The Deep 3 Podcast - The Biggest Surprises Of The NBA Season! | TD3 Live

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Today we talk about the most shocking NBA stories of the season! #nba Support the stream: https://streamlabs.com/thedeep3pod Today we react to all the latest NBA news! Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/ Join the TD3 discord!: https://discord.gg/RUkjpMPp7E Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794 Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/ Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg Muhamed's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_ Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are not late. We're actually a minute early for the first time in weeks. Listen, last week we were beyond late. We had to cancel the stream. It wasn't our fault. It was technical difficulties. But we're here now. We're here bright and early.

We've got to make sure we get here early with you guys. There's no possibility that you guys think we're building on you again. How are y'all doing? Chill. Living life. We're here for the people. IST season now. This is what, week two of the IAC or something like that.

Yep, yep. I'm loving it. Night three. I'm loving it, bro. That's a big night too We're getting after the stream We're getting Cavaliers versus Boston Celtics Probably the game of the year so far

The two Titans out east That's gonna be fun Maybe we'll talk about that a little bit Towards the end of the stream We'll do what we always do We'll go over all the news of the week All the biggest performances The biggest storylines to follow

We'll talk about what you've seen the title And that's going to be the biggest surprises Of the season Which that should be interesting And at the end We'll get your guys as hot takes We'll react to them All the usual TD3 live stuff

We're doing it all today I glanced in the chat and I see two messages back to back. One says the NASA's for president and then Isaac loves white men. Wow. Nice. Here we go. Oh, shot right as the stream starts, we get a $50 tip from KG, aka Kevin Galicki. He's on my way to go to the game right now.

Go Celtics. ending the win streak tonight. Hey, shout out Kevin Gullochie. If I was a Boston Celtics fan that could donate $50 or TD3 live stream, I would also be going to this game. For real. I wish I was a Kevin Gilecki.

And shout out to Joaquin 37 for tipping $7. He said, I'm coaching my little sister's middle school basketball team. I crave wisdom. What is your advice for a good season, offense-wise? Listen, you have them run and run some more. They are in the seventh grade

They have no technical skills You can work on that in the offseason If you try to win games Just try really hard and just run That's it Teaching the Spain pick and roll Run a boxing one on defense We're gonna press full court

We're gonna hand off every single screen These little girls Gonna have a mental breakdown Listen to you Oh my god We're gonna see it We're gonna recover it whenever a small You smash up against a big

We're gonna save them like Marcus Smart in the post We're getting advanced on these eighth graders Listen five out spacing ball movement That's all you need. Everything else will work itself out. They need to have at least an 85 on their report cards. If their grades are not high, I'm not sure they can handle all that. That's the lie.

That's the lie. Oh, yeah, we were in a tie. 2.3 GPA. We're grinding Mark Dagnall film. We're running small, small pick and rolls. We're spacing without Big Man on the core. We're doing all the smart stuff we can. There you go.

15 and old season right there. Congratulations. Yeah, that's how you win. Divisanship on the way. I think we should start the stream by talking about the biggest, the biggest storyline of the day. Yeah.

We have some locker turmoil going on in Philadelphia. Before Thanksgiving? Before Thanksgiving, bro. But three games into Dwell and B coming back from injury, we already have leaks coming out of that locker room. We already have rats talking to Shamsarania.

There was a report this morning that they had a player's only meeting and Tyrese called out Joelle and Bede for always being late to team activities it was a whole excerpt about the whole story about the turmoil going on in Philadelphia right now

but the part that got them was headlines was this excerpt right here I have that says in the meeting Maxie challenged Embed to be on time to team activities calling out the former league MVP by being late quotations for everything and how it is back in the locker room

from other players to the coaching staff apparently he's never on on time for shit. This is a crazy story to see at this time of the year. That's really embarrassing. Of course, Joel NBee normally gets off to a slow start, takes him time to play into shape and also like play into

health, might I say. So it's very concerning to hear this coming. They're what? At this point in time, they have a record of 2 and 11, abysmal. No one expected that. There's so many layers to like their level of cheeks and how ass they are. Now,

the only bright spot is, yeah, At least Jared McCain is over here doing, you know, his thing. He's the best rookie out of his class so far. Not too much, not too much. You're doing great. We're doing great. No, we're going to talk about Jared later. We're going to talk about Jared later.

Let's save it. Okay. But yeah, so that was a part of it was that Tyrese was about him being late. Before Donovan gets to go crazy because I know you're holding off some scathing criticism you're ready to explode with, you know? The other part of this was, Jualenl Mbeat has reportedly been frustrated at times with how he's been used on the basketball court. So he's always late, but he's also for him.

shirted. According to the team and league sources, Maxi highlighted the need for Embedith said a better example as a leader on a day-to-day basis while emphasizing the importance of timeliness. The message in essence was that everything with her program starts with the big man and he simply must be better when it comes to leadership. Joel Embedde, on the other hand, league and team sources say, heard the message while also expressing a lack of clarity and occasional frustration about how he's being used on the court. So, TLDR, he was like, I hear you, looks over our Nick Nurse, but I need you to put the ball in my fucking handsom That's what he said.

He defended himself, I guess, by being frustrated with his role. Donovan, how does it make you feel? Honestly, I read this story and the first thing that came to mind was you, actually. Let's go. Because you, last year, and it was either last year or the year before that, coined Joelle and Bede with the most accurate nickname of all time, Big Harding. Because this is exactly the stories that came out a couple years ago, we were talking about James Hardin, where the players are like, you know, Russell Westbrook is like,

yo, you're late to stuff, you're not showing up, you're flying here on one night, we have a game over here, there's just no accountability. And James is like, well, I score 60 points every night so I can really do whatever, whatever I want. And it's kind of the same thing here with Joelle and Beebe. For Tyrese Maxie to be the guy who is already, like, still a young player, and everybody, like, everybody loves Tyree's Maxie. He's grown in his role, all that stuff. he's right everything starts and stops with joel and b and he's like oh i hate i hate the way that um you know that i'm being used you probably would feel a little bit more comfortable if you were in that situation more but you can't be in that situation more because you don't play and all of us

have been in you know it just in limbo wondering whether or not you're you're going to play and yeah you can blame nick nurse but also nick nurse came in last year changed your whole flow of You have one of the best scoring seasons you've ever, you've ever been in, you playmate at a, at one of the best ever did. You were looking like one of, you were having one of the best overall seasons that we've ever seen from a superstar. And now got you even more help. They turned out Tobias Harris for Paul George, got you even more help. You've only played three games. What did you think was going to happen?

Like, yeah, fam, this is going to take some time, right? Talk to me about role in January. Talk to me about role in February when we've played 30, 40, 40 games. games you might have only played 22 games by that point so it's ridiculous for joel and b to be at this stage in the season to be like yeah i don't like the way that i'm being used right now when you are going to touch the ball every possession anyways it's always going to it's always going to come back to you anyway so it's it's ridiculous and the fact that they're two and eleven because of all these injuries the fact that they're two and eleven and the season looks kind of cooked we're having

players only meetings before thanksgiving it's just it's a complete amalgamation of of what happens whenever you have Joelle and Bede and the lack of accountability at your star position. And then we've seen over and over, Paul George goes to teams. I'm not saying it's his fault, but I know that like over the summer, I remember Brian Winhorse was like, how many victories has Paul George been a part of? And how many times have we trusted it and it failed?

And this is, it really is just following. We've seen with a lot of these guys. And the fact that the four-year pro has to go out and tell the 13-year veteran has to go out and tell the league MVP this is the way like you just have to show up and be on time that's ridiculous that's crazy

what he means by frustration with his role because do you think he means these three games has been back is he not happy with the way he's been ease into it and played more off ball as he like gets in the flow because surely he can't be upset with his role last year

and like overall under Nick Nurse because like you said it was absolutely dominant when he was healthy it would be puzzling if he had an issue with that and if it is just his three games surely he also understands that he's being eased back into it minutes wise touch wise everything because he didn't touch a bath hole for four fucking months recovering from injury so i'm wondering

where that pov comes from of him being frustrated by his role because it doesn't make any sense to me watching him play i'm very i'm very confused also i have a question because like i don't even i can't off the top of my head i can't remember because obviously like joel played in the off season but do you guys remember what happened between october between like the end of the olympics and the start of the season because he was healthy then he was playing and he looked fine and all of a sudden it's like oh yeah joll and be like got injured again he's he's gonna be ramping up i was like to to like this point in the season i'm like forgetting what happened in the offseason where it just it feels like it was just very random where he just popped up and had to you know

start being ramped up and it was random yeah it was just reported that he's dealing with this knee issue that many people assume was a thing during the olympics and he played on it there was there's not there's not i don't think there's great clarity i'm sure sixers fans that follow the board more have a little bit more understanding of that, but it certainly did come out of nowhere. Yeah. When it comes to the talk about, like, him not being happy with his role and frustrated that he's not having the ball on his hands, I mean, that just sounds like he's being super defensive

and just like looking for, he's just like, defecting attention from like his actual ability to be punctual. I agree 100% with what you were saying, Donovan, and with what Tyrese said as well, if you're the face of the guy, if you're right at the process, you're supposed to show. show how the process should be day in and day out since you're the best player, the most paid player, you have the most longevity there. You run shit. You're supposed to run that organization from head to tone to have a 23, 24-year-old dude being

like, yeah, this guy's not on his stuff, is damning. I see this when it comes to his deflection when it comes to talking about, yeah, I don't have the ball on my hands enough. You haven't even played with your full squad just yet. Tyrese, your point guard hasn't been there. You've been hooping with Kyle Lari, Jared McCain, and Paul George struck the only three games that he's played. Complaining about touches when you just came back within those three games

and acting as if you've been cooking, he's been playing like a pile of dog shit. Which, of course, it's fair because he just came back from injuries like that. It's like, what are you even talking about right now? Exactly. Definitely screams deflection. And again, this is, we don't know exactly what was said. Maybe the way he talked about his role is more,

uh, maybe it was more understandable if we actually hear the words being said and not an excerpt that says had frustration with his role that can mean anything so I won't go too far at that but it does sound like deflection like it is funny that it was mentioned in this way

like you know Shams generally knows what he's talking about and clearly there was a inside leak about this so I think it's probably not a coincidence that he talks about being called out for being late and then says but he also had issue with his role

that sounds to me like yeah well well well why don't I get this and this like it's a serious question With the stuttering and everything. Well, Nick didn't call another picking rolls last game, so how about that? Maybe that's why we lost. Question.

What's your question? Who do y'all think snitched? Oh, well, okay, I'd rather not comment on that. I think it's very clear. Now, someone on Twitter said, like, bro, no, this is Eric Gordon's snitching or, like, as always. I will say, you know, just funny. Never mind. What are you?

who sounds who comes out this article sounding best think about that and then think about whose representation might have the most reason to do that who seems like

who seems like the hero of this story how's that what I was really aiming towards is Eric Gordon because of that meme of this dude in the jury pointing

it's 100% Eric Gordon just for the plot it would be funny if it was Eric Gordon if he was back there just watching and just like

know that meme where the guy's like side-mout thing is like like that's Eric Gordon in the background that's 100%

Eric Gordon. He just looks like okay, trust him. Yeah, but okay, so I feel like there's been a lot of character assassination of Joelle and Buey the last couple years. And I say assassination, let me not say that, because that kind of implies that it's not deserved. But it seems like we've seen kind of a character downfall of Jewel and Bede in the last couple of years based on a lot

of reporting. Like, he's in this, like, weird villain era where he's, like, trolling a lot and, like, saying things he shouldn't say and now this, like, there's just so much cumulative effect of why this seems like there's, like, more and more reason to not believe in Joel and Bid. How do you all feel about this in terms of like the direction of the team because obviously they're not playing well

if their best player has leadership issues as it's seemingly reported that he's also has availability issues he has health issues he has general performance and clutch moments issues in terms of playoffs like there's a lot bubbling up that I feel like if you're a six-ish fan you're starting to get a little concerned yeah I think but I think even going into to last season you you kind of felt where it's like okay if like if this maxi thing doesn't doesn't work out right like James Hardin has gone. How many more errors are we going to be? Is M.B. going to be on the move? Is he going to be the next star that asks out? And so there was a time where M.B. leaving the Sixers wasn't a crazy thing to think of. And it wouldn't have been insane for

an organization to say, okay, we're going to start, you know, accumulating assets. Because if they have one more second round exit and like let's say that Embed was healthy and they still lost in the second round, okay, now we're going to go. and, you know, make a run at it if he doesn't feel comfortable. The fact that Maxie turned into the guy that he was last year kind of calmed everything down and then obviously adding Paul George there, but contracts in the NBA, star situations, they're so flexible that we can get, we can fire this up at the end of this season where you have Maxie, you have Paul George, and if the Sixers, if they can't get out of

this hole, if they get, you know, they, let's say they somehow, they rise up, they get to the nine games under 500 right now. Let's say they get to like 500. It's a huge goal. No, it's massive. The East sucks though. So like let's just say best case scenario. They get there in the East, what?

Five hundred is like the four seed or something. If they still have a, if they still have a first and second round exit, yeah, you're going to start hearing about that. And I think from this point on, it's kind of like, all right, like what, what are we actually doing here? Forget all that, Donovan. I think in these next 10 to 15 games, you're going to really. start hearing that because i feel like although like the east is like poo-poo and garbage

211 11 is insanely tough to come back from insanely tough to come back from and if they continue to go on these kids also having joel and b being continuously out teres max he's currently after injury as well and paul george not even looking like himself at all struggling to get separation from his shots and taking the hardest shots on the world consistently i could have told you that real scary bro I couldn't have told you that. It's pretty scary. We were talking about that last year.

You were. And comments were kind of cooking us at the end of last year because I was saying like, I think Paul George is taking a step back. I think the writing's on the wall. Like, he can still be a very good player for a long time,

but you're starting to see the age hit him a little bit. And again, a little bit. Like, it's not he's cooked. He's not on like 2024, Chris Paul timing where he's like a role player. Nothing like that. But it's a little bit turns into a lot of it. Pretty fast.

You never really see it coming. And right now we know he's coming from so we're giving him some grace. But if I was a Sixers fan, I would be scared to give this guy $60 million a year at the age 38. But they've already done it. It's already over.

You're going to give him that money, but it would be worrying me. It's so funny seeing him hit all the fanciest like jerom moves and the defender just still like, snatchback right there in your face. Just trying to get. Post it and not moving. I'm right here.

That's the thing that people do need to like get kind of in their head, though, is that LeBron and Steph, and even KD, those three guys, the peak of, you know, of their generation, they have fooled everybody or made everybody believe that you can be 37, 38 years old and still be a legitimate top 10 player in the world. That's not the case for everybody. You've seen that now with Chris Middleton, who's getting up there and his injuries. You're seeing that with Dame, where he's slowed down a little bit. You've seen that with James Hardin and now Paul George, like getting playing 30 being 34 and already having 12 to 14 years in the league that's a long

time and that's a lot of basketball for guys who have had a lot of injuries you can't be shocked when things start to decline you know yeah it's a it's weird though because they feel very cooked but also they haven't played a single game with their three star players playing together plus jerd mccane was playing like a goddamn all-starter's rookie year i think they'll still be really good when they're fully healthy like all the reasons we thought they could be a great team when they sign Paul George still exist. We just haven't seen it like it's not like the bucks who have been largely healthy

outside of Chris Middleton who at this point is never healthy. But like we've seen what we're expecting to see out of the bucks and it hasn't been pretty. The Sixers we just haven't seen it yet. So I'm not full on in like fucking ring the alarms, complete panic, they're done mode with the Sixers. But nine games is a big hole

and it's only getting bigger. At a certain point they have to start to turn it on and that time is coming very soon. They don't really have any room forever. According to to tankathon, you look at their remaining schedule. And it's like 17th in the league. And so it's right around middle of the pack.

Basically the rest of their schedule right now is about 500. And they still have two games against the Cavs. They have all four games against the Celtics that they have to play. They have a big hole to jump out of. We don't even know when Maxie's coming back. Yeah. We'll see, man. We'll see.

Tough scene. Let's get us some don't knows real quick. Shout out to Mike Dyson and Daniels for tipping $5. He said, who was Ramon's next victim. His track worker over the last couple of years is attacking international big man. Does Embed need to be attacked by Draymond to wake up? One thing about Dramon is that he's smart

and he picks his battles. Joelle Embed is the battle that he would not want to see. Yeah, he's bigger than him. That's his team. I see. Oh, no, they didn't play together. Yeah, he might do it. He might do it.

Maybe so. Shout out to Bet-Bet Soup for tipping $10. Much love from the Seattle area. quick WRL take when the sonnas come back should they rebrand and if they do I petition that they rebrand

to the Seattle Sirens no they got to be Supersonics for sure You have to be You have to be this But SuperSons is too nostalgic and classic Is that a big thing

In Seattle? They got mass sirens Well it's sirens like The mythical creature The like mermaid type thing And like aquatic life Is a big thing Of Seattle culture

I've never heard of that I didn't know that A siren is like an evil Mermaid, essentially. They stay away from their bad. Yeah, it's an evil mermaid. Gotcha. And so they like, they like, yeah, they like, yeah, they're like, and then like, they fuck

with your mind. It's crazy. All right, man, that's not up 76 years talk. Let's get to another new story that is a positive one, is a great one that NBA fans around the world rejoiced in. Breaking news, starting next season, ESPN slash ABC will have the rights to air inside the NBA per Wall Street Journal. This broke a few days ago.

Everybody cheered. Warner Bros. struck a new NBA rights deal to have digital rights that makes it so neutral report and has some highlights. Keep NBA rights. Good for us. And inside the NBA will continue to be produced by TNT and air on ESPN and NBC. How are you feeling? You guys happy to see more inside? Yeah. I mean, I'm interested in seeing how contractually and also like how they're going to how involved the ESP ain't going to be. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I don't want to see too much Stephen A. Smith hopping on inside B&B because I'll ruin the show. I want to see

no Stephen A. Smith. One or two collabs occasionally, but on the regular basis, I want it to be untouched. Not a single Stephen A. Smith insert. Yeah. And like the way that they framed it is like, you know, T&T and like Warner Bros. Like they're still producing it. So you are still going to, so like the people who have

been behind the cameras and behind the scenes, they're still going to be there. But ESPN is ESPN and they're always going to, you know, have their fingers in and whatever. I'm 100 percent sure that we're going to see a lot of collides between between Stephen A and between inside the NBA. Not sure how I feel about that.

Folks over here talking, yeah, folks over here talking about NBA medias in such a terrible place when it comes to covering the game, this does a lot to not help that statement at all. I think Brian Winhorst said that a couple weeks ago, maybe a week or a week, two weeks or so. And this will not help at all if these two are able. to collab on a consistent basis and they're good they're right actually they're right for what they are but good god having these two having ESPN and T&T just consistently run NBA meeting covering these

games okay well good for the casual thing well let's talk about the state of the NBA program of all time in fact let's talk about the state of the NBA's that's also been a a big topic of discussion i got this two pulled up that you just referenced Brian win horse says NBA media is not a good place. He says, NBA media right now, we're not a great place because I think we're devaluing things that help build the league up. Like one of the things is storytelling. Everything is too short right now. People are too focused on tweets, too focused on guys getting crossed over, guys getting dunked on, guys getting embarrassed, social media posts, not as much on storytelling, learning about players and learning their backgrounds, what I call chronicling the season.

Is this something to talk on the best? YouTube shorts is an issue. I think you mean some more Twitter is the issue, which is a big thing. And when we talk about support, I've talked plenty about my displeasure with the current state of NBA discourse and how negative it is and all this stuff. I think we can all agree that Brian Woodhors is largely correct that NBA media is kind of in a poor state in terms of actually covering the league. We all agree there? Yeah.

Yeah. For sure. So the ramifications of that has been, people are linking that and a lot of other things to the NBA media rights, I mean, NBA TV ratings being down right now. over the first week of the season they were way down from the previous year and everybody in the country everybody on Twitter is getting their two sentiments

about why they think the NBA is struggling the common sentiments is one it's really hard to watch games too many people have to watch it legally because League Pass blocks out their local teams and obviously not everybody has cable all these reasons that makes the NBA hard to watch which is fine, it's a good argument

the one that annoys me is everybody is latching on to rating bad because too many three is shot which I think is just like the most what the fuck are we talking about narrative basically people were saying the style of play has become unfun and people the casual fan thinks every team plays the same it shoots too many threes and makes them not want to watch of everything i just said what do y'all buy into as being real and what's not real about why the NBA ratings are down i i believe i believe that

that statement is correct though i think that casual fans do look at the league and say there's too there's too many threes i don't think that there's a direct correlation but I do think that that if you are not watching the NBA every single night and if you are not like watching the way the teams play play basketball and even you don't even have to be like a super you know like nerdy film bro or anything like that if you're not like actively tracking the lead there is a sentiment where people are like oh yeah like everybody just shoots just shoots threes now everybody plays the same way so I can see a situation where people kind of take that narrative

and run with it for themselves and maybe don't watch the games during the regular season until there's actual stakes behind it. So I actually do think... It's a real sentiment. I'm not saying people shouldn't think that. I understand why Casual Plan feels that way.

I understand the narratives at play that make them latch onto that. I think equating that to that being my ratings down is a misunderstanding of how TV ratings work and how macro these things are. But you're right, it is a real sentiment which means something.

I don't think it's the biggest reason ratings it down, it is a real thing people think so I don't want to discredit that yeah I agree yeah I think the biggest reason it has to be illegal streams naturally it's like so easy to access and the quality in them a lot of times are better than the actual product that the NBA puts out and charges folks $90 $120 or whatever the fee is every single year so I think that's the biggest issue I think if there were somehow some way able to like accumulate all these numbers and they'll notice like oh like we didn't fall off or whatever but they don't pay it to

those numbers because they don't profit off of those numbers and I think like just overall awareness the game is actually growing look at the all the social media accounts and stuff like that to cover the game backhanded we all know like things are actually happening but in terms of what brings them more dollars and what

consistently like helps elevate the league financially in these players is a TV shit I think it's just like an old way of like telling an old measuring stick to figure out how the game is growing which is just a little bit poor in my mind yeah I think the three-point narrative is largely lazy.

I think it's a very surface level understanding of what we're looking at right now that people, there's a lot of, you know, I think it all stems from like old heads being like, they shoot 23 these days, and that kind of got the ball rolling, and now people feel that way because they've been told to feel that way, and they see a lot of threes, and they're like yawn, whatever.

But I think people that actually watch on a consistent basis will tell you that, yes, there's a lot of threes, but the idea that all teams play the same is where you lose that correlation. Every team choose a lot of threes, but they don't get to those three's the same way. So I think the actual Encore product doesn't actually look that. Yeah.

Like everything being the same. The casual fan doesn't look at it like that though. They just see three point go up and they're like, uh, what the fuck? Exactly. But I think it's, that's more so like the social media. Like everybody's- That's highlight watching. So much, so much is talked about the three-point shots being boring that people are like, oh yeah, three-point shots are boring. You know, like it's become a thing that everyone's been told is true.

So everyone runs with it. And I understand that I'd say, I don't know if it's a problem. Some people were saying it is. I think it might be just like. things people have to come accustomed to over time. I don't think you can really do anything about it. So I don't personally put that much stock into that as an issue that anybody needs to solve because I think at a certain point they can't.

But I do understand the gripe to a certain extent. Yeah, I've been around plenty of old times before who were just like, oh, like so many threes. But I think today, they're still watching and tuning in. They just have minor complaints about it. Adam Silver's response yesterday was, I think we're looking at a couple weeks of ratings. There's always some unique things. This year we're up against the World Series. you had a presidential election

which was commanding an enormous amount of attention and I think this is okay so my opinion is that we're making way too much of a hoopla about it something that's not a big deal at all we're looking at like

Adam Silver just said two weeks of ratings and we're acting like the fucking sky is falling first reality every single TV product across the nation is on the way down year over year

TV ratings are just going down across the board the only thing that stands to test of time and hasn't seen that is the NFL because the NFL is a powerhouse TV product that we've never fucking seen in this country. Like the NFL is immune to anything.

Outside the NFL, no programming is immune to it. HBO numbers are down. Regular like Fox ABC sitcom numbers are down. NBA is down. NHL had a big year last year, but year over year they're down from where they were 10 years ago. MLB, same thing.

You're going to see it across the board that list Americans watch TV than ever before. And then the other party said, yeah, it's an election year. The first couple of years are going to be slow. every single time you're in election year, TV numbers are down for everything that's not the election. That's like so incredibly normal. Yeah. I think we need new units of measurement for this. NBA needs to be smarter and beware like, oh, like maybe this isn't the best way to go

and figure out how this park is actually doing. Let's go ahead and see how the social posts are doing. Let's see how like the metrics are for illegal sites or can we like team up with these people and like figure out ways stuff. Yeah, exactly. I remember like five six months ago. I remember five, six months ago, I saw a screenshot of LeBron James on one of the illegal sites and he was just like booing on

I think during Summer League or something like that. Just like watching the fun play. Yeah, it was crazy. It was hilarious. Your point, NBA, the NBA does do that. They understand the power of their impressions across social media.

Like, that's what makes the NBA so big is that they dominate social even more than the NFL. So they're aware of these things. Their measure success is not just TV ratings. It's mostly fans that are running with this and then media members talking about it. So I don't think

The NBA is probably super worried about it, especially because they do sing their TV deals. But they care, obviously, because they want the next TV deal to continue to rise and rise and rise and make more money. But people is definitely a very antiquated metric that people treat as like the end-all, be-all. MBA is dying. MBA is doing worse. How do we fix this broken product because of one two-week span of ratings? I think is a little bit too reactionary. Fix me back, please.

It's also like, do you enjoy basketball? Do you like watching it? Like, if you do, cool. Like, I think a lot of people think that, like, they see, they see ratings go down and they're like, see, that's why I'm not watching. It's like, if you don't like basketball, that's cool. You just don't, you don't have to put on the show and act like you. Yeah, are you a fucking TV exec?

Why do you care about TV ratings? Why does anybody that doesn't work at ESPN or TNT care about TV ratings? But it's, it's dope. Yeah, that part's dope. I don't care at all. Whatever, let's talk with a new next story outside of the NBA. and withering away. Oh, what are we going to do?

Never thought about the next story. Real quick, I'm talking to you, Karen eater, watching this live stream on this glorious Tuesday night, 630 Eastern Time specifically. Why are there just about 800 people in this stream and you only have specifically 188 likes? That means there's over 600 of y'all.

And you tap into the like button. Bulliam. And do what you're supposed to do. For sure, William. And I'm a company. through this camera and bop you in your head with this goddamn crayon. Get woke. Leave a like.

Oh, now there's 50 more likes immediately before you finish a sentence. There we go. The next news story. Cam Thomas is considered available for trade per Sam Amick in the athletic. Essentially the story says, yes, they're going to try and trade Dennis Schroeder. They're going to try and trade

Bogdama, Bojan Bogdanovich, all these vests that are hanging around who, I didn't realize Boiang was on the nest. I don't know how the fuck I missed that. And apparently Cam Thomas is not safe from that. He is also available for trade. What teams out there do you think would

it make sense for them to spend big assets to get Cam Thomas? What teams are in the mud offensively? I know the 76 is like the worst offensive team in the NBA but right now that's just mudded up because they have a ton of injuries. Cam's just a terrible place for them. I mean, okay, so Denver Nuggets

are obviously devoid of talent. Maybe that can be something they need a bench piece. Don't see it for many reasons, but Denver Nuggets need a punch. The magic are always a team that's linked to needing guards, but Frons definitely amazing. So do you want other person needs a ball in their hands? That's not Palo or Franz. I don't know, but maybe for their bench.

That would make sense. The Utah Jazz are in tear-down mode. They could maybe do that. It's hard to imagine a team. Yeah. Cam Thomas is just, he needs the ball in his hands so much in order to be effective and when the ball is not in his hands, it's like, all right, homie, what are you doing after that? It's not too much.

People are saying Lakers, lowly. Bro, the Lakers are fourth and offensive rating and 26th in defense. They do not need Camp Thomas. They do not need Camp Thomas. They do not need Camp Thomas. Think about Cam Thomas and I imagine somebody who has the opposite ability in every single skill set. That's who they need. They need Tony Allen.

That's what they need. They need Bruce Bowen. They need Dennis Rodman. Like, that's who the Lakers. I wish Miami didn't have Rozier and Tyler Hero because I would love to see Cam Thomas in Miami. Yeah. That's a good one. You're going to ship radio as you're out.

You still got the same issue, though. I guess, listen, Terry hasn't been hooping, so if you just still want to go with like, hey, we have two small guards who just get buckets and no defense, all right, fine. I don't think I don't get him to start cam. He'd be a six man, but I can see. About the Detroit Pistons, if I was Detroit Pinsons, I'd be interested in tapping in with him to see what might be there if you can get them for cheap. What is it?

So what does the Camtomish trademark look like? What does cheap mean? Like, what do you give up to get Cam Thomas? Or I should say, what do the Nets want for Cam Thomas? They should want to pick for sure. I think he's worth a first round thing. Well, yeah. You want two or three, maybe?

You'd give her. No, not three. I'm not giving a three. It's crazy, too. Maybe two. Maybe two. But what team? There's like, it's so limited, though.

It's so limited. I don't, I don't, is that not? A hell no. No. Minnesota? Yeah. If Dante Divencinto continues to struggle, then sure, I can see that. But I don't like that because we thought, because like, I mean, we thought that they were going to get the, the, the juice off the bench with, with Rob.

And that just hasn't been the case. And so, like, if he's, if they just feel like he's not ready enough to, to be the assets they have. And I, because, again, I don't know, like, what the next would want. But that could be something where. You need a punch, another punch, and you feel like that? Maybe them. Who else? Speaking of another.

San Antonio, go get a bucket. Good Lord. Another early trade market type of reports. Earlier, Shams reported that the Lakers are actively looking to trade for a big man. I quoted this and I said, they 100% need to get a big man. I agree. But if it's Jonas Valencianus, I will lose my goddamn mind. and I have a strange suspicion

that it's going to be Jonas Valenciunis. Really? Tell me why. Tell me why. Because every single report that comes out makes it sound like, God damn, but they love Jonas Valenutis.

It's a Rob Polinka-ass move because he knows that they're linked to him this summer. They missed out. And I don't know how many other bigs are going to be available. There's Jakopold who seemed like he's playing out of his goddamn mind.

He's feasting right now, dude. Yeah. Walker Kessler is too, expensive. Robert Williams is unreliable as a hill. It's just you can go down every single name and strike them off the Lakers list for various reasons.

And all roads are the Jonas Valchunis and all roads lead to me with my goddamn hair up. I got some for you. Would you like a singular Anya Komo and your Los Angeles Lakers? Oh, let's talk about that. I thought you were a young fella. Are you ready to talk about Anyaqa being wildly disappointing like I told you who would be the summer?

you slam the door too soon I wouldn't say wildly disappointing that's very harsh in my mind but I mean I'm not slam the door it is weird for him to be like year four year five and still not be able to leap and surpassed with a pillar in the starting lineup naturally I think his place

out just doesn't work with Tray Young offensively this summer I said that I like the idea of him I've been high on his potential we just haven't seen it yet and I think he looks exactly the same as he always have he's not a huge lob threat he's not a rim protector he is switchable enough but not enough that's like huge value like when is he going to find a strength to really hang his hat on i don't know what it is

right now he's kind of good at guarding smaller players but he's kind of good he's kind of good he's kind of good at a lot of things where he's trying to stretch out the four you know he may be shooting like 26 28% of three point line but hey he's putting them bitches up there you just he just doesn't have the inability to find a real super strength on the court just yet. So he's just like... What do you mean just yet? It's been half a decade.

That's why he's on the bench. That's why in my mind he should probably be shopped. It's really concerning. Like, yeah, this dude was like a top five, seven or whatever draft pick a couple years ago when he's still riding the coattails of the bench behind Clinkapel as always. That's a very good quality player. It's very valuable to have someone who's playable and isn't actively hurting your team when he's receiving 20, 25 minutes a game.

But also at the same time, too, we're sick of this shit. oh yes i am sick of this shit i need real talent on my team i need an advantage i need a real seven-footer he's fine yeah he's just he's so small and he seemed like he was going to be a guy that can play above his size and really have impact down low while having mobility of a smaller guy a la draymond green or whatever other mobile big you want to apply to a smaller scale and you just don't see him playing above his size he's just kind of undersized and plays that way yeah and what's what makes it worst. What makes the worst about it, too, is like, if you're going to be semi- undersized, like, or kind of like a one-way type of big, in my mind, he reminds me of, like, a

worst version of John Collins, like, in terms of, like, overall value in the NBA, like, yeah, cool, like, you know, you're not the biggest of your size, but you don't have the necessary tools, like outer, outer edge tools, like shooting or passing, or being in a super league rebounder or whatever it is to, like, be okay with being. small sometimes. Be okay with not grabbing the most rebounds or be okay not being a real lob threat or spacing the floor. None of that shit is okay though right now. I saw this graph from D. Lee 4-3. Shout out him. Great TikTok creator. Atlanta Hawks fan. He said on Yeko, you're breaking my heart because this graph is a pie, not pie chart, whatever chart, why am I losing my mind that

has one axis is three point shooting talent. One axis is rim protection. Scatter plot. Yeah, scatter plot, sure. Top right. So this is basically the bigs that are the best mix of shooting and rim protection. I went to 10th grade. You look at it. You see the bottom right, you have Carlton Town, who has maxed out shooting talent, but the bottom of the barrel room protection. You can see the top right who is amazing at both.

You have Victor Wenbanyama. And you look on the other end, somebody who has, you know, great room protection, three-point shooting talent is if you got Chad Hong Green, all these things that make sense. You zoom in, you look here in the bottom left. You see when you go, Kongwu. Being on the bottom left,

he's next to Daniel Tice, Jonas Valchunis, Andrei Drummond, Nemeus Keda, Joklondale. Back up, back up, back. Dario Sarge hiding behind Sabonis. Basically, these are players who suck ass at room protection and suck asses shooting. Not a great place to be on this graph. Not at all. But he doesn't suck ass.

You just said he was shooting less than 30% from three. Someone said, Namius Kada spotted. Yeah, man, these are two skills that you put. probably want to have a big man that's good at at least one of them you just don't want to be in the bottom left of this graph and that's where he is right now yeah listen any teams that need a big out there indiana paces you just lost james wiseman i know you're hurting right now i got another i got another version of james wison for you izac again hit my line hit my business email all right and we can talk about potential unyakalongu trades or whatnot that's how you know you know you're

cooked you said another version of james wiseman yes over. It's over, buddy. Wrapping up. Yeah, yeah. I don't know you want the D version James Wiseman. That's just a terrible, terrible place to be in. James was actually really good for the Pacers when he played, like, four games or whatever. But he would actually- You played a game at a half. You got heard of the second. You're talking about James Wiseman variance.

I don't want that on my team. He had a good game. You would actually want him on your team, Donovan. Ironically enough. No. For sure. Okay. Yeah.

Mr. Robinson? He's making TikToks, and he's on the bench most of the time. We got Hugporti. What you mean? Huck Pordy's like that. All right, man. Shout out to Bailey record for tipping $5 twice, $10 total. He said, do my Rockets seriously have...

You ain't know. Do my Rockets seriously have a shot at Yannis if you request a trade? No. Yeah, no. Thank you for the donation. Thank you, though. Next new story. Draymond Green says LeBron played a role in convincing him to re-signam of Golden State

instead of joining Memphis in the 20-23 off-season. This is your weekly Draymond Green mention to LeBron James. This is what I'm saying. I hope, I hope that I have more self-awareness than a lot of NBA players. Because obviously, you're online and you know the jokes. I know Draymond sees the stuff people say about how he's just constantly glazing LeBron. You can't give people ammunition to call you a glazer. especially you just can't do it

and here he goes giving everybody even more stuff to say come on man come on man shout out to Mike 4458 who says RIPE Jamal Murray he's himself he is alive

but his basketball skills are dead that's a great transition because now we're done with the news stories we're going to go over to the main topic of the episode and we're going to talk about the biggest surprises of the season and I love Mike 4458 for bringing up Jerome Murray because that is my first big surprise of the season

Guys, I think it's time to take Jamal Murray out to the pasture. In terms of top 10 point guard talks, top 10, I've been to that. Like really high level player, he should be an all far eventually. Those type of convos, I think we're all but dead. We're seeing something really weird at Jamal Murray. Notice. He looks athletically far past his prime and he's 27 years old. Like, he's not just shooting poorly.

He's not just in a slump or anything. we've seen like a year and a half now of him just not having the burst he once had and seeming like he took a step back and doesn't have that same high level ceiling he once had like if you look at footage from the title run versus footage of him today he just straight up looks slower incapable of beating his man one-on-one there was clips back in 2022 where he was blown by jared randerville a great premier defender one-on-one and hitting floaters over anthony davis's head because he had the first step he had the touch and ability to rise up on those floaters, all the athletic traits needed that his shot making can really, really look

great. None of that has been there this year. He looks like he's 33 and is really weird. That's what injuries would do to you, right? I, man, it's stuff. Because if Jamal Murray is not 23, Jamal Murray, if he's not, you know, playoff Jamal Murray, the nugget, I mean, I don't care how good Nicole Yucic is. The Nuggets title window is closed. Oh, yeah. There's just, There's just no way that they are winning a championship, maybe even getting back to a conference finals. Actually, you know, I'll say that. Maybe Yokin's is like that great that he can get him to a conference finals.

You get like a KG situation. But they are not winning a title if Jamal Murray is of himself. And it's, dang, it's so sad, man. This, ah, we were talking so quickly after they, after they won. Like, is this going to be a dynasty? They have these four for the next, you know, everybody's locked up. Like, yeah, Bruce Brown is gone, but it's okay. We have the best starting five.

And then now all of a sudden, starter is gone. And play. Yolkins is out here trying to be Superman every single night. And it's over. It's over. Yeah, man. So much of the issues we've been talking about with the Nuggets and like, so when, okay, their bench does suck or it's getting better now.

But it's not super, not a lot of firepower on the bench. Yeah. That is a weakness. But the thing is, it's never been great outside that first year. They had Bruce Brown and all those guys that, You know, slowly got depleted. Like, last year it wasn't great, but the starting lineup was amazing. And it still was very good, but it's not as great as it once was.

And then, like, you think about last year, they lost the Timberwolves. And the convo was, wow, the Timberwolves built a perfect lineup to stop Nicola Yokic. They built themselves tailor-made to beat the nuggets. What a great team-building thing. Amazing defensive performance, yada, yada, yada, yada. Jamal Murray shot like dog shit. They didn't really stop Nicole Yokic. He played really, really badly.

and if he played fine, they probably would have won and wouldn't have melted down in game seven like that. So like you look at all their things and all their issues that have been assigned different reasons. A low-key all kind of comes back

to Jamal Marie's not able to be high-level enough that their top-end talent can hide the weaknesses of the roster anymore. Yeah, there's only so much that they can get away with. Like Nicole Yolkech's best player, one of the best players we've ever seen. We can all agree to that.

If you are not going to have Jamal Marie be who normally is, which is a fringe all-star, one of the best tough, tough shot makers and takers that the league has to offer at that position, okay, you can't afford Michael Porter Jr. not taking any type of step, whether it be defensively or offensively being a better pass or having more creation to his game. You can't afford that while also having Aaron Gordon be the same level player that he's been, which is like not bad at all, but in terms of just like having weaknesses, you have to find somewhere where you can recoup that and they have none of that at all now christian brawn great player cool dude he's not

enough just yet to he's not on a firepower just yet and he's not a real shock created to go ahead and take over those rain so right now it's looking like they're going to have to maybe not maybe not this year but next year especially during the summer they're going to have to revamp like michael porter junior said himself a couple weeks ago but yeah like this might be the last inning that they have together this season yeah it's going to be chapter two touch the three if the problem is Jamal Murray is not as good as he once was and Michael Porter Jr. is exactly

as good as he once was which isn't enough because you need him to take a step with Jamal Murray taking a step back that's an unanswerable problem because you can trade you can trade Jamal Murray for fucking what can you for fucking what like Michael Porter Jr. at this point in time

yeah MPJ is going to be a lot easier to trade because it's like yeah who wants a big 610 who can shoot like 45% from the 3 point line he's so easy to put them. Jamal Murray though so many teams have great point guards. It's hard to think about who wants to. Okay, so I guess the path would be you flip Jamal Marie's salary

plus your future first round picks are becoming available as the years go on and you try to get another star level player which cool, but then you sell a Jamal Murray problem. Even if you do that, you still have the fact that Jamal Murray takes up a max contract slot

and isn't necessarily playing to that level. I guess you could hope and pray that he gets healthy if he's not healthy now, I don't even know if that's a case and starts to look better. Maybe the shot just falls more and we look stupid in a couple months, whatever. But it seems like you're just going to be hoping and praying and you get the one year's drummer you got when he was elite

and not every other year that we've seen so far. You have to move on. You have to move on from Joe. I think that's probably the only way that you can get out of this because if he's cooked at this stage, we go into another season. Like, what is he going to look like next year? You know, unless he goes to Germany and gets whatever, you know,

procedures that people get over there, like stuff is the athleticism like once it's gone you never get athletic again and so i'm very oh man this is this is tough but in the meantime in the think it's just athleticism like is that what it is it that simple that it seems like he lost his step or do you guys think there's any other reason why you're struggling no i think i think they i think they i think that he's been struggling for a long time that's the real issue like even back when the olympics were going around like he was looking like one of the worst players in the entire court for an entire roster for candidate maybe maybe listen maybe it's that maybe he's maybe he's

going through like this whole whole big thing of it's just taking him a long long time to get back to normal off of injury because like remember when james hard and hurt his hamstring in brooklyn it took him a long time to kind of look you know the same way and it basically took like a year to have for for james to look the same jamaul murray was dealing with an injury in the olympics he had a calf injury throughout the entire playoffs and we thought that okay maybe you know having two months off coming into the season maybe he'll be okay and maybe he's still reeling from it so maybe we have to get further into the year maybe they have they might have to shut him down so that he can fully get healthy but the problem is if you shut jamal murray down right now and

it really is like hey yokech i'm i'm going to need you to get 50 every night i'm not sure how sustainable that is in the western conference and so that's that's the issue but i guess if we're talking about going into next year that's probably what denver is telling themselves is that let's see we can make it through this year we'll see what trades come up and then next year jamaal will be fully healthy and then we can run it back and have some more assets to to go and make moves and then we'll make another run but it's not it's not very encouraging Not encouraging at all. All right, Mo.

What is your first big surprise of this season? O'wee. Okay. First big surprise. When the Los Angeles Clippers went ahead and decided that they were going to let Paul George walk and just run a full-time James Hardin-led team, James Hardin-led offense, I was ringing the bells. They are in very deep trouble right now.

They are in hell because they have no real offensive. of options. And then Donovan's twin came bursting through the doors. He said, Paul George who, PG-13, who, I'm here. Norman Powell at the big age of like 30, 31, came slamming, bursting through those doors and decided to become the league's oldest, most improved player in NBA history. He's like 25, 26 or whatever. And I think he's probably a locked twin as of now. I was like 25, 26 or whatever the point or where the case may be. And he is, and absolute sniper from hell, one of the most efficient high volume scores that the NBA has to offer. He's been absolutely ridiculous. He's been what Paul George was supposed to be over these

last two years for the Los Angeles Clippers. And now it makes me think like, Dan, did these folks need Paul George just throughout this entire time or is this just like some crazy hot shooting luck or whatever it is? I don't know, but Norman Powell is the biggest surprise for me, point blank period. This man is shooting 48% from three. 23% of the game. Dumb! He is just been the, no, he's playing exactly like Norman Powell. It's just confident as hell, tough shot taker. But he's been the craziest tough shot maker. These shots go in every time.

And it's been so reliable. Like, that 23 points for game doesn't seem to be falling anytime soon because the shots are there for him to take them. I saw someone say that there was a graphic of all the biggest points for game jumps this year. And it was Oceo Baji, Dyson Daniels. Who's another one I'm missing? What did you say? Grady Dick.

Grady Dick and Norman Powell and it was like three young guys who were empowered to jump into a new role with their young team as expected and the Norm Powell who's motivated by his hatred for Paul George to go kids and it's so true man

if I knew the Clippers were getting this version of Norman Powell if I knew that they were basically going to keep Paul George's production I'd be like okay fine like they're not going to be 14th in the conference like I actually might have believed in them but shout

man shout out to norm Powell there's there's a there's a specific class of a player where you and like you hear commentators say it all the time it's like he's a professional score that's what norm Powell is right now he's a professional score he's just out here getting buckets and I love to see it

and he's a great position to go ahead and do so too like in my mind I think he's in the same echelon as someone like Cam Thomas a little bit better because he's more efficient and shit but in terms of like not having to worry about too much because you got the dirty work guys in Terry's Maine who is allergic to buckets, not a great offensive player. You got Zubach, you got who's not going to go ahead and do anything in perimeter. Then you have like Derek Jones Jr. Not a great perimeter player. Stay the fuck over

there. This is my bag. You just have James Hard and Slowass and you have yourself who's only the perimeter all across all fields. He's clicking right now. Loki is who he's been like throughout his entire career. He just needs the platform. He just needed the opportunity. He just need the platform facts. You just need to shot at him. That's it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I wouldn't get too ahead of myself. I should look and be like the 11th seed, but good for them. They're very risky. It's calmed down with the, maybe it seems to be better.

Like, West is still tough, but shout out Norm Powell for probably earning himself some money. Yeah. Oh, 100%. He's getting a bag. Yep. Donovan, what is your first big surprise of the season? I have to talk about the greatest TikToker in the NBA. Yeah.

I have to talk about Jeremy. He's in everyone's list. Let's talk about it. We have to talk about Jeremy McCain. When he got drafted to the Sixers, I was like, listen, this is great. Like, you have, you have Maxi, you have been beat, you have Paul George, and you're going to still be able to have, you know, some spacing with, with Jeremy Kane. That's a nice rotation.

I did not think he was going to be out here scoring 27 a night, scoring 40 at night. This dude is who being with a capital H. And it's not, it's not for, like, for me, it's not just, it's not just the, the scoring is not just the fact that everybody is hurt and they need somebody to step up and this is the fact that he's done it it's the it's the way that he's doing it yes the shots that he is that he's taking are like hey i've been in the league for for five years he's driving to the basket insanely strong insanely confident the the shots that he's taken super far you can see

the you can see that the confidence just oozing from him as as he plays i'm so impressed with how quickly he has like ingratiated himself not only into the offense but just into the league as a whole and he is like far and away rookie of the year by right now it's not even it's not even a question i didn't realize looking at the scouting report about him and seeing him playing college leading up to the draft i didn't realize that he was this smart of a basketball player you see him do things have habits and style of plays that you see from the best players in the world the way he can pass the ball and relocate to three and move around off ball. It's real Steph Curry.

I saw the clip. It's real Steph Curryish. I feel like we're seeing the first son of Steph Curry in the NBA in the truest sense. Trey Young came out and he shot a lot of deep threes on ball. And people were like, ooh, Steph Curry, Jr. He has the new version. He doesn't do any of the small stuff that makes Steph Curry, Steph Curry. Jared McCain doesn't have the on ball chops of those guys to that extent

because Trey Young's obviously one the best scores in the league. But the way he can relocate, move off the screens. shoot, miss, get his board, kick himself back out to the three to relocate, all this small stuff looks just like Step Curry. And the way he can drive and use his like lack of speed as an advantage to move slow and throw people off guard, off rhythm,

to get to these difficult finishes and make these difficult passes. Looks kind of Luca Dunstess. He has some skills sets that make me think he watches the best of the best and takes from their game. And that's all you can ask for for a guy that doesn't have the physical gifts

of these guys. He's not 6.7. He's not 45-inchvert. He's limited by his own size to some extent. But he does all the necessary things, takes all the necessary habits to make the most of those skills. And to me, that's exactly what I want to see from a young player. At this point, I wouldn't be upset if I read a story two weeks saying that Jeremy King was the one who was calling out to the only being late. I'd be like, listen, you got it. You got it. You're running the team. You're out here night in and night out doing what needs to be done. He's Oh, man. He's been, he's been so great.

Yeah. Coming out of college, I think one of the, like, a lot of people's biggest critiques of Jared McCain is like, yeah, he's guaranteed to be a very good, a useful player, probably for the next 10, 12 years. He's going to have like that level just like consistency, consistency throughout his NBA career. But to me, what really lacked was seeing what he would be special at and, like, also like the fluidity in his offensive game and creativity. he from what I see he has insane IQ offensive already in terms of getting to his spots all the things that you guys alluded to earlier when it comes to his relocation not a lot of NBA players taking those on that and if they do they're not like great ball handlers as well

like Jared McCain is so to have those two abilities come on like at once is insane like you said train young is he's of course he has like the shot to go ahead and match up with what someone like step curry but he does not have the relocation abilities he has the handle but the relocation was really take things next level and so to see him do those things while also like i believe in a couple of interviews or an interview last year jermyn was like yeah who's your nba comparison he was like yeah like a guy who i like and see myself in is jalen brunson and you see that in his game when it comes to how physical either they talked about he's not the biggest strongest fast to whoever but he uses his body and knows his angles in like super similar ways

Jaylen Brunson does as well. The deceleration and the pace is what I didn't see coming from him at all, considering all the limitations creatively. He doesn't have like the in the nose insane bag, not a hyper athlete. It's insane. He's maximized the everything right now. And his change of speed and his like ability to move slow and be in control. You can say the same thing about Jalen Brunson. He's also great at that. So considering the size thing, that's an even better comparison. And yeah, I also like, he's just an amazing. shooting shooter like I knew he was a good shooter but he is fucking sniper like if that strength is better than we expected and he has all the IQ stuff to do the role player things you want

and play next to stars like everything that he was advertised that is just a little bit better than expected which yeah I mean at this point still of the of the draft like easily you watch you watch Jeremy Kane and I mean this was this stuff at least from like a shooting prowess this is the stuff that I was expecting to see from like Reed Shepard earlier. Yeah, yeah. He's very similar. We thought Reed Shepard was a flag as a rookie. You know? And we thought like the only thing for me that I was kind of like nervous about with Reed was like, okay, Jalen Green is there as well. So he's not going to get the opportunity. And so

maybe if Reed had this, this level of opportunity, maybe he'd look like this too. But the fact that Jeremy McCain is in this situation and taking full advantage early on in a two and eleven start this is the only bright spot that that philly has and again like all the offensive stuff he does all the all the little hustle things too like you've seen him diving you know diving on the floors getting mixed up and in jump balls and stuff like that so do it all you know like the the philly stuff that people like he's at this point like he is a you know six or quote unquote whatever whatever you want to call it yeah he's been great yeah And, you know, Reed Shepard is going to be great still.

We all have our stock on him. But he looks like a rookie right now. He's going through some rookie adaptation. He has to get more confident in a shot. He's struggling to drive in and deal with the different physicality that comes at the NBA level. And, like, you know, looks like a rookie in every sense of the word. The types of stuff you'd expect.

Jared McKin just hasn't had that because he is just so cool and calm and collected and plays with such a poise that it just seems like he's the type of guy that's going to get his game off regardless. And, yeah, just very simple, right? he hasn't needed to adapt as hard, which is pretty rare from a rookie guard. He's one of them ones, man. He's one of them ones. Man, I feel like you just get healthy.

So far. He can get healthy and him and Maxie together next to Paul George and Joel Embed. There's a vision there of a great team. I just don't know if we're going to see it in time. Tyrese, Jared McCain, Paul Georgia, Caleb Martin, and Joan Embed, that is nice, bro. That is very, very nice. All right, chat right now, spam, what you guys think is your biggest surprise so far before I get to mine. I want to see what you guys think are your most surprised by.

It's wiki you guys up a little bit. In the meantime, shout out to Matthew for tipping $10. He said, how I know Jerry McCain is good. He gets described with the classic white player terms. Smart player, sneaky athletic. He's a real mind for the game. He plays like a white boy for sure. He has all that little small stuff that players that aren't super athletic have to be good at.

Fan favorite for sure. Yep. Shout to Alex D1-1-162 for tipping $3. Is he one? Yeah. Okay, got you Usually Gotcha

Someone said Okay, yeah Someone said Dyson Daniels Being the DPOI Is a surprise Their acts No one saw that coming

Okay C having no I would love for that to happen I guess But they just got injured It's fine It'll be all right Yeah A lot of Norman Powell

Connect 4 hooping A lot of Lakers in here My glorious king Tori Ethan And to me I would think That's fair a day AD MVP

Ah, finally, one person, Fierry Kaku, 1907 says what I was going to say next. The Cleveland Cavaliers, they have to be the biggest surprise in the season. We got to talk about them. They're about the tip-off right now to play the Boston Celtics. We'll be watching that game right after this. I'm sure we'll talk about it plenty on the next episode. But man, Kenny Atkinson saving this team. Evan will be taking the leap.

Darry's Garland, looking like Darius Garland to an even greater degree, being amazing. Everything we loved for him in 2022 is even better now. All these cumulative factors come into play. The Cavs are 15-0. Even if you thought they were going to be good, you did not think they would be 15 and fucking 0. They are ridiculously good, have not only knocked on the door of the title-favor,

I mean, title contender, you know, conversations, they burst through that bitch and solidify themselves next to the Boston Celtics as probably the top two favorites to win the championship right now, along with whoever else you think is coming out of the West, probably the Thunder when they're healthy. it's an unforeseen leap I think yeah

they locked down as soon as he said yeah I'll get them back in your chat that was hilarious timing let me bring him back again another day oh we're back yeah you said yeah and then you lagged out

but yeah we were talking about the Cleveland Cavaliers I remember some episode during the office season. We were talking about some things that we were looking forward to, some sort of I don't remember the title. But one thing that I didn't mention, I put an emphasis on was like, yeah, I'm so happy that Kenny Atkinson is getting another opportunity in the lead because the last time he was a head coach, he just, he just makes shit shake and make shit happen. Dating back to 2018, 2019, the year where D. Lowe randomly made an all-star team. And he

made the vibes in Brooklyn so much better, more fun to watch, more creative, and all that. And since that opportunity, went to Golden State, learned from one of the best coaches over the last 10 years in Steve Kerr, and gained some more knowledge, more juice, and all that. And now he's running the show over here in Cleveland. He is one of the greatest acquisitions than any team could possibly make over the last, like, two, three years is what it feels like. And, you know, the Kenny Accus thing is interesting because when he was hired,

it was like, oh, good, they got a new coach, see if he can fix him. But, like, there wasn't widespread, like, oh, this is going to be the guy that fixes him. Because, like you said, he had coached the Brooklyn Nets as their head coach, and he had made them feisty. But nobody's really throwing a party from taking a team to the play in. We hadn't really seen him be, like, true top tier needle mover. It wasn't like Nick Nersk, one of the six years where it's like,

oh, he's won a championship. He's maximized talent. He's coached a great bench, an all-time defense. We can see the vision of him getting Jwell and Bede and being crazy. Wasn't the case of Kenny Atkinson. It was like, oh, I'm noticing that he's been feisty. He's done some good things, but I haven't seemed to do with the highest level. And then, you know, he went to be an assistant coach with the Warriors for a few years,

clearly learned some things from Steve Kerr and how he's implementing this high volume of cutting with this team and really making the most out of limited spacing in the same way Steve Kerr is always done with Dravon Green and another big like Yvonne Looney. It's easy to see why people weren't more excited, but also easy to see why they should have been with all the things that he's clearly gotten better at. And now here we go. And now the whole Eastern Conference is wide open. Like we thought that, you know, there would be some kind of, some kind of fight.

It would be the Celtics, but then you'd have teams like the calves, the magic who are still up there. But you have, you have the calves, the Knicks, the Bucks at, you know, at minimum. Maybe even Indiana can sneak in and challenge him. And now it's just a two-team race. And the fact that, like, that, again, that Mowgli has taken that leap, that DeMitch continues. to be awesome and that their bench is is fantastic like listen we have to mention tie jerome because ty jerome is is an amazing backup point guard he's like he can he can fill in and do you know for the you know he could do the if de mitch is out if dari's garland is out you'd be like

all right tie go in do you do your thing and he's going to go in and drop 20 and shoot well from three and it's okay and i had i had one of those things like one of the questions a couple weeks ago was like okay how are how are the cabs going to work because that like starting line up with mowbly and all that still had like a negative net rating listen at this point it really doesn't matter because they're they're just they're winning games and they're going to be so far ahead especially if they you know start to get some head-to-head matchups against boston they're going to be so far ahead. They're going to, they have a very, very serious chance at this point to be the number one seat. And I agree. If the east, if the east goes through Cleveland and now you dictate kind

of how the rest of the standings fall, do not be surprised if you see them, you know, East and Conference finals, Cleveland Cavaliers. I saw launch this like over the last, over the last month probably or so. I said that, look, Cleveland Calviers. I thought that they were going to be good. in the eyes necessarily, but they can look at them in their nose. Boom, they go ahead and have a 10-0 run to start off the year. Okay, maybe they could glance at them at the eyes. And now seeing with the way they're winning and seeing how Evan Mobley's taking another step and how it's just being utilized more and being more aggressive overall,

Evan Mobley is something that I don't think any, that soics are equipped to defend. Just yet, they do have KP, haven't seen them play all year, don't know how we're going to come back or whatever that is a real thing to say but now i'm officially saying like yeah i think these guys can probably look at them in the eyes like the boston celtics feel confident in that feel confident playoff setting i'm picking the celtics still once they have kp right now the self is yeah from inside interior defense is dog shit because they have no bigs so i would still pretty easily pick the celtics but it would at least be a conversation and if the celthics aren't really healthy it'll be a crazy conversation and yeah not every year

the best teams are healthy. So you very well can enter a scenario where KP isn't available or Jalen Brown isn't available or whoever may be. And they put themselves in a position that if that opportunity opens, they can pounce on it. I agree. Donovan Mitchell, NBA champion.

That'd be crazy. I'd be to see you. I'm meeting, Shea. Oh my God. That's two champions of one year. You have crowned your brain. To a T.

Every time I watch the Cavs, I think about that tweet. Shut up. Oh, my God. That tweet is ingrained in my NBA psyche for the rest of my life. In the same way that who he not playing fair is when I see Anthony Edwards. Oh, my God, bro. There's nothing that makes this worse. I'm not going to say.

Oh, my God. Okay. Anyways, back on top. All right, what's your next surprise of the season, Mo? But first. Shout out to MC Cray for tipping $5. Thank you so much for tipping us. Appreciate that support.

Next, biggest surprise, the Orlando Magic, since Paula Bancarra went ahead and went down with his injury, I'm sure this is something all of us have on our list so we can all yap about it for a little bit. They've been good and they've been winning a lot of games as of late and they've maintained, I believe, the top three or four seat or something like that in the Eastern Conference behind the Cavs and the Celtics, of course, guys are powerhouses.

we're seeing Franz Wagner someone that Donovan specifically has been criticizing a lot over the last year over the last 12, 13 months or so he's looked like yeah for sure about a I think he was not just been like damn

when is he going to shoot well yeah I know I bought I listen I bought stock in France before the season started and everybody in the chat was like oh no boo like we're selling you're so dumb like Franz isn't going to get back to that we told you guys it was

going to happen we told you guys that franz wagner not it's it's a difference between having like a bad shooting year and then just having the worst shooting year possible like he he was decent for the first couple and then for him to go and shoot like 29 30 percent for three that's obviously going to come back up and so was i a little bit worried yes but franz is he can do so many other things and i believe that his shot would come back that him very high on him him getting to this level it's like yeah it's going to happen yeah we were worried about his shooting because we're very fucking high on him and i was saying shit like i think he will be a number two that's like you're going to be like oh him and palo are close palo's better but franz is like rivaling him it's not going to be a clear he's psychic

they need to both be splitting touches in a way that empowers franz because he's not just this guy over here he is good enough that they need to be viewed as a double star thing on almost equal footing and we're seeing that when palo ben and caro comes back they cannot go back to the offense they had before franz voggar needs to keep getting hella touches they need to figure out a way to distribute touches almost equally because right now in the six games he is averaging 29 points 6.3 assists six rebounds he's shooting 37% from three and 47% from the field well also defending his goddamn ass off he's been their second best defender all year after jalen sugs he's a true two-way star and in okay it's only six games the shot could go

away just like it did before so don't want to get too ahead of myself but he is very clearly playing like a top 25 player in the league he is playing like the star we all thought and hoped he could be All the nerds like me that were saying, Franz Wagner is a star. He's better than your favorite young player, so-and-so, and so-and-so. This is exactly what we imagined. His three-point shot off the dribble has been fantastic. He's using that. He's getting to the rim using a size.

He's a good passer, a good defender. He's one of the more well-rounded leagues in the entire NBA. And you're seeing that this month. Between our Darius Garland stock and our Franz Wagner stock, listen, we got mansions and yachts. We're up. We're so up. trust me on young stars

please come on the nerds get a win you guys were I know it was funny after those first two games of the season they were treating us

like we were fucking morons for saying he might be close to as good as Palo in any type of way they were like they were just treating us like we were hyping up

Jalen Green like we were hopping up some guy Franz is that good he needs to be prioritized for the long run yeah I agree I agree

and just for the Alinda of Magic to be afloat right where they probably would be even with pilobank here on the court right now. Very, very, very, very interesting. Jake Kremens in the chat said, y'all were not glazing fronds like me.

I'm a magic fan. Y'all were not on him. You were not familiar with my game. I was very high on fronds. All right, y'all got it. He said, you're glazing him like me. All right, y'all got it. Oh, I missed it.

Shut up. Philly loving ginger for tipping $70. Oh, my gosh. Recurring Donator. you every time man shout out to you philly thank and shout out to chunky corgi for tipping 10 dollars chunky corgi thank you thank you corgis are so ugly someone said jane green stray okay thank you corgis are awesome what do you mean they're ugly the cutest dog ever i don't say cutest dogs ever but they hide corgis are peak what do you mean they're so good

they're very we need to have a dog tier list absolutely corgis are a tier easily I don't know about eight here All right, listen, next week Next week we're doing it Come back next week We have a dog breakdown We have a dog tear coming Everybody comment

Comment what breeds Wait, you want us to run? Donovan, is any going to be in attendance? Nah, not, no, no, I don't know. She's in her own land She doesn't belong in that tier. Those are Port-Cali's S-tier This is a puppy hater

Yeah, Ronnie, I like bid dogs Dogs can do something So me in the chat said Don looking like the Magic Johnson statue That's kind of racist That's kind of racist And I don't appreciate that I don't appreciate that at all

Why would you say Why would you mess up my night? Come on, guys. I hurt my feelings. Not I'm about to do, actually. No, we're in close the stream. I'm going to go to TierMaker, and I bet there's a dog tier list. Oh, let's go.

Let's do it. Dog breeds. Yep, dog breeds rinks. Okay, the problem is there's no names on these, and I don't know what these dogs are called. Oh, my God, there's so many dogs. Holy shit. Never mind.

There's smoke. I don't want it. If there's so much smoke, I don't want it. Those are like a hundred dog tears. Listen, we'll have a, yeah, we'll have a 10-15D when I can see my dog breed. Okay, I'll have to do research first to have a nice, long list of dogs. Yeah. Yeah, man, those are our six biggest surprises of the year, ran through every storyline.

For those you who are still here watching the streams, we're in for a very special episode this week. Do you want to give them a little of a hint? How should I hint this? Nah, don't. You guys will see on Friday. But for the OG fans, like, the people that hear from the live streams, the really people that are Ranking. See you later.

I'll say. Let me go to my wide cam. Let me move this. Pee my location. Look what's next to me. Look at that right there. Rar ranking. And we'll see y'all next week.

I'll leave it there. Goodbye.