Were we WRONG about Boston bigs? | NBA GMs SNUB Celtics in Rankings

Were we WRONG about Boston bigs? | NBA GMs SNUB Celtics in Rankings

Is there anything to really take away from that win over the Grizzlies? And why do NBA GMs hate the Celtics so much? We’ll talk about it right now on the Lockown Celtics podcast. [Music] Uh-huh. Y ready to see. Who else could it be? What they going to say now? Screaming like JT coral. We kept the madness every game, every practice. Prime Time Deon T White on the sideline. Rain and Jace. How we started raising business. How we finish. Locked on Celtics pot. Home of the winners. Hey there. Welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here on the Lockdown Podcast Network where it is your team every day. Your team is the Boston Celtics and we talk about them here Monday through Friday. Bonus podcast when they play like on Friday night against the the Raptors. Yeah. I’ll give you a bonus podcast. So, six free podcasts for you this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Watch the show on YouTube. Get into the comments section. Join the everydayers. Become an everydayer and be with me every time I drop a new show. I’m John Carales, beat writer for Boston Sports Journal. I’ve been doing a version of this job covering the Celtics for about 20 years now. I’ve also written a couple of books about the team. Today’s show is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet five bucks. And if your bet wins, you get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Head to fanduel.com to get started. Today is uh GM survey day and we’re going to talk about that in the third segment. Not a ton of love there in the in for the Boston Celtics. Uh but where they have the Celtics slotted in the East is going to make a lot of you angry. And uh people don’t know what positions anybody plays. So that’s going to be the second segment. Uh in the first and second, that’s going to be the third segment. The first and second segments we’ll talk about last night’s game or two nights ago, but whenever you listen to this against the Grizzlies. Anything we could take away? What are we looking for against the Toronto Raptors? And when I say we, I mean me and Tom Westerhome. You can find his work on boston.com. Tom, how are you? I’m good, man. How are you? I’m great. I’m debuting, if you’re watching on YouTube, I’m debuting my Halloween costume. I’m I am uh a uh Rhode Island leaf peeper from Skenctity. I forgot my warm clothes and I had to go buy a tourist Newport hoodie and a Rhode Island FC hat. And so it’s good too because uh you picked a you picked a good a good color that whenever you whatever touristy food you eat when you spill on it. Yes. It’s gonna it’s gonna be there forever. This thing is going to be like you buy it, you pay like 70 bucks for it and you’re like, “Oh man, this is actually a nice hoodie. I’m hoodie.” Yeah. And then by the the time you’re done with your trip, it’s the one you wear outside at fires. Like that’s it’s all it’s good for. So but uh Yeah. This has been Fit Talk with uh That’s it. That’s That’s chit chat at the beginning. Um this is what happens when it gets to be 40° and you’re like, “Oh my god, it’s so cold out.” Um all right, so let’s start off with the Okay, everybody time stamp 305. We start talking about basketball. Uh the Let’s just You You do takeaways on Boston.com. What are your big takeaways from uh the the game against the Grizzlies? Um, so I I mean I think you know Derek White and Jaylen Brown looked great. My my biggest takeaway was I didn’t expect Luca Garza to look as good as as he did. I was I know everybody wanted to like talk about Ugo and you know like you know all he looked he looked Yeah. He looked looked like a you know solid rookie like you know fine. Luca Garza looking like slightly shorter Luke Cornett and setting phenomenal screens. resetting phenomenal screens, doing all these little things. A pick and pop big man who all of a sudden is like, you know what? No, I’m gonna just roll to the basket a whole bunch of times and go straight at the rim, get to the free throw line a ton. Not an amazing free throw shooter, but like he got there a lot. He created a lot of really good opportunities. Real interesting. I I did not have my hopes nearly as high for Luca Garza as I I think maybe I should have. I thought he looked great. I I thought that to me he was maybe the biggest uh takeaway of the evening like that there’s just like we spent the whole summer talking about you know like oh the Celtics don’t have anybody who can uh you know they don’t have any bigs. They don’t have any bigs. They don’t have any bigs. Very first game a guy comes in and like kind of impresses. I I really liked the way Garza looked. So, I agree. I’m gonna throw Xavier Tillman in this. Yeah, because he started, first of all, weird starting lineup, which I didn’t read into because Joe Missoula said, “Do not read into this.” So, I did not read into it, but So, Kada was Kada was sitting like, “Sure.” Yeah. Right. So, right. And we’ll get into some of that maybe in the second segment, what to watch for, because three main guys didn’t play. I assume they’re going to play uh against Toronto, so that makes what to watch for pretty easy. Yes. But um Garza, everything you said about Garza is true. Now I I did do a little bit of a a breakdown on Boston Sports Journal where I just I wanted to show people kind of like what the uptempo stuff looks like and you had the one classic example of ball starts on one side, goes to the other side, there’s multiple picks, there’s like six, seven options. Um, and in the middle of it was Tilman just now when we talk about looking like Luke Cornett, he did the same type of thing where it was screen, get the ball, turn, just I’m not I’m not doing anything with this. I’m turning. I’m just I’m here to reverse and get the ball to the other side and then I’m going to go do a pitch and chase with Derek White and get him open and then I’m going, you know, all of that stuff. So I I lump him in just to say like maybe maybe we’re thinking about the Celtics bigs in, you know, kind of wrong. Yeah. And like this is nothing against Luke Cornet who is actually doing well. Yeah. In San Antonio. So he he’s he’s good, not a product of the system, but also I think the system kind of launched him into that trajectory. Now Garza and Tilman and these other guys are in the system and like oh wait they’re doing the same things because that’s what was asked of them and Luke Cornet took that and ran with it and became like he earned that contract. These guys are now doing the same thing. So wholeheartedly agree that you know there was one play with Garza where uh Jaylen Jaylen was on the left side left slot and he’s doing his thing right going one-on-one ball gets poked away Jaylen picks it up and that we’ve seen what happens next right he goes at it again and sometimes he scores sometimes he doesn’t but it’s this was going to be a pure ISO Jaylen possession except Jaylen went and got the ball. Garza is coming up the left side of the lane and he’s pointing to Derek White just to like, hey, reverse it. And so Jaylen playing fast, swings it over to D. White. As Derek is catching the ball, Garza is there to set the pick. And you can hear on the broadcast the the Grizzlies teammates, I don’t remember who it was, you can hear him being like left, left, left, left, calling out the pick. And when Derek’s defender turns around, he was surprised be like, “Oh, like I I was expecting the, you know, a pick to be coming, I didn’t expect Garza to be in my face.” Yeah. So when when Scowl talks about like the timing was, and you just mentioned too, the timing and and everything like that was that was good uptempo basketball in the half court where Jaylen made a move, didn’t work, swing it. Then the pick is right there. You’re it. It It wasn’t Derek gets the ball, come on up, set the pick, you know, very regimented. That was just in the flow. And then Garza rolled like you mentioned, pick and pop guy that actually he was rolling. Yeah. Garza rolls. Now, now this one defender is shocked. Doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s on Derek’s hip already. Derek is in complete control of this possession with guards are rolling. Guys aren’t sure which way they’re going. They haven’t communicated that yet. And Derek just pulls up for an easy midi and and drains it because he knows that he he can kind of do whatever he wants and Garza is just pulling the defense away. That kind of stuff. Chef’s kiss. Beautiful. And I know it’s against the G-League Memphis, you know what remnants of who they played. So, I’m not going overboard with the results, but that play especially was like, “Hey, wow, we didn’t get too much iso from Jaylen. We got a nice swing. We got great timing on the pick. We got a great read.” That was that type of stuff is what you’re looking for when you talk about Celtics offense and playing fast and playing with tempo. Like, okay, can anything carry over? Yes. That kind of timing, that kind of mentality is what you’re looking for. Yeah. Like Grizzlies G-League team like 100%. So like tap the brakes, but I don’t think we need to slam on them when it you know when it comes to this stuff, right? It’s like it doesn’t negate everything. It doesn’t negate everything. It it doesn’t negate the fact that like like Garza looked really good. Like it doesn’t that that these guys played really that they did like Missoula said after the game like they they did, you know, 34 minutes of uptempo basketball. Like that’s that’s a positive. there was, you know, there’s so much good stuff there. I think, you know, just to to close on your point about like, you know, the the bigs playing in the system, it’s if if you’re Luca Garza or you are Xavier Tilman, you can look at Luke Cornet as the perfect archetype for what you can do now. And like I mean, if you’re Luca Garza, you’re right now you’re on a two-year $5 million contract, right? look at Luke Cornett and be like, “Bro, if I if I do this right, I could potent like Luke Cornette just got four years 40 million.” Like, if I do this right, if I really buy in, like what a great way to get, you know, guys who like, yeah, Luca Garza is probably not in your long-term plans, but man, if that guy’s good for two years, holy cow, that does you so much. What a great way to get guys to really buy in and try to be that guy for two years than just point directly at Luke Cornet and be like, “This guy, you know, played for the Westchester Knicks and now he just got four years 41 million because he bought in on our system and showed everybody what he could do as just a big solid big man.” Like, you know, that’s a great selling point. Absolutely. And and to to add to that, you know what that does long term for the Celtics? It makes agents say, “Yes, hey, my big man is sitting on this bench doing nothing. Get him to Boston because he’s good and he can do this stuff.” And now, like, I don’t want to go too crazy with this point, but this could be like the conveyor belt. This could be that, you know, that that assembly line type of thing. Like, look what we did with Luke Cornet. Boom. Look what we did with Luca Garza. Look what we’re doing with Xavier Tilman. Bring us your reclamation project bigs and we’ll just sign these guys to two, three-year contracts and just keep funneling them out. And those guys are cheap. That means you can spend your money elsewhere in the second apron era. That would be huge. So if Boston gets that reputation of bring us your bigs, we can rebuild all of them. Then that would be mutually beneficial. So, love that. Love that take. Uh, let’s continue this conversation. Anything to carry over? What are we carrying over against Toronto? What are we looking for against Toronto? 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I I I am impressed, like I said yesterday, with, you know, Josh Mina. I want to see what, you know, how that, you know, carries over. I was watching, you know, in in my rewatch. I like rewatch and then go back. I’m like, let me just look at May not possessions. I’m like, he he navigates screens well. Not quite a Drew Holiday level, but he navigated the screens well, switched well, was boxing out even when the rebounds weren’t coming his way because rebounding was a problem, but he was there boxing out. Heula said that, you know, it’s it’s not, you know, he doesn’t want to like focus on that. Yeah, that story line. Let’s watch that story line. Uhhuh. Talk about that one. It’s just, you know, it’s always important. Yeah, it’s always important. You know, who cares if you only got 66% of your defensive rebounds? Squash that storyline. It’s always important. Uh so, but I I I thought May not was solid when he needed to be solid and impactful when the opportunity presented itself. Um there’s a there’s a there’s a slightly smart like quality to him. Like a poor man’s smart like quality of just kind of like making things happen sometimes. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. which is cool. It’s like I love guys like that where it’s just kind of like I mean also a smart like quality to him uh going four for nine because he missed all five of his threes. But um smart like quality of of him just kind of being like just just just doing stuff, you know, like I’m going to go knock this ball free. I’m gonna go I’m going go grab this this rebound over like you know go way out of my way to go get this rebound. I love that. Especially at his height and athleticism. That’s a that’s an interesting player. I’m excited to watch him. I am very I’m that’s there’s a reason why I wrote about him first. I’m so fascinated by what he can be. Um so the carryover stuff it’s the stuff we talked about the it’s it’s more decision- making like okay is Jaylen gonna I don’t know if he’s going to play or not. Yeah. But is he going to shoot like the way he did? Who cares? Who cares? I don’t care, right? Like I don’t care if Derrick White’s going to shoot well or not. Like we know that they’re going to like they’re going to be who they are. So who cares? So, um, they feasted on the back half of the Grizzlies roster. Um, it’s the decision- making, it’s the timing. Can you build on that kind of stuff and what to watch for? Well, they Pton Pritchard didn’t play. Anthony Simons didn’t play. Nish Kada didn’t play. Can can Nimi and Simons have the same and you know Nimi and Pritchard and Pritchard and can they have the same kind of you know uh chemistry, timing, all of that stuff. So kind of thank you Joe for not playing those guys because now the what to watch for is hey those three guys who didn’t play can they do some of the same things. Yeah. Yeah. I I I I’m trying to think of a way to say this without being mean. I’m like not that excited to watch Kada. Like I don’t know. Like all right, here’s here’s Nimi. We’ve we’ve seen I I don’t know. I just kind I uh I don’t know. I enjoyed watching Garza. I want to watch some more good screens. I don’t know. Um Well, and Tilmet, too. Well, right. But like let’s I mean, can can Mimi do it? It’s almost like I don’t want to say pressureures on but like everybody’s kind of having a a ball talking about like Garza and all that stuff and I’m you know throwing Tilman in there like the these screens the timing the pace like okay Nimi yeah he he’s he’s also the sevenfooter and he doesn’t move quite the same way he’s not quite as fluid so yeah no and it’s interesting right because I think the thing with Tilman and Garza is that what they showed on Wednesday was that they are that they can play a really professional style of basketball. And it’s important for Kada now because Kada has always been this like flashes guy, right? He shows you like little flashes of like whoa whoa that is something that only Kada can do, right? Sure. And and so now what you need to see from him is is that he can also contribute on that professional level, right? that like, okay, Derek didn’t quite get free enough on that screen, so I’m going to rescreen, and this is going to be the one that frees him. And I know that because I’m a professional, and I and I I can and I know how to time my screens and how to set my screens. Kada needs to be able to like do that kind of stuff or at the very least contribute as much as that does, right? Because the important thing is that you help Derek and Jaylen excel. Like as as a big man, that is what your job is to to help Anthony Simons excel. Help Pton Pritchard excel. Like that’s what you have to do. So Kada needs to be able to do that. And I think that’s going to be the thing that I’m watching with him is like, okay, these other guys have shown like they’re not they’re not perfect either, right? Like they’re not none of these guys are perfect bigs, but like they have shown that they can do this at a really professional level and Kate has got to be able to do that too because yeah, this team is trying to be competitive this year. This is not an AJ Dansa team. This is a team that is trying to be competitive and you’ve and you’ve got these pros in there who are there to help the Stars. So, you’ve got to also help the Stars. I just get this feeling that Kada is going to be not quite as fluid on the offensive end, but all of a sudden, like on the defensive end, you be like, “Oh, well, he’s blocked four shots.” Yeah, I think that’s definitely possible. Yeah. You know, I think I think what we’re going to see is him and Ugo are going to combine for 10 in a game. I can see myself saying on Friday night like, “Man, it’d be great if you could like fuse Luca and Kada together.” Yeah. And get like that would be your center. Yeah. Um that which is probably how it’s going to go. And yeah, I think I think what we’re going to end up seeing is Joe Mazulu with situational, you know, lineups and and and maybe that’s part of part of why he did it in like these pieces where okay, here’s our chance to get all this film on, you know, Tilman and Luca and Bush and now now we’re going to get all this film on Nimi and, you know, go from there. So that’s that’s going to be the big thing. Obviously, Anthony Simons, like what what is he what is he defensively, right? Like I’m really I’m interested in that. I’m with him. I’m also interested in I’m interested to see how the uptempo stuff works with him because like he has he’s a really I mean, you know, highlevel kind of like like ball handler kind of like shifty guy. He can he can really do some good stuff out of like pick and rolls and all that kind of thing. Like I mean I’m interested to see like is he gonna get out too? Because if he gets out, I mean, that’s a real weapon. Like that that’s if if like you want to talk about buyin, if Anthony Simons buys into this system, I think I think he’s a really dangerous, really good player. I’m Yeah, you are driving the Simons hype thing. You are you are Yeah. I Okay, here’s All right. The one caveat that I will put on it is that it requires the buyin and I think that’s across the board, right? That is that’s Kada. That’s everybody. It require like I I think if Simons I think that Joe Missoula is really good at motivating players and I he’s really good at getting that level of buyin. If he gets that level of buyin from Anthony Simons, I think Simons is going to have a big year because I think Simons is a good player who has the potential if he plays really hard on defense, gets out in transition, all of you know like plays fast. If he does all that stuff, he’s got the talent to be really really good in this system. Um, so I I really I think it just comes down to buying, right? That’s it’s really what it is with them. So just like he said, I gota I just got to want to do it. Yeah, dude. You really do. Like you just got to want to do it. I’m just I’m just an optimist, I guess. I’m like I think he wants to. I don’t know. We’ll see. Yep. You you own all the Anthony Simon stock for sure. like I should I you know I own all the the May not stock and so maybe we can like sell each other some of the you know I’ll take some my not stock if you’re if you’re offering my not stock I’ll take some uh so we’ll see we’ll see those are a couple of things to watch against tomorrow we’ll see what the lineups are and all that stuff you know should be fun all right when we come back GM survey time and uh why do GMs hate the Celtics and why don’t they know what position people play that’s coming up Next, today’s show is brought to you by FanDuel. FanDuel’s got a great offer, maybe the best offer we’ve seen from FanDuel here. 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Go check out Lockdown NBA game night.” There’s a bunch of preseason games going on. You can uh go check out all of those recaps in depth at Lockdown NBA game night. And then of course, Locked On NBA has you covered with the big stories in the NBA like LeBron James missing a few weeks with sciatica. That’s a very old man thing to be missing time for. I’m I don’t know. Tom, you’re not old enough with sciatica stuff, are you? That’s No, I mean I don’t know. I Yeah, I’m a lot actually significantly younger than LeBron. No, I don’t have sciatica. No. Yeah, that’s an old man thing. That’s like if you’re if you’re missing time because of sciatica, like it happens to a lot of people, but like that’s Yeah, that’s a that’s a you’re 40 buddy. You what are you doing still trying this stuff? Ugo is not um missing. Ugo Gonzalez is not worried about sciatica. He’s worried about like God considering the size of his hands, he’s worried about like a that was that was one of the I I I don’t post much anymore, but that one even elicited a post from me. I was like that that is insane. Are you kidding me? Are you like are I mean listen you covered taco. You shook that man’s hand. I did. How could how could Hugo go hands be almost as big as Tacos? I have decent sized hands. I have goodiz hands. I’m 6’5. I’ve got I’ve got the requisite mits to go for I could palm a basketball. And Taco’s hand was like, “Oh god, man. What the hell happened over here?” And I I haven’t shaken, but I’m going to I’m going to do like that thing you did was gonna happen. Can I see you, baby? I want to see what Ugo’s got. Like, what is that? That’s crazy. Wild. Yeah. Um, so yeah. Um, GM survey. Anyway, GM survey. They don’t give a damn about the biggest hands. So, so not a lot about the Celtics. Not Not unexpected, right? Because they’re talking about MVPs, starting a franchise with somebody. Even if people were like, I would have with Tatum, he’s dealing with the Achilles injury. So, nobody’s going to sit there and be like, “Yeah, I want to start my franchise with a guy coming off the Achilles injury,” right? When Victor Wimyama exists. So, um, yeah. So, I didn’t expect a whole lot. I mean, I didn’t talk about the coaching, but Joe Misoula isn’t mentioned like anywhere except for the coach with the best defensive, like the best defense. Everybody talks about Joe with the offense. He’s not in there as far as offense. Who is the best head coach in the NBA? Spo with 52%. Co. Okay. I love Spo. He’s he’s, you know, nice enough and he’s he’s a great coach. What is what has Miami done recently? Honestly, like what has Miami done recently for him to be like past Mark Dagnel? Yeah. You know, right? Like Yeah. How did how did Dagnel not get like he’s at 34%. Past Rick Carile. Like I’m sorry, Rick Carile’s been Rick Carile was also receiving votes. That’s crazy. Rick Carile has been awesome. The whole thing with the Pacers is like, “Wow, they’re getting so much out of that team. That screams coaching.” And like that’s the whole thing. That’s the whole ethos with Oh, he gets so much out of these guys. You know, you give him a two-way player and that guy becomes like a borderline all-star. But what are the Pacers doing? The team that made the finals. Can we Yeah, come on. What are we doing? But no, no Missou. Once again, we’ve devolved into locked on Pacers. Shout out. Yeah, I know. I’ve even got the yellow. I got the yellow and the blue. I’m wearing the team colors. You are. Oh man. Um, but he did get the best Indiana over there. He did get the best offense. So, which head coach runs the best offense? No mention. Not even also receiving votes for Missoula, but he did tie for fourth in best defensive schemes, which is interesting. Yeah. Um, okay. So, the thing that we really wanted to mention as we were running out of time, they ranked the East and Cleveland, New York, Orlando, Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and then Boston. What I mean, you I don’t know how anybody has any faith in Philly. Okay. How could possible? How can you have any faith in Philadelphia? I I even get the others, right? Cleveland, New York, obviously Orlando, Detroit on the come up. Sure. Milwaukee has Giannis still. I people have more faith in Atlanta than I do. I mean, I I I like Atlanta’s team, but like Yeah, they’re getting a lot They’re I’m obviously We’ll see. I’m ready to be proven wrong by Trey Young for the first time in my life. No, I’m not. I’m not I don’t think it’s happening. I don’t think it’s happening, man. I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see. I don’t know. Cleveland, New York. Yeah, I I can see Orlando or Detroit rising up to a threeC. I can totally see that. Three, four, more than that. Now, Boston at eighth. I don’t know when they do this, but people are really down. I mean, that’s Look, I’ve I’ve even taken some heat in the YouTube comments about like, well, where’s your faith? Like, my job is not to have faith. It’s to be real. But eighth. No, no, no, no, no, no. They’re above Philly. And I’m not buying Milwaukee. I’m not buying Milwaukee either. No. I’m Yeah. I don’t know, man. Like that seems messy over there. I’m not buying it. I’m just over there. Yeah. So I And And we’re on the same page about Atlanta. Like I I just think look there are Atlanta believers out there in the basketball sphere for sure. I am not one of them and I’m I am ready for them to be a playing team again. And for next summer to be the next summer will be everybody’s lining up to trade for Giannis and Trey Young’s going to be like I’m also requesting a trade and team’s being like yeah we don’t care we’re going for Giannis and then we’ll get around to you maybe later and like like Trey’s going to be like here are my preferred teams and his preferred teams gonna be like did we did we talk about this? Yeah. Do we I mean flattered totally flattered, but like it’s the I’m sorry. I I have I have a girlfriend. I’m sorry. Right. Right. You know, uh I’m married, so I’m sorry. Um I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I Atlanta’s a weird one to be mad. I because like the the I mean I hope I hope that these people who have who are picking them are not factoring in a full season of Chris Taps Porzingis because I’ll tell you I’ll tell you I’ll tell you I don’t think that’s happening that seems uh unlikely. Very unlikely. Look they’ve made some nice moves and they’ve got some nice players. I just I as long as Trey is at the head of that snake I don’t I just don’t buy it. I just don’t buy it. Yeah. The other thing and just this is just another like little bit of a rant. So they go by each individual position. Who’s the best point guard? Okay. Shay Gildris Alexander. Who’s the best shooting guard? Anthony Edwards. Um who who’s the best small for? So you can’t get the straight answer. No one know. So who’s the best point guard? Shay. Number two, Luca Donic. Who’s the best shooting guard? Anthony Edwards. Number two, Donovan Mitchell. Number three, Luca Donic. Who’s the best small forward in the NBA? Number one, Luca Donic. How many minutes has Luca played at small forward? Like ever? Ever? I mean, I I I I wish uh I wish I had time to look it up. Uh yeah, I’ll I I’ll tell you who looked it up. We know who looked it up. Dan Greenberg looked it up. uh stool Greeny and like last year it was like 12% of the time when he joined the Lakers. It was like 6% of the time when he was in Dallas and then it was like three or four straight years of zero% at small forward. There’s nothing that screams, “Hey, intern, fill this out for me.” Quite like, “Oh yeah, Luca Donuch is a small forward, man. He’s like, come on.” No. No GM whose job it is to look at the at the league would say, “I’m getting Luca to be my small forward.” He’s a point guard. He’s your point guard. Even if he was a small forward, he’s not better than Tatum. Sorry. But also also there’s that too. There’s also that. Yeah. Um but like Tatum So Tatum was second at 20%. I consider that basically Tatum is the best small forward in the NBA. Yeah. Like that’s that’s where we are with this. So congratulations Jason Tatum. 40% of the vote is invalid. That’s it. Um last year he got it at 47%. And Jaylen Brown got a vote like okay like Jaylen okay whatever at least Jaylen know I I get it I get it because they were starting Derek and and Drew so no that’s fine that is fine that is fine that is fine um the GM survey is always fun because people make it like oh my god like oh this all these GMs this is what they think and like I promise you they don’t they know more about basketball than we do I promise you they don’t think this dumb Yes. Yeah. Of the 30 GMs, how many actually fill this thing out? Three, four. What’s the all 4.5? There’s no way Brad fills this out. Do they? Yeah. You think they get this? Like no, no disrespect intended because I love the idea. But I don’t think John Schuman is sending this out around to these GMs and people are like, “Well, I got to respond to John Schuman because they no like they who like it’s like me saying like no one would give a damn if I sent them this survey. They be like, “Yeah, here you go. Whatever.” Like no, no. So I don’t know. Maybe maybe I’m low. Four four maybe 2.5. I don’t know how many GMs actually fill this thing out. Yeah. I gota I gotta ask around. Got to ask around some. That’s the investigative story we need. That’s the journalism we need to know. How many of you guys How many of you guys actually fill this out? They’d be like, “What?” Oh, yeah. No. We You play rock, paper, scissors, and the loser fills it out. All right. Okay. So, uh, basketball again, Friday night, Toronto. It’ll be fun. Yeah. Uh, Tom, we’re back. We’re back at it, man. Feels good talking hoops. just tops. Love it. All right, Tom. Thank you. Appreciate you, man. Always appreciate Tom Wester home, everybody. Again, find his work at boston.com. Postgame takeaways there. And uh I appreciate you listening, watching, being here with me being an everyday or Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday. This time around, I will do a postgame podcast after the Raptors game to uh whatever. We’ll see what what comes out of that. And it’s be fun. It’ll be fun. So, happy to talk basketball again. Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you get your podcast. If you’re new, welcome aboard. Watch the show on YouTube. Get into the comments section. Share your thoughts with me, with everybody else, and then share the podcast. Tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Selvix podcast. Here on the Lockdown Podcast Network, it’s your team every day.

Celtics bigs do the right thing in preseason clash with Grizzlies.

John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal breaks down Boston’s impressive victory, highlighting Luka Garza and Xavier Tillman’s game-changing performances. The discussion covers the Celtics’ evolving offensive strategy, upcoming challenges against the Toronto Raptors, and how Joe Mazzulla’s tactics are reshaping the NBA landscape. Tom Westerholm of Boston.com offers insights on the center rotation and system buy-in.

Don’t miss the heated debate on the NBA GM survey results. Are the Celtics underrated? Is Jayson Tatum getting the recognition he deserves? Tune in for expert analysis and bold predictions for the Boston Celtics’ season ahead.

1:30 Intro: Celtics win over Grizzlies, NBA GM survey
3:05 Analyzing Garza and Tillman’s performances
10:57 Celtics’ system benefits big men’s careers
13:30 What to watch for vs. Toronto
25:00 NBA GM survey
28:40 Coaches rankings and East predictions criticized

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Locked On Celtics is a daily Boston Celtics podcast by Boston Sports Journal beat writer John Karalis. It’s an inside look at the C’s from a former professional basketball player who is at practices & games.

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