Preseason Power Rankings, Part 4 | Group Chat

Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle Mann, part four of the preseason NBA power rankings. You've gone on to our second week of this gauntlet of an exercise. We've just been sitting in the same recording studio for, what, days on end at this point? I have multiple beverages assembled at this stage. We're in it. We're in it. I think we could scale it up even further, though. I think next year when we aspire to do this, we should knock out all six episodes in one day. Okay. To see what happens. In front of a live audience, perhaps? Oh, see, let's turn into a telethon. It's going to- Live donations of some kind. Can you imagine how- Absolutely nonsensical we would be by the time we get to the Spurs or the Thunder or the Knicks or whoever. There'd be no podcasting left and yet puffing out fumes into microphones for content. Well, I do think that it would get to the weatherman is dead status. I think it would fall apart to that level. I mean, speaking to what you're talking about, we argued about the difference between Chonky and Stout for 15 minutes. So the listener knows before we got on here, in between recording one podcast and this one. We had a what? 10 minute long conversation about the specific definition of Chonky? Robust. About what makes an absolute unit? But is robust the same thing as Chonky? No, I think there's a subtle distinction. Stout? Maybe we need to make a whole continuum here of like which NBA player is Chonky, which one's robust, which one is an absolute unit. I think density is maybe the thing that binds them all. Well, if we're talking Chonky and Chonkasauruses specifically, that means we're going to talk about the Toronto Raptors. On today's docket, as we talk through teams 15 to 11 in our rankings, we're finally crossing the line into the top half. This is the line of demarcation right here, baby. I want to say so many things about this cluster of teams, but I don't want to tip our hand about who we're talking about. Yes, the Raptors are on the docket, but let's just get into it. I don't want to lead off too much. All right. Why don't we take a quick break and we come back. We'll get to number 15 on the preseason power rankings. This episode is presented by Sam's Club. During the holiday season, we're going to talk about some of the best teams in the world. We're going to talk about some of the best teams in the world. 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. From the studio that brought you WandaVision. I was an Avenger. But I'm not a hero anymore. It's like I'm losing my. The Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision. How is this possible? Why am I losing my. Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Now streaming only on Disney+. Kicking us off today of all-Eastern comics. We'll be right back. There's going to be problems to work out over the course of the season, but the quality of the Middle of the East, I think is as good as maybe it's ever been in the modern era, and how they're going to make sense over the course of the year of the four through ten bloodbath that's happening out there, I think is one of the stories of the season. I have this thought. I feel like every year whenever we do any kind of exercise like this and whatever on the side or whatever it is that you think, okay, four through ten like you said. I don't know if it's quite four through ten, but it's that the middle is. It's hard to rank just because there's the obvious teams that have championship direction and clear kind of clear-cut aspirations that are justified and then the teams that are hopeless, and these teams are kind of figuring that out, whether that means they're figuring out the pieces that they have or they're lacking the pieces. We can go through that varies from team to team here, but yeah, it was really hard to rank. Well, you're on the Eastern time zone. Do you feel the buzz building on the East Coast where you go to the coffee shop? They're like, I really think the Raptors are onto something there. Like, why? Well, in the offseason, I thought that having faith in the Raptors would be a sort of market inefficiency or just like an area to sort of say like. It was a Zach. But I really genuinely don't think it is anymore. I think a lot of people are onto that to the point where it makes you wonder if it's like properly calibrated, like the expectations or people overdoing it a little bit. Yeah, we'll get to the Raptors in a little bit. We got to start first and foremost with number 15, the Orlando Magic, a team that I was higher on than you guys, which is surprising because you'd asked me this question most of the past year. I would have been much more down on the Magic. Obviously, the playoffs, I guess, ultimately ended better considering how bad the regular season was, but it really depends on where your expectations lie. They didn't do much with this team. And I think the one thing we said is like, they got to add more shooting. They need more offense for this team. My belief, though, stems from the fact that they did get a new coach in Sean Sweeney, obviously, defensive background. And I'm just thinking like, can this team just not be good on defense anymore? Hang their hat on that and just be better? I don't know if I would ever pick them to be in the top of the East, although they have that talent base. But like, I think last year might have been like the nadir of this core. They have reasonable health and they get back to what they're doing well. This is still a good basketball team. And so I had them kind of on the higher end of this range. Yeah, I think the Sweeney hire is very interesting for that reason. I mean, I think there's probably some financial motivations there as well. As far as who they hired, but not going for a glitzy, shiny, offensive, like systemic coach. And instead, just like, let's sort of double down on what used to be the identity of this team before it started to drift. Let's nail it down in the way you're talking about, Justin. Like, we can have this thing we are good at. We have the personnel to do it. We know it for a fact. And if there's any more offensive ingenuity happening, that's kind of icing on the cake. But being a lead on defense would be a huge head start. I just think that Orlando's focus, certainly the injuries have played, but they just kind of lost the plot a little bit on the physicality and the focus of their defense. Well, we talked about this a lot over the course of the season, like what was causing that. And I think the offensive slog, obviously missing people, which means missing out on their development. There's player development, and then there's development together as a team, and one feeds the other. And I think that there was this, like, malaise. One of the worst, like, vibe, you said Nadir just plummets from where we, you know, we're talking about what the Raptors might be and the vibe. Kind of champions for what they could end up being this season. The Magic were that for a while. They were the team that were like, oh, these guys are so fun. Oh, man, you got to watch the Magic. And the plummet that they took was just straight down. And some of that was when you're having the offensive muck and just the problems that you're having, it gets pretty hard to just turn around and be like, that was tough, but man, I'm going to dig in on defense. It was just like, it really was this, like, cyclical morale thing that you do wonder if Sweeney can come in and sort of, you know, sort of move things around. If they're healthy, we can talk about, like, if they had been healthy in the playoffs. But I just want to speak to Sweeney for a second, that he has a reputation as an obsessive preparation guy and somebody who just kind of, like, forces buy-in. That's kind of his reputation as a coach. So that's going to be fascinating to watch. I think those two things, plus just the reality of having a new coach, where by the tail end of it especially, the thinly veiled swipes at Jamal Mosley from various players on press conference stages, I mean, it was just getting, it was just getting glaring. And so the lack of belief in what was happening, and I think that lack of belief was somewhat warranted on offense, right? Like, they had gone through this no point guard, everyone kind of handles the ball, but it gets bogged down with Paolo thing for long enough that I think they do just need some order. Like, they need that obsessive preparation. They need a little bit more system. They need a little less, like, improvisation along the way. This is the number two defense two years ago, and Jalen Suggs played 35 games. In that season. I would have wanted to believe, like, it was mostly Suggs because he matters so much to this team for the vibes and everything else, especially on defense as well. So it's, like, still in them. But the flip side of continuity often is that you had such success in the past that when things go bad, you can hearken back on it. You can look at the good old days when things were going well. They never really hit a peak, even despite the success they had two seasons ago. It really was, like, cresting, and the next season was when they were supposed to punch it and be a big contender. I think that is the big concern, and it's just that they never really put it together. And so they're at a point where both Paolo and Franz and guys are starting to carve out individual wants and needs about their individual careers. And so, like, most of the time, I think Talon figures it out. But I don't know. These guys might be really putting that to the test just because of how specific their games are and how much they require other people around them to do certain things for them individually to be successful. Well, I think this season overall is really going to put it to the test. not just in terms of those players, but there's almost no turnover here. Brought in kind of one new player. Kind of an old player also, for being honest about it. Booch! Booch has returned. He can always go home. Always. And bringing in Sean Sweeney does change things. But this is the same old team. And the hope is that they can be healthy enough to do something. And I want to put a little asterisk on the ending of last season. Because maybe that series goes a little bit differently if France is healthy. And we're talking about the Magic so differently. And they get into it with Cleveland and anything is possible. I don't know. But they need to prove that. And there's been so many, if they do this. If this guy is healthy at the right time. If everything comes together with the Magic. That until we see it proven, I'm not inclined to give this group a lot of benefit of the doubt. You nailed it. I think I'll go as far as to say I think if France had been there, they probably would have won that series. I think. It seemed it. Because top to bottom, I said this at the time we were doing the show. I think that they had more talent top to bottom than the Pistons did. So, yeah. So even though they are running it back, it's like new coach. If you're healthy, it's not exactly running it back, right? It's going to be just sort of like resetting. It's going to be resetting and having everybody there. So you have that to look forward to if you're Magic. I guess my question is for our essential question, which we do one of for every team here. Does this feel like a crossroad moment for those two guys? On the one hand, you would say they're both signed for long term. I think they both have four years left on their deals. They're both clearly franchise pillars. And so regularly, those guys aren't the ones you move. You figure out everything around there. The coach goes first. Then we start messing with some of the rotation guys. And then we, if we have to, cut into the core. Having said that. Though, they just brought Desmond Bain in. Jalen Suggs seems critical to the team. And also, if he's not critical to the team, he's often injured and thus wouldn't be available to be traded. And so it seems like we're getting to that point. I'm wondering how you guys feel in terms of like the rubber meeting the road. Are you at that stage with this team, with this core? I'm definitely at that stage. I think the team has been at that stage. They just kept deferring it because guys were hurt all the time. The amount of time in which Franz and Paolo. And Jalen Suggs have all been healthy together is vanishingly thin. And so there's just been kind of a waiting game of everything needs to align. Everything needs to align. Let's give these guys a chance to not just be healthy at the end of the season, but come together in the way that Kyle was talking about. Have that opportunity to build together. It just has never happened. But with the Bain addition, with the Sweeney hire, the insulation is gone. Like you are to the point now where you have to start making hard core level decisions if this doesn't work. Yeah, the personality. The sort of the way. The way that they've constructed this roster. It kind of makes you wonder if it was like self-defeating in a way that like they it was so knock around, so rough and tumble. Grant Suggs just has no regard for his own safety. It seems like at all times. It's one of his most endearing qualities, though. And yeah, it's just always kind of running off the rails, bleeding off the edges. So it just kind of makes you wonder at some point. It's like, can we stack this many guys that are like this together? Is this identity sort of what kind of it seems like a major tweak is on the horizon. And it's going to be who's that? Going to be, I guess, is the big question. The unfortunate thing is that they just keep finding guys, but they tend to fit a template. Anthony Black is another guy who's like kind of coming into his own, but he only compounds certain issues because then spacing is a concern. And then obviously, if you want to leave more defense, like it's just like they need something different, I think, ultimately. But I just don't know where you start cutting because all these guys feel so essential. What month was that where he was? He looked like a freaking all star. That was God. Was that like February? February. He had a moment. He had that run where we were like, all right, this is happening. And then it just didn't happen. Kind of petered out. Could somebody look at him, though, as an asset and see something that maybe they think other people don't see and just bring him in because the value could be a good proposition? Because he's not a failure. It's not like a rehabilitation as a prospect. You could see him as a candidate of somebody who could see between the lines and see something in him. Absolutely. So how are we feeling about the magic? Do we think that? Like, this is if everything goes well, they can reclaim some of the momentum going into last season. Like, is that a possibility? And if so, like, how far reaching of a possibility is that? I think they're going to feel more stable this year than they have in recent years. I just don't think it's going to be enough. And that says honestly less about them than the Eastern Conference arms race more broadly. Right. It's like you see these other teams bringing in Giannis, you know, bringing back major stars who were out last season with significant injuries and are going to transform as a result. This feels like not same old, same old, but a little bit of hoping for the best. Like you're keeping the gang together. You're trying to innovate on what you did and just kind of crossing your fingers. I think it's going to be marginally improved. I just don't think it's going to be improved enough to make them like a real player with the higher level teams in the East. Yeah, it's it's going to be. You're right. It's a shame whenever you look at the East and we saw a situation where the Hornets like. Had a clear identity, a clear hierarchy that was cohesive and flow together. Granted, the magic came in and sort of put them in the locker, as I said. But it's a shame that in this year where there were so many guys out that the East was so down that they that just sort of like added on to the dread and the despair of like, man, we can't even capitalize on this. But coming out of last season, you know, if we're able to sit here and say like, OK, if this X, Y and Z go right, you can imagine that organizationally they are having the same conversations. That are even more intense to say, like talking, it's easy to talk yourself into like this year could be different based on, you know, if all those other things go differently. I would go a step farther and say I've talked to multiple NBA guys this summer who is watching carefully what happens with this in case Franz or somebody comes available. That's not to suggest that he wants out or that they intend to move him. But like if you're putting together a watch list of guys who could be available, he's definitely like in the top 10, I would say, maybe even the top five. So we're saying Bankero is not. Not available. We're saying that it's probably going to be Franz is because he's the more because Paolo's distress. He's coming with like you're looking at him like this is going shittily. Are we saying like it's better, more productive to go with Franz since he had fewer? I think that's the assumption from afar that front that Paolo is more critical. And if you had to choose, they would lean in that direction. But I don't know their specific thinkings on those. I think it's impossible to know because if things do go terribly, everything is on the table, including a complete front office overhaul. And so like you may know. Who Jeff Weltman likes, but you may not know who if there's a future GM of the Orlando Magic or team president of the Magic, who they prefer. Well, we could be up for those jobs. So if you were faced with that same question, you want to live in Orlando, which way? Nope. Do you guys lean? I think there's kind of two questions. There's who do you like in a vacuum and there's who do you like in the bones of this team? And I think Paolo Bankero is really good and really talented. I don't think there's reason to believe that if the team is like anything resembling this. Shape, he's going to dramatically change his habits as a player. Like he seems pretty hardened into the way he wants to play in those ways can be somewhat frustrating, like the pull ups where he's just not a good enough mid range shooter resettling for shots. I mean, if you give him a ton of space, if you want to tear the rest of this team down to studs and builder on Paolo, I think that could work. But unless you have the appetite for that, I think I prefer Franz, who just feels a little more versatile in the what he can offer a spacing challenged or a complicated Magic team. Yeah, Franz, a little bit. More versatile, I think, schematically in how you could use him. It's this team just they've whiffed to on some of their like their attempts to sort of sprinkle spacing and dynamic ball handling around it, because I've always said that it's kind of the Bucks model. And the thing that made that work was that they had some extra handlers who could who were decent two way players like they, you know, granted, there's still time, but they haven't really gotten anything out of Jace Richardson. He was like woefully inefficient, you know, in pick and roll. Last year with the ball in his hand, got just like flittering, you know, here and flittering. Is that even a word? It is now just like here and there kind of opportunities. And then, you know, when you have a guy like a Tyus Jones, these kind of like net neutral guards, it's just not good enough. Like, you know, so hopefully with the addition of like everybody being healthy and being there and doing what he does, you could. But I still feel like you're going to end up at the same the same spot. And I think that the rule changes that we were talking about on the last episode, like Paolo is a guy that kind of trades on that stuff, too. So. I wonder how that's going to affect him. You had an interesting question before we started recording here, which was Paolo or Jalen Johnson. Essentially. I straight up think Jalen Johnson has stolen Paolo's corner. Like, I mean, there's such different corners. Are they how are they different to you? They're the same size. They're both downhill. They both they play entirely different ways. Do they not? Paolo and Jalen Johnson. How do they play differently to me? To me, Jalen Johnson is a flow player, right? Like, I mean, we talked about in discussing the Atlanta Hawks, some of their limitations is the fact that he's not a one. Paolo fancies himself one can be one can be absolutely physically dominant in some matchups. Here's the difference. When these teams hit the wall in the playoffs, Paolo rammed through that wall against several playoff opponents. Not efficient, not pretty, but he will put up points in desperation scenarios in ways that Jalen Johnson is like trying to find his place in things still. And so I think even though they have similar physical tools, the way they approach the game is just dramatically different. Yeah, Paolo's just more demonstrative, which is why in the playoffs he does seem to always rise to the occasion. But in a regular season game, it's just like he hits his head against the wall and wants to do his own thing, which is why it's tough. He's more disruptive than Jalen Johnson, who I felt like just to his detriment sometimes doesn't assert himself enough, I would say. Yeah, you're right in terms of the I mean, we're talking through this in real time because I thought of this 10 minutes ago. But yeah, isolation really, really heavily. Paolo is ahead of him in post-up game. He's way, way, way ahead of Jalen Johnson. But productivity, they're pretty locked. step. Paolo, 20 22.2, Jalen 22.5, Jalen more active rebounder, way higher assist totals, and he gets him in efficiency across the board in convincing fashion. Box plus minus, 4.2 for Jalen to 1.4 for Paolo. So it's just kind of like maybe the flow thing that you're talking about as a detractor is actually a positive, honestly, on some level. I think it's absolutely a positive. It just depends on what you need. I think the reality is Jalen Johnson could use a little Paolo in his game, and Paolo could use a little Jalen Johnson in his game, weirdly enough. But that's all dependent on what you have around them. And the Orlando Magic, even if Paolo was a perfect flow citizen, they don't create flow. They're so stymied by their lack of space and the way that they've run their offense over the last couple years. And that's on Sean Sweeney maybe more than anyone to fix. Improv classes for Paolo. A little more yes and from him. Who would you want in a vacuum, though, between Johnson and Paolo? Because now I'm starting to envision a world where Paolo is playing for the Hawks team. Like if you just swap the choices. I think that would hurt the Hawks. Because what he needs are just like defensive wings around him. And the Hawks have that in abundance, as we talked about in the last episode. Yeah. I think this is brutal. I mean, it's a tough one. It's quite a rock. Again, it's like they're so different in what they offer you and where they should be or think they are in a pecking order. I think I would take Jalen Johnson because maybe the most disruptive thing you can have on an NBA team or any basketball team is a player who thinks their role is very different from what it should be. And maybe Paolo Banchero is not a first option on offense. Maybe that's not what he's cut out to do or best doing. And Jalen Johnson, even though he's not going to be that guy, probably, I don't think he has designs to be. And that that feels more comfortable to me if I was like putting a team together. Are we seeing Paolo sort of because Julius Randle came into the league with a similar thing. Granted, Paolo was a number one pick, but it's kind of like Julius at some point had like primary aspirations that, you know, as his career wore along, it was just kind of like he morphed. And D evolved into like, you know, as we talked about, he kind of turned into a different type of player. And it kind of you kind of wonder if we're going to hit that turning point with Paolo or it's kind of like, OK, that you're a more productive player if you're this controlled version of yourself. I think the only issue with that is it took Julius Randle like eight or nine years to do that. You know, if you give him a polygraph test right now, he'd be like, I'm a primary. And as he suits up for the Brooklyn Nets, he will be. He has to be. Yeah, I think Jalen Johnson's ultimately. Probably the more versatile player. I think Paolo's probably the more superior talent. I know that might be damaging to hear for Hawks fans, but like Paolo has been a guy in big playoff situations. Like he's dominated playoff games and like some of them have been chaotic. He's done a little too much. But like that feels like an important marker in these trajectory. Whereas like we haven't seen that for Johnson last year was like a big test for him. Don't think he really asserted himself, but he'll have more opportunities. Like I know what I'm getting with Paolo and probably would lean in that direction for now. I think it's totally reasonable. Any other guys or things you want to talk about? I mean, there's I think there's a bunch on the edges. I mean, let's talk about Vooch for a second, who is not cut out for high level playoff basketball in the way that like the Celtics might have wanted him to be. But for a team that's this spacing challenged, having anyone who can even remotely shoot at that position, which Wendell Carter has like tried in fits and starts kind of, but in big games has not been able to convert from the perimeter. Just having a big who can shoot at all, I think is something for them. It's a nice little option, but this is the problem with Paolo. And we're talking about surrounding with the right guys. It just feels like they have different options when you need certain traits. Like, oh, there's more of the defensive minded guy. Wendell Carter is more somewhere in between those and probably the ideal one when he's like, right, but maybe not as big and enough of a force as a rim protector that you would like. And so it's like you never really get the right guy because the guy next to the guy often needs to be just as important. We've seen this a lot in front court players that are center types, but want to be power forward. It's like getting the the optimal like round out of what you do proves just as challenging as getting the superior talent. Yeah, I look, I don't think he's going to play a huge role in a playoff series down the line. But again, just as far as getting through the season, they need some options there. Wendell Carter, another guy who picks up his share of injuries over time, like they're going to figure out how to string their center together rotation or their center rotation together over the course of the year. And otherwise, I guess you're relying. You're relying on Paolo to play five. You're, you know, you're relying on Goga. You're relying on smallish ball units with like Jonathan Isaac, who is back yet again, or Noah Penda or whoever. It's it is kind of an odd front court mix for a team that wants to be physical and kind of is and needs more shooting, but kind of doesn't have it even still. It's it's an odd group. It's big of Jonathan Isaac to table the Senate run. So you can go one more one more run with the Orlando Magic. One more time around. How many times have they like like declined and then brought him? Back and just feels like there's really you don't want to pay him $15 million, but you might be okay with paying him the minimum weird situation because at one point I was like this. If he could have stayed healthy could have been one of the most impact impactful versatile defenders in the league. That's just kind of it is just really failed to launch absolutely never happened. I mean also on the fringes. I kind of wonder how much more we'll see of Jamal Kane this season who acquitted himself quite admirably. I thought of the playoffs in Franz's absence. And so when you're looking at this team and trying to figure out, okay, what are our best? Best on-ball defensive options as you're getting through 48 minutes him soaking up 15 to 20 of them. Maybe that's a little too much but like that's a good op. That's a good use of his time in the Magic's time. I think especially because then you move Jalen Suggs into more of like a roving center fielder kind of role or Anthony Black into that role. And both those guys can be killer playing the lanes. Yeah, a classic like we just need to got a hang. Yeah in a playoff game like that guy earned a spot. All right, number 14 the Detroit Pistons who believe it or not. 160 games last year and yet find themselves. I believe this would be eighth in our rankings in the East. It's not rude. It's a little rude. Believe it or not. They 160 games. Well, I think this just speaks to the exercise at hand here where I think we probably are overrating things that just happened over the offseason. We've had months to just get excited about these new things that are happening and by and large the Pistons did a lot of stuff, but ultimately it seemed like, uh, a lot of work to regain what they previously had just with different names. Yeah, I think there's a possibility that even if we weren't ood and odd by all the new acquisitions in the Eastern Conference, just replicating 60 wins is hard. Everyone knows what's coming now. Everyone knows exactly what Kate Cunningham is capable of is one of the best players on the planet. They understand the system the supporting cast intimately in some cases after exposing their weaknesses in the playoffs. So I think just getting back to 60 was going to be hard and also when you think about this exercise is, not just, can you rack up regular season wins, but who are you going to be in the games that matter most? We don't know how the Pistons are going to solve those problems. I don't know that any of these offseason additions really fix them in any way. And this is a specific type of situation where there was such devastation in the East that the records, it may be a situation where the records don't totally even reflect team growth because I and then you factor in all those other things, like there's the initial gumption of a build of the Pistons were just in hell for a long time. Think back about those clips of Kate Cunningham staring into space like Kendall Roy and it's like he was they wanted to just completely wipe that away and and and there's a hard charging this of a young team and then you combine that with you're right like the initial thing that happens with the young build like this when they get to the playoffs is you the book is out and people start to study the book and then there's also the personnel changes that we'll get into so a lot of those things are factoring in we'll get to I do think that I'm a. little more I think most people generally are pretty concerned I think about that follow the NBA yeah I'll put I'll just say like I'm I'm I'm concerned about some of the changes that the East was also more open last year absolutely I think there's like four to five teams that I really like but I I don't really know how to sort them out and so they feel cut below that on top of that their offseason has been messy and so not only are they trying to replicate what they previously had with guys that I don't like as much Tobias Harris goes. a guy who is basically their go-to problem solver in the playoffs yeah they replace him with John Collins who's a lesser version a different version maybe he adds a new dimension but like I think I wanted what Tobias Harris had previously and then we have the whole Jalen Duren situation which is a goddamn mess they finally came to a resolution as we're recording this just 24 hours before he is now on a 200 million dollar extension congratulations I think I mean it's a nice nice trick of change absolutely but is he satisfied with five years 200 million and everything else. that it took to get there yes that's the question going forward is they have solved the actual like is he playing or not for the Pistons next year I think the bigger questions lie ahead now of like what are they getting and I think the fact that the reporting as it is now like same a make reported for the athletic that what it took to get it over the finish line was Tom Gores coming to Jalen Duren or calling him or whatever and saying we will treat you and your family well to make this right effectively it's like it's not great that this is Tom Gores coming to Jalen Duren or calling him or whatever and saying we will treat you and your family well to make this right effectively it's like it's not great that this is this is the starting place we're talking upgrade from like we previously family room. $200 million deal and still feel maybe potentially disrespected yes and yet i think that is kind of what happened i just think 200 million look it smooths a lot of things over once those checks start hitting his bank account that's going to feel pretty good i just don't think you forget when a team tries to sneak a weight clause into their contract offer i don't think you forget when you consider yourself an important part of the team and csr thompson's extension go really smoothly and easily and he did it doesn't seem like there's really any animosity in that negotiation at all was there reporting about his weight they put allegedly reportedly yeah that was one of the sticking points as they started to leak the offer but something i'm saying did something instigate that because i've we were joking during the regular season about he just is such an imposing adonis like physique like has that ever even been on the radar and i just missed it i mean i feel like the only time i ever heard it was when he first came into the league like like generalized question of about his work ethic and then he comes into the league and yeah he's a physical force i've never really watched him and thought oh he is playing this way because he's out of shape no it was less out of shape i always wondered more about his effort and because he is such a physical player and it seems to be at the like the root of where his powers come from and i do think he took a turn not last year but midway through the season the year before that where things really clicked for him and that's what set him on the journey where he made all nba last year and that's the sticking point there is like he had a breakthrough season where he got all the accolades that typically would lead to him getting as much money as possible unfortunately the playoffs were a complete disaster and so i think that's the big question going forward like yes he's under contract but if he has had issues in the past being engaged and if that is ultimately where he needs to be to be his best self like do we have to start worrying about that like is he gonna like all of a sudden not be there in february when you need to grind out wins like this could get potentially dicey pretty quickly i mean and not just in the long term but even for this season as as we were talking about like how do you get to a good win total for the pistons how do you get to good standing everyone was rowing in the same direction last year everyone had a lot to prove collectively for detroit and now there's competing motivations there's guys who are fighting for these sorts of contracts or to validate them or to prove someone wrong but in a way that we'll see if it's productive or counterproductive to the team it's just i think this relationship between jalen dern and the pistons as much as i would love to put all this to bed and never talk about it again it feels like one that's still in need of some repair yeah it was weird too trajan langdon was like kind of referencing zion williamson offhandedly while talking about the jalen dern situation at media day and it's just like don't do that there really isn't much there trajan was like a math major i think in college i'm trying to think of like just reading the room i don't i don't know if that's a if that's just a situational awareness i don't know i've never met trajan i'm assuming a that's a big one to put out there like and the only way to do that would be like the work ethic thing like you all are talking about the parallels there are physical specimen crazy athlete who is just sort of depended on that superpower to be the easy button for every situation sometimes you have to kind of like convince dudes to sure to grow and things and that's about like having the right people around them and things like that but like bringing zion into it just feels like a real totally different situation and say whatever you want to your staff behind closed doors as you're in the process for everybody i just don't think zion's name is such a third rail because he what he stands for is like not a bust in terms of talent but a bust in terms of attitude and work ethic and all of the like uh extracurricular things that come with being a professional athlete and so putting that on jalen duran after he had a career year yes with a disappointing finish i just don't think it's fair in any sense and certainly didn't make any of this any easier so that's the question as it stands right now i think there's also a bigger question going forward where it's just like we saw the playoffs and obviously duran didn't seem like a healthy like contributor for success there i i think there is an overall question about the way this team is constructed and how essential he is to their next level to getting to be a consistent winner to being a team that can be at the highest level on the playoffs i think it's almost like a backdoor sarthompson question because i came away from last postseason and we talked about this during the playoffs i thought the core as it was proven to be was cade in a sar and they gave us our an extension pretty quickly and it's also stings for duran yeah a ton of time to get his own money i do wonder going forward like do we think duran is still a part of what makes this team special i think he can be yeah but he's going to have to show that he can be a different sort of player who is capable of working through that level of physical resistance of a playoff series strategic resistance of a playoff series i just think so much about his game right now is a blunt instrument and he's super young has a lot of basketball ahead of him a lot that he can do and has shown like little bitty flashes of doing as far as like ball skill or mid-range shooting it's something we talked about on the pod all last season i just think that the pistons if anything after last playoff run need to lean into those aspects even more like this season should not be about how do we replicate exactly what jaylen duran just did in the regular season how do we get him back to all nba form i want to see him take more chances i want to see him be put in positions to try different things you just need him getting into a frame of mind where he's working around problems like that kind of lateral thinking on a basketball court that is not just i drive through people and dunk over people because when you pull that chair out from under him a kid he had nothing to go to and that was i think just their defining problem in the playoffs as much as anything his roller numbers really really took a dive from the regular season and i mean let's just i mean let's be frank and honest about that and the reason that their their core is specialist because they have two unique players and duran isn't one of them no i mean kate is a jumbo size guard who is a pick and roll maestro we can just you know extol his virtues all day long on the basketball court but then asar just to be clear is one of he's generationally special as a defender and super super versatile and i think the pistons had the leverage to look at the market and be like listen you know jaylen you're benefiting from this player type that you're playing with guys like kate elevate guys like duran and there are more even though duran is special i can understand why the pistons were thinking the way that they were because in the playoffs you know the magic were just like we're going to put a lot of chairs in front of you so that you can't uh you can't we're going to just you know blockade this highway of pick and roll and he just didn't have any answers because he just doesn't have any dependable self-creation um i think he's going to have to be he's going to have to level up you know defensively i think he's going to have to because he's in this category where he's not quite as generationally special as like a sergio bacco or you know a clint capella those were the things those guys offered who were playing with similar types of guards to kind of up their two-way value if he's not going to be like a super offensively dynamic player right i want to give him some benefit of the doubt because i think if this if the pistons were a free and easy well-spaced shooting heavy team i don't think jaylen duran runs into the wall in quite the way that he did but they're also so long as the star thompson's here they're not going to be that team and a lot of that is on a star to how he's attacking how he's creating him like a threat and projecting as a threat from the dunker spot as a cutter as a facilitating passer all those things but jaylen duran has a slightly more challenging job than even a guy like clint capella did and with that challenge he just like absolutely failed it like complete flunking of a playoff series and so from that i would hope he kind of tears things down to studs and takes a hard look at what he can and can't do maybe that's expecting too much when you're fighting for 200 million dollars i don't know i think he's a prime contributor to their identity but perhaps not a foundational player for it like he represents a lot of what i think they're aspiring to which is like defensive focused physical just like brute strength and power and that just seems like detroit basketball it was in the past and it is now we're just going to punch you in the mouth the problem is when you get punched in the mouth and you don't punch back like that's a bad sign and so that i mean yep you lose the fight if you're just repeatedly getting punched in the face it seems bad it seems like a bad thing i wouldn't recommend that strategy have you done that before no you have a brother you've been punched in the face i mean brotherly punched in the face but not like brawl punched in the face those are like full-on punch i have friends who have a lot of brothers who have been like really seriously punched in the face i've been smacked pretty i'm not gonna call civil household i know your mother listens to this show she does listen is there anything she doesn't know that you'd like to say okay not not as far as that goes i mean she she's seen and heard all that shit have you guys seen those like slap fighting uh it's duels now no what is that magnum she's seen and heard all that shit have you guys seen those like slap fighting uh it's duels now shit i just can't even do it's like a bunch of like really large guys with chalked up hands smacking each other in the face and the guy who drops loses should we challenge like the fantasy football guys i was gonna say each other but no i think we should be a team okay and we kind of rotate it's like a line of guys right our team versus their team we go slap back to the line slap back to the line and whichever team like bows out first it's just like cte city man it's like it's really hard to watch those videos just think about it which which podcast could we challenge to this because i think we could do quite well for ourselves justin's been punched in the face once um we've talked about we have talked about it somehow it's like somehow on our wikipedia it's an evergreen topic on this spot that's right but with duran i i think clearly he fits what they're going for the question is like they as a team as we're kind of circling need to level up especially offensively it's crazy to think because this was the ninth rank offense last year just like you get into a playoff situation things really reveal themselves and one thing that got revealed is that they're not going to be able to win the game they're not going to was like, when Cayde isn't just dominating, it's tough to find guys to fill the void tobias was the guy and if you're paying a guy 200 million dollars you would hope you'd be able to do it you're paying another guy close to 200 million dollars you'd hope he would be able to but two of their three core pieces if those are what we're saying these guys are just like create spacing concerns for a team that needs space around kid cunningham and so it's tough ultimately i think you you probably need to lean one way or another or at the very least and it comes to nut crunching time in the playoffs to be able to lean one way or another and be able to kind of like bench one of them because you need to focus more on the spacing and so i think we've seen time and time again i think it's going to be a star i think regardless of during figuring things out i think it's ultimately going to be an asar thing i like i'm cool with all of that as far as where the pistons are and the long-term project of making this a sustainable team this is a good place to be in you have kade you have asar you have a really good player in jail and during who you're trying to figure out what to do with or maybe maybe he isn't as essential as he had hoped he would be or they had hoped he would be that's fine in the short term you've taken away all of that security you got from tobias all of that insulation you had all of that secondary ball handling and you've replaced it with john collins which i am here to tell you will not work because we know definitively and empirically it does not work a perfectly fine player but asking him to achieve and produce in the stakes that tobias harris just did that's not john collins like that that's not what he's capable of even just the idea that he's going to be the guy on the weak side who the bomb possession like the hot potato ends up with and he has to do something with it i just i would i would never want to be in that business personally and the fact that the piston signed up for it is baffling to me it's interesting that you said the security blanket of tobias harris because i don't really know that there we've ever been in a position to say that at any other point in his career right he's just been in this situation of playing with other good players and and not quite i this is a credit to him i mean he had a good season he like bailed them out of he would be in these positions where you know like we were away of the cade during pick and roll and he would just kind of have to make you know lemonade out of lemon possessions and and shifting from that to a lot of the time he's scoring you know you're talking about post scoring mid-range scoring things like that tough shots um but shifting from that to collins you're putting an even more severe dead end i feel like because even though tobias is more of a score his passing numbers like assist per 100 his turnover percentage is better is secondary assist like tobias is almost literally twice as better than him in all of those categories so you're just you're talking about a dude who is he as dynamic a score as tobias no and he's not as dynamic a playmaker no well he just doesn't play that's tough composite basketball like he he is doing his john collins stuff over here and that stuff is impressive and sometimes good sometimes really useful for minutes at a time or stretches at a time but there's a right like they see and value what he does in a team context many teams now have tried to value john collins in a team context and found him pretty wanting and so maybe that's unfair in some sense like john collins is just a guy trying to make a living and produce and be a good basketball player but when you're a member of a team like the pistons after the run they just had you're you're trying to see if these guys can compete and be held to the threshold of contending teams and i just don't think he's that kind of player at all i think his best value might be ultimately is like a small ball center that has a tobias replacement a beef stew replacement more right yeah because he gives him a little bit more flex and he's a little bit more reliable if only because you don't know if beef stew was going to be available considering he's probably punched someone in the face in the previous month um and also just like the stretch and beef stews game just kind of disappeared at a certain point too and so like if they have that tool in their toolbox it makes them a little bit more versatile because last postseason i complained about this a lot they just didn't have any sort of option to go to for that when paul reed gave them like five good minutes it was it was a revelation yeah so maybe that's the thinking get a little bit more flexible but in the other like voids that they filled it seems like a lot of the same thing where it's a lot of veteran journeyman shooters you hope that they have a good year shooting it and if they do you write it one of them is kevin herter who didn't do that specifically for the detroit business last year shooter who is not shooting well victorian prince who real coin flip guy like shows up sometimes the artist formerly known as victorian prince i will say genuinely good that torian prince is in the nba like he had a really scary neck injury that that could have gone very very badly in terms of the future of his life so the fact he's out here great expecting him to be a difference maker for detroit i'm just not not on that level then isaiah joe yes fills the energy scorer off the bench roll but has a little bit more nuance than i think some of the guys in the past who have filled that i think this was a team that was very north south and bringing in i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know isaiah joe gives them an east west component where they can run a little bit more like act like herder the idea of herder was to do that i was really high on the eyes it was a great value for them i think they would they get in for a second round pick granted okc was liquidation sale like basically but isaiah joe you know was good enough to play for the for the thunder and i think that he this is a great pickup for them because i just think he's going to add a nice directional you know ability for this offense right a good player a good piston no caveats like that's exactly what they need is movement shooters who do a little of what duncan robinson does but in a slightly different way like and you can play those guys together too just because their physical profiles i just think you need more ways to get those sorts of players on the floor do you think a cory in his first year can be a contributor for this team in doses yeah i think people are going to really come to like him just detroit fans i think are going to really love this kid because um he is electric i mean you know we talked a lot about how uh granted i don't should we mention that we already taped a version of this so i'm just going to say what i said before but he was kind of considered the you know they've been kind of looking for an off-speed pitch to whenever kate isn't on the floor you want to be dynamic you want to have optionality and you know jayden ivy i think was the original idea for that um the speed of a cory is different than ivy even in that he he varies in his speed he's very quick um he's not just kind of like zero to six ivy was just like i'm either going 100 miles an hour you know it's like he went one speed and that was very fast right a cory is twitchy start stop um i think he's gonna be he could even play with kade some and i think it could be pretty fun yeah but how likely is he to jump on a live stream and say some truly absurd shit hopefully very likely because i would plug in for that for the content reasons alone would you subscribe i mean i think for to be a professional you know we got to stay on top of the news just to see it yeah but i mean clearly what they were getting from danis jenkins at the best of times you could see the lift that that gave the offense and so this is this is kind of the push and pull of where the pistons are is they need more shooting they also need more ball handling they also need jail enduring to get it together that's a lot of stuff that needs to happen at the same time and have making it all work within a lineup that also needs to fit feature asar thompson not not an easy job i think this is shaping up to be a real crossroads moment for trajan langdon like assembling this team because a lot of the guys we're talking about either have had mixed results in the past or we're hoping that under like kade's like a watchful eye can be something a little bit more than they were previously and that ultimately falls on the gm in the front office having the right eye to to like find these guys and bring out the best of them and i'll say this as time has gone on the troy weaver revisionist historians have started to like come out of the woodwork i think part of it is because the okc mafia has really dispersed throughout the league and like so now you have a lot of believers in him because he was obviously a big factor in building that previous versions of the team yeah the messaging of that mafia being like oh troy weaver actually drafted all these guys all these pieces that are making this pistons team that's a troy weaver job how many of those draft picks are still gonna be there in the end because well he sought out jalen urin he did troy weaver did and he he was asar and jay navi and kade i was trying to catch charles tone i was like troy weaver did do that it's true they're they're just i think with it there is a little bit of a tone of like the mark jackson you can't appreciate the butterfly without it's not untrue it's just maybe overstating slightly how high level playoff teams come together right and i think the the case would be he just didn't do the easy thing which is like import a bunch of mercenary shooters to put around kade so you could jack the the regular season wins at a time when like who cared uh having said that it was such low hanging fruit like why not just do that like you also had a ton of cap space and a ton of opportunities these the torian princes are just around you just didn't do it i think they they're trying to do it i mean i think heard or heard or just failed to do it we're talking early early okay it's like under weaver and so especially when it's a good developmental enterprise too it's like it's not like it's holding back a rookie or second year player who's trying to you know bring their game along really really traumatized kade in those years with it i mean the space some of the some of the worst spacing i just i would watch and write about those teams i was like this is my it's like just like a lot of pity for pistons fans watching those teams i mean that's the hope right is we've seen kade be absolutely straight jacketed in those early years we've seen him now try to make sense of the puzzles of a pretty complicated team build think about how incredible he's gonna look when this when everything is in place right when all the pieces do fit perfectly together when he has like a truly competitive team around him and they're taking baby steps there they're getting there over time he's ready for it and so can the pistons get on his timeline now and get it together fast enough that's that's really the fundamental issue for them yeah i think they're in a prove it year and clearly they decided to not go the let's import a superstar or a high earner in order to like round things out we're gonna dig in in the crates a little bit and it kind of is incumbent on langdon to find the right guys in order to bring up this because at this point they won 60 games like there's no excuses for like taking a step back yeah we're projecting that but like i can definitely see this team again just printing regular season wins as a result but i think it's ultimately going to come down to the personnel around kid i frankly would love to hear the counterpoint perspective if there's people out there that like really believe in the pistons and saw something in who they were even in the regular season or who they turned out to be in the playoffs and are like no this is gonna get ironed out so quickly like the x y and z are the ways this team is going to take an immediate jump i would genuinely love to hear that perspective i just can't make heads or tails of any of that kind of thinking as we try to project their season into the next season i think it's going to be a tough one i think it's going to be a tough one defensively are they dropping off in a serious way my only thought as far as that goes is they are one of those teams for whom effort was a huge part of the formula and when that is the case sometimes year over year it can change a little bit and you just go from you know of being a truly elite defense to a very good defense and and maybe you know if jaylen duran isn't completely locked in that could factor into that too yeah i think it's more of a duran question again because that's the advantage of having a just a giant playmaker like k like k to sar is like the foundation of the team yeah i think it's more of a duran question again because that's the advantage of having a just a giant playmaker like k like k to sar is like the foundation of the team for being a good defense but they need to be elite to offset some of the offenses and concerns that i think we have and maybe we're not giving us our enough credit for potentially being even better than he's already been including on defense right we talk about his offense all the time and i don't think he's going to be a great shooter anytime it's more about how does he do the other stuff at a high enough level to compensate but if any wing player in the league right now is going to make a run at being defensive player of the year or a realistic candidate opposite wimby or take advantage of a season where wimby doesn't qualify or whatever i would think it would be a sar and his brother yeah they're both one of two athletes you know all right why don't we take a quick break come back talk about the next three teams on our list this episode is brought to you by sam's club during the holidays everyone's in a club the last minute gift givers club the cool aunts club the food coma club whatever holiday club you're in sam's club is the club that helps you pull it off need to get a meal on the table in under two hours done shopping for the brands they want like aura ring and kitchen aid without blowing your budget check and check sam's club helps you make the most of the holidays come join us sam from the studio that brought you wandavision i was an avenger but i'm not a hero anymore the vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy that family wasn't real you sure about that i had a father called vision how is this possible don't miss the two episode premiere of marvel television's vision quest nothing bonds a family together quite like mortal jeopardy now streaming only on disney plus picture yourself watching football with someone you're close to isn't it nice how they bring snacks unprompted or how they're cheering makes you cheer even more nothing beats watching the game with friends that's why at&t guarantees their network so you can enjoy the connected moments knowing if there's an outage we'll credit your bill when the connection matters it has to be at&t credit for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting eight or more towers restrictions and exclusions apply see att.gov slash guarantee for full details all right we're back and i have rolled up my sleeves here oh i didn't notice that because we're going to talk about the miami heat our number 13 team the hardest working team in the nba there's that part of it and there's also this is what i imagine spo is doing right now in his uh in his office because it seems like he has a task in front of him trying to make sense of this team they did the hard work of getting yannis in the door they have the star duo of bam and yannis but they're not doing it right now they're doing it right now they're doing it but now it seems like there's a lot of work to do here but that's where spo lives that's where i want to be clear in the dungeon everyone should live like compared to the meaningless churn of the other version of the miami heat these are good problems you want to unpack that you're all about the work i'm all about if you have the choice of have yannis on your team and some problems that come with it versus have tyler hero on your team and do whatever it was that they were doing i think you take this one yeah i tried i tried to get into rob and he just pips it back to to my job to what we're talking about what do you want to dig into the work the work as it relates to what i don't know it's like do you find it defines you do you feel like you find meaning from it oh brother you don't even know that's a whole other problem i just want to comment some on something broadly about the miami heat and we're talking about they're all about work and things like that this is a note to basketball reference we need to tweak the top 10 thing because they have hassan whiteside as the number 11 miami heat player of all time and i just i just straight win shares i think it's when i just think we gotta we gotta make some kind of adjustment there so i don't yeah it's a certain type of legend i don't think he'll get his uh his jersey retired maybe somewhere right next to is it what is it michael jordan they have there yeah hard to deal with michael jordan heat legend you know it's hard to compare that's true um so how are you guys feeling about the heat in general i found them to be one of the toughest teams to rank because obviously they have so much star power now but it just feels like trying to figure out a human's task i think it's going to take some working but i i believe in the pieces involved i certainly believe in eric spolstra i just think the defense is going to be very good to great and the offense will be good often enough to make them competitive with almost anybody in the east and so i think the high the high water marks are going to depend a little on matchup play it's going to depend on hitting the right teams in the playoff at the right time but i think they have a shot to be very competitive through two rounds of the playoffs probably maybe give someone a run for their money may go on a run to win the game but i think it's going to be a very good conference final that might be where they tap out but that's a great team if that's what they turn out to be do they have a chance to be the best defense in the east maybe so i mean so who are the contenders for that particular title do we think i mean the knicks but the marine protection is going to be a big issue for them yeah with their changes and things like that um so detroit has another great regular season defense toronto is the one that i would be particularly worried about uh as far if i were one of these other east teams because they could be even better could be pretty good yep i think there's a pathway and you guys are gonna laugh considering when we last left the calves james harden was just getting burned to pieces but like their front three of watson mobley allen is pretty formidable yeah i think i think they're gonna be good would you say it's one of the best center rotations in the in the league well is mobley a center see that's a hair worth splitting i'm just gonna sit over here yeah well but that's the formula right they need to be a juggernaut defensively yeah because i imagine whatever defense they cobble together is just gonna be very muddy i think the premise of yannis and bam davion mitchell andrew wiggins especially like that is if that doesn't get you into being a top six or seven defense i really don't know what will all those guys need to stay healthy to various degrees they need to figure out how to work together but get everything they need to batten down every possible hatch and they should be really flexible they should be really adaptable i love in particular the way that bam i mean so agile as a big and he can guard anyone on the floor and now you have a really high level rim protector behind him something that they've tried in fits and starts with guys like colo wear and whatnot but this is a different level of thing would you say that i mean you you would have to if you were going to be offensively optimistic about this team you would have to come in with the with the presumption that yannis is going to be in the half court having the ball in his hands constantly and then you have you have these guys that are kind of orbiting that which you can see that they've made an effort to do that by bringing in the defense and the defense and the defense and the defense and the defense and the team hardaway jr by bringing in clay thompson who just didn't sign up for whatever that was with the mavs the way that it imploded obviously i i've talked a lot about you know ryan conwell the rookie that they brought in i think that he shoots the ball dynamically enough that he could play and then pella larson which he's like to varying degrees of approval i think because we talked on this this pod but they obviously believe in him but i i think you're just gonna is the question ultimately because we know that yannis he deserves to have the ball in his hands and like going downhill a lot is there a next candidate though that we think that should that needs to step forward in terms is it david mitchell who can like have the ball in his hands more like who do is that the question that is kind of outstanding and then bam getting out of yannis's way i think is another thing yeah that that's the part i'm kind of most concerned about is how like spatially how do you want to tackle these guys who are on the floor but as far as who has the ball and who is running the offense i think a lot of it is going to run through yannis pretty directly and then the other piece of it is going to be more kind of a heat throwback in terms of how do you want to tackle these guys in a sense to the off-ball movement of their shooters and getting some of those guys activated like clay is not just a knockdown guy like he still moves really well around the perimeter and can turn and face really effectively tim hardaway jr also really good at that pella larson iffy on the shooting but such a good connector that he's gonna find those guys too and yeah if ryan conwell can play at all if myron gardner turns out to be a worthy rotation piece like i thought they did a really good job considering their circumstances and their finances of scraping together like a pretty decent shooting course around these guys they're not all perfect players it's not airtight but they have some chances to create real space i think we found out over the past few years probably since dame got traded to the bucks the yannis is a pretty particular sort about what he wants and what he expects he when i think it was telling when the bucks tried to make a go of it last year they leaned right into him being absolutely everything i don't think he gives that up willingly even to go to a team like the heat and doesn't expect some sort of the same sort of expectation from the team like the heat and doesn't expect some sort of the same sort of there. Having said that, I'm curious how much spoke. can influence him to do a little thing like do things differently one and then on top of that how much is it incumbent on bam to be the one who is more flexible obviously he started to step out more obviously he had the big 83 point game and so uh just like is he ultimately going to have to just step aside and be the one who's dedicating more time to spacing and doing other things in order so that yannis gets exactly what he's expecting i would love to dig into this this to me tease of exactly what you were heading out with our existential question do you want to you want to tee us up yeah it's just what's supposed biggest challenge and not just offense or defense like what's specifically schematically because for this team it really does come down to the x's and o's and how they're utilized because they can't go out and like get some guy unless they find someone on the fringes they elevate and fast track they have done that but not on this sort of accelerated timeline it really is like you got to make do with what you have yeah and i think that starts with your most versatile players and like it's it kind of sucks to be that sometimes to be the guy who's always asked to change and adapt and make space for other people but bam can do so much to the point that he's in a real journey over the last couple years in terms of how he's actually used in the heat offenses and it's going to be an adventure again as far as where you put him on the floor and i think that to me is the biggest challenge like spatially where is he in relation to yannis that's going to make all of this work and can those guys have any actions that are like directly involving each other that aren't just switchable by fours and fives like it's it's hard to build a lineup that has an answer for yannis and an answer for bam but like that's not a pair that can run pick and roll that's not a pair that's easy to have on the same side of the floor for basically any reason because of the easy cross-matching that can result and so where do you put bam do you want him top of the floor doing running dribble handoff do you want him at the elbow kind of facilitating are you parking him on the perimeter at times to space for yannis because he's probably the better three-point shooter of the two i really don't know and of all the coaches in the league i can't wait to see a the the more capable candidate you don't want to just put him in you're talking about the difference between the number of steps that the the help side defenders are going to be comfortable taking away from him and it's like i wouldn't put him in the dunker spot for that reason i would say just keep him out there and and you know he he got up to the point where he's like in that 36 percent range he probably will be able to run that back i would expect and you're talking about them not being like pick and roll partners you would think about even expanding it a little bit further it's like what if you have a shooter screening within that three-man game it's like maybe that's that's clay you can pull a little gravity that way and then you got a couple more shooters out there that could work um i just think the the question the biggest question and the biggest challenge i think you nailed it it's it's fascinating and it's a little bit similar about like it being yannis it's a little bit similar to what we were talking about with like mike and nori and john morant where this is even more and a more intense representation of the wars between spolstra and yannis where some of the more fascinating things and just the bloodbath grudge between those two and series this is going to be really fascinating to see if he's going to have the and if any organization were going to do it it would be the heat because from arison to riley to spo they are a lockstep father son holy spirit type situation where and you know spolstra stood up to lebron he stood up to some superstars so i don't think that he's going to like shy away from that task yeah like that matchup i mean i would love to know the thing that was in the heat war room that they were always scared that yannis was going to do or figure out and i don't think that's going to happen i don't think that's going to happen and now they have the chance to help him figure it out and he's playing with the guy who was usually the one doing it bam was one of the better more effective yannis waller's in the in the league it's funny because the heat have such a reputation of being let's say conservative at least with their approach tightly wound you know that they're still measuring guys body fats like every day there are real stories honestly someone should put together a leaflet of all the funny times like what they had to do like i can envision like guys just like in the the boxers like the the trash bags just trying to get weight so that they could suit up and you know up against their orlando magic on a wednesday like it's that type of shit and obviously riley is just like a hard driver but spo historically probably one of the more progressive minds at least when it comes to just organizing and just like finding new things last year was a prime example of that where like a new idea popped up elsewhere and they adopted it it worked for a time until it didn't but even dating back to like the lebron heat era where he's like going to oregon duck practices in order to develop more of a small ball approach even in the doldrums of like the red era you have like justice winslow playing center like real ugly delicious like this guy's a wing but he's actually built like a center right i think of them as like the dr nick uh of of the nba where it's like who's dr from the simpsons yeah where it's like lost on me at one point he accidentally put a guy's arm for a leg oh okay got it okay yeah he's like this guy with an arm for a leg and a leg for an arm like that is what they do we'll see how we get by the end of this but if there's a team to figure out how to do it it's like it's like it's like it's like it's like figure it out it does feel like it would be miami yeah i think that's why that ugly delicious quality and then like i mean the making chicken salad out of chicken shit is they're so capable at it that i look at every heat second round pick every undrafted guy they pick up and think there's something here like this guy could end up playing serious minutes by january february and we would not blink an eye it's part of the reputation it's part of the culture it's part of their scouting apparatus which is top notch like the heat are a first class organization now they have some first class talent and it's always interesting to see what they choose to do with it not just like how they optimize it but like day to day what do they want yannis doing over the course of the regular season how do they want to tap into his best instincts as a ball handler in a way that doesn't take things away from other people and i think one of the things we kind of talked around is like if he and bam aren't going to be a two-man game what are like the inverted pairings that are going to work and coincidentally enough like all of the inverted pick and roll pairings with yannis are stockier like guys who are good screen setters clay thompson tim hardaway jr davion mitchell like those are guys who can absorb a hit and flare out and hit a shot and that's a great place to start a lot of kind of improvisational offense walking into like half fast break situations anything in the half court that you want to get into like it's an easy premise that i think is going to give them something to work with that works around a lot of the the hand wringing about the spacing involved with this team do we think that the presence of yannis could potentially send i know we talked a little bit about before with bam but i want to just unpack it just a little bit more about you know is i wonder if we're underestimating how much of an offensive wilderness he could be sent into because of the amount of dribble twos that he has taken and that has been an area of focus for him but based on past roster builds um you know he shot 154 of them this past season and he only shot 37 on him it's kind of like if he's not taking the that was the glimmer of hope of and do you get the most out of him if you're not getting him as a screener or you stagger him with second units and use him that way and you get some of that like i did i kind of wonder if the bam is the guy who is a little bit lost ultimately for them it's all it's going to be a lot on him and yeah we've talked about the ways that spoke can maybe help that or we'll have to help that but bam's navigation possession to possession moment to moment is one of the deciding factors for this team it is with any team that doesn't have space like you could say the same thing about a star thompson right it's like if you are kind of jammed in the corner teams are helping off of you what do you choose to do with that opportunity and bam is a really intuitive player i think offensively though he's a little more intuitive with the ball and he's a he's a wheeling off ball mover but they're gonna have to find the patterns of movement that make sense for him and yana simultaneously and that part is not going to be easy i imagine there's going to be a good deal staggering but unlike most times where teams try to split their best two players it's often like two ball handlers and two like dynamic offensive players that they're just giving their own time to it is odd that it almost feels like the staggering might just benefit their overall defense where it's just like every minute of the game we're going to have one of the best front court defenders in the league out there and so maybe there's a way for bam to have his own time but it almost requires somebody else to drive it to him and so it's going to be a delicate balance i'm curious as a result of that like who is the guy that steps up on the fringes in order to supplement everything we're talking about honestly the names are a little bit different but i think it's going to be a delicate balance like you're digging through the crates here even for a miami heat team uh maybe it's a guy that they haven't found yet is there like one guy you guys are looking over the roster looking over some of the names you're like that i think that can be a guy that we just haven't seen yet i mean pella larson is gonna be a guy i think we are already kind of penciling him in right uh we haven't talked about simone fontechio who i think will play meaningful shooting minutes as well and it's like a different physical profile than the guys we've already mentioned the other piece of this that i think gets overlooked because of the yannis trade is like bobby portis is kind of like an emotional support stretch big for yannis who he knows how to play with and so with all of these other variables everything else he's trying to figure out in his basketball life in his actual life having this one like baked in thing i think is a really nice way to ease him talking about the iguanas like needs to deal with the wildlife everyone does okay yeah i mean portis is functionally the only backup center unless you believe in nick richards so kind of do but not that much i'll soak minutes what about you is there any guy you like on the heat roster uh he read my mind i mean portis is the guy that jumps out as um he just really never gets talked about in this situation and it is fascinating because of the chemistry and gives you a little bit of space i mean he probably has a little more confidence than his his confidence to be he's he's very aspirational we'll say that he lives up to it in many situations and um i will just be interested to see how they stagger that that trio of of portis and and bam and and Giannis because it does seem like they could get a lot out of them. the synergy that those guys have pre-existing it is fascinating the guy that got attached to janice because the contract they didn't want in the books anymore and then on the flip side the one former draft pick that got left behind in nikola jovich it's just like it really is like we're talking actions over words like that crystallize how your franchise thought of you i mean nikola jovich i don't know where we're going to find him over the course of the season just like wandering around somewhere in the middle of the country the heat kind of like forgot he was on the team for a while maybe he's going to like sioux falls i don't know just like dispatch him because it does not seem like eric spolster trusts him i can't say i blame him i don't know that jovich has ever brought anything definitive to the table other than the vague cloud of kind of having a lot of different skills but none that actually feel secure and so that's a tough player to place on a team like this like whatever chance jovich had to be a heat rotation player i think has sailed that was like the one bit of worry i had with the larry extension as well because like the tracker given with yoga jovich getting that money and then they're not living up to it it's just like you always worry about that having said that did you guys see pellet larson the highlights from now we're talking euro qualifiers justin welcome 30 plus in three straight games were most of the people you recognize from european clubs uh available there not so much not worried about it janice did play though so maybe he was he always does i'm sure he was impressed he took note he's like this guy he scored 40 on sweden let's go well that's the difference though it's like pellet larson is a spoke guy he if any grinder eric spolster over the course of last season i'm sure had him like pinned up on a wall somewhere it's like this everyone needs to play more like pellet larson it's got a beefcake calendar of it's beefcake but it's all guys who move the ball you know it's just willing willing facilitators calendar yeah should we do that what willing facilitators yeah it's conductors it's just a flip uh a calendar yeah but it's just guys making like crisp chess passes here's vasily mitchich here's nikhil alexander walker you know it's just just going through it it's real like chesty joke out there for you if you want it it's right there i'm gonna take it okay uh number 12 the toronto raptors with kawaii into finally and he's just a different guy showing up to media day with multiple accessories yeah he's got a headband he's got an arm band i'm just like a lot going on here uh also just all of a sudden just charismatic congenial like just really seems like he's happy to be there and was looking to get along and go along it's an it's an incredible pr strategy of just like be a different person just giving a shit yeah do slightly more than the bare minimum yeah and watch us people like us are legitimately amazed by it bold over fawning bad yeah it's like it there was like an interview with him from like a fashion week kind of thing over the summer did you all see this where he was like really engaging it's like is this dude just really just willfully making this choice just when he when he wants to absolutely yeah uh but somebody was interviewing me it was just like he i don't know it was at a party he might have been having a good time for all we know and that was helping uh maybe he was drunk at media day i don't know i don't want to speculate too much i think that could help a lot of people get through anxiety being in front of a mic and a bunch of people you know a little nip on the side i'm not sure that was his issue i don't think it was the anxiety i think it was the choice to be boring you know yeah well he's here finally uh i'll be honest i have no bandwidth for the like i'm coming home to to like cement my legacy i'm coming home to like cement my legacy i'm coming home to like cement my legacy with toronto they paid him and they're paying him handsomely on an extension and the good thing is once you pay kawaii uh if he's healthy he does show up so if he's available to show up he will play incredibly well last year the irony of all ironies probably the best that he's ever looked he's been absolutely dialed in all of the clippers half court efficiency like all their high points like they had kind of surprisingly good numbers if you like went down through there and you would look at me like what that doesn't make any sense and you'd look and it'd be like yeah kawaii was just fucking brilliant in every possible way i mean he was he was unbelievable it's a very optimistic it's vote of confidence that this is going to continue because it's a risk but if you're the raptors and you're in this situation like spinning what they spun into him go for it well that's the thing under the circumstances they traded somehow the less healthy player in brandon ingram and your favorite historically my favorite player into one who is brandon ingram but great and i i need the two of you right now to talk me down on the toronto raptors because i was incredibly moved by their playoff performance i was feeling energized by everything we were seeing from especially the young stars and up-and-coming stars of this team and you add the version of kawaii that we just talked about to it when they were already dealing with ingram's injury and quickly's injury and so much and they still were so good i just i want to believe ridiculous things about this team and i need you two to bring me back down to earth i wish i could be a wet blanket because you know how much i love doing that yeah uh unfortunately it just it makes too much sense it really does they just took what they did well in the playoffs and just like added to it they they needed like a clear-cut offensive guy to come to build upon what they've built with barnes and i also go back and just look at what scotty did in the playoffs like i was watching some highlights oh my god i was looking up the numbers from that it's way better than you thought and i was already just like over the moon about it twenty four six and nine the nine were assists in a playoff series that they almost won that's that's wild i think he's ready for a jump and like i think this team has something he just runs it back i'll be pretty pleased but if you think about what this team needs it was like okay they needed half court facilitating which you know getting quickly back i'll help a little bit about of that but he leaned scoring a little bit you need pull-up shooting you need a little bit more you need better decision making and process about what shots to take you need a transition handler you're just like kawaii box for box granted box for box he's better than brandon ingerman every possible way but he upgraded all of those things so you just kind of you subtracted a guy who was a negative and exacerbating that problem for a guy who's going to help in every possible way defensively they have the potential to roll out some lineups if they run out like a quickly barrett kawaii scotty cmb if they decide you know rim protector thing still kind of outstanding but that lineup has potential to be a downright terror when you could you could plug them into that group too who just signed a three-year extension that i would sign jamal shed for three years 24 any day of the week thrilled about that and can be even though he's small a total bulldog on defense and so they have they have a lot to work with on defense i think they're going to be just ferocious in that particular regard and to me the sum of a lot of what you're talking about kyle stars what what did they need offensively was they needed half court calm and kawaii leonard is among the calmest and coolest half court operators we've seen in modern history and so that like frenetic when things slow down what does scotty have to problem solve part of this formula it's just a much smaller issue and he can do that in smaller doses and find ways to keep growing as a playmaker but now you have just this complete killer who you can turn to on any possession where he's healthy and know you're going to get a good shot out of it and that security is going to take the raptors a long way i think they're also adding anything from emmanuel quickly who wasn't around for the playoffs and is perpetually hurt we'll see if he's healthy this year but obviously would help the offense considerably they just found something ironically as they tried to pivot away from project six nine similar something similar where their best versions are playing small ball with colin murray boils and scotty and those guys playing strong ball as i like to call it um it just feels like that is uh not a death lineup but something in their pocket that is a nice little curveball especially as a lot of these teams start to size up in the front court and so you know you try to get a little bit of a curveball but it's not a curveball it's a curveball you try to change yourself but ultimately you end up back to to what suits you you know it's so familiar for them you know just these long these lanky athletes multifaceted versatile defenders i again i think the longer we talk about the raptors the more i'm going to try to sell you something i just i feel i feel very won over by this team uh they're gonna have some issues on the back end like some of the guys who are going to be playing important backup roles are probably not quite cut for the minutes that they're going to play yeah uh you know like they brought in kyle anderson who i think is going to probably play some spot minutes for this team has seen better days i'm not like a huge jameson battle guy personally but i do like jacoby walter and so you'll kind of see on the wing behind rj and kawaii how they want to manage that and maybe some of that is like shedding quickly playing together it'll stretch that stuff out too but for what it is right now and the bones of this team i just like too much of what's going on you know like the top seven is pretty easy to have a lot of confidence in like you said and then um it's it's interesting about like what what about walter because it's like the production didn't really change if you just look at the raw like totals and things it's just like taking better shots and making them i mean he was just more efficient overall and sometimes it's as simple as that to make yourself uh and that's like just being like role conscious or whatever it is but he's been sort of a nice revelation for them and then um alan great you're talking about this team is just going to be you know this whenever you're playing basketball it's like there are certain types of players that when you get in there they're their hands just kind of are accurate to the ball and very very strong and there's a lot of that on this roster and they wouldn't got alan yeah alan graves is another dude who fits that role who can space we'll see what he's going to be capable of he was a nice surprise at some really good times but um you think we'll see some kawaii scotty barnes pick and roll like scotty is the screener we could see a little bit of short short roll scotty just the the pull-up threat there uh in the ice like kawaii just gives them a lot of wrinkles that i think could pay dividends well i think especially depending on when you're playing some groups that it's just very hard to have two forwards who can guard both of those guys at once and then what it allows you to pick on is kind of dealer's choice yeah well we're obviously over our skis for the Raptors. I'm going to give you guys an opportunity to douse me with some cold water here. Because one thing I have been kind of pondering here is, like, where is Scottie in terms of the hierarchy? We ranked him pretty high toward the end of last year after we went to the playoffs, partly because he left on such a high note. I'm starting to wonder in terms of, like, the second best players on every team, like, where he ranks. I think he has a credible case for being the best one. I think it's quite credible. Love to hear that. I already love to hear that. I thought you were going to be the other side of this. The water is not going to be that cold. It's going to be fairly tepid, maybe even warm. Did you guys both say tepid at the same time? Unfortunately. Holy shit. That's how you're not even podcasting. It's true. Well, this is a very tepid podcast, though. So I put down some names that are in the conversation. Yeah. Right? And so this is kind of the debate. So Scottie, obviously there. Carl Anthony Towns. Definitely. Jalen Williams for the Thunder. How you really cut up the Sixers at this point is interesting. Who would you say is their second best player? Who's their first best player? I think Tyrese Maxey is probably their best player. I think so, too. And I think their second best player is probably LeBron. But I mean, Jalen Brown, right there. It's one of those two. Joel, I think, is too unreliable physically. You're weighing production and consistency with Tyrese because, I mean, LeBron's more versatile in every single conceivable way. So you tilt Maxey a little bit. Yeah. If you were to ask me this question, just casually, I would say LeBron, just based on impulse. What are we doing here? Well, we're on mics and this is being recorded for people and they're going to hold it against me. This is not casual. But if in the course of a regular season, Jalen Brown is more dependable and I think has higher highs because LeBron needs to pace himself a little bit more. So it really is depending on peaks versus longevity over the course of a season. So that's the Sixers. However, you want to cut that up. LaMelo, Kyrie, Bam, Pascal. Am I missing anybody else? I mean, I think Kyrie is probably still the best Maverick. So maybe him or Cooper, I guess. OK, so you're saying Cooper is too? Either way, I think that class of player is different. I think we're way too high for Kyrie, Cooper, even LaMelo. Like, Scottie is way good. I mean, let's kind of dice it up. One of the best defensive players in the world right now, I think has a very good chance at some point to win defensive player of the year, certainly to be a first team all defense guy for however long he keeps playing this way. Putting up. The kind of assist numbers you talked about in the playoffs in particular, a great facilitator, not always of half court offense, but generates a lot of offense by his mere existence and processing of the floor. And I think as we saw in that in that playoff series, just such a focused downhill force whenever you give him any runaway whatsoever, like who he was in transition and semi transition situations should be terrifying to the entire league. And that combination of skills is comprehensive and benefits everyone around him. It doesn't come with even in the championship glow. The caveats with someone like cat, you know, like, like the, you know, the fouling, the decision-making, all that stuff is still there with cat. He's validated in all kinds of ways, earned and bolstered and helped win that championship for New York. Not trying to take anything away from him, but I just think Scottie has as good a case as any of the guys we're talking about to be the best number two player in the NBA. Yeah, I would still probably put Jalen Williams one if we're just turning injuries off. Sure. I mean, one of finals for the Thunders and pretty fucking good. He was able to fill that void and like I expect him to be an even more integral part of what we'll get to the Thunder eventually. But like what he brings defensively is just like so important to them, especially considering his size. But I think Barnes is going to be right there. And I also think he's in an optimal position with why coming in of not getting too much again, because I thought he excelled last year in part because they took some of the expectations off of him. It's more you allowed some of his more field-based IQ. Stuff to pop in the midst of everything else going around. And so it's more like if he's on the move creating and he could shine as a passer and and his feel rather than expecting him to be point Scottie who has a rookie was like had the ball in his hands and you just expecting me like he's you can't really box him in. I think that's where you get into the trouble. And if you just allow him the freedom in the midst of everything else they have going on, I think it's better for him. And I think he could probably maybe play closer to the playoffs Scottie than we even got in the regular season, which was already a good version. Yeah, I mean speaks to his value at there's a there's. A point where he's a Jack of many trades where you're listing out the top 100. There's a point for me is like a guy building a team where I would pick a person who is a more realized and bought in number two who is supporting then us than an implied guy who is like I'm a primary but hit hits efficiency walls. You know what I mean? It's like if you talk to Scottie and you asked him and made him like reveal his heart of hearts if he thinks he's actually a primary, I don't know. I haven't had that conversation with him. Maybe somebody has but it seems to me that he kind of knows who he is. And it's like Kawhi is going to come in here and Scottie is going to do a lot of job. So he's just it's kind of the Pippen Jordan old debate kind of a thing. It's like at what point would you rather have like a really highly qualified number two? There is a point where they kind of supersede a player who thinks that their primary but hits walls. Well, especially when that number two is 25 years old just was acting as a number one by necessity and almost made it out of a first round series against a really good Cavs team. So like it's he is on that cusp. He is better than a lot of those guys. We're going to be leading their own teams this season and it's it's to the Raptors great benefit. It is true. Like I can't think of many players who would willingly accept another number one coming on to their team, right? Because cat went to New York to do it. Like if let's just say shade didn't exist and they traded for Kawhi like might feel a certain way. Sure. All these guys have egos and like individual goals and all this other stuff. Like Scottie just feels like he's more of a go-along sort of guy and which is the advantage because we've redrafted that draft class so many fucking times like there's a point where like that was an important distinguishing characteristic from some of those other guys because like he sets a baseline in a way that certain guys just need a team tailored to you more. You could import a Kawhi and not expect as much from him. But when you need him you expect everything from him. Yeah, because you have Scott. It's the Iguodala thing to a little bit, right? I mean Iguodala like ran up against like he was capable of being a point guard, but it's just kind of like his scoring faculties were just not quite what they needed to be for him to carry a competitive team and then you put him on a team. With like an obvious primary and it's like all of those things just becoming invaluable to like the highest highest iteration of a team and it's like Scottie kind of in that category for me, but he's scoring a little more than it would, you know, I don't know how you feel about that. I think maybe a different level of prospect than even Iguodala was like the best versions of Andre Iguodala is sick like amazing winning player helped so many different organizations in different contexts over the course of his career. But I think Scottie has a chance to be something really and truly special and. You're right to have the right kind and right amount of ego to take the lessons of a loss to be. I'm good, but we need something different and not that I can't do a version of that thing, but maybe I'm not quite there yet. Maybe we can accelerate it by bringing in this other player and I'm up for that kind of challenge of working with them. It's exactly the kind of personality type you want in a starts. It's something that as we're talking about these other second and third best stars in the league, like I think Tyrese Maxey is a very similar thing. And. LeBron was even saying that and coming to Philly in the first place. It was like his sign on is part of why I'm here. And Kawhi Leonard would not be in Toronto if Scottie Barnes were not down for it. And that alone speaks volumes. All right. One guy we didn't get to who we should really talk about more in depth is Colin Murray Boyles. I think we're all really excited about. Right. Absolutely. OK, well, we're going to do that with the help of our friends from Sam's Club, because this next segment is brought to you by Sam's Club. The cool aunts club. The not socks this year. The food coma club. But every season, there's a team that earns its way into a club nobody expected. So this segment is about the newest members of the club spotlighting a team's newest offseason edition. Not an offseason edition, but year two of Murray Boyles. What's like a reasonable expectation for him? Because, like, I can get pretty unreasonable pretty quick. Will Chamberlain. Yeah. OK. Like, I need again, I need you guys to reel me back in. The hundred points, the off the court conquest. What are we talking about specifically? All of the above. I don't put anything beyond him at this point. I my optimism about Colin Murray Boyles is unreasonable, is maybe even somewhat unfounded. But he was so good in the playoffs and looks like to me, he's going to be one of the best defensive bigs in the league for a long time. So where can I come back down to earth? If you followed him at all, I mean, this is just he's been a darling for a long time for good reason. I mean, he's an insanely intelligent player. I think that propels him and allows him. A guy of his offensive abilities, but also challenges that there are conditions to making him work that we can get into. You would have to be really, really wildly smart as a player. And he is. I mean, he he basically he has facilitator tendencies. He's but I mean, the defensive stuff, he's probably offensively in like the Assar Thompson, like kind of you have to figure out ways to make him work. Sure. But that's those are the challenges that the Raptors have at the defensive stuff. You all nail it. I mean, he's so, so smart and can just switch up. Coming down the line. We mentioned the hands thing with the Raptors. He falls right in line with that. He's just has a lot going on for him. That's just a defensive star though. Like, I, I think there's a chance he starts the season coming off the bench. The Raptors do need Yaka Purtle in some capacity. And so however they want to manage the rotation is whatever it is to me. He's like the Dylan Harper of centers. Like it's so clear that he is part of the future of this team, a huge part of the future of this team, what his role ends up being for this season. I don't know, but when shit matters, he's going to be on the floor. It's gonna be detonating plays. going to be coming up with rebounds that he shouldn't given his size dunks he shouldn't given his size i i just think there's so much that's so improbable about him that it makes me believe he could do almost anything i'm trying to think of once we established the draymond archetype that's literally what i was thinking about a player who actually made good on it and you talked about this going into the draft how like we've tried it with so many different guys and i think it was an easy label to apply to a big who wasn't big enough uh murray bowles obviously had an advantage because he just seemed so cerebral and skilled but has made good on it like almost immediately it's almost like post fad like after emo was big like everyone went off to something else and now all of a sudden this emo band is like topping the charts wait it was a fad it was never a fad you're right that's what i'm saying it's a lifestyle okay what are you saying we never went away maybe hair metal we you know yeah something like that where you you weren't expecting it anymore and all of a sudden this guy came back in full force yeah uh it's my mind was in the same spot because i mean i remember covering that draft danny chow and i were talking about constant things and it was just like it's right there do we want to do it it's so cliche we're like he is just insanely draymondian like he's he is just a fire hydrant that walls up fives you don't want to just outright call him a five but he's very hard to play through he has long strong arms he has great impeccable timing his instincts are great he's a high level processor on the defensive side of the floor uh he's just he's such an asset to have um and um yeah i he was talking about the he slimmed down a little bit do we think that that's uh does that affect fire hydrant status at all i think fire hydrant status is innate like you could take 15 pounds off of chuck hayes and you still can't move that chuck hayes is another one yeah that's an interesting one yeah you have to put a little bit more respect on some of the more chonky labels that i threw aside to start his career you know so how would you describe him as a fire hydrant he's a fire hydrant describe him now dense and serious absolutely a dense serious basketball player after our own hearts is stout good he's like i think he's like a guinness unquestionably stout kind of shaped like a guinness i guess too cmb has definitely earned his spot and the one thing i know about every breakout squad is you have to earn your spot and during the holidays sam's club is the club that helps you earn yours whether you're part of the deal hunters club or the last minute gift givers club sam's club has the brand names you want out blowing your budget come join us sam's club all right before we move on to our last team any any guys or things you still want to hit i think the one i would like to hit is rj barrett who i think is kind of in a tough spot because of the quiet situation because of the state of the team where he's kind of like the one guy standing around waiting for an extension that is not going to come and it's really important to the raptors last year probably will be very important to them this year and his ability to kind of facilitate kind of navigate space he was one of the most consistent drivers on that team i don't know if he's going to be able to do that but i think he's what he's going to be to this group but it does kind of suck to be the one guy waiting to get paid on the team that we're talking about so glowingly yeah it's funny it's like he's no small contributor on this team nearly 20 points a game uh and he's over time he's got he's except he's never ascended to full like knockdown status but i mean he's good enough and it's kind of been a fascinating arc for him you know being you know the the number he was number three pick i guess and we were just kind of thinking about his upside and he settled into this like really high quality player thing where it's like it's been interesting where he moved away from the expectations of this is probably not a primary in the nba i never really thought that he was but he's almost gotten to the point where you're right it's like we need to correct a little bit where he's kind of undervalued i think at this point he's a classic good not great player and so he's useful until you need to level up to the top echelon of the league um it is funny though like if you were to take those three guys from that draft class from this point forward so it's zion jaw and rj barrett is it odd to say the line through the middle even though even though the highs are high you know you see what i'm saying it's like the highs are definitely higher without like he's never going to lead a playoff team the way that jaw did with the grizzlies and he's never going to be as individually one-on-one undeniable the way zion is but just that like it's almost like a financial like risk averse investment where you're just like this is going to just slowly fang stock it's gonna i think it's cd but it's gonna just creep ahead at the finish line and be like that ended up being the best investment you know he's gonna show up he's gonna be there it's really true time but i think it's tough for guys like him again where we and coaches and everyone's like asking these guys who are not quite stars okay do all this role player stuff find a supporting role learn how to shoot learn how to cut learn how to defend like lock into these other parts of your game and everything else will take care of itself rj barrett did that stuff and everyone said along the way this is how you find your way in your career and he's still not getting paid you know so it's like i you understand why especially guys who are drafted super high chase as long as they possibly can after whatever version of stardom they can get because this is the middle ground you sometimes find yourself in if you don't achieve it all right last team on the docket number 11 the indiana pacers which i have to say i'm proud of you guys because i was expecting to have to like come in here with armor just all around yeah shield sword lance all the good stuff because i just i just assumed that we would get a little bit over our time and we're not gonna be able to get over our time and we're not gonna be able to get over our time and we're not gonna be able to get over our time and we're not gonna be able to get. - I just don't know how much it matters now. - The depth in particular? - Well, could it be this overwhelming trump card in the way it was two years ago? I guess the counter to my own argument would be like, well, they play a certain style that allows them to improvise in the fly in the playoff setting, so that would be the case for it. On the other hand, do they have the same level of talent base that some of the top teams in the league have now? - Wait, I like this podcasting style. What is the counter to your counter? - I'm just having my own discussion. - I kind of like it. - Oh, well, it's that Tyrese Halliburton. I could keep doing this. Yeah, Tyrese Halliburton's injury concerns would be that. - They are, look, I think it's tough, as much as I would like-- - You want me to talk about Zubach now? - Anytime you want. I just think it's tough anytime you're expecting a team to pick up right where they left off, year over year. That's not an assumption you can make. Doing it a full season later, after everything everyone has been through, Tyrese Halliburton most of all, they're gonna have to figure out who they are again. And a lot of that is, incorporating Avicii Zubach who's a massive, not just literally, but philosophically, piece of this team that they have not had before. That's gonna require some change. Figuring out who they are in the East is gonna require some change. All of these guys adjusted in very subtle ways without Tyrese and are either gonna have to go back into the box they came from, or try to ply their new trades with this new version of the team. I think the Pacers are gonna be awesome. I think they're gonna be stylistically coherent in all the ways we expect, but pretending there's not a learning curve here would be disingenuous. - Yeah, but it's a learning curve that I don't think is like averse to fun, instinctive basketball. I just think Halliburton, you know, I talked about the impact that I think that Kingston is gonna have with the Hawks. I just think that Halliburton is probably the best force multiplier, like cultural, Jokic is in there too. I just think that he has even less implied, Halliburton affects the value of the players that he plays with in a way that's very, very unique. I had a few moments where I was like looking at these rankings where I was like, man, do I just love his style of play so much that I'm gonna fall into a trap of overrating him here. There are a couple, the answers, the questions that need to be asked is, we're really, really doing a huge sea change stylistically from Miles Turner to Zubac. They inherently, they occupy different spots of the floor. I do think that, you know, Zubac is kind of a workman-like inside the arc score, I mean, like in terms of like, volume around the basket scores, he's been one of the most, I had to remember, 16 players have posted up a thousand or more possessions in the past five seasons, and he's seventh in efficiency on that. So it's like, he's not like a dominant crazy, but he's just very workman and steady. I think that this is gonna work, because I just think as a short roll partner, he's gonna be good. And then the other one I think is like the Matherin to Kelly Oubre, I guess is kind of the, would you all agree that that's kind of the, is that the obvious baton passing that's going on? - It's really the biggest change from that. - Yeah. - Finals team. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I mean, other than Zoo, but in terms of the bench in particular. - Yeah, we're talking around the existential question here, so we can just get into it, it's what is the bigger obstacle? Is it the bench, or is it incorporating Zoo? And so on the one hand, Zoo is a much more accomplished player than Myles Turner, much better feel, much better defender, there's a lot to like there. It reminds me of a team like trying to grasp at something that they knew was like always a bit of a weakness, and finally like trying to round out that by getting someone like Zoo. Obviously, they paid a hefty price considering the way the trade ultimately ended up going down. I mean, a historical, we'll probably be talking about that trade for years and years to come kind of price. Did not go well. Well, I mean, if you want to start there, I mean, would you rather have Keaton Wagler for his career or would you rather have Zoo for the rest of his contract? The issue is not Keaton Wagler. It's like it's more ping pong ball dependent than that, right? Because it's like you lose Keaton Wagler to the Clippers, but if the balls bounce differently, Caleb Wilson is a pacer. And so it's like that is a dramatically different result. That is the thing that changes the course of the franchise. But if we're just talking about specifically how it played out, the one to one, what would you want? But it's the high end to the low end, right? It's the range of that impact. So I don't think Keaton Wagler changes that much about the pacers. I think he actually plugs in quite well and would play well off the bench and would fit everything that they do. But that's not the issue to me so much as you accepted the cost of what it would take for you to lose a top four pick and for to lose the opportunity cost of Keaton Wagler. So where did we end up? So you'd rather have Zubach? I would rather. You had to make the binary. I don't think that the protections that they applied in that trade were sufficient. And I think Kevin Pritchard made that very clear immediately after it blew up in his face. He admitted the gamble didn't end up. He swung and it was. For them to if they if that had hit, that would have been something for a team that hasn't had a lottery that they as an organization have thread the needle forever. They like don't really go. They kind of stay in the middle and stay competitive because they have to in the market that they're in. It's it's smart to go that way. And he made a risk analysis that just didn't pay off. Yeah, I. I guess I kind of wonder, like, who Halliburton is going to be this upcoming year. I mean, do we think that his play style and like just the start stop? Like, I do. I do kind of wonder, like, what his production is going to be like this upcoming year and like like what recovery is specifically with the way that he plays. Like, is it going to be our team's going to pressure him more? Are they going to test his ability to be kind of evasive, elusive? You know, it's like I wonder what he's physically going to be like. It ultimately is a window question. Did you see such an opportunity in the next two to three years that Zubach just like we had to get him in there? You were worried about Halliburton just like taking advantage of his prime. Independent of like where the injury was, but also like Pascal's, you know, getting older, you know, like he's not going to be around for five years and all of a sudden keep walking. That's finally when he catches it. On the other hand, you want outs and you want to have opportunity. And as we've seen, like teams that leave the door open for certain like possibilities, talk about optionality with Brad Stevens, like that's it to its core. And so I don't know. There are a lot of competing factors. I think I would have if it was a one to one the way it's laid out, I would go zoo. But it obviously it was Wagler and other stuff on top of their self. Well, zoo is probably a better player than Keaton Wagler will be. If I had to guess, this is as early as it gets on Keaton Wagler. Who knows? That's a statement. I mean, I just think zoo has proven a lot. He's proven he can be in a good season, an all NBA caliber center and an all NBA caliber center who does not take a lot away from you in terms of however, whatever style you want to play. And I'm most eager to see him and Tyrese together for a bunch of reasons. But. I think who he is as a short roller where you talked about his post-up game. If you look at those post-ups, they're not just like he goes to the low block and waits. It's sometimes he rolls into a deep seal that becomes a post-up. It's all stuff that can work fluidly in a Pacers style offense, despite the fact that he is a giant somewhat plotting center. But he's fleet of foot enough to make a role like this work. And that certainty is something that is a little bit more palatable than the like. Miles didn't like to do that kind of stuff. And his pick and pop game really killed them at the worst possible time. I mean, like there there were moments where he had wide open threes at the Thunder conceded and he just didn't make them. So and the other thing, too, is that like positionally, I think Zubach people just kind of see big lumbering white guy and they just think they think a certain thing about him defensively. But he really gets a lot of mileage out of like he's very smart with verticality, like positionally. He's he just is his attention to detail helps him. Like level up and be a better defender than I think he gets credit for. Also kind of like he has the vertical element, but he's also so broad. And when he positions himself, like widens himself out in a way that just eats space. And so when you're talking about which bigs can survive in the NBA, it's your ability to cover and scamper out and hang with guards. But also, like, how much can you clog the lane? And I would say among the best in the league at that exact skill right now. I think spiritually, the way he thinks the game is very much a Pacer, you know, and so he is. To fit in that regard, the question ultimately comes down to all the new wrinkles that he bring outweigh the fact that Turner at the end of the day would just space the floor. And they were just so dependent and so good utilizing that space, Halliburton in particular. And so maybe he'll slow him down a little bit. He'll be the one like starting the break. You won't be the one like trying to run alongside these guys. That's a difference there. And then you just just wonder, like, I also think this team is health dependent and kind of gets us to the question, which I don't know if I articulated before that the tradeoff is really what's more essential to them reclaiming what they need. I think one of the things that got lost to time was the fact that the Pacers took off as soon as they got healthy midway through that season. Yeah, seasons ago was Aaron Neesmith all of a sudden comes back and then it fits. And I do think this team is more dependent on the depth that they've assembled than some of these other teams that have now the stars and the depth. Because if you just lose Dylan Harper, Darren Fox for a couple weeks, you have a bunch of other guys who could pace you through the season with the importance of stars. That was the whole thing where like. You assemble big threes because when one guy's out, you have two superstars. It doesn't work that way anymore. But like there's a certain logic applying that to the Pacers where it's like if they don't have their assemblage of talent, then it does feel like they're weaker as a result because the collective is where the strength lies. And when they're healthy and fully clicking, that's when they're optimized and they're very healthy during that playoff run. And that's why they took off. And so that's also why I'm like, I'm I could see the pathway of them reclaiming things, but I'm also I want them to prove it before I'm really bothered. Understate Pascal a little bit, though. I mean, maybe somewhat, but I think I hear what you're saying about them. The uniqueness of their build is that they really do have like six or seven truly load bearing players who are difficult to replace in their way, who are very valuable in the role. And when you have Halliburton out there with them in particular, he is making all of them 15 percent better than they actually are. And so that cohesiveness and the way that they blend in the way that they build off of each other, it's it's vital to their chances, but also vital to their ability to get through the season. I think where Pascal comes in, I think where Zoo comes into like those are two pretty versatile bigs who we haven't seen a version of the Pacers have a zoo style weapon. But we've seen what Rick Carlisle does with Pascal Siakam, a guy who can post up, who can work for mid range, who can work from the elbow. When you have one more solidified go to offensive weapon, what does that do to the stability of that seven or eight man core when one guy is out? And so who Zoo is with the starters is going to decide the high end of the Pacers. But who? Pacers are when they're missing two guys on a Wednesday in January. But Zoo is going wild. That might determine their regular season standing. They just they have some guys that have audacity as shooters that is just particularly really rewarded in this style of play. I mean, we saw Neesmith, the leash. He's the one. Well, I mean, what happens is when you have these moments whenever you need guys to sort of just have out of body experiences where they have the leash and they're allowed to do it like Tyrese feeds into that in a way that like Neesmith when that moment. When that moment came, he just he took it like it just made sense because you're incentivized, but like to run and to cut and to get to your spot and you just you end up reaping those benefits benefits. But we're talking about like Siakam. He. In that season where they went off, I mean, he just you were talking about the different ways that his pie is divided that he he just adds so, so much. Granted, I mean, he wasn't able to carry them in Tyrese's like absence last year to like say the same level. But that's what I mean. Try very hard. To be honest, like he tried. But as a as a team. Yeah. They knew where they were. Yeah. He just he does. He does a lot. Now we've had the logical conversation. Can I go to the haters ball version of this? Yeah, I guess. So when Halberin got married. OK, wow. I was. This is not the haters ball I was anticipating. No, it has nothing to do with that. It's more about. Did you see how they brought 50 Cent on to sing? I ran New York or whatever. OK. I run New York. Yeah. You think it's corny or what? Well, corny. Like. He always. He always kind of walks that tightrope. But OK. I get it from the sense that like you were the last team to beat them in the playoffs. Yeah. There's a certain chess bumping element to that. Having said that, they just won the title. They did. And so it did like kind of underline to me like, oh, maybe we're stuck in two years ago and we haven't moved past the point. Like, I think if any other result happened to the Knicks in that previous postseason, like you're fine to still have the crown. But then they won the championship. Like you can't claim superiority. I feel like the Knicks winning only makes the Pacers win that much more impressive. The Knicks are going to be coming for his ass after all of that. Because he's taking a particular. But I will flip that and say, though, also, I mean, like with the Tyree stuff, just it's funny. Like, I mean, he does things where you're like, OK, this guy is a goofball. But he's a blogger. But he's got that sense of. So it's that hatred. That would be one thing. That would be one thing where. Yeah. But he's just he's unassailable as like a bad ass. I mean, it's just like that's a dude who's just like. Yeah. Has grabbed the moment by the throat time and time again. You can't. He has the right to talk that shit, man. I have a wide berth for corniness. if you show up and hit every clutch shot on an all-time playoff run and come within a bounce of the ball to say nothing of his achilles rupture of somehow winning the finals anyway i forgot how early in that game seven that happened because i was watching you were talking about my superstition i was like ready to skip it i was like oh fuck there it just happened like dude the vibe in that game like what world would we be living in if they had pulled that off because they they had the thunder they had the thunder shook uh it was really interesting juxtaposition of styles and stars between halberd and but think think about the knicks as we know them now stars yeah we can't do that but you can do that uh the knicks as we know them now bumping up against the scene the first time they play i mean all all of the building resentment all of the corniness you talked about and the taunting but also the newfound confidence on the knicks side in believing every bit of their own bullshit as well as far as what they could bring to a matchup like this i i really can't wait to see it he plays the villain role well and he willingly accepts it and i appreciate that because we have so few guys who really want to play up the pageantry of the game anymore like yeah is he replicating the reggie miller role certainly there's there's definitely replication there but like he's doing it and i think we need more of that frankly uh the flip side of this the one thing that i really found was like great in his favor i saw a video of him just last night where he was going through a pair of knicks and he was like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god apparently he's very thrifty and so like his parents have like have um designed his entire place with furniture that they got from like facebook marketplace wow and apparently he goes on grailed and facebook marketplace and just like lowballs i was gonna say i hope it's not with his name i hope it's a burner oh i think i think it is he apparently sold a turn or he bought a turntable from someone else he got into djing i know that and apparently the guy didn't recognize him until toward the end he's like yeah it's me gotta go and he just zoomed off so can you imagine like tires halliburton wants to buy your vintage yeah when you're ready to sell sell your power tools if he's the one buying that's what we'll find mill ground there um anything else you want to talk about with the pacers guys things perhaps i think there's still a couple things i mean for one one of the questions i have coming out of last season is like is there anything new here right not just zoo not just picking up kelly uber who we can talk about some more but like did anyone pick up any notable skills that are going to manifest in this version of the team some of it i think is just going to kind of get put back but the one that i think could actually make a difference is all the success that the sick that the pacers admittedly in a broken season in which no one was taking them seriously had playing pascal at the five something they did not really do much before really took off for them last season he turned out he was like very good at it and his mobility and his speed and his versatility was just killing opposing bigs who were trying to guard him and so when you get behind zoo like j huff is gonna have a place in this rotation for sure ob top end might play some five here and there but i would be very surprised if we don't see more pascal at the five than we did during that finals run a little speed bike lineup it really worked i mean it really really works for them yeah what i like i'm blanking on the did how much that was like a circumstantial like novel thing though you're talking about keeping it as a novel thing or like leaning into it as like this is not this is like a feature of what we're doing i think zoo is too good for it to start but as the as the primary when we get into the playoffs j huff is like trimmed from the rotation pascal siakam is your like primary backup center i think that feels fully reasonable to me yeah transition monster yeah yeah do we need a jairus walker mentioned just for posterity i think growth from me is not mentioning him until this point oh that's nice you know i thought you meant not at all but you are that you like resignation i just like he's not going to be in the rotation to start the season i've already made the claims too many times that like this is his moment this is his season there's an opening he's the breakout player of the playoffs just i i don't know that it's going to happen uh i don't know that there's going to be an opportunity for it to happen so i'm just going to sit back quietly and if it does happen you'll be hearing from me a lot then take a victory last nothing less so i reserve the right um one thing i have just as like an addendum here so they got kelly uber a benedict mather and ultimately came free could have ultimately just walked back into that back yeah they i think they had already signed based off of everything that happened it took a while for mather and to get out of a restriction for agency like they had already signed uber but essentially they could have just had mather and back um that's a little curious little little trade-off and what if i guess i'm interested the pacers were in that by the end that seems i mean that trade happened for a reason his brilliance was always going to like walk the line of it's he was always on in danger of spilling over beyond his role because he just aspired to do more and in a team that played that way you could see how that could potentially be something that's like this is tilting we're not ready to sign back up for that i think uber is a very good replacement he's a lot more contained and could add the same things yes that's the thing had a really nice season for the sixers but i one of the things that indy relies on with that bench is having guys who come off the bench and it can really really pop on a given night so you have tj mcconnell you have bray you have obi toppin all candidates for like a 12 point quarter or an 18 point game like can really put a stamp on things in a way that your systemic we play our way stuff will churn you far along but sometimes you need something to go outside the box yeah all right that's part four uh we are now through two-thirds of the power rankings how are we doing how are you feeling i want to run i could run back from the top okay yeah new takes no no repeats yeah we just have to run back from the top okay yeah we just have to run back from the top okay yeah we just have to entirely new things to say about all these things i think we could do it much like your wardrobe you only wear something once and you you give it away you've had too much to say about my wardrobe today okay all right why don't we wrap it there uh thank you to victoria valencia thank you to ben cruz and isaiah blakely uh we'll be back next time with the top 10 starting on wednesday we'll talk to you then from the studio that brought you wandavision i was an avenger but i'm not a hero anymore the vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy that family wasn't real you sure about that i had a father called vision how is this possible why am i losing don't miss the two-parter of the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy episode premiere of marvel television's vision quest nothing bonds a family together quite like mortal jeopardy now streaming only on disney plus picture yourself watching football with someone you're close to isn't it nice how they bring snacks unprompted or how they're cheering makes you cheer even more nothing beats watching the game with friends that's why at&t guarantees their network so you can enjoy the connected moments knowing if there's an outage we'll credit your bill when the connection matters it has to be at&t for wireless 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