The Ringer NBA Show - Anthony Davis’s Hot Start, the Young Suns, and Early Sixers Reactions | Group Chat (Ep. 322)

Episode Date: October 18, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan is joined by Haley O’Shaughnessy and Paolo Uggetti to share some immediate reactions to the first two days of NBA games, including whether they like Anthony Davis to win the MVP (2:25) and whether this will be the season the Suns’ future comes into focus. Then Justin Verrier joins to share his takeaways from being at the Clippers' home opener (28:00), before all four assess the state of Philadelphia’s young core (37:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Anthony Davis will win the MVP this year. The Hawks trading Donchich was a smart move. What if the caps are better without LeBron? Basketball is very good. Hello and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. It's group chat. Sean is he. Paul O'getty, Chris Ryan.

Justin Verrier is in transit. We'll see if he makes it here. Justin's just... D&P. He's an editor at the core. But we're going to miss him on this pod. Hopefully he'll come in and drop some Yukon alumnus takes later.

How many people could he be... I mean, plenty. Andre Drummond, Jeremy Lamb, Campbell Walker. More than USC, that's for sure. Is there a lot... Is there better Louisville players in the league right now than Yukon players? We're top heavy.

Donovan Mitchell. Top heavy. Donovan Mitchell and who else? Montrez Harrell. I don't know about top heavy. Yeah, actually. Well, I mean, I meant top heavy than Donovan. If you were playing two on two, would you rather have Kemba and Drummond or Harrell and Mitchell?

If you're playing like NBA Jam and the Earth's future dependent on it? I would rather have Donovan and anyone. What a surprising answer. Today we're going to talk a little bit about opening night heroes. The NBA started for sure last night. We had opening night with Sixers Celtics. I'm sure you guys feel inundated with Sixers. Celtics takes from the ringer, but I do have some more to share.

I'm drowning in it. It's like, I can't tell what's real and what's fake. Yeah, because it's like, are they the only two pro franchises that matter? You can tell me anything and I would think that you were serious. No, I know. Well, we'll find out. But I want to talk about some other teams. And I want to start with, you know, in the creeping NFLification of the NBA, where like, every night is the most important thing that's ever happened. And anything that happens is like everything that's going to happen forever. I guess Anthony Davis won the MVP last night. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, 100%. The campaign started. So the Rockets went out. They're supposed to win 50-something games this year. They're going to go back to the Western Conference Final. They're going to get the revenge on the Warriors. But first they laid an egg against the Pelicans, losing 131-1-12, and it wasn't that close, I don't think.

I think that this, and the whole Davis, like how much you buy into his performance, not as him being great, but as it being his MVP. season, you're getting extra hype about it. I think that it depends on which way you look at it, because the Rockets were not good last night. And so you can either overreact and say that they are taking a massive step back, or you could... Or when it comes to Carmelo, taking a step forward past the three-point line for a long two-footer. 29-footer, yeah. Or a 19-footer, yeah. I'm probably a 29-footer. He might have a better chance. Because for me, I like confirming my own beliefs all off-season. I thought that the Rockets had

taking a small step back. And for one game, I can be correct because they look pretty bad. And not just that, not to turn it back to the people around Davis, but it was also encouraging to see how good the Pelicans were just top the bottom. And, you know, I'm sure we'll get into Alfred Payton's triple double. I mean, everybody in America is waiting for us to get to Elford Payton right now. It's not like there's anybody else of interest in this game. Do anyone else have a better or more dramatic hair change?

Josh Jackson also had one. he is now bus cut and he had long hair before. There you go. I think that Payton's is better. Of course, but I'm just saying if we want to compete. One of the questions going into the season was how would he fill in that Rondo role, right? And I mean, he fit it pretty damn well in the game one by literally doing what Rondo does all the time, which is have these weird 10 and 10 triple doubles.

And, you know, Merrittich looked good. He had 30 points last night? Like, I mean, I don't know. Like, I'm really in on this team. This is a team that's probably going to be very, it's going to be very volatile to injuries happen. I don't think it's that deep. But when you watch it,

what's so cool about it is that, you know, we're so used to these super teams being built and it's like, we bring this guy and we brought this guy in. There's constant change. There's, we're always tinkering with the rotation.

This is just like, they have the best player in the NBA, possibly, and they put some guys around him. And it really worked. And he's agreed to play the five because playing the five in Alvin Gentry system

is not the same as playing the five in almost any other system. He's essentially playing a three-four hybrid on offense that's crashing the rim. He's a monster defensively. And I think it's going to take a really long time for anybody to figure out how you guard this team. They're playing so fast. They have shooting all over the floor with the exception of Alfred, but they've got, Anthony is the X factor that no one can really game plan for. Well, in terms of like that being a revelation that this Pelican team is

like so interesting because they put a bunch of random guys around AD, that's been like every Pelicans team since AD. And I think that this year, the interesting person, like, oh, who's going to be the Mieritich other than him, is, like, Randall, I was kind of impressed by. And maybe that's something that we'll see, like, dip back down. But I always liked Randall in L.A. I think he kind of had a tough go of it because it seemed like he was always the guy there ready to trade.

Yeah. Yeah. But I like him. I think that he can be exactly what they need him to be. And he's more consistent than people might give him kind of like. He's really fascinating in this system because. You don't really think of him as like a pace and pace kind of guy. Yeah, he's more of like a bruiser.

Yeah, and I think also like neat likes to have the ball in his hands a little bit and see the floor a little bit more and not. I think Alvin Gentry's offense like relies on a sort of quick decisions and a lot of movement. Just like, you know, a ferocious kind of momentum towards the basket. But I think much in the same way we talk about the Lakers running and trying to play fast, which we'll see Thursday night. I wonder how fast they can go and for how long they can go fast this season before things like you said injuries start popping up or just like exhaustion.

Right, because the lineups can get really bizarre, really fast. Yes. Like if let's say that they have to start Davis, Miratich, and Randall. That's weird. That's a mess. I think Dan had it best on Twitter where he said, Dan Devine, he said, you know, you probably can't play the three of them together,

but any combination of the two is going to be really good. It's going to be effective. Yeah. Haley, you wrote a little bit about the MVP expectations that are kind of enveloping Davis this season. And it's interestingly enough for a guy who I think before he joined the Clutch Sports Agency seemed to be a little bit more like not self-effacing, but just kind of like, I'm just going about my business. He seems like completely aware of the narrative surrounding him. Oh, my God, totally. What I wrote was that it's like a presidential campaign like a couple years before, you know?

Seriously, he's like he's like a four-term senator with a. connection to the Kennedys. Seriously, like, then the interview he did before the season started, he said, I saw what Russ Westbrook did when Durant went down with that foot injury, and he told Alvin Denture that's what he has to be,

quote, if I have to be Westbrook, I will be Westbrook. You might have been talking about, like, 2014-15 Westbrook, but like, dude, you're talking about 2016. And then last night, he said that he took a look at James Hardin's MVP award. Yeah, and then he plays the former MVP. Like, that's great for, thank you, MBA for setting up.

I know. And he destroys him. Showing the nose. And then also in that article, he brought up LeBron. He said, when you look at LeBron every year, you know he's going to be great. His team's going to have a chance to win the title. From here on out, I want to be in that conversation every year. That is ambitious.

And when you think about it, you can't say that about any other player in the league right now. Because the second best player in the league, for some people, the first best player is Kevin Durant. Yeah. No. Like, that's not, his team might be in the conversation every year, but he's not carrying a team the same way. That would be the most... That's the most interesting idea about Kevin Durant leaving Golden State. Is that if he goes to the Knicks or if he goes to the heat or if he goes wherever he's going to go,

it would be fascinating to see him tried to lift a franchise up to 50 wins. But the assumption already is that like Kyrie would go with him. He'd go somewhere where somebody else would be. You know, it's just not... We just don't... Pre-agents don't go somewhere where no one else is anymore. Yeah. Yes.

And so... But yeah, I think that the LeBron thing is very interesting because after those last 33 games, I don't think Davis will ever be there but it's interesting to think about him as another player who makes us stand this year is like yeah any year that I'm on this team It's a 50 win season. It's a 51 season, yeah.

And you never know what can happen. It's so interesting how like not just the narrative kind of is building up to this but everything is in the way we think about the NBA now where it's like who is the next free agent? Who's the next guy that's going to be available for teams to go after? Who might, you know, exert their pre-exert.

agency, if you will. And he's that next guy. So, like, it feels like everything is sort of, I don't know, coalescing around him in a way where, like, he's, he's now the guy we're going to pay attention to the whole season because, like, okay, Kauai's in Toronto, you know, Paul George State in Oklahoma City, bronze in L.A. So who's like, who's the next guy? And he's only 25, which is crazy to think about. I know. So easy to forget that he's 25. But I also think that part of his whole MVP campaign is kind of, like, giving that same feeling that Westbrook gave the people is like, okay, Durant left, don't worry. I'm here.

I'm putting this whole team on my back. Small market team has been speculation that the pelicans are not long for this world if Davis were to leave. He is essentially the franchise savior, whether he likes it or not. And he could be the end of the franchise if he leaves, which I'm sure is not

a very pleasant thing to contemplate. I think that we get to a certain point where these numbers, we'll look at Carl Anthony Towns's numbers, look at Janus's numbers, we'll look at whoever's. I can't, I don't even think we should put talk about Cat in that.

That's what I'm saying, is that Davis is now beyond the kids with good numbers zone. Right. And he's spawning in between the LeBron, Katie. Yeah. LeBron, Katie, Harden, Curry. He is up in that group where you're like, I take him and four guys off the street. And I think you could beat most NBA teams. And you saw it.

He beat what was the probably the story of the season last year was the Rockets. It's not a big deal. They're still getting used to each other. They got rid of some guys. They're bringing some new guys in. We're not freaking out about the Rockets. It's more about watching Anthony Davis out there and just be like, I'm the best player on the floor.

Right. I'm the best player on the floor. This is how, and honestly, like, I thought that was like, we'll get to this, but that was, there was a couple of games I've seen over the last two days where there was some really interesting statement games, statement game from Tatum. For a while there during the Celtics game, you were like, I felt like Simmons was like, you guys aren't talking about me enough. I'm the best player on the floor.

We'll talk more about that. Oh, we're going to talk more about Sixers Celtics. At some point. Let's talk a little bit about the Sons, who played the last. late national game. God bless the NBA. It was DeAndre versus Donchich, but it wound up being, I thought, a statement game for Devon Booker, actually.

Devin Booker. Because Devin Booker is another numbers guy. Another guy that you get really seduced that you see a tweet at like 10 p.m. and it's a basketball reference thing. It's like, no one's ever scored with their, you know, right foot perpendicular. On a Tuesday. On a Tuesday. No, but it was just like, you see these numbers and you'd be like, the sun suck.

So who cares? And then one thing that I really noticed about last night, Devin Booker ended with 35, 19 came in the fourth quarter. Right.

That's... Four for four from three. That's when you graduate. That's when you graduate and you're like, I know how to win a game from my team. That's huge.

Similar to the leap we were just talking about with Davis, the one for Booker this season is that his stats are no longer can be called empty. Right. And the way that that happens

is if the Suns win more games. And they're actually in a better position to do that this year with some of the vets they brought in And it looks like, I mean, I'm super in on Aiden, but it looks like he can immediately help that. Yeah. And the system, too, I think it's interesting to know that they have a new coach, an Igor, and they had 35 assists last night. I think it's the first time they've had a game with 35 assists since 2011.

So if Booker takes that extra step, if the system caters to him in this kind of fashion, and they're more spacing and passing. And Aiden is what, you know, what we all think Aiton is going to be, then maybe they'll get it. If the ball goes around more, then also it's harder to say that a guy has empty stats. Yes. Yeah. But you could see Booker absorbing contact and finishing. You could see Booker making the right pass when the shot wasn't there.

You could see him playing within a system that seemed to make more sense and cater to his skill set. And I couldn't help but feel. Oh, wow, Carrie Bradshaw. I couldn't help but wonder. Across town. This was what the wolves were supposed to be. I was watching. I was thinking that because I was thinking about.

Because I was watching Jamal Crawford and. Heisen Chandler on the bench. On the bench coaching them. And Areza out there on the floor and Arisa kind of giving them like a level of stability. And Josh Jackson playing his ass off. He ended with 18. T.J. Warren looked really effective when they needed like a bucket that wasn't necessarily the most efficient thing you've ever seen, but was like, hey, it's four seconds left on the shot clock. We need you to just absorb contact and make a 10 footer. And of course, Aiton ends his first game as an NBA player with 18, 10, and 6, which is about all you can ask for a guy. I think Anna's still in a block, right?

Shout to Ryan McDonough. Yeah, and there was a lot of, like, I think there was some Twitter critiques of, like, his defensive recognition. But, like, I mean, guys sometimes don't realize how to play defense for, like, three years. So I wouldn't worry about it too much. Well, I mean, that's the whole thing.

I think that people are, like, hesitant to say that anymore because Kat has backfired when we're giving people that leash. But this was the wolves, this was what the wolves were supposed to be. Right. Good new coach, veteran leadership,

to back up and to show the way. to the young talent. And two number one draft picks. Yeah. I think that with Aden's defense, it looks a little bit. Well, first of all, I thought that he looked tired on some of them. Sure. Which is like, okay, you're a rookie.

But also, I think that a lot of times with the big guys, they kind of get confused about timing. Because probably, I would say more than any other position, the talent level, and like what you have to go up against is such a huge jump from college to the pros in, you know, under the basket. because you are getting bullied by these guys. And so I think that a lot of it's timing, it's like, when do I let this guy,

when do I trust my teammate to take this guy and I'm going to switch on to someone else? Yeah. Because there are so many more threats than when you were in college. Yeah, no, that's a good point. He goes from being the bully in the NBA real fast. But I think overall, like, I mean, if we want to start nitpicking rookies,

like we can do that with like all of them. So I think, I mean, it's such a weird. It's a compliment that we're taking such issue with that already. There was just a, there was a, There was a second last night where I was watching. It was McHale Bridges and DeAndre Ait and Aiton had just come out of a game. And Jamal Crawford was sitting there and wearing a suit because he wasn't ready for action yet. He looked like a coach.

When I saw him in the suit, I was like, he was like, please just coach. He was talking to those guys and he was just like this, this. And Aitin was like had this look on his face that wasn't like, I'm over. It was more like teach me. He was like, this is a lot of like reading into body language. But he seemed genuine. Like they were obviously talking about him. He got an elbow.

and there was something like where they were discussing like this is why this play went wrong and Bridges looked really engaged. It just seems like that's the ideal situation for a young kid to come up. And he said after the game, Aiden said that was the most fun I've had during a basketball game. And it kind of made me think about

this is really overreacting. But it made me think about like the issue I always thought the wolves had was that they were never used to winning. Yeah. And so like when you get used to winning kind of off the bat or even getting used to being competitive, you go it on such a different path

as a rookie. It's a different mentality. Right, and on the level that you bring to games. And so that is an overreaction to game one. But that also, like, that's something to be excited about. To the point about the veterans and the young guys mixing in together, it's interesting because I feel like there's a handful of these teams who have tried that and it hasn't gone particularly well.

I mean. Yeah, the kings come to mind. Yeah, the kings come to mind with Randolph and George Hill and Vince Carter. And now the Hawks are kind of trying to do that with Vince as a player on. while they have Tray Young. So it does seem like this is like the absolutely ideal scenario. Another team that I was really, really impressed by last night, obviously, they were sort of the big ticket of the early slate of games was the Milwaukee Bucks.

I think everybody, they're kind of the hipster darlings. Well, they have been over the last couple of years, but now the Buds there, I think we're finally going to get an unlocked version of this team. A team that averaged, I think they were like 27th and three-point attempts last year. They averaged 24 a game. They shot 34. in their first game with Bud against the Hornets,

a game which they were leading for most of, but they got tight later in the afternoon or the evening. But Janus 25, 18, and 8, incredible, solid bedrock of support from Middleton and Blood. So exactly how you draw it up if you're looking at how this game is supposed to go. And it looked like a completely different basketball team when you were watching them.

Fast, extra pass, always looking for the wide open guy to take a three-point. And a wide open guy. It was bud ball. Yeah. The bucks to me are like the startup three years in. They've had the backlash. Things have gone wrong.

Right. They've been exciting. Yeah. And now they're like taking some responsibility. Yeah. And now it's time to start trying to be real company. Yeah, exactly. And like the things that you were just talking about in offense were incredible.

And this, I don't think it's an overreaction to be at least excited about the prospect of change because of the sheer number of three. of threes that they took, and although they also shot them better than last year, you know that kind of waivers, and I'm sure that'll dip a little bit. But, yeah, I mean, you had, like, Middleton off the dribble, you had Eric Bloodsoe in transition, you had Brogden him as little weird shot.

It was great. I mean, and people were open, and they were getting the extra pass, and often that extra pass went to Janus inside, which is, like, exactly what he needs to be doing. And Ersan Ilyilo is just going to take, like, the 13 points of game he had against the Sixers and just translate that because he's just there taking three.

He's like, he's going to be, I think he's going to be a really useful player. I think, you know, it's interesting. We spent the first section of the pod gushing about Davis and his MVP narrative. But I think, I think Gianna is just going to give him a run for his money. That's kind of how I feel about this, you know, because it's a similar way in that they're going, both teams should, at least on paper, have these, like, leaps, these, like, bits of improvement. And if, say, the bucks end up with the three-seat or the two-seat even in the east, like, what's this, you know, it. I think the numbers are going to be somewhat similar. So I think Janice is going to be the one,

if anybody, if we're kind of getting on the train of AD's MVP season, I think Yonis is going to win more than 50 games. I mean, let's not even get into the MVP stuff because I know that we're almost using MVP as like a bookmark for like really good season. You know what I mean?

Like making a leap, whatever you want to call it. I think the race is just pretty open. Sure. I think that's why we're talking about it so much is it doesn't feel like, oh, this is one of the Warriors Hardener-Lebron. There is some competition for it.

The difference between AD and Janus is that Janus, AD has to show that he can do the 33 game stretch over an entire season to make these Pelicans a different team, whereas Janus is like the Bucks have to finally give him what he needs. And so that's going to be the difference about like where these two... I think it's actually a little bit of both ways for Janus. It is, but I think that also... There is an X factor of Janus that you want, like this is what AD is doing.

Well, yeah, I mean, he went O from three last night from the three. so he does need to level out his game. I see that, but I think that that's not going to happen until the bucks are better. Yeah, I mean, this is the Kevin Love conversation that we had for most of the early 2010s until he got traded to Cleveland, which was like, what do you do with a guy who can put up 40 and 20 and his team can't make the playoffs? What does that mean? You know what I mean? What is it wrong with Kevin?

What's wrong with the Timberwolds that they can't accurately build around him? How come the coaching staff hasn't figured out a system to maximize his talent? That's why you get rid of like the bucks were a. a 6, 7, 7, 8 seed with kid, but what they're looking to be is the top a top two or three seed. And that's what Bud's going to bring in here is this, let's maximize every other piece around him

so that he gets even better. But there is still a question of like, is Janus able to like understand what's going on and seize that moment? That's the great, I mean, that's why you would watch them on it any given night. That's the question you want to be able to ask. Because then we can see exactly where he can be.

He's not stinted by anything else. Full slate yesterday and I was like Buck's Hornets. It's not even a question. It's not even a question of what I want to watch. How about that Nick Baton? The other reason why I watched Bucks Hornets, I knew it. I don't think anybody else believed in me. Are you about to monk it?

Haley, my monk stock hit. Oh, finally. Thank God. We got cash out. We overreact so much to like these small sample sizes with young players. If they don't like light the world on fire in their rookie season, their complete garbage, their wash, get them out of the league. They should be playing for the vipers.

Yeah, but he had like a really rough rookie season. Well, look, I mean, if you thought you were going to live in New York and you had to move to Charlotte, you might be a little bit annoyed too, okay? Tough. He looked great last night. Yeah, 18 points. Four threes. Seven of 16 from the fail. The man who I thought the Sixers should draft it three before they traded three for one and drafted Fultz instead of Tatum made me look really smart last night.

You know what is so sad, though? He looked great. Kemba had 41. Kempah had 41, yeah. And still, it's like, the hornets are the hornets. I think they'll be fine. They're going to be the seventh seed. Eight seed.

Yeah, and that'd be great. And then they'll lose in the first round. That's good enough for the hornets. No, it shouldn't be good enough for the hornet. Okay. What else did you guys see last night did you want to talk about? You want to talk about Tim Hardaway Jr.? Well, the magic.

Can we talk about the magic? Sure. I mean, I don't know. It's not like... We're hitting every quadrant. Why not? Why not? I mean, Moamba looked great.

and, you know, the magic for all their point guard troubles. Yeah, it was a pretty solid. Was there a bad rookie debut? I mean, Trey Young didn't have the best. Okay, let's talk about Trey Young. Because we can say it on air and then be held to this. Sure. So what do you guys think is going to happen this season for?

Well, so. Young Trey. He had a few moments where he made passes that you wish his demons were just like a little bit better. Because like he has a good passing vision and he has that skill. but I mean look at the team as around them you know and that's the whole the team as a whole they just don't really have anybody like Vince Carter's starting for this team I'm not comparing him to Lonzo Ball but I'm just saying that I think that he is gonna his defenders are gonna sound a lot like the Lonzo truthers last year

where it's like no it's not his fault like Trey yumbenders 25% yeah almost the amount of exposure Trey is gonna get and the amount of game time he's gonna get is gonna inoculate him from any kind of real criticism in some ways You get held to such a high standard when people think that you're, you were drafted too high. Well, I mean, look, his, for the first season, I can tell you from experience, because if you're part of a draft day trade, your entire season is going to be shot through the lens of that trade. So, Trey Young will be just as good or just as bad as Luca Dajich is good or bad. What? Trey Young and Luca Dajic.

You think they're going to have the same season? No, I think that their seasons are intertwined because they were traded for one another. So every time Luca puts up a triple double and throws a no look cross-coxed. court pass, people are going to be like, that dude could have saved Atlanta basketball. And if Trey Young is good, they're going to be like, great, you got Trey Young and an extra draft pick from a bad Mavericks team. With Donchich, isn't it, this is what I thought when I was watching him last night. And I don't know if this is going to make sense.

Great. It's been a great poverty. I felt like I already saw him as a veteran and like what his floor could be. Does that make sense? Sometimes when we look back at these players and we're like, oh, we thought that they were going to be better when they hit the draft. like this is, they're fine, they're good players. I'm not saying he's going to be that, but I already saw last night, like, he already has that

in the bag. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's his absolute floor, and that is really great. Well, that's his, like, Euro League, like, games. You know, watching him playing in Europe, that was like, okay, like, that's his floor. And that's pretty damn good floor. That EuroLeague stuff, I think the experience that he has playing in those kinds of competitions, he was trying to cook dudes on the suns.

Right, right. Like last night, I was like, yo, man, you were not nervous at all. You're just trying to, like, Bakeriza off the dribble. Yeah, and it's nice to see him have that immediate cord vision connection with his teammates too. Like, D.A.J, that's going to be fun. I think he had like four turnovers,

but I'm not reading into it too much. Let him turn it over. Let Luca chef it up. We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and we'll be right back to talk a little bit about Sixers Celtics, the Sixers and the Celtics, just generally, and some stuff that we're looking forward to. Today's episode of the Ringer NBA show is brought to you

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Navy Federal is federally insured by NCUA. Ringar NBA show Group chat is back. Justin Varyers joining us for the second half. Hi, friends. You're kind of the JJ Redick. We start you the second half. That's great. I want to run through some of our earlier takes and just see if there's any JV wisdom you want to impart on us.

Okay. You're going to talk about the Clippers? Anthony Davis MVP? Probably. Okay. DeAndre Aten and the Sons are what the wolves wish they were. Oh, that's really interesting. No, I don't believe in as much as most people do.

There you go. Nice. Do you want to buy a summer home with me with all the money that just got deposited in my account from my Malik Munkstock? Where are we going? I'm talking about the hamptop. or Cape Cod. I mean, you're more of like a rustic New Englander. Yeah, yeah.

We can go to Cape Cod. Nice Lake Michigan spot. Why would we go to Lake Michigan? Because my friend just had a wedding there. It was really pretty. Okay. All right. So we can have our nuptials.

What else did you see from last night, Justin, that you wanted to talk about? Because I was wondering, what did you wind up watching? So I was at the Clippers Nuggets game. Oh, a little live basketball. I know, believe it or not. I did catch most of the Pelicans game. I thought, obviously, that was super interesting. I do wonder, I think they only played eight guys in.

that game. So, like, we'll see if they can keep up that pace and that sort of demand, especially with Anthony Davis playing center most of the time. But from the game I saw in person, I thought the Nuggets have a little bit more to them. I'm a little bit worried about Paul Millsap. Were you skeptical? Because there was some, like, Nuggets are the 3C talk in our office coming into this season.

I was just like, chill out a little bit, you know? I've never been to that extent. I think they're a really good offensive team. I don't necessarily see where the defense is going to come from. like elite level defense that you need to play to have an impact in the playoffs with Yokic in there. How much do you think that Paul Milsap for a whole season changes that?

See, that's the thing. I think defensively he was pretty sharp. Offensively, he was bad. I don't know what he ended up with. I think he was like 11 and 16 rebounds. But he was like 0 for a long stretch of the game. And I do wonder if he might be a little bit past his prime. And I wonder if there might be a little bit of do we play Trey Liles, do he play Paul Milsap?

But overall, I thought they had a little bit more than what they had last year to push them over late in the game. Like the clipper is hung in there and I thought they looked better than the Nuggets at times. But then all of a sudden, Yokic kind of made the right plays. They executed down the stretch and they got that win, which as we've been saying, this whole preseason is going to be big for the West, simply because, like, how many games are going to separate three from eight? What's fascinating is we've seen so much turmoil with so many teams and so many suggestions of, you know, player movement and are they in the market for this guy? Are they going to have to sell off this guy?

This has been a real summer and fall of stability for the Nuggets. They lock up Yokic. They like kind of center in around him being their franchise player. Although I think there's an argument that they're going to need an alpha score to go along with him. Maybe Jamal Murray becomes that. Maybe Gary Harris takes a leap. But also settling on Mike Malone and just being like, this is who we are.

And, you know, we can kind of take it from there. I think that they just look very, very, very capable right now, which is admirable in the West. Yeah, and there's definitely a contrast with the Clippers who are still kind of trying to finding out who they are and they're playing matchups, which I think is to their advantage for the most part simply because a lot of their guys are solid enough

and are veteran enough where they're not, they could just play the hot hand and I think all of it sort of works, whereas the Nuggets know who they are already. They figured that out last season. Millsap, for what they're trying to do fits that starting lineup, some of their bench guys are a little iffy, but overall, I think they have enough to make the playoffs. How did SGA look, because we're talking a little bit about rookies today?

He was, you know, I think the play that really characterized his whole night was he made an early turnover, like a pretty silly turnover. Like, it's just a bad pass, and I was like, what are you thinking? And then on the other end, they tried to run them around screens. I think he was guarding Murray or maybe he was Harris. He stuck with him the entire time, and his arms were so long that he jostled the ball away. Interesting. So I just think he can match with any of those other guards in that back court, and I think he's going to be really good.

It's interesting that he can't, so he's off the bench, but he ended up playing good 28 minutes. So it seems like they really want to get him in there and get him too time. You've been going to Clippers games for a long time. What was the vibe there now that we've like, not only that we've fully like eradicated Lobb City, but that it's like, they have now kind of like taken the step back in the spotlight now that LeBron is there. Was there a different vibe in the building than you were used to? Yeah, I remarked to someone on Press Row during the game. I was like, I'm glad Blake Griffin isn't here. Just because I'm just so sick.

Well, maybe because I had seen him for so long. So I was a little just bored with the whole thing. But also, like, the whole preening and trying to get foul calls and trying to do that up and under move against the big. It was just over with it. And everything seemed really fun. Like, Tobias Harris is fun. Like, Boban is fun.

Boban with 18 last night. He was incredible. I think he's like, he might be their best center, which is incredible. But everything, there's just like a lighter atmosphere. Yeah. It doesn't seem like they're crushed by the weight of like getting a star or whoever. It's just like all these guys seem to get along. They play hard.

And I think that's something that they can build upon going forward. Yeah, I don't mean this in like a negative way at all. But they are like a great streetball team. You know what I mean? Like these five, I mean not more than five guys, but there's a group of guys who come together every Friday. day night after they get off work and they know each other really well and they're like

you're solid at this, you're solid at this. And actually like the clippers are going to be fun. It's going to be more fun than they have been in like three seasons. There's too much experience there for them not to be in and around that eight seven seed. And their experience players are like really fun to watch. Patrick Beverly, Lou Williams

like I love watching all those guys. If they stay healthy they're very threatening. Yeah. Lou was taking Steph Curry threes by the way. He took at least two from way out there, which is great. There was some really galling. The Nuggets Clippers game was relatively conservative based on some of these other score lines last night.

Even this Jazz Kings game where it was 123-117, you just don't really... We're really going to get into these 120, 1-130 games, like right away. The end of defense. I'm looking forward to the Pays and Space Jazz. That's right. So did you get a chance to see any highlights for that? Donovan wind up with 24 points.

three for 10 from three so not like anything huge from behind the arc but it was like for a team that everybody is very high on they looked pretty frigging good yeah I watched a little bit of that one I think it showed that the jazz aren't what we all expect them to be

like I think everyone says they're a defensive team that's going to plot and they're going to play through Rudy Gobert but if anything I think they're among the more versatile teams in the NBA right now considering just their wealth of wing players. Like the jokes were that Jay Crowder was like this bad player who can't shoot and all this other stuff. He was overrated.

But I think like now he is properly rated as a type of guy who could play a little bit of stretch four and like open up things for you on that end. And then like Exum, he's a guy that they got nothing from last year. He's out there playing 26 minutes, four for nine. Like these guys all matter and I think they can match up with most teams in the league now. Crowder's in the same boat as Randall, where, like, for so long as Stock was, like, waving up and down, nobody really knew what to make of him on the teams they were on. And now it's like they're in a position to show that this is what I do. This is what I do well. There's a piece this morning on Yahoo Sports where, I guess it's like an interview with Donovan Mitchell.

And he says the goal is the championship. And I got to get my assists up. So those are his two goals this year, apparently. Sure. There you go. Is the goal ever not a championship? Yeah. That's the thing.

And is the assists for like some sort of like, I'm going to hit some contractual like trigger? I'm like, you only had two assists last night. Huh. Hmm. Well, he said that after the game, right? Yeah. Okay. There you go.

Just like I wants to improve. Oh, here's the thing that you missed that. That's pretty important. We were talking about NBA jam teams of different college programs for NBA. Like, so if they were in there and I was asking Haley, what? When were, two and two? Did I black out during that? It's not, two and Kemba.

Oh, right. Oh, right, right, right. Haley thinks that Donovan Mitchell and Montrez-Harrel could beat Kemba and Drummond in two-on-two. Get the fuck out of here. Oh, you said Kemba? Kimba? Kimba's incredible. I thought you said monk.

No. Or not Monk. What's his face? Lamb. No, no. That would be... Lamb and Drummond versus Harold and Mitchell. Why are you saying that?

It's a question. It would be a fascinating... Yeah, I'm not going to lie. If it was Kemba, I would take Yukon. That's right. Meanwhile, I've got Damara and Nicola Vusovitch from you. There you go. There you go.

Play it through the post. Emerson does not have any MV. Yeah. So I wanted to talk a little bit about this Sixers thing. I don't know if you guys have ever watched the American sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Very good episode they have once called Spoiler Alert where basically two characters is sitting around. They're talking about people in their lives. And one guy is like, Spoiler, this is your mom.

No. I think you would actually like how I met your mother. I've seen a couple episodes. Okay, cool. There is basically this moment where he's like, hey, I was like, your wife chews really loud. And the guy's like, my wife doesn't chew really loud. And he's like, yeah, she does. How can you not have noticed this?

And then he thinks back. And then all of a sudden he can't not hear how loud his wife chews. And it's like driving him nuts. And this kind of happened to me this week, but not with my wife with the Sixers. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, the rights to Ricky Sanchez, which is a Sixer podcast. Also a cult With Michael Levin and Spike Askin And they were talking

They've been I would say on the darker side of optimism This week And they were You know mostly it's been Fultz talk But after the Celtics game They just were like

I'm kind of worried That Simmons and Embed can't play with each other That the perfect version of this team Is Simmons and shooters Or Embed in shooters And not Simmons and Embed in shooters And not Simmons and Embed

and Faults all out of this floor at the same time with especially those three but even Simmons and Embed kind of not making a lot of sense at least against a team as good as Boston is defensively

so maybe against your kings or your hornets or whatever you can get off with those guys but that there is like a kind of basketball geography that's being broken when the two of those guys are out there

and it kind of shattered this dream I have of Joel and Ben leading the Sixers down Broad Street for an NBA title parade And I was wondering if you guys ever have one of those moments where you realize something about a team that you might like a lot and it just like shatters it for you. Well, can we talk about the Sixers thing? Yeah.

Sure. Sure. I think that they definitely have a point. Haley, did you not understand spoiler alert? And you thought it was. I got that wrong. I have prepared something different. Can we hear that one too?

That was dope. That was amazing. I was like, oh, Haley's got one. And then she's just like, nope. I was like, don't pass him all. Don't pass it all. Go ahead, ask me about the Sixers. I love it.

This is my favorite pastime. I feel like they have a point that they're two big men, two of whom aren't really good shooters, one of whom isn't a shooter at all. Fultz also doesn't seem like he makes a ton of sense if he can't shoot there. But I feel like throughout recent history, we've done this a lot, and ultimately it hasn't been that big of a deal. Like Chris Paul and James Hardin, is there enough of, are there enough shots? Is there enough of, there's only one ball to go around?

Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, and so on. I do feel like really good players. Figure it out. Figure it out. But I do think their issue is the guys around them. They need three-point shooters to go with them and they need a deeper bench. So I would just tweak it slightly to say it's not a band and beat problem. I agree with you.

Okay. So then doesn't that suggest something even deeper wrong with that? Like if they can't figure it out and if they don't want to figure it out together, isn't that also a problem? Because these, I mean, like, look, I think Embed is an incredible, I mean, in Bull Durham, they would have called him an incredible flake. Like, he has, like, an incredible personality. He's got something that is, you can't teach that. And Simmons, I think, is the best basketball player I've ever seen in my life. So which way would you go then?

This is the thing, is that the Philadelphia folklore guy wants Embed. And then the guy who's like, I know what this team needs. never seen someone pass the ball like Ben Simmons before. It's like Jason Kidd in like in Kevin Garnett's body or something. Then like I'm split a little bit there. Which one is the most talented on the team and which one has the most God-given talent? It's a good callback. I don't know.

You know, it's just a really tough situation. I think that I admire what they're trying to do, which is that they know that the best version of this team, this is something that Spike and Mike talk about a lot. The best version of this team is the three of them. It's Ben, Joel, and Markell, and that's why Markele has to start. I don't understand the Milwaukee Brewers

pitching staff style substitution pattern that's happening now, where Markele plays like 24 minutes in the first half and then gets benched. Like that doesn't really make any sense to me. If you're trying to see what you can get out of him, don't you want to see him in a bunch of different game situations? Don't you just think that's like a confidence

thing? Like, hey, we're going to give this to you, but we're also going to win. But I think... No, but that doesn't make any sense. Then bring him off the bench and, like, playing like a normal 18 to 25 minute game. Don't... I think that after last year, giving him confidence is like, oh, we're going to, like, give you the start.

Like, this go ahead, but, like, we still see that, like, we're going to bring you along slowly. That's probably what they're telling him. You're not going to be confident if you're coming off the bench. But I think that's part of the problem that Chris is sort of talking about is they're trying to juggle so many things at once that it is hurting them. Like, they're trying to juggle working Simmons. and be together as like a pairing. Then they're trying to juggle

Markell's confidence and his playing time and his shot and all of that. And then also the players around them to try to put together a team that can live up to its potential. There's a couple of things. They got back from China.

They're probably still a little tired. They didn't have a scholar or Chandler so they didn't have the bench scoring or like the veteran scoring that they had last year with Bellinelli and Ilysova. They played against probably the second best team in basketball

last on opening night. That's one other thing. Boston looked like completely ferocious to the point where Kyrie Irving looked like the fourth or fifth best player on that team. You know, I mean, there was a bunch of reasons why they didn't look right against Boston in Boston

with Boston having all these expectations and Tatum going through Kobe finishing school and everything else. But there was still some concerns there that I think are going to kind of linger over the team. And the expectations are strange. This is a team that people want to see get to the Eastern Conference finals, but they can't do it really

unless they get what they can out of Fultz and the only way to do that is to play him but in the second half JJ is going to come in and will be a real basketball team is, and I've never seen that work before. Like if you take away 98.7% of the talent, this is exactly what the Kings were doing last year.

Oh my God, Haley. I'm serious. I don't do that to him. Because they changed the lineup so many times because they were never sure what they were addressing. Were they trying to win? Were they trying to grow? were they trying to do at the same time?

You can't like halfway develop a player. Well, this is the theme of the podcast then. It's like these teams that are actually doing the thing that the other team wants to do, you know? I would just only say that there's a clear purpose with what they're trying to do with Fultz. They're trying to get him back into the groove in the context of their best players.

And because going forward, they need those three guys to work. So it's like, let's just figure it out now rather than wait about. What sucks is that like this is, the situation that Foltz is in needing to get his confidence back and all of that, he's also at the same time, the key

question for the Sixers to succeed the season. Like, his, how he succeeds. So it's, like, a lot of pressure on a guy who probably needs more time to, like, get that confidence. It's also the specific nature of what's wrong, whatever is ailing him. Do you know what I mean? Like, we don't actually really understand it or know, or

know how to talk about it, which I think is interesting. And this isn't Malik Monk. This isn't like, oh, this guy just didn't have a good rookie season, and then he came out and just dropped 18 on the bucks. Well, I think that We should even just listen to the language we're saying. You're saying, Justin, get his groove back. You're saying get back to where he was or whatever.

But where was he? He hasn't done anything yet. College. Well, we saw in college, which made him unquestionably the number one pick. You can't rely on that. Like, that's what? We've seen Embed come back from injury. We've seen Simmons come back from injury and be exactly what we thought that they were.

I don't necessarily know that that's going to happen. But those were feet and back. Yeah. That's not confidence. It wasn't confidence. It was like what, I mean, it wasn't a guy who's got a wide open three-pointer and is playing a hybrid guard role in the NBA and it's like, I'm not going to take that shot. So what are you, what are you going to do? Would you rather have Fultz come off the bench or would you rather have him start?

I'd rather have him come off the bench. I don't think there's anything wrong with him being in the second unit getting a little bit less intense competition, although against the Celtics, he would still be going up against Marcus Smart. So it doesn't really matter. And Marcus Smart like picks his teeth with guys like Markell Folds's bones. you know what I mean? Like, he beasts on being like, you were the number one pick, I'm going to destroy you. You know, like... Takes a lot of the pressure off of him.

Yeah, but just playing second unit, like, his job is to not throw away a lead or to keep the Sixers in a game, but not to win it and not, you know, I think that some sort of like gradual incline. And then as soon as, you know, there will be injuries. There will be like JJ misses two weeks or the hamstring pull. Then he starts. It seems natural. It seems much more... And I think a lot of the declarative nature of the way they're hands. handling a word. It's like, he has to play because we need to get him back to where he was.

You don't have to say that. Well, a lot of rookies never get back to where they were in college either. But that's not an option for him. I'll just say, I don't know what the best approach is with Fultz, but they need to figure him out because either to trade him or for him to be a part of the big three, he is the key piece. So let me ask you guys this as more neutral observers. And I'm just curious. The Sixers, they've stated before Elton Brand has talked about how. the window in a lot of ways is Ben Simmons's rookie contract because that's the place where

in terms of adding another star. So Fultz is along with Covington and Sarge, the probably hottest asset that is, but we would conceivably trade because we're not going to trade Simmons or Embed. When you see Fultz play against Boston like that, how badly do you think it dings his trade value? I would imagine that a lot of people are waiting to see what he actually is. And if anything, I think a game like that probably diminished it. And like, I don't know.

There isn't going to be a trade between now and their next game, which is tonight. But what if he scores 9. What if he puts up like 19 and 6 against the polls? Then I'd be a little bit more intrigued. I think something that we discount a lot is that, especially for way younger guys, guys who just got in the league a year ago, the scouts that were heavily scouting him before on teams that made the case for him but maybe knew that they couldn't get him were a little bit lower, they still believe that he can be whatever they thought he could be.

It's only been a year. And maybe they thought that his injury was handled wrong. Maybe they thought that they're not using him right. But this happens all the time that we are like, okay, well, this is his trade value, blah, blah, blah, blah. But we weren't the ones that were scouting him for months that believed in him in this specific system. I will say that probably on every trade call that they're going to field,

they'll hear that Markell is nothing. Of course. The whole point of a trade call is to diminish everything that that guy will or has ever done. Sure, but I'm sure there are still teams that want him and think that they could make a lot more out of him. Well, what's fair value now? I don't know. Let me throw this hypothetical out. You have to find a team that's like, you have to basically find a Portland who have decided that they're going to blow it up.

You have to find a team that's got like, CJ and Dame, we can't play them both together. So we're going to trade CJ and get off his contract and get a number one pick back and whatever else we can get from the sixers. That sounds like the worst idea. For Foltz or for the Sixers? For the Blazers. For the Blazers. Of course. Yeah.

I'm not, I'm, I'm constructing an idea of like. You need a more desperate team. Yeah. Yeah. What about this? So things don't go well for the Pelicans this year. They have to trade Anthony Davis or they decide to trade them before like all the packages are become nothing this summer. Would you trade for Davis and bead and folds?

I can't believe you're taking this long. Yeah. I guess so. Yeah. I think so too. I guess so. Oh my God Well even like a shorter term thing

What if like so I know that like even on the rookie they've talked about like they don't want Jimmy But like Jimmy Butler is probably not like the guy Well I can't have Jimmy Butler Markle Fultz in the same locker room I mean that's like yeah no So if we're gonna get Jimmy Buller it has to be because they're traded Markle Fultz for him I mean that's what I'm asking like what if what if Like are you entertaining that more because No I don't want to pay Jimmy Butler 40 million dollars when he's 34

Wow, that would make the timbrel's like the team of the maybes. Like baby Wiggins will pan out, maybe cow will pan out. Maybe footballs, yeah. I mean, you would have to throw some nails, obviously. Is that what you're saying? Is that your vision? That's my video. We can wrap it up there. I'm depressed. For Haley, O'Shaughnessy, Justin Verrier, and Palo Gettie.

I'm Chris Ryan. Thanks for listening to group chat. We'll be back next week. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.