Preseason Power Rankings, Part 5 | Group Chat

Hey everyone, Justin Varrier from Group Chat. Before we get to the show, I wanted to remind everyone that group chat, that's me, Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle Mann, are coming to Minnesota for a live show. We'll be at the varsity theater in Minneapolis on Tuesday, October 27th at 8 p.m. Tickets are on sale now, over at theringer.com/events, or click the link in the description of this episode. Thanks, hope to see you there. Hello, and welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Varrier, and joining me, Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle Mann, part five of the pre-season NBA power rankings, let's go, top 10! I want to believe that enthusiasm in your voice. I feel great. Look, we're getting into the real shit now, right? These are real deal playoff teams, some real contenders in this mix, but Justin, how are you feeling? You've been steerin' this ship for a while now. We've lived a lot of hours in this room, it's become progressively stuffier. It was just like there's a faint spell wrapped in through this. Do you think that's our slowly aging takes? It's just getting a little gaming in here? Yeah, luckily, Gwyneth Paltrow is I think gonna come in after us, so those just start spraying all the elixirs to allows this place. Like, Goup does film in the Group Chat studio. I would love to hear her commentary on just the read of the room and our immediate absence. That would be something, but it's good to be, you know, just spending so much time together. I will say, though, like, you know, whenever I come to LA, I depend, this is a little bit of a step to the side here. I depend on my friends who know the area really well. So guide me and give me, you know, just some expertise on the area. And my faith in Rob is a little shaken right now because I went to one of his recommendations and not so great. And then he comes to tell me that he hadn't even been there before, which, JV, I gotta say my, like, the foundations of Rob or just a little bit shaken. I was like walking home last night and I was like, did Rob even watch Widow's bag? Did Rob, like, I'm just kind of, it's all kind of cracking and it might crumble. I'm a little worried here. Let's put some context around this, you know, we were going to have a little team dinner. We're not naming names. We're not naming the restaurant that feels unkind. We're going to have a little team dinner at an Italian restaurant. Yeah. I would look, I was eager to try it, looking forward to it. As you said, I had not been there before. You went to this restaurant. What did you order? I got the salmon. Okay. Oh, I didn't know that part. Yeah. Hi. Okay. Okay. Okay. We're just forgiving certain dishes here. Yes. That's fine, but they burn the bottom of the salmon. I'm just kind of like, you should be able to do salmon well in an Italian restaurant. Is that totally out of bounds? I had to get one thing. I can't get. Come on. You can get many things in an Italian restaurant. It's salmon. It's not one of them. I wouldn't say so. No. It's not even an ocean fish. It's not what I would have done. But to your point, like, they should be able to prepare what they have on the menu. It's entirely fair. But look. You got to win me back. I will. I will. I will. You can afford to try something new with my friends and it didn't work out. But I'm glad you took that bullet for us with if he's salmon. I do like how the beginning of these podcasts have turned into like a band-a-fair exposé of Rob. It's just like real takedowns left and right. I feel like Jay Marriotti at times or it's like, whoa, you think you're on one level but you're not, buddy. Let me tell you, you've been slowly morphing into Jay Marriotti for years now. I haven't thought of that name. It's a lucrative business for a while. It really was. Okay. All right. Let's take a quick break because we have some business to attend to your more business than just hammering Rob. Believe it or not. And when we come back, we'll start the top 10 of the preseason power rankings. Salmon's good. This episode is presented by Sam's Club during the holidays, everyone's in a club. The last minute gift givers club, the cool aunts club, the food coma club, whatever holiday club you're in, Sam's Club is the club that helps you pull it off. And to get a meal on the table in under two hours, done shopping for the brands they want like Dyson and Lego without blowing your budget, check and check. Sam's Club helps you make the most of the holidays come join us. Sam's Club. All right. I would say this is where the ranking started to get pretty difficult for me because I think the top three as you'll find out in our last episode on Friday, I think those are pretty clear cut, but trying to fill the spots right beneath there and thus the spot that come after that. So like four through 10 proved really tough because there's a lot of teams kind of lumped into the same tier. And you're really nitpicking to debate whether or not one goes over the other. Yeah. I don't even think it's like tier two and tier three. I think there's just like a seven or eight team tier two. And we're going to separate the wheat from the chaff pretty quickly over the course this season. But also a lot of it might come down to injury luck might come down to just like random happenstance. And I think most importantly, the playoff matchups, I think in the East, that's going to be like the first round could be a total blood bath. And in the West, like separating these teams who you kind of have faith in, but not entirely have faith in, I agree with you is just the most difficult part of this whole exercise. Well, the top tier is so clear that like this is the standard is always the team that won the title, the teams at the top, you have to kind of ask yourself that question. In this situation, there's like in the West, there are like two teams that no matter how good you feel about any given team, you're like, well, you get down this road of feeling good where you're like, and we can't quite cross the bridge to feeling the utmost confidence because they're not going to be able to solve the problems that are the ultimate boss that's going to be at the end of the game. Yeah, how high can you rank in the power rankings if you're probably not going to make the conference finals? Right. That's what every team in the West has to figure out, I guess. Yeah, I really went case by case when I wanted to lean more into playoff potential. Yeah, when I was like, oh, I think these guys can stack wins like that matters for arcane reasons that I just decided on the fly. But let's get to number 10 on the list, which is the Houston Rockets. Rob, you had a little bit of buyers remorse. I did. Right before we recorded this. Well, walk us through it. So when we filed our individual ballots, I was just coming off of the lows of the end of last season for the Rockets. And I think it just particular how arduous the whole thing was. The injuries, the group chats, all the murmuring around the team, the vibes were horrible around the Rockets. And going into that series against the Lakers and just embarrassing themselves in some of those games in the fashion they did granted without Kevin Durant, I just, I was overindexing on that feeling. And I wasn't thinking enough about zooming out and thinking this is one of the best defenses out there, point blank. Things are probably not going to go quite as poorly on the injury front, at least I hope. And just having Kevin Durant out there in any meaningful way at the end of the season would have changed a lot for them. And so kind of reeling in some of my pessimism about the Rockets and thinking like, okay, even though they are still susceptible to injury, getting Fred back on the floor, getting Steven Adams back on the floor, getting Kevin Durant back on the floor, adding a couple pieces. Like, this team was just too good to have as low as I did. And yet they still kind of even after trying to fix the ranking, still ended up in this range anyway. So I don't know what that says about them or us, but here we are at number 10 with the Rockets. It over was rough from that series. I mean, it lingered. It was a fog that there was no amount of water that would cure no liquid ivy that would cure that that that that Rockets hang over that was the result of just shitty circumstances. We talked that we knew, well, I mean, Freddie being out steady, Freddie, that steadiness, the Rockets sorely, sorely missed. And it just kind of pushed everybody into spots, Katie at one point, like 2014, 15, he was hurt. 14 Kevin Durant. I remember specifically like that season took over for Russ when he was out, like, and kind of levelled up into the MVP form of himself. That version of Kevin would have taken that responsibility over willingly and but he's older. It's like, you don't want to put him in that to get the most out of him. You don't want to do that. Reach shepherd, as we saw, it just wasn't much as much as I love him. Wasn't ready for that, wasn't ready for that spotlight. Alper and Shingoon got pushed into the prime, the stressed primacy areas where his weaknesses showed up. And it was just ugly all the way around. So if we've gotten it and then they lost another mode of offense and steepen atoms, it was just it's stunk. And we saw a 41 year old LeBron James take them to the mat as a result. So we can get into all the, I didn't mean to write it off all the details, no, we can go more detail, but it was just it was ugly. That was, that's the case. And I think on the one hand, you could find yourself in a position where you're like, well, they still had fucking Kevin Durant. And so like they should have been able to solve more problems than they should. They ultimately did. But then also on the flip side of that is Kevin Durant really isn't a team wide problem solver. He's just going to do his thing and hope that he is so individually brilliant that he just does it by proxy almost, which to be clear, that thing combined with everything else was good enough to win 52 games. Just like pretty good. Yes. But when you need Kevin Durant to like rally the troops or to like make sure that Jabari Smith is more dialed in or that the offense works has more synchronicity to it. I Katie's just to be like playing me 40 minutes. Like he's over there on Reddit, like arguing with someone about like the legacy of Mugsie Boggs. You know, not a lot of Ted Lasso DNA and Kevin Durant, he's not going to find cute ways to motivate people. It's kind of like come with me or I'm going to be annoyed with you. I would say that might be more of a pro, you know, we need we need fewer Ted Lasso's out there for being honest. But Fred Mimbley is very much that guy. I think he's going to be a boon and crunched on specifically just bringing organization to a lot of players that need that. Obviously Stephen Adams was a big factor in digital overall identity when they wanted to lean more into the size in the front court. I think Marcus Smart, adding him, makes sense, especially if Emiadoka is still your coach. I was, that's the biggest thing I was surprised by. I thought they were gonna move on from Emiad considering like, he had a very rough run toward the end there. Not just like, schematically and like, some of the way the offense was breaking, but also just like, seemed like he'd run its course, like his hard driving style had kind of like, rubber met the road there. But if you're gonna be an Emiad team bringing a guy back who's like the totem for teams on the Celtics that they outplayed for, like, that makes sense. And so I get where they arrived at. I'm just more in like a wait and see. You don't have to convince me too hard. Like over the course of this conversation, I feel like I'm gonna be convinced to like, that these are too low for the Rockets. But I do want some sort of push in that direction. I just think weirdly enough on the wait and see front, the other teams in the West that we haven't talked about yet probably have more to prove in that regard. They have so many more new pieces or to completely overhaul bench in some cases or like new kind of stars that may or may not work with those teams. - Yeah, but Luca has a nice new haircut. - He certainly does. But Rich Eppert has a nice new mustache. - Do we have an official Kyle Mann comment on that? - Like the B-chair thing? - Yeah, real mop and mustache situation. - He looked like, have you ever seen these, like, I don't even know we're calling him now, social media guys who just get rid of everything and live in their van. And they're just like-- - Oh like gang life guys. - Like homeless. - But it's done for social media. And so they're specifically trying to drive like, traffic for like, hey, I made noodles at a gym and this in this cool, I have watched a lot of these. He looked like that. - Yeah, I was, my wife and I had this conversation during COVID where I was like, if I, if in another alternate timeline I had never met her and I was single during COVID, I absolutely would have become one of the like gang sprinter van people and just gone around like with my dog. I don't know, no chance. - Clearly it's going great for read, you know? - He does live in a sprinter van by the way. - Not that I know of. - I can't confirm or deny whether he lives in a sprinter van. - I saw an appeal to it, but no. - I think what we can confirm is that the rocket should still be quite good. And a lot of these players individually, I think we believe in. And so maybe that's reason enough to consider them as one of the upper tier teams in the West. And maybe by the end of it, they couldn't have separating themselves from some of these other teams. - I think the flip side of that is the guys that they're still relying on to be the emotional ballast for this team. Coming up with major injuries. And so Steven Adams doesn't sound like he's going to be playing back-to-back. I imagine they pace Fred VanVee similarly. And on the same side, you could argue like, well, it gives more opportunity for men, but also doesn't put too much on him. And some of these younger guys are hoping to develop. So having said that though, I would like them to hit just like a nice stride from the start, give her to all the problems. And like be the dominant team. I think people were expecting the last year. And so it's still going to have its warts. Even though I think we like a lot of the component parts. - I think the calling card stuff is going to come pretty easy, right, like the physicality of the defense. I mean, a man, Marcus Smart, Tari Eason, as a trio on the perimeter, like Jesus Christ, like that is so physical, it's so formidable. That kind of stuff is just going to be there for them whenever they want. The offensive rebounding is going to be there for them whenever they want it. What I'm curious about is like, where can they find the offsets of the stuff that they were kind of giving away last season that undercut those things? Like they were a monster offensive rebounding team. They're also like a horrendous turnover team. And so if Fred coming back, even if they want to pay some along the season or limited minutes or whatever, bring those turnovers down a little bit, then you are dominating the possession battle, right? You've gone from like the slights significant edge. I mean, they were the number one offensive rebounding team by a pretty wide margin. But you can only do so much in that regard if you're also giving so many possessions away. And so if both of those things can be true at the same time, I just think they could, they could really have a leg up in a lot of games. - They got so novel at times last year. JVM, you and I did a whole podcast where we were just talking about how this was like a 90s offense where they would just isolate, go get it, isolate, go get it, turn you over. And it just got to the point where, you know, you're talking about e-mail. And I think we kind of talked about this with the magic where it's just like, if you have a clunky offense, you just at some point, it tips where the buy-in to the defense just gets a little bit of like, it's just like a defense and football that's just staying on the field for too long. So just like, can you guys just get the offense, just run the clock a little like, you know, you just kind of, the complimentary football was just rough with the rockets last year. And that just, the bill comes due for that at some point. - I think defense, I mean, it's by far the most like, spiritual side of the ball in that way. Like it is, you either have the wind in your sales or you don't, and the offense drives a lot of that, the momentum of the game drives a lot of that. And like, Tara, Eason, picking guys up full court can only do so much to pick up your team. - Yeah, I would say the thing, like two things that stick in my mind from like viewing these teams in person last year are subtle things that I think people pick up on but become glaring when you're there. And I think one of them was the lack of synchronicity for the rockets, like how gummy their offense was, how like, just like certain things, simple things, just worn as crisps as they needed to be and how much it can bounded to create a much bigger issue. The other one was how bad defensively, Nikolai Yokucho wasn't how he would just not even try sometimes, but it's a whole other issue. Save that for later. But like, you could tell it from the start. - I think ultimately, one thing that they could have that we've all been waiting for is an offensive leap from a men Thompson. Here's like where you guys are with him. Like, what's like, if we're doing checklists for younger players, like, what are you hoping to see from him that we haven't seen in the past? - I think the mid-range floater stuff would be nice. - Yeah, because obviously all eyes are gonna be on like, what's his three point percentage with both Thompson's? But I think part of the value of having Fred is just like enabling a men off the ball. Like, he had to handle a little too much for where he is right now last season. Wasn't a ball dominant point guard by any means, but I wanna see him kind of activated as a complete weapon. And a lot of that happens with who is he as a cutter, who is he gonna be working off the second side, like having Fred to orchestrate and then a men to be like the incisive weapon on the perimeter. That's a pairing I'm interested in. And it starts with having him be able to be more selective in how he attacks. - A men as the all eyes on me, I, you know, like the defense is looking at me as I like roll into an action where I'm facilitating. I think there's always gonna be a low ceiling for that. But I think what the benefit, another one of the benefits, trickling down from Fred being there, from just everybody kind of moving into a more optimized spot is that you'll get to have these situations where like, if a men catches the ball early clock offense, there's a high screen and he has a head of steam from the hash mark to the 13 foot range area. You're not beating him in a foot race. You're not jumping with him. You're gonna foul him. So you're gonna get more of those situations than just like, 'cause teams just, they sag, some of the most comical screenshots I've ever had on my computer are just like teams sagging back back into the mid-free throw line area because they just want him to take those shots and giving him that kind of padding to dare him to do that 'cause that's how they play him. So I think if you get more of that kind of stuff, I think you'll get more out of him and then him as a connector. I think that's where he's the most useful. - And they picked up, not just getting Fred back, but like Marcus Smart can handle and initiate a little bit. You don't want him to do too much either, but like Bogdon Bogdonovich, if he's a part of this rotation, we'll see. - How much do you see left, do you think? - He hasn't been graded his last stops, but as like a set the table kind of guard who isn't being asked to attack too much maybe, or like is Bruce Thornton in the rotation at a certain point? Is Reed gonna take a step forward? I really don't know, but there's a lot of guys who theoretically could handle the ball so that Umen doesn't have to as much. - It's much better of an option than like the air and holiday minutes of years past. It's a little bit steadier, more veteran, more offensive leanings for a guy. So I get it if you're filling out your bench in that regard. Um, Umen seems like he's a bit of like pushback moment. I think he comes with a territory of signing a pretty gaudy extension. - Yeah. - Tariya Easton also got paid, but not as much, honestly, one of the worst extensions I've seen in recent history. - Tough from Tariya's perspective. - Yeah. - Get a new agent brother, I'm sorry. Um, but I think, so I think we're expecting a little bit more from a man where his last year, it was like he got thrust into the like, "Oh, can he be, can he step into the Fred Roll "of being the go-to point guard?" - Yeah. - He could not. I think Reed shepherds in a similar situation although without the same sort of track record of success, where he's like, he clearly has a defined skill and he finally made good on it. But then it's just like, "Oh, can you do all the other stuff too?" Like, these guys, I think, are getting to the point, maybe as a team overall. It's where it's like, they've gone from a ball of clay that we're all super excited about to being, we're nitpicking the finer nuances. 'Cause it's time to start to pick up those things. - I think it's entirely fair for where they are. And there are teams that's gonna need to address those nuances to get to the next level. Clean up some of this stuff, have few of the bone-headed turnovers and critical moments of playoff games. Go from a guy who can kind of shoot, to a guy who has to be really respected as a shooter. And some of that, honestly, they picked up Chip England for their staff in the off-season. Like, one of the most revered shooting coaches in the league. We'll see if that makes a difference for guys like a men, or I mean, Tari's been a pretty good percentage shooter, but is a little iffy as far as the reputation part of it goes. - Have you guys already seen the propaganda floating out about like, "Oh, this was a men's, a prudent film, like, shop." - Oh, yeah. - They got it from the training facility. - Yeah, and then now we see it now. But the crazy thing is even the last year was a grainy footage, even though there's just like, "Oh, this is gonna be, yeah, what's this?" - He's played in Crystal Clear HD for so many years. We know what it looks like. - Yeah, I've got phones that you date K now. - You could only enhance that so many times before you just started getting that to the screen. - You could see the pimples on my Facebook recording podcast. - Yeah. - I think we could donate. - Don't I know it? - Yeah. - Yeah, it's, this is gonna be the greatest challenge of Chip's career, right? I mean, I can't. - One Cheng-Gun is a part of that too. Where his three-point shot in particular, kind of abandoned him. His mid-range stuff was very tough. and go last season, he has a lot of skill, but asking him to be the fulcrum of a team that's trying to play two bigs basically as much as it can be allowed. He's going to have to be even more skilled than he's been, even more capable at managing the intermediate offense and just knocking down the shots that are available to him. I never know what to make of these like skills coaches that like build up reputations because it always speaks like it reminds me a lot of like the tech CEO like spiritual whisperer. Yeah, where it's like you don't know what this guy is doing but people talk about him like they've changed like their entire world view. The beaded guy from Silicon Valley. That guy used to live by me. Oh really? Yeah, our dogs used to like hang out together. Gavin Wilson's buddy. Yeah, really nice guy. We need a real life one of those spiritual advisors though. You know like I mean, I can go get him. Your dogs pooping together. So you get small talk with that with the bond you never forget. Yeah, the dogs used to play together then unfortunately the other little dog I think started to start some shit with my dog. They weren't as cool but I like the people. It's tough when your kids don't get a lot really not enough of a guru. But yeah, what did you do? Did you have any more thoughts on skilled development? I think we're just in the market for spiritual advisor. I mean, I definitely think there's a reason why they're probably paying Tripp England like a lot of Mike because it does seem like a pretty essential question for what they're going through. There are like three guys that have this kind of reputation. And so yeah, they are quite sought after. I'm sure some of it is overstated. You're one of those guys. I mean, I can really shoot the shit out of all Fred Vincent. Yes. Chip England. Yes. Jay column. That might be it. Chad Forci had a nice reputation once upon a time. That was more general development than just shooting. So not coincidentally, they're usually from the organizations that everyone is chasing after. You know, I think the next guy is that lethal shooter guy in Instagram, who's like, whenever I see him, he's like shooting into who's like male. That's going to help them. Do we need more spikes in the NBA? You know, just really up the environmental concerns. A bit of spike. Yeah. I thought you meant like a player named spike. Like a real bad. I mean, I'm cool with that too. I just mean like, should this be the kind of thing like where in professional baseball, you know, like, you know, this stadium has the big green monster or whatever, you know, like this lines a little shorter than that, whatever. It's like, we need a little more that plus death race, where there's just some like buzz saws going through at some time, some battle bots. Why not? Uh, the big green monster. Is that not what it is? What's it called? Number one baseball. Sorry. What's it actually? The green monster. Okay. I had a couple words. Don't worry about it, but a little mustard on it. That's good. It is big. Um, any other guys or things, perhaps we named a lot of the guys and things with this team to be honest. I have a thing. Yeah, what you got, which is they were so close with the rebrand. They bring back the McDonald's yellow into the uniforms. Yeah. The problem is it's a little too high in the mix. It's like 50, like the piping is like like three sizes too big. Because if you look back to the Hakeem era, it was like a nice little like touch, right? It was a, yeah, it wasn't like a bright. It was a low, yeah, it was a lower less, a dimmer swatch, right? Yellow is such a powerful component. You want to use it sparingly and the old school rockets used it perfectly. This is too much where it's just like, I just see McDonald's every single time. And so there, I see the vision. You didn't really nail it. I just don't know why you fear yellow's power. I think we need to embrace it. I know. Well, I'm not superman. You know, as a pale person, as a pale person, I fear yellow in general. I get that part. I just think NBA wide, there's a lot of red. And so anyone who is deviating or emphasizing some other part of their palette, I support it. Well, this is the Hawks, too. The Hawks are yellow in red. Rockets, baby blue though. We do. How did we feel about that? Yeah. Not as a full time. Like to go on around the moon one. Yeah, they dabbled in that. That was like the, the John Wal-Buggy cousins, Rockets, that really briefed with your team. We had with them. Yeah. What a moment. Though a ringer NBA show is brought to you by Fandall. All right, we're spending this whole podcast trying to figure out what we actually believe about this NBA season. Who's winning the title? Which teams are going over and which prediction? Are we going to pretend we never made by February? And Fandall has a reward stack built for exactly this. You get a stack of rewards to use on NBA futures. So while we're sitting here talking ourselves into teams, the rest of the show, you can make your future picks on Fandall. One future pick that I like is the Cavs in the Eastern Conference plus 900. They're fourth in the odds. If things break right, the East seems pretty wide open. I think the Cavs have a pretty good shot. Let's just hope that James Harden can play enough defense in order to get them there. But put your reward stack to work on NBA futures with Fandall. Check it out in the Fandall app and make this your most rewarding season ever. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC or Wyoming opt in a required bonus issue that is down with drawable profit boost tokens, restrictions apply, see terms at sportsbook.fandall.com, gambling problem, call 1-800-Gamber, call 1-888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. All right, next team on the list. The Los Angeles Lakers. And what's funny is I have listed out here all of the guys who came in and guys who went out on my dock. There's about 20 names in total here because it's a lot. It's basically a new team. They have to have the most turnover in terms of minutes load of any team in the league. Probably. Yeah. I got to say, I know it's marketing at this stage. But every time I hear these guys talk about their summer together, it's like, if you've ever seen like a movie set where people really got along, you hear this about the way how to American summer crew. They're all living intensive all time. Yeah, they're living in the cabins together and it's just like it's basically college again, except for David Hyde Pierce, who they were like climbers. Because he was like 20 years old. Yeah, he's an actual actor. Yeah. It just seems like the vibes are good. And I recognize it's something easy to say in the summer. But like, damn, I'm just really buying in. I mean, they needed to turn to the page so badly. Not because, I mean, LeBron's on an all-time great player, having him in a Laker uniform as we saw in the playoffs is still an incredibly potent thing. But that's not who they were as a team anymore. And clearly the tension that was lingering between how do you continue to build around LeBron while trying to service what makes Luca Doncic the best version of himself that he can be? It had run its course. And this is where you turn the page to. A team that is not complete yet, but you're trying a bunch of new players on for size, you're seeing who's going to fit with him. Walker Kessler, a massive, massive edition, a massive, massive investment, along with it. But I'm super eager to see how all these pieces fit together. I think they're going to spring quite a few holes defensively, but there's just enough shooting, just enough ranger defenders, just enough to hear, to like, talk me into them being a pretty competitive Western conference team. What would you give to get, like, true serum in Bronny James or just get to see, like, what he is relaying to dad about this is like, even if he liked it. Oh, man, this is terrible. I wouldn't have done that. I know you wouldn't have done that, if Luke. What's Luke could do after, like, a Smash Bros tournament where they stayed up all night? Like, this is so bad. They only gave me Kirby, so immature socks. But I mean, I think they could have been a good team. I mean, we've talked about this in the past, LeBron seemed like there was like a nice little couple of weeks where LeBron seemed like he was bought in to get a different version of himself. Like, it could have worked. It had Luke had been healthy enough to treasure through the rest of the season. I do think it, like, comes down to real high school shit here, where it's like, oh, I thought, like, Austin Reeves, you are my best friend. All of a sudden, now you're hanging out with Luca and you're his best friend. You're doing his podcast now. Like, what's going on? Like, it really does come down to that stuff. And it's like, on the one hand, it seems silly for these millionaires who are, like, competing at the highest level. But, like, they're fucking humans. Like, that stuff is just weird for someone for, like, like, Bron who for multiple decades has been the biggest swinging dick in every room and every team and every sport and everything that he's done in his life. And so for Luca to kind of crouch into that territory, I understand LeBron ended up. If you have other options, you go do that. Yeah. I also understand with the Lakers where they're just like, it just like is a little bit of a turd and a punch bowl when you're just like trying to turn the page on something. I think this is healthy for everybody. We're going to talk about LeBron plenty and his place in the larger title race, the NBA landscape, still quite prominent to say the least. But this Lakers team, I think just has a lot going on and a lot to, a lot to think that they can just fall into the traditional modes of being a Luca team. But also just enough to think that they might spread their wings outside of it, also means being a huge part of that, right? Like, a very different kind of creator that Luca's now going to have a chance to build with year over year over year, hypothetically, to make the Lakers into a pretty elite offensive. Yeah. I mean, the sort of like trying to think of the best way to put this. I mean, LeBron's sort of total experience, the tentacles of the whole LeBron. He is a regime unto himself. I mean, the swinging dick, whatever you want to put it. I mean, Luca just doesn't the swinging dick aside. That's how we define regimes. Luca just doesn't have as much organizational manipulation to my knowledge or he's just not playing those games on those levels. I would say there is the like dealing with him stuff that you hear. Like LeBron, I guess just with his inner pricing nature just has a lot of hustles going on at all times. It has served him benefited him quite well. There's probably more of an opening, I guess, for J.J. to it's probably just a little more clear cut. This team is clearly built. We love the idea of like short role LeBron, like what we were calling a drabron, the whole idea of like, you know, LeBron serving the dream on roll. We didn't get to see that. He didn't want to do that. But this, this is an optimized team for Luca. Last year, they were like the number one picking role team in the league. And like one of the most, I think they were the most in the league. [TAKE VO] VO The local plays a certain way, these pieces make sense. We talked about this in the past where I think it was, "Luca led some Dallas offenses to like historic levels offensive efficiency wise with players that don't really contrast that differently from the talent that we see here." Yeah. It's gotten even to the point because you're right. The vision is just clearly streamlined now and it's just like you just know what you're getting into with the Lakers as before it just felt muddled. It's to the point where they were talking up the defensive combination of Matisse Thibal, Boston Reef, so it was in practice as we were recording this. Matisse Thibals, I hear Williams in Walker Kessler, and I know they're going to have defensive problems, especially if Kessler isn't going to be out in the court all the time, but I was like, "Yeah, they are going to be really good." It's like I totally buy it in Austin Dreams. It's not a pretty too far to get to a version of the Lakers where if they're credible even defensively. I think that's the bar for me. 15th defensively, I think that's fine because I think the offensive potential is just so supercharged like sports or face. Well, let's start there. They were 18th in the league on defense last season. Are we thinking better or worse than 18th in the league? Hard to say because they were so injured at times, and so they played so many different versions of the Lakers last year. I think the fact that they have Kessler, and if he's going to be there for, like he gives him a backstop in the way that they didn't have before when they were cycling through Jackson-Hays and Deandre. I can't imagine a bigger upgrade in terms of pure rim protection than that. Going from Deandre Aiden flimsyly flailing about the lane into what you get from Walker Kessler, which, look, maybe a little overstated in reputation after, like, since becoming a Laker, but every second he's been on the floor, he's been a real difference maker on defense. It was just a matter of can he stay healthy along enough? Will the jazz continue to play him? How is he going to come along on offense and where is his confidence in that part of his game? He's going to give them that backstop. I think it's more just a question of, like, how much are they going to invest in the guys who can actually guard? How much is Mattis Thiball going to play? Is Zaire Williams going to be a guy playing starter level minutes or 15 minutes of game? Is Jake Loravia, like, are you going to overstretch him and overtax him by expecting him to do too much? I think that's where I am with these defenders where these guys are fine defensive players, but they have a lot of ground to make up with Luca and Austin in particular, and the amount of cross matching that has to happen around them. You hit it. The cross matching, cross switching is going to be one of the major cruxes of the season here. I'm looking at who's the assignment defender on this team? You're going to look at, like, Quentin Grimes is going to be getting asked to guard a pretty wide spectrum and be challenged to it. It's going to be. Let me stop you right there. Stop the answer. Well, okay. Then we go down through here. It's like a dude's. A dude the arrow's a little young. They're doing that. Came cars, probably. I think he's going to, like, offensively playing with Luca a lot, but I don't think he's ready. He weighs like 175, 80 pounds, and then. I mean, Matisse seems like an obvious. There's an opening here for a thiable, I feel like, to step in and have a role with this team. Yeah. It's just a question of how much Walker plays. I mean, we're gotten to the point where we're treating him as if he's primed-wilt. But like, they are going to rely on him more than, I think, someone who didn't play much last year. It really doesn't have, like, a ton of track record of success. They're just hoping he could be the type of player that they need him to be. Having said that, I see it, and they have options, you know, I guess the one thing they have going for them is that they really only have three solid guys in the starting lineup, and they could just cycle through who's playing better at that time, what they need in a given lineup. And so they just have. They have interesting names. And that's the weird thing with some of these teams now. It's just, like, when you're building top heavy, I think it's easier to just find guys. Maybe it's just speaks to, like, the overall talent level of the league, but, like, we've talked in the past about the Nick, just, like, filling out their 10, like, the exhibit tens with guys who are, like, we're rotation players, not that long ago. At the same time, like, Sarah Williams is, like, a good defender. Yeah, good player. He's going back to L.A., maybe that helps a little bit, playing with Bronny, the Sierra Canyon vibes going there. If you just hit some shots, like, all of a sudden, that's a better option. Let's just start him. Cool. He's the guy I have on for sure, because you could see a path where he becomes, kind of, like, the compromise option here, right? If he's hitting enough shots, he's, like, a decent enough score, or at least, kind of, became one in Brooklyn, and as a pretty solid defender, okay, he's, like, the midpoint. But there's also guys who do that who are, like, neither feast nor foul. And it's, like, they never have that one thing. They don't have the Matisse thiable level defense, and they don't have the Quentin Grimes level offense. And so they get a little lost in the shuffle. Yeah. So I think, Zaire Williams, like, all of these wing guys will have their moment. They'll have their chance to put a stamp on whatever rotation place they might have at that point in time. I just wouldn't be shocked if he ends up getting a little lost in the shuffle as a result. So we have the down here, which new addition levels up the most next to Luca. So are any of these guys, do they speak to you? Is there one you think, like, oh, under Luca's wing, this guy is going to step forward. Step forward in a way they haven't in the past. You're saying, like, this is going to be, like, a level up that they've never seen previously? Yeah. And it doesn't need to be a full level up, be a half level up quarter level, 16th level up. Oh, wow. Perhaps. Um, I think LaRavi, you will enjoy playing with Luca quite a bit. I mean, he already has to. He's going to, I mean, I think that, you know, the shot died with the spacing that I would, you know, you have a competent room roller. I think that's going to affect the distribution of open shots and really good looks. Like I said, they were efficient last year. He'll enjoy it. And I just, I'll go back to Thiball again. I mean, Thiball last year was playing in that, you know, clogged toilet office. And I, this will be a unique situation for him. So I would, I would just reiterate, I think Thiball's got a chance. I think Thiball has to be the best perimeter defender Luca has ever played with. It's not a very competitive category, but it's kind of like Derek Jones junior, Dorian Finney Smith on level early Dennis Smith junior clearly, not on that level. And then there was like, you know, Frank Nellikina, guys like that, but Frankie Smokes. Wow. This is, Matisse Thiball is a legit top five, like on ball option in the entire league and has a wide range of guys. He can guard. Kenny stay on the floor. Kenny stay healthy. Always open questions with him. But that part is unimpeachable. I like the names you listed. But yet, I feel like, who is going to level up with Luca has to be Walker Kessler, right? His whole life is going to level up. And I say that with no disparagement to the jazz, but the bump from going from jazz to Laker to being in LA to being a Luca donge's teammate as a big, his reputation is going to take a giant leap. And I think his game is going to take a giant leap because he, you know, we can run through that list of defenders for Luca, run through the list of point guards that Walker Kessler has played with. He played with Mike Connelly as a rookie year, other than that pre breakout, Kianta George, when he was still an absolute mess of a player, one of the least efficient in the league, Colin Sexton, who he's now with again, Chris Dunn, Taylin Horton Tucker, Laker legend, Taylin Horton Tucker. There were some, there were some THT believers. Do you remember that era? They're certainly where. Including the Lakers themselves. But like Isaiah Collier might be the best passer of that group. And you're going from that to Luca Dongechich as a rolling big is Luca, I mean, I'm just trying to think about like best lob throwers in the league. I mean, I think the mellows in there, Josh, pretty damn good. Luca. It's probably Luca. I mean, right? Probably the best. I think it's Luca in part because the precision is there and the creativity is there. But also he draws so much attention and he's so good at the late lob. The like, I'm going to turn into what looks like a fade away or a turnaround, but ends up being a lob to the roller that no one sees coming. He's just locked in on that stuff. They're like pastors, the guys who can sort of like, you know, the elevator door is closing and they can kind of, they just soncer in at the very last second into the, like, Luca's one of those guys that can fit. I'll switch to a music metaphor or people always talk about like Willie Nelson, the way he plays guitar where he's like kind of getting there and you're like, Oh, he's going to make it like like Luca is like really, really good at at stringing possessions out like that and just squeezing a note in at the very, very end. And I think Kessler's going to look up and be like, Oh, there's a, that's, I could don't that. It's going to be a whole new world for him. Yeah. I will kind of want to have all the scatter plots for all like where you shoot on the court. I want to see the one around the rim of where Walker Kessler is actually like starting to catch the ball or to where it leaves his hand because like in relation to the rim, because I do wonder if like all of his shots are going to come within the square just from like a couple inches might as well, you know, if you can get away with it. And I think especially as far as the leveling up goes, Walker Kessler is a guy who's rolling in particular, I just have not had a lot of confidence in as a member of the jazz. Some of that is those playmakers who he was working with. Some of it was the fact that he's had moments over significant parts of the season where he just like did not seem super confident getting the ball up when it wasn't a pretty clear doubt offensive rebound. And so part of this process for him is like, can you make yourself an available target where you're getting up lots of attempts on the rim where you're getting into positions to score more frequently? I just think it's going to be night and day for him in that regard. I also think this style of roster plays to J.J. Redx strength, where there's like a lot of options and it seems like a lot of guys who need to be coachable or who have to be willing to be coached outside of Luca and, uh, and reaves to a certain extent, but reaves is such an easygoing guy to begin with, it just feels like he just wants to bring everything out of every game and possession. He's just such a OCD grinder and like this roster fits him on the same side. Like it does feel like and you're starting to see this emanating from people closer to the lakers where it's like, this is kind of a sneaky big year for J.J. Ann Polinko, Polinko in particular, because their bosses just keep changing every year at this stage and reminds me of like early 2000s newspapers where it's like, oh, we're owned by another company now. Okay. I guess we're going to do something similar, right? Yeah. But then they probably think something differently. We don't we don't have that problem anymore. I was literally going to say I was like, what do you company? Because that stopped right? Yeah. I do think even though I think JJ has largely been a success there. I think I think it's gone pretty well. Plank a little bit more mixed. I think they might be in the hot sea. If only because like their new bosses might have new preferences. Yeah. Well, I mean, we'll have who knows how that's going to shake out. It's an absolute shit show as far as the Lakers transitions at any point in time. But JJ left a Disney owned property in ESPN to go take that job. Hmm. I don't know. Wow. Wow. I think he's every fun. Probably. Lakers are going to be good when CP3 comes in. They have a they have a long history. So when CP3's the GM of the Iger. Yeah. I'm going to say CP3 GM of the Lakers. I you didn't get there as a player. I don't think would you rule it out. I don't think that one's going to happen. But after everything that happened with the Clippers, you know, crazy or things have happened. I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. At all. Yeah. Those and those two are like thick as they are. They certainly are. JJ and Chris Paul. Absolutely. I don't see any reason. I haven't really caught any caught any caught in any wind of of Reddit. I mean, yeah. Maybe people who are way way down in the weed scene at every single day, but it doesn't seem like a major vibe that I'm catching. No, it's just like how how business works. Yeah. Just put it on the board. Don't you tell me how business works. I know how quickly. Anybody else you want to get through here? I mean, it's a smaller thing and I don't think he's ever going to be in a normal situation. But I like that. Brownie gets to have a slightly more normal situation. Just with LeBron, like I thought he established himself as a totally reasonable guy to have at the back end of your guard rotation less season and defense is 90% of that. And so getting him in a position to be on a team where he just gets to earn minutes and be there. And yeah, have the scrutiny of being brownie. But not have your dad over there and the locker next to you. I I'm just happy for him in that way. I've wanted this for him for a long time. Just having monitored this situation through the draft. He might feel relief, honestly. I mean, he can finally just have some quiet to just play it. You're in his and his life's never going to be quiet. No, just just some time to just kind of be a basketball player. Not have to worry about all the stuff that comes with it. Yeah, they made their history. They had that. And now he gets to try to be a guy on at least more his own terms. Brian James, regular guy. Just regular guy. Just a normal guy. He puts his pants on one leg at a time, gets the newspaper out front, or maybe the Ron beats them to it. I always take a break and we'll come back to the rest of these teams. This episode is brought to you by Sam's Club. During the holidays, everyone's in a club. The last minute gift givers club, the cool aunts club, the food coma club. Whatever holiday club you're in, Sam's club is the club that helps you pull it off. Need to get a meal on the table in under two hours done, shopping for the brands they want, like Aura Ring and Kitchen Aid without blowing your budget, check and check. Sam's Club helps you make the most of the holidays. Come join us. Sam's Club. All right. Number eight, the Denver Nuggets. Another team. Unfortunately, Rob, you rated differently perhaps than you would otherwise want to. I think the differently is there's like five teams here and I wish I could rank them all. Number nine. Yeah. I don't trust the Nuggets for many reasons. I don't trust their defense. I don't trust this new bench. I don't think they had done enough to address the fundamental issues that we've seen now, year over year over year, exposed by the wolves several times, pushed to its limit by the thunder. You would never leave your girl around the nuggets. This is what you're saying. You don't trust them in that way. Who's Mr. Steeleo girl on the nuggets? Uh, is it your catch? Maybe. Big lover. He seems to look seems gentle. Affection it. Yeah. Christian Brown doesn't give it certainly like it's it's a concern, but very generous lover on the court. I just I look at this team and other than the fact that they have the best basketball player in the world, early sneer enough, everything else feels like a bit of a question mark in its own way. And that makes me very nervous, but all of these teams make me nervous. This team reminds me a lot of their team two years ago. So the 2024 25 team, like a lot of what's made up here, just like it. I'm really getting flashbacks, which is a good or bad thing, depending on where you land on it. So the defense, I think is going to be bad again, the 21st that year, the 21st last year. So this is just a consistent issue for them. Aaron Gordon was hurt that season. I think at this stage, unfortunately, this just might be a perpetual thing because they're soft tissue injuries. And I just don't know what to expect from him. Well, thank goodness they re-signed his best insurance policy. Right. Ty's Jones. Yeah. Alas. I think the Demar DeRosen move in a vacuum is fine. They didn't pay anything for him. Sure. I think he could have a Russell Westbrook type of effect on the regular season product where it's like. Nuggets Westbrook? Yeah. Nuggets Westbrook from two years ago. Where it's just like, we need something to pace us through the doldrums of the regular season. And what Drosen can do and he's proven to do is he can get you 35 on a random night in February in Brooklyn. Right. That's like helpful to get a team a certain amount of wins to get a better seed and all that. But ultimately, like, I think it all comes down to just the blind faith that Yoke itch can make things happen in the playoffs. He almost did it in that post season. It's true. It's a game seven with that thunder team. Ultimately, Gordon got hurt again. And I just, I just don't think like all the pieces are lining up here. Everyone's a little bit older. Jamal Murray had a good season. So you always worry like that. Maybe this is the comeuppance from that. And so I have a hard time believing in them getting back to like three years ago. Nuggets. This to me feels like where they're going to end up in this stage of their build. Yeah. I mean, you're landing a visually nice plane, but it's a gelopy plane. Like, you're really, it's beautiful, but there are just so many variables that could go badly. Like, you know, and thank goodness, you know, we're not depending on Aaron Gordon to be so like basically everything on defense for this team, right? I mean, we're asking a guy with a soft tissue history to just be impeccable and immaculate across the board and answer so many questions for them. There's just a lot of problems. I mean, are we going to get Christian Brown? I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit. Are we going to get back to him? The bench situation here is just kind of bleak. I know we're like depending on Demar to come here and water a lot of plants for them whenever these different things are potentially going wrong. I do trust that Yokeuch is the ultimate like you put him with Yokeuch and he's going to bring something out of him. I trust that they'll be able to figure that out. It's a fun little experiment. Yeah. Definitely worth it. And I think we'll not only work well in the regular season and the kind of the endings eating quality you describe, JV. But just like I think there's something to the staggering through the games, kind of like finding what can work with some of these second units. I don't know that they're going to have it like they're they're kind of like finger on the pulse of it right out of the gate. David Ottomans talked about he wants that group, the bench group to play fast and then use Demar as like the fallback when the initial break isn't there. I think it's nice and theory. Ty's Jones is not an uptempo guard. And so if the plan is for Ty's Jones to lead your break, it's not really the kind of offensive threat that can do that. And so I think it's going to just fall a lot on Demar to bail them out of possessions to make things work. He can be a pretty good playmaker in his own right kind of finding guys out of out of his normal stuff when he wants to be. But that's an if Cam Johnson is an if Christian Brown is an if Aaron Gordon is an if everyone besides Nicole a Yokech on this team seems to be an if. Yeah. The Demar Yokech pick and roll is like a new little wrinkle that I'm just curious to find out what they come up with. Like it's a different style of dance than the Jamal Murray Yokech one. It's like it's more like a Samba as opposed to about like perhaps. And so like that's fun. Serbian shuffle. I don't even know what Serbian Walt. I think the nerds are going to be really into that. It's just like if you're drawing up what you need for this team. I think Demar would have been like the last person I would think other than the bucket getting part because you could tell in the playoffs Yokech and Jamal were built just way overtaxed. And so if you can ease their workload at any point to make that moment in the season easier. That's what the money is for. He doesn't work that way unfortunately. He's honestly probably a little bit of a representation of the role that MPJ played for them. Honestly, if you think about he's not obviously he's MPJ as tall or a lot taller and a world class elite movement shooter. It's a little bit different. But the way that his offense kind of is compartmentalized within the way an offense would flow. This is if he is willing to scale it down. And I think Demar is a little bit more playmaking. But I kind of think that's the archetype that he fits and they haven't really had that in the absence of MPJ. I just I mean, you flash back two, three months going into the offseason. We're like this is the offseason. The nuggets need to figure this out. Yeah. They're going to change so much like this could be a completely different game going up here. And it's almost the exact same team just with like some some bench parts flipped over. I will say like they're the kind of the fringe guys they've been picking up along the way of the offseason of this training camp period have been interesting. It's like all the guys that were intrigued by like, Oh, the Ryan Nebhards like goes to Denver. Cam Whitmore a guy I think people have been waiting to have like a run for several years. He's gone out. He's playing down on a couple teams at this point. I think he could be an interesting part because he has like a certain athleticism and like dynamic story can. Well, we can. We're talking about media scoring juice. If you fail at being a wizard, I don't think you're going to say if the nuggets you guys more than anyone are like, Yokech could figure anything out in theory. Yes. But like, you know, a Faku Compatso rolls along and he can't figure that out. You know, like not everything can be saved. I do think some of it can. I think there are guys. Yeah. In that Ryan Nebhard or like, you know, here about KJ Simpson like elements of this roster that might be something. I just I stop a little short of Cam Whitmore personally. Yokech is the Tony Stark basically that he can turn anything. You can give him, you know, pieces that are. Distressed assets and he can he can make something out of it, but you're asking a lot for it I mean like that also like a backdoor. He moves like he has lead boots He moves like the first the mark one Tony like Ironman suit the kind of like he moves like that But it's an upgraded technology. This is a little strange. I mean, you know Julian Strother And I mean we keep waiting for that show around. It's just kind of we're getting we've got to play by default He's gonna be a big part of that bench group. Well this team last year man I mean they were they didn't turn people over and they had no room protection Is that going to be any better this year? No, no And this is where everything we're saying like they're mostly the same team with mostly the same issues But not only are those issues the same the walls around them are closing in. This is the most expensive roster in the NBA Almost no one on this roster is getting on the upswing of their career They're all guys dealing with injuries or maybe kind of tipping out of their prime just barely and it's like where is Where's the potential supposed to be like that was what paid in Watson represented for so long for them was a chance at a Refresh if he did hit who knows if he will or not But at least there's that kind of like optimism around him There's no one on this team who you look at and say like that guy has star power that has not been actualized yet And that's well and good if you feel great about everything else. It's bolted down But they just don't have any enough security to feel great about that Let's shitty compound that a little bit here. Okay. Let's think back to this this really War-tired, you know, they've seen a lot of battles a lot of wars. They're barely hanging on Jalopy plane Let's think back to 2023 a snapshot of what the West was then and how wildly different it is for you know It'll be four years in the spring. I mean if you haven't just listening to you talk about how there's no upside promises And we're just hanging on like a like a dodgeball team on the back wall just trying not to get hit like I just think It's just tough. It's just it's asking a whole lot Yokech has worked miracles in the past and he's brilliant and we're weird about him We love him so much. We're weird about it, but he just that it's just it's a it's a tough thing when you think about how the landscape has changed In combination with those things. I've never seen someone defended guy who bales out of defensive possessions and be like That's genius because he gets to go back on offense sooner. I never said that. It's like I never said that Don't hang that on the snag. Well, I think we're kind of circling the existential question. Yokech has been More optimistic about signing an extension despite the fact him not signing it this off season was a bit of a red flag He had some comments at media day and it's always tough with him because he's so reluctant to engage with anything with the media That like you want to read into something more than it probably he's suggesting so That's one part of it, but if you were Yokech if you were making your own decision about the nuggets Would you sign the extension knowing everything that we're all talking about here about the present let alone the the murky future? I would sign it just because players of his caliber usually get what they want and so you put the pen to paper You catch the checks and if you decide in a couple of years you don't want to be a part of this anymore I mean they could get a lot for him if that time ever came no one's no one wants that no one should be Angling for it, but the fact that we have to ask the question is indicative of the problem like this should be the kind of superstar Who you have moved heaven and earth and it's worked to get a contending team around him that was true for a time But the injuries have taken their toll Christian Brown's contract has just been brutal in terms of that investment Which I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like I was a you know art like arguing against it at the time Christian Brown was coming off of a really good year looked like he was going to be on the rise and just has completely torpedoed since then so There's just been things that have gone wrong. There's been enough things that were misguided But they have to find a way to fix it and those things can't all be on yokech to make magic happen on the court The Christian Brown bounce back is a critical variable for this team And they really really need him to especially in the absence of you know losing Peyton Watson Oh, well man, I just they would have to trade him just because I just can't see yokech wanting to deal with the bullshit of Changing teams. I just can't seem he just seems like a monogamous career Player to me because I just feel like yokech Imagining this is me just trying to see into his mind here. I just Yokech imagining going through the Valley who of changing teams and the press conferences and stuff His feeling I would say would probably be like me imagining going to like a holiday party with my wife through her work Or something where I'm just like oh like I don't know if you all get this where I'm like I just don't want to have the these I don't want to know when or like the the big one when you become a parent is like kids birthday parties with school classmates Megan got so mad at me when I didn't go with her to one of them. She was she was just like did she was like fury Can I say she was right. That was for job. I had something going on I forget but no it wasn't important enough I'm just saying that that I just can't and I don't see him somebody wanting to do that Like I think they would have to try forcibly move him for that to happen doesn't seem like that type of guy Also has like an agent that's more like European based and so he's not really like operating with the same sort of like Cloak and dagger with some of these more American based agents on the same side like we thought about that about Yannis. Yeah, and then the situation became so clearing Claire clearly dire That like he eventually went up and moved and so I think at a certain point like The writing is on the wall there I think there's two things happening where the nuggets have their own set of problems and the organization is compounded by making some pretty cheap out moves And also some poor moves by paying Christian Brown so you couldn't pay Payton Watson But also simultaneously the second apron is built specifically to keep teams from adding once you have a certain level of team right if you go and listen to Sam Presti as he typically does this time of year Explaining the NBA to the normal fan he had a very eloquent answer about what the second apron does specifically And I thought he had a good point where he's like once you spend to a certain level and you get to a certain level as a team The second apron is designed to keep you from adding to that team. Yes, and so that's where the nuggets were before the second apron was even put in And now the fact that they've been there for for a few years you're seeing these issues start to compound I mean, that's why you don't pay Jamal Murray the absolute amount when he's do that It's why you don't play Christian Brown over what you should have paid him on the extension But I just don't know how to solve this issue now that they're like really deep into it Yeah, I just think they hit the tip of point very fast from oh all of this is working so well to all of this feels unsustainable And that moment at the mountaintop I just think we were all expecting it to maybe last one or two seasons more than it did and Maybe what helps as like a ballman some of that is Nicole Yochich loves playing with Aaron Gordon I think loves playing with Jamal Murray most of the time And so it's like you you have some of that built in where it's like okay He wants to make this work these guys want to make this work the core of this team has a continuity that's important and clearly good for basketball when everybody's right It just doesn't solve everything the one get out of jail free card. They may have is that 2031 pick from Cleveland that they got for paid in Watson That trade is basically incomplete right now. We don't know what it will become What it will manifest? Do you attach that to Christian Brown or Cam Johnson and trade like change them into a different player They could be more of what you need I don't know but like that's one of the pieces they have on the board that could actually make some make a move realistic Yeah, and in their defense They were probably an Aaron Gordon injury away from maybe pushing the thunder in that game seven And so I could see yourself talking yourself into that And I do think Gordon will probably one of these guys that people like who are really invested in the NBA will appreciate from here on out It's actually his Hall of Fame case is gonna be a really interesting one everyone gets in the Hall of Fame So I just assume that they will but like if we set certain parameters like harder ones like he would be an interesting case But he's one of these like skeleton key sort of players who is like Essential to unlocking the Hall of Fame player, right? I think about PJ Tucker a lot with the rockets when they had James Harden We're like that team work to a large degree because PJ Tucker was such a one of one defender being able to guard up and and size down the lineups there And like Gordon is like that but on an elite level absolutely so to the point that they kind of them inadvertently ran him into the ground They're like guess what you're our backup center now you're also are like secondary playmaker You're also randomly now one of the best corners like three point shooters in the league like they ask him to do so much and they rely on him for so much that when he isn't available It's just I mean, it's death for this team when somebody can do everything you run the risk of yeah I mean, you just run the fallening and the track of asking them to do too much Aaron Gordon did become too important at work and the nuggets are paying the price for it at a lot of us. That's Rob with podcasts I don't want to say it but you know We've got to the point where he says he's falling apart giving bad restaurant racks. It's just it's coming apart. Who even am I anymore? All right, guys are things we named a lot so far. So last season the nuggets were minus six points for 100 possessions When valentineus was on the floor yokech out. What was it beef? What was our nickname for the big boys combo? Big burger. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um Minus six net rating not good, but significantly better than it used to be the previous like four seasons for the nuggets when yokech was out It's been a disaster zone those minutes every year Do we think the Marvin Bagley minutes will be better or worse than minus six net rating for 100 possessions? I feel like you're going to say they're going to be much better because you're a believer. I'm not you're a bagley believer I'm a bagley boy. No, I'm not there are no bagley boys to be very clear. I'm not in my bagley. I carry a heavy bagley bag because I Had him number one at one point in that draft. Yeah, that I was just getting started. I'll say that's okay I just I think there is a chance that But those minutes go better than the valentunist minutes did. I say that in part because I think the player in Marvel and Bagley has become is like, just like a hard working role player, you know, very normal work a day stuff. And with his body type and with his athleticism, he fits more matchups than Jonas valentunist did. And we saw like in the playoffs, Jonas valentunist not playable against teams of actual important. I don't think Marvel and Bagley is going to do any better by the end of the season, but over the course of the year, I think the non-Yokich minutes with him. And if the demolished stuff goes well offensively, they might feel even a little bit more sustainable than those did. Yeah. He's still young enough where he has fresh legs. Valentunist was really hanging on to what he used to be and so for that reason, I could see it. I guess he options. Yeah. Valentunist gave them the post target of like a go-to thing. But again, if Demar is the go-to thing and Bagley is just like a really good rebounding big who can occasionally step out and hit a three and it's just hustling after stuff, that might be enough. Better than the lion's share of backup centers behind Yokich. Run, jump, dunk. Just finish easy stuff. I mean, it's not overly complicated. I think the moment that if you ever dared ask him to do like a third of what they asked Karen Gordon to do. I would never. He would combust in short circuit and explode, but yeah, like he's, it's a lot simpler. Yeah, to speak. It's probably just a more focused and concentrated version of a simple thing versus. I think the idea of Alentunist, maybe we just kind of got lured into thinking that that dynamism was still maybe more there than it actually was. The one thing with the Bagley thing isn't really a Bagley point, but the fact that they constantly have to turn to these journeyman veterans to like save their backup minutes because they didn't get the picks right in order to fill these voids is kind of the nuggets problem. It's like, why isn't the seek nausea? Why isn't this around home? The deron thing derailed them. Yeah, for sure. That was really unfortunate. But they've had to chain these together in a bunch of different ways. Like Bruce Brown's return was supposed to be something. Tim Hardaway Jr. was really good, but then they had to let him go basically for they couldn't be competitive in the market for financial reasons. So when you get into the second apron ish finances, you just get stuck where it's hard to keep guys. It's hard to replace them. And yet you have to go through that turn year over year, especially because you didn't get the draft picks right when you banked your entire strategy on getting the draft picks right. Yep. So it's tough. Any other ones you guys want to mention? No, we're all happening on LinkedIn. Like Spencer Jones. Yeah. Really? You didn't always. I'm not letting you do that. I've come around. I've grown. You don't get to change your mind. You know, I, I, I reserve the right to be more optimistic about Mr. Jones, even more than I am now. You were clowning on him at times last year. I didn't get it at first, but I do now. That said, he's not a future star waiting in the wings. He's just a good player to have around and certainly a good player who the thunder almost snatched away. Yeah. I've never really going to, do you think where they, or the way they fucking live on that point? I think they abs. I, why wouldn't you grab a player like Spencer Jones if he's available in restricted for agency? Yeah. The, the fuck around element helps, but the nuggets are right to keep. I wondered if that tilt to fuck around a little more, but based on what the thunder have, I was like, they need Spencer Jones. No, they had, they literally had, I think, one roster spot open and they're just like, let's throw a fly right here. Why not? Yeah. Makes some sense. All right. So, the Boston Celtics, I, I could feel the momentum brewing for this team as, yeah, you're in the building. Yeah. There's, there's that. So maybe, man, I'm just coasting off the fumes, but also just overall, it seems like the, the tide is shifted to, they got rid of Jalen Brown, what the fuck are they doing? To like, are these guys like brilliant, low key, and actually they got ahead of this? And now, I think I could see where they end up there because I think we can go straight to our essential question here is whether or not the Celtics are better than last season. I mean, specifically, like the pre-tatum, coming back Celtics, so Jalen Brown plus a lot of the same faces we're going to see this season. And so I think you look at it a certain way where it's like, oh, we're basically that team replacing Brown with Tatum and adding Mitchell Robinson and Torch. Yeah. And so there's a certain logic to that. And they have such a formula that I have, I would be hard pressed to say that they're not going to recreate some version of that where they were top ten on both sides of the ball. Obviously, the threes work for them and there's just a collective defensive size and whatnot and kind of the in between skills of some of the role players like it all works. My question is more on the high level. One, you're dependent on one player yet again, but this is a guy coming off a pretty kind of traffic injury who did not finish the postseason last year. Yeah. And then also like when we get deeper into the playoffs, if it's not Tatum, like there's still those same questions of like who are we turning to that was the advantage of having Brown and Datum is just like at the highest levels, it could be either or got. Yeah. I think the calculus of what you laid out is kind of an arguable like Tatum is a better player than Brown point blank him and Paul George and Mitchell Robinson is better than Jalen Brown. We can all accept that. I just think what happened last season was more than math like transcended basic logic as we understand it. There was there was a better than the sum of its parts quality to last season's team that led into an incredible run in the regular season. I think this team will be better and win fewer games. And so some of that's just going to be the reality of a come down from 56 wins, which is hard to replicate with some of the support and cast, which is nice. But I don't know that there's like a bench of good role players who everyone kind of likes that is more overstated than this like all these guys are fine. There's a lot of really good players around. But this is a team that is when push comes to shove like brass tax to go further than last year's Celtics. Peyton Pritchard is going to have to level up in a very serious way or and or Derek White is going to have to figure out how to be an offensive weapon again. If those two things both don't happen, I really don't see how their fate is any different than last year's team. I think this is sort of a version of coming into a better like this would be the equivalent of keeping your spending habits the same or just having the same financial philosophy when you come into a better like you have more money basically. Yeah. I think with this team the past year, they had that philosophy of, you know, overachieving, you know, granted there were some stress kind of points which ale and brown that they addressed and when they, you know, got into the playoffs, they were leaning a little bit too hard on him in tough situations. And Brad Steven said, let me address that and stay with that point and finish it here. I mean, it's going to be a better situation and I think that they're going to share the ball better. So I think they're going to have that kind of cumulative not leaning on one person too much thing because Brad Stevens explicitly said this where, you know, in the biggest moments his quote was, we tended to get a little stagnant. And I think that was whenever it got into closing time when the main guy that you're focusing on just kind of doesn't have a broad decision tree under him and to stick with that thing that we've said a lot on these pods, adding, getting Jason Taylor back who was a better passer. I think that in every sense of the word, he's a better pull up shooter, better pick and roll operator and then adding Paul George, who's not the same guy that he used to be, but he's a pretty good passer. I think that the tie that rising tide of cumulative passing is going to make this team better offensively even though they lost Salem, bro. I think better for sure. It's just a matter of like, do you have the supplementary decision making? And some of that will come down to is Paul George on the floor or not. He's really good. I just, I, I encourage us all to be normal about Paul George, because I, I a sense in the air, a lot of people are not being normal about Paul George right now, who is quite good, really good facilitating a little overdoing it, like talking themselves into again, like trying to make the, the jail and brown trade like validated and make sense. Paul George is good, good shot maker, good, good, good connecting passers, certainly good versatile defender, even at his age. All those things absolutely true. I just, if he again is where you're looking to bail out this team in critical moments of the playoffs, I think the mileage on that might be somewhat limited, not bailing, definitely not bailing. I just think he's a, he's a role player on this team, but don't they like, they are going to need bailing, not unlike last year's team. Like Jason Tatum is really good. And I want to talk more about him and his place on this team in particular, but you, like, what is the chain of Celtics making choices on the floor that you feel super comfortable with? Jason Tatum at the top, number one star, absolutely. Who's the next guy in line? Is it Paul George? Is it Derek White? Is it Peyton Pritchard? As you're going like further and further down that list, I'm seeing guys who I'm like, somewhat comfortable with. And then I'm seeing a formula that is mathematically sound, but relies on three point luck or to cue Mitchell Robinson's music, a fuck ton of offensive rebounding, which they're already pretty good at and are about to be even better at. Yeah, honestly, I think the bigger move of the Aussies, the bigger addition was trying to shore up their front court because that was the biggest concern. The playoffs where they got absolutely beasted in the very short amount of time the sixers had in beat. The memory of in beat killed them. Yeah. It was like the worst possible, like, perfect storm of a situation where they did so many things well, but they had this glaring hole that everyone was expecting could come home to roost. And it absolutely did. And fortunately, just like, it's a timed up and that happened. And so Mitchell Robinson giving them more, I assume as a backup, I think it's going to matter more than this, like slowly, like trying to become a much different version of Paul George, and we've seen in the past, which is that he just doesn't fucking play. And you know what, I think the press conferences and the rationale for doing the trade, it's a lot of just putting a brave face on a difficult situation. I don't know if we still know the exact reason why it seems like it's a bunch of different things came together and it just happened. It's like it was over. Yeah. I think you do have to kind of follow the actions over the words there where it's just like they were making moves. to open up possibility. The optionality thing, not to get better next season. Yeah, like they're just trying to figure things out from here. And like at some point twisted into like bulge roaches better than jim and brown were better as a team them. And I don't see how the logic shifted so quickly. Yeah, I just think again, there's a lot of good players here who are maybe like one or two rungs overstated in the rotation for where I would love them to be. And maybe that will change, maybe some of them will pop. Maybe Jordan Washer, Baylor Shireman, or you'll go like one of these guys may have an incredible season paid and pictured might have the kind of progression that I just don't really see right now. Those would be awesome outcomes to watch. I would love to see that version of the team. I think realistically we're looking at a good supporting cast. And then I want to know what happens to Jason Tatum without Jalen Brown. We saw the opposite of that. I would say in particular the lightness that Jalen Brown played with having a team of his own. I think the way that that kind of took the whole group with him and the confidence in inspired yet it did bog down at times, certainly in the playoffs. But the energy that they were playing within the Celtics were buzzing with was in part because Brown was playing so well individually and because he was playing so free. What is Jason Tatum's version of that? A more skilled player as we've covered a more capable player, a better player by any measure. If he has any of that same lightness to him, maybe that's the leveling up that takes the Celtics into a different class. I think Tatum has more lightness in his game than Brown, honestly, because I think he is just quicker to get off the ball. Granted, I've had my frustrations with him in the way that he plays at times, but he's quicker than Brown at the end of the day. And I think that's more conducive to helping out the guys. I think my theory, Celtics means to me, disagree with me on this. I mean, I do think that Derek White was one of the people that was more negatively impacted by that, but what I'm talking about. And I think that if they, you know, playing through Tatum more, granted, hoping that he's healthy, which is a big assumption, you know, because the Achilles guys that just stay at the level or even go up, like it's it's just it's asking a lot for him to do that. But I think that Pritchard has been handed more every single season. I'm not expecting that he's going to become a superstar, but I mean, he has taken it and been wildly efficient every single time. For sure. But there we could get some of that. I just think this is probably going to be a little more pace or Z, like I know, and you know, they've been the hot thing to emulate with the way that they play. I could see them having that type of personality as a team, which just like they have a center guy who is their obvious star. Tatum's not like Albert and obviously, but I could see it being more that kind of a template of a team success. Right. They're just hoping to be better at sharing. And I think Paul George certainly accelerates that and Tatum, if you're comparing him to Brown, he's certainly more a little bit more rehearsed than like a natural, but also is more cerebral than he is just like a physical and intentional. And so I think there was like a raw, raw visceral quality to the Celtics under Brown that I think everyone could appreciate because when he takes a game, it's by the throat. Whereas with Jason Tatum, it's just a little bit more things are a little easier. He just has a way of bringing out a little bit more of things. And I think that's where white. I would hope he would bounce back considering like he did have three seasons of shooting success right before then. And so I mean, he cratered significantly and it wasn't just a regular season season issue. He got worse in the playoffs. I have to imagine that was the blip and not the ones that came before that, but they need him more than anything because like he's integral to everything that they do. I mean, is that the blip as a guard enters his like mid 30s might be strong, but 32 years old. Yeah. A guy who yes has a track record. Obviously has won with the Celtics. has been an incredible supporting player for a very long time. But sometimes those lights just turn off and they don't turn on again. And I would love that version of Derek White that is a knockdown shooter. I would love the version of Derek White that defenses are forced to respect because of what he can fill up. But if he's not that guy, I think it's pretty devastating applications for the Celtics. I'm going to say something crazy right now in the Tobias Harris, just like career where you have that's been going on here. Yeah. I kind of wish that they had a fail save veteran that they could turn to in the event that Jason Tatum gets overburdened in high leverage situations. When theory that's Paul George, right? Right. Exactly. But how dependable is he? Yeah. Paul George does not drive anymore. No. I brought this up. We need to say that. I brought this up with Pena. He is driving almost five times fewer per 100 than the past. But he is a stretch for now. But big enough to like do the two dribble move shoot over the top. That's about as downhill as he's going to get. Yeah. And that's that's fine. A lot of the time. And we saw on the playoffs, they can still be really effective. But when that's your bailout option again, this this is what makes me a little nervous about them. I think there's a lot about the baseline of the Celtics that's really, really strong. But when you're talking about the high end, there's two Eastern conference teams in particular that I'm just very bullish on one of them just won the championship. And then there's a couple of other ones right here in the mix with the Celtics. I just see a lot of friction between this formula and going really, really deep into the playoffs. Like how how is this a three series win team to get to the NBA finals? That would really shock me. Yeah. When you're off speed pitch, when Tatum like has to give it up as Jaylen Brown, like that like gets teams worried. Yeah. Like that's a real like slug into the gut as opposed to like, let's let's see if Paul George is on tonight or like he's locked if he's playing at all. Like it's just there's a lot more mystery box element to this team that I think is going to not show up as much in the regular season because again, like they were fucking really good last year. There's the second best offense in the fourth best defense. Like that's insane to think back that they were able to do that with that crew. It's just at the highest levels of the game. I just don't see it right now. They have a I mean they had a replacement level. Is that too generous for Kate? I mean they had a replacement level five. Yeah. Maybe even a touch he overperformed who might still be the starter as JV alluded to. Like I mean, I kind of want to ask you as that about a philosophical in a philosophical way when you have a bench towards offensive rebounding. It's clearly a priority for the Celtics. Mitchell Robinson among the best to ever do it in modern NBA history. Do you would you want him with the starters where every offensive rebound he gets is more likely to be converted because he's playing with better offensive players or with the reserves where there are more misses for him to get. I put him I just I the idea of his offensive rebounding as an accelerant for them like getting more threes up and winning the possession game. I see the logic that I mean it's not difficult to look through the weeds and the trees to see. But that's true whether it's Peyton Pritchard or Sam Hauser. You know like they're gonna have shooters in every version of their lineup. But you got to imagine the back breaking mental told that it takes whenever you guard them ball movements going to be better you assume they're going to be better later into the clock. And then maybe some of that I guess some of the like broader game theory mindset that you could take here is that in the absence of another Jalen Brown who is like a guy who's going to give you some like isolation options after your initial offense doesn't work. Instead you've got a guy who's just like maybe we don't have that but we're just going to reset it and demoralize you by getting the rebound again and we we saw that in the playoffs. I mean that was for a young team like the Spurs that was mentally debilitating for them at some point that they just kept getting those offensive rebound. I think you get into trouble with Mitchell Robinson historically when you ask too much of him. I think it's the injuries start to pile up and if you drag them through the regular season and asking too much from him that way then it starts to become more of an issue and then obviously the hack opportunities just compound if you have them playing more. And so for that reason maybe in the playoffs it's a little bit different but I honestly think you want Keta to eat innings much like he did last year. I think that makes total sense and I mean the other part of Mitchell Robinson we have talked about is just the pure value of taking him away from the next is worth every penny. I thought you were going to talk about his truck. I mean that too and that's also worth every penny. Do you think he has like those like those truck nuts? I know where you're going. You don't have to say it. That's that type of synergy you build over. It's your continuity. I was thinking about Mitchell Robinson has almost like a Jack McBrayer kind of quality to him where it's like so like love whenever you listen to him talk he just has this this awesucksness about him but yeah. I mean we're talking about those kinds of chemistry guys. I think he fits that bill too of like just the right kind of goofball where he takes some of the edge off of 10 situations. Yes. Just hope he doesn't punch anything in the playoffs. It can happen. Yeah. All right last team on the docket the Cleveland Cavaliers number six on our lists but unfortunately I am drinking the cool. Okay. Wow. I had them as my number 14. Whoa. And this is gets back to like how much you weigh the postseason versus the regular season and how I've just decided to make that whatever I want at a given moment. So in this case it's the regular season. Yeah when I when we last left James Harden he was getting absolutely toasted like you could probably still see his chalk outline somewhere out there. That'll be better this time around. Everything will be totally fine. He's a year older on a new team but he doesn't have a new contract and he did play ball with the calves and it seems like so he's like he's going along with the plan which is always the case to start. But that's the problem like he's just starting his calves run. And while the postseason the god is so fucking bad toward the end there it was pretty good going into there. He had an immediate fact on the team in the regular season basically like lifted them from the doldrums to the point where they were in those big playoff games. And so I think another year of James Harden the Peyton Watson move I just love maybe it's just like a compounding effect of like wanting them to have a three like that for so long and they finally get it like this seemed like what they needed from when Donovan Mitchell first got traded there. I just think he makes so much sense for that team. I think like he takes some pressure off of the mobility to keep taking these big leaves that we expect and he never comes through with. But also like they kind of gutted their bench. And I think that's the value of James Harden. You bring in someone like him who can create and bring more out of guys, not only the Jalen Tyson's and some of the bench options, but also I've been mobiling your biggs and Peyton Watson, like specifically to like try to like over to compensate from for the lack of depth that they have on the team. And so like it all makes sense to me in a certain way. And so especially as we talked about with this tier, like you can convince me of anyone. I find myself convincing myself of the calves pretty quickly. - Well, I just think that when you're trying to create points of separation in this tier, it's like what is most reliable? What is most bankable? The answer is not James Harden, clearly. But the calves ability to just pile up regular season wins, like they're just gonna win a lot of games. It's what this group does over the last two seasons. They have the third best record in the NBA. Like these guys, I think they have the offensive engine to do it, they have the defensive backbone to do it. Night to night, they have enough size to do it in the regular season, certainly. And the depth you're right, like they don't have conventional depth. Like the guys who are on their bench are not world beaters. But so many of their critical players can move around the positional spectrum in ways that are really important. Donovan Mitchell can slide over and basically be your point guard. Evan Moby sliding four or five, Peyton Watson sliding like two, three, four maybe defensively, at least depending on what you need. And so having that kind of mobility within your rotation allows Kenny Adkinson to kind of pick and choose. Like, okay, this guy's working tonight off the bench. This guy isn't, San Merrill's got it going, but maybe this other guy doesn't. You can be a little more selective. And so it makes the depth feel more sustainable than it probably is. They're gonna win a lot of games in the regular season. We're probably gonna have to reiterate what you're saying. I definitely think that's true. There's gonna be moments where we're like, oh man, they actually might be better than the sixers in the regular season just 'cause they're gonna roll out the things that have worked in the regular season. That stuff is bankable, like you said. But have the walls really changed? Has the end of it, is there light at the end of that tunnel or is it like a reflection that we, and we're just gonna hit it again? There's an accident wall that wasn't here before. It's a wallpaper. It's a different shade of off-white this time. Egg shell. Yeah. I'm gonna run it back. I mean, we talked about the cross switching with the Lakers. It's gonna be just, it's a very difficult job description that they have created for themselves by leaning into this offensive profile that they love. That's gonna win 'em a lot of games. But at the end of the year, it's just a button that teams are gonna push and you're gonna get in these positions where it's gonna be like, has mobile changed? They're gonna have, I just, I am not off of the spot of a feeling concerned about what the end game is for them 'cause I just don't, hardens a year old, I just don't, Donovan Mitchell's rigidity. It's just like, everybody's getting, I'm still concerned, just as concerned as ever. That button that teams push and what happens to the calves is they have this wheeling and dealing offense. They get into the playoffs and everything gets so flattened and so oversimplified, it happened before hard and happened after hard and it's just like, everything gets reduced to its basic most predictable qualities. And that version of the calves you can beat, you can solve. You can be physical with them and body them out of their spots. Like, they need a solution to that. And that's where I'm probably most excited about Peyton Watson, not because he can solve every single problem with this roster, but he has an element of surprise to him. Like, the best Peyton Watson plays are plays you could not possibly predict. And so they need more guys who can do that. Evan Mobley is very cerebral and very calculated. Donovan Mitchell, especially when he's in volume scoring mode, yeah, he's gonna get buy you. He's an amazing shooter, he's an explosive player, but you know what his objectives are. They need more of a wild card. And Peyton Watson, I think, is a wild card in a very healthy way for them. You see the wildest card that they've had with this roster build? Who could be wilder? They expected Lonzo to come in and sort of that just didn't work. I'm just, he's definitely got more offensive upside. It's just, it's the most potential of someone that they've had outside of their core figures at a very long time, which is I think the attractive quality of it because they cycled through these league average rotation level threes, essentially. And they never quite got the right combinations. You had a shooter, you had a guy who in Dean Wade who thought was a shooter, but ended up being a defender. And then you had Max Truce who kind of defended sometimes, kind of shots sometimes, and kind of did both simultaneously sometimes. It was like our hardest working defender at times. Yeah, it's just like it just never all came together at once. And so Watson, it's odd to say for a guy who only really had like not even half a season of offensive success last year. He seems like the closest thing to the sure thing. And certainly like the vision that we have for the type of player all, not just the calves have needed, but like every team needs. Like how many times have we gone through all these teams in the past been like who's Garden, the best player on the team? Yeah. And now he has pointed attack issues, but also like he'd never played with the back line, sure, with Mumbai and Allen. Like I just think that they could they have a lot of defensive potential that can bully some of the offensive development. I think it's so interesting to talk about him in the format of all those other small forwards they've cycled in and out because if Peyton Watson is on the floor and you could take him off the screen and interchange Dean Wade into his spot. And the possession would look the same. That to me would be a colossal failure of this entire enterprise. Like he needs to be asked to do different things. Then there are other wings have been asked to do. Some of that is because he's skilled in different ways. Like, but they need to get him into space. They need to be tapping into his corner shooting for sure. But like he showed like he can get it to the mid range and make some stuff happen be a little more creative. They need to push a little more aggressively in transition. I actually think they're pretty good at selectively running but like a little more or Peyton Watson's kind of like a free safety hit ahead kind of guy could be good for them. They're gonna need to activate him more than just like, okay, you stand in the corner while we do this stuff because that's not gonna be a good enough use of what he does. He also kind of puts the clock on Jared Allen in a weird way. Like his arrival here does give a side door if another version of the Cavs ever needs to happen. I kind of would prefer they make it work with this group and certainly give these five a time, like a good amount of time to figure out what they can be together. But you could always move mobility to the five. You could always play Watson more at the four. You could always do those things. The cross-matching does get more difficult defensively where Dean Wade Mextrous, those guys are guarding Cade Cunningham in the playoffs. So I guess that's Peyton Watson's job now. And if he's playing the four and doing that, like that might be a little tough. - That's what I'm talking about, the tough job description. I mean beyond him to sort of like in the creases of, oh, he like drove this close out and is athletic and you know, bendy, rubbery enough to kind of make something happen where the guys in the past, like Isaac Coral would catch it and you could just see his eyes get cartoonish big and we're going way back with that one. But just those dudes who are catching it at the end of the possession, his upside is a little bit more creative. It's just kind of in the small doses that we got to see it with the injury problems at the Nuggetown. I do worry that the optimism may be swelled a little bit out of control where I don't know if the expectations are calibrated quite right because he's a little bit of a chaotic driver at times. He's a little bit of a rough dribble pull-up shooter. The stationary catches shoot stuff is really good, I believe in all that. This is a team that got swept by the Nix. I just kind of, I just wonder about the Nix person and it was not, they got panced by the Nix and I just kind of wonder if things were much better. This team has shown no capacity to be a team that's playing as well as the Nix we're playing. And so if that's the threshold for the East, the calves are just not going to be good enough. All right, we need to have an Evan Mobley conversation and because this is such a tricky topic, we're going to enlist our friends at Sam's Club. This next segment is brought to you by Sam's Club during the holidays, everyone's in a club, the cool aunts club, the knot socks this year club, 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, but this is actually about an older member of the club, but I'm hoping has a new spin on it with Evan Mobley. I feel like if there's just marginal improvement from him, it could go such a long way. I feel like I've set this 17 times up for the past couple of years, but yet Jim Tartin's there has a history of bringing out the best of his bigs. Talk me off of ledge because I'm believing he had again, baby. I mean, I do believe like Evan Mobley for any shots anyone wants to take at him, for any once they may have for things that he's not doing. It's one of the best defensive players in the world. And even when he's like not as assertive or not as physical, so routinely putting up like 14 to 17 points in those games. So it really depends on what your expectation is of him and what you desperately need of him. I think they need the versatility that he provides more than they need him to be some kind of offensive punch. And so it's like, to me, having James Hardin here hopefully in better form than he showed last year's playoffs, the pressure release of that is hopefully James Hardin scoring more so Evan Mobley doesn't have to or setting up other guys so Mobley doesn't have to pay in Watson coming in and being an exclamation point. So Evan Mobley doesn't have to. If you can just take a little of that pressure off, I think it stabilizes a lot of the elements of his game in an interesting way. - It is a funny demand that we put on him based on the defensive standard that he sets where we're just like, can you also just be an offensive primary? Like come on, how many of those dudes are really in the world are there out there? And when you mentioned Hardin, I was kind of like, we've seen some of that before. That is one spot where Watson, even if he's not miraculously good or like the star upside good, taking pressure off of that part of their lineup. Yeah, I mean, that could be gigantic. And it might open, it takes some of the pressure off and he just quietly improves in that, like the spotlights not on him as harsh. - I think that quiet part is it with Evan Mobley where he has such an understated offensive game. He might just be one of these guys who the more that you can kind of shift him into it, not even the background, but just like a slight middle ground in terms of what he is doing in possessions, the pressure that's being put on him to score at this moment in this way, I think he's going to be all the better for it. Yeah, I think you need to set the baseline again for him because the visions of Kevin Garnett had come and gone, I think we need to think of him more as a defensive like impact player, potential defensive player that you're obviously wanted in the past who can contribute a little bit more than you're used to from a defensive first player. And from that perspective, things get a little easier. Can you be the fourth option on this team? Sure. Honestly, if they just put a rock in his shoe and he's just a little bit more aggressive than he is typically, that would be a step forward and something that I think would trickle down and have a major effect. Does that kind of agitation work for you? I don't need that. No, I got that dog in me. I got several dogs in me. Yeah, I'll kennel. I thought you've been sitting here with a thumbtack in your shoe like a polygraph, just trying to stay steely while we interrogate you. I don't need it. Don't even need it. So many gripes built up brother, but Sam's Club doesn't because everything's going well for them. Every breakout squad has to earn its spot. And during the holiday, Sam's Club is the club that helps you earn yours whether you're part of the deal hunter's club or the last minute gift givers club. Sam's club has the name brands you want without blowing your budget. Come join us. Sam's Club. Anybody else, when you talk about here, we didn't talk about Jalen Tyson at all. No. Really just flamed out in the postseason. He's never heard from again, but still high on what he could be for this team. I mean, one of their best bench players by default, they're going to need him, especially if he can replicate some of the shooting he had at stages in the last season, that would be really big. But man, that was so dispiriting the way it all went down at the end. He's another one. I mean, it's similar that production from that three spot could just compress him into a role that better suits him, honestly, so that we doesn't feel like there's this gigantic drop off. It's just a little bit of a more level role for him. I've been kind of waiting to mention this because there are all these weird rumors when he signed, but Mario Hazonia is back in the NBA, and he's he's buffed the European J.R. Smith. I mean, I mean, left the NBA six years ago, yeah, has been kind of like a real deal plan. I mean, if you'll pardon it for Rayal Madrid, Rayal, sorry, Rayal Dale, I think, okay. The Mario's on you left the NBA is not anybody we should really talk about as far as being a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers, but if it's it seemed like he showed a little bit more of like a half court one on one game. Some actual moves to go through that were not just like going downhill, charging toward the rim. That would be huge. And he wasn't pretty good shooter from the Euro line, whether that's the NBA three conversion. I don't know. I don't know if he's anything that's nice. I'm just excited to have Mario Hazonia back in the NBA and to find out for myself. Because the idea he came back like three inches taller and like diesel, yeah, he went abroad. He became a new guy. Who among us hasn't gone abroad and come back at different. That's what I'm saying. He found out about like functional public trends and he's like, I need to reinvent my whole life. That's how we got so big. I think so. Moick Thomas is on this team. That's one of your guys. I guess so. I mean, is he one of my guys? He's I know about him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me ask you this. I'm starting to Donovan Mitchell, who handles the ball, basically at all for this team. I think Malik Thomas is a candidate. I think Craig Porter, Jr. is a candidate. Tyrese Proctor or candidate, maybe point Hazonia is a candidate because there really aren't a lot of other options. I don't know that you want sequences longer than like two to three seconds of Malik Thomas handling the ball in like real NBA games, but I will say I was definitely I think a little higher than consensus on on Malika, not to the point where I'm just like I have just like fanatical belief in this guy, but I he is an electric supplementary kind of score. Yeah. I think that the veterans on the calves are going to enjoy because he just has no conscience. He has a goldfish memory. He needs just goes out there and puts up buckets. He played well on summer league. He can shoot the shit out of the ball. He's got a beautiful shot. So even if he just functions as a great catch and shoot guy, probably like 9th, 10th, I mean, he's going to come in and just little spurts. But that's who he is. An electric kind of just bucket getter score guy. Sam Merrill on an alternate timeline, perhaps that does quite an alternate time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do like that Sam Merrill was the lone wing survivor of the group of guys that were just like, oh, we'll play this guy sometimes and this other guy sometimes like he was the lone survivor. They kept him there and they sent Dean Wade Max true sat on to a boat that would never return. Right. Part five of the preseason power rankings, 25 teams in the books. I think we've got one more left in us. Just one though. I think we could do two or three more or one more pod that's what I mean. Let's just keep him going. Why are we why are we stopping short? Yeah. Go through the tape. I can just live in one of these studios out there. They're pretty spacious for a studio apartment. That's the thing. I think it's very rare that I get you both in town and I'm not ready to give it up just yet. Why stop at the NBA? We'll league a ACB after this. Yeah, yeah. Boon is league after that. Absolutely. And then let's just keep, let's just mow it all down on mine as well. Let's go. Whatever. Whatever. We'll leave the Portland pickles. We're still waiting to find out. Yeah. All right. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. Thank you to Ben Cruz. Thank you to Ezio Blakely. We'll be back on Friday to finish off the rankings. We'll talk to you then. 21 plus in present and select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Stark Casino or 18 plus in present in DC or Wyoming opt in required bonus issued as nonwithdrawable profit boost tokens restrictions apply including any token expiration and max wage or amount. 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