The Ringer NBA Show - Most Intriguing Headlines Going Into the 2026-27 Season | Ringer NBA

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

On the latest edition of The Ringer NBA Show, Howard Beck and Michael Pina discuss their most intriguing story lines heading into the 2026-27 season. Which former Finals MVP has the best chance of capturing a ring again? Is there an in-season trade that could shock the league? The guys also debate the most intriguing teams to watch. (00:00) Intro (2:37) - Former Finals MVP with best chance to win another (41:01) - Most Intriguing story lines Hosts: Howard Beck and Michael PinaProducers: Victoria Valencia, Clifford Augustin, and Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What up? It's The Ringer MBA show, our Beck senior writer for The Ringer. With me, fresh off of signing a $48 million no-show contract with a fake green bank. Ringer's senior writer, Michael Pina. Pina, I'd say how are you, but I know how you are because we just had drinks last night in beautiful Carol Garden. And I paid because of my no-show deal. No, I was the no-show. I left early and stuck you with the bill.

I'll Venmo you. Fair. It's okay. We'll be fine. Pino, we've got mere weeks to go until training camps, open until media days, start that September 28th for most teams. That's like two and a half weeks away, as we sit here, record this. The Mavericks and Rockets, because they're playing overseas,

are starting September 23rd. So, like, we are less than two weeks away from, like, basketball things actually happening and dispensing with a very wild offseason. First preseason game, three and a half weeks away. That's Miami and Toronto in Quebec City. and yeah there's nothing happening though otherwise let's see to sum up recent events ben Simmons back kind of Jalen Duren still in limbo kawai still a clipper practicing with his Toronto Raptors possible teammates in Miami according to reports but um still a clipper as we record

this on Thursday afternoon New York time so who knows maybe news when will this nightmare end when can we send him to Toronto I I'm kind of enjoying this like weird limbo. I'm not enjoying it. It's so emblematic of this whole saga though, right? We spent a year wondering what was going to happen of lawyers doing lawyer things and waiting for a verdict. And then we finally get it and it's still like, okay, now what? Do the Clippers have a front office?

Did somebody, is somebody authorized to like push the button or whatever happens when the trade is made? I don't know. All right. So we've got a couple weeks until real basketball. And until then, we still have some time. to kind of marinate in this in this strange offseason where a lot of shit has happened. And so we thought we would, we would address today maybe the most intriguing storylines. Most intriguing fill in the blank, right?

It could be team, could be player, could be referees for all I know. We don't know each other's lists, but we're going to to get into the most intriguing fill in the blanks for 2026, 27. But before that, this episode is brought to by Uber Eats. You can get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Sorry, you can't get a beach deliver, but you can get a peach. A canoe, no. Shampoo, yes. A rocket, no way. Chocolate, yes way. It's everything you need, including $10 off your first grocery order with code. Anything 30. Get almost, almost anything with Uber. It's order now. Order a minimum of $30 required, valid on grocery, convenience, retail, specialty foods, or flower delivery orders only. Terms and conditions apply. Going on vacation? We're here for it. with kids who turned the backseat into a courtroom drama over whose tablet is louder,

whose charger is faster, and while watching the same cartoon for the hundredth time as a human right? Yep, we totally have vehicles to handle that, because whether it's a road trip or a business trip, where your flight's delayed, your phone's at 2% and your dinner is whatever is open. Yeah, here for that too. Enterprise, we're here for it. Pina, I texted you a couple days ago while we were kind of kicking around. ideas for this show. And it occurred to me as I was thinking about what teams were intriguing to me, that part of what is also intriguing to me, subcategory of intrigue here, is that we've got

a lot of guys in new places and some in their same places who are the recent finals MVPs. And I started like wondering, like, man, how many these guys are going to win another championship in an era where we've got eight champions in eight seasons and there are no dynasties and nobody can repeat? Nobody can even get back to the finals for that matter. And so, I gave us the assignment. Let's rank the last 10 years of finals MVP. It's actually nine guys because we have LeBron a couple times, Durant a couple times. The nine players who have won MVP in the finals since 2016 or starting in 2016,

we decided we should rank them. Most to least likely or least to most likely to win another championship in an era where no one ever wins again. Yes. There is probably an obvious answer for who is the most likely, so we're not going to start there. Let's start at least likely. And the list, by the way, I should just for the sake of the listeners, the nine that we're going to be discussing here that we're going to try to rank here. Kevin Durant won a couple.

LeBron won a couple. We've got Steph, Yokic, Kauai, Janus, Jalen Brown, not Jason Tatum, though I mistakenly put his name in the text initially, and Shea Gilgesis Alexander. Who is your least likely recent finals MVP of the last 10 years to win another championship before his career? First of all, if you have a referee on your most intriguing characters for the upcoming season, you need help. It pains me to say this, but the answer is Steph Curry. And my calculus in doing this was looking at everyone's age, because obviously if you are older, you have. of fewer opportunities to get back to the finals, win a championship. He's on a team that will be lucky.

Steph Curry is on a team that will be lucky to make the play-in, I feel like. I think that they will be bad this season, unfortunately, and it's really sad. And short of Jimmy Butler returning and kind of looking like himself in the middle of the season, like an all-star caliber player, I just don't think that they have the horses. he turns 39 also in March so he's really he's really getting up there uh contract extension eligible has not signed um as of this recording and what are you implying I'm well you know there's also get aggregated today I I know but uh I just I I think that this is kind of the obvious yeah um number nine with yeah with a bullet unfortunately um as you know I am as much as

of a reliable Warriors apologist as you are a Clippers and various other teams, magic apologists. I'm forever glass-half-full with the Warriors, but I can't get there either. If there is some scenario where Jimmy Butler beats all expectations as a guy in his mid-30s coming off of an ACL and can get back soon enough, then I would look at that starting five, at least, and go like, okay, and then maybe, you know, maybe some Yaxil in there or something. Like there's an outline of like a respectable team, but like they're not going to stay healthy. There's the core guys are too old.

Yes, it pains me too. Steph is, uh, ninth last on this list and still too much burden on him besides. Forget ages and injuries and everything else. There's just still too much burden on him to carry this at an age where he shouldn't have to. Uh, who was eighth then on your list? And by the way, similar framework for me. The age is factoring hugely into this. But of course, the whole reason for this exercise is not so much, not about the superstars.

that we're talking about, it's so much about context, so much about who is around them and who will be around them for the foreseeable future. So who's eighth? LeBron James. Wow. Not a Sixer believer. No, no, I'm not. Turns 42 in December, obviously. This could be the last season of his career. Joel Embed is on his team, which is really tough. And I just don't think that the Sixers, if I thought the Sixers would, could win they can, but I just don't think they will win the championship this year. So it makes no sense for me to have LeBron high on this list. Yeah, fair.

I did not have him in this slot. We will get to him eventually. I had Kevin Durant next after Steph. Turning 38 at the end of September, the rockets are good, not great. Their young guys kind of plateaued last year, Thompson and Shangoon. Like, there's some upside there. Fred Van Vlead is back, speaking of the not young guys. And Durant, at least in his context, he does not have to carry it all, right?

Like, Steph is still having to carry it all. There is some share that LeBron still has to carry that some of the other guys on our list will have to carry. Durant does have the luxury, I think, of having some really good young players around him. I just don't know that they're going to get there in time considering his age. So not necessarily a knock on the Rockets, really good team. Just not sure they can get to that next spot. All right, seventh for you.

Katie. Kind of obvious there. Yeah. Age-related reasons. I think the Rockets can win the title, but I don't. Like, yeah, he's old. So, unfortunately. Still really good.

Excellent. But yes. My seventh slot, like I struggle with this. I kind of reshuffled this, like, three through seven a few times. But I landed on Janus. And it's, I know you're, you're not laughing because I said Janus. You're laughing because I, who I haven't said yet. I know you well.

You know me too well. Janus is 32 in December. So he's got more runway than some of the guys we've just talked about. But a full 10 years. In one case. On one player. Yes. But not nearly the supporting cast of that other player.

Right now. So right now. Yeah. The Janus question really comes down to how much belief you have that the Miami Heat are going to find at least one other super impact player, right? Doesn't have to be like a superstar top five to top 10 player, but somebody else who can like do something with the ball on his hands at a high level. And we, you know, we haven't yet seen Bam and Janus together and how that's going to fit in the spacing on offense. They'll be awesome defensively. But this heat roster, I think the Miami Heat would be the first to say, this roster's not complete.

and they didn't get Janus just for a year. They got him for what they hope is the rest of his career. How much progress can they make and building out that roster around him and Bam over the next few years? Like that's the real question, but they've got time to get there. They might get there. But as of right now, it's hard for me to rank him any higher. Fair. I will give my honest thoughts when we get to Janus. All right.

So who's your sixth? Sixth is Jalen Brown. he turns 30 in a month and look I'm just down on Philly I don't know what to tell you this is more of a reflection of Philly than Jalen I assume 100% and I think also if we were to rank these guys maybe not in terms of how good they are right now but just kind of just like echelon of player he might be I mean I think there's a reason why you had that little slip and you thought that Jason Tatum was the finalist MVP. He seems like no disrespect to Jalen Brown, who is phenomenal, but it's like if you had to pick one guy who doesn't belong here,

like he would be the guy. He's, he's a star who's a notch below starwise, the rest of these guys. I think that's fair. I don't think that's a knock on him. And yet, by virtue of the fact that Tatum is the guy still in Boston while coming off of an Achilles. Yeah. And Jalen Brown is not another, Just not that we need proof of this, but yes, Tatum was always the more important player to them. Yes, brain fart when I was texting you about here's the list of guys, the finals MVP's. I was there. I remember specifically watching Jalen Brown except that finals MVP trophy. Me as well.

I still botched it. I have not gotten to him yet. Jesus. Or the other guy. I know you're loving this. That was your six? That was number six for me. All right.

still working away from 9 to 1 here. My 6th is, in fact, the aforementioned Kauai Leonard. Okay. 35 years old. Don't know how much he's going to play. Don't know where he's going to play. Don't know what team he's on, technically. Don't know what team he's on.

I will say this in Kauai's favor. One, the Raptors have a lot of really good, interesting players. And assuming this trade goes through, the Raptors are going to be in the mix to win the East. Yeah. I think that's fair. And if not now, then maybe even a year from now, whatever his runway remains. The best thing about this for Kauai Leonard, he's back with Alex McKekney, the genius, you know, director of player care, not director of player.

He's like some president of player care, whatever. He's got a very, very high title that I don't want to diminish. But Alex McKekney knows what he's doing. Alex McKekney is the one who got Kauai to the point where the Raptors, who would ride him as much as they needed to in the regular season and still have enough Kauai left to win a championship in 2019. I think that's going to be very good. No disrespect to anybody on the.

Lippers medical staff. I just think there's nobody better than Alex McKechny in the league. This will be good for Kauai. So there's a possibility of it there. I'm not ruling it out. I just in trying to figure out these guys compared to each other in their current context, not knowing what Kauai's longevity is, his ability to play enough games. Right.

Or where he's playing, sadly. All right. Who is number five for you? Kawhi. All right. So with the same zone. Yeah. There.

Reasonable. I pretty much echo everything you said. I think that if slash when he goes to Toronto, I think Toronto is very good and very intriguing, one might say. Good. Not to step on anything later. But no, I think the age, the availability, I just struggled to put him higher, even though I think he's excellent. He's coming off a second team all NBA season. and I think he was like fifth on my actual MVP ballot or something like that.

So he's still playing an exceptionally high level, but I just couldn't go higher because of how much longer he has, I think, left in the tank. Yeah, the games per played for the last however many seasons is just not all that encouraging. All right, so that was your number five. Correct. My number five, again, I struggled with some of these. And this one was tough. I've got Jalen Brunson.

Wow. Oh, hey. He's one of the younger ones on this list. He just turned 30. But I'm just... The Knicks... You're making enemies on this pod. Oh, I know.

Yeah. It won't be the first time Knicks fans have been mad at me. It's okay. I'm used to it by now. It's not that I don't think the Knicks can win another championship or that Brunson won't be the reason that they do. I think...

Like, he's logged a shit ton of minutes and just hard minutes, right? Like the load on him as a championship foundational player, as the guy who drove you to the title, the load on him for the last few years has been immense. They don't have another, like their second star, you know, was Julius Randall, then Carl Anthony Towns. These are gotten, and now their most important players

after Jalen Brunson are in an OBBian cat. But these are not your prototypical co-stars who take some of the offensive load, the playmaking and scoring and everything off of you because they are a more complimentary star. They're playing off Jalen Brunson. When Jalen Brunson, look at the finals in a nutshell, five games, they win four out of the five. That's how you win the title.

The four that they won, every single one of them was basically Jalen Brunson saving them in the last couple of minutes or in the last quarter. Or the Spurs farting. Well, that happened to. These things were kind of, you know, part and parcel of each other. There's just been a lot on him. And I do wonder, because he is undersized as a guard and as the superstar of this team. There's a reason why Becky Hammond, I even had to bring it up. She's taken way too much shit over this.

But there's a reason why she and others had made the point about small guards, right? There had been a few in history, right? You know, Steph, depending on where you want to make the cutoff, Isaiah Thomas back in the day. And so I just think there's a lot on him. I think there's not a lot of, like they have dead. depth but not depth that can help him, help preserve him. And they really are like one Jalen Brunson injury away from just, you know, I'm not saying fall off a cliff, but they can't function without it. Also, by the way, not a dominant team

in the regular season had a dominant playoffs. And I still am trying to process what that means for as we're prognosticating for this coming season. Like, you know, where are they in the pecking order in the east? I don't think a lot of people are going to pick them to repeat, partially because of recent trends in the NBA broadly, partially because it's hard to kind of reconcile them being a pretty good regular season team, like 53 wins. They were like, they're the sixth most wins in the league last year. They weren't dominant.

They were just very, very good. And then they were dominant as fucking hell for two months. And that's all it took. But it's hard to figure them out because of it. So I'm not really downgrading Jalen Brunson. and I'm not downgrading the Nix. I'm just, it's all of all of that, trying to get my head around it.

Well, it sounds to me like you just think the Sixers are better than the Nix. That's what it sounds like. I mean, that's what you're saying. I think, didn't we already have to address the Nix versus Sixers? Was that in one of our little roundtables? Potentially. I think, yeah, after they got LeBron, I think our editors did force us to, you know, gun to your head right now who wins the seven-game series.

That's tough. Yeah, so Knicks fans are already. Who's number four on your list, Pina? I have Janice. And turns 32 in December. I don't think the Heat are a championship contender right now, as presently constructed, although I did a pod with Kyle Mann, and we ranked the team, Power Rank the teams in the Eastern Conference. And I had Miami controversially at 11.

And I would like to say in. I would like to somewhat apologize for that. Because at the time I was operating with the information that I had. A full week ago. Clay Thompson was not on the heat. And honestly, I'm not saying that I think that that is going to change their universe. He is like the exact type of piece that they would need to be better than, say, the Charlotte Hornets, a team that I had ahead of them on that power ranking. So everyone who is a Miami Heat fan in my mentions, please stop talking to me.

So I don't think that they're a championship contender right now. I do respect the Miami Heat Organization. I think if he were to sign a long-term contract there, and in particular, if he were, unfortunately, I say this because of the apron era and all that, if he were to sign for not as much as he can make, which is still a possibility, and they were able to have better resources to build around him financially and more room and that sort of thing. I would just, I, I, I, I put a lot of stock in their ability to, to build around,

Yonnes. I have a lot of respect for that organization. I'm in that coaching staff in particular. And I still think that they could be pretty good this year, particularly on the defensive end, if not elite. So to your point, they still need to add ball handlers. They need to add more shooting, et cetera. I think that they will be able to look at this season, see what went right, what went

wrong, and adjust from there. And that's why I have him. As long as we're clarifying to Miami Heat fans, let me just say. While I have Janus lower on this list than you do today, that's about winning it all in some span of time. Yeah. But where I would have the heat and I have not done the exercise, gotten like real into the nitty-gritty on it yet, I do think I'd have the heat higher than. I will be shocked if they're not a playoff team. Whether that's via the play in as maybe a seven or eight seed or whether, like I think they absolutely have the chance to grab.

the sixth seat because there's some serious volatility up top, which we will, of course, be getting to shortly as well. And I, like you, I would echo ultimate faith in the Heat's brain trust to figure out, because it's tough right now. It is tough for any team, especially when you have a couple of Max guys, to build out a roster around them because of aprons and all the stuff in the salary cap. I think they can do it, but it will take time and some opportunism and some luck probably along the way.

All right, that was your number four? Yes. My number four. Get ready to fall out of your chair. Howard. There's a reason. There's a rationale. Nicoliochich.

Oh, God. I know. This hurts me. This hurts me. This is personal. I'm fully aware of how much I have pained you now. And this after you bought me a beer last night that I need to repay you for. Look, he's 31.

So his runway is also. longer than most of the guys on this list or than some other guys on this list. But the Nuggets just keep bleeding talent. You wrote about this very intelligently and detailed a couple weeks ago about the Nuggets awful summer and just the trend of the last few years. They just keep losing guys. And now Peyton Watson is not quite the same as some of the other people we've talked about since their championship year, but they just keep losing key pieces.

and it's basically down to Yokic and Jamal Murray. We had a phenomenal version of Jamal Murray last season. And Yokic just never fucking dips. Like the dude is just a machine. So I have ultimate faith in him. I have a certain amount of faith in Jamal Murray. Aaron Gordon's hamstrings. A lot of volatility there.

And they just can't seem to find a way to either retain talent or backfill once they lose the guy. And so it's hard to wrap my head around. I hate to keep using that expression. It is hard for me to understand what exactly the nuggets are trying to do broadly here. Save money. Probably, possibly. Not the way you want to build around an all-time great. True.

It's criminal. And they've changed front offices like three times along the, or they've had three different front offices along the way, right? from, you know, Tim Connolly early in Yokic's come up. Which is the crunky way. Yeah. Yeah. To Calvin Booth and now to Tenzer and company.

But the through line is, no matter which era it is, no matter what front office it is, they keep running up, running into this brick wall of ownership and spending. And it's costing them talent. And I just, like, this is a case where this has nothing to do with Nicolai Yokic. this is everything to do with the context around him. Yeah. And just not having the confidence, and especially in a smaller market, that they're going to find a way to get the right pieces around him to turn this thing around again.

All that said, like, you know, there's a scenario where the Nuggets somehow make it to the finals again, even without any of that, right? Like, I don't think anyone's getting through that brick wall of Oklahoma City and San Antonio. But we're going to all say the Nuggets are an outside chance if things break their way. Yeah. And we should. I just, I don't have enough faith that enough things are going to break their way enough times in the next few years unless they find a way to stem the flow of talent out. I think, hey, I don't really disagree with anything you just said there with regards to how the nuggets are doing business and how they're bleeding talent and cutting costs, et cetera.

I just, you know, in doing this entire exercise as I got to number two on my list, I was like, I don't think, you know, any of these guys are going to win another championship. And that's like kind of the whole point of this thing. It's just very unlikely. It's really difficult. So I don't know if you wanted me to spoil my number two and jump a spot right now. But, I mean, I had Yokic too. Yeah.

And it was just because I think, you know, he's the best player. And I also, I have a lot of faith in his on court relationship with Jamal Murray. I think that if they were to get, I think there's an outside. chance that they could win the championship this season. I think if, you know, they need health, they need Aaron Gordon to be healthy. And I'm not sitting here being like, he's going to be healthy. I don't think anyone could say that. I think that that should be priority number one for the team and the organization throughout the season is to get through the regular season in just keeping his body as right as possible. If that's no back to backs, if that, you know, whatever it is,

make sure he's as healthy as possible for the postseason. And then, You know, you need seeding luck. That's another thing. Like, you need to be in a bracket situation where I only have to play the Spurs or the Thunder. Yeah. I don't have to play both. Because playing both of them, it's just you're not going to beat both of them. It's just not going to happen.

So they need luck. And I, you know, Julius Randall's gone. So they don't have to really worry about the Minnesota Timberwolves anymore. No, it's just, it's just being really difficult. Not fearing Jonathan Cominga? Oh, yikes. So I just gave you my two Yeah, of course

So who's your three before you would have gotten to yoga? My three is Brenson. And I think that the case for him is everything that we saw last season. But like, look, processing the Knicks is so hard And every time anyone comes up to me and wants to talk about the Knicks like winning the title I'm like I still haven't really

figured out how, like, I can't. It's just like what the hell happened? Honestly, not in like a disrespectful way. It's just like it was such a magical out of nowhere run that I've never seen anything like it. No. And so if that were to happen again, look, crazy. It would be like lightning striking twice in the same spot and a year apart. And I think that if you look at how important Mitchell Robinson was,

I don't think that they will be able to replace that with Andre Drummond. I just don't. I think they had a lot of health-related luck. And, you know, it's not saying I think, like, McKell Bridges is going to get hurt or anything like that, but they had a lot of health luck. They had three-point luck. Historical three-point luck.

And this isn't to take anything away from the championship at all, but this is just the reality of it. And I think that other teams in the East stocked up and are better. And it's just going to be. really hard for them to repeat in a lot of ways. And also, like, Kat as the number two, he is eligible for an extension. And that is a really, I don't want to say it's like undercover. We haven't really, because, you know, it's like we're in the summer doldrums a little bit. But like that's, that's like a pretty big deal in terms of the potential for a cantankerous

thing to happen there. It's kind of looming there, right? And this is not to like, you know, throw a cloud over them at all, but like this is a normal part of the NBA for every team, and especially teams that win championships and especially for teams, any team that has great success, your stars want to get paid, they want to get extended, they want to be rewarded. Kat had a transformative few weeks there himself in the playoffs, and I think even just the back half of the season, right? Earned a lot of praise, deserved it. And yeah, yeah, you can damn well bet he wants that extension. And, you know, I'm reminded of the bold Pat Riley, axiom about the disease of more. That's the concern that follows every championship team,

which is everybody wants more, whether it's more money, more touches, bigger role. Everybody thinks they're the reason you want it. And I'm not saying that the Knicks are going to suffer from this. I'm not saying they're going to come apart because of egos. I'm just saying that is a concern for every single team that makes it to this point. And it has to be a concern for them as well, especially when one of your most important players is still presumably waiting for that extension. And it's been covered a little bit. James Edwards did a whole break down of it, I think, a few weeks back. It's there. And by the way, if there's no extension before Media Day, that's going to be one of the first questions I would expect. Yeah, and I think the

point that I'm trying to make here is that this is sort of the team, too. Like, the Knicks. It's not changing. They went all in, and they won the title. That's how you do it. Like, they have no first round picks available to trade. You know, Josh Harder's extension eligible. Right now, we'll see what happens there also. And so Brunson, this time next year, will also be extension eligible. He obviously took that famous pay cut. Is he going to do that again? Probably not.

O.G. and Inobie also extension eligible next summer. So what are you going to, like, and I feel like all these guys are kind of immortalized, you know? So it's like, you're not trading them would be really, really difficult. No, it was bad enough that they let Mitchell Robinson walk because Dolan all of a sudden decided to draw a hard line about the second apron. The guy who, for most of, like, the one thing you could never criticize him for, and you could criticize him for literally everything else. But the one that you couldn't criticize Dolan for was spending. Yeah.

And now, the second apron is more than just a spending. It's more than just luxury tax. I don't think he's cheaping out. I do think that maybe they were operating in a way that extremely unusual for the Knicks and I think counterproductive. The one time you should be in the second apron and not worry about the restrictions it imposes on your roster. optionality is when you're a championship caliber team and or have just won one and are trying to win another one. They absolutely should have kept Mitchell Robinson. There is a downgrade there, not massive, but a downgrade going from him to, I mean, from him to Andre Drummond is significant

enough. I'm saying it's not a massive downgrade overall for them as a team. I don't know that's a big enough loss to prevent them from winning. I do think that it's those, it's those little, little bits of that you take a little paper cut here and a paper cut there a strand here and a strand there and a championship team suddenly doesn't look like themselves anymore and so that would be my concern for them but I will say at the end of all that because I've had this text conversation with some of my friends who are like hardcore Knicks fans and I'm like but you're fine regardless I say you don't actually care that I'm making this argument they're like no we want it all it's like they're fine like they're good for life especially like the Knicks fans of a certain

age bracket are like yeah of course we want to win another one we get all the doubts or you know all the reasons why they might not fuck man we're good like all of them it's like and the nixon five jokes have not abated uh they have not slowed down all the nix and five like keep them coming uh social media has been awesome nix fans are creative as hell it's been fun um all right so you we've given we've had your three and two which means it's time for my three and two and time for you to just kind of just shake your head with chagrin and keep doubting my sanity. Look, LeBron and Jalen Brown are here in tandem

because they're on the same team, at least for the next year or two. I'm going to say it's probably two. Like the sense I'm now getting is like LeBron's in this four. Like it was a two-year deal, right? I think his option on the second year. I'm going to say it's two. I think the chances of them winning a championship

one of these two seasons are pretty decent. much more so in the next two years than some of the guys I had lower on this list. Sixers have a better chance than certainly the Warriors or the rockets, I think, down there, the heat until further notice. I'll put them over the Raptors even with Kauai as of right now. Over the Knicks is like a debate, right? And that's going to be something we're going to be watching all season. Nicks versus Sixers, everybody versus the Knicks. Pistons versus Nicks, Celtics versus Nicks, Cavs versus Nicks.

but if I was going to have one guy in this tier, I had to have them both. I'm defending my sanity as well as I can here, Peanut, while you're giving me that way. I'll make the case that I think I made when you and I last potted together a few weeks back, which is, all right, yes, LeBron's 42 in December. LeBron is still, I think, playing at a very high level offensively. Defense is another story. He doesn't have to carry this team. For the first time, one of the rare times in his career, he doesn't have to carry this team. He can lean on Maxie.

NVJ, Edgecombe, and Embed, and Jalen Brown. This team has as much star power. That doesn't always work, but is as much star power as any team in the league for the next year or two. And that gets you a lot of the way. That is like 90% of the game is do you have more talent than the other teams? Making that talent fit, playing some defense along the way, staying healthy. Yeah, those are all other considerations. But start with frontline talent, top level elite talent.

They have it a luxury of it, an abundance of it. And so if I was going to have one, I was going to have both. So I put LeBron third and Jalen Brown second. I just think that I have to defer to the concept of it until we see other wide. And it may well not work. We'll probably get back to the Sixers in our next segment. We almost certainly will. But for the time being, yes, I'm playing this on paper.

And on paper, I look at that team and I think this is a team that gives Jalen Brown, and by virtue of that, LeBron James, at 42, the chance to get back to the finals and win another champion. You saw the Taco Fall news and you were like, you know what? This team is bulletproof. Who's more likely to still be on their opening night roster? Taco Fall in Philly or Ben Simmons in Sacramento? I knew you're going to go there. Yeah, I've said a lot about.

The Sixers, and I'm not like as skeptical, I think, as... As you came off as five minutes ago? Yeah, I just think like in this exercise in particular, and I'm looking at all these other finals MVPs, I just don't see it with Philly. And I think depth issues, I think defensive issues, I think health issues. I think Joelle Embede is just not it. It just doesn't have it. And I think there's fit issues and chemistry issues.

And I want to watch it before I get optimistic, to be honest. No, this is the time for the optimism because once you're watching it and it falls apart, then you can't be optimistic. I'm choosing to give them optimism when I can. No, I mean, listen, it could work out wonderfully. There's a best case scenario here. There are many other case scenarios. So the two we're agreed on are the top and the bottom. and I think these were easy, right?

It had to be step at the bottom with apologies, and it had to be Shea Gilgis Alexander at the top by virtue of age, by virtue of organization, by virtue of supporting talent. This was such a duh pick that I almost thought maybe we should scrap the exercise, but it was fun for the rest of it. I think that, I mean, in doing this, it was like, yeah, it's really hard to get back, and I don't think any of these dudes for Shea. That does not actually apply to Shea, I think, but.

the Thunder, I don't know, he could win two more. I don't, like three, I don't know. It's like, I think they have, they have financial issues coming down the pipeline for sure. But he is 28 years old. He is the reigning two-time MVP. He, like, averages 30 in his sleep. He's the best score, one of the best scores I've ever seen. And seems to be getting better in all these, like, subtle ways every year.

So he, he's terrifying and amazing. I do think we've already seen a little bit of, you know, Lou Dort, Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins. These aren't the sexiest names, but I think they do matter. Kason Wallace's extension eligible has not been signed yet, but I would assume that that is one of Sam Presti's a thing that he is on his to-do list, very high up. And I just think like they have, still have all these trade assets. and young talent, and they have a fantastic culture, which is something we don't really talk about that much anymore, but they have the culture of self-sacrifice

and guys thriving in roles. And they have defense. They have, like, historically great defense. I think that that is still, even with Ludoort gone, they will still have one of the best, if not the best defenses in the NBA. And he's a part of that. She is a part of that. So this is pretty easy.

You know, if Jalen Williams stays healthy, like they should be probably the favorite to win the title this year. For sure. Durability too, another factor we didn't mention was Shea. Yeah. One of the more durable superstars in this league doesn't sit out a lot, doesn't get hurt a lot, knock on something. But yeah, it was easy to put him at the top. The way I would look at it and with respect to this list is for most of the guys on this list, we won't be shocked if they never win another one.

Even with Yokic, we won't be shocked if he never wins another one because of the nuggets and all the factors that we meant. mentioned, Shea is the only one where we'll be shocked if he doesn't win at least one. I'll be pretty surprised, to be honest. Yeah. I think it's extremely hard. And I think that that bar is also unfair to the player. I don't want to say like you should win another one or whatever. Winning one is already, I mean, it's just so, so hard. But yeah, I think that because of the infrastructure, because of the pipeline, because I would be a little surprised, I think, for sure. So before we leave this topic and get on to our most intriguing Bill in the Blanks of the 26-27 season, highlighted mostly by referees.

I did have this thought along the way, in light of my brain fart about Tatum and Brown, which one of those guys is more likely to win a championship? Another one. Without each other. I mean, are you asking me? I'm asking a Celtics fan, yes. But I respect your intellectual objectivity. Thank you.

I appreciate it. I think it's Tatum. I think he's, well, nothing about it. Well, I think he's a better player, but that's not really what we're talking about. I think that the Celtics are actually going to be pretty good this year, like, if not very good. I think that they also have a lot of flexibility down the pipeline to reshape their team around Tatum in a way that, like, look, if Embed gets hurt in a severe way on the third week of this season, it's like where the Sixers at. And that is a total possibility because of his contract and everything. And I just think, like, there is a solid infrastructure there, a championship identity, a coach who has instilled a style of play that just rolls out wins.

And, yeah, like, I just, I think that the Celtics are, they know how to win. and the Sixers do not know how to win. Now, I think there's kind of an organizational faith there, right? Like we have a kind of a proof of concept with the Celtics where you kind of, you know, Bill has talked himself into this thing here with the Paul George aspect of it. But I think some of this is just in deference to Brad Stevens in an organization and Joe Mazul. Like there's a clear vision and a proof of concept and a track record here. Whereas with the Sixers, it really does feel like some version of the, let's just grab all these guys and see what

happens because we can, which is not, like, it's fine. I would do that too. If I were the GM of the Sixers and someone said, we're going to bring up Jalen Brown and by the way, the promise that come, fuck yes. But that's not about a long-term vision or about a consistent culture or or the values of the organization in terms of how we build. The Celtics are doing something and have over and over kind of reinventing themselves along the way that gives us a sense of who they are and what they're trying to accomplish more than just year to year. The Sixers have a new front office, for that matter, with Gansy having replaced Derrimori. So we're still, like, this feels very short-term kind of bet as opposed to a longer-term vision,

which is why I think ultimately I would agree with you, even though I've got Jalen Brown and LeBron not very high on my list here. If it's Tatum versus Brown, I think like you, I would, I would. So if Tatum won finals MVP, as he should have, another kind of. conversation for another day, but would you have him too, so you would have him too on this list then. Oh, if he had been on this instead? Yeah, probably. I would as well. Probably. I would as well. Yeah. All right. Well, that was fun. It was. That was a nice little detour for a minute. I was skeptical when you first told me about this. And then I sat in and I was doing it. And I was like, this is actually pretty interesting. Have a little more faith in my ideas. I appreciate it. Thank you for playing along.

All right. With that, it's time to get to our most intriguing fill in the blank. for the 26-27 season. This is not by, we don't have to go best to worst or anything. It's just whoever you want to start with. We picked three each. We'll see if we get to all of them. Who's intriguing you right now with the two plus weeks to go until training camps open? At this time of year, like everyone intrigues me.

Like every team, pretty much every star. Everybody except for the Sacramento game, right? Yeah, I've given up. I'm sorry to Sacramento. Apology, Sacramento. You know I love you. Yeah. But I just, yeah. And I was just kind of looking around and I was looking at where people were in their careers

and what type of seasons that they're coming off of and how we're looking at them. And I was thinking a lot about Kevin Durant. Oh. And I'm speaking of the, from the vantage point of, I think he is coming off one of the most, like, underappreciated, overlooked, like very, very, very good individual. seasons that I can recall. And I think it was overshadowed in a great sense by, you know, him having a burner controversy, this like the third or fourth of his career, it seems. And like, that is unfortunate. But when I look at it from these two different perspectives in

terms of why he is compelling to me and why I think he is such a meaningful figure, He is someone, I think, who can tilt the title race still. And I think that Houston can win the championship this year. I'm not saying that they're the favorites. I think they could win the championship. And going in the exact opposite direction, if the vibes are just totally off and Fred Van Fleet comes back and it's just, it's like he does not act as the force multiplier, I think he is.

Kevin Duran is like a really interesting trade candidate. And he's in, so I was looking at it from like two, two, those two dueling lenses. And whenever people rule out the Houston Rockets for, you know, as championship contenders, I feel like they look at what happened when their season ended. And it's just like, Houston lost to a Lakers team that did not have Luca and barely had Austin Reeves. And it's like, well, that Houston team didn't have Kevin Durant. and didn't have Stephen Adams, and they added Marcus Smart, and obviously they didn't have Fred.

And I was just, like, going back and looking at Katie's season, he averaged 26, 5, and 5. He basically had a 50, 40, 90 shooting splits. He shot 87% from the free throw line. So that was the only thing keeping him from getting that, like, you know, holy grail mark. Only SGA, Jalen Brown, and Lucas scored more points than Kevin Durant last season.

his field goal percentage was 8.7% above his expected field goal percentage, which was second in the league behind Nikola Yokic. So this guy was taking difficult shots, making them at a rate that chose that he is still really excellent. And I thought that the Rockets were championship, like verifiable championship contenders when they got him before Fred got hurt. And so I'm kind of like Fred's healthy, right? or, you know, he'll be back looking like himself. I think he is one, I've called him a force multiplier, so many different times. It feels like on podcasts, but it's like,

I do think when he's on the court, and this has borne out throughout his entire career, life is so much easier for everybody else on both sides of the ball. He's a great communicator. He's a great leader. He's just an unbelievable floor general in the sense. And I think that if you take the ball, because Houston's offense was just hideous last year

in so many ways. And a lot of it was because KD, I have another stat for you, Howard. KD ranked first in gravity on NBA.com. They kind of measure this, and I'll just read what that means. It quantifies how much a player's, a player pulls defenders towards them above expected,

essentially measuring how much attention they draw compared to what the spacing on the floor predicts. And this includes when you have the ball, as opposed to just off the ball. And so when KD had the ball, he's getting swarmed, he's getting doubled, he's getting blitzed. And I don't think that that will happen with Fred. And I think that Amen and Shangoon and Reed, I think all these guys, Reed Shepard,

I think all these guys win through that season, and I think they will all be better for it, as also play creators and scorers and offensive engines unto themselves in their own way. So I think if you're able to use KD off ball more and run them off screens a little bit more and keep his legs fresh, I just think this team could be like pretty, pretty damn good. And I feel like if you at, if Katie is that tip of the spear piece, it, it changes the conversation about the Houston Rocket. I mean, the Fred Van Bleet part of this alone, how many times last season, and especially in that playoff series and some of those just horrific bucking meltdowns against the Lakers, how many times do we say like, oh my, like these guys,

like these, these, these, like, these, like, botched out of bounds play with, you know, seconds to go. Like, these are moments where you're like, if Fred Van Vleet is there, this probably doesn't happen. Yeah. A lot of end-of-game situations, a lot of just, like, bad last five minutes of a game. Van Vleet changes that. Yep. And even at his age and even coming off of an ACL, like, as long as he is some semblance

of his former self, his basketball intelligence and his leadership, his communication skills, his ability to just kind of, like, this happens with every, not every team. This happens with a lot of teams where if you pull out the one guy who kind of makes everything makes sense. Sometimes that's a superstar, you know, everybody else gets in their proper space because this guy can take the brunt of the defense and get other guys open, make place. In Fred Van Bleet's case, it's not that. He's not at the level talent-wise of, you know, Kevin Durant or even, you know, Schengun and Amen Thompson, of course. But everything else that he brings in terms of organization and leadership and making sure that guys are in their right

places, I just think that it's going to raise their overall basketball intelligence as a team. And so, yes, like, I think there's great upside there for the Rockets and, and obviously for Kevin Durant himself. And that's the way you extend your career further, right? Is like, if you've got so many people around you who can take some of that off you and Durant doesn't have to carry as much of a burden. So that's a great pick. Can I – so yesterday, I think – I forget if I said this over drinks or not, but I had a fake trade that I wanted to spring on you on the pod that would – Oh, you alluded to it? Yeah. We did not get into it.

So let me throw that at you right now. So we're going to aggregate you at least. The aggregators, make sure to catch this. He's trading Steph. He's about to trade KD, I think. I can't wait. This is a pretty spicy one. And I'll just get a backdrop.

This is in a situation where things are going terribly for both teams involved. And it's possible that things go terribly for both teams involved. So the Denver Nuggets get Kevin Durant, Alper and Schengun, and three first round picks. The Houston Rockets get Nicola Yokic and Cam Johnson's expiring contract. I thought I was going to knock you out of your chair

with the last exercise. I nearly fell off of this one just, holy shit. When you started the Durant to Denver, that's awesome. Like, Durant and Yokic together, this is going to be amazing. Wait a minute.

Do I need to explain this? Like, repeat the whole a totality of this. Durant Shangoon and three firsts. Durant Shangoon and three firsts go to the Denver Nuggets. And this is Denver's, Denver, so this is in a situation where Denver starts the season like underwater. And it's like, you know, Aaron Gordon sprained his ankle. Jamal Murray, you know, has a calf thing or something.

And it's just, it's not going well. And Yokic is threatening to go back to his horses. And well, the thing is like Yokic is, he's, it's a contract year. Like he's like, he's just going to take this to. free agency. There's one of the underplayed storylines today, by the way. It should be, yeah, it's like the biggest story to me. If this is one of those cases where no disrespect to anybody in Denver, Denver,

to meet everything else. But if this is the case where like if Yokch were in the same situation and it was like, I don't know, New York, L.A., a couple other places, Miami, whatever, Philly, this would be a much. Or if this was like Anthony Edwards. If Anthony Edwards was in Minnesota and he was like, you know, I'm actually, I'm going to keep pushing the, that would do this. We would be talking about it nonstop.

Yeah. So anyway, so Denver gets Durant on an, basically an expiring as a player option for next year of like $48 million. Don't quote me on that number. If I think something like that. Shangoon, who's basically like, you know, crappier version of Yokic. I love Shangoon. Junior Yokic, we could be nice about it. Yes, yes, yes.

And much younger. And he's like sort of the, all right, well, you know, this is someone who we can pseudo build around or just like a young all-star. type of player. And then you get picks. They have no picks. Three firsts from Houston down the line that's valuable. They also like, the other factor here is that they don't have to pay Yokic, the, you know, is the next max extension, which they clearly don't want to spend any more money. So that's a, that's a feather in their cap there.

And I feel like if you're Denver, I can't see them. I can't see this actually happening, but I'm just throwing, I just want to, you know, we're just talking. But I feel like, no one's listening. No one's listening. This is just a few tens of thousands of podcast listeners and all the aggregators. But I just feel like you don't want to be Milwaukee if you're Denver. You don't want to get in a situation where, oh my God, we're not getting anything, you know, sorry. I just don't think the package they got Milwaukee got for Janus was.

No. Reflective of who Janus is and has been. So, yeah, that's like the case. where Denver just is, it's like pseudo panic, but it's like, oh, we can sell this and live with this. It's probably too soon for the discussion. You did stipulate that this is in a scenario where things have gone south and in Denver. It's too soon for it, but it's also like, it's not unreasonable in the sense that at some

point, to our last discussion, if you're not aggressively building around Yokic and showing him, we know how to do this, we have the resources to do it, we have the freedom to suspend those resources to do it. At some point, Nicola Yokic may look around and say, like, what the fuck is going on? What are we doing? And then he becomes Janus, right? Like, Milwaukee fans bristled every time we would bring this up with the last few years, but there were reasons to sound the alarm, including by Janus himself, passive aggressively,

albeit, but saying, like, because there's a limit to this. You're always on the clock with these guys. And especially as they approach 30 and get past 30, and the clock is ticking louder on their career, this is one of the. lessons I had, this is one of my other, like, premises I had thrown out for the possible podcast, but like lessons of this off season in the wake of the Janus trade, one of them is when your star starts pulling like some of the passive aggressive stuff, the things that he was saying, Janus was saying over the last couple of summers, especially, pay attention.

Yep. Because eventually you're going to hit a breaking point. And you don't want to hit that breaking point when it's already too late. And yeah, to your point, Milwaukee got like a meh package back for Janus. It was the best they can do. Denver doesn't want to be in that same situation. Not saying that means you're inevitably trading him any more than it was inevitable for Milwaukee, but it becomes inevitable if you don't take care of the present and if you don't show faith in your star.

So still crazy for you to bring that up right now, Pina, but that's fine. It is pretty crazy. But you know what? This is the time of the year for crazy. Sure. And I also was just imagining Yokic in Houston. And I think that that's like a really fascinating. like surround him with freak athletes and that would be that would be great it would be fun yeah no that's fun

all right my first most intriguing candidate here um is a partnership anthony edwards and lamello okay because because how could they not be um this is intriguing as hell um drafted in the same draft class in 2020 a couple uh spots apart they're now teammates they will each be the most i don't want to say the most talented like anthony Anthony Edwards will be the most talented player that Lamello has been paired with. Lamello won't be the most talented necessarily because I think Kat has earned that spot. For sure. But he's certainly the most talented, most dynamic guard that Anthony Edwards will have played with.

And the first time that he'll have somebody next to him who actually can take a lot of the scoring and playmaking burden off of him in a really meaningful way. That said, Anthony Edwards' usage for the last four years, 30, 32. 31 31. Lamello's usage has been even higher than Anthony Edwards's 30, 34, 36. Okay. 32. There's some, we talk about guys needing to mesh and sacrifice and incorporating guys and all this other stuff.

We talk about, we'll talk about that a lot with Philly. But, like, this is a really important partnership that is about to unfold. And we have no idea where this is going to go. Lamello is one of the ultimate wild cards in this. league. You just don't know. Like, super talented, super unpredictable, prone to flights of fancy that may or may not work out. And he's going to have to find a way to incorporate all that in a more productive way with much higher expectations in Minnesota than he had to in Charlotte. And I do think it's telling that Charlotte was willing to trade him after what was their best season in quite a while, a breakthrough year.

and he was the face of their franchise. So I don't, I have no idea how this is going to work out. I'm more optimistic than not about this and about Chris Finch and his staff's ability to incorporate these guys and, and mesh their talents. But they made a big tradeoff. They jettisoned their entire front court practically. Like Gobert is still there. They're relying a lot now on, on, John Berengier, whose name I will never pronounce correctly,

but I'm going to work on it. John Krasinski, I think, was on Zach's pod recently saying that, like, they're expecting, the wolves are expecting Berenjé to play, you know, whatever, 15, 20 minutes a game now. I mean, he's just, he's turning 20 in November. He played like eight minutes a game last year. Like, they're going to need him. I'm not a big, you know, I'm not expecting a lot out of the Jonathan Cuminga experiment that they're about to embark on, but we'll see. But yeah, they had to jettison both Nasreid and Julius Randall to make this. Lamello thing work?

The word experiment is like generous, honestly. All right. Go. I don't. You're not seeing it. Well, I'm I'm not blaming. I don't think Lamello is like the reason why I'm down on Minnesota necessarily. I'm down on the because I think actually he's really good for him.

I think that right there. Like when those two are on the court together, I don't see why that can't work. I think that Lamello is like a brilliant passer. And I think that he will, like, the attention and all that sort of stuff will, um, will shift in ways that benefit both of them. And aunt playing off ball, man, and is like, I feel like almost an underrated shooter at this point. Um, excellent shooter, like one of the better shooters in the NBA. Yeah. Um, and I, I just think like size wise.

I still have a lot of question marks. Um, and I, I just don't like comminga as like a player who I don't. Like playing big minutes, is he closing? Or are they going, like, small with Jada McDaniels at the four and I.O. on the court. That's what I would more expect? Yeah, and that puts a lot on, I mean, it's like, LaMello Ball isn't, I know, like, he's just not, he hasn't really brought it in a competitive, like, the regular season is fine. But, like, that team was so, like, mentally tough and physically tough. and it's how they like punked the Denver Nuggets

in the playoffs last year and almost punked the San Antonio Spurs. They were like doing that a little bit. But I just don't, I don't know. So I'm a little down on the team as a whole and I think they will feel the loss of Nasreid. I think he was, he's like an important just peace in the locker room, on the court,

just coming off the bench. And Dante DiVincenzo, I know that he's coming back from an Achilles. So it's like if he were to, I know that there's been talk that he will return this season. I'll believe that when I see it. And he was a really important player for them in their starting lineup. Yeah, I'd feel a lot better about them if he were still there. But yeah, when you think back to the cat trade for Randall and DiVincenzo,

and now Randall was a salary dump. DeVincenzo is out potentially for the season. Yeah. You know, eventually, you know, you go down the domino line and eventually it does lead you to Lamello being here, but it's also costing you Nazreid along the way. and they've completely inverted what they had, right? They were front court heavy and thin in the back court, and now it's kind of flipped. And I don't know what the net outcome of that is.

I do think that they had hopes in early July when they first went down this road of being able to backfill the front court a little bit more effectively than they did. I don't know of specific people they had in mind. Well, LeBron was one person that they had in mind. But this was even, I'm thinking back to even before LeBron had made his decision. Yeah, so I guess he was still in play for that at the time that I was having some of these conversations with folks. But I do think that the wolves thought that they would come out, whether LeBron or somebody else, I think they were expecting a better outcome and backfilling that power forward spot than what they ended up with Jonathan Kamenka. And I think you can see that even by when and how they got Camingo last couple.

So I'm absolutely fascinated by it, absolutely intrigued. And I will say this, as much as I have like some skepticism, I also think this could be like fun as hell. Really interesting, super competitive team still. Last three years, 56 wins, 49, 49, a couple of conference finals appearances. I admire the ambition and the conviction by the wolves. And by the way, I'll say the same thing for Charlotte here. It takes a lot to decide, you know what?

In the wolves case, we were a conference finalist a couple of times, but we don't think as constructed we have enough to break through. We got to reshuffle the deck and take some chances. I admire that. I do, too. And on the Charlotte side of it, I admire it because, yeah, they finally broke through in some former fashion with that team, but had the sober-mindedness to say, but we don't think that our best future involves Lamello specifically. We have this new core emerging with Miller and Kniepple. And we think Nas Reid, both for what he does on the court and just, I think, his overall presence as a leader and a guy who's won a lot. Like, I admire the conviction of these franchises.

All right, who's your next on your most intriguing list? This is an interesting one. Jeff Welkman. Wow. President of basketball operations for the Orlando Magic. Glad you're listing that because like 90% of the audience just... I literally had to write it down because I was like, yeah, 90% of the audience would be like, who is that? Yes.

So I feel like the Orlando Magic are coming off like an immensely disappointing season. I thought that they were going to be like a top two seed in the Eastern Conference before last year began. It ended with their third straight first round exit. And they enter this year with basically the same roster, which is kind of stunning in a lot of ways. Not only you're the Orlando Magic. This is kind of what they do. But not only have they been static with that, you know, they obviously. changed their head coach and they

let go of Jamal Mosley and brought in Sean Sweeney who has never been a head coach before but who is awesome they basically sign Vouch which is just if you like I'm that's

a stunner if you watch time is a flat circle Michael Pina that is very fair and it's just like not only did they keep everything the same but they have the third highest payroll in the NBA. So when you have, so something's got to give is what I, what I mean when I look at this

team. And it's like, you can't really bank on, I mean, I guess you could. You bank on continuity and health and, you know, maybe this is the year, Franz and Paolo and Suggs all stay healthy. And Anthony Black takes a step forward. And Desmond Bain was healthy last year. He played all lady too. Maybe, you know, year two of him being with these guys, like it clicks like we thought it would. But if it doesn't, then you got to blow this up. Like you have to, right? Like you can't have the third highest payroll in the league and be a team that is middling. It's just not sustainable in any sense. So he is here because I think that there will be a pseudo blockbuster trade. frankly, involving the Orlando Magic.

In season. Soon. Yeah. Why not? Well, the why not is if you were going to do that, you should have just done that, like, yesterday or in July? I think they've sold themselves on the coach being the issue. Yeah. And, I mean, and also health, bad luck.

I don't know how much of this I want to put on Wilman and his front office versus just Orlando Magic ownership and that franchise in general because I feel like, This is the magic have been the epitome of, I don't want the adjective I want to use here, it's complacency. Apathy. Apathy. Staleness. Yeah. Something.

They just, they find their guys and they just stick with it until something breaks, until somebody blows them away with an offer out of the blue or until they're forced to make a deal. Like they're very, they are the opposite of proactive. I don't even know if they're reactive. They tend to just stick with it as long as they possibly can. And we've talked about this before. I don't believe that bronze and palo together long term is going to get them where they want to go. And I think they should have already recognized by now that they should have flipped one of them for different pieces to fit around the remaining guy.

I don't think health alone is going to get them where they want to go. I don't think a coaching change alone is going to get them where they want to go. So to your point, yeah, trade inevitable. is inevitable question mark it's just like to me it's like if this were a different

franchise with a different leadership again from ownership on down I think they would have already made a move put it out but ownership

what is ownership like right now their tax bill is $32 million tax bill yeah it's like are you

like ownership can't be like oh that's cool like we'll be the eight seed and it's like I just

I see change on the horizon. I just, it's kind of, I don't want to say obvious because things could click. There's a lot of talent here. Yeah.

But I, you know, Vooch could have an out of body experience that actually can't happen. Sorry. I watched the playoffs last year. Um, but, but yeah,

I think that they, they intrigued me because there was so much promise. Yeah. They were clearly ascending. They made the all in type of move where they trade for Desmond Bain. It doesn't work because Franz gets hurt and Paolo doesn't take a step forward and black gets, you know, Suggs is hurt and

black doesn't kind of emerge. So is all that going to happen this year? And if not, then look, like if you put Powell, I just think like, I think all these guys individually are really interesting and talented and that sort of stuff. And on okay contracts. And yeah, I think if Paulo was available for trade and it was like widely understood, I'd be really nice. interested to see what they could get for him. Yeah. Look, like everybody else, I believe Sean Sweeney's going to be a great head coach. I'm excited to see him get this opportunity. And I think he will make a difference there. I just, I think the personnel limits whoever is in that job. So this is not a reflection on him at all. But yeah, I, the magic bear watching to say the least between now and the

trade deadline. All right. My number two is, is, if I say that the most interesting, my, My most intriguing item here is snow time. Does that say it well enough? It's the Lakers. I think I just heard that phrase for the first time or that leave over the first time. I think Bill threw it out there a week or so ago. Apparently, I'd been making the rounds. Oh, my God.

The very, very white Lakers. This is the first time since Luca got there that it's clearly the Luca show, right? Yeah. LeBron and everything that comes with him has. has moved 3,000 miles. I was going to say they spent the summer rebuilding around Luca and Austin Rees, but they didn't. They spent like 15 minutes the same morning that LeBron announced he was leaving to sign all the guys that they were signing. Spent a lot of money.

Spent a lot of money. But they clearly had an agenda in mind. They knew exactly what they wanted to do. They knew who they wanted to bring in. Rob Polinka about to be working for his third different. majority or controlling owner still there and he signed all these guys

and he traded a bunch of assets for Walker Kessler and then paid him a lot of money and then he brought in Colin Sexton and Quentin Grimes and Matisse Thibel and Kavana Looney and by the way I also just

They just unveiled a new alternate jersey Did you see this making the rise? No, I did not. I did not. It's got Lakers written in like six point. You can barely,

you need a fucking magnifying class to actually see See the I'm telling you it's like this big on the jersey says Lakers and there's like the huge number. It's it's bizarre. I don't know. The jersey thing's out of control. Some of our colleagues already wrote about it last week when we talked about at the ringer all of the things that we want to change with the NBA. This jersey is an abomination.

I don't think that's what's going to hold them back this year. But I'm very, I'm intrigued by the Lakers because it is clearly now the Lucas show. unreserved, unconditional. It's time. It's time for this front office and for Luca there to show what they are now in a conference where everybody believes you're locked out if you're not the Spurs and the Thunder. But Luca's a top five, top three, whatever you want to say player in this league. And Austin Reeves is going to be, I think, an excellent, already is, an excellent co-star there.

Is there enough around them? Is there enough shooting? Is there enough defense? Is there enough anything? I don't know. Can Walker Castler stay healthy after pretty checkered first couple of years in the league? I don't know what to make of this team at all other than their floor is super high by the virtue of having Luca alone. But this is, it's not an old supporting.

You sound a little pessimistic. I'm not pessimistic. This is the intrigue. Yeah. I don't know what to make. make of them other than Luca alone means they're no worse than like a 47-48 win team

and the upside is everything breaks their way, they stay healthy and they get into the low to mid-50s. Are they good enough to knock out the spurs or the thunder if everybody's a full strength next spring? Like, probably not. I don't know. I just, I don't know what

this team is. It's the first time in a while that we could look at the Lakers and be like, I'm not even sure you know, what, who they are exactly. But we've seen Luca with Kyrie and Dallas. He is just even one other guy next to him. Yeah. Who can do a lot with the ball in his hands. And a competent supporting cast, you can get to the finals with Luca.

Different, different Western conference at that time. 100%. Wembe was not, well, was he in the league? Rookie? Rookie. Rwembe? Could have been. Yeah.

Not in the playoffs. He was not in the playoffs. So, yeah. Yeah, I don't know if I'm, I don't know where I'm at on them. I think they're probably top four, top five in the West. Beyond that, I don't know what to make of them. I think the more I look at this roster, the more bullish I am, to be honest, because I feel like this is a, not quite a y'all must have forgot season coming out of Luka that we should all be prepared for, but something close to it. I think he is so special and almost like, I think shedding the LeBron.

in LeBron's presence, Don, like putting in his rearview mirror getting traded and the shock. And I need to adjust and all that sort of stuff, which I feel like that was a hangover effect of that for a lot of last season in terms of I need to be on the cover of men's health. I need to like change my image. What did I do wrong? What about me made the team the Dallas Mavericks trade me? I feel like that is all gone. And now it's, I am arguably the best offensive player on the planet. I have my running mate, my friend, Austin Reeves, who is very good.

He's signed. We've got that squared away. And I look at some of these moves and, you know, they spent a lot of money on guys who probably, you know, it's not, I don't want to say, like, didn't deserve the money, but spent a lot of money. More money than any other team by a significant margin. And I think sometimes we get, I said this on a pod with Kyle, but sometimes we conflate like the moves and the signings and all that sort of stuff with how actually a basketball team looks and the sensibility of it. And I actually think the pieces are good around him and makes sense. and he will be able to elevate some of the players who we have question marks about. And I think someone even like Colin Sexton will have a role that makes sense on this team.

Quentin Grimes is like a pretty good three and D type of player who can do a little bit more sometimes. And Kessler is signed here because when he is healthy, he creates second chance opportunities as well as just about any center in the league. and he's a damn good rim protector, and that's what they need, paint protection. Yes. And I also am fascinated by the Zaire Williams, Matisse Thibel editions, because they spell to me just this defensive approach

of like aggression and creating turnovers. And I think if that is the style of play, which is in vogue, that JJ Reddick, who is, you know, an analytic wonk and believes in it, if he really doubles down, down there. I think that the defense could actually be a little bit better than people anticipate. And I'm very high on the offense because I just think, as you said, the floor is so high. And I think when Luca is around, your ceiling is also extremely high.

If the top tier in the West is, San Antonio, Oklahoma, can the Lakers be the best team of the second tier, which I would argue is, or suppose is Denver, Houston, Minnesota and the lake, can they be the best team of the second tier? I think it's possible. And I think what's more important is if you get in a seven-game series, Luca can be the best player. Yeah. And Luca can do, you know, he could have a 50, 13, 12 type of game in a big critical game for, you know. And I think that that is the type of just impact that we're dealing with. And so he's just a super duper-duper-duper star.

And sometimes, like, we don't need to overthink this. And, oh, they didn't get, you know, they don't have enough shooting. Like, they have enough. I feel like they have enough everything. And he is just like the, just, he's just like pure greatness. I don't know. I just, I feel like we don't need to overthink it. Yeah, fair.

All of it. All right. We have one more item each on our most intriguing fill in the blank. We've not yet gotten to Moni McCutcheon, Scott Foster. Zach Sarba. Zach Sarba. Shout out Zach Sarba. formerly of Park Slope, Brooklyn, but now somewhere off in the hinterland.

So who you got? I have the Toronto Raptors. I was waiting for you to get. I cannot believe it took you this long to get to your beloved Toronto Raptors. Honestly, the more I think about them, the more I feel like they, you know, again, we're talking about the trade has happened. I'm just going to check to make sure Kauai hasn't actually been traded while we've been talking. Nope. Look, I'm talking about this under the assumption that he will be traded for Brandon Ingram, Grady Dick, and two first round picks.

Any minute. I think you could reasonably make the case that they should be the favorite to win the East. The favorite? I do. I think that when I think about the playoffs and I saw what they did against the Cleveland Cavaliers without basically they didn't have Brandon Ingram for most of that series they didn't have a manual quickly

and like what I saw at a Scotty Barnes was like this guy is going up a level in ways that are extremely meaningful and for him to be the second best player on a team I know that Quaya's health issues I understand all that. Talking about the regular season though

and I'm talking about like their style of play which they're going to be a defense first team that's just like comes at you aggressively you know Jamal Shedge Kobe Walter Scottie Barnes Barnes, CMB, they have the athletes, they have the coaching staff, they have the identity. And I think that if you just add a little bit of health, they can be extremely scary.

And when I get Kauai and he's healthy and he looks like he, because I think for me personally, he was like a top five player in the NBA last year, if they get that Kauai, they should be just a phenomenal basketball team. ESPN right now depth chart shows Kauai Leonard that small forward. CBS sports depth chart right now shows Brandon Ingram. So I just thought was a fun little, fun little sideline there. We can't quite decide who we're penciling in yet and how to project them. I mean, that's the thing.

I do think it's still more likely than not that Kauai is there, but I still think like everything is on the table right now. No one knows exactly what the clippers are thinking or what they're doing right now. And if they somehow just decided to like, spite Kauai, spite Kauai, spite whoever, the world, the universe, I don't know. Our reality changed and we think that maybe moving him somewhere else for a different package could be, I don't know. I have no idea what, what this, where this leads other than, listen, we don't need to, you and Kyle, I think, cover this fully a week ago. But the way the Clippers have responded to that investigation and the results and the penalties

was a little unhinged. The statement from their lawyer was just so over the top. The persecution complex and the paranoia, like, woven into all of that was just incredible. Like, there was no remorse, no contriteous contrition. it just and because of that I saw that as a very irrational response by a team that had been caught with its pants down and had 36 pages chapter and verse of all the different ways in which they cheated and and their their response is basically fuck you like we're we're the victims

and all this because of that there's an irrationality that I cannot get just dismiss right now and I don't know what that means ultimately. But Kauai'll probably be a Raptor regard. And if he is, everything you said broadly, I agree with. Whether that's enough to overcome some combination of Nicks and Celtics and Pistons, who we've barely even mentioned, if we've even mentioned them at all on this pod today, Cavaliers, however we want to classify them, Sixers. Like, it's a lot for any team to get, it's a lot.

Every single one of those teams I could say the same for it, to get through the rest. Like, there's just a lot of really good teams to shop the East, and I don't think any of them have a bulletproof case here. But I like, no, when it comes to intriguing, though, like, yeah, no dispute there. Raptor is incredibly intriguing. I wish there was more of, like, you know, when we've had other homecomings in the NBA, LeBron back to Cleveland, of being obviously like the ultimate version of this, especially

if you go back at a time when you are still capable of carrying a team or. or, you know, pushing them that much further along, you want there to be, like, a little bit more of a good feelings, you know, aspect of it. Kauai back to Toronto, I'm sure for Raptors fans, they're not going to give a shit about what just happened with the Clippers. But I think for the rest of us who are distanced from that, it's not clean. It's weird. The whole thing is weird.

And, like, it's not a feel good story. Also, by the way, Kauai doesn't exactly inspire feel good feelings about him anyway because he's a blank slate. and we don't know what to make of him. Also, by the way, took zero responsibility for this entire fiasco. So it's not, it doesn't come with the same kind of like, you know, fun nostalgia. Ooh, you know, he can go back and write the wrongs and maybe try to get them back to the championship for the first time since he did it the first time in 2019. It's just lacking a little bit of emotional system.

That's fair. I just really am looking forward to watching him. For sure. Play basketball. Absolutely. All right. My last one, I had to, I almost veered away from it just to spare you, maybe to spare the listeners for that matter. Almost.

Okay. But like, most intriguing, like, how could we not mention at some point the Sixers again? Yeah. Sure. Do it. Yeah, he said, groaning. Dude, I mean, how could they not be one of the most intriguing storylines of the season? They just are.

I thought about getting cute and trying not to mention them at all. They're inevitable. We are going to be fascinated by them from day one, from minute one of media day in a couple of weeks. What version of LeBron is there, both by age and by temperament? What are we going to see from him? How much does he impose himself on that team? He's been the leader of every team he's ever been on. He's been the leading score of almost every team he's ever been on minus, you know, the last couple of years in L.A.,

and even there's some caveat. What version of him be by ages as well? Jalen Brown didn't choose to be there. LeBron did. So what's, you know, Jalen Brown's mindset? We've heard from him on Twitch and other places, but like we don't really know until we see him on the court with all these guys. Joel M. Bede, how willing is he to take a step back?

It's all the stuff that we talked about the second all these transactions happened. So I'm not saying anything new here necessarily. It's just, oh my God, do we have so many questions. Like, who's the number one option here at any given time? Is it Maxie? Is it Jalen? Is it Embed? Is it LeBron?

How much sacrifice are they all making? How much, you know, there's a lot of Nick Nurse's plate to kind of manage all of this? How many games does Joel Embed play? How many games does LeBron play? Can they summon enough defense, especially when Joe L. Embed is not on the court? I have made the case, and I believe this will be the case, that LeBron will probably kind of move more into playmaker role, facilitator.

he'll still score by just by virtue of being LeBron. Yeah. But he doesn't have to be, his usage doesn't have to be in the high, it doesn't have to be in the 30s for sure. It doesn't even have to be in the high 20s. He could be in like the 20-22 range and just create easy shots for everyone else. And that could be enough. But just watching him adapt at this stage is intriguing enough on its own, much less how all the rest of these guys fall into place and how they all approach this. we haven't seen too many versions of this over time.

Sometimes these things have not gone very well for the teams involved. You know, the Lakers of Nash and... A ton of examples. Yeah, Nash and Dwight with Kobe and Pau. The Lakers with Malone and Peyton, although I will always argue, like, one, they made it to the damn NBA finals. And two, if Carl Malone doesn't get hurt, it's a much different outcome potentially. But... The Nets with K.G. Pierce, Darren Williams, Joe Johnson.

Yeah, although like, Pierce and Garnet were... far enough, like, moving toward the cliff of their careers, whereas LeBron is still, like, what LeBron is doing, obviously, is unprecedented at this stage. So it's, but that's a, it's a fair example, too, in terms of just, we're just going to pile on all these stars at various stages of their career and just see what happens. But shit, man, like, I'm sorry, I could not avoid this one. I could not not have this on the list. The Sixers are intriguing as hell. We're going to be watching every damn game they play. For sure. Absolutely. It's unavoidable. And I'm happy to not avoid it. It's going to be really interesting.

Who do you think will lead the Sixers in shots this season? Great question. I think it's Maxie. Maxie. Oh, okay. Yeah. I think it's... How about this? Not total, just like per game or poor...

Okay. Not LeBron. I agree. I think LeBron is like third on the list, maybe fourth, depending on how much I believe in this LeBron moving. He should be fourth in my... opinion. Yeah. I wrote this a little ways back in the summer after he signed there just about the idea of, you know, LeBron when he came into the league, my favorite, one of my favorite commercials

of all time, LeBron coming into the church, Bernie Mac as the preacher, right? And it was all about, you know, he was, this is him as a rookie, right? This is his first year in the league. And it was all about, you know, he was born to pass. And like, he had crazy court vision. And it was all about that. And that was the version of magic that a lot of people expected before he became one of the greatest scores of all time, the greatest score by definition, by totals. But it was all about he was going to be more magic than Michael. And I know we've already dispensed with that over the years. But he is wired that way.

And like he, especially the stage of his career, I'm expecting that. So leading shot up with who are you thinking who would lead them in field goal attempts? Well, I just think that that's where my own concerns pop. in because it's like... Because Jalen Brown is not going to give up the ball. Dude, like, I was just looking at some numbers

for this exercise and I was, you know, going up, trying to find where Kevin Durant ranked in certain scoring things. And Jalen Brown was always like, just,

it's like shots with between three and six dribbles, for example, is something you can look at on NBA.com. And it's like, Jalen average, like, a full 1.5 more

than anyone else in the league. And he just blew people away and in terms of like, uh, his past percentage, when he has the ball. Is he going to pass the ball? Probably not.

So I don't think like those things will shift for, I think it'll be really difficult for him to go from last year and him having that joy and the enjoyment of being the number one option and it being the best season of his career, his favorite season or whatever, to, all right, like, I'm going to go stand in the corner here. Maybe you'll find me in transition. I'm going to sprint the floor. If you don't find me, you find some edge comb on the other. Like, I just think there's a lot of possibility for friction. For sure. And that's why I'm just like, I really want to see it. I've said that since I saw that LeBron signed with them.

And the key point that you make is that Jalen Brown did not sign up for this. That's like, that's a huge part of it. Huge part of it. We're going to learn a lot about it. Right? Like, there was all the murmuring. early on in the Jalen Jason partnership about how, oh, Jalen wants his own team, or he feels this should be a number one option.

Blah, it isn't like being in the shadow. They win a championship together. It's momentarily dispelled. But then it comes roaring back because of his Twitch comments and other things. And yeah, now he is on a team that is like stocked with, you know, first option guys, with guys who are used to like, and Joelle Embed for that matter, too. We're going to learn a little bit about him as well. But I think Embeddead's already started to make the turn there.

He started to adapt a little because he had to. both by his physical limitations and the emergence of Maxie and Edgecombe. And so I think I'm a little less worried about him than I am about Jalen Brown. And we know what's going to happen. Media Day is going to come along and Jalen Brown's going to get these questions and he's going to try to give all the right answers. I think he's going to try to give all the right answers. I don't think he's going to feed into the concerns and the skepticism. But it's what you do on the court that matters and we'll learn a lot about him very soon.

Like he would say that I have sacrificed to like the greater good of the whole for most of my career. And that is true. Yeah. He's won a ton of games doing it. This will be a very different. Extremely, especially when you look at the fact that, you know, he's got a contract situation to look at. Sure. Yeah.

As I say, super intriguing. They are. They were on my long list. Yeah. All right. On my long list, since we're going to, we need a wrap. But Utah Jazz, intriguing, Dark Horse playoff type team in the East, in the West. Indiana Pacers, like, we all keep forgetting to talk about them.

Like, I even did it five minutes ago when I was saying, like, oh, all these teams jockeying for a position in the top of the East. Any one of them could possibly win the East. By the way, the Indiana Pacers should probably be in there considering the way the finals 18 months ago, and Tyrese Halliburton is back. But it's another one of those we need to see him. We've got to see him now with a little bit of a revamped lineup and Zubots. Trailblazers I'm intrigued by just because they're freaking weird And I don't know what the hell they're doing And I don't like the Jha Morant edition

But we'll see how they sort it all out And Damian Lillard's back I had the Mavs on kind of the long list The Wizards I'm not as intrigued as some people are Or I'm at least I'm not as optimistic as some people are Grizzlies young and fun and revamped and post-jaw intrigue So those were kind of like my also rants Who else did you kind of kick around?

So you mentioned the Wizards And I've been extremely down on them their offseason, just their, I don't know, like Chris Middleton is on the roster. It's absolutely like a farce. But Anthony Davis is someone who I basically like in my head completely written off. And I feel like I've done so unfairly. So I wrote him his name down because like, what if he's really good?

You know what I mean? Like it's not, this is like, he is such a fascinating figure. Like when healthy, he is, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, awesome. Like, he's one of the best defensive players in basketball, and he's, he, he will wreck shit. And so if he is, if he is back to being that player, um, first of all, like, what does that do to his status in Washington? What does that do to his contract situation? And what does that do to his potential trade market? Those are all things that, um, I'm thinking about when I think about if AD is to have like kind of a magical renaissance type of season.

That would be wonderful. But what I'm thinking about is 36, 40, 56, 76, 56, 5120. Those are his games played the last several. Now, the last year is kind of weird because of the trade and everything else and the wizard's not really wanting to play him. But yeah, not a lot of games played by Anthony Davis in recent years. So we'll see. All right.

That's our most intriguing. We're intrigued. We're intrigued by a bunch of other things that we didn't quite get to. But we've got many weeks to go. And by the way, real ones will be back very soon. Welcoming back, my guys, Raja and Logan. Can't wait to do that. We've got some fun stuff coming in next week.

We'll see. But you'll find that on this channel as well. So Pina, been a pleasure. It's a blast. I'll venmo you for that beer any minute now. Thanks for joy. us everybody.