Welcome to the Omni Sports Podcast featuring your host, Bobby Labida.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another week here at the Omni Sports NBA Podcast.
We're going to recap week 14.
And if you are in a situation where I don't know, work kicked your butt this whole last week
and you have no idea what's going on in the NBA world,
don't worry, I got your back.
But before we jump into a recap for everything,
I just want to talk about something that's really cool.
Today, for the very first time on the podcast, it doesn't just have to be a podcast.
That's right. You could be watching.
We actually have video footage you can see on our YouTube or in the Spotify app.
And so if you're like, hmm, it'd be nice to see some of these statistics that are talked about or hmm,
I would love to see Bobby's deep, deep, bright blue eyes and his lava lamp.
That's a Rams lava lamp that's broken and he's still using in his background for some reason.
You want to be able to do that unless you watch the video.
And if you're like, oh, I do not want to watch the video.
Don't worry. My mom always told me I had a face for podcasts.
So you still have your options. You can listen podcasts anywhere you want.
But before we hop into it, we need to hop into our sponsor for this week.
If you're unfamiliar with this podcast, every week we have a fake sponsor until one day we have a real sponsor.
But if you're looking to support the show, you can subscribe on Spotify
and you will get early access to some of our special upcoming episodes that have nothing to do with basketball,
but have to do with other sports.
But our sponsor this week is doing big things because that's what's happening in the NBA.
As we're going to talk about, we had some crazy, crazy stat lines this week.
And you know what? This pod, this YouTube channel, we're doing big things this year in 2024.
And if you haven't done a big thing recently, I hope you do a big thing soon.
But let's get into those storylines of the week.
Storylines of the week.
One.
And they got to get rid of the bat.
They got to get rid of the bat.
I mean, the bat almost hit Ant.
I've never seen Ant flinch in my life.
And the coyote is Johnny on the spot.
This is not new for the coyote.
Oh, he's getting sauced by the bat.
The fact that they have the net ready.
Just trying to...
This would be one of the more incredible feats if in a costume the mascot is able to catch the bat.
Did they do this on purpose?
Come on, they had the coyote ready in the Batman costume.
That is a great point. Wait a minute.
That was the best thing.
They got the music ready.
The coyote is in costume.
Oh my goodness.
Got him.
All right. This first storyline really doesn't have a lot to do with basketball,
but I would be remiss as a sports content creator if I did not tell you about this one in a million story.
And I encourage you to watch the video in the link below or in the show notes because it is wild.
In the San Antonio Spurs game against the Timberwolves, only a couple of minutes into the game,
a bat flew into the stadium or was in the stadium probably and started flying around the court,
which led to the players, of course, leaving the court, which led to the Spurs mascot,
who somehow had access to a Batman costume, went up with a giant net.
And so you got this coyote in a Batman costume swinging around.
And it looks like this surreal, like you're having a fever dream, like the drugs said a little too hard.
Your eyes can't believe what you're seeing.
But then this mascot kind of catches the bat by by killing it with the net.
And all of the Spurs players started high fiving this guy.
So if you're if you're OK with just just slight, slight animal cruelty,
I encourage you to watch that video because it is wild and I can't believe this happened at a sporting event.
And one of my favorite themes in sports is when animals interrupt.
Whether it's a squirrel running onto a baseball field or RIP to the bird that Randy Johnson
absolutely murdered with a fastball in preseason one season.
All right. And what is actually the biggest storyline of the week?
We didn't have one 60 point game. We didn't have two. We didn't have three.
We had four 60 point games. And before I get into each of these games,
I'm just going to read these stats because they're ridiculous.
On Monday, Carl Anthony Townshead, 62 points and eight rebounds.
He had 10 three pointers while doing so.
But the same night he was stopped by Joe Embiid, who had 70 points.
And he was super efficient and had 18 rebounds and five assists to go with the 70 points,
which is crazy that those two games would happen on the same day.
This day happened to be the anniversary of Kobe's 81 point game,
which is the second highest total in NBA history.
Though some of these players are starting to flirt with that.
Maybe make that make that a little spicy, but not to be outdone on Friday.
Devin Booker scored 62 points and then Luca Donchans also on Friday.
And it's extra funny because Devin and Luca have some, you know, have some beef, have some drama.
But Lucas scored 73 points, which is tied for the third.
Like is the third highest point total by someone not named Kobe or Wilt Chamberlain, which is ridiculous.
But I'm going to get into each of these games and talk about them a little bit and what they look like.
What's funny is you hear these crazy stat lines and what normally you hear these crazy stat lines, you'd expect a 4-0 record.
But no, the teams only went two and two.
Carl Anthony Towns lost. His team lost. The Wolves lost.
And it was very clear when they said at halftime that when they saw how good Joel Embiid was doing
in the other game that they were trying to force feed the ball to Carl Anthony Towns, which was not the right decision.
And had barely any points or any shots in that game.
And Anthony Edwards is just so good. And I don't care how hot Carl Anthony Towns is.
You shouldn't just rely on him. And he got very tired towards the end of the game.
And this is kind of what I think will be my main takeaway from this week.
I was thrilled by these games, but I don't know if they're necessarily good for the NBA or good, a good NBA product.
Right. Because Carl Anthony Towns team lost.
And then we also saw on Friday that Devin Booker with his 62 points, his team also lost.
And it kind of ended up with Devin Booker taking a terrible last shot to win the game.
And it just looked like him. Carl Anthony Towns were just totally beat at the end of the game.
Joel Embiid's team was still able to win.
But Joel Embiid, which we'll talk about a little bit later, did not play the next play as many games this week.
You may wonder if injury, the injury that he had had to do with playing so many minutes.
And then Luka Doncic also looked exhausted at the end of his game, but he had 73 points and was very efficient.
And we're going to talk about Lucas game a little bit more in the moment.
But what we're seeing here is sort of a trend of these high scoring games.
And they've all happened within this week.
My guess and hunch, if I had to, you know, if I were a sleuth, if I were a scientist, I'd put this up for a couple of reasons for why this is happening.
First, it being the week that all stars were selected, the starters were announced.
I feel like there's a little more.
I don't know if ego is the right word, but there's a more pizzazz in the air of who's the best.
There's more of these conversations up until this point in the season.
We're all just kind of feeling it in and out. And now all these players are like, oh, I'm I'm a starter or I'm not a starter.
Maybe I try to up it. Also seems like they were trying to play off of each other, which is interesting.
I think you also see that teams are more OK with a single player taking over a game if that means that everyone else sucks.
Because I saw in all of these games, the star players get really tired at the end.
And if you were able to pull it out. But all these games were close.
And when you're scoring 60 to 70 points, you would hope it's not in a close game.
And last and of course, is that offenses are better than they ever been.
The four four of the top 10 highest offensive ratings are happening this season right now.
And so defenses are a little hamstrung by the rules and offenses are playing faster and better.
And so when they're playing faster and better, you have a little bit of ego involved.
You have players just being really hot because all these players can get really hot in their own right in terms of how they play.
I think all of this leads to kind of a perfect collection to have what is basically like what would be like a decade for some decades
you had in a week in terms of 60 point games, which is absolutely crazy and insane.
But I still stand. I don't know if this is good basketball. I don't know if it's good for the NBA.
Lucas team lost the game after on a back to back. Right.
And he probably had to spend so much energy. He's not a good game in the back to back.
But you wonder how much it really devastates and destroy these players to do something like this in a regular season game, because they all looked very exhausted after.
And I was exhausted just watching them. But regardless of how I feel, whether this is good or bad, it's still historic and absolutely was crazy to watch what happened this week.
And my third storyline this week is actually taking a deep dive in one of those set lines we just heard.
While Joel Embiid's game was impressive, I wanted to take a moment to talk about Luca Donchich's game because Luca had the most efficient, not just 60 point game,
but no game was as efficient as Luca was until you got to 56. He scored 73 points and he had a true shooting of 92.5 percent, which is ridiculous.
If you don't know what true shooting is, it takes in percentage account with how much each of the shots are worth.
So a three pointer is worth a little war troop shooting. Two is worth a little less.
And of course, a free throw is worth the least. And prior to the game, apparently the Atlanta Hawks fans were shouting at Luca that he should get on a treadmill.
Now, for a bit of context, the Hawks selected Trey Young before Luca Donchich in the same draft.
And that was kind of very famous in that moment because Luca had been coming off a European MVP.
And so some people thought he should have been the first or second pick.
And he ended up being the third pick to the Mavericks and Trey Young was picked beforehand.
Now, I don't think these two directly have any beef or issue with each other. I could be wrong.
But the media has definitely pinned them together. And as a result, I think the fans kind of internalize that.
And maybe we're a little more aggressive to Luca. And I've noticed this trend. I've seen it with Zion.
I see it with Luca that we're sort of weight shaming players.
And if you're a fan who's weight shaming players, unless you are actually genuinely athletic, please, I think you should maybe shut the heck up.
Luca Donchich has played more professional in minutes in basketball at age 24 than many players have played in their whole career.
And here's the thing with Luca that a lot of people forget. He plays basketball often in the offseason.
When he came into the league, he had just been playing in Europe.
He played in the NBA Cup for his home country. And so he's playing a lot of minutes.
And I think as a result, you see this leads to he doesn't have the chance to maybe take his weight training seriously in the offseason.
And also, if you're paying attention, he really does look leaner and a little bit more agile this year compared to last year.
And we've seen that with Luca, where his weight sometimes goes up and down. And I think there could be an intentionality to it.
More muscle allows you to be more physical. But, you know, to his credit, he's gone a little leaner.
And in that game where he played 73 minutes, he played 44 of the 48 minutes and he was super necessary in that game.
What's funny is if you watch the game, this will sound like a weird thing to say about a 73 point game.
It was the most unselfish 73 point game of all time. I know there's not a lot to compare to it, but he was still passing the ball.
He was still getting good looks for his teammates and his teammates could actually make a basket.
Then we would be talking about how many assists he had on top of the fact that he had 73 points, but he scored that many points because he kind of had to.
I look back to a possession in the fourth quarter with only a minute left in the game, still very close.
And Luca has a pretty decently open shot for three and still chooses to pass it to his teammate.
And I know Luca gets a bad rap for all these reasons. People again make fun of his weight.
They don't think he necessarily eats the best because he's been known to not have the healthiest diet.
And sometimes he on court, he can be a little bit of a whiner to some. Some people view him as a bit of a crybaby, but he really hasn't been that this year.
And this year he's been excellent. And if you actually watch Luca, even though he puts up these stat lines, which seems like a player who's totally selfish, most of the time he's not.
I genuinely think most of the time he's doing what's right by his team.
And keep in mind as a 21 or 22 year old, he carried the Mavericks to the Western Conference Championship.
Yes, they lost, but Luca shouldn't be slept on just because we find reasons to dislike him.
News and notes.
All right, we have three news and notes that we're going to look at this week. The first big news and note is a trade.
Yes, we're having another trade and expect probably every week for there to be a new trade for me to update you with until the NBA trade deadline.
So this trade this week involved the Charlotte Hornets in the Miami Heat.
The Charlotte Hornets acquired a 2027 first round draft pick and Kyle Lowry from Miami in exchange for Terry Rosier.
So you see Terry, who's been really good for the Charlotte Hornets and throughout his career has been a pretty decent playmaker when it comes to scoring.
You traded for Kyle Lowry. Now, Kyle Lowry, I think, has had an amazing career.
He was on the great, you know, he was on good Raptors teams. He's been a good player on the Heat.
But, you know, I think he's starting to age a little bit. He's not playing as many minutes.
And I think the Heat, we're looking for that extra piece just because, you know, Jimmy's been a little hurt.
The Heat are not playing up to snuff for their own expectations.
But I'm never worried about the Heat because as long as they make it into the playoffs, as we saw last year, they can be an A seed and still make an incredibly deep and incredibly long run in the playoffs.
And this week, we also had a first or a new high stat total for LeBron James.
That's right. In his 21st season of basketball, LeBron had his first 20 rebound game, which is just absolutely crazy that at 39 years old, he is able to still put up these crazy stat lines.
He went for 36 and 20, which is just like that's a stat line you rarely see. And then let alone to see it from age 39, LeBron, his longevity is something that I think your kids will talk about, your grandkids.
And if that's not your thing, your puppies and your grand puppies.
And if that's not your thing, then just play this podcast over and over again and we'll still be talking about in 50 years.
But that is absolutely insane what is LeBron is able to do.
But our last storyline of the week, not storyline, but our last big news and notes of the week is that we had our All-Star starters selected.
Now, if you're unfamiliar in the middle of February, we're going to have All-Star Weekend where many players who selected for the All-Star game will get to be able to participate in the All-Star game and some other competition.
Since there's the three point contest, the slam dunk contest, you don't have to be on an All-Star team to be in those skills challenges, but it's a big fun All-Star weekend.
And the top five starters for each conference are announced with a team captain. So in the East, we have Janis Antuka Nkumpo, we have Joellen Bede, Jason Tatum, Tyrese Halliburton, and Damian Lillard.
And your captain is Janis. And in the West, we have LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, and Shay Gilgis Alexander.
And LeBron is your team captain. So looking at these starters, overall, I think these starters make a lot of sense.
The way that this is determined is through both a fan vote, coach vote, and player vote. And as a result, everyone feels like it's wrong.
The players feel like it's wrong because there's input from the coaches and from the fans. The fans feel it's wrong because there's input from the players and the coaches.
And the coaches feel it's wrong because there's input from the players and the fans. It's just a great, wide old mess where no one is happy.
But I think generally these teams make sense. The only considerations I would make is while I think Dame is an amazing player and his talent is that worthy of an All-Star starter,
I don't know if it makes sense, A, to have two bucks who are not even the first seed in the East and not even this, I think they're the second seed now, to have two teams, two players on the starters.
And Dame has had some clutch and amazing moments, but I would probably put another player in over him. Right now, if I had to put one, I would kind of lean with Chuck Barkley, Charles, who says that he thinks that Jalen Brunson should have been a starter.
And I agree. I think he is really taking the nicks to the four seed that they're currently in. Julius Randall's been okay this season, but it's really Brunson's team.
And I feel like Brunson's really carrying the load and he's just playing great every day and he's efficient. And so that would be my only change in the East.
When you look at the West, you have Kevin Durant, which makes a lot of sense. He's playing great from he's playing great from three.
You know, I could see if you wouldn't pick him just because the Suns aren't doing as well. Jokic, how do you not pick him? Doncic and Shea. Again, how do you not pick them?
And then when we look at LeBron, I love LeBron. I don't know if his season necessarily necessitates to be a a team starter, let alone the team captain.
But when you're LeBron and your 21st season and still putting up amazing stats and doing so well, I think it makes sense, especially with a fan vote, why LeBron would be the team captain.
But I think if we're being honest and realistic with play, he's definitely an all star and definitely up there. But I don't know if he's in the top five and maybe that's considered a spicy take to some.
But, you know, I think it's hard sometimes when you look at these sorts of things as how much does the depth or how good the team around them factor?
Do you really want a player that's truly carrying a team, but they have to carry a team because it's so bad?
Or do you really care about how well the team is doing in terms of seeding? There's lots of different approaches and how you can and how you can look at this.
And I think a lot of voters will have their different perspectives. But those are mine.
But as you can, you can expect next week's episode, we're going to talk about the All-Star Reserve players.
And those are the players that are picked to also play in the game. And you will get seven more from each conference for a total of 12 NBA.
I still think we should have 15 to match the all NBA honors because there's three NBA all NBA teams.
We should have the equivalent of three All-Star teams or 15 players is what you have on a full roster anyway.
So NBA, we should get on it.
We're going streaky!
And this week's trend segment, we're going to be looking at two things.
First, where do players stand when it comes to the end season words in terms of their games? And does Joelle and Bede keep avoiding the Denver Nuggets?
But first, let's look at the games played. So if you're unfamiliar in previous years, you could win any award in the NBA.
And there was no threshold for how many games you had to play. You just had to play a certain amount of games that the voters felt was appropriate.
But now, as of last year, you have to get at least 65 games in in order to be considered for these awards, such as Defensive Player of the Year, MVP, All NBA, etc.
And this is significant to a lot of players due to the fact that many of their contracts are dependent on some of these things happening.
You can't have a full supermax contract without getting some of these honors, such as All NBA and things of that nature.
So we're looking at some players, some that are maybe trending towards the right direction or wrong direction, and some players that may surprise you have been very consistent in their play.
Keep in mind, we're about halfway through the season and you're only allowed to miss a total of 17 games. So once you hit 18 games, you are done.
So I'm just going to kind of list these players. But this is what it looks like.
You have Kyrie Irving, no longer eligible because he's missed 18 games. Jimmy Butler's missed 15 games. Jamal Murray's missed 14. Halliburton's missed 12. Porzingis has missed 12.
And I think all of those are in danger of really being close. They don't have a lot of leeway.
You have Joel Embiid, who's missed 10 games. Bam Adebayo, Laurie Markkinen, who have also missed 10 games. So they're kind of on that cusp, on that threshold.
And then you have Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell and Zion Willison, all at nine games. So they're halfway there.
So they need to miss one less game in the second half than they did in the first.
I mean, Kevin Durant was seven, which seems like it should be fine. But Kevin Durant could, you know, he's unfortunately has a history of sometimes getting hurt.
I think back to last year when he tweaked his ankle right before a game, just doing a normal layup.
And then you have players, you know, like Draymond Green, who's been suspended and has already missed that threshold.
But you also have a couple of players who are normally not considered durable, proving themselves to be durable.
First is AD. Now, all of you who called him street clothes these last few years, you are wrong this year.
He's played 44 out of 46 games, which is amazing.
Then you have Kauai Leonard, who has been known for his sitting and for his, you know, just I can't play rest, you know, sorts of things on my knee.
You know, Mr. Load Management himself, he's played 39 of 43 games.
And Steph Curry, who hasn't played more than 65 games since 2018, has played 39 of 42 games.
And so it'll be interesting for me to see at the end of this season if this new rule really makes it so players play more games and they do less resting over the last few years.
And what led to this rule is that players have been resting more in games because they want to rest a little more.
Be coaching staffs are a little more worried when you invest a lot of money into a player, you know, should they necessarily play every game in a back to back, right?
These are decisions teams and players make.
But the problem is, as a fan and I experienced this this week where I went to a the Lakers and Clippers game and LeBron James did not play.
This will be the probably the only Lakers game I get to see this year.
And I don't get to see the best or one of the best players all time doing it because he had to sit out that game.
And fans feel that pain when they spend a lot of money in order to go to these games and the players sit out.
I don't fault the players, but I also don't fault the NBA for trying to encourage players to load manage a little less and actually get involved in what's going on,
which leads us to another trend of sitting out, but a little more specific of a trend.
We'll listen here.
Joel Embiid has not played a game in Colorado against the Denver Nuggets since 2019.
And it always seems to be the case that whenever the Nuggets and 76ers play that Joel Embiid has a reason to not play.
And that led to the boos that you heard and the chance that you heard from that game.
Now, after the game, Nikola Jokic did his normal pretty gracious self and said,
Joel Embiid's one of the best to do it.
And he also referenced this 70 point game earlier this week that he's doing things that are historic,
though Mike Malone being Mike Malone took the exact opposite approach and said the NBA should investigate why this keeps happening.
And this has been a big storyline, even dating back to last year, because last year in the final stretch of sort of the heated and contentious MVP race between Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid,
they kind of traded off not playing against each other.
And it kind of felt like no one wanted to like to I'm going to beat you head to head in order to win the MVP.
And Joel Embiid famously sat out a couple of games towards the end, which frustrated a lot of Nuggets and Jokic supporters.
And for those who don't know, Jokic had won the previous two MVPs and last year seemed pretty poised to do it for a third time in a row.
All his underlying metrics were just as good for the most part as his previous seasons.
But Joel Embiid sort of won the what we would call the narrative battle.
I do think he was an amazing player and I think him getting MVP was not undeserved.
But I do think that the media kind of turned against Jokic for some reason.
Now we sort of see the flip side when last year Jokic did not get the MVP, but his team won the championship.
And so I think Joel might get clowned a little bit more on this until he actually chooses to play against him against Nikola Jokic.
I don't know if he's purposely trying to avoid him.
I do think he was genuinely hurt this time, but I can't speak to previous times.
And also, I get it.
I myself wouldn't want to face Big Honey either.
Unless it was with lots of honey.
What?
That's right. We have a new segment this week where I get to toot toot my own horn.
Now, if you're unfamiliar with the show, we have a normal segment called Bobby is a Dum Dum.
And it's a fan favorite.
In fact, when I talk to people and see them on the street who listen to the show, that is usually the segment they talk about the most.
And they start singing the song to me.
Bobby is a Dum Dum.
And while I want to be a person who always admits when he makes mistakes, I also want to be a person who admits when I do something pretty correct.
And the thing I did correct was two weeks ago in week 11, I did a West prediction of how the West was doing.
And while I'm not perfect with my prediction because my five and six predictions are currently the seventh and eighth seeds.
I just want to say that my predictions for the first, second, third and fourth seed are all currently exactly as I predicted them a few weeks ago when these teams were not in those places.
I said that the Nuggets would be in fourth because they're a great team, but they don't necessarily always have to give it their all and don't always have to always do in the regular season.
And they always tend to deal with injuries.
I said that the Clippers who are trending up, I think will be my third seed, which they currently are.
While the Clippers are going up very fast, they are a couple games behind the first and second teams in the Western Conference.
And I also think that, you know, with these players, they've been playing great and gelling great.
But when they play against big competition, which so far they've been able to beat.
But I think in the long run, you may see a few more missed games.
I could see a world where the Clippers look like they've clinched Kawhi and some of the players have gotten to their 65 game threshold and they relax towards the end.
And in second, you have the Timberwolves, which I said were playing great.
And I didn't think they would drop down like many players or people sports fans do.
A lot of people are worried that they are just all defense and don't have enough offense.
And sometimes people worry about Carl Anthony Towns.
Sometimes people worry about the maturity of Anthony Edwards.
But I think they're both incredibly talented players.
A lot of people hate Rudy Gobert, which I think is a bit unfair at times because I think he's a really talented player.
And in the first seed, I said because I thought, whoa, this team is doing something pretty crazy is the Oklahoma City Fender.
And what stood out to me about them was not only their intensity, but pace of play, but their youth.
And I think their energy really matters a lot in an 82 game season to keep that energy throughout is not necessarily a old man's kind of game.
Right. I think that's why you see a lot of teams with more veterans and older players.
They tend to try to do their best, but they're OK just kind of getting into the playoffs and doing what they need to.
Back in the day, it always felt like teams were playing their darndest and hardest to get to the first and second seed.
But I think teams, especially as evidenced by last year, where an eight seed and a seven seed make it to the respective conference finals,
goes to show that you don't have to try as hard necessarily.
And also given you have the play in tournament where the 10th seed and the ninth seed have a chance to make it.
I think it makes it that the regular season is kind of watered down, which is a bit unfortunate.
However, it played correctly into my hand with these predictions, which is why I wanted to toot toot my own horn.
But enough of tooting my own horn. I want to toot your horn consensually, because, you know, if you don't want that, that's fine.
No, no, no tooting of horns needs to happen.
But I just want to say thank you to each and every one of you.
This is my 14th week doing this podcast, and it's grown in ways I could not imagine.
And people have been supportive in ways I could not imagine.
So if you're enjoying this content and want to get more content from me, please check out our YouTube channel.
Please check out our Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. Feel free to subscribe.
Please give us five stars.
And as always, you can email us at Omnisports423 at Gmail.com if you have any suggestions.
This last week on YouTube, I got my very first bit of fan email and I was ecstatic because I was like, why would a stranger want to talk to me?
But they did. Pranay was about Australian football because I pissed off a lot of Australians.
In order to see how I did that, you should check out the YouTube.
But hopefully I'll see you next week. Thank you and have a great week.