The Ringer NBA Show - Digesting LeBron in a Lakers Uniform, Plus Early Evaluations for Ayton and Jokic | The Corner 3 (Ep. 323)

Episode Date: October 19, 2018

The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor is joined by Danny Chau and Jonathan Tjarks in the debut of their revamped Friday show: The Corner 3. They kick the season off with some immediate reactions to LeBron in purple and gold (1:41). Then, they assess DeAndre Ayton’s early signs of stardom and Nikola Jokic’s ability to take another leap in year four (13:04), before looking ahead to some upcoming games of interest (31:40). Jonathan Tjarks: Finding the Nikola Jokic Blueprint Paolo Uggetti: You May Not Know Josh Hart Yet, but You Will Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly. One shiny podcast will be touring from Friday November 2nd to Wednesday, November 7th, where Tate, Titus, and Nephew Kyle are traveling to Columbus, Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, Bloomington, Indiana, and Chicago, Illinois to tip off the college basketball season. You can find links to tickets on the ringers, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Also, be sure to catch up on all of our NBA previews-pillooza content from Tuesday, where you can find Bill Simmons, Chase Serrano, Joe House, and more previewing the start of the NBA season. You can check it all out on YouTube. The Ring NBA show. I'm Kevin O'Connor, and we are the Corner three. Replacing draft class from last year, we're going to be more NBA-centric this year, and we picked our name because, you know, the NBA is shooting more threes, and we figured that we have to as well since we're a trio. Ride the wave. Sitting across the table is Danny Chow.

Here I am. And then there in Dallas, Texas. John Charks, how you doing? I'm pumped, man. I'm calling you guys at, like, midnight after a Lakers game. This is a dedication to the pod right now. I should be dead asleep. Late night, late night, we're produced this year by Bobby Wagner.

How you doing, Bobby? Doing good. Happy to be here with you guys. I'm excited about this NBA season. We're pumped to get going. This year is going to be less draft focused than in the past. We're still going to have draft class as a segment during the season. So we'll be talking plenty of draft.

We'll still have a lot of takes. That's the key. Oh, yeah. A lot of takes a few people out there. A lot of draft takes. But especially early in the season, we're going to be more NBA focused, which I'm cool with because there's a lot to talk about, including tonight's game.

with the Bron James' debut, 128, 119, Lakers lost to the Blazers. It was an exciting, fast-paced game. Somehow, Laker shot only seven for 30 from three. Nick Stouskis, Zach Collins stole the show. Dame Lillard and C.J. McCollum also hit some big shots down the stretch. Danny, what's your number one take away from tonight's game?

Okay, this is completely on brand for me, and I guess for Charks as well. But I think the biggest thing is the guy who had the biggest plus-minus of the game, Zach Collins The number 11 pick in our 2017 Redraft Made by me, I made the pick

Zach Collins was Really really impressive This game, he had five blocks Six blocks actually Six blocks He had six blocks As many blocks as he did points So really we're looking at the most

impactful six point performance In recent memory Charks you were one of the first To really, really love Zach Collins in the draft. Yeah, for sure. I mean, just a combination of shot blocking, floor spacing. He just feels like he adds to different elements that team that Nerkitz just doesn't provide. Nerkich from this game was minus 17 while Zach was a plus 24. That's a crazy swing for the same position. Ultimately, some of the preseason concerns with the Lakers really popped up early on in

this game. Lance Stevenson at times, Portland was just not even defending him. Same with Rondo when he was spotting up from three. Just not concerned, which was clogging the lane for the Lakers, made it more difficult for them to score. And the half-concerns, court and the Lakers defense ugly times, Tammy. Sauce Castillo. I get it. This is a shooter's league.

You know, you have guys who can shoot on the Blazers. You have them all over the roster. But the Seth Curry, Nick Stoucett's... Shout out Seth Curry, by the way. You know... Back in the league.

You add these guys, and they're replacing who, Pat Conantin, they're replacing Shabazz Napier. And they're fitting in fluidly, flawlessly. Blazers looked good. They look sharp. Lakers did not.

Right. Lakers looked like a team that was just assembled. You know what I kept thinking, though, was like, wouldn't the Lakers rather have Curry and Stouskis? Give me some guys who can shoot threes in that team? Wouldn't that make more sense than getting a meme team going? It's really incredible that the Lakers' first three came with what?

Like two minutes left in the third quarter. Crazy. Yeah, they added the whole first half. Yeah, so they were seven for 30, 23.3% from three, but just a couple minutes prior. And when it was essentially garbage time, they were shooting 16% from three. The thing with the Lakers is they're shooting obviously isn't good.

But last season, their current 10-man rotation that they're using, shot a combined 37.5% on catch-and-shoot threes, which isn't good, but it would have ranked 15th last year, and over the last five years it would have ranked 11.6. So it's not like they're horrible. It's just they're a low-volume shooting team. I think the reaction tonight's game will be a little bit overblown because they shot so poorly.

I'm not sure they're going to have many games this bad from three-point range. So, you know, everybody... I hope not. You would hope not, yeah. I mean, they had, okay, Brandon Ingram, LeBron James, and Kyle Kuzma combined for one of 15. That's unheard of. You're looking at three guys who can shoot at least league average,

36, 36, 37 percent. You're not getting this hopefully ever again, because if they are at any point in the season shooting that badly, what are we looking at with this Lakers team? What are we looking at, Charks? I mean, they've got to figure some stuff out. The thing, because, like, right now as it stands, Like in the NBA today, if you can't play defense and you don't shoot a lot of threes, that's just a tough combination.

I mean, I wonder like, they play a backup five at some point. This Kuzma, the five thing. I don't know if that's really going to work. I mean, I think ultimately, you know, you hit on one of those changes that need to happen charts. I think Lance Stevenson at some point, if Mo Wagner gets back and he's healthy, if you're the lake is, you have to be nice. You have to hope that he can take some of those minutes because he can space the floor and provide some size so you're not leaning on Kuzma, Beasley. What's his deal? What's his deal, Kev?

He had a knee injury. I'm sure he'll be back at it. Is there a timetable, we know? I don't know what the timetable is at the top of my head. I mean, this is kind of rough because you're looking at LeBron James, who is historically not really played with anyone below the age of 25 over the past eight years of his career. And you're asking for a lot of maybe six of their most important role players to just step up. I mean, Josh Hart had an amazing game.

He really showed something. He should start, I think. Oh, absolutely. That one happened. I'll have a praise you. This was a huge blow to me. I think I might be the only person on Contavius Caldwell Pope Island.

I think he's a stellar defender. But yeah, he showed nothing today. No, nothing. And that's always been the pain with him, is that sometimes you see those 30-point scoring games and he explodes from three. Sometimes you see that lockdown defense. But other times, he's tuntie none of it like tonight.

Josh Hart is the guy, you know, Paulo Ugetti at the ringer road, a fantastic feature of him. Shout out, Paula. Hart needs a start. He knows. He's a younger player, and I wonder how long will it be until LeBron is pushing for Hart to be the guy that he's playing with at the start of games at the end of games, virtually any time he's on the court. Because Hart is just a better overall player and a more consistent player.

That's big two consistency. That's a good point, KOC. That's important next to LeBron's consistency. Yeah, so one thing that I noticed in the game is that this is basically the formula that the Lakers want in games. They just couldn't pull it out because they didn't have any shirt. shooting. But you look at the game, this was the second fastest game in terms of pace played among the opening games of every team. So that's a fast pace too. So the fastest pace game was the Hawks Knicks, which was played at 114 possessions. The Lakers Blazers game was at just under

112. And so we're looking at a lot of possessions, a lot of possessions that didn't really go anywhere because there weren't any threes being made. But I think that's exactly where, you know, the Lakers could take advantage of a team like the Blazers who have a starting center who is a plotter, who can't really get out in transition and get back on defense. And that's how, you know, Zach Collins comes in and kind of saves the day for them.

It did feel like he saved the day. And, you know, it helped Nick Stalz's dropping 24 points off the bench. I think some Lakers fans will look at that and say, Stelis isn't going to drop 24 every game, but you could also just as easily say Lillard's not going to shoot 9 for 21, or McCollum's not going to shoot 6 for 17. Blazers could have gotten some better performance

from their stars as well. Aminu even won for 10i of that one dunk over Jermal McGee, and that's it. Let's be fair to Aminu. It was his birthday a couple days ago. Happy birthday to Chief of Minu. He celebrated it at Longbond, a Thai restaurant over in Portland.

Very good. Now, there's a lot. an on brand for Danny right there. That's on brand. Charles, one of the thought on the Blazers, I believe you mentioned this on Slack earlier, but Harkless being back for them as well as Seth Curry. I think maybe those two

additions or the return of Harkless has been a little bit overlooked because Kari, you last saw him in Dallas was really, really good. Yeah, I mean, shout out to Seth Curry. I had a big profile set to about last year. Then he gets hurt and doesn't play all season. It was very sad. Yeah. I talked to him for like 20 minutes.

Can this be revived? I have it in a Google Doc and it's just, no, it can't be. It really can't be. It was about his time in Dallas. Damn. Yeah, but him and Dennis were really tight. It was the whole thing.

Oh, well. I will say, here's some Lakers optimism. One thing I did notice in this game, I think is a positive for them. This is kind of obvious, but like, you had Jake Lehman guarding Brandon Ingram. Like, how many teams have two wings with the size to guard LeBron and Ingram?

Not very many, right? That, to me, is their big advantage this year. Two, six, nine wings can initiate offense. That's pretty unusual. Jake Lehman, defensive stopper. He does have size. Yeah. Yeah, he has size at least.

Speaking of Ingram, Lakers Film Room on Twitter tweeted as something that I felt like confirmed what I was seeing. Like, he didn't really get any first half, half court touches. And that's going to be a theme of this Lakers team this season, is the sacrifice that's going to have to happen anytime you're on a team with LeBron James. Brennan Ingram, Alonzo Ball, any of their ball handlers are going to have to defer to LeBron and Rajan Rondo. But see, I don't want to defer to.

to LeBrono, but deferring to Rondo. I just don't see why. Exactly, which arcs. That is exactly the issue here. It's like, yeah, you know, Rondo is a better passer. He's a better playmaker. But I'd rather have the scoring and playmaking

combo of Brannan Enger or Rondo. I wonder how long it'll be until that fit becomes an issue during the season. How about one game? Which is exactly why I think, look, Rondo might be a better fit. I don't know, as a veteran leader. I think the T&T broadcast really

emphasized the fact that, oh, Rondo was telling all the young people where to go, which is fine. To 128 points. Sure. Like, how about have him lead the second unit that way? You know, how about have Lonzo Ball in there who's definitely more comfortable being like a deferential player, put Ingram on the ball? Better lob threat.

Yeah, better catch and shooter. I think. Better defender. Better defender, exactly. Better rebounder for that matter, too. Better virtually everything except for... Except for sounding like a leader. Yes.

You know, that's pretty much. I think Luke Wall needs to flip Rondo and ball, flip heart and KCP, stagger Ingram and James a little bit more, and then maybe you have something a little bit better, and then injuries, you know, for Wagner, he gets back on the court, play him over Stevenson, the team gets better. Whereas the Blazers, they look far ahead of schedule right now. This is going to take a while for the Lakers. I'm basically penciling in 20 games for LeBron to really get that feeling out process done, knowing the tendencies of all those young guys,

knowing the tendencies of all the wily veterans he has, it's going to take a while. Yeah, it's weird because, like, on one hand, it's like, yeah, you know, Luke Walton has to play the veterans first. Like, he's not going to bench those guys and they want this season for young guys. So, okay, this makes sense to wait.

But then it's like, we've got to wait two months from the undo their mistakes the bait and free agency. It's just, it's bizarre. One last thought on the Lakers. On Saturday night, they have their home opener against the Rockets who also struggled in their opener. Just curious about the thought.

for both of those respective teams with a lot of changes as the off season heading into their first game against each other. Last year, you know, we typically think of

Dantone teams as being very fast-paced. The Rockets were a very average, slow, you know, methodical, ISO-driven ball team. And, you know, you're getting these Lakers

who are trying like hell to run teams off the court. I wonder which style prevails, especially with LeBron kind of being able to do both. Let's talk at the, second units for these teams. They both got killed pretty bad in their first game. So how that

goes would be interesting to see how that plays out. I think I'm going to be looking forward to seeing some more James Ennis within that room and rule. Some more Carmelo Anthony. I think the big question this season all year will be replacing those other guys on Houston's Rosser, Trevor Reza, Luke Mahmute. How does everybody else perform to fill that gap

of what was so important to their top defense last season? How about we get some Isaiah Hardenstein up in the... Get them. Up in the mix. You know? What some Gary Clark, too. Come on. Let's go, Houston. Moving on on Wednesday night, we had the debut between two of our favorite prospects to debate from last year's draft class with DeAndre Aiton, the number one pick from the Phoenix Suns, and Luca Dantrich, who went third and was traded to the Dallas Mavericks. Phoenix won the game 120 to 100.

And there wasn't just those two guys. There was Devin Booker, Josh Jackson. Booker was killing it, man. Booker stole the show ultimately, but we're going to start with Aiton here. Danny, what did you see from the number? one pick in his debut against the Mavs. So actually, I think we should start this off by introducing this as a segment, right? A segment, yeah, why not?

The kids are all right. The kids are all right. I like that a lot, Danny. It's a who song. Classic, classic Kevin music reference. It's a good old song. Let's talk, Aiden. I think we really got to see Aiton's offensive instincts on display in this game.

They put him in a lot of handoff situations, especially late in the fourth quarter with Devin Booker. So basically, Kukoshkov on The Suns was essentially doing what Detroit did with Andre Drummond last year, kind of getting him settled in on the perimeter, having him make decisions with the ball on these handoffs. And Devin Booker was just stroking these threes. No hesitation, right off, created separation instantaneously. I mean, to be fair, it was the corpse of Wesley Matthews. He was creating separation on.

Matthews and DJ both looked pretty old. They did, man. They looked really old. That was kind of scary for the mass people. But as you mentioned, Danny, I think Aiton's passing ability is playmaking is, you know, we saw flashes of that at Arizona. You know, he had situations where he would just kick it out accurately, you know, with velocity. And we saw a lot of that on Wednesday night.

But I think he's gotten better at executing plays. I feel like he's gotten even better with NBA spacing at passing. And, you know, for all to talk about his scoring and his size and his versatility, and it's just some, he can throw down lob dunks or space to floor for you. sometimes his playmaking could be what really makes him that perfect fit alongside Devin Booker. So you had a really spicy take this morning in Slack. You want to share it with the people? That was really interesting.

It was in response to a tweet that Dan Devine, who's welcome to the Ringer. Shout out to Dan. Yeah, shout out to Dan. I look forward to hearing him on pods. It was a tweet Dan posted in Ringer Slack where a Sixers fan that he knows said that Aiton is already better than Joelle Unbeed. That's what I need is a take like that show thing night. That was fantastic. That statement sounds outrageous because it is.

Mbid is obviously a better player. He is better defensive instincts. He's far more proven on the offensive end of the floor. It's silly to say. But, but, but, there's always the but. Aitin is already a better passer. I think he's less sloppy than Embedde. He's a better mid-arrant shooter than Embedd.

There's some traits that were Aitin, four years younger, is already ahead of Joe L.N. There was a particularly impressive assist that he had. and Aiden had six assists on the night. He had one in the fourth quarter. I think it was Josh Jackson from the three-point line on the wing, throwing in an entry pass. The entry to Aiton.

Entry. Yeah. And so Aiden is about to get trapped. He's about to get doubled, but he recognized it immediately, immediately sends it back to Josh Jackson for an open three. And I was like, wow, this guy really recognized the double team immediately. I think worth pointing out with all of this.

Like, they were playing great spacing today. That was the big adjustment for Phoenix, the Kukashkov. So they've got Trevor Reza, Ryan Anderson, and they were starting Isaiah Cannon last night, or two nights ago now. And that's three really good three-point shooters. And it makes a huge difference for any big man to play in space. And that's what Aden has right now that Embed and even towns don't have. He's playing with four shooters the whole time.

For sure, and I think that's spacing over the course of the season. We saw this especially, I think, during preseason. There's going to be a lot of lob opportunities for him. Right now he's not shooting threes, which I wish he were, instead of the mid-range jumpers, but wherever he's comfortable, wherever the team wants him for now, he's still developing.

Aitin faded a little bit in the second and third quarter. He started fast and ended incredibly well. But second and third quarter, I wish we would have seen more from him and maybe we will down the line. Again, only his first game. I'm curious what you guys think about

as defense. Nate Duncan from Dunked on podcast. Shout out. Shout out to Nate. He tweeted out a video of some of the low lights from DeAndre Aten. Nate mentioned he had an excellent

offensive debut, but he didn't do much to dispel doubt. about his defensive recognition. I personally feel that... It's too early. It's too early. It's way overblown, Danny.

It really is in the sense that it is very rare that an offensive center, who's a rookie in his debut, looks as impressive as DeAndre Aten did with the passing, with the floor recognition on the offensive end, as you mentioned, the versatility scoring inside on the posts

from the mid-range. A guy who can do all that is rare. What isn't rare is a young center who struggles. on the defensive end of the floor, who misses rotations, who fails to communicate, who makes some really face palm-esque errors. That's not unusual.

I mean, there was one possession where Luca basically just blows by DeAndre Aiden, and I'm pretty sure that was just, you know, the tour friendly. They played ping pong over the summer. They had a warm embrace after the game as well. Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure Aiden was just trying to make sure Luca looked good on one of his first possessions, you know?

No doubt about it. Charks, I'm curious about your thoughts on that because Aiton was somebody that you weren't quite as high on in the draft as others were because of largely his defensive limitations. Are you at all worried about what you saw or is the type of thing where... I mean, it's what I expected. That's for sure. Like, I didn't expect him to be a good defender right away and he wasn't.

I mean, to me, he was more about Luca. Talk about a guy. It looks like Luca kind of lost energy over the course of that game. I think my man needs to hit the gym. I think he needs to, I don't know, run some suicides or something. Luca did look quite winded. Yeah. You live in Dallas, Charks, grew up a Mavericks fan.

Is the conditioning a little bit overblown for him? Or what are you hearing about his conditioning? Is this the type of thing where nobody's worried? See, I'm going to see him live on Saturday. I haven't seen him live there because they were in China for the preseason. So I don't want to say too much. But I'll say this. I feel like in a way, I think it might be good for the Mazz for Luka to struggle right

away and be like, okay, not in Europe anymore. Because he shut up in camp. I think he kind of enjoyed the summer. He enjoyed being number three pick, winning Euro League, all that stuff. Living like the high life. It's all right. time for the NBA. And I think, you know, in year two,

he comes up with a better body, better shape. I think I'm going to a big difference for him. We're already looking forward to year two, you know? You know, ultimately, even if he is slightly out of shape as a rookie, he's still impressive, isn't he, Danny? Oh, absolutely. And there were flashes there.

He still demonstrated a lot of his vision, a lot of his patience. And, you know, I was talking to my brother over dinner watching this game, and he was just like, tell me all about Luca. I told him all about Luca. And he's like, absolutely. I'm all in. You got to be all in. I think, you know, athleticism matters.

It does, right? It matters in the NBA where some of the world's greatest athletes play. But so does skill, so does feel. And that's where Luca is a transcendent prospect. And I think the thing to watch, he was 0.5 from three. And that'll be big for him this year. He took a lot of tough threes.

If he can make tough threes, he's going to have a really good year. I think that's the key how that shooting goes. In preseason, Luca did hit some really nasty stepback jumpers. And on the other end of the floor that night, we did see Devin Booker, who looks to have. maybe taken another step forward in his career. Each year he's gotten significantly better. Still under 25 years old.

I think Devin Booker, in my opinion, right now at 21 years old, is one of the most underrated players in the league. He averaged nearly 25 points per game last season on fairly good efficiency, a high volume of shots. His passing, I think, has gotten better. He had some really nasty kickouts. And the Phoenix Suns, he had 35.7 assists. It seems that the Phoenix Suns are going to lean on him more and perhaps a hardened

esk role, aren't they, Charks? Yeah, I really love Point Booker. To me, I really jumped out of me was there was one lineup in the third quarter where they had Booker, Jackson, Erezha, Anderson, Aiton. That's freaking, everyone's six-six and up, and they had Josh Jackson,

guarding Dennis Smith, and Booker running point in space with Aiton. That is a pretty intriguing lineup they can run with going forward. Yeah, when you have that much spacing, basketball is just easy. You look at their starting lineup, four of the five players there

had six assists or more. There's a lot of ball movement. There's a lot of just, it's easy to find the right man when everyone is pretty much out in space. Now, I'm not sure if Josh Jackson and T.J. Warren are ever going to combine to shoot 75% from three ever again. That's a thing.

Yeah, absolutely. But it was pretty much a perfect storm of kind of seeing exactly what Kukoshkov wants out of this team, I would say. Absolutely. And look, I mean, they fired their coach right before last season, Earl Watson. And they fired Ryan McDonough right before this season. But Phoenix had some good talent on their team. McDonald's revenge.

McDonald's revenge, Charks, it's true. We saw that on Wednesday night with Booker, scoring 35, with Aiton, showing flashes. Areza looking really good in his debut. Some of the other guys,

Josh Jackson, he's not going to shoot that well every night, like you said, Danny, but they have guys at really high value positions in today's league with Aresa, Jackson, Mikhail Bridges,

who you love charts, who didn't play, T.J. Warren, who's suddenly, now shooting threes. He was like a 22% three-point shooter for his career and suddenly he's stroking threes. It's amazing.

The good thing is he was just like a confidence shooting them. That was probably a big part of it too. He didn't take many threes last year. Even if he's missing them, just shooting them as valuable. The floor spacing is certainly going to make that team extremely, extremely interesting to watch this year. Even if they're not a playoff team, which they probably won't be. They're going to be one of the funner young teams in the league to watch. Moving on, the sons face, Dirk and the Mavs on Wednesday. And Dirk happens to be the blueprint for the big man that that Aiton's going to be facing tonight. And that's Nugget Center, Nicole Yokic. Charks, you wrote about Yokch this week, and Danny, you edited the piece.

What did we learn? Can you guys walk us through that piece that you wrote Charks? Oh, I think the thing to me, I just went, because, like, the last month of the season last year, Yokic really his game, took another step forward. He put up huge stats. I think it was like 25, 12, and 6 or something, or 7. So I went up to Denver for the training camp, talked to a few people. And they were basically, like, at that point, we realized he was our best player.

Millsat even said, like, I told Yokic, you're the guy now. And they moved their offense to where he got the ball all the time. And I think that was kind of a preview what's going to happen this season, where Yokic just got a massive contract. He's the face of the franchise. And I'm really excited what they do with him as like a ball dominant point center, basically. Right. And all of the quotes in Charks's piece were basically like Will Barden, Mike Malone, Paul Millsap,

basically saying, this guy is one of the best players in the NBA period. But he doesn't know it. We just need to basically coax it out of him. And yeah, exactly what Charks was saying. Over the last, I don't know, 10, 18 games, he was shooting 43% from three, and he was attempting about four or five a game. And this is from a seven-footer who plays like a point guard, who is probably the least athletic player in the NBA.

It's just the most whimsical, the most, you know, you would not expect this. from a guy who looks like he does, and yet he's throwing magic out there every single night. One of the quotes from your story charts that Yokic said that I really like, I think it captured who he is. He said, quote, whatever is good for my team, I'm going to do that. If that means being aggressive, I'm going to do that. I showed myself, I can do that.

And I think at the end of last season, we saw all of it. We saw him scoring a lot of points on a high volume with efficiency, like you mentioned, Danny. we saw him passing at, to me, maybe the most talented passing big man that I've seen in my lifetime. And there's been a lot of great passing centers over the years. I mean, right now in the league,

Mark Grosol, Paul Grasol's brother, Chris Weaver, we've seen a lot of great passing centers. Yes. But Yokic, he is truly a special passer at his size, which makes Denver's offense so unique in the way they can build around him, Charks. And that was part of the focus of the article

is how do you build around a guy like that? how do you build around him? Because he does have defensive limitations, but his offense is so unusual. Yeah, that's why I made the Dirk comp, and I was looking at Dirk early in his career. And if you have a seven-footer who's that great on offense and pretty poor on defense,

the way to maximize him is to, like, just put his usage right as high as possible. And I feel like once you do that, if he's at like 28, 2930 usage, Yokic was actually at 24 last year. And if he's using that many possessions, I think you can put less skilled guys around him who are crazy athletic.

And the point, one I was making was, if you look at Dirk's career, the best Dirk teams weren't team where he had Dirk and Steve Nash even. It's when he had like Dirk and it was like Tyson Chandler, Josh Howard, Sean Mary, and even Eric Dampere, like, big athletic bruisers.

And like they played ugly basketball and Dirk carried them home at the end of games. I think that's probably where the Nuggets need to go three, four, five years from down the line. How close are they to that with their current roster, you think? See, I think right now they're very much like a fun, high scoring team at a lose in the first round. Because they just don't have the athletes to play defense, really.

I mean, right now they're starting Will Barton 3 at 6 foot 6. Like, if they play LeBron in the first round, what's going to happen? It's not going to be good. Even, I mean, in tonight's game with Phoenix, Phoenix, Phoenix has better size at those two, three, three, four spots on the floor. Denver's small. They do need to make conditions, but their cap situation will make that difficult. Right.

And one of the things that really plagued them last year was just they were really inconsistent. And part of that was because they didn't have Millsap for a huge chunk of the year, but they just didn't really have that strong of a defensive identity. And so they blew a lot of games. We saw the first game that they played against the Clippers this season. You know, they were on the verge of losing this game. But I think this year, you're looking at a lot more synergy with their team. You're looking at another year for a lot of their young guys. They might be almost too good to really blow some of those games that they blew last year. And I think that's part of the development. But you still run that risk when you don't have those types of defenders on your team.

Yeah, Bobon almost killed them. Fun nugget from the story I didn't get her used. They said Bobon's one of the tougher matchups for Yokic, actually. Because they go way back in Serbia. And like, Yokish is a hard time going at Boban. There's been a lot of great dunks in league history. You know, think about Vince Carter, jumping over a guy.

But Boban's dunk just not leaving his feet was, to me, one of my all-time favorites, I got to say. Now, Boban's must watch TV, man, when he's made. Yeah, I just wish he played in, like, 1992 against Shaq. Like imagine a game in which both backboards were ripped down. Like, what would you do? Like, so does the game just get forfeited? Are you saying Boban would have been Shaq and Shaq Sarah?

I'm not not saying that. I seem like in a Nick's Heat game from the mid-90s, like 8580, and no one fast breaks ever. It's just like a constant wrestling match in the paint. One other thought about Yokic. This summer I thought a lot about him because he's someone I've critiqued quite a lot in the past because of his defensive limitations. but I've kind of challenged myself about that

and it's like, you know, positionally, he's not bad. I think he knows where to be. It's the conditioning factor. Sometimes he's not there in time. He's an elite rebounder. I think defensive rebounding is often overlooked when it comes to assessing defense because essentially getting the defensive rebound

is putting a period on the end of a sentence. If you have poor rebounding, it's going to hurt your defense and Yokic is an elite rebounder. A lot more commas. It wouldn't work. You know, and that's made me wonder is, are his defensive limitations overrated charts or is the type of thing

where he does need to solve that for the Nuggets to elevate their play? See, I think it's like we were saying it's not him solving it. It's like the Nuggets solving it for him. Like if you had, remember when Dirk won a championship, he had Tyson Chandler on one side of him and then he had Sean Marion the other.

So those are two of the best defensive players in the league. If they have two guys like that next to Dirk. Isn't it kind of on him a little bit though? I mean, Dirk at least got in the best, quote unquote, best shape of his. life. He is a different era as well when you're playing two bigs. I mean, we've talked about small

ball a ton. There's going to be situations where Yokic is going to have to be the guy who anchors the defense. I think. See, I'm not even sure. I wonder if you could hide them like a two, like you're playing the Rockets and you can put Yokch on P.J. Tucker. I don't know. I think that might be able to work. Maybe that is a solution. Maybe it is putting him on PJ Tucker. But the way defense switches and the way they just seek out mismatches. I think Yokic, look, he's younger now than Marcus Sol was when he entered the NBA and Marcosol became an all defensive center he won one defensive player of the year.

But then the question really though is can Marcusol do that now with how you're saying Kevin with the league? You're right. But that's still work anymore, I don't know. And it's something that Mike Malone had mentioned in Charks's piece. Everyone's switching everything. Can we get Nicola to the point

where he's comfortable doing that? Or do we have to cover for him? I mean, Millsap also said something similar. He was just like, he knows where to go. He just needs to get there. I don't know if he gets. there. I think he can over time. He's only 23 years old right now. I mean, we just talked about DeAndre Aitin and his opening night defensive mistakes. Yolkich is still only 23. Like what he is

at 26, 27, physically with his conditioning, with his body, with his understanding of defense, with his communication, it's going to be far ahead of where he is now. But guys, can you guys imagine a yoked Yokic? Like, what does he mean? I feel like his body couldn't, would reject that. Like, you know, with those superhero movies? Like, the muscle just fall off his body. Like, with the transplant, like, no, we can't do this. No, we're not doing this life.

I'll tell you what about a yoked yokech, Danny. That's the one, he was a guy I really liked a lot in the 2014 draft, but I was afraid to put him higher than, like, 26, whatever I had him, I forget. I was afraid to put him higher because the conditioning was a problem then. And now, I don't know if it's an issue necessarily, but it's still the body fat needs to come down. Yeah. Well, I remember Danny asked me, he was like, does he look in better shape?

I was like, I guess. I mean, he's kind of like to say. I've watched him yesterday. He kind of looks exactly the same. And you know what? It might not batter because he played nearly 33 minutes per game last year. And he was killing it, killing it at the end of the season. Fatigue didn't seem to be an issue for him on offense.

Defense, it might just be a matter of skill. Yeah. Moving on. Let's throw a quick outlet next week. That's the name of our new segment called The Outlet Pass, where we're going to just focus on the games ahead on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to get you excited for the weekend. tonight we have a big, big matchup between, in my opinion, the two best teams in the Eastern

Conference, the Boston Celtics and the Toronto Raptors. This is a good one. This is exciting. This could be an Eastern Conference finals preview. Both teams won their debut. Kawhi Leonard, 9 of 22 from the floor. He was good. It doesn't look quite nearly where he was before with San Antonio.

He'll get there. Boston, Carrie Irving, struggled. Gordon Hayward, same as Kyle Kauai was not quite there yet. But both teams, I think, did show that they. are the cream of the crop and east of commerce, Danny. I mean, it's specifically about each team's depth. You're looking at the Celtics who, we were talking about this, me and Charks, on opening night, we were like, oh, Marcus Morris has 16 and 10,

and he might be their eighth, ninth best player. Yeah. I remember Charks asked, where would Marcus Morris rank on Philadelphia's roster? And it's maybe like fourth or fifth best player. Yeah. He'd probably be closing games. Boston's depth, I mean, there's some conversation this week on Twitter and on various podcasts about do the Celtics have a superstar?

I think the answer is yes, Kyrie Irving. I also feel Kyrie Irving since this time in Cleveland has been one of the more underrated players in the league. Like when you look at the top 100 rankings, he seems to be in the 20s. We've been heard a lot. Heard a lot. I mean, if you're factoring a health. People don't seem to factor in health when it comes to Jimmy Butler playing 60 games a year. Joel and Bede.

Or Joel and Beat either, for that matter, always in the top 10. But with Kyrie, I do think they do have that superstar on their team. But like you said, Danny, from the top, It's their depth that makes them potentially a mid-to-high 60s-win team this season. They can play so many different ways. They open the second half with Aaron Baines at center over Gordon Hayward. They can play with two bigs against big teams. They can space you out with Horford at the 5 playing small ball.

They can play jumbo, pulling Kyrie off the floor and still have multiple ball handlers and playmakers. I can't recall a team that's had this adaptability and versatility that these Celtics do. And I think that's kind of why the matchup against the Raptors is so interesting because they also have those types of players. And, you know, one lineup that Nick Nurse has been playing in the preseason and he played a little bit of it in the Cleveland game as well was Kyle Lowry, Danny Green, Kauai Leonard, OG, and Ibaka. And so you basically have a defense-first lineup that also has a bunch of floor spacing. You could also replace- Five-three-point shooters. Yeah, pretty much. and I am dying to see how that team matches up

with the Celtics quote unquote lineup of death. I mean, I'm thinking about it. I feel like this is kind of obvious, but Boston and Toronto, in terms of teams who can really defend and really shoot threes, they're probably one and two in the league right now, right? Like in terms of both sides of the ball.

They are two of the five best teams in the league. Maybe two of the best four? How about two of the best three? I mean, I feel like, like Golden State has spacing issues. Houston might have some defensive issues right now. Boston and Toronto, they just have no real weaknesses, I feel like, with their lineups. It's a little odd with, you know, the Western Conference has obviously stacked. There's 10 or 11, maybe even 12 teams that could deserve or push for a playoff spot.

And the East is weak. You know, that battle for the 6, 7, 8 spot. I mean, come on. Like, I don't want to deal with that when there's some interesting teams in the West. I have Hornets takes. It would be fun. Oh, man. Some Pistons takes, too.

But the top of the Eastern Carpenter. though. Starting tonight, it will be fascinating to see how these teams match up. Okay, Kev, I got a question

for you, actually. I'm thinking about, like, if I'm Jalen Brown, and I'm up for an extension next summer, I'm thinking if I'm him

right now, like, I don't want to be a 3-&D guy. Like, I'm not going to let Hagar just take my spot that easily. Like, if I'm him, like, can I shoot 14,

15 times a game? Will I be comfortable taking only 10? I wonder about that with Boston, really, stuff like that. Jaylon Brown, I believe he said at me today or sometime during

preseason, he mentioned how you know, those weaknesses that people knocked him for pre-draft, ball handling, decision-making, shooting ability, he's like, nobody's going to question me about that anymore. We'll see about that. I mean, he's thinking max money, I'm sure.

Like, he does not try to be a role player. He has to be, right? And if you're another team and you're looking at a restricted free agent, you want to make it difficult for the Boston Celtics to make a choice matching that. You want them to have to sacrifice something else to match gentlemen. That's down the line, of course. As for this season, Charks,

I don't think it's going to be an issue. I really don't. I think Gordon Hayward, this team seems to have a lot of unselfish guys who are willing to accept their roles for the greater good. It's just about the guys that they brought into the team. And maybe that'll change over the course of the year if Jalen Brown suddenly starts getting eight shots a game or Hayward starts getting seven shots a game. Or Roseir, who is somebody who didn't sign his rookie extension because of his hope. And I think maybe there's a chance he could get it. His hope to get the high teens maybe in $20 million next year on the open market as a restricted free agent. could come up over the course of the year, but I think if this team continues winning, look, they beat Philly by nearly 20 points with Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward both struggling. This team is going to be even better by the end of the season than it is now assuming good health. It's scary. Yeah, it's more about the psychology of it, because the basketball stuff will be taken care of quickly. It's all about the chemistry and everything else.

Chargues, he said you had some Celtics takes. I want to hear those. That was my take was like, if I'm Jalen Brown, I'm like, this is my team. This is me and Jason Tatum's team. These veterans, they're nice. We went to the ECF game 7 last year. We're not taking a step back. We're going forward.

They're not going to move back. It doesn't sound like the Celtics would want to add you to the roster trucks if they gave you a psychological assessment test. It's interesting. I think Horford is ultimately going to be the guy who sacrifices a lot of shots this year. You're only in seven or not. He's going to average under 10 shots a game, I think. Yeah, but I mean, I feel like he takes a lot of pride in knowing that everyone around the league

knows him as the Embeddead stopper. For sure. So I think he's fine with that. One thing about the Sixers, this team doesn't seem that much different from last year for anything. They might seem a little bit worse. Losing Marco Bellanelli and Erse

on Ilya Silva doesn't seem significant when you say it out loud, but watching the team, those guys can be lost the way they space to fill for them in the stretch. We've got to see their replacements, right? They're counting on Chandler and Muscala, which maybe is not exciting either. Look, I'm high on both of those guys.

And Landry Shamit, interesting, rookie. We'll see how he pans out. But ultimately, this team still is flawed. Joel Embed still needs to improve some of the sloppy turnovers. His shooting has not gotten better. Ben Simmons still shoots with the wrong hand.

Markle Fultz. Who knows? This team, they're really good. They're the third or fourth best team in the Eastern Conference, but they're not quite on the level of Boston, for sure, and they're not on the level of Toronto, either, if Kauai stays healthy.

Keep beating that Simmons drum, brother. The team that... I'm going to beat that drum until he switches hands. Someone needs to get to Ben. You need you get to Ben. I'll try. I will try.

It's really ultimately, Danny, I just want Ben Simmons to reach his potential. Kevin, would you ask Ben that question next time he's in L.A.? Like, will you ask him that after a game? It depends on the context. Ultimately, I mean, here's, no, no, no, Twitter fingers. No, here's a serious response. Why put him on the spot like that? Okay, here's what you do.

Our own Brian Curtis had a beautiful, beautiful piece about sidling. You just got a siddle, Ben over to the side. But I'm not going, I wouldn't ask him at a post-game press conference. Oh, of course that. With cameras in his face, that's something I would never do.

But hit him with the sidle, KOC. I'll go with the sidle. That's a great article with Brian Curtis, by the way. It was. Ultimately, the team that could end up the third and fourth best in the Eastern Conference are the Indiana Pacers and the Milwaukee Bucks. They also play tonight.

I did not watch the opening night game because I was doing other stuff for the Milwaukee Bucks, but on paper, it does seem that they continued their preseason trend by playing faster. shooting a lot more threes. Yana's continued to look like a legitimate top MVP candidate.

Danny, you have some pace research. Yeah, it's just, we see this every year. It's a point of emphasis for almost every team. Oh, we want to run faster. We want to run faster. But the thing about analyzing these types of trends is not so much looking at, you know, who's playing the fastest.

It's not really about the front runners, but it's about how the middle starts to kind of swallow the lower end. All of the slowest teams are no longer there. So we're looking at, let's say, last year the fastest pace over the course of the season was the Pelicans. They played at around 102 possessions per 48 minutes per game. If you look at the first slate of games over the first three days of this NBA season, we had 16 teams operate in games with at least 102 possessions.

So that's more than half the league. last year, if we looked at the same thing, 102, only 10 teams did that. So that's a third of the league. So the entire league is really pushing faster. It's not necessarily just the top teams or the bottom teams. It's the entire league is getting a lot faster. Well, to be sure, opening night, it's very exciting.

We'll see like in mid-December, right? Right, yeah. It's like a back-to-back or whatever. I do wonder how much the speed is maintained by these teams. Because it seems, you know, it won't. It won't. Teams will slow down, but. it's not just three-point shooting rate that is on the rise.

It's also pace across the league. In the past, there's been significant jumps from one year to the next with three-point rate. I believe it was maybe two years ago. It jumped from, I think, 28% of shots taken up to 31% were three-pointers. Maybe this is the year where that happens with pace, with some teams like the Milwaukee Bucks that go from playing really slow to really fast or the Pelicans ratcheting it up even to another level than they had in the past. perhaps we will see a jump like that with essentially the league average for pace.

And it's obviously really helped Myonis and Bud and everyone here in the bucks. I don't think I've seen anyone have more fun playing on their new team than Brooke Lopez. Is she a stepback three here? That was so fantastic. It was incredible.

Dude is taking a crossover, step back three right in Cody's other space. There was one shot where he... It was the slowest stepback three I ever seen. The slowest. I would call it. I would call it a dino step. It was just...

That's fantastic. I like that a lot. He was literally catching the ball 31 feet away from the basket and just poising it, man. It was amazing. That's the new reality. That's the new reality for the bucks. And then they also had Dante DiVenzo chuck in threes, too.

That was great. He was playing crunch time minutes. Obviously, Anthony Davis on opening, his opening night was just flat out standing. But Janice ended Akupo had eight turnovers, but he also had 25 points, 18 rebounds, eight assists. Is this the year where Janus goes from a, obviously a superstar player, but a mega star player within Mike Boodenholzer's system? And if so, how do the changes really elevate his play? I think the biggest thing, it's just like Janus in space.

Like, they're playing so many shooters now. Like, everyone in their rotation can shoot threes. I'm looking at the rotation right now. The only guy who can't shoot threes is John Henson. And he's not going to play much this year. And they put him in the corner sometimes too. Yeah, they're just like having him out there anyways. It was pretty funny having him spotting up in the corner.

watching the game, it was really amazing because when you play five out, it's kind of hard for defense to know when to, like, where to set up, really. And so there were times when, like, Janus would come up the floor and obviously all the attention would be drawn to him. But then with everyone spaced out,

they'd have, you know, these flare screens run, and then all of a sudden, Dante DiVinchenza would be wide open for a three. All Janus had to do was, oh, look over there, throw the ball to him, and it was an instant three. They hit like 50% of their threes, And they attempted almost 40. It was amazing.

One other name to keep in mind, it's a deep cut for y'all, Christian Wood. So this is a guy from UNLV. They brought him in on like a non-guaranteed contract. And he's playing opening night. He's like 6-11.

He can shoot threes. He might have taken Thonmaker's spot. This is a guy that might play a lot by the season goes on. Helps space the floor. Wood is interesting. They went on drafted. Very athletic.

He was a guy that had some first round talent, just didn't have the game. To be worthy of drafted at all. He went on drafted two. years ago. It's interesting. He's stuck around. He's certainly interesting. I do wonder what will happen between the minutes for him and Thon Maker. Ultimately, when it comes to the playoffs from the short and rotation, neither of those guys may play at all. We've seen Thon really saved their butts two straight years in the playoffs just for being able to shoot threes. And that just shows how important

having a five-man who can space the floor is. For sure. I mean, that's the weird thing about this new look box roster adding Iliasova and Brooke Lopez. Last year, we've talked about this before. The only way the Bucks could space the floor out for Janus was putting Janus at the five or having Thorn Maker at the five and Janus at the four. But now they can play really big and still have space because of Lopez and Iliosovo. I mean, you could put Janus at the three if you want to. And Janus is still technically the five. He's still the only one really going down into the paint.

He's a roaming center. He got Miles Bridges so bad a couple times. My boy, Miles. Welcome to the NBA. Janus put him on his butt, put him under them and just dunked on him. Yeah, here's a prediction. I mean, the bucks are going to take the most corner threes in the league this year. With Yannis driving and kicking.

There's always going to be openings on the corners. He just has to find them. I mean, Yannis had eight assists and eight turnovers, a career high. There's going to be nights where he turns the ball over a lot. That's okay. You can live with that. Yeah, when the pace is up, there are more possessions. So I don't think it matters.

James Harden turns the ball over a lot. Ultimately, Yannis is going to be a guy who is going to put up LeBron-esque numbers this year because there's going to be more playmaker. opportunities, whether it's him as a ball handler in the high pick and roll or Eric Bledsoe or one of their other guards running pick and roll with Yannis, screening, getting the ball on the short role, Draymond Green style. And then when he's in a position against a defense that is like, oh, dang, do I help off Brooke Lopez in the corner and help on Yannis, who's like a 70% finisher around the

rim? Or do I stay home because Brooke Lopez is shooting 40% from the corner? Impossible. It's really tough. Impossible. Yeah. And it's funny you mentioned Hardin. Janice had 12 free throws last night.

That's what I noticed. It was like, if Yannis wants to get to the line, it's not hard for me to the line. He's going to get contact so easily. And then with Indiana, just a touch on them briefly, Charks,

you mentioned when we were prepping for the show that Sabonis and Miles Turner will probably not be playing a lot of minutes together this season. Yeah, it's interesting because they just gave Miles a lot of money, but Sabonis is a really good player too and they wanted to play them together.

I think that's maybe one of the storylines for the Pacers to track going forward because Sabonis can really play. Both those guys are high-level prospects. Sabonis had 14. 15 rebounds on 7-11 shooting from the floor. Off the bench. Off the bench.

That dude can ball. Both Miles Turner and DeMontas Sabonis. Maybe you're not going to play those guys together a lot because of the way, you know, floor spacing. Maybe you want to play with Thaddeus Young alongside Miles Turner and Sabonis instead of having them both together. But ultimately, it's nice choice to have. Right. To have both of those young bigs who can really, I think, make a positive impact on both ends of the floor. I mean, yeah, you had both of them on your break.

out players list, I believe, a post that you'd published about a month ago. What I'm interested to see is if Miles Turner can actually hit this three ball. Like, he's been advertising it on some select videos, doing some hesitation pull-ups, and it looks smooth. His shot has always looked smooth ever since high school. It's all about volume at this point. You saw him at Texas Charks. I'm a little surprised they don't have those guys shooting three frequently already. I mean, you know, Nate McMillan, he loves that, you know, 20-footer.

Got to get those shots. That's, that frustrates me. It really does. I mean, we saw, we're seeing some of these big men who never shot threes in the past, suddenly shooting threes, sort of a ton in the preseason. Whether it's Andre Drummond, of all people, jacking up 11 threes and preseason. Julius Randall took four. Yes, Julius Randall, exactly.

Like a lot of bigs across the league are shooting threes. I don't think it's unreasonable for Miles Turner and Subonis to step out and shoot threes. I don't. Also, shout out to Miles, you know, playing for a new contract, went to work out this summer. That was a good move on his part. That yoga man made him about $20 million. He was like, I'm doing yoga, give me a new contract.

I'm taking it seriously now. You know, I just looked at this. The only big who took a three for the Pacers was Thaddeus Young, and he only took one. Come on, Navy McMillan, let's do this. Well, that's all we have time for today. That was enjoyable. Danny, Charks. Thank you guys.

It's great to be back. I'm excited for a new season. It's fun stuff. Please give the Ringer NBA show a five-star. rating on iTunes. Five stars, please. It'll make all of us very happy. And also please follow

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