The Most Confusing Teams in the NBA!

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Then enter for a chance to win courtside tickets and more at MichelobUltra.com slash courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26-27, no purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026 and ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at MichelobUltra.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. Coming up on the Zach Lowe Show, Rob Mahoney is here for one of my favorite episodes of the year. Our five-month-old. Most confusing teams for the season. Confusing could mean whatever you want it to mean as long as it's about this particular season. It could mean we think they're going to win way more than expected, way less than expected. Their variance is huge. We have no idea what they're doing or if their roster makes sense. We're going to talk about a whole pile of teams. Pelicans, Blazers, Pacers, Magic, Pistons, Jazz, Heat, on and on and on. We're confused about a lot of things. We also hit some of the stuff that happened in the news over the weekend. The Knicks tabling contract extensions. Among others, Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart. Kyrie's back. How did he look with Cooper Flagg? Jason Tatum made his preseason debut with the Celtics. And we saw our first glimpse of the loaded Philadelphia Sixers starting five with Joel Embiid having eight turnovers, I think, in the game against Brooklyn. But are there good signs there as well? So we bounce all around the league. We also have a little nice announcement at the top. I'm starting a newsletter called The Low Post. That's still a thing. It's still a name. It's on Substack. We talk a little bit about that. We just talk about everything that's going on in the league. We even talk about the Kings and Maxime Reynaud. He got injured. So that's all coming up next on The Zach Lowe Show, our annual five most confusing teams draft with Rob Mahoney coming up on The Zach Lowe Show. Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show. Rob Mahoney is here for one of my favorite annual podcasts. My five most confusing teams of the year. We will get to that. It's an annual tradition. Last year, Mr. Mahoney, you were my guest for a League Pass Rankings Extravaganza podcast. Do you remember this? I do. I recall many things about it. I think there's going to be, oddly enough, a little bit of crossover between some teams I really thought I would love watching last year and am befuddled by at present. There will be no League Pass Rankings Zach Lowe Show this year because that is going to be the way that we introduce. The newsletter that I announced today, The Lowe Post, we will have the League Pass Rankings back in written form for the first time in two years, spread over five or six days in the next 10 days or so. So subscribe to The Lowe Post if you want to read that kind of stuff. That's my plug. Mr. Mahoney, before we get to the five most confusing teams, and by the way, I prepared a list of eight because I have a feeling I'm going to guess we go minimum three for five overlap between us because there are some objectively. Yes. Batshit. Yes. Yes. Crazy, confusing teams in the league right now. We have some news to get to. Can we spin through some quick news items from the weekend? I would love to. Where do you want to start? Brandon Pajemski, five years, $110 million extension with the Golden State Warriors right around his cap hold so that it does not really cannibalize their cap space for the summer. They, of course, do not have quite have max cap space. They have something like $45 million of cap space. I just think they continue to be more set up for some kind of lopsided trade. Then anything else in terms of free agency, given that they have all their picks except for one at their disposal and some cap flexibility. As mentioned, I continue to think that the team is dead on arrival this season and should not go insane trying to trade draft picks multiple two, three, whatever of them for a win now move. But that is neither here nor there. Pods weirdly polarizing player, I guess, among Warriors fans. I'm not really dialed into like the insane Warriors fan Twitter. I think this deal is totally fine. It's 10 to 12% of the salary cap. That's like not even starter money, really. And that's perfect for pods, who is, I think, like a fourth or fifth starter at best and a sixth or seventh man, maybe more realistically does a little bit. Everything plays hard. Hi, cute player. I don't get why there's any upheaval about this other than there's been some unfortunate comments from Joe Lake up and Brandon Pajemski himself kind of anointing him as a superstar and waiting that have rankled some people. This is totally. You know what he is, Rob? He's a good basketball player, a perfectly fine basketball player on a team that frankly needs perfectly fine basketball player. So I really don't have any problem with the number. It feels like a we all really want to make this work kind of extension. I think speaking to the polarizing nature of his tenure as a warrior so far, maybe even polarizing in the mind of Steve Kerr himself. He is like he's had such a weird run and a weird role, and it never feels like he has been given the full rope to invest in. Like, who he can be as a prospect for reasons that make sense. This has been a veteran team that's been trying to compete. He's been a young guy who's been coming in trying to prove himself like the there are obviously conflicting motivations there, but he's he's so solid that it would be foolish to let him go. And it'd be he's so solid that I'm with you that he's he probably projects more as that kind of like end starter kind of spot. But maybe he pops at a certain point. Maybe he becomes the third best player on a really good team. And that's a great outcome for him. And certainly at this kind of salary level, that would. And yes, I am guilty in the past of saying these kind of deals in the twenty to twenty five million dollar range or Keegan Murray's deal on the high end of that can sometimes go underwater when they go badly. It should be noted that those kind of deals were signed in a lower cap environment. This one is going forward into a massively higher cap environment. And pods is young and he's he's good at everything. Like he's become a pretty good shooter after that. Remember, he had that wave of time where he just would not shoot threes. He was completely shell shocked. He's like what you said about. Like downside scenarios like I don't worry about that in terms of like fourth, fifth starter on some teams. You need that player to have a particular set of skills on other teams. You need that player to have a different particular set of skills, depending on who your top two guys are. He can fit pretty much in any kind of environment. Do you have any what I haven't gotten to the group chat power rankings warriors segment yet. I'm a little behind. What do you have any hope for this team this season? Where are you on the warriors? I'm not very hopeful. I mean, I think a lot of my reservations and concerns are just like, are they going to have enough healthy bodies to fields and actual basketball team for 82 games? And I'm like, Brandon, but Jemski is a great kind of counterpoint for that. And part of the reason he gets this deal, he has played more minutes as a warrior than literally anyone else over the last three years. And so his ability to be out there is huge. But without Butler to start the year, Moses Moody to start the year, Chris, that's for Zingas in limbo. Al Horford being his age. D'Anthony Melton being healthy for now. Steph Curry being healthy for now. But all of those things. I just don't see how there's like a good playoff caliber basketball team there, even if Steph in Steph, we trust in all other contexts. And the reason I said I wouldn't go crazy, like all this stuff about, you know, they're, they're always chasing the next big guy. Right. And they haven't gotten them yet. And they've been lambasted for that. I think somewhat unfairly, but also, so I think there were real opportunities that I've talked about before that maybe they could have gotten into. I just, I mean, we'll see how they start the season, but even if they're at 500, I just, I don't know. I just don't have really any faith in this team as a real, like capital T team. And I, and if it's less than that, if it's worse than that, the lottery odds, they may be in the perfect sweet spot in the lottery odds. And boy, could they use a bite at that apple? Okay. Number two, did you see the debut of the Philadelphia 76ers starting five against Brooklyn on Friday? I think, did you catch any of this only in drips and drabs? I mean, what, what jumped out to you? So obviously all the focus was on how bad Embiid was. And the 5,000 turnovers that he puked up all over the court. Right. I actually came away weirdly, like they're trying the right stuff on offense. You know, there's a lot of mouths to feed. We all know that everyone's going to have to sacrifice a little bit, blah, blah, blah. I just charted their first six possessions. And then I stopped because it's the preseason and I just can't care that much, but they showed me everything I wanted to see in those first six possessions very quickly. Possession number one, they ran a flex action. We do have two guys. The elbow, two guys in the corners and bead was in the corner. That's where he's going to have to be. Sometimes good experiment. I don't remember what it led to possession. Number two, LeBron hit ahead to BJ edge comb for a layup. Okay. That's great. That's how I want to see this team to play. That's how I want to see them play possession. Three LeBron, Joel and bead pick and roll with Jalen Brown in the dunker spot. Extended LeBron to Embiid to Jalen Brown dunk possession. Number four, maxi Embiid pick and pop kick to Embiid. LeBron's defender wrote to me. to wave at Embiid, Maxie to Embiid, to LeBron, drive, and then drop off to Vijay Edscombe for a baseline dunk. Love it. Fifth possession, another fast break. That's like Maxie and Jalen Brown exchanging on a dunk and then six possession. And then I stopped another flex action. This time LeBron was handling up top. Embiid was at the elbow. Maxie flew off an Embiid pin down. Defender went under the screen. Tyrese Maxie three. That's like, we're getting there. Like that's the foundation for how this should work. LeBron is I've, I've joked that he's kind of like the apex, apex, apex version of old man, Jason kid on the Mavericks where he just sees over everything and is throwing these bullets 20 feet to dudes under the rim. And then Embiid for as bad as the turnovers were looked like decently mobile on defense to me, maybe not upwardly. I mean, the, the, the non-lob was a tough look, the hops and the, and on rebounds, and contested rebounds, they're gonna come and go. And that's just gonna be life. I don't know what this team's gonna be. I don't know how good they're gonna be. I don't know how much Embiid is gonna be able to play. I do know that Nick nurse is trying to write stuff offensively. That's kind of what jumped as you, as you rattled off that play sequence. It's like, that to me sounds like Nick nurse, just like noodling through a jam band guitar solo. You know, it's like, it's a little messy. It's a little rambly at times, but it's like, you can see all of the disparate elements here. They're gonna come together into something interesting, if not effective, like throughout what's your, uh, what's your Philly just general optimism, pessimism scale, Rob Mahoney, uh, quite optimistic. I just think, I, I think there's almost too much there for it not to work at a pretty high level. And I trust, I think the LeBron component that you explained with Jason kid is kind of why I believe in it so much. If it was just Jalen brown and maxi and vet Edgecombe and Embiid, that's a really nice team. Maybe in some ways makes like cleaner sense, but you need the, the macro processor at the center of it to help make sense of so many of these possessions and get the ball where it needs to go and reroute things that aren't quite working. And I just think LeBron is gonna make a huge difference for this team. I am higher than, uh, I'd like to be on the Sixers. As, as I said, last week, when I, when I forced myself to do my own thought exercise of if I have to pick someone other than the Knicks to make the finals out of these two, and I pick, I looked at every team and I was like, well, good throw up in my mouth a little bit and pick the Sixers. Cause I'm like Fox Mulder. I trust no one else. So I trust no one. I don't trust the Sixers. I trust no one. I also don't trust James Dolan. So item number three, the New York Knicks have announced a rare step that they are tabling contract extensions with among others, Carl, Anthony towns and Josh Hart and district bride until some indefinite point at some other time than the current point in time. Um, I don't know, man, like cat, I guess this all started when cat said that there is no comfortability in this. And of course he'd like an extension and he made some comments about how we'd like to get something done between, you know, what I would dream to get and what makes sense for the team. And we're not close to that number. I don't know how that went over with James Dolan, but now they're not negotiating at all. And Fred cats with the athletic nailed this. I didn't realize this at the time. If they don't get this extension done before the season starts, it eliminates one particular route towards a town's extension, which is he opts in to $61 million for next season, 27, 28, and then they can go down from there, which is critical because it's 28, 29. When Brunson's huge deal kicks in when the second apron really becomes a tough barrier for them. And if they don't get this done before the season, they can still negotiate all sorts of different things, but they can't negotiate that way. I just look, I've done the math. We've all done the math. There are ways for them to sign cat to a fair ish deal and heart to a fair ish deal and down the line and an OB to a fair ish deal and stay under the second apron. I don't think towns and his people are proposing some preposterous number that vaults them way over the second apron. I've actually heard the opposite, that they're proposing something fair. Although I think if, if the Knicks offer really is for 200, I think that's on the border of like fair I've pitched 55 average annual value is like a good place to settle. So that's close. Here's the only thing I'll say if James Dolan is mad at anything that Carl Anthony towns or Josh Hart said, I don't know that he is. I just know that tabling extensions feels like a little bit of a tantrum and a negotiating play. All Carl Anthony counts did was very calmly and very factually answer a question that was posed to him at media day. He threw no bombs. He didn't say anything inflammatory. He just laid out exactly what the situation is and calmly explained it. And if that's, if that triggered anything, then people need to buck up a little bit. I suspect it did trigger something, but it says more about Dolan than anybody else. And frankly, like all of the second apron fear mongering. And I'm with you. I think there's very reasonable constructions for basically all of these deals. Although deuce might get left out in the cold to get the core of this team back and be reasonably within range of the second apron down to the line. I just don't care about the second apron. If you are a championship team, like the only mechanisms it really imposes are your ability to add more players to the team that already exists, or I guess to replace, if somebody got hurt, if somebody was on the downswing, if you needed to make dramatic shifts in the core and the future, then yes, it would limit your ability to do that. You already have a championship roster. They just fucking proved it. Like they could have brought back Mitchell Robinson. They could have been all of these guys extensions. It would have been a hundred percent fine and a hundred percent legal under the second apron, because those restrictions should not apply for teams in this positions and in this position. And yet James Dolan. And frankly, a lot of the owners around the league love to put up this boogeyman and hide behind it as if, oh my God, we couldn't possibly cross this line. Look at the, the like absolutely catastrophic series of repercussions. What crazy person voted for this in a boardroom? How did this happen? I'm just, I'm, I'm so over it. And frankly, I'm especially over it. When the team that just proved they were the best team in the league is crying poor, like just, just pay the guys to bring back proper title defense. It doesn't seem that complicated. Imagine if they had to pay proper taxes and property taxes on Madison square garden. Wow. What a, what a horrible, what a horrible world that would be for the poor billion. I know. Okay. Basketball things that happened over the weekend. You can take or leave any of these is interesting to you. Kyrie Irving made his debut next to Cooper flag. The first time we've seen that pairing. Yeah. Cleveland played its new starting five with Peyton Watson for the first time. Jason Tatum made his preseason debut in the Celtics started Mitchell Robinson, but not Peyton Pritchard and Reed shepherd grew a mustache and kind of a beard and looks like a middle reliever now for like the Houston Astros or something, or any of those interesting to you. All of them are interesting, but I did feel most moved contrary to everything. I thought I knew about myself by Kyrie being back on the floor. And I think some of it is like I had become over the last couple of years and changed like a real Kyrie guy after being somewhat of a skeptic, certainly of, you know, his broader decision making just as a person, um, even who he was as a basketball player at various stops and just like who he has become and the joy of getting to watch him on the floor has superseded so much of that noise. And I think he has also grown into the kind of person and the kind of leader and the kind of veteran that is just like so easy to respect and admire that. Having him back. I was like, it, it, it really did feel like the season was coming back for the first time. It felt like a really clean turn of the page in a way that I didn't even know that I needed. I'm just really excited to see how the two of them play off of each other, both cutting off the ball when the other one has it, both of them are good at that. And their two man game is just tailor-made beautiful generate mismatches. Um, on the other stuff, Cleveland starting five looked fine, whatever they're going to have to figure out Peyton Watson and what he's doing there. But defensively, you know, I, you, you, you kind of forget these things until you see it. Like intuitively, you know, they're going to be switchier with Watson because of how good he is. And then you see it and you're like, man, Harden is so good at guarding up. Like that's really his one piece of utility on defense is he's big and strong and guards up. They can switch a lot two to five, as long as they protect Mitchell and even he can switch a little bit. I think that's the underrated part of Mitchell's defense is he, he not a hardened quality to the same extent, but for a guard, his size is incredibly strong and can hold his spot. Speaker 2 : I think Cleveland's going to be very good. Uh, Tatum looked great. The Celtics are trying to run more. We'll see. And, uh, yeah, read shepherd's mustache, something to monitor. Um, last thing your guy and my guy, Maxine Reno suffered a knee injury because the Kings just cannot have any nice things. They get one nice thing. Ben Simmons looks like aggressive and good. And I've heard all summer that he's feeling great and looks great. And he actually did, he attacked the basket, uh, and they lose right now to some sort of injury is going to be a in two weeks. I don't know the specifics now. Just, you know, I really, I was like driving the train of, he needs to be first team all rookie. I don't remember if he did win first team all rookie or not because I don't care, but I, this is fun dude to watch. I want the Kings to have some fun dudes to watch. They're going to need them. Although, I mean, the Darius Acuff stuff out of the gate has been a little, a little more, I don't know how to even to describe it. Like I am, I'm compelled by it more than I expect it to be. He has a professional Bob and weave pick and roll kind of game. It's, there are going to be nights where it's inefficient, miss shots, turnovers, all the rookie undersized guard stuff, but he's got the feel and the pacing of a professional number one ball handler. Last thing on the Kings. I had a, I had a fun little segment last week on what I called a roast by Vivek Rondive at their team dinner. Kings took some issue with the word roast, because as I said in the segment, it was, it was meant to be him sort of reciting all the typical criticisms of the players on his team. And then saying, you know, let's prove all of that stuff wrong. And look, I, I have no regrets and don't take anything back. I will say one thing I did omit was that Vivek opened it by making fun of himself and calling himself the worst owner in professional sports or in the history of professional sports. I don't remember. I do think it was a well-intended whatever that did not land as intended with everybody in the audience. Some, it did. Some liked it, some didn't, but that's all. Vivek did self-roast. I do want to make that clear. Self-roasting is important context, but I do find that people in general love when their boss gets them all in the room and explains the broad strokes criticisms that everyone seems to believe to be true. I mean, who wouldn't respond well to that? I, I hope Bill does it to us. Like let's, let's have a whole summit and I would, I would love it. Okay. Um, I think that's it for, for news. Um, and I do think Vivek generally means well in, in his stewardship of the Kings, which has gone awry. Yeah. That hasn't really been the problem. I don't think. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's like, I, I meant well when I tried to fix our garage door a few months ago and then it ended up slanted and stuck in some sort of a position that was not okay. And we needed to call someone. We needed to call someone who actually knows what they were doing. Just the Zach Levine of home improvement endeavors. Let's take a, uh, you know what? Yeah. Let's take a quick break and then we'll do, we'll start our five most confusing teams. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the NBA. As this season tips off, boy, would I love to be close to the action of Michelob Ultra in hand at Thunder Spurs at Nick's ring night, any Nick's Sixers game. How about Jalen Brown when he returns to Boston? We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll give you first pick Rob Mahoney's most confusing team of the year. Incredibly generous of you. I mean, I'm going to start with the muse of my personal cognitive dissonance, which is the Miami heat. We are all for, we are all for one. Let's go. Let's go. Clean boards all the way through. Let's, let's talk about as many teams as possible. But my first instinct is to say that the heat, look, the East is going to be stacked, but the reality is they're going to shake out as like the seventh or eighth best team in the conference, right? There's so many good teams here from the Knicks all the way down. We talked about the Sixers. I mean, you got the, the Cavs and the Celtics. You got the Raptors. You got the, like, there's so many teams that are going to be in the mix that it makes sense that the heat could wind up as the seventh or eighth best team. And then there's another part of my brain where the alarms are going off and saying, wait, you're telling me a team with Giannis who is still one of the five or six best players on the planet and bam and good defense and enough shooting and Eric Spolstra that that team is going to be a play in team. And it's like the war that is constantly happening with Lynn within me, as far as trying to understand what the nature of the East pecking order is and where the heat fall in it. That is what is loudest in my mind at this point. Well, there's going to be, I mean, all of us are going to be confused about the East throughout the season. There are going to be teams where like in one week, it's like Detroit's eighth. How did that happen? And then there'll be fourth a week later and everything will be fine. I think this is a great pick. I didn't have them just because I, I mean, I can't, it would be. It would be hard for me to see them winning fewer than like 46 games. And it would be hard for me to see them winning more than 50. Like, I think they're just going to be a very good team. I don't know where that places them in the East. Giannis has looked great in his limited action already. They're going to have to figure out some spacing with him and bam, the lack of like pull up off the dribble shooting as you and I have talked about is a little bit worrisome. Definitely. And I'm glad that you brought up the heat because I don't know if they are aware of this in Italy. I, I don't know if they're aware of this, but I think we should be famous in Italy because you and I are the president and vice president. You can be the president of the Simone Fontechio fan club, and he's still kicking around. I don't know how much he's going to play, particularly if Nicole Yovitch transforms from a theoretical player and do a real player. I don't know how many minutes it will be for him, but someone is still kicking around baby. As he should be. I look, I hope this gets us some kind of ambassadorship, you know, like if they want to station us in Italy for a little while, like I wouldn't be mad about it. Deep dive on. Should that be one of my first newsletter posts? I go to Italy and go to Italy, just deep dive on Simone for 5,000 word profile. Who knows what I, who knows what's interesting about him? I don't know. It's the feature that the people, or at least the person being me has been waiting for. I mean, is there another player on this team that you want to spotlight as like, this could be an incredible situation for him or like this could go bust for him. Is there like a player that kind of, other than the mainstays kind of swings this for you? I don't even think it's like a, there's a one swing player X factor kind of thing for me. I think it's more like what makes the heat particularly confusing and hard to chart is that you just can't know what SPO is going to do. Like he's one of the least dogmatic coaches in the leagues, one of the most adaptive coaches in the league. And so I'm with you that I think their floor is like reasonably high, assuming that Yannis doesn't have a major injury. Like they, they clearly need him to stay out there, but if things don't work, like I just have a lot of faith in Eric's bolster to tinker and to continue to like find inroads to something. It's just hard to know what that something is. Like if you told me the style of offense that the, you're going to run in November and the style of offense that they're going to run in April, that could be worlds apart. And I think the process of seeing the heat become themselves is going to be one of the great adventures of this season. And I just like when Yannis is on the floor, his team is good. Like the bucks last year with Yannis, we're good. We're like quite good as good as, you know, like the nuggets or the calves or the wolves, right. In that kind of mix in terms of net rating. And so thinking that this team is going to be seventh or eighth, I just, I don't know. I find myself like self-flagellating for that a little bit where it's like, they, they simply have to be better than that by talent. And yet the attrition of the east might be what it is. Well, and we've just got to see, can you get through 65, 68 games, whatever it is. Cause you're right. When he's on the floor, I mean, between him and David Mitchell and Wiggins and bam, this should be a top eight defensive team. If everybody's healthy top 10 at worst, like they're going to be a very good defensive team. And they may be way better than I'm just trying to be conservative. It's the offense. That's going to be the, the make or break for them. And you're right. Like if Giannis is on the floor as a one-man fast break for 32 minutes, a game 65 times with the amount of shooting they have around him and bam is going to be on the floor for some of those 32 minutes, but not all of them. Like they're going to be a pretty goddamn good offensive team. I don't know that they're going to be sixth or fifth, but I don't think they're going to be 20th. I think they'd be somewhere like slightly above average to maybe better than that. So that's it. And that that's out to a good team. I'm going to give you second pick because I'm disappointed that we didn't. Speaker 1 : And I'm betting, I'm betting that we're going to, I just don't see any chance now that we've gone over for one, that one of your other confusing teams is not on my list. Speaker 0 : Let's go with the Utah jazz. Unbelievable. The confusion around the league is just widespread. I do think this is maybe one of the most unpredictable overall seasons we've had in a long time. Like the high end stuff does feel pretty locked in. We know who the thunder and the Spurs and the Knicks are, but everything else feels up for grabs. Speaker 1 : And the jazz feel, especially up for grabs for me. I look at this rotation, even with NERC out for, you know, the first couple of weeks of the season. And I think like, is this not a winning team? Like, is this not a team that could break even at 500 or slightly better? Is this not a collection? That's clearly the most talented collection of players that jazz have had in a while and a collection of players that make sense in a lot of ways. I just think there's, there's such a long climb from 22 wins last year into being like a team of actual, you know, playoff accommodation. So I don't really think they're going to get all the way that far, but I just, I wonder about how far they can climb about how compatible this particular group is in year one, if they're going to have everything figured out. And especially with how much the jazz have like depressed their own wind totals over the last couple of years, how much may we may be anchoring on the low end of who they've tried to be, as opposed to who this roster actually could have been. I just don't know who the hell this team is. I think the Kessler trade is so fascinating for them. because they made a very stark choice of like, we're super excited about our team. We think we can play Lowry and triple J and Kessler together. We actually want to, and now we might have to play Nurk in that spot. When Nurk is healthy, defensively Kessler is just on another level from Nurkic at this stage, obviously it's an offensive rebounder. His hands is feel all that is like totally different level. The threes we'll see. I'll believe it when I see it. And then they got this offer from the Lakers and they decided this is too good to pass up. We will voluntarily take a step back this year to take a bigger step forward at some point, because if they had Kessler and they sprinkled in enough, a Kogi or whatever on the wing to give them a stable wing defender, like that's a roadmap to an okay defense. And I think offensively, this team could be very, very powerful with the young guards, assuming, you know, Peterson is kind of eased in and not overburdened and he's looked great in the preseason too. You know, I'm with you in general though. Like they were, and Speaker 1 : Speaker 0 : Speaker 0 : A couple of my picks are clustered in this spot. They were my number one pick in the, if some incumbent team from the west top six, just inexplicably falls out of the top six, who would replace them. And you get into like the Portland Phoenix, Utah, I don't know. Are you optimistic about Dallas or Memphis or whatever kind of morass of teams? And Utah was my, if I had to pick one of those teams, I just kind of liked the upside of this team. I think will Hardy is a really great offensive coach. Who's going to have like you give, you give him these bigs who are, who can shoot, who can come off pin downs, who can do stuff off the dribble, who can play a little bit like guards, if it not pass like guards, but play like guards. I just think he's going to figure out ways to have this team score at a pretty high level. So I'm, I guess, I guess the confusion, what is the source of confusion? Like, are we underestimating them? Is there a doubt? Is there like a more severe downside here than you and I are maybe envisioning? I think I'm just, I'm seeing, well, I think there's both on paper. The talent to me says this team should be pretty good. And yet I'm not sure that they ultimately will be. I think the passing, which you and I have talked about before could potentially be part of it. The fact that this team does have so many guys who play like guards also kind of bears out in the rebounding. Like the jazz strike me as the kind of team where it's like, are they a referendum on the concept of rebounding? Cause none of these guys are above average rebounders for their position. Will that matter? Is there enough like connective tissue here in terms of the undergirding of what makes a good basketball team to make the jazz actually good? Or will they just be a team that is like a high powered offense is kind of fun to watch is certainly more captivating than they have been, but doesn't amount to much. That's a good slogan for the team. You come by season tickets to the jazz more captivating than we have been. Look, it's all relative, you know? All right. I'm going to make my first pick now because it's in the same universe of teams. And I would be shocked and a little disappointed if you did not have them. And unless they are such a chalky choice that you were bored with them, the Portland trailblazers are one of my five most confusing teams for the season. Not because I have that much confusion about what their ultimate record is going to be. I think this is like a pretty middle of the road team. Just how they get there is going to look so different than it did last year when it was the Denny driving show tenacious defense all over the floor, forcing tons of turnovers, not being able to shoot at all from any position, anywhere. And now they've just kind of got it, got to figure it out. Like they started Moran and Dame together in their first preseason game. It looked, maybe they'll do that. Like a Nori who has, let's see how many more months on Mike and Nori's contract are we ticking toward here? Hasn't been completely clear that that's going to be the case. I don't know. He straight up said this combination of players does not make sense. This is what I'm rooting for from Mike and Nori, not to spoil my own league pass rankings, because this is a joke that's in there. You know, there's a conventional school of thought that I'm a one-year contract. You kind of spend the whole year worrying about your job security and like saying the right thing and like placating the superstar and doing the thing. I think he needs to go the other way. Just fucking let it fly. You want to bench John Moran bench John Moran. You want to say that this guy stinks or that I love this guy and I'm not listening to, I'm getting edicts from this person and I'm not listening. What do you have to lose another one year contract at the 30th ranked salary in the league, Mike and Nori let it fly. I just think they're, they, they had one identity and they have remnants of that identity, right? Like I think you and I are both very high on Klingon as a potential two way player. Kamara is an awesome defender. Denny should be much better without having to carry the entire offense, but the wing depth is a little, well, I mean, depending on how you classify drew holiday and scoot and him are coming off the bench. Now the wing depth without shade and sharp is a little iffy time Lord is a backup. Big is as good as it gets. If he plays, I just think it's going to be very strange brew for a little while of like, Oh, John Moran's over in the corner. But then like when they, they got rebounds in their first piece of the game against the words, they would job would run up the court, hit guys for trail threes, Denny shot, catch and shoot threes at a reasonable rate. Last year, it was the pull-ups that really dragged his average down. I just, I'm interested to see how they play. I don't know where you are on them, but you know, I think they're over-unders right around 500. I think that seems appropriate. I think they'll be in the play in tournament. 1 : They strike me as a team that's going to remind us a lot of maybe Timberwolves teams past as far as like offenses that will just Luke completely lose their mind for eight minutes at a time. And I don't mean that in a good way, just like horrific turnovers, terrible spacing, zero flow. And then they'll come out with plays that are so mind boggling and so singular that they pull you back in and maybe even give the team and the game some momentum. Like the high, low swings of the Blazers are going to be really, really intense and maybe nauseating. I think for some people who are tuning in night after night to watch this team, 1 : But the talent is clearly there. The composition of the team is weird, but is weird in a way where I think like this could be good for Denny's development to kind of find the sort of secondary, if not tertiary sort of role again, clearly a very capable player can be very productive, but I don't think anyone would come off of last year's run, especially into the playoffs and think like, okay, this is exactly how much Denny Abdiah should be doing. He should scale back a little bit. He should find kind of the happy medium between all-star Denny and purely, purely supporting player Denny. And this is one way to do it. Like it's one way to fast track that sort of slot and development for, I mean, just the best two way player that they have on their roster right now. 1 : It was cool to see Dame back in a Portland uniform when I was peeking in on that game, like coming off split cuts, Jack and open threes. Like he really eat, but the shot is going to be the shot forever and ever. And it, it is like, you got to guard him everywhere and it does open up spacing for everybody. And it, it makes it a little bit more workable with Moran. Who's, going to be treated as a non-shooter and Denny who will be treated as an okay shooter and a, and a big man who's going to be around the rim and clinging. I just, I can't wait to see how they play. Okay. I'm going to make my next pick because what you said about Portland alternating between euphoria and like, what the fuck is happening with this team? I think that is going to describe perhaps at a lower level in the standings, a team that I think has to appear on this podcast. Speaker 3 : Almost annually, but especially this year. And that's the new Orleans Pelicans. Yeah. I have no idea what this is. I just don't. I don't. I mean, Speaker 0 : Do you think they do on any level? Speaker 3 : I think they, they appear to have decided that Zion and queen cannot start games together because they've started ease me see at center in the preseason. And I think if you have any hope for your defense, that is the appropriate stance. But at this point, I think they are more invested in Derek queen than they are long-term and Zion Williamson. And they will have to play them both together at, at some point. I mean, they're starting five of Dejounte Murray, who I heard you on group chat correctly saying that like, boy, did he, he looked like the stabilizing force down this team needs me. He'll never make an all-star team again, but wow. Competent point guard play kind of just orders everything in place. Him Tremor for the third, who doesn't love Tremor for the third herb Jones, when he plays, who doesn't love herb Jones needs to shoot it better, but whatever Zion me see makes some sense. And then you just come off the bench with so many dudes who need the ball like Jordan pool, Sadiq bay, Ben Mathurin is here for some reason, Derek queen wants to run the offense. Like the names are all interesting. I just have absolutely no idea what it's going to translate to on the court, on either end of the floor, like literally what it's going to look like other than Zion does feel like it really does feel like the days of points. I on post Zion head, heavy doses of pick and rolls. I on are, are over, like, obviously he's going to do a little bit of that stuff all the time, but like he's in the dunker spot, just hanging around a much more than he used to be. What that's weird. They have, I think all of their draft picks, including, I think they get the best of their own pick in the bucks pick this year, which is a very nice pick to have, but it does resonate with me what you said, because I do think we're going to like, we'll be watching Pelicans Kings or Pelicans blazers. And the Pelicans just score 48 points in that quarter. And like Zion's dunking everything. And Trey Murphy is Duncan alley oops, or it looks like he's going to touch the top of the backboard herbs, deflecting everything in sight. And then you'd be like, oh yeah, they did. And then they lost the game. I just, I, I, I don't, I, I, I would rank this team behind Portland Phoenix. Who else? Like probably, probably Dallas, probably Memphis TBD, but I don't know. You could talk me into like, Hey, the Pelicans are 500. What's going on. They're going to have those stretches. I think for group chat, we had them ranked as the 25th best team in the league, which might be a little down on them but we just empirically cannot trust the pelicans anymore we've gone through this way too many times i did i did hear you say that as a um the one and only fundamental rule of group chat is never trust the pelicans i wonder what it's going to take to reverse that to reverse that rule ownership change regime change full roster turnover i like there's like a ship of theseus thing here where we're going to need to remove every single board that composes this franchise and rebuild it before we start to put trust back into it again but in the meantime you're right that there's like a lot of individual players who have really high approval ratings among basketball fans among front office people a lot of guys to really like and yet the holistic view of the team is so hard to place and it's so hard to place in part like it was really striking looking back at their season and seeing how many lineups for them kind of worked if it was like three solid wings and either the youth movement of jeremiah fears and derrick queen or the dejonte murray zion williamson pair but then you get into mixing matching them and it gets weird real fast and so it's like clearly there are two paths here that they could take if they really wanted to which are they inclined to do it's hard to say they're investing in derrick queen if he's coming off the bench i that's fair i mean you meant like the quartet of the group of players that i most want to see play on this team as just a neutral like what's happening here for the next three years fan or whatever is fears herb jones trey murphy the third and queen that's what i want to see because i like jeremiah fears a lot he's got some spunk he's got some fire to his game he's got passing vision with both hands and he plays and i mean this is a compliment carries himself like he thinks he's the best player on the floor all the time which is exactly what i want from a young guard if they were minus 10 per 100 possessions last year i'm just throwing that in the garbage i don't care that's sort of like that makes sense to me but then like you throw in all these other dudes who just need the ball who are playing for contracts like jordan pool that i mean that trade made absolutely no sense from day one i don't care that it also got them sadiq bay who got like a contract extension i just don't know what all these guys are doing on the same team and i don't know you know i heard bill talking about the zion zone i think that was with you on this podcast about too good to trade too risky for anybody to trade for him i legitimately like have no idea what's gonna happen with zion he's on a semi-expiring contract i don't know what team's gonna roll the dice on him if you're a team that's like trying to find a win now move to round out your roster because you think you can make the finals that can't be the that's too much of a risk like i don't know it's too much of a you have to do so much to accommodate what he does and doesn't do well that i don't know it's a mystery to me you would almost need a circumstance like what the bucks were in with yannis last year not that yannis and zion would be compatible players but like a superstar who's such a flight risk that you're willing to take a desperate leap at some kind of talent like an end of first calves run lebron like let's bring in antoine jameson let's bring in shaq like let's just put like people here who he knows and might be able to produce in some capacity because you're right the stakes are too high for zion to play for anything that really matters uh and too hard to rely on him to be like a load-bearing member of a team like that it just doesn't make sense and last year the irony was it was the most durable he's been in years i didn't he had he had a streak of like 50 something consecutive games played and also the most confusing like exactly what is he on the court now in this sort of revamped pelicans universe like we're all going to look back on that lakers play in game i mean as like i remember exactly where i was watching that game when he was going absolutely crazy and decimating the lakers by himself and it was this like yes it's here it's happening by the way he shot a couple catch and shoot threes in one of their preseason games that i saw that's perhaps a way of him expressing like i've got to things to do here and it will also i remember exactly where i was in his first game ever was it a preseason game or a regular season game against the spurs where he made like five threes in his first game and everyone's like oh my god i didn't know this guy has this in his game he doesn't it turns out i assume you had them on your list i mean there's no confusion list without the pelicans i mean they they just earn a spot on this list year over year over year so congratulations to the reigning champions of the most confusing team we should maybe i'll just rename it as like the um the joe dumars gail benson most confusing teams list or side after honorary king cake baby most confusing teams let's don't bring up now this whole podcast is derailed because i'm gonna have the king cake baby's terrifying face in my i think i've told this story before but the king cake baby and i have met many times he knows that i love mascots and he knows that he is the scariest mascot and so he snuck up on me uh on sets at espn at games in new orleans and he doesn't talk like most mascots he doesn't talk so this giant baby head just suddenly appears behind you no he's not wearing any clothes i think he's wearing a diaper that's it as well every year when mardi gras starts day one of mardi gras i'm sure i'm not the only one who gets this treatment i get a dm on twitter from king cake baby that's just a skull a skull and crossbones that's it and let me tell you i don't exactly have mardi gras like tracked in my calendar of exactly when it starts so i get to the point where i'm like oh my god i'm gonna get that message and the first couple times i got it i was like oh my god is he here see is he behind me is he in the house when you when you started saying he knew i thought you were gonna say he knew where i lived and just started showing up there which i wouldn't put past the king cake baby but i i pray for you that's not ever the case i don't have a halloween costume yet this year actually i wonder if there's a king cake baby costume that i bet they could hook you up they got they got an alternate mascot king cake baby head and you can provide your own adult and there you go then you're really cooking yeah it's not a good cold weather costume though i will i do have to say i do have to unfortunately say we've gotten the news and the low household that for the first time in halloween history we are banned from uh even track even trailing from a distance our daughter and her friends uh trick-or-treating so there's that sounds like you just need a better costume more incognito and how could you ever be tracked or i i do it could be a transition into giving out candy because let me tell you if you're a fucking lazy teenager and you come to my house with no costume you are not getting candy you're getting turned away i will risk whatever vandal teenagers are too on their phones to do any vandalism anymore what they're gonna go to chat gbt and be like how to vandalize mean man's house and then they're gonna just give up because the the answer is too much work i'm not afraid of them what are they gonna do okay uh pick your next team please uh i would like to pick a team that i'm hoping you might be able to talk me down on um you're too high on them i'm a little too high and i'm feeling dangerous i feel out on the wire and that's the toronto raptors can you please talk me down on the toronto raptors uh sure their best player has not finished the second round playoff series since 2020 done and end of talking down i mean i'm with you i think they're gonna be a really good team uh their depth is i think just good enough and and we'll like if we have a top eight that i really like and beyond that i get a little a little antsy uh i think they have some interesting fit questions at center and in the perimeter rotation with jacoby walter and colin murray-boyles are they just like nailed to the bench as reserve players or do they get a crack at maybe starting i mean they're both very good we you and i love murray-boyles i'm sure definitely um and i could see them being a top four seed in the eastern conference i just think everyone who goes from that step to this team could be in the finals has to just reckon with the fact that kawaii leonard has not finished a second round playoff series since 2020 and you have to win three to make the finals the last time i checked and so i don't know if that's talking them down as a regular season wins producer but i just i there's no universe in which i could pick a kawaii leonard team to make the finals if they are this if they are relying on him to be their best all-around player whether they are by the end of the season or by the end of the season i think they're going to be on top of the conversation because i think scotty barnes is going to be sniffing the top 10 player conversation by the end of this season um but i just that's that's my talk that's my that's my argument do i need any more no i think i think that's sufficient in a way but it's like the intellectual part of my brain understands everything you're saying uh understands the caveats with kawaii and his health understands where this team might need a little more depth understands if kawaii does get hurt what that does for the regular season how they're going to manage the rotation all of those things and i think that's what's going to be the most important thing that's going to be the most important thing that's going to be the most important thing that's going to be the most important thing that's going to be the most important thing the heart wants what it wants and it wants the highs of watching the raptors in the playoffs last year bolstered with one of the best half-court creators in the game in terms of his ability to manufacture his own shot the exact thing that this team seemed to need at that point in time plus getting emmanuel quickly back plus as you say with colin murray boils who like i mean i'm just irrationally um irresponsibly high on at this stage and i think like he absolutely should be starting for this group i think he looks to me like an all defensive guy for years to come i i just think this team's going to be really good and i look at the rest of that east which is quite formidable and you just start talking yourself into okay like what if the calves just kind of are who they are and they're going to run up against the same ceiling even with peyton watson what if jason tatum who has his own health considerations in this season doesn't hold up in the ways that we expect what if the sixers thing goes sideways what if like i think the knicks we expect to be there but what if the pistons like they're kind of in a weird regression state where they're like in the middle and down like downgrading frankly from tobias harris to john has their like reason for apprehension and why i'm this is why i'm fox molder i trust no one is that the martin landau character that tells him to trust no one i can't but whoever says it the cigarette smoking man yeah i think it might be but he embodies it whether you know he's told and he does as he's told in that in that one and only case god i love fox molder what a guy i mean top 10 on my list of if i could be friends with this person from a television show in real life he would be in my top 10 just i want see i don't know about that i love watching fox molder doesn't seem like a great friend you know doesn't seem like he's going to show up to your barbecue doesn't seem like he's going to be there to support you when that's fine smolder giving you a ride to the airport absolutely i don't i don't want any of those things and i don't want any of those things from my current friends i just don't i really just want like i'd almost rather you not annoy me by being too much of an intrusion into my life and if you're addicted to your crazy work i understand that i can relate to that it's very true i want to go on some adventures with him i want to get to like i want to follow like a freight train that's in the middle of nowhere in new mexico that he thinks has aliens in it i want to be all part of that um what we're talking about the east uh yeah good luck scoring any baskets when kawaii leonard scotty barnes and colin murray boils are on the floor together um kawaii purely added it like adds everything the raptors need shooting free throws everything uh and adds also to everything they're already good at like forcing turnovers and switching and all that stuff he's like purely additive um yeah look you could talk you could talk me into them being the number one seed in the east when the playoffs start like that's how many games i think they could potentially win and how crazy the east is i this is my way of saying including them in this list that i have them ranked quite high as far as where they're going to turn out in the east and i am acknowledging here in front of you and everyone else that i understand that that's insane on some level i understand how foolish that is but like i just can't help it in looking at this collection of players i think i think part of it is seeing them in the playoffs without brandon ingram first because he was struggling and then because he was out without emmanuel quickly and seeing how good they could still be makes me think okay if they do need to pace themselves without kawaii for stages of this season they seem fully capable of that and a lot of that has to do with scotty well it's not just like the numbers scotty barnes put up and the defense that he played as a shop locker as a hey mid-series we now want you to guard james harden and donovan mitchell and i think that's going to and all of that it's that to win at the very highest level in the nba there's just a physical and mental urgency you need to play with where you have nothing left in you at the end of these games where it's just all out all the time and he hit that left like it's a very rare year to see a player and you can almost see it in person and through the screen like they hit a level of intensity that they even sort of realize like i've never been in this zone of intensity sustained intensity and work before and i can do it and i can impact the game all over the place he hit it and that was like one of the three or four most important developments league-wide of the entire postseason last year i completely agree and it's what we're waiting for with so many other guys and it's just like it's hard to expect someone to learn that or acquire that it's like i love evan mobley as a player i have never once seen in the playoffs that kind of edge and intensity and consistency of effort from evan mobley that we saw from scotty barnes for all the good things he brings to the table for all the ways that he bolsters cleveland's defense like still an excellent player but that like that ability to show up in that capacity in the games that legitimately matter most for your team season is such a unique skill and it's one that is so easy to take for granted especially as we look at oh they did this in the regular season they put up these numbers i love this guy's talent on paper like what scotty barnes did wasn't on paper it was like on the hardwood equity like fucking in your face dunking on people in transition turning every borderline loose ball scenario into a raptor's advantage like that stuff matters to me and i thought he proved about as much as you can prove in that kind of playoff run so so far we've courted diplomatic positions in italy and canada on this and this podcast as i have failed to talk you down from the raptors all right so so far we have named as our confusing teams toronto miami new orleans and i'm going to take a break and we will round out our confusing teams list this episode is brought to you by state farm every player brings something different to the field some at speed some at power some have their own podcast it's true that being said no two players are exactly alike and the same is true off the field that's why state farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget like a good neighbor state farm is there this episode is brought to you by amtrak good game plans start before you get to the arena so if you're traveling for a game make the journey part of the experience with amtrak you can settle into your seat relax with your crew and catch the pre-game coverage with onboard wi-fi arrive ready for tip-off amtrak casella and the northeast regional connect major cities across the northeast corridor from dc to boston visit amtrak.com spotify to plan your next trip all right my turn i'm going to stay in the east perhaps a lower tier definitely a lower tier i don't know what to make of the atlanta hawks we've hit the hawks section of the podcast blitzed the entire league to finish last season they might need to hang a banner for this because everyone has to say it now it's obligatory to mention that they are the only team to beat the knicks twice in the playoffs in the same season and they're not going to be able to do that last year that's that's a banner for the hawks and yet i'm just sort of and they have a great coach and quinn snyder i get it i'm just sort of unconvinced that it was that real um in part because they fattened up so much on the tanking teams who are now gone in the league and by the way just hovering over all of this and i'm doing over-unders with bill tomorrow in the house i think people if anything are underestimating what a sea change is coming because they're not because of the lottery reform just how much more competitive the league is going to be on a night-to-night basis having removed that incentive to lose almost completely i think it's going to be like a borderline revolutionary kind of change in how the season goes and you know they pick up dort they also pick up aaron wiggins um and largely bring back everything that happened well for them everyone that played well for them last year i just i don't know if they caught lightning in a bottle i i worry about the collective shooting when they have daniels and dort and jalen johnson on the floor together even with anyeka akongu having turned himself into like an a-plus spot-up shooting center quite good size undersized i worry like can nikhil alexander walker do that again i think he actually maybe can um and then you know i'm this all presumes that they're going to bring cj mcconnell off the bench again and start alexander walker daniels dort johnson akongu even though the cj starting experiment worked like gangbusters it turned around the whole season just feels like they're going to have some puzzles to solve and you know their reserves are like kispert's all right mo gay's injured but he's all right zuby is okay ace and newell's okay jock lando's okay i'm a little worried about their depth i don't like i just have the heart i'm i guess i'm doing the opposite with you as you did with toronto with me i just like sell me on why this is actually a threat to be a top 16 because i i frankly don't don't see it i don't think they have one i mean we listed all the teams that are like in miami's way of being a top six team and i think with atlanta you have that group plus miami plus orlando like it just feels a little too cluttered even if they do ride the highs of exactly how good they looked over the tail end of last season and even for the start of that series against the knicks they'd be i don't know if you heard they did beat the knicks twice in that they did you know i have heard a little bit about that i do want to commend them for beating them more than anyone else seemed to be capable of but you're right that the puzzles are like overlaying in a way for the rotation that are just not going to be the same as they were in the past and they're not going to be the same just a little too over complicating like i actually i i will defend dyson daniels and his effect on the floor even their ability to survive what he can't do offensively like i think he does enough for you as a connecting passer and in some other capacities on offense where he offsets some of what he is and does a shooter but him and ludor together is just like kind of a dead on arrival premise for me now they're gonna be i mean when they have alex the flip side is alexander daniels dort they're gonna be really hard to like perimeter ball handlers are gonna have a hard fucking time dealing with this team for sure like and throw kingston fleming's in that group too as far as like the tenacity that they can maintain on the ball i just want to see it spaced out in the rotation a little bit more maybe that's something that gets resolved over the first couple months of the season but part of why i'm nervous about that initial starting alignment is like i want cj in there in part because nikhil is such a good off ball shooter and the more ball handling responsibility you give to him the more i think degrades his impact in that way and if you don't want to do that then you're making dyson daniels your de facto point of view and i think that's going to be a big problem for the team if you don't have a point guard and teams just aren't going to guard him as a shooting threat which then clogs up everything else and so like this team needs to be free flowing and democratic and able to tap into all of these component pieces in order to reach the best version of itself and i think the more you are playing your best defenders together the harder and harder that premise is going to be to meet yeah i mean that's what that's they hit this glorious gear of randomness last year where it's like here's a miss and here comes jalen johnson bringing the ball up and wait is this a jalen johnson dyson daniels two-man game and it's flowing into a cj mccollum nikki alexander dribble handoff wait that's like all of that stuff is weird and where's their actual center what's he doing and they just got a lot of mileage out of being random and weird like it was hard to load up off of their non-shooters because they played fast they used those guys as screeners all over the floor they just had a randomness to them that was hard to grasp and i think if you throw that on top of we're playing half of our games against teams that are just not going to be dialed into what we're trying to do and really care about the result they they got a lot of mileage out of that now they could they know how to hit that gear they'll hit it again dort doesn't strike me as like a good fit in that kind of system he's not like the most intuitive mover on the ball off the ball but then you like if you start cj who do you bring off the bench do you i think alexander walker is now too good to be a six man daniels and dort are i mean the argument for starting them would be in daniel's case everything you just said about his all-court game on both ends of the floor the argument for starting dort would be well the whole point of him him being a six man is that he's not going to be a six man he's not going to be a six man on your team is to guard the best player yeah on the other team but do you have it i just don't it just feels like there's a lot of puzzles to solve and some depth issues that make me a little nervous i think i would like for them to start daniels and bring dort off the bench and i feel comfortable saying that because it feels like every team in the league is trying to stagger at stars is trying to space them out in the rotation that there's some stretch where it's like oh we expect our second star to hold down our offense for this crucial second quarter uh you know these five minutes in the second quarter congratulations now you have to do it with luke dort in your jersey and i think that like i want to see the hawks leverage that part of their depth you're right that when you get into ninth tenth eleventh men things get a little shaky for them and i say that as somebody who fully likes and respects mo gay but like that's just the reality of what they've got cooking but they really do have the capacity in terms of the six seven eight deep to be really versatile on defense really flexible really relentless and the more they can lean into that without totally taking away their offensive identity i think the better off they're going to be um they won 46 games last year tied with the raptors succeed probably played the last half of the season at like a 55 win pace yeah i guess that's what's confusing to me because i don't look at this team as is right now and see in the new world of the eastern conference any anything like that i i have them probably closer to like charlotte in orlando and in in that lower tier of like you can be eighth ninth tenth i mean orlando we'll see they may be on your list um but that's that's my uh source of confusion all right do you have any uh other other teams you want to hit real quick i do can we talk oddly enough about the los angeles lakers i mean everybody wants to talk about the lakers so they were not on my list yeah but you go ahead i i'm hesitant to put them in here because like what they did is very clear right like they built a luca donchage team for the first time in the like 20 months since they've had him all the component pieces make sense why you get walker kessler i get all of it i think where my confusion is personally is understanding and calibrating like this is a simpler premise of a lakers team does that simplicity and the straightforward way that this team is going to play make them streamlined for regular season success where they're going to rattle off 50 plus wins or does it oversimplify them to a degree where look if you lose lebron james you lose the ability to route the team to the next level and you lose the ability to route the team to the next level and you lose the ability to route the team to the next level and you lose the ability to route the team to the next level and you lose the ability to route around some of the problems that arise and one of one of the unique catches of building a luca team as we've seen in teams past specifically with the mavs is like if he is out the team cannot really function without him like he's so unique in what he brings to the table that his absence is especially painful and so i'm looking at the lakers and wondering how much i should be trusting them how much i should be weighing the reliability of what it seems like they've built relative to you know the variants of minnesota or of denver or of these houston these other teams and i'm looking at the lakers teams that are going to be in their mix i'm just trying to understand like what the simplicity of what they've accomplished here gets them and i really don't quite know so in the non-luca games however many there are what is it about reeves that you that you don't trust quite as much as just size and play he's obviously not as good a passer as luca but like he was awesome he was like averaging almost 30 a game last year before he got hurt and i think he would be my number one pick maybe by a hair over cooper flag for most likely a first-time all-star but is it just that is it the playmaking chops it's the playmaker he'll have incredible scoring games and i want to be fair like he'll even have your eight and nine and ten assist games on occasion i just think the way that luca creates threats and sometimes like imaginary threats in the minds of defensive coaches and defenders on the floor is part of what makes him such a difficult problem to solve and so yeah if it's a temporary thing a couple games here and there austin reeves fully capable of managing that spot i just have like the visions in my head of derrick jones jr turning back into a pumpkin because luca donchage isn't out there to turn him into a threat and then you look out here and you see zire williams or matisse theibel or like are they going to try to squeeze jared vanderbilt into the rotation who is walker kessler as an offensive player without luca donchage on the floor we really have i mean we're trying to figure out who he is as an offensive player period and so i think all of it makes total sense to me as constructed it just feels like linear in a way they run into their ceiling quickly or maybe they don't but i both get what they're trying to accomplish and i'm not sure where it takes them are you more or less confused about the lakers than dalton connect was when he failed to run the play that jj reddick called out of a timeout and forced the anger number one angriest time out of the year and i think both the end of dalton connect and the really the end coda of the two weeks when the lakers were hailed as geniuses for quote i'm not confused about the lakers okay i just think they're going to be really good not good enough to make a finals run too good to be out of the top six i just think luca's that good i like look if he misses a ton of games it's obviously a game changer i think he's that good i think reeves is that good i think the ecosystem makes sense kessler is going to have a big year like by i was gonna say by his standards he didn't play last year and has played no meaningful games in his entire nba career um i think he's going to have a big year i think he's going to have a big year but i think he'll be good i just think they're going to be what they always are which is like a 50 win team who isn't good enough to challenge the spurs or the thunder and that's totally fine like they're still kind of in phase two of a three-phase plan to reorient around luca although they've used almost all the assets that um that they have i like even like colin sexton is a third ball handler i do like him there yeah um i just don't yeah i i had something else to say about the lakers i forgot what i just don't have a lot of mystery about them i guess i think some of my mystery is like how these combinations of supporting players work like of you know in the quentin grimes colin sexton zyre williams jake laravia sandra momokelish villi like cohort just naming some guys baby i mean this is what we do but like who are the two three four or you know i guess you know austin's gonna be plugged in at the two but like who are who are the forward tandems or the wing tandems that actually make sense that have compatible skill sets that aren't just like oh this guy makes sense as a as a spot option for luca but are bringing something unique to the team i think there's some potential there and maybe like that's a zyre williams question as much as anything as somebody who maybe has a little more upside to explore than those other guys but i'm eager to see how the rotation shakes out and who jj feels comfortable kind of putting out there in specific combinations yeah i think cam car will get chances definitely zero could get chances like they're gonna have all these guys it's not just like the thiable um zyre williams reclamation projects although batiste really had a great year in limited action for boardland last year i just think if luca plays 65 games the floor is just too high for me to be all that worried about them all right i'm gonna give you a couple of teams that i have and you can pick one or two to talk about because i as i said i prepared many many teams that i thought wrongly that we would overlap here are four teams that i have that we haven't hit yet indiana orlando detroit and dallas oh okay , see i'm not confused by indiana okay i think maybe for the same reasons that you're not confused by the lakers they have a little bit more change i mean the lakers have a tremendous amount of shift in continuity given that all the shift all the the new pieces on their roster but we know who the pacers are and how they play and i think incorporating zoo is going to be a fun wrinkle to that one that i'm eager to see how what carlisle does with it what tyree's haliburton does with it i just expect the pacers to be really good and i i feel more confident about them than almost any other team that's in that kind of middle upper middle class of the eastern conference i'm very curious about their first 20 games because what my confusion is is basically like when vegas spits out an over under number that is just way lower than i would have expected for a team that is you know a year and change removed from almost winning the championship and has its best player back healthy i think to myself what am i missing and when i talk to people around the league about like what am i missing because i'm just higher on this team that is reasonable and i just may be over indexing on like the the the place they found as a team the magic the rhythm they found where the ball's just popping everywhere everybody they have the mind meld where like you cut here i cut there are things we're running all that and the the answers i hear back are well you remember haliburton's coming out for the killings tear we'll see how the first 30 games are zoo spacing hiccups i had ty on my pod last week he kind of downplays like that's the kind of thing you guys talk about we'll be fine we know how to play basketball um bench Like TJ McConnell wasn't quite the same guy last year. Is Jairus Walker ready? Is Kelly Oubre going to fit? Do they have a backup five or is it just Toppin? I get all that. I just think when I say the first 20 games, I really mean like how does Ty look? Like if he's like almost 100%, I think they're just going to be really, really good. And they just, they're a team. They know how to play as a team. They amplify each other. But I'm just, that was my source of confusion. What about the other three? Can we talk about the Pistons? Yeah, because I'm surprised that I had them on my list. But I do think they merit a spot here. So you go ahead. I also was considering them. And I think some of it is just the idea of the Pistons as a 60-win team already feels like a relic of a moment that kind of went by. And I think part of that is just like their roster is changing shape a little bit. Part of it is whatever lingering feelings, maybe happening around Jalen Duren and his role on the team and how prioritized he is or is not. And then some of it felt like that was a great window that they seized on. And now it's kind of back to the reality of an East that's a little deeper, a little more competitive, that understands what the Pistons are trying to accomplish and is ready to challenge it in the way that we saw teams do in the playoffs. I'm just not sure where their upward momentum is. And I say that and I fully acknowledge it's a weird thing to put out loud about a team. Like this many young players, like clearly Cade can be better. Asar can be better. Even going down the line, like Ron Holland, his best basketball, I would think and hope is still ahead of him at some point. Like there's so many guys individually that should be better. And yet I think the Pistons are going to be decidedly worse as a team in terms of a regular season product. And where that leaves them, I really don't know. I mean, on Ron Holland, his team option for next season is $11.5 million. I'm having not talked to anybody about this situation because it's Ron Holland. It's not the biggest priority in the world. Yeah. I don't, that strikes me as the fourth year option. That's like not a no brainer to be picked up. That's a lot of money for a guy who couldn't play in the playoffs. And we'll see if he's able to play in the playoffs this year. I think that John, go ahead. I think based on who he's been, there's no way he has validated that. We live in a world where Jamal Shedd just got like $8 million a year. I think Jamal Shedd's been a better player than Ron Holland. I'm glad I didn't get a chance to talk about that contract. And I know the world is dying for Jamal Shedd content. I know the world is dying for Jamal Shedd content. I thought it was a great contract. I actually had, when I was penciling out the Raptors future finances, just tinkering around a couple of weeks back, I had him at like 12, a little closer to the mid-level exception. And I think that's a good deal for the Raptors. And also shows that these players who are facing restricted free agency, or they're just kind of reserved guys are kind of looking at what's happened and getting a little like, all right, let me secure what I can secure. Yeah. I think the John Collins thing is a real interesting wild card for them. Um, can he, can he make enough threes and, and kind of dial into how they play? And, you know, I talked about this last week with Steve Nash about the jail and during deal and, you know, the piston sort of now betting on a, on a core that has two total non-shooters as part of it. And how, you know, does that disqualify you from like inner circle title contention? I actually don't think that it does, but what you really need is a lot of other things to go exactly right. And you need those two guys who are non-shooters. If they're going to continue to be non-shooters to just get better at every single part of their game. And more specifically the on-ball parts of their game. That means a star Thompson's going to have to do more ball handling, more screening, jail and during already does a ton of screening. Can you unlock him as a passer a little bit more is always going to be Cade as the center of the universe, but like the universe just has, it's got to be a little bit more varied with those guys. And like, that's part of the adventure. To me of this team and part of why they're confusing, because I don't know how ready those guys are to do that. I don't know. You know, is Paul Reed ready to just be like true blue backup center? Isaiah Stewart's not here. How does John Collins fit? Can Dennis Jenkins do it again? Can Ron Holland even get minutes for this team? How do they sort out the Duncan Robinson, Kevin Herter, Isaiah, Joe shooter, shooter, shooter minutes. There's a, there's a lot of questions, you know, there's a lot of people, not a lot. I've heard from several people around the league who are like, Hey, I don't, I don't think the Pistons are going to be a top six team this year. And you want to, you want to recoil from that because I want 60 games last year. All right. But in a regular year, that's like 55 when you take out the tanking teams and now the East is so much better that that's let's say they're 52. Like it's not impossible to see that happening. I mean, I think especially if you're talking about not just regular season results, but playoff quality, like who are the teams that we're really going to trust by the end of the year, I think it's perfectly realistic that the Pistons are going to be a top six team this year. I think it's perfectly realistic that the Pistons are not in the top six of that group, even if they do have, let's say another, another season where they, they win in the mid fifties, that would be a really nice result for them under the circumstances, but I'm kind of, I'm still waiting for a lot of things from them. Like we have the proof of concept of who they can be as a regular season juggernaut in the context of last year. I want to see them make life easier for Cade in ways that they have struggled to do. Like it's, it's nice that he can carry the weight for so many people that he can be that sort of ball dominant primary playmaker, high pick and roll. It's a really fun style to watch and seeing his ascent in it has been great. I just don't know that I fully trust like a Kevin Herter bounce back shooting year, John Collins, a guy who like multiple teams have taken a look at and said, like, you're not really giving us the things that we actually need in terms of this spot that he's going to make a meaningful difference for them. Like I liked Isaiah Joe pickup, but is that enough to save a team that has this many spatial considerations? Like I like Isaiah Joe pickup, but is that enough to save a team that has this many spatial considerations? just given their competition, in the west but it wouldn't be altogether shocking i mean the the x factor is obviously like where is derrick lively like like what is his health status when are we going to see him because you know we all love the longest tenured maverick since dirk nowitzki in dwight powell but like i just i don't think there's really a place for dwight powell backup center on the court in a lot of meaningful games anymore they could play pj washington center whatever it's funny you mentioned the grizzlies because when you were when you were saying before um i need you to talk me down about this team yeah i i knew you weren't going to say the grizzlies because you are i think a little calmer about the grizzlies and the rest of the ringer.com universe i will say as someone like when they're over under came out it's one to nine and a half i was like hammer hammer them like they're just too they're too deep they have two and i i haven't watched them play in the preseason and they blitz the hawks and then they lost to the magic who cares it's preseason i do worry about the top 30 player issue for them a little bit more having watched it play out on the there's just a lot of ty jerome like i just a little bit more ty jerome than i'm comfortable with and i do wonder if we're all getting a little ahead of our skis on the grizzlies but then i also wonder like is cam boozer going to be a top 30 player right off the bat at least offensively i don't i don't i feel less wildly optimistic about memphis um than i did 10 days ago it's something that i think we we talk around and talk through a little too quickly when we're thinking about teams like the hawks right like the magic that they were able to find in the balance of their offense and the flow of their team it's so easy to just say like oh these deep teams are going to find their version of that right like the ball is not going to stick with ty jerome it's not going to stick with scotty pippen jr it's not going to stick with cedric coward on the wing like trying to establish himself as a high level player of course it is like it is until it's proven otherwise and so like for all of the depth there i think it gives them the ability to overwhelm teams over the run of a game right like they're just going to be a better second quarter early fourth quarter team than the vast majority of their opponents because of it but the high the high end like their starters are probably going to get outscored on balance for the season they're probably going to lose those minutes unless boozer looks great or zach edie is dominant like there are avenues to do it but it's just a lot to put on them to say that they're going to be a winning or like a high level or even a playoff out of the gate ed is the other one where you would say well if you're betting on the grizzlies you're betting on maybe ed is the guy who emerges as like a top 30 35 player in the nba and then you're like well he's going to play 23 minutes a game or whatever it's going to be because they're going to be very careful with him and he's going to only play x amount of games and as impactful as he is and he i mean he changes literally everything about how their team plays when he's on the floor you know i'll be interested to see where i end up tomorrow on the over under his podcast with the grizzlies because i think their line is bumped up to 30 and a half and i we'll see we'll see uh we'll see how that is all right rob mahoney um thank you for being confused with me uh we got group chat you guys are rolling how many are out now where are you in the power rankings you've recorded all of them but where yes i believe four of them are out which would leave us with the final 10 teams yet to be unveiled so we're really getting into the meat of it now all right that's that's going to be my peloton ride today because i think i've listened to the first two so what does that mean i'm through i'm through the bottom 10 i'm making my way through and uh into the the meaty middle where a lot of these confusing teams lives in prestige cb you're doing a lot of slow horses which i'm jealous about anything else slow horses right now we're about to launch into the gilded age later this month so you know come to us for all of your costume drama needs there's i gotta tell you i just something about costume drama i just see it and i'm like no not for me like i just i don't know i don't know what it is like really all all of all of the palace intrigue that exists in the nba among these like ultra wealthy people sniping at each other for arbitrary reasons it's just the same thing transposed over the early 1900s i guess i'm not just not for me uh you know but who knows all right thanks bud thanks i appreciate it all right that's it for today's edition of the zach low show thank you to rob mahoney thanks as always to mike billy and jonathan on production thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the zach low show we'll be back later this week likely on thursday for our second episode of the week in the meantime i will be on with bill and house tomorrow doing our over unders stay tuned for that thanks everybody 21 or over and president select states for kansas in affiliation with kansas star casino or 18 and over and present in dc or wyoming gambling problem call 1-800 gambler or 1-800 my reset call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in connecticut or is it md gambling help.org in maryland hope is here visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24 7 support in massachusetts or call 1-877-8 hope ny or text hope ny in new york for louisiana call 1-877-770-7867