The Ringer NBA Show - Damian Lillard, Sixers Sadness, and What to Do With Denver | Group Chat

Episode Date: August 12, 2020

Justin, Rob, and Jonathan talk about bubble MVP Damian Lillard (01:25). Chris Ryan joins to discuss the downer of a time the 76ers are having and how improvements by other players could affect Ben Simmons’s performance (27:20). Later they dive into nerd corner to talk about the Denver Nuggets’ growth and what makes Michael Porter Jr. one of the breakout stars of the bubble (50:52). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, Jonathan Tjarks Guest: Chris Ryan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Everybody loves game shows. Everybody has a podcast. I've got both. Hey, everybody, I'm Kyle Grant. In my new show, 10 Questions is a game show talk show. Athletes, movie stars, everybody will come on, not just to talk. They come on this show to compete. 10 questions that whether they know it or not are somehow inspired by a moment in their life or their career.

10 questions. 10 points. So much fun. Head over to Spotify, and please subscribe to 10 questions with, Kyle Brands. Basketball is very good. Hello and welcome to group chat. The Ringers Weekly NBA group discussion

where we talk about everything from Mario Hizonia to headbutts. I'm your host Justin Verrier and joining me today, Rob Mahoney. What's up, Rob? Not a lot. Doing great. I want you both to know you're both on my all-NBA seating teams

game presented by Keio. Thank you, man. Also joining us, Jonathan Charks. Hey, how you doing, y'all? And Steve, back on production. We actually say hello to Steve this time. We missed you last time, buddy. Today we're going to get into a couple things here.

We're going to bring on Chris Ryan to talk about Sixers' sadness, I guess, is the best way to describe it, which is something that Chris knows very well. We're going to get into the nuggets in the back end of the podcast. I go a little bit of a deep dive with some of Charks' lineup data. But first, I want to talk about Damien Lillard. I don't know if you guys saw last night, but it seems like Damien Lillard is a golden god. So 61 points last night on the heels of a 50-point game. So they're doing this bubble MVP thing, as Rob alluded to, up top,

in addition to an all bubble team, which is basically awards for the past two weeks of seating games. So Lilith has clearly won bubble MVP. If you had any doubts about that, I think last night pretty much sewed that up. Here's my question to you guys. If we were to include the bubble games in the awards big picture balloting, which they're not doing, but I wish they had.

Would Lillard have a case for MVP along with Janus and LeBron? I mean, do MVPs ever go to eight seeds, right? Like, I don't know. We have to change kind of the rules of voting, right, in terms of the unwritten rules of how these things go. It's tough because he's been so good and you don't want to take anything away from just how well Lillard has played in these games and how important those games have been.

But I would have a hard time personally, even putting aside Yonnes and LeBron, I don't even know what the argument would be for Lillard over James Harden, for example. I think there's a couple of other candidates who would still be in his way, and Lillard would probably, I bet he would get on more ballots if they were turned in after the eight-seating games, but I don't know, these really cracking that top two. Interesting. So you wouldn't even put him third right now. I wouldn't. I mean, Hardin, to me, scores more, assists about the same, is, you know, a clear cut above in every one-number metric out there. And his team is 12 games better. I mean,

to me, he does so much of what Lillard does, but more effectively. If we're talking about Harden specifically. And that's not even if, you know, you could get into Luca in this conversation or Anthony Davis in this conversation as well. Lillard is great. I think he is well worthy of consideration for the ballot. I just don't have him quite at that level. I guess I'll go deep cut here. I think the question would be in a hypothetical world where they still had all season, Nurkich, Collins, Rodney Hood. If they had their team all year, that team of Dame C.J. Hood, Collins, Nirk, that probably wins like 50, 55 games. Okay, now you guys a case for MVP, but MVP, it's a team of what much as an individual

award. You've got to win a lot of games to win this award, just how it is. Yeah, it's a tough ask. I say, I bring this up more as a discussion than really just caping for the award. Janice and LeBron have both won almost 20 more games than the players at this point. So the case that you would have to make for Dame would have to be the Russ case, right? I know we look back on derisively pretty much, almost as the moment when the NBA media just like really lost his way when we voted for us MVP over James Harden. But I just look back at this season and for just saying signature moments, if we're saying stories that defined this season, Russ, excuse me, Dame not only had that six game stretch where he had almost

50 points a game, but now he has this. And I don't know. I think he's very clearly third if I were to do a ballot today. I just, I think what he's done considering the obstacles put in front of him in Portland, considering all the progress that he's made, his statistical resume isn't all that worse than some of the top guys. I just, I just think, I don't know, I just think that he has a case, if not the best case. I know what it is, Justin. You're putting respect on his name. You heard it. Yeah, I don't know where this is coming from, where guys are just making things up. now to be upset about. It seems like where could that be coming from, do you

think? I can't imagine a place in the world where these kinds of imagined slides would become major news stories. That's so weird. I don't know. I've never logged on before. I've never participated in it at all. But it is weird though. It just seems like maybe there's not enough to do in the bubble that

we're just like coming up with straw man arguments for like the literal best players in the world to really have something to really motivate themselves against. But I will say this. the Blazers have dealt with significant opposite. It was not only the ones you mentioned earlier in the season, but all of a sudden

last night, after Dame's marquee performance, I was reported out by Dwight James that apparently C.J. McCollum has a broken lower back or like it's like a fractured vertebrae, something like that, which sounds really tough.

And he's been playing with this for the past three games. It just to me makes this lower performance all the more interesting. Well, Anne makes, I think, CJ's performance pretty gutsy too. As soon as that report came out, I immediately thought back to, there was a sequence in the fourth quarter against the Mavs where he ended up kind of on committing a couple fouls on guys who are driving and hit the floor pretty hard as a result.

And in my head, I was thinking, man, like, Portland really needs to stop fouling. But in retrospect, I'm like, oh, my God, C.J. McCollum is just falling over and over on his broken back and still came up and hit some pretty important shots for them. So, you know, that's, you know, long-term health impacts of that aside. I don't know what the ram, you know, the ramifications are of playing with the broken back. I think a pretty admirable thing, if nothing else, that he's been able to play as well as he has, CJ. It does feel very, like, Sisyphian. Like, they're moving heaven and earth to play LeBron AD in round one, like, man.

Yeah, they are really treating the seeding games almost as if it is a playoff. And maybe that's what needed to be done. maybe like other teams that are in this race, the spurs, the grizzlies, maybe they should be riding those guys. But I look at the minutes and they are adding up. Like, Lillard is playing pretty much 40 minutes a game every night. And he's on like seven games over two weeks. So this is a condensed period, which so I bet he's feeling those more.

CJ also playing a ton of minutes while on this broken back. They pretty much trim the rotation to eight guys. Mario Hazzonia sometimes plays, sometimes doesn't. And the Blazers have really gone for this, and they will ultimately probably get in, just based on the way things are looking right now. They have really good odds in the ringers restart odds, I believe.

They and the Grizzlies have the top odds to play in the playing game this weekend. But I don't know. I don't know if there's a cost. I guess would it be worth it if long-term this becomes an issue? Well, I think there is a cost even short-term. I mean, we're talking about Portland just being on complete overdrive, right now if they make it to that

1-8 matchup, whatever, you know, however much energy they have left is an open question. But that's the cost you pay. Like, every game right now is essential for them. They're treating it that way. Terry Stott certainly is, as you mentioned, with his rotation, and Lather to McCollum, in terms of the way they're playing, all these guys, Nurkich.

Again, let's put some more respect on Mello's name as well. He's had a good couple games here. You know, these are games they can't afford to give away. And longer term, you have that conversation. I'm sure the medical staff is agonizing over whatever it is that CJ's condition is more specifically. But when we're looking at this season, the next game is all there is.

Quickly before we flip to the suns here, because they deserve just as much recognition here, they deserve as much respect on their name. I want to talk about the Mavs briefly. So they were on the losing end of this Blazers game. Crunch time has become a bit of a big top for the Mavs as we've gone along this season. At first, I thought it was more just lucidantious

playing through some of his erratic tendencies. It's kind of just like the Luca experience, right? If you want him to make these exhilarating between the legs, dimes, then you also need him to throw away a pass every now and then. It's kind of the Steve Nash corollary, I guess. But as we've gone along, this has become a bit of a trend. And so last night we saw this play out. I guess it's a little bit more on the fluky side

because the two plays that ended up doing them in were both charge calls, one to Christoph Brazingis, one to lose the game with Trey Burke. but John, you're around this team a lot during the season when we could actually be around other humans. Are you concerned at all as we turn the page to the playoffs about the Mavs? I mean, concern to the sense, like, are they going to win a championship? No. I mean, they just beat the Bucks in overtime, what, on Saturday, right?

I feel like clutch performances can kind of go up and down. One thing I was actually interested in hearing y'all's opinion about, right before this podcast, I was talking to a front office guy from one of the other teams in the race for the eight seed. And he was telling me, like, he's watching, KP drop picking rolls on Dame and losing his mind. He's like, this is a guaranteed loss. Porzingis cannot guard Dame.

They got to chain something up. And I was like, that's true. I don't know what you even do with it. Like, how do the Mavs use Porzingis when Dame is playing like that? I think that's a big question for them going forward. Well, I mean, that's the thing with Dallas, too, is that not only do they have issues defending big wings, like every other team in the league essentially does, you know, the LeBron-Kauai types, but defending guards is a real difficulty for them, especially, I mean, Lillard is challenging

for everybody. But Chris Hopsis is not a bad defensive player. He's just suited to a different space on the floor. And when you string him out that far, that to me is why Dallas kind of blew that game and why I think their crunch time performance in that game specifically isn't really indicative of their crunch time problems more generally

because this was just a total loss at defending Damian Lillard. I think they probably eased into it, like trying the drop to see what they could get away with on the chance that their offense was good enough, that they could get enough stops elsewhere. Let's not tax KP any more than we have to. And then it ended up where Lillard was just pouring it on so frequently

and was so much force that he had to show up a little bit more and still was getting driven around like a traffic cone. So it definitely puts some of Dallas's long-term issues in perspective because once you get into actual playoff series that matter, guys like him are going to be singled out. Luca's going to be challenged in ways he hasn't been challenged before. We see it done to the best players in the world, so why not them? Yeah, that's why the playoffs.

are going to be so interesting for the Mavs, I think. Chris Stops has done, at least on the offensive end, I thought like a spectacular job in these seating games. His shot looks better than perhaps it ever has. It just seems like every time he takes, it looks like it's going to go in. But, John, you've written about this a lot, just like whether or not Chris Stops long-term

is the best partner for Luca, because on one hand, he is a stretch big and he provides space for him and is able to protect the rim on the other end. on the other side, do you really need simply just a stretch big as his number two option?

Where do you fall on that kind of spectrum? I like KP in terms of rim protection and I think with Luca, having a guy who can score very quickly is huge. If you look at the touches numbers,

Luca's like holding the ball the most, the entire league in the bubble by a mile. So you have to have a guy who's willing to play off Luca and let him do his thing and kind of score very quickly. My thought with KP was this.

In those situations, what about putting him on like Gary Trent? So the idea would be if he's not guarding the big man, right? So now you have Gary Trent setting the screen on Dame's defender. Gary Trent's like 6-5, right? So if you put a big wing on Dame like Finning Smith through 6'8, it's harder for him to get around that screen than if it's NERC is setting the screen. So basically like take away the pick and roll over the best screener for Dame by putting KP on one of the shooters and then seeing what happens.

I think, I mean, it does a good job of taking the ball out of dames hands a little bit. But the alternative in that case is running Gary Trent the best shooter to ever live off of 10 downs with Chris Epps-Sperzingis having to chase him. So I don't feel great about that either. The closest competition to Gary Trent Jr. If it isn't his teammate Damien Lillard, it's Devin Booker. That was my attempt at a transition. I was not bad. I liked it. I liked it. All right. Devin Booker, obviously probably one of the bigger shining stars of this bubble situation, whatever you want to call it. Remember when we called it a campus environment?

Remember when that was the thing the NBA tried to push? It's kind of like when someone tries to give themselves a nickname, like when KD wanted to become, what was it? It was a... The servant, right? The servant. And everyone's like, no. That's pretty much what the bubble is at this point.

But Devin Booker having just a breakthrough performance. We talked about him a little bit last week, but I think he's been even better over the past few games. As the Sons continue to win games, they have not yet lost. And I don't know if they'll lose next game because it seems like every single team left on the docket for Thursday is going to sit every good player.

So we'll see about that. But I thought it was interesting last game against the Sixers who were not playing a lot of players whom they normally play. Kyle Quinn Triple Double Watch was pretty much the most interesting thing going on in Philly. We'll get to that later in the episode with Chris a little bit. But I thought Dan Devine had a really good point.

Dan Ringerstaffer. He said that Booker was doing a bunch of star stuff in the midst of the game. And what he meant by that was he was manufacturing points when the Suns needed points. He was getting guys involved when they needed to get involved. When he was kind of slumping around and wasn't as active in the offense,

he would try to pass it to him. Stuff like that, I think that is the difference between Booker a year ago and Booker now. It seems like he's evolving into this all-around player who you can really play through. And I don't know if the Sons are going to get into the playoffs or not, but to me,

that's super encouraging just going forward. Well, that's the thing you can only get from these kinds of games, right? Like, you can put Devin Booker, you know, in Indianapolis, in January and a somewhat close game,

and that game looks, however it looks, but to have games with these stakes where you're putting your best player in that position, I mean, that's what this whole situation was supposed to be about for the Sons, show up, learn a lot,

compete hard, take the most out of this bubble experience you can, and go home happy. It just turns out that that comes with also competing for a playoff spot, which has just been a miraculous turn of events. And, you know, really is a tribute to the broader success of their team, I think. Yeah, I'm going to make a deep cut here.

I think worth giving this guy a shout out. I mean, I feel like we talked about Booker last week. He's been a great player for a long time. It's just a supporting cast has been improved this season. And this number is just insane. So the great Cameron Payne, G-League cast off, played for like eight teams. his net rating in the bubble is plus 22.

And when he's not on the floor, the sons are only plus four. So apparently campaign has become like the best point card of all time. Well, let's talk about the bench because, you know, this isn't a sexy reason why the sons have been good, but their bench was just a complete disaster all season. And now all of a sudden, you know, the combination of Cam, Dario Sarich,

Javon Carter, some Frank Kaminsky in there, and then, you know, throw in a starter or two to kind of fill out those lineups, has been all of a sudden really viable. And that's without Kelly Ubrey, that's without Aaron Baines. This is basically a bench lineup that should have been and could have been left for dead if we assumed the regular standards of the regular season,

and yet they've been able to turn out winning margins for the Suns and games that really matter. Can you guys tell me where campaign was a year ago today? Is he in China? I'm losing track of him after Chicago. Yeah, I think most people did. Let's start in January 2019. he signed a 10-day contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

In July, he signed a contract with the Raptors. This must have been for Summer League, I guess. Yeah, I think this is just a summer contract. Then he ends up in China. Then in January, he was with the Texas Legends. And then on June 30th, he signed a deal with the Phoenix Suns. Campaign has been around the world, but he is back. I completely agree with you.

It is so funny how everything just seems to fit with Phoenix, which is particularly surprising considering the offseason that they had going into this. They gave away T.J. Warren for cash, as we all know now, and T.J. Warren is clearly Michael Jordan's successor. So that seemed like it didn't go well for them. They brought on Ricky Rubio a move I didn't like, particularly because they had made a lot of noise about wanting to empower Devin Booker is some sort of like hardened southwest.

And it seemed like they were quickly scrapping that plan. It seemed like all of a sudden like this is the sun's pretty much, this is what they do. Right. They just change things on the fly. One day they have three point cards. The next day they have zero. But I'm looking around this team now. And it seems like everybody fits a role in a way that even a team like the Sixers,

for instance, doesn't. And I think that's a credit to, I guess it's the coaching staff that they've managed to take all of these draft picks over the past. couple of years and really chisel out a product, an actual team. I think it signifies kind of a pivot from having needs to having optionality. All of a sudden, you get to choose whether you want to start Kelly Ubrey or Cam Johnson. You get to choose whether you want to run the balder booker or Rubio. You have so much more flexibility in how you build your lineups, how you run your stuff

from quarter to quarter. I mean, that's what makes teams good. It's not like rocket science to have that kind of luxury. And yet it just took Phoenix so long to get to this. this point. So I'm actually talking about this for a piece on Thursday. And like going back to Rob saying about optionality, there's two really big trades they made on draft night. So we'll talk about this with the Philly conversation later. So number one, they trade Zeyer Smith from McAil Bridges. Number two, they trade Jared Kohler for Cam Johnson. So in both trades, they're taking kind of a

smaller, more athletic, multidimensional wing. They're moving them for a longer, bigger shooter. It's like sometimes it's not that complicated. If you have Devin Booker, you need three indie guys around him. So they made those trades happen, and now we're seeing the results. Like, without those trades,

this team is not very good. And, you know, like you have a star, you get guys who can shoot threes, can play defense. You get enough of those guys around a good player,

a star like Booker, you're going to have a good team. They figured it out. It shouldn't be that hard, but it kind is sometimes. Now they're winning. Yeah. Even Dario Sarich is,

it seems like old Dario now, even though as he's like guarding people on the perimeter, it kind of looks like he's riding a surfboard. Watching Dar esch move laterally is like my new favorite thing. That's what it is. The flopping really does it too. No, I was watching them. And this team reminds me of the Pelicans in Monty Williams' last year with that team

in 2014-15. Obviously, the connection to Moni is pretty clear. But it seems like things are just working in ways that you didn't necessarily expect. It seems like you look at the team on paper and you squint hard and you're like, I don't really know if this team really works. That Pelicans team had Tyreek Evans and Drew Holiday sharing the ball. And it's like, maybe, I don't know. Drew was in and out of the lineup with injuries.

AD was still kind of rising to prominence. And it just seems like this is what they have here where Booker seems to be taking that next step a little bit, doing those little things that he needs to do while a lot of the other guys are maybe playing above their head at this point. maybe just falling into the right specific role. I guess my question from there is, though, will they have a come down just like that Pelicans team did? Because I do think as the Pelicans looked around, they started to realize some of these pieces don't fit as well.

Injuries definitely set in and really took them down. Quincy Pondexter, I don't think, played... No, he had a run with the Spurs like a couple years later, but he was out of the league for a while. Quincy Pondexter talk on this pot. I love it. Listen, so obviously I covered the Pelicans for two years.

And any time he could, Alvin Gentry would mention that they did not have a small forward since Quincy Pondexter went down. And he's right. But on the other hand, good God, I heard about Quincy Pondexter so much.

But no, it's just, I do wonder if this is fleeting. I mean, I wonder if this is the type of thing where you expect them to carry it into next season because that's the trajectory of young teams, right? Or if this is just a nice moment

and next year, we'll be back in the same place where Devin Booker, may not be happy or at the very least Draymond Green doesn't think that he's happy. There is a possibility here that the Sons don't win 100% of their games next season. I think that's something we need to at least embrace

right now as a possibility. To your point about Monty, I mean, I listened to, you know, DeAndre Aiton was on Adrian Wuljnarovsky's podcast. Great interview. And I think really highlighted Monty Williams as the voice that this team needed right now. It sounded like from DeAndre talking about his suspension,

from what he went through this season, that having Monty kick his ass a little bit and also be there as someone to bounce things off of, to listen, to not always chew him out when he expects him to chew him out, that there was just a really fine line that he walked with this young team. There can be really good coaches

who come to a team at the wrong time, and it just doesn't work for a variety of reasons. There can be really good coaches who, over a long enough stretch, their players just start to tune them out. I think what separates this from that New Orleans group, one, they're younger, Two, the health that you mentioned, Justin, is just huge.

I mean, that New Orleans team was just undercut time and time again by injuries. But also, I think... Really? New Orleans? No, that would never happen there. But it really just does seem like Williams might be the right kind of motivator for this group at a time when, you know, they had so much instability in terms of their coaching. Having that kind of steady voice could go a really long way. Yeah, and it's like funny, too, because talking about New Orleans and like with luck and injuries, like you look at this team, Callio Ubre Tours Meniscus. in like February, and they kind of started slipping until Cam Johnson came in for him.

The margin for error is so small in the West. You've got to have five, six, seven, eight good players. And if one of those guys goes down, the whole structure kind of collapses, right? So looking back on it, so Phoenix, like, we can all kind of agree, they probably should have taken Luke at one or Jaron Jackson. So they didn't do, they didn't get that part right. So that means they have to get everything else right to make up for that. And it's like, it's just hard to get everything else right.

It's hard to get five, six, seven good players all roll at the same time in good roles. Right now, this mix works, but if, you know, Bridges gets hurt next year or Booker, you know, sprained his ankle for a month and a half, they missed the playoffs. It all falls apart that fast. I want to defend Aiden a little bit there because I think while you're right, I think Jackson and Luca will turn out to be better players. This wasn't a wasted pick. This wasn't a blown pick.

Like, this is a situation the Sons can build and recover from in that sense. And Aton, to our point about the Sons having all these options, I think facilities. that just by being, I think, more versatile than he was given credit, especially at draft time. That's true. I guess I'm just saying in terms of, if you have, like, Jackson, Luca plus Booker, that's two top ten players. When you have two top ten players, then you've got a lot of flexibility. Things can go wrong. There's more margin for error. That's kind of what I was going for there. Yeah, I like how the Sun's consolation prize from that draft is that they're now last on the list of being derided amongst the teams who pass on Luca Donchis. It's just like, yeah, Tray Young, and then

and then obviously the king's at the top of that list. But I agree. I think Aitin has shown something in these seating games. I know I was a little critical of him. And I still agree with what I said last week. And sometimes he could just float around. But I've been surprised at what he's done on the defensive end. He's been a lot better there.

And also his shot just looks way better than I ever expected to. It just looks perfect when it comes out of his hand. You think it's going to make it every single time. But yeah, to your point earlier, about Monty, I think that was spot on just because I wasn't there for Monty when he coached the Pelicans, but everything you heard about him from those Pelicans players is that they all loved him, that he got them to buy in. But on the flip side of that was they fired him specifically to take the next step. So I don't know. I don't know if history is going to repeat itself or if these

are the right players for what he wants to do. Let's look ahead just really quickly here before we get to the Sixers. So Thursday pretty much is going to decide the West play and race. Four teams are pretty much still in this. Unfortunately, not the Pelicans and the Kings. We don't know what's going to happen. It seems like it may come down to whether or not people play their best players. Somehow it seems like the toughest game on the schedule on Thursday is now the Nets, only because we know that they're going to try the hardest. But which teams do you guys want to see at the end of the day in the playoff race or in this play and race this weekend? I mean, it's got to be Suns Blazers, right?

The way those two teams are playing, a Dame Booker shootout, that'd be pretty awesome. Yeah, I think the Blazers are ultimately going to get through one way or another and kind of the way it should be, just in terms of entertainment value in a potential first round series, you know, putting the best player on the floor. But I'm really looking forward to these playing games. I mean, just from a perspective of something we've never seen from the NBA before, having that much riding on a single game where you can't make game-to-game adjustments, at least for the first crack.

That's going to be a good ride. Yeah, I'm the same. I definitely want to see the sun's run continue. It would be really heartbreaking if they won every single game in front of them in the bubble and then had to go home. It would be very sons-like. Yes, it would. It sounds like after the final game, they have to pack up immediately and leave the bubble area. So imagine just like having the champagne bath and then getting on the plane while you're still soaking in this 8-0 run. That'd be pretty bad. And so just as a quick refresher, uh, crams, Zach crams playoff odds on our side. site, which you should check out the update every day. He has the trailblazers and the Grizzlies as the most likely pairing at 38% Blazers and Sons at 22%, which is actually a lot higher than I

expected. So maybe there's some hope there. All right, we're going to take a quick break and bring in Chris Ryan to talk about the Sixers. All right, we're back, Rob, John, myself. And we are joined with the special guests here. Anytime anything happens with the Sixers, we need to go to the experts. We need to go to the heart of Philly. So that's why we brought on Chris Ryan. Chris, how are you doing, man? This looks suspiciously like an intervention. Well, it kind of is.

I mean, that's kind of my first question. I think everyone listening is probably up to date at this point. Things are not going particularly well for the Philadelphia 76ers. I believe they started Kylo Quinn and a couple other deep reserves yesterday, though they did push the Sons pretty admirably. But overall, Mbid will be back. soon, we think, but Ben Simmons, not so much. How you doing, man? You want to just give us the straight from the heart take? Can I ask you guys? Can I start with a question? Instead of just

pouring out my emotions all over the place, I want to ask you guys, if you were just new visitors to our planet, and I explained the rules of basketball to you, and you started watching hoops with the restart, would you say that the Sixers are the worst team in the bubble? Worst looking team in the bubble. In terms of these guys clearly do not know each other, don't have any idea how to play offense with one another. Nobody seems to really like each other. And they're not listening to their coach.

Would you say that that is a fair assessment of what you've seen from the Sixers so far with Ben Simmons and Joel Embed? I think if I were familiar enough as an alien with human interaction to know, okay, this is what people look like when they've never met before. That assuming, I think they do have. have the serious we've never played before in our lives vibes on a regular basis, which at this

stage of the season, given how many years those guys have played together in particular, is more than a little bit disturbing. But I think speaks to some of, you know, I think Philly in a lot of ways has gone out of their way to be as creative as possible. And in the process, just undermined a lot of what makes basketball really, really simple sometimes. Well, like, if I was an alien who was really into NBA minutia, maybe I had watched Tobias Harris and be like, he's a paying $200 million? That's why they don't have McHill Bridges? Yeah.

Yeah. Listen, I would also just say that I hope the aliens tuned into the Pelicans play defense because I don't think you need an understanding of human interaction to realize what a train wreck that is. And as bad as things have gotten in terms of just health with Philadelphia these days, I also think just watching Zion Williams and walk these days is like it brings on anxiety attack. So I guess it could be worse. It could be worse.

But I think the thing that I thought was happening in the beginning of the bubble, and especially as it pertained to Ben Simmons, was that they arrived and they were like looking at everybody. And they were like, hey, guys, all the other NBA players, like, we're just like going to take it easy, right? Like, we're just, we're going to like just kind of get our sea legs back as we get back into NBA action and get back up to pace. And then everybody else just, like, blew their doors off. And even though there's been some, like, teams having some struggles in the bubble and that

there's been some issues, it just felt like they were like still team, uh, switchflip. They were still like, hey, we're going to, at some point, this is all just going to make complete and total sense. And I think the problem that I was having watching them was like, I don't mind them losing. Honestly, I've watched them lose for a very long time. You know, it's, it's, it's, I don't mind Philly even not necessarily reaching their potential as a title contender. I think that there's a, it's the only bit of, few title winners in my life, you know? What I mind is that, like, there just didn't seem to be a plan.

And I watch franchise after franchise after franchise. And I'm speaking very fan heavy here. Just somebody comes in and there's like, here's how we're going to play. And they have overcome more obstacles than the Sixers have. Like, you watch Oklahoma City and you're just like, oh, wow. So you guys just came up with this three-guard thing. And it worked. And you watched Houston.

And you're like, oh, you guys just got Russell Westbrook and look even better than you did with Chris Paul. And it's like, I don't know where the creativity and the ingenuity, the tactical savvy, and frankly, just like the overall blueprint for, here's how we're going to put together a team around these two guys that we've decided are the franchise. Well, I mean, if I may, I would like to submit, I think exhibits like Q through S in terms of why the Sixers are just a completely cursed franchise. And I mean, if we look back, like, let's go back to February.

We should drop some Perry Mason music over Ron right here. So Brett Brown moves Al Horford to the bench in that game against the Clippers. Looks like, okay, this is going to be the new way this team looks. Great, let's roll with it. Immediately Ben Simmons hurts his back. Soon after that, Joel Embed gets hurt. Pretty much right after that, the season comes to a halt. We get this long layoff.

Okay. They circle back in this bubble. Brett Brown, you know, we're going to throw Shake Milton into the starting lineup. Immediately again, Ben Simmons, knee injury. Joel Embed hurts his ankle. All the best intel in the world tells us that Brett Brown could be in some serious trouble if he doesn't make something happen with this team. I mean, that's clear to every dude with the Eagles jersey and his Twitter avatar. And yet, every time Brett Brown has tried to make these desperation moves to try to get some,

only from my burners. But to see all this stuff blow up like this, when you do finally try to make the moves, I mean, it's just kind of tragic. So my question is, like, is Brett Brown, the coolest person on earth? Because the amount of coverage of him losing his job, it's some tragedy. Like, he's a fine coach, probably. But if he gets fired, the world will keep spinning. Like, it's not a big deal, really.

But everyone acts like, oh, my God, Brett, Ben, might get fired. Like, okay. People get far all the time. Well, I mean, he's such an interesting character in this whole saga because the other elements of this franchise, whether it was ownership or management, and the turnover that they've had in those positions,

has created such a chaotic atmosphere that Brett is always gone to as the safe pair of hands. It's like, oh, well, in this moment of transition, let's stick with what we know with Brett Brown. Oh, well, now that Jimmy Butler's gone, we got to give Brett Brown a chance to have the team that this team. And it's like the constant turnover in the roster, the default position is just like, well, let Breck get a year with these guys, you know?

And it's like, well, you're never going to give him a year with these guys. You're always going to be getting rid of people. and not giving him basic fundamental roster depth. And please, like, honestly, I will honestly start crying on Zoom if we talk about McKell Bridges over Zeyer-Smith. And yes, I am aware of the fact, I am aware of the fact that that that pick wound up also facilitating offering, Tobias Harris, $200 million nearly. Like, I'm fully aware of all the ramifications of that.

but I just think that there is a certain point this happens in soccer all the time. Three years, the guys stop hearing your message. There's only a few people who last really long time in the Premier League

and European football that those guys are institutions. But the idea that somebody, Brett does not have something in his back pocket that he hasn't shown us yet. So why not try Jay Wright, Stan Van Gundy,

whoever it is the person who's like, it's just like this, you stand over there. Or you need somebody to come in and say, is exactly what these two guys need, or I can only use one of them. And let's really restock the coffers here by trading one of them. Yeah, that's the one caveat to the who is to blame,

the front office or the coaching staff, where Brett Brown was in charge when he took Zaire Smith and made that deal where McKell Bridges is now just the shining star of this Sun's revival. I will say this, though, it is weird to really just dig Brett Brown's grave when it's seems like at the very least, he is doing a lot right now. Unlike before, where you could argue maybe he catered to Ben Simmons too much, he didn't push when he probably should have. He benched Al Horford right before the restart, which is a tough decision for a guy that they just paid however many millions of dollars to in order to try to make this thing work. And at the very least, he tried to move Ben Simmons more to a powerful position, bring Shake Milton into that starting

lineup, he's doing a lot. I don't know if they're the right answers, but I am at the very least encouraged that he's doing something. And it's not, I won't entirely blame him because in some ways, Ben Simmons's knee injury was like an injury that answered a question that was already there. You know, he didn't look right in the bubble anyway. I don't think, I think a decent game against indie, but like, for the most part, like, there was just something off about it. And I don't know whether it was like kind of like a mild tantrum about being moved out of point guard or whatever it was. But yeah, I mean, Rob, I didn't interrupt you. But I was just going to say it's not entirely on Brett. No, I was going to say as far as Brett's piece in this, it feels a lot like, you know,

especially since all the losing and when they really started to get, you know, they get Joel, they get him healthy and on the floor, they get Ben Simmons. Did he approach this, this, you know, this coach who would come out of the Spurs system with a long haul kind of approach? You know, with Ben Simmons and with Joelle, you know, we're not going to ruffle, we're going to challenge these guys in some ways, but we're not going to ruffle their feathers. We're not going to push them too far out of their comfort zones. These are the guys who are going to be the next decade of Sixers basketball like Tim Duncan was for the Spurs for such a long time.

And when you take that approach, I think it's healthy and a lot. I think there's a lot of aspects of Sixers culture that are healthy in terms of the way they think about the humanity of players, in terms of the way they try to relate to guys. But in terms of some of the on-court stuff, there's no question that guys should have been pushed in slightly different directions. that they could have tried slightly more conventional things at times that, you know, I think they got a little bit ahead of themselves in terms of how far this is going to go.

I think like what we're all kind of saying ultimately is a coach is kind of a victim of a situation, right? There's only so much Brett Brown can do. So, Chris, I need a take. I'm putting you on the spot and Beter Simmons pick one. I'm pretty team Simmons. Okay. And I understand that that's not the most probably is not probably not the popular.

locker room favorite, both maybe in Sixers locker room, but in, in terms of, like, vote getting there. But I just, I just love telepathic passers. I have always loved guys who, I see the floor the way Ben Simmons does. And I, you rarely get somebody like that who also is, can defend four positions, defend four positions kind of player. What about Sixers fans in general? Who do you think they would pick? MBEed by far. Okay. I think it's Mbid. Mbid is like a Philadelphia, like sports icon now. Well, that's what's interesting about this, I guess, a little trial period here for the Joel and Bid Sixers.

I think on the one hand, maybe you'll start to appreciate Ben Simmons and what he did, particularly for that defense when you want Al Horford and some of these, and Tobias Harris pretty much trying to cover up what he did on the wings. I mean, Richardson and Thibol can only do so much. Or on the other hand, this could get darkest time.

Warren has some notes on that take, by the way. You know, maybe his kneecap was already starting to fall out of place at that point. But I think there's also a possibility here where they go on a run and all of a sudden, like, significant decisions could be made before we even get this little runway of Embed and Simmons as kind of this four point guard type, whatever Brett Brown had in mind. It's going to be interesting. What I'm basically saying is I think this upcoming period,

is just as interesting as anything that's come before it. They're going to need just by the nature of the thing for Embed to do a ton at all times, provided that he's healthy, to whatever extent he's able to go, they're going to need all of that. I think where I get a little skeptical of the, what if the Sixers pull the rabbit out of the hat here

is what they lose with Ben Simmons defensively. This is a team that, especially from like a basketball nerd perspective, has been kind of underwhelming on defense all season. You would think that between Embed and Horford and Simmons and Josh Richardson, And even throw in Tobias Harris, who's at least a big defender who can, you know, get in the way of people. And diable, of course. You know, that's a lot of defensive personnel.

That's a lot of all defense level personnel you can throw on the floor at any given time. And to turn out with just like a kind of pretty good defense most years when they have, you know, that group has the potential to be a historically great defense. I mean, it's just, it's really hard to believe in that team. And then you take Simmons out of that, who's the most responsible for their defensive success period to this point this season. I just don't trust that they're going to be quite good enough on that side to really make anything of this. I will say this. If you're Joelle Embed, you're supposed to be this franchise big man, defensive player of the year, seven-foot monster. You're going in the playoffs facing Daniel Tice.

I don't want any excuses. You've got plenty of players around you still. I mean, like, for all the crying we're doing, they do have Richardson, Harris, Stibbles, Milton, Horford. This is a decent team. if Joel and Bd wants to be a dominant seven-footer, how about you dominate a 6'7-German big man and win a playoff round? Shots at Germany.

And you also sound like Draymond Green, right? Dremon has been saying the same thing. I'm going to find you 50 grand for that take. Draymond has been saying the same thing when he was on TNT the other night, he was like, anytime Joel and B takes a jumper, the defense won. I'm paraphrasing Dremont,

because I don't want to get fined by exactly quick. quoting him. But I think that he was basically saying, like, if you're Joel Embed and you're doing anything but dominating the lower block, you're essentially giving away points. You're making the defense feel good about themselves. And I've seen

a couple of different iterations of the Sixers over the years, tactically, where it's been, it was, you know, in the process years, it was more of a run and gun, high possessions, getting up a lot of threes. That is obviously dissipated over the years. And it was supposed to be bullyball this year. It was supposed

to be, we're going to grind you down. We have this enormous defensive juggernaut that's going to just take away your will to keep playing basketball. So can they come up with a basketball identity that makes sense with Joel as the centerpiece in 48 hours? Or is this just going to be a one and out and then Brett loses his job and the rumor mill starts. Listen, I think at the very release, their decisions are easier now. I think, like, Brown had to make the right decisions in order to make this work. But it's pretty clear. And they made that clear in that second half of the game. I think it was against the magic where Embed just went into the post and dominated. I think that's the only way they really can play. Like, maybe they can convince them to get more involved

in the pick and roll. But, like, their options are pretty limited at this point. And so, I don't know. This is going to sound weird coming from me, but I'm almost a little optimistic. stick or a little bit like looking forward to whatever is going to come next here, if Indeed is indeed healthy, just because I think this is kind of all found money, like, you've reached darkest timeline. And I do think like anything good that happens from here on now at the very least will feel nice. Sure. I think they're going to get nuked. Like, I just think, especially the part of the bracket they're in and the way that the teams that they probably will face have looked, you know, maybe. And also, let's just also mention this, because I've been thinking about

this, I was thinking about this this morning when I was driving around. I was so excited to get basketball back with all the caveats, you know, we've obviously stated. I was so excited to have basketball back that I hadn't really even thought about what's it like to not do this for three months and then come back and what could have possibly transpired that we don't know about over the last couple of months. And you know one thing I completely forgot about was like they're not playing home games. And that was essentially what they built this season on was Fortress, Philadelphia. and winning practically all of their home games.

And so these little things like that that I think just never really broke right for them. And I'm talking about the season as it's over, as if it's over, and maybe I shouldn't be. Maybe I should have Justin's optimism. Rob, I don't know. I mean, considering Justin led with their options are limited, which is just what you want to hear going into playoff basketball.

Yeah. I mean, it's optimism for barrier. Let's just put it that way. I mean, it really does just seem, the season does seem so cursed in so many ways. for them. I just, when you have a team that kind of fundamentally has poor spacing by design a little bit, the only way you overcome that is with good chemistry, with good flow, things that they don't have, both because they've just been on different wavelengths all season and because of all the injuries

that they've been dealing with, until you kind of deal with whatever ancient burial ground, the Wells Fargo Center is built on top of, like, this all seems kind of a moot point to me. Well, what needs to change here? Let's talk about this, because this is going to be the inevitable conversation. Rob, you're the pragmatic one among us. So if you're looking at this offseason, they get bounced in the first round. You are the front office. What would you change? I'm tired of we're going to take secondary and tertiary ball handlers on another team and pull them together and together they are going to be our point guard. Like you need a primary ball handler type. He doesn't have to have the ball in his hands all the time. You can still run things through Ben Simmons.

If he's still on the team, you can run it through and beat obvious. obviously. You can work Josh Richardson and does some DHO stuff, but like you need somebody who was secure with the ball in their hands. And they had that for a minute with Jimmy Butler, at least. I know that that whole situation was complicated in very different ways, but you just need a little bit more ball security. All right. Now the nuclear option, charks. Okay. So trade I would make, Ben Simmons from Michael Porter and Jamal Murray. I knew this is coming ahead of time. That's a real head and heart one for me, man.

You know, watching Ben Simmons at altitude for the next eight years with Yokic is not really. That'd be amazing. Those two guys together would be. My cardiologist disagrees with you. Yeah. But that is tempting, John. That is a, that would be a huge return on Simmons. You're betting big on your medical staff, I think, between Michael Porter, Jr.

and Embed as the core of your team. That's a lot writing on guys whose medicals have been red flagged and red flagged and red flagged pretty much at every turn. Didn't Ben Simmons just tear his knee and hurt his back in the last four months? Amid the pandemic,

they can't fly people to Qatar, so their main source of healing these guys is really drying up. No, I think it's a really intriguing idea. I just don't know what fair value for Ben Simmons is anymore. I, like Chris, I'm just like really high on him. I just think, like, you put him in the right system

and all of a sudden he becomes everything we thought he would be. I just... But Justin, you're the one who's like, when I go into your office or when I used to go into your office, you would be like, he should have his own team. It should be like him and seven shooters, you know, and just... and him pushing the ball up the court

and being able then to, like, defend the Kauai's and the whatever's of another team, but that it should essentially be built around him. Listen, I once suggested trading Joel Embed for, like, Landry Shamit, like cap blotsam. We're not talking about this anymore. This never happened.

I'm very much in on that. But here's the thing. I'm just a little bum that we got robbed of this little mini period where we got to see what Brett Brown wanted to do. And I do wonder if because of this, the Sixers now have reasoning to just nip around the edges, to do something like Rob suggested, maybe try to solve the ball handling situation, maybe move Tobias Harris to open up a little bit more playing time for some of their big. so Horford can maybe just

settle into more of a role I hope that the star of the Sixers team over the next couple of weeks is Al Horford because if that happens it means either Horford is actually good and still has some gas in the take and he's exactly what he was supposed to be which is relief on the front line for Embed

in terms of being able to soak up some defensive center minutes if that's what they want him to do and also like sub in for him. That's great. it also gives him any trade value whatsoever. And if there is a team out there, like in New Orleans,

on the Ricky, Spike Eskin, had like a really intriguing, Horford to Sacramento trade idea that involved Buddy. Like, I just want to see everybody play up to their potential so that then we can get ourselves out from under this situation. You know the one I still kind of love trading for Chris Paul? I don't know if that's viable anymore.

And this is like Kevin O'Connor's pet idea. So credit to him here. but I do wonder if you get someone like that in there and you don't sacrifice your core, you don't sacrifice either Ben and Embed. I wonder if someone like that could make sense of what they have there. Because that's pretty much Chris Paul's MO, right?

You just put him in there. He's like a house flipper. You put him in there and he just like brings value back into whatever your establishment is. He just knocks down a wall and creates an open floor plan. Just gets the flow going. Flip or flop starring Chris Paul. I don't know.

I think someone like him, if not him, would make a lot of sense. but then on the other hand, I don't know if Chris Paul's, like, value is too high now. I wonder if you have to give up too much, even with him on that contract. This is the problem with actually playing basketball. And it just,

it just tweaks everything. It's just like, now Chris Paul is a top 10 NBA player. Al Horford is like a bag of lint. And I don't know what Ben Simmons is. I was going to say, at least with Chris, I think you have the benefit in these kinds of discussions

of his salary just being so goddamn enormous that you can work. your way into all kinds of potential scenarios with the Thunder. And the fact that that franchise is obviously at a pivot point where they could, if they chose to move him on, just the question of, what's the market going to be? And the salary depresses that a lot. I would say, though, kind of going back to what Chris and Justin were saying about Ben needing his own team, you know who else knows that?

Ben Simmons. So, like, is he going to be cool with Chris Paul coming in and yelling at him and holding the ball while he's in the corner with Chris and Jewel running pick and roll? I don't think so. It takes a special type of person to want to be yelled at by Chris Paul. And my credit to Shea Gildress Alexander, he has done an incredible job of just like learning from him. He's going to make an all-N-B-A team in the next three years, though. Right.

By the way, I missed an open-floor court joke before, and I'm really mad at myself. So just enough way. All right, let's wrap it there. That's enough sadness for now. We're going to get into the nuggets. But Chris, thank you for joining us. Hey, guys, thanks so much. You know, it's, we could have talked about anything,

but we talked about this. Anytime, man. All right, we'll be back right after this. All right, we're back. It's John. It's Rob. It's me. And Chris has gone to Sulk in the corner,

which we wish him the best. We're going to do Nerd Corner here quickly. Charks has gone deep on the Denver Nuggets. He has some data to back his Michael Porter Jr. take here. So, Charks, you want to take it away? Looking at the numbers from the bubble, I think Porter is really playing out of his mind. he's kind of being the guy

we all thought it would be before these injuries. So in his seven games, he's averaging 24 points and nine rebounds on 56-46-96 shooting. So he's basically a 6'10 Steve Nash right now

the way he's shooting the ball. And he's an efficiency machine, so he takes almost half his shots in the paint and 40% of his shots to the three-point line. And this season, when he's playing with Yokic,

he has a 75% true-shooting percentage, which would lead the entire league over the course of this season. Like, for perspective, Mitchell Robinson is number one at 72.6, and all he does is dunk. And Porter is more efficient shooting threes than he is dunking. So I think, like, when you see with Porter, the reason he didn't play as much arguing the season is because he makes a lot of defensive mistakes. He has a lot of veterans ahead of them.

But ultimately, the way he's playing now, he kind of has to play, right? Because if you're drawing up in a lab, the guys you want around Yokic, you want long, athletic guys who can shoot really well. And if you look at the guys they have now, so that's Jamal Murray, Gary Harris, Will Barton, they don't really fit any of those criteria. So Murray, Harris, and Barton, they're all 64 to 6.5.

And none of them are really a plus shooter. So, like, not only are they not great shooters. They're not great defensive players. And it just kind of makes you wonder, like, what are they doing for this team? Right. So compare those guys to top top three perimeter guys and the rest of the teams in the West. So like you have Murray, Harrison, Barton.

So are they better than Houston with Russ, Hard, and Gordon? No way. Are they better than OKC with Chris Paul, SGA, Dennis Schroeder? I mean, probably not. Utah has Donovan Mitchell, Mike Conley, Joe Ingalls. Dallas has Luca alone, but all the guys in Denver. Portland has Dame, CJ, and Carmelo. And remember last year, Portland killed Denver with their guards.

So, like, you look at this team, Denver probably has the worst guards of the top 18, of the middle six teams in the, let me second, three, two, one. If you look at this team, Denver probably has the three worst, the worst guards of all the teams in their range in the West.

And I think that's why no one really is taking them that seriously. And like, you look at Yokic. So I think the people don't realize about Yokich is how much easier he makes life for his teammates. And this year,

in terms of touches per game in the bubble, Yokic is number two at 106 touches per game behind Luka at 123. Then you have Dame job. and LeBron. And all those guys hold the ball for at least eight seconds a game.

Yokic hold, eight seconds, oh, two, one. All those guys hold a ball for like eight seconds of possession on average, whereas Yokic holds it for less than five. So what that tells you is,

is Yokich is constantly passing the ball to his teammates, and they don't have to really do anything because he's setting them up while not holding the ball. So they get to be the first option without having any first option responsibility.

So basically what I'm saying is I feel like any guards could succeed with Yokic as their center. He's that good a player. And if that's the case, why not play bigger, longer defenders around him? So instead of playing, you know, three, six, four guys, they use the lineup in the bubble against Oklahoma City where they played Yokic, Paul Millsap, Jeremy Grant, Michael Porter. That's seven foot six eight, six nine, six ten. They were plus 21 in like 12 minutes. That's not a lot, but how do you guard that team? How can like you score on them? That's four, six, eight.

guys. And then not only that, with Yokic, like, I'm looking at Yokic, I want to have as many long athletic players as possible around him. I look at him and I look at, I think of Dirk Novitsky. I think Dirk's one championship, he had Tyson Chandler, Sean Marion, Jason Kidd. I don't see those players in Denver starting lineup right now. And if Denver's going to want to win, I think they really got to change up their whole lineup, playing Porter, playing Grant, and really kind of changes the whole nature of their team. So are you saying that Bull Bowl is in the next Jason kid. That's the other thing too we can talk about also. I think what you hit on with Porter there, and I was actually talking to Tim Connolly this

week for a story. I'm working on on the fit around Yokic. And I asked him basically what you're proposing. What do you want around a player like that? He brought up three things. A player who is, you know, a high IQ player who can move without the ball, a lot of length as much as possible, especially since Nicole is not, you know, the most agile guy on the planet, and as much shooting as you can get. Like this, again, this is not revolutionary thinking. But those three things, what are those three things have in common? They're all part of Michael Porter Jr.'s skill set. This is a guy who knows how to move, who is a gigantic passing target for Yokic, who

shoots the hell out of the ball, or at least is doing that right now, and really presents a lot of matchup problems in terms of just what you're talking about in ways that Gary Harris and Will Barton, anyone else that Denver can throw on the floor at those positions, really doesn't. If he is this player or at least some reasonable facsimile of this player, it's just such a transformative piece for Denver to have in terms of raising its ceiling. The big question is, can he defend, I don't know anybody?

He's super long, that's going to work into his advantage, but it's pretty clear that he doesn't, he's not quite locked into the rotations of NBA defense, all the responsibilities that he would have, especially as another kind of big guy on the floor if you want to play him as more of a four situationally. He has a lot to learn in that

regard, but everything else is just so tantalizing that you have to put him in there right now. Yeah, Charks, I know you want to trade Porter Jr. to Philly. But I almost wonder if Porter is the exact complement player, complimentary player to Yokich that the Nuggets would want. DJ Foster had something on the site today, just about bubble players who have had breakthroughs

and whether or not they're going to continue on into the playoffs. And he made this really good point about how the Yokic, Porter, pick and roll, even if you guard it properly, if you're not as big as them, they're still on a vertical plane where you can't even get to, so it doesn't even matter. So you can guard them perfectly, and they still might have the advantage. I know the Yokic Murray combo has been pretty spectacular, especially on the offensive end.

But I watch Porter and Yokish play together, and they just have this feel for the game that it's almost like they've been playing together for a really long time. And on top of that, they're just so much bigger. And, like, worst case, even though both of them aren't ace defenders, they do have that size on them. And so they have that advantage. My question for you guys, though, so obviously Murray is working his way back into the flow of things after being out for the first few games. Do you think there's enough room in Denver to satisfy both Porter and Murray, along with Yokic, obviously? I think so because Porter's so good off the ball, because he can score so quickly. And like you were saying, there are times where Yokic is passing the Porter cutting, it's like a quarterback to a receiver.

He just throws right over the guy's head. He catches it and he scores. I think my question is more like, do you need Jamal Murray, right? Like, if Yokes is a seven-foot point guard, why not put four great defenders around him and try to win games with defense? Like, Murray, the stuff he does, I feel like is replaceable while, like, having a 6-4 bad defender is ultimately going to hurt your team more in the long run. It is replaceable to an extent, you know, Jamal-Marie's not a perfect player,

and certainly defensively you could get a lot of upgrades. But in terms of the chemistry he has with Yokic offensibly, I don't want to discount that. You know, it's the way that Yokic plays, as you alluded to, John, is just it empowers everyone around him to be more efficient than they are. But it also has this kind of illusion where everyone feels involved, not just because he's passing it to them all the time. But like when you run a dribble handoff, for example, between Murray and Yokch, you get the best of both worlds. You get Yokic and his vision and his effect on the game. But you also get Murray feeling involved and feeling confident and feeling in rhythm in a way that, you know, they have a lot of good kind of throwback action between them. Murray, like Murray to his credit, knows how to cut and reverse and work that stuff really well.

And, you know, especially coming off of this conversation about Philly, I think it's easy to gloss over some of the nuance of that stuff and just say, oh, like, a Josh Richardson type can do that. Let's just get someone in here who can defend a little better and who also shoots and handles, you know, at a reasonable clip. I think what Murray does is pretty important for them. That's not to say you couldn't improve upon it. It's not to say you couldn't make a trade that could get them a better, you know, point guard or quote unquote point guard, depending on how you want to structure your offense. I think he does have, you know, there is a pretty good value add there for him. I guess to bring it all back to what we talked about last segment, I just look at it and I think if I could get Ben Simmons,

a five-position defender with Yokic, I just feel like Simmons and Yokic get them on the same team. I'm thinking multiple championships. Like I'm thinking big picture. Like a Yokic-Murray team, I'd make a conference finals, let's get something real here. You got Simmons for five years on a long-term contract. And can you imagine those two guys pushing the pace, passing off each other?

And I really feel like the Yokic-Simmons seem better than were better than Simmons-Beed by a significant margin. Those contracts can pay for a lot of surgery, you know? Yeah, I don't know. I kind of want to see Denver make this work with Porter Jr. They've done an excellent job over the past few years of just taking calculated risks. Obviously, they had success tapping into the international market with Yokic and Nurkich, both of whom, or just like just killing it in the bubble. And I think that's just a credit to Tim Connolly and the staff there.

Obviously, Arturis went to Chicago as a result of evolve, his good moves there. But they've done a good job of late drafting guys with injuries a little bit lower than they might have been had they not had those existing injuries. So Malik Beasley, right? He's a guy who fell in the draft a little bit because of that. And Porter was there for everyone to take, especially the clippers who had two picks right there. they ended up with Shea, trading for Shea with the Hornets, which was God's end and was the right

pick. But with the back end, imagine with the Clippers with Michael Porter Jr. instead of Jerome Robinson. I don't know. Denver continues to make these little moves on the fringes that enhance the bigger picture. And I think they deserve a lot of credit for that. Where do you see Denver going with this team this year in the playoffs? Like if they're going to be at three and probably play either Dallas, Utah, or Oklahoma City. A lot of it depends on Porter. And it, Kind of comes back to that context you were laying out, John, of, you know, how far can a Yokic-Murray team go? And it depends on if you think of it that way or if you think of it as how far can a Yokic-Porter-Murray team go? Because all of a sudden, the ceiling for that team is so much higher, there's so much more complex.

But at the same time, banking on a guy with his experience level or lack thereof being thrown into the fire of a playoff series, when, as I was just mentioning, his defense can't exactly be trusted at this point. I see Denver as being a team that can win around beyond that. I would start to get a little bit suspect just because a lot would have to break in their favor and there are definitely some matchups on the board that don't suit them particularly well. Yeah, my question is who's available?

Because that's been their big question in the past two weeks. And it just seems like even though they've got guys in, there still seems to be just a general unrest amongst that roster where you're not totally sure who's going to play a win. I know Jamal Murray made his return over the weekend, but even he clearly didn't seem like he was back into game shape

and I wonder what's going to happen next week. These games are coming so quickly now that I wonder if all the guys they need in there are going to be available. And then the old concerns are going to creep in. Like, what is Gary Harris going to give them? And that's a guy who has in the past played a key role for them and need to continue to it.

And so, yeah, I agree with Rob that they kind of need Porter to step up here. And that's kind of a risky situation where you need effectively a rookie who's still working through his own injuries in his past. to really carry you. But I will say just as like a flip side to that, when Porter is on the floor, they play with an energy

that I think they lack at times. There's just something on the court that pops. And it's, I don't know if it's star presence. I don't know if it's just he makes the offense work a little bit more seamlessly, if the defense has to crowd him and leaves everyone else a little bit more open. But that team seems way more thrilling

when Porter is on the floor. So maybe there's something they could ride there. I don't know. I think it just goes back to, it's just really hard to guard a six-foot-10 wing who can shoot these off the dribble and score at the rim. Like, the defense all of a sudden has got to work so much harder

just to account for moving around the floor. Yeah, and let me tell you, Porter will take those shots. I can tell you how many times I've seen him just dribble down the court and then just pull up. And he makes them most of the time, to his credit. So all of a sudden,

the nuggets are one of the more fascinating watches in the NBA. I think they kind of fallen into this malaise where I was like, I've kind of seen this before. Like it really comes down to whether or not the same existing pieces work together a little bit better. So at the very least, I think they're going to be super intriguing going into the rest of the stretch here. That's a good place to end it.

Next week we'll be back and we'll have playoff basketball to talk about. Finally, in August. So we will be back next Wednesday, the three of us and a different guest. Until then, for John and Rob and myself and Steve on the production. We'll see you next time. is very good. Basketball is very good.