The Ringer NBA Show - Jimmy Butler Is a Sixer | Heat Check (Ep. 336)

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

The Minnesota Timberwolves finally trade Jimmy Butler to the Philadelphia 76ers. Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Chris Ryan and Jason Concepcion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

That's a vote torch. It's a heat check. You knew that was coming. It's heat check time. Welcome to the heat check podcast. I'm your host, John Gonzalez. I wouldn't say quite emergency, but emergency-ish. A little over 24 hours after Jimmy Butler is traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, we bring in.

Isaac's here. Isaac's always here, but we bring in two of our heavy hitters, one of my favorite Philadelphians. Chris Ryan is in the studio. And not quite, you missed the cut on the favorite Philadelphia by like 90 miles. That's all right. But you would otherwise be grandfathered in. Jason Concepcion is here.

All three of us hate Boston. Right. And it unites us. We're united and hate. And it's a great time to be that person. It is a great time to hate Boston. It's wonderful. The first note on my outline here, gang, holy shit. I had a nice Saturday plan. I was talking to Chris about other things, Sixers-related,

and all of a sudden, everything got blown up. The Sixers traded. Robert Covington, Dario Sarge, Jared Bayliss, RIP, Jared Bayliss, and a 22-round pick for Jimmy Butler and Justin Patton, who plays in the NBA. Let's go around the horn. How do we feel about it, initial reactions? A couple of Philly friends asked.

me about this last night, obviously, I was talking about it for 24 straight hours. And over the course of this conversation, I think I developed a bit of a reputation in terms of how I was approaching it. And somebody introduced my take to someone else as being like, CR is nervous. And I was like, I'm not nervous. I'm pessimistic. Oh, that's worse than nervous. It's different. It's different. And worse. It means my nerve endings are dead. It means that this era of NBA volatility and player movement and anything can happen at any time has kind of made me a little dead to like the shock of something like this in a weird way I almost was like, yeah, I expected this.

But I am pessimistic about how this is going to work long term for a lot of different reasons and we're going to get to all of those. Yeah, we have a lot of things to get into. I just want like the macro, like your first reaction when you heard that this went down and what you thought like good or bad for the Sixers. We'll get to the Wolves component. That's going to be a part that we'll discuss as well. The Sixers are on the clock now.

Jim is a guy with a window. A lot of people are on the clock for that organization. time, now it's time to actually win games. No more of this developing. It's really the death of the process in a very real way, which made me kind of sad. Yeah, I wrote about that for the ringer.com. We have a bunch of stuff on the ringer.com. We have that piece. KOC handled the basketball side for the Sixers, Charks did the basketball side for the Wolves. Palo and Justin did winners and losers. My initial reaction was exactly that. That like this whole organic, homegrown, go and pluck roco off of the G League for no money whatsoever. And then, and then after that,

follow it up with like a very reasonable contract and get Dario and he's got two years that he's stashed away in Europe and it's cool and we'll take our time. Taking your time is over. This is like, this is a signal right now that like they think it's time to go. Let's see how this goes. And initially my my reaction was, I look at the Eastern Conference and I go, the Sixers and KOC put this in his piece. The Sixers now have three of the top 20 players in the league and only the Warriors can also say that. So they're better. Yeah, it's going to test a lot of what we think we know about building championship teams. I think it was the right trade and the wrong guy.

I think they're better, but I also think they're thinner. So it's kind of weird because I go, oh, I like Jimmy Butler in a vacuum, but there's no vacuum with Jimmy Butler. There's not a lot of touchdown dances going on. And there probably wouldn't be because I think Covington and Scharch were particularly beloved members of the Sixers. And even last night, it was they were talking to the guys on the team when they lost to Memphis. They were asking a bunch of them. And M.B. was like, yeah, I was kind of tearing up. Everybody was kind of a gut punch, you know, hilariously.

Embed was like I was texting with Wigs about Butler. I was like, great. Sounds like a great trip advisor review. What is Wiggins think of Butler? But, you know, I think everybody's like this sort of playful preschool is about to turn into a lion's day. So, all right, let's do the off-court drama stuff, right? Because there's a lot of it with Jimmy Butler.

And you have, when Embed's first reaction is to text Wiggins, like, I was also like, oh, already, that's probably not great. The Kansas Bagman Brotherhood is strong. It is strong. So Mbid said that he was well aware, obviously. How could you not be well aware of everything that's been happening in Minnesota and the reputation that Jimmy Butler carries with him? As I wrote in the piece, like, whatever happened in Minnesota and the way that Jimmy Butler would give it to guys,

that's not going to happen in Philly for a lot of reasons because, like, Jimmy Butler has met his match in terms of shit talking with Joel Mbid for sure. Like, Embed is not the take-a-kind guy. He's to give it back to you whether you're playing pickup or practice or in the game. I wonder how Wiggins answered the phone, was he like, this is not Andrew Wiggins, this is Rieck. Yeah, it's really, that part of it is fascinating because, you know, the kind of, oh, we can roll Fultz out there to start and then we'll start JJ in the second half and, oh, don't worry about Dario.

Like, he'll figure it out over time. Well, you know, it's like he's getting better. All that kind of like wait and figure out stuff is done. Now it's like, okay, need shooters. Guys have to produce. So what does that mean when you're bringing in one of the most outspoken guys in the league who's not afraid to talk shit to people? And you have a guy on your squad who is struggling with his confidence. And it's a fan base that when push comes to shove is going to rally around its players, which Jimmy is kind of on the outside of that at this point.

So it's like it's how this could all break out. I can't wait to see it. Like on the surface, just like if you were going to talk about a Philadelphia archivalry, archetypal player, somebody who would fit into like the ethos of the city and like what we generally gravitate towards, you would think like Jimmy Butler is pretty perfect. He's mouthy. He gets after people defensively. He's a thousand miles an hour at all times, no breaks. But as Jason mentioned, he's being introduced into an environment that like has like a really strong, solid core fan base and got very attached to the two guys who got sent out. And Brett Brown has been building a cultural

and he's put a lot of emphasis on to that. And I just wonder about the attended volatility and whether he can operate in that environment. And if he can't, and if he gives like a post-game quote, one game after maybe they lose on a back-to-back and he pops off, like, how does the fan base react? How does the media react? How does the team react?

Like, there's a lot of potential ripple effects. It's a question about whether or not Jimmy Butler likes living in the eye of the flame or not. He and his team have been very available to people who want to go do, I sat down with Jimmy Butler. Sam had one in The Athletic the other day. It is quite a read. It's a great one.

It's eyebrow singeing. 41 minutes, that shit has got to stop. Yeah, he's complaining about how many minutes he's playing. He's talking about how he does or doesn't choose whether he's going to play. All he wants to do is listen to his country music and read his Bible. And he doesn't have time to read any other shit. But if he did, he wouldn't because those people don't know what they're talking about. Like, he is a very strong personality.

And you said the word volatility. And I think that this move is so emblematic of how volatile the league is right now, man. It's just like the way this league started this season, despite the fact that we're just going to be here in June and being like, wow, the Warriors only lost six games in the entire playoffs or something at most or something. You know, the Rockets not doing well. Carmelo being on a milk carton. The Raptors and Bucks being better even than I think we could have imagined them being.

The Celtic sputtering a little bit. Like all the little things that are happening. and you introduce that into, oh, it turns out if you hire Coach Bud or a guy like him or a guy as good as him, you can change the ceiling of your team. And then you add into that pre-agency, which is just like now a reality, which is basically now we're all waiting to see here

when Anthony Davis is like, I probably am not resigning. You know, like this is this reality, and this trade really represents that to me because it's a volatile character. It's a guy who's exercised as pre-agency. It's a guy who we can talk about it being the last couple of months, but it's really been the last couple of years with Jimmy.

It goes back to 1415, rejecting a contract offer, winning most improved player, then signing a deal that he obviously didn't like almost immediately and immediately starting to talk his way out of Chicago after that. I mean, this is a chaotic player. And I think that the Sixers were a little bit ahead of schedule last year. And now they felt like they were behind schedule at the beginning of this season because of how good the Bucks and the Raptors look, they're the fourth best team in this conference now. All of a sudden, they were like, oh, we're going to be conference title and,

NBA finals contenders for the next six, seven years. No. No, you're second round and out, dog. Playing catch up. And how quickly that changes is bananas. That's what I'm saying. The knock on effect of Jimmy putting them on the clock is going to be fascinating to watch because you can't sit around and let guys figure it out anymore.

Like, Fultz, there's no time for him to just figure out when to be a shooter. They traded away two of their most consistent shooters now. So, like, shooting is at a premium with this team. There's no time to figure out how Ben and, and Bede are going to work together on the court. How do you fix the kind of like my turn, his turn stuff? Now it's time to win. Yeah.

And like to Chris's point about like the hierarchy of the league and the balance of power and how quickly it changes. Like I was with you where last year I was like, oh, this is all, you're playing with house money. Right? You got plenty of time. Right. We had people coming up and being like, doesn't it feel good?

You guys are going to be great for eight years. Yeah. Yeah. And then you wake up and you go, oh shit, we're way behind. Like, and the Celtic series was a massive way. up call on that one. And then you start this season, you get off to not a great start, and Dario wasn't playing great.

And you look at what you have with Follett's and you're still wondering and you go, oh, shit, yeah, they need a lot more shooting. They need more defense. They need a lot of everything. And you've got to go and gamble on something like this. And I think it is for all of the reasons that we outlined and we're going to bore down into the actual basketball components here. But for all of like the very surfacing macro components are risk.

But one that I'm glad they talk. Here, I'll make the case for it. I'm not sentimental about Roko and Dario. This is going to happen. They were always going to do this. That hurts me. You're already dissensitatatat. If it wasn't going to be Butler, it was going to be somebody else. It was going to be those.

It was going to be those two guys. I would rather that they had gone for someone like Beale personally. Sure, sure. But this was going to happen. Ernie Grunfeld is riding that trio. This is a consequence of blowing consecutive lottery picks. This is also a consequence of not getting LeBron or Kauai or Paul George last summer. And they are not getting Clay or Kevin next summer.

So that means the list is definitely. down to one, one point five guys, depending on how truly dedicated the Celtics and Kyrie are to one another. And Kyrie doesn't really work on the Sixers anyway. So you basically are down to one guy. And they made the deal. And they actually didn't pay that big of a price for it relatively. No, I actually, my initial reaction was, I'm surprised this is all it took. When it was just a second pick and you toss and bail is for time, Thibodeau.

Yeah, for salary matching purposes. and it's, I like Robert Covington a lot, he's on a fucking fantastic deal. Somebody's going to pay Dario Sarach a lot of money. Probably wasn't going to be the Sixers, but I love them. But just like those two pieces, they're not nothing. There's something significant. But I just expected for Jimmy Butler, it would be more. But when you're talking about like, yeah, what are you going to get in free agency?

I think the Sixers and a lot of teams that had Cap Space anticipated, hey, man, we can go and just throw money at people and they'll walk in. And obviously, they would have much rather just sign them into the cap space rather than giving up assets. guess what? A lot of teams got money. And guess what? It's fucking hard to land people in free agency. And if you miss and the music stops and there's all these chairs left, like, how are you going to fill them? And so you go out and you make a trade and you hope that he sticks around. And I know a lot of people have said like, oh, if he walks, worst case scenario, the Sixers could potentially free up $50 million.

For who? And get fucking who's. Yeah, there's nobody out there. Yes. No, they need to fucking, if he walks, that's a goddamn disaster. Yeah. Resigned Dario. Right. You toss the money back. back at him. It's a good example of kind of like the effect that the super team era has had on the down market teams, which is like if you want to beat the top team in your conference, a lot of times, you're just going to have to roll the dice with something. You know, you're just going to

have to be like, okay, maybe this works, maybe it doesn't, but I don't see any other way that we beat the Celtics or Toronto really this year, who would look like a freaking juggernaud, or how you beat the Warriors. This is the same kind of thing that led Houston to make the Melo deal because it's like, okay, what do we, you know, how are we going to beat those guys? Head up. We can't. We have to make a deal. While we're still on that sort of like top line reaction component, when we're talking about the Sixers having three top 20 players and trying to keep, you're shaking your head, you're not sure. I think they are, but I think it's also a thing where these are two players that are so early in their development cycle that it's like, who knows? There are holes in their game that need addressing

and who knows where they are in three years. I look at Embed this year and go, he's taken a step forward. he's playing considerably better at both ends of the floor. With Simmons, there hasn't been such a big leap or he hasn't taken the step as significantly as I expected. But they have three key players that I think in the Eastern Conference makes a players. But this is the part that I wanted to get to. So where now are they in the Eastern Conference hierarchy? I mean, because I look at the Raptors and I go, they've got Kauai, so they've got one guy who's better than anybody else the Sixers have. However, the Sixers have more of them.

But then, however, the Raptors are considerably deeper. 10 guys. They're so deep. They're so deep. The Celtics? Okay, yeah, I think the Sixers are in that mix now, right? I think they're probably better just on terms of like top tier talent than the box. But when you have Janus, that's the question one.

Even after getting Jimmy, I don't go, oh shit, yeah, the Eastern Conference is theirs. It's not. They move up a slot maybe, fourth, fourth, fifth? Does it get to the conference finals? Maybe. I don't think so. Actually, I think seeding is going to matter a lot. Yeah, it's going to matter a lot.

And I don't even mean that, like, home court advantage as much as, like, who they catch in the second round is going to make a huge difference this season. Yeah, I mean, if they open up in the 4-5 against the Celtics, that's a problem. Right. I mean, I think it does create a little bit of separation with all due respect between Raptors, Celtics, Sixers, and Bucks, and then the Pacers are a little bit below that. You know what I mean? And the Pacers can beat almost anybody on any given night, but I just don't think they have the firepower.

It's so interesting, man. I know we're going to get into like the on-court stuff. But it's like everything I think about with this trade, is so theoretical. And it's everything I think about team building is so theoretical with this. It's like Ben Simmons's numbers aren't as like,

they have not taking a leap. Ben Simmons's numbers are entirely tied to a record because like Ben Simmons does all the stuff that is like 16 points, 13 assists, nine rebounds and no shots outside of three feet. You know what I mean? Like I'm never going to be like

my eyes aren't going to fall out of my head but when Simmons leads him on a seven game win streak, you're like, that guy's Jason kid in Magic Johnson's body or whatever. You know, it's just there's this excitement about him either way. Embed, on the other hand,

is nothing but, like, absolutely gaudy stats, but could barely beat Charlotte, which is, like, fine. I mean, like, they were obviously, like, headed towards a trade, and then the next night they lose to Memphis and Embedite had absolutely no win left in him. But I don't know.

I mean, like, I'm not concerned about Ben and Joel as much as, I just don't even know if Jimmy Butler is enough. I don't know. Amazing. I mean, the exciting thing to me is how he ties Simmons and Embed's games together. You needed a shot creator, somebody who can operate with the ball in their hands and score from more places on the court than right at the rim. And Jimmy Butler can do that.

How does his ability to create space make Ben Simmons' life easier? How does it allow Simmons and Embed to coexist on the court together? I think that's going to be really cool. KOC touched on. Can you use Ben Simmons as a screener in a Jimmy Butler, Ben Simmons pick and roll? Like, that's a cool thing to do. All that stuff is really interesting. But is that enough firepower to really win?

Can I ask both you guys a question? Do you like Jimmy Butler's game? It's fine. This is something that I wanted to get into, just like the aesthetics and entertainment value of this. Jimmy Butler mixed tapes over the last 24 hours. So I'm outside the mainstream on this one, I'm sure. I like guys who generate points by getting to the line

and converting efficiently, right? Like Jimmy Butler is an okay shooter. He's a slightly better league average shooter on spot-ups. He'll be fine with facing the floor. he can do that. But what he's really good at and what the Sixers have lacked and what we saw in that Charlotte game that you mentioned and what we saw in that Memphis game that they dropped was when they didn't really have a closer and like we saw that in Boston too last year where it was like, oh shit, you're not going to rely on Ben Simmons to go and just pull up and shoot because he can't

and he doesn't. And Embed is, you know, try to do too much and he'll fumble one out of bounds off his knee and that'll be it. And you need a closer. And he's that guy. He's that guy who will hit a shot or get to the line, which I know, not the sexiest thing to watch. I enjoy it. It's like he's going to do the James Hardin thing where he's going to shimmy shake you and he's going to get contact and it's going to drive you fucking nuts and then he's going to hit his free throws and thank you. Yes, I like that.

He's grimacing at me right now, by the way, Chris Ryan. I just think not having to have Fulton Ben Simmons on the court at the same time is really big. Yeah. I know that that's like a really simplistic thing to say, but it's huge. Having a league average shooter that can create on the floor with Ben Simmons at the same time is I mean that's huge.

I still don't know, I still don't think that's enough firepower to get them out of the east, but it'll be really exciting in the ways that it opens up Ben Simmons's game, particularly. You asked us this and we gave you our entertainment,

aesthetic answers, and I feel like there's a thought percolating in your head. Every need that the Sixers have you, Phil's. Yeah. He's a better on-ball defender than Covington. He's an absolute alpha closer in the fourth quarter.

he generates like tons of contact. We'll get other guys who are important to the other team. Like, he can get Tatum in foul trouble in a playoff game. He can get Jalen Brown and foul trouble in a playoff game. He could torment some of the Toronto's wings and get them in. I mean, like, honestly, just on a basketball level, I'm losing my mind. I can't wait to see Jimmy Butler versus Quay Leonard in the playoffs

or Jimmy Butler versus Jason Tatum in the playoffs. Like, that's great. I feel like there's a massive buck coming. Yeah, well, because recency bias, if you watch the few Minnesota games he played, it looked like a guy trying to destroy a basketball team. He would do things that were like, even from my like not cleaning the glass perspective,

I was like, wow, so he dribbled for like nine seconds and then got a double and took that double into the corner and handed it off to a shooter in the corner who was also being guarded so that the shooter in the corner was now triple teamed. And it didn't move to create space again. Like he has a little bit of like,

what are you doing out there? to a way. I had much less kind way of putting that for like. I think a lot of that, which is the concern that carries over to the Sixers, is that if Jimmy senses like a weakness in his teammates, an unwillingness to kind of be the kind of hard ass that he wants, he will just do shit, you know? And so the hope is that, yes, Jimmy Butler burned down a house, but he's not an arsonist, you know, not in his heart.

So that's the hope now is. Fred Hoyberg is currently rebuilding a house being like, you're fucking kidding me? You know, when Markle Fultz is like, you know, passes up a wide open three in the corner or shoots it four feet past the basket, the hope is that Jimmy Butler will not give him a look that actually withers his insides or talks wild shit to him in the locker room. That is the hope. My bigger point is also just that, like, Jimmy Butler plays a kind of bruising, but, like, requires a lot of patience. Basically, he derives a lot of, like, usage out of just, like, the way he plays. dribbles hard.

He takes a lot of contact. He likes to weight out defenses and find a weak point and attack that weak point and see what he can get out of it. He takes a lot of challenges, whether it's shooting over a guy or shooting at the hoop with a bunch of dudes jumping at him. There is something about it that it is a very heroic but not always conducive to team basketball way of playing. He's a throwback guy.

The way he made his name was when he like saved those Bulls teams in the years that Rose was injured, right? And since then, I have not seen him work in any kind of team context. So to your point about team building and to your point earlier about how the clock has started, then for me, that's a lot of Brett Brown, right? You've got Brett Brown at the middle of this going, okay, if Jimmy is going to pound the ball for nine seconds and try to burn the house down, he's got to run out there with the fucking fire extinguisher. And then, oh, by the way, this whole thing about culture that he's been talking about for years.

And he's done a really good job with it. I mean, by all accounts, everybody I talk to over there will say, when things were really dark and terrible and grim and they were in danger of setting league records for losses in a season, Brett Brown was the one constant. He was the one out there answering the questions and keeping those guys together and like JJ talks about it on his podcast. Now it's a different equation that he has to solve

and a much more complicated one. Managing the ego of a guy who is looking at a 190 million, possible $190 million contract extension is a different challenge than managing. the egos of two young guys. Like, you know, that's just a fact. Yeah. So what does that mean?

We're going to see how good Brett Brown really is. We are going to see how good Brett Brown really is. I want to bore down into like the actual basketball about this. Sure. And also touch on the wolves because the wolves made a trade too. It wasn't just the Sixers. But first, let's take a break for a word from our sponsors. Today's heat check is brought to you by Casper.

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And guess what? You go out and get a Casper mattress. You get $50 toward select mattresses by visiting casper.com slash NBA and using NBA at the checkout as your code. that's casper.com slash NBA, offer code NBA for $50 off your mattress purchase, terms, and conditions apply. And now, back to heat check. All right, so basketball-wise, again, my initial reaction was they're better and then they're also thinner because now the lineups are going to shift. And this idea about Fultz being in the starting lineup and bring him along slowly, that's over. Yeah,

he's going to be coming off the bench. You're going to move JJ back into the starting lineup. What's your favorite six or starting five? Well, that's the question because they traded from last year's best starting five lineup in the league, two of those guys now play for Minnesota. So you're going to move JJ into the lineup. You've got MBEed, obviously, and Simmons and Butler. Now the question is, do you go with Shamet? Do you go with Wilson Chandler? I'm probably going to go Wilson Chandler eventually and bring Shamet off the bench as this sort of JJ mini-mee. The problem with that is Wilson Chandler's got a nagging hamstring injury. Wilson Chandler has a lot of miles on him. How does he look with Jimmy Butler, let alone how does Jimmy Butler look with Simmons?

How does, you know, what happens with the usage rate there? There's a lot of questions about how these guys are going to fit. Yeah. I feel like we're looking at an unfinished piece of work here. I think there's something. More to come. I don't really know if Corver is the answer, which is the one that's getting tossed around a lot. They definitely need more shooting. But I probably would go ahead and start a veteran team. I would start Simmons and Embed with Redick, Chandler and Jimmy and have that be the starting lineup. I think it's good for Jimmy too. It puts him with a bunch of guys who know exactly what they're supposed to be doing.

Let's have Shamit and see if he's still playing out over his head out there. Let's let Fultz grow. At this point, like Markell Fultz, unless he just doesn't have a phone, knows that there's a lot of skepticism about him. So why not just have him play a second unit and see if he can come along and put him in that like that kind of Malik Monk like anything is good? That's kind of a silver lining for this. is that there's no more like, okay, how do I simultaneously serve these two masters of developing Markle Fultz and building his confidence and putting together a lineup that works together in a

2018 basketball way? And now you don't have to deal with that if you put out that kind of starting five. The team immediately, after everything that Jason has been saying and what you guys have been saying about, like, this, the clock ticking, like this team now all of a sudden becomes a meritocracy. And if Markell can't play his way past T.J. McConnell, he may fall out of the rotation entirely. I don't think that that's smart for his A career or B. trade value, but that is like in play.

Oh, there's no doubt about it. I mean, you saw with a short, small, shrunken roster against the Grizzlies the other night, when T.J was on the floor at the end of the game because they needed somebody with a little spark and a little defense, and that was when they needed warm bodies out there and they had to go to T.J. So I wonder... And Michael was fine last night.

He was fine. He was fine. The game before that, less fine. And that's been pretty consistent with them, where it's like, oh, the only consistent thing is inconsistent. consistency and you're still not sure what you're going to get out of him. And I think that idea of this being a meritocracy and like no more, hey, like if there are games where you catch a DNPCD, that's it. Like it's the big leagues, brother. And I don't know what to tell you about it. And sometimes I think maybe I'm looking at something completely different. But after the trade went down,

one of the reactions that came out of Philly from people I talked to was at least they didn't have to throw Foltz in the deal. And my reaction was what? My reaction was, you couldn't give him away right now. There's no value there. The only value is for him to come up through that organization and somehow correct whatever the fuck is wrong with him. Otherwise, that's it. I was listening to dunk done as I was driving in. They were like, you have to trade him right now. Yeah, listen.

Good luck. He played pretty well. He plays hard and he played pretty well last game. But like, he's bad. Inconsistency, yes, is a part of it. He's a bad basketball player right now. He's not good. He hampers your team in a way that is brutal.

And when you look at it with the lack of shooting that exists within the team already, it's devastating. He was brought in because he checked a number of boxes that the team absolutely needed. They needed a creator. They need a guy who can operate in the pick and roll and create his own shot and could shoot from outside. And he can't do that stuff. So the training wheels have to come off at some point. And like, if he can play, he can play. And if he's not playing well.

Yeah, where you get stuck in the garage? I mean, there's really no way around that. And the problem here is that there are once more, I'm with you. I think that this is an incomplete product that they need to go out and get something else. And I don't know if that's going to be via trade for a guy like Kyle Corver, who on paper would fit very well. He's a bigger body. He doesn't get enough credit. He's a shooter.

That'd be wonderful. Maybe Areza shakes loose from the Suns. But it could also be that the Sixers end up like once more looking for castoffs on the buyout market, right? Where they're just like, oh, well, last year it worked out okay where they ended up with Erson and Bellinelli. But those guys way overperformed last year. And I think, like, trying to hope for that to be reproduced this season is folly. I would hope, honestly, if they are going in this direction, like, tear the Band-Aid off. Like, go for it.

Right. Go for someone. Like, what does it take? What do the Wizards want for Beal? What do you have to give up here? What do you have left? Yeah, what do you have left that you could offer? They have one lottery pick with an esophagus problem, and they've got another lottery pick who can't shoot.

But those are two lottery picks. and Wilson Chandler's expire. And you've got the unprotected Miami Peak. They have a package. I don't think, like, according to Woj, the Wizards were completely uninterested in parting with Beal in any conversations with the wolves about Butler. I can't imagine if it ever comes to...

Things are going great in Washington and Ernie likes his team, Chris. And I know that Wall is essentially like untradable at this point because of his contract and what his game looks like right now, whereas Beal is basically JV. Clay Thompson. but they may not have a choice in that matter. They may be stuck with wall and in which case if they're going to rebuild it all, if they have that kind of foresight.

Look, I'm not even saying the Sixers could even get a phone callback on that one. But I think I would rather see them actually swing for the absolute green monster fence than be like, what about Kyle Corver? What about some scrap heap guy who got tossed off by a team that's tanking? Why not?

What are we doing? You think Corver is going to fix it? Corver is just going to get hunted in the postseason. Yeah, no, I think you're making some good points. I'm still wrapping my head around the accelerated timetable. I mean, it's where it goes from, hold on, let's like, you know, this thing's moving now. Things are fine to the gas pedal is all the way down and the brake line has been fucking cut and the cliff is coming all of a sudden where you're like, yes, sure, trade fucking everything. And I don't know if I'm quite there yet.

As a fan or as a person who's like, this is where this is going? I mean, if you're just asking me for fucking content, yeah, let's do your business. plan. If you're asking me, would I do that where I in charge slash, you know, do I want to see the team that I watch the most do that, then that's a different equation. I mean, listen, when you guys resign Jimmy, when the Sixers re-signed Jimmy, the best years of that contract are going to be in the beginning. There's going to be no doubt about it. He's, this is a guy that's going to, like, everything we know about players with this kind of play style and with the injury history that he has, they will fall off. He will fall off. The end of this contract that he will sign with the Sixers is a, going to be tough. So I agree. Smaller window than people. It's very small. So like, let's hit it now.

And then if it does fall apart, listen, you've still got these two young guys that you can cobble together something around again. But like, the time has come to like go for it the next two years. So in theory, all of this makes sense what you're saying. But then I remember like the way that the NBA landscape looks and I see over on the horizon. Let's just say we did the Sixers go with that plan, right? Which plan? Like Corvert Fuck it all Beal.

Give me somebody. A fourth guy who's a major name who would be a shooter and help space the floor and like exactly what you're saying. That's saying for like theoretically or for the purposes

of this hypothetical that it is Bradley Beale. Does that get them past the Warriors? Because ultimately you still have a warrior's problem in the next year to two years. I mean, I really literally find myself

becoming aroused thinking about that first much. Ben Simmons is a house and Bill and Jimis Jimmy Butler versus the Warriors.

Yeah. The three of us would probably be on the bench for the Sixers at that way. But I mean, like, isn't that what the whole Daryl Morey, the Warriors have forced us to change our risk profile thing is? Yeah. I mean, they lose in five, but I want Jimmy Butler and Dremont like at each other's necks for a series. I would love to see that. Well, in advance. I mean, you'd get that the entire time.

If he's starting to fight Tristan Thompson in the parking lot, yeah, you'd definitely get that. That's the one that gives me pause because even if you close, could make that happen, which is a massive if, and I would bet strongly against it. Even if you could make it happen, I understand why Darrell thinks that way. But then I look at the Sixers timetable and I go, Jimmy Butler now changes it, yes, but your other two guys kind of still don't. It's a tough middle ground. I guess you've already committed. I guess you've already decided.

By getting Jimmy Ballard, they've already decided. You know, Jason's saying like they're going to do when they do this deal and the bad years, but back into that contract are going to be coming up really fast for the guy like Jimmy Butler or the history of Lower. or leg injuries or leg injuries. I mean, they could very well just be like this isn't worth it. We have 55 or however much now of cap space. Dario and Robert Hertz, it's a bad move on our part. We took a shot, but we're not going to sacrifice the long-term stability of this franchise by signing Jimmy Butler to a five-year $190 million deal when in any given moment he might

just be like, trade me. Yeah. And by the way, the World's Report had massive caveats in it on that front where he was like, they fully expect, because if you're the Sixers, you've got to get some sort of of when we can not assurance that Jimmy is on board with the idea, at least, of sticking around. But the Wode report was that the Sixers fully expect barring any physical issues with Jimmy Butler, which he's got a lot of me, Tibbs fucking ran him into the ground in two different spots. And then on top of that, how he fits with the quote, Mbied Simmons dynamic, which, as we outlined at the top of the show,

big fucking question mark. So, yeah, I mean, they've got a lot that they've got to figure out. I mean, this is, my initial reaction was, like, if the Sixers were going to do something like this, and we all, I wrote this in a piece of, like, Philadelphiaans had been sort of fantasizing about it for a long time. I always thought when the Sixers got to this point that the universal reaction in Philadelphia would have been like, fuck yeah. This is, it's a home run, right? It's a home run if you're going to do something like this. And instead, the initial reaction was like, we'll see.

We'll see how it goes. They still need more probably. I think that speaks to how spectacularly fucked up Jimmy Butler. is being behaving. The petulance has been off the charts. I think it speaks to that, and I think it speaks to the fact that the NBA is extremely top-heavy,

and as you just said, does that get them past the Warriors? No. It doesn't necessarily even get them out of the Eastern Conference. Just to remind everybody, two years ago, I think it was two seasons ago,

might even been a season ago, the GMs in this league said that they would take Carl Anthony Towns over any young play, like, whatever that thing was where they were like, that guy's a fucking puddle of tears right now.

You know what I mean? That guy is a Smith song. And this is where, and like, so we have these two long-term projects on our team, like Joel and I agree. Ben and Joel do not seem like shrinking violet millennials the way that Wiggins and towns might.

But that's why people aren't ready to throw a mummer's parade yet, I think, is because they're like, so the guy who is destroyed two locker rooms already and seems completely obsessed with, or not he's going to get this five year deal, and now the Sixers are on the hook for that five. The Sixers, if they say no,

are they going to be the latest team that are just like, Jimmy wanted this extra year. You know what I mean? And the Sixers now are the ones that are like, oh, we're not going to do that. You know what I mean? I'd prefer that they don't throw any members' parades, period. But beyond that, just because it reminded me of this,

we're also introducing Jimmy Butler into a locker room that includes Mike Muscala and Mike Mascala's dad. No. Who was not in a locker, but Mike Miscala's dad was being, racist about Jimmy Butler. To be fair, A, I don't think Mike Scala's dad is in the locker room. No, not in the locker, but you know what I'm saying?

And also, I don't think Mike Miskala was like that was, he was not like he was like cool dad. He was like, I'm really embarrassed. He's like, yeah, this guy's, I'm sorry about that. I think that was my dad. I would also say that fucking sucks. However, these are all things that you've got to throw out there. You also mentioned, we mentioned what's left in

Minnesota. We've gone on this entire podcast without mentioning the Timberwolves, the other half of this trade. What is left in Minnesota? And does this get them back on track? Because It took a five-game losing streak for Tibbs to reportedly be like, you know what? They're not too much of this. I don't think this Jimmy Butler thing is going to work out. I think we need to trade them.

So, like, they still have a Tibbs problem. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, well, you hope that Carl Anthony Towns can recapture some of that magic that he displayed pre-Jimmy Butler, where he looked like the generational Tim Duncan, like the Tim Duncan who shot threes, The guy who's going to be the most well-rounded offensive big man of this generation. If he can capture that, you know, they can make some noise. You hope they rally around it in much the same way that teams often rally around. A coach getting fired?

You know, get that bump. The dead cat bounce. The dead cat bounce. But it'll be, you know, it'll be really interesting to see. It's Carl Anthony Towns's time to, like, stand up and be the superstar now. Let's just take a quick. I think it's worth really actually like letting a list. in case listeners didn't see this athletic interview

with Sam Amick and Jim Buller. Because it really speaks to life in Minnesota right now. Question. You played 41, this is after the Kings game. You played 41 minutes tonight, Jimmy Butler. This shit has to stop. That's incredible. That shit has to stop.

Why? We've got fucking 14 other guys. I feel like I'm watching the Mark Wahlberg departed scene where he's like, you lace curtain motherfucker. It was reported earlier today. It doesn't matter, blah, blah. And then he's like, I know, but 41 minutes,

whenever I'm winning, I don't give a damn. And then he flips back and he's like, we've got fucking guys who can play. We've got to instill confidence in everyone. I don't think that he's the guy to do that necessarily. I think my confidence is high enough. I want all my guys to be successful. I want all these guys to play.

Is that a combo with Thibodeo that I have to have? Yeah. And everybody wants to talk about how motherfucker's not healthy, he said of himself. Well, goddamn, we're playing 41, 43, 44 minutes per game. It takes a toll. So it turns out Tom Hey, Strow was right.

Turns out these guys do get tired. And it turns out Tom Dimito doesn't know what he's fucking doing anymore. And that's his guy. Tibbs was Jimmy's guy and Jimmy was Tibbs's guy. And he's like, this is fucking, and both of them were like, you know what's not working? Us being each other's dudes. Yes. So I wonder now, like you introduce Robert Covington and Dario Sarge.

That was all to say that I don't necessarily think Jimmy leaving is going to make everything better. No. Like I said, they still have a... Tibbs is the problem. Yeah, Tibbs is the problem. The league has, in very real, ways past Tom Tibido by, not just in the way that the way that minutes are viewed today as something really to be monitored in a real way in order to alleviate player injuries down the road.

And in the way that defenses are played completely differently than the way he made his mark in the league. When he was with Boston as an assistant, that was what everybody talked about, like the Tibbs defensive model. And Charx has said this multiple times. Everybody's on a string. It's over. That's done.

The Timbs model's over. That's finished. So what does Tom Tibido add? What is the value added of Tom Tibido now? I honestly do not know. I honestly don't know. Running guys into the ground with their minutes. I don't know either.

I think Wiggins' growth has been stunted, and you could chalk part of that up, obviously, to Jimmy Butler, but a lot of it, I think, has to do with Tibbs. And now it's, can Tibbs adjust on the fly with two guys who he brings in and are useful pieces? Is he going to stagger minutes? Is he going to shorten up his rotations a little bit? I think that, I mean, like, let's be a little bit optimistic, right?

So Rocco is a nice, like, it'll make up for the Jimmy's size hole that they have, especially in terms of perimeter defense. Roco and Wiggins are at least athletic out there on the wings. I would hope that one of the things that as a Dario fan that I don't feel like he got to do enough of in Philly is be a play a play a placemaker. He's like a really, really sweet asser. So I don't know if he could, I don't know if he's athletic enough to play point forward, but I would love to see more offense running through him, which is highly unlikely given all the different pieces and Derek Rose and everybody else.

that's in Minnesota, but I would hope that whoever, whether it's Tibido or the next coach in Minnesota is like, this guy can pass his ass off. Like, let's put him more in like these yokech style spots where he can pass out of the post where he can pass to cutters. So that would be my hope. And now it's like there are no excuses for Carl Anthony Towns and there are no excuses for Andrew Wiggins.

And when you watch the wolves with the games that Butler has played this year, there was a marked difference in the body language of guys like Towns and Wiggins when it was like they were on the floor with Tyos Jones. and Josh Akogi versus when they're on the floor with Jimmy Buller. So theoretically, you should get a response. And Towns is having a career worse season right now. So hopefully that will cause him to have a renaissance.

I wonder, when you're talking about their body language when they're playing together and whatnot, like it seemed like back in the days when they had just formed that unit and they were like getting out there and it was okay in the same way that it was okay for the six years to come along at a certain pace. And it was okay for them to lose and figure it out as they were going. That, like, there's something fun and enjoyable and, like, carefree and disposable about it, right? There's no stakes. There's still stakes for them now. But I wonder if they, like, revert back into that, you know, like, they don't have anybody to really kick them in the ass. They don't have anybody to be a leader.

Like, they still have to do something. This team doesn't get to go back and be like, okay, well, we'll figure it out eventually. They still have to figure out if they can, like, stop losing, you know, five. games in a row on the road. They're going to have expectations in Minnesota that come with making the playoffs and trying to like be something. They also really need to, I mean, they're 29th in attendance with historically, you know, I would say an old owner. I mean, like, they need to save this franchise, right? I mean, I, they need to like give people a reason to care about the Timberwolves. Well, listen, Carl Anthony Towns averaged 25 and 12 in his second year in the NBA.

Like, find that guy. Get me that guy. That guy. Yeah. Find me. that guy back. If he's the superstar that we thought he was two years ago, then you know what? There's a lot of teams in the NBA that would kill to have that entire roster with Carl Anthony Towns. Just have a guy of that quality. So it's not a nightmare scenario. Like, figure it out. You have theoretically a budding superstar, a real superstar, a top five player in the NBA type level player. If that guy's still in there, great. Figure it out with him. It's not a bad situation. And we can say from experience that they're getting two really good guys. Yes.

And they're going to... People that other guys in the locker room are going to enjoy. Yes. Like he will... Roco and Dario will immediately have a positive impact on that locker room. Covington, everybody loves. And Dario, by most accounts, is the funniest dude. Yeah.

McConnell was even talking about, like, you could be having the worst day. And then Dario would walk in the room and, like, everything would change. Right. Which, not a lot of laughs in that Timberwolves locker room recently. Yeah. They need to use a couple yucks. All right. We've gotten through a lot of this trade.

Did we miss anything else you want to throw out before we talk about the news that's unfolding as we record this podcast? No. I mean, I think that it's, I think I would just say that my attitude about this is just, we've been through so much as Sixers fans. I mean, you're welcome NBA for like the constant content mill that we provide. They stay the most interesting team in the league.

Yeah, and now, of course, now a Wednesday night game against the magic is probably going to be the most watched game that night. You know what I mean? like, but I think that I'm so used to the chaos, you know what I mean by now? Like I just, I just feel so used to them being the sort of the monkey get that gets shot into space that I'm kind of like, yeah, maybe this will work out. Or maybe Jimmy will light it on fire. Either one of those outcomes would not surprise me. Content-wise, it's great. Sure.

I mean, talking wise, like, just like, as people who consume the league, Wednesday against the magic, the magic have to be three. This will be the most viewers that they've gotten in years and we'll get four years. That's true. And if I'm Jimmy Butler, I go out and score 40. Yeah. If I'm Jimmy Butler, like, my mission in life is to be like, it's on now. I'm going to put it on everybody. Yeah.

Yeah. All right, take us through what happened as we were recording. We took a little break and you immediately saw what happened with the, and Houston. Turns out things in Houston still not going well. Yeah. So things in Houston are not doing well. Their defense has fallen off a cliff. More concerningly, their offense looks horrible.

There are a lot of circumstances that add to that, including the fight that Chris Paul was involved in when he got spit on and James Hardin's injury. But also, their big name addition, Carmela, and then he's been playing really poorly. Hasn't gone well. Hasn't gone well. Now, I think you can make a argument that if the core of this team is not playing well is dysfunctional, which has not been playing well. Hardin and CP3 is still trying to figure it out, the rest of the team still trying to figure it out, then how can you expect Carmelo to, you know. Just to automatically be better. It's not all on him, but he's been playing terribly.

And so Mark Stein just tweeted. So there was early reports that the Rockets were going to, quote, something like, re-evaluate the situation with Carmelo Anthony. And Mark Stein just tweeted that the Rockets have denied they are waving Carmelo Anthony. But two sources close to the situation say Anthony has been informed that his brief time with the team will soon be ending. Anthony has been listed out as, quote, out for Houston's game tonight against Indiana due to illness. It is really shocking the alacrity with which this has come apart. It brings to mind like Alan Iverson with the Grizzlies.

Like it's just downhill fast. Fast. Yes. It feels like we just had like relatively serviceable still a superstar Mello. And now it's like when this goes down and it sounds like it's going to, what happens with Mello? Is he like does anybody bother picking him up? Is he done? Is he going to end up in China?

Like what are we talking about? We're talking about Hodi Mello and China? It depends on what he wants. If he wants to wait and see if a playoff team wants to like take a flyer on his. him. You don't even want to come off the bench to start the year, Chris. If he gets released by the Houston Rockets who are essentially turning around and saying that this is the reason, aside from Chris Paul being out and Jeff Betzella taking a six

week sabbatical or whatever and now coming back to run the defense, if they're saying Mello is the reason why we're not competing with the Warriors for the one seat in the Western Conference Finals, I think he's going to have to go play in Cleveland or Brooklyn or Orlando or Atlanta can go back to Atlanta. You know? Some team where it's... Like he is out of it. If he wants to start playing next week.

Like he's going to have to go play for a tanking team that just needs someone to bring 25 more people to the arena. Otherwise, he can sit, stay in shape and hope that an 8th seed or a 7th seed who wants to take a run, like a Detroit wants to try and bring him on for nothing and see if he does anything in the playoffs. Yeah, but in what role I think is the issue? He's already coming off the bench, shooting 32% from three, not getting to the line. at all. He's got his lowest free throw attempts per game of his career.

So the idea was that you'd finally unlock this Olympic mellow spot-up guy. It was so dangerous in the perimeter. It can use his speed against the bigger guys, take other players out to the deep water and shoot threes off the catch. That was the utility. That was what you were hoping to get out of a mellow who was not the high usage mellow of the past. Now, if you can't get that, if you can't get value there, what do you have?

I'm not actually, I don't know. Like, there's not, he's not like an ISO Joe kind of specialist anymore. Like, his specialty was scoring in an inefficient way with high volume. Yeah. No team is trying to win games. He's going to let him do that. I know where he should go. Tell me.

Don't say New York. Yeah, I was going to ask you if you wanted him back. One of the problems is that with Oklahoma and with Houston, they're both asking mellow not to be mellow. Because we have, like, this, like, 15-minute hype reel of Olympic mellow that we think is going to be like, that's what, he is. Melo needs to play in the mid-range. He needs to play in a stable environment where he knows exactly what he's supposed to do. He needs to play in a place where they're like, this is the deal, dude, and like this is what you can bring to our team. He needs to go play with the master and the commander, the mid-rage god, Greg Popovich in the San Antonio.

Hear me out. First of all, same state taxes. So financially, like, you just make it a completely lateral move. The move also pretty short distance. You might even be able to keep whatever you bought in Houston. That's right. And like, you want to shoot mid-range jumpers? That's all the spurs do these days. That's all we do. That's all we do, that's all we do.

Spell Demar for a second. All of a sudden, I'm on board with this. I'm sure Shay somewhere when he listens to this will be very on board with it. The spurs are a surprising seven and four. I'll say this. If that happened and Popovich wins anywhere between 48 and 50 plus games, he should go into whatever is above the Hall of Fame. Yeah.

And it should be immediately while he's alive right now. named after him. Right. I think we should name the league after him. It should be the Greg Popovich Association. Larry Brian

O'Brien comes off the trophy. Instead of Jerry West, the logo should just be Pop wearing a Beto hat. Yes. Listen, if they win

50 games with a team where like Patty Mills is the one guy shooting threes and everybody else is taking mid-range shots and one of those guys

is Carmelo Anthony. Yeah, I mean, like, Greg Popovich is the commissioner and also let him coach. It's fucking amazing the spells that he can cast.

You don't want him back in New York, right, even though he does are tanking? No, come on. All right. He doesn't want it. The effect on the young guys is... You want him in Philly? Oh, fuck, no.

No, no, that would be... I mean, I wouldn't... I'm not even sure I would send her, like, off to the G League to fucking draw people for whatever the... For whatever the 87ers are now, the blue coats or whatever the fuck. Yeah, maybe a team, like, if you're trying to put people in seats, like, in Orlando or someplace like that, where you're like, we know we're going to lose, we know we're going to be bad.

You mentioned Atlanta? Actually, Atlanta would probably be a good spot for him. Yes. There's a target for trade. Young, a professional score that Trey Young can throw the ball to instead of like the Vince Carter and the bunch of other guys that he throws the ball to now?

We are not far away from when the Alan Iverson Memphis reference was right. Denver. Terrible for the nuggets. Great for everybody else. I mean, I'm so bored of talking about Mello, but now all of a sudden I'm kind of like, where's she going?

Where should go? The jazz? That would be another fit where I'd be like, bless their hearts. There's very few teams where I'd be like, Okay, he's not going to be able to do any damage there because if he does do any damage, what is it going to happen? That's why he'll probably run up on like the Cavs or something like that.

Here's all you need to know about like the state of Mello's career and the state of the NBA right now. Joe Ingalls is a better player than Carmilla Anthony like and it's not close. Oh, by a million miles. But it's not close. Joe Ingalls is an efficient player and way underrated. What's going to happen with the Rockets though?

I mean, the Western Conference is so upside down right now. Just to wrap this up here. The Rockets are 4 and 7. The Mavericks have the same amount of wins as the Rockets. Rockets. The Timberwolves have the same amount of wins as the Rockets. Only the suns are worse than those three teams. I mean, that's really, like, it's crazy. The Lakers just got to 500. The Jazz are at 500. The Pelicans are at 500. The Kings are barely hanging on above 500. I mean, it's a weird conference right now. I mean, here's the most shocking stat about the Houston Rockets. Last year,

obviously, when they had their best lineup in, they were essentially a historic offense. They are 27th in the league in offense right now, 104.7 offensive rating per 100 possessions. That is like, that is more troubling to me than the defense, which is also abysmal. If bizelic, if his return can rejuvenate them in any way, then like this guy is a god. But to me, the more concerning thing is their offense, because that should not be a struggle. Why is the offense this bad? Yeah.

Very troubling. They had health issues. Sure. They had suspensions. Right. That's part of it. New pieces. They lost some shooters.

But like 27th in the league in offense. Not good. Under the Cavaliers is like what's wrong. There's a lot of things. Very, very wrong in Houston. Nothing wrong in Philadelphia. Everything's good and rosy. Chris has come around.

I'm super excited. It's going to be great entertainment-wise. Minnesota, Godspeed, I have no idea what you have there. You need to launch Tibbs into the sun. Point Dario. It'll be very exciting. I want to thank Chris Ryan for being here Jason Concepcion for being here.

You've got binge mode. You've got NBA desktop back. You're on heat check frequently. Group chat. Is it a source to say week? No, we have the watch. The watch. He's been killing it.

Andy is still in parts unknown. He's just around. He's just around. He is in the ether. I like it. Shouts to Andy, I'm sure he was very excited about that. I saw him on Twitter. Much more than I was.

Very excited about this. He was pumping all kinds of takes into his vein, so he'll have some content to consume while he's putting his show to bed. Isaac Lee, thank you, as always, for doing this. I want to remind everybody to please rate and review us on iTunes. Check out. He'd check every Monday. The mismatch on Tuesday. Sources say alternate Wednesday's group chat, corner three, all of your ringer NBA show needs. We will be back next Monday. Thanks for listening, gang. Bye.