Are the Spurs Clear Favorites? Plus, Tatum-Brown Reunion, and Crisis Watch!

[MUSIC] Coming up on the Zacklow show, it's Monday morning. We just had a wild weekend of NBA action and there's a lot of teams on winning streaks in the Western Conference. Kirk Goldberg is here, the spurs of 1/8 in a row, the Warriors of 1/7 in a row, the Lakers of 1/5 in a row, even without Luke Adonchitz in their last game. Austin Reeves won crazy. Minnesota without Anthony Edwards is 5-2 there on a winning streak of their own. What's going on with all these teams who's real, who's not real? We talk about the Lamello ball trade as sort of a flash point already, with Charlotte really, really struggling. Conquaniple heard again. Minnesota thriving, including in Lamello's minutes. Did Charlotte make a mistake or not? Is the long view still going to win out for them? We talk about Sixers, Celtics coming up tomorrow on Tuesday in Philadelphia. I will be there, some comments over the weekend from Jalen Brown, but whether he and Jason Tatum have talked, low and behold, that they are numbers one and two in the Eastern Conference. Going into this game, we talk about Jalen Brown's exit from Boston, some stuff to watch for in that game. Sort of match up wise, whether you care that much about it or not. And Joellen Beads, semi alarming play from the last few games and what that means for the Sixers. James Hardin's play, I think has been semi alarming. We hit that and we talk about we revisit all my crisis tier teams from last Thursday, some had good weekends, some had bad weekends. Yannis, talk about Yannis. Yannis had some little flare up with Doc Rivers on a little podcast called the Bill Simmons podcast. We talk about some changes in Yannis's game. Just a bounce around the entire NBA. Nick Clifford got traded to the Thunder. We talk about that even. That's all coming up with Kirk Gold's Berry. Does that close show is presented by Fandall? It's the NBA season and Fandall's calling it your most rewarding season ever. I mean, more rewarding than watching a center pull up from three and actually knock it down. That's good stuff with Fandall rewards clubs offers surprises and more. There's plenty to look forward to all season long. Download the Fandall app to get started to win it one over in select states 18 or over in DC or Wyoming. Gambley problem called one 100 gambler called one 888 789 7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and let it get. Welcome to the Zach Lowe show Kirk Gold's Berry is here wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates hat. A city I love a city where my mom grew up in a little suburb called Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, but we're not talking about baseball Kirk Gold's Berry. We're talking about the NBA, which just, you know, every week there's teams rising and falling. We're going to talk about all of it. How are you doing this morning? I'm doing great. It is a good sort of bleak morning, a fall morning here in Austin, Texas, but I couldn't I couldn't pick a place I'd rather be than then on the Zach Lowe show. Good to see you, but speaking of Austin, Texas, look at all these winning streaks in the Western conference. The San Antonio Spurs eight wins in a row after an 0 and two start. The Los Angeles Lakers won their fifth consecutive game last night without Luca Doncic, Austin Reeves put up 43 points against a piston seam that was a little closer to maybe actually signing him in free agency than people might know. The Oklahoma City Thunder all their seasons over. They lost everyone their whole team's engine. No, they won four in a row and they're smacking people around, including last night. The Minnesota table is there in trouble without Anthony Edwards. Not so much. They're five and two without Anthony won their fourth consecutive game last night over the absolutely reeling Utah jazz who are one and nine headlining my crisis teams category which we'll get into later. And the Golden State Warriors, hey Kirk, maybe the Golden State front office isn't a bunch of morons who did nothing around Steph Curry and wasted the rest of his career. This team is one seven in a row. There's seven and three. We're streaking all over the place. You know, in the east, there's not a lot of streaks, but we have the Boston Philly clash, the battle. He's coming up tomorrow in Philly and they sit at the top of the conference. The sixers nine and two, the Celtics eight and two. And yes, Cucah, I see you Atlanta Hawks with a four game win streak, a lot going on Kirk. Let's start with this. If we just zoom way out with the way Victor Wembeyan was playing 52 points the other day, easy win against the Blazers, eight wins in a row. The three point guard thing appears to be humming. It's humming in part because they play all of their minutes literally as a trio with Victor Wembeyan on the floor. That's very helpful. Given everything that's happened to Oklahoma City, Chet Hombren will be back at some point this season. The rest of it is uncertain with J Dubb in case of Wallace, uncertain to doubtful to say at the least. Are you ready to say that the 2026, 2027 NBA championship is San Antonio's to lose or is that too much? That's too much. I give too much respect to the Knicks who just destroyed the Spurs and the NBA Finals not too long ago. That said, the biggest story in the season so far is the team that I picked and many people picked to win the whole thing, the Oklahoma City Thunder, you know, being devastated by these injuries. So I think that has opened the door for the Spurs to get a little more confident about at least coming out of the West, and then certainly the stuff we're seeing on the floor during this eight game win streak gives me no reasons to doubt that either. So I think they're in a very, very good position, but I'll stop short of calling the season theirs to lose because, you know what, the Knicks deserve a lot of respect still, I know they're five and four, but some of these stats will go through with the Spurs are very encouraging. Yeah, I think it's like that's almost like asking Spurs versus the field and that's like a wild easy question. Of course, it's the field. And you mentioned the Knicks who have who started O and three are now five and four. I like, no one was should have been worried about the Knicks. They'll be fine. I don't know where they're going to finish in the East, but like all of these teams I mentioned, we need to even mention the Rockets who are seven and three. They scuffle a little bit over the weekend, Detroit, six and three. They've scuffle a little bit over the weekend. Jalen Dern's going to be out a little while longer. There's just too many really good teams. And I think still too much to learn about the Spurs offense in particular. This is a team that doesn't take a lot of threes is not built to take a lot of threes and it hasn't mattered because Kurt Goldberg, they've won eight in a row. They are fifth in offense, fifth in defense and third in net rating plus 10 per 100 possessions. They're starting five is plus 69 total points in 105 minutes. That's insane. Victor Wemanyama, when he's on the floor, the Spurs are plus 166 total points in 303 minutes, a point every two minutes, bonkers. The non-Wenby minutes are going badly and Luke Cornett has been, I think, unfairly labeled the punching bag for that. He's minus 50. But if you actually look at the numbers, a lot of that is because Spurs opponents are just reigning fire on threes, on mid-range jumpers. His rim defense actually looks okay. Like I think a lot of that will even out and look like they have the best player in the league probably, although Luca is certainly making his name known alongside Jay and Yokechu have not quite gotten off to their starts. But Wemby is unbelievable. I don't know. Did you catch their game against Portland on either Friday or Saturday, camera, which day? Every second of it. Yeah. I was fascinated by that game. Well, one of the things that was fascinating about it is because Portland has been one of the four runners of the put our center on Steph Castle's strategy and put a wing usually to Monte Camara. Sometimes you holiday on Victor Wemby Yama and that game was like a 48 minutes Spurs tutorial in like we're getting better at handling that strategy and beyond just like Steph Castle making open threes. He is shooting too many threes this year and part of that is because of the strategy, but whatever, it's still fine. And they just had every antidote in the bag. We don't need to go through the nitty gritty of it using Steph Castle as a screener, using Wemby in different ways and just shredded that defense. But, you know, look, if you had to pick a title favorite right now, I think that's a different kind of question. I think the Spurs would be, my pick is title favorite given what happened to Oklahoma City. Here's the thing I love about this team's ac. You mentioned their profiling as both a top five offense and a top five defense. Some of the key indicators on the offensive side are really encouraging given their personnel or getting the ball into the paint as much as almost any other team in the NBA, the share of the possessions that get a paint touch. I think it's over 60 Wemby, his shot selection has improved greatly. And I think that's having so much playmakers on the floor has really helped him. You know, he has 49 dunks already this season. That's more than every other team in the league, except for like 10 teams. So he's dunking the ball at a high rate. His share of shots in the paint and near the cup is as high as it's been in his four year career. So that's obviously a sea change for Wemby and you know, you wrote a very interesting piece last week. The ringer dot com curve goes very about how much younger the league is getting in terms of like the share of minutes in the playoffs and in the regular season, both going to players 25 and under just like skyrocketing. And the share of minutes going to players 30 and older, like shrinking, shrinking, shrinking dramatically. And I think that that dovetails with the wave of injuries that has hit the league early on in the season and just the game being so much faster. And this this person with these three point guards as they should is absolutely flying up the floor, playing at a crazy pace, which you should do when you have all these elite ball handers. I think all of those things mixed together. But it has got to be thinking like, all right, if that's just the thing, if that's a reality, if the league has just gone backwards in age and again, it's not just like drafting younger players or whatever, you're zeroing in on minutes played and high stakes playoff games, like the games that actually matter. What are the implications of that for building your team? And I think one of them is I was just spitballing in my own head and with other people is like, you know, like this idea that young teams, you know, they got to take their lumps for three, four, five years and be, you know, like, take their, take their punishment in the playoffs and no one's ready to win when your best players are 22 and 23 years old. A dialogue we had with the Thunder, by the way, when they made the finals with KD, Harden and Russ when they were all in their early 20s, like maybe that's just kind of not true anymore. And you have, if you have one of these teams, you have to recalibrate your thinking of like, I can't just sit on all of these picks and all these assets forever. I, maybe I should act a little sooner than I would have in this GMC 10 years ago. That's not to say that the spurs should go out and like trade, do some crazy trade with like Dylan Harper for this. They're not trading any of their main players. But there are like middle ground moves you can make like bundle a couple picks in a fungible salary, get a small upgrade off the bench or like a seventh guy. I do wonder if that's one of the, because the numbers in your piece, people really need to go look at, look at it, read it, look at the charts are like startling and it's so dramatic that I do think some of these teams that are young and quote ahead of schedule need to recalibrate and think like maybe we're just on schedule. Yeah, I think that's right. I think sunsets are happening earlier for individual players and potentially to your point to these championship level teams. So can you even be over 30 and keep up with Dylan Harper, keep up with Stefan Castle, keep up with Victor Wemba Nyam on Carter Bryant and all these young bucks as they race up and down the floor and play this pace and space game. I think the rash of injuries disproportionately is being felt by players who are older than 30 years old. And I think when we're talking about players with as Joelle and Beat or Nikola Yoke or Yannis Hansen to Cumpos, Zach, who, who had his best game of his career at age 26 when he was the best player of the world. Maybe he's 27 by game six of his championship year when he scored 50 points like is Apex Mountain to borrow a term from our friends at the rewatchables happening earlier on these aging curves. And is some of that sort of sunsetting happening earlier because if those things are true, which some of these numbers are pointing to in my opinion, it changes how front office crafts should work in the time of pace and space and 82 games and endless calf strains and hamstring strands. And it strikes me going back to the spurs, you know, Tobias Harris, Luke Cornette, they're two of the older guys on the roster with Harrison Barnes. Those are the guys who aren't playing very much. And I brought this up with Bill too, like asking these dudes to do this for 82 games is hard for everybody. It's especially hard for those aging bodies. Yeah. Tobias Harris hasn't played at all. I do think his, whenever he gets healthy and returns to the lineup, I do think the spurs are still going to face a reckoning is too strong a word, but like a lot of mini reckonings about is this three point guard lineup going to close games? I think the horse is out of the barn and that it's starting. Everyone's going to start. Everyone's going to get their name announced like that's over that's hurt Harper's the second leading score on the team and has played phenomenally well all year, castles the best perimeter defender on the team and just has a physicality and nastiness and foxes to stay blood. They're all starting, but there's going to be games where they don't all finish. By the way, you mentioned Yannis and Embiid, we are going to get later to some red alert indicators on some of these 30 plus star players, those two included. Maybe red alert for Yannis is a little strong red alert for Embiid is not. Let's, let's continue going through the West because I just want to give some of these teams love Oklahoma City just swept Cleveland and blew the doors off in order. I believe Memphis and Washington for their fourth straight win and you know, look, I don't know what when we talk about opportunity coming sooner rather than later. This is a team that's already won a title. It's still quite young and it has this great unknown hanging over its head for the next year or six months or eight months of Jalen Williams short term health and long term health in case in Wallace being out with the Torren labor. But just like for them to be eight and two and, you know, they are, let me see, 17th in offense, third in defense and they're doing it defensively differently. They're just average enforcing turnovers, which used to be their calling card and they're readjusting to life without some of their handsy, you know, stealing guys, their thieves. And you know, Shay's having just like another really great year. It's gone a little underappreciated there, you know, one game they start a dimara and heart and shine together the next game against a smaller team or whatever they bring a dimara off the bench and Ken petroleum is chipping in and a sneaky little trade over the weekend. They snag Nick Clifford from the Kings for two second round picks Sacramento continuing a tradition of trading its first round picks early in their careers, the infox, Thierry's Haliburton, David Carter, Nick Clifford, Davey on Mitchell who came back and played in Sacramento last night. Look, I'm a Nick Clifford fan. I find it absolutely inexplicable that Doug Christie buried him on a team that is not exactly overflowing with like elite talent, particularly because they've had a lot of guys hurt, Keegan Murray has barely played this year. That said, like Nick Clifford did not play well in his limited chances that he got this season. I don't think this is going to be like Jared McCain 2.0 where he's going to go there and suddenly average 15 points of game and be like, oh my God, is this going to get a GM fired kind of thing? But I do think it's a really smart, by low bet by the thunder on a player they liked in the draft. I find the whole saga completely inexplicable from the Kings perspective with this exception. I heard Doug Christie talk about it before the game the other night. I watched I watched his pre-game press conference and he talked about the log jam that they've had at the wing with Malik Monk finding his footing after a terrible start. I love a manual sharp. He's deserved all the playing time he's gotten, he's feisty, he's hit his threes, he defends like all hell. I don't really think a team that is one in nine can have a log jam almost anywhere. But I get his point and I also wonder if like you would ask yourself normally, like what is the point of playing Zach Levine 36 minutes a game? What is the point when you should be invested in these young guys? And I do wonder if Nick Clifford is the casualty of his own scatter shot play, the casualty of a team that has frankly not covered itself in glory for the past quarter century. But also one of the first casualties of the new tanking rules where it's like the Kings are actually trying to avoid being relegated. And so that mitigates toward them playing their win now veteran players as much as possible and he's been a kind of a casualty in that too. >> Yeah, that's a great angle I hadn't thought of but you mentioned the one in nine and this is a team with a rich history of trading away players they shouldn't have traded away. And again, and we've joked about this for years now, there are front offices that when they call you about a player like Nick Clifford, you hang up and you go have an internal meeting like what do we miss with Nick Clifford, that's the kind of respect I think Oklahoma City and San Presti deserve at this point. And I love this move for O.K.C. By the way, what is it like Zacklow to be an NBA player and get the call from your agent, hey man, you're getting traded from Sacramento, where am I going? Oklahoma City, like that is from basketball held at basketball heaven, that's a great development. I think Nick Clifford is a great rebounding wing, he's an athletic wing. If they get the player development puzzle right in a way that Sacramento won't, he is going to be a great rotation player on a high-end Western conference team. I think he has all the tools. He won't be a high usage player, but he has some of that secondary ball handling and playmaking that Jay Dub took with him to the injury list. But I think it's a great move and I think it's exactly what this team needs. By the way, the team doesn't need much when you look at the box scores in the statute. They're eight and two. And as you mentioned, the defense hasn't missed a beat. They are forcing less turnovers, but they're profiling as a top three defense once again. And that's with all the chaos in their rotations over the last two weeks. This is a team I expect to win 50 or 60 games still. >> 60. >> Why not? >> Wow. >> Let me ask you this question. Who is favorite against Oklahoma City Thunder right now? What gym do they walk into and you expect them to lose? >> Where would they be assuming they're not on a back-to-back? What game are the underdogs in? I think definitely at San Antonio, they've already won. >> It's possibly they're true. It's possibly they're not an underdog at home against anyone. As long as they have a day of rest, maybe like at Boston who has the best net rating in the NBA now, but it's true, maybe I said 49 to 51 with Mahoney last week. >> Yeah. >> Because I'm just like full credit to them, like AJ Mitchell has been unbelievable. He looks so explosive on both ends of the floor. By the way, he's become a very good defender. The Hardenstein, Hardenstein doesn't even care if he shoots. He's just out there to facilitate and throw passes. And I mentioned the other guy. They've just been Karuso's back and just doing Karuso things. going over three and it's like, oh, he's over three plus 22, but it's just like they're, you know, I don't know. I have no idea what they should quote unquote do this season, because I haven't, I don't know what their particular prognosis is for any of their injured guys other than the timetables they've released. And also because this is like an unprecedented wave of injuries, I don't remember a title favorite or co favorite having like 35% of their starting lineup or whatever of their X percent of their crunch time closing five just vaporized immediately. Like, I don't know what they should do, but they're not going anywhere. Your reps were like 49 to 51. I was probably underselling them. Yeah, it's crazy, but look at the score from Saturday, they beat the Washington Wizards, which they were expected to, but look at the number 114 to 75. What year is this, that will they'll number 18 to 75 points. They play the blazers twice. By the way, you're not, you're not going to believe this, but Anthony Davis is missed the last couple of games for the Wizards. I know. I know. I just hold just and trade trade young, by the way. Let me, the Wizards are now four and six. Trade Young's averages for the season. 18 and nine. Okay. 40% from the floor, 29% on threes, 51% on twos. And it's much of a liability on defense as ever. We're team, just a weird team like just a strange, strange watch. Anyway, continue. So anyway, I am very high on the thunder. I remain terrified of them as a spurs guy, but look, they deserve this respect in some of these scores like that Washington score just proved their defenses is as good as ever. So we'll see a lot. These two road games, they do this weird back-to-back thing in Portland this week. I think two consecutive games there. Maybe that'll teach us a lot. If they win both of those, look out. They're 10 and two. And they've absorbed more injuries, sort of crisis than any team in recent NBA history. By the way, Portland lost two games in a row and dropped from first to eighth in the Western conference by losing two games. The West, by the way, I mean, it's very early. I still think to East is the deeper conference, but it has not played out that way at all in part because the Mavericks are a problem at six and four. And holy smokes are they a pain in the ass to play against when they have everybody because they are huge and nasty. They can play lineups without Kyrie. And Kyrie's been great. I don't mean to say anything like he and Cooper fit together well. Just five super switchable huge guys at the same time with Marais Johnson as they're back up five. Cooper is Cooper. We've all waxed poetic about him. Santiago Dama came back like the Grizz or six and three. They've lost three in a row. Pelicans, you know, four and six. They've lost a couple of games in a row. But the East is just like, I mean, my whole crisis tier of teams were about Charlotte in a second. Indiana went to Mexico City and lost Orlando can't beat anybody. The nets stink. The bulls and the bucks beyond stink. The heat are four and six. We'll talk about them in the crisis tier. But I want to talk about let's talk about Minnesota because it's amazing how quickly the Lamello ball trade has become a flashpoint across the league. The hornets are three and seven still intent in the play internament as of today, with the worst offense in the NBA. Khan Knipple will miss another month after coming back for like a minute with his hamstring thing and then going out again with the same hamstring. And I think there has been kind of a wild over reaction among Charlotte fans and Lamello fans in Charlotte in particular that the season is over. This trade is going to end up being a disaster for the hornets. And I think that reaction is a little bit fair. As you know, I am on me. It's like me and Mahoney on Lamello is good island on the ringer.com and Lamello is good. And that's being proved out at Minnesota. But I think it's just like I don't I took the under on Charlotte. I think we all expected like the trade was designed as a step back to take a step forward. That has happened. And the step back looks gargantuan because Kobe White has barely played and Khan Knipple has basically not played. And the offense is not functional with the minimal level of talent around Brandon Miller into some degree. Nas Reed. On the other hand, for Minnesota to be five and two without aunt, it hasn't been a murderers row of a schedule, but they have a couple of really good wins, including a win against the Rockets. They are eighth and offense first in defense for the season. And rock solid at pretty much every part of defense across the board. They're getting a little lucky with a point of jump shooting, but they don't allow a lot of threes. They're rock solid at every part of defense. Their bench has outperformed expectations by a mile. Like take a look at trade liles and you on baron jays net ratings. I would assume who stepped in as a starter. He's just, all he's doing is like putting in 25 a game as a starter. And the little mellow thing, it's been a little scatter shot, 18 a game, 45% shooting, 38% on threes, but he's trying on defense. Like teams are hunting him. Utah hunted him mercilessly last night and he was pretty much up for the challenge with a couple of exceptions. And he just gets that team running and flying. And I just they're an elite rebounding team somehow. And I just couldn't be more impressed with Minnesota's start to the season. Yeah, I'll talk about it from Minnesota's defense perspective. I was doing some research for for you on Wembee. And I was looking at who's who's contesting the most shots and who's affecting them the most. And you know, you expect to see Wembee at this point far and away leading these these advanced defensive metrics. But no, no, Rudy go bare remains the most underrated force in this in this league. And Rudy is once again turning two point shots into misses at extremely high rates, leading to rebounds, fueling the best defense in the NBA. So his his countrymen in Wembee gets all the attention, all the blocks, all the dunks, but quietly Rudy go bare remains one of the most impactful players in this whole league just based on what he does on defense, shout out there. And I was talking to people around the league. I'm on I'm on lamello is good island with you and my honey. I'm just on this peninsula. It's called lamello is fragile. This panel. I'm not sure he's going to last and he talked to people in Charlotte. One of the reasons they were like, well, we'll move on from this guy is like they just don't believe he's going to be able again to survive the war of attrition that this league has become. But when you look at Charlottes numbers last year's act without lamello ball, they're often sucked. And now they have the 30th ranked dead last offense in the NBA. Khan, as you mentioned, not being able to play as a huge part of it. Brandon Miller is being asked to do way too much. And what we're seeing is is stunning. And one of the reasons I think the West is ahead of the East is a bunch of these disappointing teams are in the East and most of the surprising teams are in the West. But nobody's disappointed me more than the Hornets. I didn't have super high expectations for them. But what we're seeing from them is such a major step back. Remember, there's a team that ended last season so hot clawing to try to get into the postseason, putting up shooting numbers that made us all swoon from the three-point line. All of that's gone. And a lot of that had to do with lamello balls, brilliance as a playmaker. Whatever the reason Charlotte is in dire straits. I, you know, they are in dire straits. But this is like this is when you as an ownership group in a front office need to just eat some shit and show some fortitude because this is a worst-case scenario for how your post lamello season could have gone. All the scrutiny is going to be placed on you now for was this straight a mistake. Did you, did you, did you underrate lamello as a player? Did you, did you worry too much about his durability and his contract and how the lamello plus Miller plus con the triple max potential structure was going to work? Did you, did you sort of undersell the importance of last season and how it felt for the fans in Charlotte who have been longing for something like that? Did you sort of, I want to say wrong the fans would say sort of misunderstand why they felt so much joy. But this is what you just have to eat it and don't panic and stage no, stay true to like what you believed in, which is we don't believe he's going to be worth the contract that they were going to have to sign them to in in in a couple of years. And we like, we'll get a lottery pick this year if we don't make the playoffs and like the new rules may benefit us enormously. We have the match pick top two protected. We have the heat pick lottery protected. Like just stay the course, whether the noise because the noise is going to the more they struggle and the more Minnesota wins, the noise is going to get really, really loud. And, and I don't think I deserve because lamello is good and he's playing well in Charlotte, but to your point, it's a long season. And, and that's a refrain we're going to use for some other teams. But yeah, Minnesota, super impressive start. And, you know, just not a lot of luck involved in their defense being first. And Charlotte has the second worst net rating in the entire NBA. Do you know who's the worst net rating in the NBA? Uh, yes, I do. And it's one of the other disappointing teams in the Eastern Conference. It's, uh, if I'm not mistaken, the team from Chicago, Illinois, they are so bad that it had just every time I watch them and I talked about this last Thursday with Moe. Like, it's just astonishing that they've, they've been bad for a while. They've been more mediocre adjacent bad than flat out bad. But for them to be this bad right now and have so little talent to build around going for me. Caleb Wilson is a godsend. He's going to be really good. Busella has been a little up and down, had a couple encouraging moments over the weekend. There's just nothing else in the cupboard other than their own picks. Because they just, I mean, I just mentioned how I always averaging 24 points a game is a starter for the world. They got nothing for, they got nothing for LeBene, they got nothing for DeRose, and they held on, they got nothing, you know, in the end for any of these guys. The Vooge trade was a disaster. They sacrificed that disaster. They got giddy for Caruso. Giddy's just been okay. I mean, he has been okay. It's just, anyway, let's take a break and then I want to talk about the Lakers real fast because I know you have some Lakers things to say. - This episode is brought to you by Mikalobe Ultra. The NBA Cup brings the intensity, the higher stakes, opportunity, fierce competition. And the fun doesn't have to end on the court. Bring that competitive spirit with a Mikalobe Ultra on the line, win, and you'll have the perfect drink to sip on during the next game. Just think about it. Watching the games with their buddies, you can bet a beer on anything. Who's gonna make the next three? Who's gonna win the game? What's the spread? Who's gonna make a block shot at the rim? Anything is fair game. I used to do that with my friends just like random bets throughout the game. It makes it more fun to watch if you're just betting a beer. Oh, and it's the official beer sponsor of the NBA. Mikalobe Ultra is giving fans a chance to win court side tickets, merch, and more. Enter now at Mikalobe Ultra dot com slash court side. Mikalobe Ultra court side, 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open U.S. horizontal and it's 20 on plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026 and ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at Mikalobe Ultra dot com. Slash court side for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. All right, the other streaking teams at the top of the West are the Lakers on a five game win streak and the aforementioned Warriors on a seven game win streak. Really incredible. Like you just have to sometimes pause and look at Steph Curry's numbers. 31 points, 4.6 assists, 50% shooting, 45% on threes, 57% on twos, just a monumental first 10 games. For a guy you should not be doing this at this age. And then the Lakers, Luca is lighting the absolute the world on fire. It's like he's averaging almost 40 points a game. He sits out and then Austin Reeves just has 43 points a game. This is the number one offense in the NBA right now. Their defense is about as advertised. They're 21st in defense. They're getting maybe a little bit unlucky with opponent jump shooting, but they allow a lot of threes, a lot of shots at the rim. Walker Kessler's being able to put some fires out. He's teams are shooting only 43% at the rim with him as the closest defender, but overall their rim defense has been pretty bad regardless of who's on the court. So that we knew this was going to be their issue and it has been, but I know you have some Luca stuff. So what do you got? Well, I'd like to call back to when you and I did a podcast the summer like who are the players with the most pressure on them coming into the season? And we went 10 to one and we, and I ended up with Luca Donch it's just number one. I said, this is year 27 age, age 27 season for Luca who we all have high expectations for. He deserves a high standard, but boy has he answered the bell. I mean, I think this is one of the best offensive seasons. He's on pace for that this league ever sees. If he stays healthy in terms of his combination of usage and efficiency and playmaking. He is might average 40 points of game, Zacklow. Is that crazy? 38 points of game, whatever it is. But the efficiency particularly. He's averaging, I actually, I know he had 43 over the weekend that actually tipped his average. He is currently averaging 40.1 points for him. Boy does that look boy, boy does that like, this is like going, I'm looking at his basketball reference page right now. It's like going to the MoMA and looking at a Van Gogh painting. So like 40.1 in both my God. And he's on pace if I'm not mistaken to break the record for most threes attempted per game in an NBA season. He's shooting, you mentioned Curry, Curry shooting 10.6, 10.7. Luca's out here shooting 13.73s per game. He's making 40% of them at that holds. And that's a big if like look out like. I can come back to another point in a second, but you mentioned the game against Detroit. That was their biggest game in the year. The most impressive game this team has played all season was at Detroit without Luca Donchic. Austin Reeves against, I think the pistons entered that game as the number one defense in the NBA. The Lakers offense just rolls over them. And they put up 120 some points against this great Detroit defense. But for me, Zack, and again, I'll borrow from the rewatchables lingo again. It feels like the Lakers have market corrected for the nuggets. They're the new nuggets. They're the team with the incredible offense. Reeves and Donchic are the new Joe Kitchen Murray. They're defense is questionable. But they're going to win just because you can't stop them on the offensive end of the court. And Zaya Williams has been great. Thiball's been great to this point. Kessler's been good enough. But man, they look sustainable. And again, they're one of the big surprise teams in the league and the best offensive league right now. And if the Thunder are never going to be whole this season, and I don't know what the Thunder are going to be in April and May. If they get Chet back and they get Wallace back, and I don't know how likely it is that Wallace plays again at all this season, then they're basically the team that almost made the finals last year. If Jaydub doesn't come back, and that's a team that can still win the title, we don't know what that team is going to be. We don't know if they're going to make a trade. We don't know if Detroit, you mentioned Detroit, they're a trade team. I don't know if we're not going to talk much about them today, but we don't know how all these cards are going to fall. But the Lakers, if the Thunder are never quite the Thunder, and the Lakers are this, and Luca is this, and Luca can get through the season without the leg problems that have hit him at the most parts of the season, they're a problem. Like, they could absolutely be in the conference finals with a puncher's chance to win it against the Spurs or whoever is there. And if it's not the Spurs, who the hell knows who it's going to be. >> One other Luca point, I asked somebody very close to the situation this weekend. I was like, what has gotten into Luca Donches have never seen this? And this person said to me, Kirk, he is clear headed. And sort of alluding to clouds from last year that were I think off the court things. But I think Luca is dialed in in a way, and healthy in a way. Like, remember, this is the due to won the Western Conference the last time he finished the season healthy. So he deserves a lot of respect. Maybe this thing is sustainable. You add in the rockets. I think those are the two sort of party crashing teams that I didn't have high on my radar before the season started. They're both out West. >> Yeah, and the rockets have scuffle a little bit over the weekend. It lost a couple of games in a row. And the nuggets have won a couple of games in a row to kind of stabilize things. Go to five and three. Spencer Jones came back over the weekend. He's huge, just another piece of depth for them. Hit three threes in their first game. I can't remember who it was against. But, you know, we'll see how the nuggets sort of cope with the season. And the warriors just can't, I mean, they're still sitting on this trove of assets. They haven't been able to use, they haven't found the right player at the right time for the right price. They've been lambasted for failing to do so. Yet they do have Jimmy Butler, which everybody forgets that they got something beyond the right place price. I mean, they traded a pick in Andrew Wiggins, basically. Andrew Wiggins, by the way, coming off the bench against the Kings for the heat. Because he's been so, and this year. And I, like Jimmy's going to come back at some point this year, ballpark, January, February, something around that. Lendaborg is absolutely for real. And when Steph is on the bench, you know, they put, they did just load the lineup with all their other best offensive players. Pajempsen, Lendaborg, Melton, all those guys have been really good. And they're just a pain in the ass to play against. And the other big news of the weekend was, of course, Ingus is not going to play for them, which is not a surprise. They never expected him to play once he went away from the team. Nobody knows exactly what's happening. It's all speculation, but he tweeted that he's just not ready to play and he's going to step away. For a while, look, this sort of, you can trace this all back to the Camingo draft pick gone bad. This is what they got mostly for Camingo. And then the wiseman pick, we don't need to re-litigate. They just didn't get enough from those bites at the Apple. Look, Pajempsen, this would have really changed this team. Like, Horford can only play so much as a shooting five. And then after that, it's Bassy, who's not a shooting five, but has been great in limited minutes for them. And then like smaller lineups with Dremont at the five, George Neang has come in and played a little five or five ish with him and Dremont together. And George Neang has been really good for them. And it's, well, whatever is going on personally with Porzenguez, it's a huge blow to the words. And now they're going to try to trade him presumably because he can be bought out for $3 million. And try to get back a good player making the same or a little bit less amount of money who can actually help their team. And it's just going to be a matter of like, who's that player? Who's willing to sell that player and in a league again where tanking has been disincentivized? And how much of the warriors going to have to pay to get that player? And if it's too much, do they just hold on to what they got in hopes of again? Like, they have cap flexibility in the summer. They have all their draft picks. But that's where the warriors are and, you know, the Porzenguez thinks sucks. It is, it is, it is what it is. I would, I don't know if he's ever going to play in the NBA again, but I should have added the warriors to my party, party crashing list. I did not have them here. And obviously the Yaks pick has been great. I did Bill show last week. He mentioned Anthony Davis. He made it clear that he doesn't have any intel on that. But I wanted to ask you, you've mentioned this a couple of times. I think it's really smart, Zach, this new tanking regime, how does that change the trade market? They know in previous years. is a team who is just like, hey, we want to go to the very bottom of the league. We have some expiring deals. We don't really care. Does this change a team from say, we'll send you this big on the last year of his deal. What are your thoughts there? Yeah, I mean, like all of these teams should not the team. If you control your own pick, like the Kings, like the Bulls, for instance, and there are some teams who don't control their own picks, like the Nets and the Bucks. If you control your own pick, you should not want to be relic it. I was actually talking to a GM about this last week. And he reminded me, like, not only is this brand new, we don't know how long this system is even going to last. Like I keep forgetting, I keep my brain has like forgotten that this is not intended to be a permanent solution, that it has an expiration date if people agree to have it expire and change the rules. There was actually a GM's meeting last week, I heard, where the draft credit proposal was discussed again in terms of just like scrapping the entire system as we know it and giving a teams like a credit-based system where they bid and this and that. I think there's going to be a revised proposal of that ilk coming to the GM in the competition committee shortly. So we don't even know that, but yeah, people are still sort of figuring out how to do it. I find the nets. We're going to talk about crisis teams at the end of this and the nets were not in my crisis tier because I just didn't expect them to be good, but maybe they should be. They're fascinating because they have Michael Porter, Jr., who could very clearly help a good team. Like you throw him in Detroit in the John Collins spot or whatever at all of a sudden they get a little scary. They have Julius Randall who's a little trickier to just plug and play, but now is a good veteran player and they don't control their draft pick. The rockets have the right to swap picks with them. And so the nets are kind of like, no, we're fine with our pick being relegated because that makes it less likely. It'll be number one or in the top five and we don't want the clock on these new rules where we can't pick in those ranges in consecutive years to start. I find them really, really fascinating. Yeah, I think that's interesting too, but yeah, I think Golden State is very interesting. I don't know when Jimmy Butler comes back, but this thing looks sustainable. If they get a move done, Sefin Curry hasn't looked this energized in years. And I think I told Bill like they didn't have a win streak this long at least last year, maybe going back two years now. So this is the hottest that team has looked in a minute. And yeah, with the porzinga situation, I think it's fair to say they're the team you watch the most heading into the deadline when just still three months away. Well, there's the deadline and then there's the mid-December deadline where if you have to get a player in by that date, I think it's the 16th to aggregate him before the trade deadline. Dave obviously done this before with the Dennis Schroeder, Anthony Melton deal a couple of years ago. Yeah, I mean, just like really great season for the Warriors. And again, like so early, but a vindication of their vision, how they play Steve Kirstyle of play, and the Lendabor pick was a plus Steph Curry is the second leading squad in the NBA, by the way, at age 38. Okay, let's go east and talk about the two teams at the top of the east. These sixers and the Celtics. 24 hours from now, I will be on an Amtrak train to the beautiful city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to watch the lamb chops, the gravy, the meat and potatoes, Jalen Brown versus Jason Tadam for the first time in a regular season game. It will be in Philly, obviously, not Boston, worried. I think it'll get even even spicier. Sixers nine and two, number one in the east, they are 20th and offense. That's kind of interesting. We'll talk about that. Sixth in defense, just 15th in net rating, subsisting on a lot of crunch time wins, but hey, crunch time wins are wins to sign that your team is actually good. And to me, look, their offense, it's been inconsistent. When they don't run their stuff, it can get sticky and slow and like, when they run their stuff, when they run their best actions and they run it with vigor and they hunt the right mismatches, or they find them early, it can look overwhelming. It's a weird sort of mismatch of eye tests within one game. But I think they're, I think they net out, like I think their offense is better than the numbers would say it is now, although they don't shoot enough threes. Sixth in defense and then Boston, third in offense, fourth in defense, a regular win's season, win's machine, as always, the number one net rating in the entire NBA plus 11.6. And I'm just saying, Paul George, 20 points, five assists, four rebounds on 47% shooting, 43% on threes, Jalen Brown, 22 points, seven rebounds, four assists on 48% shooting, 39% on threes. Quite interesting, Mr. Gold's Barry, what are you looking forward to in this game? Oh, it'll be all the lot of drama. It'll be a lot of close-ups of hand shakes and high fives before the jump or snubs or snubs. Oh, yeah. What are you predicting? You predicting a snub? I'm predicting, I'm predicting, all right. You know what? I'm going to predict like a nod at most, a stone face. No, I'm going to predict no physical touching, no high five, no pound, no pattern on the butt. Just if anything, a just a blank nod, I will go just for the interest of the Zach Lo Show. I'm going to go full on hug. These guys are going to hug before the jump. I say a magic Johnson style, maybe not the kiss on the cheek, but just full affection, put this thing to bed. But it'll be, I don't feel good about that. That would honestly surprise me based on the public comments, including Jalen Brown over the weekend saying he hasn't talked to Jason Tatum and there's nothing for them to talk about. So, you know, yeah, yeah, we'll see who's right. I'll text you as soon as the jump ball happens. Dude, the sixers are profiling the exact opposite way I predicted before this. He said, started, I thought the defense would be in trouble. And I don't know the offense would be humming. And it's the opposite and credit to Nick Nurse and this group for playing really good defense. The most alarming stats for me on offense have to do with Joelle and Bied specifically, his jump shooting. He's literally the worst jump shooter in the league this year. We might not even be able to call it a jump shot anymore because he's just like not jumping at all on either end of the floor. It's it's like a tiptoe shot, which is similar to his challenges. The Riemann defense are tiptoes challenges. He essentially made 20 of his 80 jumpers. He stopped making threes at all. Remember, this is a guy who became a pretty good shooter from beyond the arc and had this almost automatic free throw jumper that I've mapped out for 10 years now. That's gone. That said, the arrival of Jalen Brown and LeBron James has deodorized some of that. Normally, this team couldn't absorb that, that kind of thing. But ultimately, I think it still points to the biggest concern with this team in Philadelphia is there's some old guys at the heart of your rotation. Are they going to be able to perform at the level needed to compete with teams like Boston? Because I really like Boston's position. Their old guy Paul George seems to be playing pretty well, fitting right in. So I expect Boston to win this game. I agree the Missoula Ball regular season win machine. They profile really well on great on both sides. But that's that Philly's Philly's, Philly's looking better than I thought they would so far this season. I think they're they're offense being 20th surprised me a little bit because again, when they when they focus and and split the possessions the right way and everyone is in the right spot and buying into what they should do in that spot. They're just really hard to guard. And and I would use the word overwhelming at times because like you look at these matchups, you know, you look at them. They know they lost the Cleveland over the weekend. But Cleveland has to guard Jalen Brown and LeBron James with like, Donovan Mitchell and James Harden because they want Peyton Watson on Tyrese Maxi and you're just out of guys to guard those and like LeBron can pulverize a mismatch still. Jalen Brown can pulverize a mismatch like for whatever works you want to say. And by the way, he's getting he's 22 points of game is not what he averaged last year, not what he probably dreamed of averaging. But he's just feasting in transition. And you can the safest bet in the NBA right now is if he's the first sixer up the core and he has the ball, he's shooting like he's going to go all the way to the rim, particularly if the guy in front of him is too small. And he's finishing a lot of those plays. But I think like I have three, I have two red alerts and one purple alert in the Eastern Conference. I think him beat is like, this is a red alert for I, I, I'm alarmed. 18 points of game. 10 rebounds for assist. His passing has been great. He's almost overpassing sometimes like trying to pick out cutters who aren't open. 38% from the floor, 10% on threes, 46% on twos. You know, last year I come, I got some fun notes about this from Philly fans last year. I compared him. I said he's like reached the Jamie Moir phase of his career where he's just, where he's just a junk baller. He's just like, he's Jamie Moir. He can't jump at all. And he, but he's so skilled and has such good touch and is still so giant that he can just sort of plow his way close to the rim and flip enough shots in. But like he has no lift. The shots aren't going in as much. The three looks broken and defensively look, he suppresses opponent shots at the rim, but opponents are still getting to the rim a ton against the Sixers, regardless of who's on the floor. And his, his mobility is compromised. And like we're 10, this is an it's a long season team. Like I would not, if I were a Philly fan. I would not start crowing to everybody who was worried. This could be a six seed, a fifth seed, a seventh seed in the east. Oh, we're nine and two. You guys are all idiots. It's like, it's a long season. They're going to have to load, manage LeBron. And just over the weekend, it was like, and it's a long season weekend for the six years. They lost in Cleveland to a good team. And they kind of just eaked one out against the bulls where I don't think they were really trying that hard. And we can eat it out when we need to eat it out on Sunday. But I don't know, man, and bead. He's the best parts of in beads game right now are the 13 foot jumper, which is still money. It will some some degree of life. And and his pat like if he catches it in rhythm in the pocket and just goes up and shoots, I feel great about it. And it's passing the other parts of his game. Like I don't maybe I'm over reacting, but like I'm it's red alert to me. Yeah, I've always asked Bill, this one is like if if and bead were shack, what era shack are we watching right now? And this is like, we're teetering on Phoenix Suns era shack with this joelem bead early in this season. I just don't think he can run up and down the floor. Again, going back to the the thesis, he eats over 30. Can he play 82 games like this? I'm not buying it. I feel like if there were such a thing as an NBA actuarial table, joelem bead has a lot of risk factors that point to his actual age being greater than his real age. And you mentioned the jump shot sort of his his his jump shot is not a jump shot anymore. His ability to get rebounds is diminished. And that's one of the signature limitations of this offense right now is they're not crashing. They're not getting offensive boards. A lot of that has to do with where they keep joelem on offense. But you know, I think the thing that has impressed me most aside from Nick Nurse making this all works somehow is the vibes are immaculate. And what you brought up early is the is the strongest point is like in an era of which being called the weak link era of the NBA, like I will attack your weakest defender. The sixers have a really strong set of dudes who can okay, you're going to put this guy an edge comb this guy. I'm actually all right, Jalen Brown, you got the weak link tonight or all right, LeBron James, you have the weak link and you made the point. These are dudes that know how to attack a mismatch as as well as anybody. And ultimately I think that ends up with this offense profiling a lot better than it currently is. Yeah, I'm when it's home and it looks very good. I'm Boston. You know, I mean, we'll see what what the vibe is between Jalen and Jason. I find the whole thing a little bit. I don't even know what the right word is. I don't like people want to point fingers and blame this or blame that like did he demand a trade or not? Like there was this whole, you know, we've talked about this. I mean, like I would say like clearly something went wrong within the team after last season and they decided everybody decided it was best to move on. And I honestly like your aging column on players, the players over 30 having a much lower share of minutes in in playoff games regular season games and before. I think Boston, like I understand they traded Jalen Brown for an even older player, but Jalen Brown's 30 or 29 or 30 is contract is one year longer than Paul George and unlike Paul George, he wants another giant contract, whereas the Celtics are going to be under zero pressure to resine Paul George at all. And they got to first round fix for him. I think those realities, plus whatever chemistry issues, which clearly happened. Like definitely. I mean, Mark Spears goes on TV multiple times and talks about how they introduced Jason Tatum last in the starting five. Like it doesn't take a rocket science to figure out where that's coming from. That's sort of a random detail to mention on TV. So look, demand a trade. Don't demand a trade. It's sometimes just clear when change has to happen. And this will be a really interesting battle. Like Mitchell Robinson had his best game of the season last night for the Celtics. He hasn't been starting lately. If there's a time to start him, it's against Joelle and Bede. And I'm interested in that. Great point. Mike Conley got a spot start yesterday against the Bucks. Jordan Walsh has been the sort of Tyrese Maxie stopper for the Celtics in the past or limiter or best option, whatever you want to say. Maybe he starts, but, you know, I'm interested to see how this game works. And it's also a game between the Celtics who allow a ton of threes on defense on purpose. And the sixers who don't take any. How does that net out? I just can't wait for this game. Yeah, you took my point. The thing to watch is we'll fill it out if you'll be able to make threes because you mentioned to this is Ryan's me and the boot and holes are Bucks. The new, the new look Celtics just letting the opponent shoot as many threes as they want essentially and say protecting the two point area. Can this Philadelphia team make its threes that are going to come in? And that's like a weakness of this Philadelphia group. Obviously, Jalen Brown, not the greatest three point shooter LeBron James, not the greatest three point shooter. And Afro mentioned Joelle and Bede couldn't hit the broadside of a barned open this season. The, the Celtics are going to dare them to make those shots. And if they make them, they have a good chance of winning them. If they don't, I think the Celtics will all win. Ultimately, I'm not going to, I'm not going to hedge. I'm taking the Boston Celtics in this game. I don't know. All I know is I'm taking the Amtrak and I'm going to the game. That's who I'm taking. I never go into the cafe car on the Amtrak. Do you enjoy that? I like the cafe car. Yeah, I love it. I get a little worried walking back with a coffee because like that train, you got to really get your balance right and you got to be wary of spilling on people and it can, you can tilt this way that way. It's a, you got to focus. So you can't be multitasking on that walk up and down in Amtrak, a moving Amtrak train. By the way, on MB, let me just be clear. I don't think, like the, the games where he looks like he did in Chicago, I don't think you should necessarily overreact to, they are a data point. They won the game. He's still going to put up numbers in some of these games. He had an offer from the field a couple of games ago. We have seen with MB that he's going to follow up those nights with nights where he looks more like the old Joel MB, where he can summon a little bit more physically, like witness the Boston series last year. Maybe some of that is going to be, when do they start sort of resting him a little bit more? Maybe some of it is like, if you're playing the Chicago Bulls and it's November, Joel and B is probably like, I can kind of just like, I don't have to go all out in this game. Like whatever jumps I have left in me, I'm not using them against this team. I'll survive this game and move on. So like, I don't think anyone should overreact to the really junk ball looking games for MB, but obviously like the baseline expectation for what is this guy going to be when it really matters is still quite a bit of an unknown. I'm a skeptic, dude. You made me think of Elaine Bennett's sponge, where you're thinking of, should I jump against this team? Is Joel and B, is this opponent jump worthy? I'm really cynical, dude, on the MB thing. I wish I wasn't, but I've been studying this age thing for the last two months. It just sort of, he might be the mascot of it. His numbers are way down, scoring. Obviously, he was great in the playoffs last year until he wasn't until he couldn't and that leaves a mark with me. You know what? You know what? Help in the playoffs is like, can we get, can we have, can this be the year, assuming they make it? And I think they will, obviously. Can this be the year where he doesn't get struck by something insane in the play, appendicitis, bellies, palsy, a broken face? Like, can we at least eliminate the freak occurrences out of it? And Boston, you just can't say enough, they're just a really good team. I, you know, to the 10, 12 games into the season, I still don't know how to feel really about the East. I'm still in my full fox molder mode where I trust no one other than the Knicks and even their five and four. I just feel well, we'll talk about some of these teams in a second or any parting thoughts on the battle of the Jays coming up. No, I just want to see a full hug. Let's put this thing behind us boys. I am going to be shocked if there's a hug, but, you know, emotional growth, those are those are good things. It's a good thing. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll go through some crisis teams. All right, I mentioned a couple of other red alerts. Red alert number two is we, we're just going to go rapid fire through some of the teams that were in my crisis rankings last year and how I would revise the last week rather, how it would revise the rankings after just the weekend of games. But, you know, I mean, should we note that James Harden is averaging 16 points. Yes. Six assists a game on 37% shooting and shooting only 37% on twos, 37% at the rim and that the calves are getting glitzed when he plays and Don of the Mitchell rest. Look, they're finding themselves. They've had a lot of guys in the lineup. Paid Watson came back. Jared Allen went out. Sam Meryl missed the half of the game or so. I get Jalen Tyson's been out. Kenny Atkinson is sort of experimenting a little bit with who should play with who among the star guards and star biggs. I get it. I'm not super worried. But, um, they're it's hard. At the very least not an inspiring start for the five and five calves and Harden speaking of age, Like, if they need to, they need to. They don't need peak harden, but they need like the 22 and eight kind of James Harden and we have just not seen that guy at all. I'm worried about the calves because I think they have a higher expectation than when they're where they're going to land. So that would be the basis, but you got my hardened points almost no for note. Like this isn't a guy who could blow by anybody and finish at the rim or now he has this crafty float or a little more mid range. That's not even there. There's times where he looks clearly like the least athletic person on the floor at times. He looks like almost like point guard and beat out there is just like what are you still doing out here with these young guys? They're blowing by you. They're foreign for Donovan Mitchell can still get it go and have 37 against the Knicks. They had that nice win against Philly. So I'm not saying it's red alert time. I just am a little bit worried that they're going to get to where they expect to. This could be a plan team. This could be a six seed. And my point is I think they think they're a one through four seeds. I had I I rose the Cavscon level to Cavscon three last Thursday. I'm now I think I need like some sort of someone in Spotify build me a digital Cavscon sign like the Defcon sign because I can have it in the background changing. I'm lowering it to Cavscon four. After they're winning against the sixers and despite their loss on a I think it was about was it a back to back against the Knicks? I'm lowering it to Cavscon four but we are not Cavscon five is everything's fine. No problems. Cavscon four. All right, let's go through some of these crisis teams. This is the purple alert not the red alert. The third alert that I mentioned 53% of Yannis's shots have come at the basket this season. That would be the lowest rate for his entire career 36% of his shots have come from mid-range that would tie for the highest rate of his career. Now he closed out the sad sack Kings last night with three straight mid-range numbers I think. But Miami is after making the mega trade four and six they are 19th and offense 26th and defense minus 5.5 points per under possessions 22nd in net rating. I actually Kirk and I'm weirdly like less worried about their defense for them to be 26 is shocking. Here's why I'm less worried. There's sixth and free throw rate. That's good. Eighth enforcing turnovers very good top 10 and defensive rebounding. They are if if you put expected opponent fuel goal percentage based on where the players are shooting from and who's shooting. It would rank fifth and instead they're dead last so they're getting absolutely drilled on jump shots and that will regress a little bit. The offense being 19th that actually feels kind of real to me like that like their offense just maybe eh what are you seeing from this team. The honest that that you said this is a dude who needs to be at the rim anytime he shoots away from the rim the opponent is happy period that's that so with that number that you started with is real that's not great. You mentioned they have the 19th best offense. That might be real. The defense being 26th. Here's the good news for air expulsora and ultimately he deserves respect here too. This is the team early in the season that is getting the worst three points shooting look of everybody I've gone through the opponents are making over 40% of the threes. That's not real guys for a team with a net rating of negative six or seven. That's probably a winner or loss here or there. What said I think they have a profile of a play and team. I think that's where this is going and that's I don't think you make the trade for Yannis to be a play and team so I would reduce the alert level. But I would also say the ceiling for this team isn't as high as people think it is in Miami. Well I had them as a play and team with the caveat that you know before the season I said when I picked my actual standings in the east like I said there's just going to be such just the win totals from like four to nine you could have like a four win separation like everything is going to be very very close. But I'm not surprised that they're kind of out of the gate. And by the way just some interesting numbers one of the one of the questions people had when they got Yannis was well they ran this idiosyncratic offense last year where we had like the fewest pick and rules in the league. How is that going to how are they going to incorporate Yannis well I have the genius IQ tracking data the heat are last in pick and rolls again 31 per 100 possessions 29th is Atlanta at 45 per 100 possession so there's a gigantic gap stat number two according to genius IQ there has been zero not even one BAM Yannis pick and roll with BAM as the ball handler and BAM is obviously trying to find his place sometimes he's in the dunker spot and it gets a little clogged up sometimes in the corner I don't really love them over there. There had been nine Yannis BAM a pick and rolls with Yannis as the ball handler just nine total two man games between the two of them is not enough and Yannis is setting 15 picks on the ball per hundred possessions that is one of the lowest numbers of his career just very interesting to see how all of that will evolve for the heat. Yannis has not been good to him hard away juniors given them nothing long season I actually have I'm weirdly un worried just because of the opponent shooting data that you cited and they have to build around new superstar give him some time it's a long season that was one of our monstrous for the for the well and they're also they would also say well you know we need another off season to really properly build our team around Yannis it's hard to do it all in one off season to counter to that would be your entire column that you just wrote for TheRinger.com where it's like you know Yannis is almost 32 you don't have as much time as you think that's right. Other East teams in crisis Orlando is now two and seven they lost both their games over the weekend they are 24th and offense 25th in defense a lot of opponent jumpshooting luck there too but boy oh boy I'm yet to win a home game yet to win a home game. Obviously Palo has heard Sugs has heard it just feels like it's slipping away real fast for this team. They're an obvious trade machine team Bill has already pitched like four different Orlando magic trades on Twitter. I don't really even have a lot to say like they're offense stinks they're offense always stinks and they're injured and they're always injured and it's just like they're I had them picked for 9th or 10th I think and when I did my final standings and I don't it's not even they're just it's not fun to watch like it's just the same old story. Same old story still can't shoot it shout out to Palo being out that's a big factor. I'm disappointed as a Sean Sweeney fan that they haven't come out of the gate a little bit better than this I told you I had a secret trend that I wanted to get a reaction to. So the league as you know was you know made two points to emphasis before the season caught your attention to cut my attention. We're going to call the the off arm stiff arm move and then we're going to call these moving screens. Well offensive fouls in the first three weeks of the season are at a record pace since we've been tracking this and one player in particularly on the magic which is why I thought of it is is is being penalized a lot more than he ever has and that Desmond Bain who not only sets dirty screens but he uses that off army is one of the only players who do it. Interesting. I looked at the rate of offensive fouls in the NBA. It is surging many of the highest rates we've ever seen for a team or this year's team. So 29 of the 30 teams are are fouling on offense at higher rates than they were last year. The loan exception is Indiana and some players are getting whistled for a lot more offensive fouls than ever before. Desmond Bain one of them but I wanted to get your thoughts on that Zach I have a couple more stats but what have you noticed like with this I think the off arm stuff has gotten more attention but the screens thing in the data is actually getting a lot more whistles on these illegal screens. I haven't looked into the numbers but certainly anecdotally there seems to be a lot of both. I also anecdotally there's just way too much of the word firming in my life right now. I don't want to hear people say the word firming or firm. It's just too prevalent in the NBA as they try to explain the push off calls. It's interesting the illegal screen thing is interesting too. There's obviously been a lot of those are a lot of traveling calls over the weekend and paulming carrying calls over the weekend too. Sometimes I wonder if the alert goes out from on high that hey we got to clean this some of this stuff up. I don't have anything interesting to say about Orlando other than I we all know that the money crunch is coming if and when Anthony black gets a new deal and if even if he doesn't like something is going to change here if this goes on like this the only other East team we talked about Cleveland Indiana it's just we're waiting on Haliburton and on it honestly like Indiana probably benefits all of these like Miami's in crisis they're in eighth right now like the East the East has come back to the pack a little bit and Indiana is obviously just like they've just got a gut through this period without Haliburton hope that this is the last period without Haliburton and then start to get home and again like they did two seasons ago but you know they're three and seven you know I didn't have the nets in my crisis to your last last weekirk because they were an obvious like no one should have had any expectations for them this year I got some I got some pushback on that and I'm open to the conversation should the nets who are two and eight and 28th and offense 24th and defense 25th and that rating. Did they actually belong in the crisis here? What do you think about that? - Well, you're right, it depends on what you, if you're factoring in expectations or not, because this is a team that none of us had high expectations for. They currently have the 25th ranked offense in the 19th ranks, defense. And you did a great job, I think, of looking at, they don't own their pick, right? They don't own their pick. So what are they trying to accomplish this year? Are they trying to be a competitive basketball team? I don't think they really are, but maybe they are a trade team that can get in better position for next year. I guess I would ask you this, Zach, what do you think that Sean Marx and this group had expected for this season? That might help me answer your question. - I think they probably expected to be more competitive than this, despite the fact that they don't own their pick. And so relegation doesn't really hurt them as much. It's been, in February, it will have been four years since the next trade had Kevin Durant. Four years. - Yep. - And it's just like, now I realize there's like, an interim team where they have McHale Bridges and then they trade him too. But like four years since the final breakup of the Kyrie Harden Durant team. And it just, again, like, Joe Mann has been injured a lot this season. Well, I hope that doesn't sustain, but I'm starting to get a little worried. McHale Brown Jr has been on minutes restrictions and has had some back spasm issues. I think he's been in some games this season. Like, if we get 40 games from now, that looks like a potentially dynamic starting back court. Disconversation feels a little different. Danny Wolf just got thrown into the starting five. He's been fine, whatever. He wasn't playing before. Tryori, I talked about last week has made a nice jump. Drake Powell doesn't play, Seraph doesn't play. And the other guys are just Ann. And obviously they've gotten bad luck in the lottery. They shot themselves in the foot by winning too many games to really help their lottery chances. It just, so to answer your question, I do think despite the fact that they had no realistic expectations to be like, good, good. I think they didn't want to be embarrassingly bad this year. I think they needed more progress than they've shown so far. I have no idea what they're going to do with Randall or Porter. I would be trying to trade them, but I think that's right. But it's just, I think they wanted to be a little bit more competitive than this. Yeah, I would say if there were rankings of teams who need an identity, not just this year, but going forward. That's how I would frame it. Is there in crisis mode in that sense? Like where are we going to go? What's the path to contention? Is there a two, three, five year of term? What are we doing? What is this roster? It doesn't make any sense. Our best young players don't really scare anybody in a league where San Antonio and Oklahoma City and all these other teams have a lot of young talent. Their young talent doesn't really scare anybody. It doesn't mean they don't have any good young players. But yeah, they're two and seven. And they're not going anywhere this year. I don't, I guess they're the most, I don't know, identity less team on the list. Well, and the sexy answer to your question would be, you know, they were rumored to have interest in Yannis. They were rumored to have interest in Donovan Mitchell back in the day. They like, they have all the pieces from the Nickstray. They have a good nuggets pick. They have young players. They have cap flexibility to like make a play for a star. And then you just ask like to what end? Like if the star comes alone, then I don't, like what is the point of that? They're not, it's like that's going to singly and they make them good. Now, could they try to get another two stars in the door? Either incrementally or at the same time, like they've done before. Sure, I mean, they've lived that movie. And by the way, to their credit, like it seems very bad right now and it is. They rose from the ashes of nothing. Pretty well when Sean Marks got there and had that like frisky, D'Angelo Russell team that made the playoffs. They pivoted from that into a potential super team that I'm pretty sure like 29 out of 30 GMs are making that series of moves to build the Harden, Kyrie, KD team that looked completely unstoppable until many events of global options disrupted it. And now it's since then, it's kind of been like what's happening here? That's right. And we've gone through the draft look and the lottery look and all that. But I do, I do, I would, I would just curious if there will ever be any impatience, particularly among ownership to be like, we just gotta get a bigger name in the door here. Like this is getting stalled out. - Yeah, and again, going back to the aging piece, like signing big time free agents or making big trades for dudes on the wrong side of 30 seems to be like a really bad strategy right now. And so that particular move to prominence might not be available to them. But I think you're exactly right, Zach. This is a wide angle lens crisis team. Some of the teams we're talking about are it's crisis in November, 2026. And here are the reasons why. When I think about the nets, I need to do what you just did. That exercise where you pull out and you look at sort of, okay, this is what they've done since Durant and Kyrie and Harden moved on. - Two other crisis teams that had wildly different weekends. Phoenix righted the ship a little bit. They were number one in my most in crisis rankings five days ago. They won two straight games, they're three and five. Ryan Dunn showed up and gave them real minutes on the bench. That was big. Jalen Green played like more careful, considerate games. Also, Gadaro got promoted into the starting five over Malawatch who's not ready. Dylan Brooks is on fire somehow. And they had a really nice win against the Rockets on Saturday. - Great win. - Devin Booker buried the Rockets under some clutch dump shots. And on the other end of the poll, I would now escalate Utah to number one in my crisis rankings. One in nine, Lowry Marken and Miss Sunday's game against the wolves. He has not done nearly enough. Basically like the jazz when they made the Walker Kessler trade, determining that the money plus the picks was just too good for them to turn down. The money the Lakers paid him and that they would have to pay and the picks they were getting from the Lakers were too good to be true. They created this weird team where you have a bunch of young guys and then you have these two big guys in Jarron Jackson Jr. and Marken and who are in their primes. And you feel the dissonance on the floor a lot, even though Jarron Jackson Jr. has barely been on the floor for the entirety of Utah, as you taught, jazz career and nurtures also hurt. Like George Peterson, Ace Bailey. I like all three of them. I can't believe George has been great. But they make a lot of young guy mistakes, particularly on defense. Like there's just tons of, I think they are 2019 defense. There's tons of miscommunication. Collier has been a little bit of a train wreck off the bench and they decline his option. And they make, those are like young guy mistakes on defense. Darren Peterson is having a two very good games over the weekend, took more threes, which I think he's going to have to do. Took 15 combined threes in two games. That number should even be higher. But his chemistry with candidate George has been kind of so so. They're all a little bit all over the place defensively, particularly like Ace Bailey's been very good in some ways. And then we'll make some mistakes off the ball and then miscommunications on switches. That's all young guy stuff. That's all growing pains. This team still will tell you what we have all these future picks from the Lakers and this and that and leftover from the Mitchell and Go Bear trades. So we are oriented toward the future. The young guy stuff that's baked in. You also traded a bunch of stuff for Jerry Jackson Jr. and paid lorry marketing a lot of money and turned down lots of offers for lorry marketing. And now it just, we haven't seen the real team yet, but the season is slipping away fast. And after four years of basically hiding lorry marketing in a closet and locking the door to tank, this is a really, really problematic start for Utah. And it just doesn't talk about a team searching for an identity. They just look really, really like, addled on both ends of the floor. The question I have in my notes with this team is what are we supposed to be good at? When you look at the Western Conference, the Spurs are good at offense and defense, the Thunder and their current state are great at defense, questionable and offense, the Lakers are the opposite. When I look at the Utah Jazz with this roster, they're 29th on offense, 24th and defense. The personnel, I thought you did a great job of summarizing where they are. Oh, did I make a state where they are in defense? I guess they're even worse on offense, 29th at offense. I think I said they were 29th in defense. You're correct. They are 22nd in defense. They're bad at everything. They can't shoot. They don't take a lot of, they don't force turnovers on defense, even though these young bucks on the perimeter. What are we trying to get good at? That would be the question I would ask their front office. Where are we going to be great on the basketball court? Because right now there's no answers. I would have expected this team after nine games coming into the season to be four and five, to be three and six. That's about where I had one in eight and they've looked bad doing it. I'm not very excited about this young back court. Darren Peterson, they took a lot of risk to draft Darren Peterson. I think that needs to be questioned and it will always be questioned as long as Cameron Booser is just 2010, 2010, 2010 in Memphis. But you have a back court of Darren Peterson and George. What is the plan there? Who's on ball? Who's off ball? is that what is the offense even looking like? I think it is fair to say what you said opening. Like these are young guys, they make young guy mistakes. That said, Laurie Marken and it's not a young guy anymore. Jaren Jackson, Jr. is not a young guy anymore. What was the plan here? 'Cause right now they are the most disappointing team in the NBA the way I look at it. - Look, I agree the Peterson pick could become a flashpoint. It's very early and I think even over the weekend, you had to get 26 last night. You had two straight career high scoring games where he took a lot of the threes that I think he's gonna have to take. So like is he way over a lion on his floater? Like that's, it's just an interesting early season trend. It was obvious it stuck out right away. More threes will mitigate that a little bit. We'll see how that develops. He had a couple really nice drives to the rim last night. One that ended with a lob to Jackson Hayes. Like I'd like to see him pressure the rim like that a little bit more. It should also at least be noted that as much as we all love Can Booser and I love Can Booser, he is shooting 34% through nine games and the Grizzlies have lost three games in a row. So it's not like Can Booser has come out of the gate like lighting the world on fire. He does pass the I test where you're like, it doesn't feel like shot 34% tonight. He feels like he made a ton of winning plays, but that could also be our pre-existing biases playing with our brains. We run on their flashpoint, one on the flashpoint and Bill brought this up last week 'cause like there is a parallel universe though and it will be we have Walker Kessler and we have Can Booser and we have George in the back court and that's a pretty good and marketing and marketing, right? So I think that is what this team, there's a shadow there. There's going to be haunted by this parallel universe. - Garen Jackson Jr. is such an interesting player because what he doesn't do well sticks out really loudly, like the rebounding that Bill is always harping on. His offensive game can look a little stiltered and awkward off the bouncing. A lot of just like kind of burrowing into people and going up for floaters, but they go in a lot and he is a legitimately really good shooter for a big guy. I mean, I've had a number of teams tell him even in the last couple of weeks, like as they try to reckon with what's happening to the jazz, like, you know, I've had a couple of GMs tell me like, yeah, Garen Jackson Jr. was kind of our dream partner for starting center X who doesn't protect the rim but is good at other stuff and it doesn't pretend, or any team that is starting center who doesn't protect the rim and doesn't shoot threes has looked at Garen Jackson Jr. as a potential savior. And now is like, oh, is this like the injury stuff is getting really concerning. But anyway, we'll see what they look like when they're healthy. I know you had a couple do we miss any of the Kirk Goldsbury trends of the early season? I think we missed a couple, right? - Just a couple random things. I think the trend where we're seeing teams increasingly sort of play full court defense continues to rise. Again, that makes this game harder to play and harder to play specifically for old guys. But some teams are facing this more than others. The Lakers unsurprisingly are getting this treatment more than any other team in the NBA. But Zach, yeah, the NBA more than ever is a 94 foot defensive endeavor. We saw that starting last year. That was one of the things I was watching. That was the big other one we didn't get to. But yeah, I think my sort of macro trends are the offensive fouls. That's interesting to me. The picking up full court, crashing is back in style. But to bring it all the way around to the thing you guys in your audience is probably sick of me talking about. It's harder and harder to be 32 and play this kind of basketball 82 times a year. It's harder and harder. All the trends make this thing harder. Do you think Mike Conley can still play 94 feet of defense against Stefan Castle bringing the ball up? It's just it's a young man's game, dude. Go read the piece on the rigger.com Kirk Goldsbury. You're all over our ringer Spotify universe writing, podcasting all of it. Appreciate your time today. I hopefully I'll see you soon down the road. Thank you, Zach. All right, that's it for today's edition of the Zach Lo Show. Thanks to Kirk Goldsbury. Thanks as always to Mike Billy and Jonathan on production. And thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lo Show. I'm headed to Philadelphia. We will be back on Thursday as usual. Thanks, everybody. See you then. 21 or over in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Starkistino or 18 and over in president in DC or Wyoming. Gamma problem, call 1 800 Gamble or 1 800 My Reset. Call 1 8 8 8 7 8 9 7 7 7 7 7 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or is it mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800 327 5 0 5 0 for 24 seven support and Massachusetts or call 1 8 7 7 8 Hope and Y or text Hope and Y in New York for Louisiana. Call 1 8 7 7 7 7 7 0 7 8 6 7.