Brian Scalabrine
Appearances
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
I like the palm trees and the sunshine, but I hate these guys. Wow.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Looking for sugar daddies every day. Stoogatz. Hell yeah, brother. This is the Don Levitard Show with the Stoogatz.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
I mean, I think that's like low-hanging fruit when people just check out of that. I think that they're good, really good. I think the reason they're winning regular season games is because they have a super high floor. They can have an off night, and they could still beat you, right? And so, you know, they're a version of what the Celtics do. They move it extremely well offensively.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
They have guys that can playmake offensively. You know, staying away from Mobley right now because I want to get into him later. They're just a smaller version of the Boston Celtics. Like, our two ball handlers are Tatum and Brown, 6'9", 6'6", 6'7". And, you know, their guys are Mitchell and Garland, you know, 6'1", 6'0".
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
You know, as you know, like in the playoffs, that stuff does kind of add up. But I think the Cavs are bona fide. I think they're great. They're well coached. They move it well. Their bench has won them games. And they've added DeAndre Hunter, which I think this is like part of the NBA right now. People are looking to find guys to stop Tatum and Brown.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
And, you know, like the Knicks did it with Mikkel Bridges. Now the Cavs are doing it. I love Karis LeVert, great offensive player, just not the caliber defensive player that DeAndre Hunter is. So I think that addition will be really interesting to see tonight.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Love. I've been pumping the pom-poms for Cade Cunningham for like three years, and I was wondering last year if I just got him wrong. Me too. So I'm big on owning your space in the league, right? I think it's underrated. I think the guys that own their space, all-time great players, they all own their space, even in a weird way like Iverson. As small as he was, he owned his space.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
But Cade operates... With a little Luka Doncic, you know, offensively where he could go where he wants to go. He's not affected by contact. He gets to spaces on the floor. He keeps his composure even as he's hitting guys and dislodging them. And that's really hard to do. So I'm high on Cade Cunningham. And what they've done is, you know, last year they weren't that bad. They shouldn't have been.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
What did they win? 14 games, 17 games last year. They shouldn't have won that many games last year. But what we're seeing, though, is they weren't where they're at this year. They've improved, no doubt. They've added some professionals in the room. And Tobias Harris gets a lot of heat from Philly fans for whatever reason. But...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
In this league right now a guy that consistently plays hard brings it and plays a lot like he's relatively healthy. A lot of the times it shows a professionalism kind of starts sets the tone and Malik Beasley entering into a contract year. I'm going to tell you right now, the way he's playing, you want Malik Beasley to be in a contract year every year because he just lights out.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
But by the way, I kind of hated on his defense last year with the Bucs. Unwarranted, for sure, because if you look at the net rating, that starting five group with the Bucs last year was really good. Doc Rivers decided to bench him for Patrick Beverly. What a gift to Detroit. Malik Beasley's having another impactful season, and we've got to just start looking at him as a different player.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Whatever he was three or four years ago, he is not that same guy anymore.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Man, heat right there. Nice job, Israel. You know, I'll tell you guys. So there's been five all-time great turnarounds for the Celtics. They had, you know, Garnett and Ray Allen. Then you had, I think it was two Spurs. Tim Duncan, yeah. And then David Robinson, the year that they got David Robinson. Another one with Phoenix and Steve Nash, and the other one with the Celtics and Larry Bird.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
And now it's Malik Beasley, Tobias Harris, baby. Those guys are next up. Chalk them in as Hall of Fame players.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
All right. The only way for me to answer that question is to ask you a question. So, Jeremy, give me your three favorite players in the NBA right now.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Okay, there we go. So like, and Shea doesn't have a bubbling personality, but- No, he's similar to Tatum in that respect. Yeah, but the NBA has done a really interesting job of like marketing players, right? And the best part about today's NBA is like- I was going to say something like, I blank with that guy. Oh, yeah, I blank with him. I like him, right? I like John Moran.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
I don't care about what he did a year ago with the guns and stuff. I love watching John Moran play. What do you want me to say, right? I'm a white kid from the middle of nowhere. I love watching John Moran play. I like watching Anthony Edwards. I liked him more last year than this year. There was a time, I know it sounds crazy, I liked watching Ben Simmons play, right?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
It's just everybody has what they like. And I think if you ask a lot of people, I'm not sure a lot of people outside of Boston say, man, I just love watching Jason Tatum play. I don't think they resonate with him for whatever reason. You know, it could be he's on every commercial, but you don't really know anything about Tatum. You know, you don't see him on certain podcasts or anything like that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Maybe that's by design. You know, did he ever answer a question? Besides this thing right now saying if you take away the name and the face, I get disrespected. But I just think we're in a generation now where people like different things. There was a time, I'm sure, where all you guys loved Jimmy Butler and the way that he played.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
And then now Jimmy Butler did what he did with Miami and you don't like him.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
No, but it's just like that's the league we live in right now. But I think that any analyst and any fan can all admit He's a top five to 10 player in the NBA. That's exactly it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Yeah, I don't know. Listen, I've covered Tatum for whatever amount of years. I don't know what he likes. I mean, I know he likes deuce. I know that. I mean, I'm just being honest. I was like, Tatum, like, I don't know. Does Tatum go on a show and you get a personality of Jason Tatum? I don't know. I don't know. I know that his brand is spotless.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
The guy has a new outfit and he does the whole thing every single day. I know the stuff he says after the game. I listen to all the press conferences. It's just like, you know, I got it. I understand the whole thing, but...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
But I'm just, this is not a message to Tatum or anything like that, but it's like, I think don't be surprised when people don't like you as much as they like somebody else because people just gravitate towards certain people for whatever reason. I think like, if you look at LeBron the last four years, maybe three years. I think everyone just totally respects what LeBron is doing.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Like the whole polarizing figure, he's no longer a polarizing figure. The guy's 40 years old and dominating, right? So I think like even us in Boston are like, yo, man, this dude is, he's incredible. I don't care that he left Miami, left Cleveland, went to LA. I don't care that he chased his championship. I don't care about any of that. Like he's still doing his thing at 40. Like
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Like, man, I give you all the credit, all the love in the world. Steph Curry as well. Like, those guys, I've always liked Steph. But it's like, you know, there's a certain point when Tatum is stacking championships or whatever it may be that people are just going to be like, you know what? Say whatever you want. The dude plays all the time. He defends. He scores.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
He does everything he's supposed to do. You're just going to end up saying, yeah, I'm cool with Tatum.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
I mean, this is, if you say, like, let's say I do this show, right? I don't know if I've said anything, any hot takes on this show, but let's just say I did say a hot take. That would be, that would go viral. So like, there are people out there that are trying to do that. Say hot takes, get people go viral and then be great.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Like it's a topic of conversation that can lead into tonight's PTI or around the horn, right? It's just, that's just how our business works. But if we all just came up here and gassed up everybody and how good everybody is and the league is amazing and all that stuff, Like, that's not going to do anything.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
So I kind of feel like we're in the, because of social media and everything like that, we're in the environment of the negativity. The negativity is just what's going to spread to, you know, like even the conversation of LeBron and Michael Jordan. Somehow that's a slight on LeBron to say he's not as good as Jordan. It's not a slight.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
Dude, Jordan was a whatever, a beast, a Greek god, and LeBron is right there next to him. But that's a polarizing topic that people think you're hating. That's just the world that we live in. So the thing that gets back to Tatum are going to be the negativity. Is this going to get back to Tatum? The dude plays all the time. He rebounds. He defends. He makes the right play. He's passing the ball.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
That's not getting back to anybody. That's not going viral. You know, like anything else would go viral. So that's why people think you catch shit, as you said, or grief or whatever, because the negative is what kind of gets –
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Top 5 Naps You Can Take (feat. Brian Scalabrine)
But Wimby? Now we're talking. Come on, guys. He's the most untradeable guy in the history of the league at this point. Everyone wants Wimby, so whatever.