The Ringer NBA Show - Early-Season Panic Meter | Group Chat

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

Justin, Rob, and Wos talk about their level of panic for a handful teams that have had slow starts, including the Celtics (1:35), Trail Blazers (28:45), and Clippers (46:18). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's good, everybody? I'm John G. Stremski, host of New York, New York with JJ, the first podcast on the ringer in Spotify, dedicated to you, the New York Sports fan. We've got episode three nights a week, plus bonus episodes whenever news breaks. So make sure you follow the show on Spotify. And welcome to group chat. I am Justin Verrier, joining me today, Rob Mahoney, and back after his week-long hiatus. Podcast superstar extraordinaire, Big Was. What's up, buddy? I'm good. I'm feeling much, much better this week. Last week was just, I don't know, it was just kind of crazy. My voice was cooked. I'm coughing up a lung.

I'm feeling tired. But now I'm back with vigor. Was a book club last week just a little too intense? Yeah, that is exactly what it was. Book club, you know, maybe too much chamomile tea. Who knows? Right. All right.

Well, today we're going to get into some teams that aren't faring as well. We took kind of a snapshot of the leak last week. Now there are some teams who are kind of on the verge of falling into panic mode. We're calling this our early season panic meter. We're going to talk about the pelicans, of course. Can't do a podcast without talking about the pelicans. Going to talk about the Blazers, the nets, some other teams. But first, let's start with your Boston Celtics-wise.

Definitely at the top of the list of teams that I think a lot of people are eyeing and wondering, can this go south pretty quickly? Just in general, what's your takeaway of the Boston Celtics now, what, seven games into their season? You know, talking to the boss man yesterday on his podcast, which I think everybody should listen to, like specifically for the Celtics portion, right? It just doesn't feel like there's any cohesion

or rhyme or reason to what they're doing out there. And so much focus gets placed on what Brown and Tatum are doing offensively. And, you know, kind of rightfully so. They have to be the fulcrum and the focal point of what they do. And they're both scoring pretty decently efficiently, that pretty high clips. Both of them scoring at career high rates, right? But, you know, and Bill mentioned this on the show yesterday.

They're lasting the NBA in defense. That can't stand. You know, this team allegedly, supposedly, has a great level of defensive talent when you think about Big Al, theoretically, the Time Lord, Brown and Tatum. And of course, Marcus Smart, who in the past, people have talked about

as potential defensive player of the year type of candidate, right? And for that team to be dead last in the league in defense is absurd to me. And again, and... I like how he's now The Time Lord. He's definitely more official. Oh, he's not just Time Lord. He's the Time Lord.

I always thought it was the time boy. It always sounded like that more, actually. Sounds like a Batman or a Game of Thrones villain, like the Night King, like he's the time lord. But, you know, I just don't understand how Mark is smart. To me, you're supposed to be some type of team leader, and you're like the fifth best offensive player on the team. And your critique of the team with the worst defense in the NBA

is that the shot distribution is out of whack. That just tells me the team is just, it's going to haywire. Right. And so basically what happened for those who didn't catch that the other night is the polls came back down from, I believe, like 19, scored, I think, a thousand points in the fourth quarter. 39, 39 points in the fourth quarter.

Yeah, 1,040, same thing. And just came back on the Celtics. I believe that was a third straight loss. And Marcus Smart in the post game press conference was basically like, Yeah, Tademan Brown need to get other people involved. Rob, do you think that's like a fair critique considering what you've seen for them so far?

So the weird thing about it was in that game, I didn't think there was anything that was super egregious that Tatum and Brown were doing in terms of not passing. Yep. Which almost makes it worse because I think it was just kind of indicative of the way the Celtics play in general. And like, that's what makes it the issue.

And the fact that, as was mentioned, smart's pointing out of that and not the defense. and yet the defense is so bad, I think speaks to some of the spillover effect of the market of the world, not feeling the ball, not feeling like they're involved. And then, you know,

like he's hustling, but clearly other guys aren't quite as engaged defensively aren't quite as on a string defensively. This doesn't feel like a team right now. And so if your offense is creating those kinds of problems for your defense potentially, that's where your whole season has the potential to blow up. Right.

Is that, though, a Brown and Tatum issue? or is that a roster issue? Because it does seem like Brown and Tatum are getting theirs, but it doesn't seem like the guys are, like in particular that game against the Bulls. It didn't seem like they were making the most out of those opportunities. So I don't know.

Like, what do you think, Rob? Well, it's both. And the reason we talk about this stuff with Tatum and Brown so much, you know, the lack of playmaking, the fact that they don't really get to the free throw line consistently. The reason we talk about those things is because they leave Boston super vulnerable to big swings of makes and misses. Like when Tatum is on, he looks like one of the best players in the world.

When he's not, he looks like a guy who's totally dominating the offense. And it should be noted, too, that that style doesn't exactly endear you to your teammates when you play that way. It's just really hard to win big games with these kinds of players if they're not going to be next level passers, basically unless you're Kauai Leonard. And sometimes even if you are Kauai Leonard, it's just very hard to win that way. Yeah, but even Kauai Leonard. Leonard, I feel like he was getting so much defensive attention. And this playmaking had gotten to a point where I think the Clippers might have set a record

for three point percentage in the season last year. It was, like, ridiculous because of the quality of the looks that were generated. That's just not the case with Boston here. And I think, you know, conversely with the Clippers this year where nobody can make a freaking three because Kawhi Leonard's not playing. It's not, I don't think those guys got materially worse at shooting threes is that the quality of opportunities has decreased, right? And look, I can see why we're market smart.

Because there's merit to some of the things that he's saying, where he's like, look, if we're going to counter these guys to soak up possession after possession, well, they need to take a step in the playmaking department. And obviously, it sounds self-serving as a guy who wants to shoot to be saying that. But it's true, right? When we see the guys who, you know, are these high, usage guys and they are these one-man offenses, what they have in common, whether it be Hardin,

Luca, Trey, you name it. They're finding people. They find people at an elite level, right? Like, they find people for open threes, open corner threes, above the break threes, blobs, you name it. They're finding them at an elite level. And, you know, Marcus More has a point. It's just, you can't meet a dude delivering that message.

I'm good. I'm good off of hearing it from you. Well, yeah, I mean, especially after the Celtics made such a big deal over the offseason of like kind of changing the culture without really changing the culture, right? You got Brad Stevens into like basically fired him by elevating him by promoting like this like the male guy in Seinfeld. But like a doku is supposed to have more of the ear of some of these stars, especially the young stars like Brown and Tatum and like you bring in Horford and immediately like label him the captain and like I think that. they tried to take some of the pressure off of them to be the front and center leaders. But I think it kind of begs an interesting question. Like, are you only going to go as far, not only just like on the court, but just like vibes wise from your two-star players? Like, was, do you think this is like an issue actually with Brown and Tatum?

Like, are they those guys? And like, if they're not, like, what do you do about that? Look, I think Brown and Tatum are players that obviously, even at their price tag, any team in the league would be like, yeah, give me that. guy, dudes that can create for themselves in one-on-one situations who are competent in the pick and roll. Like, these are quality players. These are good players.

These are all-star type of players. However, that in and of itself does not make an elite offense, right? Elite offenses are able to generate quality looks consistently. And what are quality he looks? Looks at the rim. Open three-pointers. you know, free throws. Like, that's what elite offenses generate at a high rate.

They're obviously not able to do that in and of themselves. Again, Bill mentioned to yesterday. Obviously, somebody like Kyle Lowry, he brings that in an instance, right? Yeah. What he's doing. And I think even to a smaller extent, guys like Mike Conley and other people of that nature who are like, all right, Conley's not obviously an all-star in the way. West, but like when he's in charge of your offense, it's moving, it's singing.

There's competence to it, right? And nobody's ever going to feel like Mike Connolly is hogging the spotlight. He's zipping the ball around. He's operating in pick and roll. He understands how the ecosystem of an offense should feel. I don't think there's anybody on the Celtics right now who's as good at that, frankly. They need a Marie Condo. They need an organized.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, it's all about the lens through which you see the game, right? Like, Kyle Lowry is hit ahead, constant movement, looking for opportunities, like every single angle that he can get, he is looking to grift that angle.

Mike Conley's, like, similar fashion, a little bit more methodical. But, like, when you think about someone like Jason Tatum, who to me is so much of a guy who has built his game to read, move, then counter, then counter to the counter. It's like, he is the living embodiment of,

the Kobe Bryant detail series where he's going over film. It's like, how do I beat my guy one-on-one on this possession? That's the lens he uses to read the entire game. And that's where your offense, I mean, again, when it's going, it looks incredible.

He's incredibly talented in that capacity. But there are limits to what you can do with that. And I think the heat are instructive because nobody would look at the heat and think there are two players as dynamic as Tatum and Brown are on their roster, right? Like, nobody thinks Jimmy's as dynamic,

although I think Jimmy's much better play than both of them. But nobody, like, the general view is that, like, he's not this one-on-one fade away from 22 feet, footwork looking clean and beautiful, all of that stuff. However, I was watching the heat game before we came on the pod today, and I'm just blown away by, like, you have to defend them 94 feet, right?

Like, it's the transition hit ahead. It's Duncan Robinson can shoot from 30 feet. It's heroes coming off of screens, catching shoot coming off a screens pull up. It's Jimmy attacking the paint one-on-one. It's Bam on the lop. It's Bam attacking his match-up on a face-up. Like, you have to think about so many things

that these guys want to do, people cutting, people doing all of this stuff. Like, that's what defenses don't want. Against Boston is like, all right, we're gonna stand and watch Tatum or Brown pick and roll. Right. That's it.

That's it. Right. And the heater are going to overwhelm you in that way, and then they're going to completely lock you down on defense.

Versus, like, look what we saw from the Celtics in this game against the Bulls, which is the Bulls want to do one thing, which is run all the time. They want to leak out

all the time. And the Celtics transition defense was giving up runouts off of free throws. That's just a complete obliviousness to what their opponent wants to do.

I mean, that's a, you know, a faulty premise from the start. So what's the fix here? Like, how concerned are we? Because on the one hand, it's only seven games in, but we're starting to see a lot of the same things we saw last year. And, like, as we know, it gets late pretty early. Like, can they internally do something?

Is it as simple as, like, being a little bit more sound on your defensive principles? Can a doku, like, run a different offense? Rob, did you see anything, like, clear that they could do differently? Well, first of all, Udoka. Let's go ahead and, like, do a reddub of all justice takes, on Nime Udoka so far. What was I saying, Udoco?

I don't even know. There were vows in there that did not belong in there. Yeah, go ahead. I mean, some of it is, as we've hit on, their defensive personnel is just better than this. Like, they're going to be better defensively at some point this season, and that in itself is going to raise their floor to the point where these offensive issues we're talking about are more playoff issues

than they are regular season issues. It's just right now when everything isn't working, they come a little bit more to the four. So I think, honestly, I think their defense is going to be competent enough that they're going to be still a pretty successful team, then they are, you know, certainly more than they are seven games in. But these are the huge questions they have to resolve if they want to get out of a first round series, for example.

You know, I always wonder this, man, whenever guys become dudes that are capable of dropping 30, how, like, it feels like a lot of times their mindset shifts. I think of Westbrook and Donovan Mitchell, who guys who came into the NBA, like their reputation was these guys are going to guard the hell out of people. And they probably started their careers like being like, I got to make my bones on defense.

And then once they discovered that they were people who were capable of scoring 30, that went out the window, right? So I wonder if the mentality can change after guys who, you know, have defensive reputations become people who, you know, establish themselves as guys who can score in this league because that's what gets you all-star games. That's what gets you shoe deals. That's what gets you attention.

Like, I wonder if the mentality of a defensive group can come back. Because, like, look, say what you want about Tibado. Like, the Knicks didn't have defensive personnel last year. They don't really have it this year. Like, they're playing Kemba. They're playing 48. Like, Julius Randall was seen as a problem defensively. But there's something about their mentality about how they approach every single game where they're out there doing it.

So I wonder if the Celtics, I don't want to call these dudes divas. I don't know them like that. And there's no indications that they're like these divas now. But I wonder if the group has a mindset of grimy, defensive guys. Because if they started doing that tomorrow, it'd be a rap. They'd be fine again. Like they'd score enough points and they'd be stopping people, especially. like the dregs of the league.

But as it stands now, these dudes, you know, they think they, uh, frigate seven seconds or less. Well, listen,

I thought Boston was only hard scrabble, hard workers, defensive guys. Like, this is very surprising to me. But I will say, that's just, that's just in movies like the fighter.

Right. I will say, though, like shouldn't smart be that guy? Shouldn't Horford to a certain extent be that guy. Shouldn't Josh Richardson, a guy who kind of made his bones on defense before he became a little bit more than that,

be that guy. They had the pieces. And so I do wonder if this is like more of a come from the top sort of thing. Like you did talk about Tibido. Like you could say a lot about Tibbs and like kind of his mixed bag career at this point. Um, mostly in like a deep baritone. You could be saying those things. But like he has a culture.

Like I think he has a very clear identity for the type of teams that he runs. I don't really know what the identity of this team is. And it kind of falls on Udoca. to figure that out. Well, yeah, and they don't know yet, clearly. But I think we're right to single out the Tibido comparison because Julius Randall just had the best season of his NBA career and played the best defense of his career at the same time.

Versus as was hit, there just aren't a lot of guys with 30% usage rates who are also locked down defenders. Shout out Janus, basically. Janus and Joelle Embed are essentially those guys. And now Barrett's kind of doing, a similar thing now. Yeah, he's locking in in that same way.

And they certainly need a little bit more of that in Boston, whether it's top down, whether it's Marcus Smart and out, whether it's Al Horford rediscovering himself or the time lord paying off in the way they need him to. I look forward to that movie from MGM in the fall. All right, let's move on to our favorite team, the New Orleans Pelicans. Rob and I talked about them last week. Things have gotten somehow worse.

They're one in seven after, seeming like they were going to pull off a win last night against the suns and then kind of falling flat in their face. I don't know how much you could hold that result against them because this really is a skeletal unit. At one point, Herb Jones got hurt and they're just like, well, who do we put on the wing? I was like, God, this is really bleak. But in the background of all this, yet again, Zion's timeline has been pushed back. The timeline has been pushed back. It seems like two to three weeks until he gets another set of scans.

doesn't look good for your New Orleans Pelicans, Was, in terms of panic meter, is this like a blinking red light? No, because I think there just needed to be a correction for the over-positivity when they announced the freaking injury, right? The guy has a Jones fracture on his foot, and y'all talking about he's going to be ready for opening night.

So because they set that expectation, this seems like some major setback when realistically, why the hell did they come out and lie about his time? Like, there was no way this dude was going to play open in night. Why did they do that? I don't, you know, again, so much confuses me about this team lately. But there was no reason to do that. This seems normal, like as far as timeline and something like a foot. And again, the young guy on your team who's allegedly,

your Jesus Christ figure or at least John the Baptist you know what I'm saying? Like, if this guy's supposed to be the franchise savior, then this makes sense that they would take their time in bringing him back. And, but for the fact

that there's some imaginary pressure on the organization to make this kid happy, well, like, why do they need to, why does this need to be a season that matters? What about this roster means that they're all in, that they need to show improvement.

Like, who are these people that, like, need to be evaluated for extensions or that you've paid a, you know, a shit ton of money to that need to produce? Like, who are these guys on this team? Again, I don't know why I paid Valachunis. That was before he ever played a game. Again, confusing. But, like, just because you did that doesn't make this season do or die, make a break. Right?

and just across sports, the Rams just traded for Von Miller. Obviously, that's a team, Super Bowl aspirations. Everything counts hinges on this season. The here and the now. Like, it's obvious. That makes sense.

Why are the Pelicans operating that way? Even if all your pieces were playing, you're a seventh seed with the ceiling of a seventh seed. So I don't know. I don't feel panic for this team because I think what is happening there makes perfectly good sense. Well, and the panic to the extent that it exists

really is self-fulfilling and self-creating. There's such a feedback loop here from all the hand-wringing about Zion to the pelicans doing these kinds of moves that feel so focused, as far as is saying, on this season, on right now, and maximizing and paying off this pressure in some way and diffusing it, which then just feeds right back into the pressure that all of us talking about Zion and the instability of this situation in the first place.

It's a total mess. Yeah, I mean, from like a big picture sense, it seems like they're taking the right approach with Zion. They are taking it slow like they did the first season. Like even when he comes back, maybe he gets put back on the bursts. Like this is what you should do with a franchise player who has had a lot of injuries,

particularly for his lower half of his body, who is now struggling with weight issues. Like, I think that's pretty apparent. Like, I don't mean to be particularly mean, but like, dude is thick. all of that makes a lot of sense. It's just like the managing of expectations is completely out of whack. And like, again, if you want to take a sympathetic view of the situation, maybe Zion and

the people around him didn't want it out there that like he wasn't going to be back for opening night. I honestly don't know. But like at a certain point, I think the organization needs to be able to sell it to them, if that is the case, that that is not in the best interest for them or him. or him because now they just look like dysfunctional, all parties involved. And like, I don't know, I've seen some stories about like how this isn't really a Pelicans thing. This is a Zion thing. I honestly disagree. I think this is a Pelican thing because ultimately they are in control of

everything. And if you're being beholden too much to Zion and like what he wants, like this is what happens, you know? It really does feel like it has to be something either related to Zion not wanting to face those questions out of the gate as far as not being available or just some clear miscommunication in terms of what his timeline actually was because otherwise don't say things on the record that are going to be proven indisputably true by the first game of the regular season like right the games will show you whether he's on the floor or not it's just it's just really strange that you would try to control the narrative in that way if you're david griffin i i don't understand it i don't see like what motivation there would be for that to happen other than to protect Zion from a certain

line of questioning about his health. Yeah, it was a real ticking time bomb sort of style of PR there where it's like you bought yourself two weeks, but then you knew like it was going to, everything was going to explode on you. And then the cover for that was to be like, no, actually you misheard me. Like, I still don't understand the approach there, but that's just me. Yeah, I just sound like a broken record, but the New Orleans thing, is confusing me. I don't get it. And again, maybe, look,

winning is the ultimate elixir, right? Maybe Zion comes back. They get on a role. Him and Brandon Ingram were looking great together. The Devante Graham thing starts opening up all kinds of possibilities for him. Valanchunis becomes the stretch four that was promised in the off-stretch five, excuse me, in the off-season.

and this thing gets rolling. But save for that, this just feels like a car crash. Yeah, we should talk about what we have actually seen from this team since Zion hasn't played. Now, you know, Ingram's been out of the lineup with this hip injury too. And without Zion and in particular, without both of them, it's just not a group that's really, I mean, they can be competitive, but they're not stable. And so under those circumstances, this record, the worst record of the NBA, makes total sense. They just do not have the personnel to do more than kind of compete in these games.

And I think Jonas Valentunus has really helped in that regard. If they didn't have him, I don't think they'd have a shot in any of these. They would be worse than San Presti's G League team. Right, the blue. The Oklahoma City blue. Yeah, Valentunis, big winner because he gets to do whatever the hell he wants. And, like, it actually is nice to see him taking advantage of a team that didn't have DeAndre Aiton. And, like, he had an advantage.

They went to it. and he was successful at it. I also think, like, they're competitive. They're trying hard. And, like, I think you could tell just by how many times Stan Van Gundy, like, remarked upon how well they were defending, like, that wasn't the case last year. So, like, if we're looking for silver linings, it looks like they're, you know, they're getting after it. Yeah, I guess.

They're, like, they're showing up to work and they're doing it, man. Well, they definitely played some national TV defense against the Sons. That's for sure. Like, they showed up. They were blitzing Chris Paul. They were forcing turnovers. right there up in the ball. That's a nice proof of concept for them in what, you know, even defensively, like they've been trying but haven't really been great shakes on that side of the

ball this season. But to see games like that where even your young, like it's, it's Kyra Lewis pushing the ball, you know, getting up, getting steals. Like it's your young guys who are creating that kind of havoc. That's a good sign for them. Yeah. Did you see anything from any of those young guys? Because it's funny that we focus on some of the top line names, but this team is still pretty deep in just like interesting young guys that I'm not totally sure like what to make of them like Lewis Alexander Walker Herb Jones our guy uh Troy murphy there's a lot there like Rob does anyone like jump off the page is like oh this guy's for sure a rotation player or maybe even something more yeah is this is you clearing out for me to ISO on herb Jones is that what's happening right now

because that's what's going to happen if you do this I'm just giving you your opportunities man I mean I'll say this about herb Jones like some guys get tough defense of assignments by default, because no one on their team can do it. He is the other kind of player who actually has the chops to guard some of the tougher assignments in the NBA. And you can tell he's a defender

because of two things. One, the way he moves, the way he navigates around screens, the way he positions himself, very intuitive on that side of the ball. The other thing is how high he wears his shorts, that dude has to be a defender. Like, that is just exactly what that tells you?

The question is, is he ever going to be able to do enough offensively to keep defense's honest. Big TBD. But having Zion on the floor, having Ingram on the floor, we were just talking about the effect that Kauai can have in terms of creating open shots for other guys. He just needs the relief of playing with stars, I think,

because he can be a pretty good player. And otherwise, like, they have a lot of, they have interesting young guards, but they're the kind of interesting young guards that don't exactly help you win right now. So it's like, it's more flashes than it is, you know, consistent strings of quality play, reliable play, good systemic stuff.

They're just not there yet in terms of Kyra Lewis and Akiel Alexander Walker, that cohort. Right. I mean, this is what they should be doing. If you're not going to probably win these games, you should be getting the young guys reps, see what you have of them. This is exactly what the Lakers, for instance, aren't doing. They're not buying low on young guys and seeing what they have of them. They're counting on veterans

in their last gasp, like trying to produce something just to get them by. So that's something, right? Well, and this is where you get to the dissonance of them letting Lanzo go so they can get Garrett Temple and Tomas Sattransky. Then they're not going to play Tomas Satteransky. I mean, Garrett Temple, sure, like, that's fine. He's been coming off the bench, giving him some good stuff. But like, what are we doing? Like, why are these competing visions?

Well, there's also this last night, I tweeted out, you know, sort of incredulously, like, am I really supposed to believe that the sons are this ass? Like, it's just impossible, right? And somebody hit one guy hit me back, well, or the alternative is these Pelican players are better than you thought they were. And I'm just like, nah, that's not the alternative. There might be some other alternatives. But that's not the alternative. Yeah, and then Chris Paul was just like, oh, I'll win this game and then passed out 20 assists or whatever it was.

Exactly. But we had a nice moment with Willie Green afterward. What a heartfelt, you know, tug of the heartstring there. All right, let's move along here to another team that's not doing too well. The Portland Trailblazers, Rob and I talked pretty extensively about their defense last week. I do want to talk about Damien Lillard here because he also ties into, I guess, James Hardin, who we're going to talk about in a little bit, but it seems like he's struggling. And I think the big question is how much the rules are affecting him.

it doesn't seem like he's different athletically, like maybe he's hurt or whatever. It just seems like something's off. And I think you could say that about a lot of players of his similar type, Trey Young, Harden, etc. Was, are you worried at all about the Blazers first and foremost,

considering that they're three and four and then just lost to the Sixers without half of their team, in particular, all of their good players? And are you concerned at all about Lillard, maybe not being able to be the guy he used to be in the past because of these rule changes to take them by the scruff

and bring them into competitive like seventh eighth seed sort of team. I'm not concerned about the Blazers because I'm sorry the team that's been a seventh seed ceiling, six seed type of team basically made minor tweaks. As much as you know we over here

and on the internet love Larry Nance like they made a bunch of minor tweaks to their team. team that's topped out as like five seed level, like pray for the second round. That's what they, the best version of this season was going to be for them. No, so I'm not concerned. And Dame Lillard is, look, he's not going to go from a 30 points a game, 28 points a game guy to 19 for the whole season.

I'm just not worried about it. As far as the rule changes, he's one of the most cerebral guys we have. have in the NBA. I think he'll figure out how to navigate the new rules and how he's being officiated. I just, there's nothing to report here. They've had slow starts in the past. They've had like parts of regular seasons where they just stunk up the joint and then they reel off like 18 and 4. Like this is what they've been, you know, basically in the Lillard and McCollum era. So I don't feel any concern. I don't think did anybody on this panel think they were going to be a top three Western Conference team or they were going to be some type of like,

wow, like, oh my God, the Blazers are plunkier than we thought. We all thought they would be at the bottom of the playoff situation in the West. Dame Lillard would be at an all-star level and it'd be same as always, right? Like, he's decided that he wants to do what he sees as the honorable thing and see this thing through for at least this season. And so this is what it's going to be. Maybe like the fireworks won't

start until next offseason before the draft anyway for me with this team. But like this is, once Dame decided he wasn't going to be, you know, huff and puff about getting himself out of town, this is what the Blazers were going to be this season, man. Yeah, I mean, if Dames not going to be that good, the Blazers

aren't going to be that good. I don't know that it's more complicated than that. And he gave this great long answered the other night about how struggling was an opportunity to prove himself to, like a test of his character, made me want to run through a wall. I appreciate Dame going on that monologue. But this whole situation is giving me vibes of the point in like every superhero story. There's like one arc or one episode where the superhero loses all their powers and they have to regroup and, you know, basically use all their other resources to win, except in this case,

those resources are kicking out to Robert Covington over and over. Is this your pitch for the Time Lord? This is the B plot on the Time Lord for sure. But, you know, I say this with great affection for the Rob Covingtons of the world and the Larry Nances of the world. But this is an offense that's reliant on Lillard doing superhuman shit to win. Like, he has to be able to do that. And coupled with that, as you mentioned, Justin, with the foul drawing, this was an offense that was kind of reliant on him and C.J. being able to go around ball screen,

stop short, draw defenders over their backs, throw up shots, sometimes hit and ones. They needed that offense, and no one is getting those calls right now. And so all of that is kind of exacerbated and connected to the fact that Portland kind of out of thin air has become a pretty high turnover team.

Yeah. Not a good formula for them. Yeah, I mean, I think that... I'm trying to think back to our power rankings, but I think we had some degree of optimism that this team could be like fifth or six, maybe even break into the top four. Like, I think there was a pathway to,

they short up the defense, they short up their bench unit, and then maybe Chauncey Billups could organize them in a way that Terry Stotz didn't, that he could be a little bit more modern, a little bit more aggressive about certain things, and that's actually what they needed. That is basically what Neil Loshay sold the world

many, many times, and in particular, Damien Lillard. I have been pretty discouraged. I think the big takeaway is that Billups hasn't really been that guy thus far, not to say that he can't be that guy this season. But I do wonder, like, him getting out coached by Doc Rivers in that game when Rivers didn't really have much at his disposal, no, M.Bee, no Harris, no, no Simmons, obviously.

Like, that was a pretty big indictment. And, like, I don't know. That is concerning to me. I think it's still early, definitely in the Chauncey era. You know, same with Udoca, same with a lot of these guys, right? Although, you know, it's funny because... When guys are struggling, we say it's pretty early. However, in a place like Washington with Unsell Jr., I'm like, yo, this is looking dope.

Right. They did make a lot of changes there. Yeah, they did. That's true. That's fair. It's a completely new group. And maybe that lends itself to being able to implement, you know, put your imprint on something where there aren't all of these learned habits from over time, right? But, you know, we say it's early when guys are struggling.

But, yeah, Washington out the gate looks like a completely different team. Yes, there's a lot of new players. But the way they play, sharing the ball, all of this movement, all of this, like, defensive cohesion where those dudes are actually playing on a string, I'm like, damn, like, that looks good for the first year of this guy coaching this team. Whereas, yeah, in Portland, it hasn't looked as great. Again, it's stale, guys. Like, what was Chanty Billups supposed to do? At the end of the day, it's meatloaf.

Like, you could add some hot sauce to it. You could, you know, maybe get some toast and eat it with it. But, like, you can't really dress up a meatloaf. This is a meatloaf. All right. We should put a meatloaf, the singer, drop in here. Well, I do want to talk about, like, the effects of some of these role changes, because I think we can all agree, like, as a fan, it's been spectacular.

I definitely think now we're seeing the evolution of our gripes, where it's like it used to be all the foul drawing. Now it's the Eurofowls. And so we'll get to that eventually and then we'll come up with something else. But for now, it seems like a better entertainment product. But I do wonder about some of the guys who clearly have to adjust. And, like, Lillard, obviously one of the best players in league, for some reason, one of the 75 best players of all time,

which seems a little bit much. Bicious, but sure. Yeah, we could talk about it a different time. He is small. Obviously, he is in his 30s already. Like, I don't mean to say, like, he's going to completely fall off the map, but I could see him struggling a little bit more than say, like, even a hardened, like, once his hamstring feels a little bit better, like, he's a bigger body who can barrel his way through the

rim, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas Dame, like, you know, maybe the deep shooting people are covering you more because you can't, like, manufacture a foul and then you can't get to the rim and all this stuff. I guess, like, Rob, is there a reason to concern about Lillard maybe more than some of these other guys who are affected by this role? Well, I think the reason for concern would be he just doesn't have the variety to his game that someone like Hardin does. He doesn't have the downhill threat in the same way that Hardin does. But he's just an amazing shooter who isn't shooting well. And so if you don't have the threat of that to play off of period, you know, you're not punishing guys and getting in their heads in, you know, the third quarter of a game where you've hit five of six threes.

it just changes the whole shape of how the defense approaches you. So I think we're going to see him get closer to norm while some of the shooting starts to regularize for him. But if this is real, if he's not able to draw fouls, I think that does take a pretty significant portion of his game away. It forces him to think about all those ball screens, all those pick and rolls in a totally different way. He's a smart enough and talented enough player to adapt to that. But he's not going to dramatically change in the way that someone like Harden Cook. Like Hardin is the master of adapting to wherever you set the line, he is going to tow it. And he can be really effective while doing that.

Dame, I think, can be really good, but maybe not quite in the same way. Right. Well, this is actually a good point to pivot to Hardin. He's another guy we have on our list. Like, the nets are doing, okay, they're four and three. But was like, I guess where are you on your concern for Hardin? Because for a while, it looked pretty bleak there. He's turned it around the past two games, but he also, I think one was against the pistons,

another was against the Pacers, who was another team we can maybe mention on this panic meter. Like, are you convinced that, like, Hardin can work his way through this? Or are you more concerned considering, like, how much of his game is built around just drawing contact? Yeah. So I think we saw it in the Lakers series from the bubble where I don't care what anybody says. A lot of smart people were like, oh, this might be a frisky matchup for the Lakers. It's spread the spread offense. It's got to be frisky.

It's going to be scary. I'll never forget that dumb shit. But here's the thing, though. It was predicated on, like, look, the Lakers are big and stiff. The Rockets are going to spread them out. People like James Hardin is just going to beat their one-on-one matchup. And he couldn't consistently do it enough against the Lakers to make them pay. And part of it is just like, all right, like, we're going to let Covington.

We're going to help off of Westbrook. We're going to help off of people. And, you know, you're not quick enough to beat that level of help anymore, right? And the thing about Brooklyn is that the attention that could be paid to James Hardin was way less when it's guys like Kyrie and Kevin Durant around him. And so, you know, we saw as soon as he got traded there, it was like, whoa, it's like a re-evigorated hearted. But at the same time, you know, Kyrie's not there. Teams are just like, look, James, you have to be the one that beats us now.

Because Katie's shooting 60% from the field, right? Like, it's like, all right, James is your turn. You got to beat us. And he just doesn't have that burst right now. And, you know, he's saying it's his hammy and he's out of shape because he had the rest all offseason. Not that he wouldn't have been taking leisure time in Europe with a little baby anyway. But, you know, like he's saying that publicly, which I think is telling us.

which I've already said, but that's, I'm worried about the Hardin thing. Because I think a different James Hardin would have presented different, way bigger problems to that Laker team back in the bubble playoffs, right? And we're what, 18, however many months, two years, I don't even know about time anymore. We're a long time away from that. And there's no way he's getting better as far as athletically. So yeah, I'd be worried. I'm worried.

Yes. For a guy like him, when we talk about what Hardin is as an athlete, not explosive from point A to point B, but such a good like stop and go mover and so strong in a way where he leverages it to create burst. And the fact that he's not getting much separation right now, that's a problem.

And if there are lingering effects from the hamstring injury, that's a problem. Like he's a guy who can't really afford to be a half step slower than he is because he's working, again, all of these little angles, all of these little advantages trying to exploit them as best he can. If he's not getting the calls and he's not getting the edge, you know, getting around guys, he's really reliant on a lot of more standstill type passing and then step back shooting, which he can be good at those things, but it makes his game a lot more variable. It takes away kind of the steady metronome beat of what makes him good. So that's a problem for them. And especially as well as hit on, if Kyrie's not there, if it's a game where Joe Harris isn't hitting or Patty Mills isn't hitting

and all of a sudden just so much pressure pools on Kevin Durant, that's a tough situation to be in for a team like the Nets, for as talented as they are. Yeah, it's weird that Hardin kind of shoot away the effects of the role changes and in particular, like, focused in on his hamstring because I almost feel like the hamstring is a much bigger issue. And at a certain point, he was like, yeah, It was a grade two hamstring strain or whatever it was.

And it's happened three times last year to the, I think that like really caught my eyes to that. This might be like a bigger issue than he let on. And I don't mean to like instantly default to like conspiracy theory corner. Or actually I don't mind doing it. But like, you know, all those draft picks from the Nets aren't looking too bad now. And maybe the Rockets knew a little bit more than they let on, maybe. And the reason why I'll echo your concern, Justin, is, and I mentioned this with Bill yesterday, is Hardin's rhetoric.

He just, like, think about his responses when his horrible defense was going viral. Like, he was super defiant and confident in what he was bringing to the table. Hardin's only ever been publicly confident, supremely confident about what it is he's going to do on the floor. To hear him be like, look, I want to sky. score 40, but I can't. That is the exact opposite of what James Hardin has given us publicly when it comes to matters

of his game forever. Is it, though, because I see the defiance as you couldn't possibly make rule changes to take what I do away. It must be this other thing. You know, like, I am too good for some, you know, technicality

to neuter my game. I like that. I see the defiance more as, please stop asking me these questions. I hate the media, and this is a waste of my time. I can't even blame him for that. Hardin is definitely, like, he's the NBA superstar. Man, I feel like even more so than Kauai, in the sense that at least with Kauai, we know, like, he's kind of not acting. He just doesn't want to talk to anybody.

Like, that's who he is. He doesn't want to talk. Like, James Hardin, we know, like, he's a really eccentric, extroverted, outgoing dude. but literally when he's in front of a mic, he's like, I ain't saying shit to you guys. He's an enigma in that sense, right? So again, like to hear him be like, look, like, I would love to be doing 30s and 40s, man.

But I got a bummedy, sorry. I don't know how we got here with the Nets, man. We were like two weeks ago talking about how even without Kyrie, they could just win the title. And now it's like, do they need Kyrie just to get by? But that's the thing, though, when you're superstar dependent. If your superstar is not superstar, that's kind of the ballgame, right? Like, AD and LeBron need to be AD and LeBron for the Lakers thing to work.

If there's anything below their standard of excellence, that whole shit doesn't work. But, you know, and again, like, when you have two superstars, like, look, this is my freaking benchmark for success. is like Kevin Durant and James Hardin like, holy shit, you know. But when Hardin is playing far below what's become expected of him, this is what you see. It doesn't look

quite as good. Well, and the good news for the Nets, and I say good with maybe the world's largest eye roll, is that Woj was reporting this morning that New York's new mayor elect, Eric Adams, is considering revisiting the COVID vaccine mandates.

So maybe, maybe Kyrie, get loophole out of this. We'll see. Let's check his donation funds to see if our guy, Joseph Sye, or the Nets owner, has made any contributions. Follow the money. He posted a freaking Morpheus picture the other day,

and I was just like... Kairi did? Yes, on his gram. A picture of Morpheus from the Matrix. I just let out a groan, just like you did. I was like, oh, God, this dude. All right. Well, keep track of that one.

Can't wait for that podcast. All right. Are there other teams that we have on the panic meter? I think these are the most popular options, but there are still a couple teams struggling. Rob, do you have one on your list that you are eyeing? I mean, we got to talk about the two and four LA Clippers, right? Yeah, yeah, especially after they only got to two and four after coming back on the mighty Oklahoma City Thunder.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't even know if they're like a bubble pan. panic team so much is just straight up existing in a vague panic zone. I don't know that they feel it. Like honestly for a team that has not been very good, the vibes don't seem that bad yet. But the play has been. And it's just amazing like how shallow this team feels right now without Kauai.

And I think where we're seeing that is the roster drain of losing Montrez-Harrell for nothing, which, you know, again, all his playoff limitations nowwithstanding. Trading Lou Williams for. Rondo and then losing Rondo for nothing. And so all of a sudden, their bench is just kind of cinching up spots and guys who were eighth men or no, seventh or sixth and, you know, whatnot. I think the optimistic read on that is that obviously they're missing not only Kauai, but Marcus Morris who's been out, Sergei Baca who's been out, should theoretically be back

for them at some point. But the less optimistic read is neither of those guys really solved the core issue here, which is this is a team that does not have enough shot creation, that is a team of one star who isn't a natural playmaker and a bunch of role players and they look exactly like that every time they play. Yeah. And you know, God bless Reggie Jackson. You know, I was somebody who's like the shooting is real. But it's, I don't know, it's something psychological I feel like happens when those, like the team is dependent upon those shots going in now. Whereas like Reggie Jackson making threes for the clippers in the last two years was gravy.

Now it's like, nah, bro, those pull-up threes are kind of part of what we need to subsist on for us to have a healthy diet of offense. And I just think that's a different pressure to put on a guy. And he's acknowledged that he's not making his shots. But I don't think he's as bad as he's shown to start the season. But it'll be telling to see if he gets back to the level that, because again, he wasn't just making catch and shoot three. He was making off of screens.

He was making breaking dudes down and just pulling up and firing in dudes' grills. Yeah, these are the toughest. Yeah, these are the toughest shots in basketball. He was making consistently for this team, right? And again, it's different when your star player, MVP caliber guy goes down and you're playing with house money. It's like, well, I got nothing else to give.

to now we're counting you to carry us through the whole regular season with this level of shot making. You know, I think there's some cause for concern there. I also don't think he's going to be as bad as he's shown. But let's quantify just how bad Reggie Jackson has been so far, which is, according to Synergy right now, he's shooting 25% out of the pick and roll, 26% in isolation.

This is the second best creator on the Clippers' Rost. right now. Huge problem. But as Woz has been harping on, it's a team that is now just completely reliant on somewhat contested threes in what were previously wide open threes.

And they're a good defense. They've shown they can do that even while playing small. The offense is just going to be a struggle for as long as multiple guys are out of the lineup, but Kauai especially. Here's my question.

And it might be the only question that really matters, considering that the expectations are lowered without Kauai. And this is kind of a bridgeier or the very least bridge to the postseason and maybe Quai comes back. I highly doubt he will, considering his history, but maybe. Have the Clippers done a good job filling out the roster, considering that their

hands are tied behind their back? Now, I think it is important context to mention that they literally tied their own hands behind their back, Houdini style, so I don't know if they really get a pass there, but I'm looking at some of the moves they made. And like, at the time, I thought that they would be better than they have proven to be like Reggie Jackson, for instance, clearly a big win. They got him off the scrap heap and basically rehabbed him into a playoff hero. But on the other hand, you have Serge Abaka who is he going to play this year and didn't finish last year and clearly had lingering injuries that he's been dealing with for a while. That's a big miss in particular because they used their full mid level on him and they just

don't have as many resources to do that. I mean, Luke Canard, etc. There's a lot of like more mixed returns than I think big wins, which has actually been the opposite of what the clippers were before Kauai, right? They actually made a lot of shrewd, smart, very good additions on the fringes. But this time, I don't know. It seems like it's kind of undoing them in a way. Look, Kauai said he signed the deal that he did

because he didn't want to come back on a one-year deal, which basically would rip up the option of him coming back at all this season, right? Like the idea of coming off an injury, maybe suffering something like way worse and going into free agency, like it's a business thing. like it's a business decision he couldn't make that. So he signed that multiple year deal, which to me says this roster is constructed

with an eye towards Kauai Leonard coming back at some point. And if Kauai comes back at some point, this roster is perfectly fine. This roster is probably at the top of the West. If Kauai Leonard comes back reasonably healthy at some point, if he doesn't, team is whack. I mean, but that's the, but, you know, that's sort of the tradeoff, right?

Like, when you make a roster with one of the best players on the planet in mind being a part of it, obviously there's a different method of construction that goes into it than, all right, we're making a roster centered around Paul, Georgia, Reggie Jackson. It's just, it's different, you know? So I think if Kauai comes back and he's, again, reasonably healthy, this process is completely fine. Well, just as a case in point, think about someone like Nicholas Batum, who when he plays with Kauai Leonard is an expert at taking a good pass from Kauai

and swinging it into a great look for somebody else. Without Kauai Leonard, he's just a guy standing in the corner. Like, that's kind of what he is. He's not a sipping espresso in a beret in the corner. He's not diagnosing defense. No. He's diagnosing poorovers.

I just pictured him walking into Staples with a baguette now. Pinky up, my friend. He's, you know, he's not a guy who's getting the diagnosed defenses that are scrambling from, you know, guarding Kawhi Leonard attacks. It's like, nah, like now we're just staring right at you, Nicholas Batum. Do something. Right.

And that's not going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. I keep thinking of Baton with a baguette now. I'm completely sidetracked. I'm actually a big crept guy myself. Oh, wow. Oh, really?

What flavor? I'm lying. couldn't even couldn't even commit to the bit with like, you know, a spinach and feta situation or something. Come on, Waz. Oh, maybe Rob is the low-key crep guy here. Honestly, honestly a little overrated, but that's another pod.

Oh! Let's do a full pod on that one. Any other teams, Waz, maybe, like, that you could think of that are on the verge of panic or someone that you're like, oh, this isn't looking too good. Denver, I think we expect them to look a little bit better than they did out the gate, but this would be like the seventh year in a row that they started slowly.

So it's like, should I really be concerned about a slow Denver start again? I can't. So I think the Denver thing is something worth monitoring. And that's it. Like, I think the Lakers, everybody's talked about. It's like, come on, man. Vogel's going through the motions with these guys. He's letting these named veteran dudes get there.

time like DJ, go ahead, play with Ross. Everybody knows this doesn't work, but your egos won't accept the fact that it doesn't make any sense, but go ahead. And then you see slowly, but surely the lineup tweaks coming in. So I don't think there's any concern with that. As soon as I can figure out what the hell is happening there, we might need to do a Pacer's podcast at some point. I think it's pretty clear, honestly.

It's that they have no one to actually drive offense on this team anymore. And like, even cares the verse. is on a minutes limit, Malcolm Brogden him back on the scrap heap. What's the word on T.J. Warren? Who knows? Like, he's just never playing basketball again? Like, what's up with that?

Yeah, out for the foreseeable future, for sure. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, they just have all these resources in the front court. Like, nobody would actually get them the ball. Right. But when you watch their games, they'll go on runs where it's like,

this is the best team in the NBA. Like, they are just obliterating people for one quarter, and then they completely fall apart. I just don't really understand why there's such an erratic swing between the good version of the Pacers and the bad version of the Pacers. Do you think it's when T.J. McConnell leaves the court is when things start to fall apart?

I think you've pinpointed the exact core of what makes the Pacers go. Sure. Just wonder throughout there. Waz, this one is for you in particular. Are you surprised that the Hawks have been so... Eh? So far?

I think it's... Yeah, I think it's the defense, honestly. The second half of last season, they played some really inspired defense. I thought opening night against Dallas, they played really inspired. Even again, like Rob mentioned national TV level defense. There's, like, the last game that I watched against the Wizards, there were moments where the length on the wings, getting in the passing lanes, times where John Collins is rotating helpside at to meet people.

at the summit, just swatting dudes, times where he's straight up guarding Cal-Cuzma on the perimeter or you put any perimeter dude that he switches on where it's like, you ain't doing nothing with him. His movement, his understanding of when to find Capella, like, I'm just not worried about them. I really, like, the stuff that they're able to put together, the line of versatility of Collins at the Five, I just think he's a piece that unlocks. much of what they could do.

And you're still seeing some of that off the bounce juice from people like Hunter. Cam Reddish has taken a step forward offensively in his aggression and understanding, you know, when to attack these close outs, when to let it fly. Trey, people are saying he's struggling. Honestly, he's missed some shots, but like, that dude's going to figure out how to get to the line. In the mid-range between the floater range that he's perfected and just straight up, mid-range pull-up game is crazy because people have to respect the Collins role and the Capella

role on the lob. I just, they got too much there. You know, like, they're so explosive offensively. Defensively, they have to commit. If they want to be a serious team, if they want to be like, yo, the bucks are not steamrolling us in the playoffs. Brooklyn's not steamrolling us in the playoffs. If they want to be a serious team, they have to commit to consistency on the defense.

and, you know, luckily for them, they have the fucking personnel to do it. You know, obviously, Trey Young, a lot has been said, written, you know, hand-wringing about his defense. But the personnel they got behind him between Capella, Collins, Hunter, even Reddish, even, I think, Werder to a certain extent, is a pretty solid defensive player.

I don't know. People could say I'm in the tank for this team because I am. I just love the fucking talent on this team. Some interesting stuff going on with last year's conference finalists where you have the Bucks and the Clippers, I think both feeling their injuries in a lot of ways. And then the Sons and the Hawks,

just not quite as buttoned up as you would expect them to be given where we last saw them in the postseason. Yeah, I almost mentioned the Sons as well. But, you know, DeAndre Aiton isn't playing. Is he holding out? Is he actually injured? I don't know. What's going on?

Maybe he just wanted to wear that shirt of Devin Booker and he just knew that he would get a lot of camera time if he did. So he just took the playoff. We'll see. All right. Let's end it there. Next week, we'll probably talk about some things that are a little bit more optimistic. Be a little bit more sunshiny. We'll see.

But for now, that's it for us. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely on production. We'll see you next.