The Ringer NBA Show - Can James Harden and the Sixers Evolve, With Mo Dakhil | The Answer

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Kyle and Seerat are joined by Mo Dakhil from The Athletic and they begin their conversation by examining the surprisingly strong starts by both the Trail Blazers and Grizzlies and how coaching staffs prepare for other teams so early in the season. They then dive deep into the 76ers universe, dissect James Harden's performances so far this year, and take a look at how Philadelphia can maximize its size advantage moving forward (21:33). They end the pod by reviewing the new Taylor Swift album, 'Midnights' (58:21). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Seerat Sohi Guest: Mo Dakhil Associate Producer: Chris Sutton 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 Capadia. That's right, just a couple of Philly guys with a new space to fire off some Eagles takes to 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. Basketball is so very good.

I'm bringing my personal intro to the answer, a show that I'm a guest on, and I'm going to take the wheel here and do it my way. But I'm joined by somebody who is famous for doing it her way, Siritt Sohi. Siritt, what's up? How you doing, buddy? I would just define it as ever. Middle fingers ablazing. Hashtag why not? You know, in terms of like hoops, I would say,

she's ate up with it. That's what we say here in Kentucky. She's, she's ate up with it all the time talking hoops, playing hoops. If she's not doing Krav Maga, as I learned last week, the NBA season is, you know, most teams are three or four games in. It's starting to wind up. It's getting fun. Overreactions flying all over the place. This is a week where a team, some teams are kind of jumping out to fast starts. Other teams are sputtering out of the gate. One of the teams, one of the today that we want to talk about the Philadelphia 76ers, we brought in, I would say a DH in terms of like, in terms of like X's and O's. On NBA Twitter, I would consider this guy like sort of an uncle who has seen some shit kind of thing. You know, I feel like a lot of us are like kids at a cookout running

around with like sparklers and wiffle ball bats and stuff. And we're like, man, basketball sharing our highlights and Mo's like, no, that guy was not, I buried the lead. But, you know, Mo DeKeele, our guest today is like, no, that, you know, that highlight happened because that person wasn't at the level of the screen. He knows his stuff. Mo DeKille is with us today. He does an awesome podcast with the athletic with some other smart guys, Seth Part Now and Dave do four. They're not that smart. And he hosts an internet X's an O show on Twitter called One Mo thing that I recognize, recommend people check out. Mo, what's up, bud? Oh, not a whole lot. This is the first time I've been called the uncle on Twitter. You're an uncle, I would say. You know?

You know, at least I hope I'm the fun uncle about it. At least when I do it, it's fun. If not, nobody likes to really just like me and uncle that points out everybody's mistakes. I don't consider you grumpy. I don't think you're grumpy. I think you're educational. Well, I'll take it. I'll take it.

As long as I'm not grumpy. I get that one on Nurtr She Road all the time. I think you're like the uncle who like, you know, takes a kid aside, just sits them down. is like, hey, do you think that maybe we could have run that dribble handoff a little bit differently in hindsight? You know, don't want to single them out in front of people, but, you know, you've got a soft demeanor about you that shows that shows people that you're actually really just, you're just trying to make the game better. You're just trying to grow the game.

The funny thing is I am actually that uncle in a real life. So you just nailed it right on the head, Sarah. Bam. Do you have young people in your lives that you step in and interject and kind of give? I'm like, hey, man, you know, do this, do that. So that's a real phenomenon because it should be, I think. I have several nieces and one nephew. And as the kids have gotten older, I've been the one that has told them like, hey, like, you tell me anything you want.

Like, say whatever you want to say to me, I will decide if I have to tell your parents. But most of the time, I won't tell your parents. Like, if you cross the line, I'm like, yeah, I tell your parents. But otherwise, like, tell me what you need to. and my two oldest nieces really embrace that. And, you know, I kind of have a good rapport with them and the other ones are coming along there as they grow older. So I imagined you, so your uncle vibes, I think, are just sort of like undeniable. Maybe they just radiate off of you.

It's just you have this positive because you're a young guy still, but you got a lot of experience to share. Anyway, I was going to say, you know, is there anything that's like, what are you guys overreacting about in the early goings of the season? and I was going to throw to you guys. I said this on Twitter last night. Portland has like catapulted up my like league pass ranking. And I feel like I underestimated them in terms of, and I feel like the jazz are kind of suffering from this too

or benefiting from this too. And the fact that maybe I looked up and down the roster and I just underestimated how many like competent adult NBA players they have on their roster, specifically like fun shot creators. Like Dame is like, don't throw dirt on me. I'm not old. I'm not washed.

I can still do it. Is there anybody that's like popping early for you guys? That's a surprise. Portland for the first time in a long time has become a team that I actually enjoy watching on League Pass. I think for the last few years it's just been like, I'm sick of the same old story. We kind of know how it ends over and over again. And these guys, these guys are really fun right now.

At some point, we will get your Shaden Sharp takes, Kyle, for sure. for now, I'll say just, wow, the athleticism. I love, you know, he has just won amongst a bunch of big athletic wings that they finally have. I think, you know, Dame has been kind of looking for this type of partnership, like, you know, with a wind-type player for a really long time. And they're just really fun to watch their 4-0. Simons just went off last night. It got some place where every single three that he took, you were just like,

like, please make it, please make it. It became something beyond, like, really, you know, watching, you know, Denver really caring about what they were doing. It just became like, let's just, for the sake of this moment, let's make this into a cooler one, you know. Did you get pissed off any time he passed? Like that should, like, you know, you're just like, shoot it. No, no, don't shoot it. Just shoot it.

Yeah. To his credit, there weren't a lot of those moments. Right, right. He knew he was on fire. He could literally feel the flames on himself and said he's going to light it up. I'm probably, this is again where I'll probably become the grumpy uncle, I'm still not sold on Portland. A hot start, a hot start in October, four games and everything, and they're fun to watch. I like the team that they've built around them, but I just think everybody's kind of settling into the season, and I think we'll see how it goes.

But you want to start this way if you're Portland. It's better than being 0 and 4, right? Or 1 in 3 in this situation and things like that. So they've come out of the gate really surprised me. another team that's kind of surprised me that I thought might start slow was Memphis. And maybe it's just me thinking that, hey, I thought Jaron Jackson Jr. was going to hurt the defense here a little bit. I didn't know much about Aldama, but like he's been quite a piece for them where I'm like, this is impressive. Jaws Jha.

Like I was expecting this from, like, I think Jaws amazing. And even though I'm expecting this stuff, I'm still blown away. Did you guys see the lob catch he had last night? He caught it with his left leading. It was his left was like out ahead of his body, right? and he finished it. It looked out of his range. I have no idea how he finished it.

I wasn't surprised he was able to bring it down, but I was like how he was able to catch it and then finish it with his left. I was just, I was like, this is unbelievable. So I think like Memphis just starting out three and one, there one loss to Dallas on a second night of a back-to-back.

Like, I'm not going to go too hard on them in that. But like out of the gate, Memphis is looking really sharp. And they were a team that I thought might take a step back. And I'm going to have to eat my words probably on that, seeing how the season goes. John also, and I'm sure, I'm sure this will hold.

throughout the season. Just like, this is one of my, one of my favorite early season sample sizes, shooting 60% from the three-point line, much like, you know, the Nets, by the way, lead the NBA in blocks right now, despite being the worst defense in the NBA by far, although that was before yesterday's games. But yeah, I just, I love that for what it means for that team. Also, just the way that Bain is playing as well.

They're such an interesting team in that, like, pretty much everything, every time they lose somebody, they just find a way, to, I don't know, they just somehow make up for it, right? Like they're either through their team defense or just redistributing shots. Yeah, they're awesome. The only question I have at this juncture is just like, what are we going to do about Dylan Brooks? Oh, God, no, like this dude drives me completely nuts.

Like, I am, they are better off when he's not on the floor. He does so many dumb things. And it's the irrational confidence of him. and him first play of the game for no reason. He just jumps into Kyrie and picks up a foul. Now, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. And I'm like, yeah, he picks up on fouls. He had a bunch of bad turnovers, take some bad shots.

It's like, yo, Sir, I don't know what to do with Dylan Brooks other than they just got to try to find a place to trade him. I don't know. I've been a believer for so long that, you know, I think last year's playoffs that started to wane a little bit. And then he comes into this game, there's a Kyrie. And then there's also just like the way he's playing D on KD. is just like, yeah, there's an extent to which, yes, you want to be glued to a guy. But for now the third season in a row, you are fouling scores in the exact same way over and over again, just being like incredibly overzealous on screens when you have, by the way, a ton of incredible

personnel around you. You don't need to overcompensate. Just play normal defense. Like, just tone it down a little bit. But he is, I am a sucker for the Dylan Brooks type where it's just, you are, you are just kind of, the gifts and the curses are all the same thing. It's just like his intensity is what makes him go, but it's also what hurts him at the end of the day.

I do hope he figures it out, but it's just not encouraging right now. Just one game, just one game back, and his first game back from injury, but, you know, just not loving the lefty layups, not loving the finish attempts either. But hey, maybe he'll figure it out. And it's interesting because this has been going on for so long with him that I feel like the rest of the league, you know, if we're on this podcast talking about these things that we're seeing, you know, I feel like a lot of people are seeing them.

It makes you kind of wonder what that's what the leverage for him or what they're going to be able to do with him, where are they going to be able? Because if he can't cut it on this team that's on the precipice of like maturing into, I mean, I'm going to screw it, man. I mean, they were competitive in the playoffs, you know, took the champs to the brink last year. It makes you wonder what teams are going to see in him or who's going to see him, see him. and see where they can maybe or think they can squeeze value out of him. It's almost like he's too much for the Grizzlies because they don't necessarily need somebody to like ramp up the intensity. They're intense enough.

Like they are self-motivated and they're prideful defenders. If they miss a rotation or miss a play, he's not the guy who needs to yell at anybody because like they're already, they've already mapped that out themselves. Like there's not even, that's not going on. Like even Job, who is the worst defender on that team, will notice a misrotation and get upset about it. They all get upset about those things.

maybe he is more of like a Patrick Beverly type of player where you take him to a team that doesn't have enough of that and he can pick up the slack. Right. Like he might be a guy that could go into Minnesota and do well with that. I actually was disappointed that Memphis traded Melton and not him. You know, obviously we know Philly was probably more interested in Melton. But like, I was just like, get this dude off the team.

You know, they don't need it. You're spot on in that in the sense of like everybody knows their rotations. You know, the broadcast last night was talking. talking about how Taylor Jenkins says that he's the heart and soul of the team. And I'm like, no, that's that dude, that's that dude's the heart and soul of this team. This dude's just the annoying guy that tags along. And I think that's really kind of the concern I have with Brooks is at some point he thinks he's way more important than he should be. Yeah.

It's kind of the thing we were talking about last week's where we were saying, you know, it's good on a team to have the person who is the flame that can, you know, heat the house or burn the house down. I feel like Brooks, though, was good for them in a certain stage of their maturation. And as we've kind of pointed out and illustrated here, I think they could potentially move on from him if they got the chance. What I was going to ask, Mo was I'm on you consistently about waiving your credentials as a guy who was a video coordinator in the NBA. Mo is very, very shy about it. He's a humble fellow. But I wanted to ask you about like, you know, in the first. week, you pointed out the thing about Portland. Obviously, they're fun. And I mean, I think, like, throwing a little water on them isn't a shocking thing to say, like, hey, you know, maybe things are

going to even out. As somebody who came from the film room side of the NBA, you spent time, you spent time with the spurs, with the clippers. The first few weeks of the NBA, how much of the, like calibration process. Is it, is it a normal thing from your memory of like a team maybe surprising, surprising the league because people don't have tape on them yet? Or what is that sort of calibration like in the early goings of an NBA season if you're on the film side of it?

Is there like a, oh, and then you can kind of dial in on what somebody's doing to surprise them? What's that like? Yeah, the start of Zeecen is actually kind of tough in the video room in terms of the scouting department because we don't have enough tape. You know, and that simple. Like opening night, you're breaking down the other team's preseason games.

And maybe their starting rotation played 20 minutes total together. Maybe their backup's got minutes. But then you're kind of trying to figure out what you're doing. So a lot of times you're even almost looking back a little bit into what the team has done in the past, what they've done against you in the past and things like that. But again, that only works if you're playing a coach that's been there. You're playing a new coaching staff. You kind of got to throw those things out the window.

It becomes a little bit challenging. As a season goes on, you're able to kind of dial in and stuff. And look, hot starts, even from teams that we expect to tank is not a shocking thing. Just the process sixers started 3 and O and beat the LeBron Miami Heat Squad. That was one of those things where you're just like, okay, that's weird. And there's a lot of weird results to start the season just because I think you're having guys sort of figure out where they're at. And I think even more so now with guys not even doing as much as they used to in preseason, I think now kind of ramping up and getting into it.

So, you know, for some teams, it's extremely important to start on fire and hot. Like I think when you look at it with the Portland Trailblazers, this is a really important start in terms of where they may end up in the playoff run at the end of the season. Right. Like we might look at it going like, hey, if they start out six and one or seven and two, we might go like, yo, this is probably going to put them in a position. where they might be in a spot where they could be a top six team, whereas I thought they're going to struggle to be a playing team.

It's those kinds of starts there. And as a video coordinator, you're trying to go back and see as much film as you can. Look at this Portland team. Jeremy Grant wasn't there. Josh Hart came in midway through the season. Damian Lillard was injured almost all last season, you know, and missed the second half. They shut down Simons.

Like, how much tape are you going to go back? And it's only Choncy's second year in the week. So it's not like you have a whole bevy of things to go back to to really dig. into whereas when you go to the Golden State Warriors, you know this team. You go look at Denver Nuggets. We know this team. Even though they're getting guys back from injury, you generally know what they're going to do and how they're going to attack.

So it's a little challenging in the video room. And it's like, man, I just need to get the first two weeks in. And then we can really start to kind of hone in and lock in on stuff. How much you put into Josh Hart's rebounding numbers right now? Is that going to hold? I think so because he has to be that guy for that team. You know, I think that's the important thing with what they're doing. And I think, you know, wing.

rebounders and guys like him coming in from the corners and things like that. Offensively are important. I think defensively, like, he's always in the right spot. I love Josh Hart. Like, I've always kind of loved him when he was a Laker. I loved him in New Orleans. I thought New Orleans was going to even miss him when they traded him for C.J. McCollum, you know, and I was woefully wrong on that.

No shocking there. But I think that's just what he needs to be on this team because he's not going to be a high-volume shooter or scorer on this team. He needs to be a guy that's going to defend and get rebounds. get them out in the break. And I think that's the most important thing. And if he understands that role, I think, you know, I don't know if he'll rebound at this high of a rate, you know,

where he had like 11 rebounds last night. I don't know if that's going to be something that's going to continue. But if he's going to be around seven or eight, that's huge for the Blazers. Yeah, he's averaging 10 rebounds he came right now. And per cleaning the glass, the percentage of offensive rebounds he grabs is actually in the 100th percentile for wins right now, which is incredible. I would love to have a guy as a coaching staff that gets all of the offensive rebounds, you know, but I think that goes to

the where he's coming from. A lot of the times he's in the corner, and those guys are the most dangerous offensive rebounders, right? They get to fly in from the corner and get the rebound. They're usually on the weak side, so nobody's, their man went in to tag the roller or help. Nobody's boxing them out. Those guys get a lot of opportunities. You see it with him. You see it with guys like PJ Tucker and other players. So I think it's, it'll be interesting. But I think he's going to have a high rebound season. It's just awesome how many of these, we've seen it in recent years where wings, guards, smaller players, they get kind of repositioned into playing more forward, center roles. And some of them struggle with it, but the amount of players that I felt like have seamlessly transitioned into that role and just like adjusted to the physicality and been able to play it is just really, I don't know, it was really incredible to me.

I mean, the NBA is all about, you know, role players especially have to constantly make adjustments. but that's one you saw it last year with Bruce Brown, Gary Payton, you know, Tucker even becoming more of a playmaker. And now with Hart, it's just really cool. Dylan Brooks, power forward. Oh, there we're good. Hart is like pretty diverse. It has a pretty like diverse skill set always really has. It's like he's just, he seems like somebody that's floating and waiting to find the right spot.

He's still pretty young. I would say he's probably 25, 26. Is that right? It's somewhere in there. I think he's 27. He's 27. 27. Okay. Yeah. That's young, though. I mean, still in his private. I feel like he's, whether or not that's with Portland or where he goes from here, he's always struck me as somebody.

He's in the league, too. It's not like he's been around for a really long time. He's just kind of now. Played a lot of college. Before we move on and talk about a sputtering start that's pretty relevant. We're going to be talking about the Philly 76ers today. But before we do that, we're going to take a break. The NBA season is underway, and it's a perfect time to download Fan Duel. America's number one sportsbook. Because right now, new customers get a no-sweb first bet up to $1,000. Plus, FanDuel is the only sports book that's giving all customers three months of NBA league pass when they make a $5 bet on the NBA.

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1-8777-7-0 stop in Louisiana. 1-8-78-N-Y or text-hope-N-Y at 467-369 in New York. Tennessee Redline, 1,800-8-9-9789 in Tennessee, 1-800-2-470 in Wyoming, or visit www.1-800-gambler.net in West Virginia. So coming into into the season, I think most teams now have three or four games under their belt, we're getting to the place where we're seeing if some of these high hopes that they had in training camp, where you come in, you're like, yeah, we're going to run more. And, you know, the Nuggets are going to have a top five defense. and all that fun stuff.

Everybody kind of has, every coach, I think, has these sort of dreams about what a team will be. And I think defense and getting easy buckets in transition are two things that every coach kind of hopes for, right? But at the end of the day, those things are also very hard to do. I think it's something that we probably don't talk a lot about when it comes to transition and being a running team. So, well, I'm really excited to pick your brain on that part about it. But the Sixers are a really interesting team to me because out of all of the teams with high hopes and expectations,

the Lakers, the Nets, the Sixers, the Sixers are amongst the teams that have, you know, they're one and three right now. They finally got a W against the Pacers. The mighty Pacers. You could kind of feel Doc Rivers job sort of hanging in the balance. Thank God it wasn't the Spurs on a second time. You know, the Spurs coming in and playing them twice. Would have been a disaster. Oh, the world beating San Antonio.

is, but you could see the contours of some good things developing there for their offense. They are a really interesting team to me because out of all the teams that are kind of mired in struggle right now, they are the one that is showing on, you know, on the floor, probably the highest chance of figuring out some solutions. And also, they are the one team that I look at. And I'm like, I don't think this is going to happen. But when I look at, you know, the versatility that they have in their offense in terms of Embed post-ups and Maxi's quickness and Hardin's ISO bag and Tobias, you know, spotting up,

attacking mismatches, hopefully picking up his spots. That is like the platonic ideal of his team. And it could happen. And if it does happen, then Philly could be the last team standing in the East. Again, don't really think that will happen, but they have good ingredients and they're a fascinating team to me right now. Yeah, I mean, they're really a almost sometimes. a frustrating watch for me and how they play.

Because I feel like there's two Sixers' offenses. There's the Houston 76ers, which becomes James Hardin, dominant, everything we saw when he was in Houston, and an MVP type player. And he's playing incredibly well. Like, I don't want to take that away, but he dominates the whole possession. And then there's the Philadelphia 76ers, which we're beginning to see a little bit more of lately. And I think, especially in the last two games, even though we can talk about their

opponents and whatnot, but we're seeing them play off and beat in the post a little bit more. We're seeing them get to the second side action with how they play. And that's kind of the way I think they need to play. If they're going to be the team that people think is going to win the championship or get to the finals, they need to be the Philadelphia 76ers and not the Houston 76ers. And I think that's the important thing there. And I think that's the James Hardin has the toughest job out of anybody in the NBA this year in terms of how does he decide one to go hunt a mismatch and go after mismatches, and one does he decide to just be a pure

distributor? Because with all the versatility they have, they have a ton of weapons and a ton of mouse defeat at the same time. Like, that's tough. That's a difficult, like, okay, I mean, when I was with the clippers, Chris Paul would talk about that a lot, you know, and I remember having a conversation with him once about it. And he was saying, like, I was begging Chris to go off in the first quarter. And Chris would always, his point was distribute in the first court. He goes, but Mo, I can't because this guy is going to be mad at me. And then this guy's going to be upset because they're not getting shots and touches. Like, that's the job James Harden has.

And we know Joelle and B is going to make his feelings known. You know, Doc's going to make his comments. You know, we're not going to get much from Tyrese Maxie and everybody's already forgotten Tobias Harris is there. But like, I think you have a lot of mouths to feed there if you're hardened. And you've got to figure out how to delineate with that. And for me, that's a scary thing. That's who I got to trust to decide not to just go one-on-one all the time.

And that's my concern for the Sixers offense. But there are some real positive stuff I saw just even in their game in Indiana last night. I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of saying that Hardin has the hardest job in the NBA this season. Because I feel like he's being asked to be like the orchestra conductor for a team that, like, you've said, is very much fragmented. Like there are so many versions of them. the Harden 76ers, you know, especially last game, but you also, you saw it versus the Bucks, too. And I think the Bucks kind of, you know, they got Hardin to play that style of game where, you know, we know the Bucks are going to give up the floaters in the mid-range game that Hardin has kind of added,

has added to his repertoire this season. And that works, right? Like there's an extent to which that works. We saw it, I think it's been probably one of the Sixers' best lineups this. season. It's really easy. It's really seamless, especially early in the season. We're trying to figure out all your other sets. It's really tempting to just, hey, like, to say, hey, we're going to run ball screen after ball screen after ball screen, and Hardin's going to be at the top of the key, just, you know, waving you off and then getting you to come back and then flip the screen and then flip it the other way

and look for the right angle. And we're going to, you know, it's going to be seven seconds of a shot clock before he moves a muscle, but he's dribbled 40 times. But at the end of the day, it's going to end up, with either he gets a floater or a mid-rate jumper or somebody else gets a layup. So at the end of the day, it's good offense, but what we've seen over and over again is that it doesn't necessarily work consistently in the playoffs. It puts way too much load on Hardin, and I think that's been part of the reason that he's had such bad playoffs historically. And also, it's just, it's really predictable.

And it can work, right? Like, I think if you've looked at a guy like Russell Westbrook, for example, if he had this level of success with what he was doing right now, he would not be looking at changing his game. And I think it's interesting that Hardin, I think, like, pretty much as soon as he got to Philly has sort of adjusted, you know, he's still going to be James Hardin that we're used to. But, you know, we saw him.

You posted it yesterday. Hardin made a back cut yesterday. I was shocked. I thought it was somebody else. It took me a minute. I was almost confused. I was like, is that James Hardin or is that Maxie? Like, I was confused.

He drifted off ball last season, though. Remember right after they traded for him? So it's hard to, like, you can see those. early season stuff with Hardening, get carried away with it. But I was going to add a stat on what you just said that I think is reflective, early going to the season, if you line up his last six seasons, off ball movement or off ball actions per 100 possessions, he's at 9.4, which is by far the highest number of his career. Last season, he was at 5.2 and then 6.0 the year before that. So he is moving off ball more. I was telling Seart, what's funny about it, though, is if he comes off of,

He just seems to refuse to move with the momentum of an action and attack the spatial kind of leverage that he has because he'll come off of an action. And it's like, oh, okay, he made a move there. But it always seems to end up with him pounding the ball even. Maybe he gets a switch he likes, I guess. And in that situation, it's okay. But it is funny how, not funny,

but he is moving more without the ball, I guess, is the point maybe the positive, if you wanted to be positive about Philly, taking it away. And that's what I saw in the Indiana game. you know, was actually a little bit more actions of, of him giving it to Maxie and let Maxi kind of facilitate the offense and him sort of play around on the second side and things like that, that off ball cut. But it's also, it's not just him. Guys like Embed got a cut and things like that. And some of the stuff they were doing,

there was a play. It didn't amount to a bucket or anything. But I was like, okay, that's something to pay attention to. You know, James Hardin is getting post-ups. And Embed just cut right down the middle of the lane. They tried to get it to him. It didn't work out. But that's the stuff where they need to have more of a concerned effort of all five guys working together versus just James Hardin. Because the offense that you described here with Hardin is that maximizes James Hardin. That doesn't maximize the other guys around them because these other guys are also gifted offensively. They need more Tyrese maxi attack in the second side, which means Hardin has to engage the defense off the pick and roll. They need Embed to post up more.

And Embed needs to want to post up more. He's hanging around too much on the perimeter. There's so many different things with this team that they got to kind of fix the way some of these guys are thinking. And that's going to be a hard thing to do. That's a tough job for Doc even, you know, because Embedd was running up for the MVP two years in a row. Like, you know, he's like, no, what I'm doing is working, you know, Hardin. I've been the MVP. This works.

You know, and I feel like there's a lot of challenges with this stuff. Like this Sixthier team can go so many different ways. Yeah. And I think, like, beyond even just thinking, like, changing. how they think. They have to literally change the way that they move. Like this is by any metric that you want to use. Like, Kyle, you said it to me before the podcast.

Harden and Embed, two of the three slowest players in the league this year per second spectrum. I brought this up a lot. They're in the top five. Like, they move slowly all the time. And they did last year. And even before they were together. The glacial marriage is what I've called it.

Which is great when Doc's yelling pace and play fast. Like, it's great. Like, okay, good luck. No, but it really is unnatural for them, right? Like, I think historically, James Hardin has been a player who has not only looked for shortcuts and efficiencies within the game itself in terms of his shot chart, but also in terms of his movement. He is somebody who will communicate and switch actually pretty well on defense just for the sake of not having to rotate onto a guy. The problem with that is when everybody else doesn't necessarily get the memo. And also, there are moments where that just doesn't work and you have to.

move and like he's he's not necessarily um the best at doing that but he's also somebody who you know as despite how much he dribbles doesn't move a lot on the floor like he come like to your point Kyle he comes off a screen and he doesn't he he stops his own momentum and I think joel and beat is somebody who's more naturally inclined to do things that way too like he'll fall down on a drive and then get be very very slow to get up now I get that he has to fall down a specific way so he doesn't get hurt up hurt, but he's got to get up a little bit faster. And these are just things that, like, it gets it to a place of just like, like we're talking about just the way people move, right?

And if you're just trying to change the way you move, I just wonder the extent to which that is even possible. Like, this is, this team has the lowest average speed on offense in the NBA. And they're trying to run more. And it's pretty much, it's been pretty much the most consistent thing has been maxi running ahead and James Hardin finding him for hit-aheads. And to his credit, he is finding him. And he is trying to push the pace. But I think the key word that we're going to have with Philly this year if they continue to do this is trying because what they're doing is necessary in terms of becoming

more versatile and finding more easy buckets and being a more pliant team in the playoffs. But we'll see just how much they can actually do some of these things. And the hardest thing is, like, will we trust to change? Because I won't. I feel like they'll revert back to their habits as soon as things get tough because that's just human nature in that regard, right? Like, okay, you know, damn it, like we're not scoring in this system. Fine, I got to go one on one. I got to take it all. Or impede, I got to float on the perimeter and knock down some jumpers. It's going to be a lot of that stuff. And I think it's very interesting with where they got to go. I thought, you know, I like the acquisition of PJ Tucker. I thought that was a good pickup for them. But at the same time,

I'm like, another slow dude, right? Another guy that's not going to be very fast. Another guy that, you know, even though I highlighted the offensive rebounds and what he can get, but it's like, I have a lot of questions and how that's going to kind of play out with it. And he's already upset when they went 0 and 3. You know, there was stories of him in the locker room already going like, nobody's going to give us wins. I'm like, these guys have been in the NBA long enough to know that. They didn't, you know, if they're already, if we're already having this conversation,

three games into the season. I've been on some bad teams, guys. When we're having those conversations this early, it's a long year. It makes you wonder if they're maybe trying to sort of trigger the conversation in their own, in the ways that players do about, I mean, the doc thing's been hanging in the air. It hung in the air in the off season. It's sort of, it kind of seemed like maybe he wanted to leave at one point or the, the Lakers wanted to try to move him.

I'm curious to ask you. And we talk about like, okay, what happens when the basic things that you try? and we've seen Harden run up against this, and we've seen, separately, we've seen these two players run up against this in the playoffs. Now they're together. And Indeed, even after the first game was talking about them falling back on old habits, like the foul hunting, the plotting stuff. And Mo, you talked about the second side stuff. And for people who maybe the terminology there, it's just kind of like kicking it to, you know, the weak side or kicking it hardened when he kicks it over to Max. And Maxie is attacking a close out, things like that. I wanted to ask you, this kind of touches on kind of the overall theme that I wanted to, that we wanted to talk about today is that like, you know, we talk a lot about the NBA getting smaller, getting more athletic, getting more rangy, but there are teams out there that do punish with size. You know, Milwaukee does it. The Lakers did it for a time. Philly here has a physical advantage with, you know, they got a big ball handler, they got a dominant center. How do you maintain punishing teams with your size while also having like, offensive continuity once the first thing, you know, because in the playoffs, they're going to

take away your first thing or they're going to scheme really well to take away your first thing. Does Philly have the right personnel on the floor to have that kind of offensive continuity? Or is it more of a case of like what CIRT was talking about is like they're still in the process of reprograming themselves? Do you have any kind of like worries about like the PJ Tucker, the fit of PJ Tucker and Tobias Harris and like attacking from the second side? Do they need to make a change to get better in that sense, I guess, is what I'm talking about here? I don't think so.

I think just that starting five unit can do a lot of damage for you offensively. But the name of the game in general in just every NBA game is, besides just we've gone so far in a mismatch hunting, the real thing is I want to force a defense into rotation. And I think honestly the best way to do it is through the post. If you have a dominant post guy, you have to send the second person. and from there, that guy has to be able to be a willing passer. That's where Embed has to improve. He's shown some strides, but he also fell off massively.

I mean, my one more thing video was the Celtics going at him in the post over and over again with the second person because he wasn't making the right reads. That's going to create everything. But on top of that, it's the other guys have to know their spots, right? When the ball goes into the post with Embed, who's cutting through, who's coming over to give him beat a passing outlet? It's got to be an immediate swing after that. And that's how you take advantage of it.

I think they have the personnel because I think, look, the other four guys can all shoot the ball. You have PJ Tucker, who's the master of the pin-in screen, which usually means he pins in help and you usually get a corner three from that. I feel like there's a lot of opportunities with all that. You kick it to Maxi, defense rotating on him. He's going to blow by somebody. It might even get the ball back to Embed on a dunk or anything like that. I think it just requires more movement than they're used to. And again, it goes back to, okay, they all got to kind of be reprogram.

grand a little bit. What are our spots? Where do we need to be? James Harden has not really played with a dominant big man like this since Dwight Howard, but nobody was throwing Dwight Howard the ball in the post in Houston. So it's a whole different experience of when do I come over. Where do I go in my spots? I feel like they have a way to do it. And I think a lot of teams can do it is playing kind of through the post when you have a dominant big man. This is something that Denver can do with Yokic and with his passing ability, he's daring you to double him. He wants you to send another person because he's going to find the pass. And I think that's the challenge there

because a lot of teams aren't built to just guard that one-on-one. And I think that becomes the challenge with what you're looking for. I think the Sixers can do it, but Embed's got to become a better passer, much more consistent. And the other guy's got to be better movers off of it.

Because when the double team comes, somebody's got to cut. Somebody's got to make, and then somebody's got to fill those spots after that. It's really going to be an interesting thing to see how that goes throughout the season. And if the Sixers even do it enough. Do you think that they can kind of straddle these two lines between, you know, playing this style where, you know, it happens with Embed's in the post, too.

Granted, they do need more movement when Embedit is posting up, but at the same time, there is this tendency among these players to stand around and watch. And when Hardin is isolating, there's a tendency to stand around and watch. And that's kind of, it doesn't have to be an inevitability with mismatch hunting, but it feels like they fall into it with Hardin and Embedde. Like, do you think that it's harder when. you're playing all these different styles and sometimes you're moving a lot and sometimes you're just spotting up to actually just toggle between those two. I think it's a hard thing to figure out, but I think they have to. And I think teams in general have to.

I'm a movement believer. Like in general, like, give me an offensive design. There's going to be cuts all over the place. There's going to be nonstop. Like if my rule, just in general, if I are ever to get back into coaching, if the ball moves a quadrant and I have four different quadrants on the court, everybody's got to move after that. Don't be in the same spot when the ball moves. Ball's in the air, you've got to move.

It's that simple. And I think there needs to be more of that. They're going to have to toggle that. And that's a hard... This is not an easy coaching job. Everybody's going to kill Doc. This is not an easy coaching job. This is a really tough one because you have so much versatility. How do you focus in on this? How do you maximize all of these guys at once?

And I think that's... And ask these guys to be something they haven't been for so long. It's a challenging thing there. I mean, I'm glad I don't have that job. I don't have to try to get these guys to toggle this and figure out how to one to cut, one to stand still. There's an art to it. But that's going to be something that they're going to have to really kind of dive into in film sessions and things like that when they get more tape. Jumping off of that, I mean, if you look at

just watching them, it seems like the player types that you have, you talked about PJ isn't exactly sneaky or slinky or beating anybody with this speed. I mean, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, He can be kind of angularly clever at times. Tobias is big. I mean, we know he's a very upright player. He's not exactly going to blow by people off the catch. Maxie is ultra quick. I'm just kind of looking at their personnel,

and I'm wondering, do they screen off the ball enough? Like, is cutting on its own enough? Because it's like if you watch the way teams play them, they really clog, they really, really clog, they really, really clog and beat hard and picking rolls. I'm just wondering, is there enough, like, second side action going on? with the Sixers. Do they need to, like, expand in that way? Or what do you think?

I mean, yes. That would all be great stuff, you know, because obviously you can't just have three guys stand around the three point line on the weak side, because now it's easy to defend with just two players. And you can send another defender to go clog the paint in that area because the rotations, you should be able to cover those three with just two guys. I feel like the screening would help in that. And again, I think that's where Tucker kind of slides in with the pinons and him on the block a little bit more. But the other thing, too, though, Kyle's, they got to pass it to the second side. And they got to do it quickly.

You know, a lot of times they're coming off and it's what you guys were saying. Hardin comes off the screen and it slows down all his momentum. And it allows the defense to recover underneath that. Come off the screen and immediately swing it to the second side. And now Maxie has a chance to make a play happen. Now Harris has a chance to make some actions happen. You know, it's when you come off the screen, slow down, wait for him B to roll. or pop, which is also another difficult

thing that they got to figure out how often they want them to do pop or versus roll, you're slowing everything down. And by the time you figure out what you want to do, the defense is already in position and now you don't have a chance of a second side attack. The whole second side attack is, it's quick. You get the ball quickly

and then you go. But if you allow them to recover defensively, not going to have that. And that's what happens because then it hard and dribbles the air out of the ball. And now you've got to hope he makes to step back three or or Embedd draws a foul or whatnot. It becomes very difficult. There were a few really nice moments in the fourth quarter,

or the third quarter, actually, against the Pacers, where we saw some of that starting to happen. There was a hardened post-up where Maxey set a screen for Embed, and, you know, Embedd ducked down low. And obviously, I think, in that situation, any defense, playing the Pacers just, they just suck in so much in general, and they're the Pacers right now that, you know, and B just gets all this intention.

Hardin's watching and waiting and Maxie just flares up for a wide open three. And that's a perfect use of your big three right there. They're all involved in the play and you get a wide open shot and he hits it. And there is another one where Embed's posting up. He's getting doubled and tripled. He doesn't get the ball out quite quick enough, but he gets it back to Hardin, who then finds Harris right away, you know, cutting underneath the post. And it's a block on Aaron Neesmith.

They don't get free throws out of that. But those little moments kind of show you examples of how it could work, you know. And it almost reminds me of the Raptors the year before in Casey's final year there, where they were trying, they wanted to do the culture reset, and they were trying to modernize their offense, and they were shooting a whole bunch more threes. And it got to this place in March and April where you were like, oh, wow, okay, like this team actually managed to make good on some of the things that they wanted to do.

But then come playoff time, it was a very, different story. And I think the story with that Raptor is that you saw it less and less as the season wore on. But what I always noticed was the way that they played against contenders, they always reverted back to their old style, especially if they were playing against a good defensive team. That's when they ended up going back to playing the way that they used to, it was like, you know, it was going to be Demard de Rosen trying to take a whole bunch of mid-range jumpers or Kyle Lowry not really seeing the full play. And they'd have these really good games against pretty much the rest of the league, right? And then the play.

We all saw what happened. They completely reverted back to their old style. And I guess that's kind of my fear with Philly. Like, they just, I know, I keep going back to the final play against the Bucks. Where, I mean, after the entire game of just, you know, turning the ball over or just trying to, trying to, you know, post up Brooke Lopez just, you know, is failing and the Bucks are running on them. And actually, like, we should probably talk at some point about their transition defense. And live ball turnovers are one of the biggest reasons that they are struggling in transition this year.

I got the numbers on cleaning glass somewhere, but I don't have them in front of me right now. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's bad. That's the number. They have the worst transition defense in the NBA right now. And Embed, his post-up turnovers are a big part of that. But by the end of that game, Embedit has no interest in having the basketball in his hands in

post. And by the way, he probably shouldn't, right? But they go to him for the last play. He gets doubled. He almost turns it over on a pass. And then it gets back around to Hardin for the next play. And he takes a really, really quick shot on Drew Holiday, who, you know, when you're in the fourth quarter against that guy, he's wearing on you. And after the game, Hardin said it himself. You know, he said he took a good shot. It wasn't a great shot. And that he could have taken his time. and, you know, made another move and tried to make a better shot, but he essentially rushed it. Now, you can either see the positive in the fact that he acknowledges reality of the situation, or you can see the negative in, well, you know, when you play a really good defense,

they are going to speed you up and they are going to kind of make you revert back to instinct. And I just, I don't know which one it's going to be for these guys. I have more faith in them than I had the Raptors just because they have, they have genuine superstar talent that that team didn't have. That team essentially had to go out and get Kauai Leonard. And it was like, oh, yeah, now all these things actually do work, right? but the Harden, like, you know, the Sixers, they have Heart and they have Embed and they have Maxi who's, you know, playing like an all-star player. So I'm more optimistic about it, but I don't know, it's just maybe it's not a coincidence that some of the best plays that we've seen have been against the Pacers as opposed to the Bucks and the Celtics, you know?

Well, like a couple of things, too, though, it's just like, first off, I'm not shocked. I'm shocked they're one and three because they lost to the Spurs. I wouldn't have been shocked if they were two and two and started the season O and two, because those are two, tough teams they played in Boston and Milwaukee to start the season with all that. They've come up there playing the Raptors here. The interesting thing there is they also got to know which game is a different game plan. Offensive strategy attack. All right.

We're playing the bucks. Massive big guys. It's going to be really tough night for Embed to really post up unless we get those guys in early foul trouble. Let's run a lot more stuff, pick and roll, more hard and more maxi attacking. Let's get going in that stuff. And then when they're playing the Raptors tonight, who, You know, they're good and they're scrappy. They long as hell.

But, hey, Embed should be able to win us a bunch of points in the paint in this game tonight. And that should be the game plan there. We're going to really go. We're going to pound the paint with Embed. We're going to go from there and things like that. But they have that ability to go from different game plan to game plan based on who they're playing, which is something a lot of teams don't.

But that's also, again, it's a blessing and a curse. It's the Dylan Brooks. It's all right. That's great. But now we don't have any consistency, continuity. We're not really developing a ton of other stuff. and it becomes a lot more challenging for them. It gets very, it'll be very interesting to see how Doc and the Sixers as a whole go through the season in terms of game planning night in and night out and how they delineate offensively with what they're going to do.

This almost feels like a story, like something from like an English lit like model of how a story is told where people are facing their demons basically because it feels like everyone involved here is facing their demons. Doc has had a ton of superstar talent on different rosters. and faced his demons and been struck down by them. And then Embedd and Harden the same kind of thing, you know? And I guess another thing that we've, that we, you want to be fair in saying that like in the early goings of the season, we should mention that Embed came out. What you want to read into this?

I know Sixers fans have all kind of rolled their eyes because of everything they've been through. But Embed came out this, because he's looked discombobulated and he's looked confused. He's been, I went back and watched a bunch of his turnovers. everything ripples out from him like you were saying, Mo, like in the ideal situation. And, you know, he's like dribbling with the ball way too high against like wings around him, like not knowing where he is.

And it just seems like he's, he did come out and say that he had plants or fasciitis over the summer and that he was like in bed and things like that, which is Bill made the joke about like what year is it, which is, I think, pretty accurate. It's like, okay, I guess my point here is that like, it seems like there's a lot of like good growth plate on the bone for them, like for them to grow as a team. And, you know, Hardin was imported. I think, like, his first game was like February 25th of last year. So, you know, they've played some games together, but it seems like they do have some time to sort of like work this out or their- It's October. It's October. We got plenty of time, you know. Our continuity expectations,

I guess, is more what I'm talking about. You know, it's like, we expect them to be like one of these teams that hit the ground running and maybe that's not totally realistic maybe, I guess. I think it was unfair because we all got very excited about the moves. Oh, they got PJ Tucker. Oh, what a great trade for the Anthony Melon. Like, we're loving all of these guys that they have. This is great. This team's going to go completely nuts, not understanding.

And it happens. I get caught up in it all the time. And I've been in the game. It takes a while to build this whole thing up. It really does. It's not a easy thing to just think like, cool, all these new pieces, we're going to get rolling right away. It takes an absolute, it might take the entire season to figure it out. It takes so long to understand where you're at.

Like when we look at the Warriors and how well-oiled machine this was, they were together for a while with not getting to the finals, right? Like a couple of runs and things. They had some interesting runs. Dremont Green wasn't even playing and things like that. It takes a while to get the recipe right. And I think that's going to be the important thing there with it. I do a lot of basketball and cooking analogies because I feel like they go to hand-in-hand. But it takes a while.

And in this case, it's one of those things. It's we got to figure out the recipe first and then we'll start to bake the cake. And I think that's what they're doing right now. And I think there's going to be growing pains with that. Just we're not going to be patient with it because we got all excited about the moves without thinking like, all right, everything's plug and play. That ain't how this works anymore in the NBA. It's never been the case. takes a while to build this thing up.

The ingredients are there, though. And that's such a good point, too, because when you look at the Sixers right now, it almost does feel like they're trying to be too many things at once. Like, they want to be a running team, but they're also getting killed in transition, and they have their designated offensive rebound crashes, as Doc puts it.

And sometimes they get their, you know, they get their privileges taken away as he also puts it. But we got to talk about that. We got to talk about the trip. You all were talking about the turnovers. I looked at it. They're actually like first, they have the fewest turnovers per game

at through four games. And yet they're the worst transition team, defensive team in the league. How much does that worry you guys? Just to pop in there. I mean, like the Celtics are going to play those lineups. And they're going to have Rob Williams back who can also run.

Is that a problem? Because it feels like a problem. I mean, are they, is that something because, you know, you talk about PJ. PJ's not going to run in transition. And I know Mo, you posted some of those clips of, like, Harden, like, isn't even trying to zone up in transition. He's just like he makes one, he's like a wet paper towel.

You just barely poke him and it's like you can get through. How much of a worry is that for them, the transition defense thing? I think defense in general should be a concern for them. But transition defense for sure, like, you know, you're going to let PJ Tucker crash for offensive rebounds. You better hope he gets a lot more than he doesn't because he's not going to be able to recover in time. That's just the way it goes in that sense. So now you're banking on James Hardin and Tyrese Maxi to be your transition stoppers. Come on.

Or even Tobias Harris. Like, it's not even like you're not going to get that very often. I mean, it's a transition defense is a concern. I think their regular defense is going to be a concern because I think they're going to be giving up drives after drive after drive with Maxie and Hardin. I think there's a lot of challenges in that area. I mean, we focused mainly on the offense. Their defense is also going to be something to really be concerned about it. Because, like you said, few is turnovers, but they've also, other teams have capitalized on those turnovers.

It felt like the Celtic scored on every boss, every Philly turnover in game one. And I feel like those are the things that are going to hurt them right now. And, you know, to see her its point of them trying to be a running team, like Doc's got to give this up. Either it's get the ball to maxi or we're going to bring the ball up to court. It's really just those. Our fast break is Tyrese Maxi. If it's not Tyrese Maxi, no fast break, folks. It's that simple.

Like, that should be the plan. because you have two three slow guys you know and again here's give the anthony milton his flowers here yeah i think melton could play over pj at some point he maybe should i mean don't you think that's going to be hard i think that's going to be a hard one to pull just because i think you know and i love the anthony mountain but i just think it's it's something i don't think pj is going to be great off the bench with the second unit i think that's you know with the pairing you have out there i think you use tucker to almost kind of protect and beat a little bit you know in terms of rebounding and things like that.

I think you put him in the lineup with Montres Harrell. That's probably not going to be the best use of Tucker. But I think with Melton, I think you can get a lot. Melton could be another fast guy, but that's it in terms of transition for them. Yeah, I like starting Tucker and I like starting defenders just because, you know, you want them defending the best players in the court. Like, it's almost a waste of PJ Tucker to have him defending second unit players. I think it's almost, it's something that I think the Denver Nugget should consider doing

Bruce Brown. Like maybe bring Michael Porter Jr. off the bench. But, you know, to the point of the Sixers, is if you're going to maybe start Tucker, but maybe you bring Harris off the bench and he could try to run the second unit and provide a little extra punch and he's a little bit more protected with wing defender. Oh, and he's improved his own defense by a great measure as well. But that could work out too. Yeah, I mean, there's a ton of options. The real question is like, are you going to do it?

Are you going to have the tough conversations? Or are you going to say to yourself, well, look at how much money we're paying to buy his hair. we can't have that coming off the bench. And people might roll their eyes at that comment. That happens in NBA offices. Owners come down going like, why am I paying this dude $40 million for him to get just 25 minutes off the bench, you know,

and things like that. It's almost like a problem. It might be a problem for Harris. Harris might hate the idea of coming off the bench. And I'm not trying to say he's not a good team guy or anything. You never know how these guys react to some of these things. And I feel like that's the challenge there. I mean, again, I'll say it again, it's a tough-ass job to coach.

This is a tough team to coach. It's not, he needs to, Doc needs to delineate roles, needs to set these guys up and get them going in that stuff. And it's not easy because got a lot of dudes that need to be fed. And I don't think they got enough food. Yeah. I think what's interesting is for as bumpy of a start as it's been, I mean, they lost to a really bad Spurs team who is trying,

actively trying not to wean, although they have some... Are they trying? Are they trying not to win? They've got some wings that are actually been, have been pretty promising. That's another conversation for another nerdy day. But it's interesting, I think, that we come away from this, all three of us being like, yes, shittiness, but also at the same time, you know, this is a, this is a cake that's good,

this is a brisket that's going to need to, I'm not a barbecue person, but I mean, this is a, this is a smoked meat that's going to need to be in there for quite some time for it to taste, to hit maximum flavor. Mo, this is not something that, you know, my basketball watching eyes are smart enough to glean. So I'm just wondering, do you have any insight as to why this team is the worst defensive transition team in the NBA and also the worst offensive rebounding team in the NBA? Because I just, I don't get it. No, it's, it's, you sent a lot of guys to go with nobody actually to get back. And I think that's, that's one of the issues.

And I think the other thing is, a lot of those transitions are coming those transition points are coming off of turnovers and live ball turnovers and that's the killer right like so you you can be a good offensive rebound team and a good defensive transition team just in the sense of

hey we're not we're not turning the ball over but the thing is in B's had in four games three turnovers in the back court right like these are just like bad mistakes and bad passes and things like that the the Celtics I think had 24 fast break points

right there. And a lot of them, if we go back, we're off of turnovers. And I think that's the challenge. Their transition defense issues, I think stem more from live ball turnovers than crashing the offensive glass, even though that's not helping either. Because they're crashing the glass, but nobody's actually getting anywhere. And I think that's the more, that's a more interesting thing to look at is like, how can you crash the glass this often and not come away with it? Just law of averages. You'd come up with one. You'd come up with one by accident. But it's like, you know, it's almost like you're actively running in the wrong direction. All right.

So, Mo, before we let you go, guys, check out one more thing on Twitter. You do those once a week, right? As frequently as called for, I guess, kind of thing, right? I try to do them once a week. The one thing that's challenging about doing something once a week is finding something new to do once a week. So I think that's where it gets. But I try to get one out a week. Highly educational.

I encourage people to check that out and check out the athletic NBA show. It's always really high-minded, smart stuff. But really, before we go, I wanted to just ask quickly what you guys thought about Taylor Swift's latest album. Sir, do you have a quick review for this? What's your thought? I was kind of bumping it in the car on the way to pick up yesterday. I'm not a Taylor Swift person. I thought that it was sort of the embodiment of one of those YouTube videos of like so-and-so

hears such and such music that's sort of outside their sphere for the first time. I don't know. They're like, dads here, sister. of a down for the first time. You know, those funny YouTube videos. Okay, snoddy, snotty millennial hipster. Here's Taylor Swift. I know some of her songs. I was kind of getting sort of a like reflecting on like romances that like didn't quite pan out or there's just like kind of longing. Is that a normal's Taylor Swift thing? What do you think about this album? Give me a review. Yeah, I would say Taylor Swift sometimes reflects on

romances that didn't work out. I would say that's a fair, fair assessment. It might be. it might be a small part of her discography. Okay. Yeah, I think your biggest charge and our producer, Chris Sutton's biggest charge, is that it was a little bit boring. Chris, jump in if you want. Yeah. I really want to hear Sears' review here now. So you didn't think it was boring.

Well, I can, I see that. There's, you know, there's 20 songs. There is some fluff on there. But I think the good songs are really good. Bejewled. I can tell that was probably so far. the one that's playing in my head the most. Kyle, it's also the one that I texted to you,

and I sent you these lyrics, and I was like, hey, this is pretty much Russell Westbrook. One second. I'll pull them up. I need to hear this. I haven't listened to it. I don't have strong feelings about it yet. I haven't listened to it enough to necessarily have, like, a full-on review.

But I just, I generally just have strong feelings about, about Taylor Swift. Here's the lyrics you sent me. Is this right? For the last time? Yeah. For the last time, it's me.

Hi, I'm the problem. It's me. At tea time, everybody agrees. I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror. It must be exhausting, always rooting for the anti-hero. So you said that was for us? Yeah, it was. That's perfect.

It kind of is. It kind of is, right? Yeah. Ouch. I read it over again. I didn't even realize how much. much it fit in, like, staring directly at the sun, but never in the mirror, just being the most defiant player in the history of the universe, but never actually, you know, looking at,

you know, who, you know, what, what you're doing yourself. But that's why I like this album. I think, I think Taylor, much like, much like Westbrook, actually, is a little bit ambivalent about her role right now. Folklore and Evermore, I think, just put her on this status because of the lyricism because they were very reflective in this sort of positive way of I've I've been through a lot of relationships and just lived a lot of life and this is what I think about it now. She almost took on this sort of big sister role where she just had a lot of really interesting tidbits and she gave like a commencement speech at NYU. She seemed to have like gotten to this place and she's always been like godlike to her fans but there's like there's this like TikTok

joke about like you know walking so I can make up for that. the emissions on Taylor Swift's jet. But that's basically she came under fire for traveling private because of just, you know, how bad that is for the environment. I heard about that. The fans kind of responded by saying, well, hey, we'll pick up the slack for her. So this is kind of where the status that she has amongst like, you know, Swifties, right? Or she just, she can't do any wrong.

And even when she does, like, they're like, hey, we're going to help you out here. but I think she's ambivalent about that. Like a lot of this album was just her being like, listen, I'm still kind of a mess. Like you should, there's a, like the last track on the 3 a.m. edition is called Dear Reader. And she talks about, you know, you should never take advice from somebody who's falling apart. And I think it seems like, you know, maybe to her that a lot of people that listen to her are actually taking advice from her. And she seems a little bit uncomfortable with being in that role. So this whole album is kind of just about like, it feels like, it feels like,

an album that's about her intrusive thoughts. Like especially, especially anti-hero. It's just like, yeah, I have this dream about how, you know, my future kids are going to hate me and kill me for my will. Like that is, that is like the ultimate intrusive thought. And like, you know, she makes it, she's got a lyric about, you know, covert narcissism that she disguises as altruism. She's honest.

I've always appreciated that about her songwriting. Yeah. I, that is. It sounds like you need to write something for the site. That was a pretty in-depth. I have some thoughts. I have some thoughts on Taylor Swift. We're a long way from love story.

What happened? She had enough of those romance arcs that she think she got a little bit cynical about men, which I don't really necessarily. She's getting older. It's going to happen. Chris, what did you think? I'm listening to you, Siri. And I feel like that's like her calling card is intrusive thoughts. Like her entire career is like just outing these relationships that she's had, you know.

And so whatever, that's like kind of for style. that's what people dig. Just one thing that kind of sits with me, and I don't know if this is because I'm older or it's because I'm a dad and I hear this stuff more, but the cursing was gratuitous. And I'm not trying to sound like a weird, like, like teetoler or whatever,

but I just seemed like, you know, whenever she put in a fuck in a shit, it seemed like it didn't really need to go in there. And she tried to get it in there just so you'd listen to the song more. I saw this tweet that was basically like, Taylor Swift is swearing. Like she like just became allowed to swear.

Yeah, she just found out. That's the vibe. That's what I was trying to say. Yeah. So, I mean, that was just my thing. I mean, I'm not, like I said, I'm not a stand, but I listen to as much music as I can. And of course, I listen to her stuff when it comes out. But I just feel like this time, like, she went for this like down tempo vibe.

And, you know, she can do whatever she wants. But I just felt like, oh, everything sort of mid tempo and kind of background. Yeah. I want to blame a Jack Antonoff for that, who is just not nearly the producer that you are. Yeah, I'd make everything lively. Everything be 120 BPMs all the time. There are no, there are no comparable producers to Chris Hornet Legg Sutton.

Thank you for producing this episode, Chris. Mo, the keel, thank you for joining us. Always your eternal uncle, NBA Twitter, Uncle, Wisdom. Always, always learning. Check out most stuff. Mo is sharp as they come. Sir, good to see you. We'll be back next week.

See you guys.