The Ringer NBA Show - MVP Giannis, the Suns’ Implosion, and Lonzo’s Awakening (Ep. 148)

Episode Date: October 23, 2017

The Ringer's Juliet Litman and John Gonzalez sit down to talk some NBA story lines, including Oklahoma City's precarious start to the season (1:05), Giannis MVP watch (5:15), Eric Bledsoe's illuminative tweet (11:48), and Lonzo Ball's first few NBA performances (19:14). Then they indulge in a few overreactions (29:44) and end with some games to look forward to (32:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Morning. This is The Ringer NBA show. I'm Juliet Lippman. I'm John Gonzalez. So this is new. New. It's our first Monday of the NBA season. Yeah. The two of us will be doing a sort of like a headlines Monday morning podcast. We don't have a name yet. We're working on it. We're workshopping it. It's basically us nerding out on what happened over the weekend. We'll go through a whole bunch of topics. It's kind of like table setting for the week. It's sort of like this is what happens. This is where we are on Monday. This is the games that we're excited about. And kind of what you need to. to know right now. All the things that we were talking about, all the things we want to talk about.

And we want to keep it tight. We decided we were going to do like... It's going to be a tight 30 minutes. We're going to have a clock element too. Absolutely. 30 minutes at hopefully. Hopefully. Something wild happens.

Maybe we'll go over. We'll ask for more time. Overtime. Yeah, overtime. There could be an overtime segment. This is the no overtime podcast. Yes. Let's get into it.

We had a run down all set. And then things got a little crazy last night because the Thunder are one and two. They lost the buzzer to Andrew Wiggins' Minnesota Timberwolves. Give Andrew Wiggins more money. Give him more money. I was skeptical of the Andrew Wiggins' max deal, but he looked good. He has looked good. I like him quite a bit.

I think he's been much maligned. I want to hear you defend your OKC Thunder because you have said quite a few times just in our private conversations how much you like them. You were excited about them. Juliet, two losses in a row. They went down hard against the jazz. and then Andrew Wiggins upsets them. What say you?

I just want to say, I don't know about that Carltown screen at the beginning of that play, okay? Just going to throw that out there. You want a little help from that. It was right in front of the referee, but no big deal. He just, that was a really hard screen, and I think if it's not the kind of like anointed king of the NBA in 2020, maybe that's a different call.

And second of all, I can't believe you're begging for the refs to bail out the OKC Thunder who have three superstars. Let Carl Anthony Towns pick. Let them eat. You can't have Carmelo on your side and not blame the refs, you know? Fair enough. This is why I like the Thunder, and I'm not giving up yet. I think this is a really good role for Carmelo Anthony.

Like, this is the best, the most I've enjoyed watching him play since the Olympics, probably, yes, I'm going to stick with that. Short list. Short list. You know, everyone loves Olympics mellow, and this is sort of like as close as it can get for him in the NBA. And he's 33 years old and really good players prolong their careers by becoming really good shooters. He was already a great score and a pretty good shooter. And he was poised to win the game for them. He had a go-ahead three at the end.

And then OKC just didn't get back on defense. How'd that work out? It didn't work out, right? They have a lot of problems. Let me run just because you had mentioned the shooting. Sure. And you like watching Mello. In the Saturday loss to the jazz, 26 shots to get 26.

points. Yeah, their box scores are a little alarming. 19 shots to get 23 points. I'm not so sure about shooter mellow. Okay. I'm not so sure about them together. I mean, look, three games. I like them in theory, but the jazz defense really shut down their offense.

And when you have to take 26 shots to get 26 points, Mello, that's not Olympic Mellow. That's not like good teammate Mello. That is old school. That's Mellow. I'm popping at Mello. Just Mellow. Right. You know, before the season started, I believe.

Bill Simmons said that the jazz were a sneaking contender for the Ewing theory. And it definitely seems to be worn out so far. They seem that they're enjoying themselves. They've got good defense. And they're not just like a speed bomb so far through three games, of course. Everything on this podcast comes to the caveat of like small sample size overreaction. Can I reveal something? Sure.

I restrained myself from doing this. But at multiple points over the weekend, I almost sent you just pictures of Ricky. Because I love him. His luscious hair. I love him so much. And he looks so good with the jazz, the perimeter defense with him at the front of it is excellent. And then the backline defense with Rudy Gobert, that's a legit thing. The jazz looked good.

And OKC could not crack that problem. And then I think it lingered a little bit. They had a little hangover against the wolves. I know that they're supposed to be better scheduling this season, but I actually think the scheduling the beginning of the season has been really suspect. I find it weird to put the thunder and the Warriors on back-to-backs in the first week of the season. Yeah, they got to knock these out earlier, I guess. And then when the season starts, they'll be more spacing.

But I don't think, OKC can't blame the refs. No. They can't blame the scheduling. They have to blame OKC. They got three superstars. I want to say one of the things that makes me hopeful. You're an OKC apologist. Yes, I am.

I really am. I think that Russ looks good in that, like, yes, he's playing well, but also he's distributing a lot. And he has come out in all of their games looking not to attack like he did. for 82 games last year, but a slightly more traditional point guard distributor role, which it bodes well. I like Rush just fine.

I worry about this team. I do not, however, worry about your guy. You were quite excited about Janus. Yes. Janus is the Ross of this season. That's kind of my take. So you're buying like, okay. I bought all the stock.

And it's appointment viewing, is it not? Where were you on Friday afternoon? I told you this before. So because we gathered to discuss what this pod would be, and we talked and blah, blah, blah. And I said, my wife flies back and forth from coast to coast every weekend for work. So while she's out, I just watch basketball. I did, where was I on Friday? Same place I was on Saturday and Sunday parked in front of my television watching the NBA.

Yonnas is amazing. I love my job, by the way. Like, oh, I have to go watch basketball. He's so good. He's so good. So they lost on Friday to the cast. Yeah, they still lost, though. We should probably mention that.

LeBron is still LeBron, but then Saturday night they played The Blazers, who are good, who I can't really emotionally commit to right now. I love the Blazers. They're fun. They look good. You know who is, CJ McCollum is just, like, exciting. He just is like a, he's fun to watch because you don't know what's going to happen with him. You know what I mean? I love C.J. McCollum for a number of reasons.

I like him because he was on the bench for a while to start his career, and we didn't know what he was going to be. And he came out of a small school. And then all of a sudden, you pair him with Damien Lillard. He's Damien Lillard 1A and it looks great. They're a lot of fun. Also, he's a great talker. He's going to be... He'll be a good broadcaster.

Sooner later than longer, he'll just take this job. Like this pod that we just started, he'll have that because he's really good at it. I love the Blazers. I'd like you to commit to them moving forward. Sure. Maybe for next week. But right now, it's Yannis time. It's Yonis.

Although, so here's my thing about Yonis. Okay. He's fantastic, right? He's a stat stuffer across the board. can get to anywhere on the floor with one step. He's just an absolute monster right now. The shot is still a little funky. Sure.

But that game where he clearly, and he's shown this in previous seasons too. When he faces LeBron, he wants to show LeBron like how good he is. And LeBron's getting asked questions about Janus beforehand. And I would like him in those big games just to go do him rather than trying to show out. Because that, it looked like it affected him slightly in that game. Yeah. He's a lot of great stat long. Kind of doing a little bit too much.

So you're buying this MVP talk already. Yeah, and this is why. I think his shot, as you said, is still not great. He's not the greatest shooter. He's not like a Kevin Durant style scorer. He made a three-pointer against the Blazers. That's fun. Cool.

He made one. That's great. But if you just watch only the honest plays that make you kind of like stunned, it's because he has gotten so much better by the basket. and he can adjust in the air in a way he didn't use to be able to. And he just has clearly worked on his post moves quite a bit. And that's exciting because that just means he can like, like LeBron, bully people around him and just score.

He's so much bigger physically than most of the people who guard him now, that it's just not really fair. It's not. Physically, he is an absolute monster. Also, I think he really wants this. Like, look at his minutes per game. He played 39 minutes against the Blazers. And this is not unusual. I mean, he has said he wants to be out there all.

all the time forever and Jason Kidd's going to let him run, which I think will really help him on the Russ quest for their MVP when you're just chasing stats and grabbing rebounds that probably somebody else should have grabbed. Those are going to be Yonis's rebounds. The rebounds for Yonnas make more sense because he's much taller than Russ. The other thing is like when you start looking at the bucks and you take out Yonis, you're like, okay, this team is fine. Fine.

Then you, yeah, so Jbarry Parker's still out. Malcolm Brogdenham on Rookie of the Year, but like, I don't know. That was a faux rookie of the year. That is he's holding that for Joe Unbeed. He should give it back. He should wrap it up and put a bow on it and ship it off. It's kind of like he won the attendance record. Yeah.

He showed up every day. Yeah, exactly. And he's great, good for him. But like, you know, he's fine. He's not like, if he had been in this rookie class, he definitely would not have won. No. So he's good, whatever. Chris Middleton has been looking good, but does he look good without Janus?

Like, he gets looks that he wouldn't get otherwise. And then it gets thin. Then you have John Henson. I'm sure the bucks would trade him, given the opportunity. Greg Monroe, who's still Greg Monroe and doesn't fit in today's NBA. And then Delhi, who, you know, is. Anoys everybody. Exactly.

Jason Terry has like your vet off the bench. They do have, I think, the NBA is leading cheerleader right now, who is DJ Wilson. You love DJ Wilson. Great, great cheerleader. On your sideline cheerleader rankings, where does he fall so far? So high. He's like got the cat base. more trophy right now. I like that about him. I mean, you've got to do something because you're

right. It's super thin. You look at this team. The other reason why Janus has to play so many minutes is because who else is playing minutes? I mean, you mentioned John Henson. I like John Hansen fine as like a 10 to 15 minute. He played 24 minutes against the Blazers. He's a key cog in their rotation. It's really bad. Yeah. And so, but the bucks are still like exciting. They look like contenders. Not with the calves. But they're worth like getting home early for. And that's, I think, sort of a high bar already. And, like, we say, he doesn't have a lot. He doesn't have, like, stunning help around him.

No, I love him quite a bit. That's my one concern about him being an MVP candidate is what's his team going to look like and how good are they actually going to be? Because it's one thing for Russ to go out there and, like, average a triple double and win the MVP award, even though everybody knew they were going to be, like, an out and early out. I wonder what that looks like for the Bucks in the Eastern Conference. if they don't go past expectations. Does he still get that same credit?

I don't know. We were talking about this on the NBA preview Paloosa last week, which we did. Which was excellent. Our video countdown. Yeah, it was fun. Like, after a season with a subpar team, or not subpar, but a decent team being just dragged to the playoffs, will voters, again, want that kind of candidate or someone just from like a straight up winning team?

I picked Kauai, who hasn't played. yet because I thought, you know, Kauai was a dark horse candidate last year. He was really good. The spurs you would expect to be good per usual. He should actually maybe get out there. But now, Yonis, I mean, nobody picked Yonis. And I think we should have. Yeah. The only person who does Danny Chow. Danny Chow. Shouts to Danny. He's like our scout. So he should. He's good with that stuff. She should be picking it right. Okay. Next. Yesterday. Drama.

Major drama. And the 2 o'clock Pacific hour, Eric Bloodso tweeted, I don't want to be here. Open to interpretation immediately. Within an hour later, Earl Watson, his coach is fired. So what was your, what did you think that tweet meant? Because initially everybody expected that the tweet meant, hey, I hate it here, get me the hell out. Which considering what they did to him last year, where they shut him down as a healthy scratch for the last, what, 15, 20 games so they could tank just a little bit more. I would have been pissed too if I were him. Absolutely.

But then they go and fire Earl Watson, who was. admittedly terrible, although they should have known it. It's three games. It's not like three games. They were like, oh, my God, Earl Watson, what the hell is he doing? Yeah. So do we think that maybe Eric Bledsoe found out about Earl Watson before the Earl Watson News was announced? And then he was just like overall upset about it?

Yeah, so I at first thought it was probably supposed to be a DM. That was my thought. I was like, oh, he messed up. That should have been a DM to someone. But then he didn't delete it. And if it's supposed to be a DM, I think the protocol is delete. Yeah. It's still up, I believe.

Is it? I think so. It's not good in Phoenix. No. Things are not going well. It's not good. But then I realized that Bledsoe and Earl Watson both are represented by clutch sports. So I thought perhaps he knew in advance and was like upset about about his coach or something.

Because the thing about Earl Watson is that he was almost fired before. Should have been fired before. He's a bad in-game coach. I mean like- I believe he was not fired though because players liked him. Okay. So yes, I believe that they do like him. However.

At one point he would like. How much could you like a guy? I mean, his rotations are really squarely. Like so far through three games, he's got Marquis Chris playing 15, 3 minutes a game, and then he's got Alex Len at 23. How is that possible? You've got these young guys who you want to go and see out there,

and you've got Alex Len, who you know what Alex Len is. I don't understand his rotations. I don't understand how he's deploying people on the floor. I didn't get it. Like, there was a number of times where I was like, Earl Watson's really bad. I guess the suns woke up and they watched a game, I don't know.

There must have been something else internal. It's like legitimate to ask like what is the son's goal? Are they trying to tank? Are they trying to play basketball? Are they trying to have Devin Booker score 70 points again? Like it's unclear like what they're going for. But I also think Josh Jackson now had kind of an under the radar moment that I wonder if he's going to get fined for. Not so under the radar.

Which is he did like a like a hand shooting motion at fans. Finger gun. A finger gun. Yeah. With a trigger pole. Which is just like, you know. it's a bad thing to do. Don't do that.

Import taste. Really bad for your star rookie for the beginning of a season for him to do that. So it also just makes it seem like maybe there's just general chaos there. And if he's not fine for that, by the way, I'll be very surprised. Yeah, he's been sort of, he's gotten a lot of run, but he's been a little disappointing Josh Jackson on a number of fronts. I wonder about Eric Bledsoe though, because you mentioned like, okay, so what are the sons trying to do? They are trying to tank. They're not really trying to play basketball.

all. I would like to see them. I mean, yeah, and Devin Booker, they want Devin Booker to score as many points as Devin Booker can possibly score. Fine. All that is to the good, I get it. I will say for Devin Booker, I also would not want to be there because being on a losing team like this will just depreciate his value. I'm sure he'll get a big deal after his rookie contract. But like that sucks. Devin Booker's not going anywhere. The guy who might be going somewhere and probably should go somewhere is Eric Bledsoe. He's in the prime of his career. He's been floundering. I mean, like a couple of years ago in Ryan McDonough had the three point guard experiment with Goran. And Jodic and also Isaiah Thomas. Right. Like that's when it really started to go south because the year before that it looked like, okay, with just the two of them, that could be like a thing, right? And then since then, Eric Bledsoe has been alternately misused. He was hurt for a second. Last year he's healthy and then a healthy scratch at the end of the season. If I'm him, I'm really pissed because he is hyper talented.

I think he probably does one out. He should one out. Where might he go? There's not a ton of point guard openings. I mean, D'Andre Jordan immediately was like, come back, bro. because he was used to be a high. Right, right, right. And he would be a good fit on the clippers, I think. So the clippers. And now Tei dosage is hurt. They can't afford blood cell. But they, right, they can't afford him. Teadosich is hurt, but they still have Pat Bab. They still have Lou Williams. They still have son of Doc. Is that all you call him by, son of Doc? Son of Doc. He's the only reason he's employed. He's fine as a human being, but I don't get it.

You're right. You look around the league and you go, who needs a point guard? Point guard is pretty deep. You know, who does need a point guard is the Denver Nuggets. The nuggets could use one. And this is something that we're concerned about, which is that Yokic is having a weird start. Oh, can we talk? Is this a quick, oh, no, we've got a. We've got this for later. But it's true.

So the nuggets are good. They have Paul Milsap. They've got Yokic. They weirdly still have Kenneth Farage, I always forget about, and then remember and have to mention. Right. And then they're banking on Jamal Murray or Emmanuel Mudiye to be good. That would be a nice landing spot for him. Yeah.

If they could clear some way, that'd be great. I'm looking at other teams here. I mean, just as you run through it, Mavericks no. Thunder, no, Kings, no, Lakers, no, Pelicans, no. I mean, you just run through it. You're right, there aren't a lot of landing spots for him. Yeah. The big thing that the Internet immediately said was with what so.

Not only, it is Cleveland because he's part of clutch. Right. But Cleveland has a lot of guards, just as they do. They've got Isaiah Thomas, who I'm sure does not want to be. He doesn't want to be on the same team with Bloodsoe again. Has at least one working hip that we know of? Yeah, at least one. They've got Jose Calderon, the ghost of Jose Calderon playing.

Derek grows. And then they have just like enough issues. Like, Dwayne Wade is not like really, he's just sort of like a Christmas ornament on the Cavaliers tree right now. He's not like in, they haven't figured out what to do with him. I don't, I don't think Bletso will go to Cleveland. I think that all the LeBron theories like in general, like they can't all just happen. They can't all be right. Everything that seems obvious related to LeBron can't just happen.

That would be a fun landing spot for them. I think it would be odd, though, if they added yet another guard. Yeah. Like, what do they do there? No, he can't go to Cleveland. We'll talk about, we've got a lot more to talk about, but first, a time out, because I need to tell you about Casper mattresses. A Casper mattress is an obsessively engineered mattress at a shockingly fair price.

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go wrong. I highly recommend it. And so if you're interested, you can't. You can, you can can get a special offer. You can get $50 off towards any mattress purchase by visiting www.com slash MBA and use the offer code NBA. Again, I'm a proud owner of a Casper mattress and I encourage you to be one as well. So go to casper.com slash MBA and use the code NBA for $50 off. Can we talk about Lonzo real quick? Yeah. So. Because I'm excited about it. I will say, I feel that this firing of Earl Watson's kind of a win for Lonzo Ball. Okay. Because Lonzo played really well in their game against the Sons.

And sure, it was just the Sons, but that kind of, like, got him, like, awake to be in the league. And now it'll be, like, three games in, Erawatson was fired. And in game two, it was an embarrassing loss. The Lakers led by Lonsa Ball. So congratsow. So you think he's the one who buried Earl Watson. No, I don't think he's the one. But he's part of the narrative, and I'm happy about that.

We should go with it. That first game, I was at that first game, it was really. bad for Lonzo against the Clippers, and people were definitely burying him. And then he goes off and he plays the Sons. And look, the Sons are not good, as we've learned, largely owed to Earl Watson. I like Lonso. I think he looked really good in the next two games. I know that he wasn't part of whatever, quote-unquote, comeback they had in the third game. And, you know, it was sort of sitting. But I like, I like, you know, that he can distribute. He's not forcing shots. He's looking to set guys up. He's rebounding a little bit. And he's good on the break.

I think he's going to be good. I think he's going to be good, too. And also, do rookies have to be great in their first game in the NBA? I would like rookies to be good at some point, which is another topic we'll be discussing. I need a therapy session on the Sixers in a minute. But yes, I think you're right. We overreact. We love the NBA so much here that, you know, even in preseason, I was like, you know, watching all the preseason games and coming up with these opinions about things that, of course, don't matter because preseason basketball is garbage and fake.

So yeah, we probably all need to pump the brakes three games in. Sure. I think the Lonzo Ball Sports movie would begin with Patrick Beverly being his first opponent and yelling at him. So I just feel like it's actually, I think everything's fine for Lonzo. He had like the one of the toughest defenders and like sort of one of the biggest shit talkers on his first game. Then his dad came out and defended him. His dad. And then he started playing better.

Can we talk about his dad? Yeah, let's talk about Levar. You have the quote, right? Yes. He had quite a few quotes. but I'll just read this one. Yeah, you shut the motherfucker down, and your check still ain't going to be no higher than what it is.

Yeah, you shut him down, okay? Who is Patrick Beverly? He played all last year and nobody said nothing about him. Now we were looking at your first game. Why? Because Lonzo's name is attached to it. That's really good. Good quote.

Thanks, Dad. Saying that was your last interview. You haven't done an interview in a while, and that'll be the last one, and the only one that you're giving is because of my son. I mean, he's good at that. Yeah. I don't know if it helps Lonzo any, but he's good at it.

Yeah, totally. I like it. I wish the best for Lonzo. I just want everyone to be good because it'll be more fun. I agree. Let's move on. Let's do some concerns. All right.

I have a lot of them. Do you want to start with faults? Let's just start with faults. You want to do that first? Yeah. This is going to take a second. You also wrote about this today on the ringer. So if you're a Sixers head when we have many because we're basically a Sixers blog, we've got you covered.

Even if you're not, if, for example, you're a Celtics head because we're also a Celtics blog. I wrote this piece and two things happened. On The Ringer.com, because I spent the weekend watching Markell Fultz look awful at the free throw line and also not get anywhere near the three point line. So I wrote this piece for the Ringer saying, oh, no, I'm really sweating this. And two things happened. One, Sixers fans freaked out.

And two, Celtics fans are really enjoying this. That beginning of the season with Gordon Hayward, the quickest way to feel better about yourself is to just look and go, oh, well, at least we didn't get Markell Foltz. Particularly because Tatum looks like an NBA player. He's a lot better than I was expecting. Do you know who is not better than I expected? Markle Faults. Markele Faults, Juliet.

What am I going to do about this? So he can't even hit the rim with his free throws. So I took a video of this. One of his free throws, he took four free throws against the Raptors. He only made four of them. He's a guard. He was also the first overall pick. That shouldn't be.

On top of what shouldn't be, he missed the entire rim. and clanked one off of the left side of the backboard, it was a hideous thud. I almost wept. It's really bad. Is he injured? So there's that theory that there's something going on with his shoulder. Kevin O'Connor wrote about this in the preseason, actually.

And yes. The Sixers acknowledged that he is like maybe injured, but every NBA player is like a little banked up. You just don't really want it with your 19-year-old rookie who's in his third game. Brett Brown had said it's probably bothering him more than he's letting on. Okay, fine. Here's my question. It's the Sixers.

In the history of the Sixers, when have they ever hesitated to shut down a rookie who's been injured, which is why I'm thinking, like, if he's actually hurt, why wouldn't they just shut him down? So maybe that's just a little bit of an excuse. I think we also have to look at the other possibility here, which is that this is in his head. He changed his free throw form, unbeknownst to the Sixers on his own over the offseason for reasons surpassing understanding because he shot almost 65% from the line at Washington, which wasn't, quote, unquote, good. but it was certainly better than whatever the hell of this is. And then on top of that, he shot a bunch of three-pointers at Washington.

Do you know how many three-pointers he's shot so far with the Sixers? Zero? No three-pointers, Juliet. Not only that. All of his shots have been, of the 23 shots he's taken, 10 of them have been from five feet or in. This is not good. Again, he's a guard, and he's the first pick, and I'm sweating it.

I think they definitely, Fultz is his own problem because he looks. really bad. But they also generally, I think, have an issue with whose offense is this because they have faults who could run an offense ostensibly, or at least when you drafted him, thought that he might do that. Then you've Ben Simmons, who I think looks great and is really fun to watch so far. He's very, his height matched with his vision. It just makes him really exciting. And then you have Joel Embed, who wants to be Kevin Garnett and stand at the top of the key. So it's an issue. At least M.B.'s on a minutes restriction right now, so that limits how much they can all be fighting.

But I think the true of all the super teams, there's only one ball, is afflicting the sixers the most right now. Just one more quick thing while I'm doing this therapy session on the sixers. You literally just had to put your head in your hands because you're so upset. I'm rubbing my eyebrows in my face. None of this is good. They somehow have two first overall picks with broken jump shots. Right.

How do you get one? They have two. Right now, though, I definitely would rather have sim. over faults. There's no question. Sure. Absolutely. He's good. I think he'll be fun. I took this is on the concern. I like, I don't know if we're doing like, are we doing like a number scale? So what would the number scale be? For the from one to ten? Sure. I'm to go with like seven. Twelve. Oh my God. The sixers, the sixer heads are upset. Yes.

Warriors, are you concerned? They're one and two, including a loss to the grizzlies in which Steph and KD both got thrown out and Steph threw his mouth guard. I love that he has a mouth guard, by the way. Yeah, it's pretty good. And then they also lost to the pelicans, I believe. Yeah. Zero concern. I'm a zero on that scale. You? I'm a zero as well. They're the warriors. They'll be fine. Yeah. What about the calves? The calves lost to... Lost big to the magic. To the magic. You had mentioned Dwayne Wade's role that was an obvious issue during that game. The magic all of a sudden are like kind of sneaky, maybe. Yeah. They also beat the heat on an opening night. They lost to Brooklyn. Yeah.

Yes. Can't win them all. Can't win them all. I'm also not worried about the calves. The cabs... I think they'll figure it out. It's the Eastern Conference since LeBron. He can win as many games as LeBron wants to win or play. That's true.

I think they'll be fine. I do think the calves are weird. They're definitely... If the Warriors are a zero on the concern index, like the calves are like a two. Just because they're weird. I'm cool with a two. I would have gone somewhere in that was zero to two range.

So sure, two works for me. Also, the calves are kind of old. They're old. Extremely old. So that's fine for the playoffs, but it's bad for the regular season. But so that's just the calves. That's the calves of the last four years. They take the regular season off.

Yeah. And look, it's LeBron. We've seen this so many times where like during the regular season, they're going to tinker, they're going to see what's happening. Sometimes he's going to take games off. And then the playoffs start, and he has the blueprint. Sure. He knows exactly what to do to get them into the finals and he's going to do it again.

And like, you know who else has the blueprint? Who? Dwayne Wade. Like they're fine. They know how to win championships. He's going to be telling them about the blueprint from the bench, I suspect. And that's good. Go back there.

That's fine. You know, let J.R. Smith live. Yeah, I'm in agreement with you. Let him cook. The Rockets. Chris Paul's out for two to four weeks. Did you catch Chris Paul's weird MBA or ESPN documentary series thing? I did not.

Doc Rivers did, however. Yes. So Chris Paul, this is an aside. I'm not concerned about this. I'm into it. Chris Paul just filmed himself through free. agency and use this documentary to throw a shade of the clippers. Just basically accuse him having a really, like a not winning culture, which is kind of as

mean as it gets in the NBA. Attack the culture. Yeah, attack the culture. And now, and then Doc prior back, be like, when you leave, just leave quietly. Just leave. Just leave. I agree. When you leave, you should just leave, which was like no mincing of words.

I was in that press conference when he gave that quote. And immediately, like, you know, when you're writing things down and your heads down, you're not paying attention, everybody's face picked up. and ears parked up and like that was not subtle at all. Yeah. There was clearly heat there. Well, now we've all got a December 22nd circled on our calendars. And hopefully Chris Paul will be back by then because right now he's out with a knee problem.

Can we take a field trip? You're in charge of the ringer office. Sure. Can we get like a bus and get everybody to go? Yeah, absolutely. They're not into, that's in Houston. It'll be in L.A. in January. In January.

We can go to that. Let's do that. You got it. You don't want to bust to Houston? No. It seems a little pricing. I won't be improving those expenses. I am not concerned about the Rock.

I am concerned about the CP3 injury. And I just think that that arrangement, Harden and Chris Paul, needs as many games as possible to reach its apex, which I think they'll need to win the whole thing. And so that I'm going to give them a four. Is this an early Ewing theory possibility too? Chris Paul's been injured too much to even qualify for the Ewing theory. Like all of a sudden the rockets are like, oh yeah, maybe we didn't need him. We actually didn't. I'm not concerned either.

Overreaction. So we've got three games. And we just want to talk about a couple of Nikolas. Yokic had a weird line this weekend. Yeah, Nikola Yokic took three shots and didn't score any points. What and why? Did you watch that game? No, I didn't.

I don't understand how that's even possible. This is a guy who had such an amazing leap from last year. And then all of a sudden, like, what, he's not the guy anymore? Because of Paul Millsap? I don't understand how he only gets three shots. That's very weird. And I know he's a great passer, but only three. Like, you could be, you just by virtue of being on the court as much as he is,

you should get like a minimum 10. He played 30 minutes. He had nine rebounds and seven assists and a steal. Fine, great. He took no free throws. He took one three pointer and three shots overall. I have no idea how that happens. Paul Mills sat, meanwhile, 11 shots, three threes, four or five from the line.

Denver's supposed to be like the fun hit team, but now we're nervous. So that was one over here. reaction. Another Nicola overreaction. Vooch. Did you notice that Nicola Vucevich is shooting and making three pointers this year? It did notice. It's exciting. This is one of my like, uh, what are we thinking about the magic deals? Because Nicola Vucevich against, uh, the cavaliers took a couple threes, made one.

But the night before against Brooklyn took six threes or made six threes. He looks good. He does look good. I also, I want Frank Vogel to have success. I don't know why. but he just otherwise is so sad to me and I just want him to be able to pull it together. Is it possible that Nicola Vucevic is barreling towards being the best center in the east?

Am I like way past this. I will not give up on Hassan White Side Island just yet. I don't want to give up on Ambide, but like Nicola Vusovitch, who can step out and shoot. I don't even think about Embed. You hurt me. You're wounding me already. Embed is the best center in the east, but can he make it to 50 games? I don't know.

Vucevich in that loss to the Nets was a plus 15. He had 41 points and 12 rebounds and six threes. I don't even know what's happening. It's the Nets, man. Last Nicola overreaction. Not surprising addition. And in a weird turn of events, Nicola Miritich hasn't returned Bobby Portis' text or calls. I wouldn't either.

Can we set some ground rules? Sure. You and I are just starting this pod? First of all, I will never succor punch you. I've never thrown a punch in my life. If you ever break my face, I will not return your messages. Okay, fair enough. I think that's a good baseline.

I think that's totally fine. as well. Completely reasonable. Bobby Port is only getting eight games suspension is curious. The whole thing is curious. I mean, there are people who say that Nicola Mierich is not like the best teammate, but also broken face.

I don't know. That's really tough. You have to be a pretty bad teammate for that. All right. Gonzo. Pick one game you're excited about this week. Only one. All right.

Just pick one. Looking forward, I'm going to say clips in Portland. I told you that I'm a... I'm going to commit. I'm a Blazers nerd. I really. really like the Blazers. I like NERC. I like NERC. I like C.J. It's a good team for him.

All of a sudden, Evan Turner might be shooting three-pointers. Also saw Evan Turner running the offense and I loved it. It just, it was beautiful. He's ball dominant. Love Turner. I'm psyched for Bucks Boston. I'm going to give us one to the Bucks. My biggest shock of one season, of one week of the season is Jalen Brown. I was just ready to be like, oh, he's a bust. Bad, bad pick, Danny Hange. He looks good. He's a lot better. Like, they're still obviously really missing Hayward, and I think they're just probably like a 46 win team without him. But. That's Thursday night. Yeah, it's Thursday night.

It's exciting. I was shocked at how much better he is. And I was like, okay, this is good. People can change. And I think that I'll be, that's like, that's kind of like the second tier. We're having a viewing party in your office. Okay, great. I'm calling it.

You got it. All right. I don't have an office. Otherwise, I'd invite you to mine. We can work on that. Fantastic. Thanks for listening. This has been your Monday morning MBA.

table setter. That's a bad way of putting it. You don't want to call it the table setter. No. We'll figure it out. TBD on the name. Yeah, hit us up on Twitter a few suggestions. Thanks for listening. I'm Juliet Litman. I'm John Gonzalez. We'll be back next week.