The Wolves Are Chaotic Good, Dame Is Back, and More Top-line Takeaways from the Real Opening Night | Group Chat

hello and welcome to group chat i am justin verrier and joining me rob mahoney j kyle man recording this the morning after the real opening night where everybody else played their first games of the season real frenetic energy to this one games in the high 120s ty jerome killed a guy there's just a lot going on rob yeah actually just finished doing the chalk outline around kiante george's body and it's it's tough that this is the way he had to go but he's not the first one to go that way yeah ty jerome killed a guy in a in a ball a ball pressure defense with a trident i mean it was a night of ass whoopings yes you know across the board just an incredible amount of ass whoopings yes just a bunch of extreme outcomes like i know the first couple games are technically outliers in the season they end up becoming that uh but this is the first time where like i just remember seeing just weird circumstances guys putting up crazy individual stats teams just looking different than i think they will be later on and that's why i'm buzzing cases yeah like i mean we were just talking about how they're gonna be fewer blowouts this season i think we're clearly getting some out of the way up top hopefully these teams settle in but it really does feel like the nba is back and frankly i would say the moment where i knew definitively it was back was when the first we go v ad dropped on my tv i'm like and you perked up you're like oh maybe this is time i'm just saying i think i think the real like do you know ball test is like do you know the prescription for crohn's disease like where where are you on like ulcerative colitis like do you know where to go when it really hits the fan and unfortunately we all do kyle with those cialis ads hitting harder than usual for you you know we get a lot of cialis i don't know i don't know if it's a live tv thing or if uh if this is the algorithm kind of feeding us things they expect us to be interested in i mean we get a lot of row hey guys it's time to lose weight you know the thing i get a lot of row you know there's a lot of bluetooth going around but uh yeah i don't really know what to make of that whether or not to be offended but i definitely see a lot of that stuff i just think the back-to-back like wing stop ad into glp1 is just uncalled for like you can't play both sides at once and yet we feel like we're constantly being played that way yeah it is a real like this is who you are this is a real mirror for for perhaps like what they think of you the marketers and so it's always a little sobering but glad to be back in the mix 11 games tonight we're going to get to that quickly just off the top here uh live show next week minneapolis minnesota we're going to be there right in front of all the homies uh tickets still on sale and i was told going into this live show from our producer ben crew that this show would would sell out and we still have tickets available and so for ben's well-being so i don't have to like inflict retribution upon him you guys should make sure that this show is sold out i think they will i think they're going to show up clearly look the initial rush of tickets has gone out the door but we've been saving some for for the true fans you know this is the cordoned off area these are the vips come come join us at the live show don't put justin in the position to chew out ben cruise he's already chewing out bloggers at the blazers games because he suspected that they were sick we got flustered justin we need guzfraba calm justin is what we need more than anything if you're sick do not go near me do not go out in public anymore i thought we had rules to this but it's fine uh we'll see if we have to murder ben but also another live show uh the week of the nba cup in indian app was back at the hi-fi so go to the ringer.com slash events for both get all the tickets sell those out and we will see you there um all right why don't we take a quick break and then we get into some action because we have a lot of this this episode is presented by sam's club during the holidays everyone's in a club the last minute gift givers club the cool aunts club the food coma club whatever holiday club you're in sam's club is the club that helps you pull it off need to get a meal on the table in under two hours done shopping for the brands they want like dyson and lego without blowing your budget check and check sam's club helps you make the most of the holidays this episode is brought to you by sony pictures classics a perfect crime film says the daily beast john taturo gives a career best performance don't miss the acclaimed new thriller the only living pickpocket in new york taturo stars as an aging master pickpocket whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family also starring giancarlo esposito tatiana maslany will price and steve buscemi see the film that the la times calls instantly classic the only living pickpocket in opens only in theaters october 23rd in new york and los angeles nationwide october 30th come join us sam's club all right a lot of games on the docket real like us slate on the night here like it's nice to have thunder spurs like potential western conference finals two of the best teams going at it on opening night but i feel like jazz grizzlies uh pelicans pacers like this is for us guys it was a one for them three for us kind of breakdown and as it should be on like the true league pass debut night like if we're not getting into the weeds of this stuff in addition to wolves and heat what are we really doing here this is what the enterprise is all about yeah it was definitely where you're at the buffet at one of those uh i don't feel like i've been to a few buffets in my life where the the spread the span of the genres available to you are are enough that you have to make like serious decisions about which directions you're gonna go rob's make it a face not many buffets in rob's life come on you think i've ever skipped a buffet before but more so i'm wondering are you making business decisions on like what do i trust under this hot lamp are you making cuisine decisions of like i want a theme on this plate like walk me through your process kyle what are you what are you going through here i try to go plate theme typically per visit you know i don't know i i had a friend who had a chinese buffet got a giant mound of like you know chicken or what generals i don't know how you know i'm not even gonna pronounce pronounce it or attempt to and then he just general shows i think yeah everybody says sows whatever but then he just draped a piece of pizza over the top so there are a lot of ways that you can go but i like to stick with a theme personally but on this night the theme being interesting games i definitely had a few minutes where i'm getting texts from all kinds of people and just being like oh shit i need to watch this and there's only so much time to go around and i felt pretty pretty divided because uh we're back baby yes do you sample or do you savor just like one thing that you know you're going to love uh it is a little chaotic uh but we kind of chopped things up tried to like divert our attention so that we could cover all of our bases we won't get to every game obviously but we'll try to highlight all the important stuff but i think the biggest thing was just the wolves coming out and looking just it's all sorts of interesting uh i have a dating metaphor that i want to use here do you guys want me to do that off the top or do you want me to do that off the top or do you want me to do that off the top you can't mention that and then not give it to us immediately go ahead like hit me so i i went out a few times with a lady who i would say a little bit out of my league uh i probably heard about the variables or maybe plugged into the preseason power rankings she's like wow you did 45 minutes on the memphis grizzlies let's go baby you can go that long justin there you go right well not all the time if i have some cialis on deck there we go um jesus we're very light-handed already let's go but definitely a chaotic energy i would say like like early divorcee like the drinks were going quickly just like kind of messy there was like this energy to the air where it's just like anything could happen here like i could end up like doing meth at a strip club at this point uh but you know i was fucking into it and that was kind of the vibe i was getting from the from the minnesota timberwolves in this one they take 50 threes in this game uh ant and lamello combined for 30 themselves lamello's moon walking back into threes he's doing those sort of like walk-ups one-footed threes i'm just like there's just a lot going on here uh it was funny because it seemed like the heat and spoh was saying this in the preseason spent so much time on the game like working on protecting the basket that's going to be the strength of the team they have two of the best defensive centers out there but it was a real like bringing a knife to a gun fight except the gun was a super soaker except the super soaker was a flamethrower okay so the gun was a super soaker the super soaker was a flamethrower i'm gonna torture this metaphor even more and say it wasn't just a knife it was like a beautiful katana you know like like it was it was a nice piece of metal work it just it really isn't enough when you're talking about this level of firepower it was great being being reminded of the fact that yannis can be an offense unto himself in transition just by like sheer force of will and then be reminded yet again of how difficult things are going to be for miami and transit or in the half court offense over the course of this season finding not only their spacing but their flow with all these new players who don't know how to work in that spacing yet i i suspect it's going to get better as we go as it will for the vast majority of these teams but the contrast just could not have been more stark i mean if we're going to workshop the metaphor here not that i'm in any way qualified to do that based on what people say to me but uh i would it's probably more that you brought a gun to a knife fight because from long they are really good in close quarters that you know keeping they did do a good job of keeping stuff away from the paint but 53s only last year the the season high for the wolves was 51 and that was an overtime game against the pelicans so this was a stark sea change uh style of play kind of a thing here and i think we can get into it a little bit more here but i think the one thing that really jumped out to me is that by having lamello out there and there was a lot of debate about you know who he is long term if this is a real indicator of the way this is going to go or where their style was their style of play like perfectly awfully juxtaposed to the challenges that the heat are going to have um i think that it affords them some kind of symphonic movement to the way that they can approach their lineups over the course of the game because you watch the helter skelter way that they just put the pedal to the metal at the beginning of the game and then as it went on you saw them staggering like okay now we got a little bit of lamello with the second unit now we've got now that the wolves have done all the body work here comes a fresh anthony edwards who hasn't had to go downhill with five sets of eyes on him for a whole game who can just go out now go one-on-one and score the ball and spoiler alert he did i just think that this uh this was a pretty interesting kind of uh proof of concept of how this is going to go absolutely i think you know staggering out lamello and ant to a pretty strict degree like one of those guys was in the floor and he was almost every second of this game it just like staggers out the wolves ability to be explosive and it's you know you won't hear me say a bad word about mike conley but the wolves have never had a point guard even remotely like this and going from a trains run on time point into an improvisational point between dante and ant last season at the tail end into now i mean i don't think lamello can make the trains run on time even if he wanted to but do you need them if you have a spaceship and that's kind of the feeling of this offense overall where not only are they getting up these threes but the flow getting into those shots is just like night and day different the quality of the threes the wolves took on opening night for them uh i thought was just wildly impressive and if that's where the baseline is going to be i think their offensive potential is super super high lamello i feel like if he were running a train station you would go mike conley would have like a whiteboard and he would it would all be lined up and scheduled if you went into a train station lamello was running it there would be swear that he has a system like yeah that's that's kind of the difference i think between those point two point i don't think lamello would even show up for the job because apparently he doesn't do any dirty work including changing diapers that's apparently his wife's job which is which is a real something kyle do you change diapers i changed a ton of diapers man i mean division of labor that's the way it works yeah goddamn right um this just feels like the slow transformation to a team that's like just been building toward anthony edwards like in their image and like trying to install a team that's like just been building toward anthony edwards like in their it was the team that was just like big and fierceful and physical and now they're the team that's just like so blistering up and down the court that like it's hard to really wrap your head around it i mean ant popped immediately just shooting pull-up threes at volume last year and it almost seems like they took that as a sign to make that the biggest strength of the team getting lamello a guy who's obviously really adept at that as well just turned that into an overwhelming effect and they also like some of the other guys around them just really feed into that i think gina mcdaniel was really good playing off of those guys getting opportunities against pretty poor defenders like clay thompson who unfortunately got picked on a lot especially in the first half of that game uh and even like jonathan kaminga like playing at that pace just really brings out the best of them because he's just a giant athlete on the move and so like there is a real vision there i am worried when it's going to start to spin out when things have to like slow down and like the nuance has to pop there but in a game like this where the heat seemed like they wanted to run as well which i i mean that's a curious decision in its own right i i feel like there was just like no slowing down this train well it's kind of miami's only choice like they're going to get so bogged down with all that spacing consideration in the half court if they do go that way so they have to run i i can't wait to see the wolves play like a real contrast in styles team someone who really wants to grind every possession who wants to control every would-be turnover like a real micromanager opponent to see just how resilient the wolves are to that and whether they can run and kind of pierce through it i thought they did a really good job of running off of makes off of situations that you wouldn't think would manifest in fast breaks and a lot of it as as you mentioned just is because of those forwards like getting mcdaniel's out on the break the hit ahead passes to him i thought kaminga just played like really good grown-up basketball and in a way that put some of my concerns about him and kind of his understanding of his role to bed and you know we'll see how they they kind of manifest over the course of this season but like guarded yannis i thought didn't really force anything was really committed to kind of the small game and i think that's a really good job of him and i think that's a really good job of him and i think that's a really good job of him in all parts of his role in a way that hasn't been true at all his previous stops but this is the guy the wolves need him to be and if he can be this player consistently and we know how great jaden mcdaniels could be on both sides of the ball like that could this could be real countering anchors for them at the forward spots that they really need i think the order of operations for defensive teams looking at the wolves in front of them in the way that they want to play you're looking at you know point of a point of attack sort of personnel is going to be a really interesting thing to watch watch based on their opponents because we'll get to the jazz and point of attack personnel holy christ almighty but um if you don't have multiple guys that can sort of share that responsibility the way that the richest of the rich in the nba do like the thunders and the spurs and the teams like that um this was a team where you know if you only have a couple guys that are credible guarding the ball you're going to put them on lamello in transition and or whatever it is it's just going to put you mentioned it with clay on jayden it's going to put jayden and ant in these situations that they haven't had the luxury of being in the past year or so it's just like ant catching against single coverage the first few times he did that he must have just looked around and been like are you serious like anthony edwards against a set defense is is a really tough conundrum but him catching it with an advantage downhill um especially when he had fresh legs at the end of the game that is just going to be a very fun frontier for him and especially the kinetic kind of kineticism whatever it is the kinetic nature of the way that lamello plays it just puts ant in some situations that are going to be very very tough to deal with for defenses it's the exact thing that he has been waiting for and that every playoff run he inevitably kind of gripes about at some point of like when the defense starts bringing two to the ball consistently and trapping him and trying to force the ball out of his hands the wolves just didn't have the swing passers to make that work sometimes the shooters to make that work sometimes the decision making to make that work the decision making is going to come and go as we go on and on and on and on we even saw in this game like these wolves are still prone to kind of like some stupid turnovers at times some lulls in their offense but lamello is a great lob passer a great a great swing passer a great hit ahead passer a really willing guy on the weak side if ant does kick out to him if he does get trapped as the heat were loathed to do to find the right option and the fact that jayden has turned himself into a knockdown corner guy that io is going to come in and hit like a good chunk of his shots from three like they have real threats terrence shannon to look like a real threat from three and i think that's going to be a really good shot for him and i think that's going to be a really good shot for him and i think that's going to be a really good shot for him so long as all those things are true it's just gonna be really hard to put two bodies on anthony edwards and live with it to the point that it really seemed like eric's bolster tried to do everything possible to not go that route yeah real gooning energy with this team i think is where it's going to come down to you you start you started smiling halfway through rob's point it is because gooning came into your brain is that why it's actually in my it's in my notes it's like number two what does that even mean you got this smile on your face it's like number two it's like number two it's like number face like a baby who'd pooped its diaper that lamello lamello not changing poop is really like i that was predictable sorry i'm not trying to stick on that but yeah you you made a face justin when you thought of gooning which i guess is pretty predictable for you it is yeah it's just like there's a certain quality to the team that's really hard to put your finger on but you know it's it's fun it's it's frenetic okay but then you wonder how like how serious it is at the end there and i think on the downside of things like gobert was incredible defensively especially against a team that wanted to get downhill with yannis and whatnot uh didn't have a single field goal i do wonder at his stage like not getting anything from him is really pushing the limit there and then also uh just the the depth when trey lyles who didn't play in the nba last year showed up playing pretty significant minutes off the bench i was like oh this can get pretty bleak pretty quickly things are going well for now but to finish the metaphor from from dating before things are things are no longer going because you just can't keep up that sort of pace chaotic pace for too long and that that would be the long-term concern with them i will say i mean speaking of predictable outcomes justin barrier man who clutches things too tightly in his in his uh professional life being in his personal life open to a degree of mess i mean just about as predictable as they come or maybe i had something there and i i clutched that too tightly you know yeah maybe i maybe i overdid it maybe i needed a little bit more gooning energy a little less adult energy this podcast needs less gooning energy i'm ready to say that should we talk about the heat side of this yeah uh i'll say just off the jump yannis looked right in a miami heat jersey he's awesome i don't know if it's it's just like five to ten years of just him being photoshopped into one is just like it just he looks right in things whereas like before even lamell and some of these other guys like it takes a little bit of time to work out the dissonance of this guy in a new place uh having said that everything else was just about as bad as you like worried for for the heat a bad matchup for them first and foremost but it seemed like they're incredibly yannis dependent yes uh they didn't hit their threes yannis only He had one assist and I thought he was like reading the court and spraying it like particularly well. So that's going to be a concern. And then defensively, they just like they were a mess as well. So not a great start for the new look. No, I think the improvisational non Giannis offense has to be the top priority at this stage. And it's the minutes when Giannis is off the floor, but it's also when he's on the floor and in the corner or on the floor, but out on the perimeter. Like, what are you running through, Bam? What are you running through your movement shooting with Clay Thompson? Like, how are you manifesting some kind of productive offense out of this if you're the Miami Heat? Because the early returns were bad, but they were also like clunky in a way that I think will will naturally resolve itself over the course of the year. Like, I think they looked so much more like a team of guys who don't really know each other than the Wolves did. And some of that's because the Wolves changes are a little a little more nuanced, a little more targeted. And everything that's happening in Miami feels more comprehensive. Like Giannis is a a bomb to drop on any organization in terms of what? The shape of it is going to be once he arrives. They changed a huge portion of the roster just to make a trade like that possible. He looks great. We wonder about all the supporting parts. We wonder about, you know, Bam's facility with offense, how all those things can work. It's just I have a hard time going from the starting point of Giannis downhill, looking that agile, that dominant and freaking teams out and freaking defenders out in the way that he does and not think they'll be able to find something in this. Maybe not at the highest levels of like, offensive execution. It's not going to be like sizzle, real stuff from them, other than the highlights from Giannis himself. But I think they're going to find enough to survive. Yeah, they'll find enough to survive. I was laughing, too, at the beginning of the game where they were the preemptive MVP. That might be the earliest MVP MVP chant that I've ever heard, especially that he has no history with them to start with that. They're like, he has an MVP. You know, I thought that also I thought it was funny as we don't chant any other award. You don't hear MIP. You and like somebody's at the line, you don't hear six. Man, why six? Oh, oh, why? Yeah, we don't hear those. I thought that was good. Actually, the only the only one I can think of now that you flagged that is I do feel like Tony Allen would get the first team chance once he started trumpeting up first team all deep. This is what we need. We need those a bit, but I like it. I'm for a bit. I just I just think defenders need bits. We need we need more defensive players out here trying to get, you know, the the wheels turning as far as their narrative storytelling goes. I just think. If there's a good challenge and say Spoh goes up there and wins a challenge, I think that the crowd should chant COY at some point, you know, see, oh, why? And he waves to the crowd. Thank you. Thank you. I think that would be good. I was early in the game, though. Rudy, you mentioned Rudy being good defensively. He's kind of walking a tightrope right now because I watched a lot of his preseason stuff and I was like Rudy on an island. I suspect might have lost a step because during torched his ass. Over and over. He just I think is having to be a little bit more conservative. Giannis got him in space a few times. Granted, Giannis gets everybody in space, but I just think this offense is going to be interesting because Bam, as much as he has fought to sort of so credibility and like grow in that way, teams just aren't hug. You're just hugging the paint and you saw repeated. I think Lomelo got a dig on the ball at Giannis at one point. Kamingo was playing uphill and annoying him. It's just there's going to it's going to be a season of. A lot of swiping hands for Giannis until they start to figure out some of that spatial stuff and maybe that's Pella Larson. Maybe that's I don't know. I just kind of wonder who the most respectable secondary tertiary ball handlers are on this team. That's going to be the story of the season. I think this was a kind of a small thing, but also not a small thing. I was shocked at how much Nicola Yo bitch we saw in this game. Oh my God, like straight out of the dog house into like a really prominent bench role and as a guy who again does a lot of things. Like, okay, but also is not respected as a shooter and frankly Simone Fontechio is sitting right there. If you want somebody who can actually shoot over the top of this, it doesn't solve all the problems, but it's like little tweaks like that. We talked about, you know, who Ryan Conwell could be for this team. If he has a role, I think they might just have to tilt a little harder into non-traditional heat personnel or guys who aren't necessarily sposed favorites in favor of just like, can we get enough shooting on the floor to make all this work early, at least a home at a reasonably high, like contending level. There was a point where I was like, does yo bitch like have nudes on Mickey air center or something? Like, why is this just like the, the first impulse? And then why do they keep going back to it? I think it's what you're saying. Like they just don't have a lot of credible ball handling options. And like, I guess to start the season, you're hoping you could jumpstart him because last season was such a disaster, but you're right. I assume Pell Larson will be in the starting lineup sooner rather than later. I think clay is just a disaster defensively. He had a couple of threes like tan clay as like a bench shooter is like a nice option to have. But I think there really are limits to the healing properties of the sea. As we saw it, it's just like, and the minutes without Yannis on the court. I feel like Yannis is going to do what he does and he has plays with so much force. As long as he's healthy, things are going to go right there. They're going to hit some threes off of that downhill gravity, but it's just like, I don't know, think they know what they're doing when it's just the bam solo minutes offensively. And it seemed like they were trying to play through him. I just don't know if he's that guy. He's never been that guy. And like, he was like stepping back into threes. It's a little like, what do we do with our hands without Yannis on the floor? To be fair, like the, what they are asking of bam in those capacities is a really tough job for any big league. Like it's, it's maybe unreasonable to ask him to do all that. And yet bam has just enough ball skills, certainly enough body control, a good enough mid range jumper to talk yourself into, okay, he can make hay with some of these weird chaotic spaces that we're going to find over the course of the season, but it's clearly going to take time. Let me ask you this question. Cause it's something I was kicking around in my head as, as things were going wrong for Miami, the fit with Yannis and bam has so much potential to, especially defensively, but it feels like offensively, there's going to be so many challenges and so few, uh, there's outs in order to make it work. They're really going to have to dig through the crates in order to find the supplementary guys. And they're good at that. But would you have rather dealt bam and just kept like some sort of offensive guys in the wake of that trade in order to create a more like. Competent offense, because like if it was Tyler hero and like one or two of the other young guys and you traded bam, I think the ceiling would be lower, but I would feel more confident about them being able to be like a good regular season team. This just feels like this is like hard work in order to figure out it does, but like under no circumstances in my keeping Tyler hero and trading bam, that's not a thing I'm willing to entertain. You don't even feel bad. They got punched in the face, not even a sympathy. Save. I think everybody's better off moving on punch in the face. That's outstanding. Who hasn't been punched in the face in Las Vegas? I mean, come on. Sure. Would Milwaukee? Yeah. Milwaukee. Who? I guess you kind of have to ask yourself, would the deal have even gotten done with Milwaukee if they had approached it that way? I don't know. Also, man, I mean, you're thinking through it in a way that was probably not the way Spoh would approach it, because if the if the finish line is further away, if it's a greater distance away and it's just a little bit of an uglier process. I mean, Spoh. He's going to Spoh doesn't care about the the vanity of the short term, you know, aesthetics. He's just like, you know, we want to get to that spot. And I think that's just what he's all about. It's going to be a really interesting challenge. And then there's also are they going to make moves? You know what? What can they import to sort of figure this out? They definitely need some sort of lubrication. This has been the most like bonk podcast we've done in months, but they need something else to lubricate the half court offense. For sure. I also just don't think like we're talking about Yannis and Bam. With all of its caveats with all of its problems, but like it is an incredible defensive opportunity. And I have a hard time believing that the vast majority of heat games are going to go like this. There are there are games where teams are going to shoot and go nuclear and go over the top of them. That's going to work. But if this game is closer to like Wolves scoring 115, as it might be in many heat contests, like regardless of if they're stuck in the mud, they're going to be right there, like they're going to be competitive with those teams because the defense is going to be much better than it was in this particular one. It's just such a unique challenge. I can't think of another team trying to work in this era of basketball, two of the best defensive centers in the league who have an uneasy fit offensively. It's just it's a really fascinating chemistry experiment. Another fascinating chemistry experiment is the Utah Jazz as they try to work in two scoring guards and also two centers who both do not rebound. Just an absolute mess. Let's start on the Grizzlies side of this. We're going to start on the Grizzlies side of this one, though, because our beautiful analytically sound boy, Ty Jerome, just just going off for forty five points. Yeah. What a time. I mean, he couldn't be stopped. He couldn't be slowed. He couldn't even be like mildly inconvenienced, bothered at all, not a single bit in the way that Ty Jerome does, which is like he never really blows by people. He's always kind of like has the defender on his hip, like bump, push, crazy runner. And yet everything manages to go in. And I would say that is a. That is a particular challenge for a guy like Keontae George who doesn't stay in front of people very well in general, but especially these like weird, wily drivers like dead on arrival as far as that part of the matchup goes. And then they tried Darren Peterson. Then they tried Bryson. So I was like, absolutely nothing stuck and no one could contain Ty Jerome, which was, I mean, just quite a thing to watch. I alluded to this when we were talking about in our survey, we were talking about Will Hardy being the coach of the year, I think that he might even if he does win, which I'm getting more. night was not a great speaking of proof of concepts last night was not a great proof of concept for that uh their ball pressure issue is potentially a terminal illness for this team like it's it's so bad they're gonna lead the league in like percentage died on screens like their guards i watched i think they said jerome ran 45 ball screens last night and his efficiency was like 1.3 and i know that's that's for for anybody who doesn't follow that kind of stuff that's that's extremely good yeah uh for the grizzlies it was extremely easy i mean if you watch the first 10 you're talking about him having him on the hit man i mean he came around and like he just had he turned the corner no problem every single time some of that you know having edie there as a roller is an extra it exacerbates the problem for the jazz and he was a big effective thing but when he is just kind of waltzing into pull-up shots into mid-range jumpers into floaters all of a sudden he's in a rhythm and then he starts making those people kept pointing to the ridiculous shots as if it was like luck just what he does nah man this is like that nba saying it's like when you let a guy get going in this league you got a real problem it's like these guys are good players jerome got into a lather and then they just couldn't stop him but dude i i just worry about peterson's long-term like ball pressure thing they've committed all this money to kiante just i'm i'm wondering where we go from here if this is going to work because these bigs with this potential terminal illness is very bad it's just very bad they don't have wing defenders they don't have credible like first string or second string centers they're playing jackson hayes at center and then they're backing him up with kyle filikowski like both guys are probably best suited to be third stringers like filikowski is like the the dwap wreath shooter off the bench that you draw off when you want to have everything's gotta be blazers anchored he's back in the blazer in portland baby he was with the suns good to see him um it's just an absolute mess and so as much as i want to applaud ty jerome like he was living in the paint probably as a result of there just being no like no one was meeting him there uh 11 shots he was in the paint and he is particularly good at reading off the pick and roll and kind of like knifing his way in feeling the contact and like getting that floater up that's like where he lives a lot of the time but like man it was unbelievable i guess the grizzly bear was like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know grizzlies we should mention too like are probably the worst possible opponent for them because they have such a size advantage like they didn't have as a steward in this one but like the boozer ed front line and watching like jaron jackson and jackson hayes try to go up against that it was like it's like watching like a peewee football kid try to do tackling drills against a mac truck like they just look like tiny in comparison just got absolutely wrecked on the glass and like i think there probably was a little bit of delicious symbolism too and cam boozer like big boing jaron on the break and dunking all over him like may we all have that kind of closure in our lives did not play well didn't have a great deal but guess what he did a lot of little things you know he did did a lot of things to genuinely did a lot of things to contribute to the winning effort especially the rebounding that justin is highlighting where i mean just a dominant effort on the glass combined with ty jerome poking at every weakness in the jazz's perimeter defense like it's a really tough combination for them i mean certainly emboldened effort on the glass combined with ty jerome poking at every weakness in the jazz's perimeter defense everything that we thought the grizzlies could be and as far as one of the deepest teams in the league going against one of the the shallowest at least in the west uh bore out certainly in the way that the the grizzlies were able to mount their own defensive pressure pressuring the jazz's guards bringing the ball up full court staying consistent on the glass and attacking it over and over and over like these guys just look worn down and for a utah team that like has length but doesn't rebound well like has skill but doesn't really have guys who can create for others like they're in this weird in-between zone um and i think justin outlined it really well where it's like they they don't even have the perimeter defenders like they have some scoring and some creation but not in a cohesive way that yet makes a lot of sense yeah i think they need they're gonna have to play through if it's nurkic or something they're gonna have to anchor the where their defense starts like something's got to change i think those two caveats off the top one this looked like a team that really thought they were gonna have walker kessler until it suddenly wasn't in their interest to do so and they're not going to have walker kessler until it suddenly wasn't in their interest to do so and then they look like a team that thought they might get away with starting yusuf nurkic until they suddenly couldn't and here we are with a much smaller lankier like dare i say like flimsier version of the jazz then i mean they're gonna have to find some edge in the way they play over the course of this year if they're going to get through this kind of schedule but i call this a reaching ass defense they are just going to be they can't contain so they're just going to be reaching ass chasing blocks it's going to be if you're reaching you're losing that's or reaching comma ass that's not reaching and also ass losing ass you know it's just kind of you know we're just don't worry so much about that part of it um they're not containing the work's not being done early no we'll put it that way well here's the thing though i i still think you do the kessler trade 10 times out of 10 i i think the unfortunate thing is like this was supposed to be the year where they played credible basketball and they ultimately took a step back and it's going to take a lot more time i think to figure this out they just got a haul for kessler in a way that like they really i i just don't think you could turn down for a player that still hadn't proved it much he was pretty good playing off of luca last night and i i think he is going to be good ultimately but like i still think the trade math worked out for them it's just the timing is just so unfortunate and also like trying to navigate the the dual backcourt as cam boozer is just big boying you up and down the court uh was was a real like symbolic moment where it's like you could have had that guy and maybe solve some of your front court issues instead you're you're going with the dueling banjos backcourt well i i think walker hisler was never going to look that good playing off of kiante george instead of luca donchich like it just wasn't going to pan out quite that way for him and i thought within this game you saw the full range of who kiante george is and is not right when the jazz offense was at its absolute worst i think his go-to scoring was pretty clearly the best thing they had going and his ability to be anything other than a go-to scorer was kind of what was holding them back like they really had no flow to their offense otherwise he wasn't able to get other guys involved like he's a really talented creator will he ever be a really talented high level point guard that's that's kind of the threshold for him as far as proving who he can be to a playoff team proving who he can be to the future of the utah jazz there's like even for a guy who's had an incredible jump to get to this stage he just still has a lot to prove uh last note i have here is when boozer got that breakaway dunk on jaron uh the grizzly broadcaster called it a cam boozle that one was that one was written he just got cam boozled he was like he was waiting for the first chance to drop that boozled wow i'm ashamed i didn't think of that terrible pun yeah well it's still time we can we can print shirts maybe get tony allen involved maybe so can we hit a couple other quick grizzlies notes before we move on from this one yeah go for it i thought this was maybe the best game i've ever seen gg jackson play and maybe the first time i've ever seen him be interested in something other than just like getting him up and the fact that he was like an actual rebounder he was picking dudes up full court like this felt like a real basketball player all of a sudden for a guy who was i mean he's been out of the rotation when he even when he's been healthy at times yeah he's still so young man i mean people it's it's been amazing how up and down the discourse or just total lack of like people just forget about him write him off whatever it is it's in his very short career there's uh there's still a lot to be mined i think there with him and i think that was a good indicator of it well a lot to be mined in this rotation in general like i i was struck seeing jeremy grant in a grizzlies for the jersey for the first time as well how he's entered into this weird like kind of underrated stage of his career that looked natural to you he got more than one rebound he did look at him do do some stuff other than just get shots up look some people some people are just six nine shooting guards and we need to accept them for who they are and frank like him coming off the bench being able to just be himself i think looks really good on him that's a totally credible role for him and i do think even though perhaps we were a little early on the utah jazz blog hype i feel like we were appropriately blog hyped for for the memphis grizzlies who look like a credible team with a real strength in their front court and like i think that they could win a little bit yeah yeah this is what we do after one game terminal illness they're done no i i think the jazz are going to struggle this year i just don't know how they fix a front court unless they go out and swing another trade in order to replace the guy that they traded yeah i think they just feel like a team that because of their injuries because of their deficiencies in the front court because of the shape of the roster like they're going to be fighting to get to 500 and that's an okay place to be when like the depths of where they're coming from an nba team is just measured by the quality of their bookends and i think at the start of it if the door is front door is wide open and the enemy can come into the house and put their feet up on the table and there's no one at the back it's just we've talked about it the point of attack and then the room protection those two if you can't have both those problems at the same time it's just it's not tenable right their book end now is v on his like 10th tour in utah it's like glad to have him back but their bench looked also pretty thin like you get into the fees and the colliers and the cogees very quickly yeah ace bailey though i thought actually hadn't he was among the uh the players in the jazz who showed the most backbone in this game so i will give him tremendous credit for that i felt like really good effort defense stuff that you don't necessarily count on from ace bailey all right why don't we take a break we'll come back talk about some of these other games on the slate. 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All right, Dame is back, baby. I went to Moda Center for the return of Damian Lillard. I gotta say, it was just magical. Yeah. Just, I've never been in an arena where there's just like so much love pouring out for a guy. I will say the Blazers ops team didn't help themselves because they did a weird move of, usually when a season starts, when you have your first home game, they have one player go out, just do some performative like, hey, welcome to the season. We're going to give it our all. Thanks for coming in. They had Dame do that, which was before his pregame, and so the pop really happened when he gave just like a, right off a cue card, like, hey, cool guys, let's have some fun this year. But then he was last introduced in pregame and it wasn't as big of a pop there. But man, it's just like Portland loves Dame in a way that like, I just, I don't think this is around in sports very much where these guys have just been pouring decades into certain franchise and there's a real symbiosis there. And so special moment. I was glad I was there. I think to get the emotion of that moment, and have it pay off immediately in completely fucking blitzing the Phoenix Suns over the first opening minutes of this game. It's just like, yes, we have questions about John Dame as a backcourt. Yeah, we're trying to figure out what this version of the team is going to be. We're trying to figure out who Damian Lillard is on the other side of an Achilles injury and have it come out and just be like unqualified success in addition to pulling the heartstrings. I just, I yearn for something so simple as that and to see it unfold and to see, I think jaw hit his stride. Danny hit his stride. Dame come in and like, maybe it's just seeing him in the Blazers jersey again. That's a part of this, but like I didn't quite know what to expect from him in terms of movement and seeing him flying around the playmaking that he was bringing to the table. I thought it was really huge. Like there's so many aspects of what Dame can do for this team. I think we may have discounted in the mess of trying to make sense of whatever the team is as a whole. Justin teared up. He definitely got a little moisture around the edges of his eyes for sure. I'll be honest with you. I was a little emotional. Like it's such an outpouring. Like they fucking love Dame and it's like it just doesn't happen in sports anymore. These guys just have that sort of like deep like lived in experience with certain communities. And he cares about Portland. And like I think there was a version of this too. I don't know if you guys caught the post game interview with Tyrese Halliburton at the end of the Pacers Pelicans game where I mean he got choked up just talking about being on the court again. And it's like it's so easy to care about this stuff when they care about this stuff. And sometimes that's coming back after a long road from injury. Sometimes it's coming back to the city that's been your home for years and years and years after this kind of wayward tour in Milwaukee. But like there are so many little ways to invest in the NBA and so many little ways to pay off our investment in it on a nightly basis and a weekly basis that like how can you not feel emotional in a moment like that? How can you not see Dame coming back to Portland as something more than like, oh, how do you make these guards fit together? Yeah. Did you have it on your bingo card that was a scripted for you, JV, that the first two field goal attempts of this season would be Donovan Klingin from three, which he cashed the first one. Goddamn right. Well, I am not surprised that that was the case because as Rob knows, I've been a big Klingin supporter for a long time. Of course. I've seen him hit those shots. I did think it was funny when Dame was like, he hit I think two threes in a row and was very much trying to heat check. Like he was a couple steps beyond the three point arc and then Drew just like fired one out and everything was like, what are you doing? Like they haven't gotten the flow that like, yeah, until he goes until he extinguishes. But I, you know, I kind of was hopeful that Dame would be able, his just pure shooting would be able to round out this team in a way that would be advantageous. I think he's going to give him that. You just see the way that not only does the shooting help a team that was starved for that last season, it got up a lot. They did not make a lot, but also like the fact that they have so many defenders who also are just, you know, willing and like smart ball movers be able to feed Dame off of the flow of their offense. And so I am a little bit worried about Dame's like burst. I think getting to the rim was a little complicated and like he was getting stuff out of the pick and roll more out of craft. And the fact that Malawatch was completely and utterly a mess in that game, did not know what he was doing. Didn't even know to get his hands up on little short dump off passes to the big. It's just like he has a long fucking way to go. There was a point where Ja was just fucking with him, like driving at quarterbacks, quarter speed spinning and throwing up like a Kareem Skyhook over Malawatch. And it was like, yeah, that's the right basketball play. I don't know what to tell you. This was, this was a dicking. This game was a dicking. I know you, I mean, what is this podcast? What are we doing? Can we, can we get a graphic Victoria where like, um, after a game, it was like a particular dicks. It was a particularly big ass whooping. If we could get like a stamp, sort of like the married with children, you know, and the cops or whatever it is, it'd be like, they got dicked. And I would like that. Uh, she says she, okay, there we go. Thank you for that. We'll get, we'll get our graphics department on that. I, you guys argued last year a lot about that. We talked about the mid off. Oh, I was not making that argument this year about the, we had a bet that was not happening. Folks. Uh, it did one game, one game, but it almost looked to me like in this game. Um, this was a team that, uh, the, the blazers flat out dick, the team that like lacked competent cohesion in their team. It looked like, they had a superstar who was clawing for dear life. It looked to me like they traded for a domestic abuser who is on the decline of his grit. It, it looks not that I want to highlight that, but, uh, you know, it just, man, that was rough. Holy moly. What a, what a curb stomp. It very quickly transitioned from Dame's moment to, do you want to see a dead body? Uh, it's just their complete mess. Like Jalen green had John him to start with. Couldn't do anything with them. Dylan Brooks is scoring magic. Just seems like, like whatever Faustian bargain he, he like put together in order to be like one of the best scores in the league last year. It's just like, that's gone. Devin Booker, man, you're down 21 points, like five minutes into the game. And you start trying to fight someone like, give me a fucking break with this guy. Like he's out there down 40, trying to grind out mid range J J's. Like, it's just like, I'm just so sick of the, like the faux tough guy things. Because the one thing the blazers have is they're a big old tough team. And it seemed like the sons try to just push you around, like appeal to the hustle God. So that they get every in-between play. And when they can't do that, it's just like, uh, what do we do? I just, we talked about it in, in our preseason power rankings. Like this feels like a big moment for Devin Booker. And like he, he did not show up and there's just really nowhere to go from there. He was just kind of fine in a game where clearly they needed a lot more than fine. And I'm okay with guys like trying to stir shit up for the sake of lighting something under their team. Like sometimes you do have to do that and go to those lengths, but I just, I just don't know that there's going to be a lot of life and a lot of fight in these particular sons. Like they feel like a team that has sold like a little bit of their soul and lost like 10 to 15% of that hustle junkie edge that really put them over the top last year. And you lose that. And all of a sudden you're just like Devin Booker and a bunch of guys and you're starting Jalen green on purpose. And it's like, this just does not look like it's going to be a very competitive team this year. Rob picked that fight with Victoria. Remember we were having that bad pod and Rob picked a fight with Victoria. And I was like, what is he doing? And then I was like, you know what? I'm I felt riled up. And then we had a good show after the links. The links. I will go to inspire you, Kyle, in particular. I mean, like we just have to get you up to speed sometime, get you ready to fight. I was like, you know what? LFG let's do this. And we, and we, we got it going on the jaw front just because his debut was a big deal. They put them on the Portland, Oregon famous iconic sign downtown real. Yeah, it was real. Nike just put them on there. It's like a cool bit of marketing. Do they, do they have the power to just do that? I was like, does Nike have the power to do that in Portland? I assure you. I wondered about the machinations of that. I didn't know. Anything is for sale, brother. Unfortunately, I don't think job will jump over a piece of paper this season, let alone sore over the city and the city's biggest sign. I just like, I feel like I saw 30 clips of like his amazing debut. I thought it was fine. Like, I just don't think he's the same sort of athlete. I don't think he's the same sort of guy at the rim and you do wonder. At that point, like what he really contributes. I was talking to Eric Gunderson, who covers the team for the AP and a couple other places. And he made an interesting comp. Like can job just be shade and sharp from last year where he's getting downhill and spraying out and jobs a better passer. And so for perhaps that, like that can work and just get the ball flowing, but you know, hit a spot up three, like it's fine overall. I just don't think that like they're at their best with him there. And honestly, it was pretty jarring where they come out and it's jaw and Dame defending. where it's just like, oh no. a more competent team could have really pressed on that advantage to start with. And so obviously gangbusters night for the blazers. Denny looked great. He looked more involved defensively and like taking more off of his plate. I think you're going to see the full two way Denny start to play here, but overall I'm still pretty like cautious about my optimism just because I don't know what job is going to give you. I think it's all fair. As far as like what a floor bound version of John Morant could be though. I did think he was pretty good and pretty savvy as far as like his ability to navigate the paint without leaping into the air and figuring out, out on his way down. Like that part of it did kind of encourage me a little bit. Like he does that so much. He's made a career out of it to this point. And he has talked as Justin alluded to about like trying to be a different kind of player and looks like a different kind of player. Like he looks like a guy who's trying to play like drew holiday all of a sudden on offense. And it's like, will that be a super high level star? Will that be a Nike level banner signature shoe athlete? No, but can he still be a good NBA player? I think, it depends on what he puts his mind to and where he channels his energies. And it was good to see him channel him in this way. Dame's influence goes a long way there too, because you know, that's just there's, there are good veterans in that, in that locker room. And then, you know, the point that in the Mike and Nori part of all of this, but the you mentioned just the defensive thing. If you're talking about bookends, the blazers just have more of a bookend to kind of figure that out and tinker with it. Then, then the chest at this point, right? They only played 11 minutes together. Ja and Dame is like a prolonged, stretched to start the game and then like kind of dotted in here and there. Now the game was over after like those first five minutes. So it's really hard to like draw too much out of it. But I think that's the move. You just like you stagger them as much as possible because they do have nice little counterbalances with skew and drew to fill in like the other guard gaps. And so I think it's important. You start them to begin with because you're going to lose them regardless. But I also worry like if you play some tougher teams, like you're going to lose too many games where you have to hit that button too soon. And then you start that process anyway. So what if, what if this blazer, starting group with those two guards is the real death lineup these days, meaning either they beat teams by 40 or they get absolutely torched by 40 themselves. Like somebody is going up in flames when Dame and Ja are on the court together. And I guess we'll find out nightly who that's going to be. If only they could play Malawach every game. He was so lost. He had no idea. He's not ready. He's not ready for this. Also though, giant human. I've never seen someone with that like sort of action figure body, but that big. I was like, like, were you crazy? Created out of adamantium. Like what the fuck is going on with this guy? Also, but maybe he learns how to play basketball eventually. Clearly does not help. Mark Williams already out with injury. Oh, so a guitar leaves this game with injury. So we're going to see a lot of Malawach one way or the other. All right. You want to talk about the Hawks? I would love to talk about the Hawks. A hundred and 32 points in their opening game win against the magic. They fucking lit it up. I mean, they look like the more confident polished team, the more determined team, like what they were trying to do, which makes sense. There's a lot of overhauling going on with Orlando's offense right now, which I actually thought the magic offense looked pretty good. The flow, the spacing, it was a lot more clean, but real like good news, bad news situation where the good news for Orlando was that the offense was spaced. Paolo looked as like uncompromising as I think I've ever seen him or certainly in a long time. Like, I don't think he forced a single shot all night, just a parade to the rim and the free throw line and exactly the way you want to see. But then the magic defense, which we've been wringing our hands about for weeks now, just was not locked in in the first half. It was like they had never seen the Hawks play before. And so like, they're not losing on matchups. They're losing on like movement and inattention and getting like diced up by like Dyson Daniels cutting into the paint and tearing them apart. And that's just kind of inexcusable even for a first game. Like I don't want to, I don't want to lean too hard into it because they did correct it in the second half. They got better defensively over the course of this game. Once Franz Wagner wasn't in Val trouble that helped too, but it's like you can't be a really good Eastern conference playoff team in this kind of field. If you're not going to bring it defensively with actual acuity and focus and, and like, if you're not going to care about this stuff and it's like, I don't want to, I don't want to wait one half all year for the magic to figure out they care about defense in addition to everything else. Yeah. I mean, there are some of these opening night games where you were looking at and you were like, okay, this is like baked. This is not a bug. It's a feature. This is baked into the way this roster is built. When you start talking about, I saw across all the games, there were moments of just off ball activity where, you know, we're supposed to switch or whatever. It is. There's some detail that in it, some of that gets down to like interpersonal stuff. Like dudes just haven't talked enough to each other. Like, Oh, we got to figure out how to do this. And you think those things are ready to go. And they, they start, you know, the bullets are flying and the lights are bright and they're, they're just miscommunications that can cause some of that stuff. I kind of am with you where I'm, I don't want to read into it too much with the magic because I don't think it's a personnel issue. I think that they, you know, I think that they can figure some of that stuff off some of that out in terms of like the off ball movement or, or activity. I was just so impressed with the Hawks overall though. They, they ran a nine man rotation, which is pretty thin even for opening night. And I liked every single guy getting minutes, even Jock Landau, who I have a soft spot for because he outplayed Deandre Aiton by like simply playing hard in a critical playoff game. Once he's kind of a big deal for them though, like going from Mo gay and Tony Bradley as your backup fives to Jock Landau is just like a much more functional player. I think actually made a bit of a difference. Yeah. I just, I just think their wing depth is just unparalleled. Like they just keep cycling through interesting lineups and like Fleming's is popping. Dyson Daniels looks good playing off. And they just all have that certain thing where like they bring it defensively. They could all shoot to varying degrees. And then like, they just are good willing passers and the ball is like flowing and whatnot. And I think Nikhil, like Nikhil was incredible 10 for 13 for, for three. I just have to wonder, like, is there another level to this guy? I think the flip side of that is, do they need guys like Nikhil to pop? Because you saw at the end there, it really wasn't, it was Jalen Johnson, Nikhil. Yeah. And it looked like they were getting looks for Nikhil, like the two big threes he hit at the end there. It was like a, a screen to get him a look. And then they did an inverted pick and roll in order to get Nikhil the ball. And so he was incredible. And perhaps like the Alexander family is just like producing another guy because he might just have another level with him. I mean, he's already kind of been some of that and yeah, you're right that it's transitioning from going from becoming one of the best, like off ball movement shooters in the league to, you know, who are you with the ball in your hands? Who are you as a pick and roll operator? When all of our off ball stuff gets like top locked and jammed up and like, who can, who can we be? And who can Nikhil be in those moments? I think he's showing just like glimpses of a little bit more. And frankly, in ways that maybe go above and beyond what Jalen Johnson is capable of right now. And they just really need something between the two of them. And I thought you could see kind of an acknowledgement in this game from the Hawks that they want to rely on CJ McCollum a bit less. Didn't play a ton of minutes, did start for them, did play relatively, but they finished with Aaron Wiggins on the floor instead of him in a way that I think makes a lot of sense. Like they need to grow past CJ. And the way that they do that is with Nikhil ascending. It's with some of these other thunder guys and other role players stepping into even bigger roles and playing better. But like, that's just going to be a natural part of the learning curve for them. Yes. CJ has been kind of an innings eater for them in the, in the developmental sense of the roster. So I think that makes sense. And there was an opening because it was such a desert of creators. I know you talked about all the, the wings that they had. They have guys that could orbit good offense, but they didn't really have any planetary pieces to kind of, you know, put those things into motion and get a little bit from that, from Wiggins. You get a little bit more development from, from Jalen. You want, you know, I swear, don't get Rob going on Nikhil Alexander Walker. I feel like that's one of the themes. I feel like Rob probably has like a printer. He has like a photo printed of, of Nikhil Alexander Walker that he just points at as he walks by every day. It's on the inside of my locker. Like, come on, the guy does, the guy, the guy deserves our love and respect. I just look, how can you not, how can you not love a story like his of going from like the very outskirts of the league, like almost having to go play in Europe for the rest of his career into playoff caliber role player into incredible found money for the jazz into now that you can count on to put up 20, 28 points in a game like this at the biggest possible moments. Oh. And by the way, he's also one of the best defenders on the floor while he does it. And frankly, in addition to the, to the Nikhil love, getting to see a version of the Hawks where two of Dyson, Daniels, Nikhil and Dort are on the floor at all times, basically throw Kings and Flemings in there too, whenever you want. I mean, it, it just fucking ruled. I'm going to love watching these guys tear up guards all season long. Jace Richardson just had like no shot initiating offense for the magic at some points in this game. Like they're going to devour some second units just because of that guard pressure alone. Yeah, it is a real, like they do have an abundance of the one thing everybody loves. It's just like, you just, you have multiple cakes just like in the fridge or something. But it is like, you need some like nutrition to balance that out there where it's just like, if you have like six wings who you, every team would want, but you need like a go-to score at the end or like a center with some credible size. Cause there were times where Paolo was just like, he's bigger than a concrete even was just like absolutely muscling up his way to the rim. And so that's where the issue starts to arise. I think like once we get past nine, like, can you go 11 deep? Whereas where, when the injuries, when they start to hit, are we digging through the crates a little bit too much? Is a team with size going to cause more problems for us than, than the magic ultimately did, but they looked good. I actually thought that's one area where Lou door showed. He can help them. And I think we'll really help them because he can play so much bigger than his height and usually does. And especially as he gets older into his career, he's going to be asked to do that more and more. He also pulls down like tough contested rebounds in a way that the Hawks really, really need. Like we saw them get just beasted inside by the Knicks and cat at various points. in that series. Once bigger teams realize that they can push on that more and more, it becomes really difficult. And you need guys like Lou Dort to get into the mix and somehow come out with the improbable rebound. And I think he does that better than any of their wings right now. All right. We're doing a lot of how can you not be romantic about basketball on this podcast. Do you want to flip now to a certain rookie just like going for the jugular immediately with Yaxo Lindenborg going at Luka last night? I fucking love this kid. I love him so much. I want a Yaxo tattoo. Don't just give me the jersey. I want the tattoo across my back at this point. Because you know what? Luka's amazing, right? There's so much that like the behind the back pass he had in that game. Like it was one of those like you just sniffed an onion. Like the tears are starting to flow. Just like, oh, what is going on here? But he fucking sucks. All right. I hate watching Luka. He is such an asshole about everything. He cries so much to the refs. Just like finally a guy just shows up and be like, like, you know what? Just stop it. Just play basketball. Stop complaining all the time and trying to get calls all the time. Like, hell yeah, Yaxo. Man. Get it off your chest. They also got fucking. I was about to say. Start the TikTok camera. Yaxo, I think, acquitted himself actually quite well as a rookie guarding one-on-one Luka could do. Like did quite well for himself. But to get up on that podium and say, you know what? Basketball isn't a one-on-one game, but you can't fucking score on me in a game where Luka just lit your whole team on fire. Come on, come on. There's some, I have some notes. Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of, I've been accused of, of participating in the myth-making of Luka and I've enjoyed his career. He scratches a lot of my basketball sensibilities. I just love watching the guy play, but it is a, there's another compartment to it that I'm not going to go to JV's link. It frustrates me to watch him manipulate. Heavy quotes, manipulate a game with his words, but Yaxo did. Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of with Yaxo too. And I, I think that, uh, I was making this point on Twitter that I kind of feel like they are made for each other in that Luka is the guy who can't not complain if every little detail of a basketball game, is it to his exact unrealistic? I want to emphasize expectation and Yaxo on the flip side of that is a guy who can't not say something. Yes, he just is. He's going to say something. So when those two meet each other, um, is it a straight up rivalry where they're going to just be throwing blows back and forth? No, Yaxo don't got it like that, but I rewatched all the possessions and he did a pretty good job. I will say that he needs to be minded of like, just stopping Luka from scoring is not the entire battle. He needs to contest some of the passes. He needs to do some of the other things that go and maybe he'll figure those things out. Like you said, the warriors did get, uh, dicked also. And it was kind of sad, but it was deeply, deeply funny to watch those guys go at it. And I think we're going to get a lot of these with Yaxo. I think we are going to get a lot of them. I just think like that dude just punched his ticket to getting his team blown out by 20 plus every time they play Luka for basically the rest of his career. Like it's right. Part of snarls and he gets part of knowing your personnel is knowing like this is one of the guys when you talk shit to him, he goes supernova on you for the foreseeable future. And it's like, I get how I want rookies to come. And have a backbone and show some fight and like be tenacious in the way that Yaxal is. But like, I don't think this is going to go well for him. Right. On the flip side, maybe Luka doesn't need a supervillain in order to get up for these situations. Just like just do a normal dominant performance and things might go well. But you say that as somebody who needs lots of supervillains, you know, you have foils in your own life. No, I've got a whole doggy daycare in me, brother. I'm just like, I'm ready to snarl at any point. No, I just. I just love that from a rookie. Also, OK, last pot shot at Luka. OK, you take out an ad in the L.A. Times being like, hey, Lakers fans, we're going to give it our all this year. It's like you have you have to have beat writers tweet that out in order for people to see. Like, why is his playbook for PR from like 1995 where he's doing men's health and putting ads in newspapers? I like a full page spread. It's it's nice. I like it. It's like, yeah. I just feel like it's like it's symbolic more than it is an actual thing that's going to reach people. Like everyone had to tweet about it in order to see it in the first place. What's wrong with symbolism? You know, I saw I saw it. Look, I saw responses from a lot of Lakers fans, including our guy, Jomi Adeneron. Like, seem like it put a battery in their back a little bit. They're ready to run through a wall for Luka now, even though you may not be just. Yeah. Jomi needed motivation to stay. I was going to say it takes Lakers fans a lot to really really needed a push. Yeah. But the Warriors are bleak. Holy shit. Like. It's bad outside of Steph making miracles happen earlier in that game. There's just nowhere else to turn to. There was a point. I think Nick Friedel tweeted this where it's like, oh, they can't really do anything without. They really need pods. Pods is the guy that they really need. And I was like, oh, we're at that point already. Yeah. Like, we need pods to save us. And Warriors a lot like the ringer. We need pods. Got to have pods. Yeah. Well, since our last podcast, we learned that Chris Hapsworth Zingas may never play basketball again. So, like, very weird, sad situation happening around. Chris Hapsworth right now. The Warriors just gave him a pretty decent sized contract that has some, like, non-guaranteed stuff at the end. I assume because they wanted to keep their trade options open. But, like, are they literally ever going to actually do that? This is a team that is, like, danced around the, like, oh, we want to have the optionality. We want to have the optionality. I want to say their word, not ours. In this case, I just I would like for the Warriors to do stuff to maximize what is left of Steph Curry's basketball life. And I just feel more and more doubtful every day that they will actually do it. It's a real new spin. On the walking trade chip idea where it's just he didn't even get onto the court in order to play. So he's quite literally a walking trade ship for this team. It's just I think this could be quite bad unless they flip him for something in the next couple of weeks here. Any other games we want to hear? We didn't talk about Tyrese Halliburton's return, Kyle. I was going to say, I don't want to make too much light of poor Zingas' health. Like, get healthy, man. I mean, that fucking is terrible. Yeah. It's awful. It's an awful circumstance. Terrible for it. He seems extremely frustrated by it. Yeah. Going to the Halliburton thing. I guess we kind of have had this this trend in the first few days of the of the season where it's like I was watching Tatum and I was kind of like Tatum just seems off to me and his legs, you know, naturally towards Achilles. That's going to be the case. But watching Halliburton, I'd be curious to get your all's take on this, too. He looked in rhythm to me throughout this game. Now, it kind of went back and forth. You know, the Pacers are figuring. Figuring out how to play with the new guy at the center of what they're doing. Overall, I thought he looked like Tyrese Halliburton to me in the way that he was manipulating the game. I honestly kind of wonder if their ceiling with Zubach. I came away wondering if their offensive ceiling with Zubach could actually be higher because in terms of getting his legs under him, I thought Tyrese Halliburton looked like Tyrese Halliburton in a really encouraging way. Well, especially when you think back to the best versions of the Pacers that we saw. On that finals run. Yeah, there was awesome stuff with Halliburton and Pascal and the ball moving. But like Miles Turner was pretty strictly a spacer, maybe occasionally step in and hit a mid-range jumper. But like you started to see, especially in crunch time of this game, which was unexpectedly close, but close. The like tic-tac-toe Halliburton Pascal pick and roll into like a lob to Zubach in the dunker. And it's like this is just going to be there for them basically anytime they want to dig into it. And that's with suboptimal spacing with guys on the wing out. That's with them kind of like playing with their food a little bit. But anytime they want to, they can pick your weakest defender on the floor, go at him with ball screen after ball screen after ball screen, put them in tons of action, ghost and otherwise. And if you're Zion Williamson or whoever, you just have to find ways to keep up with it. And I think they're going to be able to pull levers in lots of interesting ways. And they're really only beginning to figure out which ones to do a zoo. I wonder if there is something to just simply taking all of last year off, whereas Tatum rushed his way back. And we all made this whole thing about him, like overcoming the odds and like getting the surgery early and whatnot. It's hard to tell because everybody's body is different and the human body is a mystery to begin with. But like he took the year off and Dame has also talked about taking the year off and how much it helped him just feel comfortable that he didn't have to worry about like a slip here and there playing through pain when he didn't want to different circumstance later in his career. But it did feel like Halliburton, especially once he got going toward the end there, like he really felt the energy like like he was really. Lathered up like you saw him just kind of like click in, especially with Siakam, him and Siakam going pick and roll was just like, let's fucking go. And so it just maybe it's just easier to get back into it if you don't have in the back of your mind some of the worries about these things compounding. I think it's so unique with Achilles injuries, too, where, of course, if you have an ACL, if you have a torn pectoral, like you're going to be tentative to do stuff if you're coming off one of these other injuries. But like an Achilles specifically saps your ability to do anything explosive. It's like putting that nagging. Thought of the back of your mind whenever you push off in any way whatsoever. And so taking a professional athlete who is like all quick twitch at a certain level and asking them to compensate to that reality, it is, I think, a bear of a rehab process to go through to begin with psychologically in addition to physically. And then to get back on the court and you have to do all of that kind of all over again in terms of figuring out who you can be during this intermediate stage, figuring out how confident you can be to be your fullest self, like the more time you can give yourself, I think, is invaluable. And it's unfortunate that some guys like, You know, I don't want to Jason Tatum's an adult making his own adult decisions, but like feeling like you want to get back faster is a very understandable impulse and yet also might not be the best impulse for everybody. And may lead to guys who are in weird, compromised, intermediate states in the meantime as they try to find their way through all this. Yeah, I don't really understand the like pride in getting back soon. And I kind of felt like I could just kind of feel in the discourse where people were like, he's coming back. Oh, like how exciting it was. It was like, I just don't think that there are any extra points to be earned in that. Like take the 500 days. That's the number I've heard from like sports medicine. People have just like take that extra time because I never tore my Achilles. I've torn my ACL. And I can say that like there's a difference between getting back when you're kind of playing and kind of friendly activity or you're just running, you know, like kind of stuff. And when you're playing against people, you don't know when you're in traffic. That mental hurdle, I know just for me, was very difficult. I never played in the NBA, but I would say mentally. It probably translates of just that trust. It does kind of eat into some of your processing and your comfort when you're in traffic. But Rob, you mentioned this over text. I think the Siakam thing, like, dude, down the stretch of that game, Zion was just in shambles. His head was spinning in circles like their very last play of the game. I thought it was pretty embarrassing, like fears and Zion both taking step backs like with time. I don't know what was going on there, but that that offense was really, really humming. But Siakam was just picking them apart on the floor like they couldn't do anything with him. It's a real full scale Zion performance where it's just like he's just putting up and making threes. Now it's just like, oh, I guess he'll just do whatever he wants because he's that level of talent. But then when the game gets down to crunch time, it's just like, where's the nuance in order to win basketball games? It's just like it goes completely out the window. Yeah, I just don't think he has that in his game. And Pascal is a particularly tough point of contrast for him. A guy who has like all these skills, all these tools, really resourceful. And then Zion just feels like a blunt instrument who is undeniable in some ways, but also like does not give you any way to change your plan of attack as you go. They're really opposite developmental stories. Siakam just climbing, getting better, adding things. Has Zion gotten better in the past five years? I can't imagine at what he's actually over the course of his career, just kind of flip modes in like pretty profound ways where it's just like, oh, well, but it's playing that point guard. Like even that was like a pretty dramatic. Like step in a certain direction. And now, like you said, he's always been kind of capable of that, though, like facilitating and driving. That's probably the best way to put it. He's capable of a lot, but in terms of like a nuanced, like successful winning basketball situation, probably not. I think he's just so talented. It's just finding uses for that, especially considering the chaos that swirls around him. I just I don't know. It's just really tough with him. The question of what Zion has improved in reminded me I saw I was reminded this week of an Andre Drummond tweet. From like 2017, that was being recirculated where someone asked him, like, can anyone tell me something Andre Drummond has improved on in his career? And Andre Drummond himself responded, my faith in Christ. It's like, you know what? We are. I'm not trying to laugh at that. We all have things to fall back on. You know, we're all complete people. Don't don't just judge us by our free throw percentage. You say that, but it looked like it worked on opening night. Sure did. At least for the first, you know, that's any other notes from the past day? Plus the games. We were talking. We talked a lot about perfectly awful matchups. We talked about how the Blazers for the sun. So the Grizzlies for the I don't know. We're making excuses. The heat, the wolves. We said that over and over and over again. I feel like the Raptors were probably the worst possible matchup for the Bulls who might lead the league in turnovers this year. The Chicago Bulls. It was just a ugly basketball game. Kawhi didn't even play that well. His hair was throwing me off. I hadn't seen his hair. That was that was an adjustment for me. I was like, who is that guy? I got the cornrows. He's just just airing it out a little bit. It's kind of a bush, kind of a hedge thing. It's like it's very straight up. Sure. It's yeah. Tree like. It's not tight. It's just, you know, I don't know. I think it's more shrub than tree, though. Kind of shrubby. Yeah. Also, Josh Giddy low key. Just like let people know, by the way, I have a wrist injury. We haven't been talking about that may be lingering over the course of this entire year. So I'm sure. I'm sure that'll be super fun for the Bulls. That'll help with the turnovers for sure. Yeah. Jalen Smith. Pretty good. I dig a good player. Really? Yeah. He needs he needs a place on a contender by the end of the year. I think he could really help some teams as a second unit big. All right. Anything else you guys want to hit here? I mean, any like any like 11th man that you need to highlight? Because now would be the time. I mean, I think I already did enough, haven't I? There's been a few of them dotted in here. Look, there will be plenty of time for all of the 11th. And 12th men over the course of the season. Look, this is the thrilling beginning of the season. Just wait until some of these guys. Wait till Taylor Hendricks gets in there. Wait till OMAX Prosper gets in there. Like we're only at the beginning of truly understanding the depths of our depravity on this podcast. That's what everyone's been looking forward to this NBA season. Rockets destroyed the Mavs. That game was not that game was not even 18. No, it was not that close. That was a that was a rough one. Clippers by 25. Why? Wogler played well. A cuff did not play well. Yeah. Just asking for a friend like when is too soon to start taking an eight cuff victory lap? Like what is the responsible amount of time to allow him to stay in as a pro? I'm staying quiet. I don't. I'm just going to stay quiet for a while. Don't crow too soon. I'm crowing. Game one. Game one is too soon. I'm not crowing. I'm just I don't point it out there that like, look, some of us are a little skeptical. That's all. Let's let the data come in. I didn't get a chance to watch. I haven't watched the Clippers game yet, but I have to say do without the we won one for the Gippers speech from Tyloo after the fact, like maybe don't commit one of the biggest cases of cap circumvention in sports history. How did you feel about them trying to lure fans to the arena by offering free parking for their home opener? How does how does that sit with you? Parking should be free anyway, for God's right. Come on. What are we doing? Speaking of which, our guy Tom Dundon, who, by the way, did not get shown on the Jumbotron for his. First that old game. That old ass full season. Well, that Jumbotron so old, it's probably not. It's in like 360 P. You can't even. Oh, did they replace it? OK, they replaced it last year. Is that a thing we expect? Like a new owner should get like a little moment. I think so. I think if like, you know, if you're bringing in new stuff, like trying to get the fans excited about something, here's a new guy who bring new energy to the team. Like I'm sure Matt should be like forced them to put on him on the Jumbotron several times. And to move the team several times. Well, I could understand how we got. I think I think that is that is the case. I don't think we will be seeing our guy Tommy D on the Jumbotron at all because he will get a boo that rivals the pop that Dame got when he started things off last game. But if speaking of parking, Dame puts his arm around Dundon curveball, I don't think this is my guy. They did like a Oregonian poll, like the Oregonian newspaper did a poll of like his approval rating. And I think it was like at seven percent. Wow. I mean, I can't say he's done literally anything to be higher than that, other than just like if you want to give a guy a fair shake who's still relatively new. OK, well, this is why I brought it up, though. We used to park close enough to where it was like, you know, you just go go over the road. It's like a two to three minute walk in order to get from the parking to the arena. They moved everyone, including the ushers, some of whom are older to the convention center, which is at least a 10 minute walk. And they did so because they wanted to sell parking for the lot that we previously were in. Someone took a video of how many cars were in that lot during the game. There was maybe four. So I just I just want to say I saw what you did there, which is you very cleverly turn this from a media objection to I'm worried about the older usher. He won't bet in there. That was seamless and beautiful. And I just I have. It's not me looking out for the elderly and it's a big slick. I mean, I'm happy to get my my steps in making the hike, but it's a it's a real journey. And like, I guarantee when it gets colder, when it gets rainier, some shit is going to happen. And it's all because this guy was trying to make a couple of bucks on parking. Well, I mean, look, if this is a city where DeAndre Aiden can get iced into his neighborhood, like I'm scared to think of what could happen to our beloved media members as they walk from their cars to the arena. Now, especially our veterans of war are making their way across. All right, let's wrap it there. We'll be back on Monday with some action from over the weekend. I love the first weekend. Do you guys have any like special like little things that you guys do? Because every Friday of opening weekend, I always get the same meal. What do you get? What is it from? From the Cheesecake Factory? What are we getting fettuccine? Alfredo, what are we doing? No, it's the I think it's like a Cajun pasta situation, but an NBA staple. The NBA players, at least historically, have loved the Cajun pasta. Yeah, I think that's the thing. I don't I think people are too young to even get the joke, which was when I first started covering the league, there was a whole running gag, I think, driven mostly by Henry Abbott that NBA players, NBA personnel love the Cheesecake Factory. It's like number one on the restaurant list because. It was always open late and a bunch of 20 old knew that they can get something from the Bible length menu that they have. And so it was a running gag. And so in honor of that, every start of the season, I get some Cheesecake Factory. Also, Cheesecake Factory rules, I would take a ad deal. Someone tried to convince me recently that every item in that Bible length menu at the Cheesecake Factory is scratch made in the Cheesecake Factory kitchen. And I'm sure that there is some PR spin out there or like a 10 minute YouTube documentary that explains that to be true. Are we trying to get the sponsorship, Rob? Because you're zagging. Well, yeah, what I'm saying is like, like, fuck it is. I just simply refuse to believe that every item on that menu, that every like Southwest egg roll situation in that menu is scratch made. I, I just, I, I cannot believe it. And it's all Michelin star chefs out there. I think Dave Chang started at the Cheesecake Factory, actually. Did he really? No, I don't think so. The Cajun pasta situation is a great, that's a great jam band name for you. All right. Why don't we wrap it there? Back on Monday, then live show on Tuesday. That episode will go up on Thursday, but enjoy the basketball over this weekend. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. Thank you to Stefan Anderson. We will talk to you next time. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Fall is here and Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals, seasonal treats, and easy entertaining. Elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone-in beef short ribs or New York strip steaks with no added growth hormones or antibiotics. And as the fall evenings draw in, why not get ahead of cold season with immunity shots, herbal teas, lozenges, and supplements. Make sure you look for sales throughout the year. month. Shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Market.