The Ringer NBA Show - All-Star Reserves, Lakers Lose Three Straight, and Porzingis Trade Rumors | Group Chat

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

Justin, Tjarks, and Rob are joined by The Ringer’s Dan Devine to discuss whether the Lakers are in trouble after losing three straight (01:30), as well as Kristaps Porzingis trade rumors (08:00). Later, they discuss their picks for All-Star reserves (17:30). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Jonathan Tjarks, and Rob Mahoney Guest: Dan Devine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They don't have guests. They have contestants. Ten Questions with Kyle Brandt is the perfect game show and talk show hybrid that you need. Check out 10 questions exclusively on Spotify. Hello and welcome to Group Chat, the Ringers Weekly NBA Group Discussion, where unlike LeBron, we all need more rest. I am Justin Verrier. Joining me today, Jonathan Jarks.

I'm excited. We have a ringer legend on with us. That's true. Are you talking about Rob Mahoney? Because he's here every week. Not a legend, but I'll take it. Okay. We're talking about the other ringer legend.

That is Dan Devine. What is that, my friend? Not a whole lot. I mean, it's the first time anyone has ever called me a legend without being sarcastic, like, really brutally. So I'll take that, Justin. Thank you very much. Only moderate sarcastic. It's like legendary, legendary asshole, legendary, you know, slob, you know, things like that,

for sure. Well, talk about your hair, Dan, if you want to talk about that. If you want to talk about how, you know, how, you know, lushest and glorious it looks, that's all, you know, you can see it in full HD video. That's what's happening right now. It's been a full quarantine year of no cutting hair. So it's getting kind of wild back here. It's gorgeous.

Charks was just saying how jealousy is. I'll do locks for love for you, man. I'll share some. Thank you. All right. So on today's podcast, we are going to get into some reserve debates for the All-Star game, which is Tuesday night.

That's Thursday night, which is what I told the rest of the staff as we planned the week of content. So apologies to Zach Cramm off the top of the podcast. All right, we've got some news, but we're going to get through this quickly because I really want to get to our reserve debates with our expert all-star selection artist here, Dan. Last night, the Lakers lost for the third straight time. It was against the Washington Wizards. It was in overtime. It was a goddamn mess.

They're now nine and seven at home, which is really, really weird for a team that just won the title and is otherwise pretty incredible. Dan, are you worried about the Los Angeles Lakers? I think we can all say that this is the whole season's over. It's a wash. You know, give the award the title to the jazz and let's all go home. I mean, I guess we're all already home. No, I think the worrying thing to me is not that the Lakers are going through a downturn right now. I mean, they don't have Anthony Davis.

They don't have Dennis Schrooter. LeBron's kind of the only guy on the roster that can really regularly create stuff right now. So I think that's, you know, to be expected. The issue for me is this the amount of work that LeBron's having to put in right now. It's crazy. I was checking it this morning. Only Julius Randall and Fred Van Vleet have played more minutes than LeBron this season. He's averaging 38 minutes a game over the last 10 games.

Like that's three legends. Three legends. I mean, yeah, we're just stacking legend on legend on legend in this podcast. But it's like the every year we talk about this and whether LeBron should load manage more, whether the Lakers should do that, whether LeBron's interested in that, whatever. If it keeps going this way, it's going to be an issue that we're going to talk about again and again.

Did you see his quotes from last night after the Wizards game? Yeah, he's not a fan of it. I'm not a fan of the idea. I believe there was a Jim Boil and Punch Clock. My favorite party goes, I'm resting now talking to you guys. It's like Zuckerberg in the social network. You have the minimum amount of my attention

is what LeBron is affording us in those. post-game moments. I do feel like LeBron has been campaigning for the MVP since the last one was decided even before that. And so I definitely get that. And like, it's a typical athlete thing to be like, no, I actually don't need to sit. I could play 48 minutes for 82 games a year. But yeah, you could definitely see it on the court.

I guess if you want to play devil's advocate about the home record specifically, which I think is the really weird part about this, four of the recent losses came without AD. But then there's this long-running thing that Bill Orham wrote about. on the athletic, that this is a problem dating back to last season, where LeBron not playing those minutes is a concern. I guess the question is, do we think Dennis Schroeder is like the answer to that? Rob, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think this is, you know, it's not injury, it's compounding injury.

It's, you know, if you're going to have LeBron on the court, who are the two guys you absolutely cannot afford to lose for this offense to be functional, and they're Anthony Davis and Dennis Schroeder. Like, that is your entire capacity for non-Lebron offense. And you can see it even, you know, when he's dishing off to guys, and practically begging them to hit shots, to make plays, to give him anything to work off of or play off of, it's just not there right now.

And you can be the best defensive team in the league and still put up bricks, hit roadblocks, have every kind of offensive impediment you can imagine, even with LeBron on your team, at this age, if he's going to be asked to do this much stuff. I guess the question is, like, maybe the concern is like they don't have a traditional big three. so when we're talking about, you know, maybe a series with the nets and the finals,

the clippers shoot the ball, like their whole team is Steph Curry. Are they a less potent offensive team than some of the other contenders, even when they're fully healthy? Well, first off, I'm not going to brook any KCP slander on this podcast charts. I think we've established in the bubble that there is a big three, and it's those three letters, KCP. KC3, which is what the Lakers broadcast is taken to do. And I was there when they first started doing it.

and oh, who's the guy? It's Bill McDonald. And he did it and he turns to his analyst. He's like, KC3, you like that? This is literally what every other broadcast does. But props to him for finally finding. Yeah, Fetch is going to happen one of these days. It's going to come around.

No, I think it's a valid point, John. I mean, like at a certain point, you get into the playoffs and you don't necessarily need that third creator if you're able to have everything else working on all cylinders. We saw that in the bubble. in the postseason run when it was sort of matchup dependent and lineup specific on who needed to be the guy that stepped up in a certain context. KCP did it more often, but they were different sort of different moments for different players. I think you'd expect something similar

this time around, especially if you're getting what looks like kind of the best version of Kyle Kuzma we've probably seen as a complimentary guy who is still able to go get you a bucket. That's, you know, always been his, you know, key, uh, keystone skill. Um, but what that looks like now, in the doldrums of a winner when these sort of operating principles of the underpinning the offense aren't there. You can't really turn to Montres-Harrell in the same way and ask him to create that stuff

against other first units to the same degree. So it can get messy, it can get ugly. It could wind up being a problem in the postseason, but at this point, I feel like I've been cowed into just saying, I'm going to believe that somebody's going to beat LeBron and AD four times in seven games when I see it. Yeah. So they're currently tied for second

with the clippers. The Jazz, as they alluded to before, on a tear. You'd assume just the way they're just, like, reeling off wins, especially at home, that they would probably end up the one seed. So there is a concern that, like, maybe the Lakers path to the finals is a little bit tougher, but, yeah, we've seen LeBron kind of power through that before. So we'll keep track of that, but I think we can all agree. We're not too too concerned about it.

Let's flip quickly now to a team who's currently on the outside of the playoff field. The 14 and 15 Dallas Mavericks, there were two separate rumors suggesting that Christophezz Przingis could be available via trade, and specifically that the Mazz were talking to the Warriors. Mark Cuban has since come out and debunked this as inaccurate. As we all know, Mark Cuban only tells the truth. Dan, what do you think about this? It's a little bit of a weird pairing here, Mavs and Warriors. Do you see an obvious connection?

and if so, like, who is going to the MAVs in that situation? Yeah, I mean, the names that rush to the top of your head are just the other big money names, right? So it's Andrew Wiggins. If you're kind of the Warriors, or if you're Dallas, you're maybe selling the Warriors on, this is a way for you to sell high on Wiggins and get, you know, a higher end stretch five who can protect the rim for the future. And that's in his place. there's I guess injured Clay Thompson, but that seems like just a fundamental non-starter given what Clay Thompson is and has been to the Warriors organization.

And similarly, Dremont, I mean, like the argument, I guess, would be Dremont's decline when it is already there on offense and when it comes on defense, it might come on like a ton of bricks, so get out from under that while you can and also give Luca a defensive, you know, counterpoint. So there's someone who's a genius on the defensive end to the same degree that Luke is on the offensive end. But playing matchmaker does that it seems like a bridge too far for me. It seems like a bunch of interesting names that you can kind of

try to match up together. But when push came to shove, I would be really surprised if Golden State would entertain that. I'm not saying this is out there, but are the Mavs at a point where clearly they want to compete, Luca is good enough to put a

playoff team on his shoulders? Are they in a place where they can entertain something like Kirstapsport Zingas for a package built around, not Wiggins or any of these money players, but the Wolves pick. Are they in a position where they're still young enough

to chase draft capital, or do they have to be looking for guys who can play and contribute at a playoff level right now? I don't think that's the worst idea in the world because, Justin, as you've talked about a million times, when you have the franchise guy,

AD in New Orleans, right? And you try to go all in too early, then down the road. But really like Golden State just drafted James Wiseman. What are they going to be in the center for? That doesn't really make sense. Well, the West is big now. You know, it's like the inversion of the Mike Woodson quote,

the West is big man. And maybe if you had two big men who were both unicorns, as my six-year-old daughter would inform me, two unicorns is better than one. So maybe there's a compounding interest thing there in terms of shooting in size. Yeah. I think it's an interesting idea trading for a pick

because as we talked about in past episodes, like, where is this next number two going to come from? They had cleared all this cap space, or at least set themselves up to have cap space coming this summer in order to potentially chase Janice. But like, who's that next guy? And this is a situation. A couple other teams are facing.

Like, is it Oladipo? Is it, I don't know, Kauai Leonard? That seems like even more of a pipe dream than Janus was. So I don't know where it's going to come from. And I do love the idea of them kind of, taking a step back and being like we have a 20-something Wunderkin, like let's actually make the right move here

because if we make a misstep now, this is something that could potentially lead to him leaving, you know, like a couple years down the line. It's crazy as that sounds. I would say the first thing, like with Rick Carlisle there, I highly doubt they're making any future-oriented trades to bring in a teenager for him to yell at for three years. And then I think we should have a KP conversation, I think.

Like, where is he? Can I just say quickly? the thing with Carlisle since Luca has been there hasn't he been the one to change, not Luca? That seems like the storyline that's been running through there where it's like Carlisle has had to take a step

back and allowed Luca to be Luca to be wild and to make turnover sometimes in order to get the good stuff. I wonder if the calculus in Dallas wouldn't be, let's prioritize Luca, not Rick. I don't think it's because Carla had some come to Jesus moment and he's going to buy a zoo and run a daycare

and his life is now raising children And so much of this is, you know, and Carlisle has been very upfront about this, Luca is the kind of talent that changes you, that you have to tailor your approach to him specifically. Now, if the other young player is a number one draft pick kind of talent, maybe he, that carries over. But otherwise, I think it's kind of Luca in one category, all other teenagers and young 20-somethings and rabble-rousers in another.

And to your point, John, you were saying, you know, maybe it's time to have a KP conversation. My initial reaction to this news was, why are we doing this now? It's been 500 minutes after coming off a meniscus surgery and like a long layoff in a context of a pandemic where half the rotation was out for a long period of time where you can't practice or like work out together all that much. We've barely seen what the Mavericks kind of aim to be so far. And there's all sorts of lineup noise and stuff too. Like, yes, they've been outscored with Luca and and Chris Stapp's on the floor together. But then like you lop off Doreen Phine Smith from those minutes and all of a sudden you're

back to like plus six and a half per 100. So there's there's questions about like how all of those confounding variables kind of work together. And so and you guys, I think, you know, Rob and John, you're both more, you know, closer Mavs watchers than I am, I think. Does it seem to you like this is the time to have the is he really worth it kind of conversation? Well, to me this is, you know, this is news.

This is juicy. this is the kind of thing that gets people talking. It's also doing your job if you're a general manager. If you've been watching the Mavs this season and watching Chris Daps in quicksand on the perimeter trying to guard anybody, really, I think dropping off at least a half level, if not a full level in terms of rim protection,

even putting aside his availability and injuries and what he gives you offensively, you have to have this conversation. You have to constantly be monitoring, okay, if we do need to pull the ripcourt here, what does that look like? What could he potentially get for him? because Porzingis has not been yet the player that they need him to be.

And so if you're not monitoring that situation closely as Dallas's front office, you're failing in your capacity to run that team. Yeah, I mean, the other thing too, like what Dan was saying, though, you're selling about as low as humanly possible right now. So it is tough. Like, let's not forget, in the bubble, he was getting like 30 points a game before his knee injury. So I think if you're Dallas, it's not about like,

you just, you kind of went all in KP two years ago, and you're still in the same place you were then. Either he's going to figure it out. He can be the player. He's shown potential to be or his body's going to break down. He just can't move anymore. I don't, who's trading for that contract

at that size with his injury history, right? And giving you value. That's just, it's hard to fathom. Yeah, which is why it kind of seems to me like the best path forward there is try to get everybody right and see what you actually, you know, what you have in house before.

But, you know, to your point, Rob, this is doing your due diligence. It's, you know, every team is always asking and trying to say having exploratory conversations about everybody who's not their number one guy. So, I mean, it stands to reason from that perspective. But I think Charks is right. Like finding a home that makes sense that gives you what you need to pursue something of value around Lucan now that's better and more enticing than what you hoped to be getting in Porzingis as that like interior rim protector and stretch option and pick and pop partner and all that.

it seems like you're trying to solve a lot of problems in one fell swoop and not really having an optimal way of doing it. Yeah, I think it's important to note that in both stories, the specific language was gauging interest, which, I mean, this could just have been, you know, the Mavericks calling around when they didn't have power and they just wanted to, like, shoot the shit, you know? I think the probably more interesting storyline to this is that the Knicks were probably right. okay okay well I think at the best case scenario for the Christops era in Dallas is he will constantly be nagged by

injuries and you'll constantly have to deal with the fact well is he playing this time can we count on him to be in this playoff series like that is a huge huge obstacle and like maybe it's better than not having a unicorn three point shooting like

seven foot nine fucking like Leviathan out there but on the other hand, like, availability is also nice. Look, it's very revealing that that's the optimal situation you can imagine, Justin. The rainbows in the sky version of Chris Stav's Worsing his future is being constantly injured. Justin always known for his optimism and good cheer. I will say, though, in the service of optimism and good cheer, if you were trying to, like, script out how that trade would work best for the Knicks,

this is sort of what it would look like. it would be he's not quite as, Prasangas is not quite as good or doesn't make quite the fit that you would hope for in Dallas. The Mavericks are not quite as good. And so the value of those future first round draft picks increases and you're not the one stuck holding the $158 million bag while developing some other talent.

And then like making able to make ancillary moves on the side like flipping Dennis Smith Jr. for Rose and stuff like that. So there's an argument to be made that when you follow the transactional chain, this could wind up with the Knicks looking pretty good. I think that's about as much qualifying as I need to do in this context. I could see the optimism just poking through your comments. Just embrace it, my friend. This is going well.

The Knicks are back. Just say it. They're back, baby. They're back. All right. Let's use that as an excuse to pivot to our All-Star Reserve picks. Let's start in the East here. So All-Star starters were announced last Thursday, reserves, and probably are going to be announced today on Tuesday.

We're going to go through some of the more interesting debates on the reserve side of things. So just quickly to go through what we have so far here, the E-Startters, which were, as I mentioned, announced, Kyrie Irving, Bradley Beale, Kevin Durant, Yonan Santéacumpo, Joel Embed. So Dan does a piece for us every year where he makes his bet. He has an official vote with the NBA. And so what we're going to do here is I'm going to run through Dan's picks. We're going to point out the guys who we all have the consensus opinion on, who we all think should be there. And then we're going to target the open spots and try to fill them.

And so Dan's picks were Chris Smilton, Julius Randall, our guy, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, James Harden, Zach Levine, and Fred Van Vleet. Now, I'm going to assume, and you guys tell me if I'm wrong here, that we all agree that Middleton, Tatum, Brown, and Hardin should make it. Agreed. Julius Randall? No, right? I'm a no, and it pains me to pit one playmaking big against the other.

But this is kind of where I would go out of bio over Julius Randall. And I think it's tough for Randall just because Audubio is another candidate who does so many of the things that Randall does well at the same level or a little bit better, that it neutralizes his case a little bit. And there could be room for both. I could entertain that argument. But when you're looking at them head to head for one of these front court spots, I see Audubio as a guy who's a little bit more efficient, who's a better defender. And let's give Randall credit for his defense this season. I think it's been much improved. But the heater at the point now where they're just a game back of the Knicks, despite being hit by injuries, by COVID, about as hard as any team

in the league. Audubio has been the one consistent piece there. keeping them afloat. And if we're going to reward a guy keeping kind of a iffy offense afloat on a defense first team, which both of these guys are, I lean towards the guy who I just empirically think is the better player in out of bio. Yeah, I mean, I think if you start with that, like who's the better player and you break it down? I guess the other guy in this kind of range is DeMontas Sabonis. So he's probably, he's also in your six nine bully ball power forward hub of the offense. I'd imagine of those three guys, only one might get in. Yeah, that was that was exactly the bucket that I kind of wound up in when I started going through these things.

And it was like you're doing the, as surprising nobody, I overthought this. But as you go through like the, you know, player comparison finder in basketball reference and you're looking at all the different stats and comparing advanced stuff, there is a, to me, the, I think the, the adabio argument is really compelling because I agree. I think he's just a better player than Julius. Randall. In terms of, I guess, impact individually this season. My argument there was just that at a certain point, the Knicks have been a better team than the heat. And yes, there is a contextual aspect to that of one team and got hit by COVID and one team did not. And one team had a best player that wasn't available for most of the beginning of the season in Jimmy Butler. And who now, now, of course, Jimmy Butler is going to wind up looking like a really stupid name to

not have on this list because he's been amazing since he's kind of came back. But at the point where I made that pick, it was like, Randall doesn't really have another guy like that. There's no other player on the Knicks that can shoulder any of that load. As much as, you know, I am optimistic about RJ Barrett and Emmanuel quickly. They're not those guys yet. So I thought that Randall as like the lone sort of standard bearer there for a team that was better and in playoff position at that point that I made that pick was kind of the right idea. And Sabonis, same deal. Like you line up the stats for Sabonis and Randall.

And it's like Erie. It's almost exactly alike down to the fact that they're lefties who bruise you inside. Like, it's really wild. I think that all of those are completely reasonable picks. Randall was just sort of like a hair ahead

at that moment. But I agree. I think in a vacuum, I take out of bio, and maybe it's a bonus as well as better players than Randall, but we're not in a vacuum we're in this season.

I think it's a really fair argument in terms of him being the lone guy there. And it's something we have to consider with this stuff. It's so tough for all of these bigs, though, because as we'll get into with these wild card spots, the guard depth in the east is, you know,

that list runs super long right now in terms of credible all-star guards. And I have a feeling both of those wild card spots one way or another are going to end up going to guards. Yeah, we should mention that Dan gave his ballot in, what, a week ago, Monday, last Monday? Yeah, and then since that point,

all of the guys that I didn't put on have been absolutely insane. And some of the guys that I did put on have stumbled a little bit. So, they're reading your stuff, man. You're already creating content. It could be that. It could be that I'm motivating people.

It could also just be that the arc of the universe bends toward me getting dunked on, one or the other. Yeah, this is one of the unique challenges of this year where there's so, there are fewer games than usual. And so even in the span of a week, things can fluctuate a bunch. And I think that brings up the interesting conversation of how much you value winning in teams that are being successful. Because one, like, in both conferences, like everything is just jumbled up. there's like a winner two that are the difference between certain teams. And so I don't know.

Like so on the one hand, like Randall is the number one guy there and he's leading a Knicks resurgence. But like Sabonis is on a better team. And so how much do you factor that in there? It's really, really messy. I lean toward Randall for the reasons Dan did. It's specifically because like he is the guy there. It does feel like Subonis has more help.

I know this gets into the really stupid MVP conversation where like, We give more points to the guy who has a worst team. But if you look at the numbers, they're eerily similar. Sabonis has been more efficient. And they have also been struck by injuries and other stuff. And so it's a similar case, but I would lean to him for that last front. Well, when you talk about the standings being compressed, so like right now, Indiana is the number four seed and there are four games back of number one.

Orlando is the number 12 seed, and there's three games back of four. So that's eight. teams within three games of each other. My thought is I get the idea of rewarding winning, but like I don't want to reward the six seat over the eight seed. That seems a little, I mean, that's like literally the right day you make the vote. I can see one, two, and three making cases for, okay, they're a cut above. We can reward them. But to me, they get to the middle of the pack. These all things are all the same, basically. And that's that, yeah, that's what made it made it really like pretty gnarly to do this is

because once you start getting down to the hair splitting, you're talking about teams that have like remarkably similar, you know, winning profiles or statistical profiles and like just a million dudes who are average in 20 a game and a bunch of dudes who are at 50, 40, 90, like the statistical inflation as offensive efficiency has risen isn't crazy at this point. So there's a lot of right answers and relatively few wrong ones, I think,

but I am confident that we will settle on me having had most of the wrong ones. Well, the East is especially, hilarious this season in terms of the valuing winning conversation because there are five teams over 500 right now. So I guess those five teams are getting a lot of all-stars or else you were handed them out to the Knicks and the Heat and some of these teams at the bottom of the standings right now. Yeah. So what was Ben Simmons eligible at? Because this is another naughty part of the whole thing. Like was he a guard or was he a forward? I'm pretty sure he was listed at guard on the official ballot. But I mean, also if you're looking for a player that best

typifies wild card. Maybe Ben Simmons is about the definitional player of that capacity. It's true. So we only have one available actual spot for front quarter guard. And so where do we end up here? Rob, who are you going on?

I go with Bam, but I also vote in case of a tiebreaker. I think Dan gets it. I go. I go to the All-Star game. Listen, if you want to see entertaining basketball, put me on the court with nine NBA All-Stars and see how it works out for me. Let's do it.

He just really wants to go to the parties with some guy named the baby, who I realize is different than other just baby. No, no, no, no, no. Justin, those parties aren't happening. There are no parties at the All-Star game this year. That's right. Sure.

So, Dan, are you sticking with Julius Randall or would you change your pick if you had the chance? I'm going to stick with Randall. I think that I feel confident in that. I'm not going to argue at all if Banwines up there or Sabonis winds up there. But, yeah, I think that there's something to be said for a player also like completely subverting your expectations or outperforming your

expectations we kind of knew who but bam has improved significantly no doubt and subonis has been fantastic as like the say the key central piece of that but no one saw julius randall doing this not even like the most optimistic nix fan and so i think there's something to be said for that too but uh it again all those things can can go together and you can wind up with a lot of great options sure sharks i'll go bam Okay. So now we have two wild card spots. Dan picked Levine and Fred Van Bleet. Sharks, who do you want to talk about first? Do you want to do Ben Simmons? Yeah, I think Ben Simmons has to be on this list. The way he's played the last couple weeks on offense, combined with his defense. I mean, talking about a two-way monster at 6'10, who might be defensive player of the year.

I mean, yeah, Philly's number one seed. I think, to me, Simmons is a cut above some really good players in this category, but to me, he's got to be on this list. Yeah, I like him for the Van Vleet spot. But, I mean, first of all, bless Dan for having the wisdom and the moral certitude to do what I could not, which was I really wanted to find a place for Fred Van Vleet on this team. I think he's been incredible this season. I'm a great admirer of his work this year. Completely relentless player, great defender. He checks all the boxes of what I want.

And then you put him up, you know, unfortunately, he gives up about a foot to Ben Simmons. And that's where things start to even out a little bit. And like, I'm really just compelled by Simmons' defensive case more than anything. And, you know, the offensive stuff is what it is. I think we put Simmons in a category because he hasn't evolved that much offensively, but the player he was was already pretty good in a lot of settings, especially in terms of accelerating pace, creating open looks for his teammates, generating threes for other guys.

Like, he does so much of the stuff you want that even if he's, you know, on one of those nights where he's only going to shoot six times just because he's doing enough for you that I still really like him there. But it's painful to leave Fred out after the season he's had, and especially now that the Raptors have surged a bit. Yeah, if I can just offer why I did that, because I had the exact same thought where I was like, damn, man, like this is really brutal to not have Ben Simmons on this team.

It's kind of a tale of two seasons a little bit. The first, about the first month of the season, Simmons was averaging like 12 points a game, shooting 51% from the floor and 62% from the line. And kind of there were more nights where you, you were like, even as he was doing all the things we're talking about on defense and with his shock creation, it was like, very clearly, Joel Embed is like dragging that team and Tobias Harris was being discussed as like the second best guy on that team. And then the last 15 or so

games, Simmons has gone supernova. And then the last five in particular, again, in part since I had to write this damn list is because he's like, now he's like 70% from the floor over his last five games. And something like 80% from the line, too, which is a huge issue. Like if all of a sudden Ben Simmons is going to start attacking the rim, finishing like 75% at the cup, getting to the line six or seven or eight times a game, and converting there, it completely changes the complexion of what the Sixers could be. And he becomes a lot closer to the kind of player people have been desperate for him to be as they look past what he already is.

So you're absolutely right. I mean, if we were doing all defensive teams, he'd absolutely be first team this year. He may well be, in terms of purpose. perimeter defenders that it can go up into that. Gobert, Miles Turner, tier. He's right up there as well. Absolutely sensational season for him. And if I can be perfectly honest,

part of why I wrote that and picked Ben Fleet, the way sort of went the direction as I did, is I don't expect Van Fleet to make it. I don't think he's really going to. I think that what's going to happen as the coaches picked these rosters is that Simmons will make it maybe somebody, you know, so there will be some other more offensive firework kind of players.

Or as we said, you know, bam might get one of those spots. So Bonus might get one of those spots. There are so many deserving candidates. I thought it was kind of a good opportunity to say, hey, maybe you all aren't paying attention to what's happening over here. This is a team that's just on a permanent road trip in Tampa. The entire season has had to completely reimagine itself

without its starting centers and starting big men from last year. Charks had written about this earlier in the season, trying to figure out a new identity when Aaron Baines was clearly not it, and Alex Lenn was clearly not at up front and play, you know, reorienting around Chris Boucher and Smallball. the one constant for them there has been Van Vleet on both ends of the court. So I was like, it was a little bit of a tip of a cap to a guy that I'm pretty sure is going to wind up on the outside looking in, but that, you know, the impact metrics,

a lot of the advanced stuff and also just watching night tonight, he's been the biggest reason that they're actually still in the fight. And he may, he's, if you stack him up next to Ben Simmons, one guy looks like an all star and one guy isn't. But I thought there was maybe some value in saying, maybe we can expand that definition a little bit. But you're absolutely right. Simmons has been tremendous all season. Well, Dan, is there anyone else you want to call out just to make sure that they have an incredible next two to three weeks?

RJ Barrett? There we go. You know what? Me and my daughter. Let's have a good two or three weeks. It's getting rough out here, man. It's getting pretty rough. So we've got to do a weekend to get past the one-year point. And we'll see if Chavon listens to this. I don't know if she's going to give us the download, guys. I'm not. We'll see. Family talk is great, Dan. Justin's always trying to shut it down.

It's horrible. Yeah, everybody eats their veggies. Everybody poops. It's great. Well, one thing I do want to bring up with Simmons just quickly here is it's interesting, and this is a benefit of not being someone who gets to pick these things, but it gets to sit back and watch people pick them and then evaluate their picks and pick them to death, pick them apart.

Simmons' offensive numbers are eerily similar to his past two seasons, both of which he made the All-Star game. Now you can make the case that. Like, maybe we shouldn't just go based on the past because that's how mistakes happen. But if we're suggesting that, like, he's basically the same player, maybe even a more impactful defender this season on a better team, to me, that's a really airtight case for him to make it again. And to Chuck's point earlier, which I think is a really good one about like a one or two wins probably shouldn't sway our decisions. Like, the Sixers are clearly a cut above an east. They're currently the best team in the east.

And so for me, like, with this extra week that he's got on this tear, I think that's enough to push him in for at least one of these wild card spots. But I think it's an interesting pivot to some of the offensive-minded guys here because I was looking at Tray Young's case specifically, and it's a similar thing. Now, I believe last year he got in as a starter, which means that he was probably helped a lot by fans. and so I don't know specifically how much we could use that for his case but the Hawks are better this year

he's putting up similar numbers if anything like that team has been a mash unit this entire year and they would be dreadful offensively without him there I have a hard time putting Levine ahead of him if we're saying that Young was good enough last year with this exact same case

So I fall on the same side as Dan with this in the sense that I prefer Levine to Tray Young's case and it's for a few reasons. One of them, one of the most difficult things you can do in the NBA is put up incredible efficient numbers basically with one hand tied behind your back. And that's what Levine's situation is when you don't have a game managing guard

to set you up to run offense. And Levine is still in a position where he's given the ball up, he's moving off the ball, he's doing all the stuff you would want him to do and putting up insane production for a team that frankly doesn't have the infrastructure to prop that up or even really to deserve it

given where their roster is right now. I just think he's radically overperforming anything you could reasonably expect from him. And to me, the comparison point for him is like we look at what Brad Beale did last season. We all agree he had a crazy productive offensive year. The Bulls are just way ahead of where that bad Wizards team was in terms of record.

And Levine is, 65% true shooting, which is nuts, versus a guy like Beale, when you operate that volume, was 58 true shooting. And that's good for that level. But what Levine is hitting is just a different stratosphere

of stardom and production and ability, given the context of his situation, where Trey has control over so much of what the Hawks do. Levine doesn't, and he's still doing this, which is, I kind of end up giving him

the nod for that. I mean, it's really incredible. He is unguardable. Like, there's not many guys in league, but he is literally unguardable. The play I always come back to is a game against the Pelicans, and Levine's on a fast break, and Eric Bledsoe tries to knock him off

and give him up one of those quick fouls, and Levine knocks him off. Because, like, this guy is swole now. He still has a 45-inch vertical. He still jumps 40 inches in the air, and he can shoot from anywhere. It's really, really... I just love watching him play, man.

That guy is a bucket-getting machine in a way, like, few guys ever have been with the number of threes he takes. And I think the part of that too, it's sort of, it's a similar argument for me with Randall, where it's like, yes, Levin was putting up numbers last year and has been able to get buckets for a while. But this is just different. It's an order of magnitude different in terms of what he's bringing to the table now than he has at any point. I don't know. It's perhaps unfair to ding Tray Young for that. Like, Trey Young is doing whatever he can. to carry that hawk's offense through all the other injuries they've had. They haven't, you know, they spent all that money this offseason.

They made all those moves, and they have yet to see that full complement of talent on the roster at the same time for hardly any of the season. And then also lost DeAndre Hunter for, you know, like they've been going through it. And so Trey has propped up some really rough outfits. But I think at a certain point when somebody, you can, like, you're watching somebody take like a quantum leap in real time. and do it in ways that contribute to winning for a team that should be drawing dead almost every night.

And it's like, at a certain point, how do you not reward that? And I think it came to a point for me where most of the arguments against Levine were like, he's not that good a defender. I mean, are we going to put Tre Young in for his defense? You know, he's, the hawk, or the Bulls are not that good a team. I mean, are the hawks running away with the one seed? You know, and so they reached a point where, honestly, to me, Levine just was over Young.

Like it was that, the relevant question for me was more like, do I want to put Trey in or Fred Van Vleet in? And just for my taste and the kind of, my editor Matt Dollinger made fun of me about this. He was like, this is the most Dan Devine aspect you can make is putting Fred Van Fleet in the All-Star Game over Trey Young.

But it's true. So that was a tasting. But for me, Levine was just a cut above. I actually, I got a broader philosophical question for you. I love philosophy. the league, watching the league this season, I really do feel like you just need guys who can reel off 10, 15 points and really quick bursts. It feels like we've made the switch. This is an offensive league now. And like, you just got to have guys who can score really, really quickly.

Because that's how games are swung. I don't feel like these days. It's just one guy just heating up. Like, I'll talk about with Devin Booker. In the game last night, Suns versus Blazers, Booker had 17 points in the first quarter. And it was like, well, that's the game. Like, it feels like to me that's where the league is moving. It's like these hyper-efficient volume scoring. I was going to say, well, as we talk about Ringer Legends, Zach Kram wrote last week about how this has become like the quintessential maker-mis league now, the volume of three-point shooting and that being just something that is the determining factor to a large extent on what teams do, you know, which teams are going to win night tonight. The jazz are a pretty significant example of that. You know, they can look, and they

have looked at certain points in the last week or so, like they're kind of dragging a little bit because they've just been on one. And then they go and for five minutes, they just rip off a 26 to run. And that's your ballgame because if you're able to create those shots and knock them in at a high level at a quick pace, you can just bury another team before they can even take a take a breath. And so Booker is Booker and Levine, Beal, Hardin, Kyrie, KD, you know,

whatever, these are guys that just are that personified, you know? And so, uh, the problem that we face now as people picking this sort of these sort of lists is that there's like 50 of these dudes. And they're, uh, so we got a favorite of into 12 aside, uh, with, you know, the holdovers of guys like LeBron and Kauai and stuff. It's, it gets hard, man, gets really tough. Yeah. I wonder if that specifically isn't the argument for Tray Young. If this is becoming more common that, everybody is scoring in the mid-20s, the high 20s. Do we look for other things? And with both Levine and Young, it's definitely not going to be defense as you guys laid out. And I do wonder if the playmaking aspect of this does sit the scales in favor of Trey over Levine. Tray

obviously has some empty assists and definitely some empty calorie statistics just overall, but he is averaging, I think it's like 10 assists per 36 minutes. And that's something that Levine hasn't quite mastered, maybe not his specific role, but that's another point in favor of Young. And I do wonder if what we're reacting to is that Levine in this season is exceeding expectations in the same way traded last season. And I almost wonder if it comes down to where we're setting the bar for each player. And if that's the case, it gets into this really nebulous sort of spot where it's like, well, does what we say in preseason just completely color how we're interpreting everything in the league. And so I guess if I'm looking at them just purely based on raw statistics

and resumes, I would lean Trey there in favor of Levine, even though I could see like, like Dan is saying, this is splitting hairs upon splitting hairs. One thing I think it was notable in this conversation, and I looked into this originally because I saw that Jalen Brown was second in media voting, but fifth in player voting in terms of the starting spots for the Lster team. I thought, okay, that's weird. That's a little notable because I thought Jalen Brown's had a stellar season. to me he was a lock for the starting lineup given the season he's had. When I looked at it, one of the things I noticed

was the players who were above Jalen Brown for the east backcourt spots, Bradley Beale obviously made it. Kyrie Irving made it. James Hardin totally makes sense. Would be in there unequivocally if people weren't discounting him based on blowing up the rockets. And Zach Levine was the other one.

Okay, okay, that's interesting in terms of what players are valuing. Just as notable, Trey Young, 11th place voting in east backboard players, which, I mean, if you talk to guys in the league, you can get a little bit of a whiff of this in terms of what they think of Trey Young sometimes. But again, I don't know how much stock to put into player voting. Some people take it seriously, some very clearly do not. Like maybe Zach Levine's votes were just the bulls. I don't know.

But I thought it certainly jumped off the page a little bit. I mean, I think it's pretty clearly the foul drawing. Like that is what has become so polarizing, is the backup foul shot. he's mastered. That's an interesting, like, data point, but I think if we went by that logic, like Quinn Cook and DeAndre Jordan would be starting in the All-Star game. Like, this could just come down to the fact that Levine is like at John Wall's parties in L.A. during the summer, you know, and then just like people are circulating. Let's get Quinn Cook in there. I don't have any argument against that. Right. He's a free agent now, so he's available. Maybe we could spot on this podcast is our fifth. All right. Let's try to wrap up the East here.

In wild cards, I'm going with Ben Simmons and Trey Young. Rob, who are you going with? I go Simmons-Levin. Okay. Sharks? I'm going to go Simmons-Livine. Okay. And Dan, are you sticking with Levine and Van Vleet?

I'm sticking with Fred Van Vleek because somebody has to, man. It's a very Brooklyn pick for sure, Dan. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about the Western side of things. All right, we're back. We're going to talk about the West now. So briefly, starters who were picked already, Steph Curry, Luca Donchich, LeBron James, Nikola Yokic, and Kauai Leonard.

Dan's reserve picks, he has Anthony Davis, Paul George, Rudy Gobert, Damien Lillard, and Mike Conley amongst the front courts and the guard spots. And in his wild cards, he has Donovan Mitchell and Chris Paul. Now, the wrinkle here is that Anthony Davis most likely, or almost assuredly, will not be playing in this All-Star game because of his injury that we outlined at the top of the show. So there is theoretically four spots open here.

Do we want to confirm the locks first in terms of who's like really in there? Oh sure, right, yes. So I wrote down Davis, George, Gobert, Lollard. Agreed. Just wanted to make sure. Okay.

And so we're going to try to fill Davis's spot. Rob, would you pick Zion? I think we should say this for last because I think this is, we fill out the roster and in, you know, we role play Adam Silver,

Here we put on our suit, we shave our heads, and we try, you know, we see who's left. And of that group, we'll plug someone in it. Well, if we're role playing out in silver, it's going to have pretty easy pick. Yeah, no kidding. Well, my issue with that is just all the other guys I want to pick your cards. So that's why this one is really easy. Well, do you want to bring up another front court guy? I mean, I think the pick probably will end up being Zion Williamson if we're all being

honest with ourselves. Yeah. I think it's like there are not many certain things in life at this moment, but giving Adam Silver the chance to put Zion Williamson on national TV in an All-Star game feels like a pretty short thing. Just don't begrudge us a little pageantry. I was just trying to build up some suspense, Justin. I appreciate it.

Charks, you're in on Zion as well? Yeah, I mean, I think since they went point Zion, it's been remarkable. Just, I mean, this is kind of what we all. all hoped watching him at Duke. Because last year as a rookie, they were using him more as a post guy, more as a finisher. But he's got enough ball handling and playmaking to get to where he wants to go on the floor. And like now the game was just so simple. He starts the three point line. Either he gets a screen or he just drives directly at the basket. And like either you give one guy and he scores or you crowd him and he passes. The game against the Celtics on Sunday cracked

me up where he just dribbled right to Tristan Thompson's chest, knocked him to the ground and scored, then got an and won. It's just like, this is just unfair. The new sharks beat is the collision of bodies. Who is pushing who off? Who's bump and who? I love it. I'm into this. So since the dawn of Point Zion, which

for the sake of this, we're going to say is February 5th, he is averaging 28 points, 5 and a half rebounds, 4 and a half assists on 66, 33, 76 splits, the Pelicans are 5 and 5, and they have the second best offense in the NBA.

which considering like what a train wreck they were for the first half of the season is something. And as we're saying, there isn't much competition for this spot. Very odd that the west of considering recent history we just don't have enough guys to fill a certain spot, but

Zion seems like a runaway I think is what we're saying. But that brings us to a guard spot. Dan, you have Mike Conley. I do. A guy who, I don't know if you've heard this before, has not made an all-star game. We're going to have to fact check that. I'm not positive that that's, you know, I'm just going to go back and read every story written about Mike Conley

over the last, you know, seven years and just make sure that that's, anecdote is in all of them. Sure, sure. So make the case for our good friend, Mike here. Well, I think it starts with the, this is a little bit more in the weeds. It's because, you know, the points per game, assists numbers, the minutes per game, like, their individual box scores stats are not overwhelming. They're good, but they're not, you know, they don't pop off the page in the way that, you know, Donovan Mitchell's scoring does or Devin Booker's scoring does. I think it's just the, when you look at the impact on winning, right, you know, it's a little bit difficult to disentangle at times because Quinn Snyder has tied him to Rudy Gobert and Gobert has been such a world breaker

on defense. But even when Conley has played without Mitchell or without Gobert in relatively limited minutes. The jazz have been awesome. And so you start stacking up like all of the advanced impact metrics, the really good, if not overwhelming box score numbers, the fact that the jazz continue to be good, no matter whether he's with the other all-star caliber players on the roster or not. And it kind of feels, it felt to me like the picture that it was that was kind of coming into focus was he's just been frigging awesome. And he's really good and a really important player on the team that is by far the best team in the NBA so far this season. And so I don't necessarily go all in for the best team has to get a certain number of spots.

I kind of was, I tend to look more just at individual cases. But I think that if we're talking about who contributes to that overwhelming success the Utah's had, I think you can make a fair case that even before he went down with injury that Conley was as important in the beginning of the season. He might have been their best player for the first like 15 games of the season. as anybody else. And then there was also, again, to be honest with you, a bit of a ceremony to it where it was like,

Mike Conley has been this good for a long time and there's always been a reason why he hasn't made the game. This is, I think, the best presentation for why he should. And so let's go with that and say later for some other guys that are going to have many more opportunities moving forward. I can see Rob is just salivating, waiting to talk about the jazz. Go ahead, Rob. Well, I think what makes this stuff fun,

is when you're talking about All-Star, you're talking about what are the lenses through which we view the game? That said, whatever lens you watch the Utah Jazz through, if you haven't seen Mike Conley as the most reliable

driver of that offense, I don't know what team you're watching. He has been that instrumental to one of the most potent offenses in the NBA. And as Dan touched on it, this spot and whether you consider Conley to be a realistic candidate or not

is kind of a box score litmus test. And it's, are you putting, are you putting your value you on, can this guy give me 20, or is this guy contributing to winning and driving the most dominant team in the NBA so far? To me, that's why Conley gets this spot and it is well-deserving of it. What if you were watching the jazz between February 7th and February 17th? Would he have been the driver of that offense? No, because he wasn't playing. And that is, I do think this comes down to... Justin, like, the teams they beat, they beat Pacers, Celtics, Bucks, heat, Sixers, Clippers,

and they won those games by double digits, 15, 20 points. So that's, I mean, to further your point. Pretty good. Yeah, I almost feel like Rudy Gobert deserves two spots in this because of what he's doing for that defense. And it's funny, so they beat the Hornets last night and George Nang had like seven for seven from three-pointers. And so he got the walk-up interview.

And the first thing he said was like, yeah, Rudy does everything and it makes all of our job easier. I feel like he's like Vince Wilfork on the, Patriots back in the day where he's just like occupying like five guys and then everybody else just shoots like 28 three-pointers and breaks records and whatnot. But I do think the jazz deserve two spots here. Three seems a bit much considering the competition elsewhere. And I would just barely lean Mitchell if only because of A availability, which is shitty I know, but it's like something got to factor in. And because like just on a permanent basis, like Mitchell's playing more.

And that probably knocks his efficiency stats down a little bit, which makes Conley's case more compelling. But I don't know if you could really like ding Mitchell for that because he's doing more. It's a really like thorny subject. But I would go Mitchell over Conley personally. I would say the case for Conley is that he has probably sacrificed the most on this team in terms of, because remember last season,

the Mitchell Conley thing really wasn't working for most of the year because Conley was so used to be in the ball dominant point guard. And he kind of had, he's had to adjust. his game, lower his statistics, and let, you know, because Mitchell's got to cook, right? That's what he does. So Conley's kind of had to play off Mitchell. He's kind of like the glue guy. And I think if you're making the case for Conley, which I'm not sure I would make, the case is that we want to reward good to great players for sacrificing for winning because what are we doing otherwise, right? Like the whole point of this is to put together good teams. And it's so hard to do it because

everybody wants their numbers. So Mike Connolly is taking his numbers back so they can win. counterpoint. I just want to see some dudes dunk in an all-star game. The reward is your team is good and you get to maybe go to the bottom. That is, and that, you know, we talk about sort of philosophical arguments. That's a great point, Justin, because when I do this list, right, when I'm asked to make these votes and put these things together, I see my job as like, who has had the best start to the season, which guys are most rewarding, most deserving of a, of recognition and of reward. it's not who is the most exciting player to watch.

And maybe it should be. Like if that was the criteria that we were asked to consider, like think about how many votes for Paul Millsap there were over the years and things like that, you know, like was Al Horford at all start stuff like that, not to dunk on the, you know, mid-decade hawks or whatever. But like the, there is a difference between who is the most like highlight, generating, compelling guy to watch in an individual. exhibition game and who's been the best player over the first 25 or 30 games.

And so I think that's like a totally fair thing to consider. And I think a lot of people make their decisions based on that, super, super fair. It's just not what went into it for me. Also, that said, I still had Mitchell and Conley in there with Gobert too. So like three might be a lot. A lot. That's a fair point to argue. But I think there's room for all those guys.

It just is going to leave somebody else on the outside looking in. Well, look, Justin already came up with a very elegant solution, which was you give Rudy Gobert two spots. One of them is Rudy Gobert. One of them is Mike Conley on Donovan Mitchell's shoulders in a trench coat. And everybody's in the All-Star game. Sure. There you go. I mean, he needs two airplane seats, right? So give him two spots. Big guy.

Let's just have this on this conversation now because this is also a pretty thorny subject. Charks, you wrote about Booker today on the website. where do you fall in terms of how many sons get in and which one gets in if it's only one? So as I've been looking at it, I kind of have Booker and Donovan in and I'm looking at Conley for Paul as first Paul for the last spot.

But it seems like it's mostly Booker versus Paul and the most of the... And as I was like, my first started the article, I didn't really have a strong opinion. But as I really kind of got into it, I really talked myself into Booker. I think number one, if you're the sons, you'd better freaking hope

to make the All-Star team. Because he is not going to be happy. that this 35-year-old came in and just took his shine, right? Like, he's already made all-star games. Two, it really sucks for him because he spent his whole career hearing, you put up empty stats on a bad team, and now he's putting up slightly worse stats on a really good team, and now it's like your stats aren't good enough piece.

So he's kind of like, how are you going to do it either way? As for the argument about Booker and Paul, what I came down to is this. I think Booker is just more versatile offensively than Paul. right. So a lot of people are saying, okay, well, Paul controls the game. Paul has more assists. That's not because Booker can't run point and distribute the ball. The numbers are kind of crazy. Booker without Paul this year is plus 13. Like he can run point perfectly fine. The problem is if Booker's running point, what is Chris Paul doing? Whereas the reverse of that is,

and Chris Paul is running point, Booker's moving off the ball, getting buckets at will, and being a secondary playmaker. So to me, you put that together. I feel like his versatility is what's allowed Paul to succeed and really push his sons over the top. And then the final point, to go back to our scoring thing, he's getting like 25 points a game. Whereas Paul's getting 16. I think that does matter. I think that's too easily overlooked.

I can't argue any of that. And at the same time, I like Paul a little bit more for this spot. And it's because I think he's a bit more of a direct driver of what makes the sons good, which is they're an organized professional level defense, which frankly, does not have much of anything to do with Devin Booker. And they're a really steady, low turnover offense, which is Chris Paul's M.O. So it's like, what do the Sons look like?

They look like a Chris Paul team that featuring Devin Booker. And that's a tough break for Booker, given where he's been and where the Sons have been. And frankly, as you'd mentioned, charts, where the Sons need him to go and what they want his reputation and his game to be, I just fall back to the guy who more closely aligns with the team's success and what they do well, I think.

See, I would say the argument, to that is that Chris Paul has to have a Chris Paul team, right? We saw in the end of the Houston years when he's not the guy, he's not that effective. And OKC and Phoenix, like to make Chris Paul good, it's got to be his team. So it's almost like he's like being

forced into that role because he's actually more limited as a player. But the Houston team almost won the title with a James Harden team featuring Chris. I reject that argument. I think at this stage in his career, there's some truth to his limitations. Like, he is who he is in terms of size and style and that stuff. But

I don't know. I think teams end up as Chris Paul teams because those teams are really good. Yeah, we've seen many Devin Booker teams. They aren't that good. And so, like, I think at a certain point, maybe it's just like being a little reductive, but like the difference with this team this year, as opposed to last year, is that Chris Paul is here and making sense of all the disperse parts and like all these young guys who have talent. That depends how much he believed in the bubble. Like, to me, I look at the bubble. I saw Devin Booker, a bunch of wings, a very athletic team. And that was going translate no matter what to the season. But you can disagree on that, obviously. Is this a Cam Johnson team?

Every, well, every team is a Cam Johnson team. That's exactly right. I was about to say they're all Cam Johnson teams when you get right down to it. I think I thread the needle here beautifully because I had Devin Booker as an All-Star last year. And so this year I'm able to say, I think while valuing deeply what Devin Booker brings to the table and agreeing that he is not just somebody who put up empty calorie stats on a bad team for a long time, or certainly at least has not done that the last couple of years, that when I think about what is most directly contributing to the Sun's success so far, it's a little bit more about what Chris Paul is doing for that team, even when he's not scoring the ball than it is. And then also the fact that

he's become like the crunch time option, not that Devin Booker could not do that, but Chris Paul is doing that at a really high level still. So there are arguments for that. I think, John, that stat that you brought up is crazy where they're roughly equivalently amazing, whether it's Booker, no Paul, or Paul, no Booker. And then they're like not that good in terms of net rating when they're both on the floor together. I know that's an Aitin thing. Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

That's a different conversation. But it's crazy. Booker and Paul No Aten is like plus 35 or something. Yeah, it's really, really wild. So the answer is that, you know, Dario Sharjah should be playing at Center for everybody. They're all Dario Sarich teams, too. Did you guys know that Chris Paul has only missed two free throws this entire year? This doesn't have anything, like, add any value to the debate here, but that's fucking wild.

He's taken 71 free throws and he's missed two. But I guess the actual point I want to make here is he has a 50, 40, 97 season going here. He's more efficient than he was last year. The team is better than they were last year. For me, Paul is an easy pick. I would actually put him as the guard spot and not a wild card spot. and then joining him, I have Mitchell and Booker.

Charks, where did you end up? I had it like that too. So I had it, Booker, Mitchell, and then choosing between Paul and Conley for the last spot, and I took Paul over Conley. Okay. Rob? I have achieved blogger Enlightenment.

I am in perfect synchronicity with Dan. I'm Conley, Mitchell, Paul. Wow. They love the jazz. They love their screen assist out there, guys. I just think that you're, all are going to have to say some prayers and make some apologies to Mike Conley. You're going to have to, you know, the blog Kognoscenti are going to be out here, like asking, you know,

take kind of coming for your heads about Mike Conley. Again, as we go through this, like, if you're talking about one of those guys making it, making it over another one, like, these are insanely small differences and, um, incredible, there's a ton of talent to pick from. Do you think they're going to pick Conley? I think they're going to do it because, like, on the one, hand, I can make the case that like, oh, don'ts, cool. But on the other hand, like, most people in the NBA tend to be saps. And we had that weird thing happen where both Dirk and Dwayne Wade made the All-Star Game is like some sort of like career achievement award. So I could definitely see him make it. I think if it's ever going to happen, this is the set of circumstances in which it's going to where you are playing really well on a team that's head and shoulders above everybody else in record and net rating and all that stuff. And you haven't done it. And you've been like one of the best players in the league at your position. right below that top tier for a decade and a half. I think this is like the perfect storm for him.

And so, you know, I'm a sap too, man. I hope it happens. It does feel like this is kind of the line. Like, to me, it was pretty clearly those four guys. And then there's a couple other guys who had good seasons, but I thought those four are a step above if we're picking these last couple spots. Well, one of those guys I wonder about in regard to the coaches, and that's DeMarre de Rosen, who, I mean, for one thing,

sometimes the coaches in terms of their reserve selections, honestly, it looks like they just go through the standings. And it's like, okay, you get an all-star, you get an all-star going, you know, first through six or seven seeds or so to make sure everybody's got one. The Spurs are the sixth-place team in the West right now. If they were in the East, they would be the third seed in the East. Like, they've been sneaky good. DeRosen, I honestly think is having the best season of his career in terms of impact on winning, in terms of the stuff that matters, is actually having a really good season. I think he, again, in a normal context, might be a pretty deserving candidate. It's just, he's up against this crazy good jazz team with three credible all-stars, this really good

son's team with two credible all-stars. I don't know how you juggle that in a way that makes room for DeRosen. It does seem like if the coaches are picking that Anthony Davis spot, they might pick DeRosen over his eye on as like a bit because he's like a small ball power forward, but I don't think that'll happen. I was going to say, the argument is that he's a forward now. And so he gets, he gets consideration for that spot. Yeah, the Sun, the Spurs being good has a little bit more to do with their second unit. That's something I wrote about that I think actually is going to come out tomorrow. That some of their bench lineups are just killer.

But De Rosen, it's become fashionable and understandable to say like DeRosen and Aldridge stink and are old and that's why the Spurs are like middling as opposed to really good. When you remove Aldridge from that equation, DeRosen's been awesome. I was going to say Alderj is very old. DeRoson is getting... DeRoson has been legit awesome. And when DeRosen has played with some of those reserve lineups, he's been great, too.

So I would be surprised if he made it over Zion if it gets to the commissioner. But from the coach's perspective, yeah, that would not be shocking. I do just love how Zion is the West equivalent of the Zach Levine, Tray Young. Like, oh, this is a really great offensive player who's just awful on defense,

but let's get him in the All-Star game. And it makes sense. It's a good case, and it has the benefit of being a nice little narrative bow if Zion is replacing AD yet again in this lineup. Ah. Oh, there you go. So beautiful. Love it, Rob. You're just a pros artist.

I'm here for him out here. All right. We'll end it there. Dan, thank you so much for joining us, man. It was so much fun to join a group chat and not have anybody leak anything horrifying about me to the press. Thank you so much. Well, there's still time here. We'll be back next week.

Thank you to John on production. We will see you next time.