Live from Minnesota: Reassessing the West, a Wolves "That Guy" Draft, and More | Group Chat

You've been singing this song a lot. He does this on every Zoom call for about 15 minutes. It's his process. How many lakes have you dried up watching AI videos of Outstanding? So many. Listen, AI might be coming to murder all of us, but in the meantime, we should enjoy applying, what is it, a tiny desk concert onto whatever teams we feel like. Okay. Well, what about us? Should we get our own going, or do you want to play the sax on it, or what do you want to do? I was going to ask how many lakes did you fill up with those tears you cried from the hot wing that we just did. So if you see us choking up at any point, they decided to do a hot wings challenge for social right before this. So it's not because we're just so emotional. It's because of that. Fuck my boy up. He was rough. All right. We're trying to name some obscure Wolves role players, as we will do throughout the night. That's what this podcast is. That's what you're here for. I'm sorry to say you will see on social media that we fucked up big time. We got roasted by these wings. We got destroyed, and we're hoping for some redemption here. And I hope you're all here for some group therapy, because it's been quite a day in Timberwolves. Yeah, that's true. Can I intro everybody first? Please. All right. On the corner there, we have Rob Mahoney. What's going on, y'all? What's going on? He's a dude. The man in the middle, J. Kyle Mann. I'm Justin Varian. Welcome to Group Chat Live from Minneapolis. And thank you to the big homies at Sam's Club. What's up, Sam's Club? Yeah. Great club. Love it. But yeah, should we get into tonight's show? Yeah. I mean, nothing topical. This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Turturro gives a career-best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Turturro stars as an aging master pickpocket whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. Also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and Steve Buscemi. See the film that the L.A. Times calls instantly classic. The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Opens only in theaters October 23rd in New York and Los Angeles nationwide October 30th. Goal to get into, right? You know, things are going so well. The Vikings, 6-0, right? Yeah. The Wolves were one overtime loss away from being undefeated. And then. Rudy can make a layup. Okay. We're gonna talk about that. Come on. He missed some bunnies. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Things are going well, though, otherwise. But then, unfortunately, we got the news today. Anthony Edwards out for up to two months with a ailing right knee. I think that's where I'm most concerned, Rob. There aren't a lot of details. It's an arthroscopic procedure. That seems vague. I know he's dealt with these things in the past. Yeah. I'm worried. I think everyone's worried. Yeah. He's one of the best players in the world. He's having a major surgery. Can we start positive, though? Sure. Can we start cope? How do we cope with this? How do we cope with this news? And I say that as we not just. You know, we are not Timberwolves fans, but this team was one of the best in the league by net rating, number one in vibes. I mean, I was ready to declare them League Pass champions, come out here right out of the gate. And now, you know, it's a little bit of a blow, at least for the next couple months. But, like, what can we hold on to? You know, I was gonna ask which one of us is gonna pander to the crowd first, but you just pulled right up there. Somebody's gotta do it. I was gonna praise their program. I was gonna praise their programs that fund the arts here. I was visiting some independent theaters. It's beautiful. This place seems like people smoke a lot of weed here. It's kind of, I don't know. It's a great vibe. Group chat listeners smoke weed? No. I'm not hailing the virtues of that. I'm just saying it's a chill place. Can I give you a positive stat here? Please. Okay, so, if the Nets lose tonight, which they aren't losing, so we'll see, that would mean that the Wolves pass the Nets for the 29th, like, best overall win percentage in NBA history. Oh! Hell yeah. They pass them for a day, I think, before the loss of the Cavaliers. We assume at some point that they'll pass them again, but congratulations, you are no longer the 30th worst franchise. Huge. That's big. Started literally from the bottom. And now we're here. That's right. But, tough times in the short term, but this is also why, I would reckon, you trade for LaMelo Ball in the first place. Not just to be the best version of the Wolves when everyone's healthy, but a different kind of point guard than they've ever had before. A different kind of engine for one of the times when Anthony Edwards is out. He's a painter out there, man. I mean, very just, they're going to lead the league in looking at the bench and talking trash. I mean, it's already happened in that poor Myron Gardner's just trip. And Ant doesn't need any reason. I know you all have seen that. He's always been that way. You know, he just perceives slights is going to go to town, but he and LaMelo together, they're just going to be that canker sore of a thing to deal with, I think, for teams. And, you know, we can get more into it or whatever, but, you know, it can go chaotic good and chaotic bad. We'll see how they guard and transition the other way and all those little other nerdy things we can talk about. But it's been super, super fun here to start. This episode is presented by Sam's Club. During the holidays, everyone's in a club. The last minute. Gift givers club, the cool aunts club, the food coma club, whatever holiday club you're in. Sam's Club is the club that helps you pull it off. Need to get a meal on the table in under two hours. Done shopping for the brands they want, like Dyson and Lego without blowing your budget. Check and check. Sam's Club helps you make the most of the holidays. Come join us. Sam's Club. All right. So we're going to get to your questions. Thank you so much for giving those out. We also have. We have a surprise little reward for our favorite question. So we'll get to that at the end. We're also going to do a special draft with Wolves guys. We'll talk about that a little bit later. But as a result of all of these things happening just within the first week of the season, in addition to Ant, we also have the Thunder injuries and a lot of other things. We are going to, to start with, reassess the Western Conference because seven days or whatever we are into the season, not even, to do some reconsidering. What the fuck? Yeah. But up is down, left is right. I mean, clearly we were ready to move the Wolves up our standings, ready for them to ascend. But like, I think the OKC injuries in particular have just left things very, very wide open all of a sudden. Where the Wolves can make a case, the Rockets can make a case. A lot of really good teams, I think, have talked themselves into a lot at this stage in the season. Yeah. And so as you can see, we have some beautiful lines drawn here because we are going to tier the Western Conference. Um, we have five tiers here. I'll just start off. I have two teams in my tier one. And. The Thunder are not in there. Wait, we got to start bottom up. Oh, you want to start from the bottom? Come on. We got to leave a little. We got to leave a little drama. We got to start with the show. We got to build up to this. All right. Yeah. Come on. Come on. So tier five. I have two teams. How many do you guys have? Well, let's, let's start with who you got. What do you, what are you thinking? I have the New Orleans Pelicans, more garbage, and I have the Kings who are somehow more garbage. I would bet my entire life that right now at this moment, the Sacramento Kings are playing basketball and Darius Acuff just looked off to Monta Sabonis to take a step back three. Like that just happened. So going into tonight, Darius Acuff was second in field goals attempted per game. Number one was Zan, number two was Acuff. Can you guess number three, guys? Ty Jerome. No, that's a good guess. I think it was like five. Can you guys guess? Close. Uh, Brandon Miller of your Charlotte Hornets. He's getting them up. He is getting it. I also saw Darius Acuff has taken more shot attempts as a rookie in his first three games than any player in NBA history. And not just that, he is lapping Kevin Durant, Patrick Ewing, all, you know, all the guys you would expect to come out of the gate and have all the keys, Darius Acuff is, uh, is outpacing them by a pretty wide margin at this point. Mark Jones really is enjoying saying tween, tween, driving and pull up though. He's really, he's really in his bag, uh, off the pistol action, all that stuff. Um, yeah, I mean, but he's getting to his spot. That's the argument that I've heard. He's getting to his spot. Every spot is his spot. Well, so I think we can all agree Pelicans and Kings are in the bottom tier. What if I put to you, the Phoenix Suns also deserve to be in this bottom tier? They are also in my bottom tier. I think that they're just a cut above being thus bad. And I think the first game that I saw in person was probably one of the worst games I'm going to see all year. And you're here to defend them. Well, is it worse that the Pelicans gave up a 23 point lead and then didn't even get up a shot at the, I think the final 80 seconds of regulation against the Devon Nuggets, a team we're going to talk about also might be quite bad. I think the Pelicans more than any team in the league give me the very acute feeling that I am being fucked with, like I just tune in, I'm checking, you know, making the rounds of the teams and Deandre Jordan is a starter in an NBA game and then closing that same NBA game on purpose, like I'm just baffled by everything that happens there gun gun to your head. There's a jump ball and it's me and Deandre Jordan. Do you know for sure who's winning? I really don't. Even Deandre Jordan. Jordan doesn't know for sure. The season, he's like, my job is to be a locker room guy. And here he is, like, logging regular minutes for the Pelicans, who, as Justin said, are quite bad. Should we make a swap? Kyle joins the Pelicans. We get DeAndre Jordan for the season. DeAndre Jordan would destroy me. Now we're asking the real question. He'd be a very good podcaster. Yeah. Also, Herb Jones signed through the 2029-2030 season, who the new front office specifically gave an extension to because they wanted to bring him in or keep him around as part of this core, now playing 17 minutes a game. That's what I'm talking about. They're playing Jordan Poole more than Herb Jones. I don't know in what universe you do that. Pelicans, easy inclusion on this list. But, I mean, Justin— Do you want to make the case for the Suns? I would like to make the case for the Suns because I think they might have the single worst starting lineup in the entire NBA right now. That can't be true. By the numbers, it kind of is. And, look, I recognize Mark Williams is hurt. Oso Iguodaro is hurt. All due caveats, if you think Mark Williams is saving this team, I would like to point you to four medical staffs that would say you are very, very wrong. I think Malawach played one of the worst games at center I've ever seen when he played against the boys. I will say he has been better since. He's just a giant human, and I have to imagine at a certain point he will make an impact. So are you opposed to putting the Suns down here? Do you really want to fight for a team that's like, yeah, Jalen Green and Miles Bridges, those are our guys? If they're not going to show any fight on the court, Rob, I'm not going to show any fight here. Let's put them in. Bottom tier, Phoenix Suns. All right, Suns are going into the bottom tier. This tier is called hopeless and hapless. That's what I'm going to say. That's what I have in my doc here. All right, so we have a three-team tier five. That means the Utah Jazz nor the Golden State Warriors made it into the last tier. I think that's fair. Yeah. I had the Clippers in the last tier also. Oh. You want to make the case? Where are we going? I mean, have you read the news lately? There's also, there's that. I mean, Wagler, we were going to talk about this before I got sick of it. I got sick a couple of days ago and rebounded. Thankfully, I'm here. Wagler has looked steady. I mean, he hasn't looked like superstar, but he's acquitted himself pretty well playing Nessie Garland. But I don't know what the overall roadmap is for that franchise right now. So I'd say they're a little bit more ruddered than like the Kings and the Suns. I have just a teensy bit more faith, but I still have them at the bottom. Rob, you're pretty ruddered. Thank you. What do you think about the Clippers? I think we should put them one tier above those bottom three teams. Yeah. Mostly as a courtesy. Like their season isn't going anywhere. Darius Garland legit going bananas right now. You mentioned Keaton Wagler playing pretty well. Brooke Lopez might fuck around and win six man of the year all of a sudden. It's like, this is their one time to not be miserable. And I think we should reward that by putting them in only the fourth tier of the Western Conference. Brooke has big like Nelson from the Simpsons vibes when he's like running down. He's just like, oh God, I'm still doing it. He just has this shit like back to the grind. Making people bleed. Your own blood. Yeah. I think the Clippers, they have nothing else to do. And so they're at least going to try. Yeah. I would assume. Garland has had his moments in the early season. And so for that reason, I would put them in a different class than some of these other teams that probably have incentive to bottom out at a certain point. So who else do we like for this next tier, the fourth tier in the Western Conference? I have four teams. I have the Utah Jazz who lose a new player every day. The Phoenix Suns. I have the Los Angeles Clippers and I also have the Clippers. I have the Golden State Warriors. Yeah. You have the same one? I mean, I'm admittedly on the fence about the Warriors, but I'm open to your way of life. I'm open to reading some literature. What way of life is that? What paper mache foundation is keeping you from going to the bottom? Because anytime I say anything remotely glimmering of like, eh, Steph and Draymond, there's something there. You seem to take a big dump on it. I'm just curious, like this is kind of a little bit of a pivot from you. What's, what's. You know what, you're right. I need the reality check. I need the hard look in the mirror. And God, that team is really bad. Do you guys want to talk about Yaxel? Yeah, I mean, we have to. Always. See, this is the thing. I kind of wonder sometimes with Yaxel if like he's playing well, but he's also talking a lot. And is he talking a lot to distract you from the fact that the literal house is on fire and every like load-bearing pillar in it is apparently a hundred years old and falling apart. So this is going to surprise no one who's ever listened to an episode of group chat. I think he might be. My favorite player in the NBA right now. Because how many players give an interesting quote, let alone say what they actually think. And this guy is so unrehearsed to the point it will be detrimental to his career very quickly if it hasn't already. And he's like three games in. He's literally incapable of not saying like, he has to say what he's thinking at all times. And that he had moments in college that really it affected his eval where people were just like, man, this guy's like, he's the oldest guy. He's like the youngest guy in college basketball. And he acts like the youngest guy a lot of the time, but he has these enduring things and endearing things where he's like really self-reflective. He's like not stuck in his ways. He's just, I made a whole video about this. He's just been straight up. Like he started getting, he was just like playing two K and his, in his room and his mom was like, you got to do something here. And then he just all of a sudden went from there to being like the most important player on a national championship team and now killing it with the warriors. So that's how I got into podcasting too. I was just playing Madden a lot. Cheeto fingers. God. Dude. Damn. What I need to do is just shit on NBA players for the rest of my life. Um, I'll say this. I think Yaxal is a perfect warrior one, because like, this is a team that embraces guys. You kind of just let it rip. They dealt with Draymond for so long. This is probably like more like a rash as opposed to Draymond is just like the broken arm in this stupid metaphor that I came up on the fly here. Um, well let it rip good and let it rip bad or too bad. There's a huge difference between recklessness and like good audacity, like knowing like how to like, that's been the whole warriors experience. Is, is Steph is very, very skilled. So his audacity scares use, but his discernment between appropriate time and place, and they walked the line with that. I mean, Jordan pool, as we saw tipped over the line, even after winning a title with them, Jonathan coming, I had all the confidence in the world to go, let it rip. Brandon, but Jim ski, we've seen it over and over again. And Yaxal is going to be walking that same tightrope. He's a giant and he's also incredibly skilled and nimble. Like the spin moves that he's already doing in the paint, he blocked, I forgot who it was in that nugget scheme. I think Christian Brown and then goes on the other end sprints back and finishes on the other end. Like he has the feel. I think that will work with that team. Now, is there going to be enough around him and stuff? I think is the big question, but if we're already asking that question, I think we're already in a good place considering the expectations. He's the best thing the warriors have going right now, by far. He also absolutely just torched the Denver nuggets. And I don't know if that says more about him or the nuggets at this point. And I'm sure we'll get to Denver soon enough, but how does everyone feel about the Denver? Nuggets here? Hell yeah. My people, did someone say slap Minnesota? All bad defenders. It's a very accurate summation of their whole deal. I might have to move to Minnesota, but no, you're right. He he's built like Aaron Gordon, but he's doing moves that a guy that size shouldn't, and he hasn't even played that much. He's 24 years old. As Luca told us. He's a very good guy. So we've got the Warriors, Clippers, Suns, Jazz we didn't talk about. Yeah. definitely among the bigger disappointments in the league thus far. The center rotation was already a mess. The dueling banjo guards already seemed like it was going to be tough. They lost Jaron Jackson. Laurie's out for a little bit, but it seems like a short-term injury. I don't know. Do they ever come out of this malaise? Because it seems like the type of thing that can linger for a team like this. It's just tough to come out of the last three years of jazz basketball and have the realization that, oh, this is still at least like 1.5 to 2 more seasons away from being literally anything. But that's where we are, and that's what happens when you trade away for understandable reasons the guy you thought was going to be your center the next guy who you thought was going to be your center gets hurt and now jaron jackson as you alluded to out for the foreseeable future like there's just no way for them to put together a lineup that makes sense that doesn't rely on kyle filipowski to do literally everything here's my question since we're already reassessing the west a weekend can we also reassess the top of the nba draft because caleb wilson has been incredible what do you want to say say it to my cam boozer has also been incredible. We haven't seen AJ DeBonte yet. Peterson's been fine, but I think there's a very real possibility that we get to the end of the season and they're like, oh, fuck. This season wasn't our season, and we gave up Caleb Wilson. Or Cam Boozer. Are you still like, Peterson was the pick at two? Because you were a big Boozer guy going into the draft. Yeah, I had Boozer one, and I haven't moved. He's still my top guy in that draft. He just does everything, and he wins, and I think we've seen that in the beginning of this season. He's had some inefficient nights scoring, but he's just done everything Wilson we were talking about this backstage I think people just need to have the right expectation because when guys are coming into the league um you know names that get attached to certain players with comps and things like that and you got to do them we do them on the website Danny does them sometimes I do them sometimes I just think he is probably Sean that Sean can't be to me right now I think like the on-ball creator kind of stuff is people just need to be patient because his awareness in a crowd is lacking. But if he takes one or two dribbles and makes like one move, I was saying to them, I was like, he has something that's really unique that reminds me a little bit of Giannis actually, where it's like Giannis could get, even when he was really young, where he could get into these contorted, odd, irregular steps in traffic and then just go to the fucking moon and extend and dunk over people. I posted some of these clips of him and what he's able to do when his legs are straight. Like it's crazy, crazy athletic stuff. It's just that ball handling is the thing that's really got to come around. So we'll see if it does i mean it seems like the jazz could use a sean kempi guy it's like i and who's gonna say no to a sean kempi guy sean kempi with the rain man i mean he was great r-e-i-g-n rob okay i mean i also did i read correctly he didn't know that he didn't know i'm choosing to ignore i had that poster in my bedroom i believe it what else what else did you have on your childhood bedroom ken griffey jr okay uh jessica alba and sin city oh i mean you are a man of a certain age i was more of a gino guy it's just part of our culture it was way less creepy when you were in high school i promise uh i don't have it but you know i might bring it back i did i read correctly that carlos boozer who was a scout for the utah jazz resigned in protest when they did not select camp boozer oh i didn't know that i'm just saying there were there were conscientious objectors you know there were people in the room in addition to kyle man saying you know what maybe you should just take camp boozer yeah well maybe they can draft the lesser boozer coming up what is it the other the other brother the lesser gaden sure he's probably like a second round pick but yeah good luck so where are we on these tiers what are what do we have all right we want do we want dallas in this group too or or do we just want those three teams once it no no no no my friend no uh i think cooper flag we should rename him white jesus shouts the reservation dogs um he's i'm do you want the take i already have loaded up please defend this underdog i think from this point forward i'd rather have cooper flag and luca donchich he's incredible and here's the thing he's already playmaking and he doesn't treat his teammates like ai bots hold on are you arguing that luca wasn't playmaking at the same age no but i'm just saying he also i mean the defensive stuff is also a huge feather in his cap he's already an accomplished scorer he's already he's currently 19 years old i know the whole jason tatum jokes we went through those all the time he's doing more than tatum did at 19 which is wild uh i just think he has the total package as we're recording this he's leading the nba and per which is like a flawed stat but it often favors big guys he's not that big and so i'm fully bought in and so i have him and the dallas mavericks in the next year what are you doing yeah i'll let you feel this go ahead what just go go for it cook rob i just we'll we'll talk i think we should save it when we get to the lakers because that's really where the game is going to be i think we should save it when we get to the lakers because justin is guising this as a cooper flag thing it's really a luke you know him too well at this point so but tell me what you thought about cooper this far i think it's been great i think like the mavs in terms of being a watchable enterprise and a team that actually seems semi-functional just worlds ahead of where they've been there's so many interesting young players in this team now they obviously have a good like a good group of veterans as well it's just they're not good enough to win really much of anything this season that's fine like that's where they're supposed to be it's all fine but the idea that you would want to win is that you're not going to win what cooper over luca is just ridiculous like one of those guys is the best basketball player in the world went to the nba finals on a team he carried and the other one is as you said 19 years old and from maine is it pop the slovenia of the u.s yeah is it possible that luca's the best player but that it's easier to build a winner with cooper i mean we've seen winner after winner after winner they're just built around luca donchich they're just so different archetypes one team go to the western finals i mean look if you if you want to comb through those mavs teams and be like this is clearly luca's fault with the groups that were starting around him or no then chris that's porzingis getting injured left and right like i just have a hard time faulting that it's not his fault but he needs more specific role players than i think it's easier to build around someone like cooper so what i'm hearing from you is you're a coward and running from the grind and you don't want the challenge of building around one of the greatest basketball talents in modern history i will say this though like i and i made this argument a lot when cooper was up to this draft where i was he's he was such an irregular number one top pro and to be the so obvious top pick in that draft he didn't fit an archetype that we had seen in the past where it's like somebody made a joke about me saying heliocentric an offense built around a certain type of player uh cooper there are a lot of kind of different directions that he could go and i think the difference between he and luca is that we still haven't totally figured out what those directions are he has so many different ways that he can play luca was just like came into world class pick and roll shooter who could already pull up could already get to the rim could make every pass in the book he's like all right spacers and a roller let's go but i just think we don't we don't know what cooper's championship template looks like so wait you have the mavs in this lower tier kyle who did you have i i have the mavs in this at the bottom of this next tier that's just called work in progress okay you got outvoted rob i'm sorry that's fine really trying to get my names of tears in i don't know so the mavs are in tier three who else do we want in well just to give you an idea of what's going on in this tier we're at tier five is the pelicans and the kings and and the suns and the suns warriors i gotta look at what we have here uh jazz warriors clippers are in tier four and we're at tier three i have four teams rob do you want to give your four so we're including dallas in this tier yes dallas is in this tier despite the presence of white jesus i think the portland trailblazers are in this tier yes i think the memphis grizzlies are in this tier you don't have the denver nuggets who suck no they're i wouldn't say they suck but they're not good they're not very good i mean it is very concerning we are one week into the season and nicole yokich looks like mentally exhausted and it's i'm i'm very concerned about their ability to put anything together but they do have just more talent than these other teams we're grouping them with i think they might deserve a slight win but i think they're not very good i think they're not very good but i think they're not very good i think they're not very good but i think they might bump up as low as i am to do it no luca yokich kind of plays basketball like those clips of uh steven seagal like demonstrating karate have y'all ever seen those he's just like oh god oh here's a double team get this off when it's like all right so the devil i've seen a lot of that early on the devil's advocate is they have been struck with injuries pretty quickly here no cam johnson spencer jones just working on his linkedin page and not playing basketball alpha diallo favorite player strother not there strother hasn't has never been good so that's well he's yeah he's been hurt yeah uh and aaron gordon struggling to start the season so that's that would be the pro case the other case is that they don't play defense they've never played defense and the defense somehow looks worse even though they're 26 in the league right now uh and the spacing just seems more difficult than ever and so when you don't have a cam johnson out there if gordon is going to struggle things just seem tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter than ever before i think it's totally fair to list all those guys they don't have but their roster is uniquely susceptible to all that like if they're missing anybody they cease to function on any kind of high level whatsoever it's such like a high wire act that they're trying to do so i really can't defend them other other than to say nicole yokage is still one of the best players in the world and that alone is something that like you know the blazers these other teams we're considering don't quite have maybe that's enough to give them a leg up but honestly i'm not going to sit here and defend them it's precariously put together i'm not gonna sit here and defend them yeah because you need to to lean the nba is about trade-offs you know natural every team that wants to court you know whether it's leaning into an offensive identity or a defensive identity you're going to give something up on the other end if you're going to lean into the brilliance of murray and yokich that's defensively compromised from square one and and gordon has just had to wear some he's had to do every job in the office basically and you know and that's that's a that's a heavy burden to carry well if it's a failure for the nuggets to be here can we talk about what a success it is for the grizzlies to be here because like let's go i can't bang on the nuggets a little bit more i mean you can if you like do you have some more stuff to get on your get off your chest so it's just odd that this should we go if you want how big is that dock it's quite long uh it is odd that we're already at the state where we're like why is this team so emotionally like wrecked and i've already seen nuggets fan just pining for the days of mike malone yelling in people's face and at a certain point this goes back to my criticisms of yokich it's like at a if you want to be one of the best players of the world and one of the top five ten guys ever to play the game you have to do the little things that add up to bigger things and one of them is playing defense and being able to problem solve on that and another one is being the emotional ballast of your team because at a certain point you do have to fill that role and i think the best players tended to be the best leaders even if some of them did in unconventional ways like punching their teammates in the face it would be nice if we didn't have to be the best players keep going into this whole thing because yokich is unbothered to want to step into this role that's yeah i think it's completely fair to question what he brings to the table as a leader he's definitely more of a lead by example type but even then if your effort is waxing and waning on defense if if the game looks easy for you what signal does that send to other people like he's a really complicated guy to place in that context i don't think he is an above and beyond leader in basically any sense and i'm okay with that personally but it sounds like maybe you're not yeah he's moved to this industry interesting time of his career where early on we've laughed about this a lot on the show where he he was hilarious to watch because he would just flail and pout and scream and and he kind of moved to this point where he got a little quieter who sees some of that anxiety pop out in like timeouts and things like that now so or how about going and like trying to fight genie mcdaniel's when you're getting your ass beat yeah sorry that's my last one i promise real question though if yokich is doing stardom wrong who were the guys who do it right to you like who is like the model superstar in terms of the comprehensive impact of what they bring to the table no you cannot say anthony oh come on no no um i mean lebron i would say are you like he he's had as much criticism if not more for the noise and the like the the oxygen he takes up in the room the way he diverts attention from his teammates sometimes the way it's never his fault like i'm just saying the allegations are there with him even more so than they've ever been with yokich well rob if you have to make hard decisions for instance on a podcast much like on an nba roster i think it's actually to make the hard decisions and stand by that rather than to be wishy-washy and not be found when the hard decisions start to come up lebron definitely rolls with an iron fist he's he's treated teammates like disposable players certainly but i i think when you're on his side i think he's bought in and oftentimes like you hear all as many good stories about how good he is to the players around him yeah as well as some of the bad i think he's a pretty good leader i just think it's complicated and like most guys certain kind of teammates make sense certain situations make sense and some don't shay is probably the answer to this now it's it's stephen kirk the answer is stephen curry he and he and tim duncan are the ultimate they don't go up or down you don't hear him saying stupid shit about their teammates it's like they trend they maybe you'll go towards corny at times like i'm excited about his wife's hallmark movie or whatever that was excuse me that's a roku channel movie be respectful did you watch that trailer i did see that trailer i don't know what's going on there but we might have broke up with me on christmas why like i think i know how this is gonna end yeah it's a footnote brazil is good yeah sure yeah they found one they need four guys it's the problem it took 20 picks but they got one um all right so you want to talk about the grizzlies yeah let's talk about the grizzlies i love the grizzlies what are we gonna do when they win the west like are we gonna get jeremy grant tattoos what are we gonna do i think the question is do they sell high at a certain point you're already starting to see ty drum's name floating in conjunction with the thunder because he used to be there and also he's on a two-year deal with a player option the first day of the season and he's on a two-year deal with a player option so he's on a two-year deal with a player option so he's on a two-year deal with a player option so he's on a two-year deal is like pretty effective in a regular season context but like i don't think anyone is seeing ty drum as a franchise player and so luckily you have cam boozer at home you have your franchise talent you have zach ed who's like a game-changing big by the virtue of his size so i kind of want to ride this out more than i'm ready to bail at the first suitor who comes knocking even if it is one that could really like back the brink struck up in the thunder in terms of the picks they could trade i think this is a blessing for them because he's somebody who's capable of expanding into that during in a regular season situation we've seen him in the playoffs turn into a pumpkin a little bit but um during this time where that you know cedric coward who is said is not athletic he said that on a podcast and into a microphone and then uh you took that very not that i not that i remembered that and wrote it down in my diary uh i honestly didn't remember that camp cam boozer though but you've got these guys who are acclimating to being primary kind of options on that type of team having to tie jerome sort of eat innings while those guys are playing and they're not kind of figured out i wouldn't i expect him to scale back into a supportive scorer type guy instead of being like a primary option he also didn't acquit himself very well in the postseason with the calves he had an amazing regular season backing up donovan mitchell and maybe it was just a blip but if i'm a team that's building toward the postseason like the thunder i look at that and i'm saying like is this really the guy i mean if he's your eighth guy ninth guy as he would be on a you know i guess we'll see where he would fall in the thunder pecking order at this point is ty jerome answering the thunders questions well okay yeah i i think that's the question but we'll get to the thunder a little bit later any of these other teams we want to talk about let's talk about the blazers who are playing the lakers as we speak so i think that's the real litmus test i'm not a big buyer on their first two games believe it or not they beat up on two teams in our last tier and i just i think the jaw thing has its limits it's going well through two games be excited about that but i don't know yeah hey round of applause for mike and nori who's doing i mean doing a hell of a job so far he's great so this is a great so this is a we were for nori in every situation except and we want to beat him in a close game kind of thing you know i will say he's managed that situation pretty well because coming into a situation where he's basically on a one-year deal for three years is already tough and to navigate the personalities and not have any sort of blips thus far i think is accredited i think he has the perfect personality for it like he's the ultimate all you can do is laugh kind of coach in terms of like what if you're a player and you're not a player and you're not a the cheapest owner in professional sports what if they're asking you to start two guards who like really should not be starting together i guess you're just going to shrug your shoulders and take the chance to be a head coach and do what you can while you can and then i think he's just going to be fine like he seems too well adjusted to be really weighed down by anything yes i think what's going to happen he's going to be so good at his job that he's going to get offers elsewhere that actually pay him what he deserves um yeah uh so we got four teams in the second tier do you want to put denver in there or no i would like to put them in the you want to include them in the third tier third tier i would put second but i'm willing to hear denver's in my second tier okay they go in the second tier bottom of my second tier that's not how tiers work even though there is no bottom here they're on the same level all right second tier i have three teams uh but it will be four if we include the nuggets i have the thunder really yeah in the second tier really i have the lakers and unfortunately i have the minnesota timberwolves okay sorry guys what do you guys have i just have the lakers in the nuggets here okay and i think i think that feels right in terms of what teams have proven so far like the injury changes a lot about the wolves trajectory and what we would be hoping to see from them over the next couple that's the case for dropping them a tier though you just said the case for dropping them what if the case is they've been fucking dominant and awesome and i like i think the combination of they've been the best defense in the league so far the ball movement is so noticeably different it's like night and day in terms of the half court ball movement and like i know ann and lamella work together like i've already seen it we don't have to conceptualize it this isn't like fuzzy off-season prognosticating anymore we've seen it now it's just a matter of like can they get healthy in time to have the favorable standing and honestly with the rest of these western conference teams like even in their current form i still think they're going to be the best defense in the league i still think they're better than the mavs and the blazers like i still think they're better than some of these teams that we've been talking about sure all right settle down um i would i would vote for robert wow there's no way no there's no way in hell that's incredibly looks presidential someone at the office said i reminded them of beto o'rourke the other day i was like absolutely fucked up we have a mutual friend that calls you the senator by the way do we yeah we do apparently that has gotten back to you hadn't heard about that yeah well you know how to ride the fence i'll say that wow um so i will say i had the i had the wolves uh in the first year before today's news i think the case against is one i think they caught some teams at the right time to start this whole thing the heat stink palo got injured in the first half and no kawaii against the raptors uh rudy has already had two games of no field goals made uh which is tough and then kaminga has been awesome i was efficient i was worried about kaminga but he has he looks within the parameters of what they need him to do which was my whole worry he fits the whole up and down pace of things his physicality i think makes up for some of their size i think the counter to that would be are we getting the good kaminga first because it's funny i was looking back at last year's podcast when we did the same episode we did on sunday where it was like uh player team take i had kaminga is like oh kaminga is like like blending in and then kaminga is like oh kaminga is like blending in and then well and so there is a precedent for him playing nice to up to a certain point i'm not saying it won't happen i think the structure of his contract actually works in the wolves favor uh but you know it's always a possibility especially if there's going to be injuries and he has to fill that role so i'm a little worried am i wrong though yes jonathan kaminga he's been really good okay has he been good his entire career obviously not but like i look i i want to leave i want to leave an to adopt different kinds of roles, to be brought to the brink of like, hey, guess what? You entered free agency and thought you were going to have something and it wasn't there for you. And the way that can open somebody's eyes, I think that's a real thing. Senator Rob Mahoney. There is a little bit of worry that Kuminga is doing like the Bruce the Shark and Finding Nemo thing where he's behaving and then he smells blood, the blood of scoring and he turns back into his normal self. He's like, I'm a primary option. I could see that maybe happening. I hope that he stays the course. But no, man, I mean, just the kinetic nature of what LaMelo, he's just kind of, dare I say, lubricated the Timberwolves offense. It's just been, he's been an accelerant in a way that's been really fun. And this will be a test for that, right? With Ant out, how much did like the ethics of that ball movement really translate? Is this like Terrence Shannon's moment in the biggest possible way? He probably thinks so. I would, I would think Io would have to take on a bigger role as well. off the bench just for the ball handling reasons to kind of stagger it out but like can you get enough from some of these other guys can you can was the yoan barangay performance the other night more than just my personal fever right out of my mouth do we get how much of a barangay leap do we get this year um well can i ask a question with a question is how much do they need the barangay considering rudy's struggles i kind of i kind of i kind of said this on uh the last pod we did where rudy in space has been he has looked a little a step off to me this season a little bit he's been at such a high level for a long time i just think maybe he's gonna have to keep moving towards that conservative positional kind of thing but you got barangay is just he's just a phenom man i mean he's so naturally gifted and just mean as shit around the basket i mean that was one of the things when i watched him leading up to that draft i was like yeah he's raw but you can live with the raw guys around the basket if they just try to punch and dunk everything and he's pretty smart with how he goes after blocks i just think his rim protection upside is pretty high um and he doesn't seem he's he's got a great like he doesn't seem to get rattled like i love that he relishes challenges against guard and some of the better bigs in the league too um yeah you guys have like observed that but i think uh i think he's got a lot of uh a lot of upside well especially with this stretch i think the test is like who are the guys on your roster who can randomly have 16 points in a game and like barangay is in that in that category like oh as we just saw he can finish a lot of lobs over on the floor really well he might also like foul out of that same game and that's the reality of it but he chases it a little i don't i don't want to bag on rudy too much when again they are the best defensive team that's not an accident that rudy gobert is involved i think he also literally had 20 rebounds last night so like it's not the the low light reel is bad we salute you you know we see what you're doing i'm just trying to bring both sides of the aisle together i do wonder sometimes if if rudy's head is spinning a little goes in there and like goes for a floater and it's actually a lob and rudy's like what the fuck like he's just he he's had a couple where he just is like bobble it's it's moving a little fast for him at times i again i had the the wolves right before we stepped on here in the first year i dropped him because of a man's injury i just there's no such thing as a minor procedure like you're going into his knee and like doing stuff there you're opening his body and so it's just it minor procedure is just something pr came up with to make it sound worse than it is there are definitely different more serious surgeries and longer-term recovery patterns but um i'm just like i want to know what the details are i want to know what the actual recovery timeline is because if it's longer than two months then then that's gonna mean a lot because there are a lot of good teams in the west still it's true i just i you know who else do we have in this category it sounds like we're pretty much in agreement that the lakers are here too are we doing power rankings like because you're very like right now anchored are we just are we forecasting are we doing title pie type thing because it's everything we're using like power ranking logic well if we're just if we're doing just like power rankings we're doing just like power rankings we're doing just like power rankings just based off of right now then we could just look at the standings well i'm just a lot of your arguments are anchored in that and i'm just like i feel like some a lot of these things i trust if you're gonna do the title thing you're there's a big element of like how much do i trust them to figure out and i feel like it's gonna be okay even if the seed it's a it's a trust index more than anything like that um so we also have the lakers here uh rob you love the lakers you've been you moved la and got lafied you're rob mawokni you can't say you can't do can't do accents around this guy did you guys hear i i'm just trying to help us not get fired you know like that's really my job on this podcast most of the time okay why that was chris pratt as mario that was a weird uh justin i am asking you though at this point in the podcast to put your blood feud with luka aside and simply acknowledge that the lakers are like blowing the doors off of basically every team they play offensively like are you not awed or impressed on some level by what they are doing lakers are good uh and they have the right recipe to rattle off wins around luka donchic i think that they made the right decision in that starting lineup i didn't think they'd have a balls to bench a lot of guys that they signed this offseason and yet they started the two guys i think we all hoped for when we were doing projections of zaire williams and then matisse thibault thibault was a revelation he is very good he has been good for a while the shot is legit the problem with him is just injuries and whether or not he could stay upright in order to do that because the depth gets thin for that team pretty quickly especially for those defenders so that would be my only worry and that's why i have them in the second tier but so far so good kessler looks pretty good just going up and dunking it he has the easiest job in the world but he's doing it it's a skill like wait so it's the easiest job in the world why would you say that is because he's playing with luka don't all right all right um do you want to talk about the thunder honestly you have a lot in common with with luka donch it's very rob like things a certain way you know you'll say something it's gotta think it's because i hate myself i could could be true um can't answer that for you all right thunder i think they're a first-tier team still i do too there's too much good stuff happening there it's i mean that's about as bad of a blow i've seen on one day as i as i've ever seen a league absolutely brutal like i totally get okc is not a sympathetic audience in this particular room but like watching what happened to jalen williams objectively sucks the fact that case and williams also goes down the same day completely brutal to see and i think for just people who are invested in the project of what the nba is going to be this season like i was hoping to see both of those guys take really big steps forward and we're not not only are we not going to see that we have to see the thunder scramble to make ends meet to backfill all those spots like clearly they have a lot of the pieces and the luxury of doing that but it's it's just tough to watch that and we hate to see all the injuries this early in the season my question is whether or not they go out and do something like that i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know and they have the assets to do so and if anything they actually have the motivation to because they are as of right now in the second apron for next season i think 26 million into it and so they could just wait until the offseason do what they did this year and just dump a couple players it's becoming pretty difficult because they have so many players that make such high dollar figures you're really eating into the core at this point you'd assume topich sorber and maybe jay will would be on the cutting room floor jay will pretty integral to the rotation really good point stretch big option there so we're already cutting into the bone a little bit that's only 18 million dollars so we're not there yet that means like we gotta take a long hard look at alex caruso we'll see if i just don't know who else you're gonna get rid of they're gonna have to dump some pretty integral guys this summer and so could they get ahead of that make a deal now even because they're gonna have to do it anyway i think that's too shrewd too cold like give these guys a chance to see if they can pull something together you can't have multiple huge elements of your team and you can't have multiple teams and you can't have multiple players on your team go down with major injuries and be like guess what we're also trading two more rotation players that's fucked up then this is their team then which is why i have them in the second tier like aj mitchell could take a big jump that's going to solve a lot of it i just don't think they have a body especially on defense that could replace j-dub it's kenrich williams and he's he's fine he's a good rotation player but i'm not giving him significant minutes love kenny love kenny um it's a it's tough timing you know because they make these strategic moves that to you know to move to move ludore to send i think it's going to be a lot of work but i think it's going to be a lot of work but i think it's going to be a lot of work but i think it's going to be a lot of work but i think it's going to be a lot of work but i think it's going to be a lot of work isaiah joe and aaron wiggins and then you know they i do think that i know i'm the kentucky guy but i do have on good authority that i'll take away with somebody that they had confidence could move in uh but that was more that speaks to the thing that they're losing here is you know they're gonna score uh you know aj and jared mccain are guys that could expand and have bigger roles on other teams it's an incredible luxury that they have those dudes it's a defensive thing man that's why i don't think they can lose caruso i just think losing door losing j-dub um losing case and um that's the biggest question for me because i i think they'll be able to cobble together the offense it's just how they're going to guard people yeah so what's your second tier then i just have the lakers nuggets second tier who do you have in your second tier i have the wolves the rockets and the nuggets okay so that leaves us with the nuggets in this tier the wolves because we both have the wolves and the lakers i believe so okay uh tier one then i just have the spurs and the rockets so yeah we haven't said a word about the rockets uh go for it what do you think so far uh they were a bizarre team last year that lacked ball handling that just went to a we're gonna play ugly isolation ball throw it off the backboard like nba street and go get it basically and uh and just rebound everything and then steven adams goes down it's just it was it was it was a uh it was a car that the wheels had fallen off and it was just like sparks were flying as they tried to they tried to park it they import some ball handling and it's looked a lot smoother they're defensively really tough um i think the rockets and the wolves will be a pretty interesting matchup on personnel front um yeah it's not the light i mean the having a real point guard does tend to help and also like having a little commotion in the group chat just to feel alive like i think it kind of sparked something in them that's been a little interesting lingering on now that they have some adults back in the room i just think houston's really good and that's a key it's a key so nba teams can have kinks that's okay i don't look they all do clearly so we talked about leadership before is kevin durant the complete opposite of that because he very veiled took shots at practically all of his teammates and just no one gives a shit everyone just kind of moved along because that's kevin durant right no one really takes it seriously tell me alper and shangun isn't playing better now it's true it's true uh so i have the rockets here as well and i also have the spurs i mean the door is just open right now i'm not going to be playing better than alper and shangun i'm not going to be playing better than alper and shangun i'm not going to be playing better than alper and shangun for the spurs at this point the three guard lineup is a mess i doubt they'll stay in that approach the entire season especially if devon vassell doesn't hit shots i think they could easily just swap Champagne in there if they want to do that first but ultimately I think they need to break up the three guards to start with and Wemby I just don't think the leap offensively that we kind of had hope for will be coming this season right now he is shooting 5 for 24 away from the basket I just don't know why if it's not there and maybe it should be at this point maybe that is a realistic expectation especially because we were saying that going into the offseason that's what he should be working on all offseason if it isn't there why are you taking so many goddamn shots I would just limit what he's doing until that becomes a more good source of offense yeah I mean right now it's just his most convenient way to like force it when he feels like he needs to force it and it's not like a good instinct to have but it is an understandable one unfortunately especially when they've been so messy on offense but I mean how do we feel about this breakdown overall are we feeling reasonably pleased with our tiers as a team I don't feel good at all but yeah this is how we ended up Kyle how do you feel I feel like the Lakers are kind of a little bit of a we talked about the Luka template thing Luka can get a regular season team he can carry a team far so I don't really know that I would put him put them on the same level with Minnesota and Houston OKC they're just not multifaceted enough to me yeah alright well that's the Western Conference that's how it's going to shake out we did it congratulations to the Minnesota Timberwolves who may be a first tier team or maybe a second tier team alright so the flip side of this episode is brought to you by the Home Depot the Home Depot is everything you need to launch your holiday season in style upgrade your yard with this year's 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it's all about the vibes yeah who do we like and I would say there's only two rules one no current Timberwolves so we're already talking about this year's team plenty we want it we want to dig into history especially like this team has seen some shit like y'all have seen some shit you've been through a lot we want to honor that history as best we can so no current Wolves and also no one who has ever been an all-star in any form for anything so actually good like Derrick Rose Wolves legend sure but will not be included for the purposes of this draft I just want to say that when I was revisiting Wolves history today and yesterday the post Garnett trade up until landing the number one pick to get Wiggins there were some teams and some names in there that I it was the Bermuda trying I felt like Odysseus on the beach trying to remember I was like I can't what that happened Marta Webster got turned into a pig did that happen I couldn't there were just some rosters that I had no memory of and I had to be jogged in the era where they were wearing like the side panels it and the Adidas and Reebok era was bad to the wolves it was bad it's tough so I have the first pick then it goes Rob and then it goes Kyle and we're doing a snake Jeff I think there's a clear-cut number one for this draft if anything I think he's such a clear-cut number one that I didn't want the number one pick because I wanted to go a little deeper in the cuts I'll just say one thing this is probably the most fun I've ever had like doing research for a podcast I was literally on the plane right over here just like going through every roster that the wolves have ever had and having a very good time anyway with the number one pick in the wolves that guy draft I will select Nikola Pekovic oh it's it's a wonderful pick I think we all have a soft spot in our hearts I mean look it is elite ball knowledge but Justin I would point it to you how do you feel about your now tenuous connection to the world of Balkan as crime I was gonna say he looks like he could get an offensive rebound or be of one of the dock workers from the wire season two either either one I think he's too high level for that now I think he's more middle management but he's doing well for himself in his chosen profession did he have hands did he have a face and it wasn't us so as you guys are alluding to he may be part of the Balkan mafia good start Zach Levine recently told a story on a podcast which podcast who the fuck knows there's 90 million of them that he was scared to even ask for number and 14 his college number his dad's number because he did not want to ask Nikola Pekovic he's he was like he's 300 pounds and I saw him doing 25 pull-ups I wasn't gonna ask that guy but six seasons with the Wolves I watched many many times the video I'm sure you guys are familiar with of Brandon Knight trying to like box him out and he just fucking sends him across the world and not like a chair it's his whole legacy just being thrown also I found a meme where he was holder and Ricky Rubio was on his back his brand very good so number one with the bullet Pekovic let's go well he's better than anyone on my list I just want to say well Justin thank you for team me up because I'm just gonna ask everyone to change their faces to please be happy I thought for sure you were selecting Ricky Rubio with the first overall pick so I will be doing just that you're going Rubio you guys are picking good players I'm gonna stick to my plan though I gotta say Ricky Rubio might be on a completely other level than even Peck because he had a very long career as a starter so there was also a thing Kyle I don't know how you felt about this where I also wanted to identify guys where their moment and how you thought about them was as wolves as opposed to other teams like there are that guys but then there are wolves that guys and I would say Rubio if we're categorizing him as one yeah certainly is a wolf in my mind I think so I mean he had his stint as a jasmine but well here's the thing he is he is a wolf or does he just play for YouTube highlight reels true I think like coming into the draft a true moment in time but also just a premiere vibes guy and if we're doing a vibes based draft yes I'm I'm a maybe cheating on the on the caliber of like not the deepest cut but it's the first pick what do you want me to do he's waiting one of the most universally beloved NBA players ever I think Rubio and honest if you want to if we're like moving the spiritual vibes of basketball just let the let the spirit move it that gold medal game in oh wait that he was 17 years old and he was out there just ball and with like those some of the all-time Hall of Famers and sounds like a great pick all right Kyle you have two picks in a row here my number one pick is another Ricky Ricky Rickert from Minnesota oh wow okay this is a deep one I just and I were we've been outflanked see that's the problem with this I have like a very like concise era of wolves that I'm familiar with yeah McDonald's all American Minnesota's own right is he from is he Minneapolis which town is he from I forget okay Duluth he's a gopher um are you his family who like family's here no he was highly recruited he was a good player uh it's sad to say though his claim to fame in the NBA was that Kevin Garnett punched him in the face in a pickup game hope you guys happens let me tell you it's tooth anyway all right what's your next pick so the first pick of the second round uh my name is Mark Mattson my next pick it's a huge it's another it's another vibe guy I'm picking Mark Mattson with my second yeah good got to do it he had to go at some point yeah tanking legend mad dog madson uh his mark mads think about this portfolio of non like success i guess you could count one of them as well they're the results of success his portfolio of moments in basketball culture are the shimmy in the final four in 1998 also his awkward dancing after the lakers won the title and then that glorious game at the end of the 2006 season where we had to contemplate what the nba even is when he shot a bunch of threes so mark madson is my pick love that guy very good incredible pick all right rob you're up see now i'm torn like i feel like you guys have gotten in my head about the prominence of my first pick so i can't pick like naz read at this point that would be ridiculous that he's too too high profile too much pandering frankly i'm i'm gonna select you know what i think representation matters and for me personally my you as a basketball player if i pick a basketball game let me tell you i got a trebuchet ass jump shot yeah and so i will be selecting gorgie jang with my second pick louisville so i had him on my short list as well gorgie dang has played the fifth most games in minnesota timberwolves history is it jang i thought it was jang jang jang jang multiple 20 rebound games for our guy also just like a amazing person just giving back to senegal seems like minnesota as well just real stand-up guy good salt to the earth sweetheart man trebuchet jump shot what's not to love okay well that was a good pick unfortunately it was the wrong pick um with the second pick the very roles select the very europe like b-u-l-l-s the barrier oh i like that's good there you go um alexis shed shved sorry i forgot to really shved was inevitable i think he i think he's a great pick in part because this is where i fear we're losing recipes like if you were not here for the moment in time in which alexis shved was an nba player you would just have no recognition of him whatsoever like he i think he's a little time capsule for our exact kind of like blog boy days coming up covering the nba and it just what a beautiful time it was with my son it's like riding a bike his first words you know all those things when am i going to find the opening to talk about alexis it's a hard time is he a member of o-town is he a minnesota timberwolves could be both uh and researching this there's a reddit thread with the headline this guy was low-key nice and i gotta say he kind of was low-key nice because the crossover was there now him throwing it all the way over the the basket also tended to happen more in the next days but an odd combination of just incredibly smooth and clearly talented but god did he never put it together not even a single bit that's part of the appeal I think is that it really was kind of a lost cause but what a beautiful one it was apparently you're a league legend though was apparently pretty good there alright next pick another guy very close to my heart I'm going with the third pick for the variables Anthony Tolliver oh yeah so many bigs to choose from though Anthony Tolliver good pick not to disparage it but walk us through your process JB why Tolliver over the many many other wolves bigs who have cycled in and out of here over the last 20 years or so well Rob thanks for asking so not only was Tolliver put on the wolves twice so two tours in Minnesota resigned seven years after his first run in which the athletic road of peace can Anthony Tolliver change the Timberwolves three point culture which considering what they're doing now it seems like it was a hundred years ago I thought you were going to say he did it are we giving him credit for that he took threes also memorably the star of the decision part where he picked the wolves in a mock YouTube video the same year that LeBron James picked the Miami Heat yeah go watch that video I'm sure you have already but it's very 2010 YouTube words incredibly grainy and it's clearly like his wife being the off-screen like interviewer also and this is why I picked him when Michael Beasley rubbed his teammates leg thinking that it was his own yeah that leg was Anthony Tolliver's and so I'd like to choose Anthony Tolliver's knee but unfortunately I have to choose the full player but he joins the variables with my third pick it's a very important knee I'm going to choose another guy that's very close to my heart as well this is a player who in my time covering the NBA I can't even think how many different teams I tried to mock him to trade him to get to sign him I feel like I'm his number one booster it is the prince himself Luke Richard Mbamute oh yeah oh yeah a lot of good guys on your team like a lot of stand-up individuals let's see Kyle are you are you picking based off of any like positional need at this stage I am NOT Justin I'm not his Rob's team is a little bit more balanced I would say nicely done thank you I believe he was instrumental in Joellen bead becoming a basketball player he absolutely was brought us to Ellen bead brought us a lot of good sound fundamental defense and unfortunately also some very bad knees so but you can't win them all basketball without borders shout out my girl I don't know what that was you're up third and fourth picks I'm going to pick chase budinger yeah yeah the volleyball legend himself no he's not the lost Busey brother I know there was there was an era of NBA player like when they were coming in with people just didn't really know what to do with the pace and space era where they were just these guys that we were we were all just kind of convinced that they fit this role and I feel like budinger was just like a shade too early and now he's like a world-class volleyball player he's just got a fun vibe to him he walked so that Kevin Herter could run did all right you have you have another pick yeah Kyle did you prognosticator that you are did you ever think chase budinger was gonna be like the real deal like this is a star hiding in plain not a star he was just a fun role player I wasn't like very seriously like trying to evaluate people or anything like that around that time in my in my career uh let's see my next one tough choice here all right this one's even this might be the most random one that I'm gonna do and I swear to God I'm not pandering when I do pick the the lesser Jacobson brother Sam Jacobson he was a fun college player okay you're so deep in your bag I don't think you can see the bottom of it at this point Justin do you know who Sam Jacobson is you remember do you know Casey Jacobson still a legend I remember Casey Jacob of course I couldn't tell you a single thing about it your game winner against Duke I think you're picking 2001 or something Casey Jacobson's worse brother does he have more than one I thought it was just two all right we're waiting that let's we keep moving so Kyle's team thus far after four picks Rick Ricker mark Madsen chase button noticing a trend in my team Rob has Ricky Rubio Gorgie Jang and Luke Rashad Mbamute I'm really enunciating so you guys know that I know ball Rob we going with your fourth pick I feel like I just have to continue the theme now like we got we got some nice guys here right we got a good crew Loki nice these are all nice young gentlemen you could bring home to your to your girlfriend's mother or partner's mother whatever it may be so I'm gonna add on with not only a nice guy but one of the few nice guys to drop 50 plus for the Wolves and that's Corey Brewer we gotta we gotta do Corey Brooke he was on my short list as well unfortunately when I think of like certain players like you know when you just get a clear vision of them Corey Brewer in transition with a big old headband is just like so crystal clear in my mind once dropped 51 points against the Houston Rockets in 2014 and I was watching the highlights of that performance earlier today and there was one where the uh I think it was Jim Pete was like Robbie Hummel makes the extra pass and I was like holy we're really in the past here but look in in regaling us of that history like I feel like you're admitting the most important part which is maybe the greatest smile the game has ever seen just a truly cheery and delightful man I'm really liking how our team is coming together over here he also once had a pet goat named Billy really yeah I gotta say not the most inventive name no almost like Kevin Serafin naming his snake Snakey that one time but like again it's just what happens with these guys all right I'm up and I am going with the only pick left here Professor Big Shots himself Nemanja Bialica oh yeah Nemanja Bialica a champion a diplomat an ambassador of the game and number four on Justin's team he kept attacking him in those switches and they learned the hard way no that's the Jason Tatum stopper right there don't do it wow that Nemanja is psychopathic I told them that I can't spell all right oh let's see here what do I have for Nemanja Bialica uh memorably put out on the follow in a reverse headlock when he swung on him that was cool uh also pulled his shorts all the way down at the free throw line in order to tuck his jersey in classic Euro guy comes over at 27 years old yeah I really did my research here guys sorry uh so that's my fourth pick this is my last pick and honestly I have a lot of guys listed here but I have to go with one who just is just close to my heart and I'll tell you why in a second but I'm gonna go with Dante Cunningham yeah because I have a story to tell with this oh I would love to hear this I mean just a true workaday guy in the league I'm guessing your story might involve wasn't he briefly New Orleans Pelican so I'm guessing you overlapped with him there maybe we're roommates well what happened what's your relationship to Dante Cunningham lower and uppercase you aren't lying man I'm a mess it's all over the place all right so it's only two seasons with the Wolves but I do remember him as a Wolves player and as I was saying before like that this is a distinction that I took here where it's like I wanted pure Wolves that guys but he did overlap with me in New Orleans he was also the subject of the last article I ever wrote at ESPN.com in April of 2017 the title is fast and curious colon Dante Cunningham draws attention in massive truck that's right friends the last piece I ever wrote at ESPN which is still up and you can find it today is about Dante Cunningham driving a big truck can I can I ask you a tough question yes do you think that's what did it that's good no because it's a passage here if you don't mind yeah I would love it one Pelican's employee this is the start of the article one Pelican's employee suspected it was some sort of souped up big rig next paragraph a New Orleans resident worried the National Guard had been called in the guesses span a wide range but any glimpse at Dante Cunningham's ride usually leads to the same question what in the world is that that that would be a sports chassis the mini horse version of the heavy duty trucks you see hauling up and down the road and you're like oh my god I don't know what's going on with this there's literally like four more paragraphs after this and that's it that's the entire article it's just about Dante Cunningham riding a big old truck I think it's phenomenal I think it's a great pick I think I have to choose the dream of an entire generation of basketball fans if not just Wolves fans I will be selecting Anthony Randolph with the final oh yeah Kyle you want to tell me your feelings about Anthony Randolph I like him he's a summer league hero I enjoyed seeing him have a great time with Real Madrid when I was watching Luca um yeah Anthony Randolph he's just kind of one of those a lot a lot of people who was it to ask the question about who's a guy that you really thought had a chance to become something I feel like a lot of people were like I'm holding out hope for that Anthony Randolph guy yeah uh so yeah I feel like especially at a positionally versatile time in the league we were really we really pinned everything to him and it just let me tell you fell flat on our faces but who are you thinking with your last pick uh with my last pick I'm gonna break my uh to stick with the with the uh the skin tone but I'm gonna pick Rasha Rasha Nesterovich Rasha's a great one I mean honestly once you said I'm gonna stick with the skin tone there were a lot of options available to you the Timberwolves uncannily white as a franchise the cream team obviously I mean I think we can kind of go around too and name any other I mean literally just name guys honorable mentions but like Cole Aldrich I thought might come up in this conversation Steve of course Brad I mean Brad Miller too good for this but loved Brad Miller's turn as a wolf so I also had Randy Brewer I was gonna pick him maybe at Troy Hudson I love Troy Laker killer yeah uh also rapper uh Trenton Hassel yep the ones KG called a gift from God Anthony Peeler Ryan Gomes Mark Blunt and I'm gonna pick Rasha Rasha Nesterovich I'm gonna pick Rasha Rasha Nesterovich Ryan Gomes Mark Blunt Craig Smith the Rhino Anthony Peeler West Johnson I could just keep going yeah I mean we could do this all day but that I mean this honestly is what makes the wolves great to me all right do you guys want to vote on this see who had the best team I loved Rittenhour man those Oregon teams come on baby all right if you think Rob won the draft let's hear it it's a good team my team couldn't guard his team I just want to say okay if you let Kyle's team give it up for the Kyle men y'all were cheering earlier I just want to say it's on tape called out and what about the variables wow I think Rob won I think Rob won I'll take it I'd like to thank Ricky Rubio I mean first first and foremost I think that's what clinched it was that fair play I mean we'll leave it to the critics to decide all right should we get some some questions here I have to say you all submitted some truly fantastic questions we are going to give a prize away to our favorite of these questions as we go but let's start let's see what we got here it is a good prize I just want to say it's a very good um this one is kind of addressed or directed in Justin's direction but really to all of us um in continuation in our conversation for the preseason power rankings other than Donovan Kling and Rob Williams and Micah Potter and I guess Yong Hansen who has this next best center rotation in the league this year um do you still think that's the best center rotation in the league I do are you aware of what those words mean I think so okay well then who is your next best who would you make the case that the Timberwolves actually had the best center rotation I don't think they have the best center rotation I think the best center rotation is probably the one with Victor Webinyama in it if I had to put a put a point also Luke Cornett I don't know I'm a little shaky on him these days yeah he plays 10 minutes see that's not the question though the question is the rotation 48 minutes who is getting the best stuff in those 48 minutes it's like if you had four all-stars and then like 10 average if we had more like replacement level players you know what I'm saying it's like no I'll go with the four all-stars I'll pick that so that's kind of the nature of it right I think so I mean I guess the Rockets are probably up there as well pretty good one I guess I don't know how to categorize Shangoon there but if you say Adams and Klinkapella and Shangoon is some sort of rotation that's pretty good I mean Grizzlies Grizzlies are up there as well not too shabby yeah how about this question uh very Halloween themed on this one which player most closely resembles Michael Myers methodical and precise relentless and his hometown is always a bit terrified of what he will do next I think it's Kawhi Leonard I think that's the one that's gotta be it we were we were debating this backstage I don't know that didn't come to me but he he's quiet the LA's now after everything that's happened they're like what is he up to is he you know motionless killer yeah I think it's got to be you can just never read his intentions I think Kawhi is open and shut on that one how about this one if they did another season of starting five on Netflix which five current NBA players would be most interesting to follow this season I think there's a lot of options uh I would be shocked if all three of us do not have Yaxel Lendeborg on our list oh man can I suggest something what if this year was all rookies what if it was the top four rookies plus Yaxel I don't know what's gotten into you usually you're skeptical of anyone younger than you and now you're like let me let me just hand over the world to 19 year olds I think it's beautiful yeah well I'm in touch with the youth these days you really are didn't the NBA have a series called the rooks though that was like that was kind of that show it was yeah yeah well ideally you want some balance right some veterans some talkative guys some professionals but like find ways to make it interesting I know Jalen Brown has already been on it but like I gotta see that harp like I'm gonna be real with you I gotta see what's going on he just has interesting stuff happening around him all the time Kyle do you have uh my my list was Yaxel uh Michael Porter Jr. this is the this is the unedited version I just want to see what he does uh actually I would have LaMelo Ball I just want to yeah LaMelo's a great one it doesn't even have to be him interviewed I just want his dash cam in Minnesota in the in the winter well we can we can just cut to that that might be the case for putting them in the second tier it's like we haven't even gotten to ice driving yet like anything could happen Dylan Brooks would be my other one is that uh we'll see how that goes in Phoenix and then my last one was Mario Hazonia I just want to see him lecture the Cavs players on how basketball should be played I enjoyed those those quotes he wasn't wrong though I'll say that Mario Hazonia was making some good points I think he was like we gotta attack the mismatch I'm gonna shoot an 18-foot fall away against uh whoever this is yeah how about this one do you think the Wolves still benefit if they were to move to the Eastern Conference with how good the East is now this is obviously a hot topic if the expansion comes up this could very easily be an Eastern Conference City Eastern Conference team but should the Wolves want that now it's a good question just because the East is so good at the top now but I think historically you'd want to be in the East for one and two like is there any team in the East that you're just completely afraid of in the future in the same way you have to get around the Spurs and the Thunder and so I think it's a pretty easy answer to go to I mean you heard the sound in here when we even mentioned the Thunder's name and to say like if you can see around there you probably just do that even if it means running into those other good teams in the East so like I think I think it's still absolutely you should do it no questions asked but maybe there's some caveat we're missing yeah and then you stack on that just the whole frustration of dealing with the Lakers not having to play by the same rules of talent acquisition and everything so getting away from the cash of assets that the Spurs and the Thunder have and whatever the Lakers are going to do yeah also trying to watch sports in Central Time is terrible quite frankly don't want to hear it but if you get a couple more East Coast games maybe it makes a little easier on your nighttime routine grandpa. Let's get you to bed. Fuck, marry, kill. Jalen Brown, Paul George, Jason Tatum. Yeah. So if you listened to the last podcast, Rob and I came to the conclusion independently that he is Jason Tatum and I'm Jalen Brown. And that Kyle, I guess you're Paul George is what we settled on, but we're open to suggestions there. Oh, he's Derek White actually now that I'm thinking about it. I don't know. No, that's true. One of his biggest offenders historically. It's got to be. But see, does that color us from answering this? Because if you are the Jalen Brown and I'm the Jason Tatum of this podcast, how can we answer this ethically? Like if I pick Jalen Brown, am I picking by extension you? I would kill Jason Tatum. Don't I know it? I work in this environment every day. So you're killing Jason Tatum. Yeah. Do you want to sort out the other two? Both. I want them both. I don't even know how to parse this, but I appreciate the effectiveness. Kyle, do you want to take a chance? I think Joe is good enough. You guys definitely have been listening. We appreciate it. There's a lot of very precise questions. Absolutely. Thank you. This one feels like a wolves related question. Why can't we have nice things? And the handwriting I would say is like, I mean, disturbed. They've seen some things. They've been through some things. Scrawled on there. And I really can't argue the point. I think there was blood. Can things go right for this team? Can things go right for the city? It's a tough one in terms of the wolves, like ongoing relative drought. I mean, they've been had some really successful teams of late, but it's been a long suffering franchise. I mean, I think we say every year at some point, turn injuries off. There are too many injuries, et cetera. But I can't remember this many to this many significant players this early. And to have something as catastrophic as what happened to J-Dub, like that's a very rare, very sad occurrence. I mean, Gordon Hayward comp is the easy one there just because it's terrible. Well, let me ask you this question. I'm going to ask you this question. I'm going to ask you this question, which feels like an extension of that one. Who do you think the next NBA team to break the championship drought will be now that the Knicks have won? So I guess you can interpret this any way you like. Clearly, the Knicks had won previously, but it had been a minute. That team had also been through a lot. Facial recognition scans, Jim Dolan's music, like that guy who's at baseline on the Carmelo Anthony Knicks and just had the sound detector and was listening in on people's conversations. There's been a lot of stuff. I would think the Knicks would be in this conversation. Clearly, they are the best team now of the long-term drought teams. But then it would be what? The Kings, the Suns. Who else do we want to throw into this particular bucket? Philly's a good one. Philly in the 80s. And Philly has a real shot. They could be really good. I feel like the real answer is the Pelicans, but it's also coincided with the fact that they will never win one whatsoever. I can't put them in the same category, like basketball, like culture-wise. That's what goes on here just because, I mean, they move because they couldn't get any interest in that team. New Orleans is still having problems with that. People are just so football-pilled. Not that they don't like it up here. It's just the way that basketball has been embraced here, I think, I swear to God, I'm not pandering. It's just the interest level is so intense. We saw this. Justin and I were going around today. I was like, it'd be pretty fun to have like a vintage Timberwolves sweatshirt or something. I was like, not just for the show. I'm just like, they have one. You can't get the shit anywhere. It's like, it's just so, and it's been, after such a crazy drought, I think, you know, I don't want to lose sight of the fact of how just remarkable this Connelly era has been, and Lloyd. If you want to throw other teams on there, I mean, the Cavs have had so many good teams. I think they can't be in that drought. But they have won so recently. The other one would be the Bulls, again, have won semi-recently, but they've really suffered in between. It's true. They're just so decorated. Like, some teams don't even have that, you know? Just to win six in a decade. Eight in a decade. It's just something you don't get to complain ever again. Here's, here's a question I really appreciated. What is your second favorite melon? No explanation. Should we just bypass favorite melons? Well, I mean, I think you need to list your favorites so we can understand the second. This feels like a guard. This is like a horticulture question. Do you want a field or? Melons are very tough to grow, especially in the Pacific Northwest. I would say. Okay. Watermelons. Watermelon's the number one melon. Watermelon's 100% the number one. Agreement? Are we in agreement on watermelon's the number one melon? I would go cantaloupe. Close second. Gives me gas, but I like cantaloupe, yeah. See, I'm talking with honeydew. Someone's got to hold it down. Solid. I like a honeydew. Our girl is hearty. She's crisp, you know? I think she's bringing a lot to the table. I think cantaloupe gets. Are you eating it? It gets too gamey too fast, you know? I'm a little turned down right now. I don't like that. But while you're in that zone, I have another question for you, Justin. Yeah. We talk a lot about Justin's dating life on the podcast. I don't know how it happened. It just started. Justin, if the Wolves are, and this is a comparison you made on our podcast, like the girl you dated that you could end up doing meth with at the strip club, what kind of date are the Warriors in 2026, 2027? Just for the record, I would do that meth with a smile on my face. Who are the Warriors? I would have to say older. Checks out. Well, cougar action, perhaps someone who had success early in life, maybe like they sold a tech company and thus are rich, came into a windfall of money, but aren't. Are you talking about Elizabeth Holmes right now? Got to go to Erewhon with her a lot, you know? Would. Just saying. So, yeah, they're Elizabeth Holmes. Okay. That's the time. Let's try to bring her back to basketball for two seconds. Who is the worst player you ever thought would be great? So, a young player who comes into the league, you buy in wholeheartedly. Y'all don't want me to say what I'm going to say, but. I think you got to say it. I mean, the most recent one is Rob, man. That hurt. That hurt. Rob Dillingham. I really. I don't know, man. I thought he was every bit as talented as Darius Garland. I was like, I don't know if they did the same work ethic. I don't really know what the story was there, but it just did not translate, man. It didn't work. Do you have one, Rob? I mean, there's so many. Terrence Jones, Dante Green, Rodrigue Bobois. Like, there's a whole genre of guys who it's like they really had it in their hands and just let it slip through their fingers. I've never been wrong, so I can't answer the question. All right. We have one final question, and we have agreed this is our favorite. Favorite question of all those are submitted. So, Eddie C. wrote this question. We're going to ask Eddie to come up at the end of this to receive the prize. Whoever's in the back that has our prize to give away, if you could bring it out. From our friends at the Timberwolves, we have a signed Anthony Edwards jersey to give away to Eddie C. I told y'all. Look at that. So, Justin, if you could hold that, because really this is a Justin-oriented question, and that's why we loved it so much. It's a beautiful jersey, by the way. The new ones. I mean, truly. I love these. The trees. It's nice. It's breathable fabric. I think it's dry fit. This is Eddie's question. I think it'd fit me. We know Justin hates Luca and JJ Redick. Check. What is Justin's all-haters starting lineup? If JJ is the coach and Luca fills one spot, who are the other four starters of just guys Justin doesn't like for whatever reason? I feel like we should do this as a group activity. I think definitely. But do you want to kick us off? Oh, man. The list is so long. I mean, Jokic, for sure. Yeah, he's got to be. Yeah! Fuck Jokic! Are Rob and I weird about Jokic? Would you all agree with that? I don't think we are. It's pretty good. A little weird. Who else? The one that comes up a lot that I'm still surprised by is Tyrese Halliburton. I don't understand what Tyrese Halliburton did to you or your family to deserve that. You don't like people who are like, you can obviously see their social calculus. They're trying hard. You can't stand that. Yes. I don't, but I'm coming around on Halliburton, so I don't know if he would be on. Wait, so you don't like the guys who clearly aren't trying, and you don't like the try-hards. Yeah. So there's like a Goldilocks zone of like three guys. Yeah. And one of them is LeBron James, and that guy doesn't try too hard. Yeah. The other one is Denny Abia. You don't think LeBron tries hard? No. I would say other than that, whoever is in Scoot Henderson's way for minutes is usually on the hate of the list. Don't love Ja. Who else? I'm trying to think of who else you really bag on a lot. That's kind of it. I just kind of have my guys. That cannot be true. I don't love Kevin Durant. So basically every good player of the past 10 to 20 years. Fair enough. But look, a strong enough lineup. We know J.J. Redick is the coach, and Luka's on it. But Eddie C., if you could come up and grab this jersey, we would love to give it to you. Come up on stage so we can give it to you. Yeah, this guy. Right here on the front already. Is that a Sam Halder jersey? Oh, a Yabusele jersey. Oh, my God. I mean, rocking the Yabusele jersey. Holy moly. Tatum. Tatum. Tatum Jordan's on. They booed him. That's going on eBay immediately. And I got to say, that's our podcast. That's our show. All right. Thank you to everyone for showing up here. I know we could throw a lot of haymakers on this pod, specifically Rob. But for you guys to come out here and to support what we're doing, it really means a lot to us. This is awesome. So, thank you so much for coming to the show. Thank you to Sam's Club. Wow, Sam's Club. You're so great. We love you so much. Great club. Thank you to our. producers, Victoria Valencia. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Charlie and his team for putting this show on. Thank you to these guys. I love these guys. I love you guys too. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks everybody. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Follow us here on Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals, seasonal treats, and easy entertaining. Elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone-in beef short ribs or New York strip steaks with no added growth hormones or antibiotics. And as the fall evenings draw in, why not get ahead of cold season with immunity shots, herbal teas, lozenges, and supplements. Make sure you look for sales throughout the month. Shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Market. Stream your midterm election coverage from the Fox News voices you trust in the days leading up to November 3rd, live on election day and in the days after. Don't miss breaking election news as it happens. Expert analysis of every pivotal race, crucial conversations, and more. 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