The Mismatch - Are the Warriors Dead? Plus, the Loaded Celtics, Haliburton's Ascent, and Detroit’s Breakdown

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

Verno and KOC open up the show by discussing the bad as well as some good about Draymond Green’s suspension for choking Rudy Gobert (01:13). The guys dive into Kelly Oubre Jr.'s strange situation after he was (or wasn't) hit by a car (13:23). Also, they discuss some of the things they like and dislike about the NBA season so far (24:12). Got a question for Verno and KOC? Send them an email at [e-mail]! Or you can send the guys a tweet @ChrisVernonShow and @KevinOConnorNBA! The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Producer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if everyone said they heard your trailer a hundred times? You'd probably make a new one. I'm Justin Sales, the host of The Wedding Scammer, the ringer's first ever true crime pod. We've been hunting a con man for a few weeks now, and our hunt is coming to an end. Schemes, Heartbreak, How to Put On a Wire. We've covered all this and more, but there are still a few surprises left. Binge the Wedding Scammer wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to The Mismatch.

I'm Chris Vernon and joining me as he does every Thursday night from the ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin O'Bomber, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Connorne. Burlow. How are you doing, man? Kevin O'Consequences. Well, where's that one from? I haven't heard that in a long time. Or ever.

That one is from your very strong, Draymond Greenfield. take in the heat of the moment. You demanded consequence. I didn't demand. Or Draymond Green. Should, should be suspended instead of penalizing players for being emotional after dunks and giving them texts. That's the type of behavior with him grabbing precious Rudy Gobert.

Do you at least accept that the way. that the one good thing that came out of it was the memes. Oh, the means are so funny, dude. They're hilarious. Like, we do have to give him some credit for that. But what is wrong with him, seriously? And honestly, what is wrong with these Golden State fans? Because I said my piece, which was he, that's a guy that wanted to do that.

Clearly. Here's my chance. And then this whole, every Golden State fan, in the world is doing the still shots of like, Rudy choked him first. And I'm like, if anybody in the world thinks Rudy Gobert was being an aggressor in that situation instead of like just trying to calm it down and break it up. Like they're just being disingenuous about this whole thing.

It completely is. It totally is, Chris. And I mean, look, this is like how many months ago and he stomped on some bonus a year ago. he punched his teammate. Never mind everything else that's happened over the years with him with, you know, dirty plays and then some reckless plays that weren't intentional. You could have a 10-minute

mixtape. Yes. 10 minute. Easy. Absolutely. Chop downs, kicking in the nuts. Like, that's his game. So the NBA, you know, they suspend him for five games for choking Rudy Gobert, which was absolutely unnecessary

in the moment, dragging him across the court for what, seconds felt like. How long was it exactly? It was a long time. It was absurd. It was the right call to suspend it because that's the type of behavior. That's the type of behavior that they want to prevent by giving technicals

after dunks. They want to prevent fights from happening. Well, then the penalty for a guy who is a repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat times 100 to infinity offender is only five games. It's just kind of silly. But I mean, I guess,

I guess I hope the NBA looks in the mirror and realizes, okay, well, we are suspending this behavior. Let's be a little bit more lenient on some of the emotions after dunks. Like the Anthony Edwards moments and all that. The Giannis moments, all that stuff. Here'd be my question, Kev. Let's say, let me just pick out of Isaiah Stewart. I remember he went crazy and he got so mad and he was going to fight everybody and he was going to go after LeBron or whatever else. Going after a rampage pretty much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's say Isaiah Stewart did it. Same thing. More than five games. You think so? Yeah, I do. So not only, well, all right, let's not even say, okay, so Isaiah Stewart's been into something before.

So let's just pick out somebody else. Let's say Jaylen Duren. Well, let's just say it was Rudy Gobert. He did it. Let's say it with the rolls reverse. Rudy Gobert did it instead of Draymond Green. you think Gobert gets more than five? Maybe not too much more.

Maybe like seven, but I think it'd be slightly more. You do. You think Draymond is, so this is what's crazy. And I'm not sure I disagree with you that Draymond Green gets oddly penalized less, even though theoretically he gets penalized more for being a repeat offender. Sure. You do kind of have like, I mean, Like, here's the thing.

How many guys are like getting suspended from things? It's just very uncommon. And now you're like, every time something like this happens, you're setting a standard, right? So if a guy stomps on someone, now that's the standard. If a guy choke holds and pulls somebody across the court, now that's the standard. And it's like, he's kind of like, because it's so unconstitutional. uncommon that this type of stuff happens and he just happens to be involved in it. I do wonder, I wonder if he is penalized less because he's Draymond Green,

because he's a world champion, because he, you know, he's a great player, right, and has been for a long time in the league. or if he is, as they say, penalized more because of a repeat offender. But it's hard for us to imagine, I think, that if someone else did that, that they wouldn't have gotten at least five games. That's what's hard to accept, that that's the repeat offender penalty. You know, because what if you're not a repeat offender? What, it's three games, right?

Yeah. for putting somebody in a joke. Regardless, I am, I'm glad that the NBA is trying to get that behavior out, but I say that at the same time as saying, let's not be handing out technicals. I'm throwing out superstar players like Janus with nine minutes left in the third quarter just because they flexed a little bit and got a little excited after a dunk. It's ridiculous.

Let's not be throwing players out of games because they're getting emotional after dunks and ruining moments with Anthony Hedonk. Edwards putting players on posters. Like, we shouldn't be penalizing that and taking the fun out of the game. You want to let players show who they are as people and have genuine emotions and be authentic. And part of that is being a professional athlete, a competitor and celebrating moments alone and with your teammates together.

I hope the NBA is like realizing, oh, let's actually, let's not, let's not penalize this when we can just penalize. the actual infractions that happen when players do get violent, then you can penalize that. There's no reason to penalize emotion.

It's ridiculous. A couple of good things came out of it. I'm going to look at the good because it's been a lot of focus on the bad of that situation, even though we did get a lot of laughs out of it. Tons of laughs. It was like two minutes into the game.

Zero to zero when it happened. The idea that there's that kind of heat between two teams and that those two teams could very well meet in the playoffs at some point is amazing. Like we have pined for this. In a day and age where everybody's trading jerseys and signing them to each other, any of these like acts of aggression to the point where I feel like these teams really don't like each other and that there's something there and that Rudy Gobert's coming out after the game

and calling Dremont a clown. Like, it's all good. This is all good. Like, I want there to be rivalries. I want there to be teams that really can't stand each other. And I think it's very, I think that is very good for the sport. Now, do I wish, you know,

a chokehold necessarily had to be attached to it? Honestly, I don't really care. Whatever. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got hurt out of the deal. Yeah, he got hurt out of the deal. He didn't sucker punch him. No.

And nobody got hurt out of the deal. And but like, Clay Thompson and McDaniels were the ones that were the ones that were into it. Before, that's how it all started. And it's like, what is going on? Like there is something, right? Those teams irritate each other for some reason. They do.

And it's a good thing for a goal in state that they have a new rival now that Memphis is out of the picture, too. You so wanted to do that. What do you make of the, like Rudy Goberra said after the game how Draymond, they knew he might try to get ejected because Steph wasn't playing? Well, Tom Haversstrow on his substack. the finder, he dug up the stats and found that without Curry in uniform, Draymond Green has had seven ejections in 123 games or about once every 18 games played. With Curry in the lineup, Draymond's been ejected in 11 of 712 games, which is about once every 65 games.

So according to their research, that's an ejection rate of 273% higher or four times as likely to be ejected from a game when Steph is not playing compared to when he is playing. That's, those are something else, those numbers, aren't they? I think it backs up what Rudy's saying. It does. It really does. That's, I was shocked it was that much of a difference. It can't be coincidence.

No way. And you could say, well, he's playing harder because he knows, you know, with more intensity because Curry's out and then he's, you know, he runs hot. way, but still, those numbers are too. Come on, man. Four times is likely.

Yeah. I mean, Tom in his article proposed a few theories. He said, Draymond doesn't take the non-Gurie game seriously, or Curry keeps Draymond in check, or it's on the refs, officials are more willing to eject green for misconduct because those games might be less competitive without Steph, or it could be on the opponents. They're playing fysier when they don't have to worry. about Curry flaming them

so they might try to get on a Dremont screen. It's probably a little bit of all of the above. But I'd say mostly it's number one, the fact that Dreyman is just not taking those games as seriously. Yeah, I think that's probably true. He did that two minutes into the game. He was protecting his guy. That has to be like if you're a Warriors fan,

it has to be so exhausting defending it. Truly. Like, I mean, I gave up so long ago. in terms of like defending guys doing stuff. And obviously, you know, with Dylan Brooks, except for John Moran. No, no, no. I'm talking about in the games. I know, I know.

Gary Payton taking, you know, taking Gary Payton out of the air or hitting Donovan Mitchell in the nuts last year or whatever. It's like. Yeah. You just admit the guy. The guy is dirty. It's too exhausting to try to defend these type of actions. Like you've just got to, you, you've got to be so disingenuous to do it.

Yeah. You know. And it is crazy. I'm someone in the history of this podcast who has defended some of his kicks, because sometimes, not all the time, some of the time, I think the kicks are just from the motion of coming down with a rebound. But some of the time, he's definitely kicking. Like, no doubt about it.

He was intentionally kicking some of the time. So he's just a dirty player, simple as that. But that's part of what makes him a Hall of Fame defensive player. It's that mindset, that intensity, that relentlessness, the desire to stop everything in front of him. And sometimes it just turns into him being a total maniac on the court and doing stupid stuff out there that compromises his team's chances of winning a certain game, especially when Steph's not playing.

Since we last spoke, we have had two of the craziest things happen. A, that, and B, the Ubre story, which comes out, and he got hit by a car, and everybody's like, oh, my God, that's horrible. And then for whatever, like the Philadelphia police say, oh, we can't find a tape of this. And then by this morning, there's a TMZ ring camera video of him clearly going into his house, like pushing a bicycle, saying I got hit by a car to his wife. And I couldn't help but laugh. No lock on the door. Just, I mean, interesting.

As a little aside, like, there's no lock in the door. He just open it up. Oh, I didn't notice that. I don't know. I mean, you live in the South. Maybe like it's more normal not to lock your doors, but where I'm from, it's like you always lock your doors.

Well, they said that, like, people were like, wow, how did TMZ get that? Like, because they leaked it in. What are you talking about? You think they hacked it?

D. Come on. What are we doing here? They sent it because they saw the blowback of saying that this might not be what he said. as it is and they sent it to DMC. Clearly, it's so obvious.

That's what happened. The story was very pro-UBre. And I still don't know what to think. I really don't know. I think the simplest explanation, and like, this is again, he doesn't know where he was. This is, no,

the simplest explanation is that he had a biking accident, whether it was being hit by a car, or as somebody, there's YouTube videos of him going, like, off-road bike riding and whatnot, maybe he just had a crash independent. So I think that's the most simple explanation of all like the crazy rumors that, you know, people have on social media and all that. He probably just crashed his bike, whether that was on his own or with a car and he's not sure exactly where it was if it were a car or if it was just on his own, he's just using the car as a cover up. Was it because he said it was on something, right?

On a certain street. No, no. The TMZ article said it was on medication or something? I don't know. that's what it no i'm i'm i'm not making that up it was something about him it said that he was uh there's some reason i suppose that he was uh discombobulated um but if you get hit by a car he'll definitely be just could this well no no no no no prior to it said uh in the ring camera footage ubra's heard telling his wife that he was hit by a car

as he rolled a bicycle into his residence uh and then it says Oh, yeah, it just says what sources tell us two factors. One being Uber was medicated and not in the right state of mind when speaking to the cops. Yeah. Who knows? It's just a strange story, man. It's definitely a strange story. The interesting thing was like how there was the article earlier in the week from Keith Pompeii saying how they couldn't find the footage, right?

Yeah. Well, then during the press conference, when Howard Eskin, long time. Philly radio guy, very controversial there, opinionated, unafraid to ask tough questions. He was like questioning Nick Nurse, do you believe him? Do you believe him? And Sixers' PR kind of interjected and, you know, did what PR would do and clarify the story in their own way.

But then a news reporter in the same video, a local news reporter, I didn't catch her name in the video. I'm not sure she even said that. I think it was like Channel 6 in Philly. She said that her police sources said that they don't think it actually happened. That was the first report. It's never been anything I don't think since from Channel

6 in Philly that has had a full story. But she said, citing her sources that in the police said, like, they don't think it happened at all. So I mean, we'll see. I mean, how, I mean, it's very possible that it could have happened on a street with no security footage, no cameras and all that.

I just don't understand why you go to the cops if it didn't. It's like that's because that's your alibi? I don't know. I have no idea. Right, but if you don't think they're going to, I don't know. It's just also strange.

The thing that's so strange, too, is how the story has changed. Like, when it first came out, they said, like, medical professionals came to him, right? And that he would be out for months. And then it turns into weeks and that he actually just went home on his bike. Like, the story's changed so much that, like, something's up here. Also, what was he medicated on? Probably some good gummies. Yeah.

The one good part in all this, regardless of what actually happened, is the fact that it seems like it'll be a week's injury rather than a month's injury. And that whatever injuries were sustained are far less major than it appeared to when we first got the story. And at the end of the day, that's the good part here for purely from a basketball standpoint. And I guess a human standpoint, too, that Kelly seems to be in better shape than initially, it seemed. when everybody thought it was definitely a hit and run which it may not have it's crazy the Sixers can't have a normal season they cannot have a normal season ever

we're talking as friends here the whole damn thing is so weird to me I've thought about it a hundred times like I know try to figure out but and I keep coming back to bro if I was driving down the street and I saw a six foot nine guy riding a bike like I was just

like everything about it is strange I've never seen a 6'9 guy on a bike in my life. I'm not saying that, you know, you're not allowed to do that or like you, it's just strange. Yeah. It's strange. I know. I've never seen an NBA guy on a bike, honestly. I mean, like, when I'm driving, like, it's possible that if it were a driver with like a reckless driver looking at their phone, not paying any attention and all, they didn't even see him.

Or it could have been a guy going, holy, shit, is that Kelly Uprey? Yeah, it's like pulling out his phone, taking a photo. Because, like, distracted driving is a real, real problem in this country. Thank you, Kevin. It's a real issue. I know. Thank you. What do you mean? What's that

man? No, it just sounded like a public service announcement. Oh. Distracted driving is a real thing. Well, full self-driving is the cure. It reminds me When years ago, I had gone to this radio station that we were starting up years ago, it was an AM station, small station.

And when we first went on the air, we had like one commercial. So they had to fill it all with like these PSAs. And that's why it jarred by memory when you did that. Because I would be like, I can't believe that, you know, whoever, right? Memphis losing that game is ridiculous and John Cal Perry's going to have to go get better players if he thinks he's going to win at Memphis, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I'd go to a break and it would be these like,

Johnny was just about to go to college and then he was hit by a drunk. Oh my God. Oh my God. Like these would be all the commercials or like the saddest. Oh my God. And I could have had you on there going, distracted driving is a real thing that needs to be paid attention to. And then I'd have to like come back for break and like rant and rave about sports again.

It was ridiculous. I was like, can we get some different PSAs? I got to say this. Like there's sometimes I'm on the highway while using Tesla full self-driving, doing the driving for me. Flex. And there are times I'll glance to my left or to my right. And it is amazing, amazing how many times I see other drivers on the road.

using Tesla FSD that are glancing up and down at their phone while going 65, 75, 80 miles per hour down the highway. And it happens on city streets. It happens on highways. It's just like there's an ad that I think about when it comes to stuff like this. Back in Massachusetts, it was like a windshield company. And they said there's more behind the windshield than you think. And sometimes I think people don't take into account.

what is in that car is your life, sometimes your loved ones. Like, you got to be careful when you're on the roads. You got to, you can't be looking at your phones. You get to come by this honest, too.

I'm going to tell everybody, when I went out to L.A., I didn't have my seatbelt on. And Kevin scolded me. I won't drive if my friends don't buckle up. I know you want. And like, I've always been someone who never looks at the phone while I'll drive.

And I'll look at a red light or like, why I had a stop sign. Like, of course. you know, I'm not like a robot, but like with Tesla, I mean, soon, soon you're going to be able to drive with your eyes shut soon enough. And some amount of years, you're not there yet. You got to pay attention. You're making Kevin O. Guilt trip.

You're making everybody out there feel guilty. They're probably like trying to, they're trying to pause this podcast right now. They're listening off their phone in their car right now. With FSD, I feel. like I'm living in the future. Like over the last month, over 75% of my miles on the road are using that.

Wow. Which is crazy. Nuts. It's, it's, it's, but next time you're in L.A., Chris, I'll take you for a drive and show it to you. I love to. Yeah, we'll go for a drive.

It's either me or like those models. You're always driving around in the car. No, no models. No models. I see them. No models. Cash in on bawling out this NBA season with Fandul, America's number one sports

Right now, new customers get $150 and bonus bets with any winning $5 money line bet. That's $150 if your team wins. So if you've been thinking about joining Fandul, there's no better time to join. The app is easy to use, and there's a wide range of ways to bet including quick bets, live same game parlays, the parlay hub, and even beyond the NBA, you can bet on football, hockey, and a bunch of other sports. So visit Fandul.com slash mismatch and turn dimes into dollars a season. Fandul, official sportsbook partner of the NBA.

First online real money wager only. $5 pregame money line wager required. First online real money wager only. $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued is not-redrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after a seat. See terms at sportsbook.fandle.com. All right. We got likes and dislikes so far.

I'm going to start. Let me go likes first. Let's do likes. Let's go whatever feels right. It likes, dislikes, whatever feels right to us. So we got likes and dislikes. All right, I'll start with this. The player participation thing might be working.

So, it's a good one. I went and looked. Top 10 scorers in the league as of this Thursday, November 16th evening. Joel and B., 11 of 11 games. Steph Curry, 11 of 12 games. It'll be 11 of 13 after the night.

Luca Donchitz, 12 of 12. Kevin Durant, 11 of 11. Nicolaeokic, 11 of 11. Janus, 10 of 11. SGA, 10 of 11. Donovan Mitchell, 10 of 11. Tatum, 11 of 11. Maxi, 11 of 11.

Of the top 10 scorers in the league, Curry's missed one, Janus has missed one. SGA and Donovan Mitchell have both missed one. That's it. That's it. Impressive. It's a great sign.

It does seem like the only guys missing time. We got scared like night one. Yeah, yeah, real injury. Yeah. We got scared night one is like, oh my God, Phoenix is already down guys. Like that seems crazy. But these are the top 10 scorers in the NBA.

And so the whole idea and one of the things we always talked about is, A, on a random night, you're going to tune into a game or there's going to be a big game coming up that you're going to get to see that player play. And then most importantly, for the fans, if you buy tickets to the game, that that player is going to play in the game. Right?

Like, in many cases, they only come to your town one time if they're in the opposite conference. And then there's, you know, it oscillates between, you know, one or two dependent on what your schedule is for that year with the other teams that are within your conference. But I think this, yeah, those are all like, nobody's like sat out for rest of the best players. And so, and you could say, well, that's not, you know, we're only 12 games into the season.

But it wasn't even like this last year. And a lot of these teams have had like pretty heavy schedules in a short amount of time. Like they're still playing the back to backs. They're still playing the four games in the span of a week. Very promising. Very promising. I was worried after our first episode once the season began, I'm like, Jesus. Remember Jimmy Butler sat out for rest and there was the Phoenix thing.

And it was like, whoa, hold on now. Is this the way this is going to be? But the stars are playing. so far. And I think I think I'm very hopeful. I think I'm very hopeful. So it certainly goes in the light category.

I'll go the opposite way in the sense that this is this observation is due to two guys that did miss games on Wednesday night. Jane LaGround was out with an illness. Chris Stapps, Porz, was out with a right knee contusion.

So they weren't out for a rest. They were out actually due to injury. It's something I like from that game that we saw with a Celtic. went over the Sixers there was, A, the Sixers guys did play along the lines of what you said. Joel will be third game and four nights,

second game of a back-to-back, they all played. Philly lost that game. Boston, their depth, I like a lot. It is better than a lot of people anticipated. I said to you before the season, hey, like, we'll see. Some of these guys get some talent.

It seems to be working out. You have no Jalen Brown. So Drew Holiday and Derek White take on bigger roles. Steve, Steve Mahaluk comes off the bench, provides shooting and spacing. No Chrisaps for Zingis. So Al Horford slides into the starting lineup after coming off the bench all year. He has an amazing night defending Joel and LeBeed, pushing him off his spots,

making life hard on him like he always has, one of the toughest matchups in the league for Joe and Labib. And then coming off the bench is Luke Cornett, who is not like a big name player by any means, not even a great player, but he's a center who provides size and can space the floor from three. So he allows Boston to continue to play five out and at least have a big body around the rim. So with the Celtics, I think their bench is proving to be a lot better than it got credit for. So not only do they have depth in their top six with guys like Drew and guys like Derek White that can take more shots, take more touches, but they also have those guys off the bench who can fill different roles depending on who's out of games. And I thought that was very, very apparent in that road win over the Sixers.

All right Should we finish out the likes or we go to a dislike? You call it. Let's finish off the likes. All right. De Aaron Fox back in the mix and Sacramento kind of got their mojo back from last year. I think they started off the year and people were like, oh, are they going to one that's going to fall back?

They're looking good. He's played in five games. He had 18 in the first one against Utah. And then he's had 37, 39, 28 and 28, 49% from the field, 36% from 3, and they've won four in a row.

You know, they got a little lucky because he was injured and they did not have a super heavy schedule. There's a lot of these teams that have played like 12 games and they've only played 10. And so there wasn't like,

their schedule wasn't super dense in the time that he was going to have to be out. But now he's back. They got going, and this is the most important thing. Their starting lineup, which is Fox and Herder. Herder's been fantastic, gotten his mojo back. Fox Herder, Barnes, Murray, and Sabonis, they have an offensive rating of 126.7.

I mean, that is ludicrous. 126.7 and a defensive rating of 105.8. So they're plus 21 net. And they would, obviously it's one of the better lineups in the NBA that's played minutes thus far. But they can just score. And it's like that is, you know, you saw that swoon when Fox was out. But man, as soon as he came back in, they became that team that last year took the league by storm, ended up with home court advantage in the playoffs.

He is now like a top tier star Fox is. And you see the kind of impact he can have. And their offense is their offense. Like their offense is great. It is truly great when they've got their five guys. They had a lot of health last year. And so they can't really afford injury. But that's starting lineup when they are able to keep it together.

boy, they are a tough one. And, you know, you got Sabonis having another great regular season. Kegan Murray, after a very slow start to the year for him, he's been awesome in recent games. So the Kings are definitely getting to going for sure. They look really good right now. Yeah, I didn't want them falling off completely. I want them to take steps forward. Kind of felt like at the beginning of the season, people were like already like, oh, they're the

one that's going to have the big drop off. And, you know, they've gotten back to looking like the Kings from last year, the one that we all loved watching and was such a cool story. My second like here is a rookie that I feel like as being completely overlooked because the team is such a horrible watch of the Washington Wizards, two and nine on the season. But Bilal Kula Bali, their rookie lottery pick. You know I like the French. he's shooting 47% from three.

He's doing a good job of punishing defenders going under on screens. He's making his catch and shoot three point attempts. He's a guy who had some concerns about the efficiency of his jumper. It's looking very smooth, very efficient for him so far this year. He's a positive to turnover ratio this year. He's attacking clothesouts, making kickout passes. There's been a couple of times. He's even been a screener for Tyus Jones within the flow of the offense and made

short roll passes after rolling hard at the basket. Defensively, he's been really good this year defending a bunch of different types of players. Scotty Barnes, Duncan Robinson, Jalen Brown, Spencer Didwitty, Tyler Hero, all different types of players, all different size players. And then his most impressive defensive game was against Luca. He had some great, great on-ball possessions sticking to Luca, hard contest, keeping in front of him. Bilalcula Bali, one of the most impressive rookies in all of the NBA. season on the very sad wizards but that's a good silver lining for them to have below did they finally hit a draft pick is that what you're telling me yeah i believe they did yeah i believe so god their

draft record is disgusting it's like it's like a bunch of like c pluses or c's like kisper's a solid player but he's not a home run ruy hatcher mora has turned into a solid laker but he's not a home run like they were hoping for. Denny Avdia, solid defensive player, but hasn't worked out of Wisconsin kid. Oh yeah, of course. I mean, like they just haven't really had Johnny, Johnny Davis.

Yeah, they've had, they've had like a bunch of wiffs, a bunch of, you know, singles. But, you know, no home runs. Maybe Kula Bally's the guy who's at least a double or a triple and maybe a home run if the on ball stuff develops because he looks like he's

got everything else. All right. Next one on my likes. is a team that I said I was going to be watching more often this season than in the past for certain. And that was Orlando. And I'm going to give them a shout out because of something that I was not necessarily expecting. So the number one defense in the NBA thus far, defensive efficiency-wise, has been the Minnesota Timberwolves. We know that.

Number two has been the Boston Celtics, which is rather unsurprising. Number three is Orlando. Now, the offense has got to come along because they're like 27th or something in offense. But what I would say- Inverse of Indiana. Right. But what I would say is offense will come along. It's not as if they are offensively deficient that they don't have guys that can play offense well. Because they do.

We know that. But if you are this early in the season and they are able to defend at that, level right now and you can get them, you know, communicating and you could get them on the same page. That is the stuff, like when you are good defensively like that, that is the stuff that's going to help you rack up wins and over the course of an 82 game season, offense especially now. Look, it's obviously got to be better than it's been for them, but offense on a night in, night out basis will come and go, especially when we're dealing with the variance of a million three-point shots a game. There's some nights where you're going to hit 20 and you're going to

look amazing. There's some nights where you're not, and you're not, like, just taking it, for instance, right, if you watch the Lakers play against Memphis the other night, and then you watch them play against Sacramento, it's a different world. And if everybody makes shots, everything looks awesome. And when they don't, it doesn't. And all I'm saying is for a young team, like Orlando, that's trying to make the playoffs for the first time, I think it is a very good sign for them to be this good defensively, even this early in the season, because that is something that I do believe as the, it's going to vote very well for them because I expect their offense to get much better as the season carries on.

But you can hang your hat on the defensive end. And I think I'm a little surprised with their, you know, just their age. They are a big team. I mean, obviously, look, I mean, you're throwing Franz, Paulo, and Wendell Carter out there. And then they bring guys off the bench that are seven. I mean, they got formidable size. But they really defend you. And so that has been a pleasant surprise.

It certainly goes on my likes. I was not, I wasn't expecting them to be very good defensively. and, uh, or this good. Not certainly. I think, I think everybody listening to that would be stunned. If I were going to say, who are the top three defenses in the NBA? There's no chance anybody saying Orlando, even at this point in the season. But there they are.

Uh, so yeah, they go on my likes. So that was your, you have three likes. Yep. Three. Okay. Uh, I'll go with a third like here as well. third like is the variety in dynamic offenses that we're seeing this season. If you look at the top two teams and assist the turnover ratio, number one, Indiana Pacers,

number two, Denver Nuggets. What they have in common is these cerebral, genius, high feel, selfless engines of their offense with Yokic in Denver, obviously, and then Tyrese Halliburton. with Indiana. I think with both of those teams play so differently, one's a center, one's a guard. The common aspects are they have a bunch of high IQ players surrounding all of them, but they play dramatically differently. Denver's much slower-paced. Indiana's the fastest-paced team in all the basketball. But then you look at the top five offensive rating teams, number one, Indiana, number two, Dallas plays very much through Luca, heavy pick and roll.

Number three, Boston, a lot of ball sharing, a lot of heavy three-point shooting. Number four, Philadelphia in offensive rating. Their brand new system, as we've talked about a bunch this season, with their dribble handoff-centric offense taking pages from Denver, and then Denver, everybody knows what they do. Just a lot of variety with some of the top offenses in the league. But the common trend, especially with Indiana and Denver, is just that selflessness and the high feel, the system,

and how everybody plays together and for each other. I just think that's been a lot of fun to watch with the different styles, but also the common trends amongst those top offenses in the league this season. Totally fair. And we have that Indiana team that you mentioned. Beautiful.

I mean, you know, they're averaging 126? Beautiful. That is crazy. 126 points is wild. Halliburton special, man. You go up and down and it's like, you just take like the whole Pacific conference or division in the Western Conference, which is Sacramento, Golden State, the Lakers, Phoenix, and the Clippers.

Sacramento is scoring the most, which is unsurprising, even though they have had boxout for some. It's 114 a game. 114. I mean, they're 12 full points ahead of that. And obviously I chronicled earlier the Kings and them having their numbers when they've got their actual starting lineup, which are kind of freakish like the Pacers. But yeah, that Pacers, man, I would not have expected.

Pacers playing the fastest and Halliburton, by the way, has been freakishly awesome. All right. Now it's time for some dislikes. Oh, you're not going to like this, Kevin. Oh, please. So a couple of minutes ago I just got done talking about Orlando And there was a team I was going to be really looking forward to watching

My bright future pistons Oh I have the pistons as a dislike Oh they are disgusting All right look This Killian Hayes thing has to stop This is ridiculous Why why Because Jaden Ivy is alive

He is a person that exists Okay all right But Killian has 57 assistant to only 11 turnovers as well. Killion Hayes also has a true shooting percentage of 49. I understand. Stinks.

Jaded, what they are doing with Jaden Ivy, like they have Jake and Ivy. They have Jaden Ivy and Cade Cunningham and Assewer Thompson and Jalent. Like this should be the most fun team to watch of young talent. Like going up and down the court. It's not all killing. It's not all killing

team's problems? No, of course it's not. It's Monty Williams' fault. Duren also hasn't been playing either too. No, this is Monty Williams' fault. For God's sake, they buried Ivy. They brought in Kevin Knox and gave him more minutes than Ivy

and he wasn't even on a team. He wasn't even in the NBA. If the pistons were paying any attention to the sons before paying him the highest salary in basketball, they'd know that this is a thing with Monty Williams where he doesn't always play that he took forever to feed the ball to mckell bridges when paul and booker were out he took forever

to just in the postseason when the nuggets were sagging off of non-shooters and he didn't change the lineup until game three and then they won two in a row so like monti is as not always doing what makes the most sense he's a good motivator he's a good man but basketball wise uh i think we're seeing we're seeing some of those issues right now with detroit already it's just bizarre. Like this whole like, oh, you got to earn minutes, you know, or whatever. Like, what minutes did Kevin Knox earn?

He showed up and you played him more than Jane Ivy. This is the way I framed this thought with my dislike. It's also in the front office here. They need to break this up. They traded up for Marcus Sasser.

They drafted Osar Thompson, who's awesome, by the way. He's the best player on the team right now all respect to Cade Cunningham because of the way Osar impacts defense and is just a glue guy on offense. Osar is awesome. But then you also have Killian who's

shown some signs of life, but it's come at the cost of blocking the development of Jade and Ivy who's been awesome when given opportunities and limited minutes off the bench. And you know who else? It's hurt. It's her, Kay Cunningham.

Because they run doubles at Cade. They run doubles at Cade. They hedge on Cade. Like, he can't be Cade Cunningham because no one else on the court is respected. Like, they've got, like, their best player, like, stat-wise is probably Alec Burke so far. That tells you everything you need to know. And it's like, are they trying to develop these guys? Or are they trying to, like, is he doing the, I want to try to win every game?

And it's just, dude, they are. And it's like, this is just going to be. another thrown away season? Here's the thing though. When it comes to Cade, he's still fourth in the NBA and touches per game according to NBA.com, fourth in the

touches per game. So it's not like he's getting touches. And this is similar to our Spurs conversation. We were talking about making things harder on Wemby sometimes like not having an ideal situation. Right? With Cade,

it would be nice if despite not having ideal spacing, he were actually hitting three-pointers, that'd be nice if he were playing off ball and hitting threes up the catch. It'd be nice if he were hitting pull-up threes instead of needing to dribble into mid-range and take tougher shots. It'd be nice to see him show that. So, like, in some respects, I think it's on Cade to adapt to the situation and show that he can do those things that are necessary for him to become a superstar. On the other hand, I agree with you that they need to break it up with the guards. They need to trade some of those guys,

whether it's trading Ivy or whether it's trading Killian, whatever it might be, they need to break it up in order to help facilitate the development of those guys. And also create a better situation for those players. It's unfair to Marcus Sasser and unfair to Ivy and all those guys that they have to share all those touches. There's only one ball to go around.

I know you've been a big killing guy, and he's a backup point guard. That's probably all he is. That's his destiny. His destiny in the NBA is backup point guard. Game managing point guard who limits turnovers and defends hard. Yes. That's the right play.

Why do I watch them and see this? It's like, all right. What are you even doing here? And then they've got, even when they put Ivy in the game, he stands in the corner. I'm like, this guy had a 30 ball in a game I watched last year. Like, I loved Ivy coming out of the draft. He has got, he's got that fast twitch. thing going on and like

you that could be a super fun back court and they have just effed this up like I don't understand it and it makes me so frustrated because that could be like the Cunningham Ivy Ivy's like 46% on catch and shoot

like what are we doing here? They are easily my biggest dislike so far this season. They suck and they're not fun to watch. Break it up. I'm with you. All right. You got a dislike?

I do have a dislike. Oh, you had the pistons. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I'll throw another dislike out there. I had some backups ready to go.

One of my dislikes this year. The decline of Clay Thompson so far this season. I don't like it. It's disappointing to see because I love Clay. He's been one of my favorite players for what, a decade now. However long he's been in the NBA, he's playing 28.6 minutes per game at career low since his rookie season,

shooting only 34% from, three this year a career low and granted small sample size satyr here it's only 11 games he'll probably catch fire uh the fact is is that offensively he's had some possessions this year where it's more of like the what are you doing clay like what is that for he had to play the other night against the calves where he received the ball with 13 seconds on a shock clock and then he struggled through 14 dribbles in a row you know losing the ball as he's dribbling trying to get past carris covert and then he takes this weird turnaround jumper from mid-range that gets blocked as times running out. Clay,

Clay, I think right now defensively as well, we've seen this happen over recent years. He still can have good moments defensively. He had a great possession defensively against Aaron Gordon in the last two minutes of the game against the Nuggets. He was pretty good against Evan Mowbly, but he's really only better against those bigger, slower guys. He can't stay in front of a Jalen Green anymore. He can't stay in front of a Donovan Mitchell. Kegan Murray blew by him a couple of times when the Warriors face the Kings. It's like these quicker guys, these younger players, he can't stay in front of as much.

So I think with Clay defensively, he's not the stopper he once was. Obviously, Andrew Wiggins for the Warriors is playing absolutely horrible right now. But for Steve Kerr in the situation that he's in, like you get these rookies, pods who looks great, and limited chances that he's received. T.J.D. Trace Jackson Davis, their second round pick, who's looked great. Moses Moody, who's been better than Wiggins, better than Clay,

but he's playing 10 less minutes per game than those guys. With Draymond suspended for five games, Steph out for some amount of time. Maybe this is the time where Steve Kerr's forced to play some of those young guys and actually see what they're capable of doing with heavier minutes and more consistent opportunity. because I think something's going to change in this warrior's rotation, whether that's Clay taking a lesser role or trading Andrew Wiggins,

whatever it might be, trading Chris Paul for that matter. They need to make some changes in order to win a championship again this year. Another dislike that I had de-officiating so far this year. So I lauded. I lauded the fact that, so I've been going to games for the last 20-something years, and I've seen all of them. And there's been a ton of the guys that were the longtime refs that have left or, you know, like in the case of Monty McCutche and went to the replay thing or like they just filtered out.

And there's a lot of, there's a lot of new refs that you see on a regular basis where you're like, you used to always recognize one or two of them. But there's a lot of times where you don't recognize them anymore. And I feel like there's so many of the younger. ones that are coming in or the ones that we're not familiar with, that now it is not only the quick trigger that you talked about earlier, which is, you know, like, stripping emotion from the game for what reason we'll never know. But it's also you watch these guys and they're all part of the same entertainment enterprise out on the court. And not only are they bad,

they are arrogant about it. Like I, for years, I've gotten used to, like, you know, you see Bill Kennedy and you see the rapport that he has with the players or, like, you know, if he misses something, somebody will come yell at him and he'll say, hey, let me look at that at halftime, or maybe I miss that or whatever. Or Zach Zarbah, it's now, like, I feel like we've filtered in a bunch of these rats that are like, you know how like if you go to like a bar or something right there, can either be there's some bouncer that are like cool like yeah come on in bud you know like that kind of guy and then

there's the bouncer that literally got the job so that he can beat up the drunk guys right like he's there so that he has some level of authority an excuse to do whatever he wants to do they power tripping right you see this in all manner of different jobs and i feel like we got a bunch of power trip refs now. And that aren't even like, like the older ones are the ones that you know of and the ones you're used to and familiar with. It's not them.

They've been around a long time. They've got a rapport with the players. They know the players. But the ones that don't have like a rapport with the players yet, and I feel like there's a lot of those in the league now, you're seeing they can't handle it. They can't handle the game. And so then when the players are,

or barking at them, whatever, they're snapping, or they're the high and mighty, don't talk to me. Don't talk to me, right? And I have just seen so far this year, like, even if you're not good, like, the worst combo is not being good and being arrogant. And I feel like there's an awful lot. I just don't like that.

I don't like the attitude. that I see. And not only that, just the officiating's been bad. Been bad. We've lost a lot of reps. And NBA officiating is extremely difficult to do. Extremely difficult.

But I feel like there's a lot of them with their chest out now, trying to prove that they belong or whatever. And I think they're going about it all the wrong way. And again, it's all part of the same entertainment enterprise. But just watch a random NBA game. And you're going to hear a refuse suck chant in damn near everyone now. It's ridiculous.

It's ridiculous. There shouldn't be a refuse suck chant in every game. I mean, that kind of like puts a ball on top of what we talked about at the top of the pod. Right. Complaining about Yonnas fans thrown out, the text on Anthony Edwards. It's a lot of stuff like that. It feels like every game I'm tuning into right now. It's like the only,

it's like I'm really, really loving this season, right? Like I love, I'm loving the in season tournament. Like that could have easily been one of my likes, right? I'm loving the in season tournament.

It's almost more than Mike. I love it. The players, participation's been great. You get surprises across the league. Young guys shining. Yeah, like there's like kind of a changing of a guard

in the NBA in some ways with, you know, Anthony Edwards and Halliburton and all these young guys elevating their play. it's a great time. The one negative is the officiating. That's the one part so far that I'm like, it feels worse than I can remember recently.

Just because I had it written down, I'm going to give one more like shout out before we get out of here. Reggie Jackson and Murray's Place. This has just been crazy. So that Murray lineup had a net rating. Their net rating is always great, obviously. the world best teams of the league. But it was like plus 5.6 with the starting lineup.

They have replaced Murray with Reggie Jackson. And so far, they have had a 114 offensive rating and a 90.7 defensive rating for plus 33. It's crazy. Now, obviously, look, the usage goes up. for Yokic, which is always a good thing. But them, like, being able to, there's all kinds of teams that are dealing with injury. Their way of dealing with this injury was like,

oh, God, they lost Jamal Murray. And their starting lineup has been freakishly great. In fact, of the lineups that have played like a lot of minutes so far as five-man units in the NBA, there's only one that has been better than that one. The Denver one with Reggie Jackson instead of Marie in it. And you guessed it. And this is like this,

this shouldn't even be a real net rating. It's the Celtics starting five so far. Have you looked at their numbers? It's absurd, right? I didn't check it after Wednesday's game, but what is that? Well, I just told you that Denver was plus 33 per 100 possessions and they're second. That's because Boston,

is plus 39. They have an offensive rating of a hundred and twenty-eight and a defensive rating of 89. That is like impossibly great.

Plus 39 per 100 possessions. And that's the you know, Holiday White Porzingis, Tatum Brown. Mm-hmm. Good.

Great. Plus, maybe Bill Simmons is right. It is the greatest lineup ever assembled or whatever he said that he was getting so much grief over. I'll tell you this. So far, they have played like the greatest lineup

ever assembled. That is 128 offensive rating and 89 defensive rating is crazy. That is crazy. I can't even believe it. And they've played a lot of minutes. They put a lot of minutes together.

I just pulled it up. of 134 minutes. That's the third most frequent lineup used in the NBA. Number one, OKC's, starting five. Number two, Houston's, and then Boston, number three. Houston's is great, too. It's like 17, right?

Yeah, 17.9 for Van Vliet Brooks, Green, Schengoon, Smith. Which is incredible because that's a thrown together. No, there's this truly incredible because that's a thrown together lineup. And then OKC with 148 minutes, they're plus 11.1. SGA, Dort, Giddy, Holmgren, Williams. That's impressive considering you throw in Holmgren, a rookie player, too. But again, four of those have at least played together.

Of course. Oh, yeah, I know. You know, three of those guys have never played basketball together. Well, even with the Boston one, granted, they're veteran players, but you have two guys who didn't play with Holiday and Porzingis. They're veterans, but it's still a brand new team, and yet they're flourishing so quickly. Well, they've also fallen into the roles. Yes.

Right. They've all accepted it. That's right. And the good thing for Denver is soon enough, they will get Jamal Murray back. Michael Malone said earlier today on Thursday that he's going to rejoin the Nuggets for their five-game road trip. We don't know if he'll play or not, but he's going to be back soon from his hamstring injury. And he'll at least be with the team for their five-game road trip starting on Friday into Orleans. So that's a good sign for the Nuggets to get him back soon.

it is but it's also you know they they're blessed in the fact that they they can take it easy because that that Reggie Jackson thing like typically if you lose a guy like we're seeing it all over the league you lose a player here you lose a player there and it's like

it has a huge effect on their team theirs just having Jackson there and I can't believe how great their defense has been with just for play racing Jackson with Murray. I mean, that's 30 point, it's a 34 point difference on defense with just Jackson for Murray.

So far in the limited amount of minutes that they've played. But, I mean, still a, they still played a lot of minutes. Look, I feel like me and you could play with Yokic and have a good net rating, though. Yokish makes everybody better. No, quite. I'll stand in the corner and have a good. net rating just being on his team. His usage rate is like even up.

It's crazy. It's so good. Kevin, it is always a pleasure. Thank you to our executive producer, Jesse Lopez, as always. And I'll talk to you next week. Looking forward to it. Must be 21 plus in president's select states. Fandul is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC.

Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit fanbool.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 1-800 Next Step, or text Next Step 533442 in Arizona. Call 1-888-789-77 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Call 1-8009 with it in Indiana. Call 1-800-522470 or visit KSgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. Call 1-877-770 stop in Louisiana. Visit MD Gamblinghelp.

Oregon, Maryland. Visit 1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. Call 1-800-522-4-7-0 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit Gambling helpline, MA.org, or call 1-800-327-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-8778 Hope N.Y or text Hope N.Y in New York.