Transcript of Luka’s MVP Run, Curry’s Revival, NBA Roster Regrets, and a Bears Super Bowl Run With Kirk Goldsberry and Tom Pelissero

Live from the state of Texas, it's Kirk Goldsberry. He's with us today on a wonderful Tuesday morning after 15 NBA games last night. And I, I somehow was able to watch at least bits and pieces of all of them 'cause I had the football game going too. It was really great how the timing broke down. Um, there were some classics. A-as always, the Pelicans are the league pass MVP. I am going to give my, uh, my 10 biggest takes of the season so far, but I'm gonna hand the floor over to you for the first one, which is your Ringer piece today about the league getting younger.

Yeah, thank you, Bill. Always good to see you. Uh, this piece actually came out of some work you and I were working on when Yanis was demanding a trade or whatever it was going on in Milwaukee last year. And we were both like, well, what is this trade value and going like that as a 31-year-old superstar? Uh, but long story short, the NBA has become a young man's game more than ever. The sport, as we know, is faster. It's more physical. It's harder on legs. Uh, but some stats that I want to start with is players 30 and older logged 51% of playoff minutes in 1998.

Yeah, that, I really started thinking about this when we were talking about it with Yanis and the odometer of players and what that means. And you can see it like Kawhi hasn't made a playoff run this entire decade, right? And the one time the Clippers made it, he got hurt. Durant hasn't made a playoff run since he was on the 2019 Warriors and the foot on the line in round two against, uh, the Nets-Bucks series. LeBron hasn't really made, been on a team that you really thought could have won a title the last five years.

Yeah.

We're gonna come up with later. That when, when you hit these guys when they're right at the tail end of their, uh, of their apex basically, can you do this for eight months? So there, there's, it's basically you're doing it from mid-October all the way through mid-June. Who's gonna have the advantage in that case? Younger legs, right? Whereas like.

Mm-hmm.

I think you mentioned the 98 season, pace of play is way slower. Uh, somebody like Jordan played, I think 82 games his last three Bulls season plus all the playoff stuff, but you could do it because he was gaming the system with the pace and how many mi, you know, how they, how they allocated, how hard they were going. I think the field goal attempts were super low that year.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but big picture, is this just what the league is now?

Yeah.

Like, like is this a trend or is this where we're going? And I, and I think for me, as I look at it, I just feel like the way basketball's played, which we've discussed on this pod and many others for a while with how just hard it is to play game to game now, I do wonder if this is what it looks like. So you get a guy like Yaxel on a rookie contract that just turned 24 and that's like, that's like having a rookie QB. That's like having Caleb on the rookie QB scale now. Um, or Cooper Flagg who can play right away at age 20, you know, he's not even 20 yet and could be the linchpin of a team.

I think some of 'em are. And I think if you look at the two, you know, inarguable best constructed rosters in the league right now, one that's had these own, its own injury devastation in Oklahoma City and San Antonio, it's all young guys. Uh, and again, like the Thunder are all young guys. They own all their draft capital. The Spurs too. Like the smart teams are realizing like this draft capital is the most valuable thing. Spending high money on somebody in their thirties is a really risky deal. And I think 30 is the new 35 would be sort of the, the tagline of this piece.

Paul George.

Paul George sat out.

Yeah.

It's, these are, these are the issues. So if you're spending money on players and most of the guys in their thirties can't play the 82, you're gonna naturally be like, you know what? I, I want Luca Garza. I, I want Cato. I don't need these guys in, in, in their, in their thirties 'cause they just can't hang.

Yeah. And the smarter teams have realized that they need to go 15 deep to accommodate some of this stuff. But this is, it's such a weird conversation 'cause on the one hand, I completely agree with this.

Yeah.

On the other hand, we're seeing some guys play longer and being at a higher level than we've ever seen before, right? Jordan was.

Totally.

I think 35 in the 98 finals.

Yeah.

Now you have LeBron at, and gonna be 42 in December, who's playing center, who's bouncing around, who in some ways seems like he has as much bounce as he's ever had. I know he's a completely different player now, but Paul George at 36 has looked awesome for the Celtics, right?

Right.

And James Harden in the Cavs, you know, he, he, he's been, he's been solid. He's not gonna make an All-NBA team, but he's been really good for what he is at his age. Same for Durant. So we're seeing guys be able to extend their primes, but I think what's changed is I just don't think you can count on it for more than 55 to 65 games. So you gotta figure out.

No, you don't.

How can you fill in the, the spots when they can't play? But then also, are they gonna be healthy for the playoffs would be the two things.

No, you're exactly right. And the point I'll make is like when you're LeBron James or Stephen Curry or Kevin Durant, you have a long way to fall before you're unplayable.

Yeah.

You have a long way to go from the top of the world, uh, to unplayable. This is more of a story about Otto Porter Jr. who started, you know, three games in the 2024 finals at 29 for the Warriors, uh, or is it 2022 finals?

Yeah.

And they, they win, he's out of the league two years later and he's quoted saying, "My body can't put up with this anymore." He's 31. This is about Malcolm Brogdon. This is about Victor Oladipo, um, or Spencer Dinwiddie. That class of player, Bill, that the, the guys who maybe are owed 10, 15 million dollars a year, but start to break down a little bit. So the Illuminati class I think is gonna be fine, um, because they're so talented. Like I said, they have a long way to fall. So this is more of a story about Otto Porter Jr.

Well, it's, I agree that it's partly a story about Otto Porter Jr., but to me it's also a story about somebody like Cooper Flagg.

A hundred percent.

What kind of mileage can you put on somebody like that when you watch how hard he plays game to game? Is that realistic that he could play 15, 16, 17 years like that? So as you were talking, I was thinking about the different eras. I remember doing this in my book, which my book was 17 years ago at this point, but these different eras, these factors that kind of fucked up different generations, right? And sixties and seventies, basically if you got hurt, you were screwed. Like.

Yeah.

If you tore your ACL, if you tore your Achilles, if you, you know, ripped your patella tendon, whatever, you just had no, that was it. You were never the same. Then we get to the eighties and that's when the drugs come in, right?

Mm-hmm.

And the drugs wipe out basically from, I would say 1977 through '86, probably wipe out 40 to 45% of the guys who could have been awesome in some way.

Yeah.

They were compromised. Either they battled with it and survived it, or they got taken out. Then you get to the nineties and I called that the too much too soon era where you had these guys coming to the league getting huge contracts right away and it kind of messed them up. You know, it got guys that I think would've been great, especially if you had the rookie scale, but these Kenny Anderson types that they come in, they're immediately paid like they're a success. You can see this happening in baseball now too with some of the, some of the contracts the young guys are getting and they haven't done anything.

Right.

Uh, Chris Webber is probably the best example of all of 'em, but there were a lot of 'em back then. 2000s and, uh, and, and the 2010s, I don't know. What, what do you think was the big factor for messing that generation up other than the seven year contracts?

I think that, that was when we lost Roy Hibbard. That was when we lost like a certain class of player, like the post player, um, because the skills completely changed between.

Right.

2010 and 2020.

So that was a stylistic thing.

Yeah.

Yeah. But you still, you still saw All-Stars just falling out of the league. Like Roy Hibbard's always my go-to example. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So style of play changed and then, uh, trying to think what a, what other factors would've been. Maybe the fact that.

The pace.

Well, we didn't have the college infrastructure in the same way. Guys were coming in at 18, 19, 20. Um, but now this feels like the new, the new thing that, uh, the new wild card for this generation.

Yeah.

Is just how hard basketball is to play. I've been saying it for years and early on people were like, that's bullshit. It was hard to play in the eighties, nineties too. It's like, go look at the YouTube. Just spend.

Right.

Spend 10 minutes watching playoff games from the eighties. They're more physical for guys banging into each other, but it's not the same running. It's not the same flying out. It's not even like fast breaks where guys just ran a straight line and it was a three on two, you get a layup. Now they dart out to the sides, the Euro step stuff. I mentioned the sneaker technology last week and.

Yeah.

I got a lot of emails about that and from people who feel like the lower tops just, and, and also the, the arc on the shoes, which are lower 'cause it allows the guys to have more control. That puts more of a burden on the Achilles and the lower part of your body. 'Cause when, when we were growing up, the guys from the seventies and eighties, they would have knee injuries, right? They were wearing like higher.

Yeah.

Higher top shoes. Now it seems like a lot of the stuff is below the knees, right? It's calf, it's, it's hamstring and it's Achilles and ankle stuff.

Ankles.

Because, and I really think the shoes are a small piece of it, but I also feel like style of play too. So then you throw in the pace of play and some of this stuff makes sense to me, right?

Yeah. And I think the other big thing as I, I looked at this, so congratulations to the Golden State Valkyries. You just won the WNBA Championship. Uh, but they played 57 games, Bill.

Yeah.

Their team combined to play 2,280 minutes. Um, the Spurs played 5,000 minutes of basketball last year. The Knicks played 4,900 minutes of basketball. If you look at the Michigan Wolverines, they played 1,600 minutes of basketball and they won the championship. The, the UCLA women's basketball team, they played 1,500 minutes.

Right.

It, you, you, you talk about the style and that's exactly right. And I wanna come back to Cooper Flagg in a second. The style has completely changed. So the 98 finals, there were 79 possessions on each, each side of that. That was a slow game. We would never see that game again. Um, and there were 23 pointers taken. Uh, the game four of the 2026 finals, the epic comeback by the Knicks, 90 some possessions, 75 threes up and down. Uh, and that's a big part of this story is yes, we, we're still playing 82 games and all these minutes, but per minute the exertion is crazy.

Yeah.

Dribble, pass, and shoot. This is supposed to be Cooper Flagg's rookie year. And I heard you talking about 'em and everybody and Zach's talking about 'em, holy shit. Like, is this the best 19-year-old player we've ever seen? So it's pretty easy to move on from old guys when you have a cohort of Cam Boozers coming in who are, oh my God, like Memphis's best player or second best player is a 19-year-old rookie. So I think that's part of the story too, of this sort of gentrification of this younger generation coming in more compatible with the pace and the space and the style.

Well, the guys from the eighties, they're at least three years in college, right? When they're coming in. Jordan was three, Carl Malone was.

Right.

I think three. All those dudes, right? So you're playing whatever the college schedule is of 30, 32 games. Maybe you're playing a thousand minutes. They're not, they don't have the same kind of AAU stuff that, uh, that the guys from the Cooper Flagg generation and the generation before had where you, you know, they've.

That's true.

I talked to Doc about that recently and they, they, they have changed some of those rules with the AA. There was a stretch with AAU where you'd played like 10 games in a weekend.

Yeah.

Um, and I think they've tried to cut down at least some of that stuff, but I still feel like these guys are just playing more basketball. And you go, Cooper Flagg plays one year or two, so does Con, um, so do a lot of guys that come into the league. And now you're immediately at 24, 2,500 minutes potentially in the NBA. Now if you're on a playoff team, that might go to 3,000 minutes and you're 20 years old.

Yeah.

21 years old.

Yeah.

It just seems like a lot. Hey, I wrote down, 'cause I read your piece that's on the ringer.com, a great website today. Pace of play better for young people.

For sure.

Technically, pace of play breaks down older players, right?

Yeah.

So you have two things that he, the specific thing that's happening really good if you're under 27 and under, not as great if you're 29 and over, right? But on the flip side, that pace of play as those younger guys, as Cooper Flagg's in year 10 or Jason Tatum's in year 10, and you have all these miles and all these possessions back and forth, how are those guys gonna age? And I think that's gonna be the big X factor. You have all this technology that can help these guys age. All of these things we know about dieting and sleep and, you know, people wearing the whoop and a million things.

Yeah.

But then you have all these other factors against it, just wear and tear. And I wonder, we saw this in NFL. It took us forever to realize like, oh, NFL running backs are done when they're 30, right? It took us, took us forever to realize that. Like really for.

Yeah.

For decades, we were like, wow, that guy's done. And now it's just like a foregone conclusion. You have Saquon Barkley or whoever, if he's still playing, that's why Derrick Henry is such an outlier. But if you have a running back that you committed a second contract to and he's still playing in his thirties, it's like a miracle. And I wonder, could that start happening with basketball?

And there's a cost there too, because if you look at the 98 finals and again, eight of the 10 guys, when Jordan hits that shot, most of 'em are Hall of Famers. They're all 33, 34, 35. Whether you're talking about.

Yeah.

Kerr or Rodman or Pippen or Stockton or Malone or Horncheck or Jordan himself, that familiar face thing, Bill, is a huge part of the NBA's sort of media revenue. That, these guys, they're stars by the time they're 32, 33, 34. If we're shortening their lifespans.

Yeah.

We're diminishing the Q scores of the most important players in the league. And I think that's bad for the product. Ultimately, we're just playing too many games. And I know we've gone down this road a hundred times, but SGA played 2,800 minutes, won the MVP, missed 14 games, by the way, last year. Asia Wilson wins her fifth MVP. I think congrats to Asia. She played 1,500 minutes. Like there's no other league in the world that's playing 2,000, 3,000 minutes per player. There's no other league in the world that's playing 48 minute freaking games.

Yeah.

That's insane. And the other sport I'd point to in football is, is right on, is Major League Baseball. And they had a similar velocity revolution. In theirs case, it was pitching the baseball. Ours is pace on the floor.

Mm.

And dudes started breaking. It's not rocket science. Like if you change how they.

So Tommy John surgery for pitchers and starting.

Tommy John.

Pitchers not being able to throw 200 innings anymore, not being able to throw 120 pitch games, having to come out in the fifth, sixth inning. That was the wear and tear of the sport coming back to hunt the pitching.

And I don't think we're gonna have shoulder injuries, but I think we're gonna have a rash of ankles, calves, hamstrings, knees.

Yeah.

And, you know, in the first 14 days of this season, my student Michael Rees here at the University of Texas has been working with me on this injury data with the ringer for a minute. We had 60 injuries. That's the biggest in our 15 year database. Uh, only narrowly passing last year, which was 58. So we're starting to see it. We're starting to see all these injuries rack up. And man, I, I, I look at all the other leagues in the world and I studied them. They play once or twice a week. They play once or twice a week. You wouldn't play football. You wouldn't have an NFL schedule as 43 games.

I'm sure they would try. Could us probably examine it. I mean, hockey added two games, which I thought was hilarious. That's another sport that the, uh.

Incredible.

You know, that where they might end up playing 25 to 28, four rounds of the playoffs too. Listen, I, I don't know how many times I've talked about this on the pod.

Right.

About the schedule and about how this to me is like just inexcusable and semi-reprehensible that whoever is in charge of the league, which I think is Adam Silver these days, that he doesn't care. And.

Right.

I, the question for me is you, you're gonna make all this money. The folies are gonna get Vegas. That's gonna be 9.5 billion for the expansion team and they're gonna commit all this stuff. So the owners all get 300 plus million a year. All the franchise values have gone way up. They're gonna get a second thing from Seattle, which is gonna be seven and a half, something like that. And if Seattle doesn't have the money, they'll go to Mexico City. So all these owners are getting, I don't know, 16 billion in expansion fees that they don't have to share with the players.

Yeah.

That just split that and have 30 into 16 billion. That's gonna be 500 plus million a year. And yet everyone's like, well, we can't lose games. We, we lose, we lose too much money. We lose revenue. At some point, you have to look at this holistically and be like, all right, well, you're adding these five home games for everybody, but you're ruining your players and, and you're making your sport worse.

Yeah.

And you're hurting careers and you're shortening careers. And this should be a 70 game season. And if you talk to literally everybody who plays basketball, all of them would say the season needs to be shorter. And if you don't do it at this point, I just think it's negligent. I really do. I think it's.

Yeah.

I think it's like actual negligence and greed. And those are the two words.

Well, and I would say Adam deserves a little of the spotlight, but so do the players. To be fair to Adam and the owners, the players aren't exactly.

100%.

Signed.

You're right.

So the NBA ultimately, as the business school professor here, is a media company that leases out bodies. And the bodies are breaking.

Yeah.

Uh, and the, if, if you're running this business and the Anthony Edwards is out, Tyrese Halliburton is out, Jay Dub is out, Chet is out, J, John Morant is out.

We, the season's two weeks old. We've lost six guys already.

Your media product is being sort of the intification to use the parlance of today has, has set in, in part because of this stubborn reliance on 82 games. Anybody with any kind of link to a team or sports science would say this is too many, this is negligence, as you say, to try to get away with this. The data are screaming, um, 40 minute games. Look, and I've said this.

So I'm, I'm against the 40 minute games.

Okay.

I think we need less games. I heard Zach Mahoney talking about this the other day too. I'm against it because I think that first of all, I think we have deep enough rosters to play 48 minutes. I think the rhythm of the game would be weird. I also feel like for the fans, it kind of sucks. Like the games are pretty short anyway. The halftime's 12 minutes. Like, so I have to go all the way the game. I have to park. The game's gonna be over in two hours. The tickets are crazy expensive. I, it's, to me, it's not a link to the game. It's the amount of games.

I'll meet you there. Yeah, I think that's fine.

Like, I think somebody's played eight games already. I think.

Yes, that's right.

I think either Atlanta or New Orleans, somebody, I think a couple teams have played eight games already and this season just started. So where, why are we cranking out four and five nights already?

And again, like when did your team fall apart last night in Houston? One game, but we all watched it. Oh, fourth quarter. The, the, the Rockets have more bounce. They're, they're making their threes. The, the, the Celtics threes stop falling. The Celtics are on a back to back. They've traveled somewhere from different part of the country. Paul George can't even suit up. Like, what are we doing? No other league is playing back to backs like this. This is insane.

No, hockey is crazy.

Hockey, the guys are just disposable.

But the thing is, when we go to 32 teams, we can so easily just have a 69 game schedule and it all works out.

Nice.

Where you play everybody in your conference, I think three times, and then everybody in the other conference twice. And it's just, I think the number's 69. It's 69 or 70, but.

Yeah, I like that.

But everybody, it's funny. Like we have, we have the election today, right? Everybody's got, you're voting for like whatever your party, your different candidates you like. And then there's all these props. If we had props as an election for the NBA, and this was one of the props.

Mm-hmm.

And fans got to vote, like, would you rather have 82 games or 70? This is prop 30, 31.

Yeah.

Who, who's voting for 82?

Right.

Like what, all, all the people you love, who in your life who love basketball, who would be like, nope, I love the 82. I love seeing guys get hurt. I love seeing, I love seeing teams rest their best players on ba on the second night of back to backs.

Yeah.

It's great. Let's, let's have more.

I love when my kid shows up in a Curry jersey in San Antonio.

Right. He's not playing.

Chance to see it. He's not playing. Yeah. I think when we switch to 32 teams, that's the moment, Adam Silver. I prefer a balanced schedule. The EPL has it perfectly. Everybody plays everybody home and away. That means we can have a regular season champion that actually means something.

Yeah.

We can use the 32 teams to have a huge NBA Cup halfway through the year, have a big break, single elimination, nice bracket, March Madness for the NBA. But yeah, ultimately you're asking the stakeholders in the media, the ownership groups, and the players' association to be like, yeah, we're going, we're gonna reduce our inventory by 25%.

I think it would.

And you know it.

I think it would drive the ratings up.

So the 69 was everybody plays each other twice. That's 62 games.

Yeah.

And then if you have four 18 divisions, then they all play each other. That's seven more and that's 69. I, I said conference boards division, but that's 69 game schedule.

Yeah.

And that's what it should be.

I agree. I mean, I'll do either one of those. I think, I think you're say what you're saying is the ratings will go up, the media products will get better. And ultimately this is a media company that needs to optimize itself.

Uh.

Uh, in the next 10 years, or else, uh, or else we're gonna see a league that has a 32 year old Anthony Edwards that can't participate in any games.

Now, his, will we have, will 32 Anthony Edwards still be able to make an All-Star team with what's gonna happen to his body over the next eight years? That's another question. I Doc was talking about this, about with this G League and the two-way contracts and all this stuff they've added and how teams it's just easier and better and smarter with the second hamper and all these other things to just have younger guys at the end of the bench. And you mentioned the Otter Porter example or Malcolm Bragg and people like that. You don't, you don't want those guys at the end of your bench anymore because it's cheaper to have these other guys who might actually be able to get thrown in.

Yeah.

Mike Conley will probably never play a playoff minute. He's like having an extra assistant coach. But guess what? Everybody on the team loves Mike Conley.

Right.

You can see it there in the games. People are talking to him during timeouts. He's between him and Paul George, they have vets. And, um, I don't think a lot of teams can afford to do that 'cause they gotta play Russian roulette with the young guys basically. So.

Yeah.

Um, we'll see. I listen, with the amount of injuries we've had, this is threatening. To me, it was 50 years ago, 49 years ago, fighting became the dominant storyline in the league. Um, and it was a big sports illustrated feature about it. Like the, this league is turning into hockey. These guys are big violent forward centers who, you know, aren't on skates and could just throw haymakers. Every team has an enforcer. Is basketball getting too physical?

It's not good. And I hope we're not there because the NBA playoffs are fucking magnificent.

Yeah.

And I don't wanna sound like I'm complaining about the NBA. I love the NBA so much. I just see a glaring opportunity for improvement. And the regular season, if you look at where this league makes its revenue bill, it is April, May, and June. Uh, and we have to protect that. Um, but what we're doing from October to April just doesn't seem to be optimal. Uh, and I think that's what the data are really showing right now.

You made the key point with the baseball pitching. There was a moment there with baseball pitchers where the sport was getting harder and harder for pitchers. The velocity was going up and it wasn't sustainable. But we were treating the pitchers the way we treated them in the 1970s and 1980s, right?

Yeah.

And all of these guys got hurt. And then they were like, may wait, maybe we should. Now all of a sudden everybody's getting Tommy John. People are getting preemptive, preemptive Tommy John surgery.

All right.

10 takeaways from the first two weeks. The first one was everything we just laid out in the first segment. Second one, Luka Doncic is officially making his MVP run. And I have a really hot Luka Doncic take, uh, coming up in a second, but he's 38.8 already. 39.4% usage, which will be like top five or six all time if that keeps up. He's made 5.9 made threes per game, and he's taking 10.1 free throw attempts. So this is like a Daryl Morey coming out of the Daryl Morey warehouse robot.

Right.

Uh, 50, 43, 89 percentages. And this, we're finally getting a look at Luka relatively in shape. Seems like pretty good so far. A team built around him that is just giving him the ball all the time. And we're finally getting our answer for what would this look like for an entire season. Um, on FanDuel before the year, I mentioned he was 34 points a game. Think was like his over under. 36 was almost 3 to 1. And then once you get into 38, 39, that was like 20 to 1.

Yeah.

Um, if he stays healthy, I feel like his stats are probably gonna look like this. I think he will be in the 36 to 38 with eight and eight range. Um, do you, have you seen anything that makes you think this isn't sustainable?

Uh, just his previous injuries, not to, to go down that road again. I think if he's healthy, this is what it is. This, it, it reminds me, you brought up, uh, Daryl Morey. It reminds me of the Rockets with James Harden when James was in their prime at the end of last decade.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and we can see numbers like that and we can see offensive efficiency. So when you zoom out to the team level, Bill, you see the number one offense in the NBA, the most efficient shooting outfit in the NBA. Uh, and that, that really to me evokes that Hardenism, that heliocentric high usage that I think Luka has borrowed a lot from James Harden. I'm not the only one who says that. Um, and then you see the 21st ranked defense. That said, you know, this bench is so bad for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Yeah.

Uh, where the Lakers blew a giant lead and, and JJ had to put these dudes back in. So no, I think this is a 35 point per game scorer. Last I checked, he was on pace to break the record for three point attempts per game in this league. Uh, and if he's able to hit them at 37, 38, 39%, it all adds up to 35 plus points per game, Bill.

Harden, you mentioned he had the three seasons over 30 a game. The 19 season, he peaked at 36 a game, seven rebounds, seven assists, basically 24.5 field goal attempts. He made.

How many threes?

He made 4.8 threes, took 13.

Yeah.

And got 11 free throw attempts. So that would be the model. And I think the pace is a little faster now. Uh, I share your concerns and dismay about the Lakers bench. And some of the stuff they did was just weird. Like, I don't know how you prioritize Colin Sexton over Anthony Simons, who was just a better player who you probably could have had for the same money.

Right.

And like Simons was really good on Boston. I think he's been good for Phoenix. So it was.

Philly.

There was, uh, sorry, Philly. Uh, there's been some stuff that POINCA's done that made me wonder, does he have league pass? Um, I also thought their DeAndre Ayton trade was terrible.

Yeah.

I'm not a huge DeAndre Ayton fan, but they gave him away for a couple future picks and Jaden Hardy, who's unplayable. And it's like backup center, teams are dying to find backup centers right now. It's like, look at Phoenix.

Yeah.

Phoenix has the worst centers on the planet with Mark Williams out. Look at Philly. They don't really have a backup center. And they just kind of gave Ayton away. He's making like 8 million a year. They were like, here take him, but give us these second round picks five years from now.

Yeah.

What are you gonna do with those? All right, here's my Luka take. 'Cause it's been fascinating and compelling to watch. And I say this, I this will get aggregated and it'll be like Celtic fan trying to shit on Luka. So I'm, I'm gonna put that coming out of the gate. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna put that in. This is, I, I think the guy's brilliant. I think he's one of the best offensive players I've ever seen in my life. And it's not a new take to say that his behavior during games has been a little insufferable.

Yeah.

That's Luka now in every game. And he's just, I, he's, he's just unhappy constantly with everybody. And if somebody talks shit to him on the other team, now he's gotta focus his rage on this. It was like Ari Emanuel just wrote this book about how rage is good for you and rage, whatever his memoir was about, uh, the, the benefits of rage. I think Luka read it and ratcheted everything up a notch. I, I had a couple people who were at that Laker game last night and they were like, what's wrong with Luka?

Yeah.

Why do, why is he like this every game? 'Cause the guy's brilliant. I texted Dave Chang. I said, he's like a young, young Dave Chang in the, in, in his 20s in some kitchen just barking at everybody and making Slovenian goulash for, for, uh, customers. And it's great. It's fucking the best goulash you've ever eaten. But is it fun to watch this?

No, it's not fun. And Zach Lowe, when you and I and everybody else has gone off on this for a while, it feels like it couldn't get any worse and then he ramps it up. And one of the great moments early this season, and I know we're probably gonna talk about him later, is he actually goes to the one of his first postseason interviews of his career in the NBA.

He's great. He's the best.

And he, he just gives the, it's like, how do you make an October postgame press conference entertaining?

Yeah.

But he was like, I just, I never understood. I've never seen somebody talk this so much shit. I've never seen somebody complain so much. Um, and I think that was another data point that suggests like, man, this is out of hand. This is crazy. Uh, he's too good for it. He doesn't need to do it, but he is, it is Gordon Ramsay in Ed Malloy's kitchen. Ed Malloy has like a, a dive bar restaurant in, in Lansing, Michigan. And here comes Luka and he's like yelling at him. Like, you can't cook the French fries like this, bro.

Listen, I'm not unearthing a new take. We've been complaining about Luka's behavior forever. I'm just saying there's a guy averaging 38 a game right now who might score 50 any night.

Right.

And I have multiple TVs going and I don't wanna put him on the big TV 'cause I don't enjoy the process of watching him get those stats. And look, if he's on your team and you're winning with it, the Dallas fans loved him. I asked, I asked Jason Gallagher if, uh, you know, who he used to work with, um, for a long time at the, at Grandland in the ringer. I asked him if, if Luka was getting worse. And he, he feels like it's around the same.

Oh.

When nothing, when everything stopped. And that's when that's like, hey, Luka, you can still do all your bitching, but just confine it to when like there's stoppages in the action.

Mm-hmm.

And you do notice it. By the way, it is way worse in person 'cause on TV they're not catching half of it. So I, I don't know. I, I, I noticed it in the finals games and you would kind of hope he would start doing it 'cause it felt like it would throw him out of this. But now I just feel like this is a runaway train that's never coming back. This is just who he is.

Yeah. I think that's what it is. I think Wenthorst had the legendary take that got him in trouble with, with Dallas and some of Luka's camp when he, when he talked about the, when against the Celtics in the finals.

Biggest moment of the series.

Yeah. And he's laying on the ground. And I, I look, you would think that would, that would be the moment you'd, you'd learn from it. Um, and you're right. When you are out of game with Luka playing, you see it 'cause it is oftentimes on the wrong side of the freaking court. And my thing with the LA Lakers and a Luka Doncic team is, will you be able to play defense? The early returns are, this is a bottom 10 defense, which is I think what we would all predict.

Yeah.

Um, but it sure as hell isn't helped by a player that's not playing defense and complaining to Tony Brothers about some foul call that he thought he should have received two, two possessions earlier.

Yeah. A lot of people have made that point that sometimes he'll be complaining and just won't get back. So when he got to the Lakers and he was obviously chagrined from the trade and was a little bit of a shell of himself, and I went to a couple games during that stretch and he wasn't doing it as much. I think he, you know, he was licking his wounds. Um, I guess what is the upside of complaining all the time? Does it work or not work? 'Cause we've had guys complain over the years.

Right.

I think he is on the top, top, top shelf all time. My favorite player ever, Larry Bird, used to do it every once in a while, not as much as this. But I wonder, like at some point, if you're a ref, you're like, ah, shit, I got the Lakers tonight. Oh, man.

Oh, definitely.

Oh, man.

That's gotta be, yeah. That's like when it would've been Doc and the Clippers like 10 years ago.

That was another one. And by the way, I thought that was really bad for them. And I've said that to Doc, like Doc, Blake, and Chris Paul, every call just, oh, my. And there was this mania, like there was a conspiracy against them at all times. I think what's different here is Luka's the best player I've ever seen.

Right.

Who does it this much. And I really wanna know if the La, like Laker fans, if we, if we gave you like a, like a truth serum or like a lie detector, you'd be like, is this fun?

Right.

Do you actually like this? I was making fun of some Laker fans and they were like, oh, you, well, you were forbid to Tatum. Yeah. You, that, that's, oh, that's better. Tatum just.

Yeah.

Nice guy. Just, you know, just rolling over in playoff series. I'd rather have Luka being a dick. Um, I get it. You're gonna defend your own guys, but it's not that fun to watch. And he's.

No.

What is fun to watch is first quarters of Luka because his first quarters, um, he just feels like he could have 30 in any first quarter. His first quarters are always his best quarter.

Mm-hmm.

And it always is like, oh, is this game he's gonna score 80? You know? And there's gonna be a first quarter as when he's healthy and playing like this that, uh, I think he's gonna have like 29, 30, 31 after the first quarter in the next month. And everyone just be like, uh-oh, here we go. Is this gonna be his, his 83 point bam out of bio game? All right, I said my piece on Luka. I know Gahau agrees. Clipper fan Gahau, who produces the pod. Next take.

Mm.

I have a zag.

Okay.

I think they're gonna be fine.

They showed it last night, didn't they?

The more I watch them, the Jalen Williams thing sucks. And it's gonna probably make the difference between if he doesn't come back in time, that just by itself might be enough to be the reason they don't win the title. I concede that. They have the second best odds. They are now four to one on Fanduel. San Antonio has the best odds for regular season wins. A week and a half ago, you could have gotten them at 65 plus wins and it would've been minus money.

Yeah.

They can patch together the chat minutes. Chat thing sounds like a disaster, right? He's gone 10 weeks. Hartenstein and, and Marrow were 15 and 23 last night against Cleveland, who has a big lineup. So that seems positive. 23 rebounds from your two centers.

Mm-hmm.

I think McCain and Sturts, who's good right away, another great Sam Presti pick. I think they can handle those 25 Wallace minutes a game during the regular season till he comes back. So I've now handled two of the three injuries. I have guys that can move into those spots unless I have more injuries. They lost Lou Dort. Have you seen him on Atlanta? He might have peaked two years ago, right?

Yeah.

I don't even know what position he is anymore. Jalen Williams hurts. They have the assets to go and get Herb Jones or whoever to at least if they feel like they need more defense. But this is two of the three guys that are gone. They can replace the minutes. And I just, I'm not ready to be like they can't win this year.

I'm not ready. I think they're gonna win 50-ish games, assuming they're done with the injuries, which is a big assumption. Um, the thing I'm worried about is Chat's impact on defense. Um, DeMarta, like his defense, I'm not quite sure I trust like that. I mean, Chat has had his issues obviously in the playoffs with Wemby, but ultimately he's one of the better defenders in basketball. And one of the biggest reasons this team is profiled as one of the best defenses we've seen in the last few years. So I expect their stats profile.

I think that day is, I think that day's over.

Which.

I just think this is a, no, this for OKC to be that like crazy insane defense like they were two years ago.

Yeah.

They're a slightly different team. Like they're playing these three guard lineups. I think they're explosively or offensively more explosive to make up for some of the stuff they've lost on defense. And I just think this is a different version of what they have. That goes back to the Sturts pick, getting McCain, playing AJ Mitchell more. Like these, they're really hard to, to defend.

Yeah.

They always have three guards who can, who can get into the paint or shoot. And I think that's their identity now.

They gotta find ball movement. I think they're dead last in assist percentage. I think they run the most ISOs.

Yeah.

But when you have SGA, like that's a good choice, dude. Like we have SGA. We'll run an ISO, it'll break down somebody, it'll get to the free throw line, it'll hit a mitty or get to the, to, to the rim. Um, I think they'll drop in terms of both offense, but bigger on defense. I still think there'll be a top half on both of those categories. I think they'll be a 50-win team and God willing, they'll, they'll be healthy for the NBA playoffs and be the scariest three or four seed we've seen in a while.

Maybe even a five seed. I have three teams that I think can win coming outta the West and they're one of them.

That's true.

And the other two are obvious, Houston and San Antonio. So go get Herb Jones. He's being, he's being what? By the way, uh, UCLA is, is blowing up Bob Chesney's contract and giving him a huge extension after eight games, which they should. I think New Orleans should do the same for Jamal Mosley after seven games. He's done everything we wanted and more. He's taken the goofiest roster in the league and done some of the dumbest shit I've ever seen in my life. I would double down on him. Give him a longer deal.

Yeah.

That's why they couldn't guard Ty Jerome.

Yeah.

Uh, I would extend Jamal Mosley 'cause he's that bad and, and fits in with their weird team.

Ah, that was a crazy game. I know we were texting during the Ty Jerome explosion last night.

Yeah.

It was almost, I think he scored 17 of the last 19 in regulation, then had eight more in overtime. For those who didn't see it, it, it looked like insanity.

But it, yeah, it wasn't like just him making 30 footers. These were like.

It was floater.

Highest end point guard kind of points you could make in a basketball game with the other team knowing you're trying to score. And he was scoring anyway.

Is he one of your takes? Are we doing Memphis on one of your takes?

Uh, I didn't have him on there because the take.

Well, let me just, let me just.

Yeah. The take will be if he does this all year, this is 2005 Steve Nash.

To me, the comp is, is, uh, Brunson. And, and I like the Nash comp, but I look at Brunson. I'm not saying he's Jalen Brunson, but.

Right.

You know, this is a guy who the advanced stuff has loved for the last few years, Ty Jerome, ever since he started putting it on the deck and going and getting his own buckets. Like the estimated plus minus stuff. Shout out to Dungson Threes, great website. He is the, he sticks out like a sore thumb. He's been a top 20 player last year.

Yeah.

He's 11th this year. Uh, and we see it in Memphis. Memphis is the first team to really be like, hey, you're our best player. Go get it.

Yeah.

Um, and it's been phenomenal. But he reminds me of Jalen Brunson in the sense that he won a college championship as a point guard. Uh, really smart player.

Mm-hmm.

College player. Kind of didn't have an identity more so than Brunson in his first few years in the NBA. Uh, Golden State.

I like this.

I believe I think the Celtics dropped him. And now here we go. And in the Ringer 100, is this guy, if we did a Ringer 100 ranking right now, Bill, where would you put Ty Jerome?

I'd have him one and I'd have Yaxel two. Those would be my one two, Wemby three.

Oh.

Uh, I think he's top.

He's top 20, dude.

We.

I think he's top 20. Call me crazy.

We were doing this during the Cleveland season when he was awesome, right?

Yeah.

In a weird, pretty weird situation 'cause I think Mitchell is not the easiest dude to play with. But then in the playoffs, he shit the bed. And I think he cost himself some money, right? Wasn't that what happened?

Yeah.

Yeah. And yeah, and I think the shine was off the Ty Jerome Rose. Then last year he was just hurt all year. But, uh, yeah, it was the reason I thought of Nash, it wasn't playing style as much as just like this guy goes to somewhere.

Right.

People have already decided what his ceiling was, and then all of a sudden he ignites his team. I think Memphis is incredibly fun to watch. My next take is a quick one. The Sixers, first of all, incredibly fun to watch.

Yep.

The bench is a little better than I expected with Simons and Wade and, and, uh, Zombie KCP is actually half decent again. But the five guys together makes sense. And I'll just get through that as quickly as possible. I've watched, I've watched a lot of them. I was really worried before the year about, okay, these guys are at the wrong points of their career. This doesn't make sense to me. My, my basketball dad brain was like, I just, I don't like where all of you are together at your careers throwing you together.

Yeah.

So look, I mean.

I mean.

They, they've had, I think they've, they've won seven, they're seven and one. I think six of those games were close in the last five minutes and they took care of business in each one of them. They've come back in a couple. So I, I'm think, I'm increasing the ceiling on these guys, Kirk.

I was cynical coming in. Uh, I couldn't wait to watch it. What I didn't expect was to see LeBron James as happy as I've ever seen him. The vibes are immaculate. Like.

They really are.

Last night's game.

Yeah.

They, they're just, they have taken on Max's personality. Of all the personalities in that group.

Yeah.

The one you'd wanna take on is Tyrese Maxe. So they take care of the basketball. I was worried the defense would suck. Right now they're the number three defense.

How about that?

In the NBA.

That.

That's not sustainable. I haven't looked up the three-point shooting luck, but that I, I think they've showed enough to be like they're gonna be competent on defense.

But they're getting stops at the end of these games.

Yeah.

So that ties into the top three thing. The fact that they're actually getting the basketball back without giving up, you know, points. Um.

Yeah. They're, they're better than I thought they would be. And, and Zach had us do an exercise before the season. Hey, if it's not the Knicks, who's coming out of the East? And it was a really good exercise. And I, I like sort of hesitantly took the Sixers. It's the clear answer. Uh, but now I feel really good about that because, man, they look like the most talented team in the East. Uh, and they look like they're coming together to become greater than the sum of the parts, which I did not necessarily expect given those personalities.

And this might be the peak right now. Let's talking about it.

That's true.

Because if Bead could get hurt tomorrow, they have no sustainability beyond a Bead. LeBron would, LeBron seems like I, you could see the light bulb going off with him. Like, holy shit.

Yeah.

I might actually have a chance to make the finals. And yeah, I'll play some center. Sure. Um, I, I'm gonna bring this, like, did MJ ever play center for a team that was a possible finals contender?

No.

So you can see, I agree with you. He seems super happy. He obviously has a great relationship with, uh, with, with Maxe. I don't think the relationship with Luca was good. And I, I think we can safely say that. I don't, I, the LeBron last year seemed pretty miserable the whole season. Um, and knew he wasn't, it wasn't his team. This time he goes on, he's like, he knew it was Maxe's team. He signed up for it. Anyway, good start for them. Oh man, this really hurts. I'm just looking at my notes.

Oh, geez.

Ah, almost don't wanna do it.

Can't wait.

Wow. Getting emotional.

'Cause like.

I think we have to pour one out for Apex Joker.

Oh.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. I hate to break the news to you this way. And I'm sorry Zach Lowe isn't here to share this with us. Um.

It's a tough one, dude.

Look, his Apex was six years. Most people's Apex in basketball is two to three.

Yeah.

LeBron accepted. Although LeBron's real Apex was Miami LeBron and then was able to come back. I'm not writing off Joker. I'm really concerned about him post-injury last year, the way he looked for the, when he came back, how he looked in the playoffs and how he looks this year because he can't shoot threes anymore. They're not going in. When he came back from his injury last year, 31% from three. Playoffs 19%.

Mm-hmm.

This year 22%. The really alarming stuff, not just eye test. He's 22, 10 and nine still. He's almost averaging a triple double. I, I'm not saying he's not good anymore. I'm just saying Apex Joker.

Yeah.

Best offensive player, you know, potentially in the history of the league, the way he was doing it, that guy might be gone. He's 47% field goal, 4.3 per, uh, field free throw attempts a game. So he's not making threes. He's not getting the free throw line. And I think the way teams are playing him now are like, take it, shoot. We're giving you that.

Yeah.

Which has completely changed the dynamic of their offense 'cause Murray's playing great. Murray last night was like, we're not losing this fucking game. They still end up losing it. Um, what have you seen from Joker?

Same. I mean, he wa, he's down from 27.7 points per game to 22. Uh, down from 12.9 boards to 9.7. Uh, and you know.

That's bad too.

The other, the other thing I'd say is, yeah, his standard's very high. He set a very high standard for himself. So he did it to himself. Any other center with these numbers would be like, holy crap, this is an MVP. Um, but he set such a high standard. And then the other thing, I feel like I'm the vibes guy today.

Yeah.

Is the, is the, is the shit talking with its own fan base and getting in fights. It's just, and then he, how old is he, Bill? Do you have that in front of you? Is he 31?

Uh, I look at it right now.

Uh, he, I thought he was 31.

Yeah. And so to go back to the beginning of the conversation, it's like this league is increasingly, 30's the new 35. Like it happens fast. Um, this team has always been limited by his defensive abilities.

30, 32 in February.

It's gonna be tough. They are 23rd in defense. And if you're, I'm sorry, if you're a bottom 10 defense, you're not going that far in this league. And if he is your big, I mean, you're your big is your most important defensive player. If he's a step slower, uh, it's gonna be bad on defense for this group.

12th year in the NBA. He also was 2014 draft. He didn't play that first year. Um, lot of professional league mileage before he got to the NBA. And then he just played a shitload of minutes, man. Like his.

Yeah.

He was basically from 2018 on, he was 2,400 minutes and up every single year. And then playoffs, you know, 789 and 23, 482, 24, 563 and 25. Like that shit adds up after a while. I'm not saying he can't still be one of the five, six, seven best players in the league, but Apex Joker, I don't, I think it might be gone. And unless the three-point shooting comes back, I just think that the teams are just guarding him differently and they're playing way off him.

Right.

And be, and be fine. And AJ, not a surprise. He was the first pick in the draft, but I don't know how much you've seen him this year, but he's just ready to go. This guy is like.

Yeah.

They're, they're two wings. Him and, and George. Um, it's to the point that I don't know if you can trade Davis now. I think you kind of have to test drive this is up and down trade youngest. Anyway, you have those seven guys. Murray Boyle, Coward and Fierce from last year's draft. You have Wilson, Peterson, Acuff, Morris Johnson, Flemings, and Marr from this year's draft. And then from last year, you also have Trey Johnson, Ace Bailey, Queen, Hugo. There's a lot of guys, just a lot of first or second year guys that I, I think you could see in the conference finals.

Yeah.

Et cetera.

Dylan Harper. Did you mention Dylan Harper?

Yeah.

That's yeah.

I did. I mentioned him early. Flag, VJ, Harper.

Dylan Harper.

He is doing exactly what you, we all wanted him to do, uh, from year one to year two. But yeah, that's, that's my point is like we're pretty hard on youth basketball and American basketball culture, but some of those names you mentioned are showing up ready to play in ways.

Yeah.

That rookies since you've been covering the league have not been. Like it's, it's unusual to see I'll put it on Cam Boozer or, or Khan Kanippa last year. Like you don't show up and lead the NBA and made threes. That's insane. Like that was never a thing.

Yeah.

Uh, and you don't show up to the NBA unless you're Tim Duncan and put 20 and 10 up like it's nothing. Like Cam Boozer looks like he's gonna do. Uh, so I, I couldn't agree more. Um, this is a young man's game.

Yaxel and Boozer are the best. I am really good right away, ready to help a team. Guys that I've seen coming to the league since, uh, I think Blake Griffin was the last one and he sat out a year before he came in.

He's been out.

And then you go back like that. It's just really unusual for somebody to come in and immediately seem like a finished product. Obviously, Cam Boozer isn't a finished product, but when you watch him, it's like, Jesus Christ.

Right.

You know, and Flag came in last year and it was the only reason I don't include him in that combo is because they were playing him at a position.

Yeah.

It was really rocky for the first six weeks. And I think all the stuff Kidd did for him actually really helped him this year 'cause he really had to learn how to run an offense, how to get by people. So, but it didn't look like that the first six weeks. Yaxel is like they're, I, I, I, I'm speechless with Yaxel. I can't believe how good he is. And he's coming to my the next take I have, but, um, these guys are winning players that could be in the, you know, the third best guy in a round two playoff team. I just was not expecting that.

Yeah. Big win for the draft model community, the, the people who use stats, uh, to, to, to find the best prospects. In, in both cases, Yax has been on the radar since UAB when Michigan got him.

Yeah.

All the nerds were like, oh God, this guy's great. Most people never heard of him. They win a national title. Again, he gets kind of overlooked in the draft. Um, but also Cam Boozer, when you look at the draft models that came out, a lot of people at Boozer should go number one.

Yeah.

And look, I think that they're both mentioned right away. I think if we redrafted 2026, we might have some different answers already, Bill.

I thought Boozer should have been second. I said that at the time. Yaxel, 'cause of his age, and it was hard to say if it was smokescreen stuff.

That's right.

With people worrying about like what his personality was. Then you look at his age, it's like he turned 20. People are making it seem like he's 30. He turned, he turned 24 in the end of September, right?

Yeah.

So he's 24 this entire season. So he's like a year older than maybe you'd want. But, um, it leads to my next thing 'cause actually let me do one, one more quick Boozer thing. I think the Memphis thing's real. I know some of the competition has been shaky, but this was the team everybody at the ringer loved the over of heading into this season.

Yeah.

I think they're, if Tigerum stays healthy, I think they are a possible sixth or seventh seed in the West. Um, the way how hard they play night to night, the way, the way the guys compliment each other, it's everything we thought. And Boozer's a big piece of it. Um, that ties into the Yaxel combo I wanted to have about this might have my favorite non-Celtic, I think probably ever other than Jordan was Steph Curry. Jokic probably third.

Yeah.

Magic's in the top four too, even though I was supposed to root against him the whole time. I'd given up on Steph Curry ever having another moment in the playoffs again. The Yaxel thing has, has changed the game on this because in the NFL you get a rookie quarterback, you get Drake May, you get Caleb Williams, and the best thing you can have is a quarterback who's cheap and it allows you to spend money in the rest of your roster.

Yeah.

I can't. The last couple games, the joy's back and it's 'cause of Yaxel and it's 'cause of Nyaang and a couple of the other smaller signings they've had have panned out. But, um, what would you do if you're going state?

You know, we gotta see what this is. I mean, Steffen I think has one of the highlights of the season too, dropping Luka Doncic in one of the great moments where it's like, oh, maybe the Warriors aren't, aren't dead. Um, but Yaxel is averaging over 20 points a game, Bill, with a, a true shooting percentage of, of 64. That's an All-Star where I come from. That's an All-Star player. So I don't care what the name is. I don't care how many years he's been in the league. Show me players that are 20 points per game with 64 true shooting percentage. I'll show you All-Stars. Uh, and, and I think he brings more to the table. He's like a five tool player, rebounds.

Five to a pass.

Passes the ball.

Yes.

Yeah. And I think they didn't have that. Uh, they have just won, I believe, five games in a row, if I'm not mistaken. I don't think they won five games in a row at any point last year. So I, I think it's fair to say they're on a different wavelength. Um, that's it.

Well, it goes back to the, the first segment you had about.

Yeah.

Not having young legs over the course of the season sinks you eventually.

Right.

This is the guy they need. They can rest Curry and actually have a chance to win the game.

Yeah. When Jimmy comes back, yeah, I think there's a move to be made there with all the money you laid out. Jimmy coming back. Um, but more than anything, dude, if you just tell me Yax and Curry are gonna be healthy, they could beat any team in the league. Um, we just need them to stay healthy. But they'll be one of the more interesting teams to watch as we approach the trade deadline. And it is shocking. I don't think anybody, anybody I knew thought they were gonna be this good.

I thought after the first three games, I thought they were gonna win 20 games. Yaxel.

They can shoot the shit out of it. They can shoot the shit out of it. Shocking with a Steph Curry team.

So if I'm the owner of the Clippers, I can't talk to my basketball staff or the Nets or the Kings, even the Hawks, I'm bringing my front office in at this point and being like, what are we, what did we miss?

Yeah.

How about Dallas? You had the coach of Morris Johnson, who I still really like. And.

Right.

I understand the pick and he's the same age as Flag. He's four year, four years or maybe they felt like Flag and, and Yaxel didn't make sense together because they basically play the same position. Any owner from pick five to pick 10, you're bringing in the staff and be like, how do, how do we miss this?

I think they're true.

This guy's gonna make the All-Star team. And on top of it, I mentioned this to House the other day 'cause we got a mailback question about, would you rather have Shingoon, Mosley.

Yeah.

Or, uh, or Yaxel? And it's like, all right, contracts aside, different combo, but would you rather play Mosley 50? I'm sorry. I said Mosley. Mobley. Would you rather pay Evan Mobley 50 million a year or Yaxel six?

Well, that's the other thing about the age thing. There's a benefit here is that I get age 24, 25, 26, and 27 on cost control. Like those are.

It's the biggest advantage you can have. You're getting the best years of his NBA career for six, six and a half, seven million a year. So this is a huge advantage for them. And, and it, it gives them life. Anthony Davis.

Hmm.

That's the guy I'm watching. So.

Okay.

Um, by the way, that I have no inside info. Please don't aggregate that. It's not like the Bob Chesney extension that's happening. Um, Anthony Davis, the Wizards are four and three. I like how they look.

Mm-hmm.

He was great last night. And.

Yes.

I was saying to House on Thursday, trade him right now because the moment he gets hurt, the moment's gone. But if you're the Wiz and you're like, man, the Bansett looks good. Davis is playing great. The East is worse than people thought. Like I don't wanna trade Anthony Davis, but if I'm the Warriors and I could pack, package, uh, some contracts together with some picks and try to get Anthony Davis, Yaxel, Curry, Jimmy Butler coming back, all their role guys. OKC's compromised. Who knows with Wemby, he's seven foot six. Like fuck it.

Right.

We just won the WNBA title. I don't know. Uh.

I have another take on Yaxel coming up later. We'll rip through these ones quick.

Just, just to mention, Houston's the top three NBA team right now, but they also have Brooklyn's pick and Phoenix's pick, which would be two of the five picks I would want in this NBA draft.

Damn.

They Phoenix is.

Ice's pick.

Have you watched Phoenix?

Yeah.

Uh, their defense has yet to make its season debut, uh, on my league pass. I think they're in deep trouble. Uh.

Deep trouble.

If that makes sense.

Deep trouble.

Yeah.

So I don't even know if you're Houston. I like their team. I don't even know what you would do. Like you probably just keep the picks and do the two timelines thing, but I don't know.

Houston looks fucking good, dude. I saw them. They played the Spurs here in Austin, uh, game two, the game that many will remember for, for Amon Thompson's block on Victor Wembanyama.

What a moment.

I remember for, uh, Alperen Shingoon deciding he was just gonna bowling ball Victor Wembanyama. And these aren't their, this is not Kevin Durant. They still have Fred Van Fleet. They still have Steven Adams. This is a deep team when healthy. Tari Eason is making his shots. All of a sudden they look like a different animal. Um, but yeah, they're offensive numbers right now. That's the real question with Houston. If they're gonna be effective on offense, I have no questions about the rebounding and the defense. Right now I think they're number one in the league or two on offense.

Yeah.

I guess the Lakers are number one. Behind a lot of great three-point shooting. I did not anticipate that. I'm not sure that's real. Um, but if I'm a Rockets fan, I am thrilled.

You have to be. I mean, last year you were playing four and five basically with the point guard position.

Right.

And it was this year now you have actual, I think Van Vleet's looked really good. Like I, I mean.

Van Vleet really is.

And I think Marcus Smart looks, you know, the, you made a doka thing I think was a real piece. There was a big piece about it this week in the athletic about the connection with those guys. I think that's been great for them too. And, uh, I'm a believer. I, I had them, I did the power poll a week ago. I had them first. I would still have them first now. Anyway, they have the Brooklyn first and the Phoenix first, which.

That's great position.

God only knows.

Great position.

Other teams that, that there's, I was going through all the teams that have somebody else's pick. The sneaky one is San Antonio has Atlanta's pick. I don't like what I've seen from Atlanta at all. That to, to me that's like a.

Yeah.

That's a team. What's their record now? That's a team that looks like it made a lot more sense during the summer than it makes when you watch them.

Yeah.

And, uh, yeah, they're four and four right now. But I, man, I could see that team going down, not up. And that's, that's a team I would want the first round pickoff is my point.

Yeah. And the Spurs have had a few of the Hawks first round picks over the last.

Yeah.

Few years. I'm still bullish on them. They got some stuff to figure out. I think their front court is, is weak. Um, but the Atlanta Hawks, mm, they get, they're playing like the old Warriors. They lead the league in like assist percentage and highest assists per game. Uh, they force a lot of turnovers, but the real questions are in the front court and can they shoot the ball? I think.

Kirk, they almost got beaten by six Indiana Pacer bench players yesterday.

I know you texted that. I didn't even know the names of those Pacer guys.

It was, it was a sports movie that nobody knew was being filmed.

Yeah.

The.

It was like, yeah, major league. They had put a bunch of scrubs out there and they weren't supposed to win and the Pacers almost won.

Huff, Huff, Quinton Jackson, Braden Smith played 42 minutes and had a 19 and 10.

Right.

Walker, Slawson, and Brown. Those were the six Pacers. And the Hawks almost lost. It actually felt like the Pacers.

My.

I was, that was one of the many games I was watching last night. But, uh, yeah, that's a pick I would want. Okay, next one. We're almost done. There's now a Kade versus Maxey versus SGA versus Ant versus Brunson conversation for which guard would you want right now for the rest of the season that I think is pretty fun.

I feel like Kade is doing the most with less of that group. When you look at the Pistons all summer long in that, that, that content desert that we were navigating, it was all Jalen Durland. Jalen Durland, the vibes are nasty and this isn't gonna be. And here they are. They're six and one and they're on pace to win 60 games and get the number one seed or whatever. They're just one of the best teams.

Yeah.

But when you look at the supporting cast of those other guards you mentioned, what are we talking about with Kade? He has nothing. He has no disrespect to, but he does not have LeBron James and Jalen Brown and Joel Embiid like Maxey does. He doesn't have Anna Noby and, and Hart and Towns like Brunson has. Uh, and he is just such an old school leader and a point guard that, that, man, I would love to see him if he had a real supporting cast around him. And by the way, Dur-Durant's hurt himself.

I had a friend who went to the Charlotte-Detroit game last night who texted me during the third quarter and was just like, "God, Kade Cunningham's incredible." Like he's just, there's just no way we're beating this guy tonight. He's hit that point. Maxey's 29 a game again. Kade's 24, 5 and 7. SGA's 28 a game. Ant was at 33. Brunson is coming off winning the title and is still the best crunch time guy you'd want in any situation. Curry's averaging 30 a game. And Murray, I think, has been awesome this year is 27, 6 and 6.

Yeah.

For different reasons. Um, I think Mitchell, I don't know. There's still a how much fun is this guy to play with piece to him. And then Booker just feels like, like we were talking about Apex Joker before, it just feels like he's headed at a slightly different point of his career. I would say out of all these guys, if even if you're talking about MVP right now, I think Kade's doing the most.

Yes.

For Kade matters the most to whatever's happening with this team.

Yes.

Whereas all of these other guys have somebody who could step in for them for a couple games. SGA would be the guy that the, it's lined up now for the.

Yeah.

SGA, the, the three MVPs in a row is kind of sitting there now because there was no way anyone was voting for him, but now it's like if he could drag OKC to 60 games.

Right.

With all these injuries, we'd be like, "Holy shit."

Yeah.

So anyway, that just that we have this many great guards again is, uh, awesome. Okay, last one. I have, uh, wow, this is an absolute disaster for everyone involved so far. Rankings for you. Feel free to throw in anything. I have six.

Okay. I'll go to the back of my notes with the, the bottom of the league here.

Utah trading all that stuff for Jaren Jackson.

Mm-hmm.

Then trading Kessler for to get the stuff they got back or the gate they gave out. And then taking Peterson over Boozer. I don't wanna say they could have Kessler and Boozer instead of JJ and J, Triple J and Peterson, but I'm gonna say it because that was door B for this whole situation. They could have just kept Kessler, never traded for Jaren Jackson, who I didn't like that trade when it happened 'cause I don't think he can stay in the court and I don't like his contract. They could pay Kessler 12 million a year less and just taken Boozer, who wanted to be there 'cause his dad.

Yeah.

Was a famous Utah Jazz person. And instead they went this other direction. If I'm a jazz fan, I'm freaking out about this though.

I, uh, I wish I had a different take, but yeah, Cam Boozer next to Walker Kessler, it seems like a really sustainable front court for a while.

And how about kind of a nightmare to play against?

Yeah, right.

If they had those two in marketing, that's like, "Holy shit, now what do I do with those three?" So.

Yeah. That, that feels like they could have had that. Uh, and, and yeah, I, I don't, I don't think the Peterson over Boozer pick is gonna age well. Um, roast me if I'm wrong in a year, folks.

Well, listen, that's why I called this the absolute disaster for everyone involved so far rankings. This could change in a week.

Thank you. Yeah.

This is just right now.

It's so fun.

Trying to capture the moment. Number two, the Zubat's Wagler trade, just a catastrophe for everyone so far. Might change. Zubat lasted two games and got hurt. He was hurt last year. There's questions about, um, you know, how durable is that guy gonna be for what they gave up for him. Um, and they could add the fifth pick. And there's this alternate universe where they just don't make that trade or make it top five protected, and then they take Yaxel fifth, which would've been, we would've thought that was crazy at the time, but imagine him on that team.

Yeah.

Whew. It's not good.

Turnovers?

It's not.

A lot of turnovers in LA.

Don't look at his percentages. They're pretty rough. Uh, the fit with Darius Garland, I have some, I have some questions. I might go tomorrow night. I might wanna see it in person. Just so far, I'm alarmed.

They're letting you back in, huh?

Yeah. You know what? There's a lot of good people that work for the Clippers, and almost all of them had nothing to do with what happened. So I'm, I'm trying.

That's fair.

Trying to move forward and move on. But the Wagler thing, so if you're them seeing what you've seen, I don't think they were gonna take Yaxel fifth. I think people would've thought that was crazy. Who should they have taken? Maybe the answer is still Wagler. I don't know. You watch these other guys. Acuff would've made no sense with Darius Garland. Uh, McCall Brown, I have not been impressed by. They weren't gonna take Flemings. Morris Johnson's not exactly lighting up in Dallas. So I don't know. They, they got kind of stuck with, "Wow, that trade worked out unbelievably well, but, eh, who do we take?"

Yeah. There's definitely a cliff after those first four guys. Uh, and they were in the, uh, fifth spot, unfortunately. But dude, yeah, that was a crazy moment at the lottery last year where they were playing Russian roulette, the Pacers were, and they lost. Um, but it looks like they didn't get, uh, it looks like the Clippers aren't exactly making them pay.

I would've taken Burris and said it at the time. Next one, the honest trade. Maybe not as much of a disaster for Milwaukee, but if I'm a Heat fan, I'm panicking now. They got their absolute.

30 to 5. Yeah.

They got their absolute asses kicked last night by the Lakers. I didn't expect the defense to be this bad. I mean, what are they? Are they bottom, bottom four defense now?

They're bottom 10.

I think it's worse. They were 26 yesterday before that Laker game.

Yeah.

So.

They're, they're very bad. And I thought with Bam Adebayo and Giannis, like two really good front court defenders, rebounders, versatile defenders that you would at least count on the defense and the offense with the questions around spacing was gonna be the red flag, right? That's what I thought. And Erik Spoelstra and, and Davion Mitchell's a great defender. So yeah, I'm a little head scratch. You haven't looked at the three-point shooting luck, uh, but I have watched a few of their games. It doesn't look good.

Per 100, their 27th defensive rating, 119.8 per 100 possessions. Only teams were Sacramento, Chicago, and Phoenix. That's rough. The Klay thing did not work out, and there's a reason two teams were ready to move on from him. The Jovic extension seems like a, like a mini catastrophe. And, uh, I still feel like they have moves, but this does not look good so far. And, uh, and I don't understand why they're this bad at defense. So that's three.

Yeah.

Doesn't have a lot of talent. You, like, I was surprised when the Celtics played them the other day. Like, uh, I don't know. It just feels like Orlando's gonna lose these games. I don't, I don't really know. I know Palo's out. I get it. But, um, you make a trade like that when you feel like you could potentially make the finals. This team has no chance of making the finals. The good news for them is they have their first round pick this year. But, um, that's a te to me, I, there was a bunch of teams in that 43 to 45 win range, and we knew one of them was gonna drop hard like a stone.

Such a weird team. Uh, I remember I was looking up this crazy Wemby stat. He's the best paint scorer in the league so far this year, but he's the worst statistical jump shooter, or so I thought. I was looking at all the guys who'd taken at least 50 jumpers. Uh, and there were 60 of them, and Wemby ranked 59th. Uh, the only person worse than him was Franz Wagner. Uh, and, you know, Wemby has an excuse. He's 7'5." He's the best defensive player in the world.

Yeah.

But yeah, Orlando still can't shoot. And whatever Desmond Bane deserves or, or, or they thought they were gonna change that with him, they still can't shoot.

Fifth one is, uh, Dusty Mago with Morris Johnson over Yaxel. If I'm a, if I'm the Dallas owner, I'm like, "Didn't you coach this guy? He's gonna make the All-Star team."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Um.

Man, I do, I do like Morris Johnson though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like Dusty Mae. I wasn't sure that was gonna work. Uh, and everybody I'm talking to in Dallas is thrilled. I feel like they have an identity. I feel like Cooper is thriving.

No problem.

But yeah, imagine if they had Yax. Uh, and you're right.

Because the Kyrie right. Kyrie's at a different point of his career it's starting to look like where he's still good, but you, you know, is he gonna play 58 to 60 games? Uh, I he looks okay. He doesn't look like Kyrie from eight years ago. Um.

Can I put you on the spot?

Yeah.

Is Cooper Flagg the best teenager you've ever seen in the NBA?

Yes.

Do you still think he's gonna take the qualifying offer and end up in end up in Boston?

I pray for it every night. It's him or LeBron. And I just think he's a better two-way player than LeBron was out of all the young guys I've seen come in.

Those are the two choices that I can think of.

Those are the two choices. But I went back.

Yeah.

I think 2005, I remember voting. I think I did an MVP call him that year. I think I had, I did a whole thing about LeBron, how good he was for his age that year. Um, but I think Cooper Flagg's a year younger, so you'd actually have to compare him to rookie LeBron.

Yeah. This should be his rookie year. Remember, he reclassified. I think he skipped 11th grade.

Right.

One time.

So if you compare him to rookie LeBron, it's no contest.

Yeah. Rookie LeBron, great rookie, but couldn't shoot it. Was literally the most inefficient jump shooter of the year that year in 2003.

And looked skinny. Like, he didn't have the same physicality that Flagg has.

Still pretty good, but yeah.

My last one for the an absolute disaster for everyone involved so far rankings. Phoenix giving Booker a giant extension and then building, building a team around Jalen Green and McCall and, uh, Miles Bridges. Wow. That Miles Bridges trade looks horrible. That team has no identity. It's the complete opposite of last year's team. Last year's team was like this scrappy overachiever team with Booker. This year's the opposite. Jalen Green, um, was Golden State's best asset last night other than Curry.

Yeah. The worst defense in the NBA, uh, playing a Western Conference schedule with a diminished, uh, Devin Booker doesn't seem like it's going very far.

Yeah. 'Cause at some point in these NBA games, it's a gunfight with your best player against the other team's best player. Booker used to be great in those. Now when you watch these games, it, it feels like he's gonna lose the gunfight 20, you know, 20 out of the.

Right.

30 games. It just doesn't feel like he has the same bag as whoever he is going against. Um, anyway, that's all I have. All right.

Phoenix. Uh, yeah, that's, that's, that's a good, that's a good one. I don't think Phoenix and Chicago's the other one that I thought you might mention. Chicago has looked pretty bad. Um, and some people thought they'd be good, but they're the worst net rating in the league so far this year.

Yeah. They unfortunately for them, they played the Celtics twice and got absolutely waxed in both games, and it felt like it spun them backwards and, um, sent them to not a great place. All right. I think we covered everything I wanted to cover. Great story today. Go check out Kirk story and the ringer.com. Um, and I'm sure I'll share this. How you feeling about the Spurs 1 to 10, by the way, before we go?

I'm a n I'm a nine. I think that OKC game.

Nine.

Yeah. I think that OKC game was always destined to be a loss. OKC just had the chip on the shoulder. Too good. They were fully healthy at that time. Uh, the Houston game, the second game sort of caught me off guard. Um, but they've won five straight, I believe, Bill.

Yeah.

Um, I will go on the record right now in O in October, November, I guess it is now, and say that the, the three-guard lineup is not my favorite. When you look at their bench right now.

I agree.

It's Tobias Harris, Harrison Barnes, Julian Shompeni, Carter Bryant. What do they have in common? They're all forwards.

Yeah.

Um, I call the three-guard lineup the one forward lineup because I think that helps you understand like what they're giving up when they have the stack of good playing rotation level forwards. So we'll see. They'll get it right. Dylan Harper, everybody loves watching him. That hasn't been a letdown. Um, but I'm not worried. I do have one last thing to say though.

Yeah.

I wanna wish my, my father, Lee, a happy 80th birthday up there in Cornish Maine.

Oh, nice.

Yeah. Happy birthday, Dad. So thank you.

Awesome. The big eight O. All right. Happy birthday to him.

Yeah.

Kirk, thanks for, uh, coming on with me. Always a pleasure to see you. Gonna take a break, come back with Tom Pelissero right after this.

Normally he comes on Thursdays. Bringing him on on Tuesday today, Tom Pelissero, so you can read the sweep, his excellent newsletter, check him out on Ringer NFL Show where he was last night where he talked about the Bears, but I didn't get to talk about the Bears. Now, 8 to 1, um, to, to win the Super Bowl, you came on with me after Pat's Bears, and I said to you, "That team was really good. Like, I, I actually thought the Pats played well, and, and they beat us." And I Kaleb made plays. I was really impressed. Then they make the Simmons trade, which is a miracle last night as you're watching.

I watched that game and thought, "This is a team that can win the Super Bowl." But I'm not even convinced at this point. You can say they're definitely the best team in their own division.

Wow.

The NFC North is unbelievable. Their, their record against non-NFC North teams is like 22 and 2 or something this season. It is absolutely bananas what they're able to do. And then you watch that game, like Jeff Simmons on the second, I think it was the second drive of the game, and like beats Gray Zabel with one move and just throws, uh, Sam Darnold down.

Oh, my God. Yeah.

And the first thing that went through my head was, "Oh, my God. I don't know that I've sat and watched a whole Jeff Simmons game in like four years because the Titans were always playing.

Right.

At noon on Sunday in some irrelevant game. Like, you forget like what a huge piece of it what he was last time the Titans were good. They, they got what they wanted in the two first round picks and more. And if he plays like that, he's absolutely gonna be worth it.

Yeah. Congrats on having like the 30th pick in the draft for, for, uh, the Sussex guys. I get Tenn I get why Tennessee did it, but now you watch the Bears and you think, "All right, what are the weaknesses?" 'Cause they're gonna get Montague back. Now they're gonna have two running backs. They have wide receivers everywhere. They've gotten Loveland going. Their quarterbacks playing about as well as you could have ever in your wildest dreams hoped to play. They have, they can do a four-man pass rush now, which they couldn't even do in the Patriots game. They had to do all this stuff where they moved everybody up. You had to kind of the discount Flores.

Right.

And they're gonna have a home field advantage. Like, there's just a lot to like. And yet somehow they're not, they don't even have the best record in the, uh, NFC right now. But I would pick them. I think they've looked the best the whole year, and they have the, to me, they have the look would be my take.

If, if Kaleb plays like that where a lot of the stuff he was doing last night was just within the, the structure of the offense. And him and Ben, if you saw the.

Yeah.

The locker room video and they're dapping up, like they're on the same page in terms of like how to play offense. And it's not like Ben's had to resort to, you know, 15 different gimmick plays. There's a couple of things he'll do in the game and you're like, "Holy shit, what was that?" But a lot of it is just like they're playing super sound football. You can see everything working together. They're mixing personnel packages. It drives me nuts. As a fantasy football player, like Luther Burdon is off the field half the time in the middle of the game.

Right.

You're like, "He's the best player they have in the red zone. How is he not out there?" But like Ben's got all these different things.

Yeah.

I, I think the Bears are really, really good in that division. I mean, you know, staring down the barrel of some of these matchups late in the season, Packers-Bears on Christmas among them. I mean, these are just gonna be massive games.

You'll be there.

On Netflix.

It's a Netflix game, right? Yeah. Um, they are the only complete NFL team that I can say I've watched as, as we're eight weeks into this season. Like a team that can run the ball, stop the run, throw the ball, stop the pass, the, the four basics of football. They can do all of them at a really high level, and they can get like third and nines, you know, third and elevens, third and thirteens. They get explosive plays. I don't know what they're missing at this point. They got Tampa next week.

I, I think that a lot of it traces and you could see it in that game that they just don't totally have an identity on offense. They got one thing they do really well, which is throw the ball to Jackson Smith and Jigba, even though they weren't able to get on the balls effectively in the second half of that game.

Yeah.

The Shahid last night. That has an impact. I thought the running backs physically looked good, Price and Charbonnet, but like they only ran the ball like a dozen times in the game.

Yeah.

Like that, that has to be the strength of it. It just looks like something's off. And when Sam Darnold gets into the mode he was for a lot of that game last night where anytime there's pressure, he starts to feel it even when there's not, and he's jumping around in the pocket, and he just looks like he's frazzled. Like that's when we've seen the bad Sam Darnold. Like that's what it looks like. So how did they win the Super Bowl with him last year? They ran the shit out of the ball down the stretch. Like they figured it out.

Yeah.

I, I still think there's time for them to do it. It just doesn't look like anything is comfortable on that side. Ben Johnson's one of the only guys who can go toe to toe calling plays against Mike McDonald in that defense. I was really impressed with some of the answers that, that Ben came up with, you know, just like the tunnel screens, like you said on third and long that turn into, you know, big time games. Like they'll be fine defensively. On offense, you got a first time coordinator in Brian Flurry, who's had moving parts of running back, moving parts of quarterback. Now you're, you're pretty close to hole other than Shahid, and you just added an all pro guard with Quentin Nelson coming in.

I'm not worried yet.

I'm not either.

Well.

Other than just the record relative to I mean, they would be in, you know, far by far last place in the, you know, in the NFC North. Like they'd be like the eighth team in the NFC right now. Like you gotta, you gotta make up some ground and you gotta start doing it fast.

Washington game was stupid, right? That, that was one of the dumber last season of the year.

Two worst games.

San Francisco game. They just gave the game to San Francisco in the first half. Denver game was really stupid. And then yesterday they got beat. You know, I, I just, I don't think they're a four and four team. They got Arizona at Vegas the next two weeks. And, um, you know, they also couldn't run the ball because they had third and fourth string running backs trying to run the ball. And now they have their guys back. Did you, did you buy into the conspiracy theory that McDonald was tipping a Taylor trade last week accidentally or no?

No. I mean, they took him.

Yeah.

Remember it was Charbonnet the week before. They activated him and then had him inactive for the game.

Yeah.

Because he was at the end of his window with Price, who was more they wanted to give him up to Monday to make a decision. Okay. The guys had like three days of practice. Do we put him out there? They came to the conclusion, yeah, we're gonna put him out there. But that's, that's all it was. They were not working on, they're not a Jonathan Taylor team. They're not working. Now, is it possible they still make a trade? John Schneider makes as many trades as anybody in the NFL, but no, there was nothing, nothing going on on that front.

Can't say Price has knocked my socks off. That would be one of my fears for them. But Charbonnet, I thought, looked okay. And now at least like on paper, you have your faster, you can catch the ball at the backfield or run the ball, and then you have Charbonnet with the pounding it and around the goal line. So maybe they'll be fun. Lamar, since the last time I saw you, which was only five days ago when the Ravens seemed to have hope for their season.

One snap.

Yeah. That game was over at 10:09 AM. They're it felt like their season was over. And they're playing on Thursday night in a game that I will not be going live on Netflix after. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pass on that invitation.

Talking about Joe Finnano?

No.

Nothing?

No.

You don't want to?

No. Joe and I are not gonna be, uh, be doing dialogue after that game. Uh, what happens now is that have we seen I know you've, you've already covered this on Ringer NFL Show, but this is my podcast, so I'm gonna ask you the same question. Is that it for Lamar? Is that, that's it for him and the Ravens? Do you, if you had to put odds on him being in another uniform next year, what would you put the odds at?

Well, let, let's start with the fact that Lamar hasn't been healthy for two straight seasons.

Yeah.

Like he was never really Lamar after the hamstring last October. And now this year he barely plays. Like that's not a guy who teams are gonna be lining up to trade two first round picks or more for. They weren't lined up to do it when he was available last time.

Right.

When he was at peak Lamar. Now he's whatever, three or four years older. He's got one year left on his contract. You're gonna have to do a new deal if you're giving that up. I would say the odds are low at the moment of Lamar being on another team, but there's no question they're at, you know, kind of a pivot point here. They've also, by the way, they've restructured that deal. There's a cap charge looming. If they don't extend him, they would all end up accelerating, whether that's in 2027 with the trade or in 2028 if he walks. He's got a no tag clause, so he can kind of call his shot after '27. It's not like Eric DaCosta let it get into this spot.

Yeah.

Lamar hasn't wanted to. And, and in the end, this could be, you know, to his detriment. I, I've seen people saying stuff like, well, Lamar's, he's got a contract year next year. Quarterbacks never play in a contract year, so this is a hold out or a trade. I'm like, Lamar has literally done it himself multiple times. In his fourth year, he had won an MVP and he played for like $3 million. He doesn't have an agent. He doesn't have traditional representation. He just kind of beats to the, you know, marches to the beat of his own drum. And so I, I don't know exactly how it plays out, and we'll see with the thumb and exactly what the prognosis ends up being.

Yeah.

You know, it still hasn't been ruled out that he could come back this season, but.

Yeah. Some guys have played with this or come back earlier than we thought. I got an email from Todd in Salt Lake City who wanted to know if Lamar was the NFL's Kawhi Leonard. Frequently injured. No one is really certain when he's coming back. Weird representation situation. Teammates seem mildly annoyed with him, but nobody calls him out. And then really good when he plays. Could we get another aspiration scandal with Lamar and the Ravens? What's the question?

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

I don't have any evidence that Steve Peixotte's been finding a no-show job on the side.

Yeah. I don't think that's happening.

For Lamar. I'm not sure they can find him if he's not at the facility.

Right.

Frankly.

But that's, that's so similar to what was happening with Kawhi and the Clippers. Like they had no idea about anything with him. Is he playing tonight? I don't know. Have you heard from him? And that was the way it was. And it's weird to have a quarterback of a football team that it seems like there's this much uncertainty around him week to week, right?

He, he go all the way back to the pre-draft process. I mean, people couldn't get a hold of him to like come in for visits and stuff.

Yeah.

Like everything about his career has been unusual, but like he, he's just, he's such a dynamic football player. He's overcome it just because of the ability and the fact that he does elevate everybody around him. This, this though is always the concern. Anytime you got guys whose legs are a big part of their game, like it's a depreciating asset. I'm not, I'm not saying Lamar is done, but we've seen other than, you know, obviously like week one this year, you can go back to that tape and look what they did. But by and large, we haven't seen real Lamar over the past couple of years, which at this age, like you're getting into kind of, you know, the Russell Wilson territory too.

Yeah.

If all of a sudden the Ravens pivot to, we'll trade Lamar, I, I think that everybody beyond what they already know from the unavailability here is gonna have to go, wait, he has been trying to extend him for two years and now you're willing to eat this huge cap charge to trade him. Like what's, what's the catch? I just, I just don't know that there'd be a huge market for him, even though if he wants to be playing football, which I have no reason to think he doesn't, I anticipate he'll be playing somewhere in 2027, probably Baltimore.

The Jets do have three first round picks that are all probably gonna be in the top 12, and they are the Jets.

They do need a quarterback.

Played all right this year.

Yeah.

You know, it's been, it's been fine. And he's played more than Lamar. Put him more numbers than Lamar. I'd be super nervous to trade for Lamar. I mean, this last injury, I feel like could have happened to anyone in the league, so you can't really hang that on him. And I always wonder why it doesn't happen more often, but you know, he hit his, hit his hand on somebody's hand and his thumb broke. Would, would that have happened to.

Baker had it happen earlier this year.

25 other quarterbacks. I think it would have. Uh, Jonathan Taylor, you mentioned earlier with the Seahawks. So is he the most likely guy to get traded who you also wouldn't be surprised if they were stupid enough not to trade him?

I, I don't think it would be stupid not to trade him because you can still trade him in February and March.

Right.

I, I, from what I know right now, and I reported it in the sweep on Saturday, like they've already been offered a 2027 second round pick and another pick and immediately said no. And that was the end of the conversation.

Mm-hmm.

It has to be something real. You know, Christian McCaffrey was traded for a two, a three, and a four, and then a future fifth round pick.

Okay.

I don't know that it has to be that, but it has to be pretty close to that. Otherwise, like why would, if you're Carlier say Gordon and you're hiring a new GM and you may be hiring a new head coach, like why would you empty the cupboard and trade guys for less than you think you could get in a more stable market where people, you know, you have new budgets in February and March, teams are reprojecting. Like I'm not saying he won't be traded, but if you're asking me right now where I think Jonathan Taylor is most likely to be November 11th, the day after the deadline, I'd stay, stay still with the Colts just because, you know, for all the, the stuff out there about, you know, it's picking up and, you know, everybody feeling like, oh, are they gonna deactivate him?

Yeah.

You get the offer, you say no, and if somebody comes back with one that's good enough, you eventually say yes. Like these things aren't super complicated. Um.

Second round pick.

Second round pick.

Second round pick sounds like a pretty good offer. Like for people don't give up first round picks for running backs. When was the last time that happened?

No, but it's.

It's not 1990. Like I.

If you got a.

If I'm the Colts, I'm like, we're gonna, they offered us a second, I'll take it.

Yeah. But you have to look at the precedent on these types of deals. McCaffrey, again, was four picks. Like if you're getting offered a second and then a fifth in a future year, like I, I don't know that that, that moves the needle. So I think it has to be multiple high picks in 2027. If it's not gonna be a first rounder, maybe it's a two and a three and then a future.

But do you think Taylor's as good as McCaffrey though? Like when McCaffrey got traded, everybody was like, whoa.

McCaffrey.

They traded Christian McCaffrey. Holy shit.

McCaffrey had also had a long stretch where you remember like he was always hurt.

Yeah.

And he had had that one year where he finally was healthy and they, they kind of sold high on him. Like you can go back in time and say.

Yeah.

Could, should they have held onto him? But it's like where the Panthers were, like he wasn't gonna be the difference. And they were like, he's probably just gonna, you know, go get hurt again. But it's a little bit like the Giants letting Saquon go in free agency to the Eagles. It's like, how well can he and the Eagles possibly do? Oh, he ran for 2,000 yards and they won the Super Bowl. Well, that's a bad outcome here. But what's Saquon done since? He's been banged up for, for two years. Like running backs are weird in that regard. Like I, I just don't know that there's anything other than an injury obviously, which is the one risk. I don't know if there's anything that happens between now and March where you get less for Jonathan Taylor.

What would the, what would the Chiefs do if the Colts called them and said, really enjoyed what we saw from Jonah Coleman on Sunday. You can have Taylor for a second and Jonah Coleman will do it right now.

You mean Denver for Jonah Coleman or Emmett Johnson for Chiefs?

No, I meant Jonah Coleman.

Jonah Coleman from Denver.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that's one of many different structures that you could pull off. I know there was like the rumors on Jadari and Price going for Jonathan Taylor, but I, I just don't know that you wanna, again, lock into a running back. I mean, the new GM might be like, I didn't even like that guy coming out. Why, why do I have him and not Jonathan Taylor as a chip.

Right. Yeah.

On my roster? Like that's, and also, by the way, this is one thing that I don't think gets talked about enough. Like these teams still have to play the games. Like why don't you see teams trade like seven or nine guys like completely, you know, just like NBA strip it down? It's like because they gotta, they gotta play nine more games this season.

Yeah.

And if you start trading too many players, like you're putting practice squad guys, you're signing guys off the street to go play. Like you're literally putting other guys in danger, much less making it, you know, impossible to win a football game here. So there is a fine line. The Colts are not, that's why I've, I've said like the Colts are not in a fire sale. They traded Buckner and Nelson because they're contract year older guys who weren't gonna be back. So you got more than the comp value.

Right.

You move on, you get, you get cash and cap space. These other guys like Taylor, he's under contract. Like you don't have to do anything. And you know, whatever leaks come out and however hard other people outside the building are pushing you, like you ultimately can just go, he's under contract. We're sitting here.

What do they do if he asks for a trade?

I don't think that it substantively changes anything 'cause they're willing and open to listen now. It's, it's like Josh Downs when he requested a trade last week, it was like, okay, we're already.

Yeah. How about play better, Josh Downs. Start, start there.

Go out, play well.

Yeah.

And that'll help us get value.

Have a good game.

And then we'll trade you. Like the, the trade, the public trade request to me only makes sense when the team is going, we will not listen. We will not listen to you. 'Cause every agent is calling every team. Every agent who has relationships is already talking to every team. It's like they gave them permission. It's like we didn't need it. You, you just go, everyone tampers, just call everybody.

Yeah.

Like they're, they're already doing it. Some of those things get overblown. It's like, it's the social thing and it gets all the rumors going, which honestly then feeds the players 'cause everyone around them is texting us, oh, you're about to be traded. Jonathan Taylor's wife's out there making TikToks about it. It's like they're willing, they're willing to trade him, but like they'd have to be offered a lot. Like that's, that's it. The only call that matters is the one that's going into to Ed Dodd's office right now.

I would.

And they don't have enough on.

I would trade him because I don't have a first round pick and because I'm putting him next to one of the worst quarterback situations in the league and there's injury potential and all kinds of things that I, I would just do it. Um, speaking of bad quarterback situations, I feel like this is part of the pick six every week, but, uh, the Vikings, what do they do now? Sal and I talked about this on Sunday. It felt like it felt, Sunday felt like the moment where you just go, this, this doesn't work with Kyler Murray.

What I noticed with Kyler is he looks more comfortable in terms of like he knows where the ball is supposed to go, but he's not getting it there on any of these like perimeter routes, sharp breaking routes. I mean, how many times did he throw the ball five feet over Jefferson's head in that game? He made a couple great throws, the seam ball to Hawkinson, the post to Jordan Addison over two defenders. Like those are big time throws, but you can kind of put some air under it and get it out there, which has always been something Kyler's been good at. It's, it's a little bit like Russell Wilson too, where it's like.

Yeah.

You can throw those moon balls, but when you put 'em into a precision offense where, okay, it's hit the top of your drop and throw it. There's a video going around where it's Kyler, it's a, a run play to the right, like a zone run, but then they always put these backside slants. So Kyler sees it, he's got the right coverage. He turns to throw it to Jefferson on the slant, which is wide open. It's gonna go for a touchdown. Well, he's got two guys with hands in his face. Kyler can't see.

Yeah.

So now he's like off schedule and he's like, it, the timing of the play's off. He throws the ball into the dirt and Jefferson's going, like, what are we doing here?

Yeah.

That's, that's become a, an issue. I don't think that it's not salvageable with Kyler Murray, but there are things when you're playing with a shorter quarterback, um, that does create some challenges. I would say this, I expect that they will, that they are evaluating all potential options and seeing if there's something out there.

Come on. You know what the movie makes sense 'cause they're six and one. You know what, you know what they're gonna do. Come on.

Trade for Kirk.

Come on. It's sitting right there.

Trade for Daniel Jones.

No, Kirk Cousins. It's sitting right there. What are we waiting for? Just, everybody just needs to step in and be like, come on. We all know this is gonna be the trade. Just fucking do it. Let's go.

It's.

Mendoza takes over the Raiders. Kirk goes back. Let's just do this.

If the Raiders had lost to the Jets, I think there would've been a real chance that the Raiders would've been willing to move Kirk. He, he lit it up in that game.

I know.

Kirk Cousins has been a top 10 quarterback in the NFL this season by every metric. And he's, you know, he's doing the Kirkco Change thing again.

Right.

Guys are rallying around him. Like all that to me says Mark Davis isn't gonna go, yeah, let's, let's just throw the rookie in there. Like this was the way that they, they set it up. I do think that there's, there's still an opening and it would make sense whether it's the Vikings, whether it's another team. You know, Baltimore's gotta figure out what they're doing with the quarterback.

The Vikings loved him. He's one of the most popular Viking players that have ever passed through there.

And he was playing the best football of his life in, what was it? 2022 before he tore the Achilles with Kevin O'Connell as his coach.

It's a no-brainer.

They also have Carson Wentz who they've seen function at a high level in the offense.

I'm not an expert about that one.

Well, here, here's what it comes down to. All right. What, what are you willing to pay for Kirk Cousins? Are you giving up a second round pick? Are you sending a first round pick for Kirk Cousins?

I don't know why the Raiders would do it for less.

I would do a third round pick guaranteed. And if I make round two of the playoffs, it moves to a second. And that's what I would do. I think, I think team success.

Yeah. If we win the Super Bowl now, it's a first. Like the, I think team success has to be tied to it in some way. But if I'm the Raiders, the only problem with the Raiders right now, they're, they play at San Francisco this weekend, Seattle home, at Denver, at Cleveland. So if you're like, okay, it's Mendoza time and you do it and his first three games are.

Pretty close.

Yeah. His first three games are Seattle at Denver at Cleveland. That's a nightmare. So you'd have to, you'd have to factor that part in. Is that how you wanna start this guy's career with those three games?

Yeah. The readiness is a huge part of it. And, and I know Fernando does like, he does extra meetings. He like basically like shadows Kirk's reps on the field during practice. Like he's not getting, he hasn't taken the first team reps hardly at all.

Yeah.

This year. Like actually thrown to the receivers. And by the way, outside of Brock Bowers, who is a, obviously a massive problem solver for the offense, like I don't know that their receiver group is really good. Like Kirk is elevating everybody 'cause he's so smart in the offense.

Yeah.

In other words, for a young guy like Mendoza, he's got one safety blanket in Bowers, but like, you know, it's Trey Tucker and it's Jack Besh coming back off an injury. They're not running the football effectively. Like that doesn't feel like a situation that's great to throw the rookie into. I don't think you can rule it out because somebody might go, it's just worth it. We're gonna take the shot. I mean, if Philly hadn't lost to Washington last week, I would've been like, if they beat the Giants, why would they not go trade for Kirk? Plug 'em into the offense, like just get it going, get healthy, get the body back.

But there's another piece of this though. It's beyond like the competitive and contending and all that stuff. Like you have Jefferson who you've covered his whole career. Not exactly a demonstrative sideline guy.

No.

And what the way he was behaving during that game was like, oh shit. Like this, they gotta fix this now. And he's played with Kirk Cousins, so.

Yeah. He, he's gone through a couple years of, of this and you know, just all the different quarterbacks and things. Now, Monday night against the Bills, like Kyler's got that hamstring. If I'm guessing here, uh, you know, six days out, I'd say Carson Wentz is starting that game just because Kyler at less than a hundred percent with a hamstring is not a guy I want on the field. So I wouldn't be surprised if we see Wentz this week. We might see Wentz balling.

Yeah. But here's the problem with Wentz. Wentz does well in that game. You talk yourself into Wentz for the rest of the season. What's Carson Wentz gonna do? Get hurt. 'Cause he always gets hurt, right? So he gives you two games. Now I'm back with Kyler Murray, but the trade deadline's passed and I've thrown away the season.

And that's the whole thing. And there's nobody on the street. I mean, I don't, I don't really know that Jimmy Garoppolo is in shape or intends to continue playing.

Brady. Tom Brady's back.

Russell, Russell Wilson. I mean, it's, it's a pretty short list.

Russell Wilson. Oh my God.

Veteran quarterbacks out there. Right. No, I'm, listen, I'm with you. Like I said, I anticipate that they are exploring all the options. It's just like how big of an upgrade outside of Kirk, what I do think is an upgrade. Like Daniel Jones is the one that's come up a lot too. And I'm like, Daniel Jones threw for 56 fucking yards against the Vikings a couple weeks ago. Like.

Looks like his career's over.

It's a, and he's coming off an Achilles. Like that's a real thing. You give him $50 million this year. I mean, the Colts, the Colts have a, have a, you know, something to figure out with that too because he's got an injury, uh, guarantee for 2027.

There's one other guy. Well, there's one other guy though.

Yeah.

What's the point of having Davis Mills?

It was Nick Casario's first ever draft pick and he has never wanted to let him go.

CJ has answered all of my questions this year and they're obviously gonna give him an extension. You're gonna pay him a ton of money, but then also have one of the most expensive backup QBs in the league. And if, if Minnesota comes to me and, you know, is ready to give a third that turns into a second for a guy who if he's playing, that means my season's over anyway. And my season might be over 'cause I'm two and five. I don't know. I would think about it. And I think he's, I, I'd rather have Davis Mills than Kirk Cousins as well as 'cause he's playing. I'd like Davis Mills.

Davis Mills has some fans in the league too.

Yeah.

In terms of when he's gotten his opportunities, how he operates that offense. It also feels, I mean, again, Nick has had trade offers for him basically his entire career. Is, is he gonna move him now at this point? I just, I don't know that he would do that. I mean, listen, there's other guys out there. I mean, you know, if you're talking about who could the Ravens trade for? Tyson Bayjin's the obvious one 'cause he was with Declan Doyle in Chicago last year. They were never gonna be able to get him in for the Thursday night game 'cause of the short week and he's in Seattle. But if you're trying to get somebody who's at least so he can function in that offense, you go get him.

Last one. The Cowboys. I don't even know where you wanna go with this, but let's make them the last one of the, uh, pick six.

There is just this fragility to the entire organization and you feel it within the games. I, I think that it stems from Jerry being so public. You know, at all times exactly how he feels 'cause he's on the radio twice a week and he talks after the game and he'll do other interviews.

The video of him walking down the runway sadly at the end of losses. Yeah. It feels like he's omnipresent.

And then the gaggle of 50 reporters around him. And then two days later at the crack of dawn, he's on local radio saying the exact opposite thing. I mean, today he was on the radio. I saw him was talking about how, you know, he was asked like, why, why don't you wanna spend on coaches? And he went on this whole diatribe about, um, you know, there's no correlation whatsoever that you can find over the last 30 years of, uh, of paying for coaches or having a bigger coaching staffs and winning, which I would say.

Wow.

I think that we've seen if you compete for the, the hottest coaching candidate, by and large, there is a correlation. I mean, Ben Johnson was the coveted coaching candidate two years ago. He's turned that team around. Mike Vrabel was a highly coveted coaching candidate, turned that team around. Clint Kubiak was the young guy who was highly coveted and at least has the Raiders back to, you know, kind of a steady competence at this point. You know, Jerry, like I think Brian Scheidheimer is a good lifetime football coach.

Yeah.

That costs money. So all of which is to say, like I don't think that it's, you know, directly on, well, you hired Scheidheimer, you hired Christian Parker, but it's like, it's everything on down. You can see there's a collection of really talented parts in the building. Why don't they coalesce? Why are you in big moments and you've got guys like, you know, Rashawn Gary or DeMarvian Overshone who are making like the critical mistakes. The defense was pretty good the first three quarters and all of a sudden Gardner Minshew goes in there and they fall apart and they completely defeat themselves.

And they had the ball in overtime.

Right. And they can't move it. And Pickens is, you know, seems like he's, you know, not.

Yeah, but you, you and I could have predicted the Pickens thing.

Right.

Right. They didn't take care of him. They tagged him.

Right.

And that's, you know, that, that's like the wrong guy to do that. I guess my question with Jerry Jones. So he lavishly builds this stadium, right? Which was really ahead of the game. He put together the money to buy the team once upon a time. Like he's this maverick, like hard charging dude. And then, but also seems like frugal at times. And if, and with the eight, I don't even know how old he is now at this point. Is he, he's in his 80s.

82, 83.

Somewhere in there. Yeah.

So I, I don't know how many years he has left, but, um, or how many years he has to be the competent owner.

84.

84. So you're, you're really in the tail end here. And if you're worried about money, sell off like 10% of the team to some VC or some rich dude. And that team's probably worth, I don't know, 14 billion, 15 billion with the way the prices are going. Sell off a piece of it and cash that money and be like, I've, you know, I don't understand how you're cutting costs if you're him. The, the contradiction with Jerry though is you're right. There, there are places he spends money, not just the stadium, but if you've ever walked into the facility, it's like chandeliers.

First class.

Marble floors. It's like totally over the top. He'll land his helicopter on the practice field during practice. Like it's, it's all, it's all the show. And he's a brilliant businessman who's made a ton of money. Like that documentary on the Cowboys, the episode about Jerry is, is extremely entertaining. It's just that when it comes to coaching, he has never believed that coaches matter. You can go all the way back to the rift with Jerry Jones.

Right.

Three decades, or excuse me, with Jimmy Johnson.

Parcels was the only time, right? When he was like, oh shit, maybe I got this coaching thing wrong. I'm gonna spend on Parcels. But he never won with them.

And, and even then, you know, you come back and then look at through the years and, you know, the long period of time with Jason Garrett, who was, you know, kind of like, you have good seasons and you have a bunch of average seasons.

Yeah.

And, you know, Wade Phillips was there for a while. Um, you know.

Campo.

With Mike McCarthy that was.

Campo.

Dave Campo. That's right. I mean, you got all kinds of, you know, different coaches who have been through there, but like why is that where you draw the line? He's got the quote, if you remember, and I think it was, was it the CD Lamb deal? It was one of their big contracts that they got done after, you know, way too long, right? It might've been Dak after, you know, franchise taking everything. He said like, there's nothing, uh, in my life that I wanted that I haven't overpaid for. I'm always willing to wait longer, even if it means overpaying. So he overpays for players where there is a salary cap and he doesn't pay market value for coaches where there is no salary cap.

Right.

If he devoted, I'm not saying money fixes every problem, but Bill, like if you go back 10 to 15 years, Bill Belichick was by far the highest paid coach in the NFL. He was the only guy who was making like clear eight figures. About three quarters of the coaches in the NFL now make 10 million plus.

Yeah.

That's just where it is. Why? Because teams have realized like, all right, there's only a limited number of guys. It's like quarterbacks in the draft. A couple go in the first, nobody else goes to the fourth. If you want that guy in that year, you're gonna have to pay because that's just the competition level. First time head coaches now are getting 12, 13 million dollars a year, which again, is more than Belichick was making by the way.

College.

At the Page Super Bowl years.

College. That's the price for if you want one of the best guys, you're in eight figures a year now.

Right. And Jerry has basically adopted the stance of like, I'm just not going to compete. You know, even Mike McCarthy, um, you know, he had a couple of interviews. The Jets were also still trying to get him in, but Jerry just kind of sold him on, you know, Dallas. And then, you know, he paid him probably at the, you know, the lower end of what Mike McCarthy, you know, would've been making from another team. And then, you know, they made Mike fire his staff. You're hiring people, you know, to be coordinators because they just got fired by somebody else. You don't have to pay him much money. It's just, it's that part of it. And again, I don't put that on Scheidheimer and it's, it's Christian Parker, but it goes to this overall fragile state of everything, which is you're willing to pay and you're willing to collect the players and bring them all in.

And it's the 12-month spotlight. You're on ESPN and any other place, every NFL podcast all the time, 'cause there's just more interest in the Cowboys than any other team basically. And then everybody gets their hopes up in July and August. I picked them. I picked them to win the NFCs this year. I thought they'd win 10 plus games. I thought they were gonna be good. And then obviously that's not happening. Um, look.

Talented enough. It's just you're, you're in a hole now. You know, you're three and five and you're about to play the Colts team. You should, you should beat handily. They're walking in the door ready to quit. Um, you know, you lose this game and you're three and six. To me, that's a.

You're a cross off.

Yeah. You're a cross off. We, we break it off and, and go and, and trade parts. I, I just don't know, even in that division, like what you're playing for at this point, you know, we'll see how it goes against Indiana.

Hey, this is almost three and a half decades now of him owning an NFL team unsuccessfully. So at some point, everything can change around it, but at some point you gotta look at the guy. Um, there you go. All right. That was pick six, Tom Pelissero. Check him out on the sweep this weekend. Releases on Saturday morning. Great newsletter plus on the, uh, Ringer NFL show. Good to see you. Kirk Cousins to the Vikings. Make it happen. Make some calls.

See where we're at Saturday in the sweep.

All right. Good to see you.

Thanks, Bill.

All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kirk and Tom. Thanks to Guau and Eduardo and Chris and Jack and everybody at Spotify as well. New rewatchables is up. Go check it out. All the right moves. Um, I hope you enjoy the rest of the day. Please vote. Um, and I hope everybody stays safe and happy this week. And I'll see you on Thursday.

I wanna see them. Wanna waste all that I've said. I don't have a few years with them. On the wayside, on the front side of that.