The Ringer NBA Show - James Harden Thinks the Media Settles on MVP Narratives Too Soon. Is He Right? | Group Chat

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

We play a game of ‘Is This a Thing?’ with a slew of offseason story lines, including: James Harden’s comments about how the media chooses the MVP, the Orlando Magic’s locked-in roster, the outlook for Team USA in the 2020 Olympics, Isaiah Thomas’s injury, and Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram’s potential as a young duo. Hosts: Justin Verrier and Danny Chau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. We hope you enjoyed listening to Break Stuff, The Story of Woodstock 99 on Luminary. Now continuing with our 99 theme, I wanted to let you guys know we've got all new episodes of the rewatchables, 1990 starting back up right now. Since we've returned, we have rewatched eyes wide shut and election, and up next is never been kissed and many more 1999 classics. So make sure to check out the Rewatchables 1999 on Luminary. Basketball is very good The Rockets should bring back Mello

Devin Booker is actually a winning player Bruno Caboclo will win Brazil the World Cup Basketball is very good Hello and welcome to the Ringer NBA show This is the group chat I am Justin Verrier and joining me

on the hotline From Canada Your guy and mine, it's Danny Chow Long time no here you talk Justin, this is, this is fantastic. How do I sound? More distinguished? You sound great. You sound a lot less loud than when I usually

do it in person. Less loud. Oh, that's interesting. Perhaps I'm becoming a more measured, mature adult. My volume on this laptop is like really low. I'll give you that, too. Bobby is also with us. Hi, Bobby. Hi, Justin. I'm happy to be here

for such a barn burner of an episode. Yes, we've got a lot to talk about. So in honor of Danny's return, we're going to play our favorite game. I don't think it's anybody's besides Danny and I's favorite game. It's called Is This a Thing? In which we talk about things in the news and we decide whether or not it is a thing. Yeah, this is a cribbed from the Orlando Magic broadcast, which was itself cribbed from, I believe, like a David Letterman thing on his show. Right.

So, yeah. Someone on Twitter told us about this after we tried to do it as a bit, not knowing the history about it or even what the official title for the Orlando Magic segment was. I believe it was Ian Carmel, if I'm remembering correctly. And now he has an Emmy and I have Bobby. So we're pretty much the same sort of situation. We all have the Orlando Magic. This is an Orlando Magic podcast now. We are going to talk about the magic, much to Bobby's applause.

But we will get there soon enough. But first, let's talk about James Hardin. You guys know who James Hardin is. Let's talk about him. So I'm calling this segment Hardin's revision is history. Hardin has been doing some media locally, and then also he was in GQ for a Q&A. He's been showing up a little bit more.

He did a Howard Beck story that came out this week as well. It's all to promote his shoe, the new shoe, the Hardin Fours or whatever they're called. Oh, that makes sense. wondering why he was just all of a sudden in the mix of everything. Yeah, so he has a shoe. The one thing I do want to talk about here, which is probably the most important nugget in the broad scheme of things,

he went on a local Houston radio station pretty recently. He had a lot to say about the media's influence on the MVP race. He basically said that the media comes into the season with an MVP candidate in mind, and that's kind of how it colors the entire race from there. he was asked about this again in GQ, and he pretty much doubled down on it. His full quote is, but they, and he's referring to the media here,

for sure got some teams they locked in on. We all know that's just what it is. You can't tell me that a guy whose team was a 14 seed at one point last year and ended up a 4 seed with everything that was going on, so many injuries, and who went on a 32-game, 30-point streak, 8 50 point games,

two 60 point games in one season and all the talk was about I don't know what he said here but in parentheses Yanosance Coupo there's no way So that's Hardin's Riveting.

Yeah that's hard and especially riveting as I give this dramatic interpretation of it That's what Hardin's take on the situation is Danny, is this a thing? I mean I don't think he's necessarily wrong in saying that the media cherry picks certain storylines to fall more intently than others.

And I think this is something that we've mentioned, especially in the thick of the MVP race last season, there was always certainly going to be some sort of like narrative fatigue with Harden being, you know, a top three boat getter for the past four or five years or however long it's been. I think it's been like three or four seasons. You know, repeating as an MVP, which he won the year before last year, it's really hard to do.

you know, it took the greatest regular season in NBA history for Steph to win his second one. Before that, you know, Steve Nash, who won, you know, two in a row, it's probably, that probably wouldn't have happened in, you know, if we were to redo it now. But, you know, he lost Amari in his second year and they still ended up a two seed. So for the Rockets to have made their ascent sure, and Hardin had ridiculous numbers, but they still only ended up being the four seed. I think there's a certain weight that's given to team success that we just can't really take out of the MVP race. So ultimately, I don't know. I feel like this is a weird thing for Harden to continue harping on.

Yeah, if there's anything holding him back before he played any games of last season, I think it was probably that he had just won one. Because we get voter fatigue. And as we've learned over the course of pretty much, I feel like Derek Rose is the tipping point here. The storyline really does kind of dictate how we talk about these guys and thus perhaps appreciate them.

I don't know. I mean, the interesting thing here is that Janus was also statistically, I don't think it was historically, Doric, but at the very least, he was pretty, like, unprecedented or close to unprecedented. I know we were tracking for a while whether or not he would reach a certain bar in terms of statistics that no one in history had ever reached. I don't think he ultimately got there. But still one of the best seasons in recent history, probably.

And his team was atop the east, which Hardin's team did not do. And I think that is important, even though you get into the weird situation where it's like, oh, how much you hold Hardin's weird roster construction against him, yada, yada, yada. I just, I don't know. It just seems a little bit weird, but I don't necessarily disagree with him on the fact that, like, these things, we tend to settle on stories and that it's tough to really move off of them. I remember writing something about Kobe, when Kobe was pretty much the lone warrior left on the Lakers, and he was trying to do stuff with, you know, Jeremy Lynn and all those guys around him.

the fact that the bar was lowered, I wondered whether or not any sort of success with the Lakers had they just made the playoffs would have been hailed as some heroic feat because we had set expectations. The whole kind of cliche is that you don't really win titles in the preseason or whatever. But I do think there is some merit

to the fact that we kind of interpret the league based on preseason and what we're talking about right now. No? Right. Yeah. And I, it's actually kind of funny that I think in the interview, James Harden was like, I'm putting up numbers that, you know, haven't been seen since Kareem. And that's kind of what Yonis did too. So it's like not necessarily the comparison you should be making. But like, you know, yeah, it makes sense. Karim was a statistical, you know, behemoth. But I don't know. I feel like reading Howard Beck's profile of James Hardin in the, in Bleach's profile of James Hardin in the, in Bleed Trump. report kind of gave a little bit more context to kind of what's happening right now in this James Harden media junket, whatever it is. A big part of the framing in that piece was how James

Harden is now on the wrong side of 30. And that's kind of typically where, you know, the pressure of feeling like you need to cement your legacy starts to kind of take hold. Yeah, and I think it's pretty clear that James Harden is someone who really cares about his legacy. He throws around the word legendary so often when he talks about his own game, which is, I don't know if that's necessarily like conducive to, you know, getting people on your side. Right. But it makes sense. Like, we saw that ESPN did that survey about who their, who on their staff or who their staff thought was

the NBA player of the decade. I think that happened earlier this week, right? Right, yeah, they've been running a package about this past decade in the NBA. Yeah, and so LeBron was at number one, Steph was at number two, and Katie was at number three. And I think it's pretty hard to argue with that. And so James Hardin and Kauai Leonard were tied at number four. And yeah, I think part of it is also like, look, if this guy never wins a ring and if he kind of continues on this path.

I'm sure he doesn't want to be remembered as like a Charles Barkley figure. Yeah, I kind of get the sense that there's a lot of that at play here. I think you bring up a good point. I do feel like Hardin, maybe more than anyone in recent history, has really tried to create his own persona. I don't think that he is a particularly dynamic, like speaker or character, but because he has the big beard. And he plays a certain way.

I think Adidas or whoever is behind his marketing, and he himself have tried to lean into this idea that he is like just weird creator type, but that doesn't really jive with him as a person because I remember doing a story on him, a feature on him where I sat down with him when he was, I think he just won six men in a year. And he's just kind of like standoffish.

She's just not the most willing interview subject. And I believe Pablo Tori wrote almost this sort of idea or at least played with this idea about, it was an ESPN in the magazine cover story in which it was like, Hardin is basically selling himself as this, but is he really that guy? And I can't help but wonder, both because of that and because of what he's specifically talking about, whether or not he is now trying to play the game. The conspiracy theory in me, or a conspiracy theorist in me, is saying, well, perhaps he is now trying to counter what he thinks happened last year and is trying to get ahead of things and say, well, don't worry about the narrative.

I, like, I should be at the forefront. No? Am I wrong here? I, yeah, I don't know if, I don't know, man. Like, I don't think, I don't think it's going to work. I don't think he's going to be in the MVP running this year. It's just been too many years of kind of the same thing happening over and over and over again. And with the introduction of Russell Westbrook, that's going to cut into his usage.

And he's not going to be able to make the same impact that he did last year. He may never have that opportunity again. It was just such an unprecedented workload for a player. But yeah, I think that what he's been doing with his own persona and with, you know, the shoe deal and the way that they've tried to kind of promote him as this creator. I think it's interesting that while he isn't a very dynamic, like, off-court personality, he's found ways to continually evolve his personality on the floor, which is something that doesn't really happen often at all in professional sports.

Just in terms of the way he plays, you mean? The way he plays, the way he, every year he tends to bring something new to the table that isn't just like, oh, look, I learned from Hakim how to hit a fade away or how to like pivot my foot. It's a few steps left of that. And it's always something that like only he seems to understand is a legal move. Right. And this is stuff that, and he's mentioned this before, like young kids. and kids, you know, we saw this in the NCAA tournament. There were so many, you know, players who were essentially their team's only offense,

suddenly busing out these, you know, stepbacks and crafty dribbles. And it's like he does have a significant impact on how the younger generation sees the game. It's just, I don't know if he's necessarily going to be up there in terms of like, ultimately what I'm saying is I think he's going to end up being like this kind of cult favorite. Yeah, that's interesting. And I mean, he's only kind of doubled down on that this offseason, right? He's taking these one-footed, like, leaning back three-pointers in these kind of like New York runs that everyone, Instagram stories and whatnot. So I guess we'll see.

I mean, I guess briefly here before we move on, it brings up the question, if not hardened for MVP. Like, what does your early ballot look like or who are the guys you expect to be in the mix this year? I think Janice is still going to be up there. I think AD, if he's fully healthy, should be up there. Steph Curry, definitely if he stays healthy, there's so little resistance on the Warriors this year, given all the injuries and given all the kind of uncertainty with that team, I think Steph is definitely up there in the top three.

After that, it really comes down to which team surprises the most. Let me throw this guy out at you. Nicola Yokic. How do you feel about that? Yeah. I mean, I am as pro-Yokic as it gets. I think there's just so much that he can do that I've never seen before. And another year of this team kind of coalescing, finding their way with the younger guys on their team, maybe kind of seeing the twilight of the whole Paul Millsap experiment.

I think there's a lot of room for Yokish to kind of grow. and with the West being this kind of nebulous, morass at the top, you know, we don't know if Kauai and Paul George are going to be playing

many games this season. We don't know how the Lakers are going to be fitting together. We don't know how many of these teams are going to be fitting together. I think the continuity that Yokic has around him, it's a big boon.

Yeah, I think they can win a lot of games. I think that he could increase his ususage. I think he could increase his stats. I've talked about this before, but I think the only thing that's, only thing against them is perhaps what Hardin is talking about is the narrative. Perhaps they just win 60 games and it's not it's not sexy and we probably just won't even think about it, whereas Steph is overcoming adversity, overcoming odds and some of these injuries and perhaps that's

a more attractive vote. But the numbers, the numbers really can't lie though. Like if Yolkech ends up being a guy who can put up the numbers he put up in the playoffs, which were just staggering, like 27 points, 12 rebounds, you know, basically averaging a 27, point triple double at the center position. It's, there's no way to go around that. 2011 and seven last year in the regular season.

I mean, he could, he doesn't have to do much and he can average a triple double. And while as we've learned in previous MVP discussions, that can be fraught, I think it would take it to another level if it's this like 250 pound seven footer doing it. So that's something to keep track of. Let's move on to someone who is never boring.

and that is Markell Fultz. Even though I could not even tell you the last time I have seen him just like even in video footage, earlier this week, the Magic picked up his team option for the 2021 season. So that's not next season, this coming season. That is the season after. So apparently they are pretty encouraged by the full experiment,

even though he never ended up playing for the Magic after that mid-season trade last season from the Philadelphia 76ers. in the midst of all that, they also picked up options on Mo Bamba and Jonathan Isaac for the same season. Fultz's option, a whopping 12.3 million,

because even though he hasn't really played much, he was the number one pick a few years ago, remember that. So, Danny, the magic picking up Fultz's option. Is this a thing? I mean, this is a very real thing for the magic, because now they've locked up their core, and

they've locked up their core with a guy who we haven't gotten an update on his actual status as a basketball player. Which is important. Yeah, yeah, which is important given that he's being given all this money to play basketball ostensibly. And is a basketball player, yes. Yeah. We haven't gotten an update since Summerlee, and that update was there is no timetable.

Great. That's great. That's great stuff. And as far back as like maybe April, when they were eliminated by the Ravory, and the rafters in the first round, I think there was a question posed to the team in the exit interviews about Fultz and whether he was cleared to play. At that point, he hadn't been cleared for five on five. Great stuff. So, yeah, this is, this is, um, shouts out to Kevin Clark. Um, right. This is a, this is a team to watch. I mean, they've, they've, they've clearly, uh,

they're all in on, on their, their young guys. And I think that's, that's commendable. Yeah. and that we don't know anything about their young guys. Yeah, right. Yeah, I think that's the important thing to talk about because we can't really talk about Fultz because we don't know where he is or what he's doing or what he looks like or whether or not he has grown a third arm. But the magic not so quietly have really kind of committed

to the core of a team that just snuck into the playoffs on one of the last days, I believe, and ended up taking a game on the eventual champion Toronto Raptors. So maybe that perhaps colored, like, how good they are going forward, but ended up losing the next four pretty handedly. They brought back Nicola Yolke. She's making $26 million or $28 million a year next year. Sorry. Aaron Gordon is still here making 19.8.

Evan Fornier, Bobby's guy, somehow making $17 million. They bring back Terence Ross. And as you mentioned, they're doubling down on all this young talent, all of whom, or not all of whom, but most of whom, except. for Fultz probably is best utilized at center. And they also bring in Al-Farukaminu. And so you wonder whether or not this all

came together a little bit too quickly. Right. And honestly when you say, you know, Fultz probably isn't best suited at center, given what we know about his NBA game, which is that he could hit a midter range shot, maybe he is. Right. That's a great point. So they

they've committed to a third year of Bamba, not knowing, well, knowing what we know in that he has, you know, clear structural issues in terms of being able to stand the court. He's had injury concerns in the past. Isaac had a pretty promising year last year, but it still wasn't necessarily what, you know, Magic fans were expecting in, you know, a top 10 pick from 2016. Or, sorry, 2017. It's a lot to commit. It's a lot to commit to a bunch of question marks, and the few kind of solid ground type players that they have haven't really moved the needle in their careers. So I'm not quite sure what we're looking at, but I think that's the point. They're just kind of banking on this promise. Right. It is a little

confusing, though, because I'm not the biggest bomb a supporter. I see why he's so tantalizing, especially if he's able to hit outside shots. But what about my guy, Ken Birch? Our guy, Danny, Ken Birch. He's still in the mix and he's probably a better center

even when Bomba is healthy right now. And you just locked up Nicola Yochich for 26, 28 million over the next four years. Nikola Boosovich. What did I say? Yokic. Yokic.

Yeah. They wish. Right. And what I think is really interesting is that at the start of Aaron Gordon's career, there was so much consternation about like, oh, man, he's probably best at power.

forward, why are they keep putting him at small forward? What are they going to do? And they pretty much set themselves up to a point where Aaron Gordon can only play small forward. Right. So that's weird. Now, the flip side of this is something that Jonathan Charks wrote about for us on the Ringer during our Are We Sure series. They did quietly come on late last season,

especially on the defensive end, when they made some lineup adjustments that ended up just working out for them. So I don't know how much that's fools gold because it was played at a point of the season where you don't know who is in the lineup or whether or not the Cavs will play someone you've never heard of before. But at the same time, you look at the roster and you see all those long bodies and you think, well, at the very least they could play defense. And that is something in the past that Steve Clifford has made the most of when he was

in Charlotte, even though he didn't have a wealth of offensive talent pretty much every season he was there except for maybe one where they really leaned into three-point shooting. He just, like, they didn't turn the ball over and they played defense really well. And I wonder if the magic have fatigue about, you know, being in this rebuilding process for so long, or if they see the matchup of what their roster is with Clifford and think, hey, the East is kind of soft right now after two or three, maybe we can make a jump here. I don't know. What do you think their ceiling is next year? Next year, I mean, I can see them climbing up to maybe a sixth seed if all things go well.

I mean, they do have a lot of athletic talent. And Jonathan Isaac, towards the end of that season last year, became the kind of player that basically every team covets. You want that kind of three and D player who can go between two to three. positions defend multiple positions. He was shooting a lot more threes with confidence. Aaron Gordon, more or less the same player, who is a very serviceable starter in the NBA. It's just, it's funny that they've kind of doubled up on all of these positions and kind of made it so that no player can actually play his rightful, you know, optimized position.

And yet they still have not done anything to solve their. point guard situation, which is kind of what they need to set the table for all of these players. So their point guard lineup is DJ Augustine, who will be in his final season with the magic before his contracts up. MCW, who agreed to a one-year deal. Josh Majet, who is a D-2 player. Not a real guy. Yeah, I mean, he's had stints with basically every summer.

league team. And Markell Fultz, if he's still corporeal. That's really, really dark, bleak times in terms of their point guard situation. I don't know how you kind of overlook that, but I don't know. DJ Augustine is eternal, man. We've been saying for like three or four years, where are the magic going to get a point guard finally? And DJ Augustine is out here starting literally almost every game.

He started 81 games last year. He won a playoff game. Single-handedly swung a playoff game. Right, yes. That's all that matters. I'm looking at the teams that finished above the magic last year in the Eastern Conference standings. And all I'm seeing are question marks. So the Bucks, we expect to be good again. The Sixers are probably right there.

They'll probably push the Bucks. Maybe be the second or first best team in the East next year. The Raptors, obviously kind of in a reboot mode. we don't know what they're going to do. The Celtics are talent-wise. They have a lot of guys, but as we saw in DEM USA, perhaps maybe not the right guys, especially if they can't stay healthy.

The Pacers did a lot of good things this off-season, but Victor Oladipo, we don't know when he's going to come back. I believe the timeline is December or January, so that's a lot of games before you get your best player. And the Nets have Kyrie and pretty much the same team as last year, but I don't know if that's, there's a lot to figure out there. So if we're banking on consistency,

if we're saying the bucks perhaps have that in their back pocket and that could lead to another 60 win season, the magic, they probably have the most consistency on the board. This is basically the team from last year with Alphuru Camino for some reason. So, I don't know.

I will honestly take any of those teams with a competent point guard with like a star level point guard than this magic team. I just like, I think with all of these, guys, you need someone to feed them the ball. But how many centers do

the Nets have? That's the biggest question. When the magic put out five centers against you, what are you going to do, my friend? That's it. That's the joke. All right. On that note, but wait, Bobby, do you have anything else to say about the magic? I know this is your new

found favorite team. All I want to say is DJ Augustine, Evan Fornier, pick and roll God back court right there. Please just play the Euro style just run Evan Fournier off picket rolls and let him shoot off the dribble. That's it. What do you need more in 2019 than that? I like it.

Bobby, I think you've just put in your resume for assistant coach on Steve Clifford staff. Let's get it. Let's get it indeed. We're going to take a quick break and then talk about some other stuff you probably don't want us to talk about. We're back. It's Danny. It's Bobby. We're wondering if things are actually indeed things.

This is probably biggest news of this week, if we're considering Hardin's whatever he was doing this week in the media, just a rehashing of previous arguments. The Olympics, they're back. Team USA. Maybe they're back. So as we worried

in the kind of aftermath of Team USA finishing 7th at the Feeba World Cup, we wondered whether or not all of the cavalry would come back, some of the stars that either didn't even consider playing in the tournament or dropped out whether or not they would be willing to go

next year at the Tokyo Olympics. Turns out there is some interest. So Steph Curry, among the first to commit, he told ESPN's Rachel Nichols, that is the plan. Jermon Green told CNBC, don't know what he was doing there. I do hope to play.

And Damien Willard, I don't know the veracity of this account because it was told to something called news.com slash. . .a. while on a trip to Sydney. So this very well might be made up. I plan on playing.

So there's that. Danny, are all these superstars committing to Team USA a thing? I mean, this is like decidedly not a thing. Like I can say right now that, you know, I intend on, you know, being at game seven of the NBA, finals next year. And like, no one can hold me to that because, like, it's not happening yet. I don't

know. Like, none of this really means anything. Yeah. Like, remember, I mean, remember, like, Kyrie being like, I'm going to be a Celtic for life. You're going to, like, retire here. Like, it doesn't matter. Wow, what a quaint time that was when we wrote, like, 30 things about that and believed it for all of a month. Can you imagine if Steph said, I'll play for the team if they'll have me next year? Yeah, that's been great. And this is something that Bobby also brought up before we got on here. The commitments are pretty soft commitment. So Steph is saying that is the plan, which is a little like, okay, you know, that's the plan now. But things change as we learn from our guy, Kyrie.

Dramon Green has hope to play. And Damien Liller plans on play. Why doesn't everyone just say, I'm going to play? Like, are they just hedging against the fact that, like, they might not get invited? Like, if you're Damien Lillard, is there a chance that you're, you won't get invited? I mean, I feel like with Damian Lillard, he's been burned a few times before

where he was just like he wasn't on the team. So like I get like, oh, you know, maybe I don't make the actual roster and I'm just kind of like, you know, if they will have me, I will be there. But for a guy like Step, it's like, no, you're definitely going to be on the team. Right. Yeah, I do worry about Steph

though, because as we know, like playing through an entire season was already difficult when you had the best roster in the NBA, this will probably be his most arduous season of his career. Like the Warriors probably won't make the playoffs unless he's pretty incredible. You really only have DeAngelo Russell and him to really carry that offense until Clay comes and we don't really have a firm date on when Clay Thompson will come back. Jemond Green, same thing.

He will have to carry the defense. So I don't know. But it is funny that you mentioned. Is this a quick side tangent? Do you remember when Lillard was just like, consistently snubbed on these things. That was his narrative for so long. It was that Damian Lillard is the guy

who will show up for everything and probably not make it. Just what a weird time now. And now we're thinking, and here's another, to go back to our MVP discussion, where's Lillard in your Dark Horse MVP kind of candidates? He's a guy who, like the Blazers, you tend not to think about in the preseason

just because you, more or less know what to expect. But as the season goes on and as you kind of, I don't know, get yourself into the groove of the season and you notice the league at large, they eventually get right up in there. Like he's always like a four or five or six type guy. He's never quite the top three, but like he's always there. Yeah, he just always ends up on all NBA teams now.

I believe this is two years running where we completely discount the Blazers. we wonder whether or not they need to break up CJ and Dame and then they win enough games to make the playoffs be a top four seed two years running now I believe and then all of a sudden it's just like we just do it all over again it's the cycle of Dame is what we've ended up in

all right that's enough team USA talk moving on here Isaiah Thomas he hurt again Isaiah Thomas in case you weren't keeping track is now a member of the Washington Wizards and I believe is as a pretty clear route to playing time considering the reboot that the Wizards are going through as they kind of figure out their future with Bradley Beale and with a whole revamped front office. He suffered

a thumb injury, Thomas did, and he's going to undergo surgery, which will keep him sideline for six to eight weeks. Danny, is this a thing? This is a thing, and this is a bit for me to just say the actual injury. So he had a rupture of the radial collateral ligament of his left thumb. That is indeed a thing. That is a thing. And it probably hurts. So his tweet following the incident was,

hurt my damn thumb trying to play defense. Dot, dot, dot. Never again, L.O.L. never again. Yeah, LOL to that, my God. I don't know that's a, I don't know, is that funny? is it, let's change this bit. Is that funny?

I mean, I think it's funny. Like, we, I remember like two years ago of being like, he's probably the worst defender in the league. So yeah, he's a little self-aware there. All right. Last thing here. The most important thing. According to ESPN, Lonzo Ball, and Brandon Ingram are full participants

in the Pelicans voluntary workouts. Scott Kushner, our friend here at the group chat podcast. Also added that all 20 Pelicans expected to be in training camp, our participants. So it's not like Lonzo and Ingram are doing anything special. Danny, is this a thing? Oh, yeah, this is absolutely a thing.

It's a pretty big thing. I mean, like, Brandon Ingram, having been shut down for the entire season because of a blood clot, like blood clots are really serious. The fact that he's, there was no restrictions on these voluntary workouts, it's, it's just, it's good news. I think there's just so much we don't know about this Pelicans team, how they're going to fit together, the fact that they can have all of these kind of all of their assets out on the table in the preseason to kind of figure that out is a boon for all parties.

Yeah, it's good to see Lonzo detaching himself from everything that really kind of clouded or shrouded his first two seasons in the league. He looks less bulky, which is not. nice. He is saying things to Levar that perhaps LeVar doesn't like, according to these weird viral clips that I keep showing up in my Twitter feed. It just seems like he is very much leaned into this being a fresh start, and it's good to see, because he definitely needs a fresh start. And he could thrive in this Alvin Gentry system if they get the right guys around him, get enough shooting around him. Branding Ingram, same thing. Really not sure at this point where

the blood clot issue is. But as Charks wrote for us again this week, you know, he's kind of coming up before October 21st is eligible for a rookie contract extension. And so you got to wonder, like, whether or not, you know, the Pelicans want to go through the season and just kind of let him earn that, or do they want to lock him into perhaps a cheap contract with Ingram just wanting the security? And all of a sudden, you could potentially have a guy that we all expected to be an all-star when he first got into the draft, basically at Blow Mark. market rate. I mean, you basically would have the Kemba contract where we've been saying for

years before he signed this most recent max, like just what a boon it was for Charlotte that they had Kemba on that contract. I don't know. I mean, it's good to see that they're there. It's scrimaging, so who knows? In regard to Ingram, would you try to lock him up now, or are you in wait and C mode on him? I think I would lock him up now. He's just too talented of a player. for it to kind of blow up in their face. I think he will have standalone value as a trade asset. And I think that's part of what David Griffin was basically trying to go for with the AD trade. He was just stockpiling as many assets around Zion as possible to see what would fit.

I think this starting, this potential starting lineup that they might trot out this season. It would include Derek Favors at five, Zion at the four, Ingram at the three, Reddick at the two, and Drew Holiday at the one. I don't know if there's enough spacing there. You're basically asking two plus shooters and three either non-shooters or reluctant shooters to share the floor together. And Ingram already hasn't really shown the ability necessarily to play off the ball, space the floor in kind of productive ways. I think he's always been a guy who has been better with the ball in his hands as that kind of de facto point guard, which is something that perhaps could work very well, given how Drew actually

prefers to play off the ball. But I just don't know if the favor Zion thing will necessarily maximize what Ingram can do. Yeah, they have a lot of guys that everyone seems to love. I just don't know what the exact combination is that would lead to wins. And maybe that's not all that important. Like we want to jump to them being good already. We want to talk about them as a potential playoff team. And I think the team itself would like to think, or like to message at the very least,

that they're going to be in the mix. It's very possible. I think there are a lot of guys with a lot of upside, but that's the main question for me. I don't even know what their crunch time lineup would look like because as you mentioned, there are a lot of guys who maybe wouldn't be used. in the best sort of way.

Like Drew, is he going to want to be more of a traditional point guard in order to get more shooting on there? I mean, Etouin Moore played a lot. He, during that season with DeMarcus cousin, that first full season with DeMarcus cousin, he essentially was their small forward in order to do just that. And because they had such a dirt that small forward,

it'll be a beautiful mess, I think, is what it is. And I think that's why they'll probably be, not probably. I think they're clearly the biggest league pass team in the league next year. Our intrepid producer, Bobby, notes in our doc here that they might be the most agreed upon league pass team since the 2011-2012 Oklahoma City Thunder. Ooh. I don't know how you feel about it. Yeah, no, that makes sense.

I mean, there was like the Warriors, the peak warriors and went out, but they weren't even a league pass team anymore. They were just like the ESPN team. Yeah, they were on national TV way too often to be considered a league pass team. Exactly. Well, the Pelicans are that too. They are literally playing the first game of opening night. And they're going to be on national TV a ton because I believe what ended up happening was

the cable companies were like, oh, Zion, like, he will be ratings. And they've loaded up on a lot of games at the start. Maybe they're too mainstream. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I kind of hope they are watchable. I hope Zion is fully healthy. I hope he plays all 82 games.

I hope all of this works out. But, yeah, as we've been saying, I think the most important thing for the pelicans right now is just maintaining that kind of, you know, open infrastructure for Zion. I don't know if, you know, making the playoffs or succeeding in year one isn't necessarily the goal. The goal is kind of figuring out who works with Zion, who doesn't, and figuring out how to basically ship the ones who don't out for players who can. Yeah, I mean, if we're looking at the thunder as the comp, like clearly things just don't work out as you probably hoped, like the whole best laid plan sort of thing.

All of a sudden, James Hardin wants out, or they didn't want to meet his number or whatever ended up happening there, and all of a sudden that team just doesn't ever get back to the finals again, or just look at the process. And all of a sudden, all these guys, we expected to be in this merry band of, of, you know, around Ben Simmons or Beat as the Robin Hood, just like it looks completely different. And now all of a sudden they have to fit

two centers essentially into the same lineup. So you're right. I think it is a bit foolish to just automatically assume because they have all these young and talented guys that this is going to be their team going forward. I think it's probably best to look at it as this is Zion's

pilot season. He's probably going to do a bunch of fun stuff. And whoever probably plays best with him are the guys that are going to stick. Maybe like, maybe even favors is just there to audition for a contract or be a deadline sort of guy that they could flip and all of a sudden it's like Jackson Hayes, now you're the rookie they picked right after Zion is now the rim running center and Zion is your four who plays five in crunch time. I don't know.

It's a fascinating situation and they're definitely, if not the most interesting team of next season. They're like right there. So we'll see what ends up happening there. But let's end it on that note. we'll be back next week at the same time. Danny will still be in Canada, but perhaps he can send us some croissants. What do people in Canada eat, Danny? Cresants?

Come on, man. I don't know, man. I had to, so just an FYI to the listeners, I had to ask Danny before we hopped on a phone call last week whether or not it was possible because he was in Canada. Yeah, I have I'll send some butter tarts your way.

Butter tarts and the Naima bars. How's that? Bobby loves the Naimu bars. Do I? I don't even know what that is. I don't know, but we'll find out, my friend. Until then, for Danny for Bobby. I'm Justin.

We will see you next time. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.