The Ringer NBA Show - Jamal Murray Is Out for the Season, Rookie of the Year Leaders, and 2021 Draft Prospects | Group Chat

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

Justin and Rob open the show discussing what Jamal Murray’s torn ACL means for the Denver Nuggets’ season and the Western Conference playoff race (01:00). Later, they are joined by NBA draft expert Chad Ford to discuss the Rookie of the Year race (15:00) and the top prospects in the 2021 draft (55:00). Hosts: Justin Verrier and Rob Mahoney Guest: Chad Ford Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringer's Dave Hill takes you on a journey into the underground lives and careers of six professional gamblers. This eight-part podcast is a unique look into the gambling world that you don't want to miss. Check out gamblers on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to group chat, the ringer's weekly NBA group discussion where all we wanted to do was talk about Poku. And then the world kind of turns this shit here. I am Justin Verrier joining me today, as always. Rob Mahoney. It's a bad day, Justin.

It's a bad day. Yes, for several reasons. but we'll get to that in a little bit. Jonathan Chark's not with us again. I don't know if he'll be with us for the next couple episodes. He's doing fine, but he's just dealing with some personal matters. I'll let him kind of detail that when he comes back. But we'll see him soon, just not in maybe the next one or two or maybe even three episodes.

Later in the show, we talked to Chad Ford of Chad Ford's MBA Big Board, both the podcast and the website to talk about the rookie of the year race. His thoughts on some guys he scouted pretty closely and how they've been doing it. in the first year and the 2021 draft. But first, that bad news that we're referring to, Jamal Murray, now out for the season with a torn ACL in his left knee. You know, I think when injuries happen in the NBA, I think everyone jumps to the conclusion that this is going to be like the worst thing in the world, that amputation is needed. The prayers go up and then we find out usually, you know, a day later, hour later that nothing's actually happened. This one looked pretty bad from the start. His left knee kind of buckled.

as he was going, driving into the paint late in the game. I think there were only 50 seconds left in the game in the midst of Steph Curry's big night. And it was immediately harrowing. Like you heard the audio of Mike Malone, Michael Malone, sorry, calling for the medic on the floor, which is like particularly bad. And then you found out the bad news.

Today was confirmed toward ACL. So Rob, I guess just general takeaways first kind of reactions to the news. I mean, my first reaction is, you know, Jamal Murray is one of the NBA's true gym rats. He's an awesome, awesome competitor. And to see him go down in the agony that he did, it's one of the absolute worst things about sports. You know, you don't want to make too much of this stuff.

You know, this is an injury within the context of sports. He'll hopefully make a full recovery. He's a young, healthy guy, very determined player. No doubt we'll see Jamal Murray back fully operational on an NBA court at some point. But this is a huge deal for him. This is a huge deal for the Nuggets. This changes the landscape. of in the outlook of what those two parties are looking at and what the Western

Conference is going to be for all of that to happen at the end of a game just with a guy going down on a non-contact injury it's it's brutal to see I mean this this really is the worst of it yeah I mean we were going to talk about some of the MVP race just like updates that we've been seeing of late Joel and B had a monster night last night against the Mavs where he completely demoralized them looking like like Orlando Magic shack out there which is like grace and like nimbleness and he was doing the dream shake and he was just like completely on another level and then step curry has that 53 point night last night he breaks uh will chamberlain's record

for points for the warriors as a franchise record um and he's been on an absolute heater i think he's had 38 points in the past seven games uh but unfortunately here we are talking about injuries again and this is going to factor into the MVP risk quite ironically in in a pretty sad fashion just because like one of the things we wanted to talk about, Rob, was just like, how do you even factor all the injuries lost into this race because Embed has missed 18 games? LeBron James were still waiting for him to come back. Steph himself has had that tailbone injury.

He's missed six. And all of a sudden, you know, another star is out here. So pretty disappointing from that standpoint. Just like we're not getting our best and brightest here. Yeah. I don't know how to separate the randomness of injury in general from the heightened risk of an accelerated and compressed schedule. I don't know how to do that,

but it surely didn't help anything that Denver was on its sixth game in nine days, you know? Yeah, I know. And you're definitely seeing a lot of players speak to the condensed season, the pandemic and all that stuff that they have to go through the amount of testing and just like things are definitely out of whack here.

Josh Hart was the guy I saw last night being like, we can't do another one of these seasons. I will say, I think that's an important data point and I'm curious to like investigate that further. I want to hear from like those players to see like what they've been dealing with that we don't know. But as far as we know, Jeff Stott's runs a site in streetclose.com, which is a really important resource, resource for injuries in the NBA. He kind of like keeps track of all these things.

One of the things he said just in a reply to someone was that injuries are holding steady this season. So they're not particularly up. They are trending up in April. So the data doesn't support this idea, at least now, that we are seeing an increase of injuries. as a result of the pandemic. But we'll keep track on it. But for Denver, I mean, this is definitely going to impact them

and the playoff race and the title race, which is super disappointing. What do you think is maybe like the first thing we should talk about? With Denver, like, what happens with Denver here? Do you think, like,

they have the offensive arms to kind of make up for the loss of Murray? I wish I could find a way to go through this conversation that didn't feel like a eulogy for the Nuggets. But I think, honestly,

anything less than that, feels disrespectful to the player that Murray is and how important and essential he is to that team. You know, what makes the Nugget so adaptive and in the playoffs in particular, what gives them the ability to match up with anybody is that two-man game. Is that Murray and Yokic have that chemistry, have that compatibility where there's no right way to guard it? You know, you go under, you switch, whatever you do, you're going to get beat by one of those two guys.

Once you take out one of those two parties and you're putting a lot more pressure on Yokic, you're putting a lot more pressure on all these. surrounding nuggets who played very different roles for the majority of this season or have been coming off the bench and are now going to be asked to start, what have you. It just makes them a totally different team. And, you know, Yokic is, I think,

the MVP frontrunner at this point, rightly so. But this just is a totally different ask for him over a long playoff run. He's already a guy who, you know, in past postseason, has played monster minutes, has had huge moments and huge performances, but he was able to do that because he was sharing the load with Jamal Murray.

And when you don't have, have that. Who knows what Nicola Yokic is going to look like in minute 48 of a game or minute 53 of an overtime game. It's just a totally different thing. Yeah, they were the one team with title aspirations. Apologies to

the Chicago Bulls who made the all-in kind of move at the deadline. And we all celebrated that, right? Two episodes ago, we were talking about how this increased their title odds and made them kind of the sleeper team if the two LA teams don't end up making it to the finals out of the West.

And it's just a bummer because, like, we don't get to see that play out. And I do wonder if there's, like, a chilling effect, right? This is what we hear from GMs and people in the business all the time that, like, there's a reason why you want to be prudent and you don't want to sacrifice even like a Tyrese maxi or someone like that in order to make just incremental progress in order to just go in this one window, this one season. And this is why, right? But I guess I'm curious, they do have Gordon there. They still have MPJ, who's probably just waiting for like more touches in general. Do you think like they have enough to make up enough offense or just whatever

Jamal Murray lacked, even with Barton and Monty Morris? They are a deep team. Do you think like they still have a semblance of a chance here? Yeah, I mean, they're still going to be a really competitive team. It just, you know, what gear they had to elevate to meet or surpass teams like the Lakers and the clippers and the jazz, that's what's up for question. You know, will they be able to compete in the playoffs? Absolutely.

as you mentioned. They are really deep. They still have Nicole Yokic, who's just an amazing talent, an amazing hub for your offense. But even losing Murray risks kind of dropping you a tier, or at least within the tier that you're already in, because there's just this painful trickle down between, you know, whoever they want to start between Montemort, Montemortis and Faku Campaso will see. They've been starting Campo in Murray's place recently, but I think that's more just because they wanted to keep their rotation more or less intact. I suspect in the playoffs, they'll start.

Morris instead. And Morris just isn't either the score or the defender that Murray is. And then because he's starting, if now Faku Campazo is a regular part of your rotation on a nightly basis, I mean, he's a feisty defender, but he's a pint-sized defender. He's exactly the kind of player who gets picked on in a playoff series. And so, again, you're just changing the nature of these minutes and these trade-offs and these things you could take for granted and these relative securities in your rotation. The Nuggets don't have those anymore. And who knows what that's going to do to Michael Porter Jr. Shot selection,

he's going to have to do more Aaron Gordon's shot selection and role and usage after he had bought in so beautifully into this very minimal playmaking,

facilitating kind of capacity. Maybe he has to do more at the ball now. I don't know. Yeah, it's funny because Campazo was on Steph Curry last night for a couple of possessions

and Curry just absolutely brutalized them to the point where there's now a clip you could probably see circulating of Curry being like, get this guy off me. He does seem like like a mighty might trying to guard an NBA player at times.

And while he's very vigorous in doing so, I don't know if he has a chance to guard the Steph Currys of the world. And that's like, that opens up the window. That changes the margins, right? Like if you have to put him on a curry in a playoff matchup, all of a sudden this looks completely different. What sucks too is that this is a bigger conversation than even these playoffs. You know, with an injury like this,

like this is spilling into next season, Jamal Murray's availability and working his way back. and really we could get through Aaron Gordon's contract is up at the end of next season we could get all the way through that contract without getting another look at the full strength nuggets again and he'll have to make a really important decision

and the team will too on what to do going forward that sucks even beyond just I was really coming around to the idea of the nuggets as a contender this season and the way they were encroaching on the title odds of all these other Western Conference teams this is just a much much longer and much bigger problem now.

Yeah, Gordon's contract comes up after next season. Also, MPJ's contract, I believe comes up after next season. He's going to be a restricted free agent if they don't sign him to an extension earlier. But like, that's catmath. They're going to have to juggle sooner than they probably would have liked. And like, as you've seen with Denver in the past, they don't want to pay that luxury tax.

And so that's going to be a really, like, complicated decision in Yokic. I mean, if you want to look even farther, he's up the season after that. So a lot of questions coming up for Denver a little bit sooner than they probably would have been wanting to talk about them. Just looking ahead just to the playoffs a little bit. So Zach Kram runs our NBA odds machine, which is a really cool tool that updates daily, gives lottery odds, you know, playoff odds, which teams are going to be in the play in, what are the most likely seeds? He's in the process of updating that as we're recording this at 9 a.m. Pacific time. One thing he did pass along was that the four or five matchup probably look at. like Lakers, Denver at this point. We'll see if the Lakers getting hold up there. And now, that's a

whole other question. But I think he was saying before it looked like a toss-up. Now it seems like an overwhelming favorite in the Lakers, which like that is the difference right there. And all of a sudden, the Lakers road is a little bit easier. And then all of a sudden, maybe they overcome their own injury issue. So I mean, I don't want to give out winners and losers, but it does seem like if the path is easier, the Lakers are a team that are going to benefit. Yeah, I mean, and really, that's exactly what we're talking about, is their ability to match up with a team like that, and their ability to exploit a team like that.

You would think if you're going to be the Lakers, you would need huge performances across the board from all your best guys if you're a team like Denver, and Murray was going to have to be front and center in that. He was going to have to be pulling the levers in the pick and roll to really exploit some of the Lakers' size and lack of mobility and some of their issues and covering those kinds of actions, and that's just not going to happen anymore.

Yeah, and I also wonder how much juggling, how much of a dance we're going to see at the end of the season just in terms of matchups, in terms of playoff matchups. Because right now, the way Kram has the most likely seedings is the Jazz, Suns, Clippers, nuggets. If you were the Lakers at five, the Mavericks at six, you'd probably be trying to get the nuggets, right? I mean, we don't have the same flexibility on the lower seeds because of the play in tournament.

And I doubt people want to get into that extra playoff game or extra two playoff games, whatever it is. But you're probably targeting the Nuggets. there. No. Yeah, I mean, but I think you do have to be careful in terms of if you are playing that game and trying to get a particular opponent that the matchups don't switch up on you and all a sudden you're playing the clippers in the first round. All of a sudden you're playing, you know, one of these other teams you may not have bargained for. So it's a dangerous game. But look, all of these teams at the top of the West are loaded, balanced, formidable teams.

So it's natural that somebody's going to look at this and say, well, let's pick on the one that doesn't have their complete roster that's missing an all-star level talent in Jamal Murray. Yeah. So we'll keep track of that. Bummer for the Nuggets. But we're going to move on to the rest of the show here. We recorded with Chad Ford on Monday afternoon. You will hear us mention at the top of this a joke about chickens, which Rob flagged at the end of the interview to me saying that it won't make sense if we don't explain to top. Chad lives in Hawaii. And he was describing before we started recording that he is neighbors with a gaggle of chicken. What do you call a horde of chickens? A pack. A pack of wild chickens. A pack of wild chickens that wake him up every morning at 3 a.m. So that is why that joke is super funny, especially now that I have explained it to you. We're going to take a quick break.

When we come back, you will hear that. All right, and we are back. And now we were joined by the Beethoven of the Big Board from Chad Ford's NBA Big Board, both podcasts and now the site edition, Chad Ford. What's up, my friend? Great to hear your voice. It's great to see you again. And the Beethoven, I haven't heard that one before.

I like that. I guess that means you're part, classical, part romantic of the Big Board. Yeah. It makes me to the old. I think that was an old dig, but okay. No, no, it just speaks to just like what a classic, you know, you are, you know? I think I haven't seen you probably since a post-draft meal at some Southington location, Southington, Connecticut location.

Is that correct? It's probably been a couple years. Yeah. Those. That was one of my favorite parts of the draft. We would go into downtown Southington, Chris Ramsey, Royce Webb, dig into a meal. I missed those times, but it's fun for me in a lot of ways to get back to my roots. I actually, before ESPN, it started my own website, MBATalk.com that ESPN bought. And for like four years, I was independent publisher. I love that. Things I loved about ESPN, of course, as well, but things that I didn't. So it's kind of fun to be

able to go back and do that now. Yeah, you can't bounce your draft takes off of chickens as neighbors. So things are a little bit better these days. All right. So we're going to get into the 2021 draft a little bit later with Chad here about some of the new prospects coming in. But first, we want to talk about the guys from this year's rookie class, especially because this year's rookie year race is becoming fraught. You know, it's becoming way more complicated. Guys keep dropping like flies. In that regard, I wanted to start with Lamello ball because he's kind of shaping up to a certain extent to be almost the Joel L&B of 2017 where he's played, I think it's like 40 games and he looked like the clear runaway favorite and yet now he has this risk injury. Maybe you won't see him for the rest of the season.

Chad, going into last year's draft, you were one of the people that had him first overall. What have you seen this year and did it live up to your expectations for him coming into the event? Oh, I think he exceeded my expectations in his rookie year. Absolutely. I had him number one based off of upside and where I thought he could be several years down the road, not what I thought he would be as a rookie at Charlotte. I would not have predicted he would have been the rookie of the year, the runaway favorite for that. Look, part of that is because of the limited scouting that we could have of him, right? Both his high school team, which was a strange team that we all sort of know the background on and then playing in Australia and really a limited amount of time. And that's been somewhat of a new experiment for prospects as well. The thing I didn't buy into, though, based off of all the intel I could get from Australia, was that somehow this whole ball thing made him a bad kid or that he was going to be a major distraction or that he wasn't a hard worker.

I mean, you know, all that stuff that was sort of surrounding him in the draft based off of what his dad had done and everything else. Like that was not the intel that I was getting out of Australia, people that worked with him. I think that's clearly been the case in Charlotte as well as the feedback on him as a teammate, as a hard worker, has been amazing. We knew this, we knew the passing was going to be amazing. I mean, we knew that he was the most creative pastor that we've seen in a long time coming into the draft. I'm just shocked at how well he's done everything else. He's been his best version of himself, which you almost never see for a rookie that early on. But just, just been so fun to watch and must see TV to watch Charlotte.

and when's the last time that we could say that? Yeah, I mean, you mentioned him outperforming what you thought he could be as a rookie. I mean, is this close to the high-end projection, the best-case projection, you know, injury aside of what he was going to look like in year one? This is absolutely. If you would have told me that he was going to average 16 points a game,

shoot 37% from three, and even have a pretty good field goal percentage and not just be a turnover machine at the same time. And that he wasn't going to, to just get destroyed on the defensive end. I'm not saying that he's a great defender, but I think my biggest concern have him coming in was that he was just going to be an absolute liability every night on the defensive end. That's still, I think, the area that he needs to work on the most. But yeah, this is the best case scenario for him in year one. But he bodes well

that. Look, I didn't have a tier one player in the 2020 draft. I started at tier two. And right now, he's absolutely playing like he's going to be a tier one player in the NBA. Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned just like the rep he had coming into the NBA, just because it seems like if anything, he wove himself into that team pretty seamlessly. They have all these guys who are of similar types, you know, Gordon Hayward. They're very switchable. They're in that Spurs type system with Borega. And it just seems like he, you know, he was fine, not starting.

We didn't really hear much from him. Maybe that's because of how little media there is in Charlotte, but who's to say. but when he got to the starting lineup, they clearly leveled up, and he was still able to play in the mix of everything. He didn't really just dominate the ball, which was really impressive to me, considering everything we'd heard about him. Yeah, and I just think that part of the intel was wrong,

but it was wrong from the beginning. It was based off an assumption about his father, is it based a little bit on what we'd seen from Lonzo at the start. And, you know, as we all know, any of us that have siblings and parents were not the same as our parents, We're not the same as our siblings. And I think it was a classic mistake that some people made. And got to give credit to the Hornets and Michael Jordan,

because he keyed in on him early. And I think that they knew that if they were ever going to turn around this franchise, they needed to hit a Tier 1 type prospect. And, you know, there was talk. I don't know if you remember this, like day or two before the draft that he was going to slide to like six, seven, eight. there was a lot of teams that seemed a little bit uncomfortable with him. And so, you know, also just hats off to Charlotte.

I think they've made a number of draft mistakes in the past, but you have to give them credit here because they were keyed on him early. And I think they would have taken him with the number one pick in the draft had they had the number one pick. I wanted to ask you about that assumption, too, of who Lamella was based on his family, based on the reputation that the balls had. I mean, in a lot of ways, you do the same kind of work that these teams are doing in doing their own background. and, you know, kicking the tires on that kind of intel, how do you kind of do your own kind of bullshit detection around those kinds of assumptions?

Well, coaches, you know, look, coaches are going to generally tell you the player's great, has no problems, we love him. I mean, you know, because part of what a coach wants to do is get their player drafted because it helps them recruit more players in. And so that's always a problem of getting honest intel. I think it was, I don't know that the Australians know that game yet. the same way that the college basketball coaches know that game. And so to me, it was not just that they were saying it was okay.

It was the specifics they provided. It wasn't the same line as you worked down the staff and everybody had the exact same talking point that they were going to make about the player. And so that was really helpful to me. And part of it is just, again, maybe my background in conflict resolution and a little bit in social psychology and whatever is just that I'm not going to jump. to a conclusion based off of what a brother did or a parent did. And that, when you ever asked people who are giving the opposite what their evidence was,

there was no evidence beyond that, right? There wasn't any specific stories or incidents that were coming out or what have you. And that's, I think that's also, you have to be really careful about that. Where are you on his shot? So he's shot 38% from three. I think that's a little bit more than we were expecting from, especially early on. Were you one of the believers of his long-range game, or were you more of a skeptic coming in? Well, it's such a funky shot.

You know, I mean, that's the first thing. I mean, you watch it. It's ugly. It bothers you. His shot selection wasn't great in Australia either. And, you know, look, part of a shot, too, is good shot selection and questioning what that was going to be. And again, if you watched him in high school and the way that he was coached in high school where he had the ultimate green light to go and do everything, it's hard to now.

it's hard to now rein that back in, as you said, on this semi-veteran team and ask him to kind of come in and fit a role. We just haven't been able to see Lamello do that, other than that he played that pro game in Australia. And I think he did some of that in Australia. But yeah, when the Hornets got Gordon Hayward, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is going to be a disaster for him. He's going to sit on the bench. He's going to pout, whatever. I mean, I thought that just in general. Forget about the background.

I mean, that's just tough for a rookie, especially a rookie as confident as he is. And I think that's the other thing. Like, we reward confidence in the draft and in the NBA. We love guys that feel like their shots always going to go in, that they can really play. And we punish it at the exact same time, which I find is this amazing paradox, right? He is confident. He always has been. And we want that in a player.

This is my concern about Corey Kisper, in the instance. NCAA tournament as a shooter, I want you taking 15 shots, even if the first 14 don't go in. That's who you should be as a shooter. And when you start pulling back and start second-guessing that, we'll ding you on that end. And so I think the confidence in this case is just backed up by an elite, an absolutely elite feel for the game. I think he sees the game in a very special way. And that's always going to translate. Yeah, the rarity of a player who instinctively comes into the NBA

and has that kind of feel, has that kind of not only ability to throw sensational passes, because I think we've seen a Ricky Rubio, for example, come in and be able to make great passes. But the feel on and off the ball, I mean, it's amazing to watch. And I think as much as anything, like you mentioned, Chad, the fact that he was able to mesh his game with Gordons, to all the pieces that they have, it's dizzying to think about all the different options that he opens up.

up for you in all the different positions you can put him in if you're the hornets. He's a basketball savant. I mean, that's just the best way to put it. And we look at some of the greats in the NBA, and they were basketball savants. That was a big part of their game. And then, you know, if you add Michael Jordan's athleticism or something else to the thing, then you become the greatest player of all time. But I think that we're going to see him make multiple all-star games.

I think he's going to be the best player on a really good team. and I think he's going to help Charlotte win basketball games, most importantly. I mean, you can put up great individual numbers, but I think everything that I see right now points to him actually those numbers translating into wins. Yeah, he's the only one we're probably going to talk about here in the rookie of the year race whose team is actually producing, right? That's probably one of his big benefits. But I guess to transition to here to a team that's not doing so well, in fact, one of the

worst teams in the Western Conference, Anthony Edwards, another guy who came into a situation where he was going to be stacked up against a lot of veterans who needed the ball. So DeAndrelle Russell was playing in his first full season in Minnesota. Obviously, Carl Towns was going to be there. They re-signed Malik Beasley. It took a while, but we're starting to see Edwards kind of come alive a little bit here. What have you seen from him this season with the wolves and kind of what you expected from him coming into the draft?

Well, look, I think he's been maybe a little bit better than I expected. We knew with him coming in that the feel for the game. He was the opposite of Lamello in every case. He had all the physical tools to be dominant in the NBA, and it was the feel for the game that was the major question mark, and how much you saw that at Georgia, and then when you get to the NBA and everything speeds up and everything's more complex, what was going to happen. And I think, look, that's played out. I mean, one of the interesting stats is Winchairs, and you look at Winchairs, and Anthony Edwards

is literally at the bottom of this rookie class, despite the fact that he's averaging 18 points the game. He's the opposite right now. He can put up big numbers on a given night, and I think we expected that he'd be able to do that out of his sheer athleticism and also that gunner mentality that he has, that he's going to, he doesn't care who else is on the floor with him. He's going to take 16, 17 shots the game. It doesn't matter, but it's highly inefficient right now. And the question for him is, will it get efficient? Will he figure it out? Or will he not? And I think that was the question mark coming in. Unlike Lamello, where I don't think there was evidence, there was evidence with Anthony Edwards

that maybe he wasn't as committed to basketball, wasn't going to be the gym rat that's going to just go in and spend every waking moment thinking about how to improve his game. And then when you're a little bit behind the curve anyway, and some of that, by the way, is him coming late to basketball. And so that's part of it. He was one of the youngest players in the draft, and he's coming late to basketball. all, we always, I think we know this with the exceptions of the LeBron Jameses of the world, or the Zion Williamson's, or the Anthony Davises, so much of your success is going to be how you

adjust, what sort of work you put in, how much work you're putting in beyond what's sort of demanded of you and required of you, what you're going to do in the summers, how you're going to listen to coaches, how you're going to adjust your game as defenses adjust and start taking away the stuff that you really like to do in the NBA. And we've seen time and time again that draft bus come not out of potential, not that they lack potential, but they lack that adaptability. They lack that work ethic. They lack the ability and the drive to go and figure out how to do different things on the

court so that they could expand their game. And I just don't think we know yet with Anthony Edwards. I think everything we're seeing is out of sheer amazing physical attributes that he has as a basketball player right now. And you're going to be able to get so far in the NBA with that. And then we'll see, you know, what comes to that. It reminds me of Andrew Wiggins in a certain way. And, you know, Andrew Wiggins could get a certain distance just based off of his sheer athleticism, then he hit a wall. It's actually fascinating that now with the Warriors, maybe this season, we're starting to see him maybe move beyond that wall that he seemed like he was going to be

endlessly stuck at. And I think that that's going to be the telltale sign with him. And another year or two, is he getting more efficient? Is he getting better on the defensive end? I just don't think we know yet. But man, can he put up highlights? And I think we knew that, right? That there was going to be some top 10 sports center highlights with Anthony Edwards. Yeah, if Minnesota Andrew Wiggins is kind of the cautionary tale in a way of what the next

couple of years of Edwards' career could look like, I've been trying to think of who the productive models are. Like, if you're the coach trying to put film in front of him, who are the players you would want him to model his game after. I keep coming back, even though they're very different, and maybe this is just the convenience of the Minnesota connection to Zach Levine a little bit, in terms of the athleticism, the jumper is very different. And Levine kind of leaned that way from the start, maybe settling for those jumpers too much.

But I wonder with the way Levine has been able to get to the rim and finish and be a downhill player now balancing that with his jumper, if that's kind of what the template looks like. I think it's a great point. Now, some teams may fret that it took him too long, right? that this was maybe too long a process. But that exactly was the knock on him coming out of UCLA. This was a kind of win a dunk contest athlete. Can I also shoot with unlimited range, which maybe a little bit different from Anthony Edwards. And was there anything in between or any other thing to his game? And to his credit, he was an all-star this year and deserved to be

an all-star and has continued to work on his game. And so I think that's actually a great role model for him to look at. And now I just think that Minutes Minnesota hopes, because notice he's not with Minnesota anymore, that that progress happens in a couple of years and not, you know, the four to five year curve that it took with Levine. Yeah, I mean, that kind of curve for development, I mean, a Carl Anthony Towns trade request could outpace that kind of, that kind of arc. Sure. Yeah, I mean, the one thing I think about a lot with Edwards is he plays with kind of a recklessness, which is reminiscent, probably not in game type, but just in terms of how he throws his body around. of Russell Westbrook. And you hope that like maybe those highlights and some of that mentality will benefit him in

the long run like it did Ross who I believe like set turnover records in his rookie year. And then it translated him to refining more of that like point guard game. Although I guess maybe some people would argue maybe he didn't ever refine it enough. But maybe there's hope for him down down the way here. But Edwards, I mean, he's definitely putting up numbers and it's probably going to make him maybe the default option if we're looking at rookie of the year. in terms of a winner here. All the stat heads will scream.

Bloody murder if he gets it because when you get to the advanced metrics, it doesn't look so good. But yeah, I mean, when you think about a lot of the voters, they're going to look and say he average 18 points a game. I can point to a number of memorable plays

that he had at Minnesota and that all sticks in. And people are going to look deeper. I think there's probably better choices. Yeah, if you like it, advanced stats. I imagine you'd definitely want to stay away from this next guy who is James Wiseman, who had a interesting rookie year up until he just recently tore his meniscus in his right knee. It started off really well. It seemed like he showed some flashes, Chad, but obviously things

got shaky. We talked about him last week on an episode specifically about the Warriors, but for you, what has been his deal? Is it just confidence? Is it role? Or what do you think happened for Wiseman. I think when you miss all that developmental time, it shows, right? He missed his freshman year at Memphis for the most part, and especially for Bigman, which I think is the learning curve is a little bit steeper in the NBA, especially the way the Warriors are going to want him to play every night. It shows.

He looks lost. He makes a great play, but he can't make it consistent. he's also on a really weird team for a player like that. The minutes he's getting on a team that's on one hand, this sort of veteran championship caliber, Steph Curry, Draymond Green, yet they've lost the step. They don't have Clay Thompson. There's a ton of frustration on this team right now. I mean, it's sort of eking out of the whole team of where they think they should be versus where they are.

I think some of that gets taken out on Wiseman a little bit. I think some people probably need to look in the mirror a little more than at the rookie who didn't play his freshman year at Memphis and expect anything more than you got from Wiseman there. I think on the good end, I think he's got real potential. I think watching him, because to me, he was even a bigger question mark in a certain way about what he was going to be. I think he has real potential. I think he's got a very big learning curve. And typically the number two pick on the draft would be on a team that is going to win 20 games, you know, in a season. And there's plenty of time to just let him go out there and play through his mistakes and live with those mistakes.

The Warriors, I feel like it's harder for them to let him do it. They know they need to develop him. They know he's really important. So they're going to put him out there. But also it's much more difficult for them to live with his mistakes night to night. And, you know, we'll just say, I think, what some of us thought. it also shows that maybe Minnesota and Golden State should have had the courage to have Lamello on their team. I mean, I would have loved to have seen this Warriors team with Lamello

on it. It would be a different thing right now. And that's the bigger question to me. Like, what happened? And I think Minnesota and Golden State have to look in the mirror a little bit. Like, what happened in the breakdown of the draft evaluation process here? because Edwards and Wiseman are kind of what we thought they would be. You know, Lamello's the best version of himself, and so maybe you can say, well, it just got lucky. He's the best version of Lamello, but man, that best version of Lamello, I think would have been a toll game changer for Minnesota and Golden State. Well, especially as you're saying, Chad, just with the way that Biggs develop in general and the trajectory that usually takes, if you're on Golden State's timeline, that's a bit of a tough sell. And I think we talked, as Justin mentioned, a lot about Wise Men and the Warriors last week.

I think one of the undercurrents of that conversation, we probably haven't talked about enough just as a national media, is Biggs in the pick and roll in general. Even that takes time. You know, it's kind of like we talk about should the Warriors play this way or that way, should they run pick and roll with Steph? Should they run kind of their motion split cut offense? Even putting a guy this young in a lot of NBA level pick and rolls is very hard. And so the fact that he was in fits and starts in the rotation, his minutes and roll getting. yanked around, even just to get to that point, it's just such a hard developmental sell for a guy like him with a team like this, given all that was going on around him.

Yeah, I agree with all that. And I feel for him, I think he can learn from it. And we'll find out about toughness and character and some other things right now, because sometimes going through this adversity and being benched the way that he's benched because there's an expectation that's different on him than normally is on rookies at this point, sometimes that can play to a player's advantage. Right now, it looks like it's messing with him mentally more than it's helping him. But let's see how this plays out.

I'm still a big believer in Steve Kerr. I think he's a great coach. I know some people are getting frustrated with him in Golden State. I still believe in him. And I think the Warriors will figure this one out. Yeah. What's interesting with Wiseman is because, as you mentioned, he probably had the least amount of actual post-high school tape among the three guys

that we're talking about. I'm curious if you heard any feedback on like how it went for certain prospects during the pandemic, not being able to play in the team environment or even get into some of the workouts that they typically do. It felt like some guys were talking about how it was beneficial because they could maybe focus more on their player development than they would in years past. But then a case like Wiseman, you start to question whether or not like would have been helpful if you just got more reps at Memphis. Do you have any like sense of how that was received in the NBA and how that's kind of borne out here? I think there was a mystery about it because again, NBA teams aren't able to do the same sort of work that they normally would able to do.

And so they weren't able to go into those gyms the same way and see what the workout situation was like and what he's up to every day. I mean, you hear stuff from the trainers and from the family and from the players about what they're doing. But it was always really helpful for me to go into those workout settings, to see how they're training, to see what they're actually doing on a day-to-day basis. I know that when I come in, there's going to be a show. They know what I'm going to write about and they're going to put on a show. But still, it's interesting to me what the show is. Even what the show is can be really telling about what a player can and can't do.

I know if they're hiding certain things about him. I know if he's not in good shape because they're not going to do anything that's going to get the player winded. I mean, it's really telling. Then you get Damien Lillard. And when they put on the show, it was like Mr. T in the basement. and Rocky 3. I mean, it was like,

we're going to show you that this is the beast of beast. And so we didn't get to see that. And I think just another thing, and I'll say it as well for this class, this class that's coming up, it's really hard to know what to read into how someone reacts to a pandemic. We don't have any track record on it. I just look at my own life,

and I'm mature, and I'm older, and I've got a family. I've got a lot of stuff going on. My reaction to it was all over the place. and, you know, what I thought I was going to be super productive at first, and then there was a while where I was hardly doing anything. I was just binging on Netflix, you know, for a while. Like, I think psychologically how those players have handled that, I think it's very hard for us to have a template to read what a player did during the pandemic and then sort of translate it out to, well, what does that look like?

I'm in the NBA. And I think it's the same reason that college basketball was so tough, at least for me to watch this year, was it felt like a lot of the players just, really had badly missed that summer, really had badly missed that prep time. It was, college basketball was almost unwatchable for a while. But I'm not going to read into that whether a player is going to be a good prospect or not, because myself and so many other people, our reaction to it has been unexpected. I don't think it necessarily says everything about my character or my work ethic, how some days I've just been depressed and just not wanted to do anything because of the uncertainty around it. And I can imagine being an 18, 19, 19 year old, who has

these huge dreams of college basketball or the NBA and knowing how to make any sort of sense out of that at all. I think there's a great warning there too of just overgeneralizing, quote unquote, dealing with adversity of any kind. Like we have, especially I know on the media side, we have a tendency to just kind of do like cause and effect with those sorts of challenges, not just the pandemic, but things in their personal life, personal strife, and just equate that to them bouncing back on the court for some reason as if all the situations are kind of congruent with one another. Yeah, absolutely.

And so I'm always just a little bit hesitant there. And there'll be some great studies in 10 years that, you know, some social psychologists will do about, you know, people's reaction to that or whatever. And then maybe we'll have a better feel for the next pandemic. But I just think right now, man, it's just tough. Yeah, my copy of a final draft is still completely blank. So my brilliant screenplay has not yet been written, even though I had all the aspirations to do that during the pandemic.

Probably this last rookie that I think is among the more obvious guys to talk about is Tyrese Hallburn, who's had probably the opposite of a rookie year as Wiseman. It seems like he is just the bell of the ball. He is everybody's favorite rookie, if not maybe rookie of the year. Are you surprised at how quickly he's kind of put his stamp on the Kings and what he's been able to do there? Not at all. He was my next guy after Edwards ball and Wiseman. And I think the reason he slid was that he was the guy that maybe didn't have the upside that some of the other prospects like Patrick Williams or, you know, Isaac Cooro or other people were bringing to the table.

But the floor was so high for him across the board and what Tyrese Halliburton could do that him stepping in and doing what he did with the Kings was exactly the case for Tyrese Halliburton. That's exactly what we would expect someone with Tyrese Halliburton skills to do. And I think this is a classic case, and I'm going to make the argument again this year with this draft, I think it's fine to swing for upside when upside could land you out of the park, right? Like it land you with a grand slam. But if the upside is a double, and this player's floor is a double, right? I think sometimes the mentality just gets off. And all night on draft night, I was sure that the reason Tyrese Halliburton slid was because

there was like some sort of medical thing that I didn't see, which is often the case. There's going to be some sort of medical report that didn't link to the media, that got teams concerned. Like when he showed up healthy and like ready to go for camp, I mean, I was absolutely baffled because the other thing is there wasn't background stuff on him. The background stuff was stellar with Tyrese Halliburton. And everybody that you talked to said that he was a leader, that he was a great teammate, hard worker, like all of that stuff.

Of course, all that's played out with the Kings. And so I just think this is the case with NBA teams where swinging for that upside. But then, you know, I don't know. What were the Phoenix Suns doing? I mean, they weren't even swinging for upside in the draft. I mean, it's just one of the more confusing slides that I've ever seen on draft night. I still haven't heard a good explanation. Patrick Williams, I can get that.

I could live with that, him going forward. But I don't really think there was a justification after four for not taking Tyre's helper. I wonder how those same factors might work into his development over the next couple years, too, and his role with the Kings. Just the idea that this is the guy you don't worry about. This is the guy who fits with all your lineups,

who fits with whatever star you want to put next to him. He'll play with Darren Fox. He'll back him up, whatever you need. And we see some of this now with their decision to move Halliburton to the bench just as a way to try to solve the variety of problems that they have. I wonder if there,

because he is, he doesn't squeak at all as a wheel if eventually he'll, you can kind of take a player like that for granted even if you're the team that drafted him in the Kings. Yeah, and that's unfortunate. And we know there's players like this

in the league every year. And if a team is going to come back and be really defensive over just what I said, they're going to say is what you see right now from Tyreys Halliburton will be what you'll see in year three. three, you're four, you're five, you're six. He is what he is. And this is sort of what he's doing for the Kings right now, which by the way is really good. You know, when you look at his winchairs, he's right there with Lamello Ball. He's helping the Kings win basketball games right now.

But that's where it's going to be where, you know, Patrick Williams, for example, you know, he could top out to be so much more than that down the road. I just, I'm just not convinced personally that there's many other prospects other than Anthony Edwards or James Wiseman that are going to top out much better than Tyrese Halliburton at the end of the day. And if that's the case, then take the guy that you know is going to top out there, that you're the most confident that's going to top out there. Yeah. I just find some degree of comfort in the fact that everything in the world will change,

but the Kings will still have one too many guards so that they can't even put perhaps their best player or second best player in the starting lineup. Are there any other rookies, Chad, that you have stood out to you, maybe for better or worse? Maybe some of those guys that, you know, went ahead of Halliburton in the draft? Well, I think Patrick Williams is going to be really good. I think we knew he didn't even start on Florida State. I think we knew that this was another developmental pick by the Bulls, but I think it was a good one. I think it was a good bet that they're going to make.

And you watch him in those flashes and you say, okay, this guy is going to be really good. And then there's other nights that it's pretty frustrating to watch him play, but I think that's really expected. But there's nothing that I've seen from Patrick Williams right now that discourages me or makes me think that the Bulls made a mistake where they took him in the draft. I think that he's going to top out right there. He's probably the guy that I could say, you know, might type out ahead of Halliburton. Emmanuel quickly was a guy that I did not have as a first rounder. I didn't see that coming. And so one, that he's a first rounder.

That was a shock on draft night. Two, that he's played as well as he's played for the Knicks is one of the bigger surprises I've had in a while in the draft. He was not on my radar screen for anything like what he's been able to do with New York right now. And isn't that hilarious that Obie Topping the guy that, you know, we thought was like the guy that probably given his age and what he's done could come in and challenge for a rookie of the year. He's really, really struggled in New York, but quickly comes in. and does things that we just didn't see him doing Kentucky. And once again, there's this like this Kentucky player that just sort of bubbles up to the top and starts doing stuff in the NBA that we didn't really see him do at Kentucky,

in part because they were playing also on really loaded basketball teams in Kentucky. And Kalapari had to give everybody their role. Yeah, World Wide West is never wrong. That's the takeaway. I do want to circle back to Patrick Williams for a second, chat, because earlier when you were talking about how we think about upside and the guys who could swing for a double versus a player like Halliburton whose floor is a double, do you think about, when you look at a player like Patrick Williams, who if he's good, given his size, given the

position he plays, like those are such rare players to find, how do you calibrate upside based on position? Like based on if you are this kind of rare, long, active, very big wing who could fill a need for so many teams versus if you're a big who hits his potential or a guard who hits his potential. Well, as you know, Rob, it shifts over time. It's true. It's, it's, It's, you know, I've been doing, I'm so old, I'm Beethoven. I've seen the music style change over the years, right? And so there would have been a time when James Wiseman would have been the no doubt, no brainer number one pick in the draft.

You all, you know, it's why Greg Oden goes ahead of Kevin Duran. I mean, the thinking at the time is you never pass on a big athletic seven-footer, regardless. Now, you know, Kevin Duran is what everybody, everybody wants, you know, this, this, you know, switchable wing who can guard multiple positions, who can stretch the floor, can do other things well. And that's it, right? It's the three and D wing that I think is the most coveted position in the NBA today. It's why Patrick Williams rises. It's why Devin Vassell rises in San Antonio. It's why you're going to see the big board look the way it does in 2021. And why Kate Cunningham,

frankly, is most likely going to be the number one pick in the draft, in part because he plays the right position. More than Jalen Suggs or, you know, more than Jalen Green, he is playing the position that is coveted the most right now in the NBA. And so that's exactly what the Bulls saw. They saw a guy who's going to be a switchable defender. I could stretch the floor, it can score in multiple ways. And I think right now with Patrick Williams, yeah, we're seeing the makings of all of that. And those guys are really, really difficult to find. And I think John Hollinger and others have done a great job of sort of pointing out like where where the real values are in the NBA. And that that's where it is right now, just the way the games play.

So before we turn to 2021, I want to ask about one more rookie who is probably the biggest curio in the league right now. And that's Poku. One day, it seems like he can't play basketball the next day. He's dressing like Russell Westbrook, circa 2008. And the next day, he's, you know, jumping from like the three point line or starting his assent from the three point line and dunking over somebody. Can you just give us a sense? of what Poku is now and what maybe he could be? Because I have no clue either. I mean, you know, the Thunder, this was the worst kept secret in the draft that the Thunder were going to drafting. And, you know, Sam Presti generally is actually pretty good at this. But they saw something.

I mean, you've got to give him credit. I mean, they really saw something with this young man. And I was scratching my head watching his tape because I didn't know what he was on the tape, other than I knew that he was like seven foot, like 180 pounds. And how was anybody with that body going to be able to do anything in the NBA? I mean, that was, you know, I thought, okay, this guy's years down the road. And with that frame, I'm not sure he ever, ever gets there. And so to see, and, you know, this is the difference between like what Wiseman face that Golden State and what Poku faces on the Thunder, where they can let him play through

his mistakes. they can handle and stomach those crazy nights where he's not doing anything, and he's hurting the team in multiple ways. But then you get these nights where he just ignites on fire. And one thing I'll say for him is one thing I don't doubt is his confidence. It doesn't seem like that ever, ever sways with him. But if he starts being able to do this repeatedly, I don't even know who to compare him to. I don't know that there's, I think he'll be.

be like, you know, I was think about, like, I'm not sure I've ever seen an Andre Carolinko again in the NBA. I'm not sure I saw anybody like Andre Carolinko before he came into the draft, and I'm sure I've ever seen anybody after him. Poku has a chance to be one of those guys. I'm not sure we've ever seen anybody before like him, and we've never seen anybody after like him. And I have no idea if you were to ask me today. I wouldn't know what the odds should be on whether he's going to be an NBA player or not. I also don't want to overstate the causality of this because it might just be the fact that he's gotten more time overall, but he's looked like such a different player since he went to the G-League bubble. And again,

maybe that's just a convenient kind of demarcation point. But, you know, between kind of knowing, you know, making a little bit more impact on defense waving around his like pool, noodle arms, between, you know, not settling for every one dribble pull up he can find. There's just so many little things he's doing differently, it feels like, over the course of the year, getting to this point. But to your point, chat, I mean, I don't know that there's any player in the NBA for whom a strength and conditioning program is more important than getting Poku to the point where he can do things where, you know, one bump isn't going to stop his drive. I think this is probably a great future podcast for you, where everybody has to come up with a comp of who they think he's going to be in the NBA and like wage or money on what that's going to be. I think they would be all over the board.

And I think that would be, you know, a lot of guys like everybody will pick the same comp for that player. but with him, I would love to see what that was. Right. Pool noodle is Rob. Put me down for pool noodle, please. All right, before we turn the page here, rookie of the year, if you guys had to vote right now, who would it be?

Chad, do you have a favorite? I just vote for Lamello. I think he's the best rookie, and it wasn't his fault that he got hurt. I think he played enough that the sample size isn't too small. I think he helped his team win basketball games in ways maybe, you know, Harry's struggling to do that, even though I, and Tyrese Halliburton would be my second

pick, you know, for sure. But if I was voting today, I'd vote Lamello. I would too. And for me, especially if we're looking at Edwards as a contender as well, it's not as if Anthony Edwards over the entirety of the season will have some great body of work of contributing to winning. Like he is playing to play. He's playing to get reps. He's playing to evolve his game, to learn how to fit in, to figure out who he is, not so much playing to help the Timberwolves win. And so even if you dock Mello for all the time he's going to end up missing, I just think ultimately we have a better sense of who Lomelo is as a player and who he will be, and that's a stronger case so far.

But the totality of a season, I think it's just going to help the Hornets more than Anthony Edwards will, the wolves, if he's the primary point of comparison. Yeah, I voted for a Bid in 2017. That was the only year I had an official vote. And it's funny, I went back and looked at the old ballots that ESPN runs. And Chad, you had in Bede as well. I don't think it's surprised that both of us are probably going to lean more toward the guy who looked like a superstar and like played, did something special versus someone who maybe contributed

a little bit more for longer, you know? Why I think you might win too is the pride of all those writers, you know, people go back and look at those votes later and they don't always understand the context of it. So you kind of want to look right for prosperity as well. And I think Lamello is going to look better in five years than it. Anthony Edwards, for sure. Well, this may be a case, too, where, as we said, you know, all the stat nerds are not going to vote for Anthony Edwards, I don't think.

And all of, like, the Hoosiers-loving, you know, heart of the game people, I don't think are going to be huge Anthony Edwards fans either. So maybe there's an alignment on both sides of the political divide here. Yeah. The centrist's pick is going to be political. I'll just say that. All right. Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we're going to talk about the 2021 draft. So Rob and I are not really college fans. At the very least, I knew that the Final Four was happening a couple weeks ago. I had to inform Rob that Jalen Suggs was still playing. So, Chad, we're going to need a lot of help here. We're going to need a crash course. So my sense of things right now is that it's a pretty clear top five of Cade Cunningham, Mowbly, Suggs, Green, comminga. Is that right?

And I think on top of that, is there a big gap between Cade and that? those other four guys? No, I don't think there's a big gap. I think there's a positional gap that's helping him more than anything else. So what is it about those five? I guess that's a pretty broad question, but like, is there anything about those guys that makes them stand out from the other ones? I think that when you look at all these players, all of them rank as tier one. I think all of them would have gone number one in the 2020 draft. And that's because what happened in the 2020 draft was there were some high ceilings, but all those high ceiling guys had kind of scary floors. And the last thing you want is the number one pick is to stick your neck out there and then

have it blow up in your face and be Anthony Bennett. And you lose your career over that. I mean, I really think you do. You can't screw that up. And so one of the things that I think is there's such a comfort level with this draft, Kate Cunningham, high ceiling, high ceiling. High floor. Evan Mobley, high ceiling, high floor. Jalen Suggs, high ceiling, high floor. Jalen Green, high ceiling, high floor. Kaminga might be the only one where the floor is a little scarier, in part because he's the youngest player in this draft. He reclassified, and so he came in essentially as a high school junior, jumped his senior year, went into the G-League. And it's clear when you watch him play, that the basketball part of his game is still coming together.

The physical tools that he has are incredible, but that other parts there. And so that's the first thing I would say. I mean, when you draft a guy number one or two, you want that combination of high ceiling, high floor. And I have no doubt that Kate Cunningham is going to be a really, really good player in the league. Whether he ends up being the best player in this draft, I think you can have a real great debate about that. Jalen Suggs, I don't have any question that he is going to be a great player in the league. Evan Mobley, the same thing. Jalen Green is one of the purest scores that I've seen come in this

draft in a long time is going to be incredible. And then, you know, whether they become superstars or not, that's a legitimate question because each of them have parts of their game that they need to refine. I think Kate Cunningham goes to, rises to the top because of the positionality question that we just talked about. He is the prototypical do everything, six, seven wing guy that can pass the ball, handle the ball, play point guard, shoot the basketball, shot 40% from three this year, can defend multiple positions on the floor, super high feel for the game. And the other thing about Kate Cunningham, I mean, he comes with a little bit of this clutch, this clutch play. he takes over games at the end of games when Oklahoma State, which was not a very talented basketball team this year, besides him, was in trouble.

Kate Cunningham can step up. But he's very comfortable letting the game come to him and letting other players succeed. There's no hero ball there. I think that's really cool about Jalen Suggs as well. There are players that you absolutely would want to take the last shot at the end of the game, but they don't have to take that shot if they don't want to. And so I think that's great. You know, teams shy away from bigs, but Evan Mobley is the modern NBA big that can do everything offensively. Whether it's, I mean, Chris Bosch is just such an obvious comparison to what he is,

except Chris Bosch was not a rim protector. And Evan Mobley is an actually excellent rim protector, which is something that I think will go. Or Powell Gassol is another person I've seen a lot with Evan Mobley. But again, you know, Powell didn't really give the rim protection. You're talking about five just ridiculously skilled players that their weaknesses are minor weaknesses, not major ones. If we are going to venture outside those top five prospects, and if anybody has a chance to crack that group based on the right general manager

with a very particular taste having a pick at the right time, who do you think that player could be? Well, I think there's like a Tyrese Halliburton in this draft. And I think after those five, it's scary. I'll just be honest, like six to like 14, where the draft is super strong. It's like six to 14. Now we're talking about high upside, scary floor with a lot of these guys. That's where we're moving.

With the exception of Davian Mitchell out of Butler, or sorry, out of Baylor. Davian Mitchell, to me, is already going to come into the NBA and being elite. defender. He's the best on the ball defender in college basketball. He's built like a tank. He's got length. He's got burst athleticism. He's got the mentality, the toughness. And he just wreaked havoc. No one's going to want to play against him, even in the NBA. He's going to be a monster there. And he's pretty skilled offensively. He shot 45% from three. He is a good ball handler. He's not an elite passer, but he gets the job done. Is this is the turnover ratio is great. He's got that elite first step and burst and you can finish at the basket. The only knock on him is that he's 22 years old.

And the track record of 22-year-old players at this point in the draft is pretty poor, right? And I know this confuses people that don't follow the draft really. Well, why would that matter whether he's 22 or isn't that better? Like, he's more ready to come in. But when you compare an 18-year-old or a 19-year-old or a 22-year-old, those are such huge developmental years. It's really, really difficult to compare those to. And by the way, the top players are weeding out every year in the draft. And so, you know, you're not playing with the same level of competition. And so what a player is at 22, it's tough to compare them to what they are at 19. And Davy Mitchell is a great example of that he did not look like a first or second round

prospect his freshman year at Auburn. He ends up transferring to Baylor. He was not really on the radar screen in the second year at Baylor. And he started this season as like a bubble first round pick that just has moved up. And so that's, that is a legitimate question. Has he peaked? Have we seen like peak Davy and Mitchell right now? But the weirdest thing about him, this is the other weird thing about comps. You know, our brains do stuff to us all the time and, you know, we get a comp in our head and it's hard to let go. But he is weirdly a comp to Donovan Mitchell, to the same number, to their body type, to the way they play the game. It's, it's weird. It's a Davian Mitchell and a Donovan Mitchell, and you think that that is why you would make the connection.

But Tony Jones, the athletic, has been on my show a couple of times, and he's scouted them both, and he says they're like twins. In fact, players on the jazz kept coming up to Donovan and saying, that's your brother, it's your cousin, like it's, you're related. And even Donovan has said, yeah, I mean, I see it. And so you think about what Donovan Mitchell has become in the NBA. And I think he, to me, is the no-brainer next guy that you take. the board. If you're going to get Donovan Mitchell as the six pick in the draft or something

like unto that, I think that's great. And then everybody else that we're going to talk about afterwards, Franz Wagner, Scotty Barnes, you know, Keon Johnson, all these guys, big, big upsides, really shaky performances in college basketball as freshmen or sophomores. And you just got to bet that their strengths beat their weaknesses. So was Mitchell the biggest winner? from the tournament or with someone like Suggs that he Well Mitchell won the NCAA title and so yeah I'm to absolutely say he's the biggest winner and I mean he moved I may have been a little bit higher on him than some I think was 18 on my

board before the NCAA tournament so even that 18 to 6 is a is a big jump so absolutely I the interesting thing is the needle doesn't move for Suggs I don't think I think he goes three to five and I think he was going to go three to five before. I think Evan Mobley is probably going to go number two. I mean, we're talking about a seven-footer with a seven to five wingspan that moves the way that he does, that can stretch the floor, that can actually create his own shot off the dribble, which is one of the things about Evan Mobley that I think is really intriguing. And you're going to be a shot blocker. I know they shy away from Biggs, but players like that, they're kind of unicorns.

They don't come along very often. And I think a seven-footer that does all that stuff is going to beat out a 6-4 combo guard that has the heart of a lion. And that's what I would say about Jalen Suggs. He just has the heart of a lion. And I think everything we thought about Jalen Suggs was exactly who he was in the NCAA tournament. So I just don't think the needle moved as much for him. But if he was 6'7, then, yeah, I probably would be more comfortable with Jailen Suggs.

Jailen Sugs to me has that thing. I hate talking about it because I don't like the mysterious part of the draft. But if you believe in like it factor, if you believe that there's just certain players that have a swagger or a presence about them that just translates to winning them on the court, then Jalen Suggs is your guy all the way. People who meet him, coaches, trainers, you know, NBA scouts that have met him, everybody will like say the same thing. There's just the presence that he brings into the room and on the court. And they love it. And so if you're looking for your it guy in this draft, it's Jalen. what do you think were the lessons you took away from and the feedback you're hearing from

maybe the team side or on the NBA side about the G League Ignite as, you know, exercise in season one of its existence? I think everybody's a huge fan. And I think that we're going to see the NBA throw more support behind it. And I think you're going to start seeing a lot more players go there because the one thing, and it's interesting because those guys end up four and five instead of one, two, and three, you know, green and sucks. but I think that probably has a little bit more to do with their skill sets than it does with

the fact that they were somehow hurt in the G League or they didn't get the great stage that Suggs God or Mowbly got in the NCAA tournament. But I think every scout that I talked to said it was much easier to scout them. They're playing against NBA players or older players that were the best players in college basketball every night. The style of play is an NBA style of play. They're running NBA sets. They're asking you to do NBA things.

The college basketball game, depending on your team, but for most teams, is a different game than the NBA. And so you're asking players to do different things. And that you got to see them in this very professional environment, even in the bubble and able to scout through them that way. I think they felt like, I feel like scouts feel like they have a great handle on all four of those players. And the G League actually makes them more confident in their scouting evaluations than college basketball does. And so because of that, I think that when you see two people that do the G-League experiment go three to five in the draft, you're going to see a number of other prospects look at that and say, I can make money right now. I can play pro. It's not going to hurt my draft stock at all.

And college basketball isn't for me. And I'm just going to run to the G-League. And I think the NCAA is going to have a problem on their hands. Yeah. I mean, that's the big question going forward here. I think you saw a couple people after the Sugg's big shot start to wonder, well, this is why you go to college basketball, right? You could become more of a superstar, yada, yada.

But do you think we'll see more people in the Ignite sort of system, not less? I think we're going to see more. I think also as it becomes a thing, it'll get more television. They were televised and you could watch them. But you know, you're not going to look, you're never going to have the hype of a final four in the G League. You're not going to have that. but I also think from a developmental standpoint, I'm just thinking about the prospect for a minute.

Look, I'm a college professor. I love college. I'll be there to defend college. I think there's a social aspect of college as well. That's deeply underrated. I also think it's great to let young people be young people for a bit and not have to run from being 18 to being a professional. I'll say all that.

But from a pure basketball developmental standpoint, one of the reasons that Europe has had an advantage over the U.S. for years is they take players at 12, 13, 14 years old, and they put them in a pro system. And they start developing them. They're essentially in boarding school. They're doing basketball, eight, nine, ten hours a day. They're practicing against professionals. They're getting professional coaching every day.

And then surprise, surprise, the Luca Donset's of the world bubble up. And there are these incredibly, you know, skilled basketball players. And we don't have that same system in America. The high school experience can be wildly varied based off of what you're going to get. But same with college. And I think that being able to offer these young players, Brian Shaw S coach, being on the floor with veteran NBA players, because even the G League Ignite team have veteran NBA players on it that are explaining to you what works in the league, what doesn't work in the league,

how to conduct yourself, all of that stuff. If I was just interested in like it was my child, and I don't have a prospect that could make the G-League. But if it was my child, I was just interested in their basketball development. I actually think the G-League is a better route for them than going college basketball. But there's other things about college, like we said, the human development part that certainly could. College basketball is not going anywhere. But I think a lot of the chatter on Twitter is the old guard protecting college basketball. I think there's a place for both.

Yeah, if we accept that there's certain things that the G League Ignite will never be able to replicate. That college experience you were talking about, the final four experience that Justin laid out, what are the things in between in that kind of gray area that the G.L. League Ignite could offer or could offer more effectively or better than what they do now to close that gap. Well, let's just be honest. College basketball doesn't pay anybody anything. Yeah. And that's a hardship for a lot of these players, not for everybody, but for a lot of the players.

This is a true hardship for them and their families. and it's something that they have to worry about. Their labor goes uncompensated. And I think that this, one, from a psychological standpoint, allows you to get an endorsement, allows you to make some money, allows you to take care of your family and some other stuff that's going on, which I think is just huge. And to me, it's a major flaw in the college basketball system. They should be playing, in my opinion, they should be paying these athletes,

giving the amount of money that college basketball has. And I think that that could close the gap. I think the other thing is just what I can get away with in college basketball. We see it happening over and over again. I can't get away with in the NBA. And it's hard for me to learn that because I can get away with it at college. In fact, my coach might actually be telling me that play a certain way. But when you go to the G League, they're learning very, very quickly from day one in practice.

Oh, you did that in high school? That got you what you want? not going to get it there anymore. And they have to make that adjustment at a time. I think they're more pliable as prospects and more able to start to think about, I have to adapt my game and grow my game. And I have to learn a new game now. And I think there's a certain arrogance sometimes that comes out of, I was a dominant at Duke or I was dominant at Kentucky. I'm the guy. I'm ready. And then they hit the NBA and it's like hitting a brick wall. All of a sudden, they find out everything that made me so great there might not make me there. And so I think it's cutting out

bad habits early. And I also think it's a dose of humility. If you've listened to like interviews with Jonathan Kaminger, Jalen Green, there's a humility that they've brought to this, to this, they've gotten their butts kicked on, on given nights. They actually performed much better as a team than we expected them to. I'm interestingly enough, they even made the G-League playoffs, which was a surprise. But I think that, you know, the mindset that the G-League is preparing you for is better than what college basketball is preparing you for. I think J-Luggs, even J-Lie-Lie sucks because I got to believe some of that's got to start getting into your head and start blowing up your head a little bit. That wouldn't have happened had it gone to the G League.

Right. Yeah, it's a fascinating development because you imagine that like the NBA, this is the start of something. It's not going to be just the end of it, especially if the one and done rule gets abolished in the near future, which just seems like it's going to. And then maybe a couple years down the road, do you think like we'll see like a feeder system or like a junior system? Is that like what the NBA you think might be trying to set up here? Because that would be a really intriguing kind of wrinkle. I think it would be, it's just so hard, like, because it's America. I mean, let's just face it, it's because it's America. If we were a more socialistic country and thought about those sorts of things, the way that most of the countries that have feeder

systems like that sort of just think in general about life and career and everything else, I think it would make a lot of sense. It's hard for us to agree on anything in the United States. And a feeder system, while the NBA could pull it off, I think the NBA has always walked very carefully along this line. What is our relationship to college basketball? What is our relationship to AAU to a number of other things? And so I don't know that they take that over. I'm not sure that they could, maybe they could pull it off, successfully pull it off. But I think there's some ethical issues there that the NBA would be nervous about in America. But it's interesting because tennis, you know, gymnastics, lots of other sports, the answer.

as there is, right? There essentially is this feeder system that ultimately feeds to the Olympics and gets people in. So it's plausible. I just not sure with football or basketball, it'll ever get there. It's definitely a fascinating time and definitely feels like we're at kind of something of an inflection point. But we'll keep a tab on that and we'll also keep track of these prospects here coming up. Seems like a pretty exciting draft. Chad, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, I really enjoyed being on the show. This is awesome. All right. We'll be back next week. week. Thank you to Bobby Wagner for sitting in on production, the forgotten Wagner brother. We'll be back next week. We'll see them.