The Ringer NBA Show - Is This Anything? Philly’s Edgelords, the Unstoppa-Bulls, and More Early Trends. | Group Chat

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Justin, Rob, and J. Kyle Mann are back to take a look at some early-season trends and decide whether they are something or nothing. Intro (0:00:00) Sixers (2:40) Scoring boom (15:01) Jamal Murray (22:26) Bulls (31:51) Knicks (48:46) Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and J. Kyle Mann Producers: Isaiah Blakely, Victoria Valencia and Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to group chat. I am Justin Varyer and joining me, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle, man. Gentlemen, we are here two days away from Halloween. Some of us are in the spirit and some of us are dorks. Is that how it breaks down? I think so. Okay.

Would you like to walk us through your costume, Justin? So for the listeners at home who aren't watching on video on Spotify or YouTube or whatever means people watch video these days, 3D, I am wearing just a big old basketball because it's my favorite sport and I also have these headbands and wristbands because they look cool. It's six years old, but the quality of the build

of your costume also looks that like if you got within 10 miles of a spark, you're just going to go up in flames. I can't, like the cancerous fuse that must be in whatever you are wearing and whatever dark factory it was made in, I don't want to be near you because I'm a, I'm afraid of the carcinogen and the impact that it might have on me if we, so I'm glad we're over Zoom for this one, Justin. Listen, if this is how I go, I died doing what I love.

Truly. Talking to my guys wearing a big old basketball costume. He burned alive in a $3 basketball costume. He died as he lived. So to clarify, you were just basketball. It was a basketball. I mean, honestly, I love it. Well, I think people have gone a little too far down the road where most of the costumes I'm seeing now,

especially from the youth, are like a joke on top of, of a joke on top of a joke. There's no like, Wilk Chamberlade sort of situation here where you're part, Walt Chamberlain, but also like a Scottish schoolboy. You know what I mean? Now I wish you had done that. That's actually pretty good. Next year. Well, Chamberlade is very good. But look, when in doubt,

go back to the source, you know, this is what unites us. This is the driving passion of your life. I support you. It's also the driving passion of this show. And especially today's show, because we're ripping through a lot of early season trends. A lot of fun stuff that we're not quite sure might carry on even past this week or in a month or so. We're doing a little bit of, is this anything? Which you've been listening to this podcast, you know, is a rip off of David Letterman, which is also a ripoff of the Orlando Magic broadcast. Basically, we're going to ask if these things, these early

trends, these data points from the first week of game, we have exactly a week of data right now, if there's anything here to explore, if there's anything noteworthy to talk about, and I think first and foremost, on that front, we got to talk about the Philadelphia 76ers, the Philadelphia Edge Lorge, as I'm calling them these days.

Are you? Yeah, well, we had a little talk yesterday with Chris Ryan about like, what's the nickname for Tyrese Max and Vijay Edgecombe? He proposed like EdgeMax or something like that. I think you just got to go pure Edge Lords. But here's the thing.

It's not just those two. we're getting in on the action. Now it seems like the entire offense is just just going for, just letting it fly. So in the forced four games of the NBA season, in which the Philadelphia 76ers are four and oh, and probably, they have scored 517 points.

Okay? That other than the Miami Heat, we talked about in the last pod, who scored 144 in the time in between the two pods, is the most since 1990. the Sixers scored 139 in overtime win against the Wizards last night, Rob.

And so I asked you, is this anything? Yeah, it's something. What is happening? How is this possible? Honestly, the part that freaks me out the most relative to the stats you just reeled off, JV, the Sixers are one of the slowest-paced offenses in the entire league.

So yes, they have Maxie and Edgecombe who can rev up at a moment's notice, but this is not a team that's getting up and down the court. They are just piling up. points through pure efficiency, through pure dominance, through these guys just kind of like exercising their will over the course of the game. I don't know what to make of it, but I'm fucking terrified. I think it's noisy. That's what I would say. I think it's a little noisy. Of course. We're three games in, Kyle. It's all noisy. No, no, no. I just think in terms of,

I don't, there's an interesting thing going on. First of all, I just want to say, are we going edgecom or are we saying edgecom? Like, because I'm, I don't know. How are you all saying is less because I'm hearing edge come and I'm like I don't I'm just going to leave that one I don't know I'm also a child let's move on I can't not hear it people like slow down I'm just like edge comb all right here we go so no there's a there's a interesting kind of duality going on within the sixers right now because and I think that it's causing another duality within their fan base where when imbid is on the floor you can just feel the saddle You can just feel the saddle of like mourned expectation, mourned futures, mourned loss possibility.

And he's just sort of like this weird ghost hanging around. You can just feel like the vibe whenever he's on the floor of the ball is not moving as fast. They don't play as fast. You can't protect the rim like you used to be able to. So it affects everything. And you have these guys that are just kind of like pent up stallions who just want to run. And then you can see what happened. And I think last night's game was an interesting microcosm of this is they start.

start out of the gate. They've got to lean the first quarter. And then you can watch the game chart. You can see it. It just kind of cascades to this low point where the vibe is just completely the yuck. The yum is yucked. And by the time the third quarter rolls around, Washington is feeling good. They're having a good time. And then all of a sudden, they go small. They start playing faster. They start pressuring the ball. Washington is not prepared to handle that shit whatsoever. And you could just see them slowly. And also add on top, you know, Middleton and McCollum, guard anybody anymore. So when you put juxtapose those two things, Philly climbs all the way back. And so you have this thing going on where they're very, very fun. And I think you can observe it in

their fan base. We've observed it with Chris and other Sixers fans where the MBB thing is just, I know they want him to succeed. And if he could be back and be his normal self, I'm sure that would be great. But it's just kind of, it's not interfacing the two, the two styles are not interfacing with each other very well. So you see this excitement. Yeah, you see this excitement about their young players and then they're like, all right, well, I think they just want to be like,

no expectations, young and fun. I feel like that's what Philly fans want to do right now. That's the move. I mean, you're speaking of JV's language with that one. We were talking about this in the preseason power rankings. It's just like there's so much fun going on there in the back court,

which is getting more fun honestly by the game because now Grimes is just jumping in there. He's seeing everybody go for close to 40. And he's like, let me do that. And McCain is now kind of on the fringes waiting to jump back into here because he had the injury and it seems like he's back doing stuff on the core. So Rob, it's like, if anything, this might compound soon.

Like, they might even get into the 150 territory, partly, I think, because they give away oftentimes 140. They do. Look, the defense is, uh, there's not anything to write home about. And I say that with all due respect to like a Dembona who's coming up with huge defensive plays now and again, doing his damnedist to hold down that spot. But they need a lot of help defensively. They just have so much firepower right now that they, are overwhelming in exactly that way. And I think the part of that feels least noisy to me, like, yes, some of this is aberrational.

I don't think we're going to be talking about the Sixers as the literal highest scoring team of the last, like, 30 years or whatever. That doesn't seem like it's going to stick. It does feel like Tyrese Maxie has leveled up in a pretty significant way. And he's kind of tipped for me from being a guy who has all of this explosive potential to I am now just kind of actively shocked when he doesn't get to his spot. When he doesn't get the shot he wants, I'm like, oh, what went wrong there? Because he's so fast, he's such a good shooter.

And maybe right now shooting a little bit above his head, as many people do early in the season. But combining that with just the decision making and the stop and go. And like, you just see him make like the one-armed cross-court whip passes when the defense is over-extended now in a way that he wasn't doing before. That stuff is really and truly exciting and to me feels built to last. Yeah, this is the arc that he's been on since he came into the league. We knew he could get downhill. We knew he could make those little floaters push shots. We were like, can he shoot the ball and can he get off the ball?

And he started to really address those things in what is this year five, year six for him? I don't know off the top of my head. But yeah, I want to clarify, when I say noisy, I don't mean like statistically in the classic, like statistics class, pure raw definition of that. I'm just saying muddled identity for Philadelphia is kind of what I'm seeing. Sure. Because I was having this thought when I was watching them. I just feel like Embedd is in his like Apocalypse Now Brando. era where he's showing up to set and they got like an ear wig in his ear feeding him his lines.

And it's just there was a moment in the fourth quarter before this game swung. You're right about Bona. He's a madman because when they got Bona initially, I was just like second unit change of pace. And now it's it's taken on a different, a little bit different of a vibe. I mean, he's blocking everybody. Didn't he block Wendell Carter like three or four times in a row in the first quarter of that game? Did you all see that? Do you know what I'm talking about?

I didn't, but with all due respect to Wendell, I believe it. Windeless looks really, really deflated by it. But there was a moment where it was like 1019 in the 4th, and Maxine and Edgecomber just flying up the court. And Embed doesn't come into the frame until there are 16 seconds on the shot clock. And I was laughing. I rewound this. And when he came into the frame, he had his hands up like he wanted the ball.

And I was just like, this moment is the moment right here. This is where this is the space between the two styles that are going. going on. They're very fun, but I agree with you. It's like, it's hard to know, is this a thing? How serious is this, right? Well, I'm surprised he actually got back on offense in that play. You're describing because sometimes he doesn't. And if he does, I can't remember from last night's game a time where he actually walked inside of the three point arc just seems like he is resigned to being this stretch big. And to his credit, even in these limited minutes, even though he is brigger mortis out there, he's making a ton of shots and he's actually being helpful in that

end. Now, on the other end, Alex Sar put in work on him pretty easily, just because Embed was huge and he can stand there. But Saar, who doesn't have a very refined post skill, was being able to just move around him in order to score enough. And that's the tradeoff with this team. Luckily, they have the back court in order to put up the points on there. Going back to Maxie, with what Rob is saying, there's like speed, there's like very fast players, and then there's one of one John Wall type shit. And Maxie's probably the fastest guy with the ball. And you're seeing that play out, we thought the leap was going to come last year. And I think the biggest difference for this year is not only is he just healthy, but he now has a compliment of guys that

feed into there, where you have the threat of Vijay, who's just not, maybe not as fast, but is fast in his own right, is going to become more of like the physical component next to him. You have MD's stretching and then you just have everybody just firing it up. It just fits him. And I think that's the biggest difference, Rob, is this feels like a maxi team more than it does an MB team now. It does. But he does need those kind of. of counterbalances, right? If you just put the ball in Maxi's hands and had him run pick and roll after pick and roll, we've kind of seen what that looks like and it's, it has its limits. It can be incredibly productive, but it's not going to carry a winning team necessarily.

But you even give him Joel at the three point line. And now Maxi's just like one of the most dynamic give and go players in the league, right? You can't leave him at the three point line, but he is a good cutter. He's not like a step gravity movement to the three point line kind of player, but he's a guy who will go back door and just like really, really punish you if you look away at all. And so VJ's giving the defense a reason to look away. Having Joel out there, even in, look, we've hit mummy, we've hit Vigormortus, we've had ghosts, like spooky season is really and truly upon us. But mummy, Joelle Embed, like, that is something to distract defenses in a really meaningful way. And so the more stuff you put out there with Tyrese Maxie,

the beauty of his game is that he fits with almost anybody, that he, he's like, has such a, a cohesive, coherent game that can play any style, they can play with other stars, that can be massively productive when you need him to be, but can also kind of be a spot-up shooter, be a cutter, be a supplementary piece when the ball goes to the other side of the floor. Yeah, he got that, the first few years in the league were his training for that, right? So now we're seeing, you know, what you got initially, when he gets off the ball, he can lean on that training.

And then when he has it, he can kind of explore some of these new pieces. I think you're all right about, like, Embed being productive. And I was thinking about, you know, not to like belabor my own business. here, but, you know, Brando was still good in Apocopulose now. He was just limited. Right. The same. I think an optimist would say, well, if Paul George ever plays, which is a big if, if he's just activating some of these disparate parts at this point, if he gives him the bare minimum

of creation, just a long body on defense, they could be a pretty feisty here. I don't know what their ceiling is. Maybe it's playing. Whatever it is. But I think what this game underlined for me, ultimately, is that they're probably closer in terms of expectations. in terms of how you should watch them and perceive them to what the Wizards have going on, where we're just finding things out about this team. This is more of a young-leaning team where, like, if good things happen,

you should be proud of that. But I wouldn't get over your skis and start thinking about like, oh, what if Joelle and B. plays 25 games, or 25 minutes, or 25 games, honestly. Like, let's keep expectations low on the six-dust and just enjoy what we have.

I hear everything you're saying, and I agree with the thrust of it. I just need to acknowledge, even as somebody who is in like the top 1% of wizards plugged in people on the planet right now, that that feels a little disrespectful to Philly. Like they are more competitive than Washington. We'll see. I mean, the schedule has been quite sherman thus far, which is a big part of this.

It has. And like, clearly they're not that much better than Washington. But I think that the standard of play just by having more veteran guys with actual NBA experience, like a Tyrese maxi alone. separates you from teams like the Wizards. I mean, Bub Carrington. I don't know if you saw him last night.

I certainly did. There's like an early, this is a very ringer thing I'm about to say, but there's like an early 90s. I was trying to think of other teams who have gone through something similar like this. I don't know if it's quite the same, but there's like an early,

because the Sixers process did not result in championships, but it's kind of reminded me of the way like the early 90s, Reggie Lewis coming in with like the old Celtic stars and you're kind of figuring out who's going to be steering the ship. It's kind of, I'm trying to think of other examples of it, but that's just one that comes to mind. So Tyrese,

two 40 point games thus far this season, almost had it last night. He had 39. Overall, as we've seen in this early season, a lot of guys putting up a lot of points. To the point where like a couple of them started rolling off, I was like, what's going on here? Like, is it something a foot perhaps? But through seven days worth of games,

we now have 16 instances of 40 or more points. Last season at the same exact time, five. Just five. And so I have to ask like what's going on. I was looking through some of the just like overall league averages. And the crazy thing, Rob, is so pace is way up. It's the highest it's been since 85, 86. And now we should mention like this is particularly noisy because these things tend to go down as the season goes along.

For sure. Falls also way up over four and a half more. than last season. But the crazy thing is, three-point attempts are actually down, and overall offensive efficiency is basically flat. So I assumed it was everything, but it's actually just a more concise set of things that are going up. Well, I think three-point attempts overall could be down, but for the people with the ball, they can be up. And I think that's the combination. If we're looking at kind of the stew that's leading to these factors, JV, you were on it as far as the fouls being up and the

free throws being up already. Tim Legler also was on Bill's pod talking. about this. It's just never been easier to get 10-3s up in a game, and it's never been easier to walk to the free throw line for 10, 15, 20, 25 attempts in some cases. And that combination is just going to be incredibly explosive. But I think the other part of this, too, that is kind of absent from that criteria, there are so many guys right now who have a lot of opportunity because other people are hurt. And we talk about this every year in some form or fashion or another. We kind of wring our hands about the state of things and how we stop this. I don't have any big picture

solutions to what is happening. I'm just looking around and we are three games into the season and the Rockets are trying to get a hardship exception. We are three or four games into the season and the Pacers have, I am not exaggerating, seven guards who are sidelined. I thought we were going to get point

Huff before they signed Mack McClung. Everything is kind of off its axis right now and so when you think about who is getting these 40 point games, Luca, Austin Reeves, Tyrese, Jalen Brown, Shea, even and Janus in a way, if you want to kind of trace the dame ripple effects back a little bit, these are all guys who are dealing with major injuries on their team and all of a sudden

have the ball in their hands an awful lot. Yeah, speaking to, and I was curious, I was waiting for you to say you went through it. I'd be curious to chart to see who these guys were getting some of these fouls from, too, because I did a little bit of a dive just watching the nature of the fouls that were happening. And one thing that I really think has happened a lot is, you know, we got rid of some they've done a good job of kind of pruning the bonsai tree of a foul you know grifting in the league because grifting's going to be there but i think a large part of that is um you know we've gotten rid of some of the somebody's down you just jump into them kind of stuff i was thinking about players have gotten so good i studied this a little bit this summer at move interrupted moves

where in the past, you know, this sort of like looking for fouls, trying to like, usually when you have a move, it's a scripted A to B movement that you have practiced. It's like, I do this, I get to this spot, blah, blah, blah, blah. Guys started to figure out over time that, you know, I make this move. And then depending on if somebody's touching me, depending on if somebody has movement going the opposite of me, I can jump into them. Like Luca is another example of a guy who, you know, when the game really sped up and spread out, we started to see some of these whistening.

speed defenders. And I think there's been sort of a response where these pace players like Shay and Luca have really, really started to get become masterful at just knowing, you know, slowing it down, going the opposite way, suddenly deceleration. How many times has deceleration been talked about? I'd like to see the Google analytics on this and basketball, but it went to the fucking moon. I mean, it was just all the time. And I think that's a big part of it. I think it's like these guys have just gotten so good and have practiced so much at, you know, driving to the basket and like someone's touching me. I stop. Not necessarily the Tray Young thing, but they've gotten really good at creating those types of fouls. And you start to feel like, I was asking myself, I was like, how do I feel

about this? I was like, I don't love it because if you get somebody and they have their hands on you and you get really good at that, that's one thing. If a guy, if you bait a guy into jumping, that's on him. That's kind of where I've landed. It's like, you know, you got to learn to stay down. and that's the challenge of defending some of these great players in the modern age. Yeah, defenders, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know? Slap the floorboards. Like, let's get to it. Well, what do we do, Rob?

I don't know. You watch the free throws, it's like, is it the officiating? Is it bad? I'm just, I'm trying to figure out how I feel about the uptick and fouls because it doesn't seem it's as bad as the fever, you know, the boiling point with Luca scoring whatever the point total it was. Yeah, I'm looking at this list. And Rob is right. It practically is just an accounting for some of the, not only. only bigger stars in the game, but also guys who don't have either like a fully compliment

of players, like there's injuries happening here, or they're just not one of these teams with just pronounced depth, like Oklahoma, for instance, there's only Shay's on here once. And it was the game against Indiana, which I believe went to two overtimes. That also has been a part of it where it seems like there's been a lot of overtime game. So there could be something noisy there. But I do wonder if we're thinking about what we talked about last. We've been talking about overall where there's just more pace, more depth, more like teams playing players less, but just getting fresher bodies out there.

I wonder if you're a team that doesn't have that. The only way to compliment that is to play your star players more, but also ask them to do more. I think Janus is a prime case of this. I guess Cam Thomas, the one non-star on this list, also fits that bill where... Right. Your tongue. Nothing else to do. You should play through Cam Thomas.

So I almost wonder. if it's a response to that where it's like to keep pace, if you're Janus, like, including in last night's next next game, you just have to do a ton. You have to play a lot. You have to play incredibly hard in order to keep up. It also doesn't hurt that guys like Janice, like Janice and Wembe have been in this category. I would say even Luca when he's been healthy. Just look as unstoppable as I have ever seen them look. Like just on an individual level, just are proposing the kinds of challenges to kind of tap into

what Kyle was talking about with the way these guys are moving and the way they're manipulating defenders and the way they've learned to kind of play through a different kind of contact and draw a different kind of foul. You watch Yonis against the Knicks, and sure, there are faults in terms of what New York's doing defensively on a possession

to possession basis. You also see OG just getting like bodied out of the way. And like, that's OG and Anobie. I'm not sure what anyone else is supposed to do under those circumstances. And Wembe presents a similar problem. Luca presents a similar problem. There are knights where Ant presents those kinds of problems. I don't know what it is about the state of the league right now,

but it does feel like in the arms race of how these things go, the creators are a little bit ahead of the defenders, and they're very far ahead of the officiating in terms of what they can manipulate and create. Well, one of the guys who is part of that 40-point list is Jamal Murray, who we will hear to four only refer to as playoff Jamal Murray because this is the version that we've gotten thus far. Rob, I think we saw signs of this in the preseason,

where he looked sharp, he looked in shape, he looked in gauge, even in preseason action, and thankfully it's carried into the games as far. I mean, he's just Mr. October now. I think playoff, Murray, can be retired. Like, our guy is here taking this shit seriously from the jump for the first time in his entire career. And look, that's frustrating in its own way. There are times where you watch Jamal Murray, and he has accomplished a great deal as a player,

has proven everything on a playoff stage that really you can prove for a guy in his role. He just kind of decided that he was above the regular season. And you can see it, like, night and day in his play. There is a way that Jamal Murray moves when he moves with purpose. And then there's the way that he kind of jogs through stuff in the regular season. Like, there's a literal bounce in the way that he is working with the ball where you can tell, oh, this is a game and a moment that he's taking seriously. This is something that he feels is worthy of his attention and investment.

And we saw that before the games even actually mattered. And that's when my eyes really opened wide as far as like what this Denver season could be, what Jamal Murray's season could be. We'll see about the longevity of that. He's also a guy who tends to pick up nagging injuries here and there. But I don't know how you could be anything but thrilled about his level of investment in these first couple games. While he's just like putting up 30 a night like it's nothing. Yeah, I think it had all kind of stacked and culminated to the point where, you know,

he has these awful, you know, summers with Team Canada. And he'd been nagged. Yeah, I mean, he'd been hurt. I think it doesn't excuse any of the other. You got to do the things you have to do to get ready. Apparently, he went to Jamaica. I don't know if he went to Jamaica's largest freshwater pool and relaxed. That's an office reference. Rob hates the office and thinks it sucks and everyone should chide him for that. But he went and he got right, apparently. And you can definitely tell. Yeah, it's nice to see because he was sort of this evasive, elusive kind of a guy. And I kind of just wonder if the physicality. He did have a shift, I feel like, within the first three or four years of his career, where he started to take on some more of that physicality. And I wonder if it just wore him down. I haven't tracked like the timeline on this. But yeah, he had that gigantic outburst. I was trying to like gauge. He wasn't super efficient from three in the first two games. And then he just had that big out. That's what I think we should parse is like he had a really, really great game against

Minnesota. Granted Minnesota's like perimeter switchability was compromised. because AMP wasn't out there. Because I was watching it, I was like, he put up a ton of points, but he was kind of picking on Dillingham and switches, picking on Bones Highland. Those guys are just like wispy bucket-gitter guys that are just not equipped to deal with the maddening process of the like, I have the ball. I'm going to throw it to Yokic ball screen, throw it back to him, angle to screen. Like, he did kind of pick on them.

That would be my one thing that I would just throw devil's advocate to you all like, do you all think that that, how does that make you feel in light of the numbers? Here's the thing. Is he picking on Lester Defenders in those moments? Yes. Is he picking on Bones Highland in particular? Who, for those they remember, you know, there's like a little chatter between those two. There's some history there. Also, yes. There's a little beef. I totally forgot about the in-house. I totally forgot about that. That's a good call. At this point, the beef has long gone rotten. You know, it's just been sitting in the back of the fridge.

I guess dry aging for a long time because Jamal's making good use of it. Look, here's the, like, ultimately where I was. Collagens are in there. It's all, yeah. Where I land. The marvelling. Yeah. If we can get away from beef talk for one moment, where I land on it is,

Jamal picking on guys is a good thing. Like him targeting guys taking this stuff personally, those are positives to me, as far as regular season basketball goes. So I don't care who he's picking on if he's being this productive and this dominant and really like attacking and stretching defenses in this way. Well, I don't know how you guys have looked at this, but I thought even though he wasn't hitting early on, like the shot has looked better than it has in years past.

And I found that whenever, and this is more anecdotal than anything super scientific, like when he struggles, his shot is short, the front rim a lot of them. And that's really important because the shot opens up so much for him. Whether it's aging, whether it's the lingering effects of the big old injury he had,

but everything he's doing now is way more craft than it is physical. And so you see the shot giving way to him being, able to do more nuanced, manipulative things just like in the paint as a result of it. I also found that it's really telling when Nicola Yokic just decides I'm out and I'm not going to shoot anymore. But it's a real like canary in the coal mine sort of thing there. And over the past two games, he's taken eight shots and then 10 shots. And overall in the season, Jamal is leading the team in shots 22.

Yokic is actually third behind Aaron Gordon. He's taking not even 14 a game. And so to me that was almost like representation like, oh, not only do we have the depth, and that's a big part of it, but Yokic is like, oh, he's got it. He's got it going. Let's just feed him and I'll take a step back.

And so I almost trust the instincts of Yokic to tell us which way Murray is going to go in a given game and perhaps even in the season. It's a great call. Like nobody wants this version of Jamal Murray more than Nicola Yokinj does. And he has been on record when Murray has those sorts of games. that, like, he considers Jamal Murray to be their, like, their best player in those games in those moments, like, especially the playoff version of Jamal Murray.

Like, if they can tap into that on a frequent regular season basis, they're just going to be one of the juggernaut teams in a league that looks right now, very uneven. Like, so many teams that we expected to be good, just aren't there out of the gate. Denver is a, there are pluses and minuses. Even within Yokic's performance, he's had some obviously productive across the board, but some defensive stuff that hasn't been great. some overall showings and moments from like, I want a little more from him, maybe in the balance and the yin and yang of these things. Also, let's be honest,

his jersey is fighting for its life every night out there. Okay. He got a little too excited over the offseason, I think. We don't body shame around here, Justin. This is not what we do on this podcast. I think historically, yes, we do, but okay. Maybe so. Look, he's still in the Kola Yok.

I'm not saying he hasn't played well. I'm just saying there is a very, delicate balance between them that I am eager to see with a maxed-out version of Murray and a maxed-out version of Yokic just how dangerous that can be. They are at the foot of a mountain right now, dare I say a rocky mountain. And I think that they, that's the mountain on there. He just walked it all the way back. Fuck.

No, no, they, he definitely, I'm sure that you mentioned it and Yokic doesn't want to be. He doesn't have the insistence to exert his will at all times to get his own offense. He's willing to sort of move and regress in whatever way as necessary. And I'm sure he knows that he's aware that they are at the foot of a mountain right now. And getting Jamal right and leaning into that is very, very important. And yeah, I mean, Yokic, if left, he doesn't want to have to be Nelson and the Simpsons being the quarterback, throwing it to himself and catching it to himself and catching it. in the end zone. Funny because they're kind of built similarly, but I just think that, yeah,

I think it's really, really important with like the ebb and the flow of the season to lean into it. So I agree with that on Yokic's instincts being indicative. If he can be the guy at this point who is picking his spots while leading the league in assists and rebounding, that's a great life for Nicola Yokic and a good way to just kind of pace him through the season as well. He's also slowly starting to look in Yonis in contrast. It's starting to look more and more like each other where like he does the weird like yeah like I think I think he's like putting on some way because maybe he's trying to do some sort of like swap situation like you know when twins will just like go in each other's class and whatnot oh wow don't know which one is out there but yoke

it's just like he goes this scraggily like chin beard like he's Jafar or something and then yonis obviously does that just by choice and so I'm most wondering if like you know they're feeding into each other that way just like how my cool style is is just replicated by what you're doing This is what I was going to ask. Over the course of this season, are we going to look at a before and after and all of a sudden, like I look like Kyle Mann by the end of the year?

Like I'm rocking the hats on a daily basis. The beard is coming through even thicker and more resplendent than ever. You want to be a beer, bro? We could do try beards. I feel like that's really asking for the three white guys on a podcast commentary if we look that much alike, but I'm fearful of it.

I will say there was a moment in the game where, maybe it was last night, where I just kind of looked up from looking down, and a big guy, a big European guy was tipping the ball to himself under the basket. I was like, oh, that's Valenci. You know, you have to kind of get used to the optics of who's on the floor with them. And I was like, oh, that's Valanchunis. I was like, wow.

So that supports your theory, JV. I'm just saying. There you go. It's 100% true that Kyle confirms. All right. Next one on the list, the Chicago Bulls, who I should mention, I did not nominate for this exercise. If anything, I was going to ease off and just let the public have it. because personally I'm finding the fervor going on

about the Bulls 3-0 start right now. I'm just sitting back here being like, I saw these guys in a club in Seattle like in 1990, you know? Like this must have been like what it was to be a member of the cast of singles and you see all these guys just coming into your city wanting to get a part of what you built. Because the Bulls, number one on defense, three and no. This fucking guy.

Like one of four undefeited. Are you suggesting you're a bull's hit? Are you acting like you were early on the Bulls 3 and 0 start? Is that what you're saying? I'm so early. I was in on them when they were under 500 last year. Yes. Justin has been in these streets in his defense.

Should he have been out in those streets? I warned him not to be. I said, Justin, please don't. Please come home. We're worried about you. But he just insisted. The Pro Bulls streets is where you aren't. Oh, yeah.

Specifically, I just think that they're fun. Like, they just play a very entertaining style of basketball. And especially last season, after Levine was, out and everything was flowing and everything was going well. It is real like empty calories, like game you're just going to want to turn on if you just want to sit back and enjoy yourself. And I think that's what's been happening this far this season. They've only been playing thrilling games thus far.

I got to say, and this is hard for me to admit, you were right. Justin, you were right. Yeah, wow. Let's get a drop of that one. I was going to say there's nothing says basketball fun to me than flowing with Zach Levine. Yeah, man, that's exactly where my. My ghost. Flowing with Trey Jones is more fun, it turns out.

Foric. Yeah. Like, I have found myself quite admiring the way, like, they are the most committed team to moving the ball early in this season. Like the way, the flow, the confidence, like the commitment to how they want to play. We're seeing it with Miami. We're seeing it with Chicago. Like, these teams that are coming in with a deal of continuity and also just like a resolve

and understand that like, hey, we don't have that guy and we need to find a way to triangulate offense. has been really fun to watch, has been quite productive and successful. It's also just like a good way to compensate for the fact that if you're going to play a bunch of iffy shooters at the same time, there's got to be some slate of hand in there. Like you got to razzle-dazzle them a little bit. You got to keep it moving and distracting so that they don't realize, oh, wait, I don't have to like stick in Trey's jersey or Josh Giddy's jersey or even Montes-Buzellis's jersey. Apparently you do need to stick in Iyodosum's jersey.

He was just playing the basketball of his life right now in a way that is exhilarating to me personally. I just, I love the way that Billy Donovan has these guys playing. Yeah, they're an interesting statistical team. You're talking about them realizing the way that they have to play because I was looking at they are moving the ball, fifth in the league and assists. And they are really getting to the rim. So they're driving the ball a whole lot. They have such an incredible lack of dribble pull-up shooting in their offense.

They are dead last in the league and dribble jumpers. And I was like, that's interesting. Is that a recent thing? They were very close to last last year, but they have guys that can hit, you know, shots after a pass pass. And their top four guys aren't shooting them at like incredible volume. So that's one thing where you're like, okay, is this just like wild shooting variance that's going on? Giddy, as we know, can not going to be shooting dribble, pull up threes, but he's almost 42%. Vooch is at almost 55.

Trey Jones is almost at, he's at 57. And then I-O is at 60. but most of those guys are taking around four or five a game and it falls off a cliff after that. So, you know, they just can't really dictate the way the wind blows. They don't have a player that can do that at this point. So, but they're really rebound. You know, they really attack the glass and they're trying to get out in transition when they can. And yeah, you're right.

There's just buy-in, which, you know, I'm sure for the Bulls, if you like look at the, if you zoom out and look at the macro over the past three years of this team, they were 39 and 43, two years in a row. And then, yeah, and then they won one more game. And I was, I've been rewatching the wire lately and I was watching season three. And I just saw the Stringer Bell rant about 40 degree days. You know, don't nobody got shit to say about a 40 degree day. The Bulls have a lot of 40 degree days, you know, years.

40. 40. Yeah. So it almost goes lines up perfectly. But yeah. So something to be excited about for sure. Listen, if I'm being seriously now, like one of the things that have appealed to me about the Bulls is that.

Was I not being serious? He was a big serious. Yeah. As he sits in his $2 basketball costume. Really serious. Let's get serious. It's just the blueprint has always spoken to me about like how the game is trending, right? It's just big athletes who could pass triple shoot.

They're playing with pace. Defense is feeding transition. Like the chalk outline of how teams are being successful as we talked about in the last pot, you don't have a star. these are the type of teams that are really this is how they're they're playing nowadays uh the problem has always just been the talent in order to fill in there and but so far this season things are just going well enough in order to build results i think they've also just had some not luck but they've pulled some games out of the dirt including that game totally the hawks the other night

uh i think honestly we need to put some respect on our guy nick lausovusovic who a big part of this is their defense and we should talk about this because i think we did one of these last year rob and like maybe around the same time or midseason, we do this bit a lot. And their defense was popping and I still couldn't figure it out. I can't now. But at the very least, rebounding-wise, they're ending possessions. And Vucevich is a big part of this. And I should mention in our top 100 voting, only two people voted for Nikola Vucevich as a top 100 player.

This guy was one of them. Wow. Who's the other? Can we out them? Rob, did you not? I'm going to facilitate the argument here. Rob, did you not? Why or why not?

I honestly don't remember at this point. Well, wishy-washy. You are lukewarm. He did not. I spit you from my mouth. I looked it up. It was Bill. The 90 to 110 zone is a lot of like, okay, I guess it could be this guy, but also that guy, but also definitely not this guy.

It's a bit of a mess up there. You have to respect the way he's played, though. If we're doing the, I did it on the last segment here, I'll do it again. I mean, the fact that they picked off a couple teams that are underperforming. You know, they got the magic by 12. They got the hawks and the pistons who both are kind of having problematic starts. This is just devil's abgin. I'm not trying to deflate the balloon.

I'm just saying, what do you make of that in terms of gauging the, is this a thing? If you look at the names on the schedule, they don't read as bad teams, but those are all three teams that are really struggling to find themselves. Yeah. But to me, that's the difference, right? It's like the Bulls are not struggling to find themselves. They have limitations in terms of their roster. They don't have that star. I think this is where you and I have been further apart, JV, as far as the Bulls' experience.

It's like you liked all the momentum of how they were playing and the style and kind of like what they were trying to accomplish. I like that stuff in previous seasons, but with the previous personnel, it felt like some of the times all that movement is just like a lot of split cuts that go to absolutely nowhere. It's like there's not actually a productive end to their offense. Like they're getting theoretically the right shots. And yet sometimes it's the guy you don't want taking the right shot. this team feels a little bit different. I think that some of it's just like the young player is getting better. Some bits the gradual additions of guys like Trey Jones over the course of last season.

Some of it's, you know, Pat Williams having his head screwed on a little more tightly on a game-to-game basis, which is nice. Some of it is that defensive rebounding. And it's the idea that like even when the offense does hit the inevitable lulls as any team without a go-to all-star will, they have something they can fall back on defensively. I think it is a little fluky in the three-point percentage stuff. Like, opponents are not going to shoot 26% from three all year. That's not going to happen. But the Bulls are proving to be more than just a finesse team.

And I think the defensive rebounding is a good example of that. I think the fact that this team has like zero rim protection and yet are showing a little more fight at the point of attack, are showing a little more fight on the perimeter. In like a very responsible stable, we're not going to gamble too much kind of way, just like keep your guy in front of you, keep the shell, keep the structure,

basic fundamental basketball. And I think part of the reason they're able to get away with all this, like tons of offensive movement, good defensive energy, is Billy Donovan is just cycling through these guys, like short stints. There are eight players playing 20 or more minutes a game, and that's not even including like the Jalen Smith,

Julian Phillips types, who are kind of eeking into the rotation. They just have like a lot of zest in the way that they're playing right now in a way that, again, is like clearly effective. And I think we'll be clearly effective to a degree all season. Can I ask a broader question about the ballroom? Please. Yeah. Have permission.

If you're going to start from the starting point of a primary handler, because I was watching, I was looking at Josh Giddy's efficiencies, and they're not what you would think they would be in some spots in terms of ball screens. And I'm like, man, and I was going through and watching a lot of the clips, and I was like, if somebody could just make a freaking shot, that like really penalizes him a whole lot. But it got me thinking about the broader philosophy of from the starting point of if your primary guy is not a pull-up shooter, you kind of get in a position. where I because if you have a pull-up shooter like a Kate Cunningham or a or a Luca, I'm just pulling these guys who are bigger guards.

Your first thought is, okay, get him a lob threat. But if you have somebody that can't shoot, you're like, all right, we probably should try to get somebody that could shoot threes at the five position, Vucevic, okay? But then that creates defensive issues that you kind of have to go ahead and figure out too. Because most stretch bigs, I would say, most most elite rim protectors are not going to be three-point shooters. It's usually either one of the other. So you have to go and get athletic guys. I'm just, do you see what I'm saying? There's just like a. cycle that you automatically put yourself into with the roster construction of a non-dribble pull-up shooter who has all these implied roster things that they need. I'm just wondering, is it possible to get warmer than a 40-degree day? Are we just constantly going to be in this state of just like, do you enjoy 40 degrees? Feels pretty good compared to 20 degrees, but it's not 70 degrees. Like, I'm just kind of wondering where, how do you get out of that? If you have a, if you have a Josh Giddy as your primary guy? I've always thought. Is that too broad a question?

No, I, this is the question. This is the question. question with the bulls every day of the year. I think honestly, quietly, they've made the shift to acknowledging at the very least they need injections of talent in order to do anything differently. The problem is they just backload their roster with guys, as we're saying, the trade Jones is the Iodosum. They're almost like too qualified and they're too deep in these like average to slightly below average rotation players that they're doing too well. But like I found like just getting their draft picked back a big declaration of at the very least.

an intent to want to just pad with like lottery talent. The big thing with Giddy for me, my defensive Giddy has always been like, if he is getting paid $25 million a year and he is one of your guys, that's great because he does magical things as a pastor. He's one of the most inventive pastors in the game. He literally spun through a double in order to split the double last night. And I was like, that's fucking incredible. And he's big.

And as we're saying, like the rebounding advantage at the very least is going to spark their break where they want to get out and run. And so, like, he's a helpful player. But if you look at him as your primary, that's not going to work. We should mention Kobe White, not here as well. He's probably closer to that guy. All this without Kobe White is so crazy. But I think if you were to give them truth serum, they would say, like, oh, we need a star.

The problem is, like, how do you get that? And do you have to switch things up to Jerry Rigg your team to that once you have it? And all this beautiful movement actually goes to waste? I don't know. But I don't disagree with what you're saying. No, like the big picture stuff about the Bulls is still what it is. It's just that the line has moved a little bit. And especially in this year's Eastern Conference,

if you play this way and this confidently and this consistently within what you do, maybe you're getting yourself more squarely into like the six-seat conversation, right? Maybe you're edging out of the play and into something a little more secure if they can maintain this like caliber of play for a longer stretch. We'll see. But philosophically, Josh Giddy is just one of the funkiest fits in the entire league. and will continue to be. The off-ball stuff in terms of how teams guard

or don't guard him as a shooter is going to be a constant problem. Even when you put two ball handlers on the floor and have the kind of success Chicago has been able to have early in the season. And I hear everything you're saying, Kyle, about what kind of big do you want to play him with? The difference for me for Josh Giddy,

relative to guys like Kate and Luku, who I agree, you want to pair with a lob threat, he doesn't have the, like, get around the defender, get the edge, get the corner, get the shoulder on the guy's speed and even like craftiness. it's all kind of like wiggling his way through a drive in a way that is much more difficult to throw a lob off of that.

So he needs the space almost more than he needs the lob. And yet him needing the space presents all of the issues defensively that you already talked about. I think the bigger question we should be asking is, has Trey Jones shut up the power rankings of the Jones Bros? I have no argument to the contrary. It's been a quiet couple years for Tias Jones. A lot of like, oh, this should be a big deal.

And then in Phoenix, it was not a big deal. In Orlando, it's helped. We'll see. I have hope for him as a magic yet. Huge, huge, I'm a ball-noer opportunity, like, land rush with the Tyos Jones. You remember that? Oh, yeah, I like Tyos Stone. Do you like Tyos?

You know, there's a lot of that. A ratio, yeah. But is Trey the new frontier? Like, should we try to get ahead of this? It's the new model. He's been waiting in the wings. Since we are being nice to each other, though, I should mention Mattis Bezellis, like hasn't played well, I would say.

But there are moments where it's just like, he's clearly an athletic freak. He had the, like the, he was just in the air and decided to throw it behind his back dunk. Like he does things every game like two to three plays where you're like, oh, that guy is something. Yeah. Do we say behind the back dunk?

Are you one of those people very, that I've always had a problem with that. I'm like, is it behind his back? I just am like, is he like putting it in by his lumbar? I'm just like, it's a reverse. What are we? I don't know. I've just always, I don't want to nitpick, but I do.

You know, I'm just, you know. You do. We can go with that. I also just want to bust Justin's balls however possible, but, you know, there we go. Well, I'm for that as well. Billy, I have, look, Madas Bezillus looks like a young player. And he looks like a young player who's still figuring out how he fits into all this, right? Like the flow, the position, yet another guy who, again, is like not the most confident

shooter in the world is definitely more of a slasher at this point, but has to feel that stuff out. And, like, I am squarely fine with everywhere he has development. mentally right now, he's giving the bull some of that, some of that juice, some of that unpredictability that an offense like that needs. I think the problem you run into when you're just passing the ball around, keeping everybody involved as much as this is everything feels very cookie cutter, right? It's just like simple pass into simple decision, into quick choice. All that stuff is good, but you need somebody who's going to back foot defenders. And Modis Buzellis almost like cannot help but back foot defenders.

And I'm going to slow close to him a lot more. You know what I mean? He's just shown so much of that pop to the basket. If he can really make a leap in that area, it's going to be big for them. Yeah, Kyle, I mean, I'm sure you knew more about him than us coming into the draft, like where he was then to now, like what's the biggest jump for him? I mean, his athleticism is translated a lot more than I thought it would. I mean, I thought a lot of the stuff surrounding the shooting. It's just shooting just can really deflate and neutralize, especially if you don't have

something to lean back on like Giddy does, like Giddy has the playmaking and the sort of slow it down, get in the wiggling in the lane, things that he can add. And it's just you're trying to, you're trying to figure out a way to bolster up all the little fun, like, micro skill things that he can do that I did love when he was with the G League. But like we were saying, I don't know, maybe you just kind of think of the other areas where he can add that is, you know, as a cutter, things like that. It's just going to be that, that alone, I think, is going to kind of dictate how quickly he develops honestly for me, my opinion. I don't want to keep going down the entire Bulls. roster, but yeah, Dissumu looks

jacked. Definitely we missed him on the muscle watch. He's huge. Yeah. I think for what it is, like maybe he's just more physical. His drive just feel like they have way more force to them than they did before. To the point where he stiff-armed a guy and I was like, that's not legal. And then he did it again and they just let it go

again. I'm like, I guess he could stiff-arm guy. He's just Derek Henry now. Look, sometimes it is a lot. That forearm shiver, like some guys get away with it. It's just like a part of the game. Just the stars like I-O-Dissumu. Exactly. for whistle. That's right.

Well, speaking of a star-studded team, let's talk about the Knicks playing differently this year. So last season, 27th in three-point attempts per game, 34.1 this season all the way up to third, 44.8. Things have gone well last night, probably when they played the Bucks, maybe not a prime example of that. Rob, they strike me as the type of team

where it's like one of those Oprah or like Mori makeup shows where you have this like really manly man like getting a full makeover to what they're doing where it's just like got to get a little bit more refined something a little bit a little bit more attractive out there and probably in the Milwaukee game was an example of the growing pains I think of that exercise the manly man has gotten the makeover but now he needs to figure out like what beard oil is all about like what the what's the right moisturizer to use like there's the day to day reality of playing in this style of offense that is it's very clear these guys just like don't have a feel for it yet and that's okay it's extremely early it is a dramatically different style as you said just

in terms of the three point attempts but also just in terms of the flow of how they're trying to play under mike brown so you would expect some growing pains they also have cat who is just i mean one of the most fascinating and perplexing players in the league on an annual basis but he's working through a quad injury right now we saw chelan brunson have what looked to be an incredibly pain groin hamstring situation developing. I don't know how he continued to play against the bucks, but he did, continued to score, continued to drive, did his damnedest.

Again, not quite there in the grand scheme of things for New York. I believe in the big picture of what they're trying to accomplish. But I think you're starting to see, okay, the comfort of guys within these kind of malleable roles. I think you will hear grousing over the first half of this season about, like, I'm not quite sure, like, what my touches are. I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to be doing in these situations or those. That is all kind of part of this.

That is part of the learning curve of being in more of a fluid offense. And the payoff for that is the kinds of shots they're starting to create, but don't necessarily feel super comfortable taking just yet. Yeah. I mean, you heard it's a tough shift from the way that they've played in the past because we know that Carl, Carl showed signs in Minnesota of being able to sort of contort, you know, wide steps. wiggle around people make passes.

We've seen some of this stuff, but he falls into this trap, and maybe Brunson's pace has been a thing that has sort of contributed to him being lured into playing more of this slow it down sort of a thing. And when you have a shooter like him and you have the types of wings that they have, it just makes more sense to pivot to something that is, you know, like the speed, the closeout speed, the standard closeout speed in the NBA has like gone up so much. If you watch an NBA game now compared to like 2009 and 1999, guys are flying around out there in a way that is pretty remarkable that I don't even know if it fully gets like appreciated, digest it all the time. So everything is just more live.

So decisions are faster. So I think that's what Mike Brown has like the pitchfork in the rear end of this collective team. And you heard him in the post game last night, just kind of like stay the course, you know, because in the second half or it maybe it was the fourth quarter, I had to run down. But they produced more spot-up attempts to Milwaukee. They just didn't make them. You've got to just kind of have a consistent messaging of like, we are on pace here to do what we want to do. You know, last season they were 18th in the league and passes per game and they're up to through three games. They're up to fifth so far in this year in this season.

And they had an interesting stretch. I think it might have been the second quarter where Tyler Colick is really doing a good job of supporting this idea. I'm not saying he's shouldering it. I'm just saying he's a good representation of what they're trying to do, advancing the ball. Getting it up into the like 21 second range. Like they're getting a lot out of the shot clock. He also looks like he's drowning out there sometimes. But he's getting off of it.

I'm not giving him credit. I'm just saying they had a lineup out there that was like Colic, Kat, Mikhail, OG, and Shamit. You could, you know, mix some things in there. It's just kind of I've liked some of the lineups that they've thrown out there. It's just been more fun to watch, honestly. Yeah. Yeah, I think change was necessary. I think if you watch the playoffs, there was a lot riding on Jalen Brunson,

just making things happen, pivoting, pivoting, pivoting, pivoting to his way to a bucket in crunch time or even beyond that. I also think one of the early trends that we haven't talked about is just like how many teams are willing to full court pressure, especially for a lead ball handler. Like there was this cool graphic the other day. I forgot who it was. I apologize, but like the pickup points are pretty much by and large higher for every single team. Number one on that list, by the way, the Portland Trailblazers, just an FYI in that one. That's a swear jar. The jar.

Bing. Hey. I'm deaf now. But if there's going to be more of an effort to wear down Brunson, which if you're planning a defense, I would certainly put that at the top of my list, there's going to be more pressure on decision-making from the other guys, from Kat, from Bridges and all those other guys,

to democratize what they're doing in order to have more of an overall approach. And they've done that thus far. surprisingly enough, a lot of the three-point volume has come primarily from O.G. and Brunson and adding some of the role players that he mentioned, like Kolo Kayser is just going to shoot more by nature.

But it has been surprising, Rob, that like, I guess probably OJ sees the opportunity to shoot more and he's just like, sign me the fuck up. Don't, like, doesn't ask questions. Yeah, I mean, the shots aren't like falling for him as consistently as you or he would like just yet. But he's going to be the beneficiary of a lot of that movement.

Guys like him are going to find themselves open. and Brunson too, it makes sense in a way that his attempts would go up because if you are running a Jalen Brunson ISO or pick and roll heavy offense or just kind of like doing all this action just to get him the ball, Jalen Brunson wants to go downhill. He's a good pull-up shooter, but he's also small, and his natural momentum is going towards the basket. And so the more you are moving things around,

the more it's like getting to the paint from Deuce McBride and spraying out, the more likely you're going to get Jalen Brunson's spot-up opportunities, which I think are an important part of the diet here, I think are going to be really valuable for the Knicks going forward. I'm with you that I just like the balance of how they're trying to play, and I like the guys that they're trying to play by and large. The elephant in the room is that Josh Hart has not looked very comfortable playing this way as of yet, and I would say his minutes on the floor have been kind of an active problem to the sort of spacing and flow they're trying to orient themselves to.

You hate Josh Hart. I don't. You hate Tyler Kolic, too. You're just a wet blanket. Well, look, Tyler Kolic is what he is. and like, you know, scrapped by to make the team. Good for Tyler Cole. Like him getting rotation minutes is a huge win for him.

Josh Hart is just one of these guys, though, who I think the more predictable style that the Knicks played with lent itself to more predictable offensive rebound and crashing opportunities, knowing when to cut, knowing how to operate within that system. But like, he is like, anytime you look at one of these games, anytime you look at the big picture stuff for the Knicks, like the plus minus for Josh Hart is one of the overwhelming negatives on this team, right now. And that's, I believe that will change. But as far as like what is kind of mucking things up

right now, Josh Hart's lack thereof in terms of spacing, I think is part of that formula. I mean, Hart is basically a power forward in a shooting guard's body. And I think that's one of the big, like, just overarching existential questions with this team is like clearly they've decided that they want to play with two bigs to the point where they were playing Hock Purdy next to Kat to start some of these games. Unfortunately, went away from that. But we should, and we should mentioned like cat was pretty bad last night part of this is because he's being asked to be the Mitchell robinson role Robinson Robinson hasn't played this far the season that's concerning the least considering his injury history but also cat dealing with this quad injury and so there's that

and so yeah it's just like I think heart is going to find it tough to fit in especially because OG you know he can he can guard big he was practically garden centers at times and so they're pretty beefy in that front court. And so heart is being asked to fill the gaps. And he's something he will do. He's frothing at the mouth in order to do all the little stuff, the hustle stuff, the rebounding stuff. But I think what they're saying overall, Kyle is like, actually we need a little bit more nuance. We need a little bit more skill in here because like in order to get that shooting up, you guys who are actually going to take those and make those. Yeah. You know, watching some of their attempts, I went through and I was when you see a trend as,

as we're seeing with the Knicks here, I'll go pick one specific play type and just like watch the types of shots over and over again, just because I think open threes are sort of an indicator of process for a team, and it's kind of one of the quicker ways to go and see, especially, and so when you're watching them, I'm like, I don't hate the shots they're getting. Some of it is just overall variance, I think. I saw plenty where I was like, I think these are going to be shots that they can make. So hopefully heart can just be a part of that. And it's odd because his DNA as a player has always been to play in these high, you know,

spread out faster system. So I don't have a lot of pessimism about it. Now, will he regress in terms of maybe his overall involvement? I think that's possible, but I trust that he'll figure something out. But it may have, it may just be a case of he fit a little bit better with what they were trying to do last year. It's both. Another encouraging sign on top of that is that they're actually playing a bench this year.

So over the first four games last season, season, they played bench players 173 minutes. This year, this season, 330. They played eight different players off the bench, a little noise there just because Hart was injured. Robinson has been injured, so they're trying some stuff. But basically double the amount of players coming off the bench and actually participating in the NBA game.

Can you guys on top of that name the two top bench players for the first four games for the Knicks last year? They're not on the team anymore. I mean, for sure. And even the guys that they eventually came into by the end of the season, your Landry Shamitz and your Dylan Wrights, like weren't a part of that mix. Who would they have been bringing off the bench at the start of the season?

One is a legend. A Knicks legend or just an overall legend? Overall legend for several teams. Tage Gibson. That's a good guess, but it was campaign in Jericho Sims. Jericho Sims. Hook him. that's right and now they're Clarkson heart

Akpherty Kolik Mahabhadiyah also got a single minute last night I didn't know he was Deiara but okay there we go for him I gotta say the Yabuselli minutes so far also have not he has not covered himself in glory we're waiting patiently for the true Yabu to show

I think he'll get there all right when we wrap it there do you guys have any Halloween plans you want to talk about you guys handing out candy to the youngans i feel like this is a kyle question what do we got family-wise what do we work or do we have a whole coordinated costume our neighborhood is pretty dead so it's not uh it's it's not very active here on hell we even we've sick candy out and nobody takes it so it's been like that for a few years now it's kind of lame but uh we're gonna we're gonna

go out to a neighborhood around here um you know i was telling you guys my sort of standard move is i just keep a skeleton jumpsuit and i'm always kind of like i'm i'm I'm part of the party, right? But I kind of, that's as far as I go. So Julian's going to be a vampire, I think. But the great thing about kids is they'll just call the last second audible and they'll just be something totally different. Last year, he went with two of the kids that were all Spider-Man and we did the meme and it was fun. And, you know, I don't know.

Yeah, that's about the extent of it. You got any parties you're going to, sickie, sickie-sik-mohny? You know, I'm to the surprise of no one, not much of a Halloween guy, but maybe that needs to change. You know, I'm considering maybe this is the year that I really get into like a curse or a hex of some kind. that we just, you know, get all the witches together and really make something happen. Well, if you guys have any candidates on who should be cursed or hexed, like I'm open to suggestions.

Go find some cursed relics somewhere, go to a vintage store, just to take your chances on that. Oh, yeah. Maybe get a poltergeist thing going on, yeah? I'm not giving out candy, partly because I don't want to have any interactions with anyone that's younger than, like, 25, first and foremost. Two, I'm going to see the Never Nuggets play against,

the Portland Trailblazers. You know what? You know, it's scary to me. Yokic having to face that defense, you know, those high pick up points. I think this is another swear jar, honestly. I know it's just your plans, but still. It's worth it.

All right. We'll be back on Sunday night. I promise this time we will be back on Sunday night. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. Thank you to Ben Cruz. We will talk to you next time.