The Ringer NBA Show - Debating the NBA’s Top 25 Players Through 25 Games | Group Chat (Ep. 349)

Episode Date: December 6, 2018

We review the Lakers vs. Spurs and Thunder vs. Nets games from Tuesday night (1:30) before coming clean on our ballots for The Ringer’s Top 25 Players in the NBA Through 25 Games (31:24). Hosts: Chris Ryan, Justin Verrier, Haley O’Shaughnessy, Paolo Uggetti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up guys, it's Liz Kelly. All month long, The Ringer will be breaking down 2018's highs and lows in music, pop culture, sports, TV, and film. Some of the things we've hit so far are the best TV show episodes and the best rap albums of the year. And this week, we are writing about the best performances and the 10 best action movies of 2018.

Plus, we'll be reacting to both the Golden Globes and Grammy nominations on the site. You can check all of these things out on the Ringer.com. Basketball is very good. Jimmy Butler is actually a good teammate. Sabanis is the most important front court pacer. Dearen Fox is better than Donovan Mitchell. Basketball is very good.

Hello, and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. It's group chat. I am here with My Chemical Romance super fan, Hili O'Shaughnessy. That's not fair. Justin Verrier, I. Fallow Gettie. What's up? What's up with you, man? How are you doing? You know, just dealing with the L.A. Rain, sounding very much like a classic L.A. person.

Yeah, I mean, like, nobody cares about California rain. Nah. But Haley did want us to listen to Hillary Duff just to put us in the right mood for the podcast. Let the rain fall down. There you go. You guys, this is an NBA podcast. We have a couple of NBA games from last night that we wanted to talk a little bit about. And then we're also going to talk about the ringers.

Top 25 players of the first 25-ish games. Yeah. Really cool posts we put up. Rissilo and Bill did their top 20 of the first 20, a podcast I enjoy quite a bit. and we gave ourselves a slightly larger sample size and opened it up to the floor and we did a little bit of voting we did a little bit of gerrymandering

and we came out with this list which I think is pretty provocative because once it's like you can see people sticking to their received narratives of how like the hierarchy of the league and then there's some like Nicole Vutrovich is in there and I don't agree with that

but let's start a little bit talking before we get to the top 25 let's talk a little bit about last night. Peter, he's going to be an all-star. The National Games last night, Sixers' Raps, Lakers, Spurs, we'll also talk a little bit about Thunder Nets. With the Sixers, somebody else talk about the Sixers, man. I don't want to do this.

I thought I'm more where Jimmy Butler was at the end of the game, which is we weren't good enough, but that's okay because it was a good test, and we were close, even though we didn't play that well. And they didn't, you know, Joe Lundbee looks a little bit tired. they don't have no depth JJ looked like you tweaked something

Going into the game You know coming out of it We were gonna know who the best team in the east was Right Yeah I mean I knew Or it could have looked Yeah Come on

No I don't think the bucks are I don't think the bucks are They just don't have enough around him Even though everyone looks significantly better I'm surprised that you're putting the Sixers Up there already just because of Jimmy I like I'm not saying I don't agree Because they have the talent

But I guess you're making it a one two Between the both of them Yeah I am And I thought maybe if it was a close game, we still wouldn't know. But there is absolutely no chance that it's not the Raptors. Yeah, the Raptors might be the best team in the league. I don't think it was a fair fight. I think we're at the point where the Raptors are in Warriors territory

or even amongst like the best challengers, they're cut above them. Yeah. I think they proved that last night. They didn't play particularly well. Incidentally. They did not play that well last night. And it's almost like they're so deep where they could almost like pick and choose like how they beat you on a given night.

or they can almost call up what they need to beat you on a given night. Like Jonas has been particularly off the past couple games, and all of a sudden he's out there dropping 26. And it's like their offense isn't working, and all of a sudden they need a superstar. It's like, hey, we have a top three player in the NBA. I'm going to go the other way because I think that while I was one of the people who picked Raptors to finish first in the east before the season,

I thought the Sixers, like, for being a team that has just incorporated an All-Star into their roster, I thought they hung with them for the most part maybe not for the entirety of the game but I thought they did like an okay job and I don't want to say like a moral victory but you know it is what December so yeah I mean it's like the Sixers didn't play that great and hung in it and yet the Raptors

had single digit performances from Lowry Van Vleet Seaccom O.G. and Danny Green and still beat the Sixers relatively handily. Right they can pull out what was what did you say yesterday on Slack? I don't know but it was probably brilliant. It was like a hotel phone you could just call on whoever, like from their bench.

So we call metaphors, guys. It's called writing. A little peek behind the curtain. Yeah, I don't have a ton else to say about that other than the fact that this was the first time I think I really started to worry about the Sixers front court depth in a significant way just because, like, you guys were saying, Jonas and Abaka basically,

basically like aside from another MVP caliber performance from Kauai quietly, just kind of going through it. I was just like, oh, the Sixers don't have anybody behind Embed. They didn't play Bolton, they didn't play Amir. and Bede's playing too much and looked zonked after the game. And that's probably like the optimist view of the Sixers right now is that they just made this big trade

to get an All-Star in and they completely shattered their depth. So do they need another Eliasovus or Bellanelli sort of trade to really understand like who they are? Yeah, and I don't know who that guy is. Because like on the other hand, I don't necessarily want them to do anything

that to go out, I don't want them give anything up to go out and get front court depth and the guy that they bring in gets schemed out of the playoffs. And they can't play him. Yeah. I'm a little worried about Ben. How are we feeling about Simmons?

I was going to save it for top 25. Let's talk about him now. He's having an up and down season and I buy into it every time that he goes, like he has his lows and every time he has his peaks, I buy into it. It's just kind of a bummer because it seems like of the three of the, basically the core group that's the remain. He's the one who has had to kind of still, you know, because Mee can just go out there and do his thing and score three. it. You know, and like with Simmons, it's going to be such an interesting thing to watch because of how much Jimmy handles the wall sometimes. Jimmy's, I think, been doing a pretty good job of, like, easing himself in. But it has changed the way maybe Simmons can dominate a game sometimes. You know, I just don't feel like we've seen that.

Yeah, he's restricted. And I think, like, he's actually done a good job adjusting what he does to fit or, like, to play his role. He's basically, as I said last night, Tall Rondo. And I think there's, like, that's a really good player. But I do feel like while I'm watching him, he's not the same, just like aesthetic pleasure that he was last year. He's just like, he's just not unleashed in the way that I loved watching him last year. And that's kind of a bummer. And when he is, it's like they're very frequent turnovers.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think last night. Especially if Kauai Leonard is anywhere in the same zip code. Right. You know what I mean?

Like, when that happens, like, it's just like he seems to hit double-digit turnover really quickly. I mean, I don't know what to say because on one hand, I feel like he's just like a generational talent and I've never seen somebody who can just kind of control the floor the way he can at the height that he can at the physicality that he can. Now I guess everybody's like, well, he's going to be a power forward. Everybody knew that. And I was like, I thought he was going to be like this like paradigm shifting point guard.

That's fine. I guess if he's not. The jump shot thing is. the jump shot thing. It matters sometimes and it doesn't matter sometimes. And there were a couple times last night where I feel like Jimmy got penetration and hit Ben and it was just like, that's just like a

DeMar de Rosen just gets 40 points off those passes and he just would like dribble towards the hoop and then dribble back out and try and find JJ and then it would be like six seconds left on the clock. It was frustrating. It would argue that it's, exactly. It's always a problem because they're figured out when they get to the playoffs.

Maybe he's saving it for the playoffs. Maybe he's got Maybe he's basically Ray Allen. And like Janice's clicks right at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Can I ask a question about the Oklahoma City Thunder? Always. Is this the second best team in the West?

No. Their defense is great, but no. I don't think so, but I would love to believe so, if that makes sense. I think they're getting less credit than we should give them, maybe, especially, like Haley said on their defense. I think they have two really good talents, two guys who made our list. You know, not every team in the West has two guys who made that list or who are in the top 30, 25, you know. So I think that their floor is very high. And given how the West may look on a given, you know, weak-to-week bases, like their floor might be enough to be that second team.

But I don't know over the long term if that's the case. So we're automatically putting the Warriors at one, right? Yes. I'm not talking stand. I'm just saying like, in terms of like, because we were having this conversation. I was having this conversation earlier in the week about the Western Conference playoffs, and I'm all screwed up about it. Like, I just don't know that they're all bunched together.

And then the teams that have been hot are like getting cold, like the trailblazers. And then there are a bunch of teams where I'm just like, I don't really know what I'm dealing with here, like the gris and the Mavs. Right. And right now, like a fourth of the way through the season, I would put teams higher that I know I trust. And this sounds bizarre, but like I trust the clippers more than I trust the thunder. Do you really? Yeah. All around.

They're much more stable. individual players, even if the talent level comes nowhere close to Russ and Paul. Interesting. I think the thunder have been pretty stable. Like, I feel like the fact that we haven't talked about them as much, granted, they had the Russ injury. But I think they even just kind of cruising. I'm factoring injuries into that. Sure, sure, yeah.

The fact that we all hate Russ. I don't think of us. And even the fact that when Roberson comes back, I mean, if, if, already their offense is, let's see, they score the 14th most points for game. that's almost right in the middle. I would give two different answers. I would say the team based on what we've seen thus far, who's the best, it's probably the Nuggets. I think they've acquitted themselves pretty well, especially going into Toronto.

I think they're in Toronto for that win, right? Yeah. And they came out with a win and broke that streak. I think that's pretty damn impressive. I think they have another level to hit. I think Tumal Murray is like kind of slowly getting better and I'm slowly starting to talk myself into him as being like a guy. Yeah.

But you're asking me like, who am I most afraid of? it's the Lakers because of games like last night with LeBron. Interesting. So even though what you would all kind of say is a deathly mediocre Spurs team was pretty much like holding the Lakers at bay last night, but they have LeBron and LeBron go coast to coast. And we could start talking about that game too in relation to this.

What is it, Paul George basically outscored the Nets in the fourth quarter last night and provided like probably the best like example of like the rejiggered one-two punch of a team like the Thunder that we've seen since he's been there. You know what I mean? They seem like they make sense all over the floor right now. I don't know. I mean, the Lakers, I don't think the Lakers are the second best team, but I'm interested in

that argument. So you think it echoes Warriors Lakers. I think the Lakers are just the gross stock of the league right now, simply because like we know what a lot of these teams are at this point, especially the Thunder. I feel like they're in the situation where they need to prove that they're different. Whereas the Lakers have just all possibility in front of them where they don't really know how to work Brandon Ingram in yet. Lanzo has one good game and then five bad games.

And so I'm not saying that they necessarily can do it every night. But like if you put LeBron on the court with like four decent players, like I'm going to be afraid of that. Yeah, it's hard to argue against that. Like, because at the end of that you have the Trump card of LeBron. But at the same time, I'm like, I just can't bring myself to maybe even say their second team in the West because I'm like, who is their second guy?

Like, I mean, maybe that will matter, you know, come May or whatever. But I think for now I'm more interested in, like, a wait and see approach on them. Yeah. Yeah, I still think regular season they're going to struggle. Like, they... At some point.

Right, yeah. And even in that, like, that game where they blew out the suns, they were, like, down a bunch to start with on a random Sunday morning. It's like, that's the type of team they are. The weird part about the West this year is that I ordinarily would be like

the Lakers camp, play this fast and loose with games where they get, like, they're down 12 and then they rely on LeBron or, like, they keep getting in these tight games and they have such young kids out there. But with the Rockets and the Spurs and the Jazz all struggling, they can kind of get away with it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I mean, it also helps that the Lakers are playing defense now. Last I checked, they were ninth defensive rating. And while, like, I think the standings on defense in particular are a little garbled because, like, everybody is kind of like the same on defense. There's, like, two elite teams and, like, everybody else. else. But at the same time, like, that's an encouraging sign. And, like, those sort of signs moving forward are what you want to see

to the point where, like, let's talk about this team a couple months from now. That's interesting because I think that we may not be talking enough about the lack of a second guy is clear, but that's mostly on offense, I think, because I think the team around them has been pretty good on defense. Maybe that's something that's

like hard to quantify or hard to see sometimes, but like in the last few games, they have been really they have stepped up in that way. I wrote this in my blur for our rankings, LeBron looks like James Harder. It's like he's not getting everyone else involved anymore. At some point, maybe it was like during that Miami heat game where he shot like 31 times and scored 51 points where he's just like, I'm just going to do this myself. Yeah, Haley, I was thinking about that last night too where I was like, in the years past, LeBron has been, it's like, well, how is he going to stifle Kyrie?

Because LeBron wants to have the ball in his hands and be this playmaker. And this almost reminds me, not necessarily of heat LeBron, but almost like the bully ball, LeBron from the first Cavs year when all those. guys got hurt, where he's like, the thing that this team needs is points and reliable points. So I'm going to shoot from outside and I'm going to go to the rim a lot and I'm going to go to the foul line a lot. But I'm not going to be burdened with like directing traffic a lot. I'm going to let Lonzo do that. I'm going to let Coos do that, like, whatever. I think LeBron's always right too when he prescribes what a team needs. The only time maybe you could argue that is that, you know, he didn't let Kyrie have

the ball enough of the time or even like run the offense enough of the time. But I think he, at this point, he's figured out who he can rely on in certain situations. Even if nobody stands out as the second guy, there's still situations where he knows that, like, Josh Hart's the guy and Kuzma's the guy he needed that situation. Kuzma almost shot that game away last night at the end. He did. But that's what you lived by him. You die by him. Right.

And honestly, the layers have a lot of guys who will just shoot the game away. Yeah. That's true. Ingram got injured last night. I don't think X-Rays were negative. So he'll be back, you know, in my name. or whatever, but I did want to talk a little bit. Polly, you mentioned, like, what are they going to be in a couple of months?

And that did come up this week because Rick Buecker had a piece in Bleacher report about whether or not big-time players actually want to play with LeBron. And this had been something that came up a little bit during the Jimmy Butler sweepstakes. Well, and Paul George. And Paul George. But there had been various, like, anonymous sourced reports that it was like, this person, like, Jimmy or Paul doesn't want to play with LeBron. And it wasn't necessarily explicit about why.

And I think we are all like, oh, maybe they don't get along or something like that. And then it turns out all you need to do is ask Kevin Durant. And he would give you an incredibly candid answer. So this is what Durant had to say about the idea of playing with LeBron. So much hype comes from being around LeBron from other people, Durant said. This is in Bucher's report. He has so many fanboys in the media. Jesus, Kevin.

Even the beat writers just fawn over him. I'm like, we're playing basketball here. and it's not even about basketball at certain points. So I get why anyone wouldn't want to be in that environment because it's toxic. Especially when the attention is bullshit attention and fluff. It's not LeBron's fault at all. It's just the fact that you have so many groupies in the media

that love to hang on every word, just get out of the way and let us play basketball. I almost kind of just want to be like, let's have National get out of the way and let them play basketball day and see how they like it. Kevin Durant, come on desktop. Let's just not write about it. Don't go to the game.

Don't write about it. Don't tweet about it. Don't do highlights with eyeball emojis. Just let's play basketball in silence and see how it goes. Kevin Durant definitely not a consumer of online content either. Right. Exactly. In terms of, and this is what Kevin Durant went on to say,

if you're a younger player like Kauai, trying to pair him with LeBron James doesn't really make sense. Kauai enjoys having the ball in his hands, controlling the offense, dictating tempo with his post-ups. It's how he plays the game. A lot of young players are developing that skill. They don't need another guy.

Yes, they do He's not entirely wrong, I don't think About what? That second part where he's talking about You know, like, if you're a player like Hawaii, like the pairing may not work with LeBron Just because he just has the ball on his hand so much I do wonder, and I was talking to Justin

About this yesterday, how the younger guys perceive it Because none of the younger guys are going to be like No, I don't feel like I want to play with LeBron, right? But I'm wondering as they come up Like, is that a thing that sounds appealing to them? or do they in their... Just watch their contracts.

Right, and that's so interesting because who is going to be the next guy that everybody wants to play with? Because it's never been a question before. You don't think it's Janus? No, I mean, sure. Like, I think the next Paul George kind of guy will be like, sure, let's go to Janus. I think that the next guy that you're just like, oh, if I play with this guy, my, like, all of my stats improve and I have a legitimate chance of going to the finals, it would be AD on a new. team. Well, the other thing is nobody has gotten to the level that LeBron has gone in this

kind of space. Like, he's transcended the game. And it's like hard to... And he's transcended his teammates. Right, exactly. So it's a different level when you talk about, like, who's the next guy that everybody's going to play with. Like, AD kind of fits that bill, but he's not like he's not like LeBron in that sense, where players are going to go join him. It's kind of like,

okay, let's go get AD. Right. And partly because the franchise is like, you just don't want to go there. I think a few things about this. I think, first of all, believe it or not, I have a takes. I think Kyrie Irving was the canary in the coal mine. I think he was a very clear sign that like regardless of how well you could play and how far you can get in the playoffs with LeBron,

that like it's not all about that. Like it's winning but like on your own terms to a certain degree. For sure. It's not just like when people used to make these free agent moves, Kevin Durant himself made them. It used to be like, oh, well, we're doing this for winning. I'm going to win rings and that's all that matters because that just validates me completely. And then Kyrie talked about this on Bill's pot.

It's like it's way more about being in the better basketball in about. Right. And as a result, I think I can hear in Kevin's response, like, I tried to do what LeBron did and it didn't work out for me at all. It also sounds like he's describing not other people, but himself, and that I wouldn't be surprised if, like, he goes and does the Knicks thing or the Clippers thing as a result of this. Yeah, he sounds exactly like a guy who's never been the most beloved player on his own team. Yeah. Will he ever be Kevin? If he goes to the Knicks, yeah. Well, I don't know, Nilakina. Nice guy. Mitchell. It's Moodye's team. The big Moodye. But Justin, what you're saying about winning that being the most important thing anymore, I think that that's part of this tide that's been changing that has never stood out to me more than with the whole Tibido thing and Jimmy Butler, because their mentality of like toughness and sacrificing everything and putting it all on the floor, like that's not enough for players anymore.

Like Andrew Wiggins and Kat didn't respond well to that. And so I think it's like this old school mentality versus. this new school mentality. And I think that that's another sign of it. Yeah, I think they just want more than just winning. Like, yeah, it's great to win rings, but it's also, like, nice to be a celebrity and to get everything that comes with being a superlilions. And that also was apparently, like, part of the Kauai thing, you know, like, he didn't get

the big sponsorships that he wanted in, yeah, in San Antonio. Now he's in New Orleans. Would you rather win. Draped up in a 70 games and be the second guy, or would you rather win 60 and be the guy? Like, it's pretty nice to be the guy in a big city. Like, and if you're living in L.A. all year, I'd probably take the ladder. I don't blame anybody for taking that route. It's just every single thing about this is just contextual.

The Jimmy thing is contextual. The Kauai thing is contextual. Like, if I told you three years ago that Kauai Leonard, who was going to set up the spurs for the next 10 years, like, it's crazy to think about, like, him being in Toronto and he might not stay. Yeah. You know, I mean, we just don't know what these guys want on any given day or any given year. and the LeBron thing, I think NBA players are probably also thinking, like, this is like you have three or four contracts, right?

Like that you'll get. I mean, maybe now if you're doing these one-on-ones, you get a couple more. But like, you're essentially attaching 25% of your career to like the whims of LeBron. And that is probably the bigger thing than I get to go to the finals every year. It is like, well, what if he decides to get the coach fired? And I like that coach.

Or what if he decides to trade? three guys that I like. You know what I mean? Do you think players that are like superstar level, but I mean, obviously like nobody's really on the tier of like LeBron, AD, probably quiet? Do you think that they- Talent-wise or stardom-wise? Talent-wise.

Okay. Although, well, okay. Because I think that Kevin's talking about the latter. I think he's like more like, it's so distracting to have all you- But this plays into both of them. Dorks asking LeBron questions every day. It's what he's saying. No, absolutely.

I mean, my... Sorry, finish your point, though. Yeah. Do you think that it's more important to them to have security? Or do you think that now in this age of players wanting to be able to control their own destiny, that we will see more one-in-ones? Even if you're not a player necessarily who has the, like, power to maneuver or something like that? I...

Like, I would not... Like, let's use Demar, for example. Mm-hmm. Because, just specifically because of, like, talent level and stardom level. Do you think he's a player who's really willing to do a one-in-one instead of long-term security? DeMarta Rosen? Yeah. No.

No. No. But not out of like insecurity. Just like I think that he... Self-awareness. Also probably is like the awareness of like where he's at in this game. And if somebody is like, well, we have to max you out. Here's the five-year deal.

And he's like, thank you. You know, it's not... Of all the things that have happened in the last few years, the only thing that's really like stands out is like an example of why you wouldn't want to do the one-on-one stuff is Isaiah Thomas. Yes. And maybe Kyrie. Kyrie's like weird, I have metal in my knees that's like going wrong and stuff like that and just the ups and downs that he's gone through.

Maybe I could see him being like I'd like to just get this locked up and be somewhere for the rest. But these guys like, it's just a different world. I just feel like these guys are just like, yeah, you know, I'll play in New York and then I'll play in L.A. and then I'll play in. And then I could see Kevin Durant being like, I'd like to end my career in Seattle. I could see him being like I'd like to end my career in Oklahoma.

Anything is possible. There are no more Kobe's, right? Like that's the thing. Nobody's staying with a team for 18. That's not true. I think DeMarre really wanted to. Well, okay. But he's a product of exactly what we're talking about.

Oh, do you mean, but mentality-wise? Not like situation. Sure, sure. But like, it's just, it's a transient league. My broad takeaway from this is that different people have different wants and desires. And that it's easy to just lump people into some sort of like broad model. Like the Big Three was a model that people like very clearly tried to copy. But like the Warriors Big Three is not the same thing as the,

Miami big thing. If anything, it created an arms race, but since then, it's just, like, created all these different, like, styles of doing things. And, like, I think we're in a rush to say that people will follow LeBron because he's LeBron, or because this is the way it's proven for teams to win. And it just seems like guys want to do

whatever they want to do. Like, one guy wants to play like this. One guy wants to play like this. One guy wants to team up with somebody, and one guy wants to just, like, go have his own team. And so I'm at the point where it's just, like, you're basically trying to chart guys' like interest.

I just agree. I think everyone wants to partner up now. I don't know. To the degree of talent in which they're partnering up with is different

but I think everyone wants to partner up now because at the end of the day you still do want to win it just might not be... Do you? I think there's a difference in seeing the value

in partnering up versus like actually wanting to make the sacrifices required. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Do you think that this is... Paulo, what do you mean?

Do you want to win? I don't know. You never know. No, but this is just... Here's a really speculative question. Do you think that Annie Davis is consumed with the idea of ending his career without an NBA title?

No. Yes. Are you kidding me? All the talk he did, yeah, that one interview where he was like, I have to be the best player for like us. Yeah, definitely. Just being around him for a little bit,

I do think he is pretty single-minded. About wanting to win an NBA title. Yeah, I think he sees himself as the best player, like who couldn't be the best player like Kaylee's saying? And like everything is like that. Do you think that there's a part of him that thinks that that can happen with Drew Holiday

being the second best player in his team. I think that he's very much like an athlete and that he's super optimistic and positive him thinks that he can make everything work. I think there's probably part of him that realizes that no, that can't be true. I believe that it could be true,

but the rest of their team is just not going to make it happen. Yeah, I mean, well, here's the difference. He didn't pick that context. It was built around him. Let's put him on the clippers with Tobias. With Tobias. Okay.

What do we think? I think they have a better shot. If it's just the same rosters with AD? If it's the same roster, 100%. Yeah. But do we think that that's a title team? With like Lou Williams. Exactly.

Do we think that's a title team? Honestly, I would entertain them being like a Western Conference final, like, contender. But like that's it. I mean, for all, we know we have Clippers by the Western Conference finals this year. Again, it goes back to what I was saying about, it's just like individual contacts. It's like AD did not have that before and thus he might go, be more willing to team up with LeBron because he's struggled so much with the Drew holidays. Whereas, like, if you're Kyrie, you've played next to LeBron and actually you want to go do your own thing.

And you've won a title. Yeah. Yeah. And you probably have, like, a decent enough shot at winning a title in Boston. Do we think that the clutch sports thing is more of an indicator that AD would be willing to team up with LeBron? I don't know. I mean, the agency stuff is always so complicated. You know what I mean?

I feel like their agency is, like, the most transparent. The way I read that was more that AD was setting up, was very clearly setting up for his next move, whatever it may be. I don't think he's settled on anything as far as I know, but like, I think he's very, like, he's aware that there is something coming this summer. I mean, I think that the reason why I brought all of this up was just because, and this is mentioned a little bit in the Bue piece, was like the idea that can't Magic and Rob afford to wait till next summer to do something. Whereas if they don't, if they feel like they're going to basically be like Mavericks West in terms of their free agency courting abilities, and if people

are going to have second thoughts about playing with LeBron and guys are going to be like, do they have to make a trade? Do they have to go out and drop, like get Ingramman Ball or whatever they need to trade for AD? For John Wall? Well, I mean, my God. So that was actually like, was that real?

It was very like. Josh Hart. It was like a blog. It was like a lot of players on the Lakers for John Wall's $44 million dollar contract. I was like, oh my God. But I will say, though, I love this conversation right now because the Lakers have already passed on that chance, as far as we know, both with Paul and George and with Kauai,

because they could have probably beaten those packages, if you will. Yeah, but you have to think that, like, honestly, like, I think that Presti and Popovich wouldn't piss on the Lakers if they were on fire. You're probably right. And that's why they didn't get treated. Sure, but at the same time, like that those packages were better. Also, they probably assumed that, I mean, this was before. Like I said, I don't know.

By setting up a Lakers dynasty. I can't imagine I'd rather get relegated to the Ging. So do you think there's actually like a sentiment across a league to not to not feed into this like Virgin Lakers dynasty? I think they're going to make them pay for it. I think they're going to have to get like empty the cupboard or they're going to be like let's find out

whether LeBron can recruit in free agency still. That's what I think's going to happen. I think it's fascinating because like if I was the Lakers and everything was equal like I would start thinking about I was selling Justin yesterday about Ingram specifically because I think think his trade stock probably, I don't know if it will go higher from here. Yeah, I know. I know. Like, talking about the point that Kevin Durand was talking about, like,

Ingram is literally like a walking example right now of struggling to play with LeBron as a young guy. So I think he's very fascinating to me in terms of like what LeBron wants to do with, what the Lakers want to do with LeBron in the near future. And I would consider moving him. But no, it's crazy. We were just talking about how LeBron with all of these like schmows are like our could be the second best team in the West.

So even if he doesn't get a star, even if he gets like, let's say a B-level guy like Bradley Biel and it's just like every other position is like fine and set to like promote his best skills, they'll be fine. So I don't think it matters ultimately. And adding on to that though, so many of the Lakers deals are either expiring or one-year deals. So they are going, in 2019-20, they are going to have 62 million.

For who? No, that's how much cap they're spending. That's their allocations. Like, I'm just like, that's the question. It's just like, apparently... Well, exactly. This could get them in more trouble. You have to climb through a sea of fawning media groupies.

Get a max lance. That could be interesting, because if they have all that room and they're not, they don't have any, like, major star to sign, then, like, where are they going to freak out and do the Portland thing? Yeah, right. Right. No, it's true. Also, there are so many media members in the bay.

There's like 30... Oh, my God. They have, like, a traveling army with them. Can't tell me. They're not putting hard emojis. I know, seriously. Let's take a break here from our sponsors. We're going to come back and talk about the top 25.

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Go to Hotel Hotel Night.com. Or download the app now. All right. We're talking about The Ringers. 25 players of the first 25-ish games. We all voted on our 25, fed them into the supercomputer, that is Zach Cram came out with this list.

There are some, I think there's some really interesting conclusions to come from this, you know what I mean? I kind of wanted to start because we just were talking about LeBron so much, and we were talking about how he's pretty much single-handedly lifted this group of schmose in Justin's words to second,

or to be maybe one of the best teams in the West. are we underrating him by ranking him at fourth? I'll just run through the top 10 really quickly for people in case they haven't seen it, but it's on the ranger.com. We have Janice at number one, Embeddette at number two, Durant at number three, LeBron at number four, AD at number five, Kauai at number six, Kemba and number seven, Steph Curry at number eight, James Hardin at number nine, and Marcassal at number 10. I think there might be some riveted in this history with Embed.

At two right now, but no, I don't think so because the thing with LeBron is that at the beginning of the season, it did kind of see like he was, you know, yeah, exactly. He was like kind of taking it. I don't want to say the word easy because he's LeBron and he never takes easy and you could check the stats and at me on Twitter. But at the same time, like he, we know what he can do and at the beginning of the season fair and I did kind of seem like he was, you know, gliding through it a little bit. So I think that four is fair. Both things can be true. Like, he can still be the best player in the world and also, like, be fourth on a list of just encompassing the first 25 games. And I think especially because of what we saw on the defense event, I think that four is a perfect spot. Sure. My personal battle with the LeBron ranking was because of what Haley just said, because of the coasting and all the stuff that happened earlier in the season. And then looking at statistics and it's like, good God. This is incredible.

Or just watching him in a game like last night. Like, I wonder if he's at two or three, if we. if we were talking about this before the podcast but if we'd included even last night's games how would that have changed people's opinions would imbid still be at two after these sort of a couple of lackadaisical games obviously I don't think so

you don't think so no I don't think so I think he'd get back after LeBron be at two Kawai not at six oh fuck yeah I mean like that was the one that's the one like so we're talking about like we all voted and then and then like when we got like the results that was the one that made me do like cartoon character like

what? Like, I was just, I could not believe quiet six. Yeah. He goes to a new team. He's probably playing 80%, 82%. Maybe he will never get back to 100%.

I have no idea, like, the mystery quad, but he isn't playing as above the rim as I know, I think we think he's capable of. Well, he's just not playing as much too. Yeah, and he's also not playing the second night of back-to-back. And that's why I had him lower.

Yeah. Six games, that's like, among like, what, 25 probably for the rappers at this point? Yeah, I mean, that's why Steph's where he's at? Because when Steph's been on the floor, this year, I think he's been the MVP. He's been the best player. I still thought A was too

low for Steph. Like, I just I get the games missing, but he's been, he was so good and like, he's already come back and kept doing the same thing. 40, whatever. Yeah, last night. I think that if players are, like,

somebody like Steph, he's been so good that he kind of makes up for the deficit in games a little bit, at least over some guys. Not all the guys. You know, I'm not saying he should be number one, but I had him at six. I didn't have that much higher, but I was surprised to see him more on the...

I think I had Kauai at two or three. I can't remember. I had Yonis. I think I went Yonis and be Kauai. I have the spreadsheet right here. Okay. You had Kauai at three. I mean...

I had him four, I think. He's had the most transformative effect on a team this year. I think you could make the argument that Bud has had a bigger impact on the Bucks than Yonis has in terms of season to season. Yeah.

And that Kauai, with all due respect to Nick Nurse, is like, completely changed the Raptors. Well, yeah, but that's like the MVP argument, isn't it? I guess you're right. Is it the most, is it the best player or is it the most influential player to their individual team? Which usually combined because if, you know, it's usually the case that that team has been so excellent that they are already above the pack as well.

Was Janus the unanimous number one? Let's see here. No. I did not have Janice in the more. Danny had Embed, as did Haley. I had Kevin Durant. Damn. Haley is supposed to be private.

It was definitely the outlier in most ways. Yeah. You know what? I have opinion. But did you just have Simmons on yours? Yes. Oh, she did. I had him at 9.

That's probably why I wrote him. Yeah. God damn. You're the best. Wow. I respect it. Because it was right after. So this past like two and a half week stretch, I mean, his stats actually haven't changed

how much as something Justin and I were talking about, but he looked so much better on the Sixers. And the Sixers looked significantly better. And I just. He was probably the best. biggest, the person who suffered the most from the Fultz experiment, from starting from us. Right, right. And he has just, like, he has made

that team go to the next level. Like, obviously, after last night, that's kind of like a hard thing for me to swallow, but yeah. Wait, and Beter? Sin and Samson. I had Durant one, because I thought of it in the same vein as Steph almost. Like, Steph went out and, like,

they had that tough stretch. But then, like, if you look at his numbers, like, they are ridiculous. Like, he's having, like, an amazing season. And I know it's not like fun to watch or exciting, especially without Steph. But like, I thought that he, especially in the last few games of his 25, the first 25, I thought he looked like the best player in the NBA. And to Paul's point, I was laughing over here to myself, because I'm cool like that. He's shooting 50, 50, 90 percentages. He's outrageous. It's insane. There's a couple of guys here who I feel like were penalized for just being

themselves. Like Hardin? Sure. Yes. Yes. So Hardin goes probably in terms of winning the MVP and everybody being like, well, this guy is the greatest offensive player since Jordan essentially. Yes. You know, or in terms of one-man offense. And then he's ninth. And he's still averaging 30, almost nine assists and almost six boards.

Yeah, that was the focus of what I wrote was basically he does everything better than Kemba Walker. And I love Kemma Walker. But like, Kimba's just new. Whereas Hardin, we've seen this. And he's kind of been diminished by like the rockets. And the team sucks. Yeah.

The team hasn't been doing well. They have, I think, a same amount of wins this season as well. Yeah. There really isn't a difference, but Hardin's been better. A couple of other things. Another person who I thought was sort of, I mean, he made the list, but it was an interesting placement for him was Westbrook at 25. Right.

Now, he's missed time as well, but Steph gets in the top 10 and Westbrook barely makes the list. I only ever hear about Westbrook for people accusing him of stat patting or breaking shots and like shooting thunder out of games, yet the thunder of the second best record in the West. And I think he is changing his game slowly but shortly. It's just that it's the process. Last night in the middle of Paul George is like,

just like amazing show. Yeah. Russ comes down the court and jacks this shot. And I was just like, dude, for once, like, just please don't just pass it to all. Can you not? Yeah. You just not.

You 22.4% three-point shooter. Can you not? Yeah, it's been bad this year. I actually forgot that Russ was a week. He passed Jesus a kid on all-time triple doubles last year, and it's him, Oscar Robertson, Magic, and Kid, and people were like, eat shit, Russ. It's truly terrible. But it was just, I just like, I'm like, what the hell? No, people think they only don't make sense for him.

Like, Ben Simmons, whenever he, like, comes close, everyone's like, wow. Yeah, it's like, yoke his triple double in 24. minutes. But to the point, like, I guess against Russ, like he's shooting, I think, career low and three-point percentage, and he's taking more than last year. Like, that's not how you do that. But I think overall, I had to go back and put him on my ballot because I forgot that he even existed. Yes. He's just, like, kind of disappeared from the ether this year because of the injury. And I think because the Thunder kind of were playing this, like, soft schedule. Yeah. And he's averaging 22 points a game, which is his lowest since the 2013-14 season.

I didn't have him on my list, to be honest. Oh. Okay. But I also, I get... This is also your exit interview. Yeah. That was fun, guys. I didn't have Damar on my list.

I had Demar 25. I didn't pretty high. I think it was like 8 or 9. He was among my last cut. Yeah, just because... Did you have Vuccivic on your list? I did. That's how you get up in the morning.

You look at yourself in the mirror and you say, like, oh, yeah. I'm willing to ride for that. That's me. I don't know. Like, the Spurs suck. So... That's how I rationalize that. What was a guy?

Who was a guy that you felt particularly tortured over, whether to include them, whether that you wound up putting them on the list or didn't? Who was a person who you were just, like, moving around a lot or copying and pasting out of it? And, like, I was curious about that. I had three. I had Luca, who I did, like, the bottom three. Like, I had Luca, which I know you talked about, Chris. I had Tobias. because I'm just, the clippers as a unit feel.

Like when I was thinking about, including him, I thought about the 2015 Hawks when they all got the player of the month. Yeah. You know, and it was just kind of like, I'm not sure if Luca himself qualifies for this. Or not Luca. Tobias himself qualifies for this. I did end up putting him on.

And then the third was Vucavich. Yeah, it's hard when you're, it's hard to like think of Tobias that highly when you know every game is going to be closed by Lou Williams. Like no matter what. They have so many different players who are the best at so many different things. Closing Loo. Montrez is probably like... Energy rebounds.

Energy, yeah. Beverly just keep them in games and get stops. Yeah. I would say Tobias is most important. Yeah, he's the... Even Gallo, though. Even Gallo. I was going to say, the reason I had trouble with Tobias was because I was like,

what if I just put Gallo in there? I mean, like, he was having a really good season two. So that's the clippers. So for you, it was Luca, Tobias, and who? And Vooch. And Vooch. Right. Vooch was not on my top 25.

I've watched Voochvich before. Have you? Yeah. He was not on mine either. Have you seen the standings this year, though? I'm going to keep slacking you after every good game. Have you seen the standings this year? Why?

Because the magic are racking up some bullshit early wins? Seventh baby. Okay. Who were some guys that you were tortured over? I wanted to talk to you about Butler. Yeah. Because you wrote about this in the blur of itself where you're like, I don't know what to do here. Yeah.

I mean, he pretty much tanked the Minnesota Chimberwolves. Yes. And in addition to that, the wolves have been, significantly better without him. Like his net rating on the wolves was like a minus 8 something. And now you could rationalize that as just like he wasn't trying. I don't know what was

going on there. Or it has less to do with him and more to do with the people that he alienated. Well, it's interesting, right? Because if we had done this list strictly after on the... If this was list was the top 25 players since the Jimmy Butler trade, Towns makes the list.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, probably. He was one that was... Robert Covington makes a list. No, Towns is incredibly. Towns is like playing defense. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a whole new team.

And also Robert Covington is playing defense for Towns and not screaming at him about it. Right. See, that was my choice. I almost put Towns and then I was looking at Covington and he's probably not only the best defensive player on that team, but probably like a defensive player of the year candidate at this point. So I don't know how much he's covering for him and like what, but yeah, Towns was a tough one.

And then Butler, ultimately I settled on like, I think somewhere in the low 20s because just like the production is just so good. It was really interesting not to get off on a side. tangent here, but Tim Legler was doing some stuff last night on SportsCenter after the Lakers game where he was showing some some plays of Butler playing with the Sixers. And he was kind of like

a camera, this is really paraphrasing, but what I saw from what he was showing was like, this is like kind of the best and the worst of Jimmy Butler. You get this amazing sense of like one-on-one competition. So like he would like D.U. Kauai or he would just like attack the ball or go for like the steel or whatever. But then there were a couple of plays where

like, and you know, he may have been told to do this, but he would basically like abandon boxing out. You know what I mean? Or he would, he would kind of just like lose interest in the play after his initial sort of engagement with it was over. Which is not supposed to be his reputation. No, but I think like he's probably learning a new defensive system to some extent. But the point being was like, it was what it's when you watch Covington,

Covington is essentially like this link that has never been in the Minnesota chain since Tibbs has really had that team, you know, where he's just like understanding. exactly where he's supposed to be at any given point and is making up for two negative defensive players on that floor. Butler was supposed to be the Tibbs guy. I think Covington is more the Tibbs guy. Yeah. So, I mean, that's... I love the Taj Crow was funny.

I think he said, like, he told Covington that, like, he really likes you, he's going to play you a lot. Yeah, get ready to play the 40. Where are ankle braces? Justin, did you, aside with Butler. I think, you know, the problem of mine was that, like, I was receiving all the ballots as I was going along. like my ballot's kind of corrupted. Yeah. I don't think I had any other outliers.

No, because you're like, when that happens too, when you start seeing people's picks, you're like, I want to be more interesting than this. Yes. Yeah. Like, I crammed in Rudy at the end there just because, like, I started seeing him a bunch. And like, you start to think, like, oh, the value of rim protection, even though the jazz aren't playing well. I have Ruby a lot because-

I think he made what. And I wish. Rudy is having, like, his best year at the rim. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, like, honestly, since I've ever seen him, this is the best. He's finishing a lot of buckets. Anybody you were tortured by here?

Yeah, I, two people, Drew Holiday, for one. His numbers, his shooting percentages are down, but his points are up because he's getting to align more, and he's basically averaging nine assists, just three more assists than he had last season. And he's a tough one for me because I don't think the pelicans have been like as good as they maybe should have been, and that's obviously because more of the roster around those two guys,

those two main guys. But I thought that he could sneak in there, and I ended up including him in there as it, And as I ended up including my other guy, which was Stephen Adams, which I thought, you know, it's a higher ranking for him. But at the same time, I thought that because the Thunder's defense has been so good, he's been such a, like, a linchpin for that, that I was like, he needs some credit. That's interesting.

Who's a guy, who's somebody who you were shocked to not see in the top 25? I thought, given our NBA slack, I thought Luca would be in the top five. I didn't include him. Like, I'm still at the point where it's just like I'm in wait-in-see mode. Like he's had 20 or something odd games And you could see at certain points I don't know if it's because of the injuries lately But like he hits a wall

And he'll like disappear at times during games And I'm like huh So I'm in like wait and see I definitely think that's a natural like Rookie adjusting To this NBA like competition night Even though he already has played professionally A fun question is which rookie would make it in here

Maybe Lucas's the answer But I would even also make a case for Jane Jackson Jr. Yes, yeah I don't think either of those guys are in the 25. They're not. But it's interesting. You know, just in rookies in general. Interesting that Donovan Mitchell's not on this list.

I don't think it's that interesting. And I love him. Also, Fox. He needs to work it out. Oh, Fox. Fox was a tough cut. I'm looking at the guy as I cut. Why do I keep saying interesting?

I don't know. I'm sorry. Because I'm just interesting. No, I mean, if we did this like 10 days ago, he might have made it. Do you mean to look up a synonym list for you? Yeah, please. Soros. One second.

Stop recording. No, we're going to wrap it up there. You can check out our top 25 list on the ringer.com. It's the top 25 players of the first 25-ish games. We will be back next week, maybe last show of the year. We need to talk about that, yeah. So next time, this has been the Ringer NBA show. Chad. Thanks for listening.

Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.