect to the god father of the True Hoop Network. He has exposed the charlatan that is Kome Bryant, and I have used him as a reference for various debates throughout the blogosphere. Nonetheless, I think his home brew hard cap is flawed due to it’s blind ripple effect on clubs that have no signature on an opposing club’s agreement.
Minnesota is in the West. Maybe you mean Milwaukee?
And what ripples and effects are you talking about? I’d really like to know. It’s just not very clear what you mean.
As far as communism goes: His system isn’t that much different than now, other than the only a few teams will be able to go over the tax. The teams under the tax already get paid. Fewer teams would be over but pay more per dollar over, more teams would be under the tax line and cut that money up into smaller pieces. I don’t see a big difference, other than reducing hope across the Association, of not the last vestiges of parity.
The NBA is a cartel. Analyzing with the free market system folks half-learn in Econ 101 just doesn’t cut the proverbial mustard.
And if the Miami experiment isn’t the first salvo in the proletariat revolution, then I don’t know what is.
Herr Marx has quite a bit to say on the issues afoot in the NBA. Don’t confuse this with what Ulyanov or Mao have to say. They didn’t get it either.
Great!!! Really ejoyed it all
why didn’t you talked about ‘Melo while discussing the clutch topic? Anthony creates separation for his shot better than anyone else in the world! He is the best in business to create his own shot because he realeases the ball very high and very quickly so he can take full advantage of the defender reacting to his jabstepes or dribblig penetrations. No way a guy like ‘Melo takes that shot against the bulls defense like LBJ did, neither he’s gonna shoot it from halfcourt like Kobe did last night against the Heat.