The Mismatch - Suns Drama, Sixers Hype, and an NBA Media Day Recap

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

Verno and KOC begin the show by discussing the 76ers after KOC attended their media day (01:35). He shares his excitement to see a full season of Joel Embiid and James Harden playing together, and Verno asks if this is the year Embiid becomes the best player in the league. The guys move on to teams that are carrying the most drama right now in the Suns, Nets, and Celtics (10:54). They debate if the Suns are making a mistake with Jae Crowder, and discuss Ben Simmons’s interview on ‘The Old Man and The Three.' Also, will this be the year that Russell Westbrook learns to adapt? And KOC gets a Peloton (47:37). Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Producer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill finally gave the ringers Philly crew a podcast. I'm Ben Solac. And I'm Shield Capadia. That's right. Just a couple of Philly guys with a new space to fire off some Eagles takes, get caught up in the Sixers, Chaos, and more. We'll be coming to you twice a week on Sundays and Thursdays, plus bonus episodes whenever we get breaking news or Philly drama. Join the fun and follow the ringers Philly special now on Spotify.

Welcome to The Mishmatch. I'm Chris Fernin. He does every Tuesday from The Ringer.com. It's Kevin O'Connor, A.K., Kevin O'Bomber, Kevin O'C., Kevin O'C., Kevin O'Colimer, Kevin O. Camera, Kevin O. Blaserian, Kevin O'Conflict. Kev-O! Budo! What's going on, man? How are you doing today?

Well, we kind of got the unofficial kickoff of NBA season as all of the NBA teams assembled for their respective media days. And now we'll have training camp going on for all these teams and straight into preseason basketball. And then about the middle of October, all the regular season games will get underway. way. But in all of these different cities, there was Media Day, there was news that came out of Media Day, there was a lot of coach speak, there was a lot of player speak, you know, kind of nothing answers. But there was some interesting stuff that was said throughout the NBA that we will get to.

I know you were in Philadelphia, which I do think stands out this year because they were a team like many others at this point in the year that were mired in controversy this point a year ago. Ben Simmons, is he going to show up for Cam? Does he have a cell phone in his pocket? Doc Rivers is kicking him out.

Like all that stuff, they had come off of the horrendous Atlanta loss and then the whole doc and MB, and now we are a year later. and you're in Philadelphia for Media Day. And the story out of Philadelphia, I can't imagine that you're going to be writing about anything other than the basketball that was being talked about and the basketball that is going to be played,

which is very far removed from where we were a year ago talking about the Philadelphia 76ers and what their expectations were for the upcoming season. summed it up, Chris. A year ago, they were probably the most fascinating, weird team, what's going to happen,

who's Ben Simmons going to get traded for? And now it's like, huh, what level is James Harden going to reach? Yep. That's pretty much

the Bain question around the Sixers right now. He joked yesterday saying he lost 100 pounds. A hundred. I lost 100 pounds. Someone texted me yesterday. They said,

was he actually serious? I'm like, no, he wasn't serious. He was joking around. Totally sarcastic. Yeah, he looked the same. But, you know, physically he did.

But he, you know, just because he looked the same doesn't mean you're not in better condition. I buy the Hardin height. I know I've always been a Hardin apologist. You and I have been on different sides of the political spectrum with James Hardin. But I think this year, Chris, can you and I at least agree on this point right here? There's going to be nights where James Hardin just has to be the third best point. player on the team because you get Joelle Embede who very well might win his first MVP

this coming year after coming so close last year and then Tyrese became nearly a 20 point per game guy. He could only get better as well. Can we agree that Hardin doesn't have to be the best guy night in, night out for the Sixers to be a great team? Yes, I believe Maxie is going to be a star star.

You've always liked him since college. I've loved Maxie since college and I will tell you one of the most shocking things for anybody out there is go look at last year's three point percentage leaders in the NBA, and you're going to find him in the top five. You know, he's up there with Luke Kinnard. He's up there with Desmond Bain. He's up there with Cam Johnson.

He is not thought of like that. If I were going to say, hey, what do you think about Tyrese Maxie? What does he really need to improve on? I would imagine most people would say, you know, he's got to be able to knock down jumpers. You got to be able to honor his shot. This guy was in the top five in the NBA. Three-point shooting.

Does he need to shoot it at a higher volume? Sure. But this guy can shoot. It's playmaking now. That's what he's going to get better at at this point. And he said this summer that him and Harden worked out a lot together. And I talked with those guys one-on-one, and some of that stuff will go on the story once that's out on the ringer.

but I'm incredibly optimistic about this Sixers team and I think you look at the addition of PJ Tucker granted he's in his late 30s that dude can still play. We saw that in recent years with Milwaukee with Miami. Tucker can still bring it on a championship hopeful team and this Sixers roster. On paper, I mean, you can look at some of the past teams

Hardin played for and Embedde played for, they played for some great teams. They did. but on paper this team to me checks a lot of those championship boxes. They have the versatility in terms of how they can play different styles on the court. They can play heavy pick and roll. They can play with a little bit of movement with multiple ball handlers. They can play with your lone big inside like Joelle LeB.

They can play more switchable because they have Tucker, Tobias Harris, Matisse Stuyble, D. Anthony Melton, who you had last year in Memphis, a lot of versatility on defense. They check so many boxes and then they have the star power. with Embedd and Hardin with two guys. If you're facing a switching defense, they can kill you inside or outside with the mismatch that they have. To me, it's just about what level does Hardin return to?

He was great as the playmaker last year despite his diminished scoring ability, the lack of burst off the dribble. But if he can get some of that back, even if he's only 80, 85% of his prime self, never mind any more than that, to me, the Sixers have the clear upside

to be the favorites in the Eastern Conference. Well, and the reason is they've got a guy who I can imagine was pretty upset about not winning the MVP last year. He downplayed that yesterday.

He was like, oh, I don't care about individual awards anymore. I didn't work hard this summer. I just laid on the couch on. I think when you're talking about the all NBA, when you're talking about all NBA, when you're talking about MVP,

when you're talking about this stuff that is still able to give a guy that's made $100 million and chip on their shoulder because they feel like they're not getting, you know, they're just dessert. And he very well may be the best player in the NBA. It's possible. Like right now, Janus has got that perch.

And when you're talking about the top four or five guys in the league, whether you want to talk about Yonis, whether you want to talk about Yonkich, whether you want to talk about De, You want to talk about Donchitz. If I told you that this season, this guy is going to be the best player in the NBA. And everyone will agree. That's the best player, two-way player, dominant on the defensive end, dominant on the offensive end,

peak of powers in his prime. It's not a stretch. No, not at all. He's the best player. If MB is the best, he might have been the best player in the league last year. To me, I think there's. It might have been, you know. Is there eight guys that you could make the argument

could be the best player in the league this year? Is it Janice? No, there's not eight. No, no, but let me just list them out. Janice, Steph, Yokic, Luca, LeBron, Katie, Kauai, and Bede. Those eight, could you argue that at the end of the year, people could say they're the best player in the league? Kauai, not so much in the regular season as much as the playoffs.

And I think that we're probably past the time with LeBron. So maybe it's more like six. I don't think he's going to be the best player. Is he still great? Yes. But are there going to be... He did average 30 points per game. Yes.

Last season. They also... They also didn't make the playoffs. And he played the five while 80 was out. I got it. LeBron had a great year. It's everything else around him that wasn't so great. I understand.

I know LeBron is old. He's not going to be the best player in the league, Kevin. I'm sorry. Probably not. I'm just putting him in that, lump of eight. Yeah. I'd keep them there. Probably four guys that are

most likely. Most likely. I agree. Most likely. But there's nobody else I'd put in that group. I mean, and so I love Jai. I love Tatum. I love Zion. But they're not in that group.

You're usually 26, 27, 28. Yes. Yeah. When this stuff happens for you. For sure. Right? And he right To your point, though, and B's one of them. To your point. In that perfect range. And I do like the guys that they've added.

They were able to augment that roster. Their bench was not good enough. And so now they're going deeper. And you know I love Melton. And they've got Melton. And they've got Dybul. They've got Daniel House. They've got Nyang.

They've got Montres Harrell. Deep, dude. Paul Reed got minutes for them last year. Like, you've got to just have enough. Shake Bill was their six. man. That's right. Recently.

He was their sixth man recently. And he's not even at the conversation for minutes right now. Yes, these are playable guys, right? And guys that, because you're tightening the rotation once it gets to the playoffs anyway. But throughout and making sure everybody can stay healthy and getting your guys breathers so they ain't got to play 38 minutes every night. Like, that's where this depth can come in in a massive way. Because there's nothing more important than being available. and healthy by the time you get to April, May, and June.

And part of that is not having to run everybody into the ground just to get the amount of wins that you need to get to be able to be a home court advantage team. But I think what we started off with when we were talking about you being in Philly yesterday is Philly doesn't have the drama this year, Kev. and I think it puts you at a super advantage to be in that mix, say with Milwaukee. And Milwaukee's going to be going through having to get first middle and the back.

But Milwaukee doesn't have any drama. They don't have anything surrounding them and they're one of the other teams. Miami doesn't really have anything surrounding them because we've got two of those teams that we know are going to be possibly outstanding teams in the East, but have massive question marks about stuff coming in. And that is Brooklyn and that is Boston. For two very different reasons. You've got who wants to be there in Brooklyn.

How does it go when Steve Nash is the coach? KD. wanted out. Kyrie Irving didn't do this. Ben Simmons says all the right things right now, but who knows? And so they're a big question mark. Yes, their ceiling is crazy. Their floor is also pretty low, you know,

if it blows up or unhappiness or discontent starts to seep its way in onto that bench, into that locker room. And then you've got the total unknown of what's going on in Boston with what their situation is. Those four guys have to go to a press conference yesterday answer questions you know they absolutely do not want to be answering. It's right before the season start that IMEUdoca is out as their coach. And now they have this coach, yes, they're familiar with,

but he wasn't supposed to be the head coach of the team. If we're being fair, probably wouldn't have been named the head coach if I'ma Odoca had just decided I quit. They probably would have gone and hired another coach. They would have had a coaching search. it probably wouldn't, it wasn't the natural move over, but they're trying to hold it together right now, and Robert Williams is having the surgery and all that.

So gallows out too. Yeah, gallows out. You're bringing in Malcolm Brogden, who doesn't have the most stellar reputation as a teammate? I don't know, man. Like, I kind of feel like weirdly. Stellar reputation means, like, injury, durability. Yeah, injury durability, and I'm not sure that I never sensed that people cried when he moved to the next city.

So I tell you. He's the president. I'm aware. I'm aware he's the president of the, well, he's not the president, right, of the Players Association? That's a McMan. Nickneman. That's a throwback nickname from college, yeah. Oh, he's a president? Yeah.

Is that right? Yeah, Virginia called him the president. Oh, okay. Well, he's now, the president is there now. Boy, it's going to be tough for Grant Williams, because I feel like Grant Williams is the president of the Boston Celtics. She had to move over. What's Grant going to say when the president starts talking?

I guess he's going to have to be vice president or something? Anyway, they got drama now. Not of any of their own doing. Brooklyn has drama, all of their own doing. Like literally the people within the locker room are the ones that have created all the drama. And you got that head coach thing. And so how much of an advantage do you think that gives the Phillies of the world who you were around coming into the season just because they're not dealing with anything except for figuring out how they all play basketball together? I mean, drama could always start.

Yeah, I guess. It's all as possible. In middle of December, January, maybe there's a rift between a beating heart and who knows. I guess what matters is what's your drama look like in April. Like at this point, you know, drama could mean nothing. It could mean absolutely everything.

I know Horford said, I believe it was today, Tuesday this morning, that he feels like they just picked right up where they left off in June. I mean, really? Like, did you? Did you really, Al?

I don't know. That seems like a bit much to me. But if that's the way he feels, the team seems to be rallying around their new coach, I don't know. Maybe this could, be something for them that, you know, they use as a spark, and it helps chemistry within that

locker room. We just don't know how it's going to develop. All I know is that with some of these teams that do have this drama, to your point, when you look at the Phillies and especially Milwaukee getting Chris Middleton back and, you know, them retooling their roster a little bit, you've got to feel a lot better about what those teams can be over the long haul of the season than what you can right now with a Boston or a Brooklyn, as you said. Yeah, and I just think it gives a couple of those teams a real advantage to just be able to come out and figure out basketball. And there is a, there's always a bit of exacerbation that takes place with these guys when they're getting questions all the time about stuff that is not. And even when you get the questions yesterday, all anybody wanted to talk about in Boston is what's going on and who's talked to e-mood.

Doca, what do you feel about this? Same thing with Phoenix. Those four guys, they're all asked about Robert Sarver. What did you think about the Sarver thing? And what did you think when you read the report? None of them we're talking about basketball, right? None of them. Like, these teams aren't talking about basketball.

And now with Phoenix, I mean, obviously the Sarver stuff is somewhat met a little bit of a resolution. But now they're dealing with a Jay Crowder thing too. Right. Which does affect their locker room directly at this particular moment. Of course it does. Jay Crowder goes from, you know, starting every game to being asked to come off the bench behind a superior talent in Cam Johnson. And he's crying about it. And he wants to go out.

I mean, this self-proclaimed winner who, you know, wants to be like another PJ Tucker wins everywhere he goes. To me, this is a loser decision to leave a contending team in the Phoenix Suns. I find it absolutely insane that he's thrown. this fit just because he's being asked to come off the bench and provide a spark, which is winning basketball. Yeah, I think it's because he's a contract year. That's when it becomes right. You know how you make your money and play into your late 30s, like a PJ Tucker type?

You do everything that the contending teams are asking you to do, including if that means coming off the bench behind a far more consistent shooting player in Cam Johnson, who's the better player and it surpassed you. So I get it to an extent because you're right. It's a contract year. Not sure he is the better player. But Phoenix is going to pay you, man. They're going to pay you if you produce off the bench.

Well, they have not, hey, if you want to talk about one organization that you can't trust to pay you. Yeah, Phoenix. Come on. Who's going to pay me? Who's going to pay me? You could have given me an extension right now. I just helped you guys win 60-something games. I mean, I'll be honest with Jay Crowder.

He's 32 years old right now. He's one of the streakiest shooters in all of basketball. I love Crowder. You ain't got it. There are no sland there will be. be tolerated. A poor decision maker off the dribble. He's a solid player. He's a solid, tough,

hard-nosed defensive player, but he's not... Who helped them become a winner. I agree. I agree, but like, you can help the team also by coming off the bench. They won eight more games than everybody in the NBA. I know, but he might go

from playing 28 minutes per game and starting to playing 25 minutes per game and coming off the bench. Like, I just don't see the difference. they won eight more games if you're contributing to playing winning basketball though I think I think he's just slighted

by being involved in trade discussions of course which we've talked about a bunch over the years you understand that you feel a certain kind of way I get it you wouldn't like it either you would nobody

nobody likes it if they don't feel like you're value Is this tactic going to help you though? So I'm going to tell you Is this going to help? I think it probably will I think he'll end up in a better situation. And guess what? He's always on winning teams.

And I think there's a correlation between those things. You're the hardest worker in the room. That stuff matters a lot. And I think Phoenix is making a big mistake. Big mistake. By even, you know, poking the bear essentially, right? Yeah, big mistake.

I don't think you move off of him. No. I think he could replace Jay Crowder. All right. We'll find out. We will. Yeah. I mean, they got their own drama.

I mean, Aitin, you know, with the new contract, granted, he says he's happy. They matched it. I'm still stuck on the fact that he said his NBA goal was to get his second contract. I want to see him produce at a high level on defense over the course of the season before I say the Sons are going to continue being a, you know, a top tier contender in the West. I just want to see it. That's all. You have these different teams. that are having to deal with the drama.

Let me just say on the Suns real quick. The one thing that did really surprise me yesterday, because I mentioned this to a buddy a couple of weeks ago that when Sarver, when that came down, that he was going to sell that team. When you and I, we did speak about this on a show. I said, reason that they need to do it this way is because what they're trying to do

without getting all the other owners involved in this is to make it miserable to own the team and hope that he is defamed enough and just decides, I don't want to jump through all of these scoops and do this and do that and do this and do that and get fined $10 million and then have to leave for a year and then come back

and that you just make it so miserable that he just leaves. And then you have all of these other players, and you get this encouragement of, and then you feel like, well, what's the fun of owning an NBA team? Everybody hates my guts now, right? And then they get the desired outcome,

which is, yeah, he's going to get his money, but he's out of the league and you ain't got to think about him, worry about him anymore, right? When all that's going down, after the report came out, and he saw all these players talking about it, and you says, Curry talked to Adam Silver about it,

Kyle Lowry said he talked to Silver about it. A lot of guys did. I see you never heard anybody like standing up for this guy. Like never anybody like of all the people, this guy's been in the NBA a long time. Who's out there saying no, no, no, no, no, no. Like this can't all be true of this guy. I've been around this guy a long time. I know this guy.

I've worked for this guy. That's not the guy I know. And it probably happened and I just missed it. but it for sure happened yesterday and I was stunned because I just didn't figure it and you know who it was? Booker of all people

it was Devin Booker and not that he stood up for it of course he was mortified by him same thing with Monty Williams mortified of him and what they had heard from the report and everything else but yesterday at Media Day

Devin Booker of course as one of the faces of the franchise said, that's not the Robert Sarver that I know. That's not the Robert Sarver that welcomed me to Phoenix with Open Arms, but at the same time, I'm not insensitive to everyone who's involved in this situation. I understand that everyone's personal experience

with other people are always going to be different. But it's tough to read because that's not the person I know. Like, he's like the only guy that I, again, I might have missed it. Steve Kerr had some, like, that's not the guy that I know. Oh, really? Steve Kerr had some, there's the guy that I know, that's not the guy I know.

Because you would figure, look, no person is all good or all bad. Right. So inevitably, especially within that many years, there's going to be people

that like the guy that had good experiences with the guy. And that's what you hope. You hope that you've had enough good experience with people that when you do something dastardly,

that somebody will stand up for you. and say, hold on now, that ain't it. And I felt like there was nobody kind of out there saying, that's not the guy I know. You know, anytime a coach gets in trouble or whatever else, there'll be the former players that come out and they say, I love them and he helped me more than anyone. He was the father figure for me and this and this and this.

And, you know, there's nobody really standing up I didn't feel like for Robert Sarver. So it was interesting to see, at least some people, just saying, hey, this guy wasn't a dirt bag to everybody. He was good to me, you know. He did dirtbag stuff. There's no way around it. It sucked for me to read that.

But I didn't know that guy. My experience with that guy was different than, because it did feel pretty overwhelming that, I mean, over the years, several, more than several, hundreds of people had an experience of thought, like, this guy's a dickhead. at least he was nice to Devin Booker, I guess.

I don't know. There's the only guy I've seen standing up for him. Yeah. I mean, between the Sarver and Udoka stuff, you know, the last couple of weeks I felt like a step back for a woman in sports and now with Phoenix, you know, Sarver still needs to sell the team. I mean, he says he intends to sell, but he still needs to sell.

Yes. That hasn't happened yet. Until it does, he, you know, remains the owner of the sons. He will sell the team. And then... I think offers will come in hot. You do. I mean, based off everything I've heard,

based on what others have reported it as well, including the big boss, Bill Simmons. Sounds like there's going to be a lot of interest in Phoenix, but it's just a matter of will they reach the price Sarver actually wants to sell at. I think there's enough people out there right now with enough... There's enough people that want teams

or that can form ownership groups. that you'll get the price that you want. Shelburne from ESPN reported, Jeff Bezos, Bob Eiger, Larry Ellison. Think them guys got money? Lorraine jobs. You think those guys could rally some money together? Yeah.

I mean, come on. I mean, look at those names. That's ashtray money to Bezos. Yeah, I know, seriously. Thursday night football. Yeah. You see the Thursday, there's a Ringer podcast that we had about Thursday Night Football. The ratings are high on that for the Amazon streams.

That's intriguing because the NBA has been, you know, flirting with Amazon for a long time now with potential partnerships there. They have the WNBA games there as an experimentation for the NBA, which could, you know, eventually maybe host the in-season games there at Amazon. So we'll see. We'll see. But like this has to be encouraging for other leagues. When it comes to streaming, that the NFL is still booming on a streaming platform.

Well, and the other thing that was encouraging, and we do tie this into the NBA, is, and I don't know what the impact would be if the NBA did it, but I read an article the other day saying that they got more new subscribers in that three-hour window than anything that they've ever done. Prime Day. Wow. Wow. That's crazy.

Yeah, that's not. Because people were going, where's the damn football game? Yeah, right. I guess I'll get Amazon. And I get free two-day delivery. Yeah, I've always got it. This is great. I've always thought about doing this anyway.

And I want to watch the, what was it, Chargers Chiefs? I think it was Chargers Chiefs. Amazon Prime, no lie, is really good. It's, of course it is. It's really amazing. Oh. Remember the days when it used to take two weeks for stuff to ship? You'd order, you know.

Yes. Well, we're kind of back to them right about now. We're getting close to that again. Why? How come? They've just been tough on the postal, all postage. Well, Amazon's got their own. They're doing a little better, but there's still, it's not always.

It's not always two days is what I'll tell you. Really? It used to always be two days. This must be a Tennessee problem. No, it's everywhere. Not here in L.A. Or back in Massachusetts either. You don't have the abundance of orders that we do.

Trust me when I tell you, there is a box at my house every day. We had a, I mean, I guess in both places I've lived, there's an Amazon factory nearby. So that I might have to do with the consistency and reliability and delivery time. Okay. How you and I are going to be doing our predictions in the upcoming weeks, how does the drama affect what you think about those three teams, I'll say, specifically. Brooklyn, Boston, Phoenix. Do you look at the off-court stuff

that those teams have gone through and automatically bake that in and say, all right, because of this drama, I do not give them, whatever I thought they were going to be able to win this year, I've got to couch it a little because I don't really know.

And in Boston's case, injuries too, right? Yes, exactly. The Gallo thing and the Robert Williams thing. Just so like with Crowder, with the potential trade chemistry stuff for... That's right. And you're figuring out. Crowder is a key voice, right? Like regardless of how I feel about him, now you feel about him, there's no denying that he is a key cog in that line.

And every teammate always loves the guy, except for LeBron. It's the only one. But every teammate always ends up swearing by him. He's got friends all over the league for a good reason. And you don't know if, you don't know if Marcus, smart's going to be pissed about the Brogden stuff? To answer your question, yes.

Who should trade for Jay Crowder? I mean, Jay Crowder, in my opinion, is one of those players that can fit on any team in the NBA. Literally any team. Keith, Celtics, Mavericks, Grizzlies were the teams that Shams

Sharani said yesterday are expected to pursue Jay Crowder. I mean, I had him in Memphis. It sits on any of them. You heard me talk a million times about how

profound an impact he had on a young team. What would you give up for him? The ideal veteran. The sons want a forge. They want somebody to replace Jay Crowder. So who are you giving up? I mean,

obviously you've got a bunch of draft picks. They don't want picks. They want a player. All right. Well, then you've got to give me Crowder and something else for Brooks. Hmm. Hey, you'd love to get rid of Dylan Brooks. I mean,

dude thinks he's Kobe. I mean, it's just the player. I don't want to talk about the playoffs. I don't want to talk about the player. Look, I like him. I like the guy. He's a good guy, but.

It's about fit. It's about fit. And are you ever going to, you know. You're Chris Vernon running Dylan Brooks out of town. Bro, you can't shoot 35% for the playoffs and take the most shots. That's absurd. You can't. That can't happen.

Can't. Stay in your lane. It can't happen. You can't take more shots than Desmond Bay. Desmond Bayne averaged 25 points a game against Minnesota in the playoffs. 25 points a game. Desmond Bain is one of the most underrated players in all of basketball. 25 points a game.

Dylan Brooks looks more shots. It's absurd. I mean, I can't have it. I can't have it. So, I mean, I'm fine. Look, you either got to make more shots or take less shots. One of the two. That's the thing with the Crowder thing.

You can say whatever you want about Crowder. Croutter takes eight shots. So what? You know what? It's eight shot. And he's going to play defense, box out, rebound, hustle, be the first to practice, be the last to leave, and then motivate everybody all the time. Like, that matters.

That matters. Yeah, you're right. You're right about Colorado. I mean, I'm being a Crowder hater. All these teams want him. Because I'm stuck on the inconsistent shooting. It bothers me. But all these teams want it. Also into his 30s, he added a little floater in the paint.

He's improved his game. He's not trying to do too much off the dribble. He knows who he is. He knows his role. Won't back down. Yeah, he doesn't back down. I mean, I respect them. I have the utmost respect for Jay Crowder with what he is as a player.

And Desmond Bain, I mean, hopefully, if you do unload Dylan Brooks, he's able to elevate and get more touches, more shot opportunities, because that dude's a bucket, yo. Like, Bain can shoot off the catch, off the bounce. He can get into the lane. He can playmate for you. Desmond Bain, if he's able to take a leap, I think Memphis will with him as well.

Memphis is one of those teams. You can see them being the one seed. You can see them being the seven seed because the West is so flat. Like, it's hard to predict. It could be the difference of just a couple games. Injuries, two weeks there. Absolutely. whatever.

Like, it's very close. But Bain is the guy that can elevate the Memphis Cruz. Look, I think the, I think the Phoenix thing does hurt. I think it does hurt to lose, to lose Crowder. Okay, I do. I don't think that the drama, I don't think the Sarver thing necessarily affects things. It might affect things just in terms of, you know, the kind of moves you can make,

because there's just so much instability in terms of the ownership and who is making the calls because some of these trades or transactions are going to affect things going forward, right? But theirs is a little less profound. It's more basketball related to me, anything that would bother them. And they've gotten really pretty great health out of, you know, Chris Paul has been, now he's going into, what, year 18, and you're, and they've gotten pretty good health out of that. for sure. And, you know, the Aitin thing, we'll see.

He got his money, but I can't imagine, you know, he's the happiest guy in the world, um, being, you know, having to go out and get an offer from Indiana before he did get paid, where he did. And so,

but Phoenix, they won eight more games than everybody. So we know what they are. Um, I really don't know on Brooklyn though, Kev. And that's the one we haven't gotten into as much. Did you listen to Ben, do you listen to the Simmons interview with JJ? Portions.

I listened to it. I was disappointed JJ then and asked him about shooting with the wrong hand, but that's just me being selfish. I know, that's you being selfish. I don't understand why Ben Simmons just hasn't talked at all. It's not like he is

some guy that can't eloquently get across his point or his feelings. I know that he expressed that he'd been going through a bunch of stuff, but I do kind of feel like it might have been better for him to talk.

Look, there's no question in terms of how much he got destroyed in the media over the course of the past 18 months. It would have been better for him to talk than to just sit there and take it and anything that anybody said, take it.

Because it obviously bothered it. I don't really understand because it wasn't, it wasn't like, to me, Ben Simmons came off as a guy that sometimes there are guys that just say, I'm confident in who I am. I don't give a crap with people who say you. Okay. And then there's the guys that fire back and say, hold on now. You're not going to get to say this about me without me fighting back. Okay?

And that's like, say, like what Durant does, right? Anytime Durant sees any kind of thing about Kevin Durant, he'll he'll jump straight on Twitter and call you out directly for the world to see, right? He was this weird

medium of a guy that expressed that, yes, he internalizes it. He does know what everybody's saying. And it did bother him to the point where he said I'd type out tweets and then not press send or I DM chat or I almost reached out to Rick Buecker or I so he has the he knows all of it

and he knows what everybody says and yet just just kept silent about everything for basically 18 months I mean that's the first time anybody's even heard him talk really for the most part We're like 18 months. And I found the whole thing, that was the one part that was a little odd to me. Because I was very respectful of him talking about his mental health stuff. I was very respectful about him talking about the back injury. And some of the injury stuff seemed very, very real. But these are all things that he could have just explained to everybody.

Like, yo, stop saying I don't want to go to work. Stop saying that I'm not hurt. Like I am hurt. Stop saying I left a. group text. This is stupid. Leave a group down. Do you know what I mean? Like, stop saying that this and that and this and stand up for himself because he clearly is a guy that when given the opportunity, did stand up for himself. And yet just,

I don't know, man, it's fascinating. You know, when it was couch, my buddy Tommy Alter is on the podcast. And Tommy and I think JJ are both in awe that the guy can take all these arrows and not, you know, like the discipline to not fight back. But it's usually easy not to fight back if you really don't let the stuff bother you. But he was clearly bothered by this stuff. And I left the interview not knowing what to think about him.

I'm being serious. He comes off decently likable. He's obviously got a lot of confidence. but on the other hand, like, I don't know if the stuff that I, you know, read about him, about him not wanting to play in this and not really wanting to play in that Atlanta thing

and all that stuff and his resistance to fighting back to kind of what happened to him and what people said about him, bro, I don't know. I don't know. What do you think? I mean, he was defensive about certain stuff. No question.

You know, understandably so. And you feel like you're getting attacked all the time. I guess that's only human nature to put up some walls and, you know, play defense and be more guarded. You know, I know he mentioned how he felt like he'd post a picture of his dog or a car or whatever. And people would be saying, you've got to be in the gym. Right. Or like he'd stream. People would say he's playing video games too much, all that type of stuff, as if he can't do anything else.

consume basketball, think basketball, eat basketball. I get it. I hope for him, it seems like he's in a better place right now. Seems like it. You'd hope for him in this situation with Brooklyn and all their drama, this is a healthy environment for him. I mean, to me, Chris, when it comes to Ben Simmons here, it's about actions, not words, more than anything else.

I want to see how he performs in the court, how he interacts with his teammates, it's what roles and what responsibilities he's willing to take on. How does this all impact the way he performs on defense after playing at such a high level? It's like the actions that I'm going to be looking for more than anything else from Ben Simmons, more so than the words that he said in that podcast. But everything that he said seems to at least be encouraging with where he is now and what it means for the rest of his entire career.

It's one of the things that he said in that podcast, I believe I'm, I'm paraphrasing him correctly, but he was, like, offended by how the team tried to get him to come back to Philadelphia when he was in L.A. all summer, and he's like, well, nobody tried to get me all summer long. Yeah, nobody talked to me. Nobody talked to me and all that. I mean, little things like that, I hear that, and I'm like, and it's not unusual for teams to kind of break off during the off seasons,

especially with the way things ended. I mean, that was really Simmons driven at the time with him being extremely offended by and Bede, or Doc Rivers rightfully saying that he doesn't know if Ben Simmons can be a championship point guard, Embed rightfully saying, you know, nah, this is where we're breaking ways. That's not right.

You think he was throwing him under the bus. You don't do that. You don't do that. You don't do that. Doc, that doc comments, you have a problem with that? Yes, you don't do that. You don't do it. he shouldn't have done that

that wasn't the right thing to do it was you don't do that to your employees and you know a teammate I get it you're the coach you end one shit since KG played for you

so I mean like calm down here he got to throw down who do you throw on Mr. Blone 3-1 leads right that's what you're saying hey look I bet you wouldn't be saying that if you'd have thrown James Hardin under the bus like that last year.

Somebody would have come in and say, can you win with James Hardin? And he said, I don't know. Ain't nobody else done it. I guess if I'm a miracle worker, I can. You'd be like, what is Doc saying? So, no, I'm not going to let that one slide. Doc, Doc should not have done that.

He should not have done that. The context of that, it wasn't like he was criticizing. He was just saying, I don't know the answer with that. We got to prove it. We get to build. You know what the proper response would have been? If I was Ben Simmons and I would have said that, I'd have gone straight on TV and I'd have said,

I don't know, Brett Brown's ass could if Kauai didn't hit a 50-50 bouncer against us. We might have won it last year. So tell me if I'm good enough. Guy had one of the craziest shots in NBA history had knocked us out. Was that good enough then or no? Stop it already.

That's not fair. I understand, Chris. You're right. but also in the heat of the moment, considering he scores zero points in the fourth quarter all series long, the big moment at the end of the game, passing on the open dunk,

in the heat of the moment after losing a game seven, I think on the other side of it, if you're Ben Simmons, you need to forgive, too, in that moment. Like, hey, I know you're heated. Like, people say stuff. I felt a certain way in that moment, too. It's only natural.

I feel like stuff like that, there's clearly still beef between Simmons and a B's. and Doc Simmons in all of Philadelphia. Everybody goes there. What about him saying? My brother still lives there and I love Philadelphia. I was like,

what the hell? I can't imagine you're comfortable walking around. You know what I mean? Maybe I'm crazy. But I mean, I wouldn't want to walk around there if I was Ben Simmons.

You know what I mean? People like that, you know, people were like burning the jersey and all that crap, wiping their ass with it. And I don't want to be part of that. I just moved

to, Brooklyn and start my new life. I am just, I am perplexed. I hear him talking. I hear Kyrie talking yesterday. Kyrie was on one too, boy. He showed up ready to talk. A voice for the voiceless.

And then I hear KD talking and I'm like, this locker room, I mean, if you're like Cam Thomas, you just got to be like sitting back. Like, dude, this is great. Well, we remember Cam Thomas during Summer League was asked about the Steve Nash role, like wanting him to be more of a playmaker and he rolled in his eyes.

I'm like, oh my God. And you got Nash trying to run the show and Kevin tried to get him fired. Morris had a funny quote. Markief Morris had a quote. Like I'm almost broken up with my wife a couple of times and we're still together. Oh my God. Here's my big question out of yesterday because you might have noticed Pat Beverly and Russell Westbrook are best friends.

Did you know this? Their best friend. My best friend. Yeah, that's something else. My best friend. So. Are you singing Queen? We're going to do a cover song here?

There you go. You like that? Yeah, that's pretty good. Who has the higher ceiling? Who has the lower floor? Brooklyn and the Lakers. The Nets have a higher ceiling. You think so?

Yeah. You think they're apex. They have more collective talents, including, you know, behind their stars. Still kind of an odd deal where it's like there is still that you've got the discontent, the malcontent, right? You got that. You've got the vet thing and how injured or uninjured, but you're still awesome.

And then you've got the can I count on you at all. It is kind of, they do kind of mirror each other in a couple of different ways, right? And yet, you think that the higher ceiling is very, Brooklyn? If it all worked, you think Brooklyn? Yeah, the Lakers have no wings with size. That's a major detriment for that Lakers roster. Like, say what you want about Russell Westbrook, say what you want, about 80, you know, staying healthy. All the comments he made as well, I'm not putting extra pressure on myself.

I don't need to be a Greek god. I don't mean yonnas. Did you see that comment that he made? That's great. So silly. But they just don't have wings with size. They have Patrick Beverly, Austin Reeves, Lonnie Walker, Troy Brown. They don't have wings with size.

That's going to be a major issue for that roster. Okay, so you would think it's more crazy to say the Lakers can win 55 games than someone to say the Nets can win 55 games. Yes, I would. I mean, the Nets have Ben Simmons, who's one of the best wing defenders in all the basketball, Kevin Durant can be good on that end. Royce O'Neill for the first time in his career

is not going to have to be the best wing defender on his team. Mark Heath Morris is a solid player. He can play some small five for you. Steve Nash, you know, had said he expects them to play that for them. So they're going to play some small ball this year. Probably a lot of small ball this year with Dick Claxton starting for them. They have lineup versatility. They have switchable players.

They can play different combinations of guys. The Lakers just lack, they lack wing. depth. They have Russell Westbrook, though. Best friends of Patrick Beverly. You buy that? I don't know. Woj had the story with the Russ quotes last week saying he's all in, no matter what

the team asks him. But he's coming off the bench, right? He's coming off the bench, they said. There's no plans. Is this the year we see Russ evolve? Are we going to see it? What do you think? Everything Darwin Ham said earlier this year in multiple interoperable,

interviews, Dan Patrick's show, newspaper interviews, all that, has pretty much aligned with what I've been harping about for years. I've been beating a dead horse saying Russell Westbrook needs to change, even before it was kind of a cool thing to say. I think the bench thing would be not

changing. I think you just decide, okay. He runs the show. You flip him and LeBron. You kind of have LeBron off the floor, but what about when they share the floor? is Russ going to be down there in the dunker spot? Is he going to be setting screens?

That's what Darwin Ham said he wanted to do. Screening, cutting, being more of a Swiss Army knife on offense. That stuff last one game. You know, Frank Vogel said that too. And remember he set some screens for? Vogel never said it outright like hand. Yeah, but he did it for like one game. You remember that?

There was like that one game. Against Memphis. Earlier in the year. One game. Yeah, he set screens for LeBron James and it worked fairly well. And then he didn't. And they didn't set one for like the next three months. Yes.

Yeah. I wrote about that during the season. And I think with Russell Westbrook, the signs are there. It's not like in Oklahoma City when he was playing with Hardin and Kevin Ernie. He wasn't a good cutter. Westbrook could cut to the basket. He could be an active athletic cutter. But will he commit?

To me, I think if it doesn't happen now, I mean, shame on, like, it's just sad, really, more than anything else. You have LeBron James and Anthony Davis is your teammate. and you're not doing some of the little things. Danny Walker and Dennis Schroeder. Dennis Schroeder. Yeah, yeah. Kendrick Nunn, Austin Reeves, Juan Toscano Anderson.

You think he's going to be excited about playing behind Dennis Schrooter or Patrick Beverly? Oh my God. He's like a 10-time All-Star. Yeah, I know. It's not easy. Yeah, it's not.

You're right. I hope he does like my guy AI. My guy, A.I. to Memphis. He was playing behind Mike Conley. And then, you know, I never saw him play in Memphis. I never saw him play a game. They started the year on a road trip. And by the time, by the time he came back to Memphis, he was already not on the team. He had already gone back to. Three, three, four, five games, something like that with Memphis? He went back home. Yes. Because they were on the road.

They went in the locker room. And they said to him, uh, He said to him, you know, do you feel healthy? Because he had gotten a little banged up in training camp and preseason. They're like, do you feel healthy, you know, in terms of not, you know, getting out there, playing, and, you know, what's your status, whatever? Because Mike Connolly was starting, right? And Iverson told him, he said, he said, my butt hurts sitting on the bench. So he said, my butt hurts. on the bench.

That was his injury. So good. I need Westbrook to do that. My butt hurts from sitting on the bench. AI, the goat. But he was a guy, Alan was never going to,

he was never going to be able to do that. Yeah. Some guys can never do it. You know what I mean? Reinvent themselves. That's why we laud and magnified the, the Grant Tills, the Vince Carter.

There's been a million of them. Yeah. That have, like, been at the top. been one of the best players in the league and then have truly been able to reinvent themselves as a role-playing contributor. It's not easy.

But there have been guys that have pulled it off, for sure. Not sure if Westbrook's ever going to be that guy. Or if it's that time. Maybe it is that time. Maybe it's not. I don't know. We all knew it was a terrible fit there when it happened. Everybody knew that.

It's like literally the worst kind of guy you can have with LeBron James. All you have to do is not that hard. If you got LeBron James and Anthony Davis, find frigging five guys that could shoot the ball and can play defense. They won a damn title doing it. Those guys weren't even good. Frickon Rondo was like their best player for two games when they won the thing. Caruso was playing big minutes and super important.

Caldwell Pope knocking down shots. Danny Green, on and on. He said this wasn't even that good a team outside of those two. Wouldn't like they were loaded? And yet you go and get Russell Westford. And so I think it's now just everybody say the right things. Be a good soldier. Hopefully we could trade you.

We're willing to put the traffic in the trade to do it. Right? I think that's how this goes. So he may, it just has to be cool for a month. might. You know? He might. It's possible.

And maybe Darvin Ham and Babb can help the situation, right? Probably less likely to back down. Russ just needs to find a new best version of himself. Simple as that. Maybe he finds it to be his best friend Patrick Miff. You run the show. You run the show when LeBron James isn't on the floor. When LeBron is on the floor, you play like hell on

defense, active off ball. Just simple as that. It's not hard. He's done it before. He just needs to do more of it and less of what he's not going to add. It's really not that difficult. I don't think his evolution is as jarring as it's made out to be. You know, one of the other things, and this is what we'll close on, about Media Day, is when you see the recaps and you see like the different videos hitting Twitter or whatnot and the pictures,

That's sometimes where all, we talk so many times like it's fantasy world. And then when you see the pictures of stuff, it becomes reality. And I got to be honest with you kid, when I saw that Donovan Mitchell. Oh, I thought it was a Zion. No, the Donovan Mitchell in the 45 Cavs jersey. That felt weird. It did. It felt weird.

Yeah. And the Zion just seeing him. Zion looking slim. Yeah. Yeah. Zion looked good. Zion coming back. He did look good.

I hope that's me in a year. You know, because Zion last year at BDNA career to Zion this year. You want to be as big as Zion in a heat? You got a gain weight. The slimming down. Oh. I think you can gain weight to be Zion. I'm not my heaviest I've ever been right now.

No, you're not. Yes, I am. That's true. I am right now. Heaviest I've ever been right now. You feel tough? No. You feel like you can body slam somebody?

No. No? I feel like I want to, I feel like I want to eat. You say you want to look like Zion in a year. I want to eat. I want to eat. It's lunchtime.

Do you feel like you can body slam someone? No, I feel like I want to eat. Kevin O'Gauder, 2022. No, next year I'll be in the best year from my life on me today. It's true. I got a palatine. It's pretty cool. It's pretty good, Chris.

I like it a lot. Two things. You did get a Peloton? Yeah, I did. You in those classes where people are yelling at you and shit? It was highly recommended by a fair amount of friends that said it's worth the investment.

It's something you like doing, and I've loved doing it since I got it about a month ago. How many times are you done in a month? Don't lie to me. I can pull out the stats if I... How many times? Take a rough estimate. How many times you've ridden that thing in a month?

I mean, I've been on the road a lot, so it doesn't really count. the better ask will be asking me in a month how many times have I written a minute. Are you committed to doing it? How many times a week you got to do it? I mean, I want to do it every single day. Every day?

Yeah, I want to do it every day, yeah. They yell at you on that screen, right? I've seen people doing it. Yeah, I like, come on, come on! You're like, listen to the EDM. Go to a beat. Yeah, and you're pumping your legs along? Yeah, it's nice.

They're like, let's go, Fadi, get the knees up. I've not heard anybody do that yet. Oh, they haven't? I ever heard anybody call me a terrible Pelotian instructor. I haven't heard that. Look at you, Yolupa, go, move! Maybe they should hire me.

This is your tri-ar right now. Who knows? Somebody who has hiring power with Peloton could be listening to the show. You never know? Yeah, you never know. There's been some good instructors. Dennis Morton, Allie Love.

They get some good ones on there. All right. Look at him. Look at Kevin O Peloton. Kevin O. Cyclist. One year from now, I'll be in the best shape of my life. That's a guarantee. Do you buy some of the nut huggers?

You got to wear for it? What? You know, the biker shorts? You got some of those? I have like workout shorts. And the weird little shoes. Oh, the shoes that connect to the bike? Yeah.

I have those. Let's go. They clip on and off. Let's go. I like them. Little clip shoes. You got your biker shorts? I don't know if I have biker.

I have workout shorts. I've had those for years. I thought you had to wear the biker shorts, right? Little tight fitting right now. You don't get the chafing. No, no chafing. You like cycling at all? Chris,

you like riding bikes? Nah. No, not a bike rider. Do you work out? Yeah, I'm fine with the bike riding. Do you work out? Yeah, I like, I swim. You swim? I like swimming.

That's the one thing I love, like, it's the one cardio I loved him. And I walk and run. I do that with my son, though, because... I'm not a runner. I like walking. I don't like... We run mailboxes. You know what I mean?

What's that mean? Run mailboxes. We walk through the neighborhood, and we walk a mailbox, run a mailbox. Walk a mailbox, run a mailbox. Oh, okay, yeah, that's cool. Try to get him in, you know what I mean? Yeah. Try to get him in really good shape

because everything is short bursts. And so, you know. So you kind of like hit workouts, the high-intensity of the workouts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like those. I like doing that, you know, stuff to get my heart rate. It doesn't take a lot of time. No.

I like getting my heart rate. It's a time thing. We're busy people, Chris. I'm bored. Get quick, quick workouts in a short amount of time. That's right. Yeah. Mostly it's an eating thing.

Oh, and I think the, I think the bite thing, I think I was damaged. I went to, back, back when I was younger, that was when the spin rage was going on. You know, like the dark rooms and the whatever, but all, like, I was in my 20s. All these hot chicks were doing spin class all time. And I was like, all right, I'm going to go to one of these spin classes. And I got in there and, like, there's probably like two dudes in there and then me and like all these girls. And they like turn the lights down, you know, and they got that like, dinch, dinch, dinch, you know,

like that kind of music playing, whatever. And I look over, I mean, these people, they're peddling like a thousand, like, miles an hour. Like, they're just, and they're like standing up and moving back and forth and whatnot and whatever. And I mean, my quads were on fire after like two minutes. And they're just, I'm looking next to me and they're like, they're just, their legs are going a million miles an hour. And I was like, yeah, this ain't for me. Those are last time, that despite all the hot chicks. This is humiliating.

You get any numbers that day, Chris? No. No. You didn't even make it to the end. No, they said, you lump of crap. Get out of here. What are you even doing in this class? Get out of here, Fat.

Yeah, you're just here to see chicks. What's wrong with you? They were on to me, Kevin. They were on to me when they realized I couldn't even ride a bike for four minutes and I'm in a 50-minute class. I'm just sitting there on the bike watching everybody else. What a perv. Every once in Ohio paddling a couple times.

Go pitch a tent somewhere else. That was my last class. All right. Enough of that. Thank you to our executive producer, Jesse Lopez, as always. Kevin, I'll talk to you later this week. Have a good one.