The Ringer NBA Show - Marvin Bagley, Anfernee Simons, and Insight of the Front Office | Upside High

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks return to talk about the youth movement in basketball. They begin by discussing Marvin Bagley and how his role could change with the Pistons (06:23). They also talk about some notable young players highlighted in last week's trade deadline (17:58). And then they discuss Anfernee Simons and the insight of Portland's front office (25:51). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The ringer gambling show is here to help you place your bets on the biggest sports around the world. Join NFL analyst Warren Sharp on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with guests Chris Vernon, Ben Solac, and Joe House to guide you through the NFL betting landscape. Each week, they'll cover everything from spreads, game totals, and parlays, to player props, futures, post-game reactions, and more. Check out the ringer gambling show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Folks, basketball is so very good, and it is a beautiful chilly day in Louisville. Kentucky and I'm here to talk about basketball with one of my favorite people to talk about basketball

with the Texas Titan, the main man himself, Jonathan Charks. John, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing good. We had a Valentine's Day last night. You do anything fun for that? Well, Meg and I have a yearly tradition of making a pizza from scratch. I always document this on Twitter. We'll pick like a different style. Like we've done an Indian pizza. We've done Korean. We did bar. We did We've done, this year we're going to try to do Greek. We figured tonight we'd have more time, so we're going to try to do that tonight. I was out at Whole Foods trying to get Greek ingredients last night. So it'll be interesting.

Could be a disaster. That's good because you were texting me about Marvin Bagley last night. I was like, I guess I'm not doing Valentine's Day. No, you know how it is. It's like your day just kind of gets chopped up into, you know, it's like that thing in high school, wherever they make you like simulate a career, you know, where you're going through and someone just comes and takes your little like, I don't know if you guys did this. They come take your like laminated money and then at the end of it, you're like, I don't have any money. This is

what, and they're like, that's what being an adult is. I'm like that with my time more so now. I feel like throughout the day. I'm just like, the dog, the chore, the something, the something. At the the end of the day, I'm like, I have an hour to do something. So last night we thought our allotment of time. That's why I was, that's why I was watching Bagley late last night. it's the life of an NBA person, somebody that covers basketball. You have your priorities firmly in order, I think, is clear. It's unorthodox, but it's the life, you know, it's what we, it's what we love. You sent me something funny.

I was going to say up top here, Charks found an email from me from 2018. Interestingly enough, was about Bagley. Well, the history is I was cleaning on my inbox, and so then I just, I'm like going through all the old emails. Well, I had in like five years and I said, I should probably do this. and then I get to 2018, my first email ever from James Kyle Mann is he's trying to send me his blog up how Bagley's awesome.

Now I'm like, that's cool, man. Keep up the good work. With more on that in a minute, yeah, we're coming up on the four-year anniversary of that. Yeah, that's pretty wild to think of it.

That was just when I was back hanging around just some dude who'd been fired from his job just watching basketball situations. Aren't we all, though? really for sure so this has been um a shakeup it's a shakeup time we discussed on bill's pod about how this is the time of the year where people get excited about um the things are happening you know if your team's bad it's it's a distraction to think about how you could maybe be better um as far as as like young players for people who haven't listened to us before by the way my name jay calm man

but if if you haven't listened for we're a young player the youth movement that's what we're focused on on this show. This time of year, you don't really like to punt on young players typically, right? I mean, unless we did see some examples of, like, players getting moved, and it's sort of if you don't get the vote of confidence from your team at this point, if you're, like, in the first two or three years of your career, if you're a first round pick, pretty brutal thing to have happened to you, right? For sure.

And a lot of times what'll happen is once the front office changes, right? If you get drafted by the old front office, the new front office not necessarily is invested on your success. And that's a huge part of it, which you'll talk about today, is just how much it's the front office believing in you and giving in you chances. And so I think we're going to talk about is kind of obviously the trade deadline was last Thursday. And the ringer's probably done, I'd say, like 50 pods on James Hardin and Ben Simmons.

So we don't to get into that. And the nice thing for us is, as the young players pod, is there are a couple interesting younger players who've either been impacted by those trades or who kind of motivated those trades, which we'll get into today. I think starting with your boy, Marvin Bagley. Is he still your boy? Can I say that? Yes, today. Charks always teases me about this. Today we're going to mainly be talking about Marvin Bagley and then we're going to talk about Anthony Simons later in the show. you're talking about like change over in leadership or something i had a quick story about like getting laid off from a job one time we had a leadership change and i had like done the quick math of like this leader valued this this leader didn't value this and the guy that was taking over didn't value like creative and like copyrighting and stuff and i leaned one of my we got the news that the person

was leaving i leaned over to one of my friends in design and i was like i was like this is bad this is not good for me i was like this dude doesn't care about creative at all and she was like you're fine don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. I'm not kidding you, Charks. Five minutes later, HR came and the dude laid us off. So you had like the guy who's like bring your playbook to the office basically? Yeah, man. I went and saw the Turk. Yeah. It was like, I, not only was I right, I was right like to the, to the second, but I was going to say a couple guys that you were high on talking to our leadership changes. Robert Woodard and Jemias Ramsey got quietly waived at the deadline by the Kings. What did you think about that? Or did you even see that? It was kind of buried.

No, I did not see that. It's a new day. Though I guess they were drafted by the new front office, but second round picks, that's the life sometimes. Go in, you go out. And Jalen, really quick, just running through. Jalen Smith got the vote of like ultra no confidence again from Phoenix. They didn't renew him. They shipped him to Indiana for Troy Craig and then to kill Alexander Walker. But let's talk about Marvin Bagley. What was your feeling on Marvin Bagley coming out for anybody that didn't know he was part of a four-team trade that the Pistons ultimately got rid of like Trey Liles who's coming up I forget what his contract situation is at this point about a couple second rounders that's what they gave up for Marvin Bagley a reclamation project I think I obviously

I learned a lot of lessons from because Bagley was this overlap between me following basketball in my free time to my full time and I learned a lot of lessons on that what why were you in a different place than me. What was what was your feeling on Marvin Bagley coming out of Duke? My thought with Bagley, I mean, I think it's been kind of talked about a lot now, but it was just this basic problem when I look at big men. I'm trying to slot them in a role in the NBA. And for Bagley, it was, well, he's not a perimeter player. He's not really that skilled. He can't really shoot. He has a decent enough handle for a big guy, but he's not a like, break you down off the dribble four man.

Like, he's just not that player. And then you say, well, if he's not that, will he see his center? Can he protect the rim? No. And I think you go back to his time at Duke. Like, there's games like, I stick with you with players sometimes. And I think that's the value of watching a player

over the course of his college season. So with Bagley and Wendell Carter, there is this famous game. And I'll go even deeper. It was against Boston College. And this is the game, I believe they got Jerome Robinson. drafted in the lottery from Boston College.

So Jerome Robinson just is running pick and rolls against Bagley and Carter all day, absolutely destroying them in space. And after the game, Coach Kay is like, forget this. We're doing a two, three zone the rest of the year. And Coach Kay is like famously a man-to-man coach. So for Coach K to say, my big men are so bad at defense,

I must play a two-three zone, forget it. Massive red flag. And then you combine that with the lack of a perimeter game. I just didn't really see a role for him in the NBA, and I think that's kind of played out. I think what allured me was, this was a guy that I, like, tracked a lot earlier in high school, and I just, I loved his motor.

I still, to this day, think that he's, like, a fluid athlete for his size at about 6'11. He's not, it doesn't have, like, a crazy wingspan or anything. He gets a lot of just easy implied offense is kind of the thing that drew me to him. I thought that you could plug him into an offense, and he could, like, screen and roll and finish. I thought that he could become like a short, you know, mid-range shooter. I thought the face-up stuff was there.

He has not been a good shooter. Another thing, though, that I think that we should talk about here is, well, before we go on to that, I mean, the Duke thing is interesting. You and I were joking about teasing Duke. I have a bit on Twitter where I talk about being unfair to Duke because someone accused me of that one time, like a big baby. They know who they are. No, I mean, Duke Biggs over time, Bagley, Wendell Carter Jr. I wouldn't say Wendell's a failure, but he hasn't, you know, hasn't like blown our hair back.

Marquis Bolton, I think that was a guy who was like mis-evaluated probably, just kind of seen as a prospect when he probably wasn't. Jalil Ocalfour, and then Harry Giles, no fault of his own. I don't know that there's necessarily a commonality. I know we're kind of joking there. It's more just about the way the game has changed. What do you think about Duke Biggs in general? Is there any kind of talking takeaway point with that?

I don't love the way Coach Kay uses his Biggs more often than not. I feel like, especially like the Plumlies. It always kind of felt like, go set a screen and get a rebound, you big man, get out of the way of my guards. It's kind of always felt his mentality about Biggs on some level. And I think a couple points about like, what you're talking about, the Bagley is true. And I still think he'll stick in the league because he is very athletic.

He is very big. He can't finish around the rim, kind of make those. three-foot, five-foot plays. But there's two things. One, when you're a big man, so I'm someone like, I'm not super tall compared to NBA players, but I'm 6'4,

so I played big-man positions growing up. And it's like, yes, those are the big-man offense, easy points, but you've got to earn those points by playing good defense. So it's like a big man who lives on easy points on offense,

but don't protect the same plays on defense, is always very questionable. I think, too, with Bagley, The other thing I think was a red flag looking back on it is passing. Because if you're a big man who can't play on the perimeter and you're not going to be a center, you've got to play in tight spaces. You've got to be a really good passer. And that's a skill that Evan Mobley has that has really allowed

that Evan Mobley, Jared Allen, Twin Towers combination. It's the fact that Evan Mobley can make those shovel passes, those quick passes in the lane, the bounce pass. He's just really smart player. can play from the high post and fling the ball around the court. And if you're a big who doesn't shoot, you've got to have that passing gene a little bit too. Yeah, I think the plus minus balance thing is sort of like a forgiveness buffer, like what you were talking about. Jared Allen is a funny one to bring up because it's like he gets you those easy baskets. But if he was just like

a screen door on the other end, he protects the rim. So he gives you something. And also it gives you buffer like we've talked about a lot in the past that, you know, if you can provide that stability out there and you're and you're not it gives you leeway to sort of develop other things it keeps you on the floor bagley do you just start taking away talking about like taking things away from you over time it's just like well we keep lowering and our our options for what he can be as a player i think the passing thing is interesting because i don't know the way he moves i think it's i've heard a lot of people talk lately about like aesthetic bias like i think and that could be at play whenever I'm watching a player like Bagley, I'm like, man, he moves so well, like he's going to succeed.

The easy offense is there. I think he's a really talented player on the offense of glass. That's probably his biggest skill. I thought the shooting was going to be there. One of the big things, too, I think is fit. You know, Sacramento, as his dad has made abundantly clear, they were never really pleased. Team Bagley. Yeah, they were out there. They were never really pleased with the fit there. And we've seen that, I think, had he been better passer. He probably would have synergized better with Deeran Fox, maybe the way that Subonis will, you know, he'll give some of those intangible things that would have paired. So I just want to, I was curious, so you're talking about Bagley moving into a new fit,

into a new team in Detroit. What do you, what do you see in Detroit with him and like Cade Cunningham? Do you think that can work? What's his role in this new team, do you think, potentially? I think that Cade is a more sharing-minded guard than Deeran Fox. I think he's more of a malleable piece. He will feed into what Bagley wants to do better, I think. An interesting thing is going to be. I think it's a worthy reclamation project for Detroit. If you think about what they gave up, you know, Liles was okay,

but he wasn't blowing anybody's mind with Detroit and that pairing. I think that it's a decent thing here because we have seen some, as much as we want to say like it's over for Bagley, and I wrote in our trade deadline wrap-up thing that the ceiling has kind of lowered for him, Another thing, too, is injuries. He hasn't been on the floor a ton, and it's like he, the most he played was his rookie year. He played 62 games.

I do think that he's a better fit with Cade in terms of their skill sets feeding into one another. I think what I would love to see, and I think we'll say us about a lot of guys, is if Detroit could get Chet in the lottery, because that would be the piece that would make Bagley all of a sudden really interesting. It's like the classic,

If you can have a big who can space and protect, it creates so many avenues for you to build your team. If you paired Bagley with Chet and Cade, those two guys pass so well, and they can both kind of play on the perimeter a bit. Now Bagley's really unlocked. And I think that to me is a really exciting part about this. Is like if Bagley can be your fourth, fifth best player,

then maybe you kind of got some free money. Yeah, if you can put him out there with people like you're talking about. I just imagine sort of like a triangle of, that's a square, but a triangle of offense that works. And you're talking about passing. Like I could see the ball flowing between Chet and Cade. You see him protect him on the other end.

And then you have Bagley sort of hovering between the seams of the offense, finishing easy, you know, cleaning up misses. I think the problem is just he has been so, I know he was so ISO-dominate. He was that way at Duke. He was that way at Sacramento. I feel positive about it. It's a wait and a sea kind of a thing. Overall, I mean, do you feel optimistic?

Or where do you see Bagley going from here? Is he destined to just kind of, are we in a journeyman free fall, basically, now with Bagley? What do you think? Maybe. And I think that's, it's almost unfair to people sometimes put the journeyman tag on guys. But that's fine. Like, the goal should be the last 10 years in the league.

And I think Bagley can do that. And I think sometimes. you just need a fresh start. It's hard to change your role where you started. Sometimes you need a fresh start, especially for a younger guy. You need a fresh start. You need a new role for a team.

And I could see Bagley being a good, not that he's exactly this kind of player, but a guy like Brandon Wright, where Brandon Wright didn't really stick. The old UNC big man. Then he kind of bounced around the league. He finds his way to Rick Carlisle. And Rick Carlisle

terms of this awesome, off the bench, rim running five, pretty much broke all the efficiency records. And he had a really strong career, and that's totally fine. And, you know, it's like when you're a player like Bagley or any of these guys drafted super high, you are who you are. And whether or not you were mis-evaluated doesn't really say that much about you. That's more about the guys who were drafting you. And, you know, the guys who drafted Bagley are gone now.

And that's the game. You miss on a pick like that. You're probably going to get fired. Yeah. And I think the second. Sacramento thing is a strong piece. At this point, I'm sure that Sacramento probably just wanted to move on. They were just like, this guy's not working for us. It's a new day. We're ready to move on. And also, I think that if you factor in the injuries, if you factor in the flashes that we've seen, if you factor in the fact that Sacramento has been a mess recently, I think that this was a worthy play because this could turn into a thing where he, where he finds. a new a new synergy with the place with with the piston so uh i'm i'm still not ready to come out and say like i held on for a long time i would say that with bagley i've kind of like held on to

hope my famous kind of miss was i hadn't in my defense i hadn't seen luca play yet but i thought that bagley was going to end up being the best player in the draft i hadn't been doing this very long so that we all make mistakes there's no you just got to take the l and move on learn something from it For sure, for sure. So, yes, before we move on to talk about Anthony Simons, another guy, both of these guys, 2018 draft, sort of a different situation. We are going to take a break. So, yeah, before we move into the meat of the show, Charks, we talked about how young players are often,

like whether or not they're the one that's moved, a lot of the time, young players are sort of adjacent to the moves that were made. Was there anybody else that jumped out as somebody who was? impacted by a move that was made in your eyes? Yeah, the guy, this was one that's been a little under the radar. And this trade, I think, actually was a pretty big trade, but there was so much going on on deadline day. It was Derek White going to the Celtics.

And I think that was a great move for the Celtics. But for the Spurs, I've been waiting for Derek White to get traded basically all season because Devin Vassell, so he was their first round pick last year, I believe number 11. and he just really took a big step between his rookie and sophomore year. And it was pretty clear that, number one, this guy is an absolute player.

And number two, he's a much better fit with the Jante Murray who made his first All-Star game this season. And so it was only a matter of time because Devin, Derek White's more of a combo guard, playmaker, likes the ball in his hands. He's now in Boston where he can be a sixth man, which I think was always his destiny.

And now they put Devin Vassette. into Derek White's spot. And he's looked really good in his first three games as a starter. So then Vassell, 6-5-2 guard, very athletic, long arms, really good shooter. He's pretty much to prototype 3-D wing,

but he has some, like, offensive juice. Kind of what we talked about last week, how, like, it's not 3-D anymore. You need some juice too off the dribble. And Vassell has that. Vessel's big. Like, it's not the most, like, textbook shot,

but the shot at this point, you can believe in. He can get his own shot. He can dribble into spots. He can finish around the rim. He's a really good defender. And now the Spurs have this interesting backcourt, Murray and Vassell.

So I watched again, they played against the Pelicans. And it was like, man, when you have two big guards, the Pelicans were starting C.J. McCollum and Devante Graham. He's like two-six-one guys. And the Spurs have these two-six-five killers,

two-way killers going against them. And it was just all downhill for the Pelicans. Spurs all night with that size matchup. And I kind of really enjoyed this new Spurs backcourt. I think they still need a front court player, but their back court of Murray and Vassell looks like pretty legit. Yeah, Vassell, Florida State product, as, that's what Charks picks a Florida state guy to love every year.

That's one of his things. But yeah, Vassel totally, like, positionally clever, very savvy player. Honestly, he was probably the most mature, like, perimeter defender in that draft, I would say just off the top of my head. Yeah, almost a 35% shooter from three. He was starting to give you some of that dribble pull-up action, things like that. But yeah, Vassell, a lot of people probably, the thing about the Spurs is they're just not, you don't see him as much.

I feel like a lot of people probably don't even know who Vesel is. He's a guy that, you know, maybe in his, if he stays with San Antonio, people are going to see him more down the row because I think he's a winning player. I didn't get to ask you about really quickly here. Mavs got rid of KP. Were you feeling good? Did you moonwalk around the room? What happened there?

How did you feel about that trade? Gosh. That says it all. It had to happen. I think the Mavs, I don't know about what they got back in that trade. We'll see about the return, but the trade had to happen. It was. You mean did Whitty and Breton's like what they'll be, right?

Yeah, how they'll fit into Dallas. I have some faith in Jason Kidd. He's done a good job this year. finding roles for guys and kind of maximizing what's on hands. But what it ultimately comes down to with KP is that he didn't want to be here anymore. You could never count him to stay healthy. And the team was pretty good without him. There's just not many places you could trade him to given his health situation.

So I think a lot of the commentary on the Mavs I've seen as well, they could have waited till the summer. It's like they really couldn't because what if KP got hurt again? and maybe he'll stay healthy in D.C. I don't know. I wish him all the best. Like, I think he wanted a bigger role in the offense, and I get it. You come to Dallas, you kind of got to buy into the Lucas system.

And ultimately, he just didn't do that. And so it was time for him to go. And no hard feelings from our end, really, but it was just time. It was pretty funny in our NBA Slack to watch the Wizards people go from, we got rid of Dinwiddie and Bertans. They were, like, excited. And then they were like for Porzingas. It was like, what?

Just the reactions were hilarious. And dude, whenever they traded for Porzingis the first time I made it, I mean, I've told you this before, but I made a joke that I was like, okay, flash forward, you know, three or four years from now and he becomes like a seven foot three incapable Ryan Anderson. I was like, is that going to happen? Okay, I'll tell you a funny story about that, actually. Ryan Anderson would have been amazing because he could shoot, but go ahead. I'll just put it out there.

I think it's fine now. So one of my, I was, I had to go to a procedure last year with all my medical stuff. And one of my nurses is telling me the story how he was doing a procedure with a Knicks front office person around the Porzingis trade a couple years ago. And my nurse, he was a big basketball guy. And he's telling the Knicks guy, he's like, why would y'all just give way KP? He's so talented. Like, what does that make sense?

And he tells me the next guy just goes, you'll see. So this is like third hand. I probably shouldn't even repeat this story, but it's too funny. You just said you'll see. Oh my God. One more question before we move on. This is just purely for my basketball satisfaction. 2015, I think maybe Robb said something about this.

Rob Mahoney said something about this on Bill's Pod. When we were looking at like 19-year-old Porzingis versus 19-year-old Carl Towns, How even do you think that race was at that point? Like saying we didn't know, we didn't know what their trajectories were going to be their health, things like that. I think just to give an idea of how far off the track we've gone, we talked about Bagley, we're going to talk more about Bagley

going off the track. We, you know, how far off the track do you think we fell? Like, what was his potential and what have we lost, do you think? That's a good question. Now, I'm having to, like, go back 2015. That's a long time ago now. I was a really big cat guy. I think I was probably too high on cat.

For as good as cat is, I thought he'd be even better in the NBA. I didn't think Porzingus was very close. I had that year, I had Porzincas and Miles Turner really close because I didn't think either one had a great feel for the game, really. They're more complimentary.

I was like, both these guys need to get fed shots. They're not guys you can run the offense through. They're not great passers. That was kind of... Right. So that was my thought. I thought Cat was, like, going to be all-worlds, point center, first-team all-N-B-A franchise play.

He's a good player. He's pretty damn good, man. I mean, he's like arguably the-old-a-old-a-category than Porzingis and Turner. He's arguably the best center shooter ever. I mean, if you're not counting Dirk as like a five at any point, I mean, I kind of think of Dirk as a four, but I mean, Kat's pretty good. I thought Kat would be an MVP, so I can't say that I was, like, totally right on that or anything. What if we could, I always think about if we could do, like, personality surgery?

like what if we put like I'm trying to think I'm gonna stop this right here that's very disrespectful personality surgery what if we put Joelle and beads no well Joel Nbeads better than Carl anyway let's stop paying God Kyle

let's let's go ahead and stop this right now we're not taking we're not doing face off here I'm not doing it not yet so Anthony Simons Portland drafts Anthony Simons 24th in the 2018

NBA draft. Neil L. Shea, who was recently, I know Portland Trailblazers fans have had disdain for him recently, but I think this is interesting that Neil L'Shea had some foresight, I think, whenever he made this pick back in 2014, when things were going pretty well for Portland at the time.

Well, it was 2018, not 2014. Well, sorry, yeah, misspoke there. But at the time, he had some foresight. This is what he said about Anthony Simon right after that draft, talking about their thinking in making that pick. Fire that clip, Steve. You know, some risk in that, you know, it's not a guy with a big body of work because he didn't play at the college level, but that's our job. Our job's not to play it's safe. Our jobs to go get the guy that has the talent that if he pans out, you're not going to get as a free agent, and nobody's going to

trade him to you. So what do you think about, you made a point about like Neil O'Shea scouting, Anthony Simons. What do you think he saw and what do you think he got right when he made that pick back in 2018 charts? Okay, we're going to Neil Olshea talk. First off, the one thing that doesn't come across on that audio clip is when you send me that clip, because I never watched these press conferences, really, I was like, Neil Olshea is a handsome man. Like, that is a man. That's your take way. I can see why he's so confident in his draft picks. Because if I look that good, I would believe in myself in my scouting eye. So just to say that off the top. There's Well, there is a definite, like, correlation, yeah, between, if you go through life that good looking, you just, you're confident.

He's a leader of men, right? Why wouldn't she be? Right? Like, I look great. You automatically on the days when you walk into the office and they're like, I'm going to fire that son of a bitch today. And then he walks in and you see him and he's like, damn it, he's handsome. All right. Hang around for another day. Me and Kyle, we got faces for podcasts. We appreciate a good looking man like Neil Lashay. Yeah, you got to learn to talk for sure. A couple things. I think we'll get.

into this later, but one, there is this sentiment you'll see sometimes in draft coverage. You'll see sometimes from NBA front offices about how the draft is a crapshoot. And that is true to some extent, but I don't really believe that. I think if you look at it, there are some front offices who've proven that they can find talent in interesting places. There is something to front office being able, and there's not many of them, but I would say the old shay Blazers front office. They were not perfect. And a lot of times being able to draft well doesn't mean you can sign free agents

well or make trades well or value your own players well. It's kind of one piece of a much bigger puzzle. But that 2018 draft, the Blazers took Anthony Simons at 24, Gary Trent Jr. at 37. Those were both fantastic picks looking back on it. And there's something there. And I think with Simons, I guess let's give the background. round real quick. So, 2018,

Anthony Simons, I think, will become an important player not just for his game because he's very talented, but for what he represents about where the draft is going. So Anthony Simons didn't go play college basketball. He spent one year at IMG at a prep school.

Like a post-grad year. Yeah. Post- high school. He was assigned to Louisville. So instead of being one-and-done at a college, he was one-and-done at a prep school. He declares for the draft, no one really knows much about him in 2018. Like, I certainly didn't watch any film with him in IMG.

I had no idea who he was. And I think a lot of NBA teams might have seen film, but they didn't really know how to value it, how to place it in context. And he was just kind of this guy, this six-three combo guard. And Olshey saw something, which we saw in that clip. And now it's starting to pay fruit four years later. So Anthony Simons, his first three years in Portland,

he's mostly played off the ball, off dame, off C. been a spot-up shooter. And it's been hard to tell how talented he is because he's a point guard who's never had the ball on his hands. We talked about Tyrese Maxie last week where Maxi last year, you're like, well, how good is this guy really?

We don't really know. Well, now with Anthony Simons this season, they traded CJ McCollum. It seems largely to create cap space to give Simon's new contract at the end of this season. And then Dame went down with an injury. And since Dame went down with his,

his hip injury. At this point, it seems likely he'll be shut down for the season. Might as well. Yeah. There's really no point in bringing Dane back at this point. Pull the bottom out. So that was 22 games ago that Dane went down. And those 22 games since Simons has been the point guard, the primary of the offense.

He's averaging 23 points a game, six assists. He's taking 10.5 threes and shooting them at 41% from three. So he's been an elite point guard. And in the last couple games since the deadline, they whipped up on the bucks on Monday night. They famously beat the Lakers right before the deadline, kind of like put the dagger in the coffin. They're not winning a ton,

but they've been competitive with Anthony Simons as the guy. And he's looking really, really good. Yeah. The thing that's funny about it is the theme of people not seeing him is continuing. I feel like a lot of NBA fans really don't know much about Anthony Simons. because it's an interesting plight to put a young player in when, like, in talking, going back to that clip of Olshe, he just had the foresight to think,

think about, you know, this is a guy that we would not be able to get in any other situation. So he's thinking, and it's kind of similar, I think, to what the Spurs did with Primo, where they were thinking, we're going to, if this guy goes to college for another year, he's probably going to go higher in the draft. So we're just going to go ahead and take him now, you know, the order of the draft being a thing,

notwithstanding, but. The rub on Simons, if you haven't seen him, like Chark said, he's 6-4, big point guard. Very, like, very quick. I mean, he's got a 6-8 or a 6-9 wingspan, really long arms, 40-inch vertical. Coming out of high school, though, it's interesting I was going to talk to you about this. Oh, Kyle, did you remember he won a dunk contest last year? I'd forgotten about that. I'll be honest, man.

I don't really watch the dunk contest anymore. Of course you don't. That doesn't surprise me. I just, I forget about it, honestly, sometimes. But it's interesting just to go back and look, he was number eight in that class of 28, the high school class of 2018. But it's interesting just to see like physicality rated over ball skills in that class.

Like Nassir Little, who I still think could do something over. He's been a good pick for them. He said a good year before he got hurt. Yeah. Ashton Higgins was right. This hasn't become like the anti-Ashton Hagan's podcast, but he was ranked ahead of Darius Garland, which is like, I can't control my reaction to that.

Romeo Langford was ranked ahead of Tyler. I love that you're going down these hobby holes. You would like 1% of our listeners, though Ashton Higgins is. We're just going there. I'm just saying it's like an athletic guard. I think it just kind of shows you by it. Like Aaron Neesmith was ranked in the 50s of that class.

Simons was behind like Cam Reddish, Charles Bassie. Anyway, I was curious to ask you about this. Well, first before I do that, I just kind of want to hit on. Something that people should know about Simons is he's extremely quick as a dribble shooter. Like we're talking about Maxi is more of like comparing them. These are both scoring guards moving into playmaking roles, assuming more responsibility, growing to the shape of their tank, the size and shape of their tank.

He is extremely quick with it. I said he's like a pistol. He's super quick on his draw. In the NBA, in terms of players, this is a, if you're a shooter, you're going to end up in situations where people are coming over ball screens to run you off the line. So that ability to hit that dribble pull up three, something like Steph is a master at, Trey, Dame is pretty freaking good at it too. He is fifth this season in threes made and shooting a pretty good percentage. Assuming more pick and roll reps too, you were talking about this year he's,

over time, he's moved from off ball to on ball. So he was like in the 9% range. This year, like, over a fifth, over 20% of his reps have been passing out of the pick and roll. So he's doing more of that. I was curious to ask you, though, if we're looking back at 2018 and we're thinking about if we did a redraft, if we, if we, if we're looking at who, how far up could he move? Where would you take Simons? How valuable? Is this real?

Is this somebody that, that is going to become like a star level player for sure going forward. Okay, I think there's a couple things to unpack there. And I like that you started it with his high school rankings. I think that is a good indicator. So like to me, I kind of put him in that Darius Garland bucket in terms of this is a guy whose game is based on his jump shot. And the power of his really elite jump shot opens up the rest of his game, right? I think there's some point guards who like to get to the rim who are super fast. And the defense wants to give them the shot. And then there's point guards who are such great shooters. The game opens up for them because the defense is pressed on them all the time.

Like you kind of said, Anthony Simons, this is a guy. I think I believe in the jump shot at this point, it looks really, really good. He's six foot three, six foot four, money shooter. And I think you watch him. And it's hard not to think about Dame, being that he wasn't poor in these last couple of years. Dame's game was based on his jumper. Though they aren't quite the same player, there's a couple key differences. I think the more important point is like further, as you kind of said,

like he's not really well known yet in NBA circles because he spent the last few years in a small market coming off the bench in a small role. But he's still only 20. I think he's 22. Yeah, I think he's 22. So I think it's like, I'm not sure how for sure good he's going to be or this is for sure real, but I'm definitely open to the possibility that it is. And I think you have to open your mind to, like you were saying about the draft,

A guy with the limited track record, you're not really sure what you're getting, but you're opening up possibilities by doing so because he didn't go to college. You're drafting him in the 20s. And in your head, as an NBA fan, oh, this guy's drafted in the 20s. I never heard of him.

He didn't do much since his few years in the league. You kind of naturally put a ceiling on how good he can be. There's no ceiling with Anthony Simons. I don't know how high the elevator is going to end up going, but it could go pretty freaking high. think he's got all-star ability well that's that's a big point you just said there you think he has all-star ability and i i think that that's something that is a conversation i think that that is a

threshold that we're crossing i think that's an interesting point but go ahead and i would say like in this stretch of like 22 games where he's running the show what's impressed me the most a couple of things have really impressed me number one he's not crazy ball dominant it isn't like he's like james hardin or something he's such a good shooter he threatens the defense without needing to hold the ball a ton just by standing out there and a little moving around. So he's letting other guys do stuff. He's not like monopolizing the ball, which I love in a point guard, as he can play on or off.

That's one. Two, he plays really under control. Like he doesn't, it doesn't seem like a lot of times the game starts, and he's just not really doing that much. He's just entering the offense, giving NERC his touches, playing off NERC. He's really let Josh Hart do a lot since the trade. So Josh Hart came over in the Pelicans trade for CJ. He's like, Hart, you can do your thing for a while.

I know I can get my shot when I need it. So I'll just wait. I'm not trying to force the action early. He's a very, like, deliberate control player, which I also love in a guard, is that he's just under, this is a cliche. So there's a great show on our NFL draft show, the fantasy football pot.

It's great. Check it out. They do a bit where they're like, if it's just jargon, it's like a... So like he plays out of... own pace is like a jargon thing in NBA circles. Like, the thing everyone just kind of says, this doesn't really mean much. But what they mean my plays at his own pace is even like he played Drew Holiday last night. And Drew's probably the best, one of the best point guard defenders ever. And Drew loves

to get in a guy, speed him up. Speed him up. Yeah, speed him up. And like, now he's trying to make plays too fast, trying to get past Drew. He's speeding up his thought process. He's not making good reads anymore. So that's explained to, well, I was going to say, explained, we have varying degrees of basketball fans. listen to this. I mean, when we talk about what is the, you kind of were getting into it, but like, what's, what is it when we say, like, what's the opposite of playing with pace and what comes with that? What are the positives of it? Because I think some people just don't know that. Okay, I guess the opposite of that, like not to beat on this guy now is like Russell Westbrook.

Like, you know, he's just going full speed and someone like Patrick Beverly, right, gets under his nerves. And now he's playing even faster. He's trying to prove a point, taking shots. He's like going 95 all the time, whereas Simons is like, I'll just cruise at 45. You watch Simons, you forget he's been in a dunk contest a lot of times because he doesn't necessarily show his athletic ability all the time. But he knows he has it when he needs it. And then the third thing is, and I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad thing. That's what I'm just trying to figure with Simons is he doesn't get to the rim very often. And he doesn't get a lot of free throws. So his degree of difficulty on what he's doing is super, super high. And right now, he's,

been able to be very efficient without doing either of those things. I was looking it up. He shoots like 12% of his shots at the rim. And I was saying like, oh, he's like trying to play like Dame. Dame has always been a guy like shooting like 25%, 30% of his shots at the basket.

Drawing fouls and yeah. It's just easier that way. And he gets to the line a lot. So Simons don't get to the line a ton. You don't get to the rim a ton, but he's still really efficient. He still shoots like 50% from two as the primary, which means he's just living on pull-up jumpers.

It's a hard way to make a living, but he might be a good enough shooter to do it. Yeah, and he's built differently than Dame. You like to see things like we've talked about before, like ripple out from your easy offense. Like, you know, if things, if one isn't going, you can definitely go and get your easy offense at the rim. I don't know. I'm not totally sure about because usually that's kind of there.

You don't usually start from not being somebody that goes to the rim and become someone. Usually it's like you get to the rim and then your game experience. spans from there. I don't know how confident I am. He's built, like I said, he's built differently than Dame. He's a lot spindlier. Like, he's a skinny guy. I was going to use that exact, nice word choice right there, because I had the thought in my head, too. He's very long arms. He's very rubbery, bendy, flex, like he's, he's that type of athlete. And two, you know, we've said this, like, whenever you have that kind of separation ability, he has very, very strong separation ability for, like, a scoring point card. And it's a, it's a tenuous kind of, it's a

Mulsuous way to live, like you were saying, in terms of, I guess, if that's going to continue, do you think he needs to become like an elite elite shooter? But he might already be an elite elite shooter. That's what I'm saying. He's very, very good. Yeah, it's hard to say, I even threw the stat in there. He can shoot well under tight, you know, in tight spaces and things like that, has really good elevation on his shot.

This Portland thing, Portland has a couple draft picks that could fall. You know, tankathons, the thing that everybody checks. I mean, it seems like right now those could fall anywhere from like the, I don't know, seven to 12 range. They have a couple picks that could fall kind of close there. What do you think that Portland is like a total blank slate? I was kind of just laughing about their rotation. I mean, good for them.

These are fun times for Portland just because they're just like playing with House money with these weirdo like G-League team. Their rotation is like CJ Ellaby, who kind of looks like a character from like a 90s sitcom, Justice Winslow, Nurkich. Josh Hart, it seems like Simon's likes to play with Josh Hart from the stuff that I've heard. And I heard, actually, I was going to ask you about this, Marquise Johnson last night on the Bucks broadcast said he thought that that could be a better two-way backcourt and Dame C.J. I thought that was a pretty strong statement for early on. Well, is that a two-way back court.

Two-way. Well, yeah, without the offense. Well, and it's like, of course, Simon. Not two-way contract. Two-way. Go ahead. Yeah. Because, yeah, of course Simons likes to play with Hart because Hart guards the ball, right?

So he don't have to do that. Like, Simons, I think maybe you have physical tools. The defense is not there yet. And I think that is the question for Portland going forward is we literally just did this. We just had Damon C.J. forever. We just had two smaller guards who didn't play defense, could play on and off each other. are we about to do that again and just put in, plug in

Simons in the CJ's spot. It seems like that's where this is headed. Yeah, it's Italy. I don't know, man. It makes you wonder, yeah, if they're talking about doing it again, repeating history. Nurkich is kind of the thing that's out there. I mean, the other thing that's looming over this is like, Dame. What's Dame's motivation to stay in this

situation? Because he doesn't want to go, you want to be as bad as you can possibly be. I've heard some talk about like the off season. I mean, do you think the Dame, is Dame going to play another game for Portland? I guess is the most extreme thing that you could ask. I don't know. I can't say that I have any

real idea into his thought process. I'll say this. And this is just my personal, this is not like, my personal opinion is once you draft the small guard, you're out of the small guard business. Like I, I respect

what Dame and CJ did together in Portland's. I would never want to put a team together like that. I'm more like Chauncey Billups. Billups had some great quotes this year. I don't know if you've seen this where they're asking him about the team. He's like, well, they don't really play defense. They're really small. I don't know

what you want me to do, basically. He was really small. Well, but he's like, I love what Atlanta did. Like Atlanta said, we have Tray Young and they did draft Shereef Cooper, but that doesn't really matter. Like, we're not going to draft any more smaller guards. We're going

to put a bunch of size around Tray Young. Golden State. We had Steph, we're not drafting any more small guards. We're getting wings with size. It's the Iverson model, too. If you've a guy like this, you have to put this type of player around. So I'm looking at this, like, from Portland's perspective, purely objectively from a roster building standpoint, I got Anthony Simons, who I believe could be an all-star point guard.

I got two lottery picks in this draft. I don't know how many other long-term pieces. I like Nas Little. I like Josh Hart. Well, those are bigger wings, very physical, who can defend and shoot a little bit. I want to get more of those guys than I want to get a front-court player.

All that to say, I don't know where Dame fits in a Simon's world. I don't know if we're going to be in a Simon's worlds. Maybe they're just going to end up running Dame and Simon's out and run the show back, and that's fine. How much this will seem random, but how much Jalen Duren have you seen for Memphis? Enough.

I mean, he's a good player. I don't know that he's like changing my world or anything. I'd like to see him with Portland. I think that could be an interesting fit, especially if they keep NERC. Of course, NERC, I don't know about that fit. I'd like to see, I wonder about NERC with like Boston, something like that, like a high post kind of guy to go with them screener.

But I was, anyway, not getting on that. I guess I would say this. Like, we talked earlier in the pod about how I liked the Murray Vassell backcourt. And I was thinking about it, like, Simons v. Murray, Simons at Hart, Simons and Little. Who would I rather have? I'd rather have the team

with a better front court. That's what I'd rather have. This is a draft with a lot of really high-level front-court players. And what I really love about Simons and what I think the Dame era never had

is you got to pair of your guard, especially your guard who shoots this many threes. That's the perfect fit with the star front-court player because they're in different parts of the court, right? I would have loved to have seen Dame with an all-star foreman who can get to the rim,

who can play out of the post, play out of the pick and roll, and Dame can play off him. I think Simons has that already. He's kind of had to learn how to play off the ball in his first couple of years in Portland. If I was Portland, I'd be like, man, if you could get Simons with, you know, now that's to be beating a dead horse, like with Chet, now we're really cooking for something. Now we've got an All-Star up front, All-Star on the perimeter. I think if you don't have that big, that's four-man who can really create, there's always going to be a ceiling as your point guard-based team, in my opinion.

Good points about team building, roster building here. Portland, you know, worst half-court defense in the league right now, they are kind of a blank slate. It's not a time to sort of like dig deep and like over, you're just kind of trying to see what your assets are, what they're worth, who's going to be staying, hanging around, things like that. Because like I said, also they, Ben Mackenzie. Lamore's playing a lot, Trenton Watford, who I actually thought would do more in the NBA. But do you want to add one more thing on there? Yeah, go ahead.

With Portland. And sometimes it's really easy for us to get into this idea. Oh, well, they're done with the season. No reason to watch them. This team is boring. And like, that's usually true. But for the guys in Portland, they're not done with the season. Anthony Simons, Josh Hart, they're super excited. They're ready to play every night. They're like, it's my time to show what I can do. We're going to go for that 10th. seed. We're not trying to, we're not worrying about the draft right now. I'm about to show out. I'm about to show you what I can do. I've been

waiting three years. Milwaukee found out last night, like, Milwaukee got their butt kicked. Like, they didn't come out thinking, oh, is Portland a bunch of randos? L.A. a couple nights ago before that, the Knicks. They're thinking, oh, Dame's gone, C.J. is gone. This is going to be an easy game. Like, no, these young guys are trying to play.

They don't care. Talented, too. Right now they're in 10th place, which is pretty funny. So if they're going to want to, I could see some of these other tanking teams, like, you've got to start tanking, bro. You've got to get, if you're going to get down here in the bottom of the league.

Yeah, Portland, I'm excited to see where this is going to go for them because they've kind of been hovering in that pretty good, but not quite with the elite teams. They kind of had the misfortune of being in the same frame as some pretty special Golden State teams, you know, not that they would have won anyway,

but anyway. I think my favorite, I think what I'll remember about that Portland team, more than anything else, is Kevin Durant going on. CJ's pod. Do you ever this? Wasn't it during the, well, it was during the playoffs. I think it was after or something.

And Durant's, Durant's just like, ah, don't even worry about it, man. It's all good. Don't worry about things the top of the league. Oh, didn't Durant also say, like, he was like, you seriously thought you guys were going to win? Like, he was like, you really thought that? Duran is a savage, man. It was a really savage podcast,

that's for sure. He is cold-blooded. Well, you know, Jonathan Charks is a savage rider with the pen. John, what do you got coming up? You got any pieces coming up that we can feast on? Actually, I don't know how much, like with my medical stuff. I guess I'm not sure how much I'll be writing. I'm going to try to get some stuff in, but I just don't know right now what that's going to look like.

How about you? What are you working on video-wise? I still working on a couple big projects. So I know like huge. I'm not going to tease it. I do have a rookie notebook coming out this week. So we have that, but the video stuff is a little more long part. Okay, so who's in this rookie notebook?

So we'll probably talk about it on the pod next week. Who are you focusing on? A little Cade Cunningham, little Jalen Sugs, Cuminga, some Dwarte, some Herb Jones. You know, we bounce around. I love it. We're going deep. We're going deep. We're passing.

We're getting a lot of touches here. But thanks for joining us. This is Upside High is the name of the show. Subscribe to us. Check out all the other ringer NBA shows. We have a ton of them. They're all good. A lot of talent, a lot of good stuff to talk about.

And yeah, it's good to hear you. And join us next week. Charks, it was good to see you, buddy. As always, it's fun stuff. The call.