Transcript of Burning NBA Questions and a “Holy Crap, Charlotte!!!” Deep Dive With Zach Lowe

Unsere Empfehlung für deinen Podcast: Frisches Obst und Knackiges Gemüse von Aldi. Immer gut, immer günstig, immer vielfältig. Kurz gesagt: Frische für alle. Zum Aldi Preis: Diese Woche: Tafeltrauben, 650 Gramm für nur 2,99 Euro oder Kulturheidelbeeren, 125 Gramm für nur 1,39 Euro in deiner Aldi Nordfiliale. Und weiter geht's. Einfach lauschen und genießen. Aldi. Gutes für alle.

It's the Bill Simmons podcast. We are live Sunday night on Netflix. Zack Lo is here on Netflix tomorrow, Zack Lo. There's going to be a live rewatchables because it's CR month. Chris Ryan finally got his own month. We're doing Sicario Live, 6: 00 PM ET on Netflix. When you watch Sicario multiple times in the same weekend, it definitely sets the mood. I don't know what mood it is, but I was in a really frisky mood for the Sixers Celtics It turned out to be the Kata game. But I really just want to talk about the lady getting kicked in the head on the Viji Edge cone play. It brings in a lot of courtside questions. The people that bring little six-year-old kids to sit courtside thinking nothing could ever happen. This, to me, is a PSA video now.

I mean, it's crazy that someone got injured worse in this sidelet incident than when the Hornets and the Pistons had a brawl that almost spilled into the second row of the stands and everyone was fine. And this poor lady, I think they said her name was Christine or something. I mean, she got booted and she's still sitting there. She's bleeding. Of course, I was like, No, I'm good. I'm going to stay in the game. You got to admire it, but you got to head on a swivel at all times.

She looked like one of the Canadian Olympic hockey players just trying to make it to the handshake line. Huge bruise on the side of the face. I couldn't tell if she was looking at the player, if she was looking away and didn't see it, but then the foot ricocheted late, which I don't know how you could predict, but I've been saying this It took forever. For some reason, it took forever in baseball games with foul balls for us to get really concerned about people along the third base side, first base side, the line drives. Took a couple of people just getting nailed to be like, Oh, we should probably put a net up. I still feel like with courtside, we're just playing with fire because you can go to any game and you can see who's sitting there. There's always one person who's too old and one person who's too young sitting those seats. It's always in that area, three-point line extended where people are trying to either running out or they're trying to save a loose ball and they just go flying in there full speed.

Yeah, the baseline seats are far enough back. Those are your safest Courtside seats. The sideline seats, you're on the floor and you're right. It could happen at any moment and you got to be ready. I've always been a hardliner about baseball in the cell phone age or even the pre-cell phone age. If you get hit because you're not paying attention, if you suffer traumatic brain injury, I'll feel bad for you, but you're at the game. The tickets say it on the back. Yeah, pay attention. Pay attention. I'm teaching my daughter that now, and she's a product of the TikTok cell phone age. She doesn't have a phone yet. But if we're going to go to baseball games, you got to be ready at all times.

You can see it when you go to baseball games. Just look around in the fourth ending and see how many people are like this, which is basically why they had to put the nets up. Six or Celtics. I just want to say these NBC Sunday Night games, I think They have accomplished their early objective, which is to make it feel like a bigger game. If they show the pregame warmups, they have Lenny Kravitz, they have the John Tesh song, the studio, the crew is there on the court, and it does feel like a bigger game. I do like what they've done, and I think it was a good idea. So that's one of the few nice things I'll say about all the weird network schedule stuff we have, because I never know what channel is on what game at any time. Just when I was getting used to the Fridays, that flipped, and now it's like ESPNs on Friday. I never know where the games are, but I do like this.

Somehow the ratings are skyrocketing up, even though people say they can't find where the game is. I don't even know how to measure ratings really anymore. But I agree with you. The Sunday Night MBC stuff is good. The song, it's always good to hear Roundball Rock. I like Tesh's appearance at the All-Star Game. He was bouncing the fake ball in tune with the drum line. That was good. That was great. Yeah, it felt like a big game tonight.

Yeah, we didn't get Embiid.

No.

Tatum, it feels like it's going to be Friday. Dallas. Okay. That's what... All signs are pointing to Friday, Dallas. I was wondering if it would be this weekend, but by Friday, I think it was not going to be this weekend.

That's an NBC game as well, is it not?

Might be.

I think they were talking about that game at the end, and obviously, they have this Tatum rehab docu thing they were doing.

I have a couple more notes from this game. Vj Max, I'm just automatic veto. I don't like it.

Thank you. I thought I was the only one. It's bad. I hated it from the beginning, and I sabotaged probably any deal we'll ever get from T. J. Max because I hate it because I hate going into T. J. Max. I say this all the time. If you want to buy a fake gold-plated lamp in the shape of a cat, T. J. Max has you covered. If you want to buy something useful, T. J. Max is not for you.

I did a whole thing. Kellermann was on my pod Thursday, and I had a mailback question about nicknames, which really peaked in the '70s, '80s, and maybe even early '90s, and now we're just flailing. And we use initials and acronyms for the most part. Then occasionally, when people try to push something, it's something just hacky like VJ Max. I just think we need to go back to your onboard.

This is making me feel so much better because the NBC people say, I like VJ Max. That's a good one. I'm like, It is? I guess I'm the only one. No, I'm I'm not. I'm not the only one. You're never alone.

Usually, the group player nickname things. Tmc with the Warriors in the early '90s. That worked, but it was also the first initial of each guy's name, and it was organic, and I liked it. The J's, I think, even though that's not technically a nickname, but Jalen and Jason calling the J's. I'm not calling VJ Max, VJ Max ever.

No, I feel stupid saying it. I'll tell you, can I just give you my favorite nickname of all time in the history of sports, team or player, it trumps all categories.

What is it?

This is going to be right up your alley. Five Slamma Jamma. It's number one on the nickname scale.

Yeah, and think about that. That was 43 years ago. We really peaked. We were just better at nicknames way back when, which is what I was talking to Max about when we had the Clyde the Glide and those names. We just had it all figured out. I don't know what happened. This was the Kata game. I know. I'm sorry. Ironic because my dad took my daughter, and my daughter has been the biggest Kata fan for his entire Celtic career because he knows enough about basketball to follow what's going on, but not enough about basketball to understand the league and how the players and who's worth what. She's been asking for three years, why don't they play Kata? Isn't that doesn't he have everything that a center would have? When he took off this year for the Celtics, she was like, I was telling you. It was like her one win. She sounds like me taking credit.

What a win for Zoe Simmons.

Zoe Simmons is there today with the hat on thinking There might be a dark chance Tatum comes out of the tunnel because that's her favorite player. But then her other favorite part, Kata, became the Kata game. This was the 39th pick in the 2001 draft by your favorite, the Sacramento Kings. They did it again. They just had a prototypical center who is really good with his hands up, who's coordinated, who plays hard, who rebounds, who gets better basically every month. And they're just like, We're good. Take a hike.

Well, they found him again in Dylan Cardwell. We're doing Dylan Cardwell deep cuts already in the podcast. So hang on to Dylan Cardwell. Try Sacramento. Just free advice. If you have a good player, try to keep the player on your team. It's a free tip. Just try it. Try it out in this next era of King's basketball.

Well, so Kata, as a playoff guy, which I just don't think they counted on him like they do now. You think about some of the teams that the Celtics are going to play in the playoffs, potentially. Bigger teams, guys like Duren, the guys the Knicks have, Jared Allen and Moby on the Cavs. They're actually going to really, really need him. You have this combined with the Tatum comeback, which I have a stealth conspiracy that they're using Schyermann as a Tatum proxy. Schyermann's minutes are way up the last six weeks. He's playing well. He's doing well on defense, and they're using him a little like how they I would use Tatum if his legs were back. Some of the stuff they're running offensively and some of the ways they're using Schyermann, I feel like is what they're going to end up with Tatum. Specifically, they like having them in that left corner when Jalen and White are doing the little at the top stuff. Kata sets a pick, somebody else comes, there's a little action. Shireman's always open that left corner, and I feel like that's going to be a Tatum spot. I think they're going to be very careful with how they use him.

Probably stagger the minutes with Jalen, but when you think about it, because we're close now. What does a Tatum come back look like for you? Give me your ceiling basement outcomes for this.

Cealing is, he comes back, gets 10 to 12 games under his belt in a regular season, so the playoffs are not zero to 100 right away. Minutes-wise, I don't know. Let's just say 20 to 25 minutes. Let's be conservative and say he's not going to start playing 35 minutes a game, even if he plays a decreased role compared to what he used to play. Let's say 20, 25 minutes, not Not quite role player, but not Jason Tatum. And then you said it, when Jalen sits, they've been awesome, by the way, when Jalen is on the bench this whole season. They were awesome again today when Jalen Brown is on the bench. But they do lose. They become almost a completely system team. The system has worked really well. The high screens, all the different screen and roll combinations, the shooting all around it. But they do lose the bully ball. If everything comes to a halt with five seconds left in the shot clock, can we mismatch on? Can we do something? He He's just tall enough that even if he can't power his way to the rim the way he peak Jason Tatum does or blow by everybody the way he does, he can still be Jason Tatum and shoot over the 6'4 guard that switched on to him at the end of the shot clock.

And that just makes your team better. It's just another guy slicing into... I mean, it's hard to say taking some of the Gonzales minutes and the Hauser minutes and the Walsh minutes because all those guys are playing really well. But just Jason Tatum taking a piece of each of those guys' minutes and all the non-Jaila minutes, I just see no downside to it at all for them.

We feel the same. I feel like it's going to be Shierman the minutes that he takes.

Yeah, either just throw him into the same bucket.

And he's not going to be worse than Shierman. I would say 18 to 24 minutes, probably. Maybe you're looking at nine minutes stretches in each half or six and five in each half or something like that. Shierman, his minutes per game in February was 24. 3 three, which I thought was interesting because that's right around where I think Tatum is going to be. There's going to be... Simons was out, so some minutes got shared. Then they have to figure out this Vusovitch thing because he looked really awful in a couple of those road trip games. And then Friday against Brooklyn, who usually plays the Celtics well, just for the record. And the Celtics had one of the great offensive performances in the history of the sport. So that was interesting. But Vucevic looked good in that game. It didn't look as good today. I just think at age 35, you're a longtime Vucevic watcher. Age 35, he's just going to be hit or miss. You're going to know probably in the second quarter each game, Oh, are we getting him today? Oh, we're not? Okay, we'll do this instead.

Well, I think the Kata discussion is really also about Vucevic in that this is an overdue and transition for him into a backup center role, which he is fine for because there are just going to be some matchups where the A-team offense on the other team is just too fast and too dynamic for him. But can you spot him 14 to 18 bench minutes when the best offense player on the other team is on the floor and he can just bang on the glass and get rebounds and box out? And tonight was 11 points, 12 rebounds. Didn't kill you on defense. Not the most dynamic offensive team outside of Maxi and Edgecom, which is a problem for him. But I think this is like he was just overmatched as a starting center in his mid to late 30s. And this is a totally fine role for him. And you mentioned all the Giants that they're going to go through. I really think those Detroit games, and particularly the one in Detroit where the Pistons beat them up. Maybe it was in Boston. I can't remember. I think they've lost in both places. I think those games really freak the Celtics out a little bit.

Like, oh, my God, this team is A, for real, and B, just massive and strong compared to us in a way that we are not quite built to play against.

I agree. It's so funny that you can't really survive in the play-ups anymore unless you can have size. You need everything, man. You have no chance. You have OKC, you have Denver, you have Minnesota, you have all the teams in the East we You're not getting away with the 2015 Warriors type of, Let's go small. We'll play. Those days are over. This Tatum Come Back, one thing that I haven't heard anyone talk about that I realized today, the rarity of somebody coming back this late in the season that's also being counted on on a team that has a chance to make the finals. I went through all the history trying to figure out how many times this has happened. I really could only find Jordan with the baseball comeback in '95. Magic Johnson got hurt in 1981. He hurt his knee. He missed like 40 games. He missed over half the season, his second season. They came back, they lost a round one. Then Wilt Chamberlain only played 12 games in the regular season in the '69, '70, came back for the playoffs in the Wills Reid playoffs. There might have been a couple of others, but I really racked my brain.

This is really unusual. Normally, how it goes is Jamal Murray getting hurt, missing the rest of the season, coming back and just not being ready in time for the playoffs and the team punting on it. We've never really seen this. It's one of the rare things in sports where I have no idea how it plays out. If you give me any set of alternatives for it? And I just don't know.

I mean, it could not go well, and they could decide midway through, we're actually going to cut your minutes. I don't suspect that's going to happen just because he's so good and he appears to be ready. But anything could happen. There was the Jordan And broken foot season, too, but they weren't a contender that year.

But they weren't good, though. Yeah. They were a fairly play-off thing.

Most of the time, I think back to KG in 2009 when there was this will he, won't he thing from that weird near-ear injury. Remember Jamir Nelson that same year got hurt of the playoffs and Rafe Raulson started, and it was like, will he, won't he? That's usually what it is. And it is a trickier reintegration process for those kinds of players. So yeah, this is a weird one.

I can't remember Stoudemire 20 years ago in the '06s Suns. I can't remember if he was lingering for a comeback or not.

I'd have to read seven seconds or less. He did not come back, I don't believe, in the play.

He didn't come back, but I didn't know if it was like they had their fingers crossed. Well, we'll see what happens. This is going to be a very interesting South next week because they have Milwaukee tomorrow night, and I think they're going to arrest everybody and hope Milwaukee has one of those just terrible Milwaukee games like they had today. Charlotte on Wednesday, who we're going to talk about later. We're doing a Charlotte. The deep dive, we did Kawhi last week. We're doing a deep dive on Charlotte this week. Friday, Dallas, Cooper flag homecoming. The entire state of Maine is going to be there, hopefully he plays. Then I think they play against Sunday. I want to talk about Maxie quick because I was thinking about him today. The best picks after pick 20 He's the 21st pick in 2020. How rare it is to get somebody that you've drafted for yourself who has a chance to be an All-MBA guy, which I think we both think he's probably at least second team. Desmond Bain in that same draft was 30. Brunson was 33 for Dallas, but ended up on the next before he became a guy.

Ananobi on Toronto, 23. D. White was 29. Siakam, 27. Then, of course, Jokuj, 41, Gober, 27. Draymond, 35, Middleton, 39, and Butler, 30. Those are all the guys from the last 15 years that after pick 20, became guys. And he has a chance to be a second-team All-MBA. The Sixers have loved him this whole time. But I just think what he's doing is really special this year. He's going to play the most minutes in the most games at the guard position in 10 years is what he's on pace. The last guy was James Harden, 82 games, 38. 1 a game in 2016. Guards don't do this anymore. Play this many minutes, have this much of a burden, and they rise and follow them. He wasn't very good tonight, but he also kept a minute. Did you ever think he would be this guy?

No. I think he is going to make an all-NBA team this year. I had him third team when I just did my blink test, look at the team. It's a crowded field, even with the health issues. But I think he should make an All-MBA team. I don't think anyone thought he would be an All-MBA player. That's why he was picked 21st. Remember, they only got him because Mike Muscala hit a bunch of shots in an Oklahoma City game that flipped the pick to Philadelphia's way.

No, I'm saying after we knew he was good.

Oh.

Did you think he was going to be this good? Because there became a point, especially when Harden was still there, was like, wow, they really hit this maxi pick. He's good. Did you think he was going to be this good?

Yeah, I can't say that I expected 30 a game on good efficiency. Me neither. I think what proves that that was probably the consensus is he's been in the most improved player conversation for the last four years. Every year, people are like, Again? I guess we got to put him up for this award again. Yeah.

Some of the stuff he does is just so unique to him. He's got a floater basically from the foul line that he shoots running straight like a shot put. I don't know anybody else who has that shot. The change of speed stuff he has. The teams are so terrified of him now. They get a defensive rebound and he has the ball in the backcourt. You could see it's almost like football, like when Tyree kills in motion, you can see everybody scrambling around. But he's a really special player. They have this Embiid. Embiid now has this oblique injury, too. And Maxi's talked about his frustration with how they're basically these two separate teams. I think people are wondering, is this a playoff team you don't want to see in the playoff? When they get Paul George back in Embiid. I think the style thing is going to kill them ultimately in a series because I don't think they know who they are. But long term, as a combo, we don't call them VJ Max, Edgecom and Maxi. It's about as good as it gets for a young combo, I think. They're in great shape. The question for me is, will Darryl Mory be around to see it?

Will he be around to see it through? Who knows?

I mean, you'd have to. We're only 60 games in, and they are clinging to the sixth seed. The race for 6 in the East has gotten pretty spicy, and the whole 7 to 10 thing is a mess. But 60 games in, you'd have to count this season as a success for Philadelphia, I think, given Embiid has been in and out of the lineup in this PG thing. I mean, I don't know how you evaluate who's at fault for all the mishaps that continue to befall this franchise. But this is better than I thought there would be after 60 games given. And they haven't had great health luck by any stretch. No.

What was it? 42 was the over-under? Something like- It was the one that really flummox you, me, and house about- We didn't know what to do. You could have said 20 wins either way. Yeah, you're right. With Paul George basically missing, when you include the injuries at the start of the air and the suspension, he's going to miss over half the season. Beats had three separate injuries. They've gotten more from Edgecombe than they... I really like the roll guys. I think that Bona is a legitimate rotation guy who I could see in a playoff If that's the 2-7 matchup, they match up pretty... They're very comfortable against Boston. Even today, all of a sudden, that game was six, and they just had these little runs against Boston. I think they like going against Jalen. They have guys to throw at him. They like going against the Boston guards. They did a good job on Pritcher today. But I just think without this size, it's not going to happen. Nick Spurs was the other really interesting one today, which we both watched. It was the first time Spurs looked like crap in a while. Their win-street then.

It was also the first time the Knicks, really, you could see the full whatever the blueprint was as they were heading in the trade deadline. Not going to overreact because the Knicks had some bad losses over the last couple of weeks. But did you learn anything from that game?

I thought it was... First of all, I guess I learned that Mohamed Diawara is going to shoot like 23s in a game at some point this season. I actually think he's pretty good, and he's earned himself a look in their postseason rotation. To me, that game, I mean, a lot of Knicks played well in that game. That was a Josh Hart game. They're going to see this strategy over and over again where teams put their centers, their rim protectors on Josh Hart, and just ignore him and put wing players on Kat. My God, Stefan Castle goes from guarding Kat to guarding Brunson when Kat goes out of the game. It's like, this guy is in his second year, and this is what he's doing on defense, let alone the offense. That's crazy. But Josh Hart, it was a little funky to start with. And I think the Knicks leaned into, if you're going to ignore Josh Hart, we're actually going to bring him up into the action, even though Wemby's on him. And that means we're bringing Wemby into the action. And he's this terrifying alien with a million foot wingspan. And they made the most out of it.

He scored on the pick and roll. He got open shots for Brunson. He did the Drayman thing, which I think they're going to need to do more if teams treat him like this, which is, if you're ignoring me, swing the ball back to me. I'll run a handoff for Mikael Bridges, who hit a three out of this. Landry Schamek had a good three out of it. And I looked it up on the tracking data. It was the most ball screens Josh Hart has set in any game this season was in this game. And I remember talking to a head coach maybe two months ago, whose team was in New York to play the Knicks. We sat down and we were having coffee, and I was like, So are you going to put your center on blah, blah? You're going to do the heart thing probably, right? That's what the matchups make sense for you. Are you going to put your center on heart? He's like, I don't know, man. Josh Hart feels like he solved that one. He's heard a lot of teams by making open threes and doing Josh Hart things and crashing the glass.

I'm afraid to do it, and he didn't do it. I think the Knicks won the game. But that conversation stuck in my head is like, this is how a team think about game planning for the Knicks. It really starts with towns and heart. The Knicks felt like today they hit a gear with that that they had not hit this season.

Also helped San Antonio, 26. 5% from three. You could say this about It's just about any team. But yeah, the San Antonio clunker is a little unsustainable. It's also the way to beat OKC. Hey, could you guys miss 75% of your threes? That would really help us. On the Knicks, Larry David was there. They kept showing him during the game. I'm reasonably sure that was his first or second time back, but I think it was his first time back since the game where he went to the Halliburton.

Oh, he was there?

The comeback game and the three that went all the way up and down. And he was supposed to stay for two games and flew back after that game. He was so traumatized. So I think it was an emotional return for LD back at MSG.

I didn't realize that.

The Knicks fans still talk about that Halliburton game. I was talking about the '86 World Series, the Buckner game. It was that dramatic.

You're not kidding because I think it's fated recently because we're just in the dog days of the season. But early in the season When I would go to MSG, and they would be up 14 in the fourth quarter, and another team would go on a 5-0 run, you could hear these murmurings in the crowd. I'm like, What? This is the eighth game of the season. What are you all so worried? Oh, it's that game. It's in their heads a little bit.

One of the most traumatizing losses since we've been alive for the NBA. It's easily in the top five. We've both watched the game since. It's an absolutely incredible rewatch. All right, I'm going to zip through a couple random dorky NBA things.

Could I just say before you do, I'm really happy that I got to share the Kata game with you. That's what I was thinking the entire second half. There's one day I'm going to get to see the Sad Bill meme. Kata mania. If we keep doing these after Celtic Games, and I really want to see the sad Bill meme in person or on a Zoom. It'll happen. The whole thing, I was thinking, no one in the world is going to be happier that Kata had a career game, and we had to spend nine minutes watching a woman get kicked in the face by V. J. Edgecom because of a review.

And make us reconsider who should be sitting sideline. Do we need a protective net? I'm prepared for every dumb conversation possible about this. That lady was a hero sitting, staying in the seat, too. No complaints. I thought Tarek did a great job of being like, Look at her tough it out. She's going to stay the last four minutes. She just needs to go to the medical tent.

Even she was sitting there like, What is Saccolk is doing? Is nobody there? Did they all go get a coffee break? Why is this taking eight fucking minutes to resolve this? Can we get on with it? I'm bleeding. Can we get on with the game?

I need a nice pack. 45 seconds max for a review. Just tell me that rule doesn't work. We don't know in 45 seconds, keep the call as stands. Let's move on. All right. Ranum dorky NBA stuff. Let's go. Have the Thunder officially become villains? Did this happen? Are we here? I'll give you It's some of the case, and then you tell me, all the pics that they have, just the fact that they're successful but then have this war chest, too. Sam Presty, how everybody else in the league now is mad at Sam Presty for a variety of reasons, including that he's now anti-tanking when he used to be pro-tanking and whatever.

Is your phone ringing yet or do you have it on mute?

It's off. Okay. All the foul baiting, especially from SGA, that became a thing this year. The boring commercials, just bad commercials starting the OKC people. I don't think people like that. They stole the team from Seattle, has to be mentioned.

Wow, you are going all in.

Then the coup de gras, Lou Dore, the dirtiest guy in the league, just hands down. If we're handing that out and if that's in the awards, dirtiest player of the year, Lou Dore wins. That was the dirtiest thing anyone did this year. It was inexcusable. I can't believe he did it. It was a play to try to hurt another player. It wasn't in the flow of a game where somebody's up in the air and they make a mistake. This was a deliberate, I'm going to try to fuck with Nicole Jokić and maybe hurt him. It's my interpretation of that play. There's no other interpretation.

I feel like you're taking it personally, almost, because it was Jokić. I feel like you felt it was a personal attack on you.

Listen, Liam Beere, there's been guys over the years, they crossed the line of, Are you actually trying to hurt somebody else who's in this game? And I thought that crossed the line. And I couldn't believe the OKC coach was surprised after. Maybe he didn't see the clip.

I did enjoy Mark Dagnol's reaction after the game. I just want to know, is that a flagrant two now? We're doing that every time it's a flagrant two because we're doing it every time. I just want to know it's a flagrant two. And then that's as far as you go. He wouldn't say anything else about it. But look, it doesn't look like a hard hit when you see it on replay, but that's because we're not taking it from a 260 pound cinder block in real-time. It was a decent hit. I wasn't surprised they upgraded it to a flagrant, too. And it was clearly, I'm going out of my way to hit you. This is not a natural running motion. This is not a direction anybody would take. Similar to that we've been seeing a lot of other plays like that where just guys just decide, I'm going to hit you. And he decided, I'm going to hit Jokuj. Are they villains? I think villains are great for the NBA. I would love to see them lean in to becoming villains. That's why I brought this up.

They need an identity, right? Remember last year, we were like, How do we talk What about these guys? They just play hard. They all like each other. They're leaning into their inner villain now, which I like. We'll never see Jokuj that mad again. And this is a guy who got cheap-shotter by one of the Morris brothers and then nailed him in the back. And nobody has messed with Jokuj since for, what, five years? Has anybody done anything, Tim, since then?

I was worried his brothers were going to be at the game and something like, who knows what's going to happen if the Jokuj brothers are at the game. But the eyes, those Those eyes will live on forever. I mean, that is an all-time meme, whatever. Like, those eyes, I don't look at the first beer after trade deadline with the intensity that Nicole Jokuj staring at Lou Dore with. Like, we did big jail, I mean, that was a lusty, aggressive stare.

Yeah, there's three problems for Dore. One is that he saw Jokaj, sized him up, and then pretended he didn't see him. Then he stepped back into him, and then he swung right foot around to make sure that he got him. And there was history from before in the game with them. And in general, it was a chipping game. And I think one of the lessons from this week, there's real animosity in some of these games now.

Oh, that was an intense game from the beginning. Piston Spurs was just like...

How about Piston's Everybody? Piston's Cavs was also... Because I thought Friday night was awesome, but Piston Cavs was also really chipping and angry. We've moved out of the banana boat era with the leak. I feel like there's a lot of animosity now in these games again.

I love it. I think we all agree we would like to see more of that. On the Thunder villain thing, I will say some of it is envy, right? Teams are just envious about how well the Thunder have built their team. I will also say when Chris Finch, now, what are we, two months into this, gave his, They're very frustrating to play against because they get to the line a lot and you can't touch Shay. Remember that press conference Chris Finch gave? There was before and after stats about Shay's free throws. I heard from so many people around the league being like, Chris Finch is a hero. We love Chris Finch. Finally, somebody said it. Somebody said it. There's something to this.

It was like the Stillwater drummer and Almost Famous when they start going off on Russell Hammond, and he's like, Finally the truth in the bus or the plane, whatever it was. I like it. I think the Thunder have an identity again. Their fans are going to eat this up. I'm sure this segment will get cut out and put somewhere, and I'll be a villain like poor Justin Termine, who's enemy number one in Oklahoma City.

Before all their players got hurt, part of being a villain is knowing how goddamn good you are and wanting to crush everybody in front of you. Before all their players got hurt, they played a team who was like, Bring it on. We're going to destroy your soul in this basketball game. I loved that. That's exactly how you want a champion to approach its potential repeat season.

Well, you talked with legs about this little Caisen Wallace mini-leap in February, which has been noticeable. I don't know how much is there, big picture, but I've increased the ceiling in the building by a couple of stories. Because it's clear to me now they're going to have some tax stuff. They also have to figure out how to pay him. Dorent's got the team option next year. I wonder, is Dorent and Caruso and Wallace on this team a year from now? My bet would be no. They'll try to patch the pics that they have, and they'll try to save money that and then give the money back to Wallace. But Wallace, give me the best statistical season of his career. Give me a guess.

Eighteen and five, maybe. Something like that.

Do you think that's the best?

Twenty-two and five? I I don't know. It just depends where he goes. It depends on what team he's on.

See, I was ready to get to 22, 7, and 5. You might be right.

You're better at projecting. You're more adventurous and therefore better.

I just wonder how much is there. Could he be Obviously, if he's on this team, he's never going to be the lead guard. But could he be a real sidekick? Somebody who's 37, 38 minutes a game, three, three is a game? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's 20, maybe it's closer to you. It's somewhere between 18 and 22. But I wouldn't have said this three months ago, I don't think.

But to your point, I think people just recency bias and just people got a lot going on in their lives. I think people have forgotten how good the thunder can really be. And there's going to be a week when they get everybody back and it's going to be like, oh, God. Oh, yeah, that's right. That guy, too. And that guy is coming off the bench and that guy is a luxury item. And like, Jared McCain, who they swip from the Sixers, is suddenly the 13th man on the team. But he's playing great, too.

And honestly, not the worst thing in the world to not put all these miles on these guys when you're going to have a five or six-year run, which I've been thinking about a lot. Talking about that five-year Warriors run. I forget what podcast we talked about it on here, but those years are seven years crammed into five years when you had those playoff games and you look back at the history of the league and all these teams that had these four or five-year intense runs like that. The guys would half the time break down at the end of them. Certainly It happened with the Celtics in the '80s, and it happened with the Pistons. By the time they got to '91, it was just off a cliff. The Bulls avoided it because Jordan went and played baseball for that year and a half, pushed it off. I was thinking about the other day because Robert Horry was saying how he thought the '94 or '95, he said on some podcast, the 94 and 95 Rockets would have beaten the Bulls, which in a vacuum is a relatively insane statement. But when you think about the Bulls coming off three straight titles and losing Horace Grant, I do think the Rockets would have beaten them one of those years.

Is he saying if Jordan never left?

He's like, If Jordan was there, we would have beaten them both times. I don't know about both times.

I don't think that's... Both times is probably crazy. But I mean, eight titles in a row, that was probably not going to happen.

It's not sustainable.

Even people with the Bulls, like Steve Kerr has said, he doesn't think that they would have won all those titles.

Speaking of the Nuggets, just a quick Okay. Kam Johnson, Concern Scale. I was Defcon 2, and then the 0 for 4 today, and I might now be at Defcon 1. It's been bad. Friday night, I was on a couple of different texts during that OKC Denver game. When three minutes left, I texted, This game is going to come down to a wide open, K. M. Johnson 3. No way. Because, yeah, I have it. I have the text. The reason I said that was because He's been shaky enough in these games that they were clearly going to help off him in the biggest possession of the game and take their chances with him in the corner. It's exactly what happened, and he missed it. It was a tie game with seven seconds left. This is why you go and trade him, a trade that both of us loved.

Hold on. Don't lump me in with you. I thought Michael Porter Jr. Was swept away like he was- I just lumped you in.

What are you going to do about it? I said what I I said. I lumped you in. I don't care if you didn't want to be lumped in. I needed company with me in house. So you didn't like it. You like Porter?

I liked it because it also allowed them to get Balanchunis and fill out their bench a little bit. And it was clear some financial relief was going to come. I just thought people were wildly underestimating how good Michael Porter Jr. Was in the trade and how important his shooting was for Denver.

You're right.

I also didn't think Cam... Cam Johnson is moving so tentatively in some ways that I almost... You You just have to wonder if he's still not healthy all the way back from the various ailments that have hurt him this season because he just... Beyond the shooting numbers, which are actually for the season, all right, he just is not adding any oomph to their ball movement, to their offense. It just isn't there.

I looked up his crunch time stats, and he's one for eight in crunch time. Small samples less. Small sample. But turns 30 this week. But I just think they need him. They need him at the end of these games. They've had so many winnable games It's so weird to see a Nuggets team, where they're still like five. We did this last week. We were saying how they were 500. They're still 500 over like 35 games now. And they've blown so many games at the end of games, which I just didn't think was possible. Well, now they have, Gordon's going to come back. That's going to change things. Watson, I'm not freaking out. No, you can't freak out. The Kim Johnson thing is significant, though, because he's somebody that if he's not going to be out there in that spot when we're in the playoffs, who Is it going to be Hardaway? Who's it going to be? Who's it going to be in that corner that is going to make or break like a game four on the road somewhere? Because he's lost my trust, unfortunately.

Well, Gordon and Watson answer a lot of those questions. But I mean, Jokić had some more goofy turnovers by his standards today. I think he had five turnovers. He had a few turnovers in all these games where it's like the defense is on his wavelength. I don't want to say they outthink him, but he doesn't outthink them. They see the pass coming and pick it off, which is unusual for him. Right now, they just have no size. They're so small. They have no one. They have like, Christian Brown is trying to guard Anthony. He's all right at it. And Kam Johnson is trying to guard Julius Randall, who didn't have a great game, but they just don't have any size outside of their centers right now. It is beginning, again, you can't panic, can't overreact because all these guys are coming back, and we'll see if Aaron Gordon can stay healthy. But this last month with Jokić and the team winning as much as you'd expect with Jokuj still playing sensationally. It does have a feel of like, sometimes it's just like it doesn't come together. Sometimes it's just not. We're not there yet, but it's on my radar of like, it might just be the year it doesn't happen.

And I expected it to happen because I do think there's a legitimate great team in here, but sometimes you run out of time to find it.

I mean, sadly, I'm deep down feeling the same way. The problem here is that Jokić is still having an all-time season, and Murray is having the best season of his life, and we shouldn't have this many questions. Also, when Gordon comes back, what level of Gordon are we getting? Also, is he coming back? We now have they played Basically, we're entering the last quarter of the season. He's going to come back and just be thrown into a 4-5 matchup against Minnesota where they're going to need him for 35 minutes a game. With a hammy, it's a hammy thing that just feels like it just keeps happening.

That's the worry is that his combination of size, power on both ends, defensive versatility, and he's now a proven 40 plus % three-point shooter. They don't have anyone who combines all those things. That's why he's such a unique player. They have pieces of them and other players who have weaknesses, they get exploited elsewhere. And to get through the West, you need to be pretty damn close to 100 % to get through all of these teams. I mean, these are five legit, really good teams. Houston, who we're both down on, and I think everybody is, is now in third in the West. And whatever you think of them, they're going to make you feel some pain over a seven-game series, no matter who you are.

The scary thing for Denver is four or five could be them in Minnesota, a team that loves playing Denver. It's very comfortable against them. Doesn't mean they're going to beat them. And the Lakers now have the same number of losses as Denver. And it's been this Lakers season, a team we've written off 700 times, and it somehow has the exact same record as Denver. Okay, next topic. Oh, speaking of the West, the 7, 8, 9, 10 in the West is just officially bizarre. Where we have Phoenix at 34 and 26. Booker still out. Brooks is out, I guess, for the season. Golden State is 31 and 29, and it's going to be 31 and 32 in three games.

I don't think they've said for the season with the Brooks, but time-wise, it gets... I think it was four to six weeks.

Time-wise, it's very much like to the last week.

I just wanted to be clear. I was like, did I miss something? I don't think I did.

Golden State could be under 503 games. Portland's at 29 and 32. The Clippers are at 27 and 31, but relying on Kauai and Darius Garland, who aren't exactly Lou Gehrig.

Clippers are about to win right now, by the way.

All right, so they'll be 28 and 31.

Portland lost, so they're 29 and 33. They lost to the Jonathan Kaminga led Atlanta Hawks by 34 points.

Crowd chatting. Thank you, Warriors, during the Kaminga game as he had another one. Portland has a weird Abdi, a back injury thing that's going to knock him out of any possible NBA stuff. Not that he was going to make it anyway. Golden State just said, Curry needs at least 10 more days. That's starting to look a little… Get a little whiff of… A little tanky whiff.

I wouldn't…

I don't know. If Curry, do you rush him back to play him hurt or do you be like, You know what? Let's get the 10th pick in the draft.

Okay. You got to lose in the play-in then. You got to… Because there's zero chance that any of these teams fall out in the play-in.

Or just say, Fuck it. We're going to be… Yeah. Fuck it. We'll wait. Steph, come back that week, if you're healthy. Give me two teams you think are in the play-off. 7, 8, 9, 10, Phoenix, Golden State, Portland, and Clippers. Pick two.

I got to pick two. Two have to make it.

Two have to make it.

Well, again, I'll tell you what, no one below them is even trying to win. So congratulations to the four play-in teams. Unless one of you passes the Lakers or Nuggets, you are in the play-in with 20 games left. We can celebrate. You can hang a banner. I will go... I'll go Suns Clippers. How about that?

Suns Clippers.

Darius Garland coming back tomorrow. Kawhi is Kawhi. I don't feel great about it, but I'll go Suns Clippers. I don't love this Steph injury, and the team just feels like there's just a lot of Dianthony Melton and Guy Santos and Quintin Post going on, and all those guys are actually playing okay, but it just feels a little like a rickety mishmash of whatever.

The box score is alarming. The one yesterday, they got killed by the Lakers. The box score is like, oh, my God. This is like a Brooklyn Nets lineup. I would also say Suns Clippers. I really tried to talk myself into Portland. I watched the entire Portland Charlotte game. My Hornets were playing at 10: 00 Pacific Time. I had to I had to test drive that one. Portland really wanted the game and came in with a really hard core defensive plan against... I don't want to waste our Charlotte stuff because we're doing deep dive later. But really, it was the first time I've seen a team be like, here's our strategy to take out Knipple. They were doing all this stuff to try to take them out. Drew holiday was playing really hard. I like Clingin. They have good wings. Scoot Henderson, there's a lot of signs that he's, Don't sell your scoot stock yet. Don't shake your head.

No, I did a whole Scoot, Brandon Miller segment last two weeks ago and talked about Scoot. I just didn't think that was a particularly good scoot game.

Well, just there's some signs. They're getting more comfortable. They're giving him the ball and letting him do stuff.

It would be nice if more of the signs went into the basket.

I know. I'm just trying to be class F full of scoop. I've been admitting defeat on the Brandon Miller scoop thing. I've been officially admitting defeat.

There's no other move. I mean, there's no other move. You're checking in on that one.

Brandon Miller is tremendous.

It's really good.

I love Brandon Miller. He's really looking Paul George, Jalen Brown-ish offensively. I think he could be 26 a game if he could stay healthy at some point in his career. Absolutely. All right, so we both say Phoenix and the Clippers, and yet the Clippers could be gone tomorrow. Okay.

I mean, Yes, but if you're asking me to pick, I'm picking them. It's a little bit of a- I don't trust to go and say a thing. Everything about it is weird, including that there is no 11th place team. You can just erase the last part of the standings unless you're doing the reverse standings. You don't even need to look at them.

Well, New Orleans might make a late surd share. They're only 20 back. They're one of the hottest teams of the West.

They're 11 games behind the Clippers in the loss column.

Can they make that up? I don't know. New Orleans played really well. Just killing the Hawks pick.

Zion got hurt again, though. Not again, He did play... Zion got hurt just as we got used to Zion playing. He's now hurt again. Hopefully, it's minor. But this is just the story of some of these guys' careers.

I hope we learned a lesson from this Pelicans pick with the Hawks because we've seen this situation before. The Celtics were in it one year with the Cleveland pick. We've seen these teams have these seemingly super choice picks, and the time to trade them is November, December, when they have maximum, look how good this pick is going to be. Because Because the truth is, the team whose pick you have has no incentive to stop trying in the last 30 games of the season. They start playing some of these other tanking teams, and they're like, Fuck it. What do we care? They'll start winning, and all of a sudden, you're in the ninth pick instead of the fourth pick. I think Atlanta probably should have sent that pick pack in a while ago. So it won't be the ninth pick.

If you watch the Pelicans, if a person who knows nothing about the NBA, watched the Pelicans play any of the other seven to eight teams who are tanking right now, they'll be like, Well, that's got to be the best team in the league, right? This team's got to be by far the best team. They're so much better than this other team.

Some of the tanking stuff is great. And then Sacramento is taking it a step further, there was some weird internet rumor about that they want to sign Westbrook for next year, that he's become a leader of the team, Sacramento. Goldsbury sent us that. And my response was that I think him being the GM is the natural outcome for all of this. But back putting him in charge of the team.

I guess he's now... I mean, he's a king player. You have to be a king's player to really be in consideration to replace an established GM, a former king's player.

You have to put your time in. It's like prison. It's like you have to be in the yard for a couple of years for them to let you work in the library.

I didn't even have the heart to respond to the text. It's just too sad. Let me ask you this.

Would you say it's completely It's inconceivable that Russell Westbrook could someday be the Sacramento King's GM?

No way. I'm surprised there are not odds on it already. Maybe we could do it with those weird prediction markets.

Calchee? Put that bed down. Yeah, Calchee. Just put some Calchee money on that.

Yannis tweets out, By the way, look at Calchee today for a new line on Russell Westbrook being the GM.

Russell Westbrook dropped to 50 to one on Fandle. What's Fandle's one? Fandle predictions. Okay. Next goofy question. What happens if Yannis comes back this week?

I'm so excited you brought this up.

Miami is the... So right now we have 6, 7, 8, 9. Philly is 31 and 27. Orlando is 31 and 28. Miami is 32 and 29. So they're all grouped together as 6, 7, 8. America's team, the Charlotte Hornets is 30 and 31. Can't wait to do the deep dive with them. They're the nine seed right now. Atlanta is 31 and 31. Actually, they're the nine seed right now. Charlotte That's 10. And then Milwaukee is 26 and 33. So they are a couple of losses behind basically everybody. Milwaukee was 8 and 3 in their last 11 until they lost the stupid game they lost today. Giannis is looming. He could play the last 20 games. So if they go, I don't know, could they get to 40 wins? It's possible they go 14 and 6. What happens? Could they make... All they'd have to What you do is jump one team and get to the 10 seed, and then it's just playing playoff games. To me, Giannis is not dead yet.

No, that little... I think people wrote off the Bucks and forgot about the Bucks, and the Eastern Conference let the Bucks stay alive because that stretch they had before All-Star was absolutely massive because it gave them the margin for error to come back to Earth. And this was a come back to Earth weekend for the Bucks. Two horrible losses, including a blowout to the Bulls who had not won in literally a month. And yet they're just still two games back in the Loss column behind Charlotte and two games back behind Atlanta. Four games back in the heat. But all of these teams, just look at their records in the last 10 games, Orlando, six and four, Miami, five and five, Hawks, six and four. None of them have run away from the Bucks. And with Giannis, the team makes sense. It makes enough sense to make up two games on an Atlanta Hawks team who only makes sense as a basketball team. Orlando, that's Orlando and Miami are taller hills to climb, but not teams without problem. Norm Powell just got hurt. He's going to miss a little bit of time. The sooner he comes back, the more interesting this gets, because if they get into the play-in and they're going full throttle with Giannis.

Even if they're coming from the 9, 10 seed, they got a hell of a chance to get in. And then it gets real interesting.

Then it turns into NBA Cup where it's just like, you have to be Giannis tonight or you're going home, and that's it. And Giannis really cares and actually wants to be in the playoffs. So Philly, Orlando, Miami, Charlotte, Atlanta, Milwaukee, pick three.

That get into the playoffs?

Yeah, just pick three right now for 6, 7, 8.

I'm not even going to look at schedules. I will do Philly or Orlando. No, no, no. Oh, this is actually hard.

Yeah, I know. This is hard.

I'll go... Fuck it. I'm going to go Philly, Miami, Charlotte. Orlando is out. Which would just be the most wildly disappointing outcome for almost any team.

I would have had Orlando in the Miami spot there. I think Philly and Charlotte, I have them in. Charlotte, I can't wait to do the deep dive.

Miami It just Miami's their way in.

That's the thing. Did you see any of the Houston thing? I did.

I saw the whole game.

Until that game, I was like, They're going to... This is not going to be the year for them, whatever. I don't know. They had a little feistiness in that game. We always see around now there's one team that gets hot or does whatever. I don't know if they're that good, but I don't know, you watch them and the team makes sense now that when they have everybody and if they can get Hero going a little bit. I would probably say Philly, Miami, Charlotte. Orlando, more likely they make the playoffs or they change coaches for the end of the season?

I will go make I would go make the playoffs because I think the history of this front office is that they act slowly, and I think they will now give, especially given how much time Franz in particular has missed, I think they give this thing till the end of the season.

That was an awful loss today. They're up seven and a half time. They lose by 14. Bad. Atlanta doesn't have their pick, so no real reason for them to throw it in. That's why I Milwaukee, if they were 28 and 31 instead of 26 and 33, I'd be more excited. I think they're probably a little bit too far back. But I was thinking with Detroit, this is such a strange situation for them to be in. It's like they're going to get the one seed. They might have the best record in the whole league. The prize for getting the one seed could be either Philadelphia with Embiid and George back, the fucking heat culture, weird voodoo Miami team, Charlotte, who's It's been awesome for 32 games now, a legitimate offensive juggernaut. And none of those matchups are fun. None of them.

It's great. That's what the playoffs are supposed to be. Let's not have any pushovers. I think I think- Orlando would be a pusher. I don't think they'd be a pusher. If they were fully healthy, I don't think they'd be a pusher. I think the Hawks would be a pusher for Detroit. I just think- Orlando is not going to be fully healthy, and you know not going to be fully healthy.

Cross that off.

Unlikely.

When Sugs plays two games in a row, it's like a shock.

It really makes you feel good when you turn on the magic game and Sugs is playing things. I love watching Sugs play. I'm like, All right, this team just became 25% more entertaining to watch. Yeah.

Cleveland, who went today, barely. Another dorky combo. If you're Cleveland, do you care if you're the 4 seed, you play Toronto on Do you care?

No, I don't think you care about your seed at all. If you're Cleveland, you just need to get as healthy as possible and you know what you're being judged on. I wouldn't stress about three, four, one, two. You've had your ups and downs against all the teams currently above you in the standings. You just got to play.

On Fandil, they were plus 125 for the four seed and 11: 01 for the five seed. If I'm them, I just want everyone running full steam second week in April I don't care if I'm playing Toronto, and I don't mind playing Detroit.

I don't think they thought that.

I think they would think they can beat Detroit. They have more offense, more stuff to bring to the table. Schroeder had really had a chip on his shoulder on Friday night. I thought that was just to bring him off the bench, possessed, doing that crazy shooter stuff. I thought it would be fun. But I think that team, the Sam Merrill piece has defrayed the fact that they missed on DeAndre Hunter. Dean Wade is, I guess, just a exit stage, right?

First of all, he's been starting for them for the most part since the team got fully formed again. When he plays decently, they are very hard to beat. He's a minor role player, but they really like him, and they keep giving him chances, and they keep seeing him through these months where it feels he hits two threes in a month. And then I'll have a game where it's like he's four or six from three. And that's all he does other than play great defense. But it helps. But at least they turned Hunter into Schroeder and Kean Ellis. At least they got two guys that can play for them in that deal.

Body language doctor likes their chemistry, too. I like some of the stuff I saw on the sidelines from Mitchell and Harden. It looks like Mitchell and Harden like each other. Honey Moon Harden, it's really kicked in.

I don't know. Did you create Honey Moon Harden? Is that you are?

I think I did. I'll take it. Next topic. I texted this to you, so you're actually prepared for this one. I normally like to sneak attack you with topics. Perimeter Defender is better than the Thomson's.

Let me bring up my list.

I asked you to make a list. Who's actually better than these guys? Perimeter Defender. We're not talking big guys. We're not talking tiny guards or small guards.

No, I don't. The answer is I'm not sure anybody is, although I think they both are... No player is perfect, but I think here... So here are the names I wrote down. It's just like, these are the guys you at least have to consider.

Tell me how many names you wrote down before you tell me the names.

I wrote like 15 names down because I go big. I go big all the time, but I don't-I wrote down 10 names.

Yeah. Okay.

Lou Dore. Who is Caruso. Yeah.

They were not my first name.

No, I just went down standing's order. Okay. I'm going to omit some ones that I don't think are serious.

I think the good thing is the fan bases won't take that personally at all if you forget somebody.

I'm just going to I'm not going to mention Hugo Gonzales after saying I'm not mentioning him. Sorry, Hugo, you don't get into this one. The llama haircut doesn't get you in. I think Jaden McDaniels deserves a word. Derek White doesn't have the guys.

I left him off because I think there are certain guys that he probably can't guard.

I still think Pete Kawhi needs to be on this list. He can't bring it every night, but when he really, really brings it, he might still will be the best perimeter defender in the NBA for a game or a quarter. Dyson Daniels.

I left him off.

You're running out a guy, and I don't mind leaving him off. You run out. I think Payton Watson could get into this conversation. O'giann and Obe.

I had him. I had Kamara.

Kamara is on my list. That's a good one.

I had Scottie Barnes.

He's on my list, too. I was waiting. I wanted you to bring up Scottie Barnes, but I had him on my Here's my descending order.

I had McDaniels first. I had the Dorton-Cruise combo, Castle, Inanobi. I had Kamara, Kawhi, Barnes, and Bridges all next to each other. I had An Edwards Because I think when he really wants to guard for a possession, I think he's as good as anybody. I'm not saying he's doing it all game. If it's 30 seconds left and I need to play defense, then I have him and McDaniels. I just saw it. I went to the Clipper game the other night. The reason I have McDaniels so high is he snatched Ben Matherin's soul from his body for two hours. He reached inside his heart and pulled it out. And by the fourth quarter, Matheron, who's a really confident guy, walks around with his chest out. And it really seems Alpha 8 was just like deer in the headlights and couldn't solve it. Mcdaniels is terrifying. And he's the only one I've seen in person other than when Kawhi gets into that. I will now take the ball when gets into that mode. He's the only one I've seen on the level with the Thompson's. Castle, even though he guarded Durant, which was one of the great things, that great random things of the season, I'm not sure if there are certain guys.

Could he guard bigger guys like Jalen Brown, bigger physical forwards. I'm not sure he's big enough to guard those guys, but McDaniels is.

But you cannot say enough. I mean, you cannot say enough about how good Castle and Harper are as defenders this soon into their career. Because the experience factor, although the Thompson twins are not super experienced either, is what makes it hard to put them on this apex level. But those guys, they guard up in size so well. They were on Brandon Ingram in a recent Spurs, Raptors game. Dylan Harper closed the game on Brandon Ingram and clapped him a little bit. And I'd mentioned how Castle guarded Kat and Brunson in the same game. They are up for... The Durant game I'd forgotten about when he bodied up Durant, and Durant was like, What's happening? Is this a foul? What's going on? They are big and rangey, and they want all the smoke. Those guys are so far ahead of the curve defensively. It's crazy.

Jalen Brown is in the vicinity for this if it's one of those games where he's really fired up to play defense. But it's bigger guys. It's like Luca type guys. It's the more physical type of wings that he's really good at defending and really has been for the last few years.

I would not, respectfully, not put Jelen Brown in this conversation.

I know. I'm just saying certain games. The other one, and I thought about this the other day at this Cooper game I was at, Io is, first of all, three inches taller than I was prepared for in person. I don't know why the TV made me think he was like 6'1, but I felt like he was the same height as Anthony Edwards. I could figure it out. Big, big shoulders. When they had him, McDaniels, and Edwards all out there at the same time against a team that really didn't have a point guard, Chris Dunn was the only point guard on the Clippers. Everyone was terrified to bring the ball. Nobody was happy about it. But I thought that was interesting.

He's a great fit You know who's furious right now?

Who?

Dylan Brooks is Furious. Dylan Brooks is going to pick up the rare podcast technical for arguing. So he's just off the list. He's hurt. We don't even consider him. I had a monitor. He got Wally tripped off this list.

We might not see him again this season. Well, this leads to the next question. Pick one as a defender. Of who? Houston Thompson or Detroit Thompson?

Houston Thompson. I think Houston Thompson is the head of the... I don't like I don't like doing the brothers thing. It makes me sad to pit the brothers against each other like this, but it hurts my soul. But I'm picking Ahmed Thompson. I think he scales down positionally a little easier than Asar does. Asar might guard up a little bit better, but I think Ahmed Thompson can guard anybody. His speed, they're both unbelievable, but I'd pick Ahmed.

I give him a slight edge as well. I think Asar is the single-scariest guy to bring the ball up against. When he's really in, I'm going to try to get a steal as you bring the ball up mode, I think he's number one. Who's scarier than him?

I was watching a game. It was a tank off game, and I watched it because this is what I do. I watched Grizzly's Kings. Scotty Pippen Jr.

Oh, he's another good one.

I shit you not.

Didn't he have three steals in a row or something? Four.

Four consecutive steals while the Kings were bringing the ball up. It was almost like, let's just cancel the game. If this is what's going to happen, Send everybody home, refund the tickets. It's a great night out for Scottie Pippen Jr. Game over.

See, that's another guy. Why didn't a contender try to get him?

He's been injured the whole year.

I don't care. They It's like free second-round pick for him, right? Is Memphis turning down a second-round pick for Scottie Pippen? I don't think so. And he's been hurt most of the year. I wanted to see him in a playoff series. Okay, next question. So the All-MBA It feels like we've separated to Joka, Jess, GA, Cade, and Wemby are levitating in that top group now. And then we have a next five of Ant, and Mitchell, and Jalen, and Luca, and Maxi in some order.

Ant, Mitchell, Jalen. I'm writing this down.

Ant, Mitchell, Jalen, Luca, Maxi are in the mix. There's a first-team spot open. But then the next question is, I only listed nine guys. Who is the inside track for the 10th spot? If I gave you Brunson, Kawhi, Jamal Murray, Duren, Durant, Barnes, Ahmed Thompson, et cetera, et cetera. Who's the 10th best player in the league right now? From an all-MBA standpoint, in your opinion?

Assuming eligibility, Kawhi Leonard.

Okay, I agree with you.

And then I put Brunson next. When I did this, I had Brunson, Maxie. I had Maxie third team.

So you have Maxie out of that group and Brunson in the group?

I had Kawhi second team when I did my draft of NBA teams.

All right, so there's nine plus Brunson, Kawhi, Murray, and Duren. That's 13, which means there's two spots left for everybody. Not to mention we might lose some eligibility guys. We've already lost Curry. Booker's at 16 now. Not that he was going to make it anyway, but he's probably getting bounce. Jocuj only has two left. Wemby has four left. Kawhi, I think, has four. Avdi is going to be out. We might not have enough all-MBA guys, is, I guess, my bigger point.

Well, you didn't mention Durant.

I didn't mention Durant.

I mean, you got to mention Durant. You're not going to put Durant on third-team All-NBA. You're going to put other... Okay.

I didn't say I wouldn't.

Were you on the text thread? Were you mentioned?

I wasn't. I take stuff like the whatever the hell happened in All-Star Weekend, I think has to count in your All-NBA candidacy. That's the weirdest story of the year.

26?

I get it. 26, 5, and 4. On 50, 40, 90 shooting. Yeah. I had him. I have 13 guys listed. Then look, I'll even show you. Bubble, Durant, top guy. So he would be on my third team if this season ended today.

You didn't even mention him.

Why? He's in my bubble list with Durant, Barnes, Thompson. I mentioned him as a bubble guy. I don't know if the only person that I think the nerds might take and grab a hold of and grab the flame and start bringing it outside the wall, I I see a Chet momentum just for the defensive impact. We need two OKC guys in the NBA. I could see that unfolding. I don't know how you feel about that.

Yeah, I mean, I could certainly see it unfolding because there is always that groundswell of, well, this team has to have X amount of people, which I don't really believe in. I've been wanting him to do a little bit more on offense in some of these games without Shay, and Jelen Williams and A. J. Mitchell and on Chet hasn't scored 20 points in a game since January 27th. It's just been too many, 13, 15, 17. Look, the defense is unimpeachable. He's unbelievable. The fact that he could shoot threes is a huge spacing boom for their offense. He's amazing. I just think this level of conversation, there's only 15 spots. For me, there's 20 games left, so we'll see. He's out on the outside looking in, but not by much. It's not a huge slight, just player 19 or 18 or 17.

He's an All-Star, not an NBA guy.

You haven't mentioned one guy that I... Maybe you mentioned him when you listed him often. I missed it, but did you mention Jalen Johnson?

I had him in the bubble list.

Okay.

Shay is minus 260 for MVP. Jokuj is plus 450. Kate is 10 to 1. Inexplicable because if SGA misses five more games, I think Kade is going to win the MVP. I can't bet it because I have- Over Wemby? Wemby is at 25 to one. I think the Spurs would have to basically lose two more games the rest of the year and be the one seat and have the best record in the league for it to be a serious combo. I'm not even sure some games that feeds the best guy in the game for his team, even though I know the Detroit game Monday, what he did defensively was incredible, all that stuff. Luka has dropped to 100 to one after a pretty tough week for Luka.

A hundred to one? Yeah.

Wow. Oh, that's my next dorky thing I wanted to bring up to you. And then we're going to do the Charlotte deep dive. Luka's MVP finishes by year. This is his eighth year. Didn't finish first year, fourth, second year, sixth, third year, fifth, eighth, third. Didn't get any votes last year. This is year eight, and he's not going to be in the top four. So he's only had one third place finish and one fourth place finish. This would be after eight years. If I had told you this during his rookie year as we watched how good he was, would you have ever have guessed this?

No. And in fact, I feel like I've picked him as my preseason MVP at least twice. He's been a preseason odds on favorite to win MVP maybe more times than that. And so, yeah, I realized the whole conversation is now shifting into There was a whole, will he ever win a Championship conversation this year that I feel like is a little bit premature. But yeah, I am surprised. Part of it is that if you look at his game log, he's only cracked 70 games a couple of times. There's some certain COVID-related short in seasons in there, but it is surprising. I thought he would have won an MVP by now. I thought he would have won. I thought he would have won an MVP for the Dallas Mavericks by now. So everything about what's happening is a little bit surprising.

Good point. When we were moving into the 2020s and if we had had a who is the most likely guy to win one MVP this decade draft, I think he would have been the first pick.

It's just tailor made. The whole offense is going to revolve around him. His passing does make most types of players better. He's had playoff success basically since he came into the league. He's been a good playoff player, like going back to the bubble, etc. It just seemed like absolutely no brainer. You'd be shocked if a guy like this didn't win an MVP.

He's 286 and 210 regular season, 287 now, 26 and 29 in the playoffs. Never has won, I think 52 games is his highest with Dallas.

Because he's missed a decent amount of games. He's missed the lumbars of games that turn a 55-win team into a 47-win team.

All right, it's time. Hornets deep dive. We're really doing this. I'm going to start us off with some Hornets facts. You know all of these.

I'm just going to sit back and soak it in.

They haven't made the playoffs in 10 years. Last time they made the playoffs was the last year of Barack Obama's second term. Since their expansion come back here in 2005, three payoff appearances. As a franchise, because for whatever reason, we include the 1988 to 2002, whatever, they haven't won a playoff round since 2002, which was also the year they moved. They don't have a single number that they could retire this century unless you want to talk yourself into a Kemba Walker night just for the emotional night or Al Jefferson night.

Kemba would be the one.

They haven't made the Eastern Finals once, even going back to the morning LJ era. Just in the last few years, They drafted Shay Gildas Alexander, 11th, and immediately traded him for Miles Bridges in two seconds. I forgot this happened. Oh, yeah. They drafted Jalen Duren and immediately traded him for a future first in three seconds, and the future first became, nick Smith.

Junior.

He took Saloon, one pick before Donovan Clingon. They spent a lottery pick on James Booknight.

That's the thing that happened.

Last year, they They were 19 and 63. They started out 4 and 14 this season, so they were 23 and 77 in 100 games over two seasons. Since then, something magical has happened. They're now 30 and 31. Their last 32 games, Zeclo, 21 and 11. Their first overall net rating plus 9. 8 in the last 32 games of any NBA team. First in offensive rating, 121. 4, which would be near in the all-time high. They They have 21 wins. 15 of 21 were by double digits, including their last four in a row, and their 14 and 3 in their last 17 games. I have more, but let's all start there. This has been the most dramatic turnaround in season of anyone that I can remember. Any other time this has happened, there's been signs like OKC, the year when OKC became a 500 team. It's like, yeah, I could see this building all year. This is a fun league past team that will never actually be a team this year. There's no way. And yet they're going to be a playing team and might even win the division.

The division? I forgot about the division, the Southeast division.

They could win the division. Oh, my God. Right now, the odds in the division, they're plus 460. Orlando is plus 135, and Miami is plus 155 on Fandil. I still like Charlotte to win the division, but there you go. So you go.

Well, I just go?

First of all- I can give you a couple more stats if you want. No.

First of I implore whatever team wins this division, do not hang a banner. Even you, Charlotte, do not hang a banner.

No, Charlotte, if they go 44 and 38 win the division, I'm allowing the banner.

No banner. You should be... Any team that hangs division banners should be shamed at all times. I'll give you this. The Ball, Miller, Knippel, Bridges, Abate lineup is plus 179 in 281 minutes. That is preposterous. That is the number one- That's lineup of death. That is the number one plus minus for any lineup in the NBA. Number two is the Piston starting lineup at plus 131. So 48 points, quote, worse than the Hornets. And they've played almost twice as many minutes. Plus 179 in 281 minutes is insane.

And somebody that wasn't playing for, what, the first six weeks, basically?

It's a perfect storm of... In all the attention on Knippel, and He's been unbelievable, and I don't want to besmirch anything about your illegitimate son. But he's been this constant metronome of productivity the entire season. Ball up and down, but Miller has leveled up and stayed there for a month and a half to two months now. And something about the way Diabate fits with this group in the starting five, it's a perfect storm of Miller, Diabate, LaMelo, chilling a little bit with some of the crazy stuff and just be playing a simpler game in a lot of ways. It's all clicked together. And I mean, what you just said, 30, 35, 40 games into this being like, this is a real team. I We don't quite know where we're heading with it, but it's a real team. As you're going to get into, the way this has happened is incredibly unusual in modern NBA history.

The crazy thing about LaMelo, because if you weren't really following or watching the games or even looking at the stats so much, you would think like, Oh, it's LaMelo is healthy, and the team took off. He only plays like 27 minutes a game. He's in a weird way, I don't want to call him a luxury, but this is really built around Kahn and Miller and Diabate. And then LaMelo, when he's good, they become almost unstable. The other have this Kobe, the Kobe-White trade, which we did the trade deadline thing. It was like, Oh, cool. I like Kobe White more than Colin Sexton. That's a really important trade for them for a variety of reasons. One, which I totally forgot until I was watching the game on Saturday. He's a North Carolina guy. Like, Wright-Williams was there to see Kobe White. Kobe White loves being in Carolina. He's like They're going to be able to resign him and they're going to make him a part of stuff. Kobe White's stats, last three years, he was 19, 5, 4, 37% from three, made almost three threes a game. He's the perfect guard to just add to this, and also, more importantly, gives them LaMelo insurance if LaMelo ever gets wacky or gets hurt or anything.

Well, I mean, Colin Sexton was playing really well for them, and you could probably find the stats for him are not so dissimilar from what you just said about Kobe White. In fact, they're not.

I know, but I'm talking styles of player, though. I just like Kobe White's game more. He's more of a basketball player.

He's a bigger, more dynamic, more diverse player than Colin Sexton was.

Who can play off the ball, on the ball. I just think he fits better for what they're doing. He's a little bigger. He's got a little more defensively. I think he can help them. I think that when they play that lineup of death you mentioned, but then you can move Kobe into the Lamello spot, it's still a really good team.

We can't call it the lineup of death because the death lineup is taken and it's the worst lineup.

I'm just trying to give Charlotte as many bones as possible.

It's sitting there in front of us. How about the Buzzsaw? The Buzz?

The Buzzsaw Lineup. Something like- The Buzzsaw lineup.

I like it. Just the first draft We can workshop it.

You mentioned something on one of your pods the other day. I can't remember. I think you were talking maybe about Detroit. Maybe it was with Legola. You were talking about Detroit only has one guy that can really create a shot. But they have all these guys who know how to cut and do all these things, and they can patch it together. But really, they only have one guy who can create a shot. You could feel it at the game on Friday night against Cleveland when Kate fouled out, which for some reason has happened more than once this season. Kade fouled out, and it's like, Oh, shit. What do we do now? And they tried to patch it together.

By the way, you know part of the reason why Kade gets in foul trouble here and there? Because he tries hard on defense. He tries to make plays on defense. That's part of it.

Well, he doesn't get the respect either from, I I think he gets the superstar respect. The Hornets have five guys who can create a shot. For real. Kohn can do it. Brandon Miller, obviously. Lamelo can get by anybody. Kobe White could create a shot. Miles Bridges can create a shot. So anytime it's eight seconds left, play screwed up or whatever, wherever the ball is, somebody can do something with it or you can set a screen. That's one thing. The threes are out of control. They're averaging 17. 1 made threes during this 32-game streak where they're 21-11. 17. 1. They're shooting 43 a game. They're 40% from three, which leads the league. But they're also second in rebounds, which is nice because Canipo rebounds, LaMelo rebounds, Bridges. Every guy in the team goes and grabs rebounds. Then when you just think about, if I know I'm getting 17 threes a game, I can have a bad game and still be in the game. I can still hang around. I could be down nine, and then all of a sudden, I'm down three. I don't know. They have 320-point scores. I really believe in this team. Then we didn't even mention Grant Williams, who came back.

The shooting stats aren't great, but they needed one more glue guy who knows where to go and how to move on defense. They have LaMelo and Kahn and Miller and Bridges. They have White. They have Williams and Diabate and Calk and Josh Green, I guess.

Josh Green has given them really nice minutes.

As a 10th guy, as their swing defender.

And he and Cian James are the wing guys that come off the match.

The wild card wings, right.

But Josh Green has been the best version of what Josh Green is. You know he's not going to shoot much. He's going to play some defense and hit corner threes and move the ball. And he's done all of that for them.

Do you value this? Nine in a row on the road?

Love road wins. I'm a sucker for road wins.

All right. I'm about to I'm about to take this up a level to crazy town, but do you want to say something normal before I do that?

I do. I want to delight you in saying it. Because you mentioned, first of all, I think you undersold LaMelo a little bit in saying the team is built around Knippel and Miller and LaMelo, floats in as a bonus. All the lineup data suggests that their offense is awesome when LaMelo is on the floor. And now this may change with White because they can keep two of these four guys on the floor at all times, which is used for them. But their His offense without LaMelo has not been very good. And even like some... I don't have it all in front of me. I did a couple of weeks ago. Even the Miller and Knippel, no LaMelo lineup was just so-so at one point. But anyway, so I think you understood him a little bit.

But I'm just- Yeah, I was projecting the white being able to do a reasonable facsimile of a lead guard for them.

I just think his level of creation is unbelievable. His neck for floaters, he's trying to get to the rim more. And you mentioned the shooting. Lamelo is an elite three-point shooter. It's just masked by the fact that he took so many difficult threes that deflated his percentage of limit. He's an elite three-point shooter. And everyone knows Knippel is a great shooter and just said they just... It's like at the end of the sentence about, They have this Knippel. It's an unbelievable shooting. This is one of the greatest shooting seasons anyone has ever had in the history of basketball. I did the basketball referencing for you. There are six Six seasons in the history of the NBA, six individual player seasons, and Knippel is on pace to be seven, and he's almost going to do it this week. 2000 minutes, so you can't be like a role player who comes in in box threes. 43% are better from three. He's at 44% right now. At least eight threes per 36 minutes attempted. Six player seasons total. Here are the six. Steph Curry, Steph Curry, Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, Desmond Bain, Duncan Robinson, and at 1900 plus minutes, about to be Concanipal.

Wow. And the Clay Thompson is the comp because that's who he reminds me of Like a Clay Thompson coaching tree player of the way. He just reminds me of him with some of the stuff he does, but he moves smartly in the paint and stuff. He does stuff Clay never did. Clay was always around the fringes for the most part. Khan also has this little John Havlicek side when he can muscle in and get a little 10-footer, 12-footer. But when they set those pics, it really reminds me of Clay. Those little quick flare pics when all of a sudden he's wide open for a split How can he make them?

They move their best offensive players around in such creative ways all over the floor. Charles Lee and his staff deserve a lot of credit. They've really maximized three guys who you look at them and think, well, a team should be able to switch a lot of actions between these guys, and it's just they've made it really hard to keep track of everybody. All right.

Are you ready?

I'm so excited.

We're going to crazy town.

Let's go.

The 2013 Warriors.

Okay.

47 and 35, 40% from three led the league, upset Denver in round one, lost to San Antonio in round two. We were working at Grandland together. League was not as good. That 2013 Warriors team with those two guys and David Lee, basically, was Bogan on that team yet? He was. The league just wasn't as good. That was I'll be a '41, '41 team now.

That was a '51 win team.

No, they were '47 and '35. Oh, '12, '13.

You're talking '12, '13.

I'm talking that first Warriors season.

That's the team.

Curry was 22 a game. Clay was 17 a game. Combined, there were 6. 1 made threes. People didn't shoot the threes as much back then. As that season evolved, we were like, something's really here. This is headed somewhere. Then when they beat Denver was what? 56 wins that year, a tie loss in team. Iguida was on that team. George Carroll was a big upset. Then they lost to the Spurs in the next round. But Curry, everything about it felt like something special had happened. That summer, they make a big move for Iguidala. They had Draymond on the team as a rookie, but he lost them in the second year. They go 51 and 31. They lose to the Clips in seven. Curry and Clay jump up, and then the next season was the season. My crazy town question for you is, could this Can Miller-LaMelo threesome be the same foundation that Curry and Clay were for that Warriors team? Could you actually see a path for this nucleus with some of the caps, some of the pics, which I want to go through, adding one more guy? Could this be a real playoff team a year from now?

There's no question it could be a real playoff team a year from now. I do think adding one more guy has to be part of the recipe. But I think the Warriors comp, you're now comping them to what becomes an all-time incredible team.

That's why I said we're going to crazy town.

A nucleus. You have to include Draymond in the Can this be Steph and Clay?

Because Draymond- But I'm saying that first year, Draymond is not... It's just Curry and Clay basically, with Bogot and Harrison Barnes is on there at that point. But it's not Draymond. We didn't know who Draymon was as a potential- But that's the year.

That's the year to point to because more than the regular season and even more than the Denver series, because Alan already gets hurt right before that series, and it upends their team. The Spurs' loss, that was the final proof of concept for me. I remember vividly thinking it at the time, writing about it at the time, talking to people with the Warriors the next season and beyond about that series. Remember, the first two games in that series were in San Antonio, and they were wild games. The Warriors split the games, and then Steph gets hurt in the series and limbs through it. Boga gets hurt in that series and limbs through it. They lose in six. But just the gold standard of NBA defense ran in to something that they didn't know what to do with. They just were like, This guy's pulling up from 30 feet and we're supposed to defend this? This is not how we were told basketball was. That series was the series where the Warriors became the Warriors to me, and then it just snowballed from there. This team is going to be an awesome offensive team. They could be a 50-win team next year.

I don't think that's out of bounds at all. That leap, this is a real thing. That leap is there. I do think One more add is key. Then the Draymond thing I bring up only because the Warriors were an elite defensive team right away when they started to play him. And I think that's the big question for this team is, how do they become a top 10?

But that really was until the '67 win season when Lee got hurt and then Draymond's minutes went way up, right? That was the year when it bloomed. That was year three of this.

The David Lee injury was a big part of their team. '13, '14, they were third in defense. '12, '13, they were 12th in defense. The Boga, Ella's trade, obviously, also changed the trajectory of their team. But that's the question for, and maybe Diabate has answered some, but they're up to 17th in defense now. And this did not look like a team that could be an average defense. So they're trending the right way.

What about this? In that 32 game streak, the 21 or 11th, their eighth net rating.

Trending the right way. And Calkbrenner off the bench is a real guy defensively. He's a problem defensively. The perimeter guys will all get better. They know exactly what they want to be defensively. So they're number one in free throw rate and number one in defensive rebounding, which means they do not beat themselves. You have to beat them. And they allow the second fewest corner threes in the league. I said this way early in the season. All these numbers have been there since the start of the season. Just the other mistakes they were making were sabotaging their defense. But the groundwork was laid for a competent defensive team. They had a structure, they had things they wanted to accomplish, and they were starting to accomplish them. And now the other parts of their defense have caught up and their offense has completely exploded. But that's the question to me is, can they become a top 10 to 11 defense in the NBA? And if they can, I think I don't see why 50 wins is out of bounds next year. Why would it be? And that would be a huge jump. What are they going to win this year?

I don't know. Maybe they could win 44 this year, 42. But yeah, 50 something next year, why not?

I've been pretty good over the years at identifying when some team has... Just being a year early on somebody, I remember the OKC, Of the year they finished 40 and 42. It was the 2022-2023 season. Now, it didn't take a rocket science to think that a team with a bunch of draft picks and Shay, we knew at that point was going to be special, that they were going to be really good. But I remember talking about the podcast at the time. They played LeBron in the game when LeBron broke the record. And watching them and how they handled that whole experience, and they just wanted to keep the game going so they could 'cause they were trying to beat the Lakers. They just had a calmness and a competitiveness in them. I was like, There's something really here. I feel that way about the Hornets. I felt that way about those Warriors teams in that '13 season where I was like, There's something actually really here. This isn't just a fun story. There's something special brewing. I really feel that way with this Hornets team. I don't think this is like... I know they're not even 500 yet.

They're 30 and 31. But I think they have the foundation, especially the white trade. I don't know if Bridges is there long term or not, and I assume LaMelo is. But they have this Dallas pick that's top two protected in '27.

It's a great asset.

They have a Miami pick that's top 14 protected this year and unprotected in '27.

The Rozier pick.

What is their Iguidala move is my question. Because Golden State came out of that '47 and '35 season. Drayman wasn't Drayman yet. They were basically Curry and and some Barnes. But their big move was Iguidala. They dumped some contracts. They added two first-round picks. They went and got this amazing fourth banana for them, and that made their team go up a level. Could it be Yannis? Could it be Bam out of bio? Could it be Anthony Davis? Could it be Trey Murphy? Could it be somebody like Isaac Hartenstein? Okay, so you're just trying to get off his money. There's not as many candidates as you think, but I think that's the next step for this. I It's a playoff warrior guy that can come in and be one of your five guys.

Well, and they have time. It's funny how fast this goes in the NBA because this is a feel good story right now. Totally. They don't have all three of Knippel and Miller and LaMelo on max deals until 28, 29. And then they will... I'm sorry, until '29, '30. That's the end of Knippel's rookie deal. So they have time, but they got to use these next two or three or four years to take advantage of that salary cap space and that cap tax, apron, flexibility that will go away if and when all three of those guys are on max deals and get someone in the door who can help them win now because they're going to be ready to win big. And I do think it needs to be somebody who... I don't even think you need to lean defense. I just think you need to be a good defensive player and fill some gaps on defense and probably have some size. But they should absolutely be active trying to find... They were one of my favorite just for total for fun. I didn't think they would do it, nor do I think they should do it.

But Anthony Davis popped into my head when Nico Harrison got fired. Too expensive, too old, but Bam is a good name. I don't think the heat ever want to trade Bam. But a guy Why a guy like that who defends but doesn't gum up your offense, which is obviously hard to find, but they're going to be on the hunt for somebody because these three guys together, this is a real thing, what they're doing offensively.

They have all their own first-run picks, plus those two other ones. The other piece is new owners, which is similar to the Warriors situation. The Warriors brought... They, makeup and those guys bought that team right around 2011, 2012. So it was early on, and they've revamped the back. They're actually spending money, which is the secret problem with Charlotte was Jordan was one of the worst owners of all time. We love Michael Jordan. He was just a terrible owner who was cheap and made bad decisions. It was poorly run behind the scenes. They hired Charles Lee, who's great, who, by the way, Charles Lee was involved with the Bucks when they won the title and the Celtics when they won the title, and I think is one of the best coaches in the league. They're not that far away. When you think the foundation of those three guys versus Curry, who turned out to be one of the all-timers, just Curry and Clay versus those three together, talent-wise, it's like you're at least in the vicinity and then you can patch it around. I think the canipel piece, all jokes aside, but he's 20 and he's putting up stats that a 27-year-old would do and the stuff they're doing with him in games.

To have somebody who's that young, who you have on a rookie contract that you can still build around, it's a little reminiscent of when the Warriors had that huge discount for Curry forever. What was he making? 10 million a year for years and years?

I think it was a four-year, $44 million extension.

They were able to just patch shit around. That's basically the Knipple contract. Lamelo is a max, and they're going to have to pay Brandon Miller this summer, I think. And he's earned the contract now.

And speaking of LaMelo, I am an all-time LaMelo defender. I never got off the LaMelo is a good thing. And I do think it'd be interesting to have a conversation with him because winning is this weird feedback loop where finally the team is winning. And I do think he's modulated his game as much as young LaMelo ball can modulate his game. A lot of the crazy Z, early clock threes, they're being trimmed down a little bit. He's trying harder on defense and more consistently on defense. There's always going to be moments where only LaMelo Ball could take that shot. There's the only player in the league who would do that. But I do think he's playing a calmer more just clean, normal style of basketball. And I wonder, I would love to ask him, in these previous years with Charlotte, what was to stop him from doing whatever he wanted? He couldn't look around the roster and being, Well, that guy can shoot, and that guy should shoot, and that guy should shoot, and we're losing anyway. They had a couple of good play in years with Borrego and stuff. But now he looks around, he's like, that guy's fucking awesome.

That guy's scoring more points than me, and we're winning all these games. And all of a sudden, we have a lot of hype around us and a lot of buzz, no pun intended.

I probably can take them.

Maybe I can just take 12 shots tonight and 15 shots the next game and 11 shots the next game and not take 25 shots and have a usage rate that's gargantuan. Doing. Everything's cool. I do think there's... I think his game is changing a little bit in that sense.

I was completely out. I didn't think he was going to get it. Usually by year six, if there's no signs of life, it's not happening. But I'm with you. I think he's toned back a lot of stuff. What's interesting about him on this team and why he's such a good fit in so many different ways. Again, he's playing 27 minutes a game. They're very careful with not putting too much on him.

Remember they brought him off the bench a few times back to backs?

They're easing him in. They'll get a rebound, and he can do a... Maxi is a good parallel to this where he's just off, right? And he's full speed. They're not just this half-court team or this team of three-point shooters. They also have this fast break side. And when he's off, these guys split to the sides and they know what to do. And it's really hard to defend. At home, they're finally starting to get some sellouts. There's some real energy for some of these games. I think they're going to be really dangerous.

Talk about a team that fans are dying to love. I mean, like local fans.

Oh, my God. I feel so bad for their fans.

They're waiting to fall in love with a team like this. I hope they make the playoffs. I would love... I mean, Pistons, Hornets, round one would be unbelievable theater.

That's a terrifying series if you're the Pistons because you're playing a team that started out 4-14 and has basically been a 50-win team since. That's who you're getting as the 8 seed.

They're going to come out. I don't ever see them deviating from how they play because it's the playoffs. They're going to play fast, they're going to play loose, they're going to shoot tons of threes and play with tons of bravado. That's just who they are.

It's funny. Comparing anyone to the Warriors is insane. That's why I said we're going to crazy town. But in 2012, '13, when we were working together, we never could have predicted anything that happened with that Warriors team. We just knew they were super fun. It was like, I'm glad Steph Curry is going to turn out to be a really good pro because there was three years there where we didn't even know if he was going to be able to stay in the league with his ankles. Thank God, he's really fun to watch. And I'm so glad we've gotten to this point of, Hey, Clay Thompson is really good, too. And then over the next three years, it built into this way bigger thing. They have the foundation to do something pretty special with this team.

So I was looking through the last 25 years of teams that unexpectedly and organically snapped into something that- Was this your first ChatGPT foray? Yeah, I did a little chat. I did one ChatGPT, and then I felt horrible about it and I stopped.

Why did you feel bad?

I just...

You had to try it.

I'm old school. Can we have just writers and writers doing the writing?

You should just gone to the library and research this in encyclopedias.

Hey, look, The Loew family takes out books from the freaking public library, okay? You think I'm buying my daughter all the goddamn babysitter's clubs books and all that stuff? No, you're taking some of those out of the library.

The Greenwich Public Library is one of the great libraries.

You don't have to blow up my spot like that.

Well, it's a great place.

It's got its ups and downs. And there really isn't a perfect... This is the most interesting. So a lot of them have one or two, one or both of these things. One, a consensus, even as this is happening and it's early, this guy is going to be one of the 15 to 20 best players in the league at worst, like a true blue, like Derrick Rose or Damian Lillard or Steph Curry or on and on for your of organic builds. A couple of exceptions. Or two, there's a coaching change that dramatically changes how the team plays. So the Bucks with Budenholzer, the Hawks with Budenholzer, that's a good conflict. Like a team that didn't maybe have a top 20 player. And there's a couple more like the Bulls with Tibbs, the Pacers. The Pacers are actually an interesting comparison. The Paul George, David West, George Hill, they have a coaching change. But But Paul George, I think, obviously became an all-MBA player. And do you look at... I think probably they do, but they don't... Do we have an all-time superstar on this team?

I think that's where this falls apart. Because you would have to say the Knippel Miller combo as how unusual it is to have two wings that can both shoot and are almost interchangeable in some ways, almost as the superstar. Because it's a little I feel like what the Celtics had with Jalen and Jason for a while there, where it's these two forwards. Like, what is this? Nobody has anything like this. Maybe that's the superpower. Just being able to have all these different lineups, but with those two guys as the centerpiece, and you can go bigger or smaller with them. I think you got to include LaMelo.

It's the three of them together because he's the best passer. He's also 6'7, the same height as Brandon Miller in one inch listed taller.

I don't want to put this on LaMelo because I'm so nervous that it's going to fall apart for him at any time.

Well, the health stuff has been... But you're right. The health stuff is now the thing that makes me the most nervous is just the ankle stuff that keeps popping up and making him miss time. But the three of them being 6, 6, 6, 7 and I mean, the combined passing, shooting, ball handling skills that they have is really unusual.

Well, how many teams in the league right now have five guys who, if the situation was right, could absolutely easily score 20 points a Think about that. It's not many. There's a scenario where it's like, Hey, Miles Bridges, we need you to score 25 points a game for three weeks here. He could actually do it if they wanted him to. For the people here listening who are like, This is the most fucking insane thing I've ever heard.

I don't think anyone who's paying attention could think this is insane.

Well, the advanced metrics are demanding that we had the conversation. When you're first in that rating for 32 games, you have to have the conversation. They played Dallas home on Tuesday. They're going to win that. Dallas has given up on the season. They're at Boston on Wednesday. Home Miami on Friday. It's a fun one.

That's a must watch. Charlotte, Miami, Friday. That's going on my calendar.

At depleted They did Phoenix on Sunday at Portland, at Sacramento, and then at San Antonio on March 14th. Then they have a little Miami, Orlando home game combo after that.

They waxed the Spurs, by the way. They did wax them, but they wire to wire, beat the at home in Charlotte.

At Boston, home, Miami, this is now... It's midterms for them. It's the midterm exams in high school. It's like, Okay, you have our attention. Now go to Boston. You're not going to have Jason Tatum yet. This is a team you should be able to play with. You're going to shoot a lot of threes and be super comfortable. Then Miami, that's the team you have to get through in your division. Can you split these? Can you win both? If you lose both, then we were in crazy town and this was stupid.

No, you can't. You live in... Two games can't take you out of crazy town. At Boston is a tough game and Miami is Miami.

I know, but I just brought the 2013 Warriors and the 2023 OKC into this. That's where we got in the crazy town.

I tried to temper it by bringing in some teams who became very good and did not perhaps accomplish the great history that the Warriors accomplished because they were all very good teams. But no, you stay in crazy town. You can't be dissuaded by two games, especially one against Miami, in which something as historically significant as the 2026 Southeast division title could be at stake. I mean, the pressure that all the players must feel knowing the division is in the air in that game is palpable. People, better, stronger humans have quaked under that pressure before.

If we wanted to go to Crazy Town, we would go to the 1978 Seattle Supersonics, who started out 5 and 17 and ended up losing the finals in seven games to Washington and then winning a year later. But that is the craziest start to finish season. 5 and 17 made the finals.

I think there are probably less than 50 people who are still alive who can say one sentence about the 1977-1978 NBA Finals, who can say one coherent sentence about the Seattle- I could probably name nine of the guys on the team.

It's a great basketball card team.

I think you guys are going to be D-day soldiers who every year there's fewer and fewer of you left.

Well, that's like my dad with the season tickets for the Celtics. He's like fifth oldest now for having the tickets straight through. I think there's some guy who's like 90, but my dad's moved into the top three or four at this point. Has he been honored?

How they do the season ticket holder of the game, they bring them out and they wave.

I honestly can't believe he has been brought to midcourt and wave to the crowd. What's he going to do? He's been going since 1974.

Wow, that's astonishing.

I'm actually surprised. The '73, '74 season brought him a title. Anyway, Charlotte. I think this is real. Okay, before we go. It's March. It's spring training. I have the Mets over and under for the year for you.

Over? I don't even know what it is.

Well, you could go... Where is it? Over is... I can't find it. Well, 90 plus wins is minus 134. You win in 90 games?

Probably not.

You don't think so?

I think they... Look, I'm following it from afar. It seems like a little bit of a problem that every day there are quotes coming out of spring training that amount to like... It turns out playing this new position is a little trickier than player X thought it would be. That's five players on the team. Brett Bady now has gloves for seven different positions.

It's never a good sign.

I hope this is going to work. It seems I'm a little worried, frankly, but of course, I'm taking the over on whatever the over under is.

Are you watching survivor 50?

No. I haven't watched any. I've never watched an episode of survivor. Not one.

Do you ever think of going on?

I would probably not subject myself to it.

What would be your strategy if you went on?

I don't even know how it works. We do tasks and then someone gets voted off. I know everyone forms alliances and their people alienate other people in their backroom deals. My strategy would just- It's like ESPN. Are there teams? I'm sorry, I'm not bringing anything to the table.

I can't go on because I wear contact lenses and I have allergies. That's it? Otherwise, I would have gone on. Yeah, I would have loved it.

There's no workaround for that?

No, I just feel like that's an excuse. Being in the outdoors. I feel like that's an excuse. Well, now I'm too old. My wife was my dream person to go on, though, because great at challenges. She would have owned the challenges, but gets crazy if she's not eating. You're really hungry on survivor. She's just an absolute terrorist. There's not a hotel nearby where they're getting catered meals? No. She'd be just an absolute maniac, but then would win the challenges. They wouldn't be able to vote her off, and she would just be yelling at everybody about the rice. Just like, Who ate the rice? There was more rice here.

I'm trying to think what reality show has ever tempted me. That would be amazing.

Amazing Race?

That's the one. That's the one where I travel around the world and solve problems and puzzles and go on chases. That seems fun.

What's the craziest thing you've ever done?

The craziest thing I've ever done?

Well, joining a reality show would be the craziest thing. If you told me one time I applied to be on the real world, I'd be like, That's the This is the easiest thing you could have told me. I don't think I have anything. Did you have anything like, you're like, I can't believe I did that?

I still can't believe I ever got on television to talk about anything. You were there with me the first time I went on TV, and I almost had a frequency. You almost had to take me to the emergency room.

I couldn't even convince you to do a podcast.

No. That took two months. I think all of this is crazy. I'm trying to think if I did anything.

I'm glad you mentioned that. I think about that sometimes. All of this is crazy.

I don't think I have any I mean, I did crazy stuff when I was a cops and crime reporter at the Stanford Advocate at Stanford, Connecticut, talking to murderers.

What was the craziest trial you ever covered?

A craziest trial I ever covered. It's sad. It was a home invasion in which an elderly retired teacher was murdered in her own house by... Oh, my God. I don't even remember who exactly did it. It was someone that they didn't know. It was a random thing, if I remember it correctly. I covered all sorts of horrible stuff and talked to lots of scary people and lots of very interesting people in strange places. It was crazy.

I was on a jury once in the late 1990s, maybe 2000, when I was living in Boston. Have you ever on a jury?

No. I've always gotten out of jury duty.

I was on a jury, and it was this case where these guys got in a fight in an elevator and somebody got stabbed. And he said it was the guy who did the stabbing said he was defending himself. And we had to do this three-day trial and decide on whether he did it or not. It was pretty tense.

Sounds tense.

Yeah. I won't tell you what the verdict was, but it was I'm going to come back with a better answer.

I'm sure I've done something crazy that's just- Did you ever drive cross country with anybody? No.

Trying to think. You're just a very practical guy.

I once chaperoned a high school band trip to Florida from New Jersey. I was one of eight faculty members who did that. It wasn't crazy. It was just incredibly unpleasant from start to finish.

That involved- That sounds terrible.

That involved a group. I mean, we're talking like 60 children, high school children, and eight teachers. That involved, one of the nights was a dinner at medieval times in Orlando. It was like night four of a five-day trip. And we did have a serious conversation among the faculty members about whether we could sneak alcohol into medieval times and no one would be able to tell because the cups were pewter and whether the risk-reward equation was worth it because-Yeah, what a way to get fired. I was so sick of the whole trip.

Med medieval times in the cable guy?

Yeah, it's still going. We actually had to talk about this with some friends there. There's 10 medieval times around the country if you want to organize a work of an outing.

Did you You saw this whole thing that people were worried that Jim Carrey had been replaced?

I did see. I saw photos that looked different than I remember Jim Carrey, but people age, and then the Hollywood people have things happen to them, and they don't look- I thought it looked like he had fillers in his cheeks.

I didn't think he got replaced.

There's a litany of people who I see them in movies and I'm like, That person looks like that now. I wouldn't have guessed that in a million years.

I In general, I wonder if anyone's ever been replaced in our lifetime.

You're going down some dangerous roads that could get us into some political discourse.

It happened in Dave, but that was a movie. It did happen. It was just in a script. Kevin Klein came in. He looked just like Dave. Did it. Have you seen Sicario? I have. You have. You like Sicario.

I love Sicario. I haven't seen it. I saw it in a hotel by myself in Los Angeles on some road trip because it's a classic, My Wife Will Never Watch A movie. I didn't quite know what I was getting into. I knew the gist of it. I remember being like, this is so much better than I even thought it was going to be. I would like to rewatch it. I have not seen any of the sequels. I think there are there multiple sequels?

Multiple sequels. The original Sicari was on Netflix, and we're doing a live rewatch almost tomorrow at 6: 00 PM. Et, me and fantasy and Chris to kick off CR month. We have two other movies knocked down. Fargo, his second movie CR Month. Then today, just announced To Live and Die in LA. I don't know if you know that one. I don't think I've ever seen that movie. Yeah, I don't think I know that movie. William Peterson. No. It's a classic. You can find it. I don't know if it's on Netflix, but yeah, those are the first two more spots. So five movie month for rewatchables. That's great. There you go. Thanks to McLoab Ultra for sponsoring this live stream. Thanks to How and Eduardo and Jack and Kevin and Chris and everybody at The Ringer as well. Zack Lo, you have a podcast Tuesday morning? Tuesday Thursday morning. Thursday morning.

That's right.

Thursday morning will be the holy shit. That Hornet Selt, The Game, was the game of the Year. Jason Tatum is coming back on Friday podcast, so I'm looking forward to it. Wow. Good to see you, my friend. Thank you.

Always fun.

Thanks, everybody. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for a Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus on President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Give them a problem call at 1-800-Gamble or 1-800 My Reset. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat-in-connect or mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts, or call 8778-Hope-ny, or text Hope-ny in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867.