The Ringer NBA Show - NBA Potluck, With Zach Lowe | Group Chat

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Justin, Rob, and J. Kyle Mann are joined by Zach Lowe to bring in Thanksgiving with their annual NBA potluck. Each person brings a player or team and one take to the table to share with everyone. (00:00) Intro (1:31) FanDuel ad break (2:45) Jaden Ivey (16:19) Miami Heat (33:54) Amazon Prime ad break (34:27) Jalen Suggs and the Orlando Magic (48:47) Chet Holmgren (57:31) Justin’s take (1:01:20) Rob’s take (1:04:26) Zach’s take (1:08:00) Kyle’s take Check out The Ringer’s updated Top 100 Players in the NBA list here! Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and J. Kyle Mann Guest: Zach Lowe Producers: Ben Cruz, Isaiah Blakely, and Victoria Valencia The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Shopping. Streaming. Celebrating. It’s on Prime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Group chat, I am Justin Barrier and joining me, as usual, Rob Mahoney and Jay Kyle Mann, but joining us a special guest for our NBA potluck edition, one of the original pod settlers. It's Zach Lowe. What's up, Zach? I'm thrilled to be here. The irony is I hate actual group chats in regular life, and I have multiple group chats that are muted. I recently had an issue with a wordal group chat that I might have to eject myself from because too much information about the word was shared.

And so, but this group chat, I'm all in for it. Robert, are you a group, are you a wordal sort of guy? Of course. Yeah. Well, first of all, what does that mean? You know, I don't like that. You're already delivered that. But I guess what are people talking about?

Are they like trying to work together to come up with the answer? It's, it's, it's score comparison. And then we had one participant who shall remain nameless who always does it first. and one day this person was like, I didn't even know this word and I had to use getting that. Just so like I've got, I've got it down to three or four possibilities. Like, well, it must be the most obscure possibility.

And it was not. And I was like, you can't, that's too much table talk. We can't have that kind of table talk or I'm out of the group. Very poor form from Stan Van Gundy, spoiling the word like that. I can't believe you would do that. You're listening to the Ringer MBA show presented by Fandul. Fandul now displays your bet directly on.

your phone's lock screen. And with the latest updates to the live events and player pages, it's never been easier to be part of the game. And Missouri, get excited because Fandals coming your way, December 1st. Download the Fandall Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21 plus in present in select states or 18 plus in present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help-Help.com.

Call 1-888-889-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Table talk is basically what we're doing here because we're doing our MBA potluck edition in honor of Thanksgiving, where we're going around the horn. Everyone is bringing not only a player or a team to discuss, or also bringing a take, which we'll get to later on. Why don't we jump in because there's a bunch of us. So we got a lot of things to discuss here.

Zach, do you want to kick us off with one of your players or teams? Yeah, you know, look, I could do the maiden group chat thing and talk about LeBron James. or the Lakers or what's wrong with the Knicks or, you know, whatever big storyline you want to do. But that's not what we're going to do here. That's not what you guys are about. That's not what I want to be about. I pick, you can pick player or team.

I'm coming in hot with Jaden Ivy and the 15 and 2 Detroit Pistons. He's coming back. He's played two games. He's looked pretty good. Kind of a lost season last year, forgotten as the Dennis Jenkins revolution occurred. And the Pistons just kept on winning and winning and winning. But him coming back.

Tobias Harris coming back. Jaden looking pretty good so far. It's early. Shot 41% on catching two threes last year. It's got me starting to think about like, this has already transitioned from cute story to, whoa, okay, like conference finals. And this has got me thinking two different things.

Number one, should we start thinking about this team as a final team right now? I'm kind of already there, given the state of the east, and B, the trade conversation of, do you look at this hot start and Jaden Ivy coming back as a key player if you're a trade in Langdon and say, obviously you're going to let this marinade for a bit, but does this make you more likely to go for a big swing

or does it make you more likely to think, huh, maybe we're just good enough already given the state of the east. So I'm going Jaden Ivy in the Pistons. That's what I'm bringing. He does feel like the swing player in that conversation. Because if Jaden Ivy is good enough doing this exact stuff, maybe it turns the temperature down on some of that trade talk.

Maybe it lessens the need to do anything dramatic really quickly because you can already see even though he's not himself yet, how much just having him out there or really having any ball handler out there with Cade accelerates and opens up their offense. Like Ivy, if you'll, if you'll pardon the pun, is like really surgical and kind of picking his spots being hyper efficient out of the gate. I just think, well, look, it is what it is. And he looks completely explosive, which has been reassuring to see.

He's still a blur in transition. He still opens up so much for them. I love this format for the Pistons. And so, yeah, I know you said they're going to wait and see a little bit, Zach. And I think they absolutely should because Ivy is that good and that talented that he deserves a little benefit of the doubt and saying how far he can take these guys right now. I feel like we're just now getting ready to see what was really the original vision when he was taken, which when they took him, I was just like, oh, well, this is going to be an awesome duality between the half court grinder nature of having Kate out there. You've got this incendiary, just open field kick returner speed going to hit you in transition, this just thing that you can tap into.

But A, the spacing was awful, as we saw. It was just from hell, putting Kade basically in like a Houdini level straight jacket in terms of half-court spacing. And then he's been hurt. So it's interesting that we've just kind of been delayed in this because when you look at him, man, the way he can hang. It's almost like he tilts his entire body and runs at a different angle than everyone else. He's getting his conditioning back at things like that. Catitude is probably a little bit better for him, but I feel like this is the original vision of what they were going to do with him and Cade.

It's so nice to see him out there too because he is a nice contrast to what they've already built where they're practically playing WWE style where Saur Thompson's trying to fight half of the other team. And then you got like Jalen Dern out there looking like he just stepped off of like a fireman's beef cake calendar shoe. He's just such a whole lot of beef. I described him as an Adonis yesterday with Stan Van Gunny and I thought that was a little much. That's good. Yeah, we're just sexy Jalen Duren. That's what we're doing here. But to have that energy, to have like the just electric sort of burst there, you could

already see it. And that's the advantage of having someone like Kate is your point guard where he's practically just as big as a power forward. If he could provide that sort of complimentary, you do have to start wondering big picture here because, Zach, I'm curious where you find yourself on the pistons just right now in general because 15 and 2, but the east is what it is, are we starting to think about them as a team not only that can win the East, but that could compete with maybe the best teams just overall. No on the second one.

I think that's where the lack of shooting begins to really factor in. And that's why the Ivy return and the Harris return is so interesting to me, because they do, even if Ivy's three-point shot in anyone's opinion is sort of unproven, and I guess it is, but it looks good to me. They unquestionably unclogged these lineups that are four non-shooters around Cade or Duncan Robinson and Cade and three non-shooters. Like that's going to be tough at the highest, highest level. But we just haven't seen anyone at the highest, highest level in the Eastern Conference yet.

Obviously, Cleveland hasn't been healthy. New York is now dealing with some injury issues, et cetera. But Detroit has been the class of the east. And their toughness, their defense, their interior passing, you throw a dollop of Ivy secondary creation, catch and shoot, run the offense when Cade is on the bench. And Tobias is back. I think we do need to update our expectations of, I think this team might be a legit finals contender just as is. Now, finals contender, we always do this thing with the East where,

yeah, they could make the finals in the East, and that seems like the end of the story. You then have to play the finals. And if you're going into the finals completely hopeless, it's interesting, but it's not that interesting. And that's where the marketing dream looms a little bit large to me. And I don't know if there's another player anywhere theoretically possibly available at any time that I'm throwing the whole kit and kugoodle in to try to get if I'm Detroit.

Like I don't know that that perfect player exists. I've already come out and said I don't really get why people are trying to trade Anthony Davis to the Pistons. Maybe if the price was super cheap, I guess. But I do think like they are legit just beating the hell out of teams. just as is. If Stewart can shoot like this, if Ivy can shoot like this, if Harris can shoot like this, why can't they make the finals? Who has shown you in the East that they're a no brain or like, oh yeah, they're just way better than Detroit in the seven game series? Yeah, I think they have just less to prove at this moment than the Knicks defense does or then Cleveland's

collective medal does. Like those are teams that have burdens of proof of their own. And Detroit's been so convincing, especially with their defense earlier this season, they're like, I'm on board with this. I'm on board with them as a highly competitive team, particularly in the East. I love the Mark and Fit. I have always loved the Mark and fit. Like he just... It's too perfect. It's really perfect in terms of really expanding what you're getting at the fore beyond what Tobias can give you. And especially, again, if you're having Ivy or Jenkins kind of playing with Kate as another ball handler too, then all of a sudden you got something really moving within what you're trying to execute. But I assume Ivy would be a centerpiece of a deal like that. And then we have to flip to the other side,

which is, I can't believe I'm saying this in 2025, has Keante George been good enough that they no longer would, like, covet Jaden Ivy in that particular way? Well, Kyle, let me ask you this. Let me set you up this way, because we're now on this new era where you not only need a top two, three, but you also need the depth in order to trudge through a regular season. Like, do you start thinking about the Lori being the perfect fit

a little differently now because it's such a multi-track sort of conversation to have? like you can be a better team in a playoff series, but we still don't even know if they're going to be a like a top one, two team in the East in the regular season. I think what we're going to see is you look, I think the difference between the teams that are good in the East and the thing that is probably the last step for Detroit to sort of ascend and say, okay, this is a really, really for sure serious team that can compete in a

playoff series where adjustments are going to go on. That's always the story. You know, they're just very heavily tilted and it's working. That's why we're talking about it. Kate is just so heavy pick and roll, 51.7%. And you get in and you look at some of these West teams, the difference is they just have multiple silos. Like, you know, if OKC comes into a series and say they tilt a little bit towards Shea,

they have other places that they can go. It's like, where are you going to lean? You're going to get consistent, efficient advantage creation if you lean into, if you lean into Jay Navi. We just don't know for sure yet. I guess kind of my, the question now is just do you run it and see sort of, you know, the printout of how teams shut them down was last year enough of a proof of concept to say we kind of know what we need. And my question to you guys would be like, what would Lowry be? Like, is it going to add more pick and rolls? Is it going to add more like high post isolation? Is he going to be the right? Where is the advantage creation going to come from him? Would be my question for you all if they did go get him. I think it's a lot of taking what is normally kind of a standstill spot and making it a roving movement spot. Right? Someone who like, Lowry is an incredible. guy on the cut, on the move, constantly slashing, revolving within your offense.

It's not really the way Detroit plays a lot of the time. And so the idea of having some of that, a lot of that's personnel based, I think. But if you trade Tobias in particular, who, yeah, can step into the post and like occasionally knock a thing down or hit a pull up, like, but it's ultimately not the guy you want doing a lot of that stuff. And you replace him with one of the most successful scores in the league this season because of the balance he plays with. That to me is sort of the Rosetta Stone of everything that you could, unlock for what Kate is and the pistons are and what they could eventually be. I mean, I think he adds, you know, to Rob's point, he might be the most creative,

unpredictable off ball mover in the entire league other than Steph. And just, and he can do a little bit of everything. And just that alone to me would elevate them to a higher level on offense that they can get to now. But the question is, again, the price, Ivy, probably like, does Ron Holland? have to get involved in that. And does Utah even want to entertain this? I mean, does Utah find theoretically being like, yeah, we're going to be bad again, but we want Lowry, we want to turn this around quick? I don't know the answers to those questions. Do you spin your wheels if you

trade a Keante for a Jaden? I mean, you just are kind of left in the same spot of this guy that we is an aspiring on ball guy. We just need to see it a little bit. I don't know. I'd, I'd have to be convinced of what would be in it for Utah. Do the Pistons have the draft capital to make that happen? it's usually the capital for them. I just at a certain point, how much draft capital do you actually need? Or do you look and say like actually the teams that we have the picks of, it's primarily what, the calves and the wolves at this point, are they too good? We actually need other future draft capital to supplement that one.

But are the Pistons picks also going to be too good? And I guess I keep fixating on marketing because like the jazz has just been so bad for the entirety of his time there. But also, I just can't find another guy. who I love is like this is the last big piece for the Pistons who is even theoretically available. Like I saw some fake Zion trades floating around. I don't know about I don't know about all that. AD I don't know.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's a big AD for Detroit contingent here. Is he playing power forward? I don't, I personally don't get it. Like they have the number two defense in the league and they need shooting. Like to me he addresses almost none of what they need, but maybe people disagree. read. I just, I haven't found who the other guy is. And maybe that means you just wait and ride this out. Yeah, I mean, there just aren't that many read and react fours that can actually space the floor reliably that you trust to do both of those things at once, right? That are not just standstill players or just movement kind of flow players.

Lowry can kind of do all that stuff in a way that is really exciting, but also exceptionally rare. And it doesn't take away from your defense really. Like he's a totally adequate, multi-positional defensive player. He's huge. I will. say like the kind of synergy that's already starting to form, especially between K. Dern and Ivy, like Kyle was sending his clips already of some sort of arcane action that I didn't know what he was talking about. But like there's already something there that you could build upon. And I am more curious about what they can form just in this current construction versus like going out and swinging it. Because there's still so much to explore about this team. Do we really know what Asar Thompson is offensively? Do we even know what Ron

Holland is as an NBA basketball player besides trying to knock everybody's heads in? I kind of want this to be the in-between year before the stakes really come because this is probably one of my most fun watches out of the entire NBA. See, it's tempting. I totally agree with you. It feels like on a much, on a much lower scale, to be clear, what Presti would always say about the Thunder pre the giddy Caruso trade, pre like their big playoff runs. We want to see, we want to get to the playoffs and more or less like get exposed.

Like, what do we actually need? It feels like this could be that year for Detroit. It's just, man, you start doing these things like, oh, yeah, we got three, four years to do this. And it just comes faster than you think and shit happens to your team. And there's, I'm starting to lean more to the strike while the iron is hot for basically any good team. Like I, but I, but I, but I, this is a great luxury for the Pistons to have. Both these paths are totally fine. You know what just occurred to me is I don't think that Ron Holland ever gets mentioned without mention five.

mentioning fighting ever, ever, ever. I was trying to think of a time. If it's a good thing or bad thing for his reputation? I don't know. He's been legit pretty good this year and has he had a scrap yet this year? He and Beef Stewart are just kind of just just playing, just playing. It's mostly a SAR. Yeah. See, I see Ron as someone who's like never not at war. You know, there's always something raging within him that he's trying to dispel. Yeah. So it really is just a matter of how we're how we're kind of demarcating these things. That's what I want my podcast. rep to be. It's already there.

It's already there. It's already there. All right. Since we're talking to ease, Rob, you want to go with your choice? Yeah, I think another team that needed a bit of a wake-up call that needed to get into the playoffs

and postpose own admission to get absolutely embarrassed in order to reinvent themselves. And that is the Miami Heat, a team that is awfully good right now and is at an incredible inflection point, I think, in terms of understanding what they're going to be.

Tyler Hero played his first game of the season on Monday. played 29 minutes. I thought he did, like, his part to fit into what the heat are doing now. Zach, I know you already talked about on your pod, like all the rotation choices that now come with Spoh having to untangle having hero back. Norm Powell did not play in that game. We'll see how it all looks when he's healthy and who they start and who they finish and who they play in between. I thought there was another interesting wrinkle to this hero debut, which is after the game when he was asked about the offense. And he mentioned, you know what? Like as this season goes on,

we are going to have to work in some more pick and roll. We are going to have to work in some of my personal bread and butter. This is my subtext into the offense. Not a huge deal in and of itself, but one of those things where I'm just watching to see what happens, the moment that the heat hit a skid in their offense in the regular season, the moment that Tyler Hero personally feels a little out of sorts or has a shooting slump or whatever,

what is the break glass in case of emergency for this group when this guy just made the All-Star team based off being a really good picker role player and this team doesn't do any of that stuff anymore. So you're getting Jomaran flashbacks is what you're saying. No, look, it's nothing that dramatic. I don't want to get ahead of any of this. I'm just saying this is a dramatically different ingredient to anything the heat have been doing.

And it's great to have another score and you can already see some of the benefits of that. But he and Norm are a little redundant together, you know, like ultimately the way hero plays is not the way the Miami Heat have been playing. And so how do we, how do we kind of square all these circles when all of a sudden there is one different ingredient in the mix. Kyle, what do you think? It's interesting with Hero because I feel like his individual success has kind of gone the opposite direction of Miami's team success because when he was just a committed

offball mover doing the more golden statey kind of thing or before he really ascended as an on ball guy, he was thriving and it's like are those two things so at odds that they just can't get? Can he continue to have the individual success and Miami be good? I guess that's just sort of a, that's a question that reoccurs a lot with young stars in the NBA. It's like, do your own self-interest sort of sabotage you in a way? I don't worry about the offense stuff at all. Like, he scored 24 points playing the heat system on 12 of 18 shooting.

That's pretty awesome. Yep. This, I mean, yes, he's a great picket role player. He's also a great shooter. And shooter is just the answer. Shooting is just the answer to every question. So, like, we're a dribble drive offense now. Well, guess what?

You have to press him everywhere he is on the court, which makes his first step even more lethal. Someone else drives and gets the defense to lean in a little bit. Tyler Hero can relocate five feet one direction, get an open three. Like, all that's fine. And Rob, you mentioned the break glass in case of emergency. They kind of had an emergency late in the game against the Mavs. The game got close. They called a timeout.

And Spow called a pick and roll set for Hero. It was a horn set with Biggs and either elbow and a handoff for Hero. And it really stood out because, oh, my God, the heater running a set play. like a ball screen action out of a timeout, and that's where that can come in. To me, this is almost more a defense question than an offense question, the hero, norm pairing.

Offensively, I don't have any concerns about it. Defensively, you know, who do you start? Do you start Wiggins at the fore? Obviously, you're going to stagger Hero and Norm as much as you can, but you're going to have to start both of them, and what does that do to your defense? But offensively, like, Tyler Hero wants to put up all-star numbers and win a lot of games.

I think this is a fine system for him to do both those things at the same time. Yeah, I think that's the big question here, just because all the offense gets the attention, just because it's such an outlier, such a curio in contrast to everything that's going out there. It's funny, I was watching the Pistons to prep for Ivy, and then I watched some of Miami's most recent game with Hero. And it's just like going from wrestling to synchronize swimming practically. Like, you want the ballet song to just go because it's jarring, just like not seeing the picks being set and just the flow being there. It's one of the more fascinating sort of wrinkles I've seen recently.

But the defense has been fourth overall. Like the balance is why they keep winning these games. And so I think we could talk about who should play and who shouldn't. But they're kind of almost boxed into a set five because Warr and Bam is starting to figure itself out simultaneously. And so if you want your five best players on the court, it's probably Hero Norm, Wiggins, Bam, where I guess, maybe you go depending on matchups. And it's also 2025. And so in the NBA. And so guys are going to be out.

And so that might just dictate who sits and who doesn't regardless. but I just don't know if you could get by with punting two spots in the back court. And Wiggins, as we've seen, is just like kind of come and go in terms of injuries. So I don't know. It's a very difficult kind of proposition. See, I'm hearing Davion Mitchell's music. Like, to me, like the perfect structural balance defensively is Mitchell, Wiggins, bam. Like, that gives you a lot of bases to cover.

It gives you a lot of options in terms of how you want to match up. And then, yeah, you're putting Hero and Norm kind of wherever they can be. And also this is about a norm. Like not the best defender in the world, but does better than you would think guarding bigger players sometimes and kind of fighting and holding his own in the post. He's one of those guys

like a little better on ball than off. And so I trust him in those situations, honestly a little more than hero defensively. But I love Daviano with that group. And frankly, he's been important enough to their offense too that I'm almost low to pluck him out given how he kind of gets them into their movement

with his drives. I'll bet you, if I had to bet money, what is the heat starting five? when everyone is healthy. I think it's the one Rob just mentioned with Wiggins at the four, Davion Mitchell, the two guards

were talking about, bam at the five, where comes off the bench. To me, the hero stuff is almost bearing the lead of what's happening in Miami. The Kala Ware thing is a real thing. This is a real huge leap

on both ends of the floor happening at the same time. A leap dramatic enough that the Bam wear combination becomes maybe the most interesting medium-term puzzle piece in the whole heat ecosystem. Like, does that work?

How well does it work? Does it matter if it only works okay? We just kind of have to stagger them and keep bringing wear off the bench. Because Ware looks like a completely transformed player and a potential star player. And, like, this is not a question for now. But, bam, they just need to make that pairing work or else it's going to voice some uncomfortable questions on them in like a year and a half or two years. But where has been, like, unbelievable for the last two weeks?

Where do they rank in the East in terms of like first and second string combo, two-way combos? Because where's kind of finding himself offensively? He's been kind of narrow and slowly expanding, but I'm trying to think in the East, if there is a better one, two, like first and second-string combo in terms of your anchors, is there a better one? And then you bring Hockes off the bench who makes every shot. And your Mahoney and I are the crown princes of the Simone Fontecchio fan club. Just keep jacking him up, Simone.

I mean, someone's going to have to be the odd man out. And they have like 12 guys because Sean Johnson just dunked all over the mads the other night. He's like, oh my God. He's got a hammer. Kyle, Kyle, let me ask you this because you did probably a lot of draft scouting on where. Like where he is now, it's like, is this

what you expected or what has been the jump for him? No, man, he pissed me off so much. He was so much like Willie Colley Stein. It drove me insane. Oh, no. Very come and go, very on his heels. And I would, I mean, and he just has kind of had to

get stronger. His balance is a lot better. He owns his space a lot better than he used to. I remember just like him playing. He had a season where he played Donovan Kling and Hunter Dickinson and maybe, I think it was Zach Eadie. And he just looked like a child trying to hold up against those guys. But as he's gotten stronger, you've just seen him. He's gigantic. I think that's one thing that when you watch him, he's not a withering kind of wilting flower like Willie was. So I take all that stuff back. That's been the biggest thing for me is that he just, his presence and he's, sort of accepted how big he is and he plays big. And there's just a huge difference there between guys.

That's a huge leap to make. And I think, you know, I was excited about him getting in their developmental system and they've delivered. They always do. Well, the heat are funny in that way. There are some guys who they just kind of won't touch because they don't believe in like something in the way they approach their craft and their life and they're like their, you know, the obligations of their job. And then there's times where the heat love a challenge.

and they love to look at a draft prospect and say like, yeah, this guy's a little Willie Colley-Steinish. Maybe he's a little spacey in certain ways, but like we believe because we are the heat that we can get him to nail down the stuff that's really important. And so far, so good. Well, that's why I'm glad you mentioned the hero quote

because I took note of that as well. It's definitely making the rounds at this point. Because hero's the only one who like approximates a star in terms of like how he carries himself. Like Norm's on a make good deal. He's had success in this thing. I don't know. Norm's a confident guy too. Yeah, but like, he's been tossed around so much at this point.

If Norm does, if Norm doesn't make the All-Star team this year, he might, he might do something. Like, I don't know. He might take some sort of action, like revenge action against somebody. I don't even know who. Can we get him nationalized that in like Croatia so he can get it on the international team or something? At least get the Olympics. We need all the hell. You'd say, Zach, so much there.

Is it, Norm's so interesting to me because it's like, when I watch him, you were talking about him being a functional on-ball defender, it's almost like he just, if you expand the game beyond kind of a two-on-two mentality, it's like Norm, we kind of lose Norm a little bit. When he's catching and going and, you know, he never quite ascends to, like, surgical and, like, picking apart, like, helpers and things like that. And he's not, he gets a little spacey. He stops paying attention in team defense. It just seems like Norm is very effective when you keep him at this, not like, not hyper-narrow, but fairly narrow scope of, like, what you asked from him. I thought you said Habanero for a second.

A hobanero scope. I do have Habanero on the brain a whole lot. There's one thing in basketball that you can't argue against, or if you're not one of the five or six best players in the league, you can't argue against it. And that's winning. If the heat keep winning playing this way, like there's just not really much room for anyone to be like, well, I don't like this part of the system or this part of the system. If you're winning and you're putting up numbers, everything is all right. Everybody wins. Everything's cool.

And you can't really argue against Spoh and Riles either. True. Right. Well, that's why I want to go back to the hero thing, though. I took a side tangent because I needed to be very hilarious for a minute, for whatever reason. It's just, I do wonder, and if you look at Memphis is the only kind of case study of this offense, Laroge coming from Memphis last year, et cetera, the fact that like over time it was less effective, but also you just heard the griping from John in particular.

I do wonder, hero being in the mix, Rob, like, do you think that we'll be on that path? again. Do we think like if this is the start of him being like, I want my preferences and how much is Spoh going to be willing to turn over like on a full allotment, a full game plan, a full quarter, whatever it is in order to fit that? I mean, I think to go back to what Zach was just saying, if they are this successful, it mutes a lot of that stuff or at least tones it down. And so it really is a matter of like, will they have a three game losing streak in January that makes everyone a little bit cranky? I think with Hero, really kind of the sub question within that is like, if you are playing within this offense, if you are John Morant, if you are Tyler Hero, if you're any one of these guys, do you feel like you're getting to your stuff? Like whatever it is that makes you special, that makes you a unique and effective player that makes you comfortable on the floor, can you get to it? And I think hero, even outside the pick and roll, can, for a lot of the same reasons that Norm has been successful.

Like the shot in particular that I think about is like Norm has been just lights out on floaters. Like just getting into that quick drive, kind of one foot in the paint, rise and hit. Hero's great with those shots too. And that's the kind of thing that will be there all the time within this offense if that's enough for him. If that's something he can feel comfortable and satisfied with is getting into those sorts of shots as opposed to dancing a little more with the ball, setting up the pick and roll, getting to kind of pick and choose your side and your alignment, then I think there's room for everyone here to eat clearly and everyone here to be happy and successful.

but you do have to buy in and you do have to commit to that idea that I'm going to be served something that's not my first choice but is something I can still be happy with. He looked like you was having a blast in that first game. It was only the Mavericks,

but the Mavericks have the number two defense in the league, 12 of 18 shooting, got plenty of shots up, scored a lot of points. The other thing about buy-in, they're playing at by far the fastest pace in the NBA. They are like flying. And that takes both buy-in and stamina and everyone willing to just throw the hit ahead

to the next guy or just whoever gets a rebound brings it up. And like that takes, they deserve the whole team. Coaches, players deserve a lot of buy-in for that too. Because everyone talks to talk about we want to play fast. They're not only walking the walk. They're like playing at a turbo pace that you almost never see in the NBA. How did it take this long for the toughest, hardest, working best condition team in the history of the league to figure out that you,

you can play really fast if you are the best condition team at the NBA? Far from it for me to criticize Eric Spolster's approach. It's been pretty good for a really long time. But I'm always curious why they never tried this with other versions of the heat. Like maybe you just didn't want Dion Waiters playing and fast forward. But this is a version of the team that can clearly handle it. Well, when Norm Powell is lined up as your best offensive player, I think you have to start thinking a little bit. It's fair.

Deeper into the bag. But I will say I love that they did this and that Spoh did this in particular because it harkens back to like what he did with the big three heat. Just like going to Oregon Ducks practice and like bringing out the spread offense. going small ball like that. Like his intellectual ambition is just like, it's great. And he does have the carp launch in order to institute it, right? Are there other teams that just wouldn't have had the ability to do so because they had superstars?

But like, I don't think it's a surprise that Spote did it. And I have to say after all the griping over like, oh, the NBA is like too similar now. Everyone plays the same way, which is always poppycock. Like this year, they're just like pretty stark difference. I'm talking about Detroit being just like a mash and pound team versus what Miami is doing. It's like it's honestly a cornucopia, dare I say, of different approaches. And I'm having a lot of fun with. What are the Nets doing?

Where are they within the ecosystem of style? Trying to put out fires left and right. That's the slowest anyone's ever said poppycock, by the way. Poppycock. No, I enunciated. It's interesting because I heard Chris Finch say this one time in a talk. He was saying, you know, like every coach in the NBA, a lot of, most coaches in the world have good ideas. But being able to communicate them and be able to get buy-in is sort of the thing that separates.

And, you know, Spoh is a good teacher. Spoe also has the accountability that we've talked about a lot on this show. My kind of question for you all is, what's going to be, where's the rubber going to hit the road in terms of who they plan? I said that, like, I'm from Baltimore. But where does the rubber hit the road with what teams are going to throw at them that's going to make them shift? And then maybe we enter into those conversations about, okay, we do have Tyler Hero, competent pick and roll. player. We do have these other options. Where, where does it shift? Because it's going to shift. We see regular season trends like this all the time. And it's, you know, it does change at some

point. I do find it interesting that they've faced the heat of face the most zone defense possessions in the NBA, because I can get in the heads of coaches and think, well, they're probably thinking this is a one-on-one dribble drive emphasis offense. Why don't we just take the one-on-one part of it away? And it hasn't worked at all because the heat are just like, oh, you're just giving us the driving gaps in the zone. We'll just take them and run our same kind of offense. I just think it's more going to be opposition level. Like, do they have, do they face a team that can bully Norman Hero at the same time on the other end? It's just quality of opponent, versatility of opponent. And that's, you can't just be a one-trick pony in the NBA. You have to have a lot of different levers to pull.

And to Rob's point, like I think they do. It's not like this Hero Bam two-man game is extinct. It exists. It's right there. They run Norm off pin downs on the left side of the floor a lot. Same with They have some of these tools that they can reorient their offense towards. It's just, I mean, it's a boring answer, but it's just once you start facing the best teams, it just gets harder. Yes. And I think like playoff level transition defense is something that can slow them down a little bit, like the dedicated not a random night in December level of getting back will slow them down a little bit. The thing about the east, though, is when you look at this field, other than the zones you were talking about, Zach, the other go-to answer would be, okay, we're just going to try to maintain this by switching. as much as we have to, like not on ball screens necessarily,

but pick up as you need to to handle all these dribble drives. But who are the really good switching teams in the East? Like, these are teams with a lot of conventional bigs. Like, putting cat in those situations is not the most tenable. Jalen During can kind of do it, but it's not his strongest suit. The calves are not necessarily built for that. And so you can try to build walls and you can maintain your zone and try to keep Miami out of its flow.

But they've proven to be really successful, handling a wide variety of kind of junked up defenses so far. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. The holidays move fast, and Amazon Prime keeps you in control with fast and free delivery. We've all been there. Family plans are fluid. Somebody's not coming.

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and it just can't worry. wait. Need that last minute gift or holiday essential. It's on prime. Head to amazon.com slash prime to shop now. Well, since we're talking about contenders in the east, why don't we talk about one of them potentially reformed back again in the Orlando magic? I wanted to sing the praises and the virtues of one Jalen Suggs and just him just wearing a headband around his neck and just trying to fight guys all the time. I love Jailen Suggs so much. But I feel like we've got to like take a side trip to Anthony Black real quick. What's funny is, like,

Kyle was texting us last night, because I think he was a little bit behind the game. And he's like, oh, this, Anthony Black, wow, he's just really on a run here. And I was just like, buddy, give it some time because you haven't gotten to the end. It's like in the Lord of the Rings where you think it's like over and then you got another hour to go because the eagle show up. There's a lot.

This Walter White guy's a character. They're jumped. The hobbits are all jumping on the bed. Is that the end? It's still going on. I love how Nuri that reference was and everyone got it immediately for it. This is great.

But I can't believe how well the team overall is playing, Kyle, but also the fact that Black just looks, this wasn't just a one game thing. This was like 31 points out of his mind. But he's been playing really well steadily for five, six, seven games now. I'm just really struck. I kind of feel like I maybe need some therapy here for you guys to just talk me out of the craziness that I,

I just feel like I'm a little bit in a basketball fog of watching what they. They've drafted a lot of these really rough and tumble guys over the years with Suggs and with Anthony Black. If you watched Anthony Black play point guard, I'm not trying to do the typical Kyle thing here, but if you watched him play a point guard at Arkansas, he looked so fast and athletic and he was just like punching people in the mouth, like not literally. But I mean, just when I've watched them in the past few games, the speed that has been much, much more visible. in the beginning or in the past couple years with black and with Suggs in particular, I'm just trying to decide what to make of that. I mean, we kind of alluded to it the last episode,

but he just looks like he has wide open field to be the Anthony Black that we kind of expected him to be. And I'm wondering if it's like the spatial issues of what they look like full strength that are causing that. And how do we feel about that? What's the takeaway from that? I mean, those spatial issues make everyone look slower. It makes their whole offense look a little more clammy. And I'm not putting fingers. I know, Kyle, Kyle, I know where you're going.

I know where you want to go anywhere. Should we put a name on the spatial issues? You're sort of talking around. You're talking around something here right now. I call them the Palo Bancaro spatial issues brought to you by Jay Kyle, man. That's ultimately where I net out on it. Hold on. Wait a minute.

I didn't make this up. No, don't pin that on me, Ricky Bobby. That's not on me. Is that on me? Am I making that up? Am I imagining that? You're not making it up. Ultimately, there's so much less to negotiate with this version of the magic.

They are less complicated. The flow is easier. Like, it's more natural kind of getting into their stuff. And that feeds the strengths and the speed and the athleticism of guys like Black. Certainly, who we should also say, I was a part of what made him so awesome in this particular game in which he just had a career high in like 28 minutes. He wasn't necessarily playing point guard. Like, a lot of that was as a slasher, as a wing, attacking off the dribble, attacking from

the corners, obviously a lot of stuff in transition where he's always been quite good. But the fundamental questions with Anthony Black are still there, which is, could he be the point guard of a team that has all of these spatial issues because of what he potentially adds to them? I'm not saying he's a point guard. I would be clear. But yeah. Yeah, I think that question's over for the magic. I think the answer is no. They don't envision him as that day.

Invision him is the exact player you just said. Cut back door, attack gaps that other guys open, run hard on the run hard in transition, run the wing in transition, fill all the gaps and hopefully, hopefully make enough wide open threes that this whole machine is to. I think he can absolutely be that player. He's a super athlete. He's one of those athletes when he attacks the basket with the head of steam and a big guy jumps to meet him at the rim. He's like still going up while the big guy is coming down and can finish through contact like that.

He's, he was one of my six most intriguing players for the season before, before the season started because I just thought he's going to close some games for them. He fills out of their lineups, even with Bain on board. But I don't like, I don't know. He's just a guard. me. I don't know what position he plays, but he's not a, he's not a traditional point card. But taking that athleticism on the drive in particular, I think one of the biggest jumps for him

this year is the force on those drives. Like he's gone from loopy, I'm going to try to score around you with a reverse kind of driver into I'm going to try to fucking dunk on you every time I have any runway whatsoever. And like that's a really exciting development. Yes. I mean, look, I mean, look, it's the operative word. That was a, I threw that was a word I should not have said. I He's a point guard in the way. A men is a point guard. And some of these athletes are point guards, but they're just making things happen based on activity. So let's talk about the actual issue then, because I think we would all agree, despite what we're saying now, that the ceiling of this team is higher with Palo Bancaro than without Palo Bancaro. How do they find the right blend of what's working now when he comes back? that's the question yeah i agree can i bring it back to the premise jeston because to me some of this is palo isn't out there for some of these games i also don't think it's an accident

that the few games that the magic have lost recently are the games without jalen sux yeah i do i do tend to wonder if sugs is kind of the the one wrinkle that nobody's paying as much attention to i mentioned this on my pot earlier in the week like suggs's injuries and bankerro's injuries have have like not overlapped they haven't actually shared the floor very much this And you look at their starting five, like their actual starting five, the numbers are off the charts good. It could just be as simple as Palo out there with the best guys who unlock parts of his game is the answer to this question.

That's it. Yeah. And if you just watch him out there, like we talk about how black is in a point guard. I guess Suggs is functionally, but like he's doing point guard stuff, the caretaker, that I'm trying to get everyone involved, but just in his own special way where he's just like running around like a chicken with his head cut off, but he's doing it like with jump passes. And you watch him play and every single time, he's like, how can I get that guy involved? How can I like swing this to the corner? I'm at the rim, but oh God, there's a three point shooter who probably

hasn't taken an attempt in like five minutes. Like, let me go there. The hit ahead passes, the outlet passes. Like he's just the ultimate galvanizer of everyone around there. And it's so funny because when I'm sure everyone had this discussion when you see the contracts all laid out and you're like, what are they going to do when they go close to the second apron or whatnot next year? And like Suggs makes sense just because he doesn't have the star wattage is a little bit more like if he offensively. But like I think he's essential. I think he's like the foundational player of this team.

If anything like I don't know if he'll be face of the franchise because Paolo is such like a superstar and Franz is whatever Franz is. But like this is the emotional like center of this team and I love him. The issue has only been health. Like when he plays, he's exactly what they. need. And that's been the only thing that makes you look at that contract is like, oh, boy, it's a long contract. But it's a declining contract. It's totally fine. If he plays. We should, we do need to talk about the headband thing that he's doing, though, where it's like an

ascot for the first couple minutes of the game. And then when he feels good, the announcer's saying, when he starts to feel good, he transitions into a traditional headband. Well, the party starts and he just lets it all hang out. Did he invent this? Is this going to last the entire season? It's like the game he did it, I kept look like, what's that? What is that? What is going on? Is this just his style now? And he had it, I guess he didn't feel good for quite a long time in that game because he had it still like that in the second quarter. And I was like, I guess he's just doing this. I didn't know that anybody could do this. It's a mood ring sort of. But yeah, because for a while when he's wearing it up high, you're just kind of like, is this, I'm delaying the turkey trip thing,

what's going on? But then he doesn't seem to care. He'll wear it down. He's like, I am who I am. or does he have so much dog in him that he now needs a collar in order to restrain the dog in him? Honestly, an incredible take. I think that is the answer. As far as like when he moves it up and when he forgets, like Jalen Suggs

is one of these guys who will just kind of go into a trance for eight straight minutes and just make a series of the most ridiculous and incredible plays of escalating, like escalating ambition and audacity ultimate. Like he will go after loose balls other guys don't. He will go after.

drives and frankly opponents that other guys won't. Ultimately felt like a pretty average night for Jalen Suggs against the Sixers. Like he had 11 assists, two steals and two blocks in the first half and then got ejected. Like that is the energy he carries with him all the time. The Sixers who are like literally running out of players and have an unfilled 15th roster spot and a 14th roster spot that it belongs to Kyle Lowry assistant coach. Like those Sixers like you might need some more guys, man. Like everyone's injured all the time.

Eric Gordon played real minutes. is a one step tip dunk over drum and granted that's not doesn't mean what it used to mean but i started laughing and he's so chaotic on some of these like ball screen actions where he'll come around and they kind of soft show to be like we'll let you have that like we just don't want the alternative and like dribble and kind of get him into these really precarious situations where you'll see some of the wild like the seams of his decision making but i feel like that wild and willingness is it's It's a chaos agent. He's more,

I agree with what you're saying, Justin. Like, he's not threatening for, like, franchise face. I feel like he's just more of a version of a wilder Drew Holiday kind of a thing.

He's like the, he's the thing kind of holding it together. Derek White, these two-way hybrid guards who don't need the ball but can do stuff with the ball and are very good at shooting threes and playing defense are just like, they're the,

they're the skeleton key to a lot of teams. I mean, he may not be that franchise face, but he has one of the biggest on-off swings of any player in the entire league. And specifically to drill down on what we're talking about, Paolo and Franz without Suggs, minus 9 net rating, with Sugs plus 15 net rating.

Some of that is the starting lineup that Zach alluded to. Some of it is just like, he makes all this stuff make more sense. All of a sudden, if you're getting three runouts in a half because of the steals and the chaos he creates, it just really so much pressure on your half-court offense to get stuff like that.

Move over, Derek White. We've got a new plus-minus God on our hands. But how worry are we? Because Paulo is presumably coming back many day now. He's been day to day for what seems like seven games. So I don't know what's going on there particularly. If we're looking at the worryometer, Zach, like where are you on a scale to like one to ten? 3.5.

Not worried. Although this is a great time for the better without question mark high caliber player, Trey Young, Tyler Hero. We got a lot of that. But I think everyone understands that like this is fun. But the magic, I mean, they had ambitions of making. a finals run this year. And that doesn't happen with like a league average power forward in Palo Bancaro's place. Now you can do all sorts of iterations where you trade Palo Mancaro for

X, Y, and Z. And maybe that helps. But, and I don't, and I think the difference between someone like Palo and Trey Young is because of his size and midrange game and versatility, it's much easier for him to orient his, he doesn't need to, it doesn't need to be a sea change. It's just like, you know, take three or four of those, like we're going to stop the whole offense. and dribble around and take an 18 footer, those become pitch it to suck, set a ball screen, whatever. Like, you're still palo-bank care.

You're going to score 25 points. It's not that, it doesn't have to be a sea change. And because of his physicality, his size and all that, I think it's easier for him to make that kind of adaptation. Then maybe it's going to be for Trey coming back to an Atlanta team, that setting aside whatever the fuck happened in Washington last night, I watched that game,

and I felt like I had taken an acid trip while the game was going on. But, like, that's been pretty good without. Trey Young and he's just a different kind of player with a more set style of play. You guys, anything? Any worries? Are we above a five anywhere? Kyle, you're above a five. No, I'm not. I think what they've done is they, I do think, wait, first of all, did you guys know that Paul's middle name, his first middle name is Napoleon? I did not know that. That kind of that blew, that threw me for a loop. No, but does it explain a lot? I don't know. He's too big to be a Napoleon, though. I will say one of the things I've noticed in the past six games, like when you're

looking for patterns and the way that they play, I do think that they've unlocked some lineup stuff where they can do some more like dribble handoff stuff that could help Bain, that could help Black, that could help Suggs, because their efficiencies have just like really shot up. Their assist numbers have been better in the last six games. They were they were 25th up until November 12th. And then since then they've been fifth in the league. So they've just kind of unlocked some ball movement kind of stuff. You know, I wrote down here, we haven't seen a handoff explosion like that since Rob got the Paramore Live DB in 2008. So, yeah, I think they, the palace stuff is just kind of, it's fun to be like, you in theory, hmm? And, you know, irritate people.

But he's so young. They have so much to figure out. And like Zach was saying, they've all got to play together more. They're also for all the hand ringing like two and a half games out of second place in the east. But everyone is. Who's ringing their hands? that's the thing. Well, I think there's been a lot of hand-wringing from their slow start.

Specifically, the defense was really sleepy out of the gate. The offense, clearly, there was and still is a lot to work out in certain ways. They've just looked so great lately. And I think one of the other things with their offense, too, that gives me some reason for pause before sounding any kind of alarm is they are uniquely suited to take advantage of how many whistles are being called right now. Like, they are marching to the line with and without Paulo. And if guys are getting the benefit of the doubt and the way that they have been, specifically stars, but really it's across like the magic's top five or six who get to the line really consistently. They can anchor their offense that way. All right. Since we're talking about good

teams, Kyle, you want to round us out on the player team portion? I wanted to give Suggs a shout too for that second quarter against the Knicks where he basically pushed them to the brink of fury. That was pretty awesome. A Josh Hart throat punch. I want to talk about Chet exclamation point. Chet. I want to start from this spot. I think that Chet, I asked myself this question. I was just like, is Chet one of the most dynamic basketball players in the world? Like, is he in like the top 10?

I'm thinking about both directions, what he does, what he does for the cohesion of the personality shifts that are available to the thunder on defense. They can be an uphill aggressive disruptive team and he can be switchy in that. They can hang back. granted there's some Hartstein stuff that helps unlock some of that too it's not totally a total chat thing but then you look at what he is on offense you know he's obviously i was noticing his rim protection numbers are a little bit different but i think that that kind of speaks to some of the versatility but then on offense you start to look at the way that he is starting to grow in terms of his self creation it's not it's not wild and out of control and wasteful but he's he's picking his spots i just think I just want to start there with that. I mean, I think he's probably, is he one of the five most dynamic players in the world in both directions?

Like, is the fact that he's not overly productive on offense making us kind of underrate him a little bit in terms of his total versatility? His range of impact is just phenomenal and essential to what they do. Yeah. I think the way that versatility manifests is not the way we usually talk

about versatility. He's not like Jalen Johnson versatile, and so he gets lost in that shuffle a little bit. but you're absolutely right about the defense. And I think he deserves a lot more credit for the way he's evolving offensively. The self-creation, Kyle, you're absolutely right. He's getting better and better at picking his spots.

He's also cutting so much more than he ever has before. And to me, that's indicative of, look, rookie year, he comes in off a major injury. He's just trying to get his feet and he's playing full-time center. Sophomore year he comes in, breaks his freaking pelvis, and then comes back to a team in process,

and now he's a hybrid four-five, playing with Isaiah Hartenstein. Now he's had the reps. He's been through the battles. He understands kind of where his spots are and where the angles are. And he's growing into his game. And you can see it in the way he navigates the floor. Like he just has a better sense of how to be the best version of Chet for the Thunder offense in particular than certainly he's ever had before.

He was my, you know, when I did a most improved player preview podcast with Kurt Goldsbury, I made I made both of us pick one like obvious candidate, like an Assar Thompson. an Amman Thompson-style candidate. One, like, super deep cut, like, regular people don't even know who this person is candidate. And one, I just called it, like, all-star level candidate because every year you get to the midpoint of the season, it's like, I'm going back five years. Like, should Luga Donchich be a most improved player? And my pick was Chad Holmbern because you could see this stuff coming with the self-creation on offense, and you just felt like the thunder we're going to use parts of this season to let other guys stretch themselves a little bit. to get ready for the playoffs. And Chet is doing that.

Other guys are doing that. He's shooting 68% on twos. The defense is just what it is. It's first team all defense level. If he ever plays 65 games, you'll land there or second team. Yeah, they're, uh, Hartenstein's, they're just across the way. They're just scary. It's a little scary.

They're crazy. I do love the leap that Chet's having right now because Kyle, I don't know if it's necessarily an exclamation point so much as it is like the ellipses before the exclamation point. It's kind of like the first two acts of jaws right now because he's like, he's doing things that are clearly different and he's taking a leap. But it's really simmering beneath the surface. And so it's just like more refined, more sophisticated or just more streamlined of what he was already pretty good at. Like the mid-range shot has just been unbelievable thus far.

The ball handling is better. And just like the confidence within the role that they've already carved out for him is just off the charts. and to take a leap as a young player is one thing, but to do it within the safeguards of what the thunder have built and to not disrupt anything that's going on to the point where they only have one loss right now is pretty remarkable. He's just like he's doing all of these like crazy things,

but they're just so defined in a way that I can't remember another player doing. We used to talk about this on the bringer like back with charks and back in the day where we would talk about people look for raw production sometimes as proof of development, but you nailed it. like definition, discernment, judiciousness, those are development too, not necessarily in like, oh, there's numbers went to the moon, like the intelligence to play, the headiness and the conscientiousness to play a certain way when it's the right thing, what your team needs. I think one of the things here, and his development for the thunder is so hilarious to me because it's just extra,

it's like Mr. Burns winning the softball game in that episode and Smithers asked him what he's going to do with the million dollars and he says, just throw it on the pile, I suppose. That's kind of what Chet turning into an onball creator is. And yeah, he's up to 81% at the rim, but he's more particular. And I think the thing about OK, see, that's so damning and that really kind of weeds out who can be competitive with them is when you start getting the guard on guard screening stuff that they can do on one side of the floor, if you have Kaysen Wallace, if you have Shea, if you have Hartenstein down in the dunker spot, the floor tilts over here. We saw this against the Warriors. You know who is sagging into help position against Chet Holmgren?

Quentin Post. Ched Holmgren proceeded to, in this cycle, it was like a four or five play cycle. Chet was just like, all right, shot flake, I'm going to drive, I'm going to pivot. I'm bored. Lay up over Quint Post. He did it again. He got a little corkscrew. He's amazing at the little corkscrew fade away, smart about when he takes those.

And then he just hit cash to wide open three. And it's like, okay, well, we need somebody else. So you got, it's the Aaron Gordons. It's the, if you think about the guys in the West who are in that spot, who can even compete with them on that level. And I just think that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, of what takes them from. That's a good team to, God damn, what are we going to do against the Thunder? We all cite this stat on our various shows every day, week. It's just still fun to look at the defensive efficiency ratings and see Oklahoma City number one, 102.8 points allowed per 100

possessions. Dallas number two, 110.3. Like, it's just not even, they're just in a different universe. It's absolutely crazy. And I know their schedule has been pretty easy, partly because they can't play themselves, but it's just like, it's an outrageous number. I have another stat, and I want to follow it up with a question. First of all, we all know they've only lost one game this season. That's part of the Thunder story. Jet didn't play. Jet didn't play. It's also been about a month since they have lost by less than double digits. They just blow everyone out all the time. And yes, some of those are softer teams that have, you know, found their way into their their schedule. But I was thinking about this as we were talking about the Pistons earlier.

And do we do we think they would be competitive with the true best teams in the league? When do you think the Thunder will lose a game this season to an Eastern Conference team? Like maybe. I'm bringing up their schedule now because this is exciting. I think it would have to be like either a sort of random. They just have one too many guys out situation or a back to back or something. But like they don't really play one until December 28th. So that's part of it.

buying time for sure but I'm just throwing it out there like where where is the point where they will lose December 29th December 29th home but back to back against the hawks I have to see if the hawks are never never doubt the hawks the hawks could lose to Washington by a thousand points or beat the thunder on the road anything's possible those back to backs are tough too at new york is the second end of a back to back where they lose an hour okay we're starting to talk about we got to figure out we got to chip away you got to grasp at something yeah I mean they go they're at Chicago than at New York March 4th. If Cleveland is at full

strength or approximating it on January 19th in Cleveland yeah, that's something. You know, it's part of a long road trip. It's a five game road trip. That would be my pick. There's a lot of couture stores. They may not lose an interconference game until January 19th. Just insane shit from the thunder, as

usual. There's a lot of couture stores in New York. We get Shea occupied. He stays out a little long shopping. I think that chops I don't know. 0.0.0.0. maybe off of his pick and roll efficiency. We can get it down a little bit. That gives it's a chance.

Since we're talking Thunder, should we transition to our take portion because the Thunder, one of my takes here? Okay, what do you got? Okay, so this is like the dessert portion. We're just going to go around and give one take that word been simmering on

for a little bit. Mine is like sacrilegious. Kyle, are you wearing a bird, Indiana state jersey right now? Indeed, I am, Justin. Okay, you might want to cover its eyes or just like turn it around. round or something right here.

The pandering from this guy to try to get a raise around here by wearing the bird college jersey is just embarrassing. My father, it's not even the bird master yet. Yeah. Okay. So, Len bias,

one of the biggest what ifs in NBA history, right? There's literally a ringer narrative podcast called what if the win by story. So, and it's like hollow ground to talk about it. It's also one of the biggest tragedies in sports history and all that stuff. But I'm starting to think about what if. the Thunder got a top pick in this year's draft via the Los Angeles Clippers.

You're just starting to think about it now? I think about it like every 15 minutes. Well, I'm thinking about the implications probably more than anything else because I'm thinking about that team. Everyone talks about, oh, they get biased in the extend their run because they had already won two or three titles at that point. They're already historic. I mean, never see anything like it again, even as they are now.

But I'm starting to wonder, like, if you add AJ DeBanza to this core, all of, like, whom are 27 and under, at this point, like, is it just a wrap? Do we get to see what would happen if you add just an historically dominant team at one of the best incoming prospects in the world? Like, what the fuck? Nothing's ever a wrap. Like, it was a rap when Durant went to the Warriors and they won one title and then they were taking a game seven the next year and then they lost three after that. ever as much of a rap as we think it's going to be, but it's definitely a suboptimal for the other 29 teams. As I have a sub, go ahead.

Even, I'm going to, I don't, we won't dwell too much on this because we just start saying names, but I mean that people maybe don't even necessarily know, but even if they added the fifth pick, like Caleb Wilson from North Carolina, who's this gigantic wing defender, spacer, like, even that would be, would be a lot. And they have guys in the wings, like we've said. We, you know, Topich get better soon, obviously, and Sorberg get better soon, obviously. If they just, they have, even if they don't get the fifth pick, it's already, it's already really unfortunate. So the clippers only have five wins at this point.

We'll see. I mean, Kauai's back. They didn't look much better last night. It was kind of better, you know? It was fine. There was a pulse. My two takeaways from last night, Tyos Jones is alive. And the clippers also might be alive.

We'll find out. Or at least undead. My God. That poor guy. My sub take to the take is really like a lot of these picks. They lost by 17 points, by the way. I know the Lakers kind of pulled in and piled on like some fake margin at the end of it. But it was, you know, they gave up 135 points.

Fair. Yeah. But my sub take to all this is like we do fret over these picks and wonder like what will happen if this team gets that. By and large, I think Zach Kram actually did a research on this a couple years ago for an article he did. But a lot of these picks that we have high hopes for never really end up panning out, like other than the Celtics basically building the foundation of an NBA title contender, like the Marco Yarich pick that went to the then Hornets, like, ended up at 10th. You know, I'm thinking about this son's pick that everyone was like in a tizzy over this year.

All of a sudden, the sons are very competitive. Like things happen. And so I doubt they'll get that high of a pick. Historically hasn't worked out that way. But if they do, holy shit. That's my take. It's kind of never the one you expect, right? It's the pick that's like in the deal and then all of a sudden become

Kairi, the Kairi pick from the Clippers, right. That's my take. Who wants to go next? I would love to go next. I have a two point plan to fix the NBA challenge system. I'm here for this. Point one.

All right. Let me, it's two points. You don't have to wait that long. I have to say, I've never been less excited for a hot take on a podcast. Let me see if I can win you over. Point one, only a player is allowed to challenge a call from now on. No coaches. A player on the floor has to decide this is the moment where they want to challenge a play.

Point two, if they are wrong, first they have to walk over to the Billy Kennedy cam, look down the barrel and apologize to everyone. And then they have to check themselves out of the game for a minimum of one minute. How do we feel about it? I just think we should bring back shame is ultimately my take on this. How do they decide, how do they officially make a challenge? Because if it's just you make the sign, it's going to be over in the first two minutes of the game, which is maybe what you want.

Maybe you just want to get it over with. All challenges will be gone in the first quarter for sure. First minute, yeah, Reds X-Rite. I think they need to run over to the scorers table and hit a beam-style button that then activates the alarm, that then sends us into the challenge. And again, the players on the floor are the only ones who get to do this. part of the reason my brain was thinking this way is I was talking to our guy, Isaac, about the new MLB challenge rule, which can only be challenged by the pitcher and catcher and

batter. Like, they can challenge a strike zone calling. I love the idea of taking it out of the coach's hands and of putting it on the players. Like, let's get real stakes. It should come at a real cost if you insist upon a challenge and you're wrong. And I think you should have to apologize for wasting all of our time if you are proven to be incorrect. What if it was like Legend of the Hidden Temple style where they have to get through an obstacle course in order to get to the beam. They all have to race to it. You stop play.

Any time any NBA mention of an obstacle course reminds me when Chris Paul cheated at the skills challenge. The best skills challenge moment ever by far. And they got caught and penalized. Remember they couldn't interview them? It was ridiculous. They tried to interview them. The NBA is like, this is far too serious of the matter.

Ashermore way. Okay. What's part two? No, that was part two. The part one was that only a player can challenge it. The part two is they need to be shamed if they're wrong. Rob, big on shame. Take that internet and just go with it.

I'm just saying, you know. Motivator. Shame just comes back. I also think there's an element of like a penalty box thing that should factor here as well. Like they need to apologize, but also like you're just like out of the game. If you're wrong about that out of bounds call, you swore up and down that wasn't off you. You got to sit out for a minute and think about what you've done. This does.

Imagine if that happened in crunch time. I think we'd see fewer stoppages of playing crunch time as a result of this. It dovetails nicely with my Popemobile idea for the refs where you can't talk to the refs. They just exist in this Popemobile and they just zoom around the court. Just throw everything away and make it a Nickelodeon game basically. Why not? Zach, do you want to do your take? Yeah, I have a two-pronged way to improve the playoffs.

And the NBA schedule people, and these are too high. It's impossible to do this. You just created an in-season tournament that, in Las Vegas and added an extra game to the schedule. You can do it. Number one, the top seed gets to pick its opponent for the first round. And if you want to stop it there, then we slot in the two, three, four opponents just based on record after that, that's fine. The number one seed you get to picket's opponent. I don't want to hear any whining about it's too hard to plan everything. Just make it happen. And we need to go back to two three two for the finals. Two three two makes the finals

feel like an event. Like it comes to your city. It lives in your city for an extended period of time. It eases the travel when you do the five, six, seven kind of traveling. I just, I'd love the feel of two, three, two. Like here it comes. The finals is coming to San Antonio for eight days for the middle three games. And I never heard a convincing argument.

You know, some people say, well, it favors. It's too much of advantage for the underdog because any team should get, the favor should always get game five. at home if it's 2-2. Some people will say it's too much of an advantage for the favor because no one is going to win three straight home games. I never saw convincing proof any other way. I don't know why it's not 232.

Bring back 232. Is the reason we don't have 232 is more for the logistics or is it more the competitive aspect to it? I have no idea. People used to complain about the competitive aspect but from both directions and it never, neither one ever made much sense to me. The logistics are decidedly worse. I mean, forever.

Yes. It has to be a. A lot of international media. That's what they usually would say, but I don't know. It's just 2025. We're getting around on light speed trains in Tokyo. So we'll figure it out. I mean, host the NBA Finals in Tokyo is not a bad take, honestly.

But here's the thing. Even if the competitive challenges are true, I like the idea that the NBA Finals might be a unique sort of challenge. That it is a mountain that is unlike any series you've ever played before to this point. Like, what would be so wrong with that? Yeah, the finals should be different in as many ways as possible. and I just love two through two. And to pick your opponent one,

I haven't heard a convincing argument against that either other than the number one seat doesn't want to give whoever they pick bulletin board material. I don't know. Who cares? Like that's what you're afraid of. You're the number one seat in the conference. Are we keeping the playing with the pick your

opponent style here? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I just think the number one seed should be insulated from oh, fuck, the warriors were injured. all year and now they're healthy and they're 15 and 1 in their last 16

games and they somehow come out in the eighth seat into play in tournament. No, we're flipping that around. They get to be the seventh seat. I get to pick whoever I want to play. I would be fascinated to see if there was ever a number one seat under this format where it's like who Alper and Shangun's out for the next 10 to 14 days. Do we pick

the rockets now? Like, do you try to jump on it in an unconventional way as opposed to just like who is the worst team in this field? Yeah, we might have to, we might have to organize it so that you can only pick from the play-in teams or from the bottom four or something. But those are, I don't know, I just like both those ideas. Absolutely.

We need more juice in the 1-8, the 2-7s. Like, we don't get heat bucks all that often. It's usually like Celtics Hawks where it's just like, oh, they win one game, but then it just trounce them anyway. So I'm anything for that. Kyle, last one. I wrote down a few here. I'm going to pick one.

serious and do we are we doing any non-serious takes like holiday takes whatever you want this is an unsurious podcast i hate to break it to you uh we'll see i had a few here cherries are only good in drinks otherwise they're not good at all sweet potatoes cherries suck by the way they're not even good for you they have way too like i just suck cherries most overrated fruit under most underrated fruit is pear by the way i don't want to eat anything that's a mess like like a burger that's just falling apart,

that's too much. If I'm getting red-stained fingers from eating a cherry, like, when am I going to do this? I need to, like, set, like, a half an hour of my life just to prep and to eat and then to clean up. That's way too much. You have to give yourself permission, Justin, this is what I do. I sit there with my big bowl of cherries. Cherry pitter

in hand, and I'm just manually punching these things out. I'm not bothering with the mess, you know? Like, you do this, Rob. This is so, Rob. A hundred percent. Guys, we can circumvent all of these problems. The other one, What does it look like, the pitter?

Is it like a hand tool? It's a hand tool that basically has a punch that punches the pit through. Is it specifically for cherries? I believe it's flexible cherry and olive, if I'm not mistaken. So, you know, don't buy any one use tools for your kitchen, but two use is okay.

Sweet potatoes are plenty sweet on their own and you're out of control if you have to load a sweet potato. Sweet potatoes should be on. the dessert table. You ever eat just a normal sweet potato in the oven? They're sugary. They're delicious. You don't need to load a sweet potato. It's a dessert. I'm just saying it's not a side. Sorry, Texas Roadhouse. So those are two, those are my two holiday takes. I have a basketball take. I think that dribbling ball handling has changed basketball more than shooting has over the decades.

You're saying the evolution from like Bob Coozy, one arm behind your back. sort of ball handling to where we are now? Or like, what is the arc of what we're discussing? I think, by the way, I think you need to be careful. I think Bill has some sort of chip where anyone disparages Bob Coosie. He gets an alert if it's on his staff. So just expect an email later later today. Fair and deserved. I ran into this earlier this week with the Chris Ball Conversation. No, I think ball handling created the individual star. I think all of the things that we that we deal with in terms of players being unguarded are the result of the changing of ball handling rules. I think players were always going to become better shooters. Ball handling is the thing that

has enabled dribble shooting. If you remember, the thing that changed the NBA was dribble pull-up shooting, not necessarily just shooting on its own. Steph Curry, whenever he had that big revolution that changed the game, it wasn't just that he could hit threes. It's that he could dribble and hit pull-up three. So that's my theory. In general, I think ball handling has changed all of basketball more than shooting. I love this take. When people would discuss Durant as a unicorn, they would focus on a shooting. And then the real in the weeds basketball people would be like, it's actually that a seven-foot guy can dribble with that kind of a handle. And then you talk about, like I was talking about this last week, the fact that Yolkich and Shengun can just get the ball 30 feet from the rim and dribble it where they want to go without getting it picked or disqual.

is kind of like a new-ish thing for big guys that skill to be able to do. Like, they don't, they can like post up without needing to post up and get an entry pass basically just by dribbling into it and they don't get picked. And like, that's kind of a huge deal. It is the key to almost every player's development for as often as we're saying, like, we hope that this one wing who got drafted can learn how to shoot threes. It is for Shangun. Like we were just talking about with Jade McDaniels earlier too, about the way that's

changed his offensive game, being able to handle a little bit more. it opens up everything. So, Kyle, I hear what you're saying, but also the subtext is it opens up everything so that you can then shoot or so that you can then create a shot for someone else. They need each other. Untangling them is hard.

But I just think seizing space that ball handling has been the difference, honestly. Well, if you break them down to the parts, like shooting is one action, whereas dribbling is multiple actions in the human body, and thus it's like a combination of things going into. There's no surprise that there, there's more creativity involved there

versus the shooting one. It's more like in Street Fighter, you have a punch, but it takes you multiple different buttons in order to get off like the finishers or whatever. Yeah. Finisher is, this is immortal combat. What are you doing? Babalities?

Yeah. You rip off some babalities in your day, very? You goddamn right. I could take that one a number of way. Also, I think we should move to officially change the interim coach title to the prunty. Tonight's Pruntie for the Magic will be

I don't know J.B did a lot too to be honest with you I like it okay before we go here every time on the potluck we give Rob

five to ten minutes to bore the audience with talking about what he's cooking this year what we got going on here Trudeaukin any sort of like baked turkey

what are we doing? I'm slowly going insane over here this is the first Thanksgiving in a long time I am not making the full spread and I don't know what to fucking do with myself. I am visiting.

I am traveling for Thanksgiving. I have been asked to bring a dessert without peanuts, fair consideration. What am I simply? Normally, this is the point in my week in which I'm making two different ice creams and trying to get my pie dough in order.

What am I supposed to do with my day? Like, genuinely, what am I supposed to do? Got some TV pods lined up? I get. What are you going to do? I always do, just the answer to that question. Eat cherries. Just go just to just.

Just enjoy some cherries. Honestly. You make index way up there, Rob. Go ahead. Tis the season. I am happy to celebrate with some cherries. Like, you guys need to get a rainier cherry in your life. Like, that's what I'm hearing from the three of you.

Yeah. All right. Let's wrap it there. Zach Lowe. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Zach. Great time. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Likewise. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. We'll be back on Sunday. Have a good Thanksgiving. We'll talk to you. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming.

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