The Deep 3 Podcast - The TRUTH About The NBA MVP Race | The Deep 3 Ep. 12

Episode Date: November 25, 2022

This NBA Star Is Going To Win His First MVP 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

So this is going to be a big show. We have a lot to talk about. The main thing of the show is going to be us talking about our first, you know, initial thoughts on the MVP race. I think we're going to give our top five, maybe some honorable mentions. But before we get into that, there's one thing I got to get off my chest and we have to talk about. Anthony Davis is fucking back. Everybody got on my ass so hard all summer, call me AD apologists,

telling me to get off my knees, tell me he's watched. They should trade him. He's so fucking back. Listen, it's about time. It's about time. We've been waiting for this for a year and a half. I'm glad he could put together a four-game stress like this when LeBron's supposed to be out.

We've been waiting on this. So good job. Good job, Anthony. I feel like he's been supposed to be doing this for a long time. But I guess it takes a lot for Anthony Davis to go ahead, find his rhythm back and actually be the AD that a lot of us feel like he's supposed to be the generational. This dry-hating as shit. What do you mean?

I'm not. I'm not doing this. Yeah, he's playing well. We just speak in our minds. It feels so you're freaking refrauding. refreshing to see him do this though to be honest. He's doing a lot of things

that he used to do back in the world. Not everything, but a lot of things. Yeah, what is not doing so that you want to see him improve on at this point? I don't see, I don't see him. Besides a jump shot. The jump shot's fucking bad stuff. And of course, it's just a jump shot as well. But he's

doing, he's doing fantastic. He's a fucking menace. He was absolutely beautiful on defense last night. And I just love to see that. For those who don't know, LeBron has missed the last four games and in that time Anthony Davis has scored 37 points

38 points 30 points and 37 including last night we're here at 37 I think 22 rebounds five steals five blocks just an absolutely insane performance generation yeah absolutely ridiculous and there's a lot of reasons why most people have boiled it down

to simply LeBron isn't there which is part of it because he even said an interview that when LeBron is there he kind of naturally defers and doesn't quite be as aggressive as he knows he should be. So hopefully he carries that over now that LeBron's not there. He's kind of set the tone. But I think there's more to it in terms of why he's playing so well. Absolutely. Do you got any thoughts? I think I think a big part of it, I think a big part of it is the fact that Russell has also looked a little bit more comfortable over these last four games. And you

like you see that whenever it's Russ, A.D. and Bron, everybody says, okay, Bron can have whatever he wants. And we're just going to move off of that. And now everybody else is trying to figure out where they fit in and when he's not there russell is able to just be okay i'm the point guard nobody else really can dribble so this is what i'm going to do and that's the role that he's most comfortable in and then a d like you said now he can come in and say i'm the number one offensive option this is what i've done for a majority of my career i don't have to feel like i'm stepping on the potential goats toes at all yeah right like i can just do me and everybody else kind of just falls into place.

You have more of a natural order of what your roles are. And I think that knowing your roles is a huge thing on the team. Absolutely. And something that I notice is that I just feel like the offense, of course, with LeBron, someone who dominates the ball, there's not going to be as much ball bloom as you like. And because of that, players are going to be, like Donovan said, a little bit more hesitant. And players just, everyone's just being more aggressive. Lonnie Walker Jr. is doing this thing.

Austin Reeves, like, he's not. no kind of star or anything like that but he can do a little bit of everything he's a fantastic role player s tier role player damn near or he's going to grow into that in the future if you ask me so yeah that's that's that's about it I know it's about boom bro I was going to say something else with my mind story is um people blame him for not being aggressive with lebron which like in fairness he should be more aggressive like this when braun is there like absolutely even braz been saying the media for two years that he wants AD to be like this and take over the team but at the same time it is hard to do that like every start we've seen play next to brawn has deferred in some way

like brown can say i want him to take over but that's hard to do with his style of play like you do want the ball in your best player's hands but it's that's that's the thing that it was easier for i i would say wade at the end of that heat uh era to defer to to lebron because he was in the lineup every night right because even prime way was deferring his knees were gone by like By the end of year two, right? By like 2013, they were sitting him on back-to-backs in the regular season. They were making sure that they can keep him for the playoffs. And it was kind of just like, okay, like LeBron is on a different level.

He's ascending to like all-time status. There's that. And then once you get to Cleveland, it's the same thing where Kyrie's nice, but he's nowhere close to where LeBron is. I think we're at a point where if AD plays like this, there's a legitimate conversation about who's the better player. And so then that's when. ever, it's, I think it's easier to seed power if you're, if you're a LeBron A.D. And another thing that we've seen over the last, you know, four games, AD, AD's has been to the free throw line a lot more. He shot 16 free throws last night and then two nights ago

against Detroit. He shot 21 free throws. And you see that, that aggression being rewarded at the free throw line. You see, I see why you say that, but it's not just aggression in terms of like, oh, he's trying hard. Yeah. Every night he wants more buckets. But there's like real exes and those reasons to why you're seeing these numbers be the way. they are. I just want to talk about that a little bit. The main thing is now, so he's playing center full time. I know there's always a lot of him moaning and groaning about it in the past years, but now Darwin Ham has just been like shut the fuck up, you are center. And we're seeing that play out in really positive ways, offensively and defensively. On starters on defense,

they're running him in pick and rolls way more. Like if you watch the game last night, like it's basically every play Anthony Davis coming up, setting a screen, like they don't have a lot of offensive movement. It's just AD screen and roll. And by doing that, he's constantly rolling to the rim nonstop, which is, you know, how you want to use him to get him, paint touches most as possible. That's allowing him to get those pain touches and not be stuck shooting jump shots like he is when he's a power forward.

Absolutely. Like, I think 8% more of his shots at the room this year from last year. Yeah. And he's eliminated his long mid-range shots by 10%. Yeah. So it used to be like 22% of his shots

with long mid-range shots, another 12%. So naturally when you're doing that, rolling a lot, you're going to be at the rim, you're going to get more free throws. So it's not just him being aggressive. It's the offense purposely manufacturing that form. It's very crazy that, though,

because when we thought about, especially when AD got there, and when we talk about like the like oh anthie davis has MVP potential he is he could be like the best playing in the world type stuff the big part of it was that he could do everything was that he could be like this 610 rim roller at the same time he can stretch out and shoot the three he can he can shoot the mid range and since the bubble since the bubble we just haven't seen that that's just dead right so it's it's very very interesting to see him kind of be put into this new situation where it's like actually ad we don't want you shooting jumpers like that's not that's not

really your bag anymore you can't really do it and we're just going to use you more in a traditional sense when he has such like an extraordinary bag of talents it's crazy he's in the honest bag now in terms of like you yeah yeah yeah exactly just attack yeah and that's and that's how it's as of now i'm feeling like that's how it should be like if you're open of course shoot that and there's a couple of lessons earlier in the in that venous game where they just left him I had open. He was like, bro, you think I'm, who the fuck do you think I am? And he pulled in me. He cashed that. I think back to back straight possessions. It was two, two long twos. And those are the type of shots at this point that he should be taking until his shots,

until his shot starts to come back. But as of now, like, I just completely right. He's been dominating the pain. And he hasn't been resistant to go ahead and take two pointers, but he's just been such a force and a menace inside. And there's basically nothing. thing that nobody can do in the end day about it and I think that's what it should be well Mo one of the thing you mentioned a little bit ago when I get back to is you talk about he's also been a menace defensively like last night he hit five blocks five steals dude I have some more thoughts about why he's been so good defensively what are you seeing from him this year that makes you say that because I don't know if you said that last year because last year he was a great defender but

wasn't as like you didn't feel him as much maybe because the scheme maybe for whatever reason you say about his aggression what are you seeing this year that makes you so impressive his defense there well this year I can't I don't I don't I don't I I don't remember too much of 80 last year. I watched the Lakers last year, but... There wasn't a lot of 80 last year injured. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I can't answer that question to the highest level as you can,

so I'm going to throw it back at you. Defer? Yeah, I'm a defer. Okay, well, X is and O's wise. It's because no last year, him playing the four, let's compare it to the Bucks defensive scheme because that's where Darbunham came from. Last year they kind of tried to play...

Well, they moved into center last year at the end of the year, but beginning of the year, they had him playing the four, kind of playing the Yonish role, where he's not the main center defending pick and rolls. He's defending the man at the corner being the helper to block shots, you know, the weak side defender. That's always been the 80s kind of role that use him as like a Swiss Army knife

because he's so versatile. They'll make him do that. They'll make him guard big wings sometimes. Sometimes they'll guard centers. This year they've made it extremely simple for him. And he's just playing center, playing drop coverage every time like Brooke Lopez does on the box. Exactly. There was this one play last night where he had a Demen Booker switched on to him.

I think, of course, the And Aetton was in the back. And most centers where they get caught up and where they get scored on, like, 80% of the time is when they're playing this two-on-one game. And 80 literally, he angled himself perfectly. Defense for the most part of my mind is all about effort, of course. And it's all about angles, too, and how you position yourself. And 80 is one of the best at this in this game because of how mobile he is and he's athletic and he's just smart. And he stood right in the middle and he blocked any type of passage that Devin Booker could have possibly had. do you try to dump it off or do this weird pass and 80 literally just snatched it.

Yeah, exactly. Beautiful, bro. Yeah, it's been genius to have him just purely drop coverage because on the surface, any other coach might think, no, we want him to beat this versatile guy playing from the weak side, use all his crazy talents. But there's been like so many pros to having him just play drop. Like you said, he's incredibly talented with the defensive IQ with how he defends those and like cuss out of the passing lanes does all that.

So playing drop allows him to impact almost every play because he's defending the screens. So maybe there's not as many wow moments by having him come. from the weak side and block shots, but he can constantly be engaged with the play and show his defensive impact. And also, he's having the best rebounding year of his career. Half of that is because he's always by the rim now playing drop coverage. He's not out with the perimeter defending people. And part of it is because he's always rolling to the rim on offense. So he's always getting offensive rebounds because he's around there, not on the perimeter shooting jump shots. So both of those come hand in hand. And lastly, allowing him to just play the drop coverage

in a very simple way, just lightens the burden on him. He's not running around the perimeter so he can use that energy on the offensive end and do what he's been doing, scoring 37 points a night. AD's funny, man. He really is funny because there was a, I don't think that he knows was best for him. Like, because his entire career,

he's like, I want to play the four, I want to play the four, and then you put him at the five and he dominates. And then even earlier in the year, there was a press conference after a game and they were asking him, you know, just like what's going wrong with the defense and, you know, kind of what you guys are talking about

with how is it different with him playing the five now he was saying like back in back in 2020 when they won the championship they were able to have like a five with either javel or dwight and he was like i was able to to roam and i was able to like plug holes everywhere and the way he was talking about it sounded like he really enjoyed being the roamer and playing like the free safety and now he's still like he struggled in that role a little bit earlier in the year or not even struggle but he's thriving much more as like the defensive anchor and if you just tell him what to do do right if he just like listens to other people who are telling him like no this is how you're

supposed to play this how you can be successful it it's just so funny that everything that he's publicly said that he's wanted is the least optimal way yeah to go about things I mean that's why i got to have a good coach like all this comes down to credit to darvin ham for willing to put ad in the best position for him to succeed even if it's not what a you wants like frank vogel and the whole entire lakers front office just committed so hard to making lebron and ad happy and doing whatever the fuck they want and just like babying them and clearly darvinham isn't on that he's benching russ making a d play the five like he's willing to do what's necessary exactly bro shout out to him because every coach that the lakers have had or any real coach in general in the NBA as you can see

with superstars who are quite demanding like the kd's and kairi every other world and whatever else you can think of they usually get their next cutoff at the end of the day and like you said credit to darbham because he could easily fold and submit under all this pressure, especially the LA pressure. The LA pressure is one to none, literally no joke, and to make these hardcore adjustments and stick to Russ on the bench

and force A.E. to go ahead and play the five, even though he's been crying, bitching, complaining about, oh, I don't want to do this or that. It's beautiful. I love it. And now he's reaping the benefits, and I think that he could be, I think he's going to be probably the long-term coach for Los Angeles Lakers for years and years and years to come.

Yeah. Now we've seen the Bron. to come back and keep up. He can go mess with the chemistry. Now's the time. Brongo come in and mess up the chemistry, they're going to lose three straight. And now everyone's going to be upset. Yeah. Give the playmate back to Austin Reeves.

Exactly. Imagine. Just to add a cherry on top, 80 over the last four games is an averaging 16 points, 18 to rebounds and 10 stocks or not 10, five stocks a game. That's fucking insane. Steels a lot. points no 18 boards oh 18 boards yeah

yeah yeah it's crazy that's crazy fucking nuts bro and he's been shooting he's him he's back so no good good for AD give for AD I'm glad we're seeing this this version from one thing I want to ask with AD playing at this level now are you willing to put him back in your top 10 players alive right now easily I'm not even easily I'm not even

look at twice about it probably probably because I'm I think I was saving a spot for Kauai and he's definitely just not there right now. He just rolled his ankle. I never really took him out because, as you know, I always have faith in 80 bouncing back, but he's still got to be in that back half of the top 10,

I think. He's not pushing top five like he once was because there's too many amazing players right now, but I think he's definitely at least top 10. Yeah, I'll say top 10. If he was to keep this up, he's definitely top five. No, without a question. Top five again?

If he's keeping this up? I mean, yeah, yeah, if you keep up 30, if you keep up 35 and 18, then yeah. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, you can be top five. but yeah top 10 top 10 top 7 that's that's kind of right it's just it's hard to pass up one of steff yannis lucca yokitch imbid that's not even mentioning katie or brawn like it's hard to breaking that top five right now yeah listen from what we're seeing he might be better than

brown that's what i'm saying that's the that's the conversation that's the conversation that's the conversation that we actually have to have where if we run this offense through through anthony davis are we going to be more successful and and just have like lebron Ron's role when he comes back. It's a tough conversation, right? LeBron's role when he should come back is, yo, Brian, just go out there. You don't even have to get 30.

You can get, you can get 22 because AD is going to be the one getting 25, 27. I'm pretty sure Brown wants that, too. He has been. Is he going to allow himself to do it? And that's the thing. But my thing with the way that they do it, though, like, it's just straight up force-feeding AD in the post and he settles for like some ugly-ass mid-range fadeaway. That's how it always is.

Lately it's been forcing him in picking rolls. Exactly. That's what needs to happen. Spam the pick and roll. Stop throwing a midposts and then veering off to the far right and standing with your hands, wiping your hands and doing whatever old ass hands shit that he do. Like play to his strengths. Don't just throw it to him in the posts just because he has that ability to do that.

I'm going to give Bron some time to get back. I'm going to give Bron some time to get his rhythm back before I say AD is a better player for sure. But if AG keeps us up and he's this monster on both. ends you're probably right yeah yeah all right well that's enough lakers stuff we gave them a good 15 minutes you know how to get it off my chest feeling vindicated i think we can move on to doing what we always do at the start of the show we're gonna react to some of your guys as hot takes so hot trash hot trash let's hear it you're so mean to their hot takes yeah let's see if the right first one let me know if this is a l take or a w take i said it backwards let me know

this is a w take or an l take i'm here says that he'd rather have brandon ingram than zion william william yeah that's that'll take this is that's a l takes zion wilson is zion wilkinson is generational in terms of his athletic ability and just just his play just his play on the floor like he's one at his best he can be one of the most efficient scores in in the league yeah yeah it's not i really a question i love brandy ingram but there nothing generational about him. In the next, every two to three NBA drafts, you can find some player with the same.

Yeah, his handles are nice. Whatever. No, no, no, no, not his handles. His hands. His hands. What? Fistakuffs. What do you mean by his hands?

He could scrap. He was always getting into fights. Remember when he punched? Was it Chris Ball? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's true. He's from Chicago when he fissed with G. Herbo and him.

So that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's a general hands. Yeah, absolutely. You're right about that. First team, all smoke. Yeah. So maybe every five years. Maybe every five years you can find someone like Brandon Ingram.

But Zion Williamson's are very rare, and you can't find them like that, bro. Yeah. I get the, I get why people feel inclined to say this because people really love that play style that Ingram has, having that guy that can create shots off the dribble and be dynamic score. I get it. But at his peak, Zion's potential is so much higher that you have to roll the dice on that. He can be the type of player that you build your offense around and just game breaking with his rim pressure.

Yeah. Ingram doesn't have that ceiling. Exactly. I can name 30 players in the past who remind me of Brandon Ingram, but I can really name only one or two players all the way back in the 80s and 90s who reminded me of John Williams. That's what I mean. Okay, 30's kind of high.

I see what you mean. But yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's, Ingram is like, his peak is like a top 20 player in the NBA. If it's like everything breaks right, probably one in top 30. Zion, if he gets back to the level he was a couple years ago, continue to develop, he can push top 10.

Yeah. This comment right here sounds like he's just only been watching this season. He disregarded everything that Zion did way back a couple years or like two years ago. It's fair to have concerns with Zion. He hasn't been at the same level, but I'm still going to be patient and wait for him to get back to him. Elkins' offense as a whole is kind of finicky right now. Cedon McCollum has a couple questions about whether or not he can actually beat the point guard of this team full time. but yeah there's a lot of moving parts there that not as not as cohesive as you'd want

but it should be expected when you have four or five guys that can really be offensive creators on their own and give you 20 a night yeah all right what's next when yonis valentunus is your fourth best creator that's it's kind of a lot to have to pass around exactly in terms of opportunity all right next one skippy says that sGA is better than trey young and always will be always will be the always will be always will be makes it in L take. He's definitely better than him right now. He's playing better than him right now. But

like if Trey comes back and if Trey remembers how to shoot, then I'll take Trey Young over Shay. But for right now, Shay... SGA is having a better season because like you said, Trey Young's having a poor shooting season, but Trey Young's still the better player. Like the playmaking jump is huge. Maybe

you think the defense is a big enough jump to SGA outweigh, but I'm going to pick Trey long term. This is a lowercase W. What? Lowercase W? Yeah, it's like, it's, it's half of a good take. It's lower, it's lowercase. See, with these Treon takes, you making me stress,

and I don't do any type of drugs. Don't you dare take Tre Young over Shade right now. I'm not taking Tre Young over, I'm not taking Trey over Shia right now. Right now, I'm doing it. Yeah, I mean, what is right now? If we're talking about picking him right now to go forward in the season, yeah, I'm picking Trey.

Like, Trey's going to have positive regression at some point, and he's going to get back to being the offensive masterpiece that we know he can. be i think i'll take that i would take that i would take that that toronto man i'll take sure i'm not going to overreact and write trey off and we're just talking about him is maybe being a third

best point guard alive fuck tray you're all there okay last one reflect says that joel and bid will go down as the best 76er of all time uh that's no that's uh major who are some of the greatest

sixers of all the Iverson, Charles Barclay or were my tripping Will, yeah I think I think he can pass of Alan Iverson

No, well Will has Will played for the Philadelphia Warriors Yeah Not the same It was like the Golden State franchise

Yeah So it's It's Moses Malone True Moses, very underrated So But I mean if If Joel is a lifer

And like Is this level of player for like Over a decade Like it's not crazy I can pass up Alan Iverson yeah if he gets to a finals if he gets to a conference finals

shit yeah that's the real conversation he has gone to conference finals hasn't he no they've never they've never been to the conference finals yeah oh I was thinking of the raptors one that shot but that was the second round wasn't yeah yeah that was a crazy series they never made a conference finals no yeah I feel like they have that conversation is gonna heat the fuck up bro once he has another if he has another playoff player this year it's gonna heat the fuck up

promise yeah so let's let's get to a conference finals and then we because, and then we could talk. Yeah, the second round. They really never made one. Why don't I feel like they have? Let's get him an MVP as well. Alan Iverson has one. He don't have one.

Yeah. Let's get him one. Yeah, but I mean, you finish twice in a row. Clearly, you're on an MVP level. Like, can't really hold that again. No one's going to remember twice in a row. No one cares. Wow.

You're going to have an accolades, finish. I just can't believe. I don't know why. Yeah. Okay, he's never been instant conference finals. That's crazy. Yeah, that is shocking.

The process never, They should have beat Atlanta to get there That's what it was They should have been Atlanta to get there And I'm gonna give him credit for that one Because he played with a torn meniscus in his knee And was still the best play on his team Because Ben Simmons

Couldn't help him out And he lost him one of the best game winning Game 7 buzzer beers ever against Toronto He's had pretty shit luck He's one shot away from making the Western Crumman's finals like Oh but then they got embarrassed last year Or not embarrassed but then they went out

sad to Miami. Yeah, because James Harvins a potato. That's tough. And didn't Boston, Boston beat him in five games? They've had bad luck. Yeah, that was, yeah, that was not, no, no, no, no. Boston swept them in 2020.

Yeah, that, they weren't expected to win at all. Not getting, they weren't especially to get sweat, but they wanted to expect to win back then at all. Yeah. Yeah. We need a conference finals for him. Yeah, no. Either way, I won't be shocked if it happens.

So I'm not going to act like it's horrible. we'll think yeah okay well that's all the hot takes we got so we got through the anti-davis talk we got through the hot takes now the time for what the show was titled about we're going to talk about the MVP race so first before we get into it we're going to give all of y'all our top fives and kind of talk about where everybody stands at the moment but first i think we should give some honorable mentions for me my people that didn't quite make the list but we're in the running and maybe will earn themselves onto the top five is ironically yokech and imbid Okay, okay

I think Okay, wait Go explain Explain real quick Why you don't think That they're top three right now Yeah Well it's more so that

Or top five Some really fucking good Yeah There's just like a lot of great candidates Right now That are like Have been on fire to start At the year

With great teams that Maybe they'll fall off Like spoiler alert Donovan Mitchell's in my top five Yeah I expect he'll fall off And one of these bigs We'll get in there

Maybe both of them But right now in Bede It's like games played He started off slow Miss some games The team sucks right now. So, like, I'm not going to hold record against you at this point of the year, but he has to, you know, keep it up at the high level.

We've seen him in the past five games, and then he'll earn his way back. And Yokic, honestly, I don't know. Like, it's just really, like I said, people have been crazy. But he's, by every advanced metric, been playing, like, one of the best players in the NBA. Yeah. Their team is pretty good. Like, he's been incredible. People are harping on him for only scoring, like, 22 points per game right now.

But that's because clearly he's making effort to not. Yeah. And he's trying not to burn out like he did, like you trying to save it for the playoffs because he's already one two back-to-back MVP he doesn't need to go hard every game facts okay but i think he'll get back in there all right that's that's cool i have i also have mb in my honorable mention um okay for for everything that that you said um de mitches is in there um and i mean i think our top five i think our top fives are good so i'm actually going to drop mine down to top three because this is where i think we have a little bit of um of difference here

So, I, so my top three is, oh, wait, wait, don't get, it's not going to hit ourselves. Okay. What's up? So honorable mention, I'm also going to give that to Joelle and B. And then I haven't heard his name yet. And I have a very strong feeling that he didn't make easy, you guys, top five. Number one seed in the Western Conference is Devin Booker.

And I just feel like, yeah. A lot of people just do not care. And, uh, you're right. It's also hard because he's not putting up any, yeah, no one cares at all. care at all. Yeah, it's like, bro, he could be, you know, he could, yeah, like, no one just genuinely cares. They see it.

They just like, eh, you know what I'm saying? That's so funny. He's not putting up. That's so true, though. Yeah, and he's not putting up any, he's putting up great numbers. Career high, I think he's averaged like 27 or something like, some like that per game, had a 49 point per game performance. He's had one of the best NBA teams.

He's had a career year. Yeah. And no one's being bad at an eye. Yeah, you're right. You're 100% right. like he's I thought about him I just didn't want to give you like a million honorable mentions I thought about him and Katie can be thrown in there as well

yeah so yeah he's on a mention as well you're right maybe if he keeps it up he'll play himself back into being third place again like last year but he's just not gonna win yeah yeah no one's gonna give no one's gonna give him some type of respect and that's the most kind of respect I can give to him bro so I'm glad you say it

you said I'll never go bring up Denver Booker's conversation yeah I'm so funny yeah bro okay so we both talk about having donovan mitchell in our top five for me he's number five okay i assume he's about the same place for you donovan oh actually now now that i now that i think about it donovan mitchell is is an honorable mention for me oh you didn't put him top five i did you put john moran in there because i think he could probably be an honor mentioned as well too yeah jaws josh my fifth it's giant bish right at that right at that right at that

cut off line okay who's your number five mo uh number five is very respectfully donovan mitchell easily okay okay same as me i think donovan mitchell clearly has a case for early season because he's averaging over 30 darius garland was hurt his eye was falling off and he kept the team afloat and they started off as one of the top seats in the west well i mean east while he's having a career year shooting like ridiculously efficient like yeah i think he really just comes down to that is that he's been putting up monster numbers on a great team yeah it's like It's clear what his case is. Absolutely.

Yeah, that's, and that's, listen, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's fair. Um, I think, but I think he's the most likely to fall off, though. I think I, hmm, I don't, I don't, I don't know, though. I don't, I don't know, I honestly can see, I think, like the shooting, the shooting may fall off. But I feel like, I feel like, I feel like D. Mitch still has a really good chance of playing at, like, a high, high level. Um, I just think, oh, he will, I didn't mean fall off in that way. I mean, as in one of the bigs and the honors mentions are going to pass him up on this list. Okay.

Okay. Who you got for number four? Well, I'm interested in hearing Donovan. Why John Morant or Donovan Mitchell? I think that what Jha has done, especially, like, so D. Mitch has had Mowbly and Jared Allen to help secure like that, to help secure the defense event. And so it's really just allowed him to just go off and flourish, right? And so, like, I don't, I don't want to hold that as like a knockt him, but for Jop. John had, he was without Jaron Jackson Jr.

And now that, now that, now that, uh, now that Jaron's back, you see the immediate effects of having him, you know, man, man the defense and their, the defense has immediately gotten better. And then also over the past like two weeks, Desmond Bain, who's having one of the best years of his career, having the best year of his. The best year. Yeah, the best year of his career. He also got injured. And so Jaws been, it's been John Dylan Brooks, man. and so for for jod to be playing at the level that he is which is still like a really high level and keep the grizzlies like a float that's why i would have him above that because i just think that he he's had just slightly less help than donovan mitchell has yeah i think for me but joe comes down to miss game so far and he's just not quite as efficient like he's putting up really good numbers i think at 27 points per but like his rim scoring is like weirdly down right now which

we'll come back up a little bit naturally as he gets some positive regression like we with most people they're struggling but it's only like 53% at the rim right now so like he's been great but not quite as great as i think he'll be in the future okay and also dylan brooks i mean desmond baines was playing at a fucking all-star level so like he was insane yeah that's true yeah that's that's fair that's fair i just i like i like what i was doing early on in the in the season just just slightly more because of the lack of hope but that's fair but yeah but i'm not listen i'm not dying on that hill like if like if in two days i can I can 100% look back on this and be like yeah I can put D Mitch at 5 and I'll be

Yeah yeah that's okay well let's get to number four because I think this is where There's gonna be some disagreement beginning yes my number four is yonness on the I had the same thing Fuck fuck okay whatever y'all let's not be it's it's it's two on one right now it's two on one Yep I have step at four okay what's crazy I've set up four yeah you're not for that I've set up four okay So maybe we flipped where we have Yannis and Steph Because that's crazy to me I have Steph so much higher Yeah

Yeah You're kind of crazy Explain what you think Steph Doesn't deserve a top three right now It is It is simple They won their first road game Against the Houston Rockies this week

They started the season Oh for 9 on the road This team just hasn't been Great And Yes Steph has been Amazing offensively

so has the other three people that we're going to name and the other three people that we're going to name individually have been able to affect the game on both ends of the floor at a high level and so i think with step i don't think that his offense um is necessarily like as his offenses alone trumps the package of offensive and defense from these other three players and so for somebody like like yannis who's also averaging 30 points a game who's also, you know, one of the best defenders in the league and is on a team that's second in the east right now and has one of the best records in the league, I think that that package in itself is a little bit, that, that means a little bit more to me. So that's why I would have Yonis ahead of step. Yeah, I can't just, I can't disagree with any of that. But one thing about Yonis is that he's been, he's always going to be a lead on the defensive and always going to be up there with the deep, like, along the best defenders in the NBA, one of the one of the, one the best five defenders and um my thing about he honest is that his efficiency across the board

has fucking tanked for his yeah for his standards like he's shooting the worst from the field since 2016 since the xxel 2016 cypher he's been he's been he's tanked that tanked off that he's a long time 22% from the three point line shooting like 57% from from from the free throw line so it's been pretty a pretty off year offensively but he's still pretty good pretty damn But I can't have him number three. I predict that Yannis would win it. Like he was my preseason pick for MVP. So, you know, I don't like putting him number four.

Yeah. I'd rather be correct if I'm going to pick an option. But like you're saying, the defensively, he's been great. The team's still really good. But at this point of the year, so many teams are clumped together. Like the Warriors are like the 10 seed, but the two games behind the four seed. So, like, I'm not going to buy too much into the records at this point because we're still so early.

These teams are so clumped. Things are going to change. Like, the Warriors are going to bounce back. We're being real. So I'm not going to hold that against stuff too much. and for me it's the same thing with yannis he has currently a 56% true shooting which is just above league average which is crazy for yonis normally he's among the top three and at this point step is going to set the record for the highest true shooting percentage ever for a player with over 30% usage rate yeah it's like that difference in scoring is like massive even if the points per game is similar yonish just hasn't been what we expect him to be listen i get where i get we're upset at yannis because he pushed over the ladder and he was messing with that with that six his employee i could not get a fuck I understand that that's a problem for some people. But now, like, okay, to the three-point shooting that you brought up, Yanis could shoot

0% from 3 and I wouldn't care. That's not the problem. No, I'm just saying, like, I'm going, I'm going one by one. He could miss every three this season and I wouldn't care. That's not what I look to Janus for. So that's one. The free throw shooting, yes, obviously, like, I would want that to be higher. And in my opinion, they lost that Philly game because he couldn't knock down free throws, right?

That game was there for them to take a big lead and he's going to the free throw line every, you know, 45 seconds and he's missing two every time. So that that one's on him. However, I think that the fact that there's like no spacing on this team, right? They don't have Middleton. They don't have Conitin. Drew Holiday hasn't been like amazing. and so once once they get it back i think yonis is really going to take that that leap forward i still think though that his ability that him and brooke lopez like that that defensive

combination and what they've been able to do there that added to the fact that he's still averaging 30 and still leading leading this offense that's still like a really big thing for me he's shooting 29% for midrange that's the biggest i don't i don't three's he's not shooting a lot threes but he's shooting a lot of mid range he's just a lot of him at this point and they're not going in at all he's just he's just trying you can not care you can not care but like it matters a lot like there's a lot of miss shots yeah like it's just like a few years ago where he occasionally shoots a mid range to keep the defenses on this it's a big part of his game now and it hasn't been falling at all yeah exactly you don't have to care looking at the numbers

you don't have to sit down and care but when you look at when you sit down and look at these clutch games and when they leave yonis wide out why to fuck open from three remember there's a couple games ago when he earlier in the season when he was going ballistic against like minnesota he like three four minutes down later down on the stretch he was dominating in absolutely every single category from the game you're doing MVP things talking out threes free throws mid ranges of course doing this thing in the paint and that's just like it's it's so weird putting him in at four because he's been absolutely phenomenal but i just didn't even think that there's three other players who i've been knocking it down

from every single category you know yeah i think that's the thing we're talking about him slowing down a little bit. His version of slowing down to have the start of the year is being the fourth best player in the NBA. Like, oh my God, what a fucking catastrophe.

He's only your fourth in MVP. So it's, it's finicky. If you have him won, that's where I take exception, which I guess we'll find out. But he's still number four. He's still in the MVP race,

which we talked about Juel and Bid and Yokic potentially rising up as a season goes on. Yannis is also going to rise up. So I don't hate you for giving the benefit of the doubt and just putting him there now. And one week's time

we could genuinely flip in wall. It's early in the season. Yeah. I won't be shocked And you had Janice at four as well, right, Mo? Yeah, I did. I'm afraid that we have the same top three.

Well, we all have the same group of people in the top three, clearly. We'll see what order. Number three, I have Jason Tatum. Okay. Okay. Where do y'all got number three? We got both.

Number three, I got stuff. Okay. Okay. We have a very different list. I'll tell you that Thank God Yeah I have I've been honest at three

Okay Naturally we talked about that Yeah okay So you have Tatum of Okay Yeah Wait minute Oh yeah I forgot you had stuff before

Okay makes sense Yeah So I put Tatum at three Tatum definitely could be two Yeah But I put him at three Simply because that It's almost like this thing

Where his team is being held Against him Because his team is really fucking good Which is always tricky Because like you don't want to do that Yeah But he just has so much more help than the other top two guys.

True. And maybe you say that his record being so good makes up for it so clearly he's just doing what he's supposed to do. Yeah.

But I just think the top two guys impact their offense so much more than he has to do. So it's nothing to do with him not being deserving. Like if they keep up

the one seat for the whole year, maybe he'll be number one. But I think this point the top two guys have just been such offensive dynamos that you can't put

them below number two. Yeah. Okay. Okay. My reasoning for, I hate the whole panel analyzing players because their teams are good thinking a lot of people did that last year with john moran not to say it was like you know what i'm saying related to this conversation just in general i don't

like that idea um but there's something to be said for having for doing a lot with a little like yeah you're right yeah it does make a difference you're absolutely right it does it does it does make a difference it just sound i don't i just don't like hearing most of the time but times like this yeah acceptable um so i got step at three uh the record is not where you where you want it to be at. The whole Robbins thing is kind of trashed right now. But outside of that, I'm just going strictly based off of W's and L's.

And that's the only reason why that I have step at three. You can have, I damn near almost put him at like number two. And there's no real, I'm not reaching. I'm not staying like tent toes down to the ground with this, with me having step back to me at all. He's been absolutely phenomenal.

Had he been playing, in my mind, damn near like the best. He's been. literally playing the best basketball of his career as of now. Yeah, maybe. Again, like I said earlier, I just can't take records. Yeah. I'm not taking records too seriously to this early in the year.

Like, I'm not, it's not going to be like a deciding factor for me. You know what I mean? Like, if this was the end of the year, like, if we were predicting the season ends today who wins it, then maybe it's Tatum because of the one seed. But if we're just like talking about a race where things change, like, it's too early to be so beholden to records, I think. Yeah, true, true. So that's why I have set higher.

Just because I, if the season end today and they were still the 10 seed, Fuck, no, he's not even top five. Yeah, that'd be embarrassing. That's incredible. I have, I have Yonis at three. We already went through that. Isaac, who's your two. Two is the one guy we haven't said his name yet.

Yeah. Luca Donchich. I got him at two as well. So I guess we'll talk about one and two together since it's obvious. So that means I have Steph Curry at one. What it comes down to, these two have been clearly the best offensive players in NBA. Luca is at a whole nother level in terms of he's doing the things we've seen him been doing, but he's putting all together in a more efficient way

and just really taking the MVP leap of all wanted him to do without the slow start. Like Donovan kept talking about in the offseason that we always expect that Luca's going to win an MVP but then he comes in out of shape. He ain't coming out of shape this year. He came in full throttle. He was the first player since Jordan to drop 30 points

in the first six games. Like he's tying records. Only Wilth has done. He's been incredible. But I got to put stuff above him just because if we look at the numbers and how efficient he's been and how impactful to his team he's been,

if the Warriors didn't have him, they would be the worst team in the NBA and it's not close. Yeah. He's making them like 30 points per 100 projections better when he's on the court. Like their offense is over 20 points better when him on the court compared to when he's off. And he's going to set the record for the highest true shooting percentage ever among a high usage player.

He's just been so ridiculous and such a supernova of impact that I can't not put him one. Yeah, I agree with that. I don't have the number one, but I can't agree with that. So what's your one and two? My one is Tatum and my two is Luca. harping on what you said about Luca how he's putting all this together

and how he's like just absolutely flourishing I feel a lot of the same way about Jason Tatum I think we're damn near witnessing not peak Tatum because he's still like what 23 or 24 or something like that but he's just all the things that we've seen for him there's been things over the past few years that he's been absolutely missing from his game

for some reason a couple years ago he was not really that good at finishing in the pain and now he's added things like a quarter to his game he's always been a good defender but he's over the last two to an half year. He's been a supreme defender, one of the best former defenders in the entire NBA. His passing has reached another level,

and I think he's just, like, established himself in the NBA as, like, a guarantee, don't matter where you put him. You have to put him in, like, top six players' conversation. And I think the season like this, with the adversity, this makes sense why I'm putting him number one because I didn't think that the Celtics are going to be this good coming off for the season now, and he's completely shocked me. him in his entire team of course

and being number one with the new head coach you heard some absolute wild things happen during the opposite season within your franchise and then you also have Robert Williams over here

he should be coming back pretty soon maybe in a month's time or something like that and being number one it's impressive to me it's impressed to me see him in the forefront of this

and just encapsulate all this greatness that he has and just put all into one it's beautiful that's how I have number one and that's for Luca number two I mean like like you said bro he's putting up Jordan type numbers right now and

there's nothing we can say about that there's no other than like yeah the defense is iffy and stuff like that but I can't really knock Luca at all I just I just like the record I'm a record type of guy and understand for conversations like this it doesn't really make too much sense but that's just how my mind's working right now

like you can put Luca number one it doesn't really bother me. I'm not standing to go down on it. But I just love that. They also only have one more. They have one more win than the Warriors. Yeah. The math.

18. The maps have one more win. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So my one and two is actually the same as you, Mo. I have, I have Luca at two and Tatum at one.

Wow. And I, for me, it's a, it's a matter of being, like, consistent because I, am giving yannis a lot of props because his team is is good and for tatum tatum is good on both ends of the floor and honestly it's funny because when i think about tatum he loki is like it's like a high end devon booker where like he can do a whole bunch of stuff i just feel like people just aren't like rushing to give him the same amount of praise that they are aluka step janis right and it's not to say that like we don't care but like we don't care as much i think it's because we have we've seen his style of play before you've seen like a player like him so many times and we haven't seen

enough of like guys like luka and stuff so i think like yeah yeah and it's because the playmaking too like he's keeping like i think we talked about a few episodes ago he's keeping the old tradition alive of being this just go-to score who impacts the game with a score in gravity and plays elite defense on the wing the old t-mac kobe etc yeah he's keeping that alive when nowadays a bigger trend is like these all-encompassing offensive weapons that do all the playmaking and all the scoring and he's never had that yeah but but so so for tatum i'm giving tatum the nod because he's his team has the best record in the league there they're the top seat in the conference he does it on both ends of the floor he's averaging 30 he's made that that jump offensively and that jump has

come and mo you're talking about the things that he's added to his game we've been waiting for for tatum to be really good at drawing fouls and being able to get to the free throw line more and that's the difference between him scoring 26 a night and him scoring 30 a night right is being able to get to the free throw line a little bit more so i think with that with that aspect of it and being able to put just a little bit more pressure on the on the defense that's that's why i think the increase in his scoring has come from and so i'll put him at at one for luka the stuff he's doing is insane and so the reason that's the reason why i would have him above yonis is because he's just that he's just that different right everything he's doing it's crazy i also i just can't help

and look at him and think about everything that i just saw two years ago with james hardin and and just think about like you're doing this because you're because you're that good but also because the system dictates that you do everything right i think it's the opposite though i think mori and the rockets wanted him to do that because they thought that was the best way to play I think the Mavs need him to do that because they lost Brunson They don't have a second star for him So he's like lifting heavy weights because he has to I think that's a different

Well even when even when Brunson was there like once Once Luca came back in the in the playoffs right The like you you look at what they did in that warrior series That that offensive game plan is okay we're gonna put we're gonna give Luca the ball We're gonna try and attack every single screen and everybody we're just gonna stand around and we're just gonna check up threes and that's like the way to win is trying to get Luca one-on-one matchups to get to the room. And we're just trying to make everything Luca-centric because he's that good, right? And it's not like, it's not, it's not like terrible because he is at that level.

But I think one long-term, it's obviously like I think that it's going to flame out long-term. But for Luca, if it was, if it was more conducive to winning, then I would probably put him one. I don't think, I don't think that this. He just made the Western Conference finals. I don't think, I don't think this. Conduces of the winning. He's winning. I don't,

the problem with the Hardin comp, the problem with Hardin is that regular season, he was an enigma, he was looking at one of the best offensive players ever, but flamed out in the playoffs. You could say Lucas is in the same exact thing, but he's not flaming out in the playoffs. So you're saying that could be an issue,

but it's not an issue yet. So like how can be it against them for a regular season. Stay to the subject. Regular season MVP. True. That's you. No one cares about the playoffs. Yeah, that's you.

Even, even if I say, It's not conducive to winning. We just, you just said it, they're a game up on, on the Warriors who are, who are the, the tendency, with it, with a, with a person and with a player that is having a season, the way that, that Luca is, they haven't been able to get the wins, right? And, and it's the roster sucks around Lucas. It's weird, though. It's weird because statistically, they are, they're one of the best teams in the league.

They're six in that rating, right? They, but, but for some reason, they haven't been able to translate that over to winning. So when I say that it's not conducive to winning, you can go and have everything, but it just hasn't, it just hasn't happened. So you have games and you have moments like, like the first game of the season where they're up 25 on Phoenix and they come back and Damian Lee hits a game winning shot. Those are games that you have to win and they just haven't done it consistently enough to BS top. If that's the case, if you're saying that they're statistically the sixth best team, but they're currently eighth in the conference, then that to me just means it's probably a small sample size and that we shouldn't overreact. wins and losses when literally the difference between the three seed and the eight seed is one win you know what I mean it's like but you haven't but you haven't but they're still like

there's guys on this list that that we're talking about like the Celtics have 13 wins already the bucks have 12 ones even Donovan Mitchell who is in your honorable mention he has without Darius Garland has been able to to push the calves to get double digit wins and to get 11 and for the math to be sitting here at nine and seven when you have somebody who's doing things that we haven't seen since Jordan and Will the ultimate like record book breaker it's that's the only reason why I wouldn't put him at one is because it hasn't led to winning this season so does that just sound to you this far doesn't that just sound to you like there's nothing around him though like they have two people in the roster that can dribble like

if you're saying they have this guy going supernova and they're not winning games maybe that just means that he has nothing to help him like we didn't do this we didn't do this a yokeets last year you know what I mean like if he's clearly the only guy that can do anything and he's keeping them from being the worst team in the league like would you rather Would you rather have, would you rather have what Yolich had around him last year? Would you rather have what Dallas has around Luca this year? Because, because, because we say that, like, Spencer Dinwiddie isn't having a good season. We say that, like, Christian Wood can't make plays, right?

Yokeish, what are you talking about? Jokens didn't have. No, he hasn't. Yokids didn't have a guy, like, either one of those two. Oh, my goodness. This is what we're doing right now down. Monty Morris is a playmaker. He's not a score.

like Spencer DeWody's had a really good shooting season he's become a great three-point shooter and he's filling the usage needed next to Luca he's not miles better than Monty Morris Damn this is what we're doing right now Spencer Dinwiddie versus Monta Morris He's a horrible at defense like I don't care how many Lobbs can catch it is Christian Wood isn't a positively

impactful player and there's a reason Rick Carlisle can't play him He doesn't have a super star He doesn't have a great role play I'm not and I'm not I'm not I'm not saying that he has like The sixth man of the year next to him But I am saying that his supporting cast Is better than what Yokit had I I genuinely believe I and I and I'll give us some credit because Reggie Bullock once again has sucked.

Reggie Bullock has been has been trashed. Do you and Jesus. But they, but for Luca to be doing all of this and they have been they haven't like it just hasn't translated to wins early in the season. And so whether or not you want to say, okay, like they're going to win more games in the future. future, that's a different conversation. In the first 15 games, they haven't been able to get those wins. And so right now, that's what I'm holding against him. Okay. Well, I understand that when the alternative is a guy who's also been great and the one seed. So I see what you mean. It's not like it's crazy to, it's again, he's a difference

to one and two. So it's not like you're saying, Lucas Garbage. So I give what you mean. Can't really be mad at it. Yeah. It is so funny. Back to the Dev and Booker thing. It's so funny how all the symbolic creditor applies to Devin Booker. Like, he has a perfect argument to be, like, number one, but no one is going to even dare think about that. He has the narrative and everything. Like, the whole franchise just, the whole franchise went, went through turmoil in the, in the off season.

They had, they had locker room beef, and somehow Devin Booker's out here having a career season leading them. And no Chris Paul. No, yeah, no Chris Paul. He's been watched this season. And we just don't care. Yeah, bro. That's fun.

It's tough because, like, I want to care. Like, I like Devin Bucker a lot. What does he have to do? What does Devin Bucker have to do to be in the MVP conversations? Or is he just cooked? I think he might just be cooked because, like, either, no matter what, there's always going to be some. So what he has to do is be exceptional when nobody else is incredibly exceptional.

But, like, there's these five guys in the league right now at the top that are just so much better than him that are every year going to be in the same type of production as him, even at his best. I just don't see how he's ever going to pass them up. You know what I mean? Yeah. his playmaking he's almost at he's almost at six assists the game which is his highest since it's his highest since chris paul's been there obviously chris paul's been been uh been out but he's shooting 90% from the free throw line he's shooting 51% from two right 38% from three this is but yeah think about it he's never going to be the level of player as step lucca joel yokic

etc those top five guys and then if you're going to do the wins on best team thing same argument for Tatum he's not better than Tatum so like how can you give him a vote over the supremely talented guys yeah or over the guy who wins a lot like there's always going to be an alternative it's better he's just screwed this is just how talented the NBA is bro if it was like five seven eight years ago he would definitely be in those conversations be like MVP conversations regularly but like bro Luca Tatum in the league yokech is in the league step Curry still exists and he's absolutely we just don't care we just we just don't care like it's the

the most interesting thing about Devin Booker is that is like either what he wears or the fact that he was dating

Kendall Jenner like those are those are the two most engine it's just not appealing and I don't I don't know

for what reason it's just not yeah yeah maybe hopefully one day he'll get his recognition but probably not

by me yeah okay so I think that concludes our MVP talk we'll we'll have an episode about this

every month or two kind of reconvening what we're thinking the race is at but I think this is a good snapshot of the early season race so far

yeah so we know what that means you know what time it is right TikTok TikTok time let's do it let's do it

the best moment of every episode where you guys get to listen in on what our TikToks are going to be for the week first one first one

you tell me what's more likely what's more likely the Lakers make the playoffs or the Pelicans make the finals I'm going to say the Lakers make the playoffs simply because the Pelicans aren't looking in too great of a shape

Zion has had two different injuries this early into the NBA season. Neither are the Lakers. That is true. That is very true, dog. But as of now, the Lakers look a little bit more promising, which is crazy as hell to say. But AD has been playing like a top-five players so far, well, as of late into the NBA season.

And if he continues to keep this up, but LeBron adds to all the value that Anthony Davis is bringing, I just don't see a way in that the Lakers do not medley. Wait, aren't we calling to play it as a playoffs? That's a real question right there. No, that they make the 8C, that they'll win the play in. Yes. I think the Lakers are more likely to do that.

It's more likely that the Lakers make the play in and make the playoffs. The Pelicans ain't. They're not winning the finals. Come on now. There's too much questions right now. They're not doing that. The Lakers are, the Lakers are three and a half games out of the, out of the 10 seed.

LeBron's on his way back. If the chemistry doesn't mess up, all they have to do is sneak into that spot. Make up four games in the next 66 games and then go ahead and win two. That's all you have to do. Yeah. Maybe there's only, even if you're the biggest pessimist of the Lakers, maybe there's only 25% chance that they win the play in. I think there's like a 2% chance of Pelicans win the finals of that. I'm not doing it.

Gotta go, Lakers. They're not doing that. Okay. What's more likely? Steph wins his third MVP or his fifth ring? Oh, Steph wins his third MVP. I don't think they, like, I just don't see the vision this year for them to get the chip. Clay, Clay went off.

He still washed. He just gave your team 41. What do you mean? Who is my team? Who's my team? Oh, you don't claim them anymore? nix he didn't give the nix 41 he gives the rockets 40s oh that it wasn't wow yeah that's what i'm saying that's what i'm saying yeah yeah i mean i'm not gonna write off the warriors because i feel like we've

done that one too many times been proven wrong but i think he's the favorite for the mvp at the season end today so i'm gonna go MVP yeah i'd say that i don't have him as a favor to an MVP right now but i have to give him i have to give him um did you guys hear that that was fucking blender in the background. No. Thank God. Do nobody hear that blended? Thank God.

We guys blender. Anyways. Yeah, I'm definitely going to say it's more like that Steph Curry goes ahead and Wednesday Mbri brothers are going to make it in the finals because Warriors have a lot of questions. James Lisevin is the fucking G league right now. Jonathan Kamingham both would not make it that much. They have a lot of bench questions.

And in the playoffs, the bench really fucking matters. And, uh, yeah, so I'm looking to, it's looking real bleak for the Warriors final chances right now. Tough. Curry having an all time So shout out then No more rings I'm that might bite

You in the ass What's more likely Chicago blows it up And trades Zach Levine Or Minnesota blows it up And trades Carl Anthony Towns Chicago blows it up They

They're the closest ones to that Minnesota just gave up A generational hall For Rudy Go Bed They're gonna stick with this This is their lot in life But Chicago They've been through

this experience for for a couple years i don't know how much they think that they have left lonzo's ball lonzo ball's leg is like apparently falling off and he just can't use it anymore like i don't see the vision with them yeah yeah i i got i agree with that i think that the timbrelals they're not going to give up so quickly but it's so easy to give it for the chicago bulls because you got victor and bianna finals i mean you got victor romayana in the mba draft this year then on top of that will not only victor but a plethora of good prospects and then And on top of that, you have a top four lottery pick protected. You have a top four protected pick.

And there's no better seasons to go ahead and try to convey on that than this season. But it's still risky. Even if they trade Zach, they're too good to tank for victors. So it's like they're not going to be able to get to that level of bad. So they'd have to trade everybody. They'd have to trade everybody. That's a tough blow up. Like maybe they're stuck with this team just like the Timber Wolves are.

Maybe they trade Zach and try to like retool and get value out of him since it's he looks like it's also falling off the bone but I don't know if they're going to be able to get down to tank into that level yeah they're going to have to do a little bit more than Zach y'all right about that but I think that's more likely listen they should just trade they should just trade to rose into the lakers facts give it to me give it to me give it to me get the lake is fixed and trade trade trade for us send us home have have nobody on the roster let this be Kobe all up let this be white's team the man needs a chance

Let Patrick Williams dribble into the stands every time because he can't fucking handle the ball. Let him be the guy. Let's get that going. Let's get that going Chicago. Let us fix the bulls. Let us fix the bulls. Okay. Next one.

We're going to do a thing we did a few weeks ago. And you guys are going to guess whose NBA stats these are. Oh, okay. So I got three of them. I'm going to text you guys the first one. Let's go. I'll put this on the screen for all the video watchers on YouTube. Let me see.

Let me see who is here. All right, so this person is averaging 13.8 points. Y'all tell me whose NBA stats these are. All right. So off rip, right? So they're not a shooter. 31% from the field. Trying to...

But three. Yeah, 41% from the field, 31% from three, and 75% from the three-throw line. They're averaging 14.6 assists, three rebounds, damn near three assists, and a steal. All right, but they have, okay, they have 1.2. steals so they do so it's probably probably a wing probably a wing or maybe actually no I think it's a guard it is a guard the turnovers are kind of high 2.7 turnovers so they handle the ball

they handle the ball a lot not a good shooter hmm damn okay so this is tough you can go a lot of different directions with this I'm not sure how well this dude has been in plain because he's coming off of an injury. But is this Jamal Murray? No. It's not Jamal Murray. No. Not the worst guess, but

not Jamal. Okay. I don't I think I may be selling this guy short for my first guess. Is this DeAngelo Russell? Wow. This is the Angela Russell. First guess. This is fire. You deserve that. Take that one. Wrifted with your chest. It's great. Oh, damn, you fucking ass. Holy shit. God damn.

like that yeah I'm like that little struggling to start the year yeah we haven't had a first guess before that's crazy look at that I was on par I was on par I was not that bad I'm taking that I'm taking that win now I'm going home yeah okay here's play number two what about this guy okay the average 19 points seven assists four rebounds four turnovers it's kind of telling this deal point three blocks 40% from the field and 31% from 3 and 80% from the line. Okay, so he's definitely

a guard, and I think you can say, I'll say that clearly. Four turnovers is really tallying. Is it? I'm going to say I'm going to veer towards, this is a young guard, younger guard. Okay. Is this

Cade Cunningham? Not a bad guess. not kid cutting him okay so it was a young guard cool okay uh okay so they have i didn't say he's they have one fact see did um okay so they have they have one steel 3.7 turnovers so they're point guard they're gonna handle the ball a lot what point guards can't shoot um that's the that's the lane that that we have to go through the not really a rebounder so they're probably under six four um yeah Dang

This is No, no, no, no, this can't This can't be him I'm trying to think about Trying to think about All the point guards In the league Trying to think about

Out West Come on, this is a TikTok Speed it up I know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to think I'm trying to think This is a tough one But they have the ball

In their hands of locks They have seven assists Who is this? Yeah Who are you? Can you? Is he in the Eastern Conference? No.

I'm not telling you, make a guess before I give you hints. Oh, is this? Is this Jalen Brunson? Oh, it's not Jalen Brunson. I think Jalen Brunson is a lot more efficient than that. Yeah, he's, you're so disrespectful, but you're not a real Knicks fan. I'm there, you got caught again. I can't, I can't remember his sad.

Okay. No, it's not Julian Brunson. Is, oh, man, this is tough. I don't, I genuinely. Are you on your phone? Get off your phone. No, I'm not on my phone. I'm recording my phone.

I'm looking at teams right now. I'm just looking at teams. He'll just pause his video so we couldn't see him. Wait, really? Fuck. Now, I'm looking at teams right now. I just need to picture NBA teams. Other than that.

You look at teams. That's it, though. Nothing else. Okay, yeah. I promise you. I'm just looking at teams. Promise you. Okay.

This guy. Come on, get a guess out there. Speed it up. This is bad radio. That's what I'm saying. All right. So. You're taking away too long.

I am going to say that this dude. Is this is this CJ McCollum? No, it's not C.J. McCollum. Dude, I said, I'm never picking C.J. again. Fuck. I did that last video. Holy shit. Okay, he's below the age of 25. Young player. Below the age of 25 young player. Hmm. All right. So we got, is this. Now, I can't be Simon. Simons is shooting much better. Simon's is hooping. Yeah, he's hooping. This is yeah, it can't be Simons

Is nobody on the Lakers? Nobody on the Clippers We just try to think of these young teams Ooh is this uh what's his name Kevin Porter Jr This is not Kevin Porter Jr. Fuck I think we're stumped here I think we're stumped

Yeah he's in the Eastern Conference Damn so is not Cade holy shit He's in the Eastern Cromes out there You're just doing too much thinking so TikTok Let's see OG's hooping So this can't be OG Look at the assist too, bro That's no way in hell

That's what I'm saying That's what I'm saying He's a young player You can't put Out what this looks like Lamella ball stats But he's not playing right now So no way in hell

You decided throwing Omeleball Is it Terry Rozier? He's old as hell No it's not Terry Rozier Damn Yo we stumped for real I'm just

This is La Mello ball This is La Mello ball This is La Mello Ball? No what Why would you put Lamele ball That's messed up That's messed up

You can't do The Mollah ball came, the Mollah ball's in back for two games. He played, he played like two games or something like that the season. That's messed up. That's wrong. You're an ass for that. You're an ass. This is your ball. You're an ass. Yeah. The Mollah, he had no real shine this year so far. I was right, though. Give me that on W. I said, this is a little little ball. Give me that. This is my. Nah, that's messed up. I guess, but you don't want to stand ten toes on it. This is mine. Yeah, I took that W, y'all. You know what are you got to W? Fuck. Okay. Last one. this guy's played more than two games so no more crying okay good last one 22 6 and 4 he's averaging yeah he's averaging 22.6 rebounds four assists three turnovers a steel point three blocks shooting 56 6% from the field 50% from 3 god damn and 71% from the free though line is this is this a rookie no no no I'll go hands it make a guess this is 50% from three who's out here shooting like this yeah who the hell who the hell

who's strapped yeah holy shit is this Desmond Bain so don't get it's not Desmond Bain damn that was a good guess maybe it's nah he's not he got he got to be much better than that I know it's not I know it's not who's shooting 50% hey is your boy no he can't be like that there's no one on herder there's no there's no there's no he's averaging like 18 i would have known this is not kevin herder he's averaging like 18 i would have known uh you follow that man like that's absolutely bro uh shit who is hooping like this right now bro it's no i can i don't think this anyone in the e is this lorry marketing This is not, you're paying attention to the wrong things.

Yeah. I think he is, I think he's a wing, wing or a guard. I think he's a wing of regard because the blocks are really fucking low and the skills are more than double bad. The turnovers are high though. The turnovers are high. But I don't know who is, I don't know who's shooting like this. Is this, is this?

He's above 6.5. Is this? Jalen Brown. It's not Jalen Brown. He said he's above 6.5 proceeds to name somebody under 6.5. I thought he was 6.6. That was, that was me. That was me the last round. Jayne Brown's over 6.5.

That was to me last time, though, because he said, he said under 25, I said Terry Rozier. Bro, I did something way worse. Last episode, he said he's younger than 24, 25. I said C.J. McComb. Instead of a conviction. Holy shit. All right. Please give us the conference. Western Conference. Is this Paul George? It's not Paul George.

That's actually a really good guess, though. Yeah, not the worst guess. It's not a terrible guess. I'm trying to think out West. It's not Paul George. It's not Desmond Bain. Let's see. Let's see.

It's definitely not knowing. Oh, bro. This is. Brendan Ingram is a good. It's the 50% from three that's throwing me the fuck off right now. I don't know. I don't know who's shooting like this. Yeah.

Then stop looking at it, because there's a lot of context you don't know. It's a 50. What's the context? Is this Anthony Simons? It's not Anthony Simons. Because he's shooting like that. It's the 50% from 3 and the 71% free 3%. Ignore the 3% percentage.

Good Lord. But it's just a super efficient. It's a super efficient point guard out west. It's like, above 6.5. Over 6.5. It can't be. Okay. over 6-5 okay that's kind of tallied too he averages more rebounds and assists you think it's a point guard

nah so it's a wing okay it's a wing is this is this Andrew Wiggins it's not Andrew Wiggins it's a it's a two out west who said it's a two he's above six five I guess it could be a two okay he's above six five it's a two out west hey man I'm one guess from being over this uh huh uh uh uh uh uh Uh, is this, oh, this has to be Jeremy Grant. No, it's just naming Blazers now. What? This is not Jeremy Grant.

Okay. You'll give up. No. Okay. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get one more guessing and then I'll be done. So if we go through the West and I don't think, hmm, I'm trying to think about, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull up all, I'm gonna pull up all the teams and the NBA teams. I just need to see it. This is not no one on Phoenix.

I don't want to list. I'd this become a 15 minute segment. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, these are the hardest. Cank, yeah, these are the hardest. It's hard. Is this, um, is this Keldon Johnson?

It's not. It's not a bad guess. That's a great guess. Is this Michael Porter, Jr.? Now, he's doing way more than three thousand that, bro. Fuck. All right, I'm dead. You'll give up, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. This is Zion Williamson. What the fuck? I told you just have to stop thinking too much with a 3. Yeah, man. five attempts a game fuck yeah the three points on me that's on me that's on me three point shots threw me off

bro that's that's that's so telling god damn that's unbelievable he's taking like i'm actually disgusted uh yeah i'll be i'll be answering no question at my press conference conference today that's tough that's funny okay let's move on to the last couple of segments you got mo's your camera good yeah okay let's do the shoe one you have for us sweet you want to do you want to host it you want me to do it

I got it all right let me think of some I got it TikTok lingo silent ready yeah yep all right let's go which

signature shoes are better all right cool now I'm the list the design what are these called again yeah the zon twos or the the zon twos or the

The Zion 2s or the curb flow 9s. First all, you, this is a terrible first matchup. This is a mid-off for real. Jesus Christ. Curry wins because Zion's shoes look like they are medically prescribed. Yeah. You got to have all the time to wear these bitches outside, bro. Oh, my goodness.

Nah, no, I can't do this. I'll take care you. I'll take care your shoes. These look like, I don't know, like early 2000s, hyperdunks or some shit. These are terrible. I got to go with Curry's, like, I got to go with Curry's, but I'm not happy about it. Zion's like, it's a combination of like shacks and and ones. Yeah.

With a Velcroo strapped. It's nasty, bro. It's ugly. Yeah. I can't do it. It's nasty. They look like they look like they're supposed to light up or something too, bro. It looks like a very reversible shoe.

Either five years are wearing these or you're 75 years old wearing those. Facts. All right. So next up, you have the LeBron 20s versus the KD 15s. This is tough. It's not tough. These are hard. LeBron 20.

Easy. What? Those LeBron. Nah, those KDs are hard. These are some of, in my opinion, these are some of the better LeBrons that we've gotten in a while. In a long time, you're right? They really are.

And I think. I like both of these. So I'm not mad at you. The KD one, I'm not a fan of the, of the. the side of the the lacing where the laces go through on the side. Also the texture on it, I don't know what

that fabric is. It looks a little just like rough. It doesn't look like. The mood it is. What's up? Moe showed us a picture of some pink ones and I'm just a slut for pink shoes. So he swayed me. Well, we just unleashed a kink. Holy shit. Yeah.

Yeah. These are love pink shoes. Like he's LeBron's nice. Yeah. For the first time in a while, we got LeBron's dudes that don't look like brick houses. So I like, fuck with him heavy, bro. All right. So you got the Luca ones

versus the Trey Young twos. How do both of these? Mid off again. How do both these are terrible? The Luca ones may be the worst. I'm not picked Trey Young. I'll tell you that. The Luca ones are bad, but these Trey Young ones are terrible.

These BuzzLite. What? What? What? The trays are the ones on the right, the white ones? The trays on the ones. The trays are on the left,

the black and white. And then Lucas are the buzz light. Oh, you get it backwards then. Oh, you label it wrong. Oh, yeah. I, yeah, I label it wrong. Yeah, I'll read you say it. The trays aren't good.

I don't like the trays. But those Lucas shoes are some Buzz Light your ass shoes you got to be looking at. I'm not picking those. Yeah, I'll take the, I'll take the, I'll take the trade twos as well. Yeah. Luca has no drip, man. He really, he really needs some help. The only way I'm picking those Lucas is if it gives me the ability of the Luca.

Plus 10 on my attribute on the basketball. What do you think this is? This isn't like Mike. What are you talking about? I get to play like Luca. Stop it. Nah, we need to get Lucas so bad. In the offseason, so obviously, this offseason.

Nerf or nothing asking this. This offseason, Luca, he was playing in the Eurobasket. That's cool. The next off season, we need to get him in an internship at League Fits. They need to teach him how to dress, how to style, how to do everything. This is not it right now here. This is not it. Fax.

Get him in the last. lab with shake jiltz Alexander the same way a young devon booker got in the lab with kobi bryant we need to get him to learn for the best that was a great talk yeah these suck those are horrible shoes jesus yeah sneakers are in the gutter right what we got left we're almost done here uh we'll only go one more so there's been a lot of surprising players both good and bad this year which NBA player has disappointed you the most of the season R.J. Barrett. Dude got paid max money, and he's playing like a role player.

And I think a lot of people have to just realize that, like, you know, they put star potential. They gave that man star money, but he makes role player type of decisions that are just irritating. At this stage, your career, bro. I'm so glad you said this. Like, yo. I have been wanted to get this off my chest for months.

Absolutely. R.J. Barrett is mid as fuck. Yeah. Like, what discernible All-Star level ceiling of a skill does he have? None. He was a good shooter for one year, no longer that. He's gotten better as a ball handler. Still not good.

Can't finish at the rim. Is he just fucking stop her on defense? No. Like, what is the, what is the deal? Is what we doing? He's insanely mid. He's insanely mid. He had potential.

Where did it go? Listen. Where is it at? It's clearly not a good fit with Brunson and Randall there. It things just like, for him, for him personally, it's not the best situation. He has to run. Now we're blaming it on the situation.

He has to, well, he has to run around and play defense because this little 5-10 point guard, dude, he can't play defense. He'd be getting ran over by everybody. So now Arjah has to put out all his fires. So that's one. Two, the difference in RJ's shot from year one to last year got insanely smooth.

You can see the progression. And he's taking steps every single year. year to be a better player he just hasn't been able to be in that role i think that if they get rid of julius randall and now we focus full time on this back court then we can this isn't a big three it's jelan brunson r j barrett and julius randle it's not a big three it's just three guys it's a mid three i'll tell you that it's just three guys right let's give r j barrett some time to maybe grow into those shoes and he's relegated to the third option how many more times he need he already has his max contract he's cutting a lot of time exactly there's a specific type of player that i just absolutely

hate and it's players who are just like who look like they're athletic but they're stiff back at the same time and rjabird is one of those players he's very far from being shifty he's not as spiky as you would expect him to be he just like doesn't he's not mobile like that at all bro he can move obviously but he's not as mobile as you would expect him to be and at this point now if we do a redraft bro i'm talking about he's not he's not as mobile as you would expect him to be and at this point now if we're taking Tyler Hero over him. I'm taking Darius Garron for sure over him bro and I think I could keep the list going

I can keep the list going. It's ridiculous. Y'all let up on the young boy. Y'all let up on the young. No. People have let up on him too much. He needs more slander. What did he let up on him? I feel like at this point he was the he was the best he was the number one player

on that on that on that in terms of like recruit. The moment he got to Duke and Zion was there everybody was just like oh he's trash he's trash. He's trash. he's trash this this and that they're like in that in that draft it ended up being zion and jah and then everyone's like oh well he he he he's going to go top three i guess and they've been slandering him since the moment he got into this league let him skate by for four years being a below average at everything what do you mean skate by he's got he's gotten slander for four years

he's more of it's the only people who have defended him have been new york nix fans and they're starting to get sick and tired of him too i don't know why you're weird ass the rest of the country has been hating on him for the last four years for no good needs to be the entire universe

at this point bro another player we got okay off for him another player we got talking about another one is Jordan Poole all these kids on TikTok

I try to convince me that he was gonna be this rising star after Lashers playoffs they tried tell me he's better than Desmond Bain well you sound old yeah

he tried to tell me he's better than Desmond Bain and all this other bullshit and he's he's just been worse than he was last year like he hasn't taking a step at all that's true he's bro this time but he's unplayable and it's the and it's the regular

season yeah are you he should worse in the field worse from three still bad at defense playmaking hasn't taken a meaningful jump i don't see why i should buy into him as his rising star yeah i'm going to give us some time there was an interesting conversation that happened last year and a lot of people were like oh would you either go ahead and have anthony simons or georgian pool and initially last year he had me for a second that was kind of tough but now i think Everyone's pretty much back to the common sense and Anthony Simons. Yeah, we've seen the light. We've been blessed, bro.

Anthony Simons is the one. He's him. Yeah. Okay. All right. My person who has been a little bit disappointing is Zion Williamson. Okay, that's fair. I thought Zion was going to come out.

He's been offered a year and a half now. I thought he was going to come out and take full control of this Pelican's offense. We're going to run everything through him. And he just hasn't gotten there. he's at like we just saw he's that he's at he's at 22 points uh per per game his his uh his offensive rebounding numbers have gone down by basically like a full offensive rebound i understand that's because like yonis is there and the paint is a little bit clogged up but exactly um i just thought we would see a little bit more scoring from him and we just haven't seen it yeah me too but i don't

think it's all his fault i think it's more so that they have these four creators on offense all he touches and their coach has purposely not ran the offense through him as much Like I think he's getting like like a fourth of the pick and roll touches he had back in the two years ago So it's really just been the fact that there's more people to feed I think yeah It's it's like so when he first came when he first came in into the league in that like 24 games that we saw him play He averaged 22 and a half points in 28 minutes and on 15 shots and now he's he's at 30 he's at 31 and a half minutes Still at 15 shots at 22 so he's like the the rate is is the same but at the same time his feet field goal percentage, and for somebody who only shoots, you know, layups and everything

10 feet in within, last year he shot 61% for the field. He's shooting 56% now, which is lower than his rookie season. Everything is kind of down across the board. I thought we would at least get rookie Zion Williamson back, and it just hasn't even just looked the same. It's just been all around different. So Zion, sadly, is my most disappointing player this year. Another number one overall.

I'm going to give him some time, though. Another number one overall pick, yeah, I definitely give that some time. Another number of an overall pick, Hudak, who I'd like to do not want to give him any more time, at least on this team, is DeAndre Aden. I mentioned last episode that he was kind of disappointed. He's averaging the second-low amount of points so far. Why don't we sland-a-haer? Let's do it.

Because he hasn't been absolutely fucking terrible. He's actually still playable, and you just want him to do more. Archie Barrett literally can't do more. He's a number one overall pick who lacks aggression. has to have Chris Paul spoon feed him to tell him what to do on the court. And it's him, it's him and Devin, it's him, it's him, it's him and Booker, in terms of Paul and Booker having to tell him, hey, D'Andre, run the floor. Hey, DeAndre, go here.

Fem, you're seven feet tall and you can, you're seven feet tall and you have the ability to do absolutely everything. You should have taken the leap by now. There's probably a reason, like, like, listen, Phoenix should have paid him, um, that money. There's probably a reason that they didn't want to give him that money because he looks unmotivated by the fact that he hasn't taken a big leap in four years. Yeah, absolutely.

But the thing is, he's still way better than R.J. Barrett. Yeah, exactly. Okay. If you're the next, he'd rather have DeAndrean and then R.J. Barrett at this point. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Yeah, you're right, though. You're right. At this point, it looks like, it looks like DeAndre Aden is just quiet quitting and he's just waiting to get traded. Like, he does not want to be there. There's no motivation.

They need to split it up for both parties. Yeah, the numbers are just really disappointing. You're averaging the least amount of rebounds in his entire. crew. He's supposed to be a double-dove machine. He's averaging 8.5 rebounds the game. The fuck is that shit, bro. He's averaging the least amount of blocks per game. He's averaging the least amount of minutes per game, bro. It's like, dog, you're so serious. Yeah, you're supposed to, you're supposed to be, you're supposed to be, you're supposed to be, you're supposed to be, you're supposed to be, you're supposed to be, he's supposed to be,

out. Who would have thought that was CP3 out and then now just Devin Booker, like, you're supposed to, they were calling this duo the fucking next Kobe and Shaq. Who said that? That's a lie. That was nasty as fuck who said that that was stupid people were saying that the next colby and jack you said people were saying that then said who said that so you saw one tweet you saw one tweet back i promise you looking up on you he's out here saying that bro another person we got to be another person we got to be this a little bit disappointed in is obviously trey young oh yeah who just hasn't been able to make shots and hasn't adjusted well to play with de jante we'll get there but he hasn't been great so far while i'm i'm disappointed in lebron james um oh duh yeah

number is yeah he's not he's looked terrible yeah so for i was joking but listen we can we can get into this lebrown slander oh my god let's let's end it right here he just no i mean he hasn't been great you talked about the last episode he's there's clearly some adjustments going on they'll get better as it's because the spacing has been really hurting him they'll get better as time goes on but he hasn't looked super motivated the body language has been bad like there's a fair reason to be disappointed with him right yeah fair we we got our disappointed tips off nice Oh, Kauai Leonard, too, please. He needs more, like, bro, he's been so disappointing.

Oh, bro, I'm not disappointing Quy Leonard. I'm saddened by Kauai Leonard. I'm just at this point, like, is he ever going to be what we hope he could be? Like, it might just be, he might be cooked. Yeah, but his career is, his end of the career numbers are going to be so, like, mind-boggling in, like, a bad way. To find out Andrew Wiggins has, like, put up more points to him in his entire career. He is just fucking, like, nuts. I'm hoping he gets at least a little bit healthy, and we get to see at least one more run

him is that guy but at this point I'm not super confident Tobias Harris has more career buckets than Kauai Leonard who would have known wild all right well

that's the show I think we're done here bye