2026-27 NBA Season Verrierables: Breakthroughs, Award Picks, and More | Group Chat

Hello and welcome to Group Chat, I am Justin Varyer, and joining me, Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle O'Man, hopefully everyone enjoyed the gauntlet. That was the preseason power ranking, six episodes of high quality content. How are you guys feeling on the other side of power rankings, hyper nation, Rob? I think it was the best podcast that we've ever done. Where that sets us up as we now go into a full season of podcasting, I'm slightly worried about it, but we're at the peak of our game, I don't think it's going to get any better than this. Yeah, I've literally just been asleep since those pods, I just had to trim my nails and then come on the show. Well, thank you for doing that. This is a historic season of Group Chat that we're about to embark on. This is, believe it or not, the 10th season of Group Chat on the Ryan B.A. show. That's like what anniversary, the paper mache, are we gold? I think it's the John Morant anniversary, actually, you know, just, you know, get your favorite, you know, penning on for dear life anniversary historically, yes, but were you a part of from year one, just in day one, were you a Group Chat on, it was a more elaborate mix back in those days. Yes, I think the original conception was like the people who are in L.A. for work and you were around, and that was the kind of the crew there. And then it has taken on several different permutation since then, Rob's been a part of most of them at this stage. This is like what? Like five or six years for you? It's been a nice little run, yeah, I think six years doing Group Chat with you and our various cohorts. I had the realization recently that I'm coming up on next season. It will be my 20th year covering the NBA and some capacity or another. So we'll figure out what the 20th anniversary is as well. We're getting fully old and washed over here, but the fact that Group Chat itself is, you know, a fifth grader who's about to go into middle school. I'm just so proud of our low guy, yeah, just hanging on for dear life here. So we'll probably have a gala toward the end there, Kyle will wear his cummer bun and love a gala. Yeah, we'll celebrate that way. But in the interim, we're going to do a little live show action this year. So we've already mentioned our show next week in Minneapolis, Minnesota tickets are still on sale for that on Tuesday, the 27th, you can go to the bringer.com/events to see us in Minneapolis talking hoops just a couple guys on stage doing some stuff. We got to come up with a plan still for that one, but we're going to do something special for you guys. We're open to suggestions. I will also say we got an extensive email from listener Dan, who sent us a bunch of restaurant recommendations for the broader Minneapolis Twin Cities area. I can't even tell you how receptive I am to such recommendations. So if you have places in Minneapolis, you love that you would love for us to check out. I want to hear about them. Bring your group chat to gmo.com, the social media of your choice, whatever you like, get at us. I want those wrecks. And I won't order the salmon. You know, I'm a shit. I've gotten for that. Like that's like one of the most. I've gotten to shit more shit about that than anything ever, I think. I just think the pranzino was right there. And you're like, let me pick salmon instead of all the things. Perhaps salmon might be the best thing to do, but it's fair. I'm sure there will be more there. So that's one live show. If it or not, they're putting us on stage again. Just assuming that I won't embarrass us so badly or say something just completely inappropriate that I will be available to do this next one. Next live show will be in December, December 10th back in our home away from home in Indian apolis, Indiana. We're going back to the high five in the December 10th. That's a Thursday that is in between the semi finals of the NBA cup and the finals which this year is being held at Hinkle Field House, the home of the Butler Bulldogs. That will be on I believe the 11th will be there on the 10th. So go again to the ringer.com slash events to get your tickets on sale now. Well, Justin, this is why I'm not worried about them giving us a second live show before a first one has even happened this season and you saying something on stage that would cause us great embarrassment and potentially you losing your job. We've already been on the stage at the high five in the with wise and Kyle doing the White American player draft and we somehow and you did not get canceled. So I just think you're unkillable. I think you could go up there and say literally anything you want and there are no repercussions for anything in public life anymore. And we're going to be right there on that stage yet again. Literally anything you say. Huh. Interesting. Just saying just throw it out the options. All right. Well, the last bit of business we need to get here is something from my friends in Portland that specifically have a message for one Rob Mahoney. You can tell that I am decked out in Pickle's gear because I came home from the power rankings had a nice little package from the Portland Pickles. My favorite baseball team, the hometown pride that I felt just opening up the package to see these amazing hats that I will be wearing that they're out the first pitch this coming season was one thing. Then I opened the bag had a little message from my friend Dylan D T Pickle. Okay. That's T period pickle. It says to Justin and friends, enjoy these hats, smiley face, PS, suck it Rob, we're real. Okay. You deserve that. First of all, you definitely added the post script. There's no way Dylan T Pickle suck it Rob. Suck the pickle Rob. That's not a thing that happened. Dylan, Dylan gets after and this is the note specifically. Wow. I can't argue with the evidence. That's way too nice to be your handwriting. So I think we have to accept it as empirical truth and I do have to suck it because they are real. I never thought a team would name itself the Portland Pickles but here we are. You're rocking the merch. You're drinking the Kool-Aid. You're about to throw out a first pitch at some point. I think we really do need to make the pilgrimage to the last thing properly. His last name is Pickle. So is Pickle like a family name? As soon as he's the mascot. Oh. No, I was hoping there was a family called the Pickles and that was actually the the genesis of it. I think it dates back to like the Saxons in England I think, but I could be wrong. But yeah. Rockets check. You wouldn't know. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. All right. I think that's everything I have on the docket. The season is now what? Probably hours away as you're listening to this games kick off at noon tomorrow on Tuesday. It's a new little thing that the NBA is trying. I for one is someone who works from home and never puts on pants. I'm very excited to just roll over and watch the NBA basketball tomorrow. But as we do every year, we have the NBA preseason variables in order to ring in the new year. You thought you had all the preseason content you can get. No, my friends, we're going to be back in full force with a new song just after this. This episode is presented by Sam's club during the holidays, everyone's in a club. The last minute gift givers club, the cool aunts club, the food coma club, whatever holiday club you're in, Sam's club is the club that helps you pull it off. Need to get a meal on the table in under two hours done shopping for the brands they want like Dyson and Lego without blowing your budget, check and check. The club helps you make the most of the holidays come join us, Sam's club. All right. The variables are here. How do you pronounce it? How do you spell it? Nobody knows who's tired of this bit? Probably everybody, including Kyle. But this year our friend, John Robinson, cooked up a new song for us. I think it's one of the rockingness ones that we've had thus far, unless you guys have anything you want to say. I think we can get just right into it. Don't keep us on pins and needles. I want to hear this song. All right, Isaiah, let it rip. That was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Kind of John Mao's Cross with like Trans-Siberian Orchestra Cross with Stradivarius, I don't know if you're familiar with them. No. But we should introduce our first variable, which is the most important variable of them all. I would say the ultimate variable. That is Dave Jacobi, who's joining us for this extravaganza. Hi Dave. I listen to this show every single year and I love it every single year. And I am very, very partial to the death metal year. That was my favorite. Death metal was good. I thought this one is a nice little spin on it though, you know, something a little like almost a holiday adjacent. I think that's where the Trans-Siberian came through. But somehow also final countdown, but somehow also polyphonic spree, there was a lot going on there. But Jacobi, what is your take on how to spell or pronounce variables, slash variables? Do you have a personality box? I have absolutely no trouble with this whatsoever. Okay. Spelling of the pronunciation or anything, variable, variable, yeah. That's how you do it. Yeah. Just trail off. Yeah. All right. So Dave's going to be joining us for today's exercise. We're going to go through four or five different variables starting with the first one, which I think is the most interesting one, the one that I think we're all pretty excited with. This is the first season post new tanking roles, or the newest new tanking roles. And as a result, we'll probably see 30 or close to it teams actually trying throughout the season, which is a nice little treat for us. I think you're already starting to see this in the preseason Jacobi. Like, I don't know if you're feeling this as well. It seems like there's like energy to even some of these prelude games that we've been getting over the past two weeks or so. - I mean, you feel it now and we talk about it a lot, but I think you'll really, really see the changes on the other side of the year. When we get into the spring, which starts to get warm, 'cause you know, we all follow the NBA closely, and sometimes those like April games get really walkier than March games. You're just kind of like, what is this? I think that's when we'll see sort of the biggest changes. I don't think BAM and a BIOS can score 83 points again. So it's sort of, one of the things I wanted to toss back to the group here is like the teams, like the Clippers, Bucks, and Nets that don't have their pick. Like, how does that play? Do they end up in the quote unquote relegation zone? Like, there's some unknown towards the end of the season that I want to ask you guys about. - I think there's the flip side of that too, which is the teams that did trade for those picks, did kind of get hosed by this whole endeavor, and I would say specifically the ones who have swaps, right? It's like those swaps are still gonna be probably better. You know, if you're Houston and you have the chance to swap with Brooklyn, yeah, Brooklyn's gonna have a better pick than Houston, but that could have been a life-changing draft choice, potentially. And I'm curious about that range of dates you talked about, though, Jacobi, where it's like post all-star break in particular, it's kind of like all bets are off in the NBA. That's when the tanking starts really hard. That's when players actively stop trying on some of these very bad teams. And if we can just move that a month later, six weeks later, I think the quality of life around, you know, just watching basketball is so much higher. - Yeah, two things I think folded into both that kind of branch off from both of those. I think Rob speaking what you're saying, if I were a GM, like, you know, Presti obviously has built an incredible like Scrooge McDuck level stockpile of, you know, picks and things like that, looking out on the horizon and really capitalizing on teams, you know, not playing the game as well as he does. I would be pretty pissed off if I were a Presti type that this edge, he'll probably just go find another one. Another one that's interesting too, is like thinking about the turn of the year and how it affects. Whenever we talk about players or just year in and year out, I know we have these statistical conversations where we're trying to look forward into, as we're doing now, into the season, we would look at the end of the year and be like, well, they did XYZ in March. I wonder if we might enter a new age of newly found, like validation from March, you know, March stats, because I feel like everybody would point to a very small sample size in March and be like this happened. Maybe those like weird aberrations will just go away in the way that like that BAM out of bio, like 81 point game did, but was it 81? I don't forget the exact number, but I just think, yeah, have some respect. There we go. I wonder if we'll see like a new found, just some more kind of stat walk, wonky-ness, could either stabilize or totally go away as a result of this. I also wonder if we'll see better earlier basketball, because over time, the tanking had become so fierce, it became so like Marloste infield, ask where like the game just gets more aggressive, where people are starting to tank earlier because they needed to get ahead of things. And I think the one thing I'm wondering about is a byproduct of this, is how much this just affects the load management game. Like I think we're all very excited for this season. There's so much to be excited for. We're gonna get to that in the next question of like all the young talent and all this other stuff to really be plugged into here. But I am worried that if the biggest obstacle of modern basketball is how much load these guys are facing, if we're now just adding something on top of this, where the games where they could just kind of cruise through the nets, the jazz last year, like these just become harder. - I just think we're gonna see a lot of stress injuries and we're gonna need to get comfortable with that. Like we're already seeing the like the soft tissue stuff, hamstrings, Achilles, calves, all across the league. But if every game is you're saying Justin is even more of an ordeal, and really what predicated all of this, I think what we can all be optimistic about is we were running off of two straight years of a record number of blowouts in each of those seasons. And so if we're trimming that down, that's great for the game. But it is gonna be harder on guys' bodies. There are gonna be more like stress fractures in feet, in legs, like big guys in particular. I think you're gonna really be put through the ringer with all of this, like there are potential downsides, but like we had reached a point where you were kind of fighting for the soul of the regular season. And people were checking out so hard on the back part of it in ways that obviously aren't just disputing to us as like people who are invested in that as a process, but I think just actively bad for the league. So there have to be trade offs. That unfortunately is one of them. Hopefully there's some offsetting benefits and then some. - One thing, 'cause you just made me sad, I wanna say is, as someone who watches League Pass every single night, like you would look at some of those like nine game slates and you could just cross off for, like it doesn't even matter. Like I know who's gonna win just by looking at the two teams on the piece of paper because one team's motivated to lose, one team's motivated to win. There just be less of that. There'd be less of just kind of like, I don't have to pay attention to this game whatsoever because there'll be two teams competing. - I think the teams I'm most excited about are, 'cause JV's absolutely right, like the arms race of who can start tanking the fastest was getting so aggressive and out of hand. That's kind of its own bucket of teams. The teams I'm most interested in are the ones that maybe started out seasons thinking they were gonna be decent, tripped along the way, had injuries or whatever and just like decided to punt so quickly at the first sign of trouble. But with the way that the odds are stacked now for the lottery, like there's a lot of incentive to try, there's a lot of incentive to not give up on the idea of the play-in because you can be a play-in team or at least in that mix and still have a decent shot at a top pick that I wanna say the teams that linger on and kind of like don't eject at the first sign of trouble. And from that, it's like, do we get more organic player development? Do we get lineups that come together over the course of the season? Do we see like duos and trios of players that would never have really gotten a chance to play together who are now being trusted to figure it out over the course of the year? - Yeah, I was gonna say that's something organic. I think you hit on something really important there, Rob. It's like, we saw this with the process six or as people complaining about this a lot where early on, they were just like the groundwater's tainted where we were just, these guys, like learning to win is a skill that you do with other people. And it's like, and we've seen young cores organically grow. I think that's the best. That's one of the most exciting templates of like exciting NBA basketball that you can have is watching a team like you think about like the early 90s magic or there are a lot of examples of the thunder, those are the best high points of it. I just enjoy that and watching team. Like the Wizards are a good example of a young core that they just kind of, they were trying to grow this group of young players together but they were like, we also just, it's incomplete and we wanna keep getting better players. What we, the guys we have aren't quite what we were aiming for so we're just gonna keep trying to be bad and do that. I think if a byproduct of this is that we start to see more and more examples of young cores like trying to win and on a night where like the Wizards are playing the Spurs or whatever it might be. We'll see teams punch it again above their weight. I think that's fun. - Yeah. One thing I'm wondering about also is the trade deadline because if we're saying that the games are gonna be harder if just like a random week in November just is like incrementally harder than depth the advantage that it built over the past couple of years becomes more of an asset, even more so because you need those guys to fill those harder minutes. And so I also wonder we're coming off of on one hand Jacobi, like a pretty frenetic historic offseason where a bunch of guys traded teams. On the other hand, if we're saying that depth matters like our teams going to be willing to go make the star trade in the middle of the season, like the Hawks friends and have all these guys like if they wanted to hit the next level and really level up, are they going to be willing to do that if we're saying that they need the depth just to trudge through the regular season. What do you think about that? It's interesting. I think if you are in a position to make that sort of a trade and you think you could really have a shot of championship, I think you'll still do that. But when you think about the new CBA in combination with the new tanking rules, you really consider, you talk about the emphasis on depth and the season being harder and more sort of like you need more players, more bodies. It's hard to do that with the CBA limiting you like that. So I don't know how many sort of three-for-one trades you're going to see because you need to be a successful team, you kind of need like one max guy and then like a bunch of other people. You know what I mean? There's no longer like three max players on the team because then you have absolutely no depth whatsoever. Well, especially I think the combination of the rigors of the kind of season we're describing, all the financial constraints you just laid out Jacobi. Everything was already pointing to the NBA being more and more of a young man's league or at least like a mid-20 somethings league. And you can even see this for rankings at the top 100 at the ringer.com or Victor Webinyama. We have ranked as the number one player. He has his own health considerations, his own injury concerns, all of that is valid. But this is a time where if you have guys on those like below market relatively to what you would pay a 35 year old superstar contracts and you can get more young players in the door, your stuff castles, your Dylan Harper's, that's how you stack the deck, right? Then you do have your superstar and your second and third guys are wildly overqualified for what they're paid. It's not just like a marketed efficiency. It might be like the only way to sustain. If you're overpaying your third best player by a dramatic amount, that might be where teams are really going to be running a ground over the next couple of years. - Yeah, this kind of brings us to kind of the sub-question I have for this section, which is like who will be the surprise team of this year? And I was thinking a lot about this depth question. I was like kicking this around yesterday in my head. And for that reason, I picked the Hawks, a team that went out and basically, just got a couple thunder players on the cheap just because the thunder couldn't afford them because of the second apron, because that's what the second apron's gonna do. Like, can you be a surprise if you were already a surprise? Last year was almost like the prelude. I feel like this will be where they pop. Like I could see them if we're-- - It isn't a prelude to a surprise. - That isn't that anithetical to a surprise. - It's true, it can't be. - It's a good point. - Here comes a surprise. - It's a good point. - It's the mini surprise before that, yeah. - No, but I feel like where did we have them in the power ranking, they were probably like in the five, six range of the East. - Yeah. (laughing) - Definitely. - But I can see them making an even bigger leap than we're expecting because they have the one advantage that we're all talking about. Also, if you watch them in pre-season, like I know Kyle has been high on Kingston Fleming's, like the immediate just like sense of like where to be in the ball movement. I know he had a lot of turnovers and but like he just feels like he plays the exact sort of style that they're trying to like take advantage of where it's like a lot of defense, a lot of depth, just a lot of capable hands. And I do wonder if that's gonna stack regular season. When we look up Jacobian, like maybe the Hawks are like the foreseed and we were expecting them to just be one of these middle of the road teams in the East. - Maybe not because that's the happening. (laughing) - Okay, that's where it took. - Who do you like them? - Well, think it's the thing every since ago, the Hawks, they beat the Knicks twice. It's like, well, I also remember watching a game. I think it was like 103 to 43. - Oh, boy. - Jalen Johnson was just absolutely like just ineffective. Like it was just, there was nothing inspiring coming out of that playoff series. But around this time of year, we always sort of like overvalue the like the last thing we saw from a team. And let's not forget they had the great end of the regular season. That was also assisted by tanking teams as well. But like I do think that you are smart to point at their depth and you are also smart to point at them as a potential team that could trade three for one because they do feel, it doesn't feel like Jalen Johnson's going to be the best player in a championship team right now. - That's the second point, Rob. It's like if you have like a go get a win guy, like right now, it still feels like a siege in my column. And like last year felt like found money already. I don't know if you could expect him to do that throughout the course of this regular season. - That would be a tough ask. And I think that's kind of what would, like what the Hawks need to level up is a, not just go get a win guy, but go get a bucket guy. You need either Jalen Johnson or Nikhil Alexander Walker to show dramatic improvement in that way. And it's like I think there are a lot of capable players there. I think they're going to be a good team, like a really stout team. One of these teams, like in the bulk of the regular season, it's just really annoying to play against because of all their movement, because of all their length. I just don't know that they're going to pop any more than they already did. And I think the East is so dense with like really good teams that it's going to be tough for them to like bump up against that ceiling and really break through it. The team I found myself thinking about was the Rockets. And I feel like some of that is when we're thinking about what teams are going to succeed in a flattened lottery landscape. I feel like you need to be at that sweet spot where you have guys who are just old enough or at least mature enough to take things really seriously in the regular season. Think about like what the pistons did last season, like locked in night after night. High effort players really engaged. Can I stop you real quick though? So if the Hawks can't be a surprise because they won two playoff games, you'll find with a 50 win team being a surprise. The reason the Hawks can't be a surprise is not because they won two playoff games, but because we spent three straight months talking about how they were the surprise of the season already. OK, that's fair. But I want to-- let's just tie a future conversation we were playing to have on this pod. I think the Rockets could be the most realistic playoff challenger to the Thunder or the Spurs. When you're thinking about who could break through, it's like who has a signature style, who has the elite level shot making, who's going to get through the regular season and pile up wins so they have favorable seating. And I think getting Fred Van Vlieten Steve at Adams back does one super important thing as far as who a surprise team could be and what can make the Rockets so good in this competitive environment, which is they make Kevin Durant's life so much easier physically and psychologically. Like the weight of Kevin, you have to go out there and bail out every half-court possession we have and by extension play later in games than we ever would have wanted you to do to the point that you're second on our team in total minutes played. Like that was never supposed to be the plan. But having a real point guard means having a real offense, having a real offense means you protect the leads better. Like I just think there's a road for the Rockets to be not only really good but really good in a way that stress tests the Thunder and the Spurs specifically. And that would be a surprise. Yeah, Katie is just at that stage of his career where he's more of a like, I don't know, Tom Brady like Peyton Manning, that era where you're just in the pocket pass in the ball. It's like maybe at some point we could run down. I mean, Katie, obviously a great ball handler and could get to the rim, probably the best handling forward score of all time. But we're at this stage where he needs the burden taken up. We can't be expected, especially post Achilles' tear, one of these guys that fits that description. We can't be taxing him like that. His body is just can't hold up. I was curious, Rob, I mean, I guess in terms of a surprise, there's the two categories I think. Call of May, Call of May, where there's the surprise of getting right. I think you're talking about like a get right surprise. That would be nice if they reset and revert as opposed to a come out of nowhere surprise. The hipsteries would pick the Grizzlies or whoever it might be. I think they're a get right in that we can all agree. And we certainly had them around here in our power rankings that the Rockets are like one of the 10 best teams in the league. And I think the surprise could be, what if they're the fourth best team in the league? Beat the Thunder or the Spurs in a playoff room. That's a surprise. That would be genuinely shocking. And yet, someone is going to be positioned to do it by the end of the year, to at least give them like an honest challenge. And I think the Rockets, as much as anybody in the West, feel like a credible threat to at least push one of those teams. I still don't believe in a team that needs a player coming off of an ACL tear to just like completely organize and set them right. Sounds like you're ready to be surprised. But I would be surprised, season. That's right. Bogie's ready. Mark Smart. What are you like about the Rockets is that they're like, we need a point card. It's like, let's get three. And they all have distressed conditions. It's like our post ACL about Bogie. What does he have left? Yeah, and then Mark is smart. It's just, he's a surprise. Like, is he still going to keep going? How real is this, this reset? Well, all the point guards aren't point guards because they tried to clear the path for their young point guards who ended up just being like reach uppers, more of a shooter in a men Thompson is whatever the hell he is. They actually do just need a traditional point guard. And I do think Fred could have a pretty profound effect on them, especially late in games where they were just completely amassed. It just feels like a lot to be asking a guy at that stage of his career, this stage of his injury recovery. Oh, Fred is going to shoot 40% from the field and like, be one of the plus minus leaders in the entire league. Like it's going to, it's going to be 5% from three. Yeah, it's going to be 40% from the field. OK, yeah. He's not going to be efficient. But he's like, really what they needed was who can handle the ball capably and help run the show. And if they even have that, they have so many other things locked down. They're a lead defensive team. They're obviously an amazing offensive rebounding team. I just think there's a lot of low hanging fruit for them to clean up in a way where as we're talking ourselves in and out of the nuggets and the wolves and the lakers and these other teams and the West. It's like, the rockets are just kind of sitting right here. And we're all, we're all a little freaked out by Katie's age and injury history. But if it all comes together, it's really going to come together. I'm very high on the rockets. But so Kyle, you said that there's two columns to pick from in terms of surprise. And I went from a different column. OK. I went from 13 is going to be way worse than you expect. I love it. And that is the Golden State Warriors. The Golden State Warriors, I think are just going to be terrible. I think they're going to be an absolute mess. Like Steph Curry's great. He can only do so much. They're like, they're starting Gi Santos and like Yaxl. And they're like looking for a huge leap from pods. They pods all of a sudden going to turn into like a 30 point a game score. And they're like legit need Al Horford. And they're like, they're like, thank god we have George Yang for because we need him so bad right now. Like this team is going to be one of the worst teams in the Western Conference. Like my surprise is going to be like, you will not be. You'll be watching the way less warriors than you think. To Kobe, do you ever have this-- I know you used to hoop a lot more. I don't know how much you do anymore. But Rob, you know, do you ever get in these situations where when teams get picked, you look around at the people who maybe made the teams and think like, your idea of me is like a few years behind, you know? I kind of wonder if Horford is-- They're just half familiar with your game. No, every once in a while, that'll happen where I'd be like, I think you're thinking of me from a few years ago. I'm not-- I don't feel like carrying this load. I feel like there are a few guys on the warriors that I like that at this point. But isn't that better? Who's not? They're going to be really bad. Like that's one of my surprise teams. It's going to be like, you know, and injury issues and whatever's happening to Chris Stapps. Like, I think a fully healthy warriors team is fine. But this version that we're going to be seeing is not OK. I thought the real turn in the punch bowl of like going into this season that we're all very excited about was Steve Kerr basically being like, listen, guys, I know you want to see Steph. But he's probably not going to be there every night because we have this early schedule in which we have to pace him out, like just so you know. Which was like a real reminder of like, the schedule is actually the biggest thing that they need to change in their refuse to do so. And then he slips and may have injured him. We don't know the status as a matter of recording this. But like seems like he might have to even be paced into this season, let alone be paced out over the first couple of weeks. So just think about what that warriors looks like without Steph Kerr. And she's about loading without Chris Stapps. It's like who's a lot of yaks all a lot of yaks. - Too much Yaxel. - And like-- - Speak for yourself. - I don't know. When Yaxel came out, it was like, actually rebounding in the NBA is easy. (laughing) - I love it. - Especially that I thought, I was like, this guy is so cook. - Like, this is such a disaster start. - Yeah. - But when Steph limped off the floor, as you alluded to, JV, I mean, they've clarified in so far, they're saying it's an ankle injury, an knee injury, which would be a dramatic, like for two, it is turn of events. Anything knee related with Steph is gonna be pretty freaky at this point. But it got so dark so fast. It got into like, are the Valkyries really gonna let these guys play in their building level? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - 'Cause like, one of these teams is good and successful and the other one has not been for quite some time now. - Can I tack something on to Jacoby's thing? Is there a team though that like, I kind of feel, I'm not trying to deflate the balloon of that a little here, but I mean, we kind of knew that that was coming with the Warriors, right? We was like, this is gonna be pretty bleak, I think. Is there a team? - Mahoney just said the rockets are gonna be good. - I know, I'm just, I'm gonna throw them off. - It's not what I said. It's not what I said. I'm just, I'm bumping this ball into the air and I'll let you all hit it however you want to. But is there a team that we're an unprompted, not prepared? Is there a team that could potentially shock us that we are, that this could go very wrong? - Who did you pick? - Well, I had to get right team as well, like Rob's. I had Orlando. I think Orlando could come in piss and vinegar and punch the yeast in the mouth a little bit. 'Cause they do have talent. We talked about in the playoffs, we were just like, this doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. We were like, the piss and should win this series, but you look at the magic roster and I was like, it's better. Like, it is just better. And I just think if they, I expect to get right season from them, but I don't really know how much of a total shock that would be. - Well, I like how they passed the ball in preseason, Rob. And everyone's like, let's go. They actually know how to play together. - Solid. - But we talked about this in the power ranking too. If they just play better defensively, that's, if Franz is just healthy this season, that is a pretty awesome start to this. I think that they could be better. I don't know if they'll ever be vaulting to the top of the east, but I do think as the seat, like we're talking about effects of everybody trying, if the records are compressed, I do wonder if a team like this, who were all projecting to be five or six, could make a bigger leap if only because, like, the difference between two and seven is like three games. - Yeah. I just can't, I couldn't bring it for myself to pick the magic because we've literally done this every year for like four consecutive years with them. And we've had the same conversation about, like if Franz and Paul can stay healthy, if Jalen Sucks can stay healthy, they've so many overlapping injury concerns, I would love to see the good version of the magic again, or like the good consistent, healthy version of the magic again. If that version exists, I'm with you that I think they can really push at least that kind of middle class of the Eastern Conference, like would be contenders, but I'm just gonna need to see it at this point. I can't come on another podcast and talk about it. (laughs) - You can come on another podcast and I'm taking it, I'm taking a hard look in the mirror, Justin. At a certain point, you can only sing "No Appendus" praises so many times. - You think about what the surprises were from the last days. And this is one of the ways I like to do this, this little brain exercise. I'm like, what would, if we could go back in time, right? Like before the season last year, I would say pistons being the number one seed really sticks out, right? - Yes. - And I'm trying to think, when you look at this Eastern Conference, which everyone can't stop talking about how like the top 10 teams are so good, like where, which team is the pistons? It's gonna be like, it's really gonna be like the number one seed, win 60 games. And I think that Orlando would probably be my pick, but like Mahoney, I say that every year, and then guess what, someone's got a weird injury and someone else has a weird injury. And then we're like, we have to rally around Jalen Suggs and then he can start. - Orlando win in 60 would be a fucking story. That would be, that would be wild. - But the pistons, dude, you did not expect the pistons to win that many games last year. No one did. - Well, that's, I think that's the thing about if there is a league where there's 28 competitive teams, one team is winning 60, maybe two, right? Like you're not getting the same kind of outcome. And I think especially in the East, there's gonna be a lot of like, between 52 and 56 wins, and they are seen as the elite of the Eastern Conference just by a matter of attrition. - Listen, a surprise is in the eye of the beholder, I think is what we've all figured out in this 20-minute conversation, but the magic winning 60, I think would be a surprise to everybody. - Yes. - All right, well, I wanna move along here, which means that we, once again, need to rock out. (upbeat music) Yeah. I have so many questions about the production of that song. - There's every genre. Every single musical genre is in that one piece of music. - Is this the apotheosis of the variables? How have we reached peak variables where it's all collided, it's all become one, and here we are on the other side of it more complete than that. - We're post variables. - I think the peak, yeah, we're post variables 'cause the last variables was me trying to not do the variables, and so I spelt it the normal way, like the AR, I don't even know if it's normal. - And the public was just, they were pissed. They didn't like that, yeah. - They were hyped. They loved it, they loved it. All right, next on the docket, the next generation. It does feel like considering now we have another hype draft class coming in here. This is two in a row, and I'm just looking out on preseason before we started recording the pod. It's just like so much going on now that feels new and fresh. I think this is also compounded, Jacoby, by the fact that a lot of the olds are looking pretty old. We just talked about Steph. LeBron is in Philly, KD is just like arguing with Matt Ishpia on Twitter, like, god damn, that feels like it was five years ago you were on that team, but you're still here, still arguing with people. And so it's just like, it feels like a real sea change happening. Does it feel like that for you? - Yeah, I mean, Steph LeBron, KD, like those are the guys. And they're-- - AD and the Wizards Jersey. - Yeah, they're not, they're not, it is, and I'd say it's the combination of last year's draft class and this year's draft class. And again, I'll talk about the CBA. When you have impactful people on their rookie deals, you can build a team. And between these two, Wembee is sort of like the Kool-Aid man that broke through the door. And these two draft classes are using, and just running in behind him. - Opset Bill, it's Kool-Aid man and Wembee, you know. - Does it terrible? Does it have a metaphor or something to know? - I like it. - Well, we need more Kool-Aid men in the league. But I think the 2025 class is really what kind of cement this for me. 'Cause there is the Wembee part of it. He is the front runner in this conversation. We're gonna look at the next two and three years and see a lot of teams like loading up specific personnel, specific strategy, two counter-victor-webanyama, which is something that, I don't know that we've had that guy in the NBA, probably since Prime Steph. Like since he was like the active threat and you needed the chasers around the perimeter, that kind of threat. This draft class looks great. The 2025 class though, I don't think it's gonna be like the '96 class in terms of depth and they're certainly not gonna have like the full class brick wall photo nor will it go as hard even if they did. But that top group like Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, Khan, VJ. Those guys could be Hall of Famers. Like no questions asked. Like would not surprise me one single bit of all four of those guys are in the Hall of Fame. And then you have enough wild cards with, you know, CMB and Derek Queen and these other like really talented players. It just kind of filled out the conversation of like, oh, this is a movement, right? This is not just like one guy. There is a whole ascendant class now that is kind of finally starting to come together and it is thrilling to behold already. - I think something that we're seeing in the zooming out is that we're just seeing the pace and space generation, the guys that were in high school, the kids that watched, but their earliest memories of basketball are post, post pace and space movement. You know, we see it, Kirk Goldberg's in a lot of stuff about like the age thing and it's how the guys over a certain age are really, I don't know what the exact line is, but it's the group of players who are sort of at that, that sort of Mason Dixon line in time of the players who sort of saw the movement happening and then the players who are coming into the league who that is their only memory of basketball. And I think that that affects your hard wiring as a player when you're coming up and I think that it's impacting the talent and the way the guys are ready to play that spread out style. I think a lot more could kind of be dough on about that, but that really, that to me, I think basketball players in general are just better across the board because they're learning from benchmarks that are really high at an earlier age, but I think that that's in play too in terms of the style and the skill sets that are coming into the league. - The Mason Dixon line drop is insane. We can, the Kentucky and drop in the Mason Dixon line drop. - I thought that was kind of a Mendoza line. - People whenever they say lines, they say one or the other. - I thought that was in bounds, come on now. - I think it's two things really. - I would, I would never. I feel like players are just coming in more prepared and we've been saying this for like five to 10 years now, like oh my god, look at how prepared these like young guys are not only just to deal with the media, but just like how much their bodies are prepared. Like Khan showed up this off season, he's looking fucking yoked. Like that guy looks like he's been in Muscle Beach - He's all watching. - He's still really young and figuring things out. So there's that part of it, but also like how far that long they are in some of the skill work and particularly the shooting stuff is like kind of mind bending to the point where we thought Kyle coming into the season, like maybe Caleb Wilson's one thing that we would really have to work on is the shooting. All of a sudden like his form and whatnot just looks already pretty good and you already have to reconsider his trajectory where we thought about him as like maybe a Kevin Garnett Now it's like, is this just gonna be one of the best scores in the league in the future in addition to all the defensive stuff that he's capable of doing? Yeah, I mean, that conversation is, I feel like that's something the basketball public is sort of working through. I feel like because I've heard that conversation here and there, it's just like, which archetype is he? I'm not totally ready to get there on the scoring face-up wing type thing. I think we'll have to get there. He'll have to earn that because he's gonna be very, very chaotic. I don't know, I don't know where you guys land on that one at this point. Jacob, which of these rookies are you most excited to watch? Oh, that's clearly Caleb. It's just because, like, you kind of, you know, it's just, he's, that's some league game when he hit whatever 17-3 server on, just I was just like, what is this? I was like, this is not as advertised and he's going to be the, he's gonna have the best highlights in Campbell's, there's gonna probably be the best player, you know what I mean? But, but Caleb's just, he's just so fun to watch, just the, the raw talent and the, the, the, the sort of, like, just the, the idea of what he could be is just so exciting and I'll be watching him. You know what I'm gonna have an opportunity to, like, like, even Peterson's, Peterson's on a good team, you know what I mean? The dancers got, you know, Trayon's gonna have the ball. Like, Caleb Wilson's, they're gonna, he's gonna have an opportunity to show what he's got. Especially how fast the bulls are gonna play in splitters offense, and like, if you just look at that team, it looks like it's ready to run, so like, he get very well just if he really hits offensively, I think he could really threaten for a rookie year, we'll talk about awards picks, and a little bit though, but like, if you have to do that thing, I think they still do it with league pass, where you can only pick just one team, you don't get to watch the entire league. I don't, I wouldn't pick the bulls, but I'm saying like, I would strongly consider it because those games are going to be so fun. The variable bulls, like, B-U-L-L-S, is that? That's right, that's the next level, a specific bulls podcast. It's a good question though, though, like, if you can only pick one team, Desert Island, league pass, watch style, who would you pick? I don't think the bulls are the pick. I think I would pick an Eastern team just because I want to see that, like, all-out bloodbath. It's sixers there. It's LeBron James, and it's the sixers. It's the star power, it's the sixers. Everyone knows it's the sixers, but they don't want to say it's the sixers, but it's the sixers. I'm down for it. I have no argument against it. Are they, though, they all answer my own question from Mariela, because nobody answered it. Are they the team that's, to me, Peno was already on this, and I wasn't as pessimistic as he is, but is there a scenario where that just goes cataclysmically wrong? Like, of course. Yeah. I mean, in B-E. That's fun to watch too. Yes, exactly. I think the real question would be, are they going to be on National TV so much? This is, like, the old Lakers thing. Like, I once tried to make the case that the LeBron Lakers with all the young guys, best league pass team going. And you could argue, like, the sixers are just going to be on TNT, well, not TNT anymore, but like, yes, Peno and all the national broadcasts so much, can we categorize them as a league pass team? Who'd you pick? Kyle. One team, you could only watch them in only their games. Oh, boy. There are a lot of different Eastern teams that kind of scratch different nerdy itches. Like, I'm excited to see Toronto. I think that's a pretty hipstery answer right now. I wrote this. A lot of my answers for this are going to be mirrored in like the awards survey that we're doing for the site. So I just kind of stuck to that. But one of the weird ones that I just have a fascination with is I feel like the nets are going to be really, really odd this year because that forward combination of Julius Randall and Michael Porter, Jr. I just think that's good. Like, there are nights where it's going to be a disaster and there's going to be nights where they just like beat the best team in the league because those two together can just go get buckets whenever. And then those two guards like Geoman, I've always loved this game. Man, and I mean, he surprised me in some of my worries. Like he, he outperformed my expectation. So he and Michael Brown, I think, could be pretty fun. So just from that, from a pure like, this could be chaotic, horrible and chaotic fun. And it might just flip flop one of the other at a binary. Like, that's a team for me. Joe from Geoman and Brown. I'm watching Max Max. Yeah, I was going to ask some Jolabee. Six, this is more of New York. Yeah. Are you feeling the electricity of the 2026, 2027 Brooklyn nets right now? Oh yeah, people think this is the next town, but really, I've got boots on the ground here. It's just on fire for the net. Yeah, Jacobi, when we visited, we literally had footage of a group of fans at a Liberty game chaining fuck the nets for no reason. Liberty games. Liberty games are amazing. We're just like, why are you guys like fuck the nets? It's like, I don't know. I just felt like I think Kyle's onto something here where I do think you want your team to be the control team against whatever else. That's why I've always appreciated the Blazers because they've just been like pretty good and thus you could kind of see what you're getting on the other side of things. So but the question I have down here is about players, specifically breakthrough players, which guy in like two weeks? Are we going to be like, oh, that guy leveled up because this happens every year. Rob called the Jalen Johnson leap a couple years ago and I give him credit for that one. He then tried to call the trade man leap that didn't know. You know, it's a ball. You try to call a trade man. Rob, that's impressive. I mean, look, we're all good. We're trying to read the tea leaves as best we can. I would say last year was Durin was probably that guy. Like, as soon as he started playing like, oh, that guy's got something. He's going to be an all star, etc. Who do you guys think, Jacobi? Did someone jump out to you? I've got for this culinary boys, boys. I don't know why I can't say boils. It's not a hard word. Yeah. The, the, the raptors are a much discussed team and a lot of people are high in them. But when I look at them, I just see Yakka Pergel. I'm like, can we not play him? And I think just literally what they're going to do. I think Darko's just going to be like, all right, let's put CMB, Kwai and Barnes out there. And do we have a center? No, but we have just three of the best defenders in the league. So you're not going to score. And I think that hopefully he can knock down some threes. I just think that he's going to be in a position not to score a time, but they don't need him to score a time. But he's going to be very, very important for a team that should be pretty good. So that's who I've got. He's going to be awesome. And I think with the raptors, there's always like a, if people are paying attention to what's going on and notice how good Scotty Barnes is, they'll notice how good culinary boils is like, I think they'll take the raptors pretty seriously as a contender. But I just think he's going to be one of the best defensive players in the world sooner than later. And so how the credit for all that gets doled out is going to be interesting to watch if the raptors are one of the three best defensive teams in the league. And he and Scotty are just absolutely locking people down. But the force he played with the offensive development he showed over the course of the last season, as he got healthier, I thought was just wildly impressive. And if that's the guy he's going to be, that player's going to be really formidable for a long time. You give, you give CMB a small job and he's going to do the shit out of it. I just decided, yeah, having watched him for a while now, he just, he doesn't need to, he doesn't have any kind of self sabotaging like aspiration about what he wants to do with this game. He just knows how to play and he'll just quietly do it. And, and you know, with this group of players, there's going to be a lot opportunity for that. So I mean, yeah, he's going to have to figure out ways to score and not be like a spatial challenge for them. They're going to be balancing that. But yeah, I love culinary boils. Well, considering some of the stuff we talked about in the first segment about like how much load is on the body and how much tougher things might be, are we worried at all Rob about the raptors being small ball as like their kind of default look? Like, is that the value of having someone like parallel around just to like field those reps? Or are we going to say like, man, they've really just wore CMB, kawaii into the ground because that is what they needed to be in an order to win games. Yeah, I mean, I think over the course of the season, I could see them needing to pick up like one more big or trade for one more big just to solidify that stuff. But this is what I think Perl is going to play. I don't think he should start, but like I think he needs to eat minutes. And Scotty might have to eat some minutes at the five to like it is a little more taxing to play undersized in that way. But if everyone else is formidable in terms of like what they're the pressure they're applying on the perimeter, like you got kawaii out there. If he's playing up to his normal defensive self, you know, even necessarily like a Jamal shed coming off the bench and picking up full court. Like I think that stuff can make your life a little easier as a backline big even if you are undersized. But it's got to be collective rebounding effort. It has to be like comprehensive buy-in in ways that's hard to maintain over the course of a regular season, especially on a kawaii team where he can sometimes feel like one foot in one foot out with basically everything involved. So who the raptors are spiritually, I think is what's going to answer that question. And whether they have kind of like the wind in their sales collectively to make that stuff work at the level that they're going to need to. Kyle, if you want to go with yours. I kind of I can rattle off that VJ is my answer. I think VJ has a chance to level up. I know I was kind of trying. How many guys did you write down? Is there real question? Not in great detail. I just kind of rattle off of you. I mean like Cooper is was a number one pick. I expected me to be an all star. He should make a leap. Case on case and walless. I expect to do some stuff. Donovan Klingon. I think his life is going to. Just got paid today. News break. Donovan Klingon. I think his life with an actual lob thrower like John Moran is going to be pretty fucking fun. So I'm excited about that. And then another raptor Jacobi Walter, I think is like a small leap guy who is going to the more off ball kind of he was really inefficient on ball early on in his career. So I think with the upgrade and talent, I think he's going to do well. But VJ was my main answer. Yeah. Well, give us give us the VJ run down. What are you excited about? I think it's it's not terribly dissimilar from CMB. It's just Like VJ has a lot of complimentary skills like we talked about like the conductor insulator thing where it's like the ball moves through VJ I think if you overburden him to be like a pick and roll operator like a pull up player like he's his shooting can be very very Up and down we saw in the playoffs his like pull up shooting kind of fell off of a cliff But he's a very bought in team defender. He's a good connective pass or he's a great cutter I think he and LeBron are gonna have a great time playing together like And he's gonna get a lot of easy buckets for that. He's just bought into those little things like that. So It's also interesting too because I was going back and watching some of his picking roles. It's like He wasn't playing with a rolling five a lot So it was like funny to watch the clunky chemistry that he had with him be like he'd just be turning around like There should be a roller there, but in B just popped to like the 20 foot area of the floor. It's like Okay, so I just think his life is should be a lot smoother now with this with this group of players So I don't know if you guys feel about VJ He also feels like the Canada where every time somebody is out like Joelle is out for precautionary reasons LeBron has any kind of nagging injury like VJ is the guy who goes for 22 points and helps like carry critical stretches of that game And I just think he plays off of all of their best players in a way that feels really unique and really additive And yeah, like the ambide one is probably the one that needs the most massaging But even then you can kind of see it, especially if his jumper is falling But him and LeBron I'm with you. I'm really excited to watch and even just like LeBron loves to hit a head pass And if you have a full court threat. I mean Maxi and VJ are both that but Edgecomb in particular as the release guy Just getting out on the break. I think it's gonna be super fun to watch Yeah, Jacobi. I was trying to remember like young players that LeBron has played with like it's mostly from the Norris Cole class of like late first round second round guys that he's just like trying to coach along Mario Chalmers Probably the best example of that. We're just yelling at movie Gibson like the Lakers era He started with young guys, but the writing was so clear on the ball Yes, and they knew they were getting traded to the point where like midseason brandening room was like having a meltdown because they're just like There's a kind of fucking training. Why am I even trying here VJ's like the first one Jacoby where it's like I feel like he's young Talented and also bought into the idea of being a role player off of LeBron It's it's just and This shouldn't be allowed Like the idea that you could trade Paul George for Jalen Brown and then you get LeBron on a minimum It's like like if you if that didn't happen you'd be like well It'd be it's gonna be out a bunch. Thank God. They've got Edgecomb and Maxi right and now Edgecomb is Fourth option, right everyone's healthy. Like it's just it's just crazy. I just can't believe that this team is the way it is and you know, I think that I think without Brown and LeBron there he probably would be taking more of a leap But I think there'll be possessions where he stands in the corner You know make his Brown's gonna operate and be it's gonna operate from the nail for like I don't know how much Opportunity he's gonna have to truly sort of like break out and make a leap the way that you know like Dern did Yeah, that's the flip side of like the Sixers like whole chemistry experiment here I think on the one hand VJ is definitely going to be diminished and asked to be the role player and all this of all the players We're talking about like he seems very clearly like if you can't just like hit corner threes or do the in-between stuff like Then things might go awry there But I think there's a next level to this as well Rob where it's just like if this is almost like Like his school like his like second college phase Oh my god, he's just learning the in-between stuff and then we'll add on some of the stars shit He had on top that he flashed last year like there's like a second level where like If and be in LeBron eventually go away like the maxi VJ maybe Jalen Brown era Could just be like we could we could have a nice little five to seven year run where the sixers are pretty interesting and dynamic It could be awesome and thinking about this as a launch pad for a version of VJ Edge comb that learns to process the game in any way that LeBron does the learns to play with like the night to night edge The Jalen Brown has turned into like his superstar sustenance basically in terms of the way he plays now hard he plays like A version of VJ that has all of those things in addition to the first in addition to the instincts in addition to the shooting Like that's one of the best basketball players in the world and so it if we get even an inch closer to that Incredibly tantalizing and that in conjunction with Tyree smaxi who also embodies a lot of those things already I mean, they just they could be one of the best backwards in the league for a long time That's the royal jelly baby in action Rob do you want to go with yours? I do. I think this is going to be a monster J dub season In a way where already an all MBA guy like has proven it But I think for one as far as like how we talk about guys for one people just forget like if you just aren't on the court regularly People kind of forget how good you are But also he's at that sweet spot where he's so versatile he can do so many things and he's kind of aging into the point as far in terms of both AJ and experience where you just know how to tap into all of the discreet elements of your game that much better And I think we've heard kind of rumblings about okay Are the thunder gonna move she off the ball a little more and who are going to be the primary beneficiaries of that? You know your case and Wallace's your a J's like all those guys are going to handle it more J dub absolutely is too and so I think as far as like the Swiss Army knife that makes their lineups work Getting him back healthy on the floor. I think he's just poised for a like a consolidation bring it all together Explosive sort of season for the thunder. I think he he might catapult from oh, this is like a really good second best player on a stack team to like Oh, no, this is a guy who's threatening for top 15 in the league What do you guys think? I think he has a chance to be I think he has a chance to be like the best Robin in the league or the Pippin template. I know we talked about that a lot in the finals where it's a guy who is probably over It's going to get to the point where we'll start talking about it Like Jalen has this potential to work to get to this point where we'll say like is he overqualified to be a second guys It's a guy who definitely could be the the songwriter in his own band because he you know He can guard multiple positions. He's got the picking roll game. He's got the pull-up game. He's athletic and transition He just he checks every box and he's he's talented to the point It speaks to his talent that we could even have a conversation about like it's a legitimate option for us to give Shay a break And to move him into other parts of our offense because that's how that's how good Jalen Williams is I think that's good. He doesn't really I was thinking about like he guards one through five great defender He can he can drive he can hit threes he can hit mid-range and get his own shot He doesn't really play make for others that much. I can't remember like great Jalen Williams passes You know, but I pull up that sort of like vanilla folder in my mind So that'd be one way to sort of like Level up his game to be like a number one on ball guy because they have Shay and Shay's on ball so much You don't see it that much But I think if he had opportunities to be more on ball and make place for others That would really round out his game and make me even more effective Well now that's and especially when you guys Shay can't push off anymore also. So that's gonna be I just had devastating idea. I just had to do that. I'm sorry. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding No, but I think everything we're describing in terms of that that kind of on-ball like faculty him as a passer Like those are the kinds of things that get the thunder through a rematch with the spurs for example That's the kind of thing you need to break down San Antonio's defense possession after possession after possession And I think the other part of this too is if Chet is going to take kind of a step back in the public imagination Understanding of what his game is. I think jdub is gonna swell to fill a lot of that space and a lot of that credit And we're gonna we're gonna start thinking and talking about him as a different level of player Yeah, quite literally because I think the one thing they're losing with ludor is like that big body forward that they could Apply on the defensive end and so if your four is 180 pounds soaking wet like then you need to make up for it Elser and jdub is the type of guy that they could swing to the five He could do so much defensively, but Rob is right where it's like I think a lot of the appreciation from jdub has been Appreciation where it's oh his defensive versatility or his like efficiency It hasn't been like the overwhelming scoring prowess or offensive. It's really was the finals in the playoffs So really when step forward in that regard and so I can see his like narrative around his career changing If he just comes and like brings it in the way that we expect him to Um, I have two answers down. I have the answer. I'm gonna give you and then give you the answer that I want to give The answer I'm going to give you is Brandon Miller who I think everyone is kind of expecting to take a jump here Uh, one of the highest usage rates in preseason which I think was a like a real tip of the hat of like this is what's gonna come here Conn is hurt to start the season. We'll see if he starts healthy But they're gonna get up a lot of shots and if Miller's the only one to be driving that offense for a while like There's a good case. He's gonna put up the counting staff that typically wins you most improve and just to give a A little prelude here like a little preview. Uh, I pick them for most improved as well I just think like he's been destined to be that type of player the Paul George 2.0 and like This is the season he finally is healthy enough in order to put up the stats in order to prove it I wanted jealous of the answer. I'm jealous. I'm jealous. Yeah. I'm jealous of that answer. I'm pissed off now Fuck It's good warning Um, so that's the one I'm gonna give you guys the one I really want to give Uh, have you seen school Henderson in the free season? Okay, here we go. Oh, you're gonna be like the pickler himself Uh Look in pretty jack You're pretty jack. That's not the first thing I do. He's jacked He was already pretty big like he's just naturally mussely. Yeah, and like I saw him the other day I was court level. I'm like this dude is like ripped He's yoked. And so that's one thing. Like the physical maturation for a player who by the way is still very young, but he's also like dialed in in a way that I think people expected him coming to lead to be more like a Russell Westbrook type. I've been talking about him more as like a Drew Holiday type. And it seems like as he's embraced that sort of vision for him, where he's more defense shooting in between plays, I feel like it's almost unlocked him. And he is, if anything, a very hard worker who is going to like really drill into the things that he needs to work on. And I think as a result, like this guy looks good already, has already had a good sample of shooting success if you just take away the first couple of games coming back from injury last year, because that was the big thing last year. People forget he was fucking injured for most of the season. I think like he's going to be good one. And frankly, I think he should be the one who's starting next to Dave, not John Moran. - I mean, you won't hear any arguments from us that John Damer, like an amazing starting pairing. I just don't know where he's going to play. And so look, if he has burled up in the way that you describe and-- - Those delts. - Did you see those delts? - Did you watch them? - Have you watched them? - Is that like a, is that like a Milton Borough reference? Is it like-- - Like, burled up. - Burled up. - What else is he in? - Burled up? - Yoke and up here. - Look, we're making it up on the fly over here. - Wait, hold on. - Hold on. - I mean, I need a 22nd timeout. - If you burled up. - Does Kyle, does Kyle spend the entire time? There's like answering emails while you guys pod every single time. - Basically, yeah. - There's just some people that listen to this. He turns to the side, and then he just types stuff on a computer while everybody else is talking. Like, what are you doing? - I was looking at Brandon Miller's before the show. - Downhill stats. - I didn't know Brandon Miller was going to come. - Oh, these are organic. And I had a thought inside my mind to tell you and I thought, let me see if that's backed up by the thing. And I was like, interesting. And then I came back. I can listen. I'm capable of that. - I mean, all right. I just spent 90% of the time not even looking at us, but it's fine. It's totally cool. I guess this is how you guys work. - Oh, yeah. - Look, I heard Justin gushing about Scoot-Hander since body. I'm up today. - I'm all crippling. - That's for sure. - I appreciate it too. - No, I'm very stressed. - The pod is Justin and me and Stadhead. You know, it's really that's what we do every week. And so, you know, we just try to make the best of it. - But you guys aren't buying the Scoot-Love as much. - I would love for him to get the kind of opportunity where he could have that sort of pop this season. I just think he's going to get buried unless he is now strong enough to play small ball five, which let's throw him out there and see what happens. - No, I'm really excited about the post game press conferences when reporters ask Mike and Norie about the punt card rotation every single time and I just wanted those answers. That's the most exciting thing about the places. - Let's start putting the Supercut together. Like let's just get the full linear progression of how he describes it over the course of the year. I think it's going to be gold. - I, the rust-drew thing is interesting, JV. 'Cause I don't even remember if we talked about this around the draft when Scoot was coming in, if you and I specifically did, but I kind of always had him in that box. There were people who were, he always had a little more of his wits about him in terms of like excess, like he never over pursued. I didn't see him as like a ball dominant. Like is this dude going to involve people? Like he clearly wanted to score, but he just didn't take it quite as far as rust. I always kind of saw him as a toolsy like guard people type, like Drew Holiday and Lo and the Holidays got the perfect mentor to become a Drew Holiday, none better than Drew Holiday. So he should be starting and despite the fact that I was encouraged to begin the preseason that the Blazers would like show Josh some tough love, like Mike and Nora was coming out being like, they probably shouldn't start together and like you saw them mix up the starting rotation in the preseason. As soon as I went to a preseason game, midday against the London Lions, which is a real treat. I saw Dundin talking to T Murant on the sidelines and I was like, oh no, this isn't going to go well. And you're already starting to see John Dame finishing the last preseason game and starting lineup. I think they are going to start together and so it's just, it's depressing. It is a pathway to a very good fun team, but then you have Josh is just trying to dunk on people. It's the opposite of the Clipper scandal because that is T Murant paying the team owner to get his player in the starting lineup. That's right. Can I name some guys? Yes, I would assume I know we're all very psyched about Dante's progress coming back from his own injury, but I think we all like the found money part of I/O's arrival in Minnesota made for a nice like initial story, but I don't know the people like fully grasped. How good he was and how good he could be, especially for a more uptempo wolves team. I also am not trying to read too much into the preseason, but I think the instant referendum on Ryan Conwell, I think he could be really useful for the heat and go very quickly from like second round guy to all rookie second team. That was a kind of guy. I mean, it turns out he can handle the ball, turns out the heat need guys who can handle the ball and like pass and shoot and hit the floater a little bit. It's like if this is a part of the rotation, I think he actually plays and plays well. He's good, he's good, he's like you were talking about speaking of being jacked and being smaller guard. I mean, Ryan Conwell, you know, also Rob, I mean, it is a little suspicious that we're getting ready to go to Minneapolis and you're just randomly praising wolves players. I'm not trying to draw all you under suspicion, but that's the work he's trying to get through. He's losing those wheels. He's free beers or what's going on here. Look, I think I've showed an incredible amount of his strain, not mentioning well mellows ball with mellows ball. Well mellows, what? Well, look, we almost stumbled into something. I just think I'm holding back and I think you should, I think you should respect my progress and also are, you know, slow lobbying of people to come to our Minneapolis live show. That's right. This episode is brought to you by Sam's Club. During the holidays, everyone's in a club, the last minute gift givers club, the cool aunts club, the food coma club, whatever holiday club you're in, Sam's Club is the club that helps you pull it off. Need to get a meal on the table in under two hours? Done. Shopping for the brands they want, like Aura Ring and Kitchen Aid without blowing your budget, check and check. Sam's Club helps you make the most of the holidays. Come join us, Sam's Club. All right, we're an hour into this, so we got to get to question number three here. So Isaiah, hit it. [MUSIC PLAYING] Yeah. Yeah. The plan really takes off in lands. That's one thing I appreciate about this one, you know. Really, it's a full arc. Well, it takes off, and then it goes into, like, hyper speed going plaid once the chorus comes in. Like, we're really in a different space. I need to know who the voice or voices are on that thing, Justin, and if you are among them, but it's just incredible. Then it cuddles with you at the end there with a little midi map, little little little Twinkle. Come on, yeah, it's nice. There are layers to the variables. Let me tell you, all of them. All right, awards picks. It's that time of year, boys. We got to pick MVP, rookie of the year, coach, and most improved. I'm going to be honest, six man is a bullshit award. We're not going to talk about it. And also, I don't think we need to talk about defensive player there, because we're all going to pick Wembee. But I pick Wembee is my MVP. And I think that's going to be a pretty popular choice. Robbie picked him. Kyle. I did. I did, but I have others to discuss. But I bet on it, then I would pick Wembee. But I picked other candidates, because I knew that this would happen. You guys hate him about that way, right? I mean, that's been the vibe. We're talking about that. I've no idea. He's lame. He's a villain. I see tweets. Well, he's only said kind things about him, as far as that. Have you all seen the Halloween showcase where somebody has turned their front yard into a Halloween recreation of the OG and Adobe Tipin, including using one of those giant skeletons as Victor Webb and Yama? It's just-- The Halloween sucks, Robbie said so. And I didn't say it sucks. I just said, I don't like to dress up personally. I will not be dressing up as OG and Adobe's Tipin, but I'm glad somebody made their lawn into it, you know? Wait, they also have like fans. Celebrity-- yeah, Spike is there. Shalim is there. Oh, that's good. It's incredible. It's really well done. Apparently, I've done some digging not into this story, but there's been some local news. Apparently-- oh, this is on neighbors, the HBO show. Do you guys ever watch that? Good show. Halloween decorations in New Jersey are a real thing. It's a real competitive sport. They take it very seriously. Do you put anything up? I live in an apartment building, but I went down to the storage unit yesterday and brought up the bin with the giant spider and the spider webs. Gotta have it. You know, we had a pumpkin carbon competition yesterday. Quincy won. It was very dramatic. Some hearts were broken. OK. All right, what other guys do you have on your short list, and Jacobi? Yochich, but he's boring. But I have Tatum as the interesting one. OK. There is a world in which he takes over that Jalen Brown role and they roll, and they win a ton of regular season games. And when he was right, he was like, there's just no holes in his game. He's a great defender. He really does. He's available. He hits three. He drives. I could see a world the way that they're structured where he averages 30 a game. They win a 57, 58 games. They're the number one seed. And we're looking at it like, how do we not give it to this guy? I could squint and see that happening. And I bet these not a lot of people's lists. Yeah, I mean, the roster was good enough to support Jalen Brown and that, and they've only added to it. They were pleased brown with- called George, and then they add Mitchell Robinson. And so in theory, it is the appropriate context in order to prop up someone like Jason Tata. My concern overall is just like, where is he health wise? And I think it's probably why the Celtics have tried to temper expectations publicly about this. But if he's right, and we don't see a reoccurrence of what happened in the playoffs where he couldn't finish things, like, yeah, he could have the season we've been expecting for him for like eight years, Rob. - I find this argument a lot more compelling than the Celtics being the second best team in the Eastern Conference. Like, I think Jason Tata is not the part of the team that concerns me in any way other than his health. He's awesome, an incredibly well-rounded player in all the ways Jacoby described. And yeah, so could he have that sort of awards push? I think it would depend on one or maybe two of those other top guys being ineligible, whether it's 65-game rule, or they just don't feel like they qualify, even if they technically do. Like, they would need a blemish and he would need a super healthy season. But otherwise, like, yeah, he is positioned to be kind of everything for this team in so many ways. And if the Celtics end up being one of these like, top 10 teams on both sides of the ball, I kind of have it all together and he feels like the fulcrum of both of those. I can see the candidacy, perhaps coming from inside the house over here at TheRinger.com. - I couldn't wrap my house. I couldn't get Brunson in the list and I also couldn't get Yannis on the list. What do you guys think of those? - Yannis feels like a bridge too far. - He does? - But I also wonder if voter fatigue, I think so. I don't think the heat are gonna be in the top five conversation. Like, I think they could surprise, but considering some of the offensive issues they might have, I would be surprised if they even jumped into home court advantage in the first round. I wonder if voter fatigue is going to knock out a lot of players that we're expecting to be in this mix. So Shay, I don't think has a chance just because there's gonna be so much competition and people are gonna get sick of voting for him. No fault of his own. He could have an incredible season. Just, I don't think he's gonna get it. I don't think the nuggets are gonna be good enough. And I almost wonder if we're gonna hold against Brunson how much success and how public he's been after the fact against him. Like, are people just sick of Brunson at this stage? I don't think they are, are they? If like, Jalen Brunson's two rating is still awesome. - Every accusation is a confession. - Oh, I think you could be well liked, but also be overexposed. And I do wonder if Brunson has hit that mark. - I would, I can't get to Brunson because the Knicks starting five is sort of like such a balanced unit with Brunson sort of taking over in crunch time. And when you look at it that's selfish, you're like, all right, we need a bucket. We're gonna give it to Tatum, you know what I mean? So, and the same thing with the heat. That's why I couldn't wrap my head around Brunson as an MVP candidate. 'Cause I feel like the strength of the Knicks is the strength of the starting five. - I think what I would love to see is like, who is the other ballot guy? And maybe this Jason Tatum, but it's like, yeah. If it's gonna be Wembee and Yokech and Shay and maybe Luca in some capacity, like who's rounding out that top five ballot for MVP? And I think there are a lot of good options, frankly, as far as who that fifth could be starting with Tatum. But I don't know, like, I'm trying to think of who would genuinely surprise me at this point. Like clearly Cade had sort of like narrative momentum last year and got into the voting in some respects. And so like who is last, who's this year's version of that sort of case? - No one said Luca. - I just did. - No, I'm about, I was, I was just, I was just answering emails. - Were you typing, you know? - Kyle, you're emailing back and forth about how much we hate you guys. - It's fair. - Well, he's Kauai. Would he be a surprise? - He was my sleeper one hour survey. I said that, I mean, he'd have to, it's gonna be a task for him to hit the game threshold, but he was somebody I could see being a stealthy one. But I'm a little less pessimistic about the honest thing. I could see Yannis stomping the door down and coming back. And I also could see the heat being a little better than the public thinks. Like that they maybe answer some of these questions more than is more being led to believe. - Very, I was surprised that you're like, I don't even see them as a top four in the East. Like you can't see it. I'm not predicting it, but you can't see it. - No, because so much is contingent on Yannis being the player that we, like the box almost expected last year offensively where he has to do so much. To the point where Spowe is out here comparing him to Magic Johnson in the very first preseason game. And while I believe in Spowe to bring out the best in Yannis, the best in Yannis often requires him to do more. And like he's just at the stage of his career where like I don't, I don't want that. He should be being paced out. He shouldn't be the, like the end all be all of your offensive engine. And so I think he could be good. I think the heat can be good as a result. I do worry how much he's gonna be available to be good for the Yannis. - I don't even know what paced Yannis looks like. I'm genuinely throwing that to you all. Like he just is so-- - That's a superpower. - Balls to the wall. - Is batting his, yes. - Downhill, what is the paced for? Is he's just like a dunker spot? - What is he? He's not a spacer. It's just interesting to think about, like how he's gonna age as a player. - All right, let's do Rookie of the Year here, Kyle. You're our resident young player, Aficionado. What do you have? - It's, you know, it's boring and predictable, but I think it's gonna be Booster. I think he's gonna really drive winning for a team that I expect to be competitive with the Grizzlies. I think he's gonna be super, super efficient. He might not, you know, there are other guys in the league they're gonna have opportunities and have the ball in their hands more. I mean, like Darius A. Cuff is gonna have the ball in his hands constantly. I didn't disagree with what Dreymon said. Maybe it was a little tacky the way you went about it, but I just think Booster, I think that Peterson and DeBonzer are gonna have their primacy kind of cannibalized by the luxury of playing with more talented players, like, you know, with Trey and with all the guys that the jazz have. I think Boosters just gonna be central and put up the points and be really efficient. - I think he is gonna be central, but the Grizzlies have so many guys. And I think the story of their season, yes, it's going to be about Camp Booster. It's also gonna be about the depth of that team if they are any good at all. I think Caleb Wilson is gonna have like a great story to tell as far as what, like, how we get to the end point of anointing a rookie of the year. Usually it's kind of a journey. Usually it's kind of like, what is the narrative case for this thing? And making the bulls a team that people wanna watch again after being mired and everything that they've been mired in for the last, I don't know, like, two decades at minimum, I think that combined with the highlights that we were talking about earlier and the production that I think will be there. That's why he's the pick for me, but I think it is gonna be a Booster Wilson race for the most part. - Jacob, here do you have? - Yeah, I have Wilson because of the opportunity. You know, I think Peterson demands, I don't know who's gonna be the best player, but I think Wilson's gonna have an opportunity to put up more shots. And he's gonna be on everyone's algorithm 'cause he's gonna have a fancy dunker, a great block, or hit four threes. Like, I just think that Wilson's going to jump off the television in your living room more than Booster or Devonsa or Peterson. I think that he's also gonna put up the numbers 'cause they're gonna get to 100 points somehow. And I can see the other guys just not getting the opportunity to do it. So the other day when you look at, you know, points rebounds and assists, I think that his numbers will be better and he'll be all over your Instagram algorithm or TikTok or whatever you're doing. And I think that he's going to win the rookie of the year. And I think, you know, I don't know who's gonna be the best player, but I think it's probably win the award. - And he's definitely gonna win the Heisman moments. Like, all of the plays that you remember, the exciting. Like, oh my god, when we do the highlight reel at the end of the season, there's gonna be a lot of Caleb Wilson in there. Whereas as we talked about with Cam Booster, it's just a lot of steady, efficient, effective production. I do wonder though if like his numbers, especially some of the rebounding stats are just gonna be so unimpeachable and hard to avoid that when you get to the end of the year, where you're literally just like calming through the data. And it's just like, oh, Booster's averaging like 25 and 10. It's just like, well, and in like five assists probably. I guess the one question would be like, is some of the size if they have gonna cut into some of his big man numbers? He's not gonna get as many rebounds because he's gonna gobble all those up just by being a giant person at the rim. I guess, but at the same time, if he's getting like seven or eight but he's also doing the playmaking stuff on top of it, that's the part of the Wilson's game that I worry about Kyle where it's like, is he gonna have the ability to get guys and fall the way that Booster has already shown in like preseason and summer. - Yeah, Caleb can pass it a little bit, but they're gonna be playing through Gidey a lot, attempting to sort of work and develop Bozellas. I don't know how messy and chaotic that'll be, but I think the Grizzlies are gonna be playing through Booster a lot, you know, the majority of the time, I expect them to be doing that. So I just think overall, yeah, the rebounding numbers, I don't know. I mean, I expect them to average at least close to a double-double and then the assist count like you were saying and I think it'll just be nice and clean, won't be as sexy. Like you were saying the NBA always has on their YouTube channel, like, you know, an hour of Caleb Wilson doing, you know, there's gonna be an embarrassment of riches on that front but it's just kind of a sexy versus unsexy thing. It's depending on what your sensibility is as a basketball fan. Sure, there are plenty of lame dorks out there that think what Booster does is plenty sexy, but, you know. - I was about to say, should we count our program on the ringer's YouTube channel? Should we do an hour of Camp Booster footwork and just let the people go right? - Just make a lot of noise. - Yeah. Talk about his rippling pecs as well. Okay. This is becoming a very particular kind of podcasting. - You don't want programming yourself there, JB. - Look at his traps. Look so defined today. (laughs) All right, most improve. I have Brandon Miller who I talked about in the previous segment. Rob, what do you have? - Ivan M. Thompson, who I think fits the exact mold of who this award has been going to for the better part of the last decade. Like, Nikhil Exeter Walker is an exceptional case. Crazy player development story. For the most part, it's like guys who are between 21 and 25 who have it all coming together for various reasons. And I think taking the ball out of Omen's hands counterintuitively and giving him an actual point guard to run the show, let's him be the best, most incisive, was devastating. version of himself. And so I actually think a men is going to pop in terms of some of the efficiency, in terms of some of his ability to like more selectively choose when he attacks for the rockets this season. I think he's going to have an amazing year. Kyle, what do you think? When I had this written down just as a little note here, I had it written down in my pee and I was just, my mind went to, I guess I've been in the creative world for too long, but I thought work in progress. I was like, what if we called it man in progress instead of, you know, because most improvement, we, we, we argue over who's eligible for it. Just wanted to throw that out there. I got a random one. You used to crest it. You're coming down the hill now. This doesn't feel like progress at all. Do you want to go down slowly falling apart? This is a random one, but I feel like there's an opening for Baylor Shireman. I swear I'm not trying to get brownie points with our boss, but I think that he could make a leap here. Not, not like a star leap, but I think he could make a jump into valuable role player status that is not worthy. So like to kill last. Yeah, yeah, because he can shoot the ball. He can really pass the ball. He's, he's valuable just to kind of cross the box score. Like he, he accumulates rebounds. He runs in tradition. He's smart. He just, uh, I could see, it's a, not a, like I said, it's not a star leap, but I could see him like climbing into highly valuable role player status. Well, so the, the most improved version of Baylor Shireman, which I have to admit to you, I am struggling to conjure. What is that guy like? So he's not quite as, is he a, a sixth man? Is he could be making a case as a starter for the, what is he doing different? Moves into double figure scoring, you know, he shot like 40% from three. I'm pretty good, ball. I want to steer. Okay, cow, change it to double figure scoring. That's not a true player. It's still as a worker just put up 20. Like, like, I think the threshold is pretty high for this stuff. Does it have to be 20? What's the lowest scoring most improved player? Honestly, that's a great question, because I feel like it usually, well, die loves that head. Yeah, you can go. I just asked you questions. The one time Jacobi's looking for his comedic beats. Uh, yeah, look. Oh, I like that. That, that award, that award, I've always just kind of had a, it's, it's nebulous to begin with. So like, you know, sure, I think, I think he can make a, he can make a strong jump forward this year. I feel like Shireman just needs something. Like, it's hard to identify him, especially considering the, like, deep bench of shooters the Celtics have. Like, what if he just like drove a Harley to every game? It's just like, Baylor Shireman, Harley guy now, you know, Midwest guy. It's all marketability. I agree with you. He needs to know what if the Harley's in the back of Mitch's truck and Mitch, oh, and they all, they go to games together outside of the team plan or bus, he's sitting on the Harley in the back of the truck. They, yeah, they ramps. Yeah. Might be tough in winter. I've always felt like the coolest thing a rapper could do with cars is buy a car carrier and drive up to the club with like six cars. Oh, shit. I've always thought, how come no one has done this yet? Why drive a valet for your cars? Yeah, you have multiple cars. Like, what do you drive? I drive a Bentley. I drive a Bugatti. I drive a Porsche. Just something to think about. I feel like we're kind of turning the corner into an age of excess in a lot of ways. So it's like, yeah, show up with your whole like eight watch set and pick one and walk into a place. Show up with 10 cars on a car carrier. Like, I feel like it's the time to flaunt the on demand generation. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm very quickly. I've got a sort of, sort of like Rob's thinking, I've got Jane McDaniels here to get most approved love that sort of like, it's basically copy and paste to Kellogg's Andrew Walker, but he'll have so he shot 50 40 last year and just, you know, with Lamello passing in the ball, like just a lot of catching shoots, a lot of opportunity, you know, and I think that'll be also a team that a lot of people will be watching and have a little bit of a magnifying glass on to sort of see how it works. So if it does work and he ends up, you know, it's sort of like 15 last year, if he gets that up to the Mahoney zone, we call it now, 20 to 25 points, then I have, I have Jane McDaniels there. Well, plus, I think they're going to struggle to take him off the floor. Like, he's going to be so important that I think he's going to get up to those numbers one way or the other. There's already been times in preseason. Yeah, there's that. I think there's been times this preseason where because of Lamello and he and sometimes wouldn't assume who's out there the third guy, it's like they have to put someone who like they shouldn't be putting on Jane McDaniels, considering the offense of Jumpy Arty to class year. And so he's going to have plenty of opportunities to show the growth. And so I think that's a great pick. Also, did you guys know that we have a live show in Minneapolis next week? So tickets are still available. What the ringer comes after that. That one was organic though. It came from Jacobi. It wasn't even up. That's right. I'm not invited to live. Well, you are if you want to make the trail. Coach of the year, last one. Rob, what do you got? I think it's going to be Will Hardy who has already shown he can be a good coach with bad players. And then the radical idea of this year's jazz is like what if you gave him good players and allowed them to actually play in the games that are scheduled. And I think it turns out the jazz are going to be a much improved team. And I think there's going to be an appreciation for the stuff that Will Hardy rolls out there in terms of the movement, the flow of the offense. Like the jazz is going to be a fun team to watch in addition to being a much better team to watch. Yeah, that was my answer to you. Yeah. I don't have a hard. As a secondary, but I will. He's been forced to wear coaching beer goggles for the for the past however long. And he's going to take them off and see in 2020 vision and with good players. And we keep talking about how good a coach is. So let's this is, you know, a lot of that has been reading through the lines and just seeing what he's been able to do with with these tanking teams. So excited to watch him have actually good players with with those conditions taken off. So I always pick Spowe for this award now just because I think he's actually the best coach. I think this is what we should have done with Greg Popovic and because he was literally the best coach. We should have given him like 10 of these awards. Instead, these are the people who have won coach of the year. George Carl. Interesting. Dwin Casey has won Scott Brooks. I'm just going to say you're marked for death if you win it. Is that kind of yellow? There was a stretch there for sure. Well, Monty Williams also coached that we give it to the team. The coach of the team that surprised that year, not the actual best coach. And so for once, let's just give it to the best coach in the game. And I think if the heat are good on offense, it will be largely because of supposed designs. And probably that means way too much sense. Yeah, the lot of checks out there. All right, coach of the year should be the best coach. It's a fresh new idea we're taking around to you. All right, last question, which means one more time, let's rock the fuck out. Yeah. Can your buddy play guitar? That sounds like real guitar. I think it is. Nicely done. It plays everything, man. Clearly multi instrumentalist. Yeah, but we play the orchestra here. Shredding. That's the difference. Finals picks. We made, we did the power rankings. So you know our top 30. But we never really got into who we're predicting for the finals. I'm going to give you the floor first here. What two teams do you see Megan to the end? The West have the thunder. We don't have to discuss that. Yeah. So the east I was thinking about because I was looking at the last four teams that went to the finals from the Eastern Conference. There's Jimmy Butler's heat, right? Which was like, no one saw that coming. The Celtics were legit, right? When they won. And then the Pacers, no one saw that coming. Like after two months of the season, they were like one of the worst teams. I watched that starting five documentary thing and and and Halliburton was like talking about shutting himself down just for like mental rest he was playing so poorly. And then they end up game seven. We all know what happened there. Last year, even as a nixpan, I didn't think they had like true championship contention to be honest. So so I decided that if three of the last four were sort of like what we're calling surprises are sort of like odd ball appearances. I decided to go with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Whoa. Okay. That is. I did too. Interesting. Okay. Same exact. We got two cabs fixed. It's just never been what you think it is. It's certainly. Like Jimmy Butler's heat, preseason, you were not thinking they were going to go to the finals. No. And the same thing with the Pacers and same thing with last year's nix. I'm like, what team is is good enough to do it, but I don't expect to do it. And that is the Cleveland Cavaliers. My only counter to that is you're right that it never is what you think it is, but it always is what we think it is with James Harden. So I kind of am waiting for that not to be true. Sure. Yeah, I just wonder if we're over indexing on the playoffs last year and just seeing how poorly the defense was and they did shore up that end by getting Peyton Watson in there. Like James Harden should be able to be hidden a little bit more effectively against a team with a rock solid starting five like the nix. If that happens again, like if the Pacers really hit like where are you going to hide James Harden there? That's a question. But I just think like they have so much hidden defensively, you just mean or as good as say you're like your highest use of player who refuses to play any other way you're going to hide him? -Hitem defense. -Okay, yes. I think offensively. I still think his playmaking is going to pop and anything on a team that has a lot of young guys that are pretty intriguing I don't know if you guys have seen the Renaissance happening in Cleveland with our guy coming back They're just big ol' yoke to just like Dean Wade 2.0 I just don't know who I'm talking about You know, is it a bitters is something we always do the line blurs more and more every day? I think that the cases they they have insulated harden enough in order to make up the advantages in a compressed easing conference Is Jacopie is saying like I think you could see one of five to six teams credibly making it out of there Yeah, I think looking at picking a team that just went to the conference finals is not crazy and the Cavs are certainly good enough to be in this conversation I just feel like the the limit for them feels More imposing than some of these other teams in the East is like there's so much mystery around who the heat are gonna be like what the Pacers are gonna be capable of when they put it back together What are the raptors now that they've quite littered back like there's so many open-ended questions The Cavs have some of that with Peyton Watson, but it's like Is he the is he the element that allows them to shatter all of the limitations of who they've been who recalibrates the roster just so Where they're not just like running into the wall over and over and over over exposing Donovan Mitchell on offense asking him to do Too much not quite living up to their size defensively. It's like there. There's so many caveats with that team despite the fact that they are quite good And they're gonna win a ton of regular season games and they're gonna be right there. I just feel like they're gonna be a team That's always gonna be right there. Yeah Oh couple to say that. Yeah, we should call them the caveats There right that's easy and number two if you think about the Like you someone mentioned this earlier. We just sort of overvalue what we last saw the team do like the postseason And I think that we saw them get swept by the nicks But the nicks were absolutely on fire and I think that 22 point come back in game one was just I think that was the series right there Like I so I'm I'm making some excuses for them and it's it's usually one of the teams you don't expect to see coming That's my case. Yes also Rob you talk about just adding someone and completing the team We added Jacobi to the variables and we're just hitting the whole new level, you know, it's a great point But he's but he's more than our paid Watson, you know, like he's not just a wild card. I mean all star That's what I'm saying like it's just a whole thing when Kyle said that I was looking for comedic beats My entire week. Yeah All right. Well, let's put Kyle in the spotlight as a result. Yeah, who do you have as your finals? Well snorfest finals rematch. I think it's gonna be Nick Spurs again, and I think the Spurs are gonna win I think the Spurs I've said this here and there all over the place that I think this is a team driven by somebody who is going to iterate and I Don't think every superstar is like that. I think when he's gonna really stew on the way that went down It's one it's one of those things. It's funny when we say it, but a series that was 4-1 Didn't you know it didn't feel that like that distinct and dramatic It felt like the Spurs had a couple just like catastrophic flaws that showed up every single time Those games followed a script that the nicks to their credit exploited in their wisdom and in their prime, you know Cohesiveness I think that the The Spurs are gonna mature. They've added some things that are gonna shore up some of the dry spots and those in those Matchups and also I think that missing Mitchell Robinson and the center thing is gonna really show up as an issue in that matchup So I think the Spurs will get the nicks in a rematch I don't have that word to say about either of those teams. We raves about them in our preseason power rankings But I think the reality is we've talked a lot about it. Everyone around the NBA has talked a lot about eight straight years Eight new champions in a row this age of parity that we're in I think you need to zoom out even further and say in those eight years Not a single team has returned to the NBA finals after being in the NBA finals It's just so hard to do it year over year Which is why I am picking the thunder as well to be in the finals And I think they will win and I think the sixers are going to the NBA finals for as weird and messy as that team might be and This is the Jacobi metaphor for me like we brought in fucking Lebron, you know Like like this is how our team is coming together here, and I think it's gonna be a weird campaign for the sixers We've already seen some of the growing pains that are gonna come with it But I could see them having their own nicks-esque kind of regular season where there's stretches where you're like I really don't think this team has it together. There's gonna be stretches where they're not communicating well They're sniping at each other in the media or on the court or whatever But there's just like enough time for them to kind of sort out some of that stuff on the fly and that by the time the playoffs are all around I kind of think they're gonna be in a good place and whether that's gonna be healthy enough to go four straight rounds is another question entirely But I think the sixers are gonna get there. Well, you know, we talked about tanking leveling up over time The glazing of Jacobi has leveled up just in this segment where we went from my gall star to now he's the Lebron James So congrats you guys I Bad things to say about the spurs, but we'll save that for another time. Oh wow. I just want to remind everybody that Victor Wemmingyan was we suspended for game six Suspended for game six. Mm-hmm. Okay. He was yeah, that was so just you happen. Should we just retroactively suspended for game one of the regular season or what? I'll work on something. Okay, okay, but I'm really excited about this 60 minutes I mean what he doesn't talk to anybody been 60 minutes like when is this coming out? What are they dropping this? He's he doesn't talk to anybody except for 60 minutes. Where is this coming out? Well, he's just a big very guy, you know like he just sees the vision. That's right. All right, well sub question to the the finals picks here By the way, I picked the thunder to that's exactly what I was gonna ask like who is your best pick? You feel good about the thunder? Thunder. Yeah, and Jacobi. Do you like the thunder over the calves? Yeah, we have the same thing cuz we're locked in Yeah, but you you have the thunder winning. Oh, oh winning the whole thing. Yes. Yes Okay, yeah, but sub question to all this if it's not any of the three teams that I think are the most popular picks Which are the thunder spurs nicks. Who do you see winning it? And so Rob already picked The Sixers, so I assume you're gonna go that route. I mean kind of the Sixers and also kind of the Rockets earlier in this pod too So I but I guess by definition if I think the Sixers are going to the finals, that's my pick. Okay, Jacobi Well, Rob already licked a couple of the M&M's and put it back on the table. So I'm gonna go outside of those and I'm going with the Denver Nuggets Nicolio Kitch. I don't want to argue if he's the best player in the planet, but he's up there and Listen, I don't think this is gonna happen, but there is a world in which Aaron Gordon is healthy and whatever happened last year with Christian Brown doesn't happen again and you know, there's a there's a world in which they improved just by having Gordon and Brown be themselves and you know, Jamal Murray goes off like it's just Hard to count out Nicolio Kitch. Like it's just hard. Yeah, I think they're gonna be good Yeah, that's one of my two my major storylines for the season is I just feel like Yannis and Yokech are in two of these guys that were running side-by-side Just posting these incredible big guys seasons year after year in the MVP comment driving the way that their teams produce And I kind of just wonder if we just this is the last Window where we could get, you know championship level production and and just the hydrocality from these two guys so those would be Of course I get like a software update thing on my computer right when we're doing the pot Up to your computers everybody the other one though I mean, I know that I've kind of poked holes in it and wondered about it. Philly is the team that I wonder about their like rim protection at the end of the year They're gonna be landing a jolopy plane a little bit in a hurricane to try to figure that out But I think that LeBron is somebody that has done this time and time again He can come into a situation that's newer with newer guys around him And he just is a cohesive superstar that raises the floor They would be my other kind of dark horse team them them and the nuggets Well, this is the thing now that's kind of like troubling in the background where I feel like the regular season being different than the playoffs Has been an MBA tourism for decades at this stage, but now it's getting to the point where like you almost need a different team for the regular season Then you need in the playoffs and so all of my questions for some of these teams are like Special with the sixers are like regular season related kid. Will they be healthy enough? The nuggets are another one of these teams, but like if they are healthy enough when the playoffs start Then they have the high end to then take over and so like the division feels more stark than ever before I do wonder though if the if the games overall are going to be more competitive and there are fewer truly awful teams and more teams that are just trying Will there be a virtue in a payoff in being the kind of team that can game plan specifically for every night of the regular season that has the Honestly, the depth of coaching staff which you would be shocked at how penny-pinching some of these ownership groups can be as far as like how many coaches they even want I mean you would not of course, but like do you have the manpower to sufficiently scout and prepare for all of these games? Do you have the time to get your players up to speed and do you have the veterans who can like process very quickly what they need to do tonight and then move on to a totally different scout two nights from now? And like those are the kind of players and those are the kinds of teams that are high end playoff teams And so I wonder if we might be getting closer in terms of those extremes as far as like what a great regular season team is and what a great playoff team is. One point I want to make about the upcoming season. I think it was I was listening to you guys on hour 35 of the power ranking and when it was It was, um, it was like, oh, I'm so excited for the Western Conference Finals, right? And I said, well, let's not, they're not one, two in the regular season, guaranteed, you know, I mean, because one of those teams ends up in the three spot, you know, when he goes out for a couple of months, it's not a guarantee they are one and two like they were last year. So we might get Spurs Thunder in the second round. That's, that's something to consider because that, that opens it up for some other Western Conference teams to sort of like the, the rockets and the nuggets, you know, if they can be playing the other side of the bracket. Yeah. Right. I can see the Lakers just winning a ton of regular season games and just having the easier path. And as a result, like that series goes seven Thunder Spurs and all of a sudden they're just like Waltz and because of that. Um, and that's the other flip side of this is like, I feel like the next kind of proved, if you are the healthiest team, that's another cliche that we always say, but like being the healthiest team, I think also matters more in that stage of things. So that could also change things. Um, I'm gonna thread the needle here with my pick that is neither the calves nor the thunder because I can't see the calves if they do get to the finals, even though I pick them, beating whatever West representative comes. So I actually have the Sixers here because in my mind, I, I could see the Sixers winning it more than I can see the team that I pick to make the finals. So they're less likely to make the finals if they did make the finals more likely to win it than the calves. Yes. I don't even disagree like, stab yourself with it. I can't. There's a couple gashes going on here. Yeah. Um, that's everything. Unless you guys have anything else you want to hit. I think you're the judge of, I mean, you're the, you are the host, the co-beater of all the variables. Yeah. I only had comedic beats apparently. Well, you're, you're like the variables historian. You love all the drops in the songs. Like, where did this song right in comparison to some of the past ones? Well, this was clearly the best show, um, obviously because I'm, yeah, certainly. I mean, I have a run. Um, this song I would put a second to the death metal year. The death metal year was really special to me, um, listening to that and hearing that you had a costume and you were head banging and just that in my mind's eye. It's kind of like reading a book versus watching a movie, you know what I mean? It was like, I could just, I could just create that in my head. And that was a real special experience for me. So, but this song is a close second. Well, it was a real special experience for us having you with us. So thank you so much for joining us. And thank you to John, John Robinson for breaking out the, the jams. Once again, for the variables. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. Thank you to Ben Cruz. We're on a regular schedule from here on out. So we do in Mondays, Thursdays. So we'll be back on Thursdays. Enjoy the games in between.