The Deep 3 Podcast - We Reacted To Your Best NBA Hot Takes For 2026 | Ep. 174

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

NBA hot takes you all expect to see in 2026! #nba Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/ Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794 Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/ Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_ Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D 0:00- Intro (new show schedule!) 3:33- Wemby owns the Thunder 28:30- 2026 NBA hot takes 54:45- Mo cries about the Hawks and Trae Young 1:08:25- NBA news lightning round 1:28:33- The lakers are kinda a mess Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Where were you two? The day. Victor Women Yama bent over the defending NBA champs, seemingly snatching the chain for best team in the NBA, finals favorites. Where are you all? I was on the couch, prepping for my midday nap. I was getting ready. Those are my first two games I was going to watch. Warriors, Warriors' Mavs.

Naphton? Yeah, I see you on the morning. Oh, my gosh, bro. I had my Spurs jersey on too. I got one. I got a Stefan Castle jersey, and I was ready to join him, to join Deer and Fox. I was ready to join all those guys. Keldon Johnson, too,

and the bending over of OKC. They finally are dethroned. As you guys see, we are here today. Talking on a Monday, you look at the title of this episode. It says episode 174. What? Those only come on on Fridays. As you see by the title, we're here today to react to your best NBA hot

taste of 2026. We're also going to talk about the Christmas Day games that we missed because we recorded early in advance before Christmas last week due to travel. Talk about all the stuff. You guys have to talk about all weekend as a OKC favorable podcast. Somebody who says good things about them.

You guys have been in our DMs and our Twitter mentions telling us to react. We will. But more importantly than all that, more importantly than the main topic we'll talk about after that. Like I said,

this is a Monday episode. This is a new thing we'll be doing going forward. We are making a lot of changes to the show. Throughout all of January and February, you're going to see week after week we roll out a new change.

Leading to one, I think it's going to be pretty big at the end of this month. Don't want to give away too much, but stay tuned for the end of this month into February. This is the first one. The live streams

that we do on Monday night are now going to be full-length episodes, take there because I know a lot of you guys that do come and watch the live streams every week. We appreciate you guys showing up every week. Kind of sucks potentially to you that we're not going to do that now. We are still going to live stream. We're just going to focus it more on live stream running big events. Obviously, you know, the draft night stuff, the lottery, big marquee matchups. We'll still do like once a month or so. But most weeks going forward, it'll be two main episodes a week instead of one episode and a stream. The stream is basically just turning into this

episode. It's going to be the same type of run a show, a lot of news reactions, a lot of interaction with you guys while the Friday episodes maintain exactly what they've always been. Yeah, it's just a lot of change. And I know a lot of people are scared of change and they hate to see, you know, our normal program and our normal schedule just like develop over time. But this is for the better and trust and believe us. We will not let you guys down. The crayons will be fucking bigger, juicier, and we will be continued to, we will continue

to munch on just in different ways. Okay, well, yeah, these are not changes, their upgrades. As you get it, it all makes sense as you see everything else to add. to the show over the next month but are you not indulging what's going i'm just saying by the time february first comes this will be a very different show and this is stage one of that we're doing two episodes a week from now on same same type of content same type of schedule just a little bit higher quality on mondays i have to get this off my chest i don't know why but your cuffs are huge isaic and they're bothering me right cuffs oh this shirt like why are they so they're mad big

like you don't know cuffed up to kill what are you doing but i need you to get in the lab I don't think people know to kill where he said Nike. Oh shit. Just out of it. But like you said, we're here today to react to

Christmas Day games. More new stories. Your hottest takes. Let's get into our first Monday episode in this show's history. Cue the intro music. We're throwing it back.

Whoa. That's crazy. He was bragging. I don't know. He just said. The cranium is crazy Oh my God Crown eaters

Rejoice Like we said Before the intro music It is only right That we start talking about The biggest story Of the NBA season, I think, so far And that is

The San Antonio Spurs are officially Tier 1 contenders They are officially The Boogieman for the Oklahoma City Thunder Wemby officially Owned Shet Holmgren San Antonio officially owns Oklahoma. We are going to go ahead and make Oklahoma as a state a part of Texas now via basketball team.

We've decided that they have to absorb them because they have bent them over so unbelievably hard. Three times in a row in the span of two weeks, this is monumental. I cannot remember last time we've seen a team as all-time talented as Oklahoma City Thunder, as dominant against 29 teams in the league where two weeks ago we were talking about, will they break the 73-win record that was on the table with the pace they're on. And now all of that isn't put to bed by one single team that, completely has their number. What is y'all's initial reaction on Christmas, a Christmas day to seeing this? This is, this is what happens when the prophecy is being fulfilled. Right? Like,

you have to have these moments where you have the young goat taking down the Death Star. And we're seeing the first part to that. And it really is like, when OKC plays everybody else, even whenever they play Yokic, you have, you have styles that you can, that you can match up against. You have certain matchups within the game in terms of like player versus player that are very favorable to you however even whenever you play denver you know that yoke's is going to control everything offensively what if that happened on both sides of the ball right what what if what if your best player can dominate offensively and then can change the mindset of everything that you want to do defensively and that is what wemby is doing to to the thunder as a whole and then like you mentioned

earlier what if he's just slapping chet humburn around every single play and And Chair Holmgren literally looks like little brother to Wemby. What if that happens? There's so much to get into with this. And it's obviously Wemby owns this team as a defender completely shuts down the pain. All that we'll get into. The Spurs, the Spurs guards are not scared of these OKC defenders at all. The athletic advantage they have has proven to be another advantage that OKC can't contend with on a day-to-day basis so far.

So many layers of this. Are you more concerned about OKC or excited to see the spurs kind of prove themselves? Most definitely, I don't even fuck about what's going on in O KC because at the end of day, their champions, J-Dub just came back and he's still like obviously getting into himself and whatnot. Same thing can be said about Lou Dord. Like, I'm not worried about O'KC. This is more so all of us taking note and taking the San Antonio Spurs legitimately serious

as a championship contended now. This is like way sooner than any of us thought. None of us had them as a highly-touted team in the Western Conference this year. We all know they're going to be good. We didn't think they were like going to completely. missed a playoffs or playing or anything like that but none of us seen this level of like competency coming even when wimby's not playing at like the highest or elite level in these games these three games that he was playing against okay see i think one of them or maybe two of them

he like came off the bench and whatnot and he's been on a minute minister's restriction the entire time all of them is come with the bench yes exactly and i think what's more fascinating about the spurs and like all-time wemby conversation like aside this team is legitimately good outside of him, bro. Yep. Yep. So we'll start the first on the Spurter side, then we'll get into the OKC stuff

and whether or not we're concerned. But San Antonio's proven that they are a, I don't know if you say tier one contender, but actually, no way, if you can beat the defending champs three times in a row, that means you can beat them in a playoff series. And that means you can get through the hardest obstacle in the West.

If you can come out of the West, you can damn sure be whoever comes out of the East. So yes, I think we can say the Spurs are a tier one contender. I think we probably still view the Oklahoma City Thunder as the team to beat, probably the champion

in that if we're going to predict today. After that, we talked all year about the Denver Nuggets having by far the best chance out west to beat them because we know the advantage of Nicole Yokic and we know that

in a fourth quarter they'll execute them every single time in the fourth and be able to push them to seven just like they did last year, right? So we've always viewed the Nuggets as the team

that if anybody's in that dethrone them, it's them. Add the spurs in that category. They are neck and neck to me now with the nuggets equal, if not better chance of being the Thunder because the matchable advantages

we'll get to, and if that's the case, you are one of the three to four at worst five best teams in the NBA that has a legit more than just cute championship odds. Like you have a legit chance as good as anybody to hoist the trophy at the end of the year.

I think this is one of the first times that like that the Thunders legitimately have pressure on them to make a move at the deadline. To try to try it and be aggressive. Make a move or figure something out. Yeah, because I think like two years ago when we were all

screaming like, oh, trade for it back a big, trade for it back a big and then like you go out and you get Gordon Hayward and it's like ah. Like you could have did something that was supposed to be cool You could have did something a little bit better to address the very specific need that you that you needed at that time and you did it You stuck with continuity this year like you kind of addressed your Your your faults in the in the draft right when you know or you thought that you were going to get topage back this year you drafted sword bear He obviously got hurt before the season and you're coming into this year saying you know what it doesn't matter

Chet's going to get better. J.W. is going to get better. Ludo just had a good season. Like, we're going to stick with everything that we had last year. We're going to bank on that. Now that the Spurs have come in and in two weeks have shown the entire world, you guys can't beat us. This is legitimately where you kind of have to bake in.

You kind of have to make yourself spurs proof. You have to figure out a way to get past Stefan Castle, to get past Dylan Harper, D.R. Fox, which is so crazy. But we're three. games into the season series and this doesn't feel like like to sometimes it happens where teams play over the course of a regular season like one team you know may may win the season series like three one but you know oh in the playoff series it's you know it's probably going to flip this is not one of those cases no no this is real 100% real yeah I was going to say the thing about those

three guards Stefan Castle Dylan Harper and obviously Darren Fox who is like the head of this the face of this someone who I've been consistently calling like he's the most underrated all-star in the league because of just nasty conversations that was had about him when they first traded for him and then when they started winning games i think they started out five and no without him to start out the year and whatnot the thing about those three guys you mentioned it earlier they're mad athletic and they're mad quick and none of these guys can be stopped by okay c specifically because a couple of days or a couple of weeks that we talked about how stephan casso had a turnover issue and whatnot. That's no longer a thing because he has Darren Fox and obviously Dylan

Harper over there making decisions for him and whatnot. But this team right here does not make mistakes offensively. Defensively, obviously they're top class, but the main story to me is talking about how their offense has been thriving in this case in the scenario. And when you think about why OKC is so dominant, they literally took away like their number one superpower, which is able to hack you, which is being able to cause turnovers in the moment. chaotic way possible and they take care of the ball. Yeah, exactly. I think you just nailed the two things that I guess the question is obviously the Spurs now

own O, KC, that's all we're saying, but why? You said it's not fluky. I think you just said exactly why. Obviously, Wemby completely shuts down the Oklahoma City offense. When Wembe's on the court, they have like an 80 defensive rating right now against them. They are making that offensive plea fall apart because Wembe is proven to be the greatest rim deterrent in modern NBA history like we all knew he would become. He is that right now.

And this Oklahoma City offense is obviously It's not an all-time offense, right? They're great because they're an all-time defense And they can turn you over, get in transition, use that to supplement their offense in the half court And get a good offensive rating But because the defense leads the offense. If one, you're not turning the ball over

Because your guards are more athletically gifted than OKC's guards and can't be bullied And are playing with utmost confidence To get through Kays and Wallace, get through Caruso, get through Shea, the lack of turnover is obviously hurts the OKC offense. Then in the half court, if you could make it so She can't do any room pressure

because Wemby's there and when he swings it to these other players they won't even think about attacking the rim because Wembe's there now you're a jump shooting team every single time

we saw this team get pushed to seven in the playoffs against inferior opponents is because they were turning to jump shooting team and this team has a bunch of inconsistent

jump shooters Chet, especially being guarded by Wembe can't get a jump shot off to save his life because Wembe's length is way too lethal on the three point line

and Chet shoots the ball way too slow so he's getting absorbed Jadov has been absolute dog shit coming off the wrist injury but we'll give him grace because of the wrist

injury Kason Wallace Lou Dort and really really most of those two Caruso, yeah. Caruso to some extent he played a bad game but he's been a consistent shooter

from the time of time. Really those two, Lou Dorton and Kason Wallace have proven to be inconsistent shooters against good defenses when their jump shooting is super relied upon.

So this defense looks pretty much exactly how it looked in the playoffs when Denver did a great job of taking away Shays strives with that really, really aggressive gap help they did

and made it so those guys that had shoot a lot of threes when that happens this team will go cold and if they can't be a dominant defense because your guards have those advantages

this cycle starts to break and a lot of people are going to be like they had the blueprint not for them. The blueprint is have the best rim defender in the NBA and the most athletic guards in the NBA. That's not really a blueprint. That's just a recipe for great basketball

in any era. Yeah. And for the, for like the case of Wallace's and Caruso's and stuff like that, I understand that they are inconsistent. I'm giving them a little bit more of a of a past just because it's, that's your role anyways, right? You are always going to be these types of players that are going to benefit

off of the pressure and the creativity from your, from your main ball handlers. However, we're here. And once again, this offense is 100% built on, hey, Shay, you go do everything and then everybody else can kind of figure out every, you know, where they fit in afterwards. We are looking for a Chet leap. We are looking for a J-Dadeo leap. And for those two things to not happen, now you're putting Caruso and Case and Wallace

in positions where those drives are so much more valuable than they should be because J-Dadeau can't get his game off because Chet isn't getting his game off. Lou Dora hasn't been shooting great this year either. So none of your supplementary players are even in a position to be actually supplemental. And so that's why for them, for this specific season, you have all of these draft picks. You know where your future lies. You know it's going to be with Shay, J.W. Chet. I'm not saying you have to go out and trade for Yonis or do anything crazy.

But going out and getting somebody who can create their own shot a little. a bit more consistently than what Jdub is giving you right now because even in the even in the playoffs we've seen jadub have issues getting to his shot and getting getting by guys and being creative in that way so they're going to have to figure something out just to i think it's the opposite really well i do think you're right that they need to address things but i don't think it's necessary creation yes it would be nice if jada played better coming off for his injury and can create a little bit more he needs to play off ball a little bit more i think a j mitchell can be enough of an answer you know he wasn't there in this game i think he makes a gigantic difference which a lot of people on twitter are

like you're the best team in the NBA and you need a backup point guard to be the difference. Yes. He is that important to them. Like that's not a slight to anybody. That's also, I mean, that's been a weakness of this for two years. And he's helped that. I think what they need is better shooters. Then you consistent shooters. Like, that's been the case in last year. The only reason they got pushed a seven is so they did not have consistent jump shooting. When teams made it so they said, Shea won't beat us. We're going to double team him on these drives. We're going to gap help extremely hard. Kason Wallace beat us. He cannot. He cannot. They need to have consistent shooters that they can

either close games with or fill some of these minutes. that you can't just make it so we are 100% okay with that. We know what went out because more often than out, those guys will go cold. I mean, this is the greed that they talk about in biblical times, right? But, you know, like asking for the team, asking for a team with the, with the all-time defense to also say, hey, can we get you guys to also be the, like, some of the best three-point shooters in the, in the league? We don't need the best. That's a, that's a, that's a regular. You wouldn't be regular.

That's still a lot asking, asking for three to four, because we're talking about Caruso, Lou Dork, Case & Wallace. If every team had three guys who can legitimately, you know, be talked about in in all defense conversations and then say also go shoot league average or above at, at three, like that is extremely greedy. Fair, but I think we're also seeing that it's greedy and like in somewhat unrealistic for, for that level of the play. I think that what I'm focusing on isn't have everything. It's right now they're completely defensive slanted.

The goal is to be insanely overwhelming defensively, turn you over and that's going to be our MO, right? we have good not great offense in terms of an all-time team style but our defense is what takes us overboard I think they need to have a little bit more balance there just because we've seen in the playoffs we've seen in a regular season you're going to be the greatest team of all time with that style of play in the postseason especially when teams can sell it on shay and really makes those three-point shooters have to beat you you're going to keep seeing these long series that you get upset a few times because the shooters don't come through like you probably need

to have a little bit more of a balanced approach or at least have that in your tool bag like have the ability to go towards the shooters and go towards the offensive style instead of only having the defense as your one card. Yeah, I agree. And that guy that you're looking for when it comes to someone who can create their own shot is AJ Mitchell. He hasn't been there at all throughout the, at least specifically last game. What's such like an eyesore to me is seeing how, yo, Alex Crusoe, why are you taking 12, 13 threes in a game? That should never happen.

He's never taking that many threes in his entire fucking life in the NBA. Because they can't take two against Wemby. It's crazy. like we're focusing on the stuff right what you just mentioned end of the day this is Wemby end of the day like we're talking about

this greedy stuff it takes some great on offense to beat Wemby like this whole style play we're talking about worse against every other team in the league besides this one

like it's really more about the Spurs than his OKC like ultimately okay C will be fine they just got a hope they don't play they got a hope

that Denver and the Spurs played you in the second round and one of their ops takes care of each other well yes and like even with Jado and his wrist injury even if that never

gets back to like oh it better hit better no it's like it needs to right but i'm saying in terms of priority if they do the things that that you're saying where now we are a little bit more offensive slanted we go get ourselves some more some more shooters because realistically if you're like building out a team and you get like better shooters they're probably not going to be as good of defenders right whatever so if you slant yourself a little bit more offensively the number one person i'm looking at is chet because because you know offensively we're going to have shay he's going to do his thing everybody else is going to get open shots based off of what he's doing and now defensively if we're if we're lowering down our perimeter defense hey man you got to lock it you got to lock

everything up you have to be our version of wemby obviously i'm not expecting you to be wendy but you are a guy where coming into every year we say if it wasn't for wendy chet would be d p o why right and those two guys are fighting for this positioning in the league, Chet has to play so much better on both ends of the floor for them to actually have some type of versatility in terms of team building or approach or playing the spurs or whatever. And he hasn't been able to do it because, again, Wembe is little broing him, big broring, little broying him every single time,

slapping him upside the head, clapping on free throws. He looks so shook playing the spurs. And it is so, like, visible on every single place. 17% true shooting when Webby's guarding him. Yeah, bro, he's cooked. This boogeyman has been existing since he was 16, 17 years old, and they're playing Team USA basketball versus France when it comes to their under 18 team or whatnot.

This has been a story for Chet's life over the last fucking five, six years. And there's nothing that Chet can do about it. Yeah, you know what I think? I think Chet's just fucked. And Wembe is going to big brother no matter what because Wembe is much better and is perfectly suited to shut him the fuck down.

And we had to hope that J-Dub gets better and gets healthy with his wrist. He looks terrible right now for his standards. As somebody who is a top 20 player in the world, he is not playing anything close to that. Chet is playing that level on most teams, against most teams, I guess 29 other teams. He's just not going to be that against Wembe. He's going to be a pumpkin against Wemby. And that's just going to be what it is. And they have to try to find a way to survive without Chet being good offensively.

I can't. That's the problem is. It's a big problem. But that's the problem that Wemby brings. That is impossible. It's impossible. It's impossible. If, like, you are asking a.

team, and you are asking a team to take out their defensive anchor and take him from DPOY, all NBA conversations. Well, defensively, he'll be fine. It's really offensively. And putting them, I'm still talking about if you find a way to make the rest of your lineup more offensively slanted and putting even more of that burden on him. But taking him from that level on defense and on offense and dropping that down and then saying, also your matchup is the fifth best player in the world every single, every single, every single

night for two weeks, you can't really, like, bank on that. I think the defensive side is a little flawed, like, just because you bring another defensive player, I mean, better offensive player than Lou Dort, you're still going to have four elite defenders out there. So, like, I don't think the defense would be super impacted in that way. I think Czech can handle that. Yeah. But it is the thing that you have to try to find a way to win without Chet being an offensive

impact. This is just one of those things where it just happens every single generation. It happened with Jordan. It happened with LeBron. It happened with Chack, of course, too. Whether it be fucking LeBron in Toronto or all the guys that you, you know, you know, Jordan just murked in the 90s as well. Like we see it time and time again,

and this is just one of them victims, right? Also, you said something earlier about Deering Fox being like the face of these three guards. Hey, man. Listen, what Stefan Castle is doing right now. It's special. And I think like the pressure

that we have come accustomed to seeing from OKC defensively whenever they turn it up, Stefan Castle is doing that every single night, every single play. He don't have an ounce of bitch in his blood, bro. at all. They're not scared at all the whole time.

It's straight dog. Dude, they're not even a little bit scared of okay. See, the confidence they're playing with. They know we are bigger, faster, stronger than you, and have physical advantages. Yeah. Shout out Mitch Johnson. This team is clearly so well coached and playing with such immense confidence in what they do. Dude.

And we talked about all this. Their starting line of feels like incomplete because Julian Champani is over there not. He's playing not fake basketball. He's competing really hard on offense. He tries really hard to get rebounds and whatnot. But he's not shooting threes for all that. at all. He's not producing real offensive impact. I think he's pretty good, but there is

a level that can reach by upgrade that position. You're right. Julian Champani should be a really good bench player for you. They have another level to get. If they can find that wing that, you know, everyone links him to Trey Murphy, MPJ, whoever may be. They have another level to get to. There's so much like recalibrating that we have to do and it goes back to this. This is why

like this is the story, the biggest story of the league so far. Is that like, you know, like Darren Fox, again, we have to have those conversations about him, reasserting himself into one of the elite point guards We have to recalibrate our expectation when we go up to Stefan Castle. Kettle Johnson has been in trade move rumors

for the fucking longest, right? He revitalized his career. Jeremy Sahn, we don't have to see those minutes anymore. Thank God. Like, there's so much to talk about when it comes to this team. And at the end of the day, like, they're just a tier one contender.

Yeah, they're either second or third base team in the Western Conference. They have lapped a lot of teams out there and that's a real story. I think OKC for them and their story, I think this is kind of good. I think they need adversity. I think we're going to see what they're made of, right?

We're going to see if they can rise and beat this team that has a number in terms of X's and Nose. We have to see if Mark Dagnol is a coach that can figure this out. We have to see if Chet can be a man instead of a mouse against Victor Wem and Yama. I doubt it. We have to see if Jdub is ready to rise

like you did in the finals. We have to see all these things that if you are this all-time team that everyone wants you to be, figure it out. You know, this isn't, I think we think about them like the Warriors because the last time we saw a team

this level was Warriors and they kind of felt unbeatable because they were so much more talented than everybody else. this okay see team isn't that they got to earn it like they're not going to walk in and out talent everybody just because you're going to see a team that matched up well with you and it's not a given you beat them off of talent

you had to figure it out and do the things that every championship team that strings together the multiple chips you look across all their runs there's a moment where they had to overcome an obstacle and beat a team even the Warriors the 2018 Rockets that was a legit obstacle they had overcome and figure it out they had to lock in and figure out a way to out duel that crazy math equation that James Harder

and Chris Paul had with the threes they did it now we've got to see them do their version yeah I mean even before 2018 the Thunderworld up 3-1 on them. And you had that duo of KD and Russ. And their athleticism, the size that the OKC was throwing at at people with, you know, then, and it's cancer. And Stephen Adams, like, they and Abaka, like, they had so, so much size to, to combat what the Warriors were doing. And they were also a very physical team. So I think for the Spurs, like, they, they are, are that version of that. And the two biggest questions that we had for them in the offseason were, can your shooting be, be good

enough to support this offense and allow your guards to be able to get downhill check right we're good on that and then is Mitch Johnson actually actually the guy because he came in to start coaching this team whenever pop was you know was having his health issues and so they they double down right they they gave him the contract but it's still we didn't really know if he was an actual coach and now that is also a check so when those two things are off the list now we're now we're into first world problem, you know, issues. Like, oh, yeah, can we, can we upgrade our starting lineup a little bit better, right? Can we, can we, can we, can we notice this?

Can we get Wemby off the minute's restriction? Like, they're cruising right now. And this is, this is great to see. You know what else is great to see? A real rivalry back in the NBA. Needs. So, with that note, let's talk about the best robberies in the NBA. Who are the five best rivalries currently in the league right now?

With this in mind. Yeah, we talked about number one. Easily, it's OKC versus the spurs. We can see this going on for the next seven, eight years on one hour. Dude, I look at this on Christmas Day and I say this might be the defining rivalry of the 2020s. This might be the type of all-time rivalry

that we look up and say Shavers Wembe had wars in the playoffs and that defined people's childhoods. Yeah, okay. That might be like, that might be the next generation versus of Bronvers Louisville-O Curry if things go well.

Need that. I would say Denver, Minnesota. Still. Even still, because no matter what, I'm going to get a good game. Yeah, true. I'm going to get a good game. Somebody's going to do something crazy.

and like for Yokish to go and have 18 in overtime and drop 50 and then and's doing his thing like those two still feel like anything can happen whenever these but they don't have the animosity of how much Victor Woban Yama wants to see Chet Hogan in a grave I don't know if anybody has to be right right like he's on a different level of hate yeah yeah he definitely like Kendrick doesn't hit as hard as Richard woman Yama does cheering after a frito miss like you're crazy you're sick man is Nick Celtics up there Kind of.

It's kind of back. I would say, well, you know what? Nick Pacers effort last year. Oh, that's, oh, I think it's fully there. I hate those dudes. The Knicks hate that Pacers enough that I think it's number three. Yeah. Actually, do we still go, do we still go Boston Lakers?

Are we going to focus on 2025? Nobody cares about that right now. Yeah, we'll focus. Oh, right now, LeBron Dillon Brooks. Yes, exactly. That's the, that's definitely. Dylan Brooks also standing ovation. Yeah.

To give LeBron a high five at the free. though I'm like, LeBron was so mad that he napped him up. He was furious. I haven't been, I haven't seen LeBron actually have hate for another player or actually anybody else get under his skin like Dylan Brooks has. This is like unseen levels of troll

from Dylan Brooks right now. We're at seeing peak Dylan Brooks on and, I guess on and on the court. Yeah. I think Anthony Edwards wants to make Tim Bulls versus Thunder that. They got to try to have a competitive series at first. They have to do what this birds are doing. Yeah, yeah. They had to punch back a little bit first and we'll get there. I mean, listen, they They got a win this year.

They did. We need two. We need two wins. Yeah, we need a playoff series that goes like seven or something. We need to have some real motion. Man, the east is so on the board.

That's four. We don't know. What do you want to go for the last one? Okay. Adam Silver and good ideas. The Hawks and being like over 500 to battle of the centuries. The Palo versus Franz.

They just on the same team. There's not a lot of good rivalries. Is there even a fair? fifth one not anymore right not yeah look at team logos I feel like there's got be one we're overlooking like just potential Giannis doesn't really got a rival right now everyone's in Philly is just blah right now nothing's happening in Toronto oh I mean shit I guess you could say Jared Allen in pressure Jared Allen lights at number five do we just go Lickers versus Warriors to grandfather in Curry versus LeBron every time it's just

little the fans really make it a robbery still okay yeah listen we don't really have anything else. Yeah, there you go. That's number five. Currie versus LeBron, you get your legacy pick. But okay. That's so sad.

It's still, I mean, the fans definitely still make it a rivalry. It still feels like something. Next thing we're going to do, moving on the block two of this episode, I ask you guys on community posts,

as you see by the title, to give us your hot takes slash predictions, but we're calling them hot takes that will define the 2026 NBA. As we know it, we're going to react to them. Decide if we think you guys

are cooking or if you guys are being wishful. Okay. First off, Adam Silver, suddenly grows his hair back and T. Jim O'Connor goes bald. Whoa. Do we see this happening? I've seen a lot of people.

Listen, I'm very tapped into the hair transplant game. Okay. Man weave, all the main units. I think Adam Silver would go with a man unit before he goes to Turkey for the hair transplant. So I don't know if this is going to happen. Do you see a rise in respectability in man units? Do you think it's going to become? 100%.

Would you consider that in your older years, 10 years from now? You've got to pick a choice? Would you consider a man? unit? No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go with the man unit. I think I would go with the, with the transplant. But Adam Silver is, he's the commissioner of elite. He doesn't have time for the recovery that comes with the hair transplant. He can't be walking around with big ass bandages on his head, bro. Like, that's actually embarrassing. He has so many interviews to get to. He has so many decisions to make. He can't do it. He can't do it. Also, do people know you don't

have to go to Turkey. Like, you don't have to have that type of recovery. They do it in L.A. and shit like that. Yeah, but it's mad expensive. Like he's, I think Adams is over and afford it. It's cheaper. Yeah. If he's smart and he's all about his butts, which he clearly really is. I think he's going over there. Like, people in L.A. go up there and do it for like a weekend thing. Like, it's like a pretty quick turnaround. Yeah, we're not doing that. I'm going to Turkey. I'm getting the experience. Yeah. That's a terrible experience. I would hate that, honestly.

To spend a quick 3, 4K or whatever. Get your little hotel for one, two nights, first class back. They take care of you in Turkey. I actually don't know how much it costs. It costs 3 to 4K in Turkey. Roughly, yeah. It depends on what service you. Because they charge you per follicle. You guys are tapped at. I need to do your research. Next up

This year is Cade's SGA year Pistons will win the title and Cade wins finals MVP Do you see the Pistons being the

defining team of this year's postseason? This is a true hot take and I fear that he may be overrating Cade

right now. And he's not like that He's overrating Cade a little bit. He's also overrating the Pistons' circumstance to allow Cade to do this. Yeah.

I think if they do they clearly need to make a trade for a second star or not in the second star that's the wrong verbage that's a little too ESPN. They need to have

a second ball handler bad. I know all we've always said the whole Let Jade Nivey come back We'll see I have never once believed That was going to be the circumstance That leads Cade that being in the right role

With the second score next to him I don't think that's Jade Nivey's game I don't think it's the greatest fit This season has done nothing to convince me otherwise They need a second guy We can put the ball in the basket And do self-created buckets Cade is still so overtaxed as a creator

Shout out Jalen Duren That should not be your second best On Ball score And Tobias Harris should damn sure not be your third best You know what let's rock with it Let's do it I appreciate the hot takeness. Obviously it's not going to happen.

They're going to lose them four to the Knicks. But if there was a year where you could have a crazy run, the top of the East now is very, very in flux. Yeah, it's getable. And so you can be in a situation where the Pistons are in the East of Conference Finals. They find a way to win that series. You're in the finals. And then depending on who comes out, who comes out the West.

At this point, like, you know, at the start of the year, we all said, okay c is obviously going to be there we clearly have doubts about that right now because they look getable by san antonio and you see you see some of the holes you say oh denver actually can can't get here i don't i don't hate the reach on on here i don't think this is this isn't pure nonsense yeah it's it's a non-zero chance to make the finals and we always say if you can make the finals you can win the finals anything can happen in the seven game sample if you're that caliber a team you stand at least somewhat of a chance but i don't know i'm not like you said i think the nicks probably win but if they go out of

and get whoever's available, where they may be, and get him a second guy, get him his, J-Dub. I could be with them being the next. This is the best I'll take you've seen in quite some time. Yeah, it's honestly, this is the perfect blend where it can't happen, probably not. But it makes you think, maybe. Yeah.

Listen, man. Indiana was in the finals last year. If the Pistons, never know. If the Pistons win this year, is that more unlikely than the Paces winning last year? I think the PACEUS. At this time, we would say so. At this time, we had exactly 0% of the population of America

that thought the pitchers could make the finals. Pacers fans did not think that Pacers can make the finals in December of last year. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I agree. Especially with how they started the year, too. Yeah. It's not happening.

We were having obituaries for Tyreys Hallibur and top 15 player talks. Like, it was bad to start the year. And then January, it turned it around and kept it going. So, yeah, I think right now, they have a better chance in the page that seemed to too. He had a whole iconic rant about how disappointed you were in Tyres Hallibur and he was hilarious. He was so bad.

You're going to be PTSD for how bad that was watching an agenda dialect to have the Tyre's auburn lover. But we're up now. Next up, the Dallas Mavericks slowly build chemistry, find a rhythm, AD doesn't get traded, Kyrie comes back, they make the playoffs, and the future looks bright. Alden doom and gloom about the lucre trade will be forgotten with time, and fans continue to drag it only taking the spotlight away from flag sensational performances of Ricky. Do we see the maps getting together?

They already are getting together to some extent. How high is the ceiling of this? Do we think they can make a real playoff push if Kyrie comes back and looks 80% of Kyrie? No. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don't know. You say no, and I'm with you, like, they're probably not going to do it to think crazy. Flag's an all-type player right now.

Flag is here. He is. Him and AD are, they're building a little rapport. You're not getting past, even if, like, the most improbable run happened. And they jump up all the way up to the number six seed in the Western Conference. In the first round, are you beating O KC? Are you beating Denver? Are you beating San Antonio?

No, you're not going to do that. Are you going to beat Minnesota? Tomah. Nah. Who? Who? out of those three who Minnesota I think they can be Minnesota

I don't but I don't know Honestly I'm kidding because I don't know What the fuck I reason look like But I don't know I like the hot take nature of this though Like if obviously the big question mark Is 80's health who's always going in and out Of the lineup now he just got hurt again

I don't think anything serious But it's always something small We also don't even know They'll actually keep AD But it seems like they're entertaining it And I do think that while I agree They're not going to make a deep push I do think considering the fact

that we were talking about them Trying to contend for the number one of all pick they could be a certain level like playing team respectful that like you don't want to play them like whatever success looks like for that type of low standard of like just being cute good team I think that's pretty much that's pretty in the cards I think that's the perfect way to frame this for them I don't think they're going to do anything serious in the playoffs at all but I can see them like getting into the playing and being an actual irritant to play like that defense is still so wildly irritating considering you got AD holding on the mantle and then of course what's his name again oh PJ Washington is still there giving them the craziest energy. Cooper Flag is literally ascending in front of our eyes continuously. The team is mad annoying, but championship conversator, or

real playoff conversations, ah, it's not happening. It's not happening. I think they can get the nine seed and they can beat the Golden State Warriors in the playing and go against the Thunder and get some good playoff reps for Cooper Flag against the Oklahoma City Thunder. They can do it. Why not? Ant becomes a lock for bringing a top five player and the T-Wills go back

to the conference finals. Do you, no, we just mentioned those three teams at top of the West. seemed to be in a tier of their own with the thunder, spurs, and nuggets. Would we say this every year? We never include the Timberwolves and every time Ant finds a way back. If he does it again with how stacked those three teams are,

do you think it would be considered top five? Yeah. If he gets back to the conference finals for a third straight year, leads them, you can get to top five. So who's passing up? I mean, he passed up Wembe. It's crazy. Okay, so he gets there before Wemby.

Yeah. I already ranked him top five personally. Or Luca? Luca. Uh, if we get to the end of the year and top five, And top five is Yokic, Shea, Yonis, Aunt Wemby. That's damning, bro. That's so bad.

It's not impossible. Obviously, things have to break their way. But if a guy is getting to the conference finals every single year, that's like the end with the team that every single year we say, this team is so flawed. Like, they have no chance. And then aunt is the defining guy of that run. I can see a situation. Now, we, listen, we're on that line, though.

listen you start getting to these conference finals you better start winning one we're on the line so he has like one more appearance before it starts to go bad it's cute for now yeah before he starts turning into like conference finals man but what a ridiculous I can I can conference finals man

we just find ways to hate there's so many young stars we don't reach those speech I'm saying when you ask me why I'm going to when you in the comments ask me why I glaze that's why conference finals man is a sentence that came out of his mouth that's why we got a glaze to counteract the ridiculous nature do you want to go to the finals? No, I just want to go to the conference

finals. We need to have positivity. We're close. We're close. I don't want to see it, but it will happen. It's a constant battle. I'm just being real. I wake up every day and I go to war. I'm just being real. Jalen Brown finishes top three in MVP voting. Is he doing all the voting?

He's not top three MVP this year. I mean, lookie. He just keeps up in 30 every night. A certain point. If the Celtics finish out as like a top two seat in the Eastern Conference, which is very realistic. Yeah, exactly.

Like, if they finish out, like, top two C, maybe somehow end up number one or whatever, some crazy that happens. Yeah, sure, you could be top three. He can make him exactly number three, though. He's doing a legit scoring carry job. Like, this is crazy to see from Jalen Brown, who, like, I think we all knew he put up good numbers. We made a lot of jokes that, like, this guy's in league league and scoring, I don't know they'll be good, but he's going to score a lot of points.

That's the nature of his game. It'll work. That is all. We were completely right. But also, they're winning gains, which you didn't foresee. like I don't know third is a bit rich for my blood when there's like superhumans at top the league right now and we know one and two we're going to be either shay or yokeach or whatever combination so maybe three is a bit tough top five though yeah he could be he could

definitely be on the top five ballot I think he I think right now he'd probably be fifth in MVP voting or fourth yeah top three is just hard when when like you said there's two spots are already taken top three so there's not even a lot of conversation about you can who can be in that third spot but listen man he'll try he's trying Shout out, glorious season, crazy shot making. Rudy Gobert gets his fifth defensive player of the year. I think he deserves it, right? They're not going to do it.

I think if the narrative sets in that Chet's soft and, like, Wembe owns him and, like, a lot of people who are like saying like Chet sucks and whatnot, if that like sinks in people's brains a little bit, even is exaggerated and they say we're not going to give it to him, that means no Thunder player can get it. And if Wembe doesn't play enough games, then I can give to Mowgli. Mowley's reputations in the gutter. 18 and 8, man, hell no. I think if Wemby doesn't play 65 games, we're getting a Gobert DPOI and it'll be completely deserved.

It's not happening. Yeah, I agree. Right now he deserves to be, of course, minus a Wemby conversation. He deserves to be number two in these conversations easily. Yeah, the only competition to me was to Wemby is injuries. And then Chet and Gobert will duke it out because of that. People ahead of Rudy Gobert in the odds right now. Chet, Wemby, Bam, Amin, Dremon, Scotty Barnes, Assar Thompson.

It's too early to be having serious DPOI. conversations, they're like, a man is not going to win DPOI ever go bear. Nor is Draymond in 2025. I'll make that, listen, I'll make the amen thing happen myself. Somebody's got to do it.

No, but it really comes down. People will, the Wemby DPOY conversation, or I should say the DPOY conversation outside of Wemby will only start if you get officially eliminated from 65 games. Then people will start having real conversations

and I think you see the odds move because right now it's just like pencil in Wemby's name. Yeah. Next up, Spurs will end up getting the one seed. That's insane work. How far back are there? They're currently three.

5.5 games behind the Oklahoma City Thunder. It's possible, but... That's a lot. That's a tall task. You have to ask me to not miss him any more games, of course. Yeah, he's got to play the rest of the season. More so, OKC, like, has to, like, see some real bleak times. Chet has to roll an ankle and whatnot.

She has to roll an ankle. Yeah. And he's going to be good. They're not going to play the Spurs any two times. Unless we find two or three more teams that also own the Thunder, which I don't know if those teams are really in the lurk. And they still haven't played the Nuggets yet. You still have a lot of matchups with them yet.

So maybe the Nuggets own them and the Spurs own them. We just got a bunch of teams beating up on them. Really we can get there? It was the fakeest 24-on-one I've never seen. Yeah, they got ran up on by the fucking Minnesota Timberwolves, too. I forget about that one as well. He was fraudulent. Yeah.

Look at that. Terrible. Bums. Luke or net will become a fashion icon. 100%. This is, you know, this is normally how it goes. You know what I'm saying? So he got, he got his stuff.

What I mean? How it goes? He's on the wave now. I think a lot of people are at this point are going to be more privy to the things that Luke Cornet is putting on. Okay. He will be an honorable mention

on League Fits by the end of the year. Minimum. Do you have a closet of Sisy's now? I'm building the Ruffetor. Your bags in a little deep? Yeah. It's getting up there. Fashion icon.

Luke Cornett. The Shisis is one thing. The robe really brings it to you. I didn't even realize it was rare to row. What the hell is he doing? And I forget what, it was some brand. I think like a Chrome Hearts rober somewhere that. Yeah.

Oh shit. That's actually tough. Whoa. Hey, you may be on to something. He likes fucking crazy. If Stefan Castle can style him every single game, he will be a fashion icon. Okay. Palo Bencaro will be traded.

Now this is a hot take. Are we there yet? I'm being 100% honest with you. This is realistic. I don't even know if this is a hot take. take because that Orlando Magic Front Office clearly wants to win. Clearly, they're pushing in all their chips. They traded away so many first round picks, swaps and all that for someone like Desmond Bain who's performing currently at an all-star level. Everything's there. The number one

overall pick can't do it. I see why not. I've been in a real hard time this season with Palo Ban Carroll. I almost feel too validated. I'm like, now we've got to be dramatic. We've got to calm down. There's no way that, like, there's no way that this type of argument just like dies in darkness. There's no way I'm just right and that like franz is better there's no way like surely he'll get better it's like i feel inclined to not overreact but i will say if they have a gm that thinks he wakes up in the morning in july or whatever before free age he starts and says i feel like nico today i'm going to say fortune favors the bold and i'm going to flip him and build around franz and whatever we get for him in the summer and say i know before everybody else does that this

contract isn't going to be worth it i would not be shocked I would be shocked because it's a thing that you don't see teams do I will not slander them How long do you wait In order to have You give him the full season

You get him a full season To bounce back Like we assume he will If he gets back to where it was last year Where he's still Maybe a tattle-rated In like my eyes But still like an all-star

Then you know I don't think they trade them Realistically in terms of like Actual dynamics in a team Yeah But I don't know You have a full season Where he's not playing well

And your team sucks And like two three him or Franz Got to go Yeah And he's the one that makes more money and he's the one that has more

trade value potentially fortune might favor the bold internally the magic are praying

on his downfall no they're I think they're doing the opposite they're praying they don't got to pick up that gun they're praying

they don't have to do it they're that me and Peter Griffin he's like Lord forgive me for what I got to do that's them the Celtics

will make the NBA finalist because of Tatum coming back all right two parts one I do believe Tatum is

coming back you're still not making the finals this is really here for you on scale one of 10 how much are you shivering in your boots at the idea of Tatum coming back?

And what if he looks like 85%? Or 100%. Let me just Tatum. If he's just Tatum, then it's like, yo, man, what's going on? When J.B. played that way? They're like, I really can't even be mad because you're just superhero. Right? You're literally just Superman.

So if he comes back and he's scoring like 28, first team, right? First team, all NBA, world-class defender again. Hey, man. Study his body. put him in the lab tomorrow. Like, I can't do anything about it. You know, unfortunate that would be for you, man. This is, like, legit, the only shot that you guys have.

And I keep on emphasizing this. It would be hilarious. I would be upset. You got to be scared of the possibility that with how Jaylon's playing, the trade for the center. He comes back. Like, they might smoke y'all when it's your year, like you did them last year.

They might get their ultimate get back. I don't. That's the thing. At this point in time, it's like 1.5. Okay. In terms of scared level. Okay. So he comes back.

in a month from now he comes back February 1st and his first game he has 24 points on 60% in the field let's J.B. Cook everything goes well and they win the game by 24 then what's your read against against who uh I don't know the Miami heat

2.5 just 2.5 2.5 I really now I'll say two weeks of that again they go 7 and no it's it's fine it's fine 10 fucking I I legitimately won't be scared until

until we get to the second round because even because I was talking about this with my dad this weekend we were talking about like if Tatum is coming back and I was saying that I don't think like even if

Tatum is 100% and you feel like he should come back unless the Celtics like 1,000% think that they can get to the finals I would not play him because playing every other day immediately after the Achilles like if you have a month

of a warm-up time and then boom we're in playoff series number one you might get a nice little you know easy round then we go into the second round and you're playing every other day that recovery time coming off of the Achilles is crazy to put him in position for that so right now all of it just seems like i think he'll play but it just doesn't seem real okay on donovan's soul on me we are getting a nix and kings finals russell russell russell we'll get a triple double in game six sent to game seven, but in game seven overtime, the bonus will brick a hook shot in the next win. What?

Kings and the... What? On Donovan's Soul. You're a dead man. Kings and the finals? Yeah, this is tough. We are at the point in the year where Kings fans have to start doing fan fiction. They have to start making stuff up because what they're watching

on the actual basketball court is not... Hey man, LeBron and Luke had a get right game last night against them. I wish to play the Kings every night. That she was a swell time. It was great. Lucas 3 start to drop. No. What is he shooting like 32% or something?

Something like that. Like 10 attempts of game. It's bullshit. Yeah, he's doing entirely too much, Lucas. There's so much conversation around his game right now, like the flaws and everything. If he was just shooting normal from 3, shooting his normal 37%, he would be averaging 40 and it'd be a way different conversation. So do they drop? No.

No. Nothing goes to happen to me. All right. He's good. Like he didn't get Lugidontas in the middle of the night And then what? And then it's been a disaster. A disaster.

I mean this week. I mean this week. This week like nothing is good at. I had a little honeymoon phase at the beginning of the year. Yeah. And look where we're at. We'll get to it. You deserve it.

I know. Trey Young is never able to return to his former glory and becomes a bench player and is traded throughout the league and so no one wants it. This is entirely too much. Entirely too much. Now he had a terrible game last game. But since he's been back. over the last, what, five games or whatever.

He's averaging, like, 24, shooting, like, 46% from the field and whatnot. Putting up good offensive numbers. No one wants him. Please stop. We'll get to that. I mean, we'll get to that. Please stop. Cooper Flagg will have the greatest under 20 season of all time.

Now, the greatest under 20 season of all time is LeBron James. What does Cooper Flag have to do to surpass LeBron James in the second year? I think he has to average like 26, 27 or something like that. He has to take over as commissioner of the league. To have a better season than LeBron. He's just dethroning Adam Silver. Yeah, like that's how high you have to go up. I think the bar is extremely high.

So he's got to implement, like, reputation, fascism. He has to, like, rewrite history. Yeah, I'm sorry. Take history by the reins. You have to write your own story. Fair enough. That's can never, wow. That's it.

That's glazing also, by the way. That's disgusting. That's disgusting. I never seen you do that before for LeBron. you're seeing a light congrats gobble gobble we're getting a new champion

in the year 2026 and they're going to be from the east yo understand what this is about it's our time the Detroit pistons are here they're going to turn up cage is going to solidify itself

as a legend it's over let's Jayland Darren you are Dwight Howard let's focus on on Utah real quick before if we're the we're the pistons

let's do that the thunder somewhat surprisingly or unsurprisingly depending on how you look at it, succumb to the fate that every champion has had since 2019 will lose in the second round. I can see a world in where it's possible, and I fear that we already saw that world just a couple of days ago.

This feels very real. And he said this will all culminate in a Spurs-Nicks finale. I mean finals. That would be beautiful cinema. Is that the best for entertainment in the league? If you're knocking at the thunder, is Spurs, Knicks the best outcome? Would you rather see the Knicks get their? and have to face off the spurs,

both teams are trying to solidify themselves, or would you rather see Yokic try to get the second ring? I think I'd rather... That's tough. Probably I'd rather want to see Yokich. I'm asking this because we've got to figure out our agendas if we're going to go down to the Thunder Ship and that's going to end

and we're not going to see them go back to back. Where are we putting our attention towards what we want to see happen? At this point, if the NICs don't win the finals, my agenda 100% is on baby goat. And we're trying to get as many rings especially in the modern era if you can get you can stack up rings

that's going to do wonders for your case so if the Knicks don't win Spurs listen shout out to y'all No he's mistaken We're locked in Yokin doesn't have many more opportunities at all Like these fucking powerhouses are stacking up Get your final ring and dip

And you can be cemented into goat status Why doesn't they have many more opportunities He's only 31 but guess what bro Tom Murray's going to continue to get older Cam Johnson's already hurt Aaron Goren he just continues to get hurt as well, bro. Like, the Spurs have so many picks come in their way,

the Kings pick in 2032 and whatnot. They have the Hawks pick as well. Okay, see, you, oh, okay, see you a pick as well, bro. Like, there's just so much that he's up against that. I just want him to get his ring and get out of here. Why are we not focusing our attention and focusing our agenda pushing towards a LeBron James farewell victory in L.A.? And last ring to solidify the goat debate and have Lakers versus Nix,

great for ratings, great for YouTube views, great for our careers. then we see LeBron James go out on top we see a new rivalry take place in the NBA that would be satisfying if the Knicks could beat LeBron and Luca to get a ring to get their asses worth dude that could never happen

that wouldn't it? The Lakers are good enough to make it out of the West they're beating the bricks off their next They're destroying them Because that means they beat some monsters That means the Lakers are nothing like we know them right now That means the Lakers figure some shit out Got some bodies in the doors

And they could beat the Thunder Nuggets and Spurs, they're a different breed. The Knicks are cooked. We'd smoke them. No matter what. Cat is not doing nothing to get through guys. Kauai uses the illegal tree money to build a portal,

travels to the Avengers universe, and gives himself in the whole of the Clippers roster, Super Serum, Chris Paul returns, and the Clippers sweep the playoffs and went every game for the rest of the season. The only flaw that I see in that is that Kauai is the one using the money to build the port.

I don't think he cares like that. I didn't only flaw as Chris Paul returns. No, I think That's more likely I think that's more likely I think Steve Balmer Would use the illegal tree money To build a portal

And he would do it But if he hits like hey I have this plan Kauai I need you to use this money real quick You know They're looking into my money Use your money real quick Cause I was like

Bro I'm just chilling I don't know I'm not gonna be out here Traveling through the space I'm continuing for you like I'm just trying to hoop bro That can happen Both of those guys are already like under too much pressure the IRS is on their fucking books like no matter what right and i think

if anything it might be james harden doing so because he's known he has a tendency he he really doesn't care has there ever been a less a player less likely to travel time than kawai leonard i don't think so just doesn't want to not interesting he has no interest he has an opportunity to make human history yeah i don't even want to go to canada and you think i want to go to 1942 as outrageous It won't happen It won't happen You should be like

For what I know I have everything here Scorching hot take From Goatfish 8 8 8 8 8 City Kosoko Will outplay

Chris Murray Let's do it CDs are Okay Who's having these conversations Is it's one It's one blazes Fan in the room

By himself Just shout a lot He's in solitary Chris Murphy Yell it's Like the band of the mirror Like the stand music video.

And when they say that Chris Murray can't do this, I'm going to say, oh yeah, but City can do this. Camera zooms eyes looking at the wall. Oh, buddy, you need help. He's like, oh, I'm going to get him next time. Lakers will break it up and trade LeBron and Reeves.

I mean, no. And Rees. And Reeves is dumb. Trade LeBron, obviously. He's like, gets it's a cool conversation to have. Rees is never going anywhere. They say that.

I, people are having a conversation about that. People are saying, like, you know, maybe the only way to get this team to a level around Luga, they make sense and enough defense at the trade Reeves sacrifice them. That's fine.

I don't think that they would trade LeBron and Reeves. I think it's one or the other and obviously you only trade in LeBron if LeBron says I want to be traded. I don't think you like, you know, surprise LeBron with the trader or anything like that.

So, yeah, both is dumb. Yeah, we'll get in a more Lakers talking a little bit. But before we do that, Mo, I think it's time to take your temperature. I think it is time to have what might be the beginning of the end it might be time to have a legit conversation with you about the fact that your sweet boy

Trey Young might be out the door per the Stein line there is a growing belief league wide that the Hawks are more open to trading him than they ever have been but what happens to their plate payroll if no such trade materializes and Young winds up exercising that player option

can the Hawks dare to find out by trading for Anthony Davis or something like that what are they going to do with Trey Young a lot of smoke is being built up there that they might be finally ready to trade him like we've been telling you at least there for months it might finally be happening no no fuck that correct yourself

you've been saying the same shit for years you have been a lunatic and you know what this time we saw we saw him be gone we saw jalen johnson led basketball thrive a little bit for hawk standards which is obviously mid and then he comes back and they're oh and six and they've given up 125 points in every single one of those games it has been the absolute worst case scenario

for a tray young defender everything the haters told you what happened is happening how are you feeling listen man this team is asked I have like I feel like I've never been more depressed watching Hawks basketball ever Like I've been saying

Like this this is the best offseason That we've had everyone's crowned The Atlanta Hawks is winners and whatnot And I got a few messages to some people Quint Snyder I hope you become the bestest of friends With Rahim Morris Because you two are going to have something in common Very very soon

Dyson Daniels You's got a humongous bag I hope that you have good money money management because you're never seeing a contract like that day in your fucking life. All right. Anya Qongu, listen, it's not your fault. 35% from three, making like two a game, five attempts. It's real.

I love to see him set a screen. I would love to see him play defense. But he just challenged. He's just 6-7 to 6-8 or whatever it is. Not his fault. He's PJ Washington. Jalen Johnson, I said it before. You have a concussion when you play defense.

Why is that? Why do you not know where you are and why are you just so slug? I guess so all of a sudden your athleticism just gets zapped. I have, like, so many qualms with this team. I hate this team so much. Like, they just continuously make my life so much worse, specifically because football is fucking starting to be over now. The season is dwindling away,

and now I have to pay attention, and I have to watch Atlanta Hawks, right and dissect this team. You didn't even mention the fact that you said, fuck you to all these people. Zachary Rischachet issued 33% from the three-point line, someone you called French Clay Thompson, you dumb motherfucker.

And then now we have this report. Go ahead, read that for me. Suddenly I lost my ability to read. I don't know what's going on. That's fine. I can do it for you. Number one pick, Riesis Shea hasn't developed as the Hawks hoped, and they're open to moving him

in the right deal per the Stein line. Quote unquote, it is also increasingly believe that Atlanta is willing to surrender Zachary Rishishet in the proverbial right scenario since the number one pick in the draft just 18 months ago has not developed those they'd hope. Yet, even if the Hawks are prepared to Packers, with the expiring contract held by Porzingis and Luke Conard for Anthony Davis.

It is unclear how much additional draft compensation will be needed for the Mavs, basically saying they don't know if anybody wants Rishishay. They don't know if he even moves as an asset. They might attach additional picks. Bro, we haven't seen a number one or a pick talk like this in like 15 years and a lot. Like we've never seen this shit, bro. What does he do? I feel sorry for Zach Lee because I told you guys this before way earlier in the season.

It was kind of a joke, but I think he dead ass has a curfew. like Quinn Snyder don't let him play Pass a specific time At all bro Once it's like 1015 It's like all right Zachary 20 minutes You're out! Get the fuck out of here You gotta get your extra sleep

We know you're not from here You gotta adjust to Atlanta air or whatnot It doesn't make any sense Yeah he only gets like 19 Max like 23 minutes a game And he's seeing how he's like been deprioritized constantly He's in the starting lineup of five men

Somehow he's like the seventh option on the team It makes no fucking sense I know what's even great I hate it You know who's playing real well As of late Tejohn Salon You know who's lap

You know who's lap Zach and Riesoucheche Tijon Salon How do you feel about this man I was gonna say you've entered Tijon talks But you haven't He's past Risha

You've like You've ducked below Tejon talks What's so sad Seeing this is like There's stats in December Tijon 9.1 points 3.7 rebounds

51% field goal, 48% from the 3 in 18 minutes, about the same and more efficient than what Reese Shay has done in 24 minutes. What did Atlanta do to deserve this? Like, why did we just somehow land on no shots of Zachary Rich say, but he is obviously like the worst number

on overall pick over the last for a long time, like terrible. But what did we do to deserve this? Like, we could have had, like the year that we magically land the number one overall pick in between Wembe, Cooper Flagg, of course we could talk about Zion and whatnot.

We end up with this guy right here. You guys said he was French Harrison Barnes. Oh, my God. He's worse than that. Oh, no. He's French Toy and Prince. We've ducked below. I think he's not terrible.

He hasn't been the best this year, specifically shooting from three as well like that. He's been not good at all. But I think what's been the bigger issue was how we've been developing him and how we've like taken away specific looks and touches because we got Nikola Alexander Walker. They're doing the things that he's doing.

Jalen Johnson's ascending. And Yenka Kong was eating up a lot of the three-point attention as well. It's sad seeing him just be an afterthought on our offense and being treated like a random 10-year vet like he's George's Nying or something like that. Do you think he would be treated as an aphothot if he was actually good? Did you drive here today? Take the bus. You're not running my car after that. You're not riding my car after that.

You're not running my car after that. I have spare keys to your apartment, too. You're not seeing Penny today either. I'm taking your dog. How dare you? It's just a question. This is like, it's actually not fun to experience this. I care about basketball.

Do you know how bad I feel for the average Atlanta family man who just has nothing to go for in life? He'd be going home. He'd be paying his bills and whatnot. And he has to sit home every night and watch this sorry ass basketball team. He pays like, I don't know, $50 a year. year for whatever with ballet sports just to see this type of performance this is terrible do you think the average atlantic man cares about the hawks is that more of a falcon city if you're a basketball guy then yeah you care about the fucking hawks right this is terrible

falcons it god you know what's happened there's georgia city right oh yeah okay fine yeah georgia city yeah okay okay fuck man fuck this team i love to hear it i love to hear it it's it's hilarious it's the best and i think the trade young stuff is picking up steam obviously Mark Stein reported that Vince McMahon Not Vince McMahon Tim McMahon Tim McMahon

Vince McMahon Vince McMahon Vince McMan He said The Trey Young rumors It killed because he said Banned McMahon As his Twitter handle

Sorry I forgot his first name He also says The Hawks are looking for ways To get rid of Trey Young Which is hilarious He said Under any circumstance Trey Ong would not be back

on the Hawks Is that we're open to trading And we're exploring possibilities I'm begging in for you to take this motherfucker off my hand. It's like frantic, like, Trey, please pick him. Like, God.

The Hawks certainly are indicating that they're looking for the exit ramp with Trey Young. They did not make any attempt to get him signed to an extension. But that's the case with their face in the franchise. It's a pretty clear message

that this could be the end, as Donovan told you for months. I've been saying this, and I do feel validated to the utmost degree. Shut up. Listen, I've been saying, I've been telling you,

this is, clear sign of how they feel and if that's how you feel about the face of your franchise then this is what you do it also does not help like in we we brought up the stats they haven't been good since he's since he's come back the defense is worse than it's ever been the effort level on specific plays that you can that you can you know pinpoint is some of the worst effort level that you've ever seen from from any player of him just falling down not not getting back up not trying to be involved in any type of play defensively. He had, he had a, there was a point in, in, in, uh, in the game, you know, our,

our, our, our, our, our, our, our yearly matchup with the, with the, with the Knicks and the Hawks where Trey has like seven points. He's missing every single floater. He's getting beat on every single drive. Like, he, he, he right now has more negative impact than it, than positive. Yeah. But, I mean, also, too, that's, it's just the whole team, you know, like, we have legitimately no centers we did our episode just a couple days ago and my question for the scene was who is

getting these boards who is stopping somebody in the paint we have absolutely nobody there you know and that's and that's that's fair but and but like nobody else if we're talking about signing a franchise player to a star deal to a max deal you're asking are we going to pay this guy 50 million dollars we're going to pay in 55 million dollars and yes you have to find you have to find you have to find you have to find just overall defenders as a as a team But it's much easier to do that when you have $55 million to go around. And it's not, you know, it's not caught up in a point guard who hasn't been himself offensively in two years, who has never been great defensively.

And now it's even worse than he's ever been. And vibes wise, the vibes haven't been good for a year and a half now. So I think that for the Hawks, it would make sense. It would make sense for them to move on from training to get assets for him and do all of that because surprise surprise the hawks are going to be mid and be in the playing in the weakest eastern conference that we've seen in a decade in a long time the hawks that are going to be one of the few teams that don't take advantage of the situation in front of them when in the offseason we all like you said they had a great off season we all thought that they were going to be top four

top five right being able to contend maybe even get to the second round of the playoffs if they win three games in the first round, I would be shocked. Just put the gun on head and bow me out right now. Like, who do you want to see trade for Tray Young? Just give me names. Give me numbers. NBA deal or no deal. Tray Young Edition. I got four teams for you.

You tell me what you would do if you were the Hawks' DM, would you take these trades? Trade number one. Rob Dillingham and Julius Randall for Trey. Fuck no. Hell, no. I don't want Julius Randall. You get Randall and Jalen Johnson as he's two big forwards that no one can contend with, gets some spacing around them,

some defense around him and get Robert Dillingham He might become Dre Young I don't know two years now Two years now who's gonna be better No I'm not doing that with the way Trey's trending who's gonna be better No I'm not doing that no

If it's not Jeremy Daniels Get out of my face If it's not for Anthony Edwards Get out of my face That's what I thought Get out of my face Give you a gun To not happen

Tell you to use it Would you trade him to the magic For Jalen Suggs straight up One for one Get some defense around Jalen Johnson That would be like Very entertaining to see I love seeing Jalen Suggs play defense, and he's also been good offensively, too.

Somebody's got to do it. Don't Anthony Black in there, too. Give me a first round pick, me, give me a swap or something like that. We can have a conversation. I wouldn't be jumping on the phone for this. Are you saying Suggs, Anthony Black, and a swap? Yes. You lost your goddamn mind.

Best I can do with Jalen Suggs and Jed Howard. Take it to leave it. No, I actually do want Anthony Black, though. I do want Anthony Black. I can give you Anthony Black and a swap, and that's it. Nah, I won't work when you lies. Can't talk. Bye.

Next team. So Jalen Sugg. and Jet Howard. Will you take it? No. No deal again. No. Tough crowd. Kyle Kuzma, Bobby Portis, Ryan Rawlins, and the 2026 first-on pick get the swap for, you get it straight up. So now you have your pick and the buck's pick. Deal. Deal. I'm taking that.

So Cousma, Rawlins, and you get the extra pick. So basically, it's your own pick. I think I might have to take this back to the team and actually talk about this. I fear I might say yes. I'm taking this. I might say yes. Yeah, I'm taking this. get that extra pick you get you give yourself an opportunity to really hit a reset and not have to get on on another timeline because low key i kind of like the the minnesota deal but having julius

randall around and now put you in this like weird position where you know that you're also like still going to be mid but like somewhat competitive if you tear it down like this yeah you really give yourself a nice foundation to kind of reinvent this team so i would take this deal over the minnesota one yeah the julius randolph it would just be weird and would fuck up everything that Jaylon Johnson has going on, but Ryan Rolls would be like, he could be better for this team. It's so crazy to say, but he might make this team...

He might make this team better because of the impact that he has defensively. And you have Ryan Rollins, basically because the Spurs have your swap, so you'd have essentially the Spurs pick and the Bucks pick in this draft. Need that. Not bad. It's not bad. It's not the worst outcome at all. Trade number four, last one, MPJ and the

next 27 first round pick for Trey Young. I don't want MPJ and run my young guys, man. I'm good. But me, I don't know, no, no, he's right. Bad, but in Atlanta? In Atlanta? Fuck, yeah, no. Hell no.

Keep him in Brooklyn. Let Jordy take care of him. God, no, man. He's hooping, but yeah. I'm good with Zach and Richie say, you're good, man. Oh, my goodness. Next thing you're going to do, we're going to do a lightning round NBA news. We got to react to.

He'd go on the studio tour. Dude, he won't light it open Atlanta. He'll be a monster. God. We got a lightning round of news to react to. Actually, first one, this really isn't even part of lighting around because this actually has some conversation to it. Per Shams last week, this came out on December 23rd after recorded,

so it's been a while, but we need to talk about this. The NBA and its stakeholders have started talks on finding new solutions to prevent tanking they have deemed it as an issue that they cannot allow in its current state, even after a lottery reforms, and they're mulling about different types of things that they think will come and solve the late season issues that NBA has from a view and perspective, which is tanking. Three things have been floated in the Shalms article.

that these are not impending changes, but the things that they're talking about to whatever degree. One, limiting pick protections to either top four or 14 and higher so you can't do like a top eight protected pick or something like that. So that leads to a lot of late season tanking

of teams trying to get just over that threshold. No longer allowing a team to draft in the top four two years in a row, which is crazy. And last but not least, locking lottery positions after March 1st. What do you think about all these? And what do you think about the general idea

that we need to address tanking more? because I kind of think that's a little bit of a, well, from my perspective, kind of a non-issue in the sense that we're not going to make it much different. Okay, so I think I kind of agree with that. I do think that two out of these three ideas are stuff that you would say in your first brainstorming session when you are trying to figure out an issue to a problem, right? We're just throwing stuff at the wall trying to see what sticks because I do think not allowing the team to draft top four, two years in a row, especially when you have a lottery,

right, that you say is not rigged, would be crazy. So I don't, I don't like that idea. I think locking lottery positions after March 1st, like, I just going to see tanking happen a lot sooner. Exactly. Yeah, you're just pushing up of that, that timeline. Kind of the same thing with the top four or 14 and higher in terms of pick protections. I think if you say this pick is top four protected teams that are earlier in the season are going to make that decision on whether or not they want to they want to tank and so you might get more tanking from the from the worst teams i think i totally understand and i'm empathetic to the league front office and why they view tanking as a blight on the sport there's no other sport

across american sports at least or really probably in the world because there's no drafts in like european sports there's no other sport that has this much incentive to lose for that many prolonged weeks. Like an NFL right now the last two weeks we're seeing the Raiders and Giants did a thing. It's two weeks. Like, eh, whatever, right? Every time we get to March,

there's like 17, you're trying to lose on purpose. So I understand from a product perspective that that's an issue. I think the answer being teams cannot select twice in the top four, two years in a row is acidine. Dude, that's ridiculous. I think that's completely berserk

to even entertain. So I think there's a lot of disdain for the worst teams in the league, but a lot of people, including you, saying these teams that suck a drafting that you suck that's their problem the shitty stay shitty

I think that's an insane stance to take from a league perspective that you need parity the best thing about the NFL is the teams that are bad aside of a few circumstances typically you have a cycle in place because they pick at the top of the draft

eventually they get good by having top picks right that's not an exact science some teams do stay bad for a long time but you know more often than not teams kind of go in a cycle that creates parity we already don't see that

because of the lottery reform now where we've seen these top teams jump up to the top four and having teams get the top, get the fifth pick over and over again, even though they're tanking and trying to rebuild the right way for what is needed in the league, this would just make that worse. Some of these bottom feeder teams would never get out of the bottom. Yeah, like I remember specifically, they're so new so many teams duos.

Like, team like the Memphis Grizes, who obviously, like, aren't on anything at all this season, but they had a couple good years, a couple good runs and had were able to, like, bring up this newfound culture and whatnot. In 2018, they selected Jerry Jackson, Jr. And then in 2019, of course, that was a job draft. Like, that would never exist if this thing was in place. And you're not giving star players, marquee players, an opportunity to actually build out, like, an actual squad. Bro, they would have had Jared Jackson and Cam Rash.

Like, what are we talking about right now? And again, I understand that, yes, teams can rebuild without a top pick. We see it all the time, right? So I understand that it's not so simple as me saying, these teams will suck forever. You might say, well, that's on them. well outside of the top four right like it's not our problem some of these teams do bad and they will continue to bad and that's on them i understand that the number one priority for the league i think should be ensuring that teams do not stay bad for as long as possible

the number one priority above all us i think is encouraging parity and encouraging teams being able to get out of the slums so we don't have fan bases watching bullshit for 10 straight years any measure that does the opposite of that and makes it harder for these teams and puts more onus on them i just think it's bad for the league no matter how much you want to like assign blame and respectability that's not good for the league i think Yeah, you got to give people the chance to be bad, right? And so that's why I think, again, like allowing them to draft in top four is fine. I think for the pick protections, because the players themselves, like, whoever you put out onto the floor,

it's not like those specific individuals are trying to lose the game, right? Like, tanking is a very, like, an organizational decision. And we're putting out guys that we just don't think are good enough. and, you know, they'll do the job for us. But how many times have we seen in the NBA and even in the NFL, like even this last week, the Giants and Raiders are playing for the number one pick, essentially. The Giants are coming out there. They're actually trying to win that game.

So it's fine. And you get situations where the team that you put out at the start of the season maybe is a little bit better than what you think and you might have something to play for. We've seen it with the Jazz. Yes. First half of the year, they're playing regular basketball, second half the year. They cut everything off. If you take the pick protections away altogether and just say, listen, you need to grow up and be an adult and live with your decision.

You want to trade this pickaway, trade it away then. I think I could get behind that, but that would make it so less trades happen. And I think the league probably wants more trades that happens. It's good for the league. And you do need to have some flexibility in the second apron era too. Let's decide. But I do like what they said, either top four or 14 and higher. Or even just lottery protected, I think is fine.

Like making less options and your pay protection, I think is good. Like being able to do top eight, top six, top four, whatever you want. I'm okay taking that away. I do like this idea that it's either you're protecting at the very top or a whole lottery. Otherwise, roll the motherfucking dice. Yeah. I think the author answer when it comes to solving, tanking, and whatnot, is right in front of our faces or at least like how disgusting it's been. It's just shortening the season.

But obviously, that's never going to happen because money reasons and whatnot. They'd be losing millions of millions of hundreds of millions of dollars if they did that. But if not that, why not like elongate the season a little bit? Or would that make things worse? Because you get to see them here. You get to see the worst players. You can't. The locking lottery positions after March 1st, I see that.

I'm like, okay, it's kind of creative. It sounds cool, but it's so complicated. Yeah. It's so complicated. Like, the NBA is already getting a becoming a really complicated sport. That's kind of, I don't know. It just feels like a lot to try to make fans understand that like, what do teams even do after March 1st?

Like, I guess that's what they want. You go out there. You try to win games, entertain your fans, I guess. I guess. But it makes the NBA calendar so weird because you have the NBA draft lottery in like February or something like that. Yeah, it's just weird.

And then like the same thing would happen. They would just start earlier. That's what I'm saying. You would make February basketball for so many teams, the worst product that you've ever seen. I guess their idea would be most of times by February you're still pretty whole

in like the jazz situation. You can't completely rip off the bandage that fast that the more time gives you more opportunity to have one injury, give you an excuse to. So maybe less teams would do it. Some teams still would certainly, like the Pacers have been nuked forever, so they'd be tanking in February really bad.

But like the Jazz this year, if it locked in 60 days, they probably wouldn't be able to tank. But then you would have, if you're locking by March 1st, you have the trade deadline that's at the start of February. Listen, we're trading. All these guys. We're sitting there, everybody else down. You have the All-Star break.

It's so shameless. There's so many areas. You can say, hey, this didn't go our way. This didn't go our way. We're just going to sit everybody right now. And I don't, yeah, so I don't think that locking. it in March 1st is smart. I do sympathize, though, with the league in trying to figure out how can you make the product

from start to finish decent for fans, right? Obviously, like, it's sometimes it's funny whenever you see the tweets of like, it only costs $2 to get into this game. Because it's like, oh, wow, like you guys have no motion. But like, but realistically, that is what you want. Like, you want people to be able to get into the games and stuff. stuff and so whenever people are paying like a lot of money and then you know people don't play and you're watching bad basketball in person I understand why the league is very like alert to

that because you don't want people to be upset but this also hey man it's part of the game like like there there is a certain part of it where you just have to kind of accept it and like if you're an actual hardcore obviously this this proposal like pertains to just the wider base widespread fans it went out but if you're a hardcore fan I'm not going to lie some of the best times of my fucking basketball watch in life is trying to, it's seeing like the bottom fears of the team trying to make a name for themselves and stick around through these

tanking years for a team like, OKC, yo, you feel vindicated that someone like Lou Dort won a championship after all the treacherous years that you went through. So there's like, there's glory in this shit. You just have to find it. You start, you start crate digging. Start finding samples. So this is an eye and the beholder.

Sometimes it's okay to watch, what was a dude's name? The tall, ski, white dude that played for OKC in the tanking years. Poku. Sometimes it's okay to watch Poku play and try to lose on purpose. Yeah. Beauty is an eye as a beholder.

Next new story, no rapid fire. Kauai Leonard just dropped 55 points the most I've ever seen Kaui Leonard drop. I don't remember if it's career higher now, but it's got to be up there. That's a crew high. It is. Okay, he beat the Pistons.

They have now won. Four games in a row are quickly screeching towards mediocrity instead of outright disaster in a way that we've talked about. And I think I had a little bit of an idea that they might, I had a little hope in my heart

that they might become respectable I think Donovan you said Fuck no there's no way in hell It's become a playing team or whatever Is looking like they're getting towards that direction It looks like James Hardin and Kauai Who we did our ranking episode a couple weeks ago And I was like

Have we really sat here and rationalized the idea That James Hardin and Kaui are both playing great basketball And are both top 30 players And they still suck Like that's insane That's such a indictment on the rest of the roster Maybe now it's It was an indictment but also a sign

That they might get a little more regular look at their defense man 88 giving up 88 108 108 103 99 points and these teams are like not nobody's at all yeah and uh zoobatch has missed off for these games he went out of injury that's crazy i think brookelop is his spacing has given them a new look and really helped this offensive burst i mean one these games against portland he had nine threes which is just outlandish but overall the spacing they've had has been a nice help there to give them some new life and then yeah maybe it's only four games but they're catching one at the right time and then also on top of that too Derek Jones Jr. is coming back as well. Yes. So something that's done to look out for. Maybe the Clippers are being respectable. If you look here at Tankathon right now, they no longer are giving OKC at top four odds,

which is the best odds of the number one pick. They have not dropped a fifth. And right above them, they have 10 and wins right now. The Brooklyn Nets also have 10. They're at 6th. Charlotte is at 11. Dallas is at 12.

Utah also at 12. A lot of these teams are kind of floating right above them. They might pass the teams. They might quickly go up there and be like the 10th best odds. We should all be OKC fans. Clippers fans, bro. for these next at least like 40-ish games and whatnot because if okay c gets another pick top pick top three pick it's not looking good for us brov you say that let's go down a little bit Atlanta it gives the spurs a pick 12 they're not turning the right direction there there are two games away from giving the spur of the top 10 pick and you know we've seen the 10th best odds jump up to number one we have a new agenda at play here we might be seeing debonso in the spurs uniform to hawks of

That'll be nuts shit, bro. That'll be nuts. Can you have a match? Here Fox, Harper, Castle, DePonson, went, what? I can't even fathom. That outcome. Can't happen, but I truly cannot fathom. Also, the Pacers is number one odds now.

Yeah. And I haven't watched a Patriot game like three weeks. I haven't seen them in a long time. Afterthought, bro. I haven't seen them in a long time. They're not good, bro. Yeah, they're shot at the clippers. The Knicks have to get a title this year.

It's so good, man. Shout out the Clippers quickly sprinting towards mediocrity Where we all thought they should be Maybe they're getting back towards it Scotty Barnes had 25 rebounds by the way He's in playing center with all their injuries And it hasn't been going well before this game He had seven games which he was shooting like fucking 30%

From the field, it was disgusting Whenever Scottie Barnes was to play out of his ideal role Shit gets ugly real fast He needs his circumstances Him playing small ball center has been bad for about two weeks now Then the Warriors came in front of him Yeah 23 points 25 rebounds 10 assist

three steals one block 64.7% from the field won this game in overtime in which he really dominated on the boards like they end up winning by I think 13 or 14 in overtime after obviously being a tied into regulation because he was killing them on the glass. This is

such an indictment on the Warriors. It's such like you guys are now everybody's get right game which is which is crazy. We thought that were going to end the step curry era with just a little bit of hope right little a little bit of a fight in us not man scotty scotty barnes is putting up yokech numbers against the warriors

the funniest part about this game it's not even like toronto slanted for real but is when draymond green hit a three at the top of the key and then he was yelling scotty barns it was like garby that man is deranged it's so over he said garbet yeah he has a problem Yeah, man, the Warriors are the Warriors, man. There was also that comment by Steve Kerr, where he said we are a, what was the word? He didn't say dying dynasty, but he said like twilighter or something like that. You find exactly weird vibes over there right now. And you know, that's been the case.

It's getting extremely weird. Let me find the exact quote. Yeah, you're right. There was a point in time where I think it happened this weekend where he was, or Dremont Green was visibly upset, and he was arguing with Steve Kerr on the bench and Dremont just walked off into the locker room. Yeah. I was going to have that being a main talking point but now a few days removed. He just stormed off.

They were arguing and he went to the locker room. I've never seen that. And Jimmy Butler said that shit makes me hard. He's so weird. Yo, this team is in disarray. What's going on? I think he said it makes me aroused. I don't know exactly.

He said it turns me on. He says I was Brits. Yo, we got us to get Steph out of here. This team was too weird, man. I have the graphic for you. That's a graphic. We are not longer the 17 Warriors. In the league, we are a fading dynasty.

Damn. He's admitting defeat. Damn. He's just noticing the reality. Well, I guess, like, we can just officially stop talking about the Warriors seriously now. Nope, because we haven't a report. We had to speak about them again. Per Chris Haynes, who is usually pre-tapped in straight from the source in good or bad way,

the warriors are considering exploring a trade for Anthony Davis per Chris Haynes. Now this is verbiage. Let's do it. Hilarious. The Warriors are considering exploring a trade. Now that they're exploring after they're giving offers, they're considering the possibility of thinking. about maybe potentially getting Anthony Davis.

They're thinking about thinking. Yes. They're borderline thinking about considering getting AD. I understand the line of thinking. I think like that a lot too. The original tweet had a funnier verbiage. That thing that one took it down a little bit. Okay, here it is.

I was told the Warriors are contemplating making a case to acquire Anthony Davis. Thinking about thinking. Contemplating a potential argument. About AD. They got some real thinkers in that front office, man. They do. They mean they're thinking hard all day, thinking about nothing. Just be staring at this room, hmm.

Cave, man. That'd be. That's good, man. That's true. Curr. Do you have pondering? Even Bob Myers

pondering some shit. Oh, man. Keonti George over his last seven games. Why is it? Screen recording. Not showing the right thing. I don't know.

Anyways, County George of his last seven games, 31 points, 24 points, 20 points, 27, 34, 37, 39. Keanu George has been a problem. Looking like I'm most improved player case building up he's a he's a hooper man and i i like i'm i'm very happy with with everything that we've seen because there's been like moments in this in this year where even

outside of the stretch where we're like hey count to george like playing really well like you know the three's not not here the three's not there but like everything else is going we've seen his whole game and his whole scoring um arson really be on on on um on you know front street these these last couple games he had the game winner against against the pistons as well like he also the we talked about the thunder on christmas day and then they go and get beat at home by the jazz right like the like utah's been playing some pretty respectable basketball as of as of late and a lot of that is because of kate george yeah i have been the number one fan of his going into this year because there's just been constant questions about utah and what

their actual core looks like of course he's a part of it but you're not the face of it at all they drafted a point guard last year because they're not confident in you they have questions about you and i think this year he's like obviously solidified him if he continues his pace of just putting up 30 obviously 30 and 6 or whatever the numbers are looking like he's going to be like a star he's going to be damn near like he has potential to be a perennial all-star with with these types stretches and it's like so unforeseen and weird the point out position is one of the hardest positions to play obviously year in and we year out we see random young guys guards be talked about such things and then it just never comes together whether it be someone

like i don't know scoot henderson or whatnot whether we want to see a jump from john moran or whatever the point guard may be it just continues to falter and seeing him put it together from nothing it's a feel good story yeah it's also made me sad because i'm like man what would this team look like with kiante playing like this you have lowry and walker kessler there instead of Instead of Nurkich at center every single night, it's like they legitimately like could have made a push if you were going to get both of these leaps and then have Kestler there.

So for the future of the jazz, I am looking at them. I'm like, listen, you, they are probably, and you've heard like some people maybe just like theorize it about the jazz being like the next team to make like the surprise trade and maybe go get a star and start, you know, actually like building out their core

especially considering that their draft picks haven't really been amazing with these last couple years, if we get to the offseason and Utah feels like, you know, let's start being a respectable basketball team again. Let's go out and trade for somebody.

I wouldn't be shocked by that. Last thing we were going to talk about today. We got to talk about the Lakers. We talked about in the beginning how the OKC Thunder got beat for the third time by the Spurs. And it was obviously a big story. Everybody was talking about it.

how these guys are exposed as frauds, yada, yada. Somehow they were not the biggest failures of Christmas Day. That was the Lakers getting absolutely destroyed by a Houston Rockets team that was struggling offensively as of late. They lit them up on both sides of the ball. It felt like we saw the Lakers kind of get a death blow for the early season version of them that we saw them overachieving. This felt like the game where they were officially down to reality

and they were officially a flawed team going through a little midseason identity crisis and need to figure it out. And it was bad. And after that game, we had a very mad J.J. who for previous days was already mad making a lot of statements in the media about his team saying they weren't playing hard didn't have enough guys who wanted to do little things who want to play hard right he was at his boiling point and we know j j reddick we know one thing about it we've learned there is some unbridled white boy rage in there and he said after christmas day we're a terrible basketball team and tonight we were a terrible basketball team we don't care enough to be professional we don't have it right now saturday's practice i told the guys it's going to be uncomfortable the meeting is going to be uncomfortable i'm not doing another 53 games of this. You know what that sounds like? It sounds like he's going to get fired.

Because they just gave you a contract extension after year one. And so if you're not going to do another 53 games of this, I'll tell you who is going to play another 53, Luca, LeBron, hopefully Reeves, whenever he comes back, you have all of these other players on the Lakers who are going to play. So where are you going to be, JJ? Are you going to be on the sideline? You're going to be at home. Let's make that decision.

right now so we can plan accordingly for the rest of the season. Let me know. All right, well, that went another direction I didn't expect. The next day after this comments, Austin Reeves has been diagnosed with a grade two left cap strand and we re-evaled in four weeks. So now, listen, three more games of this.

About 25 those games or maybe more will not have Austin Reeves. Big deal. And this was led with a lot of people thinking, okay, this is the inflection point. We need to figure out how to win without Austin Reeves. and more specifically, we need to learn how to win with LeBron. Because part of those comments

also, JJ Redick said in practice the next day, since we've gotten Braun back we haven't been as organized offensively too many random possessions, that's on me. It's those three things, well, three things, defensive clarity, role clarity, and offensive organization.

He said LeBron came back and ruined us. They were right. They got him. But he, has a good point. I think he's saying that I ruined us when LeBron came back. I didn't prep us well enough for him to be able to be put into this lineup well enough. And to me, he mentioned

offensive clarity and stuff. The defense has been a real issue. We've been talking about it all year. The lineup with Luca, Austin Reeves, LeBron, and Rui Hachimura has absolutely zero chance of being successful defensive lineup. Way too many low activity, low athletic, low motor defenders in that lineup, and it's been

a disaster. What do Ruby like thinking about sometimes? The other day I saw this montage and it was offensive but it happens defensively a lot too where like it's just constantly LeBron and Luca and Reeves just screaming at him to get in place and get in order or whatnot. He'd just be like fading off. A couple of episodes

ago you also said Isaac that yeah time has come. You need to see Ru Hechemura on the bench who'd be a great six man type guy or not. We do you guys need more of a spark plug when it comes to filling in gaps defensively obviously I fear that that's not available to you guys.

You're relying on Marcus Smart in the big year of 2025. He's been pretty good. So I'm not really mad by relying on him at all. Like he should be starting. Now with Reeves out, they decided to start him as you'd hope. Rui Hachamor is on that starting lineup. And last night we had a get right game. They placed off against the Sacramento

Kings. The ultimate get right game. Beat the shit out of them. I think we saw, I mean, LeBron has like a 90% focal percentage. It was on the most efficient games. It was career. It was crazy. So they truly beat the pace out of them. I think we saw them run and transition a little bit more. That was a clear effort there. Luca and LeBron, two-man game was a more clear

effort. A lot of Luca screening. I mean, a lot of LeBron's screaming for Luca, getting those two together. They changed up their rotation patterns a little bit. Luca wasn't playing the whole first quarter like he always has been. He started checking out a little bit earlier. I think as a way to kind of not let him get into these cycles of just getting tired to the end of the first and doing a lot of step back threes. Now he did do a lot of step back three still.

They were not falling. But they did offensively have a get right game and that at least is a good step towards LeBron and Luca figuring it out. Yeah, I think for the Lakers, a lot of this is like, I mean, they're just flawed. And they've been this way since they got Luca. And even whenever they had the stretch where like the defense was going crazy and like even before they got Luca, right, they had AD and it's like, wow, like the Lakers are really putting it together defensively.

They, you know that one, in a playoff, in a playoff context, like they can get exposed. And then coming into into this year, you still have all of those same issues. And so the Lakers, like, it is a personnel thing for. for them but like I'm you have to give jay redick a little bit of grace because again he doesn't necessarily have all of all of the guys that you would that you would want and that you need to have a a good defense and then if you do put in your like top your top defenders and try to switch over to the other side now your offense takes a hit you haven't been able to find a good balance so I can understand the the frustration on his part because this is a bigger bigger picture

issue. The other problem about this where I will say like it's slightly, it's not like LeBron's fault or whatever, but like the organization is trying to figure out how do we manage the end of LeBron's career and manage that with going all in on Luka and using the assets that you, that you're paying LeBron to now bring in a team that's actually built around Luka fully, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. Like you mentioned in the beginning when I put up the quote by DeJuretic, you said they were right. They were right. LeBron ruined this team. I think the people that were right were saying the ones that were saying the early season wins were a fluke. Those are people that are right.

We decided to say this is real to some regard, not because we thought they could continue to be on a two-seat pace with Luca and Reeves and a bunch of, really those two-time too, either one or the other. We didn't think if that was the case, they were going to continue to be the two-seat. we thought they've shown enough strength here with the offense being so crazy with Luca being so great and Reeves making the clear all-star jump that we can tell ourselves that when those two stay healthy

and when they inject LeBron back they have enough strength that'll cover up some of the weaknesses and that sounds like upward trajectory will be on the way and they should be able to get better to stave off some of the clear regression that will come with this style of play, right?

Not really. They just got the regression and are still the flawed team that we thought they were before the postseason and before the season started and LeBron having the slow start because the Adica certainly didn't help certainly didn't help that they that jjorek didn't do a good job

getting them ready to play with each other but they just are who we thought they were to some extent you know like they just that early part this was kind of fake which is what four five seed yeah probably that's so sad man it's at least it's sad for the expectations that i had the agendas that i wanted to push i think this year if i remember correctly i did say that luca was going to be my personal pick prediction for mvp you know what not that shit is so long gone and not happening Yeah, I also another part of this is like It's not on him

But he hasn't played his best ball in the past two weeks And early season when they weren't so crazy It was because either Reeves or Luca Were playing like the best guard in the NBA And covering up a lot of flaws in the system around him If Luca is not going to be 100% Which everybody's gonna have a week or two Where they're just not quite what they were

You know like they're gonna have some slow stretches And throughout the season They can't weather that storm at all As currently constructed And we talked about them last week And our one question for 2026 episode Check that out Friday's episode that I said the question they have to answer is

is this team good enough to even go all in for to shed your assets right now and bring in defenders and try to make this season have the best playoff push possible or are they not good enough and you just hold your assets until next summer and then try to make this upcoming offseason be the year where you build a real contender so next year your peak version of Luke and Reeves together

kind of feels like they're not good enough. Yeah, currently right now and there's nothing worse than just like dwindling away time from LeBron's from LeBron's career while also just like wasting a year I I feel like it probably if you were to ask me this two weeks ago or three weeks ago I'd be like yeah trade those picks why not but now I'm like ah like it probably doesn't matter

because there's things within Lucas game that people going back to which I've been talking about or whatnot the Austin Rees injuries here and that just set back a whole lot of things there's like multiple players that you are away from this from like being actual contenders you're like not even one anymore it's two maybe even three who doesn't feel like LeBron's good enough enough to necessarily be worried about, like, wasting a year of LeBron. Yeah.

You know, wasting a year, a problem, because obviously tragic. But, like, you only get so many years of LeBron is always been the thing. That's not exactly what I care about right now. But then there's, like, another, going to be another huge gap that you have to fill when LeBron's going to be, like, out there. Sort of. But they'll have a lot of flexibility to get a good roster without that money on the books. But still, it is a wasted year.

It is the last wasted year of Cheap Reeves is a thing. And, yeah, to the LeBron point, he's getting his legs back offensively. He's scoring his ass off. He's looking more athletic. His burst is back to some degree that it was last year. He had two dunks in the past game where his head was towards that room. He's moving again. I just don't know if he has the desire or ability to give enough on the boards and defensive activity

like he did last year after Luca trade. That's a part where we got to see really come back, whether it's a, I'm old and not locked in because I just can't be asked to give it that every night or it's, I can't move and exert that much energy. Whatever the reason is, that's what's really needed. And that's the part that if that's not going to be there, this team doesn't really have a chance because like I said in the beginning. way too many low-activity defenders of all these guys here to really have any chance

if LeBron is not going to be like a plus athlete still. Which is why like, and you mentioned like the cheap reefs and you're, when you try to like balance the like whose year are we like really wasting. Yeah. The cheap Reeves is way more important than the last year of Bron. But I also think that if you, if you are saying, oh, I don't want to go all in because I don't think LeBron is like that. anymore and we're like transitioning our our team into being lucca-centric i actually think that with that

mindset you probably should go all in and or should be more willing to part from those picks because then you're saying we need to give lebron more help and we know that there's also this like flawed roster behind lucca so we can kill two birds with one stone and get the more help for for brown and then also kind of create this other type of roster i i do wonder like if they do finish this season as like a five seed and they go out in the first round again like how like how quickly can we can we move in actually building a a contender if we are going to stay pat and not trade any of the pigs and you have all of your flexibility like rob polinka once again your legacy is on the line that's the part and you have to really really lock in and make this a contender next

year. That's the part. If they decide to stand pat and don't trade any first-round picks at this deadline and go into next year in the summer when they have three to trade and if LeBron walks or LeBron retires and they have that full cap space available to them and their full arsenal picks, which is three first-rounders. And at that point, I assume, three swaps. They can be pretty great, pretty fast. I just don't know Roblinco is going to be able to do it. And you have to make the right decisions, right? And there's no room for any like Russell Westbrook type errors and whatnot, right? No room for that shit at all. And also, there's No room for, even if you, like, do decide to keep picks or whatever and decide to draft another, like, spunky white boy or whatever.

No more room for misses at all. Yep. That would, that would, who's the, who is the, the Russell Westbrook equivalent to where, like, he could, he would trade for this person and they would shut the title window down? Like, like, if they trade everything for, like, some bonus or something. Oh, my God. That wouldn't have mine. Don't even put that in the world. What if they just, like, got back AD or something like that?

Got back AD or something like that. Got back. Yeah. Don't even put Sabonis into the air. Yeah, Sabonis. Luca Sabonis Reeves. Oh, my God. Succeed anybody?

I think if they didn't get Aiden, someone like that could have been maybe like a Jared Allen or whatever. His whole PR is like down the fucking toilet. But thankfully, like, there's not an option like that. At least up until this point for Rob. Yeah. We'll see. I would like Rob Blinke fired next year.

We can make something happen this year. We'll see. Start watching. the dark night buddy get locked in do whatever you need to do and with that being said that is the end of this episode if you're still here we appreciate you sticking through for the first monday full episode it's going to be stuff like this again same type of format is our streams just put into an episode like this focus on the news over the weekend that we missed since our last recording since we record on thursday focus on interactive stuff with you guys friday remains the same

stay tuned to the course month like i said the beginning for a lot of big changes coming what's a they comment palinka are you a man or a mouse vote for jail and john Johnson. All-Star voting is out. Don't do that. I thought you remember president. I mean, you could do that too. We'll get the world right.