The Ringer NBA Show - Best Case/Worst Case: Lakers, Nets, Bucks, and Suns I The Answer

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

Rob Mahoney fills in for Chris, joining Seerat to run through some of the best- and worst-case scenarios for four of the NBA’s projected top teams, the Lakers, Nets (14:46), Bucks, and Suns (42:14). Hosts: Seerat Sohi, Rob Mahoney Producer: Troy Farkas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to The Answer podcast. We are 11 days away from the beginning of the NBA regular season. Today we don't have our number one boy, Chris Ryan, with us. But we do have our number two boy, Rob Mahoney. Basically, I feel like has become one of the co-hosts of this podcast just because he is the most reliable and willing person on earth for when one of being Chris needs to step out. Rob, thank you for joining us today.

How's it going? Look, they don't just hand out number two, boy. You got to put in the hours to get to number two. Yeah, tell me what that process has been like. It's been extensive, you know, that's why I came in early, came in over the summer, got some time in the gym, I've been working on my corner three. I feel like I can guard one through five this season. I feel like I'm in great training camp shape.

And so I'm ready to roll out with you today, Cirit. Did you gain any weight? No comment. I heard you just got married, so I'm going to assume that whatever happened, And, you know, probably not like the lean muscle that everybody's talking about this year, unless like, you know, you're one of... Do you hear that about LeBron only having lean muscle this season? Like, it just feels like, I mean, I feel like he's kind of always only had lean muscle,

but like it's also defying physics a little bit. Well, when you put the millions of dollars into the maintenance of your body, you know, part of that is surgical procedures to remove all the non-lean muscle and replace it, grafted on with more lean muscle. I feel like that that is actually like the, that's what I, that's what I want. That's what I want. That's what I want. That's the next frontier.

That's the next frontier. The next frontier of NBA body maintenance, muscle grafting. Speaking of the Lakers, we are going to be starting there this week. We're going to be talking just straight down the middle. We're talking about contenders. The main four, and then we'll see if there is a dark horse, Rob, you might have one, I might have one. But we have an interesting situation this year where the Bucks and the Sons,

who were in the finals last year, aren't really getting the same love as the Nets and the Lakers, who, you know, Lakers season and that season, you know, in different ways fell apart due to injury. And now both teams look very different. So let's jump right in. I wrote about the Lakers this week, just about their starting lineup, about Anthony Davis at the 5. To me, I've been playing around with different sort of configurations of what their starting lineup can be, but I'm going to need your help because, like, it gets, I don't know, they could go in a lot of different directions. So what I'm at right now, obviously, is Davis,

LeBron, Westbrook as the main three. I'm trying to find a way to start AD at the 5 because the Lakers don't really have a lot of stretch 4 options, so I feel like the best way to actually get him like real minutes at the five is to just play him alongside lebron against real competition too like why waste those great minutes against uh against uh you know the second unit uh so those are the three that i've got right now you can you can slide malik monk in there if you want to you can slide you can slide tailan horton sucker in there like as soon as a riza got her uh he's out with with an ankle sprain like this whole configuration got really really complicated and i think that's what obviously people were worried about with the age of the Lakers.

But yeah, those are my four right now. And I don't really know where to go from there. Where are you at, Rob? Well, so I think we can actually pencil Wayne Ellington in there at that other wing spot. I think that's probably in terms of pure function, a guy who's going to shoot and only shoot in space the floor makes a lot of sense as far as what you would want on the wings. But yeah, that other spot is tricky. And I think it comes down to, you know, what is actually making an ideal starting five.

for this group versus finishing five versus what's going to be your best lineup in the game seven of a playoff series that's where ad at the five isn't always the best option i think probably the best case scenario is that ad starts at center somewhere around like 50 to 60 games this season and the other games you would have d'an jay you would have dwight you would have someone to kind of help ad maintain a little bit so it's just not so strenuous every game out so i think you're going to see some of that but in terms of who you'd want probably at that three spot if you're playing smaller. I kind of like Ken Baysmore. I like the fit of that. And most importantly, healthier or not, I'm just not at the point of my life where I'm trusting Trevor Arisa to be a meaningful part on an every night basis.

So that's, I guess, where I'm kind of at with Wayne Ellington, who was also 33 years old. And, you know, even in the best of times has never played the best defense. But that's kind of like the give or take with this, with this Laker scene. Like, there's just not a lot of good two-way players. Like, you could throw mellow in there, and then you're not going to have any defense. Wayne, you're not going to have any defense. You're also going to be undersized, too. And that's kind of the issue with Kent.

He's a good defender, but he's also, he's 6-4. And throwing him in when Westbrook is, you know, around 6-2. And Monk is also, Monk is a small shooting guard as well, 6-3, Wayne Ellington, another small shooting guard. I'm okay with that in the race. regular season, do you think Frank Vogel is going to at some point in the season just break? I mean, are we all? Aren't we all going to reach that point sometime in the next three or four months? You know what? That's a fair point. That's a fair point. I'm already, you know, thinking about this

starting lineup, I'm a little bit at my breaking point. I mean, generally speaking, when we talk about coaches breaking, what happens is they start out with the best of intentions, trusting younger players, trusting newer guys, and then they fall back into their old ways. And in this case, I think if Frank Vogel wanted to be more adventures, he would probably start someone like Taylor Horton-Tucker, you know, with the length, with some dynamism. Maybe you're trading off a little bit in terms of some of the diminishing returns of putting another ball handler out there with LeBron and Westbrook and Davis at the same time.

But that could be an option for you. And I think as we get more and more into security blanket territory, that's where Trevor Reza starts to seem like a more appealing option. Yeah. Taylin's really interesting this season. I'd say the only reason I don't immediately shoot him into the starting lineup is just because he really regressed as a shooter last year. And as we know, that's kind of just like what the Lakers need,

at least out of their supporting cast. So I feel like he's actually kind of a big X factor in terms of like, okay, is he going to come back with a stronger jump shot? That's obviously, like, I imagine as, you know, he's only 20 years old, but I imagine that's the only thing that he's working on in the offseason, I would hope. And the other part of it is just like, they don't have a lot of stretch four options either.

So is he going to step up defensively if you play him alongside AD at the 5? That then gives you another option where you don't always have to pair him with LeBron. But he's kind of like the only guy there that can slide between 3, 4, and 5 and just give the Lakers a little bit more lineup flexibility. Like it's really interesting to kind of just,

seeing their whole training camp play out, first of all, there were the acquisitions. And, you know, when you signed Dwight and DeAndre Jordan and you don't have a lot of stretch four options, like the sense I had was that you were going to see a ton of AD at the four. AD comes into training camp. He says, you know, he expects to play a lot more center than he has in his career. And then Frank Vogel kind of walks that back. And you can see why he walked it back. Like, I would obviously, I would love if Frank Vogel didn't give him.

a crap about defense for the entire regular season, but like that's, that's just realistically not going to happen, and they don't have, like, the personnel to, to not get pummeled. Like, you know, I think you can kind of, like, see these, I can see the blowbys already. I can see, like, the front court having to, having to clean up a lot of stuff. So it's, it's interesting. Like, I almost, I almost feel like they're going to need to, if Eriza isn't healthy, they're probably going to need to make, like, a pickup at some point in the season to shore up that depth. I mean, what do you think their defense is going to look like? I just have a hard time talking myself into the idea that this is going to be a normal,

high-functioning Lakers defense with this particular group of players. I think it can look a lot like it looked in the 2019-20 season where, you know, there were definitely moments in the regular season where it wasn't great, but just having a lot of rim protection, having a lot of guys just roaming around in the paint, that's still valuable. Like I think that's kind of what the Lakers proved in 2019-20. And they had a lot of like double rotations too. Like that was kind of the benefit of having Dwight over Drummond is like he is just,

he is just a more agile defender even at his age where, you know, you can have AD out on the perimeter and still then have Dwight, you know, roaming around the paint. There are definitely utility benefits to still like, you know, having those guys and having them at the five. But yeah, I just feel like there's going to be. be a lot on Davis, honestly. Like, it is, it is very much just, like, the season of, like, like, okay, are you going to be, like, bubble Anthony Davis, essentially? Because that's, like, like, that is what will catapult the Lakers into the territory of the nets and, and, and the

bucks. And, like, I don't know, like, where we really have the sons, we'll talk about them later. But that is ultimately, like, what's necessary. Like, he's going to have to just become, like, the guy who, you know, you just can't come in there. He's going to block every single shot. Like, he's going to be everywhere. He also has injury issues, and that's the reason he hasn't really like to do that in the regular season. So we'll see. He's not only going to need to be bubble Davis. He's going to need to be like defensive player of the year Davis, I think. Because this is this is a team that's leaning so much further

offensively than they are defensively relative to these other recent Laker teams. But at the same time, you know, you mentioned Taylin Horton Tucker as an X factor for this team. This whole team is X factors. It's like if if we're not hitting threes on a given night, how are we going to be scoring? If we're not getting stops on a given night and don't have that free transition play, how are we going to put up enough points to stay competitive with some of these teams that are going to come in bombing away? And I mean, we've been dancing around it with the wing rotation, but like some guys in this team just cannot guard, i.e. like the Carmelo Anthony contingent of this team,

some guys can't shoot. Some guys don't really have a function that slats and comfortably next to the star players on this team. There's just so many questions with how the Lakers are going to play. I'm not totally sold on, I think, the vision behind this team, but I can't wait to see what it looks like. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that Russell Westbrook, he has such a unique energy as a player. And it's always interesting to see how it bends and shapes any kind of new world that's around him. Yeah, yeah, I guess let's start there.

Westbrook, they signed, they traded for Westbrook when Buddy Healed seemed like he was available. Buddy Heald would have been a much more natural fit around LeBron James, just like a dead-eye shooter can, you know, can really score the basketball. And they just decided to go on a completely different direction by bringing Westbrook. I mean, we all know what Westbrook is, ball dominant,

has started to move a little bit better off the ball than he did. Yeah, I can see, I can see. Has he? Has he? Has he? Has he? I would say he has. And this is like where you can kind of get into like best case, worst case scenario with the Lakers.

Westbrook's best case scenario is probably just playing really hard, crashing the boards, pushing in transition, and then kind of going back to that Houston role that he had with Hardin, where he wasn't shooting threes anymore, and he was like cutting baseline, just working off of Hardin's leverage, and also just, you know, waiting on the wings while he drove, taking a drive and kick, and instead of shooting, just trying to finish. over the collapsing defense. That is the Westbrook story. Like, we know what it is, right? Like, he is going to go into the rim and try to finish over two people. The question is kind of just going to be like, can he? And then on this team, if he can't, do they have enough of a rebounding advantage that they can just make up for that? Like, this is a very, very interesting team in that regard. And they're going to need to do that to make up for the lack of spacing. So that's kind of like the best case scenario version of them. Rob, what's the worst case scenario with Westbrook.

Oh boy, let me tell you. Well, I think part of the worst case scenario with him starts with health and is really this layered problem with LeBron at his now advancing age, Anthony Davis with his injury history, and Russell Westbrook with his injury history. You know, maybe you can survive games without one of those three, but if two of those guys are out, you start having real problems. And with Westbrook in particular, he's one of those guys who, when he gets hurt, especially with lower body injuries, we've seen him with hamstring stuff, knee injuries.

in the past, he has a really hard time finishing. You know, he's such a powerful finisher around the basket, but I wouldn't say his touch is commensurate with other point guards. Like, he doesn't have that Steph or Kyrie kind of like layup game per se. It's all explosive. It's all getting, you know, trying to beat his man. But he'll chunk some balls off the backboard sometimes. It's just like part of who he is as a player.

And so if he has any kind of lingering injuries through the season, and we know that he's not much of a three-point shooter. We know his mid-range game really comes and goes. If he's not finishing well on top of that because of injuries, because of anything else, that could be a real problem. I think the best-case version that you outlined is kind of that flashback to who he was with James Hardin, the best version of that team. And it could be even better because if you're playing, you know,

3-1 pick-and-roll with LeBron with the ball and Westbrook screening for him, the size difference between those two guys makes it really hard for whoever's guarding Westbrook to suddenly pick up LeBron. in a way that was even more dramatic than it was with Harden. So I love the vision of that. But then when you look at everything that's going on in the court around them, in terms of spacing, in terms of the other pieces on the floor, in terms of what that means for Davis and the positions it puts him in,

I don't know. I'm just like, I would say I'm more of a Lakers skeptic overall than probably most of the NBA body politic. Yeah, I called them the most interesting experiment in the league. And I think that's exactly exactly what they are. The age issues are here for pretty much anybody on this team. Let's move on to the Nets. The Nets title favorites, despite losing last year,

but now we're in an interesting situation because I think obviously a big reason that they were title favorites is because Kyrie was out, and they also dealt with the James Hardin injuries. And just like a general, you know, like they were hit by COVID pretty much harder than everybody else. Like they were a new team. I think there were a lot of reasonable reasons why you would have them over the Bucks, even though the Bucks won a championship.

However, we are now in a situation where the Nets are actually looking a lot closer to the team that lost the Bucks in seven with Kyrie's status kind of up in the air. We don't know if the Nets are going to let him play part-time, if he's going to eventually just get vaccinated and be able to join the team full-time. If the general chirenes of the situation is then going to lead to, you know, I'm glad that everybody else is vaccinated, right? Because now we got Paul Millsap just kind of going down these chiry wormholes on Twitter. So it's probably a good thing that they all got their vaccinations, it seems like, before trading cap started. We got to get Paul Millsap out of the algorithm. He's just

in a wormhole clicking on YouTube links going further and further down. Yo, for real. For real. He's a, I think, I think, we could all use a little bit more um we should all be checking our algorithms you know i think a big thing in in the early two uh the early two 20 tens what do you call them was checking your privilege i think now should just be like checking your algorithm like what what what is what is what is it telling you that the world really is um because mine is all just like couch guy do you know who couch guy is what is couch guy okay so couch guy was um on this uh are you on ticotac absolutely not. Oh, you should be. You should be.

We're just talking about checking our algorithm and you're telling me to get more on TikTok. Out of all of the algorithms, it is, I think, the best. It gives me a genuine dopamine rush. I think it gives me actually what I want to see as opposed to like, you know, when you check like YouTube and you're like, I don't care about any of this. Like, why are you pushing this on me? I think TikTok

is maybe a little bit more subtle. It's like, you know, grooming me for the later dangers. So, Couch Guy is this meme that came up because a girl went to her boyfriend's college to surprise him. And she walks in and like there's three guys and there's three girls and the boyfriend is sitting on the couch with three girls. Everyone's laughing. He looks like he did not expect this coming at all. We have now gotten to a situation with it where there's like a Zabruder film level of analysis of whether the girl.

beside him, had his phone and then like kind of had to slip it to him. Also just some level of like, you know, kind of just like they were sitting pretty close together. Then she kind of like goes a little bit more in the other direction. Like not you're trying to be subtle, but like with it was subtle but with with like video cameras. It just it just isn't. Wonderful wormhole. A lot of people recreating stuff. I think it's great. But yeah, anyway, that's that's my algorithm. Kyrie's algorithm is obviously very different than mine, which is why he's one of the reasons I imagine he is not going to be playing full-time for the Nets this season.

What is your, let's do this starting lineup too. What's your ideal Nets starting lineup without Kairi? It's a great question, because I think it gets at the heart of what you think those other four guys need. I think we're penciling in Hardin, Durant, Joe Harris, and one of Blake Griffin or Lomarcus Aldrich, I think is probably what makes the most sense.

So out of that fifth spot, do you want a little more dynamism in like a Patty Mills type? Do you want, you know, maybe someone like Bruce Brown who's shown he can be effective, basically working as a six four big man for them. Personally, I like the idea of getting a little more perimeter defense with that group. And so I'm leaning more toward either Javon Carter or D'Andre Bembri, two guys who are not like big NBA names, but are real deal defenders, pressure defenders, guys who can pick up full court and save Hardin from having to take, you know, tougher defensive assignments.

Yeah, so the nets are kind of like, if everything kind of stands as it is, and nets are kind of like the opposite of the Lakers in that I generally am okay with almost any starting lineup that they could throw out there because they are actually just like filled with guys that you would want to like have on your starting lineup. Like two-way players who, sorry, go ahead. They also showed last season, you know, Steve Nash started at some point basically everybody. We've already seen most of these permutations of players be at least effective to some degree. Yeah, yeah, and I think that's generally probably something that's good to acknowledge here too,

where when we talk about starting lineups, it just isn't what it used to be. I don't think you really need to know who your best five are anymore. You probably want to know who your best five, like six or seven are and how to, like, how you would want to configure them against specific teams. And I feel like that's kind of what the Nets are really built to do. One thing that's kind of, so I want to get, get, get, your take all this. I feel like they're going to kind of miss DeAndre Jordan. That's where this podcast is going. We're going into they're going to miss DeAndre Jordan territory.

That's why I didn't give you a real rundown. This is a hell of a thing to just drop on somebody in the middle of a show. Why are they going to miss DeAndre Jordan? Well, so if you look at the Lakers, they probably went a little too far in that direction, right? But they went full Jordan. Yeah, they went full Jordan, right? I think. you like to go a little bit of Jordan, right? Like you want one of Dwight or Drummond or DeAndre or like, you know, just that subtype of like seven foot giant big men that can go get lobs. I think one of those guys is good to have on your team. They no longer have anybody on their team like that. And I just think that like when you have a player like Hardin who is just like one of the best

lob throwers in the league, like you're kind of just missing out a little bit on free points. I'm not saying that you're going to go and play him like, you know, 20 minutes a game in the playoffs. but having that utility piece, I think, can be really helpful. I think it helped the Lakers two years ago. I think going too far in that direction hurt them, you know, injuries and all that other stuff, hurt them the next year. And I think it's just good to have. If you look at kind of the Nets Bucks series, for example, like DeAndre wasn't a horrible

defender on Janus in the regular season. I think he's a little bit more playable than some of these other guys. I can, yeah, all right, what do you got? got. I got nothing. No, please continue. It felt like you had something. Yeah, I just think that that's one element that they're going to miss, but they do have a lot of really, like, good, solid, like, maybe undersized defenders who, like, you know, Bruce Brown is shooting well in the preseason. His shot was improving through the course of last season.

We'll see how it kind of plays out. Paul Milosep is a great addition for them. But they're groundbound, all of these guys. And I think that that can kind of of that can hurt you against some of the better defensive teams when you just don't have all of the passing angles that you could possibly have. Well, that's where it's going to come down to what were the arrangements made with these guys who they just brought in on minimum contracts. Like, what does Lamarcus Aldridge think his role is supposed to be or Paul Millsap? How much do they think they're going to play?

Because if it's very malleable and you could bench them, you know, D&P CD some nights, you know, they'll play 25 minutes, other nights. then I think you have room to play Nick Claxton more who gives me a taste of what you're talking about. And that was where one of my favorite kind of arrangements of nets last season was the bench nets, whereas James Hardin and then this group of bench guys. I think Joe Harris out there a lot of times too with him. And he could just run pick and roll after pick and roll with Claxon, pick and roll after pick and roll with big wing, whoever you want to put on the floor,

mismatch hunt, where you don't have so much service to do in terms of Kevin Durand is maybe the best offensive player in the history of civilization, we should probably get him the ball a lot. And so you had some of that look in terms of a lob threat, a guy who's going to the rim. But I don't know how much Nick Claxton is going to play if all of these veteran bigs think that they're going to be getting serious minutes. I have to imagine. And I mean, obviously, like, you just, you don't know what conversations are being had when a guy is signing at a specific place.

They also added James Johnson, who was kind of in that similar mold. I have to imagine that a Steve Nash team, just based on the way that he coached them last year, just will not be giving any guarantees to anybody outside of like, you know, Hardin, Durant, and then, like, you know, Kyrie, if he chooses to show up. I think for most of these guys, like, you kind of take the opportunity of, like, maybe this, like, if you're a guy like Blake, for example, sign there for another year, and then either, like, you can kind of go in whatever direction you want from there, either it's just like maybe they win a championship and it's just like okay bye bye um or like it just

becomes an opportunity for you to get a little bit more value out of your next contract um i think i think somebody like paul milsap who's never won a championship is probably in the same boat too i imagine there will be frustrations right like the nets if if nothing else like i think i think we have to predict that there will be more drama on this team than there will be on your average team uh but at the same time like you know like these guys are a little bit older too um and They haven't won a chip, so I can kind of just see them getting in line. And the same goes with Aldridge. Alder's might be like the one where you kind of think about it, but I don't know, I have to imagine that like if you're just not, you know, if you're his age and you're just not able to move your feet

that way, like at a certain point, it's kind of like AD with like just being okay with the fact that he's playing five. Like you have to just concede to reality in certain moments. I love this. This is where we have to protect Paul Millsap from the algorithm. I worry about what his search history could become if he's in February getting D&PCDs. You know, it's very easy to see him sliding into Jordan Peterson territory very quickly. Yeah, yeah, just like too long of a road trip. It's cold. I don't know what COVID is going to look like.

Maybe like, yeah. Yeah, everybody be on Paul Millsap Watch, please. What is the worst case scenario with the Nets? I mean, it's Kyrie doesn't play all season. And then again, another team. team with pretty significant injury histories in terms of Kevin Durant's. And if those guys can't stay healthy, if you don't have these two huge tent poles that are propping up this entire franchise, all that depth, all these options we've been talking about, kind of go out the window. Like,

Kevin Durant can be a really good single star, as we saw in the playoffs. He had to do that sometimes. But if you're doing that for 60 games and then playoff series, if you're, if you have kind of that long haul to do if anyone on this team suffers a major injury, especially Durant or Hardin, things could get tricky. But other than that, if they're on the court, especially those two guys in particular, this team's going to be awesome. They're going to be really, really good,

really hard to match up with, even for the best teams in the league. Like, every team has to be asking themselves right now, who's going to guard Kevin Durant? And there are no good answers to that question. Yeah, and then if you have that one, it's like, who's going to guard James Hardin? Right.

Who's, like, I would say, out of the guys that you could start, the fatigue factor is one of the reasons that I like, starting Bruce Brown just because so Bruce Brown is like one of the most interesting players in the league

I'm not sure if people know this but before he was like this hybrid 6-5 big men who just like found any in all space that he could on the court and you know plays next to guys who are really good at passing the ball like James Hardin before that he was actually a point card so you could kind of have him

in like a ball handling role where he's initiating the offense and just taking some of that load off of Hardin and KD and then also being the guy that can take the difficult defensive assignments. And then after getting the ball to them, be like more of a cutter and potentially a floor space or probably more of a cutter, though, playing in that role that he did last season, which oddly, like, is a weird thing about the Nets. And maybe it's similar to like the leverage that Steph and Clayhead just being like such

strong shooters where you could play Bruce Brown and Blake Griffin at the same time. and Bruce Brown is still going to find his space, and Blake Griffin is still going to be able to do all the Blake Griffin things that he does, which was really interesting to me, because when they signed him, I was kind of thinking like, okay,

might be the end there for Brown, especially like, you know, Claxton was coming back from injury, but he's really sticky, and I just kind of wonder what it would be like to just ride with him. Well, you have lots of options there, too, in terms of the bigs that could play with him.

You know, as long as if Lamarcus Aldridge is going to continue shooting threes, as he did, you know, toward the end of his San Antonio time, If Paul Millsap, you know, he's kind of an unreliable three-point shooter, but has some stretch, has a floor game, can make plays. You just want to have a situation where whoever is moving in, there's a corresponding player moving out in terms of who's taking up space inside. And so that's where, you know, if Bruce Brown is going to be 6'4, Amaristadmire, as long as you have bigs who are going to space the floor a little bit, it can work out really well. I mean, he fits very well with the way the Nets play and how fluid their game is, which for as star-bound as they are, as star-laden as this roster is, they moved the ball really well last season.

And Brown is a beneficiary of a lot of that. Yeah, they might be the single most, like, interchangeable team in the NBA where I feel like the style that they play from, you know, basically starting lineup from the first minute, the 23rd minute and the 47th minute, I think. think it would be very difficult to, other than intensity, differentiate, like, what time is this in the game? Like, is this the starting lineup? Like, how much these guys care right now? All of that stuff, like, it kind of just feels like it's always on the same level with the Nets. Do you think that helps them or hurts them? I think it helps. I mean, it helps from a matchup standpoint. It probably makes this, like, the question of who their starters are less relevant than it would for other teams, just because they have so much.

many options. They have so much flexibility. They're just impossible when you, when you walk into a game against the nets to know exactly what you're going to get, know exactly what version of that team is going to show up, not from an inconsistency standpoint, but just like, how are they going to choose to beat us tonight? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think that now, now, like, assuming, I'm, I don't know, I don't know where you're at with this, but like at this point, until he's vaccinated, I'm kind of just assuming that Kyrie is not available, at least for half this season, then we'll kind of see where it goes from there. Do you think that this version of the team should still be title favorites?

I think probably so. And some of that is because we've already seen glimpses of how dominant they can be even without him. And Hardin and Durant are just that good. So I think there are enough options here and there's enough, you know, 99th percentile shot creation between their two core guys that, you know, is icing on the cake in a lot of ways. He's the luxury that puts them from favorites to overwhelming favorites. But even without him, plug in the rest of the lineup. We haven't talked about Patty Mills a lot. He's going to be great for them too. The rest of this group is more than good

enough to win. Another underrated thing too is that like I know that we kind of, I don't know, as an NBA Twitter like nerd habitus, actually I learned the word habitus yesterday. It's basically like how certain groups of people like cluster together and start to behave in in the exact same way and think that's like it's kind of like it's a more it's a more nuanced version of of the echo chamber but also considering like physical movement and and just like style of of talking anyway the NBA Twitter habit is probably overrates PJ Tucker a little bit at the same time I think he was so important in that Nets buck series that like that is a big big part of it to me

like why I think the Nets should probably be favorites too I kind of change my mind on it like every day I might change my mind at the end of this podcast but I don't know I just want to go back to that that KD that KD two on the line and I'm just going to say that if PJ Tucker hadn't been guarding him for like the first seven games that series Kevin Durant would have known where the three point line is

that's it you're saying he wasn't even seeing straight at that point he was so worn down by PJ Tucker I'm saying that you can forget certain things or like you can just lose your focus in those moments when like you know like really good scores like that they always know where the three point line is I think that's just a lapse in focus that was created by like not just BJ but but the bucks in general and just how how tired they made the nets um they that was probably one of the series that was that was the most like asterisky

I guess and I don't love that in a negative way so I don't mean that in a negative way the way that I see last season is in every season really is you know every team on some level is meeting a moment

like no matter what right like if you want to look at the the warriors they don't exist in a different era right like the three point revolution they catapulted it but you know, it also catapulted them. And then you can kind of go down the line on this thing. Like style meets like a certain environment that suits it.

And this past season's environment definitely suited the buck style of play. I don't necessarily look at that like that's a bad thing because I think that's kind of the case in any season. Especially now, like where you can think of so many different excuses for why a team didn't deserve to win. So that's not where I'm trying to go here. for it, right? Like, we are obviously going to be, like, dealing with a different scenario this year. Like, you know, I don't, you know, you hope that COVID will be under control that they won't be as many people missing games due to COVID and, like, rosters, staps, everything being as stretched out as it was. And they also, another shortened off season, but still not as, not as short as last season.

So it is going to be different sledding, I guess. And, like, I don't know, I just kind of wonder, like, there's two different ways to look at the bucks in that scenario where, They could come in and have, like, that bump that you get after winning your first championship. Like, they're obviously, like, I think pretty much everybody on that team, especially Janice and Middleton, are going to continue to improve in general. And then there's, like, the, hey, nobody believes in us sort of thing that you can, I mean, like, I'm literally doing it right now. And just knowing each other better, I think they found some stuff in the playoffs in terms of, like, how to run their offense. Janus obviously just hit a new level. The other end of it is

they played longer than anybody else and Drew and Middleton went to the Olympics and we saw what happened to the Lakers and even like the heat to a lesser extent after their championship run. So I don't know. I'm really curious to see how things play out with the Bucks. There's a lot to unpack with them.

But I think fundamentally what gives me hope in their chances is just the fact that midway through that Brooklyn series, and I think one of the big reasons why, even including the injuries, trying to attach too many qualifiers or asterisk to it, I think is a disservice to what the Bucks did, is because Janus fundamentally changed during that series

about midway through his focus, his approach, the way he was attacking the game. I don't think you're putting that back in the box. Like he is just a different player on this side of that series than he was before it. And if you have that guy, you can beat anybody. You can beat even a team like the Nets.

Even with all the questions about PJ Tucker and like, can we guard him? Who's going to match up with KD? They don't have, nobody has an answer for that version of Yonis. And so it'll be interesting to see over the course of this year what teams try that's a little different if they change up their matchups with him,

how they try to reckon with this fact that this is an unstop, a genuinely unstoppable player. And in ways that he wasn't before where he's not just like revving up and trying to blow through you, but he has the hook shots and the push shots and the push shots, he's starting a little lower on some possessions. He just so many ways to overwhelm you physically that I wouldn't count Milwaukee out of any

situation, any series, even if Drew and Chris are exhausted all year. If Janus is healthy, they're going to be really freaking good. Yeah, I feel like there's a point. Maybe it was like the game four, game five mark of the net series where, you know, Blake was doing a really good job on Janus defensively. And I don't exactly know what happened. but that just ended towards the end of that series. He was doing a really good job until suddenly he wasn't.

Yeah, yeah. And which is honestly, like, isn't that how it goes with defenders on superstars? Like, you're kind of, you're a superstar stopper until you just aren't anymore. That said, though, like, I do believe that the Nets have more guys that can defend Yannis than pretty much anybody else. Like that, and defending Yannis is obviously a relative term. But in terms of just, like, size matchup, like, I think there was a really, that Blake was able to keep up with him.

Like he does have, he does have, like, the right mix of strength and agility at his age. And just, like, IQ to be able to do it. Kevin Durant, you know, Janice can probably bulldoze through him. But, you know, he can, he has a size. He has his speed. Claxton, Millsap, like, I don't think that you can stop Janus. But I would say, like, looking at the Eastern Conference. I don't see any other team that has guys that they can throw at him like that.

Other than maybe, like, I don't think the Sixers, like the Sixers defenders aren't necessarily suited for Janus. And I'd say maybe the heat, but they also, I mean, they don't have like, they have, they have Tucker now. We'll see, I guess we'll see how he does on the opposite side of him. But the Nets are probably the most loaded in terms of like, guys that can also, because of all that they have, like guys that they can, they can afford to put in foul trouble too. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the other teams, I think, would have to make pretty dramatic choices. Like, the Sixers would have to just, like, put Joelle and Bede in the paint and say, we're going to live with Brooke Lopez Corner Threes for seven games and see how it breaks out. And other teams would have, you know, a different version of that same choice, whether you're looking at the Hawks or, I mean, really, I don't know how many teams were really counting on to bust through the East because the Nets and the Bucks are so good. Like, that seems like they are on a collision course for the Eastern Finals, as long as both teams can stay relatively healthy.

even with all the questions that they have on the buck side. You know, for a proven champion, this is also a team that really rebuilt its entire bench down to the nuts and bolts. You know, Bobby Portis and Pat Conerton are still here, but everybody else is gone. PJ Tucker is gone, as you said, and there's going to be ramifications of that. You know, they get Dante DiVincenzo back,

which I think that's probably their likely fifth starter, but a fifth starter that doesn't do anything for you in the, how do we guard Kevin Durant conversation? And to your point about PJ, too, I think where you get the past, payoff of that shot at the end of game seven of Kevin not knowing where the three point line is and being just like a little bit too fatigue to hit that look. That's the difference between a defender like PJ Tucker who is not only good at contesting but does so much physical work early in terms

of fighting guys for position that they kind of lose track of where they are versus even if you are a really long, agile pressure defender who's going to contest shots really well. You got to do both sides of that things, both sides of that thing, to really unnerve or push off the best scores in the game. And I don't know that the Bucks have that short of if they want to try to deploy Yannis in that way. I'm just not seeing how they're going to match up with Durant per se short of, you know, maybe that's a Chris Middleton job now, just because they don't have a lot of great options. And personally, if I were the Bucks, I would worry about grinding a guy like Janus down if we're talking about who's going to guard Kevin Durant for seven games.

I would too. I would honestly probably prefer Drew on him just because he has the wingspan. He might seem, he is, ultimately he is undersized to guard him, but I think that pretty much everybody is undersized to guard, guard Durant. But he has, like, he has this strength and he can really get into his base in a way that I think would probably wear out a guy like Middleton who can guard Durant in different ways. I think he probably better at cutting him off. But in terms of, like, that fatigue factor that you want to create, Drew was probably the best

at that. And also, like, the guy who's offense that you don't necessarily. need. And that's a lot of, that is also essentially the formula that, that the bucks use in the playoffs for, for a good deal. Well, and Drew has done it before, too. When he was with New Orleans, he guarded KD a lot when, you know, going up against the Warriors and stuff, not always super effectively, because Durant can, you know, back him down to eight feet and hit little turnaround jumpers. But what are you going to do? You're giving up something to that guy, no matter who you're guarding him with. Yeah. I mean, at bottom, like, it's, it's not like Tucker. You wouldn't say he

guarded him effectively either, right? Like, that's not really what you're trying to do with. the guy like Kevin Durant. I would love to see Janice in that scenario just from a pure basketball point of view. I also wonder if that's not the direction to go with Janice. Maybe that's what makes him so unstoppable because he can kind of bump off everybody. But are you really going to wear him down on offense? Like what is the version of that? So that just like that's one thing that you kind of noticed during the finals is just like,

the dude does never really seem to get tired. And there was nobody that could really like, you know, just meet him in the pain and be like, yeah, this is going to hurt you a little bit. He was actually the only one putting the hurt on. And that was through a knee injury. Like he was playing through a hyper-extended knee and never seemed to get tired, which as we've seen anyone playing through injury, the rest of your body just has to compensate so much, especially when you're storming the paint and dunking over people, hitting like, you know, crucial game deciding alley-ups in transition. I don't know how he did any of that. It just must have been pure adrenaline at that point, kind of taking him

through the end of those playoffs. But if that's him in a slightly diminished state, imagine what we're going to see if we get a healthy Janus through a full playoff run. Again, in this more unlocked form, he's just a totally different thing to be reckoned with. See, I feel like we're both in this situation where we are picking the nets as, as finals favorites, but we're also just like, I'm kind of talking myself back into the bucks. I feel like you're talking me back into the bucks.

I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I might switch my pickback. It's been a total of 15 minutes, and I might be all the way back. That's all it took, 15 minutes of good podcasting time, and you're back on the Drew Holiday train, you're ready to commit, ready to go full bucks. Exactly, exactly. The last theme I wanted to hit on with you here is the Sons.

We have kind of forgotten that they exist on some level. They haven't really been a team that there's been a lot of buzz about. but they went to the finals last year. They are bringing back pretty much the exact same roster. Other than Chris Paul, who I imagine, you know, I think one of the factors that you can't predict injury, but just how lucky they got in general with Chris Paul injuries, even with him being injured, I know that he had injury issues, but like it's all relative with Chris Paul. How lucky they got with having him like in the moments that really mattered,

I don't know if that will recreate itself, but everything else with this team, it should kind of be the same or better. They are one of the youngest teams in the NBA. Like, Devin Booker should be coming back better. He was also on Team USA. You know, Cam Johnson, DeAndre Aiton, like, it's just they have one of the youngest, most promising teams in the NBA,

and their championship odds are plus 1,500. worse than the Warriors. The level of disrespect in that I just don't get. I don't get how a team like the Warriors who, I mean, speaking of franchises with huge questions, existential questions about how they're going to fill out the rotation, they have all these young guys, all these wildcards. The Suns are like as much of a dependable entity as there is outside of the Bucks. Maybe outside of the Bucks and Nets, just given the star power of the Nets.

But this is a team that absolutely wears you down with comprehensive. competence. Like they just are unfailing in what they do. They stick to their game plans. They don't make mistakes. I don't see how that's that kind of a long shot team. I think the sons have a really good shot to win the West, to be honest with you. Okay. Yeah. That's exactly where I'm at. I might pick them to win the West, honestly. Like the plus 1,500 odds. I think anybody right now should just hit those, like no matter what, even if you aren't a son's believer. Like that is just ridiculous. If you look also at like, we just talked about the Lakers and all these many different configurations of like strangeness and all the questions around them,

all the injury age issues, spacing issues that they're going to have. Like I don't understand why the nets who are just like, we have seen them do it, they beat the Lakers. I'll be an injured Lakers team, but beat them because of the same principles that they kind of are dealing with right now in terms of like just like who is going to guard every pick and roll all the time. And that's what the Sons do, right? Like they just run pick and roll all the time.

And like what do you get? It's Devin Buk and Chris. Chris Paul who can shoot from from anywhere and like Chris can get the ball to anybody. Devin is basically just like, you know, like he became Chris Paul. I forgot about that storyline up until just now, which, you know, good for me. They also added, they also added sham it, which I think is a great guy to have. I don't know. I just don't get it.

I don't get it. Like I feel like it's a weird thing where I feel like it's almost a waste of time to make the case because we all. watch the team the finals and they're the exact same. So I don't know why we are, like, it is just maybe, maybe the belief in this being an asterisk season is actually just like much higher than what I thought it was. And there is like a natural tendency to go back to like a juggernaw, like LeBron, KD type of thing. Like I see how people have more belief in that. But like, this, it's just they're one of the most well-balanced teams in the NBA. They play great defense.

They have a great offense. They now have experience in the finals. They know exactly who they are. They know who they should be starting. And I imagine that like the Bucks, they probably have a really sour taste in their mouths too. It's crazy that we do have to make this case. Like you're saying, this isn't something we should have to try to explain. But the overall level of pessimism of the sons and the run that they had is a little bit incomprehensible to me. I think it's caught up in so much of the conversation around, whether it's asterisk talk, whether it's the Lakers injury specifically. I mean, they caught breaks. Every good playoff team catches breaks. And what the sons are good at is capitalizing on whatever advantages they get. Like, they are ruthless in that kind of execution. I think one stopping block for them would be the fact that this is a machine that kind of runs on good vibes.

And if D'Andre Aiton's contract situation spills over in a way where he's like looking for some different kinds of shots, he doesn't want to just like run to the rim and rebound anymore. Maybe there's a problem there. But short of that, I am picking the suns. I think there's there's kind of a Myers-Briggs spectrum here of like, are you leaning more toward Lakers or I guess anyone else? I don't see a lot of people picking the suns, frankly, but I think they're probably the next, the other logical candidate.

Or are you leaning nets and bucks? And kind of like how you fall on that axis probably says something about who you are as a person. In this case, I'm picking the like dependable rock solid. I know exactly how they're going to execute. I know exactly what their floor is, which is super high. And all the potential of, as you mentioned, Aiton and Booker and Bridges and Cam Johnson, like these are huge upside players potentially who have levels to go that, you know, potentially as soon as this season.

So I see that as a finals team. I don't think that they have a thing to do with the Bucks or the Nets if they get there, but I think that's a finals team. Yeah, I agree with you. And it's strange that the West has now become like the water down conference. But yeah, the suns like make me. the sons make me feel safe. You know, like the sons have like a secure attachment style.

You know, like you just go in like, you can be who you need to be around them. They also like, they're built for the playoffs. Yep. Like that was a great point that you made there about like just the fact that they do, they take advantage of every single thing that you give them. Like they did have like that like it got annoying how much of like a Chris Paul vibe that they had in terms of just like looking for every possible. matchup that they could take advantage of and like maybe playing a little bit slower than they want to

um that could kind of go back to the eight and thing as well like i imagine that they could play a little bit faster and get him get him better looks and you know just reconfigure some of the things on that team because i think that one of the things that did drag them down later down the line is is that like they got stuck in the mud in the finals but they also like very much like planted themselves in that mud and then like you know took took a shovel and started like just putting it on their own legs just like we're not going to be moving um it is absolutely ridiculous too that like we're like that aton is even in this situation like when you are like first of all they made the finals but like i think that like when you ask like a number one pick like him to sacrifice the way

that he has i think that like the back end of that has to be especially if like this is a guy that you drafted and he delivered right like he very much understood the assignment um and became like a much a much better two-way force and i thought he was going to be this quickly like i think the other end of that just has to be that you pay him whatever the hell he wants um but man you know like that's kind of just like what you get with a franchise like the sun sometimes like like hopefully they sort it out but like i just i hope they don't ruin a good thing get this man his money you know like all I'm not privy to these conversations, but I can assure you the conversation with Aitin over last season was if you do X, Y, and Z, you're going to get paid in the NBA. Like, you are going to get a big money contract.

If you play a team game, if you give up these kinds of touches, if you play this role, we're asking you to play. Like, that's the Chris Paul pitch to DeAndre Aiden. That's the Monty Williams pitch to DeAndre Aden that gets him into that role that gets them to the NBA finals. Like, that's what he sacrificed is inextricable from both the team's success and the idea that he can still be a huge money player. Like he was operating under that assumption, I'm sure of it. That's the way bigs have to operate in the modern NBA. And so the fact that you would try to twist that against him or use as a reason not to pay him, I wouldn't really understand any of that. But what makes the Sons, I think, so compelling is like they are the super low turnover team, as all Chris Paul teams are.

but they benefit from the fact that Paul doesn't have to be the explosive element. Like you can get a huge game from Aiton, but more often you're just going to get incendiary performances from Devin Booker, where he can be the piece that puts you over the top if you're talking about a playoff series or a run or even just getting potentially the number one seat in the Western Conference. Paul doesn't have to be that guy. He can just be the conductor who's going to make sure

all the trains are running to the minute on time. Yeah, there's going to be less teaching for every. everybody this year, and that could be one of the points that makes it a little less contentious, is that just like, you know, I think it's hard to continually take like a lesson over and over again from a guy like from Chris Paul or really from anybody, right? Like, that's kind of in the Chris Paul story. So if those guys are already where they need to be, like maybe that has Chris, like, just a little bit more calm down and like, ready to just like let the, let the kids steer the ship there. Rob, I'm, I'm, I'm sipping the Kool-Aid over.

here. I don't even know that I'm buying chilled out Chris Paul. I don't I don't know that we're going to see that this season. Yeah, it's probably not going to happen. That's fair. It was actually interesting during the finals. It felt like there were some moments where like you saw players get a little bit annoyed with him and it felt like, oh, okay, like now we're at the place where like, you're just telling me things that I already know. And that's what they gets annoying, right? Rob, I believe that we have pretty much given away our cards here. I am in for a NetSons finals. What do you got?

I'm right there. I did not expect us to meet in this beautiful, happy place at NetSons. But here we are. We've talked ourselves into it sufficiently. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for joining the show today. Hopefully we will have you back again very soon.

We will be back next week with Chris. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Troy. Have a wonderful week. Weekend. We record these on Fridays.