The Fallout From Jalen Williams's Injury and a Breakdown of the Undefeated and Winless Teams!

>> Coming up on the Zack Lo Show, we are a week into the NBA season, not even. And unfortunately, we have had our first share of massive injuries, including just an ultimate gut punch, horrific injury to jail at Williams. The second best player on the championship favorite or at least co-favorite a team I picked to win the championship. I don't need to belabor that much, it's awful. We don't know this extent of it quite yet, as we're recording this. But we will talk about the impact of that potentially on the NBA title race, whether the Thunder can still win the title, whether they should try to make a trade, we'll talk about the jail in Suggs injury, Palo Bancaro's injury, jail in Dern's injury. And then we get into some more enjoyable basketball stuff. Howard Beck is here to focus on the undefeated teams and the winless teams. So we're going to talk about mostly about the wolves, the lakers, the rockets, the grislies. But mostly the first three kind of looking at standing and saying, hey, why not us? Maybe the dispersed Thunder thing is not so inevitable. And then we're going to, we bounce around to some other Western conference teams, the Pelicans, the jazz, the gris, the warriors, the kings, my god, the kings. And then we turn east for a focus on the winless New York Knicks and the winless Miami Heat. We have a little love to the three and a half pistons. We talk about lamb chops and gravy and the difference between those and beef between Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown, a wild and somewhat depressing first six days of the NBA season is in the books. The Zach Lowe show is going to cover all of it coming up with Howard Beck. Welcome to the Zach Lowe show on a Monday morning. The NBA season is less than a week old and we have already gotten way too many reminders than in a sport where unlike any other or two degree unlike any other, your best players drive winning at the highest level injuries play a uniquely large role in determining who ends up winning the championship, which feels like eons from now given were two or three games into the season for all of these teams. But just over the weekend alone, starting small and going big, Jalen Durin out for a couple of weeks with the hamstring strain hamstring is one of those words where you just don't take it lightly. Hopefully, nothing big. If it's a Zubat's from the team where an injury cost them a chance at the game seven of the finals just a year and a half ago, if it's a Zubat's ankle injury, he left the game the other Sunday night, X-rays negative, hopefully, nothing there. Palo Bancaro, the Orlando magic just completely snakebitten with this core cannot stay healthy ankle injury out at least a month, a pretty severe one. And you say, well, you know, they can survive that they've survived without Palo Bancaro before even though their offense is just a never ending slugfest of misjumpers and bad spacing. But when they put the three guards out there, Anthony Black just back from injury himself, Jalen Suggs, Desmond Bane, Franz Wagner and a big man, yeah, they don't have much depth, but that that for some kind of works pretty well. And then bam, at the end of a Nick's loss, another Nick's loss in Madison Square Garden. Jalen Suggs goes up for a layup and appears to blow out his knee. We don't know the extent of that injury, but it certainly did not look good. And now the magic down two of their five starters, a lineup that just has not gotten any continuity together since they traded for Desmond Bane, traded four picks for Desmond Bane. And a team that just has very little proven NBA depth. I mean, Tristan Tassolva has been their best bench player with Anthony Black. I guess now that he's back and after that, it's just a whole bunch of question marks. A little of Wuchus playing well. Kawaii Leonard missed the third game. It took three games of the Toronto Raptor season for Kawaii Leonard to miss surprisingly a game with knee swelling and just like if you needed a reminder of why as high as I was on the Raptors as a regular season team, I could not pick them to win three playoff rounds in the Eastern Conference. We got it three games into the season. I just can't rely on Kawaii Leonard to stay healthy long-term. Even if this is just a blip, I think it's probably just a blip. He's had a lot of these kind of blips. He knows his body very well. But the idea that that guy's playing 65 regular season games and then two dozen playoff games or whatever it's going to take to get to the finals and be in the finals, I just never saw it. And by the way, just monitor Jakob Pertles minutes, sort of early season disaster, potentially emerging there for the Raptors. And then of course, worst of all, Jalen Williams, after a lost season last year, a lost playoff's last year where he came back and went back out, a catastrophic leg injury last night in the Thunder's win against the Clippers. Don't watch the replay. It's awful. You can only assume he's out the entire season. We have no word yet, but those kind of injuries tend to be a calendar year kind of thing. And on a human level, obviously, it's a bummer. I mean, Jalen Williams is one of my favorite players to watch in the NBA. He's one of the 15 best players in the NBA when he's healthy and all NBA level player. He is easily the second best all around player on the Oklahoma City Thunder. And to see him go out like that is just awful. It's awful for him after last season and just being stretched out of the arena is just a horrible, horrible scene. And it just like it just right away punctures the balloon of the NBA season where this was a team that was coming for vengeance, right? It was one of my favorite narratives of the season, a team that had who's, you know, best young big man, Chad Hongren had gotten embarrassed by his longtime rival on the international stage and now in the NBA, Victor Wemidiamma, a team that had won a title, looked poised to be a dynasty and suddenly had this rival from the West way ahead of schedule, knocked them on their ass, knocked them on their side, eliminated them in seven games. And they had injury issues and all this and they looked ready to say, Hey, wait a second. Still our league, still our league. And obviously like we don't know Jalen Williams extended the injury yet, but I mean, even just long term, like we've seen Paul George have this happened to him and I don't know exactly the mechanics of each of these individual injuries, but they're all severe and traumatic like that. Paul George came back and was Paul George again. Gordon Hayward came back and was never Gordon Hayward again. No J.D. Dub is better than already than Gordon Hayward really ever was, I think, but you just, you just have to knock on wood that at the very least. We get full Jalen Williams back. And right away it was like the West is just in disarray. A conference we thought was so predictable, close your eyes, wake me up in the conference finals when the Spurs and Thunder play each other, a reminder of how kind of fragile this all can be. And also a reminder of like how precious all these championship chances can be. The Thunder were on the other end of this to a degree with Tyree's Halibur and Taringas Achilles in game seven of the finals. Obviously, heartbreaking for the Pacers, heartbreaking, not just because they were so close in Halibur and is so good and so brilliant and had been so brilliant. But you never know when you're going to get back there, heartbreaking, like there's a reason the Spurs were heartbroken after last year's finals, everyone's saying, well, you know, this is just the start from Victor Wimbanyam. I mean, probably, but you never know. And now choose the second season removed from what looked like the first title and what could be three and five years, four and eight years, whatever it is for the Thunder. Here we are. And behind them in the West, the Spurs look okay and one and two with some, some offensive issues to sort out. Is this three point guard thing really the best use of their rotation? Is this really going to work? Do they have enough shooting? It's been a little clunky so far. And then sort of looking up and looking, not looking up, looking down at everyone in the standings, the rockets at three and a look incredible. The Lakers at three and a easy schedule so far, but their offense is even better than advertised. Luke had just had 52 against Utah on Sunday. We're going to talk about all these teams going up with Howard Beck. Minnesota straight up, Jonti running through everybody. Camingo looks incredible. Lamello and working together. The bench looks a little bit ahead of schedule three and a Denver was just one and one trevon Brazil, like maybe saved their season and second came against the Falicans, but weren't they did not look great against the Thunder, but it's just you have to zoom out now. And question number one is, can the Thunder still win the NBA title without Jalen Williams? I mean, that's how good they are that they can lose this player potentially for the entire season. And this is the question you have to ask and it's not just him. They have now lost off of their title team for salary cap reasons and injury issues. Jalen Williams again, Lou Dorte, Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe, all sloughed off to other teams. And I think of all of those, Dorte is the one whose loss looms the largest because if you look at the Thunder's roster now, assuming J.Dub is out for the foreseeable future. That's where the hole is at the bigger wing who can guard almost every position on the floor. Can guard up. Can guard down. Without Dorte, they were really counting on Jalen Williams to take those kind of assignments. Like he could guard Victor Wim. But Yama one night, he can guard a guard one night. He could switch on the centers. He's guarded cat in matchups against the Thunder against the next rather. That's the kind of defensive versatility he brings in addition to all the other stuff which we'll talk about. Dorte was the only other guy they had kind of at that size. And I think letting him go was both a financial reality for them is to impress you kind of laid bare in his preseason press conference. And not necessarily a bet on Jalen Williams health, just a statement like, this is now a must have. And if you look at their top nine, it's still an incredible top nine in no particular order. Shay Gilders out, gender, obviously two time MVP, Kason Wallace. He got hurt yesterday. Hopefully not anything. Chad Homegren, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, AJ Mitchell, Jared McCain, the big Jalen Williams. Which is awesome. By the way, and I put a diamara in there is the ninth guy. And again, you look at that. It's a bunch of like jittery, small-ish or skinny guards. Caruso and Wallace who are not. tall but can guard up but they still sort of profile as guard guards and then a bunch of centers including Chet who's going to have to play the four always plays the four a lot in that sort of hole in the middle. And yet I look at it and I'm like can they still win the title? I actually think they still can win the title. That's how good they are. Their margin is now obviously zero. They're going to need their margin for error for injury for anything is obviously now zero. They're going to need real minutes even from Bennett's starts and Sorber and Topic when he gets healthy and guys that are barely in the rotation even beyond Mara. At least to get through the regular season and then if other guys are going to get hurt like maybe they'll have to play real minutes in the playoffs. I said they can win the title. They were my pick to win the title before the season. I'm not sure that I would pick them now but I would say like just as a ballpark. If you were a thunder optimist as I was and you put their championship there's slice of the championship pie. Let's say wildly optimistic. 30% chance you think they win the championship. You think it's like 30% thunder, 30% spurs, 15% nicks, the rest 25% chop it up however you want. I think you've got to go down to 10% or single digits without jail and Williams now even if you're a thunder optimist. So I don't I wouldn't pick them to win the title. Now I still think they can do it. And then as I was laying down to go to bed last night I just start to think wait a second. This team has a thousand first round draft fix. They have every bit of ammunition they need to make a trade to fortify themselves for this particular situation. It's not really in their DNA to do this because they are building clearly with a long lens of we've got to have this roster that's heavy at the top and wide at the bottom with cheap rookie deal salary guys extra first round picks so we can continue to churn sort of expensive and then fungible guys for less expensive and not fungible anymore guys like they have done already. But like they they do have the ammunition to do anything they want. And then you start to think in names like I'm rolling around at bed last night. This is how sad of a person I am thinking of like what kind of bigger wing would even be out there for them eventually if they wanted to make a trade and you run into a bunch of realities. Number one they're just barely under the first apron. So they have a lot of trade restrictions that are already kicking in and they really can't go over the second apron. Number two their salary structure is these three huge salaries at the top including Jalen Williams who now is again I'm penciling it is like just out for the whole season. And then a couple of mid-sized salaries in Heart and Stein and Caruso 23 million Heart and Stein 20 Caruso who are like beyond essential to their team. And then a bunch of salaries from 7.7 million all the way down to basically the minimum where yeah you could bundle four of those guys together and get one meaningful contributor along with whatever draft assets they have. But like four for one trades they're hard they tend to require the third or even a four team to absorb some players. But so but you still have to do the thought exercise. And the reason you have to do the thought exercises exactly what I said before. The Thunder are now living it like the Pacers lived it with Halliburton and other teams have lived it. Every chance you get at this thing is precious. There is absolutely no guarantee no matter how young and well fortified you seem to be that you're ever going to win a championship again. Now there are teams that are such safe bets like the Thunder and the Spurs because of how they're built and having one of the top two players in the league that yeah they're a pretty safe bet that they're at least going to make the finals again once in the next three or four years. But every chance is precious and if you go from there's this continuum of we're super set long term we don't need to do anything to we're absolutely desperate and we need to take advantage of any chance we get. And the Thunder started on the we're totally set long term part of the continuum probably still mostly there. But you got to move them at least over here because again they lived this last year there's no guarantee when but Yama is not going anywhere the rockets are awesome the wolves are good the lakers are good the nuggets are still here etc so you got to nudge them a little bit but then you start thinking who who and then you're reinforced with just what a unique player Jalen Williams is the combination of the size that I mentioned before the proven three point shooting ability the proven not secondary playmaker ability but just like alpha playmaker ability that you can shift into that role when she's on the bench or when you're rolling and already we had seen the thunder trying to get she off the ball a little bit more because they have Jay dub back and they're trying to lean into McCain and AJ Mitchell the best bench combo guards in the league by the way who's going to start for the thunder now I don't even know the answer to that question do you elevate one of the aforementioned Karuso McCain AJ Mitchell and go a little bit smaller like pretty damn small do you do Ken rich Williams is like a spot starter he's been solid whenever they've used him to kind of get the size factor back to where it was I think that's a possibility too but Jay dub alpha playmaker ability alpha shooting ability all defense level ability size and ferocity the guy plays with such incredible physicality and that's really one of the defining features of the thunder is they are just an ultra aggressive nasty give you no quarter physical team they hit you they shoulder check you when you shoulder check them they don't move Jay dub doesn't move in the post when guys hit him hard and to find anybody who replicates all of that is pretty much impossible and so you just go through like we're three games of the season nobody's available we have no idea who's going to be available but just go through some of the names like you could talk yourself into look at the pelicans in complete disarray can't even don't have no idea what they're doing minutes wise rotation wise structure wise nothing um trademark for the third her Jones who's like somehow on the fringes of Jamal Mosley's rotation for whatever goddamn reason sure those guys are fine like what are you trading for them is are you trading out of your caruso hardenstein salaries I mean is that really helping your team yeah Murphy's a shooter has never played with the physical ferocity of a thunder player has never defended like a thunder player not a playmaker like Jay dub herb Jones no one's going to guard him from the three point line Jeremy grant the Grizzlies are awesome it's Jeremy grant a physical fierce player no is he a playmaker no you could look at the mavericks and say well if their season goes south and they actually look okay so far when they're healthy Cooper flag got hurt over the weekend too by the way on a flagon fell um nodg marshal pj washington they're all fine like they're just not replicating any of the ball handling skills in pj washington's case nodg marshal can play a little point nodg for you shooting skills they do play with physicality but like what's the is there enough of an upgrade there they have the size that i'm talking about do you go all in for tomani camara well why are the blazer's doing that they're two and oh they're playing pretty well they want to see what they have they're not playing tonight but we'll see how low they can keep that i would be shocked if they're not a playin team at worst um and then you have to like if things go south for these particular teams like those fron's Wagner become available michael porter jr doesn't exactly strike me as a thunder player again physicality defense ferocity running at the contact at the conflict instead of running away from it his podcast doesn't strike me as a thundery kind of thing as well and then you're talking about for those kind of guys you've got to trade one of your big salaries or both of your midsize salaries and like like michael porter jr i thought like what what just put your head around jelen williams from michael porter jr michael and williams way better than michael porter jr no question way more of a thundery player than michael porter jr but if you are desperate to win this championship does at least one percent of your brain contemplate the idea of trading jelen williams for a lesser player who could help you win this season and still fit your timetable and still fit your style michael porter jr is not that player i wouldn't do that trade if i broke home a city to be clear i would be like i don't care if he's out for a year and a half i'm not trading jelen williams for michael porter jr i'm not that desperate i'll let it ride but these are the kind of questions you have to ask yourself and i just don't see that player but i also don't doubt that the thunder or at least going to like once they get over the trauma once they get with the get to this new normal gonna have to sort of i don't know even they're asking these questions honestly it's just maybe this is just more podcast funter the most likely scenario is they just sort of stand pat maybe they make a move on the fringes somehow but i you can't discount the possibility of a smaller trade not involving one of their big sellers because every one of these chances is absolutely precious and they now know that having lived it maybe for the second year in a row now just an uh an absolute gut punch of an injury um the last time i felt this much of like oh my god we're like robbed of this opportunity to see this team do this was when jimal marie tour is acl right after the nuggets had acquired air and gordon and it was very clear i think in 2021 like oh boy they're onto something and you just wanted to see it this is even worse because of how that even worse these are all awful uh of of the the traumatic nature of it of jdub season that was kind of lost last year and just you hope for a full recovery this team is so awesome they can still win the championship and maybe they have no tough decisions to to face maybe their their decision is easy and it's just we do nothing we let it ride with what we have but there's obviously a big hole on the roster now that shakes up the entire western conference playoff landscape the entire NBA title landscape and that is not what we wanted to be discussing on the zack lotion show on the first Monday of the NBA regular season. But here we are. And now we're going to bring in the great Howard Beck to talk about surprise teams, disappointing teams, et cetera. Does that glow show is brought to you by FanDuel? The NBA is back. And this is your most rewarding season ever on FanDuel. How rewarding are we talking? More rewarding than a half-core budget meter. More rewarding than a 29-point comeback. Maybe even more rewarding than a center, knocking down a three. I mean, come on, everybody loves one, the big man lets a fly. And this NBA season, that feeling doesn't stop on the court. Look out for FanDuel Rewards Club exclusive offers surprises and more. So every week check the FanDuel app to see what's waiting for you. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. Download the app to get started. 21 over and select states are 18 and over in DC or Wyoming gambling problem called 1-800 gambler, called 1-888-789-7777 or is it ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut? 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 lunch club, the food coma club, whatever holiday club you're in, Sam's Club is the club that helps you pull it off. Did you get a meal on the table in under two hours? Done. Shopping for the brands they want, Lake Ruse and Visio 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, Howard Beck is here. Howard, I just spoke for a little bit about the jail and Williams injury and all the injuries really over the weekend, but specifically the J-dub injury and its impact on the Western conference title landscape and just how every time you have a chance to win the title, it's a precious thing and it's this whole thing is fragile. I mentioned Halliburton's injury and the sort of parallels there, the Thunder winning the title amid a weird Game 7 injury circumstance and it's one of those things like I want to make clear, although you probably feel a little, the Pacers felt gutted, NBA fans felt a little bit robbed of what looked like in Epic Game 7. The Thunder probably didn't quite feel the exact same level of elation and satisfaction they would have had they just beat the Pacers clean in Game 7, the fully intact Pacers. You never turn your nose up at any of it like you just can't control any of this stuff and every time you win one, it is a gift, it is an achievement and it is to be savored and respected regardless of the circumstances or degrees of it, but you don't turn your nose up at any of them, whether it happens in a bubble or whether it happens with a little injury luck or whatever, whatever it is. And I told you I wanted to just lead, I answered this question myself, I wanted to start right with you with this very basic question. Do you think the Thunder assuming J-Dub is out for the season? Let's just assume that we don't know everything, but these things, when this kind of thing happens, it tends to be a while. Can they still win the NBA championship? Yeah, I think they can. I mean, it is hard to say that here early on a Monday morning when we all just went to bed last night with that awful, awful image fresh in our minds and it's going to cast, I mean, you saw like shade, everybody, they were just shell shocked, understandably, this will cast a momentary poll. One thing I've learned in all the years of covering this lead, exact is that players and coaches compartmentalize really quickly out of necessity. Like the fucking games just keep coming and there is no time and I, there were moments early in my career where I was actually shocked at how it almost seemed not numb to it, almost indifferent. Like somebody goes down with like some awful injury and it was like, by the next day, it's like, yeah, well, we just got to move on. And it seemed almost inhumane on a human level, and then you come to realize, no, this is the necessity of it. This is just the brutal truth of this league and a professional sports. They will care for him on a personal level away from all this. The second they are back in that gym, especially when they were talking to us, but I think even just the moment they're in that gym period, media notwithstanding, that is the thing you have to do. Because if you let yourself think about it too much or be feeling too sorry for Jalen Williams or what he's going through or what it just did to you in terms of your lineup and rotation, that you can't function. The good news for them is they've already, you know, he only played 33 games last season and what, like five playoff games. Like they've learned to win without him. Kason Wallace, AJ Mitchell, like they've got guys who can step in, but like not for nothing, part of the reason you offload Lou Dort, I don't know if you already covered this, but like you offload Lou Dort and Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins is because you're like, well, we got all this steps. We're fine. And Jalen Williams is back. And we have second apron concerns. And like this is the cruelty of, I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago about just what we've lost in this second apron era. This is the cruelty of this system in a way. This system didn't cause Jalen Williams entry, but the system gives the thunder that much less, and no one's going to feel sorry for them, but it gives them that much less room for error. And in a world where you had not offloaded Lou Dort and Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe for that matter, maybe you'd feel a little bit more secure in your ability to keep marching on once again without J. Dub. But in a world where you had to offload those guys strictly for cap reasons. And so you've already reshuffled to make case of Wallace and AJ Mitchell, like that much more part of it. And now Jalen Williams is gone. The room for error to your point. This is why championships are so precious and I think even more so now than ever. Your room for error is thin. And the system is unforgiving. The ability to backfill or just go get a guy is like, I don't know if you've walked through potential trade options and whatever. Obviously they've got a shit ton of draft capital. They've got a lot of movable players. But like you've got three maxish players already. Like there's just not a lot of and you're not moving Jalen Williams or Chet Hungry. Like there's just not a lot of room to operate under this system. The reason I still say I'm sorry I'm rambling. The reason I still say yes, they can win. One, they've won before. They're still a lot of talent there. Shay is still there. He's a two-time MVP. Chets looked good early and I think that I hate to say it. Andrews are going to affect everybody else too. You know, like are the spurs and nuggets and rockets and lakers and whoever are going to get through the season unaffected probably not. You hope that nobody else has anything nearly as bad as what we just saw with Jalen Williams. But I don't know, do you think do you feel like this team can still win it all? Because I'm not I'm not ready to write them off. I said it earlier that if you thought they had a like a 30% chance share or whatever of the NBA title pie, I think you need to downgrade that to 10 or less, but it's still it's still possible. I just want to make one thing clear before we move on to the other teams in the West that are playing well or badly. The Dork Wagon's Joe thing is going to be a talking point. Yeah, because of the second apron. And particularly I mentioned Dork as sort of the size equivalent of J Dubb that they just don't have anymore really in their rotation. Yeah, I it's the second apron. It's also like they need to be able to roster all of these young players that they drafted and they wanted to keep and they can't do that if they have all of these other guys on the team. That's part of it too. And to just to be super clear, I don't really think that even if you had all three of Dork Wiggins and Joe that whatever championship odds you want to give them now without J Dubb 10% whatever 8% whatever you wherever you lie. I don't think if you had all three of those guys that's making much of a dent in those championship odds. Maybe if you had Dork because of his size and his defensive personality, bump it up a percentage point, bump it up another half a percentage point or two because Wiggins and Joe give you so much depth. But McCain and Mitchell have superseded the Wiggins Joe duo off the bench already. And again, like having them would give you a little bit more margin for one of those guys getting hurt. And Dork like he became sort of an offensive anchor in a bad way for the thunder as they got deeper and deeper into the playoffs. So yeah, there's going to be a lot of himming and hauling about the second apron and the cost of those three guys and oh, what has been falling the thunder. I just don't think that having all three of them now would really meaningfully change their championship odds. I guess every percentage point or two helps, but we generally sort of agree on their outlook. I went through the trade, some fake trade cans. I don't want to do that now. Just get well to J Dubb. One of my absolutely favorite players to watch in the NBA and all NBA level player. When he's healthy, a guy who is at about all the right things, the superstar who makes all the nitty gritty nasty dirty physical winning plays on top of all the superstar kind of stuff too. Meanwhile in the Western conference, the Spurs have been a little in coming out of the gate. We'll save them for future episodes. I've talked about their offense and sort of the questions that come with this new like they feel a little like hey, we're uncertain is too strong of a word, but like this team has more questions to answer offensively than you would think coming off a 60 plus win season in the NBA finals. And just I'm just interested to see sort of how they they've introduced some uncertainty into their rotation with this decision to start all three of the point guards. We have four teams that have shocking, not shocking. They've started three, you know, Memphis. I've already talked about the tied your own party continues. They've only played the jazz, the warriors and the Kings, two of those two of those teams, the Warriors and the Kings are winless. Congratulations to the Grizz. I was high on them. I couldn't be more excited to watch them play basketball. They are not in the championship picture. They are very much in now the playoff picture as well as the play in picture. The only thing I will say about the Kings Howard, I have instant regret. This is probably the first time I have instant regret picking the over for a team whose line was 20.5. I was like, they just can't possibly be this bad. And they have been remotely competitive in some of these games that they're only three, but like a team that should that has veterans that should be trying to avoid the relegation zone is 0 and 3. They're over under his 20 and a half. I took the over because like, you just can't be that bad. They might be that bad. And just I don't understand. I promise we're going to find the good teams in a second. Nick Clifford playing like no minutes for the Kings is like so beyond inexplicable. Like I for this like did this to Devon Carter last year fine. Devon Carter's a marginal prospect. You might be on his way out of the NBA is an undersized guard. Nick Clifford might actually be good. You've given the keys to the whole thing to Darius A.C. of junior right off the bat. I get it. He's a seventh big. He's a ball in there. They need his skill set. Ben Simmons is out. Another horrible injury, by the way. Like Nick Maxine Reino is injured. You can't even play your interesting young big guy. You're just like we're too good and competitive to play second year first round pick. Nick Clifford. What in the hell is happening in Sacramento? Do they need another roast? Like I don't understand what's going on. Okay. It wasn't a roast. I thought they made this clear to you. It's it wasn't a roast. They used the Houston rockets. No, I'm done. I don't I don't I can't give it a more time. I want to start pick a team. Rockets, Lakers, Wolves, all three and all just kind of marauding around the league so far who you want to start with. It's got wolves. They've been fun. Johnny. They have beaten the heat of our win list. We will get to the heat. The magic and the raptors last night without Kawaii Leonard shockingly Kawaii Leonard. If you had before Halloween in the pool for a surprise Kawaii Leonard appearance on the injury list, congratulations. You have won nothing. So yeah, I mean, they look as fun as advertised. What has stuck out to you about the wolves? It's the mellow. Obviously. I worried about silly me. I worried about whether they were trading too much, you know, front court for back court. Basically, like we're just going to offload, you know, two thirds of our front court rotation and we'll plug in the mellow and hope it ought more than offsets. I mean, we're three games in. Let's not get carried away, but it's more than offset. But more than that, I have been up and down on the lamello thing, just as lamello down, lamello's game is kind of an up and down ride. This is his career, right? So there are high highs and low lows. I have been more skeptical than not of him. And you never know until you get out of, you know, like the context that your career was shaped in, right? A losing team, an often wayward team, I think they've done great the last few years under this ownership in this front office. I think this is a smart group now. I think the Hornets are heading in the right direction. But the context of lamello's career has been super talented players surrounded by man rosters for the most part and, and, and just doing too much. Like doing too much could be his middle name. Um, sadly, you sound like Paul Rudd, the surf instructor in, uh, in forgetting to do less, no, do less, do like, well, you have to do something. You have to do something. One of my favorite random characters in a, in a comedy. Kunu, I think he was named Kunu, because that is Hawaiian, he gave himself a Hawaiian name. I can't remember. I can't remember either. Um, I, I, listen, we've seen good starts to the season by the mellow before and by good, I mean more, a little more restrained, right? Efficiency is a little better, a little more disciplined with his shot selection. His efficiency, very good right now. He's cut out to like the one to super stupid bizarre crazy shots per game. But like he's on pace. It's three games in. He's on pace for like by far like the lowest field goal attempts of his career per game. He is, he is, he has understood the assignments. Mrs. Anthony Edwards's team. Uh, Anthony Edwards needs to score a lot of points. He needs to be set up and Lamello is the setup guy and to see him embracing that early on and emphasizing that, recognizing that. Um, I, I'm happy for Chris Finches sanity, because I worried a little bit about that when they first made this move. Um, a lot of volatility potentially in that lineup at times. And I, I am impressed with what Lamello is doing so far. My, my opinion on the Timberwolves have not changed. I think they're clearly a top six team. I took the over on them. I think they're going to be very good. I mean, now again, like the whole Western Conference landscape may have shifted already in, in the favor of teams like this. Yeah. Um, Lamello has been defending his ass off even his brother, Lonzo noted it on Twitter. Um, there was one possession last night in the third quarter against Toronto where Lamello was dribbling around a lot at the top of the arc and Ant was in the left corner. And we saw the first ant palms up in the sky like dude, what's, what's happening? What are we doing? And that was like almost immediately followed by a Lamello lob to J to McDaniels, which was followed by a Lamello lob to Johan Berenjay for dunks and everyone was going crazy and Ant was going crazy. The benches looked a little bit more ready for prime time than I anticipated and tear and shin and junior and Berenjay in particular. Um, Caminga is shooting 64% on threes that will not last, but is leaning into like defending Scotty Barnes, defending Palo, defending Janus and so far the spacing issues with him and go bear have not really sort of manifested into any sort of problem. We've barely seen IO as the sort of fifth starter in Caminga's place. The lineup that I really like, I still think that's a card that Chris Finch will play. They're playing fast. They're playing hard. They're super fun to watch. They have go bear on the back line. Ant is Ant. No notes on the timber wolves start. Um, I want to talk about the rockets. Yeah. They won the game of the year, early game of the year in San Antonio on Friday. Amen Thompson with a just like literally out of this world. Game saving block on a guy who's like eight feet tall at the rim without like he wasn't rotating over the accuses on Victor Wampanyama and came and like rose up and blocked this shot. Um, three, you know, Fred Van Bleet is back and their offense just flows a little bit more from one thing into the next one action into the next when he's on the court. Read Shepherd appeared and played well against the Atlanta Hawks the other night. They played the latest teams play again tonight. Um, somehow, uh, I've loved like Jabari Smith just continues to do the little things that help you win, including some rim protection. Katie is Katie Shengoon seems to just love going at all these other high profile centers. And I'm Ant Thompson. I mean, look, we know what he is as an athlete as a defender, uh, and as just a havoc creator is playmaking to me. Looks like it's leveled up a notch in the offseason where he's figuring out how to get in the paint a little bit more even as teams go under against him. And he's like whipping these passes to the corners like like in like a freaking true blue point guard. He looks awesome. Tarison looks really good. He's like made some plays on the pick and roll in a two-man game with like Durant to hunt some smaller defenders who are trying to hide on him. They just look huge and mean and deep and every bit the sort of nasty physical rebounding machine with a little bit more offense. They were my most dangerous team below the Spurs and the Thunder, the number one of the quote, punches chance teams. I think they're going to win like 55 games. I couldn't believe how low the line was. They look, they look awesome. I mean, I they look awesome and I sort of semi tongue and cheek pitched the idea of like, is it already time for them to go in for a win now trade? And there'll be some guards that become available. They might just not need to do anything. Certainly not anything reckless because they look awesome. Yeah. You were able to go through like several minutes of like how awesome are the rockets without I think even mentioning Kevin Durant's name, which he's just Kevin Durant. He's just yeah. Yeah. Also featuring Kevin Durant. Who is timeless? I love it. I love the fact that Kevin Durant doesn't look any different now. I mean, obviously he does, but almost feels like he's just the same guy at 38 than that he always was. The almond Thompson block, I must admit, herring me if you must. I missed it in real time because Friday night we went to go see the Elizabeth Holmes Nathan Fielder movie and my brain has been scrambled ever since. My phone was buzzing because I have all sorts of other things on and one of them was holy shit Thompson. I still haven't seen that movie. It's certainly on it's certainly on the list. But I need to wait for it. You do it well, but you also need to see it because there's so much out there now breaking it down that like part of the ride the three hours is just one just like brain melting moments after another and some twist and like you're going to hear something. I know the twist. I know everything already. I just like this. This is my take on spoiler society now is like if I don't watch something fast or read something fast, it's on me if it gets spoiled for me. I'm sorry. I can't control. I've certainly probably spoiled things on this podcast back to it. It's on me. I know the big twist in the Nathan Fielder movie. We don't have to talk about it less than anyone doesn't know. But I don't blame anyone. That's my fault. I live. I live in this world and online and I see things. We book those tickets early last week because you have to because it was selling out every single night, Even our weeknights even fucking matinee and stuff. And so like I knew I needed to get ahead of it. So we had bought him early last week before I knew I was doing the pod and everything else. I just said that's it. Like Friday night. I'm just like taking a night out from the NBA. We're going to see this movie. I'm very glad I did. I have not been able to stop thinking about the mood. That is the one thing. That is the one thing I can tell people about the film. You will not stop thinking about it for days afterward. I have read everything. I've watched the big picture with Sean and Amanda. Like I've listened to the pod. Like I've I still I still am unpacking my brain is melted. Amanda Dobbins swash out out Amanda Dobbins. First of all, delightful person. One of my go to like I want to watch a movie. Can you help me recommend a can you help recommend a movie? I'm going to say either number one or top three most fashionable ringer Spotify employees just just on point. Like a great style like a plus Amanda Dobbins across the board. Okay. Anything else on the rocker. So then I'm N Thompson's amazing and they look great. No, I'm like I'm very happy to see Fred Ben Bleat back. One of the all-time good dudes in the NBA and obviously super important to them and like like Oh, shocker. After last season, all the times we were talking about like their crunch time offense and just the lack of organization and the dumb decision making and shooting themselves in the foot. No one behold in the year 2026 having a point guard who can keep things on course still matters. And so good to see him back. Good to see him having exactly the impact that we hoped. Steven Adams as well. I hope, you know, listen, we're knocking on wood every two seconds now for guys just getting through the season. But the rockets look amazing and I think you had said didn't you say preseason you thought maybe there's a third best team in the West behind the audience. I did. I did. I just said it again now too. I love the split actions they're running with Shen Gune is the trigger man and all their guys screening for each other creating mismatches. I just really liked the way they're playing and the reach shepherd thing like he showed out in Atlanta when Fred Ben Bleat was sitting for a back-to-back. It's just like it's it can't be overstated how important that is both because of the guy they didn't draft to take reach shepherd who now plays for the spurs and is like one of my fair players to watch in the league and amazing and step on Castle. But also like they really need reach shepherd to turn into something whether it's for them or as a trade asset for another team. And I hope and I wrote this in my little sub stack thing that the lack of pressure on him now that he's clearly just like a backup and he's going to come in and play 15 18 minutes. I hope that loosens him up a little bit. He played like it did against Atlanta. He was chucking up logo threes. He was getting steals. He was doing all the reach shepherd stuff. And that's a big deal for him. If he transitions into like a really good bench player for them who's consistent, that's a big deal. Okay, the Lakers, Luca Donchic, everybody stop talking trash to Luca Donchic. I don't care if you're a rookie, a veteran, a fan, just stop doing it because I think if you're a fan sitting courtside and their Lakers are on the road I think you should go the other way and start just saying nice things to him. Like Luca, your children are beautiful. Hey, I visited Slovenia this summer. It was incredible because anything else and all bets are off. 52 points. Yapin and everyone in Utah. The Lakers are three and all. It has not been a murderers row. The warriors think the clippers are the clippers and the jazz are one and two with a lot of questions. But the Lakers look as advertised offensively. They survived, survived. They won the first like and Walker Kessler game where he didn't really score very much. The dunks weren't there against Utah. And he had to guard a stretch five in Jeren Jackson, Junior for a lot of that game. The jazz are now starting three guards and wings and then the Lowry Market and triple J combo, which I think probably nets out as their best lineup. At least one urkage is out. And none of their pieces beyond Luca Reeves and Kessler knock your socks off. They're starting Thaible and Zaire Williams and those guys have been good enough. They're being left wide open even in the strong side corners and they've been mostly shot ready. Quinn Grimes is attacking closeouts pretty well off the bench. They're playing Mamu at center more because the loony thing I just don't think is going to work in a lot of matchups. And just they look like an amazing offensive team who's going to compete defensively and JJ has schemes and inventiveness up the wazoo. I again, everything's changed in the West already. I was a hard over on the Lakers. I feel pretty good about that. I don't I still don't think they have enough like oomph and size and tenacity on the wing to really get to the finals, but they look pretty damn good. They have to be thrilled with how they look. Yeah, with you know, all caveats applied that you've already applied. They haven't beaten anybody really of note. And I say that with apologies to the jazz, we all expect to be better than what they've shown so far. But no, like I think, you know, there's been a lot of discussion last week about like we're already taking look for granted and he wasn't, you know, didn't get MVP, nods in the GM survey preseason and all this. And like I think there's a little bit of a numbness to how great he is. And also to the, oh, it's, you know, now it's year two of look how great a shape he's come in and everything else. So like I don't I think we're just to the point where we're not sure how to to grade the Lakers overall. And it's the first time we're looking at them without LeBron in a long time, they went really heavy into the Walker Kessler investment and the rest of as you mentioned, the rest of that offseason hall was kind of, you know, okay, these are guys. These are professional basketball players. You know, I've always liked Quentin Grimes. I'm not sure why Quentin Grimes has a new team every, you know, one to two years. I think he's a really good player. So yeah, I to be determined on just how good they are. Luke is great. We knew Austin Reves is a great number two. And it's the defense that I wonder how much it's going to hold up and how much are you, you know, like you can't funnel everything to Walker Kessler on every possession and he can't play every possession. So I'm, you know, credit to JJ for beat like how many other teams would have invested that much capital that this early in Matisse Tybal and Zeyer Williams. They're, they're both bounced around. They've both been in that rotation. They've both been guys who'd be like been on rosters and not even played for long stretches of their, their short careers. So I, they're willing to try everything. And it's an impressive start for sure. It'll get, I was looking ahead. It's not getting that hard that soon. They've got like Portland, the Clippers, the Warriors again coming up. Are they all at home? I feel like the first month of every Lakers season is home games against bad teams. Like I don't understand why, but, you know, it probably has to do with like the Oscars and the Emmys and all the crap that takes over their stadium. Probably. Yeah, I think it that is mostly, I didn't put down the homework. I don't care. It doesn't matter. Yeah. They'll see, they'll see Toronto soon-ish. We'll see if Kawaii plays that game. Yeah, I mean, look, I just don't, Zeyer Williams and Matisse Tybal are our decent players. Tybal was also in Portland in limited action. Definitely like it's smart signing for the Lakers when we lauded as an under the radar move. Here's some fast-style analysis. I just don't think those guys are good enough to start and play 25 minutes or whatever for like a real team with real championship aspirations. I don't know what the alternatives are other than I could see Grimes moving into the starting five at some point because he's just so much more dynamic on the ball. A little undersized for a three, but look, Luca and Austin together are amazing. They run two-man game together when it's the vehicle for them to hunt mismatches and it gets Luca going in the post a little bit, which I like. Yeah, no, no, it's the Lakers. The Lakers are great. A couple rapid fire observations on some other West teams that we have just scurried about a little bit. Utah, really liking Ace Bailey's early season performance, particularly on defense. The chemistry between Kianta and Daring Peterson is still a little wanting. It's going to take a little longer than I expected. Down the stretch of the Lakers game, they went like all Kianta, George, Triple J, pick and roll, which is kind of unlike them, and I thought lost a little bit of marketing in Daring Peterson. Just alarming stat to monitor. 53% of Daring Peterson shots so far have been floaters or in the floater zone. He's just seems like it's early on. He's a little too dependent on that at the expensive rim, free throws, and even threes, to be honest. But I still think this team is going to figure itself out, but much like Miami, who we're going to talk about shortly, they do look like a team that's like, oh, yeah, reminder, when you change a whole lot of stuff on the fly, there's going to be a learning curve. I don't know how much jazz you've caught, but I'm kind of into the jazz. I like watching them. Same only a little, but it's basically a brand new team. If you consider how little Larry marketing has played over the last couple of years, and that Jaron Jackson Jr. just got there, and Ace Bailey just came off as rookie season and Daring Peterson literally just arrived. And most of these guys have not played together for any length of time. I've wondered about the NBA several years. It's been 10 years or so since they cut the preseason in half or less. There's just not much ramp up time anymore. I was wondering last night too about like, I mean, we're always grasping it straws when injury flurries happen. But like, is there enough ramp up time physically for these guys? The guys are in better shape now than they ever were back in the day when they come to camp. So maybe you don't need the full month that teams used to have. But I don't know. I just, I'm all over the place. But I just think for your team, like the jazz, that is basically brand new. You get a handful of preseason games and you don't play everybody real minutes in those games anyway. It's going to take a while for this to, I think, settle in. And you know, Peterson's just going to have to find his way a little bit. And yeah, like you obviously you want to see him attacking the rim a little bit more with the physicality athleticism he has. And so I just think he has to kind of figure out his surroundings. Portland, two and a half put a pin in them. But one thing I know for sure, the Damien Lillard fear factor is 100% intact. Defences are still absolutely terrified of giving him any space at any point on the court at once you cross have court. I do think very soon they're going to face a team that just completely ignores Jon Morant and goes under on every screen by five feet and we'll see how they look. And Denver one in one could not score at all against the thunder. Cam Johnson went out immediately with an injury which just killed whatever spacing they could they could conjure up. And then a come from behind slash Pelicans collapse in overtime in Denver. Pelicans looking absolutely clueless have no idea what to do, what to run who should be on the court. Herb Jones maybe like, I don't know if he did something nasty to Jamal Mosley's family or something. Deandre Jordan was like inexplicably heavily involved in crunch time. And Zion Williamson just sometimes involved in the offense, sometimes not involved in the offense just sort of figuring out life alongside Derek Queen. It just feels like that team needs to turn over itself and just say like, we've got to just start Derek Queen, build around Derek Queen, figure out what fears is. And just I don't know what other pieces are are there for the long term, but this it's just such a bizarre team Denver just trevon Brazil. Just like a guy that can jump around and make athletic plays and make open threes who's like, Oh my god, does this team who has suddenly over indexed on like guy all and they don't have a lot of athleticism and their bench stinks. Oh my god, whether breath of fresh air, we'll see if it keeps up, but I'm a little concerned about Denver's spacing and overall, you know, just whatever they don't look great. But that's enough listener conference such want to take quick break and then we'll talk our home base New York City and the hangover effect. Oh boy. Yeah. All right, we'll be right back. All things Eastern Conference coming up with Howard back. Well Howard, we said when we discussed this podcast, we're going to look at win list teams and undefeated teams and boy has the East delivered some high profile win list teams starting with the New York Knicks. You may have heard that they won the championship for the first time in 53 years. They are 0 and 3 having lost to the Orlando magic on at home on Sunday in Madison Square Garden. The first sort of ant team they face after facing two very good teams in Philly and Boston. They are 29th in offense and 10th and 13th in defense, not so bad. And let's see. I lost count how many press releases came out last week from I mean, I literally I joked last week about how MSG's PR department. Like a normal teams PR department sends out like Jalen Durran injury update. He'll be reevaluated in two weeks. The next PR department just sends out press releases that are they're fighting with everybody all the time. The mayor, the governor of the state, the police force for the I mean, I'm making some of this up. And now the athletic and the employees who thought they were getting rings and haven't gotten rings and fishing emails. And fishing emails that were like the apologies are in the passive voice like it was an unfortunate mistake. Like who made the unfortunate mistake? How did the unfortunate mistake happen? I mean, like only the Nixon James Dolan could instantaneously turn the most fun moment in New York City sports since I don't even know when into an 0 and 3 start where the defining storyline on your team is wait, were the ring boxes empty? Did anyone get rings? Did employees get fired because they clicked on a fishing's email where they thought they were clicking on what ring design they wanted, read Joe Vardin's piece on this. Then there's like and one statement explain it like contesting the story explaining what happened. Then of course, there has to be a clarifying statement clarifying the statement that you already released. There's probably been a third one that I miss. And meanwhile, the teams 0 and 3 despite being fairly healthy, Howard Beck, are you panicking about the New York Knicks? I am not panicking about the New York Knicks, but you know who is starting to panic about the New York Knicks? The Knicks fans who I thought, I thought reasonably once they won the championship, that was it like nothing mattered anymore. You could go 0 and 3. 0 and 10. Nothing matters anymore. You won the championship. And the championship is forever. And Nixon five is the rallying cry and the greeting among Knicks fans forever after. And it just doesn't matter. That said, at the conclusion of last night's game, I did get a text from Alan Seppinwell with a tank gif, which was something that he had put away. All right. Alice Seppinwell, what's Alan watching author of a great Rod Serling bio that's coming out, you should all buy it. The tank gifs are back. I'm concerned for Alan Seppinwell and Jason Concepcion and everybody else who was who was in Knicks fandom. Let me just check my email to make sure there isn't another press release about the rings and who's getting the rings and who hasn't gotten the rings. Can I? Nothing, nothing. Nothing yet. Nothing yet. I did get an email from the New York Times. Very happy to hear Anthropic has revealed a 14-fold increase in growth. The robots are coming for all of us. It's going great on that front. Howard. Fantastic. But no emails yet about the rings. I guarantee, by the way, all of those are coming from the top, not that they're written by the top, but every single stupid statement is coming because somebody at the very top, the one who wears. They're mad. They're mad that it's got out. That's all it is. They're mad that it's got. He's mad that it got out that there's at the very least confusion about who is getting championship rings and when and why and why not. And now the tantrum is manifesting itself in multiple press releases that are so tantrumey that they need to be explained once everybody is calmed down. This is like their PR department is basically like a continuous ongoing version of the Dan Gilbert Comics and Ann's letter where like someone gets angry. They release something and then they just have to walk it back or clarify it over and over again. I wonder how many people all these years later understand what the Dan Gilbert Comics Ann's letter is. Oh, they do. Come on. This is his actual show. Everybody gets that. I would think. You know, look, you're a podcast host and basketball analyst in this show that is dedicated to logic and granular basketball fundamentals and the skills and athleticism and the strategy that goes into basketball and not mumbo jumbo. But sometimes we have to just posit the question. Are the vibes just bad because Jim Dolan ruined everything by invoking the second apron within seconds of the confetti falling and getting into little spats with Mayor Mamdani and the police chief and everybody else and then the rings fiasco, the Carl Anthony towns, no extension fiasco, like, there's a certain point. You really can't make up a team like you can reasonably talk about the second apron. You can say, well, if we're offering Carl Towns close to $50 million a year, reasonable people can be like, that's a fair argument, like it's a fair discussion. The idea that you could mess up something is easy and happy and celebratory as giving your employees coaches, staff members, the championship ring is just, even by the standards of who we're talking about, absolutely astounding. It should be the easiest thing you've had to do managing the nicks in your entire life since you inherited all of this from your dad. And the orange jacket needs to be burned, by the way, I'm not even sure it's orange, I think it's salmon. You're right, this should not be hard. Only the nicks and Jim Dolan could cast a poll over a championship team this quickly in this many creative ways and whatever they may want to say about, oh, this being misconstrued or whatever about the championship rings and the fishing email and all that, these things happened and they got out, it shouldn't be possible to misconstru the gifting of championship rings to your team, right? If it's not available on that night because whatever, manufacturing concerns, you know, it's all slowed down in the trade routes or something and we couldn't get all the materials we need, whatever it is, explain that in advance so that nobody is sitting there on opening night with an empty box going, I don't understand where my ring is, what's going on. So at minimum, even if there was a good reason that you're doing it this way and they've had all this like, you know, they're leaking anonymously or we're spending tens of millions dollars to give rings to every last, you know, man, woman and child in custodian, like, you need to have explained that ahead of time and then these things never become something that people are mad about. to then leak to Joe Vardin, like it just never would have come out. So they screwed this up. There's no question about that. The On the Court stuff, like how much of this is all related to bad vibes. It's not not related, but you know, look, Andre Drummond, not a key part of the rotation the last couple of games. Suddenly, your Mitchell Robinson replacement, because of the second apron, who you wouldn't resign. James Weissman is getting suddenly significant minutes, a guy who's barely played the last couple years due to injury. I'm happy to see it. Great kid. I did a feature on him a couple years back four or five years ago for sports illustrated. Like it rough start to his career, but I'm glad to see Weissman getting another chance. Nobody can shoot suddenly, except for towns. Everybody else has been like on three is alone. They're losing these games. So some of this will settle in. I assume. I am worried, but not worried. I'm not worried in the sense that a lot of this is just they have it made shots. So there's 17 to 3.4% in shooting percentage at the rim and dead last in mid range percentage for a team that particularly at star player takes a lot of mid range shots. I do think when I've watched them and I've watched every minute of every next game so far this year, they do seem to be playing with the right intentions. Like I wouldn't watch them play in a vacuum and be like, not if I had no idea this outside noise was happening. I wouldn't say, well, they're playing a little bit more selfishly or more stagnantly. Then they were last season. There have been more defensive slipups and mistakes than I would like to see some miscommunications on switches. They got burned a bunch of times by Orlando that way last night. Their transition defense was a disaster against the magic. That's all that's like that's a little bit alarming, but obviously easily correctable. The one thing that I am very, very worried about is that the minutes when towns is on the bench are going disastrously and I don't even know what the answer to that is like when cats in the game and they use him as a hub and they use the Brunson cat pick and roll is their other hub. Everything looks pretty much normal. Like guys are cutting the right actions are being run with basically the same vigor that they were running them when the games really matter. When cat goes out, they just don't have any organizing identity yet. The organizing identity was Brunson Mitchell Robinson pick and roll and you have one of the best lob finishers in the league and the best offensive rebounder in the league. Himber Steven Adams and Drummond can't finish anymore. He can't defend it all at the basket. Wiseman is like talk about an untested wild card. He's the extreme version of it. The offense just without towns as a passer, as a facilitator just seems completely rudderless and the numbers back it up. Their offense with towns on the bench has been a disaster. Their offense with him on the court has been pretty good considering they can't make a shot. That's where the second apron thing comes in and the decisions just sort of wipe your hands clean of Mitchell Robinson say we're helpless. We can't do anything about what you could have and you're really paying the price to a degree that is even worse than I expected it to be. And I'm not sure what the answer to that is. Though in three record is not that alarming to me. I think this team will be fine. I'd be a little surprised if they were not like a top 16 of the Eastern Conference and safe from the play in. They're pretty steady and all of that. Their depth is pretty good. But that problem is looming isn't even bigger problem than I thought it would be. Yeah, I mean, look, I think, excuse me, the schedule will probably take care of some of this. They're playing Detroit next. And then after that, it's like at Chicago, at Philly, we'll be, you know, interesting. But then like they got the nets. They got the bulls again. The net's reason. Yeah. I don't want we're not going to talk much about the winless Brooklyn nets. I will say, um, charming, very charming, uh, that diehard nets fans nicknamed their five first round picks. The flat bush five last year and three of the flat bush five in the their second year on a team that is bad. Basically don't play. Um, not just literally standing out on flat bush. Not a great, not a great sign. Um, not a little bit last night. We're talking about Danny Wolf, Drake Powell, and, um, uh, Treyori, or Seraf, rather, Ben Seraf, they'll play last night because they lost by that many points. Yeah. And Joman's been up and down and Treyori looks good in spurts. But like, yeah, they just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's my Cal Brown junior or bust at this stage when you're talking about. And Joman, I still like Joman, although he's now had a couple of games in a row where he doesn't take two-point shots. And they're like, at some point, like you got to take some two-point shots. Okay. Anyway, the nicks, um, I mean, look, we'll see, right? Like, time will tell, nothing can erase the championship. I, I think the fans will murmur maybe a little bit, but I also think like the amount of, of grace and love these guys are going to get is, is going to be almost infinite. And they better win some of these games against the bad teams coming up on their schedule. And they, and they've earned it. I will just flag one other thing, which is like, there's, we talk about championship hangovers and everything. And I think that's real. Like, there's, you know, the fatigue of going deep into season, everything else. But, and I can't remember if I said it on your show or not. But like, just the fact that like, they have three of the top, I think seven guys in minutes over the last three seasons in, you know, bridges who's led the league and then Brunson and Hart, like, that, at some point, you have to pay the piper on these things. At some point, that does come back to, not necessarily haunt you, but affect you. And so you have the deep run, a couple deep runs, including a championship. And then on top of it, just, you just had a lot of, you know, a lot of minutes have piled up. And I, I, to be able to go all out every minute of every game for 82 is hard. And especially for Brunson, who has carried so much of the load. And, you know, look, like they weren't a, they were a very good regular season team last year, but they weren't a dominant regular season team. They had a dominant run in the, in the postseason. And now it's, it's back to the grind of, we just need to get through the, the regular season with some semblance of, of home court advantage, and hope to flip the switch again. But, you know, mine modestly alarming. Bridges is not really done much to start the season and kind of got bullied a little bit last night on defense by the magic or a bullying team. But, you know, the last time Bridges was in a slump and everyone started to panic about McHale Bridges and should they take them out of the starting five? No one's saying that now. I think we all kind of remember what happened. I, I do find Dio Wara not playing to be a little bit weird to me. I thought, and he might have an injury that I, that I'm forgetting about at the moment. He's a DNPC, DNPCD in the box score. Um, I thought you would be ready to play like an actual role this year, at least like, stop up some minutes for the very reasons that you're talking about. But, um, yes, the next, we know who they are. They have continuity. It hasn't helped them so far. It will eventually, a team that does not have continuity and is 0 and 3, the Miami Heat, who traded, you know, a lot of stuff for Yannis. I'm not sure what that stuff is going to amount to. Like if you're, if you're, if you want to be in a rush to pile on the Yannis trade as some kind of mistake because of his age and his injuries and their 0 and 3 and their offense hasn't looked very good, it's not like, I mean, Hawkeyes has been very good for the bucks, but the bucks can't beat anybody. And like, you know, wear has been had one good game out of three. Like, let's just sort of TBD how all that stuff looks. Um, the Burries pick or was it A meant or Burries that came from that trade? One of those two came from that trade. Burries. No, I think it was Burries. Um, um, but anyway, 0 and 3, um, 27th and offense and 27th and defense, much of this can be explained, um, by the fact that they are shooting 30 percent on threes and their opponents are shooting 43 percent on threes. But all of that said 27th on both ends of the floor after three games is not awesome. Uh, they have not exactly played like an absolute murderers row. They played a hosting Minnesota who blew them out. Actually, they have played a decent schedule. They hosted the pistons who blew them out and then Charlotte on the road. Charlotte's missing a bunch of guys. They lost that game. It was semi close. Um, I can't say that the spite, the three point shooting I've talking about, like, I've watched them think I've watched two of their three games all the way through. I don't, I just don't like a lot of what I'm seeing on either end of the floor. Uh, the, the fit with Yannis and BAM has been a little clunky. Uh, offensively, they don't quite seem to know exactly how they want to play or what they want to do. Like they're kind of caught between systems a little bit, how they played last year with no pick and roll versus now they have Yannis, the timing on some of their actions has been a little bit misaligned like one side of the floor versus the other, not unfolding at the same time. There's just a lot of clay Thompson, just like too much clay Thompson on both ends of the floor. He's getting picked on on defense. I do wonder if Pella Larson entering the starting five at some point happens. Too much BAM shooting threes, although he's actually taking fewer per 36 minutes than last year. He just doesn't look great and you do feel the number one concern that I and others flagged before the season was the lack of off the dribble juice among their guards and wings and pull up shooting and you do feel that it's just they just feel like a team that it's going to take them a long time to figure out their identity other than Yannis just pound down the floor and dunk. Well, and that's the thing too. And like opening night, it was the first thing I noticed was like, oh, how awesome is it to see Yannis back and kind of felt like with a definite chip on his shoulder and just kind of wanting to just show, remind everybody, remind the world, like, you know, I'm a perennial MVP candidate and, you know, a Yannis who stays healthy is going to just be a fucking wrecking ball again and merit a lot of attention, even at this stage and even after all the injuries he's been through, he was awesome. And yet it looked to me like he was overdoing it. And he's he's he's back a little since then. I think that was just like opening night, you know, over excitement over, you know, over eager to prove something. But like, I don't know, like you mentioned the lack of ball handling shot creation outside of him on this team, like the lack of, you know, guys who can who can do something with the ball in there. He's the guy. And so like, I, you know, we've seen him be a whatever, like 38 and seven type of performer. Like he's not really been like the the creator distributor for the heat that I thought he might be so far. Maybe that's part of the calibration. They're still trying to figure out. I don't know if they have enough shooting around him to, you know, for him to be effective as kind of like the, you know, drive kick, like the hard way play Thompson solution to their three point shooting problems was always fraught, right? Because these are two guys who are especially clay up there in years and not particularly mobile defensively. And so you get them on the court for their spacing and their three point shooting, but you're giving up something too. And the question becomes how long can you afford to have either of them out there? And we're seeing some of those concerns come into play right off the bat too. But in an ideal world, I think, you know, you know, Janus is ratcheting down on the just, you know, three yards in a cloud dust approach to just driving the paint and just wrecking people, which he's very good at, but getting other guys involved and being the initiator that they need, because I don't know where else it's coming from. I also don't think Janus's defense has been very good and not up to his standards, particularly at the rim. Like when their guards are getting blown by he's not erasing a lot of mistakes like you used to. Maybe that'll come. And just like the honest band fit. Look, they can play two man game together. That ameliorates it a little bit. Like when one of them has a mismatch and starts to post up, if the other one's on the floor, particularly if it's a bam that's going one on one, Janus is going to be right there on the opposite side of the paint. It's just like very, very crowded. And they're out of sync playing with each other in tight spaces. It gets much easier when bam's around the three point arc. I just, I'm not sure you want bam around the three point arc as much as he has been. It will be better if like you would kick the ball to bam and he could run a dribble handoff with someone who was really good at that. They just don't have it enough of those players anymore. So, you know, I'm mildly worried about the heat. I took the over on the heat and I think at 44 and a half. It doesn't look, it doesn't look great right now. I just thought their infrastructure is going to be too strong for them to look this bad for this long. And it's only been three, it's only been, it's only been three games. By the way, just side note on the Hornets heat game. Charles Lee, one of his, the coach of the Hornets, one of his play calls, one of the symbol, one of the symbols he uses for a play call is an air guitar. He was strumming an air guitar to call some out of bounds action. And I was like, I don't think I've ever seen that before. A musical instrument as a play call. And I think you got to start going all the way. Like start slapping the bass a little bit for another one, the drums, like get the symbols involved and what other shake a tamp, like tambourines a little tough. He's just like shaking it. I like the idea of him going all in on just the musical, like a, he could play a saxophone, play like a play a little horn. And it just, I think you should go all in on this who would make the Hornets even more delightful. He did this multiple times. This was definitely a play call and not just a, oh, I just heard a cool riff on the jumbo trot. And I'm just kind of, you know, air guitaring alone. Let's just say that my life is so sad that I've checked to make sure I had seen what I had seen correctly. And it was apparently a play call. I don't, I should actually go back and see what the air guitar. Now I'm ruining it. Now the whole league is going to know what the air guitar is. So I'm not going to go see what the play call I need to know. Like was this a specific riff that he's playing? No, he was just jamming just jamming in the garage. Just a couple of strums will strum enough heat. My God, the heat Detroit is three. You know, they have beaten Boston, the aforementioned heat and Philly without Joelle and bead. LeBron sort of, he didn't complain about playing center. So he said, we have Joelle and beat. We're not really designed to play center. To have me play center. He started at center. He had Dean Wade. Jabari Walker was out for that game. Dom Barlow has been out the whole season. They need those guys, particularly with Hock Portey, former Nick out for the season, another catastrophic injury. Look, Detroit's very good. And I hammered the over on them at 48 and a half. I locked it. It was one of my locks with Bill and House. And in doing so, I pointed out to them that I think they had the third best record among against teams over 500 last year, behind only the Spurs in the Thunder and barely behind. So I'm not too surprised. The Durin thing will be interesting because I think it'll give them a chance to see what John Collins at center looks like for them. Usar Thompson also missed yesterday's game against Philly in addition to Durin. They're just like a rock solid team that's going to defend like all hell and Kate is Kate. And they actually have like, they've been playing two of some minutes with two of Robinson, Herder and Isaiah Joe on the floor is a joke. I heard last night. I have no notes on the pistons. I just think they're going to be a very good team. Yeah, I was surprised at how much how low people were like consensus became on them coming off a 60 win season. Like I know, there's a lot of this. Well, that's built on the backs of all these tanking teams. And you know, the east is getting better. And and part of it was like every east to every team last year, built part of their record against tanking teams. That's unavoidable. And they were not great in the playoffs. But I think they were, I'll look it up now while you talk. Go ahead. But if we're, but if we are accounting for all that across the board for every team, like, okay, they're not going to win 60 games again, probably, but like I, you know, they still were fairly, fairly good measure ahead of the pack. So if it's proportional, like, I felt like this is still a top four team in the east. And I felt like a lot of people were downgrading them to, you know, lower in the, in the, in the, in the playoffs bracket or maybe not all the way down to play in. And I get it. Like, there's a lot of teams that were expecting to be much better this year, including a lot of people being high on Miami and expecting them to maybe break that top six. But like, I was surprised at how soft people were on the pistons. And I that, you know, maybe the, the Jalen Duren stand off in the preseason, made people a little uneasy as well, or just the swapping out of, you know, Tobias for John Collins. You know, but I, I thought, like, look, they are still who they were. They will beat the crap out of you. They will, Kate will drive the ball down your throat. And they've got more shooting now, I think, than they did last year reasonably. And this is still the character of that team as a tough defensive minded beat the hell out of you and, you know, score in whatever way they can. Like the fundamentals are still there. The relentlessness is really to be admired. Like that first game against Boston, where they got down by a million points and everyone in Boston was crawling about how Paul George was the greatest thing since sliced bread and who needs Jalen Brown and all this. And this was walked him down and just beat him up and won the game. They're going to be, they're going to be fine. By the way, 34 and 16 last year against teams above 500 or above only the Thunder 36 and 16 at Spurs 35 and 15 had barely better records than that. But yeah, the East is a little, a little lucky now. If you're a team like the Wizards who had play in ambitions, you've got to feel very good about yourself at two and one. They haven't beaten anybody good yet. It the Hawks have looked, I think, pretty solid in their two and one. Got to feel good about that. The Raptors have looked very good, two and one at least when Kauai has played. And the Hornets to be two and one without Khan Grant Williams, Kobe White. Like you just got to bank the wins when you can get them. We'll see how much of that persists. And speaking of Boston, by the way, I'm officially too old for this shit. I'm, I'm, I'm Danny Glover, lethal weapon. Yes, too old to follow it all. I have never used the cap emoji. I don't think I ever will. I'm just too old for it. I did enjoy Jalen Brown's differentiating beef from lamb chops and gravy. Like we don't have the end and twisting the knife a little bit about Jason Tate and having a great PR team. I didn't even, I watched the Jason Tatum. He traded me. Oh, wow, he got traded across the street. Video sponsored by Duncan. Don't call it Duncan. Don't just Duncan. Make sure you tilt that logo toward the camera, by the way, when you're doing those videos, NBA players sponsored by Duncan and other beverage companies. I don't even know if Duncan is a beverage company. There's one right by my, there's one by my local train station. I'm not above just popping into Duncan getting a little, you know, some sort of egg sandwich for the train and going there. But will you as a, as a new Englander-ish person be offended if I say that Duncan is highly overrated? So no, I, I think their coffee is pretty bad. But I will say like, I actually, this is a, this is an interesting geographical question for people. Connecticut is a new England. and I grew up in Connecticut, I lived there now. I've never felt a new Englander. I've never felt a part of New England. I live so close to New York City that I feel much more like a New Yorker. I lived in New York for 20 years. And I go there all the time. This is like a New York adjacent where I live. I don't feel like a new Englander. I like Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, that's New England to me. I've never felt, and I don't want to be a part of New England. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm not, I'm not asking to be included. I just have never felt like a New Englander in my life. I don't know what that says about anything really, but it's just a note. I don't know where that dividing line actually is, but I also was just thinking about like, you know, your Celtics blogging roots way back in the day when we first met, like there was a, you know, there's a Boston connection there spiritually. If nothing else, I think I offended Chris Mannix once by calling Duncan overrated. So it is just kind of stuck with me that this is a sensitive spot for some people. I mean, is there any mass coffee chain that's not overrated without naming names? Like, well, we can name it. It's Starbucks, probably not going to sponsor the exact low. So are they not overrated? Like, you don't know who runs by the way. The worst thing, one of the worst places you can be at 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. on a weekday. I don't know if it's everywhere, but certainly in Connecticut is a Starbucks because all the tweens and high school kids are flocking to Starbucks for their stupid pig drinks or their crepeachino frappuccinos with whipped cream. And they treat it like a bar. Like, you can't, like, it just get out and go go outside. Like, were you going to coffee shops at age 13? They didn't have coffee shops when we were age 13. What are you doing? Go play, go play some pick up basketball. Go play some woofable ball, go play video games. Get out of Starbucks. Fortunately for me, kids are damn kids. Halloween's coming up, baby. Halloween's coming up the ultimate damn kids holiday of the year. If you're not dressed up in my house, you're not getting candy. If you're over 16, go away and don't you dare try to vandalize my house because that will catch your ass and there'll be payback to be had. You have like 15 ring cameras on just in case. I don't have, no, you know what, Howard? We don't have those, you know what? I want it to be a fair fight. I don't want a technical high school. Oh, I thought this was going to be a statement about like privacy in the digital age and everything else. No, you know what is my daughter, by the way? Because I don't know if you know this thing called booing that is like apparently in a suburban tradition. When we first moved here, people like, oh, if you got in booed yet and I was like, what the hell is that? Don't you get it? Anything better to do. It's ding dong ditching but with a present. And so someone rings your doorbell leaves a bag of candy and a note that says you've been booed. And runs away, hoping to not get caught. Often a parent is serving as the getaway driver. I would consider myself almost a borderline Ryan Gosling and drive level getaway driver for these kind of booing actions. No one is going to catch me. I've got hiding places, I got the door open. I'm ready to go. But the idea is you get booed and you get got a bag of candy. And then you are supposed to reciprocate it forward by booing other people. Well, ring cameras have ruined booing. You can't not get caught by someone who has a ring camera. Like, where's the fun in that? So we don't have it. And I want to challenge. I want to go out and hunt you down in my backyard. I want to run after your car. Like, let's have a fair fight. What technology is ruining this? It is. That's awful. Horrible to hear that. Maybe this just means we have to meet the moment and escalate. So it's got to be like in all the heist movies. Now you have to come equipped with like shaving cream or something to spray over the camera first. You've got to come with like the whole easy now. That's it. That's like too soon. Yeah, I would like to be in a heist movie. But scripts have not come pouring in for me since my cameo and your friends and neighbors, by the way. So if anyone is filming a heist movie and feels like they have a role for me, I'm begging you for any kind of fall. OG and an Obie's career taken off. He's in every movie until they show. He did way more than that scene than he did. And I've got no no scripts have emerged. Yeah, but this is a call. I'm calling out for anyone to give me any role of any kind. I don't really even need any money. I just I just want purely for the screen time. I thought you nailed it anyway. Lamb chops and gravy and Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum. I didn't even realize I'm going to fill it off. Yeah, has a great little homestand the week of November. I think November eight, November ninth, they have Philly and Toronto coming. I have a Boston and Toronto coming. I didn't even realize I'm going and I didn't realize that's the first game. The first real game. Do you have any takes on this? It feels like there's something. There's not nothing. I think we all knew there was not nothing. I don't I just can't. I'm too old to follow the emojis and the videos and the Instagram and the Twitch and whatever else is going on. I'll just say this, there's a long history in this league of guys playing together. Some tensions being perceived or rumored or whatever. And the guys, Westbrook and Durant, once upon a time, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum saying, I don't know what you guys are talking about. You guys in the media are always trying to stir this up. There's nothing to it. We're great. And then it's always years later where you find out, oh no, Westbrook and Durant actually did have tension. And oh, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, like without actually saying it explicitly, they've made it pretty clear. Like Jalen Brown didn't have to put the cap emoji on Instagram. It was Instagram, wasn't it? I don't know. He did not have to then say, and I thought it was fun too. Like no, it's not beef. It's maybe just some lamb and gravy. It wasn't for a long time. I thought he was going to keep adding side dishes, like some peas, mashed potatoes. Like I thought he was just going to keep going. What's he having for dessert? I'm a big dessert guy. I thought that the fact that he addressed it and addressed it in the way he did. And yes, to the point of like the part where I went, ooh, as I did again, when you mentioned it, like the, and he's got a great PR team. Like, come on man, that's a, that's a shot. I don't know what it's a shot specifically at, but there's, he's, he's telling you, this guy is putting on a show and you should not believe it. Again, the cap emoji and the PR thing are of the same piece. It is basically saying this guy is trying to project something that he is not. And he's trying to, to fool you guys or make himself look like the good guy, whatever it is. But I'm just going to say, because this goes back many years, years before they won the championship and even before they'd gone to the finals the first time, that there was always this tension there. Not that they'd hated each other, but that there was a thing. There was a thing and that thing has manifested itself in any number of ways in the last year or two, in particular, and ultimately in the trade of Jalen Brown. And now this stuff, so it's fine. At least it's like, I don't want to say it's out in the open because they're still kind of dancing around whatever the fuck it is. But let's just be clear. Like, nobody was wrong to have written about, reported on or speculated about them maybe not really having the greatest most productive relationship. - I don't even care about that. They want a championship together. That's all that matters. - And that is all that matters. But like, I'm just saying, like, the truth matters too. And like, I'm glad that we are seeing at least a little glimpse into what was really going on, which is that, yeah, there's a thing. The truth is out there. And I did appreciate Jason Tatum trying to contextualize it in basketball history by saying this isn't a Shaq Koby thing. Like, there are levels to this of feuding or discontented teammates. That's pretty high up on the discontented team. That was your life for quite a long time in Los Angeles. But it's not, that doesn't mean it's nothing and it's clearly not nothing. And I would expect, look, there's been a history when these, the first game, like Russ KD, I may see their first or second game together. Like Russ KD, the first game they made, no eye contact. The second game, I think there was like a trash talking flare up. I think there's gonna be something. And I don't think there's gonna be like a fight or a pushing and shoving or even a fake NBA fight. I think there's gonna be something like a cold handshake and icy glare, a little jostling under the rim. And Jalen Brown, more than Jason Tatum, when he gets a runway in the half court, he dunks to inflict violence. And if Jason Tatum is in the vicinity, I think there's gonna be a little extra pop in those legs. If Jason Tatum is the one at the rim to try and inflict some violence, but that'll be fun. All right, how are we back? Real ones, what day are we gonna hear you on real ones this season? - Tomorrow, Tuesday and Tuesdays and Fridays. And yeah, me, Logan, Raja, doing our thing. Glad to be back together. And yeah, catch us there. Catch all my other stuff on the wringer.com. - I hope to see you at the garden soon. Are you gonna be at Nick's Pissons on Tuesday by any chance? Tomorrow by any chance, I'm gonna be there. - Probably not. - You're so devoted to the Brooklyn that side, I admire it. You'll pop over. - It's 10 minutes away. You'll pop over, check in on Jornie's mental health. - I was there last night, very endearing too. So I was there last night for pre-game and only pre-game, which is my thing. Learned that from you way back when I think. You were the pioneer of just swinging through for pre-game and disappearing. Jornie Fernandez, as is often the case. He's like making the rounds like pre, like very few head coaches these days are just kind of hanging out in the court pre-game as they used to in the old days. But Jornie, it's a very relaxed thing. But his kids are sometimes court side. If his wife's problem to the gamer, whoever, and I'm standing sideline, gossiping with whoever and these two kids just go running by in like matching, I don't know if they were jumping pajama pants But like matching pants running down and I look up and there's there's joy They're going to run to go see see dad. So I was just it's a fun little heartwarming. So I was mr. Wamy doing As spirited as ever the signs are still Almost I can't I can't read them. They're very long. There's their entire essays on on his signs is he's walking down the sideline with them Going to his seat, but That that dude is eternal like mr. Wamy's awesome. I hope he's doing this for a very long time to come I actually quite like Barclays Center and I'm excited to go see a game there eventually Howard back I'll see you soon, but thanks for stopping by the Zach Locio. That's it for today's episode We will be back on Thursday. That's going to be our cadence this year Monday Thursday Thank you to the great Howard back Thank you as always to Mike Billy and Jonathan on production Thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Locio. We'll see you on Thursday 21 or over and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas, Starkistino or 18 and over and president in DC or Wyoming Gamma problem call 1 in 100 gambler or 1 800 my reset call 1 8 8 8 7 8 9 7 7 7 7 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or is it md Gambling help.org in Maryland hope is here visit gambling help line m a dot org or call 800 3 2 7 5 0 5 For 24 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1 8 7 7 8 hope and Y or text hope and Y in New York for Louisiana Call 1 8 7 7 7 7 7 8 6 7