How 1 Youtuber Saved The NBA (SkapAttack Interview)

We catch up with Jay Scapanac as he closes in on 100,000 subscribers and breaks down what it feels like to grow on YouTube while the algorithm seems to stall your momentum. Then we jump into the NBA Finals, Victor Wembanyama’s two-way impact, and why modern stats and media narratives keep distorting how we talk about Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and today’s stars. 
• chasing the 100,000 subscriber plaque and why milestones matter 
• YouTube algorithm frustration, subscriber slowdown, and audience saturation 
• expanding beyond YouTube with Instagram and short-form help 
• shifting from documentary voiceovers to on-camera daily live shows 
• why Knicks vs Spurs works as a Finals matchup 
• Victor Wembanyama as a throwback defender and competitor 
• Jalen Brunson love, plus pushback on reckless Kobe comparisons 
• playoff defense exposing regular-season stat inflation 
• rethinking Luka Doncic, Giannis destinations, and LeBron rumors 
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Transcript

Kobe Loyalty And Guest Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I've been a diehard Kobe Bryant fan for more than 30 years. Twenty years of his playing career in the NBA and then 10 years that have followed since. If you're like myself and you became a Kobe Bryant supporter, you know it can be a pretty lonely place sometimes to be. We've had to spend the majority of those 30 years defending him and his legacy against more attacks than any other elite athlete in the history of professional sports. Throughout that time, we've had some prominent figures in the media and other athletes themselves that defended Kobe Bryant, defended the factual accomplishments that he made during his 20-year playing career. But there's never been a Kobe defender in mainstream media until now. I found Jay Scap and X YouTube channel, Scap Attack, more than three years ago now, and I got fortunate enough to be one of his first 1,000 subscribers. During that time, Jay has had explosive growth, being one of the fastest growing sports channels on the YouTube platform. He's become a mainstay on national programs like Jason Whitlock's Fearless. He's dominated former NBA All-Stars like Gilbert Arenas and head-to-head five-hour plus long debates, millions upon millions of views for his own content and the content that he produces with others. And today I had the great opportunity and honor to sit down with him again. And he has a lot of exciting new content coming up, both with his channel and other channels that he's going to be starting in the near future over the next few months, which we talked about all that as well. This was really focused on Victor Wimbinyama, the NBA finals. Of course, we managed to mix in a little bit of Kobe Bryant and sadly LeBron James as well. You know, we had to do it. Please make sure you're subscribed. We're gonna have some other pieces from this interview with Jay talking about what it takes to build a successful YouTube channel. And again, kind of teasing some of the exciting things that he's got coming up in the very, very near future for all of us sports fans here. So without further ado, Jay, thank you again so very much for doing this and for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

My pleasure, always, always fun to get on and talk with you. Thank you.

Chasing 100K And Creator Milestones

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Well, so for those of you that don't know, I am a Jay Scapanac super fan and Glazer, I think is what the kids say. So we had the opportunity to sit down with Jay right before the start of the season. So we've got a lot to talk about. Uh but tell me what's new with the channel.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yeah, I can't remember how many subscribers I might have had when we last when we last sat down and did this, but I'm getting close finally to the 100,000 mark.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Wasn't sure if I was gonna bring it up, but since you went there, so when I introduced you in August of last year, because partially I'm a marketing guy by trade and I like to exaggerate a little bit, I said nearly 100,000 subscribers. You had 80 at the time, nine months later, and we're still waiting for this damn algorithm to get you to 100,000. But I think now you've got about 97, correct?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Correct. Yeah, I'm right about 97. And you know, I don't know. You you talk about marketing. Well, the social media thing, I still am trying to learn and figure it out myself. I don't, I don't quite understand social media still to this point. YouTube in particular, even though I've been on there now for it's been about three years exactly now that I've been doing it. But yeah, I don't know. I'm doing the same stuff, Stefan, I think, in my estimation. If not, I'm doing it better than I ever have. And for whatever reason, yeah, the subscribers, the views are better than it's than it's ever been before. But the first like two years I did it, you know, I got like 33,000, 34,000 subscribers each year. And now this year of 2026, I'm pacing for like 12,000 subscribers. So that is why. It really, it really doesn't. I, you know, I don't want to bemoan the algorithm or, you know, basically everybody, any creator, any size, this is what I've learned. Like whether you have 500 subscribers or 5 million, every subscriber will think that they're in some way being like screwed, throttled down, or like suppressed in some way by the algorithm. So it's it's not specific to me, but but it is a little fishy that I get more impressions, more views, more everything basically than I ever have. But the subscribers, like typically I could always bank on one to 200 subs a day when I put a video out. Now, you know, there's Steven, there are days like I'm an NBA channel primarily. Like I wanted to, I want to become a sports channel overall, and probably more specifically NFL and NBA, but I'm known primarily on the platform as basketball and NBA. And I put out basically a video and a live stream every day for the last two months, essentially, when once the playoffs began. At least almost every day, I'm doing a live stream in one video. And there are days, multiple days, throughout the playoff run this year in the NBA where I've had like single-digit subscribers added or zero. So I don't, I honestly think.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

That's crazy, Scab. And your retention rate is crazy. Well, and again, I don't want to down this road too much, but glad we're talking about it because as a fan of yours and as somebody who's a nerd and is obsessed with algorithms, people I like like yourself, I'm fascinated with the numbers and it pisses me off on your behalf. And my perception of it is as a guy that does like math and does study things of that nature, is it seems like do you think maybe the YouTube algorithm has kind of capped you in your audience and they won't show it to anyone outside of you? Do you think that's what it is? Or what do you think the logic is behind that?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, I think it does seem like that is the case. You know, I basically for the first couple years, like I would average anywhere between 800,000 to like a million views per month. Now it's like 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 million views per month. So it's like I'm I'm definitely increasing on that end. However, I do notice that the I see some channels in passing. I don't watch much YouTube myself, funny enough, but someone uh might mention what watch time hours they're getting from subscribed versus non-subscribed people. And usually it's always quite low, like three to five percent of their of their watch times coming from subscribed individuals. And that's how it used to be for me, like under 10. Now, somewhere around like 45, almost 50% maybe of my watch time hours comes from subscribed people. So it's like it's primarily the my like the subscribers that I already have.

Algorithm Suppression And Audience Saturation

SPEAKER_01 6:10

So I don't know. We'll see. I a lot of the kids tell me, Stefan, that I like it's outrageous that I have done this with no presence on any other platform. So I don't that's right.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

You you're like me. You don't have a TikTok, you don't have an Instagram or any of that, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:24

I was at Penn State when Facebook came out and I was one of the test universities. So I had Facebook from like basically the beginning when Facebook came out. So I have I still have that. I'm not really on it ever. And then I have X, but I don't post really ever on it. I'm I use it mainly for like sports news and just things that I follow or fantasy football stuff or different actors, maybe. So I don't I don't do much on that either. Then I do not have Instagram or TikTok, but that's something. So when the season ends, I think I'm I'm moving in a direction. I've finally been convinced. So you're getting converted to the TikTok. Maybe not TikTok, but definitely Instagram. Okay. Um, I have uh one of my friends who I mentioned fantasy football a minute ago. Uh, he's a graphic designer. He's in his mid-40s. He's been a graphic designer for like 25 years. He's very, Stephen, he's very uh hip with the young uh generation and he knows like how to market the these short things. I don't think my content is geared for shorts very well because I'm I I talk so much and they're my all my videos are longer. But he he has convinced me that he can really move the needle and expand my footprint quickly if I so I'm just gonna uh turn it over to him basically. We're gonna have a discussion at the end of the month, and I'm gonna see what his plan, what he what, what he wants to do, see what he thinks uh would be best for me, and then we'll you know hash it out and determine what what I might be willing to pay him a month to do to do all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

And it's a weird thing when you when you have to make those I've made those decisions with how much to pay family and friends, but anyway, I won't get into that. Well, yeah, I'm sure he's right, and everybody that I've witnessed or talked to that's had success except for you, I guess, with the YouTube has had a TikTok as the driving force. And I don't know any of that stuff. But my wife's a little younger than me, she's obsessively with the TikTok and the Instagram, and I don't want any part of it. But I support it for you as your ultimate glazer, which I hope that what does glaze mean? Do you know what it means? I think it just means you're a big fan. But if there's any any weird Lester's banana connotation there, then that's not what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah, I don't know. Stephen, I don't know. You're your guess is good as mine. We've determined that we're around, we're basically the same age. So I am as unlike hip and knowledgeable about the the young lingo, the young kid lingo as you are, or this whatever the texture or social media acronym stuff. Like I don't I don't understand any of it. For the first time in like probably my whole life, like four, four or five years ago, I started realizing that I am not dialed in with any of the younger generation. Basically, if if you were born before like 1995 or after 1995, at this point, I I don't even I could barely even hold a conversation with you almost.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

I had a kid, this was literally just like three or four days ago. I was going to pick up my wife's prescription at CVS, and I'm walking in, and this kid is probably like 20, 25. He said, Oh man, that hat's clean. And I was like, Well, yeah, it just it's brand new. It is pretty clean, but I guess clean. So if people tell me what that means anyway, I guess it means good. But anyway, so whether as long as glaze is not some weird stuff, I am the ultimate scap glazer. And as that, I support you getting a TikTok because I think it makes sense. It works.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah, yeah. I think my so my wife still thinks there's some connection, connectivity to like China with TikTok. So I will, she has actually brought me she's bought me a tablet which will not have any like personal information or banking information or anything like that that we ever you utilize that tablet for. That will be the only way I'm permitted to log into TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

So Mrs. Mrs. Scap is is on it. Nicely done. Well, and I I will say this too, and then we'll get into the sports, but just since you know I love the business side of it too, I think that the type of following you've built is the hardest one to build because there might be a floor-level base of people that just hate LeBron or love Kobe or love Michael Jordan or whatever that might subscribe just because of that. But then to keep them coming back and to really build beyond that, they have to really like you and your long-form analysis. So there's a lot, it's hard to provide enough meat for people to really stick with it. So I would say your subscriber base, your 100,000, in some ways, analytically, might be more valuable than a million of people just watching shorts of you playing with a dog. Well, you playing with Luna. So right, right.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Yeah, and I think I think you're right. And that's why if I if I can keep, if I can retain those core loyal followers and expand to some more casual people to like enhance my bass a little bit, that's obviously the goal, and that's what I would would hope to strive towards with getting on these other platforms and stuff. But it's been crazy. Like when I started, you know, things have been changing and I've been altering the the content to some degree. I mean, when I started, it was primarily just voiceover kind of documentary/slash mockumentary stuff. But now it's gone to the point where, you know, like I could only do so many like docuseries about Kobe's playoff runs. Like I've already talked about most, mostly all of it. You know, the same same with LeBron. Like I can only criticize his playoff failures or whatever so so much. So I've really I've expanded from that, which was always the goal, Stefan, ultimately from the beginning. It was I wanted to become sort of just like a sports personality, essentially. So I've kind of evolved from that format at the beginning to now I am way pretty I'm pretty much on camera for most of my videos now at this point. As you know, I do these outrageously length

Instagram Strategy And Short Form Limits

SPEAKER_01 11:40

live streams every night virtually during the postseason. So that's some records this year, yeah. Yeah, it's it's been it's been crazy. So that that's kind of the direction I'm going in. So kind of go full circle and finally answer your question, what's coming up with the channel? I think I'm I'm trying to get to a point where I'm gonna do a daily live show every day, same time, Monday through Friday. I'll probably have it be a podcast as well, but it will be it will be shot as video for like a YouTube video. And then I'll kind of cut out maybe two or three eight to 10 minute segments of like my hot takes or my best moments of that day and put them on the day for people that aren't watching the whole like live episode or whatever. So that that's kind of the direction I'm going in. And then for the the previous documentary style stuff I used to do, I might even create a second channel so it doesn't because I I still want to do that content, but I it it's gonna get buried under the volume of all the other stuff. So I I want to find a way to segregate it. So maybe people that don't want to look at me or don't watch me or don't want to watch me or don't like me as a personality that just wants to see the documentary style videos, they could maybe find it somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

No, that's great. Well, and I've thought about that too, and it's been fun watching you grow and the channel grow. And I thought about that to where, and I think I maybe I heard you say it on a live stream. Somebody asked you your opinion on LeBron or Kobe or whatever, and you said, Well, you know, I've got like 1,500 videos about it. There we go. Look at it's an interesting thing. Once you get your it's important to get your foundation set, but once it is set, why would you want to talk about the same thing that you've already talked about 200 times?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Right. And it's but it's but it's also though, like when I go back, I go back and look at some older videos from time to time. I'm like, damn, that was that was a good ass video. But now it's like it's I, you know, I put it out two years ago, so it's like, no, I mean it's they still get, you know, they accumulate views forever, but like they don't they don't get they don't read the amount of audience from when you initially released it. And then there's probably people, maybe even half of my base who haven't seen like my original core set of videos, which are like awesome videos, I think. So maybe re revoice them and turn them over to like a professional editor and then put them on a different channel and and and have them there, and then kind of mark cross-market them from my existing channel over to that would be like my my plan, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

That's smart. Well, I watched the last flop for the first time in a couple years, like a month ago, and I was watching like, man, this is just I think even though the last choke is like perfect from an analysis standpoint, the last flop's just so freaking funny. Nicely done. Great video. Anyway, everybody go watch the last flop. Anyway, the last question on all that. So when you get to 100,000 subscribers, which again, anybody listening to this, if you're somehow listening to this and you have not subscribed to the scap attack YouTube channel, please go do so. He's at about 97,000 right now. I want to be a tiny little fractional part of watching him get to that hundred thousand. They give you a plaque, and I've heard you mention that you want the plaque. How much do goals like that and milestones to break up the monotony and kind of that Kobe mentality of getting to that low? How much does that mean to you to get that 100,000 plaque?

SPEAKER_01 14:47

I mean, yeah, it means a lot, honestly, because I, like I said, I started friends, two friends of mine actually started this channel for me like five or six, maybe seven years ago, and were trying to coax me into doing it because they thought I would be good at it. And I just didn't do anything with it for like four years after they created it. And finally, about three years ago, I decided I was gonna really take a run at it. And and my goal at the time when I started, with I think I had three or four hundred total subscribers at that point. I looked around the vast expanse of YouTube and I said, Well, I mean, honestly, some of these channels aren't that good. I think I could pretty easily get to 100,000 subscribers, was what I said to myself like three years ago. And I was like, Yeah, I'll probably be able to do that in the first year or two. And now here we are in year three, but I am finally getting getting very close. And it it will it will be like a moment of I think celebration just overall for the journey and what it's what it's taken to get here. And yes, there is for the best of my knowledge, there is still they give out, I think it's a silver play butt play uh button plaque for 100,000. Then I think the next one's not to a million. I think you get like a gold one at a million, and then maybe five million, you get like a platinum or something like that. So I will be very far away from my next

Daily Live Show Plan And Second Channel

SPEAKER_01 16:05

plaque, but I will celebrate my my initial plaque accordingly, and then yeah, set probably the next milestone or goal, which would probably be like realistically, probably like 250,000 would be the next like thing that I really set my sights towards and like really go after.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

I just hope the bastards don't discontinue the plaque right when you get there. That would make it. But anyway.

NBA Finals Knicks Spurs Storylines

SPEAKER_00 16:27

All right. Well, so a pretty incredible NBA Finals series going on here. My first question to you is when the playoffs started, I know you're a pretty diehard Jokic guy, obviously. So you have to be Nuggets fan by result. But if I would have asked you to pick the best possible finals matchup, this would have been pretty high on the list, I would think, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:46

So my the one I was rooting for, Stefan, uh yes, I am unfortunately a Nuggets fan. I say unfortunately because I know they stink and they had no chance to get there. I thought, honestly, if they could avoid the Timberwolves, they could have beaten the Spurs, and then I thought they would have lost to the Thunder in the in the West Finals. And then I, you know, I honestly I thought it was gonna be when the playoffs started way back when, I thought it was gonna be Thunder and Celtics. Of course, the Celtics absolutely choked their asses off in the first round, blew a 3-1 lead to the to the Philadelphia 76ers of all of all teams. But then, look, if you asked me though, what my favorite finals or what I would like to see, even though I thought there was no chance, I would have told you Nick's nuggets. So I I actually did get half of the equation there of what I would have really liked to see.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Is Wimby, where does he rank for you these days on your favorite current player list?

SPEAKER_01 17:42

I really I don't like many players in the NBA today. I I uh Jokic and Giannis have been two guys, and the reason I've I've liked and respected them so much is because they've proven they could win in a small market with very middling to subpar teams around them, and they've just stayed there despite the fact that their organization has done very little to support their abilities to win. They don't demand trades, they don't talk shit on their teammates, they don't run around and join other people. Now, Giannis looks like finally, after like 13 years, he's on his way out. And I would endorse that that move at this point, as long as he doesn't jump to the thunder or something. Like, I don't want to see, like I I I've never disliked players that have proven that they just simply aren't in a winning atmosphere with their organization leaving, like Kevin Garnett. Like he gave everything he he could, he did everything he could to elevate that organization. They weren't going along with him for the ride. So I was totally okay with him leaving. Didn't love the fact that he went and joined the Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, but they were older players, not like first team all NBA caliber players at the time, but still we could make an argument that's the first super team, really.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

That means you could, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

You could, except except for the fact, again, that none of them were all NBA the year before the join up, except for KG. They were also all-star caliber, but not like best in the league, I don't think anymore, or like top five even at the time. But I still, I still reject the move to join two other superstars. If Giannis, though, just wants to go to some like Miami, like Miami, if he goes to Miami, which is the the team I'm hearing, like they're not a super team, obviously. They're they're not even a top five team, probably in the east. But but if he says, look, I trust that organization, that coach, to to do what they need to help me get to a better place where I can compete, I'm all for that. But because Giannis and Jokic are just so classy and they and they hadn't done the jump, that's why I really like them. And really, that's it, quite frankly, in in today's NBA, until When Bin Yama came along. Because while he hasn't been in the league long enough to prove that he's gonna, you know, be a classy guy like those two and not jump around the league, I don't think he will. But he has shown enough in this early stage of his career that he does have like an old school kind of mentality and mindset about the game and an approach to it. Like he is an elite two-way player, and honestly, his defense right now is substantially above his offense. So like he's only gonna get much, much better. He's still seven, he still averages 25 and 11 in the regular season.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

And like 30 minutes a game. I'm excited that as lifelong Kobe guys and Jokic guy for you, we spend our entire lives going back to teenage years defending players that the media and everybody around us hated for the most part. We might actually get to love a player that the media is backing. It's refreshing.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

It is like to finally have a golden, a golden player that you can get behind and support. Because to me, look, I like mostly everything I've seen of him to this point. Like he's struggling in these finals. There's been some issues with him in these finals, but I mean, he's 22 years old. He's he's in his third NBA season.

Wembanyama Two Way Future And Defense

SPEAKER_01 20:57

And I mean, I just to see a guy that is he's all NBA, he's defensive player of the year caliber and MVP caliber. I didn't think we would see a guy in the modern era be that again. Like a guy that is a true two-way Daunt, like because Kobe Bryant and like Tim Duncan and Kevin Garner, like those guys are first team All NBA, first team all NBA defense every year basically for like 10 parts of years. Right? I never thought we would get to an era or a stage because of such there's such a focus on just offense and stuff like that these days, that I never thought we would get to a point where we would see uh like a specimen like him again, and and here he is, and he genuinely hates losing. Like he looks like a true competitor that that is his number one singular focus and driving point, is just winning. So again, he's got he is a throwback guy. The only thing that isn't old school about him is his physique. The guy looks like a walking skeleton figure, so he's got a strap on a little bit of muscle moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Me honestly in the all-star game was when at first when I was like, oh man, like wow, this guy's actually pissed that they lost. It used to be our generation and the Kobe's, and like you said, the Garn, man, Garnett, Duncan, obviously Jordan and everyone before, you didn't have to force people to care. You didn't have to tell people to care. But now, unfortunately, because of the LeBron James generation and the staff and all this, you do. You can just tell how pissed he gets when he loses at anything.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

And it's, you know, Kobe, I remember telling him telling the story back whenever they were asking him about his defense in some interview. And he said, like, the first time he really decided he needed to become an elite defender was he was, I think he was playing Tim Thomas, who was, if you remember, he played, he was a decent NBA player, Tim Thomas, journeyman, like kind of played with the sixers. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yep. And he was actually, I think he was the number one prospect in Kobe's recruiting class. And Kobe came up against him in ABCD camps, like when they were in high school, and they would just go back and forth scoring on each other basically at will. And Thomas said to him, like, yeah, you I can't stop you, but you can't stop me either. So Kobe's like, you know what, you're right. I'm gonna change that. And then, you know, he said from that moment forth, he really put as much of a focus on the defensive side of things as he did on the offensive side.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Well, and I think it's partially too right, because since Jordan set the template for everybody in the 80s and the 90s, the defense mattered. I feel like Kobe's generation followed that and took it to heart. LeBron, he set the uh the tone for this generation to where it's like, eh, doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. And so as his generation phases out and begins to retire, because of Wimby, if Giannis can ever get healthy again, I have hope for the next 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

I agree. Look at all the teams in the playoffs that have had some some sort of success. Like the Thunder on the West, the Thunder, obviously the Spurs and the Timberwolves. Like those are all defensively oriented teams. Like, even if they like the Timberwolves kind of took time off in the pla in the regular season from defense, but they emerged back again as an elite defensive team once the playoffs began. And then the Knicks, like everybody talks about like the Knicks in general, their offense, how much of a role they've been on in these playoffs. But I mean, really, look at their defense. Like they were okay in the regular season. They were upper echelon. I think they were the eighth net rated defense in the regular season. They gave up, I think, 112 or 113 points per 100 possessions. In these playoffs, they're giving up like 101 per 100 possessions. They're the number one net rated defense. So, like a 12, 11, 12 point cut per 100 possessions from regular season to play, that's why they're here because of the way they defend right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

It shows you, too, that they all of the teams could do this anytime they want, the fact that they do it in the playoffs, and that makes it all the more depressing why they don't

Brunson Narrative And Kobe Comparisons

SPEAKER_00 24:50

do it in the regular season. But anyway, well, let me ask you this. I mean, because to your point, and I said all those nice things about Wimby, I'm officially rooting for the Knicks, but Brunson, and I'm curious to get your official take on this, because you did a video to where you were talking about the MABA mentality and his connection to Kobe, which was a really interesting video. I didn't know any of those stories. Then I've heard you say a lot of kind of negative stuff about him too, since then. So, what's your position on Brunson?

SPEAKER_01 25:14

So I dislike LeBron, but I also it's not it's so most of the time though, Steven, it's weird. Like, I don't necessarily like or dislike players. Like, I I like or dislike the kind of press that they're getting, whether I personally perceive them to be overrated or underrated. There are a few players that I actively dislike, such as LeBron. So it and I also think he's just monstrously overrated as well. So that works out for me that I get to attack him for being overrated.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

But I slice that your argument is factual, yes, sir. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Right, right. But in terms of mostly other players, like I don't necessarily like or dislike. It's just I love I have liked Brunson and admired him for years because he was kind of an unheralded guy that came into the NBA. He was an elite college player that everybody basically wrote off at that level. And, you know, he went to Dallas, got kind of hidden on that team for I think four years beside Luka Doncic. And then he went to New York and became kind of a superstar. So I've been an admirer of him for several years, and I've been rooting for him throughout last playoffs and these playoffs. But now I'm starting to hear the whole, it all started, Stefan, because I am on Jason Whitlock's show, Fearless, mostly every day, especially if there's basketball news percolating around. And before game one of the NBA Finals started, he had me on and we were setting kind of the series up. And he said, We've got Brunson versus Wemby. I'm going for Brunson here. Uh, you know, he's an American player, you know, he's that gritty old school player versus this punk young foreigner. And I said, Jason, let's pump the brakes here. You're putting Brunson on Wembin Yama's level. Like I love Brunson, but he's not a Wembinyama caliber player.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

He's a borderline top 15 to top 20 guy.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Yeah, you can even argue as high as top 10, like 9, 10, like on the fringe end of the top 10. You can argue it. But somewhere between, yeah, like 10 to 20. And I said, Jason, the reason Brunson isn't the reason they're here. He may be the leader of the head of the snake. But really, if you look, if you dig into the advanced analytics and metrics of it all, there is nothing, no, no, not one singular metric you can point to that says that Brunson is even better than OG or Cat. Like OG Ananobi and Carl Anthony Towns are have been from the beginning of the playoffs till now the two best and the two most important players on the Knicks team. Now, Brunson gets all the credit and stuff because he hits those final shots, but I take exception with while I compare him to Kobe's and the mentality. Kobe did a hell of a lot more. Like Brunson just has to basically hit those shots at the end of the games. Kobe had to get them to the end of the games and then make the shots.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

It's really inferior. It really pisses me off, Scaff, that they do this. And this is why I harp so much about the media aspect of it. And I know we agree about this, but I think maybe I'm even more the media specifically obsessed with it than you. Maybe not. I don't know. But it just we can't, it's almost like we can't root for anybody because the second we start to like somebody, they take it two steps too far or 15 steps too far, and they start comparing him to Kobe because it's this continuous attack against him. Why they hate him so much, really it's hard for me to fathom, other than it's just they have to, because if you acknowledged he was better than LeBron in his own era, then all the GOAT stuff goes away. But yeah, I mean it it is all that aside, though, it is fun watching him come up to court and this little guy, you can see it on his face how intense he is and how much he cares. So definitely.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

And he fits, I think his like mentality or whatever, his approach, it fits New York perfectly. I feel like he's a perfect New York athlete. And then they've they've built the perfect team around him. I mean, honestly, I all those guys just fit and play their roles so specifically and perfectly. It it has been a magical run. I talk about it, you know, on the live streams, but that I have never seen a team be a team of destiny in the NBA. I say I it happens a lot in hockey, baseball, football because of the setup of the tournament. And well, football is a one-game elimination, so it's easy to just get hot at the end sometimes, and then you beat teams that are way better than you all year long. In hockey, you know, you get hot goaltending going on. In baseball, your bats could just come alive at the end, or you're pitching, your bullpen is just out of their minds. So oftentimes we see every three or four years, I feel like we're seeing a team that just gets hot at the right time and is just clicking on all cylinders in those other sports. But in the NBA, it's uh never happens. It's like the best team or the best player with the best assortment of guys around him, that team is typically the team that always wins. But the Knicks, it just, it's just a magical run. They I just don't think they they just have this aura about them now of invincibility. I just it and no matter what how bad it looks or how bleak it seems, I mean, 29 point deficit in game four, down 20 in the fourth quarter, and they just find a way to get back. It's just it really is just an amazing story.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

They've been down. If you look at it, every game the Knicks have won, they've been down big early. I might be biased because I've got so many people that I'm talking to, that I'm close to that are from that area, and I know how much they care. So it's inspiring for me to get to see them through all these decades of pathetic performance by their franchise in the front office to finally get

Who We Root For And Series Prediction

SPEAKER_00 30:39

this. But my long-winded question: who are you, Jay Scappanag? Who who are you rooting for?

SPEAKER_01 30:44

Typically, Stefan, I in my young life, I was on top, man. I'll tell you. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh. The Steelers were good, the Penguins were good. I'm a diehard lifelong Kobe fan. The Lakers were good. Like, I I basically just always had a team that I loved that I was rooting for when I was young. In the second stage of my life now, at this point, all my teams stink for the most part. And I just I hate teams more than I love them now. So I'm generally rooting against things, not for things now in the second wave of my life. And the years, this the season always begins, Stephanie, where yes, you've you've noted and I've discussed, I am a Jokic supporter. So yes, I want the Nuggets to win at the beginning of the year. But other than that, I don't want Steph to get another one. I don't want LeBron to get another one. And now I dislike the Thunder as well. So they're on the list too. I don't want them to get one. So those are the three teams. Other than that, I'm pretty much okay with anybody winning, but I have become captivated by the Knicks run throughout this time, like throughout the playoffs. So I was really feeling myself starting to route for them through the playoffs as they as it's gone on. But then I felt conflicted because the Spurs, I felt, did me a great, great uh bit of service by beating the Thunder and taking them out. So I felt indebted to them. So when this seat, when this series started, I was conflicted. Me too. And I didn't, I didn't know. Like I would have been happy for either team. I would have felt really badly for either team that lost. So I think I landed on even before the magic really started happening in this series, I landed on the Knicks because to me, the Knicks may never get back. As great as they've been and as great as they've looked in these playoffs, this could just be one of those one-year magical outliers. Whereas the Spurs, I it's hard not to imagine them in the finals like four or five times in the next six years. So they're gonna have plenty of opportunities to win and win a lot more. So I've I've been rooting for the next for the for the players and for just the city and the fan base in general that have been just starving for some kind of success for so long.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

And I landed in the same spot for the same reasons. And to bring it full circle back to my original point of what a beautiful matchup this is, as opposed to just the thunder to me, are just so boring. Something we can all enjoy watching, the basketball, and you're kind of happy at the end of the day, either way.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Exactly. And they've treated us honestly, they've treated us to every game as good. You mentioned the big leads, like the Knicks, the games they won, they were down by 14, 12, and 29 in those games. But like despite the fact the games are like lopsided early, every game is down to the wire. Like every game. Like the first game was it was like a two-point game with a minute left. The second game was tied with nine seconds left. The third game was a two-point game with nine seconds left. And then this game was a one-point game with five seconds left. So, and then it was a one-point game with one second left. So, like every single game is a one possession score game. It's pretty crazy in the last minute. Like, it's crazy. Like, I don't know if you've looked into this, but the I looked at the viewership right now going into game four, the highest uh watch game of the series was 23 million views. Wow, which is the highest since Jordan's last game in '98 when he won the his sixth and final championship, right? That's crazy. And it's and it's averaging 19 million viewers, which is also the highest other than that '98 series. So, like obviously, this has captivated the interests of not just the New York. Everyone wants to say, oh, this is because the Knicks have a massive fan base. I don't think it's just that. I think, yes, the Knicks are a portion of that, but then the other part is obviously Wemby. And then this the games are really good. So people are just getting behind it. The NBA is bouncing back finally. It's taken like 10 years since LeBron James destroyed the NBA for them to finally kind of feel like they're back. But this, I think this playoff run was the first time. I've been talking about it for years, like we're getting back, we're kind of coming back a little bit, but this playoff run was the first time I've actually felt like, okay, this is this kind of has a little bit of a feel of the way it did before. Like the LeBron era ruined everything.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Just to give context to people that don't know, so you said it's averaging 19 million. So like LeBron and Anthony Davis, or Anthony Davis and LeBron rather, their bubble championship, I think, averaged like 7 million viewers. 7 million, Steven. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

That the lowest watched finals in NBA history.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Well, at a time when we were all locked in our homes and starred for something to watch, and we decided we'd rather watch Sneaky Pete on Amazon Prime than the NBA final. Anyway, but to your point, I think this is the most fun as a fan I've had watching basketball since Kobe retired.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

100 100%. I mean, I I honestly I quit watching basketball for a few years. I would watch the playoffs still just to root against, just to hate watch LeBron and root against him after Kobe uh retired. But there

Stat Inflation Playoff Defense And Kobe Metrics

SPEAKER_01 35:30

there was uh several years where I didn't watch a single NBA regular season game after Kobe retired. Basically, like Giannis kind of brought me back in, MVP defensive player of the year winner, won a championship with a tiny market with like pretty mediocre players around him. So that kind of he kind of got me back in. And then I saw, honestly, I started watching Jokic making fun of him and trying to make fun of the era. I'm like, look, you wait a second. You're telling me that this is the era of super athletes that nobody, none of the past great players that we've ever seen could possibly compete in this era. Yet you've got this dude who could literally run up and down the floor and jump off of a curb who is absolutely destroying this whole era. Like, is that for real? So I basically started just to make fun of him, and then the more I watched him, the more I fell in love with his gameplay and everything. So those two guys kind of brought me back. But even was I as I became a fan of them, I wasn't fully, I wasn't in enamored in the least with the overall product of the NBA. But like this year, I've seen some good, some steps in the right direction. You mentioned it earlier. I think the next step is why can't we apply the defensive efforts we've seen throughout the postseason to the entire season? Yeah, like that that would really because it was uh I think 116 points per game on average in the regular season, which is the highest ever for any non-1960 season. Yeah, and now in the playoffs, it's down like 10 points per game in the in the playoffs because they're actually playing and they're actually trying and competing on that thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

And that's the thing, yeah. All these idiots that either intentionally are lying or just too young or naive to know, like that say, oh, this is just because of everybody's so skilled, the skill all go away in the playoffs because, like you said, it's just the numbers fall off a cliff. And not to go too far down that road, but it's infuriating, I know, to both of us, that the numbers from this era, and it's like everyone in the media acknowledges it that it's this supercharged steroid era of stats, but then they still use the stats to denigrate previous players like Kobe or even Duncan or Nowitzki or whoever.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

I mean, look no further than the main guy, like the biggest, the greatest stat producer ever in Jokic. Like he is his numbers are insane looking, right? His analytics are insane looking. And look, in the playoffs, he's still his stat line still looked awesome in that putrid first round exodus to the Minnesota Timberwolves, who are basically perfectly constructed. For anybody that doesn't know, general manager that constructed Nicole Jokic's championship team in 2023 actually went to Minnesota in 2024 and built the perfect foil that could beat the Denver Nuggets, essentially, which is why the Timberwolves own the Nuggets, because the guy that built the Nuggets built the team in Minnesota to beat the Nuggets. And they have Rudy Gobert, by the way, who has more first-team All-NBA selections than any human being that has ever played professional basketball, not named Kobe, Kevin Garnett, Michael Jordan, or Gary Payton. Gary Payton, Kevin Garnett, Kobe, and Jordan. Other than that, they all have nine first-team defensive selections. This year, Gobert had his eighth, and he's a four-time defensive player of the year. So Jokic had to go against that dude for the entire series, and they lost, obviously. Basic stat line still looked great, right? 26 and a half points, 13 and a half rebounds, nine assists, but still down substantially like from the regular season. This guy shot six, like 67% true shooting in the regular season, 56% from the field. He was down to 45%, though, in the playoffs. So, like, and same thing with SGA, your point earlier about how they're saying he's better than Kobe, because he averaged 30 points per game this year on 55% shooting from the field. The only guard in NBA history, Jordan included, to average 55% 30 plus. But when he got in the playoffs, it didn't look like that. No, like look what happened in the even in the series against the Lakers with older Marcus Smart now defending him, totally shut him down. If you look at after the first round, played the uh Suns, the Phoenix Suns, and they swept him, whatever. But in the second round, the Lakers at the final series in the West against the Spurs, he averaged like 25 points per game on 42%.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Which is about what he would have averaged in the 90s and the 2000s, is probably in that mid to high 20, 25 to 27, and in the low to mid-40 shooting percentage. And that's a great career. But it's not this. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

But and people don't understand. They're like, oh, well, look at how much more efficient he is than Kobe. Look at how, look at all these things. But okay, but put him against defenses that aren't even as good as the defenses Kobe saw and had to play against throughout his entire career. The Spurs, much smaller. Right, a much slower era, too. Like people walked the ball up. There was no spacing, everything was clogged in the in the middle. And still, even despite the fact he played much better defenses, by and large, and had a harder, just a harder overall era to be able to put numbers up. His numbers are still, by and large, ridiculous looking. He's still top three in 50, 60, 40 point games all the time. So when people, yeah, people jump the gun, Steven, and it is outrageous. Like everybody has to be compared to Kobe, or everybody has to be better than Kobe whenever they do anything of note in at any point in this NBA era.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

It's depressing for us because like I actually would love to be able to support SGA. I actually think he seems like a good kid, and he is seen, and he's a diehard Kobe guy, apparently. But I just can't because of this BS. It's not even his fault. It's just they can't not attack his legacy because that's the mandate that I think LeBron got his heart broken by Kobe Scap. Honestly, that's my new theory. I was thinking about the other day. Is I think LeBron was a diehard Kobe fan when he came in. Kobe Shundon said, get away from me. I don't want anything to do with you. And then LeBron, he just can't let it go. I think it's like the high school sweetheart that broke his heart.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

That's my that's a good theory. I can see I can see that being true because you can see even when they were in mutual interviews or co-interviews or whatever, especially around the Olympic, the redeemed team stuff, you can see that LeBron was kind of fangirling over Kobe.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

That's true. Because he didn't respect it, because he he got just handed to him all the things that Kobe and Jordan and others had to work for.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Exactly. And then it only got worse as LeBron jumped around the league to snatch all those cheap, easy rings. I think Kobe's disdain and resentment only grew. And he put on a good face when LeBron went to LA because you know his longtime agent and very close friend, Rob Polinka, wasn't was highly invested in that working out. So Kobe, I think, you know, kind of let it go because he was retired and whatever. But I think in a in an honest moment, Kobe would have said, I am absolutely disgusted that this guy's gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

And I think that's why he did it, is for not just that reason, but I think that he thought, because he is a marketing genius, he's a media manipulation genius, or his team is, somebody is. And I think they thought, well, if I go to Kobe's team, then a portion of his fans are gonna have to love me and root for me. And it really kind of funnyly didn't work out that way. I've had to root against my own team for seven, eight years now. But yeah, I think that was a lot of the one thing I've been wanting to talk to

Luka Giannis LeBron Offseason Dominoes

SPEAKER_00 42:49

you about, Scott. This might be a differing opinion, which I get we agree on so much that I actually get excited when I there's something that we might disagree on because I'm like, oh, good, you know. So Luca with the Lakers, talking about modern players and talking about the statistic explosion that we've got going on here. I didn't have a lot of respect for Luca's game before the trade to the Lakers because honestly, he's like the white LeBron to me. Like the game has to revolve around him. He gets kind of the fake assist, seven, eight assists that LeBron's always gotten, and James Harden's a good example of that. But when he came to LA and I saw the LeBron media machine starting to do what they do and destroy him, I started finding myself drawn to him and more connected to him. And then I started looking at the numbers and I'm like, you know, this guy is one of only two players in the history of basketball to ever average 32, 8, and eight. And he's done it more times than anyone. It's just him and Jordan, and he's done it, I think, twice, and Jordan's done it once. So I've become a Luca fan, or maybe I'm trying to force it a little bit because I'm jealous you've got your love affair with with Jokic, and I want somebody too in the modern, maybe it'd be Wimby. But tell me your thoughts on Luka Donchich, where you're At with him at this point.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

So I was a Luka hater for most of the early part of his career. And I too just saw him as a one-sided, like offensive inflation kind of machine and didn't play on defense. But I had to change some of my theory about him when he got through the West that one year. Look, he beat the Clippers, who he wasn't supposed to beat in the first round. They were the five seeds. So they played the four-five matchup against the Clippers as the underdog, won it. Then they went on and played. People don't really remember this. Three years ago, Shea Gildis Alexander won, he finished runner-up to Nicole Jokic that year. So Shea lost to Nicole Jokic three years ago in MVP, then won the last two over Jokic. But that year that he finished runner-up to Jokic, the Nuggets and Thunder tied with the same number of wins that season, but the Thunder had the tiebreaker. So they were actually the one seed then. So they've been the one seed three straight years. Luka then beat that Thunder team in the second round. Then the Timberwolves presumptive massive favorites after they upset the Nuggets that year. And Luca went in and just dismantled that Minnesota Timberwolves team, beat them 4-1. Then they went into the finals and got, you know, completely shut down, and I think totally outmatched by that Boston Celtics team. And Luka had some bad moments in that finals. But I had to fundamentally revise my take on Luca after that run. And now I kind of look at him honestly, look, as like a Nicole Jokic or a Steph Curry player, where yes, he's not a great defender. He might not even be a good defender, but he can be a willing defender. And if you surround him with the right pieces, like Golden State did for Steph, and like Denver never has done for Jokic, I think Luca can be a top-line perennial kind of contender and playoff riser if he has the right pieces put around him. So that and that's on the Lakers to do it.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Luca needs your support, Skainia, me and Luca, we need your help.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Well, and look, my Steph Stevin, I am scap attacked because my last name is Scapanak. Like I am slow, like I have Slovak, like I'm mainly Slovakian ancestry. So yes. And as much as I have railed against the formation of super teams and hate the idea of top five players joining, I would be fully behind a Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic pairing in Tinseltown. Like bring it to me.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Let's go. Um all right. I wanted to get your official pick. So my kind of, I guess maybe hot take opinion is I think whoever wins game five wins the series, which I know is not everybody thinks the Knicks are gonna win six. I kind of feel like the Knicks have a good shot to just win this next game in game five. But I think if they don't, I think the pressure all goes on them to win game six. And then if they don't pull that off, then it's Spurs and seven. So what's your official pick?

SPEAKER_01 46:47

Before, right before the series began, I picked Spurs and seven. And but I said while I was making that pick, we did I did a little live stream pre pre-series show, and I said, listen, Spurs and seven. However, if the Knicks steal game one, I will immediately on the show following it flip-flop to Knicks and six will become my. Right. So then, and then when the Knicks won game one, I came on immediately at the game after. I was like, look, I said yesterday two days ago that I was gonna do it. I'm flipping to Knicks and six. And I think, look, it's the 3-1 is an impossible. And it's and the Spurs have the advantage of the fact that they only got to win one on the road. So like, I don't know that the Knicks will win game five, but to your point, they gotta win five or six. If they do not win five or six, they're obviously losing the series in seven at San Antonio. I think five can be a good game that they just steal because the Spurs are gonna be shell-shocked. They're gonna anticipate that the Knicks are just gonna lay down and be content with going back home and and closing it out at home in game six. And that's not what the Knicks are. That's not what their DNA has been this whole postseason run. So I you make a good point that that could be a potential actually trap game for the Spurs, even though they're down three-one and it's an absolute must-win for them, of course. But they it might be, they might get a trap game. And then if the Knicks somehow come out, they've had slow starts every game. If the Knicks come out and hit them with a flurry early, then that crowd goes dead silent, and then all of a sudden, it is a tough atmosphere as a as a young home team that's down 3-1, and they have to think about, well, now we have to come back and win two more. Yeah. So I feel like that I think I think that's a good point you make that they might go ahead and just win this thing maybe in five. And that would probably be best for the city of New York. Otherwise, uh if they would win or lose that game six in New York, oh my God. Like they I said on the live stream, you got to call the Avengers in. Get the Avengers to Justice League, get everybody to save New York because I can't even imagine. If I lived in the city seven, I and it got back to six, I would I would be vacating. I would, I would, I would be getting like an 80-mile radius outside of the city.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

Go to Buffalo for the weekend. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

Yes. Win or lose that that game six, just total anarchy in the streets.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

That's that's a good point. And they've got a lot of that going on anyway right now. But yeah, uh, yeah, well, and I'll tell you this, I guess it maybe it's not that crazy of a take because I was looking, it's only five to one. So from 22 to 1 in 2016 to five to one, apparently the books don't think it's that unlikely.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Right. And again, you got to look at when it happened with Cleveland, they had to win two road games. Like they had to stave off elimination on the road. Then they went home, and that that you would presume that would be a win. Then they had to go back into game seven then and win on the road. So that's way, a way bigger ask than the Spurs. And you got to figure, look, the Cavs actually, because Curry was hurt or whatever was happening with him, the Cavs had the two best players on the floor in that series. Like LeBron and Irving. But like in this series, not only do the Spurs have two of the next three in their building, look, Wemby is still the best player in the series. By far. And they've we've just mentioned they've been up double digits in every single game. Over 10 in every game. So like they easily they could do it. Like it's not that outrageous to suggest that it's possible. So you're right. It would behoove the Knicks to get the hell out of the series ASAP because the longer you keep them around, the more you know, momentum and confidence that they gain, and the harder it's gonna be to beat them the further it goes.

SPEAKER_00 50:30

Well, go Knicks, game five. I'm hedged either way, so I'm good. On the status of the NBA, just to kind of go back to that for a minute here. Where do you see Giannis going then? Where do you think is the most likely destination for Giannis this offseason? Because it looks like he's gonna be moved, like you said.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

You know, I I honestly thought that the Thunder, I mentioned the Thunder and the fact that I would absolutely hate that. Like I don't even know if it would be necessarily a good thing for Giannis or the Thunder, but I would have to crush Giannis and the Thunder and SGA if that happened. But it looks like the Thunder went no part of it. Puzzlingly enough to me, the the Giannis sweepstakes seems to be the the water is pretty tepid and lukewarm right now. Not a lot of people want engagement in there for whatever reason. Maybe it's just the fear of the because he's only 30. I think he turns 32 in the in the middle of the next season. So maybe it's just the fear of the fact that he hasn't been available in the playoffs for three, like it feels like three or four years now. I think it has been about that much time. So maybe just the concern of how much does this guy have left, there's not a there's not an overwhelming amount of excitement about acquiring him. So, you know, ultimately, I think it's probably gonna be Miami because the Heat have have shown interest and a desire to get a deal done. And Giannis specifically has named Miami as one of the two or three teams that he would really like to get traded to. So I think ultimately it does happen. And the crazy thing is the ownership of the Bucs have come out and said we want Giannis's future to be known before the draft. So as we sit here right now, that is 11 days away.

unknown 52:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Well, there's a short moratorium where you can even really make a move, right? Between now and the draft.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Correct. Well, so and that is and right now, yes. And then there's a moratorium on free agency following the draft up until July like 5th or 6th, I think this year. So they won't be able, players won't be able to officially sign in free agency anywhere till, but we'll hear the stories of where they're signing and all that stuff. And those those stories will be breaking around the 4th of July. But yeah, within within a few days after the end of the series, we're gonna find out more than likely. I don't think it will happen on draft night. That would be crazy if it did. But we'll find out probably a few days before the draft of where Giannis is gonna go. My expectation is Miami, which is not that sexy, quite frankly. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

I was just gonna I was thinking that. I was like, man, that's like, I mean, I get it, but it's kind of boring, right? Like it's like the needle.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

I don't think the the Heat might win it maybe around in the playoffs, then. Maybe if they get the right route in the in the in the brackets, maybe they can get to the East Finals. Maybe I don't see it though. So, I mean, that they're not really even a true contender in my estimation in the East. It certainly doesn't make them a contender league wide, then at that point.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

I was looking at Giannis's finals numbers from that Suns finals five, and I just a few days ago, and I was like, my gosh, this guy, like he averaged like 36 a game. And I'm one of the greatest, probably one of the five greatest NBA finals series by a player in history, certainly top 10 for sure, probably five or in that range. And it's really depressing what's happened with his career the last half decade here because of the injuries, like you said.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

Yeah, it just goes to show like you can never take anything for granted. That's why, you know, like Giannis was whatever, 27 or something when he did that. Yeah. And you're thinking, oh, sky's the limit. You know, he'll be back uh many times. Same with when the co and then even more so when Jokic won in 2023, you're because Jamal Murray had a really great series that, or a really great playoffs that run two, you're and they went through 16 and 4 in those playoffs, and you're thinking, well, oh, dynasty, here we come. Like neither of those two guys have ever sniffed another finals now since. So that just goes to show like we think we anticipate the Spurs are gonna be there every year. Wemby's gonna win three, four rings, maybe, but you ultimately you never know in sports, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:27

It's true, and that's my only kind of pushback with Wemby a little bit. As someone who's declared him my favorite player in the league now, currently, I just man, I mean, it's like, well, it's like he finally thankfully got a defensive player of the year this year, but to me, he actually should have wanted his rookie year, and they gave it to Gobert, just I think out of politics, because you don't want to give it to a rookie. Then the 65-game rule got him in year two. But there's a world, and I really hope it doesn't happen, and I'm gonna be rooting for him hard that doesn't, but there's a world where this guy never wins a ring, honestly. I mean, his health is always gonna be in the back of my mind, at least.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

So it could happen, and then you've got look, you the thunder is still percolating around there. It looks like the Spurs have the the Thunder's number. However, the Thunder have Sam Presti a general manager, who might be the best general manager that's ever existed. So he's obviously gonna see what happened in this series and try to fortify that moving forward. And then look, I talk about it a lot. Jokic, he's he's getting older. He's gonna be 32 in February, but Jokic dominates his one-on-ones with Wembin Yaman at this point. Yeah, that was fun to watch. Yeah. Right. And it and if they get if the Nuggets could actually put any semblance of a supporting defensive cast around Jokic, they could beat the Spurs then in the playoffs. So, I mean, you you really you just don't know. And then the Spurs, a lot of young guys on a lot of small contracts, they're gonna come to maturation on these rookie deals, and then they're gonna need to get massive extensions. Is will the Spurs, a small market team, be willing to pay maybe Dylan Harper, Stefan Castle, and Victor Weminyama $50 plus million dollars each for four or five years each? I mean, I just don't know if they're gonna be able to keep it all together when they're all due their extensions.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

To bring that full circle, how would you feel? Would it, I guess it would, right? Would it be if Giannis went to the Spurs? How would you feel about that?

SPEAKER_01 56:23

I I wouldn't hate it as much as the Thunder, but I still think I think the move for Giannis to the Spurs was last year. I think now, I think now, so in the summer last year. So now that they've gone through this whole run now and they're whatever, they're realistically gonna lose this series, but they've been up by double digits in all four games, and they've been in single one possession games in the last minute of every game. They're probably gonna say, I mean, we should have won the championship this year, you know, even if they lose. So why change anything? Let's just let's just run it, bring it all back for another year. So I I think it's unlikely that they do much to Tinker other than whatever they can add with a little bit of size and maybe a power forward for the rotation in the during this during the summer, or they'll draft some young kid probably. That that will be the only substantial change that I see them making. Oh, and trading De'Aaron Fox, probably.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

Everybody hates poor De'Aaron Fox now. I think, I mean, I guess we're both probably contrarians in nature, right? But I mean, I'm I feel bad for De'Aaron Fox. I don't know. I mean, it wasn't a good look this series, but uh the worst contract or one of the worst contracts in sports, is it I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Look, I really like De'Aaron Fox, actually. I I would try I would gladly in a vacuum drop Jamal Murray as a Jokic fan and take on De'Aaron Fox over Murray in a heart in a heartbeat. They make about the same money, and I would much rather have Fox. I don't think Fox is a bad player at all. I I I like I have a lot of respect for him. I just look at it from a standpoint Dylan Harper is probably their second or third best, whatever you want to put him. He could be, he's, I think, already their third best player, and he might become as good as their second best player. So you gotta get Harper in the the starting lineup next year. You have to. But but how how do you he's making whatever $7 million, $8 million a year on his rookie contract right now. How do you bench Deion Fox making $50 million to put a kid making $7 million in ahead of him? So you, I guess, have to start them both, which means that changes your defensive rotations and stuff. It's an untenable, it's it's a good problem, but it's also a problem because you have to figure out how do you navigate either that situation or how do you offload a guy who's making $210 million over the next four years now that isn't showing all that well in this series. I think he's a way better player than what he's showing in this series, but that's gonna be the indelible moment or mark that's left on all these teams, you know, on the on the palette, so to speak, as they're going out. So, how palatable will it be to take on 210 million? That's what I was just gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 59:01

Yeah, yes, sir. I mean, it that's the problem, is his value's at an all-time low now. So you might have to attach an asset to get rid of him now. So it's a tough one. I was gonna ask you that too with Dylan Harper, uh, as there always is, like we're talking about, there's Kobe comparisons. I haven't seen that. I like his game. Have you seen any flashes? Because I would love for there to be another Kobe, and it might be Wimby, but I I just I'm not seeing it.

SPEAKER_01 59:27

But have you only in the sense that the kid is fearless, he's elite on both ends, he doesn't shy away from the moment, and he has been the best player on the Spurs for at least a game in this final series, maybe two. So, like I see in the I see young Kobe flashes in that regard because even as early as that 2000 run, where people just reject and say, oh, anybody could have been on that team other than just put any other guard on and they win. Like Kobe was the best player on the floor in game seven against the Trailblazers in the Western Conference Finals, that they were down 13 points at the end of the fourth quarter or at the end of the third quarter. They don't even get into the finals that run if it's not for Kobe in that game seven. And then again in game four of the finals, Kobe was the best player on the floor at 21 years old, won that won that game, bumped it from a what it would have been 2-2 if not for him. It became 3-1. So I just in the fact that even at that point, I was watching that kid and saying, Oh, well, Shaq's on this team, and yeah, he's just scored 38 points per game in the finals. But I think that I think this young 21-year-old might be the best player.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

Yeah, and those of us that were watching at the time, and like I saw you did an interview recently, I think that's the first long form interview on the channel, right? With a LeBron young man. And I was just thinking, I was watching, he actually seems like a very nice, talented guy. But I was like, I feel bad for him because they just don't know. Because if you were there watching it, and if you were a fan, you knew that the tension was in the Western Conference playoffs. And once we got past Sacramento and San Antonio or whoever, and we got to the finals, you didn't even have to worry about it because you already knew we were playing the Nets or the Pay, and it and it was just stat padding at that point, unintentional stat padding because the East was so bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:17

Right. If look, and I never under I've never understood this, and I still don't like it, Stefan, that they've done they've added the conference finals MVP now as well. So there's a conference finals and a NBA finals MVP. I don't understand for the life of me. In the NHL, the con smite, the playoff, it's a playoff MVP. They don't give it for just the the Stanley Cup series, final series. It's who's the best player for the accumulated run of all four rounds. You gotta win four rounds to win an NBA championship. Now it's 16 games. It was 15 games in the early 2000s. And uh Kobe would have been more than likely the playoff MVP in two of those three runs, in my estimation, if they made it a full playoff MVP thing and not just one series at the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

So that's a really good point. You know what I was saying on that note too, Skep. I think some of us, I'm not gonna call you this, but I mean I'm I'm a self-proclaimed, even though I look like a hillbilly, I'm a self-proclaimed nerdy guy. I like statistics, it's fun for me, it's calming for me. Um somebody like us needs to create an algorithm like how they've got the Hollinger metrics and all this stuff and P E R and whatever else that tracks for era pace. And I know they have some of that out there, but there needs to be some definitive metric that we can use to look at historical players from the 60s and 70s and onward and compare them in an accurate format. Is what I'm saying making any sense? I don't think I said that very smartly.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Yeah, I mean for sure, because like I we I hear all the time about how inefficient Kobe is and how he was never good at those advanced metrics, which is why I talk about them so much with Jokic, is because I had I understand them so well because they've been used to attack Kobe for so many years. But when I look, I think like player efficiency rating, which is the preeminent one that people talk, I think Kobe has the 19th best PER in NBA history. But when you look at it, there's only two guys that played the majority of their time in Kobe's era that had a higher PER, Shaq and Tim Duncan, who played markedly closer to the rim and played different kinds of game style than Kobe was consistently out on the perimeter, facing double teams, shooting outrageously contested shots, and still he's he's higher than any other guy that played the majority, including other bigs, all-time legendary bigs like Kevin Garnett, Turk Novicsky. Like he's higher than them in PER. And all I hear about is how inefficient Kobe is. Well, it's because nobody was as efficient then as they are today.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:50

Yeah, well said. I mean, that's why to me, PER, I kind of throw it out the window, honestly, and because it's so it's so biased towards the bigs. And you can't, aside from all the stats, aside from all that, from the human element, you can't emphasize enough the difference and to bring it all full circle with what we were talking about earlier with getting to root for Wimby if the league and his team endorses him. Kobe's own team literally did not want him to score, you know, and and having Shaq on there made that even more of a detriment to where literally, factually, documentedly, Phil Jackson, the team around him, wanted Shaq to get those MVPs. They pushed the offense and the stats in that direction. If Kobe ventured out, it was like he was breaking a rule. And so you can even if you had all the same rules, same competition, but that alone was different. And and Phil Jackson said, We're gonna run through Kobe on this one, he could have averaged 40 a game against those weak Eastern Conference teams if they wanted it to be that way.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:52

So well, and and the and the thing is too, like the the triangle automatically muffles your individual scoring. Like it's supposed to be like an equal opportunity offense, basically. And that's why when you see Jordan in the 80s, I mean, he was averaging 35 one year, 37 another year. But then when Phil came in and instituted the triangle, he still led the league in scoring. But and but as the defenses were as the league was getting harder to score in and et cetera, and it was kind of sharing the wealth more in the triangle. Jordan still led the league in scoring, but it was more 30 points per game, 31. He averaged 29 one year and led the league in scoring. So basically, the triangle isn't being an equal opportunity offensive system. Kobe played in that for most of the second part of his his peak career without Shaq. And then he played in it with Shaq for the first part. So Kobe's basically muffling his own scoring and then trying to feed Shaq and basically do the best thing to win as many championships. Then he has two years basically outside of the triangle, outside of Philos is like Let's do to freelance around. And he one of those two years is the greatest scoring season. In NBA history. So we saw, I mean, we saw what the capabilities were in if only in a flash, but we saw like the dude averaged 35.4 points per game in a 96 point per game season. He had more, he had over half of the 50-point games that season for the entire NBA. He averaged 45. It was just so mind-blocked. Like, if in an alternate existence, in an alternate timeline, Kobe could have easily scored. He could have led the league in scoring, maybe not perhaps not 10 times like Mike, but he probably more than anybody else, more than Chamberlain, who had seven. So Chamberlain's second all-time with seven scoring titles. Mike Jordan's number one with 10. I think Kobe could have been right in that eight or nine scoring crowns if he really wanted to. Probably 30, 31 points per game for a career average, if he really wanted to. That's the thing that drives me the craziest, Stefan. That people say that Kobe was a ball hogging shot chucker that cared more about his statistics than winning. Bullshit. Because if he cared about his statistics, he would have led the league in scoring every single year because he easily could have.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:10

Frickin' A, right? Number one. And I mean, you remember uh he had one season where he's like decimals behind Kevin Durant and he could have played. I think he only had to score like 42 or something in the final game, and he's he set out the game because he wanted to rest for the playoffs. And that's partially because he didn't care about that stuff and he was a team guy, but it was also back to the whole media thing, it was partially because he had everybody screaming at him, oh, you're this, you're that, you're the thing. So he was forced to prove them wrong. It's basically sports media gaslighting, is what it is. It's telling someone they're doing something they're not and forcing them to go. And you remember he would go on those stretches, people would say he was shooting too much, and then he'd average like nine or ten assists for a couple weeks just to show that he could, and then he'd go back to doing the thing that was the best for the team. So it's depressing.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:57

Anyway, it is. I mean, and and it's it's been happening. Us Kobe fans, uh we of course we have a chip on our shoulder and we feel a certain way about it because it's been happening his whole like when he was in the league at the time and he was easily the best player, we were being told that he wasn't. And then when he got out of the NBA, now in hindsight, in revisionism, we're being told, Oh, well, he wasn't as good as you think he was, or that you remember that he was. And yet every guy that has played against him, or every guy that was in the overlapping era with him and LeBron, every single guy I've ever heard of, everyone 100% that go on the record say, Oh, yeah, it's Jordan and then Kobe. Like they're the two best players ever.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

The third part of where you're going with that, too, uh, for me anyway, a video idea for you, Skep. That I is the most infuriating thing that Kobe haters say. And the guy said it on your thing, on your interview, the LeBron gentleman, Connor, I think his name, that Kobe's legacy has been enhanced since his death. And they don't want us insult him because he's dead, and then they insult him. That makes my head explode because it's number one, it's not factual, because like you said, he was in the GOAT discussion throughout the entirety of his playing career. He was universally, by the players and the people that know, considered a top five player before his death, and now they've used his death to denigrate him to where I almost don't even like talking about that he's passed away because I feel like it actually limits the respect of the argument for his actual game on the court.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:28

Yeah, it's it is it's ludicrous that people say that he's been enhanced since since his death. Like he was when he was playing, everybody was talking about him in Jordan conversations, like broadcasters, opposing coaches, all the players that were playing. And now he's out of the top 10 somehow. Like on most periodicals and stuff, I see he's somehow like 11, 12, 13. What are you talking about? Like he's his legacy continues to dip now.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:56

I I I yeah, I don't see that at all. One one of the one of the my favorite documentaries, other than The Last Dance, have you ever seen the uh the the Redeem Team documentary pieces?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:06

I actually kind of was surprised by how good it was, since it was it was clutch that did it, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:12

I I I don't I actually didn't know if if it was I'm gonna have to I I need to go back and rewatch. Yeah. But the way that all of the players spoke about Kobe, like about what kind of a level he was he was at, and how they basically none of them were at his level. And they and they all basically said, We learned something, like we became different players, essentially. I mean, even LeBron was like, Oh yeah, this guy's different. Like, even being interviewed today, when he was talking about back then, seeing Kobe Bryant's work ethic, his drive, his determination, the way he approached his preparation and stuff and things off the court, like even LeBron today, like who is as insufferable as anybody and who wants to talk himself up at every chance he gets, he said, all of us just looked at each other, basically, and we and I and we're like, yeah, this guy's just different. So it kind of showed that the players did have that reverence for him that is so rare. Like you don't see most current, like most peers don't have that reverence. Like Jordan and Kobe are basically the only guys I've seen where players have the respect, the fear, everything for you while you're still playing.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:25

They sure as hell don't have it for LeBron, I'll tell you that. And Mike Sheshewski, too. He in that, I think in that documentary, he said definitively Kobe was the best player in the league at that time, you know. So we were so happy to get him. That actually scapped back to my my theory with LeBron from earlier. That documentary played a role in me forming that opinion. And if Kobe wasn't the assassin that he was, and if he wasn't the cold-blooded killer and all that, and he had sucked up to LeBron like LeBron does to all these young guys, and like tried to butter him up, LeBron would probably still be kissing his ass. But I think Kobe just shut that down and like I said, broke his heart. But anyway, good segue into my final uh sports topic. And if you've got time, I might try to bug you for movies here, but we'll see. But my final sports topic that I have to ask that I don't honestly I care less than I normally would, but LeBron. There's been rumors about him joining Steph Curry. I'm hoping that he gets off of my Lakers finally. Where do you see him going? We talked about this at the beginning of the year, and it looked like it was a foregone conclusion that he would be gone, and now it looks like he might somehow stay. But where do you see that happen?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:32

Beginning of the year and halfway through the year, I thought 0% he would be back with the Lakers. Now I think it might be the probability that he's back with them, unfortunately, for uh all of the Lakers fans in recess. But I think there is at least a chance that they can't reach a like a contractual consensus between the two because I think the Lakers would love to get him around 10 to 15 million if he would accept that. That'd be a big cut because he made 54 million this year. So I don't know that he'd be willing to accept that much less on the same team. So I and I don't think that they're gonna give him more than around that. Maybe they would go as high as 18, 19 million, but beyond that, I think he's probably gonna have to go somewhere else. And to me, yeah, Cleveland makes the obvious choice. It's in the East, it's an easier conference. They have a good team that went too deep in the playoffs already. You know, they were in the East Finals. So they probably would dump James Harden and whatever money they were to use on him, they would give to LeBron. And that would make to me the most basketball sense. The Golden State thing, it keeps flaring up because they tried to trade for him, I think, two years in a row at the deadline. It didn't work.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

You're like, you know what, maybe you should go. And then LeBron didn't want to do it, right? Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:53

So I and Steph is actively recruiting him now as we speak. So that's why it's kind of coming up, but it makes no sense to me from a basketball standpoint. You've got Curry's, whatever, 38. Jimmy Butler coming off an ACL, he's 37. LeBron's obviously going to be like 42. I'm it's just none of it, none of it seems to make sense to me. Draymond Green will still be in the mix. He's 37 or 38. So I just any one of those guys get hurt at any minute, if they are hypothetically all 100% healthy to go in the playoffs, they're still, at best to me, the sixth, fifth or sixth best team, maybe in the West. So I just don't understand why he would go to a to a fourth team now this late in his career, a fourth different franchise this late for that to be to be probably one and done in the playoffs. I I don't understand. So my my expectation is LA with a chance of Cleveland.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:47

Okay, so this is what I think will determine it. I think as LeBron haters, we have to decide where we want him to go. And then wherever it is that we want him to go, it's going to be the opposite. I would be happy if he went to Golden State because of the reasons you just said, and he can stab Pad, do whatever he wants, but there's no risk of them winning a championship. Where do you want him to go?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:10

I think I would probably want him in it's tough because go, I think I'd probably in a vacuum Golden State because you're on the West Coast, though, because I'm on the East Coast and I would want to make a video or do a live stream after every game. Then it would be fun for him to be on the East Coast in Cleveland so I could do like a response to every single all 82 regular season games. But from a from a hate watching basketball standpoint, for me, probably Golden State as well. I agree with you there.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:37

Well, on my tiny little channel, I've had a lot of arguments with the Lakers fast break guys defending Rob Pelenka because I think he's another victim of the LeBron media stuff. But if Rob Polinka brings him back, I'm done with the Lakers for the rest of my life. I'll never support them again. And then I'll jump on. Maybe you know, you can take me as the Nuggets fan. Maybe you can accept me and I'll jump on the there.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:57

You go. Or the Spurs, you like Wambi.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:00

Jump on the Spurs. Me and Gary will get into it. So that's that's my I'm doing better with segues today or a little bit.

New Projects Movies And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 1:16:06

So we talked about what you've got coming up with the show, and you're breaking off into a daily live show. Do you have any plans? Because one of my favorite things that you do on the live streams is when it gets into the movies and any spin-off opportunities coming up to where you might want to talk about some of pop culture in addition to sports.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:23

Well, so I mentioned I might do like, I don't know what the name would be, maybe like DocuScap or Scapumentary or something like that would be the channel name. And uh, and I would do my put my longer form basketball stuff there, but I might maybe use that to branch into other kind of documentary, mockumentary style videos where I talk about stuff and infuse it with my the humor elements that I put in those original kind of videos that I did way back, way back in the day when I started. So that I could do it there, or maybe I just do a third channel and a movie channel because I do love movies a lot. And as you know from the live streams, I do compare things often, or I'm always have movies in the back of my mind most of the time. So certainly that is a distinct possibility, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:09

I like how about SCAP University? That's my two cents. Okay. I like that. I like I like it. If you pick it, give me a royalty or something. I don't know. In closing, obviously, hopefully the next time I talk to you, you'll be above a hundred thousand. You'll have that plaque sitting behind you. But anything to say to the people before I leave you alone for the day?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:29

Who knows? Maybe we look, I'm willing always, Stefan, to do this as uh anytime you want. I'm willing to hop on and chat with you. So we don't have to we don't have to wait so long between this one and the next one.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:39

Well, I try to leave you alone because, you know, I mean, you know, but but no, it's always it's always a pleasure, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:45

So same, same. Always a pleasure as well. Thank you so much for your obviously continued support and generosity for uh for of me and my channel. I really do appreciate that. So yeah, anything, anything I could do to pay it back or or or help you out or get on with you here, like I'm obviously always helped happy to do.