The Ringer NBA Show - Basketball Is Back! Scrimmages Takeaways, Changing Expectations, and Mailbag Questions | The Mismatch

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

Verno and KOC react to the first NBA scrimmages in Orlando and potential new game operations (4:28) before answering a few questions from you, the listeners (36:35). Hosts: Chris Vernon, Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer podcast network. It's Liz Kelly. This week, we launched a new show on the network called The Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Coming from the guys who brought you the Dannessy Football Podcast, Danny Hyfids, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlebeck will guide you through the fantasy football season, providing analysis on big picture conversations like weekly matchups, trades, and daily fantasy. The show will run every Monday and Wednesday throughout the rest of the summer, and we'll be helping you through the regular season as well. So follow and listen to the first episode of the Ringer Fantasy Football Podcast. Out now for free on Spotify. Welcome to The Ringer MBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. Joining me as he does every Friday from the Ringer.com. It's Kevin O'Connor, A.K. Kevin O'Bomber, Kevin O'Bondylen, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin. Verno, we get a new theme song. I love it. We do have a new theme song that we do love, thanks to the guys from Father John Misty. John Titterington and Dan Bailey, piano and drums in that band.

I wrote this track for us, and I absolutely love it. It's my favorite theme I think we've ever had on the show, Chris. There's no question. It's our favorite theme. And part of the reason is, you know, we said goodbye to Bobby on Tuesday. It was a very somber exit. Another producer has left us in the dust. No highly successful podcast has gotten broken up with more times.

It appears as if we are getting back together with an X at least for a minute. as Isaac Lee appropriately as we bring him back to the show to be a part of this again before he ditches us again we have gotten rid of his song oh man and I do I do take great solace in that

as Isaac Lee has returned to the show with us obviously very big music career frankly we haven't heard from Isaac at all since Lynn Manuel Miranda that tweeted him. Yeah, what's with that, Isaac? How are you doing?

How you've been? I'm doing well. Just been at home here in Los Angeles and greatly anticipating the return of basketball. It's great that we had Dan and John write the theme song. It is a bit, the timing of it is a bit conspicuous because Bobby left the show on Tuesday. And Wednesday, I got this email from Dan and John saying, hey, here's a new theme song. It's almost like they knew.

It's almost like they had their spidey senses tingling. It's like, oh, you can be back, but your song, no. Yeah. How humiliated are you? No, no, no. I mean, they're professional, professional musicians. You know, I'm a semi-professional at best. So, you know, I'm glad that we have actually good music on.

Isaac, I think your song did a great job at capturing the tension, the mismatched tension. This song just gets me hyped up. Yeah, no, it's definitely a better, like, hype you up to talk about basketball. So thanks to Dan and John. Super glad to have you back. And obviously we do these on Zoom. And I mention, we must mention, the weight loss has really humiliated us, Kevin,

because Isaac Lee pops up on the Zoom screen. And I'm like, hold on. Like, you know, like when people like break up or they get divorced and all of a sudden they get in the gym like crazy, I do wonder if he broke up with us. And then he was like, okay. And he just ran straight to a gym and started like doing elliptical every day and like he was like, all right,

I'm going to show them. He showed us. The Rocky montage, but said in Los Angeles, that was me. Unbelievable. You're not allowed to show up on this show. She felt. Nobody loses weight during quarantine.

This is ridiculous. Well, I did. I mean, I'm just sitting around, you know, I was working on some other programs. And, you know, it's a lot less stressful when I don't have to deal with a diva like Chris Vernon. and a headcase like Kevin O'Connor, you know.

So much less stress and I'm so happy that I just, you know, all the weight just kind of came out of it. Fair enough. He got out of an abusive relationship, yeah. Exactly, exactly. All right, we have had basketball on TV, Mr. O'Connor, and I was so excited to watch it when it popped on the screen on Wednesday. And I'll tell you this, my first reaction, and this is, in all of the,

honesty because I watched a baseball game on Sunday night and I was like, I hate this. This feels so depressing. I hate all these empty seats behind the backstop. Like, this just feels wrong. Like, I feel like I'm not watching a real event. And then I flip on the NBA on Wednesday. And my initial reaction was, this looks really good on TV. I was, I was stunned.

juxtaposition from watching the baseball game, which I was, you know, because a lot of the stuff that I've been watching so far, golf, you don't even notice outside of like big shots where there would be a roar. You don't notice that there's not fans, you know, it's tight angles and you're really watching the players. NASCAR, it's a tight angle. You never even notice if anybody's in the stands anyway. Baseball, obviously, behind the backstop, it was insanely noticeable. And then when the NBA came on, I was like, it does not feel depressing at all watching this. Like I feel like all the space in the backdrop of it is taken up. And so it feels like I'm watching a basketball game as much as I can without a normal environment.

What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think overall you can see that they're experimenting right now, like with certain broadcasts. Sometimes there's arena sound. I think the Lakers game against the Mavs had that. Some games don't have crowd noise, but regardless of what it sounds like, the way it looks is great. Yes. It's only going to get better moving forward, too, with some of the stuff that came out today on Friday. Well, and the other thing is, and again, these are exhibition games.

We don't want to overreact greatly to the performances. Yeah. You know, in the exhibition game. Bobo is the greatest player of all time. That's what you're saying. I was getting there. I mean, I don't want to overreact, but it's pretty obvious when you watch Bolbo that we were watching There's something that, yeah, something special.

The length, the ability on the defensive end of the court can pull up and hit threes. I mean, come on. There's nobody better. Nobody. And that did feel preseason slash summer league-esque where a young player you've never seen before and you have this. The other thing was, and this was what, I don't know, man, my heart was filled so much. I know so many times everybody could be cynical about this stuff. But I have not felt that sense of community and the coming together of so many people excited about one thing.

And I know it's hilarious that it's bowl, bowl, and it's the nuggets. But it just so happened. It's the first day that the NBA is back. This is happening. It's something we haven't seen before. And what I have missed so greatly, especially in the social media landscape, which we're all on. all the time is that is one of the things. You talked about this a lot, whether it's sporting events, whether it's concerts,

that communal event that we have just been without, that it feels like nobody has any differences when it comes to like watching bowl bowl, nobody's fighting about anything when it's bowl bowl. There's nothing political about watching bowl, bowl, do something we haven't seen before. And I was struck by, like, I know it's silly, know that game didn't even matter, but it had this level of significance just because I felt like, damn, I have really missed this and people getting so excited about basketball highlights and seeing so many people just be happy about something.

Yeah, it was fun, and it was only the scrimmages. That's it. And it'll only build over time. I thought it was great also from the player side. Malcolm Brogden had tweeted about how, you know, it was great to be back on the court. It felt like a sanctuary for him. number of other guys have talked about just how great it's felt to be there too. And I mean, a lot of the conversations I've had from people that are in the bubble, whether it's coaches,

execs or players that a lot of people are really enjoying themselves. They are enjoying the communal aspect that they have with each other with the amount of things they have to do. I mean, we talked on Tuesday about how there was the zero test since July 13th. Hopefully that's still true this week ahead of next week. But so far, man, it's across the board. It's been really impressive, really impressive and really inspiring, too. And hopefully it continues on getting better and better and better. And the hard part was going to be if it looks depressing on TV, right? Then you get the, why are they even doing this?

And oh, my goodness, this feels nothing like. But they are doing their best. Like, it just aesthetically, like how it looks and how it sounds. It sounds like a game. And obviously they are going to make big steps going forward regarding. regarding what they are going to be doing. In fact, the NBA making an announcement today about different ideas, they have clearly been forward thinking in the digital space.

And as you have seen, as they have experimented some during these exhibitions, of what they're doing with the screens behind the players, etc., they've got even more stuff in store. So kind of walk me through this. So today the league is announcing that they're going to have something called Together mode in which 300 NBA fans each game are going to have the ability to appear on those big video boards that you're seeing court side right now and that they'll have the ability to interact with each other during the game and react live to what's happening on the court.

And additionally, anybody watching at home is going to have the ability to have the ability. to cheer virtually, you know, like a tap to cheer button either on the NBA app or using a hashtag on Twitter. And that's going to impact the quote unquote fake crowd noise at the arena. We're recording ahead of the league doing a presentation about this with media members. But like my understanding is that there won't be much latency. That was one of the questions I've had. Like, like there's like a 10, 15 second delay. That wouldn't make sense for people at home.

tapping into chair, you know? Right. But my understanding is there won't be much of a delay at all. So like, I don't know, it's going to be interesting. It sounds like they have a lot in store with new audio options for, you know, fans, for, you know, having the fake crowd noise, as well as the fact that like in the press release, they kind of touted all the new camera angles and new sounds that could have with more microphones on the court. So I think what we're hearing and seeing right now during the scrimmages is really just a preview of what the league has in store, which is an even higher level of a broadcasting experience for us to consume at home, but also something that would be a bit more lifelike for players.

Nothing can capture like, you know, a fan being two feet behind you when you're inbounding the pass with 10 seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter. You can't replicate that. But if you can replicate the sounds of the game, you know, what they have in mind seems really, really, really good. Yeah. And they have also said on the digital front, they are trying, it appears, to make these insanely interactive, like TikTok games that they're going to be doing,

trivia games. So they're using other platforms in order to get the maximum amount of people and fans involved in the game. You know, in the internet space, the NBA has been way ahead of the curve. Oh, yeah. In terms of other leagues. And I think they have this correct realization that people watching games have a laptop out or a tablet out or,

in many cases their phone. Even if you scroll through, if you were to see an NBA game now, you could take a still shot of a crowd and you'll see at least 50 people you could pick out that are looking at their phone or have their phone out at the time. And so with the realization that the game doesn't take everybody's attention all the time, okay. So what they've done is now in an attempt to get you to be interested in the game as well as, you scrolling through TikTok, they're putting different features on TikTok or whatever it may be that you,

and especially the younger generation, is scrolling through. The other thing that was not mentioned is the fan thing. So like last night I was watching Dallas, L.A. That was on. So it's my understanding for the four home games, theoretically, that you have during these eight games, you get all the fans for that game, right?

if it's Dallas versus L.A., then there's going to be three to four hundred Dallas fans. They are going to be a part of the broadcast. They will be on these 17-foot screens behind. And then obviously, if it's a Lakers home game, they will attempt to replicate that. What will be funny is to see how teams pull this off. Except for if it's Lakers clippers, some of the Lakers get all seven, right? How dare you, man? How dare you?

First week back on this show and you slander the. Clippers. How dare you? No, how about this, though? Who's going to be the first? I've thought about this a lot. Who's going to be the first to pull off getting like the celebrities to do it or a celebrity, right? The first thing that ran through my mind was, you know, he is part of the ownership group on a minority level, but like if you're the Grizzlies, you've got to get Justin Timberlake to do this. You do you. Or if you're, you know, one of these other teams. Can you do the halftime show too? I don't know. A halftime show. Come on.

Well, like, obviously with the Lakers, I mean, you've got all kinds of fans that you could choose from that might be willing to do it. Like somebody's got to get the celebrities to be involved in this and to be part of their fans that are watching the game that are on those big screens. Because I think of all the possibilities. I also think of how frigging impossible this is and thankless it's going to be to be the monitor of this, their job. And having to turn off people's screens immediately. You get Jimmy Goldstein on the screen, you get all these people walking through. I mean,

you're going to be, what are you going to do with Jimmy on screen? By the way, speaking of, Jimmy Goldstein should be on every single broadcast. Every single game. Every game. Every game.

Even if it's just a loop. If it's not actually him live, he's got to be there. Now, if I understand this correctly, you're not going to be able to hear the fans. So you don't have to worry about, like, if Joel Embedd hits a jumper,

being like, F you and Bid, you know what I mean? You're not going to be able to hear somebody. I mean, Signals, obviously, I guess. But, I mean, what can you do? I mean, you can flip the bird.

You can, you know, do the universal masturbation sign. But other than that, what are you going to do? I do wonder how you police that. How do you monitor all the, you cut their screen off? 300 people's a lot of people. I know, but that's what people are doing. They're cutting, you know what I mean? They'll just have to flip the screen off immediately.

And they might not be on there the entire time. Like, the whole game, you might not see 300 faces on the screen. It might flip here and there, you know? And you're getting season. ticket holders generally. You're trying to take care of sponsors, season ticket holders, whatever. Is that how they're doing? Is this a source?

Probably. Yes. Probably. I mean, you know, that's who teams want to take care of the people that spend a bunch of money with them. And so they, of course, are going to be the people.

And so generally, I don't think you're going to have a lot of problems with some Schmoe pulling out his wiener on camera or something. You know what I mean? Like, and obviously if you do, you just ban them for life or whatever, you know,

You're going to, like, the teams are going to know who the 300 people are. It's not like some random people, you know. So you are going to have some kind of attachment. I'm sure you have to sign something. Do some background research. You have to sign something that says, I'm not going to flip the bird. I'm not going to pull out my wiener, you know, this kind of stuff. Not going to show my boobs, whatever it may be, right?

So I'd imagine, like, those things that we think of, fans behaving bad, I'm sure they've gotten them taking care of on the front end, right? Yeah, I mean, either way, I don't know how this is going to work out. Like I said, I look forward to seeing the demo after we record this, but I look forward to seeing how it's actually going to work live. Seeing a demo is one thing. And by the way, I've been told that this is going to happen during the seating games. This is when they're going to start experimenting with this.

Maybe not game one of the seating games, but sometime during the seating games, you're going to see these virtual fans with the ability for any of us to tap, to cheer to the NBA app or using hashtags. So I'm looking forward to seeing it. It seems like a really, really cool innovation to me. And I'm glad that this is a way for them to at least somewhat replicate home court advantage. I mean, it's never going to be the same.

But this is a step forward to doing that. And I hope it sounds great. It also makes it interesting. Like it interests me. Like I want to see what it looks like. If you told me it's going to be a bunch of cardboard cutouts, there's no entreat to that. I agree. But the idea of the unknown is at least interesting.

It's something different, and they're obviously experimenting. We've talked about this is the time to experiment with things. And so now it'll be interesting to see how plays out. And let me just really quickly, because we've done this show long enough that I have an awareness of what people are going to reach out to me about. We can do hour-long podcast, and people are going to take the most minute thing. and then jump on that. And so let me just go ahead and say right off the bat, I am aware that I used the word weiner.

I am not ashamed of that. And you can tweet me all you want about how did you really say weiner? And the answer is still going to be yes. I said it. And now I've said it several times throughout the podcast. But it is my awareness now, Kevin, that I know. As soon as I said it, pull out your weaner, I knew that people are going to start tweeting me and being like, Weiner, really?

You couldn't find a different word? Is Weiner not a word people use nowadays or something? I don't know if they do or not. I feel like I was going to get jumped on for it. Okay. And so I'm preemptively striking and saying if you don't say it, I'm helping bring it back. So our two words are geyser and weiner. Geyser and Weiner.

Two words you never want to have to use together. Certainly. Nobody wants a geyser. weeder. That being said, in terms of the basketball that we've already had and we goofed about the bowl bowl thing, what has stood out to you so far? The Clippers were like, well, the first team that we saw, and they looked like the Clippers. I mean, right?

They're a fantastic team. We're not seeing everybody play 40 minutes. The Nuckets playing the five big guys and starting that. Let's talk about the Clippers for a minute. Okay. We don't talk enough about the Clippers. I'm not just saying that because of I'm right.

You are saying that because of Isaac. Damn right. Panderer. Kevin O. Panderer. No, it's the truth. It's the truth. We don't. I thought the Clippers really kicked this off to

a great start with how crisp they were playing. And we've seen like a lot of pretty good basketball right off the bat. I'm a little bit surprised at how fluid teams looked. I mean, it wasn't as sloppy as a lot of people expected. and the clippers they looked really great man they're really sharp on the offensive end of the

floor i mean this is a team that you think about playoff basketball and i've been evaluating a lot i picked the lakers before the season i'm still picking them now but like i try to play the devil's advocate with myself and i look at the clippers i'm like this is a team that can play any single style they can play with one big if they want to they can play space out five out offense if they want to They have the defenders against great point cards, great wings, great bigs. I mean, this team is built for postseason basketball with a short and rotation, and we saw how sharp they already looked without actually being at full strength. This team, especially when you consider the fact that we just talked about home court advantage,

is going to be more beneficial for the Clippers now, considering in a potential Lakers Clippers series. I mean, look, the fact is that the Lakers crowd is like 40% at a Clippers home game. maybe closer to 50% even during the postseason. That was something that factored in with me picking the Lakers over the clippers. And I'm not saying I'm changing now, but I'm saying that I might before the postseason starts, considering just how potent the clippers are in all ways.

And we did see a preview of that in that first scrimmage. Yeah, they have been and are my pick. I mean, I love that team. I think all healthy. I mean, you got to remember, they played more lineups, started more different lineups than anybody in the league. and when they have their guys together, which they don't. I mean, I remember not long before the quarantine ended,

if you said, hey, this is what you're typically going to close out with, with the two guys off the bench, Lou Will and Montres Harrell, along with Pat Bev and the two wings. So if you had Beverly and Williams, Paul George and Kauai, and then Montres Harrell, like that lineup has hardly played at all together. Like you don't even see it. And you know that they're going to get to that lineup a lot when they're all healthy. It's just everybody, whether it's Beverly, whether it's the bench guys, whether it is George sitting out sometimes, Kauai sitting out sometimes.

It's never all lined up. But if you told me they're all the way healthy, I think they're devastating. And the other thing is, you know, Kauai, I feel like he proved to everybody last year. playing with Toronto and you know you talk about how we don't talk about things enough I mean his playoff run last year is like historically yeah great he wasn't like he was the superstar on a team like he he doesn't have the big personality he's not constantly under television on commercials and whatever but just raw numbers he was like any amazing superstar in history He doesn't get considered like the LeBrons and the Jordans or whatever, but his performance throughout that playoffs last year is up there with any of theirs. Sure. I mean, average over 30 points with high efficiency,

rebounded the hell out of the ball, defended like hell. You know, he racked up four assists to game two in the postseason last year. Kauai is one of those star players who has another gear in postseason basketball, right? And that's something that sometimes players fizzle out in the playoffs. Kauai has never been one of those guys, even going back to that first championship that he won with the Spurs when he was a younger guy. He lifted his game to another level at that point, too. That's when Kauai really became a guy that people, everybody knew Kauai at that point.

And then you think to what he's done last year in Toronto, you know, load managed the whole year, maybe it doesn't look like his full self, thin playoffs come around, and what is he? He looks like arguably the best player in the world. and the clippers are going to get that guy again, someone who has been awesome this season, who arguably should be in top five for MVP voting and probably will end up in top five. He has another gear, man.

He can reach another level. And so can LeBron too. I mean, but with Kauai, though, you look at that roster, though, it's a new season right now. This is a new season. And you look at that team, man, and they're better built to win this whole thing than anybody.

Yep. With their ability to play so many different styles. think about what's important in the taste league they check all the boxes whereas the lakers have lost ava bradley have lost rajan rondo for some time um even caruso has a back contusion right now their depth is not as strong as the clippers yeah who else are you most excited to see um there are some teams that we have not seen so far obviously we're going to get to see your video this week was about the sixers we talked about this briefly on tuesday interestingly enough, and this is after your video had come out,

I heard an interview with a member of the Sixers broadcast, and the whole Shake Milton subject was brought up in conjunction with Brett Brown, and I found it interesting. Even the members of the Sixers media were saying, hey, hold the phone here. Let's not give Brett Brown too much credit. The truth is,

shake Milton was put in the position and played so well that he had, has made it undeniable. And you and I talked about this, interestingly enough, on an episode a couple of weeks ago, which was sometimes, and it was actually in reference to Caruso and the Rondo thing,

that sometimes you can fall into what's best for your team. It's not a decision you would have necessarily made, but because of injuries or whatever might take place, you end up falling into the best thing for your team and somebody takes that, opportunity and runs with it. And I sense that that is the general consensus from Philly. Obviously, Philly fans are not crazy about Brown anyway and are apt to criticize.

But regarding the Shake Milton, the idea was this wasn't some great stroke of genius. Hey, we should try this. It was hand was forced. He played. And then the kid made it undeniable. And they got to find a way to get it. him on the court. I mean, I think with Brett Brown, a large portion of it probably is that, you know, Richardson gets hurt midseason. Milton's able to get more playing time. Ben Simmons has

a lower back injury. Milton's able to get more time, more opportunity all adds up. But also, that doesn't necessarily mean that Brett Brown didn't see in practices that shake Milton was excelling. And he's like, I wish I can get this guy playing time. I wish I could get him playing time. I just can't bench a guy we just traded Jimmy Butler for who's making over $10 million. I can't take the ball out of Ben Simmons' hand when he's the player that he is, the star that he is, the leader that he is on the team. Sometimes it's like you want to do that, you just can't do that. And it could have been that for rep round. It also could have just been like, I have no other choice.

I guess I got to go to this young guy who I don't know if he's any good. Because one of the most important things a team can do is evaluate their own roster and see the guys that are good that aren't playing. Oftentimes we see those guys leave teams and then they suddenly are great players elsewhere. Well, and I'll tell you, it's so fascinating what you talked about in the whole power forward thing, because by the time people listen to this, the game will have already happened so you can go back and look at a box score and see. Grizzly Sixers is today Friday. They're both making their debuts. If you see.

Against each other, yes. Yes. And if he does roll with that whole power forward experience, the first draw is Jaron Jackson Jr., who is going to be probably one of the great power forwards in the league for many years to come. And so we would get to see, hopefully, between those two, we're going to get to see what, like, that's not like, oh, they're playing. They've got, you know, a stretch for that doesn't really do all that much. He is going up against what is the second leading scorer on a team and somebody that I think a lot of people have a lot of faith in going forward. And so it'd be fascinating to watch, right, what a guy looks like.

Because I will tell you, again, this is all an exhibition. today, but those teams played once in the season, and the Sixers absolutely destroyed them. And the size was way too much. And somebody like Simmons, he swallows up a guy like Morant. He does. Yeah. Like that's when you're little, a guy that's 610 that can move his feet like he does. And the other thing, obviously, he can switch everything.

I mean, there is a great advantage to having him play point guard defensively for you. But I'll be fascinated to see if he ends up kind of playing this point forward and the four at both ends because of who he would draw even the first time we see him out the gate at that position. Sure. I mean, like, who knows how the defensive matchups will line up. And Ben Simmons is one of the most versatile defenders in the whole freaking league. I mean, it depends across positions, different players and sizes and styles. So who knows on that end. But it is going to be really fascinating to see how the offense.

of roles break out for Ben Simmons and Shake Millen, which is one of the main topics in this video of the restart this week on the Ringer's YouTube channel. And like it, we talked about a little bit Tuesday. I'm cautiously optimistic. And I don't want to get too much into it again today because, you know, there'll be more to talk about Tuesday having seen an actual game being played. But I feel good about this move for the Sixers with the shooting ability that Milton provides and what Ben Simmons can do as an off-fall player. And a lot of that is going to ultimately come down, though, to what Brett Brown installs with this offense, what wrinkles he has in store for them.

This is going to be a real test to see if Brett Brown is the man for that job long term for the Sixers. He's already had a lot of time there, and there's been rumblings in the past about them changing coach before Colangelo was outed. There's always rumors of him making a change in head coach. I mean, Brett Brown has a really good relationship with Elton Brand. Brett Brown's part of the front office himself, But ultimately, this is a time for him to actually prove what he's a capable of with this roster that he has in place for him. There's a lot of talent here.

It's not a perfect fit, but there's a lot of talent to make something work here. A couple quick notes. Also, just from the play that's happened so far that I thought was significant, you and I had talked about when you were writing your series for the Ringer about teams coming back for the restart, we had highlighted the fact that two years ago, or last year, year, rather, in their run to the Western Conference finals and that regular season, that the numbers with Lillard and Nurchich on the court together were outstanding. We know that they have been without Nerkich throughout this year. And so that was going to be a question mark, right? Is he playing? How good does he look? And I will tell you, I went out of my way. He looks to be in great shape. and he was very good and productive in limited time in the exhibition.

Like if I was just watching that, it did not look like Yusuf Nerkich has been out for the season. And in fact, it looked like the Blazers team that we saw last year. Same with Collins, too. They both look totally healthy to me. It's always going to be like, hey, what happens when you see him in person? But it appears as if Portland's going to have their guys back. And while they have certainly been a little bit overlooked, considering all the love and predictions the Pelicans have gotten,

that Blazers team would continue to state when you've got that kind of firepower and then the numbers that you gave out about what they've been with Narkich and Collins in those lineups are undeniable. And so at least my initial reaction from watching them was these guys are totally healthy. They look like last year's Blazers, which is a frigging damn good team. Yep. And Nerkich looked pretty good in his first game back as well. there's a lot of good big players, man, in the Western Conference.

I'm excited to watch these teams battle. And you did allude to it earlier, the Denver's long ball lineup with their five big starting on the court together. That was fun to watch with Bowl Bowl and Yokic and Millsap and the other combos they had out there. It was a lot of people joked about it. Don't be surprised at Denver pulls that out in a game that matters. Don't be surprised. I've been super impressed to like we were saying like

I can't wait till these guys come back like who's the guy that like just let himself go during all of this like generally everybody looks to be in better shape than they were and I'm very impressed by that like that was not true after the lockout several years ago

I mean famously some guys careers ended after that lockout because they had let themselves go they gained so much weight and obviously it's more of a factor with guys that are under long guaranteed contracts. But my initial reaction from watching these teams so far is nobody really has just let themselves go completely. Everybody seems to be in better shape than they were when this thing ended, which is shocking

to me. No, I mean, I haven't seen a single guy that looks way out of shape. I mean, I'm sure some are physically. They just, you know, and they feel it, but you can't see it. Tell me you saw the Pablo Sandival picture. I did not see that. Oh, my God. But look it up after this pod.

He's a house, Kevin. Like, he's just... Pablo Sandoval just decided like, I don't care. He showed up, and I mean, he is a monster. It is absolutely hysterical. I mean, Big Panda is the biggest panda. He is bigger than a real panda now. And so we've at least seen it a little in some other sports

of guys that just decided who the hell cares. Who knows if we're even going to be playing or not and just took that attitude throughout it. Also, one quick note before we get to our mailback questions today, I need to mention this because it ran through my mind the other day watching that Nuggets and the Bowl Bowl thing. Okay. Now, Bow, Bowl has deserved all the talk that we have given him today.

There are some that are going to say, it's too much time for Bull, Bowl. There's not enough time. If I could do a 25-hour podcast on Bowl, bowl, I would. But this needs to be mentioned. He's like, what, 20? Probably he played his freshman year at Oregon and now he's in the league. He is 20. It turns 21 in November.

Here's a story for NBA fans that I feel like came and went and never got nearly the credit it deserves. Now, when I tell you this, it's going to sound like urban legend or a rumor, but I will tell you, you can go look it up for yourself in the New York Daily News, which is a reputable journalistic publication. There was a story that came out It was maybe like a year ago or something like this And I don't know if you know this either Kevin But it was about Mnup Bowl Okay, and this never got the talk that it deserved So there's a guy that brought Mnoup Bowl here

Who worked with the Cavaliers He's still with the NBA in some way, shape, or form I think he's a scout for a team right now Anyways, he brings Mnoup Bull over From the Sudan Okay, he goes around After he finds Mnubbouh Bull Manute Bowl has no idea how old he is.

Nobody in the town has any idea how old he is. Nobody. But he's got to get him to the United States, okay? So he gets him to the United States, and when he gets him to the United States, he just lies. He just makes up a birthday for him. And in the article, he says he thinks Minute Bowl was like 40 or 50

when he was playing in the NBA. 40 or 50. because everybody was like, oh, God, he died so young. Seems outrageous. No one ever, so all I was saying is, when I was watching Bobo the other day, it dawned on me, oh my God, what if they've got him for the next 30 years? Because his dad played, his dad played until he was 50.

All right, let's bust through the mailbag. Super quick, Isaac, what we got for Mailbag this week? All right, from Christopher Safeman. Of the players who are what I'd call bubble bonus inclusions, either two-way G-leek, 10-day guys like Bobo, who we mentioned, or Joe Kim Noah, or opt-up replacement signing like J.R. Smith or Jamal Crawford, which do you see having the greatest impact on their team?

Oh, I think Noah could help the Clippers win a title. I mean, I was obviously around him all last season. I saw what he brought to a team, the fire, the intensity. And the other thing is, if you're going against big guys, like he would against Dwight Howard, Javille McGee, whatever. Even if he got to the finals, he's the kind of, He just irritates people. And again, it's talking about 10 minutes, 12 minutes at a time.

But I do think he's the kind of guy that can help you flip a game and make some real impact plays. So he's the one I like the most. I think Noah, I mean, also in that first game, he looked like himself, you know, not prime, no. He was not as quick way earlier or anything like that. But he still looked like a guy who says some of the best screens in basketball, who makes quick decisions and is typically in the right position on the defensive end of the court. I mean, he could be a valuable player off that. bench. Yeah, with Noah, the takeaway from me was that his playmaking is going to be really valuable,

especially like as a center. I forgot that he was such a great passer until I watched him again. He could also take the ball off the rim and lead a break. Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. Lead a break, you know, he can pass off the short roll to the corner. He's a really valuable player for the Clippers. Next question, Nathan Budnick, if you had to select, this is funny, If you had to select an all-MBA team of the ugliest jump shots, who would it be?

Would Joe Knoa, again, Joe Knoa mentioned, would Joe Knoa make the list, Sean Marion, Kevin Duckworth? Oh, look, Kid Gilchrist has got the worst jumper in the history of the NBA. It's an abomination. I mean, like, it's like a weirdest arm motion ever. Horrendous. It's him. Yeah. Kid Gilchrist, yeah, Noah is your center.

Duckworth's fine. Bill Cartwright's free throw was an outrage. Oh, yeah. Right. I mean, those are the ones off the top of my head. Marian's is pretty ugly. I feel like Marion, Marion was the most effective with the ugliest jump shot. Right? Like, it looked very bad, but it worked.

Kevin Martin, I guess it's not ugly, but it's weird. Lonto is pretty bad. No, Lanzos looks good now. Better now. It looks, no, it just looks straight out good now. If you didn't know about the past Lanzo ball slingshot shooting motion, you would think he has a normal jumper now. It looks really good.

Oh, let me give you, and anybody could go look this up on the internet. Sneaky one that certainly has to be on that team is Cole Aldridge. Look up Cole Aldridge free throw. It's the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen. All right, I'll take your word for it. All right, let's just do one more. From Leonard Pinckney, just like there are all-MBA teams, do you believe there should be an all-MBA coaches team?

We can still have the coach of the year, but there's always more than a couple of coaches who do a great job each season, and having an all-coaches team would help give those other coaches. some much-deserved recognition. And if so, who are your five? No. No. I'm with you.

First, second, third is fine. But off the top of my head, Nick Nurse, Budenholzer, Taylor Jenkins. Who else did we mention it the other day, Kev? Billy Donovan. Billy Donovan.

So give me... McMillan, Doc Rivers. Yeah, I'd say McMillan surprised me more than, what his team did, more than Rivers, so I'd put him there. So Nurse. but Taylor Jenkins, Billy Donovan, Nate McMillan. I think that's fair.

Yeah. I like that. We got a lot of basketball going on this weekend. We've got some exciting NBA announcements. We'll be watching it all. Isaac, thanks for coming back. Hey, it's good to be back. Thanks, Isaac.

Kevin, I will talk to you next Tuesday. Have a good weekend, everybody. Thanks, everybody. We'll talk to you next week.