The Mismatch - Debating the NBA Rankings List, Plus the Grizzlies Dominate and What’s the Plan Without Steph?

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

KOC congratulates Verno for his Grizzlies completely dominating the Bucks, 142-101, and taking over the 1-seed in the West (00:59 ). One of the reasons for the Grizz's blowout victory was Steven Adams’s excellent defense against Giannis. fter the Jazz defeated the Pelicans in overtime, the guys discuss the lack of 3-point shooting from the Pels, Walker Kessler's impact, and how Mike Conley’s playmaking ability is keeping the Jazz competitive (14:29). The guys debate how the Warriors will handle being without Steph Curry for the next few weeks (25:14). Are the Warriors now a play-in team? The Ringer’s NBA Rankings were released earlier this week and the guys debate some of the players ranked and the issues they have with Tyler Parker's League Pass rankings (35:50). Check out The Ringer's NBA Rankings, ranking everything that matters in the NBA! Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Producer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, my name is Kevin Clark. I'm the host of a new football podcast called Slow Newsday. I want to tell you about it. On Mondays, Lindsay Jones and I will recap the weekend in football that was as well as look ahead to what's next. On Wednesday, the normal Slow Newsday, the thing you've been watching for years, current players, current coaches, current analysts talking about the football world. And on Friday, it's a wildcard. Could be some college football. Could be more pro stuff. It's a video podcast so you can watch it on Spotify or listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Follow on Spotify. It's Slow Newsday. Welcome to the mismatch. I'm Chris Vernon. And joining me as he does every Friday from the ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin O'Bomber, Kevin O'Conflict, Kevin O'Candler, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin Boone! Congratulations to your Memphis Grizzlies, number one seat. Just that I'll let you know, congrats.

The first place, Memphis Grizzlies, I was there last night to watch them take on the Millywakei Algonquin for the Goodland Bucks. and there have not been competitive games recently. I can't tell you, Kevin, I'm not kidding you. I can't tell you the less competitive basketball game that I went to. I really can't. It was dominance every single quarter, every quarter. Well, and Grizzly fans have kind of been jumping on me because I was like, you know, I'd like to see a good game.

Everyone, so I'm happy. Look, I much prefer this to the alternative. but like you want to see guys like in the moment, you know, pushed. And they just, they haven't played competitively because they've just been so amazing, which is. It was 33 to 18 in the first quarter, 37 to 23 in the second quarter. It wasn't even close. And then they crushed them again in the third. They scored 47 points in the third quarter.

It's insane. I mean, that's when it's like, okay, come out and make a game of this, right? Typically, the NBA, it's a game of runs. The run was always the Grizzlies. It was a 15 to 2 run, and then it was an 11 to 2 run. At one point, they were up 50 on the Milwaukee Bucks. There were up 50 points last night in that game. And I just saw Kurt Goldsbury this morning put out his efficiency landscape,

and over the course of the last 10 games, they have won 9 of 10. They're obviously on a seven-game win street. They are number one in net rating. They are number three offense. They are number two in defense. And they have been doing it without their starting shooting guard who was averaging 25, 5, and 5 when he went out in Desmond Bain.

They still have not played one game or a minute, in fact, with what would be their starting lineup. this season. And Morant's miss games, Jaron's miss games, there's been a bunch of miss games, and it hasn't made any difference this year thus far. They have been rocking.

And it was, it looked like the Pelicans were still going to hold that first place spot. And I got done and thank God, the game got done, and I was able to watch the fourth quarter and overtime of Pelicans versus Jan. Wait, no, no, let's wait, wait, we get to talk about Stephen Adams, Chris. Oh, you want to talk about Adams?

Dude, Adams was incredible last night. We got to talk about him. Like, the defense he played against Janus, like right out of the gate, there was a play in early that first quarter. Yonis drove right at Adams. It was like a right to left, right? And then he did his spin back to the right. And he bumped Adams hard.

But Adams kind of like tilted his body, took the blow with his left arm and didn't move at all once. And like Janus was like, Yonis was like, okay, it's going to be that type of night. He immediately passes out. And it was like that all game long. Block transition. Blocked him in the half court. Yonis couldn't do anything against Stephen Adams. Like, never mind.

Like he rebounds, hard screens. You know, you got Jago into the basket. I just had to give some love to. Stephen Adams after that performance last night. He played incredibly against Janus. Yeah, trust me, I wasn't moving on from that game. I was just mentioning.

You were moving on. I just wanted to get it. I was just mentioning that there were two games going on, and I was able to see the second one. Regarding the first one, look, they build this wall against Janus. You've got Dylan Brooks running around with Middleton. Middleton looks shell of himself right now.

He is nowhere. near back. Who was that play last night dragging Dylan Brooks down? That wasn't cool. That wasn't nice. Dylan Brooks gets under everybody. I mean, he can really test your metal

where you started to get very annoyed very quickly. The Grizzlies fans love Stephen Adams. Is he like a unsung hero, fan favorite type? Is it cool when people have an Adams jersey on?

Yes. People love Adams. And it's crazy because we hated Stephen Adams. Oh, yeah. Hated him. We hated Stephen Adams because one of the most famous moments in Grizzly's history was during the Durant-Westbrook years, played a big playoff series against them, and Zeebo hit Stephen Adams. And they suspended him for game seven. It suspended the best player on the team for game seven of the NBA playoffs. And so he, his name was mud. We hated Stephen Adams.

And then Stephen Adams ends up in Memphis and he is, oh, could not be more beloved. I don't know if you saw the quote the other day. He was on some podcast and he said, they asked him, what do you implement to your young, the young players on the team. And he said, you know, he says mate after everything. We can't even put him on walk-off interviews because he F-bombs every time. He loves the effort.

Last night would have been a good one. Yeah, a good one to have him on the post-game. I know. You can't do it. He'll just do it. It's just the way he taught, right? Got to get to protect those kids. Oh, no, he's the best.

Well, it's crazy because he's the one teaching these kids how to live right. when he walked off the court, people will be like, Stephen Adams, Stephen Adams, can I have an autograph? And he'll go, nope. And they'll go, can I have an autograph? Nope. And then one kid will go, please, and he'll go, yep. And then all the other kids will go, please, please, please. He makes you say please. I saw a clip about that recently with him saying, say please. So anyways, he's asked about what he implements to the young players. He starts telling this story. I'm not even going to do the accent. He starts telling this story about how I try to implement to them what Nick Collison once told me. Oh.

And Nick Collison was a spirit animal of the Oklahoma City Thunder when Stephen Adams was very young. He said, I have a tendency to overthink the game. I think so much. And Nick Collison said, stop thinking. This game is less about that than it is cock and balls. this is what he says on the podcast. And everybody's like, what? The game is about cock and balls.

Like that should be like, you know those like successories posters? Did you guys ever have those or you saw, you remember that place at the ball? It would be like motivational quotes with like a mountain or whatever. Yeah, there should be like one of those motivational quotes like a mountain. And then it says the game comes down to cock and balls. and then like the little dash Nick Collison. It's an unbelievable quote.

Motivational to say the least. Yeah, motivational to say the least. He's not wrong. He's not wrong. Playing against the honest requires that. That's for damn sure. I'm going to say this. The Bucks obviously didn't have it last night.

Not at all. Many times I will come on the show and I will tell you about things that I gleaned covering Hubey Brown many, many years ago. And one of the things that's always stuck in my mind, and people, all fans, can keep this in their mind. can decide whether it's bogus or not, but there's a lot of wisdom to it I have found over the years. And Hewby Brown used to say, there's five games a year where it doesn't matter what your

exes and O's are, motivation, coaching. Your team's got it. You're winning that night. End of story. And there's five games a year where you're going to get run out of the gym. You just don't have it. He said, it's the other 72 that are going to make the difference. And so sometimes when you see these extreme outlier performances, I am able to think back to that, whether they are good or bad and say to myself, this is one of the five. This is one of the five. Like you just, you ain't got it. You're getting killed tonight.

Or you, it doesn't matter who you were playing. You could be playing the 96 Bulls, your winner the night. And I think there was a, I, I, I, I think a perfect storm of probably one of the Grizzly games and probably one of the Bucks games. And also, the Taylor Jenkins angle to this is very, very real. There's anybody in the free world that you would want to draw up the game plan to make the Bucks life misery,

it would be Taylor Jenkins, who has been with Bud, since Atlanta was part of that Milwaukee team. He knows, help develop all those players. He knows every single player what they do, what they want to do, and he knows everything about Bud's system, both offensively and defensively. And all of Yanis's tendencies to, because it wasn't just Adams. Aldama did a good job. Clark did an okay job too. I mean, those guys, you know, collectively did well building a wall against Janus.

Yes. and so you've got that angle to it also. And the Grizzlies have been playing out of their minds. I mean, they have been playing out of their minds. And so Milwaukee just kind of ran into a buzzsaw last night. I don't walk away. And they miss shots, right? They just missed some shots too, right?

Missed a lot of it. 13 and 50 from three. Yes, 13 of 50. Yeah, that's obviously a huge component. When you're forcing Janus to pass out of those drives and like I mentioned the one a couple minutes into the game when Adams just didn't move on the honest drive. Like if Lopez hits that three and it's a night where they're 25 of 50, I mean,

it's a different story. But the process was sound, though, and the individual efforts, they did everything they had to do. There's been an uptick in the, Brooke Lopez's modern day Hakeem Elijah won rim protection level. And I know that NBA.com. Josh got right by him. Zoom, multiple times.

Kevin, they had 80. points in the paint. 86. 86. I think it was late second quarter, maybe the last play of the half where Jai had that screen set for him, like near half court, and Brooke was like in a drop

coverage, like at the three point line, because the screen was set out so, so far away from the basket, and Jod just like just bursted right past them. And that happened multiple times throughout the game. It was crazy. I mean, Brooks are awesome defender, and he belongs in the DPOI conversation. But yeah, Jah and the Grizzlings got to the room at Will last night for sure.

And I thought, I figured surely 86 is the most anybody has scored in the paint this year. And then I went and looked at it. And it was actually a few nights ago, that crazy-ass Yokic game. Oh, wow. Denver had over 90 in the paint. That game that Yokic went like 17 per 20 or whatever was. I mean, his box score from the other night. is video game.

It's beyond video game. You can't go 17 for 20. You're going to miss four shots. Yokic, I mean, we'll talk, maybe we'll, might as well bring it up now. The Bon Temps, the MVP straw poll thing came out. Yokic was fifth on that. I'm not going to argue with MVP rank,

because I really don't care at this point so early. But Yokic still being in the top five and beat at number 10. I wonder if there's a little bit of voter fatigue there with the number one and two the last two years. But with Yokic, I think he's probably better now than he was the last two seasons. I think he's dominating near the rim,

taking more shots at the rim than ever before, which speaks to your point there about them dominating in the paint. He's shooting like almost 80% at the rim right now. He's well over 60% from like floater range right outside, you know, the restricted area. he's just not shooting from a three-point ranger as many deep mid-rangers as often anymore. This guy is, he gets to the rim much differently

than a Janus, but he is equally as dominant, if not more dominant at the basket than Janus is. It's just, yeah, I just think Yokic is, he's probably not going to win MVP because of the voter fatigue aspect, but I mean, this dude is still one of the one or two or three best players in basketball. Absolutely amazing, to say the least. And so the Grizzlies did move into first place

because in the late game, which was the Pelicans versus the Jazz, the Jazz were able to win that game. Oddly, it's one of those things where you go back and look throughout the season and you're like, what was the deal there? Those teams played now three games against each other before Christmas,

and Utah has just had their number. They end up sweeping the season series. and beating the Pelicans three zip. And last night, great game, great, great game. They came down to Pelicans are up by five. Jordan Clarkson was unbelievable. He was so good last night. Lori Markinen hit some huge shots.

And Larry Nance had one of the great game saving blocks you will ever see. For anybody that didn't see the game, this is Will Hardy. Had a couple of out-of-time-out plays that were just spectacular. And with two seconds left, they get a chance at the game winner. They throw this lob to marketing. He gets a good look. Larry Nance blocks it. They call a goal tent.

So the game's going to be over. It's the game winner. And then they go and review it. They come back and they say, no, no goal 10. Clean block. We're going to overtime. And this is after, you know, McCollum has just hit this three to tie the game before Marketing and got the chance to win it.

Then they go to overtime and the Jazz end up winning that game. Mike Conley, some unbelievable defense on McCollum at the very end. But those teams played really good games against each other. And one of the things that I thought was interesting, and I know you've been a few to be in the praise about the fellow. And I do wonder if it will show up down the road, which is, you see this team in Utah, and some of the success that they have had is they take a ton of threes. I mean a ton. And they can make them too.

You know, when we talked about the same, like some of the surprising teams that we've seen thus far this year, and we've talked about this before, Indiana, Utah, specifically, these are amongst the top teams in the NBA. in three-point attempts. And they make them. The Pelicans don't take threes. If they're not dead last, they're like second to last.

I mean, I think it's, I don't know after last night, but it was like them and the Bulls. 28th, 28th and three-point rate. 30 is Chicago, 29 is Atlanta. Okay. 28 is New Orleans.

Yeah, and they don't take threes. And so sometimes, just the trading threes for twos can make it for a difficult task. down the stretch of some of these games because they really don't take threes at nearly the rate. Now, the other side of that is

they're amazing from two. And that's why their record has been so great so far this year. But you're going to get into these variance games where one of these teams is shooting 40-something threes against you. And the night they hit a bunch, it's a big problem.

And the night they don't. Because you're not even close to matching these teams from the three point line. And I do wonder when it gets to playoff time, right, is somebody going to be able to just say, all right, like, we're going to play it. Go ahead. Do you want to try to shoot us out of this?

Because they don't space it like a lot of teams do because they don't have to space it like a lot of teams do. I mean, their go-to plays are Zion down the stretch going at the basket. I didn't love the guy in college. Man, Walker Kessler can make some defensive plays now. He is a big tree in there. I mean, he kind of, he helped win the game for him.

Of course he did. They put him in the game with, I think, 427 left in the third quarter. And he played all but 12 seconds through the rest of the third and the fourth in overtime. Like they subbed him out with 12 seconds left in the game because of offense defense. but that's it. He played every other minute and like his defense down the stretch against Zion, deterring him

from getting right at the rim, forcing him into tough layups or kickouts. Yeah, like it, like he looked like Rudy Gobert out there for Utah, right? And like they had and he wasn't defending Zion. He was defending usually Larry Nance. So like think about how Boston

has Horford and Time Lord, right? Robert Williams would be that guy in the off ball help position. Hardy essentially did what Boston did with Robert Williams and used Walker Kessler in that role where he was helping off of Nance to deter Zion from getting at the basket. And it was, it was highly effective down the stretch of that game. I was, I mean, look, Utah had, you mentioned Jordan Clarkson, the shot making, Lowry Markening, the shot making. Kessler were talking about his defense. And then Mike Conley, some of the playmaking from him down the stretch. Utah has just got so

many good players from their rookies to their old veterans and Conley. There's a vibe and energy. You even get it from like Bowler Jack when he's announcing the game. Like they're just in love with how hard the team plays. Like there's a spirit about them. And let me just say this. You know, no demerit on the Pelicans because they are not the only ones. Earlier this year, I saw Memphis go there.

to Utah, same scenario where they play two games. A lot of these teams go to Utah and then they just knock out both games, right? Yeah. And you go there and you get your ass kick. I mean, Memphis went there and lost twice too. Do you look at the top two seeds in the Western Conference? Are Memphis and New Orleans right now? Both of those teams went to Utah, played two consecutive games against that team, and lost both of them.

Wow. that's pretty damn good. Yeah, that's something else. I mean, it's not just Utah beating the crap out of the Detroit's of the world than the Houston's of the world. Like, the two best teams

in the Western Conference went there and they're 4 at 0 in those games. That's pretty unbelievable. What a story. You know what their record is with Mike Conling? 13 and 7.

They're 3. 13 and 7 in games that Conley plays. He can't score the way he used to, but man, that guy can still play make. He can still create offense for others. Like that check out. He had where he. He drew the foul on Trey Murphy on the moving screen. It's just like all this.

It's the little stuff. It is. The shot he created for Clarkson with like a minute 30 left where he was isolating. And they attacked Zion a lot. He's isolating against Zion, draws a help defender. and just creates a perfect open opportunity for Clarkson. It was the little things like that. And yeah, he's still a good player, man.

Just can't score. I mean, I miss Prime Conley when he did all of these things, and he scored a bunch. But it's cool to see him still settling that offense, right? Like, I think that's why, like, they have that record, like you said, with him in the lineup. He just settles that offense down in ways nobody else can. Well, and I know it's their hashtag,

but, I mean, like, we truly do need to take note. Because they don't just win against teams that they should be better than or some of their peers. They win against the best teams. You know, and super impressive, super impressive because they were one of those that we chalked up as not one of the teams that was going to be involved. That was the way the race for Wembe. we thought might go through Utah with Danny Ains there now. And, you know, when you ship off Donovan Mitchell,

when you ship off Rudy Gobert and you make those moves and you're just throwing a bunch of guys together that have never played together and a coach who has never been a head coach, it's mega impressive what's going on there. It really is. And, you know, it's a hard part. place to play anyway because you can't breathe.

You know, the first, it's, it's always been a difficult place to play. I've never been there. Have you been there? Yes. I haven't experienced that. And you feel that too? Oh, God. I mean, like doing non, like, even if you just go for a walk down the street.

It 100% takes you a day to adjust. Yes. Really? So I've never been there. I'll be there for All-Star weekend, I think. I will too. And so I look forward to feeling that. I've been there twice.

I've been there twice on vacations and absolutely loved it. But there's two things. A, the breathing thing, it takes a minute. It's just an adjustment. The second thing is, and you'll notice this when you're there, everybody has like a massive water bottle with them. You get dehydrated fast. People just chug water.

all the time. Drinking water is no problem for me. No, no, but I mean, you have to, everywhere I go to, yeah.

You will notice that too. You'll become like parched in a way that you would not normally, like in their everyday life. It's just thin air, man. Yeah. It's not, that's real. I look forward to it.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, beautiful, beautiful place. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. I've been to,

it would be nice. Outside of Salt Lake City, Park City, Utah. I've been there twice. It's amazing. I loved it. In fact, it's my kids' favorite vacation we've ever been on. They loved it.

They had never been around snow and mountains, though, so in fairness. That was an experience. The snow's nice to look at, not nice to live in all the time. Maybe not. Good for a vacation. That's not something. Yeah, good for vacation, for sure. Good for a vacation.

One of the big stories that we've got to get to is the Steph Curry injury. So the other night they're playing against Indiana. Lucky for them, the story became more about the Steph Curry injury and how long he's going to be out than the fact that they lost to Indiana. And their record on the road is just despicable so far this year. I mean, they can't beat anybody on the road. And that's with Curry. They haven't been able to beat anybody on the road. Well, they got two wins, I think.

I think they have two wins on the road so far this year. And now they're going to have to do it without Steph Curry. And really odd timeline with just the terming of it. It's like, and he'll be out a few weeks. Yeah, re-evaluated in two weeks. You're getting some nonsense like that. Yeah. Okay.

Re-evaluated in two weeks, which sucks because there was going to be a huge matchup, a rematch up the playoffs where all the smoke came from between Memphis and Golden State on Christmas, and he's going to miss this. For what it's worth, Chris, Anthony Slater from the Athletic said, the prevailing sense is that he'll end up missing three to four weeks. So it's a few weeks, you know, maybe it's two weeks he'll be re-evaluated, but the prevailing sense is that it could be three weeks. to four weeks, which is really bad news for the Warriors.

Really bad news. That gets you close to, you know, mid, late January, we're talking. They have play-in team? I mean, everything's so close and so flat in the standings in the West right now. It's hard to say, but how bad they games in. How many games they win in without him? Well, that's the thing. That's the thing.

How far do you fall, right? They're 14 and 15 right now, and they have a, it's a tough. schedule coming up at Philly, at Toronto, at New York, who's been better defensively, at Brooklyn, they've been great. Then Memphis, Charlotte, Utah, Portland, Atlanta, Detroit, Orlando. There's some easy games in there, quote unquote, easy. Easy without Steph, I'm not so sure. Like, their offense has been horrific without Steph.

They have an offensive rating of 99.9. Without Steph, an offensive rating of 118.9 with Steph. Their defense is about the same. So they go from plus seven to minus 11. and with and without Steph. I mean, you don't need the numbers to know. They're not a good team without Stefan Curry, but then you're talking about, well,

Jordan Poole, maybe he slides into that lineup with Clay and Draymond and Wiggins once Wiggins comes back and Looney. That lineup of, you know, those five have not played together this season, really. So maybe that does well. But then what happens when you have, like, non-poole minutes? Right? Like, it's a domino effect there where they, They could really slide.

They could really slide here, Christophen. If it gets to, if it's two weeks he's out, I think it'll be okay. I'm going to throw you something. Three or four weeks. I don't know. I'm going to throw you something. Is there any chance they play better basketball? No.

And on the surface, that sounds insane. Hold on. I told you, I am like, sometimes the. these teams do, like, band together. They start now playing for the greater good. They start passing the ball round. No. Look, I went to what last year where Moran.

Moran went out. That's a totally different Taylor Jenkins system, totally different. You know, a lot of pick and roll. It's totally different. The Steph Curry ecosystem. I mean, what are they going to do? Call up Wiseman and start running high pick and roll with pool and wise men. No, it's not going to happen.

I mean, you obviously have to do things differently, but you then... But they won't. But there's a lot less dependence on one guy, and everybody has to pick up the slack. No chance. They're going to suck. You think they're just going to suck. They're going to suck this next month, yeah. The numbers are terrible.

The numbers are terrible. You posted those, and I was like, oh, Lord. Was it 99? 99.9.9. offensive rating without Steph to 118.9 with Steph. I mean, that's a dramatic difference there. I mean,

look, look, if this schedule, let's say this gets to, and here's the thing, right? It's a shoulder injury. No saying it'll 100% heal. It might always be like a little bit of a hindrance. And if Steph goes from this guy who is in the MVP conversation shooting the lights out

to, you know, still shooting at a high level, but not 44% from three on 11 attempts per game. If he goes down to 39% or 38% because that shoulder injury is bothering him just a little bit, right? That makes a dramatic difference for your offense, that two or three or four percentage points on his three-point shot attempts per game. That all adds up over the course of time. So this is obviously a major short-term problem, but you'd hope for the warriors that he's able

to come back healthy whenever that time comes. time in January. But if not, like you just said it, Chris, Utah was the team. Everybody said would be leading the Wemby sweepstakes for the light years ahead Warriors. Oh, come boy. Stop. You know what?

And I don't want to rule out that they can play good basketball. Like, I, look, look, look, I watched Luca go out in the playoffs and I thought the team was dead, dead. Next thing you know, Jalen Brunson ends up getting $100 million. because of the way he performed, and they knocked out the jazz without Louca. Here's what I'll say. If Jordan Poole plays the best basketball

that he's ever played during the stretch, if he's fully empowered in that step role and he thrives with it, then yes, they can, you know, treadwater, you know, go 500. We've seen it without Morant. We've seen it without Luca during the playoffs. We saw it with Kauai a couple years ago.

Now, most of those were against Rudy Gopair, but, you know, that's the need of. they're here and they're there. They losing players and the other guys banding together. Because honestly, they have not been very good anyway this year. They're 14 and 15 with him. Now, it could go horribly wrong. I know.

Could go horribly wrong. It's just guys start playing a little differently. And by the way, when they don't have that to bail them out, they start playing differently. But Chris, it's not just Steph, though. Like Wiggins is out and he's not back yet. Draymond Green has a quad injury. He's questionable for tonight's game. If he's out for any amount of time,

if Wiggins isn't back to the guy who was putting up all-star numbers again, shooting the hell out of the ball, like, it's not just Steph. It's all of these factors, too, where, like, who, where's your offense going to come from? Like, where is, I just, I worry, I worry a lot for the Warriors this next stretch without Stephen Curry. It's going to get ugly.

I think they're going to be incredibly bad. I don't think they're going to win many games. games over these next 11 or so games guaranteed without Steph, they might win three or four of them. Can you imagine if we get LeBron Curry in the play in? Oh, I know. If we get the Warriors in the, if you look, if you took a snapshot right now, I think it would be fair to say, it's very likely both of those teams are in the playing.

Yeah, you might get like Steph versus LeBron once again in the play in, right? as your 9 and 10, and then you might get like, I don't know, the Clippers and the Wolves or something like that, or the Clippers and jazz. Dallas. Who knows how it shakes out. Dallas, Luca, maybe, right? Luke, like the Mavs are the 9 seed right now. But the thing is, the Warriors, right? Like, they're two up on the Lakers.

Only two. All the talk all year long about how bad the Lakers were to start the season. They're only two games better than the Lakers right now. I'd be willing to bet when Steph comes back, whenever it is, they will end up being probably in the 12 spot, where they're not out of reach of the play in. They're not in the dumpster near San Antonio or Houston, but they'll be right side by side with OKC,

who they're only up two and a half on right now. They could end up sliding to 13. It's very possible here over this next stretch. But OKC's slide is also starting. They've lost four in a row. They're not playing. They've begun their tanking as well. So I wouldn't expect them to catch OKC,

but it's not going to be pretty for Golden State without stuff. That is for certain. And we have a couple of huge games that are coming up this weekend. How about this? I notice, I do want to mention this. At the end of that Utah Pelicans game last night, they mentioned the Pelicans are playing Phoenix this weekend. Yep, Saturday.

I mean, that's three times in like a week that we are getting this matchup. No, I love this. I like it. I like it too. I'm really into it. It keeps all of that animosity fresh, too. And so now it's like, and then you won't get it again

until the playoffs, potentially. That's right. But they went and played some games, but there's some really good ones coming up this weekend, and we're going to get to see the, that aforementioned Lakers team,

they're playing against Yokic and the Nuggets. Coming up tonight. E.D. versus Yokish. That'll be fun. That Warriors team is at, Philly. So no rest for the weary without Steph Gers. We're going to get to see kind of what they look like. Those games are going on tonight, which is Friday night.

And then on Saturday night is that Pelican's son's game, which should be fantastic. That Tuesday night, Lakers Celtics game, that was awesome. I hope that Denver Lakers game tonight is as good. That Celtics Lakers game was so damn fun. The runs? Yeah. The runs that went on in that game were crazy. For sure.

Nuts. All right. So the ringer has come out with their NBA ranks. Those all dropped since we last spoke. Yeah. Voted on by me, Rob Mahoney, Michael Pina, and Jay Kyle, man, the top 100. Yes. You've got the top 100 rank, and you also have the league pass rank.

Yeah, with Tyler Parker. I've got a bunch of I got a bunch of thoughts on this which one you want to start with you pick I don't care you're a consumer what stood out to you the most I'll start with

the NBA rank look everybody's going to have strong opinions this is it's a fool's a errand to try to rank these players and then everybody's going to be mad you can't rank them where people aren't going to be mad like that's the way it goes

okay it's a perfect list Perfect list. Yes. Yeah, there's no... A plus. I... The only thing is, as I was going through it, I'm not going to get mad about any of the rankings.

Oh, feel free. You're okay to get mad. I was perplexed. I'm mad about some of the rankings, Chris? I'm mad and I was one of the four who voted on them. I would just... The only thing that perplexed me is there were a lot of times where I'm looking at the list, and I'm going, okay,

Is this supposed to be for right now? Is this for right now? And are we giving them credit for what they have done in the past? Or are we just evaluating them on the 25 games this year and what we think they are right now and discounting things that they have done in the past? because there is absolutely no way you can have C.J. McCollum behind Devin Vassel. I mean, that is just... Oh, trust me.

It's ridiculous. That's something I've argued about, too. It's like, why is CJ at 69, but Zach Levine's at 40? It's absurd. Well, look, there's guys on here that have been giving credit for their past performance. Chris Middleton. He sucked this year. So are we judging this year?

Are we judging now? Because if we're judging now. Or Kauai at 30, Kauaiet 30, Chris Ball and 50. Like I don't get why some of the criteria applied to those guys to give them the bump. But like a C.J. 69. I don't get, it's confusing to me. Like they all got credit for what they have been rather than what they are.

Go bear even. But here's the thing, Chris. I think this is the magic in it is. The four of us all have slightly different philosophies, approaches, criteria. traits that we like, right, and things that we're looking for, where this is where it shakes out where, like,

I don't have Heaven Mobley at 43. I think Mobley's way too high. I think Ben Carrow, I love Ben Carrow. I think he's way too high at 55. Like, having Van Carrow ahead of the guy who just won defensive player of the year and is a great playmaker and Marcus Smart

or ahead of, you know, like you just mentioned, C.J. McCollums. Like, it's just, I think some of the young guys are too high and some of the past performance is, you know, a little, and even, like, Kyrie at 66, I understand, and he's a complicated guy and all that, but he's not the 66th best player in the NBA.

That's ridiculous. Kyrie, Zach Levine at 41 is kind of the 40 is where Zach Levine. This is the name I look at where, like, Kyrie Irving needs to be ahead of Zach Murphy. Well, look, you had like Middleton, Levine, Kauai, Hardin, like some of these guys who obviously got credit for what they have been rather than what they've been so far this season. And then other ones that were greatly penalized for what they have been this season, which are McCollum, Chris Paul, Clay Thompson.

I mean, come on. Chris Paul. Clay's too low, too. I argued for Clay to be higher. Chris Paul, in the spring, all right, if we remember, that game six against New Orleans, he was 14 of 14 from the field. Like that happened in a playoff game less than six months ago. Like, what are we doing here?

Like, you can't tell me that if we're picking teams to play a game tonight, Chris Paul is that far down somebody's list of who they think the best players are. And the same goes with, there are other guys that are the young guys that have already shown that when it gets hard, when teams are planning against you, they can perform. Anthony Edwards,

too low. Tyler Hero's too low. Tyler Heroes had big playoff games. Like Anthony Edwards has had big playoff games. You know who's too high? Yeah. Carl Anthony Towns is too high at 25. I mean, there's just some of these guys

that haven't done dick. They haven't won anything and they haven't performed in the playoffs. at all. And it's like, so what am I judging here? I agree with you. Look how far Jimmy Butler is down. Tell me that you don't want Jimmy Butler on your team. What's wrong? But Butler at 16, how high would you put Butler? SGA, I think, is probably too high at 12. That's like premature. But Butler at 16, I don't have a huge issue with Butler at 16. If we're starting the playoffs tomorrow, how many guys do you want

ahead of Jimmy Butler? There ain't 15. There ain't 15 guys you want ahead of him. Listen, listen, this list, see, I'm glad we're having this discussion. I'm glad like we can talk about it openly, me being part of it and having a voice in it. I personally think that's the approach. Ranking these guys based off of how you would rank them in the postseason. Who were the most valuable players winning 16 games? Who were the most valuable, quote unquote, 16 game players?

That really, that really, that really, narrows the criteria, it factors in past performance more heavily, right? Even though you're factoring in recent performance and projecting ahead for guys like SGA, you're seeing Chris Paul look like he declined, that matters. Like the recent stuff does matter. But to your point, Chris, I think that would really clarify things in terms of how these guys stack up and how the four of us or if anybody else ends up voting in the future, how we are ranking these guys up.

Because I think right now, to your point, you're 100% right. Look, and if that's my, if that's the way I'm ranking them, I'm looking at it like, all right, I got to go into the playoffs. Who do I want? I'm taking C.J. McCollum over Carl Towns every day. I've watched C.J. McCollum walk into Denver and literally rip their hearts out, like win the series on the road. And I've watched Carl Towns have like four points and six fouls. Forget like the Devon Vassels. I mean, that's just no offense to him.

That is so offensive to have C.J. McCallum behind Devin Basil. C.J. McCallum should be ahead of Carl Towns. You know, Jimmy Butler is, if we're having a playoff game tomorrow, these guys like Paul, these guys like McCallum, these guys like Butler, They're made men, in my opinion. And they have gotten placed behind. Do you think I want Chris Paul tomorrow night or Brooke Lopez tomorrow night? I mean, that's insane.

You know what I'm going to do, Chris? Maybe we keep the top 100 as is, right? Like, like, with the way it's different criteria, different approaches. Because I think that it's the same thing for like MVP voting and all that, right? Like every voter has a different approach. Yep. So I think that's not a problem. bad thing, right?

Where it does create these questions that we have, but it's not a bad thing. Maybe what I should do is pitch my editor, Justin Berry, where I do like a top 50 or a top 70 playoff players list,

where it's like, just mine, you know who to criticize, you can poke holes at my rankings, just, you know what I mean? Like that type of thing. And then it comes like Pete, like Pete,

Pete is got his top five playmakers list on there as well, which I love. We'll talk about Tyler Parker's League pass rankings. We're going to be adding more and more and more and more over the coming months.

Look, this is how I would do it. Just my opinion. And this is how I view it when we're talking about this stuff. Let's say we go out to the park and we're playing a game, right? And now we're picking teams. You're going to put together. And regardless of position, you're picking your team. I'm picking my team.

Okay? And we're going to play a play a playoff game. We're going to play like a high stakes game. I got to win it. I'm trying to win this game. and now we start picking off this, off the wall. Just one after another. It's to save the world.

You're picking your players to save the planet. Like that type of thing. I mean, I would even, Zion ain't going, what was he, 11? He was too low. If we're picking teams, he ain't going 11. Zion was 15, which is way too low. I argued for him to be higher too. Look, ain't no chance between, if it's just me and you picking on a wall.

we're like, all right, we got to win tomorrow. You're not, I mean, I love Pascal Seaccom with all my heart. Oh my God. I'm not picking him ahead of Zion. I love, I'm not picking playoff P. Paul George ahead of Zion. Oh, my God. Like, Paul George, good player, you know, like you're great, but I'm not picking you ahead of Zion to say the world. If the world depended on Pascal Seaccom, he'd spin move us to hell.

A break. Straight to the abyss. It's where we get out. All right. Now let me bitch about the league pass rankings. Okay. I mean, these are fun. The rankings don't matter as much as they're fun.

It's about the writing that Tyler Parker has there. I agree. I love Tyler Parker. In fact, I'm going to buy his book. I'm going to buy two copies of his book because I like him. Oh, that's nice. Bull bowl is way too low. Oh, I agree.

Number nine, there's no way Bull bowl should be that low right now. He does the freakyest stuff on the court. He is a league pass gem. And you also have to take a new account. You get to see Paolo, you get to see Frans, you get to see these other guys. But just, it's unlike anything you can watch.

True. Yeah. And they're not a piece of crap lately. Like they win games recently. and fun watch, okay? Other one. Yokic is too low. He's too low to me.

Yokic is too low because he is a marvel to watch. I love. Love Yonnas. I love it. Yon is laying it up, dunking an occasional shot. The dunks aren't particularly spectacular. And he's shooting free throw. Yanis is not more fun to watch than Yokers.

I agree with you. He's just not. Yokish makes those passes where you're like, there's nobody in the world who can't think to do that. But you can't believe. And he's very fun to watch. And the other thing is, Yonis is on TV every damn night.

Like literally, he's like CSI. Where's Denver? Where's Denver? Never. You know, R.S. And you can't even find him. They're never on TV. Which is a whole other issue.

No, they're never on. You've got to see Kim. That's a great point. With the Consumer League Pass, you can't watch the national TV games on League Pass. So therefore, Yana should be penalized. Maybe we need a new category. He has razzle-dazzle vibes and ruckus. Maybe we need like a really plain Jane, like accessibility.

We're like the players who are never on national TV, like bowl, bowl, get a bump, right? You can watch Yianna's play every night. Literally. Look at us creating content here. We're talking the playoff player rankings. We have a new category for Tyler Parker to consider. Everybody's got to go look at these on the ringer.com because they're fun. They're fun.

It's always impossible to rank this stuff, but it's fun to debate it. Okay. Look. Tell me this, Chris. One quick question for you. We have a top 100 right there. Would you be interested like in a top 300? No.

Why not? because it already got bleak at 100. Like at that point, I'm like down the list and I'm like, Kelly Olinnick is one of the top 100 players in the NBA? No, he's not. Oh, okay. He shouldn't be. But that's on the list.

Yeah. He's on the list. Yeah, I know he is. But I don't think he's one of the top. You didn't vote him? No, I didn't vote him. But no, I think, I don't know. To me, like, here's the way I look at it.

Let's say we had 300, right? And let's say it's Desmond Bain's rookie year, right? He's at 285 or whatever, right? And you see him slowly climb up the rankings. Well, as a Grizzlies fan, you're getting excited over the course of the year. And then, like, he makes a leap his sophomore year. He jumps into the, you know, top 150. I just think it would be cool to track that progress over the course of time.

Never mind, like, the astronomical rises like Luca. If we had Luca on there, he's at whatever. 120 and then he's suddenly at 90 and then he's at 60 and then he's 30 and then he's five. I just, I don't know, to me that would be really dope if that history were tracked for for everybody. Hey, no, I like your idea. I like this. But what I would tell you is you don't have to go to over a hundred.

And in fact, you could even, if you just do it at 100, look, if you guys have Kelly a hundred is boring. We should do it all. No, but then do the stock up, stock down signs next to them. I think we might do that. I'm not sure. As they move up and down, I'm saying through the year, right? Every two weeks.

But if we do 100, though, why should we penalize, like, I don't know, like if Cam Johnson falls out of the top 100 from 92 to 107, why should there be no Cam Johnson profile? Like that, you know, there should be a Cam Johnson profile. No, but you put it, no, you get a profile if you're a top 100 player. If you ain't better than Kelly Olinick, you don't get a profile. I think that's a totally reasonable point of view. And look, there's one player, I'm going to let you guess, there's one player that's not in those league pass rankings that I routinely seek out on League Pass

and I thought it was outrageous that he's not on there. On the League Pass rankings? Yes. Oh, sorry, I mentioned, I thought you mentioned. There's great players on there, right? It's obviously got Zion. It's got Baranth. It's got Luca.

It's got Yokit. It's got Janus. I don't know. I'm not good at guess a game like this. But it even gets down to, like, I mean, come on. Like, Bones Highland and O. O.G. and Nobie. and like these guys that literally nobody has ever.

It's guys Tyler likes watching. I get it, but nobody has ever turned on a game to watch those guys. Stop. All right. All right. So who's the guy on your list? Who's the guy? Where in the hell is Lillard?

Oh, that's a good one, yeah. That is ridiculous. Do you know how many times I have over the last five years, or 10 years, do you how many times I have turned on league pass at night? Because I've seen people saying, oh, my God, Dane's doing it or Dane time or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Damien Lillard is electric. You've never seen.

The king of league pass in my house, probably. You've never seen like Darius time, Darius Garland time. Stop. G time. Ogy time. I like Bones time. Bones time, yeah. Bones Highlands on there and Lillard's not.

What? And then there's the young fun guys, like Lamello and Jalen Green. I seek those guys out to watch them. Yeah. I mean, some young guys, Benedict Matherin's on there,

I believe. Oh, come on. You think people watch Benedict Mather more than Lamello? Tyler, it's Tyler's list. I get it. I mean,

he doesn't have Damian Lillard on there. Maybe what we need is voters on the league pass rankings as well. Tyler's blurbs with his hilarious writing, with voters. It's just the players that are like, We're taking this incredibly serious. I say this as someone who is a league pass officianto.

Me and my son are watching League Pass literally every night, flipping from game to game. And I cannot tell you. I would say that Dame would be right there at the very top of the list of guys that we have flipped over to watch, especially like fourth quarters. And by the way, Dame also probably a little too low on the top 100 to at 18. Little too low. Yeah, too low on league pass.

He's been awesome recently. Yeah, it's been so cool to watch. By the way, one guy who's really low. Simons at 59 behind Fred Van Fleet, who, I mean, I like Van Fleet. Simons was averaged in like 30 without Dame. It is weird. Like, again, that's the, and that's the fools there into doing the rankings.

It's like, what are we, are we doing now? Are we doing, they get credit for what we know they can be if they do get right, you know? Because there ain't no way. I mean, I watched Chris Middleton shoot 8% last night from the field. Eight. He has a big good. If you, if you put somebody in the, if you, if you set somebody in that game and you say, That guy is one of the best 40 players in the NBA.

They'd be like, what are you talking about? This league stinks. During our discussions with the rankings, someone brought up, well, how do we have Middleton at 26 and Kauai at 30 if we're giving those credit? And I mean, I personally, I tend to favor, like, recent play, but also a projection. Kauai just doesn't look like he has the same burst. Yeah.

So it's like, for me, I probably had him lower than some of my coworkers did. Interesting. but like it's it's fun to it's fun to debate it's fun to look at and then if he regains it like to me that's like i think that's the fun of it let's say we had kawai it 80 right now right and then he regains it over the course of the season we can update it after any game like if kawai has four straight games where he's looking like kawai leonard that we saw against utah in the playoffs okay then let's just move them up to 40 and then 30 and then 20 and then 15 like screw it like we can update it any time that's why I love this list that's different than like we debate the ESPN and SI preseason rankings,

which are really fun and a lot of great work goes into that. I'm stoked about this because like five years ago we were flirting with this idea doing rankings of all the NBA players. And we like now we're in a position with the ringer. We do all these guides, all these rankings, right? We do the NBA draft guide, the NFL draft guide, fantasy football rankings. We have top 100 LA rap songs rankings on the site today as well by Justin Sales. Like, we have so many guides out there now. We're in a position to do this. So it's so cool that we're going to have this living list at NBA rankings.

At the ringer.com. And I'm just fired up about it. Because it was five years ago, it was like me, Bill, Julia, and a bunch of like some of Chris Ryan, others that were like flirting with the idea. And now it's actually here. And it's just the coolest thing. And also the Bill Simmons trade value rankings. Oh, no, don't, don't, don't.

Coming soon. Coming soon. Coming soon. No. Coming soon. I already, I already fired off my text to him. I couldn't take it. I couldn't take it.

Oh, you got a preview? Do you get a preview of him? He did the pod. Him and house, he went through it. So I had to listen to this. Okay, yes. I had to listen to this. Oh, yeah, well, this was the one a little while ago.

Monday, Monday. Oh, okay. I didn't listen on Monday. He did his, no, Tuesday's spot. He did his trade value list. He did them all, and then bounced them all off of house to try to get responses. Okay. Oh, so he did it on the pot.

Okay. Oh, yeah. I didn't hear it this week now. And he listed them all. And he's got like Evan Mowgli at like 14. Way too high. And I will tell you. Mobile's really good, but like he's, he needs to figure it out like as a score or two.

I'll tell you person. This is what I said to him. So finally he got me. He got me. I couldn't take it. He said, hold on now. So you want, you. you think Evan Mobley can be a guy that can get you 20 points,

grab his 6, 7, 8 rebounds, anchor the best defense in the league, and also hit threes. Right? I said, well, you want Evan Mobley to become Jaron Jackson Jr. I hope he gets there. He's got Jared Jackson at like 50-something, 60-something,

and literally described. The Grizzly's defensive rating with Jackson on the floor is 1001. That is five points better than the best team in the league. He has been utterly dominant defensively. And I was mortified. And Mobley is really good. He's really good. He's awesome.

It's just the scoring has, like, not developed outside of, you know, the pain yet. That's all. I would just love to see it develop before I put up that high in my rankings, whether it's 43 on our top 100 or Bill having him at 13, 14. That's way too high. He loves Moe. Mobe is awesome defensively.

I love it, too. He's great. It's just, you know, we're debating, like, whether guys, you know, 14 or what, 25, 30, wherever he should be. Yeah. I think he thinks he's going to be KG. like that's what he think and I just don't know about that KG was no another level I mean KG was not only a

different breed different breed but but offensively like that dude did whatever he wanted as well different he's a killer KG in Minnesota like he that guys average him 23 24 points per game and like five or six assists he's running the offense as well outrageous by first basketball game I'm ever went to was a Celtics Wolf's game in like 1999. And I fell in love

with Kevin Garnett as a player. I bet. I loved him in Minnesota. He was my pre-league pass guy that I loved to watch whenever he was on TV. You're gonna love this. This is how old I am. I went to Kevin Garnett's McDonald's All-American game. Oh yeah. It was in St. Louis. That McDonald's All-American game is one of the greatest games ever. Go look at it. It's like

Chauncey Billups, Vince Carter, Antoine Walker, Kevin Garnett, Ron Mercer, there's a million guys. It's like, I think, 95, McDonald's all-star game. And, I mean, there's like Hall of Famers that were in that game. But Garnett was, you know, there was already buzz about him going straight to the league at that point. And then you saw him and you're like, yeah, okay, this guy, this guy could go straight to the league. This is ridiculous. he hasn't seen anything like him

really at that time nothing still haven't really like it yeah I know still haven't because it's not just the style of play like you can say Mowbly will perform like Garnett but he won't act like Garnett like Garnett's persona the screaming the yelling and the intensity and the big smiles right

like he's just always on I love Garnett do you know this will wrap up the pod We started off by giving it, I told you about that Stephen Adams cock and balls thing, right? Yeah, yeah. The other one was I saw an old clip when he was playing for the Thunder where they asked him about Kevin Garnett

and about him screaming at him. Okay. And so how did you deal with the trash talk? And he said, when I was young in the league, Garnett started like woofing like that. And I did, he pointed at his ear. Like, I can't, I can't, I'm foreign.

I can't understand you. And he's like, and then he says, stop. He just figured I couldn't understand him. He's from New Zealand. He acted like, he, he's like, I don't know what you're saying. I don't know what you're saying. That's amazing. He's calling him an F&P and all this stuff.

I don't, I don't understand. I just acted like I couldn't understand him. And so he stopped. He's yelling at a guy and he doesn't know what you're saying, right? I hope KG gets asked about that someday. His side of the story. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

All right. Thank you to our executive producer, Jesse Lopez, as always. Kevin, I'll talk to you next week. Enjoy your weekend.