This is Tommy’s father

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Alter

Tommy just isn’t good. Back when JJ was on old man and the three, it’d be half an hour of legit basketball discussion and Tommy interjecting one pointless half assed question before they went back to talking real hoops. He truly brings nothing to the table.

From what I’ve seen, his expertise is in connecting people from different circles in entertainment to collaborate on discussions. If you’re into hip hop, the best comparison of him would be DJ Khaled minus the annoyingness (if that’s even a word).

He’s not really close to JJ’s level as a host and I don’t think the players respect him to the same degree

Understatement of the century lol. I don’t think a single player who hasn’t seen or been on the pod would even know who he is. I bet a lot of players that have been on the pod and been interviewed by him don’t even know who he is. He’s extremely unremarkable lol. No hate, he’s not a bad host either lol. He’s just incredibly forgettable and has zero history in the game or any field really, that would give nba players any reason to respect him at all.

Nah. Will was making fun of Cason for not knowing who Enes Freedom is, not the host.

I was at a Liberty game this season where he was seated courtside between Tracee Ellis-across and Malala Yousafzai, that was a trip. Only a lifelong elite nepo baby would have the resume differential of that pair and still move confidently amongst them lol

Why did they mock him?

Cap on the Thunder players part

Lol. Ofc they don’t respect him as much as jj lol. But he was always a good number 2 to jj. 

Not even friends he’s a “media” guy. Aka a nepo baby.

He’s far from the worst and all but there’s no real talent observable from him that got him to where he is.

He doesn’t do any of that production value stuff you mentioned lol. They have a producer and team behind the scenes that handle it all.

yeah if anything I think that the meta shifts based on whatever is currently successful. Personally I think it’s looping back around a bit, teams were looking for the “next Giannis” for a while but in 2025 it seems like with these “high ceiling, low floor” prospects, teams are less willing to risk a top 20 pick on potential.

Ironically I think Pat’s brother Cam is a good example of the latter. Dude probably would’ve gone undrafted in a lot of other situations, but being a winning player for a top level college team, with the demonstrated ability to fit into a new team and raise their floor, has more cache now than it used to

And Tidjane

Ok but there’s always a flip side too. People were saying this same stuff about Dalton Knecht after he dropped 30 in preseason last year and now he’s not even in the regular rotation.

That’s why Adam Morrison had such a great pro career

Many similarly or even more accomplished college players don’t translate. Everything’s obvious in hindsight.

Frank Mason and Justin Jackson were as good as Brunson in college and look how they turned out.

Throw Collin Gillespie into that mix too. The literal successor to Jalen Brunson. National champion, Bob Cousy award winner, won a million games in college. Went undrafted in 2022 and was on G League contracts until this year (injuries derailed the start of his career to be fair). Now he’s been a huge piece of the Suns great start to the season and will be getting a legit contract this offseason.

There’s two issues. Issue one, a lot of guys who are college stars aren’t really good at defense. Issue two, many NBA players can light up the box score if they’re by far the best player on a team facing off against non-NBA caliber opponents. But teams only need so many scoring stars, so you have to be insanely good at that to have a chance. NBA teams need guys who can do the dirty work.

I think there’s a secret third issue which is a lot of college stars aren’t really as big as their college biographies say they are so they’ll get bullied harder than you might project in the NBA.

After 4 years of Lacrosse, he decides to give ball a try. He wasnt a normal Senior

Because teams want championships. Like Brunson probably the best player mention in this thread, is he good enough to drive a team to a championship probably not. Giannis is, teams prefer the higher upside.

not an expert, but this sort of speech pattern/impediment is learned (and can be unlearned!).

my money is on lil bro mimicking big bro’s speech patterns when they were lil tykes and it somehow not being unlearned.

Huge Cam fan and had no idea Pat had the same lisp type voice. It makes their shit talking even better. These guys are utter psychopaths.

I have more than slight hearing loss (in one ear) and my speech is totally normal, it’s prob from his veneers or just the way his teeth are aligned. Or else a speech impediment. Or else some head trauma from lacrosse or something lol

His own teammate is the perfect example of this… Kuminga hasn’t progressed nearly as much as he should have playing with hall of fame talent 

He’s not right at all. Every year we see some old low ceiling rookie get hyped up for their “IQ” and “maturity” before predictably flaming out into nothing.

I mean OKC focuses on athletic talent and it’s looking pretty good.

Yeah but what’s his True Commenting Percentage? Is he coming out and averaging 18 CPD on solid efficiency or is he just chucking?

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Golden State are toast if Pat Spencer is meant to be a difference maker at any level.

This was recorded 7 months ago

He said this months ago. He has not yapped since his few good games. He’s stayed very quiet.

The Timberwolves offered 1OA to them in exchange for some picks as well but they didn’t like Ant’s intangibles so they didn’t bite

He could jump high and I think that’s what most people refer to when saying he’s athletic.

That is a good point though, jumping high without the strength or other facets isn’t really that valuable at all.

It’s almost more valuable to be skilled and strong but not be able to jump high at all.

My kindest possible interpretation is that he’s using this argument to defend his little brother. At the end of this clip he says he’s “surprised a handful of teams passed on Cam.”

For some reason people have this idea that there isn’t a ceiling that certain players have on the mental part of the game as some players have on the physical side or that the mental parts of the game are more malleable than the physical. I’d even argue it’s harder to change your basketball IQ, proceeding speeds, court mapping ability etc than it is to change your speed, vertical, power etc

Uh, yes? What else can you teach, being 6’11 and jumping a million foot high in the air?

I mean… in much the same way you can lift weights to get stronger, run to get better stamina, do plyometrics to be more explosive, etc.

Yeah, you can improve it. Everyone still has their limits, though. And you can absolutely take a raw product that has the potential to be a better shooter/passer/defender and train them up. As a Hawks fan, Okongwu comes to mind.

It’s a lot easier to teach someone BBIQ than to teach someone 5 inch longer arms

There are countless examples of players who came into the league as poor playmakers but developed into plus playmakers after more playingtime. There are also some players that didn’t know the ins and outs of how to defend but they eventually learned it through repetition.

Look for an example in Jalen Johnson. Only averaged 2 assists in college, and was seen as a dynamic raw athlete. He developed in the G-league and the end of the bench and now he’s one of the most complete players in the league on the verge of stardom…

Yes, you very obviously can lmao. There are multiple players in the NBA who picked up the sport very late. If you couldn’t teach basketball IQ they would have had no shot.

And anyway Pat’s comment is dumb at a surface level. I doubt front offices think that improving someone’s basketball IQ is easy. But it’s much easier than improving their athleticism or height.

It’s the same with jump shooting. Front offices aren’t dumb where they haven’t seen the evidence that most players don’t significantly increase their shooting throughout their careers. But the ceiling of those players that do will always be significantly higher than an unathletic guy who can already shoot.

High IQ white guys are a dime a dozen. You can literally not draft them and find them as UDFA’s. Pat himself was undrafted. There’s no reason to waste draft capital on those guys

A lot of young players entering the league these past few years have high IQ as well along with the physical tools, I understand why he likely has the perspective he does because of his size limitations but no GM is selecting a 26-27 yo in the draft no matter what your IQ is or how smart or stupid the GM himself is.

Well, you don’t. I expect Wemby to block a shot with his head at some point in his career, like a soccer goalkeeper