Injuries Pile Up Around the NBA. Plus: Five Interesting Teams

This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the NBA. The NBA Cup is here, which means you can kick back with a cold Michelob Ultra to watch some heated competition, and I get to pick apart every moment. You know the excitement doesn't end there because this year, Michelob Ultra Courtside is bringing fans closer to the game. You can enter online for a chance to win exclusive NBA prizes, including Courtside tickets, merch, and more. That way, you can celebrate the big moments right there alongside the players. Enter now at MichelobUltra.com slash Courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26-27, no purchase necessary, open to U.S. residents 21 plus, begins on October 1st, 2026, and ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at MichelobUltra.com slash Courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. Coming up on the Zach Lowe Show, a loaded Thursday. As always, those NBA 1s. Wednesday nights are always crazy. We're going to react to the news that Steph Curry is out for at least a couple of weeks with an abdominal oblique tear or something like that. We're going to break down Cavs Knicks from last night. Lowry Markinan's injured. Tatum Brown, I was at the game. I'll have some reflections on that. Austin Reeves, heel injury. We don't know the severity yet, but what does that mean for the Lakers? Lots to react to from last night. Jason Timp, a genius from Hoops tonight, is here. And then we're going to talk about five weird teams. Some in the middle, some not, that I just haven't talked, not weird even, that's just teams I haven't talked a lot about. Portland, 8-3. What's driving that? They've got a lot of injuries, and yet they're still 8-3, just swept the thunder. Dallas, 7-4. Didn't expect that necessarily. Cooper Flagg, holy smokes, digging in to what's making the Mavs work. And where do these teams go from here? What's the next step for them? And in the East, the Wizards, it's not going great. It's not going great, but what's happening there? How's A.J. looking? All that. And the Hawks, the single team in the NBA, what are they doing now? What should they do in the future? Are they just team average forever? But they're certainly fun to watch and have a lot of interesting stuff going for them, including Kingston Fleming, who you just can't keep from the rim. So Jason and I discuss all of those teams, a lot of Trey Young talk. We try to say some nice things about the Milwaukee Bucks and the Pelicans a little bit at the end. That's all coming up on an absolutely loaded Zach Lowe Show with Jason Timp. The Zach Lowe Show is presented by FanDuel. It's the NBA season and FanDuel is 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 FanDuel Rewards Club's offers, surprises and more, there's plenty to look forward to all season long. Download the FanDuel app to get started. 21 or over in select states, 18 or over in D.C. or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show live from an undisclosed hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I was at Tatum Brown, the reunion, the cold shoulder, all of it a couple nights ago in Philly. I'll be there tonight again for the Raptors and the Sixers or what's left of the Raptors anyway. Look who's here from hoops tonight. X's and O's genius, all-time grinder, internet personality, Jason Timp. How you doing, buddy? Zach, it is a blessing to be back here to talk hoops with you today. It has been kind of a wild start to the season, but I'm having a blast. I've survived this first month. How are you holding up so far in the grind? Good. Just mainlining games. Been to a lot of games, a lot of meetings. You know how it goes. And obviously, a lot of conversations about injuries and what's causing the injuries. And even just two minutes ago, I had a GM text me saying, hey, all these injuries, like, I hope expansion and the fees that it brings gives the owners the wherewithal to cut the schedule from 82 games. And my response was A, amen, B, good luck with that. Speaking of injuries, let's fly through some headlines. These Thursday morning pods are always just chock full of news because there's a million games every Wednesday night. And unfortunately, of course, a lot of the headlines are injury related, starting with Warriors Rockets. The Warriors winning streak ended at eight in Houston last night. The Spurs winning streak, just on the side note, 10 and ongoing after they fell behind by 20 to the Bulls. No surprise that the Bulls lost the game. I was at dinner with a source last night. We were marveling at the score in the first half, and both of us were like, what do you think the Spurs will end up winning by eight, 10, 12? But the headliner, obviously, is Steph Curry leaves with an abdominal injury, may have been caused by any number of collisions, including a sort of arm and arm do-si-do with Alper and Shengun. Look, we'll see. We're waiting for the news today. Steve Kerr said after the game, there's a high level of concern or some such thing. Steph is 38. They are plus 14 per 100 possessions with Steph on the floor, plus two, which is still pretty solid considering Butler's out, Moody's out with Steph off the floor, mostly because Yaxo Lendeborg continues to look like a star, not in the making, just a star right now. But obviously, like any prolonged absence for Steph Curry, you then just, you know, the offense is there is an offense with Steph Curry and an offense with no Steph Curry, and the latter is unproven. And then there are just minutes with like no Yaxo and no Curry. We don't know how that looks, but I don't know. I got nothing sexy to say on this, except Steph at age 38 being the second leading score in the league and MVP candidate, the Warriors being eight and three, despite the noise around them. I thought I took the under their fans. the front office for allegedly wasting opportunities to to fill up around Steph I actually sort of think that that's overblown what what what's what's going to catch your eye if he's out for you know a few games at least well I think I think that the ability to stay afloat on offense with Yaxa Lindenberg on the floor is better than people think simply because it's not just him I think Podemsky has been considerably better on offense this year just more shots starting to go in I felt like he could always get to certain shots in the flow of their offense he was just struggling to consistently knock them down and him actually starting to hit shots at a more consistent rate has been really helpful they found like a bunch of pet actions with Yaxa that really work in terms of him attacking smalls and with the inverted screens I did I was really curious to see some of the more physical forwards from Houston on him last night I actually thought he did an okay job still getting to his spots and creating separation even against some of the bigger stronger forwards I've been wondering what's going on with him right now I think he's been really impressed by how they've been solid defensively in the absence of good point of attack personnel and I really think it's just been the index towards aggression I think this has been a league-wide thing I'm really curious to see if it holds up over the course of the season because in terms of turnovers turnovers tend to be a little higher in the early portion of the season but turnovers are up league-wide their teams are averaging on average almost 16 turnovers per game league-wide which is considerably higher than it's been in the last few years I've just seen a lot of teams indexing more towards aggression you know uh shocking blitzing getting into passing lanes uh digging down to the nail more and Golden State is no exception they've just been leaning on aggression and getting into their defense to transition sequences but as you know like so much of that uh that a defensive aggression leans on like effort in rotation and if you start to score a little bit less effectively you're in transition defense more you're uh not believing in the big picture of what you're trying to accomplish every game a little bit more because Steph's not there so I'll just be really curious to see how well they can hang on to the rope I do have a quick follow-up on the injuries because you are so well connected through the league and I'm just genuinely interested to hear what you've heard because my read on the injuries thing is it's been a little bit like fluky a lot of contact injuries that aren't necessarily associated with wear and tear but are like like Laurie Markkinen catching his wrist on a screen or you know what happened to J-Dub even Austin Reeves is kind of weird step that he took in that transition sequence so much of this feels fluky to me are you hearing any of that behind the scenes or is everyone just like oh the schedule's too tough this is all wear and tear there's definitely some pushback to like hey you just do have to remember some of these fluky landing injuries are or you know get like Cason Wallace going around a screen and tearing his labrum or whatever that can happen at any moment in time so I'm just curious to hear what you guys think about that and I'll see you in the I've talked about this a lot so I don't want to belabor it but the one thing that I think is getting a little bit less attention in the media and more discussion among like the sports science people and the trainers is some kind of disconnect and people disagree on what the even the experts disagree on what exactly is the nature of the disconnect between what players are doing in the summer and how quickly they have to ramp up to games that like when the NBA season starts everyone's fresh and so the games are always faster they're moving faster than they're going to be in January and February and there's something about the way players and teams are preparing bodies for that transition from summer to just like zero to a hundred or whatever the summer is to a hundred that and no one knows really what the answer is should you do more of x y and z less of x y and z should more people do the Andre Miller like just do nothing in the summer and like he never got hurt no one knows the answer to that on the Warriors yeah I mean they're eight and four that's good for me but I don't think they're going to be able to do that they're six in the west and holy cow everyone including me who thought the east would be better and deeper than the west it's been just so wild the opposite that the jazz who we're going to talk about in a second are already seven games out of the play-in tournament not the playoffs not the number one seed the play-in tournament the 10th seed um and so you just hope they can stay afloat because this was shaping up to like you know steph is going to miss time at some point the runner's knee from last year he's already been rested but they were the best early season story in the nba probably amid a sea of sad early season stories highlighted by the thunder who are doing their damnedest but um and it was setting up to be like well jimmy can come back at a certain time moody maybe we'll come back at a certain time we still have all of these trade assets because as much as the anti you know lake of anti-front office crowd wants to lambaste the warriors for not trading for players x y and z they've tried in some cases tried maybe not hard enough in other cases tried too hard and failed in some cases they did trade for jimmy butler and they were awesome when they had jimmy butler and they have a bunch of assets left over and it looked like a scenario where like actually we might there might not be a three first round picks star available but there's a young player plus picks or two picks like upgrade somewhere to help this team and we'll see what happens with that um headline number two it took one good game for james harden to come out and say i'm james harden remember me i'm james harden 30 something officially dropping from calves con three to calves con four we're not going all the way down to calves con five because we're just not there yet um but for the second straight season the calves got a win over the knicks last year in the regular season where i felt like huh they've kind of figured some things out about how to play against this knicks team that has been their nemesis and the guy the hump they can't get over and last year it was putting jared allen on josh hart evan mobley on uh carl anthony towns for the speed and figuring out how to guard brunson well now they have peyton watson to guard brunson they didn't match up like that in the first half of this game for some reason then did in the second half and then last night it was more like it's getting really interesting with tyrese proctor and malik thomas in addition to watson and jalen tyson like are we seeing the calves kind of have an accidental identity shift on the fly like proctor and watson are kind of the same thing like proctor and watson are kind of the same thing malik thomas are not just spot-up shooters by any stretch they're running pick and rolls snaking in for mid-range jumpers attacking closeouts creating off the dribble and it's just making me the calves are so interesting because they've gotten off to a slow start and they just seem constantly trapped in this in this purgatory of well it's going to be hard for us to defend well enough with harded and mitchell on the floor in the playoffs hey but one way we can make up for that is by playing mobley and jared allen together and having this huge front line but then also we're not really sure how much we trust that front line offensively in the playoffs and so we'll maybe only play them together for 10-12 minutes and that brings the defensive problem to the forefront and now after losing streus and wade and schruder and even keon ellis now they have this new wing fresh rotation of like young guys that are doing stuff and kind of have a little size and range to them i i just i'm bookmarking that win last night because it a new kind of calves team in front of our eyes but how new can they really get what did you see that was interesting to you yeah it's so funny zach because like i i i would when they made the deals last year for keon ellison dennis schroeder i'm like i think this might be the best team in the east on paper like they've got the shot creation play finishing waves of rim protection they're always great on paper yeah the eastern conference playoffs were played on paper the calves would be i mean they made the conference finals last year i shouldn't i shouldn't poo-poo that i shouldn't poo-poo it go ahead i hated that team though zach like i hated watching them like i And it wasn't just because I kind of stuck my neck out a little bit and they made me look bad. It was also because like I watched them and I was miserable in the experience. And like, yes, there are these things that you're talking about, which I think are important. Like the rangy athleticism, like even though Malik Thomas has been a little bit of a mess defensively and he makes a lot of mistakes. He's a rookie. He's playing super hard and he can cover ground, you know, and like Peyton Watson. The on ball stuff is kind of iffy for me, but he's so rangy off ball. Like his ability to appear like he's in help or appear where he's somewhere else on the floor and then teleport to a shooter is among the best that you'll see in the league. And that kind of is a force multiplier alongside what Evan Mobley and Jared Allen bring to the table. They have this ranginess. You mentioned you mentioned the jump shooting like both Malik Thomas and Tyrese Proctor. And I want to get into this a little bit when we talk about the Knicks, because I think it's one of the biggest difference between Mikhail Bridges and Deuce McBride and Landry Schammett right now. But Malik and Tyrese. Are super aggressive, like super, super aggressive in their advantage situations, and they're hitting not just catch and shoot threes, but pump fake sidestep threes off the dribble pull ups in the mid range. There's like, like you said, that little bit of like additional polished scoring out of these spot up situations. Even Malik Thomas more than Proctor has been used as a screener in pick and rolls a little bit because that's the way they try to hunt the weakest defender on the other team. And they've used Watson that way, too. And Watson made a couple. And nice passes in the short roll last night. But those actions are much easier when there's only one big man on the floor than when there are two because you're not rolling in to so much traffic, although they worked fine down the stretch with Mobley and Allen both on the floor. But Malik Thomas has even done done well in that sort of short roll situation, which is not what you think of as like a rookie shooting guard coming in doing that stuff. Yeah, it helped. I mean, I'm sure Knicks fans are having a little bit of PTSD from that third quarter of Eastern Conference Finals game one where they just kept putting two on the ball every single time. For whatever reason. But like, I, I also think deeper than any of that. All those things we just talked about. It's an energy thing. Like this team just can be so flat sometimes like their competitive spirit seemed beneath the standard of the Eastern Conference at times last year. And Peyton like Peyton's having a nightmare start to the season offensively and there's some of it that I think will come around like I think he's going to hit more catch and shoot threes as the game as the series season goes along. But I do think there's. Some over penetration stuff and there's some tough mid range jump shots that he doesn't need to be taking. And if you dug into this stuff with Denver, like a lot of the on ball stuff wasn't actually that good. It was most of it was advantage scoring in transition and off of what you'll catch was doing. But like Peyton brings a ton of energy and competitive spirit. Malik brings a ton of energy and competitive spirit. Mario Mario his own. Yeah, brings a lot of energy and competitive spirit. Tyrese Proctor does too. And that is like making them likable to me again, Zach. Like I'm enjoying watching the Cavs. This year, and it's not something I felt last year. I thought it's a great way to put it because I was watching that game last night and even as the Cavs were basically in the lead the whole game, you know, it's something that really bugged me in the playoffs about them is like when shit got hard, they just didn't have anything in their offense other than all right, Donovan, can you create something from nothing or James? Can you create something from nothing? It just devolved into that and actually think the Knicks. Although what are the Knicks like six and five now or seven to five or something like that? They're top 10 both ends of the floor. They're they're like cutting flex screen offense is just like they're getting good shots anytime they run that stuff and they're running it pretty crisply like they're a pretty unselfish team. They move the ball around. They don't get stuck after one action as much as the Cavs get stuck after one action. And I'm thinking as I'm watching that game, man, the Cavs could use a little bit of that like juice and continuity. That the Knicks have when like when Towns is handling the ball like that's been their best offense the whole year and those guys started to give them a little bit of that juice just like that. Like all right, we ran one thing and now James is just going to hold the ball for eight seconds and that's all we're going to do and I agree. There is like an energy a jolt and it's also making me think like I'm not I'm not flagging this. It's way too early in the season, but the Mobley Allen combo, which has been really good for them at every regular season is minus six. Per hundred possessions so far and I'm not reading anything into that because it's been massively plus in every regular season, but you've just always gotten the feeling and all it takes is watching how Kenny Atkinson designs his rotations. Like do they really trust this as a look this double big look to take and play for even 20 minutes 25 minutes in a playoff game and I just wonder if these young guys and you mentioned his own yeah and Jalen Tyson if they continue to bring this much energy you wonder just what that does to the identity of the team if if Mobley Allen becomes a 12 minute a game thing and they just have to figure it out what that means on the trade market. It's too early to really get too far into those questions, but let's just say I'm watching the Cavs wings and their youth very closely and I loved what I saw last night and yeah, James Harden made a bunch of threes had a good game. His defense is like beyond abominable just like he looks completely comatose. At times on defense and they're that's just an intractable problem, but a nice steady the ship win for the Cavs. And as you mentioned the Knicks who are six and five look this McHale Bridges thing is a thing again where he's playing like 15 minutes 18 minutes 21 minutes and Deuce McBride and Landry Shamit are taking a ton of his minutes. I just like we saw this in the playoffs last year. He'll dig his way out of it. Mike Brown is not going to bench him. It's just not going to happen. But what what? I you know at some point if he becomes Keith Bogans 2.0 that does change the fabric of the team. I just like I feel like. feel like we've seen this movie before and it's not going to get there but shamit and mcbride to your point have been awesome and i think the point you want to make is like those guys just come out there and bomb away like they know the assignment yeah if you look at the three-point rate like how often those guys are getting up shots on a per minute basis compared to mikhail and they're the same kinds of shots in the flow i would argue deuce and landry are both a little bit quicker coming off those dhos and so that they like there's like two parts of it there's an aggression like an audacious like we're just we're letting it fly which even can go the wrong way with deuce sometimes deuce gets up shot gets off shots where i'm like how is he gonna get this off because the funny thing about the knicks is like they play a lot of three guard lineups where landry shamit is basically the three and and josh hart even is like a 6-4 guard masquerading as a and i think you've talked about this on your show part of the reason they move the ball so well is because there are pretty small team who if you close out on them with big defenders like they might not be able to get their shot off when you think they might they have to keep it moving but deuce will be like i don't know how he got that moon ball corner three up but he got it up and it went in yeah he had one off of a dho from jaylen brunson in crunch time last night off the left wing that was like a 27 footer where he just elevated and like catapulted it up there like he can get it off uh but i think so i think it's both i think i think there's a lack of aggression with mikhail which i think is a himself and i thought one of the classic examples was in the early part of the game when he drove past uh i think he drove past evan mobley on a like just racking a close out out of the left corner and uh he had an easy kick out to og and an ob in the opposite corner and instead he just set up the softest finger roll it looked like a volleyball set for peyton watson and peyton watson just swatted it at the rim and it's like you could tell his processing is getting a little messed up by just his lack of confidence right now on offense but it's deeper than that i think landry and deuce are both faster and like that is allowing them to kind of in that blender get better looks for themselves i think mike brown has to be a little careful though because of what you said with these like multiple guard lineups a big part of why james harden got going last night was because he was getting to a step back over shorter defenders and i do wonder sometimes if like the like and again you could you could play the make or miss game here james harden misses some of those threes it's a little difficult to get into some of those iso threes over mikhail the way that he could over a deuce or over a landry and so that that's the one thing where i i think i think mikhail is a little underrated in this conversation defensively but then again you zoom out and you look at the knicks and i think mike brown is pretty happy with where their defense is right now and is just trying to get some of that offensive juice going and it is starting to build momentum like jaylen brunson got off to a slow start he's starting to pick it up og got off to a slow start he's starting to pick it up they're all they're slowly starting to gain that momentum and i think it's a little underrated momentum on the offensive end and just like carl anthony towns he's so good up for an extension not getting one and we're going to talk later i'm going to talk later about these like age 30 ish players who are up for these deals and how the league is in a sort of like just weird cross the rubicon moment a little bit but 21 points 13 and a half rebounds three and a half assists actually feels more than that uh he's got his fouls like way under control 55 shooting 40 on three 64 on twos just like absolutely balling out monster dunks every night like monster dunks every night and when they play this is no shot at josh hart because he's essential to what they do when they play their super i call them the super shooting lineups where cats at the five and in the hard spot is shamit or mcbride they're just impossible to guard it's just every rub screen every cut every cat pump fake is getting an easy shot uh we're going to come back to the next headline number three we're again we don't have news it's 10 10 50 a.m right now austin reeds left uh lakers bucks with a heel injury they're confident it's not an achilles x-rays were negative whatever that means uh and lucas sprained his had an ankle thing but he says he's fine my only thing with this is the lakers are off to an absolutely sensational start luca is at the very least the mvp co-favorite of a seventh into the nba season uh they're 11 and two they're first in the east they're first in offense um they've been very good with luca and reeves on the floor they're plus 28 per 100 possessions they've been solid enough with luca um as the only guy on the floor and uh after that it gets a little dicey the lakers are fine they're 11 and two they're just absolutely cruising they banked a lot of wins if reeves is out for a while they'll be fine like as long as luca is healthy sexton has been like a nice little jolt of ball handling off the bench for them my only and this this was already in my notes before last night my only macro concern about the lakers is what luca's doing is amazing like some people are bothered by the usage rate i'm really not because he's such an inventive passer and he's averaging 40 points a game on really great shooting i just watched the lakers and i'm like this is awesome maybe this is his mvp year is can he actually do this for the whole season without his body breaking down and now if reeves is out for a while i'm that that would be my number one worry as a lakers person but like the record all the playoff seating like they're fine in that regard yeah like i think he'll have stretches of the season where he makes 35 of his cat of his step back threes for a week or two instead of 45 or whatever he's been doing for stretches of this season but like for people thinking he's just going to cool off i just disagree i mean his his short range shot making is as dialed in as it's ever been in his career his feel for the game as a passer is more dialed in than it's ever been athletically he looks fantastic like i thought a lot of people think he's just going to cool off i just disagree i mean his his short range shot that hawks game when he just kept going at lou dort and dyson daniels one-on-one and just getting great looks for himself when those are guys that when he was in worse shape he used to struggle he roasted both of them on drives like not just step backs where it's like okay so like great defense better offense like he blew by dyson daniels for like an and one layup talked all sorts of shit what he's just talking all game whether it's to the refs to the fans the other team but wanted those guys in that game wanted like oh you guys think you guys think you're two of the best guys against me like let's go and like i'm gonna beat you oh lou dort the lucas stopper he was giving him the work exactly it was crazy like that's why like when i zoom out i agree with you the one thing is like will his body hold up and that's been the story of his career to this point is like has it like can he survive some of the soft tissue stuff that kind of is uh like a cumulative wear and tear aspect of the nba season last thing on the lakers that i wanted to say like i have loved the colin sexton signing and i'm in who have opinions on the lakers because he's been getting a lot of crap this year mainly stemming from his couple things he'll have these units with austin where he just kind of co-ops the offense probably a little bit more than he should and then he is a truly abominable off-ball defender like it's amazing how often he gets lost in rotation he'll like he'll close out at a guy two players away when someone else is already closing out at that guy and leave someone wide open he'll he'll foul shooters he like he's a bad off-ball defender and there are nights where he looks like he's going to be a bad off-ball defender and there are nights where he looks like the sore thumb for the lakers but he in his ability to get dribble penetration and to credibly run a pick and roll is so deeply valuable on a team that doesn't really have ball handling beyond luca and austin and i thought you know at first my first like gut reaction when they prioritized him over a marcus smart was like man like marcus was a culture guy and one of the best plus minus guys like i'm not sure but almost immediately i came around to the fact like i just think they're going to need the ball handling and i all like there have been so many plays especially in this last week we're like in big spots like when luca's out or austin's out where he just gets a drive that gets the defense in rotation and swing swing someone gets an open three i think sexton is one of the most important players on the lakers even though he can be frustrating to watch sometimes should should also mention that marcus smart punched a guy in the face last night and will probably be suspended shout out marcus smart i couldn't believe they couldn't find an angle where we actually saw contact like there's like 1700 cameras in the drive-by shots of the punch i wanted to see like some contact like could we get an angle at least we saw the punch because i was i was at the game so i wasn't watching the broadcast apparently nbc missed the tatum brown or had it on a split screen or something the tatum brown greeting a tip-off where everyone was just like anyone all anybody wants to see by the way kirk and i had a debate i thought it was going to be maximum they just like a silent nod of like with but with a mean face not a smile like a mean face nod just like a silent nod but with a mean face not a smile he thought it was going to be mutual hug like pat on the back let's bury it i think spiritually i won the debate because there was more touching than i thought there was going to be but it was all one-sided and jalen brown just peak passive aggressive behavior um ignored it completely so i think spiritually i won the bet uh or the non-bet but let's just talk about that game now actually um i was at the game the buzz was um i was at the game the buzz was so loud uh i think people on both teams are just very excited that the game is over and they know they have to do it again in boston and that's going to be a different kind of buzz but the band-aid has been ripped off um the game itself was like i i know you're going to talk a little bit about just like the celtics bombing threes we don't have to talk a lot about that game it's two days two days old um obviously the mb thing is something the sixers are going to have to figure out and i would expect them to load manage him a little bit more so i think it's going to be I'm not even sure he's gonna play tonight against the Raptors. we'll see um but i i think the people around the celtics and around tatum i think they're just most puzzled by like why is jalen mad at him like they get why he'd be mad at the celtics um mad about how he was informed or not informed or whatever about the trade um mad about feeling like the team should be at least equally his as tatum's i i think they're just there's puzzlement about like what did jason tatum actually do and the most common answer i heard was that the cap thing that he just doesn't believe that tatum had so little knowledge about the trade i don't know any takes on that game it was it was a very it was a very fun game to be at even if ultimately it felt very depressing for the sixers yeah it was a worst case scenario for jalen uh to get outplayed by tatum and the guy that they traded him for uh i i think it's let's just call it what it is zach it's jealousy like i i know that that's not the the the most delicate way to put it but like the truth of the matter is is jason didn't do anything but i think jalen brown looks at the situation i don't mean jealousy directed specifically at tatum but just at his situation the way that like even though i think you and i would both agree that tatum's a better basketball player there tatum did receive more of the love more of the commitment from the franchise more of that internal value that i think jalen jalen brown did receive a gigantic yeah like biggest of its kind at the time contract i mean that's that's not nothing um you're right you're right and i do think like i'm doing this off the top of my head let's say he signs that contract at age 28 or something like that right like one he's on now i think that's like a very important detail about why the celtics even if they were probably like this is a lot for jalen brown um felt they could they a had to do it because they're coming off a championship and b um we're okay doing it because 28 to 32 he's going to still be awesome maybe we can find an escape route in the middle of that contract which they did the next one was always going to be the one where the rubber met the road a little bit and that's what we're seeing i brought i hinted at this before with these like players 12 to 20 in the nba 12 to 25 awesome players they hit age 31 and you just know like like i've said this before i love donovan mitchell that contract is not going to be a good contract i love devin booker that contract is not going to be a good contract they're just going to be too expensive at an age where they're not good enough and i think you're seeing it with cat twice like the wolves got out of the cat business and the knicks have to figure out how to stay in it you you're seeing it with jalen brown and who knows what happens now um you saw it with lamello ball early like just get out of that business now and i think these negotiations with players in that range at that age um are going to be some of the most fraught moments for every nba franchise in the second apron year unless the second apron is gone anyway on to boston another takeaway was watching them up close and philly god bless the sixers their press seats are right on the court paul george looks so much more athletic like i'm like we aren't the deflections and so he just looks like smooth and lithe and just super athletic up close where it's like wow he looks like he's 28 years old right now will that last we'll see and the last thing about the celtics is i mean they're first in the east now again they were my pick to be first in the east in the regular season it's really when you zoom out only only um one title since the kg paul pierce title only they've just they've had like one bad year since that title since 2007 they've had one bad year they've just been consistently good to excellent and they've done it without ever having been asset poor with without ever having traded all their future first round picks and that all still connects back to a the brooklyn deal for kg and pierce and be the miracle of the tatum foltz deal that like but it's just like i i think they get they should get more props than they do and they should get more props than they do and they should get more props than they do and they should get more props than they do this is like 20 years of basically like being at the top of the eastern conference almost the trades they make drew holiday uh christoph sporzingis jalen brown they're they're like they're net positive assets in those three deals like to bring it back just seriously important players and then uh and then i you got to give them credit for just hitting on the margins all their late first round picks hit and then their pro scouting department finding guys like nimi kata like that's how you stay asset rich is you find good basketball players without having to spend assets it's just that they have such a consistent hit right there and to your point about those like second tier stars that's the move is you got to try to find the guy that's not in that tier but that might fit your system and be as valuable as a guy in that tier which is what paul george represents my one thing with the celtics like because i do think they're extremely good and i'm not worried about their defense at all whatsoever if they can get you in rotation they space too well they pass too well they shoot too well you're gonna lose and you know philly there's another conversation i've had they've been botched a lot of coverages they and bead is just all over the place on defense in pick and roll i like if you look at the run from when it was 76 76 to when they went up 18 of the nine field goals they made eight of them were either wide open catch and shoot threes or an offensive rebound put back from kata like only one of them was like a tough step back from peyton pritchard at the top of the key and then he got a really lucky bounce on one that ended up hitting the camera but like they got open looks open looks open looks the only thing i really like they run into a really good defense that can stay out of rotation that's like the one thing because they don't they don't really beat people off the dribble they don't really have a super reliable set of like matchup attackers all right let's do this now i'm gonna put you on the spot we're like 12 games to do an 82 game season there's 70 games left east was the was super hard to predict it in terms of making a finals pick right um the knicks who were my pick are six and five after an oh and three starts so six and two since then they're fifth in the east standings are jumbled all over the place teams are figuring them out not figuring themselves out whatever right now if you ask me if you could do a do-over who would you pick to make the finals in the east i don't do do-overs right so this is not and you're gonna see it's not a cop-out i'm still picking the knicks i'm the knicks are the team i still feel sort of most confident in as a playoff proven team who i can't remember who you picked and if you had to do over who would you pick i started with the knicks and i'm sticking with the knicks too um like i cannot express with enough uh with enough energy here how much i'm just not worried about them like everything that concerns me about them as a playoff team for any other team in the east still exists and so much of this to me is a combination of like early season malaise mixed with like every team that plays the knicks is bringing their best punch because that's a chance to get a signature win that you feel really good about yourself if you beat the knicks because they're the defending champs and like i just think a lot of these things with them on offense are going to sort out over time like og and an obs still think he's going to play a lot better yeah i i i would i would say i've moved the celtics into that second spot um mainly due to concerns about other teams and just how solid they are but i would stick with the knicks at number one and i'd pick the knicks over the celtics today in a playoff series i would too i you have to respect the celtics i mean before the season i said i i really can see i can see a lot of teams making the finals but if i had to zero in on three that i'm like if everything goes right these teams can win three playoff series knicks and it's already looking like everything's not going to go right for the sixers managing and beads body is going to be very very difficult and the pacers who are just just trying to stay alive until halliburton can come back and i think the celtics have earned that conversation last headline and then we'll stop uh lowry market and is out a month just a full-on disaster season for the jazz it might already be over like that's how far behind they are darren peterson's playing better a really nice last three games taking a lot of threes it's just i just wonder how they're going to react to this because the jaron jackson jr trade three firsts and we'll talk about the first that memphis gets this year because i'm very mad about that on memphis's behalf um that was a win now trade and the walker kessler trade which came after was a and they knew they knew the risk they knew like it's kind of weird for us to take a step forward and then holy shit we're relying on yusuf nurkic he hasn't played yet and jackson hayes to be our starting centers and it's not like they didn't like walker kessler they thought walker kessler was really good they offered him a lot of money he didn't take it and he got more they knew when they made that trade uh-oh are we kind of caught between two minds now like a win now mind and like all these young guys who are going to do exciting young guy things and like make young guy mistakes in the backcourt and some depth that's pretty unproven um and now the worst case scenario has unfolded where the win now timeline for at least this season may be it may be they just may be out of it and disqualified from it the longer market and is out along with triple j along with the whatever else i don't i'm very curious how they'll respond one response could be hey like do we just go all young again and try to flip one of these guys for more draft picks more bites at the apple but that's a really painful thing to do when you've tanked for four years to get to this moment with these guys so i don't know and the pick to memphis unprotected but because the jazz have picked in the top five for the last two years before for this one and the league somehow retroactively made made the top five prohibition three straight years go retroactive that if that pick is in the top five the grizzlies don't get it or it falls to six and they might get another pick a i think that's bullshit be a couple of other draft thoughts uh obviously there's this relegation zone now this system might expire in 2030 we don't know the draft credits idea was discussed at a gm meeting again last week it's still very much in the ether but a couple of things i've heard about relegation because i keep saying like well the kings they own their pick they should be fighting against being relegated the bulls they own their pick they don't really want to be relegated i've had a few front office people say actually i'm not sure they really should care because this draft if there's a draft to be relegated in and a draft where you're like okay picking outside outside the top five certainly not what like to stop that clock from starting to prevent that clock on the top five prohibition from starting to stop that clock from starting to prevent that clock from starting to prevent starting this might be the draft so that's one thing and just another thing i've heard from a few people is with these new rules discouraging tanking um if expansion does happen there's a lot of curiosity about how the expand if the expansion teams will build their teams differently than prior expansion teams did like will they try to win now be respectable sooner rather than being like all right this is going to be like five years of shit will they try to get like innings eaters kind of players i don't want to name names so that's all but like the jazz jazz is just like it might be over man this season might be done they're 1 and 11 there's seven games out of the play-in i'm just super bummed because i was super high on them like one of my big takes before the season was you have this clear top six in the west and i said that i thought the jazz were going to kind of enter into that tier i thought they'd finish seventh but i thought that as you saw that because remember last year there was that huge gap between six and then and then when you got to the suns i just thought the jazz would kind of attach themselves to the bottom of the group and maybe if one of those teams had a significant injury they could crack into the top six and like their entire front court's gone and i was i was right there with you they were my pick when i pulled people like if there's one team if there's an interloper in the top six one of the incumbent top six doesn't make it who's it going to be i picked utah we're going to talk about the pick that is the right pick in a second but i was right there with you yeah i just i'm as big a keontae george fan as you'll find and i've i'm worried that he's going to pick up a reputation as an empty calories guy this season that i think is unfair just because of the situation that he's in with that totally yeah i just think he's awesome and you know darren got off to a rough start but i love seeing the confidence he's gaining i like ace bailey i i was curious to see what their big looks and their small looks would look like and just we're just we're just not going to get to see it and that's the huge bummer is like to your point you're caught between these two eras now and like i don't know what they're gonna do but like we're never gonna actually get a good look is there any optimism that jaron will return this season or are they just gonna sit him i mean i i i think the timeline was that he would return this season at some point but i haven't checked in um in a little bit yeah too bad they could be too far behind they could be they could be 20 games under 500 by the time they they all those guys get back they don't control their pick um because of that trade all right let's take a quick break and we're going to talk about some teams that i just haven't talked about enough and i'm excited to talk about them the zach lowe show is brought to you by fan duel who's going to be fanduel's hardwood hero one player having a huge scoring night to unlock another reward on fanduel here's how it works use your 50 profit boost on any eligible nba bet then if any player across the nba drops 40 or more points that night you'll get another 50 profit boost and here's the fun part it doesn't even have to be a player you bet on check it out on the fanduel app to get started make this your most rewarding season ever with fanduel 21 or over in select states or 18 and over in dc or wyoming opt-in required bonus issued is non-withdrawable profit boost tokens restrictions apply see terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in connecticut this episode is brought to you by state farm every football fan is different some won't wash their lucky mustard stained jersey until the season's over some insist they can't sit down during third downs and some pick their favorite team because i don't know just like football fandom nobody's life is exactly the same that's why state farm gets to know you so you can help personalize coverage for your life and budget whether it's game day or just another tuesday state farm has you covered like a good neighbor state farm is there all right i've spent a lot of time in the last couple weeks as the season is you know sifting into reality talking about teams at the top and crisis teams teams that are in some form of crisis they could be anywhere in the standings usually they could be anywhere in the middle to the bottom and the relegation zone teams there's teams a few teams that i've neglected and i want to talk about them now some are in the middle some are better than the middle but we're going to rapid fire through four interesting teams number one very much not in the middle the eight and three portland trailblazers who just swept the oklahoma city thunder in a baseball series in portland they are fourth in offense which if you had to rank like the top five most wildly unexpected team level statistics the blazers being a top five offense even after 12 games would be one of them or 11 games they're 12th in defense they have the eighth best net rating they are doing this for the most part without john morant without shade and sharp beat crachy sneaky important part of their team he's out for eight weeks with some sort of leg injury and with scoot henderson having a very discouraging start to the season they are just rock solid um i don't even know where i have you want to start with denny abdia i think who has just proven that he's a flat out star um this new context with all these point guards has not like limited him at all in fact it's unlocked kind of different actions for him to get to the rim like denny dame pick and rolls denny drew holiday pick and drew holiday just there isn't a more rock solid dude than drew holiday just comes off the bench shoots 40 from three guards everybody um what where would you like to start in our quick blazer segment yeah real quick on denny i just think he's the best combination of size and first step quickness we've had in the league in a long time like so many of our bigger forwards struggle to actually beat people off the dribble because they're they're very versatile they're fast for forwards but they're not fast for the typical perimeter defenders they go against denny is just such a good first step quickness guy for his size and then the that combined because it's all the driving talent it's not just denny there drew drew's drew drew deserves so much credit for his drives and there have been so many huge clutch shots that he's had in the league he's had a lot of good drives and he's had a lot of good drives and he's had a lot of good drives and he's had a lot of good drives and he's hit this year off of like just a semi-transition rip from drew holiday where he hits a gap and it generates an open three for somebody obviously john morant before he got hurt uh was a big act a big addition to that driving element but the internal improvement of all their jump shooters like obviously you influx dame who is one of the best jump shooters in the league but like tamani kamara continues to improve as a jump shooter donovan clinging continues to improve as a jump shooter because like it's that classic balance once you get dribble penetration you have and they've just been a much better jump shooting team this year and denny too like my biggest hang up with denny to me i've always said the difference between him being a star and a superstar is this pull-up three like because teams will do what they did in the thunder matchup so what if we just put a center on you and we just sag off or what if we put cam boozer on you and we just sag off like what if we just put one of our bigger players and denny like in the denver game in particular denver just let him shoot pull-up threes all game he couldn't make him but he went four for nine on a huge part of how they won those games was just his ability to make him pay there but like as long as they have the combination of dribble penetration and shooting they're going to be really good on offense and then on defense like can you i mean obviously clinging's rim protection overall the team in rotation but is there like a a more likable role player right now than tamani kamara no like when you're talking about a guy that can guard the best player and one of the best players but also quickness who can not just knock down catch and shoot threes but do some of the other like more advanced offensive stuff like a little bit of like high level closet attacking the occasional oh you're guarding me with the center or you're sagging off i'll hit like a three out of a hesitation dribble i just think tamani kamara is one of the most underrated players in the league right now and he is driving so much of what they're doing offensively he played in the first okc game he played shea into what i thought was one of the worst halves he's ever played well okc as we take is now eight and four and obviously like i have no earthly idea how they're going to handle all these injuries that keep piling up in a micro view and a macro view i it's it's just really hard for shea and that's what's really showing up is like they've teams have always gapped him and loaded to him that's even just more extreme now he just can't get any easy shots right now it's just very very difficult for him and you it just but they're they had ripped off four straight wins before this portland series so they'll be they'll be fine ish but it's just going to be a slog compared to how it's been for them where they just roll over everybody i just like mike conori still on a one-year contract maybe maybe you want to change that tom dundon i don't know if you you know you're allowed to do it um has really built on the foundation that i thought splitter instilled last year which is this was a team where when you looked at the shot profile on both ends of the floor like a good team waiting to happen if they could just hit shots they take the second most threes in the entire league like they don't feel like a team that should do that but this year they're hitting them and they take almost no mid-range shots and they're happy to be hitting those two and the same is true on defense they allow no threes and no shots at the rim they're like a very analytically savvy team now they're just making shots i want to talk about clinging i think clinging is like underrated um if you look at his rim protection stats they are insane with clinging on the floor only 24 percent of opponent shots come in the restricted area that would be like number one among all teams team defenses with him off the floor it's like closer to league average huge difference with him on the floor opponents are shooting sub 60 percent in the restricted area which would be like the worst among team offenses in the nba with him off the floor it's about average and the reason they have that architecture of they don't allow rim and they don't allow three is he's like gobert in the sense of you can guard every action two on two you don't have to help from the outside i just think he's been tremendous defensively they're a top 10 rebounding team on both sides of the floor and they're a strange team because the scoot pick may end up being a miss and if that's and the shade and pick may end up being a slight miss right like and i don't really think they even miss shannon sharp right now and i've always been like curious too intrigued to maybe positive about him and so you're like well what's actually the foundation of this team well denny's still only 25 kamara's 26 clinging like that's their young foundation and i'm just super interested to see do they actually get a little bit aggressive this season if they're good because they have a gaping hole at power forward um they have the next three drafts they control milwaukee's draft pick which is a or i think the three maybe after this um that is a great position to be in sharp and scoot are like they can get up to money to make a trade i just think they're in they're clearly a good team now better than i thought i was i took the under on them i'm gonna be wrong and they're they're sneakily better positioned i think for the future than people think it's just they're just a really fun team to watch i just wanted to give clinging his props he's been amazing can i pay you a really quick compliment about clinging so admittedly i am biased against slow-footed bigs so i came out the gates not a huge fan but i was listening to you in a pod this summer and you were singing the praises of clinging and my ears perked up because you're just one of those people that i listen to when you say something i'm like he knows what he's talking about i gotta i gotta like when i thought jalen green or jalen green was gonna be the most intriguing player in the league a couple years ago did you listen to that because i didn't turn out so good we all have our moments but yeah like the uh uh i once thought taylon horton tucker was gonna be like drew holiday so so i think the lakers did too yeah so uh i started watching clinging much more closely this year and he's starting to win me over zach and you mentioned the rim protection stuff the above the break three-point shooting i think i think especially as a center like him who's not being guarded you really have to hit him at a high clip and he's hitting him at a high clip because there's it's deeper than there's no spacing value it's just points per shot value when you're not being guarded and so he's hitting a good percentage of those and then that dude just absolutely mashes on the offensive glass like just absolutely mashes and like against good bigs too like i watched him do it to yokich down the stretch and then he's like oh my god i'm gonna win this game i'm gonna win this game i'm gonna win this game last night he was taking boards away from mara and hartenstein like that dude just mashes and also i'm a big believer now that when you have a slow-footed big but you have lots of speed around him you're probably gonna be okay um and dame his three-point shooting is he went on a heater the other night that was like just peak dame it's been a little up and down he's averaging almost eight free throws per 36 minutes like that part of his game has come all the way all the way back i'm just if you put michael porter jr on this team they get very like a guy like that they get very very interesting i'm just not i'm just not sure how they're oriented in terms of like how aggressive do they want to be but i remember i took a lot of shit from orlando magic fans because i did this funky podcast before the season looking at i think the seven teams that have not won a playoff series in the 2020s and we rank them uh like which team would i most like to be the gm of one to seven spoiler alert the kings came last um i had i had the blazers over the magic and the magic fans like how dare you like we're good now paulo and franz well if if it goes wrong wrong we flip one of them for picks i feel i feel good about my portland decision i'm i'm bullish on this team going forward they're fun to watch too they're just a fun watch um i think they're staying in this for the whole season and they they should have been our pick for if there's an interloper into the top six not phoenix certainly not utah now i mean memphis has kind of come back to earth a little bit like i think the blazers are just rock solid and a pain in the ass to play against let's stay in the west uh they also are a pain in the ass to play against a team there's always teams it's like i'm just gonna watch them for 30 games and i'm still not going to be able to completely understand what's happening here the dallas mavericks are i haven't talked much about them seven and four um 12th in offense 10th in defense so sniffing sniffing top 10 on both sides of the ball 12th in net rating um obviously the headliner is cooper flag who's at 26 7 and 7 and suddenly my my i had never had any concerns about flag my my quote-unquote concern was how quickly will he get to a point where he can beat switches in both directions where he can blow by big guys who are going to play off of him and beat up small guys and it's like oh yeah we're just already there particularly the small guy part of it because he's shooting 50 on mid-rangers and it's their go-to shot and crunched crunch time and it looks real and like even against indiana the other day he had neesmith switch onto him and he just bulldozed aaron neesmith under the basket from the three-point arc to the stanchion and just laid the ball in and it was like oh my god they're just they've been very good with him and kairi together i like the caleb martin um starting starting lineup thing that they've done where they're kind of using him as a role man sometimes and a connective passer uh backup center is going to be interesting uh with lively out marez johnson's been all right they sometimes now are playing aldama as a backup center he's back i like walter clayton jr has been really good for them and has closed some games and has played alongside kairi and double point guard lineups they've been really good at almost everything every like alignment that they have flag without kairi kairi without flag they're deep in these long rangy forwards i think they're super fun to watch um they might be a little over their head offensively because they don't take a lot of threes and they don't get to the rim but i love watching this team and they're they're on to something and i'm now rooting for them to actually keep kairi because i think they have a good chance to be a playoff team and and up and if they have him and flag they're gonna just they're like a pain in the ass i think if it were up to kairi he'd stay too kairi looks like he's having an absolute blast and you could tell he knows what he's dealing with with cooper and the caliber of player he's with i agree with you about offense that was my biggest concern before the season like i remember was saying i did a pod where i took that under on them because specifically i didn't like their dribble shoot pass talent off of those two guys i just think like eventually defenses are going to get the ball out of your best player's hands and you got to find a way to break them down incrementally and if you don't have dudes who can dribble shoot and pass you're in trouble but this is where i think walter walter clayton comes in walter clayton has been so good at getting dribble penetration and just making good kick out reads in those spots which has really greased the wheels of their offense the caleb martin piece he's literally their best short roll passer and he just goes up sets that quick pick the guy hedges slips out of it and then he makes a good decision every single time those if that's helped them grease the wheels the cooper it's almost like the way i've described it on my shows it's like john morant-esque where he just gets into that 10-foot zone and then just pops off the ground and shoots these little short jump shots and he's got such good touch on them but he also has the unique ability to read the vertical spacing window which so many players suck at what is what does that mean when you when you when you say that just the lob pass like like essentially just it knowing when the big is engaged enough to where all you have to do is put it about a foot to the left of the rim and a foot above the rim and your big will go dunk it like so many players that pass the ball struggle to make that read and struggle to finish it and cooper just has that natural gift so he pops up off the ground and then he makes his decision when he's there i'm either going to shoot the floater i'm going to show throw the little lob pass i like the stuff that dusty may is doing with them defensively like if you're going to have a bunch of forwards like a bunch of lanky rangy forwards and at some point we should shout out zachary risache because i actually think he's been pretty good for them and his they're deep enough that aldama coming back has has cut into his minutes naji marshall and pj washington and on and on with these long forwards uh but i agree he's been good i was i actually was mildly surprised they picked up his option but given their financial situation they're fine like i don't it's a lot of money it's like 16 million or something but like he's been fine for them and aldama too when one when he actually starts hitting threes i think that's going to be huge because he got a lot of good looks in that pacers game that he just wasn't paying off but dusty's doing a lot of zone and a lot of like switching and it's kind of leading to them for opponents on offense and like it's not perfect like the pacers really beat them with pace and just like the pacers are so good at beating switchings games because of how quick they get in and out of screens and how much they slip and the pacers are still a pain to play against but like they're there they run like a a bunch of different looks defensively they'll run drop with gafford but then they'll do a bunch of switching with their forwards and then they'll run these zone looks and it's leading to a pretty good defense despite the fact that they have some limited defensive personnel on the floor and like cooper for example very good defensive playmaker but he is like about out of hell right now like he's flying around gambling getting out of position like it's it's either like a steal or a block or a back cut or a drive like it's very uh hot and cold with him right now and so there's i feel like they can actually get better defensively over the course of the season as some of their mistake making gets cleaned up uh kairi i actually think has done a pretty good job defensively but there i think they just have a strong infrastructure i am a little worried though like defense opponents are not shooting well in open threes against them i'm worried that that's going to change at some point over the there's a little bit of that like can cooper and kairi keep it up at this particular level with both of their ages kairi's a little old cooper's a little young is there a version of this where they're kind of over their skis right now but i i i i do think that this is a competitive team that will be tough to beat on any given night but what i'm not seeing is portland i'm not seeing a team that i expect to be in the in the top six or seven over the course of the year i don't remember what dallas is over under was but i took the under 35 i think i took the under unwillingly because i just was like i have to hedge against the possibility of a kairi trade and just them sort of trying to reboot because they don't they are weirdly out a lot of assets going forward because of all the trades they made to bolster the team around luca before they traded luca for no reason and we don't have to memorialize the nico harrison staircase to hell um that is gone i guess um but uh but they that under is going to be wrong they look really good i i'm not worried about cooper or kairi honestly like i'm not worried about cooper or kairi i'm not worried about they're gonna manage kairi like he played it back to back for the first time and like that's it's a little early for that but his shooting is still there like gangbusters from all over the floor the and the two of them are perfect together like how how often i mean we've seen it literally with kairi kairi and an apex predator point forward is an a plus plus pick and roll combination and if kairi can also space for like if you want to run cooper flag kayla barton pick and rolls because they're hiding a small guy on kayla barton it's like it's a perfect fit despite the age gap that is uh obvious another thing i love about cooper he's a really great cutter and you don't see that with a lot of young ball handling stars and it's another reason why he fits well with kairi because he is active moving off the ball and you're right to credit dusty may um the best compliment i can give his own defense is when i actually have to pause for a second and be like are they in man are they in zone what are they doing here because then you know the offensive team is asking that same question and they'll even like you mentioned the switching they'll switch with kairi and put kairi on like a siakam or and just say like we'll load up behind you you compete we'll zone up around you they're like they've done a nice job there is a fun what if of like what if they just took yaxal instead of marez johnson jr uh both michigan guys but it's like we'll see how marez has shown enough flat it's it's very early yeah he's not even been bad it's just yax has been so good like it's i think there was probably i i haven't talked to anybody there about it i wonder if they were worried about like he's too similar to cooper but if he can shoot it like this who the hell cares but it's like everything in dallas is gravy okay let's take a break and then we'll go to two eastern conference teams i have not talked too much about and are interesting for their own reasons this episode is brought to you by state farm every football fan is different some won't wash their lucky mustard stain jersey until the season's over some insist they can't sit down during third downs and some pick their favorite team because i don't know red look nice just like football fandom nobody's life is exactly the same that's why state farm gets to know you so you can help personalize coverage for your life and budget whether it's game day or just another tuesday state farm has you covered like a good neighbor state farm is there this episode is brought to you by service now look i have my dream job i get to watch basketball think about basketball talk about basketball but even dream jobs have the stuff that nobody dreamed about the busy work that gets in the way of the actual work service now's ai specialists tackle that work requests handled cases closed the whole thing done so you have more 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combination of horrible rebounding team and horrible transition defense team you can't be horrible at both you can't be a horrible transition defense team and never crash the offensive last to get offensive rebounds and just more broadly jason i watched this team and i'm like what are they trying to be we all knew that they were caught between like oh this is a weird they have anthony davis these are veterans who want to win now but then you have debansa and george who i love and all these young guys trade johnson and kula bali and will riley and all that like but it's in sar obviously but it's not even like the what are they trying to be in terms of age and aiming like are they trying to win or not it's like i watch them i'm like they're not really a trey young pick and roll team because they don't have the spacing for it in a lot of their lineups although they run a lot of those pick and rolls sometimes they're like an anthony davis isolation team which although he's shooting well i'm no longer interested in watching um aj debansa like i'm not they don't have that like i don't know like i i just don't even know what they're trying to be i just know that i don't like watching it and their offense is disgusting i did a thing for substack at the beginning of the year on the 10 teams i was most excited to watch this year and i put the wizards number one and i i hate watching him zach i despise it it it it there were so many things that were intriguing up front like i mean five years ago anthony davis trey young would have been a championship core i mean at least at least that's the way it would have been discussed like a contending core in this league i was a huge aj debansa fan i i love his level of aggression uh attacking the basket which is kind of unique for that slender forward build and just to be clear up front i've liked what i've seen from him so far i think keishon george has been great he's basically their backup point guard a lot of times they might need a real backup point guard those guys have been fine i just the mix is not is not working right now so first of all trey young's killing me i he i know he's always been a bad defender but it's like he's taken the excuse he's taken the amount of aggregate size around him as an excuse to float more on defense than he ever has he quite like he at least tried to rebound for the first like week of the season he has a dozen clips every game where the defense is like oh my god he's like oh my god he's like oh my god he's like oh the shot goes up and he literally just stands and watches everyone else compete for the ball uh i hate most of the shots that he takes uh anthony davis their transition defense is so incredibly bad and he's one of the main culprits the dude just doesn't like running the floor you know who else doesn't like running the floor and has been abysmally bad to the point that he got benched in one of the recent games i saw him deandre ayton has looked in so many games i don't just let lollygagging so bad getting back on defense and sure enough halftime came right he started the game because ad was out halftime came around and he was on the bench i'm like he fucking deserves to be benched he's out there like you are you a when did you become above this above like when did you become just like i'll just let my guy outrun me every single time and finally brian keith had seen like enough like you're just not gonna i don't care that ad is out you're coming off the bench him and trey young have been absolutely atrocious in their just effort in like all the hustle plays all over the floor it's weird because like keishon george for example is undeniably good the on off numbers are insane the shot making is insane the playmaking leaves a little bit to be desired for me but like what's bossy he's even like taking some small guys into the post for like one on one like he's like becoming a really good all-around offensive player but what's bothered you i'm sorry i don't want to i don't want to uh bring in the name of like huge ball handler that doesn't get sped up who just kind of plays slow and at his own pace and feels really comfortable getting to shooting over the top of guys and is shooting 37 on threes by the way to boot yeah and he's shooting really well off the dribble too the thing but like he like keishon's killing me on defense with how lazy he is but i can't really be that mad at him because everybody on the team is like that for the most part like trey johnson's really lazy on defense or he's really lazy on defense and he's really lazy on defense and he's really lazy on defense and he's really lazy on defense and he's really lazy on defense and he's really lazy on guard guard switches honestly de bonza is the one guy to me that like is really bringing energy on the defensive end of the floor consistently and like no one can score on him one-on-one he's at least trying fighting over screens there's a really interesting kind of difference between what the team looks like in transition when de bonza's on versus off when de bonza's off the floor they have absolutely no transition offense at all whatsoever and then when de bonza's on the floor that dude's running he's grabbing and going he's attacking the rim and making reads out of those fast breaks like good lob passes and and drop off passes like de bonza is like a shot of adrenaline into that team that is so desperately needed but it's weird because it trickles down like i don't think anthony davis has been very good defensively this year compared to the way that he's capable of but really the biggest fundamental issue is what you touched on earlier they can't shoot but it's like this weird combination of they can't shoot and they don't kick the ball out like you can't shoot and they don't kick the ball out you can't shoot and they don't kick the ball out chicago can't shoot either but they'll kick the ball out and they'll take threes like the the wizards are the wizards and the bulls are the only two teams in the league that are shooting below 30 on unguarded catch and shoot threes according to synergy but the volume for washington is also super low and so it ends up leading to a lot of these like really weird isos that lead to like kind of bad pull-ups and the wizards i want to say they're taking the fifth most long twos in the league like twos outside of 17 feet they're just taking a lot of these like because i'm i'm more of the opinion that like short twos are good shots they're playoff shots get to that 12 10 foot zone hit 50 52 percent of them i like those by the way i i think that's such a good point and it's something that i hear more and more as i go to games and talk to people and have meetings is i hear the phrase paint twos much more than i even did like a year ago and and specifically non-restricted paint twos as like a plus value shot and like very distinct from a 16 foot jumper like there are teams that are really thinking hard about like the value of a 12 foot jump shot a 10 foot float or whatever it is i think it's a great point to your point the wizards are and they're not they're not that bad uh they're like top 10 uh long twos um as i'm checking now anyway the the point one of the things too that's important about the middle of the paint that i think is important because like let's say for instance anthony davis takes a jab step jumper from 13 feet off of the l like off of the like uh angle side like towards the bank shot he has to make it make it or it's not going in but if you get a floater or a short jump shot like how often do we see floaters or short jump shots that catch the front of the rim in the paint and crawl over and get in or that hit the heel and then come back and go in or hit the backboard and go it's just it's a very forgiving zone on the floor those 10 12 footers that are like dead on straight with the basket well i'm gonna do the technique here i'm gonna call it you've heard of this technique probably the compliment sandwich here here we go um trey young is averaging eight assists a game and is still one of the best passers on planet earth trey young's defense is a catastrophe we know that i think a couple of things have happened he just doesn't make shots anymore and this is like we're in like year three or four of this where it's like oh trey young he does the logo he leads the league in oh oh oh like here comes the logo oh oh he just doesn't make shots and he's not even making his floaters as readily as he used to i actually think like when i watched when i've watched him recently he is 28 he's still not old he doesn't feel as athletic as like snappy athletic to me in tight spaces as he used to he doesn't feel as like when he would go like you couldn't stay in front of him when he would reject the screen on a pick and roll when he would fake toward the screen cross you over i just feel like all of those moves are opening up 20 less space and he just doesn't look as athletic to me um and also he is making uh 55 million dollars on average for the next four years so there's that um and then at the end of the year he's playing for the wizards and that's he's having a great time i think anthony davis is too that's the funny part i think you watch anthony davis and like the freedom he has to take jump shots he's he's having a blast it's just it's like you know there's this thing that happens zach and i'm sure you've picked up on this uh you've been doing this a hell of a lot longer than i have where like you watch the exciting young team that like is like winning games and is like hard to play against like take memphis for example and then they'll make a couple of moves where they bring in a good rookie or they bring in a solid vet like a ty jerome and a cam boozer and all of a sudden they're like winning a lot of games but then you'll have a team like the wizards where it's like you know i kind of like trey johnson i kind of like alex are i kind of like balala kula bali but they just always lose and they always look bad and then they bring all three of those players that you just named i would describe this season as varying degrees of lost like balala kula bali like we know what he is he's a really good defensive player who will have a very limited ceiling if his usage rate is like 10 percent and he has the record scratch threes that he doesn't take all of that still applies trey johnson some games he comes in and he shoots the leather off the ball and you're like i get it some games he looks so just off kilter and wild on on forget defense just like out of sorts on offense uninvolved to the degree he like what they're like this is like ruining sar um he his usage rate is way down i don't even care that he's not taking three i mean i care a little bit that his three volume is down his usage rate he's just not involved there was one i watched them i think against i can't remember who it was the hawks maybe where he and anthony davis did the thing where you almost like even on nba teams that are built around two big men you don't normally see this happen where they both like posted up at the same time in the middle of the paint and like they just like had a collision and it's like oh you're here oh you're here oh this isn't gonna work i just i i again it's early we're 12 this is the end of the compliment sandwich it's early we're 12 games in but all of those players you named i feel like i'm learning nothing about i'm learning like a less about than i did last year and that just doesn't seem good for the wizards i just wish they were good on defense zach like i think we all could have predicted they would have been bad on offense for spacing issues and you got a rookie in there this is like they're yeah you're right they're on offense so aren't they like 29 26 they're 26 on offense and i'm gonna read you the teams now that are below them in offensive efficiency 30th the hornets 29th the jazz 28th the bucks 27th the kings those are the only teams with worse offenses than the washington wizards yeah i i i they should definitely be better on offense than they are i wish they would occasionally move the ball around and try to uh at least try to take threes even if you're on defense i've been an anthony davis truther on defense for years and i think that ship has sailed and you know obviously there's alex star has been in and out a little bit so you've had some ad uh aiden units which aren't going to do well and trey young is trey young and kiyota or kishon george is completely miscast as like this perimeter defender on this particular team but like i just i thought the aggregate size would make them better and there's like there's just going back to the point i was trying to make about memphis there just seems to be like something that's going to be a part and soul of the team in terms of their like energy that is not the case with memphis so memphis adds in a lottery pick and a couple of vets and they look good and washington adds in a lottery pick and a couple of vets and they still suck and that to me is the is the really disappointing part in all of this well those two teams face each other uh in uh on monday uh in the meantime the wizards get detroit and houston and then they have a chicago game which better win that one but i would just i would i would trade anthony davis yesterday yeah um i don't know why he's on the team like i can get i don't get the trey on contract i don't know who they were bidding against on the trey on contract i don't know if it's true that they promised him this contract as a trade-off or like sit out and let us tank and whatever no idea i've heard no but who the hell knows um but i i can get why he's on the team all right let's spam some trey young star pick and rolls and spray it out to all these guys i'm just like i don't even get what anthony davis is doing here i i'm with bill that i would trade him now for whatever i can get and they didn't trade much for him i'm not criticizing the trade i just don't really get what what purpose he's really i mean he's and he scored well like he scored really well he's shooting pretty well i just it i just feel like i'm losing touch with the like i would really like to say hey look if the season's not going great all that really matters is debancing uh being a star and i think you know it's early but they have to be happy with what they've seen certainly his physicality is for us and that the young guys are improving but i i can't say that because the other young guys are kind of like other than george are not doing much and trey young's on the team for the next four years at 55 million dollars a year and if davis comes back they're like at the luxury tax and near an apron or whatever it's i don't i i don't like watching them um all right last team you have any other whiz thoughts or have we just to your point gotta trade ad now because uh like trey young is basically untradeable untradeable and if anthony davis gets like he tweaked his ankle a little bit in a game a week ago like if he goes down or if he just starts shooting terribly for a couple weeks his value like if there's any if there's any last opportunity to get something for him i feel like now's the time um i do like i i believe it was uh josh robbins at the athletic reported that the wizards are open to a rebrand in the future so that's the end of my compliment sandwich let's get out of the business of naming yourself the wizards and try something else okay we're going to end with the team that just like i have no idea jason absolutely no idea i don't know if they're good i don't know if they're not good i don't i i know they're probably mediocre because that's what they usually are the atlanta hawks are my pick for just like the we're going to be 60 games into the season they're going to be 32 and 28 and then they'll go on a seven game win streak i'm like i don't i don't know they're 14th in offense 13th in defense 14th in defense 14th in net rating right there average average average um they have recently installed kingston fleming's into their starting five over cj mccollum apparently this was cj mccollum's idea just it's just a weird roster i don't i don't really know what to make of it honestly what do you make of this team that is again like pretty average they play super fast they play this democratic like random style of offense which i really enjoy watching like anybody can screen for anybody we're going to run it up the floor and we're going to try to be more as a collective than we are as the sum more than the sum of our parts kind of thing um i just i just don't know what this team is i have no idea it's weird because they're a team that i genuinely really like to watch and they have a lot of players that i like they're just extraordinarily average in every sense of the word like a kongu i think to me is one of the most versatile bigs in the league when you actually look at everything he can do on both ends of the floor he's so incredible he's so incredible he's so incredible versatile and unlocks so many of the different things that they do well on both ends and has made a ton of really important clutch plays for them on both ends of the floor this year uh kingston fleming's in the starting lineup what i think is really important about that is his ability to get dribble penetration because nikhil alexander walker and cj both kind of suck at that he lives at the rim kingston oh my gosh the a stat to demonstrate this fleming's has according to nba.com 15 more drives this year than nikhil alexander walker and he's got 133 fewer minutes like that's how often he's touching the paint and yet i love nikhil alexander walker and i will tolerate no criticism about his game he's one of my favorite favorite players in the league i like him the whole point is like i like to me there's like there's winning on the margins which is like squeezing that little extra bit of juice out of the fruit and then there's winning in the half court which is like the actual substance of the fruit itself and to me in order to succeed in the half court i'm going to have to win the half court you have to be able to break the defense down and there's just too many like coverages you can get away with against the cjs and the nikhils and the jalen johnsons and those guys that kingston helps with his dribble penetration and the simple stat for this if you look at cleaning the glass when fleming's is off the floor they're like a 24th percentile half court offense it's like 92 points per 100 possessions but when he's on the floor and he's been getting a lot more opportunity he's performing really well so far their half court offense jumps all the way up to about a 97 offensive rating which is like just over average it's like 57th percentile or something like that and i think it's because he just consistently generates paint touches for a team that is actually a pretty solid driving kick team that has a lot of guys that can dribble shoot and pass at a pretty high level and like even the guys that don't shoot the ball well can rack closeouts and continue the chain and make the next read at a pretty high level but like it there's nothing like really magical about it it's a pretty steady diet of the same actions it's a lot of nikhil alexander walker ghost screens it's a lot of like a kong lu stack with nikhil back screening for him it's a late game action it's a lot of cj and jalen on the ball for those two actions i just said there's nothing like super inventive uh they still force a ton of turnovers and get out in transition they're really hard to beat in crunch time situations because their perimeter defenders are so good and a kong lu is so good at kind of like being at the level and getting back to the paint and making contests at the rim he's made a lot of good defensive plays there but ultimately it's just like what you saw with the lakers game and and at several points throughout the season there's a certain like talent wall that they run into when they play the top teams which is why they'll have a seven game winning streak this year like you said when they play a lighter stretch of their schedule but like they're just always going to be kind of a mediocre team to me as much as i enjoy watching them yeah i mean defensively they're they profile as a good team and they are um you mentioned they're super switchy including a kong lu um interestingly they allow the second most shots at the rim in the nba and teams are shooting 70 something percent on those shots which is really bad and i think reflects a kong lu for his good i like a kong lu a lot he's great shooter he is undersized yeah um i just they're just some of these guys are like i'm just not sure how good they are like dyson daniels two of 16 on threes obviously nobody guards him teams put their centers on him a lot and they put wings on a kong lu and like that's just the world that the hawks have to navigate they know how to do it you use dyson as a ball screener as an off-ball screener and they run some of the the best off-ball stuff in the league jalen johnson is fantastic at setting like a split screen and slipping out of it to the rim as a cutter but like you can't really play dort and jalen johnson and dyson daniels together because you just don't have enough shooting on the floor and they have only played 27 minutes together dort's been all right he's also like they're just only like backup these are like backup power forward and they're a little small uh in that alignment and you you called it like the talent wall i just if kingston fleming's is a plus starter who you got what was he the eighth pick or something like that like that's a great outcome um and they still have you know all of their future first round picks and i think they get the lesser of pelicans and bucks this year which could be a fantastic opportunity for them despite the concerns at the top of the draft the only exception is i believe i'm getting this right with a lot of people people are confused i believe if both the pelicans and the bucks pick in the top four the pelicans get both of them because one of the picks is top four protected but anyway i just think long term my concern is like it's a little early for this to be a concern but is the jury may already be out that jalen johnson is not a number one option on a good team is he the number two option on on a really good team i i think that is like up for debate and if he's like a two and a half option let's say like it all depends on who your surrounding personnel is how good your number one option is like i don't think he's a number one option i think despite the fact that he's very young and i'll look up how old he is in a second i it just doesn't look to profile that way to me this is clearly a team that is biding its time for a big move jalen johnson is 20 almost 25 um i just wonder what the is is the move to get someone better than jalen johnson and if so what does it cost if the move is to get someone on the same tier as jalen johnson are you just building like a new version of one of my favorite teams of all time the 2015 hawks who punched above their weight because they just found this symphony of players who you know no one's a top 15 player but together we we amplify each other so much and then you run into lebron or the top players in the league and you get you know boat raced in the playoffs i just i'm very interested in where they're going i guess maybe i'm too low on jalen johnson who i love and thought very much deserved to make an all nba team i just the half court offense is just like who is going to run the show when it really matters yeah i don't think he needs to get that much better on offense to be the number two you're talking about because like the ability to credibly run two-man game as the handler and make simple decisions and he does drive the ball pretty well he had a couple of big drives late in the game in the brooklyn win uh where he just was taking it to julius randall and like i i i just i think he's going to incrementally improve enough as a jump shooter that he'll eventually be able to like oh you're going way under i'll hit this easy pull up three or in spot up situations off the ball it's the defensive end for me that kind of is the bridge too far because like you mentioned the stuff at the rim like they they always play a congo up high he's always showing high or switching and that puts a lot of pressure on your back line and and jalen's just not a particularly good low man defender as like a rim protecting secondary wave there and i think that i mean i i can't state unequivocally that that's the reason why the rim defense numbers don't look so good but like that is part of the reason with jalen like if he was this like excellent aaron gordon esque versatile defensive swiss army knife on the back line who had offensive flaws but that could make and drive a little bit i think that can be your number two but there's just been a stagnation in his defensive development every month every bit as much in it as we've seen in his jump shot development and that's what concerns me because like i again like it doesn't really matter who you get as that number one even if kingston fleming's can help you with dribble penetration if your defense isn't going to be good enough on the back line i mean there are a lot of ways to build a great team right like i don't i mean we heard a lot of talk over the last four years about how the knicks are really good but do they have a top 10 or a traditional number one option and it turns out yeah they did and they just built a perfect team of complimentary guys around jaylen brunson and cat there's a lot of ways to do it um so the fact that we can look at the hawks right now and say okay they don't have the guy on the team and they're a strange conglomerate of talent that's okay like there are way worse places to be like they're clearly a decent team they trend young they have an extra draft asset or two that are really valuable plus all their own picks except the one they owe that they owe their pick this year to the spurs but they're going to get an extra one to compensate for that from the other trade um and they got a lot of optionality the the most overused phrase in the nba but they do have it their cap sheet is pretty clean like there's there there there are a lot worse places to be but i i do when i watch them i'm like i wonder what the good to great step for them is going to be because i don't think it's just internal growth of this team i don't think they think that either but it's just an interesting mix of talent i do like watching them a lot um and i think quinn snyder is a really good coach and this front office is really good so i'm just i'm curious what kind of comes next for them but i just don't they're just they're they are the weirdest team in the nba and i almost mean that as a compliment like i just can't figure out how good they are and like what they are how do you feel about dice and daniel's making 100 million over the next four years you know those contracts are so weird i was talking about this over dinner last night like you know those 20 to 30 million dollar contracts where you look at the percentage of the capping like it's not that much like it's not that much in they are like the eye of the beholder contracts and they they can switch every year like christian brown's contract that's pretty good oh my god it's bad he shoots well from three that's a 25 million dollar player it's like you know they all kind of fluctuate like that and i just i guess he's he does so many other good things that in the regular season he's a helpful player but you sound skeptical yeah i just think i think there's a certain limitation at the highest levels of the defenses that they'll run into where that like short roll decision making alongside a jalen johnson who doesn't really shoot the ball particularly well is that is there like a ceiling that you run into there which we saw a little bit in the next series i you know you to your question what's the move it's a better version of jalen johnson like if jalen johnson was all the things i just discussed i would feel so much better about this team because all of a sudden in a conglou becomes a more viable defensive anchor if you have a rim protecting monster defensive rebounding you know an aaron gordon on defense a prime aaron gordon in that spot if you had a legitimate point forward type of talent in that spot all of a sudden nikhil walker ghost screens become that much harder to guard all of a sudden cj mccollum's tough shot making becomes a ceiling raiser not the thing we actually need to beat the knicks and have any shot to win all of a sudden all of these uh wings that like the the like we like we haven't even talked about aaron wiggins who's been a very very good advantage scorer like that advantage scoring is great as long as you can create advantages and so that like i like there's so much of this is like can jalen johnson become that guy and eventually they have to make the decision whether or not he will or they have to go find that guy yeah you know interestingly i don't think they were ever really in on janice i don't think they were ever really in on jalen brown i think they're probably wise to not have been in on any of those guys considering what the price would have been i just we'll see what happens uh our last our last team this is going to be extremely brief i'm calling this segment the milwaukee bucks compliment sandwich i've barely talked about the bucks i challenged you jason timp say something nice about the one and only jason timp 11 milwaukee bucks i'm glad that braden burry's is finally getting some opportunity one of the things that was really frustrating and i just i'm a big brady burry's fan just because i watched him at arizona last year and the thing that i enjoyed the most about him was just his his fortitude because he had some really cold stretches where he went ice cold for several games in a row and it was fun getting into that team because like i usually don't have the bandwidth for college hoops it was like i turned into a 12 year old again i was just watching every single one of their games that was what i was doing with uh that arizona team and he just continually dug himself out of those holes and made big plays for them and i i kind of hate what the bucks are doing because i love their guards like i love ryan rollins i love braden burry's i love aj green and there's just a lot of tyler hero and there's a lot of kyle kuzma and there's a lot of miles turner and like i just hope that we continue to see as braden got a start last night hope we continue to see the rotation and the opportunity tilt more towards the young players that i actually like on this team especially considering the fact that you kind of your only hope is their development because you might lose a bunch of draft picks here in the next couple of days um and they don't control their picks so they shouldn't really care too much about being relegated in fact they might even want to be relegated because so it doesn't fall in the top five i love burry's all in give him 30 minutes a game give him all the on ball reps he uh i i my pick will be nate amen has been starting the last couple games and it got off to a little bit of a rickety start but he's shooting very well from three and two a lot of corner threes and his stance is a little upright and he's young he like got some reps on jalen brunson the other night defensively and like i kind of like was into it and i i just like i'm interested to see his all-court versatility sing a little bit more and i think that's going to be a big he was obviously one of the sort of wild cards of the draft he had big fans he had people who wouldn't have taken them as high as the bucks took him um i've been interested in him uh the miles turner thing is such a catastrophe combined with the dame wave and stretch it it's like we don't even have to talk about it and you mentioned the possibility of stripping picks my favorite milwaukee buck stat after last night um uh when he was plus 13 in garbage time uh gary trent is plus two for the season the bucks are plus two he leads them in plus minus they are plus two in his 23 minutes for the season obviously the contract was justified like he's a plus minus god now for the bucks somehow he's plus two i saw brian windhorse who's who's extremely plugged in um say on his pod that people in the league are preparing for a pretty drastic penalty uh cap circumvention for the gary trent ridiculous contract i have not been beating the bushes on that story as much as brian has so i'll defer to his reporting if that's if that actually happens i mean thank god they won the 2021 title because they're going to be in the wilderness to a degree if they get stripped of picks they're really i don't know how the league will mechanically do it because they're really counting now on these two miami picks they have the unprotected 2031 and unprotected 2033 left from the honest trade and like i said i don't know how the league will mechanically do it because those picks are so far out we don't even know what the hell the rules are going to be for the draft lottery at that point um but you know the heat are an old team now all the older than they were certainly not old but like you know mid-age whatever uh who the hell knows and yes it's the heat never tanked the heat never revealed you know what's going to happen one of those picks could be a gold chip particularly depending on what the lottery rules are but you just look at like it'll be so interesting to see how the honest trade ages because the heat gave up quote unquote they did they threw like a lot of pieces into the into the kitty they threw everything they could or were willing to basically there's no question the bucks waited too long to do it and didn't get as much as they would have had they acted earlier but you look at this trade and here's what it is so far jaime jacquez jr has been fantastic for for the bucks he came off the bench the other night i deserves to start based on how he plays whatever he was extension eligible didn't get an extension i bet i if i'm them i would resign him to a reasonable number and keep erin a good dude hero has been tyler hero 22 4 and 4 decent shooting he's 27 years old i honestly like everyone assumes they're going to trade them they probably will and like spin the assets forward there are worse things you could do as a woe be gone franchise than resign it's not like he's 31 resign him for one last contract in that age range we talked about at a reasonable value because no one is breaking the bank for him but they'll probably trade him colo where has been a catastrophically bad uh just like i could not be more disappointed i i just i partly because i have always been intrigued by him and he's been awful um yeah kachunas has been fine uh i he's certainly inventive and fun to watch i is he a starter ever on a good team i don't know amen came in that trade wild card and then the two picks i mean there's some chance we go forward in five years and it's like all right well he with the honest didn't really get too far and the bucks didn't really who the hell know like it's just going to be interesting to see how that trade ages and how this trend thing uh unfolds i guess i didn't really do the compliment sandwich i just did like the piece of bread at the end i forgot to to put on the centers are what i'm most disappointed by because like i think the guards like one of my favorite stats from last year was the um the aj green ryan rollins yannis trio was like plus 10 for 100 possessions on a team that we all thought was terrible they were legitimately very very good and they were very good and they were very good and uh it was one of those things where i i wanted to see that plus buries which again what you're not just talking about three guards that can play both ends but they're all big it's like that big positional size mixed with fuel for the game mixed with shooting and i wanted to see them with like rangy rim protection that could shoot and i was actually excited to see like give these guards like some solid pick and roll players and some solid rim protectors to play alongside but the center rotation has just been so bad that they've just been so bad that it hasn't actually helped the young guards have any sort of foundation at all but i yeah it's it's bleak it's about as bleak as it gets and like you said that 2021 title is everything at this point we got some breaking news to end the pod jason uh steph curry according to i guess the warriors have released it oblique abdominal tear will be sidelined at least two weeks and re-evaluated in two weeks if it's two weeks let's say it's three weeks because it's usually like you know let's say the best case scenario three weeks two weeks you're re-evaluated a week you rehab and you're ready to go that's one two that's like you ten-ish games with some important games in there um if it's ten games you know they've got a new orleans game they've got sacramento they've got the clippers they've got utah in that stretch they've got some good teams too let's say they go four and six like everyone assumes doom and gloom when you lose a player like steph teams like manufacture random wins in these like they're fine like that's fine if it's if this is the timetable that it actually is they will survive it they will be in the thick of the western conference playoff race which is just you know we'll see how that evolves but right now there's six at eight and four there's like six teams five teams have four losses right now so it'll get all jumbled up but i you know considering how quickly he went off the court last night that timeline is a win for the warriors and something they should survive if your idea of like an optimistic warrior season and i think this would be optimist would have been optimistic before the season is like we might be able to crack the sixth seed or the fifth seed if a lot goes right like they're in position to still do that if this is the real timetable yeah the road trip is tough but that new orleans game is winnable you're gonna beat sacramento at home you should beat the clippers and jazz at home if you that through 10 games leaves you at four and ten if you drop every single one of the other games so like as bad as the road trip is conveniently timed it is also a there's a couple of like kind of like cupcake wins in there that should help get them over the top have you had a last random thought have you had any thoughts like i thought everything would get squeezed a little bit this year with the tanking rules where you know the teams at the top would win a little bit less and the teams at the bottom would win a little bit more and instead of we just have a bunch of one to win teams has that been surprising to you at all it has and i was actually thinking about this over the last few days and i don't know what to make of it when i look at like to just trace the net ratings of teams and it's like man we've got one two five teams with double digit negative net ratings and three teams with double digit positive net ratings and a couple that are knocking on the door and it just hasn't it hasn't unfolded that way and i maybe it's a bunch of fluky things like a bunch of the bad teams have been hit with injuries but it is it is of note to me that like it's a pretty the bottom of the league is currently extremely extremely bad and i don't quite know why yeah like sacramento straight up does not have the talent to win games like they are as broken as it gets i had a buddy last night who was like who would you rather be the gm of sacramento kings of the new orleans pelicans and it was the easiest pelicans in the world i actually like some of the pelicans players like there's just nothing to like about that sacramento roster you know the pelicans i thought about doing a pelicans thing today because we're doing like weird teams in the middle and they're no longer in the middle having lost a few games in a row what are they on a two or three game four game losing streak they're four and eight just the weirdest i don't understand the roster at all um alarmed by dejante murray's play so far this season he just hasn't been good enough uh interesting to me that they have kept starting jeremiah fears even with murray back uh from his little injury that he had do you like fears i do uh fears i i'm i'm wary of getting a little over seduced by fears but he's undersized obviously he's just got i again i don't know what he is is he ever the starting point guard on a great team i don't know is he more profile like as a colin sexton bench guard but i will say the difference between those two players among many others is he throws some passes where you're like oh that's like a big time nba pass for a six foot whatever guard to throw and he's shot it okay like i i'm i'm bullish on him i don't exactly know what that means does that mean that i think he could someday be the fourth starter on a great team something like that i don't think he's like a star but what do you think you're you're a skeptic it's the it's no i like him it's the dribble penetration thing i i i i have a habit of doing this sort of thing so this might just be me but like i get into like these fads uh like i get super invested in a specific idea or specific concept and i'm just all in on dribble penetration now especially as teams are you know i just think teams are really really good at at uh rotating out of specific types of actions so if you have someone that can get straight line drives consistently i think there's real value there because it breaks the defense in a more like sudden and like exaggerated way that can get clean looks and it's just he can really get to the rim and he can really pass it's it's that simple that's like but yeah i'm actually a big beers fan which i wasn't coming out of the draft so i i've liked him and just for lack of a better word he he has a lot of shit to him and that he plays like he's thinks he's the best player on the court and i like that in in a young all right jason tim hoops tonight are you going every night right now five nights a week what are we doing so i go i go five days a week during the regular season the nights i say for just the uh uh the playoffs and like that that literally nearly killed me last year and my wife and i are going through an ivf cycle right now so i'm not sure how much longer i'll be doing every single night but for the rest of the regular season you guys can count on me monday through friday over there i mean first and also uh it i saw i believe on instagram recently you can still dunk uh with with authority um i could i could i i'm i'm reaching the point in my basketball playing days where i'm starting to seriously play and i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm seriously questioning if the pain that i'm in every day is worth it but at this point i am still i'm still having fun with the game zach it's a good time here living here in colorado like there's just so many good players i've i've really enjoyed the hoop scene up here in denver well look uh i'm a big fan of the volume which is the network colin cowards network that um supports hoops tonight uh and big fan of your show i always tell people like if you want to know like what actually happened in the game and have it delivered to you in an entertaining way jason tim is your guy hoops tonight um you're gonna have to have me on at some point i'm gonna force my way on but uh thanks for some time today and everybody tune in youtube all the every place you get shows find hoops tonight thanks jason thanks zach looking forward to next time all right that's it for today's edition of the zach lowe show thanks to the great jason timf thanks as always to mike and billy and jonathan on production although mike's not here we shot him out anyway uh and thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the zach lowe show we will see you next week on monday as usual to react to whatever the hell crazy stuff happens in the nba this weekend thanks everybody and see you soon 21 or over and president select states for kansas in affiliation with kansas star casino or 18 and over and present in dc or wyoming gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in connecticut or is it mdgamblinghelp.org in new york or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text hope ny in new york for louisiana call 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