The Ringer NBA Show - 2019 Story Line Over/Unders | Group Chat

Episode Date: September 5, 2019

We do a little game of "predict the headlines" ahead of the 2019 NBA season: When will Anthony Davis start to get unhappy in L.A.? When will Ben Simmons’s jump shot get called into question? When will we start to worry that Zion is out of shape? And more. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, this is Liz Kelly and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. Up on the Ringer.com this week, we've posted our streaming recommendations for the month of September, updated our 50 best superhero movies of all time list, and make sure to check out our Stephen King coverage by Ben Lindberg on the site and on the big picture podcast. On the sports side, our NFL experts are giving their predictions for the season, the storylines they're most excited about, and finalizing their rankings of the top 150 fantasy players of 2019. You can check it out on the ringer.com.

Basketball is very good. The Rockets should bring back mellow. Devin Booker is actually a winning player. Bruno Caboclo will win Brazil the World Cup. Basketball is very good. Hello, and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. It's group chat. It's Chris Ryan, joined by a tan and fit Justin Varyer.

I wish you could see him. Young sore legs over here. Justin is going through a summer of self-discovery and self-improvement. It's a wonder to behold. I can't wait until it comes crashing to a halt when the NBA season starts. Or next week. And you immediately go back to in and out and three games a night. Yeah.

Yeah. You're a Shake Shack kind of guy, though. Are you? Just to let you know. It's Justin and Chris, Bobby's on the decks today. And today on group chat, you know, I know Fieber World Cup's happening. Bill talked about it. KOC and Verno talked about it.

So there's plenty of chit chat about that out there in the world. Yeah, I would highly recommend people read Dan Devine's pieces on it. He's been doing a really great job chronicling that tournament. Sharks too. but and sharks too, but Justin and I are going to, we're going to go fast forward. Yeah. What we're going to do today is called storylines over unders. It's combining overunders with NBA storylines.

But what we're really trying to guess is at what point in the season are we going to start to see this storyline emerge? And this could be for a number of reasons. It could be because the media is bored and they're doing it. Or it could be because it's actually legitimate. Justin, let's just jump into it. We both wrote down a bunch of these to bounce off each other. So I'll ask you give me when you,

think this is going to happen. Okay. The first is a two-parter. I love starting cool tests with two-part questions. Storyline over under, Zion Williamson is out of shape. I feel like this one only has one answer. Well, actually it has two, one that had already happened at Summer League, but also I think whatever shape he shows up at in training camp in the first training, in preseason games, that's when we're going to have that conversation. Okay. So I feel like I can't remember whether this has happened on mic or not. But I've already had a discussion about somebody being like, are we sure Zion's going to play preseason?

Is that actually a thing? I mean, I do, I'm curious how teams approach preseason now, especially as we've seen with the NFL, teams just completely shut guys down. Obviously, as we saw with also the Team EOSA dropouts, people are way more cognizant of the effects of load management and all this other stuff. So perhaps would it be the worst thing in the world? I'm not sure.

I mean, at some point, he'll legitimately have to play 35 minutes in an NBA game. Sure. And then play again two nights later, right? I've seen him walking around New Orleans or just like in videos. He's been showing up at Tulane Athletics a lot. So he's there. So there's a lot of people who walk around New Orleans that I don't know if they can handle the wear and tear of an NBA game to say anything of maybe walking up a slight incline.

Sure. It's probably not a good idea that he's spending so much time in New Orleans because, as I experience, it's tough to find either like a salad. back. I know. Like, my body is still feeling it. I lost at least two years. So here's my question 1A then.

Over under the first New Orleans is a playoff frisky team mentioned. I feel like we have to go through a couple weeks. Okay. But maybe November, because in that first couple, like, two to three game period, five games, anything can happen. It's a small sample. Let's just say they come out and they lose by like 11 to the Raptors, who are a veteran team high off of winning an NBA champion. championship, excited, you know, trying to prove that they can make things happen without Kauai, Kyle Lauer, Sir Jabaka, everything, Gassal.

And, like, New Orleans gets dumped on. Let's just say that happens. Like, they have a couple weeks to start to put it together. It's just that they're playing in a conference where they're not going to get a lot of off nights. Yeah, it really depends on how they start. They have just so many young players. So I could see the opposite happening where they get in a big hole and we kind of lose track. of them, but at the same time, it feels like they're on national TV all the time. So we will be

hyper aware of Zion, perhaps after that initial period, we lose track of them and maybe they stay in the mix here. They're going to be a big hashtag team. A lot of people are going to be like, oh my God, this pass from Lonzo shoot it into my thoracic. Right. Does it leak pass alert? Does that still exist? I don't think people need to go through the entire process of typing out league pass alert anymore. Well, it's just LPA? Or they're just. like, holy shit. And the assumption is that you know how to find the game. Why don't you give me your first over under storyline?

All right. This is one that we've been talking about, both around the office and perhaps even on several pods this summer because we've been talking about the same things over the past two months. The Warriors can still win this thing. So initially, and I have written this, I thought the end of an era had happened with the wars. And to a certain extent it has.

But as time has gone on, as you look over the landscape of the league, you start to wonder, like, maybe the warriors at full strength if they can kind of just weather the storm without Clay Thompson until he gets back from injury, whether or not this team is actually really freaking good. Dremont Green has an extension, so he's not going to be going off the rails or worrying about

that sort of thing. I do wonder can they win the title? So new gym. Yep. Tons of buzz around that, like going into a new stadium, which also sometimes has a negative effect because guys aren't like in their familiar comfort zone all the time. But let's just

Let's just imagine that there's like a bounce from playing in San Francisco and playing in this new building. Do you think there could be a sightlines conspiracy theory? Well, that kind of stuff, like Bill was talking about that yesterday with the World Cup. Like, I think like that kind of stuff isn't talked about enough. It's like the weird things about lighting and sightlines. I mean, like that is why those guys, like, it's not like NCAA players can hit shots anyway, but when they start playing in like in San Antonio and like these huge 90,000 seat arenas and they're like, I don't know where the hoop is in relation to.

to distance? Like, that happens. Yep. It's a real thing. Yeah. But so this warrior's idea, it's already off the board. Because I feel like Dremont's already started it. I feel like Dremont already rolled the ball out into the middle.

Because he's like, anybody who counts us out is out of their mind. And so I think that we're going to see definitely potential Steph MVP season. Draymond will not coast. I don't know if that's good for Dremont because I think ultimately what you want. one is the perfect Draymond in the playoffs. But I don't think we'll see a lot of like Draymond looks so out of it. Dremon doesn't seem ready for the season.

Dramon, Draymond. Like the KD thing being done with, really a lot of it's going to depend on Russell. Yeah, that's an interesting one. I just feel like there's just so much more motivation, which is weird to say. It just feels like everything is aligning for them to really go for it at the start of the season.

The flip side of this, I bet, is just the fact that they're paper-thid. Yes. Even if Clay is back, it's pretty much Clay, Draymond, Steph, and Russell, we don't even know what Russell's going to be, and then just a precipitous drop off. I do like getting Willie Colley Stein in there. I think he's the type of guy who, if he just plays his role, and he's just this switchy defensive menace, which is what we kind of all hoped he would be going into the league. I think he fits a lot of what they're going to do. Kavana Luni, our guy, he's back.

He's back. Perhaps even with a working shoulder this time. The second team is Alec Berks. It's G-Rob 3, Looney and Spelman. And then you get into like, I didn't know that Eric Pascal

is in the league. You know what I mean? Like that kind of stuff. That being said, I do think that this is a free hit year for them. Like, whatever happens happens. If they make the playoffs,

everybody's going to tip their hat to them. And in that case, it's like no KD, no expectations without Clay, get the fifth or sixth seed. and who knows what happens to the Lester Conference playoffs. Yeah, they just have so many young guys,

which is not what we're used to seeing from them, even when they filled out the rest of their depth chart, it tended to be retreads, guys who were perhaps veterans looking for rings or guys like Quinn Cook who really just didn't find a place. Now you're looking at a lot of rookies, the Jordan Pools, the Jacob Evans'es.

And I think Charks wrote about this right after Draymond signing his extension. I think this is a really good point. They're counting on Draymond and Steph in order to raise those. young players sealing to another level. And honestly, that's not a bad bet.

No, not at all. All right. So we did Zion Williamson is out of shape. We feel like that's coming off in preseason first game. We'll first hear our What if New Orleans is kind of frisky?

Maybe in December. Yeah. Golden State's already off the board because Draymond said it, but we're expecting this to be like a lot of people out there being like, hey, who knows? Who knows what happens?

My second one for you, ex-rooky is more NBA-ready than Zion. What's the over-under for that? And as a bonus, who is that rookie? It's a complicated one because as I went and looked back at the draft class, I was reminded of how many guys just aren't that good or just aren't projected to be on the level of a Zion or even like a consistent starter or even potentially having all-star potential.

So it's really slim pickings. I think it depends a lot on how quickly John Morant starts. I think that's the guy. You're so in the pocket of Big Moran. Well, he's an interesting player. I want to check the financials on this. Yeah. Where's the dark money coming from?

I guess. Every single time we talk rookies, you're like, there's a lot of talk about John Morant. It just, the parallels to AD and Damien Lillard, their first year, are right there. Oh. Right? Lillard won rookie of the year. Davis got a little dinged up.

Wasn't in that conversation as much as we expected to be. Davis is still the better player. But Lillard, you know, he shot out of a rocket. and here he is today. I think Morant can have a similar trajectory. I think the team, as they filled out their depth chart this summer, it fits everything that he would do. So you have Jaron Jackson Jr.

You have a bunch of younger guys. They got Ty Jones, Tyos Jones in there. It's a young team. I like him as a leader. The problem, as we ding Zion for potentially being overweight or not really playing in Summer League, John Moran hasn't been seen for a very long time as well because he did not also play Summer League. I'm going to go, I'm going to jump right.

So my answer for the rookie that could unseat the Zion hype is Kobe, because I think that I like, I like the idea of him like in Chicago getting a little bit of that like big city boost. And I think he's going to have like some pretty sick highlights. And I think that Chicago might be like okay. Kobe White. Yeah, Kobe White. I'm going to take my next one and I'm going to add another one to it.

So what I was going to ask is the storyline over under is, when do we first hear about Donovan Mitchell looking like Pete Dwayne Wade? which is already off the board. I want to know, I was talking with former ringer employee Sam Donsky about this on text today, where can we short that? Like, where can I short

Donovan Mitchell taking the leap? And furthermore, where can I short all your grizzlies hipster stuff? Because that team sucks. And it's like, I don't think that they won't be good at some point. It's not that I'm mad about it,

but like, let's get it together, guys. Let's, like, actually take a step back and think about this for a second. John Morant, Dylan Brooks, Kyle Anderson, JJJ Jr. and Jonas are going to get the shit kicked out of them most nights. Yeah, they're not going to be a good team. Okay. But that's like, that's essential to be a hipster team.

There is a disproportionate amount of Memphis talk happening right now in like the high altitude basketball Twitter circles. Right. You either need to be a very good team or you need to have hope. Nobody gives a shit if you're winning like 50 games. Like, that is not cool. I'm going back the other way. I love 50 games.

I just think there's something. Nobody makes, like, unless you have Durant and Westbrook and Hardin, no one is making the leap from Gris to Warriors anymore. Like, like, the league is too tough. That's also a very good point. That rarely happens. So, like, this whole, like, man, I think Gris. Like, what are you talking about?

The Gris would, like, bite your hand off to get to 50 games. I think the Morant rookie of the year push is more likely than the Donovan Mitchell-0-6-Wade thing, even though it's... You're the James Carvel of the John Moray-Rookie rookie Mayer Push. This is his complete. What's talk to me in December. Check the funding on Justin's Cross Kitchen. What is really paying for this membership?

You better hope your Vembo's are in public. I think I recently put it to private. No, well, so here's the thing. Mitchell is literally like the only guy at Team USA. I think to your second point about like when will like a FBA player perhaps like just completely get winded? Yeah, this is my next one was when's the first time we're going to hear X looks winded, blame it on. World Cup. I think it could happen a lot

since every Celtics player is currently on Team USA. Jason Tatum already being hurt. When the Celtics are 8 and 13. Right. I think it will happen. It will happen in Kemba. I can see it happening.

But... But Kemba hasn't like really played a lot of playoff basketball. Like we're really worried about the Odominer in that way. I guess he did play a lot of minutes for the Hornets or whatever. But it just seems like

I don't want to get into the poker conversation. I'm just saying that it does seem like a lot of these guys, Like, if you're not playing into late May, you have time off, right? Sure. But, okay, well, yes. Perhaps the fact that they're all playing together, they'll, like, I don't know, maybe that will help.

The camaraderie of it all will trickle into the season now. We find Gordon Hayward will probably be handling a lot of the load on offense next season. Why didn't Gordon Hayward go to the World Cup? Because he was terrible last year. My guy needs to, like, figure out how his foot works. I studied step up. Whoa, step up. There you go.

Just me, just asking the questions. I will say that the last year, I think it was last season, there was a lot of Sixers talk about how draining the trip to China was. That was a preseason exhibition trip, I think. But it does have an effect. Like, you do, I mean, hell, like, you go to Europe, you go to a different time time.

It does take, like, a toll on you. Right, you start doing CrossFit in the morning, and all of a sudden, like, 2 p.m. Really just hits you. You want to go to sleep. Okay, so you think it'll be a Celtic. I think it'll be a Celtic, but I could also see it happening with Mitchell because he's become the guy for this team. Okay, so we've run through a couple here. We've run through Zion out of shape. We've run through which rookie is more NBA ready than Zion. Which rookie will that be when we'll hear about that? We've heard about Donovan Mitchell looking like Pete Dwayneway, which is already happening a lot. And then we're talking about which player is going to say like, oh, I get a mulligan because I'm tired from the World Cup. What's your next one?

all right, this is one that we have every year so it's going to happen eventually it is maybe the Blazers don't need to split up CJ and Dame I feel like we're already hearing whispers about this I feel like that got really like even though they had great seating

and they went to the Western Conference finals this not unlike the Warriors this is a free hit year for the Blazers because I think that like they're going to have continuity and I think people are going to be like you know what like who else are they going to get this is good I just remember last year, very clearly,

Paula Wugetti wrote a feature about how much their continuity was helping them earlier last season. It was right before Thanksgiving, I remember because I was in Vegas for Thanksgiving because I'm that type of guy. You went to Vegas for Thanksgiving last year? You didn't notice? Yeah.

To go see like Nicholson and Tiger? Why did you go there? No, it was funny. It was people were going for that, and I was not. I don't know. I just wanted to get away from the city. By yourself? Do you go with the... No, I went with a friend.

Okay. All right. You know, just... All right. I mean, like, if you went by yourself, I definitely would have had an intervention. You know, I had some people looking to break my legs. I had to figure things out. No, so it happened last year around that time, and I think it's going to happen again.

I think there's huge potential this season for them to be a dark horse team because all the teams in the West are still trying to figure things out. They made some good moves on the fringes. It seems like a lot of their young guys are starting to come to form and really fill out around those two guys, CJ and Dame. And also, both them got locked up to huge extension. I think it's going to happen at some point. I would say probably December. Okay. Can I ask you another just off top of your head question?

Who are you higher on the Blazers of the Jazz? I am higher on the Blazers only because everybody is high in the jazz. Yes. Yeah. I hear you. I think the Jazz are overrated now. We've been over this a million times. But I think the Blazers could be what we think the jazz are.

My next question. Over under. When do we hear Ben Stimmons still won't show us his jumper? yesterday, two weeks ago when that stupid video came out? We've gotten viral marketing about this jump shot over the course of the summer,

which I've refused to acknowledge because I don't acknowledge basketball that does not happen in the regular season of the playoffs for the purposes of this podcast. That being said, it is a little bit of a gauntlet if you're going to allow that footage

to get out whether or not obviously you can't control everything. First preseason game, if he doesn't shoot a jumper, the people are going to be like, I thought he could shoot now. Not he could shoot, but just like I thought he was going to take the leap

and actually like take a shot and try and keep people honest. So what's the over-under for that? I guess the first game of the season? Could it happen even in the preseason? Absolutely. 100%. I think you're right. I think he's just, he's signaled for so long. I believe this happened even last off season

and he didn't do anything about it. He was shooting in a gym and someone recorded it. Now we have two years of this. And it doesn't help because the Sixers have almost raised the stakes based on the personnel they brought around both him and Joe. And so he needs the shoot. And so he really can't get away. I wonder, the conspiracy theorist and me wonders if they specifically didn't get enough shooting in order to force him to take a goddamn shot. I mean, that's not the weirdest, like, conversation to have,

like, they have no, they don't, they don't have the shooting. So it, I don't think that they did it based on like a confidence that Ben will now become a 32% shooter from three. But I, the gambit that they are taking here is pretty huge for him not to shoot at all. And that is where we were coming from was just like there's just a non-existent. The bench, the Sixers bench is going to be Sheikh Zaire, Ennis, Scott, and O'Quinn.

Like, Corkmas is on the third team. I don't, there's no shooting on this team. Like, Trey Burke might be like the top, in the top four shooters on this team. So, yeah, it's going to be really interesting. All right, you want to go to the next ones? Yeah, let's hear it. This is a two-parter because both of these guys are kind of intertwined for the rest of their careers.

First one, LeBron is back. Second one, Kyrie is back. Okay, this is good. So, LeBron is back, definitely opening night. Like, triple double, 35, 11, and 12, they beat the Clippers. Like, get ready for that because in a weird way, I think that the two L.A. teams are going to be trading, like, personas over the course of the season. one of them is going to be going for it a lot.

Like you're going to say like, oh, this clipper's team's going to win 60 games. They're sick. They're going to get home court advantage. And then another team is going to be like, we're really like, we're coasting here. It's like load management, everybody needs to be in the right place.

Now, I don't know which team it's going to be. The perception is that the Lakers are going to be pretty crappy in the regular season, I think, because of the lack of depth. But it depends. Like Paul George coming off shoulder surgery, and Kauai kind of having this program where it's like, it's around 60 games,

and I kind of manage my load that way. Who knows which team is going to be the king of the regular season? But for LeBron being back, I think statement game first game of the season, opening night. That makes sense. Their margin for error is very thin. We've talked about this a bunch. So LeBron can't really coast as much as you'd probably prefer to earlier in the season.

Having said that, I don't know how much LeBron cares about that because he's just so big picture-minded that I wonder if he's still going to take it easier. Do you mean big picture in like the Sean Fennessee Space Jam way? No. So he doesn't care because he's like busy making like production deals? Or do you think it in like he's more big picture-minded

like it matters how well he's playing in May? Do you think Sean can pull LeBron for an interview? For big pick? Yeah. I think it'd be interesting. Crazier things would happen. No, I think just in terms of like how he manages his just his body. and how much load he's dealing with.

So I do wonder if he's going to try to put in fail saves within the team in order to perhaps do what he normally does and maybe just like kick it up in the fourth quarters a little bit more. I found it very odd that he's really behind this Alex Crusoe push that's been happening. I don't know if you've been aware of this. I haven't been. I think Alex Crusoe is slowly becoming just something of a Lakers mascot. Yeah.

I saw that he got jacked and then got like, Drug tested? Well, because the jacked photo was Photoshopped. Oh. And someone... Did he really get drug tested? Yeah. Well, according to his Twitter or whatever.

Okay. And there was also a point where the Lakers put out like a highlight video of Caruso and the Bron did his thing where it's like 30 fire emojis and then just like, yeah, let's get it. It's basically every time Bobby tweets about baseball, that's how I respond to him. I'm MLB's hype man. 30 fire emojis. Let's get it. Something like that.

So, dipping pitches is breaking down this Cardinals hot streak, 30 fire emojis. So I could see... We made that LeBron bump. I could see him taking off a month or two, maybe being a little bit more proactive. But December, January, that's when he's back and we're like, man, LeBron MVP again? Right. I think LeBron is backstarts first night, but I see what you're saying in terms of like the way he's going to manage it. Kyrie is like a completely different story.

Right. Another team that is in a little bit of a limbo this season and I think would probably anything better than last season would be acceptable. Obviously, they've had an upgrade at point guard, we think, from Kyrie to DeAngelo Russell to Kyrie Irving. And the specter of Durant will be there. I think that for avid basketball watchers who also check out the margins of the game,

that the relationship of Durant to the team is going to be the thing that they're paying more attention to than if Kyrie has a first season honeymoon with the nets and they look pretty frisky. That being said, it really just depends on like the first time a bunch of people put microphones on his face. And that's, and I don't know what, like, I'm not, I don't judge him for his, his, like, you know, what he wants to talk about. But Kyrie being back is Kyrie not being a distraction? I wonder if our collective Kyrie fatigue after last season will actually work into his benefit.

Because I'm just like sick of talking about him as just like a character. Yeah. And so he's doing something. I'm not sure why or how. I just feel like I'm ready to pivot to him as a basketball player. And everything is set up for him to just take the reins and be the guy because that team has made some significant changes as we know. But it still needs to figure itself out. And even when it figure itself out, it's probably just going to be some version of the Kyrie show.

So I feel like he's going to have a stretch where it's like, oh, man, this is the Kyrie that Boston. missed out on, he needs to do this in order for them to make the playoffs. I could see it happening early. I could see it happening late because they probably do need to make some significant push in order to even make the playoffs. Sure. So I think that in Boston, it's like an avalanche. It's like it just picks up steam and once it starts, it's really hard to stop it.

And he became a scapegoat for reasons that were justified and not. And the Boston and the Celtics media kind of like circled around that all season long until it became untenable. That's not to say that that he doesn't have some culpability in that. And the flip side of that, in my experience,

the least, there is not that kind of apparatus around the Nets. There is not that kind of scrutiny of the Nets on a nightly basis. There is for the NICs. Yeah.

And the NICs will be their usual dumpster fire, you know, on purpose. So it'll be really interesting to see whether or not New Yorkers and the New York media

are more interested in a bad Knicks team that we knew were going to be bad, than an experimental Nets team that is also waiting for the best player alive to come back. Mm-hmm. You know? I can definitely see some Lob City Clippers things happening.

Yeah. Where the Lob City team was a national team. It wasn't necessarily a local team. Yeah. And so I think we, just following the league at large, will care a lot about, obviously, Kyrie and Kevin Durant. These are some of the main superstars in the league

that really dictate our daily lives, which is sad to say. So, but I do wonder, like, how much of a, like a dent it will make in that market. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. And whether or not, if Kyrie, I mean, if Kyrie pops off about the earth being flat, I'm sure it will do numbers. But if he's just, like, one night is, like, Jared Allen fucked up the end of a game play,

nobody's going to be like, oh, my God, we got to get to your computers. Kyrie called out Jared Allen. It's not the same thing as Hayward, and it's not the same thing as the microscope that the Celtics were under. Yeah. Because everybody's like this Celtics team's going to win 60 games before Hayward got hurt. I do wonder how much Durant's injury lowers the expectations. That's what I'm saying.

I feel like it's a no pressure situation. All right, I got one for you. We talked a little bit about the Lakers already. I have three that go together. So give me the over-unders. When do these storylines pop? Number one, Frank Vogel's seat is getting hot. December.

Number two, the Lakers aren't concerned about the regular season. This is a team. This is a team that's just getting, they want to get dialed for playoffs. It really depends on how fast. they start. Like if they get in a hole, then they have to care about the regular season. If they manage it properly, I think then we could have the conversation about what they are as a playoff team. But they really need to fight for their playoffs. There's a couple of NBA teams that I think

are going to maybe push out the flip switch boat. You know, like, hey, it's okay. We could turn it on. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about us. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's going to be, because there's going to be so much parity, I think, or at least assumed that there's going to be so much parity. I wonder if we're going to have some really weird late November stand. endings. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, the Grizzlies were a playoff team around that time last year. Unbelievable. I know. We wrote a lot of like, Grit and grind is back. Grit and grind 2.0. That's right. I may have even like fed into that. Here's my last one. Actually, I have two more. So you have, so Lakers are, aren't concerned about the regular season. When did you say that

would happen? Christmas? Sure. I think I'm saying about a lot of these. Maybe I think whenever there is like a not entirely clear why Anthony Davis is off tonight moment and it's all, hey guys, it's just all about May. Right. We're not really concerned about the regular season. This is about getting tuned up. My next one is the Lakers are actually gearing up for 2020, 2021. You guys didn't know this is all, it's part of a five-year plan. Do you not mention that?

No. Because the assumption here is that LeBron's prime is ticking. Yep. So between We need one more guy and we need another offseason to do it And also like we wanted to give LeBron and Anthony a year to play together When do we hear about look this is a long road it's a marathon I can see it if the bottom falls out around the all-star break

Yeah But the problem is they signed a lot of these core guys to like two-year deals like Danny Green, who is essentially their third or fourth best guy, he's there for two years. And so they don't really have the means to make trades. I think they're kind of stuck with who they are, unless they could find someone to take Kyle Kuzma off their hands. But as like everyone has kind of mentioned here,

like he's on a rookie contract. Yeah. Like that's going to be tough to match salaries. He's not going to get, you're not going to get a return for that. I could see this being when you're saying, I could also see it being the narrative that comes out after a, second round in playoff exit. Yeah.

Hey, just so you, like, this is, this was always going to be a two-year thing here. You know, this is about getting know each other. A lot of new faces, new coaches, new systems, new programs. Like, wait till next year. Who will be the head coach at that point? I don't know. Jason Kidd has been shown up in a lot of these photos.

There was a moment where I thought we were going to have, like, a crazy coaching carousel a while. I think whenever it was like pre, there was like a moment where it seemed like, could Carlisle move? Like, could Carlisle one? want to go win another ring after all these years in Dallas. And I think it was also around when Stotz was maybe going to leave Portland.

And I was like, oh, what if we had like all this, wouldn't it be incredible if Stats brought his offense to here or there? And I think also Brett was like, there was like a little bit more Brett Brown hot seat talk. And now I feel like we haven't really gotten that anymore. I feel like that's kind of level off. Yeah, it just, it seems like the positions that opened up perhaps were just like only there for top level guys, a position like the Lakers, for instance.

That's like a very specific type of coach you're looking for. There really aren't that many that fit the bill. And then going the opposite way, you're usually a very bad team like the Grizzlies. And you probably want to get someone young who could like coach guys up. I'm still surprised, by the way, without knowing any details about either one of the situations

that the Lakers never made a push for Quinn Snyder. Yeah, I mean, Bob Myers, that whole thing kind of flamed out as well. Yeah, that was right. I mean, perhaps the Laker situation was just so combustible that they just couldn't even overpay. Well, both guys are in situations that they probably find a lot more stable, right? Yeah. I mean, I think it's telling that they had to settle for Vogel who was going to be an assistant on Tailu's staff.

Do you got another one for me? Sure. All right. Are there enough shots in Houston to go around? We did this all of last two off seasons ago when Chris Paul first got there. It ended almost immediately. I recall, I wonder if it's going to extend longer with Russell Westbrook in there instead of Paul.

Let me answer your question with a question. How different do you think this offense will look from last year? Not super different because they obviously staggered how they used Hardin. Do you think he'll do that with Westbrook and Hardin? I think they're going to have to make it work. But there are going to be key situations where they're going to have to play together. Both of them are going to have to play in crunch time. and I feel like if they get into a lot of those situations early,

I think that's when things can come to an head because Russell just can't swing off the ball and be a catch-and-shoot three-point shooter. He's one of the worst that volume in NBA history. Hardin, obviously, is better just with the ball in his hand. I can't even recall him even taking a catch-and-shoe three just because of how often he has the ball in his hand. Historic, even, was his usage rate last season.

So I think there are more opportunities for things to be just come to a head earlier. on one hand, I think that this is a very easily combustible situation and I think that almost equal to Chris Paul's inability to conceal his disappointment in a certain situation is Russell Westbrooks. Like when he gets pissed off about something,

he's going to show it. That being said, I am kind of interesting because this is easily the best group of shooters Westbrook's ever played with. Yeah. Like group. Like he's had better one-guy shooters,

maybe, like Durant, but this is easily the best group group of guys that if you are playing essentially like a lot of driving kick with him, he's got actual targets to hit. Yeah. I think what we forget about this team is it works. It worked the first season when Chris Paul was there. It worked after they settled all the issues they had with their lack of depth and all the

injuries they suffered earlier in the season. As we went into the playoffs, we were talking about them as the biggest competition to the wars again. I think it's a type of team, I'm trying to think. Maybe it's like a Lob City team again where their play. playoff failures have masked the fact that they're just like a really good regular season team. And I think if you just slide Russell Westbrook into that context, I think a lot of good things can happen.

Let me look at the rocket schedule. Eric Gordon also just got an extension. Yeah. They're committed to this, they're somewhat committed to this team. So the Rockets, interesting opening a couple of weeks. So they obviously, they open against the bucks on national television. Then they play New Orleans. then they have Oklahoma City at home,

which will obviously be pretty volatile. And then they do an East Coast, they do a trip, but it's an easy trip. It's the Wizards, the Nets, the Heat, the Gris. So I feel like there's Ws there. Like they can get it together. They come back, they get the Warriors, and then they go back out on the road

and go Bulls, Pelicans. I don't think they're going to be fine. And I think if they're fine, I don't think people are going to overly, I don't think people are going to be like, hey, where are the shots? The shots thing will happen. when they're in close games, they're in the fourth quarter, and Westbrook's riding shotgun.

And Westbrook's like, man, I'd like to drive. I could see them blowing a lot of teams out. This is a lot of offensive firepower. I think if they avoid the situations where they need to figure out the dueling banjo situation, I think they'll be fine. Doling banjo situation? Do you still say that? Here's one that I feel bad about, but this is a double one here. One, are we sure Anthony Davis is resigning?

Are we sure Anthony Davis is just completely locked into this Laker situation? Let's say it is the fucking fall of Rome. Let's say statues, pagan icons, orgies, just absolute sacrifices happening, goats. We don't know that's not already happening, by the way. We don't know. Let's say two and eleven. I don't know. Like Anthony Davis rolls an ankle.

The injuries, Vogel, we don't know what we're doing. I don't, you know, and it's just like five and 16. When's the first? Look, Anthony's keeping his options open. He's already said it this off season. I will be a free agent. He made a point of saying that he would deal with that situation when it comes.

Now, was he just following the LeBron playbook? Because as we have seen recently from young Anthony, that he is impressionable. and it seems like he's probably willing to just follow whatever the clutch playbook is for a lot of these situations. At the same time, I'm not sure if you know this, Chris, but Dwight Howard once played for the Lakers. And he only lasted one season when everyone hailed his arrival as the next great Lakers big man. I still remember the LA Times cover where it was like all of the guys, like the jerseys of like Mike N and Abdul Jabbar and all these guys. We have Dwight Howard in the middle.

It's like this illustration. that did not work out well. And I think if we're talking about bad omens and little totems, what is a worse omen than Dwight Howard literally being on this team? Maybe he is the sign of the apocalypse. What about that? He is the, yeah, I just, I don't, all I think is that, like, I think there's an assumption that LeBron is the Lakers here.

And that to go away from the Lakers is to somehow turn your back on LeBron after, obviously there was a lot of, like, a huge orchestrated push to get Anthony Davis to the Lakers in the first place. And the Lakers basically gave up their present and their future in some ways for Anthony Davis. So that there is an understanding somehow. That being said, if things go really, really bad, LeBron actually isn't the Lakers. People thought LeBron was Cleveland and he wasn't twice. So I don't think LeBron can go anywhere, but LeBron's only got two more seasons on his deal.

So trade LeBron. No, I'm just saying, I'm not saying LeBron. Bron gets traded. I'm just saying this idea that everybody has decided like the Lakers are our home base salute the flag. Like this is it. We love the purple and gold. We bleed it. I don't know. I don't know. I think it's funny

this offseason. Been talking to a lot of Lakers fans. There was a Paul George Day in Oklahoma. And that guy is playing for the Clippers now. Like, don't take anything for granted. The divide between Lakers fans and LeBron's fans in L.A. is fascinating. They still have not embraced them.

Like most Lakers fans that I talk to, most say that they're still iffy on LeBron. They don't really know if he's a true Laker. Like, maybe he'll do it here, but it doesn't seem like it. I love that. It's fascinating. You guys need a vacation. You talking about me and Bobby? No, I just feel like, you guys got to get into a pool and just like, fucking chill out.

You guys have LeBron James. Yeah, I mean, I also said that Anthony Davis could be, you know, the Dark Horse MVP candidate. I mean, I wrote that for the site the other day. So I could see it flip in the other way. But I think it's out there. This situation could just flip very quickly. I think that if they have a really tough first half of the season, we will start hearing about like Anthony's taking meetings.

And look, like, because we don't have like this incredibly rich free agency class next season or this next summer, I think that there is going to be a lot of speculative fiction about this kind of stuff. And I think that there's just going to be like, if there was a world in which Anthony Davis was, unhappy with the Lakers, the Warriors would be interested in being his next destination. Like, that's a story that could be written. I am fascinated to see Davis in the L.A. Media Fishbowl. It's not as intense as New York, but there are just, like, a ton of people. And there are also a ton of national people who

are constantly dropping in. This will be home base for the NBA next year. Yeah. And so I do wonder, like, how he's going to navigate the Whisper campaigns that are ultimately going to pop up around him. It seems like, just based on some of the media he's done so far, he's been. a little bit more forthcoming. I point to him talking about wanting to play power forward over center as like the priming example of that. He's saying what he wants.

Yeah. And I think he's really relishing that. I think he bought into the whole LeBron clutch sports thing of taking control of your narrative and being the one who says what he thinks, not allowing somebody else to. At the same time, LeBron, after all the Miami backlash, ended up cozing up to a lot of beatwriters and they just became his guys. And that's just going to happen. and it's not like an insidious thing for the beat writers themselves,

but I could see that happening with Davis and then people getting in the mix and all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, he's really interested in actually going back to Chicago now. But it's not a story, but it is a story. This can definitely blow up. Over under on when we start hearing about Janus leaving Milwaukee. Well, we heard about it immediately after they lost in the playoffs.

That was going to be my answer. Is TK date when Milwaukee loses in the playoffs, if they do. I was actually, I was like sliding this June 1 if they don't go to the finals and they have a heartbreaking loss to whoever in the Eastern Conference finals, this will be the story.

It is one more year, Milwaukee can't afford to not get anything in return, wonder what the packages are out there, would blank team just open up the entire bank account for them? All the teams that swung and missed this offseason have already started to pivot to the yacht. honest year. Because next offseason is going to be just a completely barren wasteland for superstar free agents. And so the teams that really want to get into the mix, they're already thinking two

years ahead probably. I think it's instructive when I'm editing some of our staff and all of a sudden they're talking about long-term plans for a team like Dallas. And it's like, oh, well, you know, everything is kind of built in order to strike in two years from now. And all of a sudden, maybe Janus would be interested. We're going to go through that for two years. And so even if Janus does not feed into it, and it seemed like that's his style to really... Last year, he almost became, not ever serial, but just really standoffish with media. And so I wonder if everyone in the world is going to be talking about that.

And he did the thing where he didn't just say, I love it here. He said, I love it here, and I want this group back. Right. And for the most part, he got it except for Brogton. Yeah. Interestingly enough. It's just the history is against him. That guys say these things constantly,

and then all of a sudden, when it comes time to it, they just flee. I mean, Davis did the same thing. And even though there was a lot more momentum toward him leaving, and there was a lot more evidence that supported that the Pelicans, as they were,

just couldn't build a team around him. People just don't stay. People of his caliber, players of his caliber, do not stay in Milwaukee. All right. Give me one more, and I'll give you one more.

Carl Anthony Towns, a guy I think we're all high on for next season. Yeah. We wrote about this on the site. Danny Chow did. He might be the best big man in the game right now.

He could be an MVP candidate if things go right. But Carl Anthony Towns, they'll say, needs more help. That's a great question. You know, that is in some ways narrative shaping. Because I think that up to this point, people have pretty much given up on Wiggins. So it's basically like you had the disaster of the Jimmy Butler experiment. Then there was some kumbaya around Ryan Saunders coming in.

And just now with Gerson coming in to be the GM, there's a general good feeling around that team. Gerson. Gerson. Roses. Yeah. First name basis. you guys. I like to be casual,

but if you want me to start saying first and last names Justin Ferrier, I will. Then we've got this season and they're still being kicked around as possible

a Chris Paul destination. I'm going to say Christmas. Okay. But that will actually be an achievement. Because if that happens, it will have flipped it from Carl Towns only cares about

empty double doubles and doesn't do what it takes to win. And you can't win with Carl Towns being your best player to Carl Towns is obviously a top six, seven NBA player, and he needs more help, and it's incumbent on the Minnesota front office to get it for him. I think that is not necessarily...

I didn't ever watch Carl Towns play, and it was like, they're fucking wasting this guy's career. Yeah. And I felt that way about Garnett. Yeah. And I felt that way, to some extent, about love, although I thought love was a little closer to being like, yeah, you get 40-20 in a night

nobody gives a shit about. Yeah, I think there are, two big things, both of which don't actually involve the timber wolves themselves. I think Chris Paul, as you mentioned, I think that's a big one because he's just out there as a guy who could theoretically take the wolves to the next level. They've had point guard concerns. Jeff Teague, they signed a few years ago, just didn't really work out. And so I think you could make the case, you put Chris Paul on that team if they don't lose a lot of some of these young wings that they've assembled. I think that team can make the playoffs. And so I wonder if things don't go well to start with, if towns, towns as people,

all of a sudden they're pushing that on the wolves. Because what do we know now? We know that contract length doesn't matter. Yeah. So everything is a conversation. Everything is, all these things are debatable. All these things like could have caveats and stuff. So like, yeah, that'll be really fascinating. If that is the narrative, it'll be really interesting to see how that plays out. And that's my next point. Okay. is once Bradley Beale's situation gets settled, we're flipping the calendar to the next guys or flipping to the next wave of star players

who could potentially want out. The towns, the bookers, the Simmons, they're the next guys up, and I wonder how quickly we'll get to them. History says that we have a few years because Towns, for instance, is just starting his max extension, but maybe things are accelerated even more

where he has his money and now he's constantly thinking about wanting to win. Yeah, we still don't know exactly the details of what Paul George said to Sam Presti that made him think, yeah, I'm going to get what I can get for you now. Because instead of knowing, in case you didn't remember, you signed a contract and you'll be on the Oklahoma City Thunder next year. They tore that franchise down because of a phone call. Now, maybe they knew it was coming. Maybe they didn't. But on one hand, you can say next summer is going to be really boring.

On the other hand, I think we might be in a world where this stuff is happening every week. And now, now that reporters know it, now that the beat guys know it, now that national guys know it, they're going to be asking these guys, those kinds of questions every night after a loss. They'll be like, hey, how do you feel about this team's chances going forward? And it's usually, that's usually not a question you ask when somebody loses the Pacers on a Wednesday. Yeah, I'm curious in particular about how the Chris Paul thing. Yeah. Chris Paul, like, how is that going to work out? Because it seems like they're moving forward with the idea that he's just,

going to go along, get along, be something of like a mentor to Shea, but also potentially just trying to make it work until they could find a solution that ends with him being traded again. But if he's going to go through regular season games, the only thing that anyone's going to want to talk about with the Thunder is like, what's his deal? Yeah. Does he want to get traded? Like, are you happy at this point? Like, what role are you playing on this team? And it's also weird because he's shown up in media a little bit this offseason. He was just in the body issue of ESPN the magazine. and I don't know how far in advance you need to play out. Pretty. I think pretty.

Because I know that they did Kepka in like Brooks Kepka. Just so that you don't think I'm like on a casual first name basis or last name basis. You might be. They shot him. What was the tournament where Brandl Shambly, this guy from Golf Channel, was like, Brooks Kepka's too skinny. I have no idea. And it was because he had lost weight for the body issue. Is that why you're getting in shape?

Are you a next year's body issue? I think it's done. I missed my window. Oh no. I could have been a CrossFit star. All right. this has been fun. We'll probably revisit these storylines a lot over the course of the season, but I want to kind of like take note of what we said here so that we can kind of see how

accurate we are. We will be back next Thursday for Justin, for Bobby. This is Chris. Thanks for listening to group chat. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.