The Ringer NBA Show - Can Denver Get on OKC’s Level? Plus, Two Amuse-Bouche Trades, and the Most Intriguing Teams at the Deadline. | Group Chat

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Justin, Rob, and J.Kyle Mann are here to recap the Thunder’s impressive win over the Nuggets on Sunday. After that, they discuss the two trades that happened this weekend, with Vit Krejci going to the Trail Blazers and De'Andre Hunter getting sent to the Kings. Then, they follow up last show’s discussion about the most intriguing players at the deadline with the most intriguing teams at the deadline. (00:00) Intro (1:39) Thunder-Nuggets Recap (19:35) De'Andre Hunter-Keon Ellis Trade (31:10) Vit Krejci-Duop Reath Trade (43:41) Golden State Warriors (52:02) Detroit Pistons (1:02:05) Minnesota Timberwolves Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and J. Kyle Mann Producers: Victoria Valencia and Isaiah Blakely Production Supervision: Ben Cruz and Conor Nevins Additional Production Support: John Richter and Chris Wohlers Social: Isaiah Blakely and Keith Fujimoto The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

and welcome to group chat. I am Justin Varyer and joining me, Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle, man. We have your requisite trade deadline slop on this podcast. We're going to talk about the most intriguing teams at the trade deadline. We're going to talk two trades, two of them that happened over the weekend later in this podcast episode. But we have NBA basketball to talk about, Rob, can you believe it? I can believe it.

I don't like the way you portray our content, though. You made it sound like we're feeling. up the trough for people. And I like to think we aspire to something higher than that. There's like some bits and pieces from like a high-end meal, perhaps. Okay. The scraps of a Michelin-Star restaurant, I would say, but scraps are less. We're like the, we're like the bear.

We've got the fine dining in the front, and you can go there if you want. But we also got some slop-out back if you want to come back here. We try to service all parties, you know? That's a real mullet vibe. Fine dining in the front slop out back, you know? That's right. Before we get into the conversation, a little switch up of the schedule. This Thursday is the trade deadline.

And so we are going to record Thursday afternoon, about an hour after the deadline passes. So no pod on Wednesday, pod on Thursday afternoon. So don't fret. We'll be there for you. Just a day later. But to get to tonight's action, big old slate in the NBA. We had targeted this game is a pretty marquee one. It seemed like the NBA did as well,

scheduling all these games on NBC and Peacock. It's a rare event when I think half of a team's rotation plays these days. And so we still had something to look forward to in this game. Unfortunately, the Thunder in that third quarter just shot the lights out. And when Kaysen Wallace shoots like Kyle Corver, Rob, I think it's really tough to combat everything else they bring to the table. You make it sound as if he's not Kyle Corpher.

I mean, look, for the last month, he certainly has not been. and it's been a weird up and down shooting season from Kays and Wallace in general. But I feel like we have had 100 versions of the like, oh, if the Thunder don't make their threes, their beatable conversation. And the unsaid part of that conversation is if they do make their threes, you're kind of fucking cooked, like almost every time. And this was that. Like Kaysen Wallace, career high in threes.

He ended up with, what, seven for the night? Amazing game for him as he's like picking off Peyton Watson in the back court as he's playing exemplary defense. the Thunder are just like wall to wall with great players, as we know, but it's still awesome to see a player like Kaysen show up for a game like this against ostensibly the Thunder's best Western Conference competition. Yeah, I think you're forced to, again, do the symptom disease sort of decision-making, discern which is which, because you're watching them get shots. And in this game, granted, on the one hand, OKC is like, I mean,

they're the best driving team on the planet, I would say. But on the other hand, I was just like, Denver, if they're going to be, you know, in this particular game, which is not representative because they've guys out, you know, obviously Christian Brown. I don't know. He's close to coming back, if I'm not mistaken. Well, even if he does come back, he hasn't played well basically all season when he's been healthy. Well, but he's been on the court, not healthy, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, the point of attack stuff was pretty tough.

I mean, Bruce Brown was tough. Peyton Watson has, you know, he's a disruptive guy, but it was just, and then you had the fact that Yokic is trying to get his sea legs back. under his Serbian sea legs, Balkan, whatever it is. And any time that he came, there were a couple of instances where he came to help,

it was a little stumbling, fumbling, a little slow, easy kicks, easy swings, open threes. And like you said, when they're going in,

OKC is just, they're just a monster. Yeah, Yokic looked great in his first game back, but this was kind of the flip side where it feels like this is probably what we're going to be in for for the next month or so,

him trying to measure the minutes he's doing how much effort he's giving. and that's not to be surprised because he was just out for 16 games. Murray also a little muted in this one, but I got to say, as the Denver optimist on this podcast, I was just blown away yet again by Peyton Watson. Not only has he been stringing together months now,

a pretty high impact play, but to do what he did, 29 points tonight and looking like the go-to guy on a lot of these offensive possessions for Denver, in a big stakes game against a type of opponent that they're going to probably see down the line here, to me, I was thinking forward of when everything else is clicking

in concert with Watson, it does feel like he works seamlessly off of those other guys. There were a couple of plays, Robert, the ball was pinging, and he was right in the center of that. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think the way he's learned

how to be a part of that ball movement, but also to stay out of guys' way where he can just, like, play out of the corner and still be athletic and dynamic and make amazing plays. His shooting has come along in such a huge way of the season. He's also just like when he needs to be,

kind of a mid-range killer at times, too. So he just, like, gives them layers upon layers upon layers where he was just flat out the best player in this game who was not named Shea Gildesis Alexander, like just completely dynamic in every way, awesome for the nuggets. I just wish, Justin, I wish I could take you right now back two years ago,

peeping through the bookcase behind you, like Matthew McConaughey banging on it, trying to reach your previous self to tell yourself about Peyton Watson because this has been a long road for you. I'm just glad you're here. He has to earn my love. You know?

But once he does it, I'm here for you. It's unconditional now. That's right. And we'll play Shania Twain's. You win my love. And Justin will like spin slowly. You guys probably don't even know that song. No,

this is a pro-Shaniah podcast for the record. We need to make that very clear. Yeah, there were moments where granted, OKC is missing people too. I mean, Caruso and Jalen and Jalen Williams didn't play Santa Clara, Jalen that is. And because there were moments. too.

Oh, yes, important. Yeah. Unless we forget him. There were definitely moments, though, where Watson was rolling, and I was kind of like, man, for like all the pieces they do have, it's like they don't have a perfect matchup for Payton, like when he was really going, because he was going at Chet. They had Chet on him at different times, and he was just faster than Chet. But, you know, when Jalen's back, I think it'll be a different animal.

But the shooting doesn't feel like Cinderella-e anymore. You know, it doesn't feel like the, the slipper, it just feels like he, he's kind of proven himself to be, to be real. The question I have is like, they still have these lineups on the floor where, and I know some of this is Yokic is on a minutes limit right now. The rotation is not exactly typical.

Aaron Gordon is still out. As we mentioned, Cam Johnson, Christian Brown, like all these guys are out. It's a weird situation. Even in that, why are there minutes in a game like this in which Yokic and Murray are off the floor? And Peyton Watson is also off the floor.

when he's so capable of cooking in this way. And I just feel like I'm still waiting for him to get even more shine in those moments so that it's not all like Jonas Valenciunus and Tim Hardaway Jr. Having to like steer the entire ship by themselves. So do we need to keep tracking the non-Watson minutes to go along with all the non-yokage minutes graphics? Well, but it is we need to keep track of the Watson non-yokic non-Murray minutes. Those are the minutes that interest me.

That's several graphics at this point. But no, I think you're on to something because. what I like about Watson is not only the shot making, which we have a pretty decent sample at this point, that he's pretty good at that. But also the raw visceral stuff that it seemed like he was dining out on previously. It just seems like he's marrying the two. And it just gives them a little bit more of an umph and an athletic advantage that they probably haven't had in a little while at practically since like Jamal Murray and the Jeremy Grant era kind of went byways, especially when Jamal Murray after the injury has been a little bit more crafty, Yokich is obviously more subtle going to do things off the ground. But like Gordon, I think is something we got to track here because he's out now four to six weeks. He was often that guy for a very long time.

Now it seems to be giving way to Watson. I'm curious what it's going to look like when all of these guys are on the court. If they can get a good run right before the playoffs where we're not only getting Gordon Watson, but also Cam Johnson in there. Like Kyle, there's just like an abundance of talent on this team that feels overwhelming in a way that I can't remember ever really happening with Denver. It's usually just been Yokic being so awesome than everyone. playing off of that. Here it just feels more of like a collective in a way that feels like it could be

a pretty interesting counterbalance to what OKC does. Yeah, I mean, in terms of like just sheer powerful raw athleticism, I think you've got to reach back to those, you know, those Carmelo JR. I'm trying to think with Farre was Farid in there too. I mean, they had just like King and Martin. They had some just wild athletic team. Was that 09? Was that 09 or I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I'm getting them crossed. I think 13 was next for Carmelo. I want to say 08 is the deeper run. Yeah. Freed was the later vintage and then they also had like the running gun team with

a galen Farid and Todd Lawson. Wilson Chandler. To that point, yeah, they've had some real spry bunches. Yeah. Yeah. But you're right. I mean, like obviously Gordon's one of the best athletes in the league in terms of like what he's able to do in terms of his frame and then his functionality of his skill set to

go along with that. But I mean, Brown's a pretty good athlete for as much as he sucks. Like Rob seems that. But I'm not what I said. I just like to take you to task for the things you say, Rob. But no, I mean, those are the guys. It's going to be, they're going to be, you know, landing this. They're going to be laying, landing strip for this team, this configuration of this team as it's starting to get really, really important.

So hopefully we can see, you know, Yokage healthy and things like that. But OK, see, you could say the same thing. so. But I still expect these teams. The dynamic in the back and forth between these two teams is just going to be fascinating to watch because they're different from last year and seeing them figure themselves out in the series. I think it'll be pretty different this year, don't you think? I would imagine. I mean, for one, I think OKC is just emboldened in totally different ways, having made their championship run. Denver is so much deeper than they were before. Payton Watson, as we've been talking about, as a dramatically different player,

there are enough wrinkles going on where I don't think it's as simple as, oh, Denver was this close last time and they added guys and now they're over the top. I just think a lot of the terms of engagement have changed for both of these teams. And that will be shaped somewhat by who is healthy when, of course. But I'm just, I'm eager to see exactly how all of the athleticism we just talked about for Denver, which, yes, this is a springier, faster, quicker Twitch version of a team that we've seen previously. and you need that on both sides of the ball to beat the thunder. Like, you need that in terms of the initiation of your offense

to really crack what they're doing defensively. And you need it, as you talked about up top, Kyle, just in terms of like point of attack against Shea, where even the Nuggets, like, best relative options in this game, like Bruce Brown, She was just like pulling his strings, like he was a puppet, just like, go this way, go that way. Oh, here's a bullet jumper. Looking for Bruce.

Trying to find him. Completely. And then Peyton Watson just had, like, absolutely no idea what to do on, or off the ball against Shea. And so they're going to need every bit of that athleticism they can get and every bit of on-ball defense they can get in order to keep the Thunder honest in terms of just like forcing them

into more difficult possessions in a series like that. There's still several casts to strain over the course of the rest of this season. Lots of the sushi left. Because it's going to happen. There are so many calves have just gone to the graveyard this season. It's unbelievable. The cats and hammies both. Like, I just, I cringe on my.

my couch every time. The chippiness was really ramped up, I feel like, in this game, though. Shea was running a lot hotter than normal. Like crowing during that first Peyton Watson free throw, I guess it was in the first half, just very mouthy. And then the, you know, the Hartenstein and Yokic back and forth. One of my favorites. The pettiness was really firing on all cylinders in an amusing way.

The battles within battles within battles for Isaiah Hartnstein and Nikola Yokicch, as they proceed to tangle and then try to untangle their various limbs. I mean, it's just must-see television. Well, I'm glad you brought up Hartinstein because he's kind of been thrown into some rumors over the past couple of weeks. I think it might just be people hoping and praying that the thunder will do anything. Why on earth would they do that, right? Well, that's my question to you guys.

I think the one, I guess, devil's advocate position would be that Hartstein is a free agent and thus is at a high number. Could they retain him considering all the money they're not paying just? their big three and everybody else to come. Sure. That's the case for it. The other case would be that we just want a fucking title. We didn't have three or four of our main players tonight and it still didn't really matter.

Do you guys see any pathway of the Thunder doing anything at the deadline, Hardinstein-related or even just like marginal ninth guy sort of thing? I mean, you could see marginal ninth guy sorts of things or just like various bookkeeping, perhaps if there's a way to like ease some financial burden for what's already, you know, on a pretty expensive team and going to get more expensive, I just don't see why you would trade someone, like I say at Hart & Shine,

when he's so critical, two matchups exactly like this. I'm not even worried about, like, what is in the box score, how many points he scores. It's just like, you need a body that size to throw at Nicole Yokic.

It can't be all like Alex Caruso curve balls all the time in a playoff series. Like, you got to have just kind of more standard coverage to keep your defense from freaking out. So between this and then I guess like, maybe there's a little less pressure, now that the Rockets, because of Stephen Adams' season-ending injury, aren't going to be playing quite as big.

Maybe there is a little more give and flexibility there for a team like the Thunder, but I still think it's great to have the option. I figured it'll probably be in the margins. My son has really gotten into the early 90s Spider-Man cartoon from our age range, which has been very fun to relive. They'll still slap and are great. But there's an episode where the Punisher runs across Spider-Man, and he shoots him with this net,

and he notices that Spider-Man gets out of it the first time. So he comes back with a new and revised net that's just for Spider-Man. Isaiah Hartinstein is that net for Yokic. You got to have it. You got to have, you know, Spider-Man's going to get out of the net at some point. It's true. That net is just annoying enough that it slows him down. And he's like, God damn it.

You know, like, Spider-Man doesn't say, God-dammit in that Fox Saturday morning. It's really late, and I'm going to be able to get to tell. But you need the net. And I think that's why you get to keep Hartstein. Yeah, I agree. But it isn't agreed. You agree? One last note here, Jamal Murray, named an All-Star.

Yeah. Finally. What's funny is it seemed like it was such an afterthought because it was just such a foregone conclusion that he was going to make it for the first time. I was thinking back on it because Mike Conley was the last guy that we've had in this range. And he had to get in, I believe, on an injury exception

for Devin Boehner a couple years ago. But Murray is just like, considered him as like a West starter for him to get in. Still matters. Still a nice little, little feather in the cap there as we look back on his career in a couple years. I think it's almost more for us than it is for him at this point. Like all the quotes,

every time he's been asked about, he's like, yeah, whatever, man, moving on. When we look back on his career in a couple years, what do you expect is going to happen, Justin? Well,

the world is going to end in a couple years, first of all. I was stumbling into a point about how, when you look over someone's career in retrospect. I do think these sorts of benchmarks and accolades matter more as time goes on. Because you just look at the one all-star on the basketball reference page or whatever 3D version of it we're going to get in a couple of years, the TikTokification version.

3D. Well, I think it's also going to be interesting, too. If this does end up being over a really long term, an age of parity in the NBA, where there aren't a lot of repeat champions and there certainly aren't a lot of back-to-back champions, stuff like that is going to matter a lot in terms of Hall of Fame. Fame credentials and things like that, it already does. But if there are even fewer ways to get in through like, you know, an Andre Iguodala side door of the Hall of Fame by just being on a consistent

winner over and over and over, you got to have some stuff like this on your resume. He was one of the more inexplicable like All-Star, non-All-stars over the years, because he's just been in that conversation just, I mean, and it had been a talking point before this year. It's just like, why? Because it just didn't quite add up, but it's nice to see that he finally. got one. I for one have always agreed. But you didn't even agree.

Like you didn't even necessarily pick Jamal Murray for those All-Star teams. You just got mad that other people were complaining that Jamal Murray never made an all-star team. No, I got mad that people were using it as a case to bolster Yokic's already overwhelming case of being great, where it's like you had to pretend as if he and Aaron Gordon weren't just like two of the best supplementary players of recent years. It's true. It's nice.

to finally put to bed that one statistical oddity. We'll also look back on this as the time the Requai Leonard played absolutely guns blazing and made an all-star team in his home arena. Oh, wait, we won't because LeBron James made it over him for some reason. Like, did the other owners or did the coaches and assistant coaches

that filled out these ballots, did they have aspiration stock? And thus they're still like harboring grudges. What's going on here? I have no explanation for what happened. Do you have any explanation for this? I got to assume the injuries played a role in it. Maybe they filled out the ballots when Kauai was out for another three games recently,

or the obvious one is that LeBron just holds so much weight that people couldn't even conceive of leaving them off. And I guess if I think two things simultaneously. Like, yes, I think the record should reflect the guys who were the best at this time. Having said that when we get to the actual event, it is just frivolous nonsense to the point where we're changing it for the 19th time. And so for LeBron to be there is great. I wish somebody else had been there in his place to set the record straight. But oh, well. Well, maybe in the spirit of, like, sending the most fun players to the All-Star game,

like a 41-year-old dad LeBron may not be like the picture of modern basketball fun, but, like, he's distinctly a more fun All-Star game player than Kauai Leonard is. Is that not true? Sure, totally. We'll take it. More Jee-Creezy. Yeah. I'm not going to get Veed in there.

Beat for the three-point contest, frankly. I want to see it, yeah. All right. Why don't we wrap it there? We'll get to the other stuff we recorded a little bit earlier. I think only a couple hours. Nothing has actually happened in between, which is nice. Talk about the two trades that happen.

Talk about the most intriguing teams at the trade deadline. But first, we'll take a quick break. We're back here to talk about the team side of our most intriguing players and teams combination right before we get into the deadline on Thursday. But first, we have some actual trades to talk about. In the past 24 hours, we just doubled the amount of trade. So we have, in total, three this season. I would say, Rob, that these are of the palette like setting, the amuse-bush sorts of deals. I mean, we love an amuse-bush. I think so. Get those sinuses popping, you know, ready for the big morsels to come later this week. Nothing says getting the

sinuses popping like DeAndre Hunter. That's true. Do you want to start there or do you want to start with viny-vitty bit-creating? Oh boy. That's just a popping sinuses or can we does blowing your nose of DeAndre Hunter? Does that qualify

as getting the sinuses popping? I mean, what sinus action are we limited to or open to on that metaphor? It's certainly what the Cavs did. You know, just kind of shook their hands off and to be done with the DeAndre Hunter experience. And frankly, like, I can't really blame them for it. Yeah, I would love to look

at this and see some ray of hope if you're a Kings fan. And I just cannot find one just because practically what they did is wash their hands of the decisions that they made, what, six months ago over in the off season. In one fell swoop, they get rid of Dennis Schrooter. They get rid of Dario Sarich, who they acquired in order to open up money in order to sign Dennis Schroeder in the off season, if you remember. And it took two seconds plus Keon Ellis on top of that to get Hunter, who, I guess if you want to be an optimist, certainly fits the type of mold of the type of player that a lot of teams want.

Unfortunately, Rob, last year might have been the peak of his career. Thus far, typically he plays more like he has this season, which is not good at all. Yeah, he's just, I mean, I think even at his best, sort of aggressively fine. And the Cavs had reason to swing for something like that, right? Like, they have a pretty complete team otherwise. They have good bigs.

They have good guards. They really wanted someone to kind of hold down. a combo forward spot for them. So I got the logic at the time in the calves trading for DeAndre Hunter. What the Kings are doing, I really couldn't tell you. But to keep it with the calves before we even move on to that, for Cleveland to get rid of DeAndre Hunter, who has next year and $25 million on his current deal,

to get Dennis Schrooter, who I would say is at least kind of a wash with DeAndre Hunter while playing a different position, like both kind of theoretically interesting and sometimes useful players. and then Keon Ellis, a defender who, as far as I understand, teams actually do like and want, but getting death in this deal in addition to two good players while being over the second apron, just a good bit of business for Cleveland. It's a little bit of a trade-off, I think, in some ways we can talk about in a minute in terms of what they gain versus the position that they're putting themselves in with their personnel.

But if you look at Hunter, if you just track him going back to, I guess it was the 19 draft that he was in, he just, he came into the league as, I think he, my question for you all is, I don't know that he ever fully graduated from hypothetical status where you were talking about, we were like, the hypothetical being, you're going to be more than fine. And I just don't know that he ever really did that. You know, there were moments I know where Hawks fans were pretty ferocious defending him, like, no, no, no, no. You know, there was a lot of that going on when they were scrappy with the, with the first run of the Tray Young era that they had going on. But when he goes to Cleveland, you were talking about them needing him to serve a basic function.

Like, we're not asking a ton of you. We need you to be switchable. We need you to play defense. And we need you to make open shots. And sure, he just didn't do it, man. I mean, 30% from three, you know, 32.6 on catch and shoots, which are all the shots that he's taken. Might as well have Isaac Okoro in that situation. If you know, we need, and I understand why they would move on from him in that sense. Yeah, Hunter very much looks the part. Just big, muscle bound, like perfect size, length. you would want from a three-old-old-a-old guy. Justin, right?

I mean, yeah. Justin fits the profile, you know. Absolutely. When you're going through your criteria for basically anything, but especially a podcaster, you know, Justin checks out. I'll take a contract from the Kings any day, especially if they have some available real estate in Sacramento, just open up my portfolio. Yeah, you're interested.

All the small markets going. But to me, Hunter was more of a finishing piece to what seemed like the calves were going for last year to push them over the top. They needed a bigger wing to defend some of those guys. guys in the Eastern Conference. Unfortunately, this seems like a resignation to a certain extent of where they might be. And the good thing I do like about Ellis and Schrooter even, and Schroeder, even though he has been poor this year, he has been on this weird track of being good on one team, but then

bad on the next. And so if you're following that pattern, he might be good on the Cavs because he was just bad on the Kings. I like that both of them have a certain energy to how they play. And at this point, what the Cavs need more than anything, Rob, I think is just a shot in the armed someone who could be lively. And Ellis in particular, seems like that in spades. I think it'll help for sure.

Ellis's defense just gives them a lot of different options in terms of how they want to build lineups. And you're right, like the theoretical addition of DeAndre Hunter as a forward, as a finishing piece, sure, is what it is. But that never translated to reality. He was never able to really be like an actual go-to defender for the kinds of players they needed him to guard because he's never been that kind of defender. He's always been like pretty decent in terms of defending bigger wings.

and largely pretty average in terms of hitting threes. And where does that leave you in terms of your like vaunted 3-D edition? I think we saw it where it took the calves ultimately. But to trace it back even further, I mean, Kyle, you're absolutely right that he never graduated beyond like the theoretical stage of what he was supposed to be. It's so weird how many guys on those that like conference finals Hawks team turned out to be exactly that where you had Bogdan Bogdanovich who was supposed to really be something. and never quite saw his NBA career take off

in the way that I think a lot of us wanted it to. DeAndre Hunter, clearly, John Collins has been like an exercise in frustration for several teams, although had some moments for the Clippers. John Ted Murray, even in the later stages? Oh, in the later stages, absolutely. Kevin Herder has found like a nice role with the Bulls,

but it really hasn't ever graduated beyond being more than like a slightly interesting movement shooter. It's like that whole era of Hawks basketball just fizzled out with such a spectacular dud that it really could only end in Sacramento, if we're being honest. Yeah, that draft is really interesting. I just pulled it up. I mean, you're looking and you can see they could have had Cam Johnson,

you know, they could have had Tyler Hero. They could have had Nikiel Alexander Walker. What's interesting is Harlan was drafted one spot ahead of Darius Garland. So it's interesting how these things all kind of, I'm curious, though, with you talked about the spark plug, edness of it all and the energy and the things that these guys are going to bring. I think the first thing that I, like, woozily as I was going to sleep, texted you guys about this trade was my brain went, we have four very wispy guards now. I understand the pluses.

I just wonder, does this end their pursuit of completeness? Is there some other thing that they're going to have to do? Because I do like on paper the idea of those two backing, you know, Mitchell and Garland up. Depending on availability, they might be asked to do more than that. Shruder's been in situations like that throughout his career where he can just kind of, step in and assume more dialogue in the in the scene but um i'm kind of wondering about that and and like keon ellis i feel like he's like one of the he's one of the i know ball all stars where his approval rating is very high for someone who has never averaged more than 10 points a game in his career i just

not interesting but but personnel wise what do you all think about that well i have two separate tinfoil hats in front of me one's like a little one like just a little guy putting on the top here and i would think maybe this is a sign that deris garland might not be as healthy as we think think he is. And certainly that was already quite low the bar was, but in terms of his availability. Justin, you already know we want the big hat. Like, let's, a big hat. Let's just go straight to it. Uh, haven't we been saying for years that the optimal counterbalance for Donovan Mitchell, who has been playing more point guard this year, in part because of those garland injuries is someone closer to Keon Ellis than it is Darius Garland. And so I think

the money is starting to be pretty tight in Cleveland. Sure. And as a result of this, they're still in the second apron, but I think they're about seven millions off. They're like a Max Truce or someone like that away from getting under there. The team has been playing like a second apron team. I do wonder if we're starting to reconsider all the calves, especially with Donovan Mitchell's free agency in 2027 coming up here. I wonder if this is ultimately the pathway to getting rid of Garland. It could be.

I mean, look, the playoffs are going to be a referendum. I think we're just at a sort of breaking point where not by want of like anyone to break up the team, but like they've had a good run here. They've had opportunities. And we can only say so many times, oh, wouldn't it be great if they were all healthy by the end of the year before it becomes obvious that they're probably just not going to all be healthy by the end of the year. And Garland is a huge piece of that because of his inability to just stay on the floor. And kind of he's been trying to play through various injuries for what feels like his entire Cavs tenure at this point. But it does come at a cost. And you're already working kind of against the grain in terms of making this guard

combination work in the first place. You're then asking guys to play hurt or for other guys to compensate for their teammates who are out. It does make sense to do something sooner or later. But give these guys one last ride. And in the meantime, Ellis is sort of like a plug-and-play option who can work opposite off of Mitchell or Garland, right?

Or even playing in like three-guard alignments, which I'm sure they will almost have to do now because they're losing someone like Hunter. Yeah. It concerns me a little bit because you all talked about them going over the top. You've got to be near the top to go over the top. And if you're looking at what I was saying here with the types of guys that they have,

and you think about the East, I'm just like, okay, they're fifth in the East now. You're just thinking about who they're going to be facing off with. In the East, I mean, these big, I don't know, who's going to guard Jalen Brown for the Cavs? I mean, I don't know who they're going to end up playing. Who's going to guard an Anthony Black, who's going to guard a Cade Cunningham? I just think unless it's like a super successful lean in a stylistic direction where they're trying to dictate teams to come play the way that they play, I don't know if they're going to be able to score enough.

Maybe they will. Maybe it'll work. But it defensively worries me a little bit because Hunter didn't work and you just kind of traded away. I don't know. It makes me think maybe they're not done in that sense. But that's where I'm like, if Hunter wasn't getting it done, then what is the harm exactly in playing a little smaller and getting at least something different from a

different kind of player, whether that's the energy and kind of low volume spacing that Keon Ellis gives you, the dynamism and the pressure and kind of the pace, the dentistry. Reuter gives you, like, I think the Cavs can benefit from both of those things, frankly. And we should also say, like, I just don't think straight up that this trade happens if Jalen Tyson has not had the kind of season that he's had, where he basically made DeAndre Hunter expendable to the Cavs. Yeah, I think Cleveland's first priority is just riding the ship. And I think this probably goes a long way to that.

And then in the playoffs, I think you could probably make the case that a lot of the competition isn't as thick in terms of multiple dynamic wing score. Yeah, Kyle perked up there. I wasn't going in that route. Where it's like it's Jalen Brown, which maybe Mowgli could take that duty, but like who is offsetting him if Tatum isn't playing or isn't at full speed? Even the pistons don't necessarily have that guy yet,

but perhaps the trade deadline will produce some different results there. I like it overall for Cleveland. And for the 90th time over the past two to 10 years, the Kings made a terrible trade. They really did. The other trade on the board here, the big one. Vic Creachie coming to Portland. You guys know that meme where it's like two like really muscle bound like arms just like clasping together.

Of course. I mean one of the one of the most saturated memes in internet history. Yeah, I've heard of that one. You guys heard of porios? Yeah. Memes are the monoculture. Unfortunately, I'm dipping into it right now. Yeah.

My post hammer curl arm is representing Portland. And the other one clasping it is the emaciated noodle arm. of all the nerds who have been telling me for a year that Vic Creachie is just that guy. Hey, wait. It is I the nerd. Have you guys seen the Homer Simpson meme where he fades into the shrubbery?

Have you guys seen that one? Is that me after being embarrassed by bringing up memes on a podcast with a bunch of 30 plus movies? I kid. Here's the thing. We do it on every single podcast. At some point, it is, hey, you guys know that meme.

I think we just need to assume that we know the memes. And we just say, we need a new entry point. That's what I'm getting at. I can't assume you guys know anything, as we've learned. The public resoundingly sided with me on, I mean, no voting dissension. I was just hanging back.

I was like, I don't have to even say anything. It was, I don't know. Some of us were living a more dignified life watching VH1 dating shows. I was just like a channel over, frankly, and I clearly have a cultural blind spot. But in terms of the trade, just a windfall for Portland. I'm actually surprised it only took two seconds. I know Vitt has his flaws, but in terms of need with the shooting element,

in terms of fit, where he's got some size. This isn't much of a defender, but at the very least plays with a certain ferocity. I would say he's a badass, and I think he fits that general vibe. It only costs two seconds plus swap wreath, who isn't going to play the rest of the year,

and I think they're already considering getting rid of in order to turn some of these two ways into actual contracts. I mean, I think this is a home run. I'm willing to accept that I am on the extreme end of Viet Crachie approval, but also I just can't really fathom how you could get a player like him for two second round picks. You know, granted, two seconds without like crazy protections or anything, so maybe one of those picks will end up being something. But V. Creechie is a real player now who shoots threes at a really high level,

who can actually dribble and keep an offense moving. Those guys are in shorter supply than you think. And for a team like Portland, where he just plugs into the machine, and they want to take threes, but can't make threes, let me introduce you to a guy who just like hits at a reliable, like 40, 42% clip. Which we found out why, one of the reasons, now he's a good player, but we found out that Bologna Mahoney has a check tie to Vee Kresi, right? I mean, the embassy, like, maybe sending me some materials on a regular basis

just to make sure that I'm up to date on what Vita is doing. But, you know, I'm happy to support my countrymen. the embassy of shooting threes and being six foot eight. We were talking about how it's interesting, how he's being described as a jumbo playmaker and things like that. I was like, I'm not putting it past him to be a good decision maker, but that's the thing.

I mean, he is an infusion of something that Portland really needs, and you want to talk about a great price. I mean, goodness, this is awesome. And I was thinking back about the fact that Kresi has been, OKC had a run where they were just curating people, or they just had people in their system that they just had too many good players.

Like I just have memories of him playing for their, for their G-League team. It was just like when they had like accumulated all those different assets. But it's been interesting to see him get to this point. I mean, it's not like he's lighting the world on fire. What he's going to be doing is going to be very limited and simple. But, you know, Portland is going to be really helped, I think, by it. So it is a dorky.

It's another I know ball thing to even know who he is. But I think Portland fans are going to love him. Yeah. So contract also great. Basically two to three million over the next three years. And the actual, the next two years are basically non-guaranteed because there's a little non-guarantee next year and then a team option on the third year. But it's a great contract for a guy who's going to play. As Rob alluded to, this is a by committee team, especially if Denny Obdia is going to keep dealing with his back injury. Oh, yeah. But he just, he's going to get minutes. And then frankly, he could play a pretty big role because they don't have a lot of guys who could pass and dribble at this point. Yeah. Just because of all their injuries. think if you want to get back to the tin foil hats, I got a big old sombrero in front of me for this one.

And so a tinfoil sombrero. That's a great nickname for you, I think. The tinfoil sombrero. That's a prop we actually need is the tin sombrero. We can get the prop department on there. Please. Riddle trap. Come through.

So the Blazers are trying to convert their two two-way guys, City Siddoco, and in particular, Caleb Love, right? Sure. But they need to lose two players in order to do that. at Dwap Brief was a prime candidate for one of those spots. Not only is he an expiring. He was basically their fourth center after they drafted Young. He was also out for the year.

So I think people assume that he was going to be one of the spots. The other spot, the presumed target was Ryan Rupair, who's still with the team. And I would guess it gets lost at some point in this whole deadline. But now there isn't a natural number two on the board there. So how there's a roster crunch happening. Well, there isn't even a natural number one, is there? Because they're trading DwopSpot for Viet spot. Well, so, right.

So it was going to be repair and Reith where the assumed two guys are the easiest cuts on the board. There's only one easy cut on the board now. Gotcha. Okay, that's interesting. But I think you could argue, like, maybe not even that. There's, I guess, maybe another wrinkle to this where, like, maybe they just don't convert city because you now have guard depth. There's rumors that or reports, even that Scoot might be waiting in the wings to come back. and all of a sudden the guard dirt turns into a pretty stocked depth chart because if you have Caleb V and then scoot and all of a sudden, like it's not that big of an issue anymore.

But this is all to say, like, they have to lose some guys and they're very much still in the mix in the Yannis Derby in some former fashion. I think the eyes are getting wide as the people connect the dots between like, what if Yannis were to come here? I don't necessarily see that. But we talked about this the other day. I think they are very much in the mix, if only because they hold. the future of the bucks in their hands. So where are those eyes getting wide? The like, what if Janus becomes a trailblazer eyes?

Where are you seeing those people? Mostly online because I don't leave my house. The Blazers Edge comment section? Yeah, all the soccer moms. I don't know how you guys feel about that fit overall. I think if Janus wanted to come to Portland, which I would doubt, I think people would welcome him with open arms

because of the Shauna's in Tetacupo. There's also like, Portland has had, star players, Dame first and foremost, but they also have never had a as like developed in his prime superstar choose to come to Portland. So this would be a whole new thing. I think for that reason alone, you just take it if he wants to come. Having said that, I don't know if the roster

is the perfect fit for Janus. We just talked about the shooting concern. Also like, did everyone not watch Dame and Janus previously? This thing didn't go particularly well the first time. The defense would be incredible. The heart wants what it wants, and maybe it just wants to play with Drew Holiday again. I don't know that I would be letting that enter my thought process

how Dame is going to affect this. I mean, to me, we have this tendency. I guess it just depends on how much, A, how much time you think Janus has left and how to be a central piece for something serious and whether or not that affects how you should think about his fit with the greater roster, because I think that you need to simplify it if you're serious about getting him down to Denny and Janus, I would think, right?

Just start from there. If we think that that is, I mean, Rob, you made a face. I think that, I think that he's a pretty serious player. I think we've already indulged the possibility of Janus becoming up Portland Trailblazer beyond the scope of its actual probability. Like, this is, this is not happening. We're just talking rosters here, man. Chill out.

No, I hear you. I hear you. Most likely not. But the fact that they own the Buck's future. they own three picks between 20 and 30. They, at the very least, control a huge part of what's going to happen. I just think, you know, if we're just like having a little fantasy talk here, I think in terms of defensively, they might be the best defense in the league if they just popped in Janus.

Because the big advantage here is because they have those picks, you probably don't have to give up in much way of players. You probably have to throw a shade in, a scoot, a young, someone there. But for the most part, the appeal would be for those future picks. And the problem is with, Denny and Janice, they almost do the same thing where they just want to batter their face against the defense over and over again. And you could stagger that to a certain extent. But at a certain point, Janice needs to spray out. And we're looking at reluctant, if not just

like middling type of shooters around. Like Donovan Klingen might become Brooke Lopez, but like he would probably be your best, most reliable three-point shooter at that point. I thought he already was Brooke Lopez. Wasn't that, isn't that done? Justin's the one that's going to spray out if this trade goes down. If Janus was in Portland, I would love that. Just watching him for all those games. Oh, it would be spectacular. And, like, just to be very clear,

if Janus becomes a trailblazer, we are smashing the swear jar. You know, like, everything changes the day that Janus is treated in Portland. Are we still doing that, by the way? Are those still going into episodes? I certainly hope so. Because we're in millionaires. You need to, yeah, you need to do a ceremonial, like,

Yalliger level, like, smash it with a sledgehammer. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, to your point about the picks, Justin, like, this is a reason why the Blazers could certainly be in a very unique bargaining position if they wanted to make an honest run at Yannis. But I think more realistically gets them into the scenarios we talked about previously as a third team in a Yonis deal where they could contribute some of those picks potentially or they could just be, you know, a way station to receive other good veteran players, other salary, get involved in a lot of different ways. Like, they just have a lot that's pretty appealing at this stage, whether you want good players, good young players or veteran players. or picks, like, they have a lot of ways in. They've made a lot of good business decisions of late.

And I think the Creachie deal kind of, like, fits into that. You keep making moves on the fringes. Like, you could replace some guys if you need to trade your top line guys or you could funnel them off like they did. Even Dwap Reith, like, I doubt he sticks in Atlanta. But if he rehabs, he's on a season-ending foot injury right now. He's going to end up on a roster next year. He's like a solid stretch option when you need a third or fourth big in your rotation.

So they made a lot of good moves. I think the more interesting probably side tangent we could take here is are those picks if they don't end up getting involved in a Janus trade? Are they then too good to even trade for like a McHale Bridges type? Like we talked about that is if Janus goes to the Knicks. Let's say in theory the Blazers want to help out. Would you even trade one or two of those for a guy like Bridges, get the player now or you're waiting for the next guy? Honestly, Kyle, it might be as much about like the upcoming drafts. I don't know how much you've looked at the 20, 28 to 20, 29 drafts.

But, like, you could have the top pick in those drafts if you're keeping the bucks picks. Yeah, I would seriously consider hanging on to those because it seems like among the packages that I've heard, I mean, in the Yonnas situation, I haven't heard anything that has made me, I don't know. Have you guys heard anything in terms of, like, what's the best prospect that's been even proposed for Yonis at this point? I mean, I've heard people talk about Tyler Hero. Right. I'm doing it. I'm, that's not moving me. and, you know, comminga, things like that. I'm not.

The odds still feel pretty good that these bucks picks are going to be super, super valuable. I would think so. Yeah, I think the most appealing assets that are being bandied about, and we might get into this little later in the pod too, to me are more draft-based than they are current actual prospect-based. Because, yeah, the teams that are in a position to deal for Janus, yeah, they might have Kale Ware. You know, like they might have the amount of players who could really take a leap

and become incredibly exciting in ways that we don't anticipate, but they're not rock solid, like bird in the hand kind of stars in the making. They would have to show something we just aren't expecting at all. Well, why don't we talk about right now? Because we're going to talk about the most intriguing teams at the deadline. We did the players version of this on Wednesday. So if you're interested in that, go back and listen to it. My first team is the Golden State Warriors for this reason.

I did like that as soon as the honest news hit. One, you got to see how much podcasters were just, just waiting and dying for this to happen. I thought that we'd already done all of the Janus, like, permutations, but the amount of emergency pod that just went through every team, like no shame whatsoever. It's been a pretty down trade season, especially compared to last year. How could we shame them when we are them?

Well, I would say that we were a little bit more reserved even last pod. Yeah, we talked about it. We were basically like, we'll see. We think this is going to happen in the off season. That's big of us. Yeah. Nothing more than a lot of shame on this show. But I did find it funny that the Warriors were talked about immediately.

And they were just the sweatiest, like sweating through two separate shirts. We got a tank and a shirt and a sweater. And you can still see those stains because people were talking about them giving up all of their goddamn picks. I get it. It just shows what is like a dire situation it is, especially as Steph is now dealing with chronic knee soreness. It seems like it's not going to push them out of any games. We'll see this week. But like, that's something you got to consider.

Yeah. It's just, I don't see it, though. Like, even if they get rid of everything, the players that they drafted in order to supplement their core aren't very interesting or all that helpful. And then those picks, like, yeah, maybe. But, you know, Steph is going to hang around for a while. And if you get Janus, like,

you're going to be good for at least like another two to three years. So I don't see it. But they seem. desperate as hell. Well, the picks that are attractive in that deal, and this is what I was alluding to in terms of the most appealing pieces to come back for Yannis in a potential trade. One of the reasons why the Warriors are being taken very seriously in this regard is not because of those next couple years. It's the 2030, 2032, and I guess a 2031 swap that they would be eligible to trade as well. And it's like by 2030, Yannis is 35. Steph is about to be 42 years old. Like that is a different

era of whatever the Warriors would even be. post-Yonis, where I think you could reasonably bet, okay, those teams are in a position to not be good. Or Janus might be in a position to retire or Steph might already be retired. And so are the Bucks willing to play that long a game, I think is a fair question when I'm sure they want to reshuffle something in shorter order than that. And as you mentioned, Justin, like, they don't really own their own draft destiny to do that in an expedited manner. The aging Draymond, there are already people who are, you know, eyeballing his. regression as a player. Aging Draymond with Janus, does that even work? That's kind of what I'm

thinking about. It's like, yeah, you'd be probably talking about two to three years, but the availability of all of those guys being there together would make me extremely nervous if I'm Golden State. But they're in such a tough situation where I really don't. If you're aiming for the, if you're aiming for the stars basically here, I understand. I wanted to say, I kind of say something really quick, just draft related, like scouting related. happened. I just, I wanted to throw the same. Only if it's about Bobson, Doug Nutt.

Can you give us the full scout, please? I just want to say, as someone who goes to games and watches prospects, I go to Louisville games from time to time, Kentucky Games, where I go around as much as I can. I've always thought that they should add something with, like, the driver's license, where once you pass a certain age, you should take the test again. I've always thought that. In terms of that, the version of that for scouts, I think every team in the league should go through their scouting department and look at the font size on every scout's phone.

Because I have sat behind multiple times, scouts, older scouts, whose fonts are so big on their phones that I from like two rows back could read what they were writing about players. I won't name any names to protect the innocent here. But oh my God. Anyway, yeah, sorry, that was, I wanted to get that in. That happened this past weekend. What you're saying is not wrong.

I think we get where you're coming from. It is, however, deeply illegal. So, you know, like, you simply can't be firing scouts just because they're so old. You're going to snitch on Kyle? It is. I'm not, I think he's saying ageism. I'm saying the ageism complains. I didn't read.

I wasn't trying to read. It's just like sometimes it's so big. It's, yeah, yeah, there's a drop for you. Sometimes it's so big, you can't know, but look. Yeah, it was, it was shocking. Listen, if you have a phone open around me, I'm looking. All right? I might not, I might not read, but if you're a scout and you're sitting in the,

the row below me. I'm definitely trying, but a lot of them have, like, the screen protectors. That's how you know someone's young. They have that, like, things you cannot read them. Yeah, the privacy screen. Phones up. I'm going to glance. Well, Justin, as someone, like, since you're in this game, would you feel the same as someone reads your screen over your shoulder? Like, is that fair game because it's all in it? You can, but you're in for a ride, my friend. What? There really is no one whose tabs and Internet history, I would,

want to know more than Justin's. Like, I just, every time I think I know what's going on inside your mind, I take a corner and I'm like, whoa, there is something here that I was not supposed to see and I'm going to do a U-turn and I never want to go back and there again. Shameless phone reader, Justin Verrier.

I didn't expect to end up here. Only one of us who's texting on his laptop here. So it's all game. I'm very transparent with everything. I'll do the occasional laptop text. I just, that feels too exposed to be doing in a public space. Yeah, it's kind of a digital shit where you eat kind of thing.

I just don't, I don't really. I just don't, you know, I don't have anything text-wise that I'm worried about. It's just kind of, I just don't, I like to keep him separate, you know. If it's a personal computer maybe, but I don't even know, this is just so far down. There are so many questions that are going to arise from this. I just don't prefer it, but yeah. Listen, I just don't know how the warriors are going to get out of this river of shit here. You're going to crawl their way through it.

Masterful. Bring it home. just, it's tough. I just don't, if it's not Janus, then what else? That's the thing. Yeah. To Kyle's point, at the very least, they're probably going to trade Draymond as opposed to Jimmy.

I think I would love to see the medicals on Jimmy on when he's going to come back. And I also have to wonder if it is going to be a big three of Janis, Jimmy's staff. That's great on paper. But like, how many games are those guys going to play together? How many games are two of those guys even going to play? I also think it's going to probably be like Al Horford. probably still in the mix because he's on a player option next year.

Melton's probably still there and they've been good for them lately. It's just like, I just don't see a path here. Yeah, I mean, they're a play-in-calver team basically at best in their current form. And yet, it would be such

Bush League shit to be like auctioning off pieces in a real time from this team. And yet they don't really have the assets to do like, I mean, they do have the assets, but they shouldn't be investing those deep future picks

for the sake of like a marginal, like update or upgrade for the rest of this season. That wouldn't really make sense for them. So I don't really know what the sweet spot is because Steph clearly could use some help just to like get through the rest of this season alive. Like another ball handler would do wonders with this team, frankly,

or another person who could actually create offense would do wonders. But if your best options are like finding takers for Draymond, attaching a shit ton of picks and hoping beyond hope that Yonis picks you, I think that speaks for itself in terms of where Golden's, state situation is. Like they, they really just do not have a lot of alternatives. I think the one rate of light they might have is that Steph being with the team for

so long, unlike LeBron, for instance, with the Lakers, is will he play ball in his later years? Will Steph say, I'm actually going to take minimums to finish out my career? And this is Janice's thing now. And then you're looking at a Warriors team in a prime market with Steph Curry as like the Ameritist superstar. Janus is the current day superstar. And then let's attract somebody in free agency to come.

then that makes sense. That requires a lot of logical leaps in order to get to that point with Steph, but maybe something like that could happen, but until then, this is kind of who they are, unfortunately. Who do you guys want to talk about? I would like to go next, actually,

with my most intriguing team, the Detroit Pistons, because I find myself wondering at this time of year, what sort of pressure does a team face when they are, recording this before they finish their game against the Nets? I'm going to assume they win that game and are 36 and 12 by the end of the day.

They're currently up 45 points in the third. Okay, it seems like a safe assumption. No way. Yager's been playing well. They could come back. I'm not saying it's impossible. But, you know, come along with me and assume they're 36 and 12 with the best record in the Eastern Conference. And also, most of their best players, if not all of their best players, are under the age of 25.

When all those things are true, what kind of pressure? do you feel as a franchise to make a move? And I think during any kind of normal season, the answer would be not much. You would say they held their own against the Knicks in last year's postseason, give them another chance, let them roll into it with more experience,

with a better roster, like, let's see what we can do. And there would be no pressure to do anything immediately because the team is still so young. There's lots of expectation they would continue to get, like a guy like Jalen Duren is only going to continue to get better, for example. But this is not a normal season. and there's like an unusual opportunity at the top of the East to not just like compete for it, but to secure it and to be even more reliable than the Knicks would be,

to be even more bankable than the Celtics might be going into the playoffs. And for as much as I would love to see the Pistons take a huge swing on somebody like Michael Porter Jr. or Lowry Markin and or Trey Murphy, that would be really cool. That would make them one of the best and most complete teams in the league. I don't even think they need to go that far. I think there's a lot of more minor moves that could potentially help them, but it all comes down to how much they feel the pressure to actually make those moves when they're already leading the East by a pretty sizable margin. I think the issue would be offensively.

And if you look at their January stretch here, they did perform well because their defense has just been lights out. It's like 105 defensive rating in January, which is like pretty great. Unfortunately, they were 17th offensively. And I think if we were to talk about this two months ago, I think we would say, let's see what you have in David. You have a bunch of young guys in addition to him still kind of rounding into form. Let's see with Ron Holland can do offensively in addition to like trying to fight everybody. But Ivy hasn't missed a game, but he's only playing about 17 minutes here. And so I don't think internally the spark that they'll probably need to compete with whoever

comes out of the West is there. And because they have such a prime window here in order to get to the finals and perhaps maybe put a good face forward and actually compete there, I think the time would be now to make as much of a swing as possible. I agree with you, though, Rob. If, like, Porter Jr., if the price is too high, if Trey Murphy, the Pelicans don't decide to trade him this deadline, I think you got to get something because the offense is the one-week spot there. Yeah.

And in particular, like, if you just look at the rotation, the spot that always jumps out to me is like, if we just got a little more out of the Giovante Green type minutes, right? Like, just kind of the plug and play, like, this guy is good enough to play for our team, but no one guards him, and him playing hard only does so much on a team where we already have a lot of guys who play really hard,

if they could just upgrade marginally, offensively in that spot, I think that could help their rotation. It could help shore a lot of things up and give you insurance for, like, the games where Duncan Robinson doesn't really fly. The games where Tobias Harris isn't quite clicking. Like, I think a forward would be ideal,

but I'm also open to guard help too. Like, if they can just find a score, a shooter of a kind, I think that could go a long way. Yeah, I think you're weighing the question of what is, because they've seen pretty reticent to break up, you hear, because everybody's assumption always is that like it's Tobias's money, that that's, because that's the first place to make any kind of a big deal happen. Yes. I mean, he's on an expiring here at 26.6.6.

But it seems like they've been insistent that he's like integral to what they do. They've got a few guys that you could package together that I think could make sense. I'm kind of trending in the, in the direction that I think a SAR, could be a pretty valuable thing for them to dangle to someone, just because I think when the inevitable, I think that in the playoffs, I think when we see them running back in the playoffs, I think that we're going to see more and more loading up on Cade.

I just think that the defensive strategies are going to stress them to the point where I think they're probably going to have to get another major drink-stirring kind of a star-level player because another thing to consider here is that the East is Indiana is going to be rebounding and coming back. Boston is slowly moving back towards, I'm saying. I think they're going to look really good. I just think, yeah, there is a window in time here where I think they're going to be forced

to make a decision, not to reiterate what you said, Rob, but I'm in agreement here. It's true. It's like this is just not a normal opportunity where you should just behave like another young team would behave. I think they should be aggressive. It's just hard to talk yourself into it when you're already so good. So if it's not one of those marquee guys, do you have any other guys you're targeting here? I think that's where it's tricky.

is like the forward market, it's hard to find, like, the Trey Murphy types are held so tightly by the teams that have them, that finding someone in that slot, I think is more difficult, which is why I'm a little bit more open to a guard, because I think they're more getable, right? Like, we've talked about Ayo Dissumu a lot. Malik Monk comes up often in these conversations as well. Even, frankly, someone like Buddy Healed,

like just another, like, you know, a Tim Hardaway Jr. 2.0 type to just roll out there and hit shots when he hits and don't play when he doesn't. I think that could be the kind of like zone buster you need for some of those select games where teams are overloading on Cade, which I'm totally with you, Kyle. Like they will do. They already are doing teams guard Detroit pretty aggressively as it is. And you can see the writing on the wall with some of that stuff if they don't have enough shooters in the rotation. Is Cam Thomas to guardie in order to fill the specific board you're talking about?

Because he does have a lot of qualities that, for instance, Malik Beasley brought to the table. Like I almost feel like they do need that rational confidence guy. you're kind of circling here. I mean, you're just forcing me to, like, peer deep into my own soul to figure out if I think the solution to a problem is Cam Thomas, and the answer to that is no, but... Very getable right now. I'm sure he's very getable. I'm sure Jordy Fernandez would tell you how all of Camp's most attractive qualities for

the sake of, you know, like, could you talk yourself into him? I hear what you're saying, though. There's a lot of one-way guys there, and it built that defensive... sort of identity that they've coasted on for a while. But in the playoffs, if Duncan isn't hitting, you have to turn to some of those defense first guys. Assar's offense has been shaky at times here. I'm like, I'm teeter and Anna is our Assar overrated?

Like, have we just completely overrated all of the Thompson bros? Prove me wrong. I mean, he proves you wrong all the time by being one of the best defenders in the world. What are you talking about? He is great, but it could come down to that, like, you mentioned how they're so good now. And it's like, well, that's going to prevent you from, you know, if you're this good during the regular season, you know, how tempted are you going to, that playoff data return is, it can overrule a lot. It doesn't matter how good of a regular season that you had. All the feel good vibes can go away. We've seen this. I mean, we saw it with calves, you know, just recently had a great season. You get in the playoffs, it's a totally different animal. When you have seven games to prepare for for somebody like a Cade Cunningham who is fantastic, you know. And I think once you, I just think it may come down. to it where they have to like have a serious conversation about like taking a chunk out of their

identity for the piece that can kind of take them up to the next level but man I love watching the pistons play and I know a pistons fans I'm not trying to wish this awesome thing away we're thinking steps ahead here because this this core that they have is so real and serious and it's really a question of it's not even like is a sarah this or that is Ron Holland this or that is Jalen Durenne this or that it's like in combination will these guys make sense at a championship level clearly they work on an regular season level. I think this team is already as constructed good enough to probably win multiple playoff rounds if they kind of have their shit together and play up to their potential.

But they've put themselves into a class where they can fairly consider more. And with that comes, I think some of the fair criticism and kind of like a closer look at guys like Asar, like you're alluding to JV, where it's like, who are these players really, these prospects in terms of where they are and what they can be? And I might be more bullish in the sense that Asar, to me, Flatsy, is enough of the like Alex Caruso style connectivity where it's not just a guy who can't shoot, but a smart cutter and a good passer

who can help like find other ways into the offense that makes sense for him. But if those things aren't hitting, then everything kind of falls apart. And it's like those are hard defenders to play sometimes where their offense starts to feel like a house of cards. And if one thing does it pan out, then all of a sudden it's disaster.

So slightly overrated, not totally overrated? I don't think. Overrated by whom? But the consensus. Who is the, consents of the nerds. It's us. It's us. If it's the consensus of us, I feel good about where we have every

player placed, but especially just our Thompson. I think the unfortunate part about what Detroit needs on that lower level, if we're saying they just need to like a fix that one rotation spot is Cleveland seems to have a lot of those guys. And considering their second apron problems, I do wonder if they would be the prime

suspects to just jettison a guy, if only to get them off their books. Like if they had a Max Schreuse, for instance, and you can count on him shooting more consistently in being healthy. Like, that makes sense. Even getting Truder back might be like the sort of shot in the arm sort of guy, but I just don't see them trading within their same division,

let alone teams that they're probably going to face in the playoffs. Or if they had gotten in on Keon Ellis. Like, I think he would have made sense for them too. You would have been good. All right. Kyle, you want to do your team? Yeah, I do. I did the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Is your research project? The wolves of timber of Minnesota. A very chill situation in Minnesota right now. Love a diorama. I would love Kyle to have come in with like the trifold science fair board. Big picture of Anthony Edwards in the middle. Some like, you know, a Bunsen burner going, an Erlenmeyer flask. Here's the thing about the three of us is I could see both of you being just like insanely detailed.

You guys probably went balls to the wall with the diaramas in the science fair. I know both of you. I am who I am. I knew it. There's a stagostorous one kicking around my parents' house. I know that for a fact. Made out of Play-Doh? Yeah.

I don't know if it was all that impressive because this was probably third grade or something, but I got down on the diorama stage. Okay. I mean, it sounds precocious, if nothing else. Any big-time science fair action in your house, Rob? Can you remember any highlights? Well, I'm not a science kid personally,

but the level of detail and exacting, like, methodology applies to basically the way I put together almost any like thing that I have to write myself. So you got me spiritually but like let's be real, we're not science kids here. That's not how we ended up in this place. That's pretty true. I did like household acids. I think one time was one that I did. I was not very good at those. Anyway, let me tell you about one quick science fair detour. My brother pulled off I would consider the con of the century in his fifth grade science fair on like the the effects of caffeine in various soft drinks.

And the methodology for that experiment was, invite a bunch of friends over, drink a bunch of different sodas, stay up all night playing golden eye on N64. So a visionary in the science fair space, as far as I'm concerned, the findings may be a little dubious, but are they more dubious than any other published research paper?

What was the data on that? Was it an observational? Was odd job allowed or not allowed? I mean, obviously not allowed. That goes against God, man. But I think, I mean, I think the data was as simple as, like, how late did you stay up? Okay.

Yeah, that's rock solid and stands to scrutiny for sure. No extra variables to him. You got to pull it off. If he got away with it, if he got away with it, that's all that matters. Anyway, the timber wolves. It's no secret. I mean, the wolves have the nucleus of something. The pistons may find themselves in this situation a couple of years from now where they're

just retooling in the march and just trying to figure out how to keep, A, keep it going or B, get over the hump. or both. This team, we, I mean, I think we can all, you were talking about the consensus of us.

We all believe in their core with Aunt and Julius Randall, I think, has woven himself into that nicely. You know, Rudy Gobert, obviously, playing at a depoi level. And then Deven Chinzo has sort of,

has fit in nicely as well. But the real thing that the issue that they've had, and it's been well documented, is the fact that their picks that they have aimed at this subject, at this need of, you know,

bolstered scoring in their, second unit. They need to solve this problem of second quarters not going particularly well for them on either end of the floor. The young guys haven't panned out, whether it's Leonard Miller, where it's Terran Santa Jr. Rob Dillingham was the guy that they went out and aggressively tried to go get, and these guys just aren't giving them what they need. And so it seems like they are, you know, they went on a five-game skid here recently where this was very, very obvious. And I just wanted to present to the Midnight Society the question of who should they go after and how do they go about solving that problem?

Because they need another score. They need some scoring in their second unit. They need another score. They might also need another big. I mean, depending on what you think of Barronjay and how NBA actually game ready he is for the games that matter right now. I think a lot of him often, all the time. But this is kind of the thing.

From a zoomed-out perspective, I'm totally in agreement in like which parts of the game are the problem for them typically. It's just it's manifesting in a couple different ways. It's like it is the ball handling. It's also whenever Rudy Gobert is off the floor, they just kind of fall the shambles defensively. And so they can plug either of those holes and I think be better off for it. I think addressing both of them with what they have would be incredibly difficult. But given that the guard, like finding a workable guard is probably easier, I would think, than finding a playoff reliable NBA big, right, Justin?

Is that reasonable? Well, especially because you have to kind of navigate, not necessarily two distinct timelines, but there is a gap there where Rudy is probably going to age out at some point. I mean, they're still overrelying on him and he's been very good defensively. But you do want to turn the keys over to Barron Jay pretty seamlessly. And I don't know how you get another big without sacrificing Barron Jay or getting a massive upgrade at guard without doing it with him because of the picks that Kyle was

looting to. And to be clear, like, Barrechey looks like he's going to be quite good at some point. It's just not in May. He's special. Yeah. He's special defensively. Like, you would have to cold dead fingers. I'm not getting rid of Baranjay.

Not going to happen. So that's definitely, yeah. But I do think, like, what's good about the guard thing is the type that they're looking for is getable. And I think the amount of money they would need in order to match on those guards is also not as difficult it is for some teams. Like, for instance, because we're basically trying to. fill the Dillingham slash Bones slash maybe even Mike Conley sort of role

is Conley. I assume they wouldn't trade him if only because he'd mean so much to the locker room. But it's getting pretty bleak. I think he scored like four points a game in January. Are we pushing Conley off the ledge from Mitz Omar here? Is that just like, oh my.

Justin's try that. Oh, yeah. Let's try the bear out. Yeah. But at the very least, he could stay, they need someone who could potentially sap up his minutes, not only this year, but going forward. Sure.

I had some ideas. I wanted to pitch to you guys. I was, you know, I gritted my teeth a little bit. Rob, could you mention his name? I think that my favorite one, well, let's go, let's go in reverse order here. Benedict Matharin is one that I think is interesting. The money there is a little, it's a little tricky. I mean, Dilly with Leonard Miller,

Jalen Clark. I think Indy, I doubt that they're going to go for that, just because I don't know that they're going to see that. I mean, Matherin is a guy who gave scoring punch in a finals. I think that that, you know, that is something that is a big deal. And the problem that we're going to see recurring here is you're going to have to, you're going to have to see a team that is going to look at Dillingham and see him as a rehabable asset. And see something in Miller. Maybe he's not ready to play for the, for the wolves, but he's ready to play for somebody that has a little less on the line.

That's one. That's my first thought. And so the carrot is the 2032 swap potentially? Yeah, in all of these, that's the thing, is that these assets are so distressed that I think you would have to talk about the extra capital. Yes. Do we agree on that?

I think so. And I think part of the issue with this one, too, is Ben Matherin's about to be due for a new deal. And the wolves have already moved significant parts of former versions of their team just to be able to diversify and have a little more depth and spread out some of their finances a little bit.

the idea of trading for Matherin only to then pay him when he might not even be a great fit, that might be too much to ask for them. Yeah. Next one. I texted you guys when this happened. These two guys were covering their mouths for like four straight minutes

on the League Pass broadcast. I put on the tinfoil sombrero. I was wondering about this. Ty Jerome comes back and has a great game for the wolves. I mean, he's played in nine playoff games for the Cavs. I mean, he's a smart player, a proven player, steadiness of hand. Lennard and Dilley is exact money, 8.7 million for Ty Jerome. Is that ridiculous if you included other capital to balance it out? It's too good. I think Memphis needs him to be

their starting point card. That's not what I expected. They do need it. I mean, here's the thing. They need him, but also to you, Kyle, how did those nine games with Cleveland go? It's true. This is true. But would he be stressed in the same way? Is there a way that you could look at this if you're Minnesota and say that was them, this is us. I don't know that our situation is different in a way that could protect him because it wasn't it ultimately, I'm trying to, what was it that jogged my memory? What he was, was he attacked defensively or did you just go to dog shit with his efficiency?

He was attacked defensively and then he just had a couple of like extremely empty offensive games. And he's one of those players where like when he, he, he went all regular season hitting like every difficult jumper he ever took. And then when they didn't start falling in the playoffs, his value just, I mean, plummeted. But to that point, the Cavs looked in disarray in large part, I think, because they couldn't lean on him with their second units.

And so if you can believe in the fact that, like, guys need second chances and maybe if the wolves, a playoff tested team could provide him the stability that perhaps he didn't give with Cleveland, I think there's something to that. I am a little worried about the injuries. He just played his first game this year. And if you're trading off, like, all of your future assets, that guy needs to play. And actually, now that I'm thinking about it, like the specific. combination of Anthony Edwards,

Dante DiVincenzo, put Julius Randall, put Rudy Gober in this mix as well, with Ty Jerome, best shit-talking team in the NBA as far as I'm concerned. Like absolutely elite in, let's, I'll be honest,

the most important phase of basketball. It'd be better if Pippin was still there, because Pippin almost fits their identity. He came to mind also. Yeah, yeah. That's unfortunate. Next one is Sadiq Bay, who's actually had a pretty decent scoring year.

6.1 million for two years, you'd have to do, it's the same, it's the same hall over and over again. The Pelicans are a team, though, that I could see looking at the Miller-Dillingham combination and seeing something there. That, to me, just, I don't know, we always do this with some of these teams

like the Kings or the Pelicans were just like, it's fun to step into their shoes because we all think they're irrational, I think. It's probably what I'm saying ultimately. But that's one, I mean, but the other thing here is that's another risk because Bay had come,

kind of receded into not playing well, and he's had a little bit of an uptick on a team that sucks. So is that really worth betting on? Well, first of all, I would say it's quite a bit more than a little uptick. I would put Sadiq Bay is maybe like the single standout in the NBA right now. If like I look at a Pelican's box room, like, Sadieke Bay did fucking what? Like 28 on 20 shots?

Yeah, 36 shots on 18 attempts, like, or 36 points. Like, he'll just have these crazy, like, scoring outbursts. above and beyond what you would ever think Sadie would be capable of, yes, the context is what it is. That's an awful team. There's lots of opportunity for him to take those shots. I think, like, his particular combination of shooting and rebounding has proven to be quite useful to the Pelicans.

I hesitate to say they would be as useful to a team like the wolves. Like, on paper, sure. Skill set, sure. Sadiq is someone who, like, I'm always wondering if he's, like, really locked in in the way that the wolves are a Western, and conference finals level contender year in and year out. And it's like, is he locked in on that level to compete to those standards with these guys? I might be a little skeptical, but sometimes you have to roll the dice with guys you're not

quite sure about if you're in the wolf's position. Can I throw one out there? Yeah. Not only another guy, but another tie. What about tie is Jones? Okay. That's not another tie. He's a tie.

Ties Jones for Rob Dillinghand straight up. No picks. or like if you need a sweetener, it's a second or something. You don't have to dig into your capital. Tyos Jones isn't really playing much for Orlando. No. And he's on a one-year deal,

so they'd have to resign him after this. You could see like maybe getting something a little bit more long-term. Dilling him, I don't know if he's a perfect fit, but you could try to rehab him and fill the void, different types of players,

but based on this, the scrunches going on right now in your faces, my guess is maybe, hard maybe. I just don't, I don't think got a pain. I don't,

I don't like this. I don't like this for either team somehow. I'm extremely worried about Dillingham to the point of like he's going to have to win me back. But I'm not like he's absolutely hopeless. And I'm not trading that kind of asset for like a neutral flaccid guard. I mean, like, yeah, he's like low turn. Both of the Jones brothers are like. I mean, it's like they're just like they're low turnover, but they're also no risk at all.

So it's just like we're just kind of going in a circle. and I don't think that would solve my problem. My last one... Well, I'm just happy that we've entered a phase of a softer, gentler, Justin, too. Like, every pod, you're trying to trade a player home again. And I see what you're doing with Tyos Jones, son of Minnesota. And I just...

He's a storyteller at heart. He really is. He's a storyteller. Yeah. That's right. The last one, Malik Munk, you mentioned him. I think basketball-wise, I think Malik Munk would be perfect for this team.

I think he can come in and have heat checks. I think you can throw him. on the floor. I think he could be protected defensively. You can have him be your fifth guy that you hide. I think he would balance off of Ant and Julius Randall and Gobert so perfectly. The thing is, you know,

18.7 million for three years. That's the catch. You'd have to go, you'd have to go Dillingham, Miller, Conley's expiring, and you'd have to throw some draft capital towards them. But he has been scorching catching you from 3, 46.4%. And he's an unrestricted free agent in 28, 29.

I would try to make that happen. I think he has good basketball left in him. That would be a fun one, but that's a lot to give up for a Malik Monk. It is, but we can dream. Yeah, I like it. I think it's a good idea. I had similar types of guys.

I had Cam Thomas written. I had I would do Sumu because he's in every trade rumor possible from here until Thursday. Oddly enough, Desumu and Kobe White are the same age. White's about to turn 26. Desumu's like slightly older,

different draft classes. That's kind of crazy. Here's a question for you. Okay. If you had to choose one for the bowls, which one are you protecting, which one are you traded? Because to Sumu has been awesome lately.

He just had like... He's been incredible. 29, 8, and 9 against the heat with nobody else surround him. I like DeSumu. I feel like he's a little more malleable to forward thinking than Kobe. I mean, I kind of expressed this on our last episode

with the way that Kobe's wired as a score. What do you think, Rob? I kind of think I would lean to Sumu too just because we've had so many questions all year about Kobe White his place in the lineup, the balance, not always being what we want off of like, even just like him and giddy on a fundamental level,

like do those guys work together? The answer is kind of, and I think you want more than a kind of when you're talking about the core elements of your team. I think they're natural bedfellows with the wolves for that reason. I know we keep circling it, but I think it's just because it makes a ton of sense

for both sides. And maybe if the bowls are, except in two seconds for Dario Saras' contract, maybe they're thinking ahead too. Well, this is what I'm hoping for the, as far as the Malik Monk trade as well, Kyle. It's like, we just saw the Kings do some random shit for absolutely no reason. So maybe it wouldn't take that much to get Malik Monk off their hands.

Well, to make the money work, I mean, or Conley would have to be in there. Yes. I think that's a requirement. Yeah. And it's an expiring. All right. Well, why don't we wrap it there,

when we come back on Thursday for our trade deadline podcast extravaganza, we'll be talking about actual trades. not just fake ones that were pulling out of our butt. We talked about V. Creachy today. We talked about DeAndre Hunter slash really the Keon Ellis headlining deal. I know ball. Keon Ellis. Yep.

Vic Creachy is definitely I know ball sort of guy. Should we do an I know ball like all stars at the end of the season or something like? I love it. I love it. Cory Kisper. Remember like two years ago Corey Kisper like needed a new contract and everyone in their mother was basically like this guy. Every team wants him. everyone can use him and then he finally gets fucking traded.

It was just like, all right, I guess we never had to hear from this guy for six months. He's fine to good, you know? Those are the players that make the league go round. I've always said for years it was De Lawn Wright. Everybody was, you never talked to somebody who was, everybody was like, you know who I like DeLon Wright? It was just such a low stakes thing to say. Everyone said it.

They were just like, he's cheap. He does everything. DeLon Wright, man. Love that guy. And he never sticks with the team. But guess what happened in last year's playoffs? He came off the bench with the Knicks. Fucking killed it, you know?

The Landry Shamit stock, the Delon Wright stock, they really cashed. You know, they really came up in a big way. This is a good idea, though. We should do this later in the season. Let's pocket that one. I'm completely tapped on ideas. But not on Thursday, my friends. Coming to you live after the deadline.

So we'll be talking to you then. Until then, thank you to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. Thank you to Ben Cruz. We'll talk to you on Thursday afternoon. 21 plus in present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem.

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