The Ringer NBA Show - Durant Is Staying in Brooklyn … for Now. Plus, Things We Think We Know About the 2022-23 Season.

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

Justin Verrier and J. Kyle Mann start by discussing how good the Nets can be now that Kevin Durant is staying in Brooklyn (3:17). Then, they talk about a few things they think they know heading into the 2022-23 season (26:58). Hosts: Justin Verrier and J. Kyle Mann Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mac Jones is ripped. Matt Patricia's calling plays. The Celtics are title favorites. And The Ringer has a new Boston show. I'm Brian Barrett, host of Off the Pike, the show covering all things Boston sports. I'll have shows multiple times a week covering your favorite teams and with your favorite ringer and local guests.

Plus, maybe Bill will stop by to rant about the socks. Follow off the pike with me, Brian Barrett, now on Spotify. Hello and welcome to this summer edition of the Ringer NBA show. I am Justin Verrier. and joining me, a man of literally many hats. It is Jay Kyle Mann. What is up, buddy? By necessity, right?

I mean, I always say I've just got this big panel on top of my head that I just want to keep protected from the sun, JV. that's the thing. But, yeah, I'm wearing one of my minor league hats today. You immediately pounced on it and made some joke about, I forget what you even said. Honky-Tonk. Right. Yeah, you're in the South, right? It's got sort of a De La Smuerreta's kind of vibe thing going.

Megan, I always joke that maybe people accuse me of liking the movie Coco, the Pixar film, which I would not shy away from that at all. But anyway, yeah, a lot of hats trying to kick back and relax a little bit, you know, rest up for the onslaught that's coming. It's our first real break in a while, really, right? I mean, with the past few seasons, the way they've unfolded. I know. I kind of don't know what to do with myself. Like, there's so much free time. It's kind of like, you know, when a defensive lineman in football has to be a linebacker all of a sudden in the NFL,

and they're like, oh, he has to learn how to play in space. I'm like learning how to take a step back and like enjoy free time. I managed. I took three weeks off. So I'm pretty new back into the swing of things. So I'm still catching up a little bit. But I played basketball for the first time in maybe three years. And let me tell you, my ligaments.

There are some that I didn't know existed, but all of them are sore. Did you stretch where you getting limber before? I mean, I don't know what you. We've never really talked about your playing regimen because once you get past, a certain point. I always tell people that like, it's not like you can't play anymore in your 30s. It's just like your body becomes more like a classic car

where if you haven't driven in a while if you just take it out on the road suddenly, like without letting the car idle for a little bit. A belt might snap. You know, something might, something bad. So you got to kind of ease into it. I don't know. I'm curious to see JV's game though. I've never gotten a glimpse

of it. I think the problem was I moved laterally for the first time in a very long time. And I did all the stretching, you know, I did all the pregame stuff, but I was limber, I thought. Yeah, no, it's just like the side of my knee. Like, just it's really hurting. I was icy last night. And this was like a week ago. So I'm going to be on the DL, hopefully not when the season starts, but for a couple more weeks. The DNP list. My first post-COVID pickup game after having sat for a year, I tried to move laterally. My body goes, no, no you're not yeah there's they're just little areas anyway let's talk about the NBA people want to

hear about how washed we are but yeah well good thing was even after the three week break uh it turns out Kevin Durant still with the Brooklyn Nets so I so I missed some things involving the saga but I guess in the big picture I didn't miss much at all later in we'll we'll kind of preview a little bit more of the season to come we're going to get into things we think we know about the 22 23 season but first we should talk about our friend Kevin who it turns Turns out is staying with the Brooklyn Nets. If you listen to this podcast, you probably know all the beats at this point. But he and all of the principles in Brooklyn are, in quotes, moving forward with their partnership.

They've released something earlier this week with both a Nets logo and a boardroom logo to suggest that. Why don't we start here? Kyle, do you believe that this resolution will hold? This purported resolution will hold? And if not, when do you think we'll start to see the cracks? Is it as soon as training camp? Is it the trade deadline? Do they make it a full season with this?

You know, when you start to think about the season ramping up and these parties who, one of the part is Steve Nash, we haven't really heard much from at all. But Katie comes out and publicly says him or me, which is pretty, when you think about who Steve Nash is in terms of his temperament, I'm sure that was an interesting situation for him to be in. But you start imagining what the chemistry or what the dynamic is going to be like in that locker room this fall. You imagine misery. You imagine not wanting to go in.

You imagine the culture just being a little bit malignant, I don't know, for lack of a better word. But then you start to imagine what Katie's just been like lately. So is this really a stark whiplash in a negative direction? Or is this just a shade of what has been a similar kind of? a situation recently for him. I mean, when I'm looking at this, it was obvious that Brooklyn was going to be in a tough leverage spot. When the announcement first came out, everybody went, hey, wire, you know, that's kind of

been the running joke in the wake of this is like, no, it didn't ultimately happen, but we all talked about it nonstop and we got some content out of it. But I think that we kind of forecasted, I remember the first day that we did like a Spotify live and it was just like a host of ringer people were on there. were just kind of running through team by team what the options were for Brooklyn. Like, you know, Bobby Marks came out notoriously now and said that it was going to be the biggest superstar hall ever. Well, you know, when you started to kind of look at what teams could offer, even the, even the ones that were like super notable like Phoenix, I kind of went in and was looking at it.

And I was just like, this just doesn't, they weren't going to get a dollar. You know, they weren't going to even get close. And I just didn't really, I felt like it was kind of clear. And plenty of people get credit for noticing this early. I feel like I heard it from people. I think it was kind of clear that this was the direction that it was going to end up going based on what was out there in the end. Yeah, the Phoenix example is a pretty good one, right? Because initially you heard like, oh, D'Andre Eton plus McHale Bridges plus Picks probably isn't enough.

And then Devin Booker signed an extension, which took him off the table, right? And then DeAndre Aiton signed an extension, which took him off the table. And so Phoenix was the only team that made some sense because the Nets purportedly were asking for multiple young all-stars. So you're looking around the league. You're like, well, who even has that first and foremost? And who even has more on top of that to have something when Kevin Durant comes to play with that team in order to compete for a title? And so you're like, what? 10 teams, tops?

And then you throw in the whole idea that like you can't trade for a designated rookie max extension guy because Ben Simmons is on the roster. You don't really want to trade Ben Simmons at probably the lowest value of his career. And so, like, who even is there to trade with? And the Nets, because Kevin Durant signed a four-year extension last summer, like, they had no motivation to trade him for not even a dollar, but for $10. And so it did seem like this kind of just reached an inevitable conclusion where there just wasn't anybody, like, who had what the Nets needed to make this work. and I would guess the specific verbiage they use moving forward with our partnership,

which is an ringing endorsement of the love that is going around for people that Kevin Durant reportedly asked to be fired. You have to imagine, like maybe they're just hoping playing again, ups Kevin Durant's value. Maybe that like dispels some like chemistry concerns that certain teams have about giving up young players for a guy who has been pretty angsty for multiple years. back to the Golden State Warriors, maybe even back to the Oklahoma City Thunder. And like maybe a team just gets desperate. Maybe an injury happens and maybe that's what they're hoping for.

But this does feel like a stopgap solution, not a long-term solution. Yeah. And you kind of think maybe we get into the season like you were saying, somebody gets desperate. It could be a leverage reset for Brooklyn once they get into the year and play a little bit. And a team gets a look at their hand and realize, because it's tougher to make these deals in the summer because they're more hypothetical and when you roll the ball out there and actually play real things bubble to the

surface and that could motivate teams to think in an entirely different way and um i mean i mean i was amused at the idea of um that somebody posed of that this was like a galaxy brain long play long con for brooklyn to get every team in the league to reveal who they just so dissent within all these teams. But I would assume most young players on the earth if you ask them, like, do you think that you, like, if someone wanted Kevin Durant, he garners a lot of respect throughout the league, but it could be, it could be just be like a leverage reset for them, you know? Yeah, I think the tipping point was probably the report that came out just before this press release or whatever it was from the Nets, where it was like the Grizzlies are interested, but they're not going to give rid of

John Morant or Desmond Bain or Jaron Jackson Jr. So it's like, like, oh, so Stephen Adams and, you know, one of those, those, like, really rotund players that they seem to have in abundance who shoot threes, like, and I guess a bunch of picks. But yeah, I wonder if you go into the season, some of those backup guys, like, show some stuff. And it's like, oh, actually, we have the depth that shooting card that we didn't expect. Maybe Desmond Bain is now a trade chip. And I could see that, like, making more sense for a team like the Nets. Yeah. Memphis really offered them sort of a charcutory. board with like bologna and like you know it was sort of it was like hey this is pretty good right it's

always it was fun to watch teams roll out what they thought was an attractive thing they're like no it's you know i want some patte and some some some some some nice smoked meats this this baloney charcutory thing isn't going to work can i always get some monster in here yeah yeah uh so i guess the question now is if the nets do go forward and let's just assume the vibes are good enough because I don't think they could ever be good. We saw last year, even when KD and Karee were on the same page, it wasn't great. And that's actually like a lingering question I have amongst the million is like, what is KD's and Karee's relationship?

But anyway, let's just assume that things are fine. So you have KD, you have Karee, you have ostensibly Ben Simmons, and a lot of the principles from last season, how good do we think this Nets team can be? Are we talking title contention or are you not ready to put them in that level or just yet? I think defensively, I feel like we saw a really high bar set by the two teams in the finals. And I think whenever we talk about, like, oh, could a team win a title? I think we can overcomplicate it when it's really simple. When you look at what the standard is, that's what you've got to be better than.

And can this team guard to that level? You're going to be competing with, like, other teams, like the landscape as far as like continuity among the teams that are going to be there. I don't, I wouldn't put them on that level. I mean, as Simmons, at his high point, we've seen him be one of the most versatile defenders on the planet. We've seen him guard big playmakers. We've seen when he's motivated and able to do it. We've seen him be like a great like open space free safety type of player. Will he continue to do that?

Can this team guard the ball? I'm not totally sure about that. Offensively, I mean, they seem like a team that could really force you to play their style, stylistically, offensively. Like when you think about like Kyrie, Curry, KKD, Simmons, and Claxton on the floor together. That's a really interesting offensive team in terms of like those two guys as cutters with the shooters and scores of like KD, Curry, Kyrie. That seems pretty interesting to me.

I feel like this team is my siren song. You know, like all the indications are I shouldn't gravitate toward them or actually believe in them. But it's really hard to look at that offensive firepower on paper and be like, this team is going to be anything short of a title contender, right? And if anything, like, well, I have two reasons for that. One, it's hard to believe they're going to be worse, not knowing what the chemistry will be,

not knowing what the injury concerns are with Ben Simmons. The team that got obliterated, well, not even obliterated by the Celtics, but lost and swept by the Celtics, but did give them a firm shove in that first round series. That seems going to be better. Like, Joe Harris will play again, Ben Simmons will play some.

And if anything, which brings me to my second point, they have more assets and an abundance of shooters with Seth Curry in there with Joe Harris and Patty Mills that they could trade their way to the piece they're missing. I'm not sure that, like, Royce O'Neill necessarily solves their defense. He definitely didn't do that in Utah when they desperately needed some perimeter defense. And so I'm actually still trying to figure out that trade. But, you know, maybe he'll help in ways that, like, we definitely. didn't see last season. But, like, they still have options here. And so if everyone is engaged,

you're looking at a closing lineup of Ben Simmons, Katie, Kyrie, let's just throw Patty Mills in there. And then maybe someone even better, you know? And so I look at that. I'm like, it's hard to say that they're not at the very least at a starting point on the level of a Boston Celtics. Personally. Yeah. And you go, well, you got a one or two, this simple question, is Boston going to be better this coming year, or at least where they were. And you're going to hypothetically, very hypothetically here, I know whenever we talk about Brooklyn, that's kind of, that's the modus operandi is the hypotheticalness of it all. Simmons is in there as an able body big in ways that Griffin couldn't help them in the ways that like Lamarcus Alders couldn't help them,

Paul Millsap couldn't help. It was just like they needed, this is a guy who he really, how much of it do you think swings on Simmons? I mean, offensively. and defensively. Probably a lot. Because as you're saying, like, they do need some semblance of a defense.

As we saw in the playoffs and toward the back into the season when Kyrie even started to play, it was like they were really trying to outscore everyone there. And like a healthy Simmons probably gets them there,

but I think you're also counting on them to be able to impose their style on teams like you were suggesting. Like I think like stylistically a Celtics Nets matchup would be fascinating. And I almost wonder if the net.

nets have enough, they could almost force a lot of those bigs for the Celtics off the court in the same way the Warriors had some success doing that. I just don't know if they have enough size and maybe enough depth when it comes to their size. And I wonder if that's like the one thing that they still need, if not just an appreciable upgrade on the wing. Well, I have some good news for you. A report came out that the nets are targeting Tristan Thompson. So I think you're alleviated. I mean, Anthony, do you feel relief hearing that news? Does he bring all of his children with him and the circuits that comes with that children?

We'll look into that. We'll get a report on that. Because he's had a particularly busy off season. I'll say, no, go ahead. Bizet, yeah. I would say, I mean, it sends your mind kind of wondering, you know, you and I were texting about, that's one of my favorite things on pods is when we talk about, we're texting. We were texting. It's just like, you know, anyway, it's such a great quirk that

shows up on so many podcasts that I, that I listen to. Did you know that we really prep? Yeah. We, we want to hear about you texting. Thank you. Uh, no, I mean, it does send your mind in the direction of like, what kind of like quality, uh, front court depth could they get, you talked about the assets that they have. They do have some pieces that I don't know would make the House of Carts tumble if they pull them out, you know. We talk about teams that are kind of close or in the middle that like movement shooting like a curry like a joe harris assuming joe harris can ever hit a three in the playoff so if i'm a playoff team i don't know if i'd be going after him but um and those guys have salaries that could match with some of these guys that are in the middle

like offensive like guys that are productive on the offensive glass i posed one to you if the spurs want to get worse what about yacob purdle did you what would your real reaction to that trade proposal. Like if they could move like a Seth Curry and and a desirable pick for a Yacca Pertil, that's just one off the top of my head. Stephen Adams was another one. We saw that he's expendable. But in that situation, he could give them some depth. My reaction was, huh. I don't think of Yacup Pertil is necessarily the final piece of a Nets championship puzzle. He's a good player. I love Yon's a very good player on an expiring contract. It doesn't seem long for that team because as you mentioned that does seem like they want to bottom out. I don't know if it works exactly as a one for

one curry for for perdle even if picks are involved because I think the spurs want to get worse and I wonder if maybe they spin curry off to someone else. Like I wonder if there's a three team trade where it's like the nets get perdle. The spurs get a first from both the nets and the Lakers and then you spin Seth Curry into salary flotsam and and that Lakers pick from the Lakers and then he goes in a visa shooter next to LeBron James. Did you say salary flotsam? Did you say that? What an eloquent guy, really.

That was, you were telling me you're about the art. I just, I like these little like glimmers of the art from Justin Verrier that I get. That was, uh, that was really well done. I think it's more like a sportsism in the same way that people say the national football league instead of the NFL. Like, it's just one of those words that's, that's in the ether. Maybe that one has bypassed me. That, my wife makes fun of me all the time for words I have not heard of.

I don't know. Maybe I'm a sheltered person. But the, but the Lakers. is an interesting one for that. If they could, we're going super hypothetical now. That might segue to us talking about the Lakers later in a way. But I don't know.

It seems like defensively they're going to have to get some more rim protection. I know Claxton is, especially in the east, man. I mean, like there's just a lot of like versatility and size. If you think about the Embed, if you think about just how fucking huge the Milwaukee Bucks can go at times and mobile. That's the standard.

And we saw Boston, quite frankly, physically bully them. I know our buddy Isaiah Blakely is, like, grinning and he's super happy about hearing that. But they did. They went at the Nets and we're just like, you know, we think we're tougher than you. And I think that was really evident. And I think that's what the Nets are going to have to figure out in the short term. Because if you're talking about toughness, you're talking about like backline solidity, I have a hard time gun to my head saying, I believe it's going to happen.

if we're talking about Ben Simmons. Right. And also not playing your key players, 48 minutes a game. That would probably help. So I wonder if, like, depth actually matters just as much. Maybe, like,

a Cam Thomas rising to the fore and being able to, like, be the focal point of the offense for five playoff minutes or two playoff minutes, right? In order to spell. Yeah. So that makes sense. But I also wonder, like, stylistically, like, if we're saying that the small ball lineup might be their best lineup

especially with Simmons in there. Can you even fit a Pertil in there with Simmons? And if not, do you want to spend so much resource-wise with the Seth Curry, who's pretty much the ultimate role player for every star player of the past five years? Do you even want to do that?

And do you want to roll with Pertle, Simmons, KDs, or frontline? And does that take away the strength that you have in the first place? It's an interesting question. Yeah. I mean, you space at 1, 2, 3 pretty distinctly. I think you're going to space,

and you're going to have shot creators. And you think about, I don't know, what offensively are the challenges going to be that much different if you have a non-shooter like an Adams or a platter, or a, you know, a Pertle or a Daniel Gafford was another guy, I wrote down Hassan Whiteside could be had. I just find it interesting. That's an evergreen.

I just find it interesting, too, that like Curry, like you said, is like the ultimate play with a star role player. And yet he seems to move around a lot. It's like, it's like he doesn't, some of it by his own choice, but I don't know. It seems like it could happen. I don't know. The nets are, I'm curious, I know, I'm curious to see how they're, you know, talking about like leverage reset, market reset.

They're going to be a team that, like you said, could offensively look like a juggernaut some nights, but the defensive thing just really, really worries me if I'm them. Yeah. One quick thing, kind of a ripple effect before we pivot to our second section here. but Fred Katz, friend of the podcast, man about town in New York, he had this tweet, and I think it's really interesting. He suggested that teams in the KD Sweet States

could use assets that they would have put in a KD tree and now divert them to a Mitchell Chase. So I wonder if the Mitchell Chase becomes a little bit more competitive now, or we see a little bit more dribbled of news coming out there. And I wonder if there's any team who was mentioned in the fray of this Katie trade fiasco, that you're like, oh, I would love to see them get in the mix for Mitchell now,

or maybe it just suits them the best? Well, when I'm looking at the teams, especially the ones that you listed, Mitchell, I think, is due for a year to make a statement about where his developmental path is headed, because I think so much of like the circumstantial, his environment, that team clearly was just like mired in malaise for like a couple years there. They were just super like unhappy. I think that that has kind of affected the way I feel about him as a player. So I'm kind of trying to check my recency sort of bias there.

But Miami makes a lot of sense for me if I'm thinking about it. He seems like a guy like if you're looking for like a superstar reset, a sort of a sort of like price. of identity spa as a player Miami seems like a great place to go the Raptors I don't know the two-way part of it with him I'm gonna repeat myself here a little bit

so Cavs actually are kind of an interesting team to pair him with like I don't know I'm just thinking about it in the basketball sense literally in the moment thinking about this right now Darius Garland a little bit maybe you could figure in like a sexton sort of element to this if you're trying to move him

because I think that Garland Mitchell makes a little bit more sense because we've seen so much like on-off ball development from him. We've seen him grow as a playmaker, seen him grow as like a dribble pull-up shooter from three. There are things there. I just think he's kind of due sort of in the same way as the same echelon as like an Oladipo type guy who could make, you know, a real star statement this year depending on how it goes for him and where he goes. So this isn't a team in the mix for KD, but I started thinking about the Orlando

Magic because there really aren't a lot of teams out there that need a guard. And maybe this is something that I've just been thinking too hard at and I just need to accept that Mitchell is destined for the New York Knicks. But I don't know,

I'm quietly becoming convinced that a Mitchell, Paulo, Franz Wagner situation might actually be like the dark horse sneaky most interesting destination for Mitchell. What is what does Orlando give up in that scenario, I guess?

Are you thinking they give up? It seems like they don't want a lot in terms of players the Utah Jazz because if you look at what they got from the Timberwolves, it was a lot of just salary flotsam and just picks. And what the rumor to be interested in from the Knicks is a lot of, you know, the Grimes types. Maybe Barrett, maybe not, but also picks. So I wonder if you can get away with a Jalen Suggs or he's in top five picks plus picks. And you just say, you know what?

This is our team. We're going to be really interesting. It might not be great. It's kind of the same idea that Knicks are rolling with. And I know it's probably rushing things a little bit because Paolo hasn't played a single game, but it did look really good in the Summer League in the pro AM circus. So like maybe this is just wish fulfillment. Yeah.

I mean, Palo, he's a guy that we've talked about a ton on like our show. about the younger players with upside high and everything. And obviously in Vegas, he was just kind of the talk of the event. But, I mean, I would feel pretty comfortable, considering where you are as Orlando, I would feel pretty comfortable, like, leaning into building around him because I'm, but I also am a believer. So I think that that's going to work.

The question of, you know, swapping in there, Mitchell, instead of the Fultz, instead of the Fultz, you know, Cole Anthony or Suggs thing. Offensively, I think he would give you a jolt. He would give you some, all three of those guys are playmakers or they can play with the ball in their hands and create and score. I think that'd be a pretty interesting thing. I just don't know what the market is going to be for those three guys that Orlando has,

if you could make that happen. But I was looking at like Orlando does have a lot of picks. I mean, they've got their pick, their first rounder and a pick from Chicago coming up, 2024, 2025, on down the list. They do have a lot of picks where if they were motivated, like you were saying in the short term, to go ahead and try to get ahead of schedule, I would just go ahead and be bad this coming year. I'm always a believer in, like, if you have young guys, just roll it out and be bad. Like maybe you don't, you're not going to have to intentionally be bad.

You're going to be bad. Just roll it out if you have that option. I just think to simplify. I think Mitchell could work on paper with them. if they wanted to make that deal work. It's a year too early, probably. Probably. I'm over.

Why would you rush? What's the rush? What's the rush in if you're, if you're Orlando? Like, I just roll it out, let Paolo, let him cook. Throw some pain on the canvas. I don't know. It's just like, it seems like they have all the pieces, you know? Like, they don't actually need another top five pick.

And maybe I'm just projecting because I don't know how good Paulo will actually be. But if he's pretty good, like, I think they're farther along maybe than, they were at any point in the past decade. I think that's where I'm at. Since I'm already overthinking everything, let's pivot to our next section here. So this is, we're calling things we think we know about next season. Basically, as we mentioned up top, we've had about a month off.

And I find myself just staring at the standings or just like recent news dribbles and like really extrapolating and maybe second guessing conventional wisdom that's welled up over the past couple of weeks. And the big one for me has been the Los Angeles Lakers, who have been marked for tragedy yet again for the most part, at least until they figure out what to do with Russell Westbrook. But the more I think about it, I'm finding it harder and harder to see the Lakers be bad,

outright awful in the way that they were last season yet again. And part of that is just a blind faith in LeBron James, which has worked out for, most of the past two decades. But, you know, he's going to be injured more. And at the very least, they need to plug that hole. It's a blind faith in Anthony Davis, which I want to, I want to hold that for a second because I think both of us want to talk about that in depth. But more than that, like, I almost wonder if LeBron's extension is a signal that the help that they need is going to come. And maybe it's not Kyrie Irving, though, we'll see. But it's hard for me

to believe that LeBron signed that extension. And there wasn't some sort of handshake agreement that they would be willing to trade their first round picks out into the, I think it's 2027, 2029, which they were pro-clutching for a while, I think, because they were in a similar situation that the calves were in when they were expecting LeBron to leave. Now there really isn't much to worry about. And if anything, they don't have the cap space next summer because of LeBron signed this extension to really overhaul this in the way that they would have. And so I wonder if the next domino to fall is above.

Healed Turner trade, Miles Turner trade, or something. And this team gets really good really quickly. And if anything, if that's all they need, I have more faith that they could turn this around and that they will be pretty competitive next season. What do you think? Talk me off a ledge here. Oh, man. Okay. Yeah. Take a step by step.

I mean, you know how this ebbs and flows. It's like you have a conversation and you're like, wait. maybe, maybe. And then when you circle back, this is definitely one of those circle back. I don't, I just think they're sorely lacking a perimeter creator, whether that person is scoring or playmaking leaning. You know, LeBron, obviously, his genius is that he can sort of morph and between those two roles, depending on the situation. And you talked about like betting on him over the decades. That's why he's so brilliant is that like he's been able to like be contextually sort of what he is no matter what's going on and been and whatever. But you also

mentioned it too. It's that like we're talking about being older. I think the reason that's such a big deal is because you know, you don't want to overburden especially these two player types, AD and LeBron. There's going to be a lot of selling out, I think offensively to stop those guys. And I I think that it's going to be maybe a little easier than it. Not that it's ever easy to stop LeBron, but NBA teams are going to be able to load up on him in a way. I think that it's going to put a lot of pressure on him. I think the big question here is,

is Russ going anywhere. Darwin Ham is kind of known as a player whisperer, is known as somebody, he has a fantastic reputation around the league among players. Is this the guy that could, that could, it's Charlie Brown kicking the football. Every year,

Is this the guy that could get through to him? I don't know. And did they do enough in the off season to get better? Max Christie, the guy they drafted is a long-term option. Austin Reeves is sort of like was a scrappy supplemental piece. Don't you dare. Yeah. I mean, I'm just saying Scotty Pippen Jr. I don't expect that to be a roaring thing.

Thomas Bryan will play for him. But again, that doesn't solve your problems. And it's like Kendrick Nunn, possibly THJ, possibly. Possibly. I'm just seeing sort of a glaring hole of dependability. Lonnie's going to kind of slot into that Malik Monk role. I don't expect that to be wildly different. I'm pretty worried, Justin.

I don't know. I kind of feel a sickly feeling about this. You're looking at the roster currently, and I think that is the tough thing. It's hard to shake that queasy feeling when you're looking there and you're like, oh, yeah, so Kendrick Nunn needs to be the third best offensive player on this team.

Like, does he even exist anymore? Is he in Los Angeles? Is he in this country? No one can tell you. And that is very, very scary. We don't have confirmation. It's funny that they would. It's funny that they would.

Sorry, go ahead, go ahead. Well, I was going to say like, yes, that is a very bad team. Regardless of how healthy Anthony Davis is, regardless of how good LeBron is in age 38. But if it's LeBron, Lonnie Walker, Anthony Davis, Miles Turner and Buddy healed, what do you think now? I well I think that's still an interesting space spatial team I mean like Turner LeBron A.D. is fascinating. I mean if yeah I mean you think about like Minnesota is going to field a similar kind of bruising big team like that and long. Spacially that that makes my basketball brain kind of feel a little like seasick. I don't know that that would necessarily work.

Healed as we know is like a movement player. a movement shooter, possibly? Who are you shipping out to Indiana in that scenario? It would be my question. Well, it's possible. I don't know that that gets you totally there. Defensively, that's going to be a really rugged team. Around the rim, that's going to be a no-fly zone situation, I would think.

And you and I kind of both agree, I think, about AD. It's so funny how, like, how up and down it's been in the past few years with AD where it's like when he's great. I mean, I've been a big defender of his that like when I, when he's at in peak condition when he's healthy, uh, I think he's like arguably the best defensive player in the world. Like I think he's just absolutely dominant. But it's like is the is the car going to be back on the road again anytime soon with AD? Who knows is the unfortunate question.

Uh, but you have to think that people have overcorrected and they're just general perception of Davis. I mean, when they won the title, he was thought of, if not like a top five player, potentially the successor for the crown of the best player in the league. And then I'm like got quickly dispelled because Janus quickly just snuffed that out. But I think if you look at all of his statistics and his indicators and everything in his career, just even just like the raw eye test, this guy was marked for the Hall of Fame years ago. And he's still what, not even 30?

there's still, if he could stay on the floor in a generational talent there. And yeah, the injuries are going to be there. He's probably never going to play 82 games. But like a 60 games of that player is still like a franchise decider. Like the West will be shaped by a player like that. And I have a hard time believing,

considering that he's dealt with injuries on and off in his career and has still been wildly effective. that that player isn't still in there somewhere. You bring up a good point about like, do you really want to saddle him with another big man? Is he better off with like a Damien Jones, like 10 minute starter and then eventually becomes the go-to center? But I don't know, man.

Like, it's just, it's hard for me to believe that he doesn't have another chapter in his career. Yeah, I guess you're kind of zagging back towards what they did. Like we said, it's easy to forget that bubble. year like you were talking about like Kendrick Nunn, are we sure he even is it? Did that even happen? It's like, well, in the in the bubble, I mean, they were doing the like, I count LeBron as like a big body. So I'm just saying like you're, you're rolling out, you know, Dwight Howard. You were playing bigs next to him. I guess in my opinion or when I'm thinking about this, that was, that's my initial worry is like the spacing of it.

But if they're like defensively dominant. But on, on AD, I think that he had one of the worst shooting years. of his life. I mean, 18.6% from three. Not that he's a knockdown three-point shooter anyway, but I mean, it was pretty abysmal.

And I think a lot of his efficient offense took him like just a mega plummet last season because he beefed up, but then he's taking more jump shots in the mid-range. He's at his best when he's covering a ton of territory and like just a three-level, you know, rim deterrent,

basically. If he's healthy, he can be that guy again, I think, but you're right. still young. Yeah, he's only 28, 29 years old. Do you get the shooting stuff? Like, dating back to when he was a pretty efficient mid-range shooter, the shot looked mechanically beautiful based on my layman's perspective. Like, but for some reason, he's one of the few people who hasn't been able to extend

despite all the indicators looking good. And it wasn't just last season. The past couple of years have been pretty bad, not 18.6%. But, like, I just really don't understand. how that never got to the point where he was not only an adequate three-point shooter, but a plus shooter. It's an odd thing when like something passes the aesthetic test and it just doesn't quite work. A really random one was I was watching like Perry Jones the third the other day and I was like watching him shoot the ball and it was like it's one of those things like it should work. Why does this not work?

But I mean, there are million other factors that come into it, you know, balance and touch. And I mean, A.D. shot has always looked good like you were saying because he grew up a guard. He grew up a perimeter player who just became this big guy later in his teenage years. But yeah, the three-point stuff just never really came over the hill. I mean, his career high was like 34% on 2.2 attempts, and that was in New Orleans. At best, he's always been a like broken play. I'll take a three. We've never seen, we've never seen him cross that threshold like you were talking about to plus shooter,

where he's looking for it rightly or wrongly. It's always just kind of been like 80. He can situationally shoot the ball. But at this point in his life, almost 30 years old, it's hard to imagine him. I don't even know if there's precedent for a shooting leap like that, especially from a big guy. Yeah. Well, the one good thing about him is historically, he's at his best after a pretty bad season. He is definitely one of those players that needs to be galvanized in order to reach his full potential.

And you've seen it time and time again. He's actually one of these players low-key who, like an Embedd or some of these other guys, guys who actually takes the challenge on when older guard players like a Charles Barkley calls him out, I think that matters to him, and which is why I always thought LeBron was the perfect compliment to him, not only because he's one of the best players of all time, but also because LeBron is, it takes on all of the leadership roles and we'll get on him in ways, we'll empower him in the way that he needs to be in power because he's not going to do it himself. He's not a self-starter. So I guess I see myself a lot in him.

But I would be surprised. And I also wonder if like the bulking up thing was a response to that. The fact that he got ding so much because of all the dings he had with his body that he bulked up in response to that. I didn't work out as we saw. But like I think he will get up for the challenge whether or not his body can take that or he will have enough space to work with. Are other questions. But I think AD will rise to the challenge is what I'm saying. Yeah, he kind of went to the Mike Bibby CrossFit school, right?

He kind of just like he really looked like he did the Looney Tunes, like air hose in his mouth and just swelled up. I definitely think it was a response. I definitely do. But I think another question, and I'm not going to act like I'm like a biomechanics expert on this at all on any level. But some frames just aren't they need to play at a certain weight. And we talked about like his mobility that's like his superpower. You know, if you think about what guys like Janice and Evan Mobley, he is one of those guys in that tier that can, like, affect an entire offense on his own just by him lurking. I think that, like, his bulking up had an impact there. I mean, you don't, you didn't see really his blocks, like block numbers and like raw numbers like that can be a little bit misleading in terms of, like, how they're actually defending. Embed has been an interesting one to watch over the course of his career on that front. Yeah, it's his body.

Have you seen a photo of AD lately? What do we know about what he's looking like right now? I haven't checked the workout Graham in a while. I imagine there are plenty of shirtless photos of him just like pumping iron and whatnot. And I'm sure he looks great. I'll hop on the Google machine after this and we'll get a look and get a report. Well, all right. I want to pivot to another thing that I've been thinking about just because it's related to this.

I think the Lakers are going to be better than I think maybe we expect. The conventional wisdom is settling on. Not the Vegas line, which is always out of whack for team Michael Lakers. But like, I think people are expecting them to be playoff contention, maybe not even outside of the play in. And you're betting on that hypothetical roster.

That's what you're doing. Just to be absolutely clear, Justin is betting on a hypothetical roster that they don't have. It's a future bet, you know? Right, right, right. I actually think, like, well, I'll stop talking about this in a second, but like those picks are very valuable. That's all I'm saying. Like if we're talking about Seth Curry or maybe even like a boyon Bogdanovich from the jazz, like there are options here if they're willing to get rid of us. Anyway. Yeah. But I also find myself wondering if the West is as deep and is and maybe even top heavy as we think. I think like we are so used to saying, oh, the West it's going to be so challenging. It's such a deep conference, yada, yada. And I think there's.

a lot of evidence to that still. But as I'm looking at it, there's a lot fewer, like, there are fewer sure things than I think I expected at this point. And so I kind of broke them down into tears. I want to run them by you. So am I sure things? It seems that I'm confident will be very good next season. I have the suns and clippers, right?

Very deep teams built for the regular season. We'll see long term. We'll see about Kauai. but like a lot of good players there. It's hard to imagine those teams would just be really bad. The next tier of teams who will be probably pretty good,

but ultimately got worse and we're in the top six of the West last year. Grizzlies no longer have Jaron Jackson Jr. We'll see if they could plug that whole big factor on their defense, which is a big factor in their turnaround last season

or the rise up to second place last season. The Dallas Mavericks got worse, lost Brunson. The Jazz, I don't even know who's on that team half of the time. Doesn't matter. Most of them were playing for the Minnesota Timberholes last year. The Warriors probably will be pretty good yet again, if not, should already be in the short thing category.

But, you know, do they have the same edge that they played with last season, that they wanted to prove that like that threesome could win it again? You're also going to be playing a lot more younger players, which, as we've seen, will make mistakes and lead to losses. So as a regular season team, we'll see. The nugs working back two key players. And then you got a bunch of teams on the rise, wolves, pelicans, Blazers, maybe the Kings. And so I'm just looking at the landscape and I'm saying, if we're expecting the Lakers to get some help, which please dear God, otherwise, that will be dragged relentlessly throughout this season, I don't know. Like, is that a four?

seed? I definitely think they're out of the playing. I'm loving your energy, man. I'm loving it. I'm loving it. A, because I just think, uh, I think you're, you're expertly, uh, doing some shit stirring here. I, I, I, my first question is, I'll just say that. Just to go on record. I believe all this bullshit. Yeah, he's like, uh, anyway. Yeah. My first question for you is like the top tier. I'm really, I'm, I don't know how much if you're like an actual Twitter guy or if you're a guy who makes appearances on Twitter, checks it, tweets your workout kind of thing.

I'm going to be very interested to see how the Warriors community reacts to what you just said. Our guy Ben Cruz, I think, is going to come after you. I don't know. The defending champs, in terms of who they play

or if they're playing their young guys more, maybe to lobby for some kind of potential move, you know, we've talked a lot about like window extending. I don't want to dwell on the Warriors too much. I would absolutely have them on the top tier. I could see a monster year coming from Steph specifically. I could see that happening.

That one is probably the flimsyest one and that I'm just maybe trying to put my foot on or put my weight on a little bit just to push them down. They're probably going to be very good. But, you know, they don't have like the auto porters and all those guys to rely on to fill in the gaps. It's going to be Jonathan Kaminka and Moses Moody. Like those guys actually have to be credible role players. And I just think like regular season wins wise. maybe they aren't, you know, one seed. Maybe they're like a four seed this year. Sure. I mean, yeah, the auto porter loss. I mean, but in terms of like the core key pieces,

he did give them little injections here and there that were important. Ideally, you want to see the young guys make a leap this year, or at least a little one. You know, I'm, I've always, I've always kind of stayed on the skeptical side with Cumminga. I'm not so sure about it. We'll see. I still a lot of kind of have question marks about that. Wiseman, I would, who doesn't have question marks about that. Moody feeling pretty confident about it. Anyway, like I said, not trying to dwell on the Warriors. But the sons, I think, are going to bounce back and be consistently sort of reminding me of like those early teen years, like Clippers teams. It's just like, this is a team that's running it back. They've continuity. Are they going to be able to get over the hump?

They're kind of in that category. They'll be good, depending on how Chris Paul, I assume his aging process is going to, we'll see. And the Clippers, the bounce back year from the Clippers, super deep. They're going to be good. My question also for you is like, did the Mabs really get worse? Do you really think they got that much worse? Are we positive that Brunson got, is going to make them free fall?

Is Dinwiddie in the addition of Christian Wood going to alleviate any of that? Would be my question for you. Yeah, and we don't know what Tim Hardaway still has left if he's going to play, when he's going to play. And there is a world in which him plus Dinwiddie gives them enough of what they had from Brunson to allow Luca to do what he does.

I don't think they're going to be outright bad. But like, you know, Brunson's shoulder to the load a lot when Luca was out, for instance. I don't know if they have that type of player. And so I guess this brings us to a discussion about one Luca Donchitz, who like, do we think he's going to have the world beating season that we have expected pretty much since he was drafted?

You actually had that on your list. Do you want to talk about that now? I think, well, to put a bow, before we go to Luke, I was just going to put a bow on it. Yeah, I think it's pretty deep top to bottom. And one thing that I pointed out to you that I think is going to be interesting is, top heavy, maybe not, but I think that like every tier has consistently has good teams. I think night to night, this is always true in the NBA. Like any team can be any team, but there's a lot of talent.

And I think like the four teams that are most interesting to me are the wolves, pelicans, Blazers, kings. Like, we think that the wolves and the pelicans are, like, ready to pounce into this next tier. Do they continue on that trajectory? And do we see a resurging year from the Blazers? Do we see them, they imported some talent. It seems like they are kind of trying to put together a team that's going to be competent

around Dame in the short term. And then the Kings, too. They've done a really good job this summer, like building a roster that makes sense. Are they going to be able to guard anybody? I don't know. but I think that they're night to night going to be an offensively interesting team. That cluster of teams,

again, before we move on to Luke, I interest me. I don't know if you have a comment on that before we go on. All of them are very interesting. I would expect the wolves to be at the very least, very competitive regular season team.

Sure fire, playing team. We'll see about playoffs. I'm not as sold on the Pelicans, but I want to put a pin in that because I think people are going to come after me if I keep dragging the Pelicans without the support to it. So I see more Blazers than I do see future Grizzlies for them.

Yeah, Blazers will be pretty good. I guess what I'm thinking overall in terms of like sizing up where the Lakers might fall is it seems like there will be a lot of very good teams. And in the tier of a Lakers team with the requisite help that we described, and I'm going to bet on LeBron over some of those other teams. Like maybe I'm underselling the nuggets here. Definitely underselling the Warriors, maybe even the Grizzlies.

But like, you know, Mavs, wolves, pelicans, I'm going to pick the Lakers every time there. I'm going to pick LeBron James every time there. Interesting. I think I could see a world where two or three of those teams are better than Lakers. Moving on to Luca.

Okay. So, yep. We've done this, you know, two or three years in a row where we were like, it seems like it's time. It seems like it's time for Luca to,

to do this. It seems like it's time for him to chase it. We know Charks has always been really insistent that Luca likes awards. So I don't think we should downplay that at all. He's hyper conscious of history. For him to get one this year, I think Derek Rose is our youngest MVP. Wasn't he like 20? He was young. Was he 25 or 24? I'm trying to remember in Derek Rose's MVP season. This seems like, yeah, this seems like a year where he could go for it. And that was something I think that he's going to. I think that this team is going to need him to in the regular season until they figure out some of those questions like you were talking about with the Brunson. You're right, absolutely right. Brunson did carry them during the playoffs and some key moments and kept it alive

for them. I think this is a year where he's always incredible. He's been absolutely incredible. I just think we're going to see like a historic epic going for a year from him. Rose was 23, but it was his age 22 season. That's bonkers. It was his third season in the NBA. Was he actually the MVP that season? That's another discussion. But I,

that's insane. That is, that is a really, really wild, historical thing that I think we can lose sight of. That's unreal. Yeah, it's crazy, man.

Wow, he wasn't even 25. It wasn't his age 25 season when he had the ACL injury. Yeah. Wow. That's also a bummer. Yes.

So, seeing, from Luca. I agree with you. I mean, Luca's going to have one of these years. And I do think all of the bullying he's experienced over the past six months has probably only gotten him. I did

see brief glimpses of Summer Luca at some point over the past two months and he looked more spelt than he used to. And that's always the telltale sign, right? If you don't see him with like a drink in his hand, it's like a water bottle when he's at the pool party in Vegas, it's like

this guy gets it now, you know? Yeah. We've just been waiting on it. We've just been waiting on it. You seem sure about Chad Hongren, though. What was your take on that? Well, I don't know if you noticed that as we were recording, there was some breaking news. So I had written down Chet Holmgren for Rookie of the Year if he plays enough, meaning if he was healthy enough. Because, you know, he's making the run and all of these pro-am leagues has a little bit more dog in him than I expected.

You see the gangly body. You're like, oh, this guy's like, what, is he just going to float around? on the perimeter, yada, yada, yada. But he has an edge to him that I liked. Unfortunately, as we started this podcast and as I'm now seeing, Shams Rania has reported here, Chet Holmgren has a potential torn ligament in his foot. A timetable is being determined based on further evaluations.

I wonder if that's when he hobbled off the court in Seattle when he went to contest LeBron James shot, which was funny because I watched an entire segment of Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharp discussing that thing. And I was like, first of all, why am I doing this? And second of all, why did they do this? But apparently it was pretty significant.

This is brutal. You know, Tyler and I, the other day on the show, we're talking about how, you know, it seems like Victor Wimbunyana has had a lot of kind of nickel and dime injuries like this. This is not when you want to see from this body type.

You know, when you see these skill sets that like, you know, it can take down any NBA player, but like these nagging foot injuries, you don't want to overreact. You know, it is if it's a ligament type thing, I hope not, man, I really do because his mobility is going to be so critical to his effectiveness. And if he, if his mobility is hampered, it's going to be tough, man. It's going to be tough for him to be, you know, what we've talked about him extensively on the site. what his upside is and what my opinion on his upside is. Oh, it's brutal. I mean, what else you say?

I mean, what, I'm sorry. OK, C fans, God. You know what the sad part is? It kind of just validates all of the concerns people had just purely based on seeing him once and seeing his body type and not really understanding the type of player he has. I believe you when you're like, oh, I've done the research and I know all about this guy. And yeah, I have significant concerns of his body because of X, Y, and Z. But, like, he was always going to be derided from this base purely on how he looks. And I wonder if this just confirms that uneducated bias and this is going to dog him throughout his career.

In the same way, like, KD had the whole, like, oh, he doesn't bend for us a lot, yada, but he quickly dispelled that considering how healthy he was until the footstuff started. But also, like, how successfully was. home green didn't have that opportunity first. He's going into this now as a guy who is going to have to dispel that. And that's pretty sad. I don't want to see that happen because you're right. The one thing that's jumped out to me after watching in Summer League and these pro-em things is just like how smoothy was and like moving around the perimeter and like how good is shot looked. I'm like, oh my God, this guy might not be banging down low with Rudy Gobert.

But like he's going to put up 25 a game just because he's going to be taking 10-3s a game. Yeah. And one of the things, like on one end, yes, he can get bullied by bigger players, but one of the things he's demonstrated over and over again is that big guys can't stay in front of him on the perimeter. And a lot of that, you know, if his feet, if he's going to have feet problems, that is a worry because he just draws fouls perpetually on guys, even quick big guys. He is really smooth with the ball, can really handle it. We've seen big guys have delays to the start of their career. You know, we saw Embed have like, but again, I'm not a doctor, but I mean, like, if you're thinking about like the stress fracture type thing about like a weight bearing thing versus like a, like his strength of his ankles, it seems, I don't know, you hope he's not going to have to have like a major surgery or something or like, hopefully it's not like a cataclysmic scenario. I haven't seen the play again. I'm trying to remember somebody stepped on him. But brutal, man, brutal. I wonder how long, you know, that's going to be a big hit on your rookie.

the yearbed, I think. Yeah, that one didn't last long. Luckily, they saved me for myself, the injury gods. But unfortunately for him, yeah, this is a bummer. I was really looking forward to seeing that OKC team play again, which is not something I've said for two, three years. Yeah. Another thing I would add, too, is that he was wearing KD6s,

which I nearly snapped my foot off my body when I wore those. So I would recommend not wearing those, not, they're pretty shoes. but I kind of was on more on the Palo camp because I think the ball's going to be in his hands a lot more. I think his counting stats are going to be higher and I think the opportunity is going to be there. Whereas I think with like OKC,

I don't know necessarily that Chet was going to score enough to get it. Doort. You got to play through Doort. Right. We got to play through Doort. We got to get Doort his touches for sure. Right. So that's a bummer.

Why don't we do one more from your pile? Do you want to do the coaches one? This one is just cockamamie in honor in honor of sharks again. I was just, I'm making a bet. I think more than two coaches are going to be fired this season, mid-season. I think there's some prime candidates. You had some opinions on this. I could see the Nate McMillan thing. I could see that getting changed up. Maybe they go for younger. He's sort of an older school guy. I could see Doc Rivers. You get into the season and maybe

a lot of people thought that they needed to make that move after this past season. Maybe they get into this season and it's like okay buddy like it's time to make a change i could see that happening and then tibodeo i think is another one that that eventually they can make a move on what do you think so the classic recipe for a coach fire in general let alone an in-season coaching firing is lack of success expectations coming into the seasons and no other options and actually i throw another thing in there if the current gm did not hire the current coach and so for that reason i think McMillan makes probably the most sense. Obviously, he was hired by Travis Schenck, the current GM,

but their expectations are going to be very high after making the Dejante Murray trade, trading pretty much every pick that wasn't nailed down in order to take an appreciable leap. And I just don't know if they're going to take as much of a step forward as they think, especially considering like how tough the top of the east is. And so if they're mired around like the six, seven seed by midseason, by the time where McMillan took over a couple years ago, I wonder if like that's the easy eject button. Another guy I throw in here for similar reasons, Chris Finch.

I don't. Finch is great. I think he's done a great job with that team. But new GM in town does have experience with Finch dating back to the Nuggets, but like he didn't hire him. So he does have that get out of jail free card. I wonder if the Timberwolves after the Gobert trade don't start off great. is Finch the easy fall guy there.

I think Minneapolis, they would riot. Really? Oh, yeah. They love Finch up there, man. I think they would throw a fit. He seems like the guy. I don't know.

You're wise, man. I don't know. Tap into the Midwest, yeah. Right. That seems like that'd be a disaster as far as like public approval, but who knows. I don't expect it,

but like the recipe is there. Like the ingredients are there for that to happen. I mean, doc makes a lot of sense too, just like perpetually on the hot seat again mori didn't hire doc there was like rumors of like him trying to trade doc that he like didn't fire him specifically so he can get something of value of him which is like the most darrell moorey thing in history uh i could see that happening too it checks all the boxes yeah who's at the top of your hot seat list the most likely

honestly it's probably doc uh and i would i would probably have mcmillan second honestly um it's hard to know if like the Knicks are like diverging away from Tibbs because it seems like they've been pretty lockstep in terms of like philosophy, but I'm just kind of going by history here and seeing that like it seems like it always kind of plays out this way. The doc just wears people down. Literally the players physically and the front office or tips and I could just, I could see it happening. I say I know like some Knicks fans are really ready for that to happen from conversations I've had on that front. I could see it happening. They trade for Mitchell. I could see that happening. Yeah. Because then the expectations are higher. Right now they're like, oh, we expect to be pretty good again. If they, but they have the season like

they did two seasons ago, like I think they'd be pretty happy with it with Brunson leading the charge. If Mitchell's there, you're like, why aren't we in the title chase? Even though I don't think Mitchell would put them in the top like four or five teams in the east. I think ownership, fans start to have higher expectations of themselves. So then, yeah, again, they agree and start to align a little bit. Totally. And if the defensive identity thing is kind of what you're hanging your hat on, if you're not even really doing that anymore, that requires buying and patience and like cultural enthusiasm and stuff like that. If you lose that, what are we even doing? I think it's time to pivot to something else. You bring in new players. You bring in Brunson and Mitchell potentially.

Maybe it is time to have like a stylistic change and kind of go away from that. Yeah. All right. Let's wrap it there. Thank you to Kyle for joining me. The Vringer NBA show will be still running for the next couple of weeks on the summer schedule, but we'll be back in the rotation by tip-off and certainly by training camp. Until then, thank you to Isaiah Blakely on production, and congratulations on keeping Jalen Brown in Boston for Kyle for Isaiah. I'll see you next time.