The Ringer NBA Show - It’s Overreactions SZN: All-Star Trae Young, Portland in Trouble, MVP KAT, and More | The Mismatch

Episode Date: October 25, 2019

The guys share their concerns about the Houston Rockets experiment (1:26) as well as the revamped Los Angeles Lakers (9:07). Then they overreact to opening week of the regular season (24:20). Hosts: Chris Vernon, Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ringer NBA show is presented by State Farm. Just like basketball, the game of life is unpredictable. Talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected and help you handle whatever life throws at you. You want to talk about unpredictable? How about the Hornets winning on the first night of the season? PJ Washington dropping seven threes and then them tweeting out after the game NBA, you're on notice. That's about as unpredictable as it gets. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today about combining your home and auto insurance. Today's show is also brought to you by the Google Assistant.

The Google Assistant is ready to help you get more done with just your voice in the car, at home, and everywhere you take your phone. With the season starting, I'll be spending a lot of time watching basketball on my couch and should stock up on snacks. Hey, Google, add chips and salsa to my shopping list. All right, I added chips and salsa. A little help, hands free. Just say, hey, Google, to get started. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon and joining me as he does every Friday from the ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor,

aka Kevin O'Bomber, aka Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin O'Connorcair, Kevin O'Connor Kevin O' Pinnonated, Kevin O'Candyland. Kevin, we've got new music. Yeah, Vernon, I'm digging it. Isaac, you made it. It's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And have we already run off Bobby Wagner?

Bobby had a fly to New York tonight, I think, for the weekend. And so, Isaac Lee, you're back with a mismatch. Yeah, I'm just pinch hitting. I'm not back full time. Yes. Yeah, we know your loyalties, heat check. We know. We know.

I appreciate you making the song, Isaac. I think we were due for a new one after a couple years of that old one. I really like this one. That's my parting gift. All it took was him, yeah, leaving us to start liking us. What inspired the song, Isaac? What inspired this song? Oh, man.

I mean, we named the show The Mismatch, and I wanted to do two contrasting genres kind of leading into each other, as you guys do. There we go. All right. Well, Kevin, we are recording this after we just watched the Houston Rockets play against the Milwaukee Bucks, and this is going to be an overreactions pod. And along those lines, pretty clear, hardened, and what. Westbrook is not going to work together.

Yeah, what a way to start out, Chris. No, it was at least a pretty tremendous game to watch, man. Three former MVP's three in a row on the floor at one time. It looked hard to not score the ball well at all, but his passing was unbelievable in that game. I thought Westbrook played pretty solidly, 24 points, 17 shots, 16 rebounds, 7 assists. Those guys are going to work. They just had that really horrific shooting streak in the fourth quarter that helped lose in the game.

Yeah. And Brooke Lopez, I mean, if I was him, I'd be screaming, it's too little, you're too little, because he really did punish them for being small in the game. And Brooke Lopez just, I mean, well, I think he had double digits in the fourth quarter. And their team just exploded. They had 39 points. And Janus fouled out early in that game and still had a triple double. and they didn't have him to go to down the stretch.

That was mega impressive for Milwaukee, I thought. Oh, for sure. You know, fighting through the adversity, you know, being down for the most part in that game and fighting fall trouble. But you talked about this before the podcast, you know, even started. There's been a lot of whistles early on this season. A lot.

A lot. I will say this. And this is because the smaller the sample size, the greater the overreactions. And one thing that did stand out to me, just when I was watching that fourth quarter, was I did at least let my mind drift to the fact that a year ago, you remember the rocket started out very, very, very slowly. And there was a tremendous amount of blame on Carmelo, right?

They've added Carmelo and now they can't defend and this and that. And he became a scapegoat for their slow start in many ways. But one of the elements of their slow start was the absence of Jeff Bezdelic, who they groveled with to come back. And he did. And he had been the defensive maestro for them the year prior. And then he decided to walk away. And then they begged him back, and he came back. And within weeks, their defense transformed dramatically back into a good defense.

Now, you know it was going to be a little bit hard with Hardin and Westbrook. We know that that backcourt tandem is not given to being powerful defensively. But I do wonder what the impact of Mike DeAntoony losing his staff, and most importantly, Bezdelic, because it was kind of shaded by the fact that Carmelo got the blame. But that was an element to why they had their slow start last year because they were a shell of their former self defensively. And they were terrible defensively in the fourth tonight. Yeah, I honestly don't really look at it as defense being the problem in the game against Milwaukee tonight. I think it was started on the offensive end of the floor in that first half, Hardin was getting anywhere he wanted to.

He was getting to the basket just really dishing out on the floor. Then in the second half, though, Milwaukee did a much better job of defending Hardin without fouling him. And then also Houston just had real cold streaks on the offensive of the floor. and what resulted on Houston's end was more of an isolation heavy half-court offense rather than playing with a bit more pace in the half-court rather than getting more transition opportunities. I think that in turn created opportunities the other way for Milwaukee. You can't say it's defense, but I think for Houston it was just really they're sputtering on the offensive end of the floor that helps give some easier early offense opportunities for Milwaukee on the other end. I don't know. 24 is a reasonable number. what is not a reasonable number is 39, which is what they gave up.

That's why I said that. They gave up 39 points in the fourth quarter. That's extreme. You know, and it wasn't all transition. I just told you, Brooke Lopez at 11, and a lot of that stuff was out of the half court. They just had a bunch of breakdowns. It's just something to keep an eye on, right?

Because that team was not good defensively last year until they got Buzdellic back in. and now he is New Orleans. I believe he's there with Alvin Gentry now, Jeppesdelic. And I know Mike DeAnonio was mad about his whole staff. You know, that was clearly not his choice. He wanted to run it back with his staff. So anyways, we saw that game.

One thing on the staff, when I interviewed Dan Tony in August or whatever it was, late August, early September, Mike said to me in the conversation, I asked him, you know, when it comes to installing new players into your system. There's obviously an adjustment and challenges on that. But what about with a new coaching staff? And he pretty much just said to me, it's the same thing. You know, you have to get used to each other. You have to get used to your

new responsibilities. You have to get to know each other. He's like, we had a talented staff last year and, you know, changes were made that were out of my control. And now we have a new staff with some, you know, other talented guys. So, but he did admit that there are challenges and a coaching staff getting assembled

overnight, just like it is with a new team. So in that sense, to your point, Chris, there could be something to that where this coaching staff is getting used to each other and then the players in turn are getting used to the new coaches. I think it's more important with them than with other teams too because Mike Deonti is an offensive guy. You know what I mean? He does not care about defense. He doesn't. And so having a defensive coordinator was a real benefit. I've always been amazed like with Dan Tony. He's got the D in the last name. I've always thought, just remove the D. Get rid of the D. Which is Mike Antony? Yes, exactly. Right. So we saw that game. The game that is going on while we

are recording is the Clippers and the Warriors as the Warriors are opening their new arena. So that is going on while we're recording tonight. If anything significant happens while the Clippers have started off the game 11 to nothing for goodness sake. Not exactly the opening. I think that the Warriors probably wanted. But we are going to go through overreactions after we hit a couple of notes that have taken place over the course of the last couple of days. You were there for Lakers Clippers the other night. We have talked about will LeBron James play point guard?

And it took one game for there to be a headline of Frank Vogel saying that Ray John Rondo will start more at point guard. and so I don't think it's necessarily a, well, that experiment's over, but when we've got the headline, Frank Vogel, Rondo will start some at point for Lakers. It's like, I mean, I swear everything is just so magnified. And you're right in the middle of that right now. But for God's sakes, it's one game. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't overreact to this.

I know we just said it's an overreaction podcast, but I forget who reported it, but it's like it was sort of expected that Rondo would be starting at some point and handling a load of the ball handling responsibilities. This is totally unsurprising. I believe you and I talked about this earlier in the month or last month in regards to LeBron James's role in title as starting point guard. That is essentially what he has been, his entire career is the lead playmaker on his team. And that is not going to change with or rather than Rondo. What will be. change is maybe you have. Rondo bringing the ball up the floor a little bit more getting LeBron James less touches in the back court, more touches, off ball, and the front court.

I don't think LeBron's role changes that much. He's still going to dominate the ball. You just have Rondo help facilitate some sets more often. Well, and you also I mean, there's two ends of the court. You also want a guard that can chase around the other point guard. That's not what you want LeBron having to do, right?

And even if you are switching. He wasn't I know. I know. He wasn't. That's what you have Avery Bradley and Danny Green out there for. I understand. By the way, Rajan Rondo is not going to do that successfully either. He has deteriorated on the defensive end of the floor, as

sad as it is to say. He can still play make, can still make plays for you, but he's not a threat that defense is worried about when he's behind the three point line. And then on defense, he is just somebody who gets abused. Rondo was a major negative for the Lakers last season, especially in situations when

he shared the floor with LeBron James. in this season, I wouldn't expect that to be any different. To me, the question with the Lakers is going to be, how long is this going to last with Rondo and LeBron playing minutes together until they pull the plug on that? It's no surprise that he's going to be getting playing time. It's about how long this actually lasts. Probably a while if Frank Vogel is your coach.

Yeah. Who knows, man? I mean, look, it's the type of thing where with the Lakers... I mean, you don't think of Frank Vogel is some forward-thinking, innovative guy necessarily, right? why we bashed Frank Vogel here. I'm just saying like that's not the deal. You see their offense the other night?

Well, the other side of it is this though, with this team, in regards to their post-up offense, first of all, it was super effective for them in opening night. That's an aside. But the fact, one of the reasons they were getting into that so much is because of the two big lineups with McGee on the floor with AD or Howard on the floor with AD, where the clippers with less spacing on the offensive end, they're able to more comfortably switch some of those pick and rolls or help off and then contain that role from the big man, forcing them into more ISOs or post-ups.

And at what point does Anthony Davis just suck it up and play more five? That might not happen until the playoffs. And that's where my confidence in the Lakers in preseason and still today resides, when this team is actually being serious with the lineups they're putting out on the floor. Until then, I think so much about this is about managing personalities, keeping AD happy, keeping him at the four, allowing LeBron James to get more rest, not bringing the ball up the floor by playing Rondo. That's what I think this is more about in getting by, because you're not facing the LA Clippers every single damn night, one of the best teams in basketball,

one of the best teams that we've seen assembled this summer. It's about just getting by with this crew for the postseason. Then that's when it gets serious with the lineups you're putting on the floor. A couple other news and notes that we do need to mention. We have unfortunately had a bad injury take place already. Tough news for me with my predictions the other day. While a couple of things, including Luke Kinnard, really went my way on opening night, Marvin Bagley, injuring his thumb and being out a month to a month and a half is a very, very big blow for the Sacramento Kings, as he's going to be out now a month, month and a half. and on the flip side, his competitor in game number one,

DeAndre Aiton is facing a 25-game ban for the NBA's anti-drug policy, testing positive for a diuretic. So, well, let's touch on the Bagley one first. I mean, there's not that much more to say except for this sucks and hopefully he can come back strong. But when you're talking night number one, losing somebody that was going to be a key cog for that King's team this year, who I think most people thought he's going to have a chance to fight for one of those bottom seeds in the Western

conference probably. Sucks. Sucks for them. Yeah, it's interesting. I saw a tweet this morning from at the four-point play co-host of the seven seconds or less Suns podcast, and he showed up a couple clips of DeAndre Aiton, and he was involved with all three Kings players getting banged up over the course of a minute. Buddy Hill driving into Aiton, then the baggily hand injury when Aiton slapped down on the ball, and then Fox accidentally getting stepped on as he was going through his screen. So Aiton, the guy with the big news today, was directly involved accidentally with three Kings players down 25 points for whatever reason still being in the game in the final three, four minutes getting hurt.

Yeah, and he is facing this 25-game ban. And I read his statement about how he accidentally ingested something. I mean, very, very rarely over the course of sports history, have we had somebody say, yeah, I took something and I'm really sorry about it, right? It's typically, I accidentally did that, or I didn't know what I was taking, or whatever else. Look, there have been a lot of guys in a ton of different sports that have gotten suspended for this.

reason that something like a diuretic, whatever he took, is on the list is because athletes use it as a masking agent. And so when I read the story that, you know, there was nothing else that showed up and they'll try to use that in their particular, like, of course nothing else showed up. That's why he took the friggin diuretic. You do it so that stuff doesn't show up. Unless you could prove you have like some kind of blood pressure condition or something else, Making this accidentally is extremely far-fetched. And I don't know what the guy was doing, but I will say this. A lot of athletes have tried to use the I didn't know, but it is your job to know.

And it is very rarely taken on accident. And so this is terrible. I was talking to some of my friends connected with the sons, and they were like, why can we not have nice things, right? They were riding high today, so high today, after what took place last night. And that was the immediate text I got back. Why can we not have nice things? I mean, that is 31% of the season, Kevin.

Look, I suppose I could end up being wrong. I would be absolutely stunned if a suspension is like overturned. Because you set this precedent where like, let's say I took steroids, right? let's just say I'm an NBA player and I took them. And then I tested positive for them. And then I said, sorry, I took them accidentally.

That would not be kosher. And they view diureics the same as taking anything else because they figure you're taking that to mask whatever you actually did. But it's awful for the sons, awful, especially when it was an unbelievable first night for them. Are you kidding me? And he was very good. Well, first on the anti-drug policy, actually getting a starter.

This is a rarity. The last four guys to get 20-plus games, according to ESPN's Bobby Marks, Joaquin Noah, Wilson Chandler, Jody Meeks, Heido, Turquiloo. So getting a young starting-level player caught with something with a banned substance, very unusual for a league to actually get this type of player. With that said, you mentioned, is this bad for Phoenix? Of course, it's bad in terms of watching the game. game. In game one, Aiton looked much better on the defensive end of the floor. He had such great chemistry with Ricky Rubio, I thought, at front going back to preseason and then now in game one, with Devin Booker, Rubio and DeAndre Aiton, those three looked like a competitive fun team to watch.

And without Aiton, that's going to hurt them. But with that said, could this actually be good for Phoenix in the long run? One of your better players misses 25 games, you're going to stink, you're going to help your draftons. Oh, God, here we go. Here we go again. How to get you going, Chris. The future's bright again. Yeah, it is still bright.

25 games doesn't change anything in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, it does. I mean, if you were going to, I mean, if the team was actually going to be good, it doesn't change anything. And they weren't going to be good. The Phoenix Suns were not making the postseason. Oh, okay. They weren't going to even probably compete for the postseason at all.

If anything, they hit their over, which was like 29 and a half. Well, if that's the case, then I guess we're counting down until Booker asked for a trade. No, no, you're not. What are you talking about? You want to spend seven years of doing nothing? What I'm saying is, is 25 games in the grand scheme doesn't mean shit. What I'm saying is progress can still be measured beyond the wins and losses with this team. It's style of play.

It's competitiveness. and it's pretty clear this team you would hope is going to take a step forward in that regard. Well, it's going to be a better in the career. Yeah, exactly. But then it comes back in December, which is going to be here before we know it. Assuming, by the way,

by the time you all hear this podcast, that it's not an update, considering the NBPA, is going to try to get that suspension down to a lesser number of games or just rescinded entirely. So this story's not over yet. It's not necessarily going to be 25 games.

Yeah, well, then I would just tell you it would be a horrendous precedent because the next time somebody tests positive for something on your banned list, they can just say, oh, sorry, it was an accident. Who knows? I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know. I can't speak to every single drug test because I don't recall seeing something reported, as Adrian Wardenowski put out there tonight, saying that there's no traces of anything else in his blood afterwards. I don't recall seeing that type of coverage for, he no turk lues. No, no, let me finish. The point is that I don't recall seeing that for any of these other guys. And is it possible that this is some bullshit that it wouldn't be there because that's what you're using this for anyway to mask it? Sure, that's possible. But there's also a possibility that maybe some of those other guys do have traces,

and that factors into the, first of all, the NBPA's decision to actually defend it in here. And secondly, the NBA's decision to actually maybe not keep it at 25 games. We don't know all the details yet. and we don't know all the details of past and since I think that was a I think that was a good narrative from Aiton's side and that's probably probably you know what and it's like I said at the top though it is weird that a big name player granted he's young number one pick actually got caught it's so rare to see big name players ever get caught with anything with anything in the NBA we never talk about steroids or performance enhancing drugs in the NBA. like we do with football. It's just very interesting to see a big-name player get caught. Yep. Cavaliers lock up Jetty Osmond, four years, 30.8 million.

I know you're a Jetty fan. I love me some Jetty Osmond, as my friend Gary Washburn at the Boston Globe knows. I love Jetty Osmond, long-time fan. For him, it's a good deal. You're entering free agency next summer, and for Cleveland, I think we could see a couple more of these deals over the course of the year. because A, not a lot of money out there. And B, maybe this is just the time to get paid.

Yep. All right. And that's a reasonable deal. He's certainly an eight-man rotation guy. And if you could lock up players like that for $8.75 million, then more power to you. I'm interested to see what a B-line team is going to look like in, you know, two, three years. I mean, Jetty's a good player. And I think for Cleveland, he's good for a couple of reasons.

First, he's just 24, so he fits the timeline of your current team, but he has a veteran style of play that I think helps some of your other guys develop. He doesn't need to dominate the ball, though he can do a little bit on the ball when you need him to. He's a good passer, good decision maker, but he really complements that back court of Darius Garland and Colin Sexton very, very nicely. And for Cleveland, that's exactly the type of players you want to build around with this young core moving forward. because with those two guys, I think that fit in that environment is going to matter for their development because they have so many overlapping skills,

you want to make sure you have a good environment for them to develop within. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we are going to give five of our overreactions. Or maybe they aren't overreactions from the first couple games of the season. The Ringer NBA show is presented by State Farm.

Just like basketball, the game of life is uncumely. predictable. Talk to a State Farm agent to get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected and help you handle whatever life throws at you. You want to talk about unexpected? Unexpected is what we just watched, which was Thursday night home opener, Houston blowing a 16 point lead to the Milwaukee Bucks who scored 39 points in the fourth quarter despite Janus going out early with foul trouble. That was unexpected. Get a teammate who can help you navigate. the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today about combining your home and auto insurance.

All right, Kevin, you got your overreactions. I'm going to hope that we don't overlap on these. We have not checked against each other's lists, but as I said, with small sample sizes, it creates even greater overreactions. And we've really only seen everybody play one game so far. You ready? I'm ready. All right. I'm ready. My number one overreaction. You're going to love this I look forward to it. Trey Young will be an all-star in the Eastern Conference. I like it. debut, I think he had 26 at halftime,

ended up with 38 on the road at Detroit, 38, 9, and 7. And my buddy Mike Wallace went and covered the World Cup team when they were doing their, you know, they had the World Cup team and then like the Junior World Cup team, the one that Marvin Bagley and Jaron Jackson and Deeran Fox and Trey Young. And he came back from that and he told me, let me tell you, the guy that's going to blow up this year is going to be Trey Young. He said, because I just saw him amongst all of those fantastic players.

And when the junior team destroyed, there was that one scrimmage. It got reported on when they destroyed the big team, the one that ended up going and getting seven. in the World Cup, he's like, Trey Young just controlled the entire game. Control the entire game. Like, he is ready to, like, he's got the confidence now, and he looks like almost Oklahoma, Trey Young. And then I'm watching him tonight in that early game

with the Hawks and the Pistons. And my God, Kevin, I think, I'm not sure that is an overreaction. Like, his numbers could be ludicrous this year. Seriously. If you just look at the last part, of last year. His numbers were crazy, and he made it a lot better race than anybody would have thought of for rookie of the year with Luca.

So there you go. There's my first overreaction. Trey Young, Eastern Conference All-Star in year number two. Well, Trey was just in total command. And I think when we talk about Trey Young, I've said this before. He's sort of often compared to Steph Curry, but he's more like a Steve Nash to me. That's his lane. just a guy who's in total command of the pick and roll.

And as great as he was last year, as a rookie passing the ball, I thought he looked even better than preseason and then tonight against Detroit at just commanding that Atlanta offense. Towards the end of that game, Detroit was even trapping some of the pick and rolls to get the ball out of his hands because he was so dominant at just controlling pace, getting buckets for himself, or creating angles out of nothing for his teammates. And that leads me to my first overreaction, Chris, related to Trey Young, but with one of his teammates.

Jabari Parker has turned a new leaf. This is a... Jabari Parker Island! So Jabari... My island guys are killing it. Jabari Parker had eight made baskets tonight. All of them were assisted. And I really, really like the way Atlanta has used Jabari going back to preseason.

using him a bit more as an on-ball screener. He's popping for threes, rolling to the rim, very attentive off-ball cutting. It's been really, really beautiful to see Jabari playing team basketball as a guy who, for so long and rightfully so, has been knocked for being a ball-stopping, inefficient player. But with Jabari, one of the appeals of him at Duke was because of the fact that he could do that on-ball stuff, but he was also somebody who could be versatile. off the ball as a shooter attacking closeouts or as a guy in the pick and roll. And that's where it seems like Atlanta wants him to be.

So I'm excited for Jabari. There's still a lot of questions with his game. The ball stopping may manifest. We'll see how the defense develops for him over the course of the year. That needs to get better. But I'm excited for Jabari in this Atlanta system next to a guy like Trey Young who can make his life so easy. Well, Kevin, this NBA season, Mountain Dew, is all.

about the threes, the shot that's changing the game, which is why we bring you a special segment beyond the three point presented by Mountain Dew. And I think we've got to add both of these guys to it. Trey Young with his 38, Jabari Parker off the bench, instant offense with his 18. And then look, they got some good young players too. John Collins, fantastic. I mean, he starts out with the double double. He's got 18 and 10. Now, they did catch Detroit on the second night of a back-to-back, and Detroit played well in that first death. What's the deal with that?

Back-to-back on, though, first two nights? I mean, it is kind of crazy that they would do that for their home opener, too, you know? You got to fly back home and then have your home opener. Great night for Trey Young, great night for John Collins. And then off the bench, Jabari Parker, as you mentioned, helping Atlanta get off to a fast start. and you have praised Jabari. I have said Tray Young can be a all-star already this year.

I think they would qualify for Mountain Dew's fast start on this opening week. Beyond the three-point, brought to you by Mountain Dew, the official beverage of the NBA, do the do. All right, so Parker was your number one, so that gives me to number two. All right, I was flipping around last night, I was watching all the games. Kevin, I believe their Vegas over under number was 27 and a half. My number two overreaction is there is absolutely no way the Wizards are going to win 20 games. I can't fathom them winning 20 games.

I rarely see teams where I feel like I could not have guessed their starting lineup. I could not have guessed their starting lineup last night. And they ended up losing 108 to 100 to the Dallas Mavericks last night. Kevin, this is, this roster, I mean, it's unbelievable. I'm aware Bradley Beale. Bradley Beal and Thomas Bryant, Rui Hachamura got drafted, right? There are two other starters were Isaac Bunga and Isch Smith. What planet am I on?

That was who started. Yeah, I mean, Chris Chioza is a Memphis kid who had a very good run at Florida, has gotten a cup of coffee with the Rockets. I did not know Chris was in the NBA. I mean, so here's the funny thing about Washington is when you're looking at the starting lineup, it's like, really? He's starting, but as bench guys, it's like, oh, these are solid bench players. And they do have something.

What I'm saying is, is a. starters, they're bad. What is bench players, you look at some of their team. Bertans, who's been very good for San Antonio, Mo Wagner, a solid young prospect. Jordan McRae, Admiral Schofield, they have some solid names. And those starters, if you're not talking about Ish Smith as a starter,

if you're taking him as a backup point guard, he's not a bad backup point guard. It's just you don't want these guys starting. You don't want Isaac Bunga starting. I'm not saying this as, a demerit, right? Like, I'm not, I'm not trying to kill these guys.

There's not one of those players that you mentioned that if you told me they signed in China, I wouldn't believe it. I'm dead serious. Well, all right, maybe now. But if they signed in Greece, if they signed, you know,

to play overseas instead of in the NBA, like all of them. Every player you just named, if the news came out tomorrow, he signed with Patholonikos. I'd be like, oh, okay, you know, Jordan McRae. I remember him. I will say this.

I am looking forward to Isaiah Thomas getting back, and I am rooting for him to have success. And I look forward to if he is good, that Beal, Isaiah Thomas backcourt, is at least going to be fun to watch. They're still not going to win a lot of games because of everything else in the roster. But hopefully, Washington can at least be a fun team to watch.

At a minute, that's what I want. I say no way they win 20 games. games. What's your number two? My number two. Let's see. Let's go with a, let's go with Sacramento. The Kings will be a disaster. Chris, they're going to be a disaster. A negative thing from Kevin O'Connor. See, I'm worried after they lost the Phoenix.

It's sort of verifying a little bit of the concern pre-draft, and it's a carryover from what was concerning from last season because their offense went through a ton of spurts where they did not look like they knew what they were doing. And that's partially because Luke Walton is installing a new system. But there's a lot of new coaches installing new systems. And they don't look like they have this amount of chemistry issues on day one of the season. And not only that, Walton's substitution patterns remain funky just like they were when he was with the Lakers. I'd like to see him do a bit more staggering with Fox, Heald and Bagley, to always have one of those guys on the court at one time.

And I know Fox had foul trouble in the third quarter, but that was true for other portions of the game as well. And my main concern with Sacramento, when people were talking about them as a seven or eight seat in the Western Conference this year, I get it. I get that this team has a lot of young talent that should get better.

But their half court offense stunk last year. It was ranked 20th in scoring efficiency, according to synergy. And it still stunk in game one. It still wasn't great in preseason. I'm concerned about that for them this season, in addition to the fact that Luke Walton had some pretty funky sub-patterns.

Well, and look, you know, I think Dave Yeager is a fantastic basketball coach. I really do. He has sabotaged himself with relationships with management, but I don't think the reason he's not the coach there is not because he's not a good basketball coach. Dave Yeager's X's and O's are better than Luke. Wollens, but

Luke Walton's a bit of personality manager. Probably so. That's why Yeager's gone. But with Luke Walton, like, this team needs X's and O's. Yeah, but I'm not, I don't know if there are many coaches

that could have gotten more wins out of that Sacramento team last year than Yeager did. And that is even with some things that I disagreed with, like his insistence on sticking with Bialita over Marvin Bagley and things like that, right? You know, I love Fox.

you love Fox. But Fox is built for full core basketball, right? Like that is part of the whole half court offense thing. Yeah, but you can't. You're not going to win playoff games with transition offense. I'm not even going to get in the West playoffs with transition offense. You need to produce in the half court. That's for sure.

You certainly do need to be able to produce in the half court. And I do think that's a step for Fox to take, though. That's what I'm saying. Oh, yeah. And part of that is on Fox. You're right. It's not all on the coach. Earl Walton with Dearen Fox, he made significant progress from year one to year two,

but he still was an inefficient half-court scorer. He still was, and that's the next step for him moving forward in his career. He's a good playmaker. He's great in transition at creating buckets for his teammates and having occasional loud, athletic plays. But as a half-court scorer, he needs to continue extending his range, taking fewer deep mid-range twos, take more pull-up threes instead, needs to continue getting better at getting to the basket and finishing and drawing files.

He's getting better and he's still young and he should get better, but he's not there yet. All right. Well, look, you have inspired me. Since you decided to piss off a fan base with one of your overreactions, I'll join in with you. It's not Sacramento, but my number three is, oh boy, you ready for this one? Yeah, I'm ready. Portland might take a huge dip. Hmm.

I'm watching them last night play against Denver, Koev. And here's the thing. It's not that long ago we're watching them in a game seven against Denver, right? And the guys that were playing for them in that game outside of your usual suspects, clearly they've got this great backcourt. Alfa Rukamino, Mo Harclis, Enos Canter, Myers-Lennard, Seth Curry, Evan Turner. Now, all of those guys have gone on and they're all in rotations. Some of them are starters for the teams that they went to, right? You watch last night, I mean, it gets kind of bleak when they go to the bench. Anthony Simons is doing this for the first time through. I think he's got a lot of promise, but he's doing it for the first time through as a guard

in the NBA. Skull Obisier, Ken Baysmore, Mario Hizonia, Anthony Tolliver, that's the five guys. I can't even lie to you when I saw the white guy. the number 44 jersey come on the court. I was like, who's that? Almost forgetting that they signed Mario Hizonia. But then with Hizonia on the court, you sort of forgot that somehow he managed to play 18 minutes because he did so little when he was out there.

He was so ineffective, such as zero. I do like Portland, though, still. Yeah, look, I love Portland. I love a lot of people connected to the organization. That bench is not good. It's not. It's not a good bench. And they lost real players, like a bunch of them, a bunch of real players.

Like, I know you like Seth Curry. Myers-Lennard can play. Evan Turner can play. Aminu can play, Harkless can play. Canter starting, for God's sakes. All I like off that bench is Baysmore and Simons. I like Simons a lot more than you do. I think what he showed in Summer League and then in preseason.

Oh, yeah, for sure. But I do like him in that role as a Spark play. guard. I think he helps McCollum in those lineups where Damian Lillard is off the court. McCollum is at his best when he has another guard helping him create. But you know this. He's not going to be as good as Seth Curry this year. He's not. No, he won't. No, he won't. Right. That's fair. So there's a drop off. There's a drop off there. And, you know, they've got those two guys. But the West is really tough this year.

And, you know, I talk a lot about how many guys do you have under team that when you go in, you're comfortable with them in the game. How many guys are, you're comfortable with them in the game? How many guys do you have that don't suck? And the number got lower, significantly lower. I mean, look, you were talking about Hazonia. The thing with Hazonia Kev is that he's not any good. That's the thing with him. You know, when you're trying to figure out what's the deal with him,

the deal is he's not good. And so you should have been surprised when you saw him come in the game last night. and you had forgotten that they signed him and they will soon want to forget that they signed him. Oh, boy. You're third. Let's see. Let's go with Carl Anthony Towns will establish himself as a future MVP candidate. God.

Oh, my good. I wasn't sure if this was hot enough for you, but from your reaction, it clearly is. So Towns in first game from Minnesota this season, Minnesota beat Brooklyn 127 to 126 and overtime. Towns had 36 points, 14 rebounds, three assists, three steals, three blocks. For me, when I watched this game, it was a continuation of preseason with Ryan Saunders' system being a really encouraging for Carl Anthony Towns moving forward. He's letting Cat be Cat within this new system emphasizing a lot of threes. and playing at a very fast pace. So with Towns, now he's pick and popping from three,

and he has the freedom to do his thing on offense. And that game versus Brooklyn, he logged seven isolations, which was compared to only 1.9 per game this past season. So there's no guarantee that continues at such a high rate with seven ISOs per game. But the fact is, is that the way Minnesota was utilizing towns, it reminded me so much,

of what Houston does with Hardin in situations where it makes sense they were letting their best player isolate in a good matchup for that player. And so Towns was getting buckets at will, or drawing files at will, I should say, in isolation situations against slower-footed centers. And so Towns has always been a perimeter-based big man. He's essentially a wing in a big man's body, and you're using him like it. You're letting him be who he is as a player, rather than forcing him to be a more traditional big man, posting up, staying down low. And I'm encouraged by that for towns moving forward

because he is easily, one of the most talented offensive forces we have in this league today. And for the Minnesota Timberwolves, the question will be how much can they build around him, removing a guy like Andrew Wiggins, who was Brooklyn's second best player in that game behind Kyrie Irving. Hold on. He made the two game-winning shots, though. He made some big shots.

but for the majority of the game, he was garbage. Yeah. As he always has been. Damn. And so with Minnesota, it's about how can you build around this just supreme talent in Carl Anthony Towns? Because with him, you have a guy who does, and I'm saying this seriously, this isn't an overreaction.

I've meant this for two seasons now. He's a guy who can be an MVP, but you need to build the infrastructure around him in order to promote that to be a realization. All right. Boy, you love Carl Anthony Town. Dude, I do love town. I know you do. I'm dead ass because two years ago,

end of the 16-17 season, that year he averaged around, if I remember correctly, 29 points, 14 rebounds, four blocks over the last half of the season when he was empowered. And then they got Jimmy Butler, who understandably took more of control

of the offense and it didn't work. And you can blame Towns for that. You can blame Butler. It's really, it's more than one person's fault. But Towns has had this ability. Shit, they were the, foreseed before Butler got hurt.

What I'm saying is it didn't work at the end with the trade, with the chemistry issues. It worked on the court. But I'm saying for towns, that potential is there to be an MVP candidate. It's just building around him to make it work. You're doing that because I called him to Marcus Cousins with a smile. Yeah, which is really, really a ludicrous statement. Really ludicrous. You're right.

He's probably lost more games. Number four. Come on now. Be serious. I am. Alfred Payton will be the Nick's best guard. He was the one that actually looked really good in the Spurs game. 11 points, 8 assists, 5 steals.

He had no turnovers, and they've got this log jam of crap. Alonzo Trier, Frankie Smokes, Dennis Smith. Are you saying the toilets clogs? Look, Trier, smokes, who by the way came in for two minutes. minutes, threw it away twice, had a horrible foul, and Fisdell put it right back on the bench. Dennis Smith, Jr. and Wayne Ellington, look, I don't think this is that big of an overreaction. Alfred Payton's going to end up being the best guard on that team. Let me say this. While I was watching that, you know who looked good? Knox looked good off the bench, but RJ, RJ looked like he'd

been in the league already. Like, he can really get to the basket when he wants to. And seeing, him in a more open court, which the NBA is than a college court. It was nice to see. RJ looked good last night. But anyways, Alfred Payton, hell, he should start the next game. I don't know why he started Trier and played him six minutes. Well, here's the thing. You're not playing Frankie Nilekeena because you're tanking.

You don't want to play him too much. You don't want to. That's why. That's why they're not trying to tank. They're trying to win. I know. I know. I'm just kidding.

It was a joke. With R.J. Barrett, though, like, whatever, Alfred Payton, you know, he did look good and he's a solid point guard, and you're probably right, that he will be the best point guard on that team. But with R.J. Barrett, boy, it's, again, just one game, but it's encouraging to see what he can do when he has space. And the thing with R.J., everybody talked about his shot selection in college, and rightfully so he made some real dumbass decisions in college.

but he still has playmaking vision and skill and size that I think for him is going to manifest with more spacing and more superior talent around him in the NBA because of his ability, as you said, Chris, to get to the basket. And with his height, he's going to be able to see over the defense and eventually create for others too. All right. That was my number four. What's your number four?

My number four. I got Luca Donchrich. I'm going to quote Jason Gallagher here at the ringer.com just when I talk. talking about Luca here. Jason tweeted this yesterday. He said, it's just one game, so I don't want to overreact, but sophomore year Luca Donchich looks good

enough to bring peace and healing to this broken world of ours and possibly redeem all of mankind. Oh, Lord. That's what I would say. That is an overreaction. He did look awesome. He did look awesome. 34 points, nine assists, scored

17 points on 10 isolation possessions, creating baskets for his teammates. He was wearing out Isaac Bonga and Ish Smith. They didn't play against the damn wizard. Can we slow down a little bit? I just said they got a whole team that could sign overseas and I wouldn't know the difference.

This is the overreaction show and I just said it could possibly redeem all of mankind. Then I am going right up your alley. I'm going right up your alley for number five. Okay. Boston's trading for a big before Christmas. They have Enos Canter and the Time Lord. And Grant Williams is undersized. They drafted him.

They're too little. They're not good enough. Their bigs are not good enough. That's not good enough. Grant Williams looks so tiny. It's nuts. No. Dude, he looks so big on a college floor at Tennessee.

And then against the Philadelphia 76th, especially who were, giants. He looked like a little kid out there. It closed my mind. He looks so big in college. That's the difference. I tell you this, there was a moment like that for me during the, where was it? Oh, it was at the Grizzly's training camp. And Jonas Valentunus, Bruno Caboclo, and at the camp, he got cut, but one of the Plumlies, Miles Plumley, right? They were all three walking, and you know who was walking next to him? Brandon Clark, and Brandon Clark looked like a point guard walking next to those three guys. And I was like, is he really going to play power forward?

And now he leaps out of the gym. But when you see, like, he was a big man in college. There's no way around that. He was a big man, as was Grant, right? Like those are, you just realize how many short guys that are college basketball as compared. there's not a bunch of teams with six eights and six nines. And so I had that experience with Brandon Clark where he's walking around some seven footers

and he just looks so much smaller. But you're right about Grant Williams. But that's not necessarily fair because that frigging Sixers team is gigantic. Oh, my goodness. I can't remember who tweeted it, but it's so damn funny. I think of it every time I see them. I would give credit, I can't remember who it was. but it was somebody tweeted out like during free agency like Elton Brand just created a whole team of Elton Brands.

Every time like his dream was to create a full team of Elton Brands. And every time I think of it, because like they're all like six, nine and taller. Crazy. It's nuts, man. But yeah, but how did they end up with only Cantor and the Time Lord as big guys on that team? like they only got that really the only two well well they have tice as well stop they have more than just the two guys it's just a matter it's just a matter of if any of them are good you want me to answer if you'd like if you'd like to no look my fifth overreaction kevin was that they're going to trade

for a big man by christmas yeah so i think i've already made my opinion clear i wonder for who because there's not a lot of guys available. Because for Boston, it does make sense for them to half the trade for a big man because you think about the guys they lost this offseason, of course, Al Horford and Carrie Irving, but they also lost Aaron Baines. And Baines was important to them last year,

as a defensive stabilizer as a rebounder, and just as a rock-solid offensive player who could shoot corner threes for you and screen and roll. And that's what they're missing is that good two-way presence. I wouldn't expect them to make a big trade. I think in an ideal world, if you're Boston,

you trade for someone like Miles Turner. Maybe you hope that there's friction that gets worse over the course of the season with that too big lineup with Sabonis and Turner and that they eventually want to split that up to get a wing. But with Boston, that's not realistic. The odds are you're going to be looking for a Baines level player as an upgrade.

But even then, that might be just a wash. Yeah. The other one that you didn't mention is the Morris twin, too. I mean, he was at least a power forward. You know, he was good for them, Marcus Morris. So, I mean, they just, it's light. It's light. They got a lot of small forwards.

Yeah. All right. Your fifth. Pascal Seacom wins most improved player again. Again, you can't win it again. Well, I tell you this, my Marvin Bagley's out now. In regards to Seacom, Chris. That game won for him for Toronto. Impressive. Very, very impressive man scoring 34 points and

doing it differently than what we've seen him do in the past where last season, a lot of his success was coming off, open corner three shots, attacking closeouts, timely cutting, transition attacks. And in that first game, granted it's against a shoddy New Orleans defense, he was doing a lot on the ball. And I was encouraged from what I saw with some pretty sharp ball handling. I thought his playmaking and passing and decision making looked quite good as well. So if we're going to see more from him as an on ball presence handling the ball, especially in pick and roll situations,

there's no saying what he could become, man. Signing that extension with incentives to be much more than what we saw last season, which was already a very, very, very good player, there could be more on tapped upside from Pascal Seac. I mean, the first game is at least an indicator that they're very well may be. Gonna be hard to knock off Luke Knard. He looks good. You know who else has looked really good through two games?

He's Derek Rose. Yeah, he looks good. He has looked really good through two games. That might be, that might end up being a sneaky great signing for, Ed Stefansky and the Pistons. All right, so we have given our five overreactions. Look, we have made clear that these are overreactions,

as we have not seen these teams play all that much. And in fact, we've only seen them play one time. So there's our overreactions. Thanks for listening to another episode of The Mismatch. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, Chris. And thank you, everybody for listening. Everybody, have a great weekend.

We will talk to you next Tuesday. If you dig what you're hearing, go give us a rating and review on iTunes, five stars, five stars. It really helps. And we will talk to you on Tuesday.