The Warriors Are Alive!!! Plus, an Early-Season Panic Meter. | Group Chat

The NBA Cup is right around the corner, which means so is Group Chat's live show in Indianapolis the day before the Cup final on December 10th at the Hi-Fi Indy. Come see us. Rob Mahoney, Justin Verrier, J. Kyle Mann. We're going to be live on stage with all of you. All of the true basketball sickos are going to be there. Get your tickets right now at theringer.com slash events. We'll see you there. Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle Mann. A lot on the docket today. Busy afternoon in the NBA. So we're going to talk about the Warriors, talking about some panic teams. But what I wanted to talk about up front, guys, is some real dog shit stuff that happened in the NBA. It's nice that in this post-tanking reform era that we still have bad basketball. I think we were all a little worried. We talked about that in the pod a couple of times. I thought you got into a car accident or something. You're just mad that there were bad games? Not mad. In fact, glad. Because it's a reminder that we could still have bad things in the NBA, which I think we all love and celebrate in our own special way. I have written down here a few things that just caught my eye. One was the Miles Turner play, which I have labeled the quiet quitting mid-rebound, where he just pretended to try, and then he trotted back, almost like the Charlie Brown theme was playing. So that's one. He was one for 15 over the past two games. He played 45 minutes. Tough. 48 minutes. Excuse me. Great. Then you had the Julius Randall tap into another dimension, which I thought was great. And then the best one, Noah Clowney, seven minutes. Of game time, 747 technically, fouls out. So six fouls, seven minutes. I mean, really, you're focusing on a couple teams there. There are some real dregs of the league at this point. And I think we were all hoping that we would go a little later into the season before the absolute shit of the chaff separates itself. But I think we're here already. I think there's a reality settling in for a handful of these teams that are going to be in that relegation zone that really have no recourse but to be awful. And so if you're going to be awful, why are you fighting for rebounds, even in November, apparently? Yeah, we talk all the time about, oh, the league's so much better. Oh, there's never been something more talent than there is right now. But it's like, somebody's got to be bad. It might as well be you. And I think what we end up having is we have these teams that are really, really good. Maybe the highs are higher. And then, I don't know. It doesn't seem to equal out to distribution of talent, I guess, at the end of the day. But we have. We have a lot of caveats. Isaiah said that we have too many things to get to, too many problematic teams to get to. But I feel like that's a pretty nice segue into what we're going to be talking about. But I think that's a pretty nice segue into what we're going to be talking about. Yeah, there's a real, very good crop of teams out there, mostly in the West. But there's also just like a couple teams that are just absolute catastrophes. Which is surprising because there are teams that are trying to stay out of that relegation zone, the bottom three spots, because the odds are worse there. And so, even still, teams find themselves just being absolutely terrible. But this is what the NBA was founded on. You know? Like a Thursday evening game in Milwaukee where it's just like, what are these teams really playing for? There's not a lot of good things being produced, but we love it nonetheless. You're saying the Bucs are keeping the spirit of like half a roster of part-time plumbers alive. Yes. I am thinking of more like the Toronto Raptors where they had the 3D baseline image. Like that era of basketball, which I think we all grew up on. It's nice that we still have some things that we could hold on to that we could have sacred in our lives. In our hearts, you know? Well, I think it all, it puts it all in perspective too. Like some of the teams that we were going to talk about today for the Panic Meter, it's like things are bad, but then you play one of these truly bad teams and guess what? All is right again. You know, it's all clicking into place. Everyone looks a little more athletic, a little more spry, a little more engaged. I think you just need those points of contrast too in the season to say, even though your rotation may be a total mess, at least you're not the Sacramento Kings. Yeah. Everybody needs a get right day. You know, you have a bad week. Maybe you just need a little, you need a day where, you don't have as many errands. You can just kind of get your, get your legs under you so you can attack the real challenges ahead and the NBA is no different. You just sit back, just sip on some cucumber melon water and just bask in that LA lifestyle. Look, you don't have to air me out like that. Mistakes were made. Justin's referring to, I bought some cucumber melon sparkling water and I have to say, it's just one of the worst choices I've ever made in my life. And now I have no, I have no recourse, but to just kind of trot, like trudge through it and finish the pack. You keep saying recourse, like recourse. Why are you Zach Galifianakis' character from The Hangover? You keep saying recourse, like there's an apostrophe. And your hair. Do you think you can come on here with no bangs? Are you trying to be Justin? What's going on? I need a haircut. And I'm not going to say something? I don't know what to tell you. Look, it's just in that state where a post haircut, it's just going to be a little weird right now. We're just, we're just in the barrier zone. I'm not trying to indict anybody's, I'm not trying to indict anybody's hair because far be it from me. Obviously I'm follicly extreme, extremely challenged, but I saw a clip of Rob from early ringer days for him and it was straight up Lego. You had more bangs. It was an incredible amount of bangs and I'm jealous. Oh, I want on the water thing though. Sparkling water, that's like arguable. Okay. But we were talking about like still water. Keep that shit away from my water. I don't want a cucumber is like, we're going to, we're going to throw hands. I don't even want a lemon in my water. I find it offensive. Floor's yours. No, I agree with that. I think regular water has to be pure. I'm just there to quench. But when you get into the sparkle zone, then I'm willing to spice it up a little bit. I don't know. Y'all are both talking like people who didn't grow up in areas that pulled groundwater, like had like aquifer water in the summer in the, in the dead heat where it's like, there's something kind of funky about this. You know, like it's, it's safe to drink, but doesn't quite taste right. We got to take the edge off. However, we can manage it. And I have to tell you guys, it's only going to get worse. So buckle up, buy your lemons, start growing your cucumbers. Now, whatever you got to do, we're going to be coping with weird water for a long time. Well, I wish I can grow cucumbers, but unfortunately they didn't work last time. Next year, you know, we're all improving. The Portland pickle can't grow cucumbers. This is a tragedy. That's tough. I know. I need to appeal to the actual pickle men, perhaps Dylan T pickle, my boy. All right. Before we get to today's show, a live show, December 10th in Indianapolis, high-fi Indy go get, your tickets where Rob at the ringer.com/events as always. You know what? Pick up to pick up for, for your friends, whatever you want to do, come join us in our onstage. Splendor. Buy them, sell them on a secondary market, make a little problem. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, we are, we are an anti ticket scalping podcast. We can't support those types, Justin. Well, I don't know if there actually is a market for the secondary market for our live show. So perhaps you will just be stuck with those 10 tickets, but it's, you know, a gamble worth taking. I would say, I'd take some scalping that, you know, I'd, I'd take the flattery of that, like, Ooh, the one in here, let's do it. You know, this ain't neutral milk hotel over here. We're not going to check ID or maybe we are, I don't know. I'm not trying to be, let's up, let's get the anticipation up. I like it. I like group chat colon. This ain't neutral milk hotel in here. You know, that that's, I think that's a tagline that will bring people into our world. We mentioned Indy rock. We don't want to hit the nadir of the show again, right? Justin. Yeah. Kyle, you know, they say that you're, you're a grudge like no other, but I'm just gonna, I'm going to zag here. I think, I think there's actually like three to four people in the world who don't hold a grudge as closely as you do. That's that's a pot kettle black if I've ever heard one. Okay. Alrighty. Why don't we take a quick break? Come back, talk about the red hot enrolling golden state warriors. The ringer NBA show is presented by FanDuel. It's the NBA season and FanDuel is calling it your most rewarding season ever. I mean more rewarding than watching a center pull up from three and actually knock it down. That's good stuff with FanDuel rewards, clubs offers surprises, and more. There's plenty to look forward to all season long. Download the FanDuel app to get started. 21 plus in select States, 18 plus in DC or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 1-888-789-7777. Or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. So the warriors are alive. They live. There's blood coursing through. the veins of this franchise after we thought that this was going to be perhaps one of the saddest teams of this year um seven wins in a row after the thriller overtime victory over the the just interesting Orlando Magic I'll put it there we're gonna get to them a little bit later um let's start here I wouldn't say that Steph Curry is ever underrated per se but I do think the fact that LeBron James being so successful into his 40s has almost normalized the fact that Steph has been so incredible in his late 30s he's 38 right now he's going to be 39 in like four months uh and yet he is third in scoring making nearly half of his threes he has already had two 40-point games they've actually come only in the past five games uh I think what we had hoped for for the with the Warriors Rob as like kind of just the lowest end expectation what we had hoped for for the with the Warriors Rob as like kind of just the lowest end expectation with it they would be competitive enough that we would get prime staff where you could see him be able to create magic and they've done that thus far and they've far exceeded that because he's been awesome and they have been pretty good as a result I mean I think Steph has been incredible but a huge part of why the Warriors have been winning is that it's not all Steph where he can have an off quarter an off stretch and it doesn't feel like the entire team is falling apart and I don't want to attribute that all to Yaxel Lendeborg but having the 11th pick and coming out of it with an a near all-star team I don't want to attribute that all to a near all-star level contributor at the exact position of need where you needed somebody I mean it's just solidified things for the Warriors in every conceivable way yeah that's the crazy thing there where it feels like a lot of their other guys that they've just kind of worked in the rotation had been overstretched for so long and having just a dominant almost star level performance from Yaxel on a consistent basis just clicks some of these other guys into place I think Pajemski is the prime example of that where he would do a lot of like the like taking charges playing hard defensively the in-between passing all that other stuff he would also do way too much um but it just feels like he has like found a way to streamline things playing either off of Yaxel or Steph shooting is been a big reason why he's been successful so that's a obviously a huge thing but also even like D'Anthony Melton in a bench role as opposed to a starting role we got bang bang George Niang coming off the bench basically fighting with George Niang for the first time in a while I think George Niang was a really good example of that because I just didn't realize that like Draymond had competition for a guy who could be like a little I don't say dirty but uh playing beyond the the lines or however you want to say it like practically twice every game he's doing some shit he gets into with everybody but I feel like they come from very different places spiritually where if Draymond starts arguing with you or fighting with you it's like there's a superiority like out there's like a fight among guys who see themselves tell you hey you're fighting with George Niang right now what does that say about you and I feel like he forces people to look inward in a way that sometimes makes them uncomfortable it's a shame to see Draymond get beat out and speediest dick punch competition there I think you're right though about like it compressing guys into comfortable roles um is is a productive thing to do and Yaxel's versatility I think is the thing that really spins that or just settles those things into a more comfortable place because it's like pods can give you I mean he might have a night where he goes and gets 20 25 points and hits you know four or five threes he can do those types of things when you're leaning on his that's when he's sort of like floating around consistent guys that are getting to the line getting off the ball like creating pressure creating gravity you get him in those situations where he's reacting and coming on and like attacking a closeout and his like he just has like a Doug Flutie kind of scrambling quality to the way that he plays basketball you're like you can't just quite get a hold of him but when when he is being the primary like initiator in a sequence it's he's just too erratic so I think what we're seeing is just a more comfortable spot for him and yeah I mean Yaxel um he has just sort of reset and answered a number of questions like we've said he reset the the failed like the disappointment of the Kuminga pick and then he's just shored up so much of Jimmy Butler's absence and has created some interesting questions for them I think this season well within both of those players who they thought they got with Jimmy before he got hurt they were supposed to be like guys who would give the Warriors the ability to improvise a little bit more where I think what you were seeing with pods as Justin laid out is like on the break glass in case of emergency possessions the ball would come to pods and he's trying to do everything and none of it really works and he just feels kind of smothered and then you put him in this more comfortable role because Yaxel can do some of those things because he can work his way into the paint shoot over the top of guys hit these weird runners and floaters off balance Jimmy Butler-esque stuff and then he's just kind of like it really works for him and so you have the combination of when Steph is out there at the ends of possessions there are other places to go that are not just can we please get the ball to Steph Curry dear lord and then also I was looking back through the data this is basically the best that the Warriors have ever been on offense with Steph Curry off the floor there's only one other season that's even in consideration that's like right in the same zone but otherwise ever in Steph Curry's entire career including the Kevin Durant years Jesus the Warriors right now are scoring 112 points 112.4 points for 100 possessions with Steph off the court which is like fine but fine without your star player is great under the circumstances and fine without Steph good lord as we've seen throughout the history of the Warriors and you know this data inclusive it's just been such a struggle for such a long time for them and so the fact that they feel at all reliable in those minutes is a bit of a minor miracle I do like the sort of cruel twist of fate or I guess in this case the the positive twist of fate where we for some long had like wrung our hands about the two timeline thing it's like you can't do both like you actually have to pick a direction no the answer to their problems was to get lucky with the 11th pick and then all of a sudden you just look into like a potential star level guy I guess the question then becomes Kyle like how long can you expect this from Yaxel like one do we think what he's done thus far is repeatable over the course of a full season for a rookie and and two is there anything about his game that right now is like over his head like or is he is the shooting gonna stop at some point like what is a reasonable expectation for this guy for this season I mean the shooting he's he's been a good not great shooter for a while like pretty solid like on low movement if his feet are set like I think it's gonna go in and then if you attack him with any kind of eagerness he's so physical and can handle the ball like he can attack I'm not gonna say he's gonna hold up against like elite on ball pressure like from the best like elite guys in the league but he holds up fine you know what I mean like I don't know if he's gonna be like a Paul George Jason Tatum guy uh in that sense but he he came into the league and I think people just sort of bet against him as like this is not an upside play and I think people maybe thought that some of the things that he had done as an older playing college it was somewhere between that zone of like assuming there's not a ton of upside and then underrating some of like the success that he had as an older college player and I think people ended up underrating what was gonna translate for him and it's been great and I think that like his skill set just naturally feeds off of Steph whether he's screening for him or Steph is screening for Yaxel he just has so many different ways he can spray the ball and you just look at the we always talk about the decision chart he just creates one where the Warriors had severely lacked that you know the decision chart with with pajimski was just like this might I just I always imagine those possessions where pajimski would get the ball and they and the defense would reset against him and he would dribble dribble step back Wild three or just get into the lane throw a circus pass you're not getting as much of that it's just a lot more consistent like physical getting to the hole um it makes you wonder what they're going to do with Butler at this point it makes you wonder what Yaxel's uh production level is gonna like what doors that's going to open up for them yeah that's my kind of question here going forward I think there are a couple things that you would expect probably to fall back down to Earth one's just like how often are these guys going to be available to be playing back to backs what does that mean for Draymond if he doesn't have Stefan he's just going to take the day off uh defensively they played okay but it does feel like that is something that could slip as they go play some of the tougher teams they're scheduled as far but a little bit on the easier side ultimately I think that like for now they strike me as a team like the Blazers where they're better than you expected but ultimately I don't know if they are on the same level as some of the top tier teams in the Western Conference but there is the possibility when Jimmy comes back to another level where it's Jimmy Yaxel Steph all of a sudden in a newfound big three and they do have enough death to support that and then plus Rob they have the opportunity now especially with his Christophe's contract which in a weird twist of fate has become you don't pay him but you can trade him which seems like this like that shouldn't happen but anyway if you could trade that almost as a human trade exception uh then all of a sudden you open doors to the possibility of like oh they could add on top of this team even when they get Jimmy back yeah parlay the salary when you don't have to pay it it is an odd like how does that yeah I imagine it will stop at some point like they will either say that he needs to be bought out or they'll have to pay him in order to trade him but this is like a weird back door I've never seen before it's very I mean everything about that situation is super strange and we I don't think we've really talked about it on the pod but Christophe's were Zingas we can all be very I think we're all very sympathetic to the situation with his health and his plight with this illness like it sucks it's a terrible situation but when teams start clawing money from active players things are very very weird like that's not something that teams engage in we're not talking about an option we're not talking about like a non-guaranteed contract clawing back guaranteed money owed to a guy you just signed very very strange i i am with you just in that i have to think that the loophole on that gets sewn up at some point the idea that they would be allowed to actually flip his salary into a meaningful player there will be people crying foul about that i'm sure but the fact that we're here talking about the warriors as a positive story at all with zero from chris apps for zingas jimmy butler and moses moody obviously still out like that is an incredible turn of events and if they are able to to somehow trade kp into anything that's contributing to this rotation yeah like jimmy butler would love to come back to this team and not have to score all the time like i think he would actually be as welcoming of like the developments with the axle as anybody butler is super comfortable in that like ultra role player pick your spots kind of mode and if that turns out to be the mode he can occupy with this team they're they're going to be pretty dangerous that'd be two forwards in your starting lineup that could switch i physically i don't want to like over have too much expectation on jimmy when he comes back visually like defensively but you just think about that combination of forwards like it puts a pretty interesting i mean yaxal shooting is something that really unlocks a whole lot of that i was going to ask you guys though about the steph thing stephan curry number 11 in the top 100 how do you feel he is historically been one that people get so mad about where because he will take games off or doesn't have the splashy performances in a way that like a younger 20 year old anthony edwards type will have on a more consistent basis and i'm always perplexed because unlike for instance lebron james who's showing clear signs of where when steph plays he's still so great and he opens up so much more and has been playing with such like a lesser talent pool uh 11 i felt right going into the season i'll be on the same page with him i'll be on the same page with him i'll be on the honest i didn't notice going into this one but certainly probably will climb to the next one weirdly as he's one of those as kyle says as as a non-voter who has no uh i know i knew you i knew you'd swing that back on me here's the thing everyone everyone outside the company can complain if you're within the ringer and you complain we will hand you blurbs to write we will give you a ballot you know be very careful what you wish i thought about that i was like don't talk shit let's um i'm gonna ask a question that might be that might be inflammatory here is is jalen brunson better than stephan curry right now yes this goes yes no no he's not yeah no he's not i would say no absolutely this is the problem with the exercise because you have to base it on results at a certain point and if steph isn't as available as often that's basketball it's a score-driven sport the there are winners and losers i don't know what to tell y'all look man i perpetually find myself in this position of defending steph i've been immersed in steph i've been working on a steph thing for like four years i defend him all the time maybe i overrate him at times but i just i think he's severely underrated even still it's just like his impacts yeah yeah it's two separate questions in my mind it's like if someone like steph or jalen i would always pick steph but if you were to say like in the midst of like where you're valuing like that month's body of work like jalen will just be more productive and more available and so you naturally put him above him and so i bet you it might flip this season though considering where the knicks are rob's making a face like he wants to tear me a new one go ahead go ahead jalen brunson just came off of what a historically dominant nba finals championship run like if steph had been on that team what do you think would have happened 38 year old steph curry i think he wouldn't be playing okay he hasn't been able to stay healthy for like three four years like this is where we are with steph he's an amazing player as justin said when he's on the court that consideration matters quite a bit if you're going to be the driving force of a team i don't think steph could drive a team that goes to the conference finals or deeper at this stage like in the role that jalen brunson did can he do it with a lot of other like shock creating stars around him like a version of cat that's like even more amped up even more involved in the construction of the offense sure but you know i don't think steph could drive a team that goes to the conference finals or deeper at this we can't be throwing darts at jalen brunson after the the run he had last year like that's pretty unimpeachable stuff okay okay last season he missed but last season he had shaky availability the two seasons before that he went 70 and 74 games i mean it's not like he's like in bead out there as you should be ashamed of yourself saying come on give me a break steph is amazing like this isn't about who steph is as a basketball player it's about the realities of who you are as a high level athlete and as a basketball player and as a basketball player at 38 like it's just not going to be the same it's going to be harder to prop up it requires a lot more infrastructure and jalen brunson is an infrastructure like that's as steph was earlier in his career like that's the difference between oh yeah all right well you say brunson's an infrastructure and steph's not i'm saying 38 year old steph has a harder time holding that up for 82 games and four consecutive playoff series well i do think there's something from steph to learn from brunson and that's to insulate yourself with a team that has the type of depth in the starting lineup and has the sort of widespread talent around him in order to make up for some of the deficiencies in steph's case that's like the lack of availability the age related decline in minor ways um and that's why i find the possibility of them going out and trading for someone especially a center it seems like the center spot is where that they would be most helpful especially given you don't know what draymond's going to do over the course of the regular season you don't know if he's going to be available if he's going to be punching people in the face if he's going to be throwing people to the ground or when he he's going to be he taught hip checked malawash i had the um judd apatow tweet about you could have killed him you could you could have killed him like there's a very real possibility that he might severely hurt someone and we just might not see him for the rest of the season so that's always out there uh the problem is the center market is pretty depleted which is why the lakers have to go out and give every draft pick to go get a walker kessler it's why jalen duran's contract situation stretched out for so long the market's pretty bleak i have a couple names written down here i have to say my favorite possibility is going to get sabonis from the kings not because of it would fix anything on their team but that you would have to trade draymond for sabonis and the comeuppance of that i think oh man incredibly delicious but other than that it's like anthony davis who makes a shit ton of money again you're training chris tops plus probably draymond the one that i like i'm curious what you guys think would be going to the bulls and just getting more players as opposed to like one guy that solves it so you get jalen smith i was about to say i hear jalen smith coming into this conversation very quickly one of the elite backup centers i think the plus i feel like the secret set okay go ahead yeah yeah let me just lay it out here quickly jalen smith plus norm powell for chris stops for zingas and um moses moody probably have to throw a draft compensation oh definitely but for the bulls moody and a pick maybe and then for the warriors you get a good backup with some stretch ops and plus norm who's just like a rotation wing yeah solid veteran i mean norm is better than moody though that's the point you would be getting the better win now players for the but what's the point for the bulls like i think i think you probably maybe take more than just one first honestly just for multiple rotation players like i really like moses moody but i think i think jalen smith has some value i think norm is going to have some value there's going to be a lot of contenders who need that sort of like microwave punch or would be wannabe contenders maybe but i think there's going to be a market for him yeah i think the secret's out on on jalen like i think team i think the bulls know what they have and the it's it's not going to be so easy to just uh steal him away norm norm would would fit with the warrior style i know that's like an easy blanket thing that we say because of like the frenetic way that he likes to shoot the ball and run and yada yada yada um i mean the big question that has been looming here recently is are the bull are the warriors going to be willing to part with some of those like early 2030s picks i don't they're not stepping and done in the many of those are they i don't i think they can i think they're clear to like move as many of them as they want but i that that to me is the question because this is we're getting to the point where the elevator door is closing i mean steph playing really well to counter myself earlier from what i'm saying it's like as good as this is how much more of there is there of it and do is there enough is there enough of wiggle room for them to make a move if they were to part with those picks to compete with the with the halves in the west it's still a that's still a daunting question so in terms of the distant picks golden state can trade 32 or 33 outright but obviously not both because the stepping considerations and then they have the full arraignment of swaps to do as well or they could trade their first in this upcoming draft as well so they have some options as far as like greasing the wheels on a deal like this but i think it's going to take something especially there's just going to be a lot of teams out there where in order to get the kind of caliber of player we're talking about chris epps alone is not is not really going to stir that conversation yes i think with jalen smith he's going to be a free agent so there's that component to this as well um but i do think there are a lot of teams that would be attracted with chris stops just to like clear some money especially the long-term contract unfortunately like miles turner makes sense but he's just been so god-awful and has paid so much going forward that like at this point the i think the bucks would have to pay the warriors to take that on yeah um i think the move for the warriors though is i don't think there's a magic bullet situation i think the anthony davis one is just too risky in part especially if you trade for him like earlier in the season if we're talking february gets a little less risky but like if you trade for someone and they're not available in the same way that jimmy was in the second year uh i think that would be a death blow and for what i'm doing i want to talk about this later with yannis but like i think the mode going into trade season for a team like this is players not one just like perfect fit for our starting lineup it's getting quality depth in order to support us so we can get enough seed in the west in order to make damage in the playoffs so i think it's i think it's a good theory especially for golden state where they have made it work taping together the rotation to this point and getting just enough from just enough guys but as we alluded to their schedule is about to ramp up i think over the next two weeks in particular they have finally like a patch where they're playing you know the the rockets and the spurs and the grizzlies and a little uh across the coast with the celtics as well so like some actual formidable opponents that i think will really kind of put all of what we've seen to the test texas triangle all on the road so yeah that's going to be interesting to see how this conversation what it looks like a couple weeks from now but they're spunky i'm glad to see it like we we deserve this as nba watchers to see steph being in competitive games at this stage of his career because if they were just going to fall flat again that would have been just like completely sad not something i think anyone would have wanted so things we deserve watching julius randall do high level sabotage but also watching steph curry do exactly this over and over and over to our heart's delight there were a couple steph things that were that i wanted to say really quickly here he's shooting 52 percent on the off screen threes number one number two he had a play where anthony black was trying to top block him off of like a weak side pin down and steph slipped slipped between uh black and the screener and went to the baseline and the low man rotated to meet him to stop it and draymond threw like the most beautiful patrick mahomes pass to steph i don't know if y'all know the play i'm talking about and steph goes up with his left hand it's some of the plays like davy mitchell was like in his jersey and he's just making like he can't do anymore it's just wild that he's still continuing to hit the shots and affect the game the way that he does i mean obviously he's the greatest shooter of all time i think when all is said and done he might be the best back cut player of all time and those are that's an extension of the same thing but the synergy he has with draymond and exactly those plays and the way that that is a whole ecosystem of offense unto itself you can't say enough about the way steph curry moves off the ball and what i'm glad he doesn't have to do it all the time every possession for every bucket the warriors score right now all right let's pivot now from one of the all-time greats to one of the all-time great franchises in squandering assets and that's the sacramento kings who traded neat clifford for two second round picks recently uh kyle this is a personal favorite of yours i would say both clifford and also the king's squandering opportunities what do you think about this trade it gets to the point where okc's dominance in terms of evaluation and just spinning all the plates of you know importing talent staging it offloading talent it's getting to the point where it almost feels like the thunder are using other teams like almost like the facehugger gestating in another organism's body it's like they're using another organism to gestate their another project and then when that thing is ready to mature they just go and get it that's what it seemed like to me whenever because offshore banking accounts yeah yeah they just um neat clifford i'm not trying to overstate this and act like i think neat clifford is some kind of superstar but i do think that he is a very capable nba role player which to me that's high praise these are this is a very limited job market in the best league in the world i think that neat clifford is a good catch-and-shoot player i think he can run some pick and roll he's shown that he can like post up smaller players he gives a lot of stuff he has really good size he's an old he was an older prospect and i had people pushing back against me saying like you know like well maybe this is good process i don't really i don't understand that um i don't trust the kings to put a wing like neat clifford into i don't know how you could say that when they've had no infrastructure the past few years after the after the 2023 run so how can you say that they properly evaluated a player like neat clifford and then i'll come back and say what a lot of people have said if sam pressing prestey calls me and says i'm interested in such and such player i'm going to take a step back and be like i don't know about this and especially the two second round i have a big problem with it on another number of levels i think he fits the thunder's offense i think he fits what they do i don't understand this i throw back to you it's it's ridiculous i think we're all kind of coming down on the same side with all this uh which is we are you know neat clifford boosters to a degree uh i'm a huge believer in what he can be to a team he is a little bit unconventional and i wonder if that's part of this too where he doesn't fit like the cookie cutter definition of what you want in a pure spacer or what you want in a pure pick and roll ball handler it is like a little bit of everything kind of game in the way that kyle laid out he was one of their best young players last season and then they came into this year and they can't even find fucking leaky black minutes for him like he's just completely buried and then offloaded for absolutely nothing like i had been thinking when i saw he wasn't playing how do we get this guy to a new home i didn't even dream of the thunder and even then i figured the kings would at least get back something for him but two seconds for a smart player with good instincts who understands how to move and play that stuff is in short supply in sacramento and they're just giving it away it is so funny that you say like the kings are looking for very narrow roles whereas the thunder have had such great success just going the complete opposite direction we're getting a lot of guys who could do a lot of different things at various sizes look how good that's been despite the fact they lose all these works in order to fill rotation spots um the king's recent draft record so before this draft the 2026 the past what i have here six drafts this is what they came away with so last year their pick went to atlanta and then eventually to new orleans for kevin herder in 2022 that's what they gave up that first floor which feels like it happened in 1947 that's how long uh the nba has happened since then uh so they get neat they trade a spurs 2027 protected first in order to get him at the bottom of that draft so that's their 2025 i want to come back to that spurs pick eventually so keep that in mind 2024 devin carter 2023 they traded the 24th pick in order to dump rashaun holmes which was the real record scratch moment of that heyday of like they get to the playoffs everything is changing and they just completely fart away a pick and don't even worry about it cool 2022 keegan murray 2021 davion mitchell 2020 tyrese halliburton of all of those players only keegan murray made it to a second contract carter halliburton and now nee clifford made it two years or fewer and that's not even including keon ellis who was also ran out of town after what i think three to four plus years and so they just developed this history of not only hitting on draft picks but not even like getting to halfway through their rookie career before they give up on them and some of these guys have been good else most of these guys have been good elsewhere davian mitchell starting for the heat and is averaging like eight assists a game at this point even devin carter being a guy again like all of those players i'm inclined to believe in at this point and you know we're going to speak plenty about tyrese halliburton but i just really think this is going to work and he's in a knee clifford is in a perfect spot with the thunder where yes he has kind of a non-traditional offensive game but he will have nights where the matchup breaks just so where the spacing is aligned just so and he'll pop off for 25 or 30 and there's so much opportunity in okc right now for if you are obviously aj mitchell or jared mccain but also for the rest of the game further down the line like they just need a little bit of pop a little bit of punch to help carry some of these lineups so that shea doesn't have to put up 45 every night and i think knee clifford is going to be really well positioned to be a versatile defender for them a nice improvisational ball handler for them and also be a kind of score that he never was fully allowed to be in sacramento i'm cute just for my own curiosity this isn't me being argument i've been very argumentative today i'm really sorry but on a podcast i guess you should never really apologize for that um what i think some of it's like when you give him the ball like what are the quote-unquote his spots that you're trying to get him to where is it that you're trying to activate him it's like i guess it's kind of elbow-ish i guess it's kind of like you don't put him through his paces in a very straight-up traditional this is how we set into this kind of action kind of way it's more like the ball finds him and he figures out something to do with it at least that's what i've been most impressed with in terms of his offensive utility so far okay uh just quickly before we go on to the panic meter so i mentioned that 2027 protected spurs first that came via the deer and fox trade as you might imagine so the entire haul for the fox trade was zach levine a hornets 2025 first that i believe did not convey that spurs first a 2031 wolves first in three seconds zach levine you assume moves on after this season and so they didn't get the first two first so ultimately what they will get from deer and fox is this 2031 wolves first which we'll see very far in the future you never know and three seconds that's it best player in recent franchise history yeah it's like the 2031 pick is real but it's still fox at that stage of his career i know he's like he's his value has depreciated significantly since but like at that time from the wolves yeah it's just like i think it's time to when anthony edwards might be due for a next contract at that stage where is the it's like it's so far away that like you know seven cycles of the earth will have happened at that point. point so um there's like some intrigue there but other than that that's all you get you get an intriguing far away pick for the only vestige of like your only good moment within the past like 20 plus years and that was from being in that combination space of like kind of holding on to deere and fox for too long before really hitting the market in the first place where he either needed to be fully prioritized as like this is our guy for the foreseeable future or they needed to move on and they decided to do neither and this is what they ended up with yeah but now they have dearest aircraft who's the best point guard in the nba so sure i think he's my favorite player he's awesome to watch like i'm really we don't need to drag him into this this is not his fault but i have to say to darius acuff welcome to the show like this this is what this is it has been with the kings for a long time and i am sorry that he has to be a part of that i might need a jersey or a tattoo um so at least you have that all right why don't we take a look at the next one quick break we come back we'll do some panic meter teams the ringer nba show is brought to you by fan duel the nba is back and this is your most rewarding season ever on fan duel how rewarding are we talking more rewarding than a half court buzzer beater more rewarding than a 29 point comeback maybe even more rewarding than a center knocking down a three i mean come on everyone loves when the big man lets it fly and this nba season that feeling doesn't stop on the court look out for fan duel rewards club exclusive offers surprises and more i'm looking at the rookie of the year race and yaxo lendeborg somehow is not the favorite for rookie of the year that feels like a big opportunity to me but every week check the fan duel app to see what's waiting for you make this your most rewarding season ever with fan duel download the app to get started 21 plus in select states or 18 plus in dc or wyoming gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in connecticut all right it's panic meter time so i have busted out the defcon meter which has five separate spots when we're going to go through some of these teams and determine how much panic are these teams panicking after 10 teams all right so the five spots are defcon 5 which is the lowest level of panic which despite people telling me this every couple weeks i still screw up because it's just completely jumbled in my mind can the military just change this because everybody thinks it's what you think it is it's not too why can't we just change it i don't understand you know that daylight savings there's a couple like low-hanging fruit things that we need in order to streamline society i like this common sense platform you're putting together just like you have my vote great uh first time for everything defcon 5 small sample size theater nothing to see here defcon 4 you have part of my attention you have the minimum amount defcon 3 i spend friday night on the trade machine fixing all of that team's issues defcon 2 ramona shelburne and baxter holmes co-byline a story absolving the most powerful team personnel of any wrongdoing defcon 1 fire everyone all right we good with the scale rehire them fire them again what's that comic comedy tweet i don't know you guys are you guys up on warriors twitter anyway sorry not enough apparently it's look it's a it's it's a deep cesspool warriors twitter is you don't want to see the bottom of that one i'm really deep into a hornet's twitter somehow and i just keep getting just like hate screed about naz reed um but we'll get because he's definitely the problem you know right exactly exactly uh let's start with the miami heat why don't we start with this quote from from yannis uh talking about the doc river situation which i if you're listening to this i'm sure you saw doc rivers on bill's podcast just laying into him actually i think the the most cutting blow was about matisse theibel just in like a side swipe where he called him a flower child who doesn't love me it's brutal i was like he didn't even put any thought into it he just said what he thought about the guy but no obviously took a lot of shots at yannis on that pod yannis in response the doc says never let bitterness or pettiness get in front of your goals and dreams which i don't know what it is about yannis every time he has to address something serious like pretends like he's in a nike ad uh it's like he's in a nike ad and he's just like he just speaks in these these terms almost as if he's like giving like passing down wisdom from from up above i think nike ad is too generous he speaks like he's at an nba summit of some kind like he's up there with his slide deck like really he doesn't he's not even at the ted talk level but he's at the level he wants people to suggest to him that he should do a ted talk and it's it's rough and i look i say this knowing that you justin are probably a sympathetic audience like pettiness and bitterness that is your jam and so do you have anything to stick up for with your guys um i agree with him you know it could sidetrack you you have to harness the hate and just put it towards someone specific you know in this case it's you guys on this podcast that's fair well where are you i'm always proud if i if i redirect my uh my my eye or towards one person it does focus me more because otherwise i'm just kind of worried about you know competing with myself things like that i think some of my best motivation comes from that quite frankly but i was going to say on the honest thing quickly here like i'm of two minds about it because i've heard him give some pretty i know he can be corny with that with answers like that but i've heard him give really thoughtful like like wise answers to things and i feel like it's been more lately with the i feel it's been a kind of a precipitous fall from the way the milwaukee thing unfolded and the quotes that came out of that and then you know they got the counseling thing and it's just all there's just been a lot of a lot of i feel like there have been some holes kind of poked in the kind of hakeem aura that he had coming into this season and this this quote is kind of right in that zone it just felt it all felt a little bit more authentic when he was the guy who was like running through every wall for his team and as soon as that became not the case anymore and he was planning exit strategies which is totally within his right to do you can't then come out and still be the run through the wall quote right like so i think he has kind of shifted lanes but also even in trying to reiterate some of the same stuff he said before it just doesn't come off the same the same way even like he should be a superstar and own being a superstar it's just he seems to be in an identity sense like stuck between the yannis we knew and the yannis who grew up with the bucks and the yannis who's trying to flex his power and become a different kind of leader and a different kind of force within the nba landscape and i gotta say it's not going super great right now yeah he became the he'll run up through a wall for you to please stop running through this wall will you just roll hard to the basket dame is right there please just play and pick and roll with him why aren't you still picking playing and roll with him uh i think doc had a very credible point i thought that was a huge issue especially not to make this all about the blazers but you see this like the easy chemistry that dame and denny have on just like a simple dho like at the top of uh the half court and it's not even really that it's more of like a handoff to a running back it's just the flip danny gets downhill he's making decisions like there was easy like low-hanging fruit there for yannis to develop something with dame and he just like he got stuck in his ways and so i think doc is right ultimately i think doc also has a long track record of throwing other people under the bus and sure other people i would also say can i introduce you to the concept of an nba superstar like the guys who actually adapt to her at that level there's like three players who even do that everyone else wants to play their way because guess what they're really fucking good at it yannis won a title mostly doing it and then changing just enough to get them over the finish line but mostly by being yannis yeah i ultimately fall in the the brown tatum zone with this where it's just like this is ultimately just a pissing contest but as podcasters we love taking pettiness and turning it into content and so uh we're here for it a lot of a lot of pettiness talk on this show today a lot of uh holding on to things i don't know it seems like a lot of pettiness circling around into the league wow did you want to get something off your chest quickly no just okay yeah go ahead um but he overall they beat the kings last night it's never pretty but they're figuring some stuff out i did think it was interesting last night cooper moorhead had this stat that yannis took the or made the most amount of pull-up twos in his entire career last night he had seven so you can see them making effort offensively and that's one issue but the defense still 26 26 overall is just confounding are we are we living and dying by the variance of yannis pull-up to twos that's the other part of this and i appreciate the effort but you're right like we don't need yannis to be chris milton i don't think that's the ultimate solution no um i also think you're right to kind of focus on the defense to jv where this is a team that's going to have to win on that side of the ball the offense whether yannis is hitting mid-range twos or not is going to be a little clunky is going to be a little awkward maybe they'll figure some stuff out as they go they need to be an elite defensive team and they are a train wreck and that has been consistently the case throughout the season we saw andrew wiggins got benched for that game against the kings um pella larson got in foul trouble anyway so it didn't really matter the symbolic nature of benching andrew wiggins just got rectified immediately but this is a team that does a really good job of walling off the rim and crowding the paint and preventing teams from getting all the way downhill but in doing so they are giving up pretty much everything else and especially their inability to then scramble and cover out to the three-point line it has just been burying them in a lot of these games And so I would love to see a version of the Heat that feels settled, that feels more adult, that feels more responsible in what it's doing, especially on defense. But I feel like they're in a really dangerous place right now where you can see they know that they're struggling. And so then they have guys over pursuing, which makes them even more disorganized on defense and giving up even more open shots. Like they are perpetually an easy pass away from a wide open three. And that just can't be the case in the modern NBA. Yeah, this team has two problems. I feel like in the playing Bam and Giannis thing, and then you have, you want to have clay out there and you're trying to create an offensive trade-off that allows you to produce enough offense. They're really having a hard time balancing that with, like what you said, Rob, I mean, they are walling off the rim, but this team is allowing the highest catch and shoot efficiency in the entire NBA. And some of that is you're just like, okay, is that shooting luck? But I just kind of would want to ask like how many like real containment perimeter defenders are on this team? Like we always think that Wiggins is that guy, but he hasn't been like a real overtly plus defender in several years now, if he ever really was, I mean, he's had, he's had highs, but the other thing, you know, the clay being out there. And then the other thing too, is you can't lean totally on Davion to be most of the best teams in the league have like multiple contained defenders and really he's the only one out there. And then you have Giannis is just honestly, man, they can seed so many drives. People always talk about guard the three, run them off the line. If you see a team that has like a terminal illness like that of like giving up catch and shoot threes, that means that that's the symptom. The disease is you can't guard the fucking ball. So I don't, I don't know how they're going to solve the problem of scoring enough and figure that out. I mean, if I were going to trust anyone to figure it out, it's Spoh, but it's quite a thing to balance. Yeah. The number of times they bring extra bodies, even to contain actions that don't need the extra bodies to contain. Like I think some of it is what you're saying, Kyle, like guys who are allowing a little too much edge, a little too much blow by on the perimeter, strictly like not staying in front. And then some of it is just guys like Giannis, even guys like bam, even the best defenders on this team over committing and over rotating. And then you just see everything. You see five heat defenders in the paint on possessions where that just cannot be the case. And it's resulting in like, they are straight up the worst jump shooting defense in the entire league right now. I know the three point numbers will probably come down in terms of opponent percentage, but I don't know. The Hornets allowed 40 plus percent from three last season. It can be done. And if the heat continue to play this way, I think they're really tempting fate that it might happen again. Yeah. I, I go back to, I've used this image before, but Homer trying to balance out the water and the salt with the fish in the middle, where it's just like, he's dying when you put too much. And then he's like alive when you put too little of it. It's hard to find and strike the balance of the exact players they need around Giannis, because when you want to put more offense on the board, you get guys like clay and you need to lean on that because at times he's the only one hitting shots, but then you're exposed defensively. And I don't know. It's like what they need are the hardest guys to find on the open market with zero resources, which is like credible three and D threats. And as you've seen, like they had to really go over themselves, give Andrew Wiggins an extension in order to keep him around. And even he hasn't lived up to like even a rotation level player at this stage. Um, and so I don't know how they solve things on the fly and it does require a lot of time. I don't know how they solve things on the fly and it does require a lot of things like Giannis taking more pull-up jumpers in order to find things from the existing talent base. Cause otherwise it's like going to the sky force and hoping that you could just dredge something up. And if I, I do worry that what ultimately will come of the Miami heat with Giannis is that they become the, almost like the poster child for not trading a star and giving up everything because there's nothing left to play with. And in this era of the NBA, you just, that it's like, well, I don't want to play that, but like, is this team really in this position because they gave up Tyler hero and Kalel wear and Jaime Hawkins like is, and you know, like, is that the reason? I think so. I think just having credible rotation players around this at the very least gives them more things to experiment with. I don't know if they're the right players. Worst case you flip those guys for guys who actually fit because they, at the very least, like they have more value. They have no value. They need something with value in order to do it. I think what's, at a certain point, things are going to flip toward free agency again. Like we tell ourselves like, Oh, it's never going to go back there. Everyone's signing long-term contracts, yada, yada. If you've seen like fashion these days, kids are out there on my Instagram, basically being like the best produced like products were cargo pants from Abercrombie. So I'm just telling you, like, it's going to flip. It's slinging back. You don't think it's going to all the evidence suggests one thing. It is going to flip back the other way. And I do, I do. The aprons are going to get teams. I think what's going to happen, uh, force teams to haggle more on contracts that they would normally just give away. I think the Franz Wagner max is like the prime example of that, where they will negotiate that harder. Guys won't just get the same amount of money. And I do think what will happen is as a result of that, maybe guys go to free agency and they look for teams. If I were to be giving advice to a superstar nowadays, I would say go to free agency and glom on to a young team with a talent base and just like kind of be the thing that takes them over the top in large part, because also we haven't even hit the injuries for this team. Like Giannis is at the stage of his career where he's probably going to have an extended stretch at some point. And like, so this could get worse, even though it has been bad thus far. So I, I agree with your larger point that I think things will slung back toward free agency for a bunch of different reasons. And it's just going to give guys the ability to like, for one more fully investigate the landscape of teams that they can go to. And it's not just who has a Tyler hero around that can make sense in a potential deal, but like, you can have a wider range of options. If teams are clearing space for you. I don't know that the heat are the best poster child for this. Cause they had a play in team that was going nowhere, like bailing on the team they had, I don't think was a problem. And I will say also on the flip side of this, in order to gut enough room, if you're, if you're not a super, super young team with lots of guys on rookie scale, if you're going to make room for someone on a Giannis contract, you basically have to pare down to like three guaranteed contracts. Like you're really not going to have much of a roster. Either way, it's the price you pay with a lot of these situations, but if you can time it, right. And if you can look at those opportunities where it is a younger team, where it is some undervalued asset of like a star who's in the third or fourth year of his deal before things really start to explode, that might be the real market. The guys start to mine is like finding not just who is the other star I want to play with, but who is the 25 year old star I want to play with. I love the idea. I love this bit of Justin giving superstars advice. I think we should do something. Like you're at like a lemonade stand thing and Giannis walks up and gives you a five and you just get the doctor's heart is convicted. Uh, yeah, I was going to say also the, the heat had to be looking at that. Okay. See Sacramento deal for Nick Clifford and being like, are you kidding me? Like in terms of what it took to get him. Um, I think you're, I think you're right, Rob, with the, they, they really just traded problems. I mean, they were, they were in a situation where they had invested in Tyler hero, probably assuming that there would be some kind of a leap. Whether or not it's like a super superstar, but some leap of some kind, bam, offensively expanding. And then the Jimmy Butler doing what Jimmy Butler does he's fickle. And it, that relationship blows up and you find yourself in a situation with supplementary pieces and no true, you know, central Northern star for your, your roster. And you swap that for a superstar team with no supplementary pieces. So they just kind of flip flop the situation they're in. I mean, are they, where would they be in a wildly different place in the standings? I guess, I would probably rather have the superstar. This is probably a franchise that is like longing for the days of the dumb NBA though, right now, because like you said, Justin, like the pieces that they need teams know the value of those players. Like it's just harder and harder to, to Jimmy those loose these days. Yeah. I don't mean to overrate the bygone era of, of heat basketball, where it's just like, let's get to the seventh seed and maybe we'll win a play in game. But I do think like if they would say, for instance, they had hero, if they were just good on offense, they were just like very good offensive team. That would be something to hang your hat on to figure things out later. If they just kept where, for instance, as opposed to Yovitch, you could trade where for neat Clifford and maybe another rotation player. Then you have two rotation players that might be able to fit versus where like, so I wonder if opportunity. Yeah. I wonder if the place we're coming to is like, if you are going to make a trade like this, where you give up a bunch of veteran players, a good chunk of your roster, just by the number of guys who are playing, and you're going to bring in one star, mostly with all due respect to Bobby Portis to replace them. The fit needs to be clean. If that's the situation, the fit has to be clean. Cause you need the baked in compatibility of look, even if we're going minimum guys up and down the roster, we're plugging spots where, you know, just kind of filling holes the rest of the way. We know that we're going to have 24 minutes of these two players on the floor who are stars and work well together. And the fact that Bam and Yannis are both excellent, but don't have that, I think is really what's depriving a lot of what should be carrying the heat right now. Just the last thing I would tack on there. It's just the lack of the lack of solid offensive process is just feeding into the defensive issues too, because of the transition thing. So if they can just shore up some of the half board stuff on offense, that'll take some of the pressure off because they're just letting teams get in transition. It's just like snowballing and accelerating the problem. Uh, so where did you guys end up on the DEFCON scale? I'm going to go home is wondering, I think three DEFCON three for me, like this feels serious, but no one is writing yet. Yeah, I agree. Kyle. i'd be in the same range i mean i i would trust this team to like schematically figure it out it's just i do it's one of the bits that like seer and i used to do on hoops hospital where it's like is this a medication or a surgery situation um i think they have a good staff to medicate the situation a little bit but they still are going to need to do some level of surgery to fix this i think okay so surgery and medicine so you have the surgery and then you can take the meds well let me tell you you don't want surgery without medicine that's a bad idea if you're a wuss like you right i'll cop to that somewhere out there is a chevy truck and the person who drives it well that's a chevy person you probably know one your buddy your sister ones who always show up they're the first to rise the last to leave they always have that little extra something and maybe you've got it too chevrolet together let's drive visit chevy.com slash trucks to explore the lineup this episode is brought to you by whole foods market get everything you need to win thanksgiving at whole foods market we're talking seasonal favorites from the bakery easy weeknight meals for before the big day and sales on body care and candles for last minute gifts plus with more than 300 band food ingredients storewide you know it's quality you can trust shop thanksgiving favorites with higher standards at whole foods market prime members of the whole foods market shop at wfm.com and get your first order over 25 delivered free terms apply um all right we'll stay in florida for the orlando magic uh loose of the warriors now two and seven on the season i'll be honest as i was going through things and specifically the specifics of their medical updates on some of their players that are out right now because they just have a rash of guys out doesn't bang didn't even play this weekend paulo should be back by the end of november that's the like right now the timetable right jalen's going to be back by the end of november that's the like right now the i wouldn't be surprised if we get an update like today or soon he was supposed to be two weeks re-evaluated and two weeks is up and so it could be some hope on the horizon there i will say the the history plus what's happened thus far has created just a lot of discontent and i totally understand that i will say franz has been pretty good in lieu of having some extra help there in particular his playmaking he is as we're recording this third in the league in assists uh he's 0.1 assist behind trey young whose sole purpose because he's not making a goddamn shot is to feed other players and so i'm wondering rob if i'm making the case for optimism which i could totally be pushed off of in a minute um is there a way to blend playmaking franz with what they had before and just like the talent pop they'll get with the sugs and apollo back there is there any world where those two things can coexist paulo streamlined first two games paulo who looked like really dominant in the first two games paulo who looked like really dominant in the first two games plus this version of franz i think that part i'm actually worried less about and i'm worried more about are they just ever going to be a good defense ever again and paulo bancaro does not really help that jalen sugs certainly does and i think in particular just helping them force any turnovers at all when he comes back would be a huge help like they just aren't really dialed in in that way right now but it's just so striking to watch them and especially when you think about who the players are in the first five years at their best they were a team that was like so rugged and physical defensively they would take you out of your stuff and they had so much like plug and play just like workman depth right like not incredible players but guys who could step in and hold down a like a you know a improvisational starting spot for a week and get through these kinds of stretches they just don't have any of that right now like jace richardson is like wildly exposed as a starting point guard like jamal kane we like but if he's your sixth man he's going to be a you're in real trouble and so a lot of that stuff naturally does sort itself out as they start getting just good starting level players back in the lineup i just don't know who they're going to be if they can't guard anyone and i think their problems are not just like who is available and who is playing but the spirit that they would play with on defense is not really there like the intensity that they played with on defense is not really there and the only guys who have it are like goga batadze who cannot stop fouling people so i don't know where the middle ground is that good defense and the offense is going to be kind of a work in progress perpetually it seems as they sort out not just powell and franz and how they play together but the larger spacing concerns everything that we've been talking about and around with the magic for so long i don't know where the answers are here that fix this team goga perpetually riled uh i don't know if you've not been riled um you were talking about franz i mean uh the playmaking yes um he's also it's there's a lot of paint going on the canvas that like it's it's messy i mean he's if he's not leading the league in turnovers he's he's way up there and some part of the problem i think is it's just very imbalanced now like you said with sugs and powell not being there so they haven't really gotten a chance to sort of start this new lease on life that they were going to have with sweeney which i guess is probably affecting some of the morale on defense too um you know bane is like taking has less like self-created offense going on with him so they've tried to kind of like in in re-incorporating franz who missed so much time last year it's been a little bit of a messy um you know onboarding process for him too so you're getting you're missing that that bane offensive contribution another thing too is we talked about this last year i think when we were trying to diagnose the overall problem which i kind of think is just kind of built into the studs and the foundation of this house this roster build as they as they conceived of it early on when they were drafting these guys i think it was just i think it just has some like ongoing problematic things that are just perpetual and i i don't know that i don't know how you solve them i don't know how you stack these guys all together who just have spatial issues whether it's like the shooting thing there's just one too many of them i don't know who the first person to move is gonna be um i do i still do think that they have enough like defensive gumption to kind of get back to where they were but the wendell carter jr thing was something we talked about last year that for me was a tough thing if you watch he and franz together you'll see this sometimes where it's like if a guy doesn't fully commit to being like a big like he's bought in as a roller or he's bought in as a pop guy it's like wendell just kind of falls in between at times and i think that penalizes a playmaker like franz who's can kind of bowl people over in the rim and he's not a great pull-up shooter i just feel like there are too many kind of problems stacking on top of each other at some point for the magic and it's just not turned out the way that i i hoped it would in the preseason we've talked in the past and i think rob you even wrote about it at one point the comp with tatum and brown where it's just you're trying to build through two wings that in order to do so you really need the context to be dialed in and in order to like to paper over some of their issues when covering for some of their unique qualities of their game that sacrifice other certain certain things right and so i understand the impulse to go out and trade for desmond bay on the one hand seems like consolidation trades are the worst thing to do in the nba at this point because if you don't have those star players to play it's tougher than ever to stack wins the nba is harder and also injuries are happening more and more and so you almost have to plot against that as if it's going to happen regularly throughout the course of every season on top of that it's funny looking back on the the brown tatum comp because we were talking about a wildly successful team from a starting point trying to win a title versus a team that was like intriguing that could be good yeah and so i almost feel like we we jumped the process a little bit and what we really needed was to to just develop a baseline for competency that never really happened and everything like if anything what happened with bane it almost took away some of your fail safe options which was the depth and now all you're left with is a like a cluttered team that needs all these guys to be there just to even have a like a chance at this which is why i think it feels so defeating just watching their games at times because it's like they made their move and it's still difficult just to get by and i don't know how you walk it back to that because it does feel like this the type of team much like the calves were almost like the loser behavior seeps into your pores and this is like who you are i mean that's dire but i i think that we thought they did have that floor of competency right like they did kind of build step to step to step to getting to be a playoff level team again that kind of rugged defense like funky but like enough playmaking between franz and paulo to talk yourself into it it just turned out that so far that was the high water mark and not the floor of what we were hoping that they would be and so i think that's a really good point and i think that's a would be and i think the thinking with finding young players in that mode as you said jv who are going to be growing from a bad team into a proof of concept into a playoff team into a contender is like oh if they're growing together at every step of that path naturally like you know two two plants that are growing alongside each other are going to kind of make space in the way that they develop for paulo to create in these ways for franz to create in those ways like they're going to naturally sort of find their balance by the nature of occupying the same ecosystem it just doesn't really work that way in part because one of those guys has been hurt like every moment of every season it seems like the number the amount of time they've actually shared the floor has been incredibly limiting in terms of their developmental process together and then you get moments like this where you're absolutely right franz looks really good right now as far as a driver and a creator and kind of like in that primary sort of role for a not so successful offense and a not so successful offense that like doesn't get to the free throw line anymore doesn't get to the rim to actually score anymore has a lot of space to work with is a little simpler than a power Paolo and Franz offense would be, but to what end? And I say that coming off of a season where Tristan De Silva has been shooting the shit out of the ball. Like he's looked amazing plugging into that spot and giving a more traditional look, but it doesn't seem like that really fixes the problems either. Can you have a pairing like this without pull-up shooting? That's really it. Can you have any highly successful team without pull-up shooting? Less than just less. I was watching a, you're going to, you're going to be glad I took the time to do this. Cause whenever I watch, whenever I watch Franz and Paolo in any kind of a ball scream situation, I think of that, that Evanescence song. I'm going. I don't know. Can you, can you sing a few more? You don't know. Honestly, pretty good. No, I get it. Yeah. Yeah. When you said that Evanescence song, I didn't think you'd pick like the fifth build, maybe the sixth man of Evanescence songs, if we're being honest about it. Like you're really not deep cut, but mid cut, at least, you know, bring me to life. What's the other one? I mean, my immortal, certainly my immortal. Yeah. What was that? Wait, is the song that you're singing, whatever Evanescence song was in the, on the twilight soundtrack that also had kind of a second there. I don't know if I'm going under wasn't on that. It wasn't on twilight. I can only think of like three Evanescence songs, right? I didn't realize you guys were such butt rock scholars. Rob, I'm not surprised. I was going to think of six, but yeah, six is a lot. I unfortunately can't. I'm topping out at 3.5 Evanescence songs, but if you're out there and you're just rattling these off, we salute you. I told you, JV, you'd be glad that I got that extra point in there. So there you go. Told you. It's good. No, but I think you're right. Perhaps there are just some hard truths in the NBA now. And one of them is about depth. You need bodies to trudge through a regular season. Other thing is like, you need spacing just in general. You need three pointers in order to work the math. Some of the scores that I look up on a given basis, like it's like one 36, like the Pelicans just gave up one 39. The other night, it's just, it seems like things are ratcheting even more than it already has. And it was already at a pretty big stream and they just didn't really do that. If anything, one of their big stretch options was Vucevic and he just looks like he's already retired. Yeah. It's just like a goodbye tour to throw another tortured metaphor out there. It feels like one of these prefix. I mean, another one of the first tortured metaphors of the evening, like one of these fancy prefix menus, at a restaurant, but it's like not worth it. It's just like, you go there, it's just like, oh, it's fine. You just had a fine evening. That's what it feels like watching the magic where there's just like so much build. There's so much Valley who like you make the reservation, uh, you get all nicely dressed up. You go there and you're like, Oh, we spent like 300 bucks for this. Yeah. Except that in this case, I don't know what the equivalent of a two and seven record is for a prefix restaurant, but it's not a fine evening or it hasn't been at least. Maybe it will be when those guys come back, but this is, this has been tough to watch. What DEF CON are we at brothers? I think this is also DEF CON three, like it feels structural. It feels real. Like I don't see them getting out. Like they're going to be better when Paolo and Jalen Suggs play rocket science, but in order to fix the actual problems with the roster, they're going to need to make substantive moves. And until they do that, we're going to be having some version of this conversation over and over again. Still questions to answer with the structure of it. Like, yeah, like I agree with Rob, but we, we still need to see the proof of concept of the feel good kind of the presumed feel good aspect of this. We just haven't gotten to see enough of it. It's too early. My finger is hovering over the two button. I'll say that because we're getting to the point where like the next phase is people getting fired and then just kind of uprooting what they've built thus far. Cause they changed the coach. That was the easy thing to do. The next thing is people get moved. So we'll see. All right. Next question. Last one here, because we have a couple of teams kind of in a similar situation. My question to you guys is all three of these teams, the Charlotte horns, the Indiana Pacers, the Utah jazz, all dealing with pretty extreme injury situations. Which one of those is most concerning to you, Rob at, at this stage? Well, what not to get to, uh, to zoom out too far with this, but like, how are we defining concern? Is it just like, who's going to be the worst of these teams or who is the worst relative to what we expect of them? Uh, it's a bit of a Rorschach test, my friend, where do you include the future or do you talk about just this season? I was thinking more just like this season with the future, kind of in the background there. Um, but anyway, you want to take it, you know, this is your exercise. I appreciate it. Um, I'll do the jazz then. I will say that the jazz just, I mean, this jazz team kind of sucks and I was hoping they would be good. And that is very clearly not the case and very clearly not the case in a way that I don't think you can explain away with just like the late breaking trade for Walker Kessler that threw things off there. And then the subsequent injury for Yusuf Nurkic and now Jaron Jackson, like they do have a lot of injuries, a lot that they're dealing with as do all three of these teams, but they are just such a bummer. And I say that because like they are a finesse offense, primarily a finesse offense that does not have the means to play through contact or score inside really at all. That does not have the playmaking to like generate things beyond the most basic actions and doesn't have the shooting to cover up for either of those things and redeem them in any kind of meaningful way. And so you're left with this team that just kind of runs around and does stuff and feels considerably. Flawed a lot of okay contributors that don't build off of one another. And so like I'm, I was hoping to see at least if, if the jazz weren't going to be good and they weren't going to be a playoff team, maybe, but a play in team that seemed like a reasonable hope for this group of players that we would start to see, okay, these are the inherent chemistries of who the jazz are going to be. They're not finished yet, but we're seeing Keontae George and Jaron Jackson jr. Really like find something together. We're seeing Darren Peterson pop in a way where he's not ready to carry an offense yet, but he's like, he's like looking great with second units. I don't think we're seeing really any of the small indicators that would say this is a team that's almost ready for something. And the fact that we're three, four years into a rebuild and we're not even at the small indicator stage is just such a disappointment. I think there are some small, I mean, I think you listed the small indicators. I mean, I think there are some promising things with Peterson and with Keontae that I think that that was, that was when they in a perfect world, would you want to pair those two guys together? I think, I think that they're not a perfect pairing because, and because of this, the way that they play, I think that you spelled out the interior part of it is, is the essential it's, it's the big kind of hole that creates the imbalance in the way that they want to play. Because you have Keontae, who's a guy who has worked really, really hard to improve his inside the arc presence at all. Yeah. Peterson who came in, I was probably higher on his like downhill game and getting in the paint and things like that. But that's always, that's kind of been one of the core questions about him as a player, ace Bailey, who's your presumed, three, who has just kind of been designated as like movement shooter, maybe cutter offensive, but he's not really getting downhill a lot. You're just kind of stacking. They have this, I brought this up before. There's this idea of like destructive interference in audio production, where it's like you stack, you stack waveforms on each other and they cancel each other. And it's true in basketball. When too many things are similar, you end up with this just kind of inconsequential thing. But I think the Hornets and the jazz really have similar problems. Honestly, even though the jazz, I think have a little bit better star power where you're just like, I kind of trust the talent here. I would lean towards the Hornets a little bit more because the outs are tough. That was one of the teams you rattled off, right? Yeah. JV. I, do we want to segue to the Hornets or stay on the jazz? I would lean towards the Hornets a little bit more. I said a lot about the jazz. We'll just wrap up the jazz quickly here. So they're one of four, one win teams at this stage. The other are the box bowls and Kings. So not great. So not great companions down at the Dregs. My issue is, so in the latest game that they played, these are the guys that played credible rotation minutes. Jackson Hayes, Josh Green, Josh Akogi, Mo Bamba. And then after the game got away from them, they played Sfee and Tony Bradley. Like, where are all the guys they spent searching through the crates, like, just giving minutes to when they were tanking for multiple seasons i get that you had to consolidate some of them like the hendrix and the walter clayton's got traded they're on the chris i gotta say i don't think you had to consolidate those guys like they gave walter clayton jr away you know like and he's good again for the math so i want to reiterate yeah like so how after trudging through the forest uh and just like trying to find your way how did you not come up with just like interesting rotation guys that like all other teams are dying to get to because you have on such a bargain contract like again not to make this about the blazers but like the tumani kamara like oh he was the third guy in this trade and all of a sudden he turns into something more like that is one of the main advantages of tanking is you get to give guys opportunity you get to try stuff you get to bring guys into your system and really give them prime developmental time i'm just like why are we already like mostly doing all of these retreads I know that they're injured and all this other stuff it just feels like they're a little like two to three guys short on intriguing guys I mean they definitely are in the Jazz's defense Keontae George is that guy to come out of the tank and Keontae's not just emergence but consistent development through that initial wall where other teams might have bailed on him because they were trying to play for more earlier than the Jazz were like he turned himself into a hell of a player because he had the runway to do it and because the jazz, we're going to be bad for so long. That's a, that's a significant price to come out of that era. And I don't want to zoom past it, but as we're talking about with all of these teams, it's not enough to just have the one guy, even if he is a star, even if he turns out to be a multi-time all-star, like you need that level of depth that at this stage feels affordable and feels like good ballast to keep your rotation and your like your books clean in a way where you can bring in jaron jackson jr you can pay lowry marketing you can go find the center of your dreams using the pics from walker kessler or whatever but like they just don't have any of that infrastructure right now and it's it's making them pretty tough to watch as any team would be missing you know several rotation players but i just don't trust the vision of who this team is when they're healthy anymore like that i feel like that's where i've moved the most in terms of my priors on all three of these teams that we're talking about and the realities of where they are now the jazz feel like the most dismal situation yeah i think part of that it's also because of the expectations like you you trudged for so long yeah that you wanted this was supposed to be the thing that turned it around this was supposed to be the payoff for that they didn't get it the hornets are in a different situation where they took a noticeable step back in order to build more for the future i was hopeful that at the very least they would put so up so many threes that the offense would be so good that it would be able to at least make them more competitive i thought oh they're putting them up offense and they're definitely putting them up um currently they are 30th in offense uh the only team in the league that isn't even scoring 100 points per 100 possessions now can i add something onto that stat they're under 40 they're 39.3 percent from the field and you have to go back to granted i'm but there have been teams that have had stints of under 40 percent field offense but to go back and find a team that did that for the season you have to go back to 1960 61 no team it's that's that's the speaking of nadir's this that's that's the nadir we're talking about continue sorry and now i mean to that point uh there's three players in the league who have over 100 three-pointers attempted at this stage it's luca nikhil alexander walker and brandon miller uh brandon miller is 26 percent on those threes but that's the thing one that's one part of it he is very much struggling and is just kind of having the leash to do whatever he wants seemingly there's also the naz read very much in the eric bledsoe salon mode where i don't want to be here already uh but then like you know i was expecting them to put a lot on khan's plate and miller's plate and then also maybe kobe white in naz's plate to not have khan shows up in one game already gets pulled out because of injury and then kobe white's been on a very strict minute restriction and just does not look there is some like you know we haven't gotten a clear vision of what they could be and so i'm i think if they had all of those guys maybe they could be a pretty dynamic offense but for now it's just like it's brutal to watch out there rob i think it's the biggest dip in watchability of any team in the league like going from where they were and we were all like tripping over ourselves trying to talk about the hornets because we love tuning in for their game so much to now it's just excruciating and i mean one it's almost like having lamella ball makes a difference out there uh two the nature of all of those threes is just night and day different like none of them are in the same flow none of them are in the same rhythm it's like they do get up a lot of these shots often for quite good shooters who just are not converting because it's not as the result of like natural organic kick out offense it's just pass the ball around until somebody accepts this particular grenade and the shot goes up and then you have a lot of guys shooting like thirty one thirty two percent on a team that should be shooting a lot better right now and there's no balance because there's no ball handlers like that is the necessary caveat like this is too much dennis schruder khan should be doing a lot of this kobe should be doing a lot of this if and hopefully will when he's healthy enough to play more minutes and also have more responsibility but it's just it's brutal i don't like watching it i do think it will naturally sort itself out though as those two guys get back i maybe i'm coming at this from i didn't expect this to be a great offense i thought it'd be like okay and i think they can get to okay from here even though right now it's just miserable yeah i think it you know cons plate six total minutes and i think you're talking about the combination of um the that you were going to be leaning into a different style you can't like off you know you can't export one of the best ball handler playmakers in the world in lamello and i was joking with rob i was like the the being on the right side of history so far with lamello i worried that that there could be a situation where he could go to minnesota and it could be like oh shit that didn't work and then could look good without him we really seen the opposite of that you're gonna say something too i still make the trade i i still think the trade was perfectly reasonable considering where both teams are and the fact that we have seen the bad with the hornets but we like lamello has been healthy and productive thus far if anything in contrast to anthony edwards which is the surprise like he's gonna get hurt again like the track record suggests that and so like let's do this at the end of the year and i'll i'll even say that's a threat yeah fuck you man um i actually think if once con is healthy and white is healthy and if reed just decides he wants to be there and isn't an open war with his head coach big if at this stage if all four of those guys with miller are like playing and happy i still think that could be a top 10 offense like i would like to do this as a bet again yeah i point forward i was strong i was about to jump out of my chair to bet you on this whatever whatever you want like maybe we'll figure out if there's if there's a counterbalancing bet or or whatever the price of it will be but this is there are too many caveats at this stage though because again like is naz does he want to be there is he going to last through the deadline because he does seem particularly prickly with the situation naz is really good as the fourth or fifth ball handler on a team and that's not the role that he's currently playing and then when he tries to overstep and do more stuff that's not what charles lee wants him to do and so like there is that natural tension point i think this exists for a lot of guys within this roster i think the brandon miller part of it i think is going to be i have found i mean just maddening in a lot of different ways there there are a lot of players who if you stretch out their role and responsibility even beyond what they can reasonably handle it's actually like really good for their developmental process like franz is one of these guys who i think had to get over the mental hurdle of deference of finding his place within an offense like learning to assert yourself to the tune of 27 shots in a game is a skill that some players have and some players don't uh clearly that was not the problem for brandon miller and the more possessions that they funnel through him the more it seems to feed his absolute worst habits as an offensive player and if you were a clear knockdown shooter so much of this conversation changes shape as it is now he is a pretty good shooter under good circumstances who when stretched to this level of usage becomes a possession eating disaster that derails so much of what an offense should or could be doing even under these circumstances yeah you're just giving him a credit card with no limit right now like and he's it's just not the spending is going to be out of control i i just we talked about this before the season i mean i i think this was precariously put together i think at optimal like everything is humming in in place this is probably a league average offense or hovering maybe a little below like i because i just don't think that you can you can enable brandon in this way i think you're you're right about that he's he he can pass there's a lot of passes he can make with either hand and i think that he's honestly the range of what he can do might even be a little bit wider than con but i trust con's discernment and i think when you remove con's discernment and the off-ball stuff that he adds to that offense um i think it was going to be built it gets tough because it's just really precariously put together and i think that they would probably have a lot more off-ball action i just keep reiterating that and i think him not being there is just really throwing it into a spiral as we're seeing well right now they play like and kobe they play like the caricatured version when the analytics revolution started of like what a pure eye test person thinks a three-point heavy offense looks like like they are feeding into every terrible stereotype of that down to the fact that right now they're scoring the fewest points in the paint of any team for an entire decade of nba basketball like they use free throws too yeah they just which aren't with that aren't aren't participating in some of the most crucial parts of the game and frankly don't seem particularly interested in doing it well it's been almost what 10 years since the courtney lee marvin williams team perhaps this is just in honor of that you know you think so i bet that's what they're doing i didn't even think about that yeah they did bring back those purple jerseys which they haven't worn for a while that was very much the marvin williams era um i still think if it was a timeshare it's a completely different situation i don't think they're going to be scintillating but i agree with kyle like it was supposed to be con balancing out miller at this point at the very least they they've reached the end of the road and they're not going to be able to do anything about it and they're not going like they've looked over and seen the cliff fall off because this is his limits and so that's the value of having the opportunity to throw away games like this but um i agree with you guys lastly just talk about the pacers quickly um they played six guys in a game the other day yeah one of whom was jairus walker rob so congratulations thank you um i didn't realize his value would be as the lone survivor of indiana hey he's healthy you know well there this you were speaking of homage this is an homage to like norman dale they're just playing a little hoosier six-man lineup and we'll see if it gets down to five or four yeah it's uh these are not good times for pacers basketball but again i think there's a reason we're not picking them as the team to worry about among these three like we knew we knew that the pacers without tyrese halliburton can't win a lot of games we just saw it for an entire season and this is kind of just an extension of that for the most part yeah depends on where you draw the line with worry where it's like worry based off of play style and things that they aren't executing is one thing. worry about not having their best player and actually his latest update from the medical staff was there is no update there is no timetable for what he's going on with yeah he has a hamstring strain it seemed like that there was like a three-second brief and one of them was like he's been hanging out in a hyperbaric chamber like daily so like do hyperbaric chambers work did you all see the lebron thing where he was like walking around and in his wife did you all see this no what was it he's a big hyperbaric guy yeah well i i just don't know i i guess i could google that but uh ask chet gpt but yeah who's just picturing tyrus halliburton and iron lung like twitch streaming and so perhaps there's like social executions to happen while he's twitch streaming from an iron lung but the fact that's concerning obviously soft tissue injury for a guy who has injury issues who doesn't have a timetable that's that's the bigger concern but i don't really know how to assess that from like a like a analytical perspective it's just like whatever modern medicine provides will be the answer it look you need tyrus halliburton to be healthy because he's a transformative player on this team and then i would say even beyond that level of transformation as we saw during their finals run the alternative was like have t.j mcconnell run around in circles and make defenses dizzy and kind of distract them to the point that you can execute some stuff he's been out of the lineup for a good chunk of the season already finally getting back into the swing of things we'll see how much that helps but like they are a team that like i'm not going to rule out that they could maybe just net out of being pretty good right like they're going to be like still integrating uh zoo bots over the course of the year we'll see how healthy halliburton ends up being but we're talking about every other team in the east as part of our panic meter basically and when you look at the standings there's like three and a half legitimately good teams in that conference right now and everyone else is just kind of okay so i think there is enough of a soft middle in the east for the pacers even with these struggles even if halliburton is out for a considerable period of time to still be like a top six you know playoff team locked into a spot that seems perfectly realistic to me still the path was laid out two years ago where it's like injuries to start the season new year flips all of a sudden everybody's healthy yeah click on so like yes there is a track record for that and i agree there's you know i would say four teams on the right night like the next i would talk about is like a top tier east team um but you're right it's there for the taking so i mean there are there are six east teams that are even over 500 as opposed to 10 teams in the west that fit that description we try to talk up the east every season now and we just keep doing this over and over and i it's like rock is back yeah really it's a psyop is what it is there's there's one band with guitars and they're doing kind of well because of social media and we just talk ourselves into it if only the pacers had a had recourse that they could take uh you keep dogging you keep dogging that pronunciation but it is 100 valid i just want you to know it's just it's just it's just a difference of opinion well you you mentioned the the way the year shakes out as like you know injury and illness being sort of an advantage jb is kind of what you've alluded to you were saying it was a back door for the warriors to uh to use the pot i i kind of wondered if you were saying like is it a back door in the sense of uh maybe we should get our superstar sick and it's like an advantage you know oh yeah or it's an advantage to have some guys you know it's it's yeah i don't know i've seen some back doors in my day i don't know if that one is one yes you i'm leaving it alone i won't do it gonna decide the eastern conference race rob it's disgusting just i don't know how we got here i didn't say that the first time you said it but you brought it up again don't know how i had to do it all right uh what's uh can i can i say two final things on the pacers before we is it gonna be about jairus walker it's not gonna be about jairus walker okay uh one reason to think that they could be pretty solid the defense has actually been pretty good even during this stretch the offensive balance isn't there but like they're holding it down on that end to a level that makes me think okay when everything is fine and healthy this will be a good team again one negative though has not been very good for them and i think they were relying on him to be like a meaningful part of the rotation and i was certainly had thoughts coming off of how good he was for the sixers that he could step into something with with indiana and you know parlay that into a significant role but it is it has not gone well so how how they proceed through a season where like shepherd is going to be out for the foreseeable future uber is not playing well at least for now other guys have been in and out of the lineup like this is going to be a management year even for one that we were hoping would be a healthy season for indy uber is especially penalized by the absence of haliburton i feel like and nimhard's been good score in the ball like in ball screen but it's just like it's a it's it's a wet paper towel like it's just that's what it's beneath that it's like braden smith i was joking about was giving up i mean here and there stuff he's fun i like braden smith but it's it's wobbly yeah braden smith and quinn jackson like have not been awful like they've given them solid minutes in stepping up but it's like if everything hinges on you know those minutes you can see how a season might kind of go off the rails i feel like there needs to be like an snl podcasting bit about nba specifically where it's like you talk through the actual thing for like 10 minutes and then it's like hey i think this 12 guy like he might be a guy like he he's only played four games but like i really like what he's doing out there and then we just never talk about that player again for his entire life i mean i've tried to continue talking about jairus walker and you're just not here for it well it's hip talk about an overlap i've yeah like mining the crates for like the the underappreciated band that needs to be championed there's hipster overlap between basketball and music and that way i've always i've always thought so we're just the men of high taste this is what i come away with what's what's the quinn jackson indie rock comp yeah like i'm trying to figure out where which crate we're in right now but we're digging deep braden i don't know what like jay psalm or something i'm trying now that's too good actually that's too smooth it has to be more frenetic than that i think yeah okay we'll work on that and uh get back to you on the next podcast yes we will all right we'll be back on thursday where we're going to talk about some rookies and not just any rookies all the rookies um we're going to go in depth on the rookie class hopefully nobody does the same exact podcast as us i know nobody's talking about rookies these days so um on that note thank you to victoria valencia thank you to isaiah blakely we'll be back on thursday we'll talk to you 21 plus and present in select states for kansas in affiliation with kansas star casino or 18 plus and present in dc or wyoming opt-in required bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens restrictions 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