The Ringer NBA Show - Early Season Reevaluations, Plus Predicting Each Other’s Takes

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

Justin, Rob, and Wos reevaluate four teams that look better or worse than they did earlier on in the season. They discuss the Lakers (3:07), Mavs (21:08), T-Wolves (39:18), and Hawks (49:49). Then they wrap up by opening up the suggestion box (1:01:15). Email us at [e-mail] Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, it's Ariel Hawani. One third of the fastest growing show in combat sports. I'm Chuck Mindenholm. And I'm Preeti Carroll, and together we are three puck. Join us on the Spotify Live app after every UFC pay-per-view and become a part of the best community in mixed martial arts. Or if you can't make it, check out the Ringer MMA show podcast exclusively on Spotify. See you then.

Love you. And welcome to group chat. I am Justin Barrier. Joining me today, the orb bros, big wise. Rob Mahoney Do I need to explain the reference or will that just take way too much time? Where do you even start?

I kind of want to see you explain it. Okay, so the NBA has decided to turn all of its trophies into orbs. Translucent, glass, crystal, orbs. Yes, we knew that. Which has, yeah,

it's been in the works for a bit. I believe they handed them all out last award season, but as of yesterday, it seems like even the MVP trophy is going to get renamed our guy Maurice Pottleoff who had long been

the representative of said regular season MVP award is getting booted to a new award for regular season wins total which is a pretty big drop off if I do say so myself and the MVP trophy is going to get renamed TBD

you'd assume it's going to be someone like Kareem or Jordan or someone who's won a lot right but just think if we start actually valuing the regular season he's part of the change that we want to see in the world. You know, it's a meaningful shift for our guy,

Maurice Potaloff. Yeah, drink at home, because I'm going to mention the English Premier League again. Like, if we finally just turn it into the Premier League, do away with the playoffs and just make the regular season, the damn championship, this guy will be back in the catbird seat, Justin. If I had asked you before we had this discussion,

who is Murray's Potoloff, what would you have guessed? No shot. I would have nothing for you. He was a striker for Germany. Because like, first of all, I don't think, because there was an NBA live. I don't remember if it was 96 or 97 where you could input the name of a legend

in the created player, and they would be in the game now, right? Whether that be Wilk Chamberlain or Oscar Robertson or Jerry West or whoever. And we would, you know, we had so much fun like unlocking these legends and all of that. We never put Maurice Pottelov. That never, that was not a thing.

It was like Elgin Baylor. It was like all these other cats. Maurice Pottalov never came up somehow. You missed out. I mean, like the suit auto-populates in the character generator. It's impressive. Right. All right.

So on today's episode, we're going to get to another suggestion box, which I have to say might be one of our best segments yet or it might completely divide the podcast, the point where we have to break up. So stay tuned for that one. Keep sending in your emails. Very, very appreciative of all the positivity in those emails. Suggestionbox gc.gat gmail.com. But first, we are going to reevaluate some of our recent re-evaluations.

We're at a weird point in this NBA season where we're what? Like over a month in at this point? I feel like at that point in the season, typically, we kind of have to have a handle of what the league is going to be for the rest of the season. You know, the good teams, you know, the really bad teams. Things will change for here and there, but you kind of have a grasp of things. This year, I do not. And I think a large part of that is just because of all the disruption to the title race. It just seems like it's more wide open than ever before. It seems like team goes on a three-game winning streak. All of a sudden, they're leading the West. So what I want to

do here, what we're going to do here, is take a look at some things that we previously thought we knew, but now we have to reconsider. And I think that conversation starts with Rob's Los Angeles Lakers. How did they get pawned off on me? How did this happen? You're coastal elitist. Eight in three, since a five-game losing streak, AD is playing like prime Kareem right now, even though he went out last night with flu-like symptoms, which is

pretty appropriate given his past. But I think was like, I'm starting to. to think a little bit differently about them. I'm curious where you are with them after this torrid run through some recent teams. Yeah, I think one, we should name this segment

the John Kerry flip-flop segment of the pod because that's what we're doing. We're being flip-flops. No, but look, I think it was obvious. And I said this plenty of times, like if AD plays to his capabilities,

the team won't be as a bit. bad as the Detroit Pistons. Like, that felt like... That's not a flip-flop, you know? That's just the truth. You know, that's just the truth. Like, if AD plays like he's an MVP-level player and not like he's just, like, the 25th best player in the NBA,

the Lakers will be hard to beat on any given night, right? Like, considering just what he brings to the table, like, he forced... A lot of times you got to send two. As a pick and roll threat, like he presents so many issues for how to defend that. And right now, he's getting to the line. And to me, that's the ultimate AD indicator that he's being aggressive and that he's attacking, is that he's forcing people to file them. And, you know, right here on the show notes, 35 points.

Damn there, 16 rebounds a game. That, ladies and gentlemen, is not what we've seen from AD in two whole years. He literally hasn't played with this level of consistent effort since the NBA playoffs in 2020. That was the last time he consistently played at this level. And so, yeah, when 80s playing his best, they can be a decent team. You know, they were trending towards,

we thought they were going to get New Orleans Pelicans Victor Wembeen Yamma at a certain point this year, right? Like, they're not going to be that. and I think they're they're not going to be as good as you know winnings 8, 9 straight or whatever

but they can be a competent team, you know, right on the fringes of the playoffs and I think you know, if they want to stand pat not give up literally picks until Bronny James is in the NBA

and they want to just be like, yo, we can use some cap money, we can do some different things this summer. If they want to, they can justify that if they continue to play like this all year long. What is the revised take here? Like where are we going?

Is it that they're not awful? They're not going to get the number one pick in the draft this year. Oh, yeah. I think the dominant conversation was that like this is a train wreck. It could potentially lead to them being one of the worst teams in the NBA. You might be confused because on this podcast, I think there's been an appropriate counterbalance. to that throughout starting with preseason.

Okay, I want the listeners to understand what Justin is doing right now. He's making reference to his Lakers are actually sleepy, really good sag that he tried in the preseason. I wouldn't say tried. I wouldn't say succeeded. Yeah. No, like, this is exactly what I kind of had hoped for in the best of timelines with the Lakers.

It's just like AD can still be very good, if not. morose and injured. LeBron James still has the ability, even though, like, he's showing clear signs of aging of putting up, like, just 20 and 20 whenever he, like, damn near wants to. And it just seems like, and I think the biggest difference between nowadays and the earlier days of the season, it's just like, they have enough okay role players that they could do enough in order to support those guys. Like, I think it became such a running joke, in part because Kendrick Nunn was like probably the biggest joke in the NBA last year. Just like, oh, if they had Kendrick Nunn, yada, yada, yada, that we didn't believe them when they had a couple injuries to start the season. They're like,

well, we're waiting on Thomas Bryant, we're waiting on Schroeder, rating on all these guys. And like, to an extent, if you are waiting on those people, like, you're in a bad spot. But I think those guys are giving them enough. And you're seeing the results from that. And I think it feeds into my overall perspective that, like, if you just have competent role players around these guys, you could be a pretty decent team. But Rob, where are you on just like the Lakers experiment. Because you seem more down on them than perhaps this side of the podcast.

I don't know that I'm down. I mean, for the record, Kendrick Nunn was bad, is bad, is out of the rotation now effectively. And that's part of the reason they're doing better. Like, if we want to look at the Lakers are playing well now, what has changed? The answers are, as we addressed,

AD has been unbelievable. And then they've had just like a couple of role player like changes that have helped them out a little bit. Austin Reeves playing more has helped. Troy Brown Jr. playing his help. Thomas Bryant and Dennis Schroeder have helped. And just like getting Kendrick Nunn out. Matt Ryan is now waived and off the team.

Wanted Ascano Anderson, who is a good player, but doesn't really fit with how they play necessarily, at least in terms of spacing. He's out of the rotation most nights. That stuff has helped a lot. Are those the things that make you a surefire playoff team? No. But they help you from getting into the disaster zone we were talking about.

And so like that's where I'm feeling a little bit of whiplash. on this take because coming into the season, we expected the Lakers to be a play-in caliber team. I think there's still that. They just started really badly. Right.

Well, I think you could also poke holes in recent results too because the wins have been against probably some of the worst teams in the NBA. Like it's Washington and Milwaukee. The Milwaukee game

might be one of the best games of the regular season thus far. That was like a very quality win. But there's literally three wins against San Antonio who, I got to be honest, I don't even think that they know when they're scheduled to play anymore,

Detroit, and then Brooklyn in the midst of their chaos. So, like, I think you could even argue, like maybe that really disastrous team is still in there somewhere, but it's just so happens that the schedule has been pretty charm in a play. Yeah, it's, again, you have to play well to win in this league. You know, like, I don't know how many times we have to say this. Like, there are no just roll out of bed and just beat teams in the NBA anymore. And again, I think AD specifically, he's the guy we point to

because he's the guy who's had up and down energy levels throughout his career. And I think he had something to prove in Los Angeles when he got there. Like, I never played with excellence, and that's the reason I never won anything meaningful. And he played that way for a whole season and a whole playoffs. And, guys, just go back and read the articles coming out of L.A. after the championship.

AD talked about, oh, we got to come out and play defense, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, if you were watching the games, he was completely dogging it on that end of the floor. And it's like, well, AD, like, the reason the defense isn't playing,

it's like heavily relying upon you to be great to make it all work, right? And so, yeah, some of the things that were addressed are just guys, you know, as my man Seth partner, I said the adjustment was to play better. Like, that's been the adjustment but at the same time, yeah, like Dennis Schroeder is as hilarious as it sounds.

He is qualified to cook bench players. He's not an above average starting NBA point guard. But if you let him play against most bench units in the NBA, particularly those of San Antonio and Detroit, he's going to be one of the best players on the court, right? And those minutes matter too in the regular season specifically. And so, yeah, guys like Thomas Bryant, who I know going into the season for the Wizards last year, people thought he was going to be, you know, a great player for them.

Like, these are guys with talent and reputations in the past. They're credible players, exactly. Well, one thing, I think that the question like that might be the biggest thing for them going forward is like whether or not those guys had provided them the opportunity to maybe go star hunting. And so I think the big question for the front office has been, do we hold the line as long as possible and try to swing for their fences? I think they probably didn't make a lot of trades, Boyan Bogdanovich being the prime example, because they wanted to preserve their cap space for next offseason. Because I think like they have aspirations of completing this big three with LeBron and AD. I had always been advocating for them to take a more less ambitious approach, which was like just get guys who are creditors.

high-level role players, Buddy Heald, Miles Turner. You can get into some of the jazz guys, Mike Conley, etc. Just round it out and then figure it out. I think, Rob, that's kind of like the biggest question I have now. Did they set such a baseline for competence? They're not going to have as much pressure to just get guys in there. They could actually be a little bit more choosy, and they can actually maybe reach for the stars, so to speak,

as they kind of anticipated. So if I reach for the stars, you're talking more long-term, more like play the long game on the trade market going into next season potentially. That's the kind of time frame in terms of star hunting you're talking about. Yes, or just try to swing a trade for a star specifically. So maybe it's more of like a Zach Levine big home run swing you're going for, hope that like a team like the Bulls or somebody else just decides to hit the panic button or the reset. And you are the benefactor of that because you're the Lakers, you have the market, you have the stars.

I think there's something to that. I mean, certainly if you're a solvent as a team and you're winning some games and you're feeling more stable, like you're not going to feel those pressures in the same way. There's not going to be that same urgency that can lead to desperation.

I think where I would warn some caution as far as like that long-term tack is a lot of what they're doing now, to Waz's point, via Seth part now is not just playing better. It's also just like playing harder. It's like winning effort is going a long way right now. And there's a feedback loop

with that stuff that comes with winning games, where it's just easier to buy in if you're already winning. If they go through a four-game losing streak, these role players start looking really shaky, really fast. And LeBron is dogging it coming back down the court, half-court offense, which even now isn't great, starts to look like a real problem. And so I don't think they're really in a position to be super choosy, to be honest.

Like, LeBron is on a pretty finite timeline. If LeBron James is your team, you still need to be operating with a great deal of urgency. I'm just not sure that the trade, like what they have the trade has not materially improved at all, even though these role players are playing better. Right. Yeah.

And the sort of binary of should it be a star, should it be a role player? I mean, I'd like to see it be the right star and the right role players. You know, maybe don't go after a guy who's ball dominant and can't shoot. If you have LeBron and AD, like maybe that's not the type of star. you put your chips in for and even with role players like somebody like Buddy Healed

or a Malik Monk, I wonder if they're better roleplay. Although Malik Monk was unbelievable next to LeBron last year. Like it was crazy how good he was next to LeBron last year, but I wonder if, you know, just qualitatively if a guy who actually straps people

and can make him, the widest open of threes, right? Like, he's not the type of guy who gives defense's panic, but when LeBron and AD are putting enough pressure on the rim can make a reasonably wide open three, if that guy's not more valuable than just a scintillating shooter who sort of is a sieve on defense, right? And so I wonder if it's a question of fit as far as direction.

and who's in charge of deciding who the right fit is. That always gives me pause. We have to always talk about that whenever it comes to roster construction with the Lakers because the power vacuum there is so weird because the incompetence of their ownership. You don't know who's going to get to decide who the right players are anymore. Right. Well, one of the more popular trade rumors we should discuss briefly,

I think Bill might have even threw this out into the ether. Is Demar de Rosen and Vucevich should the Bulls decide to blow it up? I personally hate this one, if only because, one, it reminds people of how much the Lakers whiffed on choosing Russell Westbrook over Demar de Roseu, when it seemed like that offseason he really wanted to go and be a Laker and then ended up on an all-MBA team and now here we are. And two, Vucevich seems like the absolute worst possible front court partner for AD. one, it seems like what they're doing well is defending.

And I don't know if you want to throw in Vucevich in order to clog up the paint on both sides. And then two, I just, I don't know, I've never been a Vouch guy. And so it just doesn't make sense to me. I think if you want to get like another center in there, Miles Turner makes way more sense just because of what he could provide defensively and you just like double down on what you already do well. Yeah, Vouch is, he's not the worst possible fit.

but he's getting away from pretty much everything that is working for AD right now, which is playing the five and the matchups that come with that has been really big for AD. And then AD he's announced himself as a defensive player of the year candidate by playing that position with the mobility

and the space that he has playing off a perimeter guys. And so like, yeah, Vooch can technically like stretch the floor, which is theoretically nice until you need him to like, you have to hit these wide open shots in a playoff series or we will lose.

I don't know that I won, Vouch being like my pressure release for that. Right. And that's another thing. He's like, he's not actually a great three-point sure. He's not. That's what I was, okay. So this one's like the reason why Vouch is an absolutely horrible fit is that at least with Miles Turner, if he got in there, AD could play the four. He could be the guy that's roaming the perimeter. He can be the Evan Mowgli, which it seems disrespectful to say, because Evan Mowgli's the newer guy. But you know, but you know what I mean. Yeah, the Yonis. Exactly.

He's the four who has the ability to roam the perimeter, and we can tack Miles Turner closer to the basket and leave him there, right? And be that rim-protecting guy. So that opens up AD to do that. And then conversely, with Turner on offense, it's like theoretically he spaces and all of that. Vouch doesn't space. It's all BS. He doesn't space. And no, he ain't your rim-protecting big.

and he's definitely not your four who's chasing guys around the perimeter. So he's just an absolutely terrible AD fit. And, you know, I think DeRosen, I think he's a much better proposition of what Westbrook does. Now, obviously, I'm not saying anything groundbreaking here. But I would just, I mean, man,

just if you're going to get a ball, dominant guy, get a guy who when you're going to LeBron and AD can actually space. You know, like legitimately spaced. That's what I think is important. Can we strike back to Turner for a second? Because one problem with that comparison is like, Miles Turner is out there in America's heartland

talking about how much he loves playing the five right now, indisputably. There's no confusion with me and Domas Sabonis anymore. Like, I'm the big. This is working great for me. And out here we have AD who's playing the five and looking great. I'm not sure I want to muddle those things up for both of those guys. So would you Max Turner? Justin, stop.

you're running the risk of self-parity at basically all times. Get this guy out of here. Seems like he's feeling pretty comfortable. He's very good. Dona Kroger, you know, like, why not just roll it back? It's all I'm saying. All right, let's pivot now to, I guess, another team in the America's heartland, the Dallas Mavericks, who last night pulled it out against Denver, 13 and 11 now.

They're one of these teams that I swear if we waited a week, maybe they'd be a the top of the West or they could be mired outside of the top six in the playoffs, fighting for a play in spot. I just don't know what to make of them at this point. Or maybe I do know what to make of them, but I'm just disappointed in that. Basically, I think the change we're talking about with the Mavericks is earlier in the season looked like Luca could just make hay with pretty much anything in order to win at a decent clip. But now it seems like a little bit more mixed. I think you're starting to see a little bit more questions being asked about his supporting cast. What is the long-term

future. How much is too much of a burden on him? Jason Kidd kind of alluded to him having too much usage to the point where Jason Kidd must be listening to group chat. I know. Loves it. No, he's more of an answer guy.

But Rob, were you on the Mavs now one plus month into this season? Like, are you more optimistic given that they still have Luca and things are okay? Or are you a little bit more disappointed in what you've seen this far? I'm trying to remember where I started at the beginning of the season because it's been such a journey with them. And it's such a weird night-to-night experience watching the team. They're just so three-point dependent at this point.

That is the variance in their game is, are these guys hitting or not? They don't really have the counterweights in terms of like their defense is like probably a half step back from where it was last season. Obviously they don't have Jalen Brunson. That's been talked to death. He was a nice stabilizer for them. So there's just a lot that comes and goes with whether these guys are hitting shots. right now they're hitting shots. Tim Hardaway Jr. having some of the games of his life.

Dorian Finney Smith, nail in threes. They're always going to look good when those things are happening. The question is, like, do they have anything to stem their worst impulses and their worst games and their worst stretches? And those tend to happen in fourth quarters, down the stretch, in crunch time, in overtime, late in these games after Lucas, you know, 32 points and 12 assists in already. And the defense is totally locked in on him. and they just don't seem to have a lot of alternatives.

And I don't blame Luca for that. Like, that is the construction of this team. And it is built to be limited in terms of the supplementary playmaking around him. Just not sure there's, like, a lot of means to fix it with what they have right now. Yeah, I told you guys, when we had our quasi- MVP conversation and all that stuff, like, I just don't, it's hard for me to believe that this off, it's not real basketball to me. that one guy, every single possession that he's on the floor, he initiates every single pick and roll. If the defensive coverage dictates that he attacks a guy one-on-one,

that's what he does for the duration of his minutes on the floor. And when he's not on the floor, they struggle, and they just don't have a consistent way to generate efficient offense without him carrying this huge burden. That's just not sustainable to me. Shop making or not. You know, at a certain point, the best teams is just going to be like, forget all of that shot making.

Luca, score 60. Every time, every night. Do that against the best teams and the best defenses. And, you know, people trying to come up with better ways to, you know, maybe time a double or time a trap or whatever the case may be. I just don't believe Luca can do this long term, sustainably, and the MAVs have, you know, championship level results. They have to be able to soak up possessions

where Luca's not the main engine, right? And because the key thing about what J.Kidd said to me there is and ask him to defend, right? He's not, it's not what we're doing, the James Hardin. Oh, go out and guard some post guy and do absolutely nothing else, right? Or, you know, like, they're like, no, look, like, be a real defensive player,

which I think he did in the Phoenix series, right? He showed that he's capable of being an above-average defender, right? And so if you can't ask him to do that every game, it's just too much to exert yourself on defense, especially because he's not a big, guys, he's a wing. He's guarding wings. He's guarding the most dangerous league. people guys in the NBA at his position and to do all of this pick and roll stuff and one-on-one

ISO step back and when he's not doing that he's getting all the way to the rim which news flash to people that's the most physically taxing thing you can do when the NBA is getting all the way to the cup and trying to finish that way so like no no they need to they need to find a way and even if it's not this season you can say you know what this is just this this season this offseason, we're going to put our chips in into getting an innings eater for offensive possessions. This is just not something you can do long term. Well, I think that's where the standings, I think, are pretty interesting and probably, I'm curious how Dallas dictates things based on where they are, because on the one hand, you could say, like, everything's

kind of, like, packed together. There isn't any real standout team in the West or not a lot of standout teams in the West. Do we just kind of bank on Luca for this season? And, march forward with the hope that he could just do what he did in last season's postseason and just take over and maybe we end up in the West Finals again. Or do you say everyone is jammed together, now is our time to strike, should we be bold, we know we're going to have to do something significant eventually. Let's do it now. Let's push our chips in for whichever high level upgrade we can get. Like, Rob, where do you stand on just like maybe the long term and even like how that affects the short term? I mean, it depends on the cost of those moves, right? Like if you're, if you're

talking about star level players, who's available, what is it going to take us? Because if you make the wrong trade for the wrong guy at the wrong cost at the wrong time, that could be game over for the Luca era. Like this is not a team that can afford. Like they'd have all their picks right now pretty much. I think they owe one protected pick. But if they send out too many for the wrong guy, that could be really, really crippling. So I think they need to be exceedingly careful about who that star is, how they fit next to Luca, what they see the long-term plan of this being. And that's where it behooves you to kind of wait it out. And to like a lot is going to be on Luca right now.

There aren't many options to stretch out usage beyond that for some of these other guys. Like basically you're looking at like Spencer Dinwiddie is already doing about as much as he can do. And probably more than he should do in a lot of these games. You could run through Christian Wood a little bit more. But clearly there's some hangups there in terms of just like trust from the coaching staff. We can talk about Tim Hardaway Jr. if you want like I you could see this recent stretch to play as him rounding into form coming back from a long-term injury, or as I do, you could look at it as one of the weeks where Tim Hardaway hits every damn shot.

And it's a natural phenomenon that our scientists don't know how to explain yet. And that's kind of it. I think the example is that Steph year a couple years ago in Golden State, where all of my Golden State Warriors friends, everything that I saw on Twitter was like, Steve Kerr is a freaking idiot. why aren't they just spamming Steph pick and roll it's literally the only thing that works why are we not doing this and Kerr was like

yo to what end right like yeah okay it's gonna manufacture more wins for us to go out and do what why are we our franchise guy the best player in the history why are we just adding unnecessary wear and tear

to this guy so that we can win 41 games get bounced in the first round yes will win more. We'll be better in this very short-term way, but it's not going to be meaningful. So no, I'm going to continue to do my egalitarian, beautiful game stuff, you know, tiki-taka stuff. But sorry, we're not spamming stuff.

We're not Westbrooking stuff here. We're not going to do that. That's not basketball. The difference here, though, is the cavalry was going to come. They had those players already on the roster, and they were going to come back at some point to, to really help what was going on. I think the problem with Dallas is like they just,

they don't know where it's going to come. And I think I fall in the same place that you guys are at, that it's probably better to wait, if only because we don't know what that like surefire fit is going to be that blockbuster trade that makes sense to everything. But on the hand, you could also argue credibly the other side where it's like, well, we also don't know if Luke is going to stay long term past this contract.

Shouldn't we maximize every single season he's going to be here? Um, let me tell you so, man. Until, until these cats actually start leaving these gargantuan team super maxes on the table, we got to stop with this. Is Zion going to play on the, you know, is he going to play on the qualifying offer and leave New Orleans and blah, no, he's not. Zion also didn't have a foot for an entire year going into those negotiations. So five years into Bradley Beal watch, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that one should have resolved itself a while ago. I think that's on Beal more than anyone. But Beal even said recently, like, the offers just weren't there and free agency for me relative to this max, like, gigantic bag that was put on my front porch. I think Beal just said stuff. I'm going to be honest. I don't think he has any understanding of what he's saying most of the time because I can't

imagine no one was like, hey, Bradley Beal come without like pretty clear indications from him in his camp that he was going to take that bag. I mean, reading between the lines of his comments, It sounded more like the teams that could be out there for me are not necessarily like guaranteed contenders. And so why am I leaving to go from, I mean, the Wizards are a fine team right now. Like, why would I go to basically a parallel or slightly better situation when I can wait out a great situation? Also, like, Luca went to the conference finals last year. Yeah.

You know, like this isn't AD in New Orleans where they, you know, they managed to beat, they managed to beat up on. on Portland once ever. And that was the extent of the success there. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about consistent showings in the playoffs. You know, the Clippers stuff was just like, all right, we lost to, like, team with one of the best records in the NBA. Like, these guys have had some nice successes.

And like I said, with that new Supermax, it's kind of just like, shut up. up, take the money. Ain't nobody going anywhere. Until I see somebody make actual financial sacrifices to bounce, I'm not believing this crap about, oh, we got to keep the young guy happy. We got to kiss his ass. We got to do this. Man, pay these fools and figure it out. That's it. I think two things. Let's check back in a year to see if Bradley Beale didn't get both. He didn't get his money and ended up somewhere else because I think there's a very real possibility

that like that is the long term goal for some people. We'll see. He might be building a big three down there in D.C. Who's the third? Is it, is it Hachemura? No, come on, baby. Don't come on. Don't do Cal Coosma like that.

Come on, baby. Yeah. See, I just don't think it's arguable that like eventually Luca is going to need a high level running. Like this team is not arguable. Yeah. But eventually, I think you do what Atlanta did. You do.

It's going so great there. I'm not saying it's going great, but eventually, yes, yes. Eventually they're going to have to pull the trigger on trying to make things much better. Yeah, exactly. I just wonder, like, do you wait for the possible best fit and what is the darkest timeline? If that best fit just doesn't come, or do you take the opportunities that you have in front of you and just make it? work. And I would probably lean toward the latter, honestly, but

I think you could make the credible argument that because Luca is so good, like, you could actually make like a Zach Levine work better than it would in other situations because Luca is going to be an MVP top five guy of any way. Can I throw out the guy that they actually should be like

hawking for and like waiting for down the road? Carl Towns. Are we sure that that Towns is going to stick around? I'm just having visions of towns as Chris Epps Porzingis and I don't I don't like he's a really good shooter

one of the best shooting bigs in the league I just don't love the vision of that personally like I'm probably more on the Beal Levine if you're going to make a star trade for Dallas at some point that's the kind of guy I want and some of that comes down to something that you were alluding to was in terms of just like what they need from other players on their team something that that was particularly stark

in seeing them play against the nuggets on Tuesday which was when the second units were out there and the Mavs were basically just like clearing out Spencer Dinwiddie to attack Bones Highland because that is a mismatch that a large guard can exploit and at a certain point it's just like can Dallas get any means of creating consistent advantages that don't rely on one

a Bones Highland level liability being on the floor or two things that are 100% reliant on Luca being a basketball genius like that's where I'm like You're saying they need to make a big trade and that's probably the way this is ultimately going. I think we would be having a very different conversation if some of the role players on this team

had been playing 10% better. Like there's a lot of good but not great shooters on this team who haven't been hitting until recently and that has led to some up and down results. I think Luca plus like a pretty good supporting cast even without stars is probably still good enough to get you to the conference finals in some years. Maybe the finals in some years.

He is that good alone. If you want to put Beal or Levine or whoever with him, I think you could go pretty far, but I'm not saying it doesn't have to be that way. To me, the help has to be perimeter help. I just don't think a guy like talents, he's not, he's just not against really good teams. He's not an innings either. He's not somebody you just keep running offense through over and over again.

He's kind of a finisher of possessions, man. He's not an initiator of them. He's not like a yokeach. You know what I'm saying? Like, obviously, Yokic is out of the question. He's one of the five best players in the league. He's not moving. He's not going anywhere.

But, like, legitimately is just like, all right, when Luca doesn't have the ball, there's a guy who just makes offense happen. Right. You know, there's a guy who can do that. And that's why, to me, it needs to be more of a perimeter variety, the help that comes in than bigs. Because, to be honest, man, or offense, these dudes be negligible.

You know, like, Luca's going to find you. You don't actually need to be highly skilled or crafty or creative. Luca's going to create the chances and opportunities for you. And hopefully another teammate can help in creating those chances.

These bigs who, like, can't be the focal point of an offense, for real. Like, even Carl Towns, it's like, he has to have a pick and roll. partner who has the savvy to find him on these pick and pops and stuff like that or even when he's doing the coming off of screens and stuff

like. So like Luca Donchich? Yeah. In fairness to like Luca does need a little bit of help and he needs he does need some of that savvy. Like we've seen at this point what it looks like when you tie Javail McGee around his waist and asking him to drag that around

for eight to ten minutes a game and it wasn't great. So a little bit goes a long way, though. Like, even the difference between Javail and Dwight Powell has been pretty meaningful. Dwight Powell to Carl Towns? Like, obviously, they'd be a great combination.

I just worry about what it would do to Towns game and what the effects, like, how effective a very perimeter version of Carl Towns ultimately is. And then Carl Towns sucks at defense. That's probably, yeah, that's probably the best argument. They probably need someone who is going to make an impact on defense.

Like, I keep thinking of a Jeremy Grant as being kind of a nice fit there. wouldn't solve all your problems. But like he's probably like if you get like a grant and like another guy on the wing to help you defensively, like I wonder if that does enough to allow Luca to be Luca and that's all you need. Every team needs a Jeremy Grant. Like show me the team where he doesn't fit. And also you you ask the question of what's to deal with with Carl Towns. I had my man John Cresensky on weekends with wild shameless plug and he was just like, yo, if this doesn't work, he's the obvious guy. Obviously. It's not going to be Rudy. It's not going to

be Anthony Edwards. It's, Towns is gone if this thing somehow kind of goes up in flames. And all these teams you just mentioned, you know, the Lucas and all these other guys, teams that are just like, yo, we still want to add talent. You know, we're still willing to mortgage assets in the future to do so. Carl Towns will be right there, you know, and you wonder who's going to be out there for him. But I think he'll have a market. And he'll definitely be the kind of guy that teams like the wolves could say,

we need to get some picks back. We need a sort of spiritual reset. All of that stuff. He's definitely a guy to look for it. Well, why don't we talk about the wolves? Because we have them here on the docket as one of the four teams we're going to talk about. They're 11 and 12 now. Towns is out four to six weeks with this calf strain.

Copair was just ejected for a game for basically sweeping the leg on Kenny Hustle. And OK, see? So things are probably at the lowest point they've been. And it's been pretty bad for a little while here. This one is probably another one where it's like, I think we expected this to not go great. But I do think we, and I think even just like the general consensus

of the NBA Twitter audio, the NBA media landscape, expected them to at least be productive in the regular season and all of these kind of fit issues matriculating or come to the floor more in the playoffs. but they're just an outright mediocre team. And so, I don't know, Rob, like, here's what I'll say. I doubt that they'll pull the plug on this experiment this season.

It seems a little too soon. If you were running ownership in the front office, you had the decision of whether or not to pull the plug on this. Are you seeing this thing through, or are you so skeptical that you're trying to get as much from what you can of A-Towns or someone just to make sense of it? I mean, I'm not pulling the plug. this fast. Like we've barely, we've just barely seen much of all and certainly much of all that's any

good. I think what, like, what I'm saying ultimately is not, oh, give these guys time. We need to be patient. I think the best way forward is just to see if they can fix it in piecemeal before they go to the nuclear options, right? It's the DeAngelo Russell trades. It's like the moves around the periphery. And most importantly, like during this stretch where Carl Towns is out, can we compete, please, like just as a team? Because the most concerning thing for me, for the wolves, their habits. And if they felt more invested in making this work, I'd feel better about where they are. And by that, I mean, do they get back in transition? Are they moving the ball? Are they boxing out? Do they give a shit? Because on a nightly basis, it doesn't really seem like it. And certainly

there's like halves and quarters where they're just not there. And that's costing them games. And so we can run through the chicken and egg of like, does that come from them not having trust in the construction of the team, are they not feeling good about like the big, big pairing and all that? Honestly, I think it's just like their problems are so much bigger than the Townsend-Gaer pairing or each of those guys individually that I'm wondering about everything. And so I'm trying to see if I can get kind of the chemistry of that right before I start fiddling with, oh, we need to trade. Say what you want about Carl Towns, one of the most talented players in the league. Yeah, well, folks need to understand about how we even get to this place with the wolves and

what their scheme looks like now and why some of the effort stuff that Rob mentioned and execution stuff looks so nasty is that they played a different way last year, completely different, in the sense that they were this super aggressive pick and roll defense. They let their athletes sort of scramble behind the play after Townsend, and whoever was guarding the ball sort of attacked the pick and roll ball handler. and they had these guys who could do it. You know, shouts to Jared Vanderbilt. Like, they had these guys who were great at doing that

and management and the coaches said, yo, this is not a sustainable way to run a defense. And then we just straight up need to be bigger, heftier up front. And so they said, how do we do that? Let's get Rudy Gobert. But when you bring Rudy in, you're running a brand new type of defense and not only just that, your defense is not this one-size-fits-all thing, right?

Where in Minnesota last year was like, this is how we cover essentially every single pick and roll. This year it's like, all right, when Rudy's covering the screener, we're doing this, when Towns is covering, we're doing this, when somebody else is, we're doing this, it's like matchup dependent, it's player-dependent. It's, let's face it, high- IQ stuff that you need to be executed. and you need to be committed to executing. And a lot of the stuff that they're messing up is breakdowns in the back of the play. Like, they're just giving up layups. Guys are just not executing what's being asked of them.

And some of that you wonder if that's buying, some of that you wonder if it's personnel. But a lot of times, honestly, guys, on defense, and maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon fogey, if you're not getting it done on defense, most of the times because you're not fucking trying, hard enough. You don't have enough determination and grit. I genuinely feel that way. Like most of the times, it's not that, you know, we're asking Steph Curry to guard Kawhi Leonard

in an isolation, right? Where it's just like, Steph Curry, God bless him, he can only physically do so much. Most of the time, especially in a regular season, where it's not a bunch of these teams with these great players, matchup hunting and bum hunting, your worst defenders is just straight up trying your hardest, they're not trying their hardest. And I don't know if that's a, man, why should we be doing this, changing up our style for this Rudy guy? I don't, I don't know, you know, but it's, to me, it's a matter of they're not trying hard enough to get this new stuff done. I mean, it's a great reminder of why climbing in the standings is pretty much always hard. Like, you have a good team.

You make a huge addition in terms of net talent. But in doing so, you give up something fundamental to what made you good in the first place. And that's not just the scheme you're talking about, Was. That's identity and spirit. Like, maybe this is a group that just really needed Pat Beverly cranking up the volume at all times to be on top of their stuff. Like, maybe they needed that. Yeah. So I like Rob's suggestion of maybe trying to figure out what to do with Russell before you hit the panic button and start trading off pieces of

the big three. In part because Russell is a free agent next summer, which means that he's going to command a pay date. I don't think, well, most teams probably aren't going to want to pay, let alone the wolves. So I was wondering if you can get something for him. I wrote this down. What do you guys think about sending DeAngelo Russell? And we're going to tack on Austin Rivers so he can go and hang out with Woz at the Spotify offices. Russell goes back to the Lakers because you can always go. home and the Lakers can use another ball handler, run the second offense. Maybe he's like, you know, I don't think he's going to give you the star level impact. Maybe that the Lakers are looking for,

but maybe no, LeBron can coach him along and he becomes some facsimile of like Cleveland Kyrie, basically, on a very poor man's level. Going, going back to the Timberwolves, however, you can always go home, Pat Beverly, Lonnie Walker, Kendrick Nunn, Damien, Jones. The tough part with the Lakers is you basically need to trade Russell Westbrook or half the team. So I don't know like if losing Lonnie Walker is like in the best interest of the Lakers. But what I'm trying to do here is basically give the wolves a jolt of some of the gusto that they had from last season, some of the grit that Waz is looking for by getting our friend Pat Bet back. Can we get an HR clarification on whether you're allowed to trade one of our coworkers? I don't think he's gone through the clearance process yet.

So, I think we're fine for that. He's got a background check still? Oh, okay. Drug screening. Yeah. Um, I don't think there's ever been a person who's down on DeAngelo Russell as I am. I just don't, he solves no.

Let's just take the Rudy example. It was like, oh, D.Loh is supposed to be this expert pick and roll. and he's going to make the root. It's always these theories with these guys, with this guy specifically. And just people just always going into like, well, he's a talented guy. I just don't see it, man.

I just don't see it. I don't think he does any of the things that are tantalizing about him good enough. As far as picking roll operation, he's, do not ask this guy to isolate one-on-one. against any NBA guard. It's just going to end in disaster. The shooting, you know, I think the shooting kind of,

it feels like it kind of comes and goes at times, especially in the spot-up. And then, guys, like, we already forgot about Nick Young and the toxicity and all of the stuff involved the last time he was in the Lakers. Like, I just, I'm, but again, I've been down on this guy since we were calling him, oh, he made an all-star. But I was like, guys, like, this dude played good basketball for six weeks.

He made it as a reserve. Not even a reserve. Somebody got hurt, and the commissioner picked him up. Like, bro, I just don't see it for him. If I'm the Timberwolves, honestly, I remember a friend of mine was saying he was interviewing Jerry West about Golden State in Harrison Barnes's last year. and the topic of Barnes wanting big money in the elevator and if that would be a problem. And Jerry West didn't even answer the question.

He merely pointed at an elevator. Like, there's the elevator. He can go. He can get the, you can get. So, like, I don't think there's, like, D-Lo and, you know, I understand. They're paying a lot of guys, and they don't have the flexibility to, quote, quote, replace him.

But I'm sorry, bro. Like, I don't see why you feel like you need to extract value from DeAngelo Russell. A guy who's just, he's not a thing. That's kind of the problem with the potential de-load trades for as much as, like,

that's where I would start. Even in this construction, I'm looking at the Lakers. I'm like, would I give up Lonnie Walker for DeAngelo Russell? No. Yeah. I don't think I would.

It's tough because you're trying to trade a player for a better version of that player. So it's like, it's always going to be a tough sell here. I do want to talk about the Hawks though quickly because we also have them here on the docket. Mostly because of the athletic story that came out over the weekend that Trey Young, believe it or not, is causing some kerfuffles over there with his coaches. Stop me if you've heard this before.

I guess the question is, do we see a pathway for, for for for for tray young to change because now he's been through what two different types of variations of this core and it seems like the same issues come up somehow he still has the same amount of usage percentage uh as he did last season before gejante murray came in and and air quotes alleviated his burden so like what is your basic kind of takeaway from this story and what it means for your hawks going forward i was always a little bit miffed at As to why the Hawks were so thirsty to keep Nate McMillan in the fold, I just, you know, they had that nice playoff run, which I was excited about.

But even me as somebody was excited, it was always like, man, is Nate McMillan going be the one to get this through? And it's not like he's a bad coach. But I think what's going to, like, what it's going to take to turn this around is not average NBA coaching. you know, like it's going to take somebody who can inspire buy-in, who can figure out how to make this group connected, and I just don't see it.

And as much as I liked the Murray deal, you know, I was down on the Hawks coming into this season because of my experience with them last year. Like the group, they're just not, there's no chemistry. They don't have chemistry as a team. And it might be Trey Young. It might be the coaching. It could be the fit of the guys.

This group, they don't play for each other. They're not that type of team. And so that's why I was skeptical that, you know, you bring in Murray and Nate McMillan is going to be the one to integrate this. Like, it just doesn't feel the same because the Murray fit, especially on offense, was always going to be complicated, right? This wasn't Cleveland last year where they had this great thing happened for them, this young core, super fun. And it was like, this thing that's missing, we're too relying upon Garland. And Donovan Mitchell is going to do every single thing that we need him to do.

He's going to have one-on-one stuff. He's good enough in the pick and roll to do things. He can shoot it really well. Like, it was so obvious and clear the vision of the need that was being filled. that wasn't the case with Murray. It was always going to take a lot of work and vision to make this thing work. And I don't think these guys are invested

in trying hard enough and sacrificing hard enough to make all of this stuff work. And I don't know that Nick McMillan is the dude with the vision to be creative and creative enough in how to make it happen. So, yeah, no, I wasn't high on the Hawks coming in and I'm still not.

They've just got like a bunch of overlapping problems in a way that feed into each other that are just not healthy for a team structure. And one of them right now, like, they're just out guys. Like, this is not a team that can afford to be down John Collins and the Andre Hunter and Justin Holliday, if you want to put in that conversation, has been sick too. They can't be missing all those three guys. That makes it especially rough because then a shallow team looks really shallow. Like, if an impression that I have watching your team is, hey, Jared Culver's doing some things,

That's too much Jared Culver. Like, that's too much. I'm sorry. If we're getting Veeh Krati minutes, things are off the rails. So that as a starter. But moreover, I think,

I think, like, at least personally, I underestimated how much losing Kevin Herder as really the go-to shooter on this team would hurt them. Because they,

look, they did a great job, like getting A.J. Griffin, who's been crucial to, like, the viability of this team on offense. But, he's the only guy hitting three is at above average level.

Yeah, it's Hurtor and boge. Those were the sort of getting back. The pressure relief valves for the offense when, you know, things became really constricted. And to get back to Trey Young, like, I love Trey Young. But, like, this stuff is so fragile. Like, if Trey comes into the season, and it's important that Justin mentioned the usage,

where nothing has changed in how he's approached the game, this allegedly new. iteration of the team, like, Trey has made no sacrifices in his own game and his own, let's face it, vanity, you know, when it comes to, now I'm a guy that holds the ball and I take a bunch of shots. Like, that's vanity to me because it's clearly not winning basketball, right? He makes, he's ostensibly the star, the franchise player, and he does nothing to change anything about his approach. And these other guys are supposed to look at that and be like, no, it's going to be up to me who nobody, you know, I don't dictate what time when we leave a city if we stay longer. I don't, you know, franchise isn't like, oh, let's get a guy who's going to mass trade deficiencies.

Like, all the guys who's accruing the sort of ancillary benefits of being the main person, that one guy who's getting all of that stuff and everybody else looks around and he does nothing. He does no, he makes no sacrifices. He isn't some huge team, glue, whatever leader of men type of cat. Who are these guys looking to that they're supposed to be like, yeah, I should operate that way when Trey's not doing it. So to me, it starts at the top. That's where it gets tricky, though, because, like, okay, Trey is having one of the least efficient volume shooting seasons in recent NBA history right now. That's a thing that's happening, indisputable. If no one in your team is hitting shots.

Yeah. What are you, like, what are you supposed to do but shoot? Like, I think it's feeding into some of his worst instincts. Like, okay, for right now, some fun trivia. Who is leading the Hawks in total three-pointers made this season? Hunter? No. Is it Griffin?

Is it the rookie? Griffin is number three, and he's seventh in total minutes on the team for context. So that's where we're at. Number one, Dejante Murray is leading the team in three-point makes. Notorious shaky shooter, although kind of reformed shooter Dejante Murray and his credit. That's the high bar. in terms of guys that Trey is kicking to who are actually converting open looks.

And I think like the balance of those two things, like this is a very interesting parallel with Luca, right? Where Luca is a guy who can max out every possession and get you to an elite offensive level, even if he's controlling everything. Trey is not operating it that way in that level as a score. And the result is he's feeling reluctant to pass. He's taking too many shots.

Like the balance of all that is off. And it's representative of like the difference between those two guys, superstar to star or all star or like maybe Trey's an all-MBA guy, wherever you want to put him. If the mix is even a little bit off for Trey Young, it can have really middling to disastrous results. I think if you side with Trey Young in the Young

McMillan standoff, I think you have never been a manager. We're not even really talking about the standoff, though. Just, no, I know, but like, ultimately, becomes the personnel issue. Won't somebody think of the management. Cape is the most... You, bro, what is going on? Listen, I understand Nate McMillan so deeply.

And he's like just like drawing a hard line about not going to shoot around. I was like, this is a guy who knows that he's going to get fired. And he has just decided to finally stand up. You know? And by the sound of things, it sounds like Trey is just a fucking load to deal with, who apparently has tie-ins to management and ownership that just makes it tough to coach him in the way that he probably needs to be a coach. And so for that reason, I feel deeply for Nate McMillan, even though I know our friend is going to be the one who's going to end up leaving probably in the next couple months. it's all set. I mean,

the hardest thing for any franchise to deal with is a star who wants more pull, more shots, more money than their game

justifies at that particular moment. You're telling me. I say it as the guy who's constantly asking for the pull. You know, I'm trying to dictate

when our team playing leave, so to speak. But, I mean, Trey is one of those guys. And if you're high on his game,

maybe you think he's worth it. And if you are, I think, has bought in on his limitations, as we are, then maybe you don't, at least in cases like this one. Yeah, I think, look, man, as much as we talk about what Lucas doing and all of that, like he's, he weathered the Rick storm where Rick was on his head constantly to be like,

nah, like playing like this is actually super effective and I was right. Trey, you ain't done that. You ain't done that. You have not been as good as Luca Donchish. And that doesn't mean you need to justify your existence by being that good. But it's like, can we just get some level of humility, two straight seasons with high expectations? And it's just like, come on, bro. You know, like, let's just get some level of humility here.

And so, you know, I'll never completely sour on, Trey. I think what he does, man, as far as his pull-up game, his elite level court vision, stuff is highly valuable. You know, I'm not going to, I'm never going to be completely down on Trey. But I would just love to see just a little bit of the slightest humility, right? Because the guys that we've seen not do it in their hardheadedness is like Hardin, you know? Chris Paul's like, yo, you know, when you don't have the ball, you know, move around, like do something. And Barton was like, fuck that.

I've played at MVP level four straight years. I'm not taking orders from this freaking dude. All right. I can kind of understand that, right? Like even if you could say he didn't do it in the playoffs or whatever, he played at an MVP level legitimately four or five years in a row carrying teams. Trey Young has been a really good player. He ain't been that.

He has not been that. And so I just would love to see some level of humility from the guy. It's definitely something that they need to bring up in their dev talks. All right, let's flip now. We gave some suggestions to some of the stars in the link, but now it's our time to take some suggestions. And today's suggestion box, my friends, is presented by Chase Freedom Unlimited.

That's right. We got the bag. Unlimited 1.5% cash back at just the beginning. Earn 5% on travel, purchase through Chase. 3% on dining, including takeout, 3% at drugstores, and 1.5% on everything else. How do you cash back? Learn more at chasefredom.com. Restrictions and limitations apply.

Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Today's suggestion box, we are bringing in producer Isaiah Blakely to run us through some of your email, Suggestionbox g at gmail.com. Isaiah, do you want to take it away? Yeah, so we're starting with an email from Thaddeus. It's titled Emphatic Hot Takes. Just in short, it's a bit of a long email, but he loves your guys' chemistry, so that's great. I love it already.

But he wants, his suggestion is you do a short take segment every week, but instead of your own, you're trying to predict a take of one of the other guys would have. You know what, man? I'm so looking forward to this. Yeah, go ahead. I've I have I have I just I just had a revelation

today like you know how so many people in the media or are like player empowerment guys Justin is a coaching empowerment guy he is straight up

Stan Van Gundy Jeff Van Gundy middle management ride or die like you know being in that buffer zone of like yes no I don't quite run the

company like the GM and the owner. And I'm not the freaking staff like the players, but God damn it, I need some respect. How do you guys think I got that way, by the way? Do not answer that question. Listen,

giving voice to the voiceless over here. Coaches need defense too. They are people, God damn it. We could not have scripted a better take for you than that. That's next level stuff. It's very true. Does someone want to go first?

I'll go for. I did script a take for you, Justin. Okay, beautiful. Look, it's April 2023. Okay. The Celtics are coming off a tough six weeks or so. Chris Middleton hasn't looked amazing yet for the bucks. Oh, my God.

And here comes Justin, defiant to the last. The question is, are we sure the Nets? aren't going to the NBA finals. I see you breaking down the matchups. I see you falling in love with Kevin Durant all over again. Have you looked at the standings lately? I see six in the east above the Sixers, above the Raptors. It's their time, baby.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm just putting in your head now so you know where it came from in April. Just love the chemistry. Love what Penn Simmons is doing this year. Yeah, I believe it. I can see that. The only mimicking I can do of Rob is a young fringe NBA guy who's gotten about 16 minutes in four straight games

and has looked like he might be somebody who earns the taxpayers mid-level one day. And Rob's like, he might be a guy. He might be a guy. That's the Rob special, young fringe guy, who's finally, getting a little opportunity and it's doing a little something with it. We're all about future casting. Do you have one for Waz? I don't.

I just did one for you. I just went one way. Beautiful. I haven't heard both of you guys. Actually, I have three for Rob because it's kind of a set. The first one, the Nuggets could be pretty good if everything goes right.

Okay. Yeah. I see where this is going. Jason Tatum has a shot at MVP this season, but we'll see. I really like how the Raptor. hedge on screens. Wow.

You know what? I'm fine with all those takes. I am also going to pocket those, and I'm going to bring them back out and see if you notice. Yeah, and I have one for Waz as well. My bad, I didn't know we were supposed to bring a take.

I actually have a bonus take. I'm going to drop a link in the chat right now. As is all the rage right now, I went to one of these AI, generating bots. And I asked it to generate takes for all three of us for a sample podcast. So I'm sending you guys a script. I'm hoping we can just kind of read through this script real quick as ourselves.

Oh, so we're role-playing. We're role-playing. We're role-playing as ourselves. The intro I put was, write a script for an episode of the Ringer NBA show podcast in which Justin Vera, Rob Mahoney, and Bigwas, each offer hot takes about the current NBA season. Okay. Basketball is very good.

Welcome to the Ringer MBA show. I'm your host, Justin Verrier. We have a great show in store for you today. Joining me are my co-host, Rob Mahoney and Big Wads. Let's get right to it. All right, let's do this. As we wrap up the season, question mark. I think it's time to talk about some hot takes.

Who would like to start? All right, I'll go first. My hot take is that the Clippers will win the championship this year, which is a literal take that I gave this year. Oh, wow, that's a bold one. All right, my hot take is that the buck. won't make it out of the first round of the playoffs. All right, I'll one up you both.

My take is that the Lakers will miss the playoffs altogether. All right. All right, I think it's clear that we all have strong opinions on the current NBA season. Let's hear from our listeners. What hot takes do you have about the NBA this season? Honestly, pretty accurate. This is the perfect podcast skeleton. flawless victory, Rob.

Thank you. We should just hand this out instead of produce a podcast every week. I think so. All right, let's wrap it here and a reminder that today's suggestion box was presented by Chase Freedom Unlimited. Earned big time with Chase Freedom Unlimited.

Earned 5% on travel purchased through Chase, 3% on dining, including takeout, 3% at drugstores and 1.5% on everything else. How do you cash back? Chase, make more of what's yours. Restrictions and limitations apply. cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, and A member FDIC. All right, that's it for this episode.

Thank you to Isaiah, Blakely, on production, and for bringing us through our suggestion box for Rob Fawaz. We will see you next time.