The Ringer NBA Show - Jimmy Butler Suffers a Torn ACL. Plus, Real Ones All-Star Reserves | Real Ones

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Logan Murdock, Raja Bell, and Howard Beck are back with another edition of Real Ones, and open with Warriors forward Jimmy Butler suffering a torn ACL Monday night against the Miami Heat. What’s the fallout for a Warriors team that was starting to mesh? Also, will this lead to Steph Curry searching for greener pastures outside of Golden State? Plus, the All-Star starters have been announced, which means Logan, Howard, and Raja have to pick the reserves. Who got snubbed from their lists? (0:00:00) Intro (1:05) Jimmy Butler out for season (40:42) Picking All-Star reserves Hit the mailbag! [e-mail] Hosts: Logan Murdock, Raja Bell, and Howard Beck Producers: Victoria Valencia and Clifford Augustin Production Supervision: Ben Cruz and Conor Nevins Additional Production Support: John Richter and Chris Wohlers The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out rg-help.com to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's popping. Real Ones. Logan Murdoch here. Roger Bell and Howard Beck in a minute. Somber episode to start with the news of Jimmy Butler's tour in ACL. We talk about the ramifications for Steph, Warriors' front office, and everything gold and stay going forward. It's a really, it's a tough time, the fledgling days of a dynasty. All of those things. We talk about all of that. What could have happened, what should have happened, what's happening now. And then me, Roger and Howard give us.

our reserve picks for the All-Star game. And yeah, it was a really good conversation. I really loved it. Love getting in a lab with these guys. And I think you guys will too. So Cliff, play the theme music. What's popping? Real ones.

Logan Murdoch here. Roger Bell there, Howard Beck in the Cut. Happy belated MLK Day for those who celebrate. This is really somber, man. We had a whole podcast. I'm ready to go. Signed, Silden delivered until late last night when at 720, with 741 left in the third quarter of a 135, 112 Warriors win over the Miami Heat. Jimmy Butler tries to take an inbound pass and tears his right ACL and he's expected to miss the rest of the season.

and probably the start of next season too as well. Like that, you know, we're at that stage right now where this is probably, you look at it about a year-long injury. So this is going to be take some time. A lot of ramifications that we're going to get to in this in the first, in the first segment here. A lot of ramifications for Jimmy, a lot of ramifications for the Warriors,

a lot of ramifications for one Jonathan Cominga, who continues to be in the Warriors news cycle. Let's get into those ramifications, Howard. What does this, let's put this in perspective for everybody involved, not just the injury that happened last night, but what are the things that will come out of this in your eyes from your perspective? Oh, man. This is difficult on so many levels for the Warriors.

They were already kind of on the fringes of the playoff hunt, right? We're a good, solid team. We're a team that's going to finish. like the mid-40s to high 40s and wins, right? With Jimmy Butler, with all the weirdness around Cumminga, with this kind of wonky roster, we're hanging in. But this, like, this is a death blow to the season. Like, there's no two ways about it.

No Jimmy Butler means whatever illusion the Warriors had, whatever hopes they had of being on like the fringe contender chase in the West, is gone. And I don't know if they were there in the first place. place. But even if you were, if you were close, if you thought you were close, maybe we're one really good kuminga trade away from really, you know, inserting ourselves in that top tier in the West, forget it. Not without Jimmy Butler. Any hope the Warriors had of being a, more than a first round and out team is gone. So that's, that's the first part. The second part is

like to step back and assess what you can do, right? Like if Steph is five years younger, okay, well, this season we couldn't do it. We'll regroup in the summer. We'll figure it out. But the clock is ticking. Steph is still a top 10 player of the NBA as of this moment. How much longer, how many more years we don't know. So I think the first question for Mike Dunleavy, Jr. and his staff is, do we, you know, try to still make some moves? There's a Cominga trade to be made that was going to be made anyway, I think. I guess maybe you could reassess that. Do we keep comminga now? I don't think so. I think you're still better off. Yeah, I don't think Jimmy's absence opens the, like, Jonathan Comingga is not Jimmy Butler, and he's not going to fill,

nobody's going to fill all those things. But Comingga is not the answer. So you still have to trade Cumminga anyway. That's an untenable situation. I don't know if there are any other moves you can make, but how much are you willing to go all in on trying to salvage this season versus planning for next season? Not knowing whether you'll get the same step for sure next season or the same Draymon for that matter. So it just throws everything into this awful gray area. I will say the timing of this sucks on so many levels for them. They had just won, counting the game that they won without Jimmy last night. They won four in a row, 12 and 4 since December 18th.

They were actually in a pretty good groove. 25 and 19 for the season. That puts them on pace for 46 to 47 wins. They're eighth in the west, but only a game and a half out of sixth, two games out of fifth. They were actually in an okay place. And with a potential comminga trade to come that maybe could bolster them. and now instead you're talking about can we just stay in the play in race and and just hang on

and how much do you invest in what's left of this season it's it's fucking brutal how are you feeling rogers this seems like this is a sad state of affairs let's get your perspective first what's going on yeah i mean i don't have much to add to what howard said i you know just coming from a player's perspective um you know that that sucks for jimmy especially at a you know, a point in the career where, let's just be honest, like rehabbing isn't as easy. You aren't as focused all the time. I mean, he might be, but generally you have other things going on in your world. Jimmy seems to be one of those guys that enjoys a lot of things in his world outside of basketball

that he's got interest in. And I've talked before about how, you know, priorities and focus just starts to shift, right, as you become more worldly and you get older. And so it's a hard injury to see him suffer at this point. Everything that Howard said is spot on. The answer I think to whether you try to salvage this season and like I don't know that it's salvageable, Howard. Like what, you know, you've just by no fault of their own necessarily, like you can never predict this injury. But, you know, I was on here a week or so ago talking about them wasting steps, whatever window is left.

And this just falls right into that bucket, right? Like, it was looking promising. Who knows what you could have done in the comminga by way of picking up a piece that that just might not be a huge pillar of the community, if you will, but like maybe a piece that just kind of unlock something with them, giving them more of a chance than I thought that they had in the West. But that's out the window now. And so it just sucks all the way around.

It's a sad morning for Golden State fans, Jimmy Butler fans, Jimmy Butler's family, the whole nine. Yeah. I mean, by the way, this is the knee that he's had trouble with his knee throughout his entire career. I think in 2018, he had a torn meniscus in this knee. 24, he had a MCL sprain in this knee. It's one of those things where, you know,

the elephant was always in the room with Golden State with this, you know, this from the beginning of this Jimmy trade and, you know, the time that preceded it where, you know, the Warriors had to do something. But they, the Jimmy Butler trade seemed, you know, in essence like a band-aid to the problems that they had. head because right now, like, they don't really have much of a deep team, right? I mean, you talk about how, you know, they've gone on this run. A lot of that has to do with the great play of three players,

Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, and Steph Curry. And that's kind of been the pillars of this offense and defense. You talk about the on-off splits when Jimmy, Steph, and Draymond are on the floor versus when they're off. It's very glaring, right? They don't really have much of a bench. They don't really have much of a front court. It's, it's, it's really sad, right? I wasn't at the arena last night, but I can imagine just how quiet. And this, it was one of those wins that was like, no one is thinking about what happened on the floor afterwards. They're thinking about one guy. And there's going to be ramifications to this. And the other thing is this, like, I was thinking about before the pod, like, what do they do with Jimmy Butler? Because, I mean, this started off, you know, I think he's,

He's been really, you know, welcomed in that locker room. I think he's been a great piece in that locker room. But let's be honest to start, you know, of this relationship was a marriage of convenience, right? So I wonder, like, can they get off of his contract at all? I don't know. There's not a wizard's team out there. I don't think that would absorb it even, you know, with him being injured. I don't know what goes forward with this.

Like, the trade for Cabinga, on one hand, I'm like, go look, go to Caminga and be like, hey, man, you know, we both need you to play great. Can you go out there and hope for us for the next few months and we'll figure things out and trade after that? And then on the other hand, it's like you go in that locker room, it's very much, like Howard said, it's very far gone with that dude. And the warriors and that relationship in the way that it is, it is at this very moment. I don't know what they do.

Completely mismanaged. Completely mismanaged. Both sides. I'm not even pointing a finger, but that's been completely mismanaged. Absolutely. from the front office and to the, you know, how the coaches have had that relationship. Just it's completely mismanaged. But because of that, I don't know what the trade market is for him in general because Howard,

like they've been trying to trade him for, I don't know how long. They haven't gotten a deal that they've wanted. I don't think now that they're going to get a deal that they've wanted. They're probably actually going to get a worse deal if they try to trade coming at this point. especially now that the league knows, like, the warriors are desperate to make a move. So they don't have much leverage in the marketplace right now. Where do they go from that? And you're talking about improving the team.

What avenues do they have? It's rough. I mean, it's rough. Like, Cominga's value in the marketplace already wasn't great. We know this because he's still on the roster. Like, you guys covered this on Friday, so I don't want to go back over a lot of this ground. But, like, the very fact that Jonathan Cominga issued a trade demand to me was kind of laughable at its face. Like, dude, they were trying to trade you anyway. Like,

you don't need to demand anything. It's clear from both sides. They don't want to move forward. And the warriors have been trying since last summer when they were trying to do sign-in trades when he was a free agent. And they couldn't. So they resigned him. Like, there's no lack of clarity here. Jonathan Comigga would be better off somewhere else and the Warriors would be better off moving him somewhere else and getting pieces that they think fit better around Steph and Dremont. I don't know what that market will be. You're right, Logan, the negotiating position, their leverage, just tanks because now everybody knows they're that much more desperate. But I think it still comes down to how do other teams value Jonathan Kamenga?

How much are they willing to give up for him? And I don't think, like, no one trade necessarily sets the market. We sometimes overuse or overestimate that. But the Trey Young deal doesn't bode well for anybody trying to move. serious players. And, you know, Kamaga's contract is like less than half or half that of Trey Young's. But Trey Young was an all-star and Kaminga's not. And Tray-Young didn't get much in return. I don't know where that goes. But I think to the extent, if you're trying to find hope for the Warriors, it's that there's a comming a trade to be made. There's some reshuffling to do.

After that, it's like, you know, do you want to like see what, you know, Pajemsky's value is, Moody's value is. Like there's not a lot of other movable pieces, right? You're not going to offload Draymond Green or Steph himself. So they really are in a bind. You went back, I'm going to go back, Logan, to when you were talking about like the teams,

the team's psyche kind of like right after that game. Like when you're in, when you get that news, the utter deflation that that is and how long that lasts, no one can predict that, right? And the thing about NBA games is they just keep coming. So they have a game tonight. They keep coming, man. And you're just, I mean, I can't express, try to put myself like, it's deflation, man.

When you hear that you're, you know, one of the guys, you know, because role guys, we've talked about this before, role guys can, can, you can do the next man up mentality. Now, he might be a little lesser than the previous guy that was holding that down. But there's a version of that that's going to be okay, right? we just got to get him up to speed, get his, get his rust knocked off and so on and so forth. But one of those guys, the Jimmy Butler, the staffs, the Draymonts, when you lose them in that way and you know you're not getting them back, that's deflation.

So then you lean on like your culture, you lean on the leaders of the locker room, you know, the coaches, the brain trust and the, you know, the collective to try to ride that storm out as quickly as possible. But you just can't predict it. You can't predict the hangover from that. And the deflation that comes with getting that news. So like when I think about this and as it relates to you, I mean, I think about, you know, when Amari went down, right?

When you guys had to, you know, Steph said, you know, we're going to have to do it by committee. That's something that you guys had to do. But I feel like the vibes there were much better than the vibes in Golden State right now, right? There's so much distrust. I wouldn't say right, like at this very moment over the streak. but you could see the cracks in the trust on court throughout the beginning parts of the season, right? That's why Draymond went off, all Steve Kerr walked off the floor in large part because of a bad rotation.

He was just really frustrated with, you know, the guys not getting into, you know, position, right? And those things are going to continue to happen as, you know, the frustration on the court, the frustration of the injury continue to happen, you know, in the backdrop of the frustrations that happen, you know, when you're losing or those rotations aren't getting better necessarily. In this time period, because a lot of that happened, you know, where they're at right now, Jimmy Butler's not in to help the defensive part. So there's a lot of things that they have to do. I don't know how you recreated in the way that you guys did because you guys had, I would say, better supporting cast and better overall vibes. Yeah, I mean, that's the point, right? So good call.

we had way more bullets in the chamber in terms of players that could do multiple things out there and contribute in multiple ways. We had them stacked on the bench. Like Mike was getting criticized at some points for not getting deep enough into his bench in the playoffs. It wasn't the lack of people that we had that were capable. So we had more things that we could throw at the problem. The timing was also way different. Like this is midstream. We were just getting in the canoe. You know what I mean? This was training camp when Amari goes down. So you can say, all right, well, here was the plan. Doesn't look like we can adhere exactly to that. But like here's what we can do in terms of augmentation of it. And let's throw this at it real quick and see how that looks

over a preseason, which is what we did. And then the third most critical part of that is, you know, we had multiple all-stars like Steve was still good to go. Sean was still good to go. Boris Diyah was critical in that because Boris was a piece that you could bring in. And while he wasn't Amari and he didn't finish above the rim, and so we couldn't play exactly the same, it gave us another person that you could throw the ball to and he could facilitate offense. And it just meant we played a little different, but it actually added a wrinkle to who we were offensively that we did not have when Amari was out there.

Amari got it, he shot or finished. Like when Boris got it, it made us really hard to go. because now Steve doesn't have all eyes locked on him as a primary ball handler, and he can run around. You can't account for him, and now he gets to be involved offensively. So we had just more solutions at Mike and the front office's disposal than Golden State has at this point. So I want to stay on that real quick because you, the similarities between Golda State and you guys was at least when Amari was out and something that you had to find with board,

was your offense was a heliocentric offense that was centered around one guy, which is Steve Nash, right? The Warriors have that similarly with Steph. Sometimes they're detriment, right? Because the offense is so, you know, on his shoulders and for good reason, Jimmy was able to offset that, right?

You could throw it in a post that it could be a, you know, KD was also a guy that could offset that, somebody who could give that change of pace. What are, a roster is what it is. But what are you telling other guys like, yo, this is what are you telling other guys as a coach to try to get a different offense set up?

Because we're back to square one here where Steph has all the responsibility. And also if you, if I'm the Raptors tomorrow or tonight, the Warriors are playing the Raptors at Chase tonight, I'm just blitzing Steph and saying anybody else beat me, 1,000%. How do you go, how do you evolve within that concept on the fly.

No, I mean, that's got to be a skill set that someone possesses. You're not inventing that in a player at this point in the season. I'm trying to go through their roster just on the fly here. I don't know that they have a guy that you could just kind of throw the ball to and say, hey, man, we're going to give it to you. Steff's tired. Take it over there on the wing and create something good. Not just create something, but create something good.

Because we have to do this said percentage of the time in a game just to give Steph a break. I don't know that that exists on their roster. You know, and I saw the other night. I think this was the other night. I mean, I came across my feed, but like Steph and the Warriors in general were already, you know, somebody out, was it? Colin Sexton was like playing him and walking with him to the bench. You know, like they had gotten real physical with him and they were doing what,

what like he might not like it and warrior fans might not like it. But if that's the way your offense is running and that's the engine that makes it go, like that's our job. whether it feels good to you or not is to try to stop that. That's only going to be exacerbated now. Because I literally am coming into that game saying, hey, guys, here's the deal. Anybody but him. I don't give a fuck.

I don't care if Draymond gets 50. If Pajemski can score 62 and beat us, do it. But not Steph covered. And then, you know, we're going to roll that out a few times to find out if that's the answer. Now, maybe over the course of eight or nine games, that doesn't wind up being an answer to the league support. but we about to find out. Yeah. The other thing is, I'll bring it back to Howard on this one.

Let's go back to the Golda State's front office because you did speak on, you know, doing right by Steph. And in the past, you know, they have kept pods close to the vest in trade talks, right? It's a big reason why they didn't get Lori Marketing because they didn't want to part with the Moody Hupizimski, which, you know, pissed somebody, a lot of people off in the building. But what, if you're in front office right now, this is a weird about face that you have to, you know, you find yourself in. But you still have to at least do right by stuff. What is a mindset that they need to have going forward? Like I know in the Bay it's been very frustrating to see this. You know, Blame has gone all around.

It's gone around, you know, with Steve this season and how he's coached, right? It's sometimes just around, you know, Lakib, who got the email earlier this. season from the fan base asking for, you know, better results. And, you know, he talked about how he's frustrated as anyone. Where does the blame lie right here? And then how do they, I just don't know how they, short of pushing away their picks, what they say they're not going to do. I don't know how they improve this.

I have no idea how they could go forward with building out a roster here, right? Like they're not, they can't call Milwaukee and be like, hey, man, can we get Janus? Please. Let me take Janus off your hands. not part with no picks. They don't have a package, the best package out there anyway, but I'm just saying as an example. I just don't know what they do right now because they speak out of both sides of their mouth. They say on one hand, we want to, you know, do the best we can to make sure a step is good, but we don't want to part with anything. So I don't know the balance that they have

to have to have to do that. They kind of have to get desperate at this point because the reality is this where I get to you. Chase Center ain't going to be Chase Center when 30 is not there. Like these all these vibes and everything that it's it's it's about to come to an end. And I think the ownership knows that, but they haven't acted on it. I've been really consistent over the years. I was really critical of the Lakers, you know, within the last three, four, five years about wasting what was left of LeBron's late prime, his extended prime. And it's the same with Steph now, right? Like when you have a generational talent and especially when they're later in their career and the window's closing, but they're still.

great, you have an obligation. You have an obligation to the player. You have an obligation to the basketball universe, to history, to your fans, to everything, to do everything possible to make their last years of greatness meaningful. And I thought the Lakers were screwing that up for a while in their post-2020 championship. I think the Warriors have been guilty of a similar but different version of this, right? Where they are right now is the culmination of a bunch of ill-fated, ill-considered decisions of the last few years, starting with the whole two-timeline idea. Like, they never should have.

I've said this before. This is not hindsight on my part. I thought at the time, you don't need the second pick in the draft. That thing's valuable. Trade the number two pick for immediate help. And when they had the picks that became Cumminga and Moody, trade those, like, forget who those players became. I didn't know what Wiseman, Coominger, and Moody would eventually be.

or what Pajemski may yet become. But every young player that they've drafted in the last five years, to me has been almost a wasted opportunity because before those players were drafted, those picks had value. And I thought, let me just keep a pin right in that

because I just want to answer your question of you don't know who they will become. I know who they won't fucking become. Yeah. And that's the answer. Who won't they become, Roger? Who will they become? Steph and Curry.

Go ahead. I digress. No, no, dude, absolutely. Thank you, Rosh. That is exactly why the whole two time I think was stupid in the first place, because there is no post-Stef Curry future. If you're lucky, you may find another star or two along the way, but you're not finding, most likely not finding, another top time all-time, a player.

So the idea that we can still win in the present and plan for a post- Steph Curry future is ludicrous. It was ludicrous on its face at the time. And where they are right now, to an extent is the product of all that. Now, I want to back up for a second, whether it's Mike Don Levy Jr. or Bob Myers, I think they've done everything that they can within the constraints of ownership. Ownership is the one that got fixated on the young guys. I think Bob Myers and Mike Dunlevy, Jr., who succeeded him, have done what they can. And look, whereas the Lakers, I think, were just flailing around for a while, the Warriors, I think, actually made some good moves along the way,

including most critically the Jimmy Butler deal. Now, maybe it was too little too late, but Jimmy made them a much better team when they got him last year, and they did win a playoff series, and they might have won a second series and got to the conference finals if Steph himself hadn't been hurt in that Timberwolf series. So I can't say that they haven't done right by Steph and by the basketball gods and by everything else

because they've tried. They just locked themselves into certain decisions and certain young players early on that prevented them from doing more sooner. And so now to Logan's point, yeah, the players they have aren't worth a whole lot in trade. They do have, I think, all their picks. And I'll still say, I will say this every time,

fuck the future. I don't care about the future. Your future sucks anyway once Steph is gone. You ain't just bouncing right back and becoming a playoff team in year one or two. Like, it takes a while. It's going to take a while anyway. If you have to spend some draft capital, I'm not saying throw good money after bad.

I'm not saying do it just for the sake of getting anybody. But if you can get good players to put around Steph and for the present, Draymond still, if you can do that by spending some of your draft capital and or some of those young players, do it. Do it. Do whatever you've got to do to make the last years of Steph Curry's career viable and relevant. Do not relegate him to annual play-in games or first round and out. Give him a fighting chance.

That's your obligation. Listen, I agree with you, 100% Howard. Steph Curry is a machine. I got to watch him work a little bit last summer when my son got to go to the Steph Curry camp. It is incredible what he's able to do with his body, let alone at the age that he's doing it at. He knows, though, you know,

the fan just sees him going out there and still doing what he's doing. Any Hooper will tell you that as they get older, that becomes more and more and more difficult to maintain, to prepare for, to stay in shape, to do every offseason it gets a little bit more difficult and more challenging to do that. And so Steph is very aware of that, whether he's still holding on to like the top level form or not. He knows that it's getting harder and harder to do that. This one's simple for me from Steph's perspective. And Steph's probably too good of a soldier to, too, to,

you know, legacy and all of that. And, but if you aren't willing to move those picks, let me go. Let me go. I, if I'm Steph, I don't want to be that, that player towards the end of my career. Most of those dudes want to still play and for relative, you know, titles and and, and important playoff series. They want to be in the mix like that. You know what I mean?

And so, like, if we're going to now be without Jimmy Butler, you're going to have to make a call as an organization. I as Steph Curry am going to hold your feet to the fire. Like, we have to, what is the plan? Who do you know? Like, you guys know better than me. Like, I'm not, who has straddled the two timelines successfully? The Spurs.

You can remember. The Spurs. And that's what they wanted. Did they? Yeah. I mean, and they were on track to do it. and then Kawhi, the Kauai situation happened.

Fair, okay. I mean, that's what the Warriors were trying to emulate. They made two finals and won a championship with him, right? With an aging Dunkin and an aging Parker and Genoblee, right? So, like, they kind of did it. But, like, as is usually the case,

they kind of fell into it, right? Like, at the moment that they traded George Hill for the rights to, to draft rights to Kauai Leonard, the 15th pick in the draft, they didn't know Kauai was going to become what he became. So you can't plan for this stuff. A lot of it's just fucking happenstance. I think that,

that this is just late stage Laco, right, at this point, where, you know, winning builds on ego, right? And at the time when he said the two timeline thing, this was on the heels of the light years, quote that he made, right, where, you know, when you have a whole bunch of success early as an owner, you think you're invincible and you think that this will last forever. And you think that you can try certain things, right? and that you can do certain things. And there was a lot of ego in the first part of the Golden State Dynasty built largely on the back of Steph Curry, who honestly wasn't even picked during that regime, who was picked

in 2009, I think, what, a year or two before Lake would even bought the team? And, you know, not to say they didn't make great picks, right? That 2012 draft to get Draymond, Harrison Barnes, and Fessus Azili is an all-time draft for that organization. And, you know, that was with the help of Jerry West, you know, back to the arrogance thing, whom Lacob underpaid and didn't make feel welcomed much to Jerry West chagrin, right? There goes the arrogance thing. We could do it without Jerry West. And that's the first bit of hint of what was to come, right? And then, you know, Lekub stresses out Bob Myers to the point where, like, he doesn't, he can't, literally can't do this anymore, right? And then you put that on top of the comments that he makes where the picks were all Lacobs idea, right?

He wanted Wiseman because he loved the workout that Wiseman had in pre-draft and was just enamored by him, right? Despite the fact that, you know, he didn't play that many games in college, right? And he also, you know, Lekab also wanted Kaminga, which is, that is born fruit, you know, throughout Kaminga's career when, you know, some other guys wanted Trey Murphy, right? And you can, you, you see that with the draft picks and you see that with the comments that come out and the types of moves they make. There is an arrogance to those moves. And you're seeing the other side of that where you still got to listen to the basketball people. And that is something that is kind of starting to rear its ugly head as we're in this conundrum that we're in right now with the Dakota State Warriors, right? Where it's like all these decisions finally come to a head.

And Steph is great. He's all-time great. And greatness erases a lot of these mistakes. But it only does it for so long. And you have to have the balance with the other side of that. And we're starting to see, you know, the limits to that great. and, you know, the arrogance that comes with that. And, you know, it's arrogance that has been earned because they have won the titles, but it's also arrogance that has kind of gotten up to

this point, to be honest, not making those trades, saying we can buck conventional wisdom and do a two-time line when everyone says we can't. And so, you know, this is where we are right now. It's tough. No, I was just going to say, listen, you know, we're all fans of the game, right? We don't care about. We don't have an emotional investment in the wins and losses of individual teams or anything else. But I think everybody who loves this game, who loves the NBA, you want to see the all-time greats be able to, one, age gracefully, and then have their teams be competitive around them, right? Like, at a minimum, right?

No one's winning championships in this league usually at age 37, 38, 40, 41 in LeBron's case. But at least give guys a fighting chance, right? So I think that's where we all are, right? don't want to see however you feel about the Warriors or anybody else, you just don't want to see Steph wasted. You don't want to see a LeBron wasted. You don't want to see KD wasted. And yeah, this is just, it's a shitty situation all the way around. And by the way, Jimmy Butler turning 37 in September, like he could come back early to mid-next season, but he's going to be 37, even if he didn't have a torn ACL rehab. And I don't, I don't, and I think that's

the last year of his deal with the Warriors, too. So it just, you know, Jimmy's career is, is in a little bit of doubt there. The warrior situation's in doubt. If this is the way, if this is like the next kind of death blow to this era for the warriors, it's just a really grisly one. I just, I just add real, real quick. What makes it even, if Steph was a shell of himself, that's one thing. Yeah.

Like if you've got that older superstar that's hung on, a little too, long, maybe, you know, just a little bit past the expiration date. And you see like real slippage there. Like that's, that's more palatable. But he's still out there doing superhuman stuff. Yeah. And, and that makes it harder, a harder pill to swallow. If anybody doubts it, by the way, real quick, because Steph was named one of the All-Star starters last night. And I know that's going to be controversial for some people because they thought Anthony Edwards or somebody else should have made it instead. Steph, still not for nothing. Sixth in the ringer, 100 rankings. And if you don't buy the ringer 100 rankings,

EPM, estimated plus minus, which according to all the analytics guys out there is the best publicly available all in one stat. Steph right now is seventh in the NBA in EPM at a plus 5.3. Jimmy Butler, by the way, was 14th in the NBA in EPM at plus 4.3. Like, these are both still really, really impactful guys. And so don't, don't get fooled by Steph's age or anything else of the Warriors record. Dude is still elite. And that's where the obligation comes in. So many parallels here before we get out of here between Steph and Derek right now. I'm just seeing a lot of parallels. Think about after they won their last, after Dirk wins his last title, you know, Cuban's doing a lot of tinkering. He said it even on his podcast, right? He was,

he did a lot of tinkering with the roster right after that championship in 2011 because he was bracing for a lockout. So it was basically literally a financial. decision why he didn't bring a lot of his guys back. And he never put together a team, Cuban and company, never put together a team that was good enough to even sniff the finals again. And I'm seeing that right now with Golden State, a different set of circumstances, but same thing. Ownership, taking an outside role in basketball decisions.

And, you know, the generational talent is suffering from that. So it's tough. One other thing I wanted to flag really quickly, there is a clip going out on this podcast from last week's episode. We got aggregated where I was talking about the relationship between Kaminga and the rest of the roster. And I listened back to it. It's kind of making the rounds. And it definitely wasn't.

It wasn't the, what I said was what I was trying to say, excuse me. me, was illustrate the frustration that people in the building has have had on just how this comminga thing is just dragged out and the frustration all the way around it. And I listened back to it. And it listens, it listens like I was saying that everybody in the locker room doesn't like comminga. And I think that that got, definitely got misconstrued. And it's my fault that it got misconstrued because I wasn't clear enough in the way that I wanted to discuss it. But the fact of the matter of it is this isn't a, this commingate thing isn't a disagreement in the locker room.

It is a product of front office politics and front office infighting and front office disagreements of why he's in the position that he's in right now. And it's frustrated with everybody within the building. but that doesn't mean that his teammates don't like him. And I definitely didn't make that clear enough. And that's on me. I'm a podcaster. And it's on me to say things clearly as possible.

Also, I am someone that, you know, takes pride in putting in accurate information out at all times. I'm a reporter at heart. And so for that, I wasn't clear enough. So I missed the mark. So I just want to say, my bad on that. And what I really wanted to say was, you know, there's a frustration within that building that we've kind of discussed throughout this segment of how this is dragged out. And I think that you've seen that both behind the scenes and comments in front of the scenes where players have to be asked about Kaminga. Players, coaches, and executives have to be asked about Kaminga all the time.

And it's just, you know, it's not good for anyone involved in this, right? And so my bad on that, I definitely misspoke. And, yeah, just wanted to put that out there. Let's take a quick break. And I think we're talking all-stars. Let's talk all-stars. We are back. The all-star starters have gotten picked.

Some controversy that Howard alluded to. Steph Curry is a starter over Anthony Edwards. So that kind of puts a, let's just, that puts a little wrench in what we thought we were going to get because I thought we were going to pick Steph as a reserve. Now Anthony Edwards is the clear first reserve on the West. Let's just say each other's list really quickly. and then we can say where we agree and disagree. Is that cool? Is that cool?

Yeah. Before we get into that, Logan, can I just like real quick on the process here? Because in posting this yesterday on Blue Sky, and I'm sure this was the case on other social media platforms as well, like the fans are like, wait a minute, what the hell's going on? These guys are the starters,

but they're not the starters because there's going to be a world team and two U.S. teams. And like, it's really fucking confusing. And there are reasons for it, right? My understanding is that when the NBA and the union were talking about how to redo this. There were some things that they had to work out that I think maybe we'll still get worked out in the future

to simplify this format a little. But if you're going to go USA versus the world, even if it's two USA teams of eight guys each and then one world team of eight guys, then the ballot should be U.S. players and non-U.S. players, right? Not east and west. It is not an east and west game.

When we call these guys, quote, unquote, starters that they've been voted to, they may not be starting. or they're not the only starters because there's going to be three starting lineups, ultimately not two. This is needlessly confusing.

And it's driving fans crazy. Like, to be clear, it's not that complicated. You can follow it. And maybe it's on us as media members to try to explain it as well as we can to the public. No, it is.

It is. No, it's not. No, it's not. I'm just trying to be adamant of this. is the thing why it's not, though, man. Fans don't want to go to a game and try to do a bath problem all the time. We talked about this last year. And they made too many changes at once, right?

They went to positionless for the first time. So it's a little bit, like even in trying to pick up my ballot, like I was one of the media voters for the quote unquote starters who may or may not be starters. And for this exercise today, the coaches will pick the reserves, but we're going to pick our reserves. The whole positionless thing, it's structureless. So it makes it a little bit harder to actually sort this all out because you don't have

places to just slot guys into. But if we're trying to have this represent the best of the best, and for history's sake, as well as the game itself, it's failing right now. So a humble, modest proposal by me, just for the sake of all of us in media and fans and everywhere else who discuss this stuff, we need to stop using All-Star owners in any way, shape, or form

as a barometer of career success, all-time rankings, Hall of Fame stuff, any of that. It's pointless. It was probably always pointless, because All-Star was always a bit of a popularity contest, especially when it was purely a fan vote. But all NBA and other honors need to be the barometer. All-Star, now more than ever, feels not necessarily meaningless,

but just too muddled to use as a real gauge of a guy's greatness in his time. It's all fucked up. So that's all. Okay. We can get our reserves. Now to our reserves. I need to get that off of my job. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to do mine, I'm going to throw it to

Rai, and then I'll throw it to Howard and we'll figure out, you know, who was right and who was wrong. Okay, my reserves are, my seven reserves for the West are Anthony Edwards, Chet Holmgren, Jamal Murray, Alfred Shangoon, Kevin Durant,

Devin Booker, and Denny from Portland. That is my... Denny from Portland. Yep. It's a call-in list now on this way. He's having a great. season. I didn't want to mess his name up. I apologize. I don't want to mess his name up. I already get enough shit on this podcast to begin with. So let me not. And I love Portland, so I don't want to mess

it up. That is mine. We can talk about why I did the picks in a second if you if you want to go to Rajah just for the sake of just like doing a round rob. And who did you get right? Oh, wait. Hold on. Sorry. Sorry. I got to do Eastern. Do you want to do Eastern Conference first? Let's do one conference at a time. Let's go one conference at a time. All right. All right. Mine was really similar. I had Ann Edwards, Jamal Murray, Kevin Durant,

Devin Booker, Shengoon, Kauai, and Denny Abia. Yeah. You mean Danny from Portland? Denny Avia. Sorry, I'm going to get shit. For not trying to get shit. For not trying to get shit, I'm probably going to get shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm probably going to get shit. So it's fine. Denny from the PDX. By the way, do we have any problems with the starting five? Like I'm fine with the starting five as they were announced. And in fact, that was my ballot, which Yokic, Donchich, Shea, Wembe, and Steph. I was one of the, I think I was way outvoted among the media members.

I think it was like two-thirds for Andrews. I actually went, Steph. The funny part is the Wimbi, the Wimben Yama part was hilarious. He was seventh in player voting, which was very. Wild, right? Luca was sixth. Yeah. The players weren't going to make Luca a starter.

Like, I don't tell me that players don't be hating. because players be hate. Also, yeah, but also like they don't take this shit seriously either. Like two people voted for Brony James and there's, you know, the usual nonsense. You look over the player voting. It's like all over the fucking map. Raj, you get your, get your, get your guys. That's your line.

On the point here. Yes, I am holding you responsible for today's players. You've been retired. Thanks. All right. My reserves, Ant Edwards, duh. Jamal Murray has to be there. I can't remember.

Did you guys both have Jamal? Yeah, of course. Absolutely. All right. Chet, KD, Denny from the PDX. And then I've got two departures from you guys. Okay. I'm putting LeBron in there.

I'm absolutely putting LeBron in there, despite the games played. And I'm going James Hardin, who I think has actually been as important or more so than Kauai again for the Clippers with Kauai yet again out. And with apologies to book Shangoon. there were some others I kind of kicked around even Julius Randall, Trey Murphy, but yeah, that was it. So I think Hardin and LeBron are my outliers from YouTube.

So I had Brun as 7B, if you will. Like I was really close. Like the number of games threw me, but it is in L.A., right? Yeah, it's in L.A. Yeah. Like it's in L.A. Like there were a lot of reasons where I was like,

okay, Braun. And then Chet, I had chat, like on a short list. I had chat. James Harden. The reason I didn't go Hardin and I went Kauai, I really wanted to go both if I'm keeping it a buck, but like their record precluded. Like they didn't allow me to do that.

So I picked, but I could see that, Howard. Because I had those two as first two out, we're really first three out with Chet. I, so I had a hard time with the final pick. I picked Devin Booker because what a season that the sons have had in a large part has to do with Devin Booker and I wanted to reward that,

right? Like he has, it's not like he's having like putting career high numbers up, but his numbers are great. And the fact that they're seventh in the west is a feat onto itself. And I really wanted to reward that. Same from Denny from PDX. I wanted to reward that as well, right? And like, I wanted to also take into account Kauai's, it was really hard to like take off Kauai and LeBron, right? But for Kauai, he, had the great stretch, you know, since December. But before that, the clippers were awful. And I didn't want to reward even that they've kind of regressed or not regress,

but what's the opposite of regress? The opposite of regress to the mean is what they, the clippers have done, you know, going into the All-Star break. And I thought Diddy did is what he has done, you know, his 26 points per game. He's getting to the free throw line 10 times per game now. His game has really elevated. And I wanted to reward that. I saw him play once this season.

Nia 23 free throws. I saw him play up in Portland. And December, I'm like, damn, he's getting to the line. This dude, but you can see the maturation. And also, for all everything that we say positive about the Wizards, they really let that get away, which is very, which is not a great thing. but I wanted to reward how he has been this season. And I kind of figured LeBron is going to get in anyway, right?

He's only played 21 games. And a lot of times the thing with LeBron is his numbers look better sometimes, especially as he's age, looks better than the product he has put on the floor at times. And I know that there's the other things. There's L.A. There's all these things. But I wanted to reward Denny and Devin for their winning. And so that's why I pick them over, you know, the Kauai's and LeBahs.

bronze. Denny, Denny's up nine points per game and double, double the amount of assist. Like putting the ball in his hands, he's, he's doubled his career highs and assist. Like he's, he's hooping and I agree with you. LeBron came down to me, sorry Howard, because I know you want to go, but LeBron came down to me,

it was about games played. So like, the LA of it all. Yeah. But games played hurt. Anybody wants to disqualify LeBron on the games played? I can't argue because I'm usually big on the games played thing. but do I lean toward legends who are still playing at a high level if the games played or down a little bit? Yeah, I mean, yeah, there are certain guys who have earned that

pass. He wouldn't have earned the past if he were only, you know, he's played 24 games out of 41. He's missed 17. If it were that and he was not playing well, then fine. I'm fine with saying LeBron, you lost the lifetime past, pass. But he's averaging 22, 5, and 6. I know. One of seven players at those averages. And among those seven players, averaging at least 22, 5, and 6, he's fourth in effective field goal percentage over Luca, Denny from the PDX, and Cade Cunningham.

So, like, LeBron is, again, still elite. Y'all may not like it, and you may want to say that he didn't play enough games. And if it's a games played thing, fine. But he's still playing at an incredible level. And I think he's absolutely worthy. And yeah, he's LeBron. And yeah, he's 41. And yeah, it's in L.A.

By the way, I didn't pick Kauai, but I kind of almost hope Kauai makes it just for the comedy of it all. Like the game is going to be at the Intuit Dome, the Clippers home. We've got the aspiration thing, that whole saga, the whole cap circumvention bullshit still hanging over them. The more that Kauai and Steve Ballmer have to be in an uncomfortable spotlights that weekend, the better for all of us for entertainment purposes. So, yeah, I didn't vote for Kauai in this in this fake exercise, but by all means put a minute. There's got to be somebody in a building. Like, can we just push the, can we push the All-Star game to next year?

Can we swap with Phoenix? I know, you know, logistically would be a nightmare, but come on, you know? You know, let's just let this flow over. Okay. Let's go to the East really quickly. Are we good on the West? Anything else you guys want to discuss on any other things you want to discuss

where we go to the East, Howard? No, I would just say, like, record is not the biggest thing in this. Like, it's an individual honor. So the record matters a little. Like, I thought about Book for the same reasons you did Logan because the sons have been really good, but book's been only okay by his standards. And, yeah, like, you know, the Clippers 13 and 2 in their last 15 influenced me a little bit on the Hardin thing. And Hardin's been pretty damn good. Same thing like Dania.

Like, no, but also like the Trailblazers, not a playoff team, but competitive as hell this year because of him. And so it's a little bit of mixing in some team considerations, but ultimately it's individual. achievement in this exercise. You know what I took away from this exercise, honestly? What's that? It's an impossible thing to do. Absolutely. I'm glad I don't have to vote for any of this shit ever because it is really

difficult to start figuring out, hey, well, this guy's team is in eighth place, but this guy's team is in 11 and he's playing slightly. That's a very, very difficult thing that, quite frankly, like never really crossed my mind. I don't love doing the exercises so I usually, you know, abstain from doing them, but I couldn't this time. And in the process, I'm like, this is impossible, bro. Like, so good for you guys. I got to give you guys a little bit more credit, Howard, as voters than I, than I usually did, right? That's not, it's not, it's really not easy. Well, guess what we're going to do is going to be even harder in the Eastern Conference, which we're about to get to. Well, which, which by the way, points up once again,

the fallacies and the folly of this whole process. The East, we barely have enough guys to get to 12. The West, we've got a bunch of like actual snubs of guys who could make it, but they're not all going to make it. Because it's U.S. versus the world anyway, the ballot should be different. And more of the guys in the West who we just snubbed should be making it instead of some of the guys in the East who we're going to put on by default now. Howard, you know what people do when they're confused when they're watching television on a big event? They change the channel. Sorry. Anyway, let's get to the east.

I'm good to these. Let me do my list. Okay. Donovan Mitchell. Jalen Johnson. Scotty Barnes. Jalen Duren. Detroit basketball.

Desmond Bain. This was where it gets hard. Not a church. Carl Towns. Damn. that's tough. Norman Powell. Fair.

Roger Bell, who is your list for the Eastern Conference Reserves? Yeah, East was tough. Of the secures, right? Like, secure, I feel good about Jalen, Jalen, Johnson and Duren, Donovan Mitchell, Scotty Barnes. Right? That was my, that was my, like, I like that. And then I actually have a line in my paper. here where below that I was splitting hairs I let me tell you first who was like just outside like

Derek White was just outside yeah then at a bio was just outside um lamello was just outside um hell yeah also he deserves he's played he's played really well raja yeah you can laugh you can laugh you can laugh hey man the charlotte hornets are are are you can laugh yeah the vice have been doing really well what a world we live in rasha bell just pick lamello balls at the all-star reserve No, no, no, no, no. Did not? Just out, excuse me. Did it make the cut?

No, no, no. Didn't make the cut. Those guys didn't make the cut. Yeah, I'm laughing at you. Norm, Norm Powell got in. Cat got in. And Michael Porter Jr. got in, even though his team is not great. But like I said, they're my, what do we call it?

My NBA League pass team to watch. Like he's, yeah. That's his reward for, that's his reward for me. So it was Jalen, Jalen, Jalen, Donovan, Scotty Barnes, Kat. Michael Porter Jr. and Norr Palton. Okay. So by the way, it's a bad sign that it was so easy and it was unanimity among players, media, and fans,

the three voting bodies, all were exactly in lockstep on the starters for the East. In Janus, Jalen Brown, Jalen Brunson, Cade Cunningham, Tyrese, was like, and when I was doing the ballot for that exercise, like almost easy, right? With apologies to Donovan Mitchell, who I did think for a second, but he just, I couldn't put him past any of those guys,

and especially given how the calves have been kind of lackluster. And that was so easy. And then the reserves were like frigging brutal, right? There's just not, there aren't seven worthy guys. And even in trying to like, or who am I? Like usually go like, who am I locks? Then I'll figure out the rest. Jalen Johnson, lock.

Donovan Mitchell, lock. Scotty Barnes lock-ish. Michael Porter Jr. ended up being a lock. Wow. seven and three. 26, seven and three, the nets are terrible. But like Michael Porter and Jr.'s acquitted himself very well this season, fellas.

As a guy who was like a third or fourth piece on a Denver Nuggets championship team and whose I think success was largely attributed to an ecosystem built around Yokic and Jamal Murray, that he is a centerpiece and he's not overdoing it. He's not forcing it. He's not saying, all right, shit, man, I'm the only established guy in this locker room. I'm just going to just like, you know, jack it up every game. He's not doing that. He's playing team ball.

Like, yeah, can I say something, Howard? Because this is off the topic. But like this fall squarely into that category that I talk about a lot. You know, if you had watched him in high school, he was not just a catch and shoot dude. Like, but you fall into like ecosystems where winning is the priority and their things set up. And you have a role defined and you try to be the best. And you got to give him some credit for that. But there are there are more guys in the league than him that do that.

They just wind up being something that they need to be for a team to have great success. But we've seen the reverse. that too, Raja, right? Where a guy is so good as a as a role player, even a high level role player, and then they go to their own team and it's like, you are not equipped for this. Or their guy goes down, the star goes down, and they have too much responsible. Not everybody can handle it. And the Nets are rebuilding to be charitable, right? It's a super young roster. Like, huge credit to Michael Porter Jr. and of course, Jorda, and of course, Jordafernda's coach of having them still playing like a definable style and of him being a centerpiece. Not of a good

but they're competitive. Like they win a lot of games that you wouldn't expect them to. So anyway, so those are the four locks for me. Jalen Johnson, Donovan Mitchell, Michael Porter, Jr., Scotty Barnes. Jalen Duren, the Pistons have been excellent. Duren's been excellent. I didn't struggle too much to put him there. The last two, Norm Powell is the guy who's kept the heat afloat the whole time,

got them off to that great start while Tyler Hero was out. Like who's powering that offense? They just don't have a lot of shot creation scoring. Norm Powell has done it all. And then my seventh was actually Pascal Seacom, who is quietly having a really good season, quietly because the Pacers are terrible because they don't have Halliburton and they let Miles Turner go and they've been injury racked, they've been a mess. But I really think that Seacom's earned it.

And that was with apologies to Evan Mobley. I couldn't consider Bancaro or Wagner. I couldn't quite get to Bain, Logan. Norm over Bam, if it's a Miami guy. Derek White, who you named Raja, I gave serious consideration to. I just couldn't do it with Kat with the way the Knicks have gone. Recency bias, fine. His numbers are all-star worthy in the abstract,

but the way Katz played the last several weeks, just hard to get there. You know, that was the hardest thing for me. I ended up putting him on because the last time I actually saw him, he had a great game, even though they lost. I think that I also had a time. tough time picking either Pascal or Michael Porter Jr. I think I just put the emphasis on winning. And I'm really happy with what happened with Michael Porter this season, right, where he is getting

the numbers that he also wanted. But I think we're getting the full Michael Porter Jr. experience where we talk about all points are created equal. I think you're seeing that with him, he is the number one in this context and can get all the points, rebounds, and assist. But you're seeing can he elevate a team? And that is going to be the. question in this role. And I just did, I think he's proven a lot of things. I think he's proven that he's a, that he can be a great individual player in this role, but I don't know if he can elevate the team in this context.

Same with Pascal Seacom, I just couldn't get over the record. I just, I simply could not. But Kat, it's tough because he's not shooting the ball particularly well. He's got called out by his coach for his defense. But I ultimately picked him because of his numbers. And he is having a great individual season. Sure. And I know this is the product of the Eastern Conference,

but New York is still right in the thick of things as a top five team in the Eastern Conference, right? So I put all those things into account. But I didn't pick MPJ. I just decided out to pick MPJ or Pascal Seacom just simply on the records. And I just couldn't justify that in my head. But again, as we're talking through this, it's an inexact science.

I just... Yeah. I think All-Star games, you know, it's an individual achievement more than anything. If your team is winning all the better. And we have these discussions, right? Well, oh, are the Pistons good enough to have two guys or the Celtics good enough to have two? Like, we do those things, right? We have those kinds of conversations.

So the team record does matter on some level, but it's an individual achievement, All-Star, the game itself to the extent that it is supposed to be entertainment, which some years not so much, you do want guys in there who individually are great and fun to watch. That's why often it leans offense over defense too, right? Where it's like, has Rudy Gobert made a couple all-star teams? Like, sure. Do people really care about seeing like a great defender in an all-star game? No.

No, they don't even play defense in an all-star game. Maybe we're talking about the both sides of their mouth, man. They'd be like, I guess they want competitiveness. But they'd be like, we want defense. But I think it's a competitiveness thing. Right. But even the offense first guys all have the ability to at least try to play defense in an all-star game.

They just choose not to. Yeah, that's fair. I understand. What do you think, what's going on? What's going on your head right now? What do you, what are you up to?

No, just, yeah, just an impossible exercise. I mean, uh, the reason I'll just defend the cat, the cat of it all for me, I guess is,

you know, as I look in a, to Howard's point, like, it's hard to find a bunch of guys that, like, deserve to be in there. Once you get past,

like, those top four names, um, team, team relevance, like, still, and where they sit in the,

in the conference, his, his offensive ability, his numbers are still all-star worthy numbers. And while it might not have been like trending, if you give me, and I don't know this is fair or not, if you give me the option to like throw somebody else in that doesn't have great numbers or put someone like Kat

who's a star in and he has the great numbers, just hasn't been playing great as of late, I'm probably going to air on the side of that. That makes sense. Now, if that lesser-name player is having a phenomenal season in terms of, you know, production and his numbers are outstanding, Like I'll leap cat, but I didn't think I found that, so I went with cat. Yeah.

There we go. That is our reserves for the 2026 All-Star. Go free to let us know in the comments. How you guys feel? You know? Good. Whatever. I'm sure people don't have any strong opinions.

They agree with everything we just said, especially in All-Star place. We're going to get our ass kicked in Portland. That's going to be, you know. Shout out to dinner. You're going to get your ass kick. in Portland. We all put Denny from the PDX on our reserve. I know. Yeah, fans get upset.

You know, I don't think Rogers is ever going to Portland again. I can't see it. I don't know. I like Portland. Roger barely leaves his house, Logan. So it's, you know. All right, man. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. That's been another edition of Real Ones, Tuesday edition.

We will get to your mailbag at some point. Just blame, you know, you know, the, don't blame anyone. Never mind. It's time to blame us. That's what happens with the rundown changes last minute. It's been happening a lot and a lot.

But we're going to get to your questions at some point. So real onesmailbag at gmail.com, real onesmailbag at gmail.com. real onesmailbag at gmail.com. Me and raja will see you guys on Friday. That has been another edition. I said that already. Whatever.

Tap in, ah, all the shit. That's the coffee talking. Bye. Thank you.