The Ringer NBA Show - 2022 NBA Draft Reactions | Upside High

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks analyze the fits and speculate the futures for the top picks in the NBA draft: #1 Paolo Banchero (3:02) #2 Chet Holmgren (13:04) #3 Jabari Smith (22:00) #4 Keegan Murray (27:27) #5 Jaden Ivey (30:29) They then quickly go through the rest of the highlights of draft day and discuss their favorite moves and noteworthy players, notably Shaedon Sharpe(35:26) and David Roddy(54:08), who could make big contributions for their new teams. Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a Stars League. But even among the Stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell and Dr. Jay, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Jackie McMullen. And this is the icons club. Folks, basketball is very good.

And last night was sort of a climactic night for this podcast, upside high, a show where we talk about the youth movement and basketball, particularly guys headed towards the NBA. John Sharks is with me. John, how are you doing? I was going to say, we got to talk about the youth movement in football. Arch Manning going to Texas. That's the big story of the day, obviously. Yes, that overshadowed the NBA draft, which happened last night, which was what I was alluding to. But that was a huge day for you yesterday. Was the state of Texas so on fire that it could be seen from, like, satellite distance yesterday? Like, what kind of day was it down there?

Pandemonium? Well, Texas fans are very excited. And everyone else excited to dump on Texas fans. So it always works out well. Oh, you guys haven't wanted anything. What's his an ILD deal going to be like? I mean, good Lord, Arch Manning. What a pickup.

People didn't come here to hear about that shit from us, though. They want to hear about the NBA draft. The NBA draft was a long event last night. I thought at times, did you have any kind of feeling on the broadcast in general? Because I have my feelings. I knew you were going to ask me about that. I had to. I had to.

What did you think? If you got nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. I think I'll just stick with that one. They miss Schmitz, man. They just do. They really, really miss the insight there. I just thought it was a lot of guys who don't really watch college basketball. And I just thought that there were some takes and comps that were being thrown around that were just wild and out there.

Well, it was just, it was tough. Like, there should have been someone who could talk to Billis who'd been watching all the year. It was like Billis riffing on his own for so much of it. Yeah. And it's a lot to ask. I mean, Billis has a whole other full-time job and so does perk. But they would have been nice kind of color to like a full-time expert, which is what they were missing. Like Kyle Man, right?

That's what we're now we're beating it on the bush here. screen me in via Zoom. The new Mike Schmitz, Kyle, man, let's get our audition tapes rolling, baby. Charks, you can't be doing that stuff on the pot. Charks' smile could be seen from satellite distance. He loves to mess with me and dunk on me. There was movement and discussion of movement. Up until the draft, Woj had reported that it was locked in,

that it was going to be Jabari and then Chet and then Palo. And then there was some more movement back, and it was like, oh, it turns out the magic are going to take Palo. And I feel like a lot of the magic fans we know had talked themselves into Chet. And then it sounded like they were going to get Jabari. And then they ended up going with Palo. In this top three, I don't think you can really lose. All three of these guys are going to be at least good NBA players, in my opinion.

The Magic take Palo at number one. What do you think about that fit? What do you think that means about their chess board in the immediate future? How do you feel about Palo Bancaro with the Orlando Magic? First off, it was hilarious. I'm not quite sure. what the point was of them doing all this? Like, why would you not bring him in for a workout?

Like, who are you trying to fool? You have the top pick. That part to me was just funny. Was it there some miscommunication about they had, didn't they have a hard time getting him in there? Or was it a choice on the magic's part? And then also were they, were they not kind of like holding the other two teams up over a dumpster

trying to shake whatever they could out of them before they made the pick? I guess so, but it's like, you just tell him, hey, bro, we might take you at number one. maybe come in for a workout. I'm pretty sure he would come. This wasn't like a digression from what we thought was the right order, really. I mean, well, we both like Paolo a lot. I know. I think that Paolo, interesting because the magic also added Caleb Houston later in the draft, that added another big shooter from Michigan.

He's a little more of a hypothetical shooter at this point, but it could come around. But they just keep adding these big guys. Like, in terms of just looking at their scheme here and who they're going to, going to put it on the floor. I mean, you'd imagine some combination of Fultz, Suggs, Col Anthony, I'd probably lean more towards Fultz and Sugs. And then you get these forwards. They can play together. This is something that you and I've talked about a lot, is that, like, Franz's, like, playmaking ability has opened the door to that, in my opinion. So now you have two playmaking guys that also can act as screeners, also can act as poppers. Palo has a post-up game. What should

be their thinking in the short term about how they're going to play. Do you have any kind of opinion on their lineup situation? I think for sure the big thing is the forward spots. Paulo and Franz together is freaking nasty. That's unbelievable. That's two, six foot ten. Legit six foot ten.

Legit can move with the perimeter, guard both forward positions. Both can handle the ball. Both can pass the ball. Both can shoot the ball. Both should be able to play off each other. I mean, you could do like a three, four pick and roll, right?

That's going to be nasty. I think to me, that's like the foundation of the team is palo at the four, Franz at the three. I think everything else we're figuring out, but those two have got, those are your two pieces right now. Yeah, I'm trying to think of another time. We've had wing combinations. You know, we had like obviously the Jordan Pippin thing.

I'm not trying to go there. But I mean, and then we've had, I'm just talking about like the core of your team, you know, for a while. They had the Vince T-Mack. They had the, I don't know. I'm just trying to think of the ball handling 3-4-4-3 type guys. I'm trying to think of another time a team has had two of them quite like this. Can you think of one historically off the top of your head?

At that size, that's the thing that's unique about them is the size. It's like Tatum and Brown, but three inches taller, right? In a sense. I think that's the idea. I was selling some other people this. I think I always thought that taking Jabari over power. was just total madness. You and I had a lot of conversations

about what ball handling means for players, what it means about your timeline. You made a great point about, you know, Jabari's going to be a great player. He's going to score. I don't doubt that.

I have faith in that and him for what he is. But if you think about like the star trajectory, if you're going to be a superstar in the NBA at that size, if you're going to be somebody that can dictate offense

and not just be a guy that plays at the elbow and creates like no dribble jumpers and stuff like that. You got to be able to handle the ball. And like three or four years from now, Paolo is going to be unearthing parts of his game that Jabari hasn't even begun to unearthed. He's going to be just trying to develop his ability

to probe spaces on the floor. Palo's a really good ball handler, man. I don't know how much of his passing tape you've gotten to see, but like he hasn't even opened up the like manipulation part of his passing game yet, in my opinion. Well, that's something I wrote about earlier in the season, and it was one of the most impressive things for me about Paolo's season is how he improved as a passer as the year went on.

And if you look at his assist kind of like very slowly inched upwards month by month, which is really encouraging. And to go back to what you're seeing about Jabari, for as much as like the craziness about the pre-jaf process was, it's like I think me and you're both in the agreement, Paolo was the better prospect. So even though it seems so weird that it happened like that, it isn't that weird to me.

I was always so shocked that everyone was so sure Jabari was going number one. As you were saying, that never made much sense to me. I remember reading the mocks and it was always like teams around the Lee expect this.

It was almost like they were trying to bully the magic into like taking Jabari. It was like, like Presti and Raphael Stone are like calling Woj every day. Oh, they're taking Jabari one for sure. This has got to put this out of here.

Yeah. The conventional thinking thing is so, funny with the draft. I always see people talk about like, man, these teams didn't look at all at what the boards or whatever it is said. It's just like the boards are bullshit, guys. They're bullshit. All of it's bullshit. Like the smart teams are out there hoping that everyone is like super immersed in the, in the boards, you know, it's like I just always, have you ever watched like a, this is a really random nature kind of reference? Have you ever watched like a flock of like, I don't know what type of bird they are like starling or those birds that fly like thousands of them in like clusters and they all kind of

move together and you can kind of see them in real time improvising to go where the group goes. I don't know what species does it. But I was like, I just think about that with the draft conversation sometimes and you can just sit back and observe it. And that's why it was with Jabari. And when you and I would talk about it, people would just say, yeah, Jabari for sure, number one. And I was just like, I just don't. It's a reminder.

Every time we go through this and we go back and. players go their different directions and we're like, oh, man, we got that totally wrong. It's a reminder to just dig in. I know that you love this, you're way more on this cockamamie side of it than I am based on our conversations the past 24 hours that we won't go into, but what we like in our draft coverage. It's a reminder to dig in and think what you think, you know? That's kind of what I come back to over.

The conversation around it can be so distracting and there's so many prominent smart voices, even within the draft coverage community. think what you think even if you want to get in there and cover the draft that would be my advice to people but I just am reminded of that every year. Yeah I mean for sure

it's the group think it's just prevalent in anything especially something as fundamentally unknowable as the draft there's safety in numbers to go back to your birds analogy right? The birds are always clumped together that big hawk comes

it might get one of you but there's a bunch of you there so but when you're all by yourself in that hawk come. There's no one that protects you, right? You might get it. Yeah. And I think a good way to look at it too is there's a lot of talk, oh, well, Jabari's so young, he's going to add a handle to his game as he gets older.

And he might do that. He's very skilled, very talented. He has a good foundation. The thing is, it's a moving target, right? Yeah, Jabari could add a handle as he gets older. Palo's already got a handle. So now he can develop his handle further while Jabari's still picking up the basics. And that's kind of what gets forgotten too sometimes in the draft.

Oh, well, this guy's going to improve his jump shot. Sure. But the guys who can already shoot, they're working on being movement shooters. They're working on being volume shooters. They're working on their quickening their release point. Right? Because there's so much craft within that skill.

So when you're adding a skill, you're starting off at such a far point compared to some of your peers once you're in the league. So that's always worth remembering when people just kind of casually throw out Oh, he'll improve his jump shot It's no big deal.

He works really hard. Sure. I guess for Orlando, we're talking about Paulo and Franz. I think the first big question that they're going to have to figure out in terms of their broader roster construction is like, do we keep Cole Anthony

or does he need to leave immediately? That would be my question in Orlando right now because you've got a lot of guys who want the ball now. You got number one overall pick. You got Franz who was great as a rookie. You got Sugg who's still trying to figure it out. Cole Anthony has got to fall in line.

Because I would say last year, it was Cole Anthony's team. He was kind of like doing his own little Trey Young stuff for a lot of the season. He kind of dominated the ball. He put up some good counting stats. Can he be a distributor? Can he get everyone else involved? Can to keep everyone happy? Because if he can't, that's going to be an instant.

pain point for this team. Yeah, that's one of the hardest things to develop. And it's something that I really wanted to talk with you about in general is, you know, archetypes, I don't want to go into a big conversation about this. But as I was just, as I was sort of parsing between the top two guys here, it became increasingly evident to me that these are the two type, like two archetypes in the NBA that I value the most. Like a hand, and these are the, these are the types that teams have to build entire rosters to figure out how to stop. If you think about the ball handling four, three, or, you know, Luca Moore, three, four, he's a little smaller than these two. These big guys that can handle the ball and make plays, the LeBrons, the KDs, the Luka's, they're so valuable and they're so

hard to get. And we've seen that, like, what can be the difference between winning a finals or winning a playoff series can be your ability to stop them, you know? Like, Jason Tatum was killing in the playoffs. He finally comes up against another 4-3-3-4 that can come out and is ranging and is flexible and strong and can guard him and Andrew Wiggins and they gave him problems and that gave the Celtics problems. So I was kind of measuring that against the guy who went number two, who we both had number one, Chad Hongren, Oklahoma City comes in and gets their guy. Immediately, I mean, there are some fun aspects to this. The fact that like we actually are going to get Poku and Chet together. The thin towers. Something that we've joked about for like

Over a year, I feel like, because when Chet came on the scene, we were just like, well, what's the most similar thing that we've seen recently, Poku, the fact that they're going to, I hope there's a photo shoot. I hope that we get to see them recreate the Milwaukee Bucks arm to arm thing that they did. Mike Prater tweeted at me. This is a fun thing for them. We'll talk about who else they got, but in the short term, okay, see, how should they feel about what Chet is going to do to their future?

One thing I wanted to go back on real quick, and you're talking about Tatum and the final What makes Paolo so exciting isn't that kind of hypothetical matchup if I throw Wiggins on Paolo I'm going to put him on the block 610-250 you can't cover up Palo except maybe with this guy here

at number two so that's just like kind of top off the power conversation and yeah I mean we both love we both love Chet we've been Chet believers from the beginning I think Presti obviously was a Chet believer

and I just think I absolutely love the fit not only the talent, but the fit of SGA, Giddy, and Chet. Because Chet is like, is such a good finisher. He's so skilled. He can score from anywhere. He can make quick decisions. And it's like, it's a simple stuff too as like a big man,

like catching the ball, making one dribble and finishing. And it sounds so easy, but a lot of big men struggle with that. Chet's not going to have an issue with that, playing off Giddy and S. GA. He can pop out for those guys. He can cut to the rim with those guys. He can play make for those guys. I cannot wait to watch this team. We'll get into all those ancillary pieces because there's a lot of interesting conversations to go on that. But I think it's like worth, especially for Oklahoma City, we have our building blocks now. I think that should be their mentality. Like we've got three guys. Everyone else has got to fit in around y'all now. We've got our guys.

that's the most exciting thing if you're Oklahoma City. You're in year three of your rebuilds. You've got your three guys. Yeah, I think the interesting thing, something that was underrated, I think, about Anthony Davis in college, was A, his ability to kind of fall in line and be efficient offensively,

but he could clean messes up around the rim. And that's something that Chet does too. He's not the same lob threat. Of course, AD is probably the best lob threat ever, I would imagine. He's going to be able to do that thing and give them lineup flexibility. because he can do what Mobley does for the calves, but even better, in my opinion,

where he can, like, stand, he can be your guy that's in the dunker spot or he can, you know, space out to the corner and hit that corner three. For two guards that like to get downhill a lot, I think he just gives you a lot of options. And he's a good passer over the top, which is going to be great for Giddy,

because Giddy can run off ball and as big and his physical. They also got my other guy. This is great. This OKC, I was joking with Tyler. I was like, if they go ahead and draft all my dudes, I might have to just move to OKC. They got Jalen Williams from Santa Clara.

This is amazing because you talk about lineup flexibility and versatility. They are going to have at least four guys on the floor who can make decisions and are really funky pace players. Like Jalen and Gideon, Shea, Jalen has that same kind of thing. He's not super fast, but he's long. I was going to say, you want to explain funky pace to people? Yes, funky pace. when you're guarding somebody, if you play basketball, you probably know. If a dude is super fast, it might be hard to stay in front of them, but you can kind of anticipate them because they don't

vary their speeds as much. Maybe I wasn't a baseball player, but if a pitcher is just kind of throwing hard in one spot, you maybe can anticipate it in time and get a hit off of them. If somebody has crazy command of their speed, the way that Shay and Giddy do, I talk about this in a video that I did back in December, they're really hard to guard because they keep you on the hook and Luca does this too. They start and stop and they have these weird angles that they play from. Jalen has some of that in his game too, and he

can be a spacer. So I don't know if their plan is to play them together, but I love Jalen Williams. He went high. I had him at 10 on my board. I believe he ended up going, what, 11? 12th. He went 12th. Great pick up there. And then they went and got the other

Jalen Williams, which is pretty hilarious later. We'll talk about the other guy they got. But Jalen Williams from Arkansas, a 6-10, really smart player. I could see them playing those guys together. I know they have Jeremiah Robinson Earl, but Jalen Williams, he could start next year. Like, he's a crazy defender to put next to Chet, in my opinion.

And what's interesting, too, is that Jalen Williams and Chet can have some conversations about all the bullshit charges that he took on Chet in that tournament game. So I'd listen to that podcast. You didn't mention Usman Jang. Was that a Freudian slip? We were going to get to it. Usman is a guy with a lot of upside. and OKC clearly feels that way.

And a guy that they traded some first round picks to the Knicks to get, talked about Handel. It's going to take a little while for him to get the shot where it needs to be. But I was really worried about him with the Knicks in terms of development. With OKC, it's perfect. He has passing upside and he has the handle to get there. So that's something that we'll just check in on. What's interesting about that,

and I think this is where it could get tricky for Oklahoma City, is I think it's hard to develop a bunch of featured players at the same time. Right? You could only have so many guys expanding their game at once. You got to have to have a lot of guys on your team who have defined roles

and that allows your primary guys to kind of experiment, right? Can't have everyone Jackson Pollocking on the paint. You got to have some guys you're just bringing the paint to the guy. Everyone can't be a star. It'd be like a band if you had like three guitar players trying to solo all at once.

You need to have a guy that plays drums, a guy that plays bass, and they just play. And then you know what I mean? It's too many voices. And I think that's something OKC's going to have to be careful with going forward, which I think is the flip side of what I was saying earlier about how they've got their cornerstones.

I don't really think you can have more than three. I think everybody else has to fall in line. That's why, like, Diyang is very hard to know what he's going to be ultimately. He's kind of not quite like Poku. but he's just way further down the line. And I just wonder developmentally, if you're OKC, it's like you don't need 50 home run swings. You need guys getting on base.

You need guys taking pitches. Like Jay-Williams, to me, makes a lot more sense, both Jaylins. Because those guys are older players. They know who they are, and they can fit in around your cornerstones, right? I kind of feel like OKC needs to make the transition from just swinging for the fences and grabbing assets

to actually building a team. It's harder to get the cornerstones, but it's less glamorous to actually build a team. And OK, see, they're probably going to keep swinging for the fences, but I think there's a diminishing margin of return when you keep bringing in projects because you just need solid, dependable players who are going to fit in around your stars.

And I think that's where they are already now. And like they have so many future picks, I'm not sure they really need them anymore. If you got your guys, just build a team. Like, it's kind of like with the process. When the Sixers drafted Julila Okle for, it was like, okay, you guys aren't even trying to build a team anymore. Like, you're just doing a modern art project.

Like, let's build a team. Yeah, they were just kind of getting pieces regardless of whether or not they fit. Totally. I was actually reading about that on your pattern of basketball blog the other day that people should go check out. That talks has a whole archive of amazing stuff. stuff out there that people should go check out. Overall, Snowy Leopard on Twitter asked us,

how would you grade OKC's draft? What letter grade would you give it? I mean, A, obviously. I think A plus. I think it was a home run. So at the number three pick, the guy that people throughout the year had number one ended up sliding to number three.

I know Houston was probably pretty excited there for a while, thinking that they were going to get Palo Bancaro at three. Always seemed ludicrous to me. But Jabari Smith ends up in Houston. he's going to round out a core of, I guess, hypothetically, a lot is hypothetical in Houston right now, but we know Jalen Green is a guy they are heavily invested in. And we have Jalen Green and we have Alper and Shingoon.

What do we think about Jabari's pairing on the surface just with Jalen? What do you think about that? I think Jabari, in a lot of ways, he's the ultimate complimentary player. So it kind of makes sense. It's like you naturally segue into how he complements the rest of your roster. I think Jabari, at least especially early in his career, he's not going to be a guy you run the offense through,

but he's not going to need that either. He's going to be able to spot up, move around the floor, make quick decisions, guard multiple positions, and he's going to make the other players you have better. So I think in a way it's like, if I was Jalen Green and Alper and Shengoon, especially Shengoon, I'd be really excited for how this draft played out.

because you bring Paolo in and now everyone's roles are changing, right? Paulo's kind of, he becomes the center of everything. He becomes the dominant star and his gravity is changing what everyone else is doing. Jabari comes in

and everybody else gets to do what they're already doing, but better, right, basically, because he's creating space for them. So I would say it's like, I think especially Shen Guam more than anyone, this is a guy you've loved for a long time and it feels like now he's really

without Christian Wood there with Jabari's based on the floor forum Alper and Shangoon becomes a very, very important player maybe around the whole league. Yeah, I'm not going to act like I've loved Shangoon forever. I definitely had some ups and downs with him. Their roster's interesting because it's a question of what are we building around?

They're further away than OakhC, obviously last year we didn't really get to see a ton from Uzman Garuba. Josh Christopher is definitely way up in the air. They just have a lot of these like volatile guards You're right. You're absolutely right. Jabari spaces, and depending on how much kind of isolation, they're going to want from him in the short term, creator, no, in terms of like a gravity, like he's going to be passing out of the gravity that he pulls. We'll see some of it, but I just don't think that he's going to be the focal point when you have a guy that creates on the ball as much as Daly Green. I think that that is a transition. He's not the only guy that they got, though. Overall, the Rockets did pretty well last night. I wanted to ask you about, we got a question from Twitter. Hot Take J-O-8 on Twitter wanted to ask you, Charks. We love it already. We're already excited for this history handle. What a name. That's your

burner, Hot Take J. Well, it makes sense to me. That's your burner. Admit it. Tari Easton is your guy. You like Tari Isan more than anyone. What do you think about him ending up in Houston at number 17, Tari Aeson with the Rockets. I'm excited. I mean, yeah, I love Tari Isan. And they're kind of like a bizarro Orlando now, I think, with their two forwards. And it's like, I think Tari pairs very well with Jabari. Because Jabari is such a great space, very place so under control.

And Tari's so chaotic. Like, I'm not like a Dungeons and Dragons player, but it's like chaos energy or something. Or what do they say, like, good chaos or, you know what I'm talking about? You might not. I don't know how big a nerd you are. Hornet Lake, jump in. Do you know the answer to this? Chris Sutton, our producer.

Do you know what you know about Dungeons and Dragons? This seems like something you would know. Oh, I know a little bit. I played Dungeons and Dragons in like high school and middle school. That's how long it's been. It's like a chaotic neutral or something or like chaotic good, chaotic bad, right? Yep, you could be chaotic neutral, chaotic good, chaotic evil. Cotic evil is the worst.

Okay, that's Tari. Like, Tari just comes on the court and things just start happening. There was actually, I saw a great clip. when he played Jabari this year. And Jabari's like very under control. And Tarry just comes and blocks his shot, runs down the floor of the other end. It's just absolute chaos.

And I think I love that combination on the wings. I always love big, lengthy wings, which they're going to have now at 6-8 and 610. I think that's going to be great. And like, let's not forget another guy they got at the end of the first round. They're now, I guess, they're the upside high team because they got your guy at point guard possibly. Tai Tai Washington really fell in this draft.

I made this point on Twitter. I thought he got over compressed to the middle of this, talking about the first and second rounds. He has some upside. I had him ranked on my like pick and roll upside in this draft. I had him second, could probably even go like third-ish. But he's in that range of like Ivy, Dyson, maybe even Blake from Notre Dame.

But he's a guy who showed a lot of like fluid dribble shoot ability, which is really important to me in the NBA. if you're going to play that spot. Talking about types of chaos, I feel like he maybe lessens the chaos that was there with their existing guys with like KPJ. That back court is interesting to me. It's a little small,

but defensively, that's a really cool tandem between Jabari and Tari. I like it. I think the Rockets overall did pretty well. Would you agree? Yeah, I like what they did. I think ultimately with Houston,

I think this, the fact that they didn't get Powell or Chet, it really moves things back, not just towards Schengen, but ultimately Jalen Green. They got a ton of complimentary pieces in this draft. Now it's a matter of how do you best compliment Jalen Green? How do you best maximizing him? It's your team.

What are you going to do with it? And now that brings us to Sacramento at number four, which I don't know, man. I mean, we like Kegan Murray. He's a very solid player. But we kind of talked about a couple pods ago and he broke down his game. It's just hard to get too excited about a guy like that

at number four overall. At four, you know, I've talked about this a lot. People make a lot of mistakes based on like, we need to take a swing when they maybe shouldn't in that like six through 14 or eight through 14, wherever. Where does it stop? Where do you stop taking like upside swings? For the Kings, it was a tough situation

because the upside swing of Ivy was dissonant with what they have. Shaden Sharp obviously is a huge question mark that we'll talk about in a bit. The swings didn't totally make sense for them. Maybe they thought Jalen Duren was a little high for them there or something. Keegan is probably the most clever, productive offball player in the draft. That's the, if we're the show called upside, I'll give you the upside Sacramento Kings fans. I'm going to help you feel good.

He's going to get easy buckets because in an offense where the touches are kind of, you know, accounted for, that's the spot. That's a good spot for you. He's going to work for them on that level. But you have raised the point to me that you feel like it raises some defensive questions for them instead of solving them. Yeah, I think that's my biggest concern is that he's not a great athlete. And then you already have DeMontas Subonis in the middle. And kind of like we were talking about with Shangoon with the Rockets,

it's like you really can't have too many average to below average athletes in your front court. And as you've got a guy who's kind of lacking that department, he's got to be protected. He's got to be covered up. And I just don't really feel like they have the pieces to do that. If you're building around Sabonis, I'm not entirely sure what this team is going to look like next year, which is important given that they're clearly all in on that eight seed.

Do you think they'll play Sabonis at the 5 and then go Sabonis, Barnes, Murray? That's their most talented lineup. But are they going to be able to stop anyone? I'm actually with Fox up front. It just sounds like something I would have done on NBA Live in like 2004 to to get the best players on there because I knew I could play the defense to kind of shore it up. Yeah, that's their most talented offensive lineup. It just raises so many questions. Last year, I think I brought up that they were in the 20s in defensive rating.

I don't know if that's going to get better. It's not like Keegan's like a total stiff or anything. It's like he's a decent athlete. He's just not like a high impact, high range of motion movement, kind of a player. Tough night for the Kings. As Kendrick Perkins said on the broadcast, another man's trash is another man's treasure. I love that he Ringo starred that line. That was so great. The Pistons had a huge night. I don't want to shift gears too violently and make King's fans feel like crap even more.

But oh my goodness, this has to be, aside from just getting Cade, one of the biggest, like, nights in Pistons basketball recent history, they pick up J.Nivey miraculously. They go into this one night. They go into this night with one plan, and I think they came out. with another plan. They end up getting Jay and Ivy an amazing fit

next to Cade, playmaking upside, gets to the rim, best athlete in the draft, and then they, what do you think about that pairing just to start with?

Well, let's just say in a vacuum they just come away with Jaynevy. How big of a get is that for the Pistons? It's a really big get. And it's just like,

shouldn't the Pistons have had to have won the lottery to do that? And that just makes it so kind of funny how it works out. Like, it just worked out

for them so. well. And kind of just based off what I was just saying, it's all about like putting pieces together. And you just, I absolutely love the way they're doing that right now. And it's like, it's just a clean fit. And not just

Ivy, I think Jalen Duren, the Memphis Center, who they absolutely just heisted. That's the other one. We'll talk about that in a second. I mean, absolute a heist. I'm so much of that even happened. I think it took everyone like an hour to figure out how he wound up in Detroit. It's just ridiculous.

but the thing about Cade is if you're going to build around Cade you want guys who are elite athletes who can finish around the rim because those are the things he doesn't really have and you got that in spades you got that and like I don't even know what more than spades are in bushels

or whatever you want to say like Duren and Ivy are probably the two best athletes in the draft right? Oh yeah yeah I think they came into the interesting thing for me is well Troy Weaver has gotten a little bit of grief for his like people react too fast, I feel like, to his, to his move sometimes.

And last night, people were just like, what the heck is going on? And I came out of the draft lottery thinking, man, poor pistons. They really needed a big pick here to, like, help their core move forward. And for this to happen and for the athleticism of their team cumulatively here to jump forward the way it is, the way it will, adding Duren, with Duren, you're adding a lob threat, something they really need. When you have a playmaker, we've talked about this a lot. It's the same thing with Luca.

It's the same thing with Hardin. If you got a playmaker who's big like that and can pass over the top, you need rim pressure. And for them to snag him, I was hoping that they could maybe find a way to get a pick in that like 6, 7, 8 range so they could get Duren.

And for them to get him all the way down at 13 is crazy. I thought Charlotte could have used Duren. But he's 18 years old. He'll turn 19 in the middle of the season next year. I just think it's a big, big thing. I kind of wonder, one thing I would say, though, is,

I wonder about the shooting with this team too. They got super athletic. Do you think that they're going to need to just put two incredible shooters at those other two spots saying hypothetically we play these guys together? I mean, that's what makes Cade. Cade is a great shooter, right? That's kind of the complementary pieces aspect of it.

And for like the basketball nerd, it's like you just love to see two players whose strengths and weaknesses complement each other so well in terms of Ivy and Cade. And that was the problem last year When you had Hayes and Cade and Sadiq Bay It was hard to watch

It felt like you're watching a bunch of guys Like, you know, running around in concrete Right? Just dribbling in circles Not getting to the rim And now they've got They got guys who get right to the rim And not only does like Ivy get to the rim But the things Ivy struggles with

Not gonna be an issue with Cade, right? Ivy does need to be a great shooter because Cade's a shooter. Ivy doesn't have to be a great passer because Cade's the passer. Ivy doesn't have to guard wings because Kade can guard the wings. Conversely, Kade doesn't have to guard point guards.

He's not that fast. Ivy can do that. He's much faster. Kade doesn't have to have put pressure on the rim as much. Ivy can do that. It's like the things that Kade is weakened are the things Ivy is strong in. And the things Ivy is strong in

are the things Kade is weakened. And that's just like, that's when you start cooking with fire in the draft. It's like synergy, right? I'm a big believer in like you have to draft. I'm probably a little bit. more in the fit than most people in terms of building a team. I think once you have your primary piece,

everything else has to fit around them. Everyone else has to have peace. Like, their games have to complement the number one player. When they do, then all your players are better than they would be otherwise. I think that's what Detroit has now. I wasn't super excited about Detroit coming into this draft. Coming out of it, I'm very excited. This is now a very, very fun, exciting team.

Yeah, this went really well for them really quickly. we move on. Do you think this should end their interest in DeAndre Aiton? I mean, what's the point? You already have Bagley and Duren. Like to me, if I'm Detroit, I'm going after like Miles Bridges. I've already gotten Charlotte once, but let's talk about this really quick. This is just absolutely ridiculous. Somehow, New York for the number 11 pick got like three first round picks. And then one of those first round picks was enough to get a 13th pick from Charlotte. So Charlotte traded the 13th pick for a future bucks first. Like, it's just, doesn't even make sense. Yeah, yeah. It's just what are you doing guys? God, poor Charlotte.

Yeah, I wasn't excited about the Aitin thing to begin with. I was like, why pay him? Just do, anyway, the toughness of the team went way up. The Pacers pick up Benedict Mathrin really quick here. Big wing that I think is going to be able to play. There's some, there's some questions about like who's going to go and who's going to stay. I mean, Indiana is very in flux. I've even heard that Duarte's name thrown around, Brogden's name thrown around. I think that Matherin pairs well with, a vacuum, he pairs well with Halliburton. A lot of people believe in his star upside. Personality wise, tools-wise, I could see that. Defense and playmaking, I've been a little softer on than

other people. What do you think about that pick? Yeah, it's, and Mathuron, Halliburton is kind of like a poor man's Ivy Cunningham, isn't it? Like, it's kind of similar skill sets a little bit. Yeah, I mean, in terms of the way they kind of interlocked, the Pacers are just so, and at six, you make this move. I don't know, if the Kings had taken Mathron, I wonder. how I would have felt. I don't know. It's just like at four and at six, it played out in this odd way, mainly because the guy at seven, people were afraid to take. And I think if they were a little less afraid, a little less afraid, a little less afraid they would have taken him. Portland takes Shaden Sharp at seven. Sharp, Simons, and Dame. This feels like a long-term play. Sharp, I guess they

have some kind of belief that he's going to come in and be maybe a contingency, like down-the-road playing for them as a star. Do you think that Simon? and Sharp makes sense. Okay, I got a comment. And I'm not saying you're wrong for doing this, but you skipped over Indiana. Like, golly, you gave them one and a half minutes. I don't know what's to say about it.

I mean, do you want to tack something on there? Yeah. Do we need to pipe in Matt Dollinger? It's just kind of fitting, right? I felt like Indiana, they were the team, maybe more than anyone, really needed to get to this top of the lottery.

Right? if they had gotten a front court piece to pair with Halliburton, now we've got some real momentum going, and it just kind of feels like Indiana and Sacramento. And I think a few more teams in the back half of the top 10, it's like, man, it's just tough. If you don't get luck in the lottery, you're just stuck sometimes. And you start making picks to keep that eight seed,

and it's just you just get stuck there. And that's kind of feel like even though they've started to actually rebuild, I just feel like they're so far off. Yeah, the journey out of the middle is brutal. You're stuck on the island and lost, and you're trying to use all these ways. You're taking the boat. You're trying all these different things to get off the island.

It's hard. I mean, and that's kind of where they are. And for that reason, you kind of understand why teams decide to just, like, embrace the free fall and go to the bottom. But the Pacers here, they have some moves to make. I've been, you know, Matherin, like we said, on paper, it's a stay tuned situation. They're way less locked into what they're trying to do

than the Kings, and I think that's maybe why I'm less reactionary to it. But mainly I was just trying to like nail a segue there, and I'll make the segue again if that's okay with you. Shade Sharp, as we've said, crazy upside. I mean, go watch the video I made on and watch the film, even if you mute me. Just go watch this guy, Drew will pull up and get to the rim.

Crazy explosive athletes, 611 wingspan, 6'5, 6'5. It looks like he could get bigger and stronger. The question is the character with him. Does that front office think that he is going to fit and be a good long-term plan with him? Simons and Dame and Shaden, though, to me, together, is pretty funny to think about together. That doesn't really work.

What do you think? Yeah, it's funny at this sec. Kyle, you're smoothly changing lanes. And I'm like grabbing the wheel from up the passengers. Right. Swarving back in the traffic. Yes. Yeah, I think the big thing for Portland,

which is like this pit, I believe this is the same pick that ended up being used in the Dern trade, the pick they traded Jeremy Grant for. I think that really gave them the flexibility to take more of a long-term swing on Sharp and not feel boxed in. So we have to find an older player to compliment game. I think the fact that they added Grant means, okay, which I think everyone kind of thought for a while it would have to be trading the 7 for Grant. but they're able to keep this happen, add Jeremy Grant. And now let's just go for it a little bit. Let's actually try to get out of the middle.

Let's take a big swing. And yeah, it does kind of feel like there's separate tracks now. There's the Simon Sharp track and there's the Dame Grant track. And I was a little surprised. I was kind of thinking maybe they would trade seven again for like John Collins and 16 and go all in on Dame. But now they seem to be like, they seem to be having the multiple track. Once again, Portland is kind of like the bootleg Golden State,

where they're doing all the same things Golden State does, but in a much lower level. Ouch. God. Well, kind of feels like that now with the taking sharp with having Dame still there. It's a very comminga and curry thing, right? It's the embodiment of the CJKD Twitter exchange.

Oh, we were right there. Katie, bro, you really think that? That's just so painful. Look, we're just going back and forth pissing off fan bases. Let's just, you want to take a dump on New Orleans real quick? Here's my hope. Sharp obviously has the talent. If they bring him along slowly, if he's willing to embrace that, then great. Him being overexposed, over-depended on would have been the worst thing for him. I hope that this works out for him because he has a ton of talent. I actually have one question for you, Kyle. Shoot. As the world's, I think, safe to say the world's Shaden Sharp expert, do you think he'd be better off staying in Portland this year, maybe playing like in the Moses Moody role, like five, ten minutes a game?

coming off the bench, or just going to the G League and like boss hogging the ball all year, taking like 20, 30 shots. Two minds. Personality-wise, I think he needs to be, he needs to learn accountability on the big show, on the big roster, whatever the nickname is for it. In terms of like skill development, he has the upside to become a score creator. So, and I'm a believer in like the approach that like the spurs take and like taking their wings and being like, here's a ton of pick and roll reps.

I think that that would be great for him. I would lean towards him being in the big show just for a little bit. And maybe you bring him back and forth. It's obviously going to be more gray than black and white. That would be my take. One fit that I really, really liked in this draft, we're obviously not going to be able to get through the whole first round. We'll try to, like, just touch on a couple here before we move on and bounce around some quickly.

I wrote about this on the ringer, in our exit survey thing. I love the Dyson Daniels fit with the Pelicans based on what they have going on, based on what he could bring to their existing. You talk about existing pieces and investing in that. I even think Dyson would have made sense with Sacramento. I thought that's why I was thinking about him. I had him higher than other people did. He's like nearly the same freaking size as Kagan.

He has a high, he has an upside that is more expansive in my opinion. I think the shooting, if you put a connective playmaker, you've commented that he plays like Lonzo. 100% agree with that. You put him between, and I don't know how much they're going to do it, but if you put him between Ingram and CJ, this is a guy who has, we talk a lot about like low touch time, low touch time, high quality decision threshold. Dyson is there. And the other thing that really interests me is the shooting. I'm like a Fred Vinson Stan. The issues in Dyson's shooting mechanics are fixable in my opinion. Their lower body, this touch is good.

Vincent is the master at this. I really love this pick for New Orleans. I was going to say this is like the Kyle man part of the draft right here. Yeah, Dyson at 8, Sohan at 9. So like these are your guys coming off the board one by one. And I think with Daniels, and yeah, the Lanzo comparison is funny because they had Lanzo. I would have liked to have seen like Mathron here. Because my thought with New Orleans is, yeah, kind of like we've been saying before about how like it's a moving target. Yeah, Dyson can definitely improve as a shooter.

And my concern is, it's like Lonzo, right? Lonzo needed two teams to really find his shooting stroke to now become a very valuable player because when you play like Lonzo, you've got to get up threes. If you're not going to be a ball-dominant guy, if you're going to be a connector, you've got to finish possessions sometimes. And I look at New Orleans and I see a lot of guys

who start possessions and a lot of guys who connect possessions, but there's not a lot of floor spacing, especially when Zion comes back, right? That's the question. So you have Zion, Ingram, Herb Jones. It's very Raptorzy almost. And it's like you need your Gary Trent player.

That's what I feel like New Orleans needed more than a connector is a Gary Trent type. Give me someone who's going to bomb like eight threes a game. CJ's going to help with that obviously. Well, hypothetically, Trey Murphy is going to become that guy, right? The lineups could be really interesting. If they go like Zion Herb, I mean, obviously Yonis is there as well. But I mean, if they go like Zion, Herb, Dyson, Ingram, McCollum, you could have Ingram Guard

Force, it just is interesting. It's interesting how much goodwill, this is another point I made. It's interesting how much goodwill the Pelicans have based on one series against the Suns who ended up being a little wobbly. But they do have pieces in place and they're an interesting team. We can't linger

much more here in this area really quickly. Sohan to the Spurs. Makes a ton of sense. I loved his outfit last night. And you just jump in here at wherever you'd like. Johnny Davis. I just think, yeah, like, Spur and wizards. These are the teams I was kind of saying

it's like it's just hard to get too excited about them. They're stuck in the middle, the middle, end of the lottery, especially the wizards.

Like, they're just not taking big swings. Johnny Davis to me is like, not that he's exactly the same kind of player,

but it's the same kind of pick as Danny Aviya, as Rue Hachamura. I just don't see a ton of upside there and I see a fairly low floor.

I'm just not like the Johnny Davis Bradley Beal backcourt. The only exciting thing about that as like Bradley Beal's finally going to have to be a point card. Yeah. If you're going to pay Bradley Bill like $50 million, she's got to have the ball in his hands all the time.

You're going to want to see that. But it's like John Ane Davis is not really a spot-up shooter to play off Bradley Beal. Not yet, no. Johnny Davis is not really a playmaker to let Bradley Bill play off the ball. Johnny Davis, like solid defender, but not like overwhelming athletes, super long arms, guard street positions to cover Bradley Beal on defense. I just, you just worry when you get in this range of the lottery, especially, it's just very easy to start piling up guys.

And like, that's not very helpful. I think the Spurs another example. So we won't get too into them. I mean, we like Sohan. They drafted Malachi Branham and Blake Wesley. But it's like, well, they still have Lonnie Walker. They still have Devin Bissell. They still have Josh Primo.

It's like, how many six, five shooting guards do you need? And when you have a lot of like mid first round picks, late lottery picks, this is what happens, right? Like you're kind of hoping Branham and Wesley become Lonnie Walker essentially, right? Like you're thinking they're going to be explosive two guard scores. But you've already got that player. You spend four years developing them. Now probably is on his way out because you have two guys behind them with the same role.

I'm going to make another music metaphor here. There's a thing in music, it's a sonic phenomenon where when you stack likewise frequencies on top of each other, there's a thing called phasing where they start to cancel each other out and you can't hear either one. And a lot of times they're talking, it's kind of theory of songwriting thing where if you're trying to write a good part for a song and you write a couple parts in a row or two or three parts in a row

that kind of sit in the same space, they kind of cancel each other, which means you've written no good parts. And I feel like we're in a position here with like San Antonio, where there's just like dissonance phasing going on. Maybe they're trying to just pick how to move forward. Maybe you run into this with teams

that are trying to thread the needle and stay in the middle, like the wizards. They won't just embrace the free fall like we've talked about. Speaking of free fall here, I said that like Chris were walking for some reason, free fall, was there a player that had a like precipitous fall that shocked you in this draft? Which fall shocked you the most?

This is a good transition now that we're out of the top 10. Once you got past like seven or eight, this became purely an eye of the beholder draft where I don't think the value at 10 or 11 is much different from the value at like 21, 22. if not even further than that. We kind of talked about this in the last pod. This is where front offices make their money.

You can tell the front offices who can draft well by who they're picking in the middle of the first round. So, I mean, the guy I love is A.J. Griffin at 16. I can't say I'm surprised he fell, though, because of the medical stuff. I really don't know what that looked like. But that's the guy to me.

I love the value at 16. To me, like, the sweet spot in this draft was 16, 17, 18. Griffin, Eason, Dalem Terry, the guy the Bulls picked. I really like those picks. I expect that's where you're going to see a lot of the value in the middle of the first rounds.

You want to talk about your guy a little later on? Well, I was going to say there's a transition here to, we wanted to both just throw on there that we, neither one of us like the Cavs pick at 14 with Agbaji. I had Akbaji in like the high 30s. Well, that was KOC's one C of the night. KOC was mean. You did something wrong. you know, he's such a nice guy.

I'm just saying. KOC was socially promoting the whole draft. A big theme here is how you choose to use your post high school graduate year. This continues to be a theme, talking about falling. And we got a question from Twitter, and this is pertinent and relevant to the Mavs. Jaden Hardy, if I butcher this name, I'm really sorry that I've interacted with this guy in the past. Akshay Bopsar asks, do you think that there's larger significance? in the way that Jaden Hardy fell

after playing in the G League in the night this past year and being a top ranked player coming into that. Do you think there's larger significance there going forward? I actually wrote about that in our winners and losers.

And that was, by about like pick 25, I was like, oh my gosh, Jaden Hardy is going to fall out of the first rounds. And it's not that surprising, though he wasn't the green room,

given the way he played, but when you take a step back, it's really surprising. So the backstory is Jaden Hardy was number two in this class coming into the season. So it was Chet, Hardy, I believe, Palo and Jabari top four.

Which is insane. And then Hardy was supposed to be the Jalen Green of this year's Ignite team. They built the team around him. I gave him the primary role. And it just didn't work. He really struggled. He was a 6-4 guard,

not super athletic, not a playmaker, kind of a volume score, didn't really set up any of his teammates very well, didn't guard very well, super inefficient. He had a very, very tough season. And I think what's so interesting about that is like,

in a way he was kind of set up to fail, right? Like that kind of player can really struggle in the G-League against guys five or six years his senior who are just so much more skilled, so much more kind of reading the game plan, knowing how to guard a player like that. And you just wonder, going forward, I talked about this in the articles,

is the G-League Ignite, they're competing for players going forward, right? Those guys can go to overtime elite, which is not going to be nearly as competitive as the G-League. Just reality. They're playing other high school players. They're getting paid just as well. Or those guys can go to college basketball or they can go overseas. And they can all make just as much money as you can in the G-League. And then G-League, you might get totally exposed.

This is straight, ruthless competition. And you risk losing your confidence a little bit, too. like getting just demoralized by these older guys. And it's like everyone almost had ripping Shaden Sharp. It's just so funny, right? There's so many quotes. Why is Shade and Sharp skipping on competition? What kind of just say about him as a play?

All his anonymous quotes are ripping him in the pre-jraft process. Well, Shaden Sharp went top 10 without doing much of anything. And it's hard to believe Jaden Hardy, if he had just went to Kentucky and like faked an injury. He didn't have a top 10 pick this year, right? Yeah, it seems like it. talking about like how you choose your your post grad year. This ties into another question. Zamora on the NBA asks us,

who fell to the best situation for them? I think this is a two-parter double whammy. The fact that the Warriors picked up Pat Baldwin at the end of the first round here is pretty incredible. Baldwin obviously had, well, 28, had a rough year. He went to play for his dad at Milwaukee, had some weird injury issues,

kind of similar to AJ where he had dislocations except they were in his ankle. There's more to that. Don't quote me on that. I probably got the details. There's more to it. But he had a tough year.

But he's a guy with a lot of size. He also measured one of the worst athletic like output combine measurements on record. I know that he posted the lowest vertical in like the past 10 years. I think he did like a 26. It was something incredible. Like I really think you or I could maybe do that.

I was going to say he's putting up upside high podcast numbers. Yeah, we should do like a live thing and just see if I can beat him. But no, this is a guy who has great size and he can shoot the ball, shoot it with movement and that has value in the NBA. And you're talking about having an existing going to a place that has existing offense in place that depends on uphill pressure. That's the kind of place you're talking about. But guys in the past that have had like poor athleticism output, Olinick, DeLon Wright, Ty Jerome, Grant Williams, Xavier Tillman, Jeremiah Robinson, Earl. You can get by if you're smart enough. The question is, how hard is he going to work to improve as a defender?

I thought that that was an interesting fit for the Warriors at 28. I was trying to touch you up earlier, but you wouldn't take the segue. Let's talk about your guy, David Roddy. For my main man. Hey, okay, let me just say something. I'm not trying to be a hipster here, but I had all these people circling around being like, oh, yeah, Roddy, I had him high too. Don't do that to me.

Don't do that to me, okay? I was talking about this, but no one came with me. I mentioned Roddy. People fucking laughed. All right. listen, this dude can play. The fact that the Grizzlies jumped up and picked him where they did, I was, I was like clapping like I felt like an evangelist running around my house.

The spirit had moved. Roddy is a dude who can pass, he can dribble, and he can shoot. And I think the passing part of it's underrated. He's going to be fun there, man. And I really am going to enjoy him in that system. Like, he's a good player. I mean, it's always nice when the Grizzlies pick a guy you like. It definitely feels a little validating

because they've been the best drafting team in the league the last couple of years. So it's kind of like Zaire Williams last year. And as always, I'm not trying to be a hipster, but no matter how you start that, start that setting, it's going to end very well.

Two examples of what I was talking about earlier. People, the conversation can bully you and be like, what are you seeing, my man? And just dig in. That's all. I've been wrong plenty of times, but I've aligned with the Grizzlies

lately. Santi Aldama, another one that I was like, I think this dude can play. And then they picked him. I had Roddy at 19. They picked him a little past that. But I thought that that was an interesting one. I think that I wanted to say too quickly that, well, one thing you skipped over is that Hardy,

before we do that, Kenneth Lofton and David Roddy on the same Summer League team, I mean, come on, folks. I picture them like, I picture them like the two guys in like the son on those like RICO commercials where they're like, breathe. I could see those two sitting next to each other. I was going to say Kenneth Lofton, for those seven, get a chance to watch him. He's awesome. He's so great, man. He's, he's fantastic.

He'll be in the, he's in a Grizzlies two-way contract. He's a 65-point center by, like, by 65-270. Just fantastic. Incredibly crafty player. But you skipped over Hardy to the Mavs. I mean, that was the thing. We talked about what happened and the storylines here, but what do you think about Jaden Hardy on the Mavs? I like him as the idea.

The Mavs clearly. you could see in the playoffs. There was not a ton of shot creation off their bench. And Hardy, you know, it's a classic. He's not big enough to be a wing, but he's not a point guard. So if you pair him with a big wing playmaker like Luca, it kind of makes sense.

The main thing for him is going to be in Dallas, like you're just going to have to guard if you're playing with Luca. It's like he'll probably, it's a funny thing that has happened sometime with the Ignite guys. Like it's happened to Deshawn Knicks last year. And Isaiah Todd, too. like they were in the ignite and then the next year

they're just back in the G league they're not Ignite guys anymore they're just G league guys and he'll probably be back there working on his game I thought it was a solid gamble I mean we'll see obviously definitely worth of picking us

in the second round yeah I was going to say did they just basically pick up lower expectations Dennis Smith Jr. Some other guys I got excited about Max Christy my guy went to the Lakers

that'll be an interesting fit noteworthy wise Musa Diabate to the Clippers do you like that fit? Yeah I mean we're a big deal Diabate fans. It's just Diabate, he's 6-11 and he has ball skills. And you just don't see a 6-11 guy with ball skills go to 43 very often.

That's pretty much the extent of his game right now, but that alone is worth a second round swing. A couple other guys I like in the second round, just kind of lightning round. He mentioned Jalen Williams. I think Christian Coloco to Toronto. Christian Coloco is like the example of, do I need a draft the center in the first round?

if I can just get Christian Kolope going around two. He's seven foot one. He played power forward at Arizona a lot. He can move his feet pretty well. Very long, very athletic. He kind of fits in perfectly with the cold bit in Toronto. I think he'll be a good. You know, they already have like four or five centers off the bench.

He kind of fits right in there. We said Max Christie. I'm a big Josh Minot fan. Oh, yeah. What interesting to watch will be there was a bunch of really high level wings. Perkins mentions on the broadcast. And we'll see who took the right swing. So you had Payton Watson at 30 going to Denver.

Another really interesting one. Caleb Houston at 32. Josh Minot at 45 and then Kendall Brown at 48. And they're all in the same bucket of 6 foot 8 athletic wings, didn't produce much in college, very, very highly touted coming into college, just kind of wild swing to this point in the draft. My suspicion is one of these guys is going to make their team look, really, really smart, maybe two.

But it's kind of, they're in the G League now, and good luck to you, sirs. Good luck to you. Yeah, there was a cluster of fives, I think, that we talked about that I was like, if you can separate those guys, that's going to be the difference between smart and dumb here. And it's like Coloco and then Ishmael Kamagate and then, you know, Walker Kessler, I would even say. But then another guy that your team picked up on a two-way named Marcus Bingham,

there's a group of guys there that could end up being NBA players, was surprised at Trevor Keels fell to 42. Interesting pickup. He fits kind of the Knicks culture. Isaiah Mobley got the treatment from his brother. I also like Kendall Brown. It's a similar kind of Vando situation. He's got a little ways to go in terms of his positional defensive IQ.

Overall, though, man, another draft in the books. I don't know. This day, every year, I just kind of feel like, oh, I don't know. It's weird to think about something for a year. and now we, the order that they go in, the work's not done, you know, we got to go see what the results are, even though I was, I felt validated by the Grizzlies picking Roddy high. He's got to go earn that, you know. So I don't know. Any kind of broad takeaways from the draft that you want to hit on before we, before we wrap it up? I mean, the main thing is that you felt validated. I'm very glad to hear that. That's what we're here for. This is, this is what's going on. I think if we're talking about Marcus Bingham, that's probably a good, a good, a good segue to wrap up. Drop up the draft. Okay, what I wanted to ask you, and this is a question

you can maybe get into in the off season and the start of next year. There's a lot of really exciting young teams now. I think this draft from the last draft, a lot of talent came in

at the very top. There was this question when Golden State was like, who's the next Golden State? Maybe it's Memphis, maybe it's Dallas, maybe it's Boston, Minnesota. But there's not like,

there was not a next wave of teams behind those teams. I think there's a next wave of teams now. especially the teams who are drafting in the top five, who would you take out of, and if there's someone else you want to mention, go ahead, out of Detroit, Houston, Oklahoma City, Orlando.

Who would you most want to be going forward? I think Orlando is like a piece away from being a tough-ass team. I really do. I posed the question in our Slack. I was like in the next five to six years, which team's going to have more playoff success? The Sons or the Pistons? did you have a knee-jerk reaction to that one?

I mean, do you think, I didn't think that that was a clear answer. Assuming CP3 is out of there and assuming Mikhail gets, you know, I don't know. So much of what's talking with the Sons is with crime with the Andre Aiton. Yeah. If they're going to move them, what asset do they get back? I mean, you got to love the Booker Bridges combo. That's a very established proven combination. That's true.

Don't dodge my question, though, with your other hypothetical. I want need you an answer. Are you going to say Orlando? I like Palo. I mean, obviously, we both love, there's the element of. of Oklahoma City that's just fun. It's like I need it to transition into real a little more. You know, I think, but I think if Orlando makes one more move to get like a shooter creator,

I don't know what that would be. I think they're pretty freaking close to being a headache at least, you know. That would be my answer for now. I don't know. If I thought more about it, maybe I'll circle back and have a different one, but that for now, that's my answer. I mean, it's like originally Orlando, the plan was like Isaac and Gordon forwards. We didn't even talk about Isaac.

Yeah. It's hard to, after all his injuries. But now it's like, that's a next level, Paolo Wagner. That's just a way, way more skilled combination of forwards and Isaac Gordon. So that's really exciting. I'm ultimately say Oklahoma City. We're just chat believers.

So we're going to ride that chat train a little while. And then I got to shout out your boy, third eye, Tyler Parker. In terms of spit takes from this draft, when he, let me find this. Jeng idolizes Tony Parker. Good thing most of the dudes on the OKC roster are too young to be married. Like, what do you even say after that? I laughed out loud at that.

I was like laying in bed. I couldn't put it in there. I was ridiculous. That was a good one. Yeah. Anyway. All right, guys. Thanks for listening and talking about the draft with us over the course of this year.

I enjoyed parsing and talking about these guys' skill sets with you in particular sharks. And I'm excited to kind of see these guys to see the first wave. of it in the summer league we're both going to be there uh i'm sure we'll try to do a pod while we're out there check out the rest of the like follow-up draft coverage that we're going to have on the site there's going to be a bunch of it as we move into free agency basketball don't sleep i would like to sleep a little bit coming up but yeah it's been it's been a fun ride really enjoyed doing it this year i think this most likely we won't be doing any upside high pods with free agency all that

stuff we'll probably do one post summer league and then maybe be on a summer break for a while but it's been a hell of a ride. It's our first year doing it. We've really enjoyed it. We've really appreciated all the support on social media. We are actually just saying we should have done more mailbags. So sorry to all the folks who tweeted us questions. Next year, we'll answer them a lot more often.

That was our fault. We appreciate the sport. We've had a great time. Shout out Hornet Leg. I'm coughing up a lung during this and he has to fix all the recording. So, yeah, it's been great. All right, guys. We'll catch you soon.

We'll let you know when we're coming back. See it.