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Author: Aaron Fischman (Page 6 of 10)

The Bucks Are Scoring 122 Points Per Game! (An ’18-19 Quarterly Review)

November 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Khris Middleton is the most prolific 3-point shooter on a Bucks team suddenly quite 3-happy, and new head coach Mike Budenholzer approves (Keith Allison/Creative Commons).


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Aaron reviews the first quarter of the 2018-19 season, focusing on overall offensive production compared to last year and the Milwaukee Bucks’ considerable improvement spurred by their new style of play. While scoring is way up, offensive efficiency remains about the same as last season. Aaron explains how. He, too, explores Denver’s defensive progression under Mike Malone, as well as the unexpected offensive declines of the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics, and the Rockets’ regression on defense. There’s much more included, but we won’t give it all away. Oh, and next week, we’ll be back with a brand new interview.

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Brad Botkin Previews West: Spurs “Not Good Enough” for Playoffs

October 16, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Gregg Popovich and the Spurs have appeared in the postseason for 21 consecutive seasons, but guest Brad Botkin doesn’t see a 22nd straight trip in their future (Mike/Wikimedia Commons).


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Brad Botkin, senior NBA writer for CBS Sports and co-author of Olympic gold medalist Dan O’ Brien’s memoir, “Clearing Hurdles,” has strong opinions about this season’s Western Conference, and he’s unafraid to share them. For example, despite the Spurs’ 21 consecutive playoff appearances, Brad is adamant San Antonio’s streak will come to a close this season.

Timing will vary due to dynamic advertising, but here are the approximate time stamps of some of our favorite clips (so many good ones to choose from):

7:06-7:28: “I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘Well that’s how Kobe led. That’s how Jordan led. He forced the best out of his guys.’ Listen, come talk to me when Jimmy Butler is Kobe or Jordan. Jimmy Butler is not the kind of guy that singlehandedly transforms your team. He certainly makes the Timberwolves better. They’re in no way a championship contender with him, nor do I think any team is a championship contender with him as a best player.”

14:42-15:15: “All these big-picture numbers about the Rockets, they’re going to look great on paper. Look, [in] playoff games, certainly against the Warriors, if they match up, or the Jazz, if they’re in a Game 6 and there’s three minutes left in the game, I don’t care what you did all year long. Continue reading

“It’s a Terrible (Eastern) Conference” With Kelly Dwyer

October 15, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Kelly Dwyer of The Second Arrangement does not shy away from offering his honest opinion about the Eastern Conference this season.


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In the wake of LeBron James’ departure, Kelly Dwyer discusses his Eastern favorites and why the conference is overall so bad. The online basketball writing pioneer who wrote for Yahoo!‘s Ball Don’t Lie blog for nearly a decade, among multiple notable gigs, is currently shining for The Second Arrangement, a project to which you can subscribe for as low as $5 per month.

Timing will vary due to dynamic advertising, but here are the approximate time stamps of some of our favorite clips (so many good ones to choose from):

7:29-7:39 on the Boston Celtics’ immense depth: “There’s so many arms on this monster that this could be something that lasts for a while, that really eases Kyrie [Irving] into his drop-off years.” Continue reading

“The (Clippers) Curse” Book Special With Mick Minas

September 8, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Released in 2016, Mick Minas’ “The Curse” comprehensively explores the tortured history of the Los Angeles Clippers (MMinas8/Twitter).


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Mick Minas, author of “The Curse: The Colorful & Chaotic History of the LA Clippers,” is here to discuss his comprehensive book that chronicles the wild history of the Clippers. Plagued by penny-pinching ownership, questionable management, terrible luck, and a well earned abysmal reputation, the franchise experiences so many low lows, but optimism is somehow rarely too far away. Even with a new era of Clippers basketball beginning, there is reason for hope. For those interested, Mick’s book can be purchased on Amazon. For more information, visit the book’s website or follow Mick on Twitter.   

Enjoy some clips (The time stamps are approximate, given the presence of dynamic advertising; pun intended with “clips/Clips,” by the way):

7:51-8:20: “So when the players are in that type of environment, it’s easy to see how the effort level would drop off, and I don’t think it takes a lot in a super-competitive environment like the NBA. If you’ve got players operating at 85, 80 percent effort level, that’s obviously gonna lead to terrible results and then the terrible results lead to a further drop in morale, and I think it’s just that sort of downward spiral.”
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LeBron’s Lakers With Harrison Faigen, Eric Pincus

August 29, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Guests Harrison Faigen and Eric Pincus aren’t overly concerned with the Lakers’ perimeter shooting around LeBron James, but they are excited to learn more about the youngsters and their varying level of growth this season (Keith Allison/Creative Commons).


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Following a five-year playoff drought, come July, the Los Angeles Lakers and their fan base could exhale. That’s when they landed LeBron James, the most dominant and versatile player in today’s NBA. To discuss these Lakers, Aaron and Loren are joined by Harrison Faigen of SB Nation’s Silver Screen & Roll and Eric Pincus, Lakers reporter for Bleacher Report, cohost of the Hollywood Hoops Podcast and Capologist for Basketball Insiders and NBA TV.
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“Around the League in 80 Days” Book Special With the Allens

July 25, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Gabe and Bill take the reader along with them on their special, 80-day adventure to all of the NBA’s arenas (2015).


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A budding journalist and soon-to-be college graduate and his dad, a recently retired professor, set out on an 80-day journey around the NBA, stopping by all 29 arenas over a nearly three-month period. That’s the backdrop for “Around the League in 80 Days,” a 2015 memoir penned by William and Gabriel Allen. The father-son duo was gracious enough to join Aaron for a detailed, behind-the-scenes discussion on the book and their exhilarating adventure. If interested, the book can be purchased here.
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Randy Harvey: “Which Rockets Team Will We See?”

May 18, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Through two games, James Harden & Kevin Durant are isolating frequently to great individual success. But does that hurt either team’s flow? Randy Harvey weighs in (GameFace-Photos/Creative Commons).

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We’ve brought back Randy Harvey, former sports editor of the Houston Chronicle, to discuss the Houston Rockets’ Western Conference finals run. Since retiring on March 1st, Randy and his wife moved to Pasadena where he’s continued to follow the Rockets from afar. With the series tied at one, the Rockets stand three wins away from their first NBA Finals berth in 23 years. Standing in their way, the mighty Warriors who have won two of the past three titles. This season’s Rockets won a league-best 65 games after adding superstar point guard Chris Paul, who had never appeared in a conference final, along with 3-and-D wings P.J. Tucker and Luc Mbah a Moute. Of course, the team is centered around James Harden, whose MVP-caliber season has vaulted his team into this position. As the Western Conference finals has effectively turned into a best-of-five series, without further ado, let’s check in with Mr. Harvey for more on this heavyweight matchup. Continue reading

Grizz Gaming GM Lang Whitaker: “It’s Like Real Sports”

February 24, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Grizz Gaming GM Lang Whitaker reveals some of how he plans to lead his squad to success in the NBA 2K League’s opening season (Grizz Gaming/Twitter).

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Lang Whitaker is back for another exhilarating appearance, this time informing us on the brand new NBA 2K League and his role as general manager of Grizz Gaming, the Memphis Grizzlies’ representative team. Whitaker, who also serves as a contributor to Grind City Media and GQ Magazine, cannot wait for the 2K League’s inaugural season, and he’s here to tell us why. There’s no chance you’ll need to grit or grind through these interview highlights below:

6:40-8:33: “I cohosted the Hang Time Podcast for NBA.com the last few years, and one of my cohosts was Rick Fox. And I was just sitting next to Rick the last few years as he was putting together what became Echo Fox, which is now one of the big teams in eSports. So I watched him as he kind of learned about it and figured out what he wanted Echo Fox to become and so that was sort of my introduction to this thing. But look, eSports probably had around 400 million viewers in 2017. They’re projecting revenues of $1.5 billion by 2020, so this is a huge thing. I think there’s probably a little bit of an educational curve here on this depending on your age; younger people are way more into this, it seems like, than a lot of the older people are… Continue reading

Bill Bohl: “Everything Makes More Sense When [Jimmy Butler’s] on the Court”

February 13, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Under coach Tom Thibodeau again, Jimmy Butler is leading the league in minutes per game in his first season with the Timberwolves (Catherine Salaun/Creative Commons).

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A little more than six months after our latest Timberwolves-themed episode, things are looking pretty good for the team currently fourth in the West. Aaron checked in with Billy Bohl, writer for ESPN True Hoop’s A Wolf Among Wolves to discuss a slew of topics, including but not limited to coach Tom Thibodeau’s minutes allocation, 22-year-old phenoms Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, and Jimmy Butler’s multifaceted impact on the organization’s success. Feel free to wolf down some highlighted sections below:

10:00-10:51: “I think it [the third seed] is preferable [to the fourth seed]. But again, you don’t want to look too far ahead…I wouldn’t want to face Russell Westbrook in a playoff series. Right now if they were the third seed, the Thunder would be the sixth seed. No disrespect to them obviously [but] I would much rather face Portland in the first round. It’s hard to decipher just which route you’d want to take. To be perfectly frank, I don’t think they’d have a chance against Houston either. I think they’d be in big trouble in the second round no matter which of those two teams [Houston or Golden State] they faced.”

15:05-15:56: “The Wolves aren’t terribly deep, especially on the wing, and they need Karl-Anthony Towns to be on court when Jimmy Butler is sitting. So they have to stagger those minutes, and that ends up driving up Karl’s minutes a bunch. I don’t worry about it too much as far as Wiggins or Towns is concerned. The part that troubles me a little: I try to be as optimistic as I can, but Jimmy Butler has already had a couple little tweaks to his knee this season. Continue reading

Ian Levy: Oladipo Spearheads Pacers’ Newfound “Kinetic Explosiveness”

December 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Victor Oladipo’s first season with the Pacers has been a smashing success. If he can sustain his superb shooting, guest Ian Levy believes he should be an All-Star (Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Wikimedia Commons).

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The Indiana Pacers have bounced back from a subpar start to stand 18-14. In an Eastern Conference crowded with many solid, second-tier teams looking to separate themselves from the pack, Indiana is more than holding its own thanks to an elite offense led by Victor Oladipo. Ian Levy, NBA editor and columnist for FanSided and Editor-in-Chief of The Step Back, helps us break down the team he knows best. We’ll cover Indiana’s captivating comeback ability, the sudden emergence of Oladipo and so much more…Who’s your (Hoosier?) favorite podcast for interview excerpts?

6:42-7:28: “If he [Victor Oladipo] can sustain what he’s doing shooting the basketball, especially on those pull-ups, that sort of locks him into this tier where he’s, I’d say, a clear-cut All-Star [and] one of the best shooting guards in the league. So I think that’s probably the hope for the Pacers rather than him somehow getting better than he is now. He’s given them everything they could ask for. And that aggression and passion is such a different aesthetic than the Pacers have had the past couple years. Even when they were good, back in the Hibbert-David West-George Hill-Paul George-Lance Stephenson [days], back in those days, they didn’t have the same sort of kinetic explosiveness.” Continue reading

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