The Ringer NBA Show - Jalen Green, Franz Wagner, and Joshua Giddey | Upside High

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

J. Kyle Mann and Johnathan Tjarks are back for another edition of 'Upside High' in which they take a look at young prospects around the NBA. This week they take a look at Jalen Green of Houston to find out what makes him a key piece of the Rockets (03:14). Then they take a look at Franz Wagner to see about size and development (18:43). And they close with Joshua Giddey of OKC (34:30). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Johnathan Tjarks Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Head into the Ringiverse to stay up to date with all things superheroes and nerd culture entertainment. Hosted by a rotating lineup of superfans at The Ringer, including Mallory Rubin and Van Lathen, shows will provide instant reactions to blockbuster releases, insightful backstories on canon, and mind-bending theories, as well as fresh takes on the latest news and rumors. Check out the Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Folks, basketball is very good and it's a beautiful day to talk about basketball. Welcome to Upside High, a show that we are, you know, revitalizing, circling back. It's similar to the Ringer NBA University concept that we did this year or this past year,

focusing on younger players, focusing on guys coming to the NBA, guys that are in the NBA, what it takes to stick, what it takes to become a star, who's up and coming, things like that. We're going to be doing this weekly if you're new, and if you're coming back, thanks for coming back. My name is Jay Kyle Mann. I am a video person. You can find my stuff on YouTube if you haven't. But I am joined by a brilliant basketball mine, a brilliant writer, Mr. Jonathan Charks.

John, how you doing, buddy? Brilliant's probably overselling it, but I definitely appreciate it. I like to look at it like, we're making you the playmaker, and I just come in, get my takes up, and every once in a while I'll send the ball back to you. But for the most part, you're the point.

I'm just kind of getting my shots up. Which is an odd thing for me, like, as a player. Because, like, what type of player are you? I don't think I've ever actually asked you that. Can I guess? I'm going to guess what. Because I think personality type is like indicators sometimes. You strike me as a guy, like a, like a yeoman's work type guy.

Like you're like, you'll set screens, you'll rebound. You don't strike me as like I need to get my shots volume type guy. You kind of you buy into the team concept. Is that right? Like a Nick Collison type? I prefer to move the ball. Then it's a matter of am I stuck in like the center role or can I kind of be like more of a Kyle Anderson, Josh Giddy type,

we're actually going to play with the ball on my hands. But definitely, I like to move it for sure. Are you an efficient guy with the ball in your hands? Or is this just kind of like, I like to do it every once in a while? Are you better suited to be sort of an elbow, like, you're so tall. I just imagine you being sort of like a creator off the elbow type thing. You a ball handler?

I like to pass. I would say I'm like a passer. I guess that's probably the thing I most enjoyed doing. How about yourself? Well, I always joked that the players that annoy me, the most when I'm watching games are the players that I actually like to play like. I'm definitely like a ball in my hands pick and roll score type guy. I haven't been like healthy lately. So it's been a little bit harder. There's been J.J. Reddick was talking about the athletic mortality bearing

down on him when he retired. I was like, I feel your brother. That's kind of the front I'm on. So we're in sort of a role transition, I would say, for me as a player. I'm kind of like accepting that I might just be like a catch and shoot guy and let the let the fresher legs create. and things like that. Anyway, what's been catching your eye late? Anything off the top, like young players, anything in the NBA? What's been interesting to you lately? Well, let's get to the players people actually want to hear about, I think.

That's probably a good transition. Is that what's been interesting to you? No, but I think we're, I know the plan right now will talk about Jalen Green. And obviously, what's interesting about him is as soon as he went down, the Rockets just started winning like crazy. And that, it's interesting. I'm not going to overreact to it, but I'm definitely going to laugh about it

because it is really funny. So he goes down, they're 1 and 15. He gets hurt, and now they're 8 and 2 in the last 10 games. And it's like directly, as soon as he goes down, they immediately just start running off wins. Do you think some of that has to do with,

I sent you, I always have my little touchstones in these places I pull information from and I kind of look and make my decisions on them? I'm not one of those like people that's like hard. I know the stat people, and the real hooper people love to argue. The two things really have to work together.

I'll use my eyes and then I'll look at what the numbers say and I'll kind of try to find a common ground between the two things. But I was looking at the 538 has those Raptor player rating things. And I kind of like to look at those and to see where people are. Green is, you know, you want to see a player keep their head above water in terms of like what they give up

and what they give. Green is pretty below water right now. A big reason for that is he's on ball. a lot, but his scoring efficiency is pretty low. And he's being targeted on defense. What have you noticed from him offensively in terms of where he is compared to what you've expected? Where is he on his journey right now? Well, see, this is basically what I expected. And that's what I think with the advanced numbers sometimes.

It's like, it doesn't even, we know he was going to be bad right away because he's an undersized guard. who needs a ball in his hands, and that's a pretty hard transition to make. His primary job is to get buckets, right? He's not going to play any defense right now. He's not really creating for anybody else. He's not really impacting the game as a rebounder or anything, but scoring. And then there's usually a transition between when you're shooting longer threes, right?

That takes some time for the most part for most players. So we can slice this up a million different ways, and you can find a lot of stats that'll say he's been taking. terrible, but I think we should have always expected him to be terrible. And if we're going to, like, boil it down into plain English, it's this is a guy who takes a lot of shots, is not making them, is getting cooked on defense, and is not helping his team in any other way. And logically, if you take that guy out of the rotation, these are NBA players he's playing

with. They're going to fill those roles and be better. So that is not a big surprise to me. I don't take that much away from it. a big picture. But I think with Jalen Green there was always going to be growing pains, and we've seen them a lot in the first month of the season. Totally. I think that his style, you know, when you come into this draft, I was trying to think he's like this ultra wiggly. He doesn't look six-six to me whenever I'm watching. Like I've, I asked some people that would

know and they were like, yeah, he's like six, five and a half. He doesn't, he doesn't strike me as that big. And I think that his frame can kind of impact the way that he's able to leverage the size that he does have, you know, because he's so. skinny and wiggly. But in terms of this draft, I thought it was like him, Trey Mann is also like this, one of those really bendy kind of guys that can create space with their explosiveness. Bones Highland is kind of on that level too. Those are the three guys that I think were probably the most talented, like shot creators in this draft. Do you think that he would be any more efficient if he was playing, like we see this a lot. Like, fit really matters a lot for rookies. Where

you go, the system that you end up in, you can be maybe put out over your skis depending on the players that you're playing with. Green is like not efficient right now. And like do we do we see him like is the end result is the developmental timeline for Jalen Green? Is it ending up like a like a Zach Levine, a guy that can carry like a semi heavy load? Do you ever see him being like a heavy load primary score who can also facilitate? Do you see him growing into that? I like that you ask that you question because that is the first question with Jalen Green, right? There's two different buckets he can go in. I've always viewed him in the bucket of Zach Levine, Devin, Devin, Beale, Jamal, Murray, right? These are all on-off guys. They're not necessarily a Dame Lillard or a James Hardin or a John Moran. So, like, those are guys who have the ball in their hands the whole game.

Elite passers, elite scores, pick and rolls all day, maybe some ISOs, dribble the ball at the top of the key. that's their game. And then what those guys, generally the problem is they can't play off the ball. Whereas I think you look at Jalen, what makes him special is the ability to go on and off is to play with other good players. I think he's got some passing chops. But I know you did a massive breakdown on him for the draft last year. You had like, what was like a 15?

It was one of your Kyle man like Lord of the Rings videos. It was a Peter Jackson extended cut. Yeah. Yeah. So the first. thing with Jalen Green, like, how do you view him as a pastor and what's his ceiling as a playmaker when you evaluate him? Well, it hasn't been that long, you know, like, he hasn't really changed all that much in just a few months, you know, like since the draft. Yeah, for sure, for

sure. I'm just, I'm just stating that up front charts. But I would say that, like, the things that I'm noticing, you see this a lot with like scores, kind of downhill scores or score first kind of primary people that are, that lean that way, is that they tend to see single coverage downhill passes pretty well. And I think that Green falls into that category. Like, he's pretty solid at, like, if it's a single covered situation, like threading it to his roller,

or if he drives and he sees a helper and the guy that is being guarded by the helper is open. He sees those pretty well. He can leverage his quickness. Like we said, he can get into the lane. What I think is interesting is the scoring game that he has. It's all kind of dribble pull-ups. Like, that's what he prefers.

He burns a lot of calories. to maybe not get a lot of reward, which I think is part of the problem for him that he's going to be facing in the future. And if you look at guys that he's compared with, another guy that I threw in there is sort of an on-off guy as Victor Oladipo. But to me, the big question is the passing,

I think he'll be good enough. Like, I really do. I just think that scoring and ball handling and passing all work together in this sort of Trinity, this sort of like triumvirate dynamic thing. Yeah. I know I like a good Trinity shout out.

Always. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Go see the Matrix, I guess. And, but I was going to say that a big, a big thing for me is body type. That is a big question for Jalen. Because if you compare him against Zach Levine, I even went back and like Getty images and was like putting them side by side.

I was like, do I see it? Even Zach Levine kind of had a little bit more of a solid frame. The bendy guys, I was going to ask you, who is the most like successful star or scoring guard that is in his body type that you can think of. Because when I see his body type, he really reminds me of like Malik Monk's body. Like he has kind of lean shoulders. He has that kind of lean torso too. To me, a big question for him is like how much bigger can he get? But like, who are the guys to like aspire to? Because I don't know that he can get as strong as Zach Levine. Zach Levine's pretty solidly built dude. I mean, yeah, Levine grew a lot.

And he's like, he's like 25, 26. He's really filled out in the course of his NBA. And now when Jack Levine goes to lane, he can take hits. He can deliver contact. He's a big guy now. He's really, and that's a good question. I mean, Monk is a good comparison physically. I remember I was watching this morning a game where Green played the Grizzlies.

And it kind of seemed like him and Jha had similar frames as they were guarding each other. And then I remember watching a game where he played the Thunder. And it's like him and Lou Guens are. at the exact opposite ends of the spectrum, right? Lou Gwens looks like a freaking linebacker who's playing basketball, and Green's got much more of your classical basketball body. And I think it's a fair question to wonder how much bigger he's going to get. He can definitely, it is important to say,

even if he doesn't look much bigger, he can get much stronger. And that'll be really important for him, too. It's just to even if it's never going to be like, oh man, this guy's 22, 6, 4, he can still get a lot stronger and take contact more. He's actually listed at 64-180 on basketball reference. So him and Cade both kind of got chopped down a bit once they got to the league in terms of where they were listed before. And with Green, I think one, it's important to like emphasize this guy is incredibly fast.

He was absolutely dusting Lou Guens at times. Like you're not fast enough to guard me. I can get right around you when I want to. So that's like that is, and you expect the three-point shooting, which is pretty low right now, that should come around. He's a good shooter. I expect as the year goes on when he comes back from this injury as he goes into his career, okay, he'll be a good shooter.

He'll be really fast. But if he's not going to be a primary guy, and you go back to that list of guys you're talking about when I look at him, I look at like Murray, Beal, Levine, Booker, where do those guys all have in common? to be on good teams, they have to also play with another all-star guard, playmaker, right?

Booker's got Chris Paul, Levine's got DeRosen, Beals got, he had John Wall, and now he's got Spencer Denwitty. Murray's got Yokic. And that's the thing when I look at Green,

and one thing I hate about the draft is it's become so much of a comparison game for a guy. It's not Jalen Green's fault. He was taken ahead of Evan Mowgli. That's not his fault. But when you look at him, it says, I have this guy, he's really good,

but I'm going to need another star around him to maximize him, basically. And it's hard to find those guys. And you look at the guys who are comparing him to Levine and Booker, their teams were awful for years, right? If you have this player and the right pieces aren't around them, you're going to be bad for a really long time. They don't make guys around them better necessarily. Yeah, and that can lead you to,

it's an interesting question to go towards a pro. a player that like creates more of a context for other players versus and like say, okay, that's that floor to ceiling range is something that we could go for. Or we could go for a player that maybe has, you know, an upside that could extend our ceiling because of their scoring. But like you said, they're a little conditional because they need,

they're in this situation where it's like you would think that they need the ball in their hands, like, you know, like a Beal, like a Murray. But if you lean too heavily on their playmaking, which is like sort of a thing that will develop once they get towards their prime, you could end up with some ugly outcomes.

Like, what would Jamal, how will we think of Jamal Murray if he had been on a god-awful son's team for like seven or eight years? He was very lucky to be paired. Now, like, Jalen is not like a full-fledged like chef yet. Like, he's more of a guy who is, he needs to be fed. I just don't know that you need to lean on him that heavily yet. And the other side of it is, you know, spinliness and wiggliness on offense goes the other direction on defense. Now, he's being targeted a lot on deep, which a lot of rookie guards are. He's young. He's, he's, he's 19 years old, I believe, but I had the stat in front of me. He's given up some of the, like just on defending drives. He's giving up 1.1.3 points per chance defending drives, which is pretty high. So they're

trying to, like, keep him off ball and protect him as much as they can. But like you were saying, even Lou Dort really went at him. What did you notice about Dorts? What was Dort attacking him specifically with? Was he driving on him a lot? getting rebounds, anything and everything. Lou Dorr had like 35 points in that game. I mean, he was just like, this guy's too small to guard me. I'm going at him. And that is where with Green, once Viet comes back, okay, now we've got this smaller guard

who needs a play America around him, but also is not a big time defender. It's your past to building an elite team are starting to narrow pretty fast. And I don't, like, I think Green is a very, very good player. I think he could easily, there was the big talking point with him before. the draft was this guy could lead the league in scoring. And I think that is the case. But it's, that doesn't necessarily mean he's to do it on a good team. You can lead the league and scoring on a bad team pretty easily, right? You can get your buckets and it might not necessarily mean much for the guys around you. Yeah, it's a tricky thing. It's a slippery slope.

When I projected him coming into the draft, I said, I put his ceiling somewhere in like the top 25-ish, like he would sniff the top 25. I know people disagree with me on that, but just based on his challenges and like if I had to make a bet based on what the potential downsides could be, that's where I landed on it. I want to play a little game with you real quick here.

I want to call this, is there a world, Charks, is there a world where Alper and Shingoon becomes a more valuable NBA player than Jalen Green? You would go there. You would 100% go there.

I love that you did. Is there a world? There's definitely a world where that's the case. I mean, he's a guy because he's such a good passer, he's really a guy. He can kind of facilitate out of the high post, make things happen.

He's a guy who can make other guys better, I think, in a much more direct line than Green, if that makes sense. Yeah. It's tough. It's interesting. They've got a bunch of guys. They're still figuring out. They don't know what they are.

I do wonder, too, we talked about with Green, how when he went down, they started winning. It wasn't just him, though. When Kevin Porter went down at about the same time, that was part of it also. And I do wonder if they had a more reliable playmaker. So I guess to go back to your original question, Shengoon really is his own thing, right? Like, there's so much good to a shangoon. Yeah.

But yeah, there's definitely a possibility. I will say that for sure, yes. I mean, Porter is, like, wildly inefficient. I had it written down here. His, like, touch time, his dribble per touch is, like, up there with, like, guys who are, like, perennial all-stars. And he's not an efficient shooter. Anyway, just across the board. KPJ is fun.

He's the type of guy that, like, lures you in. You're like, there's a lot of, like, raw kind of talent, creation talent there. So he attracts certain types of fans. No offense to them. But it's, they're just a tough combo on that front. But for Houston, it's kind of like, you know, I mean, what business or interest do they have in winning right now?

Probably not a whole lot. So, but like with Greens, I think the shooting is another thing. This is the thing you say over and over again with players, is just it opens and closes doors. It's the most important skill set probably in the league today. You know, his shooting has kind of held form. He's career-wise, over every sample,

been in that sort of like 25 to 30 range, and he's at 27.8% from 3 right now. Before we move on to the next guys, let's take a quick break. All right, Charks. So this guy, the next guy that I want to talk to you about, I don't think that I was high enough on him. I've already had a couple guys that I've come back on and circle back and be like, I miss something there, I miss something here.

This is a guy that you were very high on. I believe you wrote about Franz Wagner before the draft, didn't you? I did. I did. He was one of my guys for sure. Why was he one of your guys? What did you see from him then? And how is he making you feel really happy about how smart you are early on in this season?

I wouldn't go that far. But Franz, number one, Franz is huge. He is massive for a perimeter player. He's like a legit 6-10 and he plays three consistently. It's funny because in Orlando, they had these two, they had for so many years, they had John Isaac and Aaron Gordon. And a lot of times with these combo forwards, what's the rule of thumb?

It's like if you're a 3-4, you're really a 4. And they were always trying to play Gordon and Isaac together. And there was never quite enough shooting or playing. making to make it work. Franz is actually a legit small forward and he's six foot 10. Number one, that is very, very, very unusual. That's a huge mark for him. Number two, he's a very well-rounded player. I love well-rounded players, especially as you get bigger and bigger, right? A really well-rounded six-foot-one player, it's whatever sometimes. When you're six-foot-10 and you can pass, dribble, shoot, rebound, defend, it's very easy to play.

plug you into a role. You're going to make your team better in a lot of different areas. So I think I saw that. And number three with him, I really believe in these, when you go at one-on-one matchups at the college level for elite guys against guys who play their position. And I probably put a little too much into it where when Franz outplayed Scotty Barnes in the NCAA tournament, I was like, oh man, Franz is the guy. He just really got Barnes, gave him the business. And Barnes is great too. But I think Franz. Franz is great. They are both great, and Franz outplayed Barnes in the biggest game of their careers.

That says something when they're guarding each other. And then the fourth thing, never for, never, always remember this, Kyle, younger brothers. Younger brothers, yeah. Whose brothers are also NBA players. They're always good. So I knew he had the bloodlines. He has Mo. And Moe, he's much, that was, shots my guy Matt Dollinger.

He headlined it, not your average Mo, my Franz Wagner piece. That's 100% the case. Like that made him better going against Moe every day growing up. Yeah, I feel like we should list out all the younger brothers. Obviously, there's Lamello, obviously. I don't even remember. Mowgli. Evan Mowley.

Well, okay, yeah. You could someone sent this to me. There's been like books written about this. It's an interesting thing. But I mean. Drew Holiday is another one. Drew's isn't the youngest, though. Aaron's the youngest, didn't he?

Yeah, but Drew's the younger of Justin. And Aaron is really small, right? So that's the thing with younger brothers. if they're smaller, if they're bigger while also big younger brothers. Does that make sense? I'll get into this.

I think this is important, actually. It's good into this. You should write about this. I read about a years ago, but I think it's worth pointing out, the biggest problem most basketball players have growing up, guys who are going to play in the NBA,

is they're bigger and faster than everyone they play their whole lives. So it builds a lot of bad habits. I remember, so when I was playing, I actually got to see, you remember this legendary Dwight Howard, Josh Smith, Boston Celtics to Atlanta Celtics. Yeah, they had, you forgot the most important. Randolph Morris.

Randolph Morris. How dare you. Right. So I actually saw them play once and it was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen because these are like 16 year old kids like grown men just dunking every single time. And if you're Dwight Howard or Josh Smith at 16, what do you need a jump shot for, right? I'm just going to dunk at Will and everyone all the time. What and what makes a younger brother special is they can't do that, right? They're not as big or as fast as our older brother. They've got to develop the rest of their game to have a chance because this guy is just going to kill them otherwise. If you're relying on your athletic ability against the guy three years older than you is also big and athletic, you're going to kill. You have to get bigger and fast.

You have to develop the rest of your game. And then what happens with the younger brothers, by the way, Michael Jordan, younger brother, is they develop the rest of their game. And then all of a sudden their physical tools catch up, and then you've got a real monster. And like, what you're talking about with like Aaron Holliday, he stopped growing. So he was a younger brother who stayed a younger brother, whereas Drew was a younger brother, became an older brother. And now he's just dominated people. Yeah, I think what you're talking about is adaptability. Like it's adaptability is a skill set. We've talked about this on draft shows in the past. I'm pretty sure. But, you know, that ability, if you have something to lean on early on, I think that's

why a lot of sons of NBA players end up in, like they don't end up in these situations where they're leaning on physical tools. And you see that with Biggs a lot. So I definitely think you're right about that. Like when the physical tools come later and the adaptability comes first, a little example,

I have a one and a half year old and the school that he goes to. This might come up in this podcast. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. We both have sons for you all know. We both have sons that are similar aid. Julian is mine and Jackson is Johns. But they put him in the class

and he was the youngest. in the class. And I, like, secretly did, like, a little, like, fist pump. I was like, hell yeah. I was like, put him in there, baby. I was like, we don't, we don't want him leaning on anything. Make him swim. Let's go. So anyway, we'll see. He's shown no interest in basketball. But Franz, go ahead, go ahead. I would say with adaptability, and this is something I think people might not realize or really surprised NBA fans who don't watch college basketball. Franz actually is scoring more in the NBA than he scored in college, which you wouldn't think that would happen. But,

that can happen when you're a super adaptable player. You kind of mold situation around you. And Franz in college, we don't get into who he's playing with, but he's playing with guys to need of the ball. So he made it work for himself. And the big knock on him coming out was he wasn't aggressive enough. Oh, he's a little soft, not aggressive, disappears in games when actually he was just finding the role that made sense for him on this team.

Now he's in the NBA. His role's actually expanding. and he's done really well with it. A couple offensive bullet points on him that I think are really important. The first one is he is like a, I hate to say this, but he is like a real like, Scotty also is the same way. He's scoring more than he did in college, I'm pretty sure. He is.

But shooting evolution, this guy is an improvement driven player for sure. He's interested in it, obviously. He's, his first year at Michigan, he was 31% from three. Second year, 34.3. At Orlando, he's shooting almost 40% from three. I went back and I was watching specific types. A lot of that is catch and shoot. If he's creating for himself and dribble pull-ups,

he gets a little while with his control, I've noticed, like back rims things a lot, which that's an area that I'm not going to put it past him to grow into that. If he shoots like stepbacks, he seems to control his touch pretty well. But catch and shoot, he shoots it quick. Like you said, he's gigantic. I was talking about like with Jalen Green, where he kind of strikes me as like he doesn't quite play as big as his listed height,

even at 6-4. Franz looks like he's like 6-11 because he leverages his size. Now, he's not finishing super well right now, but he has like a body type that is, he's really solidly built. I think this segues into a conversation about who he is.

We talk about benchmarks. I think the upside that I underestimated is his on-ball creation. Because when you watch him at a legit 6-10 solidly built, handles contact. He actually looks for contact. And I think that's why he's not finishing super well is because if he goes around the basket, he likes to create the contact.

And I was noticing him try to create it. And NBA players are smart. They were kind of like matadoring him a little bit, pulling the chair on him. And he would like just kind of fumble. I think he'll improve on that front. But I think I underestimated his on ball creation. Like I see a world where this guy is a really good team defender potentially could check bigger wings that like to score. is a catch and shoot player

and then tosses in a little bit of secondary playmaker stuff. Are you seeing that with him? What's very interesting with Franz is when Jalen Suggs went down, he broke his thumb like two weeks ago. They moved Franz into the backup point guard job behind Cole Anthony.

And he wasn't, now he's not just secondary playmaking. He's just trade up playmaking. And he's averaging over the last six games, 4.2 assists on 2.2 turnovers. So when you're getting four assists and you're averaging 2 to 1 assist to turnovers, that tells you the guy's making plays,

moving the ball, getting stuff done. Like, he's a very, very skilled player. I would say with Franz, he doesn't have great, he's kind of the opposite green that he doesn't have great wiggle off the dribble with more of a straight line guy. But when you're 6'10, you don't necessarily have to have great wiggle, right? Like, you're just so big.

You can make plays really easy. And then we were kind of trying to figure out comps for it. I liked what you made. We want to talk about the little chart you made for us, which it has to go on Twitter, which you refuse to do. Put it out there on this podcast. I'll put it out there.

Charks was teasing me that I set the chart. I set like the quadrants up wrong. I have my positives opposite. I'm not a math guy. I think you're right. He like parts the seas when he goes to the basket. Like he doesn't really have to be wiggly. But on the real quick on the playmaking thing,

I think his pick and roll reps per game. I think his max was like seven. He ran like seven in one game. And then when Suggs went down, it skyrocketed. He actually ran 17 picking rolls in the game against Philly, which is like right when Suggs went down. So yeah, he did go way up. He's an interesting player because I think that he's sort of that we were trying to dial in on who he is.

We're trying to dial in big guys that can shoot the ball that give you some offensive versatility. they don't have to have the ball all the time, but they can kind of morph depending on the situation. Defensively, I made a spectrum between, like, Gallinari and, like, Andre Kirillinko was one that somebody threw at me. I don't know that he's as the scope of his impact is as wide as Kirillinko defensively. No. AK was a monster back in the day.

He was a good offensive player of the year type. Yeah, I really wish we could have seen him today. He was an insane person. And then I made, like, a, vertical axis of Pesia as a shooter, like a movement shooter at like a legit 610.

And then like, Luol Ding is a guy that kind of came to mind that I think is interesting. That's good. That's a really good one. I like that? Because like athleticism-wise,

Luaw wasn't like, he wasn't like as bendy explosive as Kirillinko, but he was positionally pretty switchable. I kind of like that one, the more I thought about it. And it's like he's not like a

super knockdown shooter, but he can hit open shots. I think that's an interesting one. Where do you land on him comp wise? You said you had one. I like it because it's so hard to make the cross-racial. You just want to stick into the bucket of, okay, here's the spectrum of guys.

So my guy I thought of for him was kind of on the Gordon Hayward, Chandler-Parsons range as kind of a 6-8-69 playmaking point-forward type, versatile on defense, not an elite defender, but can guard multiple positions, probably best in that secondary role. So Parsons, to me, makes a ton of sense. I think Parsons, before his knees were shot, was actually decent on defense, which you never really expect with those kind of guys, but he actually can be.

Really, it's hard to find comps for him because they're just not really six-foot-10 guys with his skill set. And that's what makes him so interesting. I mean, to me, in a lot of ways, he's if Kevin Herder was three inches taller, right? There's a lot of guys who are like Franz, but who just aren't as tall as him. So the move, and I think Franz is a guy when Orlando gets healthy, when they get Isaac back, I think there'll be more space for him because they're playing two bigs right now. They're playing Carter and Bamba. That's not, I don't think sustainable long term. They're playing two bigs and two guards who are streaky shooters.

Franz, I think, is a guy as Orlando gets better, he'll get better too. And I think that like if we're looking at like the state of the franchise, the state of the union for Orlando, you know, they're still pretty bad. their 28th in offensive rating, 30th and overall net rating in the league. Whenever it comes to like real quick, just like going forward, what do you think the missing piece is for them? Or, I mean, we talk a lot about like fit. This is a team that I think shouldn't necessarily obsess over fit because fit implies that there's existing structure that is working.

They need some help. What do you think the next type of piece for them would be for the Orlando Magic to take a leap? I think they need a primary guy. And the first question, which we can't really get into now too much, because Suggs is also his own real. And he got hurt. And the Suggs-Cole Anthony thing has been weird. How do they fit together? There's the Bomb-Bacarta thing that's kind of weird.

And it just feels like right now Orlando's kind of where they've been for the last 10 years is who's the primary guy, everybody else falls in line under. I think Franz is great because he's a great two or three. And whoever he does is number one, Franz can compliment them really well. But Orlando, it's like we've been saying for a while, this is a team that needs to win the lottery, if not win it being the top two or three, because they need a guy. They don't have a guy right now.

Right now, Cole Anthony is the guy, and he's putting up numbers, and Cole's been better than I thought it would be, but when he's your guy, it's just your ceiling is not very high. It's tough, it's tough. But I had a thought, man, what if we switch places? How would we have thought about Cole Anthony

if he was healthy and he had been on that 20, 2020. 2021, I'm losing track of my year, is Gunzaga team. What if they had switched places? We put like a, like, let's say Jalen Suggs had like a nagging knee injury and was planned for a bad North Carolina team and a healthy Cole Anthony. I'm just curious because Cole was like highly ranked, pretty similarly ranked to Jalen coming in.

Higher. Pol was like number one, I think. For a while. I think he maybe came off of it in the RCA. But like the, I don't know. That's interesting to me, the way that we view things and penalize people because Cole was so highly thought of and then we all came off of him

because of like his play style and what he did at North Carolina and his knee injuries. But now he's like come back and it's just they're more neck at neck. Well, I mean, it's a good question. I'll say really quickly before I go on to the next guy.

Gonzaga is super interesting in terms of how players look in their system. And I think we'll talk a lot about that with Chet over the next few months. And it's a fair question. I would just say if you put Cole Anthony on that Gonzaga team, is he going to be willing?

to move the ball, play a secondary role, and, like, fall in line the way Suggs did? Or does it become, like, I'm Cole Anthony. You guys better fall in line. I'm doing my thing. And that's the question on Cole is, can he be in a smaller role or does he have to be the guy? Like, that was when Suggs and Gonzaga is so fun was they just rolls and he made everybody better. And he was like a super role player in college.

And maybe that's his ultimate role in the NBA. But that goes back to who's your primary, if Sugg is going to be a strong. super role player. A million questions kind of fold into that. Just like how do players respond to certain types of coaching, things like that. I want to move on really quick to talk about another player. A guy that I studied a month or so ago, a big playmaker who, you know, big playmakers always have a way of winning my heart. Joshua Giddy, the Oz with the sauce for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Nice, the Oz with the sauce. I like that. What are your impressions of him early on? Have you gotten to see much Josh Giddy this year?

I mean, I kind of did a Josh Giddy crash course in the last couple days because I know we've been talking about him. So two things off the top I've got to get into. Number one, have you watched his show called Foundation on Apple TV? Just bear with me for a second. No, I have not. Have you even heard about it? No, I haven't. Are you a sci-fi guy?

Sci-fi, yeah, I love sci-fi. Okay, this is great. Like, Foundation was one of the seminal sci-fi books, Isaac Asimov in the 60s. It's kind of up there in like the sci-fi circles. It's like Foundation, Dune, Lord of the Rings. these are like your foundational sci-fi text. Point being, in the show, there's his character. His name is Brother Dawn from Foundation.

He looks exactly like Josh Giddy. I'm not even kidding. My wife, we're watching Foundation, and I'm like watching Josh Giddy on my laptop. I'm looking up, I'm looking up. This guy looks exactly like this character on the TV show. So Google that later, Brother Don from Foundation. You'll get a laugh about that. He looks just like Giddy.

We do similar things where we'll be on the couch, and Megan's drawn so many NBA players that that's always her commentary whenever we're watching a game. She's like, oh, there's Marvin Bagley. There's Josh Giddy. And I'm like, thanks, babe. I appreciate you.

I participate. So there's that. And then with Giddy, you kind of asked me about like, back to the being of the pod, what I play like. I actually play like Josh Giddy, I would say,

in terms of a big guy, glacially slow. I can't finish because I can't jump over people. So I shoot runners constantly. And I like to think I can pass like Giddy, but the thing with Giddy is that he's really slow. I don't know.

Like, we have to start there, I feel like. I love watching him play, and I wish he was faster. He's a pace player. I think there's a line where if you're not super fast, you need to accept that you need to kind of spatially approach the game in a similar way. Now, we're saying that about Cade the other day. Like, I don't know that Cade, if Cade sees himself as like a bendy, super fast cookie type wing, he might, I just think evolutionary-wise, it would behoove him

to become more of a stylistic player similar to Giddy, just like abuse people, just be big, except that you're big. Like, it's okay in today's NBA. Like, if you can shoot threes, you can play that type of style because you can kind of keep people on the hook. We've seen that with Luca, you know, but Giddy, um, Giddy sort of is, you're facing similar questions.

And I think that's the threshold between really good role player and star player is like how much of a load can you carry with your scoring. I was saying in a video that I did about Oklahoma City, specifically talking about Giddy and Shay's dynamic, um, it's kind of a cruel irony that's, somebody that as playmaker, as talented as a playmaker as him, uh, can't really score the ball at any level, like totally efficiently. Like he can kind of, he's getting a little more comfortable getting in the middle of the

floor like you were talking about and just going over people. Like he's, he's, he's a little bit more for as young as he is. He's like physically comfortable doing that, it seems like. Yeah. He has the YMCA game for sure. It's, it's, it's all YMCA. It's like dribble a 12 feet, throw up a hook, throw up a floater, use your sides, use your angles. He's, he's, he's, he's, Yeah, it's like a weird thing where it's a Benjamin Button thing almost, where he's young, but he's also really old because he has to have the old man's game. He's that a classic old man's game. I wish Goody, I wish he could shoot better.

It'd be so much easier if he was a good shooter. Then it wouldn't really be that big a deal with he's not great athlete. But it's the combination of being pretty slow and then not being great shooter. That makes it kind of tough sometimes. Yeah, and it's like he's a pretty, I think he gets underrated a little bit as like a positional, team defenders, so he's not terrible on that front. But you just think about, like, shooting, if you're like an ultra-talented playmaker like he is, like live dribble, he's got the tool bag, he's got all the like left-hand, right-hand,

low angle, high angle, he can pass over the defense, hit corners, things like that he is. But if people play off of you, that's just sort of the contradiction of today's game. It's like, those things are great, but you have to pull people out because they'll play off of you. And it gates those. I got a question about that, Kyle, actually for you. Don't you kind of feel like he is what everyone worried Lamello would be? Like Lamello's worst case scenario is... Don't say everyone you were worried that you specifically.

Own it. Okay, fair enough, fair enough, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, no, I mean, totally. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it sucks if you end up with a point maker like that, that can't capitalize on it. And that's the question for him going forward. It's like, is he going to grow as a shooter?

as a movement shooter, I'm not confident about it. Like much more, like, he's pretty okay, like stepping in to threes, catch and shoot, he's okay. I haven't checked his percentages, but he was like, he was surviving, you know. But his efficiencies he was looking at, they're kind of killed by the fact that, like, okay, see, it's a similar situation to Detroit where both of those teams really struggle to score. So that really kills both of their efficiencies. Last 10 games, he's been a little bit better from the line.

I think that he could be a foul. drawing type player too. Okay, see, kind of doing what we were doing with Orlando, what do you think the type of, do they have anything worth keeping? Do they have any kind of piece that you think makes sense going forward?

I think so. I think they're further ahead than Orlando. With Giddy, I'll just say. Oh, you do. Okay. With Giddy, because I think Shay's a guy. I think Shea can be the primary on a good team, which Orlando doesn't have. Giddy, I was watching the game,

I texted you because the announcer literally goes, a knuckler from giddy and i'm like who shoots knuckler it's like what kind of shot was he describing it was a spot up three he's like a knuckle ball from giddy basically then the color guy's like well you know you can just not close out on him probably so anyways with giddy my thought with this here's my thought with him i think he's actually a power forward that's why i wanted to pitch run by you he's big enough i think he's actually a four because i think with giddy you need faster guys around him who can shoot. And that translates into going up positions, being more before putting wings and guards

around him. Because, yes, he could be a guard if you have a bunch of guys who are bigger than him, who are faster than him, and who can shoot. But how many like 610 guys can do that realistically? You're going to have a hard time finding them. Whereas if you're OK, see, I think you move the gate to the four. I think you have Lou Dort. He's really taking a step forward.

you have Shay and you can get one big time wing who can just spread the floor. They need a classic two guard, I think. They've seen a 6-6 guy who can just drain threes all day and create space for Giddy and Shea. I think that's the path for them is to have Giddy play at the four. What do you think about that? I think if you can get enough, you know, ball skills sort of like give you the switchability, the interchangeability on offense.

Like if you have a lot of players, so that kind of downplays the labels. a little bit, I think. I see, you know, what's the difference between a four who's bigger and can pass the ball? And I see him more as like a connective playmaker. I compared him to like a Lonzo ball type where it's like you don't want to lean too heavily on them because you're going to be penalized if you do because of the shooting. But if you compare them with a lot of like we saw like the ill-fitting situations that Lonzo was in early in his career and we were just, he was being leaned on too heavily to be like a primary point guard. We're like, it's just not going to happen. I don't know if this is working.

Lo and behold, oh, he ends up on this team with a lot of guys that can create. He's flanked by two guys that can score, pass, get to the rim. Suddenly, you see him, like, elevating those people. I think that that's the situation for Giddy. In terms of, like, being, like, as a four, is he going to be spreading the floor? Probably enough to survive, I think. The problem for OKC is when you start to think about the types of players that would, like, optimize what they have,

those are the players everybody wants. So they're hard to get. And for them, it's a question of hitting in the draft. I mean, they've got a draft really well. I think they've had some misses lately. You know, they passed on quickly, if I'm not mistaken, quickly and Jaden McDaniels to get Poku. It was the trade.

They traded the two picks up to get Poku. Yeah. Right. So that's a tough situation. You know, it's just like the margin for error for them is really slim. I was just curious about big guys that I think are interesting. I think I pitched this to you. What do you think, like, what if somehow, I don't know how we would like make the contracts work?

What about Bomba in OKC? What if they could get a hold of him? What do you think about that fit? He gives you the rim protection. In theory, he could give you some spacing and hit some open threes because, and then I don't know. I like the idea of defensively what they would be with him on the floor if you had Shay, Dort, and then Bomba. What do you think about that? I think with Bomba, I'd want them more with a Scotty Barnes type.

I'd want Bomba with a front court guy who can give him. buckets and pass him the ball and like command the defense and then create the real simple kickouts corner three shots i think that i feel like a bomba giddy front court they're just not a lot of be giddy though why couldn't that be giddy based on you were saying he's gonna like collapse the defense enough to make that really work i i i the idea makes sense but i would go with bomba if i was toronto i would target a bomba or a jalen smith real hard I think that's where those kind of guys make more sense. And with OKC, what you are saying,

we'll talk about this a lot as this pod goes on, but man, the top of this draft, you got to get lucky because there's some real studs. There's some guys who can make a lot of these teams a lot better really quickly, and then it's just about luck. And one thing I've realized with the draft and with draft coverage is it's so much more important to rank the top seven or eight guys exactly correctly. The difference between if you're OKC, I think they're really going to regret. not taking Franz.

And I like Gide. I think Gidey is a good player. But I think passing on Franz from six to eight is a big deal. Whereas a lot of times when I first start doing draft stuff, you start obsess over like 18 versus 20, 21 versus 25. That stuff all kind of washes out. But those first 10 picks, those first five picks even more, every slot is so important.

And just missing on one slot, it can be huge. And I do think OKC at six. I think Golden State at 7, they're really going to regret not taking Franz. Sorry to go back to Franz again, but I think, has OKC, well, has Golden State screwed up, like, epically screwed up two drafts in a row?

Like, and it's amazing that they're as good as they are and they have. Like, was Cominga's upside, tradeability as an upside asset enough to pass on players like Franz? Right now it's looking like, no, man. Hey, Kyle, that is a great tease for next week's episode. we can get into that because we'll see come in got the showcase hopefully and we can kind of talk about that's a whole that's a huge conversation that there gives that gets into a lot of stuff so yes we'll table that we're going to be talking about a lot more things on that of dot nature uh so next

week sharks and i actually are going to be going to be going to be g league showcase in Las Vegas with all the uh the degenerate gamblers and degenerate basketball people those are the only people that are going to be there I expect so we're going to be on the ground actually the first time we're ever going to meet in person that's going to be pretty cool I'm excited I got to see how tall you really are Are you jailing great? You've been lying about your height? I got to see it with my ass. I'm a solid 6-1.

6-1, maybe 0.4, I would say. I haven't lied about my height at all. Well, Charks, it was good to see you. You look good. You sound good. You write good. Good to see you. So next week, you know, subscribe to us.

Check us out. Hit us up on Twitter. Upside highs. The name of show, we're going to be doing this every week. Charks, do you quickly want to plug anything you're working on? Shout out producer, Steve. The real guy behind the scenes making this all work.

I got nothing real. All right, folks. Well, good to see. We'll talk to you later.