The Ringer NBA Show - NBA Panic Meter. Plus, Do the Nets Not Understand the Assignment?

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

Howard and Michael Pina pull out their panic meters for five separate teams. What’s in store for the Lakers this season? There are some concerning numbers that they might not be able to fix with their current roster (9:22). Why isn't Howard panicking yet about the Sixers (35:03)? Is it time to panic if you’re a Nets fan (44:40)? Plus, mailbag and Real one of the Week! The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Howard Beck and Michael Pina Producer: Clifford Augustin Additional Production Support: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby. I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league. Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction. We've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get you. your podcast. And also don't forget to follow us on social media that's at Ringer NBA and check out the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history of podcasting

right in the Ringer NBA YouTube channel. What up? It's the real ones. Howard Beck, Senior Writer at the Ringer on this Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Our man Raja is out today on some family business. He will be back with me next Tuesday because Friday we're off. This is Thanksgiving weekend. But back with me today, senior writer from the ringer Michael Pina, Pina, good to see you again. Thanks for hopping in. Great to see you, Howard. Happy Thanksgiving two days prior to the actual holiday. You have small children, so I'm obligated to ask. Are you a parade family? Because my daughter's now 18 and not even in the country at the moment, which makes me very sad. We're still going to go to the parade with some friends. It's a standing thing. We've been doing this since our children were all little.

and we just never stopped. So we will be there Thursday, rain or shine, I think. Right now it says rain, which sucks. So what's the Pina plan? Do the kids like the parade? Do you go? What's your routine? This is not even crossed my mind as a possibility.

So we are hard. We are hard nose on the parade. I couldn't imagine going on a walk around the block Thanksgiving morning, to be honest with you at this point. So yeah, we're going to be cozied up. All right. Fair enough. Yeah, no parade for us.

We'll watch on television. I was never a parade guy, and I thought watching a parade on TV was like the dullest thing I could possibly imagine when I was a kid. Fair. Very fair. And then I became an adult, and I did not change my view. But then we had a daughter. And she had friends. And we all liked going to the parade together, and it became a thing.

And now I can't stop. It's, uh, and that. And now I, like, you know, tweet out or post out or whatever Apple will be using, uh, photos just because why not? Because I can. Um, and we've been close enough that you can see like as Snoopy aged, the Snoopy balloon age, like, oh, man, Snoopy's looking a little tattered this year. Ooh, ooh, look, there's some duct tape there at work, I think.

I don't know. I don't know if he's going to last. Uh, see, it's, um, it's become, it's become like a thing. We just got to gauge the whole thing. See, see how the parade's holding up, but. I will say my son now recognize. is Snoopy. So now you've said that and now I'm like, oh, I'm my bad father for not bringing him to the parade. So this is just, thank you for now having me do some soul searching for the next 48

hours as I immediately regret ruining his childhood by not taking him to the Macy's Day parade. If you don't, I'm sure he won't hold against you in future years and say that it's scarred him and that you denied him this incredible opportunity as a child growing up in New York and this is one of the things you can do in New York. It's okay. It's fine. He'll be fine. You'll be fine. I'm sure. Therapy is covered by our Spotify medical. Better by it. Do you have a, before we move on, we've got, we got a bunch of stuff to get to,

including the panic meter for various teams around the NBA. We got the mailbag today, of course, and a real one of the week. Do you have any Thanksgiving dinner hot takes? This has become, I feel like in the social media age, all of a sudden, everything had to be, like, a list, or you have to trash at least one thing from the Thanksgiving meal, make everybody else feel bad that they actually do like turkey or something. stuffing. It's dumb, but I don't know. Do you have a hottest Thanksgiving take? I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but I was watching, you know, basically every NBA game they do, when you watch on

League Pass, you can see the in arena entertainment. And so they do the thing where the social media team or whoever asks all the players what their favorite sides are for Thanksgiving. And a whole bunch of players have said dressing instead of stuffing. And I did not know that dressing meant stuffing. I've never heard that before in my whole life. Is that a southern thing? Midwestern thing? I don't know. And so am I in the minority with stuffing? Do most people call it dressing? What is the deal? As a New Yorker for 20 years and a Californian for my rest of my life before that, it's always stuffing. It's always been stuffing. My father made incredible stuffing. I should have gotten that recipe long ago, but I don't cook. So, um, uh, stuffing. Yeah, dressing is something you put on your

salad. That's like liquid. It's something else. Okay. We're, we're in agreeance then because stuffing is my favorite side by far, like not even close. I love it. Good stuffing is fantastic. Yeah. Um, I'm, um, I'm, I'm also one of the few people who will cape for and defend the canned cranberry sauce. I know we've evolved as a species to the point where that's now considered either like gauche or gross or just, you know, unsophisticated. And so you're supposed to, you know, buy the cranberries and I don't know, maybe you boil them, cook them something, and then mash them all that. And I do like a good actual fresh cranberry sauce, but I will absolutely eat the stuff out of the can with the fucking grooves in it and everything. Like

the little lines around it, I'm all about it. So. That is, that's interesting. I can't go with you there. I'm sorry. All right. That's fine. I get it. I'm in the minority there.

Quick show note. Again, we'll be off this Friday, but Raja and I will be back next Tuesday. And then I'm going to be out for a bit because it's, it's time to go visit and pick up my daughter from overseas. So I'll be missing a few shows. But our man, Michael Pina here is going to be capably subbing in. So thank you for that, Pena. I appreciate it. let's panic, shall we?

We are roughly 20% into the season. There are some, the heat have only played 14 games somehow in the Wizards 15, but most teams are somewhere in the 17 to 19 range, so we're here 20-ish percent, give or take. We do have some pleasant surprises, including Michael Pina's Houston Rockets, who you wrote about this week on Theringer.com. They are sitting third in the west of 12 and 6.

we have the Warriors are a pleasant surprise at 12 and 5. I wrote about them and their weird, amazing experimental depth thing. I wrote about that last week on the ringer.com. They're at 12 and 5. The Cavaliers, of course, are a pleasant surprise at 17 and 1, still stunning. We've got some lower-ranked teams that are also pleasant surprises before we get to the panics. Nets at 8 and 10 with back-to-back wins against the Kings and Warriors. Pistons at 8 and 11, spurs at 9 and 8.

Those are all pleasant surprises, right? Anyone I missed on the pleasant surprise before we get to our utter disappointments? I think you pretty much covered it. Did you say the Memphis Grizzlies? I did not cover the Grizzlies. But yeah, I guess they should be in that category too, right? I think we expected them to be good, but they've been pleasantly good despite the usual, like, everybody injured all the time issues. Yeah.

Which brings us then to our disappointments, our face plants and face palms and just bafflingly inept. Um, Pina, you know me. I'm a big, like, don't panic. It's early guy. Uh, I try to pump the brakes on all of the, the freakouts. But when we're close to 20 games, things get real in a hurry. Then we're close to 20 games. So here's the panic meter scale I'd like to use. And we do not, we're going to each, uh, throw a couple of teams out. We did not share them ahead of time. So we'll see where it goes. Um, here's the scale I came up with. Panic meter one through five where one is the most mild. You're just kind of. You're just kind of. kind of antsy. Maybe your brow is furrowed. Something's furrowed. A two would be mildly irritated, chewing your nails a bit. Three is like heart palpitations. You're just like obsessively cleaning your apartment just to distract yourself. Four, you're like sweating and cursing. Maybe kicking things. Five is a three-mile island scale nuclear meltdown. So there's our panic meter. I'll let you go first. Who? Who's on your panic meter watch, and where do they rank or rate?

So before I say this team, I just want to say that, you know, we obviously did not share our teams with each other. So I went a little, I don't want to say outside the box, but I picked a couple teams that I didn't think that you would pick. All right. We'll go and we'll go back and forth on this. So let's just go one first. I'm going. This will make a lot of people upset and will also be on brand for me personally. I'm going with the Los Angeles Lakers.

So on brand that I'm disappointed in myself that I did not see it coming. Where are they on the one through five panic meter, despite the fact that they actually have like a okay record at the moment? Yes, okay. They are 10 and 6 as we record this on a Tuesday. Let me run through it first and then I'll give you my panic. So as you said, they're 10 and 6. They're fourth in the west. They have a top five offense.

LeBron is still efficient and nearly averaging a triple double. Anthony Davis looks like an MVP candidate. Dalton Connect might win rookie of the year. All that's fantastic. This all sounds great, Michael. So why is there a reason to be worried? The Lakers ranked 17th in net rating and are a net minus in point differential, which is about in line with a 40 win team, what a 40 win team would be projected

to finish at. ESPN's BPI, which is a projection system that is based on a host of factors, including strength of schedule, gives eight other Western Conference teams a higher odds to make the playoffs. And that makes sense when you look at the teams that the Lakers have actually beaten that are above 500. So you have the Sons in their second game of the season. You have the Spurs, the 9 and 8, San Antonio Spurs, and the Grizzlies without John Morant and Desmond Bain.

That's it. Those are the only teams that they've beaten that are above four. 500. LA's defense is worse than every team except the Wizards, the Pelicans, and the Bulls. They are second to last in fast break points allowed. They are 28th protecting the paint. They have not increased their three-point rate, despite JJ Redick saying they would before the season began.

They are bad rebounding on both ends of the court. Their net rating, I know I'm just, this is why they're 10 and 6, they're net rating with LeBron and a. on the court is minus 5.5 points per 100 possessions in 365 minutes. So when you kind of look at everything together, when you look at how well those two have played, and you see the total picture of numbers that are historically good or better than a record at projecting how a team will do in the future, this is like low-key very, Because LeBron is almost 40 years old, AD is historically injury prone.

They will probably not play in every game from here on out. Almost certainly not. And if you look at the teams that are below them right now in the standings, they're fourth right now. If you look at the teams below them, almost all of them have dealt with injuries or spent the first few weeks of the season adjusting to some significant offseason change with their personnel. And I just think like when you look at LA's roster as a whole, it's not good. So I like I don't know how where how you get better as a basketball team. They've already

shifted the starting lineup, et cetera. So yeah, I think that the Lakers, you know, they, it's time to panic. And I think that that's a fair statement to make. And where are they in the one through five scale? So before you outline what the numbers actually mean, I had them at I had them at four, but I'm adjusting that. I'm going down to a three. I don't want to be crazy. But I think three, just because for all the reasons that I outlined, and I don't see a path for them to get better in a lot of these areas. Yeah. Definitely outside the box in that I was thinking, obviously more, mostly teams that were either hovering around 500, who should be much better than that or below 500. So a team that's sitting at 10 and 6 as the Lakers are, I like

it definitely outside the box and a little unexpected um look they've had some good vibes early on and you know uh you know everyone's happy about jj everybody's happy about dalton connect and um lebron still looks great and but you're right i mean it's the the underpinnings the fundamentals um are disturbing to say the least and when i'm looking at the teams behind them as you just pointed to like the the grizzlies have more talent and they're right behind them and the grisleys have just had a lot of injuries, they're almost certainly going to pass them. Your LA Clippers, Michael P. And another team you've been very high on or a contrarian.

Juggernaut. The chuggernaut that is the clippers. I don't, I'm still not convinced that they're like significantly better than Lakers, but there's a good chance they pass them. The sons at full health would. And it started out really well before Durant went down. And he's back, I think, maybe tonight. I don't know what to think about the Nuggets

and the Mavericks have been missing Luca. So yeah, there's a lot of teams behind them and the Minnesota Timberwolves as well. There's a lot of teams behind them that should probably be ahead of. And that's why we can always still fall back on its, it's too early to draw hard and fast conclusions, but not too soon to panic.

I guess if I were just to weigh in real quick on it, Yeah, I'm not sure I'm panicking about the Lakers only because if they've overachieved their fundamentals, cool. If I'm a Laker fan, maybe I'm a two on this. I'm mildly irritated at chewing my nails because Michael Pina just read me a bunch of negative stats that undermined all of my happy feelings and on Thanksgiving week, no less. All right. My first team, I'm going much more conventional here, not nearly as creative as Mr. Pina.

The New Orleans Pelicans. Mm-hmm. New Orleans Pelicans. I mean, this is just a classic kind of near meltdown here. They are, as we speak, 27th and offensive rating. 29th and defensive rating. I won't even get to the net rating because you can just guess if you're 27th and 29th. Yeah, you're somewhere in that range.

Zion Williamson has played six games so far. C.J. McCollum's played five. Trey Murphy, six. Dejante Murray, big offseason pickup. was going to bring it all together, like the rug that completed the room. He's played one game, but also back soon. Herb Jones, four games. Alfred Payton has been a revelation off the scrap heap.

And if that's the best thing that's happened to you this season, things are not good. They have used 19 players already, 14 of whom have started. I should mention that the New Orleans Pelicans are currently last in West at 4 and 14. And on top of all that, Brandon Ingram still wants a contract extension that he hasn't gotten and O still hasn't been traded despite months and months of him being thought of as a trade piece because of the contract issues and other stuff. Within the last, I don't know, it was like a 24-hour span.

Maybe it was less than 24 hours. We had two scoops about, one about Zion, one about Ingram, both firing their agents. Like, there's a lot of discontent going on here. This is a team that hasn't won a playoff series since 2018 when Anthony Davis was there. It's their sixth season with Zion, the fifth that he's actually played because he missed one full season. And people are already invoking the, you know, Zion's contract, not guaranteed if he didn't play X number of games. They could let him walk. They could just wave him after the season.

Not likely to happen, but that we're even referencing this is, um, is not. not great. And they also have, I believe, one of the five hardest remaining schedules. So there's that. Michael, I am declaring this a four on the panic meter scale, but really inching toward five. So they are sweating and cursing at very close to Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown. And the only reason I won't go full nuclear meltdown is, like the injuries are the double-edged sword here for them. Because it's on the one hand, hey, they'll get healthy and they might be fine. On the other hand, this is a team that's always hurt.

They've overturned their medical staff and they're still always getting hurt. And I just, I don't, I specifically especially do not trust that Zion's going to just get healthy and then stay healthy the rest of the season because he almost never is. And, you know, CJ's had a lot of just, you know, bumps and bangs over the years and has a lot of miles on him. I just, I don't know. I don't know. What's your thought on the Pelicans? I think they're screwed. I mean, so one stat for an exercise like this that I really like to look at is spread differential on cleaning the glass, which is what is the team's average point differential relative to their spread in Las Vegas? And it's just a good way to kind of gauge how a team is performing versus their expectations. and right now the New Orleans Pelicans are dead last in spread differential below the Philadelphia 76ers,

which is like I don't even know how that is possible in terms of just preseason expectations to disappointment and production and results. So I think if I were to, you know, if I were to assign a number to this team right now, I'd probably go four as well just because the, you know, Dejante Murray, Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram had played zero seconds so far. are this season. And so that's the thread of hope that I would have as a Pelicans fan or someone who works for the team in turning this season around. But like, I know DeJante's about to return. When is Zion going to play? Do we, like, that's just a total mystery. And given his entire career up until this point, there is no reason to be optimistic about him coming back and being

a productive player on a night-to-night basis. And so I think this team has, you know, existential issues and questions that it needs to answer regarding, you mentioned Zion's contract. Like, I don't think you're going to cut Zion Williamson, but I think that you have to really, this is like the put-up or shut up season for the era of Zion Williamson as their franchise player. And if he doesn't play again or if he, you know, is spotty in his return and you just can't get healthy, I don't know what you do, to be honest, because you can't go through another season like this one after what you just experienced. After, as you outlined, they haven't had any success as a basketball organization in like six, seven, like years. So this is a tough one. And it's a bummer,

because I like this team and I thought that they were really interesting. me into the season. Yeah. I liked the move for DeJante Murray. I liked all the young talent that they had accumulated over the last couple of years. I like the fact that they had so many great defenders and just a lot of really interesting interchangeable pieces. It's just a mess.

It's like this is, you know, you hate to go the superstition route, but God, they feel cursed. Like the pelicans, the hornet, like maybe there's something to that. The former Charlotte team and the Charlotte team and the whole like the whole just George Shin of it all somehow. There's just a bad juju hanging over everybody who's ever been associated with Charlotte NBA franchises. 13 starting lineups in 18 games.

Like, how? I just, I don't even, I know. I didn't know Elford Payton was still playing basketball. He wasn't until about a week ago. And suddenly he's like throwing up triple doubles. Oh, man. Yeah, it's not good. And no, I don't, I don't think they're probably recovering.

I hate saying that. I've always liked this team. I don't think they're recovering. The good news for the Pelicans, they own their pick. And this is a strong draft. I don't know that's exactly the outcome you wanted to be rooting for. But there's that. Real Ones is presented by Fanduel.

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Make every moment more with Fandul, an official sportsbook partner of the NBA. Must be 21 and over and present in select states or 18 and over and present in D.C. Opt-in required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit-boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration. See terms at sportsbook.Fandul.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. All right. Who else we got in the panic meter? My next team is the Indiana Pacers. Ooh. Spicy. Yeah. They're 8 and 10 right now. They're 21st in net rating. They're off. offense has been disappointing. Their defense is a little bit better than it was last year,

but still pretty bad. And just, you know, this team came into this season with legitimate expectation. They made, I know, they made the Eastern Conference finals. I know it was because everybody was hurt. They still made the Eastern Conference finals. And in the first few weeks of this season, they suffered real injuries. Their front court is completely depleted, thanks to a couple Achilles tears, unfortunately, to James Wiseman and Isaiah Jackson, Aaron Neesmith, and Andrew Demhardt, and Ben Shepard have all been out for a little while. The real reason, though, that I'm concerned here is just, like, Tyrese Allberton. Like, if your franchise player is not going to be consistently, and for him, he needs to be consistently great on a level that's, like,

Steve Nash 3.0, which he was last year for the first three months of the season. And so for him to be someone who was looked at as an MVP candidate, one of, if not the most impactful offensive weapons in the entire league through that three-month stretch to start last year, for him to go from that to someone who isn't the best. player on their own team right now, who has an outside looking in chance of making the All-Star team, I would say, is really concerning. And I think you can look at, there's been a lot of talk about his health. He hasn't missed a game. So as an observer, like, if you're going to get, what did he have, like, 34 and 13 against the vaunted Alfred Payton led New Orleans Pelicans,

the other night. But like if you're going to do that and then a couple games before that, you go up against the rockets and you score like seven points and you make one basket. Like I don't think health is what I should be looking at necessarily as the reason for your struggles. And they've been bad when he's been on the court this year. They haven't played fast. And their coach, Rick Carlisle, has openly wondered if the physicality of the game and how it's being officiated this season has impacted Halliburton's effectiveness. So I think that that's just like it's not, it has not reached like existential level yet, of course. But when you have high expectations and your best player has been struggling for as long as Halliburton has, I think that it's

certainly caused for concern. Haliburton, I think, like, to boil it down to one troubling stat, he's shooting less often and less accurately. Yes. Like just doesn't seem quite as assertive. And even at a glance sometimes, like watching them, he just, tentative is too strong of a term. You know, like if tentative as a, especially as a point guard,

if tentative is the opposite of aggressive in NBA terms, I don't know what's somewhere in between there, but he's somewhere in between there, right? Like, it doesn't look like he, he's looking to attack all the time. It doesn't look like he's as confident with the ball. There's a swagger to him that I've always enjoyed in even a little of that playing the villain part, which we saw at times in that series against the Knicks. And we've seen other times where, you know, when he's really on it, if people want to call it frontrun or whatever. But like,

he's somebody who likes to have some fun with it and talk some, talk some mess and carry himself a certain way. And I just, I don't, I'm not seeing that much. Maybe there's a little chicken and egg thing going on there. But yeah. And as somebody who thought, and I did, like I was high on the Pacers, I thought they would take another step forward this year. I thought they had an outside chance at being, you know, maybe not top four in the east, but I thought top five. I liked them overall better than the Magic. That was a minority viewpoint, which I have now regretting because the Magic had been great even without Van Carro and the Pacerreras are, are meh, even with Tyrese Halliburton right now. though. Did we assign them a number yet?

I'm going three, I think. Three sounds about right. Yeah. Three sounds about right. Heart palpitations obsessively cleaning your apartment to distract you. You can tell I spent a lot of time on this, these descriptions, and that I spend a lot of time obsessively cleaning when I'm stressed out. Probably not nearly enough. All right. That was your second team. My second team, going back to my Northern California roots, is the Sacramento Kings. Oh, fascinating. Eight and ten, as we speak, 12th in the Western Conference.

They've lost four in a row, including home games to the Hawks and the Nets. And that's just unforgivable on both counts, despite the Nets being surprisingly good. This is weird. Their offensive rating right now is 12th. That's up a spot from 13th last season. Their defensive rating is 16th, which is only down a couple spots from 14th last season. Their net rating is 14th, which is actually higher than last season. And yet, and yet, right, 10 and 12th in the West,

the very things that people were concerned about when they picked up DeMardo Rosen have come to pass, that their defense is still, you know, blah to bad, things that DeRosen was never going to solve, obviously. he's not it's not his fault that their defense isn't great but um adding him wasn't going to help their defense uh and three pointers don't they don't shoot them well enough or often enough and they don't defend against them well enough or often enough uh malik muck has uh missed a bunch of games and that's a thing but it's not a big enough of a thing to uh attribute their struggles to that they've also had according to all the various s rs and RPIs and everything that I could look up before we came on,

they've had one of the easier schedules to date, and thus one of the tougher remaining schedule, which does not bode well. And they just looked completely out of sorts in that lawsuit. I'm putting them as a three on the scale for now, because it's just early enough, and incorporating to Rosen and missing Monk, who was obviously a huge spark for them off the bench last year,

is a sixth man of the year candidate, also a secondary playmaker type. They need him back in the mix, and they need to kind of figure out the rotation when he's playing consistently and where DeRosen fits and all that. So I'm not overly concerned yet with them, but where are you on the Kings? I thought about including them here. I'm not going to lie. I think it's just like I didn't because I wasn't super high on them coming into the season. And what I've seen, I think is a little more dramatic in terms of how DeRosen has reshaped how they play basketball in a way that is a little more concerning than I anticipated in terms of their 30th in at-rim shot frequency. they are 22nd in 3-point rate. And these are two areas where, you know,

when Mike Brown came over, they were about league average at the rim, and they were top five, top three last year, in 3-point rate. And now they're, they were 26th in terms of mid-range shot, mid-range frequency, first year of Mike Brown's tenure, and now they're first.

And so it's just like the shot quality, here is not good, and it makes sense with where it is because they add Demar de Rosen. And I think that, you know, watching them at the end of that, that Nets game that they lost that you just mentioned, you know, it's just, it's odd to watch Deerrin Fox kind of take a backseat to DeMar in a crunch time, because obviously Fox has been on this tremendous tear. when Damar was heard and Monk was heard and he had to carry the scoring and it was just like eye-popping numbers and

it was absurd. And at the end of that game they lose basically because DeMar took, I don't even know maybe he had the ball in his hands for three straight possessions down the stretch and then he was like going out of his way to look

for Fox. He passes it to Kevin Herder at the top of the key. Heter can't get Fox the ball on the swing so he drives, dumps, off to Subonis who misses a little baseline 10-footer, and that's basically the ballgame. So, yeah, it's just, it's like they need to, they need time to coalesce is what I would say if I was being generous about it, but I don't know, you know, defensively how you solve some of this stuff. I know they've been playing a lot more zone this year than they have last year, trying a lot

of different things. They have some good individual defenders on their roster, for sure, and they also need Keegan Murray to hit shots, but I, I don't know. Like, what was the ceiling for this team coming into the air for you, Howard? Yeah, by the way, we're on like, what, year two or three of waiting for the Kagan Murray leap because they needed him to be like borderline All-Star for this to really take off. I don't think that's going to happen. Sorry. Looking a little flatlineish. Where did I expect them? You know, look, I figured them to be a playoff team again. Whether that was a guaranteed playoff team is in top six or somewhere in the high play-in range, I don't know.

I don't think I ever actually, like, jotted down before the season started where I expected or what the order of finish would be. But yeah, I mean, somewhere in like six to eight range. They're 12th right now. And, you know, given how packed up things are in the West, like, you know, a five-game winning streak or eight out of 10 or whatever would put them right back in the mix. so it is too soon to get too panicky. Although I've got another panic number for the Kings.

35,000. That's the amount that was just announced that the NBA has fined Coach Mike Brown for, quote, aggressively pursuing a game official during live play, which happened in that aforementioned loss to the Nets two nights ago. So there's a panic meter stat for you. 35,000. The nets are a juggernaut.

I don't even know why people are talking about. That was a bad loss. I mean, the nets are beating everybody. In the King's defense, they're not the only ones. They got the Warriors last night. Good Lord. All right. Time for maybe squeezing one more team each briefly before we get to

Real One of the Week in the mailbag. I mean, if we're doing like a panic, I was surprised you didn't say this team, but we have to just bring them up because what the hell are we doing if we don't? but the Philadelphia 76ers. Like, what do we do? We both probably just got too cute, like the Sixers are too obvious,

but I actually also have a contradictory opinion. So go so then I can then contradict you. Oh, no, you got to go first because... Oh, I'm not panicking. I am not panicking about the Sixers. You're not panicking about the Sixers. No. Okay, you got it.

Please explain yourself. I did. So I jotted down a bunch of other teams, and I gave them a three. So, like, they'd be on the scale, but I'm not, I'm not calling them a four or five. Again, four is sweating and cursing at five is three mile island nuclear meltdown.

We're still at heart palpitations and obsessively cleaning the apartment. I can say this because I'm not a sixer fan, and it doesn't bother me at all to see them flailing about. But I wouldn't be panicking just because until we see, and I get it, this is part of the problem. But until we see Tyrese Maxie, Joel M. Bede and Paul George on the court at the same time, for a significant amount of minutes and a significant number of games, and then see them not be able to win? Until that happens, I don't think it's time to panic about the Sixers. We are still in the zone of they need their big three healthy.

They are very, very, very, very top heavy by design, by necessity, because to be, to have three max-ish players or three all-MBA type players, in today's NBA, it means you were probably like jamming a bunch of minimums on the books after that. So they're very top-heavy. And they've not had these guys together for basically at all. That is part of the problem. And if you want to hit the panic button hard, if you want to go nuclear meltdown on them, it would be on the premise that you don't believe MB is ever going to be healthy

or ever going to be MVP caliber again, that the knee, whatever is going on, that he won't talk about, that they won't talk about, that they obfuscate about, and mislead about and sometimes lie about and get fined about by the NBA. If you think that there's just something permanently wrong with Joelle and Bede health-wise, then yeah, three-mile Allen meltdown. Go for it. But until we have clarity on that, unless we ever, you know, until we ever get clarity, we probably never will, I'm still operating on the assumption that at some point, Joelle and Bede, Tyreys Baxie and Paul George will all be healthy and playing some length of games

together and that the Sixers could actually be pretty damn dominant when that happened. And there's plenty of season left, especially in the weird-ass Eastern Conference, for the Sixers to get back in the mix. They don't have to be a top four team to make a deep run as long as those three guys are healthy in April. There's my case. Now I know how it feels to talk to me the past five years when the conversation turned to the Los Angeles Clippers. Now I get it. I get why people were so frustrated and wanted to hit me. I, you know, like, it's just, it's not going to happen. Like, they're not going to get healthy?

No. Paul, Paul George is 34 years old. He has hyper-extended the same knee twice already this season. We don't know when he's going to come back. Joelle Embed had some, the fact that he participated at the Olympics, he participated in every practice, every run-thru, every game that his coach said that he was good enough to where it made sense to actually play him. The fact that that was the case, and then there was this ramp up after the Olympics to the regular

season where he misses the season opener, he misses all this time, is strange, as you said. It doesn't make any sense. There are no, it's just so vague. So combining that with actually watching him play and him looking. atrocious. Watching Paul George play, him looking so out of sorts, no rhythm. The numbers are abysmal in his eight appearances this season. Tyrese Maxie has not been, I mean, my expectations for him or whatever, like, are a little dampered by what's around him and the responsibility that he had to, you know, carry everyone with Embeddede and PG out, but he's been super inefficient

and not effective in a way that I think a lot of people thought he would be. The best player on the team in a lot of ways is Jared McCain, like the rookie, who's sensational and really fun to watch and should be, you know, Sixers fans should be really excited about that pick. It's like a home run. But like, what are we talking about here? Like this team was built to win the championship. Yes.

Right? So if that's the standard. and there's a chance, a pretty good one, that they won't even make the play in, or make the plan, and, you know, once you're in the playing, anything can happen, and then go and play the Celtics in the first round or the calves in the first round or whoever. Like, it's just, it's not going to happen. Like, they're not going to, this isn't a contender. I don't know. Like, even if somehow magically everyone was healthy tomorrow, it takes time to gel. It takes time for Paul George to complete. completely adjust everything about how he's played basketball his entire career to sacrifice for Embed, who is not easy to play with.

He's been, he's had multiple sidekicks in his career, and he broke many of their brains. So I, yeah, I don't, I don't see a path, to be honest with you. Like, I'm not wait and see here. It's, it's over. Like, this is dead on arrival. Wow. Like, over. On November 26th, Michael Pina has, has just,

announced time of death. He checked his watch. The nurse jotted it down. I mean, they have like one win outside of like in regulation this season. Two wins in regulation. One of their wins is in overtime against the, uh, the Charlotte Hornets. So it's just, it's like this is a bad basketball team. I'm not saying it's not alarming. I'm just saying, you know, we haven't even hit Thanksgiving. Nick Nurse looks like he doesn't want to be the coach. Like, is that fair? Are you like watching him? He doesn't want to be the coach. Yeah. When you're, when you're doing, like, like just watching body language and tone and all of that. Nick Nurse is not exactly projecting confidence or joy here.

There's not much to have joy about, but the confidence or just the conviction in what he has to work with there. It's alarming. And of course, on top of it all, you know, back to the bad vibes route here. The story comes out about team meeting and Maxie calling Adam B, for being late all the time. And instead of just owning it, like MB, do his credit,

owned some of it, tried to downplay other parts of it, and then immediately went to the, it sucks that people are leaking. Like, the leak is not the problem. If you're worried more about the leak than what the subject was and the truth of that

and what it says about your team, then that's a problem too. And Paul George immediately, like, capitalized on the whole thing to, like, promote his podcast. You know, it's one thing for us to put out video of us saying, Sixers in trouble, what's next? Or is it time for a meltdown?

Should they, you know, tear it up? Like, if we promote our podcast that way, that's what we're supposed to do. The players who are actually part of the meltdown are not supposed to be the ones promoting the meltdown to get podcast traffic. But these are the times we live in Michael Bina. No, can I just have like another thing? Yeah. Like, the loss of the Clippers, right?

Obviously, the Clippers have, did not have, you know, Kauai Lederd, obviously, their best player in that game. But just watching the gap between these two in terms of, like, intensity, engagement, knowledge of what they were supposed to do. Like, if you watch Caleb Martin in that game, defensively, he was like, what is going? on. And to the point where after like the fourth mistake where he's back cut for another layup, Nickner's pulls the plug on him and goes with like an awkward double big lineup in the second half, like two minutes into the third quarter. So that stuff is like beyond the stars are out. It's just like it's not it's not a good team. You know what I mean? Like it's beyond, it's not like they can come and save the day. It's just it's beyond that in my opinion. I think that there's something

deeper that is just kind of rotten about the Sixers this season. All right. So I had the Sixers as a three. Michael Pina has them as a five and already dead. I have them as an 11. It's a rap. What is beyond nuclear meltdown? I didn't have enough time to figure out where the scale went beyond meltdown.

All right. I'm going to throw in one more before we close this topic because that was yours. So you've had three. I've had two. I'm zagging here, Michael Pina. Love it. Panic. It is time to panic if you're a Brooklyn Nets fan.

It is absolutely time to panic. The Brooklyn Nets are 8 and 10 and tied with the Pacers for 7th in the Eastern Conference. And if the season ended today, they'd be 15th in the draft. They are blowing one of the most obvious tank jobs of all time. This team was designed to tank. this team went out of its way, traded a bunch of juicy future Phoenix Suns picks to get back their picks from the Houston Rockets. The Nets got back their 2025 and 2026 first round picks, obviously with a premise in mind that we are going to be spending these picks ourselves

because we are going to be really bad and we're going to get some great young new talents to build around. I do not think for a second that in the offseason, Sean Marks was thinking, you know what, if everything breaks right, and Cam Thomas and Cam Johnson both have career seasons, and Dennis Schroeder plays like it's 2019 again, and Ben Simmons finally stays healthy for 82, we can make the playoffs. Won't that be fun? Sure. That's, that, I mean, I guess that's fun. We're back to one of the existential questions of the modern NBA, if you're an NBA fan, which is, would you rather have your team be fun and scrappy and have a crappy draft. And have a crappy draft pick or just steer into the tank.

They screwed up. They hired too good of a coach and Jordy Fernandez, clearly. He's so good. He's so good. Cam Thomas makes every tough shot, except for when he's just dribbling them out of possessions and then hucking up bad shots. Cam Johnson, as I mentioned, is having a career year. Ben Simmons has actually played 13 of their 18 games.

This is how their total minutes reads from most. most minutes going down. Cam Johnson, Schrooter, Cam Thomas. Jalen Wilson, 2023 picked Jalen Wilson. I dare anybody to try to pick him out of a lineup or out of a random basketball reference photo with no name on it. He is fourth in minutes. Then Dorian Finney Smith, then Zaire Williams, then Ben Simmons, Claxton, who's been heard a lot. Noah Clowny, Keon Johnson, shake Milton, Trenton Watford. I, Pina, I don't even. know how they're winning as many games as they are. I just know that they should not be. It's inadvisable to. And this is a disaster. They can't keep winning at this rate.

This is such a great story. What are you talking about? This is amazing. Like, they go into the Chase Center last night with no Claxton, no Ben Simmons, no Dairon Sharp, no clownie, like no center, no big depth whatsoever and win. And by the way, like, Cam Johnson sprained his ankle and didn't play in the second half of that game. Like, and he's probably been their most consistent two-way player. No Dori and Finney Smith either. Like, nobody. And they won that game against one of the better teams in the entire NBA.

So I just think, like, in terms of, like, it's, I don't think that they're going to, I think that they will trade a lot of these guys. and I think that they will eventually tank, and I think that the flatten odds make this less of a big deal than, you know, if I have the worst record, I have a 14% chance. You know what I mean?

Like, okay. I just, I think that Nets fans should really enjoy this and savor this. Be super appreciative for the fact that Jordy Fernandez is, like, a coach of the year candidate caliber leader right now. Yeah.

And has gotten them to, play a style, a physical style. They play extremely hard. They listen to him clearly. And I think all of that is really encouraging. And I know that this team is punted on, you know, we want to create a great culture so that it attracts free agents. At least I would hope that they've punted on that that type of long-term strategy in terms of team building. But I do think that players will want to play for Jordy Fernandez, and this is a good showcase right here. I mean, it's just, that's a really good sign of health for an organization. So I think it's a great story. You just can't let it go too long. Like, I think we agree on this part. At some point, you have to

decide that we got our pickback for a reason. This is a really great draft, and we can't miss out on this opportunity because as fun as all of this is, you don't have a future as a really good team built around Cam Thomas, Cam Johnson, Dennis Schroeder, Ben Simmons. I've Ben Simmons is on the last year of his contract anyway. But like this is not the core of a future powerhouse. No. This is a bunch of guys who are overachieving and playing their butts off, all of which is admirable and honorable and great.

And as you point out, fun. But I do wonder, like, when is the trigger point when they have to start spinning off some of these pieces so that they don't win too much? Like, you still have to keep the bigger. picture of mind. And I know that that's a bummer on some level. It would be more fun if we like, this is why once again, Mike Zarin's wheel, go Google it, folks. Mike Zeran's wheel, which would create a 30 year rotation in which every team would pick one through 30 at some point within that 30 year span, randomized and in groupings and whatever. That's why it would be better. Because

if you weren't trying to angle for a high pick, you could do this. You could overachieve, play your butts off, win as many games as you want, because your pick is not at stake. It's just slotted wherever it's slotted in the course of the 30-year wheel. I don't want to have a, I don't want to have a wheel debate. But it's, but it's, we still have these perverse incentives to where a team like the Nets that could be fun and competitive and surprising are still on some level a bummer, and I put them on my panic meter exercise because frankly, this is not what they should be doing this season. I hate to say that it is perverse, but it's reality.

I think I sense a little curmudgeonly behavior out of you right now. How is that curmudgeonly? I'm a realist. I'm a pragmatist. The Nets should be tanking for Cooper flag. There's so much time for them to tank. And you've got other teams that are younger who I don't think are very interested in tanking like the pistons, the hornets.

I think these teams are actually like trying to develop their young talent and be competitive in basketball games. And I do think that they will. I mean, we always forget how much time there is after the All-Star break. There's a lot of time to just suck. And like the Toronto Raptors are a wonderful example if anyone watched them play basketball last season after the trade deadline. So not worried about their long-term plan.

I think they're really smart. They will lose a ton of games this year. But just I'm staying in the moment, being very zen, and I'm enjoying watching the Brooklyn Ness play best. So just to sum up, too early to write off the Nets chances of getting Cooper flag, not too early to bury the Philadelphia 76ers, according to my... Right, you are. All right, that's enough panicking for one day.

I've stressed myself out. I'm going to have to clean the whole day of my apartment when we get off. All right, it's time for our Real One of the Week. Today's Real One of the Week is presented by State Farm. When you get a new car or new home, your first reaction might be to say things like, oh, yeah. or I can't believe it. What you really want to say is the one thing that could get you the help you need,

like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Pina, who is your real one of the week? I don't know how many of these I'm going to get to do in my life. So I chose Peyton Pritchard. And this is someone who went from a joke response in multiple text groups of mine for the past several years and even me just uttering his name now made you chuckle, Howard.

And right now he is a legitimate candidate for six men of the year, if not the favorite. He's a legitimate candidate for most improved player, if not the favorite. He deserves an invitation to the three-point shootout. His half-court heaves are literally on opposing scouting reports when you watch teams defend him

when he subs into the game at the end of the first half for the end of a quarter. And he's just been so awesome in like every way on both sides of the ball. It's really awesome to see. And, you know, last night they spanked the Clippers. And there was this one play where after he hit two threes in a row, the Clippers, I think it was Terrence Mann, leaves him wide open in transition.

And I don't think I've ever seen a bench more upset than they were at Terrence. man when Peyton Pritcher caught up a pass and hit another three. And Norm Powell jumped up, he's in street clothes, jumped up and is just exasperated. Tailu calls timeout. Like Peyton Pritchard, he's someone you cannot forget about on a team that has Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, Chris Sapsworth, Zingis, Derek White, Drew Holiday. Like, it's just, it's cool. And I think he's deserving of a lot more attention and is way more than the kind of, I don't know if a lot of people still view him as like kind of a, I don't even, like an ornament on this team. I think he's like an essential piece now.

Yeah. I like it. I chuckled, but I like it. Thank you. My real one of the week, I'm going way off the board here. My real one of the week, I don't even know the individual's name except as fake Chris Haynes briefly. So on Blue Sky this week, the social media app that you all should be getting on because we're all there. On Blue Sky this week, someone had created an account, actually weeks ago, as Chris Haynes.

And a lot of us thought in this new landscape of Blue Sky that the real Chris Haynes had been posting there. But it wasn't. It was a fake Chris Haynes. Somebody impersonating Chris Haynes. But repeating all of his scoops and information from Twitter on Blue Sky. Come to find out the other day that the real Chris Haynes had created an account. So I reached out to Chris Haynes to verify that this new account was in fact him and the other one was a fake. I posted that people should stop following the fake. But this is why the fake Chris Haynes is my real one of the week.

This is a very confusing turn of events with all the reels and fakes. The fake Chris Haynes then direct messaged me on blue sky to say, hey, I was just repeating all of his posts from the other site. And I'm happy to actually just give him the account, which had 13. 14,000 followers at that point. The guy did not want a cyber squat, was not trying to extract, was not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, really. Like, they weren't trying to pull anything.

But they were misrepresenting themselves. They were not Chris Haynes. I put fake Chris Haynes in touch with real Chris Haynes. They worked it out and fake Chris Haynes gave real Chris Haynes the account that had been the fake Chris Haynes posing as real Chris Haynes, which now is the actual Chris Haynes. So fake Chris Haynes, whose name I do not know, you are my real one of the week for turning fake to real. And I've now talked myself into a dizzying stupor here.

But there you go. Sometimes good things happen on social media. That was a nice little moment for us all on Blue Skyde. I unfollowed fake slash real Chris Haynes and then saw that it was then now real Chris Haynes. and I refollowed him and that's my my contribution to your real ones I was a little confused and then I think I sorted it out and we're good. I think we're all okay now.

Yeah. We've gotten through it. All right, today's real one of the week in all of its dizzying spectacularity was presented by State Farm. State Farm is there with the coverage you need for your car, your home and even boats, motorcycles, RVs, and other things that matter to you. With a State Farm agent, you know someone is there to help you choose the coverage you need. With so many coverage options,

it feels good knowing you can find what fits for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, and that brings us to our mailbag. Got a lot of good stuff in there this week. Producer Cliff hit us. Yeah, man, sorry I couldn't get the accent down for you yet. You know what I'm going to come up with it pretty soon. I got you soon.

Don't worry about it, art. Keep working on the British one, but I noticed one of our emails this week, I think came from Brazil. I don't even know if you could pull that off or if you've been practicing, but that seemed like a, that seemed like a big group. I don't think I could say. I don't know how, I don't know how directly how they sound, but I don't think I could do it. Let me try this one, though.

This guy's Drew from New Jersey. All right. Hey, guys, love the pod. There have been many excellent books written about great NBA players over the years, such as deep dives into Michael Jordan's career, as well as Marin Fader's recent book on Akema, Elijah one. Which NBA player would you like to see a deep dive book written about and why? It could be either an all-time great or more under the radar role player. Thanks, Drew from New Jersey.

All right. We had a little bit of buffering issues there, but we know, we know the premise. Who would you want to read, I guess not write a book about Pina, but who would you want to read a book about today's NBA? Well, I answered this question without my, I'm not interested in anyone who's currently playing NBA basketball. Because it's just like, you know, I will read the upcoming biographies on Nicole Yokic from Mike Singer and from on Luca Donchrist by Tim McMahon. I will read those and I'm sure they're excellent. So I don't mean to disparage at all.

But personally, I'm not, I'm much more fascinated by people who've, you know, played careers and lived a little bit more life. So my answer for this, I have two. One is Kevin Garnett, who's probably my favorite player of all time. And I know he wrote a book semi-recently a few years ago. And he had a documentary come out about his life a few years ago that he participated in. But if someone reported like a deep, unvarnished, complete story about his legend and, you know, contextualize it with an understanding that this person is not only one of the 15 greatest players ever, in my opinion,

but a true revolutionary influence on and off the court with all the untold stories. I just think it would be gold and potentially Pulitzer Prizeworthy. My other player is Tim Duncan. I want to know everything about Tim Duncan. Obviously, he's criminally underrated historically and best known for being boring, which is true. It'll be a really short book. Oh, it's true, true only in the sense that he didn't want anyone to know anything about him.

And I feel like every time he's actually spoken, it's been very interesting. And when people talk about him who he is away from like the public eye and fame and that sort of stuff, that he's actually quite a funny, interesting person. So I think Tim Duncan and KG, who had their... own little rival throughout their career also. Those two, those books would be very interesting to me. Those would both be great. I do think there are two players in today's MBA with some obvious parallels between them who, when their careers are over, maybe before then, but certainly once their careers are over, I think will be utterly fascinating and maybe not for all the right reasons. Zion and Jha drafted back

to back both, you know, Zion's supposed to be, you know, a transformational type of talent, a generational talent. Jah, of course, you know, just an incredible athlete and an incredible player. Neither can stay healthy. Neither can stay. I don't always say out of trouble because, in Jaws case, there's been legit trouble. In Zion's case, there's just been a lot of. Out of controversy.

Controversy. Yeah, they've just both had a lot of stuff swirling around them. And they're still pretty early in their careers. and there's still plenty of time for them to both, you know, live up to expectations. But right now, in both cases, you just look at it and you shake your head and you're, and you just wonder if it's ever going to, if they're ever going to stay healthy, if they're ever going to stay on track, if everything. That's just one big series of ifs for these guys.

So someday down the line, I think those guys might be the subject of some really interesting books and just also interesting family dynamics in both cases, too. you know, just their own biographies, I think, are interesting. But yeah, longer discussion for another. Perhaps. Cliff, what else we got? All right. Next question.

Hello, real ones. My name is Mario and I'm a longtime fan of basketball from Brazil. This is the guy you're talking about whether I can get the Brazilian accent down or not. I don't think I could do that today. But maybe next time. Yeah, I got you. Been listening to the past since 2022 and it's in great shape. My question is about my San Antonio Spurs.

Where and with whom do you guys see the future of the team? It's Victor and Castle plus 13 other current players or will be for the next years. Thank you, Mario. I think he's missing the word there and it kind of stumbled me. But yeah, he's pretty much saying it's Victor and Castle with 13 other players or the other current players on the roster. Good question for Mario, Vina.

I feel like it's too soon. I don't like Castle's been fantastic so far and Wembe is Wembe. I don't, you usually don't know, right, but you get a superstar of Wembenyama's caliber. The, especially in today's NBA,

two years out, three, five years out, it could be a completely different cast of characters. I don't know that anybody outside of Wemba Jama is guaranteed to be a spur three years from now. I'm not saying that to cast aspersions on, or doubts on Castle or sell or anybody else. It's just more that when the spurs decide its time, truly time, to be a contender and turn the corner, there's going to be some bolder moves involved.

This is not a team that makes a ton of trades, but there will be a trade at some point. Maybe there's a big free agent signing at some point, even though San Antonio is not historically a destination. I don't think this is just going to be just some slow organic build where it's all just, you know, guys through the draft and minimum signing. Like there's something else will happen. that we just can't even possibly foresee it. They have so many picks. It's pretty, pretty wild how well they've kind of laid the track for just being, like, peaking when Wemby peaks, right? So to your point, the roster could be completely different when he's in his prime.

That said, I would love for Castle, Steph Castle, Devin Vassell, and Jeremy Sohan to be, like the core four here and putting sohan oh i love sohan think he's awesome the injury that he suffered early he was he was like third in the league and okay we don't need to go to a sohan ran here but i love i love sohan um i think obviously when you're building around wemby you need spacing you need three-point shooters um you need intelligence you need willing role players uh guys who are willing to make the extra pass sacrifice cuts that that sort of thing um And I don't think that, you know, you necessarily need, like, top shelf perimeter defenders and that much defensive versatility just because he's so unique. But I think that those pieces, Castle, Vassell, and Sohan make sense around Wembe.

They're all, you know, still improving very young, obviously. They all have poise. And they all compliment him. So I would love to see those three plus Wemby, plus them kind of using their picks, using, you know, their cap space, everything to add the type of skill sets that make sense around those four because they need more shooting with every player that I just mentioned. But yeah, they're going to be great. I can't wait to watch the Spurs for the next 10 years. we got time for one more. Why don't we do the, we had two on the same topic there when we just combined those,

Cliff. All right, let's do it. So this first one, I believe is from Elton. So let me read this one out. Long time fan of the podcast and also of Howard. And it's been really fun to listen to y'all together, a cookies and milk level combo. He's talking about you and Rajah Howard. I was listening to you talk about solutions for in-season tournament and how it could be structured

so that it has a real season impact. But in a way, that makes sense. I like thinking about the mechanics of the NBA and I think I've got a pretty good idea. You put every team into a single elimination midseason tournament. It's seated across conference purely record on record, but here's the twist. During the tournament, wins get added to your win column, but losses don't get put into the loss column. For one midseason blast, you can add bonus wins and the losses don't hurt you. And more importantly, if you win your first round, you get a chance to play for another bonus win.

If you do really well and win all four rounds, you can finish the season. in 56 and 30. It's a way to slightly overweight the midseason tournament games, while also fitting them into a single elimination tournament. If you really wanted to get funny with it, you could also make the bonus wins exempt from lottery standings. That way tanking teams could play their hearts out without risking lottery position.

Thanks for making the show. Hope you all are well, Elton. Interesting. And we have a second NBA Cup. The second one is, here we go. Much love to the real ones crew. Whoever is on the pod, I never missed an episode and love to hear your takes. I like the premise of the NBA Cup, but it can be improved upon.

The NBA Cup rewards players but ignores fan bases and front offices. I have a solution to ensure every participant has a reason to treat the games as something more than just a regular season game. For the front office, it's easy. The 31st pick goes to the winner. The first pick of the second round is a coveted slot, a first round talent without financial commitment. This would be an extra pick, so there would be a 61st pick in every draft, but the first pick. this hurts no one and makes front offices more interested in the result. But the fan base is a little trickier. The winner of the NBA Cup is guaranteed the six seed in their conference's playoff seating.

If you look at last year's Lakers team, they would have avoided the play in by winning and they would not push any other team out of the playoffs play in. The team that would have been hurt the most is the team that does finish six but gets bumped. Their silver lining being an extra home playoff gate or two. I'm assuming game there is misspelling. In a scenario where the winner of the NBA Cup is the 11-seated team, do we really feel bad if the 10th seeded team gets bumped from the playing? This means that a team that wins the NBA Cup can take a more cautious approach to the remainder of the season. Rest stars, experiment with lineups, knowing that their playoff seat is secured.

This will also put more pressure on top teams that now have to aim for the 5-seat to avoid the playing, increasing competition all around. Love to know your thoughts and hear your nitpicks of this on the pod. Brandon from Toronto. All right. We're running a little long here, Pina. So we'll try to get through this one quickly. Top of your head?

I don't care too much about the... First of all, salute to everyone who thinks of this stuff because I, you know, I don't want to admonish it or anything like that and come off disrespectful, but I don't care about any changes to the NBA Cup. I think that the NBA Cup is just a thing in my life that I have to deal with as someone who covers the league. And it is what it is. I have no power over changing it. I'm not interested in who wins it. The courts sometimes give me a headache when I watch games. And it's just it is, it is what it is. It is basically my stance on the NBA Cup. And that should be

the slogan, in my opinion. The NBA Cup. It is what it is. I think that that would just, like, draw much more buy-in from people and casuals. But, no, I, like, I mean, like, you know, like, I just can't get, like, emotionally involved with it. It's basketball. And I think that the players, like, I don't, I don't know. Like, I don't, last year, the Lakers won. They weren't very good.

Like, who cares about this stuff? LeBron didn't even want the flag raised. It's a joke. Like, you know, whatever. It is what it is. That's my stance. There's a very, very tiny island off the Atlantic coast that Pina and I live in where we sit around dumping on the NBA Cup.

We're the only ones who live there because apparently everybody else thinks this is great. I don't get it. It's fine. I will say this very earnestly. If you love the NBA Cup, cool. That's great. Especially, these are mostly NBA fans listening to this. you have a rooting interest, it's fun if you're rooting for a team.

I just don't, to me, it carries zero significance. The winner of the cup, it means exactly nothing. It means some more money for the players. It's a nice bump for the league. It generates a little bit more interest in the early part of the schedule. All of that's good. It just, it doesn't mean anything. Winning that cup means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I'm sorry. So, no, I'm not interested either. I do think to the two listeners who wrote in, the NBA did kick around for years before they actually settled on this particular format. They did kick around the idea of a true midseason type tournament that would maybe coincide with or maybe conclude right around All Star Break. And they've ditched that for various reasons. I do think like a single elimination style is more interesting. This whole pool play thing over weeks just to me has no momentum whatsoever.

I don't even know what the standings are for the pool play. I don't care what the standings are. Like, wake me up when they get to the knockout rounds or to even the semifinals. And then it's at least slightly interesting because it seems like there's a little bit more at stake in those games. But the pool play games, they're just regular season games on more colorful courts that give Michael Pina headaches, apparently. I don't know who's in what group. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know.

Is it random? I don't even know how it's decided. I think, no, I think it's random-ish. it's based on trying to assemble each group based on the records last year so that's well balanced from good teams to bad teams something like that I don't know like this is the problem it's it's it's sort of complicated it's it's sort of hazy and it's hard to get your head around and is anybody really paying attention to the pool play standings right now like it's just I got to say like what's really funny about this is what they should do is reduce the schedule

cut the number of games I'm personally as someone who watches way too much of this league. I would love for the games to be like 40 minutes long. That would be tremendous stuff for me and my lifestyle. Shorter games is actually a good idea. Shorter games. I mean, we're just, look at the injuries. Like, the response is to add games and that's to make more money. And so I'm kind of, it only truly adds one more game for the two teams that meet in the cup final, to be, to be fair to the NBA. But, um, so it's not actually adding. But you're right. Subtracting would be better, easy for us to say it's not our billions of dollars that would be sacrificed. The other wrinkle that one of the listeners suggested, the extra draft pick, like, I like that.

Like, if fans are truly going to be incentivized to root for this, other than just like, yay, my team won this meaningless cup that just was invented five minutes ago, like having the extra pick. Now as a fan, you're excited. Hey, my team got extra pick. Or to the other suggestion of the extra kind of fake wins or just counting those in the standings so that it improves your positioning for the playoffs. I like that too. Like anything that isn't just a payoff for the team itself, but gives the fans something to be

excited about, ooh, my team's in better shape now in the draft. My team's in better shape now in terms of playoff positioning. Those are more tangible and more interesting than just they get to raise a banner at gunpoint from the NBA office because the league wants to make sure that everybody thinks. You know, why don't they just pay the fans? You think about that? go. That'll get people excited. Everyone before the season, you pick a team that you think's going to win the NBA Cup. And if they do, you get $5. How about that? That's just terrific stuff. I'm about a Starbucks gift certificate. All right. That's enough for the mailback for this week. Again, we are off this Friday, but we'll be back next Tuesday. Rajah will be with me then.

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