The Ringer NBA Show - Bol Bol, Zion Williamson, and the NBA Unicorn Fantasy | The Answer

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Seerat and Kyle start the pod by discussing some of their recent personal holiday adventures before taking a deep dive into the mythology, history, and definition of the NBA "unicorn." Next, they take a close look at Bol Bol and talk about the unrealistic and tangible expectations that the media and fans have attached to his career (17:47). Finally, they discuss Zion Williamson's unique physical dimensions and the way he uses them against opposing teams (34:15). Hosts: Seerat Sohi and J. Kyle Mann Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Benjamin Cruz and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill finally gave the ringers Philly crew a podcast. I'm Ben Solac. And I'm Shiel Kapadia. That's right, just a couple of Philly guys with a new space to fire off some Eagles takes get caught up in the Sixers, chaos, and more. We'll be coming to you twice a week on Sundays and Thursdays, plus bonus episodes whenever we get breaking news or Philly drama. Plus when Hardin and Embed somehow convince you suckers that this year's going to be different, our fellow Philly stands at the Ringer will have you covered on the Sixers and all your other favorite teams in town. It's Philly Sports, Shield. What could possibly go wrong? Join the fun and follow the ringers Philly special now on Spotify. And welcome to a very unhinged episode of The Answer. I'm excited to record this today with Kyle Mann, who is battling the sniffles. And I don't say that to be, I realize it sounds condescending.

I think it's actually a little worse than the sniffles. I'll let him describe it himself. I personally am hold up in a hotel in Vancouver trying to connect back home in a city that has no idea what to do when it snows despite being Canada. Vancouver, accept your fate. You have to have better preparedness for when it snows. The airport is basically shut down. The train shut down last night. People don't have winter tires. They don't know how to drive here in the snow. Guys, once again, this is Canada. What is going on? Does Canada have like a Julius Randall thing going on where they think they're one thing, but they're actually another, and like, maybe that's hurting their

productivity. Because, like, when you say that to me that, like, like, Vancouver is not prepared for cool weather, I'm just looking at the map and I'm kind of like, I feel like you guys, that would be what's going on there? Are they in denial about the fact that they're like kind of Canada? Like, I'm just, I'm a little confused by this. I think people in, so the weather in Vancouver is generally better than it is in most of Canada, especially during the winter. But it's not so much better that you can just be so laity-da about this. And I feel like they're almost trying to manifest into becoming a summer city or something, like this place where it doesn't snow all the time.

And granted, it has snowed more here than it does usually. Like, it almost looks like, kind of like Edmonton or Calgary would look. Edmonton, by the way, I saw from on an Instagram post, which is, I think, the most reliable news. source that there is. The wind in Edmonton is going to be the iciest in the world this week. So maybe I'm lucky that I did not get my connecting flight. But eventually I would like to go home for the holidays.

Yes, I can see a hallmark movie unfolding in front of us as here it records a pod with me. You're right. I'm a little under the weather. I've been kind of bouncing back and forth. But I think this is the life of a parent in 2022, soon to be 2023. there's just a lot of viral burgoo out there in the world. So you start to get sick. You're like, it could be anything.

It could be fucking botulism. It could be COVID. It could be, I don't know. It's a sort of, it's a mixed bag. And don't underestimate as a parent your ability to get sick like back to back to back to back. I've done that a few times this fall. Had a sickness that went on for like five weeks. I don't even know what was going on.

So just trying to hang in there, trying to hang in there. And hopefully, you said it was unhinged. already at the very top. We had a very nice creative discussion before we started our bot today with our producer, Chris Sutton, Hornet Leg. And hopefully we're going to talk about like, you know, something really unique. Honestly, a little bit, it's sort of ethereal. It's sort of undefined.

It's a terminology. And I think it's a way that we try to respect players or give them differentiating kind of levels of respect in terms of their like generational specialness, the word unicorn. I don't know. We're going to parse that and sort of check in on some unicorns today, right? Yeah, I think we are going to, first of all, try to maybe define what we think the unicorn is.

And then get into some of these guys through the years, you know, there's Kevin Durant. There's essentially the original of the species. Is he? Is he the original of the species? We can get into that. We can get into that. We can get into that. We start with the definition.

Let's do that. What's the definition? I would define a unicorn as somebody who is. is so athletically superior, superior in terms of size, and then adds a level of skill and versatility that allows them to essentially do everything. I think the unicorn, this is probably what I'm most interested in,

I think the unicorn in the minds and the fantasies of the NBA GM and the NBA fan is a cheat code for the modern NBA. It is somebody who can shoot over anybody who can't, you know, has the length and the speed and the know-how to basically switch onto perimeter players to contest every possible shot to basically essentially try to answer the problem of spacing and shooting that's like peripheral. What's that word?

Peripherally? Proliferated. Why can't this? Proliferated? You know what? I'm going to go with something easier. That's spread through the NBA in the last few years. Chris, keep that in.

I think people need to see that we're human. Well, you know. Let's not be too human. It's not too human. But I think that it's created, you know, the fantasy itself has created a situation where certain players who are that height, that fit, that physical mold, have been pigeonholed into trying to be that guy when they're not necessarily meant to. And then we'll also talk about Wem and Yamah at a certain point in this conversation.

because we're lucky enough to have you here. I've seen him. I've laid eyes on him in person. You made a great video about him a couple weeks ago as well. I made a video. You made a great video about him. They like it. But he's the most current data point on the timeline, basically, I think.

But when you said the thing about like, I don't know that he's the original unicorn and people can like reach out to us and like let us know who they think that is. I mean, throughout the history of the game, I think the idea of the unicorn is sort of this skill set sort of crossed with a body type that makes them, that they can leverage their size and skill in a way that people just can't reach them. And I think, if you think back, I mean, over the years, there's been a lot of people that kind of fit that mold. I mean, George Miken was probably the first, honestly, like, dominant big guy who had a skill set. I mean, he was pretty skilled for how big he was. if you go back and watch them those games, I would say probably Wilts Chamberlain,

I would say, is the guy that is the biggest blip on there because that was the guy who was like a world-class. You just hear all these legendary stories about his athleticism, and people just literally couldn't get to him. I mean, it was like really hard to defend him because of how agile and his touch and, you know, just on and on and on and on down the line.

But like physically, I think you could talk about like Ralph Samson. But I think as the game has evolved, some of this ties to what we've talked about, with Mike Prado who was on a few, you know, weeks ago. S skill sets changed as the game spaced out, this like, this sort of like importance that's been placed on like jump shooting and dribble jump shooting. I think you saw it. Like, I do think that Kevin Durant is historically, just based on the fact that nothing had been like him before.

Certainly things had influenced him before, but nothing had like been like him and then since. Like I still think that Kevin is probably one of the main entries. in terms of like a skill set that doesn't really happen in a body type. So I do think that he qualifies as a unicorn, definitely. Okay, but that he's not necessarily the original. That's definitely fair. I like that you, I like that you've taken this way back into, like, going to the 60s up until now.

And like, when I think about guys that maybe Bridge, what you're talking about, maybe Shaq, Bridge is part of that. And then Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzky, probably, In the context that we want to talk about it, I think Kevin and Garnett might be the most sort of telling. Maybe even Chris Bosch. I think maybe Chris Bosch is another guy who is a bridge between eras. Okay.

We could, I mean, we could kind of push back and forth there. I mean, I think Garnett is, I don't know that I would say Garnett was a unicorn. I mean, he, I think he was a little ahead of his time. That's what I would say. I think Garnett obviously was a fantastic defensive player. Like, we were kind of talking about the, how you. you would like classify different rim protectors or like versatile defenders. Like I think that he sort of defined this way that a player could be.

We saw like a guy who can come out and switch on to smaller players. I don't think he's the first player to ever do that. But then he could also give you like high quality room protection. He could also space the floor to the extent that we were spacing the floor back then, right? Like he didn't really start shooting threes until later in his career and he could handle the ball. And like, you know, really had, I think one thing that's. probably consistent in what we want from a unicorn is perimeter-oriented skills in a big body, right? Yeah, I think so. I think that the unicorn thing is sort of like prefaced on. You could even round it down where you're just like, is this person a one of one is sort of a thing. Because being special, but being like special in a way that's going to be like impossible to replicate is like really different because, you know, I do think that Anthony Davis at his peak has gotten pretty close.

to like the applications that Kevin Garnett has defensively. Would you agree or disagree with that? No, I absolutely agree with that. I think Anthony Davis is like the guy that I think about when I think about like the, you know, the protege of Kevin Garnett, just somebody who just has incredible athleticism, can protect the rim, can jump out on anybody, like really is able to react to any sort of matchup or scheme that an offense throws at him. And that has become a much more difficult prospects.

It's a lot harder to defend now than it was when KG was in the league, right? But I think with AD it's like, okay, you can, he can go two-on-one in a pick and roll, which is, to me, one of the most important skills. But then he can also switch out onto Steph Curry, and he can also close out onto a shooter in the corner. And, you know, like, let's just get into, you know, or not, right? Like, we're already in that place, it seems like. And that's something we're going to talk about, right? Like, who is actually a unicorn? So you pushed back against the idea that Anthony Davis is a unicorn. Well, I'll push back against Chris Bosch being a unicorn for sure.

I don't know that. I mean, what about what makes you think Chris Bosch? He's maybe more of a bridge. I think he definitely has more traditional big man skills. But he was, you know, in that Miami heat system, he was asked to do a lot of things that the modern big man was asked to do. So he maybe is more of like a blueprint for these guys that might be more naturally suited for it. Yeah, I think that there's a difference. There's definitely a difference between like a player, a player who redefines what a position can do. I don't know if we necessarily have like a word for that because you've talked about ad nauseum, not that we were nauseated by it, but we've talked about it a lot that like the Dremont generation, that like the,

there's this certain type of player that we thought had no longer was, that was moving towards extinction that like if you were six foot six or six foot five and you had played college ball as sort of like a near the basket player and and that you didn't necessarily have like a lot of perimeter skills we were like well that guy is probably going to struggle to play in this like they didn't necessarily have a spot i forget who it was that was playing over draymond in the beginning i mean david lee was a guy that was playing like that and draymond's ability which david lee i think was underrated with some of those warriors teams like what he was able to do in some of those passing situations. Anyway, I digress. But I think Steph is actually an

example because we were texting about like historically special like skill set wise, Steph is. Like I think that people underestimate how he created this illusion that like if you were six with three that you could do the things that he does. Like I think that he's he's created and changed the game the way we see the game, the geometry of the game. But I don't necessarily think his physical body type is going to be hard to replicate. And for me, that's like, that's the truest of the unicorns to me. Like Anthony Davis is a continuation of Kevin Garnett. I think Evan Mobley is a continuation of that.

We're going to see him grow into that role. But a guy like Kevin Durant, a guy like Shaq, a guy like Wilts Chamberlain, I feel like those are generationally more unique and unusual. And that's kind of what I reserve the unicorn title for. Okay. I like that distinction. The stuff thing brings up an interesting point, which is that you can't, necessarily replicate some of the things that these guys are doing because of what you said,

right? Like, because this type of, this body type and skill set only comes around every so often. So while what Steph did kind of set off this, you know, he was an era shifting game changer because some of what he does is replicable because he influenced all these other players to not only work on their three point shot more, but to strike. stretch it out and then to have, you know, coaches really start believing in that shot as well. I don't think that the unicorn can necessarily do that because there's only so many people that are going to be born that are, you know, seven foot three and incredibly agile and also

don't get injured all the time, right? Like, Janus is a unicorn, right? I think so because, A, I think he's probably, and I'm not trying to set this up, like, hey, hey, see, he'll be the final opinion on this. Obviously, I want to go back and forth. No, I think your opinion matters more than mine in every instance, actually. Just quit with the bullshit. All right, so I set you up to do that.

Dumb me, there's nothing better than you making me uncomfortable with your... I just, as your podcast co-host, it's actually my job to make you uncomfortable. That's what I would argue the opposite. You know, I like to do things differently. Then I would, maybe I'm like the unicorn of the podcast. Okay. We'll open that to the forum. But one that just like, you know, pokes my horns like into your eyes. Oh, I see. I see.

I see. Don't see a lot of unicorns behaving like that. Typically, I thought they were kind of dignified above, above that kind of behavior. Well, like I said, unhinged. Yeah. Huh. Okay. No, I think Janus is probably the best 611 or taller ball handler ever in terms of like his physicality.

And I think that like his ability to contort around the basket, I honestly, there isn't anything that's totally comparable, I think, in the history of the game. I can't think of anything. I know you're not necessarily as like interested in the older stuff as I, or maybe I'm speaking for you there. But I can't think of another player who's comparable in terms of like his ability to get downhill at his size. I mean, like Durant's not necessarily, he's sort of the inversion of that, right? I think Durant has that size, but he's more like outside in and Janus is more inside out. Santa Barclay is coming to town. He's delivering $20 million in gifts this holiday season to all FanDuel customers.

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You know what I was going to say, this type of player hasn't necessarily made the rest of the NBA then go and try to find the next one. But as I was thinking that, I realized that I was wrong. Because I think this is actually how we get into what happened with a player like Bull Bull and his trajectory in the NBA where, you know, he came to the nuggets and like the Yokic Nuggets. Who's another unicorn? We haven't talked about yet. but never.

He was essentially this fantasy player, right? Like incredible wingspan, incredible height. Hopefully he'll be able. And, you know, also comes with like some level of offensive skill to hopefully be able to play alongside a guy like Yokic and make up for his defensive deficiencies to be a rim protector, right? And this happens with all big men, I think. I think anytime there's a player with elite size and athleticism, we start fantasizing about what they could do.

But we don't always take into account what their actual skill set is. And I think that's something that Bulbul really suffered from earlier in his career, where there's this idea of let's park him in front of the rim, and he'll just swat away every shot with his height. And basketball is a far more complicated game than that. You can't just put, I mean, there's this, there's this West Wing episode about, you know, what if you put a sumo wrestler into a hockey net? And just like he would like cover the whole width of the net.

And I think that's kind of what we start thinking about when we talk about players like bowl, and we talk about the unicorn. Like sometimes we talk. We skim over the nuance of how difficult it is. Yeah, exactly. Right? Like you have to, you have to move around. And like you can even see it with Wambayama.

Like when you watching, like, you know, I'm sure everyone who's listened to this watch like the, the Scoot versus Wemby game. It's not like Wembenyama had Scoot's number like the whole time. Yeah, he blocked his shot a couple of times, but Scoot got the best of him too, right? And that's how this game works. Like there's always going to be some sort of reactive measure to any of these guys. And the place that you, especially on defense where you find an edge is in the nuances and like being able to read. And it's going to be in your footwork. It's going to be in how you shift your hips.

on a switch and like do you open up too much? And those are the things that Bull Bull is always kind of suffered from, right? Like even now that he's on the magic, defense is still not his strong suit. He is thriving as like this guy who uses his like ball handling and stride to like move in transition and, you know, spin through guys and just kind of like shock his way to to the rim and he can shoot. and he can shoot over everybody, but he doesn't necessarily have it all on defense. And it's kind of interesting.

Like he's one of these guys that's become that, you know, was sort of an unrealistic fantasy. Like we're always, I think we're looking for answers to solve whatever the, you know, the current problem is in basketball, right? And you look at a player like him and you look at these other unicorn types. Like I think Chris, Chris Boucher is a great example of this as well,

where, you know, He came to the Raptors who are just, by the way, like, as we all know, just completely entranced by this kind of player and didn't really find his way for a long time because despite his size and like what you can imagine him being, he is essentially meant to be a spot-up shooter who sometimes drives to the rim. And people will get upset about that and say, well, what a waste of size and skill in athleticism. And while every player does have to fit some sort of mold into, you know, whatever is productive on a court, you can't just pigeonhole them into it and say, okay, this is who you have to be. Yeah, I think that the thing about bowl, I was going to ask you specifically, what do you think he struggles with defensively? Why is that? Because just saying that is interesting on its own, like, we'll start simple. Like, what do you think about, like what jumps out to you defensively about him that prevents him from being that?

biggest thing to me is probably spatial awareness and the understanding of how offenses run. I think he's an easy guy to trick. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I think if he's like defending on the perimeter, I think it's going to be difficult for him to figure out like, okay, I need to like 2.9 this, right? Like I need to, you know, avoid the key for this amount of time and like go back and forth. I think that like if he's a little bit farther away from the play, he's not necessarily going to catch up to it. Now sometimes he will just because of a sheer length, right? And you have to watch out for him. him for that reason.

But like, I think, you know, you can just, you can use his lack of defensive IQ against him. Yeah. What do you think? I always think about like,

whenever you, I use this analogy that like pick and roll players like are really good at seeing like five games of Blackjack in front of them and like, and thinking about where they need to, like, they're just good at seeing a big board and like surveying. multiple problems and multiple variables at one time. That's why Luke is incredible at that.

You think about the best pick and roll players and they can survey a lot of information and make the best choice. I don't know that bowl is always engaged in that, for one. That was something that like Garnett, for example, was like a master at one of the best all time of all time. And like, AD is incredible at that. Draymond is smaller, but he's incredible at that. He can like see the board and kind of do those like the positional wagers is what

wagering is what I always call it. Like, they make the bet, like their bets, bowl A isn't always necessarily totally engaged in a way like that, like that he's not thinking on that level. I don't know that it's not that he's capable of it. I just don't know that it's like, and I was looking at his numbers. Like, this is, he's already reached his career high for the games played in a season at like 32.

He's played 32 games and that's his career high. So I'm kind of wondering if it's like a matter of him getting, I don't know, do you think it's something that he can work his way into? or do you think it's something that we would have already seen by now? I think we're actually already seeing him get better at it. Yeah. So, like, I don't know where the ceiling is with that, but I don't think it's necessarily intuitive. Whereas, like, you know, a guy like Evan Mobley comes into the league and you're like,

oh, he knows how to do this, right? Because it's a very difficult thing to pick up on, right? Like, it does, it takes some time, but I do think that some parts of it are innate. Like, I think a guy was like Christian Coloco. It's somewhat innate. Like, he just sees the court really well. And he's also, like, I think Mobley's really good at this where he's able to, accurately guess what the pick and roll ball handler is going to decide to do more often than not,

which is, by the way, one of the most difficult tasks in the NBA at this point because of just the sheer number of decisions that that guy has at his fingertips at this point and how good they've become it shielding it. I think last night's game with Magic and the Hawks is a perfect example. A guy like Trey Young who, you know, you don't even know if it's a floater or a lob until it's out of his hands. Like, those are really, really difficult reads to make. And I almost feel like, I hate, I almost hate saying that things are innate.

Like, it feels like a cop out to say that things are innate sometimes. So maybe he gets to some level of that. But I don't think that he was necessarily meant to be the defensive unicorn that he came into the NBA, like, with that expectation, you know. Or like, at least, maybe not to the NBA, but to a team that that's what, that team needed and that's a rule that they asked him to fill and it just wasn't really necessarily met for him at that time. I think for the people who were watching him as he came up from like he played at a school called Finlay Prep in in Las Vegas. It doesn't exist anymore.

PJ Washington's dad used to coach it. That's not interesting. But he like if you watched him when he was younger, I don't know that like if people were thinking like that if they were if they did have that expectation for them. I think like that would have been a lofty lofty expectation based on what we'd seen just because of the way he's. he had played and his challenges. I think the game experience is really, really critical because, like, he didn't play, he didn't play at Oregon, really.

I mean, he only played, like, four games. He kind of had the Wiseman thing going on. But one of the things that ties to the unicorn, as we, like, parse his scouting report, oh, we don't necessarily need to do that. But, like, I think one of the things that separates, like, if you, because we have this habit these days.

And, like, unicorn's a total assonine thing that we made up, or we're just, like, we're just trying to think of a way to label special players. Like, who's the most special players? of the special. Like, I mean, I don't even know if, like, you could say, Yokic is to, like, like, I almost wonder if, like, Yokic is more like Steph, where it's like, oh, a big guy can be skilled and can be used this way. It's not like his physical tools are, like, overly dominant in the same way that, like, Wimbuniamo or Durant. Durant is, like, a rare cross section of, like, guard coordination and,

you know, center length and then, like, shooting touch that we just didn't see. I think that, like, functionality is the big thing that I was talking to you about, like, our conversations before that kind of keep someone like bowl where you just look at them and you say like, well, okay, these are like the hypothetical applications of this player. But when we see them out on the floor, there are certain things that prevent him from doing that. And I was thinking about like offensively, I was going to ask you, how much of a believer are you in this situation? Like, have you surveyed this situation closely? Because bowl will do incredible things with the basketball. Do you think it's a real thing? How much confidence do you have in this going forward? Or

Do you think it's like a short term? Like that was a cool little thing that he did there. But is this going to work in the playoffs, I guess is the question. I think it's pretty real. I mean, I don't know. Like for a team like the magic, they can't really be asking those questions of themselves quite yet anyways. But like, yeah, let's say we were about to take Bull and like put him on a playoff team.

I think he prevents, like, he provides unique challenges. I don't think he's necessarily somebody who is going to be like, you know, your second or third guy by any means or even your fourth guy. But I think he could be like, an interesting six or seventh man coming off the bench and throwing out a wrinkle for a playoff team. And like, you know, then all the sudden a team like, you know, the 76ers has to find a way to answer for bowl bowl. You know what I mean? And it might not win you a playoff series, but it could win you a quarter or two.

Yeah, maybe not somebody that's like a heavy load person that you depend on defensively. So yeah, with the functionality for me, I think some of it you see this most frequently is that like you'll see a big guy handling the ball often like in situations. that don't simulate how difficult it is to handle the ball in the NBA. And I think people have had these questions about Wimbunyama. A lot of it's like dribble separation type stuff. If you really look closely with Bull, I think it's interesting that like he looks really good in like sequences that are sort of linear. Whenever they start to sort of jut out and become like things are coming from multiple directions, I'm having to make decisions that take into account, secondary, tertiary defenders,

you can kind of see the seams with him a little bit. Like, because if bowl is in transition and he makes one dribble move and then he makes a spin and then he like does like a euro and like cuffs the ball over somebody's head and then dunks it, you're just like, Jesus Christ, did we just see the next special thing in basketball? For me, functionality is like, does it hit a wall in the half core? And maybe this speaks to what you're talking about that like in a series where like the variables start to get more complicated and stack up and the, decision-making things, how real he is. I feel like that's where he's going to really get

test. And that's going to be like the next step for bowl to jump from like, you know, he does some impressive things. We can throw him in here. We can throw him in as a spot-up guy, as a finisher, as a lob threat, as of like a perimeter guy, but not necessarily like a heavy load-bearing player, which doesn't mean that he's like useless. It just means that maybe that's kind of the threshold that he needs to knock down to kind of go to the next step. That's going to be something that's going to be really interesting to watch with Wemba, Yama as well. like when you watch him play he does have that same sort of thing

and one thing I've noticed about him and I don't think this will necessarily bear itself out to be true for his entire career because one thing I've noticed talking to people around the league about Wembenyama is just how impressed they are by his frame and how he might be able to fill it out

and Wembenyama himself has kind of talked about how he wants to combine the games of Yannis and Kevin Durant and also be his own thing which like you mentioned in your video and also mentioned that like that would be something that would be considered ridiculous if it was anybody else. But he does have the frame to eventually be a player who might be able to use his physicality.

But I think at this juncture, he still kind of shies away from that side of things. And he essentially, like, I think is going to have to develop a pretty reliable jumper in order to completely fulfill this potential that he has. Like, yes, he will probably be a nightmare. on defense and a menace in transition and a matchup problem down low. But I think the interesting outgrowth that we've seen, again, let's add nauseam on the Dremont generation stuff, is that one good antidote to a player like Wambayama

or a player like Bull or like any of these really skinny tall players is to have a Dremond-esque guy who can really just get into his base and push him around and get him on. off balance, right? And that's something that, you know, we're, like, we're going to need to see an answer to that. And it's going to be jump shooting. Like that was that was Kevin Durant's answer, right? Like he is just, first of all, like far stronger than he actually looks and also can shoot off balance in any different type of way.

Yeah. I mean, Durant's jump shot is something I don't, I don't, I'm trying to think of like guys in their career who have come in with like one proposition. Now granted, like Durant's jump shot is like not a simple proposition. It's not a simple like he stands on the perimeter and just shoots over people. Like the multifacetedness of it, the fact that he can get to it off his right, get to it off his left, several dribbles, one dribble, fade, the variety of ways that he can get to it. I don't want to downplay it.

But I mean, he has one mode that like he's done a good job of like diversifying it. And I'm trying to think of like other guys. Janice, I think is like the one of the only other guys in the league who have just been like, he has like rim pressure off the bounce. And like that is the thing that he has traded on. And it's just interesting when you're smiling. But like whenever it's just interesting to me whenever a guy has like one simple idea and you're just like, why is this still something that is so confounding? I mean, like, Janice has won a championship. And it's not trying to like oversimplify what he does.

But it's just interesting. I can't think of any of the guys in the league who have, like, traded on more success for, like, one physical thing that they do. Shaq, I think, falls into this category, too. I don't know. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, I'm laughing because did you see that video of Janice basically essentially saying that, like, he's, you know, the luckiest man in the world? Like, he just, you know, you can't be this lucky and have this family and have a championship and have, like, this boy.

and have like this body and this athleticism and all that stuff and also be able to shoot. Like he was like, you know, God had to make me humble. Like there's just one thing I can't do. I just, I just can't shoot. That was really funny. Janice is my favorite player in the world. I frequently feel that way except I can't shoot. So I never in my, you know, I frequently think that all the time where I'm just like, you know, I just can't, you know, it's wild that one person could have all these talents.

But, you know, anyway, I can. There's one other person. There's one other person that I think that we should talk about that is, that I do think actually is a unicorn in the game of basketball now, but I think before we do that, we should take a break. To me, this person is probably the most unique player in basketball and one of the more unique players of all time. I think that's Zion. I honestly think that like Zion physically, like unique would be very hard to replicate what they do. I think you can make the argument that it's Winbenyama. I'm talking about in the world right now.

I might say something wild here. But like skill sets, yes. Like Durant, what he does is very unique, very rare. I don't know that we're going to see people. They're big tall guys that can shoot the ball. I just don't know that we're ever going to see how frequently we're going to see a six-foot-six guy who weighs 280 pounds who generates the force that he does and moves with the explosiveness that he does. And you're talking about like trading on like a single-eyed.

yeah. Zion's going to his left and they still can't stop him. They can't do anything with him in transition. I don't know. I think he's probably, him and Winbenyama, in my opinion, are the two true one-of-one unicorns in the world right now, unless I'm just like forgetting somebody obvious. I just, I love a Kyle Man hot take. I don't think that's hot at all.

I think that's like, but I mean, people may disagree. Do you, what do you think? No, I agree with it. I absolutely love it. Like, I've thought, we talked about this in the past, past, and it's, kind of more esoteric way with Kenny Lofton Jr. But I genuinely think the next 10 years of the NBA is going to be like this increasing width,

like fighting against this increasing height. And it's going to be like the most interesting proxy battle ever because like they're kind of two skill sets that are somewhat designed to stop the other one. You know, like if there is going to be an answer to Zion at some point, it's going to be some combination of having, you know, a defender like Draymond Green or, you know, any of the outgrowth of Draymond Green with a defender like Wembenyama on help side, right? Like, that's what it's going to require is somebody who can, you know, keep him from getting

where he needs to go. And it's kind of interesting. So watching this like Pelican Sun's mini series that we've had in the last, week or so, I'm going to be very interested to see what Zion looks like in the playoffs, because I wonder if, you know, by the time game four or five rolls around in the series, if you haven't as a defender started to figure out a few things. Because that's, I feel like what I was like starting to see with the Sons, like, especially with Craig, like just being able to figure out the way to, you know, you're not necessarily

going to prevent him from getting closer to the rim, but you might give him a tougher angle. You might figure out the right place to swat the ball from him, which, by the way, is a very difficult proposition. But it's going to be really interesting to see how that plays out. But anyway, that's maybe not really on topic what we're talking about here. But I think that's, that combination of things is essentially what it's going to take. And then if you look at the other way, what's going to be the type of player that stops the Wembenyama guys? It's going to be the guy that has just so much strength on him that he can just prevent him from getting anywhere near the rim.

Yeah, that seems like that would be the kryptonite to Superman in a way, but it's like that that player, let's say Prime Shaquille O'Neal was in the league and could get out on the rim. It's like those guys just don't. It's one of those things that like we're reaching like that, the literal heights of like where like what tall people like exceedingly tall human beings that are just rare in the world like like I like I don't know that we're going to go beyond I don't even know what beyond when banyama would be are we going to get like a seven foot eight guy they can do like is that like where at some point like the functionality it all ties back to like what what a player can do on the court I think like the dichotomy the duality whatever you want to call like of that you pointed out is interesting that like there is sort of this like dual silo thing going on with like players coming in the league of vertical space flying around. They just kind of address the movement of like the movement within basketball.

And I feel like Grant Williams is a good example of someone of like, he actually is kind of a good example of what we're talking about of like what can you do with this physical guy who can access and can contort and spin and like get a put crazy pressure on the rim. It's like, well, Grant Williams can't block Janice's shot at the apex. he doesn't have a chance. But the thing that he really, really does is funnel his like horizontal movement, lateral movement really well. And you think about like if you take that to Wimbunyama,

what is going to be the type of player that's going to bother him? Let's say hypothetically he gets really strong. I'm trying to think of the players who have bothered Anthony Davis over the years. What's going to be the body type? Like, is there going to be who in the league right now? I mean, I'm sure like Embeddead's going to pick on Wimbenyama immediately. with this physicality, but a few years from now, if he does get strong, what is that?

Robert Williams, maybe. You think so? Maybe. Maybe. I think Williams has like the combination of height and strength to do it, possibly. But I think like two years, Zion point, I think Zion's going to be a harder proposition.

I think legal actually, because there's also like these other guys coming in, like Chet, maybe Chet becomes a guy who is a decent answer to Wembe Nama. Like there are a lot of, guys that are coming in despite how rare they are, they're coming in with a lot of height that could be able to do it. Whereas like with Zion, I just, I don't, it's really weird because Zion has been, you know, the most hype prospects for pretty much like the last 10 years,

but the league has no answer for him. Like there's no preparation for a player like Zion. We've all become so obsessed with height. It's almost like he like snuck it under everybody and got to the room. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting thing to, I think you and I talked about this on a pod back or like around Summer League that like some of it is like there are unicorns that are sort of the response to the ecosystem that exists like where like everybody is zicking in this direction and then one player comes in and as like the whole league moves towards skinny guys someone like a bowling ball like it's sort of like Zion is like an invasive species that has come into this ecosystem and he's just ravaging it because like there's nothing that anyone could do

because he's a zombie unicorn essentially a zombie unicorn you said yeah Sorry for cutting you off there. Keep going. No, that's an interesting. I'm sure someone has drawn something like that in the past. But I think that it's especially true now that he is like just wrecking people because we have so many guys that are like leaner and like are more equipped to like the spatial generation basically.

And it's interesting to think about like what he, what Zion would have been like in like the early 2000s or like the like blood in the garden era Knicks. like the guys who could like physically. I think that's another part of it too is like the way the game's officiated now makes it impossible to do anything with it. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Like I imagine earlier era if he just,

he doesn't have the jumper. So even, you know, from mid-range, I don't necessarily trust him. And like he probably would have suffered a lot more from that in an era where the paint was more packed. But at the same time, I almost, I feel like I'd have to see it though to actually give you any level of like predictive insight on it

because the weird thing about Zion is that he doesn't need space. Like, you think you have covered the lane and somehow he is through two guys. You're like, how the hell did that happen? Like, how was a charge not called? Yeah, I think some of that circles back to the stuff that you, like, we think about him as just like, you know, Zion smash.

Like, he's just this powerful Hulk figure who just, like, has no conscience and he just bullies people. But he is very smart and angular about how he does it. And I think that's what makes him so difficult to play about. It's like the kind of angles that he takes whenever, whenever he goes to the rim. And they've done a really good job of not making him like a, you know,

Janice is tough because he can, you know, his like lateral flexibility is so crazy. He can step around people. There's that crazy clip of him against the Raptors. Like in like 2018, I think where he took like three steps, but they were like so insanely wide.

Like he went all the way the right, all the way the left, back to the right. That's a different kind of skill set. I think like, if Zion was just like a straight downhill bully, I think it'd be one thing, but he is pretty clever with his angles. Yeah. And so we've now talked about, we've talked about Zion, we've talked about Kevin Durant, we've talked about Janice, we have talked about Yokic.

And I guess my question at this point is, what is the utility of the unicorn taxonomy? Is it anything beyond us just talking about who is fun? Like is there is there something useful about trying to group these players together figuring out how they diverge from each other? What's the purpose of this conversation, I guess? It's kind of funny. Not too much. Like let's not get too existential about this. But yeah, like what?

In the conversation since I think it's just we want to get, we want to talk about who's the most special. It's sort of the barbershop thing. But then I think for the true unicorns, I just think there's a level of functionality you can ascend to where it's like I always talk about like implied things. Like it's so implied that like it's just. is something that can affect the way rosters are built. Like if you think about, you know,

I think teams that know they're going to face off against Janus have to think. I think that's the highest level that you can get to as an NBA player. It's like when you start to think, when the other teams in your conference are like,

we have to plan our whole roster around this person because they are so formidable and like, and like there's no way around them. We've got to go through them. I think that's the highest level in the NBA. And you start thinking about like, I think Shaq is one of the high

examples of this that like Shaq influenced an entire era like if you look at like I always point at like the sun's drafting Jake Socalides back in the day or like all these big like just behemoth players who were like were very low skill but we're like we literally just need fouls like yeah Greg Ostrateg's cool career yeah like I think that I'm trying to think of somebody like Janus is a good example of that I don't know if there's another player who's even really come close, honestly. But I think that's the highest level is like we have to find a way to deal with this player like in our roster building. Yeah.

Yeah. It's going to be a very interesting decade to see whether teams have to you know, gear their thinking towards stopping a player like Wemian Yam or a player like Zion because they provide two completely different problems. Yeah, totally. One's like

an angular insane. He is still a bully. I mean, in terms of like he hurts people's feelings I think and makes them feel bad. but uh he's and then and then you know then wimbunyama is weirdly sort of a a face-up skill player you know we don't see a ton he doesn't he doesn't try to like force it like on the interior i don't know how much game action you've gotten to watch of him but he's very kind of face-up dominant like he's he's way more to rant than yonis like if you were going to like like categorize the application of his size like he'd he'd rather shoot over you

and i think that's justified because he's got to got such great touch. Yeah, I mean, that's why that jumpers is going to be important. But it's going to be fascinating to watch, and I look forward to continuing to discuss it with you. Yeah, we'll circle back and give our unicorn, Lisa Frank, you know, bright, white color. Lisa Frank, did that reach Edmonton? Did that reference hit you at all?

No. Chris Sutton probably knows about Chris. Chris, Lisa Frank. Oh, I know Lisa Frank. There's a really hot minute, what, 10, 12 years ago? Yes. You'll have to Google this. She just was all about like bright colors and fantastic, you know, fantasy like unicorns and things like that.

And that's just what I always think about when we talk about you. Okay. I had sisters growing up. All right. I'll check it out. I have homework. Well, I hope you thaw out up there in Edmonton. I hope the roads thaw out.

I hope you can get home. And I hope we'll hopefully be in a better place next week in terms of where we are and how we're feeling. Thank you, pal. I hope you feel better soon. Happy holidays to everyone who's listening. I hope they're great. Hope you guys get a little bit of a break. Hope you get some family time or whatever it is that you're looking for.

We will talk to you next week.