Taylor Jenkins Firing: Memphis Shakeup and NBA Coaching Carousel Analysis

it's friday, you know what time it is. Frontrunner podcast collective is back on the air. I am your humble host, vince, and today we have a great podcast. It has been thrown up in the air. We got to get to this breaking news that just happened this morning, some of the ramifications of what's going on. We have some games that we went through with a fine-tooth comb and some of the observations from those games and what could they lead to in the playoffs. Who knows from those games and what could they lead to in the playoffs? Who knows? But before we get to any of that, the NBA never fails. Never fails to give us, deliver just the drama when TNT puts drama behind their name. And then they talk about the nba. Right, this is what they're talking about. So taylor jenkins out in memphis. They're in playoff position. The league struck.

Let me put it bluntly, the grizzlies have just swear finished. Vince Russo would have been booked in 1999. Okay, your head coach gone, locker room questionable, your future uncertain, unless you're Matt Ishbia or the Wizards. So let's cook shots out to Stone Cold. Steve Austin you know how much we love that, do? He's our guy. Hopefully he'll be in Vegas this WrestleMania season.

Now let's get to the Memphis Grizzlies You're 44-29. And you fire the all-time winningest coach with nine games left in the season. That's not basketball logic. This is like succession season four with sneakers at this point. This is like succession season four with sneakers at this point.

Now here's some. Here's some things that we kind of maybe led to this. Okay, they lost four out of five, the locker room code, whatever you want to call it. On course, back between bane and aldama. I mean, this happens with all teams, but when you're not going well, especially when you're battling for playoff positioning, sometimes you run a little hot. So if you're looking at that as just a just a one-off, no big deal. But if you start trying to put all the pieces together you know conspiracy theory style, some of these things come into question. Ja, reportedly clashing with Jenkins on subs and schemes. So here's the thing.

So here's the thing. It looked like our guy got called into the principal office this morning. He got the boot after getting up on the top row. Elbow drop by Cleveland at home, and that's he. My god, my god. Mark stein said this. You don't see NBA teams heading for 50 wins make coaching decisions and coaching changes with nine games left to go before the playoffs. That's the stunning part.

Now let's get a little nerdy about this, ok, okay, we gotta. There's a lot to get to here. First and foremost, before we get to any of some of the the numbers that might have kind of led us down this road, because I always want to back up theories with numbers and what have you, so you can get a kind of a snapshot of what's going on. Right, that's what this podcast is about is well, just invoking conversation, you can have some pretty solid stats to back you up when you go out and go on your position of whether probe Jenkins, non pro Jenkins, whatever the case may be, and we want to provide that for you.

But let's throw a little context into this now. This is what I'm gonna say about Taylor Jenkins. So a couple years ago, jaw has the incident with the gun. Now jaw had been injured before and they had had a really good record without jaw, taylor jenkins being able to create offense, create philosophies, create systems that work without jaw in there. This has gone on for like the last couple years too, on top of the jaw incident and then the shoulder injury, you know, and what have you where you missed the rest of the season. So there's been a lot of time without jaw and the memphis grizzlies have not gone to these like low level depths of the nba dregs of society or anything like that. No, taylor jen Jenkins has been able to allow Desmond Bain to flourish in offense. We have seen the emergence of Jaron Jackson jr, who isa possible defensive player of the year candidate, also possible all NBA candidate and definitely going to make a all-defensive NBA team, not to say the mint-smashing of bench and creating opportunities for young players like Asante Aldama, who is Flores this year. Vincent Williams, who came out of nowhere last year. Scottie Pippen Jr has just basically taken over the mantle of what, uh, jones, ty's Jones, was doing in Memphis.

These type of things are happening under the watch of Taylor Jenkins and they again a 44 and 29 record is what this man put together this year they are battling for home court advantage in the first round. So again, we got a lot of stuff going on here, right? So there's a lot of questions to be answered. Let's give you some numbers. Let's, you know, might be some of the things that might have been underneath the surface. First and foremost, post-all-star break Memphis Grizzlies record 8-11. Not great, bob. Now the competition has ratcheted up for Memphis, the second half of the year has been harder. The second half of the year has been harder than the first half of the year. Now, the thing with that is that you have this is why you built the record. You know because let's make this perfectly clear Whether you Whatever you think of Ja Right now, the Memphis Grizzlies might have One top 15 player In their midst, usually you don't go to battle, to go to a four championship without, unless usually with one of those guys being like a top seven guy.

So you don't have one of those and yet, and still, you're battling from hope for home court advantage throughout the first round. Now, ja, 22.3 points per game. His turnovers are 3.7. It's a career high. He has the lowest field goal percentage since 2021. He hasn't looked comfortable in this offense all year. We thought they were trying to keep him in bubble route for the playoffs. We thought that this was a way to maybe insulate him from injury, things of that nature.

Now, on the opposite end of that bane, plus jaron jackson, j net rating without John a court, the offense playing a more. I don't know if you want to call it team oriented type of pace and then maybe, like the NBA, nba style, frustration. Because I think what happens is when john leaves, the ball gets shared, let's just call it what it is when you have john the court because his shot, his outside shot, is not it's very infrequent, let's just put it that way. And if people are not going to respect his outside shot, you have to get into a lot of various pick and roll actions. You have to bring somebody up to the nail and then allow jaw to be able to run action. Now, what usually happens with that is you have a lot of guys standing around the perimeter who maybe weren't doing that when Ja was there. Now, this is not a assault on Ja, I'm just giving you what you saw when Ja wasn't in a lineup and when Ja is in the lineup, okay. So styles of play clash between coach and star player. You can see maybe the rumblings of something happening. I don't know cuz. We're gonna drop some theories a little bit later now.

They tried to run this modern euro pace pass heavy system and jaw was like sitting there like y'all. I'm like the house of dragons. It's like the fast and furious just give me the will, just give me the ball clear out, let me get some paint touches and then I'll kick it out to my shooters and let's go. Okay, jaw is a downhill attack guard. That's what he's been since he's come into the lead. He has a devil make hair attitude when throwing his if you want to call it 180 pounds soaking wet body into 265 pound men in the middle of the paint. And he does it every single time, except for this year. Right, we saw a lot of jaw. It seemed like he throttled down more. Right, that's what it seemed like we and again, I thought this was all in the best interest of jaw keeping him healthy to get to the playoffs, because that's what they have not had. They have not had a healthy jaw in the playoffs. They felt that if he was healthy getting there, then they would have a from 6 to 17 in offensive efficiency in two months. Like I said, these are just numbers. These are just little clues to help us along the way.

Now this is where it gets spicy. Jenkins is not going to be on the curve long. The league is already moving in its draft king on sunday slate okay, top fits. I'm gonna tell you right now. If you don't think the guy in the desert is going to make a phone call to Taylor Jenkins. You're absolutely out of your mind.

Matt Ishpia is all about. He wants to win. He said it. He said he's doubling down again. He doesn't. He doesn't care about what you think. He doesn't care about what you think he doesn't care about what I think is a podcaster and somebody who's been watching basketball for 40 years and saying you can't just come in, spend money and put a team together. You have to build continuity. You can't just buy talent and just think that it will coalesce and find its way. Matt ischmier told me to shut the hell up. I'm gonna do what I do. Okay, there's already rumblings that mike budenhoser, who is a first year coach, might be on his way out because booker and kd aren't vibing with what mike budenhoser got going on. Kd basically said he wants to often simplify so he can just get buckets and go up and down the court because that's where we're most effective and he thinks at that point in time the defense will kind of just naturally click in. Mike budenhoser obviously has a different way, a different approach of going about it and they have clashed. So enter Matt Ishpia.

Have we known this guy not to hit the eject button quickly. This guy would be the greatest contestant on press your luck. You know I'm saying for my old school people out there. Y'all know what I'm talking about press your luck. No whammies, also family feud. When you up there doing you know, 100 people answered this question, 100 americans answered this question and we need the top answer. Who makes the better grits? Your grandma or your mama, you know? And then somebody hits the little thing. I'm thinking matt espy will be great at all of these things because when kd came on to the market he hit the thing. He was like yo, we'll take him, whatever you want, we'll give you Hence Mikael Bridges, hence Cam Johnson, hence, every pick known to. Man that was buried in the desert of Arizona. Matt Ispiel was like like we're getting gay D. I don't care, I am making a splash, I am here to lead, not to read, and that's what I'm talking about.

So ispia definitely on this list now. I don't wanna, I don't want to, I don't want to over stimulate, but I am going to say something right now that might be a little radical, it might be a little revolutionary. No, it's not self freaking rollins, but how about? I almost feel bad because I know the dude that's coaching them now. But how about the Washington Wizards walk in the door, michael Winger, that think tank group up there. They go up there and say, hey, what up, jinx, you want to coach in the district. You want to coach where the cherry blossoms flow in the springtime. You want to coach where we haven't had winning since like the 70s, and this is a basically a Washington football town and you can steal some of the spotlight by coming in here and bringing your can-do attitude and your very, very good offense, because that dude gets good offense out of mediocre talent and he definitely levels up people Not saying you want to level up Jordan Poole, maybe for trade purposes, who knows? Who knows?

Now my third team on this list and this is where I want to get into the bigger conversation, taylor Jenkins, is a San Antonio Spur ex assistant coach, coach pop, great Papa bitch, who he has been a long-standing head coach with the San Antonio Spurs. We know in late in 2024, coach Pop suffered a stroke. Some of the reports that are coming out of it have been murky at best. There hasn't been a definitive timeline, and I asked the question when it happened. And this is not disrespectful, because great popovich has given a lot to this game. Uh, I mean, he's gone through errors, he's uh invented errors. Um, he's given us, uh, different styles of play, play different weight, different ways of going about it. But, at the end of the day, coach pop is in his 70s. He just had a stroke.

The NBA day-to-day 82 regular season game season is a grind. Is that man ready for this? Is he up for the task for this? And I'll ask the question San Antonio, far as victor win by yama is concerned, I think even pop would even say that we got to do everything in our power to make this guy great. We got to surround him with superior talent, we got to surround him with the best cooks, massage therapists, you know, uh, sports psychologists, whatever.

And the one thing that I do know about pop is that pop cares about the person more than he cares about the player. And I wonder, at this point in time, more than he cares about the player? And I wonder, at this point in time, would pop as a good servant, as a, as a man, a principal, would he then look at his legacy that he built, look that he ushered in the victor win by yama situation, look at his career and then say job well done. And does taylor jenkins, as a coach, pop disciple, come in and take over the legacy and lead the san antonio spurs to the next iteration of greatness that we long remember, with tim duncan and tony parker. And also I'm not gonna forget Sean Elliott, david Robinson, bruce Bowen and the crew, manu Ginobili you know I ain't gonna forget you, my player.

So these are questions that I gotta ask. These are just things that are percolating in the in In the don't space. Now here's the thing I want to give you. One last one. Just for fun and games, taylor Jenkins Is in the market. Sacramento Kings have been a Dysfunctional franchise for a long period of time. In one single swoop you could fix your whole situation if you brought in taylor, taylor jenkins just food for thought. And I like doc doug christie, I love doug christie Christie. I think what he does is really great. I also think if Mike Brown would have been able to been given rope and given the reins to the team and allowed to do what he needed to do, I think also this would have been better. You probably still have De'Aaron Fox and we wouldn't be in this situation, but who am I again? I asked this question.

So, on any of this, I want people to hit me up. I want you to join in on the conversation on x at frontrunner pc. Also hit up my producer, who has worked tirelessly to get some of this information to us, serea. Thank you, serea, for all that you do. And she is at rea, underscore, fudge, frpc, on x. And also we have blue sky accounts, folks, and mine stays the same. You know I am a, I'm a creature of habit. I tell you you know I'm, I'm that guy. So it's at frontrunreabskysocial. So you have it, you have it.

Where does Taylor Jenkins land? Will it be in the Valley of the Sun? Will it be in the nation's capital? Will it be in the nation's capital? Will it be at the Alamo? Now I'm going to give you a dark horse. Will Taylor Jenkins end up on Bergen Street with Zion Williamson? I'll just throw that out there for y'all. Y'all can go ahead. Throw out that's conjecture, do what you want with that.

Now let's get some more situations with this, because I got some things, I think some things that are interesting. Here. You say, well, give me the case pitch, give the elevator pitch to this vince. Why would taylor jenkins not take a cushy espn job? Or now, because we have the amazon team, also the nbc team, could taylor jenkins take a year off? You are absolutely correct, he could do those things. But if I was a team and I was making an elevator pitch to Mr Jenkins, it's probably go a little something like this If I'm the Wizards, I'm saying, hey, alex Sars looked pretty good the last couple months.

The three-point shot has come along, the ball handling has come along. We know that balakulabali is a long-term. You know, uh, high upside dude and we're probably going to be a top three pick in this 2025 nba draft. So why don't you come down to the district and really kick our you know our our rebuild into overdrive now. It's a good pitch. Washington hasn't been successful for a very, very long time, so I can see jenkins kind of thinking about that.

And then matt ischia comes in. You know, right off the pj. You know the hair is kind of spiked up. You know he's wearing some sort of windbreaker that costs like probably about thirteen, fourteen hundred dollars for no apparent reason and he's telling him things and he's giving him buzzwords like we want to facilitate, you know winning and we want to maximize around the margins. All the things that Taylor Jenkins likes to hear, because he's an analytical do, right, these are things that he's going to these two that are going to send. They're going to the neurons in his head are going to start bursting off. It's going to be great, right? He's going to say all the buzzwords that taylor jenkins likes to hear and he's going to say, hey, listen, I'm willing to spend, um, just literally, just obscene amounts of money to fix whatever problem you think we may have in the valley of the Sun. So all you need to do is sign on the dotted line to be the next Phoenix Suns coach.

Now Taylor Jenkins gonna look at that, probably take a step back, put his hands, one hand and then kind of like scratch his chin. You know, with the little beard, everything probably look like like hold on. So they fire Frank Vogel. Okay, okay, they just they just fired, you know, in this scenario, they just fired mike bootenhoser. And now I'm coming in and we got a disgruntled kd. Okay, we got devin booker, who says he's in publicly.

We'll see in the off season, after some stuff goes down, how, how in our guy d book is in. Is he real sons up fam, or is he like, hey yo, this looks real terrible and I need to get the hell up out of dodge? Who knows? I have no idea, but I will say this there will be some pitches for taylor jenkins. There will be some. I don't think this man is going to be jobless. I don't think we have to worry about taylor jenkins income anytime soon. But again, let me know, hit us up on blue sky, hit us up on x. Let us know, hit us up on blue sky, hit us up on X. Let us know how you are feeling About this Really crazy news that just came out of nowhere. And that's how I want to end this. I have to ask a question. Right, I'll be that guy. I guess I'll be the podcast guy that'll ask a question.

What does it take for a coach who has a outstanding winning percentage, who has kept a franchise afloat when it looked like they could have done all types of sinking over the last three years, to come out of it to see that jaw is relatively healthy and then to see the flirt, the flourishing of jaron jackson jr and all these role players that you build up and you're battling for home court advantage and they fire you. Home court advantage and they fire you. Okay, first of all, taylor Jenkins, you lost your. You lost your job on your day off. They brought you into the building to fire you.

Okay, so two things what the hell happened? What happened was it? Was it the laundry list of numbers and what they've done after the all-star break, the, the low career numbers of john morant? Was it the offense efficiency dropped the last two months? Was it all these things combined? Was it a pure performance issue? Because that makes it really hard for me to swallow that. Could it have been a power play? Could jaw have not liked the offense that was being run? Could jaw have not liked the offense that was being run? We have no information on that. I am purely speculating. I'm just asking questions aloud. But what happened? Because the things that we talked about before with the numbers and the efficiency of offense and you know jaw not having the the greatest year and on all those things, those also can be quickly answered away in jaw hasn't been here. Jaw's been hurt, jaw's been nursing injuries, other guys have been nursing injuries. It's been a tumultuous season.

There's a lot of ways to explain all of this away. And again, I mind you, they are 15 games over 500. It's not like they are bound for the top four picks in the 2025 NBA draft. This team literally could be hosting the first round of a playoff series and he's fired. So somebody in Memphis has a notebook that's probably about to be dumped and we will find out, probably what the hell happened. I just it's incredible to me. I mean, it is absolutely incredible. Oh my God.

Soraya just dropped this in the chat. She said Taylor Jenkins walking into Phoenix is like block Brock Lesnar returning to the WWE right now. Oh, wow again. Um, and here's the last thing I'm gonna say Memphis chose a path. Jenkins is a top 10 system coach in the league. If the Suns want structure or if the Wizards want a grown-up any team who wants to win this this guy really is their guy. I'm not trying to glaze him up, but again, I just told you what this man went through as the head coach of the memphis grizzlies and he was able to keep them over 500, keep them in playoff situations.

Last year was everybody got eradicated I mean everybody who was anybody on that team. They were playing complete G League rosters at one point last year and he kept them afloat. So again I say to you, taylor Jenkins, I don't worry about his job search. I think his LinkedIn mailbox will be full. I don't think he'll have to go on. What's that defunct place? Is monstercom still out there? What do the young people use? It? Just be linked in now, right, all right, man, oh man. Now here's the thing. I don't even know who's next.

I'm sure one of the assistants is going to be the interim, but Memphis offseason just got really interesting and I there's something that I've been holding for a while and it's something not not to hold it from from the audience, but it was something that you. You got the intrusive thought and you kind of go hmm, if I was going to put a list together of players maybe they had a disappointing playoff series or whatever, and the franchise decided to go in a different direction who would be on that list? Well, we got a couple answers right off the box, because kd obviously is going want out of Phoenix soon. Yeah, by the way, taylor Jenkins, beware before you go there, my guy, just a heads up, but another name that I popped up in my head. I was like what if? What if Memphis said.

You know what, john's not here enough to really bring in that continuity and for us to really grow as a team and and define the roles of everybody, where everybody kind of falls into their place. Right, and what if they decided to pivot in the offseason? This is something that I had thought about. To pivot in the offseason, this is something that I had thought about. Now, they did it with the coach Doesn't mean that Ja is necessarily walking out the door, but that coach is going to have a style, that coach is going to have an identity. That coach is going to have a philosophy that he's going to want to use.

And to say there will be no roster adjustment to fit the coaching style of whoever they bring in, that would be wildly inaccurate for us to even say that, because everybody wants to put their stamp on their team. If it's a first year, their first time coach, or an established veteran who's done it and done it a certain way, yeah, he might learn a couple new tricks along the way, like kenny atkinson or whatever. But kenny atkinson brought a high power offense offense to Cleveland. It wasn't something that they, they had it. But he basically what's the word I'm looking for? Yeah, like faster and furious. He put the nitro in and it just took off, and that they now have one of the best net ratings we've ever seen. So, again, different type of offseason for Memphis Grizzlies than we expected when we put our heads on the pillow last night Because this was not on my bingo card of shit to talk about Taylor Jenkins getting fired with a really good record, heading into the playoffs and trying to get his team playing the way that he needs them to play once they get to the playoffs so they can be successful.

Now, what we were going to talk about today is some of the games that happened yesterday and there's a lot to get into, so we will do so right now. Excuse me, I'm gonna deal with a cough for a couple days now. Now, did everybody catch that cleveland's and uh, san antonio game? It was a lot more entertaining than I thought it was going to be. So I want to start off like this, because it wasn't that long ago that people in cleveland, they got off, they won in a row, and then they lost four in a row, and they lost four in a row to some suspect teams. Now do we think they were going to keep up this tort pace the entire year? No, but losing four in a row for a team that we really do believe is that good. There was a cause for pause. I'm not gonna lie to you, I thought about it, you know.

So the cavaliers rolled into rocket mortgage last night, fresh off a two and four record road trip. Okay, and I thought personally I was like okay, statement win, we got to go ahead and get this. It wasn't a blowout, not a lucky night, but it was a. It was a tight game and it was a tight game with the san antonio spurs, a san antonio spurs team that doesn't have wimby, that does not have dearon fox because he's also out for the rest of the year because he had a tendon in his finger that needed surgery, surgery.

But there are some bright notes on this and but I want to you know, kind of go over them with you jared allen, he took full advantage of the non-wimpy being there. My man scored 29 points, 16 rebounds, 10 of 11 shooting, the efficiency, crazy big man, violence all over the place. It wasn't just highlight dunks, it was deep seals, second chance, domination, free throw touches, and he created real estate in the paint like he's supposed to. Okay, when you have an afro that large, when you look like you could be one of the Jackson 5 playing bass behind Michael in the 70s with that big old Afro, bringing back nothing but black excellence from the 70s, you got to have good post position and we saw time and time. What time, what time, what time again? We just saw it over and over again. It was great. He got after it. I loved it. 29 points. He punished him. It was crazy. He only makes 20 million dollars in this market.

This is one of the greatest uh value contracts in the nba right now. Now I know I love austin reeves. I love me some austin reeves, and we'll talk about him a little bit later and his contract is pretty good for the production we get. But, man, I love some Jared Allen. Now let's talk a little bit about Donovan Mitchell. Look, people were whispering about D-Mitch being in a slump. He's still that guy. There was never any reason to worry and coach kenny atkinson said it best he'll hit when it counts and you saw it last night.

This was not mitchell 2022 who forced late game shots in utah. This was facilitator. This was a facilitator mode, like in the vein of Chris Paul and Jamal Murray had a brainchild with a 40 inch vertical. My man spider had 14 assists, zero ice cells. In the last five minutes he trusted to read. He ran pick and rolls with allen to death and, most importantly, he didn't chase the moment he created it.

That's what leadership looks like from a player. You know saying that that type of guy right there, it's like I've been in this league long enough. I'm certified. Okay, I don't have to score 30 every single night. I can get this dude buckets. We can just win games. You know, maybe our, our others aren't really hitting, maybe ty jerome's not hitting tonight. It still doesn't mean that I need to go out and dominate the ball and go out and get 40 because my guy one, some of our guys, are struggling. We still got some really capable, capable people in this locker room and I'm going to trust them and I'm gonna tell you right now that's a big jump for donovan mitchell. So shots out to spider mitchell for just the maturation process, learning the game.

Mind of the game. He must have been listening to the LeBron podcast with JJ Redick. Mind the game, which is coming back for season two. Season two LeBron James. Mind the game is coming back. If you did not see the Pat McAfeeee interview with lebron james, don't worry, we will talk about it a little bit later. But who will lebron come back with? Steve nash? Steve nash, hell yeah, he did. But I'm just saying donovan mitchell needs a tip of the cap for the type of leadership and also the type of play that he is putting together this year. He is being a just a steadying force on that team.

Now garland hit the big dagger three, alan caught the lob, but it all flowed from donovan's gravity and you could feel it. The defense was bending to his will and not just his shot. Now give credit to san antonio. No envy out for the season. Let's define castle. This kid right now is climbing up the charts for rookie of the year.

Now we know a lot of people who kind of, you know, trailed off 22 points, last 22 points, 11 boards, 8 assists. He attacked garland. He attacked him unmercifully. As soon as he saw garland he was like lunch, let's go to, let's go to work. Garland like he found just a just a mismatch and he just smelled blood. Ain't put eight paint touches, multiple kickouts plus one in a losing game. It's not empty calorie stats.

He drove san antonio to be competitive in that game and he has a way about him. He drove San Antonio to be competitive in that game and he has a way about him that reminds me like of a young Jon Moxley Raw, but fearless, and you believe he's coming for you. He's coming for you, he's coming for your head and he thinks it's disrespectful If you don't, like, really attend to him when you're guarding him. So he's about that action and I love it. I love dudes that come into the league like I gotta really I hate everybody right now and I really am not in a real way but in a competitive way, like I'm coming for you, stefan.

Stefan castle has shown that we were worried about the shot. The shot looks a lot better and it's improved over the year and I think we do have a guy, another guy, another piece in san antonio, so good looks. Shots out to uh brian wright and his crew down there. I know rc slocum is still kind of hanging around, but brian wright is uh, basically man in the ship down in san antonio and these draft picks are starting to hit. Devin Vassell, on the other hand, he was a bit of a ghost late, only two points in the fourth quarter.

Good early clock sets, but couldn't shake Cleveland's half court length. That could be a problem. Statistically, this game was all Cleveland in the margin. They shot 60.9 true shooting. They had 33 assists on 46 made field goals. So there were only 13 shots that they made that weren't assisted on. That means they were sharing the sugar on a deep level. Means they were sharing the sugar on a deep level, I bet you, when they were out there playing basketball.

Now, this is for my old heads out there. So you young people, you go listen to this song. Okay, we about to give you an od, but goody. So when donovan mitchell and darius garland streus and jared allen and all the all the guys are out there, I can hear it right now. It's the bgs and it's how deep is your love if you ever heard that song, if your parents have ever played that for you, or if you just went down a youtube rabbit hole, wormhole or whatever it's called, or you're doom scrolling. If, for some reason, you find yourself on bgs, how deep is your love? Just the melody, just the, just the, just the orchestra, just the orchestra. Just how it's framed melodically is beautiful. You know I'm saying so that's how they was playing last night. It was smooth as butter and, uh, they moved like series g's, so in silence, and they got that dub.

So we're excited about the Cleveland Cavaliers and getting off the schneid. Now, defensively, when you only have 14 fouls in a game, that's controlled aggression. That's elite discipline without sacrificing pressure. That's elite discipline without sacrificing pressure and the synergy between mitchell and allen. I mean. 1.37 points per possession on pick and roll actions. That's finals level weaponry right there. So the cavaliers are no longer a scrappy team punching up. They're not rocky, they're Roman reigns in the East, say, tokyo ones for the tribal chief of the Eastern Conference of the NBA. The Cleveland Cavaliers play the Roman Reigns theme music. They know they're the ones to be listen. I still think Boston is the number one team to beat, but Cleveland has every right to feel this way.

Though do you understand what I'm saying to you? They're out here putting boots to asses to people pretty much nightly, except for that little. You know, a little sway, a little four game stretch going west coast style. Maybe they got some cali weed, I don't know. I don't know what they did, but they got spacing, they got defense, they got chemistry, they got depth. Struz Okoro.

Sam Murrell, our guy here on FRPC. We know we are a pro Sam Murrell podcast here. I know that Rossello has actually had him on the podcast. We are efforting. So, sam, if you can hear us, front Runner Podcast Collective has been trumpeting your story for a couple years now, so we love you too, sam.

All right, a couple more numbers out the door on Cleveland, because we gotta tell you about what they about to look forward to in the playoffs. They're first in the east. They're five games ahead of Boston, with nine left to go. They're top three in offense and defense. That's elite. They are also 28 and nine on the road. Okay, alright, that's awesome, that's great. Uh, playing survivor is going to be no threat in the first round for them.

The indie detroit, milwaukee situation. They're going to be favored in that. And then it's going to be the eastern conference finals and it's going to be boston, and boston is going to be looking them dead in the eye and they're going to say, hey, we have jason tatum, we got jalen brown. Now is christoph porzingis going to be healthy? Right now he is can drew holiday. Turn it on and be the vet. Be that swiss army knife type of dude that he always is in the playoffs. And then he'd be like the sneaky, low-key guy who can get you like 25 and you'd be like what, where did that come from? I don't even know where this, where this, came from.

So, cleveland, you proved it all year you are absolutely worthy challenger to boston. I cannot wait to see how you guys do in the playoffs and then, you know, when we get to the eastern conference finals, I'll make my decision on who I'm gonna take. That's how we do it here at front runner podcast collective. It is a round by round situation. We don't do this like, oh, we're gonna pick eastern conference finals. I'll tell you who I think. Who I think is coming out the east. I still think it's Boston, but I'm a lot less sure than I was two months ago. Two months ago I was locked in. I was like yep, bosses coming out the east. Now I'm kind of like, well, boston's, they still can come out the East. Yeah, I'm not saying it with my chest as much as I was a couple months, because Cleveland has showed us that they are a worthy, worthy challenger. So what does this all mean? Don't let the comp combine. Fool you the Cavs team. They are just. They're ready man, they're ready for bear and I can't wait to see it.

So let's get into a couple of the games before we both bounce up out of here. A couple quick ones. Dallas they beat orlando, so orlando lou. Orlando beats the lakers. Right, the lakers go and beat indiana, and then we'll talk about what happened last night. Uh, later on in the podcast I got some things to say about that, but we do got some things to talk about in Dallas.

One Dallas 47.4% from the field, 50% from deep. That's math. That's how math wins. Did you see that? 47.4% from the field? What 50% from three-point land? Make it, make sense? I will, I will. They hit 14 triples to Orlando's for Jaden Hardy 22 points, three steals. He was giving us pride. Jamal car Crawford vibes in this game. He was shifty, he, he was confident and he was absolutely Destroying Drop coverage. You give him just a little daylight, just a little bit of daylight, and he will give you buckets. And he's not just a squad plug anymore. With the loss of Kyrie, he's going to be their playoff factor. If they make it in and if Hardy is for real, dallas suddenly has some praise to God that they need to give, because I'm going to tell you right now not losing Luka to the Lakers and then losing Kyrie I asked where the offensive facilitation was going to come.

Now, this is one game. We need to see it over a period of time. But it was a nice like hey, there's more to me than just I can get buckets. Now, the other thing with this is that Orlando still can't shoot. I mean I don't know what was going on there. I mean, four three-pointers is crazy. It's just. You can't do it in modern-day basketball. You just can't do it in modern day basketball. You just can't.

Van carroll, he did everything. I mean he did everything 35, 10 and 4. I mean it's just. And when dally started to crowd him, he got nothing from the others. They shot 4 of 24 from 3. Somebody needs to do, somebody needs to do a wellness check on them. Contevius, caldwell Pope, their lofty free agent signing and their second yearyear guard, jet Howard, combined for one of ten from three. Very bad.

We talked about it during the trade deadline. There was something that I talked about even before, I think, as the season was facing, facing what they had wasn't enough. I implored the orlando magic. And here's the thing weltman and hammond are good dudes. They draft well, they have a type they they have certain you know measures and metrics that they use and a lot of the stuff has hit. Jalen Suggs went healthy. We see how much of a difference he he makes on this team. Paulo is a heliocentric marvel and franz wagner there's a question about who the man down there is, but franz can get his too. So a lot of the stuff that they've done is been right on the money.

But not getting another really reliable three-point threat was kind of I just didn't understand it at the trade deadline. I didn't understand it when you saw it that it was a major glaring need early on in the season. It stymied a lot of what this season could have been for Orlando. I do understand that they're very, very young. I do understand that they did go out and get pay a little money to kcp and he just hasn't paid off dividends. But you have enough young talent that you weren't using to kind of pawn off To go out and get like a sharpshooter and Dallas took Big advantage of that Big advantage. So check this out Dallas shot worse In the paint but won by 9. This is how powerful three-point shot differential is Orlando was a plus eight in a paint but a negative 30 from deep. I mean Grand Canyon style difference there.

Now we're gonna talk about this game I got. So we brought up Taylor Jenkins going to Washington DC and here's the reason why. Okay, so we know what happened last night. Okay, now, this Taylor Jenkins thing kind of overshadowed this, but this was going to be a large topic of this conversation, of this podcast. Before before, this was going to be a large version of this podcast before the Taylor Jenkins saga just came out of nowhere.

So Indiana went into Washington last night and dropped 162 points. We're talking 64.1 percent from the field, 57.4 percent from three, 57.4% from three. 48 assists on 59 made baskets. This is an offense, this is surgical theater. Tyrese Halliburton 29 points, six of seven. No, check this out. 29 points. Six of seven, no, check this out. 29 points. Seven to ten from three. I mean literally, you can go up and down the lineup. Check this out. Seven guys in double figures. 92 points from the bench 92. That's an entire G League team outperforming the Wizards starters. Every rotation was just basically just giving it to Washington and listen, I understand that Washington is not trying to be good, but this is. This is taking it to another level.

Washington pacers felt like watching doom part two beautiful, spacing, elite production and had left you asking this question did it really just happen? Did 162 points just? Was that really on the scoreboard? Let me start with one thing positive about the Washington Wizards. Last night Alex Saar scored 22 points. Some nice touch shots. Looked like a real nba big. That's it. That's all I can give you. Jordan pool had at also had a technical and if this is not a microcosm of jordan pool experience, I don't know what is.

Tristan Vucevic gave the worst 14 minute shift of the season, with a negative 28 plus minus Negative 28. Listen, that is bad. Listen, that it's bad. Zero rim protection rotations were late. It was really, it was bad. I mean, it was bad. If I was, if I was, a washington wizards fan, I'd probably be like hey, uh, I'm um, I'm gonna go early, I'm gonna leave early. Y'all saying uh. Offensive rating for this game for the pacers a 161.4. For the wizards, offensive rating 103.4. That is a net rating differential of plus 58 for the indiana pacers. So net ratings, right. You know everybody wants to talk about how, like it's a nerd stat and all this type of stuff. But at the end of the day, you know, yeah, this is an anomaly 58 points. You're not supposed to beat a team by 58 points. It's not ever supposed to happen. That's why this is so incredible.

And again we'll talk about the spacing. Again it was a chef. Kiss Halliburton ran high pick and roll. You'd collapse, boom swing to walker or nim hard corner three buckets. Oh, he talking was moving like he was trying to earn a second contract.

You know saying he was out there shooting all gas, no brakes. They shot over 64%. It wasn't lucky. They were getting real deep paint touches and kicking it out to wide open three-point shooters. I mean it was just, it was just like practice. Just like I versus said practice, practice, practice.

This is what the indiana offense was kind of doing last year. Remember last year when they were kind of going off like this. So you, I mean it looked like a machine. They had a game, I guess, against atlanta last year and I, but 140 is not 162. Okay, you can't let 162 happen on your home court. This team doesn't have a direction. Poole, he collects the paycheck. Bub carrington is raw, but I love the traits in the in some of the tendencies last night notwithstanding, sar needs to put on weight. That's what we're looking like, but at the end of the day, it's just one loss and it's another loss closer to Cooper Flagg.

So for my Washington Wizards fans out there, you know what I'm saying. Keep on looking at March Madness. Did you see what Cooper Flagg did last march of madness? Did you see what cooper flag did last? Just warm yourself with the, the nice comforting blanket that cooper flag could, could be to you in a couple months here. If you continue to tank on this epic level, don't give up 132 points, though. That's terrible, that's, that's bad. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.

Now, of course, I am going to talk about the lakers and, yes, this is a feel-good. And yes, you will sit here and say, well, why is he going to leave us with the Lakers? And no, it's going to make him sad, but no, we're going to talk about this. So let's get into it, that game last night. First of all, let's get into some of the whys and hows and the whatever's. Okay, I understand that luca is a wizard on the offensive end of the other of the court. I understand that lebron is a supercomputer. I I understand that Reeves is, you know, a, a budding, reliable third wheel who they'll be able to lean on in the playoffs. All that I do not disagree with whatsoever.

But that fourth quarter last night was that's on y'all, dog. You know, I'm saying that's on y'all because they lost to chicago last night. Now you would say, well, they did that in la, what? What's the difference? Why is this so bad? Well, I'll give you the reason. Now I'm gonna give you some good things but'm going to give you some good things, but I'm going to give you some bad things that go along with this. Reeves had 30 points On 17 field goal attempts. He also went 7 for 7.

From the free throw line the Lakers Tricked off an excellent game. Jackson hayes. He had 19 points, eight rebounds and he was 9 for 11 from the field. Now I think dfs is still dealing with an ankle issue, but he was one of five and he was a negative 10 when he was on the court.

And now we'll talk about the fourth quarter. The Lakers went one of nine from three in the fourth quarter. And you go well, sometimes you can have a bad shooting quarter on threes. I got you, I get you, but the thing that really kills me is this is that they were absolutely, they were just destroying chicago in the paint. The lobs to jackson hayes became circus like it became. You know those um, those trampoline dunks like during the during timeouts and stuff like that. Jackson Hayes had a couple of those in real game, real game time Again 19 points, 8 rebounds, 9 of 11 from the field. They weren't hitting threes but the lob was working and they decided to not go to it at all in the fourth quarter.

Now let's look on the other side of the page, right. Let's look at Chicago and what they did in the fourth quarter. The Bulls in the fourth quarter they were 15 of 19 from the field. In total they were 11 of 14 from three-point land. That's 78.6% folks. If you're counting, they hit 11 threes in one quarter. That's 33 points on its own.

Giddy another great game. He's killing the Lakers 25 points, 14 rebounds, 11 assists and, yes, we'll talk about the dagger in a second. Kobe White absolutely erupted in the fourth quarter. He hit four threes in the fourth alone. Kevin herder went absolutely apeshit three of three in the fourth quarter alone.

The lineup with giddy, kobe herder, patrick williams and vucevic. They were just skip passes, flare screens, empty corners, weak side lifts. It was a master class in modern spaces. They were just absolutely just dissecting the Lakers and they just basically said this team is old, we're going to run them from one corner to another corner and they can't keep up with us. Just basically said this team is oh, we're gonna run them from one corner to another corner and they can't keep up with us. Now here's some couple things to think about. Dfs was starting for rui. Rui did not play in this game. He sat out the back-to-back. He had played in the indiana game, so you can take that.

Uh, gay vincent provided no creation and no shot gravity in the fourth quarter whatsoever. The luca lebron final act it was like the rock and the cena tag team. Both of them want the hot tag. There was no flow, there were no off-ball synergy and just slow developing isos. It was like they were milking the clock. It's like they were trying to play like a four, four corner offense with like four, you know, with like some time one left on the court now, now, oh, and here's the other thing. Reeves has been hot all night. He's been a connector and a scorer Hayes has been good all night. He provided a bunch of rim gravity and vertical spacing and he was aggressive, going to the rim, and it's something that you could have revisited in the fourth quarter and you did not.

Again, they were without really, so okay, but without really. You can't just have your defense go to shit in the fourth quarter. You just can't do it. It can't happen. So what does this mean for the lakers? They got some stuff to fix. This is not one of those. You, you throw the game away and whatever. This is not one of those situations. No, there's a. This is a teachable moment for jj reddick, and I hope that he uses a ton of foul language. There's a bunch of frustration and he's throwing his clipboard all around and he's throwing his hands in the air and just going. I don't know what to do because this is on y'all. That pass that LeBron James made out of bounds to Austin Reeves was either fatigue he wasn't locked in mentally, something, something went wrong in that it was such a lazy pass Not very LeBron James, like you know what I'm saying, saying and that's what happened.

The turnovers were just piling up, kept compiling, kept compiling, and then the last 10 seconds happened in the last 10 seconds. Everybody knows nine points in 10 seconds. Kobe white hits a three off a broken play. The Lakers inbound, reeves is trapped, patrick Williams for three. Boom, another ball back, inbounds, ball tip. Okay, reeves hits his shots right and then they come back down the court and Giddy has the ball. Nobody stops it, nobody picks him up. He pulls up from 47 feet and he hits nothing but the bottom of the damn net. And you should have lost. You should have lost and that is how it happened. Oh my god. And giddy was the hero of this game. Obviously kobe white went crazy. The lakers don't have anybody to blame but themselves. They took their foot off the gas pedal, they didn't foul, they didn't get anybody on him and he just walked into a 47 footer like straight online, with the goal 47 foot, nothing but the bottom of the net.

It's inexcusable losses like this, the loss that they had a couple. What was it? You know they. They lost a couple close games prior to this. This is not cool. You got to put 48 minutes together. It is not 42, it is not 44. Oh, we can play 45 minutes of basketball and in the last three minutes we can just kind of just trick off.

Nope in chicago, who is under 500, one of the teams that we kind of said chalk up as a win for you, especially knowing that they drummed you on your home court. You were looking for getting your lick back. That's what I thought. Oh, they embarrassed us on our home court. Let's go in here, take care of business and then let's go out and, you know, have some wine or whatever the case may be after the game. That's what I thought. No, instead, sloppy played all for a quarter. This team believed in itself. Kobe white seems to me to be like the emotional leader of that team. How he goes, so goes that team. Right now, it is beautiful to see Shouts out to Kobe White. I hope you get paid, my brother. You have been doing your damn thing. I am so glad to see his development and how it's turned out.

So the Lakers have a lot to do. They need to look at themselves in the mirror. They definitely need to figure out what the hell's going on with ron and luca. Who's going to be taking care of the ball in the fourth quarter? Is it going to be a split between those two? Is austin going to be implemented in this whatsoever, what is going to happen?

Because last night is one of those nights where you gotta go. You know, this is one of those. You tell your partner hey, hey, hey, you messing up right now, you need to get your shit together. Everybody has had that conversation with a good friend of theirs. Hell, I've been on the opposite side of that conversation. I have had friends tell me hey, you need to get your shit together now. I haven't had that. I haven't had that for more than eight years. Thank god, thank you, thank you, thank you, god, for discernment. I appreciate it so much. But if I'm the lakers, if I'm jj reddick, right now there is nothing that is off the table, nothing. So I don't know what that film session was like, but I hope it was a harsh film session and some people come out of that feeling like man, I need to listen to some pick me up music right now because I am bummed out by all of this bad shit that just came out of this film session, because nothing good came up, nothing good could come out of that, because it was terrible and you should be embarrassed.

With that being said, on this feel good friday, I want to say shout out to serea. I want to shout out a couple other members of the staff that we are we're kind of going through some stuff right now, but y'all know who y'all are. Thank you so much for what y'all do. We appreciate you and I want to thank the audience. I want to thank you guys because we're back on track. You are getting it tuesday and friday. We are giving it to you twice a week and we are going to keep up the heat next week as well, because we are going to start breaking down playoffs. We're going to start breaking down some draft stuff. I'm gonna get in lab this weekend. We're gonna have some updates on some player profiles on the on the website, so keep a lookout, keep it tight.

But the first and foremost thing that I want you guys to do is this follow us on your podcast platform of choice. Follow us, subscribe. However it works. Please give us a five star rating if you enjoyed this podcast, because we enjoy bringing it to you. This podcast, because we enjoy bringing it to you. The other thing check out our youtube community page, because we are going to start activating that bad boy after this podcast.

You know what I'm saying? Um, the other thing is follow us on twitter. Follow us on blue sky. Let me give you those again twitter. Follow us on blue sky. Let me give you those again. Mine is at frontrunner pc on x, at frontrunnerpcbskysocial, and for serea at rea underscore fudge frpc on x, and for blue sky it's at f r p c, hyphen raya, and that is spelled r a, y, a, dot, b, sky, dot social. So you guys, have a good weekend. Enjoy the rest of the sweet 16.

Florida got in that butt last night. You know what I'm saying. Cooper Flag was amazing, so we got a lot of NBA draft talk To talk about next week. So you know how we gonna leave you on this. Feel good Friday. Go out and have some fun on Friday. One, two. The other thing, the best part of you is you make sure that you are surrounding yourself with positive people that are supporting you and what you're trying to do. If those people are exhibiting those behaviors, make sure to acknowledge those who are, who are giving you that love, that support that you need to go out and carry out the, the light that you're permeating out to the world and also do yourself a real favor. Appreciate those who are doing that for you as well, appreciate those who are, who are taking care of you and doing, allowing you to be great. So go out and be great this weekend, have a great time and we will see you back on this podcast feed on what tuesday deuces.