The Ringer NBA Show - 'Group Chat' — It Turns Out All the Bad Teams Are Good (Ep. 151)

Episode Date: October 26, 2017

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier are joined by Paolo Uggetti to chat about Eastern Conference parity, the improved play of the Magic and Nets, the Spurs' and Raptors' style contrast with the rest of the league, the Cavs' new roster having the same old issues, Draymond Green's deflection tactics, and Eric Gordon’s impressive play without Chris Paul. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And welcome to NBA group chat. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm joined, as always, by Justin Verrier. Hi. We are also joined this week by Palo Ugetti. What's up? Haley is counting her winnings for betting the over on Andre Drummond shooting over 80% from the free throw lines. So she has moved to the South Pacific for a life of luxury.

She'll be back next week. Palo, welcome. How's it going? It's going well, man, because the NBA has parity now. And that's what we wanted to talk about. Something like that. Any given X day, any team can beat any team. And it's kind of fun.

It's made the regular season. It's made the early regular season super exciting. And along with that, all the teams that we were like, I can't believe we're forced to watch these teams for six months. I can't believe we're going to have to watch the Pacers. I can't believe we're going to have to watch. They're good. The bad teams are good now.

Yeah, break up the magic. It's like I was thinking about the series. It's kind of like the NFL parody type thing going on. And it's early in the season, so you can't really be like, okay, this is how it's going to be the entire year. but you almost have like the any given night kind of thing where like you don't know if like last night the jazz could lose through the suns you know or just like just like just things like that where you're just I don't know what's going to happen today and that makes it exciting in itself and it creates

a sense of parity that will probably like flame out by the end of the year but it's fun in the moment probably what every team needs to do is allow j triano to coach their team jay triano needs to coach the entire NBA and that all the NBA games would be 89 89 yeah the sun's turnaround is it's been pretty crazy I'm looking at the time top of the East though. I think we just assume that the good teams in the East would just be really good. And I look at the common denominator between the Orlando Magic and the Brooklyn Nets and they both have a win against the Cleveland Cavaliers. And so instead of these teams being good, I think it might be the case that the Cavs might just not be that good. They might not be taking

it seriously yet. Although it's worth noting that that Brooklyn win is courtesy of Spencer Dinwiddie's Gritty. Gritty. They're so fun to watch. Like you look everywhere. They were not playing with DeAngel Russell last night. Jared Allen. the rookie they drafted, looks really good in the paint. You know, you have Ronday Hollis-Cheferson who looks better and better every game. And then Spencer Dinwiddie, who turned into Steph Curry all of a sudden. You sound like Vivek. Yeah, exactly.

So they're just like a blast to watch, which, I mean, props to Sean Marks and, you know, Kenny Ekinson, I guess. Yeah, the fun thing about them is best offense, worst defense, which is a recipe for like, we have to watch this basketball team every night now. Yeah, I think the commonality between a lot of these teams that are doing well, I mean, I guess not with the sun, but well, more. recently is that the offense is there. I think if you look at like teams that succeed early in the season, it's continuity and then things you can kind of bank on. If teams are going to be playing faster, if everybody is going to be scoring a lot, I think there might be some more variance in the results there just because you can hit stretches like this where they're just hitting everything and then you could topple a team like that. Yeah, they're chucking up a lot of threes,

which probably keeps them in games to some extent. They play super fast. But the other thing that I like about some of these bad teams, like the magic and like the nets, is that we got ourselves so lathered up over the summer about expectations because of all these super teams. And even teams like, even teams like the Timberwolves, who were like relatively super, you know? And these guys are just like operating completely under the radar. Nobody expected anything from the magic. But when you watch them, you're like, magic has some dudes. Yeah. And if Aaron Gordon is now a three point shooter, the magic are dangerous. I think that's the other thing, too. Like you have these guys who you can latch on and be like, okay, I'm interested in that guy's development.

Like with the nets, you have Russell, the magic, you have Aaron Gordon, who's looked amazing. You know, he's hitting threes now, which is, you know, is it going to make them almost unstoppable. So having these, like, kind of cult heroes within every one of these teams also makes them more appealing. And, I mean, you got to give credit to Frank Vogel, I think, too, for putting that team together. And, like, you know, it seemed like a really weird roster. And they've been able to, you know, it's a bizarre roster. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I was talking about the Hornets, like, too much in the preseason as a time. foreseed simply because they were the type of team that could just go in, do their work, and be completely average, and average was going to take them far in the Eastern Conference because the conference is just so weak. I think I had the right idea, maybe just didn't pinpoint the right teams. The Magic have, like, a totally fine roster. Alfred Payton hasn't been playing, which I think is actually better for them. Yeah.

And I wonder if there is a trade to be made there. I know we could maybe look at Bledsoe, maybe some other guys that might be on the map here. Like, it might be weird that they're buyers, but that's the type of team that you get a little bit more there, there might be enough to take a next step forward. I don't even know if the magic have enough young guys. Like they have Isaac, they have Gordon. Alfred, they probably, like you just said, probably found out that they might play better without him with Fornier running the point and Augustine backing him up. I mean, this is not like, you're not protecting a bunch of rookies on that team anymore. No, and also you have this thing in the east where you don't know who the bottom like four or five

seeds are going to be. So why not go for it? You know, if you're the magic, why not go for it? You know, you have, But you have, I think Fornier is also a guy who's like, you sort of have a guy who can shoot in crunch time kind of thing, which is a really weird thing to say about him. But he's been weirdly clutch the last few games. So I think like, why not, you know, like you said, trade, go for a trade? Because Payton hasn't been playing much at all. So they might need another piece and they could be like, who knows, the six seed, the seventh seed. Also, low key, if you're the magic and let's say you make a playoff run, John Hammond's not bad at picking from the middle of the first round. No, that's a great point.

And like you have to have confidence. John Hammond's new GM in Orlando. he's probably like, you know what, I found Friganianas. Yeah. So how about we pick 11th or 13th or whatever and I'll take my chances? Evan Fournier has heard your hair jokes and he's out for retribution. I know. Kevin Clark called him my large adult bald son. Wow.

Yeah. This has been in Orlando Magic Podcast. Yeah, right. Let's get out of Orlando and go to Phoenix. Because this week started with Earl Watson losing his job and ended with Phoenix looking like the 1988 Los Angeles Lakers. Just kidding. But Chaitreano comes in and I always love these new coach things, the new coach bounce.

Because the coach, like, the things that the players say are inevitably unintentionally such an, like, like a complete insult to the past coach. Like it's like, these guys are like, oh, now we're being held accountable to play defense. It's like, what were you doing before? Right. And there was like lots of stories about like Marquis Christ would get upset and like Earl. Watson would take him out to dinner and told him you loved him. Like, no joke, that's what he would do. And it just sounds like just very basically,

Triano's installed some defensive concepts that the sons have responded to with two straight victories, right? Well, it seemed like Earl Watson just, like, was a patchwork, like, higher, you know? And I think that as we see more Triano's tenure, you're going to see, like, the sense like, oh, we actually were not a very competitive basketball team because, partly because of Earl Watson, but also they have a young roster, you know? like, why, anything they get this season is kind of just like, you know, a plus moving forward. Yeah.

The argument I was making as all this was going down is a lot of this seemed to me like confirmation bias. Like if I told you before the season that the sons fired Earl Watson, you would probably say, yeah, that makes sense. He's a terrible coach. Yeah. So how can you say he's a terrible coach, but also say they're like, they're just a mess for having fired him this early into the season. Like I looked at their team too. I mean, they're not going to be good, but they have some stuff like we were. same before. The offense is there. They have a lot of interesting pieces. I think on the right

night, it comes together. And I just look at that as just the high variance there. And a lot of these young guys, maybe one night, they're not going to have it. You look at Lonzo Ball. He looks terrible against Patrick Beverly, but the next night, he looks fine. So these things are going to happen. I think with the Sunza, it was probably more like, I don't know, they, if Earl Watson wasn't the guy, what made him the guy during preseason and the first two games. Like, Is it, how did it get so bad, so fast that you needed to reverse course and buy him out of his contract, basically? Eric Blanco's tweet. Yeah, Eric Blitz's tweet, I guess.

One thing I thought was kind of electrifying last night, watching them against the jazz was just like, they were just moving the ball much better. And, like, Bender had some, like, touch passes from the wing. And Jackson had, like, this no look wraparound behind the back pass, like, to Lenn. They have all these guys that, like, draft Nicks have been super high on for a long time. I'm not saying that they're going to be good, but if they could play competently, it would be really exciting to watch Chris Bender and Jackson and Warren on a nightly basis with Booker.

Yeah, if we're going forward with these rosters, would you rather have theirs or the Indiana Pacers? Pacers are good too. Paces are fun. I mean, we complain simultaneously now that these teams aren't playing for the long term. We're saying, oh, the middle of the NBA is so bad. Then we're simultaneously saying,

oh, my God, they're so bad. Like this is a complete train wreck. Like which one do you want? Which one do you want? I would prefer the sons. Yeah. Like if you're the sons going forward, you have a lot of young guys. They're doing the right thing.

They're doing the Russell Westbrook sort of thing and letting them play through mistakes. Yeah. Unlike, let's say, Markell Foltz, only playing him 20 minutes. You're fired up today. Wow. I'm a little bit. You're fired up today. I love sports.

But I don't know. I just think this makes so much more sense than just like going for the eighthsies, which we hammered teams about just later in the season. Yeah. But we just got done talking about the magic. how it might be good for them to aim for the eight seats. So I guess how do you look at that? Because you have two different types of teams,

which is like a young team moving forward, but also the middling team that it might be good for them to aim for that seventh seat or something. Well, here's where the conferences come in to play because I think in the West you don't really have a choice. It's like there are so many good teams in the Western Conference that you're really, if you're a bad, mediocre to a bad team,

you're playing at your best case scenario is playing for seventh or eight seed, probably eight seed. Whereas in the Eastern Conference, I'm not even sure I know who's good anymore. I mean, we're joking about the Cavs, but if the Cavs decide to take the regular season off, even if LeBron doesn't, what is that do to the trickle-down effect of the Sixers can be, can be at least competitive on any given night? The Pistons, you never know what you're going to get.

The Hornets are good, maybe, the Magic are good, maybe. The Nets are winning games. Like, I don't, you could say that three through eight in the East is kind of up for grabs. Yeah, like four through eight. The Knicks are bad, though. We know that. The Knicks are bad. We know that.

Even the Wizards, like, John Wall can be the best point guard on the planet, and we're still not going to trust them because their bench is so bad. I think they're like, their starters are seventh and net rating or something like that, and their bench is already in the bottom 10. Right. They're just picking up right where they left off. Yeah. If anything, the magic are the case study that I'm kind of talking about.

They tanked and they did the quote-unquote right thing, but they just didn't do it enough. Yeah. They ended up four or five, not getting those kind of a weak prospects. Have you not seen, you don't know about the six-year-year-hzonia plan? they're building him up. Apparently he's like a shooting guard but also like a center now.

Kevin Clark was trying to explain to me how they're like testing him out at the forum. They're not even playing him. It's wild. Like DJ Augustine is getting minutes and Hizonia will come on for like a four minute stretch and then be gone. He's actually a zero.

He doesn't have anything. What's wrong with him? He's just, is not an NBA player. That's a rough front of the draft picks. I mean, Hizonia, Peyton, they're not playing either. Ola-Liepe was gone. Like passing up on Sharich. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, nice point. Sixth or Spank, Chris Ryan. Let's finish up. One thing I wanted to talk about before we got out of here in this first segment is just with the Sons, one person we didn't talk about it all was Eric Bledsoe. And now the Sons have basically a depreciated asset on their hands. At one point, Bledsoe was being mentioned in Kyrie Irving talks, and Kevin Love talks. You know, the Sons imagined themselves as a destination for top-tier talent.

the fact that Eric Bledso is a clutch client should not go unremarked upon. But what do you do with a guy who doesn't want to be there on a team where you probably don't even want him there, but you're now not going to be able to get what you thought you were going to get in return? Yeah, I think it goes to your point that maybe they waited just a little bit too long to take action. Like maybe these are the type of things you figure out in the offseason. Maybe they just hoped that Bledso would play a little bit better. I know they shut him down at the end of last season. and so maybe they wanted to kind of clear up that

that wasn't actually a big deal. He's had injuries in the past. He's going to be a free agent. So there are a lot of things complicating the picture. Teams might get desperate toward the middle of the season. Maybe a team like the Orlando Magic comes calling and it's like, hey, we want to make a push now, give us more for it.

I still think he can help a team. And if a team like the Cavs, for instance, want a package specifically the broken nuts pick, maybe the Denver Nuggets is a team I would look to. They're not looking too good there. I feel like they need a bump. So we'll see how that goes. That's what I was going to say.

I'm more curious about to see where he goes, and I think the nuggets are an interesting place because I'm kind of worried about them. We were kind of hyping them up going into the season, and suddenly... Turns out Jemir Nelson is the key to everything. Yeah, apparently. Like, Richard Jefferson has not played a single second.

So I'm almost like, why did you make that move? And I don't know if I'm putting too much faith in Jemir Nelson in 2017, which is a weird thing to say, but... Well, it's funny to look at some of these teams because they're like, you know, they're like kind of a grab bag. You know, the magic are very much. like Jonathan Simmons, but also Terence Ross, but also Vuk, and then also Jonathan Isaac. And it's like they don't necessarily, rosters don't make a lot of sense.

The Nuggets, who I think we were all very high on, if you take a step back, you're kind of like, wait a second, does this work to have Millsap and Yokic? Like, it should work. Those guys are both very, like, lovely players who share the ball. But there's something not clicking there yet. And I'm sure that they'll eventually get it worked out. I just, I'm not sure that I think they need a point card. You know what I mean? And I don't think Moodye is the guy and they gave up on Jemir.

Let's just take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and we'll be back to talk about the Sixers. Today's episode of The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by DraftKings.com. It is week seven. And football season is in full swing, which begs the question, how is your fantasy football team doing? Maybe you drafted a dud in the fourth round or your first round pick is on the shelf with a bum knee. The good news is it is not too late to forget the injuries and get back in the winning column with Draft Kings one week fantasy football. With Draft Kings, there are so many ways to play. Choose between public contests with big cash prizes or private contests where you compete against a group of your friends.

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I went on two podcasts yesterday to talk about the Sixers, so I feel like the world definitely has their fill of my takes. You're the go-to guy. How should I be feeling? And how big of a deal is this Markle Fultz thing? I think you should be feeling fine. It's a nice day out in Los Angeles. So there's that. There's apparently a hummingbird outside of the studio. Exactly. It's a sign that things are changing. Yeah. It's not going to be 100 today. Birds are still alive.

I'm wearing my midweight flannel today as opposed to my lighter ones. Justin keeps it 100 degrees. He wears the flannel every day no matter whether there's a heat warning or not. I respect it, to be honest. Yeah, I don't tell everyone in the office, but my office is actually very cold. But I don't want anyone actually going in there and bother me. So don't tell anyone, fans, two fans, mom. So when I look at the Fultz situation, I don't know what's going on with the medical stuff.

I don't think anybody really knows. I think there's a lot of hypothesis out there. I think it's been clouded a lot by Raymond Brothers is Asian going out there and trying to control the narrative, but in fact, actually just kind of not getting the injury correct. So that's a bad thing. But I think I look at it, it seems like pretty much a failure on the Sixers part of messaging. I don't know what's going out with the med staff. There's a lot of cloud there.

I think it's a gray area. Even when you talk to medical people, they'll tell you, hey, I mean, you can't even really tell what's going on inside one person's staff. But what you have here is a lot of confusion. And confusion leads to anger. And I think when you've been told as a Sixers fan, hey, wait, we're doing this the right way. Give it some time. We'll be better off for it.

And then now we're here and things are still a little questionable. I think that's where the kind of the bad thing comes from. Well, I think they just lose it. They've lost the benefit of the doubt. That's the problem with these injuries, you know. And they just had a history of them. And I think it's kind of interesting and important, I think, to focus on Markell a little bit because he's getting a bad rap for it.

You know what I'm saying? Like he's a young kid who is just trying to make it in the league. You know, it has all the pressure of a number one traffic. And he's just been thrown into this, you know, whirling dervish of controversy and drama and unnecessary, really, for the most part. And I wonder what his role is in all of this? And I wonder how much this will affect him going forward. This is a tough one. This has got actually, it weirdly got darker for me yesterday afternoon when Brett Brown did his press conference before the Rockets game.

and he was pretty clear that it was Markell's choice to change his shot. Like, there's been a lot of, like, was it the shoulder injury that changed his shot, that he changed his mechanics to compensate for the shoulder injury, or did the changed mechanics hurt his shoulder? And there's been, like, a lot of, like, chicken or the egg kind of thing. And also, when were they notified what is actually the extent of the damage and how much is the damage contributing to his poor shooting? And when you get into agent, personal trainer, general manager, and coach, all kind of singing from different hymn books.

That's very bad for a rookie number one pick. That you do not want to be in that place. So for as much as I'm like, yo, look at Wiggins's lines from his first three games. Like I can cut and paste and screenshot box scores all night long of like different rookies having bad nights. It just doesn't matter. We'll find out who Markell Fultz is. a year from now. But this handling of it is why this is such an emergency. And I think that there is a degree to which it's a product of like people trolling Sixers fans about Markell Fultz's shot and

everybody gets hysterical and gets defensive. And then other people realize they're getting a reaction from Sixers fans. So they do it more. You guys are a little sensitive. Yeah, we're a little sensitive. It's a fun cycle. I think there is there is a degree to which like it's definitely something to talk about. I mean, the Sixers give you stuff to talk about all the time. Yeah. I mean, I thought it was pretty telling that the Asian came out speaking with to your point. Yeah. Like, the fact that he had to go outside the team and even the story that got put up on ESPN didn't include like the Sixers perspective there and they didn't even react right away with a press release or anything about that until this press conference the next day.

And so clearly there are different sides of the story. Maybe the Sixers don't think it's as serious as the Asian does. Obviously an agent, his like his goal is to make his client look the best out of this whole thing. Maybe Fultz was feeling bad about all the negative publicity he was getting from this. So I don't know. I mean, ultimately, I think they're doing what's best for Faults. Like, giving him three games to cool off, they don't need him clearly. They're still competitive.

I just want to see him play through mistakes. As we point into just earlier right there, I just think he's only getting 20 minutes a game. Let's see him play more there, even if it means losses in the interim. Yeah. It just creates a, you know, the whole thing has created a weird cloud over the team. So when you see Ben Simmons, like, go off, you're like, but Marco Faults. So if they're taking him out of the equation, it almost just, just, just lends itself better to the franchise going forward,

at least for this season, because then you can be like, okay, let's focus on what's actually happened on the court and beat his staying healthy. Ben Simmons is playing great. Robert Covington is actually, you know, making a lot of three. So in that sense, it was a good move, but, you know, the journey to getting there was a bit rocky. Yeah, they're actually a good one in four.

They were in the Wizards game to the end. They played the Celtics pretty tight, got rocked by the Raptors, beat the pistons, and we're beating the rockets until the last second of last night's game when Eric Gordon beat them on a last second shot. Right. So there's a lot to be happy about.

They're competitive every night. Embed it has been playing. They've been getting contributions down their bench from guys, like even like Justin Anderson last night played well. I do think that your point about what are we doing here with like Jared Bayliss getting Markell Fultz's minutes? I don't actually think it's a Ben or Markell thing. I think it's a,

are we really going to play like some of these veteran guys and are bailists and to some extent, maybe even McConnell, because Brett Brown can rely on them already, taking minutes that Markell needs to fail and then succeed. Yeah. If there's a problem with the process that I have, it's that it took forever to get these guys, which is great. I think they're better off for it. I was just caping for the sons for this very reason.

But now that they have it, you need even more patience. They actually need to become good NBA players. You forget that Ben Simmons is like 30 now, Joel Embedd has been in the league. he's already signing a second extension. Like, these guys have had time to become what they are. I think you need another year of development. I think you need another offseason to get another guy in there. And then let's see what they are.

Let's say next season is the year we can really expect something from it. It's like the Nets thing. I mean, you know, not to go back to them, but they're letting their young guys fail. They have zero expectation. They can't even really like, be like, we have to tank. They don't even have their pick. So why not play a certain style, which was always the reason why Brett Brown was in, is to create like a culture, a basketball on-court culture that you could then plug

increasingly talented players into, but there would be sort of an institutional knowledge of how they want to play, fast-paced, shoot threes, you know, like that, and that's what Brooklyn is actually doing. Brooklyn is going to keep putting, and the more that they increase the value of guys like Rondea Hollis Jefferson, the more that they could actually wedge their way back into like, hey, you know, we could be a player for a trade because a bunch of our weird pieces that we've accumulated might be attractive to a team who's looking to flip something here. Like Spencer Dinwiddie, if he has like 15 more games like that is all of a sudden an asset.

Yeah, I heard Bill mentioned when you guys were talking yesterday, just that the trade almost is working against them. Yes. Because they put their foot in the ground and they said, this is our team, which is so anti-Cim Hinky anti-process, which is like, we'll just take the best available thing and then figure it out later. We'll collect all these assets because eventually they will build into something. They targeted an off-ball point guard who can score his asses, which is out.

ass off could play next to Simmons. Everything about it was like, it made sense. I would do that trade 100 out of 100 times. Sure. I think it's interesting that the process, the culture it kind of brought, which is these teams rebuilding and you can kind of pinpoint them out. But now you get to see who can actually develop, which I think is the interesting thing going forward.

That is actually pretty cool. It's cool to be like at this point now where you're like, who's got the coaching staff who can make, you know, guys who have tools but aren't quite players into players. That's why you get, you almost have to like take a step back and be like, man, pretty impressive what the bucks are able to do. You know, the bucks have guys who are like, screw it, let's just get tall guys and like, and let's get freak athletes and see what happens down the line.

And like they're just, they've made smart moves. That kind of brings me to a thing. We haven't really talked about the books. We talked a lot about Yannis, but we haven't talked much about Milwaukee this season. There's a couple of teams out there that are doing things. I just wanted to quickly say, and I know that like this is a very basketball internet thing to be like, we're not talking about the Spurs enough. but can we just mention the fact that

the spurs are just like they're kind of just ridiculous like I was watching them against the heat last night and DeJonto Murray didn't score and they like pretty soundly beat the heat and I was just like blown away by it also just like they look like they're playing 1998 basketball now with like

Lamarcus Aldridge taking 28 shots from the post right and it's just wild yeah believe it or not they handled the Lamarcus Aldridge situation absolutely perfectly like he was such like kind of an unknown going into the season. Shea Serrano was like catatonic. Yeah.

And all of a sudden they give him an extension. He's there for the long term and he's like he's freaking George Mike it. It's like reverse contract year. Yeah. Yes, exactly. And also apparently it takes a year for Danny Green's LASIC surgery to kick it. He's awesome again now. Yeah.

I think, sorry, I was going to say, like, I think it's interesting about the style that they're playing. I think they went into last night's game shooting 17 threes per game. And I think it was like four, at least four threes lower than any other team in the league. They're just completely being like, no, we're just going to do it our way. We're just going to feed it to Lamarcus, you know, have these young guards develop. And Jonté has been amazing so far. And just like shoot in the pain and shoot two-pointers. I think it's like 80% of their shots have been two-pointers, which is, you know, not what the league is doing.

So I think it's interesting to see how that holds up going forward. Yeah, his whole market inefficiency idea of exploiting the mid-range, you know, and also their idea, like some of their idea defensively, ideas defensively about shutting down certain parts of the floor, the teams have over committed to. And like just, just crowding out that three point line. Did you guys know that Kyle Anderson is the real Lonzo ball and has been here the whole time?

Slow mo. Yeah. Yeah, I think we should have seen this coming. I think we were talking about this like two weeks ago. Colle Anderson's going to be a max player. Any other teams that we're not talking about that you guys wanted to highlight? I really like the Blazers, what they're doing.

I mean, you got to look at the sample size because they played the Suns, which completely throws off everything. The differential is rocked by that. I know. But their top three on offense and top three on defense. We went into the season saying if Nerkich is kind of the difference there, they could be pretty good. And I think so far it's worked out.

I really like Caleb Swinigan. He's like the type of guy that's just like older. He's gritty. Like he was getting in Bougie's face a little bit. And he's just like a plug-in-play guy. And in a conference like that, like just to round out what they already had, which was good. I think they're pretty interesting to me. I'm pitching my wedding crasher's sequel with Zach Collins and Myers-Lenner.

Is he even playing? I can't tell. Honestly What about you, pal? I think I'm going to go with the Raptors because I think they lost us in a very

poetic way which they were tied I think and DeMarzoros and missed them inter-eastern jumper then Steph came back and hit a three I missed the old Raptors

yeah just perfect like just perfect and I think but they're kind of trying to reinvent themselves they've looked pretty good so far obviously competitive

against the Warriors I'm really curious to see when it comes the head that you know we're trying to shoot more threes but we don't have good three-point

shooters you know and I think they've played well so far with the guy and I think that's kind of the story with the Raptors always is the regular season is kind of their bread and butter but what happens when it comes to the postseason so I'm really intrigued by them and I don't think we're you know talking

about them enough. Masai should make a deadline date move of trading Abacca back to Orlando and then turn Hizonia into a stretch four. But this kind of all hits on what you've been talking about like teams trying to conform to the error we're playing in versus just doing what they do and the spurs are kind of the shining example of hey we have these guys

let's just figure out what's best for them and clearly it's working. Pretty Gay is an actual NBA player. Yeah, it's strange. I think that with the Raptors, what I object to what they're doing, what I object to is the thinking that Dwayne Casey and this roster can conform to that. Like if you're like bringing a new coach if you want just probably because by the playoffs, these guys need to hear a different voice by now anyway.

And also your personnel just doesn't match up with playing run and going pace and space style. You know, then there's teams. but I think that Raptors almost might be too talented to do that because teams like the Pacers, who are now just like running all over the place, are doing so because they're like, well, what are we going to do?

Like play ISO for Ola Depot. I guess he's scored 26 points in game, so if you wanted to, that might be a good idea. But yeah, that's been sort of my, I've been really fascinated by that and watching, you know, some teams that I think that, like, we all had a lot of time for,

like the gris kind of dismantle their identity for, and they're having a decent start to this. season, but you're just kind of like, okay, so, but like, you guys got to get shooters then. You guys got to get young then. You guys got to run if you're going to do that. This is really the best point in the season to talk about teams like the Spurs and the Raptors. I feel like in a month or two, we're going to be like, oh, my God, these guys are just doing

the same thing. They're not going to be able to make it in the postseason. Right. The Spurs will be like 16 and 3 and then we'll just be like, yeah, but like they're going to get smoked by the clippers. Yeah. This is a concern troll, right? Well, let's get into our concern troll.

Yeah, let's get into the concern troll of the week. Justin, I want to hear from you. I think I understand the concept now. Good, I'm glad. You spend a lot of time I know your meme. I actually don't understand the concept, but I'm going to shoot for it. Just for anybody who doesn't know, concern troll is when you are basically pointing out something

and saying that you're like, oh, I'm concerned about this, maybe not working out for this guy when it's like, you really don't need to be concerned this team is doing fine or they're doing well. You don't have to concern troll the warriors about being bored, you know? We're explaining the internet now to me. Yeah. So you just, there's a series of, like, it's like connectivity between computers, right? Sure.

And, you know, you basically can type in information, get information back. It's a great thing. It's beautiful. So I am concerned that LeBron might be too good of a point card, especially when compared to the other Cleveland Cavaliers. This is good. I don't know. LeBron's doing a lot.

I love it as a fantasy owner of LeBron James. It's really great. And he looks great out there. He's just blocking dudes, like the one he had against the net last night where he just let someone go up and then just swat it into the stands. Like, that's prime LeBron. I love seeing it. He's such a fun player.

But I look around, I don't know, they still seem to have the same sort of issues. Like, we made all this fuss over the trades they made. But they really just have kind of the same team they had last year where the defense isn't there. They're really heavy in the front court, which is why they're trying out love at the five to begin with. And I think because of that, you get games like last night where the Brooklyn Nets can just kind of sneak up on them.

I think that with the calves, It's one of those. We'll see how good Tailu is because we're probably not going to know how good this team is until after the All-Star break. But in the meantime, what you're saying is actually true, which is that LeBron is already in like, I want to win the MVP LeBron mode,

and I'm playing against Brooklyn on the second night of a back-to-back. And it's nice. I'm happy to see LeBron any night I can. But they're old. And I don't know what their defensive philosophy is. And I don't know what, like, he's already changed the lineup, starting lineup once to bring J.R. Smith back in and put weight on the bench and Rose has already been injured and, you know, there's just like a lot of guys who are used to doing a lot of

freelancing from Rose to Wade to Smith and LeBron likes to have a lot of control. So whether it's Coach LeBron or Coach Lou, it would be fascinating to see like what this Cavs team is in January or February. It's almost like they miss Kyrie right a little bit. I mean, too soon. Well, they probably miss being the same team over and over again. I think that this is a gamble and they may wind up losing LeBron James in the process next summer, but they had to try something different. I mean, plus side, we get to watch, like, unstoppable LeBron every night. You know, last night, he was so fun to watch.

I mean, if he's just going to be that good, then they're always going to be in it. What's your concern control of the week? My concern troll is Draymond Green at the podium or being interviewed, because I think that this may be like a heat check thing for Draymond. At this point, like this may be the year where it could backfire on the Warriors, maybe. I could see it happening because we're four games in and there's so much material that, you know, like last night, he was like, are. defense sucks, which is like, you know, like, you can say that because you're Dramon Green,

but at some point I wonder if there's people who are like, maybe don't always say what you're thinking. At the same time, though, like, as a consumer, I'm like, I'm all for it. Like, I almost think that they should give the time they're giving to Lavaa Ball to Draymond Green. Like, just give him all the mic space, you know? But at the same, but in the same way, like, when is Draymond going to say something that might actually be, like, problematic? So that's fine. Like, that is, that is one thing. And, I'm sure that like when Draymond Green since something truly egregious will all freak out and it'll be like three days of hot takes about it.

What he's doing now is actually kind of smart because the Warriors are fine. They're probably a little out of shape. They probably are a little annoyed at like teams getting really jeed up to play against them, which seems like they are a little bit this season compared to maybe last season where I felt like teams were like, can we just get out of here without getting too injured? But what Draymond's kind of doing reminds me a lot of what, Jose Marino does as a manager. Anybody used to do more when it was like Chelsea,

like that first era. But basically anytime anything goes wrong, he distracts from that narrative by being like, the ref was a coward. And like everybody just talks about that. So now, I don't even know that I can tell you whether the Warriors look good or bad because all I know is what Draymond is said after game.

He's kind of like in a vacuum of people being like, well, the Warriors don't look that like sharp yet. He's been like, I will talk. and now none of those guys have to talk. We don't talk about Durant. We don't talk about Steph that they both got thrown out in the same game. And if he had come out and just been like, well, you got to ask those guys about it.

I don't know whether the pressure is getting to them or what. He came out and he was just like, no, yeah, they should be suspended. And he was just kidding around. But I think it's actually like a good move because they do have guys like Steph, Clay, and Kevin. And even though those guys have gotten more and more comfortable on the spotlight, they're not like big, I can deflect. guys, they're way more like,

I'm going to take this personally, guys. You know what I mean? You see what I'm saying? So I think it's actually kind of a smart move on his part. I like enjoy it. I'm just saying that, you know, we talk about a lot about what's going to motivate the Warriors this year because last year was, you know, KD, getting his revenge and, you know, getting his

title and all of that. And I think that this year, maybe the motivating factor is Dream on. Yeah. In a way, so in that way you're right. Like, it is probably good for the team, especially early on when, you know, curses they're out of shape. Any Warriors' thoughts? I'm just a little concerned that Kevin Durant is just like his chill bra, like attitude to everything, has really just infected the rest of the team. Like, why is Steph Curry throwing things at people?

What happened to you, Steph Curry? I know. I like it. He should be in the kitchen making some nice, like, pasta with his wife. So you don't like Dark Steph. No, I kind of like it. Yeah. But I'm just a little concerned about it.

Yeah. My concern to roll of the week is, is Eric Gordon too good? We were really worried about their only being. one ball for James Harden and Chris Paul. What's going to happen when Chris Paul comes back and there's only one ball for Eric Gordon? Yeah? Eric Gordon's dope. Eric Gordon is playing out of his mind this week.

He basically beat the Warriors by himself and then beat the Sixers by himself. Those are exactly the same things. They're both wins. You get the same amount of credit for that. No, Eric Gordon's fantastic. And I was almost blown away by the way in which the rockets, just played so beautifully without Paul the last couple of nights. And, you know, Capella looks like D'Andre Jordan 2.0.

Ryan Anderson comes in, shoots from 40 feet a couple times. But Eric Gordon is the guy who just seems to be, like, growing and growing in this offense and taking on more and more and adding different elements to his game. He's been one of my favorite players to watch this season. I just don't want to see him limited when they bring Paul back, I guess. But that's not really much of a concern. Well, I think the Rockets as a whole have looked a lot better without Chris Ball, which is another interesting concern troll of you will, you know?

Like, how are they going to look when he comes back? I mean, he literally played one game on a bad knee, so that's fine. But Clippers fans know many games. Chris Paul plays one game with a bad, you know, it plays with a bad knee. So. Yeah. I don't know if this is good or bad for the Rockets. Because on the one hand, James Hardin slides back into more of the distributing role.

He's featuring Eric Gordon. So he's showing that he can let someone else shine. But I think when Paul and Hardin get together, I think you're looking for the inverse. Like you want Harden more off the ball, more as a score, whereas you want Paul as the one setting him up. I don't know. I think it could be either really good or really bad. Yeah, I think they'll be probably like an excellent regular season team.

But when possessions start to get tighter and there needs to be a little bit more of a internal logic to who is the A, B, C option, how are you going to set up a rotation? Is it these guys? And then Paul comes out, Paul comes back in with the second unit and feasts on the second unit. Like, how is that going to work out? And obviously with these dudes, health is always going to. to be concerned. We haven't really, despite like the, you know, Lynn and Hayward injuries, we'll have to see how some of these teams get effective when Mello misses four, six weeks,

or, you know, Paul, obviously out for a month. It's going to be an interesting adjustment when he comes back. Yeah. Banking these wins, though, it's going to help. That is good. It makes it easier. We'll be back next Thursday for another episode of NBA group chat. Until then, for Justin and Paolo. My name is Chris Ryan. Today's episode of The Ringer NBA show was brought to you by Hotel Tonight, you can play it by ear and see how your Halloween goes, or if you're the type of person who started planning your Halloween costume on November 1st of last year, and you like to have things locked down ahead of time, you can actually book a room with Hotel Tonight up to seven days in advance. Even book up to 100 days in advance in certain major cities. With Hotel Tonight,

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