Are LeBron and Steph still the faces of the #NBA ? Could Tatum be the face, once they retire? Is Tatum dominant enough? Celtics insider Mego joins!
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Yes. How are you? I'm wonderful. It's been a while. Yeah, it has. It has. We were in Florida.
00:04Yes. But we're back. Tanning.
00:08Did you catch episode one of Celtic City? I did. What did you think? I liked it a lot.
00:16I think it's a little tough for some people to go back to like the late 50s with the NBA.
00:23And it's maybe- You mean the youngins?
00:25I will say I got to go to the premiere a couple of weeks ago and I got to see episode five.
00:31And I thought that one had a ton of momentum and a lot of really interesting stuff about Boston.
00:37I heard some of the lead that Curtis had. And I think that that episode is going to tie even
00:42more into it. But they do it in a really thoughtful way, in a really compelling way.
00:47I thought episode one was good, but I think it's going to get a lot better.
00:50Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I like the history of it. I thought Curtis was spot on this morning
00:56where you can't live in the moment now and understand without understanding the history.
01:01And so some of that stuff about- It's just interesting when you think about a different
01:06time. Like Bob Cousy talking about he wanted the Celtics to draft him. Red didn't. So then he went
01:12and started a business doing driving instruction as opposed to playing in the NBA because there
01:18was only eight teams or six teams or whatever there was. So it was really interesting stuff.
01:24I thought it's really cool because I think with the Celtics, one of the things that makes the
01:29franchise so special is that you have that history, that perspective. When I was still at the
01:34Herald, I got the opportunity to be in the room, sit down with Tommy Heinsohn and with Bob Cousy
01:42and with Satch and listen to them talk about that era of the NBA and how incredibly different it was
01:48to travel from town to town on train and to be going to Rochester, New York as your big game or
01:55Syracuse. And it's hard for us to think about the NBA today and as a fan of the NBA today,
02:02it's fascinating to hear the perspective of the league when teams were constantly
02:08folding and starting back up and the Celtics have been there all the way through. Was the episode
02:13because Larry Bird's in it? Is that like the Bird episodes around there? Because it's always
02:19fun to listen to Bird and people's perspective on Bird when he played and that's kind of more
02:26my wheelhouse than obviously the Bill Russell era and the Tommy Heinsohn. So that's where you'll
02:32kind of get that? Yes. So I don't know how much we're allowed to divulge, but episode five is,
02:38it's safe to say it's about the 80s Celtics. I always want to say Celtics magic because it
02:44really did feel like Celtics versus Celtics Lakers. And it's, if you think about that and
02:50you're like, oh God, how much more can you like dig up from that? We know everything about it.
02:54They have fresh new sit downs. They've never before seen archival footage. It's really cool.
02:59Speaking of the Lakers, are you coming over to team Kurt Spearcy?
03:03No. Because the Lakers are amazing since they got Luka?
03:08Yes. Yes. Yes.
03:08Starting to get better. Well, yeah, of course. Well, the ratings though, that Curtis makes a
03:13good point that we talked about the ratings so often when it came to the NBA, then that happens
03:17and it's not even discussed anymore. Like people don't care about that. And people are just talking
03:21about how it's appointment TV Lakers. Oh, now I see. I thought now the
03:25conversation was face of the NBA. Well, that is as well.
03:28That's the conversation. But just one thing on Bill Russell, like I,
03:32I find the stories that he told endlessly fascinating. Like there was the, I don't know
03:38the name of the writer, Nick Sweeney or something, but in the first episode from last Monday or this
03:43Monday, um, the martini, the martini and how Bill Russell ordered a martini and offered it to the
03:50writer and the writer accepted it and drank right away. And that was Bill Russell's way of knowing
03:55if he could trust someone because a white man having a, at that time drinking from the same
04:01glass was not noteworthy, which is just wild. And also the story he told about punching a guy in the
04:07face, but he wouldn't call him by his name at college. Like he is just like, they don't make
04:11him like that anymore. I don't think. No, no. It also looked like there
04:15were a lot of players when you got to see episode five, that there were some players
04:18in attendance to see it as well. Oh yeah. I would say probably 80% of the team was there.
04:22So they're all in support of the entire thing. Oh, I think so. Yeah. I mean, you never know
04:27with that, like what is a team requirement or what, because the team works with HBO,
04:32Bill Simmons on the entire project. But I'll say like I was behind Jason Tatum during the screening
04:39and he stayed through the whole thing. He wasn't on his phone. He was like very locked in. It was
04:42cool. I bet those guys are though, because there's so much, because when you bring up the Celtics
04:48organization, there's so much history with it. So when you get younger guys who might not,
04:54you know, might not have, you know, really understood what Bill Russell meant, but
04:59see guys around like that, you know, you don't get to see Larry Bird often, but I've seen Tatum
05:05interact with Bird and he knows the magnitude of what Bird meant to this organization.
05:09Tatum's in episode one, talking about understanding the Celtics ethos, you know,
05:16which has continued for since they started. So, and it's really important to the organization
05:22and it obviously leads to success. Yeah. And they do a good job with that. The, you know,
05:27the organization of being able to get the younger guys to understand the past.
05:31When does the face of the league thing go away? Never.
05:36It doesn't. Okay. So I don't understand why it's like such a controversial thing.
05:40I think it's people being worried about when LeBron does retire, who's, are you going to fall
05:46into that no man's land that happened after MJ left, finally left for good after he finished
05:52with the Wizards. And then you're in this era of just, you know, like Detroit is winning a random
05:59championship, no offense, but it's just not as compelling to the casual fan. I feel like that's
06:03what the conversation is born out of. Is Jason Tatum really a dominant enough personality to be
06:09the face of the league? And can it be an American player? It should be mostly, I understand. Cause
06:14wiki brings up the drama all the time, but it should be about his game. Is he a dominant enough
06:20player to be the face of the league? Like it should, but I do understand from a perspective
06:26of entertainment that fans want to feel like they know a guy, like a guy is producing some kind of
06:34drama, not necessarily like he's got beef with people, but drama in a narrative way so that
06:40you've got the good versus bad. You've got your team versus who you think are the villains.
06:45And I just wants to play. And I, yeah, I think, I think it annoys people a little bit sometimes
06:49that it feels like Tatum likes everybody else in the league. And Gilbert Arena said it best.
06:54He said Tatum is already the face of the league because when he brought up past players that were
06:59the face of the league, it was more about the drama and the negativity surrounding them.
07:05So it was like the Colby, it was the drama and the negativity around them when he was kind of
07:09the face of the league. Then when you got to LeBron, it wasn't about LeBron, the basketball
07:14player. It was more about the drama and negativity around LeBron, which has made him the face of the
07:18league. And then he said, well, now when you talk about Jason Tatum, it's really about the drama
07:24and negativity. So he was like, that shows he's already the face of the league because that's
07:29what those guys generally have to deal with being the face of the league is, oh, all the drama that
07:35comes their way. So he was like, he was already the face of the league because of the drama and
07:40negativity. So you think he is the face of the league who Tatum? Yeah. Yeah. I would say he is.
07:46I would say, well, I would say LeBron still that guy, but he's kind of like waiting for LeBron
07:52to retire. So the mantle could then be handed to him. I would say it's LeBron, Steph Curry,
07:58then Tatum. I'd agree with that. I think it's still an even I'd throw Kevin Durant in as
08:02irrelevant as his team feels right now. You know, those are the big three old guys, right?
08:08That's I think what people are talking about with the league right now is the speculation of who's
08:13going to be the next generation. And I think people just need to allow for guys to surprise
08:17you. I don't think anybody, when they were watching at, you know, him play at Davidson
08:22and the, in March madness that they thought Steph Curry was going to completely change the look of
08:27the league a couple of years later, but he did. But don't you feel like that? You know,
08:33we know the old, the old core, the old three, but don't you think that when you think about
08:38the younger guys, it's really Tatum because who else would you really put in Tatum's category
08:45that deals with the drama? That's, that's a great player, but has all that other stuff that
08:50nobody really talks about him like that, though. People talk a lot about Giannis when it comes to,
08:54like, I think he could be a face of the league. I mean, it could be Luka Luka.
08:59There is a lot about Luka in a way when you talk about getting the drama, right? Everything
09:07that's going sideways with the maps right now, which could be a Harvard business school case
09:12study at this point of how you can collapse a franchise, everything going wrong with the
09:17maps and everything they continue to put out there is boosting Luka's brand. Like Luka with
09:22the hookah. That's the reason that you trade somebody to LA. That's crazy. And so I think in
09:28a way, like he could be that if you want to do the face of the league conversation. Yeah. He could be
09:33the face of the league when it comes to that conversation. Do you think nationally Jason Tatum
09:38is disrespected? I think he's undermined a lot. Yeah, I think I think it just is a is a part of
09:45part and parcel to who Jason Tatum's game is, which is that he's an all around player. He's
09:50a really good defender. He's a great offensive player. He's a great distributor. Like he does
09:57everything really well, but he's not a smaller guy who can shoot from the logo. He's not the
10:04massive Giannis or the guy who looks like he pounds Budweiser heavies after a game like Luka.
10:11Like there's not this one thing about him that jumps out to people where they can like casually
10:16just point that out as a fan. He's just all the rising people. He's all around like got this
10:21beautiful game like Tim Duncan. Drew Holiday has been dealing apparently with the same finger
10:26injury that Sean McDonough told us about 57 times on this show is what are you hearing about him?
10:34So he did practice yesterday, according to Joe Missoula. So that is a positive. I'm very skeptical
10:40about this injury just because it's they they're talking about it as if it's day to day game to
10:47game. And it just seems like especially with a 34 year old guard that it's not that it's something
10:53that has to be managed. You know, I have no idea what the intensity of the mallet finger injury is.
11:01It's it's something that I think you don't play with when you want Drew Holiday on a
11:05championship contending team until he gets to the point where it's so do it. So Courtney,
11:12what are you hearing about the injury? Thank you for asking, Curtis. I'm hearing it's bad.
11:18Do you think it's a pain thing right now? Like more about the pain? Because I feel like a lot
11:23of NBA players kind of have whether it's mallet finger, you know, fingers going in a million
11:28different directions and they're still able to play. But Dick, it's more of a pain thing now.
11:32I think I think I'm not a doctor, but it sounds like it's like it's like muscular,
11:38like it's a ligament thing where you don't want to lose any. It's his pinky finger. But you don't
11:44want to lose anything that's going to mess with your shooting or ball handling or anything like
11:48that. So I don't think it's just a pain tolerance thing. I think it's you don't want to start
11:53messing with how you can handle the ball because it is on his right hand. So that's that's kind of
11:58the one thing. And kind of going back to the Luka thing, I think the thing that is going to have to
12:03happen with Luka is what we saw with him in Dallas. Can he have can he carry a team and keep a team
12:12good enough to be in the argument of like, all right, there he could be the face of the league
12:18once LeBron leaves and all that, especially when he's playing for the Lakers, because you know how
12:22many people love the Lakers. There's so many like bandweather, bandweather, bandwagon fans,
12:28fairweather fans. I was getting my bandwagon. Yeah, there's so many of those out there when
12:33it comes to the Lakers can, you know, all eyes are going to be on him. I'm not recovering from
12:38bandweather. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was getting bandwagon and fairweather kind of mixed up.
12:44Drew, injury aside, Chris Stopp's also doubtful for tonight. And then you look at Jason and Jalen,
12:49they're questionable. Does that worry you or is that just management? I would guess that's
12:53management outside of Drew. I don't know about Chris Stopp's. He did practice yesterday,
12:57but he's been out a couple of games with the non covid illness. And otherwise, it's the first
13:02night of a back to back. And you got the Lakers coming on Saturday, I guess, with the Jays,
13:07a lot of that is load management, probably the Noro very difficult to recover. You think
13:11Porzingis has the Noro? Probably. I mean, everybody has the Noro. Dude, I got it last
13:15spring. And it was no joke. Let me tell you something. You have to be in tip top shape to
13:21recover. I will say it was leading up to my wedding. Oh, it was fantastic. You probably
13:27liked it. I didn't have to die. Yeah, that's nice. I said to Greg, I'm like, did you weigh
13:32yourself right after that would have been the first thing I did. I actually threw my scale out
13:36months ago. Oh, okay. Well, it's great to see you. Great to see you guys. Thank you so much.
13:41And get back out there and start tanning as long as Wiggy approves. Go ahead. All right.
13:45Do your thing. Don't get burned. That is our Celtics insider, Meg. Oh, she's with us every
13:50Wednesday.