Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - LaMelo Ball Open To Trade? Lakers Shakeup + 2025-26 Small Sample-Size Theater

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Kevin Pelton to discuss the reports that LaMelo Ball is open to a trade and some major shakeups in the Lakers’ front office. Then, we dive into our 2025-26 Small Sample-Size Theater to talk Houston’s unique path to the best offense in the NBA, if the Thunder can win over 70 games, the Rookie of the Year race, which conference is better and much more. 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 to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the MBA, which we're doing on Thursday afternoon, joining me from Seattle for our annual, we're getting into the annual traditions. And here we have a first one coming up here.

The annual tradition of small sample size theater is the machine Kevin Pelton. Thanks for having me. Always love talking small sample size theater, one of my favorite things. Yes, usually it's around Thanksgiving. I feel like maybe once or twice. probably like year five or six. We sometimes have waited into December, but it felt right to me. Last year, yeah, it was December. I was kind of surprised to see that. Because I think of small sample size theater is kind of peaking about 10 games into the season. By the time you get

20 and maybe it's not small sample size anymore, so we're sort of right on the cusp of that right now. All right. So we're still in the acceptable range. Well, before Pelton and I take a look at some trends and whether we think that they can last. There's a little bit of news that came out Thursday afternoon from Yahoo, where Lamello ball, following a wretched loss by the Hornets, on Wednesday night, they lost to the 1 and 13 Pacers. And the Hornets are, I think, 4 and 11 right now. Lamello has missed six games with an ankle injury, which has been unfortunately something that's been a recurring thing.

But anyway, Yahoo reported that Lamello is now open to a trade away from the franchise. which is softer than a trade demand, but obviously, I shouldn't say obviously, but I suspect that this story did not surprise Lamello. So Peltin, a Lamello ball is, you know, he's having this, speaking of small samples, he's only played nine games, but he's having a very poor season, his worst shooting season of his career, he's still hoisting up a ton of threes. He's never made fewer. He's making under 30% of them.

His scoring is the lowest, it's been in five years. his sister up, as I'm sure he's throwing the ball to con canipple more. Also, Ryan Kalkbrenner, who's having a historically great efficiency start to his career. And I'm going to be honest with you before I get your assessment on what you think Lamello's value is, assuming that this report is accurate, which I have no reason to believe that it is not, I find it plausible. I have not independently checked it out, but I find it as we're doing this podcast, in the evening on Thursday.

I find it plausible to be true. I think two things. One, I think the Hornets are probably not disappointed because they have some young players that they may like to build around and Lamello has not been able to deliver consistent production and consistent health. And they've made a major investment in him.

And it would be more difficult for them to be the ones to want to break up. If Lamello wants to take it on, I think they are probably not upset. Unfortunately, the second thing I'm going to say is, I don't know what the market is going to be. He is still young. He is 24 years old. He is under contract for three more years at about $130 million for that stretch.

It's a max contract. We talked about this when John Morant was suspended a few weeks ago by the Grizzlies. There was never any action by the Grizzlies to look for a trade. And, you know, there may not be action just right now by the Hornets to look for a trade. But there's just not that many teams, Pelton, that are seriously in need of a point guard. And of those teams that are, you know, let's say there's seven or eight who could use an upgrade. The teams that are willing to go for a player like Lamello with his injury history, and I would say the same about Jha and the style of play.

In Jaws case, it's a lack of ability to shoot. In Lamello's case, it's sort of his proclivity for taking bad shots. He's got some bad habits, some of which the hornets have nurtured. his lack of defense as well. I'm not sure that there's going to be a humongous market for him, despite the fact that he is a very popular player and despite the fact that he's put up good numbers because of his injury history. The last three years, he played 36 games, 22 games, 47 games. And like I said, he's missed six out of the first 15. So I think that's what about 40% of the game so far. So Pelton, after I go through this long preamble, what is your reaction to Lamello's request and

what you think the Hornets could do here. Well, you laid it out right there. Why not? John Moran, for Lemello Ball, let's call it in and, you know, at least have new problems. It's the Zumer Generation version of when Russell Westbrook and John Wall got traded for each other when, you know, both of those teams were in kind of difficult spots with those respective star point guards in a similar situation. But, you know, it makes us so disappointing to go back to Jha.

There was a lot of discussion, you know, last week on the pot or in recent weeks about how you know, the potential that he showed early in his career and how it looked like this is someone who could potentially be a face of the league or one of the best American players in the league based on what he did his first few seasons. Lamello Ball showed that kind of potential, too. He came into the league younger, but he was a rookie, it was an all-star in year two at age 20. If you look at the list of players in NBA history who have been all-stars at age 20, it is like inner circle Hall of Famers almost exclusively. And at that point, La Mello Paul, he played 75 games that season, the career high easily, you know, has barely played 75 total since then, unfortunately. And he was playing under James Barago on a team that was like, that was competitive, that reached the play in. And it was a serious brand of basketball at that point.

He was shooting 39% from three reasonably efficient. And unfortunately, the trend lines since then have all been negative, both in terms of, you know, his health, his shooting, percentages and also just qualitatively watching the games the serious with which he's approaching them. And you know, you sort of alluded to this, but coming back from missing the five games that he did with the ankle injury, the six was sort of a, you know, an injury management situation. Since he's come back from that injury last Friday, he has shot a combined 16 for 55 from the field. And of those, let's see, five of 24 from three, point range. So not what you're looking to see. And I think what has changed from the Hornet's

perspective as you sort of laid out is for a long period of time, they needed Lamello Ball. You know, they do have Brandon Miller, who's dealt with his own injury situations, unfortunately, is out of the lineup right now. But these rookies have been a breath of fresh air for the Hornets. And Seon James also starting for them as a second round pick, like Colkbrunner. Both of those guys have been fines. I think Colchbrunner a little more expected that he would play this big role based on his production in college. They traded away all their center, so it sort of fell to him. They signed Mason Plumley, and they were, I think, not unhappy that Colkrenner emerged

as ready to go as a four-year college player. Exactly. But Con Cinepple has, from day one, been, you know, I had some notes on him for later on when we talk about the rookie of the year race and how that's evolved over the first month of the season here. But, you know, he looks like somebody. I don't know if I'm going to say that you can build a franchise around him, but the combination of him and Brandon Miller and then, you know, Colch Brenner and Cian James is, you know,

probably lower ceiling, but, you know, still invaluable role players that they've, they've added through the draft, this new regime that inherited Lamello Ball, I think suddenly can feel a lot more comfortable like there is a future beyond him, even if we don't get the kind of return we would hope for in a trade. Yeah. So, you know, I was, I was bullish on Lamello that I was mocked by Bonn-Thompson McMahon because heading into last year, I liked the fit that Charles Lee could have with him. I thought he had sort of trended towards undervalued. I mean, part of the reason why I missed some of those games was because they were tanking. And so some of the games missed was not, you know, they shut him down, you know. And so I felt, well, some of the games

missed, you know, aren't really truly games missed. He could have played, I thought. And so I was like, I want to see what he does with Charles Lee. Charles Lee was going to, you know, sort of play fast and loose and I thought he would fit him. And I couldn't stand watching him last year, Pelton. He was hoisting up 12, 13-3s a game. Half of them I considered bad shots. And I watched him for several games and was like, I can't stand watching him, you know, jack up 30 footers with, you know, 17 seconds on the clock.

I just couldn't take it. I mean, if there was a system that he was following, I couldn't see it. And then defensively, you know, there were pleased that he was, there were, you know, belief or, you know, statements or whatever that he was going to give more at that end of the court. And it was absolutely not the case. And so I went from being like, hey, I think this guy is undervalued like this could really be a moment to being totally turned off because I didn't see him. I didn't, I didn't see the way he was playing last year is, uh, is acting serious. Now, he may dispute that. He may say, no, no, this is what they wanted for me. I was just trying to do

this, but I was like, you know, to, you know, the character on succession, you know, he called his children unsurious. He just sort of disowned them. I love you all, but you are not serious people. It's what I said. I was just like, you're not serious. This is not serious. This is not a, this is an unserious way of approaching NBA basketball. And I kind of washed my hands of him. And it's a bummer because when he came into the league and, you know, part of the reason that he remained so popular among kids is like he was playing this extraordinarily fun. style of basketball. His unselfishness is willing to, you know, move the ball ahead and transition, which has been a hallmark throughout Lonzo's career and, you know, for both of the balls as they

developed. And then, you know, the deep shooting when it was, when they were going in at a pretty good clip as they were his first couple of years and he looked like maybe he was the best prospect from that 2020 draft ahead of Anthony Edwards. That seems like a very long time ago now. My gosh, yes. Okay. So we'll see how that story unfolds in the coming day. We'll see, you know, the Hornets have been a team that basically have, there's only, the only things that have ever come out of Charlotte in the last few years are firings and injury, injuries. There's like nothing to talk about with them.

Like, you know, they haven't even had like, you know, oh my gosh, look at the Hornets. They're off to a seven and four star. I think they've started like the last four years. They've started like three and five or three. I looked it up. It was like three and five or three and seven. Like every year is exactly the last. same. And I know my best friend lives in Charlotte and his son's really into the into the NBA and he

really wants the Hornets to be good. In fact, he took his son to Milwaukee last week to watch the hornets play at the Bucks and like, you know, had the gall to wear Hornets gear into a Bucs game on a Friday night in Milwaukee. You know, I mean, they, we will, he so badly wants them to, to be relevant and just they were they refused to. So, um, you know, this would potentially give them an opportunity to get a clean. So I don't know what their return would be. Frankly, getting off of the money would be a start. Not that you would straight salary dump them,

but like, you know, if you can get an asset plus relief so that you can do something else with that money over the next three years, I wouldn't hang up the phone necessarily. So, and like, by the way, there's been a belief in the league that Lamello is on the list of guys who this could happen to.

Like I didn't, I wouldn't have said I saw it coming today. But when this story came out over Yahoo, who I didn't fall over, you know. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. So, all right. The other thing, the piece of news, before we move into the purpose of the podcast, was that the Lakers organization,

let go Joey and Jesse Bus on Thursday. They gave a statement to Shams about the situation. They remain part owners of the team. They each used to, own about 11% before the bus is diluted. And now they're in single digit percentage. The bus is diluted from about 66% down to 15%. I'm going to get the exact quote that they said.

So the decision was made over their heads. So essentially they've been fired. And so their quote to Shams were, we are extremely honored to have been part of this organization for the last 20 seasons. Thank you to Laker Nation for embracing our family every step of the way. We wish things could be different the way our time ended with the teams. At times like this, we wish we could ask our dad what he would think about it all. That last sentence, Peltin, is a broadside at their sister, in my view. Because quite frankly, the only person that can fire a bus is a bus. While I'm sure

the new owner, Mark Walter, and maybe more will be known in the coming days. I'm sure the owner gave his blessing for this. The governor is still a genie, and they still own a percentage of the team, and you can't fire an owner unless you're a genie. And so we'll find out where Walter was. We'll find out where Polinka was, but this was bus on bus crime. The vote to sell the team was four children to two with Jeannie joining her three older siblings. Joey and Jesse, as far as I know, voted against the sale. For years, Jeannie had been on their side and a three-three vote meant no sale. Jeannie moved to the other side. I assume partially because she got this deal where she was able to remain the governor for years into the future. And also because she got a great price,

someone told me that each one of the bus families after all the maneuverings and everything and they're counting each of the each of the bus children got a little under a billion dollars like 900 and high nine hundreds a million dollar check a couple of weeks ago when mark walter bought the team so they're going to be able to do whatever they want but beyond the palace intrigue the bus on bus crime and the invoking of their father who you know what i took away from that is that, you know, their father would never have fired a member of the family. She is now fired three of her five siblings. Jeannie apparently has fired three of them because she fired Jim, her brother, which was a move that took a lot of courage. And I think helped the team completely

turned itself into a championship team. And who knows what happened with this move. But what's interesting, Pelton, and the reason I bring this up is that Joey and Jesse were pretty much in charge of the Lakers scouting operation. They, the Lakers have a very small front office. They have a very small scouting department. And, you know, they have not drafted brilliantly over the decades, but partially because they've been so good, they've drafted low and partially because they've traded so many picks. The last first round pick that they extended, do you know who the answer to this is? The last first round pick they extended. So Dalton Connect could still be extended. So he would be in the asterisk, but it still stands.

Because frankly, their best picks have been second rounders in recent years. Correct. Second round picks. And they've also, you know, found Alex Caruso and Austin Reeves. And so drafted players, yeah. The G League, yeah. Who's the last first round pick they extended? It was somebody that they ended up trading, I'm assuming. Yes. In the Anthony Davis trade or Kuzma? No, Kuzma was still on a rookie contract when he got traded. That's correct.

I don't know then. I think you got me on this. Andrew Beynum. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So, and now, by the way, they found guys in the second round like Jordan Clarkson, Taylor, Horton Tucker. And obviously, many of their first round picks have gotten extended, just lots of them by the New Orleans.

And, again, they traded away many picks. And like, you know, since they drafted Andrew Bynum, they've won three championships. I think they would rather have those three banners as opposed to five extended guys. But, you know. It's not the Nixon-Charlie Ward, which was a very different situation. That's right. Okay, so they also let go from reportedly the majority of their scouting staff, which kind of makes sense on one hand because if you're going to fire the two guys who are ahead of the scouting department, you're going to fire their staff because they're going to be loyal to them. What is unusual, Peltin, is to run your scouting staff out at the end of November because this is scouting season.

And if you want to hire other scouts, they work for other teams. You can't just build your scouting staff. And they actually have their draft pick this year. You know, they're hoping it's going to be in the 20s. But, you know, that's a move. Or perhaps an indication that they're planning to trade it on draft night. Well, that may be true. But what this indicates to me, and this is my feel, no one has said this to me.

This is not a report. This is just my feel. This is me looking at the situation. This is done with venom. This is done with, you know, this is blood is thicker than water here because, you know, you would not fire your scouting staff. even if you hated your director of scouting, you would not fire them in November. And certainly their whole staff.

You would say, okay, I'll fire you one day after the draft. You know, you would not fire them now. So both the message that was in the statement and the actions that I can only assume came from Jeannie Bus. Interesting. Okay. So with that, let us plow ahead to formerly small sample size theater. and most of these are going to be your trends that you want to look at,

but I'm going to start with one of mine. ESPN on Wednesday night, we watch the Rockets beat the Cavs, another quality win for Houston. Houston has won five in a row, and I think 10 of 11. They are number one in the league in offense, Pelton. And in the year 2025, we run, we gun, we shoot threes. They are 30th in three points.

attempts. In this copycat league, they are running completely in the other direction. So I ask you, can the Houston Rockets be number one in offense and be number 30 and three-pointers attempted? Or is it made? I don't know if it's made or attempted. It's last. Yeah. Can that happen in 2025, 2026? Well, part of the reason it can happen right now is because they're shooting 42% on the threes that they are taking. They're number one in the league. regard. And, you know, if you look at ESPN Analytics, this is something that if people don't know about it, they should definitely check out. We've added to the site this year, Dean Oliver's net points metric, and you can break it down at the player level, at the team level, game by game, a lot of really

cool features. And one of the things that's on there at the team level is how many points have you added in various ways or subtracted on offense? And if you look at that, the Rockets, while being 30th and three-point attempts, because they're shooting such a high percentage, have added the fourth most net points on threes because of the fact that they're making them at such a high percentage. So if you took that even down to league average, let's say, which is probably still better than where we expected the Rockets to be this season without Red Van Fleet, they dropped to 11 in net points per 100 possession. So I don't think they're going to finish first in the league. I don't think they're really this elite is shooters. Reed Shepard, who's been

talked about on the pod, he's a big part of that. My guy is shooting 47 percent on threes. He leads the team in makes per game coming off the bench. But number two is Tari Isan who's shooting 51% from three. That's not really his skill set. And Josh Akogi, another guy who's, you know, was available to the Rockets on the minimum because he's a questionable three-point shooter. And then Alperin, Shangoon, and his breakout, you're both over 44%. I'm going to bet those probably aren't going to continue.

Well, Tari Isan is not going to continue because he's out four to six weeks. Oh, I didn't see that. No. Yes. So I will not continue for the next four to six weeks. Also, Akoji has been losing a little bit of playing time. To Aaron Holiday, who's also on a small example. Yeah, Aaron Holiday pretty much won them the game in Cleveland.

I mean, you know, they got off to a great start and, you know, a lot of guys played well. But Aaron Holiday, I think, had 15 points in the fourth quarter. That game, the Cavs took the lead in then Aaron Holiday. So listen, Imeo Doka's running hot too with going to that. So the good news for the Rockets, though, why don't think? they will necessarily slip out of the top 10 in offensive rating is because if they miss more of those threes, the good news is that means more offensive rebound opportunities for them. And you talked about that on the pod the other day.

They, after playing Cavs Corner in the stout defensive rebounding duo, the stout defensive rebounding group in Cleveland, they're down to only, well, they were in that game. Okay. They're down to only 38% offensive rebound rate, which is still no team has been above three, six five in the first half. So, but anyway, I digress. Sorry. No team has been above 36% in the 2000.

So that's one of the interesting things. Like, you sort of started with this. Like, if you think of where the rockets were five years ago, you know, they, in spring of 2020, make the trade for Robert Covington, are playing him and PJ Tucker as their centers. Like, nobody over six foot seven was playing. and it was everybody switchable and shoot as many threes, five out offense, make room for Russell Westbrook on offense to now what they've done. It is kind of fascinating example of, I do think the idea that like everything in the league is cyclical is overstated because there's never been a time where like three point attempts have really gone down except when they moved the line back out after it was temporarily in in the 90s.

But offensive rebounding is a case where, you know, since we basically been tracking it had been trending down, down, down, down. down every year. And then about a decade ago, when the tracking data from the cameras in the arenas started becoming available, analysis started showing teams were leaving opportunities to offensive rebound on the table. And since then, we've seen kind of a renewed focus. The league-wide offensive rebound is the highest. It's been since 2013. And the rockets are really at the forefront of that, obviously, in terms of creating extra opportunities. And, you know, back then, the conventional wisdom. The reason it was dropping is, well, if we offensive rebound, we're going to give up too many transition opportunities. We can't do that. That's sort of like the Doc Rivers

philosophy. His teams are still very low. Pop was like this. Yeah, Doc believed in. Doc didn't believe in offensive rebounds. As soon as a shot went up, his guys ran back. Yep. But Houston is showing you don't necessarily have to compromise your transition defense to do that, you know, particularly if you're doing it primarily with Biggs as they are and have good floor spacing. Well, I will say this. So Stats Williams gave me a package of stats before. So here's the thing. Like, you know, now that I'm doing countdown, like, I get Stats Williams, like, his full services probably.

It's like, it's like being shown into a club because, you know, you know, you used to get like a little bit of access to Stats Williams. Like, you know, he would do your favor. But now, like, I'm like I have the secret pass code. Like, the rope opens. So here's a thing. So stat, let me just tell you a little secret. So Stats Williams, like, he's like this special guy.

like he's not actually in Los Angeles most of the time but he's like wired into our headsets and our mics and so like if you need him you just like announce Matt you know what was the defensive rebounding percentage for the 1987 Seattle Supersonics and like you know in 4.7 seconds he comes he just comes out of your ear from wherever he is and you know nobody loves Stats Williams more

than coach Mike Malone. He loves stats. But anyway, coming into the game last night, he gave me this information because I talked to some folks in Houston to prepare for the broadcast. And I talked to some folks in Houston, and I was talking about their offense. And they're like, yeah, they kind of agree with you. They don't think that they're going to remain number one offensively. Like they're happy with where they're at, but, you know, they know that there's some

anomalies going on. And they're a little bit annoyed with some of their defensive, you know, trends, which you look at their defense, their top five, I think, in the least. league, but they actually don't like the fact that their transition defense is not as good. So going into last night, I don't have the update now. They were allowing 1.4 points per possession on defending transition, which was 25th in the league. You can imagine why they're all going to the boards, right?

And so they're not getting back as well. The other thing is they were getting crushed on the offensive glass. While they're not a bad defensive rebounding team, they were in the top 10. they were 29th going into last night in allowing second chance points. So if you're going to go to a Rockets gang, you're probably going to see a lot of second chance points, both the ones that they get and the ones that they allow. But that's a defensive thing. It's not offensive. We're talking about offense here. So I guess to evaluate what you said, you don't think they can stay number one in the league as the number 30, a three-point shooting team. Number one, probably not. I mean, to that cyclical point, one of the things we have been seeing lately is, you know, sort of the strength of the relationship between three point attempts and overall offensive efficiency has varied over time. You know, a decade ago, again, you were able to juice your offense just by shooting more threes on average. Like not, you know, it was bad shooters, but you got good shooters, shot more threes, spaced the court better. A few years ago, that relationship started to wane.

And then it was kind of interesting. The 24 playoffs, we saw there was a really strong relationship between it suddenly, once again. That was, you know, the Mavericks were number one. And the Celtics were number one and the Mavericks were number two and three-point attempts in the regular season, I think, and certainly in the playoffs. And then ended up meeting in the finals. So it was like a brief period where it was kind of back in vogue, like we need to shoot three. Well, the Celtics certainly believed in it. And, yeah, yeah, as you saw from last year's results.

But then last year, that trend did not carry over even though three-point. attempts roughly wide. So I don't think it puts a ceiling on you, but it doesn't mean you're going to be a bad offense because you're 30th and three-point attempts. That's, I think, what's really changed in the last few years. Okay. Speaking of teams that were in the finals, I'd like to discuss the Oklahoma City Thunder. Now, the Thunder are 15 and 1 as we're recording this podcast, and you may remember last year that they won 68 games. So they have won 83 of their last 99 regular season games. Even I can tell you that's a winning percentage of over 800. People are saying that people are asking, you know, can this team win? Can this team win 70 games?

And I think the answer is yes, Kevin, because they're winning, if you look at the last two seasons, they're winning at 70 win pace, over 70 win pace, right? If they won 68 last year and they're 15 and one out of the gates this year, that's over 70 win pace. So if they, they pretty much over the course of, you know, 100 games are winning at that level. So my question is this, forget about 70, Mr. Peltin, should we be talking about 73? Should we talking about that number with the thunder at this point? Well, it's an interesting time for that conversation because it is the 30th anniversary of the Chicago Bulls going 72 and 10 during the 95-96 season and the 10th anniversary

of the Golden State Warriors going 73 and 9 during the 2015-16 seasons. There's something about these seasons that start in a 5 that seems to lend itself to to Laura Boston Celtics in 8586 had a pretty good record themselves. So I don't think there was anyone in 2005-06, but an interesting trend there. I think a big question is like how motivated Oklahoma City is going to be to do it because the Warriors clearly pushed for the record. And in the wake of them winning the championship, I do think there's been a sense that like that was a mistake. Well, losing the champions. I'm sorry. With losing, yes, losing the finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers, nearly losing to Oklahoma City in the conference finals before.

coming back to beat them in seven, a sense that they over-exerted themselves in the regular season, and that was a factor in the playoffs. So I definitely don't think Oklahoma City is going to try to do it. They might do it anyway, to your point. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, I agree. They're not going to be playing Shea, you know, 40 minutes in April to try to do it. But by the way, in 0506, the Pistons won 64 games and the Spurs won 63.

So that's, that was the two best teams in the league back then. Not that bad. Yeah, that was Flip Saunders. Only two teams won over 53 games that year, those two teams. So it was squeezed in the middle, but the two teams at the top were certainly very good. So BPI has the Thunder right now at 67 wins on average. I mean, what makes this so promising is obviously that they've done it without Jalen Williams. And after some scares in the early going when they played those multiple O.T. games against Houston in Indiana, a result that seems truly shocking in hindsight. Right.

They played almost as many, or maybe they even played, they played almost as many clutch minutes the first week of the season they did all last year. Yeah. The Pacers obviously were much healthier in that first game before they started having players go down left and right. They now haven't won by fewer than 14 during their current seven game win streak, although it has been the second easiest schedule as far, according to BPI. Well, that is true, yes. That was what I was going to point out. So they do have the strength of schedules at the bottom. Now, look, when you're the best team, every team that you play against, you're going to have a better record than.

Yeah, it's not going to entirely flip to even out. They have the sixth hardest schedule left. Okay. So, but when you look at the premium teams, like for example, you know, we talk about this. I think Bontem mentioned this the other day. The Lakers typically have an easier November and December than your average team. In fact, you know, for years, it was like the jazz had the hardest schedule in November and December. where you see the Lakers with one of the easiest, because the Jazz didn't get featured games in, you know, as many featured games in February and March, whereas as soon as the NFL season ends,

the Lakers are on the weekend on national television games, like almost every weekend. The Warriors are the same way. And so the Thunder, a lot of their marquee games are built for the national television partners, which play their biggest games. You know, Amazon is going to want their premium games after Thursday night football ends

and Thursday night basketball comes in. NBC is going to want their premium games for Sunday night basketball, which will replace Sunday night football in the basketball season's over. When ABC begins their Saturday night basketball package, and their Sunday afternoon package, those are where our games at ESPN and ABC are going to be premium. That's where you're going to see a lot more thunder. So naturally, you do expect their schedule to get tougher. Also, you know, you can't predict injuries, obviously.

It's kind of ridiculous to project anything. But I'm just saying Pelton that regardless, they're already winning at a higher than 70% clip. I mean, higher than 70 win clip. Like, so where would you say? Where would you be on this? Would you be, you know, what is it, 78 or 79 NBA seasons? You know, saying that you don't think the winning of the record will be equal to fall is hardly a hot take. But let me ask you where you're at 70.

I asked you about 73, but where are you at 70? I'd say one in four of 70, I think is about reasonable because, you know, it's only three wins better than their average projection. And, you know, we should specifically highlight he's come up on this pod quite a bit. But A.J. Mitchell is the reason this is possible. The fact that he is playing at the level that he is, well, J.1 Williams is out. Right. More hoop collective podcast after this. All right.

So, Bontem's, I heard, I got some text with some people in the league about Bontem's. take on, you know, he just slammed the Western Conference and was like, people said the West was tough. The East, you know, there's more teams than the East. I was skeptical of that. So where do we think the East-West balance is going to be? Where is it at now, number one? And where do you think it's headed when this sample size?

Yeah, so the West is still winning the interconference battle right now. They've won 52% of games head to head between the two conferences. but that's slightly behind where we were the last two years. It was 55% last season, 58% the year before that. And where I do think Bon Tem's statement made sense is if you look at, I, for the purposes of doing my power rankings vote each week, put together a, you know, kind of schedule, adjusted for schedule, like Homer Road, who you're playing, you know, and then point differential, a power rankings based on that that's slightly more weighted more towards recent games for. you know, that power rankings feel. In that, the top three teams are in the West. Oklahoma City, Houston's number one, actually, so far, because they've faced a more difficult schedule.

And then Denver is third. But, and then obviously three, the bottom four are in the east when we talk about how weak the bottom of that conference is. Yeah. Well, it was that's got to be Indiana, Washington and Brooklyn. Charlott's can't be too far off. Charlotte's been actually okay by point differential this season. And it's, yeah, despite that. Memphis and Sacramento are the two teams that are closest to that group. That's another topic for another podcast. Go ahead.

Yeah, they face a hard schedule. Get Kegan Murray back on Thursday nights. That's a positive. I think in the numbers I looked at, Sacramento's got the number one toughest schedule so far, which I think partially because they've played the nuggets three times already. Oh, no, the Thunder. They played the Thunder three times already. I'm sorry. Yeah, no. Which that'll ruin your strength of schedule when in your first 15 games, you play the 15 and one team three times. affects both teams schedule. Yeah, that's true. That's proportion. Exactly right.

But if you look at it, out of the top 11 teams in the league, seven of those are in the West. So there's not really that second tier or seven those are in the East, I should say. So there's not really that second tier in the West right now. It's those top three have sort of separated themselves. So are you supporting Bon Temps or not? I am agreeing with Bon Tems that I think that is going to be harder to avoid the play in perhaps in the East this year than it will be in the West. You agree. So your small sample size theater is that, in fact, it is harder to be in the east and the west. Is that what you're saying? I mean, it depends what you're looking at it, because to your point, if you're trying to win a champion, get to the NBA finals, the path is much clearer if you don't have Oklahoma City in particular, but also Houston and Denver staring you in the face.

So, you know, if you're like, we're talking about like the Lakers versus Milwaukee, let's say, you know, it's two teams that came into the season with roughly similar expectations. Like the Lakers, their chances of making it to the finals, I think, are probably, you know, were probably lower than Milwaukee's, but, you know, before the Sianis injury. But Milwaukee's chances of, you know, but the Lakers' chances of being in the top six, I think, are more favorable than Milwaukee's were. All right. Well, wait till Bontems here is that. Okay, you mentioned earlier when we were talking about Connoppel, the rookie of the year race,

which, you know, I don't remember what the odds were to start of the same. season favoring Cooper Flag. It's kind of been, you know, in McMahon, who's not known to be favorite for his hometown team. He came back real hard on the concept that not only was Cooper Flagg, maybe not the leader, but also would not even be in the top five of the draft in 26. The draft of 26 may well end up being the better than 25, but he, McMahon was defending that, that situation. So seeing what you've seen, where are you at on the rookie of the year race at this Yeah, it's kind of already taken some twists and turns in the first couple of weeks. VJ. Edgecom came out so hot. His first seven games, you know, had that highest scoring debut since

Wilts Chamberlain. That was a stunning, a stunning stat. Truly remarkable. First seven games, he averaged 19 points on 48% shooting, shot 44% from three, which really was not in line with what we'd seen from him at Baylor, where that was sort of the biggest question mark about his game coming into the draft. The last seven games has come back to Earth a little bit, and that regard. He's averaging 12.6 points on 34% shooting 27% from three. So that's opened the door. I looked at the batting odds before this pod. He's actually down to third. Cooper has also seen a shift about that same span because the first seven games where he was playing point guard, starting at point guard, he averaged 13.6 points, 39% shooting the first seven games. Since then,

he's played eight games and he's up to 17.3 points on 50% shooting. And the really remarkable thing is that his assists have actually gone up since they put a point guard in the starting lineup alongside him. So definitely, definitely thriving in that offball role. But yes, I mean, again, I hate to sound like a broken record, but when they got LeBrona point guard, all of a sudden, everything looked better for the Cavs. So back in his rookie. But the guy who is the leading score of him over rookies is a Duke product. And it is not Cooper flag. It is Connipel. 20 a game. Fifth in both rebounding and assist thus far. He's averaging more in all three categories than he did last year at Duke, which is pretty wild. I think a lot of

people, you know, who hadn't watched Con Canipal closely saw him coming to the league and they're like, okay, you know, this guy can clearly shoot, but, you know, is he just going to be a role player? And I think he's very quickly showing he's been close to triple doubles, you know, a couple of times this season that he has a much more well-rounded game than that. So I spent some time with the folks this week in L.A. It was always good to see him. And I know there are podcast listeners. I wish we talked about it more. Maybe we will in the future. Kevin, they were raving about Ace Bailey. You know, up and down, they, they love his makeup. They raved about his basketball intelligence. They just said, you know, he's just now beginning to work on his body. Like, you know,

they haven't even really done much of that. They are, you know, convinced that they, were so lucky to get him at five. You know, they tanked last year and then at Egal over their face when they had a horrible lottery night. And they were so pleased that he felt, you know, they considered themselves lucky. But I'm like, well, where was he supposed to go, you know, based on, you know, the way that the draft turned out because, you know, Canuppel was not going to be sliding more than he did. And, you know, V, you know, I've talked to the Sixers. They loved their process. on Edgecom, you know, they totally support that. So I don't know what you think of that, but what do you, where do you see in the sample

size race that, you know, it's not going to be Ace Bailey. His role is not that big. But in the sample size that you've seen, what are you projecting for rookie beer? I still think the lift that the, that the Mavericks ask of Cooper, where they ask him to handle the ball, where they ask him to be one of their best offenders, where they play in this many minutes, the lift that he's got is still super high. And I always want to have difficulty weighing an award. I always consider what does a player get asked to do every night.

And so I would still lean hard on Cooper. But I don't know if your position about where you think it's going is any different. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the interesting thing is Vijay is playing a ton of minutes. He's playing the most minutes by any rookie right now since Damien Lillard. And only two guys have been over 35 a game in that span. And that's Scottie Barnes and Andrew Wiggins. both won rookie year in their respective classes. So that's, his lift has been pretty high on a team that's trying to win right now.

And then, you know, as we've talked about, Knappel has been asked to do a great deal because of the fact that Lamello has been out of the lineup at times. And he's been, you know, more of a primary creator. To your point on, on Ace Bailey, again, we're like doing small samples within small samples. He started five games, moved into the starting lineup and got to play with Larry Markanin and, you know, Kiante George, who's off to a terrific start of the season. Kianti George looks spectacular. got a player there. Yeah, I mean, was on fire

in the first half. It didn't continue after halftime, which, you know, maybe not the worst thing for the Jazzby's. They do want to keep that top eight pick, but... Yeah, that's a discussion for later in the year, the pick. I had a lot of discussions with the Jazz folks about the pick. Their pick is top eight protected, and

if they don't give the pick away to the thunder, it extinguishes. It's not like, it comes unprotected next year. So, you weigh, like, should we just give it up this year? So that'll be a discussion for a little later on. But Ace Ace is a starter, 52% from the field, 37% from three. He was 34% from the field, 21 from three as a backup. And I like the way he was cutting. I thought that was really encouraging against the Lakers.

Well, the one thing about the jazz is they run a lot of off ball action. That's a primary facet of their offense. And partially they do that because to feature Markinen, Lowry Markin is their best player. Markinen benefits from that. You know, Markinen, last year, he had 200 threes and 100. dunks, which is a pretty small group of ever done that. Was he the only player ever done that? Something like that. I don't know. Very small group.

There's just not that many people that have that kind of skill set. And that's a part, not only his ability is as a seven-footer who can shoot threes, but also because of the way the jazz use them. And an asterisk next to Dylan Harper, we don't know, right? Like he hasn't played enough. He hasn't played enough to really evaluate. where he may be. But as a rookie, you know, you don't have to meet the 65-game threshold to be rookie of the year.

You know, I have put myself out there. I voted for Joel Embed for rookie of year when he played 30 games. You know, because I felt that it was representative in that amount. So in my view, you have to play representative games, the representative number of games. And Dylan Harper can still do that. Okay. I mentioned a little bit ago about the Wizards. Last year, Pelton, the Wizards through the first half of the season,

had the worst net rating in the history of the NBA. And while they were certainly tanking, and they got even a worse draw of the situation than the Jazz did as they ended up with the sixth pick, and it appears like this might have been maybe a five-player draft. I mean, we'll see the excitement about the first five was, we'll see what happens with Trey Johnson in Washington. I don't know. Maybe I'll take that back. I don't know enough to say that. Still too real to say that.

He's doing some good things. Shooting 38% from 3, averaging 11.4 per game. Yeah. And Jeremiah Fierrez, who went 7th, has had some moments for... By the way, Derek Queen. I'm not here to get on Bond Thompson McMahon about Derek Queen, who had a 30 and 9 game on Wednesday. Of course, the Pelicans lost, and they're now 2 and 13, I think. Two and a lot. Two and 11? Oh, yeah. Two and a lot, that's what you said.

Yes. And so, yeah, Derek Queen had 30 points and the hawks still won, and they didn't play that in that game. But anyway, the Wizards were so bad last year that I think there was kind of an organizational move, like, at midseason, we've got to get, we've got to get it under control because they were getting blown out by 30 every night. And they trade for Chris Middleton. They trade for Marcus Smart. They got some more adults in the room. and they ended up trading for C.J. McCollum in the offseason. So they're certainly obviously, you know, trying to rebuild and, you know, get a high draft pick,

but they also don't want to be those cis bad. And so, unfortunately, they now have the worst record in the league because the Pacers got their second win. And they don't have a home win yet, which not good when you're Thanksgiving, you don't have a home win. and they've lost 12 in a row. And Pelton, I looked it up over the first 14 games year over year. There are three points in that rating worse than they were over the first 14 games last year in that rating. And it got worse as the season went along last year. So check again at 25 games.

Pelton, they're worse than they were last year when they were historically bad. I mean, what is going to happen with the Wizards? What are they going to do? I mean, they're tanking, obviously, but this is, this is tough. Yeah. I mean, I was comparing it to when we had done this podcast a year ago, and I highlighted, you know, that they were on track for the worst start. I think that's why I first started noticing it and started tracking it, frankly. And at that point, they were a minus 16 net rating.

So basically the same is where they are right now. And they were two and 18 record-wise. But to your point, you know, they really did have a nice little run after between the trade deadline. And when they started to shut down some of those veterans, which is why they ended up in that six pick is because they won just enough games to finish ahead of Utah in the standings. And when neither of those teams were drawn in the top four, it was Utah that ended up five, Washington at six, which will be interesting to monitor going forward as we follow the careers of Ace Bailey and Tray Johnson. I think the encouraging, so they finished in a minus 12 net rating. They improved a fair bit mid-season. I thought Marcus Smart really helped them.

He was someone they did let go this offseason and let him go to the Lakers. I would say the discouraging news for the Wizards is like they've struggled to this degree. You didn't mention they got blown out by Brooklyn in a battle of one win teams on Sunday. That was certainly their best chance that was in D.C. for them to get a win for a period of time here. The bad news is they've also been among the healthiest teams this year. Bulla Kulibali missed the start of the season. But other than that, they've only had guys kind of in and out for. a game of a time.

Alex Saar has got a toe injury right now, but generally, yes, you're right. The good news, I would say, is that, like, as compared to last year where, yes, it was about the development of the young guys in the second half, but really was about those veterans that they imported that they got more competitive. I do think that Saar and Kishon George have taken legitimate steps forward this year. A lot of talk about Kishan George, because he came out of the Gates so hot, played an important rule in that one win that they did have at Dallas back when we thought that was actually a pretty good win.

Right. But Saar, you know, somewhat quietly is there, you know, they're averaging 18.3 points per game in year two, 2.2 blocks. He's shooting 52% from the field, which, you know, is not great for a modern center, but someone who spaces the floor a lot. And then when you consider the last year was under 40% from the field, it's a pretty huge leap forward for him. Yeah, he wants to shoot threes, right?

Like that's- Yeah. It's shooting fewer than all the French. It's not exactly, it's not exactly Wembe's transformation, but he took five a game as a rookie, shot them at 31%. This year he's at 35% on three a game. So, you know, encouraging meaningful steps forward. And I do think part of it, like C.J. McCollum has had some really good nights. What was that in Milwaukee or Chicago? I think that he had a monster game. Overall, he's under 40-point game. He's under 40% from the field probably hasn't been quite as productive for them as

Jordan Poole was last season. And that's fine because, like, that was a contract trade. Like, they got out of the final year of Pools contract. Yes. And they're going to have this treasure trove of cab space this summer to add to this group. But, yeah, the road ahead the rest of this year could be pretty tough for the Wizards. All right. Before we go, I want to point out that the Celtics have won four to five games. They have an NBA Cup game Friday against the Nets at home.

I don't want to assume anything, but they have a great chance to win five out of six. They've pulled above 500. They're eight and seven. Considering the East, as you say, might be deeper than we expected. What do you think of the Celtics? So where do you think they're headed? Peyton Pritchard had a miserable start to the season shooting threes, which was not expected, considering his role was much bigger. He said he went back to basics with his mentality. I don't know. Anyway, he started making them again. And that's helped the Celtics lift up as well. If that's what happens when you go back to basics, I recommend it. But probably just regression into the mean and water fighting its level. So, yeah, they've gone five and two with one of those losses by two points at the Sixers. The third and three point percentage in that span. White in their first eight games, Derek White was at 26%. Pritchard was at 21%.

Since then, it's 45% for Pritchard, 36% for White, which is closer to sort of what we'd expect. And the interesting thing about the Celtics from a statistical standpoint is their average win has come by 17.4 points per game. That's second highest in the league. Their average loss has come by because they've had these number of close losses, including two to the Sixers, by 8.7 points per game. that's in the bottom 10 lowest. So despite a 500-ish record,

they're eighth overall in point differential. I think it's more kind of the Celtics being as good as they are as one of the reasons this East second tier is so deep, rather than such a huge problem for them. I think people sort of just put them in the same group as the Pacers in this gap year, and the Pacers, obviously, with their injuries, they've been uncompetitive for large stretches this season, unfortunately. It does look like they're playing for a draft back.

Boston isn't there yet. Boston can still finish in the top six in the east. Boston has had a favorable schedule to this point, so we'll see how they handle that. They're starting a four-game homestand. They play the Magic and the Pistons in the back off of it next week. So we'll see how they, that'll test their hot streak there. But they're certainly improving. All right, Mr. Pelton, we always enjoy small sem.

I wish you point out, Jackson just points out that the Kings just announced that Demada Subonis has a torn meniscus. Speaking of tanking teams that are going to tank, I think that's headed for that direction. So we'll talk more about that in the next pod. By the way, set your virtual calendars. Next week, we will have our annual, I believe it's our fifth annual Friendsgiving episode,

where we make a really long pod with all of our folks here at the collective for the, the Thanksgiving holiday. We only have two podcasts next week because we don't record on Thanksgiving. But we'll be out on Wednesday with everybody on it. I don't know, Pelton, I don't know. Do you come back for Thanksgiving?

You available to come back for Thanksgiving? I'm sure we can find something else to discuss that we didn't get to today. All right. So keep that in mind. But we'll have the Tims on before that. I'll be on Monday, of course. And I'm sure Bont Hemp's will be bringing his latest batch of takes.

while doing a, by the way, I told Bontems that you agreed with him on the East West thing. And he was like, of course, it's mathematically a fact. It's not even an opinion. It's a mathematical fact. What do you mean, Pally? Yeah. So, all right. Everybody, thank you for watching, listening to Collective.

Thanks for Jackson and putting it all together. Thank you to Peltin for coming on and giving us his insight. Everyone, have a great weekend.