The Bill Simmons Podcast - January’s NBA League Pass Rankings With Zach Lowe

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by ESPN’s Zach Lowe for an early 2024 NBA League Pass Rankings. They draft their top 14 fun teams to watch based on an aggregation of factors, like style of play, exciting players, announcers, and more! Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Zach Lowe Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, my old friend Zach Lowe talking hoops. Next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good.

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Visit fanduel.com slash BS to download America's number one sportsbook. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports.

I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on prime all season long. Watch prime Monday night hockey, deliver unreal plays. The biggest goals can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL is best. They're all on Prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I popped on the Off the Pike podcast with Brian Barrett right after the Celtics-Thunder game,

and we did our little instant reaction podcast. Really fun. We're going to start putting that stuff on my YouTube channel too, youtube.com slash Bill Simmons. And if you're a Boston sports fan, I know I've talked about the off the pike pod, but I think Brian does an unbelievable job breaking down the Pats, the Red Sox, Celtics,

the Bruins, but please check that podcast out. We also put up a new Rewatchables on Monday night. We did Searching for Bobby Fisher. It was me and Van Lathan and Charles Holmes. First time the three of us had been together doing a Rewatchables together doing a rewatch. Well, I had a great time. One other thing I wanted to mention on the Ringer Reality TV podcast

that last week, and I forgot to promote it, but it's really good. We did a little three-part mini podcast called An American Scandival about the Scandival scandal last year on, what is it, Vanderpump Rules? It's a hole for me. I never got into the Vanderpump Rules. All the awful, trashy TV I've watched in my life and somehow never watched that, but people love this story.

And Jody Walker dove into it with a little three-parter. So if you care about Scandival at all, I would implore you to check it out. It's on the Ring of Reality TV podcast. Coming up on this podcast, me and Zach Lowe, we're doing a home and home. I'm going on his podcast

next week or the week after. He's on mine right now. We're going to do an old gimmick of ours from the Grantland days. The League Pass Rankings is next. First, our friends from ProJet. All right, taping this. It is a little after 9.15 a.m. Pacific time. ESPN TV personality Zach Lowe is here. I just thought, if you've ever been introduced that way,

you're like a TV personality now. I turn on TV and you're just sitting at a desk with people talking about stuff. You know, you will be happy to know that on a recent flight somewhere, I wore the Grantland hoodie. It's been almost nine years since Grantland closed. And a guy just came up to me. I don't think he knew necessarily who I was.

He just said, hey, love that hoodie. Really miss that site. And I was like, man, that's so nice to hear. I don't hear, as the years go by, I don't hear about it much. But you can introduce me however you want. There's going to be a circle back where people will be like, wait a second. Man, that site was up to some cool stuff. They did a lot of things.

I was thinking it's our 10-year anniversary coming up of when we did the Celebrity All-Star game. Oh, my God. Is it really? Yeah. It All-Star game. Oh my God. Is it really? Yeah. It was in New Orleans. I remember that. It was 2014, February. In retrospect, I wasn't ready for that.

I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to be sitting next to a supermodel and Snoop Dogg on the bench. I just wasn't ready for the national scrutiny. A couple of WNBA players, Kevin Hart. I just wasn't. I met Michael B. Jordan and I was too intimidated. I would be a little more comfortable now. I still have a lot of regrets and still think about things I could

have done differently in that game. We lost down the stretch, but it was super fun. You were my, I was 2008 doc. You were my tips. Just trying to hit a clipboard. Just trying to, we were both wearing suits, trying to look professional. Honestly, I just wanted to get through the game. As soon as the supermodel, and I'm sorry, I forget her name. I don't really follow the supermodeling industry. She's enormously famous. As soon as she sat down on the bench and started talking to me, because I think she could sense this guy's a little uncomfortable and would be nice to him.

I was like, the TV cameras are going to pan to this. It's just the disparity in attractiveness is going to become a thing. I just want the game to be over. So you've been doing more TV stuff now. We're going to do, by the way, we're doing league pass rankings. Oh, yeah. We're going to have some fun. We're going to hit all 30 teams.

I always, when I start my podcast, I always dive right into it. But somehow you have a tendency, whoever you're with, that's like seven minutes of bullshit at the top. It just like, can't help myself because we haven't talked in a while. You're doing more TV stuff. As I famously used to call you Spock when we worked together at Grantland, because you just try to, you know, try to be unemotional and analytical, but TV is the land of hot takes and proclamations and semi-crazy thoughts. And you're sitting there next to Perk. And we both love Perk. Perk will occasionally just say something nuts or he'll say they should trade him, but

not think of who should be in the trade. And I can just see your head, like I can see your brain just turning into tapioca a couple of times a week. No, it's not it's actually it's um so this this that blew up but this this was thrown into most stark relief when perk decided one day i'm just gonna say the warriors should trade clay thompson he said he said it before the show he's like it's so i'm gonna say and i said that's cool but like for who i mean because perk's whole thing was clay thompson's washed up he's playing horrible look at these numbers

they should trade him and I said well Perk like if we're gonna say that we should say for who and so what I've learned is that's considered good television like if I if I in my Spock if I use Spock instincts to be like so let's bring this thing back to reality

and you can be kind of emotionally unemotional. And then that becomes a good, and we had a good, and Perk is totally cool with like, you want to push back at me and say that I haven't thought this notion all the way through?

Like, go ahead, let's do it. So like, there's a, it is a different world though. It is, it's a lot of Lakers. It's a lot of Lakers. Oh my God. Well, they, and everybody falls. I remember when

I was doing it, you fall into whatever your persona is on the show, right? You're like, well-sourced reality check guy. That's kind of, that's your lane and it's going to come back to you and you're going to be the more grounded one. Who's like, I put some thought into this, but then other people will go on and be like, I'm throwing the chainsaw into the hot tub guy. I'm just going to say some stuff and I'm going to call people out. And that's my job on this show. And that's everybody has a job. Yeah.

We had the, but we talked about the bucks yesterday because the bucks lost to the Pacers again. They're playing. I watched it tonight. I mean, they're just like, there's so many bucks Pacers games. They lost again. It was the first game after ball game gate, which inspired Perk and I to have a mock trial on television

with deuses and everything. The segment was essentially, all right, the Bucs lost. How worried are we about the Bucs? What's the Bucs anxiety level? And then they come to me and I'm like, I don't know, they're 24-9. They're 11-3 in their last 14 games.

I get that. They're probably not as good as Boston so far, but like worry level, like Dan, then Dame had a bad game. Like, Oh, James three point shooting. I'm like, he's shooting about the same as he has for his career. Yeah. Just sometimes you just gotta be that guy. Anyway, let's do the league pass rankings. There was some tough, tough Halbert and just flying by Dame stuff in that game.

Now everybody flies by everybody in the league now, and that's going to be factoring into our league pass rankings. But sometimes I wonder, does defense, does it even really matter anymore? Like the Knicks get OG and an OB. That mattered because there's, what, five, six guys in the league who can guard everyone from Jason Tatum to Shea Gilgis-Alexander. Like there's only a couple Swiss Army and FD guys.

But I think Derek White's an incredible defensive player. You can still go buy him because anybody can go buy anybody with the way the game is called now. I thought Steve Kerby, he took shit for, there was some sour grape stuff with what he said, especially Jokic, who's certainly not a fishing for calls type guy.

But at the same time, I do think about that when I watch these games. How are you supposed to defend? What are the rules now, especially in the regular season? I don't understand it. I still think you can't win the championship with a bad defense.

It's all relative, right? If defense is harder in the NBA, there are still teams who are better at it than other teams, and more of those teams will get further in the playoffs so like Derek White gets burned let's say right so Derek White gets burned think of the Celtics options in that moment compared to name another team you know the Blazers options when Anthony Simons gets burned option one is Derek Wedge just awesome and he might block your shot from behind

option two is Drew Holiday might diagonally switch from the three-point arc, and Derek White might read that and diagonally switch the other way, and you're all cool. Option three is Kristaps Porzingis is guarding your crappy wing who can't shoot, and he's just going to destroy you.

They have better built-in options on the back end. What was your favorite Steve Kerr before the rankings? Did you enjoy the Steve Kerr defense rant more or the Steve Kerr? Is this a is this a techno music club or a basketball game rant about the Phoenix Arena music? Which one of those did you enjoy more? I like that one. And listen, we don't know how many more years Greg Popovich has left. I think Steve Kerr is starting to see an opening for him as the random unexpected rant guy. There has to be a coach, right?

Stan Van Gundy was in there for a while. He would do him. Doc would do it occasionally. But I think Steve Kerr sees a window now. Every once in a while. The keeper of basketball's soul and values. That's what he is. Soul, values, and zags. Just be like, oh, I'm going to zag this way. You's what he is. Soul, values, and zags. Just be like,

oh, I'm going to zag this way. You're not expecting it. I thought, I did a podcast with Brian Barrett on our Boston pod last night, but one of the things I talked about on that, talking about the defense,

I went into that OKC game last night. Now we're delaying the league rankings even longer. And I was like, if the Celtics are really serious about winning a title, we're going to see Tatum on Shea at some point in this game. Maybe in the second half.

This will be the next step, not just for the team, but for Jason Tatum. Because Jason Tatum, a year ago, two years ago, is looking at this game like, Shea's one of the best players in the league, I'm one of the best players in the league. We're going to go mano a mano on both ends as this game gets to the end.

But actually, that's not what's best for the Celtics because to defend a guy like Shea, the ideal guy is somebody taller who can move with him like Tatum. It's not Jalen Brown. It's not really White or Holiday as much. It's actually Tatum. And that's one of the ways to unlock the Celtics team is can Tatum kind of give up a little of the offense in some of these big games if they're playing, let's say, Dame Lillard, let's say Jalen Brunson in round two, let's say Shea in the finals or Devin Booker. Are they going to use him that way? And they did. Did you see what happened the last six, seven minutes? They put him on Shea. I felt like I was like a baby all growns up kind of moment for me watching it. Yeah.

They got down 18, I think at some point in the fourth quarter and rallied to make it a real, real game at the end. And yeah, the last six, seven minutes, mostly it was Tatum on him. Holiday was on the bench. Peyton Pritchard was playing over holiday. And I did, I did notice that I did take note of it and I did just sort of bookmark it in my head is like, okay, that's interesting. I wonder if he asked for that.

I don't know if I didn't read the postgame comments if they talked like Missoula was just his idea or anything like that, but I found it interesting. League pass rankings. I mentioned OKC and Boston

who are going to be very high on these. So what year was it? 2012 we came up with and Grantland we came up with heading into the year in one of the NBA previews. I think it was the first year we were working together. It was like, all right, let's try to rank these teams from one to 30.

But we're not even just doing it totally arbitrarily. We're going to have categories. So we exchange all these emails. What should the categories be? And one of the ones you really cared about was the court. And that was when i was like zach lowe's super weird i love this guy because he really cares about the environment of the game the court the uniforms the announcers like there are some good design you cared about court design

i do i mean look and i felt like i kind of had my moment this year when the in-season tournament courts came and all of a sudden everyone was an expert and everyone cared i'm like yeah these are interesting and that was funny because initially people were like i hate the courts but people begrudgingly kind of came around on the courts because it did it did feel different it was it was good but yeah that was a big moment for you so it's stuff like for league pass and stuff like announcers which we don't have to get into on this, um, style of play. What is there a, a go-to player in the team? We absolutely love watching like what are the stakes,

et cetera, et cetera. And what are the highlights? Is there, is there a guy that you just know any moment, even if he's not that great of a player can just uncork a monster dunk, that kind of thing. Right.

So that when we started this, it was the kind of peak of Lob City. So even though the Clippers weren't the best team in the league, Blake at that point was must-see TV night after night because you just never knew when he was going to take somebody's soul on a dunk.

And there hadn't been a guy like that in a long time in the league. So as we go through this, what's interesting about league pass rankings in 2023-24, there's so many good offensive teams now. This is such a crazy offensive league. I actually had a hard time

mulling it down. What we're going to do, we're going to go back, we're going to do this draft style. We'll just alternate and we'll keep track and then we'll try to figure out who had the best team.

Maybe we do like seven each of teams we like and then we'll go flip side the three we don't like. And then we'll just put teams in the middle that we won't even acknowledge. Maybe like Atlanta just never gets acknowledged this entire podcast. Or maybe they do. Or maybe they do. I'm giving you the first pick. Your number one team. We have been doing this season now 10 weeks. Your number one team that you're like, yes, these guys are on. So I did the list yesterday tentatively.

So I am not totally a prisoner of the moment. I'm going with the Oklahoma City Thunder. I think this is appointment viewing. They're not like this crazy passing team where they're going to wow you with their ball movement. We all know Shea. Shea's just a one-of-a-kind, herky-jerky, gets wherever he wants to go. No one

can find him. He's impossible to guard. No one can get a hold of him. I just think, more than anything else, two things are beginning to make this the number one team for me. Shea, Jalen Williams, wing good Jalen Williams, and not this the number one team for me shay jaylen williams wing good jaylen williams and not that the other one's not good we call him jay dub jay dub jay dub is is how we talk about him okay shay jay dub and chet holmgren already like look look like a

traditional big three just the way they complement each other and how good they all are. That's like come together real fast. It's a foundational three guys that we know are going to be in our lives for a long time. Number one ball handler. All around big man. Wing in between them. It's perfect. It's unbelievable. Then you have sort of the interesting, like, how do they fit all the pieces around them?

I mean, Dort is Dort. He does what he does. The giddy thing. We've seen now two games in a a row he's made a lot of threes when people don't guard him like porzingis didn't guard him last night he made four threes that was the south east game plan last night hey josh giddy go ahead knock yourself out the game before same thing he made four threes but more than anything else what's so interesting about this team to me is like you know the history of the league better than anyone. This is not a thing that happens. Teams this young do not get this good ever. And the teams that have been this young and this good, like the Oklahoma City Thunder team of 10 years ago with Durant and Harden and Westbrook, get their, at least in that case, on the back of incredible young athleticism. And not that they didn't have basketball talent and IQ,

they did, but Durant is the seven-foot unicorn. Serge Ibaka is jumping out of the gym. Russ is a locomotive, et cetera, et cetera. They just overwhelm teams with force and speed. This team has some of that. Chet is big and mobile, and Jalen Williams is a tank. J-Dub is like a tank with these these step back jumpers at the end of games, but they play with like a calm and a maturity and a lack of mistakes.

That is like, I just don't ever remember a young team. Like if you just looked at them from like on a blurry non HD TV from 15 years ago where you couldn't see their faces and how young they looked, you'd be like, man, this team, this team has been been through the wars. They don't have to turn the ball over. They make the right pass every time. They make the right read in space. They just don't play like a team that's their age. You've been on the bandwagon all year before the season, credit to you. I didn't think they'd make this big of a leap. You've also been on the,

they're ready to win now. They can make a trade and be a championship contender. Like they're, they're a contender right now. It's, it's, I watched them and it's part enjoyment and part like, what the hell am I watching? This is not supposed to happen.

There were some historical signs. This could happen because they, they had, and that was part of my case before the season, why I thought they could be a top three seed, because they were hitting these little checkpoints. Even last year going 40 and 42 without Chet. It's like, all right, let's add Chet. What Jalen Williams did in the last two months of the year,

and if Shea can go up a tiny bit of a level, and the conference is kind of funky, 50 wins. I really believed in it. I think the part that I didn't, I, that I underestimated was the shape part because it's just happened too many times. Now I went on termini and Eddie's show yesterday and I was saying, I,

to me, we always throw around the phrase top five guy, but at some point you really have to like name your top five. And to me, he's bumped out Tatum at this point. And, um, I just think he's one of the five best guys in the league over and over

again. He's either beating the other best guy in the team or he's matching them, but he's never getting beaten by those guys. When it turns into a mano a mano thing yesterday, what was so interesting there, there were three possessions where they won the game. They're all on offense. The Celtics' offense was actually pretty good

down the stretch. Two Shea-Chet little pick-and-pops where Chet hit a three and Porzingis didn't come out in time. And then the third one was they got, they wanted to get Shea on a switch on Derek White, which is nuts because Derek White is great, but they wanted to get him off Tatum.

And Jalen Williams was on Tatum with the ball. And he's like, fuck it. And just went by him and scored in the last minute the most important thing. When he did that, I was like, oh, you guys are ready like now. So I don't, I guess the question is what's the trade? By the way, I had them number one too.

And not recently by any chance. They've been the team I've watched the most this year other than the Celtics. I enjoy watching them the most. They passed Denver for me because Denver is just so clearly in a, we won the title last year. We're going to be fine.

Don't worry about us. We'll see you in April. And OKC night after night has been the star of the league. Well, and people know us, both of us, like for a team to pass Jokic's team in the league pass rankings is very very hard to do and I'm glad you brought up those SGA Chet pick and pops at the end of the game because

that's the kind of maturity I'm talking about like as soon as they moved Porzingis from Giddy to Chet they pivoted right like they didn't waste one possession like okay now we got the big guy on Chet let's go pick and pop and see if KP can get out there like right away was really they're just they're well Mark, they're just, they're well,

Mark Dagnall too, man. They're well coached. Dagnall might have a case for best coach in the league now. Because, and I was feeling that way. He can't go there. Best coach in the league. I'm just saying he has a case. I'm not saying I'm ready to call him the best coach in the league.

But I started thinking about it last year when they had no big guys at all. And they were always in these games. And I remember seeing them in person against the Lakers. I've talked about it last year when they had no big guys at all. And they were always in these games. And I remember seeing them in person against the Lakers. I've talked about this, the LeBron scoring record night. I was there too. And there was that long, long break. And most of the time you see situations like that.

And the other team is just like, man, this is such an honor to be here. LeBron is incredible. They were pissed. They wanted the game to keep going. They ended up winning the game. Presti clearly has figured out some sort of secret sauce that, you know, smartly, unlike Daryl, when Daryl had figured out some inefficiencies in the late 2000s, he's like, I'm going to give a long interview to Michael Lewis and talk about all the things I'm doing. And the league was like, wait, what are you doing? And they stole like nine of the things. Presti, my guess is he looks at length and competitiveness. I think he specifically

targets certain guys that just are wired differently. And Kaysan Wallace is like that too. That guy, he comes in, what, 17, 18 minutes a game. He'll guard the best guy on the other team. He hits threes. He plays under control. And he's really competitive. And over, you know, they'll miss with the occasional Poku. But even Poku makes sense for what that Presti model is because long, gangly, weird guy, but he's kind of maybe something.

So they roll the dice with him. But don't you think, is there anything else? Competitiveness and length. And also IQ recently, the last few years, he's been looking for guys who can really make the next play in open space. And Poku's the kind of swing you can take when you have more swings than anybody

else. You can afford, say, this guy's just like a weird seven whatever he is and take a shot at him. That's so weird why they didn't take Shangoon. I'm still stunned that they didn't take Shang-Goon. I'm still stunned that they didn't take that. You'll never get over that. Eight teams in a row passed him up.

We did the post-draft preview and we were like, oh my god, how does he go 16? But he just felt like a classic OKC guy. I do think they need one more big body and they have to decide those role guys they have who all play like 13 minutes

a game. Are they better off cashing in and getting somebody who could play like a legitimate 22 to 25 who's got real experience? I think they're in a dangerous spot because you almost don't want to mess with this. This team plays so well together and they all have Shay's personality. That's another thing. That's I think part of his MVP case has to be the team has taken on what his personality is, which I think is part of, that's what happened with Jokic

the last couple of years. That team is unselfish like Jokic. Shea, the team is like calm and in control and they play really hard. And that guy, can you name five things about Shea? I think he's the most unlikely

NBA superstar we've had in 15 years. I don't know anything about the dude. He doesn't really do interviews. He's not a big social media guy. He's just atypical with all these other dudes. You feel like you have so much knowledge of every piece about them. He's just like this mystery dude that just comes in and takes on all the other guys. Like think about them. He's just like this mystery dude that just comes in and takes on all the other guys. Think about Tatum. We know what Tatum's kid looks like. We watch him shoot shots before games and Tatum's in all these commercials. I'm sure Shea would do commercials, but he's the most mysterious star we've had in a long time. Well, and there have to be, I have not done it um whether here or in oklahoma

city or anywhere but there have to have been national writers in addition to local writers who have put out the ask of like hey i'd love to do a 20 minute sit down with shea or like do a big thing on shea and shea's background and like what's this guy like and just like i unless i've missed it like that just he doesn't care i haven't like that's either either no one's asking or the thunder and or Shea are saying no and like we just don't see that piece ever like I'm yeah well I don't know much about him one of my big regrets just as you know I love being right and love predicting things ahead of time I watched Shea for that whole year I never saw this I knew he was good we all knew like this guy's good. This guy can be a starting guard on a championship team. There's, he has, he's really good defensively. He's really

smart. There's a lot of great stuff here. I never saw 30 points a game and night after night, just, just, just outplaying the best guy on the other team. Well, and you rack your brain, like a game was last night. We'll make you do it is where you're having a conversation. I was thinking to myself, who's the best guy to guard him? There is no best guy. It's a 6'9 guy, basically. The Celtics have five of them,

and it didn't matter. I don't even know. Is it prime Kawhi? Is it what's left of prime Kawhi? I don't even know who it is. You want to say Is it what's left of prime Kawhi? I don't even know who it is. You want to say, hey, would Giannis be on him? Be interesting, but Giannis is not guarded quick guards all that well

compared to how he does other stuff. And Shay can get those guys in foul trouble, too. That's the other thing. It's like, oh, cool, you're going to put this guy in? I'm just going to get a foul on him. I thought of something last night, an analogy that I never thought of watching him. And as soon as I thought of it, his entire game clicked into my brain. You're not a hockey guy. night an analogy that I'd never thought of watching him. And as soon as I thought of it,

his entire game clicked into my brain. You're not a hockey guy, but the way he plays is the first basketball player. And it makes sense because he's Canadian, right? The way he moves and kind of rotates around and waits and picks his spot and then strikes and comes back. It's like watching a great hockey forward. Like if you watch like Connor McDavid on Edmonton. See that now I'm losing it because he was the guy everybody tanked for, right? Yeah. There was like a great tank year of, you know, you watch Gretzky or you watch any great hockey forward. They're always like gliding around.

They never seem like they're moving full speed, but they have the speed and they're always kind of waiting to strike. They're like almost like Panthers or Cougars, like just in the wilderness, just kind of waiting to make their move. And the best hockey players, they float around and then all of a sudden they're doing something. And I was thinking about that last night. Like if he doesn't get what he wants, he brings it back and it's like, oh, he's not. All right. He's going to, oh no, he's not resetting. He's going to the basket or, oh, he has the defender on yo-yo. He's flying by him. Oh, he pulled back, step back three. Oh, he's, and it's just like, he's constantly moving. He's not for, uh, you know, I don't, I wouldn't consider him a heliocentric

guy, but it's not like one of these, they give him the ball and he's just like, all right. And everything has to set for eight seconds as he decides what to do. He's always in motion. And I think that's, what's so hard for him to guard or for people to guard him. It's interesting. You say that. Cause I've been thinking about, I'd like to go back and watch him from like two years ago when, when this,

the breakout began. Cause to me watching him this year, we all know that like his change of pace and herky jerky style, like that's kind of his trademark. Like he just, you just can't get ahold of him. I feel like this year he's been smarter about, yeah,

I'm really good at the herky jerky change of pace stuff. But like, sometimes it's better if I just go, cause I'm also really, really fast in a straight line. And I feel like he's been smarter about leaning that way a little bit more in the right spots. And just like, Oh my God, he just blew by this guy. And I feel like he's been smarter about leaning that way a little bit more in the right spots and just like, oh my God, he just blew by this guy. And maybe it's time to dispense with the herky-jerky every single time and just go. And I feel like he's better at that.

We've only gotten through one team. I'm aware. I have one last shape point for you. We do those ringer top 100 rankings. If you worked with us, you would hate it. I can only imagine what your response is. Hey, Zach, we need your top 100. You would just be like, oh my God, I'm dying. I did it once. It was murdering me. This is going to be a spit take from you. And I'm going to say this as somebody who thinks

Stephen Curry is the ninth best player of all time. I think I have him ninth. I have him a spot ahead of Kobe. He's one of my favorite athletes of all time, much less favorite basketball players. I had Shea bump him and Tatum out of my top five. I gave Shea the fifth spot and Curry sixth. And Curry has the playoff experience.

2022 finals just happened. He's an amazing player. But if I'm just judging right now and I'm watching day after day, Shea's just a little more consistent than Curry is. And in April, Curry might jump on my rankings again. But from what I've watched these first 10 weeks, Shea is the best guard in the league.

And I don't even know if it's debatable. Well, I know you don't count Luka as a guard. Him and Jokic, they're some different position. I don't even, they're over there. But he, I mean, I don you don't count Luka as a guard. Him and Jokic, they're some different position. I don't even, they're over there. But he, I mean, I don't think the Curry thing is a spit take. Curry's been in, he was in a long shooting slump until last night when the Warriors beat Orlando. I think he had 36.

But, you know, all-star stuff came out, and so we started picking tentative all-star starting fives and all that. I don't think there's really an argument that steph should start over sga now luca is listed as a guard i know you're personally offended by that and everyone on the panel has you stood next to him he's 240 pounds like he's a big guy he's a guard i don't know how he counts but luca and sga were the choices for everybody and like it wasn't there was no pushback about like, well, Curry, I mean, historically, Curry is Curry.

This year, what this dude is doing is ridiculous. Can I read you one last thing? And then we got to take a break. So we're not allowed to obviously wager on the NBA awards because we have votes. But it always is interesting to me when we get to early January, how off some of the odds are. So on FanDuel right now, the Clutch Player of the Year,

who do you think is the favorite in the betting market right now for the stupid Clutch Player of the Year award that I don't even really fully understand? Who would you pick? The favorite? The favorite right now on January 3rd, Clutch Player of the Year. Tyrese Halliburton. He's third at plus 650.

For some reason, Dame is first at plus 340 and then Shea is plus 340. I thought Shea was going to be like minus 300. I don't know how you can be more clutch than him. We've watched him make game winners. We've watched him over and over again beat the best players in the league head to head. I guess I don't understand this award. Well, the first month of the season, the Bucks had that stretch where every win they had was a close win and Dame had a bunch of big shots. I think maybe that's still fresh in everybody's minds.

Yeah, it was stupid. All right, we're taking a break. Somehow we're only through one team. Get in on all the NBA buzzer beaters, ankle breakers, and tomahawk jams with FanDuel America's number one sports book. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets. Guaranteed when you place a $5 bet. If you've been thinking about joining FanDuel, no better time to get in on the action

than right now. We all have a pretty good feel for the season at this point. There's some really good future stuff on FanDuel that I would encourage you to check out. You can, I'm not allowed to bet on this stuff because I have a vote with the NBA Awards,

but you're allowed to, you know, look at the sixth man of the year. Jaquez has unbelievable odds right now for that. Clutch player of the year, Shea Gilgis Alexander. His odds are still really good, but I would go check out the futures because there's some good values right now for that. Clutch player of the year, Shea Gilgis-Alexander. His odds are still really good, but I would go check out the Futures because there's some

good values right now. They have an easy-to-use app on FanDuel. All these different bets. You can do live same-game parlays. You can do that for the NFL playoffs coming up. You can go to their Parlay Hub, which is a great place to find some suggested parlays. All you have to do is visit FanDuel.com

slash BS. Make your first bet a layup. FanDuel, official partner of the NBA. You must be 21 plus and president of select states. $5 pregame money lane wager required. First online real money wager, only $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued is not withdrawal bonus. Bets that expire seven days after receipt.

See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that.

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they're shooting 50, 39, 80% as a team these 50, 40, 80 teams when we first got to know each other 12 years ago if I had said 12 years from now there's going to be 50, 40, 80 teams, you would have been like, fuck you. No way. What if they changed the rules?

Did they increase the size of the basket? They have like eight guys shooting 40% from three. Thunder. My number one, or I guess my first pick is the Celtics. I'm happy about that. I did not have them this high.

That's ridiculous. That's a bad job by you. Here's why. There's two reasons. Now, obviously, I know it's my favorite team, but as you know, I'll be hard on my team

if they deserve it. And I would not normally want to put the Celtics second on this list. But there's two things. One is the Porzingis piece has been so much fun to watch game to game, how they use him.

I'm just fascinated by it. I was looking at some of his stats from Dallas. He's basically averaging the same he did in Dallas. He's 20 and seven, right? That's what he did in Dallas. But in Dallas, his two-point shooting is like, he took like, his two-point shooting was way lower. His free throw attempts, I think he was at 3.2.

He's at almost 6 for the Celtics. The way they've used him, they've kind of unleashed him into this way more efficient version of him versus the guy we saw in Dallas, who was basically, go stand over there. Occasionally, Luka will do a pick and pop with you. We're going to post you up with no warning. It's going to be super obvious

and it's kind of going to look ugly and then people are going to think you're not a post-up player. The Celtics are like, all right, this person's on you. We're going to leverage this. Let's put you at the foul line. Oh, they're putting Bogdanovich on you?

We're going to put you at the foul line and you're just going to shoot over him. Oh, they're going to put a guard on you. Go into the corner. You're going to get wide open threes. He's not even shooting that well. I think he's 33% from three. And that's one of the interesting things about the Celtics team. Tatum, Brown, and Porzingis are all under 35% from three. This is one of the best offensive teams in the league. And I don't even think they're shooting that well yet. I think, uh, white and holiday, their three point shooting has been up and some of the bench guys, but for the actual starters,

not the same. So that's the Porzingis piece is one. And then second, just quickly just drew and white on the same team is super fun. You mentioned earlier with the OKC, like they're allowed to do some stuff on defense that other teams don't have access to. We got guys jumping off,

guards blocking layups at the rim, guards messing up 3-on-0 fast breaks like what happened with White last night. It's just so fun to watch those two. I don't really know what point of the career Drew is at right now. His two-point percentage is

47.9, which is brutal. Last year was like 56. And it adds up to the eye test of he's not really finishing in the ribbon the same way. Three point shooting is good. But he did get hurt earlier in the year. I'm not giving up on that. But those two things have made it super fun for me. Also, they're really good.

Yeah, they're awesome. I had them sixth in my draft. And as you will see from the teams I pick, I'm a prisoner of the moment a little bit in some teams that are fresher and have more interesting questions to answer. I just think the Celtics are awesome. They are lens that is just the same lens every game for me, which is how often are they getting to the rim? How often are they getting to the rim? How often are they getting to the rim? And so maybe I'm not bored because again, I had them six,

but maybe I'm bored of watching them through that same lens over and over. And about Porzingis, the thing I've loved about him this year is he's not just turning and shooting those 16 footers. Like he really is trying to carve out every inch of space he can get. Even if he ends up falling over, he gets fouled a lot more. I just need rim, rim, rim because everything else about this team is pretty damn airtight. What's their one move? Yeah, do you want... Are you of the school of thought that Hauser, Horford, Pritchard, Cornett,

whoever, is not enough off the bench? They need one more guy off the bench. I think they need a big guard. They need a 6'5", 6'6", guard who they could just have two skills. Can they defend and can they at least

hit an open shot 37% of the time? I think that's what's missing. Would you give up two first round picks for Alex Caruso? In five seconds. Two? Yeah.

I don't care about picks. The sets are going to be good every year. I did not sound like James Jones who should have cared about picks and was like, yeah, I don't really care about we don't care about first rounders here. It's like, maybe you should have, you took Jalen Smith over Tyrese Albert. But in the Celtics case,

I mean, one of the reasons I have them ranked so high is, and Tatum, you know, he, watching him hit the checkpoints of who he should be, and he's not there yet. And he still does stuff that drives me nuts. Like he'll take pull up threes that you're just like, Oh my God, you're never going to figure this out. Doesn't go to the rim enough. The game they played last night, they only took 43 as they went. I think they had 29 free throws. That's more in where they're going to have to be in May, June. But, um, to me, it's like, I don't know if this team is going to be together in the same way again. I don't know how long Jalen's going to be in the team. He's making 50 million a year.

At some point, you got to pick and choose how many expensive guys you can have, especially if the media deal isn't what the league seems to think it's going to be. What's Holiday's next contract going to be? Is he going to take less? Is it going to be like an Al Horford situation? I love it here. Or is he going to cash in one more time for a hundred million for three years from somebody with cap space? So this feels like, this literally feels like their best chance to win a title since 08. I mean, they, they have the most talent.

It's the best team since 09. It's the best team since 09, which got derailed by KG's injury. Yeah. And this is it. They have the most talent. They have a guy who can go head-to-head with some of the best guys in the league. They have balance. That's why I would do Caruso in five seconds. Alright, you're up. I mean, I don't think we need to spend too much time on this.

My next pick was Denver. They have the most watchable player in the entire league. God damn it. I already like your draft so much more than mine. I got OKC in Denver. Jokic will do five things every game that make me cackle like an idiot. And this year, every good team that is proven. And like you said, Denver is playing with a little bit of like, yeah, we got this championship confidence.

And not casual in this, but you know what I mean? They still have to have a subplot that ropes me in, and the bench, and Peyton Watson, and Julian Strother, and Christian Brown. That's the subplot. It's a fun subplot. I like that subplot. Doesn't always work for them every night, but I like it. Not sure about Strother yet.

I like him. He's actually playing. I like him too, but what's that going to look like in May? Not sure if I trust those guys. It'll look a lot better when Jamalray is on the floor with those guys or michael porter jr and aaron gordon are on the floor with those guys right now yeah if you look at their numbers the five-man bench mobs are getting destroyed and that's deflating all their overall plus minus numbers but it's an interesting subplot i don't need to do we need to say anything more about denver they're Denver. We don't.

The only thing I would add is, and this is before the crazy dog attack, but Gordon just wasn't playing as well this year. He was down statistically in a bunch of spots. He wasn't making threes anymore. And I was just kind of monitoring it. And I was, they don't have a lot to trade.

They don't have a lot of moves. Basically their picks, the stuff they've already traded, plus their picks have those stupid protections where they're kind of handcuffed anyway for what they can do. So unless they trade a couple of those bench guys, they just need him to be the third best guy on the team.

And with how good the league has gotten, I think that's a harder case to make this year. And you remember, he almost went sideways in round two last year and the lakers just weren't guarding him at all or round three lakers weren't guarding him at all they were like all right it was got a little like giddy last night but then he kind of rallied and got out of it but i'm just kind of monitoring that you're monitoring okay i get frustrated with them because first all, I've watched them for so long and I just kind of know

when they're a little bit on autopilot now or they're like, all right, fine, all right. And they have a bullseye every night, which is just a different place to be in.

Every night they go to whatever city or they're playing whoever, they're the champs and teams go at them really hard and sometimes it doesn't seem like they totally want it.

All right. My next team. Minnesota. Now we basically listed the four best teams in the league right now, or four of the five. I've just really enjoyed how improbable all this was. Watching Edwards trying to figure it out as the top guy. The Gobert renaissance has been bizarre,

but the thing I really like about them and why I think they matter in the league pass rankings is they really bring it every night. And you kind of either have to keep up or not. And they've been in some, they've been in a few games that just feel like playoff games. And the stuff they're doing is pretty high level.

Like even what they were doing at Brunson the other. The stuff they're doing is pretty high level. Even what they were doing at Brunson the other day where they put McDaniels on them. They were just like, we're taking out Brunson. They lost the game, but they're doing stuff that you usually see in April, May in these games versus just, all right, it's game 41. Let's go because they're trying to discover themselves as

a contender. Edwards is just so aggro. It's great. He really thinks he's the best player in the league. He loves talking shit and he's just so aggro. It's great. Like he really thinks he's the best player in the league. He loves talking shit and he's not afraid of anybody. And, uh, I've enjoyed that. So, and they, they're there. Do you see their 11 and one and clutch games this year? They're, I did not see that. They're close games are really fun. Close games. That's another. So if it's like there's seven minutes left and it's like, oh, it's Minnesota 90, Toronto 88. You're like, oh, this will be fun.

So I have them fourth. I don't know if I can remember anyone making a bigger bank shot leap than Anthony Edwards has made from last year to this year. Last year, it was like, does he have a bank shot? And this year it's like, he's making these wide angle bank

shots that don't even look like you should shoot bank shots on them. And they go in every time that I had them eighth and only because their offense can get a little bit sloppy and that's all. But I love watching them and McDaniels.

The defense is ridiculous, but on offense, that guy's getting a little more comfortable and has a little more juice in his game every night. And I think that's big for them. I always love slow-mo. I'm a sucker for slow-mo. But you said you're monitoring Aaron Gordon. I'm just monitoring.

Minnesota's got the best record in the West. They're awesome. 19th in offense right now. It's sitting there. You keep waiting for it to get... On some nights, it looks really good, and then you look at the numbers and, okay, number one defense is their defense is real.

I'm monitoring it. That's all. I had Kyle Anderson written down as the kind of one move they could make if they needed to do something. It's $9.2 million expiring. He's not having a great year for them this year. They love him, though. He's just a connector guy. year. They love him, though. They love him.

No, I know they love him, but... He's just like a connector guy. Seems a little expendable, though. I mean, what they really need is Conley insurance because on the nights where Conley doesn't have it, it looks super choppy. Anyway, all right. Yeah, Shaq Milton was supposed to be that guy,

and he's fallen out of the rotation. I bet within three games of this podcast, Shaq Milton plays like 21 minutes in a game. They're going to try to resuscitate him because they know this Jordan McLaughlin thing is cute that's going on in the last five days, but they need Shaq.

You took Minnesota. Okay. I probably should have gotten more cutthroat with this draft because I know who you're taking next and I could have just taken them and I feel like I still could have gotten more cutthroat with this draft because I know who you're taking next, and I could have just taken them, and I feel like I still could have gotten Minnesota a team later. I know what you're going to do. You're going to take the Pacers. No, no, I'm not.

Oh. No. My third pick, and this is when I said I'm prisoner of the moment. No, don't do it. Don't do it. It's time now to direct our full attention to the Phoenix Suns. Beal is healthy. I thought you were going to say the Clippers. I was going to get mad. Beal is healthy.

Durant was healthy and missed the game against Portland. Hopefully that's just like a one two game thing. Now we get to see like, okay, this is what it is. All these guys make $130 million combined. You traded everything you had. Literally everything. Every swap has been split up four different ways to build this team around these three guys every analysis of your team until now

was like well i don't know we don't know what to make of it because brad beal's not held now everyone's here all right let's let's see what you got let's see how it shakes out who comes what's the bench rotation what's your closing lineup now we get to see the full thing. Now the competition has been great, but I have liked the first 65 minutes of Beal, Booker, Durant have been monstrously good. I'm in. I'm excited to watch it now. Well, you know they're serious because they finally improved to over 500 at home. 10-9. Congrats to them. Yeah, so Woj did that story on Christmas

where he put out something I think all of us had heard in some form that maybe Kevin Durant wasn't that happy and what was and then they sucked

that night right so then you know how this goes it was Christmas week for them which was I think helpful because I think

if it had just been a normal week like this week it would have been just Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix for the next four days. But what was interesting was the way he responded after that Christmas game

because that Wednesday game, he played one of his best games of the year, if not the best one. Was that the 16 assists game? Yeah, 27, 16, 11. He just was locked in. And that made me feel better about maybe where this was going. But I like what I've seen the last few games.

The problem for them, there's two problems. One is, I just don't trust Beal and Durant to just stay healthy for the next six months. Durant's body has a lot of wear and tear. And they're putting a lot of miles on him,

which just makes me nervous. And then Beal, I just don't trust to be out there. They got to be out there for the next five months. You don't want to be in the play-in. You don't want to be the lower seed every time in a playoff series. They got to get going now.

And I'm just not a Nurkic guy. I'm just not. Look, I was with you on there's a lot of risk built into this Aiton-Nurkic thing. He's delivered so far this year. And Aiton haskic thing. He's delivered so far this year. And Aiton has not. And that's leaving aside the fact that the Aiton bridge was burned

and the rubble was burned to ash and all of that. He's been good. Now, if you don't trust him, you don't trust him. But Nurk is delivered so far. Not a good defensive player. Can I give you two more Phoenix things? Not a big health risk for me, but keep going. I just want to give Kevin Ray and Eddie Johnson a little bit of a shout out.

They've become one of my favorite broadcast teams in the league. Yeah. And I had one more. Oh, the home thing. This is not Phoenix related, but you mentioned their home record finally being over 500. Your beloved Boston Celtics are undefeated at home. Oh, I'm aware. My dad and I are very focused on this.

As a Celtics fan who was attending games in 1986, when does your brain start thinking about 40-1? Remember Cleveland in 2019? 2009 was 39-1 and lost the last game of the season to finish 39 and two. When do you start thinking about 40 and one? That's the kind of like a underrated fun NBA number. First of all, how dare you?

Because I started thinking about it a week ago that I watched the entire game on the board, the Detroit game. I'm like, we got to get this one. Why did we bench so many guys? It's not just the 40-1. It's the 50-1. They went 50-1, including the playoffs that year.

And I just don't know if we see that again. I think teams have gotten close, but just to play 51 games and win 50 of them at home during an entire season, It's on my radar. My dad is super excited about it. The 40-1 meant a lot to him. He went to a lot of those games. The one game they lost, they got their asses kicked by Portland in 86.

Portland, just super athletic, just ran up and down on them. But yeah, I don't know what week it's going to become a thing, but maybe if they get to 20-0, it might start mattering. I don't know what the record is for home wins to start the season. What's weird is they sucked at home in the playoffs last year, but they definitely have a good home court advantage, and you can feel it game to game. The crowd was so into that Detroit game.

Poor Detroit's trying to break their stupid streak, and the Celtics fans are acting like it's mid-May. All right. I'm up. You're up. I've taken Phoenix, Denver, and Oklahoma City. You've taken Boston and Minnesota. You know, this is sad.

I'm almost letting you win this. I can only go with my heart. I love watching the Warriors. I still love Steph Curry. I'm still super focused on it. I think part of it might be that it's the West Coast team, so they're on.

But I've been really, really, really absorbed by how weird their season's been and all the ups and downs and just Wiggins just being almost unplayable for six weeks and then he is playable but then he's not the Draymond thing was so bizarre especially when he really started unraveling and just game to game it was

kind of riveting to see if he would lose it again and then he did twice in a week and that's it um I'm a huge Kaminga guy now to see if he would lose it again. And then he did twice in a week and that's it. I'm a huge Kaminga guy now. I'm back. I had Kaminga in the trade machine all over the place. He's kind of won me back

because he's got to be first team all-rational confidence, right? He's out there like, finally Draymond's gone. I can do my thing. He really believes that. I'm not saying he's true, not true. I like Brando Pods.

Jackson Davis, who I found out was Dale Davis' son 10 days ago. I can't believe it, but I think he's been really good for them. He's your kind of guy. And just the last days of clay, how that's been kind of playing out has been fun. And then the Curry piece. Um, it's just, every game is hard for them and it's fun from a league pass standpoint. So that's my case. I had the Warriors 10th and that's the floor for any Steph Curry team. Yeah. And I agree with you there, the, the chaos and it's like new starting five. Oh, you know what? We don't like that one. Let's try a new starting five.

Okay, these guys can't play together. Maybe they can play together. The chaos is both fun and sometimes a little bit frustrating and sometimes can lead to bad basketball. If you look at their numbers, their transition defense has been awful this year, and it's been really awful since the Draymond suspension. And I think part of that is, A, he's still one of the best defenders in the league, and B, they're just throwing out so many lineups that are new or new-ish,

and these guys just are learning each other on the fly. And there's something fun about that. It's been fun to watch Jackson Davis. It's been fun to watch Pajemski settle in. They're just adult rookies. They play hard. They know where to go and what to do. And I've always liked Kaminga. It didn't look good for me a year ago.

He's been playing really well lately. And when he just takes a half second to exhale on offense with the ball and he starts making the right pass at the right time, that's when I get very excited. It doesn't have to be like straight line chaos all the time. He made a couple reads in recent games and I'm like alright there it is I like watching them and I do think

like the puzzle solving element of this like all of a sudden Moses Moody's out of the rotation and it's like I actually like Moses Moody I actually can't quibble like I don't know whose minutes he would really steal from at this point unless you're just cutting bait on Clay

and Wiggins completely and they're understandably not going to do that they're a fun watch I like the pick you left out the Chris Paul subplot Chris Paul year 19 still good

his shots are short I think he's hit the front of the rim more than any other player in the league this year. But it still kind of looks like Chris Paul. It's like watching an actor in some TV show where you're like, oh, I love that person, but they're just older. But he still kind of knows

where to go, what to do. My guess is he's the one they'd trade. Not to step on Perk's corner, but the real baller trade would be if Klay was in it because I think then you give Moody those minutes, you Klay and picks, whatever you want to do. Klay's probably the most expendable of these dudes, but Klay also has the playoff pedigree

and they're going to wait for him. I just don't think they would ever trade him, ever. Which you have to understand as someone who got into sports because you loved sports and you loved certain teams and players. That's understandable. There are certain guys who... It's Klay Thompson,

man. That's Game 6 Oklahoma City. It's Klay and Curry. It's a whole era. I think that's really hard to cut the ties with that. With that said, there is one trade I think they could and should make, and we're going to get to that next. This episode is brought to you by Movember.

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Draymond and I kind of think they will now and I say that in a way that will probably get aggregated by one of those stupid sites that we hate I just think they're I think they're playing better without them I think too many things have happened. And I think it's like one of those relationships where you kind of just have to break up at

this point and he's going to have real value to other teams. Not sure who those teams would be, but we could probably guess a few of them. And I think maybe you move on at this point. It's been really interesting how little everybody has said on both sides about this. What the Warriors aren't saying is, look, Draymond's always going to be in this team. When he gets his head right and he's back, he's a warrior for life.

Nobody's saying any of that now. I just feel like the door is way, way open for some sort of move. And by the way, the trade deadline's in like six weeks. They haven't even, they asked Kerr the other day, Draymond hasn't been back in the building and he's like, he needed some distance from us. We needed some distance from him,

whatever he said. That was 18 hours ago. Steve Kerr said that after the Magic game last night. Yeah, that was not nothing. No, because we're 10 games in and I remember there were some anonymous reports a week 10 days ago that you know 15 games started to be the number that was like ballparked in in some published reports i can't remember where well we're at we're at 10 now and it does part

of the reason they are interesting to watch is you can see them in real time not necessarily evolving past draymond but having to construct a team without him and finding some answers that work. And some that, I mean, they've been hovering around 500 without him. It's not like they're killing it. But I do find it interesting that you say he would have a lot of value because he has three years left on his contract after this. And obviously what's happened has happened. I think trading him for something that can help you win today, if that's your goal, I would be interested to see. We may not have time now, but he seems to be a very tricky player

to trade right now. You'd have to imagine there are some teams who would be like, oh, no, that seems like a lot for us to take on at this point. I'm glad you corrected me. A lot of, saying a lot of value

is strong. Do I think teams would talk themselves into him? Yes. Do you think, do you think, are you thinking like

Lakers kind of teams or are you thinking like Oh, the Lakers have to be on the list. Are you thinking just bad teams who like, oh, culture and defense and grit,

like bring them into Detroit or Charlotte and like he can help our young guys. Culture might be a little tough. Might be a tougher case. I don't know if you're Cleveland. Now we're just going crazy now. Let's go. Well, if it's Cleveland and it's like,

we have this whole pretty big sample size now that maybe this Jared Allen-Mobley thing doesn't 100% work. And what if we got Draymond and Moses Moody and a couple assets and we gave them Jared Allen?

And now we put Draymond with Evan Mobley and we have a proven four-time title guy and maybe this will convince Mitchell to stay. They claim they're not trading Mitchell. But they do. That was the team I was thinking.

By the way, don't aggregate that because that's just a thought experiment. I have no inside info. What if you're Orlando? I don't think you, I don't, I don't think you, I mean, I know they've come back to earth a little bit. They're only five games over now, I think. They're not beating any good teams. But if you're Orlando, aren't you okay with not beating any good teams?

Are you worried about like, oh, we're not going to be a strong playoff team? Like maybe we'll make the playoffs and be a one and done and that's the best we can do. Are you worried about that? I'm just good with let's make the playoffs. That was our goal this year.

They need a guard. I mean, this Fultz thing. I mean, I don't. Well, there's something wrong with his name. He's the problem. My guess is Orlando is not going to really come up

at the top or the bottom of our drafts. They're kind of a nice middle fun, decent team to watch. So we might as well do it now. Like the Fultz thing is taking a long time. And this whole like.

It's taking a long time for a reason. He's hurt. Yeah. And like Anthony Black, it's like long time for a reason. He's hurt. Yeah. And like Anthony Black, it's like a nice thing you can do in the regular season and stay afloat. It's not a real thing that you can start that guy and play him for 14 minutes.

And then your backups are Cole Anthony, who's good. And Gary Harris, who's, you know, I don't think was projected to be this big a part of the team this year. And Joe Ingles has already hurt. They need a guard.

It's a lot of Cole Anthony. Who's good need a guard. It's a lot of Cole Anthony. Who's good. No, but it's a lot of Cole Anthony. And Suggs, for as much as you and I like Suggs and Suggs brings all the intangibles and the grit and the toughness, there still are going to be a lot of 3 of 11 7 points

kind of games for him. I had this written down because I don't know if we get to Orlando. This is the exact sentence I typed. Kind of a fun Zach Levine team. If it's just the Fultz Harris expirings are over $30 million,

maybe you throw them Denver's protected 25 first so they could save some face and say they got a pick. They take on that Levine contract and now you're putting Levine in like those Gary Harris I don't know, Fultz slash whatever minutes.

Not doing that from Orlando. I'm not putting Levine in any team where he can plausibly tell himself, oh, I'm the guy. I'm the best player on the team.

And I could see him going to Orlando and being like, well, these guys are young. I'm a two-time All-Star gold medalist. So you're saying he has to go to the Lakers? I'm not. Do you think the Lakers want to do that? No, but we've seen GM LeBron has made some crazy things happen GM LeBron

has provided a lot of fodder over there I can't wait for owner LeBron I was just about to say owner LeBron's gonna be unbelievable

like what's gonna happen when he's actually in charge of a team and he's just like ah let's do this what's the name of the Vegas team gonna be what do we think is a good

name for the Vegas team like the Vegas Dice no alright does it have to be? What do we think is a good name for the Vegas team? Like the Vegas Dice? No. All right. Does it have to be gambling related? Yeah. Well, what's the, what's the, what do they call the WNBA team?

Aces. The Aces? Yeah, that's gambling related. Yeah, no, I understand. I'm saying we can't get more, we can't just say, I don't, I'm not anti-gambling. We just can be a little more creative. Las Vegas just has to be... Can't get a little... Golden Knights is kind of fun. Vegas Blackjacks.

That's a hockey team, right? Blackjacks, Craps, Roulette. I mean, we know what the Seattle team's got to be named. The Las Vegas Wheel? Wheelers? Kind of like the Whalers? All right.

So, so far in the league pass draft, you took OKC Denver and Phoenix. I have Boston, Minnesota, and Golden State. I like your side way more. What do you have for the seven? So I'm thinking of zagging and going further down my rankings just for the sake of fun, but I think I can get this fun team that I'm thinking of taking now one more pick from now. So I'm going to stick chalk and I'm actually going to take the fourth team on my list, which means I've gotten one, two, three, and four on my list. We've spent

all year, all of us nitpicking, nitpicking the fault. They don't do this well. They don't do that well. The coach is this and that. You know who's really fun to watch? Giannis. Giannis is still really fun to watch and Dame and Giannis together are fun to watch. This has been the best offensive

team in the league for the last six weeks of the season thereabouts anyway I think they're third overall now I still think the Bucks are pretty damn fun so I'm taking the Bucks easy I don't know we all know the perimeter defense and yeah I want to see Bo Champ and Jackson play well we all know that we all I get

the problems from a sheer entertainment standpoint seems pretty damn fun they seem to be in a lot of fun fourth quarters yeah you never know when Giannis is going to blow a gasket about something dumb that has nothing to do with the game and like just like create a WWE

kind of scene like knocking over ladders and you know storming into locker rooms you never know I had them later in my top 10 but for the big thing is Giannis, who seems to have a real edge to him now, and I don't really fully understand it. And it's game to game.

It's not just like what happened in that Indiana thing. He seems mad way more often than I ever remember at any point in his career. I mean like competitive mad, not like Draymond might unravel mad, but he's just really feisty and I always thought he was

pretty you know he had those remember early in his career who was the guy that he absolutely nailed when the guy cheap shot at him and he came back and he knocked it was a three-point shooter I do knock that guy into the he absolutely and that was the first time because we were like oh the freak he's so much fun and then he did this like kind of WWE move and we all said, oh, he's got this. He's got a little of this too. He and Ben Simmons had a thing. Remember when he and Ben Simmons had a little thing for a while? Yeah, he's very pissy this year in a good way.

Have you noticed he's shooting 61%? Seems relevant. Averaging 31 points a game, shooting 61%. Yeah, he's amazing. Yeah, he's still really, really great. And talk about a guy who's good for four highlight dunks a game. His highlight dunks run the gamut from the three steps to traverse the whole court, one-handed extendo dunk.

But my favorite Giannis dunk is when he's just stuck under the rim with four guys around him and he just rises up like a superhero and just rudely dunks on top of all of them. That's my favorite one. They're also fun in the fourth quarters because they can't get stops and nobody can really stop them either. So it just becomes a pinball game. I will say though,

the one thing I don't love about them is it's a lot of free throws. I think him and Dame combined are almost 20. And that's just not that fun for me. I like the flow. So that's why I had him. Middleton's playing better too. But yeah, free throws knock teams down.

Orlando's number one at free throw rate. That's one of the reasons they're not that entertaining to watch. Well, I can't believe what value here at number eight. I like my group more. Indiana's got to go here. Indiana should have probably gone sooner. Indiana's averaging 126.4 points a game. 126.4

points per game. That's their average for games. Every single game they score at least 126 points. I looked up some of the mid-2000 seasons. The 2000 Mavericks led the league at 103.

They scored 23 more points a game than the leader in the league in 2003. They have eight guys averaging 10 points a game. They're shooting 50%, 38%, 80%. They have eight guys averaging 10 points a game? Eight guys, including Jalen Smith.

Not one of them is like a garbage time guy. Like they're legit. That's like. All eight. They have eight, 10 points. Aaron Neesmith is shooting 50% from three. What a year for those of us who have been on Aaron Neesmith Island for three years. Those of us, it was me and you and like one other person.

I think what we're watching, and I think Hal Barton got discussed more than enough during the in-season tournament, which you have abbreviated now to the IST. Is that what we're doing, or is that you're just trying it out? I think that's a placeholder until they name it, until it becomes something else. The Amazon in-season tournament.

The Pool and Weed Eater in-season tournament, whatever it ends up being. What Halliburton's doing this year is very similar in my head to when Nash went to the Suns and just something was happening. They're like, what's this? This is weird. Oh my god.

They're going to play like this every game? I don't think it's necessarily going to work long term. I don't think they're going to win like this every game. I don't think it's necessarily going to work long-term. I don't think they're going to win a first round series, but they were the most intriguing team to me with the Ananobi. I thought they might get into that. And I don't know if they're buyers or sellers. My guess is that they might be buyers because they have some assets.

I'm not really sure where this team goes over the next six weeks, but I really like watching them. Yeah, they're fun to watch. I can't quibble with it. There are just some nights... When they get killed. No, not even when they get killed, when it feels a little circus-y to me. Like where it feels a little bit like a carnival. Can either of the teams involved try a little bit on defense? Do you have a plan? Do you have an idea? If you try out

an idea for not giving up 125 points a game other than score 130 points a game i do think their whole we will just give up layups at so that we don't give up any threes defense is like kind of a novel thing like we just we just really don't care it's a little paul westhead early 90s when he tried to do that denver thing and it bom. It feels a little circusy to me on some like that Hawks Pacers game that was 150 something to 150 something. By the third quarter of that game, I was like

I'm now kind of, it was like an all-star game. It's like the 17th alley-oop in the first quarter. I'm like, okay, I've seen the game now. I'm a little bored now. It was like watching when you watch volleyball and there's just so many points, you start to become numb to the points.

Yeah. I've really enjoyed having them in the league. No, they're fun. The Halliburton thing is really weird because they got healed in Halliburton for Sabonis. And just that they traded a guy who is now a guaranteed top 10, top 12, wherever he is for the next 10 years. You would think that's a disaster, but I kind of feel like the Kings would do it again with

what it's done for Fox. I think they run the trade back. So you have this trade that's the most important trade Indiana's made this century. Now, maybe if you did true serum with Sacramento and put five vodka shots in Vivek, maybe you'd be like, man, maybe we shouldn't trade Halbern. But I still feel like they're,

I mean, they doubled down on Sabonis. They gave him the giant extension. I don't know if it's like huge regrets, but can you remember another time somebody gave up a guy like that? And it's not like, oh my god, their fans being devastated that they gave them up. It's just not there in this trade.

Yeah, I also can't really remember a time where a team didn't make the playoffs for 16 years so their fans would be happy with any level of base competency which the Kings have achieved with this team. By the way, Kings one of the most fun

trade deadline wildcard teams right now because they're 19 and 13. They're on the same win-loss pace as they were last year. Point differential, just about zero at this point, and they lost at home last night to Charlotte. And they benched Kevin

Herter, who's now starting Chris Duarte over him. Harrison Barnes There's some Davian Mitchell just kind of out of the mix. I liked Ananobi. I like them as an Ananobi fit. I think they had some, obviously they didn't get

OG Ananobi so they must have had some hesitancy or they didn't, I think it was more they didn't have the piece that Toronto would have wanted and was gettable. Are you saying you think when Cleveland traded for Mitchell and Minnesota traded for Gobert and it was a little bit of a, ooh, okay, I guess you guys are going for it. You think Sacramento is the number one draft pick for, whoa, you just gave up four unprotected first rounders because you're doubling down on Fox and Sabotis? I don't know about that.

This is what we're doing? That's the thing. They don't have four because they still owe the one to Atlanta for Herter. I don't think a deal that big. But I do sense like some, in the next two or three weeks,'re gonna have to decide are we is our team does our record more accurately reflect the quality of our team or does our point differential more accurately reflect the quality of our team and if it's the latter how much risk are we of not making the playoffs of falling into the play-in where anything can happen?

We could not even make the playoffs. And if we think that risk is substantial enough, how aggressive are we going to be? I just don't know who the player is that they're going to target. And if they're not going to give up Keegan Murray, that's going to take them out. And they shouldn't. That's going to take them out of a lot of conversations.

I don't... I've mentioned them as a Levine fit, like offensively. We know they like them. They try to sign them. That's what I forgot about that. They were the, now this is a different,

a different regime there, but they were the offer sheet team. Conceptually, he fits on offense between Fox and Sabonis and would be the third guy with the ball, which is the role that I think he needs to be much more finisher than initiator. But the contract is huge.

The Bulls have been better without him. And you're just punting defense forever and ever and ever if you're playing those three guys together. I don't love it. I don't see them doing it. But I don't know. They and Brooklyn are my two trade deadline wildcards.

I can't figure out what they're going to do. Brooklyn doesn't have their pick. They don't have their pick, but they have picks from other teams. Right. And they have veteran guys that other teams would want that may be expendable,

like your Finney Smith and Royston. They just have a lot of ingredients and they're sliding down the standings. I just feel they feel ripe. Those situations feel ripe to me for something unexpected. Yeah, because with Brooklyn, it doesn't make sense for them to bottom out. So they actually have incentive to get better in Sacramento. You know, I asked, I like Kata, the guy that Celtics got,

who I think he was like the 37th or 39th pick for Sacramento two years ago. And Sacramento just didn't offer him the option. And he left and the Celtics got him. And he's something. Could he be a clumsier Zubats two years from now? I don't know. But he's clearly,

if you're going to have 15 guys on your roster, he's something. So I asked somebody, when the Celtics were in town, I was talking to a couple of different people and I asked somebody like, how did you get Keita? I don't understand that. Like, why did the Kings give them up?

And they said, because they're the Kings. And that made me think like, even though things have gone well for the Kings the last couple of years, there's still some, there's still some prove it-us with the Kings. I know you made a couple decent trades, but I'm still not sure teams trust the infrastructure from a common sense

standpoint, which makes me wonder would that be a team that makes a crazy trade? So I think we're seeing this the same way. Should we go rapid fire through some more picks? Yeah, we're almost done here. Go. So I'm going to eschew a couple of my chalk picks just to shake it up.

So I have OKC, Denver, Phoenix, Milwaukee. I'm going to take... This is going to surprise you. I really like Washington-Houston. I'm going to take the Houston Rockets as my next team. I just think even on nights when Jalen Green is like three of 16 and gets benched in the fourth quarter, I'm still curious

about every time Jalen Green has the ball, what's going to happen. I love Jabari. I love Easton. I love Shen Goon. The veterans have been fun. I think they're a fun team to watch. Houston Rockets. Had them in my top 10. The Jalen Green thing will be... They're going to be my

next pick. The Jalen Green thing will be what makes or breaks whatever they're supposed to be this year. I still don't 100% love Van Vliet as somebody who has the ball a lot in the last five minutes of a game. And I think that was one of the reasons Toronto wasn't that

successful the last couple years. His stats are good. I get it. And you could, you could point me to a bunch of different advanced metrics and be like, here's why you're wrong. Fred VanVleet is good. But I just, if you're, if they're playing Golden State and it's Fred VanVleet versus Steph Curry, right. Or you're playing OKC and now it's SGA versus Fred VanVleet. I don't feel great about my odds. And it just seems like they need Jalen to be that guy who steps up and I just don't think he's ready yet. So now you're going to Shangoon and Shangoon is ready. And how that kind of unfolds. I love Jabari. I wonder what their trade is. They kind of had to get rid of Porter, but they also could have suspended him and just kept it for a possible trade.

But it really handicapped them from throwing a contract in and trying to get one more guy. So they're probably a year away, right? I don't think they're... Yeah, I've heard you say on the Bill Simmons podcast, it's quite a popular podcast, people may have heard of it. We're on it currently. That the team is now too good for Jalen Green. may have heard of it. We're on it currently. The team is now too good for Jalen Green. The team is too good to live

through Jalen Green's growing pains as a young guard. And I understand what you're saying. There are 500 teams and they play a cleaner brand of basketball than he plays. And I just I kind of don't care. Imei's Udoka solution to that has been like,

okay, then on those nights, you're going bad. You're going to play 20 minutes and that's going to be cool. And I'm fine with that because he can have seven, four of 16 games in a row. He's 21 years old.

I am, you've put him into trades. I can't remember where you had him traded. I think he has real value. Like if I'm Houston, you haven't named a trade on any of your podcasts that I'm doing if I'm Houston. I'm holding onto him tighter than maybe you have in some of your fake trades. That's fair. And if you don't think you're going anywhere this year, maybe use the next five, six weeks to figure out what do we actually have here? Is this a guy that could be a real creator in the last five minutes? He's got the

perfect coach. I mean, I, I'm, I love EMA. Um, and I just feel like whatever his potential is, EMA is going to get out of him on both ends, especially like, he's not going to let him slack on defense. He's going to hold them accountable if he's not doing stuff that like, he's just, he may as got it. Um, my next team, man. Oh, I almost want to break your brain, but I'm not going to do it. Um,

I actually have Sacramento. Because they're a West coast team, which I like. They play a style that I enjoy watching. They're weird for all the reasons we mentioned where there's's a couple guys that just aren't doing well for them. And I don't really know. I kind of like Davion Mitchell. That's somebody that I would be looking at as the best case scenario.

I talked about this last week. The best case scenario is Kobe White for the late blooming lottery pick. But there are some other guys out there that just might be in the wrong situation he might be one of them but he's he's back in the rotation now finally that's been a little bit of like uh keon ellis was actually playing okay like is yeah like a trade is this a trade showcase thing i think it's a showcase but the big thing with them fox Fox has been so good this year. Um, you know, he's one of the five guys averaging 30 a game, like a legit 30,

not like a 29.6. He's 30 a game. Yep. And he's just, he's the best version of himself at this point, his ability to get to the rim, how he's using some of his lefty backboard shit that he does. And,

uh, he's really, really good. So it's really, really good. So it's fun to watch him. I was thinking like with the all-NBA, you know, you got Luka and you got SGA and you got Halbert and you got Curry just for the guards.

If we're doing it old school with the guard spots. But then you also have Fox, you have Maxie averaging 27 a game, you have Ann Edwards, you have Dame Lower. Like this guard, figuring out six guards in the old school way is going to be impossible. Instead of the electronic ballot that we all get to vote, we get the Ernst & Young electronic online ballot. Are you, Bill Simmons, going to request a paper ballot so that you can write G for guard, G for guard, F for forward,

F for forward, C for center because you are an, F for forward, C for center, because you are anti-positionless all NBA, but you're not going to have a choice. You're going to have no ability to designate positions on the Ernst & Young ballot. It's going to be positionless. I think you need to make a special request for your own paper ballot that you can write in Sharpie, guard, guard, guard, F-U, NBA, here's my ballot. No, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to still do guard, guard, forward, forward, center. How?

I'm just going to do it. I'm going to pick five guys in my head, and I'm just going to do it the way I did it. I'm not throwing away 78 years. But you're not going to be able to tell the NBA, this is what I've done, ha ha. I'll tell them on this podcast. I'm not throwing away 78 years of history just because you got peer pressure

by a couple people on Twitter. It's like my least favorite thing Adam Silver has done in the last 10 years. Don't get peer pressured. Oh, I'm sorry, Jokic and Embiid play the same position. I'm pretty sure it didn't bother Bill Russell and Will Chamberlain. It's not a good enough snapshot of the league

if we're you know how would you do it if you had for the all NBA if you could redo the positions would you go point guard two wings two big guys something like that yeah I'd like to point guard wing big but then you get into like what is

Luca what is Harden you know are they point guards because they control the ball they act like we consider quote point guards? Like creators? I will say we're 35-ish games into the season now. Our buddy Brian Windhorst wrote a piece today

about Bam Adebayo. And you know I'm just an unabashed Bam fan. And he got to sit down with Bam. And Bam talked about how much he wants to make all NBA. And he thought he was on track for it last season and I looked it up Bam has missed 10 games already this season like

we're about a month away from the game clock counting thing on 65 games to start to become a thing for some of these guys and it'll be interesting to see like if Bam misses five more games here and there we get to the end of the season like it'll be a talking point he like, if Bam misses five more games here and there, we get to the end of the season. Like, it'll be a talking point.

He'll get asked about it. Players in his position will get it. It just, I flagged it today because of Brian's story. That's all. I'm a huge Bam Adebayo fan and have immense amounts of respect for him. Bam, you're not going to make the All-NBA team this year. I'm just going to tell you now.

It's not happening. I didn't ask to be a part of this. It's not going to happen. With positionless players, there's no chance. Okay, can I make my next pick? Are you done with your Kings? Yeah, let's go.

So you have OKC, Denver, Phoenix, Milwaukee, Houston. And you're just handing me maybe the greatest show in the NBA right now, which is night after night, Joel Embiid has 35 points in three quarters. It makes it look so easy that it's ridiculous.

And when it's not looking so easy, Tyrese Maxey's just zooming up and down the floor. And it's just- I gave it to you because you're my guest. It's just, boom, clean, done. I have nothing more to say. It was interesting. I will say this as gently as I can.

Philly Bulls was the NBA TV game last night, which meant that the Philly broadcast was also on NBA TV. It was fun to see the announced team, Kate Scott and Al Abdel Nabi go into their usual Philly homerism and then remember, oh, there's other people outside of Philadelphia watching this broadcast and then self-correct in real time. Can we just tone it down like 10% on the homerism scale? I think the local announcing situation has never been worse. I don't know what's happened.

And you mentioned how good Eddie and the Phoenix guys are. To me, it's like an anomaly now when i hear a good local broadcast it's just i'm not gonna go that far i just don't like the ones where it's just like we exist better everybody we exist in like a truman show world where you know it's it's all one i don't know don't just give just give me you can be funny and entertaining and not discuss the game through blue colored glasses or whatever. Anyway, that's all. Last night they were very aware of it.

Also, follow the rest of the league. Yeah, that's not that big of an ask. I heard somebody on a game recently in the last week wonder if Wemba Nyama was going to make the All-star team. Well, but could that be cast as a fan vote thing?

Were they curious about... That's his only chance because he's not even one of the six best centers in the West. So I'm going to say he's not going to make it. One last thing on Philly. Embiid and Maxey together are averaging 60.7 points per game. As far as I can tell, nobody has cracked 60 since Will Chamberlain was in his heyday of scoring lots of points and him and Paul Harrison had 72.3 in 1962.

Wilton picked one of four different teammates. But we had 60. Yeah, like Shaq and Kobe, like we had Durant and Westbrook. We had, there was a Curry-Steff here. People always kind of settle in the 55 to 57 range. For two guys to average 60 points a game, it just makes me think like,

this is kind of what happened to baseball when the home run stats got so crazy, you couldn't even compare them to old seasons anymore. And I'm starting to wonder if that's happening with basketball. And by the way, Embiid, they were up by a million against the Bulls at the end of the third quarter.

And so it was possible that Embiid would not return to the game. And he was chasing the 30.10 rebound streak hard at the end. He had 26-28 and he got fouled with 1.3 seconds left shooting foul with 29 points. And it was clear no one else was touching the ball.

He was going to try to get fouled or score. It's just so fun because I think it's up to 15 in a row or something, 30 in 10 games. So I'll take Philly. Lots of free throws, but I'll take Philly. Are you aware of the LeBron 10 points a game streak? Yeah. Didn't it get...

It was in the thousands, didn't it get was it it was in the thousands wasn't it yeah somebody told me that to to watch any laker game where even if the lakers are down 30 lebron's gonna still get to 10 points it's at i guess from it's almost 1200 now of 10 points in a row. And it's over 200 more than Michael Jordan. And nobody else is like within half of it. And I do think it's one of those things, you know, he finds ways to keep invested in the day-to-day of the season. I do think it's one of those things he cares about.

These things don't bother me. No, I'm pro. I didn't even know this was a streak. I was like, whoa, this is a thing that exists? 1,200 games in a row of 10 points? That's fucking crazy. Halliburton was going hard after the 20th assist the other night. You know I love this stuff.

I don't care. All right, let's do one more each. Okay. I'm going to get... I think we have to do a team that's under 500 for our last pick. Okay, that's fine. It's a little disappointing on my end, but it's fine. I'm going to take the Utah Jazz.

Ooh, that's a good pick. Frisky. Frisky right now. Only two games out of the play-in tournament. Another West Coast team. It's one of those teams wherein tournament. Another White Coast team. It's one of those teams where I like 11 guys on the team.

They bring in another guy. I'm like, oh, I like that guy. Oh, I like that guy. Hey, that guy. Their rookie that they took is really good, and they're starting to have trouble keeping him off the floor. George. I wish they would play Taylor Hendricks more. I mean, they don't have space for him, but when he's played, he's been fun, too. The other say George. Well, they, I don't, I wish they would play Taylor Hendricks more.

I mean, they don't have space for him, but when he's played, he's been fun to the other, the other rookie. It's a great trade machine team with Clarkson and Olenek. I don't, I personally don't think there's any chance to trade marketing. Um,

and in general, they just seem to be in good games that are fun to watch. There's a, there's, there's just a flow of their game. They're really well coached. And, uh, like they play the Celtics on Friday night. That's going to a flow of their game. They're really well coached. They play the Celtics on Friday night. That's going to be a really fun game. I'm going to enjoy watching it. That's my last pick. They've been playing well. They just have a lot of interesting pieces that some fit

together well, some don't. If I have to pick an under 500 team, you have left me with the following stalwarts of the NBA. Atlanta, which got 35% more watchable with Jalen Johnson's return, but is still not a fun watch. Really tough. DeJounte Murray's, whatever happened to him this season is upsetting. Toronto, a little fresh jolt of something, but eh. Charlotte is dead last on my list currently with LaMelo Ball injured. Terror was years of his games here and there.

Someone's always injured. Washington is 29th on my list, so that's a no. Detroit is 28th on my list, so that's a no. Brooklyn is 27th on my list. I find them strangely boring to watch. Where's crowd court vibe situation out

of the 30 teams? It's just... It's a bummer. No force. There's no force on that team. I guess by default I have to go Memphis just because Morant is back and that's both a good team.

A competitive, it's a competitive team with Morant smarts back canards back. Like I'm starting to see what their team could actually look like. And Morant Bain Jackson, like we know that's a good foundation and Morant is just a highlight machine. So I'll take Memphis. That's,

that's pretty easy. I can't take it. I want to take, this is why, um, when I did my actual league Pass rankings before the season, I think I had San Antonio 14th. And people were like,

that's way too low. Wim Benyamas must watch TV. I'm like, well, here we are. I mean, Wim Benyamas must watch TV. They're 5-28. Like, it's not that fun to watch a 5-28 team. I have a secret for you.

They were 30 for me. Whoa! I've had it. I've had it. I've had it with them. 30th? You can't have Wemby 30th. It's not a Wemby thing.

It actually, the fact that they have Wemby is one of the reasons they're 30th for me. It's such a disgrace, the team they put around him and how they play and just that they thought this was a good idea

for him to spend his first season on this crap team that has no point guard, no real, I don't even know what their offense is. They get killed every game and it makes me mad because I think Wemby's good. This is not how you build.

I think he's good. He's a really good player who's really interesting and to just say this guy doesn't need to play with a real point guard is fucking stupid. And I I've gotten to the point. I hated the Sohan thing from the get go. Now I've gotten to the point,

like the Celtics killed them. The game was over in five minutes on Sunday. Just makes me mad. It's like, this guy shouldn't be on this shitty of a team. They had options. They had cap space over the summer. They blew all of it on second round picks.

Great. just that the general demeanor of the team is like, they don't care. It's like, they should care. We don't know how many, I watched Ralph Sampson came into the league in 83 and it was like, Oh,

we'll have Ralph Sampson for 20 years. These tall guys, you just never know, you know, and they're just wasting a year, his career. So I don't like it. Is that the cell is pretty good.

Yeah. And Kel and Kelton Johnson's pretty good, who's now coming off the bench. Would Kelton Johnson play for any contender more than 10 minutes a game? I think so. Two guys. Now, he might play. Would he play for the Celtics? I think he could play for the Celtics.

For the Celtics, he's 15 a game, 10 to 15 a game. Would he play more than 12 minutes for OKC? I think you could find 12 minutes for him at OKC. Yeah. But the rest of the team isn't very good. I have to ask you though, is this all just

residual bitterness, Bill Simmons, that the Lakers don't have to pay Austin Reeves like $30 million a year on average for the next four years? Is that what this is really about? Does it go back to the Lakers? They would have paid him 98.

Of course they would have. I did a whole thing about the Spurs last week on my pod. The Murray trade was great. Murray trade was great. Other than that, the last four years are not defensible. How they handled last summer is not defensible. What the situation Wemby is in right now from a basketball standpoint is not defensible.

And I think Pop, if this were football, like the way we treat football teams and how on it people are, like even Belichick, people in New England wanted to dump Belichick halfway through the year because they lost that game in Germany. Belichick's won six Super Bowls.

I just think it's terrible what they've done this season. I don't like it. As someone who doesn't follow football at all, that was a fun sentence for me to journey along with. The Patriots lost the game in Germany.

I'm like, what happened? Who'd they play? The Berlin Bobcats? What happened? By the way, I screwed up. I'm one team short.

Yeah, take a team. I'm going to pass. This is like a snake draft. You get two in a row. Well, this is my last pick. I'm going to pass. This is like a snake draft. You get two in a row. Well, this is my last pick. I'm going to pass on Orlando because their point guard situation really frustrates and annoys me, even though I like watching them. God damn it. Just shoot

me in the head with this. Yes! If Kawhi and Harden and Paul George are all playing well at the same time, if you like basketball, it's hard not to enjoy it. I had them seventh, and I only didn't take them because I wanted to spice it up with the Rockets. I think, look, just as a basketball science experiment, it's fun to watch, and the science experiment is working.

Now Kawhi had the hip thing for a few games, which made everyone look great this week. Again, the PTSD stuff. Um, he's been awesome. They're, they're just,

they're good. They're good. They're good. And I'm interested to see how, how long the good lasts, how good the good can get. But I don't, at first,

the first five, six games where they were, Oh, and five with hard. And I watched every one. Cause I was like, I just got to see how they're going to try to make this work. can get but I don't at first the first five six games where they were 0-5 with Harden I watched every one because I was like I just got to see how they're going to try to make this work what the rotations are going to be what the style of play is going to be and it was so gross that I

felt like I'm going to need to just detox from this and now I'm all the way back in like I want to watch every game obviously the injuries three guys I do not trust to be healthy a week from now. But when they're all healthy, it's pretty good. Kawhi this year is 52%, 43% from three, 87%.

Like percentage-wise, his best ever. And I test last month, he's just looked, when he's played, he's looked awesome. He's got a little more bounce back to him than he did the first month of the season. And there's a physicality to him that you kind of forgot that he had because it's been so choppy his playing time.

But the thing that's really interesting to me is the usage ratings. What do you think Harden's usage rating is this year? What would you guess? 21%. 21%. Yeah, 20. It's 20%.

Paul George is 27. Kawhi is 26. The big thing for me was, how are these three guys who all succeed the most when they have the ball, how are they going to play together? How is that usage rate going to get split up? Just watching it, will it make sense? And it didn't make sense for three weeks. And now watching it, they've kind of navigated it. And this might be my big win this year was OKC thinking that they were going to be a top three team.

Me thinking the Clippers were dumb for this hard to trade. I'm not going to give up on that opinion being wrong. But that might be my big loss this year because these guys are all so smart as basketball players. They figured out how to kind of share the pie. And then on top of it, Zubats has been unleashed now as this alley-oop lob guy that it's almost like they got a guy and a half in the Harden trade. Yeah, he and Harden have real chemistry. They did not for the first five or six games. And I think part of the reason they figured out how to split the pie respectfully is that Russell Westbrook just doesn't get a lot of pie anymore.

He's playing like 15 minutes a game. He barely plays with Harden. That was early on, it was like, how are these four guys who all need the ball? And how are we going to work PJ Tucker into this? And then they were like, you know what? We're actually not. Go over there, PJ. And they kept

Mann and Powell in the trade. They still gave up too much, but they did keep those guys. And Powell's been good for them this year. They always have three guys who can create a shot with the ball that's a pretty good shot. No matter who's playing, who's sitting, whatever. Will Kawhi stay healthy? I don't know.

I think my Clippers kind of shit detector of did they rope their fans back in? These fans that have just been kicked in the nuts now for four decades, they have, and that makes me nervous.

Do you get to, um, carry your season tickets over to the new arena? What, how does that work? How much, how much does the price go up? Like what,

how does it work for you? I, we, me and my, uh, my season ticket partner, Mike Tolan, we,

we locked down, um, for the next couple of years, they locked us up and then they traded for Harden. I was so mad. I was like, how do I get out of this? Because I'm just like, I can't watch this guy. I just can't. I can't do it. But now they're pretty fun to watch. I'm like, all right, new arena, maybe. Maybe this would be better. I mean, the big thing is they get the worst dates. Who's going to play on New Year's Day at 7.30? Oh, I guarantee it's going to be the Clippers.

Who's going to play the Friday 12 o'clock right after Thanksgiving? It's going to be the Clippers. So now they have control over dates that are going to be way more the traditional Wednesday, Friday, Saturday type of games. But yeah, if you're thinking this was the biggest gamble of the year,

so far, you got to say it's worked. I mean, they have no future. They're tied into these guys, but do they have a chance to make the Western Finals with the team they have if all of them stay healthy? They do. Don't you think? Yeah, absolutely.

So that's kind of me semi-admitting defeat, but then one of these guys can get hurt tomorrow. And it's like, I told you they were going to get hurt. Not to sidetrack us or whatever, but I do think it's interesting that teams with the following players did not appear in our draft. Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Zion Williamson, Anthony Davis. I mean, Donovan Mitchell, I guess, if you want.

Some big teams. We concluded we're not in the 15 or whatever most watchable NBA teams. It's a loaded league. This is where we are. All right. Anything you want to plug? No. Okay, good.

So I'm going to pop on your pot either next week or the week after and we'll continue this. We'll be a little closer to trade deadline stuff and things. When do you think our next trade's going to be? I don't know. You've had some doozies recently.

I mean, you were all over the Barrett for Ananobi. I don't know if Quickly was in your construction a bit or not, but I don't remember. But you were all over that. That was a fun trade. I thought they were going to put in your construction of it or not, but I don't remember, but you were all over that. That was a fun trade. I thought they were going to put in a bunch of picks in the Quickly thing. Toronto wanted a player.

They wanted a player. That's why they made the trade. I heard your podcast about it. We did an instant reaction right after, and I don't think I put enough thought into Barrett, whether he was a positive or a negative because of his contract and how many teams would have wanted it.

And I think we all kind of landed there eventually. That Detroit pick was a better asset than I think we gave credit for in the moment when we did our podcast. You think like, oh, it's the 31st pick. I had somebody in the league say to me who heard the podcast we did, you guys got that wrong. The Detroit pick is a better asset than RJ Barrett. I'm like, really?

They're like, yeah, RJ Barrett for $25 million a year? You and I are both a little more positive than the consensus on RJ Barrett. I'm okay with that. I'm bullish on RJ. No, I don't know what he's going to be really. But I like him as a, I think he can be something more than he is now. But you made the key point on your pod. You've got to be, for him to be whatever both of us like about him, he's got to be better defensively. And he's just not yet.

Yeah, he should be a good defense player. There's no reason he shouldn't be. The open threes, it's either going to happen or it's not. That's going to unlock. He's never going should be a good defense player. There's no reason he shouldn't be. The open threes, it's either going to happen or it's not. He's never going to be a great offense player, but he's just got to shoot better on open threes. And if he does, he's a different player. But we shall see. You saw in that Minnesota game,

you know who's really nice to have on your team if he's playing hard is Ananobi. There's five of him in the league. So the Knicks got the best player and you could argue Precious for what they needed at the contract he's at might be a better fit for them than RJ Barrett.

I was a little surprised how many Raptors got the best player in the trade takes there were. I like Quickly. He was my choice for six man of the year. I think he's good. I think it'll be better. He's only,

they're almost exactly two years apart. So in an OB is only two years older than quickly. And I just think playoff skillset, like what you need to win in the playoffs. I just, I think the Knicks got the best player in the trade and I, I don't, I mean,

we can debate it if you want, but that's not even close. They also quickly is redundant with the skills of the best guy they have in their team. Ananobi is a guy they didn't have any version of. And now if you play Boston in a playoff series, guess who's going to be guarding Jason Tatum? Before it was Jason Hart.

Now it's Jason Hart. Why did I say Jason Hart? There was a Jason Hart. Is that my first old guy moment of the podcast? Before it's Jason Hart. Why did I say Jason Hart? There was a Jason Hart. Is that my first old guy moment of the podcast? Before it was Josh Hart turning into like an old radio guy. No, but now they have more functionality. Ralph Sampson came up at one point. Yeah, that was pretty good.

We got to talk about the 86 Celtics home record too. When will you officially be focused on the 40 and one? It sounds like you're there now. I'm there. I'm, I just like it as a piece of trivia. Like I think home record is such a, it's a, it's a cool thing. It's a cool piece. And I remember that last day of the season.

I have to, I'm pretty sure I remember this correctly. I know you're right. It was, they were 39 and one, the 2009 calves. And I think they sat a bunch of guys in that game. Cause it didn't mean anything to them. Seating wise. This is my memory of it. And they went 39-2.

And it was a story. Are they going to go for 40-1 or not? And if I were the coach of that team, I'd have been like, we're going for 40-1. We're tying this record. And just 40 home wins. That's amazing. If they get to 20, I think it's going to be. If they're 20-0, I think it'll be a talking point.

20-0 becomes a thing. So they got Jazz Friday, Timberwolves next week, Rockets on Saturday, E-Maze return, Spurs, and then our guy, the Joker,

is coming on Friday, January 19th. They could be 20-0 on ESPN for the Joker coming to town. But their next six home games or whatever, two of the five best teams in the NBA, Minnesota and Denver, are involved. So this will be good.

If they get through those two games, then we're getting somewhere. Zach Lowe, pleasure as always. Great to see you. Good to see you too. I'll see you soon, Bill. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Zach Lowe.

Thanks to Steve Cerruti and Kyle Creighton as well. I will see you on this feed at some point tomorrow with million dollar picks and some NFL stuff. See you then. I don't have a few years with him on the wayside on the first side I never said I don't have a few years with him

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