Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Giannis Return Change Bucks’ Future? + Paolo & Magic Staff At Odds?

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to talk about Giannis’ return to the Bucks and what these next few months will mean for his future in Milwaukee. Then, we discuss an interesting back and forth between Paolo Banchero and Orlando head coach Jamahl Mosley before speaking about Trae Young’s upcoming debut for the Wizards. Finally, we break down Steph Curry’s latest injury before talking OKC’s strategy to keep their stars healthy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello, welcome with the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Tuesday afternoon, joining us from Xfinity Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

where the 76ers are playing the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night. Game hasn't happened yet. You guys are all smarter than us. Watching and listening is Timbottem. Oh, everybody. The end of the rodeo road trip for the Spurs. I think the last time they played in San Antonio was on February 7th, and then they have a back to back.

They had two games in Austin in the middle to break things up a little bit more than what it used to be, but it's still been a very long time since it's been in San Antonio Progn. Yeah, it's technically a home games in Austin, but they're not home games. Anyway, joining us from down the hall here in Los Angeles.

See, he's in my suite. This is usually the sweet I'm in. I came in to do the podcast, Bon Temson. My room had been taken over by Bands McMahon. Howdy, partners? There's a, sorry, couldn't quite pull rank on me. The early bird gets the worm.

And so here I am. It's a comfortable seat, too. Earl Powell Raffa's got you looking great in the shot there, McMahon. Yeah, I know. He looks better than I do. He's also, so he's got makeup. He's got studio makeup on. I've got no makeup on.

So just, you know, for the record. You just don't have the hat. That's right. I know. So anyway, right as I got here, Bon Temps, let me tell you what went down. So I walked in and the NBA today was going. going on. And so I was looking for one of the producers to help me with something. And I walked into the studio and Malika is doing this interview with this high school senior who is committing, making his commitment known. And McMahon, right as I walk in, he breaks down in tears.

I didn't break down in tears. To be clear, the kid did. It didn't sound like you met the band broke down in tears. Well, McMahon might have been in tears. I wasn't looking at him. The young man broke down in tears. Bruce Bransley third, who will be playing for BYU. He's going to cast those Ryan Smith checks. You know, emotional, obviously a huge day for the kid. And he started kind of tearing up talking about his little brother. Then he started, you know, talking about his mama and that, you know, the tears started flowing and Malika had an Oprah moment. Oh, the little soft shoulder-touch.

She did. She stood up and came over. I was, like, I walked in, like, trying to sneak in, you know, frankly, I saw it was on TV. I thought maybe it was on tape. I didn't know it was actually live, live. Yeah. That was quite a moment for Malika.

Wait till I see her later on. Listen, I told Malika, phenomenal job. She does have a lot of experience consulting a crying man because Mac 10 cries every time Syracuse loses, and that is all the time. Oh, boy. He has no more tears. He has no more tears. All right. So we had a significant event in the last couple of days here.

Janice Atenacumpo returned for the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday. They lost. They've now lost three games in a row. And Janus is on a minute restriction naturally because they're keeping an eye on that calf. I think unless you were a Bucks fan, it was easy to lose track of the Bucks a little bit over the last 15 games that Yannis was out, especially after Yonis wasn't traded. But what ended up happening with them was he missed 15 games, and they went 8 and 7 in those games. They were in 11th place in the east when he went out with that calf injury. and when he came back, they were in 11th place.

They passed the Bulls and were passed by the Hornets. No, the Bulls passed them to be clear, but that's true. That's true. So they have made the decision in a sea of tankers. They have made the decision not to tank. And they had won eight out of ten games, and then they lost the last three to the Knicks, Bulls and Celtics. In fact, the Bulls, I think, had lost 11 in a row and beat them to break their losing streak, beat them by 25 points.

And they lost Janice's first game back. They only scored 81 points in that game, which is one of the lowest scoring games in the NBA all season. Bontems, can you, before, to get a look here at what the Bucks have on their plate, could you please explain the draft pick situation that includes the Atlanta Hawks who are playing the Bucks on ESPN on Wednesday night?

Yeah, so to go back to last June, and the now, you know, depending on your perspective, the infamous Pelicans Hawks draft night trade that led to the Pelicans getting Derek Queen with the 13th pick in the draft. The trade was Pelicans gave up the 23rd pick in the draft, which they had gotten from the Indiana Pacers a couple weeks prior before Tyrese Albert and hurt his Achilles.

And they also gave up the better of New Orleans' pick and Milwaukee's pick in this year's draft, the 2026 draft, in exchange for the 13th pick last year, which became Derrickwey. So Atlanta came out of that with the 23rd pick, which they took Ace of Newell, forward out of Georgia,

and then they were going to end up with the better of the New Orleans and Milwaukee pick. So as of right now, the Pelicans are, I believe, in sixth in the lottery standings after a very important for the jazz, back-to-back pair of losses to the Pelicans the other day, moving Utah into the top five and making it very unlikely they'll be giving up their pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder,

which is top eight protected, as we know. So they have these six lottery odds, and right now Milwaukee is in 10th in the lottery odds, which, by the way, Atlanta went from 10th to first a couple years ago to get Zachary-Rish. So as we've seen with the new lottery odds, you can move up. So when we get to lottery night, let's say the Pelicans have the third pick and the Bucks have the fourth pick. Atlanta will pick third, and Milwaukee gets the lesser of those picks. So the Milwaukee would then pick fourth, and then New Orleans obviously won't have anything. So if one of those two teams jumps up, Atlanta benefits, and then the lesser pick goes to the

bucks. That is the roundabout way of explaining the whole thing. Right. So the thing about it is, is that the bucks, in theory, could get as high as, the bucks aren't focused on this. The bucks are focused. They can get as high as two. They can You can't get one because the best picks automatically go right. But if both teams go up to one and two, the Bucks could pick as high as second. Right. But I want to talk about the strategy that the Bucks have decided to employ here. Okay.

So understand that they don't get their pick unless it falls behind the Pelicans pick. I wouldn't even back up from there. If you're the Bucks and you were sitting there when Yannis got hurt, they had somewhere around 17 or 18 wins and they had sort of two pass in front of them. They had 18 wins. So if they had done what the Chicago Bulls have recently done and lost 10 in a row or really leaned into losing like we've seen Memphis and Dallas and some of these other teams do, they would have had a chance to be somewhere in the 6 to 8 or 9 range in the lottery, which would have pretty significantly increased their chances of having a pick somewhere from 6 to 8 in the lottery. In a loaded draft. In a loaded draft like every, look, if they end up at 10, it's going to be.

fine. They'll end up with a very good player. It's a deep draft. But the higher up you go, the better chance you have of getting an impact player, it also increases the chances of both picks jumping up into the top four, which then they could end up with Camboozer or Caleb Wilson or EG DeBancor, like one of these, you know, real huge prospects at the top of the draft. And like I just said, it's not impossible. Like I think it's most likely that the Bucks are going to pick 10th. Like the way the standing sit right now, they're probably not making the play in with the way Charlotte's played. And Atlanta's got a lot of tank games left.

Let's just slow down a second. Let me go over all this. Slow down. So they had 18 wins when Janus got hurt. They went 8 and 7 with him out, which was very good. And surprising. They were way below 500 without him. Now, the schedule played a role, which I'm going to go over in a second.

But they had 18 wins. If they had won four games instead of eight, okay, they would be in position to have the seventh pick. but because they won eight games, and this is what we're talking about, it's very tightly packed between six and ten, because they won eight games, they're now sitting at the 10th pick, and Janus is back.

Now, they've been a much better team with Janus this year than without, so I assume, especially since they're trying to win, that they will not lose more games. And the thing about it is, is that if they get lucky in the lottery, you know, when I say lucky in quotes, So right now, they have a 14% chance of move, if the lottery was today. And again, they don't care about this because they're trying to make the playoffs, just to be clear.

But I'm talking about it from a strategic standpoint. And if you're a Bucks fan, you're like, why are you talking about the strategy? Why aren't you talking about us making the playoffs, upsetting the Celtics in the first round? Yannis making you run to the conference finals. That's what the team is focused on. Why aren't you focused on that? And I would say, if they get into the play-in, which they're not in yet, will evaluate how they're playing. But I want to talk about the strategy that they employed. So the thing is, had they

been six or seventh in the in the lottery, they would have had a real chance to get, had their pick in the six or seven range. Now, their pick is 14% chance to move up. And the all likelihood is if they hit that 14% chance, like McMahon, what was Dallas's percentage? I think it was 1.8%. 1.8% was the Mazzazi at that number one pick. And I think it was, roughly about 8 or 9% to go into the top four. Let's say Milwaukee gets lucky. Let's say that they're rewarded with karma for not tanking and they hop up. With all likelihood, they're not going to be able to get that pick because it'll go higher than the pelicans. Maybe they both

get lucky. They would still benefit, though, because they'd get the pelicans pick which would be a better, you know, the pelicans will have better odds. But they had a chance, like because Bon Temps was saying, to give themselves almost a guarantee to pick six, seven, eight-ish. they essentially controlled their draft pick this year. They didn't exactly, but because New Orleans was off to such an awful start, they could guarantee themselves a pretty decent floor for where their pick would land. And in this draft, am I wrong in saying there's a pretty significant difference between pick seven and pick 10?

Like, that's sort of where it goes, right? I've been told two to three franchise players and then like if you get to like through eight, there's like it's considered a pretty low to draft through like eight or so. just, you know, again, I'm not a college scout, but talking to GMs and scouts around the league, that's what I'm told. I would just say in general, every pick higher you pick, the better. Okay. All right. So now let's take a look at where they are in the standings.

All of the teams below them in the standings are tanking. Bulls, wizards, nets pacer. Except the pelicans. They just stink. I'm talking about in the east. Okay. McMahon and I are going to see the pelicans tonight. That's true.

Can't wait. Pelicans at Lakers. Okay, all the teams below them are tanking. So I'm just going to assume, even though the Bucks, the Bulls just beat them, beat the Bucks the other day, that those teams are not going to catch the buck. When you're looking at teams under 500, I look at the win column. Some people look at the loss column. I look at the wind column because that's, you know, the thing that's less likely if you're under 500. They have 26 wins as we do this.

The Hornets, who are red-hot, have 30 wins. They're not catching the Hornets. No, if they catch somebody as the Hawks, it ain't going to be the Hornets. Right. And they have a game against the Hawks on Wednesday night. The Hawks are 500. They've won four straight games in a row. They're 31 and 31. So the Bucks need to chase down the Hornets or the Hawks, one or the other, to get into a position where they would have to win two play-in games to get into the playoffs. So if they overcome being four games and five games behind one of these teams in the win column, with what, 20-ish, 21 games left? See, they've played 60 games.

They have 22 games left. If they're able to make up four or five games on those two teams in front of them, then they can crawl into the back of the play-in. And by the way, there was an inauspicious start to this push on Monday night when they played the Celtics who were sitting, Jalen Brown and Peyton Pritchard and Nemis Keda and had essentially Derek White at a bunch of very young, inexperienced players playing and obliterated Milwaukee while playing on the second night of a back-to-back on the road.

I will tell you what Bobby Portis said. So they won eight out of ten, and then they've lost three in a row by a total of 79 points. And Eric, named from the athletic, quoted Bobby Portis saying the following when he was asked. As we're looking at what's going to happen with Milwaukee here, what's going to happen with Janus, which is really what this is code for. We're spending all this time talking about this because we want to know where Janice's head is going to be at the end of the season. And we're wanting to know whether the Bucks can actually improve their lot with their draft pick or with a what's more likely, a high draft pick that changes their situation or a playoff run that changes their situation. One is possible. We're kind of making the argument that it's not looking like either.

That's what we're getting at. All right. So here's what Bobby Portis said to explain how the Bucks win eight out of 10 and then get blown out three straight games. We're just playing better teams. It's kind of fools gold. Rolling 8 out of 10, playing against bottom teams that they're trying to lose for real, right? Playing against teams that are jockeying for a position. We used to be in that position, too, jockeying for a position.

So basically what Bobby Portis is saying is that 8 out of 10 win streak. This is a player on the team saying that that's fool's goal. I will tell you the teams that they beat the 8 out of 10. They beat the Bulls, which they didn't do the last time they played them. They beat the Pelicans. they beat the Pacers. They split two games with the magic. Now, this was a good one.

They won in Oklahoma City. There was injuries, but they went in there and they won. Excellent win. They beat New Orleans again. Lost to the Raptors. Beat the heat. Beat the Cavs. The Cavs were sitting their top three players in that game.

But still, they beat them. So that's what they eight out of ten was. And so they have the Hawks coming up on Wednesday. that's a chance to beat a team directly in front of them. It's like a, you know, it's a double whammy. And then they play the jazz who are full on tanking. So they could win the next two games and, you know, have closed that gap a little bit. But I'm just, I'm just want to lay out the situation that the Bucks are in because, you know, the honest thing is still out there like a thunderstorm on the horizon.

I know it's been out there for months and it's tires. But for years, for years. Yeah. And look, it is, it is completely hypocritical to be critical of the Bucks for going all in. on a play-in. I will absolutely acknowledge that because I sit here and say the tanking epidemic is the biggest issue in the NBA right now. This is a team that could have gone the tank route and has gone the complete opposite. They're trying as hard as possible to cling to that number 10 seed and probably get bounced in the play-in. But they're in this never-never pretend land where if they can

just get the play-in, they can win a couple games and then they can beat a number one seed. And magically everything's coming together. The reason there's a tank and epidemic is because it is smart strategy for teams that aren't any good. The bucks aren't any good. And whether they're moving forward with Yonis or not, they don't have control of their picks moving forward. This is like they're much like the Mavericks. This is their one swing at a lottery pick for a little while. And it would be their best asset to try to somehow quick rebuild and give Yannis a chance to contend there or their best asset. asset, if they do end up trading Yonis, boom, you've got a foundation piece moving forward. It sucks that you're sitting here saying, why are they bringing Yonis back? But the reality of the situation is this is not in the Buck's best long-term interest to just try as hard as they may to squeeze into the freaking play in. Well, but there's several people who's, it's in their short-term interest. Yeah. Well, that is, that's true. And this is also a reminder of plan I wrote about a couple weeks ago to address the tanking issue. And if you had wins count at this time of

the year towards lottery positioning, this wouldn't be a discussion. Instead, everybody could just be excited that Janus is healthy and playing. And I will again contend that whatever the NBA tries to do to address this issue, which I agree, McMahon, is a huge problem. In fact, that most of the the games to final couple months of the year stink and are not interesting, they have to address the fact that it is in the best interest of all of these teams to lose right now. And for all the complaining people want to do about all these various teams, they're all doing the thing that's in their best interest. So that is what has to change for any of this stuff to really change.

And again, if you had a system where wins count for the final third of the season toward your ladder positioning, having Yonis come back would be great. The Bucs winning these games would be great. You wouldn't have teams trying to lose. wouldn't be celebrating the Bulls losing 10 games in a row or all this other stuff that's going on. I said we'd be talking about Jaron Jackson Jr. playing and Larry Marketon playing and Yostaticoupo playing

and, you know, these young guys in Washington playing with Trey Young. Like all these things would be exciting instead of, well, are these teams going to lose more? Vita Zubats playing in Indiana. That would be fun. You know, that'd be great to see too. So, yes, it's 100%. It sounds hypocritical to say,

I've had people say to me, how can you criticize these teams that are trying to win when you say the tanking is bad? Well, because they're not, like you said, you laid it out perfectly. They're not doing the thing that's in their best interest, and that's the problem. And that's what needs to change if the NBA is going to really fix anything. And then forget about the tanking issue. For the Buck's big picture planning and strategy, what is the most important question that their leadership answers?

What does Yonis want? Yonis wants to play. Janus is going to play. And for years now, what does Janus want has been kind of the guiding light for the Bucks long-term planning? Yeah, I mean, Janus wants to win tonight, but what will Janus want when we get to April, May? And will he actually say it out loud instead of hitting all that? Maybe he won't. And maybe they do get into the play in and maybe they do something in a series and it changes it.

And that's what they're playing for. And if they do, then they will get to say, see, that's, I mean, one of my big beliefs you guys know is there's always time. So I have to stick to that. I develop that for a reason. So I have to acknowledge that there is time for the bucks. But they are, they have put themselves in a very narrow pathway to pulling this out. But they may do it. They may get lucky in the lottery relative to them and the pelicans. It may all work out. But they're put themselves in a position where their pathways are narrow. But we'll watch and continue to see how that plays out. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. Okay. The Orlando Magic, I just saw them a few days ago out here in L.A. They won that night. They'd won six out of eight games. They subsequently have blown two games.

Now, they do play Tuesday night against the Wizards. They're a tanker. I have no idea what will happen. Hopefully, for Orlando's sake, they take care of business in that game. But their last two games against Houston and Detroit, which are two good teams. Very good teams. But on their home. court, they blew second half leads in both games. The Houston one was particularly painful in the

fourth quarter because Houston's fourth quarter offense is not good. Durant, you know, had a good game. And after the game, Palo Bancaro came into the post-camp press conference and he was asked, you know, hey, why is the opponent kind of handling you guys in the second half? And he said, quote, just being more organized, being able to communicate with each other, what we're trying to do, teams a lot of times adjust at halftime, and I think that's why we struggled a lot in the second half because we don't really adjust to their adjustments. Oopsie.

You guys remember when we discussed the magic recently, and I said that there's a lot of discussion around the league about Paulo not being on the same page with Jamal Mosley? And then Paulo was asked about that by the local media, and where's that coming from? I mean, where is that? Well, this is not exactly going to quiet the noise about that whole situation. I can assure you that.

So, Jamal Mosley was asked about Paolo's comments. And Jamal Mosley said, quote, yeah, I think the one adjustment that Detroit made last night, they just played a little harder. They got into the ball. They grabbed out it a little bit more. They clogged the pain a little bit more. And our decisions became slower because there was a lot of, there were not a lot of gaps. There was no schematic adjustment that they made.

It was more or less along the lines. Did they turn up their defense, their defensive heat a lot more? He keeps going on. But basically, he said they played harder than us. So basically, let's translate that. That's actually not really what he said. What he really said was they played harder and my star player held the ball longer. That's really what he said.

And this was on a night that Powell had nine turnovers. One guy said, we didn't adjust. One guy said, coach. And the other guy said, well, they just played harder and we clogged it up. the coach said player. That's essentially what it was. And it happens to be the star player and the coach. And it's a team that's underachieving,

although they had been playing better, it's a team that is heavily invested in this season and is underachieving. Granted, they have had injury problems, but a lot of teams have injury problems. They've had this unfortunate thing with Franz Wagner, who just can't get over this ankle issue. He's been three different times,

been down with it. But all that said, we have a guy on a $200 million contract and the head coach at open odds with each other. It's not in the shadows anymore, McMahon. It's now wide out into the open. Well, and look, the magic didn't give up all those picks and make an expensive trade in terms of what they gave up

and taken on the salary of Desmond Bain to be the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference. And, you know, Palo Bancaro's talent is not in question. I mean, he just had one, a phenomenal game in L.A. when we had 36 points and was efficient and, you know, filled out the box score. But, you know, and he's still a young player. And, you know, you got to be careful, like reaching grand conclusions on young guys, thinking of the metal balls teaching us a little bit of that lesson.

But Palo is just not proven that he can be a driver of really meaningful winning. Yet at this point in his career. And, you know, you can blame the coach. And anytime it's going to be the max-saried face of the franchise versus the coach, I think we know who is going to win that battle in the long run, if that's what it comes down to. But it's Palo Bancaro's franchise, and he's not yet proven that he can get to the magic to the point of being anything

but a pretty good team that's not a real threat. Look, as of right now, the magic could tie from 19th in offensive rating, be their highest offensive rating since 2011. 11 or 12. I don't remember which year, but it was a year when Dwight Howard was there because I haven't been inside the top 20 since then, which is a pretty wild stat. However, they're also tied for 19th, right? Like after trading for Desmond Bain, with Palo Bencaro, with Franz Wagner, with all these other guys. So like, that's the problem. Like, and yes, they've had injuries. Powell's been out. Franz has been out. Yes, that's fair. Well, maybe they'll put up 140 on the

Wizards tonight. I'll move up to like 17th. They probably will move up with playing the Wizards. But, I At the end of the day, like you said, Brian, they didn't trade four first round picks for Desmond Bain to be in the play in. And they're right now in the play in. And it's been a very disappointing seat. They didn't give Palo a max contract, would have been Super Max to have an effective field goal percentage of 48.9%. And that, you know, to turn the ball over as much as he does,

and to be an inefficient offensive player. Paolo was, I don't think it was like unjust, unjust. but he didn't make the all-star team. He was rookie year, his rookie year, obviously, and then he made the All-Stra team his second year. Last year he was hurt. This year, he didn't make the All-Star team. And so he, I believe, spoke.

I think Mark Spears told the story. I don't know if he wrote the story or told the story, but he really focused in during the All-Star break on, like, buckling down because he didn't, you know, he didn't like the idea that he wasn't at the All-Star game. And so he has come out after the All-Star break and had a string of good games. His scoring is way up in those games.

I don't know what he'll do against the Wizards tonight. He shot the ball a little bit better. It's still not great, but he shot the ball a little bit better. His rebounds are up, his assists are up. He's definitely trying to tighten down and trying to pick this team up. In fact, one of the stats that has trailed him throughout his career is that he's, the magic have been out. He's had a negative plus minus his whole career.

that despite all of the stats and the honors and the money, that he's never, the magic have never been a winning team when he's, you know, they've never won on the scoreboard when he's been out there. It's only been six games. And again, I don't know what will happen tonight. He's had a positive plus minus in these last six games. Like he's, I think what's interesting about this is that he is actually trying to like be the player that people want him to be. And yet we still have this situation.

happen. And so, and here's the thing, Jamal's comments came the next day. You know, the first the coach talked, then the players talked. So Paulo's comments came after Mosley, and the Mosley had it overnight to think about it and what he was going to say. And he kind of, you know, it wasn't like a broadside, but he kind of jabbed Paulo back. By the way, positive plus minus, the plus 32 coming out of the break against the Sacramento Kings helped. The minus 25 against the Pistons got a pretty close, pretty close to normal. Fair point. It's way too small of a sample size, but he has been putting up better numbers.

Okay, I will say, so this game with Wizards game will be the last Wizards game that we've seen until we see Tray Young, who it has been announced, will make his debut for the Wizards on Thursday. He has finally recovered from that injury following the trade several months ago. he says with a straight face Well, I can only tell you what the team reports But I don't even know who they play The Jazz is a green jazz It's a really tough time for Trey Young to come back That's a must-lose game

So he very, very strategically picked the Jazz It's the second night of a back-to-back for the Jazz too, I think No, strategically you'd bring them back against a good team They can't beat the Jazz That's very problematic if they do By the way, there's two Jazz Wizards games this month. I don't know how many people will tune in on League Pass, but I bet just folks from the NBA office will.

That's true. So Trey Young will debut as a wizard. He has not played since December 27th. And you know the jazz are tanking if they don't bring Trey Young into the action on every single possession when the wizards are on the defense and then on the floor. Yeah. Yeah, if they don't involve them in pick and rolls,

you know that there's maybe some strategy going on. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. Speaking of teams that are sort of stuck in the bit of the middle, as we talked about with the bucks, the Warriors are in an interesting position stuck in the middle, and they've made, I think, an interesting strategy decision, Bontem. So they announced on Sunday or Monday, I can't remember what, that Steph Kerr was going to be out another 10 days, which is five more games. And that, you know, he's dealing with a

knee injury that's a repetitive use injury. And, you know, instantly there are people who are wondering, like, are they considering shutting him down for the season? I don't think that's what they're doing. I think they're evaluating where they are in the standings and evaluating where Steph is and trying to do their own strategy play here. But that is obviously a significant development that Steph is going to be out a few more weeks. Yeah, I mean, as somebody who ran cross-country, Steph has runners knee, which is basically an overuse, old man injury, which as someone who is now 41 and tries to run.

I know how runners knee feels. It's not great. I can't imagine trying to play the way Steph does with that. And like you said, if the warrior, to go back to the beginning of the pod, if the Warriors wanted to, quote unquote, tank now. They can't. Like, there's no real way for them to do that. So there's really no downside to giving Steph as much time off as they can,

trying to get that knee to a good place, and then have them be ready to try to win a game or two in the play-in, depending on where they land, because I think they're, I want to say there are one or two losses ahead of the clippers right now. So as we record this before Tuesday's game, they are one game, they're in eighth, by one game. But the key is where they are in the play-in.

There's six games behind the Lakers in sixth, and six games ahead of the Grizzlies in 11th. And the Grizzlies ain't in above 11th, so they don't have to worry about falling out of that 10. All the teams below the line are tanking. Except the pelicans. Except the pelicans. That's right.

But they are 13 games behind the Warriors. DeZan-Marie declared they're going to try to make a run for the play-in, but I think it's safe to say they're a little too far away. playing. I hope they don't. They're not making the play any. I'm not sure their knees, either of their knees, are going to be good enough for that run. I would agree. I would agree. So there's really no reason not to give Steph the time he needs to try to get him back. I mean, obviously, we've seen sort of the same thing happened to Chris Asperzingis that happened in Atlanta, and his situation is a little uncertain. But again, if they can just get him back on the court at all between now and the playoffs,

Like, you know, right, before the, before the middle of a, right, they can give themselves a chance to have as good a team as they're going to have to try to win a game or two and try to get stuff back in the playoffs. And if they don't, they end up in the back half of the lottery and they can hope to get lucky. But I, there's no path to them trying to get, you know, down to somewhere where they have a legitimate chance to jump up outside of getting extraordinarily lucky. Well, and I think we've got to kind of brace ourselves, and more so our bosses have to brace themselves for a playoffs that don't include the Golden State Warriors. They'll be a playing team, whether they're eight or nine, you know, we'll see. But like, do you assume Devin Booker's back, Dylan Brooks will be back? Do you pick even with Steph, do you pick the Warriors to beat the Sons? Do you pick them to assume they see the Clippers if it's the second game?

You're obviously trying to avoid having to play two games. you'd love to be in the situation where you could win the 7-8. So you try to get into the 7-8 and you try to win that game. Well, to your point, Big Man, they're not one of the eight best teams in the West. Not without Jimmy Butler. Now Chris Sperzingia's health uncertain and not with Steph Curry's status uncertain. Because even if Steph comes back, it's unlikely this is just going to magically go away. So, you know, it doesn't mean they can't win a game or two in the plane and get in.

But the way the Clippers have played, if Kauai Leonard is healthy, I would say they're better even after the trades. and the sons deserve to be ahead of it with the way they've played this year, assuming Dylan Brooks is back by then. Yeah, the sons are kind of, you know, with all their injuries, they're kind of just trying to tread water. And I think it's good news for them

that Steph is going to be out because I think, again, going into tonight, I think the Warriors are eight and 13 when Steph doesn't play this year. And that's a little to see of him because a lot of those eight were with Jimmy on the floor. True. That's true. I mean, let's be honest, there are no Jimmy, no Steph.

Like you take two max players away from most teams. It's going to be a struggle and it's a struggle. Well, and let's be honest, it's a bit of a break for the Lakers, too, because the Lakers are, they've gotten a couple of wins in a row. They should take care of business against the Pelicans tonight. We'll see whether that happens. But the Lakers have lost ground here and have fallen back to six, at least as we're recording this. And the two teams behind them, which could threaten to knock them into the play-in,

are, you know, Phoenix who's missing three key players and the warriors who are clearly just trying to keep their head above water. They've been a losing team without Steph. So that's the thing that the West degrades very quickly. Yes, it does. That's one thing that we didn't expect this season is how the West has degraded from the midpoint down. And frankly, I think the Warriors see that and are making a strategy decision to give Steph time. I think the key is I don't think they're intending to shut him down. I think they recognize their situation and are trying to play.

I'm sure Steph wants to play, but he's also, I mean, this is also just a reminder that he's an old player who's played a ton of games and put a ton of miles on his body. And like, this is the reality of life in the NBA. It's the same reality that, you know, as we went through this John Nick Gominga saga for the past couple of years, the idea that the Warriors were like guaranteed or should be guaranteed an ability to try to win another one with Steph at the end. Like, I would love to see them have a chance to do that, but that's not necessarily how this stuff always works. Like, things end. And this is an aging team that is dealing with injuries that an aging team would have. And, you know, Steph having to deal with this is part of that. But yeah, like, look, I think we've all known Steph a long time.

Steph, I'm sure, wants to try to get this team into the playoffs and be part of it again. He knows he doesn't have that many chances left. So there's no reason not to give them every chance to try to do that. And by the way, you mentioned the Lakers. The Lakers are tied in the loss column with Denver. So, you know, Denver, they got a lot of wins without Nicole Yokic that I didn't think they were going to get. And I think everybody didn't think they were going to get. And that could end up being a massive difference maker for them because even with those wins,

they're tied in the last column with the Lakers. they've now followed behind Minnesota after that loss the other day. Like that three to six race in the West is really compacted. And I think our BPI has them all within a game or two at the end of the season. So, you know, the fact that Denver went, I don't think they were 8 and 7 when Yokic was out or 8 and 8, something like that. I think it was 10 and 6 actually. Might even be better, right. Those wins might not be the difference between them being 6 or 7,

but it might be the difference from being 6 and 4 in a couple of weeks. And it's crazy. because they kept stacking wins without Joker. And like, who, not only did they survive that, they, you know, really kind of thrive during that stretch. They get him back. And this has been the biggest struggle point of their season. I mean, they lost at 1.8 out of 12 games.

They had to sweat down to the final seconds to beat the tanking Utah Jazz. Like the nuggets are really, really scuffling right now. They're hoping to get Gordon back very soon. Same with Peyton Watson. But, man, this is not what you were expecting to see from the Denver Nuggets at this point with Joker back in the lineup. As we sit here and do this podcast, the Thunder are two games ahead of the Spurs in the lost column. And the Thunder made an interesting decision. So they have a back-to-back.

They have the Bulls on Tuesday night. Bulls have won in their last 11. And then Wednesday, they play the second night of the back-to-back. It's a national television game on ESPN. We invite you to watch. in Madison Square Garden. Okay? Now, with the injuries that they've had

and it would not be surprising that they would sit guys not in the back-to-back. They are holding Shagiel to Slexander and Isaiah Hartinstein out against the Bulls and having them against the Knicks. Now... The correct decision.

That's the correct decision, especially if you really want to... You know, we've seen in the past where in a situation they would have maybe sat the guys. Now, this is what the NBA wants them to do. The NBA wants them to do. the NBA wants them to play the stars in the bigger game.

But they would be within their rights with SGA coming off this, you know, abdominal injury. They could sit them out second either back to back. But this is an actions over words thing of the Thunder. Now, I'm not saying Mark Dagonald or Sam Presti would admit this, but I'm saying actions over words, they strategize here. They're trying to win both games. Yeah. I mean, the Bulls want to lose and Thunder want to win.

so there's still a decent chance they can get that one. And then you need to be full strength against a good team. And look, three games and four nights, Shay coming back off the ab strain. Obviously, that makes sense. And then, you know, Hartstein has strained that calf or Solius technically. He's strained it twice. So continuing to exercise caution with him absolutely makes sense.

You know, but they're short-handed. I'm just saying picking the Knicks game to be full as full power as they can be. Well, I think it's, I mean, it's a no-brainer decision. like McBanth said, like you're trying to win both games and the Bulls are not trying to win. I think it's an indication that they really want that number one seat. I think it's an indication that they expect to beat the Bulls without Shea, which they should. But they could have sat the guys a second night. I'm just saying I think it's, I like it.

I like it from the Thunder. I like that they're trying to go for this. But if you're trying to maximize the wins, that's absolutely what you do. Like, sure, there's a world where they could... We don't always see teams at the top. Sometimes we see teams punt. They're not punting. Well, right.

But I... Yeah, I mean, there's no reason for him to punt. Like, if you're gonna... Like, last week, they were in the same situation... Until we see good teams punt all the time. Well, last week, they were in the same situation. They played Toronto on Tuesday and Detroit on Wednesday. And they punted the Detroit game and went to win the Toronto game.

And in that scenario, they went for the more winnable of the two games and essentially said, if we're going to lose one of them, Like, let's make sure we get or give ourselves the best chance to get the one that's more winnable of the two, even though Shay didn't play in either game. In this scenario, like, they ought to beat Chicago no matter what. So if they get Chicago with those two guys out, then they have them healthy for the game where, like, Big Ben said, they're going on the road at the garden against the Knicks. You're obviously going to need your full complimented players probably to win that game. And it only makes sense to do it this way. Yeah.

And by the way, the official reevaluation on J. Dubb, J. Julian Williams, is like Thursday. I believe. I don't have, like I had a pretty good feel that Shay would be coming back last week. I don't have a same level of confidence in J. Dub.

I'm not saying he's certainly not. I just know they're really, really going to be careful here because obviously bringing him back before the break, backfired on them when he was only able to play, you know,

one and a half games before straining that hamstring again. So weight. J. Mitchell, too, right, Tim? It's really the ankle now. And I think he's on the verge. I don't know. I can't guarantee he plays this week,

but I'd be a little surprised if he doesn't play by the end of the week. But we'll see. I just met coming back soon, but that's good. Like, it obviously could use him getting back, too. He's an awfully good player. By the way, Jared McCain has paid immediate dividends for them. Derrmore said he sold high, but Sam Presti was glad that he did. Just be careful doing business with the Thunder,

especially stuff like that. Hey, did you guys see Doug Christie with a smelling salts, the coach of the Kings with a smelling salt the other day? No, I did not see Doug Christie with the smelling salts. But tell me his story. I'd rather take sleeping pills if I was the king's coach to go on. So, you know, he broke open the, you know, I think they banned this in the NFL and then they allowed it back, like the idea of smelling salts. Teams aren't allowed to pass them out, I believe, in the NFL is the rule. You can bring your own. Be Y-O-O-S-S-S.

He opened the smelling. It's like a packet that you crack. And he smelled it. And he like, whoa. And then he smelled it again. And he was like, it made such an impression on him that he just flung it out on the court. I mean, I will say this. I have seen teams, not recently, but I have seen teams that this happens before the game.

I don't, again, this was years ago, but where there would be like a paste. The trainer would put on a glove. And he would put a thing of paste along his finger. and then he'd have the players smell his finger. I have never seen this. The old smell my finger trick, huh? That's right. And he would say, everybody would smell his finger,

and they would all, like, flip their heads back, and then the trainer would, like, take off the glove and, like, put it in medical waste. I've seen it. I've seen it done. I've never seen a coach do it, though. So maybe before, maybe Jackson should ship us some of these before the pod. As McBan said, the Kings and their fans should just be trying to,

go to sleep until May 10th and see where they land in the lottery and hopefully gets a little good luck. I wonder how alert. Of course, I think their strategy is by putting the lineups out there. I mean, at this point, they're leaning fully into it as they should to try to maximize their chance. Yeah, they were accidentally awful and now they've really committed to it. They've committed to being awful and it's working. Yeah. Like every, for a while there, they were announcing a surgery every other day. It was a little bit crazy. I was going to say the most valuable player for the Kings is the team doctor, the surgeon. Yeah. Well, you know, the jazz are leading the league in MRIs. All right. Thank you so much to our producers, Mark Devon, and Jackson. A special

shout out to the technical department here in L.A., Rafa helping McMahon get going. The IT department heads as a West Coast base. Thank you to McMahon and Bontemps. I don't know. IT departments a hell a lot better looking than Rafa. Anyways, go ahead. I would have to agree with you on that. Thank you, McMahon and Bontem. Thank you for listening and watching The Hoop Collectu. We'll talk to you later this week. Adios amigos.